BY LEE PFEIFFER

In 1971, a well-connected Dutch prostitute named Xavier Hollander published her memoirs under the title of "The Happy Hooker". The book became an international bestseller with its lighthearted recollections of her adventures in "the world's oldest profession". "The Happy Hooker" delighted readers who were relishing the new-found sexual freedoms that came about in the 1960s. Women, who would have been chastised for reading such a book ten years earlier, could openly read it on buses and in subway cars because everyone else was reading it. The content was erotic enough to be titillating but humorous enough to give it enough cachet to not be labeled pornographic. How much of it was true? Who knows. bestselling author Robin Moore ("The Green Berets", "The French Connection"), who actually took down Hollander's recorded comments on her life, came up with the title and the book was likely ghostwritten by Yvonne Dunleavy. With the success of the book, it was no surprise that a few years later Hollywood brought Hollander's exploits to the screen the film version of "The Happy Hooker". Released in 1975, it starred Lynn Redgrave in the title role. Not wanting to alienate mainstream audiences, the film was made as a saucy comedy. It was followed two years later by "The Happy Hooker Goes to Washington" with Joey Heatherton portraying Hollander. The third and final film in the official trilogy (we won't count an unauthorized hardcore production) was "The Happy Hooker Goes Hollywood", which was released in 1980 with Martine Beswick (billed here as "Beswicke") taking over the role.The film has been released as a Blu-ray special edition by Scorpion.

"The Happy Hooker Goes Hollywood" follows the tradition of the previous two films in that it stresses zany comedy. However, there are some surprisingly steamy softcore sex scenes between some very recognizable actors that makes for a bizarre mixture of slapstick and eroticism. It also features an eclectic cast of first-rate second bananas who finally get some plum roles on the big screen, albeit in a Cannon Films production. Cannon, of course, was notorious for being a highly profitable "cheese factory", churning out many modestly-budgeted exploitation flicks for undiscriminating audiences. The film opens with a wheelchair-bound Phil Silvers (yes, that Phil Silvers!) as legendary studio mogul William Warkoff, an obnoxious one-time titan of the industry whose fortunes have been in decline. When he reads that Xavier Hollander intends to bring her bestselling book to the big screen, he dispatches his long-suffering right-hand men Joseph Rottman (Richard Deacon) and his son Robby (Chris Lemmon) as well as Lionel Lamely (Adam West), to secure the screen rights by whatever underhanded methods are necessary. Lionel arranges a meeting with Xavier, who is immediately attracted to him. (In fact, she finds most men irresistible and even seduces her chauffeur en route to the meeting.) Before long, Lionel and Xavier are engaging in steamy sex sessions. She falls for him and agrees to allow Warkoff Studios to produce her film- that is, until she learns that Lionel actually has a longtime girlfriend and has been misleading her. She then announces she will make the film herself and secure her own financing, which outrages Warkoff. In order to raise money, Xavier employs her ever-ready squad of equally happy hookers. She sets up an exotic bordello in which men can live out any fantasy, including having sex with a call girl dressed like Little Bo Peep. (Imagine "Westworld" for fetishists.) Warkoff strikes a more lucrative deal with Xavier but intends to deceive her and cheat her out of ownership rights to the film but she is savvy enough to turn the tables on him.

Directed by Alan Roberts, "Hollywood" has a goofy charm primarily because of the good-natured performances of the cast. It's nice to see Martine Beswick in a rare leading role and she plays the part with a deft combination of wicked wit and eroticism. (Beswick unabashedly appears topless numerous times in the course of the film). Adam West, who looks he had barely aged a day since playing Batman two decades previously, also gets a chance to showcase his comedic abilities and admirable physique. The sex scene between Beswick and West's characters is a bit eye-opening because it's one of the few elements of the film that isn't played for laughs and there is some kind of pop culture appeal to watching the Uncaped Crusader getting it on with a two-time Bond girl. Phil Silvers overdoes the obnoxious aspect of his character but it's still enjoyable seeing him in a feature film this late in his career. Richard Deacon, who made a career of playing sycophantic "yes-men", is in top form and he and West share an amusing scene in which they are forced to dress in drag. Chris Lemmon is very appealing as a naive young man who gets caught up in Xavier's world with appreciable results. He exudes the same comic timing and mannerisms of his legendary father, Jack. One of the most unintentionally amusing aspects of the film is the virtual beatification of Xavier Hollander, whose approval of the movie must have been a prerequisite. In any event, she is referred to as a titan of business and a living legend, when, in fact, by 1980 her star had diminished appreciably. The whole plot climaxes (if you'll pardon the pun) at the "World Premiere" of the film...which is also unintentionally amusing because it is only a grand event by Cannon standards, though they did spring for getting a spotlight and a few dozen extras to act like a screaming mob as the stars arrive at a nondescript L.A. theater.

BY LEE PFEIFFER

The Warner Archive has released the 1966 spy spoof "The Glass Bottom Boat" starring Doris Day and Rod Taylor, who had teamed for "Do Not Disturb" the year before. Everyone was riding the James Bond-inspired mania for espionage flicks and Day and director Frank Tashlin came up with a winner. The action takes place entirely in and around Catalina Island, California. Day plays Jennifer Nelson, a widow who recently started a job at a NASA facility where she works as a tour guide. She also moonlights by donning a mermaid costume and swims beneath the glass bottom boat tour boat owned and operated by her father Axel Nordstrom (Arthur Godfrey), much to the delight of the customers. One day, her costume gets snagged on the line of Bruce Templeton (Rod Taylor), who is deep sea fishing. As in most films of this type, their initial encounter is unfriendly, which is a necessary ingredient for the couple to inevitably become lovers. When Jennifer is guiding a tour at NASA she is stunned to learn that Bruce is a world-acclaimed scientist who has developed a top-secret gravity simulation device that the government has hailed as a major step forward in the Cold War space race against the Soviets. Bruce hires Jennifer as his personal secretary despite her lack of credentials just so he can attempt to seduce her. She is immediately smitten by him but keeps his advances at arm's length even when she is agog at at his state-of-the-art mansion that is equipped with inventions of the future that seemed fantastic in 1966. (They include a forerunner of the microwave oven and a self-guided vacuum cleaning device.) Things start to heat up when an abundance of other characters are introduced who are either allied in keeping the formula for Bruce's invention (known as "Gizmo") secret or who are serving as enemy agents trying to steal it.

"The Glass Bottom Boat" afforded Doris Day one of her best roles from films of the 1960s. Once again, she disproved the myth that she only played over-aged virgins. True, she doesn't jump at the chance to bed Bruce, even though he's a millionaire who looks exactly like Rod Taylor. But it's made clear that she just wants to ensure he isn't going to treat her as a one night stand. By today's standards, this would be commended as a sign of female empowerment. When she does get ready to move their relationship to the next level, in true family comedy style, fate keeps intervening with a series of interruptions. Day plays well alongside Rod Taylor and they exhibit genuine screen chemistry. The multi-talented Taylor was always woefully underrated as an actor even though the native Australian could portray American, British and Irish characters with equal conviction. Most of the belly laughs are provided by the sterling assembly of great comedic character actors of the day. Dick Martin is Bruce's perpetually horny business partner who is willing to sell his friend down the river in his desperate attempts to bed Jennifer. There's also the great Edward Andrews as a pompous U.S. army general who is reduced to the level of fawning schoolboy in Jennifer's presence. The inimitable John McGiver turns up as a NASA paper-pusher who is enlisted in an ill-fated spy assignment and Alice Pearce (in her last screen role before succumbing to cancer) and George Tobias blatantly recreate their popular roles as the nosy neighbors from the sitcom "Bewitched" to very funny effect. Even Eric Fleming (recently fired as the lead actor in TV's "Rawhide) turns up in a rare comedic role as a double agent and acquits himself surprisingly well. Arthur Godfrey is equally funny as Jennifer's crusty-but-lovable dad and one can only ponder why this icon of American TV and radio eschewed pursuing a career on the big screen. The most inspired bits come from Dom DeLuise as a bumbling spy and Paul Lynde as a snarky security man obsessed with revealing Jennifer is really a Soviet agent. The script by Everett Freeman is racier than most Doris Day vehicles and even includes some gay-themed humor. (Martin and Andrews end up in bed together and Lynde gets to dress in drag.) If all that isn't enough, there's a blink-and-you'll-miss-him cameo by a tuxedo-clad Robert Vaughn set to the theme from "The Man from U.N.C.L.E.". (This was shrewd marketing on the part of MGM. When word leaked out about Vaughn's appearances, countless "U.N.C.L.E." fans went to see the movie for that reason alone. I know. As a 9 year-old fan of the show, I was among them, persuading my dad to take me to see "The Glass Bottom Boat" at a drive-in.)

Although the film isn't a musical, Doris Day does get to do some crooning, singing a love song ("Soft as the Starlight") that was co-written years before by Joe Lubin and Curly Howard of the Three Stooges! This song is reworked into the catchy title theme for the movie that will have you humming it to the point it becomes annoying. (Think "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang"). Day also does a duet of the song with Arthur Godfrey and slips in a few bars from her signature song "Que Sera Sera". She also gets to indulge in a fantasy sequence in which she appears as a scantily-clad Mata Hari.

The Warner Archive Blu-ray ports over all the extras from the previous DVD release. There are three vintage featurettes. One has Godfrey providing narration about the Catalina locations in a droll, humorous fashion. Day takes us on a tour of a NASA facility in another and there is a third featurette in which a young model tours the MGM back lot, which will afford retro movie lovers some glimpses of very familiar sets from movie and TV productions. There is also a trailer and a vintage cartoon. The transfer is right up to the Archive's generally high standards but the trailer could stand a facelift. 

I won't make the case that "The Glass Bottom Boat" is a comedy classic. It isn't. There's plenty of corn and gags that don't come off and some of the rear and front screen projection effects are crude even for 1966. But the film made me laugh quite a bit back then and revisiting it through this Blu-ray, I found that it still does. Highly recommended. 

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“TWO JEAN GABIN CRIME NOIRS”

BY RAYMOND BENSON

The French caught on to Hollywood’s wave of crime movies in a big way. In fact, the French critics coined the term film noir to describe the types of B-budget, angst-ridden, expressionistic, hard boiled flicks that were made throughout the 1940s and 1950s in America. French filmmakers had been toying with this style of crime picture since the late 1930s, but in the 50s, they, too, emulated what Hollywood had been doing—only they notched up the violence and the darkness.

Classic French actor Jean Gabin, who became known to U.S. and U.K. audiences with his superb performances in Jean Renoir pictures of the 30s (Grand Illusion, The Human Beast) and early gangster flicks (Pépé le Moko), rejuvenated his career in the 50s by starring in several of these European gangster films. Gabin, who might be described as a French mixture of Spencer Tracy and Humphrey Bogart, was a wonderful, charismatic actor who could play tough guys with a touch of empathy, the same way Bogart could.

Touchez pas au grisbi (1954), which translates to, roughly, “Don’t Touch the Loot,” was released in the U.K. as Honour Among Thieves and apparently in the U.S. as simply Grisbi. Gabin is Max, a high-level gangster who has just pulled off a daring heist of gold bars. The idea is to lay low and fence the gold when it’s safe. Unfortunately, a dastardly femme fatale throws a monkey wrench into the plan. Max’s partner, Riton (René Dary) has said too much to his burlesque dancer girlfriend, Josy (a feisty young Jeanne Moreau), who of course blabs it to Angelo (Lino Ventura) a rival gang member who is sweet on her. Trouble ensues.

Razzia sur la chnouf (1955), which translates to, roughly, “Raid on the Dope, or Raid on the Drugs,” was released in the U.S. as simply Razzia. In this picture, Gabin is “Henri from Nantais,” another high-level gangster working in the U.S., who is summoned to France to take over and improve the heroin distribution operation run by a large syndicate. Henri manages a restaurant as cover, and then proceeds to clean house. In the process, he becomes romantically involved with the restaurant cashier, Lisette (the scintillating Magali Noël). As Henri lays down the law among the men, the body count increases, culminating toward an explosive climax.

Both pictures are terrific, but the edge goes to Razzia. While Grisbi employs a fascinating character study in Max, the first half is a slow burn and doesn’t become truly thrilling until the final third—which does indeed erupt in a brutal violence that was uncommon for the 1950s. Razzia is better constructed and is more “colorful” (even though it’s shot in black and white) with the depiction of Chinese and black user drug dens, underworld politics, and the details of the drug operation. Razzia also has a very satisfying twist ending. In both cases, the directors, Jacques Becker and Henri Decoin, respectively, handle the material with firm hands.

Kino Lorber’s two sold-separately Blu-ray packages contain gorgeous, sharp high definition 1920x1080p restorations, in French with optional subtitles, and both also feature an audio commentary by film critic Nick Pinkerton. The Grisbi disk has some supplements: a fun vintage interview with Jeanne Moreau; an interview with the director’s son, Jean Becker; and an interview with professor/film critic Ginette Vincendeau. Note that the information on the back of the jewel box states that the film’s run time is 83 minutes, when in fact it is 96. Razzia, unfortunately, does not contain any extras. Both disks offer the original theatrical trailers, plus other Kino Lorber title trailers.

Any fan of film noir, the actor Jean Gabin, and/or gritty crime pictures, will enjoy these two French gems. Sacrebleu!

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BY DARREN ALLISON

Due for release on 27th September 2019:  3 CD (5 original albums) The Electric Banana (1967), More Electric Banana (1968), Even More Electric Banana (1969), Hot Licks (1973) and The Return Of The Electric Banana (1978).

Fans of Film and TV Library music should be gleaming all over with this upcoming release. Initially coming together during a Fontana-era lull in The Pretty Things’ prodigious career, the band’s now-legendary body of work for music library de Wolfe as The Electric Banana saw their alter-egos become parallel universe superstars, their work utilised by film and TV producers in everything from soft-porn skin-flicks, a Norman Wisdom vehicle and horror classic Dawn of the Dead to small-screen ratings winners like Dr. Who (1973 season), The Sweeney (1975) and Minder (1984).

But there is so much more just begging to be re-discovered within these shiny silver time capsules. Cult TV shows such as Timeslip (1970) and Doomwatch (1972). Ultra-rare music from sexploitation gems such as Confessions of a Male Groupie: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and love The Electric Banana (1971) and some great Tony Tenser productions including Monique (1970) and the Norman Wisdom film (which has since gathered a cult reputation amongst British psychedelic music buffs), What’s Good for the Goose (1968). And not forgetting Michael Armstrong’s The Haunted House of Horror (1969) – all feature something, somewhere from The Electric Banana. This generous and hugely enjoyable collection is peppered with many surprising treats.

In the Sixties, the Banana recordings mirrored British pop’s gradual evolution into rock, courtesy of brass-led Swinging London ravers (‘Walking down the Street’, ‘Danger Signs’), primal garage punk (‘Street Girl’, ‘Love Dance And Sing’) and maximum psychedelia (‘Eagle’s Son’, ‘Alexander’). They switched gears again in the Seventies; confidently mixing swaggering bar-band hard rockers (‘The Loser’, ‘Sweet Orphan Lady’), putative terrace anthems (‘Whiskey Song’), metal-based rock (‘Maze Song’, the Hendrix tribute ‘James Marshall’) and jangly, Byrds-inflected power pop (‘Do My Stuff’).

Taken from the original master-tapes, the 3-CD set The Complete De Wolfe Sessions represents a number of firsts: the first-ever legitimate CD issue of these recordings (authorised by both The Pretty Things and de Wolfe), the first time that the Banana’s Sixties and Seventies work has been made available under one roof, and the first time that the karaoke-anticipating backing tracks have been made commercially available.

Housed in a clamshell box that includes a lavish illustrated booklet, The Complete De Wolfe Sessions incorporates the original albums artwork, an extended essay on the band, quotes from pivotal members Phil May, Dick Taylor and Wally Waller, and some priceless photos from back in the day.

More than forty years after The Pretty Things last donned the Electric Banana mantle, this long-overdue complete package is the final, definitive word on these seminal and much-loved recordings – and certainly proves to be a rich voyage of discovery.

Keep a regular check at https://www.cherryred.co.uk/ for more upcoming information

BY LEE PFEIFFER

Twilight Time has issued a Blu-ray release of the 1968 western "Bandolero!" as a region-free title that is limited to 3,000 units. The film is top-notch entertainment on all levels- the kind of movie that was considered routine in in its day but which can be more appreciated today. The story opens with a bungled bank robbery carried out by Dee Bishop (Dean Martin) and his motley gang. In the course of the robbery two innocent people are killed including a local businessman and land baron, Stoner (Jock Mahoney). The gang is captured by Sheriff July Johnson (George Kennedy) and his deputy Roscoe Bookbinder (Andrew Prine) and are sentenced to be hanged. Meanwhile Dee's older brother Mace (James Stewart), a rogue himself, gets wind of the situation and waylays the eccentric hangman while he is enroute to carry out the execution. By assuming the man's identity. he is able to afford Mace and his gang the opportunity to cheat death at the last minute. When they flee the town they take along an "insurance policy"- Stoner's vivacious young widow Maria (Raquel Welch) who they kidnap along the way. This opening section of the film is especially entertaining, mixing genuine suspense with some light-hearted moments such as Mace calmly robbing the bank when all the men ride off in a posse to chase down the would-be bank robbers.

Mace and Dee reunite on the trail and the gang crosses the Rio Grande into Mexico- with July and a posse wiling to violate international law by chasing after them in hot pursuit. Much of the film is rather talky by western standards but the script by James Lee Barrett makes the most of these campfire conversations by fleshing out the supporting characters. Dee's outlaw gang makes characters from a Peckinpah movie look like boy scouts. Among them is an aging outlaw, Pop Cheney (Will Geer), a well-spoken but disloyal, greedy man who is overly protective of his somewhat shy son, Joe (Tom Heaton). The presence of Maria predictably results in numerous gang members attempting to molest her but their efforts are thwarted by Dee, who always comes to her rescue. Before long, Maria is making goo-goo eyes at her protector, conveniently forgetting he is also the man who slew her innocent husband. (The script tries to get around this by explaining that while her husband was a decent man who treated her well, she could never get over the fact that he literally bought her as a teenager from her impoverished family). The story also puts some meat on the bone in terms of Dee and Mace's somewhat fractured relationship. Both of them have been saddle tramps but Mace informs Dee that his reputation as a notorious outlaw allowed their mother, who Dee neglected, to go to her grave with a broken heart. Every time the script might become bogged down in these maudlin aspects of the characters, a good dose of humor is injected.

In contemporary cinema, it would appear that virtually every major action film is based on super hero from the comic book universe. Yet, decades ago, superhero flicks were considered to be a dicey bet by most major studios, despite the success of Christopher Reeve Superman films, which had been deemed as having run out of steam. All of that changed with the 1989 release of Tim Burton's dark, revisionist interpretation of Batman. Writing in The Washington Post, Michael Cavna explores how the success and influence of that film led to the glut of superhero blockbusters we are seeing today. Click here to read.

BY LEE PFEIFFER

Just in case you thought the good folks at Vinegar Syndrome only release version of vintage porn flicks, it may come as news that they are also providing another valuable social service: remastering long-forgotten grind house "classics".  Case in point: "The Muthers", a 1976 gem that plays out like the ultimate Tarantino fantasy. It's a combination of several genres: Women in Prison ("W.I.P", for the initiated), chop socky, sexploitation and blaxploitation. It doesn't get any better than this if you were weaned on this glorious type of sleaze that played routinely on 42nd Street. Directed by cult "B" movie favorite Cirio Santiago, "The Muthers" is yet another low-budget flick from the era that was filmed in the Philippines. The movie opens with a memorable introduction to the titular characters. They are Kelly (Jeannie Bell) and her equally sexy sidekick Anggie (Rosanne Katon, Playboy's Miss September in 1978), who are female pirates with an all-male crew ("You go, girls!"). We see them aboard their high speed, armed vessel as they raid a tourist boat and grab the booty. (Since these are good pirates, no one gets hurt). We know the pirates go by the name of The Muthers because their vessel is adorned with a big sign that reads "The Muthers", in what must have been the first case of branding for high seas pirates. When they return to their Hole-in-the-Wall-like village, they are informed that Kelly's teenage sister has gone missing. They start trawling the waterfront bars and learn that she has been abducted by a human trafficking ring. Working with a government agent who wants to bring down the head of the ring, a notorious crime kingpin named Monteiro (Tony Carreon), Kelly and Anggie volunteer to be captured. They are brought to Monteiro's jungle prison camp, which is guarded by a virtual army of heavily-armed thugs. Here they find dozens of young women being kept in brutal conditions. They are forced to perform manual labor and are simultaneously being groomed for sale to a procurer of girls for international brothels. Kelly manages to get a fleeting glimpse of her sister before she learns the younger girl has made a desperate attempt to escape into the jungle- a strategy which goes tragically awry. 

While in the camp, Kelly and Anggie meet Marcie (Trina Parks), another beauty who is regarded as a long-time veteran prisoner who knows all the ropes. Marcie introduces them to Serena (Jayne Kennedy), who is the privileged mistress of Monteiro (who also sleeps with his male guards). Anggie resents Serena for selling out in return for her soft lifestyle at the camp and derisively refers to her as a "house nigger". But Marcie informs her that Serena often provides what human compassion she can towards the prisoners. Ultimately, Kelly, Angie and Marcie enlist Serena in an audacious plan for them all to escape. They do so but Monteiro and his goons are in hot pursuit. As the women hide in the jungle, they face death from the elements, starvation and dangerous critters. In the film's best scenario, Marcie is bitten in the chest by a deadly snake. As Serena sucks the blood out, Marcie gets the movie's best line of dialogue: "Just like every other snake I've met-- won't leave my tits alone!" Although Parks, Kennedy and Katon frustrate male viewers  keeping their clothes mostly intact, Bell delivers the goods with two (not one, but two!) gratuitous topless bathlng sequences. She also saunters around the tropical location clad in a long-sleeve turtleneck shirt, the absurdity of which is overshadowed by the fact that she is conspicuously bra-less. The film climaxes with double crosses, a big shootout between the "good" pirates and Monteiro's forces, with machine gun slinging chicks also going hand-to-hand with the villains. (Yes, everybody is kung-fu fighting.) At one point in the movie, Bell gets to swing vine-to-vine a la Tarzan. As low grade action films go, it doesn't get much lower or better than this- and it's all set to a typically funky '70s disco score. 

Jeannie Bell displays why the questionable choice of wearing a long-sleeve turtleneck in the tropics has its good points.

The Vinegar Syndrome release has undergone a 2k restoration from the original 35mm negative, making it yet another one of their titles that probably looks infinitely better today than it did upon its initial release. An appropriately cheesy trailer is also included that doesn't even credit the actresses, though perhaps they consider that to be a positive.

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BY JOHN M. WHALEN

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

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

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

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

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

BY LEE PFEIFFER

Those of us who share the rather unusual- and sometimes bizarre-profession of reviewing films for a living all share a nasty little secret: there are countless classic movies that we haven't seen. I'm not alone in making this mea culpa. No less than the late, great Robert Osborne, whose insightful introductions on Turner Classic Movies helped launch that channel's success, once confided in me that even he could list numerous classic movies that he had yet to catch up with. When he confessed this to Lauren Bacall, she told him that she envied him because she wish she could recapture the sheer joy of seeing a great film for the first time. I've never seen the 1942 musical "Holiday Inn". I can't say why but perhaps it's because that as a boy growing up in the Sixties, such productions seemed quaint and unappealing when I had a celluloid tidal wave of WWII flicks, Westerns and Bond-inspired spy movies. After all, John Wayne and Steve McQueen never danced on film, so why bother watching anyone else do so? Thus, when I attended the Papermill Playhouse's stage production of the much-beloved Irving Berlin song fest, I was in the unique position of not being acquainted with the property at all. At the risk of invoking the names of Rodgers and Hammerstein, the corn is as high as an elephant's eye, to be sure. However, the Papermill has outdone itself in presenting the ultimate "feel good" production for the holiday season.

The story is as sappy and sentimental as I suspected when I was a kid, but with the passing of decades, I've warmed to sappy and sentimental musicals and "Holiday Inn" turns the old concept of "Hey, kids- we can put the show on in the barn!" into a slight variation that boils down to "Hey, kids- we can put the show on right here at the inn!". The story opens with a song and dance trio just finishing a successful engagement. They are Jim Hardy (Nicholas Rodriguez), his girlfriend and dance partner Lila Dixon (Paige Faure) and Ted Hanover (Jeff Kready). Backstage, Jim drops a bombshell by proposing to Lila and announcing that they can now leave show business and move to a farm he has just purchased sight unseen in rural Connecticut. Although Lila accepts the marriage proposal, she says she wants to continue the act on the road for another six months with Ted while Jim prepares the farm for her to move in following their marriage. Jim agrees but when he gets to the historic Mason Farm that he has purchased, he discovers he's been snookered. The place is run down and he is immediately served with demands to pay back taxes and assorted other staggering debts he didn't know existed. While he struggles to cope, he is visited by Linda Mason (Hayley Podschun), the previous owner the farm, which had been in her family for generations. Seems Linda couldn't afford the upkeep and had been evicted, thus allowing Jim to secure the place while in foreclosure. In a coincidence that only occurs in musicals of this type, she is attractive and has a talent for performing on stage, though she gave up her career to become a teacher when sufficient opportunities didn't appear for her to make a living in show business. Jim imposes on her to sing a bit and he recognizes she has star power. Meanwhile, Lila makes a surprise visit and confesses she is so caught up in her own thriving career that she is calling off the marriage and going back on the road with Ted.  You don't have to be the kind of person who wears a deerstalker hat and smokes a pipe to detect what happens next: Jim falls head over heels for Linda and they devise a plan to transform the failing farm into a hotel that presents musical productions.  The plan proves to be an immediate success, drawing crowds from far and wide but things unravel when Ted turns up and announces that Lila has kicked him to the curb and broken up their act when a millionaire proposed to her. Desperate to jump start his career, Ted worms his way into the inn's revue, in the process falling for Linda, who is clearly smitten by Ted's talents as well as he egotistical self-assurance which is in contrast to Jim's modest nature.

The well-oiled plot device of a city slicker finding himself hapless as a farmer must date back to the invention of celluloid but it persists because it's a genuinely funny one, as evidenced by films such as "The Egg and I", "Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House", "The Money Pit" and the still amusing "Green Acres" 1960s TV series. The fish-out-water concept provides some genuine laughs but it is the wealth of Berlin songs that elevate "Holiday Inn" to a special status. Just consider all of these classic numbers in one show: "Heat Wave", "Blue Skies", "Happy Holiday", "Cheek to Cheek", "Easter Parade" and a little number called "White Christmas" that might actually catch on. All of them are superbly performed by a flawless and talented cast under the outstanding musical direction of Shawn Gough with equally impressive choreography by Denis Jones. Gordon Greenberg is the director of the overall production which practically had the enthusiastic audience dancing in the aisles. Kudos to costume designer Alejo Vietti for providing some eye-popping creations and especially to scene designer Anna Louizos, whose creative sets are not only impressive but are miraculously changed literally in the blink of an eye without the slightest interruption. The four leads in the show illustrate the Papermill's painstaking casting process pays off. Rodriguez, Podschun, Kready and Faure are delightful to watch throughout. Each of them has the ability to knock 'em dead during the musical numbers but they also deliver the witty bon mots in a style that ensures big laughs. There is also a spot-on supporting performance by Ann Harada as a local handywoman who finds plenty of work repairing Jim's dilapidated inn. The book has been tweaked a slight bit to make the dialogue more relevant for today's audiences but there are some quaint references to Connecticut as a dull, largely rural state, which gets big laughs from tri-state audiences who have suffered the endless traffic jams on the I-95 corridor.The film version was released in 1942 during the early days of WWII, which accounts for the sentimental success of "White Christmas", but for reasons unknown, the stage production takes place in 1946. A notorious blackface musical number in praise of Abraham Lincoln that appeared in the film has also been mercifully left out of the stage production. 

The Papermill's presentation of "Holiday Inn" illustrates why the venue is the gold standard of regional playhouses. The show delighted the audience so much that even the rude nitwits that generally walk out before the show ends in order to get a head start on reaching the parking lot seemed transfixed by all the talent on stage and remained to join in the roaring standing ovation. It's the perfect holiday show and runs through December 30. Don't miss it.

BY LEE PFEIFFER

"The Shakiest Gun in the West" was one of the feature film Don Knotts starred in for Universal after leaving his role as Deputy Barney Fife on "The Andy Griffith Show"- a role that saw him win multiple Emmy awards. Released in 1968, the comedy is as plain vanilla as all of Knotts's Universal flicks, as it's family friendly throughout. There is one unusual aspect to this production, however, in that it is a remake of the 1948 Bob Hope comedy hit "The Paleface". Directed by Alan Rafkin, who helmed Knotts's first film for Universal, "The Ghost and Mr. Chicken", "Shakiest" follows the formula that Knotts knew his fans wanted to see. He always played essentially the same character- a likable nerd with a lack of self-esteem who blunders into becoming a local hero only to be discredited and shamed. The conclusion of every Knotts film finds him performing some act of extraordinary courage that results in him becoming a legitimate hero and winning the girl, as well. Oh, yes, there's usually a scene in which Knotts's character ends up getting very drunk, thus allowing Knotts to slip and slobber, much to the delight of his audience. Although the original film was written for Bob Hope, a few tweaks by long-time "Andy Griffith Show" screenwriters Jim Fritzell and Everett Greenbaum easily convert the story into a suitable vehicle for Knott's signature nervous guy persona. Both Hope and Knotts excelled at playing cowards. Hope would respond to dangerous situations with a string of quips delivered with the rapidity of a machine gun. Knotts, however, would fall physically and mentally into a virtual nervous breakdown. The result was always amusing and Knotts lived by the adage "If it ain't broke, don't fix it". Audiences- especially in rural areas- made his modestly-budgeted feature films very profitable.

"Shakiest" opens in Philadelphia in 1870. Knotts plays Jesse Heywood, a dental student who must complete an examination on a patient in order to get his degree in dentistry. Unfortunately, the patient is a woman who refuses to open her mouth.  Jesse tries to cajole her with childlike sweet talk but when she still refuses, the situation turns into a physical battle royal with both of them engaging in a knock-down wrestling match that starts the film off on a very funny note. Jesse then decides to follow the advice of Horace Greeley and "Go West, young man." Presuming there is a dearth of available dentists in the newly-settled territories, the meek city slicker joins a wagon train (after being bilked by used-wagon salesman Carl Ballantine). A simultaneous plot line revolves around Penelope Cushings (Barbara Rhoades), a vivacious redhead who also happens to be a notorious bandit. When federal agents catch up to her, she is offered a deal: she can avoid a jail sentence if she acts as an undercover agent for the government and joins the wagon train to find out who among the passengers are intending to smuggle a cache of rifles to the Indians. At the last minute, the agent who was to pose as her husband is shot dead, leaving her with a dilemma: no single woman can be unaccompanied on the wagon train. Desperate, she uses Jesse as a pawn, fawning over the incredulous newly-minted dentist who can hardly believe his good fortune. Within hours they end up getting married but the minute the ink is dry on the license, Penelope gives a cold shoulder to her new husband. (The only sexually suggestive aspect to the film revolves around a running gag of Jesse being increasingly frustrated by his wife's stalling techniques when it comes to consummating their marriage.)

Once the wagon train is on the move, Penelope snoops around for the gun smugglers, who turn out to be a phony preacher (Donald Barry) and his partner (Jackie Coogan) who are secreting the weapons inside cases marked as containing bibles. Along the way, Jesse allows his wagon to fall behind the others and it is attacked by Indians. In mounting a seemingly futile defense, he is shocked to find that he has killed a dozen of his attackers, not realizing that the deadly shots were actually fired by Penelope. When word gets out of his achievement, Jesse is hailed and feted as a hero. The legend is reinforced when he is challenged by a notorious outlaw, Arnold the Kid (Robert Yuro), who is also slain in a gundown with Penelope secretly firing the fatal shot. (Shades of "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance"!) Ultimately, Jesse learns the truth and courageously admits to his fellow travelers that he really isn't a hero. He is rewarded for his honesty by being shunned and mocked. His misfortune continues with the admission by Penelope that she was only using him as part of her cover operation. The dejected Jesse is at a low point in his life when Penelope is kidnapped by the gun smugglers and brought to the Indian camp. Determined to save her, Jesse manages to locate the camp and infiltrate it while dressed as an Indian maiden(!). Needless to say, he finds his inner strength and in acts of courage saves the day and redeems his reputation.

BY JOE ELLIOTT

This year marks the fiftieth anniversary of the release of Franco Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet. The movie was a sensation when it came out in 1968, spurring ticket sales in the millions and becoming one of the top-grossing features of the decade. One reason the film made so much money was due to the number of people who returned for a second or even fifth viewing. It seemed audiences just couldn’t get enough of the story about those two star-crossed adolescent lovers from old Verona. The movie’s memorable music score, composed by Nino Rota, also became a best seller. The album quickly went gold and was later repackaged in a beautiful deluxe box set that included the entire movie soundtrack, along with two handsomely produced companion booklets.

There was something about the film, for all its shortcomings, that many found almost hypnotic. I’ll fess up and admit I was one of these people. I didn’t actually see it until the 1970s when it was still being trotted out in theaters in order to squeeze out extra profits for the studio. I was a teenager at the time and was more into flicks like Billy Jack and the Bond films than stories about people who lived hundreds of years ago and spoke in rhyming couplets. The only Shakespeare I had read was in class, the substance of which I found nearly indigestible. I did know something about the movie since one my English teachers had once played a portion of the soundtrack for us in class. However, apparently not having much else to do that summer evening, I decided to take a stroll down the street to our local movie palace and buy a ticket.

The first thing I noticed about the film was how rich in color it was. From the very beginning, following the smoky prologue spoken by Laurence Olivier, everything is drenched in bright primary colors. Things got off to a rousing start with the scene of the bloody brawl in the Verona marketplace between those two wild and crazy families, the Montagues and the Capulets. (I hadn’t realized until then that it was possible to be a real badass and still wear red and yellow striped tights with pointy soft leather shoes.) Soon the cops arrive (the prince and his soldiers) to break up the fracas and issue a stern warning to all those who would disturb the civil peace in the future. Immediately following this we get our first look at Romeo (Leonard Whiting), a handsome love-sick youth with a shaggy haircut. He talks dreamily of some girl he’s got a crush on, but then comes to his senses at seeing one of the wounded being carried away. Meanwhile, back at the Capulet palace, Juliet’s father (Paul Hardwick) is coyly negotiating the marriage of his daughter to a young man named Count Paris (Roberto Bisacco). The first time we see Juliet (Olivia Hussey) she’s running through the house like a kid at play.

All this is interspersed between scenes of Juliet and her bawdy, fun-loving nurse (Pat Heywood) talking to the girl’s mother Lady Capulet (Natasha Parry) about marriage and things, immediately followed by a night scene of Romeo and his friends on a soliquious pub crawl through the deserted streets of Verona. Later that same evening Romeo and his mates crash the Capulet masquerade ball. The ball scene is among the highlights of the film. It is here Zeffirelli really shows his stuff, combining visual pageantry with an almost obsessive attention to detail. Everything about this sequence is highly choreographed, from the beautifully composed dance scenes (“the moresca!”) right down to the fastidious arrangement of the candles and platters of fruit (Zeffirelli had studied art and architecture in his student days). Absolutely nothing is left to chance. In the hands of a less gifted visual director, and Zeffirelli was nothing if he wasn’t visual, all of this might have come off as too showy and distracting. However, here the effect is just the opposite. The viewer almost feels as if he or she is present in the scene, seductively pulled in as we are by the sensuous whirl of warm colors, voices and melodious music. All of it lovingly captured by the gifted eye of cinematographer Pasqualino De Santi who was awarded an Oscar for his efforts on the project. Clearly, the ocular accoutrements of this particular production are as essential to its success as the words of Shakespeare himself.

BY TODD GARBARINI

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

Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals (1977)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Last of all is the requisite theatrical trailer.

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

BY LEE PFEIFFER

Following his break-out performance as Superman in the 1978 blockbuster, Christopher Reeve deftly avoided being typecast in the role despite appearing in several sequels. However, his non-Superman flicks were a decidedly mixed bag. Virtually none of them were successful at the boxoffice at the time of their initial release, although Somewhere in Time found a loyal cult audience over the years and  Deathtrap seems more entertaining now than it did in 1982. Reeve proved to be a good, if unremarkable actor, who had an affable screen presence and the kind of handsome features and physique that recalled the more traditional Hollywood leading men of days gone by. (Think Rock Hudson). However, Reeve's scattershot record of choosing film projects prevented him from fully capitalizing on his potential. There were too many boxoffice bombs along the way and Reeve sometimes returned to his first love, live theater, to continue to grow as an artist. One of Reeve's least-known films, The Aviator, has been released on Blu-ray by Kino Lorber. The movie was based on the novel by Ernest K. Gann, who specialized in aerial adventure stories. (He wrote the novel and screenplay for John Wayne's smash hit The High and the Mighty.) The film opens intriguingly at a military air base in WWI. Reeve is Edgar Anscombe, a cocky pilot who is training a novice on his first flight when things go wrong. The trainee panics and the plane crashes, leaving the student pilot dead and Anscombe suffering from severe burns. The plot then jumps ahead by a decade. Anscombe is now a bitter and introverted man still haunted by his wartime experiences, especially the deadly training accident that he feels responsible for. He's now working for Moravia (Jack Warden), the owner of a small air fleet that delivers mail from Nevade across the western states. In order to supplement the company's meager profits, Moravia sometimes accepts a passenger to accompany the pilots on their route. Along comes Tillie Hansen (Rosanna Arquette), a perky but troubled 17 year-old whose father (Sam Wanamaker) finds her to be incorrigible. Against Tillie's wishes, he decides to send her to a strict, disciplinarian aunt in order to teach her social and personal values. Anscombe immediately resents having to take Tillie along on his next flight. He snubs her overtures at friendliness and makes it clear that he wants no part of socially interacting with her. However, while in flight over a remote mountain region, their plane develops a problem with the fuel line, forcing them to crash land. Both Anscombe and Tillie emerge unscathed but their trials and tribulations are just beginning. Anscombe admits he went off course to take a short-cut, making it unlikely that rescue parties will find them. Additionally, they lack shelter and food and are menaced by a pack of hungry wolves. All they have for a weapon is a pistol with a few rounds of ammunition. 

Once the survivalist aspect of "The Aviator" kicks in, the film should soar beyond the bland opening scenes that predictably thrust the viewer into yet another one of those scenarios in which the leading man and leading lady bicker and kvetch at each other. However, director George Miller (not the same director George Miller of the Mad Max movies, unfortunately) establishes a leaden pace that makes The Aviator resemble a TV movie. You're practically waiting for the commercials with that omnipresent, creepy guy hawking My Pillow to pop up any minute. The film lumbers through some moments of crisis that don't pack much suspense. Dopey Tillie wants to smoke a cigarette and ends up burning down the wreckage of the plane the stranded couple had been using for shelter. Anscombe manages to kill some game for much-needed sustenance only to have it ripped from him by wolves. The couple decides they must try to make the arduous climb down the mountain to find help. In the film's only unexpected twist, Anscombe comes across a remote cabin only to find its eccentric inhabitant won't help him and threatens him with a gun. Reeve makes for a bland, boring hero in the under-written role of Anscombe and Arquette grates on the viewer like nails on a blackboard with her ditzy Valley Girl-like interpretation of a liberated young woman from the 1920s. The last, inexcusable cliche the screenplay thrusts up us finds the once-bickering Anscombe and Tillie now falling in love.

The Aviator does have some aspects to commend. Jack Warden, Sam Wanakmaker and Scott Wilson manage to outshine the leading actors and put some much-needed realism and empathy into their roles, although Tyne Daly is largely wasted in a minor role. There is a suitably old-fashioned score by the estimable Dominic Frontiere and the film boasts some impressive camerawork by David Connell. The film was shot entirely in Yugoslavia but it must be said that the locations convincingly resemble the American northwest. The Kino Lorber Blu-ray features the usually excellent transfer we've come to expect from the company and an original trailer is included. The Aviator isn't a terrible movie, just an unnecessary one that unfortunately helped contribute to the likeable Christopher Reeve's less-than-inspired career choices.

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BY JOHN M. WHALEN

On Sept. 15, 2000 the New York Times ran an interview with Quentin Tarantino in which the famed director raved at length about a Roy Rogers movie called “The Golden Stallion (1949).” He absolutely loved the film and its director, William Witney, calling him a “forgotten master.” According to Tarantino, Witney was the ultimate genre film director, making everything from the classic Republic Pictures serials, to western feature films (including 27 Roy Rogers flicks). He later did films for American International, and shot numerous TV series including “Bonanza.” The thing that appealed to QT the most about “The Golden Stallion” was the way Witney was able to sell the idea that Roy Rogers regarded Trigger as much a friend as any human being could ever be. He does five years on a chain gang to save his horse from being destroyed after being framed for killing a man. As far-fetched as that idea sounds, Tarantino thought Witney, Roy and Trigger absolutely made you believe it. (Click here to read the NY Times article.)

In “The Golden Stallion” Trigger has a bit of a fling with a mare that smugglers were using to transport diamonds across the border. A colt named Trigger Jr., was the result of that dalliance, and screenwriter Gerald Geraghty picked up that thread to build a new story for Roy’s next picture. In some ways, the result, “Trigger, Jr.,” is an even better movie, with a story line that has darker undertones and a shocker of an ending.

In this picture, Roy is in charge of his father’s traveling circus and sets up headquarters for the winter at the ranch of his dad’s former partner Colonel Harkrider (George Cleveland). Roy’s publicist, Splinters (Gordon Jones), thinks the idea of wintering there will bring good publicity, but the Colonel isn’t too happy about it. The Colonel’s older daughter was recently killed in an accident during her bareback riding routine. As a result of the trauma her death caused, the Colonel himself has been wheel chair-bound ever since. Worse, his grandson, Larry (Peter Miles), is terrified of horses. He has nightmares about them. The Colonel constantly berates the boy for being a coward. The Colonel’s younger daughter, Kay, (Dale Evans) hopes having the circus on the ranch will help the two of them recover their psychological balance. But she knows it won’t be easy.

It doesn’t help that all the local ranchers in the are being muscled by a villain with no less a sinister name than Manson (Grant Withers), who heads The Range Patrol, an outfit that provides protection for a price. Those who don’t join up find barns burning, and livestock suddenly disappearing. No sooner does Roy arrive than he finds Trigger Sr. and Jr. about to be kidnapped by a couple of rangers. Roy and Splinters manage to rescue the horses after some fisticuffs, of course. (People complain about violence in films today, and say they wish movies could be like they were in the old days. I guess they never saw any of Witney’s Rogers films. They were full of shootouts, fistfights, bar room brawls, and they didn’t spare the fake blood either.)

Roy and the Colonel convince the other ranchers to stop paying the Range Patrol, which prompts Manson to put more pressure on them. There’s an interesting historical element introduced into the story at this point. At a horse auction, Roy finds out that there was an Army remount station nearby. The remount stations were where the Army bought, trained and sold horses for service in the U.S. Calvary. The station is out of use now, but a white stallion “killer” horse is being kept there pending its destruction by lethal injection. Roy tries to buy him but the sheriff informs him that there’s a court order calling for the horse’s destruction. However, Manson puts the doctor (I. Stanford Jolley) on his payroll and they take him to a hideout in the hills so they can use him to terrorize and kill the ranchers’ horses. He becomes known as The Phantom and it isn’t long before the other ranchers cave in the Rangers and Roy and the Colonel find themselves alone in opposing them.

The situation worsens as Trigger is attacked by the Phantom and a blow to his optical nerve renders him blind. Trigger goes down and he can’t get up. Things get pretty tense as Larry decides he must be a coward as his grandfather says, since he’s too afraid to even help Trigger. He runs away and in the meantime more livestock are being killed. I don’t think I’ve ever seen any other western where so many horses are shown dead or dying out on the prairie, in this case all victims of the Phantom.

“Trigger, Jr.’s” brisk pace (it’s only 66 minutes long) moves over the downbeat elements of the story so quickly, you don’t get much time to react. But when you think about them later, you realize it’s all pretty heavy stuff. There are only three musical numbers in the movie and one of them is the haunting “Stampede” which is used to illustrate one of Larry’s nightmares. Jack Marta’s cinematography and lighting create an impressionistic mini-masterpiece. It’s not all doom and gloom, of course. The colorful circus wagons, the scenes of the acrobats and aerialists rehearsing, the lions and trained seals performing provide splendid splashes of color to offset the somber story line.

By Don L. Stradley

The cataclysmic prison riot near the end of The Big House (1930) reaches such a fevered pitch that army tanks are called in to combat the inmates.  The tanks roll into the prison yard like armor-plated creatures,   and then, unexpectedly,   start rolling towards the screen, towards the viewer. What did movie audiences think in 1930 as these shiny, black, menacing machines moved towards them?  By the riot's end, a single tank crashes through a wall, its main gun slowly swiveling, as sinister anything in H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds. It’s impressive even now, watching on an Acer laptop in 2014. What was it like in one of the vaunted movie palaces of yesteryear?  Did audiences cheer because the army was going to save the day? Or was there some fear, too, fear that the machines were coming not just for criminals, but for everybody…

The Big House, now available on DVD as part of the Warner Bros Archive Collection, was a spectacular success for MGM, and ushered in the prison movie as a viable genre.  Films had been set in prisons before, but it was The Big House that established the characters and themes that would mark the genre forever (ie. the scared new guy, the crusty lifers, the conniving weasel, the kindly old guard, the dour but ineffectual warden, the inevitable jail break, etc.).  The film was also a marked contrast to the slick films made by MGM at the time, causing Chester B. Bahn of the Syracuse Herald to write that this "stark tragedy" was "so horrible, so devastating, that you don't want to think about it, don't want to talk about it."

Although prison movies weren't churned out the way westerns and horror movies were during the 1930s, the subject undoubtedly had legs.  We still see prison movies today, as well as TV shows (of both the scripted and “non-scripted” variety). But every prison movie or show we see now has something of The Big House in its DNA.  The Big House did it first, and I’m not sure if any modern prison movies have done it any better.  More explicit, perhaps, but not better.

For one thing, The Big House was unabashedly artsy. Directed by George Hill with photography by Harold Wenstrom, the film is framed by rich, deep blacks that gave the atmosphere a harder edge than most black and white films of the day. A more accurate description of the film would be “black & grey,” for there isn’t much white in it.  Grey is the color of the prison uniform, and grey is the color of the detainees’ pasty complexions. The prison is a murky place, and when a con is being marched into the “dungeon” to serve some time in solitary, it’s as if he’s being marched into the very wings of Hell. 

The opening scene follows a truck filled with new prisoners as it approaches the monolithic, unnamed building.  There’s something about the scene that looks like an illustration come to life, especially when the prisoners step out of the truck and appear incredibly tiny as they march into the prison. Kent (Robert Montgomery) is a newbie, sentenced to 10 years for manslaughter after killing a man in a car accident.  He’s thrown into a cramped cell with two legitimately bad men, Butch (Wallace Beery) and Morgan (Chester Morris).  One of the warden’s aids laments that a young kid doesn’t stand a chance in a cell with such hard cases, to which the warden agrees that overcrowding and idleness are the banes of the prison system.   Kent’s journey through prison life, though, is only part of the story.   The film's greatness comes from the interplay between Butch and Morgan, for they are two hardened criminals who lean on each other to get through their dreary days.

Butch is downright sadistic, the sort of brute who harasses people only to back off and say, “I was only kidding.” He’s allegedly murdered several people, including a few of his past girlfriends, but one never knows if he’s serious or not. He also lets his temperament get the best of him, even turning on his buddy Morgan more than once during the film. Morgan, meanwhile, falls for Kent’s sister (Leila Hyams) when he spots her during visiting hours.  

RETRO-ACTIVE: THE BEST FROM THE CINEMA RETRO ARCHIVES

By Raymond Benson

"Pray for Rosemary's Baby..."

That tag line for Roman Polanski’s 1968 horror classic is an example of brilliant marketing. Until it was created, Paramount’s head of the studio, Robert Evans, admits not knowing how to sell the picture. Yes, it’s a horror film, but not like anything we’ve seen. Yes, it’s produced by William Castle, the schlock-meister who was famous for B-movie scare flicks utilizing gimmicks such as the selling of insurance policies in the theater lobby for patrons who feared they’d be scared to death. But the film is also an ingenious thriller outside of the horror genre; a crime story, in many ways, about a cult that drugs and rapes a woman for fiendish purposes. The subject is taken seriously, despite an undercurrent of dark humor. It was also very adult and frank for its time, and it had the potential to offend some audiences. Indeed, how does one sell that in the late sixties? The tag line intrigued enough people that it worked, for Rosemary’s Baby was a hit and the picture still resonates today.

It was Polanski’s first American film, and it remains an essential entry in his oeuvre. His early trademark style was doing a Hitchcock but taking it a few steps farther into more bizarre, creepy-crawly, and supernatural territory. That’s on full display in Rosemary’s Baby. We’d had devil movies before, but nothing as realistically-portrayed as this one. It certainly held the reign of Satan movies until The Exorcist came along five years later. In my book, it’s the better of the two. AFI is well justified in naming Rosemary’s Baby in their “Top Thrills” top ten list.

While brilliantly directed and written, a good deal of credit for the success of the film goes to the excellent cast. Mia Farrow has never been better as Rosemary. John Cassavetes is dead-on as the frustrated actor/husband who literally makes a deal with the devil. Ruth Gordon, the multiple award winner for the picture, is a revelation. She brings much of the necessary comic relief to the proceedings, for the film is an exemplary model of tension-building to a near-unbearable level.

As usual, the Criterion Collection does a magnificent job. Polanski approved the new, restored digital transfer, and it looks marvelous. Extras include a new documentary featuring interviews with Polanski, Farrow, and Robert Evans. Original novel author Ira Levin is showcased in a 1997 radio interview and original drawings and other prose in the enclosed booklet. Also of interest is a feature-length documentary about the film’s talented jazz composer, Krzysztof Komeda.

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BY LEE PFEIFFER

Kino Lorber has released the 1968 espionage thriller "The High Commissioner" on Blu-ray. The film, which was titled "Nobody Runs Forever" in it's UK release, is significant in that it paired two charismatic leading men- Rod Taylor and Christopher Plummer- in a low-key but well-scripted tale that sustains interest throughout. The film is based on John Cleary's novel and presents some offbeat and refreshing elements for a spy movie made at the height of the James Bond-inspired phenomenon. Most refreshingly, the two protagonists are Australians, a rare instance in which heroes from "Down Under" are showcased in a non-Australian movie of the era. Taylor plays Scobie Malone, a tough-as-nails police officer in the Northern Territory who is content to fulfill his job of keeping order in the Outback and arresting small-time trouble makers. He is reluctantly assigned to travel to London for an unusual mission: to bring back the Australian High Commissioner, Sir James Quentin (Plummer) and have him stand trial on charges that he murdered his first wife many years before. When Scobie arrives in London, he realizes that the timing of his mission could not be more sensitive: Quentin is hosting an important diplomatic conference with African leaders in the hope of finalizing a major treaty that could affect the balance of power in the African continent. The world is watching as Quentin tries to iron out details to make the treaty a reality. When Scobie informs him of his assignment, Quentin seems curiously nonplussed about the nature of the charges against him- but he is quite concerned by the fact that his sudden absence from the conference would almost certainly cause the talks to collapse. He imposes on Scobie to give him a few additional days to sort out the final details on the treaty. Scobie takes an instant liking to Quentin and his adoring wife Sheila (Lilli Palmer), and agrees with the request. Scobie's cover story to Sheila is that he is simply acting as a bodyguard to Quentin, but she seems to suspect his real motive is more nefarious. When an attempt is made on Quentin's life, Scobie is instrumental in thwarting it. The two men ultimately bond as friends and Scobie begins to suspect that Quentin could not have possibly murdered his first wife. Why then is the Australian government convinced he had? More pressing is solving the problem of who is behind the assassination attempt on Quentin and who in his inner circle is a mole. It appears a shadowy organization feels threatened by the chances of the treaty succeeding- and wants to thwart it by killing Quentin. 

"The High Commissioner" is a film that plays best if not examined in detail because there are plenty of loosely-developed plot points. It's never quite explained why Scobie was taken all the way from the Outback for this particular assignment. Surely the government could have found one equally capable law enforcement officer who was a bit more accessible. It also becomes clear that the plot to thwart the conference is just the "MacGuffin" in that it's never thoroughly explained who the bad guys are or why they feel threatened by Quentin's peace conference. Nor do we learn precisely what is being negotiated at the conference. What we do have are some intriguing characters including two of the most glamorous actresses of the period: Daliah Lavi, in full dangerous femme fatale mode as a seductive enemy agent and Camilla Sparv as Quentin's loyal secretary who holds a not-so-secret crush on him. While on assignment, Scobie allows himself to be seduced by Lavi (who wouldn't?) but remains chaste with Sparvi's character, so as to not impede his professional standing with the Quentins. The film moves along at a brisk pace under the direction of Ralph Thomas, who had recently helmed two other spy flicks- "Deadlier Than the Male" and "Agent 8 3/4" (aka "Hot Enough for June". )  Thomas showcases Taylor's rugged good looks by giving him Bondian opportunities to wear tuxedos and engage in plenty of mayhem. The film's climax takes place at Wimbledon, where the villains intend to assassinate Quentin by using a gun placed inside a television camera. The murder charges against Quentin come to a head in an emotional discussion Scobie has with Sheila, though her explanation for his innocence seems rather weak. The film builds to a fiery and explosive final scene that is undermined only shoddy special effects. 

The best aspect of "The High Commissioner" is that it provides a good role for Rod Taylor, one of the most charismatic leading men of the 1960s. Taylor was usually cast as American or British characters because he had mastered both accents, but here he is allowed to talk like a native Australian, which, in fact, he was. Equally at home in posh cocktail parties or flailing away at the bad guys, Taylor was the epitome of the charming tough guy. Plummer also gets an interesting role though the character is never fully developed and plays second-fiddle to Taylor's. Nevertheless, he embellishes the much-besieged Quentin with quiet dignity even when narrowly dodging bombs and bullets.  Lilli Palmer is especially poignant as Quentin's ever-faithful but long-suffering wife who is harboring a terrible secret that figures in the explosive climax. There is also an impressive supporting cast that includes Clive Revill as a butler whose allegiance may be in question, Calvin Lockhart as a handsome international man of mystery and an unrecognizable, black-haired Derren Nesbitt as a villain. The lush locations begin in Australia before moving to London, where director Thomas capitalizes on them. Interiors were shot at Pinewood Studios. 

The Kino Lorber Blu-ray is up to the company's usual fine standards and includes the original trailer. Recommended.  

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BY LEE PFEIFFER

Back in the mid-1970s when the U.S. government established the national speed limit at 55 MPH there was predictable outrage among "The Sky is Falling!" crowd who warned that traffic would slow to a crawl and that the rule was an infringement on individual rights. The fact is that since the day the 55 MPH speed limit was established, virtually everyone has ignored it and law enforcement officials seemed to unofficially tack on another 10 MPH before they got serious about ticketing anyone, the exception being small towns that did nitpick about speed limits and saw their coffers filled regularly. The fear among some Americans that they might have to actually slow the pace of their lives in some manner resulted in the birth of the road race movie. Call it "Revenge of the Lead-Foot Crowd". If would-be speeders couldn't fulfill their fantasies on the highways and byways of America, then, by golly, they would do it on the silver screen. Lost in the debate, however, was the original reason for the 55 MPH, which had less to do with safety and everything to do with conserving gasoline following the gas crisis of 1973 when drivers had to wait for hours to get their cars partially filled. President Richard M. Nixon proposed setting the new speed limit at 50 MPH for passenger cars but compromised at 55 MPH. The plan was a flop, saving far less gasoline than Nixon had envisioned- but the law was kept intact for reasons of safety.  Hollywood, however, was not interested in nuances and delved straight into exploiting the situation. Suddenly, seemingly every other movie produced had elaborate car chases. A peculiar sub-genre formed that was dedicated to movies that would not even have existed without car chases. The 1976 release "Cannonball" was a sobering take on the premise with participants suffering gruesome deaths in a coast-to-coast high speed auto race. The very same year saw the release of "The Gumball Rally", a lighthearted spin on the exact same premise that caused critic Roger Ebert to note the similarities between the two films thusly: "Both movies have all the standard ingredients, however: Two laconic leading men, two all-girl teams, one ethnic driver, one dumb law enforcement officer, several exploding gas tanks, no end of incompetent highway patrolmen, a helicopter and a car that breaks in half. The movies are so similar in content, in fact, that the differences between them are instructive: "The Gumball Rally" is an easily forgettable entertainment, but at least it has a certain amount of class. "Cannonball" was straight exploitation." Ebert also noted that two other similarly-themed films were also released that year: Ron Howard's "Eat My Dust" and Roger Corman's "Death Race 2000". 

The Warner Archive has released "The Gumball Rally" on Blu-ray. The film is an amiable but completely predictable action comedy that acknowledges in its trailer that it was inspired by the granddaddy (and still the best)  of all road race movies, "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World". (Even the poster art seems an homage to Jack Davis's iconic ad campaign for "Mad World".)  The movie opens in New York City where we see bored rich executive Michael Bannon (Michael Sarrazin) issue the code word "Gum Ball" to an eclectic group of eccentrics who immediately converge on a meeting he is holding to announce it's time to launch "The Gum Ball Rally" (spelled differently than the actual title of the film, "The Gumball Rally"). Turns out that this is annual race from New York to the Queen Mary in Long Beach, California. There are no rules for the race except that the winner will be awarded a fully-loaded gumball machine and have the bragging rights. Before long,  teams driving an exotic fleet of autos ranging from Corvettes to Jaguars and a Rolls Royce are screeching through Manhattan and New Jersey in a madcap race to the finish line. The film was directed by Chuck Ball, a long-time stuntman and stunt coordinator as well as actor and sometimes director. Thus, it isn't surprising that the bulk of the movie is spent concentrating on spectacular chase scenes and comical crashes, with the characters left largely undeveloped. The most impressive scenes are early in the film in which Ball somehow managed to shoot cars speeding through Times Square during the daytime, amid theaters boasting marquees ranging from "Jaws" to the latest porno flicks. He also got the Lincoln Tunnel closed down for a key scene, as well as the New Jersey Turnpike (try doing that today!). It's all set to a jaunty, sitcom-like 1970s score by Dominic Frontiere. 

"The Gumball Rally" was aimed squarely at the drive-in market where it undoubtedly did well. The film's production budget went almost entirely on the expensive chase and crash scenes, some of which feature some creative and amusing aspects amid the cliches. Consequently, there wasn't any money left for star power. Michael Sarrazin, a good and underrated actor who never made it as big as he deserved to, is the most familiar face and young Raul Julia has a flashy role as a perpetually horny racer whose sex drive interferes with his commitment to get to the finish line first. Gary Busey, a couple of years away from his star-making turn in "The Buddy Holly Story", is on board as a goofball and Normann Burton has a good role as the Javert-like policeman who relentlessly pursues the racers every year only to wind up humiliated. Old timers J. Pat O'Malley and Vaughn Taylor are aging sophisticates who are among the contestants. The film is innocent, undemanding fun, even if it's completely predictable. The road race genre continued for a number of years, thanks in large part to Burt Reynolds' massive "Smokey and the Bandit" and "The Cannonball Run", the latter being an exact remake of "The Gumball Rally" which was a remake of "Cannonball". The Warner Archive release has a top-notch transfer and includes the original trailer, which doesn't mention a single cast member by name. 

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In an article in the Hollywood Reporter about the trend toward female action heroes, James Bond producer Barbara Broccoli confirms that Eon Productions has finalized a deal with IM Global and Paramount to adapt the spy novel "The Rhythm Section"  by Mark Burnell for the screen. Blake Lively will star in the espionage adventure which Broccoli tried unsuccessfully to film for the last seven years. However, the sudden interest in action flicks with women in the lead roles finally made the project a reality. Reed Morano, director of "The Handmaid's Tale", will helm the film which will be slotted for a February 2019 release. Broccoli and her stepbrother and fellow producer Michael G. Wilson are simultaneously prepping the next James Bond film for release, also in 2019. It will mark Daniel Craig's final appearance in the role. For more click here. - Lee Pfeiffer

BY LEE PFEIFFER

The Warner Archive has released a Blu-ray edition of director Richard Rush's 1974 action comedy "Freebie and the Bean". The movie clearly rode the wave of enthusiasm during this period for maverick cop movies, largely because in those bad old days America was awash in crime. Consequently, Hollywood provided us with tough guy lawmen- Harry Callahan, Popeye Doyle, Lon McQ- to name but a few, who decided to toss away the rule book and bring about their own brand of common sense justice. The fact that, in doing so, these protectors of the peace often endangered far more innocent bystanders than the criminals did, was a common theme of these pro-vigilante cop flicks.  "Freebie and the Bean" takes this element of rogue lawmen movies to an extreme, perhaps intentionally as a satirical device, or perhaps just to satiate the whims of the audience who, back in the day, would howl with delight every time a constitutional right was violated in order to mete out justice to a villain. The wafer-thin plot presents us with two San Francisco detectives - Freebie (James Caan) and his partner Bean (Alan Arkin)- as wise-cracking nonconformists who are borderline psychopaths. They routinely beat up suspects, deprive them of civil rights and in one "amusing" scene actually murder someone while he is sitting on a public toilet. In between, they terrorize half the population of the city by engaging in high speed chases that cause enormous damage. The only thing that separates them from the criminals they hunt is the fact that they are sanctioned by wearing badges. Freebie and Bean are assigned to protect an organized crime figure (Jack Kruschen), who the D.A. needs to appear as a witness as a high-profile trial. However, there is a contract out on him and the two cops must keep him safe until the trial begins. 

Most of the film consists of endless chases on foot and by car, as the vulgarians in badges exchange insults and Bean is inevitably the victim of Freebie's cruel practical jokes. Arkin does his usual slow-burn shtick while Caan goes for his typical wise-ass approach. About the only cliche left out of this cop/buddy scenario is the "one guy is black and the other guy is white" standard. The script by Robert Kaufman is a crude, patchwork affair that resembles something some drunken college students could have churned out during a dorm party. Arkin and Caan do display a good deal of on-screen chemistry but director Richard Rush, who would go on to make the more estimable "The Stunt Man", places most of the emphasis on staging spectacular car chases. It must be said that the stunt work and action scenes are truly impressive and give the film its most redeeming qualities. However, the characters are all cringe-inducing sleazebags- including the good guys. The impressive supporting cast includes Loretta Swit, Alex Rocco, Mike Kellin and Paul Koslo- but their characters are woefully underdeveloped. Only Valerie Harper injects a note of grace and dignity as Bean's long-suffering wife who he accuses, in howling Ralph Kramden style, of having an affair with a gardner. The scene offers some humanity and poignancy but even that slips into vulgarity with a  tasteless caveat about feminine hygiene. The movie has one other opportunity to veer into some genuinely emotional territory when, in the climax , one  of the key characters is shot point blank and apparently mortally wounded. For a few brief minutes the film develops a sense of human compassion before plunging into the absurd final act when the severely wounded character inexplicably leaps from a hospital gurney to engage in a wrestling match. 

Upon its release, "Freebie and the Bean" was greeted with largely awful reviews. Vincent Canby of the New York Times noted the sheer inhumanity of the characters, writing: "It's as sensitive as a doorknob and as witty as a bumper sticker" and also observed that there were so many automobile chases that he suspected the film was actually directed by a car. Alan Arkin dismissed the film as "absolute garbage"- but audiences loved it. The movie became a surprise hit and went on to develop a cult following that thrives even today. Fans of the film will welcome its Blu-ray release. The transfer is up to Warner Archives standards but the only bonus extra is the theatrical trailer. That's good news for "Bean" freaks but scant compensation for those of us who decry the sheer waste of talent in the film. 

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BY LEE PFEIFFER

Hollywood studios are still licking their wounds over one of the worst years in memory in terms of boxoffice performance, though there are signs of a strong final quarter. Still, the guys and gals in the corner offices can't get out of a rut when it comes to lack of imagination. When they have a good thing, their only strategy seems to be to over-indulge in it. As David Sims writes in the Atlantic, Warner Bros. is planning three- yes, three- simultaneous comic book-related films featuring the Joker. The abundance of superhero films is the latest trend and, as usual, studios are over-indulging in it to the point that the bloom will come off the rose with audiences that are always seeking the next shiny object. Eventually, the quality of the films, which are all similar in content, begins to diminish and all the CGI effects imaginable can't make up for an uninspired script. There's already signs that audience exhaustion with superhero flicks is already setting in, despite the great success of some of the franchises. Universal is in the same dilemma: trying to dust off its classic Universal Monsters franchise for modern audiences despite anemic response to their updated version of "The Mummy" starring Tom Cruise. The recent remake of Stephen King's "It" indicates there is still a big market for horror films....but let's remember, the film is still a remake of a TV production. The lack of imagination and risk-taking among the major studios has left independent productions and art house films to dominate the market for mature audiences who want to see something a bit different than young women being pursued by maniacal killers. Perhaps the success of Christopher Nolan's "Dunkirk" might embolden the studios to have more faith in diversity- but I wouldn't be surprised to see a film about the battle of Gettysburg somehow involving Superman and Batman. Click here to read. 

BY HANK REINEKE

Robert E. Kent’s production of Invisible Invaders is merely one of a long string of modestly budgeted 1950’s science-fiction films. As such it’s almost inevitable that at some interval during the film the healthful actor John Agar will turn up. In this movie the always dependable Agar – rocking a serious military buzz-cut - is cast in a leading man role as Major Bruce Jay of the United States Air Force. Throughout the 1950s and early 1960s, this sinewy, lantern-jawed actor would star in a number of bona fide sci-fi classics as Revenge of the Creature (1955), Tarantula (1955), and The Mole People (1956). The score of sci-fi and horror movies he would appear in from 1955 through 1962 weren’t all of such high cinematic or popular culture caliber to be sure; nonetheless most were enjoyable programmers if you happened to be a popcorn-munching juvenile or a mostly uncritical adult with a soft spot for low-budget monster movies. In this latter category you might find apologist fans – and I’m one of them, truth be told - of Agar’s turns in Daughter of Dr. Jekyll (1957), The Brain from Planet Arous (1957) and Attack of the Puppet People (1958). These films weren’t bottom-of-barrel offerings, but they could hardly be considered particularly buoyant either.

I suppose that part of the reason I love the low-brow end of 1950’s science-fiction is that there’s always something much worse out there still to be discovered. We already know of the complete calamities, the cinematic trash that nonetheless never fails to entertain. Maybe the on-screen monster we’re supposed to fear is little more than a gorilla wearing a deep-sea diving helmet (Robot Monster) or perhaps a rolled-up carpet with pasted-on eyes (The Creeping Unknown), or the busty but empty-headed Fire Maidens of Outer Space. These films, for all their charms, are simply not good – at least not in any conventional sense. The true fans, of course, will generally excuse or explain away a film’s shortcomings and wince-producing missteps. Hey, the producers did what they could with what they had; the film’s production schedule was too rushed etc. etc.… This is willful, but empty devotion and I confess that I suffer from it.

If the appearance of John Agar isn’t enough to sound your preliminary bad-film alarm bell, I suppose the additional presence of the skeletal Shakespearean actor John Carradine in the cast should alert one that there might be some cinematic rough-sledding ahead. Of the hundreds of films – and television shows - Carradine would appear in over a long but sadly only occasionally distinguished career, only a handful are truly great. Carradine is fifth-billed in the ending credit roll of Invisible Invaders, and I guess this placement is fair. The veteran actor only appears in two scenes of any real consequence (and the first is so brief that it might be missed in the blinking of an eye). During his too-brief portrayal of military-scientist Karol Noymann, the lanky Carradine is seemingly incinerated in the film’s opening montage. But as this is a borderline horror film, the ill-fated scientist’s fiery demise proves to be merely temporal. It’s clearly too early in the film to confidently write off the possibility of a second appearance.

That second coming arrives soon enough when Carradine – or, at least, something in the personage of Carradine – comes knocking on the door of his old friend and scientific colleague Adam Penner (Philip Tonge). Technically, Penner is not visited by Noymann; instead he’s met by an alien who is temporarily utilizing the scientist’s corpse as an agent of mobility. The gaunt, expressionless corpse-shell of Noymann coldly informs Penner (in that peerless Carradine basso tone) that the earth will be destroyed in twenty-four hours time by a merciless alien invasion. This has been deemed necessary since the previously “slow scientific developments” of the earthlings – their activities having long been monitored by the aliens from their outer space perch - have recently accelerated… as has their misuse of atomic energy. The aliens are now prepared to invade earth and set up a “Dictatorship of the Universe.” It seems as though 20,000 years prior – just in case our planet’s inhabitants started getting too smart for their own good, I suppose – the aliens proactively established on the moon a conveniently invisible and “impregnable base for its space ships.” The militarists and scientists on planet earth never picked up on these moon bases as… well, they’re invisible and we couldn’t see them.

HELLS ANGELS ON WHEELS LA Screening with Richard Rush and Sabrina Scharf in Person

By Todd Garbarini

Richard Rush’s 1967 film Hells Angels on Wheels celebrates its 50^th anniversary with a special screening at the Noho 7 Theatre in Los Angeles. Starring Adam Roarke, Jack Nicholson, Sabrina Scharf, Jana Taylor and Jack Starrett, the film runs 95 minutes and is one of several films that Mr. Rush directed Mr. Nicholson in, the others being Too Soon to Love (1960) and Psycho-Out (1968). This is a rare opportunity to see this film on the big screen.

PLEASE NOTE: Director Richard Rush and actress Sabrina Scharf are scheduled to appear in person for a Q & A following the screening.

From the press release:

HELLS ANGELS ON WHEELS (1967)

Thursday, August 3, 2017 at 7:30 PM

A bunch of hairy guys on Harleys are causing trouble again in this, one of the best-remembered examples of the biker flicks of the 1960's. Poet (Jack Nicholson) is a moody gas station attendant who is looking for more excitement in his life. When a gang of bikers roars through town, Poet is intrigued, and after he pitches in to help the Hell's Angels in a bar fight (and pulls a well-timed stick up), one of the gang's higher-ups, Buddy (Adam Roarke) asks Poet to join. Soon Poet is riding with the Angels and living their lifestyle of violent debauchery, but Poet begins to tire of their rootless decadence, and Buddy is none too happy with Poet when he learns they're both in love with the same woman. Hell's Angels On Wheels won a cult following for its agressive but languid atmosphere and the fluid camerawork of cinematographer Laszlo Kovacs (at this point still billed as "Leslie Kovacs"). Richard Rush directed, and legendary Hell's Angels leader Sonny Barger appears as himself.

The Noho 7 Theatre is located at 5240 Lankershim Blvd., North Hollywood, CA 91601. The phone number is (310) (310) 478 – 3836.

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BY TIM GREAVES

For the benefit of those unfamiliar with the events that preceded The Amityville Horror’s arrival on screen, I'll start with a little backstory. In November 1974 one Ronald DeFeo murdered six members of his family in their home at 112 Ocean Avenue on Long Island, New York. 13 months later George and Kathleen Lutz, along with her three children from a previous marriage, moved in; unperturbed by the gruesome events of a year earlier, they had purchased the property at a bargain price. The family fled the premises just shy of a month later, claiming to have experienced a succession of terrifying paranormal events. Their experiences soon became the subject of a book by Jay Anson, published in 1977. Following extensive studies by a number of parapsychology experts, many of the Lutzes stories would later be debunked, but at the time the couple became something of a media sensation. Director Stuart Rosenberg's film – which, as movies will, played a little economical with the facts (at least as they were laid out in Anson's book) – was released in 1979 and not only proved to be a major hit for American International Pictures but was one of the highest grossing ever independents to that time. So, did any of those paranormal incidents really take place, or was it all just canny media manipulation? George and Kathleen are dead, both having passed away prematurely in 2006 and 2004, respectively, so the true story will probably never be known. But that house on Ocean Avenue has changed hands five times since the Lutzes left – with the owners having modified the building's facade and getting the address legally changed in a bid to dissuade tourists from pestering them – and there has never been another report of an untoward occurrence. One can make of that what one will. In any event, back in the 70s George and Kathleen Lutz appeared to enjoy the attention their alleged misfortune brought them and considerable monies were generated. And at the end of the day the possibility that, actually, it wasn't all a hoax affords the whole business an enduring appeal. Rosenberg's film spawned a dozen spin-offs and sequels and was itself remade in 2005. On a final historical note, in a 1980 episode of the British TV series Hammer House of Horror entitled The House That Bled to Death a family are driven out of their new home in the wake of a number of paranormal events. They sell their story for a substantial sum and the tale ends with them living a life of luxury and the revelation that they fabricated everything for the money, although there's one final devilish twist in which...well, I won't ruin it here; those interested in the Amityville phenomenon, on which The House That Bled to Death was clearly riffing, will find it well worth seeking out.

But back to the 1979 film itself. I first saw The Amityville Horror theatrically (twice) upon its initial UK release early in 1980 – six months after its US opening the previous summer. Although its effervescence has diminished somewhat in the intervening years, back then the belief that I was witnessing what were supposedly true events added a distinct frisson to the proceedings.

Recently married George and Kathy Lutz (James Brolin and Margot Kidder) move into a large property on Long Island, the site of a familial massacre just a year earlier. A succession of relatively minor incidents – inexplicable odours, toilet bowls ejaculating viscous black gunge – begin to tarnish the happy household, and George's health plummets. After priest and friend of the family Father Delaney (Rod Steiger) is driven out by an unseen presence whilst he's in the process of blessing the house, the abnormal occurrences intensify and it becomes apparent that the residue of something evil is at work. When George's mood darkens and his sanity begins to unravel, Kathy starts to fear for the lives of her entire family. 

The Amityville Horror was co-produced by Elliot Geisinger and Ronald Saland, known primarily for a number of behind-the-scenes shorts they directed and produced throughout the 60s and 70s. But the name that stands out here is that of executive producer Samuel Z Arkoff, instantly recognisable to movie buffs from Vincent Price horrors (Cry of the Banshee, The Abominable Dr Phibes and its sequel, Dr Phibes Rises Again), through blaxploitation classics (Coffy, Blacula, Slaughter) to clunky monster flicks (The People That Time Forgot, The Food of the Gods, Empire of the Ants); if Arkoff's name was on it you always knew you were in for a fun ride. And The Amityville Horror is nothing if not that. 

Director Stuart Rosenberg, working from a Sandor Stern screenplay, conjures up an efficient little creepy embroidered with all the standard haunted house tropes; bumps in the night, thunderstorms, blood-spattered dream sequences, bricked-up cubbyholes, tormented babysitters, and at one point the hoariest of them all, the sudden appearance of a howling cat. But there are also enough genuinely efficacious jumps and starts throughout to keep viewers on their toes. The whole shebang gets strong backing from a terrific Lalo Schifrin score, its haunting (no pun intended) nursery rhyme theme – the sound of chanting children set against low strings combining to invoke a crawling sense of ill-ease – surely ranking among the composer's finest works. It was Oscar-nominated for Best Original Score of 1979 but lost out to George Delerue's A Little Romance.

BY LEE PFEIFFER

Fox has reissued its original DVD release of the 1968 western "Bandolero!" as a region-free title in its made-on-demand "Cinema Archives" line.  The film is top-notch entertainment on all levels- the kind of movie that was considered routine in in its day but which can be more appreciated today. The story opens with a bungled bank robbery carried out by Dee Bishop (Dean Martin) and his motley gang. In the course of the robbery two innocent people are killed including a local businessman and land baron, Stoner (Jock Mahoney). The gang is captured by Sheriff July Johnson (George Kennedy) and his deputy Roscoe Bookbinder (Andrew Prine) and are sentenced to be hanged. Meanwhile Dee's older brother Mace (James Stewart), a rogue himself, gets wind of the situation and waylays the eccentric hangman while he is enroute to carry out the execution. By assuming the man's identity he is able to afford Mace and his gang the opportunity to cheat death at the last minute. When they flee the town they take along an "insurance policy"- Stoner's vivacious young widow Maria (Raquel Welch) who they kidnap along the way. This opening section of the film is especially entertaining, mixing genuine suspense with some light-hearted moments such as Mace calmly robbing the bank when all the men ride off in a posse to chase down the would-be bank robbers. Mace and Dee reunite on the trail and the gang crosses the Rio Grande into Mexico- with July and a posse wiling to violate international law by chasing after them in hot pursuit. Much of the film is rather talky by western standards but the script by James Lee Barrett makes the most of these campfire conversations by fleshing out the supporting characters. Dee's outlaw gang makes characters from a Peckinpah movie look like boy scouts. Among them is an aging outlaw, Pop Cheney (Will Geer), a well-spoken but disloyal, greedy man who is overly protective of his somewhat shy son, Joe (Tom Heaton). The presence of Maria predictably results in numerous gang members attempting to molest her but their efforts are thwarted by Dee, who always comes to her rescue. Before long, Maria is making goo-goo eyes at her protector, conveniently forgetting he is also the man who slew her innocent husband. (The script tries to get around this by explaining that while her husband was a decent man who treated her well, she could never get over the fact that he literally bought her as a teenager from her impoverished family). The story also puts some meat on the bone in terms of Dee and Mace's somewhat fractured relationship. Both of them have been saddle tramps but Mace informs Dee that his reputation as a notorious outlaw allowed their mother, who Dee neglected, to go to her grave with a broken heart. Every time the script might become bogged down in these maudlin aspects of the characters, a good dose of humor is injected, 

The story proper kicks in mid-way through the film when the gang finds itself en route to a remote town in the Mexican desert that mandates that they cross a hellish landscape populated by bandoleros, particularly vicious bandits who appear seemingly out of nowhere and pick off individuals one-by-one in a "Lost Patrol"-like scenario. July and his gang are also subject to the eerie murders as stragglers in the posse become victims. When Dee and his gang finally arrive at the town they find it deserted, as the population has fled the marauding bandoleros. Dee proposes to Maria and they agree to start a new life ranching with Mace in Montana- but their joy is short-lived when July and his posse sneak into town and arrest them. Before everyone can saddle up to return to the USA, the town is invaded by an army of bandoleros, setting in motion a truly exciting finale. The entire enterprise is directed by Andrew V. McLaglen, an old hand with horse operas and often memorable action flicks such as "Chisum", "The Wild Geese" and "The Sea Wolves". "Bandolero!" is one of his best achievements and he inspires fine performances by all. Martin plays it unusually straight and in a subdued manner, a rare instance during this era of him playing a realistic, multi-dimensional character. Stewart looks like he's having the time of his life and Welch, then still a contract player for Fox, acquits herself very well indeed among these seasoned pros. The supporting cast is excellent with Kennedy and Prine in top form and familiar faces such as Will Geer, Denver Pyle, Dub Taylor, Perry Lopez and Harry Carey Jr. popping up in brief appearances. There is also some excellent cinematography by William Clothier and a typically fine score by Jerry Goldsmith. "Bandolero!" is one of the best westerns released during this era. 

The Fox made-on-demand titles are generally devoid of bonus materials but they have wisely ported over additional content that was found on the initial DVD release. These include a trailer for the film as well as a Spanish language trailer and a gallery of very welcome trailers for other Fox Raquel Welch titles. The transfer is excellent but Fox didn't catch a blooper on the main menu which depicts Stewart, Welch and- wait for it- what appears to be an image of Stuart Whitman! Apparently some Mr. Magoo-type who designed the menu eons ago couldn't tell the difference between Dean Martin and Stuart Whitman, who starred in both "The Comancheros" and "Rio Conchos" for Fox. A minor gaffe on an otherwise fine release. 

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BY LEE PFEIFFER

In the mid 1960s Amicus Productions emerged as a Hammer Films wanna-be. The studio aped the Hammer horror films and even occasionally encroached on Hammer by "stealing" their two biggest stars, Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing. The first Amicus hit was "Dr. Terror's House of Horrors", released in 1965 and top-lining Lee and Cushing. The format of various horror tales linked by an anthology format proved to be so successful that Amicus would repeat the formula over the next decade in films such as "Tales from the Crypt", "Vault of Horror" and "The House That Dripped Blood". The studio cranked out plenty of other horror flicks and by the mid-to-late 1970s Amicus was producing better fare than Hammer, which had made the mistake of increasingly concentrating on blood and gore and tits and ass to the detriment of the overall productions. Occasionally-indeed, very rarely- Amicus would branch out from the horror genre and produce other fare. (i.e. the Bond-inspired "Danger Route" and the social drama "Thank You All Very Much") but the studio was out of its element when it came to producing non-horror flicks.  A particularly inspired offbeat entry in the Amicus canon was the 1970 production "The Mind of Mr. Soames", based on a novel by Charles Eric Maine. The intriguing premise finds John Soames (Terence Stamp) a 30 year-old man who has been in a coma since birth. He has been studiously tended to by the staff at a medical institution in the British countryside where a round-the-clock team sees to it that he is properly nourished and that his limbs are exercised to prevent atrophy. Soames apparently is an orphan with no living relatives so he is in complete custody of the medical community, which realizes he represents a potentially important opportunity for scientific study- if he can be awakened. That possibility comes to pass when an American, Dr. Bergen (Robert Vaughn) arrives at the clinic possessing what he feels is a successful method of performing an operation that will bring Soames "to life". The operation is surprisingly simple and bares fruit when, hours later, Soames begins to open his eyes and make sounds.The staff realize this is a medical first: Soames will come into the world as a grown man but with the mind and instincts of a baby. 

Soames' primary care in the post-operation period is left to Dr. Maitland (Nigel Davenport), who has constructed a rigid schedule to advance Soames' intellect and maturity as quickly as possible. Initially, Maitland's plans pay off and Soames responds favorably to the new world he is discovering. However, over time, as his intellect reaches that of a small child, he begins to harbor resentment towards Maitland for his "all stick and no carrot" approach to learning. Dr. Bergen tries to impress on Maitland the importance of allowing Soames to have some levity in his life and the opportunity to learn at his own pace. Ultimately, Bergen allows Soames outside to enjoy the fresh air and observe nature first hand on the clinic's lush grounds.  Soames is ecstatic but his joy is short-lived when an outraged Dr. Maitland has him forcibly taken back into the institute. Soames ultimately rebels and makes a violent escape into a world he is ill-equipped to understand. He has the maturity and knowledge of a five or six year old boy but knows that he prefers freedom to incarceration. As a massive manhunt for Soames goes into overdrive, the film traces his abilities to elude his pursuers as he manages to travel considerable distance with the help of well-intentioned strangers who don't realize who he is. Soames is ultimately struck by a car driven by a couple on a remote country road. Because the lout of a husband was drunk at the time, they choose to nurse him back to health in their own home. The wife soon realizes who he is and takes pity on him- but when Soames hear's approaching police cars he bolts, thus setting in motion a suspenseful and emotionally wrenching climax. 

"The Mind of Mr. Soames" is unlike any other Amicus feature. It isn't a horror film nor a science fiction story and the plot device of a man having been in a coma for his entire life is presented as a totally viable medical possibility. Although there are moments of tension and suspense, this is basically a mature, psychological drama thanks to the intelligent screenplay John Hale and Edward Simpson and the equally impressive, low-key direction of Alan Cooke, who refrains from overplaying the more sensational aspects of the story. Stamp is outstanding in what may have been the most challenging role of his career and he receives excellent support from Robert Vaughn (sporting the beard he grew for his next film, the remake of "Julius Caesar") and Nigel Davenport. Refreshingly, there are no villains in the film. Both doctors have vastly different theories and approaches to treating Soames but they both want what is best for him. The only unsympathetic character is a hipster TV producer and host played by Christian Roberts who seeks to exploit the situation by filming and telecasting Soames' progress as though it were a daily soap opera.

Christian Roberts, Vickery Turner and Robert Vaughn.

Amicus had a potential winner with this movie but it punted when it came to the advertising campaign by implying it was a horror film. "The mind of a baby, the strength of a madman!" shouted the trailers and the print ads screamed "CAN THIS BABY KILL?" alongside an absurd image of  Stamp locked inside an infant's crib. In fact, Soames does pose a danger to others and himself simply because he doesn't realize the implications of his own strength- but he is presented sympathetically in much the same way as the monster in the original "Frankenstein".  Perhaps because of the botched marketing campaign, the film came and went quickly. In some major U.S. cities it was relegated to a few art houses before it disappeared. In fact the art house circuit was where it belonged but the ad campaign isolated upper crust viewers who favored films by Bergman and Fellini but balked when the saw the over-the-top elements of the ads.

Sony has released the film as a region-free made-to-order DVD and it boasts a very fine transfer but sadly no bonus extras. Still the company deserves credit for making this little-seen gem finally available on home video where its many attributes can finally be enjoyed by a wider audience.

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If you enjoy the golden age of Blaxploitation films you'll be happy to learn about Brown Sugar, the new streaming service that describes itself "Like Netflix- only blacker!". The service, which costs $3.99 a month, features a gold mine of cult classics of the genre ranging from the Shaft films to action flicks starring icons Pam Grier, Jim Brown and Fred Williamson. The network says that many of the films in their catalog are not easily available on home video.  Click here for more info. 

“CLAWS, LUST, AND LEWTON”

By Raymond Benson

Sometimes brilliance in Hollywood comes in very modest packages. Who would have thought that a string of horror films made on shoestring budgets, with no star power, and little attention from the studio, would become classics in style and cinematic poetry?

That’s what happened when, in 1942, producer Val Lewton was put in charge of a division at RKO Radio Pictures with the directive to make a series of ridiculously inexpensive movies intended to be competition for Universal’s successful franchise of monster flicks. Lewton—a former novelist and poet—had previously worked for MGM and, in particular, David O. Selznick, before being hired by RKO. He brought this experience along with his literary background to the table when he was told he could do anything he wanted as long as the budget for each film did not exceed $150,000.

Thus, there wasn’t enough budget for special visual effects, elaborate monster makeup, or any of the other trappings for which Universal was known. Lewton had to tap into the imaginations of his audience members and find ways to suggest that what was on the screen was truly frightening. To do so, he put together an inventive creative team—director Jacques Tourneur, writer DeWitt Bodean, cinematographer Nicholas Musucara, and editor Mark Robson—to make the first iconic entry under the producer’s watch.

The result? Cat People, directed by Jacques Tourneur, was so successful that it put RKO, which had been struggling after the financial failures of Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane and The Magnificent Ambersons, back on the map. Box-office aside, the motion picture manages to be atmospheric, eerie, and psychologically disturbing without a single monster appearance. Everything frightening about it is all in the mind. Cat People unnerves viewers through the use of light and shadow, sound, and the mere suggestion of menace.

The story concerns Irena, an Eastern European woman in New York (exotically played by Simone Simon), who has a mysterious past and family tree. It seems she descended from a cult of Serbians who practiced witchcraft—and they had the ability (or curse?) of turning into panthers when sexually aroused. During the course of the story, Irena—as well as the men around her— must come to grips with who she really is. Okay, it’s a love story... sort of.

The sexuality at the heart of Cat People had to be played with a good deal of subtlety due to the Production Code, but it’s there. Much of the film’s power comes from the primal, sensual heat within the subtext of the visual poetry on display. Not only does the movie burn with suggestive tension, its German expressionistic beauty is seductive. The style is what gives Cat People its claws.

Criterion’s new 2K digital restoration, with an uncompressed monaural soundtrack, certainly shows off the look of the film, and it appears better than ever. The black and white imagery is appropriately grainy and the contrasts are sharp. There’s an audio commentary from 2005 featuring film historian Gregory Mank, including excerpts from an audio interview with Simone Simon.

Among the supplements is a new interview with cinematographer John Bailey, who was DP of Paul Schrader’s more explicit 1982 remake of Cat People—this is a highlight, as Bailey compares the two pictures and talks about the work of his predecessor Musucara. Additionally, Jacques Tourneur is interviewed in a 1977 French television program. Most impressive is the inclusion of a feature-length documentary from TCM, narrated by Martin Scorsese, about the life and work of Val Lewton. The movie trailer and an essay in the booklet by critic Geoffrey O’Brien round out the extras.

Creepy, stylish, and mesmerizing, Cat People was the beginning of a remarkable four-year run of interesting, intelligent horror movies made by dedicated craftsmen who not only wanted to entertain an audience but also to create art. Let’s hope that The Criterion Collection presents more of the works of Val Lewton, but for now, Cat People is just in time for Halloween!

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BY ERNIE MAGNOTTA

Remember the days when you would wear a baggy raincoat, visit your local independent theater and abuse your genital region while watching “naughty” films? Maybe the younger “internet porn” readers don’t (I actually don’t either. I just remember hearing about it while OD’ing on VHS porn in the 80s), but I know some of you older perverts know what I’m talking about. You see, during the 1960s and early 70s, you could hit your local grindhouse theater and see films that are now classified as sexploitation. These low-budget independent features contained plenty of nudity, but showed very little in the way of actual onscreen sex, giving them the nickname “soft-core.” Until hardcore classics like 1972’s Deep Throat and Behind the Green Door as well as 1973’s The Devil in Miss Jones arrived on the scene rendering the tamer stuff almost obsolete, these soft-core flicks (which were also frequently viewed by couples) were all the rage. And now, the nice folks at Vinegar Syndrome have unearthed three of them for you to relive or to discover for the very first time.

In the first feature, Marsha, The Erotic Housewife, a young woman (soft-core queen Marsha Jordan also from Count Yorga, Vampire) whose businessman husband (Mark Edwards) is cheating on her, decides to teach him a lesson by fulfilling her sexual fantasies with other men. The second feature, titled For Single Swingers Only, tells the tale of Gracie (Ann Myers) who moves into an apartment complex for swingers, but gets much more than she bargained for. Last, but not least, Her Odd Tastes once again stars Marsha Jordan, this time as a woman who goes from having an incestuous relationship with her sister to becoming a door-to-door vibrator saleswoman. She eventually kills a man in self-defense before being hired by a book publisher to research sexual pleasure and pain. The insatiable woman travels the world, visiting Hong Kong, Africa and the Middle East in order to satisfy her strange sexual cravings.

All three films (which were directed by Don Davis) may contain washed-out colors and plenty of pops, scratches, jump cuts and lines; not to mention drab-looking locations, but hey, no one buying a ticket to see these movies was interested in things like cinematography or production value. They paid to see some skin and there’s plenty of nudity on display here. There’s also a lot of kissing and groping (in lieu of everything else) as well as a bunch of unintentional laughs thanks to silly dialogue, stiff acting and quite a few so-bad-it’s-good moments. Highlights include a hilarious “Marsha” theme song, a woman with a very thick Swedish accent, a satanic orgy where one guy wears a silly-looking goat head mask and, finally, death while boinking on an electrified chair.

On the downside, the three movies, although each one only running a little over an hour, all move along at a somewhat slow pace. Still, I enjoyed them all for what they are. (I found Her Odd Tastes to be the better paced and most entertaining of the three).

The three films have all been released on one dual layer DVD by Vinegar Syndrome. The disc is region free and the movies are presented in their original 1.33:1 aspect ratio. The aforementioned pops, scratches, jump cuts and lines (which us grindhouse cinema junkies adore) never detract from the story, and the images, although far from Blu-ray quality, are more than watchable and pretty much what you would expect something from this genre to look like. There are no special features, but the DVD sleeve and disc both contain the original poster art for all three films; my favorite tag line being “In Throbbing Color.” If you’re a fan of soft-core sex flicks or are just curious to see what they were all about, I recommend giving this retro drive-in collection a look.

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“DOWN HERE YOU’RE ON YOUR OWN”

By Raymond Benson

When a film has been previously issued on VHS, DVD, and Blu-ray, a Criterion upgrade is still always welcome because you’ll get stuff that further enhances the viewing experience. Filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen were once notoriously camera-shy regarding interviews or “making of” documentaries of their work—but Criterion has managed to coax them into participating—and it’s a treat.

Blood Simple was the debut feature from the Coen Brothers, and it’s the second release by the Criterion Collection of the siblings’ work (Inside Llewyn Davis appeared in early 2016). Simple premiered at the Toronto Film Festival in 1984, had an acclaimed showing at the New York Film Festival later that same year, and then was picked up for theatrical distribution in early 1985. Although it was made on a shoestring budget (about $1.5 million after post-production), Blood Simple exhibited trademark stylistic and thematic elements that would appear in all of the Coen Brothers’ pictures—flashy cinematography, dark humor, literary influences, intelligent plotting, existentialism, and engaging stories made for smart audiences about stupid people.

I recall viewing the film in New York on its initial release and becoming very excited about it. I already couldn’t wait for the next feature from the brothers. I saw something so fresh and original—even though it had obvious nods to B-movie horror flicks and neo-noir crime thrillers—that I immediately anointed in my head the Coen Brothers as “the next big thing.” And that they indeed became.

The extensive supplements on the Criterion disk—worth the price of admission—detail the production from the genesis in the siblings’ heads to the ultimate, long-awaited release. From the very beginning, they envisioned actor M. Emmet Walsh as Visser, the sleazy private detective, even though the brothers had never met him. The script grew out of this concept—and luckily, Walsh accepted the meager offer to appear in the film, even though nearly everyone on the production had never made a feature film before. The money was raised through friends and other investors, the casting of the other roles was done in New York, and the picture was made in and around Austin, Texas because they didn’t have to use union crews there. “In Texas—down here, you’re on your own,” Visser says in a voice-over at the beginning of the story. The Coens were indeed “on their own” when they made Blood Simple.

Originally the Coens had wanted Holly Hunter in the lead role—they had seen her in a play in New York. She was unavailable, so she recommended her friend Frances McDormand, who got the lead part of Abby. It was her first film, too. John Getz was cast as her chump lover, Ray, and experienced actor Dan Hedaya came in as Marty, the cuckolded husband. While McDormand is absolutely wonderful in the film, it is indeed Walsh who owns it. If the actor was going to place only one of his many movie appearances in a time capsule of his career, Blood Simple should be it.

Barry Sonnenfeld, who had a little experience shooting documentaries, was hired as Director of Photography—so he was essentially a newbie as well. Even the composer of the score, Carter Burwell, had never done a film before. It was something of a miracle that Blood Simple turned out so remarkably good. Nearly all the personages involved would work together again on future pictures (and McDormand and Joel Coen would fall in love and marry!).

If you’ve never seen it—the film is a must. The story starts off in a straight-forward fashion—

Abby has left her husband, Marty, and is shacking up with Ray. Marty hires detective Visser at first to get evidence of the affair—and then Marty contracts the guy to kill the couple. Visser fakes the murders so he can still take the money, and then things go really wrong from there.

Suffice it to say that the nearly fifteen-minute segment of Ray attempting to murder Marty—illustrating to audiences how truly difficult it is to kill someone—is pure brilliance.

The feature is a new restored 4K digital transfer, approved by Sonnenfeld and the Coens, with a 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack. The image is gorgeous, clear, and vividly colorful. The masterful sound mixing by Skip Lievsay is also showcased in this Blu-ray edition. Supplements include outstanding and fascinating new interviews with the Coens, McDormand, Walsh, Burwell, and Lievsay about the making of the film, all told with humor and behind-the-scenes stories that will convince you that working on a Coen Brothers set is the ideal way to make a movie. For example, at one point we learn that in order to make a puny, burning dumpster look bigger, the Coens hired little people to play the men throwing garbage into it. By shooting from a distance, the actors appeared to be normal-size, and the dumpster looked huge.

The most valuable extra on the disk is the “conversation” between the Coens and Sonnenfeld about the film’s look as they comment on selected scenes while simultaneously using Telestrator video illustrations. This 75-minute piece is a master class in filmmaking. Three trailers are also on the disk, including the initial “investor trailer” that was shot early on during the fund-raising process. An essay by novelist and critic Nathaniel Rich adorns the booklet.

Moody, shocking, and funny, Blood Simple represents the Coen Brothers at their best—and they were only getting started! The new Criterion release is a 5-star gem. Let’s hope the company continues to explore the rest of the Coens’ oeuvre!

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BY LEE PFEIFFER

Many a director and/or star of hardcore porn movies has fantasized about establishing a career in mainstream cinema. Many have tried but few have achieved this goal. Among those who aspired to greater heights was Carlos Tobalina, who had established himself as one of the more innovative and stylish directors of porn flicks in the 1980s. Tobalina's micro-budget productions attempted to go beyond the low demands of the "raincoats-across-the-lap" crowd. Tobalina would attempt to present more fully fleshed-out story lines and occasionally succeeded in getting credible performances from his cast members. His films were relatively high budget at the time due to extensive location shoots. He was also an aspiring actor and would appear in small roles in his own films. By 1985, Tobalina felt the time was right to make his move into mainstream fare. The VHS revolution was now in full swing and suddenly consumers could watch porn in the privacy of their own homes without having to slip into a local X-rated theater in the hopes of not being recognized by friends and neighbors. Soon, porn movies would mostly be shot directly for the home video market, resulting in even lower production standards and films that could be shot in a matter of hours instead of days or weeks. The home video revolution would virtually ensure the death knell of grind house movie theaters that specialized in hardcore flicks. Perhaps Tabolina saw the writing on the wall when he went full throttle with his most ambitious project, a crime thriller titled "Flesh and Bullets". In reality, the movie had an earlier incarnation, "The Wife Contract". Both versions were unacknowledged remakes of Alfred Hitchcock's classic "Strangers on a Train" which presented the delicious concept of a man who encounters an eccentric fellow traveler in a private car on a commuter train. The two men in Hitchcock's film pass the time of day by debating whether a perfect crime could be committed. They agree that if the murderer had no prior connection to the victim, it could. The men both lay out a playful scenario in which they each name a person they would like the other man to kill in a morbid pact. One of the men clearly believes it was all a sick joke-until the person he named as his intended victim turns up dead and his "friend" from the train now expects him to commit murder as his part of the pact. Tobalina's film presents a different scenario based on the same concept. Roy (Glenn McKay) is a distraught man who is going through the strains of providing alimony and child support for his ex-wife Dolores (Cydney Hill) and their young daughter Gina (Gina Tobalina, you-know-who's real life daughter). Jeff (Mick Morrow) is also in dire straits trying to pay alimony to his ex, Gail (Susan Silvers). The two men have a chance meeting in a Las Vegas bar and form a pact to kill each other's spouse. Both of them have some experience with death. Roy has seen action in Vietnam and Jeff confides he once murdered two gay wrestlers who raped him (they are rather insensitively listed in the final credits as "Homo Wrestlers"!). To ensure that they each carry out their part of the pact, they agree that if either of them fails to do so, he will be marked for death by the other man. 

Mai Lin is among the adult film stars who make cameos in the film.

Tobalina had a fool-proof scenario on which to base his film...after all, Hitchcock had ironed out most of the kinks. The screenplay, also written by Tobalina, follows the efforts of Roy and Jeff to ingratiate themselves to the other man's wife. In doing so, they both unexpectedly fall in love with the woman they have promised to kill. Yet, if they don't carry out the murder, they will be marked for death themselves. Tabolina does the best he can with his limited resources but although he may have had more talent than the average porn director, the crudeness of his techniques and clunky production values make it clear that the movie was shot by an amateur. Tobalina tries to paper over this fact with a few distractions by casting some porn actresses in small legit roles in order to use their names in the promotional materials, but their core fans will be disappointed because this is one Tobalina production that has a bare minimum of sex and nudity. Tobalina also goes with the old misleading trick of getting some veteran actors involved in the film. Thus, we see "special performances" by Yvonne De Carlo, Cesar Romero, Aldo Ray and Cornel Wilde, mostly in blink-and-you'll miss them roles that were inserted to simply give the film a bit of Hollywood glam. (Cult actor Robert Z'Dar also appears). Tabolina also had to shoot some of the film on the fly as certain locations obviously required permits he couldn't or wouldn't obtain. There are also some miscued sound effects that prove to be distracting.  The performances range from laughably bad  to adequate, with even old pros Wilde and Ray looking like they were filmed in a first read through of the script. (Sadly, this proved to be Wilde's final film appearance. He looks suitably embarrassed and even had to suffer the indignity of having his name misspelled in the final credits!) Leading man Glenn McKay is very much of the beefy, hirsute hunks who were all the rage in the era of "Magnum P.I." His co-star Mick Morrow, however, suffers the distraction of having one of the most unbecoming hair styles ever seen on film, thus making him look like a cross between a Medieval page boy and Farrah Fawcett.  Not surprisingly, neither McKay or Morrow has any other on-screen appearance in their credits. The film is not without its enjoyable elements, however. The plot is consistently engrossing and you tend to give special dispensation to all involved for working with a tiny budget and low-end production values. Where Tabolina, the screenwriter, blows it is in the final sequence which could have been dramatically effective. However, he wimps out and goes the way of a happy ending that makes the viewer feel cheated. 

The Vinegar Syndrome release, which has salvaged the film from obscurity, is first rate. The transfer looks terrific and there is the welcome inclusion of Tobalina's original cut of the film, "The Wife Contract". Granted, they have had to resort to using a grainy Dutch VHS copy as the master, but the language is in English and it does provide an interesting look of how Tabolina drastically recut the movie for its final version. An original trailer, hosted by Cesar Romero and playing up the genuine stars,  is also included though if the film ever did manage to find some play dates in theaters, they must have been few and far between.  It's hard to recommend "Flesh and Bullets" as mainstream entertainment but, as a retro curiosity of a director's bold but failed attempt to break into the mainstream, it is certainly worth a look. 

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BY LEE PFEIFFER

In the estimation of many film scholars the 1970s was the most adventurous and liberating period in the history of the medium. The new freedoms in regard to sex, violence and adult themes that had exploded in the mid-1960s became even more pronounced in the '70s. Among the most daring studios to take advantage of this trend was United Artists. The studio had been conceived by iconic actors in the silent era with the intent of affording artists as much creative control over their productions as possible. UA had continued to fulfill that promise, producing a jaw-dropping number of box-office hits and successful film franchises. The studio also disdained censorship and pushed the envelope with high profile movie productions. The daring decision to fund the X-rated "Midnight Cowboy" paid off handsomely. The 1969 production had not only been a commercial success but also won the Best Picture Oscar. A few years later UA went even further out on a limb by distributing "Last Tango in Paris". The studio fully capitalized on the worldwide sensation the movie had made and the many attempts to restrict it from being shown at all in certain areas of the globe. Like "Midnight Cowboy", "Tango" was an important film by an important director that used graphic images of sexual activity for dramatic intensity. Unfortunately, not every filmmaker who was inspired by these new freedoms succeeded in the attempt to mainstream X-rated fare during those years that the rating wasn't only synonymous with low-budget porno productions. Case in point: screenwriter John Byrum, who made his directorial debut with "Inserts", a bizarre film that UA released in 1975 that became a legendary bomb. The movie has been released on Blu-ray by Twilight Time as a limited edition (3,000 units). 

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

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

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

BY LEE PFEIFFER

By 1974 John Wayne was in the twilight of his long, distinguished film career that had spanned six decades. Although the genre that we associate him most with, the Western, was still in vogue, the trend among audience preferences had clearly shifted to urban crime dramas. Surprisingly, Wayne had never played a cop or detective - unless you want to count his role in the lamentable "Big Jim McLain", a 1952 Warner Brothers propaganda film that served as a love letter to Sen. Joseph McCarthy. In that turkey, Wayne played an investigator for HUAC, the House UnAmerican Activities Committee that served as McCarthy's private police force, presumably searching out commie infiltrators. All they ended up doing was ruining the lives of left-wing people in the arts and academia. Wayne, for his part, remained unapologetic for his support of HUAC even after McCarthy's popularity plummeted and he ended his career in shame and disgrace. However, Wayne might have been discouraged from sticking his on-screen persona into volatile contemporary situations. His next bout with controversy would not be until the release of his 1968 pro-Vietnam War film "The Green Berets", which outraged liberals but brought in considerable boxoffice receipts from Wayne's fan base. By the early 1970s, the success of the "dirty cop" genre led major stars to gravitate to these films in much the same way many actors had longed to play secret agents during the James Bond-inspired spy rage of the previous decade. William Friedkin's "The French Connection" (1971) is generally credited as being the influential film that launched this type of film but, in reality, one could argue that Steve McQueen's anti-Establishment cop in "Bullitt" (1968) paved the way. The late 1971 release of "Dirty Harry" sent the genre into overdrive and even John Wayne decided to get on board. In fact, Wayne had been offered the title role in "Dirty Harry" but had turned it down because he felt his fan base would not accept him in a film that had so much violence and profanity. His instincts were right: had Wayne played the role, the script would have had to have been altered and watered down to the point that all of its social impact would have been lost. Still, Wayne saw the monumental success of the Clint Eastwood crime classic and decided to play a rogue cop in the thriller "McQ". The project also marked the first and only time he would work with esteemed action director John Sturges. 

The film, which is refreshingly set in Seattle instead of the usual locales (New York, L.A., San Francisco) opens with Seattle Police Detective Stan Boyle (William Bryant) assassinating two uniformed fellow police officers before getting knocked off himself. When Boyle's partner, fellow Detective Lon McQ (John Wayne) gets word he has been killed, he becomes obsessed with finding the murderer, unaware that Boyle himself had carried out the killings. McQ's boss, Captain Ed Kosterman (Eddie Albert), who also does not know about Boyle's dark side,  feels that the murders are the work of local radicals. McQ disagrees and suspects that the killers were hired by Santiago (Al Lettieri), a local drug kingpin who hides behind the veil of being a respected businessman. Santiago has long had grudges against McQ and Boyle for times they've tried to bust him in the past.  When Kosternan discounts McQ's theory and refuses to assign him to the case, McQ abruptly resigns from the force in order to move more freely. Relying on his police informants and contacts, McQ signs up with his friend Pinky's (David Huddleston) private detective agency in order to be able to carry a firearm legally. (An amusing running gag in the film finds McQ constantly being relieved of his weapons.) McQ learns from a local pimp, Rosie (Roger E. Mosley), who he routinely bribes for information, that the murders may be tied to a major drug robbery that Santiago has hired an out-of-town heist team to carry out. McQ's belief that Santiago is behind the police killings is reinforced by the fact that that he narrowly escapes two assassination attempts carried out by professional killers. Meanwhile, McQ learns that the brazen plan involves snatching seized heroin from the police department before it can be burned and abscond with a couple of million dollars of the white powder. McQ doggedly carries out his investigation and charms Myra (Colleen Dewhurst), an aging cocktail waitress with a drug habit who used to be friendly with Boyle. From her, he learns that corrupt police officials are in on Santiago's scheme and are willing confederates, but he doesn't know exactly who they are. McQ attempts to thwart the heist at police headquarters but the brazen thieves manage to get away despite engaging in a shoot-out with McQ, who fails in his attempt to catch them in a wild car chase through the streets and highways of Seattle.

McQ's private investigation leads him to infiltrate Santiago's business office where Santiago and his men are anticipating his arrival. They get the drop on McQ but Santiago has a surprising confession for the ex-cop: he freely admits to orchestrating the drug heist from police HQ- but shows McQ the disappointing fruits of his labors: white powder that turns out to be sugar. Both McQ and Santiago can appreciate the irony: the real drugs had been stolen by police officials prior to the robbery and replaced with sugar. Crooked cops have succeeded in swindling the crook himself. McQ and Santiago part company, both knowing that the other man is intent on finding the location of the real drugs before they can be sold. The closer McQ gets to the answer, the more precarious his personal situation becomes as a close personal informant is murdered and McQ finds himself being framed for complicity in the drug heist. The script by Lawrence Roman builds in tension under John Sturges' assured direction and leads to some relatively surprising plot twist in a caper film packed with red herrings. Wayne was faulted by some critics for being miscast and because he was nearing seventy and had a noticeable paunch. However, Wayne's appearance actually works to his benefit. He doesn't look like some glam movie star and his real world appearance makes him convincing as an aging everyday cop. Additionally, he remains quite convincing in the action scenes even sans saddle and can engage in punch-ups and shoot-outs with as much conviction as ever. Most refreshingly, McQ isn't some "know-it-all" hero. He frequently makes wrong judgments and assumptions and pays a heavy price for these miscalculations. Wayne benefits from a fine supporting cast. In particular, his scenes with Eddie Albert and Colleen Dewhurst are especially strong and its regrettable that this is the first time he ever appeared on screen with either of them. (Dewhurst had a memorable role in Wayne's 1972 film "The Cowboys", but they never shared the screen together). Al Lettieri, in one of his final screen roles, proves again why he was one of the most reliable movie villains of the era. Other fine support comes from Clu Gulager and Jim Watkins (now acting under the name of Julian Christopher) as McQ's police cronies who may or may not be as loyal as they seem and Diana Muldaur, who gives a very effective performance as the grieving widow who seems a bit too flirty with McQ. Some lighthearted moments are effectively provided by David Huddleston and Roger E. Mosley, both of whom become exasperated by McQ but who can't resist assisting him. The movie features some very fine action set-pieces and climaxes with a superbly staged car chase along the Olympic Peninsula that finds McQ driving on the beach through the crashing surf with Santiago and a car full of armed goons in hot pursuit. 

Warner Home Video has released the film on Blu-ray land it looks terrific on all counts. Bonus extras are a vintage six-minute production short that includes brief interviews with Wayne and other cast members but which concentrates on filming the climactic car chase, which made screen history for the number of "roll-overs" a car did during a particularly dangerous stunt. An original trailer is also included.

I've always liked "McQ" and in our present era of dumbed-down cop flicks, it plays even better than it did at the time of its original release. It's one of the Duke's best latter career action movies and the new Blu-ray is a "must have" for Wayne fans.

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By Don L. Stradley

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 Los Olvidados, a film about Mexican slum kids that came out in 1950, as an example of the sort of film Knock On 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. Knock On 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 Reefer Madness. Look at 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.” 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 Rebel Without 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 On Any 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.

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BY LEE PFEIFFER

London may have been the epicenter of the sexual revolution in the mid-1960s but that still didn't make it easy to see adult entertainment on the screen. The dreaded Office of the Censor wielded Draconian power as the guardians of British morality. Hence, the only place you could see anything remotely erotic on film was through 8mm "loops", short films that ran only minutes.  The closest mainstream cinemas got to playing films with nudity was through pretentious "documentaries" that exposed the sordid side of London's nightlife or life in a nudist colony. In reality, these denouncements of promiscuous sex existed strictly to capitalize on promiscuous sex and everyone knew it. Pete Walker was an enterprising young entrepreneur who tried to fill the gap for sex-starved Britons by shooting hastily-arranged, no-budget black and white exploitation films that lasted only minutes. Walker had started in the even more staid early part of the decade by hiring well-endowed, free-spirited young woman to "star" in his modest productions. There was no shortage of talent, as Briton did have a booming market in glamour magazines that featured nude models and starlets. Walker would shoot the silent B&W films on 8mm before graduating to 16mm. The final product would be sold in local book shops for extravagant prices. Walker and the store made tidy profits and the consumer could feast his eyes on some bare female flesh. Everyone was a winner.

 In 1969 Walker decided to do something far more ambitious by creating a film with an actual story line and populated by people who could really act. The result was "For Men Only" (AKA "Hot Girls For Men Only"), a ribald comedy that ran a scant 43 minutes but had production values that looked like "Gone With the Wind" compared to his earlier efforts. David Kernan (who played Pvt. Hitch in "Zulu" a few years before) plays Freddie Horn, a young man engaged to marry Rosalie (Andrea Allen). However, she demands that he quit his job as fashion editor for a prominent journal because he is generally assigned to interview beautiful young models who wear barely-there new clothing lines. She's right to be jealous, as Freddie has been living quite the life, indulging in the "fringe benefits" of being around so many willing young women. Reluctantly, he applies for a job as a writer for a bland magazine that will ensure he has no exposure to the fairer sex. He is summoned from London to the countryside to meet his prospective new employer, Miles Fanthorpe (Derek Aylward). He meets Fanthorpe at a local church where he is giving a stern lecture on morality and the decay of society, which he attributes to permissive sex and increasing tolerance of homosexuality. The small crowd responds enthusiastically to his conservative, fire-and-brimstone rant. Freddie is understandably depressed at the prospect of working for such a man but the first clue that not all is as it seems occurs when Fanthorpe gives him a lift back to his manor house- in an Aston Martin DB5. Once at the house, Fanthorpe comes clean. His uses his reputation as a conservative prude to mask his real personality which is that of a sex-obsessed rogue. Fanthorpe then introduces Freddie to his staff, which consists of busty young women of loose morals who spend the entire day romping around in bikinis or sunning themselves while topless. Freddie is understandably delighted to accept the job of writing for one of Fanthorpe's publications that deals with nude models. Within minutes, he is immersed in a virtual orgy- and he understandably forgets a vitally important social engagement for that evening. Seems he has to accompany Rosalie and her parents to a black tie dinner to celebrate their wedding anniversary. The parents can't stand Freddie as it is and have warned Rosalie that he is addicted to skirt chasing. When Freddie doesn't turn up for dinner, Rosalie sets out to trace his whereabouts and ends up at the country manner where she sees the real scenario. Naturally, through happenstance even her prudish parents show up along with a local parson, resulting in a chaotic scene that culminates with a bevy of bikini girls being stuffed into the DB5 for a fast getaway. (Not even 007 enjoyed that privilege.) Although one could term the film as a "sexploitation" title, that doesn't do it justice. "For Men Only" is actually quite amusing and features some very fine comedic performances. The sexual content is quite mild but there is something  erotic about seeing these lovely young actresses cavort about while scantily clad. It's like Matt Helm on steroids. 

The other feature, "School for Sex", also features Derek Aylward in essentially the same kind of role he played in "For Men Only". Here he is an upper-crust type named Giles Wingate who inherited a manor house and a fortune and blew through it all by marrying a series of opportunistic golddiggers.  To pay off his debts, he engages in some dubious financial tactics that end up with him being criminally prosecuted. He's spared a jail sentence and put on probation but still needs to find a way to pay for his lavish lifestyle as well as the salary for his elderly, intensely loyal butler. He comes up with an inspired idea. Since he was snookered by so many lovely young women, he decides to open a "School for Sex" on his premises. The idea is to charge beautiful young women a hefty fee for instructing them how to seduce wealthy men and ensure their financial well-being. In order to carry out the plan, he needs some female assistance. He hires the Duchess of Burwash, a widowed hot-to-trot middle-aged cougar played by Rose Alba, who main claim to fame was her short but memorable appearance as the SPECTRE "widow" who gets socked by James Bond in the opening of "Thunderball". She's a boozy opportunist but she delivers the goods in terms of instructing her students how to seduce naive men. Before long, there are more students than Wingate can accommodate. Rich families are sending their daughters for instruction, thinking they will be attending a finishing school for sophisticated young women. Instead, they will run around naked and engage in sex techniques. The film comes to an ironic conclusion as Wingate becomes a victim of his own success. "School for Sex" is described by Pete Walker as the worst movie he ever made. He blames himself for not getting a professional screenwriter and trying to keep costs down by writing the script himself. Although not as polished as "For Men Only", it still has its amusing moments and there is plenty of eye candy in the form of the lovely young ladies. The performances of Aywayrd and Alba are also very funny.  The film is a bit more daring than "For Men Only"  in that it does include topless sequences and a glimpse or two of full nudity.

Kino Lorber has released both films as a Blu-ray double feature edition. Both remastered prints look excellent and the special features in the package are most welcome. Pete Walker provides a new filmed interview and gives some interesting insights into the world of sexploitation films in England during the 1960s. There are also numerous Walker "loops", the early B&W silent nudie flicks as well as a trailer for "School for Sex" and alternate footage from the film featuring full nudity that was shot for the Japanese market. 

In summary, it's a delightful trip down Mammary Lane for anyone who appreciates the low-brow pleasures of such "naughty" entertainment.

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BY LEE PFEIFFER

Carlos Tobalina was among the most prolific of adult film directors. From the late 1960s through the late 1980s, Tobalina ground out dozens of grind house porn flicks and, no fool he, appeared in any number of them as well, though often not in the sex scenes. What set Tobalina's films apart was the fact that he at least tried to instill some quality and occasional social messages into what was otherwise undistinguished fare. Tobalina, who died at age 64 in 1989, would probably have appreciated the fact that Vinegar Syndrome has been releasing quite a few of his titles in remastered DVD editions that probably look better than they did back in the day. Among these releases is a Tobalina double feature that he directed under one of his alter ego names, Troy Benny. Both of the movies have a common theme in that they star one William Margold, who apparently was quite influential in the adult film industry of the 1980s and is still appearing in sleazy movies today even though he is in his seventies. He is also a social activist, having founded the Free Speech Coalition and established a charity to look after down-and-out veterans of the porn industry. First up in the double feature is "Lust Inferno", a 1982 production in which Margold appears as a corrupt TV evangelist (is there any other kind?). Margold, who is curiously billed as "Mr. William Margold" (not even Orson Welles had that much clout), stars as Rev. Jerry, a charismatic preacher who rips off the suckers in his audience by indulging in the usual fire-and-brimstone sermons. He also "cures" invalids who he pays off in cash backstage after the event. At home, Rev. Jerry is very much a family man, but it's probably not the kind of family most of us could relate to. His wife (Rita Ricardo) is frustrated that the Rev won't indulge in intercourse with her because he believes the act is only for procreation. He does indulge in some other sexual activities with her that are entirely for his satisfaction. Consequently, she goes off to "group therapy" sessions that are actually bi-sexual orgies. Rev. Jerry's oldest daughter, Dora (Tamara Longley) does the same with her teenage friends because dad won't allow her to date anyone. (The effectiveness of that strategy seems to be dubious, at best.) Meanwhile, the youngest daughter, Lucy  (Marguerite Nuit) is also finding it hard to deal with her raging hormones. She asks for- and receives- her mother's permission to adopt a disguise and seek work in the local bordello that is run by Madame Blanche (Lina Spencer). What Lucy and no one else in the family knows is that her father is Madame Blanche's best customer. He pays thousands of dollars for S&M sex sessions with Blanche's young hookers. This plot development leads to the film's ironic conclusion in which Reverend Jerry finally pays a terrible price for his immorality- but it also results in a major "Yuck" factor for the viewer. The hardcore scenes are pretty standard for the era with nothing particularly inventive going on but at least director Tobalina attempts to make a statement about the craze for supporting corrupt TV preachers. In fact, he was a bit ahead of his time. Within a few years some of the best-known televangelists would be brought down in their own sex scandals. 

The most enjoyable aspect of the presentation is the recent interview with William Margold on a commentary track. Margold describes himself as a blowhard and its difficult to take issue with him. We're all for admiring anyone who takes pride in their work but Margold discusses "Lust Inferno" as though it's a major achievement. He indicates that he based his interpretation of the Reverend on Richard Brooks' 1960 film version of "Elmer Gantry" and says that back in the day he even met Burt Lancaster and correctly predicted he would win an Oscar for the role. The most amusing aspect of the commentary track has Margold, who was obviously watching a sub-standard VHS version prior to the film's restoration for DVD, complain constantly about the poor quality of the tape. He also rails against the fact that the version they are watching is missing key sequences, only to have him proven wrong when they turn up later. Margold,  like most of the leading men in this peculiar branch of the film industry, was probably chosen more for his physical attributes than his acting abilities, but he seems to think that his work here is top-notch both. In fact, his performance is par for the course for porn films and there is no indication he possessed any admirable skills outside of the boudoir. Speaking of which, Margold waxes nostalgic about some of his sex partners in the movie, including one woman who became his wife and another who he continues to pine away for because he never appeared in a sex scene with her, sort of like the fisherman who gripes about "the one who got away".  Regarding stock footage in the film of real life audiences at televangelist events, Margold chuckles and wonders if they ever knew they would end up in a porn film. It's also quite eye-opening to listen to Margold give the play-by-play for his on-screen antics and to provide opinions about his personal techniques for self-pleasure. Margold may indeed be a blowhard but he makes for an entertaining commentator.  You have to admire Vinegar Syndrome for creating some value-added content that is both funny and insightful because it gives you an idea of what the adult film industry was like from the viewpoint of one of its veterans. 

The second feature on the DVD is "Marathon", a lazy production even by the low standards one would have expected for the genre. Shot in 1982, it's a quickie that features a lot of major stars from the industry including Ron Jeremy, Jamie Gillis. Sharon Mitchell and John Holmes. The "plot" simply features a large group of swingers who attend a costume party at Gillis's apartment. Everyone is getting it on while attired in crazy costumes when a phone call alerts them that a friend (William Margold) and his wife have been injured in a skiing accident and they are both in the hospital. Deciding to provide the kind of bedside companionship that no doctor would, they all barge into the hospital suite where Margold and his wife are being treated. Here, while still in costume, they resume the orgy. The therapy works as both patients join in the action. The film is played entirely for laughs and is therefore about as erotic as a dip in a pool of ice water.

The transfers of both features look very good with vibrant colors and enough original film stock grain to make you nostalgic for the era.  

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BY LEE PFEIFFER

"Young Billy Young" is the kind of film of which it can be said, "They don't make 'em like that anymore". Not because the movie is so exceptional. In fact, it isn't exceptional on any level whatsoever. Rather, it's the sheer ordinariness of the entire production that makes one pine away for an era in which top talent could be attracted to enjoyable, if unremarkable, fare such as this. Such films, especially Westerns, were churned out with workmanlike professionalism to play to undemanding audiences that didn't require mega-budget blockbusters to feel they got their money's worth at the boxoffice. Sadly, such movies have largely gone the way of the dodo bird. In today's film industry, bigger must always be better and mid-range flicks such as are no longer made. However, through home video releases such as Kino Lorber's Blu-ray of "Young Billy Young", it's possible to still enjoy the simple pleasures that such movies provide.  

The story opens with botched robbery in Mexico committed by Billy Young (Robert Walker) and some cohorts including Jesse (David Carradine). The plan to steal horses from the Mexican military goes awry and Billy is forced to split from his fellow robbers with the army in hot pursuit. Making his way back across the border to New Mexico, he is penniless and desperate. He has a chance encounter with Ben Kane (Robert Mitchum), a tough, sarcastic older man who he encounters again in a nearby town. Here, Billy is being cheated at cards by the local sheriff, who goads him into a gunfight. Billy ends up killing him but stands to be framed for the sheriff's death. He's saved by Ben, who rides along with him to another town where Ben has agreed to take on the job of lawman. Ostensibly he is there to keep order and collect back taxes from deadbeats but in reality, he is on a mission of revenge. Some years before, Ben's son had been gunned down by a criminal named Boone (John Anderson) and Kane has learned that Boone is a presence in the new town and that he is being protected by a local corrupt businessman, John Behan (Jack Kelly). Ben makes his presence known immediately by enforcing the law in a strict manner. He's confronted by Behan, who tries to intimidate him. This results in Behan being slapped around by Kane. Behan also grows to resent the new lawman because he is flirting with his mistress, saloon entertainer Lily Beloit (Angie Dickinson). When Behan abuses her as punishment, he gets another beating from Kane. Meanwhile, Billy runs into Jesse and accuses him of having deserted him in Mexico. The two men fight it out and Jesse is later involved with the accidental shooting of the town's beloved doctor while in the employ of Behan. Kane learns that Jesse is Boone's son and holds him in jail as bait for Boone to come out of hiding. The plan works all too well. Boone turns up with a small army and lays siege to the jailhouse where Kane and Billy are holed up. 

Original French lobby card.

"Young Billy Young" was compared to a TV show by New York Times critic Howard Thompson on the basis that it contains so many standard elements of westerns from this time period. There is the bad girl with the heart of gold, the evil business tycoon, the brash young gun and his wiser, older mentor, the heroes outnumbered by superior forces and a lovable old coot (played against type by Paul Fix in full Walter Brennan/Gabby Hayes mode.) Yet somehow it all works very well, thanks mostly to Robert Mitchum's stalwart presence. With his trademark ram-rod stiff walk and cool persona, Mitchum tosses off bon mots like a frontier version of 007. Even the Times acknowledged that "Mitchum can do laconic wonders with a good wise-crack". He has considerable chemistry with Dickinson, though the action between the sheets is more implied than shown. Robert Walker Jr. acquits himself well in the title role and David Carradine makes an impression even with limited screen time. The film was directed by Burt Kennedy, an old hand at directing fine westerns in reliable, if not remarkable, style and it all culminates in a rip-snorting shoot-out that is genuinely exciting. The fine supporting cast includes Willis Bouchey, Parley Baer and Deanna Martin (Dino's daughter) in her acting debut.  One oddball element to the film: Mitchum croons the title song over the opening credits. If this sounds strange, keep in mind that Mitchum improbably once had a hit album of calypso music.  

The Kino Lorber Blu-ray includes the original trailer as well as trailers for other westerns, "Support Your Local Sheriff", "Support Your Local Gunfighter" and "The Wonderful Country", which also stars Mitchum.

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BY LEE PFEIFFER

In addition to being a reliable and fairly popular leading man, Ray Milland also showed some talent as a film director. In total, he directed five movies- among them "The Safecracker", a 1958 low-budget British film noir made by MGM.  The fast-moving story concerns one Colley Dawson (Milland), an expert safecracker who uses his skills for a home security company. He is hired out to design safes for wealthy clients that can be deemed impossible to crack. Although regarded as a genius in his field, Colley is in a deep funk. He's in his fifties, has no home to call his own and still lives with his doting, aging mother (Barbara Everest) in a small home in a nondescript street in London. When Colley lands a major, lucrative contract for his company, his skinflint boss "rewards" him with a bonus of a measly five pound note. Colley's fortunes change when he is contacted by Bennett Carfield (Barry Jones), a wealthy man who divulges that he earns his income through trading in stolen antiques. He entices Colley to use his safecracking skills to form a criminal partnership with him in return for 50% of the profits. Colley doesn't need much persuasion. Feeling he is on the road to nowhere, he is eager to finally enjoy the finer things in life and has no ethical reservations about how to acquire them. Before long he is sneaking into affluent people's homes and relieving the owners of prized possessions. He adopts a dual identity. During the work week, he remains the wimpy employee of an ungrateful boss. On weekends, however, he tools around in a fancy sports car, dates a glamorous, sexually-charged minor actress and bets extravagant sums on horses. Things come to a crashing halt, however, when Scotland Yard gets wind of his activities. Carfield urges him to stop his safecracking because he is under suspicion but the arrogant Colley insists on pulling off one more caper- which he does with disastrous consequences. He soon finds himself in jail facing an eight year sentence. However, two years into his term, England is at war with Nazi Germany. He is approached by military intelligence with a tempting offer: accommodate a team of commandos on a highly dangerous mission in occupied Belgium in return for a full pardon. The plan revolves around a list of German secret agents in England that is being stored in safe inside a heavily guarded country chateau. The plan is to infiltrate the house, have Colley and the team penetrate the safe and photograph the list. If it works, the Nazis will be none-the-wiser that their agents' identities are now known. Colley agrees to go but proves to be a handful for the unit in which he will serve. He's not only long in the tooth, he's got tusks. Still, he completes a crash course in parachuting techniques and before long finds himself behind enemy lines but separated from his companions. From this point, the plot revolves around Colley meeting up with his team because their mission is useless without his participation. As director Milland manages to milk some occasional suspense out of the proceedings and sensibly turns his age into an asset. He can't keep up with his younger companions and his newly-found playboy lifestyle intrudes when his attempts to romance a Resistance girl almost compromises the mission. The final scenes of the film, set inside the chateau, are handled well and the ironic ending is rather moving. 

"The Safecracker" is definitely "B" movie fare, but that isn't meant as a knock. It's quite entertaining throughout and Milland gives a highly amusing performance as a rogue who finds himself serving his country's war effort with a distinct lack of enthusiasm. The film features a fine cast of British character actors with Barry Jones particularly impressive. The Warner Archive release features considerable artifacts but they are a minor distraction. Most annoying is the fact that the night footage (much of it derived from newsreels) is so dark that you feel as though you are peering into an inkwell. Still, this is consistently entertaining film that will have cross-over appeal for lovers of crime movies, spy flicks and WWII films. A weather-beaten original trailer is also included. The DVD is region-free.

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"Batman v. Superman": potential blockbuster or "Cleopatra Redux".

BY LEE PFEIFFER

The heavily-hyped Warner Brothers super hero epic "Batman V. Superman:  Dawn of Justice" is one of the most heavily promoted films in years. It's also one of the most expensive. Variety estimates that the film's $250 million production budget plus ancillary marketing costs will make it necessary for the movie to gross $800 worldwide just to break even. You read that right: $800 million. One industry analyst says that anything less than a gross of $1 billion will be considered a disappointment. Warner Brothers contends that those figures don't take into consideration ancillary revenues from video and merchandising. Fair enough, but if a film bombs, generally speaking, the merchandise and video sales do, too. If you doubt it, how many people did you see walking around with "Waterworld" or "Howard the Duck" T shirts? Veteran screenwriter William Goldman once said of the film industry "Nobody knows anything." That was decades ago and it's still true today. The major studios are so devoid of any original ideas that they can only keep upping the ante in hopes of milking the current passion for big-budget comic book hero productions. It seems that if "Hamlet" were to be brought to the big screen nowadays, the famed soliloquy would have to be delivered by some guy in a cape and mask. Warner Brothers says that the fate of the studio doesn't depend on "Batman vs. Superman", but the fact that they would have to make such a statement indicates how high the stakes are in terms of this film delivering the goods.

Short-sighted studio executives have always been suckers for mega-budget would-be blockbusters. After the success of "Ben-Hur" and "The Ten Commandments" in the late 1950s, studios churned out any number of big-budget roadshow productions. Some worked out well ("The Sound of Music", "Patton", "The Longest Day"), some did okay ("The Alamo", "The Sand Pebbles") while many more lost substantial sums of money ("Mutiny on the Bounty", "55 Days at Peking", "Reds",  "Hello, Dolly!", "Cleopatra",  "Paint Your Wagon" and the notorious "Heaven's Gate"). That isn't to say that most of these boxoffice bombs weren't good movies. In fact, some were great movies, but from a sound business standpoint, their budgets should never have been allowed to jeopardize the health of the entire studio. When James Cameron's "Titanic" went over-budget and ended up costing $200 million back in 1997, industry executives swore they would never put themselves in such a precarious situation again. Guess what? The film became a blockbuster and all caution was thrown to the wind. Before long, directors who were deemed to be hot could get a virtual blank check if they could convince studio bosses that they had the next "can't miss" formula. That included Cameron, who ended up dropping $300 million on "Avatar", which managed to denounce capitalist corporations even as Cameron sought millions from the same entities to finance his already-forgettable blockbuster. (Cameron had learned never to sink your own money into your own production, regardless of how passionate you are about it. It was a lesson learned the hard way by John Wayne on "The Alamo" and Francis Ford Coppola on "Apocalypse Now".)  However, the truth of the matter is that the industry is relying on fewer and fewer blockbusters to carry the baggage for other costly productions that either under-perform or bomb outright. The jury is not yet in on "Batman v. Superman" but how it stacks up in terms of quality isn't the most relevant factor. If the movie doesn't open huge there will be at lot of pants wetting in the corporate boardroom. (Word of mouth on the film is worrying. Apparently, trailers aren't testing that well with the fan boy base the studio needs to woo.)  

Here's a suggestion: how about cutting back on productions that have budgets equivalent to some nation's entire gross national product and get back in the business of making modestly-budgeted movies that are designed to make modest profits. Studios never bet the ranch on mid-range westerns, war movies and spy flicks. Kate Hepburn, Jerry Lewis, Gary Cooper, Burt Lancaster and Marilyn Monroe never starred in high risk blockbusters but their films could always be relied upon to make a decent profit. In the rare cases they did not, the losses were never very substantial. Remember when classic sci-fi movies like "Planet of the Apes" could be completed on relatively small budgets even with major talent involved? Today, insane salaries for overpaid talent have driven the costs of films sky high even before shooting even begins. This, despite the fact that unlike days of old, there are precious few genuine "stars" still left in the industry. What defines a star? Someone whose name on the marquee virtually guarantees a film's success, regardless of the quality of a film. Try thinking of how many actors today meet that criteria. The studios have learned nothing since the era in which Fox bet its very future on the fate of one film: "Cleopatra". It's a practice akin to the average person betting their life savings on a sure bet at a casino.  I dunno. I'm just a guy with a blue collar background from Jersey City but I think I could run a studio boardroom more responsibly than some of the folks who are now doing so-- and so could you. Nobody knows anything. 

Ridin' High: Eastwood shared the cover of Time magazine in 1978 with his friend and fellow superstar Burt Reynolds, who were acclaimed as the two biggest boxoffice stars in the world.

BY LEE PFEIFFER

Clint Eastwood is now an icon of international cinema but back in the late 1970s he was "merely" a superstar, devoid of the kind of critical praise that he now routinely enjoys. It was in 1979 that my co-author Boris Zmijeswky and I approached a publisher with a book titled "The Films of Clint Eastwood", the first attempt to analyze his films on a one-by-one basis. (If I ever looked through it today, it would probably strike me as awful, but, hey, we all had to start somewhere, I was just out of college and eager to write a book.) The publisher immediately agreed but when the transcript was handed in the editor voiced concerns to me. He said that, while everyone enjoyed Eastwood's movies, I was perhaps according him more credit than he deserved as an actor and director. When I told him that I felt  Eastwood had the potential to become a world-class director, he chuckled in a patronizing sort of way. Apparently, I wasn't the only one who felt that there was more to the "Eastwood Mystique" than a cool, soft-spoken, hard-hitting action hero. Writer Robert Ward, who penned some masterful portrayals of iconic actors of the era through excellent interviews, also made no apologies for his admiration for Eastwood's talents. In those days there were precious few of us and Eastwood was happy to accommodate journalists who were serious about discussing his work. When Ward interviewed Eastwood in 1977 for Crawdaddy magazine, Eastwood's latest crime thriller "The Gauntlet" had just been released. Ward spent two hours interviewing Eastwood- then had to spend two more unexpectedly (for reasons you will discover when you to read the interview, now republished on the Daily Beast web site titled "When It Became Cool to Like Clint Eastwood".) What emerges is a portrait of Eastwood at a time when he was the biggest star in the world, yet still devoid of the opportunities he would get later to showcase his talents as director. Of his acting abilities, it had been said- not initially without some truth- that he attended "The Mount Rushmore Acting Academy". However, as the years passed, Eastwood- like all actors- became more competent and interesting in terms of expressing emotion on screen. Ironically, Ward interviewed Eastwood when "The Gauntlet" was under-performing in comparison to his other action flicks. No wonder- it's arguably the worst film of his career, at least in the era since he became a major star But Eastwood kept growing as a director and actor and some triumphs, small and large, loomed before him beginning in the late 1980s with "Bird". Even those of us who defended his work and looked prophetic for our early support of him could not envision the length and breadth of his career- and he's still going strong. Click here to go back and time and read Ward's excellent interview; one that has not been equaled since in terms of getting to the personal side of the man behind the myth. 

BY LEE PFEIFFER

The good folks at Synapse Films are primarily known for releasing high-end editions of retro porn flicks and cult sci-fi/ horror titles. All of their releases are impressive, if not in terms of content, then certainly in terms of quality and the imaginative bonus extras. The label often gives the deluxe treatment generally reserved for David Lean films to low-rung, long-forgotten titles. Often, even if the film is of questionable merits, the perspectives offered by the extras make the viewing experience highly enjoyable. Synapse sometimes strays from their own formula by releasing mainstream films. Case in point: "Stalingrad", an acclaimed three episode documentary that was broadcast to great acclaim in 2003 in Germany and Russia. The new Synapse Blu-ray release is an extended cut featuring previously unseen footage. The film is presented in three separate stand-alone episodes, each running 55 minutes, that follow the progression of the battle in sequential order.  As a viewing experience, "Stalingrad" is utterly mesmerizing. It's a sobering reflection on what was deemed the bloodiest battle of WWII. Directors Sebastian Dehnhardt, Christian Deick and Jorge Mullner present heart-wrenching interviews with both German and Russian veterans of the battle. The horrors they recount are backed up by some of most dramatic newsreel footage I've ever seen. The battle of Stalingrad has been documented many times before- and very effectively. However this documentary has the advantage of an extensive running time that allows some of the more personal nuances to be recounted in ways that previous documentaries were not able to do. The film is fairly well balanced between the Russian and German perspectives and the stories told from both sides are uniformly moving. 

If there is a weakness in the production its in the fact that it lacks an introduction that gives the overall background on how the battle came to be. Clues to its origins are strewn throughout the episodes but for the benefit of those who are not WWII historians, a brief overview of the conflict would have been useful. For the record, in 1939 Nazi Germany shocked the world by signing an alliance with Stalin's Soviet Union. The move was a surprise because from a political standpoint, National Socialism was vehemently against Communism. But Adolf Hitler was shrewd in his political dealings. He conned Britain and France into ceding Czechoslovakia to him on the basis of a promise that it would satiate his territorial demands. By the time they realized they had been snookered, Hitler had moved against Poland, thus initiating the outbreak of WWII. Hitler was already in alliance with imperial Japan and Italy. Indeed the Axis powers seemed destined to rule much of the world.  Josef Stalin was more than happy to sign up and share the spoils of war. He assisted in invading Poland and Finland but behind the scenes Hitler regarded him as a hapless stooge and the Russian people are genetically inferior to the Aryan race. By forming an alliance with Stalin, Hitler ensured that he wouldn't have to fight the Soviet army until a time of his choosing. That time came in June 1941 when Hitler launched a major invasion of the Soviet Union. By that point he was comfortably in control of most of continental Europe and he felt he could deal Stalin a quick death blow. His generals warned him otherwise, but Hitler had assumed total command of German military strategy. At first his instincts seemed to be right. German columns made quick progress through the Soviet territory, decimating the ill-prepared enemy forces they encountered. Thousands of miles of land was seized and the peasant populations subject to cruel tortures and genocide. Hitler's unwillingness to take advice from his generals backfired when he split his forces in 1942 to launch simultaneous attacks on two different regions, sending half in a quixotic mission to seize the oil fields in the Caucuses and the other half to take Stalingrad. It was the military equivalent of hubris.  He was most obsessed with taking Stalingrad not because of any relevant military importance but simply to deal Stalin a personal blow by occupying the city that bore his name. The Germans met far greater resistance than they had anticipated. The civilian population joined the fight and proved a formidable force, building barricades and tank traps while the regular army fought the Germans fiercely. Germans did inch forward and at various points occupied large sections of the city. However, Staliln's mastermind general Zhukov had kept an enormous army secretly in reserve. As winter bore on, the Germans were not equipped to deal with the harsh Russian weather. Food and fuel supplies dwindled, morale sank among the huge German Sixth Army and their advance came to a stalemate. Zhukov waited until his prey was weak and disheartened, then launched a one million man surprise counterattack that resulted in hundreds of thousands of German troops being encircled, starved and relentlessly bombarded even as temperatures reached 60 below zero. The toll was horrendous on German troops, many of whom died from starvation and some from suicide. Toward the end, the starving soldiers sometimes resorted to cannibalism to survive. Hitler demanded that the troops fight to the last man, but Field Marshal Paulus ultimately relented and surrendered, making him the first German Field Marshal in history to do so. Ultimately it would take years before a political agreement would see the surviving POWs allowed to return to Germany. Only 6,000 of the 100,000 prinsonersremained alive at that time. 

"Stalingrad" cuts presentation of the causes and background of all of the above to the bare minimum, instead concentrating on first-hand accounts of the battle. Survivors include both Russian civilians and German and Soviet war veterans. All of their stories are compelling and some might move you to tears. Among the tales of mutual cruelty, however, are some stories of unexpected compassion. The German POWs expected to be executed immediately but were impressed by the fact that their captors, themselves drastically short of food, split their bread ration with the prisoners. Soviet doctors also worked diligently to save the lives of wounded Germans. For the German troops, most had turned against Hitler when it became clear that he intended to all but abandon the Sixth Army to their fate, save for a relative small number of wounded men who were able to be airlifted out. One patient recalls that all wounded men were placed in occupied Poland until they recovered because Hitler didn't want the stigma of so many injured soldiers to bring down the morale of the German people who, by that time, were suffering terribly. The Blu-ray includes a wealth of incredible battle footage from both sides that will make you appreciate the bravery of war time photographers and filmmakers. Bonus features include interview segments that were deleted from the original cut of the film, an interview with historian Dr. Guido Knopp that adds interesting perspectives to the events, and "Stalingrad Today", a video tour of the impressive city that has since been rebuilt and renamed Volgograd but which still bares the scars of the infamous battle. What is left as an overriding impression is that over 500,000 died unnecessarily in order to satiate the whims of a madman.

"Stalingrad" is a major historical record  that should be seen by everyone.  

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BY DOUG OSWALD

Randolph Scott plays a former Confederate spy in the 1953 western “The Stranger Wore a Gun.” When the movie starts, Jeff Travis (Scott) is involved in a brutal murder during the final days of the Civil War while spying for Quantrill' Raiders, a gang of notorious Confederate guerrillas. A wanted man after the war, Travis heads west to Arizona to start a new life. Josie Sullivan (Claire Trevor) helps him escape from a river boat and meets up with him later in Arizona. Travis also meets up with one of his former Quantrill Raider associates, Jules Mourret (George Macready), who offers him a position in his new gang of outlaws so he can continue to steal “Yankee gold.”

Mourret wants Travis to continue his old ways as a spy and pretends to be a detective sent by the stage line to investigate recent gold robberies. Travis meets the local stage line owner Jason Conroy (Pierre Watkin) and his pretty daughter Shelby (Joan Weldon) and both take a liking to him. Travis plays Mourret against rival gang leader Degas (Alfonso Bedoya) and tries to turn Mourret’s own men against each other. Dan Kurth (Lee Marvin) and Bull Slager (Ernest Borgnine) are part of Mourret’s gang of cutthroats and naturally they don’t trust Travis.

The movie is filled with action scenes staged for the 3-D camera and they look a bit silly on the flat screen. However, the movie has high production value, fine performances and is high on action with one particularly brutal scene of a man having objects shot off his head by a drunk Degas and his equally drunk sidekick as the man begs for his life. Travis shows up and departs, leaving Degas to continue his deadly game. The move comes to a predictable conclusion with a fire, gunfights and Travis and Josie departing on the stage together.

DeToth and Scott made six movies together, all westerns; “Man in the Saddle” (1951), “Carson City” (1952), “The Stranger Wore a Gun” (1953), “Thunder Over the Plains” (1953), “Riding Shotgun” (1954) and “The Bounty Hunter” (1954). DeToth was known for the gritty depiction of violence in his movies, many of them crime thrillers and westerns, but he is also remembered as the director of one of the greatest horror movies ever made. No stranger to 3-D, he helmed the horror masterpiece, “House of Wax” for Warner Bros. in the same year he made “The Stranger Wore a Gun.” The irony is that the Hungarian born director only had one eye and lacked the depth perception to enjoy the fruits of his 3-D labor. Yet he directed what is considered to be both the greatest 3-D movie and one of the best horror flicks ever made. The first wave of 3-D movies was released throughout the 1950s, but the process was costly and cumbersome with few theaters set up to project in the duel strip 3-D process.

Columbia chose the right director for a 3-D western, but this movie was only shown in that format in its early engagements. Watching it in 2-D one can still see where 3-D effects were used as guns are fired, flaming torches, chairs and whisky bottles are tossed directly toward the camera at every opportunity.

The Explosive Media DVD is Region 2 so you’ll need the appropriate player (though some viewers report they had no problem playing it on their Region 1 units.) The movie audio options are German and the original English. Extras include a photo montage of advertising material and a couple of trailers, including one where Scott promotes the virtues of three dimensions, Technicolor and stereo. The picture and sound quality are terrific and the movie concludes after a brisk 79 minutes. Well worth the time for classic western fans.

(Note: Explosive Media titles are primarily available through Amazon Germany. However, imports often turn up on eBay and Amazon in other countries.) 

BY LEE PFEIFFER

Impulse Pictures has once again delved into their archives of seemingly unlimited adult film titles from the 1970s and 1980s for two separate DVD releases: "Farmer's Daughters" and "Snow Honeys". The former film is apparently the most notorious- and for good reason. Released in 1976, "Farmer's Daughter's" is the work of director/writer Zebedy Colt, who made a reputation back in the day for creating some of the most distasteful and shocking hardcore porn feature films. The fact that the bearded, grungy Mr. Colt is seamy enough to make the lunatics on "Duck Dynasty" look like sex symbols did not stop him from placing himself in the leading role, thereby guaranteeing he'd get plenty of "fringe benefits" from the on-screen action. The setting is a remote farm in an unnamed location. The opening sequences make you think you're going to be watching a lighthearted porn spoof of shows like "The Beverly Hillbillies" and "Green Acres". We see the aforementioned Mr. Colt as Shep, an aging, bedraggled husband who is happily going at it with his wife Kate (porn superstar and publisher Gloria Leonard, billed here as Gayle Leonard.) Ms. Leonard is fine on the eyes but it takes a lot of willpower to watch Colt enjoying carnal pleasures with her. Things get kinky right away when we see that they are been secretly observed by their three daughters (Susan McBain, Marlene Willoughby and Nancy Dare). That's a pretty twisted premise right there but things are about to get even weirder. The three sexually frustrated sisters are inspired to take matters into their own hands and start a private orgy between themselves. When a goofy local farm boy, Fred (Bill Cort), stumbles on the scene, they force him to have sex with them. (That's right: in the film's most unbelievable lapse in credibility, he has to be forced to have sex with them.) What follows won't be described here in detail. Suffice it to say that upon having Fred reluctantly satisfy their needs they indulge in some acts of humiliation towards him that are still plenty eye-opening even by today's standards. 

Pretty soon the sisters get their own comeuppance when three escaped convicts happen upon the farmhouse. You don't have to be a modern Sherlock Holmes to figure out the premise that happens next as the three men engage in gang rape and even kinkier activities involving the girl's parents. Again, we won't provide the details but  the molestation of young Fred pales in comparison to what follows. The film's climax somehow incorporates elements of "Last House on the Left", "Deliverance" and "Death Wish" and combines group sex, gang rape,  blood-drenched revenge murders and incest, thus giving a new interpretation of movies that are intended for the whole family. Perhaps the most bizarre aspect of this wacky exercise in perversion is the fact that one of the horny convicts is played by a real actor, Spalding Gray. Yes, that Spaulding Gray, the grumpy raconteur who built a cult following on the basis of his one-man stage show and subsequent film, "Swimming to Cambodia" which was based on his experiences playing a small role in the 1984 movie "The Killing Fields". 

"Farmer's Daughters" is repulsive, offensive, shocking and degenerate on every level. Small wonder that these "qualities" are cited in promotional releases for the DVD which will undoubtedly please its intended audience.

Another Impulse release is more benign in content but also wacky in its own way. "Snow Honeys", released in 1983, is a hodgepodge collection of scenes from unrelated porn flicks wrapped around a thin premise. Erotic superstars of the era Ken Starbuck and Kara Lott open the movie in scenes filmed at a scenic ski resort. They amiably break the "fourth wall" and speak directly to the viewer, griping that they are getting very little money for being in this production so they might as well enjoy themselves. Within minutes the two are starkers inside a resort hotel room and bizarrely describing scenes we are about to see even while they are pleasuring each other. This device is used to link choppy clips from older porn movies starring such familiar names and faces as John Holmes (was there a porn flick from this era he wasn't in?). Vanessa Del Rio, Desiree Cousteau, Seka and John Leslie, to name just a few. The vignettes range from a rather strange lesbian seduction sequence that starts out as romantic but quickly turns S&M to a somewhat amusing take off of Superman with the hero, Super Rod,  getting it on with Lois Lane (named Lois Canal here). The big joke is that every time they mention their more famous counterparts' names, they are bleeped. "Snow Honeys" is fairly uninspired in its premise but does provide some abbreviated and memorable moments from other, better productions- and at least Ken Starbuck and Kara Lott are much easier on the eye than watching anything starring Zebedy Colt.

Both transfers are impressive considering the questionable source material and both include sneak peeks at Impulse's line of "Peep Show" silent loops from grind house theaters of days gone by. "Snow Honeys" also has a reversible sleeve with the alternate image more provocative than the weird sleeve depicted above.

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BY LEE PFEIFFER

The contemporary horror film genre has become an endurance test for seeing how much blood and splatter can be contained in each stomach-churning release. Gone are the days when such films were populated by literate scripts and iconic stars. Fortunately, home video releases still allow us to revel in the glory days of the horror genre, which came to a gradual end in the mid-to-late 1970s. The genre reached its first peak in the great Universal Monster movies of the 1930s and 1940s before being reinvented for a new generation in "gorious colour" by Hammer studios in Britain. Then American International Pictures got on board with enormously successful adaptations of Edgar Allan Poe stories produced by Roger Corman and generally starring Vincent Price, who became a horror icon during this period.  This era also saw the rise of Amicus, another British production house that sought to emulate the success of Hammer by often producing horror anthology tales that also starred icons of the genre. Still, by the mid-1970s, such movies were growing stale with younger viewers as a new generation of filmmakers specialized in the kind of gory tales that would have been deemed unreleasable even a few years before. The 1974 production of "Madhouse" represents the last desperate gasp of the type of horror film that had grown so popular over the previous decade. It stars two genuine legends, Vincent Price and Peter Cushing, who heretofore had been denied sharing the screen together despite having jointly appeared in anthology horror flicks. Robert Quarry, who was being groomed as their heir apparent by American International on the basis of his portrayal of Count Yorga, also had a prominent role in "Madhouse". The production, however, was far from a joyous swansong for the film that marked Price's final association with American International. In fact, the entire movie was deemed such a mess by those involved that it's a testament to their talents that it was even completed. The film was a joint venture between A.I.P. and Amicus, two studios with very different philosophies about making movies. There was tension from day one and the film went into production with a hastily cobbled together script that no one found satisfactory. Indeed, having received the script on Friday, the actors were expected to begin shooting on Monday. Robert Quarry was so disgusted by the lame dialogue that he took it upon himself to ghost write major portions of the script, an act that was looked upon favorably by his co-stars who asked him to do the same for their characters.. Jim Clark, who is primarily known as a talented editor for many esteemed films, was assigned the thankless task of bringing this mess-in-the-making to the screen. He was hobbled by a disgruntled and dispirited cast as well as quarreling executives. 

"Madhouse" was originally titled "The Revenge of Dr. Death", a much more appropriate title. The film opens with Price as legendary film star Paul Toombs hosting a New Years Eve party in his Hollywood mansion. Toombs has become a star largely based on his recurring role as Dr. Death, a hideous murderer who stalks his victim in a distinctive skull-like mask. He no sooner announces his engagement to a beautiful actress, Ellen Mason,  (Julie Crosthwait) when he is distastefully informed by porn producer  Oliver Quayle (Robert Quarry) that the bride-to-be used to be one of his top stars. Disgusted by this revelation, Toombs publicly chastises Ellen and the two storm off upstairs. Minutes later, Ellen is decapitated by someone in a Dr. Death costume. The prime suspect is Toombs, who is blamed for the murder and who suffers from a convenient bout of amnesia that leads him to believe he must have been guilty of the crime. He is committed to a mental institution for years. When he is released, he is convinced by his best friend and favorite screenwriter Herbert Flay (Peter Cushing) that he should accept an offer to revive the Dr. Death character for television. Ironically the show is being produced by Oliver Quayle, who is now a reputable figure in the industry. Toombs initially spawns the offer, partly out of revulsion for Quayle but primarily because he fears that playing Dr. Death again might inspire him to commit more violent crimes. Nevertheless, Herbert, who is now also an aspiring actor, convinces Toombs that he is up to the challenge. As the show goes into production, a series of high profile murders occurs with the victims turning out to be people who have come into contact with Toombs. They include an opportunistic young actress (Linda Hayden), who tries to seduce and blackmail him and her equally opportunistic step parents. As the body count rises everyone suspects that Toombs is the killer but Scotland Yard can't pin the crimes on him. It's apparent to the viewer, however, that Toombs is the victim, not the killer. This is typical for protagonists played by Price. Even if they are murderers, it's generally the result of them  having been driven insane by unscrupulous people they had trusted. "Madhouse" takes this formula to an extreme. At times it plays like "Gaslight" on steroids. You would also have to be the least adept sleuth since Inspector Clouseau if you can't spot who the real villain is practically from frame one. 

"Madhouse" follows the style of recently successful Price films from the era, primarily the Dr. Phibes movies and his acclaimed hit "Theatre of Blood" which had been released the previous year. The key component is a sense of campiness, though in "Madhouse" the actors play it straight and don't give overly broad comedic interpretations of their roles. Price actually has an interesting character to play, as Toombs is a multi-faceted man with a painful past and present to contend with. He does yeoman work, giving one of his finest late career performances (he even gets to croon a love song that is played on old Victrolas!).  Cushing is largely underutilized until the climax when the two stars share a terrific scene. Stuck between these two legends, Robert Quarry doesn't have much to do other than sip cocktails and make snarky remarks. Still, having these three stars on screen together makes for a delightful experience even if the material is often predictable. In fact, it's the sheer predictability of the script that makes the movie so enjoyable. This is the kind of horror flick in which nubile and defenseless young woman walk through dark houses to see what went bump in the night. It's gory and bloody in keeping up with the times, but somehow the gore is never as repugnant as it is in slasher and "dead teenager" flicks that would come to redefine the horror genre. It should also be pointed out that Price's Dr. Death makeup effects are truly impressive, as is the gimmick employed throughout the film of having clips from Price's old collaborations with Roger Corman shown as examples of Paul Toombs's career highlights. (A nice touch is acknowledging the late great Boris Karloff and Basil Rathbone, who appear in these sequences, in the opening credits of "Madhouse".) 

Kino Lorber's Blu-ray release is outstanding on all levels. It features a commentary track by horror film historian David Del Valle that is both entertaining and informative. Del Valle personally knew many of the people involved in the production and his track is like a master class in horror filmmaking.  There is also a short but very good retrospective documentary about the making of the film in which Del Valle is interviewed along with another esteemed horror film scholar, C. Courtney Joyner. Both of them provide plenty of fascinating facts about the troubled making of the movie, which was renamed "Madhouse" at the eleventh hour by A.I.P. executives who had already printed publicity materials bearing the film's previous title. The Blu-ray also contains a gallery of other Vincent Price films available through Kino Lorber. 

"Madhouse" may have been deemed a second rate horror film back in the day but, given the dearth of larger-than-life stars in today's movie industry, it allows retro movie lovers to revel in the onscreen pairing of two truly iconic screen legends.  It also represents the type of movie of which it can be said, "They don't make 'em like that any more". I only wish they did. 

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BY LEE PFEIFFER

Long regarded as one of Roger Corman's most ambitious and poignant films, "X: The Man with the X-Ray Eyes" comes to Blu-ray as an impressive special edition from Kino Lorber. Corman became a legend by overseeing production of countless low-budget horror and exploitation films beginning in the late 1950s. What the movies lacked in budgetary aspects they more than made up for in terms of intelligent scripts and often creative technical processes that more than compensated for the skimpy budgets. Corman's films not only gave early breaks to a  new generation of actors and filmmakers, but he also helped resurrect flagging careers of veteran actors, one of whom was Ray Milland, who stars in this film. Milland was a Best Actor Oscar winner for the 1945 movie "The Lost Weekend" but by the 1960s his boxoffice appeal had waned. By teaming with Corman on "The Premature Burial" in 1962, Milland found he enjoyed acting in horror-based flicks. They also helped him pay the bills and maintain his status as a leading man, albeit in vehicles that critics generally dismissed as "B" movies. If Milland never became a legend through his association with horror films as Vincent Price did, his presence in these movies kept him on the radar screen and allowed him to occasionally nab  fine roles in  major Hollywood productions such as "Love Story", "Gold" and "The Last Tycoon". The success of "The Premature Burial" led to Milland reuniting with Corman for "X" the following the year. 

Original Gold Key tie-in comic book.

"X: The Man with the X-Ray Eyes" presents Milland as Dr. James Xavier, a respected surgeon in a big city hospital who has an obsession for exploring the greater meaning of life. He is consumed by a belief that if people could be empowered to see through solid matter, they might learn the secrets the universe. Xavier has been working under a grant to explore these possibilities and the result is a serum that, if administered as eye drops, might allow a person to obtain X-ray vision. Against the advice of his colleagues who claim the serum hasn't been perfected yet, Xavier boldly administers the drops in his own eyes. The results are positive. He finds that, to a limited degree, he can indeed see through solid matter. However, the effects are temporary and unpredictable. Xavier tempts fate by continuing to up the dosage. This results in his being able to achieve extraordinary results. He finds he can see inside the human body and uses his skill to help correct misdiagnosed patients. His boss, head surgeon Dr. Willard Benson (John Hoyt) is skeptical of his claims and his best friend, Dr. Sam Brant (Harold J. Stone) refuses to assist him in his experiments on the basis that he perceives Xavier is suffering from psychological problems based on the serum he has been taking. In fact, Xavier is slowly being driven mad. By being able to see within virtually every object and person, he finds the mental anguish to be excruciating. He can't turn it off at will and is subject to often seeing the world through blinding psychedelic patterns that result in him acting irrational. His sole ally is his colleague Dr. Diane Fairfax (Diana Van der Vlis), a colleague who seems to have a romantic interest in him. Diane attempts to talk Xavier into stopping the experiments but he feels compelled to continue in the hope that eventually he will be able to unlock the secrets of life. Tragedy strikes when Xavier's irrational behavior results in the accidental death of a friend. Because he flees the scene, he becomes wanted for murder. By this point, the serum has wreaked havoc on his eyes, which now look surrealistic. To hide them, he wears an omnipresent pair of over-sized sunglasses. Desperate and alone, Xavier meets a carnival barker, Crane (Don Rickles), who soon understands the extraordinary power he possesses. Crane, an opportunist, convinces Xavier to appear at the carnival and use his power as a money-making gimmick. Xavier is appalled but consents out of financial necessity. However, when Crane begins to exploit sick people, Xavier flees the scene. Diane tracks him down and the two hurry to Las Vegas where Xaveri's X-ray vision results in him winning big. However, he doesn't know when to quit and suspicious casino staffers challenge him, turning his triumph into a debacle.The film's conclusion finds Xavier in a high speed car chase across the desert, pursued by police vehicle and helicopters. He stumbles on  a religious revival meeting being held in a tent by a charismatic, fanatical preacher (John Dierkes), whose sudden influence over Xavier results in the film's controversial and shocking final scene.

"X" is a fine film on all counts. Corman, who not only produced but also directed, never allows the fantastic premise of the story to drift into the area of the absurd. To his credit, Milland plays his role with the dignity he would have afforded to an "A" list part in a big budget film.  He gives a fine and compelling performance, as does everyone in the supporting cast including Rickles, who reminds us that he was once a dramatic actor before honing his skills as an insult comic. The intelligent script aspires to deal with issues that go beyond the standard horror/sci-fi film format. In this respect, it should be viewed on par with another similar film, "The Incredible Shrinking Man".  The movie also benefits from creative special effects, a fine score by Les Baxter and impressive cinematography by the legendary Floyd Crosby.

The film's final frames are still the subject of debate among retro movie lovers today.

The Kino Lorber Blu-ray is joy to view, not only because of the excellent transfer, but also due to the inclusion of two separate commentary tracks. On the first Corman discusses the film in detail, and with great affection. He also talks about his long term relationship with American International Pictures, a studio that allowed him virtually complete creative control over his productions. The result was a mutually beneficial partnership that lasted many years as the studio and Corman helped define each other. The second audio commentary track is by film historian Tim Lucas, whose knowledge not only of this specific film but of the genre itself is highly impressive. Not surprisingly, his grasp of the minor details involving the film's production exceeds that of Corman himself, who admits on his track that time has made his memory of certain aspects of the movie a bit hazy. (He incorrectly states that this was Don Rickles' first feature film, when, in fact, it was his fourth, having appeared in such high profile movies as "Run Silent, Run Deep" and "The Rat Race".) Both Corman and Lucas discuss in detail the film's controversial final frames, which I will not discuss here for fear of providing a spoiler. There is also a welcome video interview with director Joe Dante, who professes his love for the film from the first time he saw it as a kid. Dante also points out that the movie was originally titled simply "X" and remained so even in the print itself. He informs us that the subtitle "... The Man with the X-Ray Eyes" was added at the last minute for the print campaigns only. A segment from Dante's popular web site Trailers From Hell presents the movie's original trailer with an introduction and commentary by another contemporary director, Mick Garris.  The trailer also appears separately and when viewing it, one becomes of aware of how American International included the film's only humorous sequence simply for use in sexing up the trailer. It involves Xavier and Diane at a house party where Xavier finds his X-ray vision allows him to see everyone naked. Refreshingly, his ethics don't outweigh his libido and he does what any other guy would do: he keeps gawking. The trailer emphasizes this brief sequence as only an American International production could do. Another bonus included on the Blu-ray is the film's original prologue, a rather bizarre and pedantic slog that resembles those creaky old science documentaries that baby boomers were forced to watch in school auditoriums. The seemingly endless piece is boring and bland and Corman used excellent judgment in cutting it. Nevertheless, it makes for fascinating viewing today.

"X" was an important early success for Roger Corman. That it still stands the test of time as fine entertainment today is a testament to his skills as a producer and director.

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 The year 1969 represented major breakthroughs in cinematic freedoms, as evidenced by the big crowds who swarmed theaters to see erotica as "Sweden, Heaven and Hell". Although such films could probably be shown on the Disney Channel today, back in the day the softcore flicks marked the first time that "X" rated films were accepted as mainstream fare instead of fodder for guys in long raincoats. Suddenly, couples could brag about seeing these movies, which shortly thereafter gave way to even more sexualized celluloid. A few years later, the hardcore classics "Deep Throat" and "The Devil in Miss Jones" played continuously for years in the same theaters on 42nd Street. Cinematic sex was now here to stay, to the disgust of many and the delight of many more. - Lee Pfeiffer

BY LEE PFEIFFER

 Explosive Media is a German-based video label that releases superb special Blu-ray editions of films that retro movie lovers will salivate over. The only problem is that, due to licensing issues, their products are primarily available through Amazon Germany, although some imports of the titles can occasionally be found on eBay and other Amazon sites. Among their latest releases is Roger Corman's 1960 adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher". (Bizarrely, the film was marketed under this title in some territories and simply "House of Usher" in others. Go figure.) The film was a milestone in Corman's career. It not only marked his first color, Cinemascope production but also allowed him to finally graduate from making ultra-cheap, B&W exploitation flicks. More importantly, the film marked his first collaboration with Vincent Price, with whom he would team for numerous other Poe adaptations. "House of Usher" also proved important for Corman because henceforth, he would be working with American International Pictures for many years to come. AIP was supportive of his creative ideas and gave him virtually complete artistic control over his productions. The end result was that Price gained iconic stature in the horror genre, AIP became a highly profitable studio and Corman gained acclaim and respect as a producer and director who worked incredibly fast and efficiently without sacrificing the quality of the films. ("Usher" was shot in only 15 days!)  Along with way, the ties to Poe's original stories became quite flimsy, to say the least, but Corman always insisted on keeping them as period pieces and hired talented behind the scenes craftsmen to provide lush production values that masked to some degree the low budgets of the films. 

"House of Usher" opens with a solitary man riding his horse through a barren, ominous landscape. (Corman actually utilized an area of the Hollywood hills where a devastating fire had recently swept the area.) He arrives at a mansion house shrouded in fog and mist (another ploy of Corman's that he would frequently use to disguise the fact that he was shooting on a rather small studio set.) The man is Philip Winthrop (Mark Damon), who has traveled a long distance to reunite with his fiancee, Madeline Usher (Myrna Fahey). His arrival at the mansion is the stuff of horror movie cliches: a creepy butler refuses to let him in but Winthrop will have none of it. He insists on being announced to the mansion's reclusive owner, Roderick Usher (Vincent Price). Roderick is clearly annoyed by the presence of the interloper. He informs Winthrop that he is Madeline's older brother and has taken on the duties of being her caregiver because she is allegedly gravely ill and confined to her bed. Winthrop insists on seeing her. The tension between the two men is broken by Madeline's unexpected entrance into the room. She seems in desperate straits emotionally but does not appear to be physically ill. Winthrop soon finds that Roderick has been keeping her a virtual prisoner in the isolated Usher mansion. Alone and forgotten, Madeline seems eager to accept Winthrop's offer to take her from the premises back to Boston where he originally met her. Before he can do so, a series of eerie events intervenes and results in Madeline's apparent death by heart attack. Roderick, a distraught Winthrop and the butler, Bristol (Harry Ellerbe) preside over a short funeral service before Madeline's casket in entombed in the cellar along with those of previously-deceased members of the Usher family. Prior to departing, however, the heartbroken Winthrop learns that Madeline suffered from a rare disorder that put her in a trance-like sleep. He frantically runs to her tomb to find out that she had been buried alive. He rescues her and confronts Roderick who admits his despicable deed but justifies it by telling Winthrop that the Usher family has been cursed because of the inhumane acts the family members committed over generations. Even as the mansion house crumbles around  them during a storm, Roderick says the best thing he and his sister can do is simply die so that they will not bring any more suffering into the world in the manner that their ancestors did. As the storm intensifies, the mansion literally begins to fall apart...and Winthrop finds himself in a race against time to rescue the woman he loves, even as a raging fire begins to engulf the house. 

The Explosive Media Blu-ray edition boasts an outstanding transfer of this fine film, which features Price in top form and an impressive performance by Mark Damon in his first important role as a leading man. The production values are impressive, even though one cannot escape the obvious budget constraints.  (The "mansion" is depicted through obvious matte paintings and miniatures.). There is also a good deal of legitimate suspense and fine supporting performances by both Myrna Fahey and Harry Ellerbe. Cinematographer Floyd Crosby makes the most of the widescreen, color format and Les Baxter, who would also collaborate with Corman on future productions, provides a fine score. Bonus extras include an extensive new video interview with Mark Damon, who won a Golden Globe as "Most Promising Newcomer" for his performance in the film. Damon looks back on the film with pride and delight. He also discusses his eventual retirement from acting and his new career as a top producer, a status he still enjoys today. Damon speaks very fondly of Vincent Price but drops a bit of  bombshell by stating that Price, who had married three times and fathered children, was actually gay and, in fact, hit on him during the making of the film. Damon says that he politely rejected the overture and in the aggregate enjoyed working with and socializing with Price. (Price's daughter Victoria, recently confirmed her belief that her father was bi-sexual. Click here to read.) Other bonus extras include the original trailer, a wonderful gallery of stills and marketing materials and a German language collector's booklet. There is also a selection of trailers for other Explosive Media releases. Their titles are not easy to find in English language markets, but they are worth the effort to search them out. 

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BY LEE PFEIFFER

Having grown up in the 1960s I can recall the "sword and sandal" rage that swept the cinematic world during that era. Modestly budgeted Italian epics thrilled young audiences with tales of Hercules and other mythical heroes. The king of this short-lived genre was American body builder Steve Reeves, who became synonymous with these films based on his highly successful starring role as "Hercules". Producer Joseph E. Levine had the foresight to release the film in American and British cinemas and reaped phenomenal profits. Like the spaghetti western fad that would come a few year later, the sword and sandal flicks varied widely in terms of quality. I'll admit I had little interest in revisiting these films of my childhood until I edited writer Denis Meikle's article "Blood, Sweat and Togas" in issue #30 of Cinema Retro. Meilke gave the most honest and objective appraisal of the films imaginable and pointed out that many of these movies were drastically underrated in their day. I thought I'd form my own opinion by checking out one of Reeves' films that I had very vague memories of seeing way back in '62. "The Slave" was also known as "Son of Spartacus" largely because the Italians were masters at capitalizing on whatever big movies had been recently released in the English language cinema. With Kirk Douglas' acclaimed epic still playing in theaters, director Sergio Corbucci quickly started his production with Reeves in the title role. 

The story centers on Randus (Reeves), a loyal army commander to Julius Caesar (Ivo Garrani). Caesar is at the height of his power but he fears an attempted coup might be in the works due to the opportunistic Crassus (Claudio Gora), who administers the Roman Empire's control over Egypt. Randus is sent on what is supposed to be a good will mission to serve under Crassus. However, Crassus immediately suspects the truth: that Randus is there to spy on him and inform Caesar of his activities and any suspicious behavior. The tension and false politeness between the two men is broken when Randus decides to return to Rome to report to Caesar. En route, however, his galley encounters a disastrous storm and Randus and an Egyptian slave girl, Saide (Ombretta Colli) are washed overboard and presumed dead. They manage to get to shore only to captured by a passing group of sadistic slave traders. They mock Randus for his claim that he is Caesar's right hand man and subject him to humiliation and punishment. The miserable cargo of slaves is forced to march under the desert sun, all the while being beaten and abused by their captors. Randus is shocked when one of the older slaves recognizes an amulet around his neck. Randus says it was inherited by him from the father he never knew. The older man informs him that the amulet was worn by Spartacus, the great hero who led a doomed but noble slave rebellion against Rome. Randus now realizes that he is the son of Spartacus. He uses his incredible strength to escape from his chains and lead the other slaves in killing their captors. However, he is now faced with a moral choice: does he return to Rome and serve the empire that continues to oppress his own people and who crucified his father? He opts to serve the slave population against Rome, adopting a plan whereby he returns to Crassus but uses inside information to launch successful attacks against Roman forces. Wearing a mask and keeping his identity secret, he becomes a legend among the slaves for his daring military strategies. He arranges for Saide to become handmaiden to Crassus's demanding wife, thus sparing her from possible execution. In the course of carrying out attacks against Roman forces, Randus inspires a new uprising, just as his father did. However, he is ultimately captured and faces certain death- unless the slave population can save him first.

I was genuinely surprised at how well made and accomplished this production is. The sets are impressive and the script is compelling and exciting, even if Reeves becomes an Egypt-based predecessor of the Scarlet Pimpernel. The action sequences are extremely well-staged and there is genuine tension in several key scenes. It's impossible to gauge Reeves' skills as an actor because his voice is dubbed despite speaking English as his native language. (The same awkward fate befell Todd Armstrong, star of "Jason and the Argonauts".) Nevertheless, Reeves more than fits the physical requirements of the role and when Saide ends up inevitably swooning over him you can understand why. The direction by Sergio Corbucci is especially impressive and he would fittingly go on to make major contributions to some of the more memorable spaghetti westerns.

"The Slave" is surprisingly effective throughout. Highly recommended.

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“SAMURAI GHOSTS”

By Raymond Benson

A new release from The Criterion Collection in time for Halloween is the classic Japanese ghost story anthology, Kwaidan, which, upon its appearance in the mid-sixties, generated a good deal of critical acclaim. After it premiered in Japan in late December 1964, the picture was screened at the Cannes Film Festival in 1965 (in a much shorter version) and won the Special Jury Prize. The film was also nominated for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar (1965). It was also, at the time, Japan’s most expensive production.

It’s a long movie. Criterion has released a new 2K digital restoration of the original 183 minute director’s cut (complete with an intermission intercard) that was shown at the picture’s premiere. Kobayashi was forced to edit it to just over two hours for Cannes, and, for its general and worldwide release, to 164 minutes. “Kwaidan” means “ghost stories,” and the movie consists of four non-related spooky tales from the country’s folklore. The Japanese have always been great tellers of ghost stories, especially ones that take place in feudal Japan—which these do. The individual stories are based on Lafcadio Hearn’s collections of folk tales written in the late 1800s (Hearn is Caucasian but was an expert in all things Japanese).

Visually, Kobayashi’s film is strikingly gorgeous. The high definition improves the quality of Criterion’s original release of several years ago—the colors are vivid and bold, the picture is clear and sharp, and the costumes and set designs are absolutely breathtaking. Kobayashi certainly draws from traditional Kabuki, for the mise-en-scene is more theatrical than cinematic. The settings look like they belong more on the stage than on film. And yet, the director and his designer manage to recreate an epic sea battle with samurai soldiers and wooden ships—in a studio. Impressive stuff.

Despite the visual excellence on display, the four stories are of varying quality. The first, “The Black Hair,” concerns a husband who leaves his wife to search for a better life. He marries the daughter of a nobleman, but is unhappy. When he finally goes back to the original wife, he doesn’t count on reckoning with her long, black hair, which, ahem, has a mind of its own. In “The Woman of the Snow,” a young man’s life is spared by a Yuki-onna (a wicked female spirit) as long as he never reveals that he encountered her. Well, ahem, guess what he does? The longest and slowest, and yet most complex and opulent tale, is “Hoichi the Earless,” in which a blind biwa player (it’s a sort of Japanese lute) is compelled to perform for an entire clan of samurai ghosts; they had long ago perished in that legendary sea battle mentioned above. “Hoichi” features actors Tetsuro Tamba (known to Western audiences for playing Tiger Tanaka in the 1967 James Bond film You Only Live Twice) and Takashi Shimura, one of Japan’s greatest actors, seen in many of Akira Kurosawa’s pictures (he was the leader of the Seven Samurai). The final story is a short one, “In a Cup of Tea,” in which a warlord’s bodyguard sees the face of a ghost in the tea he is drinking—and that spirit pays him an unwelcome visit.

It’s probably safe to say that many of the popular J-Horror flicks of the late 1990s (e.g., Ringu, Ju-on) owe a debt to Kwaidan. The earlier film isn’t gory, although for 1964 it was probably a little shocking with a brief shot of nudity and a few instances of bright red bloodletting. The film isn’t particularly scary, either, but it does have some creepy moments. The sound design is especially notable for its subtlety and occasional surprises that will make you jump. Modern audiences, however, will most likely find Kwaidan too meticulously measured to be a real fright fest. Perhaps it might be best enjoyed by viewing the film in two parts.

Supplements include a new audio commentary by film historian Stephen Prince; a new subtitle translation; an interview with Kobayashi from 1993, conducted by filmmaker Masahiro Shinoda; a new interview with assistant director Kiyoshi Ogasawara, which is interesting for the many revelations about Kobayashi’s working methods and the reasons there were several cuts of the film; a new piece about author Lafcadio Hearn; and vintage trailers. The booklet contains an essay by critic Geoffrey O’Brien.

Art film enthusiasts and devotees of Japanese folklore will certainly enjoy Kwaidan. I would especially recommend it for viewers interested in production and costume design. For those two elements alone, Kwaidan is a sumptuous dreamscape.

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BY ERNIE MAGNOTTA

Although I was barely ten years-old, I remember feeling terrified while watching horror master Wes Craven’s 1978 made-for-TV thriller Summer of Fear (under its alternate title Stranger in Our House) as well as thoroughly enjoying his adaptation of the comic book Swamp Thing four years later, but it wasn’t until November of 1984, while viewing the trailer for some new horror flick called A Nightmare on Elm Street, that I recall hearing and remembering the name Wes Craven. After being thrilled by this masterpiece which, in my opinion, is Craven’s greatest work, I certainly wanted to learn more about this extremely talented filmmaker. After doing a bit of research, I quickly discovered that I had already seen Craven’s original and very interesting Deadly Blessing (1981) and, also, his other masterpiece (in my opinion): 1977’s The Hills Have Eyes. Whenever someone mentions Wes Craven, I immediately think of Nightmare and Hills, so, due to hearing the very sad news of his passing, I’d like to focus this article on those two masterworks because if any movies from his amazing filmography show Wes as a writer/director to be reckoned with, they are, without a doubt, The Hills Have Eyes and A Nightmare on Elm Street.

Craven’s first movie as writer/director (and editor) was 1972’s controversial, but important The Last House on the Left. The disturbing film, which was inspired by Ingmar Bergman’s The Virgin Spring (1960) and produced by Sean Cunningham (Friday the 13^th), was made during the height of the Vietnam War and seemed to be Craven’s outcry against the rise of violence in the United States at the time. It also rightly depicted that violence as brutal and horrific instead of glamorizing or sanitizing it. Lensed in New York and Connecticut for only $87,000, the film’s poster featured the immortal tagline ‘To avoid fainting, keep repeating, it’s only a movie…only a movie…only a movie…’, dealt with revenge, booby traps and a civilized family vs. an uncivilized one. The last two would show up again in Craven’s next film.

Five long years later, Craven would write and direct again and it was definitely worth the wait. On July, 22^nd, 1977, The Hills Have Eyes was released upon an unsuspecting public. The $230,000 budgeted film dealt with the Carters; an average, middle-class family whose car breaks down near a deserted bomb range in the Nevada desert while driving cross-country. Once stranded, night falls and the Carters are repeatedly attacked by an uncivilized, cannibalistic, mutant family who live in the hills and have been surviving in the desert for years by feeding off of anyone foolish enough to cross their path. The cannibals, who go by names such as Mars, Mercury, Pluto and Papa Jupiter, brutally murder Mr. and Mrs. Carter, their oldest daughter Lynne, and Beauty, one of their two dogs. The deranged mutants also kidnap Lynne’s infant daughter, Katie, leaving only Lynne’s younger siblings, Bobby and Brenda, along with Lynne’s husband, Doug, and their second dog, Beast, to face the crazed family, hopefully rescue little Katie and survive.

Although still a hardcore piece of horror cinema, The Hills Have Eyes is a more enjoyable experience than The Last House on the Left. Where Last House went for and achieved stark realism, Hills deftly balances realistic, identifiable, likeable characters with somewhat over-the-top/comic bookish, but still terrifying, villains (who Craven based on the supposedly real-life, 16^th century, cannibalistic Sawney Bean family). The film chillingly shows that in a life and death situation, an intelligent, passive, civilized person may have to become just as uncivilized as his or her attackers. The film’s memorable tagline, “A nice American family. They didn’t want to kill. But they didn’t want to die.”, pretty much sums up the entire movie.

The cutting edge, low-budget film, which introduced the world to future horror movie icons Dee Wallace (The Howling, Cujo) and Michael Berryman (Deadly Blessing, The Devil’s Rejects), went on to gross $25 million and quickly became a cult classic, further solidifying Craven’s name as a major and original talent in the world of horror cinema.

Over the next seven years, Craven would work in both film and television and, with the exception of the aforementioned Swamp Thing, would always direct films in the horror genre. Immediately following Swamp Thing, Craven completed an original horror screenplay which he

shopped all over Hollywood. Every studio felt that the script didn’t have potential and passed on it. With almost no money to his name and just about ready to give up on the project, Craven finally saw a glimmer of hope as a tiny, independent company called New Line Cinema gave the film a green light. New Line head Robert Shaye, whose company dealt mostly in distribution, but had recently moved into production by making a few low-budget films including an underrated 1982 horror called Alone in the Dark, believed in Craven’s script and production immediately began with Wes once again in the director’s chair. The screenplay’s title was A Nightmare on Elm Street.

The frightening film tells the tale of a group of four teens who all begin having nightmares about the same creepy, burnt-faced man who skulks in the bowels of an old boiler room and wears a dirty red and green sweater, a beat-up, old fedora and a self-made glove of sharp “finger-knives.” When her friends begin dying one by one, intelligent teen Nancy deduces that if this mysterious figure kills you in your sleep, then you die for real. After getting almost no help from the adults around her, Nancy does some digging and finds out that the murderer’s name is Fred Krueger and that his motive is to kill the Elm Street kids as an act of revenge in order to punish their parents who burned him alive ten years earlier due to him being a filthy child murderer. Armed with only her wits and a few self-made booby traps, Nancy prepares to face Krueger in a desperate battle for survival.

Made for under $2 million dollars, the expertly crafted film was released on November 9, 1984 and, little by little, gained momentum as horror fans slowly began to discover what an unexpected gem it was. After all, the trailer made it seem as if it was just another in a seemingly endless cycle of formulaic dead teenager flicks still being released due to the massive success of both Halloween (1978) and Friday the 13^th (1980). But A Nightmare on Elm Street was different. It was something special. More of a psychological thriller than a by-the-numbers slasher film, Elm Street’s extremely original story, much like The Hills Have Eyes, was partly influenced by real-life events. Wes Craven read a series of articles in the L.A. Times which detailed several young men who were afraid to go to sleep and tried everything in their power to stay awake. When they inevitably nodded off, they died. Craven immediately thought “What if a person, like a boogeyman, was killing them in their dreams?” With the story now in place, Wes then began to construct his soon-to-be iconic villain. Craven based him on a scary childhood incident where, one night, while little Wes was looking out his bedroom window into the alley below, a creepy man wearing an old hat continued to stare up at him with a look of evil. Craven then took the name Fred Krueger from a school bully who constantly tormented him (he did the same thing twelve years earlier with The Last House on the Left; naming one character Fred and the other Krug) and decided on Elm Street because it was a street close to the school where he used to work as an English teacher as well as being the name of the street where JFK was, unfortunately, assassinated on. Wes said that he wanted a name/place that evoked pure Americana. Craven then chose the razor-sharp glove because he was thinking of what early man may have feared and thought of the claws of a bear. He also wanted Freddy to be a painful, optical effect, so he decided on red and green for Freddy’s sweater after learning that they were the two colors which were the most difficult for the eye to see side by side. Lastly, Craven decided that Freddy would be very different from the plethora of mute, masked, cinematic psycho killers which were inundating theaters at the time. Freddy would talk (including a few darkly humorous lines of dialogue) and, although covered in burnt scar tissue, remain unmasked. The chilling monster would also take great pleasure in terrifying his victims-to-be.