Technically speaking, OSS 117 secret agent Hubert
Bonisseur de La Bath is not a James
Bond knock off.The creation of wildly
prolific French author Jean Bruce, the first literary adventure of the spy arrived
in 1949 with the publication of Tu parles d'une ingénue (Ici OSS 117).This
would pre-date the April 1953 publication of the first Ian Fleming James Bond
novel, Casino Royale, by nearly four years.In the years following the publication of that
first 007 thriller to his last in 1965, Fleming would deliver an impressive thirteen
James Bond novels and nine short stories.
In contrast, Jean Bruce would
publish no fewer (and possibly more) than eighty-eight to ninety OSS 117
pulp-adventures between 1949 and March of 1963, the month and year of his
passing. It’s difficult to determine how many of Bruce’s novels were of his
composition alone. His widow, Josette – and later a teaming of the Bruce’s son
and daughter – would continue the pulp series into the early 1990s. So determined
bibliophiles will have their work cut out for them if they wish to track down
all of the 250+ published OSS 117 novels.
If OSS 117 beat James Bond to
the stalls of book-sellers, he also managed to beat him to the cinema
screen.Two OSS 117 films were released
throughout Western Europe and foreign markets in 1957 and 1960: OSS 117 n'est pas mort (OSS 117 is not Dead)
andLe bal des espions
(Danger in the Middle East).The latter title,
interestingly, does not feature “Hubert Bonisseur de La Bath.”Though based on one of Bruce’s OSS 117
novels, a messy rights-issue prevented the filmmakers to use the central
character’s moniker.These earliest
films, produced as routine crime dramas by differing production companies (and
featuring different actors in the title role), came and went without attention
nor fanfare.
But in 1963 Bruce’s OSS 117 character was resurrected as
a cinematic property following the success of Terence’s Young’s Dr. No, the first James Bond screen
adventure.The spy pictures comprising
Kino Lorber’s OSS 117 Five Film
Collection are tailored as pastiches of the popular James Bond adventures
of the 1960s.This new Blu ray set
features the entirety of OSS 117 film thrillers produced 1963 through 1968
during the height of Bondmania.And,
just as the Eon series offered a trio of actors to portray James Bond
(1962-1973), the OSS series would likewise present three in the role of Colonel
Hubert Bonisseur de La Bath.Each actor
would bring some aspect of their own personalities to their characterizations.
Of course, the name Hubert Bonisseur de La Bath is a bit
of a Franco-linguistic mouthful to market successfully overseas.So, throughout the five films the character usually
assumes an Anglo-friendly alias which helps move things along a bit more
smoothly: he alternately assumes – among others - such covert surnames as
Landon, Barton, Delcroix, Wilson and Mulligan.It certainly makes his character’s many “personal” on-screen introductions
easier for all involved.
The Kino set starts off chronologically with 1963’s OSS 117 is Unleashed (original title OSS 117 se déchaîne).Like the four films to follow, the series
were all Franco-Italia co-productions and distributed by Gaumont Films.Unlike those four, OSS 117 is Unleashed is filmed in black-and-white.The monochrome photography is not really an
issue.But cinemagoers were certainly cheated
of enjoying the beautiful beaches and Cliffside scenery of the village of
Bonifacio (off the Corsican strait) in vibrant color.
In OSS 117 is
Unleashed our hero (American actor Kerwin Mathews, best known to American
audiences for his roles in Ray Harryhausen’s special-effect laden epics The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958) and The 3 Worlds of Gulliver (1960), is sent
to Corsica to investigate the suspicious death of a fellow agent.We’re told, suspiciously, there’s been, “lots
of accidents among agents near Bonifacio.”A preamble to the film, culled mostly of cold war era newsreel footage,
alerts that an unspecified enemy is working towards “neutralizing” free-world atomic
submarine movements in the area. With
conspirators tagged with such names as “Sacha” and “Boris,” we can reasonably
assume its east-of-the-Iron Curtain intelligence agents behind the plot.
Initially posing as a relative of the recently targeted
and now deceased CIA frogman (and later as a Lloyds of London insurance adjustor),
Mathews must dispatch and/or fend off a series of enemy agents and perhaps a duplicitous
woman.In due course, he survives a poisoning,
several (well-choreographed) hand-to-hand combat sequences and even a submerged
spear-gun and knifing frogman attack.The latter occurs while he’s search of a mysterious submerged
subterranean grotto.The base is outfitted
(as one might expect) with high-tech equipment and a detection system designed
to bring about “the end of atomic submarines.”The secreted grotto is also equipped with a built-in self-destruct
button… always handy, just in case.This
is all definitely Bond-on-a budget style filmmaking.Of course, the idea of covertly tracking atomic
submarines movements brings to mind the storyline of the far-more-lavishly
staged The Spy Who Loved Me (1977).
As far as I can determine, OSS 117 is Unleashed was never released theatrically in the
U.S.But Mathews’ second (and final) outing
as OSS 117, Panic in Bangkok (Banco à Bangkok pour OSS 117) (1964) would
have a belated release in the U.S. (as Shadow
of Evil) in December of 1966.Regardless,
Shadow of Evil was not exhibited as a
primary attraction in the U.S. market.It most often appeared as the under bill to Christopher Lee in The Brides of Fu Manchu or (more
sensibly) to Montgomery Clift’s political suspense-thriller The Defector.
In Panic in Bangkok,
Mathews is dispatched to Thailand to, once again, investigate the assassination
of a fellow agent.The murdered CIA operative
had been investigating a possible correlation between anti-cholera vaccines
produced by Bangkok’s Hogby Laboratories to an outbreak of a deadly plague in
India.The trail leads Mathews to
suspect a certain mysterious Dr. Sinn (Robert Hossein) is somehow involved.Unlike the previous film which lacked a singular
villain with a foreboding presence (ala Dr. No), the filmmakers offer
cinemagoers a more exotic adversary in Dr. Sinn.
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.
I
was introduced into the world of Billy Idol’s music in late 1983 when my
younger sister discovered his music. His signature hits “White Wedding (Part
1)” and “Dancing with Myself” from his self-titled 1982 album emanated from her
room daily and I found his energy to be infectious. At that time, his follow-up
album, the widely popular Rebel Yell, was just released (it’s now forty
years-old!) and it really put him on the map, setting him apart from the group
he burst on to the scene with in 1976: the short-lived Chelsea, and then later,
Generation X. With guitarist Steve Stevens, who has been with him ever since,
and a group of musicians, Billy Idol, whose surname was inspired by one of his
teachers labeling him as an “idle” student, began his Rebel Yell tour
and was Yours Truly’s first foray into the world of rock concerts. Since then,
he has toured the globe and garnered legions of fans the world over.
A
self-professed history buff and environmentalist, Billy teamed with then-New
York Mayor Bill de Blasio in February 2020 just weeks before the COVID-19
shutdown to promote a public awareness Anti-Idling campaign in New York City to
remind drivers that motor vehicles are forbidden to idle for no more than three
minutes, and no more than one minute in a school zone. So, he’s very
pro-environment.
In
April of this year, Billy did something that no artist has ever done before: he
performed a concert at the Hoover Dam in Boulder City, NV, which was filmed for
the new concert film Billy Idol: State Line, playing in theaters this
week. The first 20 minutes of the film reveal that Billy would have been a
history professor had he not been in a band (I for one am glad that he never
got his teaching license) and gives a brief history of the construction of the
modern engineering marvel. Amazingly, this is Billy’s maiden voyage to Hoover
Dam and you can tell that he is stunned by it.
He
plays an acoustic set at the foot of the dam with Steve Stevens of “Eyes
Without a Face” and “Rebel Yell” before taking the stage or, in this case the
Hoover Dam helipad, to belt out “Rock the Cradle of Love,” “Dancing with
Myself,” “Flesh for Fantasy,” “Eyes Without a Face,” his trademark cover of
“Mony Mony,” “Blue Highway,” “Rebel Yell,” “Hot in the City,” and “White
Wedding (Part 1).”
Will
this venue become a mecca for future bands?
This
is a must-see on the big screen for Billy Idol fans.
See
the press release below for more information:
BILLY IDOL: STATE LINE MAKES U.S. THEATRICAL DEBUT NOVEMBER
15
FILM
DOCUMENTS THE FIRST CONCERT EVER PERFORMED AT HOOVER DAM
IDOL
CONTINUES WATER CONSERVATION ACTIVISM WITH PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENTS IN
CONJUNCTION WITH U.S. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR
Billy Idol: State Line, a Vertigo Live concert film documenting the rock legend’s
April show at the famed Hoover Dam - the first ever concert performed at
the location - is set to make its U.S. theatrical debut on November 15, 2023.
The movie highlights the history and significance of Hoover Dam and includes
performances from two unique sets of Billy Idol’s iconic hits: a full band
concert at sunset with special guests that electrified and illuminated the
surrounding Black Canyon and an acoustic duo set on the roof of the powerhouse
at the foot of Hoover Dam straddling the Colorado River, directly on the
Nevada/Arizona state line. Tickets and additional info on film screenings can
be found at billyidolstateline.com, with additional screenings to be
added shortly.
For
both sets, Idol is joined by his collaborator and lead guitarist of over forty
years, Steve Stevens. Performed in front of only 250 fans, the full band
set features special guests Alison Mosshart (The Kills, The Dead
Weather), Steve Jones (Sex Pistols, Generation Sex) and Tony Kanal
(No Doubt). See the film’s trailer here.
“Our
show at Hoover Dam was a monumental and surreal career highlight,” notes Idol.
“I’m excited to get State Line out into the world. With this film we set out to
highlight the continued importance of one of the most inspiring infrastructural
achievements of the 20th Century, while also bringing the power of rock n roll
to a stunning, magical location. I think we more than succeeded on both
accounts.”
Idol’s
first-person experience of the Colorado River Basin drought conditions while
shooting the film at Hoover Dam inspired his ongoing efforts to promote the
importance of water conservation, including appearing in a series of public
service announcements being released by the U.S. Department of the Interior.
See Idol’s most recent P.S.A. with Secretary of the Interior Deb Haalandhere.
Of
his activism relating to water conservation, Idol adds, “The drought conditions
prevalent in the American West are severe and impossible to ignore. It takes
all of us conserving water in whatever ways we can to preserve the future of
our natural resources for our grandkids and beyond. I’m proud to help amplify
this issue in whatever way I can.”
Billy
Idol: State Line is
produced by Lastman Media for Vertigo Live in collaboration with the Waldorf Astoria Las Vegas and is distributed theatrically
throughout North America by Unbranded Events and U.K./rest of world via
Kaleidoscope Entertainment.
Idol
will also perform in Las Vegas the same day as Super Bowl LVIII in
February; see below for a complete list of tour dates.
For
46 years, Billy Idol has been one of the definitive faces and voices of
rock’n’roll. Between 1977 and 1981 Idol released three albums with Generation X
as their camera-ready frontman. In 1982 he embarked on a
transatlantic/trans-genre solo career that integrated the bold and simple lines
of punk and rock’n’roll decadence. Touring consistently around the world for
the last ten years and showing no signs of slowing down, Idol released both The
Roadside EP in 2021 and The Cage EP in 2022 on Dark Horse Records,
earning praise from fans and critics alike. In January, Idol cemented his name
among Hollywood legends with the first Walk of Fame Star of 2023.
Idol
recently wrapped the first-ever Generation Sex tour in the U.K. and E.U. The
punk supergroup is comprised of Idol and Tony James from Generation X, and
Steve Jones and Paul Cook from Sex Pistols. November 10 marks the 40th
Anniversary of Idol’s seminal record Rebel Yell, with an expanded
edition of the album due in early 2024.
The
Titanic's sinking occurred over 111 years ago and yet it still holds a special
place in not only history, but popular culture as well. If you are reading this
you probably know its history already. It crashed into an iceberg on its maiden
voyage from Southampton, England to New York City. One thousand, five hundred
and twenty two men, women, and children perished in the freezing water.Whether from James Cameron's Oscar- winning
film, multiple documentaries throughout the years, or the smash hit stage musical
being reviewed here (the filmed version), people have been drawn to its tragic
story.
The
musical first opened on Broadway April 23, 1997 and ran for 804 performances.
It
won
all five Tony Awards it was nominated for, Best Musical, Best Book, and Best
Score, along with Best Orchestrations and Scenic Design, and successfully
toured both the US and Europe for years. In its current "revival"
Fathom Events, along with By Experience, are bringing the production of the
recent UK tour to the silver screen.I
did not see the original production. I feel it puts me in a better position to
review this filmed version as I have no preconceived notions or memories about
the show.
Twenty
five actors perform in this filmed version as opposed to forty three in the
Broadway production. From what I read about the Broadway version, the set was
so expensive (it tried to encompass all three classes of passengers along with
the ship's bridge), there were no out-of-town tryouts. In this filmed version,
since it was a tour, the producers made a similar, if smaller set for the show,
but whether it was or not a recreation, it is, once getting past slight
distractions, a very good set.
(Photo: Pamela Raith)
The
cast is terrific. Standouts are Martin Allanson as J. Bruce Ismay, director of
the White Star line, the "Villain" of the show, cast with a Snidely
Whiplash moustache is, if not "evil incarnate," than at least
"evil a-boat-ate."Graham
Bickley as the put-upon by Ismay ship's Captain Edward Smith, is one of the
most sympathetic characters, Alice Beane, as portrayed by Bree Smith is the
social climbing, selfish wife who sneaks into First Class to hobnob with the
hoi polloi who puts her marriage at risk. Adam Filipe as Stoker Frederick
Barrett is an experienced stoker, who becomes engaged to be married through the
wireless while at sea. He knows the voyage is at risk due to Ismay's
machinations to increase the ship's speed to set the Atlantic crossing speed
record.
To
list all the wonderful performances and numbers would take too much time and
effort, as I am not being paid by the word.
This
filmed version will be available to see at over 700 U.S. theaters country-wide
on November 4th and 8th. At approximately $20/a seat, it is a whale of a
bargain to see this multi-award winning show.
Young Raquel in the 1966 sci-fi classic "Fantastic Voyage", one of the few films from this era that didn't require her to appear on screen in a bikini. (Photo: Cinema Retro Archive.)
Writing on the Turner Classic Movies web site, Jessica Pickens provides an informative look at Raquel Welch as both an actress and the real-life person behind the sex symbol image. Click here to view.
Rightfully or wrongfully, I’m going to concentrate this
review of Mill Creek’s Sci-Fi from the
Vault Blu on two of this Blu-ray set’s decidedly lesser films:Creature
with the Atom Brain (1955) and The
Thirty Foot Bride of Candy Rock (1959).This is partially due to the fact that the set’s two most prominent
titles, 20 Million Miles to Earth and
It Came from Beneath the Sea, were
previously issued by Mill Creek back in 2014 on their twofer Ray Harryhausen Creature Double Feature
from the same transfers. Though Creature with the Atom Brain is making
its U.S. Blu debut on this set, the film has seen a previous Blu issue on the UK
import Cold War Creatures: Four Films
from Sam Katzman.So only The Thirty Foot Bride of Candy Rock is making
a worldwide debut on Blu with this set.
All four films in this new set come, as per the title,
from the vaults of Columbia studios. Creature
earlier appeared on the commentary-free DVD set Sam Katzman: Icons of Horror Collection (2007).As I am not privy to the sales figures of
that set, I can only surmise should Mill Creek release a Sci-Fi Vault Vol. 2 on Blu, we might see the “missing” Katzman titles
sprinkled into a future U.S. set.This Mill
Creek set is not an “all Katzman” edition (ala Icons).The workhorse
producer has no connection to either 20
Million Miles to Earth or The Thirty
Foot Bride of Candy Rock.
It’s with no disrespect to the late, great special
effects wizard Ray Harryhausen that I’m not going to do a deep dive into 20 Million Miles to Earth and It Came from Beneath the Sea.Though these two films are genuine and iconic
sci-fi classics, both have previously gotten the Mill Creek Blu treatment and
also received transatlantic Blu releases as well.So I can’t imagine anyone interested in these
Harryhausen-associated titles not already in possession of copies.Fair to say, if you own Mill Creek’s previously
published twofer, their reappearances here are redundant.
This new set, priced at an MSRP of $29.99, is – happily -
available far less expensively from any variety of on-line retailers.In some sense, it’s a bargain.This recent edition does offer a new and informative audio commentary on It Came from Beneath the Sea, courtesy
of Justin Humphreys and C. Courtney Joyner.So if you’re an enthusiast of commentary tracks, that’s a checkmark in
the plus column.On the other hand,
there’s no audio commentary included on 20
Million Miles to Earth, a film no less deserving of annotation.So that’s a checkmark lost.
Oddly, Edward L. Chan’s Creature with the Atom Brain (1955), an arguably less-deserving
film, does come with a commentary
track – this time courtesy of film producer-writers’ Phoef Sutton and Mark
Jordan Legan.It’s nice to have a
commentary supplied by two established screenwriters since Creature producer Sam Katzman had conscripted the great Curt
Siodmak (The Wolf Man) to script his low-budgeter.The often curmudgeonly Siodmak was a pretty
productive scripter, memorably knocking off no fewer than nine sci-fi/horror programmers
for Universal 1940-44 – and many other original scenarios for other studios.
Though Siodmak provides a decent enough script for Creature, director Kahn’s film proves a
B-film guilty pleasure a best.On their
commentary, Sutton and Legan provide a breezy, lighthearted narration filled
with the usual, occasionally colorful, anecdotes, often based on their rattling
off resumes of the film’s various cast and crew member.To their credit, the two honestly acknowledge
the film’s shortfalls, mulling that “the first four and a half minutes are the
best thing about it.”The film is a bit
of slow-going unless one has a sense of nostalgia about it.
It was late October 1954 when Variety reported that Katzman had tapped Kahn to direct Creature, the first of the producer’s
first sci-fi feature film forays. News
of actor Richard Denning signing on to star was reported the following week.Similar to Katzman, Kahn was a film industry
workhorse, a director not identified with any one particular genre.In the 1950s, Kahn helmed war films,
westerns, gangster pics and teenage melodramas. But he also managed to put the
fright into the “Frightened Fifties,” cranking out no fewer than eight serviceable
sci-fi pics in a four-year period:beginning
with She Creature (1956) and finishing
with Invisible Invaders (1959).Actor Denning provided a face familiar to
50’s sci-fi fans: the actor had lead roles in The Creature from the Black Lagoon, Target Earth and The Black
Scorpion, to name only a few.
It was Columbia’s intention to bill the more pedestrian Creature as the supporting feature to It Came from Beneath the Sea.In June 1955 it was reported the double-bill was
to be first rolled out to thirty-one theaters in and around the Los Angeles
area.Both films would be produced under
the aegis of Katzman’s Clover Productions.Though Kaufman’s low-budgeted independent offerings weren’t expected to
bring in boffo box-office numbers,
Columbia’s accountants were aware the absence of big name stars and inflated
production costs brought better returns on investment.
A trade paper reported bluntly that Columbia, “feels it’s
better to make a 15% to 25% profit on a picture than to stand to lose 50% to
75% on a wholly-made studio picture.”While
Katzman’s pictures for Columbia (Creature
with the Atom Brain, The Giant Claw, Zombies of Mora Tau and The Werewolf) might not have produced
great art, they did bring in worthwhile returns on investment. It Came
fromBeneath the Sea, the far stronger
film (with a bigger budget) managed great
business, helped in part by a combination of Harryhausen’s screen magic, word-of-mouth
excitement and a supportive radio-television-print campaign of $250,000.Though It
Came fromBeneath the Sea was not
the first “giant” monster movie of the 1950s, it was among the earliest, and
this monstrous sci-fi sub-genre would blossom throughout the 1950s and well
into the 1960s.
Which leads us into our discussion of the final “giant” film
offered on this set.The working title
of Sidney Miller’s The 30 Foot Bride of
Candy Rock was originally titled The
Secret Bride of Candy Brock.The
film’s co-screenwriter, Arthur Ross, was familiar writing for films featuring
gargantuan(s): he had already helped craft the screenplay for Columbia’s The Three Worlds of Gulliver, a soon-to-be-
released pic in 1960.But Candy Rock was to serve primarily as a
vehicle for comedian Lou Costello.Though
his 1940s heyday was behind him, the roly-poly actor had been introduced to a
new generation of fans in the ‘50s through airings of The Abbott and Costello Show television series.
The
30 Foot Bride of Candy Rock was to be the comedian’s first feature
film project following the dissolution of his partnership with Bud Abbott in
July of 1957.That pair’s final film, the
saccharine comedy-drama Dance with Me,
Henry (United Artists, 1956) was generally dismissed as a tired re-play of
routines long gone cold.Now, as a solo
player, Costello was hoping that Bride
might reestablish his box-office prowess.This indie production, shot on the Columbia studios lot, saw Costello’s
manager, Eddie Sherman, serving as the film’s executive producer.With such leverage Costello was even able to
gift a small role to daughter Carole.
Producer Lew Rachmil suggested to a reporter from London’s
Picturegoer that Costello’s titular
bride, Dorothy Provine (a 22 year-old blonde that stood 5’ 4” tall), was a
“born comedienne – nearly as funny as Lou at times.”Provine was a relative newcomer to Hollywood,
having worked only two studio soundstages, one for The Bonnie Parker Story and for a two- episode role as a twelve
year old (!) on TV’s Wagon Train.Provine told gossiper Erskine Johnson that
she hadn’t “missed a day’s work since I arrived in Hollywood, but I was always
scared about every job being my last job.”She needn’t have worried, following Bride
the actress was picked to star alongside Roger Moore as a regular character on the
television series The Alaskans and
would also have a prominent role in the 1963 Cinerama comedy It’s a Mad,
Mad, Mad, Mad World.
In conception, Bride
seems little more than Lou Costello’s attempt to lampoon the popularity of the ongoing
“giant monster” craze.Whiling away his
days in an amateur laboratory, Costello’s rubbish collector and would-be inventor
Artie Pinsetter (‘a world-famous scientist who’s not famous yet”) is determined
to unravel secrets: primarily he wishes to learn how the prehistoric beasts that
once roamed a local region known “Dinosaur State Park” had achieved gargantuan
sizes. He’s investigating an ancient Native American belief that these
creatures achieved such measurement due to a mysterious stream of steam
emissions emanating from a canyon cave.
To this end he has constructed an elaborate electronic contraption
that he calls “Max.”His invention is part
time machine – due to its ability for “changing time curves” - and part
straight man.Pinsetter hadn’t needed to
go through all the trouble of mechanical tinkering.Walking through the canyon, girlfriend Emmy
Lou (Provine), accidentally walks through a plume of canyon steam and finds
herself having gained an additional 25 feet in height.The steam, we are told, is the castoff of atomic
energy escaping from the bowels of the earth.
To make matters worse for Pinsetter, we learn Emmy Lou is
the niece of the town’s self-involved and self-important bank president/gubernatorial
hopeful Raven Rossiter (Gale Gordon, of Our
Miss Brooks fame).Rossiter doesn’t
care much for Pinsetter, and his ill-tempered behavior provides much of the
film’s lukewarm comic tension.But ultimately,
the film’s concentration is whether or not the townies – and alarmed Pentagon
officials – can escape the problems wrought by Costello’s foolish inventions or
of his skulking thirty-foot bride.
Shot in the fanciful descriptions of “Wonderama” and
“Mattascope,” Bride is not a great
film by any measure.But having said
this, it’s an innocuous 73-minute nostalgia trip that admittedly brought a
number of head-shaking smiles to my face.The film is an innocent bit of nonsense, a “family-friendly” movie that
I’m certain brought fun to kiddie audiences of its day.My favorite time capsule moment occurs when
an airborne Costello nearly collides with the Soviet Union’s recently launched Sputnik 1 satellite.
Sadly, Lou Costello would not live to see the finished
film released to the public.The
legendary film star would die of a heart attack, just days shy of age 53, on
March 3, 1959 – a mere ten weeks following his first day of shooting on Bride in November of 1958 (production wrapped
a mere month later).On March 24, 1959,
executives at Columbia announced the aforementioned title change.The film was still in editing by June of 1959
– as was the Three Stooges’ sci-fi comedy Have
Rocket, Will Travel. In July Columbia shared plans to package Bride as a late summer trip bill of such
other family fare films as Rocket and
Ted Post’s The Legend of Tom Dooley.
There were studio previews as early as July 7, but when Bride finally was unleashed on movie
screens it was not as one-third of the aforementioned package as scheduled - but
rather as the under bill to Disney’s Darby
O’ Gill and the Little People or Have
Rocket, Will Travel.Though there
were no critical raves for Bride –
truthfully the film was undeserving of such praise – most reviewers found the
film harmless and wholesome family entertainment.Which it was.I suppose it would have been in poor taste to completely dismiss the value
of the final film of one of Hollywood’s most beloved – and successful –
actor-comedians.
In any event, Mill Creek’s Sci-Fi from the Vault collection has made The 30 Foot Bride of Candy Rock available for the first time on Blu-ray.Previously the film had only appeared on VHS
by Columbia/Tri-Star in 1986 and – with a far lesser transfer - on the cheapie
Good Times label in 1988.Its first
digital appearance was a 2010 release as a DVD MOD from Sony/Columbia Screen
Classics.So, regardless of merit, it’s
nice to get this one on Blu.Its
appearance here should interest fans of both Abbott and Costello-related
productions as well as collectors of vintage 50s Silver Age sci-fi.There’s also a light-hearted but informative
audio commentary for Bride provided
by the Monster Party Podcast team.Think
of a few wise-cracking - but informative - movie-buff friends sitting on the
couch alongside you.The commentary adds
a bit of color to an otherwise monochrome film.
To its credit, the set also includes two bonus features
well worth a look:Daniel Griffith’s 25-minute
doc They Came from Beyond: Sam Katzman at
Columbia as well as his 14:30 minute doc Fantastical Features: Nathan Juran at Columbia.The former gives us a thumbnail tracing of
Katzman’s career in film.The producer
knocked out dozens of serials for Victory and Columbia - including Superman (1948) and Batman and Robin (1949) - from the mid-1930s on.He later moved on to producing features for Monogram
– a studio described here as Hollywood’s “lowest echelon” - where he enjoyed
the first of his feature film successes.
Katzman’s films for Monogram and others were usually made
on shoestring budgets with tight shooting schedules.The producer didn’t necessarily favor the
horror sci-fi genre during his 40+ years working in Hollywood.But having employed Bela Lugosi on the 1936
serial Shadow of Chinatown, Katzman
managed to bring the now underworked and underappreciated actor to Monogram for
a series of guilty pleasure, fan-favorite cheapie horror-melodramas.But Katzman was not shy on capitalizing on whatever
fad was capturing public fancy. His filmography included everything from ghetto
dramas, gangster pics, East Side Kids/Bowery Boys comedies, westerns, sword and
sandal epics, early rock n’ roll pics – even a couple of Elvis Presley films (Kissin’ Cousins (1964) and Harum Scarum (1965) .
In the mid-1950s, sensing sci-fi was proving popular with
audiences, Katzman scored big as the Executive Producer on such less penny-pinching
epics as It Came from Beneath the Sea
and Earth vs. the Flying Saucers
(1956).Both of these films featured the
completely amazing stop-motion special effects of the great Ray Harryhausen,
with whom Katzman was happy to collaborate.In all likelihood, it’s the appreciative audience of so-called “Monster
Kids” that continues to stoke interest in Katzman’s work.
The second bonus doc, Fantastical
Features, has C. Courtney Joyner and Justin Humphreys taking a brief look
at the films of the fast-shot flicks Nathan Juran directed for Columbia.Though not necessarily a horror/sci-fi film
director, Juran had previously helmed The
Black Castle (1952) for Universal and, more importantly, for that studio’s
great giant insect epic The Deadly Mantis
(1957).Once moving to Columbia, Juran
managed a number of sci-fi/fantasy epics including such cinematic touchstones
as 20 Million Miles to Earth, Attack of
the 50 Foot Woman (1958) and The 7th
Voyage of Sinbad (1958).
For the most part, all of these black-and-white films
look great for their age, though they’re not entirely pristine: one can expect
a few not terribly distracting scratches or speckling throughout.Personally, I’m not sure how many more times
I will revisit Creature with the Atom
Brain or The 30 Foot Bride of Candy
Rock – they’re not great films - but it’s still nice to add these titles to
my ‘50s sci-fi film collection.You’ll
have to decide if they’re worth adding to yours.
Click here to order from Amazon and save 50% off SRP.
An
old saying is that drama is easy, but comedy is hard. When comedy works, it is
nothing short of a miracle. When it fails, it is a thundering disappointment. On
New Year’s Eve in 1976, I attended a party at my mother’s aunt’s house. While the adults were ringing in the New Year in the small
and cramped basement, I was on the first floor watching a television airing of
Stanley Kramer’s It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. It was the first time
I had ever heard of and seen this madcap, star-studded extravaganza that pits a
Who’s Who of top-notch comedians in a quest to locate a suitcase containing
$350,000.00, the equivalent of roughly $3.5 million dollars today. To say that
I loved it would have been an understatement. To make a film on that scale with
that number of people and actually make it hilarious is other worldly. I immediately
became a fan of most of the cast, particularly Jonathan Winters in his role as Pike,
the driver of the moving van who must get to Yuma, AZ and will stop at nothing
to get his hands on $350,000.00 located under a “big ‘W’”.
James Frawley’s The Big Bus is a comedy
that took its maiden voyage theatrically on Wednesday, June 23, 1976,
nationwide. As a send-up of disaster films that made their rounds at the box
office during the 1970s, it is a film similarly pitting an all-star cast in an inane
situation that should be laugh out loud hilarious but falls a bit short in this
department. The premise concerns a nuclear-powered bus designed to be driven
from New York to Denver in record time while an iron lung-encased oil magnate
(Jose Ferrer), in cahoots with a group of oil sheikhs, plot to sabotage the bus
to protect their financial interests. They manage to take both the driver and
co-driver out of commission with a bomb, necessitating their replacements with
Dan Torrance (Joseph Bologna), a vilified former bus driver who crashed a
previous bus and was accused of eating all the passengers to survive, and his
narcoleptic co-driver “Shoulders” (John Beck), so named as he cannot keep the
bus off the highway shoulder and in his own lane. Along for the ride are Kitty
Baxter (Stockard Channing) as Dan’s former flame; Ned Beatty as one of the
remote radio navigators; Ruth Gordon as a passenger who tells it like she sees
it; Sally Kellerman and Richard Mulligan as a couple about to be divorced who
cannot seem to keep their hands off each other (the bit is initially humorous
but wears out its welcome); Lynn Redgrave as a staid fashion designer; a crazed
Bob Dishy as a veterinarian; Richard B. Shull as a man whose time on planet
Earth is coming to a close, and so on. The bus is even outfitted with an onboard swimming pool, if you can believe that such a
thing would fit. For those of you unlucky enough to recall, in February
1979 NBC-TV launched an ill-fated television series as their answer to ABC-TV’s
The Love Boat. Titled Supertrain, the most expensive television
series ever produced up to that time, it was (surprise!) a nuclear-powered
transcontinental New York to Los Angeles souped up ride that housed a swimming
pool, a movie theater, a disco(!), and a cast of characters so bland one wonders
how this train ever left the station. The pilot episode, directed by Dan
Curtis, was an interminable two hours, with a catchy theme that I dug at the
age of ten and was composed by Robert Cobert. Both shows were conceived of by
Fred Silverman at different points in his career.
Bus made its television network premiere
on Saturday, May 24, 1980 at the unorthodox time of 09:30 pm. The film runs 88
minutes, and while being placed in a 90-minute time slot, a good amount of
footage must have been excised to accommodate commercials. Bus may have
played out much funnier at the time of its release as a fair number of jokes
are topical, though the 2001 theme accompanying the rollout of the
titular vehicle is still very much in the minds of filmgoers decades later. The
gags are amusing but are light-years away from what it could (and should) have
been. An admirable attempt at humor, Bus cannot hold a candle to the
absurdist wrongdoings of the stewardesses and passengers of 1980’s Airplane!
Apparently, the Zucker Brothers, the brains behind Airplane!, worked on Bus
as well. Bus can be viewed as the appetizer, with Airplane!
served up as the main course – and dessert, to boot.
Kino
Lorber has released the film on a beautifully transferred Blu-ray. I love this
company and they do not disappoint. There is a feature-length commentary by
film historians Howard S. Berger and Nathaniel Thompson which is more fun to
listen to than actually watching the film – at least for me. They discuss the
location shooting and give short bios of the cast members as they appear
onscreen, while also engaging in anecdotes about the big disaster films of the
period. It is always a pleasure to listen to them.
The
film’s trademark comedic key poster art was illustrated by the late great
cartoonist Jack Davis, who also drew the key art for the aforementioned MadWorld. It appears on the Blu-ray cardboard sleeve and the Blu-ray cover
art in a slightly truncated and altered version to fit the dimensions and still
be discernible.
Oscar-winning
composer David Shire, who also scored The Taking of Pelham 123 (1973), The
Conversation (1974), and All the President’s Men (1976), may seem
like an unorthodox choice to score such material, but he makes the most of it
with a rambunctious score that made its way to compact disc (remember those?)
in 2011 via Film Score Monthly.
Rounding
out the Blu-ray are a selection of trailers from the showcased title, John
Schlesinger’s Honky Tonk Freeway (1981), Richard Fleischer’s Million
Dollar Mystery (1987), Gus Trikonis’s Take This Job and Shove It
(1981), Marty Feldman’s In God We Trust (1980), Michael Apted’s Continental
Divide (1981), Joel Schumacher’s D.C. Cab (1983), and Neal Israel’s Moving
Violations (1985).
By Darren Allison, Cinema Retro Soundtracks Editor
It was back in 2005 that I last reviewed Guido
and Maurizio De Angelis’s Piedone a Hong Kong (1975). A multi layered and
hugely enjoyable score to the Bud Spencer poliziotteschi-comedy film directed
by Stefano Vanzina (aka Steno). Piedone a Hong Kong was the second of four
"Flatfoot" films, all of which featured Spencer as the Naples Police
Inspector "Flatfoot" Rizzo. In 2005 it was the new Digitmovies CD,
which in itself was a nicely produced album consisting of 70 minutes of music.
Some eighteen years on, Chris’ Soundtrack
Corner decided to dig a little deeper and as a result, produced a super two-CD
version of Piedone a Hong Kong (CSC 035), the label’s first two-disc release. Rizzo's signature theme composed for the first
film embodied the De Angelis' penchant for flavourful, catchy melodies. The
theme was carried over into all four movies and naturally became the primary
motif heard in Piedone a Hong Kong. This time, it was aided by an exotic
electric guitar that works well to identify the luxurious Hong Kong landscape
as well as accommodating Rizzo's cheerful, uninhibited nature, just as it would
later in the detective's adventures in Africa and Egypt. Reprising their
infectious main theme from the first Piedone movie, brothers Guido &
Maurizio De Angelis weave their way through Piedone a Hong Kong with a
delightful array of tuneful themes etched with a degree of ethnic Asian music
which energise Rizzo's journey, all of which treats the film's humour and dramatic
action with an equal degree of light-hearted fun and exciting suspense music.
It’s a blend that might seem a little awkward on paper, but it works tremendously
well as a listening experience.
Chris' Soundtrack Corner’s new extended two-CD
edition now consists of 101 minutes of music, incorporating the complete film
score. Disc one (the score) includes a great deal of previously unreleased cues,
while the second disc provides an impressive collection (19 tracks) of
alternative versions, different mixes and the A and B sides of the original
Italian 7” single release (CAM AMP 153) from 1975.
There has obviously been a great deal of
thought behind this release, and Chris' Soundtrack Corner have made sure this
is not just another standard re-issue. There’s an entirely new, fresh vibrancy
about this edition, not only in its content and audio quality (excellently produced
by Christian Riedrich and mastered by Manmade Mastering), but in its packaging
too. A 16-page, full colour illustrated booklet designed by Tobias Kohlhaas accompanies
the CD’s and features detailed, exclusive notes by Randall D. Larson, who
explores the making of the film as well as the score in fine detail. A super
release which deserved of much praise.
It's probably fair to say that Le ultime ore di una vergine (1972) (CSC 040) wasn’t
widely seen outside of it’s native Italy. The film was also known by various
other titles such as The last hours of a virgin, Un Doppio A Meta and Double by
half for its limited American release. However, you’d still be excused had it
passed you by. As so often is the case, it is the music to such obscure titles
that often lives on beyond that of the film itself - and Daniele Patucchi's Le ultime ore di una vergine is no exception to that
rule.
In the 1970s, the genre of Italian melodramas
found fresh and innovative ways to discuss heavy topics against the backdrop of
romantic stories. Until abortion was made legal in 1978, Italian filmmakers
shot dramas cantering around the issue with varying degrees of good taste. Le
ultime ore di una vergine is one of the more constructively made examples of
these ‘abortion’ dramas. The film was co-written and directed by Gianfranco
Piccioli and features a relatively small cast, including Massimo Farinelli (his
last movie) as Enrico, a photographer. Laura, his pregnant girlfriend, is
played by the American-born actress Sydne Rome, perhaps best known as the
fetish-geared archaeologist hypnotised by Donald Pleasence in the rather
dreadful The Pumaman (1980). Enrico's deceitful journalist friend Roberto is played
by Don Backy. But through all of the unfolding drama of Le ultime ore di una
vergine, there's only one winning aspect of the movie, and that's Daniele
Patucchi’s score.
Whilst the Turin born composer has scored
over 50 films, his work has never tended to fall into the realms of mainstream consciousness,
which is a genuine pity as he really deserves much more attention. The score's
central theme is introduced in "Titoli" and is written for the female
character which curiously enough Patucchi titled "Sydne's Theme," basing
it after the actress rather than her character's name. There are also brilliant
recurring motives for other aspects of the story. "I mendicanti"
collects several cues that use the same propulsive energy for a montage
highlighting the various swindles all captured with a POV style of camera. The
score also provides a few suspense cues. In what is arguably the film's strangest
moments, Enrico attends a magic show prompting the composer to provide a seemingly
self-contained cue for one of the story's visually most interesting sequences.
There are also some wonderful, almost improvised, electronic forms of scat
vocals peppered throughout the score where the singer improvises melodies and
rhythms rather than words. Delicate, haunting whispers also fluctuate through certain
cues - all of which work particularly well and really add to the score’s unique
footprint.
This is a world premiere release of the
film's soundtrack – although certain tracks have made their way on various
library compilations of Daniele Patucchi's music in
the past. As mentioned above, this has been fairly typical of Patucchi's recognition,
and the full score as a complete package, is far more beneficial in respects of
Patucchi’s talents as a composer. The CD has two bonus sections, opening with
the record versions of certain cues, which includes the unused version of
"Tema per Sydne," which was originally to appear on the soundtrack
but was actually removed from the film. The second half of the bonus section
includes all the source music heard in the movie including the vocal track "I
Love You More Than Life" with lyrics by Norman Newell.
The audio, again produced by Christian
Riedrich and mastered by Manmade Mastering, is clean and sharp throughout. The
CD is accompanied by a 12-page illustrated booklet featuring detailed notes by
Gergely Hubai. An excellent job for what could have easily become a forgotten
score. Kudos to Chris' Soundtrack Corner
for rescuing it from potential obscurity.
Piero Piccioni’s ...Dopo Di Che, Uccide Il Maschio E Lo Divora (1971) (CSC
041) has, in terms of its soundtrack history, had a somewhat varied life. As a
composer, Piccioni’s work is still highly regarded. Despite that, ...Dopo Di
Che, Uccide Il Maschio E Lo Divora remained a score that perhaps has not been
fully recognised in the past – despite a couple of incarnations. The standard
11 tracks did make their way onto a 2001 Piccioni CD (Screentrax CDST 335)
where it was paired up alongside music from Due Maschi Per Alexa (1971) and La Volpe
Dalla Coda Di Velluto (1971). In later years, it appeared in 2019 under its
American title Marta as a limited edition (300 copies) pressed on white vinyl
and released by Quartet Records (QRLP10) of Spain. Yet, despite of all its bells
and whistles, and in respects of its content, this only contained 12 tracks.
To set the scene, the film is a dramatic
thriller about a wealthy landowner (Miguel) haunted by the spectre of his dead
mother. When Miguel has an affair with a beautiful fugitive who bears a
striking resemblance to his missing wife (who has possibly run away or may have
been murdered) things turn decidedly awkward. Based on a play by Juan José
Alonso Millán, who also co-wrote the screenplay, the film was directed by
Spanish filmmaker José Antonio Nieves Conde. His influence
for the story was not so much the Giallo atmosphere of Dario Argento, as perhaps
some might suspect from its wordy Italian title, but more from the films of
Alfred Hitchcock. Featuring a psychopath linked to a mother and whose hobby is
collecting insects instead of taxidermy, plus a notorious weakness of spying on
beautiful women from hidden holes in the walls, the influences were pretty hard
to ignore.Miguel was played by Irish
actor Stephen Boyd (Ben-Hur, Fantastic Voyage) with Austrian actress Marisa Mell playing both Marta and the missing wife, Pilar. Mell
became very popular in Europe - especially in Italy, where she co-starred in Danger:
Diabolik and many other genre movies. At the time of filming, Boyd was in a
real relationship with Mell, so their charged, on-screen sexuality extended further
beyond their mere dedication to the acting profession.
Piero Piccioni's
score is an interesting and engaging mélange of original cues along with a
large variety of library music or cues tracked in from other films. The
repetition of motifs, textures, and full-on themes throughout the score assertively
integrates the music with the drama playing out on screen. Even with a variety
of individual tracks and musical sequences, Piccioni ties most of them together
by recognisable instrumental patterns and designs that characterise the
uncertain and potentially dangerous liaison between Marta, Pilar, and Miguel. Chris'
Soundtrack Corner have certainly taken up the challenge of ...Dopo Di Che,
Uccide Il Maschio E Lo Divora and its previous shortcomings. For their
presentation, they have opened this expanded release with Piccioni's original
11 album tracks followed by a further 19 tracks featuring the film versions, 17
of which are previously unreleased. There is also another alternate version of
the vocal track "Right or Wrong" sung by the golden voiced American songstress,
Shawn Robinson. As a result, the soundtrack now has a more rounded feel to it
and makes for a ‘fully grown’ listening experience and deserved of a ‘Mission Accomplished’
sticker.
As with their other releases, the score is
beautifully produced by Christian Riedrich and mastered by Manmade Mastering.
The CD is accompanied by a 12-page illustrated booklet featuring detailed notes
by Randall D. Larson. Overall, an excellent trilogy of releases that continue
to see the label grow in both style and stature.
ViaVision/Imprint is releasing the superb 1984 film "The Bounty" starring Mel Gibson and Anthony Hopkins as a limited edition (1500) Blu-ray. Here are the details:
THEY BEGAN THEIR EPIC VOYAGE AS
FRIENDS… IT ENDED IN HATRED AND BLOODSHED
William Bligh (Anthony Hopkins) was a
real-life sea captain who, in 1787, steered HMS Bounty on a 27,000 mile voyage
into danger, chaos and madness. After 31 days battling severe sea squalls and
Bligh’s ever-increasing cruelty, the weary crew is relieved to land on the
tropical island of Tahiti. But soon their tyrannical captain wants to set sail
again and the desperate men turn to first mate Fletcher Christian (Mel Gibson)
to help take the ship by force.
Originally, “The Bounty” was a
longstanding project of Director David Lean who ultimately left the project in
1981 and was replaced by Australian Director Roger Donaldson.
Starring: Mel Gibson, Anthony Hopkins,
Daniel Day-Lewis, Liam Neeson, Laurence Olivier, and Edward Fox.
Strictly Limited Edition Hardbox set
with unique artwork & booklet featuring the original press kit. 1500 copies
only.
Special Features and Technical Specs:
Disc One:
1080p High-definition presentation on Blu-ray from
a 4K scan of the original negative
Audio Commentary by director Roger Donaldson,
producer Bernard Williams, and production designer John Graysmark
Audio Commentary by historical consultant Stephen
Walters
Making of The Bounty – 1984 documentary narrated by Edward Fox
2004 Visual Essay narrated by Stephen Walters
Isolated Score (in DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Stereo)
Audio English DTS-HD 5.1 Surround + LPCM 2.0 Stereo
Original Aspect ratio 2.35:1
English subtitles
Disc Two: Bonus Disc
NEW Interview with Director Roger Donaldson
NEW Featurette on the history of film adaptations of “The Bounty“
NEW Featurette on the Vangelis film score
A Fated Ship – 1981 documentary surrounding the construction of
“The Bounty” replica ship and the early development of the film
In Bligh’s Wake – 1984 documentary charting the voyage from New
Zealand to Tahiti to deliver “The Bounty” replica for shooting the
film
NEW Interview with Maritime historian & film producer Stephen
Walters
NEW 90 min feature with the cast & crew
Any pre-order titles will be
dispatched in the week leading up to its aforementioned release date. Special
features and artwork are subject to change.
Note: Imprint limited editions tend to sell out quickly. The Blu-ray is Region-Free.
Keep in mind that prices are quoted in Australian dollars. Use a currency converter to see what the price is in your national currency.
Attack
of the 50ft. Woman is by no measure the finest science-fiction
film to emerge from 1950’s Hollywood.It
may, however, be one of the most iconic.I suspect the film’s notoriety is partly due to Reynold Brown’s eye-catching
one-sheet poster design:a grimacing,
gargantuan deep-cleavaged Allison Hayes hovering over a city highway picking
off random automobiles.That nothing
like this actually happens in the
movie is mostly forgivable.If we were
to judge any film by its true delivery-of-on-screen mayhem against the false promises
of its imaginative publicity campaign, a lot of press agents would be serving
time.
Having said that, Brown’s artwork is an inseparable
component of the film’s status among fans of Silver Age sci-fi.The poster design has been both parodied and mimicked,
plastered on coffee mugs, jewelry, wristwatches, puzzles, t-shirts, model kits,
fridge magnets and book covers.Reynold’s
empowering image has even seen adoption as a feminist-rallying call-to-arms.Which is a pretty amazing feat for a film
dashed off in little more than a week’s time, with less than stellar optical
effects and at a budget of some $88,000.
Attack
of the 50ft. Woman was directed by Nathan Juran who is credited
on this particular film - for no reason I could source or conjure - as “Nathan
Hertz.”It’s not as if Juran was a fallen
helmsman of high-budget studio “prestige” pictures.He wasn’t a director reflexively protective
of a former glory, someone defensive that his once glittering career had
somehow descended into directing 50s sci-fi fodder.Juran’s first directorial assignment was, in
fact, for Universal’s The Black Castle
(1953) a mostly glossed-over gothic B-film featuring Richard Greene and Boris
Karloff.From 1953 on, Juran
subsequently bounced between directing low-budget feature films and studiously working
on early television.
But by 1957 Juran had become semi-typecast as a
successful auteur of low-budget sci-fi films, his streak beginning with 1957’s The Deadly Mantis.Over the course of the next several years
(1957-1964), Juran directed a number of features and television episodes, many
of which could be categorized as falling under the umbrella of sci-fi and
fantasy.These would include such offerings
as 20 Million Miles to Earth (1957), The Brain from Planet Arous (1957) and,
perhaps most famously, The 7th Voyage of
Sinbad (1958).
The screenwriter of Attack
of the 50ft. Woman was Mark Hanna. Hanna had already displayed a modicum of
insight in his crafting of bigger-than-life-size monster movies.The writer had collaborated the previous year
with producer/director Bert I. Gordon on A.I.P.’s The Amazing Colossal Man. There’s
little arguing that Allied Artist’s decision to back Attack of the 50ft. Woman was simply an opportunity to coat-tail
Gordon’s recent string of successful “giant monster” pics.There had been plenty of them, some having
already seen issue, others in the can being rush-readied for release:King
Dinosaur (1955), Beginning of the End
(1957), The Cyclops (1957), The Amazing Colossal Man (1957), Attack of the Puppet People (1958), War of the Colossal Beast (1958) and The Spider (1958).
Jacques R. Marquette and Bernard Woolner’s production of Attack of the 50 ft. Woman would start on
Wednesday, January 8, 1958, under the working title of The Astounding Giant Woman.It wasn’t a great title, but Allied Artist’s had been bandied a pair of
alternates, both of which were also subsequently rejected: The Mammoth Female Monster and The
Colossal Female Monster.The film
was still being touted in the trades as The
Astounding Giant Woman through March of 1958.In April of 1958 the film was finally and
permanently re-titled Attack of the 50ft.
Woman.
Actress Yvette Vickers, who plays sultry sex-kitten Honey
Parker in the film, recalls the entire picture was shot in eight days, with no
one under the illusion they were making cinematic history. Allied Artists were
interested in quick returns on their investments.By January’s end of 1958, no fewer than ten
of their projects were reported as being “in various stages of editing,”
including Attack of the 50ft. Woman
and Howard W. Koch’s Frankenstein 1970.It was also during the last week of January
that Ronald Stein was brought onboard to compose the film’s engaging and jazzy soundtrack.
One intriguing aspect of Attack of the 50ft. Woman is that the film’s sci-fi elements would often
play second fiddle to the script’s domestic drama.Allison Hays plays Nancy Archer, a wealthy
but alcoholic socialite whose marriage is in shambles.The cruel ways of her unfaithful and
conniving husband, Harry (William Hudson) has already driven her to a
sanatorium.While his wife is away
(unsuccessfully) convalescing from her binge-drinking and mental frailties,
Harry has taken up with the “red-headed wench” Honey Parker (Vickers).Harry and Honey spend an inordinate amount of
time at Tony’s Bar and Grill, drinking, listening to jazz, dancing, and
plotting a comfortable future together - a future to be financed by Nancy’ loss
of stewardship of the family fortune due to her faltering mental health
capacities.
This scenario on paper, of course, appears very film-noir
in construction.But Hanna’s script
upends the film’s love triangle aspect almost from the very beginning.There have been worldwide news broadcasts describing
a “strange red fireball in the sky” hurtling towards earth.Driving back on Route 66 to her tony home
upon release from the sanatorium, Nancy unluckily encounters an alien craft somewhere
in a remote section of the Californian desert. No saucer-shaped spacecraft, this particular vehicle
arrives as a 30-foot high sphere resembling a weather balloon.As if suffering from “mental exhaustion and
alcoholism” was not enough, Nancy now finds herself in the clutches of giant
hand with hairy knuckles.
Unfortunately, this alien contact has left Nancy with
blue-green traces of radiation on her throat which brings about the onset of
“giantism.”Though doctors are summoned
to try to figure out why the poor and delirious Nancy is increasing in size at
an alarming rate, husband Harry and mistress Honey care not one whit, still duplicitously
scheming at Tony’s bar and grill.But
the two of them – as well as the local sheriff and police department – will soon
find themselves no match for a lady scorned: a wrathful woman who now stands 5o
ft. tall, is wrapped in an over-sized white bed sheet and appears angry as
Hell.
The earliest press screenings for Attack of the 50ft. Woman were held in Los Angeles on May 8, 1958.The film was screened with Roger Corman’s War of the Satellites, a second sci-fi feature
that was to be paired with Woman on national
release.In the view of the Variety critic, both genre offerings
were “on weak side.” The trade cited Mark
Hanna’s “corny dialogue” and Hertz’s “routine” direction on Woman as the film’s primary deficiencies,
dismissing the film as “a minor offering for the scifi trade where demands
aren’t too great.”
Well, maybe I’ve simply just sat through too many Silver
Age sci-fi films to be objective, but I didn’t find Hanna’s script necessarily
corny – but I did find the screenplay absent of likable characters worth caring
about. Although I am a fan of Attack of the 50ft. Woman, I can
understand the sulking review given the film upon release by critic Margaret
Harford of the Los Angeles Mirror: “Attack of the 50ft. Woman has so few
idealists on hand that the survival rate is lamentably low.”She goes on to describe the three romantic-triangle
leads as “unregenerative types” possessing souls not worthy of salvation.The unrelenting unwholesomeness of the aforementioned
trio ultimately inspires, “a wholesale blood bath that amounts to an extra
dividend for scare-traders on the horror market.”
While Attack of the
50ft. Woman would not be the last sci-fi/horror flick in which Hayes would
be cast, the actress happily moved over to dramatic work on television.She was enjoying the variety of roles such
new castings offered. It wasn’t surprising.Shortly following the release of Attack
of the 50ft. Woman, one journalist met with Hayes for a brief
interview.The gossip writer thought
Hayes “a fugitive from ‘Monster’ pictures,” a talented actress looking to take
an extended break from such desultory features. The actress had, in fact, racked up a score of
horror credits in recent years, appearing in a quartet of exploitation pictures
in 1957 alone: The Undead, The Zombies of Mora Tau, The Unearthly, and The Disembodied.In 1958
this former 50 ft. giant was looking for roles more befitting a woman of her
stature.
Shortly following her work on Woman, the saucy Yvette Vickers was cast in the feature The Saga of Hemp Brown and an episode of
TV’s Dragnet.In the years 1958-1961 most of Vickers’
casting was on various television dramas, though a few feature film roles were
mixed in as well.She would also, more
infamously, appear as a “bottoms up” “Playmate of the Month” centerfold in the
July 1959 issue of Playboy magazine,
the photo spread courtesy of Russ Meyer.Of course, I’m just noting the above for the historical record, not to suggest
anyone should rush off to eBay to source a back copy.But if you’re looking to add something new to
your collection…
This region-free Warner Bros. Archive Collection issue of
Attack of the 50ft. Woman is
presented in 1080p High Definition 16x9 with an aspect 1.85:1 and in DTS-HD
Master mono audio. As is often the case
with these Warner Bros. Archive Blu releases, there’s not an abundance of
special features offered outside of the film’s trailer and a commentary track.The latter item is particularly special, if
not unfamiliar to serious collectors.
The commentary track on this new Blu release has been
ported over from Warner’s DVD box set of 2007, Cult Camp Classics, Viol. 1: Sci-Fi Thrillers.On the bright side, the commentaries of film
historian Tom Weaver and actress Vickers are certainly worthy of preservation
on this second digital go round, the film’s first appearance in HD.Both Weaver, likely the finest author-commentator
of vintage Hollywood sci-fi and horror, and Vickers – present on set back in
1958 - offer wonderfully playful and often prescient insights and memories on
the making of the film.Vickers’s
contributions are now made all more special in 2023 as the actress/pin-up girl with
the great sense of humor has since passed.
Click here to order from the Cinema Retro Movie Store
(Welch in a publicity photo for the 1967 spy film "Fathom".
(Cinema Retro Archive)
By Lee Pfeiffer
Raquel Welch, the actress who took the international film industry by storm with her appearance in the 1966 remake of the fantasy film "One Million Years B.C.", has passed away after a brief illness. Welch was one of the last of the so-called "Glamour Girls" of this period; actresses who were chosen primarily for their looks and measurements as opposed to their acting abilities. But Welch defied the odds and didn't prove to be a flash-in-the-pan in terms of popularity. She was one of the last of the big studio contract players- in this case 20th-Century-Fox, which meant she could only make films for another studio if Fox approved. She had little say over the films she appeared in during this period and she would later look back on them with disdain. However, retro movie fans would be largely defensive of many of these films, as they cast her opposite popular leading men of the period as Frank Sinatra, Ernest Borgnine, Stephen Boyd, Jim Brown, Burt Reynolds, Robert Wagner, Edward G. Robinson, James Stewart and Dean Martin. Among her best films of this era were "100 Rifles", "Fantastic Voyage", "Bandolero!", "The Biggest Bundle of them All" and "Lady in Cement". Some were duds, such as the misguided thriller "Flareup" and the disastrous sex comedy "Myra Breckinridge". She became an instant pop culture icon due to the famous photo of her as a cavegirl sporting a fur bikini in "One Million Years B.C." Teenage boys around the world had the resulting poster adorning their bedroom walls. In the early 1970s, she played vengeance-driven female gunslinger in the Western "Hannie Caulder", a victim of Richard Burton's lady killer in "Bluebeard", a roller derby queen in "Kansas City Bomber" and a member of the all-star cast in the murder mystery "The Last of Sheila". By the mid-190's, she played a comedic co-starring role in the big budget version of "The Three Musketeers" and its sequel "The Four Musketeers". Critics finally acknowledged that she could act and should be judged by her talent and not her image as a voluptuous sex symbol.
(Welch in her first leading role in "Fantastic Voyage" (1966).
(Photo: Cinema Retro Archive)
When the prime big screen roles began to vanish, Welch suspected it may have been due to her suing MGM over age discrimination when she was fired as the leading lady in the film "Cannery Row" and replaced by Debra Winger. The studio countered that Welch had acted unprofessionally on the set. She won the case and $10 million in damages but it seemed to make studios reluctant to hire her again. Nevertheless, she successfully reinvented herself with live shows on stage including an acclaimed leading role in the Broadway production of "Victor/Victoria". She also scored with a funny self-deprecating appearance as herself in "Seinfeld" in which she was presented as an obnoxious, hot-tempered diva.
Welch kept a low profile in recent years and was rarely seen in public. She was married four times and is survived by a son and daughter. Despite her sex symbol image, she was always proud that she never gave in to offers to appear nude on screen or in print. She was the one who got away, said a disappointed Hugh Hefner who couldn't use influence or money to lure her to the pages of Playboy.
Anne
Francis was director John Sturges’ only female actor in 1955’s “Bad Day at
Black Rock”, and she repeated her solo act ten years later on “The Satan Bug”.
But on that production, she and many cast members felt a preoccupation, a
distance, from the man who held together “The Magnificent Seven” and “The Great
Escape”. Francis was certain “He was thinking about “The Hallelujah Trail”.
This was Sturges’ next production, his entry into the world of roadshow
presentations; a mammoth production with a huge cast and even huger backdrop:
Gallup, New Mexico.
Bill Gulick’s 1963 novel, originally titled “The Hallelujah Train”, seemed a
perfect story to upend all western movie conventions, with the cavalry, the
Indians, the unions, and the Temperance Movement fighting over the
transportation of forty wagons of whiskey. Sturges was comfortable making westerns,
but this was a comedy western. He appreciated the Mirisch Corporation’s vision
of straight actors trying to make sense of the silliness, but still wanted to
persuade James Garner, Lee Marvin and Art Carney for major roles. Sturges knew
these actors could handle comedy.
Garner
passed. “The premise was too outrageous, not enough truth to be funny”, he
said. The rest of Sturges’ dream cast was not available, but what he got seemed
attractive: a pair of solid supporting actors, Jim Hutton and Pamela Tiffin,
and Lee Remick and Burt Lancaster for the leads. Lancaster had previously
worked with Sturges on “Gunfight at the O.K. Corral” and was impressed how the
film turned out. The rest of the supporting cast included Donald Pleasence,
Brian Keith, and Martin Landau. They were in for a tough shoot.
The
weather was unpredictable (you can spot thunderstorms heading their way in the
finished film) and the location had three hundred crew members miles away from
the hotels. Scenes contained countless stunts, and fifty tons of Fuller’s earth
was blown by several giant fans to create The Battle at Whiskey Hills. Bruce
Surtees, son of Sturges’ cinematographer Robert Surtees and focus-puller on the
set, recalled “All this and we’re shooting in Ultra-Panavision 70mm, which made
life even more difficult!” Despite the difficulties, the director was loving
what he saw on set; the film looked as breathtaking as any wide screen western
ever could, the stunts were amazing, and thank God he was also laughing all
through it.
The
hilarity was cut short near the end of the shooting. For the sprawling wagon
chase finale, stunt persons Buff Brady and Bill Williams convinced associate
producer Robert Relyea to let them delay their jump from inside a catapulted
coach. Permission was given, and in the attempt, Williams got tangled somehow
during his planned escape. He was killed instantly. Relyea nixed including the footage in the finished film, but was overruled by
Mirisch. It’s an incredible shot and it plays in every promotional trailer, probably the
most famous footage from the production. Was including it a bad decision or a
tribute? There is still a debate over this among retro movie fans.
“We
all thought it was going to be a hit picture”, said Sturges, “until we hit an
audience.” “The Hallelujah Trail” opened with a 165-minute cut that audiences and critics
found “belabored and overlong”. Sturges overheard some patrons wondering if
this was a straight western or a deliberate comedy. Screenwriter John Gay
blamed much of the response on the performances of Brian Keith and Donald Pleasence.
Gay wanted his lines played straight but the actors played it for laughs. The
film was soon cut to 156-minutes (the version on this Blu-ray) and the
reactions were much more positive; critics noted several inspired sight gags,
audiences enjoyed the cartoonish atmosphere of the DePatie-Freleng maps,
Variety found the film “beautifully packaged”, and the LA Times proclaimed “The
Hallelujah Trail” as “one of the very few funny westerns ever made, and
possibly the funniest.”
When the film finished its roadshow run, United Artists cut the film once more,
to 145-minutes. It didn’t help. Compared to “Cat Ballou” and even “F Troop”,
“The Hallelujah Trail” was unhip.Sturges
was done with comedy, but not with roadshow Cinerama, though his future films would have checkered histories. He was set to direct
“Grand Prix” but clashed with the original star, Steve McQueen. A year later
Gregory Peck turned down Sturges’ “Ice Station Zebra’, wary of its weak third
act. Rock Hudson, now middle-aged and wanting a strong lead role, came aboard
for this Sturges voyage instead. The MGM release still had a confusing third
act, but the film sails nicely mostly due to Patrick McGoohan and some clever
dialogue.
Decades
later, “The Hallelujah Trail” remains a nice memory to those who attended the
Cinerama presentation; not much greatness to retain but a great experience at
the movies. But that experience was tough to relive because the film remained
in legacy format limbo for years: a letterboxed standard definition transfer.
So when Olive Films announced a Blu-ray release in 2019, fans of comedy epics
sung Hallelujah! Now this film can be viewed in 1080P! Retreat! Unfortunately, the quality of the Olive release resembled an upscaled version of the original standard
definition transfer. But two years later “The Hallelujah Trail” was casually
spotted on Amazon Prime, and it was a new HD transfer. And a year after that,
it’s a new Kino Lorber Blu-ray release.
(Above: Dell U.S. comic book tie-in.)
Any
Cinema-Retro reader worth their Cinerama Chops should have this Blu-ray in
their collection. “The Hallelujah Trail” is an hour too long, but you get miles
of lovely landscape. My favorite portrayal? Donald Pleasence as Oracle, who predicts the future in
return for free drinks. And watch for his amazing jump off a roof! Certainly,
the most impressive part of the film is the finale: the runaway wagon chase.
There are sections where you swear it’s Remick, Keith and Landau handling those
coaches but you know it has to be well made-up stunt people, at least for most
of it. You’re also realizing that this sequence, and perhaps the entire film,
is performed without any process work or rear projection.
There’s a legitimate debate on how the film may have been more successful if
James Garner played the role of Colonel Gearhart, though only Lancaster could
have pulled off that bathtub smile scene. There’s no disagreement on the music;
Elmer Bernstein’s sprawling score contains so many themes that Sturges’
biographer Glenn Lovell qualifies the film as “almost a pre-“Paint Your Wagon”
musical." And here’s your tiniest “Trail”
trivia: decades ago, during the production
of the laserdisc version, MGM/UA discovered that a few reels were mono sound
instead of multi-channel, including the main title featuring the chorus. Yours
truly was working on a project for the company at the time, and I happily lent
them my stereo score LP. so the main title would be in stereo. That audio track
mix remains on this new Blu-ray as well. (You’re welcome, America!)
Kino
Lorber is kind enough to provide some expert guides to help you along the “Trail”:
the perfect pairing of screenwriter C. Courtney Joyner and filmmaker/historian
Michael Schlesinger. Joyner had already provided his Sturges bonafides with his
documentary on the director for the recent Imprint Blu-ray of “Marooned”, and I
can verify Schlesinger’s knowledge of film comedy, having been fortunate to
join him, along with Mark Evanier, for the commentary track on Criterion’s
“It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World”. Joyner and Schlesinger tackle and
acknowledge “The Hallelujah Trail”s social and political incorrectness, but
also deflate any virtue signaling by examining how the film is smartly an equal
opportunity offender: the Cavalry, the Indians, the Temperance Movement, all up
for farce. Thanks to this team, and the picture quality of this Blu-ray, I
finally spotted the gag of the Indians circling the wagons as the cavalry is
whooping and hollering. Both gents are in a fine fun mood to tackle this type
of film, and It’s one of my favorite film commentaries of 2022.
“The
Hallelujah Trail” now looks clearer and sharper than any previous home video
release, and somehow it makes the comedy and the performances sharper as well.
I think you’ll be entertained by this roadshow epic, and with Joyner and
Schlesinger as your commentary companions you may indeed learn, as the posters
proclaimed, “How the West Was Fun!”
RETRO-ACTIVE: THE BEST FROM THE CINEMA RETRO ARCHIVES
In honor of the esteemed actor Nehemiah Persoff, who recently passed away at age 102, we are running this interview originally conducted with Mr. Persoff in 2010 by the late writer Herb Shadrak.
Nehemiah Persoff: From Jerusalem to Hollywood and Beyond
By Herb Shadrak
Born in Jerusalem in 1919, Nehemiah Persoff went on to
become one of the busiest character actors in Hollywood. His face is familiar
to millions of boomers across North America from his numerous guest appearances
on just about every TV series that aired from the 1950s through the 1990s.
Persoff’s name may have been unfamiliar to many of these TV viewers, but his
face was instantly recognizable. Filmspot.com describes Persoff as a short, dark and stocky-framed actor who specialized in playing ethnic-type
villains, although he frequently essayed sympathetic roles as well. (Witness
his heartbreaking moments with Maria Schell in Voyage of the Damned.) Yet he excelled as gangland figures like
Johnny Torrio, mentor to Al Capone in
the 1959 biopic, or mobster Jake Greasy Thumbs Guzik, a recurring role on The Untouchables.
Persoff's childhood was poverty-stricken, but there was constant
singing, dancing and music in his home. He was a very creative and imaginative
youngster, who always visited the circus when it came to the Holy City. "There
was a large field in Jerusalem where the circus used to set up", Persoff
recalls. "It was a very small one-ring circus, but I loved it. Outside the circus
was an Arab with a box on a stand with peepholes in it, and he had a small
monkey on a chain with a hat. This was enough to make me stand there for hours
watching. One day, the Arab let me look through the peepholes. There I saw a
funny man with a derby and cane. He had a funny walk. It was Charlie Chaplin!
Little did I know that 20 years later I would meet that man face-to-face!"
Persoff found himself drawn to the cinema at an early age. "Two outdoor movie houses were opened on Zion Square: one was called Eden", he said. "It
had a circle of bulbs that would light up one after the other. I used to walk
down there barefoot and watch the cinema from a post on the street. From that
height I could see the top of the screen for free. I think the other outdoor
movie house was called Aviv. For its grand opening they showed Ben-Hur
with Ramon Novarro. There were pennants hung all over! I guess that was our
version of a Hollywood opening.I find that at age 88 my mind goes back to my early
childhood more and more. Jerusalem in the late twenties was a place like no
other. I cannot imagine a 10-year-old more attached to his birthplace than I
was. I was keenly aware of the love that people had for each other, the feeling
that we were all tied to the same cause. The pioneers came with nothing but
enthusiasm and a love for life and our native land. Their attitude was "to hell
with worldly goods, that's not what's important in our lives."
And yet Persoff's father, a silversmith and painter, felt he had no career
prospects in Palestine. So the young Persoff emigrated with his family to the
United States in 1929, just in time for the Stock Market Crash and the Great
Depression. Persoff spent several years working as an electrician on the New
York subway system, gradually taking an interest in acting in the 1940's.
"When I started acting, I was working in the subway and
there was a rule that subway workers were not allowed to have any other job"
Persoff remembers. "So on the program of the play, I used the name Nick Perry.
My reviews were great but no one knew it was me, so I got none of the glory.
After that I always used ˜Nehemiah Persoff".
After serving in the U.S. Army during World War II, Persoff started
seriously pursuing an acting career in the New York theatre. In 1947, Persoffs
big break came along, one that would lead to steady work in films and
television for the next 52 years.
"My friend (actor) Lou Gilbert told me that if I wanted to
audition for the Actors Studio, he would arrange it. I jumped at the chance.
Elia Kazan was one of the busiest directors around, and to study with him and
be in his pool of actors was every actor's dream. I was in summer stock playing
the lead role in George Bernard Shaw's The Devil's Disciple. I knew that
Kazan was with the Group Theatre along with writer Clifford Odets. I thought of
doing something from an Odets play but then reasoned that perhaps a more
classic approach might work better for me, so I did a monologue from Shaw. Two
weeks later, I received an invitation to come to the first meeting of the
Actors Studio. I took my seat on a bench and slowly looked around. There were
John Garfield, Marlon Brando, Karl Malden, Montgomery Clift, Kim Hunter and
Maureen Stapleton, among others. Kazan began to speak and told us his aim was
to create a group of actors who work as he does, who speak his language, and
that the people assembled in this room were the cream of the talent available.
This was heady stuff for a nearly starving young actor. I studied with Lee
Strasberg. He was brilliant and helped me find myself as an actor… I owe him
much. Among other scenes, I did a Noel Coward piece with Kim Stanley"
After the Actors Studio, Persoff never looked back. His film credits include Kazan's On the
Waterfront, The Harder They Fall (Humphrey
Bogart's last film), Alfred Hitchcock's The
Wrong Man, Never Steal Anything Small
(with James Cagney), Rene Clement's This
Angry Age (shot in Thailand), Green
Mansions (with Audrey Hepburn and Anthony Perkins), The Hook (with
Kirk Douglas), A Global Affair (with
Bob Hope), Ray Danton's frightfest Psychic
Killer, Barbra Streisand's Yentl and
Martin Scorsese's The Last Temptation of
Christ.
Persoff also guest starred on about 400 TV shows, including The Twilight
Zone (playing a Nazi U-Boat captain in the classic episode "Judgment
Night"!), Route 66, Ben Casey, Wagon
Train, Rawhide, Mr. Novak, Burke's Law, Honey West, Dan August, The High
Chapparal, The Big Valley, The Legend of Jesse James, The Wild Wild West, Gilligan's
Island, Hawaii Five-O, Tarzan, It Takes a Thief, Land of the Giants
and The Time Tunnel.
In the mid-1980s, Persoff began to pursue painting. Now retired from
acting, he devotes full time to this avocation he has always loved.
Cinema Retro spoke to
Persoff from his home in Cambria, California. (Continue to next page for interview)
Cinema Retro has received the following press release:
Celebrate
the 55th Anniversary of the Star Trek Franchise with the
Debut of the First Four Films on 4K Ultra HD Blu-rayâ„¢
Newly
Remastered Films will also be Available Individually on Blu-rayâ„¢
New
Releases Arrive September 7, 2021
Just in
time to commemorate the 55th anniversary of the September 8, 1966
airing of the very first Star Trek episode, Paramount Home Entertainment
will debut the following new releases for every fan’s collection on September
7, 2021:
STAR
TREK: THE ORIGINAL 4 MOVIES 4K ULTRA HD/BLU-RAY COLLECTION
For the
first time ever, experience the original four Star Trek films in
stunning 4K Ultra HD. Newly remastered from original elements for optimal
picture quality, each film is presented with Dolby Vision® and HDR-10.*
This exceptional collection includes four Ultra HD discs, as well as four
remastered Blu-ray discs with hours of previously released bonus content.
Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (both the
theatrical and director’s cut), Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, and
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home are presented on both the 4K Ultra HD and
Blu-ray Discs, along with access to digital copies of the theatrical version of
each film. A detailed list of the disc contents follows:
Star Trek: The Motion Picture 4K Ultra HD
·Isolated score in Dolby 2.0—NEW!
·Commentary by Michael & Denise Okuda, Judith & Garfield
Reeves-Stevens and Daren Dochterman
Star Trek: The Motion Picture Blu-ray
·Isolated score in Dolby 2.0—NEW!
·Commentary by Michael & Denise Okuda, Judith & Garfield
Reeves-Stevens and Daren Dochterman
·Library Computer (HD)
·Production
oThe Longest Trek: Writing the Motion Picture (HD)
·The Star Trek Universe
oSpecial Star Trek Reunion (HD)
oStarfleet Academy SCISEC Brief 001: The Mystery Behind V’ger
·Deleted Scenes
·Storyboards
·Trailers (HD)
·TV Spots
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan 4K Ultra HD
·Commentary by Director Nicholas Meyer (Director's Cut and
Theatrical Version)
·Commentary by Director Nicholas Meyer and Manny Coto (Theatrical
Version)
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan Blu-ray
·Commentary by Director Nicholas Meyer (Director's Cut and
Theatrical Version)
·Commentary by Director Nicholas Meyer and Manny Coto (Theatrical
Version)
·Text Commentary by Michael and Denise Okuda (Director’s Cut)
·Library Computer (HD)
·The Genesis Effect: Engineering The Wrath of Khan
·Production
oCaptain’s Log
oDesigning Khan
oOriginal Interviews with William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest
Kelley, and Ricardo Montalbán
oWhere No Man Has Gone Before: The Visual Effects of Star Trek
II: The Wrath of Khan
oJames Horner: Composing Genesis (HD)
·The Star Trek Universe
oCollecting Star Trek’s Movie Relics (HD)
oA Novel Approach
oStarfleet Academy SCISEC Brief 002: Mystery Behind Ceti Alpha VI
(HD)
·Farewell
oA Tribute to Ricardo Montalbán (HD)
·Storyboards
·Theatrical Trailer (HD)
Star Trek III: The Search for Spock 4K Ultra HD
·Commentary by director Leonard Nimoy, writer/producer Harve
Bennett, director of photography Charles Correll and Robin
Curtis
·Commentary by Ronald D. Moore and Michael Taylor
Star Trek III: The Search for Spock Blu-ray
·Commentary by director Leonard Nimoy, writer/producer Harve
Bennett, director of photography Charles Correll and Robin
Curtis
·Commentary by Ronald D. Moore and Michael Taylor
·Library Computer (HD)
·Production
oCaptain’s Log
oTerraforming and the Prime Directive
oIndustry Light & Magic: The Visual Effects of Star Trek
oSpock: The Early Years (HD)
·The Star Trek Universe
oSpace Docks and Birds of Prey
oSpeaking Klingon
oKlingon and Vulcan Costumes
oStar Trek and the Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame (HD)
oStarfleet Academy SCISEC Brief 003: Mystery Behind the Vulcan
Katra Transfer
·Photo Gallery
oProduction
oThe Movie
·Storyboards
·Theatrical Trailer (HD)
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home 4K Ultra HD
·
Commentary by William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy
·
Commentary by Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home Blu-ray
·
Commentary by William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy
·
Commentary by Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman
·
Library Computer (HD)
·
Production
Future’s Past: A Look Back
On Location
Dailies Deconstruction
Below-the-Line: Sound Design
Pavel Chekov’s Screen Moments
(HD)
The Star Trek Universe
Time Travel: The Art of the
Possible
The Language of Whales
A Vulcan Primer
Kirk’s Women
The Three-Picture Saga (HD)
Star Trek for a Cause (HD)
Starfleet Academy SCISEC Brief
004: The Whale Probe (HD)
Visual Effects
From Outer Space to the Ocean
The Bird of Prey
Original Interviews
Leonard Nimoy
William Shatner
DeForest Kelley
Tributes
Roddenberry Scrapbook
Featured Artist: Mark Lenard
Production Gallery
Storyboards
Theatrical Trailer (HD)
STAR
TREK: THE ORIGINAL 4 MOVIES ON BLU-RAY
Each of
the original four Star Trek films will also be available individually on
Blu-ray with the bonus content detailed above. Newly remastered versions
of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (both
the theatrical and director’s cut), Star Trek III: The Search for Spock,
and Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home are presented in high definition along
with digital copies of the theatrical version of each film.
FATHOM EVENTS
In addition, in celebration of the 55th
anniversary, Fathom Events and Paramount Pictures will bring Star Trek IV:
The Voyage Home back to select cinemas for a special two-day event on
August 19 and 22. Additional details will be announced at a later date.
STAR
TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE Synopsis
The U.S.S.
Enterprise boldly debuted on the big screen with the cast of the original Star
Trek series, including William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley,
George Takei, Nichelle Nichols, Walter Koenig, and James Doohan. When an
unidentified alien intruder destroys three powerful Klingon cruisers, Captain
James T. Kirk returns to the helm of a newly transformed U.S.S. Enterprise
to take command. This is the original theatrical cut of the acclaimed adventure
and features Jerry Goldsmith’s rousing iconic overture.
STAR TREK
II: THE WRATH OF KHAN Synopsis
Including
both the original theatrical and director’s cuts, Star Trek II: The Wrath of
Khan is one of the most celebrated and essential chapters in Star Trek
lore. On routine training maneuvers, Admiral James T. Kirk seems resigned that
this may be the last space mission of his career. But an adversary from the
past has returned with a vengeance. Aided by his exiled band of genetic
supermen, Khan (Ricardo Montalbán)—brilliant renegade of 20th century Earth—has
raided Space Station Regula One, stolen the top-secret device called Project
Genesis, wrested control of another Federation starship, and now schemes to set
a most deadly trap for his old enemy Kirk… with the threat of a universal
Armageddon.
STAR TREK
III: THE SEARCH FOR SPOCK Synopsis
Admiral
Kirk's defeat of Khan and the creation of the Genesis planet are empty
victories. Spock is dead and McCoy is inexplicably being driven insane. Then a
surprise visit by Spock's father provides a startling revelation: McCoy is
harboring Spock's living essence. Kirk attempts to steal the U.S.S.
Enterprise and defy Starfleet's Genesis planet quarantine to search for his
friend, but the Klingons are planning a deadly rendezvous.
STAR TREK
IV: THE VOYAGE HOME Synopsis
When a
mysterious alien power threatens the atmosphere of Earth in the 23rd
century, Kirk and his crew must time travel back to 1986 San Francisco to save
mankind. Exploring this strange new world, they encounter punk rock, pizza and
exact-change buses that are as alien as anything in the far reaches of the
galaxy.
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.â€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.â€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!â€
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.â€
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.â€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.â€
The scenario of the film itself (“The Most Fantastic Expedition Ever Conceived by Man!â€) 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.
This sketch from "Saturday Night Live" aired in 1976 and is probably the very first spoof of "Star Trek" ever to be broadcast on a major T.V. program. At this point, "Star Trek" had already been off the air for seven years. However, the spoof indicates the kind of grassroots enthusiasm that still existed for the show. Ironically, Paramount was slow to embrace the fan movement or to back bringing the series back in any format. Ultimately, "Trek" would be revived with the 1979 big budget feature film "Star Trek- The Motion Picture". The rest, as they say, is history...
You may be asking "what does this have to do with a review of a
film documentary?"The reason is
most historians are lazy and habitual plagiarists. When adding something new to
the historical record they often reprint the same falsehoods that were disseminated
generations earlier. Not unlike many superstitions, tall tales, and mistaken
attributions. Cary Grant never said: "Judy, Judy, Judy..."
And thus were the
accomplishments of Alice Guy-Blaché, arguably the first storytelling film director of
all time, were glossed over, ignored or attributed to someone else; to all men,
by the way. Her story is told in the documentary “Be
Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blaché”, directed by Pamela B. Green and
narrated by Jodie Foster. The film is now available on DVD from Kino Lorber.
Yes,
Edison and the Lumière Brothers made the first moving
pictures but what did they give us?
Edison:
The Sneeze - a four second film starring assistant Fred Ott. The Kiss - an 18-second
long reenactment of the kiss between May Irwin and John Rice from the
final scene of the stage musical The Widow Jones.
The
Brothers Lumière: - Their first films were of such exciting subjects as: "The
exit from the Lumière factory in Lyon," "The disembarkment of the
Congress of Photographers in Lyon," and the riveting "Jumping onto
the Blanket." Along with seven other films, all lasting between 38 and 49
seconds (approximately what a filmstrip of 17 meters long would run hand
cranked through a projector) they were screened before a paying public in
December of 1895 in Paris.Were these pioneers’ first efforts"Films" as we know them? Not to
this reviewer. Moving pictures are not FILMS. They can be called films only by
the fact that film was the medium they were created and distributed upon.
Nine months earlier, on March 22,
1895, The Lumières demonstrated their new invention,
the Cinématographe, beating Edison to the market with the first reliable method
to project motion pictures, in front of a small audience of
friends and colleagues.
Among those in attendance were Léon Gaumont, then
director of the company the Comptoir Géneral de la Photographie and his 22 year-old
secretary Alice Ida Antoinette
Guy (later Guy-Blaché)."Something better can be done than
documenting daily life. Why not tell stories through film?" she thought at
the time.
With
the approval of her boss, in 1896 she writes, directs and produces what is
generally thought to be the first narrative film ever made – “La Feé Aux Choux" or "The Fairy of the Cabbages"
that brought to life the story parents told their younger children about where
babies come from. The success of this film led to her becoming the lead
director and Head of Production for Gaumont Studios. She was one of the first to use many film
techniques such as close ups, hand-tinted color, stop action, reverse cranking
of the camera and synchronized sound. Her success as a filmmaker helped add to
Gaumont's success which enabled them to build the biggest studio stage in the
world.
Alice Guy produces and directs the first film shot in the new studio. “La
Esméralda”, based on Victor Hugo's “The Hunchback of Notre-Dame”. While
hiring new directors and set designers for the company she continues to write
and direct her own takes on fashion, children, parenthood, even child abuse.
She wrote roles for children when no one else was doing so.
She made comedies of seduction, chase films, utilizing methods she had
learned at Gaumont from her mentor, Frédéric
Dillaye.
Writer/Director
Peter Farrelly on “The Gamekeeper's Son” - "I was tense watching it,
afraid for the kid. The father died, it was heartbreaking, and that she could
tell that kind of story in four of five minutes and get you at the edge of your
seats was incredible."
Alan
Williams, film historian/author - "She was the first great comic director.
Most of her comedies have just absolute perfect comic timing. The timing on “The
Drunken Mattress” is really astonishing." "Whoever that was who kept
picking up that mattress should get an Academy Award. I've never seen anybody
fall down so much." - Peter Bogdanovich.
Many
of her comedies were "raunchy films," especially for the times.See “The Sticky Woman” for example. Her 1906 “The
Consequences of Feminism” is
described by Bogdanovich: "I think is very witty. It's a satirical comment
on male fear of feminism."Julie
Taymor: "Still to this day I haven't seen anything like that, where she
has women in women's clothes and men in men's clothes, these men are acting
like women and the women are acting as men. It's revolutionary."She was making great comedies more than a
decade before anyone heard of Chaplin, Keaton, Lloyd or the Keystone Cops.
In his memoirs, Sergei Eisenstein recalls that he saw this film at
eight years old. "The women rebelled. They started frequenting cafes. talk
politics, smoke cigars, while their husbands sat at home doing the
washing." Eisenstein named it his main influential film which can be seen
in his 1928 film, “October”.
Guy uses the Tissot Bible as reference material for her largest
production to date, “The Passion”. She creates 25 episodes with about 300
extras to tell the story of the life of Christ. The series contained some very
early special effects. In one case Jesus rising out of the cave.
During
the pre-video/broadcast television era of the mid-seventies, college campuses
were teeming with movie offerings on a weekly basis.It was the only way to see older theatrical
titles in their uncensored form.My own
experience at the University of Illinois provided 8 to 10 films per weekend
with recent Hollywood hits, classic revivals and the occasional porn flick
being the usual choices.Lecture halls,
auditoriums and even church sanctuaries were converted to temporary cinemas
that offered a cornucopia in 16mm. These
were quality exhibitions with twin projectors, external speakers for clear
dialogue and anamorphic lenses when needed.It seemed a little odd that one could view a somewhat racy movie in the
same space that would be used for worship the next morning.I would often take in several titles on
Friday and Saturday nights for the bargain price of $1.00.
Agatha
Christie’s Death on the Nile was one such movie that I chose to see on a snowy
evening in January as it played right in the lobby of my dorm.John Guillermin’s star-studded whodunit was
the follow up to the hugely successful Murder on the Orient Express from
1974.Once again we find Belgian
detective Hercule Poirot, played this time by the wonderful Peter Ustinov,
matching wits with a collection of suspects in the killing of heiress Linnet
Ridgeway.A running gag throughout the
film concerns Poirot having to remind everyone that his is not French.
The
setting this time is 1937 onboard a luxury steamer, the Karnack, navigating the
Nile where Poirot is on an Egyptian holiday before being drawn into the case of
the murdered newlywed.Linnet’s husband,
Simon, had recently ended an engagement with Jackie, former best friend of the
victim.Jackie has been stalking the
couple as she was still in love with Simon.
Poirot,
with the assistance of his good friend Colonel Race, begins to investigate the
murder and soon discovers that everyone on board the Karnack has a motive for
Linnet’s murder and Jackie appears to have an airtight alibi.We have Linnet’s maid, an American lawyer, a
romance novelist and her daughter, a jewel thief, a medical doctor and a
communist agitator whom all have ties to Linnet and her money.
The
tale becomes more twisted as the detective interviews all of the passengers
during the voyage hoping to ferret out the guilty party before the steamer
arrives at the final destination.Poirot
is able to create scenarios where everyone had access to the victim and could
have been the perpetrator.Soon,
however, several of the suspects are themselves murdered adding a sense of
urgency to the case.
Following
the usual format of Ms. Christie’s famous novels, Poirot assembles the
remaining passengers in the onboard saloon and, one by one, eliminates suspects
while revealing the identity of the killer.
Director
John Guillerman, an experienced, gentlemanly director, was experienced at
handling ensemble casts made up of international stars.His previous efforts included Skyjacked, The
Towering Inferno, The Bridge at Remagen and The Blue Max.His cast in Death on the Nile featured Bette
Davis, Maggie Smith, Angela Landsbury, David Niven, Jack Warden, George
Kennedy, Mia Farrow, Olivia Hussey, Jane Birkin, Simon MacCorkindale and future
Bond girl Lois Chiles.Cameo appearances
were provided by Harry Andrews and L.S. Johan.
The
star-studded cast was a 1970s marketing gimmick that began with disaster epics
such as Airport and Earthquake and then spilled over to whodunits and
television mini-series.Print ads and
trailers would play up the star attractions without revealing much about the
plots.Television anthology series made
a success comeback as well with the likes of Fantasy Island, The Love Boat and
Night Gallery. The “stars†featured in
these programs were often second tier, but still recognizable to viewers.
Director
Guillerman, along with producers John Bradbourne and Richard Goodwin, also
assembled a stellar crew behind the scenes starting with a script by Sleuth
author Anthony Shaffer.Aside from some
witty dialogue, Shaffer makes clever and veiled references to Maggie Smith’s
maid character being a lesbian as she seems to express total disdain to the
idea of a man and woman united in marriage.
Director
of Photography Jack Cardiff gave a bright, open and colorful look to the warm
weather cruise, which was the opposite of the dark, confined setting of Murder
on the Orient Express.An especially
beautiful scene is set at the Great Pyramids near Cairo as Linnet and her
husband climb to the top of one of the epic structures.It seems surprising that the production crew
would have access to this site as it was devoid of tourists at the time of
filming.
We
lost one of the world’s great thespians on March 8, 2020, and it’s sad that so
many in the U.S. know him only from such Hollywood-fare franchises such as Star
Wars, Game of Thrones, and even James Bond.
In
fact, my Facebook and Twitter feeds on March 9 were full of tributes to the
late Max von Sydow, but I despaired to see so many Bond fans acknowledge him only
for what amounted to a five-minute-ish cameo as Ernst Stavro Blofeld in the
1983 non-Eon Productions 007 picture, Never Say Never Again. REALLY? That’s
what you remember him for?
Max
von Sydow was so, so much more than Blofeld, or Lor San Tekka, or the
Three-Eyed Raven, or even Father Merrin (The Exorcist). (Interestingly,
there is some evidence to suggest that von Sydow was considered to play the
title role of Dr. No, which was eventually taken by Joseph Wiseman.)
For
me, I knew Max von Sydow through the films of the late Ingmar Bergman. (I
wonder how many of those well-meaning Bond fans posting photos of von Sydow as
Blofeld have even seen a Bergman film.) For it was in these pictures by
the Swedish master where von Sydow truly shined. He delivered the performances
of his life in the eleven titles he made with Bergman between 1957 and 1971. Of
course, von Sydow starred in many other international art-house movies outside
of Hollywood, and it is for all of these that he deserves the acclaim he has
been receiving since his death at the age of 90.
I
initially became aware of both Max von Sydow and Ingmar Bergman when I saw The
Seventh Seal (1957) for the first time as a freshman in the Drama
Department at the University of Texas at Austin (Texas). I had become friends
with Stuart Howard, who was serving with me on the tech crew of a play in
production, and we hit it off—mainly because of our love of movies. One day,
Stuart asked me, “The Seventh Seal is playing on campus tonight, have
you seen it?†I vaguely knew that it was a foreign language film, but not much
more (hey, I was young, and prior to moving to Austin, Texas, I had little to
no exposure to international cinema). When I replied that I hadn’t, he said,
“We’re going!†And I’m so glad that Stuart pushed me to go with him to see this
mesmerizing, deeply moving motion picture that quite frankly was one of those eureka
moments in my intellectual and artistic development. To this day, I count The
Seventh Seal as one of my favorite films of all time, and, by the way,
Stuart is still one of my closest friends.
Seal
is
really an ensemble picture, but von Sydow is undoubtedly the lead as Antonius
Block, a knight returning with his squire from the Crusades to a plague-ridden
Sweden. His existential crisis is the center of the film as he challenges Death
to an ongoing game of chess throughout the story to delay the inevitable. I was
immediately struck by von Sydow’s passion, uniquely thin physical shape, and remarkably
clear eyes (which were arresting even in black and white).
Seeing
art-house and foreign language films on campus were the only way to catch them
in those days. In the coming weeks, I attended more Bergman and von Sydow
collaborations… and then he appeared in the Hollywood blockbuster, The
Exorcist (1973). Most people around me in the audience had no idea who he
was, but I did.
After
that, I became aware of von Sydow’s previous Hollywood work, such as The
Greatest Story Ever Told (1965), but even up to the time of The Exorcist,
von Sydow’s work had mostly been international.
His
co-star in the Bergman films after 1968 was often Liv Ullmann. Together, they
portrayed husband and wife in a number of titles, the most memorable being Hour
of the Wolf and Shame from ‘68. They were also a couple in Jan
Troell’s Oscar-nominated The Emigrants (1971) and its sequel, The New
Land (1972). These two masterworks could very well be the defining
cinematic statements by both von Sydow and Ullmann.
And
one must not forget his Best Actor Oscar nomination for Pelle the Conqueror (1987),
which won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film that year. (His
second and last Oscar nomination was for Supporting Actor in 2011 for Extremely
Loud & Incredibly Close. It’s a shame he never won a trophy.)
Thus,
for me, the loss of von Sydow was much more than the popcorn franchises he
began to appear in repeatedly in his later years. Okay, granted, he did bring
elements of grace, class, and intelligence to all of those roles, too—and here
are just a few of those titles: Three Days of the Condor (1975), Voyage
of the Damned (1976), Hurricane (1979), Flash Gordon (1980,
as Ming!), Conan the Barbarian (1982), Strange Brew (1983), Dreamscape
(1984), Dune (1984), Hannah and Her Sisters (1986), Awakenings
(1990), A Kiss Before Dying (1991), Needful Things (1993), Judge
Dredd (1995), What Dreams May Come (1998), Minority Report
(2002), and Shutter Island (2010).
Rest
in peace, Max. Say hello to Ingmar for me.
Max
von Sydow’s Collaborations with Ingmar Bergman:
Due for release on 27th September 2019: 3 CD (5 original albums) The Electric Banana (1967), More
Electric Banana (1968), Even More Electric Banana (1969), Hot Licks (1973) and
The Return Of The Electric Banana (1978).
Fans of Film and TV Library music should be
gleaming all over with this upcoming release. Initially coming together during
a Fontana-era lull in The Pretty Things’ prodigious career, the band’s
now-legendary body of work for music library de Wolfe as The Electric Banana
saw their alter-egos become parallel universe superstars, their work utilised
by film and TV producers in everything from soft-porn skin-flicks, a Norman
Wisdom vehicle and horror classic Dawn of the Dead to small-screen ratings
winners like Dr. Who (1973 season), The Sweeney (1975) and Minder (1984).
But there is so much more just begging to be re-discovered
within these shiny silver time capsules. Cult TV shows such as Timeslip (1970) and
Doomwatch (1972). Ultra-rare music from sexploitation gems such as Confessions
of a Male Groupie: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and love The Electric Banana
(1971) and some great Tony Tenser productions including Monique (1970) and the
Norman Wisdom film (which has since gathered a cult reputation amongst British
psychedelic music buffs), What’s Good for the Goose (1968). And not forgetting Michael
Armstrong’s The Haunted House of Horror (1969) – all feature something,
somewhere from The Electric Banana. This generous and hugely enjoyable
collection is peppered with many surprising treats.
In the Sixties, the Banana recordings
mirrored British pop’s gradual evolution into rock, courtesy of brass-led
Swinging London ravers (‘Walking down the Street’, ‘Danger Signs’), primal
garage punk (‘Street Girl’, ‘Love Dance And Sing’) and maximum psychedelia
(‘Eagle’s Son’, ‘Alexander’). They switched gears again in the Seventies;
confidently mixing swaggering bar-band hard rockers (‘The Loser’, ‘Sweet Orphan
Lady’), putative terrace anthems (‘Whiskey Song’), metal-based rock (‘Maze
Song’, the Hendrix tribute ‘James Marshall’) and jangly, Byrds-inflected power
pop (‘Do My Stuff’).
Taken from the original master-tapes, the
3-CD set The Complete De Wolfe Sessions represents a number of firsts: the
first-ever legitimate CD issue of these recordings (authorised by both The
Pretty Things and de Wolfe), the first time that the Banana’s Sixties and
Seventies work has been made available under one roof, and the first time that
the karaoke-anticipating backing tracks have been made commercially available.
Housed in a clamshell box that includes a
lavish illustrated booklet, The Complete De Wolfe Sessions incorporates the
original albums artwork, an extended essay on the band, quotes from pivotal
members Phil May, Dick Taylor and Wally Waller, and some priceless photos from
back in the day.
More than forty years after The Pretty Things
last donned the Electric Banana mantle, this long-overdue complete package is
the final, definitive word on these seminal and much-loved recordings – and certainly
proves to be a rich voyage of discovery.
(Hedison with Roger Moore on the set of Live and Let Die, 1973)
BY LEE PFEIFFER
David Hedison has died at age 92. The Rhode Island native started in theater, studying at the famed Actor's Studio under the guidance of Lee Strasberg and made an impression off-Broadway in the 1950s. Hedison originally was billed under his birth name as "Al Hedison" but would later change it to David. He found himself in demand for television and feature film. He played the role of a scientist who is transformed into a deadly creature in the 1958 cult classic "The Fly" in which Hedison co-starred with Vincent Price. Hedison began to guest star on many popular TV series before landing his first series, starring in "Five Fingers", an espionage show that ran from 1959-60. His best-known role was on Irwin Allen's sci-fi series "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea", which ran from 1964-68 and saw Hedison starring with Richard Basehart. He would return to episodic TV as a regular on the popular soap opera "The Young and the Restless" in 2004. Hedison never quite made the front ranks of leading men in feature films but he did appear in many diverse movies. Among them: "The Greatest Story Ever Told", "The Enemy Below" and "The Lost World". When Roger Moore inherited the role of James Bond in 1972, he arranged to have his old friend Hedison (who had appeared with him in an episode of "The Saint") to play the prominent role of 007's C.I.A. colleague Felix Leiter. Hedison would resume the role opposite Timothy Dalton's Bond in the 1989 film "Licence to Kill". He also appeared with Moore in the 1979 adventure film "ffolkes" (aka "North Sea Hijack".).
Cinema Retro has received the following press release:
The
foundation established by legendary special effects visionary Ray Harryhausen
is pleased to announce a joint effort with Morningside Productions, the company
of late film producer Charles Schneer.Discovery of new materials in the vast archives of the Ray and Diana
Harryhausen Foundation will be the basis of a spectacularly new and original
theatrical motion picture in the style of such Harryhausen/Schneer classics
such as Clash of the Titans, the duo's most significant box office
collaboration from 1981.
This
project, tentatively entitled Force of the Trojans, is based on a screenplay by
Beverley Cross, and original production art and sculptures conceived by Ray
Harryhausen that are on par with some of his most iconic screen creatures.
Force
of the Trojans will embody the spirit of the original Harryhausen films with
all the fun, vibrant action, epic scope and dedication to craftsmanship that
has made Ray Harryhausen's films timeless.
Unlike
other revisits to the fantasy adventure genre, Force of the Trojans will bring
together stop-motion animation with the photo-real world of CGI, marking the
first time that a monster battle will mix both techniques on screen in a major
motion picture.In homage to a bygone
era, this film will bring both worlds crashing together.For the first time, we can put on screen
sequences that were not possible for Ray due to the limitations of special
effects photography at the time.
The
Harryhausen Foundation oversees and curates a vast creative archive of 60
years’ worth of artefacts in its 50,000-strong collection from the father of
animated special effects, making this the most complete and comprehensive
fantasy cinema and animation collection anywhere in the world.We are excited and challenged to have
unearthed this lost gem and a look forward to creating a film that will delight
both the fans of Ray Harryhausen and moviegoers everywhere.
John
Walsh
Foundation
Trustee, filmmaker and friend of Ray Harryhausen
Ray
Harryhausen 1920 - 2013
Ray
Harryhausen was a young puppeteer and animator heavily influenced by King Kong
in 1933 and then went on to work as apprentice animator with Kong animator
Willis O’Brien on Mighty Joe Young.Ray
went on to have a spectacular career establishing himself as the most
influential animators and special effects wizards in film history. From Jason
and the Argonauts, the 7th Voyage of Sinbad and Clash of the Titans his imagery
and iconic creations are known the world over. His sixteen feature films
represent the most influential fantasy and science fiction cinema of the
century.
“Without
Ray Harryhausen, there would likely have been no Star Wars."
George
Lucas
Ray
set up the Foundation in the, and he intended that future generations should
enjoy his work but also learn about the craft of filmmaking. I am delighted
that audiences want to visit the artefacts on display. We have over 50,000
items in the collection making it the largest of its kind outside of the Disney
Studios.
John
Walsh
John
Walsh is an award-winning film maker and trustee of the Harryhausen Foundation.
In 2019 his new book Harryhausen: The Lost Films is published by Titan Books.
Plagiarism,
if done willingly and poorly, generally does not go unnoticed and one cannot
help but see certain similarities in various works be it literature, art, or
cinema. In listening to the audio commentary with author Jonathan Rigby and director Alvin Rakoff on
the new, limited edition Blu-ray of 1980’s Death
Ship, a horror oddity about an abandoned old ship inhabited by the ghosts
of members of the Third Reich(!), a remark is made that the poster for 2002's Ghost Ship was remarkably similar to the poster art for Death Ship, and it’s true that the
similarities are uncanny. I can't help but wonder who came up with the idea for
the poster for Ghost Ship,
as Death Ship was well over twenty-five
years-old and seemed to be relegated to the land of forgotten cinema.
Captain Ashland (George
Kennedy) is at the helm of a cruise ship, about to turn over the reins to Captain Trevor Marshall (Richard Crenna) and he's
not happy about it. He seems perturbed by this changing of the guard,
commenting in no uncertain terms that his place as captain should be regarded
as more than something of a novelty to tourists. Unfortunately for him and his
guests, the unmanned and haunted titular ship that steers ahead, powered by the
blood of its most recent victims, is on a crash course to meet with his. Using
footage borrowed from Andrew L. Stone's The Last Voyage (1960) and Ronald Neame’s The Poseidon Adventure (1972), the two vessels collide and Ashland’s ship begins to fill with water and
quickly sinks (too bad The Concorde:
Airport ’79 didn't sink with it!)
Kennedy,
Crenna, Nick Mancuso (who provided the bulk of the horrifying phone calls in
Bob Clark's 1974 film Black Christmas),
Sally Ann Howes of Dead of Night
(1945) and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
(1968) and a few other characters manage to be the only survivors in a lifeboat
and make their way aboard the decrepit ship that put them in their predicament.
Once on board, they find the ship bereft of passengers and crew, and slowly
become victims of the supernatural games that ensue.
As
the plot unfolds, it becomes apparent that the ship in question was once used
as a Nazi torture chamber, as evidence of teeth, clothing and medical devices
start to turn up in explored rooms. The worst of these rooms houses a group of
cobweb-infested corpses, presumably the long-dead Jews whom the Nazis tortured.
One might wonder about the boundaries of bad taste pushed in a film that seems to
make light of one of humanity's most horrendous and egregious atrocities.
The
director employs some nifty scare tactics, such as a projector that runs
itself; a shower that turns blood red; and a crazed George Kennedy, apparently
possessed by the long-dead Nazis, going on a rampage. One must wonder why
distress signals are not sent, and why help is not forthcoming, given the radio
rules in place since the downing of the Titanic in 1912. However, this is a
B-movie shot in five weeks and done on a shoestring and asking too many
questions is not suggested. The ship in this film is supposed to be steering
itself with a life of its own, however one never really gets the feeling that
it’s actually alive, that it’s a merchant of evil like the house in Burnt Offerings (1976) or the hotel in The Shining (1980). The film ends the
way one assumes with will, but it’s not bad for what it is.
Originally
released on DVD in England in 2007, Death
Ship had at the time had been transferred from a print that was not perfect
and contained a few sporadic imperfections but was believed to be the best
surviving source material. That disc had included a disclaimer citing the film
lab that housed the original camera negative closed in the late 1980's and the
aforementioned resources were "lost" as a result. I would be curious
as to how this sort of thing happens as this is certainly not the first time it
has occurred, nor will it be the last. I'm always reading of an original
negative somehow getting "lost". Devil Dog: The Hound of Hell, the TV-movie that Crenna made the
year prior to Death Ship, was
released on DVD at roughly the same time and that movie looks like it was just
made yesterday. Honestly, Devil Dog’s
transfer could not be more beautiful. Yet a theatrical film's negative gets
"lost"? Insert quizzical expression here.
Renowned
science fiction writer Jerome Bixby produced many short stories in the genre,
but he is perhaps most well-known for writing a handful of classic Star Trek episodes (“Mirror, Mirror,â€
“By Any Other Name,†and more). The memorable original Twilight Zone entry, “It’s a Good Life,†was based on his short
story, as was the same segment in The
Twilight Zone—The Motion Picture (1983). Bixby was also responsible for the
stories or scripts for sci-fi films such as Fantastic
Voyage (1966), and It! The Terror
from Beyond Space (1958).
Bixby’s
last work, allegedly completed on his deathbed in 1998, was the screenplay The Man from Earth. Nearly ten years
later (2007), Bixby’s son Emerson helped bring it to the screen as producer.
The low-budget feature was directed by Richard Schenkman and starred David Lee
Smith as “John Oldman,†a man in the present day who has lived without aging
for 14,000 years. Released with little fanfare, The Man from Earth grew a cult following and is today considered
one of the “great science fiction films you’ve never heard of.†It is the kind
of picture that is cerebral, intelligent, and deals with existential themes and
ideas. Sci-fi for the mind.
Over
the ensuing years, Schenkman and Emerson apparently received many requests from
fans of the original work to make a sequel. The idea was resisted until the
concept of a TV series was floated. In each episode, the Man from Earth would be
on the run, followed by various groups of cultists and “believersâ€â€”much the
same way Richard Kimble (The Fugitive)
had to move from place to place.
Thus,
The Man from Earth: Holocene was made
as a backdoor pilot to a series, was an official selection at the Dances with
Films Festival, and it is now available on home video.
Holocene picks up a decade
after the events of the first picture, with John “Young†(he changes his
surname with every move across country) teaching religious studies at a
community college in a small California town. He’s shacking up with fellow
teacher Carolyn (Vanessa Williams), keeping a low profile, and inspiring
students. A quartet of these young adults, played with aplomb by Akemi Look,
Sterling Knight, Brittany Curran, and Carlos Knight, discover John’s secret,
decide that he has all the answers to their many questions about life,
religion, and the universe, and begin to, well, stalk him.
One
of the students, Isabel (Look), contacts Art (William Katt), the primary
antagonist from the first film. Art had been a professor, like John, who wrote
a non-fiction book about the Man from Earth, exposing his tale, and was roundly
pilloried by the academic world and shunned for it. Thus, he has an axe to
grind with John.
Revealing
any more about the story would spoil what is a very decent continuation of the
original picture. While the first movie took place mostly in one room—like a
stage play (and, in fact, Schenkman adapted that film into a play that has been
produced around the world)—Holocene has
“opened up.†It was shot in various locations around the town. It does retain,
however, the intellectual and dialogue-heavy aspects, keeping it in tune with the
original and what will, hopefully, indeed become a series. This reviewer has fingers
crossed!
Star Trek—The Next
Generation’sMichael Dorn and Star Trek: Enterprise’s John Billingsley also appear in Holocene as, respectively, the college’s
dean and as Harry, a character from the first film.
The Man from Earth:
Holocene is
once again a low-budget but thoughtful treatise on the nature humanity. The
acting, especially of Smith as John, and of Look as Isabel, is top-notch.
MVDvisual’s
Blu-ray looks gorgeous and shows off Richard Vialet’s cinematography with sharp
images and vivid color. The main feature comes with an audio commentary by
Schenkman and co-producer Eric D. Wilkinson. A Behind-the-Scenes Documentary
features most of the crew and cast and takes the viewer through the history of
the first film and production of Holocene.
Also included are featurettes on the score by Mark Hinton Stewart, the premiere
at the Dances with Films premiere, deleted/extended scenes with optional commentary,
a kickboxing video made for the movie, photo gallery, poster gallery, teaser
trailer, and theatrical trailer.
If
you’ve never seen either picture, the original The Man from Earth is now also available from MVD as a special
edition Blu-ray/DVD combo.(Click here for review). Holocene may
not have the impact of the first movie, but it is indeed a worthwhile follow-up.
I have a weakness for any movie starring John Wayne- even the bad ones. If you can find something of merit in "The Conqueror", in which the Duke played Genghis Khan, then you've really crossed the Rubicon. "A Man Betrayed", made during Wayne's tenure with "B" movie studio Republic, has been released on Blu-ray by Olive Films. It isn't one of those aforementioned bad Wayne movies, but it's no more than a minor entry in his career. Wayne had been toiling in the film industry since the silent era. His first big break came with the starring role in Raoul Walsh's massive western epic "The Big Trail", which was released in 1930. However, the film was released during the Great Depression and bombed at the boxoffice. For the next nine years, Wayne was starring in quickie westerns that were termed "One Day Wonders". John Ford came to his rescue by casting Wayne as the male lead in his 1939 classic "Stagecoach". It elevated Wayne to star status but he didn't fully capitalize on the opportunities that "Stagecoach" seemed to afford him. He slogged through starring roles in largely undistinguished productions for many years, interrupted by a few more ambitious productions (Ford's "The Long Voyage Home" and "They Were Expendable" and DeMille's "Reap the Wild Wind"). It wouldn't be until the late 1940s that the plum roles finally came his way and Wayne was seen as something more than "B" actor. "A Man Betrayed", released in 1941, fits comfortably into the bulk of Wayne's work during this period of his career. It's a low-budget affair, unremarkable in every respect, but still reasonably entertaining.
The film opens in an unnamed city at a scandalous nightclub called Club Inferno, where all sorts of notorious practices take place. (The sign advertises "30 Girls and 29 Costumes!"). Inside, staff members dress as the Devil and exotic dance numbers take place amidst overt gambling. In the first scene, a young man stumbles outside the club and is seemingly electrocuted during a torrential rainstorm when the lamp post he is leaning on is struck by lightning. A closer examination, however, proves he had been shot. Shortly thereafter, we're introduced to Lynn Hollister (Wayne), an affable small town attorney who comes to the city to investigate the death of the young man, who was a close friend of his. In short order he arrives at the home of Tom Cameron (Edward Ellis), a local rich widower who lives in a mansion and who owns the Club Inferno (though is rarely seen there.) Turns out Cameron is the local crime kingpin who controls the political machine and employs an army of thugs and assassins to do his bidding. He presents an affable personality and pretends to cooperate with Lynn's investigation. Lynn meets cute with Cameron's daughter Sabra (Frances Dee), a frisky, witty beauty who takes to him immediately. Before long, Lynn is staying in the guest room and he and Sabra are a couple. Cameron tries to use the relationship to manipulate Lynn but the more Lynn probes into the murder, the more convinced he is that Cameron directly or indirectly was responsible. Cameron is about to run for re-election to political office and like all crooked elected officials, is impatient for Lynn to wrap up his investigation. However, Lynn has uncovered massive evidence of voter fraud with indigent men being paid to vote numerous times for the "right" candidates. As he gets closer to the truth he is also physically threatened by Cameron's thugs. All of this sounds very dramatic but, in fact, "A Man Betrayed" is actually a romantic comedy, with the exception of the dramatic murder scene. Director John H. Auer (who had directed another, unrelated film with the same title a few years before) keeps the mood light and pace fast and gets fine performances from Edward Ellis and Frances Dee, the latter especially good as the spoiled rich girl who learns the father she has idolized is, in fact, a crook. As for Wayne, he was somewhat victimized by studios who wanted to squeeze him into contemporary romances in the hopes he would emerge as the next Cary Grant, Jimmy Stewart or Gary Cooper. But at this period in his career, Wayne looked like a fish out of water in such productions. He gamely goes through the motions but he appears to be a bit uncomfortable without a horse and saddle. As he matured, he got better, as evidenced by his fine work in "The Quiet Man" , his war-based films and his late career detective movies "McQ" and "Brannigan".
"A Man Betrayed" is fairly entertaining even by today's standards. It's a hoot seeing Frances Dee sporting the over-the-top high fashions of 1941 and there is a cryptic reference to the war in Europe months before anyone realized America would soon be part of it. One of the most enjoyable aspects of the film is the early teaming between Wayne and Ward Bond, who would become close friends and occasional co-stars. Bond is cast against type as a mentally-challenged violent thug who has a knock-down brawl with the Duke. The resolution of the murder and corruption scandals are wrapped up in a rather absurd ending that seems to have been developed to ensure that audiences left the theaters smiling.(Incidentally, the film was also later released under the title "Wheel of Fortune" and was marketed as "Citadel of Crime" in the UK.)
The Olive Films Blu-ray is unremarkable. The transfer is reasonably good but the film lacks any bonus extras.
To commemorate the birthday of Sir David Lean on this date, writer JOE ELLIOTT examines his last feature film, "A Passage to India"
“Excuse my mistakes, realize my
limitations. Life is not easy as we know it on the earth.†― E.M. Forster, A
Passage to India
Revisiting A Passage to India (1984)
on Turner Classics the other night, I was struck in a way that I had never been
before by how incredibly beautiful and powerful Judy Davis’s performance is in
this movie. The plot of the film, based loosely on a 1924 novel by English
writer E.M. Forster, revolves around the adventures of two Victorian English
women in early 20th century India. The younger woman, Adela Quested, played by Davis, has come to that
country with the likely intention of marrying a local British magistrate named
Ronny Heaslop (Nigel Havers). She is accompanied on her sea voyage by Heaslop’s
mother, known in the film simply as Mrs. Moore, played exquisitely by Peggy
Ashcroft. The two women become good friends during the trip and share a disdain
for the kind of English class snobbery they encounter upon their arrival. One
hot afternoon they decide to take a day trip from the city, known as
Chandrapore in the novel, where they have lodgings to visit the fictional Marabar
Caves, a site reportedly based on the Barabar Caves in the Makhdumpur region of Jehanabad
district, Bihar. Note: David Lean, the film’s director and writer, decided against
shooting these scenes at Barabar because he felt the location lacked the scenic
grandeur he so loved to showcase in his pictures.
During the outing, Mrs.
Moore has an attack of severe claustrophobia while visiting the first cave -- a
foreshadowing of her own death within a few short days. She insists that Adela
and Dr. Aziz (Victor Banerjee), a young Indian physician whose idea it was to
visit the caverns, continue their sightseeing without her. Shortly after this an incident occurs (or does it?)
involving the couple. We see a frantic Adela running down a steep
ravine in a state of great agitation, as if being chased by someone. (In an
important earlier linking scene we saw her riding her bicycle alone on the
outskirts of town where she encountered a number of highly erotic Indian
statues abandoned in the tall grass; an experience which clearly left her
emotionally shaken.)Upon returning to Chandrapore, Aziz is shocked to find himself accused of
attempted rape. He is immediately arrested and jailed to await trial. All this
is prelude to the moment when Adela takes the witness stand for the prosecution
Among my favorite classic American film is Alice Adams (1935), the early Katherine Hepburn
vehicle. There is a moment in that movie when director George Stevens puts the
young actress’s face fully in frame (just as David Lean does in Passage with
Davis, but with less tenderness) holding it there as she muses on small-town
social snobbery. “People do talk about you, oh yes they do…,†Alice says in her
silly, heartbreaking manner. There is something of this same unsparing,
introspective quality in the climatic courtroom scene with Adela: there is much
more, too. Two lives hang in the balance here, the life of the accused and that
of his accuser. What Adela says or doesn’t say at that moment will forever
determine not only Aziz’s fate, but hers as well. She can either choose to save face by
remaining silent on the matter, or risk destroying everything by speaking up. Everything hinges on her decision. I am reminded
of those famous lines from T.S. Eliot: Do I dare/ Disturb the universe? / In a minute there is time / For
decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse… So how should I presume?
Mill Creek Entertainment has released a Jerry Lewis triple feature consisting of "3 on a Couch" (1966), "Don't Raise the Bridge, Lower the River" (1968) and "Hook, Line and Sinker" (1969). The films represent a mixed bag as Lewis entered middle age and tried to blend a more mature screen presence with his traditional persona of a lovable goofball.
"3 on a Couch" is leaden farce directed by Lewis, that presents him as Christopher Pride, an aspiring artist who wins a contest sponsored by the French government that will afford him to spend a month in Paris to contribute to a high profile project that could greatly enhance his career. Christopher is understandably over the moon about the prospect and shares the good news with his fiancee, Elizabeth (Janet Leigh), who he wants to join him on the trip. However, Elizabeth has a problem: she is a psychiatrist who is overseeing three emotionally vulnerable young women who are trying to cope with romantic relationships that have ended in heartbreak for them. They are completely dependent on her to cure them of their fear and loathing of men and Elizabeth can't justify taking off for a month because they have become so dependent upon her as both a mother figure and a confidant. Frustrated, Christopher devises an outlandish strategy in conjunction with his best friend Ben (James Best). He decides to adopt disguises as three different men, each of whom will attempt to woo one of the vulnerable young women and therefore restore their faith in the male of the species, thus allowing them to sever the ties to Elizabeth's therapy sessions. If you think it sounds absurd, wait until you see it all play out on screen. Christopher's alter egos consist of a fitness fanatic who will appeal to one of the patients who jogs and works out non-stop. Another is Ringo, a Texan who wears a ten-gallon hat and who perpetually chews on an unlit cigar while acting like a case of arrested development. The third persona is a fey, Truman Capote-type who lives with his protective sister (which also affords Lewis to play that role in drag.) The preposterous scenario doesn't hold up for a second, especially when each of the young women falls head over heels for these zany types, including the guy who appears to be gay. Go figure. The farce allows Lewis to indulge in his obsession with playing roles in various over-the-top disguises, none of which are the slightest bit amusing. The sight of Lewis in drag trying to shimmy out of stockings and corset is more disturbing than funny. The climax finds Christopher and Elizabeth being feted at a bon voyage party in her office as they prepare to sail for Paris. Predictably, all three young women decide to show up to see Elizabeth off, which ensures that Lewis has to frantically keep switching disguises to interact with each "girlfriend" so they don't catch on the ruse. The scene is ridiculous on several levels, the most obvious being that hundreds of people seem to be able to miraculously fit into this tiny office space. Lewis seems to have been inspired by the famed stateroom scene from "A Night at the Opera" but despite the frantic goings-on, the whole shebang falls flat as a pancake. Lewis plays it straight when in the role of the artist but chews the scenery mercilessly as the alter-egos. Likewise, James Best, who Lewis directs as though he is also on steroids. The three young women- Gila Golan, Leslie Parrish and Mary Ann Mobley- are reduced to air-headed females who define their entire lives by finding the right man. Only Janet Leigh retains her dignity and seems to be acting in a completely different film. The whole enterprise is excruciating throughout.
"Don't Raise the Bridge, Lower the River" seems to afford more promise. For one, it's based on a source novel by Max Wilk, who also wrote the screenplay. The film was also shot in England, which gives a Lewis production a refreshing change of pace. The movie's highlight is its opening credits sequence in which a nattily-clad Lewis jauntily walks through the streets of London, thus affording some good views of the city while a sappy title song unspools. Lewis plays George Lester, a self-made rich guy, who encounters a pretty young woman during his walk. She's Pamela (Jacqueline Pearce), who is quickly wooed by George and ends up marrying him. We then see a montage of what married life is like for her as George squanders his money taking them to exotic locations around the world in hare-brained schemes designed to develop new products that ultimately end in failure. Pamela decides to file for divorce, claiming that George's obsession with his business has left her feeling lonely and neglected. She's also being wooed by her divorce attorney, Dudley (Nicholas Parsons), a swanky, Savile Row-type who wants to succeed George as her next husband. Distraught, George decides to please his wife and win her back by converting their beloved country manor house to a combination Chinese restaurant and swinging discotheque. She is appalled, even though the place becomes a sensation and allows George to earn some much-needed money. The rest of the film centers on George's frantic and incredible strategies to win back Pamela and thwart his rival Dudley at the same time. Suffice it to say that Lewis once again gets to dress in outrageous disguises but, as in "3 on a Couch", none are amusing. The promising pairing of Lewis with Terry-Thomas as a con man he enlists in his scheme also falls flat as the plot meanders and plays out boringly under the leaden direction of Jerry Paris, who fared far better as a sitcom director. The only bright spots are a fine performance by Jacqueline Pearce and the occasional appearances of two of England's best comedic actors, Bernard Cribbins and Patricia Routledge. "Goldfinger" beauty Margaret Nolan appears as a dental assistant but is given nothing funny or memorable to do.
Before inheriting the title "Master of
Disaster", a perfectly justified honour for his reputation of creating
some of the greatest disaster movies of the 1970s, Irwin Allen was also the man
responsible for some of the classic TV shows to emerge in the 1960’s. Voyage to
the Bottom of the Sea, The Time Tunnel, and Land of the Giants have all
survived the test of time and become immortalised among the best in terms of
cultural importance. However, above all others, Lost in Space (1965-1968) is arguably
the series that endured. Very loosely inspired by Johan David Wyss's classic 1812 adventure novel
“Swiss Family Robinsonâ€, the premise for the show was fairly uncomplicated and
followed the adventures of the Robinson family, a crew of space colonists who encounter
a number of strange and otherworldly situations after their ship is sabotaged
and thrown off its original course. A
great deal of the show’s appeal was the family, a full generational spectrum
which naturally connected with its audience. Of course, the crew also included
an essential antagonist, Dr. Zachary Smith. Smith was the man responsible for
sabotaging the Jupiter 2 and as a result, finds himself stranded aboard the
spacecraft. Completing the crew was the robot, a charismatic scene-stealer designed
by Robert Kinoshita, the man behind the iconic Robby the Robot from the 1956
sci-fi classic Forbidden Planet (1956).
Another essential element of Lost in Space
was its music, an accompaniment that varied (and re-used) a great deal
throughout its three season history. Many respected composers had worked on the
series including Herman Stein, Hans J. Salter, Alexander Courage, Gerald Fried,
Robert Drasnin and Leigh Harline. However, one composer is perhaps associated
with the series above all others, the legendary John Williams. Williams of
course went on to compose some of the greatest film scores in history. It’s
near impossible to summarise the enormity of his success, but titles such as
Jaws, the Star Wars movies, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Superman, E.T.
the Extra-Terrestrial, and the Indiana Jones series should serve as a pretty
impressive indicator.
In recognition of the composer’s excellent
contribution to the series, Spacelab9 have released a glorious vinyl box set
featuring the music of Johnny Williams. The four LP’s consist largely of music
from four classic episodes, The Reluctant Stowaway, Island in the Sky, The
Hungry Sea and My Friend, Mr. Nobody. Spacelab9 have put a great deal of
thought and care in producing this highly impressive collection. Aside from
Williams’ original compositions, each of the individual albums is rounded off
with generous bonus material from each of the corresponding episodes. These extra
tracks feature music by the Louisville born Richard LaSalle. A respected
composer in his own right, LaSalle was responsible for the show’s library cues
which not only provided a certain familiarity but were also vital to the show’s
distinctive overall soundscape. Main and end titles are also included for
series 1, 2 and 3 as are some alternate versions and relevant bumper cues.
Lost in Space: The Complete John Williams
Collection is certainly a cohesive set which collates Williams’ entire
contribution neatly into one package. It’s a smart and intelligent move which
also widens its appeal to fans of the composer and not just fans of the TV
series.
A
chiller-thriller from the pen of Brian Clemens, 1971's See No Evil was a
notably lower-key affair for director Richard Fleischer, former helmer on such
celebrated cinematic epics as The Fantastic Voyage, Doctor Doolittle, Tora!
Tora! Tora! and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Which isn't to imply See No Evil is
inferior. Quite the contrary, in fact.
Left
blind after a horse-riding accident, Sarah (Mia Farrow) moves in with her Aunt
and Uncle, Betty and George Rexton (Dorothy Alison and Robin Bailey) and her
cousin Sandy (Diane Grayson) at their opulent riverside home. Familiar with the
geography of the sprawling house, Sarah is able to confidently go about coping with
her disability. Arriving home after spending the day with an old boyfriend, local
horse breeder Steve (Norman Eshley), Sarah believes the family to be out for
the evening and prepares for bed, unaware that in her absence all three have
been brutally murdered. She eventually stumbles upon the bodies and encounters
the mortally wounded gardener (Brian Robinson) whose dying words warn her that
the killer is certain to return to retrieve a damning piece of evidence he carelessly
left behind…
The
legendary Brian Clemens is probably best known as producer-writer on classic TV
show The Avengers, but he was also the mind behind a batch of very fine Brit
movie chillers, among them And Soon the Darkness, Dr Jekyll and Sister Hyde and
Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter, the latter which he also directed. His script
for See No Evil is an efficient little knuckle-whitener, questionable perhaps
only in the motivations of its wrongdoer. Is watching a couple of X-certificate
movies – in the opening scene the killer-to-be, face unseen, leaves a cinema screening
‘The Convent Murders’ and ‘Rapist Cult’ (both fictitious) – and getting one’s gaudy
cowboy boots splashed by a passing car really sufficient impetus for a murder
spree? Of course, no-one expects the bad guy in this type of movie to be sane,
but the heavy-handed message during the opening credits sequence that society’s
glorification of violence is the cause for what follows is pretty tenuous.
In
any event, See No Evil (which I first saw on late night TV as Blind Terror, its
original UK theatrical release title) is less of a tawdry exploitationer than
it might have been, making up for any perceived deficiency in that regard with
a goodly infusion of nerve-jangling suspense. Indeed, Fleischer and Clemens aim
for burgeoning ill-ease as opposed to gory spectacle and for my money they hit
the target square on. There are occasional moments of nastiness peppered
throughout – the sudden reveal of Sandy’s corpse, a haunting shot of George
immersed in a bathtub of bloody water – but they're fleeting and it’s fair to say
the film works primarily as an exercise in measured pacing and sustained
suspense. Take for example a protracted sequence in which Sarah goes about her daily
routine unaware that she's just feet away from the dead bodies of her family.
Throughout this stretch Fleischer toys mercilessly with the audience and Gerry
Fisher's cinematography really comes into its own as we're treated to a series
of impressive tracking shots, each homing in on a dropped or discarded item,
increasingly telegraphing the sense that something bad has happened, until the
eventual reveal of the Rextons’ corpses. Of course whilst we, the audience,
witness all this – including broken glass on the kitchen floor (which we just know
will be trodden on at some point and, in a wince-inducing moment, it is) –
poor, sightless Sarah sees none of it. Once she finally realises what's
happening the pace quickens and the story mutates into an extended game of cat
and (blind) mouse. There's a beautifully framed instance of tease when our
cowboy-booted killer climbs a flight of stairs; Sarah stands foreground, hidden
from him, and the camera circles so that whilst it remains focused on her it
simultaneously observes the killer's ascent. One can't help but strain to see
the face that remains tantalisingly out of shot! If the suspense loses momentum
a tad when Sarah's plight changes from being pursued by the murderer to an
unexpected ordeal instigated by a latecomer to the party, well, it's only a
minor blip.
UK release poster.
As
with any murder mystery worth its mettle there's a proliferation of suspects on
hand too – a gypsy encampment just down the lane from the Rexton abode offers
up a whole shoal of red herrings – and it’s not too surprising that one's eye
is frequently drawn to inspect a character’s footwear.
Mia
Farrow conveys blindness convincingly and Norman Eshley makes for a suitably
handsome hero, whilst Lila Kaye and a surly Michael Elphick stand out among the
myriad of gypsies. It’s nice to see Paul Nicholas and Christopher Matthews in
small but not insignificant roles. Elmer Bernstein furnishes the proceedings
with a lush score, although rather amusingly he can't help slipping into The
Magnificent Seven territory during a sequence when Sarah and Steve are out
riding on horseback.
‘I was there; I was in that picture, fighting
the Cyclops on the beach, running from the dragon! I was enthralled. It's one
of my strongest childhood memories.’ It’s very hard to argue with director John
Landis’s vivid account of his earliest memories and the fantasy films of Ray
Harryhausen and producer Charles H. Schneer. They seemed to touch us all in an
indelible manner and took us into a fantasy realm far beyond our imagination.
Indicator has (for the first time in the UK) combined the three Sinbad
adventures in one very handsomely produced package. It’s a magical box that has
very little trouble in sending us on a journey, and back to a place called
innocence…
The Seventh voyage of Sinbad (1958) was
something of a revelation back in its day. Ray Harryhausen’s pioneering stop-motion
animation had worked so well in films such as The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms
(1953), It Came from Beneath the Sea (1955) and 20 Million Miles to Earth
(1957). However, he was about to enter a new period and face a new set of
challenges. Along with his producer Charles H. Schneer, Harryhausen was about
to embark on their next collaboration, The Seventh voyage of Sinbad, and it was
to be made in full colour.
The story of The Seventh voyage of Sinbad was
quite simple and uncomplicated. Sinbad (Kerwin Mathews) and Princess Parisa’s
(Kathryn Grant) plans of marriage are interrupted by the evil magician Sokurah
(Torin Thatcher). Sokurah insists that Sinbad return a lamp that he lost on the
island of Colossa. Sinbad at first refuses, which leads to Sokurah shrinking
Parisa and blackmailing Sinbad and his crew on a dangerous adventure in order
to save her.
Exciting as the story was, the real magical
elements were of course in the monsters and creatures the Sinbad would
encounter along the way and was very much were Harryhausen stepped in.
Considering its age and taking into account the combination of early colour
film and special effects techniques, Harryhausen’s work was nothing less than
miraculous. From that startling entrance of ‘the Cyclops on the beach’ that
Landis so excitingly refers to, we as an audience are hooked. The blending of
an enormous, mythical creature and real life people, seemingly in a real
location, was enough to take any child’s breath away and leave them both complexed
and in wonder. There was naturally more to come, the giant Roc, the mysterious
snake woman, the fire breathing dragon and perhaps most enthralling of all
sequences, Sinbad’s sword duel with the living skeleton. The results were not
only seamless, but utterly mindboggling.
The new 4K restoration of The Seventh voyage
of Sinbad (from the original camera negative) really brings it to life. Colours
are both rich and vivid. Certain backgrounds may occasionally look a little
grainy, but nevertheless perfectly acceptable and no doubt down to separate
film elements used in the film’s original production. The high resolution scan
perhaps highlights these limitations to some degree. It’s necessary to also
remember, this production was working to a tight schedule and an even tighter
budget. However, simply look at the level of detail in close-ups and location
shots, and the real revelation of the restoration becomes extremely clear. The
audio also sounds marvellous and is presented in both mono and DTS
multi-channel.
Speaking of revelations, Indicator’s
collection of bonus material is exhaustive – ‘exhaustive’ in the most
complementary way I might add. Firstly, we have a commentary track (from 2008) which
not only features Harryhausen at the helm, but a whole host of industry
wizards. Producer Arnold Kunert, visual effects experts Phil Tippett, Randall
William Cook and Bernard Herrmann biographer Steven Smith all provide fascinating
insights and their respect towards Harryhausen’s work is undeniable.
Also included are the original Super 8mm cut
down versions. As any serious movie fan of a certain age will recall, these
were essential, especially if you were growing up in the 70s. Before the
introduction of videocassettes, these 200ft spools contained around 8-9 minutes
of film and featured condensed sequences or key scenes from the movie. You
could buy these in different versions such as b/w silent or colour sound (which
were a lot more expensive). Four parts were released for The Seventh Voyage of
Sinbad – The Cyclops, The Strange Voyage, The Evil Magician and Dragon’s Lair –
which was the reel I owned and watched over and over again. Each of these
segments is presented in their raw state, complete with speckles and tram line
scratches, but to be honest, I wouldn’t really want them any other way. They
are a wonderful, retrospective reminder of those glorious days. I should also
point out that parts 1 and 4 are in their colour / sound versions while parts 2
and 3 are in b/w / silent. There is also an option to play individual reels or
play all.
The Secrets of Sinbad (11.23) is a featurette
with Phil Tippet (in his workshop) recollecting on how he grew up on
Harryhausen’s films. He talks about the whole period and Forrest J. Ackerman’s
Famous Monsters magazine and how this became a key influence in his own career
path.
Remembering The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad
(23.31) has Harryhausen talking about the struggle in getting the film made. He
talks about various elements including the shooting in Granada, Spain, and
Majorca. Kerwin Matthews, the building of giant props, his creature designs and
his disapproval over the English censoring of the skeleton fight are among the
many other subjects discussed.
A Look Behind the Voyage (11.52) is a TV
featurette from 1995. It looks to be from a video source, which was being used
regularly during this period. This short piece features interviews with both
Schneer and Harryhausen and looks back at the early work such as Mighty Joe
Young and his fairy tale films. It also looks at the importance of his parents
and the role they played, the difficulties in moving from b/w to colour and
working to tight budgets. It’s a nice informative, condensed piece.
Music promo (2.34) – Well this is a nice rare
little piece and the sort of thing that really grabs my interest. In 1958,
Colpix (the record division of Columbia pictures), produced this 7†45rpm
single to be played in cinema lobbies, radio shows and for giving away as kids
competition prizes. The song ‘Sinbad May Have Been Bad, But He’s Been Good to Me’
is as cheesy as hell, but oh so wonderful. It’s presented here in beautiful,
clear sound and played over a piece of Seventh Voyage poster artwork.
The Music of Bernard Herrmann (26.52) is a
fascinating essay on composer Bernard Herrmann. Herrmann biographer Steven
Smith presents an insightful and eloquent account of the composer’s love of
fantasy films. Smith takes us through his early work including CBS radio, Orson
Welles’s Mercury theatre, his innovative instrumentation style and his use of
Theremin, Brass and electronics. All of which is fascinating.
Keeping on the subject of Bernard Herrmann,
Indicator have pulled off a real treat with the inclusion of Herrmann’s full
isolated score. Presented in Stereo, the score is rousing, clean and dynamic,
it is also plentiful as Herrmann leaves very few scenes unscored. I believe
this marks its debut as an isolated score, but 2009 complete score CD (released
by Prometheus) came with a total time of 71 minutes, so expect a lot of great
music here.
Birthday Tribute (1.00) features a short
birthday tribute to Harryhausen from Phil Tippet’s studio – complete with
dancing skeletons.
The Trailer Gallery starts with the original ‘This
is Dynamation!’ trailer (3.26). This is a fascinating preview that presents the
process of Dynamation and includes some rare behind the scenes footage, effects
shots and Kerwin Mathews practising with his fencing coach for the skeleton
fight. We then have the same trailer introduced and with a commentary from
Trailers from Hell presenter Brian Trenchard-Smith (4.47). Finally, there is
the re-release trailer which I believe is from 1975 (1.46).
The image gallery is quite comprehensive and
contains approx. 75 steps. This is a little misleading as a great deal of
portrait shots are placed side-by-side, so in reality there’s a great deal
more. Here you will find original promotional material, Harryhausen drawings,
b/w stills, mini lobby cards, comic books and poster art from around the
world.
There’s enough cross-plot evidence to suggest that some ideas
woven into World Without End (Allied
Artists, 1956) were based in part on H.G. Wells’ classic 1895 novel The Time Machine.Wells’ immortal tale would, of course, soon follow
the less-celebrated World Without End
as a lavish, big-screen Hollywood feature of 1960.Though director-writer Edward Bernds readily admitted
to familiarity with Wells’ The Time
Machine, he insisted his screenplaywas
a wholly original creation.Though the
similarities between the two works cannot be discounted, Bernds refutation has
merit. Certainly modern science-fiction’s fascinations with time and space
travel were hardly of the abstract, and most certainly predated Wells’ own
literary musings on the subject.
It is March of 1957, and the U.S. has sent a spacecraft on
mankind’s first ever flight to red planet Mars. Surprisingly, the four man crew is not scheduled to touch down on the
Martian surface; this flight is purely a reconnaissance mission in which they
are tasked to twice orbit Mars for photo-mapping. In Washington D.C., Pentagon officials,
members of the press, and distraught family members have become increasingly anxious
as contact with the spaceship has been lost. The astronauts onboard are less concerned. They realize this breakdown in communication is
merely temporary, likely the result of their spacecraft entering Mars’ magnetic
field.
Unfortunately and unbeknownst to the crew, on the return
voyage home, the spaceship accidentally wanders into a time displacement vortex. The craft crashes into a snowy region that the
rattled astronauts – all of whom have miraculously survived – not unreasonably
assume is one of Mars’ famed polar icecaps. It’s not, as they soon recognize when exiting the craft without the
assistance of oxygen helmets or pressure suits. Journeying from the snow-capped mountain, they dimly recognize the
outline of the Rockies, believing they might have somehow landed on the border
of Idaho and Wyoming, or perhaps that of Colorado and New Mexico.
They quickly begin to have their doubts when they wander
into a cave and are attacked by giant spiders “as big as dogs!†Surviving that
sticky encounter with the assistance of their pistols, an overnight campout under
the stars is summarily ruined when they’re viciously attacked by – and barely
stave off - a gang of marauding Cyclops-Neanderthals who brandish primitive
hand weapons. Taking supposed safe harbor
in still another cave, the crew is trapped inside when a steel panel
mysteriously descends from above. Their
abductors are, to the great relief of all, friends.
They learn from a panel of paternal, subterranean elders
referred as “The Council,†that they are indeed back on earth. But it’s now the year 2508, some 551 years
since they had first been launched into orbit. They also learn that the earth was almost entirely destroyed in the
“Great Blow†of 2188. This was the year
of Armageddon when “man destroyed himself†through foolish use of atomic weaponry
and the absence of wisdom.
The blending of two disparate but popular film genres –
in this case, the horror/sci-fi film with the saddle opera - was hardly new
when The Valley of Gwangi hit the big
screen in 1969. This film’s most identifiable
predecessor, one pitting cowboys against a prehistoric monster, might be The Beast of Hollow Mountain (1956), but
truth be told Hollywood had been combining these two genres almost from the very
beginning. In the 1930s and ‘40s,
audiences thrilled to the ghostly monochrome exploits of such western serial heroes
as Ken Maynard, Buffalo Bill Cody, and Buster Crabbe with such films as Tombstone Canyon (1932), The Vanishing Riders (1935), and Wild Horse Phantom (1944). Universal’s Curse of the Undead (1959) was a later but no less interesting experiment
for Hollywood’s preeminent fright factory. The studio removed the vampire from the usual atmospheric Gothic
trappings of old Europe and dropped him onto the sagebrush plain.
On the far loopier end of the spectrum, the notorious director
William “One Shot†Beaudine, provided us with the ultimate in old west
weirdness with his legendary twin-bill of 1966, Billy the Kid vs. Dracula and Jesse
James vs. Frankenstein’s Daughter. 1973
brought to movie houses two of the more memorable big-screen blends: the
sci-fi/western Westworld and Clint
Eastwood’s prairie ghost saga High Plains
Drifter. This combining of westerns
and fantasy films continues, more or less, to this very day… as anyone who
caught the lavish CGI-fest Cowboys and
Aliens (2011) can attest.
Director James O’ Connolly’s The Valley of Gwangi is set mysteriously at the turn of the century
somewhere “South of the Rio Grande.†(Principal photography on The Valley of Gwangi was actually shot on
various locations throughout the deserts of Spain). The locals are enjoying a parade through a
dusty town. The parade has been staged
to promote K.J. Breckenridge’s wild and wooly Cowboys vs. Indians Wild West
Show. K.J.’s rodeo, not-politically
correct by today’s standards, is set to be held at an equally non-PC
bull-fighting arena. Contemporary
political activists needn’t grab their picket signs. The stadium is hardly filled to capacity, and
we soon learn Breckenridge’s rodeo is in dire financial straits. The show simply hasn’t been pulling in the
crowds of late, and even main attraction “Omar, the Wonder Horse,†whose equally
non-PC stage-jump from an elevated platform into a murky pool of water isn’t
enough to save this sad affair.
Suggesting the writing is on the wall, the sultry Breckenridge
(Gila Golan) is approached by smooth talking Tuck (James Franciscus), a
self-absorbed rodeo cowboy and former lover of T.J. Tuck now makes his living by booking acts for
a big entertainment consortium back east. He wants K.J. to sell off the rights to her semi-popular diving horse
act, but his ex-paramour is still bitter over their estrangement and not
interested in selling. Besides she
believes newly found prosperity is just around the corner. She agrees to show him the still-secret
attraction that she’s certain will reverse her rodeo’s downward spiral.
The budding impresario is stunned when she unveils “El
Diablo†a miniature horse that Tuck recognizes is no horse at all. It’s actually an Eohippus, a fifty-million year old ancestor of the equine. This was not a lucky guess, nor is the
startled ex-cowboy an expert on prehistoric beasts. Ten minutes earlier in the film Tuck had
gleaned this morsel of knowledge after stumbling upon a scotch drinking
Paleontologist camped in the scrub brush desert in search of fossils. Tuck responsibly alerts the amazed scientist (Laurence
Naismith) about the Eohippus (“The
greatest scientific discovery of the age!â€) and together they learn the Eohippus was captured on the frontier outskirts
of the grimly named “Forbidden Valley.â€
You have to hand it to ol' Jack Warner- he knew a good thing when he saw it and he also had an uncanny ability to replicate success. Following the Oscar-winning triumph of Warner Brothers' "Casablanca" in 1942, Warner, as the main mogul of the studio that bore his family's name, managed to capture lightning in a bottle again. Warner recognized that the unique chemistry among key cast members resulted in the success of "Casablanca". Not only had Humphrey Bogart proven to be credible as a romantic leading man but he was surrounded by some remarkable supporting actors: Claude Rains, Sydney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre among them. His first priority was to re-assemble much of the cast for another WWII-themed film project. Warner was a master at milking the same cow when it came to cinematic success stories. Following the success of "The Maltese Falcon", he quickly cobbled together "Across the Pacific" for "Falcon" stars Bogart, Mary Astor and Sydney Greenstreet. Now Warner had Bogart, Greenstreet, Rains and Lorre in mind for "Passage to Marseille", which would not-so-coincidentally be directed by Michael Curtiz, who had helmed "Casablanca". For good measure, Warner ensured the film would also benefit from a score by that film's esteemed composer, Max Steiner. For good measure, Warner cast actress Michele Morgan as the female lead. Morgan had originally been considered for the role of Bogart's lover in "Casablanca", but the part ultimately went to Ingrid Bergman. Topping things off, Warner peppered the new film with appearances by other reliable alumni from "Casablanca" in supporting roles- and even made sure he had a character in a Bogart-like hat and trenchcoat meeting up with Claude Rains on an airport runway! For all his enthusiasm about the project, "Passage" was a troubled production. It had been kicking around the studio for quite some time and had been in pre-production a full six months before filming began. Additionally, Humphrey Bogart was not enthused about the movie and argued with Warner that he would rather star in a film titled "Conflict". Warner had demanded that Bogart drop out of that production to star in "Passage" with the intention of replacing him with Jean Gabin. Ultimately a compromise was reached and Bogart would eventually star in "Conflict", but not until 1945.
The film is based upon a novel by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall, who were best known for writing "Mutiny on the Bounty". As with that film, this one deals with a troubled ocean voyage and a mutiny. The plot is very wide-ranging and employs the unusual device of relating events as flashbacks-within-flashbacks. Although director Curtiz does manage to keep things comprehensible, the bouncing back and forth between time periods does require the viewer to pay close attention. The film opens at a secret Free French air base located in rural England. A reporter, Manning (John Loder), is doing a story about the efforts of the Free French forces to help free their homeland of German occupation. He meets with the commander of the base, Captain Freycinet (Claude Rains), who briefs him about military operations and takes him to the runway area where pilots are readying for another bombing run over occupied France, the irony of which finds the pilots having to destroy parts of their own country in order to free it. A particular, somber pilot catches Manning's eye. Freycinet explains he is Jean Matrac (Humphrey Bogart) and he relates his remarkable tale to the reporter. Matrac was the publisher of a political gazette in France that was critical of what he felt was the government's appeasement policies towards Nazi Germany in the months before the war broke out. Ignoring warnings to tone down his criticisms, Matrac continues to criticize elected officials but he pays a steep price for his courage. Government-hired goons raid his offices and destroy the place, killing a man in the process. Matrac is then framed for the man's murder and he finds himself on the lam with his lover Paula (Michele Morgan). With the police closing in, the couple marries shortly before Matrac is finally arrested. He is sent to the French penal colony known as Devil's Island where he and his fellow inmates suffer inhumane abuses and backbreaking work in dangerous swamps. Matrac and four fellow convicts are approached by an elderly fellow French inmate, Granpere (Vladimir Sokoloff) who can arrange for them to make a daring escape by boat- on the proviso that they promise to fight to free France from German forces. The men agree and make their escape but become becalmed in the Caribbean. They are rescued by a steamer ship captained by Freycinet, who immediately suspects the men are actually escaped convicts and discounts their story about being fishermen who were trying to return to fight the Germans. Also suspicious is the obnoxious martinet, Major Duval (Sydney Greenstreet), who represents the French military presence on the vessel. Duval is a turncoat who is demanding that the ship keep on its original course and return to France, where he intends to collaborate with the German government. This doesn't sit well with Freycinet and the escaped convicts, who lead a mutiny that overcomes Duval and his men. The ship then sails to freedom in England where both Freycinet and Matrac join the Free French forces. However, Matrac is a haunted and despondent man because his beloved wife and their young son he has never seen continue to reside under German occupation. Every time he flies with his crew on a bombing mission over France he makes a detour on the way home so that he can fly over their farm and drop a personal message to them.
The wide-ranging scope of the story keeps things moving at a fast clip despite the convoluted plot and abundance of supporting characters. Bogart is grim and somber throughout, with none of his trademark quips or wiseguy cracks on display. The fact that he is playing a Frenchman is a major distraction because he keeps all the Bogart mannerisms in place. He gives a solid performance but isn't believable at all as a French nationalist. Fortunately, his co-stars such as Peter Lorre (as a fellow convict), Greenstreet and Rains are more convincing. There are engrossing scenes in the penal colony (actually California locations) and some very interesting characters that populate the goings-on. There is also an exciting action sequence that takes place when the convicts lead a mutiny but a technical flaw finds the steamer ship rock solid in the water, apparently oblivious to any movement the waves or rolling of the ocean might seem to cause. Rains is as solid and commanding as ever, Lorre and Greenstreet chew the scenery as only they can and Morgan makes for a perfectly suitable romantic interest for Bogart. "Passage to Marseilles" isn't a classic- and it's sentimental final sequence is telegraphed almost from frame one- but it is solid entertainment with a sterling cast.
The Warner Archive Blu-ray ports over all the intoxicating extras from the DVD special edition. They include:
Original trailer
Trailer for the Errol Flynn WWII thriller "Uncertain Glory"
A historical discussions with scholars about the role of the Free French in WWII
A compilation of gag reels and bloopers from vintage WB movies that is more interesting than amusing.
A Chuck Jones WWII-themed cartoon "The Weakly Reporter" that centers on wartime deprivations and rationing.
"Jammin' the Blues", a Oscar-nominated short that showcases African-American jazz greats in concert
"I Won't Play", a corny short film depicting American G.Is in the Pacific, one of whom alienates the men in his unit because of his constant bragging about his musical prowess and his friendship with a major female film star (who just happens to pop by in the jungle to entertain them!)
Various vintage newsreels including one cringe-inducing short that depicts attractive WACs being shown military training techniques in an era long before women would prove they could do these things as well as men. Here, the young ladies are treated like fish-out-of-water, afraid to break their heels while giggling at the obstacles the men have to overcome in training.
In all, an irresistible package for any retro movie lover.
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Who doesn’t love watching giant monster
movies from the 1950s? The Beast from 20,
000 Fathoms (1953), Them! (1954),
Tarantula (1955), Godzilla, King of the Monsters! (1956), 20 Million Miles to Earth (1957) and Attack of the Crab Monsters (1957) are
just a few of my favorites. Some of those titles are better than others and
there are many more that are worse such as 1957’s unintentionally hilarious The Giant Claw, but the decade that gave
us rock 'n' roll also created a giant monster flick that never seemed to get
the respect it deserved, which is ironic being that it’s a top-notch production
with a pretty convincing and scary monster. Of course, I’m talking about the
often overlooked 1957 classic, The
Monster That Challenged the World.
Directed by Arnold Laven (The Rifleman), The Monster That Challenged the World, which was solidly written by
Pat Fielder (The Vampire, The Return of
Dracula) and based on a story by David Duncan (The Time Machine, Fantastic Voyage), begins when an underwater
earthquake releases a horde of enormous, prehistoric creatures from
California’s Salton Sea. After one of these creatures kills a sailor,
Lieutenant John Twillinger (Tim Holt from The
Treasure of the Sierra Madre and The
Magnificent Ambersons) discovers an unknown, slimy substance which he
brings to Dr. Jess Rogers (Hans Conried, The
5,000 Fingers of Dr. T). Rogers analyzes it and not only deduces that it comes
from a giant mollusk, but also figures out that, if the creatures aren’t
stopped soon, they’ll multiply by the thousands and destroy every human being
on the planet. With the help of Dr. Rogers’ beautiful secretary (Audrey Dalton,
Mr. Sardonicus), the lieutenant and
the good doctor do everything in their power to stop the creeping terror before
it’s too late.
Made for only $254,000, The Monster That Challenged the World, which was originally titled The Kraken,is an entertaining monster movie that always seems to be
overshadowed by many of the titles I listed earlier. This is strange because
the fun movie is filled with tight, solid direction, plenty of atmosphere and a
great-looking, mechanical creature created by August Lohman (Moby Dick). The well-made film also
benefits from an interesting story as well as some pretty pleasing performances.
To begin with, Tim Holt is appropriately calm, rational and, at times, a bit
stiff as Lieutenant Twilliger, but he also gives his character much-needed doses
of humanity and likeability. Up next, the great Hans Conried is totally
convincing as the knowledgeable Dr. Rogers. He delivers his dialogue about the
giant creatures completely straight and because he seems to believe everything
that he’s saying, we believe it too. Last, but not least, the beautiful Audrey
Dalton is wonderful as secretary, single mom and love interest, Gail. Dalton
brings an inner strength and intelligence to her role, making her character
more than just a screaming, helpless woman who needs saving. All in all, The Monster That Challenged the World is
a well-done creature feature and a bit more than you would expect from a late
50s, sci-fi monster mash.
The Monster That
Challenged the World has
been released on a region one Blu-ray by Kino Lorber and is presented in its
original 1.85:1 aspect ratio. The beautiful HD transfer boasts sharp, crystal
clear images and the disc not only contains the original theatrical trailer,
but also an extremely informative and enjoyable audio commentary by film
historian Tom Weaver who tells us just about everything we ever wanted to know
about this entertaining film; great stuff. (Weaver leaves briefly to allow 50s
monster music expert David Schecter of Monstrous Movie Music to discuss the
film’s effective score by Heinz Roemheld). If you’re a lover of 1950s giant
monster movies, this one is definitely above average and I highly recommended
the excellent Blu-ray.
Over
the years I’ve noticed an interesting phenomena among Star Trek fans which is that most of them love the television
series but seem only to tolerate the films. Maybe my perception is off, seeing
as how I fall into the category of a non-fan who greatly enjoys the films—namely
the ones from the 1980s starring the original cast—but not the TV series from
which they were based. For whatever reason, there seems to be a strange sort of
disconnect between fans of the TV series and mainstream audiences. Take for
example the films that deviated greatly from the series, such as the overly
comical Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home
(1986) which soared at the box office, while films that most resembled episodes
of the TV series—namely the awful Star
Trek: Insurrection (1998)—performed below expectations. The rebooted Star Trek of 2009 was also pretty far
flung from the Original Series to a degree with its blaring of “Sabotage†on
the soundtrack among other elements, but was a big hit with mainstream
audiences. Now with this year’s Star Trek
Beyond (which also blares the Beastie Boys on the soundtrack) many critics
say this is finally the Star Trek
film that fans of the TV series and mainstream audiences can finally mutually
enjoy.
Unlike
Star Trek Into Darkness (2013) which
was perhaps too reverential of Star Trek
II:Wrath of Khan (1982), Star Trek Beyond is a completely
original tale that, if condensed, could almost seem like an episode from the Original
Series. Perhaps this is why I didn’t enjoy this one as much as 2009’s reboot,
but that being said, it’s still a highly enjoyable film with some excellent character
moments and set-pieces. I can’t say much more without getting into SPOILERS, so
if you prefer not to know about certain surprise elements (like the identity of
the “new†ship seen in the trailers) quit reading now.
Overall,
the biggest difference between this film and its two predecessors is the
character dynamics. Mostly audiences had seen the crew together on the bridge
of the Enterprise, while in this film the characters are spilt into pairs on an
unexplored planet after the Enterprise gets destroyed by the new villain Krall
(Idris Elba). Kirk and Chekov have an excellent action scene amidst the ruins
of the Enterprise; Uhura and Sulu try to discover the villainous motivations
behind Krall in captivity; Scotty teams with an intriguing new alien warrior
named Jaylah, and McCoy must do his best to stabilize a wounded Spock. Not
surprisingly, the McCoy/Spock pairing makes for the film’s best character
moments and one-liners, with Scotty (Simon Pegg who also co-wrote the
screenplay) and Jaylah’s scenes in a fairly close second. And while on the
subject of Jaylah, portrayed by Sofia Boutella (Kingsman: The Secret Service), the alien warrior makes for an
excellent addition to the cast who will hopefully return for future
installments.
That
all being said, for me Star Trek Beyond
didn’t really take off until the third act when the cast regroups on a
long-lost federation ship that had crashed on the planet’s surface (this would
be the “new†ship spotted by eagle-eyed fans in trailers). Those hoping that this
ship is the NX-01 Enterprise from the 2001 prequel TV series Enterprise will be disappointed though.
While the new creation is the same class of ship from the same era, it is a heretofore
unknown ship called the Franklin. While it would have been fun to see the new
cast commandeer the Enterprise from the 2001 TV series, from a writer’s
standpoint the Franklin makes more sense for reasons I will soon reveal.
The
climax, wherein the crew utilizes the Franklin to save a massive space station
named Yorktown, actually reminded me of the climax for Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. Just like in that film, it’s great
fun seeing the cast adapt to and use a rickety unfamiliar ship to save the day
and then come crashing into the water with it. It was after said crash that the
film had me fooled into thinking that it was headed towards the obligatory
face-to-face showdown between Kirk and Krall. It instead took me by surprise
when it is revealed after the watery crash that Krall isn’t actually an alien,
but used to be a human—specifically the original captain of the Franklin. This
slightly resolved one issue I had with Krall in that he seemed to be too much
of a cookie-cutter alien menace. As to both his evil motivations and how he
went from a human Federation Captain to an alien menace, the explanation relies
perhaps a bit too much on last minute exposition but still works for the most
part. On top of the surprise reveal, the hand to hand duel between Krall and
Kirk—which I expected to be a boring paint-by-the-numbers fist fight—is made
fresh and exciting due to the fact that it took place in a zero gravity
atmosphere, allowing them both to the fly about the gigantic Yorktown space
station as they trade blows.
One
thing I found interesting in the marketing of the film was that the Limited
Edition poster for Star Trek Beyond
is a callback to the original Star Trek:
The Motion Picture poster. That film finds Kirk now an Admiral and Spock
having left Starfleet to return to Vulcan. Perhaps not coincidentally this film
seems to be setting up the same story elements for the “future†film as Kirk is
applying for an Admiral position and Spock is pondering leaving Star Fleet to
better serve his race. For Kirk, life in space is becoming monotonous, and he
laments that he is now older than his father ever lived to be over a birthday
drink with McCoy. Spock is likewise saddened to hear of the loss of his future
self, Ambassador Spock. This makes him question his relationship with Uhura, as
any children he has with her will only be 1/4th Vulcan leading him
to the conclusion that he should procreate with a full Vulcan to better further
his species. In the end both Kirk and Spock decide to stay with Star Fleet as
they witness the building of a new Enterprise. Spock’s reason for staying is actually
a touching tribute to Leonard Nimoy. The scene, and I would say this is a big
spoiler, has Zachary Quinto’s Spock discovering a certain photograph amongst
the deceased Ambassador Spock’s belongings. The photo is of Nimoy, William
Shatner, and the rest of the original cast (which looks to have been taken for Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country)
on the bridge of the Enterprise. The realization dawns upon Spock that he is
meant to grow old with these people, and his place is on the bridge of the
Enterprise. It’s also obvious that Kirk’s toast “to absent friends†during the
end scene was initially meant as a nod to Nimoy, but sadly ended up
encompassing the late Anton Yelchin as well. Yelchin, who played Chekov in the
new series, was tragically killed in a car accident shortly before the film’s
release.
Star Trek Beyond is projected by
analysts to have healthy grosses at the box office, and a sequel (which will see
Chris Hemsworth return as George Kirk) has already been announced.
Nicholas Ray’s Knock on Any Door has been released as part of Sony Pictures’ Choice Collection. The 1949 film starred
Humphrey Bogart and a very young John Derek as a defense attorney and his
street punk of a client.It's not high
on the list of Bogart classics, and it's not even one of Ray's best (It was his
second film, made after the far superior They
Live By Night). Ray never particularly praised it, saying only that he
wished it could've been grimmer. Ray once pointed to Luis Bunuel’s LosOlvidados,
a film about Mexican slum kids that came out in 1950, as an example of the sort
of film KnockOn Any Door could've been.If Bunuel's film had come out first, Ray said, the inspiration would've
been there to make a more penetrating, realistic work. "I would have made
a hell of a lot better movie," Ray said.
Knock
On Any Door is usually labeled as
film noir, but nothing in the story has the subversive taint found in the best
noir films, and there’s none of the sleek, European ex-pat styling, unless one
counts the expressionistic lighting that cuts across the prison floor in a
scene where a convicted killer makes his long walk to the death house. KnockOn Any Door is more in line with the crime dramas turned out by
Warner Bros during the 1930s, which makes sense when one considers Bogart got
his start in those Warner Bros crime flicks, and it was Bogart’s film company,
Santana Productions, that produced Knock
On Any Door for Columbia Pictures.
While it wasn’t a
blockbuster, it performed well enough at the box office to establish Bogart’s
group as a serious production unit. It also gave us the quote, “Live fast, die
young, and have a good looking corpse,†a quote so nice it’s given to us twice
by the angry Nick Romano, played by Derek with all the seething anger he could
muster beneath his impossibly long eyelashes. According to Bogart biographer
Stefan Kanfer, Bogie tried to boost Derek's performance by pointing out that
most of the day's top actors, from James Cagney, to Edward G. Robinson, to
Bogart himself, had started out in crime movies, and that a good performance as
a heel is always eye catching. Not surprisingly, Derek goes for broke in the
film, to the point where he appears to be auditioning for a role in ReeferMadness. Lookat me! he seems to say in every scene, Look at my perfect profile, my quivering
lips; look at how twitchy I am when I play angry! I'm a real actor, damn it!
Derek was just a young,
inexperienced actor fresh out of the paratroopers when he was cast as
"Pretty Boy" Nick Romano, "the Skid Row Romeo.â€Romano, like so many Hollywood hoodlums, is a
good boy shoved down the wrong path in life after losing his father at a young
age, and then growing up in poverty. Attorney Andrew Morgan (Bogart) has known
Romano for years and has watched him struggle. When Romano is accused of
killing a cop, Morgan hesitates to help. For one thing, the partners at his law
firm don't want the negative attention such a trial could bring. Morgan also
isn't sure if he believes Romano is innocent.
Knock
On Any Door is actually two films woven together. We
see Romano's tale in flashback, as he goes from being a mama’s boy, to a
typical slum rat and petty thief, to a beleaguered family man who drinks too
much and can't hold down a job. We also see Morgan's crisis of conscious as he
works up the enthusiasm to help him. Morgan, a former slum kid himself,
believes people should help themselves. Gradually, though, he sees Romano as a
kid worth saving. By the film's end, Morgan vows to spend the rest of his life
helping kids like Nick Romano.
The Nick Romano character
was a bit ahead of the times. He looks and carries himself like a character
from a mid-50s juvenile delinquent movie, perhaps The Wild One, or Blackboard
Jungle, or even Ray's own RebelWithout A Cause. There were even rumors,
possibly apocryphal, that Marlon Brando was interested in the Romano role. Hot
off his stage success in A Streetcar
Named Desire, Brando would've been an interesting Romano, and with his
realistic acting, might have booted this movie into something close to a
classic. According to different sources, Bogart was originally planning to make
the film under the direction of Mark Hellinger, with Brando as Romano. When
Hellinger died in Dec. 1947, the project was temporarily put aside until Bogart
started Santana Productions. Brando, who had wanted to work with Hellinger,
allegedly turned down Bogie’s offers, paving the way for Derek. (I find it a
little hard to believe that Bogart was, as some biographers claim, pursuing
Brando to any great degree, considering Bogart was notoriously disdainful of
the self-indulgent method actor types emerging out of New York. The thought of
Brando and Bogart together is fascinating, but just the fact that Bogart
eventually chose Derek, who was light years away from the brooding Brando,
makes me think the whole Brando rumor was nothing but a PR flack's pipe dream.)
Derek, with his greasy mop
of thick black hair, looks the part of a dashing street hood, but his acting is
too melodramatic and hasn't aged well. At the time, though, Derek made quite a
splash, inspiring Hollywood gossip columnist Luella Parsons to write, "I
predict John Derek will be one of the big screen stars of 1949."Stardom didn't quite find Derek, although he
acted regularly for many years, appearing in everything from westerns to bible
epics.He's probably best known to baby
boomers as the husband/mentor and sometime director of Bo Derek.Even when Derek died in 1998, most of the obits
focused on the couple's May/December romance, which was fodder for gossip rags
during Bo's brief run at movie stardom.
Bogart is Bogart, and not
much more needs to be said. There's an excellent scene where, suspecting Romano
has stolen 100-dollars from him, Bogart as Morgan lures Romano into an alley
and wrestles him to the ground, pinning him in the dirt with some sort of
commando hold and then rifling through Romano's pocket to get back his money.
"You're a two-bit punk, and that's all you'll ever be,†Bogart snarls,
spraying saliva everywhere.Always a
sprayer and a drooler, Bogart’s lips and chin practically shine with spittle in
this movie, especially during the courtroom scenes where he has long speeches
and no one around to wipe his mouth. Bogart’s forehead also perspires like crazy in
the court scenes, until he looks like he's performing on the bow of a ship
during a storm. He's great, though, and his closing speech to the jury is among
the better scenes of his late '40s period.Heavy-handed? Sure, but Bogart could always make these scenes
compelling, whereas if another actor tried it, the bit would come off as
grandstanding.
"Knock OnAny Door is a
picture I'm kind of proud of, and I'll tell you why," Bogart the producer
said in a press release trumpeting the film. "It's a very challenging
story; different; off the beaten path. The novel (by Willard Motley) was
brutally honest. We've tried to be just as direct, just as forceful, in the
picture. I think you'll like it better that way. "
Although Variety
proclaimed Knock On Any Door "a
hard-hitting, tight melodrama," the film's Feb. 1949 release was greeted
by mixed reviews. The notion that criminals were not always responsible for
their actions was a relatively new and unpopular concept. The film was
occasionally praised for its direct look at life in the slums, but Bosley Crowther
of ‘The New York Times’ wasn't impressed. "Not only,†wrote Crowther, “are
the justifications for the boy's delinquencies inept and superficial...but the
nature and aspect of the hoodlum are outrageously heroized." Crowther, who
may have invented the word ‘heroized,’ added that the film was riddled with
"inconsistencies and flip-flops," and that "The whole thing
appears to be fashioned for sheer romantic effect, which its gets from its
'pretty-boy' killer, victim of society and blazing guns."
Actually, the film
could've used some more blazing guns. The opening sequence is a stunner, with a
cop being gunned down on a dark street, and a sudden swarming of the
neighborhood by cops rousting every local man with a criminal record. The scene
is a mere tease, though, for the film settles down into a talky courtroom drama
and doesn't quite live up to its opening blast. But give Bogie and his Santana
crew credit for choosing this project as their debut voyage. They jumped on the
juvenile delinquent bandwagon before it had really taken off, predating the
screwed-up teenager craze by five or six years. In a way, Derek’s Nick Romano was
a forerunner of James Dean, Elvis, Sal Mineo, and every other greasy hoodlum
with puppy dog eyes that would populate the movie screens of the 1950s.
The Choice Collection DVD offers no extra
features, but the transfer is crisp and clear, all the better to see Bogart
sweat.
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Henry Mancini – a composer who will be forever linked
with sumptuous film and television music- returns to Vocalion in another CD
containing two classic RCA albums. Both from the early 1970s, Mancini Concert
and Mancini Plays the Theme from Love Story (CDLK 4582) highlight different
facets of his music making. Recorded to tie-in with Mancini’s 1971 American
concert tour, Mancini Concert (originally released 1971) is just that – a
studio recording of the sort of varied programme his audiences had come to
expect. The highlight is undoubtedly Portrait of Simon and Garfunkel, a
heartfelt orchestral rendering of several of the legendary duo’s best-known
melodies. In addition to inventive orchestrations of other contemporary
material including selections from The Who’s rock opera Tommy and the Andrew
Lloyd Webber-Tim Rice opus Jesus Christ Superstar, Mancini looks back to his
swing era roots in Big Band Montage. A Mancini album wouldn’t be complete
without some of his own music, and Mancini Concert addresses that through the inclusion
of March with Mancini, a medley of themes from Peter Gunn and The Great Race.
Mancini Plays the Theme from Love Story album (originally released 1970) capitalised
on his smash-hit arrangement of Francis Lai’s film theme. Indeed, film music is
the album’s cornerstone, and it includes several rare Mancini themes such as
The Night Visitor, The Hawaiians and Theme for Three, the last of these from
the Audrey Hepburn classic Wait until Dark. Remastered by Michael J. Dutton and
using the original analogue tapes, the audio quality, as with all of Vocalion’s
releases, is superb. Vocalion have reverted to just a 2 Panel (4 page) booklet
to accompany their latest Mancini release, but the inclusion of two full albums
manages to tilt the balance rather nicely.
The
albums Classical Concussion / Predictions (CDLK 4582), both originally released
in 1979, represent Vocalion’s latest voyage into the archives of the KPM 1000
Series, one of the world’s leading recorded music libraries and the home of some
superb film and TV music. Featuring the work
of brilliantly gifted composer and keyboardist Francis Monkman (a founder
member of progressive bands Curved Air and Sky), Classical Concussion (originally
KPM 1224) and Predictions (originally KPM 1233) are from the same era as his hugely
popular score for gangland thriller The Long Good Friday (1980). In fact,
Classical Concussion, recorded at Lansdowne Studios in November 1978, seems to
anticipate in places The Long Good Friday’s score. Nowhere is this more
apparent than in the opening track, ‘Release of Energy’, a thrilling title
theme that embedded itself in the consciousness of UK cinemagoers thanks to its
use (in abridged form) as the Rank Cinema chain’s ‘Preview Time’ jingle. The
dramatic ‘Power Games’ also became familiar to British cinemagoers through its
use as the Rank Cinema intermission theme. With its emphasis on electronic
music, Predictions is in the same mould as that of Sky’s debut album from the
same year. The imposing Passajig (a) is an unusual concoction of rhythm
section, synthesizer, church organ and, remarkably, the State Trumpeters of the
Band of The Household Cavalry. The magnificent sound of the State Trumpeters
introduces Prelude (a), a pulsating underscore with synthesizer ostinato that
conjures up visions of a futuristic metropolis. But the album’s best-known
track is Hypercharge, thanks to its inclusion in Arthur Gibson’s award-winning
1981 documentary about the Red Arrows, the aerobatics display team of the Royal
Air Force.Featuring super audio
quality, Vocalion continue to show their commitment regarding the KPM Library series.
Packaging consists of an excellent 6 page booklet with detailed liner notes
provided by Library expert Oliver Lomax. It doesn’t get much better.
Though this welcome Scream Factory issue marks the first
time Murders in the Rue Morgue (1971)
and The Dunwich Horror (1969) have
been made available on domestic Blu-ray, both films enjoyed a previous release
on DVD as part of MGM’s long-suspended “Midnite Movies†series. Rue
Morgue was first paired with Cry of
the Banshee (1970) in 2003, with Dunwich
and Die Monster Die! (1965) following
in 2005. Though both of these earlier sets
are now technically out-of-print, copies remain generally available. Regardless, the more discerning horror-film
aficionado would be well advised to seek out this new Blu edition. Not only does Scream Factory’s HD master
offer a significant upgrade in visual presentation, the studio has also
restored bits of censored footage missing from the Y2K releases.
H.P. Lovecraft’s short story The Dunwich Horror was written in the summer of 1928 and first
published in the April 1929 issue of the appropriately titled Weird Tales magazine. It’s likely the best known of the celebrated author’s
horror tales, having been recollected and reissued throughout the 20th and 21st
century in any number of literary horror anthologies. Though A.I.P. and director Daniel Haller (a
well-tested art director on many previous films for the company) have taken a
number of liberties bringing Lovecraft’s original tale to the screen, the author’s
basic premise is mostly preserved.
Wilbur Whateley (Dean Stockwell) is the great-grandson of
Oliver Whateley. The elder Whateley was
a practitioner of the black arts who, two generations earlier, had been hanged for
his heresy by vigilantes in the otherwise sleepy village of Dunwich. The Whateley’s have long been a bane to the frightened
residents of the ocean-side community, shunned and ostracized as devil-worshippers. Technically, this is a misunderstanding as the
family worships neither God nor Satan. They spend most of their nights secluded in a creepy cliff-side home on an
otherwise postcard-pretty coastline. The
Whateley’s mostly putter about the old house trying to summon the “Old Ones†who,
we are told, are an amorphous super-race of beings from another dimension that will
bring an end to mankind.
Wilbur’s grandfather (Sam Jaffee) has actually backed-off
a bit on the family’s over-zealous determination in this regard. He’s understandably wary as his own quarter-century
old attempt at summation – one which involved Wilbur’s mother, Lavinia –had
gone horribly wrong. The strange and
dangerous rumblings of a creature still imprisoned behind a locked closet door
will attest to that. But Lavinia’s surviving twenty-five year old progeny,
Wilbur, has not gone soft; he’s determined to succeed where his ancestors have failed. The young man needs only two components to
achieve his goal. He first requires
access to the Necronomicom, an
ancient and priceless book of which only two copies survive. Conveniently, one copy sits in a not terribly
protected glass display case in the University library in Arkham, only a mere forty
miles up the road.
More problematically, Wilbur requires a female virgin; and
good luck trying to find one in the summer of 1969. This is where Bayonne, New Jersey’s own Sandra
Dee, best known for her healthful and morally salutary screen-image, comes
in. It seems only a pure virgin can
serve as the conduit through which the “Old Ones†can, at long last,
emerge. With her post-Gidget acting career stagnant, Dee was desperate
to hone a new screen image at decade’s end. Here she is effectively cast both with and against type as the
beleaguered Nancy Wagner. Not all of the
former teenage star’s innocent ways were so easily expunged. The actress had her limits and was modestly body-doubled
in a number of brief nude scenes. Her
antagonist is the wild-eyed, nearly non-blinking Wilbur Whateley, and Stockwell
plays him as a complete nutcase, mysterious, emotionally remote, and not
particularly charming. It’s somewhat
difficult to believe that Nancy would fall for him so hard though it’s
suggested a combination of hypnotism and drug-laced tea keep the young woman in
tow. The drugging would also explain the
trippy, psychedelic dreams she suffers following her first share of the teapot
with weird Wilbur.
It’s actually the addition of this central
damsel-in-distress element that causes Haller’s film to deviate wildly from the
original Lovecraft tale. With the
exception of the aforementioned Lavinia, there’s nary a central-character
female present in the original short story. The movie’s climatic birthing of the “Old Ones†on a sacred altar atop
the cliff-side “Devil’s Hop Yard†is a near complete invention of the
filmmakers. In what was an already a customary
A.I.P. tradition, executive producer Roger Corman, and producers Samuel J.
Arkoff and James H. Nicholson were no doubt hoping to exploitatively piggy-back
off of the surprising success of Polanski’s classic Rosemary’s Baby (1968).
As was the studio’s modus
operandi, A.I.P. rolled out The
Dunwich Horror in a sweeping west-to-east geographic fashion, supporting
this new release at drive-ins and theaters with one or two other fiendish films
from the company catalog: The Tomb of the Cat (a more pronounceable
re-title of Roger Corman’s The Tomb of
Ligeia), The Oblong Box (1969),
and even Destroy All Monsters (the
legendary 1968 production of Japan’s Toho Productions, but issued in the U.S. by
A.I.P. in the late summer of 1969.)
Kino Lorber has released a Blu-ray edition of the 1963 action adventure film "Kings of the Sun", a movie that has largely faded into relative obscurity. In viewing for the first time since its initial release I was pleasantly surprised at how impressive the film is on any number of levels. For one, it takes place during a period that has been largely untouched by Hollywood in that it is set in the era of the ancient Mayans. One must deal with the fact that the historical aspects of the screenplay are largely hokum. The story opens with the Mayan people mourning the death of its king in battle against a rival tribe led by the blood-thirsty Hunac Ceel (Leo Gordon). The new heir apparent is Balam (George Chakiris), a young man who must instantly assume his father's throne and responsibilities. These include the practice of human sacrifice to appease the gods. Balam does not agree with this practice and feels it is at odds with an otherwise highly advanced culture. Nevertheless, under badgering from the top holy man, Ah Min (Richard Basehart), he concedes to continue with sacrifices in order to keep his deeply religious people satisfied. He is also told that he must choose a young maiden to be his future bride. He chooses Ixchel- and who can blame him since she's a ringer for Shirley Anne Field? Ixchel is willing to accept being queen but her enthusiasm is dampened by Balam's cold, unemotional demeanor toward her. Before the young betrothed couple can wed their village comes under siege by Hunac Ceel and his forces. Their only hope for survival is to take to the sea and find a new land. The voyage is an arduous one that threatens to diminish the Mayans' confidence in their new king. However he is redeemed when they actually find land and discover that the climate is hospitable and that crops grow abundantly. They set about building a stockade and permanent dwellings, using their scientific knowledge as a guide. A new threat emerges, however, in the persona of Black Eagle (Yul Brynner), chief of the indigenous people who populate the Mayans' new home land. Black Eagle ambushes Balam and engages him in a duel. However, Balam is saved by fellow Mayans who seriously wound Black Eagle. Ah Min orders that he be nursed back to health with the ultimate goal of using him as a future sacrifice to the gods. Black Eagle is cared for by Ixchel and you can see immediately where the story is going once the two lock eyes. It's clear they are mutually attractied. Ixchel is fascinated by Black Eagle, who has savage ways in terms of combat but who also possesses a great intellect. Not hurting matters is that he is in superb physical condition and struts around in a tiny loin cloth while her husband-to-be and the other male higher-ups among the Mayans are generally seen wearing enough silly costumes and headgear that they look like an ancient version of The Village People.
As Black Eagle makes a slow, painful recovery the relationship between him and Ixhcel intensifies and he even proposes to her, though she has to decline as she is already committed to Balam. Black Eagle has extolled the virtues and civility of the Mayans for nursing him back to health but his attitude changes when he is informed that he will be their sacrificial lamb. Assurances that his death will result in his being worshiped as a god don't appease him and he is led to the sacrificial altar. At the last moment, however, Balam spares his life and orders that the Mayans will no longer practice human sacrifices. Ah Min is so alarmed by this that he takes his own life in order to appease the gods. Nevertheless, Balam instructs his people that this is a new era for the Mayan culture and that they will learn to co-exist peacefully with Black Eagle's people. At first things go well as both cultures blend together well and teach each other valuable skills. However, Balam becomes aware of the attraction between Black Eagle and his future bride. Jealousy finally gets the better of him, resulting in a fight between Ixchel's two would-be lovers. The peace treaty is called off and both tribes are likely to become enemies again. Another crisis hits the Mayans when, unexpectedly, Hunac Ceel arrives by sea with a massive invasion force. When Balam ignores his demands to surrender, the two sides engage in a fierce battle. At first Mayan military strategies take a heavy toll on the invaders. However, their sheer numbers soon overwhelm Balam's forces. The Mayans' only hope for salvation lies in Black Eagle's hands. Will he commit his people to fight on behalf of Balam's kingdom who they now regard enemies?
There aren't many surprises in the story. Once the angle of a love triangle is introduced it becomes obvious that both men will end up squaring off against each other. As these things usually turn out, one man's heroic death conveniently leaves the path clear for his rival to get the girl, so to speak. It's like "The Vikings, only with an abundance of sand. Still, "Kings of the Sun" is never less than entertaining. The direction by the woefully underrated J. Lee Thompson is first-rate, not only in the dramatic sequences but also in the climactic battle, which ranks as one of the best-staged I've seen in films from this era. It's all set to a stirring score by Elmer Bernstein, who occasionally seems to channel some note-for-note aspects of his legendary score for "The Magnificent Seven". In fact there are a couple of genuine connections to that film. Brad Dexter, who was one of the "Seven", has a supporting role and the opening narration is by an uncredited James Coburn, who, of course, also starred in "Seven".
Chakiris and Field give highly credible performances, given the fact that they don't remotely resemble anyone who could be considered a Mayan. However, the film is Brynner's show. Few actors could command the screen like he did. His very presence in a frame ensured that he could steal the scene and "Kings of the Sun" presents him at his exotic best.
The Kino Lorber Blu-ray boasts a great transfer that does justice to the film's semi-epic scope. There are a lot of people in this expensive-looking film that takes full advantage of the Mexican locations. The Blu-ray contains the original trailer and a trailer for another fine Yul Brynner film, "Taras Bulba". Kino Lorber has also retained the magnificent original artwork for the packaging which gives full evidence of that glorious era in which seemingly every other movie poster looked like a classic piece of artwork. Highly recommended.
Hats
off to The Criterion Collection for releasing Blu-ray editions of these two
remarkable motion pictures. They have not been available in the U.S. since the
days of VHS.
The
double feature is really one big movie divided into two, both of them epics,
approximately six-and-a-half hours in total length, with built-in intermissions
in each picture. It’s the monumental story of a group of Swedish emigrants who
make their way to America in the 1840s and settle in the Minnesota wilderness.
The tale covers roughly thirty years, but the story officially ends in 1890.
The Emigrants and The New Land were landmark Swedish imports that gained much
acclaim and popularity at the time of their release. The Emigrants was the third foreign language film to be nominated
for the Best Picture Oscar (in 1972; the previous year it had been nominated
for Best Foreign Language Picture). Jan Troell also received Directing and
Screenwriting nominations (co-written with Bengt Forslund), and Liv Ullmann was
given the nod for Best Actress (she lost to Liza Minnelli in Cabaret). The New Land was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film the same
year The Emigrants was up for Best
Picture.
Ullmann
co-stars with her frequent Bergman collaborator, Max von Sydow, as Kristina and
Karl-Oscar, a poor married couple with children who decide that their farm in
Sweden is a loser and the government is corrupt and unhelpful. The dream of
many Europeans was to go to America, the promised “new land†of opportunity.
But in 1840, that wasn’t so easy. It took some money, certainly, but it also
required near-superhuman fortitude, health, and bravery. People could die crossing the ocean. Oh, and they
also had to know how to build their own house, toil the earth, grow and hunt
their own food, and fully support and protect their families in a time when
Native Americans (i.e., “savagesâ€) were living amongst them. Karl-Oscar is up
for the challenge; after the death of their young daughter from starvation in
Sweden, Kristina finally agrees to emigrate. They join a straggly group of
friends and extended family and make the journey together.
Based
on classic Swedish novels by Vilhelm Moberg, The Emigrants begins in Sweden, covers the harrowing trip over the
ocean and then the trek cross country from the east coast to the Midwest. The New Land follows their struggles to
make lives for themselves in a hostile, but beautiful, environment. The story
is presented with brutal realism and authenticity. After viewing the pictures,
there will be no doubt in one’s mind what it was really like to be an early
settler. The boat voyage alone is so powerfully realized that you won’t easily
forget it. The journey takes ten weeks, during which the twenty or so
emigrants, living in the cramped steerage of a relatively small packet ship,
undergo serious seasickness, scurvy, starvation, conflict, and some deaths.
Our
protagonist couple meets each new obstacle with tremendous strength, although
the years and frequent childbirths begin to take a toll on Kristina. Both von
Sydow and Ullmann are exceptionally good, especially in the scenes of intimacy
between two people who obviously love each other very much and are willing to
sacrifice everything for each other.
Eddie Axberg, as Karl-Oscar’s younger brother, is also a standout with his own
set of adventures that develop into a subplot as he leaves Minnesota with a
friend and heads toward California and its siren call of gold everywhere.
Beautifully
photographed, the new high-definition digital restorations, with new English
subtitle translations, look fantastic. Troell’s pace might be considered slow
by today’s standards, but like Kubrick’s Barry
Lyndon, which also strived to recreate a time and place that no longer
exists and succeeded, both The Emigrants and
The New Land capture not only the
harshness of the era, but also its grace, simplicity, and beauty.
The
supplements in the two-disc set include a new introduction to the films by
theatre and film critic John Simon; a new conversation between film scholar
Peter Cowie and director Troell; a new interview with Liv Ullmann; an hour long
documentary from 2005 on the making of the pictures with archival footage and
interviews with key personnel; and trailers. An essay by critic Terrence
Rafferty appears in the booklet.
This
is impressive, exemplary filmmaking, something any devotee of quality European
motion pictures needs to see. You may not want to get on a boat ever again.
"Ten Seconds to Hell" is the kind of low-key potboiler that studios used to churn out by the dozens in the hopes of making a fast profit. That isn't meant as a knock. Plenty of very worthy films fall into this category and there is much to recommend about this one even if it never quite lives up to its potential. The most interesting aspect of "Ten Seconds to Hell" is the fact that among its creators are any number of big names who were on the cusp of gaining wider recognition. Director and co-writer Robert Aldrich was already an established name in the industry but would find his greatest successes ("Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?" ,"The Dirty Dozen" among them) in the Sixties. Producer Michael Carreras, one of the founders of Hammer Films, was just discovering that that the horror film genre for which Hammer would be forever associated was far more lucrative than standard thrillers or crime films which Hammer had originally produced. The cinematographer Ernest Laszlo would go on to lens such high profile films as "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World", "Judgment at Nuremberg" and "Fantastic Voyage". Art director Ken Adam would become perhaps the most legendary production designer in the history of the business with "Dr. Strangelove", "Barry Lyndon" and numerous James Bond films to his credit. Thus, modest productions such as "Ten Seconds to Hell" often provided fertile training grounds for major talents in the making.
The story is an off-beat one in terms of its protagonists who are six German soldiers who return to Berlin in the immediate aftermath of WWII. What they find is an apocalyptic landscape that the local population and the Allied forces are trying to rebuild into a major urban center. Aside from the sheer logistics of clearing the debris from seemingly endless bombing raids there is the problem of bombs themselves. As in every city that faced bombardment there were countless "dud" bombs that failed to go off. However they remained a major risk as they were capable of exploding without warning. It fell to small teams of incredibly courageous men to try to disarm them- and the casualty and fatality rates among them were sky high. The six German ex-soldiers had cleared dud bombs for the army during the war. In fact they were all deemed to be politically undesirable by the Nazis and were sentenced to concentration camps. However since there were considered to be expendable, they could best serve the Reich by disarming bombs. If they were killed in the process then so be it. The six men formed a tight-knit group and learned the expertise required to survive the war. Now upon returning to Berlin, the British solicit their services to disarm dud bombs that have fallen throughout the city. As an inducement the men are offered high salaries, comfortable apartments and double rations- quite an offer for a city that was left in poverty and on the brink of starvation. The men agree to the plan even though they know that they will face death every day. The group is dominated by two strong-willed men: Eric Koertner (Jack Palance), a sullen but honest man who is nursing psychological wounds from the war that are never satisfactorily explained and Karl Wirtz (Jeff Chandler), a selfish man of few morals who puts a good time above everything else. The six men end up making a pact with a morbid premise: they will each contribute half of their salaries into a pot over a period of three months. Knowing there is a good chance at least some of them will die in the course of their work, the survivors will split the proceeds at the end of the "game". What starts out as a rather tasteless exercise takes on greater resonance when, indeed, over the course of several weeks numerous members of the group are indeed killed in the line of duty. Adding to the tensions is the deteriorating relationship between Eric and Karl, who must share the same apartment with Margot Hofer (Martine Carol), a beautiful young French woman who is persona-non grata in her native country because her late husband had been a German soldier who was part of the occupying forces in Paris. These three troubled souls are forced to inhabit the same living quarters and inevitably sexual tensions arise. Eric is slowly falling for Margot on an emotional level while Karl clearly just wants to take physical advantage of her. Predictably the end of the film finds the two men as the last living members of their group and who are engaged in working together on a particularly dangerous disarmament of a bomb from which only one will emerge alive.
"Ten Seconds to Hell" falls short in several key aspects. If there is a sure-fire way to ensure on-screen suspense it revolves around having someone desperately having to disarm an explosive device. Yet director Aldrich fails to wring much suspense out of these premises. Additionally the characters are not very well-defined. We never really get to know the reasons behind Eric's moody personality. We learn he was a prominent architect prior to the war but the script hints at much deeper insights into the man that never materialize. Additionally, Karl is such a loathsome, self-centered and untrustworthy man that one wonders why the group chooses to include him among them in their post-war assignments. Not helping matters is that this is yet another Tower of Babel-like film production in which some of the supporting characters have quasi-German accents while the male leads all talk with varying American accents that make it hard to accept them as German nationals. Aldrich deserves kudos for thinking outside the box and presenting the post-war period from the standpoint of those on the losing side but the distraction of hearing known American stars such as Palance and Chandler speak as though they are in a Western proves to be a minor undoing of the film. Still, "Ten Seconds to Hell" is an efficiently-made thriller and boasts some memorable aspects such as a sequence in which one of the group is trapped under a fallen bomb while a dilapidated building threatens to fall on top of him and his would-be rescuers. At the time the film was made in 1959 there were still plenty of bombed-out neighborhoods in West Berlin and Aldrich and art director Ken Adam take full advantage, providing some eerie backdrops for the film's most pivotal scenes. I also enjoyed the byplay between Chandler, Palance and Martine Carol who makes for a sympathetic figure- a woman who could not help but fall in love with an average German soldier despite the fact that her country had fallen to the army he represented. In many ways her character is the most interesting of all the protagonists. Palance gives one of his more restrained performances and refrains from hamming it up, as he could frequently do. Chandler is effective playing against type as a charismatic villain.
The Blu-ray transfer is flawless and does justice to the stark black-and-white cinematography. An original trailer is included and, as was the practice of the day, its typically bombastic in its promises to provide riveting screen entertainment.
Though the 1966 space-age vampire flick Queen of Blood is not new to home video,
it has been one of the more elusive science-fiction titles of the 1960s. Issued on VHS as Planet of Blood back in the early 1980s on the budget “Star
Classics†label and later in 1990 on a much improved laser disc from Image (paired
with Mario Bava’s similarly-themed Planet
of the Vampires), Queen of Blood has
been mostly unavailable to collectors for nearly twenty-five years. In March 2011 MGM finally re-issued the title
as part of its Limited Edition Collection,
but only as a made-on-demand release. In
2015, Kino Lorber has – very happily for genre fans and collectors - rescued
this title from the wasteland of cult-film marginalia with their superb Blu-Ray
release of this Roger Corman-Curtis Harrington classic.
Queen
of Blood (for reasons we’ll get into a little later on) more
resembles a 1950s sci-fi B-film than one from a decade on. Astronauts Allan Brenner (John Saxon) and Laura
James (Judi Meredith) are co-workers at the International
Institute of Space Technology. The
agency is developing plans to send a spacecraft to Mars and Venus but James’
works seems terribly mundane: she sits
in the radio room diligently monitoring the stream of white-noise signals
emanating from outer-space. Listening
for endless hours at this “music of the spheres†(as Brenner describes the monotonous
stream), James might be doing important work; but it doesn’t seem – at first – that
she enjoys a particularly exciting forty-hour work week. That is not until the radio she monitors starts
picking up an unusual transmission.
Expert cryptographists and cipher analysts are brought
in and quickly decipher the spectral message from the cosmos. They’re excited to learn that seemingly
friendly and curious ambassadors from an un-specified planet are en route to visit
planet earth. The scientists are obviously
thrilled by the prospect, and one can appreciate the excitement of the
world-renown Dr. Farraday (Basil Rathbone) as he triumphantly crows via a loudspeaker
that the greatest of historical summits is imminent. But the euphoria on campus is short-lived. The planned meeting seems to take an unpredicted
turn for the worse when a second message is received. It seems the alien’s spacecraft has
crash-landed on a Martian moon and its surviving single occupant asks that a
space craft be dispatched to collect. This is where, of course, the trouble begins.
A rescue mission is arranged, with Brenner, James, Paul
Grant (Dennis Hopper) and Dr. Anders Brockman (Robert Boon) in tow. The alien spacecraft has crashed on the
Martian moon of Phobos and it’s there that the crew will have their first
face-to-face meeting with the titular Queen
of Blood (Florence Marley). With her
green skin, crimson red lips, and mod bee-hive hair-do (initially hidden by the
rugby-ball shaped leather helmet she wears), it must be said that the visitor
cuts a startling figure. Brockman
suggests the space-ambassador’s green-tint is likely due to the presence of chlorophyll
in her genetic make-up, that the emissary’s DNA might be more akin to that of a
plant. If the Queen is a sophisticated plant, as the astronaut opines,
it’s safe to say she’s more Venus fly-trap than sunflower.
Paul’s gentle entreaties to the alien are both warm and
genuine. He tries to get her to sip some water but her disingenuous eyes
are mistaken as windows of affection. In reality, the Queen is not
displaying any romantic interest in Paul (as embodied by the still strikingly
young Dennis Hopper). She is, in fact, sizing up the naive astronaut as a
possible future meal. We soon learn the reason the Queen has not partaken
in any of the previous meals offered; she’s more intent on feeding on the warm
blood of the crew. There haven’t been any screams in the night to alert
them to the menace. The Queen first hypnotizes her intended prey and then, much
like a vampire bat, uses her saliva to serve as a numbing agent, dulling the pain
of the incisors as they stab into her victim. Once wise to the treachery,
the astronauts – still determined to bring her back to earth as the scientific
find of the ages – feeds her the ship’s store of blood plasma. This works
out OK until that limited supply is exhausted and they’re still far from earth.
The back-story to this film is nearly as interesting as
the film itself. The imaginative and extraterrestrial scenes were Soviet in
origin, the outer-space sequences shot entirely at the Odessa film studios in
the Ukraine, just off the shoreline of the Black Sea. The space-footage featured in Queen of Blood had been primarily sourced
from the 1963 Soviet film Mechte
Navstrechu (“A Dream
Come Trueâ€) (1963), directed by Mikhail Karzhukov and Otar Koberidze. In what would prove to be the first salvo of
the C.C.C.P. vs. U.S. space-race, the Soviet Union would launch Sputnik in
October of 1957. It was the first
successful satellite launch in world history and Soviet filmmakers were
encouraged to celebrate this glowing achievement of socialism with Eastern bloc
neighbors in the form of cinematic paeans. The multitude of imaginative space-age film tapestries created in the
wake of the Sputnik launch were truly impressive; the Soviet depictions of space-ways
were majestically conceived presentations combining vibrant colors, eerie
Martian landscapes, rotating spherical objects, state-of-the-art visual
effects, and futuristic set decoration.
Roger Corman
happened upon seeing several of these magnificent space-epics in a cinema in
east Hollywood. Thrilled by the
sophistication of the on-screen imagery, Corman would travel to the Soviet
Union and arrange licensing rights for a package of Soviet sci-fi films through
Mosfilm, the official-organ of the state-run motion-picture industry. Corman wasn’t interested in releasing the
films in the U.S. in their original – and very political - forms. He recognized the Soviet films were littered
with heavy-handed doses of anti-Americanism and thinly disguised metaphorical proselytisms
of socialist-internationalism. Corman
was primarily interested in re-cutting and re-dubbing the Soviet films for
consumption by a decidedly non-ideological U.S. audience. Queen
of Blood would not be Corman’s first experiment with such
re-constitution. Two of his earliest
efforts in re-dubbing and incorporating new footage to westernize his package
of Russian sci-fi films were Voyage to
the Prehistoric Planet (1965) and Battle
Beyond the Sun (1962).
In the case
of Mechte Navstrechu, a film mostly
plundered for use in Queen of Blood,
its rosy scenario of peaceful co-existence between the planets was not commercially
viable. Instead Corman envisioned the film
as a space-age version of a “traditional gothic vampire story.†As he was busy working on other projects, Corman
arranged for director Curtis Harrington to shoot new scenes with an American
and British cast and then seamlessly blend these segments into the existing
Russian space-footage. In one of the
supplements, Corman mildly boasts that many scholars have mused that the
low-budget Queen of Blood might have
very well been the template for the big-budget box-office smash Alien (1979). This is at least partly true, but Queen of Blood itself was largely a
re-working of the It! The Terror from
Beyond Space†(1958). Sci-fi and horror film buffs will also detect the
not-so-subtle allusions to the famous Twilight
Zone episode “To Serve Man†(broadcast March 2, 1962) as well as Mario
Bava’s Planet of the Vampires (1965).
Having already made a considerable investment in his licensing
of the Soviet films, executive producer Corman was rather stingy with the
financing of its American cousin. Harrington was only apportioned somewhere in
the region of $40,000 to $65,000 – depending on what source you’re to believe -
to re-constitute the original Soviet production into a commercial commodity. Though John Saxon had earned a reputation for
professionalism as an actor – he already had two-dozen or so films to his
credit - his star had not yet completely risen. Seventy-three year-old Basil Rathbone was brought in for a day’s work to
augment the bill as the seasoned actor enjoyed name recognition amongst genre
fans.
There’s no trouble identifying the Harrington-shot
footage from the original Soviet - and this is not a knock against his
direction. To keep production costs down the U.S. control-room sets had
been, very clearly, constructed from wood elements purposefully painted silver
as to project a metallic sheen. As seamless
merging of the original film with new footage was paramount to the film’s
success, a great amount of attention – and budget - was given to the art department
to authentically mimic the design of the original space-suits and helmets worn
by cosmonauts in the original film.
Regardless of such penny-pinching shortfalls, Queen
of Blood is one of the more eerie space-films of the era. This is
mostly due to Harrington’s ingenious use of shadowy silhouettes as an
inexpensive but effective method to convey tension and suspense. Most of the memorable on-screen gloominess of
Queen of Blood is the result of the
unblinking, emotionless eyes of Czech actress Florence Marley. It was a
masterstroke not to give Marley’s green-tinted alien any dialogue – it would
have surely diluted the effect of her menacing countenance. Watching her cold
eyes follow the doomed crew-members aboard the spacecraft with a cold,
reptilian-like disengagement is positively chilling.
This Kino Lorber Blu-Ray release
features the film as 1080p high-definition widescreen (1:85:1) transfer. Supplements include an interview with Roger
Corman, who provides his never-less-than usual amiable but cogent overview of
things, including a reminiscence of when first introduced to the Soviet
science-fiction films in a theater in east Hollywood. The nitty-gritty of the Queen of Blood production is more thoroughly examined in a second
interview, this time featuring the commentary of with Oscar-winning visual
effects specialist Robert Skotak. Skotak
is as much historian as artist (he’s the author of “IB Melchior: Man of Imagination†(Midnight Marquee Press), and
muses knowledgably and at some length on all aspects of this great
“Bâ€-film. The original theatrical
trailer of Queen of Blood rounds out
the special features.
Guillermo Del Toro is set to direct a long-planned, often delayed big screen remake of the 1966 sci-fi hit "Fantastic Voyage". James Cameron is behind the plans to bring the remake to reality. The film centers on a group of scientists who are miniaturized and inserted into the body of another prominent scientist in order to remove a blood clot that has endangered his life. Matters of international security depend upon successful completion of the mission but things go awry and endanger the would-be rescuers. The original film, directed by Richard Fleischer, was acclaimed for its (then) state-of-the-art special effects. The film also provided an early career hit for young Raquel Welch who was then a contract player at 20th Century Fox. Other original cast members included Stephen Boyd, Edmond O'Brien and Donald Pleasence. The remake is still in its early stages with no completed script and no casting decided upon.
Warner Home Entertainment has recently released their
special edition DVD of director Joe Dante’s “Innerspace†on Blu-ray. The 1987
film is a sci-fi comedy that afforded Martin Short and Meg Ryan early career leading roles in a tale of inspired lunacy. The premise of the script centers on a narcissistic former military test pilot Tuck Pendelton (Dennis Quaid) who volunteers for an unprecedented scientific experiment. Doctors have the technology to shrink him and inject him into the body of a rabbit. They also obviously have the ability to bring him back into the outside world where he can resume his normal activities at his normal size. The purpose of the experiment is to allow medical technicians to eventually inject operatives into human beings so that they can perform miracle surgeries. However, there are some bad guys who are looking to benefit from the amazing technology by selling it to the highest bidder. After Tuck has been reduced inside a hypodermic needle, there is an altercation between the villains and scientists. A chase ensues that extends outside of the laboratory. By happenstance, Jack Putter (Martin Short), a nondescript grocery store clerk, is injected by the needle. The result is that Tuck is now floating around the bloodstream of an unwitting, innocent man. The laughs result from Tuck's ability to communicate with Jack and convince him of what is happening. Drawn into the mix is Tuck's girlfriend Lydia (Meg Ryan), who Jack befriends at Tuck's urging. In the zany antics that follow, Lydia is finally convinced of the fantastic scenario after she has become targeted by the head villain, a zillionaire named Scrimshaw (Kevin McCarthy). By then, there is a desperate race against time to get Tuck back into the real world before he becomes a permanent part of Jack's DNA.
"Innerspace" is a throwback to an era when major studios would routinely turn out family friendly comedies that were devoid of today's mandatory gross-out jokes and mean-spirited pranks. The entire cast seems to be having a blast under Dante's direction, perhaps because his films are glorious evidence that he has never grown out of the wonder of the types of films that appealed to him as a kid. The movie is a particular triumph of sorts for Martin Short, who proved he could carry a major budget production as a leading man. The special effects hold up extremely well even today (no surprise the film won an Oscar in this category).
We caught up with Dante all these years later to ask him to reflect on his thoughts about "Innerspace".
CINEMA RETRO: How do you feel the film holds up into today's modern age?
JOE DANTE: I've always liked it and I had a lot of fun making it. I think you can tell when you watch it.
CR: It's especially evident listening to the commentary track on the Blu-ray. It's no secret that you have been heavily influenced in your work by the classic and cult horror and sci-fi movies of your youth. Is it fair to say that "Innerspace" was a satire of "Fantastic Voyage"?
JD: I can't vouch for that because I wasn't in on the creation of it. When I was first offered it, the script had no comedy at all. I didn't think it worked that way so I went off and did something else. When I came back, they had a new writer and he approached it as comedy from the concept of what would happen if we shrank Dean Martin down and injected him inside Jerry Lewis. That was a concept I could relate to.
CR: Steven Spielberg executive produced the film. Was he involved before you were?
JD: Actually no, because I was offered the picture by Peter Guber when it was in its serious incarnation. During the time I went off to do something else, Spielberg had become involved. He was probably an impetus for turning it into a comedy.
CR: Did he have any constraints on you regarding your vision of the film?
JD: The atmosphere at Amblin was pretty free. The thing Steven would do is protect you from the studio and sometimes from the other producers. It was a very filmmaker-friendly atmosphere over there. You got all the best equipment and all the best people and all the toys you wanted to play with. Plus you had somebody on your side who was also a filmmaker and they knew exactly what you were talking about when you had a problem or you had a question.
CR: In terms of casting, you seemed to have your own stock company of actors you liked to work with: Dick Miller, William Schallert, Rance Howard, Orson Bean, Kathleen Freeman and even Kenneth Tobey.
JD: I think when you look at a director's filmography, you see the same faces popping up all the time because these people are copacetic and sometimes they become your friend. You originally hire them because you like their work and you like to watch them do their stuff so, whether it's Ingmar Bergman, Preston Sturges or John Ford, they have "go to" people that they put into almost every one of their pictures. The only down side comes when you have made a lot of movies and now you have a lot of people you want to include but, of course, you don't have parts for them.
CR: That tradition doesn't seem to be as prevalent today.
JD: That's because the business has changed so much. The movies aren't made in one locale anymore. There are less opportunities for an actor to shine over and over in a supporting role because when a movie goes to Canada or Australia, you have to use their local people. All those people who built up followings from television and movies and sometimes even radio were constantly being seen by people. Today there's just no opportunity to do that. Not only are there less movies, there are fewer roles and most of the films aren't made in Hollywood any longer.
CR: With "Innerspace", were the leading roles already cast before you got involved? Did you rely much on the casting director?
JD: No, once you are involved with a movie, you're in on all those decisions. The good thing about casting directors is that you can tell them who you want to see and they have the ability to make that happen. They make deals, they make contracts. I was using Mike Fenton, who was one of the best casting directors in the business at the time. Many of my best pictures were cast by Mike. Today, it's a little more piecemeal because so many of the movies aren't made here. So you have dual casting directors. You have the Hollywood casting director and the Canadian casting director. When it gets down to the smaller roles, they almost always cast in the locality you are shooting in. I made enough movies in Vancouver that I actually started to build up a Vancouver stock company because the talent pool there isn't that vast. I sort of bemoan the fact that actors don't have the opportunity for that kind of career longevity. When they decided to start giving all that money to the stars it came out of the casting budget. All of a sudden there wasn't much money for the supporting actors.
Screenwriter and producer Brian Clemens has passed away at age 83 in his native England. Clemens wrote scripts for some of the most revered British television programs of the 1960s and 1970s including "Danger Man" (aka "Secret Agent"), "The Avengers", "The Persuaders", "The Professionals", "The Baron" and "The New Avengers". Clemens also produced or executive produced several of the aforementioned shows. He also contributed single episode scripts for other popular shows including "Highlander", "The Protectors" and "Remington Steele". Clemens wrote numerous scripts for "Father Dowling Mysteries" and three "Perry Mason" TV movies in the early 1990s. A prolific writer, he also wrote screenplays for feature films beginning in the 1950s. His credits include "Station Six Sahara", "The Corrupt Ones" (aka "The Peking Medallion"), "See No Evil", "The Golden Voyage of Sinbad", Disney's "The Watcher in the Woods", "Highlander II: The Quickening" and the Hammer horror film "Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter", which he also directed and produced. According to his son, Clemens was still actively involved in working on scripts when he passed away on Saturday. In 2010, he was honored by the Queen for his significant contributions to British broadcasting and drama. For more click here.
Fans of legendary director Brian De Palma
lovingly recall how the auteur’s early thrillers contained at least one sequence
which employed the split-screen technique (a device by which two moving images
are projected simultaneously onto separate parts of the screen). This
technique, when used properly, is capable of generating extreme suspense and
involvement in an already enthralled audience. De Palma masterfully used the
split-screen in his still-underrated, 1973 debut thriller, Sisters (as well as in many of his later cinematic masterpieces
such as Carrie and Dressed to Kill), milking certain scenes
for every bit of tension and suspense possible. Now, if the split-screen was
that effective in just a few sequences, wouldn’t using it throughout an entire
film cause maximum suspense and entertainment? That’s the question the
filmmakers of Wicked, Wicked not only
asked, but bravely attempted to answer.
Writer-director Richard L. Bare came up
with the idea of filming an entire movie in split-screen (here dubbed
Duo-Vision) while simply driving home one day. Bare, who is best known for
directing most episodes of the 1960s sitcom Green
Acres, saw the line that divided the road and realized that he was viewing
one side of the freeway and the other simultaneously. He immediately decided to
shoot an entire movie this way. The idea proved to be quite a Herculean
undertaking as Bare had to first write a script which constantly contained two
separate scenes side by side where, normally, there would be only one. More
than up for the challenge, Bare came up with a story involving a disturbed,
young man (Randolph Roberts from Happy Days)
with a mommy fixation who murders any blonde-haired women that happen to be
staying at the old hotel where he’s currently employed. (The young madman also
lives inside the walls of the hotel where he can easily spy on all the guests,
making the plot a fun combination of The
Phantom of the Opera and Psycho.)
The hotel detective (Another World’sDavid Bailey) races against time while
desperately trying to find and stop the masked lunatic before he can reach his
next target: the beautiful hotel lounge singer (played by the always welcome
Tiffany Bolling from Kingdom of the
Spiders who belts out all of this film’s many tunes herself). The unique
movie also features several highly recognizable faces from 1960s/70s cinema and
television such as Scott Brady (The Night
Strangler), Edd Byrnes (Grease),
Madeleine Sherwood (The Flying Nun),
Diane McBain (Spinout), Roger Bowen (M.A.S.H.,1970) and Arthur O’Connell (Fantastic
Voyage). Due to the split-screen
process, the actual filming took double the time it normally would have and the
film’s budget doubled as well. It also took a whopping 32 weeks to edit Wicked, Wicked which is about five times
the amount it would have taken to edit a standard film.
So, was Duo-Vision worth it? Overall, I
have to say no. I think the film would have worked just fine without it (as
well as saved a lot of time and money) because the split-screen really doesn’t
accomplish all it should in terms of suspense here. Also, seeing two actions
simultaneously may be interesting at first, but, after about ten minutes, you
get used to it and it feels just like any other movie. This process really only
works when it heightens the suspense, a la De Palma, and, unfortunately,
Richard Bare, although more than competent, is not in the same league as the
master filmmaker. That being said, I enjoyed the film itself. Sure, the story
is derivative and a bit (intentionally) silly in spots, but it’s still an
entertaining enough psychofilm with a solid, likeable cast and a fun hotel
setting. I also recommend checking it out in order to see the results of the
time and effort the filmmakers put into this extremely ambitious project.
Wicked, Wicked has been released
as a DVD-R from Warner Archive. The film is presented in its original 2:35:1
aspect ratio and, although the colors seem a bit washed out, the movie is more
than watchable. It’s also the only way you may be able to see this film at the
moment due to the fact that Warner most likely has no plans to release it in a
re-mastered version. (Most titles released in the DVD-R format aren’t really in
high enough demand, so money won’t be spent to re-master them properly.) The
audio is terrific and the disc also contains the original theatrical trailer
(which isn’t in Duo-Vision, but, color-wise, is actually much more vibrant than
the film itself) as well as the eye-catching, original poster artwork which is
featured on the DVD’s sleeve, menu and disc itself.
Except
maybe for Michael Caine and Ernest Borgnine, has any other actor ever starred
in more movies, ranging more widely from classic (“A Star Is Born,†“North by
Northwest,†“Lolitaâ€) to cult (“The Pumpkin Eater,†“Cross of Ironâ€), to the
campy and B-level titles that partially rounded out the final two decades of
his career (“Bad Man’s River,†“Mandingoâ€),
than James Mason (1909-1984)?
Two
releases from the Warner Archive Collection showcase Mason’s versatility in
mid-career films that could hardly be farther apart in theme and subject
matter.
“The
Decks Ran Red†(1958) was one of Mason’s two collaborations with
producer/director Andrew L. Stone in the late ‘50s. Ed Rummill (Mason), a hardworking and
ambitious first officer on a luxury liner, is offered the command of the S.S.
Berwind, a merchant ship, after the previous captain unexpectedly dies. “You might be smart to pass this up,†one of
his superiors cautions, noting that the Berwind has a restless crew and a
troubled history. Rummill eagerly jumps
at the opportunity for advancement anyway. Presently, flying to the remote New Zealand port where the Berwind is
docked, his enthusiasm is dampened on
first sight of the ship: “As dirty, as miserable, as rusted-up an old tub as
I’d ever seen.â€
But
dirt and rust are the least of his worries. Crewman Scott (Broderick Crawford), abetted by his crony Martin (Stuart
Whitman), begins to stir up mutiny even before the Berwind leaves port. Scott’s plan is this: after they put out to
sea, he’ll nudge the mutineers into killing Rummill and the other
officers. Then he and Martin in turn
will murder their fellow crewmen. Once
they dispose of the bodies, the two conspirators will partially scuttle the
ship and bring it in as an abandoned derelict, collecting a reward for
recovering the vessel: one million dollars, half the value of the Berwind and
its cargo. Further creating strife, a
beautiful woman comes aboard for the voyage (Dorothy Dandridge), the wife of
the new ship’s cook. Scott gleefully
figures that the presence of the “well-stacked doll†will ratchet tensions even
higher.
Stone’s
direction is so efficient and the sleek Mason and rumpled Crawford are so well
contrasted as the main antagonists that you’re tempted to overlook lapses in
logic and continuity as the movie proceeds. The ship’s routine appears so orderly and the crew so sedate that the
mutiny angle never really comes together. Stone seems to recognize about
halfway through that the narrative is about to stall, and so Scott abruptly
abandons the mutiny scheme, breaks out his stash of firearms, corners the
officers on the bridge, and with Martin’s help begins to pick off the other
crewmen. Rummill begins as a character
on a human scale, competent but fallible, but by the end of the movie, he’s
swimming across a choppy ocean and scaling the side of the ship like an action
hero for a final confrontation with Scott. Similarly, Dandridge’s character, Mahia, never quite seems to come into
focus either; calculatedly seductive one minute, scared and helpless the
next. An early scene suggests that she
will pose a sexual challenge to the happily married Rummill, as Mason muses in voiceover,
“It never entered my mind that the woman would be so sensuous and so exotically
beautiful.†But Rummill keeps hands off,
regarding her as more a nuisance on the already troubled ship than an object of
desire.
Perhaps
the movie is best enjoyed as the cinematic equivalent of 1950s men’s pulps like
“Male†and “Saga,†which marketed lurid tales of modern-day piracy, danger at
sea, and exotic sex as true stories. Mason’s voiceover narrative even has the same overheated prose
style: “There was a ship named the S.S.
Berwind. This is the story of that ship
. . . A story which actually happened .
. . A story of the most infamous, diabolically cunning crime in the annals of
maritime history.†The name “Ed Rummillâ€
is suspiciously similar to “Erwin Rommel,†Mason’s famous role in “The Desert
Fox†(1951); maybe Stone and Mason were having a little fun with the audience.
In
Sidney Lumet’s “The Sea Gull†(1968), an ensemble cast enacts Chekhov’s tragedy
of frustrated lives and misguided love in a circle of well-to-do landowners,
actors, and aspiring artists in late 19th Century Russia. Mason shares roughly equal screen time with
Simone Signoret, Vanessa Redgrave, David Warner, Harry Andrews, Alfred Lynch,
Denholm Elliott, and Kathleen Widdoes, but in a sense he’s first among equals.
He has top billing as Trigorin, a popular but second-rate novelist. He’s the subject of the first close-up in the
film in a brief, wordless scene added by Lumet and screenwriter Moura Budberg
that doesn’t appear in the original play. And the role of Trigorin is a pivotal one, whose actions lead to
calamity for two of the other characters in the final act.
It’s
laudable to see any attempt to bring classic literature to the screen,
especially these days, when the average person in the street, if asked to
identify Chekhov, probably would answer, “Isn’t he that guy from ‘Star
Trek’?†I give Lumet and his cast high
marks for ambition, even if they never quite surmount the challenge of translating
Chekhov’s complex, allusive work to the visual, kinetic medium of film.
Two
basic problems, one relating to casting and the other to performance, beset the
movie. While Warner and Redgrave are
fine actors, they’re too old at 27 and 31, respectively, to play Chekhov’s
Konstantin and Nina. I knew lots of kids
like Chekhov’s Konstantin in my college literature and drama courses, bright
but immature 20-year-olds with mother fixations. At 27, Warner seems like a case of arrested
development. Likewise, it’s affecting
when Chekhov’s 17- or 18-year-old Nina attaches herself to the older Trigorin,
and you realize, even if she doesn’t, that her infatuation will not end well;
Redgrave looks like a woman in her twenties who should know better. Mason doesn’t present the same disconnect
between appearance and behavior, but he brings a misplaced sense of gravity to
the role of the faintly absurd Trigorin. The disreputable Mason of “The Wicked Lady†(1945) and “The Prisoner of
Zenda†(1952) would better have served the role.
The
Warner Archive Collection editions are bare-bones DVDs without chapter stops,
subtitles, or significant extras. “The
Decks Ran Red†includes the theatrical trailer. The black-and-white transfer is acceptable, and there’s a startling
visual in the title credit, where “Red†in “The Decks Ran Red†stands out in
bleeding crimson against the monochromic background. They do the same thing now in “Sin City†with
computers; how did they do it in 1958? The transfer of “The Sea Gull†is somewhat soft, muting the Technicolor
cinematography, but not objectionable. There are no extra features.
(This review pertains to the limited edition Region 2 UK release from the BFI)
By Paul Risker
As
well as asking the question “Is cinema more important than life?†Francois
Truffaut showed a flair for statement when he declared Werner Herzog to be “The
most important filmmaker alive.â€
If
the BFI have the final word this summer, it will be remembered as the summer of
Herzog, as they align themselves with the German filmmaker and journey headlong
into his cinematic world. This rendezvous starts with a descent into the past with
two distinct forms of horror - the hallucinatory horror of human obsession in
Aguirre, Wrath of God and the genre horror Nosferatu.
Aguirre,
Wrath of God represents an important entry in Herzog's career, and by coupling it
with his 1971 feature documentary Fata Morgana, this release highlights the spatial
thread that runs through his cinema. From the jungle, the desert, Antarctica
and the urban geographical spaces resemble continents in Herzog’s cinema. Therein
the decision to offset Herzog's early foray into the jungle with an early
montage of images of the desert set to songs by Leonard Cohen is a fitting
accompaniment to Aguirre’s obsessive jungle march.
It
is theoretically possible to appreciate select films via the filmmaker’s commentary
on a first viewing, and Aguirre, Wrath of God is one of those films to support
such a theory. Herzog’s commentary intertwines well with the film, and whilst
the film functions as an independent entity - the grown up child who has come
of age and has been sent out into the world; Herzog’s words take you behind the
images to tell you the transparent narrative of the human experience behind the
film.
Whilst
in one sense the films exist separately of their filmmaker, in equal measure an
extension of him. In Aguirre, Wrath of God Herzog’s audacity to confront the inhospitable
jungle as well as the arduous nature of the filmmaking process finds him
mirrored in the tale of obsession and the obsessive nature of Don Lope de
Aguirre (Klaus Kinski).
Herzog’s
primary focus appears to be trained on the experience or sense of feeling the
film offers over the consideration of narrative, by opening himself up to the
environment as a source of inspiration. He allows the jungle to reveal its
nature and to guide him in creating an experience for him, his characters and
us the audience. Aguirre feels authentically gruelling, and lacks the
artificial feel of a performance, merging the physical and psychological
experience of a trek, and despite the improvisational approach, Herzog manages
to create a melodic flow amidst the arduous natural terrain, imbuing it with
graceful beauty despite the descent into an obsessive voyage of death.
Aguirre,
Wrath of God offers a powerful meditation on a theme of insanity - the susceptibility
versus the immunity. Whilst Kinski’s Aguirre floats on the surface in a state
of disquieting peace, his counterparts are inevitably dragged beneath the calm
surface. Kinski’s delivers a pitch perfect performance, both his idle and glaring
stare offset against the awkward physical movements that masterfully merge the
physical abruptness with a shade of a devilish soul.
The
jungle setting affords Herzog the opportunity to take advantage of the space
and setting as a mirror to reflect his characters psychology - the wildness of
their natures, and the labyrinth of obsession that the winding river becomes a
metaphor for. But the fatalities suffered by the native’s offers a reflection
that man is his own undoing, and mother nature is only a backdrop or a
reflection capable of showing us both our Jekyll and Hyde.
Aguirre
sits as the opening chapter in the tumultuous Kinski-Herzog collaboration; the
full story of which was wonderfully told in Herzog’s 1999 documentary My Best Fiend.
This relationship imbues Herzog’s career with a shade of folklore. If Woody
Allen listed reasons to live, then one of the reasons to be grateful for
Aguirre, Wrath of God is Herzog’s infamous threat to shoot Kinski. Whilst
disputes on set are not unheard of, Kinski and Herzog pushed into the realm of
the absurd. Whilst the two men plotted each other’s murder together they created
a series of films that have come to represent one of the great cinematic
collaborations in the history of film. But the distortion of these stories has
imbued them with a sense of myth; where what happened differs to what we think
happened. The stories of threats of physical harm and fleeing native tribes
could be read as filmic parables or cautionary tales for other filmmakers. If
the story of the making of a film can be just as compelling as the narrative
that plays out onscreen, the Kinski-Herzog dance more often than not produced such
a compelling second narrative. What better place to start than with Aguirre,
Wrath of God where this collaboration was born.
Alongside
a fine selection of extras including an old commentary track moderated by
Norman Hill and the montage documentary Fata Morgana, included on this release
are three early shorts that see Herzog experiment with the subjective and
objective perspective of his characters. An entertaining trilogy representing a
young filmmaker cutting his teeth, they present him as a filmmaker fascinated
by human nature, behaviour and personality from the very dawn of his filmmaking
career.
Some of the international movie posters presented in Cinema Retro issue #28, which features in-depth coverage of the making of Zulu.
By Brian Hannan
The 50th
anniversary showing of Zulu in Britain next month is unlikely to be
repeated in the U.S. where the film flopped. But even the poorest box-office performer has an afterlife. So in 1965 Zulu was pushed out again anywhere that
would have it. That meant it supported some odd, not to say ugly, bedfellows –
exploitationer Taboos of the World in
Kansas City, The Three Stooges in The
Outlaws Is Coming in Phoenix, B
western Stage To Thunder Rock in Long Beach, How to Stuff a Wild Bikini in Des Moines and Rhino in Abilene. They liked it in Long Beach where it supported both
Circus World and That Man from Rio. It was the second feature to None But the Brave in Provo, Utah, and to
two more successful Joe E. Levine movies, Yesterday,
Today and Tomorrow in Ironwood, Michigan, and Marriage, Italian Style in Corpus Christi, Texas. Triple bills
being a staple of drive-ins, it was seen with Viva Las Vegas and Beach
Party in Tucson.
But it was not just support
meat. Almost a year after its release, it topped the bill in Helena, Montana,
with Robert Mitchum in Man in the Middle
as support. In Chester it was the main attraction with Homicidal in support. In Weimar, Texas, it was supported by Tarzan the Magnificent and in Bridgeport
by First Men on the Moon. At the
Cecil theatre in Mason City, Iowa, it played on its own, as it did in Colorado
Springs where it was advertised as “in the great tradition of Beau Geste†(supply your own exclamation
marks.)
But it was not done yet.
Exhibitors in San Mateo had a soft spot for Zulu in 1966. It played there seven
times, as support to The Great Race, Marlon Brando western Appaloosa, Fantastic Voyage
(in two theaters), What’s Up Tiger Lily?, The Leather
Boys and Lawrence of Arabia.
Abilene brought it back twice, for a re-match with Rhino and then in a double bill with Kimberley Jim starring singer Jim Reeves when it was promoted as “a
true story of the Zulu tribe.†Fremont cinemas also ran in twice – with Return of the Seven and Fantastic Voyage. In Troy and Bennington
it rode shotgun with Elvis in Harum
Scarum. In Charleston it supported Arabesque,
in Winona The Second Best Secret Agent and in Long Beach What Did You Do in the War, Daddy?
The highlight of 1967 had to
be a double bill with The Daleks (Dr Who and the Daleks) in Delaware, or
perhaps the teaming with Batman in
Cumberland, Maryland, or El Cid in
Ottawa. Zulu returned twice to
Fremont to support Africa Addio and John
Sturges’ Hour of the Gun. In Modesto
it played with Where The Spies Are.
In Long Beach it was put on at a pop concert where the headline act was
Organized Confusion (anybody remember them?). These three years of repeated
showings hardly counted as a proper reissue, but it did cast an interesting
light on what may – or may not – have turned into something of a cult film. In
Britain, where it was a smash hit, it was reissued on the ABC circuit in 1967
and 1972/
Brian Hannan is the author
of the forthcoming The Reissue Bible.
Twilight Time has released the 1966 epic Khartoum as a Blu-ray special edition. Officially the film was a Cinerama production but the process used was 70mm, not the original Cinerama three-strip format. The film, impressively directed by Basil Dearden, was met with respectable, if unenthusiastic, reviews upon its initial release. The boxoffice take was also anemic especially in the all-important American market where the film's historical basis was largely unknown to U.S. audiences. However, Khartoum has always had enthusiastic defenders and their ranks seem to be growing as the years pass, especially in an age when such "thinking man's epics" are few and far between. The film boasts two magnificent performances by two larger-than-life stars. Charlton Heston stars as General "Chinese" Gordon, so named because of his record of military victories in China. Laurence Olivier is The Mahdi, the self-described religious prophet who is on a fanatical course to convert everyone in the Arab world to either convert to Islam or die a violent death. The film opens with an excellent prologue that gives a snap shot of the political situation in the 1880s and how this affected the British empire. Britain was allied with Egypt at the time and considered itself to be that nation's military protector. The Mahdi took advantage of the politically fluid situation in the Sudan to gain a major foothold in taking over the government by commanding a growing army of fanatical followers. The Mahdi hated the Egyptians because he felt they were too secular and their ties to the West had sold out their religious obligations to Islam. The Egyptians feared that the Mahdi's growing power would leave them unable to defeat him in an all-out war should he ultimately seize control of the Sudan. The British sent an officer corps to lead Egyptian troops in a preemptive strike against the Mahdi. However, the religious leader outwitted them by drawing the invaders into the oppressive desert and then slaughtering the exhausted soldiers. The Mahdi was now making his move to take control of the crown jewel of the Sudan, the city of Khartoum which is situated on the banks of the Nile.
The film presents the British Prime Minister, William Gladstone (Ralph Richardson) as going against the tide of England's obsession with colonialism. He doesn't want anything to do with sending a major force into the Middle East to combat an army of religious zealots- yet he feels a sense of obligation to make at least a token effort to evacuate a significant number of Egyptian citizens from Khartoum before the Mahdi lays siege to the city. He reluctantly sends General Gordon on a mission that is very much doomed from its inception. Gordon was highly respected in the Sudan, having ended the slave trade there. He is stubborn, arrogant and generally ignores orders. However, he is regarded as a virtual saint by the Sudanese. Gladstone calculates that by sending Gordon of a fool's errand, he will take the blame if his mission fails. Gordon sees through the ploy but his ego gets the better of him and he accepts the challenge. He is accompanied by Col. Stewart (Richard Johnson), who acts as his right hand man even though he admits to being a personal spy for Gladstone. The abrasive relationship between Gordon and Stewart eventually turns to mutual respect and the two men work together on thwarting the Mahdi's plans. Upon arrival in Khartoum, Gordon abandons his primary mission which is to evacuate Egyptian nationals down the Nile via riverboat. Instead, he makes a daring visit to the Mahdi's camp and attempts to get the "prophet" to show mercy on the citizens of the city. When the Mahdi makes clear he intends to slaughter every man, woman and child who does not swear loyalty to him, Gordon informs his adversary that he will mount a defense of the city. Gordon sends Stewart on the long voyage back to England to blackmail Gladstone into sending a British military expeditionary force. Gladstone is outraged but agrees to do so because the British public is impressed with Gordon's courage and the gallantry of his mission. Meanwhile, in Khartoum, Gordon sets about fortifying the city- and praying that the British troops arrive before the Mahdi can advance upon the city, the garrison of which is greatly outnumbered.
Khartoum is a lavish epic that boasts fine performances across the board. The action sequences are thrilling and spectacularly filmed and the entire production impresses on every level. The Twilight Time Blu-ray does point out the film's flaws, however. In the commentary track by film historians Lem Dobbs, Nick Redman and Julie Kirgo (the latter two are among the founders of the video label), they rather pointedly call out various aspects of the movie for falling short. In the aggregate, they believe Khartoum is a Wal-mart version of a David Lean epic. They observe (correctly) that there are some really bad rear screen projection shots and that most of the production was filmed at England's Pinewood Studios, with on-location Middle East filming spread out to look more extensive than it actually was. There is also criticism of the historical aspects of the film. Apparently Gordon was as much a fanatic for Christianity as the Mahdi was for Islam- indeed, he sounds as though he was a complete crackpot. None of that is alluded to in the script, which obviously intended to present Gordon as a more traditional hero. Amusingly, every now and then the trio of film historians remind the viewer (and each other) that they really do like Khartoum, but then they quickly get back to tearing it down. Other justifiable criticisms they have is that the film presents some impressive British character actors in the London sequences but fails to utilize them in any meaningful way. They just stand around like props. It is also observed that the two meetings between Gordon and the Mahdi that are depicted in the movie never took place in real life. Call it commerce over historical accuracy, as the studio wasn't about to disappoint viewers from enjoying the smartly-written byplay between the two leads. Redman, Dobbs and Kirgo also appropriately give credit to famed stunt director Yakima Canutt for bringing the film's stirring battle sequences to fruition- and they heap lukewarm praise on composer Frank Cordell for what this reviewer thinks is actually a magnificent score. In totality, much of the joy of this Twilight Time release comes through the informative audio commentary, even if you may disagree with our "hosts". The transfer is magnificent and the release boasts the usual excellent collector's booklet with liner notes by Julie Kirgo. An original trailer is included as is a cool compilation trailer promoting the 90th anniversary of MGM.
The region free release is limited to 3,000 units.
