By Lee Pfeiffer

"I Love You, Alice B. Toklas" might leaving contemporary viewers asking "Who is Alice B. Toklas?" The answer: she was a companion of writer Gertrude Stein. Toklas was a fellow writer who became idolized by pop culture addicts for daring to have written a cookbook that included a recipe for pot brownies. The 1968 big screen farce was anything but fun to make. Paul Mazursky and Larry Tucker were to have made their directorial debuts with this film. However, once Peter Sellers was signed to star, the mercurial and unpredictable actor had them bounced from the directors chair(s), though their screenplay was retained. Shortly after production began, Sellers brought Mazursky back on board to offer advice about salvaging a production that Sellers was growing increasingly leery about. The truce was short-lived because Mazursky criticized the way Sellers played a love scene with Leigh Taylor-Young, who made her big screen debut in the film. Mazursky was fired again as the film hobbled through production under the direction of Hy Averback. Sellers was apparently also feuding with his wife, Britt Ekland, who was simultaneously filming "The Night They Raided Minsky's" against Sellers' wishes. 

The story presents Sellers as Harold Fine, an L.A. lawyer and self-described "square". He is courting his law firm's secretary, Joyce (Joyce Van Patten), an amiable bubble-head who constantly pressures Harold into proposing to her. He finally relents and a wedding date is set, much to the delight of Harold's parents (amusingly played by Jo Van Fleet and Salem Ludwig). In the meantime, Harold finds himself unexpectedly immersed in the local hippie culture when his car is damaged and he finds the only accessible vehicle is a flower-powered decorated loaner he gets from the repair shop. At the same time, his hippie brother Herbie (David Arkin) introduces him to the gorgeous Nancy (Leigh Taylor-Young), a free-spirited young woman who indulges in drugs and free love. Harold finds himself smitten by her and when she leaves him some pot-laced brownies, it results in the film's funniest scene in which Harold ends up serving them to his parents and Joyce, resulting in the kind of over-reaction one might attribute to a tab of LSD. Nevertheless, it is quite an amusing segment. Ultimately, Harold leaves Joyce at the synagogue seconds before taking the vow of marriage. He dashes home and vows to start a new life with Nancy. Before long, he is sporting long hair, mod eyeglasses and is living in his car. It seems perfect until the screenplay predictably delves into one of those scenarios in which the motto is "Be careful what you wish for- you just may get it!".

Sellers is the glue that holds the fragile premise together, even if his American accent slips every now and then. Taylor-Young makes for a lovely leading lady and Joyce Van Patten is stuck in the role of constantly jilted lover who craves Harold no matter how many times he humiliates her. Unfortunately, the premise wears thin pretty quickly and the movie is never as funny as it should be or you expect it to be. In fact, it bears a certain resemblance to Blake Edwards' "The Party", which was released the same year. Both films were based on an initially funny scenario that ultimately ran out of steam as the movie wore on. At the time, Roger Ebert reviewed the film favorably but pointed out that it was another example of a Hollywood studio punting when it came to presenting the hippie culture and depicting the rebellious young people as sanitized caricatures. Perhaps the biggest laugh to be had was by Paul Mazursky, who would direct the smash hit "Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice" the following year, thus establishing himself as a major name in the film industry.

The region-free Warner Archive boasts a fine transfer. The only bonus feature is the trailer.

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By Todd Garbarini

After the dramatic, Ingmar Bergman-esque directorial turn he took with Interiors (1978) which came unexpectedly on the heels of his masterfully hilarious Oscar-winning film Annie Hall (1977), Woody Allen turned back to contemporary New York for a daring film that was shot in black-and-white and scored with the music of George Gershwin. Proclaimed as the only truly great American film of the 1970s by film critic Andrew Sarris, Manhattan is a joy to behold from start to finish and is quite simply one of the most romantic-looking films of all-time (though its subject matter in the era of the MeToo movement will indubitably raise more than a few eyebrows with the allegations of sexual molestation launched against Mr. Allen). Gordon Willis’s beautiful photography married with the sumptuous Gershwin music makes me wish that filmmakers would make black-and-white films today. There are some who do, admittedly, but they appear to only do it within avant-garde and independent circles.

Manhattan, released on Wednesday, April 25, 1979, stars Mr. Allen as Isaac Davis, a television writer who is unfulfilled with his life as a comedy writer. His second ex-wife Jill (Meryl Streep) has left him for another woman and is writing a book about their marriage. Isaac is 42 and is dating Tracy (Mariel Hemingway) who is 25 years younger than he is and is still in high school. He feels very guilty about this, but genuinely cares for her (this plot point was reportedly inspired by Mr. Allen’s affair with actress Stacy Nelkin on the set of Annie Hall which was shooting in 1976, though her part was eventually cut from that film). His friend Yale (Michael Murphy) is writing a book about Eugene O’Neill and is married to Emily (Anne Byrne) but has started an affair with high-strung and neurotic Mary Wilkie (Diane Keaton) whom Isaac initially cannot tolerate but increasingly grows fond of. Throughout the film we are confronted by these characters who cannot seem to put their finger on what they want and stick with it. They are not inherently bad people. They just keep making questionable decisions. By the end of the film, the only person who seems to have their head on straight is Tracy and the film ends, like Mr. Allen’s Hannah and Her Sisters (1986), on a very positive and upbeat note.

The real star of the film is Manhattan itself, with its pulsating and bustling people and automobiles. Rarely has the city looked so luminous and beautiful onscreen (if ever). Gordon Willis, the revered cinematographer of The Godfather films and a good number of Mr. Allen’s early works, captures Gotham in all its beauty even during an era when the city was beset by social decay. For the first time in his career, Mr. Allen forgoes the relative constraints of the 1.85:1 flat ratio to the far more accommodating 2.35:1 anamorphic Panavision vista and the results makes one ache for further use of this format.

Manhattan was penned by Mr. Allen and Marshall Brickman, who also co-wrote Annie Hall. The dialogue in Mr. Allen’s films has always been a strong point, but here it really shines. His use of long, uninterrupted takes that first surfaced in Annie Hall shine here Rarely have onscreen walks and chats been so fascinating.

Manhattan was also one of the first movies to appear on home video in the widescreen format, which retained much (but not all) of the film’s original image. I have owned Manhattan on letterboxed VHS, letterboxed laserdisc with a gatefold, letterboxed DVD, and I must say that this Region B anamorphically-enhanced Blu-ray courtesy of Fabulous Films is beautiful.

It would be wonderful if Mr. Allen would be open to providing commentary tracks on his older films, specifically this one which, unbelievably, he reportedly was so displeased with that he imposed on United Artists to shelve it and offered to do another movie for free.

Thankfully, they did not take him up on it.

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By Lee Pfeiffer

Oscar-nominated director Norman Jewison has passed away at age 97. Born in Canada, he served in the Canadian navy in WWII. He made his mark in Hollywood in the mid-1960s. His first directorial effort, the romantic comedy "40 Pounds of Trouble" starring Tony Curtis was a hit. This led to him directing Doris Day and James Garner in "The Thrill of It All", one of the most popular movies of 1963. More hit comedies followed including "Send Me No Flowers" with Doris Day and Rock Hudson and the all-star production of "The Art of Love". Jewison got his first opportunity to direct a drama when the mercurially-tempered Sam Peckinpah was fired from "The Cincinnati Kid" starring Steve McQueen in 1965. Jewison stepped in to replace him, earning critical praise. A string of very popular and diverse films followed including the classic Cold War comedy "The Russians are Coming. The Russians are Coming", the racially-tinged crime drama "In the Heat of the Night" which won the Best Picture Oscar and the classic crime caper "The Thomas Crown Affair". Jewison was hoping to cast Sean Connery in the lead role but was persuaded by Steve McQueen to give him the part because McQueen very much wanted to prove he could play a sophisticated rogue. The film was a major hit and spawned a popular 1999 remake starring Pierce Brosnan.

Jewison's diversity as a filmmaker was illustrated by his direction of the high profile 1971 musical "Fiddler on the Roof", based on the Broadway stage production. Jewison was amused when, upon being hired, he confessed to the United Artists brass that he not Jewish, despite his surname. The irony of him directing the ultimate Jewish musical was not lost on the executives who were Jewish. They believed Jewison could be entrusted with the film and it proved to be a major hit in an era in which many other big-budget musicals had flopped. Jewison was nominated for the Best Director Oscar and would be nominated again for the 1987 smash hit comedy "Moonstruck" starring Cher, who did win an Oscar for the film. Not all of Jewison's films were successful critically and at the boxoffice. Among those that didn't meet expectations were "F.I.S.T." and the screen adaptation of "Jesus Christ, Superstar". His futuristic thriller "Rollerball" under-performed in 1975 but has developed a loyal following in the ensuing years. The political satire "And Justice for All" was well-received as was the film adaptation of the play "A Soldier's Story" but most of his other films were not especially successful critically or commercially, although his 1999 production of "The Hurricane" saw Denzel Washington nab a Best Actor nomination in the true life story of former boxer "Hurricane" Carter, who waged a long campaign to prove that he was unjustly jailed for murder. Jewison's film was a lightning rod for controversy. Carter's supporters welcomed the sympathetic portrayal of him as a victim of a racist justice system. Others accused Jewison of being naive and ignoring considerable evidence that Carter was guilty. Either way, Jewison proved he could still stir things up on the big screen. His last big screen feature film was the little-seen "The Statement" starring Michael Caine.

Norman Jewison was a consummate professional who was respected by his peers and appreciated by movie fans worldwide. He was an early contributor to Cinema Retro and we join film lovers around the globe in mourning his passing. For more, click here.

By Hank Reineke

As a monster-movie loving kid growing up in the shadow of Manhattan, most of my Saturday night plans in the late 1960s and early 1970s were solidly set. That night was reserved for watching old horror and sci-fi flicks on New York City’s Chiller (WPIX-TV) or Creature Features (WNEW-TV). I don’t recall the latter program surviving past 1980 – and even then there had been an interruption of some six years in the scheduling of Creature Features. Though the program would return to the airwaves in 1979, the 8 PM broadcasts were now a thing of the past. The revived telecasts had moved to midnight and well into the early hours of Sunday morning. It hardly mattered, really. I no longer watched Creature Features with the same fervor of 1969 through 1973. I was age nineteen in 1979 and found other (if not necessarily better) things to do on Saturday nights.

This absence from Creature Features caused me to miss out on a number of obscure, aging films broadcast 1979-1980. Among this mix of occasional cinematic gems with near-misses was a mostly forgotten mystery programmer of 1944 titled The Man in Half Moon Street. I was particularly sorry to have missed this one: if my research is correct, I believe the film was broadcast only once – just shy of 2 A.M. - on March 29, 1980. Though one New York area newspaper listing dismissed the film as little more than a “Moody and marginally interesting tale of eternal youth through murder,” such lukewarm praise actually piqued my interest. This seemed my kind of movie. And for some forty-three years I’ve lamented having missing that broadcast.

It has been a tough film to get ahold of: though I’m guessing gray-market copies could have been found at conventions or through those “specialty” dealers of vintage VHS tapes from the ‘80s onward. But as far as I can tell (and, please, feel free correct me if you know better), The Man in Half Moon Street has never been officially available on any home video format: not Laser Disc, VHS, DVD or Blu Ray. Well, that is until now, as we near the eightieth year of the film’s original cinematic release. We have Australia’s Imprint Films to thank for finally issuing this superlative, region-free coded Blu-ray release.

As in the case of many Hollywood pictures of the day, The Man in Half Moon Street was not an original invention of the filmmakers: the scenario was actually based on the British stage drama of playwright Barré Lyndon. Lyndon’s play, published in 1939 by London’s Hamish Hamilton Publishing House, had first toured Bournemouth, Oxford, Manchester and Brighton on a two-week testing-sortie in February of ’39. The play would formally open at the New Theatre in London’s West End on 22 March 1939.

Lyndon’s main antagonist in the stage drama, chemist John Thackeray (Leslie Banks), is a ninety-year old man. One wouldn’t notice the dotage as Thackeray appears decades younger. This is due to the chemist having discovered that by combining radium and periodically replacing his aging super-renal glands with fresh specimens he can retain both youth and immortality. Of course the collection of fresh glands requires innocent others to lose their lives to Thackeray’s ghoulish harvesting.

Over a fifty-year period eight bank cashiers – those with access to large sums of money - have fallen prey to Thackeray’s criminal doings. Dissolving their bodies in acid baths, the chemist then steals the cash reserves his victims had been minding in their bank-telling guardianship. Thackeray requires the large sums so he can pay a confidant: in this case an ethically-challenged surgeon friend, to perform the necessary life-sustaining gland grafts. But Scotland Yard takes up the case just as the chemist readies to take the life of a targeted ninth victim for his evil ends.

Interestingly, playwright Lyndon would go on to write screenplays for Hollywood studios by the mid-1940s, including such moody mystery-noirs as John Brahm’s The Lodger (1944) and Hangover Square (1945). But in late January of 1940, it was announced that Don Hartman, a dependable scenarist for Paramount, was scheduled to begin work on adapting Lyndon’s stage play to the big screen. Hartman was, at present, in New York, trying to finish up his co-write (with Clifford Goldsmith) of The Further Adventures of Henry Aldrich.

That May of 1940, Paramount optimistically announced there would be no production delays on their twenty-five million dollar film schedule budget for the upcoming year. This declaration was made “despite war conditions in Europe which continue to threaten returns” in both national and international film markets. One of the films on the Paramount schedule was The Man in Half Moon Street. Early reports suggested that Basil Rathbone was to take on the leading role. The actor was available to assume the role of Thackeray as he had only recently completed work on Paramount’s A Date with Destiny (soon retitled The Mad Doctor).

Rathbone had played the villainous role in The Mad Doctor which, despite the intriguing title, was not a horror film, but a mystery crime-drama. The Los Angeles Citizen-News would report in June of 1940 that while Half Moon too was not of “bogeyman classification,” it on the “fantastic side” with its lurid sci-fi angle. In any case, the film project fell temporarily to the wayside, first due to scripting issues and afterward to the cranking out of patriotic films necessitated by America’s entry into WWII following the attack at Pearl Harbor.

But by early winter of 1943, the long dormant Half Moon project was showing signs of revival. On March 2, 1943 it was announced in the Hollywood trades that Lester Fuller, recently arrived in Los Angeles from New York, had been offered the director’s chair for The Man in Half Moon Street. In spring of 1943, Albert Dekker, a Hollywood “heavie” who recently scared audiences as Universal’s Dr. Cyclops (1940), was announced to assume the leading role.

But on June 15, 1943, Variety reported that Fuller was out of the Half Moon project. Ralph Murphy was now chosen to direct. Technically, the pair’s previously assigned directorial spots were merely traded-off. Murphy had initially been chosen to helm Paramount’s production of Marseilles, but former stage director Fuller was now tasked to assume responsibility on that particular film. Murphy was to move over to direct Fuller’s Half Moon project.

Murphy’s first assignment was a formidable one: he was “to order a complete rewrite job on the script.” There was also a report that such rewriting would likely require a recasting of principal characters. Though Swedish film star Nils Asther had been the latest actor announced to assume the film’s leading role, his participation in the project was now suggested as being “off” - for the time being, at least. The film’s producer Walter MacEwan wanted to weigh casting options “until further developments” in the scripting of Half Moon were resolved.

The re-writing of Half Moon would eventually fall to scenarists Charles Kenyon and Garrett Fort. The final screenplay credit would ultimately go to Kenyon alone who, like Fort, was a veteran of old Hollywood: their work in the industry could be traced to silent cinema’s earliest days. Fort’s resume for this sort of film was particularly impressive: he had written or co-written such totemic pre-code Golden Age Horrors for Universal as Dracula (1931), Frankenstein (1931) and Dracula’s Daughter (1936). But Fort’s credit on Half Moon only noted his role in adapting Lyndon’s play for the screen.

The final screenplay drafted would, peculiarly, expunge most of the ghoulish and murderous elements of Lyndon’s stage play – perhaps America’s real-life wartime experiences were horrific enough. There are no murders of bankers. The Thackeray character (renamed Dr. Julian Karell in the film) appears to be already a man of means, an accomplished portrait artist and scientist. He attends black-tie, high society, posh parties and conducts his experiments at an upscale London row house. The film curiously offers no scenes of on (or off) screen physical violence.

There are no gruesome acid baths in which the bodies of victims are disposed. The film’s lone “action” scene captures a moment when Karell “rescues” a despondent medical student (Morton Lowry) from a watery suicide attempt near the Thames Embankment. Most scenes of this dialogue-heavy script are set in parlors and sitting rooms – which, to be honest, really proves a drag on the film’s ninety-two minute running time. One begins to welcome even the briefest scenes when Karell ventures out into the shrouded night and pea-soup fog of the London Streets. Not that much happens during these interludes, but such moments provide a measure of moodiness to this otherwise slowly paced non-mystery.

Truth be told, The Man in Half Moon Street is no detective nor mystery film; we know almost from the beginning what’s going on. We learn the handsome and youthful Karell is actually more than one hundred years old in age. But through a century of experimentation – and with the assistance of the aging Dr. Kurt Van Bruecken, the “world’s greatest living surgeon and necrologist” (Reinhold Schünzel), Karell has managed to stay young through his drinking of a luminous serum and periodically undergoing fresh glandular transplants at ten year intervals.

There are problems ahead. Following a stroke, the shaky hands of the elderly Van Bruecken are no longer trustworthy to perform the necessary surgeries. Besides, Van Bruecken has undergone a change of heart: he fears that Karell is no longer working in the interest of science and humanity in staving off the aging process. He fears (rightfully) Karell is now consumed only by his burning desire for the lovely Eve Brandon (Helen Walker) and selfish self-interest in maintaining a “fraudulent youth.”

“No man can break the law of God,” Van Bruecken cautions, but Karell is confident if anyone can do it, he can. Even if that means farming the glands of the suicidal medical student he’s imprisoned upstairs. The other more pressing problem facing Karell is that his mysterious activities have finally brought him to the attention of an ethical surgeon (Paul Cavanagh), a cabal of fine art appraisers and Scotland Yard.

With Paramount now holding what they believed an acceptable – and mostly non-horrific - script in place, the casting of the film proceeded in earnest. In May of 1943 it was suggested that young actress Susan Hayward would play a “featured role” in Half Moon, though the report cautioned Paramount was still “having a time of it procuring someone to play the sinister male lead.” The earlier front-running names of Rathbone and Dekker were both out, and rumors of Alan Ladd’s casting were squelched when the actor chose instead to sign up for military service.

That same month producer MacEwan confirmed Nils Asther would in fact play the role of Dr. Julian Karell as earlier rumored. The trades suggested that it was Asther who, in fact, first suggested that Paramount pick up the rights to Lyndon’s play and cast him in the lead role. There was some mild press controversy regarding Asther’s casting. Some Hollywood gossips dismissed the actor as “Yesterday’s Star” (born in 1897, Asther had appeared in silent films with Greta Garbo). Though his character was scripted as someone thirty-five years of age, Asther was in reality 46 years old at the time of production. Still, there was an acknowledgement that the dashingly tall, slender, handsome (and rumored bi-sexual) actor “still has a big following.”

Though the actor was to star opposite the sultry Hayward, the role of Karell’s paramour Eve Brandon was ultimately given to Helen Walker. There would be some delay before she could join the production: the actress, currently on a wartime U.S.O. tour, was expected to report to the set near September’s end. Truthfully, Walker doesn’t have a lot to do in the film. She certainly photographs well as Karell’s doting and perhaps too protective and morally-blind girlfriend. Even though Karell’s work is secretive – so much so that it causes him to disappear for weeks or months at a time – Eve chooses to accept her lover’s “general mysteriousness” as a byproduct of his genius. I personally found Brandon less likable and sympathetic as the film progresses. When it’s finally revealed to her that Karell’s experimentations have brought harm to innocents, she’s so in love with him she dismisses his guilt, choosing instead to reflexively defend the “grandeur” of his ambitions.

If the main characters in this picture aren’t always likable, there’s still a lot to admire about the film. Miklos Rozsa’s moody musical score is certainly worthy of praise. Henry Sharp’s fog-bound “exterior” photography is similarly moody, but unfortunately not up on the screen much. In the final minutes of the film when Karell dramatically reverts to his actual age, long-time make-up man Wally Westmore – of Hollywood’s make-up family dynasty – does his best on the effects. But the camera cheats the audience of a full on-screen transformation ala Westmore’s make-up on Rouben Mamoulian’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931) – which remains the “gold standard” of Golden Age horror transformations. Ralph Murphy’s direction is competent but workmanlike in execution. He creates very little visual tension until the film’s final scenes and, by then, it’s simply too late. Following the completion of Half Moon, Murphy was planning to move back to New York City to direct the Broadway stage production of Sleep It Off.

Of course World War II was still on-going, interrupting, ruining and/or ending the lives of countless innocents globally. In such an atmosphere Hollywood was not immune to war-time production delays and release date restrictions. Paramount alone had accumulated an unprecedented backlog of thirty-one completed films awaiting release in early summer of 1944. There was some confidence that the tide was turning in favor of the Allies, studios cooperating in the war effort by rolling out whatever patriotic war films they were sitting on. There was a consensus it was time to empty the vault of such films. It was believed that movie audiences would weary of war films following the cessation of fighting overseas.

There was, at long last, a belated screening of The Man in Half Moon Street held at a Hollywood tradeshow on October 16, 1944. Variety thought the script was a “compact and interesting,” the Kenyon/Fort scenario displaying a “few new twists from the formularized style of long-life mystery tales to keep interest at consistent level.” But the reviewer acknowledged, not unreasonably, that the film would best serve as “strong support” to a superior attraction. Other critics likewise suggested Half Moon was too weak to see top-billing on a double-attraction.

Indeed, The Man in Half Moon Street (already in U.S. regional release as early as December 1944 although the film’s copyright is listed as 1945 on the sleeve of the snap case) was featured as the undercard of a double-bill. (On his commentary, Tim Lucas reveals the film actually had its world-wide premiere in Australia in early November of 1944). On its U.S. run, the film was usually topped by director Fritz Lang’s cinematic take of novelist Graham Greene’s Nazi espionage tale Ministry of Fear. This double feature actually did reasonably well, the trades citing solid - if not necessarily boffo - returns as the package was rolled out across U.S. markets and into 1945. Newspaper columnists tended to give the Lang film the lion’s share of its critical attention, though both films were generally branded as little more than decent programmers of primary interest only to devotees of suspense and mystery films.

By Hank Reineke

Roger Corman had, over a relatively short period of time, directed and/or produced more than a half-dozen pictures since his entry into the movie industry in 1955. His first efforts were modest successes, but the filmmaker firmly broke into a dependably bankable stride within two years’ time. Though already having helmed two low budget science-fiction pictures with some success (Day the World Ended (1955) and It Conquered the World (1956) his reputation in Hollywood - as a budget-minded money-spinner - was properly recognized following the box office counting of his 1957 chiller combo: Attack of the Crab Monsters/Not of This Earth. Variety noted the package – each film made on a “slenderized bankroll of $85, 000,” had brought in an impressive domestic gross of $800,000. By early November of ’57, that package, distributed through Allied Artists, had earned back the entirety of its production and marketing costs within twelve weeks of its release.

Through the remainder of the 1950s and well into the early 1960s, Corman continued to grind out a dizzying array of feature films, not all of the horror and sci-fi variety: there were plenty of exploitative teenage rock n’ roll pictures and crime dramas offered as well. But from 1960 through 1964, Corman worked primarily – though not exclusively – producing and directing an impressive slate of upscale horror classics. He had already given fans such soon-to-be low-budget cult favorites as Bucket of Blood (1959) and Little Shop of Horrors (1960). But in 1960 he more famously scored with House of Usher, the first of his iconic and moody cycle of Poe and H.P. Lovecraft adaptations - many featuring Vincent Price in roles as both tormentor and tormented.

One of Corman’s most important collaborators in his early years was screenwriter Charles B. Griffith. Griffith would receive screenwriting credit – or co-credit – on no fewer than eight of Corman’s earliest films 1956-59. The writer would later recall for Beast from Haunted Cave he had been commissioned by Corman to essentially rework the storyline of an earlier film they had crafted together – Naked Paradise (1957) aka Thunder Over Hawaii. Naked Paradise, of which Griffith was brought on late to the project for a re-write, was essentially a South Seas crime-drama set in a pineapple plantation under the umbrella of a glistening sun.

Since that film had done well enough, Corman wanted to revisit the scenario of Naked Paradise for the reimagined crime drama titled Beast from Haunted Cave. There would be a new twist: the new scenario was to take place in and around a gold mining community nestled in the dead winter snow of South Dakota’s Black Hills. Oh, and Corman advised Griffith that he also wanted a genuine cave-dwelling monster thrown in for good measure - that sort of thing was still selling. That was essentially all the background material given to Griffith to get started on the project.

Despite its menacing title Beast from Haunted Cave appears more a crime-drama than horror flick in the course of its 65-minute running time. The story revolves around the criminal doings of a circle of bandits: chain-smoking mastermind Alexander Ward (Frank Wolff), his two minions Marty Jones (Richard Sinatra) and Byron Smith (Wally Campo) and Ward’s oft- inebriated “secretary” Gypsy Boulet (Sheila Carol). The thieves have gathered in the snow-capped mountain winter of the pioneer town of Deadwood, South Dakota. Their plan is to plant an explosive in an abandoned cave in the early hours of a quiet Sunday morning. The explosion is set merely as a strategic ploy to distract authorities for a time, enabling the thieves’ free reign to steal gold bars from an unattended payroll office of a local gold-mining company.

Unfortunately, their plans don’t run smoothly. Ward’s dissatisfied and affection-starved lover-secretary, Gypsy, has a bit of a drinking problem. She complicates matters when she falls hard for ski instructor and trail guide Gil Jackson (Michael Forest), a swarthy, dark-haired gentleman of gentle temperament. (As an aside, I occasionally had a bit of trouble understanding actress Sheila Carol’s dialogue in this film: her diction seemed a perplexing amalgam of drunken slurred words and a faux Katherine Hepburn accent). The cold Ward takes notice of his woman’s wandering eye but is unworried. He has plans to kill Jackson once the skier - unwittingly - guides this gaggle of crooks on a cross-country trail run to a remote location.

Ward had plans to rendezvous with a waiting plane to ferry his gang - and their misbegotten treasure - off to safe sanctuary in Canada. But this plan too is scuttled by an unwelcome blizzard passing through the mountains. (As a second aside, Ward’s cross-country ski scheme is surely the most ineffectual escape route ever mapped by criminals carrying weighted gold bars in rucksacks. They really would have done better just hightailing it out of town in their rented car). To complicate matters further – and this is where the horror finally comes in - their explosive mine charge has awakened the titular beast, sort of an upright walking, giant spider that collects his victims by webbing them against cave walls and drinking their blood at his leisure. Let’s just say the moral of the story is a familiar one: essentially, crime doesn’t pay.

In Corman’s attempt to make their chilly time in the Black Hills more productive and worthwhile (i.e. profitable), the filming of Beast was to be produced back-to-back on location in Deadwood with yet another Charles B. Griffith script, Ski Troop Attack. This second film was to be a somewhat more ambitious project, a snow-bound WWII action-adventure pitting American ski-troopers against their wintry Nazi counterparts. The Corman team would use the same primary on-and off screen talents featured in the cast and credits of Beast for Ski Troop Attack.

The scenario of Ski Troop Attack referentially takes place in the snow-capped mountains of Germany’s Hürtgen Forest, circa December 1944. A small American band of ski-troopers are the only remaining Allied force active in this Nazi-controlled region, hiding themselves behind enemy lines so they can spy and report on SS ski-troop movements. The level-head Lieutenant Factor (Forest), a graduate of the Army’s Officer Candidate School, wishes to stay clear of engaging in active combat with the enemy. As the only team of Allied forces positioned inside the Nazi-controlled German-Belgian border, it is Forest’s belief his outfit should purposely avoid direct contact. He instead wants to concentrate his efforts on secret reconnaissance missions. By acting as the covert eyes of the good guys behind enemy lines, his outfit would be able to transmit vital information on Nazi troop movements back to HQ.

But Factor is at loggerheads with tough-talking Sergeant Potter (a mustache-less Wolff, again cast in a “heavy” role). Potter is described by Factor as an old school “regular army guy,” a man of pure fighting spirit but someone strategically short-sighted. Potter desperately wants to engage the Nazi ski-troopers in active combat and is mostly dismissive of the Factor’s civilian background and wartime decision-making capabilities. Potter does get a number of chances to engage in hand-to-hand combat. The film actually offers no shortage of brutal on screen violence with competing ski-troops ambushing and beating one another with fisticuffs, rifles butts, bayonets, knives and machine-gun fire.

Ultimately, the American’s decide to blow up a strategic railroad bridge that Allied air powers are unable to access and target. But while attempting to get to the base of the bridge to set off their detonators, they must first successfully climb an ice-covered vertical cliff side. If this isn’t problematic or dangerous enough, they must also fend off a team of six pursuing Nazi ski-troopers hot on their trail. The German skiing contingent, incidentally, is led by the badly-dubbed Roger Corman himself. The film’s climactic ending is, somewhat surprisingly for this type of adventure, more bleak than celebratory.

Griffith’s screenplay is actually far more nuanced than it is given credit for in the film’s original round of reviews. The sensitively written dialogue is mature – the scene where soldier Grammelsbacher (Sinatra) sits around a campfire musing if somewhere out there there’s still “a bullet with my name on it” – is particularly gripping. The better written dialogue also brings out better acting performances of all involved – including Shelia Carol who appears midway through the film as a spiteful German captive of the Americans.

The film does plod a bit. There’s a lot of wartime newsreel footage interlaced throughout, and no matter how beautiful the mountain settings are photographed, there’s far too many time-filling shots of ski-troopers silently trudging cross-country style through the tundra. Having said that that, there’s also some well-executed ski chase scenes captured on screen, such action-footage surprising for a film shot on a threadbare budget. The soundtrack of the film is riddled with the sound of machine-gun fire and a decent score courtesy of composer Fred Katz – though fans of Corman’s earliest films will surely recognize a good number of Katz’s recycled musical motifs are in play.

As both projects were to be shot on tight schedules, Roger’s brother, Gene, stepped in as the de facto producer of Beast. Once a Hollywood agent, Gene Corman was co-founder (with Roger) of their company Filmgroup, Inc. Gene’s earliest entries as producer would include a number of exploitative sci-fi efforts such as Night of the Blood Beast (1958) and Attack of the Giant Leeches (1959). With Roger set to both produce and direct Ski Troop Attack, the directorial duties of Beast were given to first-timer Monte Hellman - whose only previous film experience was having worked as an apprentice editor at ABC-TV.

In his entertaining memoir, How I Made a Hundred Movies in Hollywood and Never Lost a Dime (Random House, 1990), Roger Corman recalled the wintertime location shooting in and around snowbound Deadwood as “unbearable” and “a very tough challenge.” When shooting was to commence on the peak of Mount Terry, Corman recorded temperatures of a frigid thirty-eight degrees below zero. In the recollection of script supervisor Kinta Zertuche, her primary job was simply “to find ways to keep the film warm enough so it wouldn’t get brittle and crack.” She was also deigned to find ways of keeping the production cameras from freezing – not always successfully.

Production assistant Paul Rapp recalled he had been tasked to drive the parsimonious Corman – and an automobile-filled cache of film props - from Los Angeles to Deadwood, so the director “could save on airfare and have an extra car on location.” When filming one downhill ski sequence, Corman accidentally set off a small avalanche by shouting “Action!” too loudly through a bullhorn. Rapp recalled while the incident scared him half-to-death, Corman quickly realized the potential visual impact of what the camera was capturing. So the team was commanded to continue to roll film, Corman exhorting via bullhorn that his terrified skiers try their best to “Stay Ahead of the Avalanche!”

In March of 1959, there was a trade announcement that “Corman’s distributing outfit, The Filmgroup,” was planning to release Beast from Haunted Cave nationally (paired with The Wasp Woman) as early as June 1, with Ski Troop Attack (to be paired with Task Force 38) a little more than a month later, July 13. But neither of those prospective release dates would actually roll out as planned, even though the films themselves were ready to roll. Beast would come closest to realizing its projected release date, appearing on some screens in July 1959.

As early as February of 1960, Variety reported that the steamroller that was Filmgroup was optimistically planning to roll out eight feature films a month between March and June of 1960. Ski Troop Attack was to see release on the very tail end of that schedule. The Hollywood Reporter suggested Filmgroup’s plan as more ambitious than even originally announced: the company was planning on issuing no less than twenty-four features over a year’s period, with eleven of those titles already in the can and ready to go.

The company was also interested in testing international markets. It was reported that the usually closed-to-outsiders Soviet film market was interested in importing four Corman titles – including Beast and Ski – assuming whether or not Irving Allen, president of Canada’s Astral Films, could finalize a deal while visiting London. Later in May of 1960, it was reported Filmgroup had sealed another deal to distribute eight films – again, including Beast and Ski - throughout the Philippine islands. Finally, in August of 1960, Continental Distributors would obtain rights of Filmgroup product for European markets.

But the U.S. market was of most concern to the filmmakers. On March 16, 1960, there was a very belated press screening of the Beast and Wasp combo at the Hollywood Theatre. Variety was generally impressed with Hellman’s Beast, but suggested the film’s scenario was completely illogical. The critic also pondered that perhaps interest in horror films was generally on the wane. He opined, audiences were growing “inured to monsters and hardly blink when this one guzzles its customary quota of blood.” The review of Wasp was likewise middling in praise. The trade noted, while the film was certainly an “exploitable” passable entertainment, “it’s pretty slow and not very frightening.”

The “official” premiere of Beast from Haunted Cave was to take place at dual locations in South Dakota: Rapid City’s State Theatre and the Hile-Hi Drive-in outside of Deadwood: the latter venue was to enjoy a four day night run of Beast beginning August 2, 1959. This was obviously a nod of acknowledgment to the folks living in the area of the Black Mountain Hills who hosted and assisted the film’s production. But no matter how well-intentioned the “premiere” honor, Beast from Haunted Cave and The Wasp Woman had already been projected on screens in the mid and southwestern U.S. as early as July of ’59.

Earlier that spring, director Gene Corman had written Allan “Birdie” Arnold of Deadwood’s Chamber of Commerce City Council, a champion of the film shoot. “We saw a rough cut of our picture, it is very good and I’m sure everyone who helped, especially you, will be proud and pleased,” Gene wrote, adding, “I plan to make it a full length picture and hope to release it in the summer.” For their assistance, both Arnold and Mayor Ed Keene of Lead, South Dakota, were given “Technical Advisor” credits on Beast.

Cinema Retro has received the following press release from Paramount Home Video: 

Celebrate the 40th anniversary of the heartfelt drama TERMS OF ENDEARMENT, arriving for the first time on 4K Ultra HD as part of the Paramount Presents line on November 14, 2023 from Paramount Home Entertainment.   

James L. Brooks produced, wrote the screenplay (based on the novel by Larry McMurtry), and made his directorial debut with TERMS OF ENDEARMENT, which ultimately earned 11 Academy Award® nominations and won for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress in a Leading Role (Shirley MacLaine), Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Jack Nicholson), and Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium.

Both critically acclaimed and a box-office blockbuster, TERMS OF ENDEARMENT features a powerhouse cast including Debra Winger, Shirley MacLaine, Jack Nicholson, Danny DeVito, and John Lithgow.  Originally released on November 23, 1983, the enduring classic follows the ups and downs of a mother-daughter relationship with honesty, heart, and humor. 

This Paramount Presents release includes the film in sparkling 4K Ultra HD, with a transfer from the original camera negative reviewed and approved by Brooks.  The set includes a 4K Ultra HD Disc, a Blu-ray Disc™, access to a Digital copy of the film, as well as a brand-new Filmmaker Focus with James L. Brooks. In this newly recorded interview, Brooks reflects on the challenges and excitement that came with being a first-time director, including getting directing critiques from Jack Nicholson. He also discusses the casting process and the film’s amazing performances.  The set also includes a legacy commentary with director James L. Brooks, co-producer Penney Finkelman Cox, and production designer Polly Platt, as well as the theatrical trailer.

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By Hank Reineke

If we are to use history as a guide – as we should – Earl Derr Biggers’ creation of Charlie Chan marked the first occasion of a fictional Asian detective (Chinese-American to be precise) to be received warmly by not only a U.S. audience but by filmgoers worldwide. Biggers had published no fewer than six Chan mystery novels in the years 1925-1932. The author may have even continued the series had he not died young, age 48, in the spring of 1933. Though there had been preceding Chan film adaptations – the first being a 1926 serial - it wasn’t until Swede Warner Oland’s assumption of the role in 1931 that the character became an iconic totem of detective cinema.

Though Oland had a clear lock on the public’s perception of the inscrutable, unflappable Asian detective, the literary Chan was now moribund. Sensing a vacuum, yet another American author, John P. Marquand, would create the friendly (and obviously pre-war) Japanese spy Mr. Moto. The missions of that character were first serialized in issues of the Saturday Evening Post (1935-1938), those stories soon turned into novels by Boston’s Little Brown & Co. Following Daryl F. Zanuck’s licensing of character rights for 2oth Century Fox in July of 1936, the studio issued no fewer than eight Mr. Moto mystery films (featuring Peter Lorre) in the years 1937-1939.

Whether it was Lorre who chose not to renew his Fox contract, or whether Fox decided the series had simply played out or whether it was the actions of an increasingly belligerent and aggressive Japan (who would formally align with the Axis Powers in September of 1940), Mr. Moto’s final pre-WWII film adventure, ironically titled Mr. Moto Takes a Vacation, was released in summer of 1939. Whatever the reason, it was the success of the Charlie Chan and Mr. Moto series that allowed Colliers magazine to coattail introduce Hugh Wiley’s Chinese-American James Lee Wong series of detective stories in 1934.

In September of 1938 a California newspaper reported that author Wiley had “just sold four of his detective stories, centering about the character of James Lee Wong, to Monogram Pictures.” The proposed film series was purportedly to feature Boris Karloff – just off production of Son of Frankenstein (Universal) – as the film’s title character. Technically, this character licensing report was old news. In February of 1938, there were already reports that Monogram’s Scott Dunlap was looking for the right actor to cast as Mr. Wong. There was one sensible suggestion that the studio was hoping to find a “Keye Luke” type. Luke was now approachable as Oland’s incarnate of Charlie Chan had recently come to an abrupt, sad end. When Oland passed in August of 1938, Luke was passed over for consideration as a successor. The part ignobly went to Sidney Toler, yet another actor of European ancestry.

Keye Luke was already a familiar figure to cinemagoers – he popularly played the “Number One Son” to Oland’s Chan in a number of films in that popular series. Luke chose to exit the Chan franchise following Oland’s passing: but while now available to Monogram he was not considered a guaranteed box office draw. The Los Angeles Daily News reported on April 14, 1938 that, following negotiations on a long-distance phone call, Dunlap had secured the promise of Boris Karloff, age 50, to star in the proposed series. Shortly following that news, snippy Hollywood gossiper Louella Parsons sniffed that Karloff was exhibiting more than a bit of courage should he expect to “muscle in on the territory so triumphantly held by Charlie Chan and Mr. Moto.”

On April 26, 1938, Variety reported that the Monogram president had been “conferring” with producer Scott R. Dunlap, looking to rush into production for the “1938-1939 releasing season” four new feature films, one of which was Mr. Wong, Detective. On 10 May Variety reported that Richard Weil, “the author of the Charlie Chan radio adventures” had been tasked to write the screenplay for the film. But whether due to a “conflict of interest” concern or simply a scheduling issue, Weil soon fell out and scripting duties went to Houston Branch, a Monogram dependable. In any event, it wasn’t until late August of 1938 that the trades announced that Monogram’s Mr. Wong film - suggested as the “first of four whodunits” all to star Boris Karloff - was to go into production in a week’s time. Industry trade Box Office made further note that the four Wong serial mysteries slated for production were Mr. Wong, Detective, Mr. Wong at Headquarters, Mr. Wong in Chinatown and The Mystery of Mr. Wong.

There would be no shortage of Asian detective melodramas in 1938. Monogram’s Mr. Wong was to compete directly against 20^th Century Fox’s Mr. Moto series and the Chan films still touring the regional circuit. And all three would feature non-Asian actors as the title characters. Karloff, of course, was no stranger to accepting East-Asian roles, having already appeared in such films as The Mask of Fu Manchu (1932) and, more recently, West of Shanghai (1937). On June 20^th, the Los Angeles Evening Citizen News offered while a complete script had not yet been turned in, cameras were set to roll on Mr. Wong, Detective in three weeks’ time. That deadline was apparently missed, as the first day of shooting on Mr. Wong, Detective would not start until late August (the 25^th according to one contemporary newspaper accounting, the 24^th according to this film’s audio commentary).

We do know that on 3 September 1938, a journalist visited Monogram’s Mr. Wong set. The writer had chosen to sit through a portion of Karloff’s grueling three-and-a-half hour session in the makeup chair of Gordon Bau. Karloff was no stranger to make-up applications, but admitted to the reporter that such wearying sessions weren’t the favorite part of his day. “It’s lovely to get up and go to the studio at 6:00 A.M., stretch out in a barber chair and have somebody with hobnailed boots crawl in and out of your eyes.” Bau defensively parried that such applications were necessary evils, admitting his work on applying rubber cement near Karloff’s eyes to create epicurean folds proved the most challenging part of the actor’s physical transformation.

Karloff agreed the eye make-up applications were the most wearying to endure. “By the time you get done,” Karloff sighed, “my eyeballs are pressed, my vision is off focus and I walk around all day in a haze.” Turning his attention to the visiting journalist, Karloff sniggered, “And when finally he gets through with me, he’s proud of what he’s done. He thinks it is a work of art.” For the most part, Karloff’s reimaging is surprisingly subtle: a slick of pressed black hair, a slim moustache and thickened eyebrows, slight eye folds often disguised behind a set of reading glasses.

If Bau’s reasonably understated make-up appliance was a work of art, critics were divided on whether or not Mr. Wong, Detective was. The story itself concerns a cabal of spies working in interest of an unnamed foreign power and trying to steal a poison gas formula for nefarious ends. The first of Monogram’s Mr. Wong pictures, shot in a mere few weeks’ time, was set for October 5, 1938 release – a mere month following Karloff’s session in Bau’s make-up chair.

Upon the film’s release Variety couldn’t help but comment on the film’s rushed, bargain basement appearance, citing the production as ranging at best from “standard to skimpy.” The Variety critic blamed director William Nigh and scripter Houston Branch for the film’s shortfalls: “First picture suffers from directorial and writing troubles, plus a combination of careless acting and haphazard casting,” the reviewer sighed. Despite such criticism, it was noted that Karloff did the best with the lackluster material given. Fighting “vigorously” against the odds, the scribe conceded that Karloff had at the very least proven his utility as an actor: his presence was enough to prove he needn’t have to affix “grotesque makeup to register.”

Other reviews were kinder. London’s Picturegoer was less critical of the picture, describing Karloff’s Mr. Wong as “a serious rival to Charlie Chan.” But exhibitors were more cautious, split in their opinion of the film’s merit: when one described Mr. Wong Detective, “Worthy of a top spot on a double,” a second complained, “Where does Monogram get the idea this is good? Awful – slowest moving thing I have seen in years.”

Slow or not, by late January of 1939, Monogram was already into production of the second of the series, The Mystery of Mr. Wong. W.T. Lackey took over producing duties from Scott Dunlap, and scripter Branch was relieved of scenario duties, screenwriting credit given to W. Scott Darling. Darling had been the screenwriter of Charlie Chan at the Opera (1936) which, interestingly, pitted Oland’s detective against a villainous Boris Karloff.

This second Wong was more of a pedestrian and routine parlor murder mystery, one concerning the theft of a rare and expensive sapphire. By March of 1939, The Mystery of Mr. Wong was already reported as being in the “cutting room.” The film would be released in April of 1939. Though this second entry of the series fared a wee better than its predecessor in critical analysis, this sophomore effort too was faulted for its “lack of action,” the weaving of too many obvious red herrings into the script, and an appreciable number of wooden performances by the cast.

The lukewarm reviews were of little consequence. That same April, it was announced that scripter Darling was to return and write the series’ third entry, Mr. Wong in Chinatown (aka Mr. Wong’s Chinatown Squad). At Monogram’s sales convention at Chicago’s Drake Hotel in spring of 1939, it was evident - despite the lackluster reviews - that studio bosses were pleased with the box office takes of the first two Wong serials. They promised four more titles were already in the pipeline: Mr. Wong Vanishes, Mr. Wong in Havana, Mr. Wong’s Chinatown Squad and Mr. Wong in New York.

By June of 1939 Mr. Wong in Chinatown was already well in production, screenwriter Darling reported mid-month to have already begun scripting duties on what would be the fourth of the series, Mr. Wong at Headquarters. The scenario for Mr. Wong in Chinatown concerns his investigation into the murder of a royal princess who had been visiting the United States on a mission to purchase airplanes for defense of her country against a hostile nation-state.

When Mr. Wong in Chinatown was previewed in July of 1939, the reviews remained consistent with the first two, tagging the film a “slow whodunit.” Though the picture was lacking in any appreciable action, there was a concession that enough, “color and mystery [was] attached to the proceedings to attract fair trade” – well, if exploited properly. One exhibitor agreed, reporting good box office receipts and anointing Mr. Wong in Chinatown, the “Best of the Wong series” to date.

The blandly titled Mr. Wong at Headquarters went into production in November of 1939, and was already in the cutting room by December’s end. By January of 1940 the film’s working title was officially changed to the more mysterious and exotic The Fatal Hour and scheduled for a January 15, 1940 release. This time Wong is called to investigate the waterfront murder of a fellow detective, the scenario intertwined with a bit of a smuggling subplot. New York’s Daily News thought it a not particularly “absorbing of murder mysteries, although it is filled with enough complications to make a Philadelphia lawyer’s head spin.”

In late January of 1940, the Los Angeles Times reported, erroneously, that a fifth Mr. Wong serial - tentatively titled Chamber of Horrors – was in the works, Dorothy Reid cited as readying a script. Some months later the trades reported, far more reliably, that William Nigh was, for a fifth time, signed to direct a Mr. Wong mystery. Though Reid would not be associated with this final Karloff Mr. Wong effort, there was no reason to disbelieve the Times initial report: Reid had served as a producer and writer at Monogram and had previously collaborated with Nigh on such productions as A Bride for Henry (1937) and Rose of the Rio Grande (1938). There was in fact a Monogram horror flick titled Chamber of Horrors produced in 1940, but this was a Norman Lee film, based on the creaky Edgar Wallace novel of 1926, The Door with Seven Locks. Neither Reid nor Nigh was publically connected to that film’s production.

When the final Karloff Wong film, Doomed to Die (aka Mystery of the Wentworth Castle from a script penned by series’ newcomer Ralph G. Bettinson), played Manhattan’s Rialto Theatre, the Hollywood Reporter caustically reported the picture was, if nothing else, “aptly named for it died within a few days” of its showcase. The Baltimore Sun coldly piled on with a bad notice of its own: “The direction, writing and acting are slipshod beyond the limit of that large tolerance accorded this extravert type of drama.” Still more harsh criticism of the picture lie ahead. “Charlie Chan would shake with professional pity,” wrote the New York Herald Tribune, sighing that the great Karloff “has never had a duller, more unexacting role.”

It was the last of Karloff’s involvement in the Mr. Wong series. There was really no reason for the actor to continue on in the role as he certainly did not need the work – nor did he need the piling on of bad notices that continued to accumulate. In 1940, the year that Doomed to Die was released, Karloff would star in no fewer than nine additional features for Columbia, Warner Bros., Universal, RKO Radio and Monogram. He would certainly survive his departure from the role. But would Mr. Wong?

That question was answered in June of 1940 when Monogram announced Keye Luke as Karloff’s successor in the role. It was a sensible progressive move on Monogram’s part, a UPI correspondent writing a glowing tribute to Keye Luke who would now serve – at long last – as “cinema’s one and only genuine Oriental detective.” Though Monogram signed the actor to a four-picture “Mr. Wong” deal, the only entry produced with Luke in the detective role was Phil Rosen’s Phantom of Chinatown, released in November of 1940. The change of actor (and director) was mostly seamless and arguably refreshing: Luke did bring a bit more energy and excitement to the role. (Karloff was often cited by critics as a miscast who, largely unchallenged, chose to sleepwalk through the role). Most reviews of Luke’s Wong were complimentary, echoing those of a Variety critic who thought Phantom of Chinatown “worthy of the average ‘B’ thriller of this type.”

There was some industry talk in January of 1941 that Paul Malvern (an associate producer of Doomed to Die and the producer of Phantom of Chinatown) was preparing Luke’s return as Mr. Wong for the actor’s second outing, provisionally titled Million Dollar Mystery. Had that film been produced, it would have been the seventh in the Monogram series. But no such film was greenlit (perhaps due to Malvern’s 1941 defection to Universal) making Phantom of Chinatown the last of Monogram’s Mr. Wong series. Luke would fulfil his four-pic Monogram contract in a waste of his talent making small appearances in The Gang’s All Here, Bowery Blitzkrieg and Let’s Go Collegiate, all released in 1941.

It’s of some disappointment that Phantom of Chinatown was excluded from this new Kino Lorber Blu-ray collection. Perhaps Kino is planning a standalone release of the title sometime in the future… at least I hope so. In the meantime, I suppose sad Completists will have to hang on to their copies of VCI’s Mr. Wong Detective: The Complete Collection DVD set for a bit longer. (Luke’s Phantom of Chinatown can be found on that 2008 set in far better quality than you can find any of those bargain-priced PD multi-film “mystery collection” type collections… although the DVD issued by Film Detective in 2015 is also a worthwhile seek out).

The five films featured on this Kino Lorber Studio Classic Blu-ray issue of their Boris Karloff: Mr. Wong Collection are all presented in 1920x1080p, in 1.37:1 aspect and DTS monaural sound. The films have been sourced from new Hi-Definition masters made from 2K fine grain scans. The films are not visually perfect. There are moments of flickering, and scratches and print damage, but this is likely the best we’ll ever get of these dimly-recalled throw-away programmers. I’m certainly not complaining.

Other than the usual removable English subs, the Kino set includes only a single feature – an audio commentary for Mr. Wong, Detective courtesy of Tom Weaver and Larry Blamire. On first pass, it might seem the inclusion of only a single commentary on a five-film set is sparse and ungenerous. But the behind-the-camera artisans of Wong series were a particularly insular if clever and creative cabal: William Nigh, director of all five Karloff entries, actor Grant Withers as “Captain Street” in all five as well, William Lackey, an associate producer of four, and W. Scott Darling the screenwriter of three. The contributions of these and others in front of and behind the camera are duly noted on this set’s single but informative and engaging commentary.

Weaver suggests at the commentaries front end that his plan is to “keep things fun,” and he most certainly does. Both Weaver and Blamire have done their homework, digging out practically every morsel of historical information they could source for these uncelebrated Monogram quickies: this includes their deep dig into (less reliable) information gleaned from ballyhoo appearing in the film’s pressbook and other publicity materials, alongside contemporary reviews from the Hollywood trades and newspapers. Blamire has really gone the extra mile, choosing to preemptively read twelve of the twenty Hugh Wiley’s Mr. Wong short-stories so he might pick out the moments and small bits the filmmakers used for the series.

I wasn’t as admiring of the “actor re-creations” of interview transcripts of Karloff and others scattered about the commentary. It seems unnecessary and distracting - a simple “quote/unquote” recitation of such material is preferable to badly-mimicked vocal imitations. The (thankfully) occasional insertion of MST3K-style sound effects and dubbed-in jokey one-liners were also unnecessary IMHO, but I’m admittedly a grouch. If you prefer your Wong with a dash of irreverence then have at it. Weaver and Blamire also sidecar their commentary with several detours touching on the Charlie Chan and Mr. Moto series, all fair game. All in all, the commentary track serves as an excellent primer for fans wishing to learn a bit more about Mr. Wong on page and film. To summarize, this excellent package from Kino Lorber is a “must-have."

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By Doug Oswald

Frank Sinatra made his directorial debut with the World War II drama “None But the Brave,” available on Blu-ray via the Warner Archive Collection. An American C-47 carrying Marines and a Navy Corpsman, crashes on a Pacific island in the Solomon Islands chain. The island is occupied by a small force of Japanese soldiers who have been stranded and forgotten. The C-47 radio is damaged in the crash and the Americans have a limited supply of food, water and ammunition. The Japanese control the only source of fresh water on the island, grow food, fish and have built a boat.

The Americans have a Navy corpsman and the Japanese have an injured soldier. The Americans also have a hot-headed Marine Lieutenant itching to kill Japanese. Fortunately, the senior ranking American is the cool-headed Army Air Corp pilot of the downed C-47 and he keeps the Lieutenant and his men in check. The Americans and Japanese form a temporary truce; food and water in exchange for medical care for their injured soldier.

The movie is part of a sub-genre of WWII movies about adversaries who become stranded and must survive within enemy territory until rescued. “No Man is an Island” (1963) and “Hell in the Pacific” (1968) are examples. While its doubtful American and Japanese ever created such a truce, the concept does make for interesting story telling. There have even been sci-fi versions of this premise such as “Robinson Crusoe on Mars” (1964) and “Enemy Mine” (1985). William Dafoe’s “Robinson Crusoe” is a clear literary source for this genre.

When a typhoon hits the island, the Americans and Japanese have to work together to save the fresh water pond. The Americans repair the radio and rescue is at hand, bringing everyone to the brutal conclusion. The movie ends with a preachy epitaph, “Nobody Ever Wins,” which comes out of nowhere and makes no sense. Sinatra and the writers may have been making an early statement about the Vietnam War at a time when American audiences were still eager to see WWII action movies like “The Great Escape,” “The Dirty Dozen” and his own “Von Ryan’s Express.” “None But the Brave” is a good WWII movie with a great cast, but I think Sinatra may have picked the wrong war to send an anti-war message. Perhaps disillusioned, he never directed another film.

Sinatra co-produced the movie and receives star billing in what is essentially a co-starring role as Maloney, a cynical Navy chief who drinks too much. Clint Walker is at his best as the Army C-47 pilot, Captain Dennis Bourke, who has a history with Maloney. His Japanese counterpart is Lieutenant Kuroke played by Tatsuya Mihashi. Tommy Sands is the hot-headed Marine, 2nd Lieutenant Blair in a performance that is a bit over-the-top, and Takeshi Kato as his equallyhot headed Japanese counterpart, Sergeant Tamura. Other familiar faces in the American cast include Brad Dexter as Sergeant Bleeker and Tony Bill as Keller, the C-47 radio operator. Hisao Dazai appears as Corporal Fujimoto and may be familiar to fans of Godzilla movies, as he featured in several Toho monster movies. Laraine Stephens, one of only two women in the movie, appears uncredited in a flashback scene as Lorie.

Sinatra gives his typical easy-going performance as Maloney and his direction is equally easy-going, making use of the tropical location with Kaua'I, Hawaii, filling in for the South Pacific island. The Japanese-American co-production has a screenplay co-written by John Twist and Takeshi Kato and is based on a story by Kikumaru Okuda. There’s unconvincing model work used in the plane crash scene at the start of the movie with a model Japanese Zero shooting down the C-47 and an American fighter. The main sets include the freshwater pond, the C-47 hulk and the Japanese Army compound. I’m sure the cast and crew enjoyed their time in Hawaii.

The movie was released in February 1965 by Warner Bros. and clocks in at 106 minutes. The Warner Archive region-free Blu-ray looks very good and sounds great, with an early score by John Williams. The only extra on the disc is the trailer which is interesting because it shows Sinatra acting as both director and star. The English subtitle option is welcome, especially during the Japanese scenes. The movie is not perfect, but it is an enjoyable afternoon movie recommended for Sinatra fans and WWII military adventure.

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By Ernie Magnotta

Italian writer/director Fernando Di Leo has had quite a prolific career. Between 1964 and 1985, he directed 17 films (including 1971’s Slaughter Hotel, 1972’s Caliber 9 and 1973’s The Boss) and wrote/co-wrote many screenplays (including contributions to Sergio Leone’s A Fistful of Dollars and For A Few Dollars More). Recently, one of his last directorial efforts, The Violent Breed, was finally released on Blu-ray.

The Violent Breed aka Razza Violenta follows ‘nam vet Mike Martin (Harrison Muller, 2020 Texas Gladiators) who is sent to Southeast Asia by CIA head Kirk Cooper (Henry Silva, Sharkey’s Machine) in order to take out a dangerous drug lord named Polo (Woody Strode, Sergeant Rutledge).

Solidly directed by Di Leo (who also co-wrote with Nino Marino), The Violent Breed, although not in the same league as similar films by action icons Schwarzenegger, Stallone and Norris, is an enjoyable 80s action film which is definitely worth checking out. The movie also features the lovely Carole Andre (The Bloodstained Butterfly), and a memorable score from Paolo Rustichelli (Urban Warriors).

The Violent Breed has been released on a region one Blu-ray, comes from a brand new 2K master, and is presented in its original 1.85:1 aspect ratio. The disc boasts clear images (but the audio is a bit low in a few spots) and also contains English subtitles, the original theatrical trailer as well as trailers for the films The Last Hunter; The Violent Professionals; Street Law; Seven Blood-stained Orchids and Blastfighter.

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ViaVision's Imprint line will release a limited edition, region-free (1,500 units) Blu-ray boxed set commemorating director Walter Hill. Suggest you get your pre-orders in early, as Imprint limited edition sets usually sell out fast. This set will be released in July.

Here is the official announcement:

Walter Hill has been directing films for almost 50 years and has established himself a reputation of delivering thrilling, gritty, and highly stylized films.

This special edition set collects five films and one landmark miniseries from one of the most important and influential filmmakers of modern cinema.

• Hard Times (1975)
• The Driver (1978)
• The Long Riders (1980)
• Extreme Prejudice (1987)
• Johnny Handsome (1989)
• Broken Trail (2006)

Featuring performances from some of Hollywood’s greatest actors including Charles Bronson, James Coburn, Bruce Dern, Mickey Rourke, Forest Whitaker, Morgan Freeman & Robert Duvall.

Limited Edition 8-Disc Hardbox. 1500 copies only.

Hard Times (1975) – Imprint Collection #164

In the middle of the Great Depression, Chaney (Charles Bronson, Death Wish) is just looking to catch a break. When he meets Speed (James Coburn, The Magnificent Seven), a promoter of bare-knuckle street fighting, Chaney thinks with his fighting skill and Speed’s savvy, he might have a chance. But Speed has his own problems, and what seemed like a sure thing is not as simple.

This gritty, compelling drama is the directorial debut of Walter Hill.

Starring Charles Bronson, James Coburn, Jill Ireland & Strother Martin.

Special Features & Technical Specs:

• 1080p high-definition presentation on Blu-ray from a restored 4K master
• Special features TBC
• Original Aspect Ratio 2.35:1
• Audio English DTS-HD 5.1 Surround + LPCM 2.0
• Optional English subtitles

The Driver (1978) – Blu-ray & 4K – Imprint Collection #165

Ryan O’Neal plays the Driver, an ice-cool getaway “Wheel Man” for hire. Bruce Dern is the detective who becomes obsessed with catching him. The more O’Neal leaves tantalising clues at the crime scenes, the more Dern becomes a man possessed with catching his prey.

This cult neo-noir thriller is presented on both 4K UHD and Blu-ray.

Starring Ryan O’Neal, Bruce Dern, Isabelle Adjani, Joseph Walsh & Ronee Blakley.

Special Features & Technical Specs:

4K UHD Disc

• NEW 4K restoration by StudioCanal
• Walter Hill Masterclass – featurette
• Interview with Walter Hill
• Alternate Opening
• Original English Trailer
• Original German Trailer
• 13 Original Teasers

Blu-ray Disc

• 1080p High-definition presentation on Blu-ray from a restored 4K master
• NEW Audio Commentary by film historian and critic Matthew Asprey Gear (2022)
• NEW Cut to the Chase – interview with actor Bruce Dern on The Driver (2022)
• NEW Teeth Bared – interview with actor Rudy Ramos on The Driver (2022)
• NEW Simplicity in Motion: Editing The Driver – interview with editor Robert K. Lambert (2022)
• Aspect Ratio 1.85:1
• Audio English LPCM 2.0 Mono
• Optional English HOH subtitles

The Long Riders (1981) – Imprint Collection #166

The Long Riders is Hill’s version of the story of the James-Younger gang. Held as heroes by many, and much celebrated for its attacks upon the railroad, the gang became the most famous band of outlaws in the country. They were eventually brought to ruin by the Pinkerton detective agency, losing many of their number in the ill-fated Northfield, Minnesota bank raid.

Four sets of real-life brothers – the Carradines, the Keachs, the Quaids and the Guests – star in this classic western.

Starring Keith Carradine, James Remar, Dennis Quaid, Stacy Keach, Robert Carradine & David Carradine.

Special Edition 2-Disc Set.

Special Features & Technical Specs:

Disc One

• 1080p High-definition presentation on Blu-ray from a restored 4K master
• Audio Commentary by film historians Howard S. Berger, Steve Mitchell and Nathaniel Thompson
• NEW Audio Commentary by film historian Toby Roan
• Aspect Ratio 1.85:1
• Audio English LPCM 2.0 Mono
• Optional English HOH subtitles

Disc Two

• Interview with actors Keith Carradine and Robert Carradine
• Interview with actors Stacy Keach and James Keach
• Interview with actor Randy Quaid
• Interview with actor Nicholas Guest
• Interview with director Walter Hill
• Interview with composer Ry Cooder
• Interview with producer Tim Zinnemann
• Outlaw Brothers: The Making of The Long Riders – documentary
• The Northfield Minnesota Raid: Anatomy of a Scene – featurette
• Slow Motion: Walter Hill on Sam Peckinpah – featurette
• Theatrical Trailer

Extreme Prejudice (1987) – Imprint Collection #167

Extreme Prejudice stars Nick Nolte as tough, no-nonsense Texas ranger Jack Benteen, whose childhood friend Cash (Powers Boothe) is now a ruthless drugs baron on the other side of the border. Jack finds himself recruited by the CIA to eliminate Cash, who allegedly has secret government documents.

Starring Nick Nolte, Powers Boothe, Rip Torn, Maria Conchita Alonso & Michael Ironside.

Special Features & Technical Specs:

• 1080p high-definition presentation on Blu-ray from a restored 4K master
• NEW Audio Commentary by film critic / author Walter Chaw
• NEW Audio Commentary by film historians Daniel Kremer and Nat Segaloff
• Audio commentary by film historians C. Courtney Joyner and Henry Parke
• Interview with director Walter Hill (2010)
• Isolated Score Selections and Audio Interview with music historian John Takis
• The Major’s Agenda – interview with actor Michael Ironside
• The War Within – interview with actor Clancy Brown
• Capturing The Chaos – interview with director of photography Matthew F. Leonetti
• Theatrical Trailer
• Vintage Electronic Press Kit
• Photo Gallery
• Original Aspect Ratio 1.85:1
• Audio English LPCM 2.0 Stereo
• Optional English HOH subtitles

Johnny Handsome (1989) – Imprint Collection #168

Severely-deformed petty criminal Johnny Handsome (Mickey Rourke) is double-crossed in a robbery and left to take the rap on his own. He is stabbed in jail and sent to hospital, where a prison doctor decides that plastic surgery and a fresh start will lead Johnny on the path to reform. However, when the handsome new Johnny emerges from prison, his potential fresh start in life is hampered by his desire to get even with the man who put him away.

Starring Mickey Rourke, Ellen Barkin, Morgan Freeman & Forest Whitaker.

Special Features & Technical Specs:

• 1080p high-definition presentation on Blu-ray from a restored 4K master
• NEW Audio Commentary by film critic and author Walter Chaw (2022)
• NEW Audio commentary by film critics Daniel Kremer and Scout Tafoya (2022)
• NEW Interview with actor Peter Jason
• Codes to Live By: Walter Hill on Johnny Handsome – featurette
• Wordsmith – interview with writer Ken Friedman (2010)
• Eye of the Beholder – interview with makeup artist Michael Westmore (2010)
• Action Man – interview with stuntman Allan Graf (2010)
• Theatrical Trailer
• Original Aspect Ratio 1.85:1
• Audio English LPCM 2.0 Stereo
• Optional English HOH subtitles

Broken Trail (2006) – Imprint Collection #169

Set in 1897, Print Ritter (Robert Duvall) and his estranged nephew Tom Harte (Haden Church) become the reluctant guardians of five abused and abandoned Chinese girls. Ritter and Harte’s attempts to care for the girls are complicated by their responsibility to deliver a herd of horses while avoiding a group of bitter rivals, intent on kidnapping the girls for their own purposes. Classic Western action takes centre stage in this dramatic miniseries!

This critically acclaimed miniseries is the winner of four Emmy Awards.

Starring Robert Duvall, Thomas Haden Church & Greta Scacchi.

Special Features & Technical Specs:

• 1080p high-definition presentation on Blu-ray from a restored 4K master
• Broken Trail: The Making of a Legendary Western – featurette
• Aspect Ratio 1.78:1
• Audio English DTS HD 5.1 Surround + LPCM 2.0 Stereo
• Optional English subtitles

Any pre-order titles will be dispatched in the week leading up to its aforementioned release date. Special features and artwork are subject to change.

Click here to to order.  (Prices are in Australian dollars. Use currency converter to see value in your local currency.)

By Lee Pfeiffer

In the estimation of many film scholars the 1970s was the most adventurous and liberating period in the history of the medium. The new freedoms in regard to sex, violence and adult themes that had exploded in the mid-1960s became even more pronounced in the '70s. Among the most daring studios to take advantage of this trend was United Artists. The studio had been conceived by iconic actors in the silent era with the intent of affording artists as much creative control over their productions as possible. UA had continued to fulfill that promise, producing a jaw-dropping number of box-office hits and successful film franchises. The studio also disdained censorship and pushed the envelope with high profile movie productions. The daring decision to fund the X-rated "Midnight Cowboy" paid off handsomely. The 1969 production had not only been a commercial success but also won the Best Picture Oscar. A few years later UA went even further out on a limb by distributing "Last Tango in Paris". UA fully capitalized on the worldwide sensation the movie had made and the many attempts to restrict it from being shown at all in certain areas of the globe. Like "Midnight Cowboy", "Tango" was an important film by an important director that used graphic images of sexual activity for dramatic intensity. Unfortunately, not every filmmaker who was inspired by these new freedoms succeeded in the attempt to mainstream X-rated fare during those years that the rating wasn't only synonymous with low-budget porno productions. Case in point: screenwriter John Byrum, who made his directorial debut with "Inserts", a bizarre film that UA released in 1975 that became a legendary bomb. The movie was released some years ago on Blu-ray as a limited edition by the now sadly defunct Twilight Time label. To my knowledge, it isn't available in that format today, although it is streaming on Screenpix, the subscription-based service that can be accessed through Amazon Prime, Roku, YouTube and Apple TV.

The claustrophobic tale resembles a filmed stage production. It is set primarily in one large living room in a decaying Hollywood mansion. The time period is the 1930s, shortly after the introduction of sound to the movie industry resulted in the collapse of silent pictures (Charlie Chaplin being the notable exception.) The central character, played by Richard Dreyfuss, is not named but is referred to as "The Boy Wonder". From our first glimpse of him we know we are seeing a man in trouble. He is unkempt, dressed in a bathrobe and swizzling booze directly from the bottle. We will soon learn that he was once a respected mainstream director of major studio films and was revered by Hollywood royalty. Now he is a has-been who has resorted to making porn movies in 16mm in his own home. (Yes, Virginia, people liked to watch dirty movies even way back then.) He is entertaining a visitor, Harlene (Veronica Cartwright), a perpetually cheery,  bubble-headed young woman who was once a respected actress but who, like Boy Wonder, has fallen on hard times. She is now a heroin addict who earns a living by "starring" in Boy Wonder's porn productions. They make small talk and some names from the current movie business are bandied about. Harlene tells Boy Wonder that a rising star named Clark Gable is said to be an admirer of his and wants to meet him. Instead of responding favorably to this news, Boy Wonder seems unnerved by it. The implication is that he is locked in a self-imposed downward spiral and lacks the self-confidence to attempt a real comeback. Harlene also needles him about his sexual prowess. It turns out that the king of porn films has long been impotent for reasons never explained.  As they prepare to film some scenes Harlene's male "co-star" (Stephen Davies) arrives. He is nicknamed Rex, The Wonder Dog, which seems to bother him especially when the Wonder Boy uses it to intentionally disparage him. Like Harlene, Rex is short on brains but is physically attractive. Boy Wonder seems to have a real resentment towards him, perhaps because Rex is a powerhouse in bed while he can't get anything going despite directing naked people in sex scenes. It becomes clear that Boy Wonder and Rex don't like each other. Boy Wonder ridicules Rex for performing sex acts on male studio executives who he naively believes will help him become a star. However, their relationship looks downright friendly compared to the interaction between Harlene and Rex. When Rex is a little slow in becoming physically aroused, Harlene mocks him mercilessly. This results in him essentially subjecting her to a violent rape which thrills Boy Wonder, who captures it all on film. Harlene doesn't appear to be any worse for the wear, however, and blithely says she's going off to a bedroom to rest.

The household is next visited by mobster Big Mac (Bob Hoskins), the man who finances Boy Wonder's film productions. He is accompanied by his financee Cathy Cake (Jessica Harper), a pretty young woman who seems to have a particular interest in the forbidden world of pornography. Big Mac and Boy Wonder also hate each other. Big Mac berates Boy Wonder for making his porn flicks too esoteric and artistic for their intended audiences who just want a cheap thrill. However, for Boy Wonder the porn films represent the last opportunity he has to demonstrate the cinematic style and camera angles that once impressed critics and the public. In the midst of their arguing, it is discovered that a tragedy has occurred: Harlene has died from a heroin overdose. Everyone seems nonplussed by the news and Big Mac's only concern is to ditch the body somewhere quickly. Turns out Rex has a part time job in a funeral parlor and can arrange for a gruesome plan in which they dump her body inside a grave that is being prepared for another person's funeral the next day. The plan is to dig a bit deeper, bury Harlene, then place a layer of dirt over her and have the "new" body placed on top of hers. As Big Mac and Rex leave to "undertake" this sordid task, Boy Wonder finds himself alone with Cathy Cake. She wants to use the time to have Boy Wonder film her in her own personal porn movie since Big Mac would never let his "fiancee" do so with his knowledge. She finds the idea of sex on film to be a stimulant but Boy Wonder won't have any of it. He knows that Big Mac's volatile temper and ever-present bodyguard could result in him being the next corpse in the house. Cathy Cake tries another tactic and feigns interest in Boy Wonder. He lets his guard down and gradually is seduced by her. She even manages to cure his impotence but the tryst turns ugly when she learns he has not filmed it. Boy Wonder soon discovers that his renewed pride and self-respect is to be short-lived when it becomes clear that Cathy Cake actually loathes him and was only using him in order to fulfill her porn movie fantasy. The ploy works to a degree- her attention to Boy Wonder reawakens his sexual prowess but when she learns the camera wasn't rolling, she cruelly tells him that she only used him for selfish purposes. With this, Big Mac and Rex return from their horrendous errand and catch Boy Wonder in bed with Cathy Cake. The situation becomes dangerous with Big Mac threatening to kill Boy Wonder and things only deteriorate from there. 

Richard Dreyfuss was said to have had a personal obsession with this film. He was very involved in all aspects of its production and remained defensive about the movie after its harsh reception from critics. The movie's complete rejection by reviewers and the public might have hurt his career but Dreyfuss already had "American Graffiti" and "Jaws" under his belt. Soon he would also star in another blockbuster, "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" followed by his Oscar-winning performance in "The Goodbye Girl". The fact that so few people ever saw "Interiors" actually worked to his advantage. However, whatever motivated him to become involved in this bizarre project remains a mystery. It's an ugly tale about ugly people doing ugly things to each other. If there is a message here, I didn't receive it. There isn't a single character you can identify with or sympathize with. They are all self-obsessed cynics with no redeeming traits. That leaves us with whatever values the performances afford us and it's a mixed bag. Dreyfuss is miscast. He was twenty nine years-old when he made the film and, despite his sordid appearance which ages him considerably, he is still far too young to portray a once-great movie director who has fallen on hard times. John Byrum's direction of Dreyfuss is unsteady. At times he encourages him to underplay scenes while at other times he has Dreyfuss chew the scenery mercilessly. Similarly, Stephen Davies plays the brain-dead hunk Rex with flamboyantly gay characteristics one minute then suddenly transforms into a heterosexual stud the next. Bob Hoskins is squarely in what would become his trademark tough-guy gangster mode but gives a solid performance. The best acting comes from the two female leads, with Veronica Cartwright especially good as the ill-fated Harlene. Jessica Harper also does well in her thankless role. Both women seem at ease in doffing their clothes and playing much of their scenes in a provocative state. Cartwright even goes full frontal for the violent sex scene with Rex while Harper spends almost the entire last act of the film being photographed topless. Curiously, the willingness to appear nude onscreen was considered the epitome of female emancipation in films during the 1970s but the practice  has largely become frowned upon in more recent years. In fact the days are long gone when virtually every major actress had to appear naked on screen. Today, female emancipation is the ability to play erotic scenes on screen without having to be completely compromised.  

If John Byrum's debut as a director is problematic, so, too, is his script. There is a lot of name-dropping about the great figures in the movie industry who once socialized with the Boy Wonder but it all seems pretentious and unconvincing right down to the constant attempts by Boy Wonder to avoid meeting the unseen Clark Gable. In fact, aside from some fleeting references the "Flapper Look" styles worn by the women, the film could have been set in the 1970s. Byrum has the characters indulge in  vernacular that is far too contemporary for the 1930s. The only wit that is apparent concerns Big Mac's plans to build roadside restaurants that would all look the same and serve identical fast food. ("Big Mac"- get it?) Beyond that, there are few attempts at humor and most of those pertain to unspeakably cruel behavior and mutual humiliation. There seems to be no purpose for the film's existence beyond the desire of the participants to be in a porn movie. Given their status in the industry that was obviously not going to happen so they banded together for a quasi-porn movie and shrouded it in the protective layer of intellectualism. This gave them all the cover of being artistes and Richard Dreyfuss the opportunity to nibble on Jessica Harper's nipples while pretending there was some greater purpose to it all. In reality the film's most cringe-inducing scene has Dreyfuss and Harper having an extended conversation about her private parts, which are referred to repeatedly (almost to an absurd degree) in gutter language as those the actors were pre-teenagers using naughty words for the first time. 

There are said to be people who consider "Inserts" to be an underrated gem. But for this writer, it represents an interesting but woefully misguided experiment by some very talented people who should have known better.

To coincide with Paramount Home Video's new 4K release of the 1986 film Dragonslayer, Cinema Retro's Todd Garbarini caught up with the film's director, Matthew Robbins. 

By Todd Garbarini

Matthew Robbins is a film director whose experience in the industry goes back over fifty years. Born in New York City and a graduate of Johns Hopkins University in 1965 with a BA in Romance Languages, he formed friendships with Academy Award-winning film editor and sound mixer Walter Murch (The Godfather, 1972) and Academy Award-nominated cinematographer Caleb Deschanel (The Black Stallion, 1979). While a student pursuing his MFA at the USC School of Cinematic Arts in Los Angeles, he met future film director George Lucas who enlisted Mr. Robbins to work on his student film, Electronic Labyrinth: THX 1138 4EB (1967), which was later made into the feature film THX 1138 starring Robert Duvall and Donald Pleasence.

Well into his mid-twenties when he came into The New Hollywood (aka the American New Wave or Hollywood Renaissance), his professional career began during one of the most original and fruitful decades in American Cinema, the 1970s. Along with his USC writing partner Hal Barwood, they scripted the real-life 1969 escapades of ex-convict Robert “Bobby” Dent, 22, and his wife, Ila Fae Dent, 21, into The Sugarland Express, hailed by New Yorker film critic Pauline Kael as “one of the most phenomenal debut films in the history of movies,” as directed by Steven Spielberg and released in 1974. Both Mr. Robbins and Mr. Barwood made brief appearances as two of the World War II pilots returning to Earth from the mothership in Mr. Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977).

After writing The Bingo Long Travelling All-Stars and Motor Kings (1976) and MacArthur (1977), Mr. Robbins made his directorial debut while co-writing Corvette Summer (1978), a comedy that pitted Mark Hamill and Annie Potts against a ring of car thieves. Next, he embarked on his most audacious outing yet – the fantasy film Dragonslayer, the second film made a co-production with Paramount Pictures and Walt Disney after Robert Altman’s Popeye in 1980. Starring Peter MacNicol as Galen, apprentice to the wizard Ulrich (Sir Ralph Richardson), who must battle the dragon Vermithrax Pejorative following Ulrich’s death, Dragonslayer has had a poor representation on home video over the decades. All that has changed now, thankfully, as Paramount Home Video has restored and released the film in native 4K Ultra High Definition on Blu-ray and Standard Blu-ray. The result is glorious. I spoke with Mr. Robbins recently about this new restoration.

Todd Garbarini: Dragonslayer is one of my favorite movies from childhood. I fell in love with Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack’s King Kong from 1933 and had seen a lot of the Ray Harryhausen stop-motion films prior to that. When I saw your film, I thought, “Wow, they really have come a long way.” I was so impressed with the almost seamless juxtaposing of the special effects and the live action and full-size dragon. In the years since, I’ve had the film on every conceivable home video format, but the picture always seemed very dark and murky, even the letterboxed laserdisc. The new 4K UHD Blu-ray is just so beautiful, you can now really enjoy the amazing production design, cinematography, gadgetry, matte paintings and the incredible Vermithrax Pejorative, a dragon so bad-ass that he has a surname!

Matthew Robbins: Yes! I have been very carefully avoiding seeing this movie for about forty years because it looked so wretched. They worked so many miracles with the new technologies of today to fix one egregious problem after another (on the new 4K release). So, the fact that you are so conscious of the difference here before and after, it means a lot.

TG: I would say it almost looks even better than it did in the theater. Any movie that requires this amount of visual design to create a world that does not exist, the intricacies and nuances, the optical effects, the matte paintings and the go-motion with blur, it is truly an art and collaborative effort. I am a real proponent of the real-world special effects. I have loved reading Cinefex, Cinefantastique, Starlog and Fangoria for decades and it is amazing how much time and effort goes into a film such as this. It is very gratifying to see these movies get their due as none of them have ever been properly represented on home video due to the limitations inherent in those technologies. It is wonderful that younger audiences can really benefit from seeing Dragonslayer in this new 4K ultra high definition. It is my understanding that this movie got the go-ahead because of the popularity of the Dungeons & Dragons imagination game.

MR: That’s right. When Hal Barwood and I drummed up this story, we had been very much present when George Lucas was creating ILM (Industrial Light and Magic) for Star Wars in 1976 when it was being set up at the warehouse in Van Nuys with John Dykstra. We were at that facility, and then he brought it up to Kerner Boulevard, here in Marin (County) where I live, and we specifically created Dragonslayer to get all that horsepower attached to something other than star fields and spaceships. So, it was like turning loose Phil Tippett! Dennis Muren was super charged up because he got a new sandbox to play in. In terms of what you mentioned before, we were aware of Dungeons & Dragons, but we weren’t playing the game.

TG: Neither was I! I have no idea why, either. I loved fantasy, and close friends of mine were very much into it, but I just was never asked by them. I did love the 1978 Ralph Bakshi cartoon of The Lord of the Rings with that wonderful score by Leonard Rosenman.

MR: Well, speaking of Lord of the Rings, Hal was very influenced by Tolkien. He was a fan of Lord of the Rings and got me acquainted, and I thought it was great.

TG: So many people have been influenced by Tolkien. George R.R. Martin credits him for his Games of Thrones novels.

MR: Exactly! I was a big fan of Fantasia with Mickey Mouse and the sorcerer. So, there’s that, and so we combined all those elements, and then we went out with our agent to find a buyer for this thing. While we were waiting, he came back with this news that both Paramount and Walt Disney were both interested. Our first meeting about the film was with Michael Eisner, who was the president of Paramount at the time. He pointed to his desk, and he had a stack of scripts about dragons that they had tried to develop based on their awareness of the Dungeons & Dragons game. So, the fact that people were playing that game in droves really helped us get the project off the ground. As far as I know, people still play it. That’s some of the origins of Dragonslayer.

TG: Was that a long process in your opinion, to your recollection, or did it all kind of come together fairly quickly?

MR: It came together fairly quickly compared to, say, (Guillermo Del Toro’s) Pinocchio.

TG: I had spoken to Robert Wise in February 1994 about my favorite film of his, 1963’s The Haunting, and he talked about Elliot Scott, his production designer. He did such wonderful work on that film, as well as Arabian Adventure (1979), The Watcher in the Woods (1980), Labyrinth (1986) and two of the Indiana Jones films. His work on Dragonslayer was no less stunning.

MR: Oh, I’m so pleased you’re asking about him. He was the dean of production designers. When we went over there to England to put together a crew, everybody was busy. I had actually met some of the people that George (Lucas) had used on Star Wars and Sir Ridley Scott had used on Alien. And so, we were very ambitious, and they were all busy, and they kept saying, “Why aren’t you in touch with Scotty?” I didn’t know who they meant! Everyone else had been kind of either directly his acolytes or had been influenced by him. He was a remarkably talented and experienced individual, and this was only my second picture. He was one of those people whom I relied upon and he helped me tremendously. He would say things like, “I’m gonna put this here for you, and you can do the thing,” or “It’s not attached to the rest of the castle, but then you have this here, and your transition is easy.” He took me in hand. He was a senior presence and a very lovely man. I was quickly sort of in awe of him, really. I remember when we had met and we talked about it, and then I’d had a meeting with him in the art department at Pinewood (Studios), where he was working, and he had a staff. He was a beloved figure and he came in with rolls of paper. He put them out on the desk, and he had drawn some preliminary ideas about how he thought we might have the interior of Ulrich’s Castle. But, I had something else in mind, something very different. So, I said, “Well, I don’t know if this is exactly what I want, because I thought maybe…” and before I could even finish, he took all the papers and he crumpled them up, and he threw them away. And he said, “All right, we’ll start over.” I was just appalled because these beautiful drawings, you know, had just gone to waste! I thought that we were going to discuss it! (laughs) He just scrapped them! I still have a vivid memory of that. I felt very much like what they call the imposter syndrome. How could I have done such a thing? He was one of my favorite people on that movie.

TG: How about cinematographer Derek Vanlint? He was a veteran of television commercials, just like Sir Ridley Scott and they had done Alien together. He brought a wonderful and original look to that film as well. Was he your first choice?

MR: Yes, and he had a cadre around him as well. He was hard charging, very demanding. His nickname for me was “Pet”. (laughs) He was a really gifted cinematographer. I was not experienced enough to know when I was asking for the impossible. He tried to tell me now and then, “We’ll get you as close as we can get.” He was remarkable. I had not had much experience with using more than one camera on set at once. So, I learned, sometimes to my dismay, that I wasn’t free to put the camera just anywhere, once the master was lit. I learned a lot. You can tell it was my second movie, as it was on a vastly bigger scale than my first film. I was running to keep up sometimes.

TG: Were you a fan of movies growing up, and do you recall the first movie you ever saw?

MR: I was afraid of movies when I was growing up! I was very easily frightened by not even scary movies, but films that had a lot of drama or suspense in them.

TG: I was, too. I remember hiding behind my grandmother’s chair while a documentary on Alfred Hitchcock was on and there was a scene playing from Dial M for Murder. My father had told me that the strangler gets killed by a pair of scissors and I was beside myself.

MR: It made me very anxious. I can remember when I was very little, my father was very interested in classical music, and he had a lot of classical LPs. He would put on classical music and I would get scared. They would say, “Well, what’s scary?” And I would say, “Well, this…,” and the fact that music could have things in a minor key, an orchestra music, it meant that it was a score to what was happening in the house! It was background music to what we were living. So, if we were in the kitchen and the music was in the living room, but my mother was at the stove or something in the kitchen, I just felt that something terrible was going to happen because Dimitri Tiomkin was behind this and it was portentous. I was very interested in movies, even though I was very scared of them. I can’t remember literally the first movie I ever saw, though. My neighbors had a television set, and I saw some movies there, such as the Bela Lugosi movies. They were scary. I would leave and then listen at the door. That’s what my grandson does today. One of my grandchildren is exactly like me with regard to being afraid of movies. He’ll flee from the room, and then he’ll linger because he can’t stop, you know?

TG: Are you going to show them Dragonslayer? Caitlin Clarke was my introduction to the female form. (laughs)

MR: (laughs) My grandchildren are too young to see Dragonslayer. (pauses) But one day, soon, they’ll see it!

Click here to order 4K UHD Limited Edition Steelbook edition from Amazon

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By Hank Reineke

Attack of the 50ft. Woman is by no measure the finest science-fiction film to emerge from 1950’s Hollywood. It may, however, be one of the most iconic. I suspect the film’s notoriety is partly due to Reynold Brown’s eye-catching one-sheet poster design: a grimacing, gargantuan deep-cleavaged Allison Hayes hovering over a city highway picking off random automobiles. That nothing like this actually happens in the movie is mostly forgivable. If we were to judge any film by its true delivery-of-on-screen mayhem against the false promises of its imaginative publicity campaign, a lot of press agents would be serving time.

Having said that, Brown’s artwork is an inseparable component of the film’s status among fans of Silver Age sci-fi. The poster design has been both parodied and mimicked, plastered on coffee mugs, jewelry, wristwatches, puzzles, t-shirts, model kits, fridge magnets and book covers. Reynold’s empowering image has even seen adoption as a feminist-rallying call-to-arms. Which is a pretty amazing feat for a film dashed off in little more than a week’s time, with less than stellar optical effects and at a budget of some $88,000.

Attack of the 50ft. Woman was directed by Nathan Juran who is credited on this particular film - for no reason I could source or conjure - as “Nathan Hertz.” It’s not as if Juran was a fallen helmsman of high-budget studio “prestige” pictures. He wasn’t a director reflexively protective of a former glory, someone defensive that his once glittering career had somehow descended into directing 50s sci-fi fodder. Juran’s first directorial assignment was, in fact, for Universal’s The Black Castle (1953) a mostly glossed-over gothic B-film featuring Richard Greene and Boris Karloff. From 1953 on, Juran subsequently bounced between directing low-budget feature films and studiously working on early television.

But by 1957 Juran had become semi-typecast as a successful auteur of low-budget sci-fi films, his streak beginning with 1957’s The Deadly Mantis. Over the course of the next several years (1957-1964), Juran directed a number of features and television episodes, many of which could be categorized as falling under the umbrella of sci-fi and fantasy. These would include such offerings as 20 Million Miles to Earth (1957), The Brain from Planet Arous (1957) and, perhaps most famously, The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958).

The screenwriter of Attack of the 50ft. Woman was Mark Hanna. Hanna had already displayed a modicum of insight in his crafting of bigger-than-life-size monster movies. The writer had collaborated the previous year with producer/director Bert I. Gordon on A.I.P.’s The Amazing Colossal Man. There’s little arguing that Allied Artist’s decision to back Attack of the 50ft. Woman was simply an opportunity to coat-tail Gordon’s recent string of successful “giant monster” pics. There had been plenty of them, some having already seen issue, others in the can being rush-readied for release: King Dinosaur (1955), Beginning of the End (1957), The Cyclops (1957), The Amazing Colossal Man (1957), Attack of the Puppet People (1958), War of the Colossal Beast (1958) and The Spider (1958).

Jacques R. Marquette and Bernard Woolner’s production of Attack of the 50 ft. Woman would start on Wednesday, January 8, 1958, under the working title of The Astounding Giant Woman. It wasn’t a great title, but Allied Artist’s had been bandied a pair of alternates, both of which were also subsequently rejected: The Mammoth Female Monster and The Colossal Female Monster. The film was still being touted in the trades as The Astounding Giant Woman through March of 1958. In April of 1958 the film was finally and permanently re-titled Attack of the 50ft. Woman.

Actress Yvette Vickers, who plays sultry sex-kitten Honey Parker in the film, recalls the entire picture was shot in eight days, with no one under the illusion they were making cinematic history. Allied Artists were interested in quick returns on their investments. By January’s end of 1958, no fewer than ten of their projects were reported as being “in various stages of editing,” including Attack of the 50ft. Woman and Howard W. Koch’s Frankenstein 1970. It was also during the last week of January that Ronald Stein was brought onboard to compose the film’s engaging and jazzy soundtrack.

One intriguing aspect of Attack of the 50ft. Woman is that the film’s sci-fi elements would often play second fiddle to the script’s domestic drama. Allison Hays plays Nancy Archer, a wealthy but alcoholic socialite whose marriage is in shambles. The cruel ways of her unfaithful and conniving husband, Harry (William Hudson) has already driven her to a sanatorium. While his wife is away (unsuccessfully) convalescing from her binge-drinking and mental frailties, Harry has taken up with the “red-headed wench” Honey Parker (Vickers). Harry and Honey spend an inordinate amount of time at Tony’s Bar and Grill, drinking, listening to jazz, dancing, and plotting a comfortable future together - a future to be financed by Nancy’ loss of stewardship of the family fortune due to her faltering mental health capacities.

This scenario on paper, of course, appears very film-noir in construction. But Hanna’s script upends the film’s love triangle aspect almost from the very beginning. There have been worldwide news broadcasts describing a “strange red fireball in the sky” hurtling towards earth. Driving back on Route 66 to her tony home upon release from the sanatorium, Nancy unluckily encounters an alien craft somewhere in a remote section of the Californian desert. No saucer-shaped spacecraft, this particular vehicle arrives as a 30-foot high sphere resembling a weather balloon. As if suffering from “mental exhaustion and alcoholism” was not enough, Nancy now finds herself in the clutches of giant hand with hairy knuckles.

Unfortunately, this alien contact has left Nancy with blue-green traces of radiation on her throat which brings about the onset of “giantism.” Though doctors are summoned to try to figure out why the poor and delirious Nancy is increasing in size at an alarming rate, husband Harry and mistress Honey care not one whit, still duplicitously scheming at Tony’s bar and grill. But the two of them – as well as the local sheriff and police department – will soon find themselves no match for a lady scorned: a wrathful woman who now stands 5o ft. tall, is wrapped in an over-sized white bed sheet and appears angry as Hell.

The earliest press screenings for Attack of the 50ft. Woman were held in Los Angeles on May 8, 1958. The film was screened with Roger Corman’s War of the Satellites, a second sci-fi feature that was to be paired with Woman on national release. In the view of the Variety critic, both genre offerings were “on weak side.” The trade cited Mark Hanna’s “corny dialogue” and Hertz’s “routine” direction on Woman as the film’s primary deficiencies, dismissing the film as “a minor offering for the scifi trade where demands aren’t too great.”

Well, maybe I’ve simply just sat through too many Silver Age sci-fi films to be objective, but I didn’t find Hanna’s script necessarily corny – but I did find the screenplay absent of likable characters worth caring about. Although I am a fan of Attack of the 50ft. Woman, I can understand the sulking review given the film upon release by critic Margaret Harford of the Los Angeles Mirror: “Attack of the 50ft. Woman has so few idealists on hand that the survival rate is lamentably low.” She goes on to describe the three romantic-triangle leads as “unregenerative types” possessing souls not worthy of salvation. The unrelenting unwholesomeness of the aforementioned trio ultimately inspires, “a wholesale blood bath that amounts to an extra dividend for scare-traders on the horror market.”

While Attack of the 50ft. Woman would not be the last sci-fi/horror flick in which Hayes would be cast, the actress happily moved over to dramatic work on television. She was enjoying the variety of roles such new castings offered. It wasn’t surprising. Shortly following the release of Attack of the 50ft. Woman, one journalist met with Hayes for a brief interview. The gossip writer thought Hayes “a fugitive from ‘Monster’ pictures,” a talented actress looking to take an extended break from such desultory features. The actress had, in fact, racked up a score of horror credits in recent years, appearing in a quartet of exploitation pictures in 1957 alone: The Undead, The Zombies of Mora Tau, The Unearthly, and The Disembodied. In 1958 this former 50 ft. giant was looking for roles more befitting a woman of her stature.

Shortly following her work on Woman, the saucy Yvette Vickers was cast in the feature The Saga of Hemp Brown and an episode of TV’s Dragnet. In the years 1958-1961 most of Vickers’ casting was on various television dramas, though a few feature film roles were mixed in as well. She would also, more infamously, appear as a “bottoms up” “Playmate of the Month” centerfold in the July 1959 issue of Playboy magazine, the photo spread courtesy of Russ Meyer. Of course, I’m just noting the above for the historical record, not to suggest anyone should rush off to eBay to source a back copy. But if you’re looking to add something new to your collection…

This region-free Warner Bros. Archive Collection issue of Attack of the 50ft. Woman is presented in 1080p High Definition 16x9 with an aspect 1.85:1 and in DTS-HD Master mono audio. As is often the case with these Warner Bros. Archive Blu releases, there’s not an abundance of special features offered outside of the film’s trailer and a commentary track. The latter item is particularly special, if not unfamiliar to serious collectors.

The commentary track on this new Blu release has been ported over from Warner’s DVD box set of 2007, Cult Camp Classics, Viol. 1: Sci-Fi Thrillers. On the bright side, the commentaries of film historian Tom Weaver and actress Vickers are certainly worthy of preservation on this second digital go round, the film’s first appearance in HD. Both Weaver, likely the finest author-commentator of vintage Hollywood sci-fi and horror, and Vickers – present on set back in 1958 - offer wonderfully playful and often prescient insights and memories on the making of the film. Vickers’s contributions are now made all more special in 2023 as the actress/pin-up girl with the great sense of humor has since passed.

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By Giacomo Selloni

Have you ever seen a high school yearbook from the 1940s or 1950s? The graduates' photos make them appear to be in their mid-twenties. They look much older at 18 or 19 than we did in our photos. That was the first thing I noticed when I first saw director Mike Nichols' “Carnal Knowledge” in the 1970s and was reminded of again now, with the new 4K restoration now being shown at the Film Forum in New York City. The film traces the relationship between former college roommates through 25 years, from the late 40s to the early 70s. Jack Nicholson and Art Garfunkel, as roommates at Amherst College, look a little too old to be students there. But we're eventually lulled in to accepting them as such by the dichotomy of their personalities and their acting abilities.

The film opens in the dark. Literally. We hear the voices of the two roommates discussing women and sex in the dark of their dorm room. We never see their faces until the next scene; at a college mixer where we followed Susan (Candice Bergen) into the dance. Sandy (Art Garfunkel) is immediately attracted to her. Jonathan (Jack Nicholson) coaches the shy, sensitive Sandy in what to do to break the ice. Seeing this scene today made it impossible not to recall the villainous Joker grin on Nicholson's face we would come to know well. Which works very well for the character of Jonathan, the tough, aggressive misogynist who ends up cuckolding his best friend and roommate.

When the film opened back in 1971 America was going through societal changes. The Vietnam War was in full swing, and the youth of the country were protesting. They were also embracing the sexual freedom boom. In 1969 "I Am Curious (yellow)," a Swedish erotic drama that opened there in 1967,

made it to American shores. Nudity appeared on the Broadway stage with "Hair" in 1968 and "Oh! Calcutta!" in 1969. Societal mores were changing. The Sexual Revolution was in full attack mode with women wearing miniskirts, see through shirts and hot pants. Woodstock. Flower Power. Psychedelics. Hippies. "Foreign" films (read: obscenity to many) were being banned in a number of states. The Generation Gap was being covered in newspapers and news magazines. In the face of it all, never missing a beat, the entertainment industry began to embrace counter-culture in way they never had before. The cultural bandwagon that spawned the summer of love spread from Haight-Ashbury to Greenwich Village, possibly in VW vans trailing "aromatic" smoke clouds in their wake.

Jules Pfeiffer originally saw this as a play, but upon showing it to friend Mike Nichols, was convinced it would be better made as a film. And as a film it has grown better with age. Specifically, this reviewer's age. Dialogue that went over my head, or that I had found both puerile and stuffy, resonated clearer while they were dancing in my older brain. This film has a lot to say about life and the relationships we allow ourselves to suffer through.

Back to the film:

Sandy scores a date with Susan and the two shy virgins begin a relationship. All the stupid, testosterone- fueled braggadocio that rears its head in most adolescent (and collegiate) males arises like the mist that surrounds the roommates as they walk to their dorm while Jonathan pumps Sandy for information about his latest date with Susan. Even the shy Sandy comes out of his shell to brag about how he got beyond the kissing stage of his and Susan's relationship. This leads to Jonathan calling Susan and eventually the two of them begin to sneak around behind Sandy's back.

Advancing into Act II, sometime into the late 50s - early 60s, Sandy is married to Susan. He meets Jonathan at an ice rink where they watch a beautiful skater (Ann-Margaret, in an Oscar-nominated performance) from a distance and talk about, what else? Women. Jonathan's take: "You think a girl goes for you, and you find out she's after your money or your balls. Women today are better hung than the men." He continues to ramble, slightly to Sandy's disgust. "It's not as easy getting laid as it used to be," Jonathan complains, "I don't think I fuck more than a dozen new girls a year now."

We find Jonathan out with Bobbie, the gorgeous, redhead with the "tits" and "ass" Jonathan's looking for in a woman. They eventually shack up together, at Bobbie's suggestion and Jonathan convinces her to stop working. This causes the relationship to deteriorate as Bobbie doesn't know what to do with herself all day long alone in the apartment and Jonathan complains that the place is a pig sty. Sandy, meanwhile, complains to Jonathan about his life with Susan: "It's funny, Susan and I do all the right things. We undress in front of each other. We spend fifteen minutes on foreplay. We experiment, do it in different rooms, it's a seven-room house. We don't believe in making a ritual of it, we do it when we feel like it. We don't feel like we have to be passionate all the time. Sometimes it's even more fun necking," he goes on, finishes with: "Maybe it's just not meant to be enjoyable with women you love." Jonathan replies: "Sandy, do you want to get laid?"

No surprise here; Sandy and Susan divorce. Sandy begins seeing Cindy (Cynthia O'Neal), a modern, empowered, smart woman. The couples spend a lot of time together. Things are nearing the end for Bobbie and Jonathan; he doesn't want children and doesn't want to marry Bobbie. Before Cindy and Sandy arrive at their apartment Jonathan and Bobbie get into a heated argument that finds Bobbie not fully dressed in the bedroom. Things come to a head and a disturbing end when, while at Jonathan's apartment he suggests to Sandy that they swap women and Sandy goes along with it.

Advancing to Act III, late 60s - early 70s, middle-aged Jonathan presents a slide show "Ball-Busters on Parade," at his place showing the loves of his life to a hippyish, middle-aged Sandi and Jennifer (Carol Kane), his eighteen-year-old girlfriend. Jonathan mistakenly shows a slide of Susan, but Sandy notices. Jonathan, showing a slide of Bobbie, "The king of the ball-busters. She conned me into marrying her and now she's killing me with alimony." As he continues his narration, he becomes angrier, vulgar and misogynistic. Then he insults Jennifer and she and Sandy walk out without a word.

A nighttime walk with the two old "friends" is the last time we see them together. The conversation teeters between the then and now, the us and them. Jonathan makes fun of Sandy's relationship with Jennifer. "She knows worlds which I cannot begin to touch yet," Sandy tells him. "You give up bad vibrations." "Sandy I love you," Jonathan retorts, "but you're a schmuck." Sandy tells Jonathan he can find what he's found. The last words we hear between the "friends" are Jonathan's: "Don't make me insult you."

The film ends with, after a time passage, Jonathan going to Louise's (Rita Moreno) apartment. Louise is a prostitute for whom Jonathan is a regular customer. Louise performs a monologue/dialogue that also seems to be part of their usual routine. At one point she messes it up angering Jonathan. Obviously, it's Jonathan's creation, and the only thing that can get him erect is to hear her compliment his virility.

“Carnal Knowledge” was so controversial in 1971 that, after a conviction of a theater manager, Mr. Jenkins in Albany, Georgia for "distributing obscene material" was upheld by the Supreme Court of Georgia, the US Supreme court overturned the conviction: "Our own viewing of the film satisfies us that “Carnal Knowledge” could not be found … to depict sexual conduct in a patently offensive way. Nothing in the movie falls within … material which may constitutionally be found … "patently offensive" … While the subject matter of the picture is, in a broader sense, sex, and there are scenes in which sexual conduct including "ultimate sexual acts" is to be understood to be taking place, the camera does not focus on the bodies of the actors at such times. There is no exhibition whatever of the actors' genitals, lewd or otherwise, during these scenes. There are occasional scenes of nudity, but nudity alone is not enough to make material legally obscene… Appellant's showing of the film “Carnal Knowledge” is simply not the "public portrayal of hardcore sexual conduct for its own sake, and for the ensuing commercial gain" which we said was punishable…"[1]

The film received mixed reviews. Roger Ebert called it "clearly Mike Nichols' best film." Others were not so kind but there were more positive reviews than negative. Vincent Canby: "a nearly ideal collaboration of directorial and writing talents" that was "not only very funny, but in a casual way—in the way of something observed in a half-light—more profound than much more ambitious films." Gavin Millar: "Though not the last word on the subject, it's still a telling and unhysterical assault on male chauvinism; and if that's fashionable, it's not unwelcome." "The iciest, most merciless and most repellent major (and seriously intended) motion picture in a very long time." - Charles Champlin. "Basically a one-note story ... The characters do not change or learn; they do not even repeat their mistakes in very interesting ways." - Gene Siskel. "This movie says not merely that there are some people like these, but that this is it—that is, that this movie, in its own satirical terms, presents a more accurate view of men and women than conventional movies do. That may be the case, but the movie isn't convincing." - Pauline Kael.

“Carnal Knowledge” is sometimes referred to as a "coming of age film." But do people actually come of age when they seem to be incapable of maturing? It's a film that can make one examine and question the relationships in their lives. How long does one put up with a toxic person? How bad is someone's insecurity that they need constant, positive, reinforcement in their lives? “Carnal Knowledge” is a great film but not necessarily a good story.

The new 4K restoration will be running at the Film Forum in Manhattan from Sept. 2 - Sept. 8. Details on the Film Forum's website:

https://filmforum.org/film/carnal-knowledge

(At the September 7 screening, Mike Nichols biographer Mark Harris will introduce the film.)

BY LEE PFEIFFER

Kino Lorber has releaseda Blu-ray edition of  "The Secret War of Harry Frigg", a long overlooked and largely forgotten 1968 WWII comedy starring Paul Newman. The film''s release was sandwiched in Newman's career during a particularly productive time following the releases of "Cool Hand Luke" (which gained him an Oscar nomination), the critically acclaimed western "Hombre", his directorial debut with "Rachel, Rachel" (4 Oscar nominations) and his mega-hit "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid". "Frigg" is a completely lightweight affair done on the cheap with California locations substituting for Italy. The film casts Newman in his trademark role as an anti-Establishment wiseguy. When we first see him, he's a lowly private serving in Italy at the height of the Allied invasion. Frigg is a malcontent whose rebellious nature results in him spending most of his time in the brig. He's gained a reputation as an escape artist but never succeeds in staying free for very long. Frigg is summoned to meet General Homer Prentiss (James Gregory), who offers him an audacious deal. Seems that five Allied generals were captured by Italian troops in a Turkish bath. The Allies can't afford them to be interrogated for long and Prentiss wants Frigg to parachute behind enemy lines posing as a general in the hopes that he, too, will be captured. The scheme is to have Frigg imprisoned with the other generals and then develop an escape plan for all of them. Frigg agrees after working out some perks he will get from carrying out the high-risk plot. Upon landing in Italy, he is summarily captured as planned. He is taken to a lavish country villa where the other generals are being held. Frigg is pleasantly surprised to find that the Italian officer who serves as a warden, Col. Ferrucci (Vito Scotti), is a likeable, charming man who treats his prisoners as honored guests and lavishes them with amenities. Still, the real generals impose upon Frigg, who they think is their superior officer, to orchestrate an escape plan. However, Frigg becomes accustomed to Ferrucci's constant supply of gourmet food, fine wine and expensive cigars. He is even more enamored when he meets the owner of the villa, a beautiful countess named Francesca (Sylva Koscina). Frigg discovers a secret passageway that leads outside the compound but which also conveniently goes into Francesca's bedroom. Before long, he's also enjoying plenty of sexual perks. By the time Frigg is motivated to actually plan an escape, it's too late. A German officer (Werner Peters) arrives at the villa to announce that Italy has just surrendered and that German troops will now occupy positions formally held by Italian troops. He summarily takes charge of the prisoners and also arrests the hapless Ferrucci, who ironically had just been promoted to the rank of general. The group is taken from luxurious surroundings to a harsh prison camp where they are monitored constantly and deterred from escape by an electrified fence and a mine field. Nevertheless, Frigg is unfazed and sets about planning his most ambitious escape. 

"The Secret War of Harry Frigg" was directed by Jack Smight, a competent if workman-like director whose best film was the 1966 crime flick "Harper" which starred Paul Newman in one of his signature roles. Alas, their reunion doesn't present the same kind of payoff the first movie did. Aside from a weak screenplay, much of the blame for the film's failure to work lies with Newman himself. Instead of playing Frigg as a sophisticated con man, Newman portrays him as a blue collar simpleton from New Jersey whose only talents are conning the military brass and seducing women. The role of a virtual idiot does not suit Newman well. He was able to play a rough-around-the-edges  protagonist as boxer Rocky Graziano in the 1956 film "Somebody Up There Likes Me" because the character wasn't cartoonish. By 1968, however, Newman was an iconic screen presence and it was simply impossible to accept him as a lovable moron. The first half of the movie is pretty tepid but the second chapter improves significantly when Frigg and his companions are imprisoned by the Germans. With Newman giving a rare dud performance, the supporting cast carries the show and fortunately it includes some first rate second bananas: Charles Gray, John Williams, Tom Bosley and Andrew Duggan among them. The scene stealers are Vito Scotti and Werner Peters, both of whom deliver deft comedic performances. Sylva Koscina, one of the most charming Italian imports to Hollywood during this period, is largely used as window dressing and her character's reunion with Frigg at the film's finale seems as forced as it is absurd. "Frigg" is not without its modest pleasures but it never reaches the genuine laughter level found in the average episode of the similarly-themed "Hogan's Heroes". 

The Kino Lorber Blu-ray is a vast improvement over Universal's previous bare bones DVD release. It includes a fun commentary track by film historians by Nat Segaloff and Daniel Kremer as well as the original trailer.

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BY LEE PEIFFER

"The Rounders", the contemporary 1965 Western comedy, is available on Blu-ray from the Warner Archive. The film is primarily notable for the teaming of Glenn Ford and Henry Fonda, two estimable Hollywood stars who could be relied upon to play convincingly in both dark, somber dramas and frolicking comedies. "The Rounders" was directed and written by Burt Kennedy, who adapted a novel from by Max Evans. Kennedy was a veteran of big studio productions who worked his way from screenwriter to director. If he never made any indisputable classics, it can be said that he made a good many films that were top-notch entertainment. Among them: "Support Your Local Sheriff", "The War Wagon", "Hannie Caulder" and "The Train Robbers". While Westerns were Kennedy's specialty, he did have a prestigious achievement with his screenplay for Clint Eastwood's woefully under-praised 1990 film "White Hunter, Black Heart". It's not an insult to state that most of Kennedy's directorial efforts could be considered lightweight. They were not concerned with social issues and generally had a Hawksian emphasis on heroes who engaged in good-natured bantering ("The War Wagon" is the best example of this.) Those elements are in full display in "The Rounders" but the film never rises above the status of resembling an extended episode of a TV sitcom from the era. That isn't meant as a knock, considering how many good TV sitcoms were on the airwaves in 1965, but there is a rather lazy element to the production and one would suspect that an old pro like Kennedy probably knocked off the script over a long lunch. 

The film, set in contemporary Arizona, finds Ford and Fonda playing Ben Jones and "Howdy" Lewis (his real name is Marion, but he's too ashamed to admit it, which is a nice inside joke aimed at Fonda's old pal John Wayne, whose real name was Marion Morrison.) The two are middle-aged wranglers  who make ends meet by "breaking" and taming wild horses. It's a rough-and-tumble profession that inevitably results in them being tossed around like rag dolls as they ride atop bucking broncos. However, Ben and "Howdy" are still the best in their profession, although their meager wages have left them with no tangible assets beyond a beaten-up pickup truck. Local land baron Jim Ed Love (Chill Wills) hires them to spend the winter in a dilapidated cabin in the mountains in order to round up stray horses and keep them safe until spring. The assignment means enduring harsh weather and complete isolation, but the pair need the money so they accept. Since Fonda and Ford are the stars, there's no chance of this evolving into a "Brokeback Mountain" scenario and the two spend time gazing at a poster that depicts a ridiculously sanitized hula girl, a symbol of Ben's long-time dream of moving to a tropical island. Much of the script centers on their trials and tribulations in attempting to break a particularly rebellious roan horse that defies conforming to their commands. It gets personal with Ben, who decides that at the end of winter, he will buy the horse from Love for the simple pleasure of taking him to a soap factory. The two men survive the winter and head off (with roan horse in tow) to the big rodeo, a stop they make every year in order to supplement their income by winning bucking bronco riding contests. Along they way they have a chance encounter with two sisters who happen to be exotic dancers (Sue Ane Langdon and Hope Holiday). They are amiable bubbleheads but after the men have been in the mountains sans female companionship for many months, they can't resist attempting to woo them. The family-friendly  screenplay is quite timid when it comes to depicting adult sexual behavior. Ben and "Howdy" are understandably enticed by the vivacious sisters but they seem satiated by inducing them to join them in a moonlight skinny-dipping session, which is interrupted by a police raid. The climax finds the two partners attempting to use the unbreakable roan horse as a gimmick to lure local wranglers and riders to bet money they can best him. There's a bit of a con in their scheme, but as one might suspect, their plans go awry and they don't benefit from any ill-gotten gains. As you might also suspect, the roan horse earns Ben's respect and never makes it to that dreaded soap factory. 

That's pretty much the entire plot of "The Rounders", which is lightweight enough to resemble a celluloid wisp of smoke. If it's never boring, it's also never very engaging, as we keep expecting the script to provide some kind of creative or engaging plot device that never arrives. Still, it has its pleasures and Fonda and Ford exude real chemistry that elevates the proceedings substantially. There is also the wonder of the magnificent Arizona locations, a jaunty musical score by Jeff Alexander and a marvelous cast of reliable and familiar character actors that, in addition to the incomparable Chill Wills, includes Edgar Buchanan, Kathleen Freeman, Barton MacLane, Doodles Weaver and Denver Pyle. 

When the film was released, even MGM felt the production was rather lacking in commercial appeal. Village Voice critic Andrew Sarris, who gave the film some faint praise, justifiably took issue with the fact that the studio had buried "The Rounders" by placing it at the bottom of a double-feature with a forgettable teeny bopper musical, "Get Yourself a College Girl".  He said it must have been depressing for all involved to have a film headlining Glenn Ford and Henry Fonda play second fiddle to a movie that starred Mary Ann Mobley and Nancy Sinatra. He also praised Burt Kennedy, acknowledging that his often estimable contributions to the film business were generally overlooked. Unexpectedly, however, "The Rounders" proved to be a hit in its own right. It drew devoted fans in rural areas and on the drive-in circuit and ended up overshadowing the top-of-the-bill feature. It would even later be made into a television series starring Patrick Wayne, Ron Hayes and Chill Wills, reprising his role from the film. 

The Warner Archive Blu-ray does justice to Paul Vogel's impressive cinematography by providing a truly impressive and all-around gorgeous Blu-ray transfer. The release also includes the original trailer.  

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By Nicholas Anez

In 1981, United Artists released True Confessions, a Robert Chartoff and Irwin Winkler production directed by Ulu Grosbard. Robert De Niro and Robert Duvall star in the movie. It is about faith, hope, repentance and salvation. It is also about greed, corruption, pornography and murder.

The setting is Los Angeles of 1948. This is the City of Angels as conceived by John Gregory Dunne in his superb 1977 novel of the same title. Dunne was an accomplished novelist as well as a literary critic and a notable writer of non-fiction; his 1998 book, Monster: Living Off the Big Screen, is an invaluable account of the trials and tribulations of writing a screenplay in Hollywood. True Confessions is certainly his best novel and, together with Joan Didion (aka Mrs. Dunne), he adapted it to the screen. Didion was an equally fine novelist and was also known for her acerbic essays on California culture; in 1972, Didion and Dunne wrote the screenplay for Didion’s acclaimed 1970 novel Play It as It Lays. The screenplay for True Confessions naturally condenses the novel, which was 341 pages in its first edition, and eliminates many incidents as well as characters. Nevertheless, the movie still fully captures the essence of the novel. Actually, the screenplay improves upon the novel in one respect, possibly due to Didion’s involvement. Dunne seems to have written the novel in part as a form of therapy regarding his Irish-Catholic upbringing; by the novel’s midpoint, many of the characters seem to blend together as hopeless, cynical sinners. The movie is less critical of its main characters without softening the impact of the narrative. Significantly, the movie still captures Dunne’s insightful portrait of post-war Los Angeles. This is a city in which moral and spiritual decay flourish. And it is a city in which the excessively brutal murder of a young woman symbolizes the depravity that permeates every facet of its superficially glittering façade.

The film, like the novel, uses the factual Black Dahlia murder case of 1947 as a catalyst for the plot but it is primarily the story of the two Spellacy brothers and how their relationship becomes entwined with the murder of the woman whom the press calls “the virgin tramp.” Monsignor Desmond Spellacy (Robert De Niro) is an ambitious priest in the Catholic Church who hopes to rise someday to the position of cardinal even if it means neglecting his sacred vows. Detective Sergeant Tom Spellacy (Robert Duvall) is an embittered detective in the Los Angeles Police Department who is disgusted by the pervasive corruption and by the fact that he was once a part of it. Both Des and Tom are dealing with guilt which accounts in part for their strained relationship. Des has perhaps been repressing his guilt but as the story progresses it will come to the surface and he will have to confront it. Tom has lived with his guilt since he was a young vice cop and now sees an opportunity to expiate it. When the dissected body of Lois Fazenda is found in a vacant lot, it sets into motion a series of events that will involve both Tom and Des. Tom is in charge of investigating the murder while Des has a peripheral connection to the victim. Neither Tom nor Des initially realize it but the murder will propel them on a collision course.

This is a complex film and, as the story unfolds, it expands to include the compromises that individuals in the Los Angeles Police Department and in the Catholic Church must make to exist in a morally corrupt environment. Representative of this corruption is Jack Amsterdam (Charles Durning), a wealthy construction magnate and a respected member of the Catholic populace. Amsterdam also has a disreputable past of which both Tom and Des are aware. Nevertheless, Des has a history of awarding contracts for building projects within the diocese to Amsterdam in return for financial savings for the Church. It infuriates Tom that Des disregards Amsterdam’s unsavory past because of his wealth. However, Tom doesn’t know that Des is on the verge of terminating the Church’s association with Amsterdam. Des hopes to soften the jolt by awarding Amsterdam with a ceremony honoring him as Catholic Layman of the Year. Meanwhile, Tom’s investigation takes a surprising turn when Amsterdam’s name appears among the victim’s acquaintances. This increases his determination to solve the crime, regardless of how it may involve his brother.

Ulu Grosbard initially achieved fame as a Broadway theater director. He received two Tony nominations for Best Direction, in 1965 for Frank Gilroy’s The Subject Was Roses and in 1977 for David Mamet’s American Buffalo. Regarding his film career, some critics accused him of lacking an individual style as well as an artistic approach to the medium of film that would distinguish his movies. This may be due in part to the fact that, though his film career spanned three decades, he only directed seven movies (compared to eight Broadway plays), all of which are different in style and genre. He began his Hollywood career as an assistant director in the early 1960s. His first directorial credit was the film version of The Subject Was Roses (1968), which proved that he was equally adept with film as he was with the stage. He followed this with an interesting but pretentious misfire, Who Is Harry Kellerman and Why Is He Saying Those Terrible Things About Me? (1971). However, his third film, Straight Time (1978), is another underrated gem. True Confessions followed and is undoubtedly his best film. He followed this with a modest romantic drama, Falling in Love (1984), also with De Niro.

Grosbard distinctly demonstrates cinematic expertise with True Confessions. He imbues the movie with a neo-noir atmosphere, though this may not be initially apparent from the film’s beginning. The movie opens in 1962 as the elderly Spellacy brothers reunite in a dilapidated church in the desert in Palm Springs. This will lead to the flashback to 1948 and the main narrative which begins with a wedding in an opulent church in Los Angeles. The stark difference between the rundown church in the desert and the multi-million dollar cathedral is readily apparent. Equally apparent is the difference between the humble appearance of the elderly desert priest and the luxuriously attired young city ecclesiastic, especially since they are the same person. The reason for this transformation, which the public and the press labeled his disgraceful downfall, is the heart of the story that follows.

Grosbard directs the film in a restrained manner, excluding any flamboyance which might distract from his emphasis on the characterizations of Des and Tom Spellacy. His direction includes several memorable sequences. The restaurant scene begins with Tom’s amusing response to an uppity maitre’d and ends with his angry confrontation with Amsterdam in front of an embarrassed Des. The Catholic Layman Award ceremony simmers with suppressed tension and climaxes with an even more violent altercation between Tom and Amsterdam. The confessional scene in which both Amsterdam and Tom furiously and unjustly lash out at Des instead of one another bristles with unbounded rage while eliciting sympathy for the beleaguered monsignor. And there are some quieter scenes which are notable for their sensitivity to the characters. The diner scene in which Desmond tries to express to Tom his regret for the course of his life reveals the latent tenderness between the brothers, an emotion which both are unable to express. The abandoned military base in which Tom discovers the sight of the murder is shocking in its underlying anguish for the savagely-murdered victim. Even more sorrowful is the scene in which Tom tries to console Lois Fazenda’s parents as they remember her innocent childhood full of hopes and dreams. Through scenes such as these, Grosbard gradually builds the emotional content of the story as well as the tension until the explosive penultimate scene outside the courthouse. The director received some criticism for the brevity of this scene, for not showing Amsterdam’s comeuppance and for not filming a more dynamic solution to the murder. But this would have distracted from his main theme which is why he returns to the desert church for the highly poignant finale.

BY TODD GARBARINI

The year 1976 was a phenomenal time for films that went into production. George Lucas’s space opera, Star Wars, began principal photography in March; Steven Spielberg, fresh off the success of Jaws, was given carte blanche to bring Close Encounters of the Third Kind to the screen and began shooting in May; and Dario Argento, who became emboldened by the financial success of his latest and arguably best film to date, Profundo Rosso (known in the U.S. as Deep Red), embarked upon Suspiria, a murder mystery involving a dance academy hiding in plain sight while doubling as a home to a coven of witches, which began filming in July. Suspiria is just one of a handful of films directed by Signor Argento over a fifty-plus year career, and it’s also being showcased in full-blown 4K Digital Cinema Projection as part of the sinisterly titled Beware of Dario Argento: A 20-Film Retrospective at the Walter Reade Theater in New York City now through June 29^th. You can see the full calendar at this link here. The one omission from the roster of titles is his 2009 thriller Giallo, starring Adrien Brody, which was stopped from being released due to the actor’s failure to be paid for his role until he successfully sued the producers.

Beginning on Friday, June 17^th, the first film shown in the retrospective was his debut outing, the phenomenal The Bird With the Crystal Plumage from 1970, lensed by straordinario cineasta Vittorio Storaro, on a double bill with his equally fine thriller Tenebre/Tenebrae from 1982. Bird is amazing in that it was the first film that he ever directed…ever. There were no interminable student films made prior to it. Somehow, following his years as a newspaper film critic and having contributed to the 1968 western Once Upon a Time in the West, he made a visually dazzling cinematic yarn loosely inspired by Fredric Brown’s 1949 novel The Screaming Mimi (itself made into the 1958 film of the same title by Gerd Oswald starring Anita Ekberg), though there are also some similarities to the creepy 1949 “Birdsong for a Murderer” episode of the Inner Sanctum radio drama that starred the late great Boris Karloff.

The standout in this series is clearly Suspiria, with its amazingly bright color palette and virtuoso camerawork. Also of note, at least for die-hard Argento completists, is his sole non-thriller/horror outing, the 1973 Italian comedy set during the Italian Revolution of 1848 called The Five Days (Le Cinque Giornate) shot by cinematographer Luigi Kuveiller who would go on to lens Deep Red (Profondo Rosso) (1975). While available on Youtube in Italian, this is an extremely rare presentation of the film with English subtitles – restored in 4K to boot. It’s also quite funny; not on the level of the Pink Panther films, but enough to elicit audible chuckles. The seldom-seen Inferno (1980), his beautiful follow-up to Suspiria, will also be shown, the sole title to be showcased in 35mm.

The Italian Maestro appeared in-person at several of the screenings over the weekend, most notably on Sunday in a Q & A session emceed by Argento expert Maitland McDonagh, the author of the excellent book Broken Mirrors/Broken Minds: The Dark Dreams of Dario Argento, originally published in 1991. Following the sold-out screening of his 1985 film Phenomena, a phantasmagorical fairytale/murder mystery that was presented to an audience of mostly younger fans who, judging by their applause and reactions to the film, were new to it. The plot of Phenomena has long been the subject of ridicule and derision by critics and fans alike since its initial release. The inevitable complaints about the film range from the bad dubbing and stiff performances. If the film’s title does not sound familiar, that could be attributed to the fact that Phenomena was severely cut by 34 minutes and retitled Creepers when it opened in the States on Friday, August 30, 1985. Fortunately, the 116-minute cut of the film was shown. Signor Argento responded through an interpreter to Ms. Donagh’s questions about the film.

Maitland McDonagh: I've always thought that Phenomena was extraordinary because it's a story that is sort of both a cross between the operatic and the fairy tale. Dario, what were the origins of Phenomena?

Dario Argento: I was on vacation with my mother on a small island, and we were listening to Radio Monte Carlo. There was a person telling a story about how in Germany they had discovered that by examining insects, they could discover when a person had died. I was very struck by this and when I returned to Rome, I went to see an entomologist and asked him how this was possible. He told me, for example, that if somebody fired a gun off in a room full of insects, that the insects would die. He also explained that for a whole series of reasons, that it would be possible to identify a person’s exact date of death using insects, which is described in-depth in the film.

MM: The insects are one of the most remarkable parts of this film. Working with them must have been a great challenge. How did you work with your crew and your on-set insect experts to get the insects to almost be their own characters in their own right?

DA: For this movie, I needed thousands of flies. I rented a small theater and completely sealed it off. I put some fly larvae in there and every week I would throw some raw meat in the room. Eventually, after several weeks, they turned into a mass of flies that just went after the actor the way that we had intended and that’s how we shot the end of the film. The insects in the scenes with Donald Pleasence, who plays the entomologist, were all manipulated by insect handlers on the set and through editing.

MM: One of the things that really struck me after having viewed this film after many years, was that it tells the story of two abandoned females. First, there is Jennifer Corvino played by Jennifer Connelly, whose mother leaves the family on a Christmas morning, and her father is currently away shooting a movie in the Philippines, unable to be reached by telephone. The other female is Inga, the chimpanzee, who loses her friend, played wonderfully by Donald Pleasence. 

DA: Tanga, the chimpanzee who plays Inga in the film, suffered greatly from the loss of her friend (the Donald Pleasence character) halfway through shooting. She escaped from the set. We were working and shooting right near a large forest, and she went into that forest for almost three days. As you can well imagine, she became very hungry and so the forest rangers put out some food and they were able to lure her back out. Tanga was a remarkable creature; I would tell her what to do and she would simply do it. I recall that in the film there is a scene where she must break up the wooden slats on the shutters in order to get into her friend’s house. I showed her how to do it, and she did it exactly how I showed her. Jennifer Corvino is also a very sad character. Even though a lot of her classmates must think that she’s so lucky to have this famous father for an actor, she’s very much alone and off by herself. Because of this, she becomes prey to a very evil person. This is the story that I wanted to tell, the loneliness of a young girl. This was a girl that was my daughter’s age at the time. Jennifer Connelly was thirteen when she played this role, and she did it with a tremendous amount of elegance.

MM: I also love the way that you use the Swiss locations in the film, especially the trees and the wind. They really work well in conveying the mindset of the characters and the larger forces of nature that are at work.

DA: I have the character of the professor talk about the foehn, the wind in the Swiss Alps, with the link into the insects. At the very start of the film, where we see the trees and the wind, there is this little house set against this vast landscape. It looks like something right out of a fairy tale, sort of like a gingerbread house. This young Danish tourist who is accidentally abandoned by her tourist bus, is all alone in the midst of this panorama of forests, mountains and trees. There’s this awful thing that is about to happen. The girl who plays her is my first daughter, Fiore Argento. I really studied for this film very thoroughly. I put a lot of time and effort into it. I did my best to create this, as you so put it, operatic fairytale. I did it with great love, and I especially appreciate the wonderful performance by Jennifer Connelly and what she had to offer. She was thirteen years-old when we shot the film. This was her first big movie, and I was just dazzled by her beauty, her intelligence, and her grace.

Dark Glasses

The evening was rounded out with the premiere of his new film Dark Glasses (Occhiali Neri), his first film in ten years, and while it fails to crack the Top Ten Best Argento Flicks list, it’s still worth seeing in a theater. It was shot in mid-2021 in Italian and has English subtitles. Written over twenty years ago and consigned to a drawer in 2002 after the financier went bankrupt and ended up in prison, Dark Glasses was resurrected by his daughter, actress Asia Argento, who stumbled across the script, read it, and urged him to make it. Described as a “tender thriller”, this is highly misleading as there is a fair amount of brutal violence and explicit gore, far more than anything seen in Profondo Rosso, Suspiria, Tenebrae, Phenomena, or even Opera – arguably the last truly great film he has made – the films often cited as his most violent and most censored. If I had to compare Dark Glasses to anything in his filmography of the past 35 years following Opera, it would be Sleepless (Non Ho Sonno) (2001).

Diana (Ilenia Pastorelli) is a matter-of-fact prostitute who finds herself blinded in an accident caused by a maniac out to kill women in her line of work. Her misfortune puts her in contact with a young orphaned Asian boy named Chin (Andrea Zhang) as well as a woman named Rita from the Association for the Blind and Visually Impaired (Asia Argento, in a refreshingly realistic and subdued performance, with her own voice to boot!) who works with people to help them get on with their lives. There is also a seeing-eye dog who comes to the rescue to help our protagonists out of danger. While some of the plot points feel a little silly and predictable, the film possesses an extremely atmospheric score by Arnaud Rebotini. Missing from the film are the very directorial flourishes that fans have come to love and expect from the Maestro’s golden era, his genius method of cinematically propelling a story forward with astonishing set pieces: there are no cameras booring into brains or over buildings, or excessive jump-cuts, etc. The film boasts a decent performance from Ilenia Pastorelli and young Andrea Zhang whose characterization of Chin is ultimately sympathetic as the Mandarin youth the audience roots for. One of the director’s shortest films at just 90 minutes give or take, the lack of visual splendor may be a result of the director’s getting on in years – he is currently 81 – and unwillingness to perform time-consuming set-ups. Or it may be having to make a film on a smaller budget.

Once wonders what fate has befallen the director’s as-yet-unfilmed project, The Sandman, first announce in the fall of 2014. As of this writing, there is still no word on it, however in the meantime, Dark Glasses fits the bill as a bright spot in the director’s later filmography.

By Hank Reineke

Village of the Damned is the cinematic moniker of John Wyndham’s far less exploitative titled 1957 novel The Midwich Cuckoos. Wyndham’s writing specialty was science-fiction: he graduated from contributing short stories to such colorful genre magazines as Wonder Stories and Amazing Stories to publishing full-fledged novels. Though his stories were occasionally adapted for such television dramas as Alfred Hitchcock Presents, his cinematic credits were relatively few. Village of the Damned is perhaps his best remembered movie tie-in, but a 1951 novel was also filmed and subsequently released as Day of the Triffids (Allied Artists, 1962).

Village of the Damned was originally conceived to film in Hollywood, and American writer Stirling Silliphant was tapped to compose the screenplay for the movie – which was to be, more or less, a faithful adaptation of Wyndham’s novel. Though Silliphant had accrued a few film credits, he was primarily regarded as a television writer, having contributed a score of 1950s teleplays to a variety of programs ranging from The Mickey Mouse Club to Perry Mason to Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

Wolf Rilla, a German-born novelist but long-time a resident of London, was tapped to direct Village of the Damned. Rilla’s background too was mostly in television production, having written or directed a score of TV comedies and dramas over the span of a dozen years. Rilla was approached to direct Village when studio accountants deemed it far more economical to film in England rather than Hollywood. Rilla thought Silliphant’s scenario was workable. But he also thought the Yank’s grasp of contemporary British customs and vernacular was lacking. So Rilla and the film’s British producer Ronald Kinnoch (the latter writing under the pseudonym of “George Barclay”) reworked the original script to better authenticate and Anglicize.

The rewrite was successful in that regard. The atmosphere surrounding Village of the Damned is nothing less than stiff-lipped British in tone. In 2022 looking back, one could easily mistake Village as a Hammer Film Production (ala the Quatermass series).  Several prominent cast members of Village, including Barbara Shelley and Michael Gwynn, would be familiar to Hammer Films devotees, their faces having graced screens in such productions as The Camp on Blood Island, The Revenge of Frankenstein, Quatermass and the Pit, Dracula, Prince of Darkness, Rasputin, the Mad Monk, Scars of Dracula and The Gorgon. The venerable British actor George Sanders, the former star of The Saint film series, is fittingly at the center of the mystery. And there’s plenty of mystery about…

The tiny, sleepy hamlet of Midwich is the “village” referenced in the film’s title.  Nothing much ever happened in Midwich until, for an odd four-hour interval, time not only stops but is seemingly lost. The townspeople, for reasons unknown, all fall into unconsciousness.  Initially there doesn’t appear there was any significant fall-out from this strange time-warping aberration, but several months later every village woman of childbearing age - married, courting or celibate - finds themselves pregnant.  This collective simultaneously give birth to children unusual in both manner and appearance. The children, whom some suspect are the product of some strange “impulse from the universe,” are uniformly uber-intelligent, gifted beyond their years. While polite to their parents and other adults, the children also strangely distant, unusually formal and unemotional in manner.

The children are also endowed with several peculiar special gifts – not the least of which is the ability to read the minds of the adults. This ability has unnerved those members of the community who are forced to interact with these mysterious youngsters.  It’s soon revealed these children are, as suspected, the offspring of alien beings. They have been imbedded in the village to study the minds and culture of their earth-bound galactic neighbors. For what purpose? Well, no one is sure, but the worst is feared.  Once the British military gets involved their intelligence agents report the residents of Midwich are not alone.  Reports are coming in of similar alien birth-takeovers amongst rural Eskimo populations as well as countries sitting behind the Iron Curtain. 

Gordon Zellaby (George Sanders) and his wife Anthea (Barbara Shelley) are the parents of one such “special” child, David (Martin Stephens). David seems to be the spokesman of the children. He also is not shy in demonstrating the bad habit of telepathically coercing those he perceives as enemies to take their own lives.  The situation worsens when the school-age alien brood make the decision to abandon Midwich to imbed more widely among the populace.  The town elders and military realize they can’t allow these aliens, semi- contained in Midwich, to spread further afield.  But how does one plot against those with the ability to read every thought that crosses the minds of those wishing them destruction?

It’s a neat premise and Village of the Damned was a surprising hit for MGM, the B-film’s appeal amongst cinemagoers and critics alike having caught the studio off guard. When studio brass realized they had a commercial steamroller on their hands, the publicity department was free to go full throttle. MGM began to take out full page ads in the trades, boasting that “Village of the Damned Saturation Openings” were rollin-up “Sensational Grosses!” This wasn’t mere ballyhoo, it was the truth. So it wasn’t terribly surprising when MGM announced a follow-up feature was already in consideration.

Anton Leader was chosen to direct this sequel Children of the Damned. Similar to Rilla, Leader was best known for his directorial work on television, not in motion pictures. In fact, following a successful career in the 1940s as a producer of radio dramas, Leader had worked almost exclusively on the small screen. He would subsequently helm an episode or two of practically every iconic television series of the 1950s and 1960s. Leader had left the U.S. for Europe in February 1962, hoping to set up his own production company on the continent. This dream was deferred when Leader was asked to direct Children of the Damned and given a nifty $400,000 budget to do so.

Having worked almost exclusively in the penny-pinching television industry, Leader gladly accepted. He would tell a journalist from Variety that it had been good to get away from TV since a big screen filmmaker was “more respectfully regraded” and given more time and latitude to do a “respectable job.” The problem was Leader envisioned Children of the Damned as an “art picture.” The brass at MGM Britain was less interested in making a profit, not a point. They wanted Children of the Damned be a coattail-riding horror film, which wasn’t the film as delivered.

Variety recorded Leader’s chagrin when the director was first made aware of the “advertising campaign mapped out by MGM […] lurid billing as an exploitation special.” Indeed, the poster art played up only a ghastly sensationalism: “They Come To Conquer the World… So young, so innocent, so utterly deadly!” A second ad mat was no more constrained (nor honest) in its carnival-barking: “Beware the Eyes that Paralyze! All-New Suspense Shocker… even more Eerie and Unearthly than Village of the Damned!”

In truth there’s very little eeriness and only a bit of suspense in the film. Children isn’t a bad film, but it is a curious follow-up, one that wildly detours from the premise of the original. There’s only a smattering of sci-fi elements. The “children” number only six in this sequel and their provenance is multi-national. The children are, again, borne by unwed women “never touched.” All six are brilliant, each possessing “intellect beyond belief.” It’s this reason that makes them of great scientific interest to Dr. Tom Llewellyn (Ian Hendry), a psychologist and Dr. David Neville (Alan Bader), a geneticist. They suggest a UNESCO program should be commissioned to study the children.

The problem is that the children do not wish to be studied. They escape from their respective embassies to gather inside the bowels of an old church. There was no need for them to proactively discuss this decision amongst each other – or, at least, not in the usual oral method. Since they communicate with one another through telepathy, they already share a communal knowledge base. They have no separate nor distinct personalities and mostly, if not exclusively, communicate their wishes to be left alone through an intermediary they control through hypnotism.

A sector of both the scientific establishment and military believe it would be best to “destroy” the children, believing them to be the spearhead of an invasion of aliens. But the army discovers the children are well-equipped to defend themselves against any aggressive action. Unlike the Village children, this new group of moppets choose only to use their telepathic energies towards their own defense. They’re not interested in causing harm to anyone, even as the bowels beneath their church sanctuary are wired with explosives.

Children is, without doubt, a different animal than Village. John Briley, the U.S. born screenwriter would contribute an original screenplay for the sequel, one only loosely based on the premise of the Wyndham novel. Though early in his career, Briley was no hack merely trying to get along by writing B-pictures. In 1983, as the writer of Ghandi, Briley was awarded an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay.

But the folks going to the cinema to catch Children of the Damned wanted a horror film, and no doubt felt cheated upon exiting. This film was more of a preachy “co-existence not no-existence” exercise. Most reviews of the film were critical of the movie’s high-minded and obvious aspiration as being experienced as a “message film.” One critic thought the concocted scenario was simply too precious. The filmmakers were attempting to endow the film “with moral significance […] heavy-handed, unnecessary and too pretentious an aim for so relatively modest a production venture.”

Although Children of the Damned was Leader’s last feature film of significance, the British trades were reporting the novelist/director had already reworked Christopher Monig’s 1956 mystery novel The Burned Man into a screen treatment, pitching the idea of bringing it to the screen to Hammer’s James Carreras.  That project would not happen, for better or worse, and Leader soon returned to TV directing. Children of the Damned is more of a curio today, but Village of the Damned has enjoyed lasting notoriety, even having been remade by Horror-film maestro John Carpenter in 1995. But while Carpenter’s film easily bests any of the antiquated optical effects of the 1960 version, Rilla’s original remains the more iconic.

Village of the Damned and Children of the Damned are made available as BD-ROMS through the Warner Archive Collection. Village is presented in 1080p High Definition 16 x 9 1:78.1 and in DTS HD Master Audio Mono. Children has been made available in 1080p High Definition 16 x 9 1:85.1 and in DTS HD Master Audio Mono. Both films are relativity sparse with extras, though both offer each film’s theatrical trailer and removable English subs. The only true “special features” is Steve Haberman’s commentary track on Village and screenwriter John Briley’s commentary on Children.

Click here to order "Village of the Damned" Blu-ray from Amazon

Click here to order "Children of the Damned" Blu-ray from Amazon

BY LEE PFEIFFER

When it was announced that producer Elliott Kastner had succeeded in signing both Marlon Brando and Jack Nicholson for the 1976 Western, "The Missouri Breaks", the project was viewed as a "can't miss" at the international box-office. This would be Brando's first film since his back-to-back triumphs in "The Godfather" and "Last Tango in Paris" and Nicholson had just won the Best Actor Oscar for "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest". The two Hollywood icons were actually neighbors who lived next door to each other, but they had never previously teamed for a film project. Kastner, whose prowess as a street-wise guy who used unorthodox methods to get films off the ground, had used a clever tactic to sign up both superstars: he told each man that the other had already committed to the project, when, in fact, neither had. With Brando and Nicholson aboard, Kastner hired a respected director, Arthur Penn, who had worked with Brando ten years before on "The Chase". He then chose an acclaimed novelist, Thomas McGuane, who had recently made his directorial debut with "92 in the Shade", to write the screenplay. What emerged from all these negotiations was seemingly a boxoffice blockbuster in the making. Alas, it was not to be. Upon its release, critics emphasized the "Miss" aspect "Can't Miss" of the "The Missouri Breaks", with most reviewers citing the opinion that the film was a long, slow slog interrupted up a hammy, over-the-top comic performance from Brando, who Penn apparently exercised little control over when it came to the actor's penchant for improvisation. 

The film opens with cattle baron David Braxton (John McLiam) "hosting" a lynching for a rapt audience of his ranch hands. Seems the intended victim has rustled some of his cattle and McLiam is determined to put an end to the thievery, which has reduced his overall business income by 7% per year- a statistic he never tires of griping about. McLiam's hardball tactics against the rustlers don't sit well with his otherwise adoring daughter Jane (Kathleen Lloyd), an independent-thinking young woman who has acted as her father's most trusted companion since her mother left him for another man years ago. The victim of the lynching was a member of a rustling gang headed by Tom Logan (Jack Nicholson), who befriends Braxton on the pretense that he wants to purchase a plot of land on his property to establish a small farm. In reality, he wants to utilize the land to temporarily house stolen horses which his gang has gone to Canada to obtain in a daring operation against the Royal Canadian Mounted Police's stables. Meanwhile, Jane- who lives a life of relative isolation on her father's estate-is immediately smitten by the charismatic Tom Logan and when she insists that he become her first lover, he finds it impossible to resist. Thus, Logan is now in a romantic relationship with a girl who is the daughter of a man he is deceiving and stealing from. David Braxton goes all-out in his obsession with thwarting the rustlers. He hires Lee Clayton, a renowned "regulator", which is a polite term for bounty hunter. Clayton is an eccentric man with a bizarre personality who speaks in a heavy Irish brogue, but also at times utilizes other accents. He is at times charming and amusing and at other times fiery-tempered and unpredictable. Upon being introduced to Tom Logan by Braxton, Clayton immediately suspects he is not a farmer, but a rustler. The two men play a cat-and-mouse game, each one employing double-entendres in their conversations. When Logan's men return from Canada empty-handed after being thwarted by the Mounties, Clayton becomes an omnipresent figure, observing their every move from afar through binoculars. One by one, he systematically murders the members of the rustling gang, always preceding their horrendous deaths by chatting with the doomed men in disarmingly friendly tones. Clayton becomes so frightening a figure that even Braxton becomes intimidated by him and attempts to fire him, but Clayton says the money is irrelevant and that once he commits to a job, he sees it through. The stage is set for a mano-a-mano confrontation between Logan and Clayton that both men realize will see only one emerge alive.

It's easy to see why "The Missouri Breaks" didn't catch on with audiences. Much of the film moves at a glacial pace, but McGuane's script is intelligent and the dialogue often witty. Brando's outrageous antics easily overshadow anyone else in the film, even though his appearances are fleeting and the lion's share of the screen time is dominated by Nicholson. Brando seems to be having a field day and there seems to be no limit to his improvisations. (At one point he is dressed as a Chinese peasant and in another he is inexplicably attired as a woman, complete with apron and bonnet.) He also has a penchant for making some uncomfortably romantic overtures to his horse. Thus, the character of Clayton proves to be a distraction from the otherwise somber, realistic tone of the film. Nevertheless, there is no doubt that Brando's appearances are both amusing and somewhat mesmerizing, even if out of place. The movie boasts a first rate supporting cast that includes Harry Dean Stanton, Frederic Forrest and a young and slim Randy Quaid. Kathleen Lloyd holds her own against the considerable star power of Brando and Nicholson, which could not have been an easy feat. Alas, stardom was not to follow for her, though she still occasionally appears as a guest star in popular TV series. Where the movie disappoints the most is in its climax. The audience has been led to expect a memorable confrontation between Logan and Clayton, but when one of them gets the upper hand on the other, it's done very abruptly and rather unimaginatively, leaving the viewer feeling cheated. The movie boasts a low-key but appropriately atmospheric score by John Williams and impressive cinematography by Michael Butler. 

After "The Missouri Breaks", Brando seemed uninspired and went on automatic pilot in terms of his film roles. He was paid a relative fortune for what amounted to extended cameos in "Superman" and "Apocalypse Now", and while he was a significant physical presence in both films, no one made the case that he exerted himself dramatically. He would find occasional enthusiasm in certain roles (an Oscar-nominated turn in the little-seen  "A Dry White Season" and a hilarious performance recreating his Don Corleone role for "The Freshman"), but his enthusiasm seemed to diminish in direct proportion to his increase in weight. Sadly, he would never totally recapture the mojo he once enjoyed as a screen icon. Yet, time has been kind to "The Missouri Breaks". The film's literate script and direction are a reminder of an era in which such projects would be green-lit by major studios who appealed to the intellect of movie audiences. Today, the project would never have seen fruition no matter who starred in it.  

"The Missouri Breaks" is currently streaming on Amazon Prime and Kanopy.

CLICK HERE TO ORDER THE FILM ON BLU-RAY FROM AMAZON  

BY DARREN ALLISON

It’s certainly great to see Chris' Soundtrack Corner back on the pages of Cinema Retro. It’s been a little while, but rest assured, Christian Riedrich and his team have been hard at work and it’s always worth the wait.

CSC has released no less than three brand new soundtracks, all of which are essentially their world premiere debuts. Sure, if you deep long and hard enough you may discover an odd track or a popular main title that has previously surfaced here and there or perhaps on some obscure library compilation – but hey, good luck with that search, should you wish to undertake it.

Across these three releases you will certainly unearth a delightful range of styles and moods as well as sampling various flavours of the exotic Mediterranean.

Daniele Patucchi’s Il Sorriso Del Ragno (1971) (CSC 031) sets us on our way rather nicely.

This rarely seen 1971 Italian film (translated as, The Spider's Smile) was recognised more by its international title, Web of Deception. It was the only film directed by Massimo Castellani, a more established second unit director who had enjoyed greater success as a script supervisor. Based on a script written by Italo Gasperini and Armando Morandi, with dialogue by Fabio Piccioni, Il Sorriso Del Ragno, this is a crime thriller disguised as a roaming travelogue. With locales ranging from France to multiple regions of Greece, all of which was captured beautifully by cinematographer Giorgio Tonti,– it was pretty much guaranteed that both cast and crew would enjoy their opportunity in the sun- soaked regions.

The story involves private investigator Tony Driscoll; a ladies' man perhaps, but he also has a good reputation when it involves recovering stolen goods. So when thieves make off with $5 million in jewels from a French bank, Driscoll is hired to get them back. However, certain questions point fingers at Driscoll and the film’s plot makes the most of this twist up until its conclusion.

A self-taught musician, composer Daniele Patucchi was born in 1945 in Turin. By the time he began writing and performing music professionally, he was adept in a wide range of styles, from jazz and rock to classical and displayed a certain amount of flair when it came to digital synthesizers – all of which served him well over 35 movie soundtrack scores. His music for Il Sorriso Del Ragno is based around five central musical styles. Three of them- Main, Suspense and Action themes- occupy the majority of the score's structure and serve to enhance the adventure, tension, and intrigue as the story unfolds. Additional musical motifs signify more regional themes and local instrumentation. Acoustic guitar and Greek mandolin in particular feature prominently and work to wonderful effect throughout.

Il Sorriso Del Ragno is really enjoyable little score. There’s plenty of variation, but never too much. It never spills over into a heavy clash of styles, and retains a comforting, common thread. Christian Riedrich’s pin sharp production and remastering by Stefan Betke is what we have come to expect. Only three tracks have been previously released. Additionally, five tracks that were not used in the movie have been added as bonus tracks: alternate or varied versions composed for the movie or re-edited for inclusion on one of CAM's promotional library music albums. The CD includes a 12-page illustrated booklet by Aletta Heinsohn and features detailed, exclusive notes on the film and its score by film music journalist Randall D. Larson.

Chris' Soundtrack Corner’s second score release is another by Daniele Patucchi, Sans Sommation (1973) (CSC 032). This was a much harder hitting German-French-Italian co-production (released in the UK as Without Appeal and Internationally as Without Warning). Made by French director Bruno Gantillon, Sans Sommation was a tougher, straight-shooting thriller which again presented composer Daniele Patucchi the opportunity to demonstrate his diverse range of talents.

Maurice Ronet stars as Raoul Maury, a former Police inspector who made a seriously bad career move when he attempted to take down the son of a prominent politician on drug charges. As a result, Maury finds himself demoted to the role of archivist in the police records department. When it is discovered that Maury bears a striking resemblance to Lt. Kieffer, an associate of wanted mercenary Pierre Capra, he is reinstated in order to impersonate Kieffer in order to get close to Capra and assassinate him. However, conflicting acts of suspicion and trust will all head for collision and loyalties will become strained and tested to the full.

Patucchi's film compositions were plentiful throughout the 1970s and '80s. Sans Sommation is one of more than 35 European movie soundtracks he composed throughout the 1970s and '80s. His gift for tuneful melodies served him well in this score. Its opening theme in particular offers a dusty, smooth Jazz trumpet and for the first couple of tracks the ride seems distinctly mellow and easy-going. But don’t get fooled, by the time ‘Elikiller’ kicks in we are on much tougher, off road territory and the bold, brassy action cues are allowed to take full flight. There’s a good degree of suspenseful tracks, too, that really build nicely along with some very cool Hammond organ playing on display. The single central theme is a brisk, high-energy, driving motif that continuously helps the score race forward.

The album is produced again by Christian Riedrich and mastered this time by Manmade Mastering – all of which results in a big, fully rounded sound. The main score consists of 12 tracks with 3 bonus tracks included. The CD is accompanied by a 12-page illustrated booklet designed by Aletta Heinsohn and featuring detailed, exclusive notes on the film and its score by film music journalist Randall D. Larson, who deconstructs the score's elements in deeper detail.

Finally, Ingrid Sulla Strada (1973) (CSC 036 rounds up this excellent trilogy of scores and sees a welcome release from composer Carlo Savina. Ingrid Sulla Strada is an Italian psychological drama written and directed by Brunello Rondi. Rondi was arguably better known as a script-writer and script consultant, a reputation which had lead him to several collaborations with Federico Fellini. Rondi's directorial debut came more than a decade earlier in 1961 with the film Una vita violenta (aka Violent Life). Rondi went on to make a number of psychological/sexual dramas of which Ingrid Sulla Strada was one of the last.

Ingrid Sulla Strada is a drama in which young Ingrid (Swedish model and actress Janet Agren) leaves her home after being raped by her father. After her arrival in Rome, Ingrid, with little option, slips into prostitution. Life is not easy for Ingrid and soon her life begins to spiral out of control and eventually leads to her suicide. Ingrid Sulla Strada is not an easy film to find, and the limited amount of footage revealed within the trailer tends to suggest a rather bleak narrative and a Fellini- influenced style of filmmaking.

Ingrid Sulla Strada is without doubt an eclectic score. At its heart, Savina provides a light, delicate melody which is quite charming. And yet, the score’s overall soundscape doesn’t naturally provide a standardised form or perhaps an obvious sense of continuity. There’s certainly nothing wrong with Savina’s music, but the styles are so varied, one could almost be excused for thinking certain cues could had been taken from entirely different scores. As a collective it’s incredibly diverse and perhaps reflects the up-and-down nature and psychological aspect of the story. Regardless of its random style, it remains a fascinating listening experience.

Chris' Soundtrack Corner has completed an excellent challenge in making this obscure title available for the first time. Only the main theme and the pop organ track, ‘Walking through the falling leaves’, have been previously released. Christian Riedrich has beautifully produced the release, which certainly must have been a challenge. The result is the release of an entirely engaging score. Consisting of 15 tracks and 2 additional bonus tracks, the CD comes with a 12-page illustrated booklet designed by Tobias Kohlhaas and featuring detailed, exclusive notes by Randall D. Larson.

A fine collection of European scores for which everyone involved should be congratulated.

To order go to:

http://www.soundtrackcorner.de/

(Darren Allison is the Soundtracks Editor for Cinema Retro.)

Direct from the latest Turner Classic Movies Film Festival, here is Ben Mankiewicz interviewing Steven Spielberg, who was there to celebrate the 40th anniversary screening of "E.T.: The Extraterrestrial".  Spielberg discusses the film, his early fascination with John Ford's "The Searchers", the troubles filming "Jaws",  working with Joan Crawford in his directorial debut for the TV series "Night Gallery" and much more.

“UNDER THE VENEER”

By Raymond Benson

Finally, a high definition Blu-ray disk of Robert Redford’s 1980 masterpiece, Ordinary People, has been released. To date, the film has existed on home video only on VHS and DVD, and the new Paramount Presents edition is most welcome.

People was Redford’s directorial debut, and at the time audiences and critics expected it to be good, but they didn’t count on it being that good. It took the Best Picture prize at the Academy Awards, along with a trophy for Redford for Direction, one for Alvin Sargent’s Adapted Screenplay (based on Judith Guest’s wonderful novel), and a most deserved Supporting Actor Oscar for Timothy Hutton. Granted, Hutton’s character, Conrad Jarrett, is really the protagonist, i.e., the lead in the movie, so it’s one of those infuriating cases in which an actor is nominated in the wrong category. (That said, there’s no way Hutton would have won over Robert De Niro’s blistering once-in-a-lifetime performance in Raging Bull, so the studio was smart to offer up Hutton in the Supporting category, where he’d have a better than fighting chance.)

Mary Tyler Moore also received a nomination for Best Actress, and Judd Hirsch a nod for Supporting Actor (competing with Hutton). They are both brilliant, too. Moore plays against type, portraying a woman with a cold heart who has forgotten—or never knew—how to love, and Hirsch is the psychiatrist with whom we all would want to spend two sessions a week. Missing from the Oscar awards tally was Donald Sutherland, who, for this reviewer’s money, provides the performance of his career. In many ways, he’s the center of the picture. We slowly see that his stable assuredness is also cracking from the pretense going in his family. Why Sutherland wasn’t at least nominated is a head-scratcher.

The story is about a mid-to-upper class family living in the Chicago suburb of Lake Forest. Everything should be as Beth Jarrett (Moore) believes it is—that their family is happy and their world is perfect. “Neat and easy,” as her husband, Calvin (Sutherland), describes how she keeps their lives. But under the polished veneer, all is not well. Not one bit. The Jarretts recently experienced a tragedy. The oldest son, Buck, drowned in a boating accident while out on the water with his younger brother, Conrad (Hutton). Not long afterwards, Conrad attempted suicide and ended up in a psychiatric hospital for four months. Now he’s home, and Conrad is having a very difficult time adjusting. He can’t relate the way he once did to his high school buddies. He can’t feel as if he’s part of the school swim team, the way he could prior to the incident. Worst of all, his relationship with his mother has deteriorated. Calvin can see the conflict between them and does his best to play referee and understanding father, but this only begins to drive a wedge between him and Beth. It’s only after Conrad starts seeing a psychiatrist, Dr. Berger (Hirsch), that the teenager embarks on an excruciating but necessary emotional journey toward wellness.

The script is an honest and canny depiction of how families bury truths and put up facades. Redford’s direction is sensitively nuanced, and the acting all around is impeccable. This is powerful stuff. Ordinary People also provides one of the better positive depictions of psychiatry ever put on celluloid, and this reviewer challenges anyone viewing the film not to have welling eyes during the scene in which Dr. Berger tells Conrad, “I’m your friend.”

Beyond the quartet of principle stars, Elizabeth McGovern is striking as a high school romantic interest for Conrad, a young Adam Baldwin is effective as one of the teen swim team pals, M. Emmet Walsh has a turn as the clueless swimming coach, and Dinah Manoff has a short but significant scene as a fellow hospital patient, now out in the real world like Conrad.

But the movie belongs to Timothy Hutton. Ordinary People was his first feature film (he had made only one television movie earlier in the year, and appeared uncredited, briefly, as a child in a picture in the 1960s.) His Conrad is a virtuoso piece of acting.

The Paramount Presents feature is remastered from a new 4K film transfer overseen by Redford, and it looks crisp and colorful. The only supplements are two new, short featurettes with interviews with Hutton and author Judith Guest, plus the theatrical trailer.

Ordinary People merited every honor it received. It is an emotional roller-coaster that elevates the Hollywood family drama to an unprecedented high. Enthusiastically recommended.

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Ordinary People vs. Raging Bull

Some personal observations and opinions here. There have been critics over the years (Siskel and Ebert, for example) who have claimed that Ordinary People “stole” the Oscar from Raging Bull, which is often cited not only as the “best” movie of 1980, but of the entire 1980s decade.

I love Raging Bull and consider it a magnificent example of bravura filmmaking from Martin Scorsese. It’s slick, gorgeously shot in black and white, brilliantly edited (by Oscar winner Thelma Schoonmaker), and it contains not only powerhouse performances by Joe Pesci and Cathy Moriarty in supporting roles, but the crowning screen appearance of Robert De Niro’s career. There is no question that De Niro’s Jake LaMotta is one of the most accomplished acting displays ever.

Yes, Raging Bull is a great film… and I also find it unpleasant as hell. The brutality is visceral, and of course, that’s the point. It’s about a man who can’t control his rage. I may love the film, but I can’t say I enjoy it, if that makes any sense.

Ordinary People is not a happy story, either—that’s true. While it’s without physical violence, it is an emotionally violent tale; but it is so elegantly rendered with intelligence and, yes, beauty, that I, personally, am always moved by it. For me, it tugs at the heartstrings and the tear ducts. And while the fate of the tale’s family is a tragedy, there is the hint of hope at the end that all will be well for young Conrad Jarrett. I adore Ordinary People more every time I see it.

Ordinary People deserved the Oscar for Best Picture in 1980.

BY ADRIAN SMITH

In an isolated theatre, a group of young performers is being drilled by a tyrannical director with a passion for the dark and twisted. This new production appears to be an all-dancing musical extravaganza filled with rape, murder, and saxophone solos. Unknown to everyone involved however, the lead actor under the giant owl head (don’t ask) has been offed and replaced by an actual crazed serial killer who then proceeds to pick off the attractive cast and crew one by one whilst they search helplessly for a way out of the theatre to alert the police outside. Think the Friday the 13^th franchise meets the kids from Fame .

This suspenseful, entertaining slasher from Italy (but shot entirely in English and presented as though this is happening New York) was something of a staple in the VHS days and now a new audience will be able to discover it thanks to this 4K director-approved restoration from Shameless Screen Entertainment.

Also known as Aquarius or Deliera, Stagefright was the feature directorial debut of Dario Argento acolyte Michele Soavi, who had a run of spectacular and operatic horror films during the last gasp of the Italian genre film industry in the tail end of the 1980s. He was seen as something of a natural successor to Argento. Having worked as an actor and assistant director on a number of hit Italian genre films like City of the Living Dead (1980, Lucio Fulci), Phenomena (1985, Dario Argento) and Demons (1985, Lamberto Bava), as well as on the epic Terry Gilliam production The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988), Soavi was well experienced in putting the grotesque and the fantastical onto the big screen. The success of Stagefright enabled him to move onto bigger, weirder and more ambitions films like The Church (1989), The Sect (1991) and Cemetery Man (1994) [which are also all available on Blu-ray from Shameless] and he continues to work today in a very successful television career in Italy.

As well as a spectacular visual and audio restoration, this new Blu-ray (with an O-ring and reversible sleeve featuring two kinds of original artwork) also features a long and insightful interview with Michele Soavi himself, as well as interviews with Irish star David Brandon, no stranger to Italian genre cinema during his long career, and Italian supporting actor Giovanni Lombado Radice, who has possibly had more gory onscreen deaths than any other actor of his generation. All three of these interviews are as entertaining as Stagefright itself.

Produced by Joe D’Amato and written by George Eastman, with a score featuring Guido Anelli and Stefano Mainetti, this film is Italian through and through yet still captures something of that 1980s New York off-Broadway spirit in its pretentious director and young cast’s highs and lows, where the backstage dramas threaten to overshadow the show itself even before the crazed owl-headed killer turns up with an attitude and a chainsaw.

Stagefright is available now. Click here to order. (Please note: this is a Region 2, PAL format release.)

BY TODD GARBARINI

The inmates are running the asylum in Jack Sholder’s directorial debut Alone in the Dark (1982) which opened in New York on Friday, November 19, 1982 among a smorgasbord of horror outings that included midnight showings of George A. Romero’s then-notorious Dawn of the Dead, Trick or Treats (which, contrary to my original recollection, did play in my area, a fact that could have been easily confirmed with a quick consultation of an archival copy of my local newspaper – my bad!), the Canadian horror outing Funeral Home, the comic book pairing of George A. Romero and Stephen King in the fun-thrilled Creepshow, the mis-marketed Halloween III: Season of the Witch, and John Carpenter’s then-maligned but now rightly revered The Thing. While the marketing for Alone may hint at buckets of gore, it’s actually a fairly mild affair by today’s (arguably low) standards. It primarily focuses on the scenario at hand which features a group of then-unknowns pitted against an all-star cast in what can be described as a mixture of social commentary and a send-up of killer-on-the-loose movies. The lead characters play their roles straight despite having to utter some truly silly dialogue worthy of anything penned by Franco Ferrini and Dario Argento.

Dr. Dan Potter (Dwight Schultz) moves his family into a large new house after he goes to work for Dr. Leo Bain (Donald Pleasence) at the Haven Asylum, taking over the position from the previous Dr. Merton. Dr. Bain, whose last name cannot help but draw smirks from those who notice the absence of the letter “r” from his name, could easily be mistaken for one of the patients that Haven houses, as he seems more off-the-wall than they are. He smokes from a marijuana pipe and refers to the inmates as “voyagers”. One of the “voyagers” makes the comical statement that “There are no crazy people, doctor. We’re all just on vacation!” Yikes! It’s tough not to get a kick out of a film that boasts a nightclub scene featuring a band called the Sick F*cks who sing a song that has lyrics consisting solely of “Chop chop, chop up your mother!” recited over and over again. Dr. Potter hilariously remarks over the loud music, “I have enough insanity in my life. I don’t wanna pay for it!”

While a far cry from the “Do not touch the glass, do not approach the glass” severity of Hannibal Lecter, several of the inmates – sorry, voyagers – specifically Hawkes (Jack Palance), Preacher (Martin Landau), and Fatty (the late Erland van Lidth, unrecognizable from The Wanderers (1979) and from 1980’s Stir Crazy as the huge bald inmate), had been close to Dr. Merton and erroneously believe that his absence is a result of having been murdered by Dr. Potter. The poor doctor is now the target of termination by the triumvirate of terrors. They manage to have their day of reckoning when a power outage befalls the hospital and the loss of electricity causes their normally locked cells to now be conveniently opened, thus beginning their reign of terror. Fault tolerance was obviously not part of the institution’s budget. Oops!

Martin Landau is very amusing as Preacher. He looks like Fred Flintstone at the end of the “A Haunted House is Not a Home” 1964 episode when Fred flips his lid and sports a meat cleaver, laughing maniacally and chasing his relatives. I never would have expected Landau to deliver the impressive performance he gave Woody Allen in Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989) years later. When Potter realizes the reality of the situation, he holes up his family in his house to save their lives, but not before his precocious young daughter’s (Elizabeth Ward) sexy, Playboy-like babysitter Bunky (Carol Levy) is attacked after her boyfriend is killed. The scene of a huge knife menacing her on the bed is creepy and decidedly phallic. They all do their best to outwit the escapees.

The film’s ending is a bit bloody, however there is more to it than meets the eye, which is to say that it’s more than just a slasher film in that it posits questions about “who is crazy?” along the same lines as Milos Forman’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975).

Originally released on DVD in 2005, the new Blu-ray from Scream Factory has a beautiful HD transfer and ports over the extras from that release, minus the liner notes by horror film authority Michael Gingold (a shame), while adding new ones. Up first is a feature-length audio commentary with the film’s director who discusses Ronald David Lang, who ran a famous psychiatric hospital and said that crazy people were saner than the “normal” people- they had just adjusted to it. This reminds me of Claire Bloom’s line to Julie Harris in Robert Wise’s The Haunting (1963): “You really expect me to believe you’re sane and the rest of the world is mad?” He also talks in-depth about the choices made by some of the actors; the challenges he encountered working with Jack Palance; Lyn Shaye’s cameo at the film’s start; how New Line Cinema was originally a distribution company and moved into the production end of the business, and an interesting tidbit about Matthew Broderick auditioning and the director, who rejected him because he thought he was too good!

Out of the Dark – Interview with Jack Shoulder – A very interesting 40 minutes with the film’s director talking about his humble beginnings and the difficulties he ran into making films in his early days.

Mother Choppers – The Sick F*cks Remember Alone in the Dark – For over nine minutes, Snooky, Tish and Russell discuss their experience working on the film.

Sites in the Dark – The Locations of Alone in the Dark – Alone was filmed in sections of northern New Jersey in November 1981. As you can imagine, much of the locations have changed in 40 years. At just under 12 minutes, this is a brand-new, HD-lensed tour hosted by Michael Gingold, who did a great job with his tours of Alice, Sweet Alice (1977) and The Changeling (1980), to name a few. For the benefit of New Jersey readers, this time he takes us to the Skyland Manor, the Rockland Psychiatric Center, Route 46 and Bergan Turnpike, Hillsdale Plaza, Closter Plaza where the Bleeder wears a hockey mask before Jason Voorhees did in 1983’s Friday the 13^th Part 3 In 3-D, the Englewood Police Department, Oradell, NJ (specifically the intersection of Midland Road and Commander Black Drive where Preacher obtains his mailman’s hat), and the Potter Family house, which is a private residence that forbade them from filming on the property. I always love horror film locations and this is a great piece.

Bunky Lives! – Interview with Carol Levy – Now a successful real estate agent in New York, Carol did a lot of toothpaste commercials in her early career. She also talks about the few other films that she appeared in. I appreciated her taking the time to do this, which is something she clearly didn’t have to considering her current profession. This runs over 16 minutes.

Still F*cking Sick – Catching Up with the Sick F*cks – At 16 minutes, this is a piece that is ported over from that 2005 DVD. Great for fans of this group.

Rounding out the extras are a theatrical trailer, a TV Spot, two creepy radio spots (I miss those!) and an extensive stills gallery.

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BY TODD GARBARINI

We all know the old saying that hindsight is 20/20. When it comes to slasher films from the 1980s, movies that were released during that time were very often dismissed by critics – and rightfully so. Audiences, on the other hand, had a great time experiencing arguably the cinematic equivalent of riding a roller coaster. Following the success of John Carpenter’s Halloween in 1978 and its most closely related “holiday” second cousin, Sean Cunningham’s Friday the 13th in 1980, movie studios were falling over themselves to come up with the next big horror hit in much the same way that the spate of killer fish and outer space movies followed the success of Jaws in 1975 and Star Wars in 1977, respectively. Unfortunately, for us, often this resulted in some terribly silly and cookie cutter films that were nothing more than derivations of superior slasher films from years past.

The House on Sorority Row (1982) is a film that didn’t exactly set the box-office on fire during its initial release. To be fair, it didn’t receive a huge theatrical distribution deal. It was shot on a small budget, starring a cast of relative unknowns at the time. In keeping in slasher film tradition, the film begins, as so many other films of the day do, with the typical opening sequence that takes many years prior to the film’s start wherein something quite awful happens before bringing the viewers to present day. In this case, House begins with a soft filter which is generally used to imply a flashback. The trick is remembering this prologue as it will answer the question as to what is happening for the rest of the film. This is a familiar trope that can be seen in everything from Paul Lynch’s Prom Night (1980) to his own Humongous (1982).

Written and directed by Mark Rosen in the summer of 1980 and released in New York in February 1983, House concerns seven sisters of a sorority – Katey (Kathryn McNeil), Vicki (Eileen Davidson), Liz (Janis Zido), Jeanie (Robin Meloy), Diane (Harley Jane Kozak), Morgan (Jodi Draigie), and Stevie (Ellen Dorsher) – whose graduation celebration is interrupted by their house mother, Mrs. Slater (Lois Kelso Hunt), who throws cold water on their plans for a party. In retaliation, the leader of the pack, Vicki, devises a prank to play on Mrs. Slater which involves submerging her cane in the outdoor pool (which is full of muck) and forcing her to retrieve it at gunpoint! The gun is supposed to be loaded with blanks but accidentally fires and hits Mrs. Slater, who collapses. Shocked, there is a mad dash by the sisters to hide her body in the pool and go through with the party and pretend as though everything is status quo.

The bulk of the film revolves around the party and the sisters trying to keep up a good-natured charade, though some of them have more difficulty than the others. None of these characters are especially interesting and the actresses portraying them do their best to remain interesting enough to parlay their actions into suspense, however in the hands of another director, the film could just as easily resemble a comedy, something along the lines of Weekend at Bernie’s (1989). The ending may have been a bit of a shocker at the time, however nearly forty years hence it’s old hat and has been echoed in many better slashers, in particular Michele Soavi’s 1987 directorial debut film Deliria (StageFright).

House made its home video debut on VHS, Betamax, CED and laserdisc in 1983 (wow – did I really just type that??) and then surfaced on DVD in 2000, 2004, 2010 and 2012(!) in varying special editions. Scorpion Releasing brought the film to Blu-ray in 2014 and 2018. Now, MVD has reissued the film on Blu-ray as part of its MVD Rewind Collection in a slipcase edition wherein the cardboard cover is made to resemble a worn VHS rental that needs to be returned to a video store. If you don’t own the 2018 Scorpion Releasing version, this new MVD release contains all the extras from that Blu-ray and is the most comprehensive release to date.

The first interview is with actress Harley Jane Kozak (Diane) who went to New York University and was waiting tables while trying out for the role of Diane. She says that the cast saw the film at the only theater in New York City that was showing it. She also recalls how Eileen Davidson (Vicki) wore her gym shorts in the film. Strangely, the house mother was dubbed! Harley also describes the party scene as “slogging through cement” as they had to dance with no music playing while speaking their lines. This interview lasts a whopping 42 minutes.

The second interview is called “Kats Eyes” with Eileen Davidson, who went on to a successful career in soap operas, and runs just over seven minutes. The third interview is with Kathryn McNeil (Katey) and runs about 14 minutes. She discusses how she got the audition through Backstage magazine (the old-fashioned way!). She had no agent; the cast helped the crew set up the scenes; she was paid $50.00 per day; she was scared by The Wizard of Oz when she was a child and is amazed how young kids now tend to see the more violent films (I was always freaked out by the boat ride sequence in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory!).

The fourth interview is with writer and director Mark Rosman, running about 21 minutes. He had the great opportunity to work on Home Movies by Brian De Palma as a first assistant director on the campus of Sarah Lawrence!

The fifth interview is with composer Richard Band and is the most in-depth, running 45 minutes. The score was recorded in London; he grew up in Rome, which I never would have assumed; he talks about many other aspects of his career and his website.

The sixth interview is with composer Igo Kantor and runs 10 minutes.

The additional extras consist of:

Original pre-credit sequence – this runs just over two minutes and is bathed in a blue hue.

Alternate ending storyboards and runs just over seven minutes.

Alternate monoaural audio version with re-timed pre-credit sequence

There is a feature-length audio commentary with the director, and a secondary feature-length audio commentary with the director and Eileen Davidson and Kathryn McNeil.

There are trailers for this film, Mortuary, Dahmer, Mikey and Mind Games.

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“A DARK YEAR AND A HARD NIGHT”

By Raymond Benson

From the directorial eye of Lewis Milestone (All Quiet on the Western Front) and a script by playwright Clifford Odets (plays Waiting for Lefty and Awake and Sing!) came the odd and mysterious adventure-spy picture, The General Died at Dawn. Released in 1936 by Paramount Pictures, the movie seems out of place for the time. Hollywood output in the thirties, for the most part, was all about entertainment and lifting an audience out of the doldrums of the Great Depression. There were some serious dramas from Tinsel Town, to be sure, but General is decidedly dark, moody, and rather cynical fare.

This was Odets’ first screenplay (from a story by Charles G. Booth). He would go on to write None but the Lonely Heart (1944) and Sweet Smell of Success (1957), which are also rather gloomy and acerbic pictures. Combined with Milestone’s own flare for peeling back the light and revealing what is, in protagonist O’Hara’s words, “a dark year and a hard night,” The General Died at Dawn is not feel-good material.

O’Hara (Gary Cooper) is an American mercenary in war-ravaged China. The evil warlord, General Yang (Akim Tamiroff) is overrunning the land and leaving behind starving (or dead) peasants. O’Hara works for the opposition, and his assignment is to deliver a beltful of money to Mr. Wu (Dudley Digges) so that the resistance can buy arms with which to fight Yang’s forces. Another American expat, Peter Perrie (Porter Hall), is ill and desires to get back to America at any cost. He’s in cahoots with Yang to stop the resistance from receiving those funds—for a price. Perrie thus orders his beautiful daughter, Judy (Madeleine Carroll) to seduce O’Hara and get him to take the train to Shanghai instead of a plane. It is there that Yang and his soldiers have set a trap for O’Hara. Other spies, both Chinese and Westerners played by the likes of Philip Ahn, J. M. Kerrigan, and William Frawley (!), enter the fray with motivations of their own.

What happens to the money and to the cast of motley characters provides a little over ninety minutes of action, adventure, and melodrama that doesn’t totally gel as one might wish. The plot is overly complex, and it isn’t often clear why some of the personnel do what they do. Granted, the movie was made in 1936 and the action takes place mostly within the interiors of train cars. There is certainly an awful lot of talking going on when at any point General Yang could have simply pulled out a gun and shot his nemesis or just torn open all the luggage to find the dough.

That said, this is Hollywood “exotica” in all its politically incorrect glory. Two actors—Armenian Tamiroff and Irishman Digges—wear Chinese makeup to play Yang and Wu (and Tamiroff received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor, the first year that category was offered). And yet, all the other Chinese characters are played by Asian actors. One supposes that because Yang and Wu were indeed supporting roles, then they had to be played by Westerners. (Sheesh.) But this was Hollywood in the 1930s, after all, and it was par for the course. For what it’s worth, Tamiroff is very good in the role.

Gary Cooper spends most of the movie carrying his pet monkey, Sam, who crawls all over Cooper as if the man was the primate’s long lost mother. It’s endearing, though, and Sam almost steals the movie. Nevertheless, Cooper exhibits the requisite hero qualities. He assuredly caused swooning among a certain selection of audience members. Carroll, who had recently made the move from the UK to Hollywood, holds her own, but the script unfortunately doesn’t fully develop her character.

Kino Lorber’s new Blu-ray restoration looks remarkably good, given the picture’s age and the Oscar-nominated soft focus black and white photography (by Victor Milner). There is an audio commentary by author/film historian Lee Gambin and actress/film historian Rutanya Alda that sheds some light on this dark picture. The only supplement is the theatrical trailer, nestled among other trailers from Kino.

The General Died at Dawn is for fans of 1930s Hollywood, adventure and spy thrillers, and the ever handsome Gary Cooper.

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BY TODD GARBARINI

In Jonathan Mostow’s Breakdown (1997), Jeffrey and Amy Taylor (Kurt Russell and Kathleen Quinlan) seem like a normal and nice middle-aged couple moving from New England to San Diego to hopefully start a new life from a past we are not privy to, though it’s one fraught with financial issues. On the way, Jeffrey nearly sideswipes a dirty brown Ford F150 while reaching for his thermos and suffers invective from the driver (M.C. Gainey). A minor confrontation ensues later when both men refuel at the same gas station. Words are exchanged. Upon leaving, the Taylor’s new Grand Cherokee soon malfunctions, and they are temporarily stranded as the F150 blows past them. Fortunately, an 18-wheeler soon stops to help. The truck’s driver, Red Barr (the fine character actor J.T. Walsh in his penultimate screen performance), gives Amy a ride to Belle’s Diner to call for help – except that she never makes it.

If you recall Steven Spielberg’s 1971 television film Duel, Dennis Weaver portrayed David Mann, an Everyman traveling to a sales account when his life suddenly changes after passing a huge oil truck. Incensed by this perceived breach of road etiquette, the truck driver chases and taunts Mann throughout the rest of the film. Duel is arguably the granddaddy of road rage movies, making riveting cinema out of a cat-and-mouse game that holds the audience’s attention the entire time. Likewise, Breakdown holds the equivalent mantle as it pertains to missing persons thrillers. As a horror film fan of forty years, there is little that I have seen that gets under my skin, George Sluizer’s icy 1988 Dutch/French character study Spoorloos, known in the States as The Vanishing, being a notable exception. Mr. Russell and Mr. Walsh have shared the screen multiples times together, specifically in Robert Towne’s Tequila Sunrise (1989), Ron Howard’s Backdraft (1991), and Stuart Baird’s Executive Decision (1994). Here they pair up again in a frightening game that begins when, following unsuccessful attempts to glean info from the patrons and owner of Belle’s Diner (a terrific turn by character actor Jack McGee), Jeffrey catches sight of Red’s truck and pulls him over to the side of the road. Jeffrey’s interrogation of Red regarding his wife’s whereabouts is met by a perplexing display of gaslighting when Red claims he doesn’t even know what Jeff is talking about. For a moment, we feel that perhaps this is even Red’s twin and that there has been a complete mix-up. Following a search of Red’s vehicle aided by a passing sheriff (Rex Linn), Jeffrey is, like Cary Grant in Alfred Hitchcock’s North by Northwest (1959) as described by Cliff Robertson in the 1973 documentary on Mr. Hitchcock, “a man alone – innocent, defenseless…” He realizes that it’s up to him to find Amy – and he has no idea who to trust or even where to begin. What follows is the most intense nail-biting thriller I’ve ever seen. I don’t want to oversell the film, but I will anyway. Jeffrey moves mountains to locate his wife and when he does, the tension and anxiety could not be more powerful. One thing I noticed: Red has white wings in his hair like the Paulie Walnuts character on The Sopranos.

The ending of Breakdown has been shrugged off by some critics as being unworthy of what comes before, and even “ludicrous”. I must respectfully disagree. By the end of the film, what we are looking for is a massive payoff, and I believe that we get it in spades. The “ludicrous” ending is, instead, tension-filled and satisfying. Detractors never seem to offer an alternative. I am personally thankful to Dino DeLaurentiis for making a go of it and letting Jonathan Mostow direct this film. Everyone has to start somewhere, and this directorial debut is remarkable.

In the days of VHS and laserdisc prior to large-screen televisions, Breakdown is a film that I owned on the latter format in a letterboxed edition. In 1998, the film suffered the indignity of a rather lackluster transfer on DVD when it was window-boxed and lacked 16 x 9 anamorphic enhancement, rendering the DVD nearly unwatchable. The new Blu-ray from Paramount Pictures Home Entertainment is part of “Paramount Presents” which is described as a line of Blu-ray releases for collectors and fans showcasing movies that have generally not made it to Blu-ray before. Breakdown is number 26 in the list of titles of films showcased on Blu-ray in these new special editions. The new transfer is a revelation.

In addition to the new transfer, the Blu-ray contains the following extras:

A feature-length audio commentary with the director and Kurt Russell. If you have ever heard any of the previous commentaries that Mr. Russell has been involved with, specifically with director John Carpenter on Escape from New York (1981) and The Thing (1982), you know that he is one of the most entertaining people to listen to. He also has a phenomenal laugh and chuckles through most of the film, even making fun of Jeffrey! Hilarious. They speak about Dino DeLaurentiis; having gotten cinematographer Doug Milsom who worked on four films with Stanley Kubrick; Mr. Russell imitating Dennis Weaver in Duel (“You can’t catch me on the grade!”); the director discussing how he wrote a role for Morgan Freeman as a character whose wife was kidnapped and teams up with Jeffrey, the idea later wisely written out of the script; Roger Ebert criticized the bank scene, but the commentary states that they were rushed to get it done on the location but I think it works just fine. Overall, a truly fun and entertaining listen and easily the best extra.

Newly commissioned alternative artwork.

The musical score is isolated on one of the audio tracks, a great feature that I wish more companies would provide.

Filmmaker Focus - Jonathan Mostow (10:45) – This piece is a spotlight on the director that highlights much of what was said during the commentary.

Victory is Hers: Kathleen Quinlan on Breakdown (4:22) – I was so happy to see Kathleen Quinlan included in this edition and she discusses some of her experiences making the film.

A Brilliant Partnership: Martha De Laurentiis on Breakdown (8:18) – This is a piece dedicated to one of the producers of the film. Mrs. De Laurentiis worked with her late husband, Dino, on the film and this is a look at their partnership.

Alternate Opening with optional Jonathan Mostow commentary (11:00) – Along with the film’s commentary, this is a very cool piece to see, as its inclusion changes the whole mood of the film. The credits run slowly over the opening and the sequence establishes Jeffrey as all-thumbs – lightyears removed from the Snake Plissken Mr. Russell played fifteen years earlier. It was the correct decision to remove this footage, though I feel badly for the other actors in the scene to have been excised from such a terrific film!

Rounding out the extras are trailers for Breakdown, Kiss the Girls, and Hard Rain.

There are two Blu-rays of this film available, one from the Australian company Via Vision’s Imprint line and the Paramount Presents disc. Both Blu-rays are worth owning for die-hard fans of the film as they each contain completely different extras, but if you have to choose just one, I recommend the Paramount disc as it contains the director/actor commentary and the excised alternate opening.

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"RETRO-ACTIVE: REVIEWS FROM THE CINEMA RETRO ARCHIVES"

BY LEE PFEIFFER

One retro movie that has not shown up on television is the 1972 screen adaptation of Philip Roth's notorious 1969 bestseller Portnoy's Complaint. The book was the subject of worldwide debate, praise and derision. The plot tells of a Jewish New Yorker's confessions to his analyst regarding his inner most fears, sexual fantasies and embarrassments. The book's content was truly shocking for its day, largely due to its unabashed depiction of young Portnoy's sexual obsessions that results in his having an erotic encounter with a piece of liver that later serves as the entree in the family dinner. The book traces Portnoy's "progression" into a series of failed relationships with women as he battles unrealistic sexual expectations, impotence and a constant sense of guilt due to his relationship with his overbearing, dominating mother. He seems to strike gold when he meets Mary Jane, a vivacious, if empty-headed young woman who is nick-named The Monkey because of her ability to carry out seemingly impossible sexual positions. Portnoy feels he has found the perfect woman: someone who lives for sex and who eschews traditional relationships. However, even this scenario turns sour when Mary Jane begins to pressure him to marry her, a quest that leads to unexpected tragedy. Roth's novel was praised universally by critics who found his ability to blend social and ethnic satire into what is essentially a penetrating look at the modern sexual psyche. Suddenly, women were being defined by their permissiveness and men were supposed to be supermen in the sack. Most of the controversy, however, stemmed from Roth's scathing dissection of how Portnoy's Jewish background becomes a virtual anchor around his neck, always haunting him with feelings of guilt despite the fact that he outrages his parents by proclaiming his atheism.  

The film version of Portnoy's was met with universal scorn by both critics and the public. The main complaint about Complaint was that the brilliant screenwriter Ernest Lehman, who adapted the novel and made his directorial debut with this production, fell flat in conveying the wit of Roth's printed words onto the silver screen. It's a valid observation. Even today, Portnoy just seems like a smarmy dirty joke that goes on for an hour and a half, devoid of any real laughs or social observations. The scenes of Portnoy's obsession with masturbation as a teenager are cringe-inducing, as his family is subjected to his moans of pleasure from behind the bathroom door. (The notorious liver sequence is, fortunately, only described, not depicted.) Also, the scene in which an easy neighborhood girl's sexual encounter with young Portnoy results in his being blinded through emission of bodily fluids, is also rendered somewhat tame. However, these are about the only occasions when Lehman uses good taste. The rest of the film is a mish mosh of foul language, abusive relationships and awkwardly filmed fantasy sequences in which Portnoy is called to account by God. The film's modest storyline did not stop Warner Brothers from providing a sizable budget with locations filmed in Greece, Italy and Israel (in the latter sequence, Portnoy has a disastrous encounter with a free-spirited Israeli woman.) Curiously, the high budget didn't preclude some of the worst rear screen projection sequences seen in this era. Despite its many flaws, however, the movie has some aspects that can be recommended. Richard Benjamin has the unenviable task of playing the unlikable protagonist and he does a fine job. His ability to alternate between comedy and pathos was always his most enviable talent and the film's failures can't be laid at his doorstep. Similarly, Karen Black as Mary Jane gives one of the best performances of her career as the rough-around-the-edges woman of loose morals who pays tragically for her desire to want a fulfilling, loving relationship. The most distasteful sequences are those of Portnoy in the company of his aging, whining parents. Jack Somack is convincing as the grumpy dad whose daily battle with constipation has turned him into an ogre. However, Lee Grant is woefully miscast as the stereotypical Jewish mother. As Roger Ebert observed in his review of the film, the part cried out for Shelley Winters. Young Jill Clayburgh makes an impression as the Israeli object of Portnoy's perverted desire. Michel Legrand provides a typically lush, romantic score that seems oddly out of place in this most unromantic of movies, but there are some grace-saving scenes of Gotham in the early '70s that provide some entertaining distractions. 

The Warner Archive has released Portnoy's Complaint as a burn to order title. Quality is very good on all counts, though there are no extras. The movie is the kind of curiosity that retro movie lovers will want to examine if for no other reason than to see one of the most groundbreaking films in terms of permissiveness of sexual situations and language. 

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BY TODD GARBARINI

The late Arthur Barron was a New York-based documentary film director perhaps best known for his two-hour Birth and Death film from 1969, followed by the true story of the Wright Brothers and their road to flight. Following these projects but prior to delving into made-for-television documentary fare in the mid-1970’s, he tried his hand at feature filmmaking, employing similar documentary-style techniques that William Friedkin used to startling effect in his masterful 1971 film The French Connection. Instead of following around two police detectives hot on the trail of heroin smugglers, however, Mr. Barron instead turned his attention to a dramatic subject that, almost unbelievably, was for the most part untapped at the time. His feature film directorial debut is the teenage coming-of-age romantic drama filmed in the autumn of 1972 called Jeremy, starring actor Robby Benson as the titular hero and Glynnis O’Connor in her debut role as the girl who catches his eye and ultimately wins his heart.

Jeremy Jones is by no means a stud, nor is he a complete nerd or outcast in the high school sense of the word. He seems to fall somewhere in between, having been born into a life that is both spirited and adventurous. He plays the cello in the school band and wins admiration but also (tender) criticism from his music tutor (Leonardo Cimino); he plays on the school basketball team; he walks dogs for extra money; he even has a knack for picking winning horses at the racetrack but cannot bet because he is too young. While running an errand for his music teacher, Jeremy catches sight of a new girl in school who has arrived from Detroit following her father’s (Ned Wilson) fallout from his job. He’s a big shot and they live a privileged life on Park Avenue off of 73^rd Street in Manhattan at a time when it was affordable to do so. She’s a petite beauty (Glynnis O’Connor) whom he sees practicing dance moves. She bears a bit of a resemblance to how Linda Blair looks in William Friedkin’s The Exorcist (1973). Jeremy is instantly smitten and cannot get her out of his head but forgets to ask her name. His best friend Ralph is someone whom he confides in and Ralph is unconventionally understanding and patient, doing his best to give him advice on how to approach the girl following their initial encounter. Jeremy follows her to a record store on West 49^th Street in New York, just to get a glimpse of her. Another meeting following his accolades for his work in a school recital reveals her name as Susan. The film captures the awkwardness of making The First Phone Call, something relegated to the side of the road today in the age of cell phones, text messages, social media, and Tumblr.

Jeremy and Susan begin dating and quickly fall madly in love with one another the way that care-free adolescents can at a pivotal time in their lives prior to the rigors and responsibilities that inevitably befall them following the onset of adulthood. Jeremy’s parents are sort of wrapped up in their own world. His mother grows impatient over her husband’s inability to agree with her over choosing the color of tiles. In fact, all the adults appear to be too busy for much of anything other than running on the wheel of the rat race.

Jeremy is a breath of fresh air and the lack of teasing and bullying from fellow students is a welcome relief. What you get is one of the most honest and moving depictions of high school life ever committed to film, although the fairy tale view of New York is a little bit questionable as there is no mention of the Watergate Scandal or the Vietnam War. New York at the time of filming was even more dangerous than it is now. Lee Holdridge composes a score that is romantic and effective and provides the perfect balm to the film’s inevitable and heartbreaking ending which, though bittersweet, thankfully isn’t the knife-to-the-heart agony felt by the protagonist in Piers Haggard’s A Summer Story (1988). Look fast for James Karen of the old Pathmark commercials as Frank in a cameo in the Monopoly board game scene hosted by Susan’s aunt. This occurs 75 minutes into the film. His voice is unmistakable. You may also remember him as Craig T. Nelson’s boss Mr. Teague in 1982’s Poltergeist.

Director Barron would go on to helm the humorous ABC Afterschool Special “It Must Be Love (‘Cause I Feel So Dumb)” which aired on Wednesday, October 8, 1975 and starred the charming Alfred Lutter III of Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore (1974) fame. This short is worth seeking out as it contains hi-jinks characteristic of kids finding their way in the world. A quick YouTube search will reveal the truncated Learning Corporation of America (LCA) version that made the rounds in middle schools across the country. The longer ABC-TV cut is more elusive.

BY LEE PFEIFFER

One of the most troubled film productions of its era, the 1983 sci-fi thriller "Brainstorm" is mostly remembered for being the final film of Natalie Wood, who famously died under mysterious circumstances during production. The movie was directed by legendary special effects wizard Douglas Trumbull. It was his second directorial effort following the 1972 release of his cult favorite, "Silent Running". Based on a story by Bruce Joel Rubin, who would go on to loftier achievements, "Brainstorm" combines science fiction elements with the traditional conspiracy sub-plot that has permeated so many thrillers over the last half-century. The premise is intriguing, however. Scientists Michael Brace (Christopher Walken) and his colleague Lillian Reynolds (Louise Fletcher) head a small team that's working for a major corporation headed by Alex Terson (Cliff Robertson). They have succeeded in creating the most fantastic scientific achievement of all time: the ability to video record people's thoughts and preserve them on tape. Even more impressive, the tape can be accessed by others, who must don a rather cumbersome helmet that looks like a combination of comic book Ant-Man and Ed Norton's Captain Video chapeau from that famed episode of "The Honeymooners". At first, the experience is a joyous one, as each member of team is able to view what their colleagues have imagined for the sake of the experiment. Thus, the images consist of visual delights such as soaring over the Grand Canyon and immersing oneself in a thrilling rollercoaster ride. However, when privately utilizing the device, each member of the team is unable to control their innermost thoughts. All humans have at least fleeting fantasies that are either arousing, shocking, distasteful or all of the aforementioned. When members of the team begin to secretly access their colleague's visuals, unintended consequences occur. One person becomes obsessed with someone else's graphic sexual fantasy with disastrous psychological and physical results. It becomes apparent that the device is less a dream machine than a potential instrument of destruction. Adding to the tension is the fact that a new member of the team, Karen (Natalie Wood), is Michael's wife and the two are currently going through the process of a messy divorce even while they still live under the same roof with their young son.

A subplot is introduced mid-way through the film in which government officials (the villains, of course) want to take control over the project for intelligence purposes. The scientists rebel at this, even though Alex has been cooperating with them. They become determined to subvert their own achievements rather than have them militarized. This plot device gives the audience heroes to cheer for and baddies to boo. However, the scenario is implausible. It stands to reason that any responsible government would want to have control of mind-reading technology for the simple reason that adversarial nations would inevitably gain access to the same abilities and could use them for intimidating purposes. Nevertheless, the scenario allows for some action scenes in which director Trumbull gets to show off his special effects abilities, as in a scene in which a wild melee ensues inside the scientists' laboratory. (The effects must be viewed within the context of the era in which they were created and although crude by today's standards, an objective analysis is that they were highly impressive when the film was in production.) The most intriguing aspect of "Brainstorm" is a parallel dilemma that is introduced when a member of the team realizes they are about to die. They manage to record their final thoughts on video. Michael realizes that the video might hold the answer to eternal question: is there life after death? If so, whatever the dead scientist experienced might have been recorded for posterity. Alex warns Michael not to tempt fate and view the images...but you know how that goes. This aspect of the plot is the most fascinating and thought-provoking and allows the film to end on a satisfying note.

"Brainstorm" is by no means a sci-fi classic but it certainly deserved a better fate. With Natalie Wood's death, Trumbull had little time to mourn his leading lady. He had to immediately salvage the film by rewriting portions of the script and editing existing footage of Wood in creative ways to extend her role until the final scenes of the movie. (Natalie's sister Lana stood in for her in certain shots.) Trumbull hit another speed bump when MGM decided to cancel production of the movie, even as Trumbull was trying to salvage it. The studio was going to accept a payout from Lloyds of London when Trumbull exercised a clause in his contract that forbade them from doing so. This prolonged process delayed release of the movie substantially. By the time it had opened, Wood's death had already faded from the headlines despite the scandalous aspects and unanswered questions which remain unresolved today. Not even the morbidly curious could save it from being a boxoffice flop. Trumbull was so disgusted by his battles with the studio that he vowed to never direct another major film. He kept true to his word and has used his filmmaking talents primarily for educational projects.  Despite all these woes, Trumbull's final cut of "Brainstorm"  is reasonably compelling and the performances are all fine, if unremarkable, though it's interesting to note that Walken had not yet overtly demonstrated the kind of eccentricities that would characterize his performances in the years to come. 

The Warner Archive Blu-ray presents a fine transfer but, alas no special features except for a trailer. If ever a film deserved to have a commentary track, this is it.

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BY TIM MCGLYNN

During the 1970s, small distribution companies such as Sunn Classic Pictures, began to carve out a niche in the film industry by concentrating on low budget family-oriented movies. With the MPAA rating system firmly in place, moms and dads needed to search for G-rated titles they knew would be suitable for younger audiences. Aside from Disney features, it was often difficult to find such films.

Documentaries with educationally sound titles such as Cougar Country, In Search of Noah’s Ark and The Outer Space Connection played matinees at theaters across the country. Usually shot in 16mm and sometimes a tad boring, these movies were a safe destination for parents looking to drop the kids off for a couple of hours.

If any of these children happened to be unloaded at a local cinema playing The Legend of Boggy Creek, they were in for quite a surprise. Initially, it may have looked safe with a G rating and a storyline concerning a Bigfoot type of creature. Little did these kids realize they were in for a scary trip through the Arkansas wetlands where there had been stories of a large, two-legged monster over the past two decades. Farmers and ranchers had reported mutilated or missing livestock along with sightings of the creature.

Charles B. Pierce of Louisiana, a local television personality and creator of commercials, made his directorial debut with 1972’s The Legend of Boggy Creek, a quasi-documentary. The film chronicled the search for a seven-foot tall Bigfoot like creature that dwelled in the swamps near the town of Fouke, AR. Pierce allowed local residents to relate their experiences with what became known as the Fouke Monster. Dramatic recreations of sightings and confrontations with the creature were also filmed with local actors playing the roles of real life witnesses.

Adhering to the idea of “less is more,” Pierce never showed a close-up or an otherwise clear shot of the monster and there is no graphic violence or gore. He felt that what you didn’t see was more frightening than a man in a hairy suit. This style of storytelling would serve Steven Spielberg well in 1975 with his epic thriller Jaws.

While the production budget was about $160,000, which Pierce borrowed from a local trucking company, the director achieved an incredibly effective film by shooting in 35mm Techniscope. The photography in the creeks and marshes near Fouke is gorgeous and there are many shots of indigenous creatures and birds. The soundtrack of forest sounds lends a creepy atmosphere to the movie especially in the night scenes outside of local cabins.

The script by Earl E. Smith opens with several eyewitness accounts and some very distant shots of the monster that only define it as a large shape. Then there are depictions of actual contact with the beast where the residents in cabins attempt to kill it with shotguns and rifles. It is in these scenes that we hear the ferocious roar of the animal as it slips back into the darkness. Special mention needs to be made of the excellent narration by Vern Stierman. His news-anchor like professionalism adds an air of authenticity to the docu-drama style of the film.

A serviceable music score is provided by Jamie Mendoza-Nava, which includes a folksong type ballad sung by the filmmaker Charles Pierce. The director also served as his own photographer, using an older camera to which he made several modifications for this film. Pierce is very adept at setting up several jump scares where the creature is suddenly in the frame, often shown from the back. The 2.35 widescreen ratio is vital to these shots and they are quite effective. Another startling scene involves the creature being spotted as it suddenly crosses the road. This is filmed through a car windshield as the occupants are fleeing the scene.

I found the most impressive parts of the film are the two extended scenes where residents in a cabin and a mobile home are threatened by the monster. The whole “something is out there” scenario is well-played as the actors react to the danger in a realistic fashion. No randy teenagers doing drugs in the woods, just parents protecting their families by any means necessary.

Without giving away too much information about the conclusion, I’ll just say that the story has a possible open ending. Multiple sightings of the Fouke Monster were reported by more than 250 individuals over a period of 20 years until the making of this film. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that people in the area continue to see the monster. There were two sequels, one authorized and one not. Charles Pierce made Boggy Creek II: And the Legend Continues in 1984, but by his own admission it was not a very successful effort.

In 1976 director Pierce worked with Samuel Z. Arkoff and American International Pictures in creating his best-known work, The Town That Dreaded Sundown. This film pre-dated the slasher film craze of the 1980s with the true story of a masked killer terrorizing the town of Texarkana, TX. The cast included Ben Johnson, Andrew Prine, Dawn Wells and, once again, narrator Vern Stierman.

I recently communicated by e-mail with Pamula Pierce Barecelou, daughter of Charles Pierce, and asked about the re-mastering of the film. She replied that one of the challenges was locating a quality print. “After gaining permission from Mr. Ledwell (the film’s financier) to pursue the restoration in 2014, I had to find a good print to work from and that hunt took four years. One was finally found at the British Film Institute of all places!”

Ms. Pierce went on to describe the actual process. “I was able to connect with the venerable George Eastman Museum and Audio Mechanics to have to the work performed. I trusted their expertise.”

“A MIXED CAN OF SPINACH”

By Raymond Benson

When I first saw Popeye on the big screen on its initial release in December of 1980, I was disappointed and a little appalled. I was (and still am) a huge Robert Altman fan, and I had been expecting great things. The film touted the first motion picture appearance by Robin Williams as well (although he’d had in a small role in a 1977 picture). Anticipation was high.

Popeye received very mixed reviews, but it made a decent amount of money at the box office (however, it was considered a flop by Paramount and Disney, the studio that co-produced the picture), and became an object of derision in Hollywood for years. Altman was unable to get big studio backing for over a decade, so he moved to Europe and made small pictures there.

Then—home video turned the movie around. Popeye became a best-selling VHS tape for children, and its reputation improved. Audiences started to admit that there were some rather good things about Popeye. Now a 40th Anniversary Blu-ray disk from Paramount has been released, and the movie’s charms can be appreciated even more.

There’s no question that Popeye is a mixed bag of spinach. Altman’s directorial style always involved much improvisation, a messy mise-en-scène, overlapping and sometimes indecipherable dialogue, and a quirky sensibility. In Altman’s best works, these traits are assets. In Popeye, not so much. There are also sequences that drag on too long, especially the climactic sequence that involves a chase involving two extremely slow-moving boats. The script, by Jules Feiffer, is also decidedly weak, but there are some clever moments and funny lines (it’s unknown if these were ad libs).

That said, Altman’s vision for the movie was downright brilliant, and the designers and actors rendered that concept with remarkable success. Altman set out to make a live-action cartoon that captured the original E. C. Segar comic strip and the early Fleischer animated shorts. By hiring inventive actors who could transform themselves into the surreal characters, and costuming them appropriately, Altman accomplished the task of truly creating another world. It also helped that the entire village of Sweethaven was built on the island of Malta, where the production was made (that village still exists today as a tourist attraction). The production/sets and costume designs deserved Academy Award nominations, but that didn’t happen.

Popeye (Williams) is searching for his “pappy” (Poopdeck Pappy, played by Ray Walston), and he arrives by rowboat in Sweethaven. There Popeye is immediately taxed for everything, including for asking questions, by the Taxman (Donald Moffat). He “renks a room” from the boarding house run by the Oyl family—Cole (MacIntyre Dixon), who continually spouts that everyone “owes him an apology,” his wife Nana (Roberta Maxwell), Castor (Donovan Scott), their son, and, of course, Olive (Shelley Duvall), their daughter. Olive Oyl is engaged to be married to Bluto (Paul L. Smith), the meanest man in town and enforcer for the “Commodore,” the unseen authoritarian of the village. Olive doesn’t want to marry Bluto, but she makes the motions to do so. Then, Olive and Popeye find an abandoned baby—the scene-stealing Swee’Pea (played by Wesley Ivan Hurt, who is Altman’s grandson). Olive and Popeye bond over Swee’Pea, and the story then becomes one of Popeye attempting to win over the villagers, defeat Bluto, discover the identity of the mysterious Commodore, and find his pappy.

Robin Williams does an admirable job and is quite winning in the role, although his mumblings and mutterings, ad libbed or not, are often unintelligible (it helps to turn on the subtitles on the Blu-ray disk—something we couldn’t do in the cinema in 1980!). The standout in the entire movie is Shelley Duvall—as Altman proclaims in the “making of” documentary on the disk, Duvall was “born to play Olive Oyl,” and this statement is absolutely correct. It was a great year for Duvall, who had earlier starred in Kubrick’s The Shining. These were two wildly different roles. Her Olive Oyl serves to prove that Shelley Duvall is an underrated, wonderful actress who should have been recognized as a major talent.

Smith as Bluto is appropriately villainous. Walston is a hoot as Pappy. Paul Dooley is perfectly cast as Wimpy, who insists he will pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today. The real gems, however, are the extras in the village portrayed by circus performers, acrobats, and clowns who can perform jaw-dropping physical stunts. The great Bill Irwin especially shines as Ham Gravy, who is constantly kicking his hat along the paths, unable to retrieve it.

Then there is the music. Yes, Popeye is a musical. The songs were written by Harry Nilsson (!) and arranged and conducted by the talented Van Dyke Parks. They are performed by the non-singer actors. There is a certain charm to them, but the songs are rather weak and unmemorable. In 1980, I felt that the music was what sunk the ship—however, on the recent revisit, I found the songs appropriately eccentric and fitting. Beatles fans alert—look for Klaus Voorman (collaborator with the Fab Four in the 1960s) as the conductor of the onscreen band.

Paramount’s new Blu-ray sports a beautiful restoration that looks fantastic. Supplements include an interesting behind-the-scenes documentary on the making of the film; a featurette on the different players and their approaches to the characterizations; a slideshow from the film’s Hollywood premiere (spot the celebrities on the red carpet!); and the ability to play each song from the movie separately. The late Robert Altman and late Robin Williams appear in interviews shot in 1999 and 2014, respectively.

Popeye is worth a return visit, certainly for Shelley Duvall and little Wesley Ivan Hurt. There are genuine laughs to be had, and the movie is a curiosity that isn’t nearly so bad as the picture was first made out to be. It’s got charm and wit and is a visual delight. So, go holler, “Blow me down,” have some spinach, and enjoy.

(The Blu-ray also includes a digital download version.)

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BY NICK ANEZ

Business isn’t exactly booming for private detective Peter Joseph Detweiler, better known as P.J. His makeshift office is in a bar belonging to his only friend Charlie. His sporadic jobs include entrapping cheating wives and he is not above drowning his sorrows in liquor. So when wealthy magnate William Orbison offers him a substantial fee to be a bodyguard for his mistress, Maureen Prebble, he is in no position to refuse. What P.J. doesn’t know is that Orbison has already hired someone else to commit a murder. How this murder and the shamus’s new job intersect is the crux of the terrific 1968 neo-noir from Universal, P.J. (U.K. title: New Face in Hell.)

Private detectives were prominent in the late 1960s and included Harper (1966), Tony Rome (1967), Gunn (1967), and Marlowe (1969). P.J. appeared in the midst of this surplus, which may account in part for its box office failure. The movie quickly disappeared, at least in its original form. Due to one extended and bloody sequence in a gay bar as well as to other scenes of violence and sexuality, Universal drastically cut and re-edited the movie for its television network presentation. For decades afterward and until just recently, the original version of the movie was never officially released on home video; only inferior bootleg copies of murky prints were available and even some of these were the edited television version.

Philip Reisman, Jr.’s screenplay is based on his original story co-written with producer Edward Montagne. The script initially unfolds as a conventional mystery but gets increasingly complicated with each twist and turn. Maureen appears to definitely need a bodyguard, in view of threatening letters as well as a shot fired into her bedroom. And there is no shortage of suspects who would like to see her dead. Orbison’s emotionally fragile wife, Betty, tries to pretend that her husband’s paramour doesn’t exist. Betty’s relatives despise Maureen because of her emergence as principle beneficiary in Orbison’s will. Orbison’s Executive Assistant, Jason Grenoble, due to his apparent affluent upbringing, is displeased about being used as a flunky. Making P.J.’s job more difficult is Orbison’s decision to take everyone, including relatives and mistress, to his hideaway in the Caribbean island of St. Crispin’s. And it is in this tropical setting that P.J. is forced to kill a suspect. This seems to be the end of the case. But it is really only the end of the second act. The third act is filled with intrigue, deception, blackmail and three brutal deaths.

John Guillermin is an underappreciated director who created admirable films in many genres, including mystery, adventure, war and western as well as the disaster and monster genres. His success could perhaps be due not only to his skill but to a style that is unobtrusive. He directs P.J. in a straightforward fashion, not allowing any directorial flourishes to interrupt the flow of the story. With cinematographer Loyal Griggs, he cleverly contrasts the seedy sections of New York City with the natural beauty of St. Crispin’s. However, this beauty is soon tainted by the presence of Orbison, whose wealth the island’s economy requires to flourish. Guillermin allows each of the characters within Orbison’s band of sycophants enough screen time to make an impact. Basically, they all appear to be self-centered, greedy and nasty. Orbison is especially sadistic, in addition to being notoriously miserly. Maureen doesn’t apologize for providing sexual favors in exchange for future wealth. Betty is willing to be repeatedly humiliated to obtain her customary allowance. Grenoble continually demeans himself to keep his well-paid position. And then there is butler Shelton Quell, who is not as harmless as his effeminate mannerisms suggest. This is a sordid group of characters that P.J. is involved with but his dire financial state has apparently extinguished his conscience, particularly since he soon becomes intimately involved with the body that he is guarding. P.J.’s essential irony arises from the fact that he is equally greedy, at least initially. He also seems to be morally bankrupt. When he encounters Orbison leaving Maureen’s cottage, it doesn’t faze him that they have just engaged in a quickie. P.J. knows that he has sold his gun to Orbison just as Maureen has sold her body.

In the early 1960s, George Peppard became a major star in expensive films such as and How the West Was Won (1962) and The Carpetbaggers (1964). In 1966, he starred in another big-budget film, The Blue Max, the first of three movies he would make with John Guillermin. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, he starred in several smaller-budgeted movies. While some of them, especially Pendulum, The Groundstar Conspiracy and Newman’s Law are exceptional, others are unremarkable. The commercial failure of these movies diminished his status and relegated him to supporting roles and television. This was regrettable because he had genuine star quality as well as considerable talent. However, he made a well-deserved comeback by achieving massive popularity as the star of the hit television series, The A-Team, and his small screen success is a worthy consolation prize.

As P.J. Detweiler, Peppard creates a unique private eye that puts him apart from his cinematic brethren. P.J. initially appears disillusioned with his life and work. Like many film noir protagonists, he is one of society’s alienated outcasts. He is not just down and out but seems resigned to his dismal situation. When he is offered the lucrative position of bodyguard, he is so destitute that he agrees to a humiliating audition of fisticuffs. As he begins his job, he appears impassive to the decadence of Orbison’s environment. However, after he has been duped and discarded, he asserts himself and becomes a traditional detective who is determined to pursue clues and solve the mystery. But unlike traditional detectives, he doesn’t derive any pleasure from the solution to the crime. The fact that he has been maneuvered into facilitating a murder has emotionally drained him. At the end of the film, he forces a cheerless smile at Charlie but he is unable to sustain it, replacing it quickly with a look of despair. All of these emotions are reflected in Peppard’s superb portrayal.

As William Orbison, Raymond Burr splendidly returned to the villainous roles that he had portrayed in previous decades before becoming a household name on television as lawyer Perry Mason, a role he played for nine years. P.J. was released six months after Burr started his second successful series as police chief Ironside, a role he would portray for eight years. Audiences who were accustomed to seeing him embody honorable characters must have been shocked to view his malevolent Orbison. Though he projects a sophisticated veneer for Orbison, Burr fully evokes his perverted obsession with wealth and power through his modulated tone and menacing visage. With his atypically silver hair and imposing size, he conveys malignant authority. In the scene in which Orbison brings his wife and mistress together, the actor’s expression of merciless pleasure invites unmitigated contempt. Burr’s Orbison deserves an honored position among noir’s loathsome villains. (Incidentally, in advertisements for the movie, Burr’s name is below Gayle Hunnicutt’s name but in the movie itself Burr’s name precedes Hunnicutt’s.)

BY TODD GARBARINI

I’m a sucker for black and white horror films and thrillers. Hold That Ghost! (1941) and Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948) are the closest I ever got to an actual horror film when I was a child. The latter actually frightened me and gave me more than a handful of nightmares while in kindergarten. As I got older, I thrilled to the suspense-filled Psycho (1960) by Alfred Hitchcock, Robert Wise’s The Haunting (1963), and George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead (1968) on network television viewings. I picked up a VHS copy of John Llewelyn Moxey’s masterful The City of the Dead under the insipid title of Horror Hotel and discovered a classic that I love to this day. There is an overall spookiness that I associate with black and white that I wish contemporary horror film directors would go back to. It’s not all blood and guts – mood and atmosphere go a very long way.

Following my discovery of Dario Argento’s work after a theatrical screening of Creepers in 1985, I began to read about Mario Bava’s work and how it influenced Signor Argento’s style. Black Sunday, alternately known as The Mask of Satan and Revenge of the Vampire, is a highly stylized gothic horror film that is considered to be Mario Bava’s directorial debut despite him having come in at the eleventh hour to finish up several films in the late 1950’s credited to other directors: I Vampiri (1957), The Day the Sky Exploded (1958), Caltiki – The Immortal Monster (1959) and The Giant of Marathon (1959). Shot in 1960 and released on Thursday, March 9, 1961 in New York City, Black Sunday is a creepy tale starring the luminous Barbara Steele in dual roles as both a condemned witch in 17^th Century Moldavia named Asa Vajda and as a melancholic townswoman named Katja Vajda some 200 years later – quite a coincidence! Asa condemns her persecutors to death for her fate which finds her body placed into a mausoleum and found by chance two centuries later by a doctor (Andrea Checci) and his assistant (John Richardson) who are enroot to a convention and accidentally free Asa from her eternal sleep, giving her the opportunity to enact evil upon the heads of those unlucky enough to be related to those responsible for her death. While the plot is similar in theme to Mr. Moxey’s classic The City of the Dead – I could hear the immortal words of the villagers “Bring me Elizabeth Selwyn” in that film as I watched Black Sunday – the time and place is much different and the film benefits enormously from Signor Bava’s experience as a cinematographer even from the film’s opening frames. The imagery that permeates much of Black Sunday are the stuff of childhood nightmares: cobwebs, creepy cemeteries, eerie sounds in the night…there is even a scene wherein a character fights off a vampire bat in a fashion that obviously provided the inspiration for Jessica Harper’s Suzy Bannion to do the same in Dario Argento’s Suspiria (1977), albeit in dazzling Technicolor.

Cinema Retro has received the following press release:

"Essential viewing for all Sellers fans."

-- British Film Institute

"Mr. Sellers is in fine form here, and in the first half he displays some of the physical comedic traits that defined his Inspector Jacques Couseau in the 'Pink Panther' series a couple of years later."
-David Ferguson, Red Carpet Crash

"Its abiding bittersweetness [is] what has become this 'lost' curio's chief preservative. What stands out, unsurprisingly, is Sellers himself..."
-Robert Abele, Los Angeles Times

FILM MOVEMENT CLASSICS UNVEILS PETER SELLERS'

LONG LOST 1961 DIRECTORIAL DEBUT, NEWLY-RESTORED

IN 2K FROM THE LONE SURVIVING 35MM PRINT

MR. TOPAZE

Street Date: October 27, 2020

Blu-ray/DVD/Digital

Available for the First Time Ever in North America,

the Classic Comedy, Co-Starring Herbert Lom, Leo McKern and Nadia Gray,

Arrives with the Madcap Seller Short Film "Let's Go Crazy", a Video Essay on Auteur Marcel Pagnol, the Topaze Playwright, a 24-page Booklet with a New Essay by Roger Lewis, Author of "The Life and Death of Peter Sellers" and More!

SYNOPSIS

Albert Topaze (Peter Sellers), a poor but proud French schoolmaster, loses his job after he refuses to alter the failing grades of one of his students. Seizing the opportunity to exploit his honesty, actress Suzy Courtois (Nadia Gray) convinces her lover, the corrupt city council member Castel Benac (Herbert Lom), to hire Topaze as a managing director for one of his shady businesses.

Sellers' lone directorial effort, MR. TOPAZE displays the British comic genius at the peak of his powers alongside his future Pink Panther nemesis Herbert Lom and a stellar supporting cast that includes Leo McKern, Billie Whitelaw and Michael Gough. Long considered a "lost" classic, MR. TOPAZE was digitally restored in 2K from the last surviving 35mm prints held in the BFI National Archive.

In his newly-written MR. TOPAZE essay included in the Film Movement Classics release, Roger Lewis, author of "The Life and Death of Peter Sellers" writes "In my opinion we are only now beginning to wake up to Sellers' unique qualities as a performer, and the rediscovery of Mr. Topaze will aid this reassessment. It is a film of which Jacques Tati might be proud. It is as good as any of the later Chaplin efforts, Limelight or A Countess from Hong Kong. It is a scandal that it was lost for so long." 

CAST

• Peter Sellers (Being There, The Pink Panther series, Dr. Strangelove)
• Herbert Lom (The Pink Panther series, The Dead Zone, Spartacus)
• Nadia Gray (La Dolce Vita)
• Leo McKern ("Rumpole of the Bailey", Ryan's Daugher, The Mouse That Roared)
• Billie Whitelaw (The Krays, Hot Fuzz, The Omen)
• Michael Gough (Batman, Sleepy Hollow, The Age of Innocence)

BONUS FEATURES

• Let's Go Crazy (1951) - a madcap short film starring Peter Sellers and his Goon Show co-star Spike Milligan
• The Poetry of Realism (2019) - Kat Ellinger video essay on auteur Marcel Pagnol, the playwright of Topaze
• Abigail McKern Interview (2019) - Leo McKern's daughter discusses her father's life and career
• 24-page booklet with notes on the film's rediscovery by BFI curator Vic Pratt and a new essay by Roger Lewis, author of The Life and Death of Peter Sellers 

PROGRAM INFORMATION

Type: Blu-ray/DVD/Digital (New 2K Digital Restoration)

Running Time: 97 minutes

Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1 Original Aspect Ratio

Audio: Mono

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BY LEE PFEIFFER

Horror films have long been the inspiration for big screen comedies, though precious few have mined enough genuine laughs to gain status beyond the "B" movie level. For every "Young Frankenstein", there are ten "Hillbillies in a Haunted House".  Screenwriter and actor Rudy De Luca, who had written the marvelous screenplays for Mel Brooks' "Silent Movie" and "High Anxiety", was eager to take the next logical career step and try his hand at directing. The property was his own invention, a contemporary horror spoof titled "Transylvania 6-5000", a play on the classic Glenn Miller song "Pennsylvania 6-5000". He secured a very modest budget of $3 million with the unusual proviso that he had to shoot the film on location in Yugoslavia (this was apparently due to financial considerations held by backers of the production.)  De Luca secured the services of some up-and-coming young talent and was off on his quest to make a hit. De Luca's script finds Jack Harrison (Jeff Goldblum) and his colleague Gil Turner (Ed Begley, Jr.) as "journalists" for a National Enquirer-like exploitation rag. Their grumpy boss (Norman Fell in a cameo) sends the reluctant duo off to Transylvania to pursue alleged sightings of Frankenstein. It makes no difference whether there is any evidence of these sensational claims, as the boss just wants a big story that will appeal to gullible readers. Once in Transylvania, the writers immediately cross paths with a variety of eccentric and/or menacing characters that lead to increasingly incredible adventures involving a mad doctor (Joseph Bologna), a snarky hotel manager (Jeffrey Jones), a femme fatale (Geena Davis, wearing a Vampira-like costume throughout), a female accomplice (Carol Kane) and some kooky servants (Michael Richards and John Byner). The evidence leads to suggestions that Frankenstein may exist, along with the Wolfman, but getting to the explanation requires the viewer to sit through endless manic, but unfunny comedic setups. There may be an occasional guffaw along the way but, in general, the film is a total misfire.Seldom have so many formidable talents been so squandered.

Kino Lorber has released a Blu-ray edition of the movie that includes a commentary track by De Luca and Steve Haberman, who was a visual consultant on the movie. Here's where things become interesting. While the film itself is a dud, having De Luca and Haberman return to the scene of the crime, so to speak, makes for a highly enjoyable and candid commentary track. De Luca and Haberman don't regard the film as an artistic failure and point out that it made a slight profit and seems to have built a cult following over the years. But De Luca reflects on the obstacles he had to overcome as a first-time director, including having to fire his first assistant director shortly after filming began. He also says that the movie didn't benefit much from the Yugoslavian locations except for the presence of some imposing ancient buildings. (Haberman correctly points out that the village they shot most of the movie in actually looked as phony as a theme park setting.)  De Luca had to commit to completing the entire movie in only 30 days, which would be a Herculean task for even a seasoned director. He had to get many complex scenes done on the first or second take, no matter how unsatisfying the result was because the budget wouldn't support the normal number of takes.  He had no access to a studio and had to make due with existing interiors in local buildings that were often ill-suited to the action he had to film. Additionally, he had some temperamental actors, with Begley griping about his directorial choices and Carol Kane forming a dislike for Joseph Bologna because he manhandled her roughly in a key scene. He also had to contend with employing many local actors for small roles who could not speak English. As he comments on the film, he points out that some scenes that were to have been shot at night in a shroud of fog had to be filmed in broad daylight, which was obviously not very atmospheric for a monster movie. The commentary track is especially useful for aspiring young filmmakers who are given fair warning about the factors they will have to overcome when making a movie for a major studio. Happily, De Luca and Haberman survived the experience and went on to bigger and better things, including future collaborations with Mel Brooks, although De Luca has not directed another film since. Still, upon learning the background of the troubled production, you have give the man kudos for finishing the movie on time and on budget.

The Kino Lorber Blu-ray looks very good indeed and also includes the two original trailers, several TV spots and a gallery of trailers for other KL releases. This is one title that is dispensable as a main feature, but worth getting due to the merits of the commentary track.

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"THE LIONS IN WINTER"

Mill Creek Entertainment has released a Blu-ray double feature of "Dad" starring Jack Lemmon and "I'm Not Rappaport" starring Lemmon's long-time pal and frequent co-star Walter Matthau. Of the two, "Dad" is the vehicle that was aimed at mainstream audiences, while "Rappaport" seems to have been created for its intended audience, the big city art house cinema crowd. "Dad" stars Lemmon, playing older than his actual years, as Jake Tremont, a retired blue collar worker who resides with his wife, Bette (Olympia Dukakis). Like most older couples, the Tremonts have long adjusted to a routine lifestyle. In this case, Bette wears the pants in the household, to coin an old phrase. She loves and cares for Jake, but displays all the warmth of a Marine drill instructor, as she orders her meek husband about and makes virtually every decision. Jake is comfortable with this, as he is a low-key guy who long ago decided to allow Bette to establish a matriarchy in the household. When Bette is stricken by a heart attack and hospitalized, Jake is a like a fish out of water. His somewhat estranged son John (Ted Danson), a high-powered self-employed financier, has to reluctantly leave his workaholic lifestyle to look after Jake, with some limited assistance from his sister (Kathy Baker), who is busy raising her own family. In a predictable fashion, the high-strung John tries to connect with his father and bridge the chasm between them that has existed for decades. However, when Jake suffers his own medical problems, John takes a leave of absence, moves in permanently and gallantly assumes all of the household duties as well as medical care for his ailing father. The surprise arrival of his own estranged son Billy (Ethan Hawke), who adores his grandfather, gives the male family members the opportunity to patch up old feuds even while they deal with the deteriorating conditions of Jake and Bette.

There's a lot more to the tale than the above synopsis but we wouldn't want to divulge spoilers. "Dad" was the feature film directorial debut for Gary David Goldberg, who also wrote the screenplay (based upon William Wharton's novel) and produced, as well. Goldberg was primarily known for directing TV sitcoms and that experience comes close to undermining the dramatic impact of "Dad", with some over-the-top cutesy scenes that are straight out of a Hallmark Channel TV movie. However, Lemmon's marvelous performance serves as an anchor for the main plot and all of the supporting cast members (including Kevin Spacey) give impressive performances. Most of all, the movie speaks truth to anyone who has had to face the seemingly insurmountable challenge of caring for an aging parent. "Dad" is at times mawkish but in the end, its attributes outweigh its flaws.

BY HANK REINEKE

Director/co-writer Larry Charles acknowledges it was an employer - the curmudgeon-comedian Larry David, who unwittingly served as the midwife of the Masked and Anonymous project. David’s disinterest in popular music – and rock n’ roll music specifically - was no secret. Cornered and trapped in a one-sided conversation with the passionate and gregarious television writer and music fan Eddie Gorodetsky, the co-creator of Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm was anxious to escape the conversation. He suggested to Gorodetsky his interest in discussing the vagaries of Bob Dylan’s mercurial career - and the rock n’ roll world in general - would be better served by engaging in a chat with Curb writer-director Charles. Gorodetsky did just that. He soon discovered both he and Charles were huge Dylan fans, the two discussing the often mysterious singer-songwriter’s career at length.

Although an ardent admirer of Dylan’s music, Charles admitted to sharing no personal relationship with the artist. So it came as some surprise when some time later he would receive a call from one Dylan’s representatives. He was told that the peripatetic troubadour was interested in involving himself with a potential TV project and would he be willing to discuss? Dylan was no stranger to the film business, though the films in which the bard exercised control tended to be artsy mish-mashes of varying interest. Only the D.A. Pennebaker-ministered and celebrated documentary of Dylan’s 1965 tour of England, Dont Look Back (1967), had received any measure of critical and commercial success.

Just as Dylan had subverted Tin Pan Alley song-craft with his folk-song homilies, Dylan’s unreleased television film Eat the Document (1972) and his big screen epic Renaldo & Clara (1978) would playfully toy with the film medium’s editing and writing processes and his own self-created mythos. Charles would describe Dylan as a “protean personality,” someone who realized early on in his life the notion of “self is a construction.” He suggests “Bob Dylan” is simply a self-invented character, one that the singer (born Robert Allen Zimmerman) would shed in personal social interactions.

Charles eagerly agreed to a meeting with Dylan. When the two decided to sit down together to hash out ideas and write, Charles was a bit surprised by Dylan’s interest in conceiving what he described as a “Buster Keaton-style” series of slapstick television programs. As the notorious road-warrior rock legend was playing in excess of one hundred concerts a year between 2000 and 2002, Charles allowed that his interest was not as unusual as it might sound: Dylan would pass a lot of his travel time on his private coach by watching old Jerry Lewis films on the buses’ VHS player. But the idea that Masked and Anonymous was originally conceived as a “Bob Dylan slapstick comedy,” is an interesting one given the singer’s somewhat dour and humorless public persona.

In any event it was this premise that Charles and Dylan would bring to Chris Albrecht, the Chairman of the Board at HBO. Though Albrecht would green-light the project with a measure of enthusiasm – having someone of Bob Dylan’s stature associated with your brand guaranteed a measure of residual hip prestige - the notoriously capricious Dylan almost immediately deferred. Dylan informed Charles that his interest in the slapstick series had passed. He instead offered an idea for a feature-length film project that he suggested they instead write together. Charles was game, acknowledging that anyone deigned to “ride the Bob Dylan train,” was sure to encounter ups and downs due to the songwriter’s mercurial creative shifts. When the pair finally finished their screenplay for Masked and Anonymous, the aforementioned titular masks went on from the very onset. For starters, the pair had to convince the Writer’s Guild to permit the masking of their scripting authorships: Dylan chose the pseudonym “Rene Fontaine,” Charles choosing “Sergei Petrov.”

This new Shout! Factory Blu ray set of Masked and Anonymous generously features a number of Special Features. The most interesting of these are the insights shared by Charles in the 2020 featurette, Behind the Mask: a Look Back at Masked and Anonymous with Director and Co-writer Larry Charles. The passing of time has allowed Charles to ruminate and assess the impact of the often-critically savaged film from a less defensive –well, perhaps a better descriptive would be “protective” –posturing. Charles would describe Masked and Anonymous, not unreasonably, as “an apocalyptic, sci-fi, spaghetti-western, musical-comedy.” In his reminiscence, Charles allows that the script’s “formal language” and portrayal of a future dystopian America might have been too challenging a plow for general audiences. When the film was first released in 2003, the notion of an economy-wrecked U.S.A. on the brink of collapse and in police-state mode seemed wildly fanciful. Sadly, in 2020, this premise sadly seems a more plausible concept.

Mostly ravaged by critics upon its release, the occasionally self-indulgent Masked and Anonymous nevertheless has its moments. There’s little doubt that obsessive Bob Dylan fans will better relate to the anarchic, choppy, and occasionally ponderous circus-atmosphere of the film. In many circumstances, the film serves as a type of celluloid mirror to Dylan’s often bleak song settings and dystopian worldview. Charles believes we can see many of Dylan’s fabled “masks fall” in the course of the film, and some level this is true. But as one critic from Vanity Fair once astutely noted, “Bob Dylan rigs every performance, no matter how direct, with decoys and trip wires. His welcome mat is set above a trapdoor.”

Sir Alan Parker has died at age 76. The esteemed British filmmaker was known for making highly diverse, acclaimed films. He had received two Oscar nominations for Best Director, the first for "Midnight Express" and the other for "Mississippi Burning". Parker made his feature film directorial debut in 1975 with "Bugsy Malone", an offbeat and inspired send up of old gangster movies starring a cast comprised of child actors including Jodie Foster. His other films include "Fame", "The Commitments", "Pink Floyd- The Wall", "Shoot the Moon", "Angela's Ashes", "Evita", "Angel Heart" and "Birdy". Parker had not directed a film since "The Life of David Gale" in 2003. As news of his death broke, tributes were paid by his peers in the entertainment industry including Andrew Webber, David Putnam and Barbara Broccoli.

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By Hank Reineke

There are times I wish my failing memory could serve me better, and here’s one example. I have a vague memory of staying up one night – circa 1980, I guess - to catch Roger Moore on one of those late night talk-shows. I was a huge James Bond fan and, as such, always desperate to mine any news, no matter how trivial, on any upcoming oo7 adventure. This was, of course, in the pre-internet era when insider information was relatively scarce outside of a morsel or two shared in fanzine or with a subscription to Variety. (As an aside, today I often wish there was less information available when a film is still in still production). In any event, don’t recall if Moore shared any information that night on the next scheduled Bond opus For Your Eyes Only (1981). I do clearly recall him discussing Andrew V. McLaglen’s ffolkes (better known in the United Kingdom, where the film was originally released, as North Sea Hijack).

In this new suspense-thriller Moore shared he would co-star with actors James Mason and Anthony Perkins. That night Moore attempted a small joke, first noting – factually - that the film was based on a Jack Davies novel titled Esther, Ruth and Jennifer. He explained that Universal had – perhaps understandably - balked on putting the film out under that title. This original title was, to be fair, a film publicist’s nightmare. The former Saint reasoned (and I’m paraphrasing here), “Could anyone imagine the promotional posters and newspaper advertisements: “Roger Moore, James Mason and Anthony Perkins in Esther, Ruth and Jennifer?” Well, Moore’s joke got a laugh that night, anyway. Decades later Moore would recall in his memoir that Universal actually balked as they thought the original Davies title sounded “too biblical.” Moore, never one to waste a punchline, would recall in his memoir, “I’ve yet to come across a Jennifer in the Bible.”

Whether you prefer the title ffolkes or North Sea Hijack, the story was, as discussed, based on the Davies’ novel Esther, Ruth and Jennifer (W.H. Allen, 1979, UK). Davies was actually somewhat new to novel writing, though his earlier novel involving terrorism, Paper Tiger (W.H. Allen, 1974, UK) was subsequently turned into a film in 1975 film starring David Niven and Toshiro Mifune. Davies seems to have turned to the craft of writing novels in the latter years of his life, though he had been steadily employed as a writer during most of his 80 years. He had churned out dozens upon dozens of screenplays from the mid-1930s through the very end of the 1960s and even a bit beyond that. As a child I was already familiar with two of the slapstick comedies he co-penned, though I certainly wasn’t aware of his contributions at the time. But we of a certain age will certainly recall with fondness Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines (1965) (for which Davies and co-writer Ken Annakin would receive Academy Award nominations) and Those Daring Young Men in their Jaunty Jalopies (1969).

Brought onto the project to direct the ffolkes project was Andrew V. McLaglen who too boasted an impressive resume of directorial duties (having already steered a dizzying amount of television westerns and contributing to such touchstone dramas as Perry Mason). He had grown up immersed in the ways of Hollywood’s film industry. His father, Victor McLaglen, was a celebrated feature film actor, having long been a favorite casting choice for the great John Ford. Indeed, McLaglen, the elder, would go on to win the “Best Actor in a Leading Role” Oscar for Ford’s 1935 film The Informer. McLaglen, the son, would learn nearly every aspect of the trade from an early age, starting out as an actor but finding himself more comfortable on the other side of the camera - often working as a director’s assistant or principal director. Though he had been especially involved in television work in the 1950s through 1965, he decided to try his hand at feature filmmaking. He did so for a decade or more with mostly modest to mixed success.

He returned to television work in the mid-1970s until 1977 when he signed on to direct a number of internationally financed features which would include the three films for which he is probably best remembered, at least among devotees of action films: The Wild Geese (1978), ffolkes (1980) and The Sea Wolves (1980). This trio of old-school filmmaking would, not coincidentally, feature a number of aging Hollywood stars. These were the actors who were no longer the hottest of commodities at the box office but were still well-respected and loved by generations of filmgoers: Richard Burton, Richard Harris, Stewart Granger, James Mason, Anthony Perkins, and Gregory Peck to name a few. The connecting thread to all three of these films was, of course, Roger Moore whose big-screen career had re-blossomed since the 1972 announcement of his being cast as the new James Bond.

Moore’s Rufus Excalibur ffolkes was the antithesis to the womanizing character he was usually tasked to play. An ex-Navy man, the often pompous – and bearded - ffolkes resided in a small castle just off the coast of Scotland, (Ireland, in reality). It was there he would exhaustively train a small hand-chosen band of elite commandos – dubbed “ffolkes fusiliers” – in the art of counter-terrorism. The hard scotch whiskey-drinking ffolkes professed a distinct chauvinistic distaste for woman (there’s an offhanded reference such animosity was the result of a failed marriage). He only expressed warmth, kindness and tenderness to his pet cats to whom he was doting and devoted. He also puzzled several colleagues – as it’s so out of character – when he would, on occasion, pull out a needlework canvas that he allowed he’d been working on for some “seventeen years.” When questioned about his unusual hobby, he coldly responded in his usual misanthropic manner, “It helps me to think… providing people don’t talk to me.”

His services are reluctantly activated when the British government are informed that a band of terrorists, disguised as members of the international press, have taken control of the Esther, a Norwegian supply ship charged with ferrying parts to two deep-sea ports-of-call: the drilling rig Ruth, and the production platform Jennifer, the latter platform of which sits in the North Sea and produces 300,000 barrels of oil for the UK per year. When the Esther reaches its destinations, the terrorists subsequently send in a stealth scuba team to plant limpet mines on the bases of both Ruth and Jennifer. The group’s unhinged leader, Lou Kramer, played with convincing, unpredictable mania by Anthony Perkins, is demanding the government pay him – within twenty-four hours - a ransom of 25 million GBP in five different currencies to not go through with the detonation. The terrorist has assessed that such destruction would bring the economy to the brink of ruin, cause an environmental catastrophe, and in doing so take the lives of some seven hundred men working on the platforms.

BY LEE PFEIFFER

Although Great Britain had emerged as victors in WWII, the aftereffects of the war had an immediate and substantial impact on British society. In addition to massive damage to cities and infrastructure, the necessities of life were in short supply, resulting in an extended period of rationing. Although the population was eager to flock to cinemas as a distraction from the harshness of reality, the British film industry suffered as well. Consequently, the post-war years were largely characterized by low-budget movies often shot in haste with minimal production values. However, necessity proved to be the mother of invention, as some of these Poverty Row productions provided a fertile training ground for estimable talents both in front of and behind the cameras. Kino Lorber has released a much-welcomed second set of such films titled "British Noir II", containing five modestly-budgeted gems.

The films included in the set are:

"The Interrupted Journey" (1949) Directed by Daniel Birt. This micro-budget production opens with John North (Richard Todd) and his mistress Susan Wilding (Christine Nordern), who is also in a strained marriage, sneaking away to take a nighttime train in order to start a new life together. John's wife Valerie (Carol North) has been pushing him to give up his career as a failed writer and to take more conventional employment. Susan is married to Jerves Wilding (Alexander Gauge), an ogre of a man. On board the train, however, John begins to have second thoughts about deserting his loving and loyal wife. When Christine falls asleep, he pulls the train's emergency brake and jumps off near his house. Minutes after returning home, there is a terrible disaster when the train he had been aboard is hit by an oncoming locomotive on the same track. Blaming himself for the resulting carnage and many deaths, John has to keep a poker face even as he and Valerie help tend to victims of the crash. The next morning, an investigator for the railroad (Tom Walls) appears to inform John that he has been linked to Susan, who died in the crash. Shockingly, he informs John that she had been murdered by a gunshot prior to the accident and John's name was mentioned numerous times in her diary. Valerie put two and two together and confronts John about his affair. Meanwhile, he appears to be the prime suspect in Susan's murder. Despite the low production values, this intelligent mystery/thriller works well for most of its running time, thanks to the fine performances. Director Daniel Birt ratchets up the suspense but he is almost undone by a late, bizarre plot twist that is gimmicky and not very believable. When the story gets back on track, John confronts Susan's husband, who he suspects might be behind her murder. As played like a poor man's Sidney Greenstreet, Alexander Gauge overdoes the obnoxious, obese drunk to the point that you expect to reach over and put a lampshade on his head. Despite these flaws, the movie is impressive because of the more intriguing aspects of the script. 

"Time is My Enemy" (1954) Directed by Don Chaffey. Based on the play "Second Chance", the film opens with Barbara Everton (Renee Asherton) living a content life as wife and mother. She was widowed when her scheming, ne're do well husband Martin Radley (Dennis Price), was reported to be killed during the war, though his body was never found. She is now living a life of comfort with her successful husband John (Patrick Barr), as they both dote on their young son. Barbara's dream world turns into a nightmare with the shocking appearance at her house by Martin, who admits to having feigned his death and assumed a new identity. He's now the leader of a band of robbers who are wanted by the police for a bank job that has gone awry, resulting in the death of a security guard. Dennis demands that Barbara give him the sum of 4,000 pounds (ludicrous by today's standards, but a large amount in 1954) so that he can flee the country. If she refuses, he will make it known that he is still alive and that Barbara's marriage to John is invalid, thus making her a tainted woman and afflicting her young son as the product of an unmarried couple. The plot has plenty of surprising twists including another murder and Barbara's frantic attempts to raise the money without divulging the dilemma to her husband. Well-directed by Don Chaffey, who would go on to direct "Jason and the Argonauts", the movie is most compelling when Dennis Price is on screen. He's in the grand tradition of erudite villains who remain polite even as they are threatening someone's life.

"The Vicious Circle"  (aka "The Circle") (1957) Directed by Gerald Thomas. One of the best titles in this collection stars John Mills as Dr. Howard Latimer, a successful physician with an upscale lifestyle who is engaged to beautiful Laura James (Noelle Middleton). However, his life is disrupted when he becomes the key suspect in the murders of two women, both of whom he barely knew. The fine script by Francis Durbridge uses the tried-and-true Hitchcock formula of making the protagonist an innocent swept up into a fantastic and deadly plot that becomes increasingly bizarre as he tries to find out who is framing him and why. It all leads to any number of suspects, false identities and deadly situations. The budget for this film was adequate enough to allow for on location filming in London and director Gerald Thomas takes full advantage of shooting at such sites as the Thames, Cleopatra's Needle and the Embankment, thus giving the production a glossier look than many other "B" movies of the era. John Mills is in excellent form throughout and there are marvelous supporting performances by Ronald Culver as as the dapper, dry-witted police inspector who is closing in on our hero and Wilfred Hyde-White, in full lovable, tweedy character mode as a man of mystery. The film is thoroughly engaging throughout.

"Time Lock" (1957) Directed by Gerald Thomas. Another gem from director Gerald Thomas, this time collaborating with producer Peter Rogers, with whom he would go on to make the classic "Carry On" comedies. "Time Lock" is a tense, believable thriller based on a Canadian TV production written by Arthur Hailey ("Airport"). The film retains the Canadian setting, though it was shot entirely in the UK. Another microbudget production, "Timelock" is arguably the best title in this British film noir collection, even if this particular movie hardly merits being included in the noir genre.The plot is simple: a young couple and their six-year old son are inside a bank where the father works. The young boy wanders into the bank vault and is accidentally locked in. The vault cannot be opened until the timing mechanism is enacted automatically 48 hours from the time of incident. Knowing the boy will suffocate by then, the police, bank manager and a local welding company all work frantically to try to bore through the seemingly impregnable wall, with time slipping quickly away. Ultimately, only one man is deemed to be able to save the day: bank vault security expert Pete Dawson (Robert Beatty), but he is in a remote region on holiday and can't be reached. Director Thomas builds the suspense slowly until it reaches a full boil. The performances are all believable and the film's supporting cast includes young Sean Connery as a welder on the rescue team.

"Cosh Boy" (1953) Directed by Lewis Gilbert. Although virtually unknown in the United States where the film was ridiculously titled "The Slasher" (no one is slashed in the film), this early directorial effort by Lewis Gilbert has won considerable appreciation from UK film critics over the years. It's another claustrophobic production this time dealing with juvenile delinquency. In an outstanding performance, James Kenny plays Roy,  a 16 year-old punk who reigns as a gang leader in a working class neighborhood. He's being raised by a single mom, who he can manipulate at will and turn into an enabler for his abhorrent behavior. Only is grandmother is wise to the fact that behind the innocent demeanor is a sociopath. The film explores how Roy holds sway through bribes and intimidation to ensure that his mates remain his unquestioning servants. He puts on the persona of a gentleman to woo his classmate, Rene (Joan Collins) into dating him but she learns quickly enough that she will pay a terrible price for what she mistook to be a loving relationship. "Cosh Boy" is expertly made, never melodramatic and paints a picture of working class boys in the aftermath of WWII who grew up fatherless due to the war. Director Lewis Gilbert would go on to far more prestigious productions but the seeds were sown in modest films such as this- and his talent is quite evident. (Kino Lorber has released a stand along Blu-ray edition of the film under the title "The Slasher". Click here for review.)

The quality of the prints used for the transfers are all over the place. Most are satisfactory though "The Interrupted Journey" shows a good deal of wear. Of course these were films that were largely neglected over the decades and one must assume that Kino Lorber used the best elements available. The only bonus extras as some trailers. However, one would hope that a Blu-ray upgrade might be on the horizon. If so, it would be appropriate to have commentary tracks accompanying these films primarily to discuss the wealth of young talent that emerged in titles such as these.

"British Noir II" is highly recommended.

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“A LOVE STORY… NOT!”

By Raymond Benson

There’s no question that the 1966 film adaptation of Edward Albee’s 1962 Tony-winning play, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, is one of the most important and influential motion pictures of the 1960s. It not only showcased four superlative acting performances, a jaw-dropping impressive directorial debut (by Mike Nichols), brilliant black and white cinematography and editing, but it also changed the Hollywood movie industry.

By the mid-60s, the archaic Production Code, which had been in force since July 1934, was in its death throes. When Otto Preminger began releasing titles in the 1950s without the Production Code Seal of Approval (The Moon is Blue, The Man with the Golden Arm, Anatomy of a Murder), he proved to the powers-that-be that the Code was not infallible. Then along came such fare as Psycho, Lolita, and The Pawnbroker in the early 60s, and it was clear that the American public wanted to see more “adult” pictures. The times-they-were-a-changing. By 1966, the Code was all but demolished, and Jack Valenti was appointed the head of the MPAA. As Valenti states in one of the documentary supplements on the Warner Archive Blu-ray release of Virginia Woolf, he had already begun thinking about implementing the movie ratings system (which would launch in late 1968) because he, too, felt that America could handle subjects for mature audiences.

Albee’s Broadway play was shocking for its language—curse words galore—and its frank sexual implications. Its portrayal of a failed marriage perhaps mirrored many such unions across middle-class USA, and this alone made the material controversial. Jack Warner, in a canny move, must have seen the way of the future and bought the film rights early on. It was another four years before the picture was made, but he allowed it to be adapted faithfully, with most of the dialogue intact, and with top-notch talent involved in every aspect of the production.

The great Ernest Lehman was hired to adapt the play, but he made it a condition of his employment that he also be made producer. Warner agreed. Lehman wanted Elizabeth Taylor to play Martha, and this casting choice raised eyebrows. Taylor was 20 years too young and had so far not shown anything near the dramatic chops required to play the demanding role. Taylor, in turn, insisted that her husband at the time, Richard Burton, portray George. The two supporting roles of Nick and Honey were filled out by George Segal and Sandy Dennis (her second film appearance), and this quartet has proven to be one of the most successful casting coups in cinema history.

George and Martha are in their fifties—he an associate professor at a New England college and she the daughter of the college president. Perhaps their marriage was one of convenience and career-making years earlier, but now it is bitter, cruel, and spiteful. One late night after a faculty party, they return home, drunk, and Martha reveals she has invited another couple, Nick and Honey—he a young and handsome professor at the college and she an introverted housewife—to stop by for more drinks. Once the quartet is together, the games begin. These are psychological battles of emotional will which begin between George and Martha, but soon envelope Nick and Honey. Secrets emerge. Lives are shattered. The dark underbelly of love and marriage is upended and revealed for all to see.

It doesn’t sound like a good time at the movies, does it? Forget it! This is riveting stuff. The acting alone is so astonishingly good that you will hang on to every line of dialogue. Haskell Wexler’s Oscar-winning black and white cinematography (the last year this category was utilized) brings the audience up close and personal in such a way that the film version may very well be more effective than the stage play. Virginia Woolf ended up being nominated for thirteen Academy Awards and in every category for which it was eligible, including Best Picture, Director, and Adapted Screenplay, and all four actors received nods in their respective slots. Taylor and Dennis won in their categories (Actress and Supporting Actress). The crime, however, is that Richard Burton did not win. While Paul Scofield was brilliant in A Man for All Seasons, Burton’s performance is generally considered by many critics to be the actor’s career-best (all of the talking heads in the supplemental documentaries are of this opinion, including Albee, critic Richard Schickel, and Wexler.)

The Warner Archive Blu-ray is a port-over from the “Special Edition” 2-disk anniversary DVD that came out four years ago. The high definition remastering looks gorgeous, and it comes with two audio commentaries: one with DP Wexler, and the other with Nichols and filmmaker Steven Soderbergh. The extensive supplements (not in high definition) include an hour long TV special from 1975 about Elizabeth Taylor’s career; a vintage interview with Nichols; Sandy Dennis’ screen tests; two featurettes on the making of the film and its impact on the industry; and the theatrical trailer.

Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is a powerful punch to the gut. It may be a rough ride, but it’s a thoroughly engrossing one, and you’ll come out on the other side enlightened. Highly recommended.

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BY TODD GARBARINI

The films of John Cassavetes are an acquired taste. Long considered to be the father of the modern independent film movement, his unorthodox style to acting and filmmaking notoriously drove some of his performers crazy while also receiving kudos and accolades from others. Like most filmmakers of his ilk, his work was best seen in independently owned movie theaters in New York City where films generally played for weeks or even months on end to a combination of both rave reviews and decent box office, two ingredients necessary to ensure securing funding for future projects. His directorial debut, Shadows (1958), depicted a romantic relationship between a white man and an African-American woman and the tumult that their relationship brought to their families. The film was unorthodox not only in its subject matter but in its approach to filmmaking. The film possesses a unique style and an immediacy that audiences of the time were not used to seeing in polished Hollywood productions. Following Too Late Blues (1961) he made A Child is Waiting (1963), which starred Burt Lancaster, Judy Garland, John Marley, and Mr. Cassavetes’s wife Gena Rowlands. The latter two would go on to appear in his financially successful and acclaimed Faces (1968) which would provide the financing for his controversial Husbands (1970), a searing portrait of middle-aged men, their relationships with women, with each other, and most of all, with themselves.

Gus (John Cassavetes), Harry (Ben Gazzara), Archie (Peter Falk) and Stuart (David Rowlands) all appear to be successful businessmen. They are in their early forties, they are married and have children, and as the movie opens to snapshots depicting them all at family picnics, family outings, and general overall goofiness, it becomes apparent to the audience that these four men are best friends and are for all intents and purposes inseparable – until Stuart suddenly dies of a heart attack and leaves his friends behind as a solemn triumvirate questioning their lives and their places in the world. We never see or meet Stuart outside of the still photos, but his presence hangs over Gus, Harry, and Archie in everything they say and do and more importantly what they do not say or do. Following Stuart’s funeral, the men all decide not to go home, instead electing to set out on a series of adventures: taking a subway ride; playfully fighting in the streets; playing basketball at a local gym; swimming; encouraging a woman to sing them a song at a local bar; getting sick in a men’s room, etc. Harry’s family is the only one we are privy to when he returns home and has a physical fight with his wife and her mother. They all make half-hearted efforts to return to their jobs until the futility of life sparks a decision to travel to London. Harry intimates that he wants no part of the middle-class life that he has built in his suburban house.

Arriving across the pond, they play craps and encounter varying degrees of difficulty picking up three women (Jenny Runacre, Jenny Lee Wright and Noelle Kao). What transpires in their hotel rooms may on the surface seem ridiculous and silly, however something remarkable occurs as the three men are forced to reckon with Stuart’s death and ultimately, their own mortality. The film is ultimately about absence: Stuart is gone from their lives, and aside from Harry’s fight with his wife, the wives are absent from Gus and Archie’s lives, except from the opening stills. Their behavior with the women they have picked up is far more complex than their dialog lets on, which anticipates the film’s unexpected yet deeply poignant denouement. It may be impossible to understand the meanings of the scenes upon one viewing of the film, but Mr. Cassavetes was a rogue filmmaker with an originality and honesty to be reckoned with. Some accused him of being self-indulgent. For the adventurous and curious cineaste who prefers a cerebral cinematic experience bereft of Marvel superheroes and the requisite explosions, the rewards in Husbands are plentiful.

Husbands opened in New York City on Wednesday, December 9, 1970, but the film was shot in the early months of 1969. It was featured on the cover of Life Magazine in May 1969 but by the time the film was released, the cover story became a distant memory for readers. The director’s unorthodox method to shooting provided challenges to those he worked with, especially Peter Falk who struggled at first with what the director wanted. Initial rough cuts favored different points-of-view: one favored Gus, then another favored Archie, and yet another favored Harry. The director shot roughly 1,300,00 feet of film, which translates to about 240 hours of raw footage. That is almost an unconscionable amount of takes to sift through to yield a finished film, the sheer volume taking months simply to view it prior to attempting to cut it all together.

The new Criterion Collection Blu-ray runs 142 minutes and the film already feels long, however Ben Gazzara preferred the 240-minute cut, which I would have loved to have seen as an additional disc. Obviously that cut was answer-printed and locked, so it must exist in some form, perhaps in either Gena Rowland’s or Nick Cassavetes’s basements? If the film’s trailer touts it as a comedy, it is due to the fact that the director took the version well-received by the audience and recut it into the version that he wanted, to the dismay of the suits at Columbia Pictures.

BY HANK REINEKE

On the surface it appeared somewhat brave of Kino Lorber to greenlight a Blu-ray edition of Peter Hunt’s 1974 conspiracy-thriller Gold. It’s not that the film isn’tt deserving of such treatment, in this case an almost flawless restoration from original elements courtesy of Pinewood Studios. It’s only that this film has already been exhaustively exploited on peddled by every budget VHS and DVD label over the last several decades. So fans of the film would surely have this title – perhaps in multiple editions and action-film multi-packs – already sitting on their collection shelves. If so, I can promise your copy is a greatly inferior version to what we’ve been happily provided with here.

The back story of this film’s production, as so often the case, is nearly as interesting as the film itself. Michael Klinger, the British film producer who had given us the great Michael Caine spy thriller Get Carter in 1971, had previously optioned the film rights to such novels as Gold Mine (1970) and Shout at the Devil (1968). Both of these adventure-thrillers had been authored by the Rhodesian novelist Wilbur Smith. Smith would, alongside co-writers, later share screenwriting credit for both films. Klinger was able to raise funds for the film’s production through South African investments and a promise – soon to be controversial - to shoot both of his films in Johannesburg and neighboring communities.

Klinger brought on Peter Hunt to direct the film – whose working title of Gold Mine was soon shortened to Gold. In doing so, Klinger would not-so-coincidentally rescue Hunt’s career as a director of big-screen adventures. Following production of the Hunt helmed sixth James Bond film On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969), the former editor was sadly offered only two subsequent directorial assignments, both far more modest efforts for British television. In what everyone hoped would be his deserved return to big screen respectability, Hunt would bring on a number of veterans from the James Bond series to assist him on his return to big feature filmmaking: editor John Glen, sound recordist Gordon K. McCallum, camera operator Alec Mills, title artist Maurice Binder and production designer Syd Cain amongst them.

It was likely a Godsend to Cain that he wasn’t tasked to replicate an actual working mine in full scale. Klinger had been able to secure the full cooperation of South Africa’s General Mining Corporation for the film’s production. The British souvenir program for Gold, later sold at cinemas in the UK, boasted that the GMC was “one of the great mining and finance houses in the world,” adding the production team was given unfettered use of their mines at West Rand and Bufflesfontein. It was at the latter location that most of the surface photography was shot, with filming having commenced “beneath the 160-foot high shafthead and above the 500 miles of tunnels which twist 9,000 feet below and from which are torn 5,000 metric tons of rock every month.” Cain did impressively replicate portions of the gold mine to film interior action scenes at Pinewood Studios.

Tapped to portray Rod Slater, was another – if more recent – member of the James Bond film family: Roger Moore. Moore’s character in the film was recently promoted – or perhaps one should say “set up” – from “Underground Manger” to General Manager of Sonderditch GMC Ltd. It’s a South African mining company that will soon fall victim to a nefarious plot hatched in London by a board room of ruthless financial investors led by Sir John Gielgud. Their plan is to covertly flood the mine to manipulate prices on the gold market in an effort to increase their own fortunes… even if their windfall would come at the at the expense of the miner’s lives. I’m not giving away anything here, this film is by no means a mystery; the protagonists are identified nearly from the film’s very beginning. Gielgud has many accomplices in his plot including the mine’s very own Managing Director Manfred Steyner (Bradford Dillman).

There was little doubt that the producers of Gold hoped their film might ride the coattails of Moore’s surprising international success as James Bond in Live and Let Die (1973). The lobby cards for Gold, one guesses not unintentionally, would boast “Everything They Touch Turns to Excitement!” Which may have been a great line of ballyhoo, but one whose promotional zing would seem awfully familiar to the one found on the Goldfinger (1964) one sheet: “Everything He Touches Turns to Excitement!” I suppose it can also be argued that Gielgud’s intention to create a crisis to manipulate gold prices and increase his fortune by “five thousand million dollars” (whatever amount that is) is essentially an idea torn from Auric Goldfinger’s playbook. Interestingly, Gold would later be paired in the UK as a double-feature with Diamonds Are Forever (1971). The very collectible British Quad poster assembled for this odd cross-studio pairing would trumpet “At last! Moore and Connery Together in One Terrific All-Action Programme!”

Moore wasn’t the only actor on hand to bring a little star power to the marquee. Actress Susannah York was cast to play Terry Steyner, the Cessna piloting wife of conspirator Dillman, and Slater’s immediate boss. If Dillman’s Steyner is a complete tool, Moore’s Slater is, to be honest, a bit of an anti-hero himself: he’s a philandering rapscallion, who carries a checkered past of broken marriages, debt and high-living tastes that he can ill afford. Moore easily seduces York and their ill-advised affair begins... though, to be fair, she was desperately unhappy in her marriage to begin with. Ray Milland, who plays York’s father, is also on hand as the curmudgeonly but amiable CEO of Sonderditch. Also working on the film was famed composer Elmer Bernstein, whose emotive score would earn him (and lyricist Don Black) an Academy Award nomination in the Best Music, Original Song for “Wherever Love Takes Me”… but they would lose out to “We May Never Love Like This Again” from The Towering Inferno.

So the film certainly doesn’t lack for talent. The problem with Gold is that the story is a maddeningly meandering slow burn. Every stage of the nefarious plan and every criminal and marital double-cross is dutifully documented at length… at the expense of the film’s action which is relegated to the film’s final fifteen minutes. Hunt’s best and most dramatic moments are captured in scenes involving the dangers of the dank, claustrophobic mines, all groaning beams of lumber, dynamite fuses, trapped miners and unsettling cave-in catastrophes (one which includes a grim on-site medical amputation).

As already mentioned, there were a lot of film technicians associated with the James Bond franchise who would work on Gold. The most notable, perhaps, was this film’s Editor and Second Unit director John Glen. There’s little doubt that this film would later prove influential to Glen when chosen to direct the fourteenth Bond film A View to a Kill (1985). Much of the visual mayhem on display in Max Zorin’s soundstage mine was eerily similar to those in Hunt’s Gold. Glen would go on to direct Moore in three James Bond adventures from 1981-1985. Hunt, on the other hand, had previously worked with Moore on a single episode of The Persuaders (“Chain of Events,” 1971), but would work again with the actor on Gold and Shout at the Devil (1976). Despite their friendship, Hunt would confess in a fascinating interview with the short-lived sci-fi magazine Retro Vision, “I love Roger, he’s a lovely man and I’ve done three films with him. But he was never my idea of James Bond.”

The World Charity Premiere (“In Aid of the Star Organisation for Spastics”) of Gold was held on the evening of Thursday, September 5, 1974 at the Odeon Leicester Square. On Friday, September 6^th, the film was to set to enjoy a limited roll out to just short of two-dozen theaters across the UK. Hemdale, the corporation set to distribute the film in the UK afterwards took out a full-page ad in the trades trumpeting “Gold is proving to be 24 carat – 1^st Week Box-Office Total in 23 Cinemas: 81, 660 GBP. Every situation held over. Mr. Exhibitor Make Sure You Get Your Share of Gold.” The film would make less of a splash in the U.S. Though the US would not see a version of the colorful souvenir program brochure that British audiences were offered, Pyramid Books would publish a paperback movie tie-in with a promise their pulp edition would include “an 8-page photo insert from the film.”

Unfortunately for the producers, critical reaction to the film in the U.S. was less enthusiastic, with many newspapers writing off Gold as one more run-of-the-mill “disaster films.” There was some morsel of truth in that. The success of The Poseidon Adventure (1972) had kicked-off in its wake a rash of box-office and pop-culture disaster-film successes as The Towering Inferno (1974) and Earthquake! (1974). One critic would, incorrectly, but understandably, describe Hunt’s adaptation of Gold “as one of the cataclysm of disaster movies that have lately been making cinemas look like Red Cross centers.”

BY LEE PFEIFFER

Most urban crime thrillers made today are indistinguishable blood baths that consist of mindless car chases and pretentiously tough characters. Every now and then, however, a real unsuspected gem surfaces. Such is the case with the 2015 film "Criminal Activities". Despite its generic, computer-generated title that sounds like it was created to emulate one of the endless CBS crime series, the film is expertly made and superbly acted. It also has some very clever plot twists and turns that play out logically and very surprisingly. Most impressive is that this marks the directorial debut of character actor Jackie Earl Haley, who has been kicking around the industry for decades mostly in minor roles. Now in his fifties, he's made a dynamic impression both on-screen and behind the camera with "Criminal Activities".  One must proceed gingerly in reviewing a film like this, 'lest some of the spoilers be divulged.

The film opens with the death of a seemingly troubled young man who is killed by a bus in front of horrified on-lookers. It's presumed to have been a suicide. After his funeral, some of his friends gather to discuss the tragic event. They are Warren (Christopher Abbott), Bryce (Rob Brown) and Zach (Michael Pitt). They are unexpectedly joined by Noah (Dan Stevens) , a nerdy financial investment analyst who was the butt of jokes in high school among some of his friends. He's still very much a nerd but is reluctantly accepted into the group's social orbit partly out of compassion for the way he was treated by them so many years ago. Over drinks the group analyzes why their friend might have ended his life. It's revealed that the dearly departed had been complaining about being followed by some unknown person or persons in recent days...something that unnerved him. Is it possible this stalker might have actually been responsible for his death? The conversation soon turns to money...and the common goal of everyone in the group to attain a successful life style. Bryce says he has a sure-fire investment scheme based on insider trading. There is a stock that is about to skyrocket but they would need to come up with $200,000 to get in on the deal. Collectively they don't have anywhere near that amount. However, Noah advises that he can definitely front the money, as long as they all share the risk as well as the profit. Assuming Noah is putting up his own savings, the young men readily agree. Weeks later, the "sure-fire"  investment goes to hell when the company involved is raided by the feds and its CEO is arrested, causing the stock value to plunge to virtually zero. The panicked group gets together and learns more bad news: Noah didn't put up his own money. Instead, he borrowed it from a local crime kingpin, Eddie (John Travolta) who now expects to be repaid. He meets with the terrified men and they find him to be a smooth operator. He's quiet, calm and witty- but alerts them that the "interest" on the loan is another $200,000. The men advise him that they can't possibly come up with $400,000. He then makes them an offer they literally can't refuse - or they will pay with their lives. Eddie explains that a local rival crime boss has kidnapped his young niece and he's desperate to get her back. He advises them that he will forgive their entire debt if they successfully kidnap his rival's nephew. Eddie will then ensure the release of his niece by arranging a trade of hostages. The four men are understandably frightened by the proposition. After all, they are every day guys with no experience in criminal activities. Nevertheless, Eddie leaves them no choice. He makes it abundantly clear that failure is not an option-at least if they value their lives. The men concoct a scenario to kidnap the nephew, Marques (Edi Gathegi) from a local sleazy nightclub he hangs out in. The men bungle key aspects of the plan but, against all odds, succeed in capturing Marques and bringing him to a vacant apartment they have access to. They advise Eddie that the plan was a success and he tells them everything is looking good- just keep Marques on ice until he gets his niece back. Marques proves to be a handful. He speaks in street jive that is a far cry from the vernacular used by his Gen X white captors. Although tied to a chair, he exudes significant enough charisma to possibly talk his kidnappers into releasing him on the basis that they can still get away with no criminal charges. From this point on, it would be a disservice to detail more of the plot except to say that things wrap up in a startling manner that this viewer didn't see coming.

Director Jackie Earl Haley, who wrote the screenplay based on a script by the late Robert Lowell that had been gathering dust since 1977,  provides himself with a plum supporting role as the most memorable of a two-man team of hit men who are in Eddie's employ. The concept of two eccentric hit men had moss on it even before Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson played such roles so memorably in "Pulp Fiction". In fact, Lee Marvin and Clu Gulager were terrific in similar parts way back in Don Siegel's 1964 remake of "The Killers"- and Robert Webber and Gig Young were also quite good in Peckinpah's "Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia". However, Haley is superb in his brief scenes on screen as a chatty, seemingly friendly street guy who can jump from making quips to blowing someone's head off in a nanosecond. The entire cast is superb, with Dan Stevens particularly memorable as the hapless Noah and Edi Gathegi almost stealing the entire show with an extremely good performance. Travolta, who also served as Executive Producer, seems to be having a blast as the villain. His screen time is limited but he makes the most of it, appearing at key points in the plot. In essence, he's playing a low-end version of a Bond villain. He lives in comparative wealth, has adoring women around him and sucks down dreadful kale-based milk shakes as part of a bizarre diet. He never loses his temper and becomes even scarier the more friendly he acts. As director, Haley keeps the action flowing at a swift pace and credible reactions by the "kidnappers" that evoke the way most of us would feel if we found ourselves caught up in such extraordinary circumstances. However, Haley-who is too obsessed with Tarantino-izing his film- puts style over substance during the movie's surprising final sequence. It proves to be a near fatal error. When the surprises are revealed, Haley does so in a lightning-fast sequence that is almost impossible to comprehend. Worse, he jumps back and forth in time and introduces a key character we haven't seen before. I had to revisit the ending several times in order to comprehend exactly what was being unveiled. Once I understood the plot development, I found it highly satisfying- but no viewer should have to rely on taking such measures just to figure out what is going on. "Criminal Activities" was denied a theatrical release and went straight to home video. Perhaps the incomprehensible nature of the ending was a factor in this. Nevertheless, if you are willing to stick with it (and possibly re-review scenes on the Blu-ray), you might well agree that this is a highly entertaining film and that Haley shows considerable promise as a director.

The Blu-ray from RLJ Entertainment features some deleted scenes and an all-too-brief joint interview with Haley and Travolta. The film should have included a commentary track, as Haley's late break into directing and his nurturing of an almost ancient un-filmed screenplay  would have made some interesting points for discussion.

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“EALING GOES SCOTTISH”

By Raymond Benson

The famous British studio, Ealing, made many kinds of pictures and became a major force in the U.K.’s film industry, especially after producer Michael Balcon took it over. While the studio had already made a few comedies, for some reason in the late 1940s it started producing more of them. The natures of these comedies shifted and became more intelligent, dry, and focused on underdog characters who valiantly attempt to overcome a series of obstacles. Sometimes the protagonists are successful—and sometimes not. Along the way, though, a series of misadventures occur. They range from “amusing” to “riotously funny.” It all worked, and the Ealing Comedies became a sub-genre unto themselves, especially when they starred the likes of Alec Guinness, Alastair Sim, or Stanley Holloway.

The year 1949 is generally considered the beginning of the run, which lasted until around 1957. In ’49, one of the best Ealing Comedy, Kind Hearts and Coronets (directed by Robert Hamer), was released, but so was Whisky Galore!, with Alexander Mackendrick making his directorial debut. From the accounts told in the documentary supplements contained in this marvelous new Blu-ray package from Film Movement, Mackendrick had a difficult time with the production. Shot entirely on location in remote areas of Scotland, there were over-schedule and over-budget problems, and the director himself tended to downplay the picture’s quality in his later years.

That said, Whisky Galore! (released as Tight Little Island in the U.S.) ended up being a hit at the box office and is today fondly remembered as one of the great Ealing Comedies. Its success assured Mackendrick’s place in making future films for the studio, like The Man in the White Suit (1951) and The Ladykillers (1955), as well as The Maggie (1954), which is also included in this Blu-ray two-movie set.

Based on true events, it’s the story of a Scottish isle called Todday and the inhabitants who love their whisky. During World War II, the island goes dry and it’s near impossible to obtain the magic nectar. One night a ship carrying cartons of whisky meant for another port wrecks on the coast. While Captain Waggett (Basil Radford, of “Charters and Caldicott” fame), the English head of the Home Guard on the island, attempts to safeguard the whisky cases, everyone else is determined to confiscate it and hide what they can in secret places. The comedy comes with Waggett’s frustration at constantly being foiled, and with the various eccentric and colorful characters that populate Todday.

Every cast member is wonderful in the movie, but Joan Greenwood, who had starred in Kind Hearts and Coronets, is a standout with her sultry, sexy low voice and delivery.

The Maggie (released as High and Dry in the U.S.) also has a Scottish seafaring theme, with the stubborn Captain MacTaggart (Alex Mackenzie) and his pitiful “puffer” cargo boat attempting to haul expensive furniture owned by American millionaire and businessman, Calvin Marshall (Paul Douglas) from one port to another. At first the captain gets the job due to a misunderstanding and his own perpetuation of it, but ultimately Marshall allows the Maggie to haul his possessions. Everything that can go wrong does.

Film Movement’s new high definition digital restorations from StudioCanal are excellent. Whisky Galore! comes with an audio commentary by British film expert John Ellis. Supplements include a 52-minute documentary, “Distilling Whisky Galore!”, “The Real Whisky Galore!” (about the shipwreck of the original whisky-carrying vessel upon which the film is based), and a colorful booklet containing an essay by film scholar Ronald Bergen. There are no supplements associated with The Maggie.

For fans of Ealing Comedies, Scottish history and atmosphere, and well-written and performed British cinema, the Whisky Galore!/The Maggie combo pack is for you!

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BY LEE PFEIFFER

The 1969 film version of Woody Allen's Cold War comedy "Don't Drink the Water" comes to Blu-ray through Kino Lorber. If the film is remembered at all, it's usually disparaged by Allen fans who lament his complete lack of involvement in any aspect of the production, probably because he was simultaneously prepping his own directorial and starring role debut in "Take the Money and Run". Allen's comedy had a sensational run on Broadway, with over 500 performances after debuting in 1966. The story centers on the Hollander family, its grumpy patriarch, Walter (Jackie Gleason) and his devoted wife Marion (Estelle Parsons). Walter is a top caterer in Newark, New Jersey and is preparing for a high profile event that will see him earn a good sum of money. First, however, he's being dragged off on a European vacation with Marion and their teenage daughter Susan (Joan Delaney), who is very much into the "mod" scene of the era, much to Walter's disdain. En route to Athens, however, the plane is hijacked and lands in a Soviet satellite country. Although the pilot assures everyone that diplomatic channels will ensure they will take off shortly for their original destination, the Hollanders make the mistake of getting off the plane to take some photos despite the fact that they are surrounded by heavily armed security forces under the direction of fanatical communist intelligence chief Krojack (Michael Constantine), who attempts to arrest them for being spies. Walter spots a nearby limousine belonging to the U.S. consulate and convinces the acting ambassador, Axel Magee (Ted Bessell) to race them to the safety of the embassy in a madcap chase with Krojack and his goons in hot pursuit. Inside the embassy, they learn that Axel is the incompetent son of the esteemed ambassador (Howard St. John), who has just left on a diplomatic mission. It isn't long before Walter turns into the typical "Ugly American" and is barking insults and commands, expecting to be released immediately into U.S. custody. Obviously, things don't go well. The Hollanders find themselves victims of an international incident and are warned to prepare for a prolonged stay at the embassy, as the inept Axel attempts to find a solution and Walter sweats getting back home in time for the catering event.

The film was directed by Howard Morris, a veteran character actor and respected director of top sitcoms of the era. Indeed, the film plays out like an extended TV production and its merits largely rest on Gleason's broad shoulders, as he indulges in his characteristic "slow burns" and temper tantrums, especially when he finds a budding romance between Susan and Axel. The embassy houses another refugee, a European priest, Father Drobney (Richard Libertini), who is also wanted by Krojack for subversive activities. Libertini provides some of the few genuine laughs as the lovable priest tries to demonstrate his inept skills as a magician. There are a few yucks scattered throughout and the film doesn't play out as badly as its reputation might indicate, but much of the mayhem feels about as flat as a week-old pancake. This is rather surprising because the screenplay was entrusted to two of the top comedy writers of the time period, Harvey Bullock and R.S. Allen. However, what made audiences howl in live theater proves to be difficult to transfer to the silver screen. Gleason is Gleason, essentially playing his standard character. For those of us weaned on his TV shows, he comes across very well. To the uninitiated, he's probably just an insufferable grouch. Parsons, who was a recent Oscar winner for "Bonnie and Clyde" is stranded in an underwritten role that doesn't do justice to her comedic skills, but Delaney is quite charming and Ted Bessell provides some personality to a bland, one-note role. 

Some of the blame must be assigned to Howard Morris, who probably felt confined by the restraints of the script. Full disclosure: I knew Morris and he was a genuinely hilarious person on screen and off. He specialized in theatre of the absurd and had only recently gravitated to directing feature films. However, the scripts he was offered were generally very conventional. In the final scenes of "Don't Drink the Water" in which Hollanders disguise themselves as an Arab sheik and his harem to affect their escape, Morris gives in to his impulses and goes full-throttle for the absurd angle (even appearing in a cameo role). However, the climax of the film doesn't match with the earlier aspects of the movie, which are grounded somewhat in realism, thus making for a fairly dreadful finale. Nevertheless, "Don't Drink the Water" isn't a terrible film. It has provides a few giggles and some other delights, but overall it's a missed opportunity.

The Kino Lorber Blu-ray features a commentary track by film historians Howard S. Berger and Nathaniel Thompson, who are ubiquitous on KL releases. The track is highly engaging because they provide plenty of interesting background on the film (which was shot at a studio in Miami Beach to ensure Gleason wasn't far from is favorite golf course and exteriors were filmed in Quebec.) They also refreshingly staunchly defend the film, pointing out its assets, which include wonderful, mod opening titles and a zesty score by Patrick Williams, who also provides the corny-but-toe-tapping title song. They also argue that the movie is an unappreciated gem, which only proves that comedy can't be debated because you can never force a viewer to laugh at scenes they find inherently unfunny. Nevertheless, one has to respect their defense of a comedy that even Woody Allen so disdained that he felt compelled to remake it for television in the 1990s. The Blu-ray also features an abundance of comedy trailers for KL releases.

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BY LEE PFFEIFFER

Hollywood screenwriters have long rewritten historical events and figures under the premise of using "artistic license". Generally, this works well when considering aspects of the distant past. Thus, you can have Tony Curtis play a Viking and John Wayne portray Genghis Khan. What is unusual is finding a great cinematic historical distortion pertaining to a relatively recent event, for the obvious reason that the entire world is well aware of the deception. Such is the case with "Hitler's Madman", a 1943 "Poverty Row" production that had the distinction of being picked up for distribution by MGM. The film was made by German ex-pats in America who despised what the Nazi regime had done to their country. The movie is primarily distinguished by the fact that it represents the American directorial debut of Douglas Sirk, who would go on to considerable acclaim helming "A list" productions. The story concerns the reign of terror instituted by Reinhard Heydrich, the "Reich Protector" who oversaw running the government of Czecholslovakia, which had been annexed by Germany as part of the infamous agreement at Munich that saw Britain and France attempt to prevent war by appeasing Hitler. Even by Nazi standards, Heydrich was considered to be inhumane. Hitler himself derided him as the "man with the iron heart". As portrayed by John Carradine (with short, dyed blonde hair), the actor does bear a considerable resemblance to his historical counterpart.

The rather rambling story line for the movie is centered in a small Czech village where we see Karel Vavra (Alan Curtis), a local man who has been living in exile in England, parachute back into his home country. Making his way to the village he grew up in, he meets his sweetheart, Jarmilla Hanka (Patricia Morison) and explains that he's on a secret mission to organize a resistance movement among the local townspeople, who are being terrorized by the local puppet government under a feckless Nazi loyalist mayor. Karel finds the men understandably reluctant to patriotic entreaties, as they know the Nazis will ensure a dire fate for them if they are found out. Meanwhile, a parallel story line centers on Heydrich's activities in Prague, where he delights in demonizing "intellectuals" and politicizing the university educational programs. In the film's most daring scene, Heydrich orders female students to line up for inspection. If their looks pass muster, they are to be forcibly sterilized and sent to the Russian Front as sex slaves for German soldiers. This is pure hokum inserted into the film in order to justify the marketing campaign that showed Heydrich leering at frightened young women. Certainly women in occupied countries were forced or coerced to serve in brothels but the scene depicted in "Hitler's Madman" is there for reasons of pure sexploitation.

As Heydrich's cruel tactics begin to affect the rural population, Karel finds success in recruiting some men to form a partisan unit. The news that Heydrich is scheduled to drive through the village leads to an assassination attempt on a country road by Karel, Jarmilla and her father. The act is presented as though it's a spontaneous action, when, in fact, the entire scene is pure hooey. There was an assassination attempt on Heydrich while he was in his motorcar, but it took place in central Prague and had been carefully planned by two partisans who had been parachuted in from England to carry out the mission. The attempt almost failed when a machine gun jammed but Heydrich was injured by a grenade. Severely wounded, he refused to be treated by local non-German doctors and ended up dying from an infection. What is rather bizarre is that this event was major news around the world, so any movie goer would have been well aware of the historical distortion.The film does somewhat accurately present the fallout from Heydrich's assassination which resulted in the entire village of Lidice being razed to the ground, all males over 15 years old executed and all females sent to concentration camps. Most of the children were ultimately gassed to death,though this fact is not mentioned in the film. It was one of the most notorious war crimes in a conflict characterized by notorious war crimes.

“ARE YOU THERE?”

By Raymond Benson

Writer/director/actor Bryan Forbes was a major force in the British film industry for several decades, having started in the 1950s at times as an actor in films and then in other instances as a screenwriter, and then he moved into directing (his astonishing directorial debut, Whistle Down the Wind, was released in 1961). Forbes made several good pictures, the most famous probably being The Stepford Wives in the 70s.

Forbes also had connections to the world of James Bond. Forbes’ first screenwriting duties were for Albert R. Broccoli’s Warwick Films in the 1950s. When Forbes began writing novels, his literary agent was none other than Peter Janson-Smith, who had been Ian Fleming’s agent. Astute Bond fans will also spot other connections in The Whisperers, such as a John Barry score, and the appearance of Robin Bailey, the actor who, in the pre-credits sequence of You Only Live Twice, plays the Foreign Secretary mediating between the Russians and the Americans (“May I ask what motive our Russian friends would have for wishing to destroy American spacecraft?”).

The Whisperers, released in 1967, was a solid art-house hit starring Dame Edith Evans, earning her a third Oscar nomination in the four years between 1963-1967, this one for lead actress, the other two for supporting (for Tom Jones and The Chalk Garden). While she didn’t win the Oscar for The Whisperers, she did win the BAFTA, the Golden Globe, the New York Film Critics Award, and the National Board of Review Award. Evans was a major star of the British stage, but she made only a few films very early in her career (mostly the 30s) and late (the 60s).

The story is rather dreary and harkens back to the “kitchen-sink dramas” of the late 50s/early 60s that came out of Britain. It’s shot in black and white and focuses on a poor, working class neighborhood in a small town in the north of England. Margaret Ross (Evans) is old, lives alone, is on her way to a case of Alzheimer’s (a term not known then), and is delusional. Every time she enters her flat, she calls out, “Are you there?” because she hears voices in the pipes and walls. The place is a dump full of junk, stacks of newspapers and rotting books, and clutter that would scare anyone away. Her scoundrel husband, Archie (Eric Portman), ran off two decades earlier, and her grown son, Charlie (Ronald Fraser), is a crook who is sent to jail shortly after hiding a stash of stolen cash in his mother’s flat. Mrs. Ross continually lies to the National Assistance agent, although she probably believes the stories she tells. Her discovery of Charlie’s money changes things, though, and before long, estranged husband Archie returns to take advantage of the woman. Things do not go well.

As a statement on the condition of poverty in England at the time, The Whisperers is a potent social problem film. Evans indeed delivers a powerful performance as a paranoid, frightened woman at the end of her rope. Tellingly, the National Assistance was revamped into the Supplementary Benefit around the time the movie was made.

Kino Lorber’s 1920x1080p high definition restoration suitably displays Gerry Turpin’s monochrome cinematography that illustrates the bleakness of Mrs. Ross’ world. There are English subtitles for the hearing-impaired, as well as an audio commentary by film historian Kat Ellinger. The only supplements are trailers for this and other Kino Lorber titles.

The Whisperers might be depressing, but it’s also example of fine British talent in the form of both Forbes and Evans at the top of their games.

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