“CALL IT”

By Raymond Benson

By the mid-2000s, the Coen Brothers had established themselves as a writing/directing team of considerable originality, edginess, and intelligence. Their cinematic sensibilities covered a range of genres with varying degrees of tonality. They had done crime thrillers (Blood Simple, Miller’s Crossing), wacky comedies (Raising Arizona, The Big Lebowski), noir-ish melodramas (Barton Fink, The Man Who Wasn’t There), and something that might be called a musical (O Brother, Where Art Thou?).

Adapting Cormac McCarthy’s neo-noir novel No Country for Old Men seemed like a no-brainer for the siblings. They had been pitched the idea, read the book, and agreed that it was “right up their alley.” McCarthy’s dialogue-filled prose turned out not to be much of a challenge—they dispensed with most of it, making their filmed adaptation more of a silent picture than one might expect. There are extended sequences of nonverbal action: characters in seedy motel rooms waiting and scheming, chases across the West Texas countryside, small town urban street gunfighting, and the ever-picturesque tableaux of actors’ faces that reveal so much without a word spoken.

The time is 1980. A Mexican cartel drug deal has gone badly out in the desert-like landscape somewhere in Terrell County, Texas. Several men are dead. Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin) stumbles upon the crime scene and makes off with a suitcase full of cash. Unfortunately, due to a dumb-headed move on his part, the cartel figures out who he is. Fixer/assassin Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem) is sent after Moss to retrieve the money and make sure no one lives to tell the tale. Meanwhile, the county sheriff, Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones) begins to investigate the incident and tails the players, except that he remains one step behind the parties as Moss continues to stay one step ahead of Chigurh—while the body count adds up.

No Country is one of the Coens’ more serious thrillers. Always known for injecting dark humor into their crimes dramas, this one is practically devoid of laughs. Sure, there are moments of very dark humor that can be only in a Coen Brothers film, but for the most part this is a knuckle-biting, grim, no-holds-barred noir tale in which there is a pervasive feeling of doom. We know nothing good is going to come out of this.

Another theme, illustrated by Chigurh’s penchant for a coin toss to determine the fate of a character (“Call it,” he menacingly commands), is how nothing is predetermined… one’s life can turn on a dime, or in this case, a quarter. The point of McCarthy’s novel is that this is a world that has surpassed “old men” like Sheriff Bell. He can’t understand the violence, the cruelty, and the fire that drives these men who will kill with abandon—all for the sale of illicit drugs.

It should also be noted that the Coens’ movies tend to be about stupid people but are made for smart audiences. So many of the brothers’ characters make boneheaded mistakes that set the plots in motion. In this case, Moss makes the mistake of his life, bringing about the hellfire that will affect him, his wife (Kelly MacDonald), and innocent bystanders.

The film was a big critical and financial success for the Coens. It won Oscars for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Adapted Screenplay (the brothers went home with three statues each; it might have been four had the nomination for Best Editing won for “Roderick Jaynes,” their pseudonym as editors), and Best Supporting Actor for Bardem’s chilling performance.

The Criterion Collection’s new 4K UHD and Blu-ray release is certainly up to the label’s standards. The new 4K digital master, supervised and approved by director of photography Roger Deakins, with a 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack, is packaged as a 2-disk edition with the UHD movie on one disk and the Blu-ray and supplements on the second (a Blu-ray only edition is also available). The picture quality is painterly gorgeous.

Supplements include brand new interviews with the Coens conducted by the inimitable award-winning crime author Megan Abbott, who seems to be Criterion’s go-to host for the brothers as of late. Could a Coens-Abbott collaboration be a possibility in the future? One can only hope! Abbott also interviews DP Deakins and associate producer David Diliberto. Archival interviews with the cast (Jones, Brolin, Bardem, and MacDonald) are included, plus a short behind-the-scenes documentary made by Brolin. Port-overs from a previous Blu-ray release include a vintage making-of documentary, more interviews with the cast, and a documentary from the POV of Jones’ character. There are English subtitles for the hard of hearing, plus an essay by author Francine Prose and a 2007 piece on the film by Larry McMurtry in the accompanying booklet.

No Country for Old Men is highly recommended for fans of the Coen Brothers, the main actors involved, and tense crime thrillers.

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TWISTER COMES TO 4K ULTRA HD BLU-RAY AND DIGITAL

THE 1996 DISASTER THRILLER FILM STARRING HELEN HUNT AND BILL PAXTON WILL BE AVAILABLE FOR THE FIRST TIME IN 4K RESOLUTION WITH HIGH DYNAMIC RANGE (HDR)

Purchase the film on 4K Ultra HD Disc and Digital on July 9

Twister, action-packed iconic disaster film directed by Jan de Bont (Speed) will be available for purchase on 4K Ultra HD Disc and Digital for the first time on July 9.

Twister will be available to purchase on July 9 on 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray Disc from online and in-store at major retailers and available for purchase Digitally from Amazon Prime Video, AppleTV, Google Play, Fandango at Home and more.

Twister stars Academy Award winner (As Good as It Gets) and four-time Emmy Award winner (“Mad About You”) Helen Hunt and Screen Actors Guild Award Winner Bill Paxton (Apollo 13).  The film also stars Cary Elwes (The Princess Bride), Jami Gertz (The Lost Boys), Lois Smith (Minority Report), Philip Seymour Hoffman (Boogie Nights), Alan Ruck (television’s “Succession”), Todd Field (Eyes Wide Shut), and Jeremy Davies (Saving Private Ryan).

Twister was directed by Jan de Bont (Speed) from a screenplay by Michael Crichton and Anne-Marie Martin.  The film was produced by Crichton, Kathleen Kennedy, and Ian Bryce.  Steven Spielberg, Walter Parkes, Laurie MacDonald and Gerald R. Molen served as executive producers. 

On March 25, 1997, Twister was the first theatrical feature film to be released on the DVD format.

Twister was nominated for two Academy AwardsÒ – Best Sound and Best Visual Effects.  

Twister will be available on 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray Disc for $33.99 ERP and includes an Ultra HD Blu-ray disc with the theatrical version of the feature film in 4K with HDR and a Digital download of the film. Fans can also own Twister in 4K Ultra HD via purchase from select digital retailers beginning on July 9.  

The 4K remastering process was overseen by director Jan de Bont. 

About the Film

Don’t breathe! Don’t look back! Just run for your life when a destructive force of nature comes howling straight toward you, destroying everything in its path – when you’re running from a Twister. Academy Award winner Helen Hunt stars as Dr. Jo Thornton-Harding, who as a small girl watched her father sucked to his death from her family’s storm cellar by a massive tornado. Now a storm chaser, a scientist who risks her life to study the dark side of nature by taking her data-transmitting instruments directly into the path of a deadly storm, Jo chases the largest tornado ever to strike Oklahoma as her marriage implodes and rival scientists will stop at nothing to steal her breakthrough.

The Twister 4K UHD Disc includes the following new and previously released special features:

The Legacy of Twister – Taken by the Wind (NEW)

Chasing the Storm: Twister Revisited

Anatomy of a Twister

The Making of Twister

Van Halen Music Video – Humans Being

Commentary by director Jan de Bont and visual effects supervisor Stefen Fangmeier

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By Lee Pfeiffer

The first African-American to direct a major film for a Hollywood studio was Gordon Parks, whose feature film debut "The Learning Tree" was released in 1969. Parks may have shattered the glass ceiling but there wasn't a tidal wave of opportunities that immediately opened for other minority filmmakers, in part because there were so few with any formal training in the art. One beneficiary of Parks' achievement was Ossie Davis, who was internationally respected as a well-rounded artist. He was a triple threat: actor, director and writer but his directing skills had been relegated to the stage. In 1970 Davis co-wrote the screenplay for and directed "Cotton Comes to Harlem", a major production for United Artists. The film was based on a novel by African-American writer Chester Himes and proved to be pivotal in ushering in what became known as the Blaxploitation genre. In reality, it's debatable whether "Cotton" really is a Blaxploitation film. While most of the major roles are played by Black actors, the term "Blaxploitation" has largely come to symbolize the kinds of goofy, low-budget films that are fondly remembered as guilty pleasures. However, "Cotton"- like Gordon Parks's "Shaft" films which would follow-  boasts first class production values and top talent both in front of and behind the cameras. Regardless, the movie had sufficient impact at the boxoffice to inspire a seemingly endless barrage of Black-oriented American films that were all the rage from the early to mid-1970s. The Blaxploitation fever burned briefly but shone brightly and opened many doors for minority actors. 

The film was shot when New York City was in the midst of a precipitous decline in terms of quality of life. Crime was soaring, the infrastructure was aging and the city itself would be on the verge of bankruptcy  a few years later. Harlem was among the hardest hit areas in terms of the economy. The once dazzling jewel of a neighborhood had boasted popular nightclubs, theaters and restaurants that attracted affluent white patrons. By the mid-to-late 1960s, however, that had changed radically. Street crimes, organized gangs and the drug culture spread rapidly, making Harlem a very dangerous place to be. It was foreboding enough if you were Black but it was considered a "Forbidden Zone" for most white people, who spent their money elsewhere, thus exacerbating the decline of the neighborhoods. "Cotton Comes to Harlem" serves as an interesting time capsule of what life was like in the area, having been shot during this period of decline. Director Davis was considered royalty in Harlem. Despite his success in show business, he and his equally acclaimed wife, actress Ruby Dee, never "went Hollywood". They stayed in the community and worked hard to improve the environment. Thus, Davis was perfectly suited to capture the action on the streets in a manner that played authentically on screen. Similarly, he had a real feel for the local population. As with any major urban area, Harlem undoubtedly had its share of amusing eccentrics and Davis populates the movie with plenty of such characters. 

The film opens with a major rally held by Rev. Deke O'Malley (Calvin Lockhart), a local guy who made good and who is idolized by the population of Harlem. O'Malley is a smooth-talking, charismatic con man in the mode of the notorious Reverend Ike who uses religion as a facade to rip off gullible followers. This time, O'Malley has launched a "Back to Africa" campaign for which he is soliciting funds. It's based on the absurd premise that he will be able to finance disgruntled Harlem residents back to the land of their ancestry. The hard-working, semi-impoverished locals end up donating $87,000 in cash but the rally is interrupted by a daring daytime robbery. An armored car filled with masked men armed with heavy weaponry descend upon the goings-on, loot the cashbox and take off. They are pursued by two street-wise local cops, "Grave Digger" Jones (Godfrey Cambridge)  and his partner "Coffin" Ed Johnson (Raymond St. Jacques). Davis provides an exciting and colorful car chase through the streets of Harlem, as the cops fail to snag the robbers. They also discover that O'Malley has gone missing, leading them to believe that he orchestrated the heist himself so he could keep the proceeds raised at the rally. The plot becomes rather convoluted, as Jones and Johnson learn that a bale of cotton has arrived in Harlem and its somehow connected to the crime. They assume that the stolen money has been stashed in said cotton bale, which quickly changes hands among the most unsavory characters in the community. Getting in on the action is a white mob boss and his goons who are also trying to recover the cotton bale. The cotton itself is resented in Harlem because of its historical links to slavery and by the end of the film, the bale ends up in a stage show at the famed Apollo Theater where it is used as a prop in a bizarre production that involves historical observations about the black experience intermingled with a striptease act! Through it all, Jones and Johnson doggedly chase any number of people through the streets, engage in shoot-outs and car chases and come in and out of contact with Rev. O'Malley, who professes his innocence about being involved in the robbery. The Rev isn't so innocent when it comes to other unscrupulous activities such as chronically cheating on his long-suffering girlfriend Iris (Judy Pace) and manipulating other women in a variety of ways. 

The most delightful aspect of the film is the showcasing of some very diverse talents of the era. Godfrey Cambridge (who made it big as a stand-up comic) and Raymond St. Jacques enjoy considerable on-screen chemistry even if the script deprives them of the kind of witty dialogue that would have enhanced their scenes together. They make wisecracks all the time and harass some less-than-savory characters but the screenplay never truly capitalizes on Cambridge's comedic potential. The film's most impressive performance comes from Calvin Lockhart, who perfectly captures the traits of phony, larger-than-life "preachers". He's all flashy good looks, gaudy outfits and narcissistic behavior. Lockhart seems to be having a ball playing this character and the screen ignites every time he appears. There are some nice turns by other good character actors including pre-"Sanford and Son" Redd Foxx, who figures in the film's amusing "sting-in-the-tail" ending, John Anderson as the exasperated white captain of a Harlem police station that is constantly on the verge of being besieged by local activists, Lou Jacobi as a junk dealer, Cleavon Little as a local eccentric, J.D. Canon as a mob hit man and Dick Sabol as a goofy white cop who suffers humiliation from virtually everyone (which is sort of a payback for the decades in which Black characters were routinely used as comic foils).  The film has a surprisingly contemporary feel about it, save for a few garish fashions from the 1970s. It's also rather nostalgic to hear genuine soul music peppered through the soundtrack in this pre-rap era. Happily, life has not imitated art in the years since the film was released. Harlem has been undergoing the kind of Renaissance that would have seemed unimaginable in 1970. The old glory has come back strong and the center of the neighorhood, 125th Street, is vibrant and thriving once again. These societal perspectives make watching "Cotton Comes to Harlem" enjoyable on an entirely different level than simply an amusing crime comedy.

The film is currently streaming on Screenpix, available for subscription through Amazon Prime.

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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.

By Fred Blosser

Life goes from bad to worse for Confederate soldier John Warner (George Hilton) in the opening half hour of “A Bullet for Sandoval,” a 1970 Spaghetti Western now available on Blu-ray in a Special Edition from VCI Entertainment. On the eve of battle in Texas, Warner learns that his sweetheart Rosa has just given birth to their son in plague-ridden Los Cedros, and now is dying from cholera. Denied authorisation to leave camp, Warner rides off anyway, incurring a death sentence for desertion. Arriving in Los Cedros with hopes of marrying Rosa before she dies, he finds no sympathy there either. Rosa has passed away, and her father Don Pedro Sandoval (Ernest Borgnine), a powerful grandee who loathes “gringos” in general and Warner in particular, is infuriated that the soldier has returned. He disowns the baby and drives Warner and the newborn out of his palatial hacienda.

Fleeing Los Cedros with his son, Warner is rebuffed at one way-station and then a second when he begs for milk for the infant. The people at both places are fearful of being infected when they learn that he has just come from Los Cedros. The weakened, feverish baby dies, and Warner becomes a vengeful outlaw, assembling a gang of henchmen to raid the settlements that drove him away when he needed their aid to keep his child alive. Three of the men—Sam, Lucky, and Priest—are trustworthy. The other three—Morton, One-Eye (“a sex maniac convicted of raping two little girls”), and Guadalupano—not so much. Warner comes to enjoy the riches and women that accrue from his new career as a bandit, but his ultimate target remains Sandoval. In the meantime, Don Pedro and his fellow cattle barons on the Border convince the Confederate army to help them pursue and eradicate Warner and his band.

Like most Spaghetti Westerns, “A Bullet for Sandoval” was an international production with Italian studio backing, a cast of actors from several countries, outdoor locations in the Spanish desert, and in this case, a Spanish director (Julio Buchs), and Spanish writers. In the starring role, George Hilton (born Jorge Hill Acosta y Lara) was an accomplished, darkly handsome Uruguayan actor who had a thriving career in Italian genre movies but was largely unknown to U.S. moviegoers. For marquee value in the States, the producers paired him with Ernest Borgnine as the imperious Don Pedro. Who didn’t know Ernest Borgnine from “The Wild Bunch,” “Ice Station Zebra,” a hundred other movies, and “McHale’s Navy”?

With Borgnine’s name prominently displayed on ads, “A Bullet for Sandoval” was one of several Spaghetti Westerns that opened in the U.S. in 1970, after the surprise success of “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.” Derided by most critics as violent trash, they were usually relegated to drive-ins and second-run movie houses. There, they filled a void on double-bills left by the death of traditional, American-made B-Westerns like those made a decade before with aging stars like Dana Andrews, Glenn Ford, and Robert Taylor. Sometimes, ironically, they were paired with the homegrown Spaghetti imitations that Hollywood studios had begun to produce, like “Two Mules for Sister Sara,” “Barquero,” “Macho Callahan,” and “El Condor.”

The critics may have dismissed the genre, but their opinions were immaterial for the U.S. target audience of young guys in their teens and early twenties, who welcomed pictures like “A Bullet for Sandoval” on all-night movie marathons at local drive-ins. At one o’clock in the morning, in a pleasant stupor of fatigue and beer, few would question the accuracy or plausibility of a Civil War in which Confederate officers pause their military campaign to help ranchers chase outlaws. As far as fans were concerned, such fine points could be argued by history professors, as long as they could rely on filmmakers like Buchs to deliver a gritty succession of gunfights, chases, and gorgeous European starlets—in the case of “A Bullet for Sandoval,” Annabella Incontrera, Mary Paz Pondal, and Paquita Torres—in low-cut peasant blouses.

VCI Entertainment’s new Special Edition of “A Bullet for Sandoval” presents the film in a remastered, 4K version from the original negative, adding the English-dubbed voice track and diligently restoring ten minutes of footage edited out of the U.S. print in 1970 and consequently, out of previous American home video releases. As director and enthusiast Alex Cox suggests in his informative audio commentary for the disc, the movie is better than its synopsis implies. The script and direction give the story an epic scope despite a limited budget, culminating in a briskly staged showdown in a bullfighting arena, and Hilton and Borgnine offer heartfelt performances as the two antagonists. Relatively rare for a Spaghetti Western, both Warner and Don Pedro are emotionally damaged characters instead of the cool-cat bounty hunter and deranged bandido who usually anchor such films.

Cox notes that the grim scenes of Warner and his friends Lucky and Priest trying to keep Warner’s baby alive in the desert owe an obvious debt to “Three Godfathers,” John Ford’s 1948 parable of the Nativity story with horses and six-shooters. Ford was ever the optimist, and the infant in “Three Godfathers” survives, delivered safely to a Western town called Jerusalem by outlaw Bob Hightower, played by the indomitable John Wayne. Warner’s newborn isn’t as fortunate in a world bereft of Christian charity, reflecting the grim philosophy of the Spaghetti genre where the innocent are as likely to suffer as the corrupt and the guilty, and often, more likely.

In addition to Alex Cox’s commentary track, the VCI Special Edition includes the title sequence from the original Spanish version, titled “Los Desperados,” and the U.S. theatrical trailer. It is an admirably respectful package for a movie that few would have regarded as anything other than disposable entertainment five decades ago.

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By  Lee Pfeiffer

If there is such thing as a family-oriented sex farce, the 1969 hit "Buona Sera, Mrs. Campbell" fits the description. The delightful concoction stars Gina Lollobrigida as Carla Campbell, a vivacious woman of relative wealth who lives in a modest Italian village. She is known for her rather upscale lifestyle that includes a live-in maid, Rosa (Naomi Stevens) and the fact that she can afford to send her 18 year-old daughter  to a fancy American university in Switzerland. Life is very pleasing for Carla, who is known for using her money for charitable purposes. She has told everyone that she came by her wealth when her husband, an American officer named Captain Campbell died in action during WWII. She tells a moving tale about how she married him when he took shelter at her house when she was only 16 years old. They fell in love, married and had only a few days together before he was shipped out and killed in battle. During their brief marriage, she became pregnant with their daughter Gia (Janet Margolin), who is now far more American than Italian in her speech and mannerisms. Carla claims that her financial security comes from her late husband's family in America, which has been kind enough to send ample checks every month to provide for her and Gia. Carla also has her own boy toy, hunky Vittorio (Philippe Leroy in a very amusing performance), who oversees her small wine business. As with most Italian lovers depicted in comedies of this period, the two spend a good deal of time verbally sparring with each other but every time one of them threatens to leave, the other uses sex as lure to get her/him back.   

A crisis erupts one fine morning when Carla discovers the town is preparing to host a reunion of American airmen who were stationed there during the war. Turns out she has been living a lie. She confides to Rosa and Vittorio that there had never been a "Captain Campbell" who she married. In fact, she created him out of thin air to cover the fact she was pregnant and took the name from a can of Campbell's soup! In reality, three different airmen had been housed with her family during the same week. As one moved out, another moved in...and she had relations with each of them. At the war's end, she was not certain which of them was the real father of her baby so she wrote to each man and told him he was the father. The three men all believed that he was her only lover and dutifully and secretly sent checks to Carla over a period of twenty years, continuing the practice even after they married and had kids of their own. Now the three ex-G.I.'s are coming to town and will expect to slip away from their spouses and see Carla. Making matters worse, Gia has heard about the reunion and has made a surprise return from school in order to meet the men of her father's fighting unit. All the set pieces are now firmly in place for a traditional Italian farce. There is a script flaw in that the film should be taking place some years earlier, as the age of some of the characters doesn't add up. Also, as the movie was released in 1968, why are the Americans visiting Italy to celebrate their 20th anniversary reunion? That would mean they were in the country three years after the war ended. 

The three men who think they are Gia's father are a diverse lot. Justin Young (Peter Lawford) is an aristocratic playboy who is accompanied by his long-suffering wife Lauren (Marian Moses), who can barely endure his constant womanizing. She correctly assumes that he intends to hook up with another girl while in Italy for the reunion, though she doesn't know that he believes he will be seeing the mother of his daughter. Walter Braddock (Telly Savalas) also has an abrasive relationship with his wife Fritzie (Lee Grant), who constantly throws painful insults at him because the couple can't have children. (Walter doesn't believe the medical diagnosis because he feels he fathered Gia). Then there's Phil Newman (Phil Silvers) and his loyal wife Shirley (Shelly Winters in full Shelly Winters mode). The couple has their young sons along for the trip and Phil finds that every time he concocts a way to meet up with Carla, family responsibilities intrude. Finally, each man manages to contact her and Carla finds herself in the unenviable position of having them all make secret visits to her villa at the same time. This results in the predictable madcap scene in which she tries to hide them from each other. Director Melvin Frank (who co-wrote the script) demonstrates an ability to make such ancient comedy scenarios work, thanks in no small part to the presence of those great male second bananas, each of whom gets plenty of screen time. (Only Lawford seems miscast. He looks too much like a dapper movie star and no one attempts to explain why an American airman has a British accent.)  Carla's complex situation becomes increasingly troublesome as pace becomes frantic, resulting in car chases, lovers quarrels, the unveiling of long-kept secrets and a very moving and sentimental finale.

Lollobrigida gives one of her best performances in this film and was nominated for a Golden Globe. The sheer amount of talent on display makes us point out once again that in days of old, such marvelous actors were taken for granted. Today, there is a dearth of great character actors and the film industry is not better off because of it. The film zips along at a brisk pace, accompanied by Riz Ortalani's inspired score, topped off by the infectious title tune which is crooned by Jimmy Rosell, which was also nominated for a Golden Globe.   

The movie is currently available for streaming through Screenpix, which is available to Amazon Prime subscribers for an additional $2.99 a month).

By Todd Garbarini

I hated William Friedkin’s 1985 police thriller, To Live and Die in L.A., when I first saw it. The mixture of Eighties-style pop music by Wang Chung and the disreputable characters were, I felt, meretricious and off-putting. Even the car chase seemed lackluster. I also hated Dario Argento’s Four Flies on Grey Velvet (1972), James Toback’s Fingers (1978) and David Lynch’s Blue Velvet (1986) during my first viewings. Revisiting these titles soon afterwards made me realize that I failed to fully appreciate or understand them. My ignorance of film was evident!

To Live and Die in L.A., which opened nationwide on Friday, November 1, 1985 to lukewarm notices and underwhelming box office despite being championed by a four-star review by Roger Ebert, is a highly stylized, dark, and uncompromising crime thriller that boasts a then-unknown cast with a story and a pace that feels more suited to the 1970s. It also contains what I consider to be the greatest car chase ever filmed and edited for a major motion picture, which took no less than five weeks to plan and shoot.

Having seen Mr. Friedkin’s brilliant Oscar-winning East Coast police thriller The French Connection (1971), this West Coast-based yarn centers on a Secret Service agent, Richard Chance (William Petersen), whose best friend and partner Jim Hart (Michael Greene) has been murdered in cold blood by artist/currency counterfeiter Rick Masters (Willem Dafoe) just days prior to his retirement. This plot device occurred before it became a familiar film trope, and this is easily one of the best films of the 1980s. Chance has one goal: to put Masters away for life with no regard for how he has to do it. Truthfully, he would prefer to kill him. This causes many issues for his new partner John Vukovich (John Pankow) whose familial lineage of law enforcement officers and his “by the book” methodology conflicts with Chance’s no-bullshit headstrong attitude. Vukovich’s unwillingness to go outside the boundaries of acceptability is tested when: Chance surreptitiously removes crucial evidence from a crime scene in order to get to Masters; Chance, without Vukovich’s knowledge, springs a prisoner friend (John Turturro) of Masters to get him to testify; and most notably forces Vukovich to go along with a plan to obtain cash needed to get closer to Masters while nearly dying in what is arguably cinema’s most exciting getaway car chase sequence. What makes the chase work so well is that it’s physical, it’s possible (though highly improbable), and it’s not done in a Fast and the Furious, over-the-top sort of way. Nor is it perfunctory as it comes as a result of an important plot point, nearly besting the director’s own French Connection subway/car chase with a headlong ride straight up the 710 Long Beach Freeway while driving in the wrong direction against traffic.

Chance also beds a willing parolee (Darlanne Fluegel) who gives him information on current convicts in return for money to provide for herself and her son Christopher. Like the inexorable Popeye Doyle in The French Connection who will stop at nothing to put drug dealers and users away, Chance, like his surname, will stop at nothing to capture and punish Masters. The difference between the two films is that the former paints Brooklyn and New York City as gritty and almost despairing cities whereas the latter bathes the frame in a Los Angeles that we have not seen before or since. While also gritty, grimy and dark, this is a Lotus Land that is also highly glossy and enticing, with beautiful people who are about as real as the counterfeit bills that Masters manufactures. The overall theme and central conceit of To Live and Die in L.A. is fraudulence. People use each other for their own personal gains. Masters is an artist but hates what he paints and burns his work in frustration. Since he cannot find joy or satisfaction in his own originality, he resorts to copying others, in this case $20, $50, and $100 bills in a procedure that is painstaking, difficult, and now archaic.

Like The French Connection, To Live and Die in LA is also based on a book of the same name, this one a novel written by former Secret Service Agent Gerald Petievich. What makes the film remarkable is the opening sequence which features a martyr who shouts “Allahu Akbar” just before blowing himself up on the roof of a hotel where then-President Reagan is giving a speech. This scene made little sense to me upon my maiden viewing but is eerily prescient of the religious extremism that has made its way to America’s shores.

The performances are excellent all around. William Petersen, whose film debut was as a bar bouncer in Michael Mann’s Thief (1981), is terrific as Chance and plays him as a daredevil whose cowboy nature seals his fate and makes him a dangerous person to be around. This is established in an early sequence wherein Chance bungee jumps off the Vincent Thomas Bridge in San Pedro, CA. In addition to the martyr sequence, this could also be one of the earliest instances of this now highly popular activity’s depiction in a film. John Pankow is also quite good as Chance’s conflicted partner. The stand-out is Willem Dafoe as Masters, fresh from Walter Hill’s 1984 outing Streets of Fire. His icy expressions and demeanor can change on a moment’s notice without warning. Darlanne Fluegel, who heartbreakingly left us far too soon following an early onset of Alzheimer’s Disease, is mysterious as Chance’s muse. I first saw her in Battle Beyond the Stars (1980). Debra Feuer is striking as Masters’ girlfriend and confidante. The late Dean Stockwell is great as Masters’ lawyer - you can almost see him prepping himself for the role of Ben in David Lynch’s aforementioned and masterful Blue Velvet the following year. Steve James is an actor I always liked ever since I first saw him in the “Night Vigil” episode of T.J. Hooker in 1984. He started in the industry as a stunt man in films as diverse as The Wiz (1978), The Wanderers (1979), The Warriors (1979), Dressed to Kill (1980), and He Knows You’re Alone (1980) prior to onscreen acting. Here he plays Jeff, one of Masters’ clients and his performance, though small, shines. He also appeared in the William Friedkin TV-movie C.A.T. Squad in 1986, which was also written by Mr. Petievich. His premature death in 1993 from what is rumored to be the medical treatment that he received after a cancer diagnosis is a tremendous loss to the entertainment industry.

To Live and Die in L.A. has been released on home video many times in the United States and is now available on 4K UHD Blu-ray courtesy of Kino Lorber. The extras, which are ported over from the 2016 SHOUT! Factory Special Edition Blu-ray and the 2003 MGM/UA Home Video DVD, are all included and are as follows:

Disc One:

- 4K UHD Blu-ray remastered from the original camera negative.

- Audio Commentary by Director William Friedkin from 2003 – this runs the full length of the film and is the only bonus to be included on both the 4K UHD disc and the standard 1080p Blu-ray.

Disc Two:

- Standard 1080p Blu-ray down-converted from a 4K remastering from the original camera negative.

- Audio Commentary by Director William Friedkin from 2003.

- Taking a Chance: Interview with Actor William Petersen (20:42, in high definition, from 2016) – Gary Sinise read for the role of Richard Chance with the casting director, but the role instead went to William Petersen after he read for it at William Friedkin’s New York City apartment. A second reading with actor friend John Pankow solidified their roles.

- Renaissance Woman in L.A. Interview with Actress Debra Feuer (14:56, in high definition, from 2016) – Ms. Feuer reminisces about how wonderful the experience was for her. Despite the sexual angle of the film which made her uncomfortable, the cast and crew made her receptive and accepted on the set. Her role is small but important and I would love to see her in more films.

- Doctor for a Day: Interview with Actor Dwier Brown (08:53, in high definition, from 2016) – Dwier Brown talks about his excitement over reading for the film. He would later go on to appear as Phil Sterling in Mr. Friedkin’s 1989 druid-horror film The Guardian, and humorously recalls how the director forgot that he was in To Live and Die in L.A.

- So in Phase - Scoring To Live and Die in L.A. Interview with Composers Wang Chung (12:44, in high definition, from 2016) – It’s amazing that Mr. Friedkin heard Wang Chung’s 1984 album Points on the Curve, in particular the song “Wait,” and explained that that was the vibe that he wanted from the album for the film score. While there is a soundtrack album available for this film, it’s incomplete, and I hope that one day a full soundtrack album, remastered from the original master tracks, will be issued. Wang Chung recalls some interesting anecdotes in this onscreen interview.

- Wrong Way - The Stunts of To Live and Die in L.A. Interview with Stunt Coordinator Buddy Joe Hooker (35:39, in high definition, from 2016) – The famous stunt man discusses the intricacies and challenges of filming one of the most dangerous car chases ever mounted for a film. The director was all about disorienting the audience, and that notion comes into play here in how the chase was staged and ultimately executed.

- Counterfeit World - The Making of To Live and Die in L.A. Documentary (29:52, in standard definition, from 2003) – This is a fun look behind the scenes with mini interviews from many of the cast and crew involved, with discussions regarding the characterizations as portrayed by the actors and actresses to filming the famed car chase.

- Deleted Scene and Alternate Ending with Introductions (13:07) – this is the ridiculous ending that the director shot to please the studio executives and thankfully was never used. You won’t believe it when you see it.

- Radio Spot (01:04)

- Trailer (2:08)

All in all, a great package of a great movie.

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RETRO-ACTIVE: FROM THE CINEMA RETRO ARCHIVES

By Lee Pfeiffer

Although I have a weak spot for Italian westerns of the 1960s and 1970s, most can be appropriately evaluated by paraphrasing Longfellow: "When they were good, they were very, very good, and when they were bad, they were horrid." "Blindman" is a curiosity from 1971 that I previously panned after viewing an allegedly "remastered" DVD edition that looked barely better than a VHS transfer.  The film fits rather comfortably into the latter part of Longfellow's famous nursery rhyme. Although the movie has a devoted fan base, when I first reviewed it I call it "a pretty horrid experience and inexcusably amateurish in execution, given the well-seasoned people involved". The good news is that Abkco Films has released a truly remastered DVD version that considerably improves one's perception of the film. As the title implies, it's about...well, a blind man. He's played by Tony Anthony, who did rather well for himself as a sort of Clint Eastwood Lite character known as The Stranger in a series of Euro Westerns (Any similarity to Eastwood's Man With No Name must have been purely coincidental). Anthony went on to star in any number of lucrative, low-budget action films, the most notable being "Comin' At Ya!, a 3-D flick that has also built a loyal cult following.  His co-star in "Blindman" is Ringo Starr. More about him later. The film was based on a Japanese movie titled "Zatoichi" about a blind samurai hero. As with "The Magnificent Seven", which was based on Kurasawa's "Seven Samurai", the story has been transplanted to the American west. When we first see the Blindman (whose name is never mentioned), he rides into a one-horse town and confronts his former partners. Seems they had a lucrative contract to deliver 50 mail order brides to some horny miners. However, a better offer was made from a Mexican bandito named Domingo (Lloyd Battista), who has exported them South 'O the Border to force them into prostitution. Blindman apparently has a sense of honor in terms of fulfilling the original contract. He manages to kill his former partners and sets off to Mexico to rescue the women, presumably so they can sold into another form of prostitution. At first the premise of this film intrigued me. How, after all, can you logically present a story about a blind gunslinger? The answer is you apparently can't. You could get away with it if the film was a satire, but there is surprisingly little overt humor in "Blindman". Yes, in true Eastwood fashion, the hero sometimes makes some snarky quips before, during and after dispatching his adversaries, but for the most part, the film takes itself far too seriously. 

How does the Blindman find his way around? Well, he has his own "wonder horse" who seems more like a companion than a beast of burden. The hoofed hero is always at his disposal and seems to be able to do everything but read a map for him. Speaking of maps, Blindman gets to various destinations by running his finger over maps that engraved in leather...sort of a braille system. Given the fact that he has to navigate the state of Texas, then Mexico, one would think he would require maps the size of rolls of kitchen linoleum, but somehow he gets by with navigational tools that fit neatly into his pocket.  When Blindman arrives in Mexico, he has numerous confrontations with the brutal Domingo and his army of thugs. He suffers the ritualistic beatings of any hero in the Italian western genre, but always manages to get the better hand by his deadly use of the rifle that he uses as a walking stick. Somehow the Blindman can use instinct and an uncanny hearing ability to gun down his would-be assassins with uncanny precision, though occasionally he does impose on some allies for advice. He also confronts Candy (Ringo Starr), Domingo's equally sadistic brother, who is keeping a captive woman as his mistress. What follows is a seemingly endless series of  chases, confrontations and the obligatory imitation Morricone score, all of it under the pedestrian direction of Ferdinando Baldi, who has a revered reputation with some fans of the genre and does manage to set off some impressive explosions. (Amusingly, the concept of showing the "50" mail order brides must have taxed the limited budget so we only get to see them in small clusters.). There are a couple of sequences that stand out in terms of creativity. One involves the surprise slaughter of a barroom filled with Mexican soldiers. The other has a bit of suspense as the Blindman is served a food bowl that he doesn't realize contains a deadly snake. The finale of the film finds Blindman wrestling with Domingo, who has been blinded by a cigar! (Don't ask...) It's supposed to be a tense confrontation, but the sight of the two blind guys rolling around in the dirt looks like an outtake from a Monty Python sketch.  The most intriguing aspect of the film is what led Ringo Starr into appearing in it. He had considerable on-screen charisma that he parlayed into a successful acting career. Here, however, his role is colorless and bland. He doesn't even play the main villain, but rather a supporting character who disappears from the story before the movie even reaches the one-hour mark. Starr supposedly was looking to jump-start his film career and worked with Tony Anthony to develop this production. While he acquits himself credibly, he might have at least given his character some memorable lines or characteristics. 

The previously reviewed version of the film pointed out that the packaging had indicated the film had a running time of 105 minutes, which matches with the original timing cited on on the IMDB site. However, the screener we reviewed ran only 83 minutes and it looked like it had been edited with a meat cleaver. The ABCKO version is the actual 105 minute cut and the transfer is excellent, a vast improvement over the muddy mess we had previously reviewed. Seeing "Blindman" again under these conditions has allowed me to reevaluate my opinion of the film. While it certainly never rises to the standards of a Sergio Leone production, the movie's quirky premise and the amusing performance by Tony Anthony made the experience far more enjoyable the second time around. 

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By Ernie Magnotta

Action film icon Charles Bronson did it all. He made westerns (The Magnificent Seven, Once Upon a Time in the West), war films (The Great Escape, The Dirty Dozen), lone cop movies (The Stone Killer, 10 to Midnight) and vigilante films (Death Wish series). Just to name a few. Between 1968 and 1972, after mostly being a supporting actor in Hollywood movies and before become a Hollywood leading man due to films like Mr. Majestyk and Death Wish (both 1974), Bronson did a lot of great work in Europe and starred in many different roles; cop (Rider on the Rain aka Le passager de la pluie), thief (Farewell Friend aka Adieu l'ami), gangster (The Valachi Papers), etc. In 1970, he played a hitman (two years before playing a similar role in Michael Winner’s fantastic The Mechanic) in the underrated Italian-French co-production Violent City.

While vacationing with his lover Vanessa (Jill Ireland, Love and Bullets), professional hitman Jeff Heston (Bronson) is shot and left for dead. Heston survives, however, and tracks the killer down. After murdering him, Jeff decides to retire and live happily with Vanessa. But before the couple can leave town, Heston is asked by crime boss, Al Weber (Telly Savalas), to come work for him. Heston refuses, but Weber produces evidence of Heston’s previous murder. Jeff must now figure out a way to obtain the evidence from the dangerous crime boss and escape unharmed with the lovely Vanessa. However, Jeff is unaware that there are much more sinister forces conspiring against him.

Very well-directed by Sergio Sollima (The Big Gundown aka La resa dei conti, Revolver) from a thoroughly enjoyable script co-written by Lina Wertmüller (Seven Beauties), Violent City (aka Città violenta), is a well-done, entertaining piece of action cinema as well as one of the first examples of the subgenre called Poliziotteschi (Italian crime and action films of the 1960s and 70s which featured car chases, corruption, graphic violence, etc. as well as lone heroes who stood up to the system). Sergio Sollima does a wonderful job directing intricate, entertaining action sequences; most notably a Bullitt-like car chase Sollima swears was ripped off from one of his previous films and not from the 1968 Peter Yates/Steve McQueen action classic.

The adrenaline-charged script not only gives us plenty of action, but also a number of unexpected twist and turns; especially the ending. The well-written characters are made convincing by the estimable talents of Bronson, Savalas and Ireland. Through another terrific, mostly low-key performance, steely-eyed Bronson shows us that not only can he take care of business, but that his character possesses a softer side when necessary. Telly Savalas infuses his vicious character with quite a bit of humor, and the beautiful Jill Ireland gives several dimensions to Vanessa.

Violent City features even more great acting talent such as Michael Constantin (Cold Sweat, 1978’s The Inglorious Bastards), Umberto Orsini (The Damned), and Telly’s brother, George Savalas (The Slender Thread, Kelly’s Heroes).

Last, but not least, the engaging film, which was shot in the United States and distributed (in Italy) by Universal Pictures, benefits from a great musical score by the immortal Ennio Morricone (The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, Once Upon a Time in America).

Although it’s not one of Bronson’s more well-known titles, that shouldn’t stop you. I enjoyed Violent City very much. It’s an entertaining action-thriller with a solid cast and an interesting story. I highly recommend checking it out.

Violent City has been released on a Region 1 Blu-ray from the always reliable folks at Kino Lorber. The wonderful-looking transfer is presented in the film’s original 2.35:1 aspect ratio and the disc also contains a highly informative audio commentary by Paul Talbot, author of the “Bronson’s Loose!” books; a terrific interview with director Sergio Sollima and the original theatrical trailer. We are also treated to a second disc which features Città violenta, the Italian print of the film as well as the 1973 U.S. cut known as The Family. Lastly, both discs feature exciting trailers to many different Bronson films.

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By Lee Pfeiffer

It's easy to look back on the Blaxploitation film craze of the 1970s as a short-lived period that spawned some cinematic guilty pleasures. However, time has been kind to the genre and if retro movie buffs view some of the films that emerged during this era they will undoubtedly find more artistry at work than was originally realized. Case in point: "Truck Turner", a 1974 action flick released at the height of the Blaxploitation phenomenon. I had never seen the film prior to its release on the new Blu-ray special edition from Kino Lorber Studio Classics. It's a violent, brutal film filled with ugly characters and "heroes" who deserve that moniker only because they aren't quite as abhorrent as the cutthroat antagonists they face. Yet, there is something special about "Truck Turner". Amid the carnage and frequent, extended action sequences, there is real talent at work here. Most of it belongs to Jonathan Kaplan, the director who had recently emerged as yet another promising protege of Roger Corman. In fact, Kaplan had just recently completed filming another Blaxploitation film, "The Slams" with Jim Brown, before being drafted into "Truck Turner". The idea of a white, Jewish guy directing a Blaxploitation film may seem weird today but at the time, most of the creative forces behind these movies were white guys, an indication of just how few opportunities existed in Hollywood for black filmmakers in the 1970s. The movies were also largely financed by white studio executives who benefited the most financially. Yet, it cannot be denied that the genre went a long way in opening doors for a lot of talented black actors and musicians, who often provided the scores for the films. Until the release of "Shaft" in 1971 (which was directed by a black filmmaker, Gordon Parks), most of the action roles for black characters seemed to be hanging on the durable shoulders of Sidney Poitier, Jim Brown, Harry Belafonte and the great character actor Woody Strode. Suddenly, there were a great number of opportunities for black actors and actresses to display their talents on screen. The vehicles in which they toiled were often low-budget potboilers, but it did increase their visibility and name recognition. More importantly, black action characters became commonplace henceforth. 

"Truck Turner" has emerged as a genuine cult movie in the decades since its initial release. The movie's oddball appeal begins with the casting of the titular character, who is played by legendary soul musician Isaac Hayes in his screen debut. While Laurence Olivier probably never lost sleep over Hayes's decision to enter the movie business, his casting was a stroke of genius on the part of the executives at American International Pictures, which specialized in exploitation films for the grindhouse and drive-in audiences. Hayes had recently won the Academy Award for his funky "Theme From 'Shaft'" and had an imposing and super-cool physical presence. He also  proved to be a natural in front of the camera. His emotional range was limited but he exuded an arrogance and self-confidence that the role required. Turner is a skip tracer/bounty hunter employed by a bail bond agency in the slum area of Los Angeles. A stunning opening shot finds literally dozens of such agency dotting the urban landscape- an indication of how out of control crime was in the city during this period. Turner and his partner Jerry (Alan Weeks) agree to take on an assignment to track down a local notorious pimp and crime kingpin named 'Gator' Johnson (Paul Harris), who has skipped bail, thus leaving the agency's owner Nate Dinwiddle (Sam Laws) on the hook for the money. Turner and Jerry pursue 'Gator' in one of those requisite high octane car chases that were seemingly mandatory in 70s action movies. This one is quite spectacular and features some dazzling stunt driving. 'Gator' is ultimately killed by Turner and this leads to the main plot, which concerns his lover, Dorinda (Nichelle Nichols). She was 'Gator's  partner in a lucrative prostitution business. The two pimped out beautiful young women who they keep as virtual prisoners on a large estate. Dorinda is the Captain Bligh of madams, routinely abusing her stable of girls and demeaning them at every opportunity. She is enraged by Turner's slaying of 'Gator' and offers a bounty for his murder: half of her stake in the prostitution ring. The offer draws more than a few professional assassins to her doorstep, all of whom promise they can kill Turner. However, the only one who seems to have the ability to do so is Harvard Blue (Yaphet Kotto), a soft-spoken but vicious crime boss who would like nothing more than to make easy money from a major pimping operation. With a small army of assassins, he sets out to make good on his promise to kill Turner. 

Like most action movies of this genre, the plot points are predictable. As with Charles Bronson's character in the "Death Wish" films, virtually every person who befriends Turner comes to great misfortune. This kind of predictable emotional manipulation is par for the course when you're watching 70s crime films and doesn't overshadow the fact that there is a great deal of style evident in "Truck Turner". The dialogue is saucy and witty. For example, Dorinda describes one of her "girls" as "Kentucky Fried Chicken" because "she's finger-lickin' good!" and another as "Turnpike" because "you have to pay to get on and pay to get off." If you think that's politically incorrect, consider that every other line of dialogue has somebody calling somebody else a nigger. Then there's the character of Truck Turner, who - like his fellow  cinematic tough ass crime fighters of the era ranging from Dirty Harry to 'Popeye' Doyle to John Wayne's McQ- seems oblivious to the fact that he is endangering an abundance of innocent people in his obsession to get the bad guys. Turner engages in carjacking and threatens the lives of people who he feels aren't cooperating fast enough. He also has a sensitive side, though, as we see in his scenes with the love of his life, Annie (Annazette Chase). She's recently completed a jail term and only wants to settle down with Turner to live a quiet, normal lifestyle. Good luck. When the contract is put out on Turner, she becomes a potential victim and is terrorized by Harvard Blue and his gang. The film concludes with some terrific action sequences, the best of which has Hayes and Kotto going mano-a-mano inside the corridors of a hospital. They chase and spray bullets at each other amid terrified patients in wheelchairs and on gurneys and in one scene, carry the shoot out into an operating room with doctors in the midst of  working on a patient! The finale, which centers on Kotto's last scene in the movie, is shot with such style that it almost approaches being  (dare I use the term?) poetic. The supporting cast is first rate with Alan Weeks scoring strongly as Robin to Turner's Batman. Annazette Chase is excellent as the ever-patient object of Turner's desire and, of course, Kotto is terrific, as usual, managing to steal scenes in his own unique, low-key way. The most enjoyable performance comes from Nichelle Nichols, who is 180 degrees from her "Star Trek" role. As the ultimate villainess, she seems to be having a blast insulting and threatening everyone in her line of vision. Her final confrontation with Turner makes for a memorable screen moment, to say the least.  

The Kino Lorber Blu-ray is up to the company's usual high standards in all respects. Old Truck never looked better on screen and there are some welcome bonus materials. Director Kaplan provides a witty and highly informative audio commentary, relating how American International was more interested in the soundtrack album they would be able to market than the film itself. (Hayes provides the impressive score for the film, including some "Shaft"-like themes.). He also said that he was originally drawn to the project because he was told the film would star either Lee Marvin, Ernest Borgnine or Robert Mitchum! Nevertheless, he speaks with great affection for Hayes and his colleagues and points out various character actors his used in the film including the ubiquitous Dick Miller, James Millhollin, Scatman Crothers and even Matthew Beard, who played "Stymie" in the Our Gang comedies.  Another welcome bonus is director Joe Dante,obviously an admirer of the film, in discussion at a 2008 screening of "Truck Turner" at the New Beverly Cinema in L.A. He's joined by director Kaplan and stuntman Bob Minor. The reaction of the audience indicates this film enjoys a loyal following. There is also a segment from Dante's popular "Trailers From Hell" web site that features director Ernest Dickerson introducing and narrating the original trailer for the film. The trailer is also included in the Blu-ray, as well as a double feature radio spot ad for "Truck Turner" and Pam Grier as "Foxy Brown". In all, an irresistible release for all retro movie lovers. 

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By Fred Blosser

Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan first appeared in the October 1912 issue of the pulp fiction magazine “All-Story.”  This inaugural novel, “Tarzan of the Apes,” introduced the character as a British peer, Lord Greystoke, who was reared by great apes in Africa as an orphaned infant, and then assimilated into European society in adulthood as a sophisticated adventurer and conservationist.  Burroughs was ingenious in working out the details of the premise (for example, how Tarzan taught himself to read and write), which bordered on science-fiction even by the standards of 1912.   

The story was immediately popular, and a hardcover edition followed in 1914.  It’s important to term the character “Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan,” as he was typically labelled in media credits, because the author shrewdly trademarked the name.  That way, he could control all uses of his creation, reap the profits, and legally stop any attempts by others to hijack it.  As Burroughs realized, the birth of the motion picture industry and the growth of newspaper syndication in the early 1900s offered access to unlimited audiences.  Many middle-class people in small towns might never buy a magazine or a book, but they were sure to be movie-goers and newspaper readers.  Securing Tarzan as his Intellectual Property allowed Burroughs to exploit those opportunities and ensure they didn’t fall into the hands of others.  He incorporated himself as Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc., and wrote twenty-two more Tarzan novels over the next thirty-five years, along with many other science-fiction and adventure series.  Burroughs—and then after his death in 1950, his heirs—licensed Tarzan to numerous other media platforms, including movies, radio, a newspaper comic strip, comic books, toys, and television.  If podcasts, Twitter, YouTube, virtual reality, video games, and streaming video had existed back then, we can be certain he would have utilised them too.  Today, when we think of creators who wisely kept a tight commercial grip on their creations, Walt Disney and George Lucas are likely to come to mind, but Burroughs led the way. 

Over the years, movies’ portrayals of Tarzan have varied from the wily, masculine, powerful, articulate, principled character of Burroughs’ original vision to a muscular but asexual simpleton with the verbal skills of a two-year-old.  The latter version was popularised for one generation by MGM’s Johnny Weissmuller movies in the 1940s, and reinforced for the next by years of reruns on television.  The Weissmuller films began promisingly with the violent, sexy “Tarzan the Ape Man” in 1932 and “Tarzan and His Mate” in 1934, but over time at MGM (and then at RKO, where the series moved in 1943), they became increasingly simplistic.  Under the fierce censorship of Hollywood’s Production Code, MGM tightened down on the semi-nudity and mayhem of the first two films, aiming instead for a juvenile demographic.  The studio reasoned that kids were an easier audience who would laugh at the antics of Tarzan’s chimpanzee and not wonder why Weissmuller’s Tarzan never had intimate relations with Jane.  

The last seven decades have seen a variety of Tarzans.  Some producers adhered to the Weissmuller model, beginning with five features from RKO starring Lex Barker, who inherited the role after Weissmuller retired his loincloth.  Others redesigned the concept to meet changing trends in society.  In the James Bond era of the 1960s, a character closer to the Burroughs prototype appeared in two features starring Jock Mahoney and three with Mike Henry.  This peer of the jungle realm was a suave, jet-setting trouble shooter.  The image of an articulate ape man carried over to a 1966-68 NBC-TV series with Ron Ely in the role.  Where Mahoney’s and Henry’s character travelled to India, Thailand, Mexico, and South America to solve jungle crises, Ely’s remained in Africa, in one episode coming to the aid of three nuns from America played by Diana Ross, Mary Wilson, and Cindy Birdsong, better known as the Supremes.  Even with those attempts to appeal to a more contemporary audience, popular interest waned.  In part, this was because the Weissmuller image was the one that stuck in the popular memory, lampooned by television comics.  What can you do with a hero once your audience laughs at him?  Even more to the point, enormous cultural changes around racial issues occurred with the advancements of the Civil Rights era.  Many critics now saw Tarzan as a worrisome symbol of white entitlement, despite the prominent casting of Black actors and a more nuanced portrayal of African tribal societies in the Ron Ely series. 

Nevertheless, with a brand name that older viewers still recognised at least, the character continued to appear sporadically.  If you gathered around the VCR with your family as a kid in the Reagan years, the Tarzan you may remember best was Christopher Lambert’s portrayal in 1984’s “Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes.”  “Greystoke” had the good fortune to appear as VCRs became standard fixtures in American television rooms; on home video, the movie enjoyed a long life as a VHS rental.  Adapted by Robert Towne from “Tarzan of the Apes” and directed by Hugh Hudson, the film was promoted as a return to Burroughs’ concept of a feral but innately intelligent man who attempts to blend back into polite society.  Some Burroughs fans, primed to embrace a virile Tarzan close to the commanding pulp-fiction character, were disappointed.  In trying to rectify the prevailing Weissmuller image from decades past, Towne and Hudson may have overbalanced in the opposite direction.  Burroughs’ Tarzan dominated whatever environment he chose to be in; Lambert’s was a sad figure, overwhelmed and lost,once he left the jungle.  Nevertheless, lavishly produced, the movie was popular with critics and general audiences.  There were Academy Award nominations for Towne’s screenplay and for Rick Baker’s costuming effects for Tarzan’s adopted ape family.  Another live action movie (“Tarzan and the Lost City,” 1998), two short-lived, syndicated TV series, and Disney’s animated “Tarzan” (1999) were released through the 1990s.  

The latest iteration as a live-action feature, “The Legend of Tarzan” (2016), drew tepid reviews and disappointing box-office.  Although the producers cast Samuel L. Jackson in a prominent role alongside Alexander Skarsgard’s Tarzan above the title, the strategy probably did little to attract younger, hipper, and more diverse ticket-buyers as it was intended to.  Jackson’s American envoy remained little more than a sidekick to Tarzan in an 1885 period setting.  If you hoped to see Jackson’s character shove Tarzan aside to get medieval on somebody’s ass, you were disappointed.  In contrast, Marvel Studios’ “Black Panther,” with a modern Black jungle hero, a largely Black supporting cast and production team, and James Bond-style action situations, emerged two years later with a whopping $1.3 billion in ticket sales and a place on many critics’ Top Ten lists.  The 2022 sequel, “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,” performed nearly as well with an $838.1 million return. On a $50 million budget, another 2022 Hollywood production with a prestigious Black cast and exotic action in the Burroughs style, “The Woman King,” nearly doubled its investment with $94.3 million in revenue.

In late 2022, Sony Pictures acquired the latest screen rights to Tarzan and promised a “total reinvention” of the character. What the studio has in mind, and whether it will actually follow through, appears to be up in the air right now. Would anybody be surprised to see Tarzan “reinvented” as a role for a Black actor the next time out, if there is a next time?  Popular culture is already there. Vintage movies (“A League of Their Own”) and TV series (“SWAT”) once cast primarily with white actors are remade now, routinely, with Black stars or all-Black casts. On the hit Netflix series “Bridgerton,” actors of color portray British aristocrats in Jane Austen’s Regency-era England, in reality one of the whitest of white societies ever.   

As we wait to see what the next Tarzan, if any, will look like, The Film Detective has released “The Tarzan Vault Collection,” a three-disc Blu-ray set that includes the first Tarzan movie, “Tarzan of the Apes” (1918); “Adventures of Tarzan” (1921), a re-edited feature version of a 10-chapter serial; and “The New Adventures of Tarzan” (1935), a 12-chapter serial presented in its entirety.  The first two pictures starred Elmo Lincoln, a stocky actor who had appeared in several of D.W. Griffith’s milestone silent films, including the ambitious “Intolerance” (1916) as a Biblical strongman, “the Mighty Man of Valor.”  Although it’s said Burroughs wasn’t particularly fond of Lincoln’s casting after another actor was chosen but had to bow out, the films were relatively faithful to the source novels.   Outdoor filming locations in Louisiana for “Tarzan of the Apes” stand in acceptably for equatorial Africa, at least to the satisfaction of moviegoers in 1918 who had no idea what Africa really looked like, and certainly better than the studio backlots used in the Weissmuller films.  Actors in shaggy anthropoid costumes portrayed Tarzan’s ape friends.  Although primitive in comparison with the modern CGI in “The Legend of Tarzan,” the makeup effects aren’t bad for that early era of cinema. 

“Adventures of Tarzan,” based on Burroughs’ “The Return of Tarzan” (1913), finds Tarzan in pursuit of a villain named Rokoff, who has kidnapped Jane in a plot to find the treasure vaults of the lost city of Opar (an idea later reiterated in “The Legend of Tarzan”).  In “The Return of Tarzan” and subsequent novels, Tarzan blithely removes gold and jewels from Burroughs’ imaginary Opar to help support his African estate, reasoning that otherwise the treasure would just lie there.  In the books, the underground vaults are vast, cavernous, and sinister.  In the movie, where the 1921 budget was too low to keep up with Burroughs’ staggering imagination, they look more like somebody’s root cellar.  Good try anyway.  As an hour-long feature truncated from a much longer serial version, “Adventures of Tarzan” is a succession of chases, rescues, and fights from the final chapters of the serial.  A title card at the beginning brings the viewer up to speed on the action already in progress, much as the “Star Wars” movies do now.   

It may be confusing to watch an old serial after most of its continuity has been removed, but the third movie in the Film Detective set, “The New Adventures of Tarzan,” represents the other side of the coin as a serial presented in its original, multi-chapter format.  The serials were designed to be taken one chapter at a time each week.  That remains the best way to experience one.  Otherwise, watched in a binge, repetition becomes a problem.  It’s difficult to work up much concern when Tarzan falls into a crocodile-infested river in Chapter Seven, if, an hour earlier, he’d already escaped the same danger in Chapter Three.  Still, taken piecemeal or in one long sitting, fans will be happy for the chance to see this original version of “The New Adventures of Tarzan,” which is better known in its truncated feature version, “Tarzan and the Green Goddess,” a one-time television staple.  Co-produced by Burroughs, it introduced Herman Brix, a 1928 Olympics finalist, as the title hero.  Trimly muscular, Brix was offered as an alternative to Johnny Weissmuller’s monosyllabic Tarzan; his version, endorsed by Burroughs, spoke in whole, commanding sentences and looked equally comfortable in a loincloth or a dinner jacket.  The serial was set and filmed on location in Guatemala, where Tarzan and his friends race against the bad guys to find a Mayan statue with a valuable secret.  Fans often rank Brix with Jock Mahoney and Mike Henry as their favourite Tarzan.  He later changed his screen name to Bruce Bennett for a long career in Westerns and crime dramas.  Humphrey Bogart fans will remember him as Cody, the drifter who tries to steal Fred C. Dobbs’ gold mine claim in “The Treasure of Sierra Madre.”  

The back story of the serial is more intriguing than the plot about the Mayan statue.  Burroughs fell in love with the wife of his co-producer, Ashton Dearholt, eventually marrying her after she divorced Dearholt and Burroughs divorced his first wife.  In turn, Dearholt had carried on an extramarital affair with Ula Holt, the lead actress in the serial, and they married after Dearholt’s divorce.  It’s the kind of Hollywood story that TMZ.com would love today. 

BY LEE PFEIFFER

The year 1967 marked the high point of Sidney Poitier's screen career. He starred in three highly acclaimed box office hits: "To Sir, With Love", "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" and "In the Heat of the Night".  The fact that Poitier did not score a Best Actor Oscar nomination that year had less to do with societal prejudices (he had already won an Oscar) than the fact that he was competing with himself and split the voter's choices for his best performance. "In the Heat of the Night" did win the Best Picture Oscar and immortalized Poitier's performance as Virgil Tibbs, a Philadelphia detective who finds himself assigned to assist a redneck sheriff (Rod Steiger, who did win the Oscar that year for his performance in this film) in a town in the deep south that has experienced a grisly unsolved murder. When Steiger's character, resentful for having to work with a black man, refers to Tibbs as "boy" and asks what they call him back in Philadelphia, he replies "They call me Mister Tibbs!", thereby uttering what would become one of the cinema's most iconic lines of dialogue. In the film, Poitier plays Tibbs as a man of mystery. Little is unveiled about his personal life, which adds immeasurably to his mystique. He proves to be highly intelligent, logical and courageous, though refreshingly, not immune from making mistakes and misjudgments. The reaction to the movie was so good that, Hollywood being Hollywood, United Artists became convinced that Tibbs could be brought back to star in a "tentpole" series of crime thrillers. These have previously been released as individual Blu-ray titles by Kino Lorber and they are now available as a double feature set.

First up is the 1970 release, "The Call me MISTER Tibbs!" Aside from Poitier's commanding presence as the same character, there is virtually no connection between this Virgil Tibbs and the one seen in the previous film. The screenplay by Alan Trustman, who wrote the winners "The Thomas Crown Affair" and "Bullitt", softens the Tibbs character to the point that he resembles one of those unthreatening TV gumshoes. When we first see him, he is now in the San Francisco Police Department, though Trustman doesn't provide even a single line of dialogue to explain how he got there. He's apparently been there for some time, too, because Tibbs has suddenly acquired a wife (Barbara McNair) and a young son and daughter. The movie opens with the brutal murder of a call girl who lived in a pricey apartment. Evidence points to Tibbs' old friend Logan Sharpe (Martin Landau), a firebrand street preacher and activist who enjoys a wide following and who is galvanizing the community to vote in a politically controversial referendum. Sharpe professes his innocence and Tibbs sets out to acquit him and find the real killer. The trail quickly leads to a confusing mix of motley characters and red herrings, among them Anthony Zerbe and Ed Asner. Poitier is never less than impressive even when playing a watered-down version of a once gritty character. However, his impact is diminished by the sappy screenplay which allocates an abundance of time showing Tibbs dealing with day-to-day family living. He flirts with his wife and offers life lessons to his son that border on the extremes of political incorrectness. When he catches the lad smoking, Tibbs decides to teach the pre-teen a lesson by inviting him to join him in smoking Churchill cigars and drinking some scotch. (Most of our dads would probably have employed methods that were slightly more "conventional".) This domestic gibberish reduces the character of Tibbs to a big screen version of Brian Keith's Uncle Bill from the "Family Affair" TV series. Director Gordon Douglas, normally very underrated, handles the pedantic script in a pedantic manner, tossing in a few impressive action scenes including one in which Poitier chases Zerbe on foot seemingly through half of San Francisco in the movie's best sequence. The scenes between Poitier and Landau bristle with fine acting but they only share a limited amount of screen time. Quincy Jones provides a lively, funky jazz score but the film never rises above the level of mediocrity.

Poitier returned to the screen for the last time as Virgil Tibbs in 1971 in "The Organization". Compared to the previous outing, this one is superior on most levels. The script by James R. Webb is just as confusing but there is a grittiness to the production and the character of Tibbs is toughened up a bit. Thankfully, the scenes of his home life with wife and kids are kept to a minimum. The film, well directed by Don Medford (his final production), begins with an inspired caper in which a group of masked men stage an audacious and elaborate infiltration of an office building owned by some shady mob characters. They abscond with millions in cocaine. Tibbs is assigned to the case and is shocked when the culprits secretly approach him and admit they stole the drugs. Turns out they are community activists who wanted to prevent the cocaine from hitting the streets. However, they want Tibbs to know that they did not commit a murder that occurred on the premises of the office. They claim someone else did the dirty deed and is trying to pin it on them. Tibbs believes their story and goes against department protocols by keeping the information secret from his superiors while he works with the activists to crack the case. At some point the plot became so tangled that I gave up trying to figure out who was who and just sat back to enjoy the mayhem. Tibbs' withholding of information from the police department backfires on him and he ends up being suspended from the force. Predictably, he goes rogue in order to take on organized crime figures who are trying to get the drugs back. "The Organization" is fairly good Seventies cop fare capped off by a lengthy action sequence imaginatively set in a subway tunnel that is under construction. The supporting cast is impressive and includes reliable Sheree North, scruffy Allen Garfield and up-and-comers Raul Julia, Ron O'Neal and a very brief appearances by Max Gail and Damon Wilson. Barbara McNair returns as Mrs. Tibbs but her sole function is to provide attractive window dressing. Gil Melle provides a hip jazz score.

Both films boast fine transfers but the only bonus features are the original trailers.

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BY LEE PFEIFFER

The first African-American to direct a major film for a majorHollywood studio was Gordon Parks, whose feature film debut "The Learning Tree" was released in 1969. Parks may have shattered the glass ceiling but there wasn't a tidal wave of opportunities that immediately opened for other minority filmmakers, in part because there were so few with any formal training in the art. One beneficiary of Parks' achievement was Ossie Davis, who was internationally respected as a well-rounded artist. He was a triple threat: actor, director and writer but his directing skills had been relegated to the stage. In 1970 Davis co-wrote the screenplay for and directed "Cotton Comes to Harlem", a major production for United Artists. The film was based on a novel by African-American writer Chester Himes and proved to be pivotal in ushering in what became known as the Blaxploitation genre. In reality, it's debatable whether "Cotton" really is a Blaxploitation film. While most of the major roles are played by black actors, the term "Blaxploitation" has largely come to symbolize the kinds of goofy, low-budget films that are fondly remembered as guilty pleasures. However, "Cotton"- like Gordon Parks's "Shaft" films that would follow-  boasts first class production values and top talent both in front of and behind the cameras. Regardless, the movie had sufficient impact at the boxoffice to inspire a seemingly endless barrage of Black-oriented American films that were all the rage from the early to mid-1970s. The Blaxploitation fever burned briefly but shone brightly and opened many doors for minority actors. 

The film was shot when New York City was in the midst of a precipitous decline in terms of quality of life. Crime was soaring, the infrastructure was aging and the city itself would be on the verge of bankruptcy a few years later. Harlem was among the hardest hit areas in terms of the economy. The once dazzling jewel of a neighborhood had boasted popular nightclubs, theaters and restaurants that attracted affluent white patrons. By the mid-to-late 1960s, however, that had changed radically. Street crimes, organized gangs and the drug culture spread rapidly, making Harlem a very dangerous place to be. It was foreboding enough if you were black but it was considered a "Forbidden Zone" for most white people, who spent their money elsewhere, thus exacerbating the decline of the neighborhoods. "Cotton Comes to Harlem" serves as an interesting time capsule of what life was like in the area, having been shot during this period of decline. Director Davis was considered royalty in Harlem. Despite his success in show business, he and his equally acclaimed wife, actress Ruby Dee, never "went Hollywood". They stayed in the community and worked hard to improve the environment. Thus, Davis was perfectly suited to capture the action on the streets in a manner that played authentically on screen. Similarly, he had a real feel for the local population. As with any major urban area, Harlem undoubtedly had its share of amusing eccentrics and Davis populates the movie with plenty of such characters. 

The film opens with a major rally held by Rev. Deke O'Malley (Calvin Lockhart), a local guy who made good and who is idolized by the population of Harlem. O'Malley is a smooth-talking, charismatic con man in the mode of the notorious Reverend Ike who uses religion as a facade to rip off gullible followers. This time, O'Malley has launched a "Back to Africa" campaign for which he is soliciting funds. It's based on the absurd premise that he will be able to finance disgruntled Harlem residents back to the land of their ancestry. The hard-working, semi-impoverished locals end up donating $87,000 in cash but the rally is interrupted by a daring daytime robbery. An armored car filled with masked men armed with heavy weaponry descend upon the goings-on, loot the cash box and take off. They are pursued by two street-wise local cops, "Grave Digger" Jones (Godfrey Cambridge)  and his partner "Coffin" Ed Johnson (Raymond St. Jacques). Davis provides an exciting and colorful car chase through the streets of Harlem, as the cops fail to snag the robbers. They also discover that O'Malley has gone missing, leading them to believe that he orchestrated the heist himself so he could keep the proceeds raised at the rally. The plot becomes rather convoluted, as Jones and Johnson learn that a bale of cotton has arrived in Harlem and its somehow connected to the crime. They assume that the stolen money has been stashed in said cotton bale, which quickly changes hands among the most unsavory characters in the community. Getting in on the action is a white mob boss and his goons who are also trying to recover the cotton bale. The cotton itself is resented in Harlem because of its historical links to slavery and by the end of the film, the bale ends up in a stage show at the famed Apollo Theater where it is used as a prop in a bizarre production that involves historical observations about the black experience intermingled with a striptease act! Through it all, Jones and Johnson doggedly chase any number of people through the streets, engage in shoot-outs and car chases and come in and out of contact with Rev. O'Malley, who professes his innocence about being involved in the robbery. The Rev isn't so innocent when it comes to other unscrupulous activities such as chronically cheating on his long-suffering girlfriend Iris (Judy Pace) and manipulating other women in a variety of ways. 

The most delightful aspect of the film is the showcasing of some very diverse talents of the era. Godfrey Cambridge (who made it big as a stand-up comic) and Raymond St. Jacques enjoy considerable on-screen chemistry even if the script deprives them of the kind of witty dialogue that would have enhanced their scenes together. They make wisecracks all the time and harass some less-than-savory characters but the screenplay never truly capitalizes on Cambridge's comedic potential. The film's most impressive performance comes from Calvin Lockhart, who perfectly captures the traits of phony, larger-than-life "preachers". He's all flashy good looks, gaudy outfits and narcissistic behavior. Lockhart seems to be having a ball playing this character and the screen ignites every time he appears. There are some nice turns by other good character actors including pre-"Sanford and Son" Redd Foxx, who figures in the film's amusing "sting-in-the-tail" ending, John Anderson as the exasperated white captain of a Harlem police station that is constantly on the verge of being besieged by local activists, Lou Jacobi as a junk dealer, Cleavon Little as a local eccentric, J.D. Canon as a mob hit man and Dick Sabol as a goofy white cop who suffers humiliation from virtually everyone (which is sort of a payback for the decades in which black characters were routinely used as comic foils).  The film has a surprisingly contemporary feel about it, save for a few garish fashions from the 1970s. It's also rather nostalgic to hear genuine soul music peppered through the soundtrack in this pre-rap era. Happily, life has not imitated art in the years since the film was released. Harlem has been undergoing the kind of Renaissance that would have seemed unimaginable in 1970. The old glory has come back strong and the center of the neighorhood, 125th Street, is vibrant and thriving once again. These societal perspectives make watching "Cotton Comes to Harlem" enjoyable on an entirely different level than simply an amusing crime comedy.

(The film is currently streaming on Amazon Prime.)

The Jurassic Era Ends with a Roar

By Mark Cerulli

Almost 30 years ago, Jurassic Park thundered into theaters, forever changing the cinematic landscape. Steven Spielberg’s iconic film was based on Michael Crichton’s best-selling novel that brilliantly channeled people’s endless fascination with dinosaurs. It was beyond a box office hit, grossing close to a billion dollars during its 1993 release. It also revolutionized visual effects, leaving old-school stop motion dinosaurs in its dust.

Jurassic World: Dominion ain’t your father’s Jurassic Park… This 6^th and “final” instalment in the JP franchise is a huge, loud, expansive spectacle that brings together the original cast (including dinosaurs) and the franchise’s 2^nd generation stars for one last scaly hurrah.

The film opens with a cable news clip that tells us that dinosaurs have escaped from the ruins of Isla Nublar and are now everywhere. Once that has been established, director Colin Trevorrow puts the cinematic pedal down and doesn’t let up for two hours and twenty-seven minutes. The somewhat muddied plot involves Biosyn, the shady corporate heir to John Hammond’s InGen, run by Lewis Dodgson (Campbell Scott), a Jeff Bezos type who is using dino DNA to “benefit mankind”. Uh huh. (If Dodgson’s name sounds familiar, it’s because he was the original bagman who handed Dennis Nedry the infamous can of shaving cream/bio-sample tubes in the original film.)

Luckily, Dr. Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern) is onto Biosyn, corralling her reluctant former colleague Dr. Alan Grant (Sam Neill) to visit their remote headquarters where the third member of the original Jurassic team, Dr. Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) is a visiting scholar in residence. The Biosyn retreat is also a world sanctuary for… dinosaurs. The OTHER parallel-running plot involves the genetically-engineered child (the wonderful Isabella Sermon) of an original Jurassic Park scientist who is in hiding with Owen Grady (Chris Pratt) and Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard). Her unique genetic makeup makes her a very valuable commodity and a target for kidnappers. The two Jurassic Park worlds - old and new - collide when she is kidnapped and Owen and Claire follow her trail from the Pacific Northwest to the alleyways of Malta and, the futuristic Biosyn complex itself. There are breathtaking man v. dinosaur chases that rival any James Bond or Jason Bourne pursuit. Jurassic World Dominion also drifts into Indiana Jones territory with a knock-down, drag-out fight in a seedy dinosaur smuggler’s market, complete with a dino fighting pit, of course!

Trevorrow, who ably helmed the previous two Jurassic Park movies, really hits his stride with this film – from a dino roundup on horseback in a vast prairie to stunning mountain photography in the Italian Alps and dino-mayhem in the dense forests of the Pacific Northwest. The film brings back old favorites like the T-Rex and the raptor “Blue”, and introduces new ones like the Quetzalcoatlus, a huge, feathered dinosaur and the Dreadnoughtus, which resembles a Brontosaurus on steroids – 27 dinosaur species in all. According to the production materials, each creature was grounded in reality under the strict supervision of a leading paleontologist. The film’s visual effects are rivalled only by its audio effects – every crash is bone-jarring and the various dino roars are teeth-rattling.

While Pratt and Howard are great performers and have developed a wonderful onscreen chemistry, it’s the return of the original cast members – Neill, Dern and Goldblum that really got the preview audience clapping. Even original JP scientist Henry Wu (BD Wong) is on hand to try to rectify his mistakes. They all step back into their roles as easily as you’d pull on a favorite shirt; and Goldblum’s Ian Malcolm patois is as wry and quirky as it was in 1993. Time has been kind to them all.

For this epic conclusion to the cinematic Jurassic era, Universal has pulled out all the stops and is seeing their cash cowasaurus off with a bang.

“EVER DONE ANY BOONDOGGLING?”

By Raymond Benson

Continuing the examination of Kino Lorber’s new Blu-ray releases of the W. C. Fields catalog of classic comedies, we now look at The Bank Dick, easily one of the actor/comedian’s greatest works.

Released in 1940 (titled The Bank Detective in the U.K.), Fields was starting to wind down, whether he knew it or not. Alcoholism was taking its toll, and it wouldn’t be long before his amazing run in cinema since the silent era would soon come to an end. He still had some surprises in his pockets, though, and The Bank Dick was one of them.

“Ever done in any boondoggling?” Fields, as Egbert Sousé, submits to another character in the film. In a way, he’s asking that of the audience, too. For The Bank Dick is nothing but a load of boondoggling, and funny stuff it is.

Sousé is the shame of his family. Most folks mispronounce his name, calling him what he is—a souse. His shrew of a wife, Agatha (Cora Witherspoon), his demon of a mother-in-law, Hermisillo (Jessie Ralph), his mortified daughter, Myrtle (Una Merkel), and youngest daughter, Elsie Mae (Evelyn Del Rio), all make poor Egbert’s life miserable. All he wants to do is spend time at the Black Pussy Cat Café, a saloon run by his pal Joe (Shemp Howard). (“Was I in here last night and did I spend a twenty dollar bill?” he asks Joe, who replies affirmatively. Egbert is relieved. “Oh boy, what a load that is off my mind! I thought I’d lost it!”) However, Egbert’s luck changes one day when the director of a film really gets soused and can’t work. The A.D. grabs Egbert and offers him the job to step in. Then, during a lunch break on the set, Egbert unwittingly foils a bank robbery. As a result of his “heroism,” he’s offered a job as a “bank dick.” It so happens that Myrtle’s boyfriend, Og Oggilby (Grady Sutton) works at the same bank. When auditor J. Pinkerton Snoopington (Franklin Pangborn) arrives to work the books, Og is afraid the man will discover financial juggling that he and his future father-in-law have committed. Hilarity ensues.

Written by Fields (as Mahatma Kane Jeeves—“my hat, my cane, Jeeves!”), the picture contains an abundance of the actor’s funniest lines and comebacks. He is also surrounded by numerous other wacky character actors, creating a theatre of the absurd that culminates in one of the craziest car chases put on film. Director Edward Cline was no slouch when it came to comedy—he had collaborated with Buster Keaton in the 1920s, as well as with Fields, most recently on the Fields/Mae West co-starrer, My Little Chickadee. Cline’s control of the action and the anything-can-happen antics of his star is impressive. It’s no wonder that Cline and Fields were a good team.

Kino Lorber’s new Blu-ray release looks appropriately grainy but with a sheen that previous DVD releases were without. The feature comes with an audio commentary by the knowledgeable film historian Michael Schlesinger, who always gives good gab. The theatrical trailer, along with other Kino Lorber titles, completes the presentation.

The Bank Dick is priceless comedy. It’s one of the two or three titles that belong in a time capsule sporting the identifying label: “This was W. C. Fields.” Highly recommended.

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BY TODD GARBARINI

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

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

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

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

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

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

Newly commissioned alternative artwork.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Cinema Retro has received the following press release regarding the opening of the "Bond in Motion" automotive exhibition, which will be opening on September 25 and running through October 22, 2022 at the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles:

Produced in collaboration with EON Productions and The Ian Fleming(TM) Foundation, Bond in Motion is the first official exhibition in the United States to feature original vehicles from one of the world’s most iconic film franchises, James Bond. This exhibit celebrates the 60th anniversary of the franchise since the release of Dr. No (1962).

With the publication of his first spy novel, Casino Royale (1953), author and former naval intelligence officer Ian Fleming introduced the world to the enchanting exploits of James Bond, a British officer in the Secret Intelligence Service, also known as MI6. In all, Fleming would produce twelve novels and two short stories, laying the foundation for what would become a global literary and cinematic legacy.

Beginning in 1962, with the movie adaptation of Fleming’s sixth title, Dr. No, the exciting and dangerous world of James Bond was translated to screen, setting the tone for Bond films to come. Much like the novels on which they are based, Bond films combine the adventure of exotic locations and scheming villains with the action of death-defying stunts, and heart-pounding chases in nearly every type of vehicle imaginable. Often modified by quartermaster “Q,” these vehicles, much like Bond himself, conceal their true nature until their weapons and gadgetry become important plot devices.

The Bond in Motion exhibit offers visitors a rare up-close experience of the most iconic vehicles associated with the world’s most famous secret agent, 007.

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BY TIM MCGLYNN

Mill Creek Entertainment has released a Blu-ray edition of Universal Pictures’ Safe House from 2012. This spy thriller features a first-rate cast including Denzel Washington, Ryan Reynolds, Vera Farmiga, Brendan Gleeson, Ruben Blades and Sam Shepard.

Directed by Sweden’s Daniel Espinoza, the story concerns the capture and escape of a former CIA operative who possesses damning evidence that his superiors are spilling secrets to anyone with a large bank account. The script is by David Guggenheim and may remind viewers of Matt Damon’s Bourne films.

Ryan Reynolds plays Matt Weston, a young CIA agent stuck on housekeeping duty at an empty safe house in Capetown, South Africa. He's restless and eager for a more important post in a less isolated location. The house doesn't see much action, nor does Weston apart from conjugal visits from his gorgeous girlfriend played by Nora Arnezeder. That is, until the CIA brings in Tobin Frost (Denzel Washington), a rogue agent wanted for selling state secrets to the highest bidder.

Right off the bat we learn that Frost is highly skilled at manipulating those around him as his captors are intimidated by his history with the agency. He is calm and recognizes that the agents escorting him to the safe house are following all the standard procedures. In one tense scene Frost is tortured by waterboarding as the agents need to know what information he has shared with the enemy.

It soon becomes apparent that Frost’s contacts on the other side are not too happy with him either as a squad of assassins arrives at the supposedly secure location. Weston and Frost manage to escape before the gunmen swarm the building. It's now Weston's responsibility to bring his charge back to the American embassy in one piece. Not an easy task for a rookie, considering Frost's attempts to ditch his captor and their pursuers' attempts to kill them before they reach safety.

The remainder of the film is one gigantic chase throughout Capetown as it revealed there is a mole within the agency feeding details to the other side. Car chases, gun battles and hand-to-hand fights abound as Weston begins to doubt Frost’s guilt. At one point, Frost tries to confuse his captor by saying “They’re going to put their arm around you and tell you things like ‘You did a decent job, son. We’ll take it from here.’ That’s when you know you’re screwed.” After hearing that line you know one of the bosses will actually say it.

The double agent within the CIA is soon revealed and a smashing fight scene along with a couple of surprising plot twists bring the story to a satisfying conclusion.

Denzel Washington demonstrates why he is a two-time Academy Award winner with his performance in this film. He’s cagey and understated in his portrayal of Frost and viewers are never quite sure if he’s a traitor or not. With this role and his appearances in the two Equalizer movies, Washington is fast becoming another action star in the manner of Keanu Reeves’ assassin in the John Wick adventures.

Ryan Reynolds takes a straight-laced approach as Weston, the bored safe house monitor suddenly thrust into the center of an international espionage incident. He relies on his training and instructions from his handler played by Brendan Gleeson. Weston begins to question his superiors as Frost gets inside his head sowing doubts.

Sam Shepard and Vera Farmiga are serviceable as CIA leaders back at Quantico Headquarters although there is not enough development to make them truly interesting characters. Ruben Blades has a small, but memorable role as a document forger that Frost contacts in an attempt to leave South Africa. Nora Arnezeder is criminally underutilized as Weston’s physician girlfriend. Her role requires her to be annoyed most of the time.

The thugs chasing Tobin are stereotypical Middle Eastern villains who are highly skilled at killing several hapless CIA agents. The script focuses on Frost and Weston and their mano y mano encounters as both adversaries and allies. This is the crux of the story and director Espinoza keeps it moving at a breakneck pace. The violence is bone crushing, but not overly bloody.

Editor Richard Pearson deserves much credit for keeping the action at a warp speed level throughout the entire film. Most of the time I find these quick cut thrillers annoying and hard to watch. Michael Bay’s frenetic movies come to mind when everything looks a trailer for a second rate action flick. Pearce keeps the pace without giving viewers a migraine, and he is helped by cinematographer Oliver Wood who doesn’t allow the individual cuts to go all shaky cam on us. Wood also uses tight framing to provide a feeling of desolation in many of the location shots even though the story is mostly set in a major city.

Composer Ramin Djawadi provides a wonderful score for the film that utilizes styles and instrumentation reflecting the film’s setting in South Africa. Music is sometimes not noticed in action and chase scenes until those brief moments when there are no sound effects from the cars and guns. There would be awkward breaks without the music to fill in the blanks.

Safe House is a terrific film for the stunts and shootout sequences which more than compensate for the lack of character development. You may not always know what is going on, but your interest is definitely captured by the cat and mouse game between the two main characters. The bigger the screen and the louder the sound, the more you will enjoy this movie.

The Blu-ray disc issued by Mill Creek Entertainment deserves kudos for the presentation of the film. The video quality is terrific with just enough of a gritty quality to put an edge on all scenes. The 5.1 sound mix is loud and heavy on the bass. Explosions will jump out at those viewers using higher end surround systems. Fans of Blu-ray extras will be disappointed, however, as there are none with the exception of optional English subtitles. However, the film itself looks fantastic and, as drive-in critic Joe Bob Briggs might say, things blow up real good.

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BY LEE PFEIFFER

I'll admit I'm a soft touch for any spy movie of the 1960s, from the outright classics such as "The Spy Who Came in from the Cold" to the endless Eurotrash James Bond rip-offs that flooded theaters like a tidal wave during this era. One of the more prominent spy flicks of the Sixties that evaded me until recently was "Hammerhead", in which the hero is Charles Hood, an American adventurer and playboy who is occasionally employed by Western intelligence services on a freelance basis. The film is based on a character in a series of novels by Stephen Coulter, who used the nom de plume James Mayo.The film was produced by Irving Allen, who blew the opportunity to make the James Bond movies with Cubby Broccoli in the 1950s. Broccoli instead teamed with Harry Saltzman and launched the most successful franchise the film industry had ever seen. Allen got some compensation by bringing Donald Hamilton's Matt Helm novels to the screen with considerable success. For "Hammerhead", Allen provided an adequate budget to allow for some lush production values and exotic scenery in Portugal.

Vince Edwards is well-cast as Hood and when we first meet him, he's been engaged by British Intelligence to thwart the theft of important NATO secrets that are due to be unveiled by a diplomat at a forthcoming conference in Portugal. The film opens in London with Hood attending a wild, "mod" hippie stage presentation that devolves into chaos. As he slips away, he meets cute with Sue Trenton (Judy Geeson), a dippy young hippie girl who jumps into his car. Before long, she's back at his bachelor pad but Hood doesn't have the time to engage her romantically, despite the fact that she obliges herself by taking a shower and slinking about in a wet towel. Hood receives orders to meet with the titular culprit, Mr. Hammerhead (Peter Vaughan), a tycoon whose hobby is to collect valuable examples of ancient artwork and sculptures depicting pornography. The business deal is designed to get Hood aboard Hammerhead's yacht, which the villain arrives at through his customary method of being lowered from his private helicopter in what appears to be an elaborate phone booth-like contraption. (Like most spy villains, he knows how to make an entrance.) Hood is shocked to find Sue is on board as well. What is she doing there? The plot never clarifies whether she is in league with Hammerhead or is also an agent trying to undermine him- or if she really is just a perky young woman with bad timing.  It's just one confusing aspect of a fairly confusing story line that director David Miller manages to overcome by keeping the action flowing briskly and in an entertaining manner via punch-ups, hippie parties and chases on motorcycle and speedboat.  

Vince Edwards makes for a dapper hero but although he cuts a dashing figure, he's a notch below Bond in that he occasionally loses a fight and lacks the rapier wit of 007, though he's not without the occasional wisecrack. It must be said that he's excellent in the action scenes, often performing many of his own stunts. Judy Geeson's character is easy on the eyes but quickly wears out her welcome through incessant giggling. She's a mod version of "Laugh-In" era Goldie Hawn and every bit as annoying.She is overshadowed by Beverly Adams (who appeared in two of the Matt Helm films) as Hammerhead's henchwoman. She's the epitome of a Sixties spy girl:  promiscuous, sexy and adverse to wearing any extraneous items of clothing. In a scene that would make a modern feminist develop agita, her character demonstrates a prolonged exotic dance that is completely superfluous to the plot but which allows the camera to pan over every inch of her body. (In fact, the cinematographers spend so much time zooming in on bouncing breasts and shaking bottoms that it's surprising there isn't traces of drool on the lens.)  Peter Vaughan is properly dour and pompous as Hammerhead, but aside from committing some ruthless acts against his own employees, the role is largely underwritten and the character never makes much of an impression. It should be said that the manner in which he meets his demise is possibly the most absurd death seen in a spy movie of this era, at least until Yaphet Kotto's Dr. Kananga turned into a human balloon and exploded in "Live and Let Die". Diana Dors, having become the British Shelley Winters, is another female accomplice of Hammerhead and one of the villain's thugs is played by future Darth Vader, David Prowse. Michael Bates has a good role as a master of disguise who is vital to pulling off the theft of NATO documents. There are also snippets of a title song, "Hammerhead", that will make you grateful the entire song was not used over the opening credits.

"Hammerhead" is akin to the Matt Helm movies in that it doesn't strive to be anything other than a fun time-killer. In that regard, it succeeds admirably. 

"Hammerhead" has finally been released on video in America. Mill Creek Entertainment has included it with five other Cold War films in a collection that features "Man on a String", "Otley", "The Deadly Affair", "The Executioner" and "A Dandy in Aspic". The DVD transfer is excellent but unfortunately there are no bonus features.

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BY JOHN M. WHALEN 

“Springtime in the Sierras” (1947) is one of Roy Rogers’ better movies. There are three or four great action scenes, half a dozen songs, a solid cast, including the most cold-blooded villainesses to ever show up at a Saturday matinee, and a worthy theme dealing with wildlife protection. Republic Pictures must have splurged on the budget for this one too, just for wardrobe alone. By my count Roy wore a dozen of those colorful western shirts that John McClain said he was so partial to. It’s a very cool movie but it’s a pity that most people have only seen a version of it that has 20 minutes of footage missing. A quarter of the original 75 minute version ended up on the cutting room floor back in the 1950s, when it, along with many other of Rogers’ movies, were sold to television and had to be edited to fit into a one-hour TV broadcast. That’s the bad news. The good news is that there is a full-length version available. It’s not perfect but better than the alternative. We’ll get into the details later.

“Springtime in the Sierras” starts with Roy and the Sons of the Pioneers delivering a herd of horses to Jean Loring (Stephanie Bachelor) the new owner of the Lazy W ranch in the Sierra Nevada country where Roy grew up. Things seem normal at first except for an abandoned fawn that Roy finds wondering in the forest. He takes the fawn to an animal sanctuary run by his old friend, game warden Cap Foster (Harry Cheshire), where he finds the fawn’s mother dying of a gunshot wound. Foster tells him a lot of animals are being killed out of season by a gang of professional hunters who sell the illegal meat at a high profit to big city restaurants and private clubs.

Roy leaves the game warden, who puts Bambi’s mother out of her misery, and goes into town where he meets with old friends, brother and sister Bert (Harold Landon) and Taffy Baker (Jane Frazee). Taffy is gaga over Roy and while Bert seems to be glad to see Roy, there’s a dark cloud of some kind hanging over him. The next day Roy spots a hunter with a high-powered rifle and chases him through the woods. The hunter manages to get away, but Roy suspects, much to his dismay, that it was Bert. A little later, Cap Foster comes upon the gang of hunters, which, as it turns out, includes Bert, and attempts to place them under arrest. Jean Loring, with her vicious sidekick Matt Wilkes (Roy Barcroft), comes up behind Foster and take his gun. Bert is horrified when Jean aims Cap’s pistol at the game warden, saying very casually, “This might hurt a little,” and cold-bloodedly shoots him. For a movie filled with cuddly animals, and cowboy serenades, this, nonchalant burst of brutality comes as a shock. It certainly unnerves Bert, who decides he no longer wants any part of the hunting racket.

Let’s stop the action here and discuss this unusual twist in the screenplay by A. Sloan Nibley, who wrote this and several of Roy’s other flicks. Normally a writer would have had Roy Barcroft, as Jean Loring’s henchman, do the killing. But Nibley and director William Witney give the story a decidedly dark turn by having the femme fatale shoot him herself. And from that point on the story takes a decidedly weird direction, especially when Cookie Bullfincher (Andy Devine), the local photographer, tells Roy that shortly after Loring bought the ranch she had a bunch of refrigeration equipment brought in. Dum-de-dum-dum. Of course I don’t have to tell you that the freezers are used to store the illegal meat and that it won’t be too long before Roy and Bert both end up hogtied and left to turn into popsicles in one of the freezers.

While Roy and Bert freeze, Jean is all smiles hosting a big party for everyone, as a farewell tribute to the late Cap Foster no less. She was a cold one. Obviously Roy isn’t going to freeze to death, and I don’t want to give away the ending, but I will say it involves the use of a large white truck. That’s right a truck. And that’s exactly what makes Roy Rogers’ movies so unique. Up until that scene, which is near the end of the movie, we’ve seen every one riding on horseback, dressed in cowboy outfits in scenes that could have taken place in the 1880s. But now all of a sudden there’s a big 1947 Ford Box Truck in the movie and you know what? We really don’t even notice the incongruity. We’re not jolted by it because Roy Rogers’ movies take place in a world of their own. In a Roy Rogers movie, the horses and stagecoaches of the Old West exist in the same world as modern day airplanes, cars, radios and movies.

Quentin Tarantino, who is a big William Witney and Roy Rogers fan, in an interview once said Sergio Leone’s “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” tops his Top Ten List of great movies, because Leone creates his own world in his films. He said Leone is a combination of “a complete film stylist, where he creates his own world, and storyteller.” The same thing is true in a good Roy Rogers film, especially those directed by Witney. They exist in Roy Rogers’ special world, and it’s a damn cool world.

While the most often seen version of “Springtime in the Sierras” is the 55-minute one, back in 2012 Film Chest released a DVD that it billed as a “restored” version “in its original Trucolor.” At the current time, it’s the only full-length version available, but if you’re expecting to see a Blu-ray quality picture in vivid color and detail, you’ll be disappointed. There’s been no attempt to clean up the DVD, and the result is something about as good as a decent VHS tape. It’s a far cry from Kino Lorber’s Blu-Ray restoration of “Sunset in the West,” which has brilliant color and sharp picture detail. What has been “restored” in “Springtime in the Sierras,” apparently, is the film’s original 75-minute length. The DVD has gone out of print but is still available through Amazon and other outlets, and until someone like Kino Lorber, decides to restore it on Blu-Ray, it’s the best version available.

There’s another feature that makes this DVD even more worth checking out. As a bonus feature, there’s a copy of a 1961 Chevy Show, an Easter special starring Roy and Dale Evans, with special guests that include Charley Weaver and a rare live appearance by Martin Milner and George Maharis, the two dudes from the “Route 66” TV series. They actually do a live Chevy commercial—something they never did on “Route 66,” even though Chevrolet sponsored the adventures of the two guys in the Corvette. Maharis, who was trying to launch a singing career at the time, gets to sing “Free and Easy.” It’s a real curiosity. Does anybody do Easter specials anymore?

So there it is—the good the bad and the ugly of “Springtime in the Sierras.” All in all, it’s a DVD worth owning until a truly “restored” version becomes available. Happy Trails.

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(John M. Whalen is the author of "Vampire Siege at Rio Muerto". Click here to order from Amazon.)

BY LEE PFEIFFER

Alan R. Trustman wrote the screenplay for the 1968 version of "The Thomas Crown Affair", which presented Steve McQueen as a master crook who becomes romantically involved with Faye Dunaway as the insurance investigator who is trying to bring him to justice. In the 1973 film "Lady Ice", Trustman co-wrote the screenplay that presents Donald Sutherland as an insurance investigator who becomes involved with master criminal Jennifer O'Neill, who he is trying to bring to justice. Clearly, the acorn hadn't fallen far from the tree. "Thomas Crown" had been a major success but, alas, few remember "Lady Ice" in spite of- or perhaps because of the plot similarities between the two films. Nonetheless, it's a reasonably entertaining and stylish caper film directed by the often underrated Tom Gries.

O'Neill plays Paula Booth, who, along with her lover Eddie Stell (John Cypher) and her widowed father Paul (Patrick Magee), operate a daring, highly successful jewel theft operation out of Miami. The buy high end stolen gems and then convert them to unrecognizable pieces which are fenced to buyers at eye-popping prices. Sutherland is Andy Hammon, a mysterious and somewhat ethically challenged freelancer employed by insurance companies to thwart crimes and recovered stolen loot. He successfully retrieves a priceless necklace from a courier before he can sell it to the Booths. The mob in Chicago assumes the hapless man has stolen it for himself and assassinates him. Hammon makes it known to the Booths and Stell that he has the precious necklace and a cat-and-mouse game ensues in which we are never sure what Hammon's motivations or allegiances are. There are double crosses and shady characters in abundance, as the self-assured Paula carries on relationships with Eddie Stell and a secret lover in the smuggling racket, Peter Brinker (Eric Braeden), all the while flirting with Hammon. There are plenty of car chases, beatings and a driving 70s score by Perry Botkin Jr. The plot becomes a bit confusing and convoluted but it moves at a brisk pace and the locations in Miami, Chicago and Nassau are marvelously photographed by the great Lucien Ballard. Sutherland is always a joy to watch and he is well-tailored to the role he plays here. Jennifer O'Neill provides the glamour and a very good performance, which makes it all the more distressing that chaotic developments in her personal life largely compromised her promising career in feature films. One gripe: Robert Duvall is largely wasted in a bland, colorless role as a Miami police detective who butts heads with Sutherland.

The Scorpion Blu-ray is of superb quality. Bonus extras include a recent, interesting interview with composer Perry Botkin, Jr and a gallery of trailers for other Scorpion video releases.

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BY JOHN M. WHALEN

In “Wings of the Hawk” (1953), Van Heflin stars as Irish Gallagher, an American mining for gold down in Mexico. He and his partner Marco (Mario Siletti) are ripped off by local military ruler Coronel Paco Ruiz (George Dolenz), who takes over the mine and kills Marco. Irish barely manages to escape on horseback and is rescued by insurrectionists led by Raquel Noriega (Julia Adams), who gets a bullet in the shoulder for her trouble. Irish patches her up in exchange for his freedom and romance rears its ugly head. Jealousy also flares when revolutionary leader Arturo Torres (Rudolpho Acosta), who had been her lover, sees what’s going on. Enter Pascual Orozco (Noah Beery, Jr.) who asks for Arturo’s help in taking Ciudad Juarez. They’ll need $5,000 to buy 200 rifles but the revolutionaries have no money. However, they come up with a brainstorm. They’ll steal $5,000 in gold from Irish’s mine, which is now under Coronel Ruiz’s control. Irish must be gaga over Raquel because he agrees to go along with it, “as long as I get my money back later.” There’s a lot of shooting after that, chases on horseback, and a firing squad kills some villagers.

It’s all crammed in to a fast-paced 81 minutes, leaving little time for reflection or character development for that matter. Julia Adams, most famous as Kay, the beauty who lures the Creature out of the Black Lagoon, is always a delight to see on screen, but her performance as Raquel goes no deeper than the Mexican makeup painted on her face and the black hair pieces tacked on her head. Heflin gives his usual solidly rugged performance as the Irish miner-turned-revolutionary, and George Dolenz (father of Monkee Micky Dolenz) is sufficiently snide as the local gendarme, but there is little heat generated by any of them in the on- screen proceedings.

This is not to say that “Wings of the Hawk” should be dismissed as just another run-of-the-mill fifties western. Kino Lorber’s Blu-Ray is noteworthy for several reasons. First of all, historically, it was only the second feature film to be released by Universal International in 3-D, and the first to adopt the 1.85:1 aspect ratio, which became the standard for all non-Cinemascope films made since then. It’s also one of the first “Mexican Westerns,” that is, a western about an American cowboy caught in the midst of the Mexican Revolution. Other such include “Vera Cruz,” “Viva Villa,”, “The Professionals” and the most notable of them all, “The Wild Bunch.” It was also the last of nine films that Cult Director Budd Boetticher did under contract for Universal between 1952 and 1953. Boetticher achieved his cult status for a series of seven westerns he did later for Columbia shortly after that, between 1956 and 1960. Known as the “Ranown Cycle” of films, because they starred Randolph Scott and were produced by Joe Brown. “Seven Men from Now”(1956), “Ride Lonesome” (1959), “The Tall T” (1957), and “Comanche Station” (1960), among others, are some of the greatest cinematic achievements of this or any other time. Not just films, they are truly works of a certain kind of art.

“Wings of the Hawk,” is not filmmaking on that level. Boetticher had not yet perfected his vision, nor achieved the clout to make films his own way. But as the jumping off point from turning out formulaic studio fare to creating individualistic masterpieces, glimmers of what was to come are evident. Most prominent are the relationships between the three male characters. In all of Boetticher’s best films there is a contest between what can best be described as “men of stature. In “The Tall T” Randolph Scott is pitted against Richard Boone. The two stand out against the weaker men in the story, including Boone’s outlaw gang, and the cowardly fiancé of one of the female passengers on a stagecoach. In “Seven Men from Now” Scott faced Lee Marvin, the baddest of the bad. In “Comanche Station” Scott faced off against Claude Akins, who stood taller than either of the two gunmen who rode with him. As film historian Jeremy Arnold notes in his audio commentary provided on a separate audio track, in all of these films, the Randolph Scott character could just as easily switched places with his antagonist. They’re both the same kind of man. Arnold says the difference is that one is weak and the other strong. I disagree with that assessment. I think the difference is that one has maintained his stature as a man to be looked up to, and the other has let himself down somewhere along the way.

In “Wings of the Hawk,” Boetticher did not really develop the conflict between Irish, Ruiz and Arturo as fully as he would with the antagonists in the later films, but elements of it are there, if you look close enough. It’s interesting to see the embryonic Boetticher at work.

Kino Lorber’s Blu Ray contains both 2-D and 3-D versions of the movie from 2K Scans of the left and Right Eye Interpositive. The picture is generally good, but some scenes are too dark, and others a bit too grainy. Color is by Technicolor and the transfer goes a good job preserving the original look of the film. Clifford Stine’s 3-D cinematography is rather stunning in the way it emphasized picture depth over the gimmicky hurling of stones, and bodies at the 3-D audience. Many action shots feature deep focus of riders on horseback coming toward the camera from a great distance, while actors and stunt men move about at various distances in between riders and camera. Another impressive shot has a knife being lowered slowly on a rope from a skylight. Even at 2-D the knife almost seems to float out from the screen.

Frank Skinner’s soundtrack has a lot of Mexican flare, and is presented on the disc in what is described by KL as “High Dynamic Range Theatrical Mix plus 5.1 Surround Sound.” Bonus features include the audio commentary by Jeremy Arnold (which I can’t recommend highly enough, for all the detailed information he imparts), and a 3-D Woody Woodpecker cartoon. “Wings of the Hawk,” is another important film restoration by Kino Lorber of a bygone era of filmmaking, the likes of which we’ll never see again.

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(John M. Whalen is the author of "Vampire Siege at Rio Muerto". Click here to order from Amazon.)

BY FRED BLOSSER

In George Axelrod’s “Lord Love a Duck” (1966), Roddy McDowall and Tuesday Weld play high school seniors in Los Angeles. McDowall was 38 at the time, Weld 23. Such casting, where actors in their twenties or older play teenagers, is typical for Hollywood, then and now. In “Lord Love a Duck,” which Axelrod produced, co-wrote, and directed from a novel by Al Hine, neither McDowall nor Weld exactly looks like an 18-year-old, nor do the actresses who play their classmates. They include Jo Collins, 21, then a recent Playmate of the Year. But here the disconnect doesn’t really detract from the film. It simply underscores its overall cartoonish surrealism. McDowall plays Alan, the genius-level valedictorian of his class, who fixates on his classmate, pretty but vacuous Barbara Ann (Weld). “Her deepest and most heartfelt yearnings express with a kind of touching lyricism the total vulgarity of our time,” he marvels. The daughter of divorced parents, living with her mother, a minimum-wage cocktail waitress (Lola Albright), she’s lonely and adrift. She’s especially insecure since she’s been transferred to a brand new school through a consolidation, and now she’s largely surrounded by kids she hadn’t known before. (A sign that we’re in 1966 and not 2020, Consolidated High’s student body and staff all appear to be white.) When Alan approaches her, she initially takes for granted that his interest is sexual. “I don’t do bad things with boys,” she says. “You don’t have to do anything,” he responds. Instead, he just wants to help her obtain the things she thinks will make her happy in life.

Alan is so enterprising that other industrious movie and TV teens like Ferris Bueller and Alex P. Keaton look like slackers in comparison. Barbara Ann’s wish list encompasses things that will bring her instant gratification, and the first ones are simple. When she needs to buy twelve cashmere sweaters to join the other girls‘ Cashmere Sweater Club, Alan advises that she wheedle her father Howard (Max Showalter), playing on his guilt that he’s been mostly absent from her life. When Barbara Ann wishes she could go on a vacation, he suggests that she join the youth group from her church on its weekend retreat to Malibu. Her next ambitions require a little more work. The minister’s nephew Bob (Martin West) is the chaperone for the trip, and when Barbara Ann decides “I want him” (“Like the sweaters and the vacation?” Alan asks), Alan contrives to engineer a wedding. What does Alan get out of helping her, Barbara Ann asks. He suggests it’s the joy of manipulation, “I think of things,” although the expression on his face says he’s not altogether sure. Or maybe he realizes that even his ingenuity is starting to get taxed. On the Malibu trip, they encounter a B-movie producer, T. Harrison Belmont (Martin Gabel, unbilled), who’s on the lookout for a fresh face to star in his next “bikini” film. When Barbara Ann quickly sours on her marriage, she yearns for freedom to pursue her next desire, fame. Belmont offers an avenue for achieving that goal, but first Alan has to remove the obstacle that now stands in the way, Bob.

The first half of “Lord Love a Duck” is outrageous and striking. Axelrod splashes his disdain for trendy, materialistic culture with broad, gleeful strokes. When Barbara Ann’s father picks her up for the trip to the sweater shop, they first stop at a curbside diner for lunch and scarf down on hot dogs like gluttonous kids on a date. The camera puts us in the front seat with them, uncomfortably close. At the store, the shopping trip turns into a symbolic orgy of consumerism and sex. Barbara Ann seems to become erotically aroused by trying on a succession of sweaters labeled “Grape Yum Yum,” “Periwinkle Pussycat,” and “Turquoise Trouble.” Watching in extreme closeup, Dad leers, pops his eyes, and shivers like a lecher brought to life from a dirty cartoon. Seemingly sated, they finally sprawl on the pile of tried-on garments. Barbara Ann’s place of worship, the “First Drive-In Church of Southern California” and its unctuously cheery pastor, Dr. Neuhauser (Donald Murphy), kid the mega-church movement that had begun to emerge in the ‘60s. Moderating the church’s youth group, Dr. Neuhauser focuses the discussion on sex rather than scripture. It seemed like a wacky concept then. Now, the real-life Dr. Neuhausers are formidable power-brokers in national politics, still more absorbed in other people’s sex lives than in spiritual matters. The buffoonish principal at the new high school (Harvey Korman) is happy because he now has a public address system. He’s as easily manipulated by Alan as everyone else is.

(RETRO-ACTIVE: THE BEST ARTICLES FROM THE CINEMA RETRO ARCHIVE.)

BY TODD GARBARINI

I’m a sucker for car chases. Not the perfunctory, last-minute “Hey, this movie needs a car chase!” variety, but the kind that comes as a result of a particular plot point wherein someone or some group has to get away from some other group. While most new car chases such as The Fast and the Furious sort are usually accomplished through CGI, I find that this sleight-of-hand fakery virtually abolishes all tension. The best ones that I have seen all did it for real through innovative and unprecedented filming techniques and excellent editing: Grand Prix (1966), Vanishing Point (1967), Bullitt (1968), The Seven-Ups (1973), The Blues Brothers (1980), The Road Warrior (1981), The Terminator (1984), F/X (1986), Terminator 2: Judgement Day (1991), and The Town (2010) all have action sequences that put the full wonder of film editing on display.

There are two major car chases in the late John Frankenheimer’s Ronin, which opened on Friday, September 25, 1998, and it’s the second and longer one that ranks up there in the pantheon of The Greatest Car Chases Ever Filmed. The French Connection (1971) and To Live and Die in L.A. (1985) are the granddaddies of car chases in my humble opinion and Ronin’s is certainly in the top ten, with a stupendous wrong-way-driving-against-incoming-traffic sequence through a tunnel in France to composer Elia Cmiral’s exciting score.

The title of “Ronin” is originally a reference to the feudal period of Japan relating to a samurai who has become masterless following his master’s death as a result of the samurai’s failure to protect him. To earn a living, the samurai wanders from place to place attempting to gain work from others. For the uninitiated, title cards prior to the film’s opening credits inform us of this. This name relates to the film as several mercenaries meet for the purpose of stealing an important silver case. Sam (Robert DeNiro), Vincent (Jean Reno), Gregor (Stellan Skarsgard), and Spence (Sean Bean) and several others are the persons for hire. Deirdre (Natascha McElhorne) is the one who called them all together but she offers little in the way of an explanation as to what the contents are. Like in Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs (1992), they don’t know one another and work under the assumption that all involved are trustworthy which eventually will be their undoing. Now ya see, if they has listened to the James Poe episode “Blood Bath” on the old time radio show Escape!, none of this would have ever happened! Yeah…

Sam used to work for the CIA, Vincent is a “fixer”, Spence is a former Special Air Service expert in weaponry, Gregor is an expert in electronics, and Larry (Skipp Sudduth) is one of the drivers. Sam is the most inquisitive and probably has the most to lose. They don’t discuss their past and are eager to get paid. Sam almost acts like the ringleader, but he has some serious competition after they secure their objective and are double-crossed. It then becomes a game of who can trust who (naturally, the answer is no one). There are some really good supporting performances by Michael Lonsdale (I hadn’t seen him in a theater since Moonraker!) and Jonathan Pryce and the action always keeps moving forward but unlike today’s films, the action sequences are well-staged and edited and have depth to them. A terrific addition to Mr. Frankenheimer’s filmography.

BY DARREN ALLISON

Cineploit continue to help feed the healthy appetite for European cult film classics with their two latest Region-Free Blu-ray media book releases, Mark Colpisce Ancora aka The .44 Specialist aka Mark Strikes Again (Italy 1976) (CP 05) and Brothers in Blood aka Savage Attack (Italy 1987) (CP 06).

Police Inspector Mark Terzi (Franco Gasparri) works undercover as Mark Patti. He is assigned to apprehend a hardened group of terrorists. Terzi has already narrowly escaped a murderous attack at a location where he was meant to be in Vienna, which leads to suspicions. Soon after, clues lead Terzi to begin thinking that his own superiors may also be involved in the plot.

This was the final film in director Stelvio Massis’s ‘Mark trilogy’ and is considered by many commentators to be the best. Massis appears to have accumulated his collective skills, experiences and shooting techniques from the previous two films and put them to very good use for the final entry. Whist the plot and narrative are pretty straight forward, there is plenty of action to enjoy. Crashes, car chases, an air escape and plenty of bullets litter the screen, and given that this was probably something of a low-budgeted affair, it all comes off as both exciting and hugely enjoyable. The film looks good. too, making the most of its locations based mainly in and around Milan and Vienna. As with a great deal other Poliziotteschi films, Mark Colpisce Ancora also boasts an American actor in its cast. It’s usually no more than an extended cameo, but worked well, especially in reaching out to the American market. John Saxon appears here, Saxon had an uncanny knack of choosing and turning up in so many cult films. It would have been great to have seen him appear longer, but more often than not these Western world, star contracts arguably stipulated a week or so scheduling, and in the process Saxon no doubt collected a healthy fistful of Lira (and probably a return ticket to Europe for his troubles). The film marks its worldwide 2K Blu-ray premiere, and looks incredibly clean (the disc includes a restoration comparison) and free of any major defects. Euro film favourite, composer Stelvio Cipriani also keeps the suspense thumping along nicely with another memorable score.

As to be expected from Cineploit, their package is again highly impressive. Their media book style (as with their previous four releases) is beautifully produced with 28 pages of detailed information. The company also offer the media book in a choice of three different cover variations, (two Italian and one German) in numbered and limited editions of 400/300/300. Cineploit’s continued use of partial UV spotting also adds an edge to the covers overall presentation. Leading the bonus material is Part 2 of Cineploit’s exclusively produced career interview with composer Stelvio Cipriani. Cineploit teasingly split this excellent interview (part 1 was included on their debut release, La Polizia Ha Le Mani Legrate). There’s another 41 minutes here, which, with part one, totals some 92 minutes and makes it something of a defining overview on the composer. There’s also two further exclusive featurettes with son and assistant Danilo Massi and cameraman Roberto Girometti (20 and 16 minutes). Also included is an international picture gallery lasting some 8 minutes. Cineploit fashionably round the whole package off by including a reproduction double-sided poster with the Italian locandina and Manifesto. Wonderful stuff!

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By Hank Reineke

There are times I wish my failing memory could serve me better, and here's one example. I have a vague memory of staying up one night circa 1980, I guess,- to catch Roger Moore on one of those late night talk-shows. I was a huge James Bond fan and, as such, always desperate to mine any news, no matter how trivial, on any upcoming 007 adventure. This was, of course, in the pre-internet era when insider information was relatively scarce outside of a morsel or two shared in fanzine or with a subscription to Variety. (As an aside, today I often wish there was less information available when a film is still in still production). In any event, I don't recall if Moore shared any information that night on the next scheduled Bond opus For Your Eyes Only (1981). I do clearly recall him discussing directorAndrew V. McLaglen's ffolkes (better known in the United Kingdom, where the film was originally released, as North Sea Hijack).

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

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

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

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

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

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

BY LEE PFEIFFER

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

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

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

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

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On June 9, Kino Lorber will release the boxed set collection “Film Noir: The Dark Side of Cinema III”.

The set consists of these three films:

ABANDONED (1949) - Noir great Dennis O'Keefe (T-Men, Raw Deal, Cover Up) and Gale Storm (Between Midnight and Dawn) expose a baby-selling racket in the searing crime drama Abandoned, co-starring Jeff Chandler (Man in the Shadow) and Raymond Burr (Pitfall). When Paula Considine (Storm) arrives in Los Angeles to find her sister Mary, she soon learns the unwed mother is dead and her newborn infant is missing. Teaming up with a cynical reporter named Mark Sitko (O'Keefe), Paula discovers Mary was the victim ofa black market adoption ring run by Mrs. Leona Donner (Marjorie Rambeau, Torch Song) and her sleazy assistant Kerric (Burr). Hoping to entrap the pair, Paula and Sitko devise a plan but the sting operation proves to have deadly consequences. This classic film noir was beautifully shot by William H. Daniels (Woman in Hiding) and wonderfully directed by Joseph M. Newman (711 Ocean Drive), with top-notch supporting performances by Jeanette Nolan (Macbeth) and Mike Mazurki (Murder, My Sweet).

THE LADY GAMBLES (1949) - From Michael Gordon, the outstanding director of The Web, An Act of Murder, Woman in Hiding, Cyrano de Bergerac, Pillow Talk and Portrait in Black, comes this classic film noir starring screen legend Barbara Stanwyck (Double Indemnity, Witness to Murder) as a once respectable and vibrant wife who has become a desperately out-of-control high-roller gambler. A chance visit into a Las Vegas casino introduces Joan Boothe (Stanwyck) to the seductive allure of poker and the craps table. All too soon, she ignores her devoted husband (Robert Preston, Wake Island, This Gun for Hire) and older sister (Edith Barrett, I Walked with a Zombie) as she compulsively chases after hard-hearted Lady Luck. Beautifully shot by Russell Metty (Touch of Evil) and featuring a stellar supporting cast that includes Stephen McNally (Diplomatic Courier), John Hoyt (O.S.S.), Leif Erickson (On the Waterfront) and Tony Curtis (6 Bridges to Cross).

THE SLEEPING CITY (1950) - Drug pushing and gambling set the stage for murder in The Sleeping City, a hardboiled film-noir thriller shot on the streets of New York. When a doctor is shot dead outside Bellevue Hospital, detective Fred Rowen (Richard Conte, Cry of the City, Thieves' Highway) is assigned to find the killer. Posing as an intern, Rowen is befriended by the hospital's elevator operator and a ward nurse (Coleen Gray, Kiss of Death, Nightmare Alley) he begins to date. As his investigation continues and potential witnesses wind up dead, Rowen finds himself next on the murderer's list when he uncovers a narcotics ring. Suddenly, everyone is a suspect and he doesn't know whom he can trust! Written by Jo Eisinger (Gilda, Night and the City) and directed by George Sherman (Larceny, Big Jake).

* Bonus Features: NEW Audio Commentary by Film Historian Samm Deighan (Abandoned) | NEW Audio Commentary by Film Historian Kat Ellinger (The Lady Gambles) | NEW Audio Commentary by Film Historian Imogen Sara Smith (The Sleeping City) | Optional English Subtitles | Theatrical Trailers

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BY FRED BLOSSER

During the stress of the COVID-19 outbreak, people are hungry for vicarious escape, any escape, from isolation, financial uncertainty, and worries about contagion. Even so, Bob Hope’s lightweight 1958 comedy “Paris Holiday” is likely to appeal mostly to fans in their sixties and older who remember the star as a ubiquitous presence on TV decades ago. Jokes based on references to Sputnik and My Sin perfume will fly past everyone else. Hope produced and starred in the movie (now available on Blu-ray from Kino Lorber) with an additional “from an idea by . . .” credit. His character, Bob Hunter, a famous American comedian who might as well be named Bob Hope, ventures over to Paris on the 1950s luxury liner, the Ile de France. He has an appointment to meet a celebrated French playwright whose latest work he hopes to secure as his next screenplay. On board the ship, he meets and chases an attractive State Department employee, Ann McCall (Martha Hyer), and is pursued in turn by Zara, a mysterious femme fatale (Anita Ekberg). Also on the liner is a celebrated French comedian, Fernydel (Fernandel), whose introduction to his American counterpart produces an amusing exchange. “Ferny” strokes Hunter’s ski-slope nose and marvels, “Formidable!” Not to be outdone, Bob riffs on his rival’s toothy, hangdog countenance: “Straight from the horse’s mouth!” This and other early scenes suggest that the script will be anchored by an edgy if amiable competition between the two characters. But Hope’s ego collided with Fernandel’s in real life, and so eventually, the French comedian is relegated to a secondary role once the ship docks. From there, the story becomes a standard Bob Hope farcical thriller in the style of “My Favorite Blonde” (1942) and “My Favorite Brunette” (1947). The playwright’s new opus is a drama rather than a comedy as Hunter expected, based on an exposé of wartime counterfeiters who have since moved into “positions of power” in the French government. The conspirators murder the playwright to protect their secrets, and try to do the same to Hunter. When those attempts fail, their associate Zara checks the comic into a mental institution from which Hyer’s and Fernandel’s characters must rescue him.

The script by longtime Hope associate Edmund Beloin, joined by Dean Reisner (now best remembered for his work on “Coogan’s Bluff” and “Dirty Harry”), never makes a lot of sense, serving mostly as a tent pole for Hope’s mile-a-minute wisecracks. Hope’s timing remains marvelous, and even younger viewers may be impressed, but the conceit of Hyer’s younger foreign service officer tolerating and even welcoming the uninvited advances of Hope’s older character sits uneasily with today’s social attitudes. The credits claim that the picture was shot entirely on location in Paris, but if that’s true, they could have saved their money. The interiors are obviously sets on a sound stage, and when Bob Hunter tools around the city in a sporty Citroen, it’s Hope in front of rear-projected scenery. Today’s computerized effects may be equally phony, but at least they look more authentic. The impostures are particularly apparent in the sharp, bright image provided by the Blu-ray edition from Kino Lorber, reproducing the film’s Technicolor palette and widescreen Technirama aspect. The only supplements on the disc are a still-shot of a 1958 cigarette ad publicizing Anita Ekberg “as featured” in “Paris Holiday,” and trailers for other KL releases.

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Fred Blosser is the author of "Sons of Ringo: The Great Spaghetti Western Heroes". Click here to order from Amazon

BY LEE PFEIFFER

We at Cinema Retro are always delighted to find that a previously unavailable movie has been made accessible on home video. Such is the case with the low-radar 1971 MGM crime flick "Clay Pigeon", which Mvd Visual has just released on DVD. The film was the brainchild of Tom Stern, a character actor who appeared in small roles in many films before branching out and acting and directing biker movies in the late 1960s. Stern decided to create a star-making crime film for himself and raised the funding for "Clay Pigeon" independently. He then struck a deal with MGM to distribute the movie and pay for the marketing campaign in return for a slice of the grosses. The studio was bleeding red ink at the time and needed product to remain viable. "Clay Pigeon" fit the bill, with MGM having to make a relatively minor investment. The movie was released in many markets as the top feature in a double-fill with another soft-boiled crime movie, "Chandler" starring Warren Oates. It's clear that Stern felt this film would finally elevate him to leading man status. He not only plays the hero but he also co-produced andco-directed the film with Lane Slate, who at some point during production was either fired or left the film, leaving Stern to assume the direction alone."Clay Pigeon" was not a hit, however, and quickly faded from view.

The unique aspect of the movie is that it was a rare film to address the Vietnam War while the conflict was still raging. John Wayne's "The Green Berets", released in 1968 and financially backed by a reluctant Jack Warner, may have been a major hit but it set off protests in front of some of the theaters that were showing it. Hollywood wanted no part of the controversy and it wouldn't be until after the war that films such as "Coming Home", "The Deer Hunter" and "Apocalypse Now" would be viable to studios and audiences. "Clay Pigeon" opens in Vietnam with our protagonist, Joe Ryan (Stern) on patrol. An ambush ensues and Ryan heroically throws his body on a live grenade to shield his fellow soldiers. Fortunately, the grenade doesn't explode and Ryan is awarded the Silver Star. The action then moves to contemporary Los Angeles where Joe is trying to forget the war by living the lifestyle of a hippie, though we are told at some point that he is now an ex-cop (one of numerous script deficiencies that see key points left unexplained.) Joe is living a threadbare but happy life, boozing, smoking weed and getting it on with numerous young women who seem to always be in the mood. Meanwhile, a parallel story line follows Redford (Telly Savalas), a rogue government agent of undefined background who we witness murder a crime suspect. (As rogue cops go, Redford isn't the sharpest tool in the shed, as he assassinates the man by shooting him multiple times in broad daylight on a dock in full view of anyone near the river.) We find out that Redford has been relentlessly tracking a key drug kingpin, Neilsen (Robert Vaughn), for years. Cutting to the chase, Redford ends up asking Joe to act as a conduit to try to find his quarry. When Joe refuses, Redford frames him and forces him into acting as part of the sting operation.As the corrupt cop, Savalas plays his typical hard-boiled character, beating up suspects and giving orders to one and all.

“HITCH FINDING HIS WAY”

By Raymond Benson

While there are many DVD collections (and VHS anthologies before that) of the early British material directed by Alfred Hitchcock in the 1920s and most of the 1930s, there are very few that contain decent transfers. The silent films, until recently, all existed in extremely poor quality, as so did most of the British sound pictures. Companies like The Criterion Collection and Kino Lorber have begun to finally restore these classics in high definition Blu-ray. (There is a long-held belief that these titles are in the public domain, but this is false.)

The new 2-disk Kino Lorber set, British International Pictures Collection, contains a handful of these early movies—The Ring (1927), The Farmer’s Wife (1928), Champagne (1928), The Manxman (1929), and the only sound feature in the bunch, The Skin Game (1931). They all display Hitch finding his way, exploring the possibilities of the medium, and trying to find his directorial “voice.” He was not yet the “Master of Suspense,” even though he had made one silent masterpiece thriller, The Lodger (1927), that kick-started his career. He did not yet have the clout to pick and choose his projects, so he directed whatever the studio assigned him. Too often, the titles were melodramas that bore little resemblance to the kinds of things Hitchcock would make once he had established his nickname.

The good news is that mostly these are beautifully restored transfers that look better than any previous iteration this reviewer has ever seen. In fact, the silent pictures look remarkable—Kino has done a splendid job in the presentation. (Oddly, the later title, The Skin Game, doesn’t look as good as the earlier ones, but it’s still more watchable than previous versions.)

The bad news is that none of these titles are stellar entries in Hitchcock’s oeuvre. In fact, only Hitchcock completists will get much out of this set, as admirably put together as it is.

The Ring is unique in that Hitchcock himself is credited with writing the screenplay—the only time in his entire filmography in which this is the case. Apparently, Hitch was a boxing fan and wrote the story about a love triangle between two fighters and the girl for whom they both have the hots. Hitchcock told François Truffaut in their famous interview that he considered The Ring to be the second “true” Hitchcock movie (after The Lodger). Personally, this reviewer finds it to be overly long, melodramatic, and slow.

The Farmer’s Wife is one of Hitchcock’s few comedies—a romantic comedy, to boot. It’s about a middle-aged farmer who becomes a widower and then sets about finding a new wife. Every woman he asks rejects him, until he realizes that his housekeeper will do just fine. (Believe it or not, that’s not a spoiler.) Again, the film is too lengthy and moves too slowly to be a comedy. Certainly not in the upper pantheon of Hitchcock classics.

Champagne is worse. Also billed as a “comedy,” it’s about a young woman from a wealthy family who is reckless and chases after a fellow who seemingly doesn’t want her. The woman’s father falsely declares bankruptcy to pull in her spending reins, but to no avail. In the end, the poor schmuck she was after ends up by her side after all (again, not a spoiler!).

The Manxman is so dreary and lifeless that it’s almost impossible to think that such a great filmmaker as Alfred Hitchcock made it. It’s another love triangle story in which the “Manxman” (a citizen of the Isle of Wight) goes away to find fame and fortune in Africa, leaving his beloved under the watchful gaze of his best friend. You can guess what happens between the beloved and the friend. Again—too long and too slow. Thank goodness Hitchcock rebounded from this with his first talkie, Blackmail, and proved that he really could direct a movie.

The Skin Game was Hitch’s fourth sound picture. It’s not terrible, but it’s not particularly good. It’s about two families of different social classes feuding over land. The richer family learns something scandalous about the daughter of the less-richer family and threatens blackmail. Edmund Gwenn (who starred in more than one Hitchcock title) is effective as the indignant head of the less-wealthy household. Of all the films in this collection, The Skin Game is the most interesting, and it’s not because it’s a talkie. There is some real drama going on, it’s just that there’s a lot of “melo-” to it.

Along with the superb high definition transfers, there are audio commentaries by film historian Farran Smith Nehme on Champagne and The Manxman, and by Nick Pinkerton on The Ring. New lovely scores accompany the silents—by Meg Morley (The Ring), Jon Mirsalis (The Farmer’s Wife), Ben Model (Champagne), and Andrew Earle Simpson (The Manxman). Finally, the only supplements are two audio excerpts from the Hitchcock/Truffaut interview related to the films in question.

Despite the so-so quality of the films themselves, the British International Pictures Collection does present outstanding editions of these early Alfred Hitchcock features—certainly worthwhile for any student and aficionado of the master during a crucial learning period of his profession.

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“CLINT AND JEFF”

By Raymond Benson

It’s been 45 years since the release of Thunderbolt and Lightfoot. At the time it seemed to be one of the better Clint Eastwood vehicles produced by his company, Malpaso. Alas, the film has aged considerably along with both stars of the film—Eastwood and Jeff Bridges (who was 24 at the time of its release).

The picture was written and directed by the late Michael Cimino, who would later go on to pick up Oscar gold for the The Deer Hunter (1978). Cimino got his start with Eastwood, having co-written the script for Magnum Force (1973) and then convinced the star to take on his original screenplay that he had pitched prior to the making of Magnum. Cimino landed the job to direct as well, and the planets aligned for the budding young talent.

It's a Buddy Movie/Heist Flick/Road Picture/Action-Comedy about two common criminals—a bank robber named Thunderbolt (Eastwood), and a drifter named Lightfoot (Bridges)—who find each other by happenstance and become friends and partners. Complicating matters is Thunderbolt’s old gang, headed by the vicious sociopath Red (George Kennedy), who believes Thunderbolt ran off with the money from a previous robbery at which many of their cohorts were killed. In truth, Thunderbolt hid the cash in an old one-room schoolhouse—but when he went to claim the loot, he found that the city had built a modern school in its place. Lightfoot convinces Red to team up with him and Thunderbolt to pull off a more complicated heist as a consolation prize. They are joined by Goody (Eastwood cast stalwart Geoffrey Lewis) and the plan goes well… until it doesn’t.

Both Eastwood and Bridges make a great team. Bridges (who received a Supporting Actor Oscar nomination for his role) is so winning that he steals the movie. Kennedy is also effective as the volatile heavy. The picture is full of the kind of action (car chases, shoot-outs, fist fights) typical of Eastwood fare in the mid-70s, as well as comedy. Unfortunately, a lot of the humor is at the expense of women. This is sadly a sign of those times. Today, the bits of sexism and chauvinism sprinkled throughout the picture are cringeworthy.

The movie also suffers for playing too much to a blue-collar audience, much like Eastwood’s later comedies, Every Which Way but Loose (1978) and Any Which Way You Can (1980). There seems to be a sophomoric, redneck sensibility to the characters and presentation that might have played well in 1974, but it comes off today as crass.

Nevertheless, Kino Lorber’s new high definition 1920x1080p release looks sharp and colorful (the location shooting in Montana provides gorgeous vistas). It is accompanied by an audio commentary by film critic Nick Pinkerton. Supplements include a near-half-hour featurette on the making of the movie with a rare audio interview by the reclusive Cimino, the theatrical trailer, and a handful of TV and radio spots.

For Eastwood fans, Thunderbolt and Lightfoot is a cult film that does have a lot going for it, especially the performance by Jeff Bridges, but viewers should prudently place it within the context of when the picture was made and released.

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BY DOUG OSWALD

Gregory Peck is an Army intelligence officer stationed in West Berlin during the Cold War in “Night People,” available on Blu-ray by Kino Lorber. Lt. Colonel Steve Van Dyke (Peck) is investigating the kidnapping of an American soldier stationed in West Berlin and taken by Soviet agents to East Germany. It’s unknown at first why the soldier was taken, but his wealthy industrialist father soon arrives in an attempt to get his son back with money if necessary. His philosophy is everyone has a price, but Van Dyke knows better and has no time for outside interference. Broderick Crawford plays the father, Charles Leatherby, who uses his connections in Washington to meet with the American government bureaucrats in West Berlin. Van Dyke dresses down the father in short order, but builds a relationship with Leatherby in order to keep him on a short leash and use him in the correct way.

Van Dyke is also finalizing a plan for a Russian to defect to the West with his family and thinks the kidnapping may be connected, but it turns out to be far more complex. Van Dyke has a German informant, “Hoffy” Hoffmeier (Anita Bjork), with an addiction to absinthe and their relationship may be more than professional. Van Dyke is assisted by his military aid, Sergeant Eddie McColloch (Buddy Ebsen), and his German secretary, Kathy Gerhardt (Marianne Koch), always suspicious and jealous of Hoffy. The Cold War was a complex puzzle, especially in Berlin, a divided city in a divided country, often with divided and complex allegiances. It turns out the kidnappers want an elderly married couple who helped the allies during WWII. They’re wanted by East Germans seeking revenge against the couple for their betrayal of Nazi Germany.

Written and directed by Nunnally Johnson, the complex plot requires close attention. The story unfolds mostly at night and has a neo noir feel to it. Its spy vs. spy with double agents and triple agents and repeat viewing is rewarded with greater clarity. There are nuances I missed the first time around and if there is a flaw in this movie, it’s that the plot is almost too complex. After a follow-up viewing, things made more sense and that’s one of the many joys of home video – rewind and repeat. I’m not sure how audiences reacted to this movie when released in theaters and I wonder how often it was broadcast on television. I’d never seen the movie until this Blu-ray was released and I enjoyed the complex nature of the plot. It requires the viewer to think through the plot as if building a puzzle, anticipating the patterns as each minute is pieced together. This isn’t a thriller dependent on action, fights and car chases. It requires the viewer to think.

The cast features familiar character actors like Max Showalter as a local American bureaucrat, Walter Abel as an Army surgeon always begging a smoke, Peter van Eyck as a local West German bureaucrat and John Horsley as a British Army liaison. Buddy Ebsen is terrific as Sergeant McColloch and steals nearly every scene. The kidnapped soldier is played by Ted Avery and his role is almost a footnote as the main thrust of the story is the spy game as it unfolds over several nights. Much of the movie takes place in a few key locations including Van Dyke’s office, a local nightclub and an Army hospital. Much of the plot unfolds over telephone calls with a vital story twist made after an interrogation and an innocent conversation between Van Dyke and the British liaison. I’m not going to reveal it here, but it unfolds quickly as all the pieces are fitted together.

The Blu-ray looks and sounds terrific with a neo-noir feel to the color production. Filmed in CinemaScope and released in 1954, the film clocks in at 93 minutes. An unobtrusive score by Cyril J. Mockridge works well to help set the mood throughout the film. Extras on the disc include trailers for this and several other Peck titles released on Blu-ray by Kino Lorber. There’s also a nine -minute interview with Peck’s children discussing their father and this movie. I highly recommend “Night People” for fans of Peck and those who enjoy a complex Cold War thriller driven by great characters and a complex plot.

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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. Highly recommended.

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BY HANK REINEKE

As best as I can determine, Curse III: Blood Sacrifice was never screened theatrically, at least not in the U.S. or England. It seems to have been unceremoniously trafficked directly to home video in 1990. The owners of the film chose to best capitalize on their investment by gamely resorting to placing full page advertisements in home-video industry trade publications, an attempt to get VHS retailers and rental stores to add the movie to their inventories. They boldly claimed in their promotional that the film was a genuine “Horror/Thriller in the tradition of The Serpent and the Rainbow,” a reference to Wes Craven’s and Universal Studio’s more celebrated voodoo film of 1988. And while Curse III bore no thematic – or even tangential - relationship to the earlier “Curse” films (The Curse (1987) and Curse II: The Bite (1989), the ad boasted to retailers they had sold over “60,000” copies of this semi-franchise’s first two films… so why not give this newest film – one featuring the great Christopher Lee (described in their broadside as the “Master of Suspense and Horror”) - a fair shot?

Scorpion Releasing’s new Blu Ray of Curse III: Blood Sacrifice is, technically, not the film’s first digital release. The film first appeared on laser disc in 1990, courtesy of RCA/Columbia Pictures Home Video, and this was soon followed by a more consumer-friendly VHS release originally retailing for $59.95. It disappeared from shelves soon thereafter, though it was infrequently broadcast in the US under the film’s original title Panga and released in the Beta format in the UK under the amended title of Witchcraft. The film would thereafter languish in semi-obscurity until 2015 when MGM re-issued the film on a blandly packaged DVD as part of the studio’s Limited Edition Series.

In truth, I wouldn’t have been happy paying $59.50 for the video cassette of this title back in 1991. Having said that it’s not a terrible film by any means, but neither is it a lost classic. Curse III: Blood Sacrifice was first and only film to be directed by the British film editor Sean Barton. By the time his voodoo opus arrived on the shelves of Blockbuster and other home video rental chains, Barton had already enjoyed a decade-long career in the film industry. He was, perhaps, best remembered among fans of fantastic films as one of three co-editors that helped bring Star Wars: Revenge of the Jedi to the big screen in 1983, but his résumé included work on an impressive number of theatrical features before that.

Curse III would not only serve as the vehicle marking Barton’s directorial debut, but also his first as co-screenwriter (having worked alongside South African scenarist John Hunt). Their screenplay was based on a story supplied by the Johannesburg-based actor and occasional writer Richard Haddon Haines. If the script’s storyline and characterizations are a bit thin, the film still manages to move along at a pace brisk enough to satisfy the more forgiving horror film devotees.

BY TODD GARBARINI

Umberto Lenzi was one of the most prolific Italian genre directors working in Italy, but he is virtually unknown here in the States outside of the circles of the most die-hard of genre fans. In fact, his work is so obscure at times that even adherents to his most extreme horror movies don't even follow the other dramatic work for which he is also known despite his roster of titles on the IMDB. Much of International Cinema is “inspired” by American filmmaking (i.e. outright ripped off from) and following the Oscar-winning success of William Friedkin’s masterful 1971 crime drama The French Connection, with its astounding subway/car chase, Italy dove head-first into the Eurocrime, or poliziotteschi, genre headfirst making a slew of action films where the camera’s point-of-view is inspired by Owen Roizman’s work on the aforementioned real-life-inspired crime film. Filmed in late 1975 in Rome and released in New York in July 1978 under the title of Assault with a Deadly Weapon, The Tough Ones is yet another one of those films that is known by multiple titles too numerous to even list. Upon superficial investigation of the beautiful and colorful poster art for the film, one might assume (as yours truly did) that actor Franco Nero is the star. Rather it’s the late Maurizio Merli who, not surprisingly, began his career because he looked like Mr. Nero when the latter was unavailable for White Fang to the Rescue, the 1974 sequel to both Challenge to White Fang (1974) and White Fang (1973).

Mr. Merli plays Inspector Leonardo Tanzi, a hot-headed, self-appointed crime fighter who makes Gene Hackman’s Jimmy “Popeye” Doyle and Clint Eastwood’s “Dirty” Harry Callahan look timid in comparison as he tears up each scene that he appears in, slapping and kicking bad guys and even suspected bad guys, at the slightest hint of guilt or provocation. He’s fed up with the crime plaguing his jurisdiction, dishing out his own version of justice by breaking up a hidden casino, tackling a pair of purse-snatchers on a motor scooter, and diving into a bank robbery and killing some of the robbers. One of his best bits is when he is flagged down by a man whose girlfriend has been raped by a gang headed up by a rich kid who was released from jail just hours earlier. Taking a clue from the crime scene, he hunts down the spoiled brat and his cronies, smashing the ringleader’s face into a pinball machine before kicking all their asses in a crazy set piece. Anyone who gets in his way of getting to another criminal gets their ass handed to them. This doesn’t bode well for his girlfriend who is nearly sent to her death when criminals drop her car into a car crusher, stopping it just before it crushes it – with her in it! There’s a weird, typical living-on-the-fringe-of-society character named Vincenzo Moretto (played wonderfully by the late Tomas Milian) who seems frail and timid at first, but he proves to be a lunatic and is later told to swallow a bullet (literally) by Tanzi in a strange exchange at Moretto’s sister’s house.

BY FRED BLOSSER 

I saw many, many Italian-made sword-and-toga movies as a kid in the early 1960s at the Kayton, my neighborhood movie house, where they usually played on mismatched double-bills with B-Westerns, British “Carry On” comedies, low-budget noir dramas, and fourth-run Elvis movies. Many of these Italian epics were simplistic and formulaic, as if the producers figured that people had come to see spectacle, sex, and sword-fights, and never mind anything else. Regardless, more ambitious productions occasionally surfaced with slightly more dramatic substance and marginally higher production values. One such entry was “The Colossus of Rhodes” (1961), Sergio Leone’s first acknowledged directorial credit preceding his breakthrough success with “A Fistful of Dollars” in 1964. The Warner Archive Collection has released the 1961 movie on Blu-ray with audio commentary by Sir Christopher Frayling, Leone’s biographer and longtime critical champion.

The script co-written by Leone has plenty of plot -- almost too much, when one development begins to get in the way of another. As the film opens, an aristocratic Athenian war hero, Dario (Rory Calhoun), comes to Rhodes to kick back on vacation and ogle the ladies. Meanwhile, rebellion is brewing against tyrannical King Serses, who secretly schemes with Phoenicia to use Rhodes as a base for piratical raids against their mutual rival, Greece. As part of the deal, Phoenicia has agreed to provide Serses with a huge contingent of slaves to complete the 300-foot Colossus of Rhodes that straddles the harbor. The king needs the free labor to finish the construction after losing many of his initial workers -- starved and beaten political prisoners -- in a mass escape. The imposing statue of Apollo symbolically honors “the strength and power of our King Serses,” says the unctuous prime minister, Thar, but the two men also plan to use it to pour burning oil and molten lead on unsuspecting Greek warships when the enemy attacks in reprisal for Serses’ piracy. In the meantime, Thar schemes to depose Serses and make himself ruler. With the connivance of the Russian – oops, Phoenician – ambassador, the “slaves” imported to work on the Colossus are actually foreign mercenaries in disguise, sneaked in to support Thar’s coup. Got that? I haven’t even mentioned that Carete, the elderly, idealistic engineer who designed the monument, is unaware that the king is reconfiguring it as a war machine. Mirte, the sister of one of the freedom fighters opposing Serses and Thar, hopes to sway Dario over to the side of the rebels, while Thar’s mistress Diala (Lea Massari), who also happens to be Carete’s niece, welcomes the Athenian’s romantic advances for her own purposes. The royalists suspect Dario of being a rebel sympathizer. The insurrectionists eye him as a spy for Serses as he cozies up to Diala.

Cineasts today will recognize several familiar faces in the cast, including the wistfully beautiful Lea Massari from “L’avventura” and “Murmurs of the Heart,” and several actors who would later become Spaghetti Western regulars, including Roberto Camardiel (Serses), Antonio Casas (the Phoenician ambassador), and Nello Pazzafini (uncredited as a soldier in one fleeting scene). Back in 1961 on a Saturday night at the Kayton, Rory Calhoun’s would have been the only familiar face on the screen. The movie’s vintage trailer added as a supplement to the Blu-ray identifies Calhoun as “the star of ‘The Texan’,” as if audiences might be slow to remember that they had seen Calhoun on TV as “The Texan” the night before. As Leone’s token American star, Calhoun is dark, good-looking, and up to the physical demands of the chase and swordplay scenes, but his character is more passive than the usual toga heroes played by Steve Reeves and Gordon Scott. Where Hercules and Goliath usually led the revolts against evil kings in their movies, Dario is swept up in a plot hatched by others. Frayling says that Leone modeled the character on Cary Grant’s urbane Roger Thornhill in “North by Northwest,” to tease the usual conventions of the genre. Just as Grant’s accidental spy was trapped on the giant Presidential heads of Mt. Rushmore, Dario scrambles around on the Colossus to evade pursuing enemies, in what appears to be an impressive matte effect. The 220 B.C. costuming requires Calhoun to wear a short skirt and white sandals that Frayling likens to “Go-Go socks.” In fairness to the actor, he doesn’t look much sillier than Brad Pitt or Colin Farrell in similar garb in the more recent epics “Troy” and “Alexander” (both from 2004). There’s plenty of wrestling and hand-to-hand fighting in the story, with choreography only a little phonier than the average WWE smackdown, but except for one prolonged scuffle, it’s mostly executed by the Italian actors and stunt men who play the rebels and not by Calhoun.

BY ERNIE MAGNOTTA

Between 1972 and 1985, six-time world karate champion Chuck Norris made a total of twelve films—ten of which he had the lead role—which established him as a martial arts movie hero. Along the way, some of these films, such as Missing in Action, helped to soften his karate hero image and strengthen his action hero one. For his next film, Norris would tackle a project which further helped to tone down his martial arts image and move him more into the realm of pure action movie star. That project was 1985’s Code of Silence.

Solidly directed by Andrew Davis (1993’s The Fugitive), Code of Silence deals with Eddie Cusack, a Chicago detective who becomes an outcast from the force when he refuses to remain silent about one of his fellow officers, the alcoholic Cragie, who, among other things, is responsible for shooting an innocent teenage boy and planting a weapon on the corpse. Now, Cusack must act alone as he attempts to rescue Diana, a greedy mafia man’s innocent daughter, from ruthless drug gang leader Luis Comacho.

Code of Silence was originally written for Clint Eastwood in 1979. It was to be the fourth film in the iconic Dirty Harry series. When Clint passed on the project, the script languished until 1984 when Orion Pictures decided to make the movie with Chuck and Andrew Davis. San Francisco became Chicago and Harry Callahan became Eddie Cusack. Code of Silence is a pretty engaging action film/crime drama. Solid characterizations as well as a nice, dramatic subplot help to suck the audience in which makes the action hero heroics even more exciting to watch. Director Davis films several heart-pumping, adrenaline rush sequences such as Chuck pursuing a villain atop a fast-moving train; not to mention the very well-directed (and well-edited) opening sting operation. A Chicago native, Davis also shoots the film in such a way that he really gives his audience a feel of the city itself.

The movie is also greatly helped along by its incredible assortment of talented actors. Naturally, we have the always reliable Chuck Norris who very believably plays Eddie Cusack as a man dedicated to his job. It goes without saying that Chuck is totally convincing as a tough guy who can more than handle himself. As usual, his low key performance and soft voice (I don’t think he ever raises his voice in this film) nicely balances his flying fists and feet.

Next, we have the great Henry Silva (1960’s Oceans 11, 1962’s The Manchurian Candidate) who oozes evil as the no-nonsense, icy drug lord Luis Comacho. Film buffs will easily recognize talented actor (and talented casting director) Bert Remsen (McCabe & Mrs. Miller, Fuzz) who plays gruff Commander Kates. Next up is Molly Hagan (Some Kind of Wonderful, TV’s Herman’s Head) who shines as the tough, but vulnerable Diana. The late, great and Chicago born Dennis Farina (TV’s Crime Story, Midnight Run) was a Chicago cop before becoming a professional actor. Farina brings a lot of humor to his role of Detective Dorato which helps to balance out all the action and drama. Also, Mike Genovese (Harlem Knights, TV’s ER) is well cast as greedy mafia man Tony Luna; Nathan Davis (Dunston Checks In, Poltergeist III), who also happens to be the director’s father, does well as mafia head Felix Scalese; Ralph Foody (The Blues Brothers, Home Alone) is spot on as burnt out, alcoholic Detective Cragie; Joe Guzaldo (Chuck’s Hero and the Terror) is memorable as Chuck’s conflicted partner, and Ron Dean, who went on to appear in several films for director Davis such as Above the Law and The Fugitive, is wholly convincing as tough cop Detective Brennan. Joseph Kosala, who effectively portrays Lieutenant Kobas, was actually a retired sergeant of the Chicago Police Department and, while on the set, helped out immensely by acting as the film’s technical advisor. Kosala would go on to appear in five more films for Davis. Lastly, fans of Frasier will enjoy a humorous cameo by the late John Mahoney.

Code of Silence has been released on a Region 1 Blu-ray by Kino Lorber, It is presented in its original 1.85:1 aspect ratio and the beautiful HD transfer boasts sharp, crystal clear images (I’ve never seen this film look this good) and terrific sound. The disc is also loaded with special features. We are treated to brand new interviews with co-screenwriter Michael Butler, actors Ron Dean and Molly Hagen, and composer David Michael Frank. There is also an informative and entertaining audio commentary by director Andrew Davis. Last, but not least, the disc not only contains the original theatrical trailer, but trailers for other Norris classics An Eye for an Eye (1981), Hero and the Terror (1988) and Delta Force 2 (1990) as well as the trailer for Andrew Davis’ 1989 thriller The Package. If you’re looking for a 1980s action film with more going for it than just exciting car chases and shootouts, I highly recommend Code of Silence.

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(Ernie Magnotta is the author of "Halloween: The Changing Shape of an Iconic Series"). Click here to order from Amazon.)

BY FRED BLOSSER

“The Adventures of Hajji Baba,” a 1954 Walter Wanger production for Allied Artists Pictures and 20th Century Fox, has been issued by Twilight Time in a Blu-ray limited edition of 3,000 units. At the time of its theatrical release, the film was a commercially successful entry in the popular 1950s formula of swashbuckling romances about the legendary Middle East of Sinbad, Ali Baba, and the Arabian Nights. In today’s post-9/11 world, when the American public is more aware of the region’s grim reality, the Arabian Nights genre survives, just barely, in rare efforts like “Disney’s Aladdin” and the “Prince of Persia” video-game franchise.

In the 1954 movie, Hajji Baba (John Derek), a young Persian barber, sets out to make his fortune in the wider world. Meanwhile, across town in the Caliph’s palace, spoiled Princess Fawzia (Elaine Stewart) wants to marry an ambitious neighboring prince, Nur-el-Din (Paul Picerni). Her father objects, having heard about Nur-el-Din’s cruel temper. “Think of all the wives he’s had, and how he’s treated them,” he warns. “No one can hold him.” Undeterred, the headstrong Fawzia disguises herself as a boy and sneaks out to meet the prince’s emissary at a nearby oasis. There, she encounters Hajji, whom she mistakes for the courier. She offers him a valuable emerald ring for help in evading her father’s pursuit.

As the two proceed together across the desert, they’re captured by a gang of lady bandits led by the red-haired Banah (Amanda Blake), and eventually they realize that they’ve fallen in love with each other. Escaping from Banah, the pair fall into the hands of Nur-el-Din, who exercises his prior claim on Fawzia’s affections. Surrounded and outnumbered by the prince’s armed retinue, and believing that it’s Fawzia’s preference anyway, Hajji relinquishes the princess to Nur-el-Din in exchange for the ring that had been promised to him earlier. Irked, Fawzia rides off with the prince, who secretly orders two of his soldiers to ride back, kill Hajji, and retrieve the ring . . .

Critics of the time were inclined to dismiss Arabian Nights escapism of this sort, as modern reviewers do every time a new Dwayne Johnson or Mark Wahlberg action picture debuts. In his New York times review, Bosley Crowther suggested that the movie needed “someone in it like Bob Hope to kid and lampoon the ostentation of its lush Oriental gewgawry.” But most middle-class audiences were less exacting, and looked only for “The Adventures of Hajji Baba” to provide a couple of hours’ relaxation from the grind of work and school. The kids could enjoy the widescreen swordplay and horseback chases, Mom might think tingly thoughts about John Derek, and Pop could ogle Amanda Blake, Elaine Stewart, and the numerous other starlets in the cast in their skimpy harem girl costumes. That was about as racy as Hollywood products got in those days. Compared with the boxy, black-and-white image that moviegoers were used to watching at home on TV, the film’s sumptuous CinemaScope, Color by De Luxe photography was sensational stuff.

The 2.55:1 widescreen aspect and rich color are beautifully transferred on the Twilight Time Blu-ray, a welcome upgrade from the pan-and-scan print of the film that airs now and then on cable’s Fox Movie Channel. Modern viewers may be put off that the Arab and Farsi characters are played by actors whose accents are more Parsippany, New Jersey than Persia, but that was standard practice for the day, and even today’s Millennials will have to admit, if they’re honest, that the old-fashioned romance between Hajji and the willful Fawzia isn’t much more contrived than the plot of the average confection today on the Hallmark Movie Channel, or for that matter the tortuous complications on “reality” TV’s “The Bachelor.” Fans of ‘50s lounge music are likely to be amused by the title tune that wends its way through the soundtrack -- music by Dimitri Tiomkin, lyrics by Ned Washington, arrangement by Nelson Riddle, and vocal by Nat “King” Cole. The music and effects are isolated on an alternate audio track on the Twilight Time disc. Other extras are the original theatrical trailer, SDH subtitles, and an informative insert-booklet by the reliable Julie Kirgo. The Blu-ray is available HERE.

BY JOHN M. WHALEN 

Kino Lorber has released “Singing Guns” (1950), a Republic Pictures “singing cowboy” western filmed in Trucolor. The film is based on a western novel by Max Brand, and is pretty unremarkable except for the fact that the cowboy anti-hero, Rhiannon, an outlaw with a long bushy beard who has been robbing stagecoaches to the tune of over a $1 million, isn’t played by Roy, or Gene Autry, Rocky Lane Rex Allen, or any of the other western stars in Republic’s stable. Rhiannon, is played by a popular singer from that era named Vaughn Monroe.

I remember Vaughn Monroe when I was a kid. I used to hear him singing “Racing with the Moon,” on the radio. He had a rich baritone voice and my mother would turn up the radio every time it came on and sort of stare out into space with a funny look in her eyes. Monroe also had another big hit with “Mule Train,” with lyrics like “clippity clop, clippity clop, Muuuuuule Traaaainn.” Whips cracking. Well, it appears “Singing Guns “was made so that Vaughn could have a chance to sing “Mule Train” in a movie. The song has nothing to do with the story, but fits in with a scene where Vaughn drives a wagon pulled by two mules--- not exactly a train, but close enough, I guess. Monroe sings three other tunes in the film as well.

The script by the screenwriting team of Dorrell and Stuart McGowan concerns the attempts by Sheriff Jim Caradac (Ward Bond), doctor/preacher Jonathan Mark (Walter Brennan), and lady gambler Nan Morgan (Ella Raines) to catch, reform, and fall in love with the aforementioned stagecoach robber, respectively. The movie has a real corkscrew of a plot, starting with Rhiannon holding up the stage occupied by Nan and Sheriff Mark. When Rhiannon finds out the sheriff outwitted him by making sure there was no gold on this trip, he humiliates him making him march into town wearing a pair of Nan’s bloomers and a hat that looks like a flower pot. The sheriff, furious, gets to his office, grabs his other guns and chases Rhiannon out into the desert. Rhiannon gets to his mountain hideout and shoots the sheriff off his horse. He later goes down to bury him (he’s a decent sort of outlaw) but the sheriff was faking it and gets the drop on him.

He’s about to take Rhiannon in, but in another twist, Rhiannon jumps him and shoots him. In another weird turn, he decides to take the sheriff to town so the doctor can patch him up (like I said he’s a real decent sort of outlaw). Doc Caradac tells Rhiannon the sheriff needs a transfusion. The outlaw rejects his call for help (he’s not that decent, he’s gotta get out of town), forcing the doctor to slip him a mickey and perform the transfusion while he’s unconscious. (Aren’t there ethics rules being violated here?) Even worse than taking his blood, the doc also shaves off Rhiannon’s beard! When he wakes up he’s not only a quart low, he’s clean shaven!! And here comes the most unbelievable plot element. Without the beard, when he wakes up, nobody recognizes him. He’s just some guy who saved the sheriff’s life!!!

The story goes on like that with the plot switching back and forth, with the sheriff sometimes wanting to help Rhiannon and other time wanting to jail him, and Nan sometimes hating Rhiannon and sometime loving him, and Doc Caradac saying he’s just as interested in saving his patients’ souls as he is healing their bodies, and just wants everything to be okay.

Ignoring the ridiculous plot, perhaps the best thing about “Singing Guns” is the way it looks. It’s a brand new master by Paramount from a 4K scan of the original 35mm Trucolor nitrate negative. It’s sensational looking. And for the first time I’m aware of, “Singing Guns” shows how beautiful Ella Raines’ eyes were. The film she’s remembered for most is “Phantom Lady” (1944), the noir thriller based on Cornell Woolrich’s novel. It was shot in black and white, so you couldn’t see what color her eyes were. Film historian Toby Roan in his highly informative audio commentary said that cinematographer Reggie Lanning had trouble getting the color right; sometimes her eyes looked green, sometimes blue, sometimes yellow. Roan says he thinks they’re turquoise. Whatever they are they’re fascinating to look at, so much so I found myself having to reverse the disc in several places because I’d lost track of what she was saying. Maybe I was hypnotized. Raines only made 20 films in her lifetime. It’s a pity she didn’t make more..

“Singing Guns” is directed by R. G. Springsteen, who also directed Monroe’s only other western, “Toughest Man in Arizona.” The film is also notable for the number of familiar faces in the cast, including Jeff Corey, Harry Shannon, Rex Lease, and Jimmy Dodd (as well as Eleanor Donahue, and Billy Grey, who would later play Robert Young’s kids on “Father Knows Best”). Bonus features include the aforementioned audio commentary and several trailers for other KL Blu-rays. It’s another one of those discs that astonish you in regard to how good an old movie can look and sound when it’s done right. They can’t release enough of these to satisfy me.

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John M. Whalen is the author of "Tragon of Ramura". Click here to order from Amazon.

BY LEE PFEIFFER

Kino Lorber has released the 1992 British farce "Blame It on the Bellboy" on Blu-ray. The film is a fast-paced homage to old Hollywood screwball comedies that makes fine use of a very talented cast. Like all good farces, the script involves mistaken identities, extraordinary coincidences and an eclectic (and eccentric) collection of characters. The action takes place entirely in Venice where a nervous milquetoast, Melvyn Orton (Dudley Moore) is sent by a tyrannical boss to buy a villa. Simultaneously, a hit man with a similar name, Mike Lorton (Bryan Brown) arrives in the city to assassinate a local crime boss, Mr. Scarpa (Andreas Katsulas), who knows he has been marked for death but doesn't know the identity of his would-be killer. Scarpa and his men are determined to assassinate the assassin. Both Orton and Lorton are staying at the same hotel, so you can pretty much guess where this is going. Among the other guests is yet another man with a similar name, Maurice Horton (Richard Griffiths), the lord mayor of a small British city, who has told his wife Rosemary (Alison Steadman) that he is on a business trip to Boston. In fact, he has signed up with a tacky "dating service" that promises to arrange a meet-up with a woman who is also on holiday through the agency.She is Patricia Fulford (Penelope Wilton), a middle-aged lonely hearts who wants to find passion and love when she meets up with her mystery date. Meanwhile, local real estate agent Caroline Wright (Patsy Kensit) is awaiting a meeting with a prospective client to buy a white elephant of a villa on the Grand Canal so that she can collect an extravagant fee.

Through a mishap involving the hotel's inept bellboy (Bronson Pinchot), who delivers messages to the wrong rooms, there ensues a massive case of mistaken identities. Maurice thinks the sexy Caroline is his date, and a prostitute as well, whose "services" are part of his holiday package. Caroline thinks he is her client to buy the villa. Melvyn is mistaken by Scarpa as his assassin and is kidnapped and tortured. Meanwhile, the real assassin, Mike Lorton, is mistaken by Patricia as her mystery date. Adding to the zaniness is the unexpected arrival of Maurice's wife, who hopes to catch him in the act of cheating. What ensures is a wild, mind-spinning series of comedic events, all very deftly carried out at lightning speed by director Mark Herman, who makes the most of shooting on location amidst the eye-popping Venetian backgrounds. Herman, who also wrote the screenplay, ensures that this extraordinary mix of actors and characters never becomes too confusing for the viewer to follow, despite elaborate plot twists. There are chases on foot and by boat, people darting in and out of each other's bedrooms and it's all set to a jaunty score by Trevor Jones. "Blame It on the Bellboy" isn't a comedy classic but it's consistently funny with the impressive cast all in top form. Recommended, especially if you like a modern take on a Marx Brothers comedy. The Kino Lorber Blu-ray has a very good transfer and includes a vintage video promotional trailer for the film as well as an assortment of other trailers for K/L releases.

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BY LEE PFEIFFER

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

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

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

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To celebrate the 40th anniversary of the classic TV series "The Incredible Hulk", Cinema Retro's Ernie Magnotta sat down for an extensive discussion with the show's creator Kenneth Johnson.  

BY ERNIE MAGNOTTA

Dr. David Banner—physician, scientist…searching for a way to tap into the hidden strengths that all humans have. Then, an accidental overdose of gamma radiation alters his body chemistry. And now, when David Banner grows angry or outraged, a startling metamorphosis occurs.

The creature is driven by rage and is pursued by an investigative reporter. The creature is wanted for a murder he didn’t commit. David Banner is believed to be dead. And he must let the world think that he is dead until he can find a way to control the raging spirit that dwells within him.

Kids who grew up in the 1970s remember that narration well. Every Friday night at 9pm (until it was later moved to 8pm) we’d sit in front of our television sets, switch on CBS channel 2 and listen to the late, great Ted Cassidy (Lurch from The Addams Family) recite those very words before another exciting, hour-long episode of The Incredible Hulk TV series would begin. However, before there was a series, there were two very successful made-for-TV movies, and before that, a very popular comic book.

The character of the Hulk was created in 1962 by legendary Marvel Comics masterminds Stan Lee (writer) and Jack Kirby (artist). In the comic book, Dr. Bruce Banner was a nuclear scientist for the United States Army who, while trying to save a teenager who wandered onto a test site, was accidently bathed in gamma rays when a bomb he created was detonated. This forever caused the mild-mannered scientist to change into a hulking green-skinned creature whenever he became enraged. (The first few stories had him change whenever the moon was full just like a werewolf. Also, his skin was originally grey.) Most of the exciting comic book tales revolved around Army General Thunderbolt Ross’s obsessive need to find and capture the destructive, but good-hearted Hulk who he felt was a danger to the country he had sworn to protect.

Flash forward 15 years. After achieving great success writing and directing episodes of the super-popular cyborg television series The Six Million Dollar Man as well as creating and producing its sister show The Bionic Woman, Kenneth Johnson received a call from Universal Television head Frank Price. Price, who had just acquired the rights to five Marvel Comics superhero titles, asked Johnson to pick one that he’d like to develop for TV, but Johnson, who was not a comic book follower, declined. However, while reading Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables, Johnson thought about how he could combine the structure of that book with the characters of Bruce Banner and the Hulk while, at the same time, going for a more realistic approach than the comic book.

First of all, Johnson knew that he didn’t want any connection to comic book styles and, so, he immediately eliminated everything from the comics except for the main character of Banner (which he renamed David in order to avoid comic book alliteration) and the fact that, due to radiation poisoning, he metamorphoses into a hulking green creature whenever he becomes angry or endures great pain. (Johnson originally wanted to change the Hulk’s skin color to red, but Marvel vetoed the idea due to the already well-known look of their popular comic book character.) He then eliminated scientist Banner’s ties to the military and, instead, made him a California physician who was desperately trying to uncover the secret as to why, while trying to save another human life, certain people acquired almost superhuman strength while others did not (like himself when, after a car accident, he failed to turn over the flaming automobile and save his beloved wife). Also, Johnson not only eliminated the Hulk’s Tarzan-like speech and, except for growls, kept the creature mute, but, in order to maintain as much realism as possible, he made the Hulk less powerful than the indestructible creature in the comics.

Kenneth Johnson (center) with Bill Bixby and Lou Ferrigno.

Banner (played brilliantly by two-time Emmy Award nominee Bill Bixby who was Johnson’s first and only choice for the role) soon discovers that the answer is due to having a low Gamma count, so he immediately takes a higher dose. Unbeknownst to him, the equipment he used was calibrated incorrectly and he wound up taking a much higher dose than originally planned. This causes the change into an incredibly powerful, almost Cro-Magnon-like, green-skinned creature that, although destructive, retains Banner’s benevolence and does not kill (although, one day, it could inadvertently kill someone which is Banner’s biggest fear). Johnson added an Inspector Javert-like character in the form of tabloid reporter Jack McGee (played by talented character actor and acting teacher Jack Colvin) who becomes obsessed with learning about and capturing the Hulk (portrayed by legendary bodybuilding champion Lou Ferrigno). Due to McGee’s zeal as well as Banner’s burning desire for a cure, the good doctor’s colleague and unrequited love, Dr. Elaina Marks (played beautifully by Susan Sullivan), is accidentally killed in a lab explosion. However, McGee believes that Elaina (and Banner) was murdered by the creature and, after informing the authorities, a warrant for murder is put out for the Hulk. David Banner (a character with similarities to Jean Valjean), now believed to be dead, begins to travel the country in search of a cure while, at the same time, doing his best to avoid transforming into the green-skinned goliath; for the transformations bring the intrepid Mr. McGee who is always just one step behind him.

An intriguing, solid and perfect set-up for a television series (and one that was used several times before in shows like Quinn Martin’s classic series The Fugitive starring David Janssen and The Immortal starring Christopher George; both of which contain the Les Miserables structure of a benevolent man on the run being pursued by a relentless authority figure). However, before going to series, there would be a second TV-Movie of the week titled The Return of the Incredible Hulk (aka Death in the Family) which aired on November 27^th, 1977 (just weeks after the amazing (and just discussed) original pilot, The Incredible Hulk, which aired on Friday, November 4^th, 1977). This entertaining movie showed exactly how the future series episodes would play out. Banner, under an assumed surname always beginning with the letter ‘B’, arrives in town looking for work while simultaneously searching for a cure. He gets involved with other people’s dilemmas, honestly tries to help them and, before long, is made to change into his hulking alter ego who ultimately winds up saving the day (and, many times, Banner’s life). More often than not, Mr. Magee shows up after the first transformation (in the hour-long episodes, Banner always transforms twice, but here (in a two-hour movie) he metamorphoses four times) and Banner has the added headache of staying out of sight while the reporter is around. After saying his goodbyes to those he’s helped, a usually penniless Banner takes off alone, hitchhiking his way to a new town where he will continue to search of a cure, help those in need and avoid contact with McGee and the authorities.

BY LEE PFEIFFER

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

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

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

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BY JOHN M. WHALEN

The stars must have formed a fortuitous alignment. Somehow, a great wrong has been righted and order has been restored to the universe. Kino Lorber, under its KL Classics brand, has just released “Sunset in the West,” the first-ever high definition Blu-Ray edition of a Roy Rogers Trucolor western. This may not sound like a big deal to some people, but for the initiated—those who grew up watching Roy on the big screen at countless Saturday matinees in the 1950s— it is monumental. Because, until now the only Roy Rogers movies available for home viewing were dark, faded, and badly edited transfers released first on VHS and later DVD by Republic Studios. Republic treated Roy’s movies with criminal disrespect. The studio let the movies fade away with in their vaults, and then sold them to TV where they were butchered to fit time slots. By the time they got to home video there were a mess. For Roy’s fans, it seemed a hopeless situation that would never be corrected. But now, thanks to a first class restoration by Kino Lorber, you can see what John McClane was talking about in “Die Hard,” when he told Hans he was kinda partial to Roy Rogers more than John Wayne, because: “I really like those shirts.”

Color was an essential component of the Rogers westerns. In addition to the western-style shirts he wore, there was the bandana around his neck, the silver studs on his holster and gun belt, the hand-tooled boots with touches of turquoise on them, all of which combined to make Roy practically a living work of art. Even Trigger, his golden Palomino, billed as “The Smartest Horse in the Movies” was outfitted with handsomely a burnished leather saddle festooned with silver doo-dads and a Mexican-style saddle blanket. But you could hardly see any of that on home video. Part of the problem was the Trucolor process itself. Republic invented its own cheaper red and green two-strip color process to save money and still compete with Technicolor. The absence of the third blue strip resulted in more pastel shades than Technicolor with the picture emphasizing oranges and blues. The result was a special look that was immediately identifiable, and put Republic’s, and especially Roy Rogers, movies sort of in a class by themselves. But the big drawback was that Trucolor film faded quickly. Kino Lorber has done a praiseworthy restoration, remastering “Sunset in the West,” from a 4K scan, and the movie looks just about as good as it must have when it was first released. It’s a significant event in the history of film restoration.

“Sunset in the West” is a typical Roy Rogers movie. Certainly not the best he ever made, but a good one.
I would vote for “Bells of San Angelo” as the best, but I suppose it’s all a matter of opinion. When you’re talking about the King of the Cowboys what can you say? They’re all great. In this one Roy finds himself involved in a plot involving gun runners. The script by screenwriting veteran Gerald Geraghty starts with a train hijacking. (That’s another plus right there. Roy Rogers and trains! There are several steam locomotives in the story, although it’s likely there was only one that was used and made over to look different each time.) The bad guys drive the trains to isolated areas, dump out the freight, and replace it with guns to be smuggled across the border to a foreign power. The trains are found later wrecked somewhere along the track. Roy finds out about it when the train he was expecting to pick up the cattle he had driven to Bordertown races right on by without even stopping. Not a man to let a thing like that go by, Roy jumps on Trigger and races after the steaming locomotive. He overtakes the train, jumps aboard and is immediately punched out by the engineer and knocked off the speeding locomotive.

And that’s just the first reel of this action-packed movie. Directed at a frenetic pace by the legendary William Witney (one of Quentin Tarantino’s favorite directors), “Sunset in the West” packs a slew of galloping horse chases (Roy takes down two baddies riding double in one scene), numerous fist fights (including a barroom brawl that must have used half of Republics fabled team of stunt men), several gun fights, four or five quick musical numbers, and a finale that takes place along the crashing waves of a deserted beach. And all packed into a dizzying 67 minutes.

The cast includes Penny Edwards, playing the niece of Sheriff Tad Osborne (Will Wright), an old timer who’s about to chuck his 30-year career because he can’t solve the mystery of the highjacked trains. The plot gets moving when Roy, is deputized and helps find out who’s behind it all. Also on hand for comedy relief is Gordon Jones as “Splinters” a hiccupping barber/deputy sheriff. Pierre Watkin appears as Gordon McKnight, a leading citizen of Bordertown who seems kind of shady, and Estelita Rodrigues, who plays Carmelita a Mexican gal singer who doubles as a spy for Deputy Splinters. Foy Willing and the Sons of the Purple Sage are on hand to provide some of the music.

Kino Lorber presents the movie in a 1920X1080p transfer and in its original aspect ratio of 1.37:1, slightly wider than the standard 1.33:1. Bonus features include audio commentary by Western film historian Toby Roan, who provides interesting info on the cast, the locations, and, just about anything else you’d want to know about the movie. There are also previews of other westerns in the KL catalog. There’s no question. This is one Blu-Ray you have to own. Let’s hope there are more restorations of these classic films to come. Until then, Happy Trails, partner, and may the Good Lord take a liking to you.

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John M. Whalen is the author of "This Ray Gun for Hire...and Other Tales." Click here to order from Amazon. 

BY FRED BLOSSER

“Sabata” (1969; U.S. release, 1970), “Adios  Sabata” (1970; U.S. release, 1971), and “Return of Sabata” (1971; U.S. release, 1972) are often referred to as “The Sabata Trilogy,” thanks to clever marketing by MGM, which originally released the three Italian Westerns theatrically and on home video here in the States. Technically, “trilogy” is a misnomer. As I noted in an article review on this site in 2014, “Adios, Sabata” was released in Italy in 1970 as “Indio Black, sai che ti dico: Sei un gran figlio di...,” with Yul Brynner as the title character Indio Black. It was rebranded for distribution in the U.S. and some European markets when “Sabata,” starring Lee Van Cleef, turned a profit for MGM and producer Alberto Grimaldi. Commercially, it was a smart move, keeping the Sabata name on marquees until the true Van Cleef sequel, “È tornato Sabata... hai chiuso un'altra volta!,” followed in American theaters as “Return of Sabata” in the Watergate summer of 1972. For a longer analysis of the first Van Cleef movie, not included in the review that follows, see the 2014 review.

Only Mr. Magoo would mistake Yul Brynner and Lee Van Cleef for each other, but reviewers had an “Oh, well,” attitude about the casting, simply assuming that Brynner had stepped in for Van Cleef between the first and third movies. Audiences didn’t seem to notice or care. Anyway, many of the same credits appeared on all three films, ensuring some continuity of style: producer Grimaldi, director “Frank Kramer,” actually the Americanized alias of Gianfranco Parolini, scriptwriters Parolini and Renato Izzo, and supporting actors Pedro Sanchez, Nick Jordan, and Gianni Rizzo. The strategy probably benefitted the three films over the long haul, as well. With genre pictures, series tend to have more staying power than stand-alone titles. On DVD, MGM Home Video released the three movies in 2006 both as individual discs and as a boxed set under the “Sabata Trilogy” label. Kino Lorber Studio Classics produced a Blu-ray edition of “Sabata” for the U.S. market in 2014, and now has completed its set with “Adios, Sabata” and “Return of Sabata,” released simultaneously as individual discs.

In “Adios, Sabata,” Brynner’s title character signs up for a caper to steal the Emperor Maximilian’s imperial gold from murderous Col. Skimmel (Gerard Herter) and turn it over to Juarez’s good-guy Mexican revolutionaries. The “inside man” for Sabata at Skimmel’s military post, and alternately his rival for the gold, is Ballantine (Dean Reed), a portraitist and con artist. Lots of explosions ensue, along with chases, battles, gunfights, and trick weaponry (like Sabata’s rifle magazine that also serves as his cigar holder). As a “gringos south of the border” action-fest, it’s better than any of the sequels to and reboots of “The Magnificent Seven,” including last year’s dour remake.

In “Return of Sabata,” Van Cleef’s character comes to Hobsonville, Texas, as the star of a Wild West sideshow in a traveling circus. Sabata tells his old Army subordinate from the Civil War, Clyde (Reiner Schöne), now the proprietor of a local gambling house, that he plans to stick around long enough “to collect the $5,000 you owe me.” Actually, Sabata has a bigger score in mind, related to his reason for traveling with the circus, and to the money being raised by town boss McIntock through exorbitant sales taxes to fund “civic improvements” in Hobsonville. Where Van Cleef’s original Sabata was a steely man of mystery, his character in “Return of Sabata” is more relaxed, to the point of mugging for the camera in a couple of scenes, having a gorgeous hooker girlfriend, Maggie (Annabella Incontrera), and indulging in what today’s viewers might regard as a couple of sexist comments. Some reviews unfairly conclude that the plot makes no sense. If you pay close enough attention, it does, but “Kramer” makes the narrative hard to follow, inserting details and events in rapid succession and seemingly at random. Only later do they pay off with verbal or visual punchlines. It’s hard to tell if he was being intentionally disruptive to keep viewers guessing about Sabata’s motives along with Clyde and McIntock, or if he couldn’t resist adding every gag that he and Izzo thought of.

Like “My Name is Nobody” (1974), the next-to-last Spaghetti produced by Sergio Leone, “Return of Sabata” indulges in too much noisy, surrealistic circus business for anybody but the most avid Cirque de Soleil groupie. Where “Sabata” had one acrobat in the protagonist’s entourage (Nick Jordan), the sequel has two (Nick Jordan and Vassili Karis). An opening “shootout” in a weirdly lit room between Sabata and a passel of gunmen turns out to be part of the sideshow act. It concludes as the stage lights come on, the gunmen get up, wipe off their fake blood, and joke with each other, and a noisy troupe of clowns runs in. Viewers allergic to clowns may be tempted to punch “stop” or “fast forward” at that point. The first of the gunmen “shot down” by Sabata appears to be played by actor and stuntman Romano Puppo, Van Cleef’s stunt double in several Spaghettis, even though Puppo doesn’t appear in the cast credits for the picture in IMDB and the Spaghetti Western Data Base.

Licensed from 20th Century Fox and MGM, the KL Studio Classics Blu-ray editions of “Adios, Sabata” and “Return of Sabata” have sharp hi-def clarity and a strong color palette, nice upgrades from the previous DVD discs. Extras are scanty, limited to reversible case sleeves with the American poster artwork for the films on one side and the Italian on the other, and trailers for the Sabata films and “Barquero,” an inferior 1970 American Western starring Van Cleef. Unfortunately for aging fans, the audience most likely to remember Van Cleef and Brynner, no SDH subtitles are provided. The German Blu-ray editions from Explosive Media that preceded the KL releases are superior in this respect, including both audio and captioning options not only in English but also in Italian and other languages. Too, it’s unfortunate that KL didn’t spring for the rights and the costs to port over and translate the attractive, informative insert booklets that Explosive Media’s Ulrich Bruckner included with the German discs. Regardless, fans will appreciate Kino Lorber for making “Adios, Sabata” and “Return of Sabata” readily accessible in the U.S. market in good hi-def prints.

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BY MARK CERULLI

Anyone who grew up in the 1970s fondly remembers “Chiller Theater” playing on WPIX in the NY area.  Chiller introduced me to all the Universal classics – Dracula, Frankenstein, The Wolfman and, of course, Karloff’s 1932 addition, The Mummy. Universal’s new re-imagining of their beloved classic isn’t that Mummy, not by a long shot– but we’re in a different time and a different world, so why not?

This new Mummy stars Tom Cruise as Nick Morton, an Army commando/antiquities raider who finds and sells priceless relics on the black market. He’s stolen a map from a lovely, combative British archaeologist (Annabelle Wallis) that leads him to modern day, ultra dangerous Iraq. After he and his Army bro (Jake Johnson) call in an airstrike to save them from insurgents, a missile blast reveals the hidden tomb of Ahmanet, an Egyptian Princess who murdered her immediate family in a quest for power. Her punishment was being buried alive – in a vat of mercury, which the ancient Egyptians believed prevented her evil spirit from escaping. Tom Cruise inadvertently raises her and all Hell breaks loose – literally.

Stunning Algerian actress Sofia Boutella (the legless assassin from Kingsman: The Secret Service) plays our new Mummy – it was a bold choice, but the ONLY one director Alex Kurtzman could make as no one could out-Karloff Karloff. Boutella is menacing, seductive and a screen presence who can more than hold her own with Tom Cruise.

The film has already received a drubbing from some critics and die-hard monster fans. They took issue with Tom Cruise’s casting and the filmmakers’ use of CGI. While I was surprised to hear that Cruise had signed on, The Mummy is something different from his usual action hero chores and he embraced it with his trademark enthusiasm. He convincingly plays a macho military guy fighting against Ahmanet’s spell, trying to win back the archeologist and save the world from the princess’ zombie hordes. (Did I mention she can raise the dead?) While the filmmakers did use CGI, the work by Technicolor’s MPC is, as expected, top notch – from sandstorms blowing through London’s Financial District, to attacking camel spiders and dead Crusaders stalking the London Underground.

So we have a new, female Mummy, we have global icon Tom Cruise, we have zombies, chases and car crashes. What’s the only thing missing? A frame to hang it and future monster movies on. Well, the filmmakers thought of that too: enter “Prodigium”, a super secret organization dedicated to wiping out evil and it’s hot on The Mummy’s trail. Prodigium is run by… um… Dr. Henry Jekyll. Cue the needle skip sound!

Jekyll, played by Oscar-winner Russell Crowe, is a clue that The Mummy, impressive as it is, is part of something bigger – the Dark Universe, Universal’s reinvigorated monster franchise. Take a deep breath and step back… unless you’ve been buried alive for the last decade, Hollywood is, for better or worse, in the mega franchise business: Iron Man, Thor, Deadpool, Kong, Star Trek, Pirates, Harry Potter, MI, Fast & Furious, Hunger Games, James Bond, Jack Reacher, etc. Why? Because with rare exceptions, they make boatloads of money. If you view it in that context, Dr. J’s appearance makes a bit more sense. Crowe is fine as the good doctor and his evil counterpart who gives Cruise a righteous thrashing while trying to enlist him to the dark side, but I kinda wish they hadn’t crossed horror streams, so to speak… that said, The Mummy is everything you could want from a $120 million film – it’s fast, exciting, and impeccably made. And it isn’t all airless CGI: early on, the military plane transporting Princess Ahmanet’s sarcophagus is hit by a swarm of crows. The resulting crash was filmed on 16 parabolic flights to show Cruise and Wallis banging around the cabin in Zero G. There’s a high-speed ambulance crash on the moors of England that practically puts you in the driver’s seat. Cinematographer Ben Seresin uses the vast Namibian desert to great effect; and love him or hate him, Tom Cruise is a damn good actor. His almost-nude scene reveals he is also as ageless as the Sphinx. So kick back and enjoy this Mummy. You’ll always have Karloff’s classic on your DVD shelf.

BY FRED BLOSSER

“One Million Years B.C.” (1966) with Raquel Welch was sufficiently profitable for Hammer Films that producer Aida Young and studio executive Anthony Hinds were incentivized to create a sequel. In final analysis, “When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth” (1970) seems more a reboot of the earlier movie than a sequel to it. Victoria Vetri, who had been Playboy’s Playmate of the Year in 1968 as “Angela Dorian,” succeeded Welch as the female lead, and Jim Danforth took over the FX role from the otherwise occupied Ray Harryhausen, with assistance from David Allen and others. Filming began in October 1968 but post-production FX work delayed final completion and release for two years, probably sinking any publicity value from Vetri’s Playmate fame. The picture opened in the U.K. in October 1970, in western Europe in January 1971, and Stateside in March 1971 from Warner Brothers-Seven Arts. The European print ran 100 minutes and included a few frames of fleeting nudity and implied sex. The skin was negligible by today’s premium-cable standards but apparently deemed unfit for small-town moviegoers in the Nixon era. Warner-Seven Arts deleted the nudity from the U.S. edit and secured a “G” rating for the kiddie audience. The film had a brief life in drive-ins, but wider exposure followed in syndicated TV airings in the ‘70s and ‘80s.

The first home-video releases of “When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth” were simultaneous editions from Warner Home Video in 1991, in formats now as extinct as the dinosaurs themselves, VHS and Laser Disc. Both products were struck from the rated-G print. I paid the $59.95 asking price for the VHS cassette and probably would have sprung for the Laser Disc too, had I owned a player at the time. I was glad to have the movie in a form that I could watch at leisure in those days before streaming video and Netflix, when local video stores rarely carried such second-tier titles for rental. A DVD edition appeared in 2008 as a two-fer with Hammer’s “Moon Zero Two,” retailed through Best Buy. The DVD created a brief stir because the unrated European print had been used as the source, supposedly by accident, even though the case carried the “G” rating. The new Blu-ray from Warner Archive Collection also is sourced from the European print, but this time the case warns (or teases, depending on your perspective) that it is the “International Theatrical release version which contains nudity.”

The opening credits attributed the “screen treatment” for the film to critically acclaimed writer J.G. Ballard, misspelled onscreen as “J.B. Ballard,” and the screenplay to British science fiction, horror, and thriller veteran Val Guest, who also directed. The respective accounts of Ballard and Guest are sketchy and inconsistent as to what each writer contributed to the final product. Such as it is, the story isn’t bad -- even in 1971, you didn’t go to a movie titled “When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth” expecting dramatic complexity -- although it mostly serves to fill time between the appearances of Danforth’s gorgeous stop-motion dinosaurs.

Set of three door panels displayed in theaters during theatrical release.

Sanna (Vetri) is one of six young blonde maidens chosen by the fanatical chief of the prehistoric Mountain tribe, Kingsor (Patrick Allen), as human sacrifices to appease the tribal sun god for recent celestial unrest. Little do the primitive tribesmen know, but the tremors on earth and in heaven that scare them are caused by the formation of the Moon separating from Earth, not by divine displeasure. Sanna escapes in a sudden windstorm, falls into the sea, and is rescued by Tara (Robin Hawdon), a young fisherman from the neighboring Shore tribe. At the Shore village, where tribespeople are trying to tie down an unruly plesiosaur, Tara’s girlfriend Ayak (Imogen Hassell) becomes jealous of Sanna, who flees again when Kingsor comes to reclaim her. Chases, escapes, and more dinosaurs ensue, including a charming if biologically unlikely subplot in which a mama dinosaur and her baby welcome Sanna into their family after mistaking her for a newly hatched sibling. Where the earlier movie closed with a catastrophic volcano eruption, Guest’s ends with the tide receding an unnatural distance, leaving a bleak mud flat from which a giant crab emerges (the surrealistic mud flat seems to have been Ballard’s idea), and then roaring back again in a biblical deluge generated by the newly condensed Moon. In another charming touch, a raft carrying Sanna, Tara, and their friends Ulido (Magda Konopka) and Khaki (Drewe Henley) washes gently to rest on a matte-painting cliff in the final scene after the flood subsides and dawn breaks.

Many fans seem to feel that the casting of “When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth” is inferior to the earlier movie’s, but Vetri holds her own in the lead. The script gives her more to do than “One Million Years B.C.” demanded of Welch, and she delivers. She has screen presence and she looks great in skimpy togs that accentuate her impressive physical attributes. Hammer clearly understood that sexy outfits sell tickets at the box office, even in movies whittled down to a family-friendly rating. It’s a strategy still employed today by moviemakers, more than forty-five years later: case in point, the ads for the new PG-13 action movie “Ghost in the Shell,” which place Scarlett Johansson’s generous curves in a skin-tight body stocking front and center. Hawdon, Allen, and Hassell support Vetri with plucky, straight-faced performances. That may be the most anyone can ask of actors who are required by the script to strip down to their skivvies and talk in made-up Stone Age language. Fans of modern CGI may disagree, and probably will, but the dinosaurs designed and animated by Danforth and his associates have more heft and personality than anything in the recent, expensive blockbusters “Kong: Skull Island” (2017) and “Jurassic World” (2015). The music by Mario Nascimbene, the maestro of biblical and Viking soundtracks, adds a measure of classic-cinema panache lacking in today’s mostly by-the-numbers action and fantasy scores.

The Warner Archive Collection Blu-ray is welcome as the latest iteration of “When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth” for the home market. The colors are strong, and the definition at a 1.78:1 aspect ratio is about as good as can be expected from older studio elements, short of a costly digital makeover. The disc includes the original movie trailer and, anticipating the needs of the target Boomer audience, English SDH captions. It’s questionable in this instance whether captioning is necessary, since the dialogue consists of fifteen or twenty nonsense Caveman words repeated over and over again, but it’s the thought that counts.

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“A MOD MURDER MYSTERY”

By Raymond Benson

Michelangelo Antonioni’s Blowup (it’s spelled this way in the film credits, but on theatrical posters and advertising it was called Blow-Up) was a landmark, envelope-pushing film that caused quite a stir. For one thing, it was one of the nails in the coffin of the U.S. Production Code, paving the way for the elimination of cinematic censorship and the eventual creation of the movie ratings. Its depiction of nudity, sexual attitudes, and recreational drugs crossed the line for late 1966. Nevertheless, newspaper ads got away with simply proclaiming that the picture was “Recommended for Mature Audiences,” since this was prior to the ratings themselves.

Blowup also stands as a cultural landmark in that it captures that moment of time called “Swinging London.” Everything was “mod”—music, fashion, art... even groups of youths were called “mods.” Antonioni’s film could serve as a time capsule for that period of artistic rebellion. It’s also a curiosity in that it was an Italian-British co-production, financed by Hollywood—but it definitely comes off as “English.” The filmmaker received his only Best Director Oscar nomination for the picture, and he shared a nomination for Original Screenplay with Tonino Guerra.

The story concerns Thomas, a professional photographer (charismatically portrayed by David Hemmings), who we follow as he goes about his daily routine of shooting gorgeous fashion models and whatever else strikes his fancy as he roams London. He’s estranged from his wife (Sarah Miles), and it’s apparent they have an open relationship (how very mod of them!). One day, while strolling through Maryon Park (which still looks practically the same today), Thomas spies a lovely young woman (Vanessa Redgrave) with an older man. He snaps pictures without the couple knowing it, but then the woman chases Thomas down and demands to have the film. He won’t give it up—the pictures are going into an art book he’s planning to publish. When he develops the roll, Thomas discovers that a murder may have occurred. Later on that night, he returns to the park and finds that, indeed, the older man’s body is lying in the grass. The mystery of the crime becomes Thomas’ obsession.

There isn’t much plot beyond that. Instead, Antonioni presents an existential treatise on the nature of seeing and not-seeing, or perhaps imagination vs. reality. Thomas seems to have everything a good-looking, talented man could want—his pick of “birds” (yes, that was the slang for “girls” then), money, a fancy car, and the freedom to chase the muse. And yet, there is something missing in his life and it soon becomes obvious that he’s not very happy. The uncovering of the mystery further shakes him out of party mode and forces him to face the real world. It’s a theme Antonioni explores in several of his works.

The film is a visual feast. The sets are filled with the modern art of the period and “Twiggy”-style clothing. The London locations are used to a great advantage, and many of these are revisited in the new documentary on the making of the film that is included as a supplement on the disk. The soundtrack is also “hip”—Herbie Hancock provides the jazz score, and the Yardbirds (which at the time included Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page) appear as themselves and perform at an underground club. The ménage à trois scene that caused all the fuss with the Production Code and features Hemmings, Jane Birkin (who at the time was married to composer John Barry), and Gillian Hills, is wild and raucous and was probably pretty shocking at the time—but today it would barely classify for an “R” rating in the U.S.

The Criterion Collection’s new Blu-ray release of Blowup exploits all of these assets in a gorgeous restored 4K digital transfer and an uncompressed monaural soundtrack. The supplements are plentiful—the aforementioned 2016 documentary; new pieces on Antonioni’s artistic approach with photography curators Walter Moser and Philippe Garner and art historian David Alan Mellor; a 2016 conversation with Vanessa Redgrave; two archival interviews with David Hemmings; an archival interview with Jane Birkin; footage from the 1967 Cannes Film Festival at which Blowup won the Grand Prix (also with an interview with the director); and two trailers. The set comes with a fairly thick, lavishly illustrated booklet featuring an essay by film scholar David Forgacs, an updated 1966 account of the film’s shooting by Stig Björkman, the questionnaires distributed to photographers and painters while developing the film, and the 1959 Julio Cortázar short story on which the film is loosely based.

In short, Criterion has released an exemplary set for a milestone film. So take a trip back to the swinging sixties for some free love, pop music, and far-out modern art. It will turn you on.

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BY LEE PFEIFFER

American ex-Presidents occupy a unique place in society. They represent the smallest, most elite club on earth. Each of the living ex-Presidents has known the bizarre ritual that results from transforming from the most powerful person on earth to someone with absolutely no legal powers in the amount of time it takes the new President to swear to the oath of allegiance. An incumbent President in a deeply divided nation can consider themselves to be successful if poll numbers show they left office with an approval rate of the mid-40s or higher. However, the best way a President can make poll ratings soar is to simply leave office. Traditionally the American people, and the world at large, views ex-Presidents from a saner, more nuanced viewpoint and inevitably their reputations improve with time, largely because they are mostly seen doing good deeds and raising money for charities. The ex-Presidents club has also seen some unexpected friendships develop due to the fact that only  someone who has served in the pressure cooker atmosphere of the Oval Office can possibly relate to what his peers have gone through. Thus we saw President George H.W. Bush form a close bond with President Bill Clinton despite the fact that it was Clinton who deprived Bush of a second term. Word has it that the two men have almost a father/son relationship. Consequently, Clinton and President George W. Bush are said to enjoy a very cordial relationship. When Clinton was in office he served as the unlikely vessel that afforded President Richard M. Nixon a degree of public redemption by calling upon him for advice relating to foreign policy. President Gerald Ford also formed a very close friendship with the man who defeated him, President Jimmy Carter. The two traveled the lecture circuit in a quixotic attempt to convince Americans not to demonize people simply because they disagreed with their political beliefs. Yes, we tend to love our Presidents- as long as there is an "Ex" prefix before that designation. However, it's doubtful many would love ex-Presidents Russell P. Kramer and Matt Douglas, the protagonists of the 1996 political comedy "My Fellow Americans".  Directed and co-written by Peter Segal, the film takes a promising premise that ends up being more fun in theory than it is in execution. 

The film opens with Kramer (Jack Lemmon) and his successor-in-office Douglas (James Garner) being summoned to the White House to participate in an event to be presided over by incumbent President Haney (Dan Aykroyd). Neither man wants to be there, as they both detest Haney (who was Kramer's Vice-President)- but not more than they detest each other. En route to the conference, they insult each other constantly using language that would embarrass a Marine drill instructor. Both of the men have their annoying eccentricities. Douglas is a skirt-chasing womanizer (remember Bill Clinton was in office when the film was released) and Kramer is a penny-pinching tightwad who tarnishes his reputation by whoring himself for big bucks by making a speech a in front of Japanese executives (President Ronald Reagan had been lambasted for doing the same thing when he left the White House.) When they arrive at their destination, the real plot device kicks in. Turns out Haney is corrupt and details of a kickback scheme with a defense contractor are about to be unraveled by a snooping reporter. Haney and his equally corrupt staff get to work to concoct a scheme whereby Kramer will be framed as the real culprit and Douglas will be the top suspect in the murder of the defense contractor. Things go awry, however, when Kramer and Douglas manage to escape and go on the lam. They nearly die in a helicopter crash before being stranded in rural America with sinister "Men in Black" types hunting them down. Almost penniless and virtually helpless without their servants and security force, the two men become like a pensioner political version of Tony Curtis and Sidney Poitier in "The Defiant Ones". They need each other to survive but can barely tolerate the other man's presence. The scenario is wide open for some great possibilities but director and co-writer Segal can't quite capitalize on the opportunities. Given the fact that the entire story premise is absurd, Segal manages to ratchet up even more absurdities until the film feels enough like a comic book that I expected the Marvel name to appear in the credits. By foot and car, the Presidents wander through the American heartland like modern Woody Guthries. Along the way they encounter an Elvis Presley impersonator, a former sexual conquest of Douglas (who doesn't believe it's really him), endless chases by Haney's Gestapo-like assassins and high speed car chases. They predictably learn a life lesson about the nobility of everyday Americans and the struggles they endure. The whole improbable mess comes to a climax back at the White House where, for reasons far too laborious to relate here, the ex-Presidents end up being chased on horseback in an attempt to reveal the truth about Haney, who is in the process of honoring members of the Dutch Resistance (!)

"My Fellow Americans" does have some pleasurable aspects and moments. Lemmon excels in playing "Odd Couple"- like scenarios largely because he starred in the film version of "The Odd Couple". The film would have been more enjoyable if he had his usual co-star Walter Matthau with him but it is fun to see Lemmon and Garner square off against each other. There are also a few funny one-liners and modestly amusing scenarios including a surprising revelation at the end but Peter Segal's leaden direction ensures that no scene lives up to its potential. There are a number of good character actors in supporting roles ranging from Lauren Bacall (largely wasted), Wilford Brimley and, most amusingly, John Heard as Haney's handsome but dumb-as-an-ox VP (a not-so-subtle jibe at the legacy of Dan Quayle in the days before Sarah Palin would emerge to take the mantle.)  One of the problems with the script is that it is so intent on not offending anyone's political sensibilities that the obsession with being "middle of the road" becomes annoying and pretentious. Thus, there is no bite to the jokes. For every knock against the GOP there is an equivalent knock against the Democrats. For example, in one scene the hitch-hiking ex Presidents are picked up by a destitute family who live in their car. We make sure we learn how both parties adversely affected their lives. The point of the scene is to show the Presidents humbled by these simple but honest people, but the film presents these noble characters as kind hearted idiots who believe Mount Rushmore is a natural rock formation. As I've written before, Hollywood screenwriters always believe that if they want to show an honest patriot, it has to be in the guise of a Gomer Pyle-type, unsophisticated idiot from rural America. It's the ultimate back-handed compliment. The other cliche readily apparent in the script is that all the dapper, educated and sophisticated characters tend to be crooks, schemers and murderers. Isn't just possible that a "real American" can also be sophisticated, patriotic and educated? Such are the predictable aspects of this lumbering comedy. I will say that the film is quite interesting in an unintentional way. Although released only twenty years ago, it's shocking to see how primitive technology was. No one seems to have a personal computer and there isn't a single cell phone seen anywhere, illustrating just how rapidly these devices came about and changed people's lives. 

"My Fellow Americans" isn't some disaster and one hates to be a Grumpy Old Man about any film featuring Jack Lemmon and James Garner (who gets to replicate his jump from a speeding train from "The Great Escape" in this film). It certainly has some moments that afford minor laughs but the movie would have been better off delving completely into the Theatre of the Absurd in the manner of the "Naked Gun" and "Airplane" movies.

The Warner Archive has released the film in widescreen format for the first time. Previously, it was only available in pan-and-scan. Extras include the original trailer and a mildly amusing selection of bloopers that mostly focus on Lemmon cracking up on the set.

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