This is an incredible film, it languished in obscurity until the geniuses at Rialto brought it back from the dead, just like they did with Jean Pierre Melville’s Army Of Shadows. All I can say about this film is that it accomplishes something that is very hard to do and does it better than any other film I can think of. It changes from a comedy to a tragedy in the blink of an eye and it works perfectly, seamlessly, in an exciting effortless way. Maybe because the comedy is understated, not stupid, real situations that reveal something about human beings, in this case the Sicilian clan of our main character, Nino. Sordi is a great actor, compare Nino with the Sordi’s portrayal of The White Sheik in Fellini’s film of the same name, they seem like two entirely different people. Speaking of Fellini, it was Lattuada who gave Federico his directing break, sharing credit on Variety Lights. The end of Il Mafioso is incredible as well, an off the cuff remark that teeters you on the edge of the Abyss. The incredible music is by the Genius Pierro Piccone, you can hear some of it in the trailer I’ve linked to. It’s magnificent.
My recent post on Night Of The Hunter and some correspondence about it got me thinking, here’s a Confidential Magazine piece about the star, Robert Mitchum and the producer, Paul Gregory and the director, Charles Laughton. Mitchum sued the scandal sheet and won. Thanks to Larry Harnisch and his DailyMirror Blog for the article.
Have you ever seen The Night Of The Hunter? The film directed by Charles Laughton, starring Robert Mitchum and featuring Lilian Gish and Shelly Winters? It’s a great film, considered by many critics to be one of the top 50 films of all time. It is a beautiful, poetic, unique creation. There are sequences unlike any other in Cinema. For example when the children are traveling by rowboat, just floating down the river at night and there are all these shots of animals, frogs, owls, rabbits, spiders, in the foreground and the skiff with the children floating by in the background, accompanied by a beautiful voice singing a melancholy folk/ nursery rhyme motif.
It’s a gorgeous, deep sequence that transports you to a magical place, sort of a glancing back at the mystery of childhood, the psychic spaces we inhabit as children when we are closer to the elemental , to nature, to animals, to magic. We accept the arcane without questioning.
And the acting is great too. Mitchum said Laughton was his favorite director because he loved everything he did and he would tell him so.
Robert Mitchum as the Murderous Preacher, Harry Powell, with LOVE and HATE tattooed on his fingers
Shelly Winters is great as well, it’s funny here she is playing a mother who is married by a man whose real target is her children, a role she would repeat in Stanley Kubrick’s Lolita.
She studied Acting in Charles Laughton’s class
Lillian Gish is superb and it’s wonderful that she appears in this film. A lot of the imagery seems to come directly out of silent film, a kind of stark poetic imagery, powerful visuals that remind you of Murnau, or Lang or even Caligari. She spoke of the making of the film in a reverential manner. “I have to go back as far as DW Griffith,” wrote Gish, “to find a set so infused with purpose and harmony. There was not ever a moment’s doubt as to what we were doing or how we were doing it. To please Charles Laughton was our aim. We believed in and respected him. Totally.”
The film was shot by the great Stanley Cortez, camerman for Orson Welles on his follow up to Citizen Kane, The Magnificent Ambersons ( Another Cautionary Tale in a future post). The thing is this, when Night Of The Hunter was released, it flopped, didn’t make money, although the critics were respectful, if somewhat baffled.
This devastated Laughton. It’s obvious the man poured his heart and soul into this film and when no one liked it he was shattered. ” I’ll never direct another film.” he said and he never did. He died six years later without knowing his film would one day be called a masterpiece. So here’s to you Charles Laughton, up there in Film Heaven. Captain Bligh, Quasimodo, Dr. Moreau,Gracchus Galileo. We on planet Earth Salute You!
Richard Widmark, the blonde, cool killer has died. He was the quintessential film noir protagonist, running down a dark street at night, chasing or being chased. His career really blasted into orbit with Kiss Of Death, a 1947 (that magical year!) noir directed by that talented curmudgeon Henry Hathaway. The story goes that Hathaway didn’t want Widmark for the role of Tommy Udo, sociopath killer with a snickering laugh, but Big Boss Darryl Zanuck overrode Hathaway’s objections and Widmark got the part. A pissed off Hathaway made it tough on Widmark and messed with him every chance he got. But so what, once Tommy Udo pushed a crippled old lady down a flight of apartment house stairs in her wheelchair, Widmark ascended to the stellar firmament atop a hugh geyser of pop culture appeal! Instant Stardom!
Tommy Udo’s Push To Stardom
He later appeared in some more classic Noir’s like Sam Fuller’s Pickup On South Street, a no holds barred tale of a sleazy pickpocket, Commies after Atomic secrets, floozies, patriotism, Thelma Ritter, murder, and an apartment on a barge in the East River! Check this one out for yourself!
Also one of my favorite’s Jules Dassin’s Night And The City, a down and dirty tale of a two-bit hustler turned wrestling promoter in London. (Dassin was fleeing the Commie Witch Hunt Trials and had to make films in Europe) This film features some of the best B+W noir Cinematography of all time! It is a pleasure to look at, you can get drunk, revelling in all that silver nitrate!
They are showing this masterpiece at the American Cinematheque as part of their upcoming Noir City film festival. Be sure to make it if you can! This is an incredible film, it unspools April 24th at 7:30 pm. I will be there, drinking a glass of Nebbiolo, toasting that gone blonde genius of darkness, Richard Widmark. May you never be chased down a dark alley in Film Heaven.
Ivan Dixon, star of Nothing But A Man and director of The Spook Who Sat By The Door has checked out. Most people probably know him from his role on that idiotic show Hogan’s Heroes. He quit that gig after 5 years, I guess he couldn’t take it any more. than he got into directing. He acted in a ton of cool TV shows, Twilight Zone, Outer Limits, The Man Fron U.N.C.L.E., etc., etc.. He also directed a whole bunch of T.V shows, he was a ground breaking Black TV director, opening the door for a lot of people.Bill Cosby gave him his directing break, they had acted together in I Spy. But I think to Mr. Dixon, his biggest accomplishments were acting in Nothing But A Man, a film that told it like it was about being Black in America, and directing The Spook Who Sat By The Door, a hard to see film about a Black C.I.A. operative who uses his knowledge to train Black militants in a plot to overthrow the government.
Luckily for me Jerry’s Video Reruns had a copy but now they’re out of business. Check it out if you can find it. Here’s the trailer
p.s. As an added bonus we get trailer narration by the legendary Adolph Caesar, check him out in A Soldier’s Story.
What a great movie! I just saw it on TCM for the first time in many moons. Last time I saw The Hidden Fortress was at the Film Forum in NYC. This film works on many levels, Toshiro Mifune is as always, great, a super star of the silver screen! One of the greatest film actors of all time.
Toshiro In Trouble
Kurosawa is at the top of his game, emotion comes pouring off the screen in powerful and subtle ways. This film is an amazing amalgam of formal and spontaneous aesthetics, Japanese formal composition, the Princess in her court, and then the action of hiding out with the two peasants, it inspires deep feelings of loyalty, patriotism, friendship. Do these feelings exist, are they in our lives, I mean really, are they concrete parts of our existence or merely vaporous thoughts that disappear between your fingers like disapating smoke when you try to grasp them. When was the last time you had to defend your Princess against an army of killers?
Spunky Princess
Yet we all have instilled in us from birth, ideals that stongly influence us, our morality, our decision making, our life. Films like this one exercise our moral self and that is what gives them their power. Sacraficing one’s self to a higher cause, it’s not something we’re called upon to do often or ever. But would you? This is a basic question of human existence, of civilization, and it is beautifully expressed in The Hidden Fortress. Also the two peasants that exhibit all the human failings and foilbles, they’re greedy, lustful, envious, you name it, and they’re funny. By coincidence I happened to see Robert Altman’s Gossford Park recently. A great film that deals with the juxtaposition of the serving class and the ruling class at a mansion in the countrty. There is a whole tradition of servant/ master drama and comedy that both of these films are a part of. But Hidden Fortress also works purely as an Adventure story and a Spectacle. It’s a magnificent film, maybe my favorite Kurosawa film. As everyone by now probably knows Star Wars bears a striking resemblence to this film, the peasants are replaced by bickering robots, there’s a feisty Princess and some Heroes to save her.
Ultra Cool Bad Guy! Star Wars is populated with a lot of characters that you can sell as action figures and toys but the basic plot is the same. I think Lucas has acknowledged this, he did an introduction to the Criterion DVD release but I haven’t seen it. Sergio Leone remarked in the press that he saw Yojimbo and was inspired to make A Fistfull Of Dollars. Kurosawa sued and won the rights to that film for Japan. Leone pointed out that that plot device was used by Dashiell Hammett in The Glass Key but to no avail, he had to pay up. I guess Lucas was smart enough to keep his mouth shut, at least while Kurosawa was still alive. But I think The Hidden Fortressis a vastly superior film to Star Wars. I wonder if Kurosawa ever read any Joseph Campbell?
I just watched Umberto Lenzi’s Un Posto Ideale Per Uccidere AKA Dirty Pictures or the english title I prefer Oasis Of Fear. This is a great film! The cast is superb, Ray Lovelock, in perhaps his greatest role, Ornella Muti, so young, so beautiful, so innocent and so sexy, Irene Papas, so dark, so severe, so attractive, like a sexy Greek witch.
This movie is a little like Hansel and Gretel with a sexy witch enticing our two innocent children into her gingerbread house, although the house isn’t made of gingerbread, candy canes, gumdrops, spun sugar. It’s made of champagne, caviar, exotic, erotic clothes, cigarettes, psychedelic music, and sex. Our story begins in Denmark where our two hippie love children are on holiday. They see the sights, run around Copenhagen and cavort like extras in a Dava Clark Five movie. But suddenly the Italian genre sensibility kicks in. They go into a Sex Shoppe, buy a ton of porno mags and bring them back to Italy to sell so they can pay for their vacation.
This works out great, they’re rich, they live like hippie Gods in Italy, eating at fancy restaurants, feeding champagne to cats, releasing doves at stuffy establishments, dancing at psychedelic discos, just having fun. There’s a scene that I find fascinating. At one point Ray sells a 45 record of people having sex to a foppish rich guy on a yacht. Is That Moana Climax and the Heavy Breathers?
I’ve heard of “porno records” but I’ve never seen one. Frank Zappa was once busted for producing a “pornographic recording” and selling it to an undercover cop. Did people actually sit around at a stag party and listen to a record of people having sex? I heard Mickey Cohen bugged Johnny Stompanto’s bedroom and recorded Johnny and Lana Turner going at it. You wanna go listen to a record? Johnny Stomp Oooooh Johnny, You Bug Me!
The Mickster made a ton of money selling pressings to Hollywood hipsters to play at Tinseltown shindigs. But back to Oasis of Fear, our two heroic hippies run out of cash and decide to produce their own dirty pictures starring themselves,
they do but they get busted in Pisa trying to sell their wares and are told to leave the country, Is that the leaning tower of Pisa or are you just happy to see me?
they hit the road in their old MG and run out of gas out in the country. They spy the beautiful estate of the wicked witch and push their car in hoping to get some gas.
At first Ms. Pappas tries to run them off, but then mysteriously she switches gears and invites them in. She offers them refreshments of all sorts, access to her copious closets of exotic outfits. Ornella dons an Eastern sari, she looks incredible, a vision from the Orient and she dances to a sitar record like a shimmering jewel.
at one point Irene looks at her through a cut crystal goblet and we get a telidoscopic view of Ornella’s bare breasts spinning psychedelically before our eyes.
A bare chested Ray assumes various Yogic poses at the command of Ms. Muti, The Lion, The Cobra, ” We are each other’s total slaves” he says to a bemused Irene.
A heady brew of sexual intrigue is bubbling furiously on the stove when murder and treachery rear their ugly heads. I’m not going to reveal what happens, YOU must seek out this film to find out for yourself. One of the aspects of this film I find so appealing is the summoning up of a bygone time. The 60’s, the Age Of Aquarius, the Innocence of these two young beautiful people perfectly captures that time and let’s us re-expieience it, like a fly in amber or Ruth Gordon’s scent collection in Harold and Maude. There is a dance scene with a rock band playing and our heroes frugging and watusiying their hearts out. It captures the energy of that time perfectly.
You can feel what it was like to be alive then. To feel like the world was yours, sex and music were a magic carpet to fly you around the globe.
This is the birthright of every person, an ideal we’ve lost touch with today. This is one reson why films like this are important. They’re the Dead Sea Scrolls of the hippie era. We can all learn a lot about the Spirit of that Age. This is also a reason why I feel Lenzi is a great filmmaker. His film resonates with truth, true senasations, what a real person would feel, not some corporate crap selected by a demographic computer print out. There’s a dance scene in Mike Hodges’ great Get Carter that rings true with the same soul transporting realism. He also is a great filmmaker and you can tell from details like this. But for me the stars of this film are the stars. Lovelock and Muti are so captivating, so charming, you really care about them. And Irene Pappas is so evil, she’s great! The score is by Bruno Lauzi, a pop star singer. It’s great, melodic, moody, jazzy. Even the pop song that’s used in the film is excellent. It works , it’s got a hook, it grabs you and you dig it. I think the Marc 4 played on this song because the bassline is so ass kickingly funky and hip, it must be the incomparable Maurizio Maiorana.
Looky here I just found the opening credits on YouTube!
Barry Morse in Action! Getting Choked in a Dungeon!
Barry Morse the great actor who portrayed the personification of the term “relentless pursuer” is dead. His Lt. Philip Gerard goes down with Captain Bligh as one of the most brutal unbending authority figures of all time. I watched The Fugitive when it first ran on TV. I was a young lad at the time. It was one of the shows that made the transition from B+W to color. So you’d hear William Conrad’s stentorian voice announce “The Fugitive, In Color!” and it would say In Color on the screen as well. I guess just in case you had a B+W TV and were deaf, they wanted to let you know what you were missing. There was such a mania about this show that when the final episode was to be aired, all these rumors swept the country. I remember my neighbors telling me they had a cousin who knew somebody that worked for ABC and they found out what was going to happen. Of course they were wrong. That episode was one of the most watched programs ever broadcast. I still remeber at the end of the final show, Dr. Richard Kimball, now cleared of murder charges. is approached by Lt. Gerard outside the courthouse. He offers his hand to the recently vindicated physician, Dr. Kimball refuses to shake it. David Janssen was like Jesus Christ walking the land spreading wisdom and helping people, all the while pursued by the evil, officious Lt. Gerard. Check out Morse’s resume, he worked on all the early classic dramatic TV shows, Playhouse 90, East Side West Side, Naked City, Alfred Hitchcock Hour, Twilight Zone, Outer Limits. What a great time to be an actor for Television! Once during the original run of the show, my friend and I threw some snowballs at a passing bus. To our surprise it stopped and a guy got off. He looked just like Lt. Philip Gerard! He started chasing us! We got away finally but we were freaked out! Fare Thee well Barry Morse, your relentless pursuits are over except on reruns and DVD.
Lt. Gerard, Dr. Richard Kimball. The One-Armed Man with an Emmy
I went to see the new Rambo movie. It was pretty good! Stallone is powerful as Rambo. He’s like Frankenstien or King Kong, a monster that is charmed by a beautiful woman. And for me the power of the film lies in that archetype. The structure of the film is sort of unique. It starts off normally, (actually it starts with documentary footage of dead bodies, my least favorite part of the movie) the predictable story kicks in but Stallone has reduced Rambo to a pure icon, almost like the stenciled logo on the poster. He hardly speaks, he just is. The way a movie hero should be. Like Clint Eastwood in the Spaghetti Westerns of Sergio Leone. And in spite of his taciturn behaviour (or maybe because of it) you can’t help but feel for this poor guy, turned into a killing machine by a country that threw him on the garbage heap once his usefulness was finished.
And when a self sacrificing woman sparks a glimmer of empathy from this monster, you can’t help but be moved. The story precedes as expected with the missionaries being captured and Rambo having to rescue them. This is where the mercenaries come into the picture. And this is why I saw the movie. My friend Jake La Botz plays Tombstone, a young mercenary. He gets to sing an original song of his own composition as they travel up river on Rambo’s boat. By the way Jake plays Eddie in my film One Night with You and does it amazingly well.
But back to Rambo. Once they get the missionaries out of the prison camp, the film drops all story elements and becomes pure iconography. There is almost no dialog. It’s pure action, pure images and sounds. Even the end where you’d expect some sappy dialog is shorthanded to looks and monumental close ups of Rambo. And sort of like Hitcock’s trick in North By Northwest where Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint are hanging off Mount Rushmore cut to them making out on a speeding train, Rambo is standing on a Burmese riverbank surrounded by hundreds of dead soldiers, the aftermath of a savage battle, cut to him walking along a road in Arizona, the mailbox says R. Rambo, he’s home after all that time, he walks onto a farm ,complete with green grass, horses, mountains clouds. I’m reminded of Sterling Hayden’s return to his Kentucky farm at the end of The Asphalt Jungle. He returns to his home so he can die. There’s a cool nightmare featuring old clips from the other Rambo films that feels like Stallone is looking back on his life, there’s also a great scene of Rambo forging a machete, Stallone looks like Hephasteus , the blacksmith of the Gods, hammering a chunk of glowing metal. Here’s a video of Jake on his Tattoo across America Tour.
A few years back( like 15) I was coming out of my friends apartment when I noticed a trashed Fender amp in the back of a pickup truck. I asked my friend about it, he said it belonged to his neighbor and would ask him about it. The guy said “your friend can have it.” It was a 1954 tweed Pro. I brought it to former X guitarist Billy Zoom.
Another Mr. Z
He was living in Silver Lake and fixing amps to make some cash. A great guy by the way, generous, talented. He repaired my amp and it sounded amazing! Billy walked me out to my car, a Citroen SM. He said “My neighbor had a citroen.” “Yeah” I said. “He was an actor, Anthony Zerbe.” “Really.” I said. ” Yeah, I could always tell when he was working.” ” How.” said I. ” His car would be running, otherwise it sat there leaking hydraulic fluid.”
Citroen DS Pallas, Francis Coppola has one of these
My SM
Due to the Writer’s Strike, my car is sitting in my driveway, it needs a minor repair but I can’t fix it till I get a gig. The Eternal Hollywood Cycle. There my car sits, looking like a stranded UFO, waiting for the spare parts from Alpha Centuri to arrive. Anthony Zerbe, Omega Man co-star, I salute you!
Here’s a clip of Burt Reynolds driving an SM from The Longest Yard.
Thanks to the crazy cats at Popcorn and Sticky Floors I found this trailer from The Friends Of Eddie Coyle which by the way I feel is Peter Yates best film. I like it better than Bullitt. Robert Mitchum is great in it , an incredible understated performance complete with believable Boston accent. Peter Boyle is excellent as well. This is a gritty crime film with great acting, how can you top that! Kind of a cross between a John Huston film and an Umberto Lenzi politziotto! I worked with Peter Yates a few years back, travelling with him to Chicago to preview Suspect, he’s a real gentleman and he said he had a great time making this film. It was edited by the cigar smoking ex-wife of Roy Schieder, Cynthia Schieder. The trailer brought back some memories for me, hearing that snarling rasp of the narrator I immediately recognized him as Bob Marcato. I worked as an editor at a trailer company in NYC back in the 80’s and used Bob all the time. His voice is plastered all over exploitation trailers from the 70’s. He has such a distinctive snarl once you hear it you can never forget it. For some reason (probably a contractual thing) this film has never been released on dvd, I’m not sure if it ever came out on VHS! I had a copy somewhere but it was made from Peter’s own transfer. Maybe through my pals at Triage Motion Picture Services I can ask a mucky muck at Paramount what’s up with this unreleased gem and if I get any news I’ll post it here.
Added bonus! Here’s a link to Whitey Watch, a fascinating study of Boston organized crime and the elusive fugitive Whitey Bulger.
Ciao baby, you were one hot wasp waisted Vamp! You scared the Hell out of me when I was a lad with your appearance in Plan 9 from Outer Space and maybe you even had sex with James Dean.
Check out Those Claws!
Here’s the opening to WPIX’s Chiller Theater that you figured so prominently in. Sexy and Scary what a great combination for a little kid to be exposed to. Give ’em Hell up in Heaven, Vampira!
Is That Moana Climax and the Heavy Breathers?
