By Doug Oswald

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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BY HANK REINEKE

A March 1945 notice in the Los Angeles Times reported that following his return to Hollywood from a USO camp tour, Boris Karloff was to begin work on a RKO Radio production titled Chamber of Horrors. The film was to be produced by Val Lewton, the producer who had already brought to the screen such psychological-horrors as Cat People (1942), I Walked with a Zombie (1943) and Curse of the Cat People (1944). Karloff had already appeared in a pair of Lewton’s horror-melodramas for RKO, The Body Snatcher (1945) and Isle of the Dead (1945). The actor had been enjoying his freelance status of late. Recent castings in a series of mad scientist films (1940-1942) for Columbia solidified Karloff’s reputation as cinema’s preeminent boogeyman - even in roles sans grotesque makeup appliances. So the engagement of the actor for Chamber of Horrors was properly trumpeted in a 1945 Variety notice as something of a given: “Karloff Goes Mad – Again.”

By August of 1945 the pre-production title of Chamber of Horrors was abandoned, the film tentatively re-slated as A Tale of Bedlam. It’s not entirely clear why the earlier title was dropped. One can speculate that RKO wished to differentiate their new film from the 1940 British Edgar Wallace thriller of the same name. But this second title too was soon shortened, the resulting film eventually released simply as Bedlam.

The origin of the film’s scenario was certainly original, one inspired by a painting of the sixteenth century British artist William Hogarth. In the years 1733-1734, Hogarth would brush a series of eight plates depicting the plight of a doomed character’s commitment to London’s notorious St. Mary’s of Bethlehem Asylum. The most famous of these portraits was Plate #8, titled “The Rake’s Progress,” a snapshot depicting madness on the ward’s floor. If Lewton’s films are best recalled for their psychological-horror element, the scenario of Bedlam illustrates the sorry fate of those irreversibly afflicted. Particularly the lurid, inhumane conditions to which they’re subjected following internment.

In the case of Bedlam, Lewton (under the nom de plume of “Carlos Keith”) and director Mark Robson would craft a provocative, class-conscious screenplay. Though the film is a historical-melodrama in construction, the picture was marketed as a thinly disguised Boris Karloff horror vehicle. Robson was a favorite collaborator of Lewton’s. He helmed Karloff’s previous film for RKO Radio, Isle of the Dead, as well as two earlier Lewton productions, The Seventh Victim (1943) and Ghost Ship (1943). The latter title, in fact, appears here as one half of the double-feature Blu ray made available here through the Warner Archive.

The budget for Bedlam was kept reasonably low since the filmmakers were able to make use of an existing set at RKO-Pathe’s studio in Culver City. Eagle-eyed admirers of the classic Ingrid Bergman-Bring Crosby movie The Bells of St. Mary (1945) will notice that film’s convent school setting has been repurposed for the darker explorations of Bedlam. The existing set’s availability allowed the production and costume designers on Bedlam some economic freedom to properly – and lavishly - dress the costumes and settings. The film has a very elegant, high-budget feel despite it’s small bankroll, and Robson does an admirable job of contrasting the privileged world of London’s elite against the poor souls who suffer the dank, dark asylum chamber of St. Mary’s.

The film takes place in the year 1761, an era cynically described here as “The Age of Reason.” Karloff’s unpleasant character, Master Sims, serves as the particularly cold and malevolent Apothecary General of the asylum. He’s a man without morals, interested only in satisfying his own selfish desires and lining his pocket. To this end, Sims continually toadies and fawns to those of regal or high political import, such as the corpulent and equally repulsive Lord Mortimer (Billy House). To gain favor with those of high position, Sims coldheartedly showcases “performances” of interned “loonies” for amusement and monies.

Things start going bad for Sims when he’s challenged by Nell Bowen (Anna Lee), a mistress of Mortimer’s whose earlier haughtiness and indifference has softened by the grotesque showcases. Rightfully seeing Bowen as a threat to both his position and pocketbook, Karloff does what he can to break the woman’s spirit. He cynically and falsely charges her with derangement, leading to a commitment to the ward at St. Mary’s. Her only hope in breaking free – and continuing her fight for the well-being and humane care for fellow inmates interred in this “bestial world” – is through the interventions of a pacifist Quaker (Richard Fraser) and a sympathetic, anti-Tory Whig politician Wilkes (Leland Hodgson). But the malevolent Sims will do all he can to silence and destroy the determined woman to prevent that from ever happening.

The film’s monochrome cinematography looks great, Director of Photography Nicholas Musuraca atmospherically capturing and juxtaposing the elegant lifestyles of the rich and powerful against the sorrowful living conditions of the mental and emotionally disturbed inmates of the asylum. Such attention to detail is particularly impressive when considering the production of Bedlam was shot quickly, photography wrapping by the end of September 1945.

The Hollywood trades would report shortly afterward that Karloff was scheduled to appear in yet a third film for the team of Lewton and Robson, Blackbeard, presumably a swashbuckling pirate epic. RKO executive producer Jack Gross was to supervise this new production, one scheduled to commence filming in spring of 1946. That film would, sadly, not see the light of day. Lewton’s relationship with Gross was reportedly an unfriendly one, and the box-office for Bedlam wasn’t what the studio had wished it to be. The revenue shortfall was partly attributed to troublesome distribution issues.

Such issues aside, it was also true that public interest in horror films had diminished. Such changes in taste had allowed Karloff to - briefly – be free of playing roles that exploited his reputation as cinema’s man of menace. This respite, however, wouldn’t last long. The gentlemanly, lisping actor was soon back to playing villains, mad scientists, and mysterious Swamis before decade’s end - even terrorizing Bud Abbott and Lou Costello as an acrobatic Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

Lewton would go on to produce four subsequent films following Bedlam, but the filmmaker would pass on in March of 1951, a somewhat uncelebrated figure in Hollywood. It wasn’t until the late 1960s that film scholars would reassess his contributions to cinema, anointing several of his earliest 1940’s efforts as classics of the horror genre. Robson’s career would continue unabated for decades, scoring big successes with such films as Von Ryan’s Express (1965) and Earthquake (1974).

Though this Blu ray’s second film lacks a star player of Boris Karloff’s caliber, Robson’s The Ghost Ship is certainly worth a watch. Despite its titillating supernatural title, this film too is not a horror-vehicle. Tom Merriam (Russell Wade), a newly hired third mate to Captain Will Stone (Richard Dix), suspects the cargo freighter’s commander is not only mentally disturbed, but possibly homicidal. The problem is no one on the crew or at the shipping company seems to agree with him. This despite mounting evidence of the Captain’s increasingly suspicious actions and demonstrably bizarre behavior. In some respects, The Ghost Ship is similar to Bedlam as it suggests one remain wary of being too trustful of those holding positions of power and prestige. Though a sixty-nine minute B-film, The Ghost Ship is a pretty effective effort, some even preferring it to Bedlam as it’s a bit more suspenseful in construction.

This Warner Archive Collection Region-Free Blu ray edition of Bedlam and The Ghost Ship is presented here in 1080p High Definition 16x9 1.37.1 and DTS-HD Master Mono Audio. While the set includes the trailers of both films, the only other special feature offered is an informative and entertaining commentary courtesy of film historian Tom Weaver in support of Bedlam. Those of us who already invested in Warner’s nine-film DVD set The Val Lewton Horror Collection (2005) might not choose to upgrade for this Blu two-fer, but fans of Karloff and Lewton will be amply rewarded should they do so. This set not only features upgraded transfers with great balance, but also Weaver’s usual comprehensive supporting commentary, absent from the original DVD release.

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MGM/20th Century Fox has just released a 2-DVD set of director Philip Kaufman’s 1978 version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Cinema Retro Editor-in-Chief Lee Pfeiffer recently caught up with one of the stars of the film, Veronica Cartwright for her reflections on that Hollywood rarity: a remake that in many ways equals or exceeds the quality of the original. Successful as a child actor, by 1978 Veronica Cartwright already had an impressive acting resume, having worked with Audrey Hepburn in The Children’s Hour and been directed by Alfred Hitchcock in The Birds. She has worked consistently in recent years, gaining Emmy nominations for The X Files and appearing in new, major motion pictures and TV series. She will also be appearing in the new version of the Body Snatchers story, The Invasion with Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig. Veronica Cartwright has a wealth of stories about working with giants in the industry as well as the ups-and-downs most actors experience in their careers. She is unpretentious and good-humored and all too happy to recall one of the major films of her career for Cinema Retro.

CR: You started as a child actor and over the years seem to have become associated with some iconic TV shows and movies dealing with sci-fi and the supernatural. Did you intentionally seek out work in this genre?

VC: I have no idea why that is. At one point I had done so many that I thought to myself, “My God, I’m the queen of sci-fi!” I was just accepting the work that came along. Actually, I had done a couple of Alfred Hitchcock Presents shows and I had appeared on One Step Beyond when I was seven or eight years old. I guess that’s how the whole thing started. Then I did the Twlight Zone episode called I Sing the Body Electric that’s one of the classic ones that’s shown every Halloween.

By Ernie Magnotta

1974... Producer/director Bob Clark’s (Deathdream, Murder by Decree, A Christmas Story) frightening and entertaining suspense-thriller Black Christmas is released and is lovingly devoured by a horror-hungry audience. Expertly written by A. Roy Moore (The Last Chase), who was inspired by the urban legend “The Babysitter and the Man Upstairs” as well as a real life murder case, this excellent, Canadian-made horror film details a group of sorority sisters who are terrorized and slaughtered during the holiday season by a mysterious psychopath who, unbeknownst to everyone, is hiding in the sorority house attic.

More than just a marvelous piece of horror cinema, the Gialli-influenced film went on to become quite influential in its own right. Predating John Carpenter’s immortal and amazing Halloween by four years, the smart and stylish Black Christmas (aka Silent Night, Evil Night and Stranger in the House), which has already had two inferior 21^st century remakes, contains many elements that would not only find their way into the Carpenter classic, but into the slasher sub-genre as well. Elements such as a mad killer murdering on a beloved holiday; attractive teen victims; the POV shot as a stand-in for the killer; nail-biting suspense; a female protagonist who fights back, and the killer still being alive in the final scene can all be traced back to Clark’s masterwork. The enjoyable film is also partly responsible for the glut of Christmas-themed slashers which, each year, only seem to be growing in number.

Featuring a top-notch cast—Margot Kidder (1972’s Sisters, Superman: The Movie), Olivia Hussey (1968’s Romeo and Juliet, Psycho IV: The Beginning), Keir Dullea (2001: A Space Odyssey, David and Lisa), Andrea Martin (SCTV, My Big Fat Greek Wedding), Art Hindle (The Brood, 1978’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers) and the legendary John Saxon (Enter the Dragon, 1984’s A Nightmare on Elm Street) as well as incredibly talented character actors Doug McGrath, Les Carlson, Marian Waldman, James Edmond and a very creepy score by composer Carl Zittrer—Black Christmas is not only a must-see, humorous and quite terrifying film, but, as already stated, an important and, in my opinion, still underrated piece of horror history.

I was extremely fortunate to be able to speak with gifted actress Lynne Griffin who not only plays the sweet and low-key first victim, Clare Harrison, but whose now iconic image—a dead Clare sitting in a rocking chair in the sorority house attic with a clear plastic bag over her head—was used to promote the film. A veteran of stage, screen and television, the Toronto native appeared in several other memorable films after Black Christmas including the comedy classic Strange Brew (1983) and the underrated slasher film Curtains (1983). Although she was extremely busy, the lovely, gracious and insanely funny Lynne took time out of her hectic schedule to chat with me about her fond memories of Black Christmas.

Ernie Magnotta: How did you get involved in the film?

Lynne Griffin: It was just a general audition. I think the reason I got the part was because I told them I was a good swimmer and that I could hold my breath for a long time.

EM: Because they needed you to wear the plastic bag over your head?

LG: Right. Which is pretty funny when you think about it. That’s how you get a part? (Laughs) Also, I mean, look at that face. If there was ever one that was going to play the eternal virgin it was me. But yeah, just a general audition. I don’t even remember if I met Bob Clark at the audition or not, but it was a wonderfully fun shoot. And Bob Clark is Uncle Bob. He just made every day really fun to be there; especially all my days in the attic.

EM: A lot of people don’t realize that, besides the horror and suspense, he was also responsible for some of the lighter moments in the movie as well as for keeping the ambiguous ending which Warner Bros. wanted him to change. And he made the college student characters more realistic which only helped with the suspense and scares. I’m such a fan of his and it’s a real shame what happened to him.

LG: Oh, so tragic. Oh, my God. And I know there was going to be more greatness to come from Bob. Cut short unfortunately.

EM: Now, you played someone very different from your usually funny, bubbly personality and you did it quite convincingly. Was that difficult or were you able to just slip right into it?

LG: Back then, I was actually very serious. I was studying Shakespeare and was doing very dramatic work, so, when I played Clare, I was in my element.

EM: Do you remember how long you worked on the film?

LG: It was actually quite substantial because we were doing all the initial party scenes and the phone call scenes and I remember that we spent a lot of time shooting the attic stuff. I was probably on it three, maybe four weeks.

EM: That’s longer than I thought.

LG: Yeah, because things weren’t shot in sequence. And I kind of remember it really being like a family/sorority sort of feeling because we were there a lot and we were really getting to know one another. There was always a nice feeling on set. And that always comes from the top. That was Bob.

EM: I thought it would have taken less time for you because I just assumed that they shot all the attic scenes at once.

LG: They did. I kind of remember being around it a lot, though. I don’t really know why that would be. It’s funny with some films. There was one I shot in Vancouver where I was on hold for like three weeks. I was sitting in a hotel room waiting for them to shoot some other stuff with me and they just kept throwing per diem at me. So, when that happens it feels like you’ve worked longer, but the actual filming that I was involved with didn’t take all that time. The attic scenes definitely didn’t take three weeks to film.

EM: I know that, throughout the film, several different people played Billy, the demented and horrifying, unseen killer, but do you remember who played him for both your murder scene and your scenes in the attic?

LG: Camera operator Bert Dunk (an unsung hero of the film who was also responsible for designing the equipment needed to film all of the killer’s POV shots) strangled me in the closet with the plastic bag, but Bob Clark rocked the rocking chair. Bob also did some of Billy’s voices, but that was mostly done by actor Nick Mancuso.

EM: Such a great actor. And I don’t think I’ve ever heard a more frightening or more insane-sounding phone voice in all of horror cinema.

LG: Absolutely not.

EM: Did you stick around the set even after your scenes were shot?

LG: Yeah, I think we all kind of hung out. And I remained friends with Art Hindle. We’ve worked together a lot since then. We once worked on an animated series where we played old lovers which was really funny. Art always likes to remind me that, in Black Christmas, he was my first screen kiss. (Laughs) So, the fact that we’re still sort of hanging out is very cool. And he’s one of the funniest people on the planet.

EM: Nice. He starred in a David Cronenberg film called “The Brood” which is a favorite of mine. I love that film and he was great in it. I also always loved Margot Kidder. Was she fun to work with?

LG: I adored Margot Kidder and I was enamored with her all the way through just because of the way she works. She was doing a lot of improv which was phenomenal, sensational and funny all the time. She wasn’t standoffish at all. She was lovely. So was Andrea Martin and Keir Dullea. Like I said, it was a very congenial and happy set. There wasn’t really any negativity which was wonderful. I was trying to think if there was anything juicy I could tell you, but no. They didn’t like tie the plastic bag around my head so that I couldn’t breathe or anything like that. (Laughs) Yeah, they were very sweet. When you shoot horror films, I think the general atmosphere is to keep it very light and fun even though you’re doing something that is really quite grotesque.

EM: It’s not real, so it becomes funny.

LG: Right. You know you’re playing pretend and it’s a bucket of fake blood or whatever. And that part of it I really like. If it were taken really seriously I probably wouldn’t like doing it.

EM: I agree. Tell me about working with Olivia Hussey.

LG: A lot of people think that Olivia is sort of like aloof or standoffish, but I didn’t find her that way at all. Of course, it was fascinating to pick her brain about working with Zeffirelli because she’d done Romeo and Juliet for him and, like I mentioned before, I had been working on a lot of Shakespeare too at that time. She was really lovely. And we’re Facebook friends to this day.

EM: Oh, that’s terrific. Now, unfortunately, we lost the great John Saxon. I know you didn’t have any scenes together, but did you get to meet him?

LG: Oh, yes. And you know, for the longest time, John Saxon came out and did the conventions and the panels with us. Art Hindle, myself and John were always on the panels for Black Christmas. John was fabulous. I remember doing one Comic-Con with him. I think it was a Comic-Con. Anyway, the line for people to see him was like around the building and he was so lovely with every single person. And, at that time, he was showing me the ropes about how I should behave at one of these conventions which was really cool. He was a lovely man.

EM: How about Claude, the cat? I heard he was difficult to get along with and pretty full of himself. (Laughs)

LG: (Laughs) Claude was not a happy cat. He did not work well with others. I was sitting in the rocking chair and Claude didn’t like being tossed onto my lap by Bob Clark. So he scratched me. Claude, not Bob.

EM: Thanks for clearing that up. (Laughs)

LG: (Laughs) Oh, and they sprayed catnip all over my face so that Claude would lick my face while I was sitting in the rocking chair.

Kino Lorber will release a 4K UHD edition of Don Siegel's "Two Mules for Sister Sara" starring Clint Eastwood and Shirley MacLaine. Here are the details:

Product Description

From Don Siegel, the legendary director of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Coogan’s Bluff, Dirty Harry, Charley Varrick, The Shootist and Escape from Alcatraz, comes this classic western starring screen legends Clint Eastwood (The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, High Plains Drifter) and Shirley MacLaine (Sweet Charity, Irma La Douce). Eastwood is a hard-hitting drifter who rides into town and single-handedly rescues a local nun (MacLaine) from a gang of bandits. After meeting a band of Mexican revolutionaries bent on resisting the French occupation of Mexico, the cowboy and Sister Sara decide to join forces with the freedom fighters and set off on a deadly mission to capture the enemy’s garrison. But along the way, a steamy romance develops between them when the soft-spoken hero discovers the nun is not what she seems. Ending with a violent climax at the well-protected fort, this action-packed western classic cemented Eastwood’s status as a true cinematic superstar. Featuring a masterful score by the great Ennio Morricone (A Fistful of Dollars).

Special Features:

DISC 1 (4KUHD):

• Brand New HDR/Dolby Vision Master (International Cut) – From a 4K Scan of the 35mm Original Camera Negative
• NEW Audio Commentary for by Author and Film Historian Justin Humphreys
• Audio Commentary by Filmmaker Alex Cox, Author of 10,000 Ways to Die: A Director's Take on the Italian Western
• At Home with Clint: Vintage Candid Interview with Clint Eastwood
• Poster and Image Gallery
• 5.1 Surround and Lossless 2.0 Audio
• Triple-Layered UHD100 Disc
• Optional English Subtitles

DISC 2 (BLU-RAY):

• 2020 4K Restoration of the Domestic Cut
• Radio Spots
• TV Spots
• Theatrical Trailer
• 10 More Clint Eastwood Trailers
• 5.1 Surround and Lossless 2.0 Audio
• Dual-Layered BD50 Disc
• Optional English Subtitles

This title will be shipping on November 19.

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By Lee Pfeiffer

Acclaimed actor Donald Sutherland has passed away at age 88. Sutherland defied the odds by becoming an extremely popular leading man despite lacking the traditional handsome looks of male stars during the era in which he entered show business. A native Canadian, Sutherland was quite sickly during his childhood but he eventually recovered his health. He originally attended university in hopes of becoming an engineer, but a nagging ambition to become an actor brought him to London in the 1960s. He was cast in a "B" horror movie, "Castle of the Living Dead" which was shot in Italy. Returning to London, Sutherland's offbeat acting style and distinctive physical characteristics intrigued producers and he found work guest starring in various T.V. series and films. He had a key role in the first Amicus horror film, "Dr. Terror's House of Horrors" in 1965 in which he shared the screen with Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee. While still in England, Sutherland landed his breakthrough role as a non-too-bright but courageous G.I. convict in the 1967 classic WWII blockbuster "The Dirty Dozen". This, in turn, led to his ultimately being cast in director Robert Altman's counter-culture military comedy "M*A*S*H" in 1970. Sutherland introduced the character of Hawkeye Pierce opposite his co-star Elliott Gould. The film was based on Richard Hooker's anti-war novel. Although set in the Korean War, everyone recognized that the target audience was young people who were in opposition of the Vietnam War. The film spawned the acclaimed, long-running T.V. series in which Alan Alda assumed the role of Hawkeye. That same year, Sutherland landed another standout role opposite Clint Eastwood in director Brian G. Hutton's WWII comedy crime caper "Kelly's Heroes" opposite Clint Eastwood. The hippie-like character of Oddball made him a pop culture icon and you can still buy T shirts depicting Sutherland in the role.

Sutherland could have concentrated exclusively on his popularity as a comedic actor but he wanted to stretch his talents in dramatic roles. In the 1971 thriller "Klute", Sutherland won praise for his performance opposite Jane Fonda, who won an Oscar for the film. In 1973, Sutherland starred with Julie Christie in director Nicolas Roeg's supernatural chiller "Don't Look Now", one of the most inventive and terrifying movies ever made. He also starred in director John Schlesinger's 1975 film version of "The Day of the Locust", a cynical look at Hollywood that won acclaim in some quarters but which was a boxoffice disaster. In fact, some of Sutherland's most popular films under-performed at the boxoffice during their initial release including the inventive WWII thrillers "The Eagle Has Landed" and "The Eye of the Needle". Sutherland played the villain in both films. He co-starred with Sean Connery in the 1979 Victorian caper film "The Great Train Robbery", another film that became more popular after its theatrical release. He made a brief appearance as a hipster college professor in director John Landis's classic 1978 comedy "National Lampoon's Animal House". He also starred in director Philip Kaufman's 1978 remake of the classic 1956 sci-fi film "Invasion of the Body Snatchers". Many film fans think the remake matched or exceeded the original in terms of its impact. In 1980, under the direction of Robert Redford, Sutherland gave a brilliant performance as the male lead in the domestic drama "Ordinary People" about a family in distress. It won the Best Picture Oscar. In the ensuing years, Sutherland never stopped working. Many of his ventures were independent films with limited release but he won acclaim (and an Emmy) for his work in television. In the year 2000, he starred with Clint Eastwood, James Garner and Tommy Lee Jones in the humorous adventure film "Space Cowboys", which proved to be a boxoffice hit. He also gained a new generation of fans for his recurring role in "The Hunger Games" films. In 2015, he co-starred with his son, Kiefer Sutherland, in the Western "Forsaken". Despite his status as a beloved and acclaimed actor, he was never nominated for an Oscar but did receive honorary recognition by the Academy in 2017.

Donald Sutherland was an outstanding talent and a superb presence on both the big screen and in television. Cinema Retro joins film fans worldwide in mourning his loss. 

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By Hank Reineke

I much prefer writing about obscure or little-known items of celluloid than attempt to tackle a bona fide film classic as The Quatermass Xperiment.  The best chroniclers and historians of science-fiction and horror film history have proven to be a distinguished, thoroughly immersive, and informed band of researchers, commentators and authors.  Which, sadly, leaves also-rans such as myself little insight to add to what discourse exists already.  But in the rare event that someone who reads Cinema Retro is unfamiliar with Val Guest’s classic of British sci-fi, I’ll press on and attempt at a simple synopsis of The Quatermass Xperiment:

The nose end of an intact rocket ship crash lands in an open misty field deep in the English countryside.  Within minutes, police, fire vehicles, ambulances and curious locals gather to view the wreckage.  Among those taking command at the scene is the irascible and cocksure Professor Quatermass, barking orders that override even those of the assemblage of police and military officials.  Quatermass, we soon learn, was the primary architect of this wrecked three-crew space mission.  We also learn via the protest of an upset official from the Ministry of Defence, that Quatermass’s interstellar space voyage was unsanctioned by the British government.

Only one of the three astronauts originally launched, Victor Carroon, has seemingly survived this orbital freefall. Truth be told, it’s hard for scientists to determine conclusively.  Two of the astronaut’s spacesuits are still aboard the craft, but now curiously empty of their occupants.  Carroon is unable to explain what went on prior to the spacecraft’s unceremonious crash to earth.  Carroon has returned in a near-catatonic state.  He’s unable to speak… save for a desperate, mumbled plea asking his rescuers to “Help Me.”  Unfortunately for all involved, they are mostly unable to.

To make matters more peculiar, upon close examination it becomes unclear to his caregivers if Carroon actually is Carroon.  The fingerprints taken upon his return do not match that of the pre-flight astronaut.  One doctor suggests the prints examined are not “even human” in form.  It’s determined that whomever this “shell of a man” is, he’s being slowly transformed into something decidedly non-human.   

As one might expect, this faux-Carroon manages to escape from his hospital quarantine.  He roams the streets and riverbanks of London and surrounding areas, searching for food and scaring locals in the process.  Quatermass, the police, and the military are in pursuit, helpfully assisted by Carroon’s continual shedding of human-form to something more gelatinous.  As the ill-fated astronaut continues to devolve, he conveniently leaves behind a luminous path of radioactive waste in his wake for his pursuers to follow in trail.  The film climaxes with a climactic showdown between earthlings and alien in the hallowed chamber of Winchester Cathedral.     

The Hollywood Reporter was among the first of the trade papers in the U.S. to confirm that production of The Quatermass Xperiment was to commence in October of 1954.  (Technically speaking, the earliest reports first offered details under the film’s working title of Shock!) It was announced that Val Guest would direct the extravaganza, a film soon to be trumpeted as “The Most Fantastic Story Ever Told!” Hammer Films’ Michael Carreras and Anthony Hinds would produce, with the picture’s U.K. distribution to be handled by London’s Exclusive Films.  The screenplay of Shock! – based on the characters created by writer Nigel Keane for the Quatermass BBC television series of 1953 - was reported as a collaboration of veteran screenwriter Richard Landau and Guest.

Bringing Quatermass to the big screen seemed a sure bet.  The earlier BBC series had proven wildly popular, millions of UK viewers tuning into their parlor sets to watch the extra-terrestrial exploits of the Professor.  In a 1973 interview with Chris Knight (later published in the June 2018 issue of Richard Klemensen’s seminal Little Shoppe of Horrors magazine) Rudolph Cartier, the producer-director of the original BBC television series gave the lion share of credit to Kneale’s brilliantly conceived scenarios.   

Cartier thought Kneale’s cliffhanger scripting was the deciding factor in the success of the television series.  The producer was equally impressed by Kneale’s ability to write the natural dialogue of “real people,” which exhibited an unerring “ability to play on the underlying fears of the human soul.”  In that very same issue of LSOH, director John Carpenter – no slouch in creating totemic horror and sci-fi films himself – equally acknowledged Guest’s big screen version of The Quatermass Xperiment as “horrifyingly groundbreaking.” Carpenter thought the film version offered well-executed and thoughtful explorations of “the fear of the unknown.”   

On one of the supplements included on this release from Kino Lorber, Carpenter on Quatermass: On Camera Interview with Legendary Director John Carpenter,” the auteur recalls catching The Quatermass Xperiment (under its U.S. release title of The Creeping Unknown) as a youngster in Kentucky.  He thought the film both “profound” and mind-blowing, arriving timely on the heels of a world post-atom bomb and on the cusp of American and Soviet interest in space exploration.  Carpenter was of the opinion The Quatermass Xperiment was the “first powerful gift” of Hammer Films’ fright factory.    

Perhaps. But in 1955 the original creators of the television series didn’t share that rosy view.  Cartier acknowledged that Kneale was particularly unhappy with Hammer’s adaptation of his work.  So much so that the scenarist even cautioned Cartier “not to go” to the cinema to visit the film upon release. Kneale might have been – perhaps understandably - over-protective of his personal vision, but he was not alone in his assessment.  Upon the film’s release, one London-based critic mused while the first Hammer Quatermass film certainly offered cinemagoers the “full horror comic treatment,” he thought “Some of the TV Tension” of the original BBC series was “lost in this film’s extravagant chiller gimmicks.”   

Today only aged folks with long memories can say whether Kneale’s The Quatermass Experiment series was greater than Hammer’s The Quatermass Xperiment (with an “X”). Sadly, only two of the original six-episode summer of 1953 BBC broadcast are extant, so comparisons aren’t possible.  Oh, but about that “Experiment” versus “Xperiment…”

Guest was aware his picture would likely be given an “X” certificate designation – no child under the age of sixteen admitted into the cinema due to alleged “explicit” content.  Such branding was not unexpected given the temperature of the times.  Guest had previously submitted a sample copy of the script to a censor at the British Board of Film Classification who, upon reading, advised as such.  But Guest chose to press on regardless of losing an important audience demographic.  “Some people thought we were mad to go ahead, but I had faith in it,” he offered to Picturegoer.  One BBC feature writer suggested the prominent “X” in the film’s “Xperiment” title was purposeful, Hammer Film’s sly rebuke of the picture’s undeserved “X” classification.     

Upon the film’s release, it appeared Guest’s gambit had paid off.  London’s Picturegoer was particularly enthused with The Quatermass Xperiment, enthusing that a British studio had - at last - managed a production, “to make Hollywood’s Frankenstein’s and Dracula’s curl up in their crypts.”  That might have been so, but Guest nonetheless cautioned the film not be preemptively tagged as a run-of-the-mill “horror” movie.  Such designation brought with it expectations.  “We didn’t really set out to make that kind of film, you know,” Guest corrected.  “I’d prefer it if you call the film a ‘chiller.’”   

Picturegoer noted there were plans to release the film in U.S. markets under its provisional title of Shock!  But that re-title wouldn’t happen.  In March of 1956, Variety reported that Robert Lippert of United Artists had paid a flat fee of $125,000: he believed this “thriller-type film” held “potential value” in the U.S. market.  The brief item also noted the film’s U.S. domestic release title change would be The Creeping Unknown.  Upon its U.S. release - and following its scoring of “fancy” box-office returns for United Artists - a Variety critic acknowledged, The Creeping Unknown (“a gelatinous octopus-like mass that absorbs all plant and animal life that it touches”) was a “competently made drama, containing sufficient suspense and frightening elements.”

The film’s success in the U.S. was not assured.  As neither Nigel Kneale’s Quatermass BBC serial – nor the Professor Bernard Quatermass character – were generally on the radar of American couch-sitters, United Artists retitling The Quatermass Xperiment under the far more provocatively sinister and exploitative name of The Creeping Unknown made sense.  (On a special feature included here that compares the differences between the U.K. and U.S. cuts of the film - the latter running approximately two and-a-half minutes shorter - it’s noted that a surviving continuity script titled the film in pre-release as Monster from Outer Space).

The Creeping Unknown was paired in the U.S. as the undercard of a ballyhoo “Double Horror Show! of “Two Terrific Horror Pictures!” (of which Reginald LeBorg’s The Black Sleep (1956) would top-line).  The LeBorg film, while no venerable classic, was certainly the more marketable of the two – at least in the U.S.  The cast of The Quatermass Xperiment were peopled with faces mostly unfamiliar to U.S. moviegoers. In contrast, The Black Sleep offered an illustrious cast of familiar and beloved genre actors: Basil Rathbone, Lon Chaney Jr., Bela Lugosi, John Carradine and Tor Johnson amongst them.

United Artists certainly wasn’t about to gamble on its investment in this British undercard.  Under the title banner of The Creeping Unknown, the U.S. marketing department was tasked to play up the film’s more exploitative angles.  The art department conjured up a garish one-sheet poster featuring a crashed rocket ship and gigantic demonic creature hovering above the heads of a terrified, fleeing populace. The poster’s caption read: “You Can’t Escape It!  Nothing Can Destroy It! It’s Coming for You from Space to Wipe all Living Things from the Face of the Earth!  Can it Be Stopped?”

It was a prudent time for United Artists to release the film in the U.S. as the 1950s “Silver Age” of cinematic science-fiction in full bloom.  In 1956 alone, theater cash boxes were stuffed with receipts from such pictures as Earth vs. the Flying Saucers, Forbidden Planet, Godzilla, King of the Monsters, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, It Conquered the World, The Creature Walks Among Us, The Mole People, and World Without End – and that’s to name only a few.  Interest in sci-fi would continue to blossom and explode throughout the 1950s, with 1957 and 1958 being particularly banner years for the genre.  

According to the film’s U.S. pressbook, director Val Guest had helmed no fewer than seven motion pictures in a twelve-month span, The Creeping Unknown being the seventh.  Guest had been, all things considered, an odd choice to be asked to direct.  Guest admitted he was a mostly disinterested observer of science fiction of any sort.  So he expressed surprise when producer Anthony Hinds had approached him to helm the film.  Most of the films Guest had previously directed - and was best known for - were straight-on comedies.  Since Guest admitted honestly to having not watched the wildly popular BBC series, Hinds pressed copies of Kneale’s original tele-scripts to help familiarize him with the material.  On holiday with his wife in Tangiers, Guest – at first, reluctantly - began to read through the scripts.  He would acknowledge Kneale’s storytelling left him “pinned to his deckchair.”    

There was certainly interest that Hammer test the viability of The Quatermass Xperiment/The Creeping Unknown playing overseas.  There was one major hurdle.  Should the film employ only or primarily a British cast, the main players would be practically unknown to U.S. moviegoers.  Guest noted it was mostly at the insistence of the American distributor that an actor of some marquee standing in the U.S. be given the lead role.  So the producers brought in the American actor Brian Donlevy to play Professor Quatermass.  

Donlevy was well known to American film audiences.  The actor had worked regularly and steadily in Hollywood, more often than not in rough-and-tumble tough-guy roles: prize-fighters to cowboys to soldiers to film noir detectives.  But certainly not as an egg-head scientist.  (As a completely irrelevant aside – but a fun fact all the same - Donlevy would later wed the widow of Bela Lugosi).  The casting of Donlevy was the only major talent concession.  Most folks cast were familiar faces of past Guest productions, the director preferring to work alongside the dependable professionals of his own repertory company.  

Both Carpenter and Guest suggest that Kneale was particularly unhappy with the casting of a brash, somewhat tactless Yank as Quatermass.  Kneale’s Quatermass was, in Guest’s reading, “a very English, Professor-like character,” a model of British gentility.  Donlevy exhibited none of these qualities, but Guest welcomed bringing the actor’s tough-guy persona to the fore – even if that meant partly re-creating the character as envisioned by the dissatisfied Kneale.  Carpenter too recalled Kneale’s obvious displeasure in the Donlevy casting, but personally found the actor’s performance as suitable.  Having worked with the scenarist on two projects (an ultimately unmade remake of The Creature from the Black Lagoon and on Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982, for which the writer’s contribution was uncredited), Carpenter reminisced that Kneale - while certainly talented - was a “handful” to work with.  

In any event, the film was a success.  By spring of 1956, Donlevy was already back in London to work on a second Quatermass film, X the Unknown (also co-written and directed by Guest).  As this follow-up would cost $140,000 to produce (a 60% increase over the more economically-budgeted The Quatermass Xperiment), Exclusive Films, the United Kingdom distributor,  entered into a partnership with United Artists – the latter agreeing to put up 75% of that cost for a 50/50 box office share.  

In some manner of speaking, the American had been upstaged in the first film.  Donlevy’s co-star Richard Wordsworth was mostly unknown to U.S. moviegoers, the actor having only recently graduated from stage to television to film acting.  Indeed, The Quatermass Xperiment would log as his first big-screen credit.  His performance as the alien-infected mute Victor Carroon received good notices: quite a feat considering his character spoke nary a line of dialogue.  In many respects, Wordsworth steals the show, delivering a frightening, tortured portrait of the empty-shell astronaut.  Guest thought Wordsworth “brilliantly” acted the part, relying solely on the conveyance of haunted facial expressions and gentle physical movements to emote.    

By Todd Garbarini

David Nutter is a director who has worked almost exclusively in television through his entire career, most notably helming episodes of 21 Jump Street (1987 – 1991), Superboy (1988 – 1992), The X-Files (1998 – 2018), ER (1994 – 2009), The “Kevin Finnerty” episode of The Sopranos (1999 – 2007), Entourage (2004 – 2011) and Game of Thrones (2011 – 2019), to name an illustrious few. His two theatrical credits to date are Cease Fire (1998) with Don Johnson and Disturbing Behavior starring James Marsden and Katie Holmes, a film released in New York on Friday, July 24, 1998, that attempts to be a commentary on high school culture and ends up being a pastiche of parts of Village of the Damned (1960), A Clockwork Orange (1971), The Stepford Wives (1975) and Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978).

Steve Clark’s (Marsden) family has moved to Cradle Bay, Washington from Chicago, Illinois following his older brother Allen’s (Ethan Embry) suicide (shown in flashback snippets), which is a topic off-limits during family dinners. Steve’s parents want to behave as though the tragedy never happened and when he starts attending his new high school, he is befriended by outcasts Gavin (Nick Stahl), U.V. (Chad Donella) and Rachel (Katie Holmes) but is encouraged to join a group of preppy, school-sweater wearing seniors known as the Blue Ribbons who promote themselves as do-gooders but come off as cliquish and robotic. Gavin is suspicious of the cult-like group and admonishes Steve to avoid them, fearing their artificial smiles. Something just seems “off” about them. Gavin’s conjecture about the Blue Ribbons proves correct when, while overhearing a PTA meeting, it comes to light that school psychologist Dr. Edgar Caldicott (Atom Egoyan favorite Bruce Greenwood) is responsible for hypnotizing and brainwashing the teens into subservient, positive-thinking students to curb juvenile delinquency. He has implanted brain microchips into the teens with their parents’ consent – apparently, even they are tired of out-of-control adolescents! The teens’ sexual urges are too strong, however, to be controlled by the procedure and, when aroused, they act out in fits of violent, amygdala-hijacking rage. Newberry, a fly-on-the-wall janitor portrayed by William Sadler, is on to Caldicott and leaves the screen with deliberate abandon with a memorable shoutout to Pink Floyd’s Another Brick in the Wall. Without spoiling the ending, let’s just say that Gavin does an about-face.

What had the potential to truly dive into the very universal nature of the existence of disparate characters in American high schools and what the driving force is behind such behavior is missed in this film that instead simply wants to come off as scary but fails to do so. The by-the-numbers plot is so different from what the director envisioned due to negative audience test screenings that the film studio felt compelled to order more edits to alter the movie’s direction and in the process is such a mess that it has left the audiences wanting something different. For many years, I avoided anything and everything taking place in high school as most films of this ilk tend to have one-note cardboard cut-outs wherein no one is a complex character – good-looking jocks and sexy cheerleaders are always assholes, nerds are devoid of self-confidence and are sexually inexperienced and consequently shunned, and teachers are often portrayed as doofuses. Any action partaking in hallways with lockers and bullies automatically makes me cringe.

It’s no secret that director Nutter was unhappy with this cut of the film, so much so that he contemplated pulling an “Allan Smithie” on it but reconsidered.

Disturbing Behavior was released on Blu-ray from Shout! Factory in 2016 and the new pressing from MVD Rewind Collection is identical to that release (it ports over the same extras) except for adding a cardboard sleeve and a pullout poster in the company’s requisite differentiation. It also represents a missed opportunity to provide the audience with the desired director’s cut of the film which can be read about here, something that I hope a future release will provide. This release suffers from a dark transfer that makes it difficult to see most of the action.

The extras contain:

Full-length feature audio commentary from director Nutter who talks about the making of the film, the performers involved, and the overall story and how it came about.

Deleted Scenes – this section consists of the following 11 scenes:

1. Caldicott Talks About His Daughter

2. Newberry Tells Steve the Truth

3. Office Cox Gives Steve a Ride Home

4. Steve’s Nightmare

5. Steve Confronts Dad

6. Caldicott Explains His Plan

7. Steve Walks Lindsay Home

8. Steve Talks About His Brother

9. Mom Finds the Gun

10. Rachel Vents to Steve / Love Scene

11. The Original Ending

The deleted scenes run just under 25 minutes and are even darker than the film presentation.

Disturbing Behavior theatrical trailer, which runs 2:31 in length.

BY ERNIE MAGNOTTA

I’ve always been a fan of the heist/caper film; a genre which details the planning, execution and aftermath of a huge robbery. It’s an extremely fun and involving formula in which we oftentimes sympathize with the thieves and want them to reach their goal. Some notable heist/caper films are The Asphalt Jungle, The Killing, Ocean’s 11, Bonnie and Clyde, The Thomas Crown Affair, The Italian Job, The Getaway, The Sting, Dog Day Afternoon, Thief, A Fish Called Wanda, Reservoir Dogs, Heat and The Usual Suspects. Just to name a few. Add to the list the comedy caper film A Man, a Woman, and a Bank available on Blu-ray from Kino Lorber.

Solidly directed by Noel Black from a humorous screenplay by Raynold Gideon, Bruce A. Evans and actor Stuart Margolin, A Man, a Woman, and a Bank tells the tale of friends Reese (Donald Sutherland) and Norman (Paul Mazursky), who devise an elaborate plan to rob a bank in Vancouver. Things get a bit complicated, however, when Reese falls in love with a pretty photographer (Brooke Adams).

Released by Avco Embassy Pictures in September of 1979, A Man, a Woman, and a Bank is listed as the first and only film to be made by McNichol, a production company said to have been created by actress Kristy McNichol and her mother Carollyne. However, some believe this to be false and state that McNichol is actually Donald Sutherland’s company. Whatever the case may be, A Man, a Woman, and a Bank is an extremely enjoyable, well-directed, written and acted feature that definitely deserves to be seen. The engaging story contains very interesting and likeable three-dimensional characters. Reese is intelligent, confident, romantic and also a good friend. The great Donald Sutherland effortlessly gets all this across and makes his character totally believable. Five-time Academy Award nominee Paul Mazursky is hilarious and extremely convincing as henpecked hypochondriac Norman, and the lovely, talented and always welcome Brooke Adams (reuniting here with her Invasion of the Body Snatchers co-star, Sutherland) shines as adorable photographer Stacey.

The fun feature also benefits from some wonderful cinematography by the legendary Jack Cardiff and a terrific musical score by Academy Award winning composer Bill Conti. All in all, it’s an extremely solid and fun comedic crime film that audiences are sure to enjoy.

The Kino Lorber Blu-ray presents the movie in its original 1.78:1 aspect ratio. The transfer looks beautiful and the disc also contains quite a few worthy special features. There’s the original theatrical trailer as well as two very interesting and informative audio commentaries; one by director Noel Black and producer Peter Samuelson from 2002, and another by film historians Dean Brandum and Andrew Nette. The Blu-ray also has trailers for four other films featuring Donald Sutherland: The Great Train Robbery, Ordeal by Innocence, The Rosary Murders and The Puppet Masters.

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BY LEE PFEIFFER

I know I'm not only getting old, but I'm there already. That's apparent in the fact that I remember seeing the 1981 comedy "All Night Long" at an advanced critic's screening in New York. Back in those prehistoric days before the internet, you had to read trade industry publications to get the background story or buzz on forthcoming films. Sure, the general public was always aware that expensive epics were experiencing production problems, but everyday movie fans were generally unaware of the scuttlebutt on mid-range fare. Within industry circles, however, the word-of-mouth was negative about the film despite the fact that it starred Gene Hackman and Barbra Streisand, both then very much at the peak of their acting careers. The film had gone through some almost surrealistic production problems that involved high profile people and had come in massively over the original budget estimate. I recalled thinking the movie was kind of fun but had the staying power of cotton candy in that nothing about resonated even a few days after seeing it. For old time's sake, I decided to revisit it through Kino Lorber's Blu-ray release. My observations will follow, but first some preliminary facts. The movie was optioned by Fox originally but for reasons unknown (premonitions?), it was dropped. It was then shepherded to executives at Universal by Sue Mengers, the "Super Agent" talent representative who was as famous as the names on her legendary clients. Among them was Gene Hackman, who had taken a leave of absence from acting due due to making so many films back-to-back. Tired of playing in action films, Hackman was eager to star in this quirky romantic comedy that had been scripted by W.D. Richter, who had written the brilliant 1978 version of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" as well as the Frank Langella version of "Dracula" and the popular crime drama "Brubaker" with Robert Redford. The film was to be a modestly-budgeted affair costing about $3 million. Up-and-coming actress Lisa Eichorn was cast as the female lead opposite Hackman. The director was Jean-Claude Tramont, a Belgian filmmaker who had reed-thin credits in the industry. This was to be Tramont's first Hollywood film and it was very much championed by Sue Mengers, who "coincidentally" happened to be his wife.   

So far, so good. However, shortly after filming began, for reasons no one could ever interpret, Hackman began acting in a frosty manner opposite Eichorn, who by all accounts, was giving a fine performance. Because of Hackman's aversion to starring opposite her, their love scenes were less-than-convincing. Since Hackman was the big name, Eichorn was summarily fired, though she was paid her salary of $250,000 in full. Then Mengers stepped forward with what seemed like an outlandish idea: have Barbra Streisand assume Eichorn's role. The idea of Streisand taking over for another actress in a film that was already in production seemed surrealistic, but Streisand agreed- in return for a $4 million paycheck, which said to be the highest salary ever paid to an actor. (In return, she didn't object to Hackman getting top billing, which presumably he had been contractually guaranteed.) As the change-over was taking place, other members of the cast and crew were also replaced, including the director photography. The original composer was the esteemed Georges Delerue, but his score was deemed to be unsatisfactory and Richard Hazard and Ira Newborn were brought on board as the composers of record. (Bizarrely, Delerue is listed in the final credits as "conductor"with his name misspelled as "George", a final indignity.) By the time filming resumed, the budget had blown up to $14 million, a staggering sum for a low-key comedy and a figure that approached half the production cost of "Apocalypse Now".

So what's it all about? Hackman plays George Dupler, a middle-aged L.A. executive who is counting on a big promotion. When he is bypassed, he breaks down and throws a chair through the window. Because of his seniority, management won't fire him but instead demotes him and assigns him to a new job they are sure will result in his resignation. George is to manage an all-night pharmacy/convenient store that is staffed by misfits and patronized by wacky eccentrics. These scenes should be the funniest in the film, but director Tramont overplays his hand and presents over-the-top characters that would generally be found in sitcom episodes. None of the labored sight gags work at all and they seem out of place given the fact that Tramont had indicated his goal was to make a European-style sophisticated romantic comedy. The film improves considerably when it cuts to the main plot points, which involve George learning that his 18 year-old son Freddie (Dennis Quaid) is having a secret affair with cougar Cheryl Gibbons (Barbra Streisand), who is a distant relative. She's married to Bob (Kevin Dobson), a brusque fireman who is the fourth cousin of George's wife Helen (Diane Ladd). Still with me? A chance encounter with Cheryl leads George to have an affair with her. When Helen finds out, fireworks ensue and George spontaneously packs a few things and storms out of the house to find a new abode. He sets up a new home in a cavernous loft that adjoins a class for aspiring painters. He and Cheryl resume their affair, while she simultaneously carries on with Freddie. (A "Yuck! Factor" enters the scenario when George asks Cheryl if he is better in bed than his son.) Screenwriter Richter seems to have been inspired by the plight of Benjamin in "The Graduate", in that Cheryl is not only bedding her lover but his parent as well.

The biggest flaw in the script is that none of the principals are remotely sympathetic. Cheryl is an intentional home-breaker, Freddie puts his lust before any other priority and George is willing to break up his marriage spontaneously with no apparent regrets. Not much to admire there. Richter seems to have realized this and introduces a late plot device designed to excuse George's affair, but it comes across as a last minute contrivance that came to Richter in the middle of the night. Despite all of that, "All Night Long" worked better for me this time than when I originally saw it. The film is flaky in concept and execution but Hackman is always in fine form and it's great to see Streisand in a secondary role that she can play in a subdued manner. (There's a funny bit in which the ditzy Cheryl attempts to sing and can't hit a note, an irony for a Streisand character.) The supporting cast is very good, too, with Kevin Dobson terrific as the hot-tempered cuckolded husband who ignites when he discovers his wife is bedding both George and his son and William Daniels, very amusing as the staid family lawyer who isn't as staid as he seems.

When the film was released, it garnered a few enthusiastic reviews including from the usually grumpy Pauline Kael, but the general consensus was negative. Screenwriter William Goldman, a longtime critic of Hollywood studios (he famous said of the town, "Nobody knows anything") held up "All Night Long" as a prime example of a simple project that began bloated by ineptness, nepotism and egos. The film bombed at the boxoffice and Goldman estimated that when marketing costs were factored in, it would have lost $20 million- and that was in 1981 dollars. Streisand was said to be livid over the marketing campaign poster which implied this would be a zany, madcap comedy, when in fact, it is much more subdued. After the film's failure, Streisand dropped Sue Mengers as her agent. As for Jean-Claude Tramont, his career came to a screeching halt, never to recover before his death in 1996. 

The Kino Lorber Blu-ray would seem to call out for a commentary track, but there is none. However, there is an excellent 20-minute recent video interview with W.D. Richter, who candidly describes the experience as an unhappy memory and details some of the factors that led to disaster.  He does speak well of Streisand and said there was no evidence of the diva-like demands she is known for. She didn't even insist on any script revisions. Richter also said that Tramont seemed nervous and uncertain in dealing with Streisand and Hackman. He ponders why the film hasn't caught on as a legendary flop, as it certainly would today in the age of social media. My guess is that everyone was still talking about "Heaven's Gate".

The Blu-ray also contains the trailer and a gallery of other KL titles with Hackman starring and two radio spots, one of which is absurd and refers to the film as the "Barbra Streisand picture" without even mentioning Hackman. Recommended, if only for Richter's wonderful interview.

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BY TODD GARBARINI

Who should we blame for the execrable Tentacles? Samuel Z. Arkoff? The cast? The pazzo Italians who made it? Steven Spielberg, for heaven’s sake? This ridiculous yarn should be retitled with another word beginning with “T” and ending with “s” that is also comprised of nine letters because it takes a huge pair of them to put so many well-known performers into one film and give them nothing to do.

Tentacles, was filmed in 1976 and unleashed on New Yorkers on Wednesday, August 3, 1977 during the Summer of Sam, when Michael Anderson’s Orca: The Killer Whale and Rene Cardona, Jr.’s Tintorera: Killer Shark, among other cinematic indignities were also in theaters, assuaged only by George Lucas’s Star Wars.  The movie commits one of the genre’s gravest sins – it’s boooooring. To boot, it lacks the cheeze factor that makes movies like this fun to watch. Running a full 102 minutes, the exact same running time as William Friedkin’s masterful The French Connection (1971), Tentacles posits an octopus with tentacles (octopi have limbs, not tentacles, as squids do, but no one told the screenwriters) off the coast of Solana Beach in California who is annoyed by the unauthorized use of radio frequencies by Mr. Whitehead (Henry Fonda), a corrupt owner of a construction company and his assistant (Cesare Danova, unrecognizable from his turn as Harvey Keitel’s mafioso uncle in Martin Scorsese’s 1973 film Mean Streets). The angry squid makes its way near people to serve them up as dinner. A sheriff (Claude Akins running through Stanislavski’s Seven Pillars Acting Technique before starring in The Misadventures of Sheriff Lobo from 1979 to 1981) is confused as to how people are dying; a reporter (John Houston in a role that makes you wonder if he was financially solvent at the time) pursues leads to “get the story” as another feather in his cap; Bo Hopkins reluctantly comes to the rescue with killer whales that ultimately do in the titular creature; and the always reliable Shelley Winters comes along for the ride but spends most of her time yelling at children. Apparently, Auntie Roo isn’t dead after all.

The movie is completely devoid of interest and suspense except for a clone of the Ben Gardner-inspired head-bobbing death scene from Jaws (1975) and the disappearance of a child from the beach in a visually interesting sequence featuring the winner of the World’s Worst Mother of the Year award. The production’s “inspiration”, if you can call it that, is clearly Mr. Spielberg’s aforementioned suspense masterpiece, however it bears more of a resemblance to Robert Gordon’s 1955 sci-fi film It Came from Beneath the Sea, though that black and white film possessed something that Tentacles lacks – entertainment value.

Tentacles played in my area on a double bill with Bert I. Gordon’s Empire of the Ants (1977) at a theater that went exclusively adult prior to becoming a supermarket (an obscenity of a different kind) and at a drive-in with Michael Campus’s The Mack (1973) with Richard Pryor as the second feature, which put poor Mr. Pryor in the unenviable position of making comatose people laugh.

What Tentacles does have is a series of truly beautiful poster art used in the film’s marketing campaign that, while colorful and exciting to behold, advertise the film as something that it ultimately fails to deliver.

Apparently, Kino Lorber couldn’t find anyone willing to sit down and talk about this monstrosity (pun most definitely intended), as they have either all passed on or are currently in prison after having murdered their agents and managers after appearing in this film.

The only extras to speak of are both the radio spot and theatrical trailer for the film, and trailers for The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971), Dr. Phibes Rises Again (1972), The Island of Dr. Moreau (1977), Parasite (1983), Tintorera...Tiger Shark (1977), Zoltan...Hound of Dracula (1977), Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978), Without Warning (1980), Deepstar Six (1989), and Deep Rising (1998).

If you’re going to watch a film about an octopus, I would recommend the highly enlightening My Octopus Teacher (2020) as an alternate, championed by Mr. Friedkin himself when I asked him about new films that he would recommend.

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“SMALL HERO, BIG PICTURE”

By Raymond Benson

The decade of the 1950s is the Golden Age of science fiction movies. Prior to that, the genre was mostly ignored on film in favor of horror. Of course, the two genres often overlapped, especially in the 50s, when audiences were worried about nuclear war, UFOs, alien invasions, and the dangers of radioactivity. We got pictures with giant bugs, flying saucers, amphibious creatures, Martian invaders, and mole people. With few exceptions, most of the science fiction fare from the period is godawful but usually fun for a drive-in movie experience or late-night “creature feature” material on television.

The exceptions have proven to stand the test of time and are considered classics today—The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951), The Thing from Another World (1951), The War of the Worlds (1953), Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), Forbidden Planet (1956), among others.

The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957) is one of these gems. Conceived and written by the great Richard Matheson, the movie was brought to the screen by Jack Arnold, one of the more under-appreciated filmmakers of his day. While Arnold specialized in “creature features” in the fifties (he brought us The Creature from the Black Lagoon in 1954 and Tarantula in ’55, for example), he went on to be a successful hard-working craftsman for dozens of popular television shows in the 60s and 70s.

Matheson wrote the initial story and simultaneously penned a novel (The Shrinking Man) published in 1956. He sold the rights to Universal on the condition that he be hired to write the screenplay. Matheson’s script followed the structure of his novel, which used flashbacks to tell Scott Carey’s story. Arnold and the studio preferred that the story be told linearly, so Richard Alan Simmons got the job to re-write the screenplay as such. Both Matheson and Simmons share screenplay credit, while Matheson receives story credit.

The tale is well-known. Scott Carey (Grant Williams) is in a loving marriage with Louise (Randy Stuart). One day they are out on a boat. While Louise is below deck, a strange mist envelops Scott. As time passes, Scott notices that his clothes no longer fit him—he’s becoming smaller. Doctors are befuddled. Scott shrinks some more. Eventually this affects the marriage and Scott questions his manhood. He becomes a media curiosity, and he continues to diminish in size. Ultimately, he is alone in his house and must first battle the family cat, and later, in a climactic sequence, a tarantula. And still, he continues to grow smaller…

The Incredible Shrinking Man is one of the most thoughtful, mind-bending, and existential science fiction films ever made—and it was certainly a milestone of the period. Its cosmic ending, which studio executives wanted to change to a happier one, was kept intact by director Arnold—and this is what elevates Shrinking Man to a BIG picture.

The visual effects, while crude by today’s standards, were cleverly done in 1956-57. Arnold utilized split screens, rear screen projections, oversized sets and furniture, and trick photography to achieve the illusion of Scott’s condition against an enlarging hostile world around him. As Arnold states in a wonderful vintage 1983 interview that is a supplement accompanying the film, the secret to this and all the director’s work was “preparation.” He was a believer in storyboards, and he created these to fully imagine the picture prior to shooting a frame of film. Much like the outline some authors pen prior to drafting a novel, Arnold’s storyboards allowed him to try out different ideas and erase them if they didn’t work.

The Criterion Collection presents an outstanding package for Shrinking Man. The film is a 4K digital restoration that looks amazingly fresh. It comes with an uncompressed monaural soundtrack. There is an optional and informative audio commentary by genre-film historian Tom Weaver and horror-music expert David Schecter.

Supplements abound. A new featurette on the film’s visual effects hosted by FX experts Craig Barron and Ben Burtt is a lot of fun. A very entertaining conversation about the film between filmmaker Joe Dante and comedian/writer Dana Gould is fabulous. A remembrance on the film with Richard Christian Matheson (Richard Matheson’s son) is also superb. Of particular interest to film buffs might be the previously mentioned footage from 1983 of Jack Arnold interviewed about the film. Also of great significance is a “director’s cut” of a 2021 documentary about Arnold, Auteur on the Campus: Jack Arnold at Universal. And if all that weren’t enough, we get two 8mm home video short presentations of the film that circulated in the 1960s, a feature on missing musical cues, a vintage teaser narrated by none other than Orson Welles, and the theatrical trailer. The booklet contains an essay by critic Geoffrey O’Brien.

The Incredible Shrinking Man is a must-have, buy-today, excellent release from Criterion. For fans of 1950s science fiction, Richard Matheson, Jack Arnold, and giant spiders. Sublime!

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BY TODD GARBARINI

Film director Jonathan Mostow began his career in film shortly after graduating college in the mid-1980’s as a television writer and director for segments on Fright Show in 1985, Beverly Hills Body Snatchers in 1989, and the TV-movie Flight of Black Angel in 1991. While working as the executive producer of the Michael Douglas suspenser The Game (1997), Mr. Mostow was also looking to adapt Stephen King’s short story “Trucks” into a film. Although it had already been shot in late 1985 by Mr. King (in a directing capacity) as Maximum Overdrive (1986), there was interest to do another film version of it – until all involved were told that they could not use Stephen King’s name with the project. This proved to be fortuitous as most of the locations had not only been scouted but also secured for filming, although there was no film to be shot. Mr. Mostow took the locations and fashioned a story about a couple driving across the country to start a new life when unexpectedly their life takes a huge wrong turn. The result is Breakdown, a nail-biting suspense thriller that is Mr. Mostow’s feature film debut as a director, which is now available on Blu-ray from Paramount Pictures Home Entertainment. I spoke with Mr. Mostow recently about the film and the new Blu-ray.

Todd Garbarini: Thank you for having gotten Breakdown made. I can safely say that this is the most intense motion picture that I have ever seen. I initially did not want to see it based on the theatrical trailer because it looked “run-of-the-mill”, however I found myself at the Glendale 9 Drive-In in June 1997 while in Arizona on business, and Breakdown was the only title, aside from Jim Carrey’s Liar, Liar, that appealed to me. I love Kurt Russell and the film completely blew me away. I was not prepared for the movie at all, and I don't know how you made it the way you did, but I'm grateful because I think it's extraordinary. It's a film that possesses a level of emotional tension that I have rarely, if ever, experienced in a feature film and it also has one of the best movie scores I’ve ever heard. Would it be fair to say that Steven Spielberg's Duel was an influence on the film?

Jonathan Mostow: I'm sure that it was. First off, thank you for the super kind words. I'm going to guess that since you saw this at a drive-in, you heard the audio from inside a car? 

TG: No, actually I was sitting on the hood of the car, and the movie was so full of tension and suspense that I honestly thought that my sweaty palms would pull the paint off the car! The audio was actually very, very good. The drive-in no longer had those small, tinny speakers. The audio instead was pumped through the FM radio band, and there were many cars all around me that were doing that. I didn't even have to listen through my Ford Taurus station wagon rental car (laughs), and I heard all the music and dialogue perfectly.

JM: Oh that’s good, because I'm really a stickler about good sound.

TG: I am, too.

JM: I want to cringe when I hear about drive-ins because I thought it probably would have sounded terrible! I want to address something that you said earlier when we began speaking, and that's how you pretty much didn't want to see Breakdown as a result of the trailer. I will never forget when I was a young filmmaker at the time because it was my first studio film and we had just had a test screening that had gone really well. The way that it works is that they have a test screening and afterwards they ask questions of the audience. So, the whole audience was still inside the theater, filling out the questionnaire, and in the lobby a group of the senior executives from the studio were milling around and asking each other how they were going to market the movie. I happened to overhear them, and they sort of intimated that this would be a good movie for the drive-in crowd, so-to-speak. Especially in the South, they felt that the South would somehow like it more. Since I was a young filmmaker at the time, I didn't feel that it was really my place to walk up to the top people of the studio and tell them their business, but I really wanted to tell them that this is not the crowd that this film was designed for. I saw the film as really a nightmare for yuppies. This is a nightmare for the metrosexual, educated, polo-shirt wearing, white collar middle-aged Everyman. That's who this is a nightmare for and that's who you should be selling this to. The marketing campaign, in a way, I believe sent a different message to the audience than what I was intending about the film and the result was what you said earlier about not wanting to see it initially, and how the film ultimately surprised you and you came to like the film a lot more than you initially thought you would.

TG: I must admit, that doesn’t happen to me often.

JM: I have heard that reaction from so many people, and Kurt (Russell) heard that from so many people. The question was, “Why didn't you think you would enjoy it?”, and the answer was, “The way that it was originally sold was that the ad campaign set up certain expectations that were not the expectations that I would have set up had I been designing the ad campaign.” I have to say that the studio (Paramount) did a fantastic job with this brand-new Blu-ray transfer. It looks gorgeous. For so many years, people have been asking me why they couldn't find this movie on Blu-ray.

TG: Yes, I was one of those…

JM: And I would have to explain to them that it wasn't available on Blu-ray. I was thrilled when the studio got in touch with me last year and they told me that they were going to do this movie right, that they would do a whole new transfer. I went in and sort of supervised it and signed off on what they did. I was just thrilled with it. Now, to answer your question about Duel, I'm a little older than you, and I grew up watching TV movies. Duel was originally a made-for-TV movie, and it did receive a theatrical release later on. But there were lots of these TV movies at the time, where a couple is driving somewhere, they're pulled over for a speeding ticket, or there is a corrupt cop who ends up imprisoning them and embezzling them for money, or the wife disappears, etc.

TG: Yes, Dying Room Only with Dabney Coleman and Cloris Leachman was one of the more famous films of that ilk.

JM: Right, and all these horrible things happen. I don't even remember the names of most of these movies, but I'm thinking of an aggregate of that, plus the types of themes that you would see in an Alfred Hitchcock movie, they were all kind of rattling around in my brain. So, when I had an idea for this, even though this is a quote-unquote “original idea”, and arguably no ideas are original because everything's been pretty much done in cinema, because we are all creatures of the culture that we grew up in, I thought it should be a road movie.

TG: The climax of the film looked like a real nightmare to shoot. Did it take a long time to shoot that?

JM: Yeah, we actually spent a couple of weeks on that. That was one of the few things that we shot that was in the Los Angeles area. The rest of the film was shot in Utah, Nevada, and all over the place.

TG: I couldn't help but notice that Gabby Petito, the woman who tragically disappeared and who has been in the news with her fiancé Brian Laundrie,were stopped by police just outside of the entrance to Arches National Park, which is in Moab, Utah. This location is featured prominently at the film's start, particularly the general store where Jeffrey Taylor has words with the pickup truck’s driver played by M.C. Gainey.

JM: We shot everything for real in this movie. Nowadays, if you're going to shoot a car chase, most of it is digital. I have always been a believer in the idea that even though you can do things digitally, and back then the digital technology was still sort of in its infancy, it was kind of cost-prohibitive, too – to make something visceral, you should really go out of the way and do it for real. The only thing that was truly digital was in certain cases during the climax when the Peterbilt cab is going over the bridge and dangling, that was a real truck. But naturally, it was suspended by construction cranes and we had to digitally remove all of them, the wiring holding up the cab, etc. If you scratch beneath the surface, of any movie, what you have is a director who's basically a child playing with a big electric train set.  It's never easy of course, but it was also super fun.

TG: I became a fan of Basil Poledouris after I heard his magnificent score to John Milius’s Conan the Barbarian which I saw it when it opened in May 1982. Was he your first choice to score this phone?

JM: Well, Basil had been suggested to me and we had ended up bringing in a composer I had worked with previously, Richard Marvin, and he did some of the music as well, and the net result of what we ended up with was a score that neither one of them would have done on their own. In a lot of cases, where we recorded a big score with a large orchestra, I went up just taking out the orchestra completely and leaving in just a kind of percussion track or something. Scoring the movie itself was an unusual process and everybody was happy with it at the end. However, the initial issue that I was having with Basil’s score was that he was capturing the emotion but not capturing enough of the suspense. That being said, I don't believe that it was a score that anybody would have devised on the outside.

TG: I think that the score works perfectly. Especially towards the climax, the end of the film, you have Jeffrey struggling to get to his wife, and the intercutting between Jeffrey and the kidnappers, that whole sequence is just incredible. The tension that you built during that sequence was magnificent.

JM: Well, you should appreciate this story. One night, we were working very late in Basil’s studio which was in Venice (California). This was a very dangerous area back then. It was about two in the morning, and he tells me that he has to go down the street and get some cigarettes. He asked me if I wanted anything from the corner store. On the one hand I told him no thank you, but on the other hand, in my head, I'm thinking, “Are you crazy?! You're going to go to a corner store at two in the morning?” I wouldn't walk out in that neighborhood at two in the morning even if I had armed escorts. It was at that moment that I realized that Basil had no personal fear. He was the sort of the opposite of me. I’m a fairly anxious person and that's how I was throughout most of the making of this movie, dealing with my own anxiety. What I realized at that moment was that Basil was connecting with the sadness. Kurt's character, Jeffrey Taylor, had this feeling of having lost his wife and didn’t know where she was or even how to find her. He was also facing potentially losing his wife forever. Basil was capturing that beautifully, but the problem was I wasn't feeling the anxiety. So that's why I brought in Richard so he could just nail the anxiety that I really needed for the movie. In the end, the score ended up being what I really needed, which was a hybrid between the sadness and the anxiety. That's why I think the score worked so well for the film. If these composers had done the scores on their own, I don't think that they would have achieved the effect that I was looking for. It just had to be a partnership.

TG: Do you have an all-time favorite movie?

JM: No, because it varies. There are movies that you love tremendously when you are young, and I'm sure that you have probably experienced this yourself, and then you look at them maybe 15 or 20 years later and they just don't hold up for you anymore. I remember watching Barbra Streisand getting a Lifetime Achievement Award, and she said something that has always stuck with me. She said that it was great to get these awards, it's great to be recognized for your work, but the real test is if 30 years from now, which of these films will stand up? Which of these films will still work? And that's what's amazing to me when I go back and I look at certain films that were made, you know, 20 or 30 years ago, and they hold up, that's always, to me, the miracle. Some films hold up and some films simply don't.

TG: I agree. In 1979, I saw two films that I loved very much: Moonraker and The Black Hole. Both films have really wonderful film scores by the late great John Barry. But the former is James Bond in outer space and the latter was really beautiful to look at, but had very little in the way of action. I really loved both films when I first saw them, but watching them many years later, I found the former to be puerile and insipid and the latter to be plodding and boring. And it killed me that I felt that way. One film from that era that stands the test of time for me is George Miller's The Road Warrior which was, is, and I think always will be, the best action film that I've ever seen. I never tire of that film. There are some problems with it, when they overcrank or undercrank the action and it just looks like a Mack Sennett comedy for a few seconds, I don't agree with that, they should have left it alone. The Shining is another one. That film terrified me when I first saw it and it's still the most beautiful horror film that I've ever seen. What are some of the other films that you've seen that have influenced your career?

JM: When I was a child, my father took me to see Alfred Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes. We saw it at this old repertory movie theater near where we lived, and this film plays a little bit like sort of a light comedy. But to an eight-year-old kid like me, I found the film to be totally gripping. The idea in that film is that this woman suddenly disappears 10 minutes into the movie. And the audience is wondering where the hell did she go? I believe that that notion stayed in my subconscious all these years and in a way, Breakdown was my way of exercising that out of my subconscious. So, Breakdown is the film that kind of launched my career. Even though that is one of Hitchcock's lesser works, for me personally, it had a great influence. That's also a hard question to answer, because truthfully, I didn't see a great many movies growing up. By the time I had gotten to college, I don't believe I had seen more than 15 or 20 movies.

TG: What films did you initially not like, then you watched them again later on and had a different experience and ended up really liking them?

JM: I have to be honest, there are very few films that I've seen multiple times. Once I've seen a film, that's it. I've seen it. I remember seeing an interview one time with a filmmaker, and it came out in the interview that once he was done with the film he never sees it again. And I hadn't directed any movie prior to seeing that interview. And I remember thinking how crazy that was! I thought to myself if I'd directed a movie, I would watch it every week! Sure enough, I found that once I finished the film, I've never gone back to watch it again. Ever! Breakdown, of course, is the exception because I watched it with Kurt Russell while we did the commentary for it. You see it more than once when you're traveling around the world, doing press screenings and that sort of thing. But psychologically for me, I'm just done. And I move on. I have seen Goodfellas a few times. That's one that comes to mind. Other movies that I've seen before, I might catch a few scenes of it here or there on television. But I generally don't watch it again all the way through. I tend to not be a big repeat viewer. 

In closing, I just really appreciate that Paramount is releasing this movie on Blu-ray with our commentary track and all the extras. There are some really interesting interviews on it. We're actually including the alternate opening to the film on this disc. This is something that has never been shown to the public before.

TG: For me, that is worth the price of admission alone. Thank you very much for speaking with me, it’s been a pleasure.

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BY  HANK REINEKE

Lesley Selander’s Flight to Mars (1951) was one of the earliest offerings of cinematic science-fiction’s Silver Age. The film is not one of the best of that era’s productions, and not even the best of 1951 – that honor would arguably go to Rudolph Maté’s When World’s Collide due to that film’s ground-breaking animation of George Pal. But the stage was already set for science-fiction to replace door-creaking Gothic horror as more dependable, bankable product. Moviegoers of 1945 through 1950 had already been primed for space-travel and alien-enemy films through such entertaining Republic serials as The Purple Monster Strikes, King of the Rocket Men and Flying Disc Man from Mars. The 1947 crash near Roswell, New Mexico, also made a lot of folk’s look up to the skies to ponder – and fear – what might be floating above them in the cosmos. So the time was right.

There were several delays in the start of the production of Flight to Mars. In mid-January of 1951, the Hollywood trades reported that Monogram production was scheduled to commence on 12 February. When that date passed without cameras rolling, the production start date was pushed forward, amended to 23 March. When March passed by, a third date was announced (5 April), only to be pushed forward again to 30 April. When these dates passed by as well reports came in that production of Flight to Mars was to officially commence on 12 May, 1951 with Walter Mirisch producing.

There was no announcement as of 5 May of who might be helming Monogram Picture’s very ambitious project. But, at long last, on 19 May 1951, the film was put on Hollywood’s current in-production schedule with the notice that Lesley Selander had signed on to direct with Harry Neumann serving as Director of Photography. Selander was an odd choice to direct. He was a well-regarded and dependable figure at Monogram, but his stock-in-trade was knocking out scores of inexpensive westerns with breakneck rapidity.

The Monogram Pictures Corporation was now under the umbrella of Allied Artists. The President of Allied, Steve Broidy, had been promising as early as October of 1951 that both studios would lens no fewer than forty-five feature films in 1951-52, a half-dozen of those efforts being “high budget” films produced under the Allied banner. Monogram, as was its reputation, would knock off its usual run of low-budget westerns, detective films, Bowery Boys comedies and “fantasy” films – the latter being a generous euphemism for their string of bargain basement horrors with a dash of science-fiction.

In truth, even Monogram’s threadbare production values were on the rise, Broidy promising that several of the studio’s planned features would be shot in Cinecolor, a two-color film process that brought out a striking and vibrant – if occasionally unnatural in appearance - pallet of saturated hues. If nothing else, Flight to Mars would appear a relatively bright and lavish production by Monogram standards. The film’s production’s designs were actually pretty well-done all things considered. The space-traveling animation, mattes and Mars “location” shooting effects (California and Nevada’s Death Valley was used as backdrop of the dying planet) were, at best, disappointing as little would be splashed on-screen in any memorable fashion. On the other hand, there was no shortage of skimpily-dressed women milling about.

One gossip North Hollywood gossip columnist teased that Mirisch and Selander – abetted by the film’s wardrobe department - seemed to have come to agreement on the “astounding fact that women on Mars do not wear skirts.” It is true that all of the women featured on screen were not-so-immodestly dressed. Such space-age fashion, the columnist determined, might prove testing to the “squinting eyes” and morality standards set forth by the industry’s Johnson Office. Another news sheet from this same period described the costuming of the film’s female players as “nothing but hip-length tunics and the scantiest of scanties.” Piling on, still another news item described the female Martian outfits as rating “hotter than even an H-bomb, making Bikini-wearers looking over-dressed!”

Such prurient ballyhoo, of course, would understandably arouse – in a matter of speaking – interest to male filmgoers of Saturday matinees. Upon the film’s release, even the critic of the Los Angeles Times conceded should reality mirror the Martian “femme beauty” as seen on-screen in the course of Flight to Mars, “there’s going to be an awful scramble even among scientists to find a way to the distant planet.”

The publicity machine went to work in earnest in July of 1951, noting that while production on Flight to Mars had recently wrapped (shooting lasted only four to six weeks, depending on the report), actress Marguerite Chapman had become so intrigued by art director David Milton’s stage dressing, she commissioned him to re-do her Beverly Hills apartment in a “Martian manner.” Though Chapman would receive top billing, she was merely part of a genuine ensemble cast that would include Cameron Mitchell, Arthur Franz, Virginia Huston and John Litel. Since none of the above players were box-office names of any particular renown, there wasn’t a terrible amount of fanfare accompanying the film’s release in November of 1951. The cast was described a non-distinguished manner in the press as “a rather unknown but able cast of Thespians.”

The scenario of the film itself (“The Most Fantastic Expedition Ever Conceived by Man!”) was not terribly original. A meteor shower diverts a group of space-travelers from their mission and forces them to crash land on Mars. There they meet a group of white, Anglo-Saxon looking, English-speaking Martians who currently survive underground thanks to a mineral called Corium. They seem friendly enough at first, even offering to help the Earthlings rebuild their space craft for a trip home. What they’re not letting on is that their supply of life-supplying Corium is fast dwindling and thus threatening their existence. So they plan on hijacking the repaired space craft to launch an invasion of Earth.

The scenario is actually less exciting as it might sound. The premise is OK, but this is a studio-soundstage bound production with lots of people talking about things and not enough of action or on-screen intrigue or cool space-matte paintings to balance such loquaciousness. Still, there was some enthusiasm amongst studio accountants in 1951 that Flight to Mars might fare pretty well at the box office. So much so that on the very week of the film’s release, producer Mirisch announced he had once again engaged Flight to Mars screenwriter “Arthur Straus” [sic] to adapt an original story conjured up by Kenneth Charles.

It’s unclear - but certainly possible - that screenwriter Arthur Strawn was not so much misidentified in the news item as he was purposely misidentified. Strawn, the child of emigres from Romania, had been blacklisted by the right-wing Red Channels publication in 1950, suspected of Communist sympathies. His writing of the screenplay and his association with the film Hiawatha had postponed that particular film of getting into production. Monogram president Broidy thought it best to shelve the Hiawatha project due to the screenplay’s alleged Moscow-aligned pacifist taint.

Strawn’s political affiliations shouldn’t have mattered, of course. But sci-fi cinema historians have long debated if the creative genesis of Flight to Mars was, at least in part, a thematic mimic of Yakov Protazanov’s 1924 space-traveling silent-era Soviet flicker Aelita (aka Queen of Mars), a film based on Alexei Tolstoy’s 1923 novel Aelita: the Decline of Mars). Flight to Mars seems to share a few tenuous ties to this early Soviet film. The most damning and oft invoked of these is the purloining of the name “Aelita” for Marguerite Chapman’s female lead character. Sci-fi film fans who wish to decide for themselves how many ideas were lifted, can view the original Soviet film on any of a number of DVD or DVD-R issues… or simply visit youtube for a peek if only passingly curious.

In any case, Mirisch’s proposed follow-up to Flight to Mars, Voyage to Venus, was to bring a crew of space-travelers to the planet second from the sun. That this second film was never put into production is a shame and a great loss: if for no other reason that moving the cast to a planet even closer to the sun’s heat would have likely caused the Venusian women to wear even less clothing…

This Blu-ray of Film Detective’s Flight to Mars, licensed from Wade Williams, has been sourced from original 35mm elements of the Cinecolor separation negatives and restored with assistance of the Paramount Pictures archives. The Blu-ray features several bonus supplements. These include two “exclusive” documentaries, both directed by Daniel Griffith: the first is Walter Mirisch: from Bomba to Body Snatchers, a thirteen-minute feature where film historian C. Courtney Joyner examines the stewardship of Mirisch and Broidy as transformative to the rise of Monogram and Allied as an industry player. The second is Interstellar Travelogues: Cinema’s First Space Race where famed space-art illustrator Vincent Di Fate narrates a ten-minute feature on the earliest bits of cinematic interest in space travel from the influences of early German rocketry to the novels of Robert Heinlein.

The set also rounds out nicely with a commentary track by Justin Humphreys, the film historian and author of the recently published The Dr. Phibes Companion: The Morbidly Romantic History of the Classic Vincent Price Horror Film Series. There’s also a twelve-page booklet that features the essay Mars at the Movies, written by journalist/author Don Stradley. While Stradley briefly touches on some aspects of the production of Flight to Mars, the essay mostly offers a brief history of the role the red planet has figured into film history. In all, a very impressive release that will delight fans of the genre.

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BY FRED BLOSSER

We moviegoers are a caring, law-abiding community, or at least we’re assumed to be, but regardless of how timid or tender-hearted we are, producers know that we’re usually pushovers for movies about Big Heists. As long as the crime is perpetrated against an institution like a bank, a multinational corporation, or a casino, and no person is threatened or injured, the protagonists’ antisocial behavior becomes an abstraction. We’re free, vicariously, to admire their ingenuity and tenacity as they carry out their complicated scheme. But what if the story is based on a big payout that directly endangers an innocent person? Then it becomes harder to sell the concept as escapist entertainment, as journeyman filmmakers Stanley Kubrick and Hubert Cornfield discovered in the mid-1950s, when they both became interested, independently, in a 1953 novel by Lionel White.

“The Snatchers” revolved around a kidnapping, an acceptable premise for White’s paperback readership at the time but anathema in Hollywood under the rigid Production Code that governed movie content then. Given the unlikelihood of studio backing, Kubrick turned his attention to another White novel, this one about a racetrack heist, “Clean Break,” which became the basis for “The Killing” (1956). Cornfield continued to eye “The Snatchers,” developing a screenplay that he eventually proposed to producer Elliott Kastner, his former agent. By then, the studios had become less squeamish about the subject matter. Kastner and his executive producer Jerry Gershwin attracted A-list talent for the starring roles. Written and directed by Cornfield, “The Night of the Following Day” opened on February 19, 1969.

In the movie, now available in a Kino Lorber Blu-ray special edition, a pretty, well-dressed 18-year-old (Pamela Franklin) lands at Orly Airport in Paris. There she’s met by a chauffeur. As she soon learns, the fake driver, Bud (Marlon Brando), is a career criminal who has teamed with three others to kidnap her for ransom from her wealthy father. The girl recognizes Vi (Rita Moreno), Bud’s lover, as a friendly attendant whom she had seen on the flight into Orly. Vi’s brother Wally (Jess Hahn) is Bud’s friend and the one who devised the scheme. The fourth kidnapper, Leer (Richard Boone), has an intimidating demeanor. Initially he seems to be calm and reasonable, but the girl remains frightened, and we can hardly blame her. Was any actor then or now more intimidating than Richard Boone? The kidnappers hide the girl in a beachside cottage on the Normandy coast and contact her father with a complex procedure for delivering the ransom money.

Fractures begin to open in the crooks‘ partnership in short order, endangering the orderly completion of the crime according to plan -- a staple of the Big Heist formula. The unstable Vi has a history of drug addiction, and Leer is a sadistic pedophile who begins terrorizing their hostage. Bud and Wally feel their control slipping. Vi sneaks into the bathroom to snort coke. She gets high and fails to carry out an important assignment. Leer’s behavior becomes more aggressive, and in a quick trip to Paris to nail down the gang’s planned escape by air, he secretly sabotages the arrangement and institutes one for himself that will leave his associates in the lurch, or worse. Al Lettieri has a brief appearance in that sequence, credited as “Alfredo Lettieri,” under which name he was also an associate producer of the picture. Back on the beach, Vi happens to meet a friendly fisherman who turns out to be the local gendarme. Wally says not to worry, the policeman is a “hick local cop” who can be kept in the dark for the two days needed to collect the ransom, but Bud isn’t so sure. His growing anxiety leads to a near-meltdown and a memorable line, delivered with inimitable Brando intensity: “Do you know what they do in this country? They cut off your head, Wally. They cut off your head!”

On its release, “The Night of the Following Day” was a critical and commercial disappointment. “Dull, stilted, and pointless,” Howard Thompson said in The New York Times. Roger Ebert said it “works . . . as a well-made melodrama” but asked, “Should Brando be wasting his time on this sort of movie?” It was a question that critics usually asked in that era, whenever a new Brando film opened. Instead of examining the intrinsic merits or shortcomings of the picture at hand, the critical notices became referendums on the controversial star. Not that Brando seemed to care.

Reviewers and audiences were also confused if not offended by the ending of the thriller, which seemed to undercut the neo-noir storyline that they had taken at face value. Some viewers wondered whether the final scene had been slapped on, post-production, to add a surprise departing punch at the expense of maintaining the audience’s goodwill. In a commentary recorded for a 2004 DVD release, before his death in 2008, Cornfield addressed the question. He said that he had written the movie that way all along, inspired by the conclusion of a classic British picture from two decades before. I like his subversive twist, but your mileage may vary.

Cornfield’s 2004 commentary, included as a feature on the Kino Lorber Blu-ray, also revisits the director’s troubled interactions with Brando. Cornfield says he was elated when Kastner reported that Brando had signed on to star, but the two soon began to butt heads, and the relationship became untenable. We don’t have Brando’s side of the story, at least not in so many words, but maybe it’s expressed in a scene that Cornfield implies he didn’t direct. As he sees the ransom scheme unraveling, Bud (Brando’s own childhood nickname) vents at Wally: “I want out of this thing!” Wally calmly insists that everything will work out, mostly because he wants it to. That only raises Bud’s temperature even higher. “You’re crazy, you son of a bitch!” he storms. Against the backdrop of today’s bland movie landscape populated by blander actors, Brando’s sustained ferocity in the long, largely improvised sequence is electrifying. Cornfield said that the star changed some of the elements of the script considerably, such as the relationships between Bud and Vi, and Bud and Pamela Franklin’s character. Cornfield claimed that Brando’s changes damaged the picture, but in the actor’s defense, the final result seems dramatically better than the stuff that went out the window, based on Cornfield’s synopsis.

In addition to Cornfield’s track, the Kino Lorber edition also includes a new Tim Lucas audio commentary that casts a wide net over Brando’s erratic 1960s career, his longtime relationship with Rita Moreno, a comparison of the screenplay with Lionel White’s source novel, and other aspects of the film. Other features include the original theatrical trailer, a “Trailers from Hell” commentary by Joe Dante, and SDH captions.

BY HANK REINEKE

Val Guest’s The Day the Earth Caught Fire (1961) is one of the better science-fiction films to come out of the Cold War decades of the 1950’s and 1960s. While it’s no metaphorical masterpiece as Don Siegel’s more celebrated Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), the screenplay for this British production was co-penned by Guest and the novelist/playwright/screenwriter Wolf Mankowitz. The two would collaborate on other projects as well, but it’s the thoughtful, literate script co-written for The Day the Earth Caught Fire that would justifiably garner them the award for the Best British Screenplay from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts. This superb new Blu-ray from Kino Lorber is absolutely beautiful, having been digitally re-mastered from a print held in the National Archive of British Film Institute in association with StudioCanal.

Partly inspired by the worldwide early anti-nuclear weapon sentiments and protests of the late ‘50s/early 60s – and in particular by the demonstrations of England’s annual Easter Aldermaston Marches (partly commemorated here via actual newsreel footage) – the foreboding screenplay warns of the cost-to-be -paid due to the escalating tension and muscle-flexing of the world’s two superpowers. The film’s critics on the right would dismiss the 1961 production as an example of sobbing leftist propaganda. Interestingly - and almost a half-century following the film’s release - London’s Guardian newspaper was among many British journals giving this charge some measure of credence. It was reported in August 2010, upon the recent declassification of security documents, that Mankowitz – who passed in 1998 – had once been suspected by members of MI5 to be a possible agent of the Soviet Union. This was a delicious bit of ironic tattle since Mankowitz had long been celebrated as the figure that brought Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman together to produce the films of the world’s favorite “imperialist thug” spy, James Bond.

If not a bona fide, card-carrying Marxist – and there’s no proof that I know of that he was, nor would such a personal political leaning been criminal unless engaged in espionage - Mankowitz was, at the very least, a gifted seer. The advertising for the film promised a “picture that gives you a front seat to the most jolting events of tomorrow!” When news of the real-life Cuban Missile Crisis erupted in October 1962, cinemagoers who caught The Day the Earth Caught Fire on its release in the late autumn of 1961 through the spring of 1962, were no doubt understandably chilled by the catastrophic preview they’d already witnessed. The film depicts, in uncompromising seriousness and sobriety, the dire consequences of unbridled nuclear weapons testing by the world’s two reigning super-powers. This is a science-fiction film where the monster created was completely of human design. Unless one wishes to extrapolate on the possible symbolism of film’s final image and audio, director Guest stubbornly refused to guarantee the requisite happy ending.

The film is a very much a science-fiction movie for thinking adults. The original British censor card tacked onto the film’s front end informs that no one under the age of sixteen would be permitted admission. I imagine only the most worldly and erudite middle and early high school age teens would have even cared about such disbarment, as there’s no space-age “monster” to be found in this sci-fi classic. Instead the film crackles with reasonable, thoughtful, snappy dialogue and thinly-disguised homilies on the subject of cold war insanities.

It’s interesting that the film’s attention relies not on the cataclysmic events accidentally wrought by the United States and the Soviet Union. It dwells almost entirely on the fallout of such a disaster. In brief, the Soviets and the Americans have conducted – unbeknownst to one another - almost simultaneous thermo-nuclear tests at the Earth’s poles in Siberia and Antarctica, respectively. The resulting explosions are described by one journalist at London’s Daily Express newspaper as “the biggest jolt the earth has sustained since the ice age.” One result of these simultaneous explosions is a seismological shift, one that unleashes a succession of worldwide environmental disasters.

Things quickly go from bad to worse. Sunspots are initially blamed for causing all sorts of electrical interference in aero and navigational systems. This is soon followed by an unexplained early solar eclipse appearing in the sky above, and suddenly countries of the world are fighting off such ravaging natural disasters as tsunamis, floods, fires, and droughts. Temperatures reach as high as one hundred and forty-five degrees Fahrenheit in Texas and Mexico. In London, where most of this story plays out, a pea-soup thick mist rises from the Channel and blankets the city with a blinding fog reaching four stories high.

The story primarily unfolds - and twists - in the offices of London’s Daily Express newspaper where coverage is assigned to reporter Peter Stenning (Edward Judd). Stenning, on one level, is the usual cynical, jaded and hard-drinking journalist. He has been made so as the result of a failed marriage and an estranged relationship with his own son, whom he adores. He is soon smitten by pool secretary Jeannie (Janet Munro) and the two squabble as they try to get beyond the official and feeble government responses regarding the crisis. Something more dramatic and threatening is going on, and the reporter is determined to cobble together the story of what is actually happening. Both Judd and Munro are wonderful in their respective roles, as is Leo McKern’s “Bill Maguire,” a veteran reporter who remains Stenning’s one true friend throughout. The lovely Munro, who had only graduated from dopey, dream-teen roles in a trio of mid-1950s Disney productions to being menaced by The Trollenberg Terror (aka The Crawling Eye), is finally given a role with some gravitas. It’s one she handles skillfully, imbuing her character with professional nuance.

The screenplay pulls no punches, practically ensuring that unless a lasting détente between the two superpowers is worked out, a nuclear crisis will surely occur the future. Things actually get more desperate as the film spools on, the reporters learning that the duo nuclear-blast has caused a nutation – that is, a warbling of the earth’s poles. The earth’s axis has shifted a full eleven degrees – and this has caused the planet to hurtle into a doomsday trajectory towards the sun. Scientists estimate that the planet has four months to survive until everything and everyone on earth faces incineration. (Interestingly, this premise of the earth hurtling disastrously toward the sun was simultaneously featured in Rod Serling’s teleplay “The Midnight Sun,” an episode of The Twilight Zone, broadcast November 1961).

As The Day the Earth Caught Fire is as much a “disaster” flick as a science-fiction film, the production expenses to lens such catastrophes would have ballooned the budget to an unmanageable level. Guest wisely saves on the production budget by relying almost entirely on actual newsreel footage to document the onslaught of such natural disasters. Such newsreel realism contrasts somewhat with the film’s opening sequences, the frames artificially tinted in yellow to suggest the presence of the searing heat beating down upon London. Though Guest must rely on an unconvincing matte painting of a dry river bed that was once the mighty Thames, Harry Waxman’s photography of the eerily deserted thoroughfares surrounding Piccadilly Circus and Fleet Street more than make up for this image.

In 2020, the threat of nuclear annihilation is not as prevalent on one’s mind as it once had been during the unfortunate chessboard that was the cold war era. That doesn’t mean Guest’s film is not as relevant today. His film documents the sad - and not unexpected - doomsday mentalities of those who plan on irresponsibly partying and acting uncivilly to their own demise. In this age of Covid-19 and the viruses exposing of the existence of a legion of scientific naysayers, it’s easy to understand the mournful observation of one Daily Express reporter in the film who sighs, “People don’t care about the news until it becomes personal.”

This Kino Lorber Studio Classics Blu-ray of The Day the Earth Caught Fire is presented here in a 2.35:1 aspect ratio and 1920x1080p with a monaural DTS sound and removable English sub-titles. The set also includes a generous set of bonus features which includes not one but two separate audio commentaries: one by the film’s original Co-Writer/Producer/Director Val Guest, the second by film historian Richard Harland Smith. The set also features no fewer than four original television spots and four radio spots originally used in promotion as well as the film’s theatrical trailer. Additional trailers include those for The Quatermass Xperiment and The Earth Dies Screaming.

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“EARLY DIRTY”

By Raymond Benson

The filmmaker who made the iconic Clint Eastwood vehicle, Dirty Harry in 1971 also made something of an early test-run three years earlier in the form of a crime picture called Madigan. Starring Richard Widmark as a tough, cynical, and world-weary police detective in New York City, Madigan displays the same look, feel, and grit that the later Eastwood police procedural exhibits. And, like Harry Callahan, Dan Madigan doesn’t always follow the rules.

Don Siegel (credited here as “Donald” Siegel for some odd reason, for he had been “Don” in earlier films) had been a solid craftsman since the 1950s, responsible for such works as Riot in Cell Block 11 (1954), the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), the admirable remake of The Killers (1964), and Coogan’s Bluff (1968). Likewise, Madigan is a well-made thriller with a hard-boiled plot and realistic characters portrayed by an excellent cast that includes Henry Fonda, Inger Stevens, and James Whitmore.

The tale begins when Madigan (Widmark) and his partner Rocco Bonaro (Harry Guardino) screw up while attempting to bring in hoodlum Barney Benesch (Steve Inhat) for questioning, unaware that he is wanted for murder in Brooklyn. Benesch gets the upper hand on the pair and runs away with their guns. Police commissioner Russell (Fonda) isn’t happy about this, but he has other problems on his mind. Besides being involved in an adulterous relationship with a mistress (Susan Clark) that’s going south, Russell’s best friend on the force, Chief Inspector Kane (Whitmore), may be accepting bribes. Madigan has marital problems, too; his wife, Julia (Stevens), is fed up with him, for he is married more to the job than to her. As the two storylines converge, Russell orders Madigan and Bonaro to track down Benesch by following the leads of several colorful characters, including “Midget Castiglione” (Michael Dunn). Of course, the investigation culminates in a climactic shootout with tragic results.

Widmark is very good as the film’s protagonist, although the actor always seems to play “Richard Widmark” in whatever movie he’s in (except Kiss of Death, which made him a star as a psychotic killer). It is Fonda, however, who dominates the picture. Russell’s plotline is ultimately more interesting than that of Madigan’s, revealing a troubled, conflicted man who appears to have his mind on the job but his heart ready to chuck it all.

Kino Lorber’s new 1920x1080p Blu-ray looks slick and sharp, and it has optional English subtitles. An interesting audio commentary by film historians Howard S. Berger, Steve Mitchell, and Nathaniel Thompson accompanies the movie, but there are no supplements other than the theatrical trailer and some TV spots.

Madigan became a short-lived television series in the early 70s with Widmark reprising his role, but it is the 1968 feature film that packs the punch. A warm-up to Dirty Harry? Perhaps not intentionally, but Madigan is a strong entry in Don Siegel’s filmography.

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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.

In the Hollywood Reporter, David Weiner interviews director Philip Kaufman about his brilliant, 1978 re-imagined interpretation of Don Siegel's classic 1956 sci-fi film "Invasion of the Body Snatchers". Kaufman's version was every bit the equal to the original, although the films are substantially different. Kaufman reflects back on the making of the movie and its sad significance in today's society.  Click here to read.

"I, POD". 

When Olive Films released its highly impressive new special Blu-ray edition of the original "Invasion of the Body Snatchers", the initial run sold out before we even got around to promoting it. Due to overwhelming demand, however, Olive has made the title available again. Here are the details from Olive Films:

“They’re already here! You’re next!” With these chilling words, Invasion of the Body Snatchers sounded a clarion call to the dangers of conformity, paranoia, and mass hysteria at the heart of 1950s American life. Considered one of the greatest science fiction films ever made, Invasion of the Body Snatchers stars Kevin McCarthy (Academy Award® nominee, Best Supporting Actor, Death of A Salesman – 1952) as Miles Bennell, a doctor in a small California town whose patients are becoming increasingly overwrought, accusing their loved ones of being emotionless imposters. They’re right! Plant-like aliens have invaded Earth, taking possession of humans as they sleep and replicating them in giant seed pods. Convinced that a catastrophic epidemic is imminent, Bennell, in a terrifying race for his life, must warn the world of this deadly invasion of the pod people before it’s too late.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers, directed by the accomplished Don Siegel (Dirty Harry, The Shootist) and co-starring Dana Wynter (Airport), Carolyn Jones (A Hole in the Head), Larry Gates (The Sand Pebbles) and King Donovan (The Enforcer), was photographed by Academy Award nominee Ellsworth Fredericks (Best Cinematography, Sayonara – 1958) with production design by Academy Award winner Ted Haworth (Best Art Direction, Sayonara – 1958).

• New High-Definition digital restoration
• Audio Commentary by film historian Richard Harland Smith
• Audio Commentary by actors Kevin McCarthy and Dana Wynter, and filmmaker Joe Dante
• "The Stranger in Your Lover's Eyes" – A two-part visual essay with actor and son of director Don Siegel, Kristoffer Tabori, reading from his father's book A Siegel Film
• "The Fear is Real" – Filmmakers Larry Cohen and Joe Dante on the film's cultural significance
• "I No Longer Belong: The Rise and Fall of Walter Wanger" – Film scholar and author Matthew Bernstein discusses the life and career of the film's producer
• "Sleep No More: Invasion of the Body Snatchers Revisited" –  Never-before-seen appreciation of the film featuring actors Kevin McCarthy and Dana Wynter, along with comments from film directors and fans, John Landis, Mick Garris, and Stuart Gordon
• "The Fear and the Fiction: The Body Snatchers Phenomenon" – Never-before-seen interviews with Kevin McCarthy and Dana Wynter, along with film directors John Landis, Mick Garris and Stuart Gordon, discussing the making of the film, its place in history, and its meaning
• 1985 archival interview with Kevin McCarthy hosted by Tom Hatten
• “Return to Santa Mira" – An exploration of the film's locations
• "What's In a Name?" – On the film's title
• Gallery of rare documents detailing aspects of the film's production including the never-produced opening narration to have been read by Orson Welles
• Essay by author and film programmer Kier-La Janisse
• Original theatrical trailer

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EVE GOLDBERG presents an in-depth examination of the only film Marlon Brando ever directed: "One-Eyed Jacks" (1961)

"ONE-EYED JACKS: AMERICA AT THE CROSSROADS"

A new movie schedule arrived every few months. A two-sided paper treasure chest brimming over with promises of time travel, existential wisdom, and singing in the rain. Wild Strawberries, City Lights, Battle of Algiers, Belle de Jour.

We grabbed up the schedule and studied it with care, taped it to the refrigerator door, marked our calendars. The African Queen, Yojimbo, Rules of the Game.

We made cinema voyages all over town — to the Vista in Hollywood, the Nuart in West LA, the art deco Fox Venice. Before VCRs, DVDs or streaming, revival movie theaters were about the only place a film junkie could get a fix. We might find an occasional nugget on late night TV, John Ford’s Stagecoach, perhaps, or Invasion of the Body Snatchers, but for the most part, it was the revival house or nowhere. Citizen Kane, La Dolce Vita, Alphaville.

There was rumor of a weird Western called One-Eyed Jacks, starring and directed by Marlon Brando. Nobody we knew had seen it. The movie took on the aura of myth. Was there really a scene where Brando gets whipped? What had the famously iconoclastic actor done with the time-worn clichés of the horse opera?

Finally, I think it was 1974, One-Eyed Jacks arrived. We trooped down to the Fox Venice, waited in a long line, found seats in the filled-to-capacity theatre, and settled in for the ride. We were not disappointed. From the opening shot — Brando casually eating a banana during a bank robbery — the film was like no Western we had ever seen. Moody, psychological, ambiguous, it was awash in sadomasochism, with a brooding Brando in nearly every scene. And yes, the actor gets his whipping in a scene of perverse cruelty which sears into memory.

Back in 1974, we knew we had seen an odd, strangely subversive, one-of-a-kind film. We didn’t know, however, that this quirky little revenge gem would someday be considered an important (if flawed) masterpiece of cinema, and a fascinating link between two eras in Hollywood…and America.

The Western is a quintessentially American film genre. From its earliest days, the cowboy drama was about good guys (white lawmen) confronting bad (Indians, outlaws). Each movie was a tale of expansionist dreams and masculine aggression. Each was a saga of civilization triumphing over savagery. The Western was, to quote film critic J. Hoberman, “the way America used to explain itself to itself.”

Edwin Porter’s 1903 film, The Great Train Robbery, was one of the first Westerns. This 12-minute story in which bandits rob a train, only to be pursued by a posse of lawmen, revolutionized the art of cinema. Porter used ground-breaking techniques such as cross-cutting and close-ups to create a suspenseful, compelling narrative. The basic elements of the genre were set.

The Western remains instantly recognizable across more than a century of evolving media and myth-making. Gunfights, holdups, and massacres. Horses, trains, rustlers, and barroom brawls. School-teachers, stampedes, and six-shooters.

The Golden Age of the Western is often considered to be the years 1946-1973. Following World War II, with the Cold War blazing hot on the beaches of Korea, the U.S. declared itself the new global sheriff in town. At home, the Eisenhower Era earned a reputation as being a time of complacency and consumerism. But these were also the McCarthy years, when right-wing witch hunts against political progressives were ruining lives and careers. And, at the same time, the seeds of change were taking root. A young civil rights movement began asking America: What the hell are the good guys who fought Hitler doing about racial discrimination and bigotry at home?

By Hank Reineke

Though we’re only a few months into 2018, I’m already dead certain that Shout! Factory’s brand new Blu-ray edition of Joe Dante’s Matinee (1993) will be regarded as one of the most generous, lovingly produced and expansive reissues of the year. This remarkable set offers nearly three hours of beautifully constructed bonus materials to supplement the actual feature’s ninety-nine minute running time. In case you’re wondering, the short answer is, “Yes.” It’s officially now time to retire your treasured Laserdisc copy of Matinee as well as the now-rendered-totally-inconsequential bare bones DVD issued by Universal in 2010.

Matinee is an undeniably warm and wonderful film, an affectionate but quirky Valentine. In a series of amazing supplemental features included with this set, several key members of the film’s creative team suggest the movie was, in essence, director Joe Dante’s (Piranha, The Howling, Gremlins) very personal love letter to the art of the B-movie. Critically praised, but not commercially successful upon its release in early winter of 1993, Shout! Factory has added this title to its “Shout Select” catalogue designed to “shine a light” on “unheralded gems.” This film is certainly one such deserved jewel, but Matinee Director of Photography John Hora appears less dreamy eyed than some when offering his own honest post-assessment.

Cognizant that the Hollywood industry was just that, an industry, it was Hora’s contention that regardless of the immaculate staging and wonderful storytelling of Dante’s very personal film, he suggested the director would need to pursue a more traditional career path following the indulgence of Matinee. The age of making films for what Hora would describe – perhaps too dismissively - as a “specialized audience,” had passed. Making more marketplace films for consumption by a more general public of cinemagoers would be the only guarantor of future employment.

If Hora offered a tough in-hindsight assessment, it was not an unreasonable one. Dante himself would recall that no one, neither early on at Warner Bros. nor later at Universal, were particularly optimistic about the film’s potential as box office dynamite. Acknowledging the project as a labor-of-love, Dante accepted his tribute to the “B-movie” magic of days long gone might best be realized as an independent film project. When Dante’s early investors reneged on their promises of bankrolling the production, the director was forced to negotiate directly with the juggernaut that was Universal Studios for financing. In Dante’s own recollection, Universal’s accountants emerged shakily from the board room giving the eccentric project a nervous, wary blessing. It was a rare industry moment, the director would concede with a sigh, when “Passion won over reason.”

In hindsight Dante mused that Universal’s green lighting of Matinee was to “my everlasting gratitude, their everlasting regret.” The film is undeniably brilliant cinema and most assuredly a wonderful time capsule piece; but it was in design and intent an indie film, one not likely destined for blockbuster status. Dante’s original idea was to bring the film out in limited release in art house cinemas. He hoped positive word-to-mouth might help create a buzz, and was confident that this film – one designed for cineastes in mind - would be met with favorable critical appraisal. But in 1993 Universal was a corporate titanic that dropped their films into blanketing nationwide release for a quick return on investment. Sadly, Matinee was too insular a film to appeal to a mass audience, finishing a disappointing sixth even in its first week or release.

Originally in development at Warner Bros., writer Jerico Stone’s original screenplay of Matinee – which Dante described as a “fantasy” concerning nostalgic friends who congregate one night at a haunted neighborhood theater - would differ wildly from the final product. Though Stone, billed simply as “Jerico,” would share on-screen credit along with screenwriter Charlie Haas for the original story, he would, much aggrieved, later litigate unsuccessfully against the Writer’s Guild for screenplay credit. In any event, Warner Bros. would eventually pass on Stone’s early unmarketable treatment, as would several other studios. Undeterred, Dante chose to bring in fellow New Jersey “Monster Kid” and writer Ed Naha (Honey, I Shrunk the Kids) to take a whack at the script. It was Naha who wove in the un-credited idea of a beloved TV-horror film host (ala WCAU and WABC’s Zacherley) coming to visit a neighborhood bijou to promote the latest offering of low-budget cinematic horror.

By Todd Garbarini

The new Metrograph Theater on Ludlow Street in New York just finished a series called “This is PG?!” which screened 35mm prints of films that traumatized youngsters during their initial releases after having been granted a PG-rating by the Motion Picture Association of America. Films that were released prior to the July 1984 introduction of the PG-13 rating such as Jaws (1975), Burnt Offerings (1976), Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978), Tourist Trap (1979), Poltergeist (1982) and, most specifically, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) all had a hand in helping to create the new rating to bridge the gap between PG-rated films that weren’t quite R-rated material. Released in New York in February 1976, actor/director Ray Danton’s Psychic Killer could have easily been a part of this screening as it, too, secured a PG-rating. There is a fair amount of violence and bloodshed in this film, not to mention a fairly gory Psycho-inspired shower murder with nudity, to raise more than a few eyebrows (ironically, 1960’s Psycho has been given an R rating!)

Ostensibly shot between April and July of 1974, Psychic Killer is a time capsule of a film, a veritable authenticated record of gaudy clothes, bad hairdos, enormous cars and men with oversized ties. Timothy Hutton’s father, Jim Hutton, fresh from screaming at Kim Darby and her little imaginary creatures running around the house in ABC-TV’s Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark (1973), plays Arnold Masters, a sort of mama’s boy who lives like a bit of a hermit. He is blamed for the murder of a doctor (he didn’t kill him) and lands in prison where he meets other disturbed persons. While incarcerated, his mother passes away and this infuriates him as he feels that her death is directly attributed to his absence. Masters soon obtains a medallion that has mystical powers (it almost looks like the headpiece to the Staff of Ra in Steven Spielberg’s Raiders of the Lost Ark from 1981) and gives him the ability to leave his body in a sort of Out-of-Body-Experience (OBEE) and seek out revenge against those who put him in prison and those he deems responsible for his mother’s death (David Cronenberg wrote a similar storyline several years later in one of his best films, 1979’s The Brood. That film was controversial as it employed young children as mutant killers). When Masters kills in this state, his body goes into a condition wherein he appears dead. The film’s premise is based upon the Kirlian Effect, which was written about extensively in the 1970s. The idea is, if nothing else, intriguing.

Two cops assigned to the case are Lieutenant Anderson (Aldo Ray) and Lieutenant Morgan (Paul Burke), partners who are desperate to stay one step ahead of Masters before he can kill again. Also eager to stop Masters is the prison psychiatrist, Dr. Laura Scott (Julie Adams, real-life then-wife of director Danton). Mrs. Adams may have fled the clutches of The Creature from the Black Lagoon, but she has a tougher time bolting from the occasional silliness that seeps into the script. There is a psychic expert in tow also, one Dr. Gubner (Nehemiah Persoff) who informally teams with Dr. Scott to stop Masters.

Psychic Killer was previously issued on DVD in 1999 and 2008. The new Blu-ray/DVD combo, which are mastered from a 2K scan of the original camera negative, are obvious steps above these previous releases, so the third time is indeed a charm. This version by the fine folks at Vinegar Syndrome comes with some nice extras specifically made for the Blu-ray/DVD combo:

The Danton Force featurette (8:55) is comprised of onscreen interviews with relatives of the late director of the film, Ray Danton. Steve Danton and Mitchell Danton, his sons, talk about how the film came about and what it was like to be on the set. Their father’s work ethic had a huge impact on them and their chosen professions. Their mother, Julie Adams, appears briefly, as does Ronald L. Smith, the first assistant director. The opening prologue of the film, which attempts to set the audience up with a serious tone, contains a voice over by director Danton: "Why should any phenomenon be assumed impossible? The universe begins to look more and more like a great thought, than a great machine.”

The Aura of Horror featurette (8:05) features Mardi Rustam, a Kurdish movie fan born in Iraq who dreamed of making it in Hollywood. Amiable and well-spoken, Mr. Rustam describes writing to the movie moguls of the day and making his was to the United States. Psychic Killer’s original script title was I Am a Demon. He also produced Raphael Nussbaum’s Candice Rialson vehicle Pets (1973), Tobe Hooper’s Eaten Alive (1976), and 1985’s Evils of the Night, which is due for a Blu-ray release by the end of the month also from Vinegar Syndrome.

The Psychic Killer Inside Me (13:32) focuses on producer Greydon Clark, also known for Satan’s Cheerleaders (1973), Without Warning (1980), and Joysticks (1983). He heard about the Kirlian Effect on the radio and was intrigued by it and thought it would make a great premise for a film. The Kirlian Effect was also the working title of the film. Mr. Clark also wrote On the Cheap, a book about his adventures in the screen trade.

Rounding out the extras are multiple television spots and the original theatrical trailer.

For fans of 1970’s cult cinema, Psychic Killer is a fun ride.

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BY TODD GARBARINI

I have been a fan of the Italian giallo subgenre for 30 years since my initiation into it was precipitated by my first viewing of Creepers (1985), the severely cut version of Dario Argento’s Phenomena, my personal favorite film of his. Subsequent viewings of films by both Mr. Argento and his mentor, Mario Bava, as well as Lucio Fulci, Lamberto Bava, Luigi Cozzi, and Michele Soavi solidified a love for the putrid and the fantastic, and anyone who has seen these movies knows how delightfully entertaining they are: off-kilter camera angles, ludicrous dialogue, and what writer Todd French referred to as “a maddening narrative looseness” are present in these films in a way that they are absent in other genres. There is just nothing like an Italian giallo film. With all of the mock horror films that have been made going back to 1981’s Student Bodies and the later, more contemporary and successful Scary Movie parodies, it was only a matter of time before someone took on the giallo. Quite honestly I am surprised that it took as long as it did.

Rey Ciso (Adam Brooks, who looks a lot like Franco Nero in 1977’s Hitch-Hike and also co-wrote and co-directed the film) is a film editor who actually cuts movies on celluloid. Once a great editor who worked with top-level directors, he suffered a tragic accident which cost him four fingers and has been relegated to cutting movies with wooden substitutes that look like they might be sound-designed by Jack Terry (John Travolta) in Brian De Palma’s Blow Out (1981). In fact, The Editor, which was shot in the summer of 2013, starts out much the same way that Blow Out does, with a movie-within-a-movie concerning a stripper who is accosted on her way home from work (a nod to 1982’s Tenebre when Ania Pieroni is attacked by a vagrant). There is a lot of blood as you can well imagine, and when the action moves to the editor, we see a sad and decrepit man whose young, attractive female assistant has the hots for him for some reason. His wife is a former actress who is beyond her prime and takes out her frustration on him. If all of this sounds depressing, it’s not, as the film is actually quite humorous in that it’s a send-up of giallo films. If you are a fan of these movies to the same extent that I am, you will recognize the obvious tips of the hat (or strokes of the blade) to Mr. Argento’s Inferno (1980) and Mr. Fulci’s New York Ripper (1981). There are also myriad instances of silly dubbing (another staple of giallo), gratuitous nudity, and the sound of the actors and actresses voices coming off as too theatrical and forced. This is all deliberate as a tongue-in-cheek salute to these movies that we love so much.

Now, unfortunately for Rey, someone is killing people off all around him. Naturally he is the prime suspect, and a rookie detective (played by Matthew Kennedy, who looks like Donald Sutherland in Invasion of the Body Snatchers, who also co-wrote and co-directed the film – do you see a pattern here?) is after him almost every second just trying to pin the crimes on him. And what would a giallo send-up be without Udo Kier?

There is a conscious effort on the part of the filmmakers to pay homage to the cinematography of this once great, bygone era. The movie-within-the-movie possesses a color palette that would do Luciano Tovoli and Romano Albani proud as it harkens back to 1977’s Suspiria and 1980’s Inferno respectively. The film is beautiful to look at in every respect. Even the poster art is gorgeous! It comes with a reversible cover and I prefer the image on the inside which just screams “the 80’s”.

There are an abundance of extras in this collection, and I appreciate the fact that Shout! Factory has done a DVD/Blu-ray combo on this title. I highly recommend The Editor for those with a love for these films. The extras are:

Making Movies Used to Be Fun (51:03) is a funny and entertaining behind-the-scenes look at the making of The Editor and reveals that most of the people in front of the camera are also some of the people behind the camera.  Conor Sweeney, like the aforementioned Brooks and Kennedy, contributed to the script.

Hook Lab Interview (7:11) sits with Norman Orenstein and Trevor Tuminski in a comedic look at their musical contribution to the film.

Brett Parson Poster Video (5:35) chronicles the agony that the poster artist endured trying to create the film’s poster. Oh, the humanity!

Astron-6 Film Festival Introduction (1:57) is an annoying piece better left unviewed.

A collection of several scenes cut from the film.

Full-length audio commentary with Adam Brooks, Connor Sweeney and Matt Kennedy. I would advise you to watch the film first as this contains many spoilers. It is also a lot of fun to listen to.

-

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BY DOUG OSWALD

“Fraulein” begins with a close-up shot of the spires of a Gothic cathedral, organ music playing on the soundtrack and air-raid sirens blaring as a statement appears on screen: “Cologne on the Rhine during the last weeks of World War II.” The scene moves down to street level as German civilians and soldiers run for bomb shelters as destruction rains down on them. An American prisoner of war makes his escape during the chaos and he stumbles upon the home of a college professor and his daughter.

Mel Ferrer plays the American POW, Captain Foster MacLain. He meets the Fraulein of the movie, Erika Angermann, played by Dana Wynter. She helps him evade capture during a search of her father’s home. We learn about a fiancé she has not seen in over two years. She learns later  from a letter that he has been wounded and is in a hospital. McLain thanks her and the professor, who gives him a coat- a precious gift under the circumstances. After McLain departs, shots are heard and Erika fears he was killed or wounded. While she is grappling with that scenario, another air raid takes place, during which her father is killed..

Erika heads for the safety of her uncle’s home in Berlin at a time when many Germans are fleeing the Russian advance and heading to the American lines. A middle-aged married couple has also taken refuge in her uncle’s home and soon a group of Russian soldiers move in as well. The Russians get drunk and murder Erika’s uncle who has hidden her in a bedroom. The married couple discloses her location and a soldier is killed in a fall from the roof while trying to rape Erika. Taken into Russian custody and charged with murder, Russian Colonel Dmitri Bucaron (Theodore Bikel) takes a liking to Erika and orders her release.

The war is over, but Colonel Bucaron’s kindness comes at a price. He fancies the shy and beautiful Erika as his mistress and while out drinking, Erika befriends Lori, played by Dolores Michaels, a piano player in a Berlin nightclub entertaining Russian soldiers. Lori helps Erika escape and make her way to the American line where she is taken in by the married couple from her uncle’s house. They’re living well as pimps and seek to make Erika one of their prostitutes. Erika flees yet again after being harassed and aided by an American soldier. She ends up meeting up with Lori, who gets her a job in the nightclub where Lori plays piano and Erika is one of several girls waiting her turn to get dunked while sitting on a chair over a dunk tank as American GIs take turns tossing balls at a target. Erika’s humiliation and her situation seems hopeless when McLain, now promoted to Major, re-enters her life.

The movie is episodic and melodramatic in this story of a German woman preserving her dignity amid the degradation many German women had to endure in the final days of the war and its immediate aftermath.. She swallows her pride several times throughout the movie in order to survive and she bends, but never breaks.

The movie is directed by Henry Koster, known for many classic movies from light-hearted favorites such as “The Bishop’s Wife,” “The Luck of the Irish,” “The Inspector General” and “Harvey” to more dramatic fare like “The Robe,” “A Man Called Peter,” “The Virgin Queen,” “D-Day the Sixth of June” and “The Story of Ruth.” At the end of his career he directed several enjoyable comedies with James Stewart, “Mr. Hobbs Takes a Vacation,” “Take Her, She’s Mine” and “Dear Brigitte.”

The story, based on the book by James McGivern, was almost certainly sanitized in typical Hollywood fashion of the day. Contrary to the provocative image depicted on the advertising art for this June 1958 release, Erika maintains her virginal purity throughout as her dignity and future happiness is challenged.

Dana Wynter is terrific as the shy German girl Erika. Interestingly, Wynter was born Dagmar Winter in Berlin, Germany, grew up in England, moved to Rhodesia after WWII and studied medicine at Rhodes University in South Africa. She was discovered on the English stage and signed a seven year contract with 20th Century Fox in 1955. Retro movie fans will remember her from “Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” “D-Day the Sixth of June” (working with Koster for the first time), “Sink the Bismarck!,” “On the Double,” “The List of Adrian Messenger,” “Airport,” “The Questor Tapes” and appearances in dozens of TV series from the 1950s to the early 1990s.

Dolores Michaels is very good as Erika’s less shy friend Lori, a piano playing bar maid who is the complete opposite of Erika, but with the stereotypical heart of gold. Another great female supporting role is Maggie Hayes as Ferrer’s military aid, Lt., Berdie Dubbin.

Mel Ferrer is charming and good natured as the American soldier who finds Erika and falls in love with her. Theodore Bikel is underused but still memorable as the Russian Army Colonel Bucaron. Pivotal to the story is James Edwards as Corporal Hanks in an important supporting role. Edwards is probably best remembered for playing noble military characters in many movies including “Home of the Brave,” “The Manchurian Candidate” and “Patton.”

John Banner, fondly remembered as Sergeant Schultz in “Hogan’s Heroes,” appears in a brief scene as a health inspector delivering bad news about Erika which is intercepted by Lori. Unknown to Erika is that she’s been registered as a prostitute,a development that adds considerable drama to the story and her hopes of immigrating to America.

“Fraulein” is a burn to order DVD released as part of the 20th Century Fox Cinema Archives and there are no extras on the disc. The sound quality on the disc is crisp with a score by Daniele Amfitheatrof. The colors look good, if a bit washed out in some scenes. The movie was filmed in CinemaScope, but is presented full frame for this release. It is a pity that Fox didn’t see fit to preserve the widescreen image for this release. While much of the movie appears to have been filmed on sets, there are several second unit shots of the Rhine River that would have looked very nice in widescreen. I really enjoyed “Fraulein” and it is recommended for those who enjoy WWII melodrama.

Cinema Retro has received the following press release relating to our columnist Howard Hughes' new book:

I.B.TAURIS PRESS RELEASE

OUTER LIMITS

THE FILMGOERS’ GUIDE TO THE GREAT SCIENCE-FICTION FILMS

Howard Hughes

Published in Paperback
30 May 2014
£14.99 | 9781780761664

The up-to-date detailed companion to the best sci-fi movies of all time

Science Fiction is probably the most popular box office genre in movie history and has given filmgoers some of their most memorable cinematic experiences. Outer Limits takes its readers on a tour of the sci-fi cinema universe in all its fantastical, celestial glory.

The milestone films of sci-fi cinema from Metropolis to Avatar are discussed in this Filmgoers’ Guide for anyone who enjoys a cinema that has pleased and amazed filmgoers since the dawn of cinema. Illustrated with fine examples of sci-fi film poster-art, Outer Limits goes deep into the most interesting and popular movies across sci-fi cinema’s many forms, with core chapters used as launch pads to discuss lesser-known influential movies and follow-on sequels. Howard Hughes tells the stories from pre-production to box office returns of The War of the Worlds, Independence Day, Tarantula, Godzilla, The Time Machine, The Thing, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Forbidden Planet, Barbarella, Galaxy Quest, Minority Report, Planet of the Apes, Mad Max 2, Back to the Future, Alien, Terminator 2: Judgement Day, The Man Who Fell to Earth, The Matrix, Star Trek, Apollo 13, Blade Runner and many more.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Film writer and historian Howard Hughes is the author of Aim for the Heart: The Films of Clint Eastwood (I.B. Tauris) and of the Filmgoers’ Guide series, When Eagles Dared, Crime Wave, Once Upon a Time in the Italian West and Stagecoach to Tombstone (all from I.B. Tauris). He is contributor to ‘The James Bond Archives’, the official fiftieth anniversary celebration of 007, and writes regularly for film magazine Cinema Retro.

PRAISE FOR HOWARD HUGHES’ BOOKS

‘expertly dissected...a fascinating read.’ - The Times

‘offers much to inform and plenty to enjoy...Highly recommended.’ - Kamera

Hughes is ‘rigorous...engulfing us with history and myriad detail.’ - Empire

‘Entertaining, illuminating and packed with information’ - Sight and Sound

‘Hughes is a fan and his enthusiasm, as well as his research, shines through.’ - Tribune

‘a goldmine of such film trivia, wide-ranging and often delightful...Hughes is a thorough researcher and knows his stuff’ - The Australian

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BLU-RAY/DVD REVIEW

“RIOT IN CELL BLOCK 11” (Don Siegel)

“THE 400 BLOWS” (Francois Truffaut)

(The Criterion Collection)

TWO GEMS FROM THE 50s

By Raymond Benson

Two new releases from The Criterion Collection spotlight low-budget filmmaking in the 1950s—American and European—and couldn’t be more stylistically and thematically diverse. And yet, there is a personal stamp on the pictures that is very similar. Both films also tackle social problems with brutal frankness and feature anti-heroes as protagonists.

Riot in Cell Block 11 was produced by longtime Hollywood independent producer Walter Wanger (he was also responsible for two earlier Criterion releases, Stagecoach and Foreign Correspondent) as a hard-hitting, gritty, realistic picture depicting the inequities and maltreatment prisoners receive in American prisons. Wanger had a personal reason to make a film like that. He had barely missed spending some time in one. He’d caught his wife with another man, so Wanger shot the guy, seriously wounding him. A temporary insanity defense got him only four months at an “honor farm,” which was hardly the same as the federal penitentiary, but he was nonetheless inspired to tell the world how things really were. Enter Don Siegel, a macho, unconventional craftsman who would later make such classics as Invasion of the Body Snatchers and Dirty Harry. Since the picture was going to be made in Folsom State Prison and featuring real inmates as extras, Wanger needed something of a tough guy to helm the thing. Siegel was his man.

Released in 1954 and starring a bunch of B-movie character actors as leads (Neville Brand, Emile Meyer, Leo Gordon, and others), Riot concerns a group of irate inmates that take over their block and hold guards as hostages. Their demands are humane ones, and yet the governor and the movie’s “bad guy,” the commissioner, are against giving the cons anything and will use deadly force to stop the riot—even if it means sacrificing the hostages. Meyer, as the prison warden, delivers a surprisingly sympathetic performance as he sides with the convicts but still attempts to do his job (Meyer would later appear in a small role as a priest in Stanley Kubrick’s Paths of Glory). Brand and Gordon (who apparently really was a scary guy on the set) run the show—and there’s no shortage of beatings, arson, vandalism, and attempted murder (the film was banned in the U.K. on its initial release). Interestingly, the audience ends up rooting for the inmates, who normally should be the villains.

What’s particularly striking is Siegel’s use of location. As in a documentary, the use of the Folsom gives audiences a view of what it’s really like on the inside (at the time). It’s the real thing. Siegel manages to illustrate the claustrophobic desperation of the environment with great skill. But what’s even more profound is that the depiction of the prison population in 1954 is very different from what we envision the inhabitants of a prison might be today. For one thing, the whites outnumber the blacks in Riot. Was that realistic in 1954? It must have been, since all the extras in the picture were indeed inmates. The place also doesn’t seem as frightening as the gang-ridden institutions of the present. Nevertheless, Riot is honest and hard-hitting, another entry in a long line of “social problem films” that proliferated after World War II (The Lost Weekend, Gentleman’s Agreement, All the King’s Men, The Snake Pit, etc.).

Criterion’s new 2K digital restoration looks terrific. Since earlier home video versions in the U.S. were either on VHS or bootleg DVDs, the new dual format release is a welcome one. Film scholar Matthew H. Bernstein provides audio commentary. The extras are a bit disappointing, though. Two audio pieces feature Siegel’s son, Kristoffer Tabori, reading passages from his father’s autobiography and Stuart Kaminsky’s book on the director. These are fine if one doesn’t mind being read to for a half-hour. The other extra is all-audio as well—an excerpt from a 1953 NBC radio documentary series called The Challenge of Our Prisons. The usual thick booklet contains an essay by critic Chris Fujiwara, a 1954 article by Wanger, and a 1974 tribute to Siegel by Sam Peckinpah.

Francois Truffaut’s first feature film, The 400 Blows, released in 1959, was one of the opening salvos of the French New Wave. Drawing on his own childhood experiences, Truffaut introduces us to his alter-ego, Antoine Doinel, played beautifully by fourteen-year-old Jean-Pierre Leaud, who would star as the same character in four more films, spanning two decades—hence, we see Antoine grow up and enter adulthood before our eyes (see Criterion’s box set The Adventures of Antoine Doinel for the complete series).

The debut Doinel chapter is the most serious of the saga—the rest are, by and large, comedies. The 400 Blows paints a grim portrait of a young boy who is misunderstood by his parents and teachers, and is hence labeled a problem teen. Truffaut was particularly good at working with children and he would continue to do so throughout his career. The story follows Antoine’s troublesome day-to-day life until he is unfairly expelled from school and sent to a juvenile facility. It sounds dreary, but Truffaut manages to keep the film riveting from start to finish, and the final freeze frame is one of cinema’s most iconic images.

This seminal art film is a must-have in any serious collector’s library. With Godard’s Breathless (reviewed here previously), The 400 Blows exhibits quintessential traits of the New Wave—low budget financing, hand-held cameras, improvised action, and radical editing. It took neo-realism and made it arty. Its legacy is without question, for it remains Truffaut’s most financially successful picture in his native country.

Criterion has released the title a few times. The first one went out of print and became an expensive collector’s item on eBay until the company retrieved the rights again and re-issued a DVD of the film alone, as well as the box set of the complete Doinel pictures. Then there was the bargain-priced “Art House Essentials” edition. Now, a dual Blu-ray and DVD, the contents of which match the previous release, with the same supplements (two audio commentaries, audition footage of the actors, newsreel footage from Cannes, and two vintage Truffaut interviews). The only difference is the magnificent restored high-definition digital film transfer. The 400 Blows never looked so good. What is disappointing, though, is that the second Doinel film, a thirty-minute short entitled Antoine and Colette, was not included as a supplement. It’s on the 400 Blows DVD disc that’s in the Doinel box set. Why couldn’t it have been a Blu-ray special feature? Or is an Antoine Doinel Blu-ray box set in the works?

One can only hope!

By Lee Pfeiffer 

"Sex only dirty if you're doing it right", Woody Allen once said. The cast members of Our, Girls certainly do it right so this stroll down Mammary Lane from the Impulse Pictures DVD label can certainly be classified as a "dirty movie", to put in the parlance of days gone by. Ordinarily, old grind house porn doesn't merit critical attention but Impulse is a serious label that takes pains to preserve some the more notable titles of this genre from the 1970s and 1980s. I suppose there is some sociological merit to them, but the bottom line is: are they still erotic? In the case of Oui, Girls the answer is "yes" and "no". Much certainly depends upon individual viewer's tastes in erotica. More so than any "legit" movie, if you don't find the leading actors attractive, chances are you'll find the entire enterprise more taxing than stimulating. The film was directed (so to speak) by F.J. Lincoln, whose main claim to fame in this era is that he had one of the starring roles in Wes Craven's original Last House on the Left. The liner notes on the DVD box indicate this film was highly regarded in adult film circles back in the day. "Highest rating...an erotic masterpiece", exclaimed High Society magazine. 'lest you think this is on the level of Last Tango in Paris, think again. What apparently separated Lincoln's films from the rest of the grind house pack is that they at least had some modest production values. In an era where most porn films were confined to "one reelers" shot in somebody's bedroom (or kitchen, or garage), Lincoln attempted to shoehorn something akin to a plot into the action- and he also shot on location so that his productions had some scenery and atmosphere. Even back in 1982, however, it's hard to imagine that this modest enterprise would have elicited great praise from within the adult film community, especially when a decade before, Gerard Domiano's The Devil in Miss Jones set the high water mark for acting, story and production values. Lincoln's great achievement here was gathering numerous "superstars" of the porn genre in this one film....sort of like The Towering Inferno, only these superstars don't wear pants. 

The film opens with a young couple, Barbara (Anna Ventura) and Nick (Paul Thomas, who bears a striking resemblance to Donald Sutherland in Invasion of the Body Snatchers) discussing a mystery. Nick, an insurance investigator, suspects that a man named Buck Thomas (Michael Morrison) may have murdered his wife. Nick gets Barbara to agree to accompany him to the Circle S singles ranch, which, in fact, is a place for swingers. Seems that ol' Buck holds court there with his latest flame, the sexually insatiable Cora (Lisa De Leeuw).  The story then veers to another couple, Laura (Tiffany Clark) and Frank (Michael Bruce) who are curious about spicing up their love lives by experimenting with swinging.  They arrange a meeting with an exotic, strange woman named Francine (Sharon Kane) who invites them to the Circle S to indulge in their fantasies. Once the couples arrive at the ranch, director Lincoln throws the entire murder mystery plot out the window (it's abruptly resolved in a single sentence, then not revisited again). Instead, things get hot and heavy with guys eyeing girls, girls eyeing guys and, of course, girls eyeing girls. The sex scenes are legitimately erotic and Lincoln doesn't go too much beyond the pure vanilla stage in that nothing overly perverted goes on, as long as you're comfortable with a dozen people rolling around together on the living room floor. 

There are some interesting observations to make about the film. For one, while the women range from ordinary looking to downright exotic and the men look like they just stepped got off work at the local factory. In this pre-Botox and silicone era, most of the performers looked like people you might actually meet in real life. Thus, the guys are hairy and the girls are even hairier. The real fun comes when various cast members attempt to act. Here, the guys have the advantage with most of the male actors delivering dialogue in a manner that doesn't elicit unintentional laughter. Their physical appearance is something else, however, as they are cursed by having to wear the fashions of the era (short-shorts and polyester were all the rage). The women fare better in the fashion department because plunging necklines and garter belts do the trick in any era. The most amusement comes from the performance of Anna Ventura as Barbara when she gets to scold boyfriend Nick. She plays the part like she's Liz Taylor's Martha in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and induces some gut busting unintentional laughter in the process. There is also a funny sequence in which Nick is seduced by Cora. Barbara walks in and catches them in the act but Paul has an excuse: as an insurance investigator he had to use her bottom to get to the bottom of the case. (Male insurance investigators may want to make note of this excuse in case they find themselves in a similar dilemma.) The film's grand finale features an all-out orgy, though Lincoln is rather subdued in not taking this scene as far as we might have expected. 

The opening credits on the DVD transfer look like they were run over by a garbage truck but, in a way, it adds to the ambiance of the grind house flick. Fortunately, the print quality improves dramatically after that. There are no bonus features on the disc. Oui, Girls is a nostalgic throwback to an era when even porn seemed a little less calculated and manufactured by rote. I'm still trying to figure out the relevance of the title since there isn't even an allusion to the French anywhere on screen. If you pine away for those days watching porn in dingy theaters, you'll enjoy this DVD. To enhance the experience, make sure you're wearing your trench coat while viewing it.

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By Lee Pfeiffer 

Despite its hokey title, the 1958 sci fi cult favorite I Married a Monster From Outer Space is a few notches up the totem pole in comparison to other "B" movies of the period. Produced and directed by Gene Fowler, Jr. and theatrically released by Paramount, the film has been out of print on DVD for a number of years. The Warner Archive has just released it as a burn-to- order title. The film stars Gloria Talbott as Marge Bradley, a small town girl who is engaged to local hunk Bill Farrell (Tom Tryon). However, just prior to their wedding day, Bill encounters an alien from outer space on a back country road and the being takes over his physical body. While the "new" Bill looks the same, his actions and mannerisms change radically. The once fun-loving young man becomes sullen and quiet, leading Marge to speculate what has caused these mood changes. Nevertheless, the couple gets married on the designated day, though Marge finds her wedding night to be anything but romantic, with Bill seemingly disinterested in his new bride. As the days go by, Marge becomes increasingly alarmed by Bill's behavior. Making matters more frustrating is her inability to conceive a child. (Maybe the fact that the dreaded production code at the time mandated that even husbands and wives sleep in separate beds might have had something to do with this particular problem.) Ultimately, Marge discovers a shocking secret: not only has Bill's body been taken over by an alien but the same dilemma has befallen many of the other men in town. In fact, Marge finds it impossible to escape or even to call outside the town for help. She finally manages to round up a posse of "real" men who set out to take on the invaders- only to find they are impervious to bullets. Seems the rather benign beings from another world have the same problem most cinematic space aliens have: their world has been threatened by a natural catastrophe. In this case, all of the women on their planet have died. Not only does this panic the male population, but it probably also caused sales to plummet in local nail and waxing salons. Realizing they must mate or face extinction of their race, the aliens sample numerous planets before deciding on taking over the male population of earth. Once achieved, they intend to figure out how human females will be able to produce their offspring...though their intent is to revert to their normal ghastly physical appearances. As space invaders go, these guys are fairly lame. They seem reluctant to utilize their abilities to use death rays to reduce their opponents into a pile of ashes. In fact, they seem to dig their faux human alter-egos especially since they discover that sex can actually be fun, especially with attractive earth girls. (On their home planet, sex was only for procreation purposes, an understandable policy especially if the women looked like the men.) It is revealed that the "real" men are being kept alive in a space ship while their dopplegangers have been wreaking havoc. Thus, it becomes a race against time to thwart the aliens before the few remaining human males fall victim to an identical fate. 

The film is a blatant rip-off of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, although director Fowler doesn't show similar restraint in making the terrors largely unseen. Instead, the film makes liberal use of special effects and monster costumes, but they aren't half-bad when compared to most B sci-fi flicks of the era. The acting is also above par with Talbott achieving the rare distinction of being a '50s sci-fi heroine who doesn't turn in a laughable performance, though she does comply with the now mandatory act of tripping and falling in the woods while being pursued by the villains. Similarly, Tom Tryon plays it straight and emerges with dignity intact, thus not deterring him from becoming a successful leading man a few years later in major studio productions. (He would also become a bestselling author whose work includes the eerie classic "The Other"). In all, despite its hokey title, I Married a Monster From Outer Space remains one of the more enjoyable B movies of its era. 

The Warner Archive DVD is identical to Paramount's out-of-print previous release. The transfer is crystal clear but, as with most Paramount titles of the period, there are no extras whatsoever.  

Click here to order from Warner Archive 

Joe Dante's Trailers From Hell site presents director Philip Kaufman's 1978 remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers with commentary by writer Josh Olson. The film rivals the 1956 original and in some ways surpasses it. Click here to view.

Click here for Cinema Retro's review of the DVD release

Click here for Cinema Retro's exclusive interview with co-star Veronica Cartwright.

By Todd Garbarini

Halloween III: Season of the Witch is a strange concoction that never seemed to get a fair shake at the box office during its original release.  It's kind of like the unwanted offspring of the Halloween films and was originally projected to be the first in a series of yearly horror yarns released every October that dealt with different stories surrounding the titular holiday.  The film is among the least successful of the series, so any future franchise plans were abandoned, which is a shame because Halloween III is a fun little movie in its own right. In addition to being marketed incorrectly, it has not been represented properly even on home video.  DVD certainly hasn't been kind to it, having seen no less than three incarnations in “movie only” editions released in 1998 by Good Times Home Video, and in 2003 and 2007 by Universal Home Video. This is about to change, however, thanks to the fine folks at Shout! Factory.  Their new “Scream Factory” line is releasing a widescreen, feature-rich DVD in September (along with Halloween II from 1981) that should satisfy any passing or diehard fan of this film.  Having been erroneously promoted as the third installment of the popular horror series at the time, it is the only film having absolutely nothing to do with the manifestation of pure evil, Michael Myers.  Halloween III is more of a science fiction/horror film in the tradition of Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), the film the director obviously admires greatly.    

Released on Friday, October 22, 1982, Halloween III was co-written and directed by Tommy Lee Wallace whose future credits would go on to include episodes of the of the mid-1980's revival TV series The Twilight Zone and the 1990 made-for-TV movie adaptation of It by Stephen King. Halloween III features Tom Atkins, who worked with John Carpenter on The Fog (1980) and Escape From New York (1981) and with George A. Romero in Creepshow (1982). He is also known for Fred Dekker's Night of the Creeps (1986) and Richard Donner's Lethal Weapon (1987). Mr. Atkins always delivers a terrific performance regardless of the subject matter of the films that he appears in, and Halloween III is no exception. Here he plays Dr. Dan Challis, who looks no more like a doctor than yours truly, and ends up playing doctor with Ellie Grimbridge (Stacey Nelkin), the twenty-two year-old grand-daughter of a man who died in his care (actress Nelkin is reportedly the woman Woody Allen had an affair with in the mid-1970s and inspired Mariel Hemingway’s character of Tracy in his 1979 film Manhattan). It turns out that a company producing Halloween masks (courtesy of Don Post Studios) is actually a front for an evil man named Conal Cochran (Dan O'Herlihy) who has produced a legion of androids in the form of well-dressed men, and is the monster behind the television commercials for Silver Shamrock Novelties which are geared towards children. Cochran’s plan is to kill children who wear his masks on Halloween night by activating a microchip in their masks which contain a fragment of Stonehenge. He wants to resurrect the festival of Samhain which he relates to witchcraft.

The story has elements of science fiction and reminds one of the aforementioned granddaddy of social paranoia flicks. The well-dressed men remind me of the soulless crew members of the Cygnus in The Black Hole (1979). Some critics even claimed that the film is a social commentary about the pitfalls of consumerism and the power of large corporations. To paraphrase Sigmund, sometimes a thriller is just a thriller!

Halloween III has become one of those films rescued from obscurity thanks to the availability of home video. Were it not for the ancillary markets of cable television and video playback devices, it is highly unlikely that so many genre gems would have ever retained any sense of life and made it into the homes of fans around the world. While obviously it is better to see such films on the big screen, particularly movies such as Halloween III which was shot in the 2.35:1 anamorphic aspect ratio, for many of us, this was the only way to see these films at all. Network TV airings were hit or miss.

John Carpenter and Alan Howarth provide a nifty synthesizer-driven film score which aids in giving the film a spooky and alien feel to it. The Silver Shamrock theme is a variation of the public domain children’s song “London Bridge is Falling Down.”

I love going to the locations where movies are shot, and Sean Clark of Horror's Hallowed Grounds does another excellent job of taking us on a tour of the locations for Halloween III. However, I must say that this is about as close as you would want to get to the town of Loleta, CA where the bulk of the film takes place. While it looks industrial and low-key in the film, 30 years have not been kind to this location. The motel where the aforementioned tryst occurs is dilapidated and home to people you don’t want to know.

If you're going to own Halloween III, this is the edition to get. This special DVD comes with the following extras:

- Audio commentary with director Tommy Lee Wallace, Sean Clark of Horror's Hallowed Grounds and Rob Galluzzo of Icons of Fright

- Audio commentary with actor Tom Atkins

- Stand Alone: The Making of Halloween III: Season of the Witch featuring Tommy Lee Wallace, Tom Atkins, Stacey Nelkin, Dick Warlock, Dean Cundey and more...

- Horror's Hallowed Grounds - Revisiting the original shooting locations

- Still Gallery

- Theatrical Trailers and TV Spots

Click HERE to purchase from Amazon.com. 

Christopher Lee in The Wicker Man

By Mark Mawston

With Halloween fast approaching I thought I might recommend some films that seem to have found themselves, bar one or two, languishing in DVD dungeons like forgotten prisoners.

There are many recognized classics of the genre from The Omen and The Exorcist to The Haunting, as well as the Universal classics such as Frankenstein, Dracula and The Mummy but some of what I humbly call classics seldom, if ever, get a chance to shine. To try and set this straight before the witching hour strikes, I like to recommend a few films, 13 to be precise, that you may have missed or could perhaps re visit during this spookiest time of year.

13) Night Of The Eagle:

This superb British Witchcraft tale (known under the more lurid title Burn Witch Burn in the U.S.) is a minor monsterpiece. Starring Jason King himself Peter Wyngard it shows the consequences of marrying a witch in a way that Darren and Samantha never had to deal with on Bewitched. Taking its subject matter very seriously, this is a superbly acted little film with a, quite literally, killer climax. A Stone Cold Classic you could say.

12) Night Of The Demon.

This genre classic would make a superb “Night” time double bill with its predecessor in this list. Based on the short story Casting Of The Runes by M.R. James (and known as Curse Of The Demon In The States) this is a terrifying film whose dark atmosphere is backed up by superb and believable performances and a classic storyline. Dana Andrews was never better but the star of the show is Niall MacGinnis as Dr. Julian Karswell who can switch from children’s entertainer to demon conjurer quicker than the extinguishing of a flickering candle flame. The chase through the forest by the unseen demon is a masterpiece of subtly which is disregarded in the climax for the full on view of the film’s title creature. Many say this spoils the Val Lewtonesque feel of the film but I rather like it.

11) The Devil Rides Out:

Quite simply one of the best Hammer films ever made, with Christopher Lee acting against type, very successfully, as the hero rather than the monster. Based on the novel by Dennis Wheatly and brought to the screen by the superb Richard Matheson, this is Hammer firing on all four cylinders and has some of the most memorable set pieces of the studio’s superb output. Future Blofeld Charles Gray is excellent as Macata. One of Terence Fishers best, a director who was to Hammer what Terence Young was to the Bond films.

10) The Wicker Man:

One of the key films to watch over the period is Robin Hardy’s cult classic about a cult. Is it a musical? Is it a horror film? Is it really a classic? Well it’s a simple yes to all of them. When I talked to producer Michael Deeley about this he still seemed a bit bemused about this film’s well documented past and pointed out that the only way it could be released at the time was for it to be trimmed and released as a double bill. Many films have had that happen over the years (Ray Harryhausen’s Valley Of Gwangi coupled with Marianne Faithfull in Girl on a Motorcycle (a.k.a Naked Under Leather ) but few films who’s trims ended up as motorway landfill have such a following. The ending is still up there with that of Planet of the Apes for those who have yet to see it. Unlike The Sixth Sense, I had no idea of the “twist” until the shocking climax. It remains a unique cinematic experience. The soundtrack by Paul Giovanni is as unforgettable as the naked dance of Britt Ekland’s character Willow in the film.

Dana Wynter, the stunning beauty who played the female lead in the 1956 science fiction classic Invasion of the Body Snatchers has died from congestive heart failure. She was 79 years-old. Wynter's career escalated after appearing the film, which was directed by Don Siegel. She routinely dismissed theories that the movie was a criticism of McCarthyism, saying they only wanted to tell a good yarn. Wynter's other major films include Sink the Bismarck, D-Day: The Sixth of June, The List of Adrian Messenger and Airport. After the release of the latter film in 1970, Wynter concentrated on raising a family, though she did appear as a guest star in many TV series during the 1980s and 1990s. For more click here

Kevin McCarthy, the distinguished actor who starred in director Don Siegel's 1950s sci-fi classic Invasion of the Body Snatchers, has died at age 96. McCarthy was, until recently, still a regular present at film industry events. With his white hair and dignified manner of speech, he often played men of great stature. However, Body Snatchers afforded him screen screen immortality as the courageous small town doctor who tries to combat aliens who are taking over the bodies of earthlings. McCarthy also had a memorable cameo in Philip Kaufman's excellent 1978 remake of the film. For more on his remarkable career, click here. (See Cinema Retro issue #4 for coverage of McCarthy and Clint Eastwood's joint appearance at a Don Siegel tribute)

By Lee Pfeiffer

I'll admit to not being very conversant regarding the films of George Romero, aside from Night of the Living Dead. With the remake of his 1973 thriller The Crazies now in theaters, I thought it would be worthwhile checking out Blue Underground's Blu-ray release of the original film. Despite the title, which insinuates this is some kind of campy monster movie, I was quite surprised the film is a highly effective suspense movie played straight-faced and without over-the-top characters or situations. The storyline finds that a top secret government experiment in biological warfare has gone astray, leaving residents of a small Pennsylvania town infected. Suddenly, many locals begin to display signs of madness that eventually culminates in their acting as raving, murderous lunatics. As the townspeople scramble to prevent themselves from being infected, they must also deal with the horrendous problem of fending off attacks from friends and loved ones who are now hunting them down to kill them. This frightening scenario clearly inspired the slicker and more polished British film 28 Days Later and its sequel 28 Weeks Later, but Romero's production is also highly effective in delivering the chills.

Scan the net and you’ll find hundreds of “Classic Sci Fi Collections” which are mostly made up from terrible killer B’s and films that have fallen into public domain. Now however, I’m glad to say, we’ve finally found some form of intelligence out there with the release of this wonderful collection of some of the most outstanding sci-fi films of the 50’s.

This set is essentially the crème de la crème of the studio most associated with fans of the genre- Universal International. Every single one of the movies included here deserves the title “classic”.

First in the line up is the last truly great monster in the Universal ranks to match the classic roster of previous monsters such as Dracula, Frankenstein, The Mummy and The Wolfman. Look at any “classic horror” merchandizing and you’ll see The Creature From The Black Lagoon holding its own in this venerable Batpack of horror stars. The story goes that the inspiration for this movie came about when producer William Alland (a friend of Orson Welles and a Mercury player who’d starred as the reporter in Citizen Kane) discussed the story he’d been reading regarding a half man half fish creature of Amazonian myth. He was in good company as the initial design for The Creature, which Welles said he should make, was based on that of the Oscar! After talented artist Millicent Patrick became involved, along with veterans Jack Pierce Jack Kevan and Bud Westmore, the creature transformed from a smooth looking alien figure of Oscar to the Gill-Man we all know and love today. In the film, a scientific expedition searching for fossils along the Amazon River discover a prehistoric Gill-Man in the legendary Black Lagoon. The explorers capture the mysterious creature, but it breaks free. The Gill-Man returns to kidnap the lovely Kay, fiancée of one of the expedition, with whom it has fallen in love.

In essence CFTBL is a remake of King Kong, but is still one of the most original of all monster movies. As it was made in the 50’s it can be classed as a sci-fi film, which had, in essence, replaced the “horror” movie even though this is one of the few monsters that wasn’t woken or mutated by an atomic explosion of sorts.

MGM and 20^th Century Fox have released a deluxe, 2 DVD collector’s edition of the 1978 version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. It probably isn’t fair to call this a remake, but rather a complimentary piece to director Don Siegel’s classic 1956 film. In fact, director Philip Kaufman makes it clear in an interview included on the DVD that he doesn’t view this as a remake. You would have to have been living in a cave for the last fifty years if you don’t know the central premise of the story: that tiny organisms from a doomed planet have come to earth and have unobtrusively imbedded themselves throughout the population of a small town. When townspeople fall asleep, they are ultimately replicated by the organisms that metamorphasize from a large pod into human form. The result is that the new being retains the physical characteristics of the person but in fact, they are a totally different being, devoid of most human emotions. There has been much debate over the hidden implications of the original storyline but director Don Siegel always denied that the script was a metaphor for Sen. McCarthy’s tactics of stamping our individuality and dissent. Siegel always maintained that the Cold War meanings attributed to the movie were coincidental and that he only wanted to fashion an expertly-made chiller. That he succeeded in doing so was largely born out by the fact that director Philip Kaufman and screenwriter W.D. Richter felt the original film was as timely in 1978 as it was upon its initial release.