Film Forno

Here’s a short film about MGM’s new star Sharon Tate. It was made to publicize her during the making of her first film Eye Of The Devil. In spite of the idiotic narration there are some great moments, Sharon getting vocal instruction, Sharon go-going in swinging London with co-star David Hemmings. Every shot of her is beautiful. I recently saw some behind the scenes footage from Fearless Vampire Killers, the film where she met her husband Roman Polanski. If I find it I’ll post it as well.

Here’s the opening sequence from the seminal 60’s TV show The Prisoner. It starred Patrick McGoohan as Number 6. One of the most surreal things ever to appear on the small screen. Check it out, I still don’t know what the final episode means!

Here’s some footage shot during the making of Fellini’s Satyricon. Thanks to Jeff Gent for pointing this out. Oddly enough a guy I worked with many years ago told me he shot a lot of documentary footage on the set of this film, his name is John Taylor, we worked on a PBS kids film with Morgan Freeman. This was just before Freeman’s breakthrough role as a pimp in Street Smart. He had just finished working on Electric Company as The Count and the first thing he told us was ” I ain’t putting on that fucking cape!” So here’s to John Taylor, maybe this is some of his film.

Bernie Hamilton has shuffled off this mortal coil. Bernie was probably best remembered as the gruff, no no nonsense Captain Dobey on the 70’s TV series Starsky And Hutch. But he also appeared in some interesting films , most notably The Swimmer and Bunuel’s The Young One. The latter was almost impossible to see until fairly recently.

Bernie in Bunuel’s “The Young One”

It opened to extremely mixed reviews due to it’s racially charged subject matter, nominated for the Palm D’Or and winning a Special Mention at Cannes , one Harlem newspapper called for Bunuel to be hung from a lamppost! Hamilton plays a marooned jazz musician fleeing a potential lynch mob, an interesting role considering his brother is the great jazz drummer Chico Hamilton. Chico appears in the super cool Sweet Smell Of Successwith Burt Lancaster, Bernie was in The Swimmer with Mr. Lancaster. Bernie was also in The Jackie Robinson Story, a strange, yet moving film starring Jackie Robinson chronicling his breaking of the baseball color barrier. He also appeared in some 70’s classics like Nam’s Angels, Scream, Blacula, Scream, Hammer, and Synanon . So farewell Bernie , see you at the South Central Memorial Bar-B-Que with a hell of a band playing some cool tunes./

Bernie Got His Own Action Figure!

What the heck, here’s another classic Kung Fu epic starring the great Gordon Liu. This film influenced Quentin Tarantino quite a bit and the ShawScope opening banner seen on this trailer is the one used at the beginning of Kill Bill. It came from a print of this film. Here’s the trailer – This is essential Kung Fu, Check it out!

Gordon Liu as Pai Mei from Kill Bill

In the mood for some imaginative, entertaining, kick ass kung fu? Then check out Dirty Ho starring the great Gordon Liu. I had the pleasure of working on a film Mr. Liu appeared in, Kill Bill. He was in both parts of KB and to me is especially memorable in his portrayal of Pai Mei. But here is the trailer from Dirty Ho.

Here is a biographic film about the late, great Lee Marvin, put together by his friend and collaborator the great director John Boorman. It’s fascinating stuff especially the parts about Lee’s WWII experiences. Thanks to Lars Nilsen, the film guru over at Weird Wednesday for turning me on to ths cool film. There are several parts so keep watching.

TCM has done it again, screened a somewhat obscure film I’ve never seen. The Little Girl Who Lives Down The Lane is a stylish thriller (sort of), a psychological fairy tale chess game, the board pieces consisting of a precocious blonde angel, sexy, innocent brilliant, deadly, an evil Prince, sadistic, pederast, coward, bully, with pretensions of refined debauchery, a teen aged limping magician, complete with top hat and cape, accomplice, lover, confidant, defender of his lady’s virtue, a large village policeman, slow, good natured, (later to write Jacques Brel is alive and living in Paris) and a racist Queen of a landlady, driving in her Bentley like the wicked witch.

Beautifully directed and photographed TLGWLDTL feels like a EuroHorror film, not quite a giallo ( no black gloved killers) but definitely closer to the Italian style of filmmaking than the American. Complete with a glimpse of a nude 13 year old Jodie Foster ( really her older sister Connie, body doubling her) that was cut out of the American release. Martin Sheen is excellent as the pervert neighbor who covets Jodie’s nubile body, but Jodie is amazing, a captivating, mesmerizing performance that dispels the incredulity this tale could easily raise. It’s worth watching sheerly for her genius. She has a magnetic, feral/angelic quality that makes it hard to take your eyes off her. The camera loves her would be one way to express it but it seems to me that some people can project their thoughts through the Cinema Eye (the camera lens) much more powerfully than others. Is that Acting? I think it’s more a psychic phenomena than a learned craft. The director,Nicolas Gessner, a Hungarian, does an excellent job. A true Euro director. He understands Film and manipulates it beautifully. One of the things I look for in a great filmmaker is a memorable image for the last shot of a film. True Cinema creators always have this, and this movie has a beaut.

The score is interesting, Chopin concerto played as source from a record, and wah wah guitar funk, so 70’s, another aspect that draws comparison with the Italian thrillers of that era. This film also serves as an example of how to make an excellent film with basically one location and only a few actors, it’s a great lesson in restrained resource filmmaking. It was based on a novel and the author(Laird Koenig) wrote the screenplay, so there was a lot of thought put into the story before the cameras rolled, you can tell. It won a Sci Fi award but I think Jodie should have gotten an Oscar for her work.