With Russia currently dominating world news in an unfavorable way and authoritarian political figures making headlines even in democracies, it's relevant to look back on the 1983 crime thriller "Gorky Park", which has been released on Blu-ray by Kino Lorber. The film was based on Martin Cruz Smith's international bestseller and was unique in its day because it centered on subterfuge within the Soviet law enforcement system and was set primarily in Moscow. Director Michael Apted had hoped to be the first major Hollywood studio production to shoot within the Soviet Union but unsurprisingly he was turned down due to the fact that the story dealt with systemic corruption throughout every layer of the government. Apted settled for the next best thing, shooting in Finland and Sweden, both of which make convincing substitutes for the USSR. Transforming the lengthy, complex novel to a screenplay could have been no easy task, even for acclaimed screenwriter Dennis Potter ("Pennies from Heaven"). Although the film has a leisurely running time of 128 minutes, there are still some portions of the story that are not fleshed out enough to be easily understood.
The movie gets off to a gripping start when three young people drift away from the crowd at a winter festival in Moscow's Gorky Park. They are shot dead shortly thereafter, although we don't know why or by who. Police detective Arkady Renko (William Hurt) is first on the scene and he discovers that the snow-covered bodies have been horribly mutilated with their fingers removed and their faces skinned so that their can be no recognition of the victims. This leads to some particularly gory scenes in which a pathologist skillfully manages to recreate their facial features using synthetic skin. In a country and political system in which everyone is justifiably paranoid, Renko begins to suspect that the KGB might have been behind the killings and are looking to set him up as a fall guy. An interesting cast of characters is gradually introduced. Irina Asanova (Joanna Pacula in her screen debut) is a glamorous actress who was a friend of the victims. Renko cannot persuade her that they are dead, as she has been assured that they escaped into exile by Jack Osborne (Lee Marvin). He's a well-connected, rich American businessman who deals in the lucrative trade of sable furs. Renko is immediately suspicious that Osborne, with his bought-and-paid for allies in Soviet law enforcement, is somehow tied to the murders. This results in a few of those scenes moviegoers love in which the hero and villain banter words, using euphemisms to represent their actual thoughts as they engage in a duel of wits. The more dedicated Renko becomes in solving the crime, the more he realizes his is putting his own life in danger. He later gets assistance from an American visitor, William Kirwill (Brian Dennehy), a detective who is in Moscow to try to solve the murder of his brother, who was one of the three victims. Together, he and Renko begin to unravel a tangled web of corruption, deceit, betrayal and more murders.
"Gorky Park" enjoyed good reviews at the time of its release but it was a boxoffice disappointment. Viewing the new Blu-ray, I found it more intriguing and enjoyable than I had previously- even though the plot gets very complicated and so many characters are introduced that by the end of the movie, I can't say for sure why the original three murder victims were killed. The movie was an important early starring role for William Hurt and he's adequate in the role but rather bland at times, although he and Pacula engage in the kind of steamy sex scene that was de rigueur at a time before movies became largely devoid of eroticism. Pacula gives a very fine performance that earned her a Golden Globe nomination and Dennehy steals every scene he's in, although the premise of an American detective thinking he will have free reign to operate in one of the most oppressive societies in the world is a bit of a stretch. Ian Bannen is a welcome presence as Renko's superior officer, who may be in the pocket of Osborne. As the American fur trader, Lee Marvin is terrific in a marvelous late-career role. It must be said that the largely British cast of supporting actors retain their natural accents, which proves to be a distraction since they are supposed to be playing Russians. Hurt supposedly complained about this because, for the sake of consistency, it forced him to adapt his own version of a British accent, which seems like a hybrid with American English. It doesn't work at all and it's surprising that a skilled director like Apted didn't simply encourage his cast to adopt Russian accents. The production design is rich and expensive-looking but James Horner's score, which was acclaimed in some quarters, sounds dated and very much from an era in which synthesizers were employed ad nauseum.
For those of who came of age during the Cold War period, the film is a reminder of how every aspect of Soviet life was put under scrutiny, with paranoia instilled in citizens to keep everyone off-balance and reluctant to trust anyone else. Despite the Putin regime's quashing of many societal freedoms, today's Russia still enjoys far more freedoms and prosperity than it did when "Gorky Park" was made. Michael Apted's direction is first-rate. Dennis Potter's screenplay excels at showing what life is like in an authoritarian state, where the trappings of democracy are undermined by the fact that everyone knows that there are people who follow the people who follow them. What I found surprising and refreshing is that Renko, who is aware of and frustrated by the Orwellian aspects of his country, remains a dedicated law enforcement official who proudly serves the Soviet state. "Gorky Park" is not a classic but it is a compelling and offbeat thriller that holds up today.
The Kino Lorber Blu-ray looks very good, indeed. Cinematographer Rolf D. Bode's cinematography really impresses, as he shot the film in a rather washed out, colorless manner to reflect the blandness of the Soviet state. The release is one of the few from KL that doesn't include a commentary track, but there is an excellent 16-minute recent interview with Michael Apted, who says he rarely revisits his own films but did so in this case. He says he was surprised at how well the film has held up but expresses his frustration that, despite good reviews, the movie was not successful at the American boxoffice, though it did well internationally. Apted recalls the challenges of trying to replicate Moscow in Helsinki and speaks well of his cast and crew. He says that Lee Marvin, though appearing healthy on screen, was in intensive care in a hospital just prior to filming, as he suffered from emphysema. He relates that Marvin was especially enthused about the film because it gave him a rare opportunity to play a character who was sophisticated and highly cultured. The Blu-ray also includes the original trailer, a teaser trailer and TV spots for "Gorky Park" and an extensive number of trailers for other action films available from KL.
A personal observation: it should be noted that the interview segment with Michael Apted was produced by Walter Olsen, co-founder with his brother Bill of the Scorpion Releasing video label. Scorpion had partnered with KL in recent years to release many under-radar-films on Blu-ray. Walter passed away in May just months after his brother died. Those of us who value their contributions to the home video industry mourn their passing.
After years of considering new book projects, I decided that it was time to write another book on the Beatles. My first book on the Beatles was Let It Be, part of the 33 1/3 series published by Bloomsbury. The subject of pop music and film always intrigued me, and obviously I touched on this subject with the Let It Be book, so choosing to write about the films of the Beatles seemed like a natural fit for my interests.
There hasn’t been a book that has concentrated on the five Beatles films for the general book trade in some time. Those books also didn’t include any of the rich vein of materials from the DVD and Blu-ray reissues of the films or the vinyl reissues (and lavish box set of theLet It Be album) of the soundtrack albums and related reissues. Having access to the Get Back project from Peter Jackson fleshed out the story of the Let It Be film in ways that were truly illuminating.
All of the films of the Beatles came out between 1964 and 1970. This was also a key period for British movies in general, so I knew that I wanted to provide context on British cinema of the period in the book. This would include the iconic spy movies of the era, most notably the James Bond films. There were also plenty of directors, actors, writers and others behind the scenes of not only the films of the Beatles, but of other British films and movies in general that I wanted to include in the book. Some of those people also worked on the films of the Beatles. There is also much musical and cultural context in the book.
I started the book before the pandemic, and due to how the virus affected various aspects of the world at large, it also impacted the entire process of the book, from the writing through its publication.
The hard deadline of the book changed twice. The book was originally conceived to be muchshorter, but as I did my research and wrote and with the additional time added, the book ballooned to a final manuscript of nearly 500 pages. That manuscript was edited down to the nearly 350-page book that was published on May 15th in the U.S. and July 15th in the U.K. from Roman & Littlefield, through its Backbeat imprint.
The book has been warmly received by the Beatles community at large. Among my chief concerns were ensuring factual accuracy and creating a book that offered an expanded scope from that of previous volumes on the films of the Beatles. The feedback I have received so far makes me feel like I have succeeded.
I didn’t interview Paul or Ringo for the book. Given that the films were made in some cases nearly 60 years ago, there were many people I would have liked to have to talked to, but many are no longer with us and some have long since ceased doing interviews for a variety of reasons. Some of the people I did interview who worked on the films or with the Beatles or who could provide insight and context include Michael Lindsay-Hogg, Billy J. Kramer, Anthony Richmond, Cameron Crowe, Ralph Bakshi, Gered Mankowitz, John Kosh, Ryan White and Marijke Koger, among many others.
This is definitely a book for fans of the Beatles, but also for fans of the British films, music and cultural history of the time and place.
“WHEN YOU’RE ALONE AND LIFE IS MAKING YOU LONELY, YOU CAN ALWAYS GO… DOWNTOWN”
By Raymond Benson
Certainly one of the films from the 1980s that genuinely typifies that decade is Martin Scorsese’s dark comedy, After Hours (1985). The picture is especially potent for anyone who might have lived in New York City during those years (as this reviewer did). Did the film work as well at the time for audiences without the New York frame of reference? Likely so, as the movie was a box office success… but there is no question that After Hours was funnier and more frighteningly familiar to native New Yorkers.
After Hours belongs in the surprisingly large group of movies that skew Manhattan into a metaphor for hell on earth. Others might include Midnight Cowboy (1969), The Out-of-Towners (1970), and Scorsese’s own Taxi Driver (1976). As someone who did live in Manhattan for many years, this reviewer can say with assurance that New York City was not hell on earth—but, like anywhere, it could become so if circumstances surrounding a person continually went from bad to worse on a given day (or, in this case, night).
Today, After Hours exists firmly entrenched in the decade in which it appeared. This was a time before mobile phones, for the movie’s plot could not occur had cell phones been in existence. A young, contemporary audience may not “get” After Hours without the 1980s milieu context. That said, After Hours is still a biting, fast-moving, comedy that is simultaneously realistic and surreal. As the director and author/comic Fran Lebowitz agree in an interview supplement, if one does not suspend disbelief and allow oneself to be in the movie while viewing it, then the insane logic of it all could fall apart.
By his own admission, in 1983-1984, Scorsese was in a dark place. Despite the huge success and acclaim for Raging Bull (1980), the director’s next picture, The King of Comedy (1982) was a financial flop and mostly disregarded by critics (although today it is held in very high esteem). Scorsese spent 1983 developing his passion project, The Last Temptation of Christ, and was all set to begin production when the studio got skittish and pulled the plug. Suddenly, Scorsese was box office poison.
Enter Griffin Dunne and Amy Robinson, actors who had taken up producing films. A film school thesis script by student Joseph Minion entitled Lies landed in their laps, and they loved it. Robinson, who had starred in Scorsese’s Mean Streets (1973), managed to get the script to the director. Scorsese, however, was busy with The Last Temptation of Christ and couldn’t do it. Dunne and Robinson had seen Tim Burton’s short film, Vincent, and they offered it to him, even though Burton had yet to make his first feature film. Burton was ready to sign on to do it, but then Last Temptation got cancelled, and Scorsese was unexpectedly free. Burton gracefully bowed out, and Scorsese thought the project might be a way to get him back into the film industry’s good graces. After some work on the script and the retitling to After Hours, the movie became a reality.
Griffin Dunne stars as Paul, an ordinary Joe who works in a boring Manhattan office job. One evening after work he meets Marcy (Rosanna Arquette) at an uptowndiner. The flirtation feels real, and she invites him downtown to SoHo later. (This reviewer always wondered why the movie did not incorporate, along with all the other great pop tunes in the soundtrack, the Petula Clark song “Downtown”—“When you’re alone and life is making you lonely, you can always go… downtown!” It would have fit well.) Armed with a twenty dollar bill, Paul takes a cab to lower Manhattan, but uh-oh, the money literally flies out the open window on the way there. Now with only 97 cents in his pocket, Paul meets up with Marcy, who begins exhibiting strange behavior. She’s staying in the loft of an equally strange artist, Kiki (Linda Fiorentino), who makes bizarre plaster-of-Paris statues and objects. Without giving away too much, the “date” with Marcy does not go as planned, and Paul finds himself stranded in SoHo without the means to get home to the upper east side. The subway fare had gone up to $1.50 at midnight. In attempts to contact someone he knows so he can crash on a couch, Paul encounters a succession of even stranger characters such as thieves Pepe and Neil (Tommy Chong and Cheech Marin), neurotic waitress Julie (Teri Garr), maybe-sane, maybe-psychotic bartender Tom (John Heard), scary ice cream truck vendor Gail (Catherine O’Hara), lonely spinster June (Verna Bloom), and other misfits. Paul’s night indeed goes from bad to worse.
Scorsese’s direction of the proceedings is top-notch. He makes the film move with lightning speed (and the picture is only a brisk 97 minutes long) with his signature dynamic camera actions (the cinematography is by the great Michael Ballhaus, and the editing by longtime Scorsese collaborator Thelma Schoonmaker). The cast is all-in on the dark comedy, and each member is excellent. Other Scorsese character actor regulars make appearances (Victor Argo, Murray Moston, and Rocco Sisto) as well as familiar faces like Dick Miller, Bronson Pinchot, Larry Block, and Clarence Felder. Even Scorsese does a cameo as a searchlight operator in the extreme “Berlin Club,” that portrays a Manhattan nightmare of downtown danger.
The Criterion Collection’s new 4K digital restoration, approved by editor Schoonmaker, is presented on a 4K UHD disc with Dolby Vision HDR, and on a second Blu-ray disc with the film and special features. The picture quality is superb. There is an informative and fun audio commentary accompanying the movie with Scorsese, Schoonmaker, Ballhaus, Dunne, and Robinson. Supplements include the new and delightful aforementioned conversation between Scorsese and Fran Lebowitz about the film; a 2004 documentary on the making of the film with Dunne and Robinson; a new feature on the look of the film with production designer Jeffrey Townsend and costume designer Rita Ryack; and a few brief deleted scenes. An essay by critic Sheila O’Malley is contained in the package booklet.
After Hours may not be remembered as a top tier entry in Martin Scorsese’s filmography, but it is undoubtedly an important stepping stone for the director. After Hours is thoroughly entertaining, funny, and a tiny bit scary, too. Recommended for fans of Scorsese, New York City, and any of the featured actors.
(Forrest in "Apocalypse Now". Photo: Cinema Retro Archives.)
Actor Frederic Forrest has passed away at age 86. Forrest was a favorite character actor of director Francis Ford Coppola. He appeared in Coppola's "The Conversation", "Hammett", "One from the Heart" and "Tucker: The Man and His Dream". He also had a scene-stealing role as "Chef" in Coppola's 1979 masterpiece "Apocalypse Now" playing a reluctant soldier on a mission to find and assassinate Marlon Brando's mad Colonel Kurtz. Forrest rarely had leading roles but was widely respected in the industry. He was nominated for a Golden Globe for his 1973 screen debut in "When the Legends Die" and was nominated for an Oscar for starring opposite Bette Midler in "The Rose". His other films include "The Two Jakes", "The Missouri Breaks" and "Falling Down". Upon hearing of his passing, Coppola said he found the news "heartbreaking". For more, click here.
Most rock 'n roll movies of the 1950s and 1060s were rightly regarded as disposable entertainment. With a few exceptions, they were low-budget attempts to cash in on the new fad before it might fade away. Elvis Presley's films were cinematic gold for a while but even they began to fade with the release of director Richard Lester's two Beatles films, "A Hard Day's Night" and "Help!", both of which brought innovation and style to the genre. The Monkees' feature film "Head" would also go boldly where no rock 'n roll flick would. "The Cool Ones", however, appears to have been made by people whose sensibilities were stuck in amber. Despite being released in an era when rock music was being defined by groups with a cutting edge, this musical comedy, released in 1967, has the hallmarks of similar films made a decade before. In short, it's a movie designed for hipsters but made by middle-aged squares.
The film centers on the adventures of Hallie Rodgers (Debbie Watson), a dancer seen on one of those "Shindig"-type TV series designed to appeal to teenagers by presenting musical groups performing their latest hits live on stage. Hallie feels she has true star power but the show's arrogant producer, played by Phil Harris, refuses to give her a chance to sing on the program. In an act of defiance on live TV, Hallie steals the microphone from guest performer Glen Campbell and belts out a song. As she is chased around the stage by production executives, she engages in wild mannerisms that the audience mistakes for a new dance. She's summarily fired but later learns she has gained a following and that her moves on stage are now the latest dance craze called "The Tantrum". (I'm not making this up, folks.) She then attempts to woo one-time teen idol Cliff Donner (Gil Peterson) to form a duo. Cliff has fallen on hard times and is currently performing in a failing nightclub run by avuncular British export Stanley Crumley (Robert Coote). The moody Gil is smitten with Hallie but is reluctant to try to regain his former stardom. Ultimately, he concedes when the sees the enthusiastic response from their duets, which help revive Stanley's nightclub. With Stanley as their manager, they set about promoting the act by performing The Tantrum in front of growing audiences. At this point, they are approached by Stanley's estranged brother Tony (Roddy McDowall), a legendary record producer who travels with his own posse and who enjoys a rabid fan base himself. Tony takes control of the act but his sheer narcissism and arrogance results in tension between Hallie and Gil, who break up and reunite more times than I can recount. The bizarre production gets even stranger with a closing act by Mrs. Miller, who was a sixtyish everyday woman whose cover version recording of Petula Clark's "Downtown" became a novelty hit that elevated her to temporary fame.
"The Cool Ones" is awful on every level, but it's so awful it has the virtue to keep the viewer glued to the screen to see if it becomes even more awful. The songs are mostly awful despite being the creations of notable talents Lee Hazlewood and Billy Strange, although the best of the lot, "This Town", would be a well-received recording by Frank Sinatra a couple of years later. The depiction of teenagers is awful, presenting them as brain-dead zombies who instinctively embrace every new song and dance move they experience on a TV show and instantly turn into raving mobs of fans. Young people are presented in an inoffensive, sanitized manner. No one smokes (cigarettes or anything else) and they're all satisfied sipping tonics and sodas in nightclubs. Cripes, to think this film was sandwiched between the release of "The Wild Angels" and the Woodstock festival....The direction by Gene Nelson (who displayed some talent in other films and TV series) is awful and so are the performances, with Debbie Watson overacting and Gil Peterson, who looks like a human Ken doll, underplaying with predictably boring results. They make for the least erotic couple seen on screen since the Ma and Pa Kettle series. But the scene-stealing awful performance is provided by Roddy McDowall, who chews the scenery and everything else in sight while presenting an over-the-top caricature of a fussy, demanding gay man. But since film producers felt that teenagers shouldn't know that gay people exist, a plot device is inserted in which we learn Tony's unseen girlfriend is pregnant, which sends him into an even greater hissy fit that only reinforces the gay stereotype. Only dear old Robert Coote emerges with some dignity intact. The film does have colors that jump out of the screen and it is fun to see location footage of old L.A., which is marvelously photographed by legendary cinematographer Floyd Crosby, whose achievements include "High Noon". This would be his final film. The dance numbers are also well-choreographed by Toni Basil, who would go on to have the hit record "Mickey" in the 1980s. In the end, however, the movie makes those Frankie and Annette beach pictures look like biting social commentaries on life in the 1960s. I expected young Mickey Rooney to show up on screen shouting, "Hey, kids- we can put the show on in the barn!!!" The film was released as the bottom attraction on double features. There was probably no damage to anyone's career because few people saw it.
In viewing "The Cool Ones", I came to the conclusion that I had to disagree with Huey Lewis and the News in that it isn't hip to be square. The film is available on DVD from the Warner Archive. It's a nice transfer and includes the original trailer. The DVD is region-free so that bad movie lovers everywhere can enjoy the film.
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These
days, filmmaker Joseph Losey doesn’t get the acclaim he deserves. An American
who showed great talent in Hollywood in the early 1940s and was well on his way
to a lucrative and respectable career, got sidelined by HUAC—the House
Un-American Activities Committee. Because Losey had ties with the early
Communist Party in the U.S., he, along with many, many other artists working in
Tinsel Town, was blacklisted. He fled his native country to the United Kingdom,
where he remained until his death. Losey made films in England and France, many
of which are admired films noir. In the 1960s and beyond he moved toward
making provocative art films, working with writers such as Harold Pinter and
generally pushing the envelope in the cinema.
The
Servant (1963)
is one of those art films that Losey made, and it was his first collaboration
with playwright Pinter (they did three pictures together). Based on a 1948
novella by Robin Maugham, The Servant is also one of Pinter’s first
attempts at screenwriting. Pinter had been enjoying some success in the theatre
since the late 1950s but was still not yet a fully established theatrical
superstar at that time (this would occur a couple of years later). His own
adaptation of his play, The Caretaker, was also made in 1963. Pinter
took Maugham’s novella and re-tooled it to emphasize the class warfare that is
going on in the subtext of the story, as well as adding what can only be
described as the Pinter’s Theatre of Menace—a sense of subtle, unnerving threat
that exists in most all of his work.
The
story is about a wealthy international real estate developer, Tony (James Fox,
in a debut role), a bachelor who hires a manservant, Hugo Barrett (Dirk
Bogarde). They get along splendidly at first, although Tony’s girlfriend, Susan
(Wendy Craig), senses something off about Barrett and wants Tony to get rid of
him. Tony refuses. Barrett one day convinces Tony to hire his sister, Vera
(Sarah Miles), to be a maid. Vera seduces Tony one night when Barrett is away.
But then one day Tony and Susan come home to the flat and find Vera and Barrett
in bed together. Turns out they’re not brother and sister at all. And then the
tale takes a sharp left turn into nightmare territory as relationships change
and power dynamics are reversed. To reveal more would spoil the creepiness of
what happens next.
The
Servant is
a powerful, disturbing film. The crowning touch is the superb, unsettling
performance by Bogarde, who won the BAFTA award that year for Best Actor (the
film was nominated for Best Picture). The movie was ignored by the Oscars, but
Pinter did win the award for Best Screenplay by the New York Film Critics
Circle. Today, the movie resides at #22 on the BFI Top 100 British Films of the
20th Century list.
Losey’s
perceptive direction masterfully uses mise-en-scène in a carefully
staged sense of place that is claustrophobic and austere. He treats the
theatre-of-the-absurd goings-on with absolute sincerity and realism… a perfect
approach to Pinter’s exceptional dialogue and the mood established by the piece.
The
Servant is
very much an adult film, something that couldn’t have been made in America in
1963, and it’s a bit surprising that Britain’s censors weren’t all over it. But,
then again, everything lies in the subtext. What you don’t see on screen can’t
be censored, can it? The film is a brilliant display of shocking subject matter
done in an ordinary, matter-of-fact presentation.
The
Criterion Collection’s new Blu-ray release features a new 4K digital
restoration with an uncompressed monaural soundtrack. It shows off the striking
black and white cinematography by Douglas Slocombe, a longtime British DP who later
won three Academy Awards (including one for Raiders of the Lost Ark).
Supplements
include a new, interesting overview of Joseph Losey’s career by film critic
Imogen Sara Smith; a rare audio interview with Losey from 1976; a revealing
1996 interview with Harold Pinter; vintage interviews with actors Dirk Bogarde,
Sarah Miles, James Fox, and Wendy Craig; and the theatrical trailer. The
enclosed booklet contains an essay by author Colm Tóibín.
The Servant is for fans of Joseph Losey, Harold Pinter, and, especially,
Dirk Bogarde, who owns this motion picture. His portrayal of Hugo
Barrett surely upends the old adage that ‘you can’t get good help these days.’
The fifteenth annual New York City Independent Film
Festival was held during the week of June 4 through 11 at Manhattan’s
Producer’s Club on West 44th Street, a few blocks west of Times
Square.The week-long festival would
host the screenings of over two hundred indie films. Co-Directors John Anderson and Bob Sarles' absorbing and
authoritatively assembled music doc Born
in Chicago, screened on the festival’s final day, doesn’t pretend to serve
as the definitive nor most academically-minded treatise on the history of blues
music in America.Such studies as the seven-episode
PBS series The Blues (2003) had
already touched lightly on many aspects of multi-layered history of the blues
in America.This film’s primary interest
lies elsewhere.
The state of Mississippi, the birthplace of the blues and
home of some of the music’s greatest practitioners is, of course, referenced
early on in Born in Chicago.But the fertile musical and agricultural area
surrounding the Mississippi Delta region serves merely as the pregnant preface of
what’s to come.There’s no mention that
I can recall of the high-end music of band leader W.C. Handy, the
self-proclaimed “Father of the Blues,” or of Ma Rainy, “Mother of the Blues” or
even of such a master figure as songster Charley Patton, the acknowledged progenitor
of the rough and tumble country blues.
Alan Lomax’s 1941-1942 Library of Congress recordings of one
McKinley Morganfield (soon to be rechristened as “Muddy Waters”) down on
Stovall’s Plantation near Clarksdale, MS is briefly referenced in Born in Chicago, but only in
passing.The film recalls Waters as merely
one of the many immigrant blues singers who, among non-musical travelers and those
feeling racism and economic hardship, would abandon Mississippi - and neighboring
states - to seek employment in Chicago’s burgeoning meat-packing and steel industries.
The blues singers arriving in the Windy City would often perform
for pocket change on Chicago’s fabled Maxwell Street, and there’s a bit of
historic film footage included in the film to document it.But ultimately Born in Chicago assumes that a knowledgeable blues aficionado is already
conversant with the complex reasons that Chicago would birth the raw and
immeasurably emotive electric blues.Born in Chicago soon time-jumps from a
basic introductory primer to a particular moment in history – a period roughly
encompassing 1964 through 1970 - when public interest in the blues music would peculiarly
shift along color lines.
Though the blues was created by black artists for a
primarily black audience, by the mid-1960s it was lovingly embraced by a cabal
of young, white and often gifted musicians. In some sense these mostly suburban
youngsters were oddballs.Not only were
they complete outsiders to African-American life and musical culture, but estranged
from even their own middle-class heritages.The best of them were determined to apprentice with the real-deal blues masters
whose recordings they had painstakingly studied and cherished.
Such Chicago blues artists as Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf
(aka Chester Burnett), and Little Walter Jacobs were at their musical – if not money-earning
career peaks – in the 1950s.Though
Chicago boasted any number of record labels pressing 78 rpm discs of the talent
grinding their music out almost nightly in such saloons as Pepper’s Lounge, Silvio’s,
Smitty’s Corner, Big John’s, the Blue Flame Lounge, and Frost’s Corner, it was
Chess Records that emerged the most important and iconic.Though label co-founder Leonard Chess appears
in an archive footage interview alongside his son Marshall, Born in Chicago wisely chooses not to revisit
the company’s backstory.That’s a tale
already told in several docs as well as in Darnell Martin’s ill-disguised
Chess-mirror fiction-feature Cadillac
Records (2008).
There’s lots of archival footage threaded throughout Born in Chicago.Some of the film’s moodiest and most intimate
saloon environ images come courtesy of several reels of silent B-roll 8mm color
footage shot by drummer Sam Lay and his wife.Lay is an important figure here due to his key role in the blues tradition’s
transition: he not only worked the South Side taverns with nearly all the blues
giants but was also a founding member (along with bassist Jerome Arnold) in the
inter-racial Paul Butterfield Blues Band.
Though not a concert film by any means – all performances
featured in Born in Chicago are
offered in truncated form - there are extended clips of Muddy Waters and Howlin’
Wolf to offer insight into the power of their stage presence and hypnotic
powers.This inclusion is not
unreasonable as the two singers were the figurehead totems of the Chicago blues
scene of the 1950s.Muddy and Wolf were
also among the most generous and least suspicious of interlopers. They were
appreciative of the enthusiasm and interest of these young, white blues
revivalists and allowed them to share the stage and showcase their talents.
Of course, Muddy and Wolf didn’t singularly or together
create the Chicago blues scene.During
the course of Born in Chicago we’re briefly
introduced to a number of the first and second wave Chicago’s bluesmen, as well
as the iconic sidemen who helped create the sound: Otis Spann, Yank Rachel,
Robert Lockwood, Willie Dixon, Junior Wells, Sonny Boy Williamson, Otis Rush,
Buddy Guy, Hubert Sumlin, Magic Sam, Walter and Big Walter “Shakey” Horton all pass
through the film in either image or musical snippet, all honorably referenced as
“engines” of the scene.
Though the blues was derived partly from African musical traditions,
the blues as the world knows it today was birthed in the area of the
Mississippi Delta.Chicago blues was, at
the very beginning anyway, mostly an electric, highly amplified extension of
that earlier homegrown music, improvised out-of-necessity to cut through the
din of celebratory patrons gathered inside cramped and sweaty neighborhood
taverns.
The 1950s was the decade Chicago’s blues scene was at its
creative peak.The musicians who arrived
in Chicago during the great migration from the southern U.S. quickly bonded to
a natural audience.They were warmly
embraced by audiences that were once – and now again - neighbors.The musicians and their fans shared similar customs,
life experiences and musical interests, and such familiarity allowed Chicago’s
blues scene to thrive during the 1950s.
But by the early 1960s, the musical tastes of black
audiences began to shift, particularly among younger listeners.This group held no bonding memories or immediate
connections to blues or rustic southern musical culture.The rhythm-and-blues and soul of Sam Cooke,
Jackie Wilson, and James Brown was in emergence and such artists were now the most
favored of black audiences.It wasn’t
long until the Motown and Stax labels would supplant Chess as the recording
mecca for black artists.
But just as black interest in blues was seemingly on the wane,
there was a sudden curious interest in the art by young, rebellious and hip
Midwestern middle-class whites.Their
passion for the music was often ignited by their discovery of late-night
broadcasts of blues and old-school R&B found on the far ends of their radio
dials.Many of these disciples – which would
include such 1960’s blues and rock luminaries as Barry Goldberg, Michael Bloomfield,
Nick Gravenites, Paul Butterfield, Corky Siegel, Harvey Mandel, Charlie Musselwhite,
Elvin Bishop, Steve Miller and Bob Dylan – are all featured in Born in Chicago.It could be argued they were actually re-born in Chicago.
In any case, this is the time period under analysis in Born in Chicago.Liberal and open-minded students attending (or
merely hanging on the fringes) of the University of Chicago – the campus itself
nestled within the city’s Southside – played a role in the blossoming blues
revival.Through the interventions of on-campus
folk music clubs Chicago U. would stage not only small folk-music gatherings
but several important folk music festivals – several showcasing such blues artists
as Willie Dixon, Memphis Slim, Big Joe Williams and blind street singer Arvella
Gray. This new interest in folk-blues
music brought many students and scene hanger-on’s to Chicago’s pawn shops in
search of guitars and friends and subsequent musical fellow travelers.
The most dedicated – and talented of these musicians –
would reverse “integrate” these black-only Southside blues taverns - often under
the suspicious and unwelcome gaze of black patrons in attendance.But both Muddy and Wolf and their respective
band members would embrace such musicians as guitarist Michael Bloomfield and blues
harpist Paul Butterfield et.al. once they realized these searching white
youngsters – many demonstrating superlative musical talent – were looking to absorb,
as best they could, the essence and emotional comport of the blues.
Lee
Marvin is an American soldier suspected of aiding the enemy during the Korean
War in “Sergeant Ryker” released on Blu-ray by Kino Lorber. Shortly after the
release of the “The Dirty Dozen” in 1967, Universal saw fit to repackage a two-part
1964 Kraft Suspense Theatre courtroom drama “The Case Against Paul Ryker” and
release it as feature film in theaters. As can be seen from the art reproduced
on the Blu-ray cover, Universal was selling the release as an action-packed
military movie not unlike “The Dirty Dozen” which was a big hit for MGM. Marvin
also won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for 1965’s “Cat Ballou,” and became an in
demand A-list star in a series of popular movies that followed. “The Dirty
Dozen” pushed him into superstar status and one can hardly blame Universal for cashing
in by repurposing the two-part TV episode as a theatrical release.
The
production follows the trial of Sergeant Paul Ryker in 1951 during the Korean
War. Ryker’s just been found guilty of treason and is sentenced to death for
collaborating with the Chinese. He returned to his unit with the fantastic
story of being sent on a secret mission behind enemy lines to gather
information. The problem is the general who allegedly sent him on the mission
died while Ryker was gone and a mysterious letter left by the general was never
found. What follows are attempts by his wife and defense attorney to gather
evidence after being granted a retrial. Most of the “action” is limited to
Ryker’s jail cell in Tokyo and consists mostly of courtroom drama and in a
flashback the one action scene involving his wife and lawyer.
Marvin,
no stranger to portraying military characters, served in the Marine Corps
during WWII and was wounded during the Battle of Saipan in 1944. He’s very good
here as Ryker and there are a couple of scenes when Marvin is about to jump out
of the screen going from calm to crazy and back again in a matter of seconds. Marvin
died way too young at age 63 leaving many memorable classic movies in his list
of credits.
The
production also features top notch performances from Bradford Dillman as
Captain David Young, Ryker’s defense attorney, Peter Graves as Major Frank
Whittaker, the prosecutor, and Vera Miles as Ann Ryker, the estranged wife of
Sergeant Ryker. The cast also features a fine cast of character actors who will
be familiar to anyone who watched broadcast TV and movies in the 60s and 70s
including Lloyd Nolan, Murray Hamilton and Norman Fell to name just a few.
Buzz
Kulik, a veteran television director with a few feature films to his credit,
directed the original “Kraft Suspense Theatre” two-part episodes which was
originally broadcast on October 10th and October 17th of 1964. Kraft Theatre
lasted for two seasons from 1964 to 1966 spanning 59 episodes, filmed at
Universal Studios and broadcast on NBC. Interestingly, a spinoff series
released by ITV titled “Court Martial” featured Dillman and Graves in their
“Ryker” roles as military lawyers and it ran for 26 episodes from 1965 to 1966
with the setting changed from the Korean War to WWII Europe.
The
1968 movie release does not fulfill the promise made on the poster art: “Lee Marvin
Explodes into action as Sergeant Ryker.” We do see plenty of Ryker getting
angry while sitting in his jail cell and in the courtroom. The bulk of the action
consists of his lawyer and his wife riding in a Jeep and attacked by the enemy
in Korea as they search for evidence in Ryker’s case. The movie, which clocks
in at 85 minutes, would be easy to dismiss as a theatrical release, but it plays
rather well on the small screen. The Blu-ray looks and sounds terrific and a nice
surprise for me was the score by John Williams.
Extras
include the trailer for this and other Kino Lorber releases. Also included is a
fascinating audio commentary by film historian and filmmaker Daniel Kremer who
details the history of made-for-television productions which were released
theatrically. The Blu-ray is worth the purchase for the audio commentary alone.
What would have been nice is the option to watch the made for television
version, but I’m happy to see this version on Blu-ray. Highly recommended.
Finally!
Chaplin fans can rejoice that The Criterion Collection has at last released the
long-awaited missing entry in their run of excellent Blu-ray and DVD
editions of the filmmake's feature films. For a while it appeared that The
Circus, one of the auteur's best and certainly, arguably, his funniest
picture, was forgotten, as it's been a few years since Criterion's last Chaplin
release. Now, here it is. (The only features that remain to be given the
Criterion treatment are A Woman of Paris from 1923, which didn't star
Chaplin, and A King in New York, from 1957, his last starring vehicle. A
Countess from Hong Kong, from 1967, perhaps doesn't count.)
The
Circus was
made just as Hollywood was beginning the transition from silents to talkies.
There were still plenty of silent pictures being produced in 1928, and the move
to sound wouldn't be seriously completed until 1930 (or, in some rural areas of
the country, 1931!). Ironically, Chaplin chose to make an additional silent
comedy in 1931, City Lights, and a semi-silent movie, Modern Times,
in 1936!
Charlie
is The Tramp, of course. Broke and penniless, he wanders near a traveling
circus and, while eluding the police who mistakenly suspect him of being a
pickpocket, accidentally finds himself in the Big Top ring in front of an
audience. They find his antics hilarious, and the cruel and greedy proprietor/ringmaster
(Al Ernest Garcia) hires him on the spot, mainly to take advantage of him. The
Tramp does not realize he's funny and how much he's worth! Then there's the
bareback rider (Merna Kennedy), with whom Charlie falls in love. He sets out to
protect her from the abuse inflicted by the boss.
That's
the story in a nutshell, but it's the collection of hilarious set pieces that
make this film a classic. The opening pickpocket/sideshow/fun house sequence is
inventive and clever. Charlie's introduction into the circus, and especially his
unwitting messing up of the magician's act, provides belly laughs. But the real
stroke of brilliance is the climax of the movie, when Charlie attempts a
tightrope act and is beleaguered by a group of monkeys that have gotten loose. One
of these primates, an impish cutie named Josephine, appeared in many movies of
the period. How her trainer got her to bite Charlie's nose without hurting him
is a marvel.
It's
interesting to note that The Circus practically disappeared for decades
until Chaplin dug it out again in the 1960s to provide the original score and
title song, restore the feature, and re-release it. It had a reputation of
being a lesser work, mainly because it had been made during a painful time in
Chaplin's personal life and he may have suppressed it. The truth is that the
film is underrated -terribly so. It's one of the genius's masterworks.
Criterion's
new 4K digital restoration of the 1969 re-release version (the only one we can
get, I presume) is beautifully presented with an uncompressed monaural
soundtrack. Chaplin's own original score, complete with a vocal title song
("Swing Little Girl", sung by Chaplin himself) sounds terrific. A new audio
commentary by Chaplin biographer Jeffrey Vance accompanies the feature.
Supplements
abound. New to the Criterion edition include a fascinating interview with
Chaplin's son Eugene (complete with home movies); a wonderful and eye-opening examination
of the visual effects and production design of the film with film scholar Craig
Barron ("In the Service of the Story"); footage of 1969 interviews on Chaplin's
Swiss estate; an audio interview from 1998 with musical associate Eric James; and
newly discovered outtakes of the Tramp and the Bareback Rider. There is also a nearly
half-hour documentary from 2003, "Chaplin Today: The Circus", that provides
insight into the troubled production; unused sequences with a new score by
Timothy Brock and related outtakes; excerpts from the recording session of "Swing Little Girl"; footage from the 1928 Hollywood premiere with appearances
by many celebrities; and re-release trailers. The package booklet sports an
essay by critic Pamela Hutchinson.
The
Circus demands
to be reevaluated and cherished as a treasure from one of cinema's most
important creative artists. This one's a must.
Iconic DC Super Hero Film Being Released as a Multimedia Living
Movie Experience from Warner Bros. Home Entertainment and Eluvio
Includes 4K UHD Feature Film and Special Features, Interactive
Themed Navigation, Explorable Image Galleries, Discoverable Digital Easter
Eggs, and more!
Burbank, CA, June 5, 2023 – Warner Bros. Home Entertainment, in
partnership with content blockchain pioneer Eluvio,
announced today the next installment of the WB Movieverse with the iconic DC
Super Hero film Superman Web3 Movie Experience, available for
preview at https://web3.wb.com and opening for purchase on June 9.
The release of Superman Web3 Movie Experience
follows the 2022 first-of-its-kind Web3 entertainment offering The Lord of
the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (Extended Edition) Web3 Movie
Experience.
Superman Web3 Movie Experience is a multimedia NFT
for fans to own and to engage with the 1978 Richard Donner film in an exciting
way. Through dynamic menu options based on iconic locations from the film,
owners can watch the film in 4K UHD on desktop, mobile, tablet or TV, access
special features, view image galleries and artist renderings by notable DC
artists, discover digital easter eggs, as well as sell the experience in a
community marketplace.
The
Superman Web3 Movie Experience will be offered in standard
and premium editions:
Standard edition ($30 for 1 week from
8:00AM ET on June 9 to 7:59AM ET on June 16) includes an interactive
location-based navigation menu, Superman: The Movie Theatrical Version,
previously released special features and an image gallery featuring stills and
behind the scenes galleries.
Premium edition ($100 for 24 hours
from 8:00AM ET on June 9 to 7:59AM ET on June 10) includes 3 different
variations available for purchase separately, Truth, Justice, and Hope, each
featuring an illustration of Christopher Reeves’ Superman from one of three DC
artists - Ivan Reiss, Ben Oliver, or Bill Sienkiewicz. Each variation includes
an interactive and explorable location-based navigation menu and 3 versions of
the feature film – Superman: The Movie Theatrical Version; Superman:
The Movie Expanded Director’s Cut; and Superman: The Movie Extended
TV Edition - along with previously-released special features, and image
galleries featuring costume and detail images from the Warner Bros. Archive and
stills and behind the scenes galleries.
The Superman Web3 Movie
Experience will include a free voucher code for a DC3Super Power Pack: Series
Superman from
the DC NFT
Marketplace,
offering 3 randomly selected Superman comics with rarities from
Common to Legendary. These packs are time-gated, open edition drops, limited to
one per account. There will be new themed packs launching every few weeks, so
stay tuned for updates.
Early
access to all editions of the Superman Web3 Movie Experience will
be available to DC Bat Cowl NFT holders at 8:00AM ET on June 8, to DC3 holders
at 11:00AM ET on June 8, and to The Lord of the Rings Web3 Movie
Experience holders at 2:00PM ET on June 8.
“For fans of this beloved and iconic film, Superman: The
Movie is being released as an exclusive Web3 film and immersive digital
collectible for the first time,” said Michelle Munson, CEO and co-founder of
Eluvio. “As part of the WB Movieverse, consumers can easily watch, collect, and
sell their film Web3 Movie Experiences on the blockchain, in the Movieverse
marketplace. For Warner Bros., and the broader industry, Eluvio is honored to
back this novel digital sell-through experience for 4K films and premium video
assets – all streamed from and backed by secure blockchain access and ownership
on the Eluvio Content Fabric.”
TheSuperman Web3 Movie Experience will drop to the public on June 9,
exclusively at https://web3.wb.com and will be
available for purchase by credit card or crypto currency.
To
participate in this novel experience, fans can create a secure, easy-to-use
media wallet that acts as a digital vault and enables consumers to stream and
purchase content via credit cards or crypto wallets.TheSuperman Web3 Movie Experience is powered by Eluvio,
pioneers of Web3 innovation throughout the media and entertainment industry.
The Eluvio Content Blockchain provides a high-performance, simple-to-use, and
cost-effective Web3 platform built for content. It
enables Web3 native media experiences, allowing publishers and fans to directly
enjoy and monetize shows, films, concerts, digital albums, digital
collectibles, interactive and metaverse experiences, and more. Content
creators, and their communities, benefit from a significantly more
carbon-efficient and high-performance alternative to traditional platforms for
content streaming, distribution, and storage, including 4K streaming,
ticketing, NFT minting, and trading of premium content.Notably, in this experience,
the core digital assets along with derivative NFTs are all on the blockchain,
not just the token (NFT) itself. Warner Bros. Discovery Home Entertainment and
fans enjoy blockchain-backed access control and content rights enforcement,
scalable attestation of ownership, smart contracts that enable distributed
royalties, and content experiences that can even evolve over time.
Eluvio’s
Content Blockchain also provides a breakthrough in carbon-footprint efficiency
in the ways it manages media and uses blockchain technology, and on-chain
content ownership. Through a novel compositional and just-in-time protocol, the
Eluvio Content Blockchain does not make digital file copies and significantly
reduces the network storage and usage requirements as compared to traditional
streaming and content distribution systems. It also uses an eco-friendly
“proof-of-authority” consensus, which avoids the high energy consumption used
in computational “proof-of-work” blockchains.
About Warner Bros. Home
Entertainment
Warner Bros. Home Entertainment (WBHE) distributes the
award-winning movies, television, animation, and digital content produced by
Warner Bros. Discovery to the homes and screens of millions through physical
Blu-ray Disc™ and DVD retail sales and digital transactions on major streaming,
video-on-demand cable, satellite, digital, and mobile channels. WBHE
is part of Warner Bros. Discovery Content Sales, one of the world’s
largest distributors of entertainment programming.
About Eluvio, Inc.
Eluvio (https://eluv.io)
is the content blockchain for the creator economy. The Eluvio Content Fabric is
a utility blockchain network for owner-controlled storage, distribution, and
monetization of digital content at scale. It provides live and file-based
content publishing, transcoding, packaging, sequencing, and dynamic and static
distribution, and minting of derivative NFTs for all ranges of content
experiences. Examples of companies and creators whose content blockchain
initiatives have been powered by Eluvio include FOX Entertainment, Globo, MGM
Studios, Microsoft, SONY Pictures, Telstra, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment,
WWE, The Masked Singer, Dolly Parton, Black Eyed Peas, Rita Ora,
independent filmmakers, and many others. Eluvio is led by Emmy
Award-winning technologists, Michelle Munson and Serban Simu,
founders and inventors of Aspera, a pioneer in digital video transport
technology, and a core team of innovators. Based in Berkeley, California,
Eluvio has received numerous industry awards including the prestigious
Engineering Excellence Award by the Hollywood Professional Association and
recognized with 11 US patents. Follow Eluvio at @EluvioInc or on
LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company/eluv-io.
CELEBRATE
100 YEARS OF WARNER BROS. WITH TWO CLASSIC FILMS
EAST OF EDEN AND RIO BRAVO
WILL BE AVAILABLE FOR THE FIRST TIME IN 4K RESOLUTION WITH
HIGH DYNAMIC RANGE (HDR)
PURCHASE THEM ON 4K ULTRA HD DISC AND DIGITALLY AUGUST 1
Burbank, Calif., May 30, 2023 – As part of the
year-long centennial celebration for the 100th anniversary of Warner
Bros. Studio, two iconic classics from the Warner Bros. library – East of
EdenandRio Bravo- will be available for
purchase on 4K Ultra HD Disc and Digital August 1.
East of Eden, directed by Academy Award
winner Elia Kazan and starring James Dean, and Rio Bravo, directed
by Honorary Academy Award winner Howard Hawks and starring John Wayne, will be
available to purchase on Ultra HD Blu-ray™Disc from
online and in-store at major retailers and available for purchase Digitally
from Amazon Prime Video, AppleTV, Google Play, Vudu and more.
Working in partnership with The Film Foundation, both films were
restored and remastered by Warner Bros. Post Production Creative Services:
Motion Picture Imaging and Post Production Sound. Since its launch
by Martin Scorsese in 1990, The Film Foundation has restored more
than 900 movies.
The Ultra HD Blu-ray Disc will include each feature film in 4K
with HDR and a Digital version of the feature film.
Ultra HD Blu-ray showcases 4K resolution with High Dynamic Range
(HDR) and a wider color spectrum, offering consumers brighter, deeper, more
lifelike colors for a home entertainment viewing experience like never before.
For the complete 4K Ultra HD experience with HDR, a 4K Ultra HD TV
with HDR, an Ultra HD Blu-ray player and a high-speed HDMI (category 2) cable
are required.
About the Films:
East of Eden
In the Salinas Valley in and around World War I, Cal Trask feels
he must compete against overwhelming odds with his brother Aron for the love of
their father Adam. Carl is frustrated at every turn, from his reaction to the
war, to how to get ahead in business and in life, to how to relate to his
estranged mother.
The 1955 period drama is directed by Elia Kazan from a
screenplay by Paul Osborn and based on the 1952 John Steinbeck novel of the
same name. The film stars James Dean, Julie Harris, Raymond Massey, Burl
Ives, Richard Davalos, and Jo Van Fleet.
East of Eden was nominated for 3 Academy
Awards with Van Fleet winning for Best Supporting Actress. East of
Eden was named one of the 400 best American films of all time by the American Film
Institute. In 2016, the film was selected
for preservation in the United States National Film
Registry by the Library of
Congress as being "culturally,
historically, or aesthetically significant".
Rio Bravo
A small-town sheriff in the American West enlists the help of a
disabled man, a drunk, and a young gunfighter in his efforts to hold in jail
the brother of the local bad guy.
The 1959 American Western film is directed by Howard
Hawks. The screenplay is by Jules Furthman and Leigh Brackett and is based on
the short story “Rio Bravo” by B.H. McCampbell. The film stars John Wayne, Dean
Martin, Ricky Nelson, Angie Dickinson, Walter Brennan, and Ward Bond.
In 2014, Rio Bravo was selected for preservation in
the United States National Film
Registry by the Library of
Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically
significant.”
Ultra HD Blu-ray Elements
East
of EdenUltra HD Blu-ray contains the following previously released
special features:
Commentary by Richard Schickel
Rio BravoUltra HD
Blu-ray contains the following previously released special features:
If you haven't seen the news about the new "Superman" 4K boxed set, here is the Warner Bros. press release:
CELEBRATE 100 YEARS OF WARNER BROS. WITH ONE OF
FILM’S MOST ICONIC CHARACTERS - SUPERMAN
SUPERMAN
1978 – 1987 5-FILM COLLECTION FEATURING
SUPERMAN: THE MOVIE, SUPERMAN II, SUPERMAN II: THE
RICHARD DONNER CUT, SUPERMAN III, AND SUPERMAN IV: THE QUEST FOR
PEACE WILL BE AVAILABLE FOR THE FIRST TIME AS A REMASTERED COLLECTION IN 4K
RESOLUTION WITH HIGH DYNAMIC RANGE (HDR)
PURCHASE THE COLLECTION ON
4K ULTRA HD COMBO PACK AND DIGITALLY
As part of the year-long
centennial celebration for the 100th anniversary of Warner Bros.
Studio, five films featuring the iconic DC Super Hero Superman – Superman:
The Movie,Superman II, Superman II: The Richard Donner
Cut, Superman III, and Superman IV- will
be available for purchase in a five-film collection on 4K Ultra HD Disc and
Digital on April 18.
Based on the DC character created by
Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, the Superman films star Christopher
Reeve as the legendary “Man of Steel.”
On April 18, the Superman 1978 – 1987 5-Film
Collectionwill be available to purchase on Ultra HD
Blu-ray™ Disc from online and in-store at major retailers
and available for purchase Digitally from Amazon Prime Video, AppleTV, Google
Play, Vudu and more.
The
Ultra HD Blu-ray Combo Packs will include an Ultra HD Blu-ray disc with the
feature films in 4K with HDR, a Blu-ray disc with the feature films and special
features in HD, and a Digital version of each film.
Ultra
HD Blu-ray showcases 4K resolution with High Dynamic Range (HDR) and a wider
color spectrum, offering consumers brighter, deeper, more lifelike colors for a
home entertainment viewing experience like never before.
For
the complete 4K Ultra HD experience with HDR, a 4K Ultra HD TV with HDR, an
Ultra HD Blu-ray player and a high-speed HDMI (category 2) cable are required.
The issue has just been mailed to all subscribers.
Highlights of issue #56 include:
Simon Lewis and Dave Worrall go behind the scenes of "A Bridge Too Far" in an 18-page "Film in Focus"- don't miss Dave's special report based on his experiences on the set!
Nicholas Anez explores the two versions of "The Cincinnati Kid" starring Steve McQueen.
John P. Harty revisits the trials and tribulations of bringing "55 Days at Peking" to the big screen.
Lee Pfeiffer revisits the infamous bomb "The Legend of the Lone Ranger"..was it really that bad?
Brian Davidson celebrates the sexy but-short-lived stewardess-ploitation films.
Tim Greaves recalls how Sophia Loren made a splash in her first Hollywood film, Boy on a Dolphin.
"Author's Corner":
Cinema Retro invites authors to contribute a first-hand account of how they
were inspired to write their book. Our guest contributor today is Julian
Schlossberg, author of "Try Not to Hold It Against Me: A Producer's
Life" (Beaufort Books). (Click
here for Cinema Retro's review of the book.)
A producer had better be working on several things at the
same time. As they say, throw a bunch of spaghetti against the wall and
hope that some of it sticks. But in 2021, with the pandemic raging, nothing was
sticking. I felt the need to put all my projects on hold. So what is a producer
to do with all of that free time and energy? He looks back. He
shares stories. Prior to that, whenever I would share some anecdote
related to my sixty years in show business, I was often asked “are you
writing a book?” I had always answered truthfully that I was too
busy. Well, now, with the pandemic, busy, I wasn’t. So I sat down and
wrote just one chapter. It was a story I had told for years and that had
made my wife Merryn laugh, even though she had heard me tell it countless
times. I then wrote another. And another. I would read each new
chapter to Merryn and two women who are my frequent collaborators and, have
become, like sisters to me, Marlo Thomas and Elaine May. These three
women were very important to my process. Eventually Elaine would
contribute the foreword to my book.
The past started flooding back and I found myself
downloading incidents I had forgotten. The more I wrote, the more I
began to realize that I had many reasons for bring my story to the page. In
looking back, I wanted to transport readers of my generation back to a time
that will never come again. I wanted to share my experiences with a younger
generation that might enjoy reading about a totally different world that once
existed. This was a time when there was only three television
networks. A time when people still dressed up to go to the movies
(especially if it was a musical!). A time when I thought I could do anything,
because I was still young and inexperienced enough to have not considered the
alternative.
(Photo: Julian Schlossberg).
Beyond the nostalgia, I knew that I wanted my story to entertain, and perhaps,
even inspire. Having produced movies, television and theater, I wanted to
write about my personal experiences working in all three mediums. I would
recount in some detail how a play, a movie and a television show is produced
from the ground up. I would share my experiences learning the trade from
the ground up, and recall my collaborations, encounters and, in some cases,
friendships with the likes of Barbra Streisand, Liza Minnelli, Shirley
MacLaine, Bruce Springsteen, Elia Kazan, Sid Caesar, Orson Welles, Al
Pacino, Burt Reynolds, Lillian Hellman, Bette Davis, Alfred Hitchcock, Jack
Nicholson, Bob Hope, Ethan Coen, George Burns, Sid Caesar, Steve Allen,
Larry Gelbart and many others.
Just writing such a list humbles me, and looking back, I am still amazed by my
unexpected trajectory. When I was just starting out, I drove a taxi for a
living. To keep alert while picking up late night fares, I would listen
to comedy legends on the radio; talents like Mike Nichols and Elaine May, Woody
Allen and Alan Arkin. I dreamed that I might one day meet them and tell them
how much I admired their talent. The fact that I ended up producing for
them, to this day, boggles my mind.
But before I became a producer, my first showbiz job was working at the ABC-TV
network. There, I decided to learn all I could about the entertainment
business. I didn’t have a medical, accounting or law degree. But I
knew knowledge was power, and if I could attain knowledge perhaps I could
attain some power. So I became my own kind of hyphenate. I was a TV
network executive—motion picture syndicator—V.P. of a theater chain— V.P. of a
major film studio—owner of a production and film distribution company.
And after that, my list of hyphenated job titles grew to include
producer—director—radio host—TV host—co-owner of a record company—talent
manager—producer representative—lecturer-teacher.
And, now, finally, I can say that I’m an author too. Who would have thought
that the cabbie from the Bronx would one day author a memoir titled Try
Not To Hold It Against Me – A Producer’s Life? Who’d have thought that
anyone would want to read it? Certainly not me. But with the book having
sold out on Amazon within days of its initial release, and a second printing on
order, I guess people are reading. I’m awe-struck and I couldn’t be more
pleased or grateful.
(Photo: Julian Schlossberg).
Since this is a cinema site, I’ll close with a memory that I include in the new
book. I describe my experience of working, distantly, with Martin
Scorsese and Federico Fellini. I close that particular chapter with this
recollection: “It meant a lot to me to present a Fellini film with
Scorsese. I was proud to be associated with both of them. But I
also knew how to answer the question often posed in elementary school tests,
‘which one doesn’t belong’.”
I suppose, despite my 60 years in
the business, I will always see myself as the kid from the Bronx who
wanted to get into show business …but try not to hold it against me.
(PR contact for Julian Schlossberg: Brett Oberman at
Keith Sherman & Associates: brett@ksa-pr.com)
Kino Lorber has released a Blu-ray edition of the little-remembered
1970 romantic comedy "How Do I Love Thee?" The film's primary
distinction is the interesting teaming of Jackie Gleason and Maureen
O'Hara. By this point in his career, Gleason was a force of nature in
the American entertainment business. When his variety show went off the
air, CBS couldn't induce him to do another series so the network
actually paid him not to work for any other network. When you get paid a
fortune not to work, you know you're doing something right.
Gleason had settled in Miami Beach in the early 1960s as one of the
demands he made of CBS in return for doing his variety show. The
location offered what Gleason liked most: sun, golf, plenty of drinking
establishments and no shortage of beautiful young women. Gleason's
impact on elevating Miami Beach's popularity was notable. It was widely
believed that the city's rebirth as a hip destination as opposed to a
retirement destination was due in part to Gleason referring to Miami
Beach as "The sun and fun capital of the world!". Gleason, like his
contemporary Dean Martin, had long ago tired of working very hard. If
you wanted him, the mountain had to come to Mohammed, so to speak. Thus,
it's no coincidence that "How Do I Love Thee?" was filmed in Miami
Beach, thereby ensuring Gleason prime opportunities for maximizing his
play time and minimizing his work before the cameras. (Gleason had a
photographic memory and famously refused to rehearse very much, often to
the consternation of his co-stars).
The film focuses on the character of Tom Waltz (Rick Lenz), a
twenty-something professor who is rising up the ladder at his
university. He's a got a nice house and a beautiful wife, Marion
(Rosemary Forsyth) but when we first meet him, he's filled with anxiety.
Seems that while visiting the "miracle" site of Lourdes in France, his
father Walt (Jackie Gleason) has suffered a major health crisis. Tom's
mother Elsie (Maureen O'Hara) implores Tom to race over to France and
visit his father, who seems to be dying. Tom wants to go but Marion
reminds him of the lifetime of contentious situations he has endured
with his father and tells him that this is just another method of Walt
trying to gain attention. Indeed, as we see through a series of
flashbacks, Walt is a real handful. He owns his own moving company but
still has to break his back loading and lifting furniture all day long.
He has a pretty fractious relationship with Elsie, largely due to her
strong religious convictions that conflict with his atheism. As young
boy, Tom witnessed a lot of fighting in the household. When he
accompanied his dad on jobs, he discovered that his father is not the
devoted family man he thought he was- especially when he witnesses Walt
trying to seduce a ditzy social activist and amateur photographer
(Shelly Winters in typical over-the-top Shelly Winters mode) who is one
of his clients. Walt is similar in nature to Willy Lohman of "Death of a
Salesman" in that both men are past their prime but working harder than
ever to provide for their family. Walt is a good man, but he's subject
to self-imposed crises generally related to his short temper, drinking
habits and flirtatious nature. Ultimately, Tom opts to take the trip to
Lourdes, even though Marion is threatening to divorce him over his
decision. The majority of the tale is told in flashbacks that present
some moderately amusing situations and some poignant dramatic scenes as
well. There's also a good dose of sexual humor, typical for comedies of
the era that were capitalizing on new-found screen freedoms.The
direction by old pro Michael Gordon ("Pillow Talk") is fine but the
screenplay, based on a novel by Peter De Vries, punts in the final
scenes, tossing in an improbable extended joke about cars going amiss on
their way to a funeral and a feel-good ending that wraps everything up
quickly in a style more befitting a sitcom episode of the era. Still,
the performances are fun with Lenz and Forsyth quite good as the young
couple and Gleason and O'Hara registering some genuine chemistry on
screen.
The Blu-ray transfer is generally fine but around the 80-minute mark
some speckling and artifacts appear during the final reel, although it
isn't distracting enough to bother the average viewer. The bonus extras
don't include the trailer for the feature film but do present trailers
for other KL comedy releases including "Avanti!", "The Russians are
Coming! The Russians are Coming!" and " The Adventure of Sherlock
Holmes' Smarter Brother".
Scorpion has released a Blu-ray edition of the 1979 Canadian disaster movie "City on Fire". If you've never heard of it, don't feel bad- neither had this writer and I thought I was quite familiar with the genre which arguably began with the release of "Airport" in 1970. The success of that film spawned similarly-themed adventures that generally found all-stars casts threatened by water, fire, animals and other forces of nature. Producer Irwin Allen hit two home runs with "The Poseidon Adventure" and "The Towering Inferno", the latter representing the artistic and commercial peak of the short-lived but highly popular genre. At its height even second-grade disaster flicks could make sizable profits (a low-grade Japanese import titled "Tidal Wave" was a hit after it was "Americanized" with some brief footage of Lorne Greene included.) By the late 1970s, however, fickle audiences had tired of the sheer predictability of the disaster movie premise. The release of "Star Wars" incited a new interest in sci-fi but there were still some attempts to pump life into disaster flicks even if most of the passion and creativity had been drained from these productions. "City on Fire" is about, as you might have guessed, a city on fire. The unnamed city (actually Toronto) is the setting for a catastrophic blaze that starts as an act of sabotage caused by a disgruntled employee at a large chemical plant that has been foolishly located in the center of the urban metropolis. The seemingly minor act of mischief quickly escalates when raw fuel pours unchecked into the city's water supply. A spark ignites a huge inferno that rapidly isolates a major part of the city in a ring of fire that makes it almost impossible for firefighters to penetrate, thus leaving it to the potential victims to find their own methods of escape. Most of the action takes place inside a major hospital which is being evacuated even as the flames make it unlikely that many of the staff and patients will be able to reach safety. In order to do so they must navigate a deadly gauntlet of fire.
"City on Fire" lacks the big budget production values of the more successful disaster movies but director Alvin Rakoff and production designer William McCrow get around that obstacle in very commendable ways. Rakoff does utilize the old stand by of using actual disaster footage from news broadcasts in certain instances and uses a jittery camera to provide a sense of impending danger to otherwise stagnant buildings, at times making it look like Don Knotts was the cameraman. However, the production design is quite good and Rakoff handles the action scenes very commendably. There are some cheesy special effects, primarily scenes of the skyline burning, but the up-close action footage is spectacular at times and the movie features some of the best stunt work I've seen including many instances of the stuntman's worst nightmare: the full-body burn. The biggest star in this budget-challenged production is Henry Fonda, then in the winter of his career and seemingly content to play characters of authority who sit around offices and control rooms barking orders over telephones (i.e "Meteor", "Rollercoaster" and "The Swarm"). Old Hank would prove he still had his mojo with his final film, "On Golden Pond", that saw him win an Oscar, but in the years leading up to that he was happy to pick up quick pay checks with supporting roles in populist fare. Here he plays the stalwart fire chief trying to cope with the loss of an entire city. Barry Newman is the playboy physician who is trying frantically to save his hospital which is in the direct line of fire. He's also juggling a strained relationship with old flame (pardon the pun) Susan Clark, a glam socialite who had once been his lover. Meanwhile, she is involved in an illicit affair with the mayor (Leslie Nielsen) and is unaware that there are incriminating photos that are about to be used to blackmail both of them. Shelley Winters is wasted in a throw-away role as a bossy nurse who acts a lot like Shelley Winters and James Franciscus is a TV news producer who is trying to keep wall-to-wall coverage on the air despite that the fact that his star anchor, an aging diva (Ava Gardner) has turned up drunk right before the broadcasts. One of the more rewarding aspects of the film is that it affords meaty roles to actors who are generally relegated to second-tier status. They all perform admirably but it's impossible to view any of Leslie Nielsen's pre-comedy career performances objectively. He became such a master of brilliantly spoofing his own acting style that when you view his dramatic work you keep waiting for punchlines and slapstick gags that never materialize. The film follows all the conventional elements of the standard disaster movie (i.e children in peril, a pregnant woman who goes into labor during the crisis, lovers reunited, etc.) I half expected the climax to feature the heroes trapped aboard an upended ocean liner while being menaced by a shark. However, I must say that I very much enjoyed "City on Fire". It boasts an intelligent script, fine direction and reasonably good performances. There is also an almost complete lack of humor, so you won't see Fred Astaire as a charming con man or an unbilled Walter Matthau getting soused in a bar in the midst of an earthquake. The sense of gravitas is in keeping with the dramatic scenario of people stranded within a ring of fire. The movie came a day late and a dollar short to capitalize on the disaster movie trend. It's not as slick or polished as the best entries in the genre but it's better than many others including Irwin Allen's career-ending turkeys, "The Swarm" and "When Time Ran Out".
The Scorpion Blu-ray contains a notice that the transfer was put together from various sources. There are a few blotches here and there but the Blu-ray generally looks fine. Bonus features include a TV spot for the film and a trailer gallery of other Scorpion releases. Recommended.
The James Bond-inspired spy movie boom of the 1960s resulted in the films of this genre generally fitting into one of two distinct categories: tongue-in-cheek spoofs played largely for laughs (the Flint and Matt Helm series) and gritty, realistic depictions of espionage that stripped away any glamour from the spy trade ("The Spy Who Came in from the Cold", "The Deadly Affair", "The Venetian Affair", "The Ipcress File" and countless others.) Straddling the line between the two genres was writer/director Val Guest's 1966 film "Where the Spies Are" starring David Niven, who seemed impeccably suited to capitalize on the movie craze. The film was based on the novel "Passport to Oblivion" by James Leasor, a straight-up thriller set in Beirut, Lebanon when it was a thriving holiday destination for wealthy Europeans to the extent it was known as "The Paris of the Middle East". The movie opens with the abduction and murder of an MI6 agent, Rossiter (Cyril Cusack) in Beirut. He's been investigating a Soviet-inspired plot to murder the head of state and install a puppet government. The British are especially concerned because they depend upon the friendly government of Lebanon to provide Great Britain with substantial amounts of oil (some things never change.) When Rossiter goes silent, MI6 boss MacGillivray (John Le Mesurier) needs to send an agent to Beirut to investigate his disappearance. He decides he needs a non-professional who has no trace to the agency to act as an operative. He recalls using the services of Jason Love (David Niven) twenty years earlier in the war. It seems that Love proved to be reliable in successfully pulling off a dangerous mission. Love is now a well-off physician living a happy bachelor lifestyle with a posh house and a vintage, valuable roadster that he takes pleasure in driving through the country lanes. MacGillivray uses Love's sense of patriotism (and a bribe to buy him an even more valuable and rare roadster) as an incentive for him to agree to visit Lebanon, ostensibly to attend an international medical conference. It's supposed to be an easy job with Love simply nosing around and trying to find some clues as to Rossiter's fate, but you know how things usually turn out in missions of this type.
When Love disembarks from his plane in Rome to await a connecting flight to Beirut, there is quite a stir in the terminal because world famous fashion model known simply as Vikki (Francoise Dorleac) is being photographed for a fashion spread in a major magazine. They meet cute and Love is understandably distracted by her beauty. After turning on the charm, she confides in Love that she is actually one of the MI6 contacts he will meet on his mission. Love is so shocked that he is too late to catch his flight- and lucky for him that he didn't because minutes after takeoff, the plane explodes, killing everyone on board. (Inexplicably, the incident directly over the airport doesn't seem to generate much reaction from the people at the airport.) Love attributes the disaster to a mechanical flaw and arrives at his hotel in Lebanon- the same one that Rossiter had a room at. He's pleased to find that Vikki is there, too, and is as enthused about getting under the covers as he is. Their romantic fling is later disturbed by an assassination attempt and Vikki informs Love that the destruction of the airplane might have been a plot to kill him. He soon meets Parkington (Nigel Davenport), another MI6 contact- a career agent who is depressed and cynical about intelligence work. He copes by hitting the bottle hard but he proves to be a valuable ally to Love in tracing Rossiter's fate. Ultimately, Love finds himself in further peril and having to resort to his own defense mechanisms (and a couple of spy gadgets, of course) in order to survive. The finale finds him trying to thwart the assassination as well as escape Soviet kidnappers who bundle him aboard a plane bound for Russia.
"Where the Spies Are" starts off with the implication that it will be a comedy in the Flint/Helm mode with Niven playing a comic fish-out-of-water character embroiled in a larger-than-life adventure. However, the laughs are few and far between once he sets off on his mission. The film still offers some witticisms and subdued laughs, but it turns primarily into a thriller including a larger-than-life action scene atop ancient ruins. The movie was directed and co-written by Val Guest, a reliable old hand at making highly enjoyable mid-range films that weren't designed to be blockbusters or win awards. He keeps the action moving at a brisk pace, accompanied by a lively score by Mario Nasciembene. Niven is perfectly cast and delivers his usual charismatic and charming performance. Dorleac is given some mod fashion wear to show off and makes for a suitable love interest. She was set to follow her sister Catherine Deneuve as the next "it girl" in films but tragically died in 1967 in a car crash shortly after completing her final film, the spy thriller "Billion Dollar Brain". The film benefits from some exotic on-location scenes in Lebanon, with interiors shot at the old MGM Studios at Boreham Wood, England. However, it suffers from some crude special effects and the all-too-obvious use of miniatures and rear screen projection. Similarly, Niven's stunt double doesn't pass muster, as he doesn't resemble the actor in the slightest even from afar.
The film features any number of people associated with James Bond films. Niven, of course, would go on to star as Sir James Bond in the 1967 spoof version of "Casino Royale" which was co-written and co-directed by Val Guest. Wolf Mankiewicz, who had been an uncredited contributor to the script of "Dr. No", co-wrote the screenplay for "Where the Spies Are" as well as "Casino Royale". The titles were designed by Robert Brownjohn who also created the classic titles for "Goldfinger" and "From Russia with Love". Among the actors who were associated with at least one Bond movie include Eric Pohlmann (who provided the voice of the unseen Blofeld in the early Bond movies), Paul Stassino "("Thunderball"), John Le Mesurier ("Casino Royale" as "M"'s chauffeur), George Pravda ("From Russia with Love"), Bill Nagy ("Goldfinger") and Geoffrey Bayldon ("Casino Royale"). Also, former Bond star George Lazenby starred as Jason Love in an audio book adaptation of "Passport to Oblivion" available on Amazon Kindle. "U.N.C.L.E." fans will also enjoy seeing "Girl from U.N.C.L.E." star Noel Harrison as an MI6 agent and will get a laugh out of one of the passwords used in the film, "Love from Uncle", which could not have been a coincidence since it was an MGM production.
Val Guest had obtained the screen rights to "Passport to Oblivion" and several literary sequels in the hopes that a series of Jason Love films would go into production. However, the film didn't elicit much excitement from moviegoers or critics and, thus, a series never went into production. Not helping matters was MGM's decision to recut Guest's final version of the film without his permission, which supposedly infuriated him. Nevertheless, if you have a soft spot for spy movies of the 1960s, you'll probably find the film as enjoyable as I did.
The region-free Warner Archive DVD proves that this title is in dire need of a Blu-ray upgrade. The color quality is all over the place, ranging from satisfactory to wild deviations to various garish tints, giving it a Frankenstein-like quality in that it seemed to have been cobbled together with bits from several prints. That probably wasn't the case, but it is nevertheless the effect. The Archive is doing some great work upgrading even "B" titles so let's hope "Where the Spies Are" is on their list for future Blu-ray release. The only bonus feature is the original trailer which is narrated for some reason by a guy who sounds like an extra from an old WB gangster movie.
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Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 film of Stephen King’s 1977 novel The
Shining is one of the most written about, most celebrated, most loved, most
hated, and most misunderstood motion pictures in the history of the medium. Its
hypnotic effect is undeniable, and countless books and articles have been
written in many languages about its purported hidden meanings and the on-set
difficulties that were encountered by the cast and crew on the nearly year-long
shooting schedule. One of the film’s biggest fans, film director Lee Unkrich
and caretaker of http://www.theoverlookhotel.com,
teamed with the late great author J.W. Rinzler on the ultimate book on the
making of the film: a 2,200-page tome from Taschen appropriately entitled Stanley
Kubrick’s The Shining, now available on the company website, just in time
for Jack Nicholson’s 86th birthday. Cinema Retro recently spoke with
Mr. Unkrich about the new book, twelve years in the making, and how it came
about.
Todd Garbarini: How did you first hear about Stanley
Kubrick’s The Shining?
Lee Unkrich: Honestly, I had no awareness of it
until my mom took me to see it. I had no knowledge or understanding of who
Stanley Kubrick was. I grew up in Cleveland, Ohio and I may have seen it at the
Randall Park Mall. I was 13 and I remember liking it. A few days after I saw
the movie, my mom was driving me to summer camp, and we stopped at a gas
station. They had a rack of paperback books, and they had the movie tie-in edition
of Stephen King’s novel. It had Saul Bass’s yellow and black poster art on the
front. I bought it, and I ended up reading it voraciously all summer at camp
and beyond. I still have the copy to this day. I think I realized right away
that the book was different in a lot of ways than the movie, but for me, it was
more of an extension of the film. We got a Betamax at some point, and I had to
wait until The Shining came out on video to see it again. I loved both
the movie and the book. In the middle of the paperback, there was a collection of
black and white film stills from the movie. One of the photos was from a scene
that I didn’t remember. It was a shot of Wendy cooking in the kitchen,
presumably making the breakfast that she then takes up to Jack who is just
waking up. I saw that and I started thinking, wow, if that was a scene that was
shot and cut, were there others?
TG: I saw The Shining on ABC-TV in May
1983 and became obsessed with it, too, watching it on home video shortly
afterwards. When we went to Florida on vacation in July, I found a used copy of
the movie tie-in, and saw the photo of Wendy that you mentioned and wondered
what happened to the scene.
LU: Somewhere roughly around the same
time, I read that there had been a hospital epilogue that Kubrick had cut out
of the film after its limited release. Between those two things, I just started
really becoming obsessed with trying to get my hands on a screenplay or any
more information about the film. I would say that the idea of trying to track
down ostensibly more of the movie that I loved was the beginning of this
obsession that built and grew and morphed over the subsequent decades. It was
the fact that I couldn’t find anything, frustratingly, because Kubrick held
such tight reins over it all. I’d get little tidbits here and there. I found a
few crumbs, but it honestly wasn’t until TheStanley Kubrick Archives
book by Allison Castle was published by Taschen in 2005 that I had my first
glimpse into the fact that there was a lot more material that existed in
Kubrick’s own archives. Then subsequently his family established the Kubrick
Archive after he passed away. It was when I was on a press tour for Toy
Story 3 that I managed to visit the archive for the first time and really
got to dive in deep for the first time and get answers to the questions I’d had
for decades.
TG: Did The Shining scare you when
you saw it?
LU: I don’t think so. It didn’t give me
nightmares or anything like that, and I’m an only child. My parents both
worked, so I was a latchkey kid. I was home alone a lot. I had a vivid
imagination. I liked reading scary things. I liked scaring myself, but then
that would extend into bad scaring where I’d be alone and think someone was in
the house, or a statue that we had was alive, or all kinds of crazy stuff. My
parents fought a lot. They ended up divorcing by the time I was nine, so I knew
what it was like to be the child of an unstable marriage. All of that, there
were just so many elements to the movie, coupled with its tone and its
uncanniness, and how it gets under your skin, that I think it just really
wormed its way into me in a way and just never left.
TG: Your new book looks beautiful and vast
in scope, covering intimate aspects of the film’s production. It’s a book that could
never have been published without the inclusion of the Kubrick family. How
involved were they?
LU: They were very involved, and they were
amazing. What I had that was the most helpful was Stanley’s daughter, Vivian, who
made the documentary on the making of The Shining that has been
available on DVD, Blu-ray and 4K Ultra High Definition. She sat Jack and
everyone down for interviews around the time the film was completed and I got
my hands on the transcripts and those full interviews, including Jack’s, which
is like a two-hour interview. That’s the most helpful because he’d just made
the movie. He’s young and he remembers everything. I would have loved to have
met Jack, of course. I know fully that the book itself wasn’t harmed in any way
because he wasn’t involved. It’s just full of him through and through but very
thoroughly. We sent him a few copies of the book that just got to his house within
the past few weeks. I’m looking forward to hearing his thoughts about it.
(Photo courtesy of Lee Unkrich.)
TG: Did you talk to Steven Spielberg about The
Shining? I know he said he wasn’t crazy about the film the first time he
saw it because he felt that Jack was nuts from the word go.
LU: Yes, we spoke multiple times and he wrote
the foreword. Kubrick was mostly interested in Steven because he was fascinated
with how Steven had made such a huge blockbuster in Jaws. He was just
constantly peppering him with questions about Jaws and the marketing. If
Stanley was talking to you, usually it was because you had some information
that he wanted, and that was true for Spielberg as well.
TG: Did you speak at length with Leon
Vitali (Stanley Kubrick’s personal assistant)?
LU: I did, yes. I spent a lot of time with
Leon. He was extremely helpful to me at many junctures throughout the making of
the book. I was, of course, devastated when he died suddenly last summer, that
he never got to see the finished book because he was really honestly the person
I probably wanted to see it the most. He was just a very sweet, kind man. He
had a very complicated relationship with Stanley, but it was loving. I just had
enormous respect for him and how he just essentially gave his life over in many
ways to Stanley. Then even in the decades after Stanley’s death, he did
everything he could to fight the fight and make sure that everything was
presented and handled in a way that Stanley would’ve wanted. Sitting down with
Leon, especially in showing him photos, because I had hundreds that nobody had
seen before, many of them I got from the Danny Lloyd family, it would instantly
bring up stories that he probably never would’ve summoned or remembered.
TG: I’ve seen the film well over fifty
times, and yet I’m still seeing things that I never noticed!
LU: I know! It’s because we’re in this
digital age now where people can do frame grabs and overlay them. If you look
at the Colorado lounge set throughout that movie, practically every scene,
there are major differences from one scene to the next in terms of how the
furniture is laid out, where lamps are, for example. It’s because Stanley didn’t
care about continuity because he knew nobody would notice. What he did care
about were individual compositions. If a lamp in the background was coming out
of someone’s shoulder in a weird way, he’d say, “Get the lamp out of there.” He
didn’t care.
(Photo: Taschen)
TG: What did you stumble across that you
had absolutely no idea about, that was revelatory to you?
LU: I saw lots of stuff in the Kubrick
Archive that made me think, “What the hell is this?” An example of that would
be, I found all these outtake frames, most of which are reproduced in the book.
These are actual compositions, frames from set-ups, from shots and scenes that
Kubrick shot that aren’t in the finished film. A lot of them I could figure out
from drafts of the screenplay and shooting scripts, shot logs, all that I could
figure out. Like the scrapbook, for instance. It used to play a big part in the
movie (as it does in the novel). You can see it on Jack’s desk while he’s
typing. No reference is made to it in the finished film, but there were lots of
scenes about it. There was a whole scene where he found it. There were scenes
of him becoming obsessed with it. There was a scene of him showing it to Wendy.
There was a scene of him going back and looking at it again after he saw the
old woman in room 237. There was a lot of stuff having to do with that. I saw
all those frames, and I was able to figure out what they were. Then there were
other things as well. One in particular, where I never found any reference to
it anywhere, nor did I speak to anyone who remembered it. That was when Jack is
wandering around the hotel with writer’s block where he’s throwing the tennis
ball. He ends up in the lobby of the hotel, and he wanders over to the maze
model. There’s a model of the hedge maze in the lobby. He looks down at it, and
Kubrick cuts to this weird shot that’s almost like the maze in Jack’s mind. It’s
like a maze that’s far bigger and more elaborate than the model sitting on the
table in front of him. As you know, he slowly zooms in on that, and you see a
tiny little Wendy and Danny walking around in the center of the maze. I found
some footage of that same oversized maze model that had been completely
redressed to be encrusted with snow. Sitting in the middle of it was a tiny
frozen Jack. I found both the head and the tail of that shot. It was a slow
zoom. I’m presuming it was a slow zoom-out from frozen Jack. I’m guessing that
Kubrick had an idea and intended, possibly after the shot of him frozen in the
snow, that he would cut to this God’s eye view of the maze and Jack frozen in
it, and just slowly zoom out to reveal him just getting lost in this endless
labyrinth before then presumably dissolving through to the hospital epilogue. I
talked to Les Tomkins, the man who built that maze model, but he had no memory
of the snowy version.
TG: How many people did you interview for
the book?
LU: Seventy-two. I spoke with Kelvin Pike
at his house, and he has the coffee table from room 237 in his living room. When
I was over at Jan Harlan’s
(Kubrick’s brother-in-law) house, Jan has a guest bedroom in the bathroom. He
did a renovation right around the time they finished The Shining, and so
the bathtub in his guest bathroom is the bathtub from room 237.
TG: That’s arguably cinema’s most famous
(and peculiar) bathroom.
LU: I talked a lot with (assistant editor) Gordon Stainforth
who was very helpful to me with the things that he was able to be helpful with,
which is Vivian’s documentary and the cutting of music on The Shining,
which he ended up doing most of. I met Greg
MacGillivray a few times (whose company shot the
opening in Montana). He ended up providing a lot of photographs as well for the
book. He had a big archive. He went to visit the set twice, and Stanley allowed
him to take photos. He had a whole bunch of photos from the second unit shoot,
the helicopter stuff at the beginning of the movie. He graciously gave me
access to his entire library of mostly slides. Some black and white negatives.
It was mostly color slides. Greg is one of two people I spoke to who I really
am convinced has a photographic memory. Vivian was very friendly. I spent two
whole days with her down in Florida, but she was very selective about what she
would talk about. She gave me an amazing artifact, this continuity script that
the script supervisor, Joan Randall, had given her at the end of production. I
was shocked that she’d entrusted me with it. She popped it in the mail, and it showed
up at my office at Pixar. I opened it, and I just about died because it was
this amazing working screenplay with notes all over it, and fragments of paper
right out of Stanley’s typewriter on the set, taped in, and continuity
Polaroids. It was amazing. I remember thinking, “Oh my God, it’s such a shame
that no one is going to get to see this in its entirety.” But, as it worked
out, as we figured out what this collector’s edition of the book was going to
be, I ended up pitching the idea of doing an exact facsimile of this script and
Taschen went forward with it after Vivian gave us approval. Everyone who buys
this collector’s edition gets this. Other than it not having actual photos
taped and glued into it, it’s an exact replica of that screenplay.
TG: Nice! I read that Vivian had shot
roughly 45 to 50 hours on the set during principal photography.
LU: That’s exactly what it is. Yes, 50
hours.
TG: She keeps that close to her vest. She’s
not releasing it. Did you see any of this footage beyond the widely available 30-minute
documentary?
LU: No. There were little clippings,
16-millimeter clippings of it in the archive, all of which I scanned and used
as stills in the book. Jan used some bits of it in his film Stanley Kubrick
– A Life in Pictures. There are some bits from The Shining that are
not in Vivian’s documentary. The family defers to Vivian on that footage
because it was her film. Ultimately, I think Warner Brothers probably owns it,
but in terms of the relationship with the family and the estate, everyone
defers to Vivian, and she just is very adamant about no one ever seeing it.
TG: I know that a lot of viewers probably
felt that Stanley really worked over Shelley Duvall on this film.
LU: Exactly, and nothing could be further
from the truth. Was it a difficult shoot? Yes. Did Shelley have to summon
hysteria and cry on a daily basis sometimes for a big stretch of the last part
of the production? Yes. Was she abused? No, I don’t believe she was abused.
When I talk about this, I really try not to have my own opinion, even though I
do have my own opinion based on everyone I’ve talked to. At the end of the day,
I think that the only person who can really speak on the subject is Shelley. I
have interviews with Shelley, and I spent a whole day with her. We talked about
this, and Shelley remembers Stanley warmly. Shelley is proud of her work on
that film. Shelley will say, “Yes, it was difficult. Yes, it was taxing.” It
was a taxing role and she knew what she was getting into in terms of what the
role demanded, and she took the part. She’s proud of her work.
TG: I am eagerly looking forward to seeing
this book. It looks astonishing. Thank you for all your hard work and
dedication for making this a reality.
LU: It was a pleasure. Thank you.
Stanley Kubrick’s The
Shining limited edition collector's edition (1,000) is
available for purchase from Taschen.Click here.
(Lee Unkrich's credits as film director include Coco, Toy Story 2, Toy Story 3 and as co-director of Finding Nemo.)
The
1957 romantic comedy, The Prince and the Showgirl has likely received
more press about what went on behind the scenes and the notorious animosity
that existed between the two stars, Marilyn Monroe and Laurence Olivier. The
latter was also producer and director of the picture, although the production
company was the first title made by the newly-formed Marilyn Monroe
Productions. The 2011 picture (was it that long ago?), My Week with Marilyn,
featuring Michelle Williams and Kenneth Branagh, depicted the stormy relationship
between Monroe and Olivier and how Monroe behaved rather, well, erratically and
irrationally toward her director/co-star, other actors, the cinematographer,
the costumer, and nearly everyone else on the set. The actress even brought
something of a “support coach” with her every day in the form of Paula
Strasberg, who, with her husband Lee, ran the Actors Studio.
Unless
one had actually seen the real movie, The Prince and the Showgirl,
one came away from My Week with Marilyn with the impression that Monroe
was a mess, that Olivier hated her guts, and that the movie they made was a
disaster.
The
Prince and the Showgirl is actually a charming, well-acted, funny, and
touching piece of work. This reviewer is happy to say that Marilyn Monroe is marvelous
in the role of Elsie Marina, a chorus line showgirl of a musical playing in
London’s West End in 1911, when the picture takes place. Monroe displays impressive
comic timing and wit, does a pratfall or two with aplomb, and categorially
holds her own against the likes of renowned thespian Olivier. He, too, is quite
winning, even though his accent as a “Carpathian” prince regent (from the
Balkans) sometimes causes one’s eyebrows to rise. But make no mistake—this
movie belongs to Monroe, and this reviewer would easily cite her performance
here ranked in her top five.
Funny
how the bad rep of a movie and its making clouds what one really sees on the
screen.
Granted,
The Prince and the Showgirl was received with lukewarm praise upon its
release. The BAFTAs honored it with several nominations, including Actor,
“Foreign” Actress, Screenplay, and British Film. It received no Academy Award
nominations. The film did very well in the UK, likely due to Olivier’s presence.
Perhaps the picture’s indifferent reception in the USA was due to its rather
slow pace, length (a few minutes under two hours), and the fact that the story
takes place mostly in static one-room sequences of the Carpathian Embassy.
That’s not surprising, because the movie is based on a stage play, The
Sleeping Prince, by Terrence Rattigan, who also penned the screenplay.
Perhaps Rattigan adhered too closely to the conventions of the stage. All of
these things are indeed flaws in the motion picture.
Still…
this is a worthwhile romantic comedy on the strength of the two leads,
especially Monroe’s luminous performance. Not only does she look fantastic, as
always, but she truly does light up the screen with charisma, warmth, and
delight. Other standouts in the cast would include Richard Wattis, who nearly
steals the movie as the frustrated foreign office suit who is charged with
keeping the prince happy during his stay in London, Sybil Thorndike as the
prince’s dowdy but often frank mother-in-law, and Jeremy Spenser as the
prince’s son, King Nicolas, who to this reviewer resembles what Quentin
Tarantino might have looked like at the age of sixteen.
The
Warner Archive has released a region-free, beautifully rendered, restored presentation of
the feature film in high definition. That 1950s-era Technicolor pops out, and
the costumes are undeniably gorgeous. Unfortunately, the only supplement on the
disk is the theatrical trailer.
The
Prince and the Showgirl is enthusiastically recommended for fans of Marilyn
Monroe. Fans of Olivier, who does what he can when someone so appealing is
sharing the screen with him, will find it interesting. For this reviewer’s
money, The Prince and the Showgirl is far more enjoyable than My Week
with Marilyn, which now seems to be a rather sordid coda to this romantic
comedy bauble.
Click hereto order from the Cinema Retro Movie Store.
Lewis Gilbert's 1964 film The 7th Dawn is available on Blu-ray from Kino Lorber. Longtime readers will remember that Gilbert discussed
the movie in an exclusive interview with Matthew Field in Cinema Retro
issue #18. The movie had previously only been available in the U.S. as a burn-to-order MGM DVD. This is a thoroughly engrossing,
adult drama with an unusual setting and story background. The movie
begins on the final day of WWII and centers on three disparate friends:
an American named Ferris (William Holden), a French woman, Dhana
(Capucine) and a Malayan, Ng (Tetsuro Tamba) who have led guerilla
forces against the Japanese occupation in Malaya. The three close
friends are jubilant in victory, after having suffered from fighting in
the jungle for extended periods. At the end of the war, Ng goes off to
Moscow to pursue communist political training. The apolitical Ferris
stays behind, with Malayasia now under British occupation. He thrives as a
local rubber plantation owner, and Dhana is his lover, despite her
frustration with Ferris' womanizing. The story advances to 1953, with
Malayans now impatient for independence from England, which is easing
toward granting their demands, but at a snail's pace. Ng returns to
Malaya to try to instigate communist-inspired violent uprisings. To his
sympathizers, he is a freedom fighter. To the British, he is a terrorist
and the most wanted man in the nation.
Ferris is shaken from his cynical desire to remain removed from the
political situation when Dhana is framed and charged by the British for
assisting the terrorists. She has a choice: lead the authorities to Ng's
hideout in the jungle or be sentenced to death. Dhana, who has always
been as attracted to Ng as she has to Ferris, refuses to give him up.
Ferris is faced with the ultimate dilemma: betray his best friend by
capturing him and turning him into the British, or face the prospect of
his lover being executed. Adding to the complications is the presence of
Candace (Susannah York), the comely young daughter of the British
governor who is also in love with Ferris and who concocts a scheme that
might save Dhana, despite the fact that it places her own life in
danger.
The 7th Dawn is a superb movie on every level, although it was
not particularly successful on its initial release. Unlike most of the
simplistic, special-effects driven action films of today, this movie
deals with basic human dilemmas such as the meaning of friendships and
the price of loyalties. The four leads are outstanding and Holden, in
particular, gives one of the most impressive performances of his
career. York and Capucine give touching performances, as well, and Tamba
(who would go on to star as 'Tiger' Tanaka in Lewis Gilbert's 1967
James Bond film You Only Live Twice) is particularly impressive
as a man who is torn between political ideology and his affection for
his friends. The political drama is played out in an engrossing manner,
as one witnesses the bumbling, if sincere attempts by the British
bureaucrats to try to win the hearts and minds of the locals through
tragically misguided methods. The film builds to a harrowing conclusion
as Ferris and Candace venture into the jungle in an attempt to capture
Ng before the death sentence can be carried out against Dhana. The last
half hour of the movie is especially riveting and packed with suspense
and Gilbert's direction is truly impressive. The film benefits from the
lush landscapes photographed by Freddie Young and a beautiful musical
score by Riz Ortolani.
Put this one on your "must see" list.
The Kino Lorber Blu-ray boasts an impressive transfer, though bonus materials are relegated to a trailer gallery. It would have been a good idea to include a commentary track, but considering the Blu-ray is a big step up from the previous DVD release, we won't complain.
In
“Secret of the Incas,” a 1954 release from Paramount Pictures, Harry Steele
(Charlton Heston) and Ed Morgan (Thomas Mitchell) are rival opportunists in
Cuzco, Peru.Both are searching for the
Sunburst, a fabled Incan artefact said to be hidden in the “lost city” of Machu
Picchu.“Not too many people go to Machu
Picchu,” Harry says.Today, when
tourists descend on the ancient Incan capital in droves, you would have to
wonder if he’d ever heard of Expedia.But the observation was true enough in the early 1950s when the ruins were
far off the beaten path.In those days,
most small-town Americans would have regarded a visit to New York or Miami as
an exotic excursion, never mind finding the time, money, or inspiration to fly
to the Andes.
Harry
has the edge in the quest for the Incan treasure, having appropriated a broken
chunk from an idol.The fragment
contains part of a pictograph which, when fitted to the rest of the carving on
the remainder of the statue, reveals the method for finding the hiding place of
the Sunburst.Putting the two together
isn’t a problem, requiring Harry only to follow a tourist group into the museum
where the fractured statue sits on display.But getting over the Andes to Machu Picchu to claim the Sunburst, “a
hunk of gold with 119 pure diamonds and 243 other precious stones,” is another
matter.This challenge is solved when
Elena (Nicole Maurey) arrives in Cuzco, a refugee from communist Romania.Elena is as grasping as Harry, whom she views
as her meal ticket to the U.S., while Harry uses her as bait to steal a small
private plane from the Romanian counsel, who flies into Cuzco to arrest
her.In Machu Picchu, Stanley Moorehead
(Robert Young), an archeologist directing a dig for the tomb of the last Incan
king, falls in love with Elena.Harry is
more amused than put out.His real
concern is Ed, who has followed by pack train and carries a gun.
The
Indians in the surrounding villages regard the Sunburst with spiritual awe,
believing that when it is found, the discovery will mark the rebirth of the
Inca nation.But Harry and his rival
only care about the fortune they can realize when they pry the jewels off the
relic and melt the gold into ingots.“We’ll
sit around and pluck it over like a roasted chicken, piece by piece,” Ed
gloats.The two agree on a fifty-fifty
split for the Sunburst, but given their mercenary natures, it’s about as
tenuous a deal as a division of spoils between competing bounty hunters in a
Spaghetti Western.Cast against type if
you remember them strictly for their signature roles, Heston and Mitchell are
excellent.Peruvian singer Yma Sumac, as
one of Machu Picchu’s Indian caretakers, has a sly screen presence and three
vocal numbers, which may be three too many for those who only want to get on
with the story.But Sumac was a
marketing draw comparable to having a performance by Lady Gaga or Adele in a
2023 movie.Largely forgotten today, she
was a star in the early 1950s “exotic music” genre pioneered by Les Baxter and
Martin Denny, with performances at Carnegie Hall and best-selling LPs on the
Billboard charts.Heston appears in some
exterior scenes of Cuzco and Machu Picchu, having participated in a month-long,
pre-production location shoot, but he, Mitchell, Young, Mourey, Sumac, and the
supporting Hollywood cast are missing (or represented by stand-ins at a
distance) from scenes where crowds of actual Peruvian Indians congregate at
Machu Picchu.Eagle-eyed viewers are
likely to notice the seams, but for most of us, it’s part of the fun to watch
old-school escapist pictures like this and tease out the real locations from
the studio sets.
“Secret
of the Incas” was absent from official U.S. home video release for
decades—neglectfully so, according to critics who have cited it as an influence
on “Raiders of the Lost Ark” and a precursor to the James Bond franchise in the
double entendres that Harry trades with an appreciative housewife of means from
Michigan, Mrs. Winston, played by the great Glenda Farrell.When Mrs. Winston greets the strapping Harry
by commenting, “My, you’re a big one,” and looks forward to his “services” as a
tour guide, you know she has more in mind than a dinner reminder to her tourist
group.“I’ll be right outside your
door,” he assures her.
A
new Blu-ray edition from Kino Lorber Studio Classics makes up for the film’s
long absence with a remastered print licensed from Paramount, from a 4K scan of
original negative elements.The rich
colours of the Indians’ shawls and serapes are eye-popping in restored
Technicolor.Maybe the movie’s omission
from prior video formats, especially the inferior VHS process, and more
especially the even worse VHS/EP/SLP budget format in which Paramount briefly
released a handful of its archival titles in 1992, wasn’t such a loss after
all.
The special features
on the Blu-ray include an informative audio commentary by Toby Roan, previews
of related KL titles, and sharp SDH captioning.
Cinema Retro is proud to announce that once again our
publication has been nominated for a Rondo Award in the category of Best
Magazine. The Rondo Awards are named in honor of the legendary character actor
Rondo Hatton. The awards allow film fans across the globe to honor their
favorite achievements in video releases and film-related journalism.The most recent nominations reflect achievements for the year 2022.
Also, Cinema Retro contributor Mark Mawston, who recently
brought CR readers a rare, exclusive interview with actor John Leyton, has been
singled out for a nomination in the category of Best Interview. This time, the
subject of his work is the life and career of noted writer, film, and film music
historian, Steve Vertlieb, who reflects on his interactions with a “Who’s Who”
of film legends from over the decades. The superb 12-page interview appeared in issue
#31 of the popular British horror magazine “We Belong Dead”. Mark is known professionally as "The Rock and
Roll Photographer To The Stars" (having photographed such music luminaries
at Sir Paul McCartney, Sir Elton John, Eric Clapton, Yoko Ono, and Brian Wilson).
Please click here for the Awards web site. While
perusing the many nominees in other categories, vote for your favorites!
To vote, send an E mail (include your name) to: David Colton at taraco@aol.com by midnight, Sunday on April 23.
FROM MGM AND UNITED ARTISTS, ROCKY, ROCKY II, ROCKY III AND
ROCKY IV
AVAILABLE FOR THE FIRST
TIME IN 4K RESOLUTION WITH
HIGH DYNAMIC RANGE (HDR)
Own it on 4K Ultra HD and Digital
Cinema Retro has received the following press release:
Burbank, Calif., – Get knocked out by the
new 4K contender – the ROCKY I-IV 4K 4-Film Collection newly
remastered in stunning 4K Ultra HD. Sylvester Stallone stars in the greatest
boxing saga of all time and triumphs as one of the most inspirational
characters in cinematic history. Witness every epic, action packed fight and
unforgettable moment as Rocky punches his way to the top against impossible
odds when the ROCKY I-IV 4K 4-Film Collection is
released on Ultra HD Blu-ray Combo Pack.
The ROCKY I-IV 4K 4-Film Collection includes
the MGM feature films ROCKY, ROCKY II, ROCKY III and ROCKY
IV, along with theROCKY
IV Ultimate Director’s Cut, ROCKY VS. DRAGO.
This collection contains a Blu-ray disc featuring the hour-long behind the
scenes documentary on the making of this extended director’s cut of ROCKY
IV, ROCKY IV: ROCKY VS. DRAGO as well as a
selection of previously existing EC.
The Ultra HD Blu-ray disc featuring the films ROCKY,
ROCKY II, ROCKY III, ROCKY IV and theROCKY
IV Ultimate Director’s Cut, ROCKY VS. DRAGO will
feature Dolby VisionTM HDR that dramatically expands the color
palette and contrast range, and uses dynamic metadata to automatically optimize
the picture for every screen, frame by frame.
The Ultra HD Blu-ray will include an Ultra HD Blu-ray disc with
each feature film in 4K with HDR, a bonus Blu-ray disc with the documentary and
a selection of pre-existing special features, and a Digital version of the
feature films.
For the complete 4K Ultra HD experience with HDR, a 4K Ultra HD TV
with HDR, an Ultra HD Blu-ray player and a high-speed HDMI (category 2) cable
are required.
Following the “monstrous” success of Universal’s Frankenstein, Boris Karloff no longer
had to cast about Hollywood looking for employment.Between 1932 and 1942, the actor would appear
in more than forty feature films for nearly every major and minor Hollywood
studio: Universal, of course: but also Fox, United Artists, Paramount, MGM, RKO
Radio, Warner Bros., Monogram and Columbia.Prior to Frankenstein, Karloff
had appeared in several gangster/prison pictures for Columbia Pictures as a menacing
presence.It was a gift that brought
attention.
Though it was Universal’s Frankenstein (1931) that would make Karloff a box-office star in
his own right, the actor would go on to make two other films for Columbia in
the 1930s (The Black Room and The Man They Could Not Hang).Though Columbia studio boss Harry Cohn didn’t
care much for horror pictures, Karloff’s on-screen villainy was a hot
commercial property ripe for exploitation.So Columbia cast him – in a dual role as bothers Anton and Gregor De
Berghman’s – in Roy William Neill’s big-budget historical melodrama The Black Room Mystery (the title later
shortened to The Black Room).It’s interesting that the two-page spread
Columbia took out in the trades didn’t play up the film’s “horror” angle.Only that the film would star “Boris Karloff: The Man They Love to Hate in
a powerful mystery romance.”
Columbia’s The Man
They Could Not Hang (1939) followed, the first of a five-picture deal
Karloff would strike with the studio. Between 1939 and 1942 the actor embarked
on a series of Columbia films that fans describe as the actor’s “mad scientist”
pictures.All five of these melodramas/horror-sci-fi
pics, as well as The Black Room, are
included on Mill Creek’s new Blu- ray package Thrillers from the Vault.Two additional horror/sci-fi efforts from Columbia (Return of the Vampire and Five)
round out this generous – if curious - set. But we’ll get to that in a moment.
In many respects the first four of Karloff’s mad
scientist films closely resemble one another in construction.They’re formula films. In each Karloff portrays
a scientist/doctor working on a formula or experiment that will benefit all mankind.But in each instance the science goes wrong -
which causes Karloff to do the same.In
fairness, his murderous turn-of-heart is usually due to the interventions of
disbelievers.The premise of all these “mad
scientist” films can be summarized in a line Karloff delivers in The Man They Could Not Hang.Having vanquished nearly all of those he
holds responsible for his murder conviction, he snarls bitterly, “Every gift that science has given them
has been twisted into a thing of hate and greed!”
In Nick Grinde’s The
Man They Could Not Hang (1939), Karloff plays Dr. Henryk Savaard, a noble
scientist who plans to test his newfangled mechanical heart pump on a young and
trusting medical associate (Stanley Brown).To conduct this experiment, the young man must be first put into a state
of clinical death prior to reification.But due to the alarm of his hysterical nurse – the fiancé of the test
subject, to boot – the authorities are alerted.Upon their hurried arrival at Savaard’s laboratory, they do not allow
the pleading scientists the chance to revive the corpse of the test subject.
Savaard is tried for murder and executed on the
gallows.But the scientist’s devoted
assistant Lang (Byron Foulger) collects his body from the prison morgue, applies
the mechanical heart procedure on Savaard’s corpse, and resurrects Savaard.But Dr. Savaard is no longer a benevolent
scientist.The actions set off by the
“treacherous” nurse has left him mercilessly unhinged.He’s now interested only on exacting revenge
on the twelve jurors and prosecution team who found him guilty of murder.
In Grinde’s The Man
with Nine Lives (1940), Karloff plays Dr. Leon Kravaal, a scientist whose
cancer research leads him to believe that freezing those afflicted –
temporarily in a secretive, subterranean glacial chamber - helps retard or cure
the disease.But the authorities –
pressed by a gaggle of wary villagers - wrongly suspect Kravaal is up to no
good.They travel out to his secretive
island with the intent of hauling Kravaal to prison.
With the life of his frozen patient in jeopardy due to this
unwelcome incursion, Kravaal releases a gas, rendering everyone – including
himself – unconscious in the frozen chamber.The film flashes forward a decade on when a trio of scientists decide to
investigate Kravaal’s mysterious disappearance.Upon finding both the doctor and his interlopers perfectly preserved in
ice, all are thawed out.But Kravaal,
now crazed with revenge, uses his new lease on life to continue his experiments
on his imprisoned and unwilling subjects.
Grinde’s back again for Before I Hang (1940). In
this one Karloff plays Dr. John Garth, an elderly, mild-mannered scientist in
search of a serum that will retard the aging process.He’s not successful in his first effort, compelling
him to perform a “mercy killing” on a patient whose life was nothing but a
“sleepless, tortured nightmare.”For
this act he’s convicted of murder and sentenced to hang.While awaiting execution, the warden (unreasonably)
allows Garth to continue with his experiments under the supervision of a prison
doctor Dr. Howard (Edward Van Sloane).Reworking
the formula, Garth has the bad idea of mixing the blood of recently executed
fellow inmate – who happened to be a three-time convicted murderer – into the
serum.
Garth chooses to be the willing guinea pig himself – he’s
about to be executed anyway, so has nothing to lose – and injects the serum
into his own bloodstream.This time the
age reversal works – but with a caveat.Though
Garth begins to transform into his younger self, his veins now carry the
“contaminated” blood of a murderer.Unable to fend off evil impulses, Garth strangles Dr. Howard.But prison authorities mistakenly pin
Howard’s murder on another inmate and Garth – injured in a frantic melee with
that inmate - is ultimately pardoned.But the tainted blood he carries compels him to seek out fresh victims outside
of prison walls.
Things go no better for Karloff’s Dr. Julian Blair in Edward
Dmytryk’s The Devil Commands
(1941).Despondent over his wife’s death
in an automobile accident, Blair is convinced brainwaves of the deceased live
on following a body’s expiry - and such waves can be recorded electrically on a
graph.Though most of his colleagues scoff
at his theory, Blair is determined to continue his work in a remote cliff side cottage
near the sea.To this end he has built an
elaborate – and decidedly eerie – laboratory: one brimming with electrical
gimmickry, wires and steel-plated robotic helmets.Such experimentation might have been sanctioned
had Blair not robbed local graves in search of test subjects.Needless to say things, as ever, do not turn
out well for anyone involved.
The sixth and final Karloff Columbia effort in this set
is Lew Lander’s The Boogie Man Will Get
You (1942). This is a more lighthearted affair, a black comedy that’s,
regrettably, only occasionally comedic.The film, a co-feature with Peter Lorre, is mostly a poor cousin to a
more recent and successful enterprise.The Boogie Man Will Get You is mostly an
ill-conceived knock-off of Karloff’s popularity as the murderous Jonathon
Brewster in the Broadway stage production of Arsenic and Old Lace.
There is a key difference.While the Broadway play and Lander’s film attempt
to mix laughs with menace, the former does so to perfection, the latter… not so
much.As this is a WWII era-film,
Karloff’s Professor Billings and Lorre’s Dr. Lorencz work to create a race of super-humans
to assist the Allied war effort.It’s
best to be a fan of mug boxer-turned-character-actor “Slapsie” Maxie Rosenbloom
if one truly expects to mine sixty-six minutes of reasonable entertainment.
The seventh and eighth films of this Thrillers from the Vault set are the only two not featuring Karloff. Lander’s The
Return of the Vampire (1942) features Bela Lugosi’s caped return as Count
Dracula… well, more or less.In the film
his character is actually referred to as Armand Tesla, but Lugosi plays his
part mostly as he had the more fabled Count of Tod Browning’s Universal classic
of 1931.While there’s no Dwight Frye to
attend to his sinister beckoning’s, this film’s “Renfield” styled servant is
Andreas Orby (Matt Willis), a talking werewolf.
As with The Boogie
Man Will Get You, this film too situates a favorite horror actor in a modern
WWII setting.The vampire Tesla is resurrected
in the film’s earliest scenes as his graveyard internment is disturbed by a
German air-raid bombing over London.This is, most welcomingly, the first time The Return of the Vampire has been issued in the U.S. on Blu-ray.The title was previously issued by
Columbia/Tri-Star on a DVD release of 2002.
The set’s eighth and final film Five (1951) is the odd man out here, a thoughtful if dystopian film,
courtesy of writer-director-producer Arch Oboler of Lights Out radio fame.A
nuclear bomb blast has wiped out all of the world’s population, save for five
souls who wander and ponder moralities, politics and the future’s gloomy future
prospects.It might have been best to
include Five on Mill Creek’s sister
set to this Thriller release, Sci-Fi from the Vault.
In truth, my first reaction when scanning this set’s
packaging was wonderment why a 1950’s film such as Five was included in this set of 1940s horror-mystery programmers?There are several 1940’s pictures from the Columbia
vault that would have better fit this Thriller
set thematically and chronologically:Will
Jason’s Soul of the Monster (1944)
and Henry Levin’s Cry of the Werewolf
(1944), for starters.The former title
was issued as a Columbia Classics made-on-demand DVD in 2011.To my knowledge, the only official release of
the latter was on a Goodtime VHS tape – issued way back in 1989 – it’s well
past due for a digital re-freshening.
So what’s the verdict?The films look great for their age, with minor speckling and scratches
here and there, but nothing too distracting.It’s a mixed bag if we’re to contrast this Mill Creek U.S. issue with Eureka’s
UK handsome Blu-ray set Karloff at Columbia.If you’re a US fan without a multi-region Blu
ray player than the Mill Creek set should more than satisfy.There are more than a handful of worthy extras
on the Mill Creek set.The primary bonus
is the forty-minute long doc Madness and
Mayhem: Columbia Horror in the ‘30s and ‘40s which features historian C.
Courtney Joyner discussing the studio’s involvement in the horror trade.
Five of the eight films on the Mill Creek feature audio
commentaries: Dr. Steve Haberman (The
Black Room), C. Courtney Joyner and Heath Holland (The Man They Could Not Hang), Tom Weaver (The Devil Commands and Five),
the Monster Party Podcast group (The
Boogie Man Will Get You) and Larry Blamire (Five.) And, of course, the
Mill Creek set gives you the added bonus of two extra features.On the downside, the four Mill Creek discs share
space on two spindles – on my copy the discs frequently dislodge.This will surely not make fussier collectors
happy.
If you are a particularly devoted fan with region-free
Blu-ray capabilities, Eureka’s Karloff at
Columbia (a limited edition of 3000 copies) might still be considered for
your collection as the six films featured on that set comes with fresh
commentaries separate of those found on this Mill Creek set.The Eureka release also contains an
informative booklet featuring the musings of author Stephen Jacobs (Boris Karloff: More than a Monster),
film critic Jon Towlson and film scholar and University lecturer Craig Ian
Mann.Eureka also includes audio of
four Inner Sanctum radio broadcast
programs (1945-1952), all featuring Karloff.So, as Karloff the sinister might say, it’s upon you to “choose your
poison.”
The
Asphyx Will Rip You Apart…The Asphyx
Will Invade Your Mind… The Asphyx Will Destroy Your Soul… If It Were In Your
Power… Would You Sacrifice Your Wife… Your Children For Immortality?
The answers to the questions posed above by the
advertising campaign for Peter Newbrook’s The
Asphyx (1972) was a resounding “yes.”As the gifted but obsessed psychic-research scientist Hugo Cunningham, celebrated
British actor Robert Stephens puts everyone in his family through the
proverbial ringer by film’s end.Such
single-minded research on his part is not accomplished without a measure of
personal guilt, mind you.But as a
curious man of science – and one obsessed with paranormal exploration -
Cunningham pushes forward determinedly with increasingly morbid experimentations.
Such “experiments” include the exhuming of his dead son
for some post-mortem testing, the photographing of a condemned man at a public
hanging, a self-administered electrocution, putting his daughter’s head through
a guillotine pillory and even willfully torturing a tubercular pauper.Hey, the last guy, a poorhouse resident, had
only forty-eight hours to live anyway… so he was fair game.
Like Shelley’s Dr. Frankenstein, Cunningham is a man driven
by obsession.Appearing before members
of the Psychic Research Society, the scientist presents to colleagues a series
of slides depicting a trio of unfortunates photographed at the precise moment
of their deaths.Each photograph has a
“smudge” present, a sort of phantasmagorical protoplasmic image hovering
nearby.It’s Cunningham’s theory that
the image is an Asphyx, a creature of Greek mythology.The Asphyx is a visual manifestation of one’s
tortured “soul the moment it departs the body.”It’s the scientists’ belief that if one could pre-emptively isolate and
imprison the Asphyx prior to expiration, that person might carry on as an
immortal.This appears to be
Cunningham’s endgame interest.
Though adopted son Giles (Robert Powell) is wary of his
father’s dark experiments (“This isn’t science!” he warns), he begrudgingly
becomes one-half of Cunningham’s research team – to disastrous results as one
might expect.Since Cunningham, to his
credit I guess, puts his own life on
the line in pursuit of science and immortality, it seems only fair to him that
members of the family do the same - and without complaint.Which certainly makes the case that, on some occasions,
father doesn’t know best.
Cameras began rolling on the The Asphyx on Monday, February 7, 1972, at Surrey, England’s Shepperton
Studios.Shooting wrapped a mere five
weeks following first photography. The film was to be helmed by first time
director Peter Newbrook, a former cameraman and cinematographer who boasted a filmography
dating back to the early 1940s.The film
certainly looks great, even if the
pacing of Newbrook’s direction is somewhat suspect.The Academy Award-winning Cinematographer
Freddie Young (B.S.C.) - of Lawrence of
Arabia, Dr. Zhivago, The Battle of Britain and You Only Live Twice fame - would use the newish Todd-AO 35mm
anamorphic system to great effect.In
many respects, Newbrook’s The Asphyx
is of similar construct to such British parlour-horror films being churned out
by Hammer and Amicus in the late 1960s/early 1970s.
The question now was whether or not a Victorian-era set horror
picture would make any money in 1972?The horror biz was already moving away from stately, moody gothic films to
more exploitative blood-splattered fare. Nevertheless, upon the film’s completion,
it was announced The Asphyx was to be
distributed in the British market by Scotia-Barber.On week later, Variety reported that Martin Grasgreen, President of Paragon
Pictures, had managed a deal with Glendale Film Productions (London) to handle
distribution of The Asphyx in both the
U.S. and Canada.In early winter of
1972, Paragon already had a number of exploitative horror-thrillers in release,
including Blood Suckers, Blood Thirst and Death by Invitation.
In August of 1972 the Independent
Film Journal announced that The
Asphyx, described as a “science-fiction suspense thriller,” would be
released the following month, the first of twenty-two films that Paragon had
waiting in the queue.Box Office promised the film would be
the recipient of “an extensive national advertising and promotion campaign,”
with “key theater” roll-outs in Dallas, New Orleans, New York City,
Philadelphia and Washington D.C.
Upon its September release, Variety noted The Asphyx
was – welcomingly - bucking the recent trend of blood and gore horrors:
Newbrook had intentionally delivered a more “cerebral” or “thinking man’s
horror film.”Acknowledging the film was
well cast and beautifully photographed, the trade review did rue that Brian Comport’s
verbiage-laden screenplay was slow going and riddled with historical
improbabilities. Other critics noted Robert Stephen’s mad scientist was one
seemingly gifted with precognitive invention.
It was true.As The Asphyx is set in the year 1875, scientist
Cunningham had somehow managed to prefigure such mechanical appliances as the
first motion picture camera (not actually developed until 1888) and an electric
chair (not developed into the early 1880s).To the credit of Box Office,
the trade paper cautiously suggested that, “Selling the film as a monster movie
would not be to its advantage: a more intelligent approach to sci-fi fans is
indicated.”I imagine “less-intelligent”
monster movie fans might have shifted restlessly in their seats back in ’72, awaiting
even the mildest of jump-scares.
The
Asphyx was the fourth and final of writer Brian Comport’s
screenplays to be produced.His first screenwriting
effort, Mumsy, Nanny, Sonny and Girly
(Cinerama Releasing Corp., 1970), was an out-and-out freaky and grisly
exploitation film.Technically speaking,
Girly wasn’t a completely original
invention of Comport’s.The original
story was loosely based on the stage play Happy
Family (aka All Fall Down) by the
novelist and BBC radio playwright Maisie Mosco.His second screen credit was a co-authorship with director Pete Walker
on Man of Violence (later re-titled The Sex Racketeers).That film was a convoluted and overly talky
international-gold smuggling-racketeer-caper-thriller with a pronounced sixties
swagger.
In one of those local-lad-makes-good-type newspaper
items, journalist Anthony Cardew of the Surrey
Mirror and County Post, shared an hour with Comport, then basking in the
success of his industry breakthrough with Mumsy,
Nanny, Sonny and Girly.“I was
offered a script which a producer wanted lived up,” the writer told
Cardew.“He wanted a bit more action or
something.I took the script apart and
rewrote it completely.I added new
characters, took some out and changed the thing entirely.I wrote it in note form, just suggesting the
way I thought it should go.”
The producer was pleased with Comport’s revised scenario
and formally commissioned him to draft a new screenplay, in the scripters own
words, “from the beginning, according to my own ideas.”With the film in production, Comport was also
approached by a representative from London’s Sphere books to turn his
screenplay into a novelization, a six-week effort bringing in a bit of extra
cash.
Many film critics found Mumsy, Nanny, Sonny and Girly – later retitled simply as Girly –aggressively unpleasant in its
lurid, sexually suggestive subject matter - and decidedly distasteful in its depiction
of depravity and violence.One critic would
unflatteringly suggest Comport as a leading “candidate for sickest mind of the
year award.” Another nonplussed reviewer thought the film as “Theater of the
absurd… absurdly vicious.”
Scolding reviews aside, Comport’s star seemed to be on
the rise.In October of 1970, only shortly
following the release of Mumsy, Nanny,
Sonny and Girly, production had already started on Robert Hartford-Davis’
thriller Beware My Brethren (Cinerama
Releasing Corp., 1972) also from a Comport script.Things then cooled for an interim but, following
a year or so of film-work drought, Comport was back with The Asphyx.
Though Comport’s script – adapted from a story provided
by Christina and Laurence Beers – would appropriate more than a few elements from
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, the Independent Film Journal interestinglysuggested The Asphyx was of similar construct to William Castle’s B-movie
classic The Tingler (1959):“There
too a visible spirit of sorts popped up; but that one was of fear rather than
death.” Though some wondered why a
classically-trained actor of Robert Stephens’s caliber would agree to appear in
a film clearly beneath his station, the former board-trotter of the Royal
National Theatre thought The Asphyx “rather
good.”He told journalist Neville Nisse
of Staffordshire’s Evening Sentinel, “I
really enjoyed making it because I liked the script and the people
involved.”
The Asphyx performed
reasonably well at the box office – not boffo perhaps, but reasonably well.So much so
that in January of 1973, Paragon announced they were going to enter into a
co-production deal with Glendale for two additional features.Paragon would, of course, retain all U.S.
distribution rights, but would now also share in a generous slice of a film’s
international profit.When U.S. box
office receipts measurably dipped following the film’s initial run, The Asphyx was often paired on the
secondary market with other indie horrors:Night of the Living Dead, Son of Blob and Blood Suckers among them.
(Variety trade advertisement)
In Australia, The
Asphyx was given the more compelling title Spirit of the Dead, the adverts teasing an audience confrontation
with “The Horror That Lurks Halfway Between Heaven and Hell!” The campaign
posters for Spirit of the Dead featured
accompanying artwork promising a more ghoulish monster than the film would deliver.The Asphyx
would also enjoy a sustained life in the United Kingdom.Exploitatively re-titled The Horror of Death on its re-release, the film would play in cinemas
throughout the 1970s.It was often
incongruously paired on multi-bills with such chop-socky fare as Kung Fu Virgins and The Angry Dragon.
This 2023 Kino Lorber Studio Classics edition of The Asphyx replaces the Kino/Redemption
Films co-issue of 2012.The only really new
“Special Features” offered is the commentary track provided by film historians
Kim Newman and Stephen Jones and six trailers promoting other Kino
Product.This new edition is also
packaged in a protective slipcase that mimics the artwork of the case
insert.Both the 86 minute U.K.
theatrical cut and 99 minute U.S. expanded cut are made available to view.But, as the package warns, the
“reconstruction of the extended version blends HD footage mastered from the
35mm negative with SD footage mastered from the U.S. release print.” The
changes in visual quality are very significant as forewarned.
For the record, I watched the extended version.Though the inclusion of an additional
thirteen minutes is welcome, these extra fragments are of no great
interest.In fact, it’s possible the added
running time further slows down a film already in desperate need of judicious
editing.Newbrook’s direction is
competent, but Comport’s screenplay is weighed down by too many sermons: the
film’s main characters continually perseverate on the moral misguiding’s of
Cunningham’s tampering with spiritual and life-and-death issues.Such hand-wringing tires after a while.Having said all this, The Asphyx is an interesting film, if far from a forgotten classic.While aficionados of British horror should
certainly add the title to their watch list, it might be best to screen the
film with muted expectation.
Orchestra
Performs Collection of His Most Memorable Works
With
Select Scores Accompanied by Film Clips
Ken-David
Masur Conducts in His NY Phil Debut
Williams
Himself To Take the Podium
Special
Appearance by Steven Spielberg
Wu Tsai Theater, David Geffen Hall, April 25, 2023
The New York
Philharmonic celebrates the career of John Williams in its Spring Gala: Celebrating
John Williams, April 25, 2023,at the Wu Tsai Theater, David
Geffen Hall. Conductor Ken-David Masur, the son of the late NY Phil Music
Director Emeritus Kurt Masur, makes his debut with the Orchestra leading a
selection of Williams’s most memorable compositions. Williams himself conducts a
portion of the concert, and special guest Steven Spielberg, the director with
whom Williams has collaborated on 29 feature films, introduces some of these
selections, some of them performed live as film clips are projected above the
stage.
Gala events
include a cocktail reception from 6:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. on the Leon and Norma
Hess Grand Promenade; premium seating for the concert, which begins at 7:30
p.m.; and a seated dinner immediately following the performance, attended by
the artists, also on the Hess Grand Promenade. Gala dress will be cocktail
attire. The Honorary Gala Chair is Steven Spielberg. The Gala Co-Chairs are
Kristen and Alexander Klabin, Harold Mitchell AC, James L. and Margo M.
Nederlander, and Carol and Chuck Schaefer.
Tickets Tickets
to New York Philharmonic performances may be purchased online at nyphil.org or by calling (212)
875-5656, 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. Monday through Friday; 1:00 p.m. to 6:00
p.m. Saturday; and noon to 5:00 p.m. Sunday. Tickets may also be purchased at the
Welcome Center at David Geffen Hall. The Welcome Center opens at 10:00
a.m. Monday through Saturday, and at noon on Sunday. On performance evenings,
the Welcome Center closes one-half hour after performance time; other evenings
it closes at 6:00 p.m.
Availability for the Spring Gala: Celebrating
John Williams is limited.
For
more information about the entire Gala evening, which includes a cocktail
reception, the 7:30 p.m. concert, and a post-concert dinner, please call the
Office of Special Events at (646) 661-2471, or email specialevents@nyphil.org.
For
press tickets, contact Lanore Carr at (212) 875-5714 or carrl@nyphil.org.
Event Listing
SPRING GALA: CELEBRATING JOHN
WILLIAMS
Wu Tsai
Theater, David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center
Tuesday,
April 25, 2023, 7:30 p.m.
Ken-David Masur, Conductor (New
York Philharmonic debut)
John Williams, conductor
Steven Spielberg, special guest
The
New York Philharmonic performs a selection of Williams’s most memorable
compositions, including selections from the scores to Raiders of the Lost
Ark, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, and Jurassic Park, along
with other works.
ALL PROGRAMS SUBJECT TO CHANGE
Programs
are made possible, in part, by the New
York State Council on the Arts with the
support
of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.
In early December of 1947 Box Office made note that producer Ben Stoloff’s Eagle Lion “film
factory” – an American arm of Britain’s Rank Organisation - was to begin production
of two new pictures.The first was Brooklyn U.S.A, a dramatic film to
recount the Ebbets Field barrier-shattering saga of Brooklyn Dodger Jackie
Robinson.The second was Bernard
Vorhaus’s The Spiritualist, a mystery
to serve as a starring vehicle for Turhan Bey, the suave actor having recently been
released from his contract at Universal.December of ’47 had already been a busy period for Eagle Lion, the
company having rushed through the noir
crime-dramas The Cobra Strikes and Assigned to Danger. Stoloff assured the studio would remain busy following
the holidays.Principal photography on The Spiritualist was scheduled to
commence in January of 1948.
The primary castings for The Spiritualist were soon being announced in the trades.Lynn Bari was cast in the principal role of Christine
Faber, a grieving well-to-do widow who lives in a sprawling mansion on the Pacific
cliffs.Her proximity to the ocean is a
mixed blessing.Faber hears the ghostly voice
of her beloved dead husband Paul (Donald Curtis) – reportedly killed in a fiery
automobile accident -rolling in with the evening tide.The role of the lawyer Martin Abbott, the
kind current paramour of the widow Faber, was filled on January 10 when it was
announced that Richard Carlson had been cast as the “top male” in the feature.
The earliest scenario of The Spiritualist was drafted by Crane Wilbur, a journeyman writer-director-actor-playwright
who had been kicking around Hollywood since the silent era.Muriel Roy Bolton was commissioned to write
the screenplay from Crane’s treatment.Director
Vorhaus thought the ideas behind The
Spiritualist intriguing, but was of the opinion Bolton’s script lacked
“characterization and humor.”The
screenplay’s absence of humor was odd, especially as Bolton was primarily known
for her scripting of several “Henry Aldrich” comedies of the 1940s.In any case, Vorhaus belatedly brought Brit Ian
McLellan Hunter onto the project. Vorhaus was familiar with Hunter’s work: the
two had collaborated on a trio of films in the years 1939-1940.In Vorhaus’s memory, Hunter’s reworking of
the script necessitated the drafted scenarist to labor a full week’s time,
working both “day and night,” to tidy and tighten things up.
The basic premise of The
Spiritualist was Christine’s falling for the con of the flimflamming
trickster known simply as “Alexis” (Turhan Bey).Taking advantage of his grieving clients,
Alexis – whose calling card advertises his services as “Psychic Consultant” -
uses all sorts of supernatural malarkey to convince his clientele that he
possesses “secrets of the outer world.”Amongst his subterfuges to gain “insight” into his patsies is a rigged
spirit cabinet, a closed-circuit television monitor, wire recorders, room
temperature regulators, and projection cameras.He even secrets an earpiece beneath his turban, a hidden confederate
slipping him information from a remote location.
The influence of Alexis’s “readings” on the emotionally-distressed
Christine raises the concern – and suspicion – of boyfriend Martin and Faber’s younger
sister, Janet (Cathy O’Donnell).They
hire a private detective (Harry Mendoza) to investigate the background of this
alleged “spookchaser.” But there’s a second, and more nefarious, development they
miss entirely.They soon learn that the emotional
manipulation of Christine is more than a simple money-grabbing swindle.The initial ruse serves only as a prelude to a
far darker plan orchestrated by a second mysterious figure in the shadows.
Just as The
Spiritualist was starting production, a United Press Hollywood
correspondent reported that the office of producer Stoloff was under
siege.Hundreds of phone calls and
letters were – reportedly – pouring in from enraged members of the National
Associations of American Spiritualists as well as from other devout
practitioners.It’s hard to separate the
reality from the ballyhoo of such reporting, but Stoloff allegedly tried to salve
the fears of complainants by assuring his film was only interested in exposing
“crooked” mediums, not all.But a
secretary at Eagle Lion suggested the angry spiritualists were not easily
appeased.She reported that, “Mr.
Stoloff’s received countless letters placing a ‘hex’ on him.”
On May Day of 1948, it was announced The Spiritualist was to be released on July 7, the trades
trumpeting the Hollywood’s summer schedule of 1948 was shaping up to be a more
profitable season than that of the previous year.(In actuality, the film’s release appears to
have been pushed back to early August).In any case, the “hex” put on the film seems to have been at least
partly successful.Though Variety was impressed, describing the
picture as “a whale of a yarn,” “expertly directed” and featuring “topflight
performances,” exhibitors and audiences seemed nonplussed as the film rolled
out regionally across the U.S. and overseas throughout 1948-1949.
London’s
Picturegoer thought the film, a “Poor spiritualistic
melodrama, wholly unconvincing, with the artists concerned completely at sea
owing to the ineffectiveness of both characterization and direction.”One exhibitor told Box Office sighed that while The
Spiritualist had attracted only an “average draw” during screenings, he
thought the film deserved better.It was,
in his opinion, well done if perhaps reminiscent of that same year’s noir Sleep, My Love featuring Claudette
Colbert and Robert Cummings.
The producers of The
Spiritualist – mindful of their accounting ledgers - were of the surprised opinion
that such superstitious belief in mediums and séances was more deeply entrenched
than anyone guessed.So, in February of 1949
with plenty of markets still unvisited, Eagle Lion made a decision to re-title The Spiritualist to The Amazing Mr. X.In the
end, the name change did not appear to make much of a difference at the box
office.By May of 1949 the film was
still on the circuit but still not doing particularly well.
One Kentucky-based exhibitor decried the picture’s walk-up
business as “simply awful.”He also
opined the film’s lack of dramatic action – as well as “poor” sound and too-dark
photography - was to blame.He counseled
other “small town exhibitors” to “lay off this one” as it “laid an egg at the
box office.”With the film was still
making the rounds in August of ‘49, other exhibitors complained the picture,
while generally solid, was “too talky in parts and the sound was very
low.”It was thought the spiritualism hoax
was given up to early in the film, removing any sense of a suspenseful reveal.Both were valid criticisms.It’s true that most of the films on-screen
time was consigned to intimate parlour discussions.
The film suffered overseas as well.In England, the Rank Organisation and British
Board of Film Censors were also inundated with complaints by spiritualists, though
censors ultimately chose to allow the film to be exhibited as issued.This caused an aggrieved “former president of
the Spiritualist National Union” to sulk, “I am amazed that such a malicious
and offensive statement about spiritualism should be passed for exhibition
purposes.”
Though not a lost classic, The Spiritualist/The Amazing Mr. X has a lot going for it.The film is wonderfully shot and the film’s spooky
and spectral optical effects are certainly effective.In an interview with the Australian
journalist John Baxter, Vorhaus gave all credit to Director of Photography John
Alton for the film’s dark and moody visuals.Vorhaus recalled Alton as, “faster and more talented than any other
cameraman I’d ever worked with, partly because he used so little lighting… He
regarded shadow and darkness as just as important as light.So you never had a fully lit set; you had
this mix of highlights and darkness.”The film is also made interesting by Vorhaus’s interesting camera
placements.The film is sprinkled with a
number of creative attention-getting and undeniably unusual camera angles.The film’s acting troupe are uniformly
top-notch in their performances.
The
Spiritualist would sadly be among the last few films
Vorhaus would direct in America – or anywhere.On April 25, 1951, director Edward Dmytryk – a member of the infamous Hollywood
Ten who served a six-month prison sentence for his “uncooperative” testimonials
- chose to salvage his career by ingratiating himself with the House
Un-American Committee.In new testimony,
Dmytryk gave the Committee the names of seven members of the Screen Directors
Guild who he alleged were members of the Communist Party in 1945.Vorhaus’s name was among them.
With the Rosenberg and Alger Hiss cases being reported
daily and the war in Korea grabbing headlines, Vorhaus saw little reason to
stay in Hollywood.The director chose to
live out his life as an American exile, doing a bit of film work in Europe
before quitting the movie business altogether.He would later settle in London and be granted British citizenship.There was no reason or benefit of returning
to America - at least not at the height of red scare paranoia. It was our loss, as well as his.
This Blu-ray issue of The
Amazing Mr. X from the folks at The Film Detective is top-notch, a 4K
transfer mastered from restored original 35mm elements and presented in an
aspect ratio of 1.37:1.The B&W film
looks wonderful, film grain present and Alton’s exquisite photography bringing
out the almost unnaturally soft facial features of the film’s featured players,
especially the ladies.Special features
include Daniel Griffith’s interesting twenty-minute featurette, Mysteries Exposed.The documentary offers a brief primer on the
history of spiritualism and its subsequent exploitation by filmmakers: from the
silent short camera trickeries of George Méliès to RKO’s You’ll Find Out (1940) through such Universal features as The Devil Commands (1941) to various entries
in their Inner Sanctum series to
Paramount’s The Uninvited (1944).
The documentary features some interesting background on
spiritualism, séances and mediums – and of the practice’s historical debunkers,
many of whom were magicians wise to their slight-of-hand methodologies.The featurette offers commentaries courtesy
of Lisa Morton, author of Calling the
Spirits: A History of Séance’s, and of film historian C. Courtney
Joyner.The set also includes a
commentary by film scholar Jason A. Ney and ten-page booklet, mostly recounting
the star-crossed career of Turhan Bey, written by Don Stradley.As always, The Film Detective delivers a very
nice, lovingly assembled package of a film too often misused due to its public-domain
status.
April Wright is a film director whose credits include the
documentaries Going Attractions: The Definitive Story of the American
Drive-In Movie (2013), Going Attractions: The Definitive Story of the
Movie Palace (2019) and Stuntwomen: The Untold Hollywood Story
(2020), all of which can be viewed JustWatch.com.
Like all of us cinephiles, Ms. Wright was not just a fan of movies but also a
lover of the experience of going to see a movie, especially at the
drive-in. Ms. Wright and I are similar in age and her enthusiasm for the
drive-in dates back to her childhood, a familial outing which became a much-anticipated
and frequent event during the summer months. I cannot make that claim,
unfortunately, as I have attended the drive-in only a handful of times in my
life.
Ms. Wright’s latest film, Back to the Drive-In (2023),
looks at a dozen remaining drive-ins across the United States and the owners
who are, quite honestly, struggling to keep them going. It’s a poignant look at
an American pastime that has slowly become an endangered species.
Todd Garbarini: I loved your film. I’ve been a movie
fan all my life and I love drive-ins, as well as big and beautiful movie
theaters. Clearly you share my enthusiasm.
April Wright: Yes, absolutely. I had a movie family
in a way. My dad had an 8mm camera and reel-to-reel editing equipment for that
in the basement. I did understand a little bit of the nuts and bolts of
filmmaking even when I was a kid. We watched lots of movies. There was a
neighborhood movie palace down the street from my house in Chicago that my
brother and sister ended up working at. I was able to see a lot of movies. I’ve
been interested in movie palaces, just because they were so big and ornate. Now
you watch movies at home or on your smartphone and that showmanship is changing
and I just don’t really understand why. I like making movies to remind people
about what a cool experience it can be seeing a movie as an event and an
experience.
TG: Do you remember the very first movie
you saw in either a drive-in or in a movie theater?
AW: I really don’t because it was just so
commonplace that we saw a lot of movies, so I don’t have any “first-experience”
memories. I kind of remember seeing Song of the South as a kid and I
remember Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. I’m sure I saw some of
the Herbie the Love Bug films. Escape to Witch Mountain, I remember
seeing that one at a drive-in. I love horror films and I saw them, too. One
thing I remember vividly is when Carrie was on television, and my mom
telling me I couldn’t come in the room. Of course, I really wanted to, and I
snuck downstairs. I looked in right at the end where the hand comes out. It
scared me, but it made me really curious. When I was older and I saw the whole
movie, it’s one of my favorite films of all time. It intrigued me in a way,
just planted that seed since she made it even more forbidden, like, “You can’t
watch this!” (laughs)
TG: You’ve made a documentary about movie
palaces.
AW: Yes! One of the interviews in that
movie is shot at the Loew’s Jersey City. We shot that in 2017. That’s a
gorgeous theater. I love it. When that reopens, it’s going to be really great.
That theater’s interesting because at one point in time, they had split it into
three theaters during the multiplex era.
TG: What?! Are you serious? I had no idea…
AW: Yes, so on the main floor, they split
it right down the middle. You had half of the main screen on the left and the
other half on the right. They covered the balcony so that they had a third
screen up there and they took all that out, which is incredible that they were
able to remove all that partitioning. Right down the street is The Stanley
Theater which is now home to the Jehovah’s Witnesses. We got to go in there
during the Theater Historical Society
tours that we were on. That one is gorgeous, too. It’s an atmospheric
theater and they used to have a blue sky and twinkling lights on the ceiling in
most of them. Then it would look like a little town around you as if you were
outside. It’s impeccably maintained, it’s gorgeous, but they painted their
ceiling white, so it looks like you’re up in the heavens or up in the clouds
when you’re in there.
TG: I’m jealous because in my area, I had a
handful of movie theaters that I went to over the years, and now they’re all
gone. One of them was the Plainfield Edison Drive-In. They had a double feature
of Black Christmas and Psycho, TheVelvet Vampire, Lemora:
A Child’s Tale of the Supernatural, etc. It opened in 1957 and closed in
1984, the year before I obtained my driver’s license!
AW: I don’t know if you know this, but the
very first drive-in ever was in New Jersey.
TG: Yes, that was Camden. The founder was Richard
Hollingshead.
AW: Yes! His son is in my first documentary
talking about how his dad invented it. It opened in 1933, so this year is the 90th
anniversary of the drive-in, which is pretty cool.
TG: Hard to believe. In fact, what I liked
about your new film, Back to the Drive-In, is that you have the Delsea
Drive-In in Vineland, NJ, the only remaining drive-in in the state.
AW: Yes. I went down there. We shot more,
but they said, “Oh, we don’t want to be in it that much.” Some people like
being on camera and don’t.A lot of the drive-in owners are part of the
United Drive-In Theater Owners Association, there’s a group. They have an
annual conference in Florida. I went to it in February of 2020, which is right before
COVID. I knew I wanted to do a follow-up (to my previous film about drive-ins),
and at that point in time, I thought I wanted to just go really in depth with perhaps
three families. I said to them there, “Does anybody want to be part of this
film?” There were some other drive-ins that had wanted to be part of my next
film that weren’t in my first one, and so I had a few potential ones. Then a
month later, COVID hit, and even though drive-ins were open, I still felt like
states were changing the rules and everything was still weird for a little
while. I waited, but then the more that COVID was going on and then drive-ins
started getting all this attention, I thought that this is a layer to my story
that I never could have anticipated. It made me expand that instead of just
showing a few families in depth and what they do. I wanted to show not only
that, but what was COVID doing to it? It made me want to have a bigger cross-section.
I needed to see what was going on and go to some really old and some fairly new
drive-ins. I wanted to go to some big ones with seven screens, and I wanted to
go to the single screens out in different states. I tried to just pick every
type of factor to represent. The weird thing was, as soon as I got on the road
and went to a few of them, I realized they were all telling me the same story. They
were all struggling. Everybody was just trying to get through this period. They
were small businesses, family-owned, and they were just trying so hard to keep
them going because they really care about what it provides to their community.
That’s how it came about. I was going to do it anyway, but then the way I
decided to do it evolved because of COVID.
TG: What I find interesting is, in the
movie, they say, “We ask you to keep your mask on while you’re in the car.” We
forget how bad it really was back then during the height of COVID.
AW: Yes. I think that might have been a
California drive-in, too, because California was more rigid than other places.
California was definitely in a program wherein if the numbers were high, the
rules were stricter. If the numbers went down, then it got released. That might
have been at a moment when the numbers were high. I know because although I’m
from Chicago, I live in Los Angeles.
TG: I haven’t been to LA since 2008. I have
gone to more drive-ins as an adult while out on business than I ever did when I
was a child. It just kills me to see this type of thing dying out. I look at
the theaters that used to be around here on CinemaTreasures.org and there is no
evidence that these places ever existed.
AW: I know. When you see a horror movie at
a drive-in and you can look over to your right or left, and there’s a forest right
next to you, that’s an extra layer of film! That’s like 4-D!
TG: Who are some of your favorite directors?
AW: One of my favorites is Brian De Palma.
TG: Oh, I love him. I just saw the new Dressed
to Kill 4K Blu-ray and it’s beautiful.
AW: I really like pretty much all his
films, just theway he shoots them. I like the
split-screen stuff.I think they all hold up. He had great actors and
all of them and just, yes, I think he’s a great filmmaker. Like even the Mission
Impossible series, I still think the first one is the best one that he
directed.
TG: Do you like William Friedkin?
AW: I do. Actually, we’ve met and chatted before
because he’s also a fellow Chicagoan. I love TheFrench Connection.
That’s probably his best movie, my absolute favorite. I went to a screening of
that at the Academy where he was there doing Q&A and just some of the stuff
that he did because he came out of documentaries first. For him to do moving
shots the way he did and just the grittiness of it, I mean that was something
on the newer side when he shot something that way. Yes, I really love that.I love all John Carpenter’s
stuff, for sure. Richard Linklater. I love (Steven) Soderbergh’s work because
he’s just made such a wide array of movies, big movies but also small and experimental,
some that he shot on videos cameras. He tries different things. I really like
them as filmmakers as well. Amy Heckerling has such a great body of work and
Penelope Spheeris. She started in documentaries. I actually just went to see
her doc a few days ago, the first Decline of Western Civilization, about
punk and she was there for Q&A. I love Nicholas Cage, too. Thrillers and
horror are probably my number one. Of course, I do like documentaries as well,
especially if they’re about subjects that you can learn something about.The
Shining is one of my favorites of all time. Also, I love John Landis. I’m
from Chicago, and he shot some things there like TheBlues Brothers.
TG: How much footage did you shoot for Back
to the Drive-In?
AW: Quite a bit. I had a crew to help me in
Los Angeles when I was here, but the rest I actually did by myself. I had my
primary camera, I had my drone, and then I had a GoPro, which I did time-lapses
from empty daytime to evening. Between those three, it gave me enough to cut
together, but I usually got to each drive-in in the afternoons, you would start
maybe at three in the afternoon, capturing all their preparation, and then stay
until late, usually two in the morning. It was basically almost twelve hours of
footage for each one, because I would just get there and be shooting non-stop.
Then the logical way to put it together, I thought it might be by subject, but
once I looked at it, I realized, no, it’s got to be chronological. Just one big
arc of the afternoon, the prep, and then opening the doors, and then the snack
bar, and then getting the movie on screen, and then the breather once all that’s
done became the way to tell it.
TG: I miss the aura and aroma of the
theaters I went to as a child.
AW: Yes, it’s true. Movie theater smell.
When I go to old theaters, too, a lot of times you walk into them and your
reaction is, “Oh, there’s a good old movie theater smell.” Also in the projection
rooms, if they’re where they have all that old equipment, that’s a certain
smell because the film and the oil and all that had a smell, too. That’s almost
gone now because they had to convert them to clean rooms for the digital
projection. You must have a climate-controlled, very fancy environment for
those. A lot of the drive-ins still have both projectors.
TG: Do you have an all-time favorite movie?
AW: Rocky.
TG: Did you see it in the movies when it
first came out?
AW: I did. Even though I was a little kid,
my mom saw it and she wanted to take us to see Rocky. That’s probably
part of it. Also, I realized after I’ve been a filmmaker for a little while,
some of the things I like or I’m drawn to – and Carrie falls into this,
for sure – is that I really like underdogs and people who shouldn’t win but
somehow do. That’s a theme in the films that I like. For Rocky,
obviously, that is one of the best underdog stories. It’s not even the message
of winning. It’s just going the distance, of course. The story of making it is
an underdog story, too. The fact that Stallone can be a semi-nobody struggling
actor and come up with this and write it and create such an iconic character
that lives on is inspiring as well. I love that movie. It is my all-time
favorite. If you want to talk horror, my all-time favorite is Carrie.
TG: I was sorry to see your film end
because I just wanted to see so many other people talking. I’m sure you’ve
probably seen The Last Blockbuster,
the film about, literally, the last Blockbuster Video, which is in Bend,
Oregon. In some ways, your movie reminds me of that film because I say, yes,
there are no more video stores to go to. I want to thank you so much for taking
the time to speak with me.
AW: Thank you very much. I’m glad you
liked the movie!
Back to the Drive-In can
now be seen streaming on iTunes, Amazon Prime, Google Play, and Vudu.
When this year's Oscar nominations were announced last month, there was a discussion of the choices on the popular A.M. chat show "Morning Joe". Veteran columnist Mike Barnicle seemed to sum up the feelings of the panelists when he griped that the choices for Best Picture had too many quirky films that most movie-goers would not have seen. This is a common complaint but those who make it are flat-out wrong. You see, the Oscar awards are not supposed to be obligated to reflect popular taste. They are not The People's Choice Awards. Rather, they are supposed to reflect the feelings of industry professionals in regard to who among their peers should be honored. However, the awards have largely been defined by the TV broadcast, which has grown to C.B. DeMille proportions over the decades. Thus, the Academy is partly to blame for the perception that populism should play a role in the nominations and who is declared a winner. The Academy also made a blatant attempt to reverse declining ratings some years ago by artificially inflating the number of Best Picture nominees from the traditional five to ten. There was no reason to do this other than to try to goose up audience interest by including films that would appeal to viewers but which would probably not stand much of a chance in terms of winning.
Last night's telecast seemed to revert back to the Academy's main mission: to honor films based on their artistic merits, not popularity. Thus, quirky was "in", as evidenced by the seven awards accorded to "Everything Everywhere All at Once", a film that people find hard to even describe. One friend of mine has seen it nine times while others have made repeated attempts to get through it only to throw in the towel before reaching the conclusion. The film has already grossed over $100 million and the Oscar haul will boost it into the stratosphere.
Here are some random observations about last night's telecast on ABC-TV.:
Overall, the show was one of the better ceremonies in recent years. No major flubs or time-wasting episodes. Host Jimmy Kimmel was very funny and delivered the bon mots in a low-key manner. He addressed the elephant in the room early in the broadcast, taking a swipe at Will Smith and last year's "Slap heard 'round the world". Kimmel quipped that anyone in the auditorium who provokes violence this year would be awarded the Best Actor Oscar and be allowed to give a 19-minute speech. Smith has been banned from the ceremonies for ten years but there had been consternation that his much-hyped 2022 release, "Emancipation", would make him a front runner for another Best Actor Oscar. What would the Academy do if a nominee was not allowed to attend the ceremony? The crisis was averted when "Emancipation" didn't live up to expectations and vanished from theaters quickly.
There was an abundance of old style high style. Men seem to have forsaken those dreadful "new, improved" tuxedo designs from some years ago and gone back to the traditional look, perhaps influenced by the fact that early films of Cary Grant and Sean Connery still epitomize what classic black tie look can do for any guy. For the women, plunging necklines and cleavage were the order of the day. Most of the gowns looked great with only a few coming close to being over-the-top. Helping in this regard was the fact that Cher was not present, although Academy president Janet Yang showcased a gown that looked like a costume for the next Marvel superhero.
The auditorium featured some wonderful production designs for the various segments orchestra was presented in a retro-chic manner.
Bending to industry outrage after the Academy had relegated some of last year's technical awards to an off-camera ceremony, all of the traditional categories were reinstated. Jimmy Kimmel warned that this would result in an extended running time for the broadcast, but who cares? This is the culmination of many talented people's careers and they should be afforded public recognition. The show did run over 3 1/2 hours but the pace was lively and there was thankfully very little of that awful "spontaneous" banter between presenters that causes viewers to groan every year.
There were some nice tributes to elder statesmen of the industry including the seemingly immortal actor James Hong and fellow immortal John Williams, who was up for his latest Oscar for scoring "The Fabelmans". Kimmel quipped that Williams has been nominated over 50 times and won five Oscars, therefore making his percentage of wins very unimpressive. Williams, looking fit and chipper at 91 years-old, appreciated the joke.
There were some truly touching acceptance speeches and some poignant pleas for a better world. Brandon Fraser was so moved by his Best Actor award for "The Whale" that he appeared to be on the verge of hyper-ventilating. In accepting his Best Supporting Actor Award, Ke Huy Quan reflected that in his youth, he had spent a year in a refugee camp and was now representing the America Dream. Equally moving was Michele Yeoh's acceptance speech for Best Actress. It was great to see older actresses honored, reinforced by Jamie Lee Curtis's Best Supporting Actress win. Maybe we're reaching a time when fine actresses aren't relegated to grandmotherly roles by the time they hit 40.
There was a dearth of political references and jokes, which was rather shocking and refreshing, though Kimmel did get off a funny jibe about Tucker Carlson qualifying for Best Editor. He also made a joke at the expense of America's own Baron Munchhausen by taking a swipe at embattled Congressman George Santos. However, it's not likely to ruffle any feathers because Santos has brought about true bi-partisanship: his colleagues in both parties want him out of congress ASAP.
The Best Song nominees were all very well presented and performed and the category represented one of the few upsets of the night with the viral sensation "Naatu Naatu" winning from the Indian film "RRR". The song's accompanying on-stage group dance presentation was sensational.
The year's biggest financial blockbusters, "Top Gun: Maverick" and "Avatar: The Way of Water" were relegated to receiving technical awards. Both Tom Cruise and James Cameron were absent from the ceremony, causing Jimmy Kimmel to joke that the men responsible for so many people returning to movie theaters could not be persuaded to be at this theater.
There were some misfires in terms of content. To buy time while sets were changed on stage, someone thought it would be funny to have Kimmel approach celebrities in the audience and read them questions that were allegedly sent in by viewers. The stars looked bewildered and offended by the intrusion and you could almost see the flop sweat breaking out on Kimmel's forehead before the misguided scenario was saved by the clock. Memo to Oscar: never send the host into the audience. It never ends well for anyone. There was also a ill-fated attempt to capitalize on the latest cult flick "Cocaine Bear" that barely registered on the laugh meter.
Video tribute segments include the usual memorial to prominent people in the industry who we lost in the last year. This year's segment was introduced by a bald, bearded John Travolta who was brought to tears by the inclusion of his dear friend and co-star Olivia Newton-John. As for the presentation, it's always beautifully presented but also controversial because it excludes any number of people who should arguably have been acknowledged. The Academy should just buy the rights to Turner Classic Movies' annual tribute to lost artists, which is far more inclusive, since the Oscars producers can't seem to get this important ritual right. Similarly, the justified video tribute to the 100th anniversary of Warner Brothers was compromised by the fact that classic movies from other studios were included. Why? Because over the years, Warners bought the rights to them- but that doesn't make them WB productions and they should not have been included. Doesn't the studio have enough bragging rights to their own films without trying to take credit for MGM's "North by Northwest"?
James Bond fans could relish the unique sight of one of the franchise's actresses (Michelle Yeoh) receiving a Best Actress Oscar from a previous Best Actress recipient who also was a Bond leading lady (Halle Berry) while another nominee for Best Actress who was a Bond star, Ana de Armas watched from the audience.
The Best Picture is usually announced by a mega star and this year was no exception, with Harrison Ford doing the honors. If you watched the closing credits, you could see him reunited with Ke Huy Quan, who had appeared with him as a child star in "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom".
In all, one of the better Oscar presentations of recent years, but that's just my humble opinion.
Get ready for tonight's Oscar awards by taking this trip back in time to the opening ceremonies of the 1967 ceremonies, including Bob Hope's monologue. Nominees attending include Alan Arkin and Steve McQueen. Also in attendance, a retired actor now known as Governor Ronald Reagan.
Attack
of the 50ft. Woman is by no measure the finest science-fiction
film to emerge from 1950’s Hollywood.It
may, however, be one of the most iconic.I suspect the film’s notoriety is partly due to Reynold Brown’s eye-catching
one-sheet poster design:a grimacing,
gargantuan deep-cleavaged Allison Hayes hovering over a city highway picking
off random automobiles.That nothing
like this actually happens in the
movie is mostly forgivable.If we were
to judge any film by its true delivery-of-on-screen mayhem against the false promises
of its imaginative publicity campaign, a lot of press agents would be serving
time.
Having said that, Brown’s artwork is an inseparable
component of the film’s status among fans of Silver Age sci-fi.The poster design has been both parodied and mimicked,
plastered on coffee mugs, jewelry, wristwatches, puzzles, t-shirts, model kits,
fridge magnets and book covers.Reynold’s
empowering image has even seen adoption as a feminist-rallying call-to-arms.Which is a pretty amazing feat for a film
dashed off in little more than a week’s time, with less than stellar optical
effects and at a budget of some $88,000.
Attack
of the 50ft. Woman was directed by Nathan Juran who is credited
on this particular film - for no reason I could source or conjure - as “Nathan
Hertz.”It’s not as if Juran was a fallen
helmsman of high-budget studio “prestige” pictures.He wasn’t a director reflexively protective
of a former glory, someone defensive that his once glittering career had
somehow descended into directing 50s sci-fi fodder.Juran’s first directorial assignment was, in
fact, for Universal’s The Black Castle
(1953) a mostly glossed-over gothic B-film featuring Richard Greene and Boris
Karloff.From 1953 on, Juran
subsequently bounced between directing low-budget feature films and studiously working
on early television.
But by 1957 Juran had become semi-typecast as a
successful auteur of low-budget sci-fi films, his streak beginning with 1957’s The Deadly Mantis.Over the course of the next several years
(1957-1964), Juran directed a number of features and television episodes, many
of which could be categorized as falling under the umbrella of sci-fi and
fantasy.These would include such offerings
as 20 Million Miles to Earth (1957), The Brain from Planet Arous (1957) and,
perhaps most famously, The 7th Voyage of
Sinbad (1958).
The screenwriter of Attack
of the 50ft. Woman was Mark Hanna. Hanna had already displayed a modicum of
insight in his crafting of bigger-than-life-size monster movies.The writer had collaborated the previous year
with producer/director Bert I. Gordon on A.I.P.’s The Amazing Colossal Man. There’s
little arguing that Allied Artist’s decision to back Attack of the 50ft. Woman was simply an opportunity to coat-tail
Gordon’s recent string of successful “giant monster” pics.There had been plenty of them, some having
already seen issue, others in the can being rush-readied for release:King
Dinosaur (1955), Beginning of the End
(1957), The Cyclops (1957), The Amazing Colossal Man (1957), Attack of the Puppet People (1958), War of the Colossal Beast (1958) and The Spider (1958).
Jacques R. Marquette and Bernard Woolner’s production of Attack of the 50 ft. Woman would start on
Wednesday, January 8, 1958, under the working title of The Astounding Giant Woman.It wasn’t a great title, but Allied Artist’s had been bandied a pair of
alternates, both of which were also subsequently rejected: The Mammoth Female Monster and The
Colossal Female Monster.The film
was still being touted in the trades as The
Astounding Giant Woman through March of 1958.In April of 1958 the film was finally and
permanently re-titled Attack of the 50ft.
Woman.
Actress Yvette Vickers, who plays sultry sex-kitten Honey
Parker in the film, recalls the entire picture was shot in eight days, with no
one under the illusion they were making cinematic history. Allied Artists were
interested in quick returns on their investments.By January’s end of 1958, no fewer than ten
of their projects were reported as being “in various stages of editing,”
including Attack of the 50ft. Woman
and Howard W. Koch’s Frankenstein 1970.It was also during the last week of January
that Ronald Stein was brought onboard to compose the film’s engaging and jazzy soundtrack.
One intriguing aspect of Attack of the 50ft. Woman is that the film’s sci-fi elements would often
play second fiddle to the script’s domestic drama.Allison Hays plays Nancy Archer, a wealthy
but alcoholic socialite whose marriage is in shambles.The cruel ways of her unfaithful and
conniving husband, Harry (William Hudson) has already driven her to a
sanatorium.While his wife is away
(unsuccessfully) convalescing from her binge-drinking and mental frailties,
Harry has taken up with the “red-headed wench” Honey Parker (Vickers).Harry and Honey spend an inordinate amount of
time at Tony’s Bar and Grill, drinking, listening to jazz, dancing, and
plotting a comfortable future together - a future to be financed by Nancy’ loss
of stewardship of the family fortune due to her faltering mental health
capacities.
This scenario on paper, of course, appears very film-noir
in construction.But Hanna’s script
upends the film’s love triangle aspect almost from the very beginning.There have been worldwide news broadcasts describing
a “strange red fireball in the sky” hurtling towards earth.Driving back on Route 66 to her tony home
upon release from the sanatorium, Nancy unluckily encounters an alien craft somewhere
in a remote section of the Californian desert. No saucer-shaped spacecraft, this particular vehicle
arrives as a 30-foot high sphere resembling a weather balloon.As if suffering from “mental exhaustion and
alcoholism” was not enough, Nancy now finds herself in the clutches of giant
hand with hairy knuckles.
Unfortunately, this alien contact has left Nancy with
blue-green traces of radiation on her throat which brings about the onset of
“giantism.”Though doctors are summoned
to try to figure out why the poor and delirious Nancy is increasing in size at
an alarming rate, husband Harry and mistress Honey care not one whit, still duplicitously
scheming at Tony’s bar and grill.But
the two of them – as well as the local sheriff and police department – will soon
find themselves no match for a lady scorned: a wrathful woman who now stands 5o
ft. tall, is wrapped in an over-sized white bed sheet and appears angry as
Hell.
The earliest press screenings for Attack of the 50ft. Woman were held in Los Angeles on May 8, 1958.The film was screened with Roger Corman’s War of the Satellites, a second sci-fi feature
that was to be paired with Woman on national
release.In the view of the Variety critic, both genre offerings
were “on weak side.” The trade cited Mark
Hanna’s “corny dialogue” and Hertz’s “routine” direction on Woman as the film’s primary deficiencies,
dismissing the film as “a minor offering for the scifi trade where demands
aren’t too great.”
Well, maybe I’ve simply just sat through too many Silver
Age sci-fi films to be objective, but I didn’t find Hanna’s script necessarily
corny – but I did find the screenplay absent of likable characters worth caring
about. Although I am a fan of Attack of the 50ft. Woman, I can
understand the sulking review given the film upon release by critic Margaret
Harford of the Los Angeles Mirror: “Attack of the 50ft. Woman has so few
idealists on hand that the survival rate is lamentably low.”She goes on to describe the three romantic-triangle
leads as “unregenerative types” possessing souls not worthy of salvation.The unrelenting unwholesomeness of the aforementioned
trio ultimately inspires, “a wholesale blood bath that amounts to an extra
dividend for scare-traders on the horror market.”
While Attack of the
50ft. Woman would not be the last sci-fi/horror flick in which Hayes would
be cast, the actress happily moved over to dramatic work on television.She was enjoying the variety of roles such
new castings offered. It wasn’t surprising.Shortly following the release of Attack
of the 50ft. Woman, one journalist met with Hayes for a brief
interview.The gossip writer thought
Hayes “a fugitive from ‘Monster’ pictures,” a talented actress looking to take
an extended break from such desultory features. The actress had, in fact, racked up a score of
horror credits in recent years, appearing in a quartet of exploitation pictures
in 1957 alone: The Undead, The Zombies of Mora Tau, The Unearthly, and The Disembodied.In 1958
this former 50 ft. giant was looking for roles more befitting a woman of her
stature.
Shortly following her work on Woman, the saucy Yvette Vickers was cast in the feature The Saga of Hemp Brown and an episode of
TV’s Dragnet.In the years 1958-1961 most of Vickers’
casting was on various television dramas, though a few feature film roles were
mixed in as well.She would also, more
infamously, appear as a “bottoms up” “Playmate of the Month” centerfold in the
July 1959 issue of Playboy magazine,
the photo spread courtesy of Russ Meyer.Of course, I’m just noting the above for the historical record, not to suggest
anyone should rush off to eBay to source a back copy.But if you’re looking to add something new to
your collection…
This region-free Warner Bros. Archive Collection issue of
Attack of the 50ft. Woman is
presented in 1080p High Definition 16x9 with an aspect 1.85:1 and in DTS-HD
Master mono audio. As is often the case
with these Warner Bros. Archive Blu releases, there’s not an abundance of
special features offered outside of the film’s trailer and a commentary track.The latter item is particularly special, if
not unfamiliar to serious collectors.
The commentary track on this new Blu release has been
ported over from Warner’s DVD box set of 2007, Cult Camp Classics, Viol. 1: Sci-Fi Thrillers.On the bright side, the commentaries of film
historian Tom Weaver and actress Vickers are certainly worthy of preservation
on this second digital go round, the film’s first appearance in HD.Both Weaver, likely the finest author-commentator
of vintage Hollywood sci-fi and horror, and Vickers – present on set back in
1958 - offer wonderfully playful and often prescient insights and memories on
the making of the film.Vickers’s
contributions are now made all more special in 2023 as the actress/pin-up girl with
the great sense of humor has since passed.
Click here to order from the Cinema Retro Movie Store
Robert
Shaw, Harrison Ford and Edward Fox lead “Force 10 from Navarone,” available on
Blu-ray from Kino Lorber. Based on the 1968 Alistair MacLean novel of the same
name, it was initially announced a movie was to follow. After the huge success
of “The Guns of Navarone,” a sequel was a no-brainer. The classic “The Guns of
Navarone” is among the greatest adventure movies ever made and serves as the
template for every “Men on an Impossible Mission” movie that followed. There
were other similar movies that preceded it, but MacLean nailed the formula with
a mix of action, adventure, suspense with a dash of spy thriller tossed in for
good measure. However, the sequel would wait nearly two decades until its release
in 1978.
The
plot of the sequel, like the previous movie, involves sabotage behind enemy
lines with Mallory, Robert Shaw replacing Gregory Peck, Edward Fox covering for
David Niven as Miller and joined by fresh-faced Harrison Ford as Barnsby, who
is presumably the stand in for Anthony Quinn’s Andrea Stavrou. Ford leads Force
10 on a mission to Yugoslavia to meet up with local partisans in order to
locate a traitor from Navarone. This being a movie based on an Alistair MacLean
novel, the story also involves double crosses, blowing up a dam and uncovering a
traitor.
As
I alluded to earlier, the sequel was going to be made in 1967 with Carl
Foreman, MacLean and the three leads from the previous film (Peck, Niven and
Quinn) reprising their roles. MacLean completed a screenplay which he adapted
into the novel, “Force 10 From Navarone” which was released in 1968. MacLean
would do the same thing with “Where Eagles Dare” writing the screenplay and
then adapting it as a novel before the movie. Readers of the novel “Force 10
From Navarone” will note this movie has little resemblance to the 1968 novel or
the original screenplay written in 1967. This change and the long wait for the
sequel probably contributed to a less-than-thrilling box office take.
“Force
10 from Navarone” isn’t a bad film, but it was misguided in the approach taken
to bring it to the big screen. While the movie has aged rather well, in
hindsight it would have been better had the filmmakers stuck with the original treatment
including all the original characters. I remember seeing “Force 10 from
Navarone” in the theater on its original release with great anticipation, and
while it’s not quite up to the classic status of “The Guns of Navarone,” it was
a pretty good effort. The movie opens with some of the climactic footage from
“The Guns of Navarone” as a pre-credits scene, but it just reminds viewers of
the missed opportunity if the movie would have been made back in 1967.
The
film adds great production value with location shooting in Yugoslavia and the
bevy of great supporting players. The movie was directed by James Bond veteran veteran
Guy Hamilton and boasts a bit of a 007 past and future cast and crew reunion.
Shaw, as I’m sure readers recall, was Red Grant in “From Russia with Love.” The
film also includes “The Spy Who Loved Me” alumni Barbara Bach and Richard Kiel
as partisans, and Edward Fox, who would play “M” in “Never Say Never Again.” The
movie also features Carl Weathers as Weaver, an American soldier who joins the
Force 10 team, Franco Nero as the leader of the partisans, Philip Latham as
Jenson (replacing James Robertson Justice), and Alan Badel as Petrovich. Sharp-eyed
viewers will catch Wolf Kahler and Michael Byrne as Nazis a few years prior to
appearing again as Nazis in “Raiders of the Lost Ark” and “Indiana Jones and
the Last Crusade,” respectively. “Star Wars” fans should also watch for several
actors who appeared in one or more of the original trilogy films, and of course
Harrison Ford was Han Solo and Indiana Jones. There’s a great party game here ala,
“Spot the connections to Bond, Star Wars and Indiana Jones.”
The
movie clocks in at 126 minutes and looks and sounds terrific on this Blu-ray
release by Kino Lorber. The music by Ron Goodwin is good, if a bit too jolly at
times. The extras include an outstanding audio commentary by Steve Mitchell and
Steven Jay Rubin as well as the trailers for this and other Alistair MacLean
releases. There is also reversible sleeve artwork. I highly recommend this Blu-ray release.
Upon arriving for the matinee performance of the new production of "Disney's Hercules: The Mythical Musical Adventure" presented in conjunction with Disney Theatrical Productions at the esteemed Paper Mill Playhouse in Millburn, New Jersey, it occurred to me that I had not been immersed in the adventures of the mythological hero since I was in grade school in the early 1960s when theaters were showing those Italian "sword and sandal" films that were imported into the U.S. I came to the obvious conclusion that I didn't represent the intended demographic for the show, which does not include people who are old enough to remember when Steve Reeves was a boxoffice sensation. The intended demographic-young people-were on hand despite this being a school day. There was an abundance of local high school students there on field trips. It may seem that Disney's musical productions might be skewed to pre-teens but the producers are generally shrewd enough to include plenty of pop culture references and jokes that would appeal to everyone. It's a delicate balance. Overload the sophisticated jokes and kids will be bewildered. Overdo the tween elements and mom and dad are looking at their watches by the time the intermission arrives. The new musical is based upon Disney's animated big screen release from 1997, importing some of the more prominent songs by Alan Menken while providing some new ones for this production. Lyrics are by David Zippel. The book for this presentation is by Robert Horn & Kwame Kewei-Armah. A version of the show had been presented in 2019 at the Delacorte Theatre in Central Park, which this reviewer did not see. However, it appears that the current version at the Paper Mill is substantially different.
The reed-thin plot finds Hercules the offspring of the god Zeus (Dennis Stowe) and goddess Hera (Kristen-Faith Oei), who send the infant to earth where is adopted and raised by Despina (Kathryn Allison), who comes to realize that the boy possesses superhuman strength. (Shades of Kal-El!). As a young man (Bradley Gibson), Hercules is the model of the all-around good citizen. He's kind and helpful to all, keeping evidence of his great strength subdued. By the time he goes into the world on his own, he's innocent and naive. Meanwhile, evil forces are at work through the plotting of Hades (Shuler Hensley), who intends to find a way to harness Hercules' powers to further his schemes. This comes about by manipulating the beautiful Meg (Isabelle McCalla), who foolishly had entered an agreement with Hades that resulted in her being under his complete control for eternity. He ensures that Hercules meets Meg, knowing he will not be able to resist falling in love with her. Hades then persuades her to have Hercules cede his powers for 24 hours in return for Meg being released from her binding agreement that has kept her enslaved. Of course, all sorts of unintended consequences befall the major characters, with Hades intending to use Hercules as a vehicle for widespread chaos and destruction. Guess who ends up winning?
The show features plenty of impressive talent, including singing muses who appear periodically and perform in the manner of a Motown act. They are played by Anastacia McCleskey, Destinee Rea, Charity Angel Dawson, Tiffany Mann and Rashidra Scott and their appearances were met by great enthusiasm by the audience. The performances of the leading actors are engaging and energetic, with Isabelle McCalla spot-on as the leading lady. The most interesting roles, however, are the supporting characters. James Monroe Iglehart, a Tony Award winner for his role as Genie in the Disney Broadway production of "Aladdin", steals the show as Phil, a trainer for would-be heroes who takes the innocent Hercules under his wing and teaches him to harness his powers. Iglehart opens the second act with a solo number topped by an unexpected acrobatic feat that brought down the house. As in any "Star Wars" or James Bond movie, the juiciest role usually belongs to the villain, and that's true here, too, with Shuler Hensley's thundering voice commanding attention in his every appearance. Since this is a Disney production, cute, eccentric sidekicks are a must. In this case they are named Pain and Panic (played by Reggie De Leon and Jeff Blumenkrantz) and they have some of the best gags in the show. Alas, Bradley Gibson's Hercules is undone by some factors not within his control. Gibson makes for an appealing hero, but the role is underwritten. We hear a lot about his great strength, but it's rarely demonstrated in an impressive manner. Gibson has a physique that any male would envy but there is nothing larger-than-life about his appearance. He looks like a well-toned guy you might run into at your local L.A. Fitness center. Perhaps it's almost impossible to find someone who is both a Herculean muscleman and a talented and trained singer and dancer. Gibson's performance is admirable but he's held hostage to the limitations of how a stage production can present Hercules versus a filmed version.
Director Lear deBessonet keeps the action and laughs flowing smoothly and the pace never slackens. The choreography by Chase Brock and Tanisha Scott is especially impressive, as is the work of musical director and conductor Ted Arthur. As one might expect, the production values are first-rate and display
evidence of the substantial budget that generally accompanies a
production done in coordination with Disney. Kudos to Dane Laffrey, who oversaw the scenic design. As you might imagine, this Disney production features some dazzling set pieces. There are also giant puppets that feature prominently and amusingly, courtesy of James Ortiz and some terrific lighting effects by Jeff Croiter and special effects by Jeremy Chernick. Kudos also to Emilio Sosa for providing some suitably ornate costumes.
The show undoubtedly follows the formula of previous Disney stage productions.This includes not-so-subtle references to female empowerment, racial harmony (Hercules' parents are caucasian and Asian and he is Black) and the belief in the ability to overcome almost any obstacle and achieve success. Disney, like most aspects of American society, has become a lightning rod for political debate in recent years and there are plenty of people who find such material as preachy and "woke". If you're among them, this show will only reaffirm your criticisms. Conversely, if you view these aspects as positive and life-affirming, you'll find plenty to embrace here.
Rumor has it that Disney is road-testing "Hercules" at the Paper Mill in anticipation of a Broadway run, as was the case with the wonderful production of "Newsies" some years ago. Based upon the rousing audience response to the show, it appears the strongman might exert a mighty pull at the boxoffice across the river on the Great White Way. If that wasn't enough, director Guy Ritchie is working with Disney to prepare a live-action return to the big screen for Hercules. If only Steve Reeves were still around to see the revival of interest in the character he popularized way back when.
The Cinerama Releasing Co. was in its seventh year of film
distribution in 1973.The distributor
had earned a reputation in the industry for working successfully with producers
to distribute independent films.Such business
partnerships had proven beneficial to both parties.In 1973 Cinerama scored big with two
modest-budget indie hits: Michael Campus’s Blaxploitation pic The Mack (1973) and Phil Karlson’s Walking Tall (1973).Since the horror film genre was a (mostly) dependable
box office gamble for low-budget film productions, Cinerama scored handsomely
in 1972 with the domestically produced Willard
rat-fest and the decidedly more up-scale and colorfully creepy Amicus-import Tales from the Crypt.
Hoping to continue to capitalize on this successful
trend, Cinerama was preparing to distribute a slate of new horrors in 1973: the
British Amicus production And Now the
Screaming Starts, the U.S. produced mystery-horror Terror in the Wax Museum, and indie Freedom Art’s Doctor Death.Box
Office reported in September of 1973, that Cinerama had only recently acquired
the rights to Doctor Death.It promised the film would showcase “optical
effects unseen before on screen... the illusion of souls passing from one body
to another.”That was they called ballyhoo.We’d actually seen it all before, as the effects
offered in Doctor Death had been
present as early as the silent film era.Doctor Death, whose full title
is actually Doctor Death: Seeker of Souls,
was the brainchild of producer/director Eddie Saeta and associate producer/screenwriter
Sal Ponti.It was the latter’s first
(and only) produced screenplay. Ponti worked mostly – if infrequently - as a
film actor and occasional songwriter.In
contrast, director Saeta had a long-running career in Hollywood, working on
studio lots and behind the camera from 1937 on.He was second generation Hollywood.Saeta’s dad had worked in the electrical department for Columbia Pictures
from the late 1920s on.
It was through his father’s connections that Eddie Saeta worked
as a messenger for Columbia studio chief Harry Cohn.He worked his way through the ranks,
ultimately serving as an assistant or 2nd unit director for such
studios as Columbia and Monogram.He mostly
assisted in churning out such low-budget fares as westerns, East Side Kids
films and even The Three Stooges in Orbit
(1962).(That latter film explains the
curious and brief walk through of septuagenarian Moe Howard in Doctor Death).In his later years, Saeta also worked
extensively as an AD on television. Eagle-eyed James Bond fans might also
recognize Saeta’s name from his front end credit as co-Location Manager for
1971’s Diamonds are Forever.
Ponti’s original script wasn’t uninteresting in
concept.Distraught over the loss of his
wife in a deadly automobile accident he blames on himself, Dr. Fred Saunders
(Barry Coe) goes to great lengths to see her revived by supernatural means.He visits her corpse daily where she lies in
state in a conveniently unlocked crypt.Though his friend Greg (Stewart Moss) presses, “For God sake, let Laura
rest in peace!” Fred is unable to do so.He visits any number of charlatans who profess revivification but who
are unable to deliver on their promises.
Things change when Fred meets Tana (Florence Marley) who
professes the greatness of an ex-magician known as “Doctor Death” (John
Considine). She describes the not-so-good Doctor as, “The genius of all ages,
the man who has conquered death.” The problem with Doctor Death is that while
he’s actually pretty good in his practice of “selective reincarnation,” he also
displays many characteristics you’d prefer your resurrectionist to not have: he’s a pompous, selfish,
sadistic, pervert with a necrophilic bent.
He’s also a vampire… of a sort.We learn Doctor Death is more than a thousand
year’s old.He sustains himself not on
the feeding of blood of his victims, but by the absorption of their souls.Dracula, of course, is Dracula.He too may be a thousand or so years old, but
he manages to retain his original physical appearance through the centuries.As someone who absorbs the souls of others,
Doctor Death conversely takes on the physical appearance of whomever his latest
victim might be.Through his soul
absorptions, the doctor has appeared over centuries in any number of multi-racial,
multi-ethic and transgender forms.The
problem facing the grieving Fred is that Doctor Death, the heralded “genius of
all ages,” has been unable to rustle up a suitable fresh corpse to transpose
its soul to that of the still very dead Linda.Which was sort of the point of Fred’s hiring him.
Doctor
Death was released in November of 1973, the film
unflatteringly described by one critic as, “one of a handful of year end
grotesqueries being dumped into theaters like a movie distributor’s version of
a clearance table.”The reviews of Doctor Death were, in fact, mostly poor
to middling.A Pittsburgh Press critic offered, the picture looked “like a grainy
blow-up of a 16mm film and with the sort of flat soundtrack that usually
accompanies porno films, this would-be horror item is horrible in ways not
intended.”But I’d say such criticism is
a bit unfair.Though the film’s Colorlab visuals are dark and gritty,
this is after all an early 1970s production.Some of the film’s exterior’s sequences were photographed in and around
Los Angeles’s Sunset Boulevard.It was
intended to appear a bit seedy.
I’d argue the cinematography of Emil Oster and Kent
Wakeford – both pros - was at least on par with such contemporary L.A. based horror-themed
productions as The Night Stalker, the
Count Yorga and Blacula films, and TV’s Night
Gallery. In any case, if one’s nostalgic for the 1970s, this film is for
you.The first-half of the decade is duly
represented by telltale flashes of ‘70s hairstyles and clothing, of gaudy apartment
furnishings and oversize gas-guzzling automobiles.
Doctor
Death is occasionally defended as a misunderstood horror-comedy.That’s a bit of a stretch though it’s clear
that Ponti’s script did try to lace his tale with a sprinkling of graveyard
humor.The problem is that the satire,
as written, is just too subtle (or perhaps so poorly played throughout) that
many critics missed this angle.Variety thought the film too
melodramatic and this, they reckoned, is what invoked “unconscious laughs” by
those attending.But perhaps some of
those chuckles were intentional.The Louisville
Courier-Journal, on the other hand, saw no humor in the film at all.They lambasted, “A new horror has been
released from the creaky medieval dungeons, and to tell the honest truth, [it]
should have stayed there.”
Well, I disagree. Doctor Death, while no classic, does
manage to offer ninety-minutes of dark entertainment and a smile or two.The Los
Angeles Times was one of the few newspapers to recognize the film’s lighter
aspects, describing Doctor Death as a
“silly but kinda cute and ultimately entertaining spoof” of the horror-pic biz -
with Considine playing the role of an “ersatz John Carradine.”The San
Francisco Examiner also noted Doctor
Death was, in essence, “a gruesome horror film that tries unsuccessfully to
equate merriment with slaughter.”“The
film sustains a certain amount of suspense,” its critic conceded.“But its unpleasant theme is quite repellant,
especially in sequences that suggest Considine’s necrophilic [sic] persuasion.”
New York’s Independent
Film Journal thought Considine’s performance, “rampantly theatrical, and
that’s not a help because he isn’t rampantly hammy as well.And it would take an actor as overblown as
Vincent Price to get some good fun into the good doctor.” This is a pretty prescient observation.Throughout Doctor Death, I also reflected on how Considine’s cool portrayal of
the loathsome magician-turned-resurrectionist was simply off.He was OK when the role tasked him to be manipulative
and sinister, but the absence of black-comedy winks are also painfully in evidence.It would
have taken someone of Vincent Price’s caliber to pull it off.Price had, managed to successfully mix horror
and humor a decade earlier in such earlier productions as Roger Corman’s The Raven (1963) and Jacques Tourneur’s The Comedy of Terrors (1963).And, of course, in the more recent and devilishly
tongue-in-cheek horror classic Theatre of
Blood.
It’s of some interest to note that Price was about to play
a character named “Dr. Death” in the forthcoming Amicus/A.I.P. co- production
of Madhouse (1974).It’s likely had Saeta’s flick not beaten Madhouse to the gate, the Price film
might even have been released under it’s working title: The Revenge of Dr. Death.It’s almost certain the poor box-office reception of Cinerama’s Doctor Death was part of the decision of
the Madhouse team’s intent to re-title
and separate their new Vincent Price/Peter Cushing vehicle far from Saeta’s
bargain basement production.
It’s also worth noting that even Cinerama and
theater-owners thought Doctor Death not
strong enough to stand alone.The film
wasn’t playing on many upscale first-run screens, the picture almost completely
relegated to grindhouses and west-coast drive-ins.Depending on the market, Doctor Death was part of a double or triple feature bill.These combo-bills mixed newish pics (Scream, Blacula, Scream (1973) and The Legend of Hell House (1973), with psychological
thrillers and mysteries (Scream, Baby,
Scream (1969), The Butcher
(1970), Bluebeard (1972), The Other (1972) and A Name for Evil (1973).The film was also paired with an assortment
of horror pictures on their second and third runs: (Count Yorga, Vampire (1970), Countess
Dracula (1971), Lady Frankenstein
(1971), The House That Dripped Blood (1971)
and Asylum (1972).There were even a few golden oldies sprinkled
into the bills when prints were available: (The
Pit and the Pendulum (1964) and the incongruous A Long Ride from Hell (1968), a spaghetti western with Steve (Hercules)
Reeves.
Even with such support, the box-office of Doctor Death was mostly weak.In its first week of screenings in San
Francisco, the film pulled in a mere $4,500.When the film rolled out regionally, it pulled in only $2,500 on its
first week Pittsburgh, but did slightly better in Detroit with a take of
$4,000.But as Christmas week
approached, even the Detroit sank to $2,500.The film did some surprising first week receipts in Chicago with a gross
of $30,000.It might have been helpful
that in Chicago the film had been paired as a double with the old school mystery
Terror in the Wax Museum: a film featuring
familiar faces (Ray Milland, Elsa Lanchester, John Carradine and Broderick
Crawford). Regardless, the combo’s take in the Windy City dropped to $16,500 on
week two and (as per Variety) a “tepid”
$10,000 of earnings on week three.Though the film seemed destined to play New York City’s “Deuce” strip on
its initial run, by mid-January of 1974, Doctor
Death would only made it to screens near the upper regions of New York
State before disappearing completely from sight.
In any event, the folks at Scorpion Releasing are making
sure that Doctor Death doesn’t
disappear from your home video screen. This release, taken from a 2015
High-Definition master from the Original Camera Negative is as good as it
likely will ever look.The special
features include both an audio commentary and separate interview with actor
John Considine, as well the reminiscences of director Eddie’s son, Steve.The set arounds out with the film’s trailer
and a “new” light-hearted introduction courtesy of Doctor Death himself.I suggest fans of 1970s fringy horror make
their appointment with doctor.
1972 was a busy year
for the vice squad of the Metropolitan Police. Having only seized 140,000
obscene items from London’s sex shops the previous year, this time they managed
to grab over one million items, raiding sex shops, private cinemas and the
occasional warehouse. Obscenity generally meant pornography, and this could
take the guise of magazines, photos and films. This was the year when America
saw the release of Deep Throat
(Gerard Damiano), but there was no such porno
chic revolution in the UK. Hardcore pornography was illegal and produced secretly
on low budgets by daring, enterprising filmmakers whose work could land them in
jail, much like the American stag film producers of the 1930s and 1940s.
Britain had always been years behind, not only the States but Europe as well.
The early 1970s saw a boom in the production of pornography across the Western
world, with censorship laws either being relaxed or abolished in many
countries, something which the lawmakers and moral guardians of the UK watched
with great unease.
Despite its illegal
status there was still money to be made, and in this new book from academic
Benjamin Halligan we get some fascinating insight into the history of British
pornography and its connection to politics and the campaigning against it of
groups such as the Festival of Light. One filmmaker who seemed to have little
regard for the laws was the Scottish entrepreneur John Lindsay, who was known
for producing films frequently depicting schoolgirls or nuns. The films were
made for European distribution, but also found British customers through mail
order as well as being screened secretly in the sex cinemas of Soho.
As Halligan points
out in this fascinating study, as with many aspects of British culture, the
pornography of this time was often about class, with fantasies being played out
from sophisticated erotica in country houses and gentlemen’s clubs to
frustrated housewives and chambermaids encountering guests in their hotel rooms.
Individual filmmakers developed an almost auteur status in the industry and
became celebrities themselves, publishing autobiographies and documentaries on
the sex film industry. It wasn’t all just hardcore of course, with Britain’s
most famous sex film star Mary Millington moving away from hardcore to appear
in softcore sex comedies such as Come
Play With Me (George Harrison Marks, 1977), whose director was a true
pioneer in British glamour film and photography, producing dozens of books, 8mm
loops and feature films from the late 1950s.
Halligan has
uncovered a new canon of British filmmakers who for the most part have been
ignored in previous histories, who played an important role in this secretive,
frequently controversial world. He has watched hundreds of these “joyless
erotic films” which blurred into “one underlit and dingy tale of sexual
frustration… across housing estates, rainy holiday resorts and chintzy hotels”
as part of the research (being a historian is a tough job sometimes!) and as
such is able to give us a great overview of the films, their directors and
producers (generally those in front of the camera are uncredited and anonymous
so it is very difficult to identify who they might be). He explores the
difficulty the British government had in defining precisely what obscenity and
pornography were, which helped to create the grey areas that allowed those
involved to flourish despite the risks.
The book is divided
into three sections, exploring the notion of “The Permissive Society” and the
campaigners both for and against pornography and immoral behaviour, the
hardcore films of John Lindsay, George Harrison Marks and Russell Gay, and the
softcore (and therefore more commercially acceptable) worlds of Derek Ford and
David Hamilton Grant. As a coda, he explores the post-Thatcherite notions of
hardcore pornography, focusing on films set on council estates, which again
brings us back to class. In British film, as pointed out in the introduction
here, everything is really about class.
For anyone interested
in this occasionally murky aspect of British film industry, this is an
essential addition to a library which should also include the work of Simon Sheridan
and David McGillivray. As has been pointed out before, don’t let that high
price for the hardback put you off: this is an academic publication, which
means that a more affordable paperback should be along soon. If you can’t wait
that long, simply request a copy of Hotbeds
of Licentiousness from your local library. Perhaps they can supply it in a
plain brown wrapper.
One
of the most talked-about and popular films of 1968 was Franco Zeffirelli’s
adaptation of William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. Audiences in the
UK were treated to the film early in the year (March), but the release date in
the USA was held back to October. By then, the picture was a worldwide phenomenon.
Nino Rota’s theme song (known in various markets as “Love Theme from Romeo
and Juliet,” “A Time for Us,” and “What is a Youth?”) had been covered by
numerous musical artists and was already a standard on the radio and other
media.
A
British-Italian co-production, the picture’s creative team consisted of mostly
Italians, while the production/financing and actors hailed largely from Britain
(with some Italian actors being dubbed into English). Director Zeffirelli had
already enjoyed some success with his earlier Shakespearean adaptation, The
Taming of the Shrew (1967, with Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton). It
made box-office sense for the filmmaker to go a step further and bring more
Shakespeare to the masses.
Zeffirelli
made a canny decision to cast two young actors who were the same ages of the
characters in the play. Productions of Romeo and Juliet in the past had
always cast actors who were well into their thirties and beyond (the most
notable being the 1936 George Cukor-helmed picture featuring Leslie Howard and
Norma Shearer). Leonard Whiting and Olivia Hussey were 16 and 15, respectively,
when they were cast, and 17 and 16 during filming. Not only were the two stars
extremely attractive and likable, they were also competent and charismatic
performers as well.
The
film captured the zeitgeist of 1968—an era of youth rebellion, “free love,” and
pushing the envelope in the arts. There was much ado of how Zeffirelli and his
co-screenwriters (Franco Brusati and Masolino D’Amico) cut massive portions
from Shakespeare’s text in order to release a movie that ran a little over two
hours (and with an intermission, too, to mimic the experience of a stage play).
Schools in America organized field trips to see the film, because for once,
Shakespeare had been made “commercial.” Some markets, however, made cuts in the
film to eliminate the brief nudity in the bedroom scene. This reviewer recalls
that in West Texas, two different versions of the film played. The picture was
released prior to the creation of the movie ratings system in America, but by
the time it ran in West Texas, the ratings were in effect. The cinema where Romeo
and Juliet was shown in late 1968 or early 1969 arbitrarily exhibited a
censored “M” (for Mature Audiences) rated version during matinees, and an “R”
(for Restricted Audiences) version in the evenings. All this seems rather silly
in retrospect, because the film is, at worst, a “PG” in today’s rating
sensibilities.
Filmed
on location in Italy, the movie is gorgeous to look at (with Oscar winning
cinematography and costumes by Pasqualino De Santis and Danilo Donati,
respectively). As mentioned previously, the now classic score by Nino Rota had
a great deal to do with the movie’s success. One must give Zeffirelli his due,
though (he was nominated for Best Director but didn’t win). His direction of
the film is superb, not only in guiding his two young stars into intense,
utterly believable performances, but especially in the street brawls and sword fighting
scenes. The sequence in which Romeo and Tybalt (Michael York) have at it is
appropriately awkward, messy, and realistically choreographed.
The
Criterion Collection has released a lovely Blu-ray disk (the first time in the
USA and UK for a Blu-ray, although the film has been available on a Paramount DVD
for years). The 4K digital restoration, with an uncompressed monaural
soundtrack, looks magnificent with its expected 1960s-era film stock
appearance. Supplements include an excerpt from a 2018 documentary on
Zeffirelli, and interviews with stars Whiting and Hussey from 1967 after
filming was complete and in 2016 at a retrospective screening.
Whiting
and Hussey have recently made the news by filing a lawsuit against the studio for
allegedly being pushed by Zeffirelli (now deceased) into doing the brief nudity.
Interestingly, in the 2016 interview on the disk, they joke about the bedroom
scene as “being fun” and there are interviews with the couple in recent years in
which they defend the nude scenes as appropriate to the material. It will be
interesting to see how this all plays out in the legal proceedings.
Regardless,
Criterion’s release of Romeo and Juliet on Blu-ray is a landmark
presentation of a classic, beloved motion picture. It is perhaps the definitive
adaptation of Shakespeare’s play on film, and the disk is highly recommended
for fans of the Bard, the play itself, Nino Rota’s music, Zeffirelli, and the
two stars who light up the screen. As Romeo says of Juliet, “O, she doth teach
the torches to burn bright.” They both do.
Screenpix is currently streaming the hard-to-find (in America, at least) 1957 version of "Robbery Under Arms", based on the famous novel by Rolf Boldrewood. Written in the late 19th century, the book inspired some early film versions in 1907, 1911 and 1920. The Australian tale was later remade in 1985. The 1957 film is set in 1865 and was filmed in remote areas of Flinders Range and Wilpena Pound in South Australia. The tale follows the exploits of the charismatic, but notorious outlaw known as Captain Starlight (Peter Finch), whose band of henchmen include brothers Dick and Jim Marston (Ronald Lewis and David McCallum), as well as their crusty father Ben (Laurence Naismith). They've just rustled a thousand head of cattle and sell them quickly before the pursuing police can catch them. However, with their new-found riches the men become reckless and begin spending lavishly. Dick and Jim, delighted to be freed of their hardscrabble struggle to survive in the unforgiving Outback, decide to take a cruise to Melbourne. On board they meet teenage sisters Kate and Jean Swanson (Maureen Swanson and Jill Ireland) who are traveling with their elderly aunt. Sparks fly, especially when they find out the girls also reside in an area accessible to where they live. Kate is especially captivated and she and Dick promise to reunite. The men are as good as their word and promise to give up a life of crime, especially when they learn that Captain Starlight had been arrested as a consequence of his drawing attention to his sudden wealth. However, Starlight bribes his captors. He is freed and tracks down his former gang members and forces them to participate in a stagecoach robbery that nets everyone a good deal of loot. Jim and Dick are now wanted men and hide in the hills in gold-mining country. These use the stolen funds to finance their own operation and find success with it.
The script takes an improbable turn when Dick and Jim unexpectedly encounter Kate and Jean, who they had to spurn when they went into hiding. Both young women are now saloon girls in the raucous boom town. Jim and Jean ultimately marry and it isn't long after that they learn a baby is on the way. Dick, however, doesn't prove to be as reliable as Jim. He meets a local girl he falls for and betrays Jean's trust in him. When Starling and his gang turn up in town and execute a bank robbery that goes terribly wrong, the authorities are in hot pursuit, but also come across Jim, who is accused of being complicit in the murder of an innocent bystander despite the fact he wasn't present at the scene. The climax of the film finds Dick reuniting with Starlight and his remaining gang members as it becomes apparent to them that their only way to survive is to engage the police in a gunfight- even as Jim faces the prospect of being hanged. .The shootout in the final scenes is well-handled and exciting.
The film is very much identical to an American Western with the exception of seeing the odd kangaroo and the fact that the native people are from Aborigine tribes. Jack Lee provides the excellent direction, although he later called the film a disappointment because the script wasn't up to par and that he felt it was too slow and talky. I beg to differ. I found the film to be thoroughly engrossing and benefiting from the impressive cinematography of Harry Waxman. The opening titles claim it is "A British Film" and indeed it is, at least technically. The producers were British, as were most of the cast members and interiors were shot at Pinewood Studios near London. However, this isn't a cheapjack production that incorporates a few minutes of second unit photography to represent Australia. The country's own film industry had yet to really blossom so any films made there during this period are of special interest. The performances as all excellent with David McCallum especially impressive as the more mature and sensitive of the Martson brothers. (He developed a real life romance with Jill Ireland and the two would marry shortly thereafter.) The Screenpix source material is okay but is a bit soft to do justice to the fine camerawork. The film has only been released in the USA on a public domain video label, as far as I can tell. Here's hoping a Blu-ray might appear in the future.
(Screenpix is available for $2.99 extra a month for subscribers to Amazon Prime, Roku and Apple TV.)
In 1975 film director Sam Peckinpah was at loose ends.
His last film, “Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia,” while an artistic triumph
of a certain kind, was a box office failure. He had a script for a movie called
“The Insurance Company,” but couldn’t get any backing for it. When United
Artists offered him a chance to direct a movie based on Robert Rostand’s novel,
“Monkey in the Middle,” he took it. The book was a thriller about security
expert Mike Locken, hired to protect an African diplomat traveling through London.
He takes the job because one of three elite assassins hired to kill the
diplomat was a former colleague who had shot him up on his last job and left
him for dead. The new assignment was a way to get revenge.
Peckinpah saw some elements in the story that he felt he
could work with. But when UA offered the Mike Locken role to James Caan, he
said he didn’t want to work in Europe, where he’d been working the last several
years. He’d do it, if they changed the location to the U.S. Marc Norman rewrote
the script that Reginald Rose had written based on the novel, but UA and
Peckinpah hated it.Top notch
screenwriter, Oscar winner Stirling Silliphant (“In the Heat of the Night”) was
hired to do a new script. Silliphant, only married a year to Tiana, his 33-years
younger Vietnamese actress wife, said he’d do the script but only if they
agreed to put her in the picture as Locken’s love interest. Peckinpah tested
her and gave the part.
Tiana and Silliphant were both former students of Bruce
Lee and Silliphant had always had an interest in Asian culture and philosophy. So
he set the story in San Francisco, using Chinatown, the Golden Gate Bridge and
other locations, and brought aboard kung fu and martial arts experts like the
legendary Tai Chi master Kuo Lien Ying to play some of the background
characters. He created a fictitious security agency named ComTeg, and changed
the character of the African diplomat to a Taiwanese politician named Chung
(Mako), who was traveling with his daughter Tommy (Tiana). Robert Duvall was
brought on board to play George Hansen, Locken’s best buddy, who in the movie’s
first act, succumbed to a better offer from the opposition on a previous
assignment, and shot Locken in the knee and elbow, “retiring” him from active
service. The first 40 minutes of “The Killer Elite” consists mostly of Hansen’s
betrayal and Locken’s rehabilitation, rendered in excruciating detail. He
learns to use a metal elbow brace and wooden cane as martial arts weapons.
Locken’s bosses at ComTeg, Cap Collis (Arthur Hill), and
Lawrence Weybourne (Gig Young), tell him he has to retire with disability.
“Let’s face it,” Collis says. “That knee of yours will never be anything but a
wet noodle.” When the CIA contracts ComTeg to provide security for Chung and
his daughter while they’re in the U.S., they’re not interested until they learn
that Hansen is heading up a team to eliminate Chung. Collis and Weybourne offer
Locken his old job back—the chance for revenge that Mike has been waiting for.
Locken gets in touch with two members of his old team for
two or three days of work. “I don’t think anyone could handle more of what we
got.” He meets up with Jerome Miller (Bo Hopkins) on a hillside overlooking the
Golden Gate Bridge, where he’s practicing his skeet shooting, which is probably
not something that happens there every day. Miller tells him he doesn’t think
his company would hire him. “They’ve got me classified as a psycho.” Locken
tells him: “You’re not a psycho, Jerome. You’re the patron poet of the manic
depressives.” A typical Silliphant line.
Next up is Mac (Burt Young), his old driver, who now runs
a garage, where he just happens to have a bullet proof taxi available that
would be just perfect for the job Locken has in mind. Mac’s wife calls Locken
Mr. Davis. When Locken asks why, Mac says: “When you’re around, she calls
everybody Mr. Davis.” They don’t know it, but while everybody’s getting
reacquainted, a mechanic has attached a bomb to the exhaust manifold.
The trio drive to San Francisco’s Chinatown to pick up
Chung and his daughter. Naturally there’s a gun battle with Hansen and another
gunman perched on the roof of the building across the street from the place
where Chung is staying. They manage to shoot their way out, but Mac hears
something rattling under the taxi. It’s bomb disposal time. They pull over on
an overpass and get some assistance from a dim-witted motorcycle cop— another
scene that is as unrealistic and impossible as the scene with Jerome skeet
shooting out in the open by the Golden Gate Bridge.
At this point you begin to suspect there’s something
weird going on. This is not your typical action thriller being played out here.
As the story moves on absurdity piles on absurdity, all of which culminates in
an unlikely battle between assassins equipped with automatic weapons and a team
of ghost-like ninjas armed with swords, aboard the deck of an abandoned
battleship, part of the Navy’s Mothball Fleet anchored in Suisan Bay. Got all
that?
Critic Pauline Kael in a 1976 review for The New Yorker
described Peckinpah’s career as a constant battle with studio bosses who
consistently tried to take the movies he made away from him, demanding changes
more in line with their thinking rather than his. As a result he kept making
movies that are more about that battle than any melodramatic plot that may be
involved. “There’s no way to make sense of what has been going on in
Peckinpah’s recent films,” she wrote, “if one looks only at their surface
stories. Whether consciously or, as I think, part unconsciously, he’s been
destroying the surface content.” According to Kael, “He’s crowing in The
Killer Elite, saying, ‘No matter what you do to me, look at the way I can make
a movie.’”
She attributes most of the film’s weirdness to Peckinpah,
but it might also be instructive to look at the career of screenwriter Stirling
Silliphant for some clues about the subtext both he and Peckinpah present in
The Killer Elite.Like Peckinpah,
Silliphant started out working in television. Peckinpah wrote episodes of “Gunsmoke,”
and created “The Rifleman” and “The Westerner” series. Silliphant wrote for
just about every TV series on the air in the mid-fifties, eventually writing 70
hour-long episodes of the classic Route 66 series, before moving to the movies.
He left television because of the same problem Peckinpah faced in filmmaking—loss
of creative control. He went on to achieve great success in films but when he wrote
the script for The Killer Elite, it was a year after having penned The Towering
Inferno. It was a successful, well-written movie but he probably realized he
had sold out his artistic independence when the hopped on the IrwinAllen Disaster Movie bandwagon, which he began
with The Poseidon Adventure. It would be only a few years after “The Killer
Elite” that he would nearly destroy his career turning out the script for Allen’s
“The Swarm.”
For relief between projects, he would take Tiana aboard his
yacht, the Tiana 2, and sail to exotic ports in the South Pacific. It’s no
coincidence, I think, that “The Killer Elite” ends with Locken turning down a
job offer and a promotion from his old boss Weybourne, and sails away on a
sailboat with his pal Mac (Miller is killed in the gunfight on the Mothball
Fleet). When Silliphant saw no future for him if he remained in what he
publicly called “the eel pit” that was Hollywood he sold everything and moved
to Thailand.
Peckinpah held similar sentiments about the Hollywood
establishment. He said in a 1972 Playboy interview: “The woods are full of
killers, all sizes, all colors. … A director has to deal with a whole world
absolutely teeming with mediocrities, jackals, hangers-on, and just plain
killers. The attrition is terrific. It can kill you. The saying is that they
can kill you but not eat you. That’s nonsense. I’ve had them eating on me while
I was still walking around.” I think he identified with Silliphant’s image of a
hero sailing away from it all if he could.
Imprint’s two-disc box set is a must have for any
Peckinpah fan or anyone who digs action thrillers, Silliphant, martial arts, or
the poetry of manic depression. The first disc presents the “original”
theatrical version in a 1080p high definition transfer from MGM that runs 2 hours
and 3 minutes, and includes a ton of bonus features, most notable of which is a
fabulous audio commentary by Peckinpah expert Mike Siegel. He provides some terrific
revelations about the film and its production and shows a real appreciation of
Peckinpah’s work. Siegel indicates that Sam, at Bo Hopkins’ suggestion, filmed
an alternate “absurdist” ending in which Locken and Mac find Miller alive and
well aboard the sailboat, after having been seen getting shot to pieces. In an
interview with Siegel, Hopkins confirms that bit of info, and even shows some
footage of the scene that was finally excised by the bosses at United Artists,
who just didn’t get it. In a separate commentary ported over from a previous
Twilight Time release, Garner Simmons and Paul Seydor, two film historians whom
I lovingly refer to as the Peckinpah Peckerwoods, and the late Nick Redman,
make the assertion that the complete film, with the Jerome Miller
“resurrection” scene had one showing in Northern California and has never been
seen again.
Well, I beg to differ with that statement. Fellow Cinema
Retro reviewer Fred Blosser and I saw The Killer Elite the night it opened in
December 19, 1975 at a local theater in northern Virginia. The scene in
question was definitely included. Fred states that he has also seen it in the
occasional TV broadcast of the film. So, despite statements made to the
contrary, there probably is at least one copy of the unexpurgated “The Killer
Elite” out there somewhere. JEROME MILLER LIVES!
Other extras included in the Imprint release include an
alternate, shorter version of the film that mainly cuts scenes from Locken’s
painful looking rehab; documentaries taken from Siegel’s The Passion and the
Poetry Project on the works of Sam Peckinpah; interviews Siegel conducted with
Bo Hopkins, Ernest Borgnine, LQ Jones and others. There is so much here to
enjoy. The bad news is that Imprint has sold out of the 1500 copies it made. I
obtained one the last two copies Grindhouse Video had left, but now they are
sold out. Good luck trying to find a copy. Check your usual sources. (Note: as of this writing, there are still a few copies left at
Amazon USA. Although it is listed as a Region 2 set, it is actually
region-free. Click here to order. Good luck!)
It took sixty-three years but there is now a complete
score for Elmer Bernstein's 1960 classic The Magnificent Seven. Quartet Records
in association with MGM has released a four-CD set of The Magnificent Seven
Collection. It includes the soundtracks for the four movies in the franchise -
the original, Return, Guns and Ride. As an extra, the set includes The Music
from Marlboro Country, a promotional LP made by Phillip Morris in 1967 which
consists of recycled cues from Return and orchestrations inspired by
Bernstein's themes. As I recall, the record was sent free to fans who submitted
proof of purchase of Marlboro cigarettes. The best news is that the entire
original 1960 score is finally available.
The first disc is for the original film and has a running
time of 78:40 with a runoff of additional cues, not in sequence, on disc four.
Some cues are as short as both eleven and sixteen seconds. Bernstein's
daughter, Emilie, previously produced a 1998 CD of the original but it only had
twenty-four tracks, whereas the new release contains forty-one, including some
as memorable as "Chico's Bravado", "Enemy Camp" and
"Lee's Problem". There is also an illustrated thirty-six page booklet
about each movie and Bernstein's involvement. The liner notes don't specify how
the tracks were enhanced or tweaked but they all sound the best they ever have.
The entire package is, well, magnificent.
Press Release from Quartet:
Celebrating the centenary of Maestro Elmer Bernstein,
Quartet Records and MGM are proud to present a mammoth, deluxe 4-CD collection
with the original iconic MAGNIFICENT SEVEN saga that comprises four films produced
between 1960 and 1972, all of them scored by the great Elmer Bernstein.
Bernstein’s music is a genre-defining masterpiece.
Inspired, in part, by the work of Aaron Copland, the composer created a
distinctive blend of Americana and what he called Tex-Mex elements without
resorting—as so many of his predecessors did—to quoting actual folksongs. The
score is replete with memorable themes and rife with tension when such is
called for. Following the development of Bernstein’s music through all four films
makes for a fascinating journey!
The score of THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN was not officially
released until 1998 by Ryko. For this new release, on Disc 1, we accessed three
1/4? full-track monaural rolls of “print” takes vaulted by MGM to expand upon
the earlier edition. Several bonus tracks are included at the end of Disc 4 due
to insufficient room on the first disc.
For RETURN OF THE SEVEN, only the celebrated re-recording
done by Bernstein in London has survived; the scoring masters and music stems
remain lost. For Disc 2 of this set, we newly transferred the 1/4? stereo album
master and have maintained the spacing the composer placed between each track.
We have also included the CD premiere of the rare album recorded by the
composer for a promotional Philip Morris & Co. campaign on United Artists
Records: THE MUSIC FROM MARLBORO COUNTRY, sourced from the 1/4? stereo album
master.
GUNS OF THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN is perhaps the most varied and
musically satisfying of the sequels. We have used on Disc 3 the same extended
stereo program produced by Lukas Kendall for the Film Score Monthly label and
included in a long-out-of-print western box set.
For the final entry in the series, THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN
RIDE!, Bernstein’s orchestrators, Leo Shuken and Jack Hayes, adapted the
composer’s thematic material to fit sequences in the movie. A single day was
spent recording at the Universal Scoring Stage in Los Angeles with Bernstein
conducting. While scoring masters remain elusive, we have accessed the monaural
music stem to include the 45 minutes of music heard in the film on Disc 4.
Meticulously produced, restored and mastered by Chris
Malone, the package designed by Nacho B. Govantes comes with cover art created
by Jim Titus and a 36-page booklet with an in-depth essay by authoritative
music writer Frank K. DeWald.
Elmer Bernstein never wavered from his commitment to
write music that enhanced every film he scored with beauty, excitement, passion
and dignity. Quartet Records is proud to celebrate his centenary with this 4-CD
compendium of all the surviving music Bernstein recorded for the four original
MAGNIFICENT SEVEN films. Enjoy the ride!
John Hamilton’s 2005
book Beasts in the Cellar: The Exploitation Film Career of Tony Tenser
(FAB Press), is probably the book in my collection that I have referred to the
most in the eighteen years since I bought it. It is an incredible piece of
research and writing and one which has inspired me with my own writing
projects. It was during his time spent with Tony Tenser writing that book that
the idea for this one first emerged, and now almost twenty years later John
Hamilton has given us a book solely dedicated to the films produced in the UK
by one of Tony Tenser’s frequent partners, American International Pictures. AIP
had achieved unheard of levels of success in the states with their teen-themed
drive-in titles such as I Was a Teenage Werewolf (Gene Fowler Jr., 1957)
and Invasion of the Saucer Men (Edward L. Cahn, also 1957) and naturally
as they expanded, they looked to the UK for skilled craftsmen, excellent studio
facilities and perfect locations for their often creepy, gothic-tinged films.
With in-house directors such as Roger Corman delivering fantastic films on low
budgets they could afford to take some risks, and they began by investing in
British projects such as Horrors of the Black Museum (Arthur Crabtree,
1959) before taking a more vested interest in bigger projects such as the giant
ape over London epic Konga (John Lemont, 1961).
After establishing
relationships with UK producers like Tony Tenser they were able to produce an
incredible run of films, many of which are still considered important today.
These include The Masque of the Red Death (Roger Corman, 1964), Witchfinder
General (Michael Reeves, 1968) and The Abominable Dr Phibes (Robert
Fuest, 1971), to name just three. And yes, they all also happen to star Vincent
Price. For more than a decade Price was on the AIP payroll and he loved working
in Europe and the UK for them as it gave him plenty of opportunities to scour the
art galleries and antique shops, as well as being able to dine at all the
finest restaurants and make occasional appearances on radio and television.
AIP’s contribution to
British film production during the 1960s and 1970s was massive and it is terrific
that John Hamilton has produced this equally massive piece of work to reveal
just what they were up to. As is to be expected, the research is exemplary, and
the book is packed with images from behind the scenes and publicity shoots,
posters and other promotional material, and also, where available, images
highlighting the different versions of the films, where occasional ‘hot’ scenes
were shot for the continental or Japanese markets. The writing is thorough,
leaving no stone unturned, and with its use of archival and new interviews, in
many cases the tales are being told by the participants themselves.
With a foreword from
the late Gordon Hessler, who made a few of his most memorable films for AIP,
and an afterword by Phibes co-star Valli Kemp, Witches, Bitches and
Banshees: The British Films of American International Pictures is an
essential read for anyone interested in the cinema of the 1960s. The British
horror film-focused magazine Little Shoppe of Horrors, now in operation
for more than fifty years (and effectively still a one-man operation), is to be
congratulated for finally branching out into book publishing, and we at Cinema
Retro look forward to seeing what they bring us next.
By
Sandra de Bruin with Dean Brierly (BearManor Media), 218 pages, Hardback,
Paperback & Kindle, ISBN 979-8-88771-028-0
By Steve Stiefel
Overview
Hollywood
with a Smileis
not your typical self-indulgent memoir. You will find no axe grinding, closet
skeleton rattling, or “MeToo” posturing in these pages, just captivating
accounts by Sandra de Bruin of her successful and fascinating life as an
actress in the film capital of the world. During a career that spanned decades,
de Bruin enjoyed professional and personal encounters with countless Hollywood
icons. But rather than beating her own drum, she generously directs the focus
onto these familiar faces of film and television.
These
beguiling narratives enlighten and charm in equal measure: a hilarious
fender-bender with Paul Newman; a working relationship/friendship with Charlton
Heston; an affecting encounter with Elvis Presley; accolades from Ricardo
Montalban, James Garner and Dolly Parton; recurring chance meetings with Cliff
Robertson; adventures and misadventures on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny
Carson; a romantic relationship with legendary film director Robert Wise. Plus, intimate
perspectives on de Bruin’s life and dreams, follies and foibles, friendships
and loves.
A
poetical prologue sets the book’s tone and tempo and clarifies its raison d’être.
Additional context is provided through capsule biographies that introduce each
chapter and personality, and which underscore an era in which stars really were
stars. This one-of-a-kind book reveals a side of Hollywood rarely remarked
upon—its good side. Furthermore, the insights that de Bruin offers into the
vagaries of human character and behavior aren’t limited to her star-studded
subjects, but have a universal resonance beyond the bounds of the fabled Dream
Factory.
Photo courtesy of Sandra De Bruin.
Q&A
with Sandra de Bruin and Dean Brierly
Q:One of the most
unique aspects of the book is reading about famous stars like Paul Newman and
Charlton Heston outside of their familiar movie star personas.
A: This was a conscious
decision—to present these iconic figures in a down-to-earth and real-world
context in which they behave just like anyone else. We're all familiar with the
classic stories that have been endlessly repeated and recycled. But in our
book, you will encounter a different aspect, a different side, to people like
Paul Newman, James Garner, Jason Robards.
Q:What was your
reason for starting each celebrity chapter with their mini-biographies?
A: We did that partly
with younger generations in mind who might not be familiar with some of the
celebrities from Hollywood's Golden Era. And we tried whenever possible to draw
parallels to contemporary entertainers: for example, comparing Harry
Belafonte's talents and accomplishments to those of Usher. Not all of the
subjects in the book received the same renown during their lifetimes, like
actor Frederick Combs, designer Ret Turner, or C. Bernard Jackson, the
African-American playwright and founder of the Inner City Cultural Center in
Los Angeles, yet all three made huge creative and social contributions in their
respective domains.
Q:In fact, not all
of the people you write about were superstars.
A: We felt it was
important to pay tribute to the working actresses and actors and the
behind-the-scene folks who, in a real sense, are the backbone of Hollywood.
Their stories can be just as important and inspiring as those of their famous
contemporaries.
Q:Talk about the
tone of the book, which is uplifting and positive rather than self-indulgent
and snarky.
A: This was never
intended as a "tell-all" book, which as a genre feels overdone. There
are countless books devoted to dishing dirt on Hollywood stars, but we felt it
important to take a different approach. Everyone who has read the book says
they appreciate how positive and uplifting and funny it is in a nonjudgmental
way.
Q:Sandra, to a
remarkable degree, you don’t blow your own horn, and willingly reveal, as the
book's subtitle reads, your own follies and foibles. The focus really seems to
be on the subjects you write about rather than yourself. Why did you opt for
this approach?
A: We didn’t want this
book to be just another memoir about someone the general public has never
really heard of. We wanted it to mainly be about the icons of Hollywood and my
encounters with them, not the other way around. However, I also wanted to
include some of my own follies and foibles so the reader would have a sense of
who I am.
Q:Yet, these
anecdotes do reveal a great deal about your character and perspective, not only
with regard to the famous people you met, but towards your career as well. Were
you conscious of this during the writing of the book?
A: Yes, I certainly
was. Acting is definitely an art, but it is also a business. When not actually
performing, I always conducted myself according to my instilled values and in a
friendly business fashion. I never relied on my looks or my sexuality. Talent,
intellect, and tenacity made me a professional working actress.
Q:How did these
unique encounters influence your career and career decisions?
A:
Meeting
all these astonishing and highly successful people in a genre known for its
harsh climate made me realize that I could succeed by being true to myself. The
powers that be apparently respected that and my talent.
Q:
What
was the most enjoyable aspect of writing this book and the most challenging?
A: Writing this book
brought back wonderful memories. It made me giggle at my naiveté and applaud my
tenacity. The most challenging parts of it were the bios and pulling it all
together, but those issues were solved by my writing partner, Dean Brierly.
What a guy!
Q:Sandra, how did
you come up with a limerick for the prologue? It’s heartfelt, inspiring, and
delightful.
A: Thank you! Dean and
I agreed that most prologues are a tad boring and wanted to come up with
something different. After a glass of wine, or maybe two, I just sat down at
the computer and rolled it out. It came so easily! It still astonishes me.
Q:What do you hope
people will take away from your book?
A: That Hollywood is
not just Tinseltown, but is also filled with lovely people, some of whom become
well-deserved icons.
Testimonials
“Sandra
de Bruin’s memories of a cherished era in entertainment history are sure to
keep you captivated from one page to the next. The author’s unforgettable
encounters with select celebrities are presented with such authority and
clarity you feel as if you’re almost reliving the experiences with her.
—J.R.
Jordan, film historian and author of Robert Wise: The Motion Pictures
“What
a happy romp Sandra has written: a mélange of memorable vignettes about stars
she met or admired as a longtime actress in Hollywood. It’s at once warm,
revealing and hilarious. I loved it!”
—Nick
Lyons, author of Fire in the Straw
“I
always felt that actors who did not achieve superstardom have the more
interesting stories, and Sandra de Bruin is no exception. She shares her life
as a working actress, describing amusing encounters with some of Hollywood’s
biggest stars.”
—Tom
Lisanti, author of Carol Lynley: Her Film & TV Career in Thrillers,
Fantasy & Suspense
About
the Authors
• Sandra de Bruin has appeared in over 200
television shows, several major films, many Los Angeles stage productions,
numerous commercials, voiceover and looping...and, oh, yes, danced in a
production at the Los Angeles Music Center. Her informative and witty articles
have appeared in several magazines, and her scripts have been optioned, bought,
sold and dropped by major studios and independent producers alike. She created
the "Actor's Audition Log" and the "Performer's Workshop
Log" to fulfill the organizational needs of her fellow performers from
coast to coast and around the world.
•
Dean Brierlyis a film historian and writer who
has contributed to numerous print and online magazines, including Cinema
Retro, Filmfax, Outre?, and others. Among his many celebrity
interviews are Gordon Parks, David Carradine, Michael Moriarty, Stella Stevens,
Fred Williamson, and Joe Dante. Dean has contributed liner notes for Blu-ray
and DVD releases, and publishes several film blogs, including Fifties Crime
Films and Classic Hollywood Quotes.
Click here to order from Amazon. Available in hardback, softcover and Kindle versions.
One of the benefits of subscribing to the New York Times is that you get access to the Times Machine, their on-line archive of every page of every issue of the newspaper dating back to day one. In researching a film review, we couldn't help but browse through the film section. It simply reinforced the opinion that during this era, you could throw a dart on any date on a calendar and be assured that a wealth of worthy flicks were in release. In this case, "The Odd Couple" was a massive hit at Radio City Music Hall while other films, ranging from "B" movies to prestigious hits, were gracing Gotham theaters. They include "Half a Sixpence", "The Producers", "The Detective", "The Devil's Brigade", "The Graduate", "Doctor Doolittle", "The Swimmer", the reissue of "Gone with the Wind", "2002: A Space Odyssey", "Wild in the Streets", "Belle de Jour", "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" and other gems. Those really were the days!
The
late Ingmar Bergman lived and worked on the Swedish island of Fårö, where he filmed many of his stark masterpieces such as Persona,
Shame, and others. He had more than one house on the island, and the
population there protected the filmmaker’s privacy with the fervor of a
national guard.
Today, though, his estate is run by a
foundation that allows artist-in-residency grants to writers, filmmakers,
musicians, and painters, as well as activists working for free speech and
democratic ideals. One merely has to submit an application at a specific time
of year, and if one is lucky, grants/permissions are doled out to several
people per year. The person gets to stay free of charge at one of Bergman’s
abodes and work on a designated project (it doesn’t have to be related to
Bergman or film) as long as some “contribution” is made to the community in
terms of a cultural event. (For those interested, see https://bergmangardarna.se/application/.)
French filmmaker Mia Hansen-Løve
uses this residency gift as a setting for a sensitive romantic drama that
explores the relationship between art and real life, as well as the muses and
inspirations that drive artists in their work. Bergman Island also
displays in lovely cinematographic intimacy (shot by DP Denis Lenoir) the
grounds of Bergman’s homes, which is, in itself, an absolute treat for any
viewer who is a fan of the master’s movies. Note that although the film is
mostly a French production set in Sweden, it is 95% in English. Some Swedish
residents on the island speak in their native tongue and are subtitled.
Tony
(Tim Roth) is an established filmmaker who has received a grant of residency to
stay at Bergman’s Dämba property to work on writing his next
project. Accompanying him is his wife, Chris (Vicky Krieps), also a writer, who
has a work in progress but is experiencing writer’s block. Chris turns out to
be the protagonist of the film, and the story is told from her perspective. There
are cracks in the marriage, mainly because Chris feels that Tony doesn’t give
her enough support or encouragement (but from what the viewer sees on the
screen, this isn’t entirely true; nevertheless, Tony does tend to take phone
calls in the middle of deep conversations and is easily distracted by what is
apparently a major film production he’s working on). Ironically, they’re
staying in the bedroom where Bergman’s Scenes from a Marriage was shot.
The housekeeper tells them that the film was so popular that millions of
couples around the world “got a divorce” because of it!
The
couple, usually separately, take in sightseeing excursions on the island to
Bergman’s other abodes and the film center where Tony delivers a talk. There is
even a “Bergman Safari” bus that takes visitors around the island to film
locations and such (and all this is real).
Chris
finally relates to Tony the story she’s been struggling with so far. The movie
then becomes a “film within a film,” illustrating Chris’ story, which involves
Amy (Mia Wasikowska), a filmmaker, and a former lover, Joseph (Anders Danielsen
Lie), both of whom are attending a wedding of mutual friends on Fårö. Mia and Joseph rekindle their love affair, and Mia
would like for it to go further, but apparently Joseph considers the fling to
be temporary. Interestingly, people that Tony and Chris have met during their
stay on the island are transported into Mia and Joseph’s story, so there is
cross pollination of ideas between the “real” tale and the “fictional” tale.
Bergman Island is told in a leisurely, dreamlike fashion that emphasizes
the pastoral influence of the surroundings on the characters. There is also the
strong (but unseen and unheard) presence of Ingmar Bergman’s ghost, who informs
all the characters’ motivations. Tony and Chris are told that the late
filmmaker believed in ghosts—for example, Bergman was firmly convinced that his
late wife occupied the house with him after she had departed the earth. Thus,
the ghosts of their own pasts are ever present in the lives of Tony, Chris,
Amy, and Joseph. That said, the movie is not a Bergman homage or
pastiche. Its style and tone is much gentler and more feminine.
The Criterion Collection has issued a
top-notch package containing a 2K digital master of the movie, approved by the
director, with a 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack. The colors of Fårö in summer are a striking contrast to the black and white
imagery of the locations in Bergman’s 1960s and 70s pictures. Berman Island is
indeed lovely to look at it.
The supplements include a lengthy
interview with director Hansen- Løve in which she speaks about the history of
the film, its casting issues (originally Greta Gerwig and John Turturro were to
have played the roles of Chris and Tony), and the power of the island location
on the choices she made for the picture; an interview with Vicky Krieps; and a
short behind-the-scenes documentary shot by cast member Gabe Klinger during the
production. The booklet contains an essay by film critic Devika Girish.
Bergman
Island is
a fascinating and meaningful little picture that is worth one’s time,
especially for fans of the late Ingmar Bergman. Recommended.
I’m
going to begin this review by cribbing a couple of sentences from my review of
Blue Underground’s double-feature Blu-ray of The Blood of Fu Manchu and The
Castle of Fu Manchu:Sax Rohmer’s Fu Manchu novels were wildly popular
pulps but unapologetically racist in construction, reflective of many western
attitudes of the day. His Fu Manchu series, the first novel having been
published in 1912, were written as blowback in the decade following the long
simmering anti-colonialist, anti-imperialist, anti-Christian, and decidedly
anti-British Boxer Rebellion of 1899-1901. OK, just needed to get that out
of the way before moving on… but we’ll return to examine this subject a bit
later.
I
suppose it’s fitting the fireworks of the Boxer Rebellion serve as the starting
point of Paramount’s The Mysterious Dr. Fu Manchu (1929). The film
flashes with scenes of Chinese fighters in Peking battling colonizing Brits
(and other western allies) in dramatic style. To make the uprising more
authentic in its stage dressing, the trades reported (March 16, 1929) the
filmmakers were planning to comb LA’s Chinatown in search of as many as “500
oriental actors and extras.” They apparently fell short of this ambitious goal.
Reporting four days later, the Los Angeles Evening Express derided, “Los
Angeles’s Chinatown has fallen down on the job,” causing the studio to widen
their search to “surrounding cities for reinforcements.”
It
was only a few weeks earlier (March 3, 1929) that Paramount announced Rowland
V. Lee was chosen to direct The Insidious Dr. Fu Manchu (the true title
of Rohmer’s first novel featuring the fiendish villain). The film’s title was
soon amended to the easier-to-market The Mysterious Dr. Fu Manchu, with
“rehearsals” set to commence immediately on the first week of March. Lee, who
would go on to more famously direct such Universal features as Son of
Frankenstein and Tower of London (both 1939), was short-listed
having recently helmed two pictures for Paramount in 1929: Wolf of Wall
Street and The Women Who Needed Killing. Even as the Boxer Rebellion
battle scenes were being staged, it appears full casting for the film was still
not finalized: several of film’s players were not brought on until mid-April
1929. The film was given a tight shooting schedule, one wag noting “all night
sessions will be the order of things.”
There
were other hurdles to surmount. Hollywood was still making its earliest steps
in their exploration of sound-filmmaking. In April of 1929, the Los Angeles
dailies made note of the challenges of writing for the screen in this new
“sound era.” Filmmakers now needed to pointedly write and cast to address the
vagaries of “foreign” speech patterns and regional dialects. This challenge fell
particularly heavy on the screenwriters. “The dialogue voiced by Fu Manchu and
the other Chinese characters had to be “couched in this peculiar, flowery
oriental style,” according to the Los Angeles Times. “To once digress
from it would have been to possibly ruin the effect of the entire production.”
There
were other issues. There’s more than a bit of stilted over-acting present in The
Mysterious Dr. Fu Manchu: lots of theatrical over-emoting throughout,
several actor’s - understandably - not yet conversant with the new realities of
sound-recording. This is most obvious in the performance of actress Jean Arthur
cast as the beleaguered Lia Eltham, the mink-lined imprisoned daughter of the
man Fu Manchu holds responsible for the death of his wife and child. Arthur is
a great actress – she enjoyed a long career lasting from the early 1920s
through the mid-1960s – but her exaggerated silent-era gesturing and doleful
sways present in this first Fu film are a noticeable throwback to days passed.
I suppose Warner Oland’s Fu Manchu fares better than most as his character is
of course, written as inscrutable: reserved, reticent, cunning and
seemingly less susceptible to theatrical outbursts.
As
the title character, Orland of course stands dead center of the ensuing mayhem.
The actor, soon to command greater fame as the Chinese sleuth Charlie Chan in
the Monogram series, was – famously (or perhaps infamously) - not of Asian
descent. He was Swedish. Of course neither the previous of succeeding Fu
Manchus were of Chinese heritage. Oland’s predecessor Harry Agar Lyons (in a
series of silent-era shorts (1923-1924) was British as were two of Oland’s
successors, Boris Karloff and Christopher Lee. It’s fair to say Orland was the
most convincing non-Asian actor to play the role. Having worked in silent films
from 1912 through 1926, Oland’s “exotic” (by early Hollywood standards)
appearance allowed him to play an assortment of characters of physical
non-western heritage.
Oland
wasn’t bothered with such typecasting. The amount of work offered was
profitable and playing outside his own culture allowed him the chance to test
his abilities. “I like to play the Chinese roles because most of them give me
the opportunity to do some real acting,” he told the Scripps New Service. “In fact,
I like all the roles that give me a chance for difficult characterizations. I
believe character actors are the real backbone of most pictures. They are the
ones who give the production its atmosphere. And, incidentally, the character
actors are the ones who live the longest in the business.”
Obviously,
one can’t look at these Fu Manchu movies in this 21st Century
without groaning at the stereotypes, the insensitive dialogue, and – of course
- the casting of a non-Asian in the title role. To be fair, Caucasians are
damned and thrown under the bus as well. “The white men are kind and generous,”
Fu Manchu soothes his frightened daughter as he finds his home in the crossfire
between British snipers and Boxer rebels. But his opinion soon changes when his
wife and daughter find themselves collateral damage of Britain’s superior
firepower. Now, with the “white men” having failed in their promise to protect
his family and home, Fu has an awakening. “I’ve been blind,” Fu Manchu rages.
“These whites are barbarians, devils, fiends!” Which sets him off to
exact revenge on the offspring of the westerners he holds responsible.
That’s
essentially the plot device of both films in this new set from Kino Lorber. The
two film’s play out much as movie serials of the 1940s do. Lots of villainy,
lots of episodic action, a distressed gal, and a heroic paramour (in this case,
the handsome Neil Hamilton, “Commissioner Gordon” of TV’s Batman (1966).
It’s not great art, but it was – in its time, no doubt – a suspenseful and fun
thrill-ride. Paramount offered previews of The Mysterious Dr. Fu Manchu
in late spring/early summer of ’29 at the Westlake Theatre. Initial critical
reaction was muted: the earliest previews of the original cut ran the gamut
from “overlong” to “somewhat sketchy.” Regardless, upon national release, the
film did well enough that by late January of 1930, the trades announced both
director Lee and Oland (and indeed the entire primary cast of the original)
were to return for a rousing sequel The Return of Dr. Fu Manchu.
In
his promotion of this second coming, Lee – again, tapped to direct - pointed
out the sinister Fu Manchu was intriguing as he was no ordinary gangster. He
was a super-villain, a worthy adversary to Inspector Nayland Smith (O.P.
Heggie). Their rivalry and brinksmanship was much in the tradition of Sir
Arthur Conan Doyle’s Holmes vs. Moriarty. “Dangerous criminals make fascinating
prey,” Lee contended. “Such a man is the fictitious Dr. Fu Manchu. His
mentality, although diverted into wrong channels, is as keen as that of those
who pursue him. He knows what to expect.”
Oland’s
Fu is far more loquacious than inscrutable in this second film. There’s a lot
of bantering dialogue and threats tossed. Perhaps too many. As one critic noted
in his review of The Return of Fu Manchu, “Where is this oriental
laconicism they talk about? Dr. Fu is one of the most garrulous individuals on
record.” Though decrying the film’s excessive verbiage, the reviewer conceded
the film did possess “the virtues of movement… events tumbling over each other
in endless succession from start to finish.” Which sounds, more than a little,
of what critics thought of the crazy but entertaining James Bond opus Moonraker
a half-century later. Not great art, again. But great fun… for some.
I
suspect the audience for this particular Fu Manchu set will be split somewhat
evenly between aficionados of early sound-films and Cinema Study students
examining Race and Ethnicity Depictions of Early Hollywood. There’s a lot to
uncomfortableness to mine through here, no shortage of political and cultural
tripwire hazards in this “woke” era. Are the Fu Manchu pulps and films racist?
Well, of course they are. The question is whether or not the films are still
viable. In his intriguing book Charlie Chan: The Untold Story of the
Honorable Detective and His Rendezvous with American History, Professor
Yunte Huang accepts that many will always view Oland’s Chan as a “Yellow Uncle
Tom,” his impersonations akin to that of a blackface minstrel. But he also
notes that upon Oland’s visit to Shanghai in 1933, local audiences celebrated
the actor for “bringing to life the first positive [Chinese] character in
American film.”
So
it’s all complicated. As an amateur historian, I personally think artifacts of
days ancient and not-so-ancient should be preserved for study and education.
Such storytelling shines light on our past and the best (and worst) aspects of
our world and ourselves. In terms of simple film-collecting, perhaps the
appearance of these two rare-ish Fu Manchu films might pique the interest of
fans of Oland’s far better known Charlie Chan series. In 2009 20th
Century Fox issued an essential five box DVD collection of the actor’s Chan
oeuvre, so there’s evidently interest in Oland’s filmography even some ninety-years
on.
It
might be somewhat disappointing to those more knowledgeable collectors that
Kino chose not to (or perhaps were unable?) to include the third and final film
of the Oland Fu Manchu series on this set. In 1931 Paramount released The
Daughter of Fu Manchu, the last (and, arguably, least) of the series, but
one featuring Anna May Wong as the featured character. To my knowledge The
Daughter of Fu Manchu has never been given a proper official release on
home video, though copies of the film have long been found on the grey-market.
(In 1984 the Video Marquee label issued a clamshell VHS edition of the film as
part of their “Joe Franklin’s Collectibles” series – but I’m not certain this
release had any official sanction). In any case, a two-disc Blu-ray set of this
triumvirate would have surely satiated the desires of the sad Completists
amongst us. I’m not complaining, mind you. While some might wish such dated
fare be removed from circulation as not to offend anyone’s sensibilities, I’m
grateful Kino Lorber continues to shine light on such obscure and mostly
forgotten films from Hollywood’s Golden Age.
This
Kino Lorber Studio Classics Blu-ray edition of The Mysterious Dr. Fu
Manchu/The Return of Dr. Fu Manchu is presented here in 1920x1080p, dts
sound and with an attractive slipcase cover. The film looks very good
considering its age, though neither print is pristine: there are occasional
flashes of white and black emulsion scratches present throughout, and some
shots appear a bit soft. The set rounds off with several theatrical trailers of
period films as well as welcome commentaries courtesy of novelist and critic
Tim Lucas of Video Watchdog fame.
Cinema Retro has received the following press release:
Writer and director Quentin Tarantino delivered one of the most
influential films of the 1990s with the critically acclaimed contemporary
classic PULP FICTION. Now, for the first time ever, fans
can experience the groundbreaking and wildly entertaining tour de force on 4K
Ultra HD™ Digital, 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray™, and in a Limited-Edition Collector’s
SteelBook® December 6, 2022 from Paramount Home Entertainment.
A touchstone of postmodern film, PULP FICTION is a
must-have for every film fan’s collection. Winner of the Palme d’Or at
the 1995 Cannes Film Festival, the film also won the Independent Spirit Award
for Best Feature and the Academy Award® for Best Original Screenplay. The
film features a star-studded cast, including John Travolta, Samuel L. Jackson,
Uma Thurman, Harvey Keitel, Tim Roth, Amanda Plummer, Maria de Medeiros, Ving
Rhames, Eric Stoltz, Rosanna Arquette, Christopher Walken and Bruce Willis.
The PULP FICTION 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray and Limited-Edition
Collector’s SteelBook include the feature film in sparkling 4K Ultra HD, access
to a Digital copy of the film, as well as the following legacy bonus content:
4K Ultra HD Blu-ray Disc
·Not the Usual Mindless Boring
Getting to Know You Chit Chat
·Here are Some Facts on the
Fiction
·Enhanced Trivia Track (subtitle
file)
Blu-ray Disc
·
Not the Usual Mindless
Boring Getting to Know You Chit Chat
·
Here Are Some Facts on the
Fiction
·
Pulp Fiction: The Facts –
Documentary
·
Deleted Scenes
·
Behind the
Scenes Montages
·
Production Design Featurette
·
Siskel & Ebert "At
the Movies"- The Tarantino Generation
·
Independent Spirit Awards
·
Cannes Film Festival – Palme
d'Or Acceptance Speech
·
Charlie Rose Show
·
Marketing
Gallery
·
Still Galleries
·
Enhanced Trivia Track (text
on feature)
·Soundtrack Chapters (index points in
feature)
Synopsis
Critics and audiences worldwide hailed PULP FICTION as
the star-studded movie that redefined cinema in the 20th century.
Writer-director Quentin Tarantino delivers an unforgettable cast of characters—
including a pair of low-rent hit men (John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson), a
gangster's wife (Uma Thurman), and a desperate prizefighter (Bruce Willis)—in a
wildly entertaining and exhilarating adventure of violence and redemption.
Click here to order Steelbook Limited Edition from Amazon
Cinema Retro has received the following press release:
“A hilarious and morose invocation of a lost world.
Anyone who has ever been movie-mad will relish this irrepressibly digressive,
surprise-filled, exquisitely written memoir (sort of). I certainly did.”
—Phillip Lopate Novelist
Todd McEwen grew up in a sleepy suburb just thirteen
miles from Hollywood, and at a young age he became obsessed with the big
screen. In this collection of essays—part memoir, part film criticism—McEwen
spins lush, technicolor memories. He recalls early mornings watching Laurel and
Hardy, matinées of Chinatown, and of course, his site of worship: his hometown
movie theater.
Cary Grant’s Suit is at once a love letter to old
Hollywood, a portrait of McEwen’s postwar, sunbelt neighborhood, and a sharp
analysis of a particular moment in American cultural history. The suburban
cul-de-sacs of McEwen’s childhood serve as the stage where the fears and
obsessions of the era are acted out: the neighborhood kids play “war” in the
pool and reenact The Wizard of Ozon the sidewalk. In this environment, McEwen
develops a keen eye for the desires and domestic dynamics, the technological
optimism and looming anxiety of the era. He uses this sensitivity to produce
shrewd (and often hilarious) readings of the films of his youth.
Grant in Hitchcock's "North by Northwest": Stylish even when running for his life.
(Photo: Cinema Retro Archive)
This collection includes essays on: Casablanca (in which
McEwen humorously catalogs the many drinks and cigarettes that appear
throughout the film), Laurel and Hardy (and its resonances with the domestic
and technological anxieties of the 1950s), The 39 Steps(and a trip to Scotland
to retrace the hero’s path), Chinatown(as an object of obsession), White
Christmas(as a “treatise on the textures of the Fifties”), not to mention the
titular essay on North by Northwest (arguing that “[it] isn’t about what
happens to Cary Grant, it’s about what happens to his suit”),and many, many
more.
Todd McEwen was born in Southern California in the 1950s.
As a child he was interested in comedy and the undersea realm and was terrified
by Bambi. In high school he had his own radio show, interviewing folk singers
and puzzle inventors. At college he read Victorian and medieval English
literature. He worked in radio, theatre, and the rare books trade before
arriving in Scotland in the 1980s. After a spell at Granta, he has often worked
as an editor and teacher. His novels include Fisher’s Hornpipe, McX: A Romance
of the Dour, Who Sleeps with Katz, and The Five Simple Machines.
Louis B. Mayer’s MGM was not a preeminent fright-movie
factory in the 1930s.In a 1935
interview with London’s Picturegoer,
C.A. Lejeune, managing director of MGM in Great Britain, boasted the studio
didn’t “specialise in any single type of production,” whether they be “musicals,
or comedies, or horror films.”That
said, following the successes of Universal’s Dracula and Frankenstein,
and the still-in-production The Bride of
Frankenstein, MGM wisely chose to dip their toe into the horror pool.In doing so, they managed to release a couple
of eerie 1930 classics of their own.In
1935-1936 MGM delivered to the big screen The
Devil Doll with Lionel Barrymore and Mad
Love with Peter Lorre.But the
studio was also interested in capitalizing on Universal’s success of Dracula.So much so they even sought out that film’s director, Tod Browning, to
do so.It was Browning, an earlier collaborator
on multiple silent-film classics starring Lon Chaney, chosen to helm the
production of MGM’s The Vampires of
Prague.
Mayer was not particularly enamored of horror pictures,
but business was business and he recognized Universal was doing good box office
with their string of chillers. MGM did insist writers tapped to scribe The Vampire of Prague should draw upon
an earlier property of theirs:Tod
Browning’s silent feature London after
Midnight (1927).Though only a relatively
few short years separated release dates of London
after Midnight and Mark of the
Vampire (as The Vampires of Prague
would be re-titled), it didn’t seem a large number of critics (circa 1935)
recognized the latter as a re-make of the earlier Lon Chaney film - an effort now
sadly lost for examination and contrast.
So it wasn’t too surprising that MGM brought Tod Browning
on.Though Lon Chaney was dead and gone,
the director had an ace-in-the-hole, an actor holding current high attention.Bela Lugosi had come to Browning’s attention
with his casting in the director’s cinematic adaptation of Bayard Veiller’s 1916
three-act stage mystery of The Thirteenth
Chair (1929).Though Lugosi’s role in
that film was relatively minor – he was only the seventh-billed of the cast – his
subsequent popularity as Bram Stoker’s Count Dracula on stage productions
cemented Browning’s decision to cast the actor in the title role of the iconic
Universal film of 1931.
With this bankable asset in place, Variety reported in December of 1934 that Sam Ornitz and Hy Kraft
had been conscripted to write the screenplay for The Vampires of Prague: but this news was not only late arriving,
but incorrect.When production commence
directly following the New Year (January 12), Guy Endore and Bernard Schubert were
handling screenplay chores. Endore was something of an anomaly among
horror-writers.The author of such works
as The Werewolf of Paris (1933) and Babouk (1934), Endore was a devout
leftist who dressed mysteries with subliminal doses of theoretic Marxism.
That said, the most controversial aspect of Endore’s scenario
was not necessarily political, though its inclusion was completely excised from
the finished film.It’s never explained
why Lugosi’s Count Mora (a virtual mirror-image of his Count Dracula persona) displayed
a visible bullet-hole in his right temple.Actress Carol Borland, playing Mora’s daughter Luna, later reminisced Endore’s
script was envelope-pushing in its construction.In a scene excised from the film, the actress
recounted the original screenplay explained it was an act of incest that caused
Mora to strangle to death his daughter and take his own life with a bullet to
the head.
It was this ghastly act that caused the restless souls of
Mora and Luna to solemnly walk the earth in perpetuity.Endore’s plot device, needless to say,
conjured a scenario far beyond any sort of supernatural hokum: MGM, not without
cause, demanded its exclusion from the finished film.If such a scene was actually filmed, it was
likely excised along with fourteen other minutes reportedly trimmed from the
final cut.In any event, Mark of the Vampire clocks in at a tidy sixty-one
minutes which, all things considered, is probably for the best.
The production was allotted a twenty-four day shooting
schedule and budget of some 305,000 dollars, $3000 of which went to Lugosi for his
(mostly) silent walk-through role.For
those cineastes who complain Lugosi was under-used in Mark of the Vampire – given that the actor’s only speaking lines consisted
of only one or two sentences uttered at the film’s end – such fans should enjoy
the film’s trailer (included here on this new Blu-ray from the Warner
Archive).Lugosi serves as the trailer’s
singular narrator, spookily warning - in his Slavic trademark style, of course
- cinemagoers “Shall be the judges of
this eerie conspiracy!”It was nice
to see the trailer included with the set, however misleading its vampiric content.
In Mark of the
Vampire, Browning and MGM borrow generously from Universal’s established horror
film tropes:cinematographer James Wong
Howe’s photography is atmospheric and moody, particularly in scenes where Luna
stoically skulks the graveyard in her “cemetery clothes.”The film’s exterior setting is a quaint
eastern European village, peopled by superstitious residents who enjoy a bit of
folkloric dancing in the daylight hours - but who wouldn’t dare travel at night
should they encounter such ghouls as Mora and Luna.No string of garlic cloves or wolfs bane are
used to protect the villagers from evil.They prefer a regional botanical they refer to as “Bat’s Thorn.”
In the unlikely scenario someone reading this is not
already conversant with the plot of the film, I don’t want to give too much
away.So I’ll just say elements that
work best and prove memorable are the ghostly mute walk-throughs of Lugosi and
Borland.The latter’s swooping entrance
on a set of animated bat wings during one scene is particularly cinematic.The performances of the cast are all up to
par, though one gets the feeling Lionel Barrymore regards his leading role as unworthy
of his talent.
There are stories of Browning carping on Barrymore’s diffident
performance while the film was in production. Which is surprising as the two were certainly familiar
with each other’s work habits.Though
Browning earned a reputation as a stern taskmaster on set, the director had
worked with Barrymore earlier:on the
Lon Chaney Sr. silent West of Zanzibar
(1928).Though Barrymore is tasked to
play only one-half the character Lon Chaney played in London after Midnight, it is obvious Browning would have preferred
Chaney in the lead role – if only the silent-screen legend had not tragically
already passed in 1930.
Browning’s opinion of Chaney bordered on the
worshipful.In 1928 he enthused the “Man
of a Thousand Faces” famous make-up appliances and grotesqueries were hardly “Chaney’s real secret.He could put the same make-up on the face of
another man and that man would fail on the screen.There is a personality, a something about the
man that grips one.” Even accepting Browning’s
preferences, Barrymore’s performance is not the crux of the problem plaguing Mark of the Vampire. The main weakness of the film is the
implausibility of its red-herring scenario.
Based on Browning’s own short story, The Hypnotist, both London
after Midnight and Mark of the
Vampire are atmospherically disguised as genuine “horror” pictures, but in
truth they’re simply routine mysteries dressed as ghoulish entertainment.While I actually enjoy Mark of the Vampire, I concede the picture might otherwise be regarded
a middling whodunit without the presence of Lugosi and Borland.The actress – who had earlier worked with
Lugosi on a stage production of Dracula,
acknowledged neither she nor Bela were made aware they were merely red
herrings; the final “reveal” page of the script had been withheld until the
final day of production.Universal’s
lawyers tried to get an injunction to stop production of the MGM film,
believing MGM’s use of Lugosi’s Dracula-persona in the film seemed an
uncomfortable infringement of their intellectual properties.But threatened legal action against MGM was dropped
when Universal’s lawyers deemed the case unwinnable.
Universal needn’t have worried: the film doesn’t really
work as a great mystery, much less a gripping vampire tale.One doesn’t need to wait breathlessly until
the closing minutes for the murderer’s reveal.Instead, we’re only given insight into how the perpetrator is entrapped
into confessing.Which doesn’t make for
a particularly exciting climax.The
film’s other weakness is its parlor-room staginess – a plodding element also plaguing
Browning’s otherwise iconic staging of Dracula.
With that said, it wouldn’t be fair to
throw the baby out with the bathwater.Mark of the Vampire is still a classic –
albeit a somewhat minor one – from Hollywood’s Golden Age of Horror.
Previously issued in 2006 on DVD as part of the six-film Hollywood Legends of Horror set, Mark of the Vampire makes its first U.S.
appearance on Blu-ray via this Warner Archive Collection release.Ported over from that earlier set is the
audio commentary supplied by film historian’s Kim Newman and Stephen Jones as
well as the film’s original trailer.“New” to the Blu-ray release are two items of tangential interest to
people interested in circa-1935 cinema: the 8 minute-long The Calico Dragon (a 1935 MGM cartoon) and an episode from MGM’s Crime Does Not Pay series of film shorts
A Thrill for Thelma (1935).
Be warned neither bonus has really anything to do with Mark of the Vampire though there’s a slight connection to the latter bonus.The Crime
Does Not Pay series served as both a long-running film and radio series.On December 12, 1949, Lugosi was a featured
player on the series’ radio broadcast of Gasoline
Cocktail.This arguably might have
been a more interesting audio supplement to include on this archive release,
but interested fans can listen to the Lugosi program easily via You Tube should
they desire.In any event, the release
from Warner Archive looks great: 1080p High Definition 16x9 1.37.1 DTS-HD
Master Audio.This Blu-ray should be on
the shelf of any fan of classic horror film fan or enthusiast of Browning’s
work.
(The following press release pertains to the U.K. release)
STUDIOCANAL have announced the brand new 4K restoration of John Guillermin’s (Blazing Inferno, Death on the Nile)
Academy Award® Winning remake of iconic Hollywood classic, KING KONG (1976).
Starring Jeff
Bridges (The
Big Lebowski, Crazy Heart, True Grit) and Jessica Lange (Tootsie, American Horror Story),
and produced by Hollywood legend Dino
de Laurentiis (Flash
Gordon, Nights of Cabiria, Barbarella), this retelling of the
classic monster adventure film went on to jointly win the Academy Award® for
Best Visual Effects (Carlo Rambaldi, Glen Robinson and Frank Van der Veer), as
well as receiving Academy Award® nominations for Best Cinematography (Richard
H. Kline) and Best Sound (Harry W. Tetrick, William McCaughey, Aaron Rochin and
Jack Solomon). Jessica Lange was also honoured as Best new Actress for her role
at the Golden Globes that same year.
Now restored in 4K for the first time, STUDIOCANAL will re-release
the film across 4K
UHD Blu-ray, Blu-ray, DVD and Digital as well as a 4K UHD Steelbook from December 5.
New artworks have been created for the Home Entertainment releases
by graphic designer Sophie
Bland, and for the 4K UHD Steelbook release by Francesco Francavilla.
The 4K UHD will include a limited-edition poster of Sophie Bland’s artwork.
SYNOPSIS
Fred Wilson (Charles
Grodin), an employee of a large American oil company, has been
charged with a mission to find new oil wells. With a chartered boat, he sets
off on a journey to an uninhabited island in the South Pacific. On board is
also a stowaway: the palaeontologist Jack Prescott (Jeff Bridges) has
smuggled himself onto the ship, as he hopes to examine a rare species of monkey
on this island. On the way, after a violent storm, the expedition also takes on
board the shipwrecked Dawn (Jessica
Lange), who is floating in a lifeboat at sea. When the ship
anchors off the island, however, it turns out not to be as uninhabited as
everyone once thought. The natives of the island perform a strange ritual to
worship a larger-than-life ape named "Kong". As soon as they
catch sight of the blonde Dawn, they decide they have found their perfect offering.
ABOUT THE RESTORATION
This 2022 restoration is presented by STUDIOCANAL and Paramount
Pictures. The 35mm original negative was scanned in 4K and colour graded by
Paramount. The restoration and mastering was then carried out at L'Immagine
Ritrovata, under the supervision of STUDIOCANAL. The purpose of this
restoration was to give a new lease of life to the film for audiences to enjoy
on the big screen, and eventually on the smaller screen. A 4K DCP was created,
as well as a UHD HDR Dolby Vision master, to enhance the sharpness and
brightness in cinemas which is not usually possible with a standard HD master.
In addition there is a new, improved and cleaned up 5.1 audio.
STUDIOCANAL owns one of the largest film
libraries in the world, boasting nearly 7000
titles from 60 countries. Spanning 100 years of film history.
20 million euros has been invested into the restoration of 700 classic films
over the past 5 years.
SPECIAL FEATURES
· Extended TV
broadcast cut (unrestored)
· Audio commentary
with film historian Ray Morton
· Audio commentary
with actor and makeup artist Rick Baker
· Interview with
Barry Nolan
· Interview with
Bill Kronick
· Interview with
Scott Thaler and Jeffrey Chernov
· Interview with
David McGiffert and Brian E. Frankish
Issue #54 of Cinema Retro has now shipped to subscribers worldwide. There was a delay in the mailings to North and South America and Asia due to a snafu in the distribution and importation process which we had no control over. We apologize for any inconvenience.
This the last issue of this season. If you order Season 18 now, you will receive all three copies for 2022 (issues #52, 53 and 54).
Thanks for all of our subscribers who are renewing for Season 19. If you would care to do so and receive all three issues for 2023, please click here.
Highlights of issue #54 include:
Mike Siegel reveals his involvement in the restoration of lost footage for the Blu-ray releases of Sam Peckinpah's "Convoy" and "The Osterman Weekend".
Mark Mawston presents part 2 of his exclusive interview with John Leyton about co-starring with Frank Sinatra in "Von Ryan's Express".
Nicholas Anez revisits director Richard Lester's "Robin and Marian" starring Sean Connery, Audrey Hepburn and Robert Shaw.
Simon Lewis explores the endless trials in bringing the WWII epic "Tora! Tora! Tora!" to the big screen.
Gareth Owen celebrates the 60th anniversary of the James Bond films with behind-the-scenes stories, events and rare photos from Pinewood Studios.
Hank Reineke looks back on "The Last Man on Earth" starring Vincent Price.
Plus columns by Raymond Benson, Darren Allison and Brian Hannan.
