Film Forno

SSOS just showed on TCM as part of a Tony Curtis retrospective.

Sidney Falco on the threshold of Success, the entrance to “21”

This time it really brought back memories of Lost New York. Some of the spots are still there but they’re not the same. First off, this is an incredible movie. Great classic performances out of Burt Lancaster and Tony Curtis. Great dialog, “Match me Sidney.” ” I’d hate to take a bite out of you, you’re a cookie full of arsenic.”

One of Burt’s Greatest Roles
There’s more quipping in this movie than any other that I can think of. ” Here’s your head, what’s your hurry.” It does not stop. James Wong Howe’s cinematography is amazing, they went for a reverse, long lenses to shoot long shots, exteriors of NYC stacked up in a telephoto lens, wide angle lenses for close ups, distorting, paranoid, powerful images of the characters and this technique works incredibly well. The characters jump off the screen at you with all the dynamism of a Steve Ditko comic.

Pure Genius!
The environs of New York never looked better. Great locations! Shots of a bygone NYC. There’s a scene at A Times Square hot dog stand, you can picture Jack Kerouac walking in. It reminds me of Papaya King, a stand I used to frequent. Two dogs and a papaya drink for $1.50! That was a deal!

Time Travel via HotDog Stand!

Hey Kerouac! Pass The Mustard!
All that stuff in midtown, the 40’s and 50’s , the “21” club, the Ed Sullivan Theater, the crummy offices, the streets, J.J.(Burt Lancaster) lives in the Brill Building, 1619 Broadway. I used to work there, there were a lot of editing rooms in that building. Saturday Night Live had offices there, I once had a run in with a belligerent John Belushi on the service elevator.

Sidney in the lobby of The Brill Building, 1600 Bway was right across the street

Reverse on the Brill lobby. This was it, Tin Pan Alley!

Across the street was 1600 Broadway, the National Screen Services Building. They had a ton of cutting rooms in there as well and it was one of the last buildings in the city to have elevator operators! Next door was the Rincon Argentina, a great restaurant, full of editors at lunch time, half a chicken, french fries, salad for $3.59, plus a demi boutee of house red for a buck! Those were the days. So to see J.J. and Sidney cruising my old neighborhoods blew me away. I worked up the street at my friend’s company “CineHaven”, 254 W.54th street. Rumor had it that Marlon Brando and Wally Cox were roommates there in the 50’s.

I used to work (and crash) right up the street!

Just up the street from Studio 54 and Trans Audio , a mixing studio with a lot of cutting rooms. But back to SSOS, the bar that Martin Milner plays at when Sidney sets him up, I think it’s by the old West Side Highway, the location is so cool, Sidney up on the overpass signaling Kello the bad cop to get Martin. Incredible!

West Side Highway Location?

Evil Cop Harry Kello beats up Jazz Guitarist Martin Milner

Life imitates Art, Miles Davis was beaten up by a cop on 52nd Street while standing outside a gig

The great Chico Hamilton Quintet appears in the film and they are excellent. Great score by Elmer Bernstein, great screenplay by Ernest Lehman and Clifford Odets, great direction by Alexander Mackendrick.

Chico Hamilton on drums, the guy on cello is Fred Katz, he wrote the super cool score for Roger Corman’s Little Shop Of Horrors!

Great characters, supposedly J.J. was based on Walter Winchell, the influential columnist. It’s an interesting character, he wraps himself up in the flag spouting a lot of rhetoric about patriotism, all the while spewing vitriol on everyone he doesn’t like, and if anyone complains, they’re un-American! A petty tyrant whose motivations are his personal vendettas and small minded attacks pretending that he’s doing it for the good of his “60 million readers”. I think this is a very timely character, as relevant now as back then, even more so. We’ve got a J.J. Hunsecker in the White House, only without the witty quips. The movie introduces the wonderful Susan Harrison, what happened to her?

If you want to get a feel for that old lost New York check out this guy, Jean Shepherd. He had a late nite radio show broadcast from NYC, I’d listen to him when I was a kid. Sometimes he talks about NYC and it doesn’t get any better than this. He also wrote the Christmas Story film. Here’s a link to some of his shows. Here it is : Jean Shepherd Shows
I used to live around the corner from the Flatiron Building, an early structural steel building in NYC courtesy of Chicago architect Daniel Burnham

I was just reading about Jean Luc Godard, I hadn’t know that he studied anthropology in college. His early films definitely show the influence or sensitivity to this interest. The life on the street that is in the background of his films, it captures a moment in time , a particular point in a society’s evolution, a view informed by a study of anthropology.

The same can be said of The Exiles. From the opening montage of Edward Curtis photographs of Native Americans we are made aware of this point of view. Godard set his genre/pulp plots in this particular setting whereas the setting and characters were the point for Mackenzie. But I knew there was a reason, outside of the B&W cinematography and downtown urban settings that The Exiles made me think of Godard. Another filmmaker that has this magical talent is Jess Franco, he can capture a revealing portrait of a city in a single shot. Check out The Obscene Mirror or Eugenie to see for yourself.

Jesus! Franco!

It was worth the wait. The Exiles operates on many levels and succeeds on all. First of all it is extremely beautiful to look at, lush, delicious B&W cinematography, deep blacks, sparkling highlights, rich greys, such contrast and texture. Bravo to everyone involved. Secondly it is a time capsule par excellance. Los Angeles 1959 how cool is that? The way people dressed and slicked back their hair, the music they listened to on old Seeburg jukeboxes, “Play E7!” The incredible cars! There is a scene of two young Native couples driving a late 40’s convertible through the 3rd street tunnel that blows your mind! They’re blasting through the tunnel with the top down, passing a bottle of wine, the radio blaring some rockabilly hit, smoking, flirting, the joy is infectious! I want to do that too!

Also all the locations are A#1!! They all live on Bunker Hill, the bygone neighborhood of LA’s golden age. In the shadow of Angel’s Flight no less! Right next to it! This is where John Fante set his masterpieceAsk The Dust, the protagonist lived right next to the elevated railway Angel’s Flight.

They party at a bunch of downtown dive bars, man you can just see Bukowski slumped on one of these barstools. The bars are amazing and the clientele is incredible, even the bums are well dressed, especially compared with today, everybody dressed better, looked cooler and had more fun. At one point they stop off for some gas, the gas station is incredible! All white and chrome, brightly lit, I saw the address 3501 Sunset Blvd. I’m going to have to go check out what’s there today. If you are a fan of film noir or hardboiled LA fiction or Los Angeles history in general you will dig this film. Another thing the actors in this drama are all Native American, just real people not actors at all and they are terrific. The dialog is all post synced and is probably the weak point of the film but it’s not that big of a deal. I guess Kent Mackenzie recorded interviews with his subjects and structured the film around them, reconstructing what they spoke about, an interesting technique. In a lot of ways this film reminds me of early Godard, B&W, shot on the streets and in the bars of a big city, an improvised plot, a crazy dance scene in a bar with a jukebox, the internal monologue of characters expressed in voiceover. Super Cool!

The Natives all head up a hill that overlooks LA after the bars close, I think it’s Radio Hill or someplace near the Eastern edge of Elysian Park. Here they beat a drum and sing and dance all night! Just like back on the reservation. The Spiritual Life goes on even in a big city. It remimded me of an experience I had once, I walked up the hill to the top of Elysian Park to watch the 4th of July fireworks from Dodger Stadium, there was a car parked up there and an old Indian was beating a drum and singing, several other Indians were there with him, burning sage and dancing. This was all Indian land, there were big settlements of Gabrelino or Tongva Indians all around here. Their Spirits are still here in the Land and Sky. The Exiles makes this point in a timeless way. Finally I’d like to say Bravo again to Kent Mackenzie, he made a film that reflected his interests ,his concerns as a human being and an artist. He didn’t care about commercialism or market research, he created and documented a truth and as a result his film will live forever.

Finally they restored Kent Mackenzie’s The Exiles! They’re screening it at the Billy Wilder Theater August 15 through August 23 also it’s going to be shown across the country check here for your area. I’ve never seen this film but I’ve wanted to see it for a long time. The true story of a Native American community on Bunker Hill in Los Angeles.

Bunker Hill is a mythical part of LA that was dismantled during the 60’s and replaced with office buildings, it was a neighborhood of crumbling Victorian mansions, some carved up into rooming houses and Angel’s Flight was smack dab in the middle.

This neighborhood features prominently in pulp writing(Chandler, Ellroy) and classic film noir. So come on down and check it out! Los Angeles does have history, it’s just buried under a strip mall.
Here’s the trailer:

Laughton reads from the Bible in an unused scene

I went to see the Night Of The Hunter Outtakes last night and I’m glad I did. It was an excellent show, narrated by the restorer, really the man responsible for this wonderful artifact existing at all, Robert Gitt. By the way the show was packed! This magical film draws people, even it’s outtakes! And it wasn’t just a bunch of academics, there were all ages and types of people. It’s sort of especially wonderful considering that Laughton had thought he failed in making this film. That the film was basically a flop when it was initially released. I blame United Artists! They had a technique of under budgeting films, then when the filmmakers were faced with needing more money or shutting down, UA would swoop in and supply the cash but take all rights, profits, etc. They used this same technique on my pal Robert Downey when he directed Pound for UA. But back to last night, I was extremely gratified to see that Preston Neal Jones, the author of the incredible Heaven and Hell To Play with- The Filming Of Night Of The Hunter was there. I love this book and I think it should be required reading at every film school in the country, on second thought the world! He is a very nice guy, very humble, and was so pleased that people liked his book and had many complimentary things to say about it. I wrote about the book in a previous post, check it out here.

Me & Preston Neal Jones, I know I look like a psycho

Anyway the show was great, Bob Gitt narrated the proceedings from a podium at the side of the stage, first he gave a bit of history of the footage, Laughton’s widow donated the footage to the AFI back in 1974. Students there began using it as fill leader, i.e. just to fill spaces between sections of magnetic track, in other words as junk film. Someone noticed this and put a stop to it and the film was shipped to the AFI in Washington D.C., Bob Gitt worked at the AFI and found out about the film. He later moved to UCLA and got the film shipped back to LA and began restoring it. It took 20 years of work to get it pieced back together and restored! Thanks for being so resolute!

Bob Gitt, restorer and narrator

The first scene was something Laughton shot for the opening of the film, a close up of himself reading from the Bible, it was never used but I think some of the audio may have appeared on the soundtrack album. Some of the highlights were, seing scenes that didn’t appear in the movie. For example a nighttime shot of downtown Cresap’s Landing where Robert Mitchum first comes to town, This was replaced by a stock footage shot of a locomotive steaming furiously at the camera. A wise move by Laughton and Robert Golding, the film’s editor. Outtakes of Mitchum screwing up were always amusing, especially when 5 year old Sally Jane Bruce would tell him ” You forgot your lines again”.

There was footage of the actor originally cast to play Uncle Birdie, a much more mild mannered man than James Gleason who replaced him. I think if he had continued in the part it would have been more realistic, less showbiz than James Gleason. I guess Laughton felt he needed more energy in that part. It’s pretty cool to see Robert Mitchum dressed as the Preacher sitting in his jalopy on a dark stage, then a slate comes in , the background projection starts, they begin rocking the car and Mitch starts speaking to the Lord! Incredible! Shelly Winters acts up a storm in this film. In the outtakes from her torchlit testifying scene she seems on the edge of a psychotic episode. Lauhton’s off camera voice commands her to say a prayer, any prayer and she begins chanting in Yiddish! This got quite a reaction from the crowd. Another powerful scene dealt with in depth is the one where Mitch kills Shelly. She’s alone in bed, illumined by a shaft of moonlight, a beatific gleam in her eyes, she’s at peace with her God and about to join him. Laughton hammers at her relentlessly, tweaking her performance, giving line readings, stopping her in mid sentence, starting her over. Bob Gitt included all the outtakes of this scene ostensibly to demonstrate what a great director Laughton was, how he shaped Winter’s performance but for me it had a different effect.

Robert Mitchum and Shelly Winter’s and many other members of this cast were excellent even incredible actors. That they would allow someone to constantly interrupt them, give them readings, talk at them the whole time they were on camera is a sign of the respect they had for Laughton. I think they would have told anyone else to shut the hell up! Laughton, a great actor, basically played every part in the movie off camera, often delivering the lines of whoever was in a scene but not on camera, playing the little girl or the boy’s father or whoever. I did feel he created a tension with his off camera direction that added to the depth of seriousness or weight of particular scenes but I think his real direction was probably given in the preliminary discussions with the actors, especially Mitchum and Winters. It’s fascinating to watch Shelly Winters, a devotee of the Actor’s Studio strip herself bare emotionally. It’s like being in her psychiatrist’s office during an especially heated session. But I think this is one of the things that makes a great actor, the ability to expose true naked feelings, things everybody else tries so hard to hide. A tribute to Laughton’s genius is the fact that he allowed Shelly to go to that point of hysteria but the used the more restrained takes that were in the end much more effectual. It’s also great to see Lillian Gish’s outtakes, once again Laughton is on her like an octopus, she begins a take ” Too Much!” bellows Charlie time and again and he’s always right. Another tragic element connected with this film is put clearly on display by screening these scenes, the talent of Billy Chapin who played John Harper. He took direction like an old pro, capturing nuances Laughton demanded of him. He was a great actor at that young age and yet he never worked again! I don’t get it. Another example of the stupidity of the Hollywood system. I have a theory about Laughton, I think he was a tortured soul, gay at a time when that was anathema to a career, having to live a secret life of self-loathing, I think he used this in his performances, like his great Quasimodo, read Fun In A Chinese Laundry and see what von Sternberg said about his acting in the unfinished I, Cladius, it’s all about torturing himself to give a good performance.

Von Sternberg

I think he projected his technique that he used on himself onto the actors in this film and I think instinctively they knew what he was doing and respected it, otherwise I don’t think they would have put up with it. I’ll close my review with two musical notes. One, we get to hear Sally Jane Bruce’s original track singing the “Pretty Fly” song as they float down the river. It was later replaced by a professional adult singer, Sally Jean’s is pretty amazing, for a 5 year old to sing a minor key song acapella blew me away, she got the part because she had just won a singing contest.

Sally Mayes, she sang the beautiful version that’s on the musical theater (Varese
Sarabande) CD of HUNTER

Then over the end credits we get to hear Mitchum sing a sort of boogie woogie version of ” Leaning On The Everlasting Arms” really Cool. There are a lot of other moments that make this show so great, and make us so lucky that this material exists and that a man like Bob Gitt loves film so much that he took the time to preserve this treasure trove. I overheard Bob say they’re trying to get this released on dvd, keep your fingers crossed.

This Saturday August 9th UCLA will screen The Night Of The Hunter Outtakes at the Billy Wilder Theater. This material was donated to UCLA by Laughton’s widow, Elsa Lancaster (The Bride Of Frankenstein), Robert Gitt, retired head of Preservation restored the film and is presenting this screening. I’ve long been a fan of this film, Charles Laughton’s directorial debut and swansong, and this is a chance to see Laughton in action behind the camera, he kept it rolling as he directed actors between takes. Preston Neal Jones, author of the wonderful book Heaven And Hell To Play With, The Filming Of Night Of The Hunter has screened the footage and describes it in detail in his book. It just made me want to see it even more and now I have my chance. Besides I will look at any frame of celluloid that Robert Mitchum appears in. I’ll report back about the experience when I can.

Yo Everyone! I went to the screening of Inglorious Bastards at The New Beverly and it was great! it was also packed! A great turnout for this cool film. The film was action packed, a story full of enough twists and turns for three movies! But the real surprise was how funny the film is! Fred Williamson has a ton of great lines, great reactions. There are many cool bits including stopping a V2 rocket from exploding by shoving a pencil into a worm gear, such a great Italian solution! Bo Svenson is great too, as the playboy fighter pilot. Fred Williamson jumps from a bridge onto a moving train. It’s really him doing the stunt , and he talked about it during the Q & A. He said he couldn’t see the train as it went by because of the smoke from the locomotive. But he heard Enzo’s voice yell “jump!” and he did. He landed on his butt because he couldn’t see otherwise he would have ” jumped cool”. Fred, Enzo and Bo spoke at length about the film, and the crowd sang Happy Birthday to Enzo, he couldn’t believe it and he was extremely happy. Kudos to Severin Films for striking a new print of this cool movie. Check it out if you can! It’s showing again tomorrow night at the New Beverly.

3 Amigos

Enzo G. and Q.T.
I attended Enzo G. Castellari’s 70th birthday party at the Italian Cultural Institute last night and it was a blast! I got to talk for quite a while with Enzo, a true maestro and a real gentleman. This was kind of amazing since it was a party in his honor and everyone was there to see him. We were interrupted several times by actors from his films, including Bo Svenson and Fred Williamson who appear in the original Inglorius Bastards akaQuel maledetto treno blindato. Lou Ferrigno ( the Incredible Hulk) , Edd “Kookie” Byrnes, Pia Zadora and John Saxon were there as well. I tried to complement John Saxon on his work in Mario Bava’s La Ragazza Che Sappeva Troppio, or The Girl Who Knew Too Much, or The Evil Eye, but he didn’t want to hear it. I guess he was in a hurry to get back to The Planet Of Blood . But Enzo really got excited when I asked him about his working as an editor. His father, Marino Girolami, directed over 100 films and Enzo told me that he grew up in the editing room. That’s how he got to spend time with his father, by hanging around the editing room. Also he’d go to the cutting room every night after shooting and tell the editor how to cut the scene he’d shot the day before. He loves editing and tells his students at the Arte Institute, ” If you want to be a director you must first learn editing!” Any way it was a great evening, honoring this giant of Italian Film, It made everyone there happy, seeing how happy Enzo was at being honored for his birthday and for the DVD release of his great Inglorius Bastards! Go out and buy it! From Severin Films!
Here’s the trailer!

Come one, come all to the Egyptian Theater this Thursday July 24th at 7:30 pm. It’s the Grand Finale of their Italian Grindhouse Festival. First up Sergio Sollima’ Citta Violenta ( USA Violent City). starring Charles Bronson, Jill Ireland and Kojack himself, Telly Savalas! A great score by Maestro Morricone and incredible stunt driving in tiny Fiats by the master of all Euro stunt drivers, Rémy Julienne, also editing by the great Nino Baragli! Then they’re showing, Fernando DiLeo’s masterpiece Milano Calibro 9. Great Score by Luis Bacalov and the rock band Osanna! Check them out , I’ll try to make it if I can. Here’s the trailer for Citta Violenta!

P.S. Here’s the wonderful Barbara Bouchet dance scene from Blood and Diamonds but she does a very similar dance in Milano Calibro 9!

I’m working on a piece about Jess Franco but I’m also working on an editing gig so I don’t have much time, there is a major Franco retrospective going on right now at the Cinematheque Francaise, if you’re going to be in Paris soon, check it out! Stay tuned in for more! In the meantime here’s a promo for a cool documentary on the ultra-prolific Spainiard, Man of La Cinema, Jesus Franco!

They screened the recently restored print of Sergio Leone’s epic masterpiece at The Academy Of Motion Picture Arts And Sciences last night. All I can say is “It was magnificent!” The crew at Triage Motion Picture Services went all out. Paul Rutan flew to Rome and got a 2 perf Techniscope Interpositive made from the original camera negative. Then they borrowed Martin Scorsece’s IB technicolor print from the original theatrical release and timed to that. I must say it looked like Technicolor! They got great saturation that comes close to IB Technicolor. It was amazing.



The sound was restored as well and the mono mix sounded great. Did you ever notice in this film, whenever somebody is shot and killed a horse whinnys immediately afterwards and really loudly. Check it out. Also this is the epic Leone Western that features a powerful female character. Claudia Cardinale is as big a character as Bronson, Robards, and Fonda.

It’s in…

The Eyes, Chico…

They Never…

Lie!
These beautiful giant faces filled the enormous screen at the Academy in Incredible Leone Close Ups and the magnificent vistas of Monument Valley never looked so good as photographed by Tonino Delli Colli on 2-perf! You can really see the attention to detail Leone and his crew put into the sets and costumes by watching this film on a big screen. The pace may be slow compared to films made today but it gives you time to look around the frame and see all the beautiful objects, textures, lighting. Leone did scrupulous research on Western costumes and props and it comes through.

One Of The Greatest Flashbacks In All Of Cinema

When you top it all off with the music of Ennio Morricone it’s an unbeatable combination. The movie is really incredible images accompanied by soaring emotional score, wonderfully arranged and performed by great musicians, interspersed with great dialogue, not many words but all carefully chosen, it was a revelation to hear how many laughs the dialogue got. The audience was right there with the film for the entire time. Thanks also in part to the masterful editing of the great Nino Baragli. If you get a chance to see the restored version of this film in a good theater, I urge you to go and see it. It will be a revelation.

Once Upon A Time In The West Trailer

Akira Kurosawa sued Sergio Leone claiming that Leone ripped off Yojimbo and based his Per Un Pugno De Dollari on it. Leone claimed that it was a common story used many times before notedly by Dashiel Hammet in his novel Red Harvest. A story about a gangster who infiltrates a gang and plays one side against the other.

Samuel Fuller, Maverick
That is exactly what happens in Sam Fuller’s excellent Underworld U.S.A. Cliff Robertson grows up on the wrong side of the tracks, as a youngster he witnesses his father’s demise at the bloody hands of a group of thugs in a back alley. The young protagonist swears to take vengeance on the men who offed his old man and when he grows up he starts tracking down the killers. They have moved up in the world becoming big time gangsters and Cliff uses everyone to set them up, the police, the gangsters themselves, even the woman he loves. This movie pulls no punches, a hit man runs down a 10 year old girl after befriending her and giving her some gum.

Richard Rust, Psycho Killer with Cliff Robertson
It seems her bookkeeper father has disappeared with some sensitive information about “Mr. Big”. Robert Emhardt the large guy with the snide attitude is great as the Big Boss, after Cliff (Tolly) sets up one goon, Richard Rust the happy hitman douses the poor slob with gas and lights him up. Emhardt is watching from the back seat of his his ’60 Caddy , he leans forward with a cigarette, “Gimme a light.” he orders.

Last One In Is A Rotten Egg!
This film is great, it really demonstrates how to make a lot out of a little, something Fuller was a master of. It inspired many filmmakers and is chock full of great ideas executed with style and power. Check it out.