Here is a scene from the great Ermanno Olmi’s film The Legend of The Holy Drinker. I haven’t seen the film but I will watch it as soon as I can. I love Olmi’s films, he was such a cinematic genius. And here’s to Rutger Hauer who just died, another great talent gone on to the next level.
P.S. This film won the Golden Lion at The 1988 Venice Film Festival.
P.P.S. it’s available to watch FREE on Amazon Prime so check it out!
Here she is on the Mike Douglas show talking about Wanda and how she met John and Yoko at Cannes. Pretty Cool. They even show a scene from Wanda, notice how dirty it is, she probably only had one print. Pretty cool.
Here is the great Barbara Loden, writer,star, and director of the wonderful film Wanda, playing the scantily clad sidekick to Ernie Kovacs magician. Loden said Ernie Kovacs took pity on her and hired her over the objections of a producer. Enjoy the shtick.
My friend Eric put together this short film about the Spaghetti Western career of Richard Harrison, a veteran of over 100 Italian Horse operas, check it out.
Here is the trailer from a cool independent film made by Barbara Loden in 1970. An amazing film, sort of a feminist Cassavettes trip. Great acting and an incredibly tense bank robbery made on a shoestring budget. Impressive. At one point Wanda the main character goes to a Spanish language movie theater and there is a poster for a film I love, The Brainiac, a Mexican Horror Film. Also you see billboards for TastyKakes, an East Coast delicacy of my childhood. Watch this film and be prepared to be blown away. Actually this is the whole film with Portuguese subtitles.
Here’s the trailer for Robert Rossen’s The Hustler, great script, great directing, great acting, great cinematography by Eugene Schufftan and great editing by Dede Allen. Watch the whole movie and dig it!
The great actor Seymour Cassel has passed on. I knew him for a long time, we first met when I was editing a film called Mobsters and Seymour played a priest. He was very angry with Chris Penn because Penn had kissed him on the mouth in a scene without telling Seymour he was going to. “You don’t do that to an actor!” I remember him saying. Anyway Seymour was in a lot of films, a whole lot. I was working with Quentin Tarantino and he gave me a copy of a film called Black Oak Conspiracy. Quentin liked this film, I watched it and there was Seymour. Not only is he in it , he’s the hero of the film, he saves the leading man at the end. A while later I was at Trader Vic’s with Seymour and I told him I had seen Black Oak Conspiracy and that he was the hero of the dammed film. He wanted to see it again.I don’t think he had seen it since he acted in it. I looked and looked but couldn’t find the copy of the film. Time passed, I never found it to give to him and I feel bad about that. Now he’s gone but everyone else can see Seymour the hero on YouTube.
Here is a great look at what went on during the making of Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining. His daughter Vivian had unlimited access and we are lucky that she did. We get to see the master at work. Check it out.
Last night I had dinner with an old friend, James Hong, we were talking and I mentioned the great camerman James Wong Howe, James Hong told me he was friends with James Wong Howe and what a struggle it was for him to become a cameraman in Hollywood. I was reminded of Seconds, a crazy film Howe shot for the great John Frankenheimer so here is the trailer. Check out Sweet Smell Of Success to see more of the camerwork of the great James Wong Howe.
And here is a little documentary about James Wong Howe
Here is a short film by my pal Mike Malloy about a French Actor named Marc Mazza. He appeared in some great European films in the 60’s and 70’s including the magnificent Rider On The Rain by Rene Clement. Mike has really done an in-depth portrait of an almost unknown character actor, Bravo!
