The great Antonio Margheriti directed this Naples/New York Crime film.

                                                   Antonio Margheriti

It starred Yul Brynner in what turned out to be his last film role.It also starred the lovely Barbara Bouchet, who I had the pleasure of having dinner with before a double bill of her films at the New Beverly. She was very nice.

She has said that Yul was difficult and she did not like working with him. Too Bad.

He is such a unique talent. He’s a musician, plays the guitar and sings. He was also one of the first Live TV directors in NYC. Sydney Lumet was his assistant and looked up to him like a God. Then he started acting and directing went by the wayside. An amazing screen presence, really unique.  This film is kind of a ripoff of the Charles Bronson movie The Mechanic. But I actually think I like the ending in this one better. It’s more Italian I guess. Martin Balsam also appears as the beleagured Cheif of Police and turns in his usual solid performance. Maybe Yul was already sick from the disease that would kill him a few years later, maybe that’s why he was hard to get along with. I don’t know, I think he signed a 2 picture deal with Margheriti but they never made the second one.  For me Margheriti is at his best in Outer Space, making SciFi operas on a shoestring budget that look amazing.

Supposedly Stanley Kubrick called him to work on 2001 but Margheriti said No.  He did wind up working on Andy Warhols Frankenstein, there’s a bit of controversy about who directed what between him and Paul Morrissey. I should have asked Udo Kier when I met him but I didn’t think of it.  Anyway this film mainly appeals to me because it is Yul Brynner’s last. I don’t know it gives it an even more melancholy feel than the ususal Italian Melancholy vibe. And as I said I like the ending, it felt a bit tagged on at first but it paid off with an unexpected emotional twinge. So check it out if you’re a fan of Yul or Antonio or Barbara.

I just watched Edgar G. Ulmers film Bluebeard. It is a classic example of doing a lot with a little. A period piece set in 19th century Paris. It stars John Carradine as Bluebeard. I think it’ s his best performance of all time. Most of the time he was reduced to playing a jerk, a sidekick, a nut. Here he is the handsome leading man, even though he is a psychotic killer.  Bravo to Mr. Carradine.

Carradine plays a mad artist, a painter who turns to puppetry when he can no longer paint. The marionettes in the film are outstanding. There is a whole section of a puppet performance in the park and it is great! I noticed in the credits one of the two puppeteers was a Robert Baker, who later went on to open the world Famous Bob Baker Marionettes Theater in Los Angeles.

The film is photographed by Edgar’s old friend from Germany, Eugene Schufftan. Schufftan is not credited as D.P. because he was not in the Union so he got Production Designer credit. Ulmer always wanted to use him as he was an incredible CameraMan. Check out Robert Rossen’s The Hustler. Schufftan also invented an in-camera optical effect called The Schufftan Process. Where you scratched off a small section of a mirror, photographed the reflection of a miniature set in the mirror and had your actors standing far enough behind the mirror to fit in the opening you scratched away. Thus creating the illusion that they were standing on the parapet of a Castle or in front of a renaissance building.

But back to Bluebeard, the use of shadows and pools of light creates an indelible atmosphere, reminiscent of candle light and Gas lamps on the streets, at the same time it puts a lot of the scene in shadow, limiting the amount of Period details you need to show and saving you money. Low Budget filmmakers pay attention, learn from a Master. There are some wide shots of Period Paris but I assume they are opticals, matte paintings or hanging miniatures or whatever. This film accomplishes a lot on a small budget. I recommend it to everyone. Peter Bogdanovich interviewed Ulmer at length. You can read it in Who The Devil Made it a book by Bogdonovich.

Edgar G. Ulmer

I just heard about this publicity stunt for the incredible film of Richard Fleischer “Fantastic Voyage:.

They say it was Fleischer’s idea to get Salvador Dali to paint a portraait of Raquel Welch wearing a bikini in the window of the National cash Register Building in New York City. The story goes that Dali just splashed some paint onto a canvas and declared it done! Raquel may have been put out a bit by the results.

I then learned that Albert and David Maysles had been commissioned to make a film about the event, which they did. It’s called “Dali’s Fantastic Dream”. It’s not available anywhere but I would love to see it.

Dali from the Maysle Brothers film “Dali’s Fantastic Dream”

When I was working in NYC I rented editing rooms at the Maysle Brothers Facility on the top floor of a building on Maybe 54th street? I’ll have to look it up.

I also edited a film that Raquel Welch’s last husband Richie Palmer had a small uncredited role in “Hugo Pool”. He was married to Cathy Moriarity at the time and she is one of the stars of the film. Anyway I love crazy Film Publicity Stunts and this is a good one!

This is a very cool revenge movie, written and directed by my good pal, The RZA. It is alot of fun to watch, a real audience pleaser, thrill ride. I edited it so please check it out. And it’s being presented by our mutual friend Quentin Tarantino. I met RZA while editing Kill Bill, and we’ve been friends since then. So we all go way back.

Here Q.T. discusses a great Ishiro Honda film, “Rodan” I watched it with him up at his home theater. A beautiful 35mm print. He vmentions me about halfway through , talking about the amazing flashback sequence.

Robert Downey Sr. (Photo by Ron Galella, Ltd./WireImage) *** Local Caption ***

How great is it that the Anthology Film Archives ( A place I often went to back in the late 70’s , early 80’s) is showing films by my dear departed friend Robert Downey, Sr. And they have restored some of them to boot! So you can see a newly restored version of Greaser’s Palace, a surreal Western with Alan Arbus, Michael Sullivan, Pablo Ferro, Toni Basil, LuAnna Anders, Herve Villachez and a host of others. Music by the illustrious Jack Nitzsche. A movie I first saw on the Midnight Circuit at the Park Theater in West Caldwell N.J.

Also a restored version of Putney Swope, Bob’s biggest hit, and a restored version of Sticks and Bones, a David Rabe play produced by Joe Papp, maybe the first work critical of America’s involvement in Viet Nam to air on Network TV. Luckily Peter Powell, the cinematographer had a 2″ tape of it. And the almost never seen Pound, restored from the original negative.

Bob told me that the producer put his profit sharing from Putney Swope on the line for the production of this film and when it went over budget he lost all income from his major hit. Also he said the wife of UA Mogul Arthur Krim saw the film at a NY theater and was so outraged she had her husband pull it from theaters. So it played one weekend. And Two Tons Of Turquoise to Taos Tonight, a crazy assemblage of insane vignettes. But Thanks to whoever financed the restorations! Film Fund? Martin Scorsese? Whoever, Bless You! I’m sure Bob is smiling do=wn from wherever he is.

Finally I watched Beast from Haunted Cave and I have to say I liked it! I am a hugh fan of all things Charles B. Griffith and he wrote the screenplay. There is some great dialog in this film especially a scene between the jaded moll of gangster Frank Wolf and the super straight ski guide. Top Notch. I’m pretty sure Griffith wrote this but I did hear that Monte Hellman might have done some re-writing. To investigate this further I ordeded a dvd of the unreleased Naked Paradise, that Griffith said was actually an earlier version of this same script. I guess when Griffith wrote something and Roger Corman liked it, the story would get recycled several more times. Anyway I did not ge the dvd as the guy running the site seems to be very ill. I hope he’s still alive. It sounds bad. I was very impressed with Monte Hellman’s direction, really just the fact that he pulled off this no budget feature on time and on budget. This had to be very difficult especially because it was Monte’s first film (he was a theater director) and the story takes place in a very snowy wilderness, difficult place to film! But as I say he did a great job.

I met Monte several times back in the day, we have a mutual friend in Rudy Wurlitzer, who wrote Two Lane Blacktop for Monte. Also I was once at his Hollywood Hills Home, he generously let Dennis Bartok have a reading of a script there. Anyway I will track down another copy of Naked Paradise soon and continue the investigation. And if I discover anything noteworthy I will write about it here. Also there are scenes where the Beast of the title captures humans and keeps them alive all glued up in webs in a cave, very effective and I must say a real influence on Ridley Scott’s Alien. Watch it and see for yourself.

I’ve always liked this film, it’s not great but considering it was made from almost nothing and it did manage to be distributed here in the USA, in Italy (by CineRiz no less) and in England, I think it can be considered a success. It also features contributions from two of my favorite veterans of the Roger Corman school of filmmaking, Mel Wellrs and Charles B. Griffith.

Charles B. Griffith and Mel Welles in The Little Shop Of Horrors

It was directed by Michael Reeves, who would later go on to make Witchfiner General. his masterpiece with Vincent Price. I believe it was released here as The Conqueror Worm. I remember seeing it at a screening at my Catholic Grammer school. the priestd and nuns were shocked and outraged as it features nudity and extreme violence and forced sex! I guess they didn’t screen it before projecting it to us innocent kids.

Micheal Reeves with black cat and blimped Arri IIc

Also the amazing Barbara Steele, who stars in my favorite horror film of all time, Mario Baa’s masterpiece, Black Sunday ( La Maschera del Demonio), if you haen’t seen it check it out! Such an amazing and influential film!

The Amazing Barbara Steele

Anyway there have been complaints about the slapstick elements of She Beast, but what caould you expect if Chuck Griffith and Mel Welles were involved? Griffith almost always made his scripts funny, and he had a hand in writing this film. He also directed the undercranked chase scenes at the end of the film. I think they go on too long but I believe they coul not cut them out or the film would have been too short! As it stands I think it’s like 79 minutes already on the short side. Now here’s a funny thing I noticed, this film came out a year before Polanski’s Fearless Vampire Killers yet the stories are very similar, they are both kind of slapstick, feature an older nutty Professor vampire hunter/ exorcist and a young helper that loves the beautiful damsel in distress and must rescue her, and when they do rescue her both end on a note that says, this is not the end, but the beginning of something worse.

Count Von Helsing- Vampire Hunter-Witch Exorciser

Nutty Professor type from Fearless Vampire Killers

Also I read that Griffith wrote a kind of low budget Dirty Dozen movie years before the Dirty Dozen came out called The Secret Invasion. He was ahead of his time.

I heard a story that the Italian stuntman who played the witch Vardella went into town in full makeup to buy some cigarettes or something causing the townspeople to freak out!

Vardella The Witch

He did look pretty horrific in that make up. I also noticed that two of the young boys in the film had the surname Welles, I assume they were both children of the great Mel Welles,

One of Mel Welles’ kids in the movie

Gravis Mushnick of Little Shop of Horrors, an actor I loved since childhood. I later learned he appeared in a film my good friend Bob Downey made called Rented Lips. I didn’t work on that one, but my other friend Bob Yeoman did and he said Mel was very funny and a nice guy.

Finally I read on Wikipedia that Quentin Tarantino dedicated Death Proof to Charles B. Griffith calling him thr “Godfather of redneck cinema. I have an early draft of DeathProof ( I worked on it) and Quentin calls Griffith ” The Poet Laureate of the Drive-In” a much better epithet for the genius of Griffith.

Misericordia

Also found in: Legal, Encyclopedia, Wikipedia.

I just watched a new film by the French writer director Alain Guiraudie. It is definitely worth watching for several reasons. It’s an amazing film, the thing that most impressed me is how well thought out it is. The script is terrific, a gem of a micro production, it all takes place in a small rural village surrounded by forests. A great location, plus if you are making a film and don’t have a hugh budget keeping locations simple is the way to go. It looks like this film was shot in this tiny village, the surrounding forests, the town church, cemetery, an apartment, a house in the woods. That’s pretty much it. But it was plotted exquisitely , you didn’t need any more locations. So step one, brilliant script, full of unexpected twists and turns, sex, murder, guilt, all dealt with in a fresh surprising, philosophic way.

Bravo! The acting is also great! Step two, hire great actors! Casting is so key! these actors are all top notch, especially the abbe! So amazing and to me the heart and soul of the film. Jacques Develay is inredible, he has a way of saying so much with just a glance, a great film actor and ballsy! There is a scene where he jumps out of bed, roused by the local policeman, with a hard on!

I mean that takes courage and commitment! My favorite scene in the film is where the Abbe asks Félix Kysyl ( the protagonist Jérémie Pastor) to hear his confession. The priest wants to confess to the other guy! How amazing, there have been many confessional scenes in films but none like this! And that’s what so great about this film, it works in a genre fashion, a thriller, a murder mystery but it turns the genre on it’s head, keeps the audience guessing, you never know what’s going to happen next.

And the Third element that makes it great. Unanswered questions, it doesn’t spell things out and explain everything, there are plenty of hints about people’s pasts, but that’s it. You have to reach your own conclusions, this draws the audience in, makes them a part of the story.

Alfred Hitchcock called this phenomenon the “Cold Chicken” effect. After the people got home from watching the film, they went to the fridge, got out the cold chicken leftovers for a midnight snack and began discussing the film. And if there were anbiguous points that they could disagree on it sometimes inspired them to resee the film to clarify points of their discussion. Hitchcock said this effect added considerably to his box office returns. Anyway Cinema is Alive and Well as long as films like this continue to be made!

One thing I have always noticed about David Lynch’s films is that the performances are often amazing and yet a lot of the actors are never as good in films by other people. I’m not talking about The Elephant Man, which featured some of the finest British actors of all time, but films like Mulholland Drive, Lost Highway, Twin Peaks. Some incredible performances,In Mulholland Drive  Naomi Watts blows the roof off the theater, especially in the scene with Chad Everett. Amazing!

Patricia Arquette is so great in Lost Highway.

Sheryl Lee , Lara Flynn Boyle Sheilynn Fenn, so great  in Twin Peaks,

Kyle McGlaughlin, so cool in Lynch films.

I was wondering why this happens and I thought Lynch is a Buddhist, he meditates everyday. A tenet of Buddhism is to see the limitless potential in every human being and this is something Lynch did. He saw things in people that they did not see in themselves and they often say just this. His belief in them, their trust in his unshakable vision propelled them to unexpected and often unequaled heights. Rewatching the original Twin Peaks I am struck by how much thought, atmosphere, mood, character went into every single frame (of the episodes he directed). Even though the pace is kind of leisurely there is so much going on in and around the frame that its never boring and the more you know about what’s happening the more intriguing it becomes. A great recipe for something that bears rewatching again and again. Anyway a few random thoughts on the late, great David Lynch, a true Artist.

Here’s a video I made from a song Lynch did. My friend Pascal worked with him and remixed the tune adding the great harmonica part.

As we all know by now the great artist known as David Lynch passed on to the next realm a few days ago. I can’t believe it, I felt he would always be at his compound on Outpost creating word stuff. It was reassuring if he posted a weather report or a strange short film or whatever else he did. Furniture making, painting, photography. He was such a quintessential part of Los Angeles, a City that he loved so much.

It’s heartbreaking that he’s not here to enjoy the Sunshine and inspire all of us. My good friend Joe Montgomery lived for a while on Outpost. He just passed on about a year ago, he was a Camerman that grew up in Hollywood s o Lynh’s passing conjure thoughts of another brilliant point of light we just lost.

I just watched an interview with Lynch where he talked about Mullholland Drive. He originally made it as a TV pilot for ABC. But the idiot executive in charge passed on it, Pitiful. Lynch was devastated but then someone offered to raise the money to turn it into a Feature. Lynch said yes. It took about 18 months to make it happen. Lynch said when he signed the deal to make it into a Feature he had zero ideas on how to do that. But that night he meditated and said all the necessary ideas came to him “like a string of pearls.”

And he wound up making what many people believe to be his masterpiece. Now this is what I am referring to as the Triumph of David Lynch. He goes from abject failure to a masterpiece with the same project! His creativity did not bow to Hollywood convention, it overcame it and surpassed it in an incredible way. The story of Mullholland Drive has similar dynamics vis a vis the Hollywood Experience. A young woman comes here, she’s full of hopes and dreams to make it as an actress. She gets an audition, she nails it, showing tremendous talent, in what I feel is the best scene of the film. Then the unfair mechanisms of Hollywood grind away and she is passed by, This is the essential Hollywood dynamic and Lynch expresses it and explores it in such an amazing creative way.

God Bless Him! May Luis Bunuel, Jacques Tati, Orson Welles, Jean Renoir, Fritz Lang, Francois Truffaut, Bob Downey, Bud Smith, Pablo Ferro, Joe Montgomery all welcome him to Film Heaven.