By Hank Reineke

On 23 October 1962, movie industry trades were reporting two associates of Britain’s Allied Filmmakers Corporation, director Basil Dearden and producer Michael Relph, had inked a three-picture deal with Robert Blumofe, vice-president of productions at United Artists. This trio of proposed films, to be produced in England and Europe, were designed for worldwide commercial release. It was agreed all three would be produced under the Eady Levy plan, a tax collected on all domestic box-office receipts. The goal of the Eady Levy was for those tax monies to be collected to support the struggling British film industry.

The three announced pics were to be produced with “flexible budgets.” Dearden was chosen to helm production of a drama titled Woman of Straw. The filmmaker was optimistic he could bring the ambitious film in at a cost of no more than $750,000. His economic optimism was welcomed by United Artists. UA was aggressively looking to greenlight an additional five feature films in the near future. Those five, to be shot in New York, Hollywood and overseas, were to go into co-current production through Labor Day’s end of summer 1963.

Woman of Straw was the film chosen to go first before the cameras. The pic would be a cinematic adaptation of a taut mystery thriller penned by French author Catherine Arley. Arley’s original novel was first published in 1956 as La Femme De Paille. The story is, as per the dustcover of its subsequent 1958 publication in the U.S., “A psychological novel about a woman who finds that the interest on ill-gotten money is terror.” Stanley Mann (Another Time, Another Place (1958), The Mouse that Roared (1959) was to collaborate on the screenplay with Robert Muller (then a mostly unknown television writer). As the two worked on adapting Arley’s story for the screen, Dearden was tasked to finish up two feature projects already in the works: the crime drama A Place to Go and a sci-fi pic The Mind Benders.

It wasn’t until eight months on, May of 1963, that an announcement was made that Italian screen siren Gina Lollobrigida had been signed to star opposite Sir Ralph Richardson and Sean Connery in Woman of Straw. This film would be the first British film in which the voluptuous actress would be cast. Lollobrigida already wore the dual starry crown of sex symbol and international film star. The actress had also acquired a reputation of being somewhat of a diva.

She would brag upon signing on to Woman of Straw that United Artists was so invested in her casting as the sultry Maria Marcello, the company promised she’d hold approval on all matters concerning scripting, director and the casting of co-stars. It was during a visit with the actress at home in Rome, that one UA exec suggested Sean Connery might play opposite her as the film’s antagonist, Anthony Richmond. Upon hearing Connery’s name, Lollobrigida reportedly asked, “Sean who?”

Such a scenario, if true, wasn’t unlikely. Though Dr. No, released in Britain in October of 1962, would bring Connery great attention and acclaim – particularly in Britain and a bit more belatedly in U.S. markets – the worldwide cult of James Bond had not yet ignited. The follow-up to Dr. No, From Russia with Love, began shooting on 1 April 1963 and as of July of ’63 was finishing up principal photography. This second James Bond film was to have its London premiere in October 1963. As Dr. No had proven one of the more successful British films of 1962, Connery quickly established a reputation as a cinema star in his own right, at least in England. Following the success of Dr. No, a start-up “fan club” celebrating the actor already had managed to attract (perhaps apocryphally) some “28,000 registered members” since inception – at least according to one press account.

Connery had just completed his tiring sixteen-week stint on From Russia with Love when asked to appear in Woman of Straw. The actor would later reminisce that he, “hardly had a time to take a bath and change my suit” prior to beginning work on the film. Though it meant no rest between film projects, Connery was eager to sign on. He was already tiring of being James Bond, despite only a single Bond film having thus far reached the public. He was a serious, capable actor, frightened of being typecast in James Bond-type roles. Woman of Straw would offer the actor an opportunity to tackle a very different sort of role, one antithetical to his Bond persona. He would play a caddish villain.

As a bonus, Connery would also have the opportunity to work alongside the great Sir Ralph Richardson. Richardson too had been looking for a different sort of project. His taking on a role in Woman of Straw was a gamble, one that would necessitate his abandonment of a role on a London stage production of Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author. Connery too was seemingly up for a gamble. Some reports suggested Connery didn’t ask to first read through the script of Woman of Straw prior to accepting a role in the film. If true, this was an unusual decision on his part, one quite out of character. Connery had already developed a reputation as a serious sort, often brusque in matters of contract and artistic vision.

Catherine Arley’s original scenario for Woman of Straw is, essentially, a twisting tale of greed and manipulation. It’s difficult to pigeonhole the story as translated to film: it’s not quite a run-of-the-mill suspense-thriller, nor a shrouded mystery nor a romance. It’s really none of these things, which likely made the marketing of the film difficult. There are a number of chess boards present in the film, and the film plays out as a chess game of sorts. Moves are thoughtfully countered and checked as evolving situations – anticipated and otherwise - arise.

Ralph Richardson is cast as Charles Richmond, a bitter, wheelchair bound multi-millionaire with a penchant for classical music. Richmond lives amidst the lavish, plush surroundings of imposing Foxhurst Mansion. Despite his high-standing, Charles is a completely loathsome character, devoid of generosity, kindness and empathy. He shows no appreciation even for those contracted to attend to his every passing whim or need. He’s also as overt a racist as can be imagined. In truth, the demeaning racialism he exhibits to his attendants in the film is, as a filmgoer, uncomfortable to sit through.

Charles’ only blood relative is a nephew, Anthony Richardson (Sean Connery). Sadly, Charles is no kinder to his nephew than the others. The corrupted businessman mocks his kin’s “lily white hands,” and sees Anthony, his dead bother’s offspring, as a spoiled playboy, one who spends his days, “driving Jaguars and seducing women.” Anthony initially appears a model of sensible moderation and patience. He tries to smooth over his uncle’s ugly words and deeds with aggrieved staff and business associates in a most gentlemanly manner. It’s also revealed Anthony has a good reason to hate his uncle.

We learn Anthony’s father and Charles were once business partners. But the unscrupulous Charles managed to duplicitously drive his brother out of their successful business partnership. The familial betrayal causes Anthony’s father to commit suicide. Then, in a final, despicable act, Charles marries his brother’s widow, Anthony’s father. With his wife now having gone off to her own reward, Charles plans to selfishly bequeath his fortune of 50 million GBP – minus an insultingly small dowry of 20,000 GBP to Anthony – to a “dog’s home” charity.

The crotchety Charles, sickly and in the late autumn years of life, requires the constant attention of a nurse. As he is with most things, Charles has been particularly displeased with the nurses Anthony has contracted to care for him – an unrewarding task at best. The curmudgeonly millionaire dismisses his most recent nursing hires as aging “battle axes” and “hags.” Anthony’s newest certainly doesn’t fit into either of those categories. Newly arriving from London – and literally introduced to Charles by her stepping from shadow into an elegant mansion room - is the steamy, voluptuous Maria Marcello (Lollobrigida).

The gentle and kind Maria takes an instant dislike to her new employer (“He’s a monster, cruel”), but is cautiously intrigued by the suave, handsome nephew. We soon discover that Anthony, in his own way, can be every bit as cunning and cruel as his uncle. He has contrived a plan to have his uncle’s last will and testament furtively changed. The new terms will prove more favorable to both Gina and himself… assuming the reluctant nurse will agree to assist in his scheme. There’s a lot more going on, of course, than demonstrated in the brief synopsis above. I’m simply trying my best to avoid any spoilers.

The earliest reports suggested production on Woman of Straw would take place entirely in England, but that promise was soon scrubbed. Though principal photography was originally scheduled to begin 22 July at Pinewood Studios, this original start date was pushed back. It was revealed that the film, to be photographed in glorious Eastman Colour, was set for a twelve-week shooting schedule. Two weeks of filming would take place on Majorca, a sun-bleached Balearic island off the Spanish coast.

As per a notice in the 7 August issue of Variety, Lollobrigida had arrived in England a week earlier, but was still “prepping” for the first stage call. Production commenced on the second week of August 1963, but things, sadly, got off to a rocky start. Whether it was a clash of egos or styles, Lollobrigida and Connery didn’t seem to gel well off set. The actresses’ Diva-like tendencies were thought interminable nuisances by both her no-nonsense co-star and much of the film’s crew. Connery had other issues as well. He discovered the consequences of not having read the film’s script prior to accepting a role.

The actor was reportedly so unhappy with certain elements of the screenplay that he continually asked scenarist Stanley Mann for scene and dialogue revisions. Luckily, Mann was an accommodating friend, having previously scripted Lewis Allen’s poorly received Another Time, Another Place (1958). That Paramount film, featuring Lana Turner in the star role, is generally recognized as Connery’s “breakthrough” motion-picture casting.

By Doug Oswald

Mill Creek Entertainment has released a double feature under a Director Spotlight banner of a couple of Sydney Pollack films. “Castle Keep” from 1969 and “Bobby Deerfield” from 1977. Two more different movies on a single disc you would be hard pressed to find, but each film is as interesting and unique as they are different. One is a fairy tail version of WWII set in a French castle and the other a low key romance set in the France.

First up is “Caste Keep,” a WWII tale of U.S. soldiers seemingly sent to protect a 10th century French castle at the end of the war to prevent the retreating Germans from recapturing it. The castle contains priceless historical artifacts and great masterpieces of art and literature. The American orders are to destroy the Germans which could involve the inadvertent destruction of the castle. Jean-Pierre Aumont is Henri Tixier, the Count of Maldorais and resident lord of the castle. Astrid Heeren is his beautiful young wife, Countess Therese de Maldorais.

The count works to protect not only the castle and all its contents, but his legacy and is in need of an heir. This is where Burt Lancaster comes in as the eye patch-wearing American soldier, Major Abraham Falconer. The Count encourages Falconer to sleep with his wife in order to get her pregnant. Apparently, the Count made a similar deal with the German commander who previously occupied the castle. The deal is that they agree to not destroy the castle. Major Falconer and the Countess begin an affair which is fully supported by the Count.

The cast for this movie is first rate at every level from Lancaster to the supporting players. In addition to Lancaster, Aumont and Heeren there’s Patrick O’Neal as Captain Lionel Beckman, an expert on Medieval art whose objective is to catalog and save the castle from destruction. Pater Falk is Sergeant Rossi Baker, a soldier who also happens to be a baker. He discovers a bakery in the nearby town where he sets up shop with the previous baker’s wife and family and happily starts baking bread. Scott Wilson is Corporal Clearboy, who finds an abandoned Volkswagen Beetle which he gets running. Bruce Dern is Lieutenant Billy Byron Bis, the leader of a group of Army conscientious objectors proselytizing as they march through the nearby town in front of the local brothel. There’s also Al Freeman Jr as Private Allistair Piersall Benjamin, an aspiring author and the narrator of the movie. He reads the film’s credits to us when the movie starts, thus adding to the fairy tale element. Tony Bill as Lieutenant Amberjack, James Patterson as Elk and Michael Conrad as Sergeant DeVaca.

All the players come into various conflicts with one another; the Count and the soldiers, the Count and his wife and the major, the art historian and the major, the soldiers in the bordello, the conscientious objectors marching down the street, the soldier obsessed with his Volkswagen, the baker making bread as shells are exploding around him, and of course there’s the imminent threat of Germans gathering for a new assault on the town and castle.

Major Falconer likes to refer to these eccentrics as dreamers and he encourages them because he too is a dreamer. Falconer wants to save the castle, but his orders come first. Captain Beckman wants to save the castle too and thinks the orders should be ignored, Sergeant Baker just wants to forget the war and bake bread, Corporal Clearboy wants to keep his Volkswagen running and useful, Private Benjamin wants to be a writer and the Count wants an heir.

Several characters pause to ask throughout the film, “What century is this?” starting with the first sighting of the count on horseback in the snow-covered forest near the castle. The soldiers arrive in a dream lead by a knight who finds a beautiful princess. There’s a balladeer, sirens, a stoic, a baker, a priest, a magician and the impending return of the beast threatening to wake everyone from their dream.

The movie clocks in at 107 minutes with a terrific score by Michel Legrand which, along with the 2.39:1 aspect ratio cinematography by Henri Decae, contributes to the film’s dream-like quality. The movie was made on location in Yugoslavia on a castle set with exteriors filmed in the town of Novi Sad, Serbia, throughout the month of March in 1968 and released to the public in July 1969.

Next up is “Bobby Deerfield,” the story of an American Formula One race car driver living in Italy who meets a beautiful and quirky German woman while visiting a member of his racing team who is recovering from a serious racing accident. He’s a bit of a rock star in the Formula One circuit, but is always trying hard not to be the center of attention. Bobby is an enigma almost to the point of being boring. It’s hard to feel anyone is really drawn to him.

The tag line on the Blu-ray cover poster reads, “He never gave a damn. Until her.” The “he” is Al Pacino as Bobby Deerfield. The “her” is Marthe Keller as Lillian Morelli. Lillian is terminally ill and receiving treatment at the Swiss hospital where Deerfield’s racing colleague is recovering. He visits not so much out of friendship and concern, but in order to uncover the reasons behind the accident and to prevent the same from happening to him.

Based on the novel by Erich Maria Remarque, the racing world is the backdrop to a romance that develops between Bobby and Lillian. The film was shot on location in France, Italy, Switzerland and other European locations. The screen is filled with beautiful scenery as Bobby and Lillian visit her family and friends. At one point Bobby and Lillian spot a hot air balloon while picnicking on a scenic hillside and they drive to a balloon festival. Lillian finds a man willing to take them for a ride on his balloon and Bobby declines. The next several minutes reminded me of movie critic Roger Ebert’s Balloon Rule which states: “Good movies rarely contain a hot air balloon.”

Is “Bobby Deerfield” a movie worth your time? If you’re looking for a racing movie, this is not the movie for you. We get to see the racetrack once at the beginning and again near the end for a total of about five minutes of Formula One racing. This is a movie about a man who happens to be a race car driver. Bobby has people in his life who love him or at least try to get close to him. He is in a relationship with a woman, Anny Duperey as Lydia, but he leaves her behind while he pursues Lillian. Bobby has a brother who comes to see him about family issues, but Bobby has no time for family or friends. His relationships are either business or superficial friendships until he meets Lillian. She is a woman seeking to experience as much as she can in the time she has left and falls in love with a man whose days may also be numbered due to the dangers of his profession.

“Bobby Deerfield” clocks in at 124 minutes and benefits greatly from the location filming in France and Italy with 2.35:1 widescreen cinematography by Henri Decae and a score by regular Pollock composer Dave Grusin. Released in September 1977, it was a co-production between Columbia, Warner Bros. and First Artists (which Pacino was a co-partner). The film was marketed in America as a racing movie like “Grand Prix” which may have set up a different expectation, as the movie does not offer much in the way of racing, but does have excellent low key performances by Pacino and Keller.

Both movies have been released previously on Blu-ray, DVD and VHS over the years. “Castle Keep” received a Blu-ray release by Indicator in the UK loaded with extras and “Bobby Deerfield” received a Blu-ray release by Twilight Time.

Both films on this release by Mill Creek are found on a single disc with the option to watch with subtitles. The disc is bare bones without even a trailer, but both movies look and sound very nice on this disc. I highly recommend this release, especially for those not acquainted with either movie. This is a welcome double bill of the work of a great American director and I would welcome more entries in Mill Creek’s Director Spotlight. Recommended for fans of Pollack, Lancaster and Pacino.

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Here are selection of 16mm TV spots from the 1978 macabre comedy "The End", starring and directed by Burt Reynolds. The spots feature original footage of Reynolds clowning with Dom DeLuise (who stole the film in a hilarious performance) and Norman Fell.

By Hank Reineke

Few would have argument with Shakespeare’s belief that all the world’s a stage, but for some folks the stage was simply not enough. It certainly wasn’t for Edgar Lansbury, the younger brother of actress Angela Lansbury. Edgar Lansbury was a significant figure of New York City theatre, having produced a number of Broadway dramas and musicals from 1954 on. One of his earliest collaborators was a renaissance man of New York’s theatre scene, Joseph Beruh. Beruh and Lansbury became acquainted when the former was cast in the Lansbury’s 1954 production of Brecht and Weill’s Threepenny Opera at Greenwich Village’s Lucille Lortel Theatre.

Beruh would subsequently and dependably multitask in all of Lansbury’s productions circa 1957-1970. Beruh wore many different hats during this period: as performer, General Manager, Assistant Stage Manager and Production Assistant. In 1972, Beruh seemingly was given his due. He and Lansbury were now co-producing shows in midtown Manhattan as full partners, first with playwright Paul Foster’s Elizabeth I at Manhattan’s Lyceum and later with the Stephen Schwartz/Bob Randall musical The Magic Show at the Cort.

Prior to their partnership, Lansbury alone chose to test openings into the film industry. His interest was practical and, in the words of one newspaper columnist, due to the “precarious state of Broadway [which] almost forces theatre producers to diversify.” The resulting film, The Subject Was Roses (1968), would feature Broadway actor Jack Albertson reprising his stage role in Lansbury’s stage production. The actor was cast alongside Patricia Neal, the latter valiantly struggling back from suffering a series of debilitating strokes. The film itself was playwright Frank D. Gilroy’s cinematic adaptation of his own successful drama. As a theatrical drama, The Subject Was Roses ran for nearly two years and 832 performances from May 1964 through May 1966, successfully staged at several New York City venues. Though Lansbury’s film version performed only modestly well at the movie box office, both Neal and Albertson were honored by the Academy, each nominated, respectively, in the Best Actress in a Leading Role and Best Actor in a Supporting Role categories.

Lansbury’s second foray into feature film production would be with new partner Joseph Beruh acting as co-producer. The picture was James Ivory’s The Wild Party (1975), a dramatic comedy set in the Roaring ‘20s. The Wild Party, which featured James Coco and Raquel Welch, also did not tally up as a successful domestic release. This was in part, no doubt, due to the fact the MGM film did not enjoy a widespread general release in the U.S. Looking to broker an overseas deal to capitalize on their disappointing investment, the producers brought the film to the film festival at Cannes that same year.

It was at Cannes that Lansbury and Beruh discovered the foreign market’s seemingly insatiable interest in acquiring low-budget horror films for distribution. A friend and colleague happened to be in Cannes that very same year, to showcase his newest horror picture already raking in bushels of cash. As Beruh recalled, this friend “told us how well it did it Europe and how much money it was making.” So the two prospective producers graciously attended a screening of their friend’s fright pic cash-cow. They discovered, to Beruh’s surprise, that their friend’s film “was terrible. We decided we could make a horror film far better than that.”

The seed idea of producing a low-budget horror was appealing to them. It certainly triggered their safe-bet business acumen, and seemed reasonable to invest in an inexpensive horror pic upon their return home. Should their horror picture perform poorly in the States, there was still the safeguard of selling and distributing the pic oversea to offset any domestic loss. Their decision to move forward with their plan was wise and prudent. Even before their very first horror pic, Squirm (1976), was set to unleash at cinemas and drive-ins across the U.S., foreign market pre-sales had already guaranteed they’d recoup all of their investment.

The question was where to start? “It’s easier said than done to find a good script,” Lansbury explained to one entertainment journalist. In a separate interview with a news writer from Rochester, New York’s Democrat and Chronicle, Lansbury more fully explained, “There aren’t many good writers, especially in this genre. Too many of the scripts are actually tongue-in-cheek comments on horror films […]. We wanted a real story of terror and suspense.” “We looked at about forty [scripts] in the next few weeks and finally found Jeff Lieberman,” he offered to columnist Joan E. Vadeboncoeur. There was a major sticking point, however: Lieberman would “sell the script only on the condition that he’d direct the project.

“It was a big risk, but a good one,” Lansbury would offer in retrospect. Lieberman was an unknown, but had been “remarkably eloquent speaking about his project and he had done editing for an art film company.” Beruh, for his part, also was intrigued by the script for Squirm, not interested in financing a Vincent Price Gothic-type of horror film. Beruh too was looking to find a script offering a scenario fresh and original. As he remembered it, the sorting through piles of prospective scripts was challenging and tiring. “We were sitting around the office one day,” he told newsman Gene Grey, “wondering why nobody had written a good horror film.” That changed when a “long-haired kid, Jeff Lieberman” came in to pitch his screenplay. “We liked his script a lot,” Beruh confessed, “but there was a catch. He wouldn’t sell it unless he got the chance to direct it.”

As Lieberman recalls, the film producer Edward R. Pressman – who had recently oversaw production of Brian De Palma’s horror-rock musical Phantom of the Paradise (1974) was also interested in Squirm. But it was Lansbury and Beruh who moved more aggressively to seal a deal. The two executive producers immediately turned to Samuel Z. Arkoff’s American-International Pictures – the distributor of their ill-fated The Wild Party – for advice and financing. This was a prudent move as Arkoff’s A.I.P. had a long, storied history of giving young, untested talent a chance of entry into the film industry. To be sure, Arkoff wasn’t a particularly generous, benevolent benefactor in this regard. But he was certainly well aware that young, aspiring talent would work the hardest – and, perhaps more importantly - for the least amount of financial recompense.

Jeff Lieberman was a self-confessed admirer of the films of Alfred Hitchcock and, according to Lansbury, closely “modeled his script after that master.” (Upon the film’s release, several critics noted the similarities of Lieberman’s film to Hitchcock’s The Birds (1963). Though Lieberman’s credentials were slim, he was no neophyte nor amateur. He had already incorporated his own business, Jeff Lieberman Associates, writing and producing a number of documentaries titled “The Art of Film,” distributing the series through college film studies programs. He had also written and directed a twenty-minute long satirical short titled The Ringer (1972), which garnered prizes at film festivals in Atlanta, Chicago and Washington D.C.

In two of this releases Special Features included in this set, “Digging In: The Making of Squirm” and “Eureka! A Tour of Locations with Jeff Lieberman” the writer/director reminisces the first draft of the film script was initially written – literally, on yellow-legal pad sheets – circa 1973 when he was all of 25 or 26 years old. Unable to type, his wife was consigned to that duty, thinking her husband’s scenario as imagined was “the worse I ever heard.” Though she would be proven wrong, the very idea of a sea of monstrous worms surfacing from the soil to feed on human flesh had been inspired by an unusual set of circumstances.

Lieberman’s science-minded older brother had read in an issue of the scouting Boy’s Life magazine that if one transmitted electric impulses (via a model train transformer) through soil, this would cause earth worms to be drawn to the surface. The curious brothers would experiment to that effect, the then thirteen/fourteen year old future filmmaker learning such trails of electrification to be true. A decade later - and having grown up in the era Timothy Leary still-legal LSD experimentations - Lieberman chose to dose. The experience with acid triggered memories of his earlier backyard scientific experiments - and hallucinations of a terrifying worm onslaught. All grist for the writer’s mill…

Lieberman’s story (as filmed) is set in the backwoods town of Fly Creek, Georgia, a remote, mostly desolate tourist destination for antique hounds and fishermen. A sassy, red-haired local gal, Geraldine “Geri” Sanders (Patricia Pearcy) lives on the outskirts of town with her sister Alma (Fran Higgins) and widowed mother Naomi (Jean Sullivan). The Sanders live astride a Worm Farm operated by the crusty Willie Grimes (Carl Dagenhart) and his simpleton son Roger (R.A. Dow). Geri has been mooning for a New York City boy, Mick (Don Scardino) whom she met sometime back and invited to visit under the guise of helping him locate antiques. Mick’s visit does not sit well with jealous Roger who too has been holding a torch for Geri.

There’s lots of exposition in the film’s first reel, and we meet a number of locals – including Sheriff Reston (Peter MacLean) who appears to have little patience for city-slicker Mick. The unfriendly townsfolk are “suspicious of strangers,” as per Geri. It doesn’t help that Mick’s visit coincides with a local emergency. A powerful storm has swept through Fly Creek flooding the town and making roads impassable. The town has been left with no power nor telephone capacities. The violent storm has in fact knocked over a number of power towers, cascading live wires sending 300,000 volts of electricity into the muddy soil.

Regardless, Geri drives Mick over to Aaron Beardsley’s antique shop for a look, but the old man is oddly nowhere to be found. They do find a skeleton on Beardsley’s property that might, or might not, be him. It’s around this time that Mick transforms into one of the Hardy Boys, trying to unravel the Beardsley mystery, even breaking into a medical office to examine the old man’s dental records. Mick eventually deduces that it was the sudden conduction of fallen electric wires with “soaking mud” that has summoned 250,000 flesh-eating worms, nightly, to feast on the townspeople. That’s the story at its most basic anyway. There’s a subplot or two woven into the storyline as well, but the rest of the film leaves viewers to contemplate who will or who will not survive this awful “night of crawling terror.”

“This was the night of crawling terror” was the promotional tag of the film’s one-sheet poster. The producers were initially unhappy that the film was being marketed as simply another “animal fright film,” a genre now in vogue, especially in following the runaway success of Spielberg’s Jaws. Beruh told journalist Carol Wilson Utley he thought Squirm was more Hitchcock in its styling and more frightful than Jaws. After all, Beruh reasoned, “sharks are just in the ocean” and, should one choose, absolutely avoidable. On the other hand, “worms are everywhere.” Beruh was also put off by the horrific poster art commissioned for the film, a garish, colorful image of worms and corpses and tree trunks emanating from a grimacing, evil skull. “This is not just another horror movie,” Beruh defended. “It’s also a good movie – a well-made movie. But to insure its success they want to get all the real hardcore horror fans out.”

Squirm was given a budget of some $400,000 with photography to commence in November of 1975. Lieberman’s original script set the film in New England, amidst a “Lovecraft type” of fishing village. The problem was that the New England climate was thought too inhospitable for a November filming. There was one lifeline. The state of Georgia was slowly becoming a hub of film production, Georgia’s Department of Community Development happy to welcome prospective film projects to the area. One of the more recent and successful projects launched in the Peach State was United Artist’s Burt Reynolds’s action pic Gator (1976), that film’s box office success having sparked interest in Georgia’s low-cost hospitality.

The one drawback in this dramatic change of scenery was that many of the New York area actors originally considered for roles were now redundant. The geographic change to slangy southern dictions would cause both re-scripting and the casting of local talent (and even a number of non-actors) for roles in the production. One budding actress anxious to be cast was twenty-one year old Kim Basinger, who even agreed to taking on the role of Geri Sanders even though it called for a nude scene. Lieberman retrospectively sighs his decision to pass on casting Basinger was likely an opportunity lost for fanboys everywhere. The leading players of the cast were proven professionals gleaned from New York, Massachusetts and Texas.

The primary location shooting of Squirm was to commence in the seacoast town of Wentworth and areas near Savannah. Principal photography began in Savannah on Monday, 10 November. Serving as executive producers (George Manasse would produce), Lansbury and Beruh would form a limited partnership, appropriately named “The Squirm Company,” to oversee production of the film. Box Office would report the film was in the can by early January of 1976. That said, things got off to a rough start. Lieberman recalls that due to a generator having exploded on the first day of filming, as director he had already fallen behind the agreed upon production schedule by the third day of shooting.

This nearly resulted of his dismissal, New York executives angry of not getting any of the promised rushes to view as demanded. Lieberman recollects it was the film’s cinematographer, Joseph Mangine, who saved him, advising him to abandon his idea of shooting the film in sequential sequence and instead concentrating on getting as much footage in the can as quick set-ups and breakdowns allowed. Within days of going this route, the crew was back on schedule. The autumn weather – even that of southern Georgia – was alternately sunny then grey, gloomy and overcast. Leading actor Don Scardino (“Mick”), who would soon work with Lansbury and Beruh on the Broadway stage production of Godspell, thought the mixed weather and inclusion of local talent brought the film, “a strange, truthful ambiance.”

For the film’s exciting conclusion, some 250,000 worms were brought in to complete the final “big” sequence. This required the assistance of a local Boy Scout troop “to assist in the handling” of the worms. In fact, the scouts were buried strategically and hidden under mounds of worms – real and of rubber – and tasked to bounce beneath as to create the “percolating” mass we see on-screen. For their trouble, each Scout was reportedly promised a Merit Badge. It must be said that Lieberman’s direction is effective in bringing to the film a sense of creepy, growing tension. The micro close-up cut in shots of real-life fanged worms are certainly disturbing. There is a bit of gore, but not as much as one might expect from a film of this type. Lieberman would tell the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, “My violence is implied. I believe a filmmaker can never present on screen as much violence as an audience’s own mind can imagine.”

Variety reported that with editing of Squirm near completion, distributor previews would begin in New York City the week of 12 April, with secondary screenings to follow in Los Angeles the week of 19 April. In June, Lansbury and Beruh brought the film to Cannes, choosing to “pack the four […] screenings with non-pro locals, thus giving potential buyers a taste of how the general public would react to the film.” This gambit paid off and by the festival’s end they had made a deal with no fewer than sixteen territories at a guarantee of a half-million dollars. To the confusion on many industry watchers, the shrewd Arkoff instructed the producers to forego any “terrific” upfront and advance foreign deals and instead choose what initially appeared to be mere “reasonable” percentage offerings. This percentage decision was a wise one as the film performed exceptionally well in the United Kingdom and other European markets.

Closer to home, the filmmakers were looking for an open spot on the future release roster of a major Hollywood studio. They thought they saw opportunity for Columbia Pictures to bring their modest horror-meller to theatres nationwide. The publicity department at Columbia thought Squirm as a great investment and a cash-generating exploitable. The only thing required was the blessing of Columbia Pictures president David Begelman. The deal might have happened had it not been for the intervention of Begelman’s wife. Begelman’s significant other happened to attend the Squirm screening with him, mortified and aghast at the Glycera-inspired carnage unfolding before her eyes. She convinced him not to have anything to do with what she thought cinematic trash. Her advice proved ill-informed and costly. The film was ultimately picked up by Paramount.

If Paramount was a big winner, so was Lieberman, A.I.P., Lansbury and Beruh. The two producers quickly signed Lieberman to a fresh contract to deliver a second sci-fi thriller of his own scripting, another LSD-inspired fever-dream titled Blue Sunshine. Following the test-market of Squirm in Buffalo, New York, Paramount released the film, to the excitement of horror movie devotees in the several regional markets, on Wednesday 14 July 1976.

By Lee Pfeiffer

In the early 1960s director John Frankenheimer emerged as one of Hollywood's most exciting talents. Consider the remarkably diverse films he made in a four year period between 1962 and 1966: "Birdman of Alcatraz", a somewhat fictionalized but extremely compelling prison drama with an Oscar nominated performance by Burt Lancaster; the classic thriller "The Manchurian Candidate" which perfectly analyzed the type of paranoia that still defines American politics today; "Seven Days in May", yet another classic political thriller that also retains its relevance; "The Train", a superb WWII film about the French Resistance attempting to thwart a Nazi's theft of priceless national treasures, "Seconds", Frankenheimer's brilliant and underrated "Twilight Zone"-like chiller and "Grand Prix", the big budget, star-packed racing extravaganza that was unlike any of his previous films (it was in color, for one). For a while, it seemed Frankenheimer could do no wrong. However, by the late 1960s, he began to stumble. His forthy comedy "The Extraordinary Seaman" was, by any rational evaluation, a complete disaster and was deemed largely unreleasable by MGM. His next major effort, "The Gypsy Moths" reunited him with Burt Lancaster, star of some of his greatest successes. However, despite having many merits, the film failed to click with audiences and critics. Suddenly, Frankenheimer was no longer the "Golden Boy" who represented the new age of daring young American directors. In the mid-1970s, he got two more bites at the apple with "French Connection II" and the terrorist thriller "Black Sunday". He delivered the goods artistically but both films did not amass the anticipated grosses and Frankenheimer was increasingly relegated to helming middling films in return for a quick pay check. He later confessed that some of his problems were self-imposed due to his dependency on alcohol. As his feature film career deteriorated, Frankenheimer found salvation through directing acclaimed, high profile TV movies that saw him win four Emmy Awards. He did have one late career theatrical hit with the spy thriller "Ronin" in 1998. He passed away in 2002, having had the satisfaction of seeing his work re-evaluated by a new generation of critics with "Seconds", in particular, finally winning the type of praise that had eluded reviewers when initially released in 1966. 

One of Frankenheimer's least-discussed films, "The Fourth War", is currently streaming on Screenpix, available through Amazon Prime for additional fee each month.  The movie went into production at the very end of the Cold War. By the time it was released in 1990, the Soviet Union was on the verge of collapse, which is probably why the audience is informed that the story takes place in 1988. Although the film is set up to be a grudge match between two military tough guys on opposite sides of the political spectrum, the central character is Col. Jack Knowles (Roy Scheider), a spit-and-polish veteran U.S. Army officer who arrives at his new command, a remote base on the border of  West Germany and Soviet-dominated Czechoslovakia. Knowles is a complete hard ass with Patton-like disciplinary measures he doesn't hesitate to enact for any soldier who doesn't abide by his rules. But we learn later that Knowles is a bit of a hypocrite. Seems he has a reputation for being a loose cannon who consistently defies orders and regulations in order to carry out procedures his own way. He's been booted from several commands and this is his last chance. It's an opportunity that has been afforded him by his Vietnam War buddy Gen. Hackworth (Harry Dean Stanton), whose life Knowles saved back in the day. Knowles shows his gratitude by immediately violating orders and taking a small patrol past the "no go" boundary that abuts the Czech border. By happenstance, the group witnesses a disturbing sight: a dissident is racing toward the West German border over snow covered fields with Soviet soldiers relentlessly hunting him down on horseback. The man almost makes it to freedom but is shot dead by the Soviets. Outraged, Knowles pulls his pistol and is about to initiate a shooting war. His second in command, Lt. Col. Clark (Tim Reid) realizes the international implications that would follow and convinces Knowles to holster his weapon- but Knowles is still outraged. He tosses a snowball at the Soviet commanding officer, Col. Valachev (Jurgen Prochnow). This juvenile act of protest will lead to a relentless war of wills between both men, each of whom studies the other's history.

Before long, Knowles is making surreptitious nocturnal one-man missions behind the border. At first he causes mischief by holding Soviet guards at gunpoint and humiliating them. But his actions become increasingly risky, culminating in his destroying a guard tower and nearly killing the men in it. Valachev begins to respond in kind, sneaking over the border to humiliate Knowles. By this point, Lt. Col. Clark suspects that Knowles is becoming irrational and carrying out forbidden missions. General Clark dresses down his old friend and tells him that if he makes one more slip-up, he won't be able to save him from being drummed out of the military. Knowles is momentarily shaken but can't resist resuming his activities over the border. On one such "mission", he meets a desperate young woman who is trying to sneak back into Czechoslovakia. She's Elena (Lara Harris), who explains she has to rescue her little daughter who is being cared for by her grandmother. Elena says that her mother is now too ill to take care of the child and she worries that the girl will be placed in a state home. The gruff Knowles is moved by her plight and agrees to help her in her quest- a promise that ultimately leads to dramatic consequences and a one-on-one confrontation with Valachev that could reignite the Cold War. 

While "The Fourth War" is not of a caliber of John Frankenheimer's early classics, the film has much to recommend about it. The movie did not make much of an impact when it first opened and has remained under the radar screen ever since. It needs a few champions and I'm happy to be one of them. For one, it's intelligently written and presents two interesting characters, though we never learn much about Valachev. Knowles, on the other hand, is an emotional basket case hiding behind a tough guy persona. He's friendless and desperate to find meaning in life. In one poignant scene, he celebrates his birthday in his quarters, accompanied only by a bottle of booze and a kid's party hat on his head as he tries vainly to have a civil conversation by phone with a grown son who is clearly not enamored with him. He's a tragic, fascinating figure- a small scale General Curtis Lemay, who has channeled his demons into a personal crusade against Communism. Scheider gives a terrific performance and gets fine support from Prochnow, Reid and Harris, whose character provides the catalyst for a clever plot twist late in the film. Harry Dean Stanton is terrific especially in the sequence in which he locks horns with Scheider. It's riveting all the way. Director Frankenheimer turns the Canadian frozen tundra into a convincing replica of the Eastern European landscape and milks a good deal of suspense from the proceedings, culminating in a spectacular, testosterone-laced battle between the two antagonists in full view of their respective armies.

"The Fourth War" is well worth a look.

The film is currently streaming on Screenpix.

By Doug Oswald

I have a rule for film that there’s hardly ever been a bad submarine movie. I know, I know, there are some bad submarine movies, but they’re the exception rather than the rule. Submarine movies have the best elements of a great thriller; claustrophobic spaces, lots of darkness, the pinging of sonar indicating danger is near, an enemy ready to kill, torpedoes instead of bullets and depth charges being dropped into the water much like a punch in a good fight scene. A good submarine movie has many elements of film noir, especially those filmed in black and white, where darkness and rain are manifested as power failures underwater as depth charge explosions and rogue torpedo hits result in gushing torrents of water rather than heavy rain. All that’s missing is the femme fatale.

Clark Gable is an American WWII submarine commander and Burt Lancaster his executive officer in “Run Silent, Run Deep” re-released by Kino Lorber in a new Blu-ray edition. Gable plays Commander “Rich” Richardson, whose previous boat was sunk by the Japanese destroyer Akikaze in the Bungo Straits in 1942. For those who don’t know, the Bungo Straits are located between two of the southern islands of Japan which makes it inconceivable that Richardson would survive, let alone be rescued. After he is saved, he serves for a year in a desk job at Pearl Harbor until he receives command of the USS Nerka in 1943. Lieutenant Jim Bledsoe, played by Lancaster, is his second in command. Bledsoe believes the command of the Nerka should have gone to him and so does the crew, which creates conflict as they head out on their first patrol. Rich is seeking revenge in his search for the Akikaze so he’s Captain Ahab to the Akikaze as white whale in this take on Herman Melville’s Moby Dick. There lies the drama in this superior submarine movie.

Their orders are explicit that they not sail into the Bungo Straits, but I think we all know that’s where the captain is going to take them. The crew becomes frustrated with daily drills and little action. The crew’s resentment brews when the captain avoids easy targets, and they continue to drill until they are faced with a return to the Bungo Straits in violation of their orders. The captain justifies this by making it clear he is following a target of opportunity. The crew sweats through several scenes of depth charge explosions and torpedo strikes.

Gable was 56 at the time of filming, too old to be a WWII era submariner, and by all accounts was in poor health. He’s visibly shaking in the scenes where Lancaster takes command of the boat which is either good acting or a manifestation of his health issues. He was a heavy smoker and drinker which may have contributed to his death after a heart attack a few years later in 1960 at age 59. Lancaster was 44, also too old for the WWII period to serve onboard a submarine, but unlike Gable he was in excellent health. It was more common in that era to have men in their 20s and 30s in command.

Suspending one’s disbelief is mandatory watching movies and in this case it all works. Gable and Lancaster are very believable as the revenge-minded skipper and the envious second-in- command. They are aided by a great supporting cast that makes up the crew of the Nerka, a “Who’s Who” of up-and-coming future stars and character actors including Jack Warden as Yeoman 1st Class Mueller, Brad Dexter as Ensign Gerald Cartwright, Don Rickles as Quartermaster 1st Class Ruby, Nick Kravat as Russo, Joe Maross as Chief Kohler and Mary LaRoche as Laura Richardson. LaRoche has the thankless role of playing Gable’s wife who does little more than greet Lancaster and offer both a drink shortly before the Nerka departs.

Directed by Robert Wise, the 1958 release by United Artists was produced by Lancaster’s production company, Hecht-Hill-Lancaster. Wise is best remembered today for his big musicals “West Side Story,” “The Sound of Music” and “Star!;” and science fiction classics “The Day the Earth Stood Still,” “The Andromeda Strain” and “Star Trek: The Motion Picture;” but he made other war movies such as “Destination Gobi,” “The Desert Rats” and “The Sand Pebbles;” the horror classics “The Curse of the Cat People,” “The Body Snatcher” and “The Haunting,” the under-rated classic “The Hindenburg” and so many great movies in almost every genre. There are a few misses in his list of credits, but there are many more great movies. Interestingly, “Run Silent, Run Deep” and “Star Trek: The Motion Picture” share a common story trope of the older experienced captain taking over command just before launch from the younger captain who remains on board as a member of the crew.

The film is based on the 1955 book by Commander Edward L. Beach Jr., USN, who was a WWII submariner. The story is based on an actual event that took place on 9 November 1944 when the Shinano, a newly commissioned Japanese aircraft carrier, was sunk by the USS Archerfish in the Bungo Straits, nine hours into its maiden voyage. The movie was made with the full approval and cooperation of the Department of Defense and the United States Navy which made possible filming onboard a submarine and scenes of submerging and surfacing boats. Interior scenes were filmed on soundstages using Navy loaned equipment and exterior shots were filmed using the WWII era USS Redfish which adds greatly to the authenticity. The film also includes great model submarines shown escaping torpedoes and dodging depth charges below the surface. The movie had its world premiere onboard the USS Perch on April 1, 1958.

The Blu-ray transfer looks and sounds terrific clocking in at 93-minutes with a nice score by Franz Waxman. The disc includes the trailer for this and other Kino Lorber releases and reversible sleeve artwork. It’s an upgrade from the 2014 Blu-ray release with a new audio commentary by Steve Mitchell and Steven Jay Rubin. They know their stuff when it comes to military movies and they provide an entertaining commentary filled with lots of trivia and insights. Watch the movie a second time with the audio commentary which is like watching it with old buddies who share your love of war movies. This is one of the great submarine movies. Recommended for fans of military movies and “submarine noir.”

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By Lee Pfeiffer

Before Burt Reynolds became a bankable leading man with the release of "Deliverance" in 1972, he toiled for years through mostly "B" movies, some of which were designed to be secondary films in double features. A rare exception was "100 Rifles", which afforded him a prominent role opposite Jim Brown and Raquel Welch. However, films such as "Navajo Joe", "Sam Whiskey", "Operation C.I.A.", "Shark" and "Skullduggery" may have kept him employed but only as a leading man in minor features. After reaching superstar status, Reynolds would look back on these films with self-deprecating humor. He needn't have. These minor features were generally highly enjoyable and efficiently made. They also allowed him to hone his skills as an actor rather than just another tough guy. The best of this lot of films was "Impasse", a 1969 production that I've only caught up with recently. The plot finds Reynolds well-cast as Pat Morrison, a hunky, lovable rogue who is in the Philippines to enact an audacious heist on the island of Corregidor. For historical context, it was at Corregidor that U.S. forces and their Filippino allies put up a historic and stubborn resistance against overwhelming numbers of Japanese troops in early 1942. Although the island ultimately fell to the Japanese, the starving and weary American and Filipino forces had put what the Japanese felt would be a quick victory far behind schedule. Before the battle began, American forces had moved a substantial amount of gold from Manila banks to Corregidor, where it was stored in the elaborate system of tunnels under the gun batteries. (Presumably, the Japanese took possession of this gold after seizing the island.) In the film, the hidden gold is a big secret and its location has never been found. Morrison rounds up some of the former U.S. and Filipino soldiers who were brought blindfolded to a certain location during the war and instructed to hide a large stash of gold bricks behind a wall and seal it up. He's betting that if they are able to revisit the caverns, they will be able to piece together the approximate location of the gold, which is estimated to weight 6,000 pounds. The disparate group is being advised by a sickly WWII veteran, Trev Jones (Clarke Gordon), who has a strategy for getting everyone into the tunnels despite the fact that the island still maintains a military garrison. 

Morrison's team also consists of Draco (Rodolfo Acosta), a hard-drinking, violent Apache who is inspired to take part in the caper because he wants to return to Manila and track down a woman he had been obsessed with during the war; Hansen (Lyle Betteger), a similarly hot-tempered man with racist tendencies toward Draco and Jesus (Vic Diaz), native Filipino who played a key role in secreting the gold. To add a bit of spice to the testosterone-laden scenario, Anne Francis pops up as Bobby Jones, Trev's daughter, who is a tennis ace participating in a tournament in Manila. Naturally, she meets Morrison and the sparks fly. Morrison is also involved with his married mistress Mariko (Miko Mayama), and the relationship will pose a serious problem later in the film. Complications ensue when Trev is kidnapped by local crime boss Wombat (Jeff Corey), which adds a subplot in which Morrison has to rescue him. This results in Morrison taking on one of Wombat's paid killers in an incredibly complex and exciting chase scene. It begins in a packed cockfight stadium, leads to moving vehicles and an extended foot chase in a high rise apartment. It's quite incredible to watch and the scene is superbly staged by director Richard Benedict, who impresses throughout the film by getting the most from his eclectic cast members. The only flaw in the casting is Vic Diaz as Jesus. He gives a fine performance but he is far too young to have been in the battle for Corregidor. In fact, he was born in 1932, which means he was ten years-old at the time.The always-addictive Anne Francis displays good chemistry with Reynolds and although there are no steamy love scenes depicted, there is a very funny vulgar quip tied in with the couple entering an elevator. Reynolds is in top form throughout and the film benefits from his experience as a stunt man, as he performs most of the hard stuff himself. The caper itself is believably scripted by John C. Higgins right down to the mishaps and unexpected events and Mars B. Rasca's cinematography does justice to the Philippine locations. 

"Impasse" is currently streaming on Screenpix , retro movie-based subscription service available through Amazon Prime and other services.

A Blu-ray edition is also available from Kino Lorber. Click here to order from Amazon

Cinema Retro has received the following press release from Paramount

“Forget it, Jake.  It’s Chinatown.”

So ends a film that is widely recognized as one of the greatest in cinema history.  The haunting noir classic CHINATOWN celebrates its 50th anniversary this year and Paramount is marking the occasion with a Limited-Edition 4K Ultra HD release on June 18, 2024.

Produced by the legendary Robert Evans, CHINATOWN was originally released on June 26, 1974 and received widespread critical acclaim along with 11 Oscar® nominations, including Best Picture.  In 1991, the film was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the United States National Film Registry as being “culturally, historically or aesthetically significant.”

Robert Towne’s brilliant Academy Award®-winning screenplay weaves a tragic and shocking tale of corruption, greed, and the human propensity for evil.  Powerhouse performances by Jack Nicholson, Faye Dunaway and John Huston, a riveting story inspired by real events, vivid imagery, and a stirring score combine to make an unforgettable film that is essential for every cinephile’s collection.

The Limited-Edition Paramount Presents release includes the restored film on 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray Disc™ for the first time ever.  The exacting restoration was completed using the original camera negative, which was repaired using the latest technology in areas that had been previously damaged.  The result is a sparkling 4K Ultra HD presentation that uses more of the best possible source than previous masters and faithfully captures the film’s distinctively dreamy and simultaneously realistic look. 

In addition, this release includes extensive new and legacy bonus content (see below), access to a Digital copy of the film, and a bonus Blu-ray™ with the 1990 sequel The Two Jakes, directed by and starring Jack Nicholson and written by Robert Towne.

New bonus content is detailed below:

A State of Mind: Author Sam Wasson On Chinatown – Sam Wasson, film historian and bestselling author of The Big Goodbye: Chinatown and the Last Years Of Hollywood, on the importance of the film and its legacy.   

Chinatown Memories – Legendary producer Hawk Koch shares stories from his time as assistant director on the film.  

The Trilogy That Never Was – Sam Wasson discusses the planned third installment of what would have been a trio of movies featuring the character Jake Gittes. 

Additional legacy bonus content:

Commentary by screenwriter Robert Towne with David Fincher

Water and Power

The Aqueduct

The Aftermath

The River & Beyond

Chinatown: An Appreciation

Chinatown: The Beginning and the End

Chinatown: Filming

Chinatown: Legacy

Theatrical Trailer

Synopsis

Jack Nicholson is unforgettable as private eye Jake Gittes, living off the murky moral climate of sunbaked, pre-war Southern California. Hired by a beautiful socialite (Faye Dunaway) to investigate her husband's extra-marital affair, Gittes is swept into a maelstrom of double dealings and deadly deceits, uncovering a web of personal and political scandals that come crashing together for one, unforgettable night.

A ROBERT EVANS Production of a ROMAN POLANSKI Film

JACK NICHOLSON FAYE DUNAWAY

“CHINATOWN”

Co-starring JOHN HILLERMAN PERRY LOPEZ BURT YOUNG and JOHN HUSTON

Production Designer RICHARD SYLBERT Associate Producer C.O. ERICKSON Music Scored by JERRY GOLDSMITH

Written by ROBERT TOWNE Produced by ROBERT EVANS Directed by ROMAN POLANSKI

TECHNICOLOR® PANAVISION® A PARAMOUNT PRESENTATION

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At this 1975 Dean Martin Celebrity Roast in honor of Sammy Davis Jr., impressionist Frank Gorshin brings Burt Lancaster to the dais...or at least a spot-on imitation of him!

By Lee Pfeiffer

Burt Reynolds had been gnawing around the boundaries of genuine stardom for more than a decade, starring in short-lived television shows and top-lining "B" movies. He ingratiated himself to the American public by showcasing his wit and comedic abilities by appearing on chat shows.  In 1972, he struck gold when director John Boorman cast him opposite Jon Voight as the two male leads in the sensational film adaptation of James Dickey's "Deliverance". Finally, he could be classified as a major movie star. Soon, Reynolds was cranking out major films even while his uncanny ability to publicize himself resulted in such stunts as his famed provocative centerfold pose in Cosmopolitan magazine. On screen, Reynolds sensed that he could cultivate an especially enthusiastic audience if he catered to rural movie-goers. He was proven right with the release of "White Lightning", a highly enjoyable 1973 action/comedy that perfectly showcased Reynolds' favored image as a handsome, unflappable hero with a Bondian knack for tossing off quips while facing death and also engaging in good ol' boy towel-snapping humor. Playing bootlegger Gator McClusky, Reynolds drew major crowds, very much pleasing United Artists, which enjoyed hefty profits from the modestly-budgeted production. Reynolds learned, however, that his audience wouldn't necessarily follow him if he deviated from that image. When he went against the grain in films like "The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing", "At Long Last Love" and "Lucky Lady", the movies bombed. When he stuck to the basics, he had hits with "Shamus", "The Longest Yard" and "W.W. and the Dixie Dance Kings". The legendary Variety headline that read "Hix Nix Stix Pix" was no longer true. The American heartland loved Burt Reynolds, especially when he played characters that rural audiences could embrace.

In 1976, Reynolds fulfilled another career milestone by directing his first feature film, a sequel to "White Lightning" titled "Gator". Like the first movie, it was shot entirely on location in Georgia and picked up on the adventures of everyone's favorite moonshiner. When we first see Gator in the sequel, he his getting out of jail only to be targeted by the feds to be used as a pawn in a multi-state crackdown on an epidemic of political corruption that threatens the career of the self-serving, ambitious governor (played very well by famed chat show host Mike Douglas in his big screen debut.) Gator is living in a shack located deep in an inhospitable swamp with his elderly father and precocious 9 year-old daughter when the feds launch a major raid to arrest him on moonshining charges. In reality, they want to use the warrant as leverage to convince him to go undercover for them inside the crime ring. Gator wants no part of it and leads the feds on a merry chase around the bayou in which he is pursued by speed boats and helicopters before finally relenting. The lead federal agent in charge is Irving Greenfield (Jack Weston), an overweight, hyper-nervous Jewish guy from Manhattan who has the unenviable task of ensuring that Gator follows orders. A good portion of the film's laugh quotient comes from Irving's less-than-convincing attempts to "blend in" with small town southern locals. The crime ring is run by Bama McCall (Jerry Reed), an outwardly charming and charismatic fellow who, in reality, uses brutally violent methods to ensure loyalty and intimidate local businessmen to pay protection money. He and Gator are old acquaintances and he doesn't hesitate to give Gator a good-paying job as an enforcer for his mob. Things become more intriguing when Gator sets eyes on Aggie Maybank (Lauren Hutton), an attractive local TV anchor with liberal political beliefs that find her squaring off against Bama in order to protect the poor merchants he is exploiting. "Gator" proceeds on a predictable path but its predictability doesn't detract from its merits, which are considerable. Reynolds is a joy to watch and it's small wonder he leaped to the top ranks of cinematic leading men. His cocky, self-assured persona served him well on the big screen and "Gator" is custom-made to please his core audience. He also proved to be a very able director, handling the action scenes and those of unexpected tragic twists with equal skill. He also gets very good performances from his eclectic cast, with Weston engaging in his usual penchant for scene-stealing. Reed also shines in a rare villainous role and ex-model Hutton proves she has admirable acting chops, as well. The action scenes are impressive thanks to the oversight of the legendary Hal Needham, who would forge a long-time collaborative relationship with Reynolds. 

The Kino Lorber Blu-ray is a reissue with extras from the 2018 release ported over.  The new additional material consists of a commentary track by film historians Steve Mitchell and Nathaniel Thompson, who also provide a new track on the KL reissue of "White Lightning".  The track is quite valuable and entertaining, as old pros Mitchell and Thompson provide a wealth of interesting facts and observations about the film. For example, they discuss that "Gator" is far lighter in tone than the revenge thriller "White Lightning" and say that Reynolds thought the script for "Gator" was sub-par but did the film on the proviso he could direct it. The  disc is  also impressive not only because of the excellent transfer but also because it contains a filmed interview with Reynolds, who extols the film's virtues and its personal meaning to him. In an unusually candid conversation, he divulges amusing anecdotes about Hutton's on-set quirks that included a penchant for exhibitionism (she would flash her breasts to appreciative crew members.) He also relates how a car crash stunt almost killed Hal Needham. Most poignantly, he talks about his personal affection for Georgia, a state he has filmed over twenty movies in. He also candidly expresses his regret that only directed a few films and never fulfilled his dream of directing productions he didn't star in. The Blu-ray set also includes a new gallery of trailers for Reynolds films available from KL. In all, a highly impressive release of an action film showcasing Reynolds at his best. Recommended. 

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They couldn't sing or dance- which is why it was so amusing to see Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas engage in both activities on the 1958 Oscars broadcast!

BY LEE PFEIFFER

By the time Burt Reynolds finally starred in the 1972 classic "Deliverance", he had been paying his dues in Hollywood for many years with varying degrees of success on television. His feature films, however, were strictly "B" grade. Saul David, who produced a 1970 film starring Reynolds titled "Skullduggery", bemoaned at the time that he should have been a major movie star but bad luck seemed to always interfere. Reynolds wisely cultivated an image as a hip, towel-snapping wiseguy through appearing on seemingly every American game and chat show. His appearances on "The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson" merited "must-see TV" status. Ironically, "Deliverance" entirely abandoned this popular image of Reynolds and afforded him a dramatic role that he fulfilled with excellent results. But the success of the film made Reynolds anxious to prove he could sustain his boxoffice clout without the help of a strong co-star, in the case of of "Deliverance", Jon Voight. Reynolds chose wisely for his follow-up feature. "White Lightning" was developed under the working title "McClusky". The role of a hunky, charismatic southern good ol' boy fit Reynolds like a glove because it allowed him to incorporate his penchant for performing stunts with his flippant, wise-cracking TV persona.

Filmed in Arkansas, the movie finds Reynolds as "Gator" McClusky, a man doing prison time for running illegal moonshine. Gator still has another year to spend on the prison farm when he gets word that his younger brother has been murdered. (We see the scene play out over the opening credits in which two young men are brutally drowned in a swamp by the local sheriff, J.C. Connors (Ned Beatty) and his deputy.) Enraged and spoiling for revenge, Gator accepts a deal to work undercover for federal agents to expose Connors as the local Huey Long-type power broker in Bogan County. Indeed, the seemingly affable, understated Connors runs the entire county like a personal fiefdom, using extortion, shakedowns and outright murder to ensure his stature. He also gets a piece of the action from the very moonshiners he's supposed to prosecute. Gator feels uncomfortable working as a snitch but it's the only way to find out why his brother was killed and to bring Connors to justice. Using his considerable charm and his background as a guy from a small rural community, he finds himself quickly working for a moonshine ring headed by Big Bear (R.G. Armstrong), who is brutal in retribution against anyone who crosses him. Gator is assigned to deliver moonshine with a partner, Roy Boone (Bo Hopkins). They spend a lot of time together and become fast friends, even though Roy's hot-to-trot girlfriend Lou (Jennifer Billingsley) succeeds in seducing Gator, thus endangering his mission when Roy gets wind of the deception. When Gator learns the reason why his brother and his friend were murdered, he becomes even more vengeful, leading to a spectacular car chase involving Connors and his corrupt deputies. 

"White Lightning" was directed by Joseph Sargent, who was primarily known for his work in television. He fulfills the requirements of the film quite well, though the spectacular car chases and jaw-dropping action scenes were largely the work of legendary stutman/coordinator Hal Needham, who would go on to work on many films with Reynolds. The film is consistently lively but it also has moments of poignancy and drama. The supporting cast is terrific with Ned Beatty of "Deliverance" reuniting with Reynolds with good results. Beatty underplays the sense of menace attributable to his character. He also plays up his status as a pillar of the community, tossing off barbs about how hippies and big city liberals threaten "our values" and-worst of all- encourage "our coloreds to vote!". Meanwhile, he is heading up a vast criminal enterprise. Jennifer Billingsley is wonderful as the lovable air-headed seductress who will jump into bed with a man if there's a prospect of getting a new dress out of the bargain. There are also fine turns by Bo Hopkins, R.G. Armstrong and Diane Ladd (whose name in the opening and closing credits is misspelled as "Lad". Ouch!) The movie turned out to be a big hit for United Artists, aided in part by striking ad campaigns with the same weapon-as-phallic symbol design employed for Richard Roundtree's "Shaft's Big Score" the previous year coupled with another poster showing Reynolds behind the wheel of a speeding car. Sex and speed became hallmarks for promoting a Reynolds action movie.

Kino Lorber has reissued their 2019 Blu-ray edition, which is first-rate in all aspects, with a fine transfer and a 2014 interview with Burt Reynolds, who looks back fondly on the importance the movie had on proving he could be top-billed in a hit movie. The film initiated his association with rural-based comedies and action films and three years later, a successful sequel ("Gator") would be released. Reynolds also drops the interesting fact that this was to be Steven Spielberg's first feature film. However, Reynolds says the young TV director got cold feet about his ability to film on so many difficult locations, given that his background was largely working in studios. Reynolds praises his co-star Ned Beatty and reminds everyone that "White Lightning" was only his second film, having made his screen debut in "Deliverance".  He is also very complimentary towards Jennifer Billingsley and regrets that she never became a big star. Reynolds also discusses Hal Needham's zealousness for performing dangerous stunts and relates how one key scene in which a car shoots out over water to land on a moving barge almost went disastrously wrong. He says the film has a realistic atmosphere because of the screenplay by William W. Norton, who adapted many aspects of his own hard scrabble life. The only negative note Reynolds sounds is about Diane Ladd, who he cryptically says he did not like working with, although he doesn't go into detail as to why.The set includes a new feature not available on the previous Blu-ray release: a commentary track by film historian collaborators Steve Mitchell and Nathaniel Thompson. As far as commentary tracks are concerned, the duo are always terrific and this outing is no exception. Their easy-going, laid-back and humorous style is appropriate for the tone of the film. They go into great detail about aspects of the and cast. I hadn't realized until listening to the track how on-the-mark they are in assessing Ned Beatty as an actor whose physical appearance varied dramatically depending upon the type of story he was cast in. Indeed, they are correct. The evil good ol' boy corrupt sheriff of "White Lightning" is light years away from the fish-out-water rape victim of "Deliverance" or the demagogic TV executive of "Network". The track is good enough to merit upgrading to this version of the Blu-ray even if you have the previous release.

The Blu-ray also includes the original trailer, which was very effective in playing up Reynolds' emerging star power and reversible sleeve art showing an alternative ad campaign. Highly recommended.

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BY LEE PFEIFFER

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

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

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

The film is currently streaming on ScreenPix, which is available to Amazon Prime customers for $2.99 a month.

Actor Burt Young's family has announced the Oscar-nominated star who brought the character of Paulie to life in the "Rocky" film series has passed away at age 83. No cause of death has been indicated. "The Today Show" ran this video tribute to Young.

Here is a special treat: Turner Classic Movies host Ben Mankiewicz interviews director John Boorman and cast members Jon Voight, Burt Reynolds and Ned Beatty about the making of the 1972 classic "Deliverance"

By John M. Whalen

Burt Reynolds was a movie star who became a “Hollywood Legend” the hard way—he earned it. He started out in small roles on TV in the 50s and 60s, went to Europe and made some spaghetti westerns, just like his pal Clint Eastwood. He had his own TV series (“Hawk” and “Dan August”) and gained stardom on the big screen after playing Lewis, one of the four guys in “Deliverance,” who run into bad luck at the hands of some good ol’ boys in the Tennessee backwoods. He became a superstar with the release of “Smokey and the Bandit” (1977), which he starred in with Sally Field and Jackie Gleason. His career ended with “The Last Movie Star,” (2017), where he basically played himself, a faded legend, who still manages to hold onto his dignity. He was about to play a small role in Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time . . . in Hollywood (2019)” but died in 2018 before filming began.

His career had a lot of peaks and valleys. “Heat” (1986), now available on Blu-Ray from Kino Lorber, while an entertaining movie with Reynolds at his charismatic best, was definitely not one of the peaks. Considering it was written by Oscar-winning writer William Goldman, (“All the President’s Men” and “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,”) and directed by Dick Richards (“Farewell My Lovely”), it should have been a lot better than it is. Reynolds plays Nick Escalante (also known as “Mex”), a Las Vegas bodyguard who dreams of one day leaving the rat race in the States and going to Venice, Italy to enjoy La Dolce Vita. Hmmm. That sort of reminds me of another guy William Goldman wrote about once, only he wanted to go to Bolivia. Anyway as “Heat” begins, Mex takes on a couple of jobs that he probably should have known better than to accept. One has him protecting a nerdy dude by the name of Cyrus Kinnick (Peter McNichol), who thinks he needs a bodyguard in case he wins big at the casino. Mex doesn’t last long on the job when he discovers Kinnick’s idea of big winnings is $50, and he quits. The other is a call for help from Holly (Karen Young) a Vegas hooker, an old friend of his, who was beaten and raped in a casino hotel room by three guys. She asks him to help her get revenge.

Mex (you probably couldn’t use that nickname today) finds out the rapist is a punk Mafioso by the name of Danny DeMarco (Neill Barry), who has two musclebound bodyguards of his own. Mex never carries a gun, but he’s known for being an expert with anything that has a sharp cutting edge. He pays them a visit and takes all three of them down with nothing more than the sharp edge of two credit cards and a few flying kicks, a-la Bruce Lee. He calls Holly up from the lobby and she takes a pair of scissors out of her purse and leaves Danny with a little souvenir on his private parts. She finds $20,000 that Danny had flashed around to tease Mex with earlier and offers half to him. He turns it down and tells her to leave town. It turns out Danny is connected to a local Mafia boss by the name of “Baby.”

Holly leaves town but manages to get 10 grand to him, which becomes a plot device that reveals that Mex has a gambling addiction problem. He takes the money, turns it into $100,000 at the Blackjack table run by a dealer named Cassie (Diana Scarwid), and ends up losing it all. So now we know why Mex has trouble paying the airfare to Venice. Kinnick shows up again and asks if he can just hang out with him so he can learn how to be a cool tough guy like him. Sounds dumb, doesn’t it? It is. Somehow, even though there’s a meeting with “Baby,” and later an action setpiece with Danny and some new goons he’s hired, the story loses momentum.

Part of the problem is Goldman’s script, which is all over the place, with enough story elements for at least two different movies. Or maybe they planned to spin it off into a TV series. But the biggest problem with “Heat” is what was happening behind the scenes during production. “Heat” was originally to be helmed by Robert Altman. That deal fell through, so they brought in Dick Richards to direct and for some reason Richards and Reynolds didn’t get along. It got so bad that a fight erupted and Reynolds punched Richards in the face. Richards left the picture after directing only 13 percent of it and sued Reynolds. “That punch cost me half a million,” Reynolds said. Television director Jerry Jameson was brought in to finish the picture without receiving a credit.

It’s too bad in a way that Altman didn’t take the job after all. Goldman’s screenplay, with all the various story ideas bouncing around in it, would probably have been right up Altman’s alley. He might have come up with something on the order of his earlier hits “The Long Goodbye” (1973) or “California Split” (1974).

Kino Lorber presents “Heat” in its original 1.78:1 aspect ratio in a very clean 1920x1080p transfer. A rollicking audio commentary is provided by action film historians Brandon Bentley and Mike Leeder. The disc also contains previews of a number of Burt Reynolds films available from Kino Lorber. In case you’re wondering if Mex ever get to Venice… I’ll never tell. But, if he did, let’s hope he made out better than that other guy did in Bolivia. Recommended primarily for  Burt Reynolds fans.

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(John M. Whalen is the author of "This Ray Gun for Hire...and Other Tales".)

"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.

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. 

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)

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Now available from Imprint, the Australia-based video label. (The Blu-ray set is region-free.)  Since these limited edition titles tend to sell out quickly, we suggest you order ASAP.

Essential Film Noir: Collection 4 - Imprint Collection #210 - #213

Essential Film Noir: Collection 4 includes five acclaimed and much sought after classics: Rope of Sand (1949), Appointment with Danger (1950), The Enforcer (1951), Beware, My Lovely (1952) & Jennifer (1953).

Limited 4 Disc Hardbox edition with unique artwork on the first 1500 copies.

Rope of Sand (1949) - Imprint Collection #210

After a two-year hiatus, Mike Davis (Burt Lancaster) returns to the same African city where he was tortured and left for dead at the hands of a sadistic Police Commandant (Paul Henreid). Originally innocent of all charges, Mike is back to claim the diamonds he had supposedly stolen two years ago. He enlists the help of an alcoholic stranger (Peter Lorre) and the doctor (Sam Jaffe), who had helped him back to health. The diamond syndicate head (Claude Rains) recruits a nightclub temptress Suzanne Renaud (Corinne Calvet) to seduce and betray Mike as an alternate to brute force.

This suspense-noir classic was directed by William Dieterle (Dark City).

Starring Burt Lancaster, Claude Rains, Peter Lorre, Paul Henreid & Sam Jaffe.

Special Features and Technical Specs:

• 1080p High-definition presentation on Blu-ray from a 2021 4K scan
• NEW Audio commentary by film historian Samm Deighan
• NEW Interview with film professor Jose Arroyo
• Trailer
• Original Aspect Ratio 1.37:1
• Audio English LPCM 2.0 Mono
• Optional English HOH subtitles

Appointment with Danger (1950) - Imprint Collection #211

Postal Inspector Al Goddard (Alan Ladd) is assigned to investigate the murder of a fellow officer. The only witness to the crime is Sister Augustine (Phyllis Calvert), who identifies the photograph of one of the assailants. This leads Goddard to a seedy hotel where he learns that the assailant is a member of a gang headed by Earl Boettiger (Paul Stewart), and he soon discovers that the gang is planning a million dollar mail robbery. This classic film noir also features the stars of Dragnet, Jack Webb and Harry Morgan, as Stewart's Henchmen.

This was Alan Ladd's final Film Noir and was directed by Lewis Allen (The Uninvited).

Starring Paul Stewart, Alan Ladd, Phyllis Calvert, Jan Sterling & Jack Webb.

Special Features and Technical Specs:

• 1080p High-definition presentation on Blu-ray from a 2021 4K scan
• NEW Audio commentary with professor and film scholar Jason Ney
• NEW Interview with Film Noir specialist Frank Krutnik
• NEW Video featurette on director Lewis Allen
• Trailer
• Original Aspect Ratio 1.33:1
• Audio English LPCM 2.0 Mono
• Optional English HOH subtitles

The Enforcer (1951) - Imprint Collection #212

Humphrey Bogart (The Maltese Falcon) is in fine form as a crusading District Attorney out to convict the head of a vicious murder-for-hire ring. But when his star witness is killed, Bogart must race against time to find the evidence he needs to bring down the mob boss. Told in a series of flashbacks, this tense, tough-as-nails crime thriller on the cutting edge of film noir was based on actual Murder, Inc. Trials.

Stylishly directed by Bretagne Windust (June Bride) with un-credited help from Raoul Walsh (Pursued) and beautifully shot by the great Robert Burks (North by Northwest).

Starring Humphrey Bogart, Zero Mostel, Ted de Corsia & Everett Sloane.

Special Features and Technical Specs:

• 1080p High-definition presentation on Blu-ray from a 2021 4K scan
• NEW Audio commentary by noir expert and Film Noir Foundation board member Alan K. Rode
• Original aspect ratio 1.37:1
• Audio English LPCM 2.0 Mono
• Optional English subtitles

Beware, My Lovely (1952) - Imprint Collection #213

Helen Gordon (Ida Lupino) hires Howard Wilton (Robert Ryan) as a handyman to do chores around her house. She doesn't know what she's let herself in for. Insecure and paranoid, Wilton thinks everyone, including Helen, is against him. He suffers from memory lapses and extreme mood swings. She's soon a prisoner in her own house after Wilton locks the doors and tears out the telephone. His mood swings from violence to complacency but after Helen gets a message to the police via a telephone repairman, she finds he is still in the house. ...Beware, My Lovely.

Starring Robert Ryan, Ida Lupino, Taylor Holmes & Barbara Whiting.

Premier Blu-ray release worldwide.

Special Features and Technical Specs:

• 1080p High-definition presentation on Blu-ray from a 2021 4K scan
• NEW Audio commentary with professor and film scholar Jason Ney
• NEW Interview with author and programmer Pamela Hutchinson
• Original Aspect Ratio 1.37:1
• Audio English LPCM 2.0 Mono
• Optional English HOH subtitles

Jennifer (1953) - Imprint Collection #213

Agnes Langsley (Ida Lupino) gets a job, through Jim Hollis (Howard Duff), as caretaker of an old and vacated estate. The owner's cousin, Jennifer, was the last occupant and mysteriously disappeared. Agnes soon begins to believe that Jennifer was murdered and that Jim, whom she has fallen in love with, is responsible.

Starring Ida Lupino, Howard Duff & Robert Nichols.

Premier Blu-ray release worldwide.

Special Features and Technical Specs:

• 1080p High-definition presentation on Blu-ray from a 2021 4K scan
• Original Aspect Ratio 1.37:1
• Audio English LPCM 2.0 Mono
• Optional English HOH subtitles

By Lee Pfeiffer

In the star-studded, wildly erratic experience that is the 1967 big screen version of "Casino Royale", there is one oasis amidst the non-stop slapstick and zaniness. In this scene, noted expert gambler Evelyn Tremble (under the assumed name "James Bond"), played by Peter Sellers, engages SMERSH bigwig LeChiffre (Orson Welles) in a high stakes game of backgammon. Not shown in this clip is a preceding bit in which LeChiffre mesmerizes the bystanders by engaging in some marvelous feats of magic. (Welles was a noted magician in real life.) This is followed by an all-too brief interplay between Tremble and LeChiffre that actually approaches a level of seriousness not found elsewhere in the movie, which Bond fans either loathe or love. By the way, an observance of the scene shown here disproves the myth that Peter Sellers refused to ever be on camera with Welles, who he found intimidating. They are indeed seen in the same frame. However, it is true that Sellers' paranoia was in full bloom and he was resentful toward Welles because of his revered reputation and the idolization shown to him by the cast and crew. Sellers made it clear that he would not appear on set with Welles again. This left the production team with the awkward alternative of having to film closeups of Sellers that were shot when Welles wasn't on the set and vice-versa. Making matters worse, Sellers publicly insulted Welles, who responded in kind. Ultimately, producer Charles K. Feldman fired Sellers from "Casino Royale", which was probably what the mercurial actor had hoped for. This explains why his character is killed off and doesn't appear in the wacky, expensive battle royale inside Casino Royale. For all that, the film has plenty of merits: an amusing Woody Allen, a delightful David Niven as the real James Bond, the presence of the first "Bond girl", Ursula Andress, fantastic production design and a marvelous Burt Bacharach score and title theme song, played winningly by Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass. For more, click here.

By Lee Pfeiffer

In reviewing "Fuzz" when it opened in 1972, Vincent Canby of the New York Times noted that the film looks more like a dress rehearsal than a finished movie and was obviously intended to appeal to viewers who had a limited attention span. In contrast, Roger Ebert said he was put off by the exploitive elements of the movie poster, but in the end called it a funny, quietly cheerful movie. I guess I land in the same ballpark as Ebert, although I'm not without criticism of the film, which was based on author Ed McBain's popular "87th Precinct" novels that explored the excitement and absurdities found in a modern, big city police department. The film has an impressive ensemble cast: Burt Reynolds and Raquel Welch (reunited after co-starring in "100 Rifles"), Tom Skeritt, Jack Weston and Raquel Welch, who appears rather fleetingly despite her prominent billing. Oh, and the bad guy is played by Yuel Brynner, who appears rather late in the film in a limited number of scenes.

The film is primarily played for laughs and it's scattershot plot jumps around at a dizzying pace. The action takes place in the aforementioned 87th Precinct in Boston, a run-down venue located in a troubled part of the city. The plot focuses on a harried group of cynical detectives who report to their equally cynical, burned-out boss, Lt. Byrnes (Dan Frazer). The precinct is depicted as decrepit and as worn-out as its inhabitants. There's a lot of chaotic action going on throughout the day with various local miscreants and eccentrics clogging up the works, much to the frustration of the burned-out cops.  The plot sees seasoned veteran cops Steve Carella (Burt Reynolds), Bert Kling (Tom Skerritt) and Meyer Meyer (you read that right) (Jack Weston) trying to cope with the chaos- as well as the arrival of a strikingly beautiful policewoman who has been assigned to the precinct, Eileen McHenry (Raquel Welch). Among the cases being investigated simultaneously are the identities of the creeps who have been setting local hobos on fire, a serial rapist, various petty crimes and a late-breaking, high-profile threat posed by an unknown man who phones in death threats aimed at local public officials.When the ransom he demands isn't paid, said officials are bumped off in a high profile manner despite intense efforts by the police to thwart the plots. The villain is known as The Deaf Man (Yul Brynner), a sophisticated brute with the persona of a Bond villain, who employs a small team of loyal and very competent crooks to help him carry out the various assassinations.

Director Richard A. Colla employs the Altmanesque gimmick of having characters talk over each other in a Tower of Babel-like scenario, but in the context of a chaotic police department, the tactic works. The air of realism is accurate. During this era, my father was a cop in Jersey City, a stone's throw across the Hudson River from Manhattan. Like most urban areas during this era, it was a city beset by plenty of problems. Whenever I would see him at the precinct, I witnessed the kind of mutual ball-busting humor cops would engage in. I realized it was their way of coping with the pressures of the job and "Fuzz" captures this environment perfectly. The screenplay by Evan Hunter, who wrote the source novel under the nom de plume Ed McBain, is rather episodic and some plot lines are left to dwindle as the cops try to solve any number of on-going threats to the city. Raquel Welch's character is subjected to the predictable sexist comments, but, refreshingly she is spared any exploitation scenes (except for one fleeting moment) and acquits herself well as this valiant public servant. The whole messy scenario comes together in a very clever ending in which all of the unrelated characters end up converging on a local liquor store where the cops are holding a stakeout. The mayhem that ensues is both funny and exciting and ties some of the loose ends together. A comic highlight finds Reynolds and Weston dressed as nuns in a stakeout to capture the rapist.

The cast is first-rate. Reynolds is in top form and he gets fine support from Tom Skerritt, Jack Weston (particularly impressive), Dan Frazer and James McEachin. Don Gordon is among the bad guys, and as with any of his screen appearances, he's a welcome presence. Reynolds breaks the wise-cracking mode in a touching scene that shows him with his wife, a deaf mute played by Neile Adams. Yul Brynner adds his customary classy presence in his limited screen time.

Reynolds and Welch could not have been pleased with the marketing campaign for the movie: a Mad magazine-style ad that capitalized on Reynold's recent centerfold in Cosmopolitan and had Welch depicted in a bikini, although she appears in no such attire and is demurely dressed in the film. (Her character disappears mid-way through the movie and inexplicably doesn't show up again.) Nevertheless, Reynolds would finally rise to major boxoffice status later in the year with his superb performance in "Deliverance" and Welch would graduate to intelligently-written roles that proved she was more than a pretty face.

"Fuzz" is an imperfect movie but it's a lot of fun. Recommended.

(The film is currently showing on Screenpix, which is available by subscription through Amazon Prime, Roku and Apple TV.)

To order the Blu-ray, click here.

“Try Not to Hold It Against Me: A Producer’s Life” by Julian Schlossberg (Beaufort Books; $27) 168 Pages, Illustrated (B&W); Hardback. ISBN: 9780825310256

Review by Lee Pfeiffer

Julian Schlossberg's achievements in the film industry make for an amusing and informative experience in devouring his often whimsical memories of the business in decades past. He grew up in New York City, far removed from any connection to show business, but fell in love with movies after seeing his first flick on the big screen: Elia Kazan's "On the Waterfront". It set in motion a desire to get involved in the entertainment industry despite the fact that his background provided neither the money, connections or influence to do so. An indication of his reputation in the film industry is hinted at by the celebrities who provide enthusiastic blurbs for the book. They are certainly eclectic: Twiggy, Tony Roberts, Steve Guttenberg, Renee Taylor, Susan Strohman among them. The foreword is provided by the legendary Elaine May. Schlossberg has kept good company throughout his long career.

His memoir details how enthusiasm, confidence and the willingness to take chances resulted in his edging his way slowly up ladder at a time when Gotham was a crucial centerpiece in the film business. After a stint in the U.S. Army, Schlossberg painstakingly sold himself to higher-ups he didn't even know through sheer determination, first starting in entry level positions and then becoming a salesman for packages of theatrical films that would be sold to small markets throughout America. He had quite a chore. In those days, "small markets" were just that: some places had only one or two TV stations and were selective about what they chose. Schlossberg had to convince them to buy packages of acclaimed films that were generally art-house, big city fare. In several of the markets, he was amicably informed by contacts that he was the first Jew they had met. Oy vey, indeed! He later worked as the booking agent for the prestigious Walter Reade theater chain, a high-pressure job that mandated that he had to pick winners to play to sophisticated New York audiences. At Warren Beatty's personal request, Schlossberg took a gamble and opened Robert Altman's "McCabe and Mrs. Miller" in one of the theaters- despite the fact that it had opened and bombed at another theater recently. With an inspired new ad campaign, the film proved to be a hit. In those days, new movies often opened in a few select big city theaters before going into wide release. He opened Woody Allen's offbeat "Everything You Wanted to Know About Sex (But Were Afraid to Ask") at two art houses in Manhattan to great results, an anecdote that had personal resonance to this reviewer because, at age 15, a friend of mine and I saw the film when it opened at one of these theaters and we became the only people in history who were threatened with expulsion for laughing too hard at a comedy.

Schlossberg would later gravitate to producing plays and serving among the top brass at movie studios. Along the way there were plenty of triumphs and missteps, which he candidly recalls with humour. In doing so, he provides some rare glimpses into the trials and tribulations of producing live theater. In one chapter, he painstakingly details the attempts to stage a revival of “Sly Fox” on Broadway. Everyone is enthused about the project but every actor who is considered for the leading role proves to be unreliable, including “nice guy” Burt Reynolds, who leaves Schlossberg and his partners hanging out to dry by backing out at the last minute. Ultimately, the show went on with Richard Dreyfuss in the lead role, but the reviews and boxoffice were disappointments. The logistics of putting on this one production boggle the mind. No wonder Noel Coward once quipped “Why must the show go on???” There are also plenty of names to drop along the way from Harrison Ford to Barbra Streisand, some as long-time friends, others through one-off encounters. This book isn't filled with vengeful rhetoric. Schlossberg writes mostly about people he likes and goes soft on criticizing the people he doesn't. One curiosity concerns how he eventually represented Elia Kazan, his boyhood idol. Perhaps for that reason, Schlossberg doesn't address the controversies about Kazan's "naming names" during the Blacklist period, which made him a figure of great controversy. Yet, it's admirable that his affection for the man on a personal level allowed him to show some deference in the cause of sentiment, which is an emotion not always found in show business relationships. If Schlossberg engages in some occasional bragging, he’s earned the right. The book is a delight throughout and a “must” for anyone interested in the behind-the-scenes aspects of films and live theatre.

(This book will be available on Amazon on April 15. Click on this link to pre-order from Amazon: https://amzn.to/3KjmJVd)

By Lee Pfeiffer

Before Burt Reynolds became a bankable leading man with the release of "Deliverance" in 1972, he toiled for years through mostly "B" movies, some of which were designed to be secondary films in double features. A rare exception was "100 Rifles", which afforded him a prominent role opposite Jim Brown and Raquel Welch. However, films such as "Navajo Joe", "Sam Whiskey", "Operation C.I.A.", "Shark" and "Skullduggery" may have kept him employed but only as a leading man in minor features. After reaching superstar status, Reynolds would look back on these films with self-deprecating humor. He needn't have. These minor features were generally highly enjoyable and efficiently made. They also allowed him to hone his skills as an actor rather than just another tough guy. The best of this lot of films was "Impasse", a 1969 production that I've only caught up with recently. The plot finds Reynolds well-cast as Pat Morrison, a hunky, lovable rogue who is in the Philippines to enact an audacious heist on the island of Corregidor. For historical context, it was at Corregidor that U.S. forces and their Filippino allies put up a historic and stubborn resistance against overwhelming numbers of Japanese troops in early 1942. Although the island ultimately fell to the Japanese, the starving and weary American and Filipino forces had put what the Japanese felt would be a quick victory far behind schedule. Before the battle began, American forces had moved a substantial amount of gold from Manila banks to Corregidor, where it was stored in the elaborate system of tunnels under the gun batteries. (Presumably, the Japanese took possession of this gold after seizing the island.) In the film, the hidden gold is a big secret and its location has never been found. Morrison rounds up some of the former U.S. and Filipino soldiers who were brought blindfolded to a certain location during the war and instructed to hide a large stash of gold bricks behind a wall and seal it up. He's betting that if they are able to revisit the caverns, they will be able to piece together the approximate location of the gold, which is estimated to weight 6,000 pounds. The disparate group is being advised by a sickly WWII veteran, Trev Jones (Clarke Gordon), who has a strategy for getting everyone into the tunnels despite the fact that the island still maintains a military garrison. 

Morrison's team also consists of Draco (Rodolfo Acosta), a hard-drinking, violent Apache who is inspired to take part in the caper because he wants to return to Manila and track down a woman he had been obsessed with during the war; Hansen (Lyle Betteger), a similarly hot-tempered man with racist tendencies toward Draco and Jesus (Vic Diaz), native Filipino who played a key role in secreting the gold. To add a bit of spice to the testosterone-laden scenario, Anne Francis pops up as Bobby Jones, Trev's daughter, who is a tennis ace participating in a tournament in Manila. Naturally, she meets Morrison and the sparks fly. Morrison is also involved with his married mistress Mariko (Miko Mayama), and the relationship will pose a serious problem later in the film. Complications ensue when Trev is kidnapped by local crime boss Wombat (Jeff Corey), which adds a subplot in which Morrison has to rescue him. This results in Morrison taking on one of Wombat's paid killers in an incredibly complex and exciting chase scene. It begins in a packed cockfight stadium, leads to moving vehicles and an extended foot chase in a high rise apartment. It's quite incredible to watch and the scene is superbly staged by director Richard Benedict, who impresses throughout the film by getting the most from his eclectic cast members. The only flaw in the casting is Vic Diaz as Jesus. He gives a fine performance but he is far too young to have been in the battle for Corregidor. In fact, he was born in 1932, which means he was ten years-old at the time.The always-addictive Anne Francis displays good chemistry with Reynolds and although there are no steamy love scenes depicted, there is a very funny vulgar quip tied in with the couple entering an elevator. Reynolds is in top form throughout and the film benefits from his experience as a stunt man, as he performs most of the hard stuff himself. The caper itself is believably scripted by John C. Higgins right down to the mishaps and unexpected events and Mars B. Rasca's cinematography does justice to the Philippine locations.

"Impasse" has been released on Blu-ray by Kino Lorber in a very fine transfer. The only bonus extras are the original trailer and a generous and fun gallery of other Reynolds trailers for films released by KL. The film is also currently streaming on Screenpix.

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By Lee Pfeiffer

Raquel Welch, the actress who took the international film industry by storm with her appearance in the 1966 remake of the fantasy film "One Million Years B.C.", has passed away after a brief illness. Welch was one of the last of the so-called "Glamour Girls" of this period; actresses who were chosen primarily for their looks and measurements as opposed to their acting abilities. But Welch defied the odds and didn't prove to be a flash-in-the-pan in terms of popularity. She was one of the last of the big studio contract players- in this case 20th-Century-Fox, which meant she could only make films for another studio if Fox approved. She had little say over the films she appeared in during this period and she would later look back on them with disdain. However, retro movie fans would be largely defensive of many of these films, as they cast her opposite popular leading men of the period as Frank Sinatra, Ernest Borgnine, Stephen Boyd, Jim Brown, Burt Reynolds, Robert Wagner, Edward G. Robinson, James Stewart and Dean Martin. Among her best films of this era were "100 Rifles", "Fantastic Voyage", "Bandolero!", "The Biggest Bundle of them All" and "Lady in Cement".  Some were duds, such as the misguided thriller "Flareup" and the disastrous sex comedy "Myra Breckinridge". She became an instant pop culture icon due to the famous photo of her as a cavegirl sporting a fur bikini in "One Million Years B.C." Teenage boys around the world had the resulting poster adorning their bedroom walls. In the early 1970s, she played vengeance-driven female gunslinger in the Western "Hannie Caulder", a victim of Richard Burton's lady killer in "Bluebeard", a roller derby queen in "Kansas City Bomber" and a member of the all-star cast in the murder mystery "The Last of Sheila". By the mid-190's, she played a comedic co-starring role in the big budget version of "The Three Musketeers" and its sequel "The Four Musketeers". Critics finally acknowledged that she could act and should be judged by her talent and not her image as a voluptuous  sex symbol.

 

When the prime big screen roles began to vanish, Welch suspected it may have been due to her suing MGM over age discrimination when she was fired as the leading lady in the film "Cannery Row" and replaced by Debra Winger. The studio countered that Welch had acted unprofessionally on the set. She won the case and $10 million in damages but it seemed to make studios reluctant to hire her again. Nevertheless, she successfully reinvented herself with live shows on stage including an acclaimed leading role in the Broadway production of "Victor/Victoria". She also scored with a funny self-deprecating appearance as herself in "Seinfeld" in which she was presented as an obnoxious, hot-tempered diva.

Welch kept a low profile in recent years and was rarely seen in public. She was married four times and is survived by a son and daughter. Despite her sex symbol image, she was always proud that she never gave in to offers to appear nude on screen or in print. She was the one who got away, said a disappointed Hugh Hefner who couldn't use influence or money to lure her to the pages of Playboy.

For more on her life and career, click here.

By Todd Garbarini

In May 1977 my parents and I saw George Lucas’s Star Wars and my life changed forever. We saw it July with other family members and a third time in November prior to the release of Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind (henceforth abbreviated as CE3K). The trailer for CE3K was mysterious and intense to my young eyes and the prospect of seeing it again led me to turn down my parent’s offer to sit through Star Wars a second time after that afternoon’s showing. What frightened me about the trailer was not the chaotic scenes with Richard Dreyfus and Melinda Dillon, but rather the sequence wherein Bob Balaban and Francois Truffaut approach Richard Dreyfuss in a claustrophobic makeshift room to interrogate him about what he has seen, reminding me of my first trip to what I considered to be the Ninth Circle of Hell: THE PRINCIPAL’S OFFICE. In retrospect, I am amused by this memory and my initial impression of the film.

If you look at the history of Steven Spielberg’s work, his films are about many things, not the least of which is people’s impressions of the world around them. Additionally, a common theme that runs throughout much of his work is the notion of broken families or absent parents. Beginning with his film debut, The Sugarland Express (1974), and continuing with the father who is not around much for his young children in Jaws (1975), or a UFO-obsessed power plant worker who leaves his family for other worlds in the aforementioned CE3K, or a lonely young boy who feels a connection to an alien in E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (1982), or the broken family that needs to come together to survive in War of the Worlds (2005), to name a few, authority figures are often anything but authoritative. His latest film, the wonderful and semi-autobiographical The Fabelmans, is a story that has existed in Mr. Spielberg’s mind all his life and finally needed to come out during the height of the coronavirus pandemic during worldwide downtime, if it was going to come out at all. Collaborating with writer Tony Kushner for the fourth time, Mr. Spielberg gives the audience a sense of what his turbulent childhood was like.

Although Mr. Spielberg was born in Cincinnati, OH, his family moved around due to his father’s position as an electrical engineer in the burgeoning computer industry. In The Fabelmans, Burt Fabelman (Paul Dano standing in for real-life father Arnold Spielberg) and Mitzi Fabelman (Michelle Williams standing in for real-life mother Leah Adler) take their young son Sammy (Mateo Zoryan) to see his first movie, Cecil B. DeMille's The Greatest Show on Earth, in Haddon Township, NJ in 1952. The spectacular train crash seen on screen both captivates and frightens him. Using his father’s 8mm camera with his mother’s secretive permission, he recreates it with his train set that he received for Hanukkah, and this gives Sammy the confidence to start shooting films involving friends and his three younger sisters.

Years later, Sammy is much older and now portrayed by Gabriel LaBelle. His father is offered a better job, and this takes them to Phoenix, AZ along with Burt’s friend and business associate Benny Loewy (played endearingly by Seth Rogen). Sammy shoots footage of them all on a camping trip, including a headlight-illuminated dance performed by his mother in her nightgown, which makes a deep impression on Benny. Following Mitzi’s mother’s passing and her subsequent sadness, Burt urges Sammy to create a little film of the camping trip to cheer her up, which he does begrudgingly while he is shooting a film with his fellow Boy Scouts. In the film’s most inspired moment, the family’s Uncle Boris (Judd Hirsch in a wonderful performance) briefly visits, giving Sammy a spirited monologue about the discord between art and familial responsibility. The turning point in the film comes when Sammy sorts through the campfire footage, only to discover that “Uncle” Benny is showing more than a passing interest in Mitzi: they are caught holding hands and getting too close for comfort in the background images. Sammy is shellshocked. After more strife, the family is uprooted yet again, this time to Southern California, where he encounters both severe antisemitism at the hands of two school bullies and experiences first love with a devoutly Christian girl who puts Jesus first. More turmoil ensues, and Sammy ultimately learns to use his natural gift for filmmaking to deal with personal traumas and bending others to his will.

Steven Spielberg is my favorite director, and he shares the number one spot for me in a tie with Stanley Kubrick. Both men have made extraordinarily entertaining and mind-bending films. It was a constant joy to watch The Fablemans as it gives the audience a window into the person who would go on to become the creative genius who not only makes great movies but is also and deservedly financially successful at it.

I met Leah Adler in November 2008 when I was getting ready to come home from a horror film convention. She owned a restaurant called Milky Way, which opened in 1977, and when I walked in, she was there to greet me. I began gushing about her son, how CE3K was the first film of his that I saw and how it blew me away, what Raiders of the Lost Ark and E.T. meant to me, etc. She guided me over to a table and listened intently to my rambling, and when I thanked her for encouraging Steven to become a filmmaker, she paused and simply said, “I don’t know where the hell he came from.” This made me burst out laughing as I have always thought of her son as the best friend I never met (not entirely true: I waited outside the Ziegfeld Theater in June 2005 for eight hours the day of the War of the Worlds premiere and managed to get his autograph and snap a few photos of him). If he and I grew up together, we would have been inseparable – watching movies, talking about movies, making movies, you name it. My own parents were not movie fanatics by any means, and they could just as easily have said the same thing about me! The few times that my family went on vacation, I was enlisted to shoot the home movies. When I was fourteen on vacation in Florida, I began shooting our home movies from a cinematic perspective. This is due to Steven Spielberg.

The new 4K UHD Blu-ray and standard Blu-ray combo is now available from Valentine’s Day, appropriate as this film is a Valentine to Mr. Spielberg’s parents. It comes with some extras, and I had my fingers crossed that the director would have provided an audio commentary (something that he flatly refuses to do as he wants his films to speak for themselves and feels that it’s a way to lifting a curtain behind the magic), however he has stuck to his guns and I must respect his decision. It does feature some nice extras:

The first piece is called The Fabelmans: A Personal Journey and runs 11:00. It focuses on comments by producer Kristie Macosko Kriger, who is on board with the director for the ninth time; co-writer Tony Kushner, and how the film came about, the product of a conversation while the director was shooting Munich in Malta in 2005.

The second piece is named Family Dynamics and runs 15:28. Much of the cast of the film discusses their feelings and interpretations of the real-life people they portray in the film.

The third and final extra is called Crafting the World of The Fabelmans and runs 22:04. This is a bit more in-depth with input from Production Designer Rick Carter; Costume Designer Mark Bridges; Directory of Photography Januz Kaminski; Property Master Andrew M. Siegel; Editors Michael Khan (on his 30^th film with the director) and Sarah Broshar; Actress Chloe East; Actors Sam Rechner and Oakes Fegley; and Maestro/Composer John Williams.

The set also includes a digital version for streaming.

While the film is a no-brainer for Spielberg completists, being one is not a prerequisite as it can be enjoyed as a work of fiction for those who do not idolize the subject of the film.

The Fabelmans is an example of life not only imitating art, but art imitating life as well.

Click here to purchase from Amazon.com.

By Lee Pfeiffer

Burt Bacharach, one of the most prolific musical talents in the modern history of the art form, has died from natural causes at age 94. Bacharach was a rare artist who was honored with Grammy, Oscar and Tony awards. His list of pop hits crossed the charts from easy listening to becoming major hits on rock radio stations. He had long and fruitful collaborations with lyricist Hal David and singer Dionne Warwick, who had some of the biggest hits of her career singing Bacharach songs. He had long feuds with both artists but would eventually reconcile with them. Movie buffs are well-acquainted with Bacharach's contributions to the music of the film industry beginning with his campy but beloved theme song "Beware of the Blob" for the 1958 early Steve McQueen sci-fi film. He wouldn't dwell in the "B" movie realm for long, however. He wrote the hit title theme for "What's New Pussycat"?, a major early career success for Tom Jones. He also wrote the classic title theme for "Alfie", which was sung in the film by Cher. However, both Dionne Warwick and Cilla Black would have hit cover versions of the song. Bacharach won two Oscars for the 1969 film "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" for both the musical composition and for the classic song "Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head". He would also win a Best Song Oscar for "The Best That You Can Do",  the theme from the 1980s comedy "Arthur". Bacharach also composed "The Look of Love", one of the most recorded romantic songs of all time. The song appeared, perhaps improbably, in the madcap 1967 big screen spoof version of the first James Bond novel "Casino Royale". It was nominated for an Oscar, as well. The song inspired Mike Myers to create the Austin Powers character and films, which were heavily influenced by "Casino Royale". Bacharach did suffer a major career disappointment when he wrote the score for the ill-fated 1973 musical remake of "Lost Horizon", the failure of which was said to send him into a prolonged funk.

Bacharach was good to his word that he would never retire and continued to work almost to the end of his life, writing new songs and even performing with Elvis Costello and Dr. Dre, an indication of the timelessness and wide popularity of his work. For more about his life, click here.

Here's an interesting and informative vintage documentary about Oscar winner Burt Lancaster, remembered by his friends and colleagues.

"Jerome Miller Lives!"

By John M. Whalen

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 Irwin Allen 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!)

Gina Lollobrigida, the reluctant Italian superstar, has died in Rome at age 94. Like her arch-rival Sophia Loren, Lollobrigida was born into humble circumstances in Italy and survived the carnage that was wreaked on the country by Mussolini's ill-fated alliance with Nazi German and Japan. She intended to follow a nondescript life but when she entered a beauty contest, her stunning looks and voluptuous figure attracted the attention of Hollywood. She was sent to Hollywood where none other than Howard Hughes signed her to a film contract. Lollobrigida's career took off like a rocket and she was soon steaming up theater screens opposite the top male boxoffice attractions including Burt Lancaster, Tony Curtis, Frank Sinatra and Sean Connery. Like Loren, she proved to more than a flash-in-the-pan bombshell because she was a fine actress. She was enamored of Rock Hudson, who she co-starred with in two comedies, but griped that she didn't like Sinatra because of his alleged habits of being late on the set. Ironically, Sean Connery complained that she exhibited diva-like behavior on the set of their film "Woman of Straw". She had a tumultuous love life and retired from feature films in the 1970s when the best roles were being offered to younger actresses. She concentrated on her interests in photography and politics. 

Click here for more details about her remarkable life and career.

By Paul Scrabo

Anne Francis was director John Sturges’ only female actor in 1955’s “Bad Day at Black Rock”, and she repeated her solo act ten years later on “The Satan Bug”. But on that production, she and many cast members felt a preoccupation, a distance, from the man who held together “The Magnificent Seven” and “The Great Escape”. Francis was certain “He was thinking about “The Hallelujah Trail”. This was Sturges’ next production, his entry into the world of roadshow presentations; a mammoth production with a huge cast and even huger backdrop: Gallup, New Mexico.

Bill Gulick’s 1963 novel, originally titled “The Hallelujah Train”, seemed a perfect story to upend all western movie conventions, with the cavalry, the Indians, the unions, and the Temperance Movement fighting over the transportation of forty wagons of whiskey. Sturges was comfortable making westerns, but this was a comedy western. He appreciated the Mirisch Corporation’s vision of straight actors trying to make sense of the silliness, but still wanted to persuade James Garner, Lee Marvin and Art Carney for major roles. Sturges knew these actors could handle comedy.

Garner passed. “The premise was too outrageous, not enough truth to be funny”, he said. The rest of Sturges’ dream cast was not available, but what he got seemed attractive: a pair of solid supporting actors, Jim Hutton and Pamela Tiffin, and Lee Remick and Burt Lancaster for the leads. Lancaster had previously worked with Sturges on “Gunfight at the O.K. Corral” and was impressed how the film turned out. The rest of the supporting cast included Donald Pleasence, Brian Keith, and Martin Landau. They were in for a tough shoot.

The weather was unpredictable (you can spot thunderstorms heading their way in the finished film) and the location had three hundred crew members miles away from the hotels. Scenes contained countless stunts, and fifty tons of Fuller’s earth was blown by several giant fans to create The Battle at Whiskey Hills. Bruce Surtees, son of Sturges’ cinematographer Robert Surtees and focus-puller on the set, recalled “All this and we’re shooting in Ultra-Panavision 70mm, which made life even more difficult!” Despite the difficulties, the director was loving what he saw on set; the film looked as breathtaking as any wide screen western ever could, the stunts were amazing, and thank God he was also laughing all through it.

The hilarity was cut short near the end of the shooting. For the sprawling wagon chase finale, stunt persons Buff Brady and Bill Williams convinced associate producer Robert Relyea to let them delay their jump from inside a catapulted coach. Permission was given, and in the attempt, Williams got tangled somehow during his planned escape. He was killed instantly. Relyea nixed including the footage in the finished film, but was overruled by Mirisch. It’s an incredible shot and it plays in every promotional trailer, probably the most famous footage from the production. Was including it a bad decision or a tribute? There is still a debate over this among retro movie fans.

“We all thought it was going to be a hit picture”, said Sturges, “until we hit an audience.” “The Hallelujah Trail” opened with a 165-minute cut that audiences and critics found “belabored and overlong”. Sturges overheard some patrons wondering if this was a straight western or a deliberate comedy. Screenwriter John Gay blamed much of the response on the performances of Brian Keith and Donald Pleasence. Gay wanted his lines played straight but the actors played it for laughs. The film was soon cut to 156-minutes (the version on this Blu-ray) and the reactions were much more positive; critics noted several inspired sight gags, audiences enjoyed the cartoonish atmosphere of the DePatie-Freleng maps, Variety found the film “beautifully packaged”, and the LA Times proclaimed “The Hallelujah Trail” as “one of the very few funny westerns ever made, and possibly the funniest.”

When the film finished its roadshow run, United Artists cut the film once more, to 145-minutes. It didn’t help. Compared to “Cat Ballou” and even “F Troop”, “The Hallelujah Trail” was unhip.Sturges was done with comedy, but not with roadshow Cinerama, though his future films would have checkered histories. He was set to direct “Grand Prix” but clashed with the original star, Steve McQueen. A year later Gregory Peck turned down Sturges’ “Ice Station Zebra’, wary of its weak third act. Rock Hudson, now middle-aged and wanting a strong lead role, came aboard for this Sturges voyage instead. The MGM release still had a confusing third act, but the film sails nicely mostly due to Patrick McGoohan and some clever dialogue.

Decades later, “The Hallelujah Trail” remains a nice memory to those who attended the Cinerama presentation; not much greatness to retain but a great experience at the movies. But that experience was tough to relive because the film remained in legacy format limbo for years: a letterboxed standard definition transfer. So when Olive Films announced a Blu-ray release in 2019, fans of comedy epics sung Hallelujah! Now this film can be viewed in 1080P! Retreat! Unfortunately, the quality of the Olive release resembled an upscaled version of the original standard definition transfer. But two years later “The Hallelujah Trail” was casually spotted on Amazon Prime, and it was a new HD transfer. And a year after that, it’s a new Kino Lorber Blu-ray release.

Any Cinema-Retro reader worth their Cinerama Chops should have this Blu-ray in their collection. “The Hallelujah Trail” is an hour too long, but you get miles of lovely landscape. My favorite portrayal? Donald Pleasence as Oracle, who predicts the future in return for free drinks. And watch for his amazing jump off a roof! Certainly, the most impressive part of the film is the finale: the runaway wagon chase. There are sections where you swear it’s Remick, Keith and Landau handling those coaches but you know it has to be well made-up stunt people, at least for most of it. You’re also realizing that this sequence, and perhaps the entire film, is performed without any process work or rear projection.

There’s a legitimate debate on how the film may have been more successful if James Garner played the role of Colonel Gearhart, though only Lancaster could have pulled off that bathtub smile scene. There’s no disagreement on the music; Elmer Bernstein’s sprawling score contains so many themes that Sturges’ biographer Glenn Lovell qualifies the film as “almost a pre-“Paint Your Wagon” musical." And here’s your tiniest “Trail” trivia: decades ago, during the production of the laserdisc version, MGM/UA discovered that a few reels were mono sound instead of multi-channel, including the main title featuring the chorus. Yours truly was working on a project for the company at the time, and I happily lent them my stereo score LP. so the main title would be in stereo. That audio track mix remains on this new Blu-ray as well. (You’re welcome, America!)

Kino Lorber is kind enough to provide some expert guides to help you along the “Trail”: the perfect pairing of screenwriter C. Courtney Joyner and filmmaker/historian Michael Schlesinger. Joyner had already provided his Sturges bonafides with his documentary on the director for the recent Imprint Blu-ray of “Marooned”, and I can verify Schlesinger’s knowledge of film comedy, having been fortunate to join him, along with Mark Evanier, for the commentary track on Criterion’s “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World”. Joyner and Schlesinger tackle and acknowledge “The Hallelujah Trail”s social and political incorrectness, but also deflate any virtue signaling by examining how the film is smartly an equal opportunity offender: the Cavalry, the Indians, the Temperance Movement, all up for farce. Thanks to this team, and the picture quality of this Blu-ray, I finally spotted the gag of the Indians circling the wagons as the cavalry is whooping and hollering. Both gents are in a fine fun mood to tackle this type of film, and It’s one of my favorite film commentaries of 2022.

“The Hallelujah Trail” now looks clearer and sharper than any previous home video release, and somehow it makes the comedy and the performances sharper as well. I think you’ll be entertained by this roadshow epic, and with Joyner and Schlesinger as your commentary companions you may indeed learn, as the posters proclaimed, “How the West Was Fun!”

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BY LEE PFEIFFER

"Gun the Man Down" is yet another Poverty Row low-budget Western shot during an era in which seemingly every other feature film released was a horse opera. Supposedly shot in nine days, the film is primarily notable for being the big screen directing debut of Andrew V. McLaglen, who would go on to be a very respected director who specialized in Westerns and action films. The movie also marked the final feature film for James Arness before he took on the role of Marshall Matt Dillon in TV's long-running and iconic "Gunsmoke" series. After failing to achieve stardom on the big screen, Arness found fame and fortune in "Gunsmoke" when John Wayne recommended him for the part. Wayne had been championing Arness for years and provided him with roles in some of his films. Following "Gunsmoke"'s phenomenal run, Arness seemed content to stay with TV and had another successful series, "How the West Was Won".  John Wayne was one of the first actors to successfully launch his own production company, Batjac, which produced this film and Wayne's influence is felt in the project. Andrew V. McLaglen was the son of Wayne's good friend and occasional co-star Victor McLaglen. The screenplay was written by Burt Kennedy, who Wayne would later hire to direct several of his own films. The movie provided young Angie Dickinson with her first role of substance and she would reunite with Wayne years later on Howard Hawks' "Rio Bravo". Speaking of which, another Wayne favorite, character actor Pedro Gonzalez Gonzalez appears in both films. Also in the cast is Harry Carey Jr. , son of Wayne's idol and and personal friend, Harry Carey. The cinematography is by William Clothier, who would lens many of Wayne's later movies and the film was produced by Duke's brother, Robert Morrison. "Gun the Man Down" is very much a Wayne family affair. 

The film opens with three fleeing bank robbers: Rem Anderson (James Arness), Matt Rankin (Robert J. Wilke) and Ralph Farley (Don MeGowan), who arrive at their hide-a-way cabin with the law in hot pursuit. Rem has been seriously wounded and Rankin makes the decision to leave him behind. Rem's girl, Jan (Angie Dickinson), objects at first but Rankin convinces her to go with them in part because they have $40,000 in loot from the local bank. The law arrives at the cabin and arrests Rem. He is nursed back to health and is offered a deal for a light sentence if he helps track down his confederates. Rem refuses and does his time in prison. Upon release, he begins his mission vengeance and tracks Rankin, Ralph and Jan to a one-horse town where Rankin has used his ill-gotten gains to open a profitable saloon. Upon discovering Rem is in town, Rankin hires a notorious gunslinger, Billy Deal (Michael Emmet), to assassinate him. Jan has a tense reunion with Rem and seeks his forgiveness but her pleas fall on deaf ears. Rem emerges victorious over Billy Deal and Rankin, Ralph and Jan flee town with Rem in pursuit. Their final confrontation takes place in a remote canyon with tragic consequences.  

Given the film's meager production budget, "Gun the Man Down" is a surprisingly mature and engrossing Western with intelligent dialogue and interesting characters. (In addition to those mentioned, there is a fine performance by Emile Meyer as the town sheriff). Arness projects the kind of macho star power that Wayne had and Dickinson acquits herself very well as the stereotypical saloon girl with a heart of gold. The film, ably directed by McLaglen,  runs a scant 76 minutes and was obviously designed for a quick playoff and fast profit. It has largely been lost to time but the film is currently streaming on Screenpix, which is available through Amazon Prime, Roku, Apple TV and Fire TV for an additional monthly fee of $2.99 The movie is also available on Blu-ray through Olive Films.

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By  Lee Pfeiffer

When movie fans think about films related to the battle of the Alamo, the most obvious reference that comes to mind is John Wayne's epic 1960 production, "The Alamo". There are two others from the modern era of filmmaking that are largely forgotten to all but Alamo history buffs: the 1955 film "The Last Command" and the ill-fated, but underrated 2004 production, also titled simply "The Alamo". Less obvious is the 1987 NBC-TV presentation of "The Alamo- Thirteen Days to Glory" based on Lon Tinkle's book of the same name. Tinkle presented a historically accurate depiction of the legendary battle, at least in terms of what was accepted by historians at the time. However, facts about the battle continue to be fluid and hotly debated among historians. The TV production has not been widely seen since its initial airing. It was released on VHS tape and research has shown an obscure DVD release as part of a double feature with "High Noon II: The Return of Will Kane". However, the movie is now being streamed on Amazon Prime. Not having seen it since its broadcast in 1987, I felt it was time revisit the production, which was widely panned by fans who obsess over all things relating to the Alamo. Their main complaint was the casting of the pivotal roles of Jim Bowie and Davy Crockett, who were played by popular TV stars James Arness and Brian Keith, both of whom were not only long-in-the-tooth but were sporting tusks. The role of Crockett was particularly a thankless one to play. Fess Parker had become an American phenomenon when he played the role in Walt Disney's telecasts. Disney only made a handful of episodes and even he was shocked when the show generated a massive fan movement and became the most successful film/TV tie-in  up to that time. Parker knew he was on to something so in the mid-1960s, free of Disney's edicts, he simply put on a new buckskin jacket and raccoon hat and starred in a hit TV series, "Daniel Boone". When John Wayne was negotiating with United Artists to produce and direct the big screen version of "The Alamo", he had to be forced to play Crockett as the studio's insistence. They wanted his name upfront to draw in his legions of fans. Wayne acquitted himself well enough, but the shadow of Parker loomed over his performance. The choice of Brian Keith was a bizarre one. He was 66-years old at the time and nothing about his appearance suggests the popular image of Crockett (he doesn't even wear the signature cap.) I'm second-to-none in my admiration of Keith's talents and recently praised his portrayal of Theodore Roosevelt in "The Wind and the Lion" on the forthcoming Imprint Blu-ray, but this was a rare case of his judgment in roles being off-course. Arness was also too old to play Bowie, but since the popular conception of the historic figure wasn't ingrained in modern society the way Crockett was, Arness's performance proved to be a bit more tolerable. The only agreement seemed to center on young up-and-coming Alec Baldwin, who delivers a fine and believable performance as Col. Travis, though it's a less interesting one than presented by Laurence Harvey in Wayne's film. Lorne Greene makes a very brief cameo as Sam Houston, showing frustration at his inability to raise an army in time to save the defenders of the Alamo. Greene is generally a commanding screen presence, but his role is so limited he can't make an emotional impact, as Richard Boone did in the role in the Wayne production.

In favor of the TV production, it was filmed on location in Brackettville, Texas, where the massive and convincing sets from Wayne's movie still stood. Behind the scenes, the film benefited from a seasoned pro in the director's chair, Burt Kennedy, an old hand at making good Westerns ("Support Your Local Sheriff", "The War Wagon"). I'm not an expert on the history of the battle, but it's been pointed out that the TV production gets certain things more accurately than the feature films but certain other factors are clearly the invention of the screenwriters. In attempt to appeal to younger viewers, the screenplay provides a completely superfluous subplot about a young Mexican girl in love with one of the Caucasian defenders of the Alamo. It's pretty dreadfully presented, with the young lovers looking like they'd be more suitable for "The Breakfast Club" gang than the besieged Texas mission. Faring a bit better are Kathleen York and Jon Lindstrom in the key roles of Captain Dickinson and his wife, who was one of the few inhabitants of the Alamo to survive. There are some familiar faces among the defenders, but most of them don't register strongly because their roles are under-written. (John Wayne's son Ethan has a minor role.) This version of the Alamo saga differs from Wayne's by presenting Santa Ana as a major character, whereas in the Wayne film he is only a minor presence. As played by Raul Julia, the legendary historic figure is presented as Snidley Whiplash-type, leering at young women and devoid of any human qualities. Julia brings some gusto to the role but a more nuanced characterization is called for. There is also the distracting presence of David Ogden Stiers as a Mexican army officer, which is justified by having him described as an adviser from the British army. If such individuals did exist, it's news to me but in any event, Stiers' presence seems more like a casting gimmick than an attempt to portray an obscure historical fact.

 

Things are fairly turgid through much of the film but as the battle scenes finally arrive they are well-handled with impressive stuntwork on display. The problem is that the spectacular climax of Wayne's big-budget production looms over the relatively skimpy assets that director Burt Kennedy has as his disposal. The TV battle attempts to add some spectacle by cribbing battle footage from Wayne's film. Much of it is set to Peter Bernstein's serviceable score, though at various times during the production, he shamelessly copies the work of another Bernstein (Elmer), with similar music to that found in the latter's classic score from "The Magnificent Seven".

In summary, "The Alamo-Thirteen Days to Glory" is undeniably flawed, but it has enough positive aspects to merit viewing, if only for comparison to other films that depict the battle and the events leading up to it. The source material used by Amazon leaves a lot to be desired, but it's still a positive development to see the production get some exposure. It deserves a Blu-ray release with a commentary track by Alamo historians, who could decipher its truths and fabrications far better than this writer can.

BY JOHN LEMAY

Though this author has seen many Italian Westerns, for years I had avoided watching Navajo Joe because I had wrongly assumed it was an American Western due to its star: Burt Reynolds. Happily, I discovered that Navajo Joe is a solidly entertaining film. Reynolds stars as the title character, out for revenge after a gang of cutthroats massacres his tribe and scalps his wife. The rest of the film shows Reynolds hunting down the bandits and killing them one by one. Naturally, as this is a Spaghetti Western, Joe has a few anti-hero traits. When the same outlaw gang begins terrorizing the town of Esperanza, Joe dupes the townspeople into paying him to kill the gang, thus managing to profit from an act he was intending to carry out anyway (hence the film's Italian title A Dollar a Head). Though a solid film produced by Dino de Laurentiis, directed by Sergio Corbucci (Django) and scored by Ennio Morricone, Burt Reynolds often puts the movie down, stating that it could only be shown in prisons and on airplanes to truly captive audiences that couldn't escape. Supposedly the bad blood began when Reynolds misunderstood that he was to be working with Sergio Leone rather than Sergio Corbucci, and vice versa Corbucci initially hoped to cast Marlon Brando. Due to the mutual disappointment the director and his star didn't get along terribly well. The film was shot between two of Corbucci's other westerns, Johnny Oro (1966) and Hellbenders (1967). The camera work and direction for the action scenes are top notch and Reynolds himself was said to have done his own stunts, in addition to overseeing the stunt work on the entire film. Ennio Morricone (under the alias of Leo Nichols) composes another good score, with the main theme being the most memorable.

The picture quality on the Blu-ray, though not flawless, is good overall. Included in the special features is a commentary track by the Kino Lorber Senior Vice President of Theatrical Releasing, Gary Palmucci. In addition to the usual cast and crew backgrounds, Palmucci also offers up some interesting insights into running a company such as Kino Lorber and how they acquire their various titles. The Blu-ray also comes with a trailer for Navajo Joe and other Reynolds MGM/UA action films White Lightning, Gator and Malone.

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John LeMay is the author of several western non-fiction titles, among them Tall Tales and Half Truths of Billy the Kid. Click here to order from Amazon.

BY LEE PEIFFER

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

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

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

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

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

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BY LEE PFEIFFER

By 1966, playwright Neil Simon was already the toast of Broadway and had several hit shows running simultaneously. Simon was eager to expand his talents into screenwriting and had envisioned creating a spoof of some of the more pretentious European art house movies. Before long, a diverse number of impressive talents were involved with the project, now titled "After the Fox". It would be an Italian crime caper and would star Peter Sellers. As Sellers had the most clout, he reached out to esteemed Italian director Vittorio De Sica and convinced him to direct. De Sica, however, insisted that in order to capture the true feel of Italy, an Italian screenwriter- Cesare Zavattini- needed to collaborate on the screenplay with Simon. That was the first obstacle, as neither man could speak the other's language and they had to rely on translators to communicate. This was a true challenge when writing a comedy because jokes and gags that worked in English didn't play out in Italian and vice-versa. Then Sellers insisted that his wife, Britt Ekland, should play the pivotal role of his character's younger sister. By all accounts, the blonde-haired Nordic Ekland was hardly suited for the role, especially since there were so many Italian actresses with name recognition who would have been more appropriate. Things deteriorated once filming began. De Sica and Sellers didn't get along and Sellers wanted the famed director fired.  Sellers was producing the film with his partner John Bryan, who insisted that you don't fire a director of De Sica's stature. Thus, the shared dream of Sellers and Bryan producing future movies never happened, a result of the hard feelings on the set. As if these didn't represent enough challenges, Sellers's well-documented psychological problems, phobias and mood swings often resulted in major domestic rows between him and his future ex-wife Ekland.

The film opens in the desert outside of Cairo, where a shipment of gold bars is hijacked as part of a plan devised by criminal mastermind Okra (Akim Tamiroff). The caper succeeds but he now has to find a way to smuggle the imposing number of bars safely into Europe. For this, he approaches the esteemed Italian thief and con man, Aldo Vanucci (Peter Sellers), who is currently imprisoned. It becomes clear, however, that Vanucci can make good on his promise to leave the prison any time he wants to, as he's treated as a celebrity and enjoys most of the perks of the outside world. True to his word, Vanucci escapes with the help of his two klutzy henchmen and sets about plotting an audacious plan to smuggle the gold into Italy- right under the noses of the police detectives who are searching for him. He adopts the guise of a fictitious Italian director, who he convinces the locals is the nation's most esteemed filmmaker, and sets up a faux movie production titled "The Gold of Cairo", ostensibly a film that will exploit the recent high profile theft. In reality, the phony film production will allow Vanucci and his team to openly smuggle the real gold into Italy because everyone assumes the gold bars are simply props. Vanucci must also contend with looking out for his 16 year-old sister, Gina (Britt Ekland), who is obsessed with movies and film stars to the extent that she adorns her bedroom walls with posters of Marlon Brando, William Holden, Sean Connery and even a "Pink Panther" poster that mentions star Peter Sellers. Vanucci is obsessed with ensuring Gina maintains her virginity and to keep her safe from an endless stream of gigolos. To keep her nearby, he casts her as the female lead in the movie. To give his scheme more credibility, he also convinces aging American heartthrob Tony Powell (Victor Mature) to play the male lead, thus causing a media sensation. He appeals to the local's weakness for celebrity culture by fawning over them and casting the local police chief in the film. When production gets under way, neither Vanucci or his henchmen even know how to handle the cameras.

 "After the Fox" was a critical and commercial disappointment when first released but like so many other cinematic failures, it has built an appreciative following over the decades. It's a film that eluded me all those years until I recently discovered it is streaming on Amazon Prime. Although the madcap pace of the movie gets a bit out of hand during the finale, I found it to be inspired lunacy. Peter Sellers may have been  a nightmare to work with (he would soon be fired from "Casino Royale" in mid-production), but at his best he is a comic genius- and here he is at his best. The script is far better than the language logistics might have indicated and it provides a deft satire of the film industry, as well as a social commentary on celebrity worship and the desire for fame. Even De Sica is in on the joke, appearing as himself directing a ludicrous biblical spectacle with pyramids existing in the shadows of some apartment complexes. There are some marvelous supporting turns by everyone involved and the dubbing of the Italian cast into English is expertly done. Victor Mature, never known for his comedic abilities, was lured out of retirement for this film and he's sensational. Playing a hunky, idiotic screen idol, he manages to even upstage Sellers in the laughs department. Martin Balsam is also very amusing as his exasperated manager. Even the opening credits (remember what opening credits are?) turn about to be amusing with a Pink Panther-like theme designed by the great Maurice Binder, accompanied by the Hollies and Peter Sellers providing the infectious title song created by Burt Bacharach and Hal David. The talent even extended to the film poster design by the legendary Frank Frazetta.

"After the Fox" isn't a comic masterpiece but it is genuinely funny and deserved a far better fate back in 1966. Still, it's never too late to gain appreciation for an underrated gem.

By Ernie Magnotta

What more can be said about the immortal Kirk Douglas? He was a three-time Academy Award nominee who was finally given the Academy’s Lifetime Achievement award in 1996; not to mention being a loving family man and a philanthropist. With a tremendous body of work which showcases his incredible acting talent, Douglas was truly one of the icons of Hollywood’s Golden Age. A genuine movie star if ever there was one, Douglas headlined amazing movies such as Champion (1949), Detective Story (1951), Ace in the Hole (1951), 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954), Lust for Life (1956), Spartacus (1960), 1963’s The List of Adrian Messenger (one of seven films he made with the great Burt Lancaster), and The Fury (1978). Just to name a few. Recently, our good friends at Kino Lorber have released A Lovely Way to Die; a crime neo noir film Douglas made for Universal Pictures in 1968.

Solidly directed by David Lowell Rich (The Horror at 37,000 Feet), A Lovely Way to Die tells the tale of Jim Schuyler (Douglas), a former cop who is hired by lawyer Tennessee Fredericks (played by the always impressive Eli Wallach) to protect Rena Westabrook (Sylva Koscina, Hercules Unchained), a woman who has been accused of murdering her wealthy husband.

Although not in the same league as some of the Douglas films I mentioned earlier, A Lovely Way to Die is a very enjoyable movie which also features the acting talents of Kenneth Haigh (TV’s The Twilight Zone), Martyn Green (The Iceman Cometh), Sharon Farrell (It’s Alive), Ruth White (Midnight Cowboy), Philip Bosco (The Savages), Ralph Waite (TV’s The Waltons), Meg Myles (The Edge of Night), William Roerick (The Wasp Woman), Dana Elcar (TV’s MacGyver), Dolph Sweet (TV’s Gimme a Break!), Lincoln Kilpatrick (The Omega Man) and famed New York radio announcer Marty Glickman. There are also uncredited appearances by Ali MacGraw (Love Story), Richard Castellano (The Godfather), Conrad Bain (TV’s Diff’rent Strokes), Marianne McAndrew (Hello, Dolly!), Doris Roberts (TV’s Everybody Loves Raymond) and John P. Ryan (It Lives Again). The film also contains a terrific musical score by composer Kenyon Hopkins (The Hustler).

A Lovely Way to Die has been released on a Region 1 Blu-ray by Kino Lorber. The transfer looks fantastic and the movie is presented in its original 2.35:1 aspect ratio. Special features include the original U.S. theatrical trailer, the international theatrical trailer, a very informative audio commentary by Film Historians Howard S. Berger and Steve Mitchell as well as trailers for Lonely Are the Brave; The Secret War of Harry Frigg and The Night of the Following Day.

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Coming off their triumphant political thriller "Seven Days and May", Burt Lancaster and director John Frankenheimer went directly to France to begin filming another classic, the WWII adventure "The Train" (1964). Lancaster plays an everyday guy who is now a member of the French Resistance. The war is winding down and the Allies are closing in. Paul Scofield is the ruthless, elite German general with a fanatical obsession with "rescuing" the great works of art that had been removed from museums. He seeks to steal them for himself and has them loaded aboard a freight train in the hope to make it back to safer territory. Lancaster has been enlisted to stop him, as Scofield is stealing some of the nation's greatest art treasures. In the climax, shown here, the two men confront each other in a scene that is superbly played by Scofield, who made his feature film debut in "The Train". 

Spolier Alert! If you haven't seen the film yet, better not watch this clip. It depicts the last scene of the movie. 

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BY LEE PFEIFFER

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

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

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

The film is currently streaming on Amazon Prime

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BY LEE PFEIFFER

Few actors had the screen and stage presence of Yul Brynner. There never was an actor quite like him and there hasn't been since. Like most thespians, Brynner had his share of good movies as well as those that fell considerably short of their potential. Nevertheless, the man never gave a false performance. He came across as supremely self-confidant even when he must have suspected the material he was given proved to be far below his considerable talents. Much of his self-confidence seemed to stem from an inflated ego. Robert Vaughn once told me that when Brynner arrived on the set of "The Magnificent Seven" in Mexico, he was still firmly in the King of Siam mode that had seen him win an Oscar. Vaughn said he carried himself as though he were real life royalty at all times. You didn't chat with him casually. Rather, he would grant you an audience. As Brynner's stature as a top boxoffice attraction began to wane, he returned over and over again to his signature role in stage productions of "The King and I" and found his mojo and star power were still very much intact when it came to touring in front of live audiences. His exotic look and manner of speaking were invariably intoxicating. Given Brynner's enduring legacy as a Hollywood icon it's rather surprising to remember that he had very few major hits. "The King and I" in 1956 was his star-making vehicle and his role in "The Ten Commandments", released the same year,  helped build on his success. However, with the exception of the surprise success of "The Magnificent Seven" in 1960, Brynner proved to be more of a reliable on screen attraction than a powerhouse draw in the way that John Wayne, Cary Grant and Burt Lancaster were regarded. For most of Brynner's screen career, he top-lined in major studio releases that were relatively modest in terms of production budgets. Since this was during an era in which a decent profit for a film made it a success, Brynner remained popular for many years. By the 1970s, however, his clout had diminished considerably. He would have only one memorable big screen success during the decade- his brilliant appearance as the murderous robot in "Westworld" (1974). He would concentrate primarily on stage work until his death in 1985.

"Invitation to a Gunfighter" is the kind of mid-range vehicle that defined most of Brynner's career in Hollywood. Released in 1964 by Stanley Kramer's production company, the film is a perfect showcase for Brynner in that it lacked any rival star power and afforded him a smorgasbord of scene-stealing opportunities.  The story opens in the wake of the Confederate surrender that marked the end of the Civil War. Matt Weaver (George Segal), a veteran of the Confederate army, is making an arduous journey home to his Texas ranch on foot through the desert. When the exhausted man finally reaches the small town he calls home, he gets a rude welcome. His ranch is now occupied by another man who claims he bought the deed from the township. Matt soon learns that he is despised by the locals because he is the only man to have served in the Southern army. He is notified by the town's political kingpin, Sam Brewster (Pat Hingle), that a technicality has been used to seize ownership of his ranch. He also advises him to move on out of town because he is no longer welcome there. Matt, however, is not about to be cheated. He confronts the new owner of his house and is forced to shoot him dead in self-defense. Brewster manipulates the facts and accuses Matt of being a murderer. Matt takes possession of his ranch and uses firepower to hold off the townspeople. He is surreptitiously visited by his former lover Ruth (Janice Rule), who admits that she could no longer bear waiting for him to return from the war. She reluctantly married Crane Adams (Clifford David), a local Union war veteran who lost an arm in the conflict. Since then, Crane has become an alcoholic with a violent temper and his relationship to Ruth has devolved into a loveless marriage of convenience.

Unable to lure Matt from his besieged homestead, Brewster takes the step of announcing to the town council that he will hire a gunslinger to kill him. Coincidentally, a man with the exotic name of Jules Gaspard d'Estaing overhears the offer. He is just passing through on a stagecoach ride but is immediately intrigued. d'Estaing convinces Brewster that he is a master gunfighter and demonstrates his prowess with a pistol. Brewster hires him on the spot but d'Estaing is in no hurry to carry out the mission. Instead, he sees the townspeople for what they are: cowardly hypocrites and delights in humiliating Brewster in front of them.  d'Estaing is an intimidating presence to the townspeople. They can't pinpoint his ethnicity and know nothing of his background. He dresses immaculately, speaks fluent French, plays the harpsichord  and chain smokes Churchill cigars (though I wonder what they called them in this era before Churchill was born.) Ever provocative to his hosts, he stirs the pot even further by moving into the house of Crane and Ruth Adams. Predictably, it isn't long before Ruth is entranced by this larger-than-life man of mystery who dresses like a dandy and is highly cultured- the very opposite of her own husband and Matt. Tensions rise as Crane correctly suspects a romance may be brewing. d'Estaing insists he intends to carry out his mission to kill Matt, despite Ruth's protests, but he later makes it clear to her that he intends to manipulate the situation so that Matt is spared and Brewster is dragged down in disgrace.

The film, directed with admirable if unremarkable competence by Richard Wilson, is a slow-moving, talky affair that leads to some intelligent discussions about race relations and the horrors of bigotry. (This was, after all, a production financed by Stanley Kramer, who never heeded the old adage, "Leave the messages to Western Union!"). What saves the movie from devolving into a completely pedantic affair is the charisma of Yul Brynner. It also helps that he is playing an interesting character with a mysterious background and the revelations he makes to Ruth about his life only make him even more intriguing. This is a "thinking man's" western that touches on social issues as well as the desperate plight of women in the old West, when their survival often saw them entering dreadful marriages simply for financial security and protection. Brynner gets fine support from Janice Rule and rising star George Segal and Pat Hingle plays the town's pompous boss with appropriate, sneering superficial charm.

"Invitation to a Gunfighter" is by no means a classic but it does afford viewers to spend some time with Yul Brynner and that is always time well-spent.

The film is currently streaming on Amazon Prime.

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BY LEE PFEIFFER 

When John Wayne was signed by producer Hal Wallis for the role of cantankerous marshal Rooster Cogburn in the film version of Charles Portis's bestseller "True Grit", there was immediate speculation as to who would be cast as the young Texas Ranger, La Boeuf. Wayne and Wallis agreed that Elvis Presley would be an ideal choice. In fact, Wayne had approached Elvis on several occasions over the years to appear on screen with him only to have the dictatorial Colonel Parker put the kabosh on any such dream teaming. Parker always insisted that Elvis get top billing, even when it was impractical. For example, in the mid-1950s when Elvis had just emerged as a music sensation, he had the opportunity to co-star with Burt Lancaster and Katharine Hepburn in "The Rainmaker".  Yet, the Colonel insisted that Elvis get first billing despite the exalted status in the industry of Lancaster and Hepburn. The deal fell through, much to the dismay of Elvis who always wanted to stretch his acting abilities beyond the simplistic musicals that were his trademark on the big screen. Indeed, Parker told Wallis that the only way Elvis would appear in "True Grit" is if he got billing above John Wayne! Obviously, that wasn't going to happen and newly minted superstar Glen Campbell got the role opposite the Duke. He acquitted himself very well despite not having had any previous acting experience. The movie turned out to be a blockbuster that saw Wayne win the Best Actor Oscar and Campbell score a hit on the charts with the title song.  Bruised by the collapse of the "True Grit" possibility, Elvis starred in his own western, "Charro!". It was his way of finally exerting independence from the Colonel. In fact, it's the only feature film in which Elvis doesn't sing on screen, though he does warble the title song. "Charro!" wasn't a bad movie, but audiences stayed away and Elvis would soon give up movies forever to concentrate on his concert and recording career, though he did star in a couple of very good feature length documentaries.  As for his elusive pairing with John Wayne, the mind still reels at the possibilities that were never fulfilled.

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(This article has been corrected from an earlier version that stated "Charro!" was filmed in Europe. Reader Angel Rivera pointed out that it's a misconception that the movie was made in Europe, given the fact that it has the style of a spaghetti western. In fact, the movie was filmed entirely in the USA.)

Fans of Turner Classic Movies know that the channel always provides marvelous little featurettes that showcase famous actors paying tribute to their own screen idols. For example, here is Burt Reynolds' marvelous, heartfelt tribute to Spencer Tracy, who he befriended in 1959 on the studio lot. Reynolds was an up-and-comer starring in the TV series "Riverboat" and he would find time every day to visit the set where Tracy and Fredric March were playing antagonists in Stanley Kramer's classic "Inherit the Wind". Tracy noticed his young admirer and they took daily walks after filming. Reynolds remembers a key piece of advice from his idol: if your acting, don't let the audience catch you at it.

BY LEE PFEIFFER

Kino Lorber continues its alliance with niche market video label Scorpion Releasing with a Blu-ray edition of the largely forgotten 1969 action/adventure flick "The Devil's 8". The film typifies the kind of movie that simply doesn't exist any more: a low-budget production designed for fast playoff and modest profits. Back in the day, studios depended on movies such as these to be important to their bottom line. It's in stark contrast to today's film industry where seemingly every release is intended to be a blockbuster with production costs so high that some flicks have to gross close to a billion dollars to be considered financially successful. "The Devil's 8" is pretty much what you might expect simply by examining the sleeve. Typical of these types of movies, it presents a cast of reputable character actors who get meatier roles than they usually did in more prestigious productions. The script is yet another in a seemingly endless number of action films that was shamelessly inspired by the success of "The Dirty Dozen". Christopher George is Faulkner, who we are introduced to as a criminal in a work group of convicts doing time in a prison in the deep South. Along with his fellow prisoners, he's performing backbreaking work under the guard of cruel, armed overseers. Faulkner initiates a riot and he and seven other convicts manage to escape. They are soon "rescued" by government officials and learn that Faulkner is actually an FBI agent and the entire scenario was pre-planned. Turns out that the men are being recruited to work under Faulkner as part of an elaborate plot to bring down a local crime king named Burl, who is running a major illegal moonshine operation in the area. The FBI knows that he is being protected by high government and police officials who are paid off with a share of the loot. Faulkner offers them a deal: if they agree to undergo extensive training and help him infiltrate Burl's operation, he'll recommend that they be pardoned and freed. Sound familiar? It's but one of the familiar scenarios blatantly copied from "The Dirty Dozen". The convicts all agree and end up being trained to drive specially-equipped cars that have been reinforced to withstand all sorts of calamities. They must also become proficient in the use of machine guns and demolition work. As you might imagine in a film with a 98-minute running time, this is accomplished fairly quickly. Adding to the "Dirty Dozen" similarities, the men initially fight among each other until Faulkner employs a successful strategy whereby they bond together in their common hatred of him.

The group then pretends to be rival moonshiners who move in on Burl's territory, knowing he'll try to take them out.When their resiliency wins out over Burl's men, Faulkner convinces Burl to allow them to become partners in his operation in the hope of being shown where his illegal stills are located. Burl agrees, but no one is naive to believe the alliance will last. Faulkner and his men know that ultimately, Burl will have them killed. As played by Ralph Meeker, Burl is a stereotypical, cigar-chomping Southern good ol' boy with plenty of charisma to cover up the fact that he routinely uses murder to protect his operation. By the time the double-crosses kick in, Faulkner and his gang are ready to engage Burl and his private army in an all-out battle to the death. Faulkner's group is the usual blend of eccentrics we see in prison films. Each has his own distinct personality from the lone Black convict (Robert DoQui in the Jim Brown "Dirty Dozen" role) to Joe Turkel (reunited with Meeker after having both appeared in Stanley Kubrick's classic "Paths of Glory") as an impulsive team member whose actions threaten to undo the mission (think John Cassavetes in "The Dirty Dozen"). Other members of the group are played by a familiar assortment of character actors including one-time teen idol Fabian, Tom Nardini of "Cat Ballou" and Larry Bishop, who specialized in portraying hippies. Christopher George dominates the film as the tough-as-nails Faulkner. It is puzzling why he never became a bigger star, given his rugged good looks and strong on-screen personality.  Despite starring in the modestly successful WWII TV series "The Rat Patrol", he rarely had a lead role in feature films. His biggest impressions were as the quirky villains in two John Wayne film, ""El Dorado" (1967) and "Chisum" (1970). Sadly, he passed away in 1983 at only 52 years-old. The rest of the cast performs well and each member provides some amusing moments. Leslie Parrish is inserted in the movie to provide some sex appeal as Burl's reluctant mistress. 

"The Devil's 8" was directed and produced by "B" movie king Burt Topper. Much of the action is rather clunky in its staging and the limited budget results in some of the worst and most laughable rear screen projection effects in the history of the medium. But Topper was unpretentious in his goals and execution of his films. He just wanted to make fun movies for undemanding audiences.  The score by Michael Lloyd and Jerry Styner, proteges of the wiz kid Mike Curb, provide a bouncy country score that is appropriate for the story but which rapidly grows weary due to its sheer monotony- and wait until you hear wacky theme song and lyrics by the Sidewalk Sounds that play over the end credits. "The Devil's 8" seems like one of those films that was specifically created to fill the bottom of a double-feature bill, but in fact, it was the main feature in most of its bookings, although in the UK, it was the second feature to "3 in the Attic". Interestingly, the movie proved to be a fertile training ground for screenwriters Willard Huyck and John Milius, who co-authored the script with James Gordon White. Within a few years, Huyck would pen the screenplay for George Lucas's masterwork "American Graffiti", while Milius would go on to write the screenplays for "Dirty Harry" and "Apocalypse Now" and find considerable success as a director. Thus, before we turn our noses up at lowbrow movies such as this, we should pause to remember how many considerable talents emerged from such productions.

The Blu-ray presents the film in the best state possible, given that there probably isn't an abundance of adequate master prints available. Although it's been produced from a new 2K master, the color is sometimes wishy-washy, but that just adds to the "B" movie appeal. Bonus features include a good recent interview with Larry Bishop, who discusses his friendship with Burt Topper and expresses respect for his talents. An original trailer and gallery of other Kino/Scorpion releases is also included. Kino and Scorpion have wisely retained the film's original poster artwork for the sleeve. It's a perfect example of how, in the Golden Age of movie marketing, the status of "B" movies could be considerably improved by employing dynamic graphics. Ironically, in today's industry, movies that cost hundreds of millions of dollars are promoted with poster artwork that is bland, boring and unmemorable. Just another reason to miss those bygone days of low-budget crowd-pleasers. 

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(In light of Sidney Poiter's recent passing, we are re-running this article by Eve Goldberg that was originally posted in May, 2021.) 

BY EVE GOLDBERG

To Sir, With Love (1967) is a classroom drama set in London’s working-class East End during the swinging 1960s. It’s a well-scripted, well-acted, and well-directed film of the “good teacher vs unruly students” subgenre. But, more than anything else, To Sir, With Love is a Sidney Poitier film. It’s Poitier’s persona and charisma, his decency and humanity, that shine through in every scene. And, it’s Poitier at the apex of his acting career—In the Heat of the Night and Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner were also released that same year. The film has aged surprisingly well, and is still enjoyable to watch. But it’s as an artifact of the Sidney Poitier oeuvre that To Sir, With Love earns its historical significance.

Class Struggle

In To Sir, With Love, Poitier plays Mark Thackeray, an unemployed engineer who takes a job teaching in a rough London high school while looking for work in his chosen field. From the beginning, the students give him a hard time. Led by rebellious Bert Denham (Christian Roberts), the teens are disrespectful and rude. Despite Thackeray’s patience, he fails to reach them. Eventually, he ditches the academic curricula and decides to engage the students around issues of personal ethics, survival skills, and everyday reality. “Life, love, death, sex, marriage, rebellion—anything you want,” he tells them. Thackeray opens up about his own hard-scrabble childhood in British Guiana. He demands that the students treat him, and each other, with respect. At one point, he takes them on a field trip to a museum, which proves to be a breakthrough scene as they experience life, and themselves, in a new way.

As the students grow and change, new challenges emerge for Thackeray: a female student (pretty blonde Pamela, played by Judy Geeson) develops a crush on him; he guides another student to cope with a humiliating situation in a more mature way. Towards the end of the movie, the students surprise Thackeray when they overcome their racism to attend the funeral of a mixed-race classmate’s mother.

In Poitier’s own words, his character “taught manners to kids who hadn’t understood what manners were… He also taught about self-respect, dignity, integrity, and honesty… He taught them integrity largely by showing them integrity. He offered himself as a friend, and until they were able to understand the offer and accept it, he endured an awful lot. He was driven to anger. He was humiliated… In the end, though, he succeeded in helping his students to see themselves in this new life as valuable, useful human beings with impressive potential.”

At the conclusion of the film, Thackeray receives the engineering job offer he was hoping for. But he tears up the job offer letter, realizing that he has found his calling as a teacher.

Race Takes a Back Seat

Despite several nods to issues of racial prejudice—in addition to the funeral subplot, Thackeray must deal with sporadic racists comments made by a fellow teacher and by the students—To Sir, With Love is more about class than race. Thackeray is educated, sophisticated, of the professional class and upwardly mobile. His students—almost all of them are white—are hard-core working-class, aware that they face a bleak economic future. When Thackeray throws out the text books in favor of teaching practical life lessons, he is in fact choosing to instruct the students in middle-class values and behavior.

But for all that class trumps race in this film, there is not a single moment when an American viewer in 1967 would not have been acutely aware that this is a black man teaching white kids. This is a black man counseling a student to disavow violence and turn the other cheek. This is a black man who might or might not become romantically involved with a white teacher. This is a black man who is intelligent, resourceful, self-restrained, and kind.

And that was a big part of the movie’s draw.

“I’m the only one”

In 1967, Sidney Poitier was the only black movie star in America. There was no Will Smith. There was no Denzel Washington. There was no Halle Berry, no Eddie Murphy, no Viola Davis, no Jamie Foxx, no Angela Bassett.

In 1967, movies were still at the center of the American cultural universe. When Newark and Detroit erupted in riots, when issues of race were daily front page news, when the more radical factions of the civil rights movement were verbally duking it out with the more moderate groups, Poitier was under pressure to be a spokesperson for all of black America.

“I’m the only one,” Poitier stated in an interview from that time. “I’m the only Negro actor who works with any degree of regularity. I represent 10,000,000 people in this country, and millions more in Africa.”

With the release of To Sir, With Love, In the Heat of the Night, and Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, he also became the top-grossing box office star in the country. His ascent to this rarefied position was a matter of talent, hard work, and the guts to take on challenges and risks.

Sidney Poitier’s life journey began in 1927. He grew up on Cat Island in the Bahamas, population 1,000. His parents were tomato farmers; their house had no electricity or running water. He saw his first automobile at age 10 when the family moved to Nassau. When he was 15, Poitier went to live with his older brother in Miami. A year later, he moved to New York where he worked as a dishwasher, took acting lessons, and joined the American Negro Theater. A fellow restaurant worker helped him improve his reading skills by pouring over the daily newspaper together.

Eventually, the actor began to get parts in theater, film, and television. His breakout movie role came in 1955 when he was cast as an angry, rebellious student in Blackboard Jungle. From there, he went on to leading roles in The Defiant Ones, A Raisin in the Sun, Lilies of the Field, and A Patch of Blue. He was the first black person to win a Best Actor Oscar—for his role in 1963’s Lilies of the Field.

Poitier’s star was rising at the exact time the civil rights movement was making its enormous impact on mainstream America. He became active in the movement, traveling to the south for Freedom Summer, and participating in Martin Luther King, Jr.’s 1964 March on Washington. (Other stars who attended the march included Marlon Brando, Charlton Heston, Paul Newman, and Burt Lancaster.)

As an actor, Poitier became an icon in the struggle for racial equality. He refused to play roles that did not embody dignity and strength. In an interview, he described his relationship to the history of black people in cinema: “The kind of Negro played on the screen was always negative, buffoons, clowns, shuffling butlers, really misfits.… I chose not to be a party to the stereotyping … I want people to feel when they leave the theatre that life and human beings are worthwhile. That is my only philosophy about the pictures I do.”

Fortunately for Poitier, he was not the only one in Hollywood concerned with breaking these old stereotypes. “The explanation for my career,” he writes in his memoir, “was that I was instrumental for those few filmmakers who had a social conscience. Men like Daryl Zanuck, Joe Mankiewicz, Stanley Kramer, the Mirisch brothers, Ralph Nelson, Mike Frankovich, David Susskind—men who, in their careers, felt called to address some of the issues of their day.”

In 1966, Poitier was cast as Virgil Tibbs, a Philadelphia police detective investigating a murder in a small southern town, in Norman Jewison’s In The Heat of the Night. While waiting for production to begin, he traveled to London to star in a modestly-budgeted film about a teacher and his students, based on a property that had been kicking around Hollywood for years.

Iconic

To Sir, With Love began as a 1959 autobiographical novel by Guyanese writer E.R. Braithwaite. Columbia Studios owned the film rights but executives worried that it wouldn’t be a money-maker. They fretted that both its London setting and its interracial romance between Thackeray and a white teacher would alienate American audiences. So the book just sat.

Eventually however, Poitier’s agent Marty Baum put together a deal that offset the studio’s concerns.

Baum was also the agent of writer James Clavell (of later Shogun fame) who had scored a big success with his book and movie King Rat. Clavell had done a bit of screenwriting and directing and was eager to do more. He signed on as writer-director of To Sir, With Love. Baum structured a deal in which Poitier would get only a small up-front salary—much less than he would normally command—plus 10% of the film’s gross earnings. Clavell agreed to work for a percentage of the net. The film’s total budget would be $640,000. By way of comparison, the budget for In the Heat of the Night was $2,000,000 and Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner’s budget was $4,000,000. Taking on only a minimal financial risk, Columbia greenlit the film.

To Sir, With Love was shot on location in London and at England’s Pinewood Studios. It was released in June, 1967, and quickly became a smash hit. Studio executives were surprised: they didn’t know that Poitier was such a huge box office draw.

Teenagers (including 13-year-old yours truly) were among those who flocked to the movie. It had rebellious youth; it had Mod clothing, rock music, and pop star Lulu’s catchy hit “To Sir, With Love.” (Nineteen-year-old Lulu also has a part as one of the students.) The title song plays three times in the film, most notably as the soundtrack for an unusual scene that sticks out in an otherwise conventionally styled move: The class field trip to the museum is presented as a montage of still photos set to the title tune (a slightly longer version than was heard on the radio or on the 45 RPM record.) Is the montage a nod to hip, avant garde filmmaking such as A Hard Days’ Night? Or was it a necessity due to the film’s limited budget? Either way, it works.

Another plus for teenage audiences is the school’s end-of-the-year dance at which live entertainment is provided by real-life British rock band The Mindbenders.

But most of all, the movie had Sidney Poitier. Who wouldn’t want a teacher as handsome, understanding, compassionate, and smart as Mr. Thackeray?

Reviews of the movie were mixed.

The New York Times’ Bosley Crowther called it, “a cozy, good-humored and unbelievable little tale of a teacher getting acquainted with his pupils, implying but never stating that it is nice for the races to live congenially together.”

“If the hero of this Pollyanna story were white, his pieties would have been whistled off the screen,” Penelope Gilliatt wrote in The New Yorker.

Pauline Kael in The New Republic—she had not moved to The New Yorker yet—was sympathetic to the double bind Poitier found himself in: “Poitier has been playing the ideal-boy-next-door-who-happens-to-be-black for so long that he’s always the same…[but] What can he do? He can’t pass as a white man in order to play rats or cowards or sons of bitches, and if he plays Negro rats or cowards or sons of bitches he’ll be attacked for doing Negroes harm.”

The black press, which generally applauded Poitier and his pioneering contributions to civil rights, was mostly enthusiastic about To Sir, With Love. It was noted in Ebony, however, that the book’s interracial romance between Thackeray and fellow teacher Gillian Blanchard (Suzy Kendall) had been deleted in the movie. “Had Thackeray been white, the Thackeray-Gillian relationship would have been a love affair.”

Despite these mixed reviews, the public kept buying tickets. Loads of them. Month after month. Soon, To Sir, With Love became Columbia’s biggest hit since Lawrence of Arabia.

Eclipsed

In the Heat of the Night opened just two months after To Sir, With Love. Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner opened several months after that. These latter two films were prestige projects, centered around issues of race, with multiple Academy Awards nominations and wins. All three movies were giant box office hits. By any measure in Hollywood, 1967 had shaped up as The Year of Sidney Poitier.

However, the peak of his acting career was short-lived. Social and political currents were shifting, and the tide turned amazingly quickly against his film persona.

According to the actor, “The issue boiled down to why I wasn’t more angry and confrontational. New voices were speaking for African-Americans, and in new ways. Stokely Carmichael, H. Rap Brown, the Black Panthers. According to a certain taste that was coming into ascendancy at the time, I was an ‘Uncle Tom,’ even a ‘house Negro,’ for playing roles that were nonthreatening to white audiences, for playing the ‘noble Negro’ who fulfills white liberal fantasies. In essence, I was being taken to tasks for playing exemplary human beings.”

Already in 1967, Poitier sensed that his career as a leading man on screen was coming to an end. And he was right. He made more movies, as an actor and director—he directed Uptown Saturday Night and Stir Crazy among others—but the height of his cultural influence was over.

Today, Sidney Poitier may be most remembered for his role as detective Virgil Tibbs in In The Heat of the Night. But let’s not forget that it was a little movie about a teacher and his students that launched the great actor’s star into the stratosphere.

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BY LEE PFEIFFER

Noted director and film historian Peter Bogdanovich has passed away from natural causes at age 82. Bogdanovich grew up idolizing the legendary actors and directors of his youth and would later enter the film industry working for Roger Corman on the 1966 hit "The Wild Angels". Corman saw potential in him and allowed him to direct a "B" movie titled "Targets" in 1968, which Bogdanovich and his wife Polly wrote very quickly. The atmospheric film was widely praised and it provided a fictional interpretation of a notorious mass shooting in 1966 that had horrified the nation. Bogdanovich also managed to logically intermingle a parallel story relating to a once-legendary horror actor played by Boris Karloff in his last great role. Bogdanovich next gained acclaimed with his 1971 B&W drama "The Last Picture Show" which received international honors. He seemed to be on a non-stop juggernaut towards success, as more hits followed: "What's Up, Doc?" and "Paper Moon". However, after Bogdanovich began an affair with Cybill Shepherd, who had appeared in "The Last Picture Show", his personal life became increasingly chaotic. His marriage ended and his next film, "Daisy Miller" starring Shepherd was a notorious bomb. This was followed by another starring vehicle for Shepherd that paired her with Burt Reynolds, "At Long Last Love", a tribute to musicals of the 1930s. When that film proved to be an expensive failure, Bogdanovich's reputation as a "Golden Boy" was diminished.

Over the years, he was in the news, not because of his film achievements, but because of his love life. After he and Cybill Shepherd broke up (but stayed on amicable terms), Bogdanovich became obsessed with Playboy Playmate of the Year, Dorothy Stratten, who was married. On the evening she was going to tell her husband she was leaving him for Bogdanovich, he brutally murdered her in a jealous rage and then committed suicide. (Bob Fosse would later make a film about Stratton, "Star 80", that recounted her love affair with Bogdanovich.) Bogdanovich remained haunted by the tragedy for the rest of his life and would he would later marry Stratten's 20 year-old sister Louise. He was 49 at the time. The marriage didn't last but Bogdanovich continued to live with Louise and her mother. 

Professionally, Bogdanovich would continue to make films occasionally. He received critical acclaim for the 1979 arthouse film "Saint Jack" starring Ben Gazzara but his much-anticipated 1981 comedy "They All Laughed" in which Dorothy Stratton had a major role, proved to be a boxoffice bomb when it was released shortly after her death. Bogdanovich didn't like the studio's marketing campaign for the movie and bought back the rights at a cost of most of his assets. He believed he could distribute the film himself but reviews were tepid and he could find few theaters that would play the movie. He rebounded and a modest boxoffice success in 1985 with "Mask" starring Cher.

In later years, Bogdanovich was often sought-out for his first-hand knowledge of old Hollywood. As a young man, he had the foresight to interview prominent actors and directors and used the original tapes to launch his own podcast. Bogdanovich had befriended his idol Orson Welles in the 1960s and Welles served as his adviser and mentor. However, Welles was often the victim of his own ego and excesses and fell out of favor in Hollywood. At one point, he was living in Bogdanovich's house as he tried to raise funds for his final film "The Other Side of the Wind". Welles worked on the project for many years but died before finishing it. Bogdanovich, with support from Netflix, finished the movie using Welles's own scripts and notes. Bogdanovich would also occasionally accept roles as an actor and proved be quite effective. He had a recurring role on "The Sopranos" and appeared in supporting roles in many feature films.  

In 2021, he consented to participate in Turner Classic Movie's podcast "The Plot Thickens" and afforded a series of remarkably insightful and brutally honest interviews that didn't reflect well on the decisions he made as a much younger man. In the podcast, hosted by Ben Mankiewicz, Bogdanovich comes across as a man who is proud of his successes but regretful about many aspects  of his personal life and how it adversely affected his career.

“ARTHUR MILLER ANGST”

By Raymond Benson

The Academy Awards certainly overlooked this well made and superbly acted drama when it was released in 1948. All My Sons is tightly-adapted from the 1947 stage play by Arthur Miller, and it deserved some recognition, especially for some of the actors and perhaps the screenplay by Chester Erskine, who also produced the movie. It was directed by Irving Reis, who had earlier in the decade come into his own in Hollywood with the first few “Falcon” detective pictures starring George Sanders.

All My Sons was Arthur Miller’s first significant hit play, his second produced on Broadway (the first one flopped), and it won the playwright a Tony award. Erskine and Universal Pictures quickly secured the rights and got the movie into production, streamlining the three-act play into a roughly 90-minute movie. It works extremely well.

Joe Keller (Edward G. Robinson) runs a steel manufacturing business in a small town in the Midwest. His son, Chris (Burt Lancaster), is his right-hand man. Joe’s wife, Kate (Mady Christians), suffers from depression—she holds on to the hope that her other son, Larry, who disappeared three years earlier during World War II, is still alive. Kate also does not approve of Chris’s intention to marry Ann (Louisa Horton), who was originally Larry’s fiancée. Both Joe and Chris believe Larry to be dead. Ann, too, has moved on and has redirected her affections to Chris. The bigger elephant in the room, though, is that Keller and his company came under criminal scrutiny when some airplane fuselages they built proved to be faulty, causing the deaths of many soldiers overseas during the war. Keller’s business partner, Herb (Frank Conroy), took the fall and went to prison. Herb happens to be Ann’s father! Ann, Chris, Joe, and Kate have accepted the sad truth that Herb was responsible for the disaster, but Ann’s brother, George (Howard Duff), has not, and he wants to blow the lid off some well-kept secrets. Has Joe been lying all this time about his role in the manufacturing mishap? Is he not the father that Chris has placed on a pedestal for his entire life?

It’s very typical Arthur Miller angst, the kind of family drama that the playwright would explore often. And here, in All My Sons, the Miller angst is faithfully represented.

Edward G. Robinson delivers a powerful performance as Joe Keller. It is Oscar worthy, and the sad thing is that Robinson was never nominated for an Academy Award throughout his long career. He did receive an honorary Oscar in 1973, but he died two months before it was presented. This is one of those “shame on you” footnotes in the history of the Oscars, for Robinson always approached his roles with professionalism and skill. His Joe Keller in All My Sons is a pivotal piece of the film’s success.

Burt Lancaster, still fairly new to the industry, is also quite effective as the Good Son who is ready to leave his career at the factory for the girl he loves if his parents don’t accept the union. Louisa Horton is also very good, and All My Sons is her debut film performance. Horton didn’t make many movies, but she did a lot of television and was then married to filmmaker George Roy Hill for a couple of decades. Mady Christians, a longtime veteran of films since the silent days, holds her own, too. Unfortunately, Christians became a victim of HUAC—the House Un-American Activities Committee—shortly after the release of the movie and her career ended after four decades. HUAC certainly had its tentacles on several elements of the movie. Robinson had some unpleasant dealings with them, Elia Kazan (original director of the Broadway play and co-producer of the film) was a major figure in the investigations into “Communist infiltration” of Hollywood, and, most of all, Arthur Miller himself was an outspoken adversary of the committee.

Kino Lorber’s new Blu-ray release presents a high definition transfer that shows off Russell Metty’s black and white cinematography quite well. It comes with an informative audio commentary by film historian Kat Ellinger and author/film historian Lee Gambin. The only supplements are the theatrical trailer and other Kino Lorber trailers.

All My Sons is highly recommended for fans of Arthur Miller, Edward G. Robinson, Burt Lancaster, and for late 1940s Hollywood fare. Just be ready for the angst.

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BY LEE PFEIFFER

In Cinema Retro's never-ending quest to analyze relatively inconsequential movies, the trail takes us to Dirty Dingus Magee, one of Frank Sinatra's last starring feature films. The movie shocked critics when it opened in 1970 due to the trivial of the production. Time has done nothing to enhance its reputation and one can only wonder what possessed Sinatra to star in this tepid Western comedy. In reality, Sinatra's passion for movie-making was also tepid. He always preferred to concentrate on his singing career and regarded acting as a time-consuming sideline. His penchant for rarely approving a second take became legendary. Nevertheless, he was undeniably one of the cinema's great icons. Prior to Dirty Dingus Magee, Sinatra had shown good judgment with the majority of the films he made during the mid-to-late Sixties. There were some misguided efforts but Von Ryan's Express, Tony Rome, Lady in Cement and The Detective were all quality productions in which he acquitted himself very well. All the more puzzling as to what attracted him to the MGM Western that seemed cursed from the start. 

Seldom has so much talent been squandered on one modestly-budgeted movie. The film was directed by Burt Kennedy, an old hand at bringing highly entertaining Westerns to the silver screen. (i.e The War Wagon, Support Your Local Sheriff, The Train Robbers, Hannie Caulder.) The screenplay was co-written by Catch-22 author Joseph Heller and the talented cast includes George Kennedy, Michele Carey, Anne Jackson, Jack Elam, Lois Nettleton and Harry Carey Jr. Yet it all adds up to a lively but inconsequential trifle that would have been designed for the bottom of double feature bills at drive-ins had it not been for Sinatra's name above the title. He plays the titular character, a low-rent outlaw who engages in an endless cat-and-mouse game with newly-appointed sheriff Hoke Birdsill (Kennedy). The two men relentlessly track each other down and alternately deceive and rob the other. The razor-thin plot has something to do with local madam Anne Jackson trying to start an Indian uprising to prevent the local U.S. Cavalry unit from relocating, thus ensuring the demise of her bordello.

It's unconscionable that as late as 1970 Native Americans could be portrayed in such a racist fashion on screen. The dialogue afforded them is of the "Me-Tarzan, You-Jane" variety and the tribe is presented as a bunch of childish imbeciles. Michele Carey is cast as Dingus's Indian maiden love interest but she is relegated to prancing around in a short buckskin outfit and enduring endless interrupted attempts to get it on with Dingus. The "palefaces" don't fare much better. Anne Jackson is channeling Shelly Winters as the obnoxious madam who spends more time screamin' than screwin'. Even old stalwart Jack Elam is completely wasted, as are a number of other generally reliable old coots who populated Westerns during this era. Sinatra seems uncomfortable throughout. Adorned by a distracting Beatle-type wig, he is constantly upstaged by George Kennedy, who provides whatever modest pleasures the film affords. Kennedy has a knack for playing broad, slapstick comedy that Sinatra never acquired.The movie's cheap production values extend to some of the worst rear screen projection I've ever seen in a major movie, and that includes Marnie.

At this point in his career Sinatra said he had grown bored with show business. He even went into self-imposed retirement for a couple of years before re-emerging and admitting that doing nothing was even more boring. He enjoyed remarkable success in the ensuing years and won a new generation of fans. Sadly, his work in films all but evaporated. After the poor reception accorded Dirty Dingus Magee, he only had one other starring role- ten years later in the underrated thriller The First Deadly Sin. His fine performance in that film stands as a stark reminder of what he could have accomplished in films in the latter part of his career had he concentrated on challenging projects. Dirty Dingus Magee is worth acquiring on DVD- but only to witness one of the most misguided ventures of Old Blue Eyes' career.

Them region-free DVD contains the original trailer.

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BY LEE PFEIFFER

I have a passion for Westerns of the 1960s, especially those mid-range productions that weren't designed to win awards but, rather, produce a decent profit on a modest budget. A typical example is director Burt Kennedy's 1969 film "The Good Guys and the Bad Guys" starring Robert Mitchum and recent Oscar winner George Kennedy.  Burt Kennedy had no pretensions of being placed on the same pedestal as John Ford and Howard Hawks, but when it came to making fun, whimsical Westerns, he was among the top talents in the industry. Kennedy was coming off the recent success of "The War Wagon" and "Support Your Local Sheriff!", two fun-packed Westerns that proved to resonate very well indeed with the intended audiences. "Good Guys" doesn't work as well due to a weaker script that sees it play out like a TV Western. Still, it has the central ingredients to make for an enjoyable romp: the presence of two popular leading actors, a supporting cast peppered with marvelous players, plenty of scenery of the great outdoors and even an intentionally hokey ballad sung by Glenn Yarbrough that is played throughout the film to serve as a narrative device. (Shades of "Cat Ballou"!). The film was originally developed by Kirk Douglas and director Martin Ritt but they could never bring it to fruition in a manner that was mutually satisfactory.

The story opens in the booming town of Progress, New Mexico. The local, long-serving marshall is Jim Flagg (Robert Mitchum), who is all-too aware of the fact that he's nearing the end of his career. Yet, he still remains devoted to serving the citizenry with honesty and dedication. He learns that his old nemesis, Big John McKay (George Kennedy) has been seen in the area with his gang and they are planning to rob a train that's due to arrive in a few days that is carrying $100,000 in  bank funds. Flagg notifies the town mayor, Wilker (Martin Balsam), who dismisses the concerns by saying train robberies are a relic of the distant past. Wilker is consumed with running for re-election and is bribing the population with free drinks and closing down the bordello, which delights the local women. (However, he privately assures the men that it will reopen right after the election.) He's also devoting his time to seducing a local, married beauty (Tina Louise). The unscrupulous mayor lures Flagg to a podium at one of his campaign rallies and shocks him by announcing Flagg will be retiring.  The mayor summarily appoints his right hand "yes man" to take over as marshal. He gives Flagg a gold watch and a pension then sends him off to a round of applause. Ever-dedicated to his profession, however, Flagg tracks down McKay and is shocked to find that the once-notorious outlaw is now being bullied by the cutthroats in his gang. Flagg manages to put handcuffs on McKay and bring him to town with the intention of delivering him to a federal marshal in a different territory, given Mayor Wilker's indifference to the train robbery plot. You can predict where this is all going. Flagg and McKay wax nostalgic about the good old days when there was some honor and respect between lawmen and thieves. Flagg enlists his aid to help him prevent the train robbery which leads to a chaotic conclusion with the new partners boarding the train and being mistaken for gang members, the townspeople forming a massive posse in pursuit of the out-of-control train and everyone fighting each other in comic shoot-outs.

There's a lot of violence in "The Good Guys and the Bad Guys" but none of it is gory. In fact, there's only one dramatic shootout in which a sympathetic character is murdered. There are plenty of women of loose morals but they all have the requisite heart of gold. The byplay between Mitchum and Kennedy is fun but it's Martin Balsam who steals the film in a rare comedic role. Among the familiar faces who contribute to the yucks: young David Carradine and his father John (though they don't share a scene together), Marie Windsor, Kathleen Freeman, Douglas V. Fowley and Lois Nettleton as a widow with a young son who is in a flirtatious relationship with Mitchum. Harry Stradling,Jr.'s cinematography is a quite impressive, capturing the grandeur of the New Mexico and Colorado mountain locations and the miniature work seen in the spectacular train crash is also very good. Critics were anemic at best when it came to reviewing the film. The New York Times dismissed it as "a dinky prairie oyster" while a few other outlets at least acknowledged it was fun family entertainment. Mitchum would later say he regretted being in the film, stating ""How in hell did I get into this picture, anyway? I kept reading in the papers that I was going to do it, but when they sent me the script I just tossed it on the heap with the rest of them. But somehow, one Monday morning, here I was. How in hell do these things happen to a man?"

The Warner Archive region-free DVD features the original trailer (which gives away some spoilers) and a lengthy featurette which covers the making of the film in the small railroad town of Chama, New Mexico through the eyes of a local young boy who gets to meet the stars and director and appear as an extra in the film.

"The Good Guys and the Bad Guys"  didn't rank high on the list of career achievements for anyone involved in it but it provides enough fun moments to merit recommending.

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BY LEE PFEIFFER

America has been going through a very trying period in its history. In addition to Covid-19, which has killed 620,000 people to date and infected millions of others, the nation is in a state of constant anxiety from natural disasters and contentious and often wacky political conspiracy theories that have doomed friendships and torn apart families. The country sure needed something to smile about and it came from Major League Baseball, which delivered a big wet kiss in the form of the much-anticipated "Field of Dreams Game" that was held last night in the very location where the beloved 1989 film was shot in the small rural community of Dyersville, Iowa. Here the New York Yankees played the Chicago White Sox in the very first MLB game ever held in the state. But while the game itself was a very good one, it was the lead-in that was so memorable. Kevin Costner, star of "Field of Dreams", walked through the mystical corn field , which became an unexpected iconic symbol of American sports and pop culture. Then, Costner- looking fit and handsome- turned back to the cornfield and watched as the players from both teams slowly emerged, just like the long gone, legendary baseball greats from years past did in the movie. Costner shook the hands of players and delivered remarks about the 1989 film and the Iowa location in a moment so sentimental that the only thing that would have topped it would have been the sight of Burt Lancaster walking on to the field to join them. It's doubtful any viewer could maintain dry eyes during this marvelous occasion. Kudos to MLB for arranging this memorable event, which will go down as a great day in baseball history and showed America at its best. To paraphrase a classic line from the film, it wasn't Heaven...it was Iowa.

BY LEE PFEIFFER

By 1987, Burt Reynolds was largely regarded as being past his sell date as a leading man in theatrical films. Some of his decline in popularity was self-imposed. Reynolds had continued to knock out cornpone  comedies long after they had run out of steam. His other problem was due to the fact that he had been seriously injured on the set of "City Heat" due to a mis-timed stunt that left him in serious shape and resulted in a long hospital stay. During this time, terrible rumors spread widely that implied he had contracted AIDS. By the time Reynolds recovered, the damage to his career had been done. Although he would continue to star in films for major studios, their boxoffice take was generally mediocre at best. Reynolds would eventually gravitate to television where he starred in a hit sitcom, "Evening Shade". One of his attempted comeback vehicles was the 1987 crime thriller "Malone" in which Reynolds eschewed his image as a towel-snapping wiseguy and returned to his roots to play a mysterious man of action. The film opens with the titular character, played by Reynolds, refusing to carry out an assassination for the CIA. Malone has been one of their most reliable covert killers but he's ashamed of his profession and decides to give it up for a quiet, normal life. He knows that one doesn't just walk out on the CIA so he uproots his life and packs all his belongings in his weather-beaten car and heads off to remote areas of the Northwest. While enjoying his lifestyle as a drifter, his car breaks down and he manages to get it to a one-horse town where the local garage owner, a partially disabled widower, Paul Barlow (Scott Wilson) informs him he has to order a special part for the vehicle. The two men make friendly chatter and Barlow offers to allow Malone to stay at his house until the car can be repaired. Also on the premises is Barlow's teenage daughter Jo (Cynthia Gibb), who immediately takes a fancy to the mysterious stranger who has entered her otherwise mundane existence. During his stay, the tight-lipped Malone observes that Barlow and some other town residents are being bullied and intimidated by employees of a local land baron named Delaney (Cliff Robertson), who- for reasons unknown- is trying to force certain locals to sell him their land. Failure to do so results in inevitable harassment. When Malone comes to Barlow's aid and humiliates some of Delaney's goons, Delaney meets with him and tries to bribe him to work for him. Seems that anyone of influence in the town is on Delaney's payroll, including the local sheriff (Kenneth McMillan).  Malone refuses the offer and Delaney turns to bringing in professional assassins to murder him. Adding to Malone's woes is the fact that a former CIA colleague, Jamie (Lauren Hutton) has tracked him down and has orders to kill him, as well. Jamie, however, warns Malone of her mission and the two decide that "Make love, not war" should be their mantra. As Delaney increases the pressure, Malone decides to go mano a mano with him. He sneaks into Delaney's heavily-guarded compound and discovers a massive arsenal being stockpiled there. Turns out that Delaney is the leader of an extremist right wing fringe group with ties to sympathetic elected officials in Washington, D.C. He intends to imminently launch a violent uprising in the hopes that it spreads nationally and takes down the government. 

There isn't a single original thought in "Malone". The film is a modern day remake of Clint Eastwood's "Pale Rider", which had been released two years before. Eastwood's film, in turn, was a virtual remake of George Stevens' "Shane". The stories all share some common themes: a family is being harassed by a local rich guy who has nefarious purposes. A mysterious stranger comes to their aid and, in the process, is idolized by a young member of the family. In the climax of all three stories, the stranger finds himself having to put his life on the line to rid the locals of the menacing figure who is making their lives miserable. Having said all that, I was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed "Malone". Under the competent direction of Harley Cokeless, the story moves at a brisk pace and there is plenty of time to explore the backgrounds of the key characters. Reynolds still had enough macho mojo to pull off roles like this and it's great seeing him play a serious role once again. As a man of few words, he excels not only in the dramatic sequences but also in the film's explosive conclusion, which borrows much from another (then) contemporary hit, "Witness" as we watch Malone on Delaney's farm systematically eliminate the bad guys. Reynolds gets some fine support from Cliff Robertson (in the kind of superficially charming role usually played by Robert Vaughn), Kenneth McMillan and Scott Wilson. Lauren Hutton's brief appearance is a highlight of the film, as she and Malone intersperse romantic interludes with suspicions about each other's motives. (Malone willingly beds her but is afraid to digest any drinks she prepares out of fear she will poison him.) The biggest revelation is the performance of Cynthia Gibb, who displays considerable charm as the young girl who is starstruck by Malone. (The script thankfully keeps the relationship chaste.) "Malone", filmed in and around Vancouver (the usual tax-friendly doppleganger for American locations), is a good old-fashioned action flick. In today's era of over-produced, over-budgeted CGI-laden monstrosities, it's simplicity, predictability and unpretentious story line are assets. The Kino Lorber Blu-ray contains the trailer as well as trailers for other Burt Reynolds releases available through the company. 

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BY LEE PFEIFFER

By the mid-1950s Burt Lancaster was one of the biggest stars in the world. He used his clout to form his own production company so that he would not be chained to exclusive contracts with specific studios as so many of his peers were. Lancaster could pick and choose his own projects and how they were brought to the screen. He harbored dreams of becoming a full-time director and stated publicly that he intended to retire from acting in order to fulfill this fantasy. So far, so good. However, Lancaster, who was never lacking in confidence or ego, managed to alienate seemingly everyone in his orbit by making disparaging remarks about directors and their profession in general. This didn't sit well with those he offended and Lancaster was denied entry into the Director's Guild of America when it came to helming his first film, an adaptation of Felix Holt's frontier novel "The Gabriel Horn", which he was bringing to the big screen in Technicolor and CinemaScope under the title "The Kentuckian". Lancaster had lined up some top-rate talent for the production, which was the first of a multi-picture distribution deal with United Artists. Acclaimed Western novelist A.B. Guthrie Jr. was the screenwriter, the esteemed Laszlo Kovacs was the cinematographer and Bernard Herrmann was the composer. This was a fairly big-budget production that eschewed Hollywood's penchant for studio-bound sets and stock photography in favor of actually filming on location in rural Kentucky. 

The story opens with Elias Wakefield (Lancaster), a widowed backwoodsman and his young son Little Eli (Donald MacDonald) as they gleefully march through remote wooded areas in Kentucky heading toward a far-away river where they intend to ride an elegant steam ship to a new life in Texas. The promise of vast land and unlimited potential is too much for Elias to resist and he's scrimped and saved up $200 for the passenger fare aboard the boat. He also wants to put some distance between him and Little Eli and two members of a clan that have been carrying on a long feud with the Wakefields and who are intent on tracking down and killing Elias. Things go awry when they reach a town where the locals are anything but friendly. Elias is framed for a crime and jailed. The corrupt locals intend to allow him to be killed by the would-be assassins who have arrived in town. Elias is saved by Hannah (Dianne Foster), a lovely young woman who is suffering as an indentured servant to a cruel owner of a tavern. She frees Elias and joins him and his son as they flee towards the freedom Texas offers. Along the way, they are captured by lawmen and Elias has to use his life savings to buy Hannah's "contract" out with her employer. Although Elias treats Hannah with sisterly respect, it's clear she has romantic designs on him that she keeps subdued. Upon arriving in another town to visit Elias's brother Zack (John McInintire) and his wife Sophie (Una Merkel), the trio finds the new locale not much friendlier than their last encounter with civilization. Although they are warmly greeted by Zack and Sophie, the rest of the local population mocks them as unsophisticated hicks. Because they are destitute, Elias has to go into Zack's career as a tobacco seller where he finds unexpected success. Hannah, however, finds herself back in servitude with yet another cruel tavern owner, Bodine (Walter Matthau in his big screen debut). Elias enrolls his son in school for the first time and manages to fall for his teacher, Susie (Diana Lynn), who returns the sentiment. As their love affair grows, Elias alienates his own son, who accuses his father of dashing their plans to move to Texas. Also alienated is Hannah, who suffers in silence while the man she loves romances another woman. Things come to a head when Elias has a knock-down brawl with Bodine, whose penchant for wielding a bullwhip exacts a terrible toll on him. Then the killers from the rival clan show up and lay in wait to assassinate Elias. 

"The Kentuckian" was not the great success Burt Lancaster had hoped for. Critics were anemic if not downright cynical about the film with Bosley Crowther of the New York Times mocking it mercilessly. When the movie under-performed, Lancaster uncharacteristically went public with his frustrations at the magnitude of work it took to both star in and direct the film. He ate considerable crow and said he underestimated how much talent it took to direct a movie, thereby winning him favor with a  profession he had previously offended. (Lancaster's only other directing credit is as co-director of the 1974 crime thriller "The Midnight Man". ) Although "The Kentuckian" has plenty of corny and predictable elements to it, the film is reasonably good entertainment. Lancaster, who was always among the most charismatic of leading men, delivers a solid performance and he is aided by an able cast of leading ladies and fine character actors. Young Donald MacDonald gives an impressive performance as his son and Matthau, who would later denounce the role he played as ludicrous, is nevertheless a suitable villain in the Snidley Whiplash mode. The cinematography is very good, though the movie does feature some of the worst "day for night" effects imaginable. Scenes that are set in the dead of night are presented in bright sunshine. Bernard Herrmann's score is appropriately rousing and the film features some good action sequences. Perhaps the most under-valued aspect of the movie is its intelligent screenplay which presents the characters with engaging back stories and dilemmas. Lancaster chose to stress the human side of the story instead of spectacle and violence. 

The Kino Lorber Blu-ray looks great and contains the trailer along with a welcome gallery of other trailers pertaining to Lancaster movies. 

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