Technically speaking, OSS 117 secret agent Hubert
Bonisseur de La Bath is not a James
Bond knock off.The creation of wildly
prolific French author Jean Bruce, the first literary adventure of the spy arrived
in 1949 with the publication of Tu parles d'une ingénue (Ici OSS 117).This
would pre-date the April 1953 publication of the first Ian Fleming James Bond
novel, Casino Royale, by nearly four years.In the years following the publication of that
first 007 thriller to his last in 1965, Fleming would deliver an impressive thirteen
James Bond novels and nine short stories.
In contrast, Jean Bruce would
publish no fewer (and possibly more) than eighty-eight to ninety OSS 117
pulp-adventures between 1949 and March of 1963, the month and year of his
passing. It’s difficult to determine how many of Bruce’s novels were of his
composition alone. His widow, Josette – and later a teaming of the Bruce’s son
and daughter – would continue the pulp series into the early 1990s. So determined
bibliophiles will have their work cut out for them if they wish to track down
all of the 250+ published OSS 117 novels.
If OSS 117 beat James Bond to
the stalls of book-sellers, he also managed to beat him to the cinema
screen.Two OSS 117 films were released
throughout Western Europe and foreign markets in 1957 and 1960: OSS 117 n'est pas mort (OSS 117 is not Dead)
andLe bal des espions
(Danger in the Middle East).The latter title,
interestingly, does not feature “Hubert Bonisseur de La Bath.”Though based on one of Bruce’s OSS 117
novels, a messy rights-issue prevented the filmmakers to use the central
character’s moniker.These earliest
films, produced as routine crime dramas by differing production companies (and
featuring different actors in the title role), came and went without attention
nor fanfare.
But in 1963 Bruce’s OSS 117 character was resurrected as
a cinematic property following the success of Terence’s Young’s Dr. No, the first James Bond screen
adventure.The spy pictures comprising
Kino Lorber’s OSS 117 Five Film
Collection are tailored as pastiches of the popular James Bond adventures
of the 1960s.This new Blu ray set
features the entirety of OSS 117 film thrillers produced 1963 through 1968
during the height of Bondmania.And,
just as the Eon series offered a trio of actors to portray James Bond
(1962-1973), the OSS series would likewise present three in the role of Colonel
Hubert Bonisseur de La Bath.Each actor
would bring some aspect of their own personalities to their characterizations.
Of course, the name Hubert Bonisseur de La Bath is a bit
of a Franco-linguistic mouthful to market successfully overseas.So, throughout the five films the character usually
assumes an Anglo-friendly alias which helps move things along a bit more
smoothly: he alternately assumes – among others - such covert surnames as
Landon, Barton, Delcroix, Wilson and Mulligan.It certainly makes his character’s many “personal” on-screen introductions
easier for all involved.
The Kino set starts off chronologically with 1963’s OSS 117 is Unleashed (original title OSS 117 se déchaîne).Like the four films to follow, the series
were all Franco-Italia co-productions and distributed by Gaumont Films.Unlike those four, OSS 117 is Unleashed is filmed in black-and-white.The monochrome photography is not really an
issue.But cinemagoers were certainly cheated
of enjoying the beautiful beaches and Cliffside scenery of the village of
Bonifacio (off the Corsican strait) in vibrant color.
In OSS 117 is
Unleashed our hero (American actor Kerwin Mathews, best known to American
audiences for his roles in Ray Harryhausen’s special-effect laden epics The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958) and The 3 Worlds of Gulliver (1960), is sent
to Corsica to investigate the suspicious death of a fellow agent.We’re told, suspiciously, there’s been, “lots
of accidents among agents near Bonifacio.”A preamble to the film, culled mostly of cold war era newsreel footage,
alerts that an unspecified enemy is working towards “neutralizing” free-world atomic
submarine movements in the area. With
conspirators tagged with such names as “Sacha” and “Boris,” we can reasonably
assume its east-of-the-Iron Curtain intelligence agents behind the plot.
Initially posing as a relative of the recently targeted
and now deceased CIA frogman (and later as a Lloyds of London insurance adjustor),
Mathews must dispatch and/or fend off a series of enemy agents and perhaps a duplicitous
woman.In due course, he survives a poisoning,
several (well-choreographed) hand-to-hand combat sequences and even a submerged
spear-gun and knifing frogman attack.The latter occurs while he’s search of a mysterious submerged
subterranean grotto.The base is outfitted
(as one might expect) with high-tech equipment and a detection system designed
to bring about “the end of atomic submarines.”The secreted grotto is also equipped with a built-in self-destruct
button… always handy, just in case.This
is all definitely Bond-on-a budget style filmmaking.Of course, the idea of covertly tracking atomic
submarines movements brings to mind the storyline of the far-more-lavishly
staged The Spy Who Loved Me (1977).
As far as I can determine, OSS 117 is Unleashed was never released theatrically in the
U.S.But Mathews’ second (and final) outing
as OSS 117, Panic in Bangkok (Banco à Bangkok pour OSS 117) (1964) would
have a belated release in the U.S. (as Shadow
of Evil) in December of 1966.Regardless,
Shadow of Evil was not exhibited as a
primary attraction in the U.S. market.It most often appeared as the under bill to Christopher Lee in The Brides of Fu Manchu or (more
sensibly) to Montgomery Clift’s political suspense-thriller The Defector.
In Panic in Bangkok,
Mathews is dispatched to Thailand to, once again, investigate the assassination
of a fellow agent.The murdered CIA operative
had been investigating a possible correlation between anti-cholera vaccines
produced by Bangkok’s Hogby Laboratories to an outbreak of a deadly plague in
India.The trail leads Mathews to
suspect a certain mysterious Dr. Sinn (Robert Hossein) is somehow involved.Unlike the previous film which lacked a singular
villain with a foreboding presence (ala Dr. No), the filmmakers offer
cinemagoers a more exotic adversary in Dr. Sinn.
“Tales
of Adventure Collection 2,” a special edition, Blu-ray box set from
Australia’s Imprint Films, gathers five movies from the 1940s and ‘50s with
“wild and dangerous” jungle settings. To
the best of my memory, I don’t recall seeing any of them among the scores of
jungle pictures I enjoyed as a kid in the ‘50s and early ‘60s, either on the
big screen or on local TV morning movie matinees. Of the five diverse selections in the Imprint
box set, three are Republic Pictures productions, the fourth is a Paramount
release, and the fifth bears the Columbia Pictures logo. All five feature superior transfers (the
three Republic entries are transfers from 4K scans of the original negatives)
and captions for the deaf and hard of hearing, and four of them come with
excellent audio commentaries. Younger
viewers be aware, the films tend to reflect attitudes about race and
conservation that were commonplace seventy years ago, but frowned upon today;
you won’t see anything remotely like Black Panther’s democratic technocracy of
Wakanda here.
The
older two Republic releases, both in black-and-white and paired here on one
disc, underscore the studio’s reputation as a purveyor of lowbrow entertainment
with stingy production values. “Angel on
the Amazon” (1948) begins with Christine Ridgeway (Vera Hruba Ralston) trekking
through the Amazon jungle with safari hat and rifle, stalking panthers. It promises (or threatens, if you’re a
conservationist) to become a film about big-game hunting, where wild animals
exist to be turned into trophy heads. But
then Christine’s station wagon breaks down, and she radios for help. Pilot Jim Warburton (George Brent) flies in
with the needed carburetor part, just in time for the party to escape from
“headhunters.” This may be the only
jungle movie in history where rescue depends on a delivery from Auto Zone. Jim is enchanted by Christine, but she has
something to hide and refuses to warm up to his advances. Later, meeting Jim again in Rio de Janeiro,
she becomes frightened when an elderly, apparently harmless man watches her
from a distance. As film historian
Philippa Berry notes on the informative audio commentary for the Blu-ray, the
answer to the mystery revolves around the then-popular theme of physical
effects from psychological trauma, here given a mystical and somewhat absurd
twist. The studio-bound sets and back
projection that waft the characters from the Amazon to Rio and then to
Pasadena, California, are charmingly phoney. George Brent and two other fading co-stars from the 1930s, the
aristocratic Brian Aherne and Constance Bennett, stoutly maintain straight
faces in the backlot rain forest.
“Daughter
of the Jungle” (1949) is even more formulaic, as a young blonde woman raised in
the jungle comes to the aid of pilot Paul Cooper (James Cardwell), a policeman,
and two gangsters in the lawman’s custody when their plane crashes somewhere in
Africa. Called Ticoora by the local
tribe, she is actually Irene Walker, who was stranded with her millionaire
father in their own plane crash twelve years before. As film historian Gary Gerani notes in his
audio commentary track, Ticoora is one of a long line of virginal jungle sirens
in movies that range from the ridiculously sublime, like 1959’s “Green
Mansions,” to the sublimely ridiculous, like 1983’s “Sheena, Queen of the
Jungle.” She can summon elephants with a
Tarzan-like yodel that recalls Carol Burnett’s parodies on her old TV
show. As Ticoora leads the party to
safety, the oily head gangster, Kraik, schemes a way to claim her inheritance,
which awaits in New York. Some viewers
will see Kraik, played by the great Sheldon Leonard with a constant volley of
“dese, dose, and dem” insults, as the only reason to stay with the movie’s plod
through lions, gorillas, crocodiles, and indigenous Africans played by white
actors in greasepaint. Others (I plead
guilty) tend to view unassuming, ramshackle pictures like this one more
leniently, providing we can accept if not endorse their racial attitudes as a
product of their times. Consistent with
Republic’s nickel-and-diming on its B-feature releases, especially those made
in the late ‘40s, the more spectacular long shots of Ticoora swinging from
vines in her above-the-knee jungle skirt were recycled from one of the studio’s
earlier releases. In those scenes, it’s
actually Francis Gifford’s stunt doubles in the same outfit from the 1941
serial “Jungle Girl,” not Lois Hall who plays Ticoora in the new footage. Gary Gerani’s audio commentary provides lots
of information about the cast, including the two obscure leads, Lois Hall and
James Cardwell. Gerani points out that
the Blu-ray print, from the original negative, presents the movie’s full
80-minute version for the first time ever. The 69-minute theatrical release in 1949 omitted some B-roll filler and
some scenes where Paul woos Irene. More
action, less kissy, was crucial for encouraging positive playground
word-of-mouth from sixth graders in the audience—the pint-sized forerunners of
today’s Tik-Tok influencers.
The
third movie retrieved from Republic’s vaults, “Fair Wind to Java” (1953), was
one of the studio’s intermittent efforts to offer more expensive productions in
living Trucolor, with a rousing Victor Young musical score, to compete with
major postwar costume epics from the MGM and Paramount powerhouses. Ironically, Paramount now owns the rights to
Republic’s home video library. In 1883
Indonesia, New England sea captain Boll (Fred MacMurray) picks up the trail of
lost diamonds also sought by a pirate chief, Pulo Besar (Robert Douglas). Obstacles include the pirates, some scurvy
knaves in Boll’s own crew, Dutch colonial authorities, and the fact that the
only person who can direct Boll to the treasure is dancing girl Kim Kim (Vera
Hruba Ralston), who has only an imperfect memory of the route from her
childhood. Substitute Indiana Jones for
Captain Boll, and you’d hardly notice the switch. It turns out that the gems are hidden in a
temple on Fire Island—unfortunately for the captain, not the friendly enclave
of Fire Island, N.Y., but the volcanic peak of Krakatoa. Will Krakatoa blow up just as the rival
treasure hunters make landfall there? Are you kidding? The script doesn’t disappoint, and neither do the FX by
Republic’s in-house technical team, Howard and Theodore Lydecker. A former ice skating star who escaped
Czechoslovakia ahead of the Nazis, Ralston was the wife of Republic studio head
Herbert J. Yates and widely derided as a beneficiary of nepotism who couldn’t
act her way out of an audition. She was
still a punch line for comics in the 1960s, long after most people had
forgotten the point of the joke. In
reality, both here and in “Angel on the Amazon,” she is an appealing performer,
no more deserving of ridicule than other actresses of her time with careers
mainly in escapist pictures. The sultry
but vulnerable Kim Kim was the kind of role that Hedy Lamarr might have played
under other circumstances. Ralston’s
performance is at least as engaging, and she looks mighty nice in brunette
makeup and sarong.
If
you first met Fred MacMurray as the star of “My Three Sons,” as I did as a kid,
it may take some adjustment to see him in action-hero mode. It’’s no big deal when Dwayne Johnson or
Jason Statham slings a bandolier over his shoulder or has his shirt torn off in
a brawl with a pugnacious sailor . . . but Fred MacMurray? When Boll ponders whether or not to trust his
shifty first mate Flint (John Russell), it’s a little like MacMurray’s suburban
dad asking Uncle Charlie if he should trust Robbie and Chip with the family
car. John Wayne was originally
envisioned for the role, following his starring credit in a similar Republic
production, “Wake of the Red Witch,” but MacMurray wasn’t completely out of his
element, having played lawmen and gunslingers in several Westerns before his
sitcom days. Frankly, it’s fun to see
the normally buttoned-down actor shooting it out with the pirates and racing a
tsunami. Imprint includes another
excellent commentary, this one by historian Samm Deighan. As she notes, colourfully mounted and briskly
scripted movies like this were designed to attract the whole family in those
days before Hollywood marketing fractured along lines of audience gender, age,
and race. As she observes, Junior might
not recognise the sado-sexual elements of the scene where Pulo Besar’s burly
torturer (played by Buddy Baer!) strips Kim Kim and plies his whip across her
bare back. All in a day’s work in the
dungeon. But dad likely would have sat
up and paid close attention.
Only
a year later (1954), Paramount’s “Elephant Walk” furthered Hollywood’s trend of
filming exteriors for its more prestigious movies in actual overseas locations
rather than relying on studio mockups, as “Fair Wind to Java” did. Ruth Wiley (Elizabeth Taylor at her most
luminous) travels to Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) with her new husband John (Peter
Finch), the charming and prosperous owner of a tea plantation. Initially, Ruth is enraptured by the lush
countryside and John’s bungalow, Elephant Walk, actually a mansion almost as
large as Grand Central Station and a lot more lavish. But trouble portends as Ruth realizes that
the memory of John’s imperious father Tom, reverently called “the Governor” by
John and the other British residents, still pervades and controls the
household. The elderly head steward,
Appuhamy (Abraham Sofaer), is quietly hostile when Ruth questions the need to
continue running the house exactly as it was run in the Governor’s day. In trying to communicate with the other
indigenous servants and workers, she runs into the barriers of language and
culture. The estate itself, complete
with Old Tom’s mausoleum in the backyard, is built across an ancestral path the
native elephants still try to use as a short cut to their watering holes. Hence its name. Wiley keeps the peripatetic pachyderms out
with a wall. His plantation manager
(Dana Andrews) is more sympathetic to Ruth, and the two fall in love as the
increasingly surly John lapses back into old habits of drinking all night with
rowdy fellow expatriates who camp out in the sprawling mansion. Andrews’ character is named “Dick Carver,”
the kind of name you’re not likely to see on credits anymore outside
Pornhub. I wonder if some moviegoers in
1954 found it funny too?
If
the combination of shaky marriage, illicit affair, and luxurious colonial life on a jungle plantation sounds
familiar, you may be thinking of “Out of Africa” (1985) or the less
romanticised “White Mischief” (1987), the latest examples of this particular
jungle sub-genre of domestic drama in the tropics. As Gary Gerani points out in his audio
commentary, enthusiasts of melodrama will also cry “Rebecca!” in the subplot
about the shadow that “the Governor’s” pernicious, posthumous influence casts
over the married couple. The movie’s
lush Technicolor palate, William Dieterle’s sleek direction, the special FX of
an elephant stampede, Edith Head’s ensembles for Liz, and Franz Waxman’s
symphonic score have an old-fashioned Hollywood polish, shown to good effect on
the Blu-ray. But as Gerani notes, the
script by John Lee Mahin, based on a 1948 novel, offers an implicit political
commentary too. As viewers of “The
Crown” know, British rule was already crumbling in the Third World in the early
1950s and would soon fall, just like Wylie’s wall faces a renewed assault by
drought-stricken elephants in the final half hour of the movie. Thanks to the capable cast, glossy production
values, and a script that takes interesting, unexpected turns, I liked
“Elephant Walk” more than I thought I would.
Terence
Young’s “Safari” (1956) from Columbia Pictures begins with a jaunty title song
to a percussive beat that wouldn’t be out of place in “The Lion King”—“We’re on
safari, beat that drum, / We’re on safari to kingdom come”—leading you to think
that the picture will be a romp like “Call Me Bwana” (1963), “Clarence the
Cross-Eyed Lion” (1965), or the last gasp of jungle comedies so far, “George of
the Jungle” (1997). But the story takes
a grim turn almost immediately. An
American guide and hunter in Kenya, Ken Duffield (Victor Mature), is called
back from a safari to find his 10-year-old son murdered and his home burned by
Mau Mau terrorists. He determines to
find and kill the murderer, Jeroge (Earl Cameron), a formerly trusted servant
who, unknown to Duffield, had “taken the Mau Mau oath.” The British authorities revoke Duffield’s
license to keep him from interfering with their attempts to apprehend Jeroge
and the other culprits, but then they hand it back under pressure from Sir
Vincent Brampton (Roland Culver), who comes to Africa to kill a notorious lion
called “Hatari.” “You know what ‘Hatari’
means, don’t you?” Duffield asks. “It
means danger”—the very tagline used for Howard Hawks’ movie of the same name a
few years later. Coincidence? Brampton is a wealthy, borderline sociopathic
bully who makes life miserable for his finance Linda (Janet Leigh) and
assistant Brian (John Justin), and Duffield doesn’t much care for him
either. But the millionaire insists on
hiring Duffield as the best in the business, and the hunter uses the safari as
a pretext for pursuing Jeroge into the bush. The script juxtaposes Duffield’s chase after Jeroge with Brampton’s
determination to bag Hatari, but the millionaire is such an unpleasant
character (well played by Culver) that most of us will hope the lion wins.
This
was one of the last “big bwana” movies where no one thinks twice about killing
wild animals for sport, and viewers sensitive about the subject may not share
Sir Vincent’s enthusiasm for Ken Duffield’s talents, or the production’s
matter-of-fact scenes of animals collapsing from gunshots. The political material about the Mau Maus is
a little dicey too; the Mau Mau insurrection of 1952-60 was more complicated
than the script suggests. Poster art for
the movie, reproduced on the Blu-ray sleeve, depicts a fearsomely painted
African. Actually, it isn’t a Mau Mau
but a friendly Massai tribesman; Linda makes the same mistake in the movie
before learning that the Massai have agreed to help Duffield track Jeroge. Squirm-worthy dialogue occurs as well, when
Duffield and Brampton alike refer to the hunter’s African bearers and camp
personnel as “boys.” But Terence Young’s
brisk, muscular direction on outdoor locations in Kenya is exemplary, and the
CinemaScope vistas of Kenya in Technicolor are sumptuous. This was one of Young’s four projects behind
the camera for Irving Allen and Albert R. Broccoli’s Warwick Films, preceding
Broccoli’s later partnership with Harry Saltzman when the producers engaged
Young to direct the inaugural James Bond entries. For 007 fans, it may be heresy to suggest
that his work on “Safari” equals that on his best Bond picture, “From Russia
With Love,” but so be it. The Imprint
Blu-ray doesn’t contain an audio commentary or other special features, but the
hi-def transfer at the 2.55:1 widescreen aspect ratio is perfect.
“Tales
of Adventure Collection 2” contains the four region-free Blu-ray Discs in a sturdy
hardbox, illustrated with a collage from the poster art for the five movies in
the set. Limited to a special edition of
1,500 copies, it can be ordered HERE. (Note: prices are in Australian dollars. Use currency converter for non-Australian orders.)
RETRO-ACTIVE: THE BEST FROM THE CINEMA RETRO ARCHIVES
By Lee Pfeiffer
There has been a very positive response to Cinema Retro's coverage of
"B" WWII movies in some of our back issues. Writer Howard Hughes concentrated on the films produced by Oakmont Productions, the
British-based company that financed and released such modestly-budgeted
gems as Attack on the Iron Coast, The Thousand Plane Raid, Hell Boats,
and Mosquito Squadron. These films had no lofty pretenses of being
potential Oscar winners. Instead, they were made simply to generate a
modest profit. However, they tended to be intelligently scripted and
well-directed and acted, with showcase roles afforded to stars who
didn't usually get top-billing (Lloyd Bridges, Christopher George, David
McCallum). The 1970 film Underground was not an Oakmont production but
is largely indistinguishable from the company's catalog of titles. It
stars Robert Goulet as Dawson, an embittered American agent for military
intelligence who is based in England. Dawson is wracked by guilt
because his mission behind German lines in occupied France ended
disastrously. Both he and his fellow agent (his wife) were captured.
Dawson, under extreme torture, revealed his wife's true identity and she
suffered a horrendous death at the hands of the Gestapo. Dawson managed
to escape and make his way back to England, though how he achieved this
remarkable feat is glossed over in the script. The film opens with
Dawson bluffing his way aboard a plane carrying a fellow agent on a new
mission over occupied France. Dawson, who is determined to atone for his
previous failure by taking on this mission himself, disables the agent
and parachutes in his place to meet his contacts in the French
Resistance. His French underground colleagues find him to be a bitter,
unpleasant man and it isn't long before they realize that he is an
imposter for their real contact. Nevertheless, Dawson persuades them to
let him carry out the important mission which involves kidnapping a high
profile German general who has vital intelligence information and
bringing him back to England. Dawon's team is headed by Boule (Lawrence
Dobkin), a headstrong and valiant man who frequently locks horns with
Dobson over strategy. The team also includes Yvonne (Daniele Gaubert), a
beautiful agent who is Boule's wife. Complications ensue when Dawson
shows his more human side and he and Yvonne secretly become lovers.
Underground is the kind of film that often receives the backhanded
praise of benefiting from "workmanlike" efficiency from its stars and
director Arthur H. Nadel. Yet, like the Oakmont productions, it probably
plays better in today's era of overblown, CGI-stuffed action movies
than it did at the time of its initial release. The film is tightly
scripted and the plan to capture the German general is straight out of a
top-of-the-line Mission: Impossible episode. The movie was shot on
location in Ireland but the countryside passes convincingly for France.
Goulet, grim and determined, makes for an impressive leading man and
there are fine turns by Lawrence Dobkin and Carl Duering, who is
impressive as the German general who adds a clever plot twist to the
story line. Like most of these WWII mini "epics" of the period, the
production team manages to make the film look far more expensive than it
probably was. The action sequences are exciting and well-staged,
particularly a climactic shootout as Dawson awaits the arrival of a
British plane on a makeshift runway as German forces close in on him and
his team.
Underground has been released by MGM as a region-free DVD with a rather bland cover design instead of the terrific original poster artwork. Transfer quality is very good but there are no bonus extras.
Here is a brief newsreel of the festivities taking place at the 1962 New York premiere of MGM's "Mutiny on the Bounty", a magnificent epic even though there were almost impossible obstacles to overcome in bringing it to the big screen. (See Cinema Retro's Movie Classics roadshow epics issue for full coverage). Despite causing controversies during filming, Marlon Brando was induced to attend the premiere, a practice he was usually adverse to. Note the theater marquee across the street showing John Frankenheimer's "The Manchurian Candidate".
Rightfully or wrongfully, I’m going to concentrate this
review of Mill Creek’s Sci-Fi from the
Vault Blu on two of this Blu-ray set’s decidedly lesser films:Creature
with the Atom Brain (1955) and The
Thirty Foot Bride of Candy Rock (1959).This is partially due to the fact that the set’s two most prominent
titles, 20 Million Miles to Earth and
It Came from Beneath the Sea, were
previously issued by Mill Creek back in 2014 on their twofer Ray Harryhausen Creature Double Feature
from the same transfers. Though Creature with the Atom Brain is making
its U.S. Blu debut on this set, the film has seen a previous Blu issue on the UK
import Cold War Creatures: Four Films
from Sam Katzman.So only The Thirty Foot Bride of Candy Rock is making
a worldwide debut on Blu with this set.
All four films in this new set come, as per the title,
from the vaults of Columbia studios. Creature
earlier appeared on the commentary-free DVD set Sam Katzman: Icons of Horror Collection (2007).As I am not privy to the sales figures of
that set, I can only surmise should Mill Creek release a Sci-Fi Vault Vol. 2 on Blu, we might see the “missing” Katzman titles
sprinkled into a future U.S. set.This Mill
Creek set is not an “all Katzman” edition (ala Icons).The workhorse
producer has no connection to either 20
Million Miles to Earth or The Thirty
Foot Bride of Candy Rock.
It’s with no disrespect to the late, great special
effects wizard Ray Harryhausen that I’m not going to do a deep dive into 20 Million Miles to Earth and It Came from Beneath the Sea.Though these two films are genuine and iconic
sci-fi classics, both have previously gotten the Mill Creek Blu treatment and
also received transatlantic Blu releases as well.So I can’t imagine anyone interested in these
Harryhausen-associated titles not already in possession of copies.Fair to say, if you own Mill Creek’s previously
published twofer, their reappearances here are redundant.
This new set, priced at an MSRP of $29.99, is – happily -
available far less expensively from any variety of on-line retailers.In some sense, it’s a bargain.This recent edition does offer a new and informative audio commentary on It Came from Beneath the Sea, courtesy
of Justin Humphreys and C. Courtney Joyner.So if you’re an enthusiast of commentary tracks, that’s a checkmark in
the plus column.On the other hand,
there’s no audio commentary included on 20
Million Miles to Earth, a film no less deserving of annotation.So that’s a checkmark lost.
Oddly, Edward L. Chan’s Creature with the Atom Brain (1955), an arguably less-deserving
film, does come with a commentary
track – this time courtesy of film producer-writers’ Phoef Sutton and Mark
Jordan Legan.It’s nice to have a
commentary supplied by two established screenwriters since Creature producer Sam Katzman had conscripted the great Curt
Siodmak (The Wolf Man) to script his low-budgeter.The often curmudgeonly Siodmak was a pretty
productive scripter, memorably knocking off no fewer than nine sci-fi/horror programmers
for Universal 1940-44 – and many other original scenarios for other studios.
Though Siodmak provides a decent enough script for Creature, director Kahn’s film proves a
B-film guilty pleasure a best.On their
commentary, Sutton and Legan provide a breezy, lighthearted narration filled
with the usual, occasionally colorful, anecdotes, often based on their rattling
off resumes of the film’s various cast and crew member.To their credit, the two honestly acknowledge
the film’s shortfalls, mulling that “the first four and a half minutes are the
best thing about it.”The film is a bit
of slow-going unless one has a sense of nostalgia about it.
It was late October 1954 when Variety reported that Katzman had tapped Kahn to direct Creature, the first of the producer’s
first sci-fi feature film forays. News
of actor Richard Denning signing on to star was reported the following week.Similar to Katzman, Kahn was a film industry
workhorse, a director not identified with any one particular genre.In the 1950s, Kahn helmed war films,
westerns, gangster pics and teenage melodramas. But he also managed to put the
fright into the “Frightened Fifties,” cranking out no fewer than eight serviceable
sci-fi pics in a four-year period:beginning
with She Creature (1956) and finishing
with Invisible Invaders (1959).Actor Denning provided a face familiar to
50’s sci-fi fans: the actor had lead roles in The Creature from the Black Lagoon, Target Earth and The Black
Scorpion, to name only a few.
It was Columbia’s intention to bill the more pedestrian Creature as the supporting feature to It Came from Beneath the Sea.In June 1955 it was reported the double-bill was
to be first rolled out to thirty-one theaters in and around the Los Angeles
area.Both films would be produced under
the aegis of Katzman’s Clover Productions.Though Kaufman’s low-budgeted independent offerings weren’t expected to
bring in boffo box-office numbers,
Columbia’s accountants were aware the absence of big name stars and inflated
production costs brought better returns on investment.
A trade paper reported bluntly that Columbia, “feels it’s
better to make a 15% to 25% profit on a picture than to stand to lose 50% to
75% on a wholly-made studio picture.”While
Katzman’s pictures for Columbia (Creature
with the Atom Brain, The Giant Claw, Zombies of Mora Tau and The Werewolf) might not have produced
great art, they did bring in worthwhile returns on investment. It Came
fromBeneath the Sea, the far stronger
film (with a bigger budget) managed great
business, helped in part by a combination of Harryhausen’s screen magic, word-of-mouth
excitement and a supportive radio-television-print campaign of $250,000.Though It
Came fromBeneath the Sea was not
the first “giant” monster movie of the 1950s, it was among the earliest, and
this monstrous sci-fi sub-genre would blossom throughout the 1950s and well
into the 1960s.
Which leads us into our discussion of the final “giant” film
offered on this set.The working title
of Sidney Miller’s The 30 Foot Bride of
Candy Rock was originally titled The
Secret Bride of Candy Brock.The
film’s co-screenwriter, Arthur Ross, was familiar writing for films featuring
gargantuan(s): he had already helped craft the screenplay for Columbia’s The Three Worlds of Gulliver, a soon-to-be-
released pic in 1960.But Candy Rock was to serve primarily as a
vehicle for comedian Lou Costello.Though
his 1940s heyday was behind him, the roly-poly actor had been introduced to a
new generation of fans in the ‘50s through airings of The Abbott and Costello Show television series.
The
30 Foot Bride of Candy Rock was to be the comedian’s first feature
film project following the dissolution of his partnership with Bud Abbott in
July of 1957.That pair’s final film, the
saccharine comedy-drama Dance with Me,
Henry (United Artists, 1956) was generally dismissed as a tired re-play of
routines long gone cold.Now, as a solo
player, Costello was hoping that Bride
might reestablish his box-office prowess.This indie production, shot on the Columbia studios lot, saw Costello’s
manager, Eddie Sherman, serving as the film’s executive producer.With such leverage Costello was even able to
gift a small role to daughter Carole.
Producer Lew Rachmil suggested to a reporter from London’s
Picturegoer that Costello’s titular
bride, Dorothy Provine (a 22 year-old blonde that stood 5’ 4” tall), was a
“born comedienne – nearly as funny as Lou at times.”Provine was a relative newcomer to Hollywood,
having worked only two studio soundstages, one for The Bonnie Parker Story and for a two- episode role as a twelve
year old (!) on TV’s Wagon Train.Provine told gossiper Erskine Johnson that
she hadn’t “missed a day’s work since I arrived in Hollywood, but I was always
scared about every job being my last job.”She needn’t have worried, following Bride
the actress was picked to star alongside Roger Moore as a regular character on the
television series The Alaskans and
would also have a prominent role in the 1963 Cinerama comedy It’s a Mad,
Mad, Mad, Mad World.
In conception, Bride
seems little more than Lou Costello’s attempt to lampoon the popularity of the ongoing
“giant monster” craze.Whiling away his
days in an amateur laboratory, Costello’s rubbish collector and would-be inventor
Artie Pinsetter (‘a world-famous scientist who’s not famous yet”) is determined
to unravel secrets: primarily he wishes to learn how the prehistoric beasts that
once roamed a local region known “Dinosaur State Park” had achieved gargantuan
sizes. He’s investigating an ancient Native American belief that these
creatures achieved such measurement due to a mysterious stream of steam
emissions emanating from a canyon cave.
To this end he has constructed an elaborate electronic contraption
that he calls “Max.”His invention is part
time machine – due to its ability for “changing time curves” - and part
straight man.Pinsetter hadn’t needed to
go through all the trouble of mechanical tinkering.Walking through the canyon, girlfriend Emmy
Lou (Provine), accidentally walks through a plume of canyon steam and finds
herself having gained an additional 25 feet in height.The steam, we are told, is the castoff of atomic
energy escaping from the bowels of the earth.
To make matters worse for Pinsetter, we learn Emmy Lou is
the niece of the town’s self-involved and self-important bank president/gubernatorial
hopeful Raven Rossiter (Gale Gordon, of Our
Miss Brooks fame).Rossiter doesn’t
care much for Pinsetter, and his ill-tempered behavior provides much of the
film’s lukewarm comic tension.But ultimately,
the film’s concentration is whether or not the townies – and alarmed Pentagon
officials – can escape the problems wrought by Costello’s foolish inventions or
of his skulking thirty-foot bride.
Shot in the fanciful descriptions of “Wonderama” and
“Mattascope,” Bride is not a great
film by any measure.But having said
this, it’s an innocuous 73-minute nostalgia trip that admittedly brought a
number of head-shaking smiles to my face.The film is an innocent bit of nonsense, a “family-friendly” movie that
I’m certain brought fun to kiddie audiences of its day.My favorite time capsule moment occurs when
an airborne Costello nearly collides with the Soviet Union’s recently launched Sputnik 1 satellite.
Sadly, Lou Costello would not live to see the finished
film released to the public.The
legendary film star would die of a heart attack, just days shy of age 53, on
March 3, 1959 – a mere ten weeks following his first day of shooting on Bride in November of 1958 (production wrapped
a mere month later).On March 24, 1959,
executives at Columbia announced the aforementioned title change.The film was still in editing by June of 1959
– as was the Three Stooges’ sci-fi comedy Have
Rocket, Will Travel. In July Columbia shared plans to package Bride as a late summer trip bill of such
other family fare films as Rocket and
Ted Post’s The Legend of Tom Dooley.
There were studio previews as early as July 7, but when Bride finally was unleashed on movie
screens it was not as one-third of the aforementioned package as scheduled - but
rather as the under bill to Disney’s Darby
O’ Gill and the Little People or Have
Rocket, Will Travel.Though there
were no critical raves for Bride –
truthfully the film was undeserving of such praise – most reviewers found the
film harmless and wholesome family entertainment.Which it was.I suppose it would have been in poor taste to completely dismiss the value
of the final film of one of Hollywood’s most beloved – and successful –
actor-comedians.
In any event, Mill Creek’s Sci-Fi from the Vault collection has made The 30 Foot Bride of Candy Rock available for the first time on Blu-ray.Previously the film had only appeared on VHS
by Columbia/Tri-Star in 1986 and – with a far lesser transfer - on the cheapie
Good Times label in 1988.Its first
digital appearance was a 2010 release as a DVD MOD from Sony/Columbia Screen
Classics.So, regardless of merit, it’s
nice to get this one on Blu.Its
appearance here should interest fans of both Abbott and Costello-related
productions as well as collectors of vintage 50s Silver Age sci-fi.There’s also a light-hearted but informative
audio commentary for Bride provided
by the Monster Party Podcast team.Think
of a few wise-cracking - but informative - movie-buff friends sitting on the
couch alongside you.The commentary adds
a bit of color to an otherwise monochrome film.
To its credit, the set also includes two bonus features
well worth a look:Daniel Griffith’s 25-minute
doc They Came from Beyond: Sam Katzman at
Columbia as well as his 14:30 minute doc Fantastical Features: Nathan Juran at Columbia.The former gives us a thumbnail tracing of
Katzman’s career in film.The producer
knocked out dozens of serials for Victory and Columbia - including Superman (1948) and Batman and Robin (1949) - from the mid-1930s on.He later moved on to producing features for Monogram
– a studio described here as Hollywood’s “lowest echelon” - where he enjoyed
the first of his feature film successes.
Katzman’s films for Monogram and others were usually made
on shoestring budgets with tight shooting schedules.The producer didn’t necessarily favor the
horror sci-fi genre during his 40+ years working in Hollywood.But having employed Bela Lugosi on the 1936
serial Shadow of Chinatown, Katzman
managed to bring the now underworked and underappreciated actor to Monogram for
a series of guilty pleasure, fan-favorite cheapie horror-melodramas.But Katzman was not shy on capitalizing on whatever
fad was capturing public fancy. His filmography included everything from ghetto
dramas, gangster pics, East Side Kids/Bowery Boys comedies, westerns, sword and
sandal epics, early rock n’ roll pics – even a couple of Elvis Presley films (Kissin’ Cousins (1964) and Harum Scarum (1965) .
In the mid-1950s, sensing sci-fi was proving popular with
audiences, Katzman scored big as the Executive Producer on such less penny-pinching
epics as It Came from Beneath the Sea
and Earth vs. the Flying Saucers
(1956).Both of these films featured the
completely amazing stop-motion special effects of the great Ray Harryhausen,
with whom Katzman was happy to collaborate.In all likelihood, it’s the appreciative audience of so-called “Monster
Kids” that continues to stoke interest in Katzman’s work.
The second bonus doc, Fantastical
Features, has C. Courtney Joyner and Justin Humphreys taking a brief look
at the films of the fast-shot flicks Nathan Juran directed for Columbia.Though not necessarily a horror/sci-fi film
director, Juran had previously helmed The
Black Castle (1952) for Universal and, more importantly, for that studio’s
great giant insect epic The Deadly Mantis
(1957).Once moving to Columbia, Juran
managed a number of sci-fi/fantasy epics including such cinematic touchstones
as 20 Million Miles to Earth, Attack of
the 50 Foot Woman (1958) and The 7th
Voyage of Sinbad (1958).
For the most part, all of these black-and-white films
look great for their age, though they’re not entirely pristine: one can expect
a few not terribly distracting scratches or speckling throughout.Personally, I’m not sure how many more times
I will revisit Creature with the Atom
Brain or The 30 Foot Bride of Candy
Rock – they’re not great films - but it’s still nice to add these titles to
my ‘50s sci-fi film collection.You’ll
have to decide if they’re worth adding to yours.
Click here to order from Amazon and save 50% off SRP.
Many retro movie fans associate director Nicholas Ray with producer Samuel Bronston's epics "King of Kings" and "55 Days at Peking". But those films were not really representative of the films he made. In this vintage tribute from Turner Classic Movie, Dennis Hopper pays homage to Ray, who gave him his first break in feature films by casting him opposite James Dean in "Rebel Without a Cause". As Hopper poignantly observes, Ray excelled at making small, intimate films that dealt with troubled interpersonal relationships. Ray never quite got his due during his lifetime, but actors and filmmakers today consider him to be one of the greats.
It’s
quite possible that there are more podcasts about cinema these days than there
are cinemas. Given such saturation, podcast creators have to work hard to make
their movie shows stand out from the competition. It is to film critic John Bleasdale’s
credit then that he’s managed to find a singular cinematic theme to concentrate
on, yet one with a vastly broad range of potential subjects and guests.
Writers
On Film is the only podcast dedicated to books on cinema and it is only a few
film-chats away from its 100th episode. Readers of Cinema Retro will no doubt
have at least one Movie section within their bookshelves. Search the authors’ names
on the spines of some of your most recent purchases and there’s a very good
chance you’ll find one of the many guests on Writers on Film.
Bleasdale,
a respected critic who has written for The Times, The Guardian, The
Independent, Sight and Sound and many others was, like so many creatives
looking for something to get him through the lockdown. ‘Because of Covid there
were no releases,’ he says, ‘so I was scrabbling around for things to write
that didn’t require being topical; I didn’t want to do a review podcast or
anything like that. I knew a few people who had written books that I’d met in
film festivals: former editor of Premiere Glenn Kenny was one. My brother had
sent me over a couple of beautiful books for Christmas, the Scorsese book by
Tom Shone and Ian Nathan’s book on Ridley Scott, so I originally thought I’d
just interview a few of these authors.
‘I
noticed that a lot of film writers were promoting their work on Twitter so I
reached out to them and eventually, I had enough of a response to realise this
was a podcast. Initially, the idea was to do about 10 episodes, because I
thought my guest list would have dried up by then, but here we are now crossing
the hundred mark.’
The
guest list has now blossomed into a who’s who of the cinema literature genre.
Scroll back through the episodes and you’ll find Sam Wasson talking about his
Chinatown book The Big Goodbye, Gabriel Byrne discussing his memoir, and Julie
Salamon revisiting her landmark book The Devil’s Candy. In between, there’s
everything from Spike Lee to Buster Keaton via Michael Cimino, Biblical epics,
women vs Hollywood, and George Stevens Jr reminiscing about about Hollywood’s
Golden Age.
Bleasdale
has a convivial, conversational style and the loose format allows space for the
guests to open up about their work, rather than just give quick soundbites.
Occasionally you can hear a guest, perhaps a little tentative at first, relax
and unwind once they realise they’re talking with someone who knows of which he
speaks and isn’t there to trap them.
(Photo:John Bleasdale)
His
love of film books goes back to his youth in Barrow in Furness. ‘The very first
ones were novelisations by writers like Alan Dean Foster, who I was lucky to
have on the podcast. It’s such a legendary name that I was actually surprised
that he was a person!Books and film
really cross over for me. When I couldn’t sneak in to see Blade Runner at the
cinema, because I was ten when it came out and it was an ‘A,’ I bought the
Philip K Dick book with Harrison Ford on the cover and lived in that book as
though it was the movie.’
‘My
auntie was a librarian so I would get all these cinema books out and run up
terrible fines because I was useless at returning them. There was The Cinema of
Loneliness by Robert P. Kolker, with Travis Bickle on the cover, and other one
was the Kubrick book by Michel Ciment (another Writers on Film guest), which
was stunning and so deep and fascinating, and of course this was when we couldn’t
actually see A Clockwork Orange. I became fascinated not just by his films but
by understanding that there was a mind behind these films which was separately
fascinating: if he’d never made a single film, an interview with Kubrick would
have been extraordinary in itself.’
What
the disparate list of guests and themes investigated on Writers on Film
demonstrates is the enormous breadth of subjects that can be categorised under
the Cinema Literature umbrella. ‘It’s pretty much limitless,’ says Bleasdale. ‘If
you want to write a book on cinema, good luck because the hardest thing to find
is a subject that hasn’t been covered, which is good for me because I can find
lots of things to talk about and it’s always different.’
It’s
refreshing to hear that Movie Books are still thriving, despite the potentially
smothering factor of the internet. Bleasdale thinks they have survived by
evolving in the face of competition online. ‘There are cinema books on
bestseller lists these days. The ‘90s were a heyday for a very specific kind of
cinema book. The Faber books were great and some of those authors have been on
the podcast, but they did tend to be interview books. Nowadays, if I want to
find out what Martin Scorsese once said about so-and-so, with YouTube and
Google and even DVD commentaries, that information is now so much more
accessible than it was back then.
‘Today,
there’s more engagement with putting films into a historical context: Peter
Biskind was one of the first writers who launched this idea with Easy Riders,
Raging Bulls and Down and Dirty Pictures. Nowadays people like Sam Wasson and
Glenn Frankel are really running with that. Glenn Frankel’s books are just so
deep and interesting and go so far beyond cinema into history, politics and
society and culture generally. Mark Harris is another: calling Scenes from A
Revolution a ‘film book’ is quite limiting. You learn so much not just about
Hollywood but about everything that went on in 1967.Coffee table books have never been more
varied in terms of subject matter or looked better. The recent one on Sofia
Coppola by Hannah Strong looks stunning.’
Writers
on Film is an ear-feast for cinema fans but don’t get too carried away with the
recommendations or, to paraphrase Chief Martin Brody, you’re gonna need a
bigger bookshelf.
(Search
for Writers on Film wherever you find your podcasts. Click here to visit official web site.)
Anne
Francis was director John Sturges’ only female actor in 1955’s “Bad Day at
Black Rock”, and she repeated her solo act ten years later on “The Satan Bug”.
But on that production, she and many cast members felt a preoccupation, a
distance, from the man who held together “The Magnificent Seven” and “The Great
Escape”. Francis was certain “He was thinking about “The Hallelujah Trail”.
This was Sturges’ next production, his entry into the world of roadshow
presentations; a mammoth production with a huge cast and even huger backdrop:
Gallup, New Mexico.
Bill Gulick’s 1963 novel, originally titled “The Hallelujah Train”, seemed a
perfect story to upend all western movie conventions, with the cavalry, the
Indians, the unions, and the Temperance Movement fighting over the
transportation of forty wagons of whiskey. Sturges was comfortable making westerns,
but this was a comedy western. He appreciated the Mirisch Corporation’s vision
of straight actors trying to make sense of the silliness, but still wanted to
persuade James Garner, Lee Marvin and Art Carney for major roles. Sturges knew
these actors could handle comedy.
Garner
passed. “The premise was too outrageous, not enough truth to be funny”, he
said. The rest of Sturges’ dream cast was not available, but what he got seemed
attractive: a pair of solid supporting actors, Jim Hutton and Pamela Tiffin,
and Lee Remick and Burt Lancaster for the leads. Lancaster had previously
worked with Sturges on “Gunfight at the O.K. Corral” and was impressed how the
film turned out. The rest of the supporting cast included Donald Pleasence,
Brian Keith, and Martin Landau. They were in for a tough shoot.
The
weather was unpredictable (you can spot thunderstorms heading their way in the
finished film) and the location had three hundred crew members miles away from
the hotels. Scenes contained countless stunts, and fifty tons of Fuller’s earth
was blown by several giant fans to create The Battle at Whiskey Hills. Bruce
Surtees, son of Sturges’ cinematographer Robert Surtees and focus-puller on the
set, recalled “All this and we’re shooting in Ultra-Panavision 70mm, which made
life even more difficult!” Despite the difficulties, the director was loving
what he saw on set; the film looked as breathtaking as any wide screen western
ever could, the stunts were amazing, and thank God he was also laughing all
through it.
The
hilarity was cut short near the end of the shooting. For the sprawling wagon
chase finale, stunt persons Buff Brady and Bill Williams convinced associate
producer Robert Relyea to let them delay their jump from inside a catapulted
coach. Permission was given, and in the attempt, Williams got tangled somehow
during his planned escape. He was killed instantly. Relyea nixed including the footage in the finished film, but was overruled by
Mirisch. It’s an incredible shot and it plays in every promotional trailer, probably the
most famous footage from the production. Was including it a bad decision or a
tribute? There is still a debate over this among retro movie fans.
“We
all thought it was going to be a hit picture”, said Sturges, “until we hit an
audience.” “The Hallelujah Trail” opened with a 165-minute cut that audiences and critics
found “belabored and overlong”. Sturges overheard some patrons wondering if
this was a straight western or a deliberate comedy. Screenwriter John Gay
blamed much of the response on the performances of Brian Keith and Donald Pleasence.
Gay wanted his lines played straight but the actors played it for laughs. The
film was soon cut to 156-minutes (the version on this Blu-ray) and the
reactions were much more positive; critics noted several inspired sight gags,
audiences enjoyed the cartoonish atmosphere of the DePatie-Freleng maps,
Variety found the film “beautifully packaged”, and the LA Times proclaimed “The
Hallelujah Trail” as “one of the very few funny westerns ever made, and
possibly the funniest.”
When the film finished its roadshow run, United Artists cut the film once more,
to 145-minutes. It didn’t help. Compared to “Cat Ballou” and even “F Troop”,
“The Hallelujah Trail” was unhip.Sturges
was done with comedy, but not with roadshow Cinerama, though his future films would have checkered histories. He was set to direct
“Grand Prix” but clashed with the original star, Steve McQueen. A year later
Gregory Peck turned down Sturges’ “Ice Station Zebra’, wary of its weak third
act. Rock Hudson, now middle-aged and wanting a strong lead role, came aboard
for this Sturges voyage instead. The MGM release still had a confusing third
act, but the film sails nicely mostly due to Patrick McGoohan and some clever
dialogue.
Decades
later, “The Hallelujah Trail” remains a nice memory to those who attended the
Cinerama presentation; not much greatness to retain but a great experience at
the movies. But that experience was tough to relive because the film remained
in legacy format limbo for years: a letterboxed standard definition transfer.
So when Olive Films announced a Blu-ray release in 2019, fans of comedy epics
sung Hallelujah! Now this film can be viewed in 1080P! Retreat! Unfortunately, the quality of the Olive release resembled an upscaled version of the original standard
definition transfer. But two years later “The Hallelujah Trail” was casually
spotted on Amazon Prime, and it was a new HD transfer. And a year after that,
it’s a new Kino Lorber Blu-ray release.
(Above: Dell U.S. comic book tie-in.)
Any
Cinema-Retro reader worth their Cinerama Chops should have this Blu-ray in
their collection. “The Hallelujah Trail” is an hour too long, but you get miles
of lovely landscape. My favorite portrayal? Donald Pleasence as Oracle, who predicts the future in
return for free drinks. And watch for his amazing jump off a roof! Certainly,
the most impressive part of the film is the finale: the runaway wagon chase.
There are sections where you swear it’s Remick, Keith and Landau handling those
coaches but you know it has to be well made-up stunt people, at least for most
of it. You’re also realizing that this sequence, and perhaps the entire film,
is performed without any process work or rear projection.
There’s a legitimate debate on how the film may have been more successful if
James Garner played the role of Colonel Gearhart, though only Lancaster could
have pulled off that bathtub smile scene. There’s no disagreement on the music;
Elmer Bernstein’s sprawling score contains so many themes that Sturges’
biographer Glenn Lovell qualifies the film as “almost a pre-“Paint Your Wagon”
musical." And here’s your tiniest “Trail”
trivia: decades ago, during the production
of the laserdisc version, MGM/UA discovered that a few reels were mono sound
instead of multi-channel, including the main title featuring the chorus. Yours
truly was working on a project for the company at the time, and I happily lent
them my stereo score LP. so the main title would be in stereo. That audio track
mix remains on this new Blu-ray as well. (You’re welcome, America!)
Kino
Lorber is kind enough to provide some expert guides to help you along the “Trail”:
the perfect pairing of screenwriter C. Courtney Joyner and filmmaker/historian
Michael Schlesinger. Joyner had already provided his Sturges bonafides with his
documentary on the director for the recent Imprint Blu-ray of “Marooned”, and I
can verify Schlesinger’s knowledge of film comedy, having been fortunate to
join him, along with Mark Evanier, for the commentary track on Criterion’s
“It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World”. Joyner and Schlesinger tackle and
acknowledge “The Hallelujah Trail”s social and political incorrectness, but
also deflate any virtue signaling by examining how the film is smartly an equal
opportunity offender: the Cavalry, the Indians, the Temperance Movement, all up
for farce. Thanks to this team, and the picture quality of this Blu-ray, I
finally spotted the gag of the Indians circling the wagons as the cavalry is
whooping and hollering. Both gents are in a fine fun mood to tackle this type
of film, and It’s one of my favorite film commentaries of 2022.
“The
Hallelujah Trail” now looks clearer and sharper than any previous home video
release, and somehow it makes the comedy and the performances sharper as well.
I think you’ll be entertained by this roadshow epic, and with Joyner and
Schlesinger as your commentary companions you may indeed learn, as the posters
proclaimed, “How the West Was Fun!”
The summer of 1978 was one of the best summers that I can recall
from childhood. My grandmother took my sister and I to see Heaven Can Wait,
Warren Beatty's remake of 1941’s Here Comes Mr. Jordan. I immediately
took to Mr. Beatty’s interpretation of Joe Pendleton, despite not being an avid
fan of football. Two years later I was introduced to Jack Nicholson's work
when, in July 1980, I saw a broadcast of Mike Nichols’ 1975 film The Fortune
on ABC-TV in which he co-starred with Mr. Beatty, along with Stockard Channing.
It was not a particularly memorable film, but I enjoyed both of them in their
respective roles.
In the winter of 1981, Paramount Pictures released Reds, a
three-and-one-quarter hour long drama that Mr. Beatty wrote, produced, and
directed. I had seen the ads for the film and while traveling to and from New
York City with my Boy Scout troop to broaden our horizons of the world of art by
visiting the Museum of Modern Art. We spent a significant amount of time in New
York's Pennsylvania train station awaiting our journey home, which was an
education in and of itself. Aside from the cross-dressers and drug addicts,
there was a video playback system positioned near the rear of the terminal.
This advertising mechanism the name of which completely escapes me, was sponsored
by Paramount Pictures. It ran movie trailers on ¾” U-matic videotape for
several films released by the studio. One of them was Raiders of the Lost
Ark, my favorite film of that year, and another one was Reds. I
never had the opportunity to see Reds theatrically, and my parents correctly
figured that the film would have gone way over my head. The prospect of sitting
in a theater for nearly three-and-a-half hours did not sit well with them,
understandably so. Movie theater seats in those days were simply not
comfortable. I did not catch up with Reds until many years later, but
the film has finally found its way restored on Blu-ray for its 40th
anniversary. I’m finally getting around to review it.
If there is anything that can be said about this film, Reds
is about many things. It is a love story, it is an ambitious work, it is the
brainchild of a man who managed to pull off an extraordinary feat of
filmmaking, and it is arguably the last of the big-budgeted sprawling epics of
the time, following Michael Cimino’s failed Heaven’s Gate from the
previous year. While I am not completely understanding of the ideologies in the
politics involved, I can safely say that Reds is probably not the sort
of film that would be green-lit today, as the climate of filmmaking now is
completely different than it was four decades ago.
Reds opened on Friday, December 4, 1981 nationwide, however the story it
depicts begins sixty-six years earlier in 1915 when Louise Bryant, expertly
portrayed by Diane Keaton who had already appeared in TheGodfather
(1972) and The Godfather Part II (1974) and played opposite Woody Allen
in six films, meets fellow journalist John Reed (Warren Beatty) at a Portland,
Oregon lecture. She interviews him in an hours-long session that compels her to
leave her stuffy husband (Nicolas Coster) and move with Reed to Greenwich
Village in New York City where she is introduced to anarchist and author Emma
Goldman (Maureen Stapleton, who won an Oscar for her performance) and Eugene O’Neill
(Jack Nicholson), the playwright.
Following a move to Provincetown, Massachusetts, Bryant and Reed
find themselves involved in the local theater scene. Bryant has realized that
her writing is what makes her truly happy, and her ideologies begin to align
with Reed’s, who is now involved in labor strikes with the Communist Labor
Party of America. These people are called “Reds,” hence the film’s title. While
Reed is off covering the 1916 Democratic National Convention in Missouri, Bryant
becomes romantically involved with O’Neill, the truth of which comes to Reed’s
attention when he returns to Massachusetts and finds a letter O’Neill wrote
Bryant inside the pages of a book. Despite this, he still loves Bryant and
after marrying, they move to upstate New York. However, a fight ensues when
evidence of his own affairs comes to light, which causes Bryant to take a
position of war correspondent in Europe, a role that Reed also follows despite
his doctor’s admonitions to slow down. The Russian Revolution commences, and
Bryant and Reed are reunited.
Following an intermission (possibly the last major American film
to feature one, not counting Serio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in America in
1984), Reed publishes his famous Ten Days That Shook the World and
becomes inebriated on the ideals perpetuated by the Revolution and does his
best to introduce the United States to the political theory of Communism, the
antithesis of the beliefs espoused by Grigory Zinoviev (Jerzy Kosinski) and the
Bolsheviks. Unfortunately, the effects of typhus catch up with him following a
prison stint in Finland. The film’s most celebrated sequence is Reed’s return
to Moscow and his reunion with Bryant at a train station. His demise occurs
shortly thereafter, while Bryant can only look on, helplessly.
The supporting cast is excellent and the transfer on this Blu-ray is
beautiful. Cinematographer Vittorio Storaro added this film to his Oscar
collection following his win for his work on Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse
Now (1979). He would later win again for Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Last
Emperor (1987), although not having even been nominated for his stunning
work on Signor Bertolucci’s The Conformist (1970), Last Tango in
Paris (1972) or Luna (1979) makes one scratch their head in
disbelief.
Reds was a
boxoffice bomb despite the fact that the film was nominated for Best Picture
and Beatty was named Best Director. Beatty’s sentimental look at a man who
espoused Communism was ill-timed for the beginning of the Reagan era.
There is a second Blu-ray added which consists of the same extras
that accompanied the 25th anniversary DVD edition:
Witness To Reds:
The Rising (SD, 6:29)
Comrades (SD, 13:30)
Testimonials (SD, 11:58)
The March (SD, 9:07)
Revolution, Part 1 (SD,
10:18)
Revolution, Part 2 (SD,
6:55)
Propaganda (SD, 9:11)
The
story of the making of this film and Paramount Pictures’ (which was owned by Gulf
and Western at the time) willingness to make it is a fascinating one. While the
film looks beautiful, I would have loved a running commentary from the major
performers giving their insights and memories of the making of the film. A
missed opportunity to be sure, but the film alone is enough to warrant the
purchase.
John Sturges’ “Last Train from Gun Hill” was released in 1959 as one ofseveral
high-profile Westerns of its era, designed to lure audiences away from
their television sets and back to their neighborhood movie theatres.Against
TV’s advantage of free programming that you could enjoy from the
leisure of your easy chair, films like “Last Train from Gun Hill,”
“Warlock,” “The Horse Soldiers,” and “The Hanging Tree” countered with
A-list stars, widescreen CinemaScope and VistaVision, Technicolor, and
sweeping outdoor locations.The
studios wagered, correctly, that viewers would welcome a change from
the predictable characters, cheap backlot sets, and drab black-and-white
photography of “Gunsmoke,” “Wagon Train,” and “Cheyenne.”The
approach was successful, sporadically continuing through the next
decade with expensive epics like “How the West Was Won” (1962), “Custer
of the West” (1967), and “MacKenna’s Gold” (1968) before it collapsed
from dwindling returns, scaled-back studio budgets, and changing popular
tastes at the end of the 1960s.
As Sturges’ movie opens, two loutish cowboys chase down, rape, and murder a young Indian woman.Although the rape and murder occur offscreen, the lead-up is viscerally terrifying.In a bizarrely poor choice of words, Bosley Crowther’s review in the New York Times referred to the murderers as “scallywags.” At least in my lexicon, scallywags aremischievous kids who make prank phone calls, not perpetrators of a horrendous sexual assault.When the pair flee in panic after realizing what they’ve done, they inadvertently leave behind a horse and saddle.The
murdered woman’s husband is Matt Morgan (Kirk Douglas), the marshal of
the nearby town of Pawley, who immediately identifies the letters “CB”
branded on the saddle.They’re
the initials of Craig Belden (Anthony Quinn), a powerful rancher who
controls Gun Hill, a community further down the railroad line.One
of the murderers was Belden’s hired hand Lee (played by Brian Hutton,
later the director of “Where Eagles Dare” and “Kelly’s Heroes”), and the
other was Belden’s son Rick (Earl Holliman).When
Morgan arrives in Gun Hill with arrest warrants, Belden first tries to
convince him to go easy by reminding him that he and Craig were once
good friends. After that doesn’t work, he resorts to intimidation.The
cowardly local marshal refuses to help Morgan, unashamedly admitting
that he fears the boss man’s wrath more than he respects the rule of
law.(I’ll leave it to you to decide if you see a similarity to recent political controversies.)The
other townspeople are chilly if not hostile, and when Morgan finally
subdues Rick and handcuffs him in a hotel room, waiting for the arrival
of the train back to Pawley, Belden surrounds the building with hisarmy of hired guns.
The only person sympathetic to Morgan is Belden’s battered girlfriend Linda (Carolyn Jones).Even she believes the determined marshal faces overwhelming odds:
“You remind me of Jimmy, a fella I used to know,” she remarks. “Stubborn as a mule.”
“Next time you see Jimmy, say hello,” Morgan answers dryly.“We seem to have a lot in common.”
“More than you know.He’s dead.”
“Last
Train from Gun Hill” originated with a story treatment by writer Les
Crutchfield, expanded by James W. Poe with an uncredited assist from
Dalton Trumbo, whom Douglas brought in to sharpen the dialogue.The exchanges between the characters, like the one quoted above, crackle with Trumbo’s signature style.Crutchfield
contributed scripts regularly to “Gunsmoke,” and “Last Train from Gun
Hill” unfolds like a traditional episode of the long-running series,
dressed up with a little more complexity, a rape-murder that would never
have passed network censorship, and a striking climactic scene that
also would have run afoul of the censors.Standing up, Morgan drives a wagon slowly down main street to meet the arriving train.Rick
stands beside him, handcuffed, with the muzzle of Morgan’s borrowed
shotgun pressed up under his chin to keep Belden and his gunmen at bay. When
Dell Comics adapted the movie as a comic book at the time of the film’s
release, it chose that scene as the cover photograph.As
far as I know, the graphic come-on of imminent shotgun mayhem didn’t
raise the ire of parents, educators, child psychologists, or media
pundits in that distant year of 1959.Back then, of course, pervasive gun violence wasn’t the social catastrophe that it is today.In 2022, the comic book would surely raise a firestorm of controversy on social media and cable news.
“Last
Train from Gun Hill” falls just short of a true classic, since the plot
mostly relies on ingredients that we’ve seen many times before in other
Westerns—the incorruptible lawman, the overbearing cattle baron, his
bullying but weak-willed son, the old friends now at cross-purposes, the
unfriendly town, the tense wait for a train—but Douglas, Quinn, and
supporting actors Carolyn Jones, Earl Holliman, Brian Hutton, and Brad
Dexter are at the top of their form, and Sturges’ no-nonsense direction
keeps the action moving at a tense pace.The
Blu-ray edition of the film from Paramount Pictures’ specialty label,
“Paramount Presents,” contains a sharp, remastered transfer, an
appreciative video feature with Leonard Maltin, and theatrical trailers.Even
though “Last Train from Gun Hill” ran frequently on local TV channels
in the 1970s and ‘80s, its visual quality there was seriously
compromised by the broadcast format.Worse, endless commercial breaks disrupted Sturges’ masterful mood of mounting tension.Revisiting
the production in its original, intended form, we may better appreciate
its merits as classic Hollywood professionalism at its finest.Highly recommended.
In the 1960s,
Hollywood studios were ingenious in retooling foreign B-movies for American
drive-ins and double-feature bills.For a perfect case study in their techniques, you would have to look no further
than “Samson and the 7 Miracles of the World,” which American-International
Pictures released here in 1962.The
original Italian version was called “Maciste alla corte del Gran Khan,” or
“Maciste in the Court of the Great Khan” (1961), directed by Riccardo Freda.To some extent, it was already
made-to-order for small-town U.S. ticket-buyers.The star, Gordon Scott, was
well known from his iconic role as Tarzan in five popular films from 1955 to
1960.His co-star, the
French-born Japanese actress Yoko Tani, had recently been top-billed in “The
Savage Innocents” (1960), “First Spaceship on Venus” (1961), and “Marco Polo”
(1962).Moreover,
although critically scorned, strongman epics like this one had a reliable
market among eleven-year-olds and undemanding adults.On the other hand, although
beloved in Italy, the character “Maciste” had no brand-name value on these
shores, and at 98 minutes, the film was too long to fit into its designated
position as half of a thrifty double-feature.No problem.As it had done in acquiring an
earlier Maciste production, known here as “Son of Samson,” AIP substituted
“Samson” for “Maciste,” and replaced the original title with one more likely to
resonate on drive-in marquees.Twenty-two
minutes of footage were removed, eliminating some colorful but tedious back
story, and a pulpy, dramatic lobby poster was commissioned.The graphics were classic.As a muscular, loin-clothed
Gordon Scott pushes over a pillar, a winsome beauty in a harem costume watches.
The girl looks only vaguely Asian and not at all like Yoko Tani.
In the film, Samson
turns up in medieval China where the Mongols have taken over the royal court.The young Chinese prince Tai
Sung is emperor in name only, and his sister Lei-ling has been banished to a
Buddhist convent.The
real power behind the throne is Garak, the tyrannical Great Khan of the
Mongols, who rules as regent, with ruthlessly astute guidance from his mistress
Liu Tai.When rebellious
Chinese peasants mount a feeble resistance, Garak decides it’s time to up his
game.Tai Sung will
“accidentally” die during a tiger hunt, and Mongol soldiers masquerading as
rebels will attack the Buddhist convent and kill the princess.Enter Samson to rescue the
prince from the tiger (as Scott gamely wrestles with an actual, drugged tiger
in some shots, and with a life-sized, stuffed replica in others), while
Lei-ling escapes the massacre at the convent and finds refuge with the freedom
fighters.If this sounds
like the usual playbook for the Samson, Hercules, and Goliath epics of the
1960s, it could also describe any of the “Star Wars” movies.Ditch the tiger, insert a
Wampa or a Rancor instead.George
Lucas’ original trilogies and their sequels from Disney may be more to the
tastes of modern audiences but they’re just as simplistic at heart, when you
come right down to it.
A new Blu-ray edition
from Kino Lorber Studio Classics presents the movie in both its original,
98-minute Italian version and its 76-minute AIP edit, both in the widescreen
2.35:1 format.One
caveat: purists may be disappointed by the soundtrack for the Italian version.It’s an intermediate
English-language track where the hero is still called “Maciste,” perhaps from
the 1964 U.K. release, and not the original Italian voice track.Opening and closing credits
for the AIP edit are inserted from what appears to be an old VHS or television
print.In either version,
attention should be paid to Hélène Chanel as the Khan’s mistress Liu Tai.We may commend the Italians
for casting Yoko Tani as the captive princess Lei-ling at a time when it was
rare to find Asian characters actually played by Asian actors in prominent
roles, but Chanel has the more dynamic female role, and she makes the most of
it with her slinky costumes and icy beauty.The AIP edit features audio
commentary from Tim Lucas, who unpacks a bounty of information about the film
in both iterations.Helpfully
for those of us who might be hard-pressed to identify any of the miracles
promised by American-International, he lists all seven.
The Kino Lorber
Blu-ray also features captions for the deaf and hearing impaired, several
trailers (although oddly, none for “Samson and the 7 Miracles of the World”
itself), and a reversible sleeve.The wonderful AIP poster art appears on one side, and alternative art
from the Italian poster on the other.
Director Franklin J. Schaffner was fresh off his Best Director Oscar triumph for Patton when he teamed with legendary producer Sam Spiegel for the historical epic Nicholas and Alexandra.
The film was an adaptation of a best-selling book by Robert K. Massie
that traced the tragic events leading to the assassination of Russia's
last czar, along with his entire family. With a screenplay by the
esteemed James Goldman (The Lion in Winter), the film had the
potential to be another Spiegel classic. After all, Spiegel had teamed
with director David Lean to produce two of the great cinematic
masterpieces: The Bridge on the River Kwai and Lawrence of Arabia. Despite
their mutual triumphs, Lean (like most people in the film industry)
came to loathe the gruff Spiegel, whose mercurial temper knew no bounds.
He would chastise gaffers and esteemed directors alike and Lean had had
enough. When he began production on his 1965 blockbuster Doctor Zhivago, Spiegel's
ego was bruised because Lean had teamed this time with producer Carlo
Ponti. If Lean had made a boxoffice smash out of the Russian Revolution,
Spiegel would prove he could do the same thing. Thus, Nicholas and Alexandra was
borne more out of revenge than inspiration. In addition to hiring
Schaffner for the project, Spiegel conspicuously brought two key members
of the Zhivago team with him: production designer John Box and
cinematographer Freddie Young. However, Spiegel's finances were not
adequate to afford the big name stars he had hoped to cast in the lead
roles. Thus, he was forced to cast relative unknowns from the British
stage: Michael Jayston and Janet Suzman. To give the film some boxoffice
allure, he cast a "Who's Who" of British acting royalty in supporting
roles, comprised of legendary established stars and up-and-comers. They
included Laurence Olivier, Michael Redgrave, Brian Cox, Ian Holm, Jack
Hawkins (whose part was dubbed due to the actor's recent throat
surgery), Harry Andrews, Tom Baker, John Wood, Roy Dotrice, Alexander
Knox, Eric Porter and Timothy West.
The story, steeped in historical accuracy, finds Nicholas
ill-prepared to serve as czar over a troubled Russia beset by
devastating economic conditions. With the majority of his people facing
starvation and a daily struggle to survive, Nicholas resides in palatial
splendor in Petersburg with his headstrong wife, Alexandra. Nicholas is
a good man in his own way. He cares about the peasants but lives in a
bubble that prevents him from relating to their day-to-lives. Born of
privilege, he knows no other life. The Romanovs have ruled Russia for
three hundred consecutive years and he sees no reason for the tradition
to stop with his dynasty. He is delighted when Alexandra presents him
with a male heir to the throne, but the boy is sickly and suffers from
life-threatening hemophilia. Still, it's a happy family with Nicholas
doting over his daughters and young son. He seems oblivious that there
is great resentment towards his wife, who manipulates his every move and
keeps him cut off from personal friends. He ignores warnings from his
ministers that he must tone down Alexandra's lavish spending habits,
especially during the poor economic climate. A protest by peasants in
1905 builds tension further when a mishap causes the army to fire on the
people, slaughtering hundreds of them. The seeds of revolution continue
to grow with the agitator Lenin leading the charge in hopes of
establishing a Bolshevik ruling party and deposing the czar. Nicholas'
ill-fated decision to enter WWI against Germany brings about
catastrophic results. Not only are his armies no match against the
Kaiser's but Alexandra is of German heritage, which further builds
public resentment against her. As Russian forces face devastating
defeats on the battlefields, revolution spreads quickly through the
country. Lenin's popularity grows, especially when he promises to make
immediate peace with Germany if he is given power. Before long, the czar
finds himself essentially powerless. He and his family are arrested but
he still believes they will live an idyllic and peaceful life in exile.
Instead, they are shunted between distant locations and housed in
barely-livable conditions as the new order debates their fate. As we all
know, it is a tragic one with Nicholas and his family abruptly shot to
death by an assassination squad.
These dramatic developments play out slowly but in an interesting
manner throughout the film's 183-minute running time. The performances
are all first rate, with Jayston especially good as the sympathetic (if
clueless) czar. Suzman is every bit his match as the egotistical
Alexandra and each member of the supporting cast provides a gem of a
performance, with Olivier and Harry Andrews especially impressive and
Tom Baker stealing the entire movie with his mesmerizing performance as
Rasputin, the crazed monk who had a Svengali-like influence over
Alexandra, much to her husband's disgust. Yet, despite those attributes
and a rich production design, the film never emotionally moves the
viewer as much as one would expect. The characters remain somewhat
opaque and the great historical events that affect them are only given
marginal background and explanation. Schaffner clearly wanted to
emphasize personal relationships over visual splendor and by and large
he succeeded. However, there is some emotional component missing here.
He crafted an impressive movie on many levels but one that perhaps did
not fulfill its ultimate potential. The movie was greeted with the
customary (some would say obligatory) Oscar nominations generally
accorded historical epics. It was nominated for 6 awards (including
nods for Best Picture and Actress) and won in two technical categories.
Nevertheless, overall critical response was mixed and the film was
considered a boxoffice disappointment. Schaffner would go on to make
three more impressive films (Papillon, Islands in the Stream and The Boys From Brazil)
and several flops before passing away in 1989 at age 69. Spiegel never
regained the mojo he once enjoyed in the industry. He would only make
two more relatively low-key films (The Last Tycoon, Betrayal) before he died in 1985 at age 84.
Nicholas and Alexandra may not be the classic Spiegel and
Schaffner had envisioned, but in this age of dumbed-down action movies,
it plays much better than it did upon its initial release in 1971. It's a
film that educates even as it entertains.
(The film is currently streaming on Amazon Prime.)
Once upon a time (or more
specifically 1952) the amazing Cinerama film process premiered with “This is
Cinerama”, and for the next ten years moviegoers lined up to hurl down a
rollercoaster, cling tight on a runaway train, make a dangerous flyover at a
volcano, even sit and watch an opera, in the comfort of roadshow seats. Three cameras filming in
synchronization and mounted on a shell the size of a refrigerator captured a
panorama of wonders from around the world. This undertaking was legitimized
when three projectors, along with a fourth reel just for the multi-track sound,
spread these vistas across a curved screen and across the country. Cinerama was
a technical marvel…and not a small response to television!
Finally, after a decade of impressive
travelogues, Cinerama joined forces with MGM. The objective: begin to produce
films with actual stories using this immersive presentation. In June 1961, the
popular LIFE Magazine series “How the West Was Won” began its transition to a
giant of a western film; an all-star cast with three directors attached. A
month later, George Pal began production on “The Wonderful World of the
Brothers Grimm” and it would also employ more than one director. Henry Levin
would handle the real-life dramatics, while Pal lent his gentle hand to the
three fairy tales that would surround the story.
“Brothers Grimm” actually opened
before “How the West Was Won” and got its share of kind but not outstanding
reviews. The three fairy tales presented are not as dynamic as a Snow White or
Cinderella, but of course those stories have been strongly “Disneyfied”, so it
certainly made more sense to use less familiar subjects. What played between
the tales could be another issue: the mixture of drama (including Wilhelm Grimm
being deathly ill in the last half hour) sandwiched with “The Dancing Princess”
or “The Singing Bone” seems a tough grind for an audience full of kids. But Russ Tamblyn is a major
contributor to the fun aspects of the film, with terrific comedy, dancing and a
few dangerous stunts.
With “Brothers Grimm” and "How the West Was Won",
three strip Cinerama went out with positive memories, but it did go out.
Audiences enjoyed it but directors and actors didn’t. A decent close up was out
of the question, actors had to look past their subjects to make it appear
normal for the camera, and cinematographers tried using several inventive ways
to hide the join lines.(Trees and doorways were popular.) The rest of roadshow
Cinerama would originate from various 70mm formats with an image squeeze to wrap
around the curved screen. It was not quite the same, of course, but it brought
success to epics like “Its a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World” and “2001: A Space
Odyssey”. (Viewing the Cinerama version of “2001”, one fell into space, a
feeling not achieved with any regular 70mm version.)
Time had not been kind to “Brothers
Grimm”. For many years, home video used a print down version (merging the three
panels into a single strip) with less-than-stellar results. Indeed, it was
tough to judge the merits of the film because (to use the words of the late
Cinerama expert John Harvey) it became “The Grim World of the Brothers
Wonderful”. A last hurrah occurred at a Cinerama Dome festival several years
ago when a surviving three panel version played to grateful widescreen fans.
Note: with both “Mad World” and the previously lost “The Golden Head” on the
schedule, a few called the weekend “The Buddy Hackett Film Fest"! And Russ
Tamblyn came to the rescue again when the film broke down for a few minutes and
the movie’s wonderful woodsman filled the time with some behind-the-scenes
stories.
That night, those who were not around for “Brothers
Grimm”s initial Cinerama run discovered the glory previously hidden by its
video version. The surviving print had rough spots but no matter; when the
walk-out music began the Dome audience applauded with the attitude of “We’ve
finally seen this film the way we were supposed to.”
And that, we all thought, was
that.
Photo: Dave Strohmaier
Over the years, producer, editor
(and showmanship expert) Dave Strohmaier has gathered the best technicians in
film and video to transfer the original Cinerama films, including “How the West
Was Won” for the Blu-Ray format. The results are nothing short of remarkable,
and all those titles belong in a film fan’s library. In fact, “How the West Was
Won” has become the standard Blu-Ray for setup according to many home theater
buffs. But while that film’s elements were in excellent shape, some of “Brothers
Grimm” was not. Determining that a photochemical
restoration would be cost prohibitive, if not impossible, Dave Strohmaier, Tom
March and an army of experts set out to create a new digital presentation of
this abandoned work of widescreen art. The result is the best way to see George
Pal’s 1962 effort since, well, 1962.
Like the Warner Archive's Blu-Ray of “How the West Was Won”, “Brothers
Grimm” is a two disc set containing a “Letterboxed” presentation and a “Smilebox”
version, that replicates the experience of seeing the film in its curved screen
Cinerama glory. Choices like this are again another reason to appreciate the
disc medium.
Most may agree that “Brothers Grimm”
is one of George Pal’s most ambitious projects. But is it his greatest
achievement? Probably not. Justin Humphreys, curator of the estate of George
Pal, reflects that the film misses classic status, yet it does accomplish what
Pal, Levin, MGM and Cinema set out to make: a colorful, lively, musical, family
friendly event at the cinema. The money is up on the screen and the European
locations are major attractions.
So the greatness is found,
perhaps not in the film itself but certainly in this Blu-Ray presentation; many
home theater enthusiasts consider “Brothers Grimm” the home video release of
the year, and I agree. From the clarity of Leigh Harline’s Oscar-nominated
score to Paul Vogel’s cinematography, the film sounds and looks like it was
produced today. In fact, due to the richness of Technicolor, dare we say it
looks better than much of what we see in theaters today.
Special features are spread over
both discs; radio interviews, trailers, photo slideshows, a salute to William
R. Forman, promotional artwork, a delightful mini-doc “The Wonderful Career of
George Pal”. But the headliner is surely the 40-minute “Rescuing a Fantasy
Classic” documentary, an in-depth look at the massive digital restoration.
Thanks to the Warner Archive, Dave
Strohmaier, Tom March and the team involved, “The Wonderful World of the
Brothers Grimm” has been given another opportunity to entertain and to live on…happily ever after.
I know I'm not only getting old, but I'm there already. That's apparent in the fact that I remember seeing the 1981 comedy "All Night Long" at an advanced critic's screening in New York. Back in those prehistoric days before the internet, you had to read trade industry publications to get the background story or buzz on forthcoming films. Sure, the general public was always aware that expensive epics were experiencing production problems, but everyday movie fans were generally unaware of the scuttlebutt on mid-range fare. Within industry circles, however, the word-of-mouth was negative about the film despite the fact that it starred Gene Hackman and Barbra Streisand, both then very much at the peak of their acting careers. The film had gone through some almost surrealistic production problems that involved high profile people and had come in massively over the original budget estimate. I recalled thinking the movie was kind of fun but had the staying power of cotton candy in that nothing about resonated even a few days after seeing it. For old time's sake, I decided to revisit it through Kino Lorber's Blu-ray release. My observations will follow, but first some preliminary facts. The movie was optioned by Fox originally but for reasons unknown (premonitions?), it was dropped. It was then shepherded to executives at Universal by Sue Mengers, the "Super Agent" talent representative who was as famous as the names on her legendary clients. Among them was Gene Hackman, who had taken a leave of absence from acting due due to making so many films back-to-back. Tired of playing in action films, Hackman was eager to star in this quirky romantic comedy that had been scripted by W.D. Richter, who had written the brilliant 1978 version of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" as well as the Frank Langella version of "Dracula" and the popular crime drama "Brubaker" with Robert Redford. The film was to be a modestly-budgeted affair costing about $3 million. Up-and-coming actress Lisa Eichorn was cast as the female lead opposite Hackman. The director was Jean-Claude Tramont, a Belgian filmmaker who had reed-thin credits in the industry. This was to be Tramont's first Hollywood film and it was very much championed by Sue Mengers, who "coincidentally" happened to be his wife.
So far, so good. However, shortly after filming began, for reasons no one could ever interpret, Hackman began acting in a frosty manner opposite Eichorn, who by all accounts, was giving a fine performance. Because of Hackman's aversion to starring opposite her, their love scenes were less-than-convincing. Since Hackman was the big name, Eichorn was summarily fired, though she was paid her salary of $250,000 in full. Then Mengers stepped forward with what seemed like an outlandish idea: have Barbra Streisand assume Eichorn's role. The idea of Streisand taking over for another actress in a film that was already in production seemed surrealistic, but Streisand agreed- in return for a $4 million paycheck, which said to be the highest salary ever paid to an actor. (In return, she didn't object to Hackman getting top billing, which presumably he had been contractually guaranteed.) As the change-over was taking place, other members of the cast and crew were also replaced, including the director photography. The original composer was the esteemed Georges Delerue, but his score was deemed to be unsatisfactory and Richard Hazard and Ira Newborn were brought on board as the composers of record. (Bizarrely, Delerue is listed in the final credits as "conductor"with his name misspelled as "George", a final indignity.) By the time filming resumed, the budget had blown up to $14 million, a staggering sum for a low-key comedy and a figure that approached half the production cost of "Apocalypse Now".
So what's it all about? Hackman plays George Dupler, a middle-aged L.A. executive who is counting on a big promotion. When he is bypassed, he breaks down and throws a chair through the window. Because of his seniority, management won't fire him but instead demotes him and assigns him to a new job they are sure will result in his resignation. George is to manage an all-night pharmacy/convenient store that is staffed by misfits and patronized by wacky eccentrics. These scenes should be the funniest in the film, but director Tramont overplays his hand and presents over-the-top characters that would generally be found in sitcom episodes. None of the labored sight gags work at all and they seem out of place given the fact that Tramont had indicated his goal was to make a European-style sophisticated romantic comedy. The film improves considerably when it cuts to the main plot points, which involve George learning that his 18 year-old son Freddie (Dennis Quaid) is having a secret affair with cougar Cheryl Gibbons (Barbra Streisand), who is a distant relative. She's married to Bob (Kevin Dobson), a brusque fireman who is the fourth cousin of George's wife Helen (Diane Ladd). Still with me? A chance encounter with Cheryl leads George to have an affair with her. When Helen finds out, fireworks ensue and George spontaneously packs a few things and storms out of the house to find a new abode. He sets up a new home in a cavernous loft that adjoins a class for aspiring painters. He and Cheryl resume their affair, while she simultaneously carries on with Freddie. (A "Yuck! Factor" enters the scenario when George asks Cheryl if he is better in bed than his son.) Screenwriter Richter seems to have been inspired by the plight of Benjamin in "The Graduate", in that Cheryl is not only bedding her lover but his parent as well.
The biggest flaw in the script is that none of the principals are remotely sympathetic. Cheryl is an intentional home-breaker, Freddie puts his lust before any other priority and George is willing to break up his marriage spontaneously with no apparent regrets. Not much to admire there. Richter seems to have realized this and introduces a late plot device designed to excuse George's affair, but it comes across as a last minute contrivance that came to Richter in the middle of the night. Despite all of that, "All Night Long" worked better for me this time than when I originally saw it. The film is flaky in concept and execution but Hackman is always in fine form and it's great to see Streisand in a secondary role that she can play in a subdued manner. (There's a funny bit in which the ditzy Cheryl attempts to sing and can't hit a note, an irony for a Streisand character.) The supporting cast is very good, too, with Kevin Dobson terrific as the hot-tempered cuckolded husband who ignites when he discovers his wife is bedding both George and his son and William Daniels, very amusing as the staid family lawyer who isn't as staid as he seems.
When the film was released, it garnered a few enthusiastic reviews including from the usually grumpy Pauline Kael, but the general consensus was negative. Screenwriter William Goldman, a longtime critic of Hollywood studios (he famous said of the town, "Nobody knows anything") held up "All Night Long" as a prime example of a simple project that began bloated by ineptness, nepotism and egos. The film bombed at the boxoffice and Goldman estimated that when marketing costs were factored in, it would have lost $20 million- and that was in 1981 dollars. Streisand was said to be livid over the marketing campaign poster which implied this would be a zany, madcap comedy, when in fact, it is much more subdued. After the film's failure, Streisand dropped Sue Mengers as her agent. As for Jean-Claude Tramont, his career came to a screeching halt, never to recover before his death in 1996.
The Kino Lorber Blu-ray would seem to call out for a commentary track, but there is none. However, there is an excellent 20-minute recent video interview with W.D. Richter, who candidly describes the experience as an unhappy memory and details some of the factors that led to disaster. He does speak well of Streisand and said there was no evidence of the diva-like demands she is known for. She didn't even insist on any script revisions. Richter also said that Tramont seemed nervous and uncertain in dealing with Streisand and Hackman. He ponders why the film hasn't caught on as a legendary flop, as it certainly would today in the age of social media. My guess is that everyone was still talking about "Heaven's Gate".
The Blu-ray also contains the trailer and a gallery of other KL titles with Hackman starring and two radio spots, one of which is absurd and refers to the film as the "Barbra Streisand picture" without even mentioning Hackman. Recommended, if only for Richter's wonderful interview.
“Son of Samson,” an Italian
production from the wave of sword-and-toga or “peplum” movies in the early
1960s, has been released by Kino Lorber Studio Classics in aBlu-ray edition. When you hit “play,” don’t be
alarmed when a different title,“Maciste
nella Valle de Re,” appears instead.It’s the same picture.“Maciste
nella valle de Re” or “Maciste in the Valley of the Kings” was the original
title in Italy, where director Carlo Campogalliani’s production opened on Nov.
24, 1960.There,
“Maciste” had a nostalgic fan base among older filmgoers who fondly remembered
the super-strong defender of justice and freedom from an iconic series of
silent movies (1914-1927).The
75-year-old Campogalliani had directed three of the original Maciste pictures,
and rebooting the character had long been his pet project.The recent success of Steve
Reeves’ first muscleman epics, “Hercules” (1958) and “Hercules Unchained”
(1959), finally provided the go-ahead.
Since
“Maciste” carried no brand-name value here, “Son of Samson” became the title
for the dubbed, slightly edited version that opened in New York on June 2,
1962.The new title
shrewdly reminded ticket-buyers of Cecil B. DeMille’s popular “Samson and
Delilah” (1950), from which the script lifted a couple of incidental
situations.Also, with
its biblical connotation, “Son of Samson” was designed to placate moralist
watchdogs in conservative small towns.It was okay to ogle a sexy leading lady in skimpy, navel-baring harem
outfits and an oiled-up, nearly naked hero, as long as the Good Book somehow
fit into the scenario. DeMille
had virtually pioneered the same tactic.Never mind that “Son of
Samson” had no narrative connection to the DeMille picture.For that matter, it really had
no religious elements at all.With
its second-unit visuals of the pyramids and other desert monuments, It might
just as easily have been retitled “Samson Meets Cleopatra” to exploit current
publicity around Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s “Cleopatra,” which was still a year
away from release.The
“new” Maciste was so popular in Italy that more films followed, in which Mark
Forest was followed in the role by Kirk Morris and Gordon Scott, among others.Later, several of the pictures
were packaged with other peplums for syndicated TV broadcast in America as
“Sons of Hercules” and “Gladiator Theatre.”
In
Campogalliani’s movie, Maciste (Mark Forest) wanders through Egypt in the 5th
Century B.C. looking for good deeds to perform.When he’s attacked by lions,
he kills one with his bare hands (like Victor Mature’s Samson in the DeMille
picture) and is saved from the other by an archer who turns out to be Kenamun,
the Pharaoh’s son.Kenamun
and his father Armiteo try to keep their cruel Persian vizier from oppressing
the common folk, but Armiteo’s trophy wife Smedes (Chelo Alonso) secretly
throws in with the vizier.They
murder the Pharaoh, put Kenamun under a spell, and dispatch their troops to
round up unoffending peasants for brutal slave labor.Maciste steps in to rescue the
villagers, including pretty sisters Tekaet and Nofret, and break Smedes’ spell
over Kenamun.Unlike the
heroes in today’s movie franchises, Maciste doesn’t brood over a tortuous
back-story involving daddy issues, murdered parents, or remorse over past
misdeeds.Asked why he
spends his time helping poor people for no personal gain, he simply answers,
“It is my destiny.”In
that more innocent era of movie entertainment, no further explanation was
required.When Maciste
and Smedes meet in the palace, she tries to seduce him with a slinky belly
dance, and we visit an ingenious execution chamber known as “The Cell of
Death.”There, if you
somehow escape being crushed between two closeable walls, you’ll fall into
a pool of crocodiles.The
script by prolific screenwriters Oreste Biancoli and Ennio De Concini
faithfully observes Chekhov’s famous dictum.If a Cell of Death appears in
the story, someone must perish there before the final credits roll.
The print
of “Son of Samson” presented by Kino Lorber is the Italian version with a
dubbed English voice track.It
includes a fleeting glimpse of a woman’s bare breasts (full disclosure, in case
you’re curious . . . not Chelo Alonso’s) that was censored out of the American
print.Even here, it
speeds by so fast it seems to be optically blurred.Older fans will be glad to see
hunky Mark Forest and super-hot Chelo Alonso again in peak trim, although the
simplistic plot is a reminder that the Italian sword-and-toga movies (even a
better-budgeted one like this, seen in proper Totalscope and Technicolor
presentation after years of abysmal “Gladiator Theatre” prints) tend not to
live up to our youthful memories when we revisit them many years later. The Marvel Studios generation
may squirm at the old-fashioned pace of the script, and wonder why the laconic
hero doesn’t brush off various perils with a stream of clever quips.
Nevertheless,
if you can get your 12-year-old kid brother, son, nephew, or grandson to sit
still long enough, he’ll learn that the basics for luring audiences to the
ticket booth haven’t changed all that much since 1960, whether the buffed-up
guy in the poster is Mark Forest, Arnold Schwarzenegger, or Dwayne “The Rock”
Johnson. Millennial
sword-and-toga dramas like the “300” movies (2006 and 2014) and cable’s
“Spartacus” series (2010-13) have more nudity and graphic carnage, but still,
at the end of the day, it’s all about the abs.
The Kino Lorber
release includes captioning and an excellent, insightful, spirited audio
commentary from movie guys David Del Valle and Michael Varrati.
A marvelous, underrated and intelligently scripted epic, the 1966 production of Cinerama's "Khartoum" seems be more appreciated by movie fans today than it was back in the day. Superb performances and fine direction by the equally underrated Basil Dearden, along with Frank Cordell's magnificent score, make it a marvelous cinematic experience.
Includes 4 films premiering on Blu-ray & DVD on December
14, 2021
Los Angeles, CA (November, 2021)
Synopsis: Cult Epics proudly presents the Sylvia
Kristel 1970s Collection, featuring four of the legendary Dutch icon's most
diverse films in new 2K transfers and entirely uncut, for the first time on
home video in the United States.
New 2K HD Transfers
(from original 35mm film elements) and Restoration
Original LPCM 2.0 Mono.
New DTS-HD MA 2.0
Mono
Audio Commentaries by
Tim Lucas, Jeremy Richey, and Peter W. Verstraten
New and Vintage
Interviews with Cast & Crew
Poster & Photo
Galleries
Original Theatrical
Trailers
Limited
numbered Edition of 2500 copies made (Blu-ray) includes 40-Page illustrated
booklet written by Jeremy Richey and Poster with Art by Gilles Vranckx. DVD
Ltd. Edition of 1000 includes booklet and poster
Cult Epics website
exclusive includes an additional DVD with Interview with director Just Jaeckin
on Sylvia. Limited to 200 copies www.cultepics.com
In conjunction Cult
Epics will release Sylvia Kristel: From Emmanuelle written by Jeremy Richey as
a Hardcover book, on January 17, 2020 (new release date). 352 Pages, fully
illustrated, 12x10 inches.
(We are running this review from 2016 in commemoration of Pearl Harbor Day.)
BY LEE PFEIFFER
If ever an epic deserved the Blu-ray deluxe treatment, Fox's 1970 Pearl Harbor spectacular Tora! Tora! Tora! is it. The film was a major money-loser for the studio at the time and replicated the experience of Cleopatra from a decade before in that this single production threatened to bankrupt the studio. Fox had bankrolled a number of costly bombs around this period including Doctor Doolittle, Hello, Dolly and Star! Fortunately, they also had enough hits (Patton, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, M*A*S*H, the Planet of the Apes series) to stay afloat. However, the Tora! debacle cost both Fox chairman Darryl F. Zanuck and his son, production head Richard Zanuck, their jobs. Ironically, Darryl F. Zanuck had saved the studio a decade before by finally bringing Cleopatra to a costly conclusion and off-setting losses with spectacular grosses from his 1962 D-Day blockbuster The Longest Day. By 1966, Zanuck and that film's producer Elmo Williams decided they could make lightning strike twice by using the same formula to recreate the December 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor. The project seemed jinxed from the beginning. Skyrocketing costs and logistical problems delayed filming until 1969. By then, America's outlook about war movies had changed radically due to the burgeoning anti-Vietnam movement. Zanuck and Williams also forgot one important distinction between The Longest Day and Tora! Tora! Tora!: the former was about a major Allied victory while the latter was about a tremendous defeat. Americans generally stay away from military movies that depict anything other than glorious victories and Tora! was no exception. Critics were also lukewarm and the only saving grace was that the film performed spectacularly in Japan, largely because it presented both sides of the conflict on a non-judgmental level.
Bringing the story to the screen strained the relationship between
both Zanucks, especially when legendary Japanese director Akira Kurosawa
was brought on board to helm the Japan-based sequences. What should
have been a tremendous boost to the production became a nightmare when
Kurosawa acted irrationally and burned up money while working at a
snail's pace. He was ultimately fired in a scandal that was seen as an
insult to all of Japan. So much of the budget had been wasted that it
left no major funding for big stars. Unlike The Longest Day, which
boasted a "Who's Who" of international film favorites, Fox could only
hire well-respected character actors with little boxoffice clout. Thus,
the spin was put on the production that they were chosen due to their
resemblance to the actual people they were playing. That notion was
absurd because audiences did not know or care about such nuances,
especially since many of the major figures were not known by their
physical characteristics. Although fine actors such as Jason Robards,
Martin Balsam and James Whitmore gave distinguished performances, the
film lacked the pizazz of John Wayne or Lee Marvin in a lead role.
When the film opened, reviews were respectable at best. The film
received Oscars for technical aspects but was not nominated in major
categories. Yet, Tora's reputation has grown over the years and
today it is much more respected than it was in 1970. The film is a
thinking man's war movie and 2/3 of the film is dedicated to
claustrophobic sequences set in board rooms and conference halls as the
antagonists debate where and when war will break out. Nevertheless, this
aspect of the movie is quite admirable, especially in this era of
dumbed-down, CGI- generated "epics". The screenplay assumes the audience
is intelligent and has the patience to endure a gripping story,
well-told. By the time the actual attack on Pearl Harbor is depicted, it
is quite spectacular, even if the use of miniatures in some scenes is
very apparent. The film is enhanced by the extremely efficient
co-direction of Richard Fleischer, Kinji Fukasaku and Toshio Masuda.
Most refreshingly, the Japanese characters are anything but ethnic
stereotypes, which adds immensely to the impact of their side of the
story.Special mention should be made of Jerry Goldsmith's innovative,
pulse-pounding score that brilliantly heightens suspense as the time
line draws nearer to the attack.
Fox's Blu-ray edition looks magnificent and contains a wealth of
bonus extras that include numerous original Fox Movietone WWII
newsreels, the excellent AMC network documentary about the making of the
film as well as an equally impressive History Channel documentary that
examines how accurately the film depicted real events, Day of Infamy
(another very good documentary), the original trailer, commentary by
Fleischer and film historian Stuart Galbraith IV and two still photo
galleries. Astonishingly , Fox makes a major faux pas by not even
listing on the packaging the fact that the set contains the entire
Japanese release version of the movie, which includes ten minutes of
footage not seen in the American cut. Not surprisingly, the extra
footage is dedicated to the Japanese sequences and contains one bizarre,
largely superfluous sequence centering on two cooks aboard one of the
war ships. The Blu-ray has a menu that is rather awkward to find certain
features through but the disc is attractively packaged in a small
hardcover book that has plenty of insights about the film, biographies
of cast members and a wealth of rare photos.
Tora! Tora! Tora! has only grown in stature over the decades-
and Fox's magnificent Blu-ray release does justice to the type of
ambitious epic we simply don't see today.
“Hercules
and the Captive Women†(1963), a sword-and-toga epic directed by Vittorio Cottafavi, has been released in
a Blu-ray special edition by The Film Detective.In the movie, a strange and seemingly
supernatural force from across the sea threatens ancient Greece.Troubled, the rival kings of the Greek
city-states gather to confront the problem.They do so in the same way that our modern leaders take the stage to
debate COVID relief, climate change, gun violence, and other crises.They posture, jeer at each other, and
dither.It’s left to King Androcles of
Thebes to set sail and figure out what’s going on.He seeks the help of his friend Hercules (Reg
Park), but the fabled strongman has promised his wife that he’ll stay home and
give up adventuring.Androcles can’t
even get the backing of his own advisors -- “the soothsayers, the senators, the
commanders of the army†-- so he’s left with a second-string crew of debtors
and jailbirds.Fortunately for the
success of his mission, Hercules comes along after all, although not of his own
choosing.With the help of Hercules‘
son, Illos, the king has drugged and shanghaied his friend.Not that the jovial Hercules seems to mind
when he wakes up after the ship is well out to sea.The decision was out of his hands, and his
friend needs his support.Anyway,
gorgeous wife back home or not, the legendary hero seems happy to get out of
the house.
Presently,
it’s revealed that the aggressor behind the weird phenomena is Antinea (Fay
Spain), the ruthless queen of Atlantis, who schemes to conquer the world.First, she needs to find the right consort
and grow her army of invincible warriors to large enough numbers.Androcles fails her test for a suitably
pitiless mate.He becomes an amnesiac
phantom who wanders her palace with a blank stare.She next approaches Hercules, but the
strongman is already committed to his wife, and besides, he wants nothing to do
with her scheme.Elsewhere on the
island, having rescued Antinea’s teenaged daughter Ismene from sacrifice, Illos
discovers a quarry where scores of starved and disfigured men are
imprisoned.Meanwhile, Hercules learns
that Atlantis harbors a stone with infernal properties.The stone formed from a drop of blood shed by
the god Uranus.Young boys are
confiscated from their families by Antinea and exposed to the stone’s
power.Those who succumb to the
radiation become supermen who join the expanding ranks of the queen’s
army.Those who resist it become
miserable scarecrows and are thrown into the pit with their predecessors.It’s up to Hercules in the usual formula of
such movies, from Steve Reeves’ “Hercules†in 1959 to Dwayne Johnson’s
incarnation in 2014, to administer justice and thwart Antinea’s tyrannical
plot.
“Hercules
and the Captive Women†debuted in Italy in 1961 as “Ercole
alla conquista di Atlantide,†at the height of the sword-and-sandal or “peplumâ€
genre.Released in the U.K. as “Hercules
Conquers Atlantis,†it impressed British critic Ian Cameron with the “strength
and economy†of Cottafavi’s direction.By the time it reached the U.S. in 1963 -- edited, dubbed, minus six
minutes of footage, and retitled by two B-movie entrepreneurs, Bernard and
Lawrence Woolner -- toga epics were already on the wane.I remember seeing the movie ad in the local
newspaper in July 1963.I was
interested, as what thirteen-year-old wouldn’t be?The ad showed a scantily clad blonde cowering
between a guy’s bare legs.She seems to
be staring up under the bottom of his tunic.A chalice dangles and drips suggestively from one of the guy’s hands.“Could she subdue this GIANT OF A MAN with
her SORCERY?’ the ad teased.I had other
(if not necessarily better) things to do that summer, so I never made it to the
movie theater.If I had, I probably
would have been duly entertained, notwithstanding that the ad art was something
of a bait-and-switch tactic.There isn’t
anything in the story that wouldn’t be PG-rated today, nor any “captive womenâ€
aside from the winsome Ismene.Still, I
would have been entertained by the fantasy elements of the story, including
Hercules’ fight with a shape-shifting god, Proteus, who looks like an elderly
man one minute, and then a lion, a vulture, a flame, and a horned monster the
next.As a kid, I had been disappointed
that some of the Italian-made Hercules, Goliath, and Samson sagas turned out to
be quasi-historical movies with no supernatural content, so I would have
welcomed the comic-book vibe of “Hercules and the Captive Women.â€I wasn’t familiar with Reg Park, who had been
Mr. Universe in 1951 and 1959, and later would become Arnold Schwarzenegger’s friend
and mentor in competitive bodybuilding, but I did know the gorgeous Fay
Spain.Fay guest-starred in nearly every
Western and Private Eye TV show in the late ‘50s and early ‘60s, sometimes
playing a good girl, sometimes a bad one.As in “Hercules and the Captive Women,†she was memorably sultry in
bad-girl roles.I definitely would not
have name-checked Gian Maria Volantè, nor probably would have any other casual
filmgoer in 1963.As the king of Sparta
in the scene where the monarchs assemble to argue the Atlantis problem, he has
seventeenth billing in the cast list.He swaggers and sneers through his two minutes of screen time as
flamboyantly as Sir Laurence Olivier playing royalty from Shakespeare.Maybe the classically trained Italian actor
was hoping the role, even if a minor one, would be a step up to bigger things.
But his breakout part, as the central villain in “A Fistful of Dollars,†was
still three years away.
The Film Detective’s Blu-ray special edition offers “Hercules
and the Captive Women†in the sort of dressed-to-the-nines package usually
reserved for more prestigious films.The
print is a 4K restoration from the original 35mm negative.If not as sharp as a transfer from today’s
digital prints of FX spectacles like “Wonder Woman 1984,†it’s nevertheless a
vast improvement over the way the film used to show up dismally on TV and
VHS.The always-informative Tim Lucas
provides audio commentary, and a new mini-documentary, “Hercules and the
Conquest of Cinema,†nicely summarizes the history of the peplum genre.There’s also an illustrated booklet by C.
Courtney Joyner, and, almost like the second feature on a double-bill, the
complete episode of “Mystery Science Theater 3000†from 1992 that made fun of
the movie.Predictably, Tom Servo,
Gypsy, and Crow are ready with a joke whenever Hercules and Antinea mention
“Uranus.â€At least “Uranus†is always
good for a laugh.After thirty years,
the other wisecracks involving “Bonanza,†Bob Dylan, “A Chorus Line,†and other
pop-culture relics will be as inscrutable to younger viewers as the ancient
inscriptions on the Parthenon.
Mike
Henry, the rugged former football player-turned-actor, passed away on January
8, 2021 after a long battle with Parkinson’s disease and Chronic traumatic
encephalopathy, likely from his heavy physical contact during his years in the
NFL playing for the Pittsburgh Steelers and LA Rams.Although not a household name, Henry carved
out an impressive career playing heroic roles, most notably Tarzan in three
films from 1966 – 68.I remember
stumbling across Tarzan And the Valley of Gold on network TV as a kid
and being enthralled by this hulking, well-spoken Tarzan who wore a suit in one
scene and the traditional loincloth in the next. (The series’ producer, Sy
Weintraub, cannily tried to jump on the then-raging Bondmania in 1966 by
offering up a suave Tarzan equally at home in a city as in the jungle.The fact that Henry bore a passing
resemblance to Sean Connery didn’t hurt.)Henry took over the role of Tarzan from Jock Mahoney (who suffered
dysentery making Tarzan’s Three Challenges that was so severe, he
emerged emaciated from the shoot in Thailand.) Blessed with a chiseled physique
that Weintraub crowed looked like it was “sculpted by Michelangeloâ€, Henry
could easily handle the athletic demands of the coveted part.
What
Henry endured making the Tarzan films was even more heroic than the role itself.
While filming Tarzan and the Great River, the script called for Tarzan
to pick up Cheeta (a chimpanzee) and run with him.The film was shot in the jungles of Brazil,
so all the onscreen animals had to be flown in – one imagines they were under
severe stress in a totally unfamiliar environment.The chimp reacted by biting Henry in the face,
requiring 20 stitches in his jaw and a stay in the local hospital for bouts of
“monkey feverâ€.
Mike Henry in a Brazilian hospital after being treated from wounds inflicted by a chimpanzee.
In
the course of making his three Tarzan epics, Henry suffered a severe ear
infection, food poisoning, fatigue, liver ailments, almost got clawed by an
enraged leopard and was so exhausted by the back-to-back film shoots that when
his contract required him to jump right into a Tarzan television series, the
actor wanted out. Who who could have blamed him?Ron Ely took over as Tarzan on TV and racked
up an equally impressive number of injuries including numerous broken bones and
several lion bites during its 2-year run.Henry, reportedly one of the most humble and affable people in the biz, was
so traumatized that he sued producer Weintraub for almost $1 million for
“maltreatment, abuse and working conditions detrimental to my health…†(Both
this and a related lawsuit were unsuccessful in court.)
Although
he had a successful career behind the camera, producing TV commercials and
documentaries, Henry continued to act – in films like The Green Berets, The
Longest Yard, Soylent Green and on episodes of M*A*S*H, The Six Million
Dollar Man, Scrubs, Fantasy Island and others.His role as Jackie Gleason’s dimwitted son in
three Smokey and the Bandit movies introduced this versatile performer
to a new generation of fans. Sadly, due to his illnesses, he had to retire from
the industry in 1988.
I
made several attempts to interview Mr. Henry, especially when I discovered he
lived near me in Los Angeles, but Covid and not wanting to intrude kept me from
pushing too hard.Still, he is one of
the actors I most remember from my movie-going youth and his dashing
appearances at Tarzan, in spite of all the trauma he personally endured, makes
him a true hero in my book.Thanks for
the magic, Mike.
In
the pantheon of great cinematographers there are certain names that immediately
come to mind: Gregg Toland (Citizen Kane, 1941); Robert Burks (Vertigo,
1958); Owen Roizman (The French Connection, 1971; The Exorcist,
1973); Gordon Willis (The Godfather, 1972; The Godfather Part II,
1974); Vittorio Storaro (The Conformist, 1970; The Last Emperor,
1987); and Sven Nykvist (Persona, 1966; Cries and Whispers, 1973)
to name just a few. The late great Carlo Di Palma, who passed away in 2004
after amassing just over 60 screen credits, is one such master and is the
subject of the 2016 documentary Water and Sugar: Carlo Di Palma, The Colours
of Life, which opened in Manhattan on Friday, July 28, 2017.
The
film performs a tightrope act of trying to be both a loving tribute to an
artist by director Fariborz Kamkari, who mixes scenes from the films that
Signor Di Palma cut his teeth on in the business and also an appreciation by his
widow, Adriana Chiesa Di Palma, who appears in much of the film as a gateway to
many film industry people who offer up their thoughts on Sig. Di Palma, often interjecting
their own feelings and impressions of his work. The film is at its most
interesting, however, when looking directly at his career through past
interviews and behind-the-scenes stills, beginning in Italian cinema in the
early 1940s as a focus puller and camera operator – at the age of fifteen no
less! - for notable Neo-Realist director Luchino Visconti (Ossessione,
1943) and later for Vittorio DeSica (The Bicycle Thief, 1948), while
graduating to more high-brow and intellectual fare. Specifically, these were the
films he shot for the highly acclaimed and award-winning Italian master Michelangelo
Antonioni: Red Desert (1964) with its colorful, pollution-drenched
cities swallowing up everyday people; Blow-Up (1966) with the message
that one must create their own reality; and the Cannes Film Festival
Award-Winning Identification of a Woman (1982) with Tomas Milian as a
divorced filmmaker trying to understand women.
Sr.
Di Palma worked most prolifically with Woody Allen beginning with one of the
director’s greatest films, 1986’s Hannah and Her Sisters and the period
films Radio Days (1987), Shadows and Fog (1992) and Bullets
Over Broadway (1994). His hand-held work on Husbands and Wives
(1992) is also dissected. Ample time is allotted Mr. Allen, who recalls his
experiences working with the cinematographer and how they discussed films over
lunch and dinner.
The
juxtaposing of interview footage with the film’s subject and comments from
contemporaries, such as the late great Bernardo Bertolucci who worked with Sig.
Di Palma on 1981’s Tragedy of a Ridiculous Man, are insightful and contemplative;
there is also the amazing recollection of how a very young Sven Nykvist happened
upon Sr. Di Palma, a fact verified decades later; and finally, the explanation
for the film’s title.
Alec
Baldwin, who appeared in Mr. Allen’s 1990 fantasy film Alice, makes the
case that movies like the ones shot by Sr. Di Palma are art. It makes one
wonder about the wisdom on the part of the distribution companies that offer up
documentaries about cinematographers, generally only presenting them in the
standard definition format of DVD. Without taking anything away from Disney and
big-screen Marvel Comics epics that rule home video in 4K Ultra High Definition
and Dolby Atmos, would it not make sense to showcase the stories of cinema’s
finest visual stylists on Blu-ray as well? The scenes offered up in Water
and Sugar examples of the beautiful color palettes of Sig. Di Palma’s greatest
works which aided in the accolades bestowed upon these films. The Kino Lorber DVD includes the original trailer as the only bonus feature.
Last
of all, can someone please correct the indignity of Sig. Di Palma’s profile pic
on his IMDB.com page? It erroneously depicts Italian cinematographer Marco
Onorato accepting an award at the European Film Awards on December 6, 2008 in
Copenhagen, Denmark. While no disrespect is meant to Sr. Marco Onorato, who
sadly passed away at age 59, the least that the IMDB can do is correct this
unfortunate and persistent oversight.
The
late Loren Adelson Singer, who passed away in 2009, has published several
novels as an author, among them That’s the House, There (1973), Boca
Grande (1974), and Making Good (1993). His first work, 1970’s The
Parallax View, published by Doubleday, was written as an answer to his disdain
for the printing business he worked at with his father-in-law and proved to be
enough of a success to permit him to become a paid author. The inspiration for
the book came from the covert operations he assisted in while training with the
Office of Strategic Services and was penned following the high-profile political
assassinations of the 1960’s. It also provided the blueprint for the film of
the same title directed by the late Alan J. Pakula, the second in his informally
named “paranoia trilogy,†bookended by Klute (1971) and All the
President’s Men (1976).
The
Parallax View concerns
the mysterious workings of a corporate entity, The Parallax Corporation, that
appears to be behind the assassinations of political nominees regardless of
which side of the aisle they sit on. It is 1971 and Charles Carroll (William
Joyce) is campaigning while at a luncheon atop Seattle’s Space Needle. Lee
Carter (Paula Prentiss) is covering the event for a television news story and her
ex-boyfriend, newspaper reporter Joe Frady (Warren Beatty), attempts to gain
access to the event but is denied entry when Carter shrugs him off. An
associate of Carroll’s, Austin Tucker (William Daniels), speaks with Carter in
a short on-camera interview. Two sinister-looking waiters (Bill McKinney and Richard
Bull) serve food when suddenly the former shoots and kills Carroll in front of
shocked and horrified guests. A chase ensues and the other “waiter†falls to
his death.
Three
years later, a shaken Carter goes to Frady and unleashes a tale of paranoia,
revealing that several witnesses at the luncheon have all died under mysterious
circumstances. Frady initially brushes off her concerns until Carter is found
dead 24 hours later. Out of guilt, he begins to investigate the deaths and in a
major scene lifted straight from the novel he nearly dies himself, outsmarting
a “sheriff†who sets Frady up to be drowned at the hands of a deluge running
out from a dam (in the novel it’s a “helpful hotel managerâ€). Frady manages to
secure documents concerning the Parallax Corporation from the sheriff’s house
and tries to convince his skeptical editor, Bill Rintels (Hume Cronyn), of the
links to the deaths. Frady then turns his attention to Austin Tucker and
accompanies Tucker and his aide on a yacht ride to talk – until a bomb onboard
kills both men and Frady narrowly escapes by jumping overboard. It seems that
wherever Frady goes, a Parallax minion is not too far behind. This sets in
motion a series of near logic-defying events which results in an ending of ambivalence.
To
fully appreciate this film in 2021, one needs to be aware of the climate of
fear and panic that must have pervaded the zeitgeist in the 1960’s and 1970’s
when seemingly no one could be trusted. After the assassinations of John F.
Kennedy in November 1963, Malcolm Little/Malcolm X in February 1965, Dr. Martin
Luther King, Jr. in April 1968, and Robert F. Kennedy in June 1968, who really
could? The film was shot in the Spring of 1973 while the country was in the
Watergate scandal and points to evil forces at work that Frady hope to get to
the bottom of. In the novel, Joe’s name is Malcolm Graham and works with Austin
Tucker to uncover the mystery.
Conspiracy
thrillers of this era concerned with Everyman against the Establishment often
possessed creepy, minimalist musical scores and The Parallax View is no
exception. Michael Small provides an excellent theme on the heels of his work
for Klute prior to passing the baton to David Shire on All the
President’s Men (Mr. Shire coincidentally scored Francis Coppola’s, his
then-brother-in-law, masterful The Conversation in 1974). It is
reminiscent of the music he would later write for John Schlesinger’s Marathon
Man (1976).
Walter
McGinn, the late actor who sadly died in an automobile accident in March 1977,
is excellent as Jack Younger, a rep from The Parallax Corporation who is sent
to feel out and vet Frady (who is assuming the identity of “Richard†and
wanting to give the impression that he died on the boat) based on his (forged)
test results. One can only wonder if Jack has fallen for Frady’s/Richard’s ploy,
or if he is actually privy to the deliberate subterfuge – given how meticulous
and cold The Parallax Corporation is, and the transpiring of events during the
film’s ending, one has to assume the latter. The audience is made to believe
that the Corporation is for more sophisticated than the average company at the
time, if they have access to top-of-the line intelligence and money-is-no-option/sophisticated
surveillance equipment. A shrewd viewer will beg the questions: how did The
Parallax Corporation manage to keep several steps ahead of the subjects it
intended to kill? Assuming they did had access to top security equipment, how were
they able to harness it? One could theoretically drive themselves crazy
pondering such questions.
Myra
Gardener (Sylvia Miles) insults her stage producer husband, Odell (James
Mason), with this line in the 1982 adaptation of Agatha Christie’s Evil Under
the Sun during a spat while vacationing on a fictional Italian island in the
Adriatic Sea.They are attempting to
entice Broadway legend Arlena Stuart Marshall (Diana Rigg) to appear in their
next musical, despite her reputation as a spoiled diva.Evil Under the Sun has recently been released
on Blu-ray by the good people at Kino Lorber, who have also seen fit to issue
new editions of The Mirror Crack’d and Death on the Nile.
The
screenplay, by Anthony Shaffer, is loaded with witty and sometimes randy
putdowns that help breathe a bit of life into this rather formulaic whodunit
from director Guy Hamilton. When Arlena is found dead on a deserted beach it
seems that all of the guests at the island’s resort have a possible
motive.Innkeeper Daphne Castle (Maggie
Smith), a former stage actress who envied Arlena’s success, is fortunate that
the famous Belgian detective Hercule Poirot (Peter Ustinov) is on hand to
investigate and identify the murderer.We soon learn that Arlena’s death may be related to another killing in
Scotland and, as with most crimes of passion, money appears to be the motive.
Poirot
was originally visiting the island to meet industrialist Sir Horace Blatt (Colin
Blakely) to appraise a valuable diamond that was gifted to Arlene and was
returned to Blatt after his affair with the actress ended.Poirot identifies the jewel in question as a
fake and Blatt quickly becomes a suspect.
Also
residing at the resort are lovers, former lovers, cheating lovers, stepchildren
and professional associates of Arlena who, it turns out, all have reasons to
wish her harm.The pedigree cast
includes British stalwarts Roddy McDowell, Jane Birkin (who also appeared in
Death on the Nile), Denis Quilly and Nicholas Clay.There’s even a Hitchcock-style cameo by
director Hamilton near the start of the film.
The
script by Shaffer slims down the list of suspects by combining several
characters from Ms. Christie’s novel.The humor that is added with the barbs traded among the cast is a bright
spot, as it helps the story move along at a faster clip.As with many of his previous films,
particularly the Bond epics, director Hamilton lets us laugh at the pretentious
nature of the resort guests without going overboard with the camp. One
especially funny sequence involves Poirot’s efforts to exercise by taking a
swim in the ocean.He has previously
been identified as somewhat obese and decides to take the advice of his doctor
and add strenuous activity to his daily routine.
The
cinematography by Christopher Challis is gorgeous, with location shots
highlighting the Formentor, Mallorca and Belearic Islands near Spain.Mallorca also happened to be where director
Guy Hamilton was making his home at the time.The titles for the film feature beautiful watercolor paintings by Hugh Casson
with each picture containing an object or article of clothing related to the
story.
The
costume design is the work of veteran Anthony Powell and some of the outfits
worn by Diana Rigg and Sylvia Miles are gloriously overdone.The music is almost a character unto itself,
as composer John Lanchbery has created a score made up entirely of popular
songs by Cole Porter.Lanchbery’s
arrangements are lush and fit in nicely with the sunny location shots and the
open Mediterranean style of Alan Cassie’s art direction.Tunes that stand out are Night and Day,
You’re the Top, I’ve Got You Under My Skin and Anything Goes.
Evil
Under the Sun was the fourth Agatha Christie adaptation for EMI by producers
John Bradbourne and Richard Goodwin.Their previous efforts included Death on the Nile, which also featured
Peter Ustinov in the role of the revered Hercule Poriot. In all, Ustinov has
played the detective nine times for film and television.While the earlier movies were financially
successful for Bradbourne and Goodwin, this film was something of a box office
disappointment.The formula for
star-studded mysteries was wearing thin and would soon be subject to parody
with titles such as the The Cheap Detective and Murder by Death.The Poriot stories would go on to become
popular on television in the UK with more modest budgets and less expensive
casts.
During
the pre-video/broadcast television era of the mid-seventies, college campuses
were teeming with movie offerings on a weekly basis.It was the only way to see older theatrical
titles in their uncensored form.My own
experience at the University of Illinois provided 8 to 10 films per weekend
with recent Hollywood hits, classic revivals and the occasional porn flick
being the usual choices.Lecture halls,
auditoriums and even church sanctuaries were converted to temporary cinemas
that offered a cornucopia in 16mm. These
were quality exhibitions with twin projectors, external speakers for clear
dialogue and anamorphic lenses when needed.It seemed a little odd that one could view a somewhat racy movie in the
same space that would be used for worship the next morning.I would often take in several titles on
Friday and Saturday nights for the bargain price of $1.00.
Agatha
Christie’s Death on the Nile was one such movie that I chose to see on a snowy
evening in January as it played right in the lobby of my dorm.John Guillermin’s star-studded whodunit was
the follow up to the hugely successful Murder on the Orient Express from
1974.Once again we find Belgian
detective Hercule Poirot, played this time by the wonderful Peter Ustinov,
matching wits with a collection of suspects in the killing of heiress Linnet
Ridgeway.A running gag throughout the
film concerns Poirot having to remind everyone that his is not French.
The
setting this time is 1937 onboard a luxury steamer, the Karnack, navigating the
Nile where Poirot is on an Egyptian holiday before being drawn into the case of
the murdered newlywed.Linnet’s husband,
Simon, had recently ended an engagement with Jackie, former best friend of the
victim.Jackie has been stalking the
couple as she was still in love with Simon.
Poirot,
with the assistance of his good friend Colonel Race, begins to investigate the
murder and soon discovers that everyone on board the Karnack has a motive for
Linnet’s murder and Jackie appears to have an airtight alibi.We have Linnet’s maid, an American lawyer, a
romance novelist and her daughter, a jewel thief, a medical doctor and a
communist agitator whom all have ties to Linnet and her money.
The
tale becomes more twisted as the detective interviews all of the passengers
during the voyage hoping to ferret out the guilty party before the steamer
arrives at the final destination.Poirot
is able to create scenarios where everyone had access to the victim and could
have been the perpetrator.Soon,
however, several of the suspects are themselves murdered adding a sense of
urgency to the case.
Following
the usual format of Ms. Christie’s famous novels, Poirot assembles the
remaining passengers in the onboard saloon and, one by one, eliminates suspects
while revealing the identity of the killer.
Director
John Guillerman, an experienced, gentlemanly director, was experienced at
handling ensemble casts made up of international stars.His previous efforts included Skyjacked, The
Towering Inferno, The Bridge at Remagen and The Blue Max.His cast in Death on the Nile featured Bette
Davis, Maggie Smith, Angela Landsbury, David Niven, Jack Warden, George
Kennedy, Mia Farrow, Olivia Hussey, Jane Birkin, Simon MacCorkindale and future
Bond girl Lois Chiles.Cameo appearances
were provided by Harry Andrews and L.S. Johan.
The
star-studded cast was a 1970s marketing gimmick that began with disaster epics
such as Airport and Earthquake and then spilled over to whodunits and
television mini-series.Print ads and
trailers would play up the star attractions without revealing much about the
plots.Television anthology series made
a success comeback as well with the likes of Fantasy Island, The Love Boat and
Night Gallery. The “stars†featured in
these programs were often second tier, but still recognizable to viewers.
Director
Guillerman, along with producers John Bradbourne and Richard Goodwin, also
assembled a stellar crew behind the scenes starting with a script by Sleuth
author Anthony Shaffer.Aside from some
witty dialogue, Shaffer makes clever and veiled references to Maggie Smith’s
maid character being a lesbian as she seems to express total disdain to the
idea of a man and woman united in marriage.
Director
of Photography Jack Cardiff gave a bright, open and colorful look to the warm
weather cruise, which was the opposite of the dark, confined setting of Murder
on the Orient Express.An especially
beautiful scene is set at the Great Pyramids near Cairo as Linnet and her
husband climb to the top of one of the epic structures.It seems surprising that the production crew
would have access to this site as it was devoid of tourists at the time of
filming.
Thanks
to cable and digital TV channels, Yvonne de Carlo (1922-2007) is probably best
known today, even and maybe especially among youngsters, from endless reruns of
“The Munsters.â€As Lily Munster, it’s a
safe bet that de Carlo will outlive all the rest of us for decades to come, if
not centuries.But long before Lily, de
Carlo was a sultry, exotic leading lady in dozens of costume epics, film noirs,
and Westerns from the late 1940s through the 1950s.One such vehicle, the 1950
Universal-International picture “Buccaneer’s Girl,†is now available on Blu-ray
from Kino Lorber Studio Classics.De
Carlo plays Deborah McCoy, a singer and dancer who stows away in boy’s clothing
on a ship out of Boston, owned by a wealthy New Orleans businessman, Narbonne
(Robert Douglas).Narbonne’s archenemy
is the pirate Baptiste (Philip Friend), whom she meets when the buccaneer
attacks and seizes the ship.Debbie
presently slips away from the pirates and makes her way to New Orleans, where
she’s given room, board, and job leads at a “School for Genteel Young Ladiesâ€
run by Madam Brizar (Elsa Lancaster).Entertaining at a soiree, Debbie again encounters Baptiste, this time in
his respectable secret identity as the dashing Captain Robert Kingston, who has
been commissioned to capture Baptiste.It’s been a long chase.“He’s
always one step ahead of me,†Kingston says wryly.“Maybe you should try standing still,†Debbie
rejoins.As Baptiste, Kingston’s motives
are pure in the honored tradition of Zorro and the Scarlet Pimpernel.To avenge his late father, who was bankrupted
by Narbonne, he preys only on Narbonne’s ships.The stolen booty is laundered into a fund to support unemployed mariners
who were forced out of their jobs by the ruthless businessman when he bought
their ships and installed his own crews.Thanks to his weaselly spy Patout (Norman Lloyd), Narbonne secures
evidence to identify and arrest Kingston as Baptiste.In the meantime, Debbie’s fledgling romance
with the pirate metaphorically hits rough waters when she learns that Kingston
is engaged to the socially prominent and snooty Arlene (Andrea King), the
governor’s daughter.
Directed
by Frederick de Cordova, who later became Johnny Carson’s longtime confidant
and producer, “Buccaneer’s Girl†is the sort of harmless, old-time escapism
that Johnny and his Mighty Carson Art Players would eventually lampoon on the
“Tonight Show.â€Today, in a similar
set-up, you’d wait to see when or if the woman, once discovered, will avoid
rape.But Debby is befriended by
Baptiste’s salty crew much like the new kid on the block who wanders over to
the playground and gets accepted into the other 10-year-olds’ softball
team.The leader of the crew is first
mate Jared- no relation to Kushner-played by Jay C. Flippen, who’s given to exclamations like “Well, lower me
jib!â€Jared’s last name might be but
probably isn’t Kushner.The movie is so
family-friendly that nobody is killed in the brawls and sword fights, and Madam
Brizar’s business seems to be a combination finishing school and talent agency
for real, and not a euphemism for . . . well, you know . . . as we might expect
in our more cynical era.As film
historian Lee Gambin remarks on his audio commentary for the KL Studio Classics
Blu-ray, de Carlo invests her role with “great gusto and flair.â€She’s equally adept at taking pratfalls,
romancing Kingston, bopping bad guys on the head, and exercising her claws in a
catfight when Debbie finally puts up with enough from Arlene.Action fans may wish her three musical
numbers had been reduced to one to make more room for pirate-type stuff,
especially since the old-school FX for the battles between Baptiste’s ship and
Narbonne’s are nicely done, but then again, the movie is designed as a showcase
for de Carlo, and the title is ‘Buccaneer’s Girl†and not “Buccaneer.â€As Baptiste, Philip Friend engagingly looks
and sounds a lot like Rex Harrison at a fraction of Harrison’s going rate, even
in 1950.
The Kino Lorber
Studio Classics disc frames the movie at its proper 1.37:1 aspect ratio and
delivers Russell Metty’s Technicolor cinematography with gorgeous clarity and
richness.Besides Lee Gambin’s
informative commentary, extras include a theatrical trailer and clear SDH
subtitles.
Kino Lorber Studio Classics has
released “Mary, Queen of Scots†(1971) in a new Blu-ray edition.A Hal B. Wallis production starring Vanessa
Redgrave in the title role and Glenda Jackson as Queen Elizabeth I, the picture
opened on a limited basis in Los Angeles on December 22, 1971, in order to
qualify for the 1972 Academy Awards.General release in the U.S. followed on February 2, 1972.The filmmakers’ hopes were high, since a
previous Wallis production about the 16th Century British monarchy, “Anne of
the Thousand Days,†had been a critical and commercial success two years
earlier, with the same screenwriter (John Hale) and director (Charles
Jarrott).As if more cred were needed, a
weighty biography by Antonia Fraser, “Mary Queen of Scots†(no comma), had been
a best-seller in 1969.Since Mary was a
historical figure in the public domain, the filmmakers could capitalize on the
popularity of Lady Antonia’s book without having to pay for screen rights.Perhaps adding a comma in the movie’s title
was a further safeguard.Despite this
promising run-up, “Mary, Queen of Scots†didn’t quite meet expectations.Reviews were lukewarm, and the picture had
the unfortunate timing to open nationally while a number of highly publicized
hits released during the Christmas-New Year’s week were still selling tickets
in theaters.Apparently, younger
moviegoers preferred the ultra-violence of “A Clockwork Orange,†“Dirty Harry,â€
and “Straw Dogs†to Wallis’ historical pageantry, and the return of Sean
Connery as James Bond in “Diamonds Are Forever†to the teaming of Redgrave and
Jackson in prominent starring roles as Royals Behaving Badly.Older fans of big-budget epics had already
been served by Franklin J. Schaffner’s “Nicholas and Alexandra,†which had
gotten an early start in December.In
England, Jackson had already played Elizabeth in “Elizabeth R,†a six-part
series that garnered critical acclaim on the BBC in 1971.The series debuted Stateside on PBS‘
“Masterpiece Theater†on February 13, 1972.If you could see Jackson for free on TV, why pay $4 for a date night at
the cinema?
John Hale’s screenplay compresses
and simplifies Mary’s ill-fated life without violating historical accuracy too
seriously.Some political intricacies
necessarily remained, but they shouldn’t bother today’s viewers who enjoyed
sorting out all the make-believe queens and dukes with fey names in “Game of
Thrones.â€It opens in 1560, as a pretty
but foreboding tune, “Vivre
et Mourir†(“To Live and to Dieâ€), plays
over the credits.(Redgrave herself sang
the French lyrics in a fine, haunting alto.)Mary -- the queen of Scotland by birth, and moreover a potential
claimant to the English throne as the niece of Henry VIII -- enjoys wedded
bliss with her husband, King Francis II of France.Then Francis dies, and his mother exiles the
childless Mary to clear the throne for Francis’ brother.Mary returns to the land of her birth,
prepared to assume her duties there on the Scottish throne, but her decision
threatens two powerful rivals.Her
cousin Queen Elizabeth I, a Protestant, fears that Mary, a Catholic, will
become a rallying point next door for England’s rebellious Catholic
subjects.In Scotland, Mary’s brother
James Stuart (Patrick McGoohan in great, icy form) schemes with his fellow
Protestant nobles to neutralize Mary, relegating her to figurehead status as he
becomes the actual hand on the strings.Both of her enemies are dangerous, Elizabeth perhaps more so as the more
subtly devious of the two.
Cinema Retro has received the following press release from Kino Classics:
Groundbreaking
Adaptation of the Jules Verne Classic Novel and "The
First Submarine Photoplay Ever Filmed"
Available
on Blu-ray and DVD July 28, 2020
Includes
audio commentary by film historian Anthony Slide and
musical score by Orlando Perez Rosso
"Fans
of the Silent Era will appreciate this impressive 4K restoration via the Kino
Blu-ray. I loved stepping back and time over 100-years to enjoy this adventure.
I hope you get the same pleasure." -- Gary Tooze, DVDBeaver
New
York, NY -- July 6, 2020 -- Kino Classics proudly announces the Blu-ray and DVD
release of the landmark 1916 silent version of Jules Verne's classic novel,
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, in a stunning new 4K restoration conducted by
Universal Pictures, with restoration from the 35mm nitrate print provided by
UCLA Film & Television Archive and restoration services provided by
NBCUniversal StudioPost.
Directed
by Stuart Paton and produced by Universal Pictures, 20,000 Leagues Under the
Sea was a groundbreaking production for its time, gaining much acclaim for its
pioneering use of the underwater photography process developed by Ernest and
George Williamson, making it one of the big-budget special effects epics of its
day and a screen classic that has endured over the last century since it was
first released.
20,000
Leagues Under the Sea will become available on Blu-ray and DVD July 28, with a
SRP of $29.95 for the Blu-ray and $19.95 for the DVD. This Kino Classics
edition includes a musical score by Orlando Perez Rosso, and features an
insightful audio commentary by noted silent film historian Anthony Slide.
Synopsis:
Stuart
Paton's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1916) is an epic retelling of Jules
Verne's classic novel, shot on location in the Bahaman Islands. Allen Holubar
stars as the domineering Captain Nemo, who rescues the passengers of an
American naval vessel after ramming them with his ironclad, steampunk
submarine, The Nautilus. Incorporating material from Verne's The Mysterious
Island, the film also follows the adventures of a group of Civil War soldiers
whose hot-air balloon crash-lands on an exotic island, where they encounter the
untamed "Child of Nature" (Jane Gail).
Calling
itself "The First Submarine Photoplay Ever Filmed," the film is
highlighted by stunning underwater photography (engineered by Ernest and George
Williamson), including an underwater funeral and a diver's battle with a giant
cephalopod. In honor of the film's extraordinary technical and artistic
achievement, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea was added to the National Film
Registry by the Library of Congress.
20,000
Leagues Under the Sea (1916)
Blu-ray
and DVD Street Date: July 28, 2020
Director:
Stuart Paton
Starring:
Allen Holubar, Matt Moore, Edna Pendleton, Jane Gail, Howard Crampton
Paramount Home Video has released a new Blu-ray special
edition of Cecil B. DeMille’s epic “The Ten Commandmentsâ€. The set includes
both the director’s original silent film version as well as his 1956
blockbuster remake starring Charlton Heston as Moses. To commemorate the
release of the video, Cinema Retro Editor-in-Chief Lee Pfeiffer caught up with filmmaker Fraser C. Heston to
discuss the impact of the movie on his father’s career. (An interesting
footnote: Fraser Heston is seen in the film as baby Moses, thus, both father
and son played the same character.)
Cinema
Retro:Your
father first worked for Cecil B. DeMille on The
Greatest Show on Earth. Would you say he is the singular most important
person responsible for your father’s rise to fame?
Fraser C.
Heston: Absolutely.My
father was on the Paramount lot and he waved at Mr. DeMille. He had been on the
lot for some other audition and he saw Mr. DeMille by the gate and said,
“Hello, Mr. DeMille†before driving off the lot.Mr. DeMille asked his secretary, “Who was that guy?â€She said, “Oh, that’s Charlton Heston. I
think you met him before and you didn’t think much of him.†But DeMille said,
“Well, I think he’s an interesting guy. Why don’t you have him over and I’ll
meet with him?†He ends up offering him the part of the circus manager in The Greatest Show on Earth and it ends
up winning the Academy Award for Best Picture. Then he tells him to come back
for another meeting- he doesn’t even tell him what the part is- and says, “I’m
going to make The Ten Commandments.â€
He shows him models and paintings all afternoon and gets him all excited but he
doesn’t offer him a part. He just says, “I’ll bring you back in a week or two.â€
He ended up asking him, “How would you like to play Moses?â€The rest is history, as they say.
CR: Was
your father intimidated by playing such an historic character?
FH: No,
I think he embraced the challenge. He obviously didn’t have to play him from a
baby, as that was my job! But he did have to play him as a young man right up
through when he had that white beard at the end of the movie, however old Moses
was at that point.He also had the
challenge of going from an Egyptian prince to a slave to the leader of his
people- and to do it in a way that perhaps wasn’t as stylized as some of the
DeMille epics. That film, I think, stands the test of time. The reason for
that, I think, is the fantastic cast. Look at Yul Brynner’s performance, for
example. I can’t imagine anyone else playing Ramses.
CR: I’m
trying to remember if your father and Brynner ever worked together again…
FH: They
did on The Buccaneer, which was
produced by DeMille and directed by his son-in-law, Anthony Quinn. Not as good
a film, obviously, but still a classic. Some interesting trivia- if I live long
enough, since I was the youngest actor on the set of The Ten Commandments, I will be the last actor in Hollywood who
worked with Cecil B. DeMille.
(Photo copyright Fraser C. Heston, 2019.)
CR: I
was recently revisiting your father’s wonderful book “The Actor’s Lifeâ€, which
consists of the daily diary entries he kept when shooting films and discovered
that, unfortunately, he began this habit only after The Ten Commandments has wrapped, though he does discuss
post-production work on the movie. But he does write, “If you can’t make a
career out of two DeMille pictures, you’d better turn in your suit.†He also
writes, “Our son Fraser was born while we were shooting The Ten Commandments. He played the infant Moses at the age of
three months and immediately retired, displaying an acute judgment of the
acting profession.â€
FH: (Laughing) Well, I think I felt a little
pressure from my dad not to follow in his footsteps.
CR: Well,
many offspring of iconic actors have followed in their footsteps with varying
degrees of success. Were you ever tempted to do so?
FH: I
think I was but I was discouraged by my mom and dad. I mean Michael Douglas
pulled it off and a couple of other father-and-son acting teams pulled it off
but I think my parents knew how tough it would be to follow in my dad’s
footsteps. I started out in a different aspects of films. I started out as a
writer and discovered I liked writing screenplays. I got a couple of things
made and from there I started producing and then directing. So I came at filmmaking
more from the storyteller’s point-of-view. I consider myself, even if I’m
directing, to be a storyteller. That’s a director’s job.
CR: When
was the first time you remember seeing The
Ten Commandments?
FH: I
was probably about five and it was pretty terrifying, you know between the
Burning Bush and the destruction of Pharaoh’s army when the Red Sea
collapses…and oh, my God…
CR: …and
let’s not forget the presence of the great Vincent Price…
FH: Yes,
the evil Vincent Price and Yvonne De Carlo and Yul Brynner and everybody. It
was just fantastic.How could you have
seen that as a young person and not been blown away by it all and be terribly
impressed? I think everyone had that experience the first time they saw it.
People in our generation were young when it came out and that was their first
experience with an epic film. I think you have to place the film in a larger
pool of epics associated with my father along with Ben-Hur, El Cid and to a certain degree, Planet of the Apes that culminated in films like Gladiator. You can even go so far as The Avengers series, which are giant
modern epics. I think DeMille started it all. When you think of spectacle, you
think of C.B. DeMille. When you think of C.B. DeMille, you think of The Ten Commandments, right?
CR: I’ve
always said that if you didn’t like the way he directed actors, you had to
admire the way he directed traffic in films that large…
FH: (Laughs) So true!
CR: I
recall you once telling me that in the Heston household, DeMille was a revered
name.
FH: He
was. My dad always called him Mr. DeMille, never C.B. We still have the
telegram he sent my mom and when I was born saying, “Congratulations, he’s got
the part.†I’m looking at a picture on my wall right now. It’s a photo of me at
age four or five being held in my dad’s arms and reaching out and tweaking Mr.
DeMille’s nose.
In
Sergio Corbucci’s 1967 Italian Western, “The Hellbenders†(1967), now available
on Blu-ray from Kino Lorber, embittered Colonel Jonas (Joseph Cotten) devises a
plan to avenge the outcome of the Civil War.Where today’s cultural conservatives mostly express their nostalgia for
the Old South by gathering to protest the removal of Confederate monuments,
Jonas takes more extreme measures.He
and his three sons -- the remnant of his old command, known as the Hellbenders
-- ambush a military convoy transporting $1.5 million in greenbacks.Slaughtering the convoy’s cavalry escort,
they transfer the stolen money to a makeshift coffin supposedly containing the
remains of Jonas‘ “son-in-law†Ambrose Allen, another Confederate officer
killed in action at the Battle of Nashville.In truth, an officer named Ambrose Allen died at Nashville, but he
wasn’t Jonas’ son-in-law, and his corpse isn’t in the coffin.Jonas picked his name off a list of the war
dead.Using a forged travel permit and
abetted by a hired floozy who poses as the bereaved widow, they set off for
Jonas‘ Texas ranch.There, the
grief-stricken family will lay the gallant “Ambrose Allen†to rest, as Jonas
sorrowfully and convincingly tells the Army patrols and sheriffs’ posses whom
they encounter on the way.In reality,
once they arrive, the colonel will disburse the stolen money to finance and arm
an invasion of the North.
Since
Corbucci, Cotten, and the script clearly establish Jonas as a callous fanatic
wedded to a dubious cause, the movie builds suspense not by cheering him on,
but instead by presenting one obstacle after another that he and his sons must
surmount on their journey.We may not
hope that he’ll succeed in fomenting another Civil War, but regardless, we
wonder how he’ll outwit all the soldiers, lawmen, bounty hunters, outlaws, and
Indians who continually cross the Hellbenders’ path.And what will happen after circumstances
force him to replace one “widow†with another, a saloon girl, Claire, who
unexpectedly reveals a conscience as she realizes what she signed on for?Her innate honesty troubles one of the sons,
Ben (Julian Mateos), who has already begun to have his own qualms about Jonas’
brutality.
Given
Joseph Cotten’s illustrious film career, even the most dedicated genre
enthusiast would be challenged to argue that “The Hellbenders†(released in
Italy as “I crudeli†or “The Cruel Onesâ€) poses any threat for displacing the
likes of “Citizen Kane†or “The Third Man†from a list of Cotten’s most
memorable movies.Nevertheless, on its
own terms, Corbucci’s Western gives the distinguished actor a respectable showcase
with a decent, downbeat plot and strong support by the other actors, notably
Norma Bengell as Claire.Bengell uses
herarresting, expressive features to
good advantage in an exceptionally pivotal role for an actress in a Spaghetti
Western. Corbucci’s Westerns often featured a woman of easy virtue who turns
out to be the moral fulcrum of the story, and in “The Hellbenders,†Claire
serves that function.Corbucci delivers
the chair-busting saloon brawls and bloody shootouts expected by Italian Western
fans, laced together with an unusually intricate storyline for the genre.Two subplots involving an attack by a Mexican
bandit (Spaghetti stalwart Aldo Sambrell) and a chance encounter with a
pathetic but sinister beggar (the magnificently grungy Al Mulock) seem
initially to disrupt the forward momentum of the story for no other purpose
than to add more gunfights.While they
fulfill that expectation, they also set up a surprise reversal for the
characters at the end, and a finale that -- in Corbucci fashion -- leaves few
survivors standing.
The
Kino Lorber Blu-ray presents “The Hellbenders†in a beautiful 4K restoration
with a droll, informative audio commentary by Alex Cox.Cox notes that “Leo Nichols,†who composed
the score for the movie, was actually Ennio Morricone under a name that he also
used for two other Italian Westerns around the same period.The score is atypical for Morricone, sounding
more like Jerry Fielding or Jerry Goldsmith than what we’re used to hearing
from the soundtracks for Sergio Leone’s epics.Perhaps that was why Morricone decided to use the pseudonym.“The Hellbenders†is complemented by a
separate Kino Lorber release of Corbucci’s “The Specialists†in a comparably
fine 4K restoration, also with an Alex Cox commentary.There’s little else to add to what I’ve already
said about “The Specialists†(also known as “The Specialistâ€) in an earlier
blog entry HERE, except to note that the two films represent Corbucci’s
versatility within the conventions of the Spaghetti Western.“The Hellbenders†is an American-style Western
epic, albeit more viscerally violent than a typical Hollywood production from
the same period.At the other end of
the form, “The Specialists†capsizes Western conventions in the
impressionistic, caustic Corbucci style of “Django†and “The Great Silence.â€
Ernest B. Schoedsack’s
Dr. Cyclops (1940) was certainly not the first - nor is it the most famous
- horror/sci-fi film to exploit the cinematic possibilities of shrunken humans
as ghoulish entertainment.Audiences of
the 1930s were first introduced to Ernest Thesiger’s deliciously devilish Dr.
Pretorius as he dabbled with his experimentations-in-miniature in James Whale’s
The Bride of Frankenstein.The miniaturization of human specimens were central
to the plot of Tod Browning’s The Devil
Doll (1936).In that film, an embittered
Lionel Barrymore misuses a scientist-friend’s discovery to convert people to
doll size in order to extract revenge on those who had earlier sent him to
prison.In the Silver Age of Sci-Fi,
this device was most famously captured in Jack Arnold’s The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957) and again, rather exploitatively
a year later, in Bert I. Gordon’s less-celebrated but still amusing knock-off Attack of the Puppet People (1958).
In some manner of speaking, the size-reduced victims terrorized
by Dr. Cyclops is frightening to them only as a matter only of ratio.The combat between the unusually very large
versus the very small was already a well-established trope, straight out of the
playbook of such giant-ape films as King
Kong (1933), Son of Kong (1933),
and Mighty Joe Young (1949).Interestingly, Schoedsack and Dr. Cyclops producer Merian C. Cooper
worked together on all three of these epics, though their involvements were not
always credited on-screen.
Brooklyn’s own Albert Dekker portrays the titular Dr. Cyclops, otherwise known as Dr.
Alexander Thorkel.In his steamy
scientific-research laboratory nestled deep within the green and leafy Amazon
jungles of Peru, the secretive doctor has managed to tap into what’s described
as a “deposit of the richest radium ore known to man.â€Though he would have preferred otherwise,
Thorkel’s poor eyesight requires him to request the assistance of a scientific
colleague, Dr. Bulfinch (Charles Halton).Bulfinch travels the thousand or so miles to Thorkel’s remote Amazon
base – if only to look through a few microscopic slides and confirm his colleague’s
findings.
With his task accomplished, Dr. Bulfinch – who has visited
with a small expedition party – is surprised when he’s summarily dismissed:
Thorkel has – somewhat ungraciously - told Bulfinch and Co. to pack up their
things and head home.Though his time at
the jungle laboratory was short, Bulfinch recognizes that Thorkel’s “drawing
the cosmic force from the bosom of the earth†is an inherently dangerous
practice.Especially when one considers
that, by almost all measure and standard, the “abnormally secretive†and
obsessive Dr. Thorkel is clearly a bona fide paranoiac.Bulfinch deems him as a “delusional†who is recklessly
“tampering with powers reserved for God.â€
The “cosmic force†that Bulfinch has referenced is
radium.Dr. Cyclops has been collecting
radium ore through a sophisticated ringed and phallic two-bulb-shaped instrument
of his own invention.Having extracted
the subterranean radium from an open-pit mine, this unrelentingly malevolent madman
then transmits the alkaline and highly radioactive metal through a condenser unit
housed inside his home laboratory.It
there’s that he tricks his overstayed-their-welcome but curious visitors into
taking a closer look at his technical handiwork.Their apparent trusting willingness to do so
will prove to be unfortunate for them as Thorkel reduces them to 12â€-13†in
size.He does this gleefully and without
a hint of remorse, assured that his scientific secrets will remain… well,
secret.
Paramount’s Dr.
Cyclops – one of only a handful of horror films commissioned by the studio
during the genre’s Golden Age – isn’t a masterpiece by any stretch of the
imagination, but it’s never dull.It
must be said that the photographic effects of Dr. Cyclops are very well done for the period.The work of Visual Effects team of Farciot
Edouart and Gordon Jennings’ would earn both a “Special Effects†nomination at
the 1941 Academy Award celebration.Though they would lose out that year to the flying carpets featured in The Thief of Bagdad, both men would go
on two win Oscars for later special projects.
David
Lean’s Brief Encounter, based on Noël
Coward’s one-act play Still Life and
adapted for the screen by Lean, Anthony Havelock-Allan, and Ronald Neame,
represents one of the most admired and poignant love stories ever put on
celluloid. The picture frequently lands on various “best†lists and is often
called one of the great movie romances. It is also a decidedly British picture,
one that deftly captures the zeitgeist of
immediate post-war England with a focus on middle-class values and morality of
the time. It appeared in British cinemas in late 1945 and was released in the
U.S. in 1946; thus, it was nominated for the ‘46 Academy Awards for Best
Director, Best Actress (Celia Johnson), and Best Adapted Screenplay.
The
Criterion Collection released the film on DVD years ago, both alone and as part
of the box set collection, David Lean
Directs Noël Coward (the collection was
also released on Blu-ray); however, until now the title was not available as a
separate Blu-ray disk. All of the supplements from the box set edition have
been ported over to this single disk version.
Brief Encounter is the story of Laura
(wonderfully played by Johnson), a respectable, happily-married woman who
happens to meet a respectable, happily-married doctor named Alec (Trevor
Howard) one day in the train station. There is a mutual attraction, and they
begin to see each other on day outings over the next few weeks. They fall in
love, of course, and the next big question is... will they or won’t they?
With
Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2
underscoring the affair, this is lush, romantic stuff.
It
was Lean’s fourth collaboration with Coward (their first picture, In Which We Serve,was co-directed by both) and it’s the piece that exhibited Lean’s
growing artistry as a filmmaker. For a man who went on to make big budget epics
like Lawrence of Arabia and Doctor Zhivago, Brief Encounter is strikingly small and intimate, and that’s the
reason it has such charm and resonance. The two leads are superb. Johnson (whom
James Bond fans may know was, in real life, the sister-in-law of Ian Fleming)
displays such controlled emotion (in a manner that is distinctly British), that
it becomes heartbreaking to watch. Howard’s conflict between desire and
responsibility is palpable. Their rapport is very real and totally believable,
even seventy-one years later.
The
Blu-ray disk contains a high-definition digital transfer of the BFI National
Archive’s 2008 restoration, with an uncompressed monaural soundtrack. There is
an audio commentary from 2000 by film historian Bruce Eder.
The
supplements include an insightful interview from 2012 with Noël
Coward scholar Barry Day; a terrific short documentary on the making of the
film; a nearly-hour-long 1971 television documentary on Lean’s career up to
that point; and the theatrical trailer. An essay by historian Kevin Brownlow
appears in the booklet.
Brief Encounter is the perfect date
movie. Watch it tonight with someone you love.
The very addictive web site www.in70mm.com presents a fascinating and exhaustive list of major films that were shot in standard 35mm format but presented (at least sporadically) in blow-up 70mm format. The list might surprise you. In addition to big budget epics, you'll find in the year-by-year listings such seemingly unlikely blow-ups as "Bye Bye Birdie", "The Cardinal", "The Chase", "Hellfighters" and "Shalako". Some of these 70mm presentations were only shown in limited areas. For example, a 70mm print of the 1967 James Bond film "You Only Live Twice" was apparently restricted to Japan. Click here to access the listings.
I
saw many, many Italian-made sword-and-toga movies as a kid in the early 1960s
at the Kayton, my neighborhood movie house, where they usually played on
mismatched double-bills with B-Westerns, British “Carry On†comedies,
low-budget noir dramas, and fourth-run Elvis movies.Many of these Italian epics were simplistic
and formulaic, as if the producers figured that people had come to see
spectacle, sex, and sword-fights, and never mind anything else.Regardless, more ambitious productions
occasionally surfaced with slightly more dramatic substance and marginally
higher production values.One such entry
was “The Colossus of Rhodes†(1961), Sergio Leone’s first acknowledged
directorial credit preceding his breakthrough success with “A Fistful of
Dollars†in 1964.The Warner Archive
Collection has released the 1961 movie on Blu-ray with audio commentary by Sir
Christopher Frayling, Leone’s biographer and longtime critical champion.
The
script co-written by Leone has plenty of plot -- almost too much, when one
development begins to get in the way of another.As the film opens, an aristocratic Athenian
war hero, Dario (Rory Calhoun), comes to Rhodes to kick back on vacation and
ogle the ladies.Meanwhile, rebellion is
brewing against tyrannical King Serses, who secretly schemes with Phoenicia to
use Rhodes as a base for piratical raids against their mutual rival,
Greece.As part of the deal, Phoenicia
has agreed to provide Serses with a huge contingent of slaves to complete the
300-foot Colossus of Rhodes that straddles the harbor.The king needs the free labor to finish the
construction after losing many of his initial workers -- starved and beaten
political prisoners -- in a mass escape.The imposing statue of Apollo symbolically honors “the strength and
power of our King Serses,†says the unctuous prime minister, Thar, but the two
men also plan to use it to pour burning oil and molten lead on unsuspecting
Greek warships when the enemy attacks in reprisal for Serses’ piracy.In the meantime, Thar schemes to depose
Serses and make himself ruler.With the
connivance of the Russian – oops, Phoenician – ambassador, the “slavesâ€
imported to work on the Colossus are actually foreign mercenaries in disguise,
sneaked in to support Thar’s coup.Got
that?I haven’t even mentioned that Carete,
the elderly, idealistic engineer who designed the monument, is unaware that the
king is reconfiguring it as a war machine.Mirte, the sister of one of the freedom fighters opposing Serses and
Thar, hopes to sway Dario over to the side of the rebels, while Thar’s mistress
Diala (Lea Massari), who also happens to be Carete’s niece, welcomes the
Athenian’s romantic advances for her own purposes.The royalists suspect Dario of being a rebel
sympathizer.The insurrectionists eye
him as a spy for Serses as he cozies up to Diala.
Cineasts
today will recognize several familiar faces in the cast, including the
wistfully beautiful Lea Massari from “L’avventura†and “Murmurs of the Heart,â€
and several actors who would later become Spaghetti Western regulars, including
Roberto Camardiel (Serses), Antonio Casas (the Phoenician ambassador), and
Nello Pazzafini (uncredited as a soldier in one fleeting scene).Back in 1961 on a Saturday night at the
Kayton, Rory Calhoun’s would have been the only familiar face on the screen.The movie’s vintage trailer added as a
supplement to the Blu-ray identifies Calhoun as “the star of ‘The Texan’,†as
if audiences might be slow to remember that they had seen Calhoun on TV as “The
Texan†the night before.As Leone’s
token American star, Calhoun is dark, good-looking, and up to the physical
demands of the chase and swordplay scenes, but his character is more passive
than the usual toga heroes played by Steve Reeves and Gordon Scott.Where Hercules and Goliath usually led the
revolts against evil kings in their movies, Dario is swept up in a plot hatched
by others.Frayling says that Leone
modeled the character on Cary Grant’s urbane Roger Thornhill in “North by
Northwest,†to tease the usual conventions of the genre.Just as Grant’s accidental spy was trapped on
the giant Presidential heads of Mt. Rushmore, Dario scrambles around on the
Colossus to evade pursuing enemies, in what appears to be an impressive matte
effect.The 220 B.C. costuming requires
Calhoun to wear a short skirt and white sandals that Frayling likens to “Go-Go
socks.â€In fairness to the actor, he
doesn’t look much sillier than Brad Pitt or Colin Farrell in similar garb in
the more recent epics “Troy†and “Alexanderâ€(both from 2004).There’s plenty
of wrestling and hand-to-hand fighting in the story, with choreography only a little
phonier than the average WWE smackdown, but except for one prolonged scuffle,
it’s mostly executed by the Italian actors and stunt men who play the rebels
and not by Calhoun.
Mill
Creek Entertainment has released a double-bill of“Fort Yuma Gold†(1966) and “Damned Hot Day
of Fire†(1968) in a Blu-ray + Digital edition.Mill Creek notes that the films are two of Quentin Tarantino’s favorite
Spaghetti Westerns -- a shrewd strategy to attract fans who may be interested
in sampling the same, often hard-to-find genre movies that Tarantino devoured
in his formative years.Both pictures
are above-average Italian Westerns.
In
“Fort Yuma Gold,†directed by veteran Italian filmmaker Giorgio Ferroni as
“Calvin J. Padget,†outlaw chief Nelson Riggs schemes with renegade Confederate
Major Sanders to steal a million dollars in gold from Fort Yuma, a Union
outpost, in the last days of the Civil War.While Sanders orders his troops to make a diversionary, suicidal attack
on the fort, he and Riggs will sneak into the post through an abandoned mine
and grab the loot.When a Union
commander some days’ ride away learns about the plot, he dispatches two of his
soldiers, Captain Lefevre and Sergeant Pitt, to warn the fort, guided by Lt.
Gary Hammond, a Confederate prisoner of war.As a native Westerner, Hammond knows the safest route to Fort Yuma.The two Northerners don’t.Secretly, Hammond hopes to elude the two
Yankees en route, locate Sanders‘ detachment, and avert disaster by warning his
friend Lt. Brian, one of Sanders’ adjutants, about the Major’s treachery.
The movie’s traditional plot is reminiscent of
Hollywood’s Civil War Westerns like “Escape from Fort Bravo†and “Alvarez
Kelly,†reflecting the strategy generally used by Italian studios in the early
days of the Spaghettis to make their films look as much like American
productions as possible.The actors
billed as “Montgomery Wood†(Hammond), “Red Carter†(Sgt. Pitt), and “Benny
Reeves†(Juke, Riggs‘ henchman) were actually Italians Giuliano Gemma, Nello
Pazzafini, and Benito Stefanelli.Gemma
also used the “Montgomery Wood†alias in three other Italian Westerns, and his
resemblance to American leading man and future best-selling novelist Tom Tryon
may have helped further the impression that “Fort Yuma Gold†was an import from
America.The deception probably worked
as long as ticket-buyers failed to recognize Ferroni, Gemma, Pazzafini,
Stefanelli, Dan Vadis (Riggs), Jacques Sernas (Sanders), and Antonio Molino
Rojo (Brian) as homegrown veterans of the Italian sword-and-toga epics of the
late 1950s and early 1960s.When the
popularity of the toga spectacles waned with the rise of the Italian Westerns,
many writers, directors, and actors transitioned easily from one genre to the
next.The hammy, WWE-style melees
between gladiators and centurions in the Hercules and Samson movies became the
saloon brawls of the Spaghettis, with athletic actors like Gemma, Pazzafini,
and Stefanelli doing their own stunts.By 1966, in turn, public tastes in the Italian Westerns had begun to
favor the cynical, down-and-dirty violence of Sergio Leone’s massively
successful Spaghettis over the American model.In Italy, “Fort Yuma Gold†opened as “Per pochi dollari ancora†or “For
a Few Extra Dollars.â€The moviemakers
were clearly hoping to ride the recent smash success of “For a Few Dollars
More,†even if Ferroni/Padget’s style bears little likeness to Leone’s.If you don’t expect a polished American
picture on one hand or a nihilistic Leone clone on the other, you might enjoy
“Fort Yuma Gold†on its own terms as a mostly fast-paced, sincere B-Western.
This ad appeared in Boxoffice magazine in April 1968 extolling the longevity of Fox's three big roadshow presentations. For the unenlightened, "roadshow" films were big budget productions that played in grand movie palaces in select cities. It could often be many months before these films came to neighborhood theaters nationwide. What is remarkable about this ad is that it illustrates that even after such films went "wide" to hundreds of other theaters, people still paid top dollar to enjoy seeing them in the roadshow presentations. Consider that "The Sound of Music" opened in 1965 and "The Sand Pebbles" and "The Bible" both opened in 1966. Yet, years later, the roadshow venues were still showing these films. Today, even blockbuster movies aren't in theaters very long because so much of the profit comes from a quick turnaround onto video and streaming services. However, in those days when movie theaters provided the only forum in which to see favorite blockbusters, fans would patronize theaters to see them repeatedly. This afforded them the opportunity to see the movies in their original versions, as studios often cut considerable footage when releasing them to local theaters.
Click here to order Cinema Retro's Movie Classics edition devoted to Roadshow movies of the 1960s.
Movie marketing sure has changed. Studios rarely advertise films in newspapers today (assuming you can still find a newspaper today) but that medium was once the most effective method of promoting new films. Not only were traditional ads run but clever off-beat ancillary campaigns were also featured in the guise of entertainment. For example, here is a promotional campaign for the 1966 epic "Khartoum" starring Charlton Heston and Laurence Olivier that was squarely aimed at kids despite the fact that the intended audience was adults. This promotional block seen above was featured in the United Artists pressbook sent to American theater owners to suggest creative local publicity campaigns.
(For extensive coverage of the making of "Khartoum", get the Cinema Retro Movie Classic Roadshow Epics of the 1960s issue by clicking here.)
Cinema Retro proudly announces its annual Movie Classics special
edition for 2018: Roadshow Epics of the '60s! This is an 80-page special
that provides in-depth coverage of the making of five memorable epic
films:
Mutiny on the Bounty
Lawrence of Arabia
The Fall of the Roman Empire
The Greatest Story Ever Told
Khartoum
The behind-the-scenes struggles to bring these monumental productions
to the screen often equaled the events depicted in the screenplays.
Indeed, all but Lawrence of Arabia proved to be boxoffice
failures (or disasters). However, Cinema Retro provides compelling
evidence that all of them were superbly filmed and provided many grand,
memorable moments. This special edition provides fascinating insights
into the often seemingly insurmountable challenges directors, writers,
producers and actors had to overcome in order to bring the films to
completion. These are the kind of movies we think of when we hear it
said "They don't make 'em like that anymore!". This special Movie
Classics issue is packed with hundreds of rare production stills and
on-set photos, as well as rare international advertising and publicity
materials.
As with all Cinema Retro issues, this is a limited edition so order now and don't miss out!
(This Movie Classics special edition is not part of the subscription plan. It must be ordered separately.)
Cinema Retro proudly announces its annual Movie Classics special
edition for 2018: Roadshow Epics of the '60s! This is an 80-page special
that provides in-depth coverage of the making of five memorable epic
films:
Mutiny on the Bounty
Lawrence of Arabia
The Fall of the Roman Empire
The Greatest Story Ever Told
Khartoum
The behind-the-scenes struggles to bring these monumental productions
to the screen often equaled the events depicted in the screenplays.
Indeed, all but Lawrence of Arabia proved to be boxoffice
failures (or disasters). However, Cinema Retro provides compelling
evidence that all of them were superbly filmed and provided many grand,
memorable moments. This special edition provides fascinating insights
into the often seemingly insurmountable challenges directors, writers,
producers and actors had to overcome in order to bring the films to
completion. These are the kind of movies we think of when we hear it
said "They don't make 'em like that anymore!". This special Movie
Classics issue is packed with hundreds of rare production stills and
on-set photos, as well as rare international advertising and publicity
materials.
As with all Cinema Retro issues, this is a limited edition so pre-order now to reserve your copy!
(This Movie Classics special edition is not part of the subscription plan. It must be ordered separately.)
Springboarding
from a youth spent shooting their own movies on 8mm – the heartfelt intent and
burning enthusiasm for which sometimes (but not always) rendered the
made-for-pennies mini-epics amusingly watchable today – in 1987 the
enterprising Chiodo brothers finally got to stage their first feature film
production, which was released to decent acclaim in 1988. Produced and
co-written by Charles, Edward and Stephen Chiodo, with the latter occupying the
director’s chair, that film is every bit as bizarre as you’d expect of one
bearing the title Killer Klowns from
Outer Space.
The town
of Crescent Cove is under assault by alien beings, which appear in the form of
freakish clowns and whose spaceship adopts the facade of a circus tent. These
aliens are abducting the populace and cocooning them in a flesh-eating
substance resembling candyfloss. It’s up to local cop Dave Hansen (John Allen
Nelson), clean-cut lad Mike Tobacco (Grant Cramer) and a pair of simpleton ice
cream vendors – the Terenzi brothers (Michael Siegal and Peter Licassi) –
to rescue Mike’s girlfriend Debbie (Suzanne Snyder) from a horrible fate and
save the town.
It’s not
hyperbolic to say that Killer Klowns from
Outer Space is a comic-horror caper like no other. A kooky, colourful
confection of chuckles and gore, the Chiodos lay on the (pop)corny gags and
cheesy SFX with unrestrained relish. How much fun there is to be found in
balloon animals coming to life, pieces of ‘living’ popcorn mutating into
aggressive clown-headed snake-creatures, human ventriloquist dummies,
acid-laced cream pies, and giant shadow puppets eating spectators is, of course,
entirely subjective. For this viewer it has to be said that by the time the
final reel unspools the silliness overload runs out of fizz, but there’s
certainly no faulting the imagination and passion at play here. And it’s hard
not to enjoy something that gifts John Vernon with a frothy bad guy role; although
for many (myself included) he’ll always be Animal
House’s Dean Vernon Wormer, he’s on good form here as a bully-boy cop who
gets his just desserts. Coulrophobics
should unquestionably avoid this one, for the titular Klowns are the ugliest,
most rotten-toothed bunch you’ll find this side of a Billy Smart’s Circus OAP
reunion. But for everyone else, as daft as the whole shebang may be, this is
post-pub Friday night fodder of the highest order.
Arrow
Video has issued the film on Blu-ray with a Big Top’s worth of supplemental material,
though it’s as interested in the careers of the Chiodo brothers in general as
it is Klowns-specific. The key lure
is a documentary about the Chiodo’s passion for the home movies mentioned at
the start of this review, and HD transfers of the half a dozen titles shot
between 1968 and 1978 are included, technically proficient and evidencing their
love of Ray Harryhausen’s stop-motion monster animation. There’s also a tour of
Chiodo Bros Productions in the company of Stephen. Tied to Klowns itself there’s a feature-accompanying Chiodo commentary.
Interviews with actors Grant Cramer and Suzanne Snyder, along with theme song
performers The Dickies, are appended by archival pieces from Charles Chiodo,
effects supervisor Gene Warren, creature creator Dwight Roberts and composer
John Massari. There are 2 deleted scenes (with optional commentary), bloopers,
Klown auditions footage, a vintage trailer and a gallery of artwork,
storyboards and stills. It’s so par for the course now that it scarcely needs
mentioning, but the usual Arrow sugar-coating of a reversible sleeve is present
and correct.
Cinema Retro proudly announces its annual Movie Classics special edition for 2018: Roadshow Epics of the '60s! This is an 80-page special that provides in-depth coverage of the making of five memorable epic films:
Mutiny on the Bounty
Lawrence of Arabia
The Fall of the Roman Empire
The Greatest Story Ever Told
Khartoum
The behind-the-scenes struggles to bring these monumental productions to the screen often equaled the events depicted in the screenplays. Indeed, all but Lawrence of Arabia proved to be boxoffice failures (or disasters). However, Cinema Retro provides compelling evidence that all of them were superbly filmed and provided many grand, memorable moments. This special edition provides fascinating insights into the often seemingly insurmountable challenges directors, writers, producers and actors had to overcome in order to bring the films to completion. These are the kind of movies we think of when we hear it said "They don't make 'em like that anymore!". This special Movie Classics issue is packed with hundreds of rare production stills and on-set photos, as well as rare international advertising and publicity materials.
As with all Cinema Retro issues, this is a limited edition so order now!
(This Movie Classics special edition is not part of the subscription plan. It must be ordered separately.)
A LOOK AT 2017 FILMS NOMINATED FOR PROMINENT OSCARS
BY LEE PFEIFFER
There was great trepidation in the film industry about whether director Christopher Nolan's "Dunkirk" would be able to attract large enough audiences to recoup its considerable production costs. After all, most movie-goers are young people and the most popular kinds of features are superhero epics and gross-out comedies, not historical epics. To the surprise of many, "Dunkirk" did indeed prove to be a major hit, grossing over $500 million worldwide.This proves that the intelligence and taste of younger movie-goers should not be underestimated and also that Nolan himself enjoys the kind of loyal following that few directors can brag about. His name on a film will draw audiences that might be immune from a certain movies if not for his involvement. "Dunkirk" has also won critical acclaim and is nominated for numerous Oscars including Best Picture and Best Director. It's to Nolan's credit that he sought to bring this story to the screen during an era in which the average person is probably unacquainted with its historical significance, at least outside of Europe. That may be a sad reflection on society but it's all the more reason why Nolan should be commended for bringing the heroic saga to the spotlight.
"Dunkirk" relates the ominous period of time early in WWII when the British sent the bulk of its army as an expeditionary force into France to help stem the German invasion. At the time it was assumed that France had the strongest army in Europe. The recently -constructed heavily fortified Maginot Line was designed to be an impenetrable barrier to the German forces. Hitler decided to outflank the Allies by invading France through the back door in Belgium, plowing his tanks through the seemingly impassable Ardennes Forest, thus completely bypassing the Maginot Line and rendering its heavy artillery useless. The result was a rout for the Alllies and the bulk of the British army, along with French units, found itself trapped on the beaches of Dunkirk. German forces could have moved in for the kill but made a major mistake by giving their exhausted units some down time, feeling that the Allies had no way to escape. Churchill issued an edict that called up any available vessel to make a desperate journey across the Channel under heavy fire and air attacks to rescue as many soldiers as possible. These gallant civilians pulled off the impossible by doing just that and rescuing the bulk of the 300,000 British troops on the beaches. French troops also made it out and joined the Free French units stationed in England under the command of DeGaulle. All of this makes for a highly compelling story but only fragments of it end up in Nolan's often admirable film. He provides virtually no historic context to the action seen on screen, which covers the battle from the viewpoint of individual soldiers as well as a small boat captained by an every day middle-aged Brit (Mark Rylance, in excellent form), his teenage son and his good friend. Aside from an opening series of captions informing the audience of the bare bones facts, no other overview of the dramatic occurrences is provided.
The film presents the battle scenes in spectacular and intense detail. You can feel the fear and confusion among the stranded troops and individual soldiers who attempt to use any means necessary to hitch a ride on the few overcrowded British Navy vessels that were available prior to the arrival of the civilian "fleet". The scenes inside the cockpit of the British Spitfire, one of only a few available in the battle to combat the constant German air attacks, are especially riveting. When a pilot has to ditch his plane in the ocean, he finds his cockpit is jammed and he may well drown. It's this type of harrowing scene that allows Nolan to ratchet up the suspense. However, it's Nolan the scriptwriter who undercuts the production on numerous occasions by failing to provide any emotional core to the film, with the exception of the scenes involving Rylance, which are genuinely moving. The rest of the characters are just relatively anonymous combatants of which we know nothing about personally. We can relate to their dilemma but unlike the similarly-themed "The Longest Day", we have little emotional resonance in them beyond the fact that we simply want them to survive. Nolan also fails to capitalize on the arrival of the civilian fleet, one of the most inspiring moments in military history, as it not only spared 300,000 lives, but also saved England- and thus the world- by allowing its fighting men to be able to resist Hitler's aggression. Nolan provides only a few fleeting shots of numerous boats approaching the Dunkirk beaches but the type of soaring emotional moment you might expect is rather watered-down.
There's much to admire in "Dunkirk". It's a big, ambitious war movie the likes of which we rarely see today. The aerial combat scenes are extraordinarily exciting and frightening. The cinematography by Hoyte Van Hoytema is outstanding and Hans Zimmer provides a thundering, impressive score. More importantly, it attempts to commemorate a battle in which the British people turned a massive defeat into a tremendous victory. It's good filmmaking, but it never soars as high as you might expect and want it to.
Kino
Lorber has released Mario Bava’s “Roy Colt and Winchester Jack†(1970) in a
handsome, restored Blu-ray edition as part of its extensive “Mario Bava
Collection.â€The disc will please
devotees of the late Italian director, whose wide range of genre work is
evident in this and the fifteen other Blu-rays that Kino Lorber has released in
its series, from the celebrated Gothic trappings of “Black Sunday†(1960) to
the Bond-era burlesque of “Dr. Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs†(1966).Bava is revered by his enthusiasts as one of
the pre-eminent directors of horror and giallo in the 1960s Italian cinema, but
like other workaday filmmakers in the busy European studios of the time, he
made pretty much every kind of picture there was to make, riding successive
surges of popularity for horror, sword-and-toga epics, westerns, thrillers, and
sex comedies. “Roy Colt and Winchester
Jack†was the third of Bava’s three Italian Westerns -- a genre that paid the
bills, but one that Bava wasn’t especially fond of, as Tim Lucas notes in his
audio commentary for the Blu-ray.Of
Bava’s approach to “Roy Colt,†Lucas relates: “On the first day of shooting,
when he learned that no one was particularly enamored of the script, Bava threw
his copy into the nearest mud puddle and said, ‘Screw it, let’s have fun
instead’.â€
In
the film, Roy (Brett Halsey) and Jack (Charles Southwood) are leaders of an
outlaw gang.The two partners split up
when Roy decides to try his fortune on the right side of the law.Going straight, he pins on a sheriff’s badge
and agrees to retrieve a cache of buried gold for Samuel (Giorgio Gargiullo), a
devious banker.In the meantime, Jack
continues to rob stages and saves a pretty Indian woman, Manila (Marilu Tolo),
from bounty hunters after she kills her abusive husband.Manila encourages Jack’s romantic advances
but shrewdly charges for her favors.Another outlaw, the Reverend (Teodoro Corra), follows the trail of
Samuel’s gold, and the storyline eventually settles into a familiar Spaghetti
Western pattern.The three rivals --
Roy, Jack, and the Reverend, with Manila as a fourth wild card -- alternately
help and double-cross each other to reach the promised riches first.
Lucas‘
commentary suggests that “Roy Colt and Winchester Jack†began as a
straightforward action script by Mario di Nardo, and then turned into a comedy
when Bava suggested that he and the actors “have fun instead.â€Bava’s decision to send up his material may
have been partially influenced by the success of 1969’s “Butch Cassidy and the
Sundance Kid,†but it also coincided with a fundamental change in the genre
itself.With the success of another 1970
Italian Western, Enzo Barboni’s “Trinity Is My Name,†the genre began to skew
from violent, sometimes operatic stories of revenge and betrayal to lowbrow
farces that were geared (it’s said) to the tastes of working-class audiences in
the poorer sections of Italian cities and towns.The staple elements of these Spaghetti
lampoons included slapstick brawls, rather cruel visual jokes ridiculing
physical and mental infirmities, childish sexual innuendo, and infantile
delight in gastric embarrassments.Dubbed prints of Barboni’s movie, its sequel, “Trinity Is Still My
Name,†and other comedy Spaghettis traveled overseas to drive-ins and
small-town theaters in the U.S., arguably preparing the way for Mel Brooks‘
wildly popular, fart-laden Western parody, “Blazing Saddles,†in 1974.“Roy Colt and Winchester Jack†incorporates
the usual characteristics of the comedy Spaghettis, notably in a rudely
gratuitous scene built around a gunslinger’s extreme facial and verbal
tics.More sophisticated audiences are
likely to squirm, but at that, thanks to Bava’s sure visual sense and a capable
cast, his film is easier to bear than most Spaghetti farces.Pictures like “It Can Be Done, Amigo†(1972),
“Life Is Tough, Eh Providence†(1972), “The Crazy Bunch†(1974), and “Shoot
First, Ask Questions Later†(1975) are guaranteed to try the souls of all but
the most dedicated genre fans.
The
Kino Lorber Blu-ray edition of “Roy Colt and Winchester Jack†features a
superlative 2K restoration from the original 35mm negative.Other extras include the original Italian
voice track with English subtitles, a partial English track, and the
aforementioned commentary by Tim Lucas with a wealth of information about the
film, Bava, and Italian cinema in general.
Admittedly I'm not proficient in analyzing Italian "giallo" films. They represent a peculiar genre combining film noir with tinges of crime and overt sexual behavior, often of a perverse nature. Director Giulio Questi's bizarrely-titled "Death Laid an Egg" is a 1968 production that has acquired a significant cult appeal. It's easy to see why. The movie is a mind-bending exercise in quasi-surrealism combined with Hitchcockian elements of kinky people involved in murderous activities. Much of the action takes place in- get this- a state-of-the-art chicken processing plant run by Anna (Gina Lollobrigida), a sexy and dominating woman who constantly berates her long-suffering husband Marco (Jean-Louis Trintignant). The couple has a marriage of convenience and spend much of their time bickering about how to run the plant, which is in financial trouble and is beset with problems with recently fired workers who hang about and exhibiting threatening behavior. The plant is of great concern to their financial investors who are pushing Anna and Marco to develop a mutant form of chicken that will dispense with such unnecessary parts as the head, thereby improving profitability. This strange premise sets the basis for the story, which only gets weirder as the plot progresses. Anna and Marco's marriage is threatened by the presence of their sensuous, live-in secretary Gabrielle (Ewa Aulin), a sexually liberated teenager who has a magnetic hold on the couple. Marco is scheming how to get away from Anna and start a new life with Gabrielle but he's financially dependent upon Anna's fortune in order to survive. Meanwhile, Anna is equally smitten by her and the two women even sleep together, implying they, too, have a sexual relationship. However, Anna is having an affair with another man, Luigi (Renato Romano) who she considers to be her real lover. They are scheming how to manipulate Anna and Marco for their own financial advantage. Complicating matters is Marco's hobby-- which is checking into a roadside hotel frequented by prostitutes and abusing and even murdering the ladies of the night in ritualistic S&M practices. There is also a Felliniesque scene in which pampered members of the social elite engage in a strange party game that involves randomly selected guests forming pairs and entering a deserted room where presumably they are to explore their inner-most sexual fantasies. Toss into the mix a subplot in which chemists realize their dream of creating the mutant chicken, which pleases the financial backers of the processing plant- only to have Marco react with disgust about the development, leading him to suffer a breakdown of sorts that threatens his own livelihood. Got all that? If so, then please explain it to me.
The film's scattershot plot devices make it hard to follow. Director Questi moves the action along at too-brisk-a-pace to fully comprehend what we need to absorb in order to fully comprehend the characters' motivations and who is doing what to whom. You'll probably find yourself revisiting key parts of the movie in an attempt to gain a better understanding of what is going on. Having said that, the film is stylishly presented and is bizarre enough to hold the viewer's attention. Helping matters are the performances of Trintigant, Lollobrigida and Aulin. The first two actors were royalty of the European cinema at the time the movie was made and they deliver the goods. Perhaps most surprising is the fact that young Ewa Aulin, whose brief career has left her regarded as a flash-in-the-pan sex symbol of the era, gives an impressive, nuanced and admirable performance in the presence of her two esteemed co-stars. The film also benefits from an inspired score by Bruno Maderna that perfectly captures the bizarre mood of this very bizarre film.
Fans of "Death Laid an Egg" have had to subside on sub-par home video releases of the movie but now the creative folks at Cult Epics have issued a Blu-ray/DVD edition that must be a substantial improvement over existing releases. The film is presented in its original Italian language version with English sub-titles in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1, but IMDB lists the original theatrical ratio as 1.85:1, which may explain why the opening credits are subjected to some of the names being partially cropped. Still, it's an impressive release and there are some welcome bonus extras including the original trailer, isolated soundtrack score and a nice photo gallery of promotional materials. The movie is certainly an acquired taste but if you're feeling adventurous, give it a try.
David
Hemmings is “Alfred the Great†in the epic story of the legendary Saxon King.
The film opens as Alfred is about to take his vows as a priest when the Danes
invade to pillage and rape their way across England. Michael York is Guthrum,
the Viking leader of the invaders. After fierce battles, the Saxons and Danes form
a truce and Alfred agrees to Guthrum’s additional terms; swapping hostages.
Guthrum picks Alfred’s wife, Aelhswith (Prunella Ransome), as hostage and takes
her with him across the English Channel to Denmark.
The
Viking scenes are played for every last ounce of lusty Pagan Medieval violence
and gusto. A relaxing night out with Vikings is no stop at your local coffee
shop. Axe tossing games, knife fights and rape ensue in the great hall while
Guthrum cheers on the Viking good times. Aelhswith retreats to her room to be
with her baby and handmaid, but she’s followed by Guthrum who rapes, though
ultimately she willing accepts him as her lover.
Meanwhile
back in England, Alfred continues his struggle to unify the warring Saxons
under his leadership. Alfred is literally wallowing in the mud, surviving along
with his closest associates as they find allies in thieves and other common
folks who are eager to join him against the local barons. They develop tactics
and after savage battles with the feuding kingdoms and form an alliance under
Alfred’s leadership just as an invading fleet of Danes is seen approaching
through the mist-covered river. Another
great battle between Saxons and Danes ensues and Alfred is reunited with his
wife and child. The movie is a serviceable epic, but it’s lacking in several
areas. For one thing, the casting is off. Michael York has far more charisma in
every scene than David Hemmings. The movie would have benefited if York had
played Alfred and Hemmings Guthrum. There’s very little in the way of chemistry
between Hemmings and Ransome and it was entirely predictable that Aelhswith would
become enthused about being Guthrum’s lover.
The
movie marked the second big screen
appearance, of Sir Ian McKellen who would gain fame in many roles including the
fantasy Tolkien Middle Earth series as Gandolph. The movie also features appearances by
other familiar and up-and-coming actors like Colin Blakely as Asher, Peter
Vaughan as Burrud, Julian Glover as AEthelstan (try and say that name fast
three times) and Vivien Merchant as Freda. For some reason Merchant does not
speak a single word in spite of her prominent role in the movie. According to
critic Pauline Kael, who was no fan of this film, Merchant may have refused to
say her lines because the dialog was unspeakable.
I
wanted to like the movie, but it isn’t one of those films you yearn to watch
more than once or twice in a lifetime. It has its moments, but lacks the
grandeur you might expect in a film about Alfred the Great. Why was Alfred so great? You’ll have to find
out on your own because you won’t know after watching this biopic.
“Alfred
the Great†was released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in summer of 1969 and shown in
some territories in an extravagant roadshow presentation with the 35mm format
blown up to 70mm. The Warner Archive DVD transfer is good and clocks in at 122
minutes with the trailer as the only extra. Recommended primarily for fans of
British historical epics.
CLICK HERE TO ORDER FROM THE CINEMA RETRO MOVIE STORE
A
chiller-thriller from the pen of Brian Clemens, 1971's See No Evil was a
notably lower-key affair for director Richard Fleischer, former helmer on such
celebrated cinematic epics as The Fantastic Voyage, Doctor Doolittle, Tora!
Tora! Tora! and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Which isn't to imply See No Evil is
inferior. Quite the contrary, in fact.
Left
blind after a horse-riding accident, Sarah (Mia Farrow) moves in with her Aunt
and Uncle, Betty and George Rexton (Dorothy Alison and Robin Bailey) and her
cousin Sandy (Diane Grayson) at their opulent riverside home. Familiar with the
geography of the sprawling house, Sarah is able to confidently go about coping with
her disability. Arriving home after spending the day with an old boyfriend, local
horse breeder Steve (Norman Eshley), Sarah believes the family to be out for
the evening and prepares for bed, unaware that in her absence all three have
been brutally murdered. She eventually stumbles upon the bodies and encounters
the mortally wounded gardener (Brian Robinson) whose dying words warn her that
the killer is certain to return to retrieve a damning piece of evidence he carelessly
left behind…
The
legendary Brian Clemens is probably best known as producer-writer on classic TV
show The Avengers, but he was also the mind behind a batch of very fine Brit
movie chillers, among them And Soon the Darkness, Dr Jekyll and Sister Hyde and
Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter, the latter which he also directed. His script
for See No Evil is an efficient little knuckle-whitener, questionable perhaps
only in the motivations of its wrongdoer. Is watching a couple of X-certificate
movies – in the opening scene the killer-to-be, face unseen, leaves a cinema screening
‘The Convent Murders’ and ‘Rapist Cult’ (both fictitious) – and getting one’s gaudy
cowboy boots splashed by a passing car really sufficient impetus for a murder
spree? Of course, no-one expects the bad guy in this type of movie to be sane,
but the heavy-handed message during the opening credits sequence that society’s
glorification of violence is the cause for what follows is pretty tenuous.
In
any event, See No Evil (which I first saw on late night TV as Blind Terror, its
original UK theatrical release title) is less of a tawdry exploitationer than
it might have been, making up for any perceived deficiency in that regard with
a goodly infusion of nerve-jangling suspense. Indeed, Fleischer and Clemens aim
for burgeoning ill-ease as opposed to gory spectacle and for my money they hit
the target square on. There are occasional moments of nastiness peppered
throughout – the sudden reveal of Sandy’s corpse, a haunting shot of George
immersed in a bathtub of bloody water – but they're fleeting and it’s fair to say
the film works primarily as an exercise in measured pacing and sustained
suspense. Take for example a protracted sequence in which Sarah goes about her daily
routine unaware that she's just feet away from the dead bodies of her family.
Throughout this stretch Fleischer toys mercilessly with the audience and Gerry
Fisher's cinematography really comes into its own as we're treated to a series
of impressive tracking shots, each homing in on a dropped or discarded item,
increasingly telegraphing the sense that something bad has happened, until the
eventual reveal of the Rextons’ corpses. Of course whilst we, the audience,
witness all this – including broken glass on the kitchen floor (which we just know
will be trodden on at some point and, in a wince-inducing moment, it is) –
poor, sightless Sarah sees none of it. Once she finally realises what's
happening the pace quickens and the story mutates into an extended game of cat
and (blind) mouse. There's a beautifully framed instance of tease when our
cowboy-booted killer climbs a flight of stairs; Sarah stands foreground, hidden
from him, and the camera circles so that whilst it remains focused on her it
simultaneously observes the killer's ascent. One can't help but strain to see
the face that remains tantalisingly out of shot! If the suspense loses momentum
a tad when Sarah's plight changes from being pursued by the murderer to an
unexpected ordeal instigated by a latecomer to the party, well, it's only a
minor blip.
UK release poster.
As
with any murder mystery worth its mettle there's a proliferation of suspects on
hand too – a gypsy encampment just down the lane from the Rexton abode offers
up a whole shoal of red herrings – and it’s not too surprising that one's eye
is frequently drawn to inspect a character’s footwear.
Mia
Farrow conveys blindness convincingly and Norman Eshley makes for a suitably
handsome hero, whilst Lila Kaye and a surly Michael Elphick stand out among the
myriad of gypsies. It’s nice to see Paul Nicholas and Christopher Matthews in
small but not insignificant roles. Elmer Bernstein furnishes the proceedings
with a lush score, although rather amusingly he can't help slipping into The
Magnificent Seven territory during a sequence when Sarah and Steve are out
riding on horseback.
Mario
Bava’s Gli invasori or The
Invaders (1961) was imported to U.S. theaters in 1963 by American
International Pictures in a dubbed print as Erik
the Conqueror -- not to be confused now with Terry Jones’ 1989 farce, Erik the Viking. It was the sort of genre movie that would
have played on a weekend double-bill at the Kayton, the second-run theater in
my home town. There, it would have been
paired either with another Italian peplum
or sword-and-sandal epic, with a Hammer Films horror show, or with an Audie
Murphy western. The Kayton’s 1960s
double features were eclectic, to say the least. In that buttoned-down Cold War era, the peplums satisfied international box-office demand for movies about brawny
bare-chested heroes, curvaceous scantily-clad women, and exotic settings that
Hollywood productions like Quo Vadis
(1951), Ben-Hur (1959), and Cleopatra (1964) were slow to satisfy
because they were so expensive and time-consuming to produce. The model for Erik the Conqueror was Richard Fleischer’s very popular 1958 epic The Vikings, produced by and starring
Kirk Douglas. The influence must have
been obvious at the time even to undiscriminating audiences who watched the
dubbed import at the Kayton and its counterparts in other small towns. But The
Vikings required an investment of $5 million in 1950s dollars from Douglas’
Bryna Productions and its partners to pay for A-list Hollywood talent and
on-location filming in Norway. Bava
wrapped Erik the Conqueror for a
fraction of that cost using existing studio interiors, exteriors on the Italian
coast, a modest cast, and ingenious camera tricks that obviated the need for
hiring thousands of extras for crowd scenes and constructing new sets.
American
International’s 1963 movie poster played the film for exploitative value. “He lived only for the flesh and the sword!â€
the tag line proclaimed. The British
poster under the title The Invaders
similarly advertised, “He lusted for war and women.†Both ads suggested more sex and skin than the
script, costuming, and actors actually delivered. Like The
Vikings, Erik the Conqueror
centers on two antagonists who don’t realize at the outset that they’re
brothers. Dispatched by English King
Lotar (Franco Ressel) to negotiate peace with the Viking chief Harald, the
treacherous Sir Rutford (Andrea Checchi) instead attacks Harald’s village,
massacres Harald and most of his people, and engineers Lotar’s murder. Harald’s young sons are separated in the
chaos. Eron is rescued and carried to
Norway, while Erik is adopted by the now-widowed English queen, Alice. Twenty years later, colluding with Rutford,
Eron (Cameron Mitchell) leads an invasion of England and sinks an English
warship commanded by Erik, now the Duke of Helford. Kidnapping Queen Alice, Eron installs Rutford
as his regent. In the meantime, Erik
(George Ardisson) is shipwrecked among the Vikings. In a romantic misunderstanding, Erik mistakes
Eron’s bride, the Vestal Virgin Daya (Ellen Kessler), for his own sweetheart,
Daya’s twin sister Rama (Alice Kessler). The Vestal Virgins are an anachronism in the Medieval setting, but the
conceit gave the producers a chance to include dancing girls in diaphanous
gowns to pique the attention of male viewers. Once the misunderstanding with Rama is squared away, Erik rescues the
queen and proceeds to a showdown with Eron and the turncoat Rutford.
Arrow
Video in the U.K. has released a new, 2K restored print of Erik the Conqueror from the original 35 mm camera negative in a
Blu-ray and DVD combo package. The new
release provides a renewed opportunity to reassess Bava’s movie in a sharp,
letterboxed 2.35:1 Dyaliscope image, with critical context provided by
supplementary materials. Rescued from
the drab, pan-and-scan format to which it was doomed in old TV and VHS
editions, and enhanced even beyond Anchor Bay’s worthy 2007 DVD edition, it
emerges as an acceptable B-movie with respectable costuming and action
scenes. The production values are
notably better than those of most peplums
and easily comparable to those of Hollywood’s second-tier Technicolor epics of
the 1950s, if not to the overall finesse of higher-profile releases like The Vikings and Jack Cardiff’s lively,
underrated Norse epic from 1964, The Long
Ships. Plot, dialogue, and
characterizations are rudimentary, but then, so are those in the joyless,
overstuffed, multi-million-dollar costume epics of recent vintage. At that, some of the sillier lines in Bava’s
movie can be avoided by turning on the Blu-ray’s Italian voice track and
English subtitles instead of the English-language dub with its alternately
wooden and childish voices. The
simple-minded dialogue in Gladiator
(2003), Robin Hood (2010), and King Arthur: Legend of the Sword (2017)
is pretty much inescapable short of turning the volume completely off.
Rich Hardy, writing on the New Atlas web site, explores the resurgence of interest in the long-dormant 70mm film format by today's retro movie-loving directors such as Quentin Tarantino and Christopher Nolan. There was a time when Hollywood embraced the magnificent widescreen format for some of the most ambitious epics ever filmed. However the cost of shooting in 70mm made the format virtually extinct until recent years. Tarantino brought 70mm back for "The Hateful Eight" and had to practically move mountains to find a way to have his film projected properly, given that most of the equipment and venues that once were associated with the widescreen process were long-gone. Now Christopher Nolan is presenting his WWII epic "Dunkirk" in 70mm. This article provides short history of 70mm and some useful information about the various formats the movie is being shown in. Click here to read.
Perhaps
no other filmmaker has blended art and commerce quite like Steven Spielberg.
Just as Spielberg has melded blockbusters with socially relevant films, he has
also conflated his own image as a Jewish outsider who buys whole-heartedly into
American consumer culture. Molly Haskell’s new book on Spielberg, Steven
Spielberg: A Life in Films, published by Yale University Press, takes a deep
dive into these issues in a concise, enjoyable and informative read. As part of Yale’s’ Jewish Lives series,
Haskell is front and center analyzing each Spielberg project from his
background as a Jewish kid growing up in 1950s Arizona who wondered why his was
the only house on the block without a Christmas Tree, embarrassed by his
traditional grandparents. Spielberg is certainly not the only outsider, Jewish
or otherwise, to mine his loneliness into a cinematic career, but as Haskell
illustrates in this monograph, he is the most successful film director to do so.
Throughout
the text, Haskell describes several occasions where Spielberg consciously
creates his own public persona, actions most similar to Walt Disney, one of
Spielberg’s cinematic heroes- and someone he is often compared to. However, Haskell
compares Spielberg to another giant of classic Hollywood- David O. Selznick.
Selznick balanced his output of popcorn fare and meaningful epics in a career
that matches Spielberg, especially during the 1980s when Spielberg began
producing films of up and coming directors that he had faith in. However,
Haskell lays out times it was difficult for Spielberg to be a mogul. These
include the shooting of Poltergeist where on-set witnesses say Spielberg
directed sequences of the film as opposed to the movie’s credited director,
Tobe Hooper (these accusations hurt Hooper’s career) and later during
Spielberg’s partnership in DreamWorks.
Where
Haskell’s strength lies is in describing in detail how some of Spielberg’s most
iconic films are rooted in his childhood. While it is easier to see this in E.
T. and Close Encounters, it is harder to discern this in the films based on
source material such as Empire of The Sun and Catch Me If You Can. In fact, in
reading this book I was surprised to learn that Spielberg as his most personal
movie cited Catch Me If You Can, which stars Leonardo DiCaprio as real life
forger Frank Abagnale, Jr. The changes
made when the film was adapted from Abagnale’s memoir reveal why this is the
case: Frank Jr’s mother is given a lover that leads to the break-up of the
family, the singular event that happened in Spielberg’s own young life that he
never really got over. In addition,
Frank Sr. (played by Christopher Walken) still plays a role in the younger
Frank’s life, whereas in real life Abagnale never saw his father again.
Although such changes might be those of the screenwriter Jeff Nathanson,
Spielberg’s execution of the scenes as director adds a personal touch that
another filmmaker might not give the material.
Haskell’s
layout of the book informs the filmmaker’s life: there are four beginning
chapters, describing Spielberg’s early life and childhood, arrival at Universal
and his forays into their television department. Then the author gives a
chapter each for Jaws and Close Encounters of The Third Kind. Each subsequent
chapter is titled with at least two, sometimes three of the director’s films.
After Close Encounters, the only chapter that contains as its title a single
film is Empire of The Sun. Haskell cites this movie as Spielberg’s most
meaningful film. With it’s boy protagonist, separation of families, and war
time setting, the movie can be seen as a powerful bridge between Spielberg’s
early family movies and his later, socially important films such as Schindler’s
List and Saving Private Ryan.
Steven
Spielberg: A Life in Films is an excellent book and is a must-read for any fan
of Spielberg’s work. It is also an important work for anyone interested in how
the background and childhood of a director gets infused in their film work.
Angst is a 1982-lensed horror thriller based
upon the real-life case of Werner Kniesek, an Austrian loner who,
in 1972, shot and killed a random woman and spent time behind bars until his
release(!) in 1980 when he was set free on a
three-day furlough to search for employment. Gotta love their judicial system. Unfortunately, his murderous urges came back to the forefront, and three
other innocent people perished at his hands. It is this horrific event that Angst
depicts to startling effect.
Angst is extremely effective in depicting The
Psychopath, brilliantly played by Erwin Leder, on his first time out with a
gun, ringing the bell of a random home and, without reason, murdering the
elderly woman who answers the door, her husband falling by her side in shock
(the camera is attached to The Psychopath’s body to enhance the sense of unease
and make the audience play into his distorted mind). Captured and jailed, the problem that lies
with him is his inability to control himself. Why does no one do anything about this?
Blowing off his freedom and knowing
full well that he wants to murder again, he immediately sets out to find a
female victim to hurt (when he was thirteen, he was seduced into
sadomasochistic games by a woman in her forties, and this and similar scenarios
are reveled to the audience through the creepy and effective use of his
voiceover narration). An attempt to
seduce two young and attractive female diner patrons stops before it can get
started, and a taxi ride with a female driver ends abruptly before he can
muster the guts to harm her. Stressed,
he breaks into a house and finds a man in a wheelchair who can only recite the
word “Pappaâ€. When the mother and her
daughter return home, all hell breaks loose in real time as The Psychopath
tortures and eventually murders the house dwellers. He takes their dog and feeds him well, but is
eventually captured.
The most distressing parts of this film
are, of course, the murders, carried out before the eyes of the family
Dachshund who attempts to stop The Psychopath but ends up hiding under a
blanket in one of the film’s most heartbreaking moments. Actor Erwin Leder throws himself into the
role with such gusto and commitment it is almost unbearable to watch as he
strangles the mother, drowns the paraplegic, and stabs the tied-up daughter to
death, all for his own perverse reasons. We hear his thoughts through a perpetual voiceover that reveals why he
is the way he is. We want to reach into
the screen and scream at him to stop, though he is powerless to do so. Do we hate him? Do we feel sorry for him? In reality, Kniesek is still
alive and in prison, a fact that will make even pacifists ponder whether his
monstrous deeds should have seen him condemned to death.
As
far as the film goes, I don’t recall ever hearing about it in the days of VHS
rentals. The closest I ever came to
seeing anything this disturbing was the well-known Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986) on video in 1992. Henry
was a composite of real-like serial killers, and even 2008’s The Strangers was based upon the brutal
and grisly Keddie Murders which took place on April 11, 1981, a case which, 35
years later, has gone completely cold.
Angst had a tough time
getting theatrical exhibition in 1983. Now, with the Internet and real images of people dying almost daily, the
film has had a much easier time of being distributed as the public is probably
almost numb to such imagery (sad to say). The film’s director, Gerald
Kargl, made this one film and although it is expertly made, it is also highly disturbing
and not for the faint of heart.
The Blu-ray
of the film from Cult Epics contains the following extras:
Is the film a masterpiece? Perhaps.
It is a powerful work, with cinematography by Polish
animator Zbig Rybczynski, and elegiac music by early Tangerine Dream member
Klaus Schultze. However, it is not the sort of film
that I would want to watch again…
Nicholas Ray’s Knock on Any Door has been released as part of Sony Pictures’ Choice Collection. The 1949 film starred
Humphrey Bogart and a very young John Derek as a defense attorney and his
street punk of a client.It's not high
on the list of Bogart classics, and it's not even one of Ray's best (It was his
second film, made after the far superior They
Live By Night). Ray never particularly praised it, saying only that he
wished it could've been grimmer. Ray once pointed to Luis Bunuel’s LosOlvidados,
a film about Mexican slum kids that came out in 1950, as an example of the sort
of film KnockOn Any Door could've been.If Bunuel's film had come out first, Ray said, the inspiration would've
been there to make a more penetrating, realistic work. "I would have made
a hell of a lot better movie," Ray said.
Knock
On Any Door is usually labeled as
film noir, but nothing in the story has the subversive taint found in the best
noir films, and there’s none of the sleek, European ex-pat styling, unless one
counts the expressionistic lighting that cuts across the prison floor in a
scene where a convicted killer makes his long walk to the death house. KnockOn Any Door is more in line with the crime dramas turned out by
Warner Bros during the 1930s, which makes sense when one considers Bogart got
his start in those Warner Bros crime flicks, and it was Bogart’s film company,
Santana Productions, that produced Knock
On Any Door for Columbia Pictures.
While it wasn’t a
blockbuster, it performed well enough at the box office to establish Bogart’s
group as a serious production unit. It also gave us the quote, “Live fast, die
young, and have a good looking corpse,†a quote so nice it’s given to us twice
by the angry Nick Romano, played by Derek with all the seething anger he could
muster beneath his impossibly long eyelashes. According to Bogart biographer
Stefan Kanfer, Bogie tried to boost Derek's performance by pointing out that
most of the day's top actors, from James Cagney, to Edward G. Robinson, to
Bogart himself, had started out in crime movies, and that a good performance as
a heel is always eye catching. Not surprisingly, Derek goes for broke in the
film, to the point where he appears to be auditioning for a role in ReeferMadness. Lookat me! he seems to say in every scene, Look at my perfect profile, my quivering
lips; look at how twitchy I am when I play angry! I'm a real actor, damn it!
Derek was just a young,
inexperienced actor fresh out of the paratroopers when he was cast as
"Pretty Boy" Nick Romano, "the Skid Row Romeo.â€Romano, like so many Hollywood hoodlums, is a
good boy shoved down the wrong path in life after losing his father at a young
age, and then growing up in poverty. Attorney Andrew Morgan (Bogart) has known
Romano for years and has watched him struggle. When Romano is accused of
killing a cop, Morgan hesitates to help. For one thing, the partners at his law
firm don't want the negative attention such a trial could bring. Morgan also
isn't sure if he believes Romano is innocent.
Knock
On Any Door is actually two films woven together. We
see Romano's tale in flashback, as he goes from being a mama’s boy, to a
typical slum rat and petty thief, to a beleaguered family man who drinks too
much and can't hold down a job. We also see Morgan's crisis of conscious as he
works up the enthusiasm to help him. Morgan, a former slum kid himself,
believes people should help themselves. Gradually, though, he sees Romano as a
kid worth saving. By the film's end, Morgan vows to spend the rest of his life
helping kids like Nick Romano.
The Nick Romano character
was a bit ahead of the times. He looks and carries himself like a character
from a mid-50s juvenile delinquent movie, perhaps The Wild One, or Blackboard
Jungle, or even Ray's own RebelWithout A Cause. There were even rumors,
possibly apocryphal, that Marlon Brando was interested in the Romano role. Hot
off his stage success in A Streetcar
Named Desire, Brando would've been an interesting Romano, and with his
realistic acting, might have booted this movie into something close to a
classic. According to different sources, Bogart was originally planning to make
the film under the direction of Mark Hellinger, with Brando as Romano. When
Hellinger died in Dec. 1947, the project was temporarily put aside until Bogart
started Santana Productions. Brando, who had wanted to work with Hellinger,
allegedly turned down Bogie’s offers, paving the way for Derek. (I find it a
little hard to believe that Bogart was, as some biographers claim, pursuing
Brando to any great degree, considering Bogart was notoriously disdainful of
the self-indulgent method actor types emerging out of New York. The thought of
Brando and Bogart together is fascinating, but just the fact that Bogart
eventually chose Derek, who was light years away from the brooding Brando,
makes me think the whole Brando rumor was nothing but a PR flack's pipe dream.)
Derek, with his greasy mop
of thick black hair, looks the part of a dashing street hood, but his acting is
too melodramatic and hasn't aged well. At the time, though, Derek made quite a
splash, inspiring Hollywood gossip columnist Luella Parsons to write, "I
predict John Derek will be one of the big screen stars of 1949."Stardom didn't quite find Derek, although he
acted regularly for many years, appearing in everything from westerns to bible
epics.He's probably best known to baby
boomers as the husband/mentor and sometime director of Bo Derek.Even when Derek died in 1998, most of the obits
focused on the couple's May/December romance, which was fodder for gossip rags
during Bo's brief run at movie stardom.
Bogart is Bogart, and not
much more needs to be said. There's an excellent scene where, suspecting Romano
has stolen 100-dollars from him, Bogart as Morgan lures Romano into an alley
and wrestles him to the ground, pinning him in the dirt with some sort of
commando hold and then rifling through Romano's pocket to get back his money.
"You're a two-bit punk, and that's all you'll ever be,†Bogart snarls,
spraying saliva everywhere.Always a
sprayer and a drooler, Bogart’s lips and chin practically shine with spittle in
this movie, especially during the courtroom scenes where he has long speeches
and no one around to wipe his mouth. Bogart’s forehead also perspires like crazy in
the court scenes, until he looks like he's performing on the bow of a ship
during a storm. He's great, though, and his closing speech to the jury is among
the better scenes of his late '40s period.Heavy-handed? Sure, but Bogart could always make these scenes
compelling, whereas if another actor tried it, the bit would come off as
grandstanding.
"Knock OnAny Door is a
picture I'm kind of proud of, and I'll tell you why," Bogart the producer
said in a press release trumpeting the film. "It's a very challenging
story; different; off the beaten path. The novel (by Willard Motley) was
brutally honest. We've tried to be just as direct, just as forceful, in the
picture. I think you'll like it better that way. "
Although Variety
proclaimed Knock On Any Door "a
hard-hitting, tight melodrama," the film's Feb. 1949 release was greeted
by mixed reviews. The notion that criminals were not always responsible for
their actions was a relatively new and unpopular concept. The film was
occasionally praised for its direct look at life in the slums, but Bosley Crowther
of ‘The New York Times’ wasn't impressed. "Not only,†wrote Crowther, “are
the justifications for the boy's delinquencies inept and superficial...but the
nature and aspect of the hoodlum are outrageously heroized." Crowther, who
may have invented the word ‘heroized,’ added that the film was riddled with
"inconsistencies and flip-flops," and that "The whole thing
appears to be fashioned for sheer romantic effect, which its gets from its
'pretty-boy' killer, victim of society and blazing guns."
Actually, the film
could've used some more blazing guns. The opening sequence is a stunner, with a
cop being gunned down on a dark street, and a sudden swarming of the
neighborhood by cops rousting every local man with a criminal record. The scene
is a mere tease, though, for the film settles down into a talky courtroom drama
and doesn't quite live up to its opening blast. But give Bogie and his Santana
crew credit for choosing this project as their debut voyage. They jumped on the
juvenile delinquent bandwagon before it had really taken off, predating the
screwed-up teenager craze by five or six years. In a way, Derek’s Nick Romano was
a forerunner of James Dean, Elvis, Sal Mineo, and every other greasy hoodlum
with puppy dog eyes that would populate the movie screens of the 1950s.
The Choice Collection DVD offers no extra
features, but the transfer is crisp and clear, all the better to see Bogart
sweat.
CLICK HERE TO ORDER FROM THE CINEMA RETRO MOVIE STORE
