Film Forno

Slavko Vorkapich

Bob Downey
Whoever watched my FilmNut interview heard me babbling about the late great film theorist, montage maker and teacher Slavko Vorkapich. I first heard about Slavko from Bob Downey (Senior that is), a prince. Bob worked at an ad agency in the 60’s making “experimental” commercials. One had a woman in Chainatown turn to the camera and say ” With Preparation H I can kiss my hemorrhoids goodbye”. Anyway Slavko was working at the agency teaching his ideas on film, Bob was very impressed and always tried to utilize what he got from Slavko. So here without further ado is a famous montage Slavko did for a Hollywood movie many moons ago.

Thanks to Flickhead for turning me on to this clip!http://flickhead.blogspot.com/

Another gem from The Film Noir Collection, Vol.4, Mystery Street by John Sturges, who also directed Bad Day At Black Rock and The Great Escape. Mystery Street intrigues me for several reasons. First and foremost it’s a good film. Excellent Cinematography by that master of Noir, John Alton. Also great Editing by Ferris Webster,my friend Pablo Ferro knew Ferris and really liked him. He edited a lot of great films. The Great Escape, Thunderbolt and Lightfoot etc., etc.

Crackerjack performances by such greats as Ricardo Montalban and Elsa Lanchester. Killer Boston locations from 1950. A lot of forensic detail since this story involves a skeleton found in the dunes of Cape Cod and a pathologist at the Harvard Medical School helps solve the case. Actually there are a lot of lurid details in this movie. It’s almost like a 50’s tabloid newspaper come to life. Several details reminded me of the Black Dahlia case which took place 3 years before this film came out. A woman’s body is found, through some sleuthing they find the guy she was last seen driving away with. Sure he spent some time with her but he didn’t kill her. He’s recently married and doesn’t want his wife to find out. Just like Red Manley, the first suspect in the Dahlia case. Manley was let off the hook but it eventually destroyed his marriage and he committed suicide.

Red Manley. Dahlia Suspect,Family Man, Suicide Victim Gets Frisked

The newspapermen hounded Manley and his wife and they do the same here with Henry and Grace Shanway. The girl,Vivian Heldon, was a rent-a-date type who was impregnated by a rich, upper crust clown. She tried to shake down the elitist snob James Joshua Harkley, who knocked her up, and she got killed by him instead. A similar scenario to the one proposed by Donald H. Wolfe in his book The Black Dahlia Files. He claimed Betty was snuffed by Bugsy Siegal because a rich Norman Chandler had gotten Betty pregnant and she wouldn’t have an abortion. So watching this movie is kind of like looking back in time at a similar murder investigation, much more interesting than watching Brian De Palma’s film.

Vivian Heldon, Pregnant Murder Victim, I told you this Film Was Lurid

Ricardo Montalban is excellent and it’s really cool to see a Latino lead in a movie from that time. Especially since he’s not playing Zorro or a Mexican Spitfire or some other stereotype. Montalban is a detective, hard nosed, dedicated, an asshole at times as he digs for the truth. He’s even convinced the wrong guy did it, an accurate portrayal, cops think everybody’s guilty. I guess that comes from spending so much time with criminals. The fact that the woman was murdered on Cape Cod and her remains discovered in the dunes reminded me of another real life case. The Lady in The Dunes, a famous unsolved case from 1974. An unknown woman’s body was discovered, her head was smashed in and almost severed. They couldn’t ID her from fingerprints because her hands had been chopped off and were never found.

Reconstructed Face of The Lady In The Dunes
The psycho that did this was never found. He or She could still be around today, it’s highly unlikely that whoever did the Dahlia is still kicking. I guess it’s possible but they’d have to be around 80 or 90. If you’d like more info on The Lady In The Dunes click the link below.
http://www.doenetwork.org/

Two more luminaries have dimmed. Reg Park, muscle man, peplum star, bodybuilder, amigo & mentor to Arnold Schwartzennegar died Nov. 22.

Fernando Fernan Gomez actor, director, writer shuffled off this mortal coil as well. Reg played Hercules, Ursus and Maciste, the big three Italian Peplum characters. My favorite of course is Ercole al centro della terra ( Hercules at the Center Of The Earth or Hercules in the Haunted World) by the sublime Mario Bava.

The most atmospheric of all Hercules movies ( although Bava was the special effects cameraman on the popular Steve Reeves Hercules Unchained), the trip to Hades is very cool and the Oracle scenes are outstanding. Reg had to do battle with a Vampiric Christopher Lee and rescue his babe Princess Deianira, the luscious Leonora Ruffo.

If you’re a fan of this genre and haven’t seen this one, do yourself a favor and check it out. Or if you’re an aspiring fantasy filmmaker with a small budget, sit at the feet of Maestro Bava and be amazed at what he did with almost nothing in the bygone pre-digital days.

Spain and the rest of the world have lost a gigantic talent with the passing of Fernando Fernan Gomez.

He’s probably best remembered by Americans as the worldly father in the excellent Belle Epoque. He plays the delectable Penolpe Cruz’s father and host to the deserter Jorge Sanz ( who looks just like Robert Downey, Jr.). A great movie!

He also starred in an incredible film about childhood. El Espíritu de la colmena ( The Spirit Of The Beehive). Please see this film! It’s about a very young girl in a rural Spanish village and her reaction to seeing the film Frankenstein projected in the town square by an itinerant film shower. It’s an incredible film!

Senor Gomez appeared in over 200 films! He directed 30 films! Plus he wrote and directed many plays! What a great career! I’m an ardent admirer of the picaresque novel Lazarillo de Tormes . Gomez wrote and directed a film version in 2001. I will have to track this down and post on it in the future.

So Bon Voyage to a giant (physical) of the Silver Screen and a creative force that whirled around Spain and world Cinema for many years.

I watched The Asphalt Jungle again after not seeing it for a long time. It’s an influential movie. Especially to Jean Pierre Melville. It might even be his favorite film.

A Street Out Of Melville

The DVD was part of a film noir collection and include some interesting extras, first was an introduction by the man himself, John Huston. It must have been filmed right after the film was made, it’s in B+W and Huston looks like he’s in his late 40’s. He says the movie is all about the characters, summing up with something like ” you might not like them but I think you’ll find them fascinating”. Now that’s my kind of movie!

The City=Hell
And the movie really is all about the characters, the way it’s filmed, the action, the details, it all serves to illuminate these beings, their strengths and their weaknesses or “Vice”. From the opening frames, the MGM logo with the roaring lion, the music creates a sense of foreboding, dread. The score is by Miklos Rozsa, it sets the mood and then there’s almost no score until the end. But it works very well. Melville did not use much music in his crime dramas, perhaps influenced by this. The first scenes are shot early on a foggy morning in what looks like Bunker Hill. “Crook Town” according to Raymond Chandler. A patrol car prowls the streets like a rouge shark hunting for the scent of blood. A figure ducks behind a pillar, it’s Dix, the magnificent Sterling Hayden in what I believe is his greatest role.

He’s One Intimidating Fellow

He’s pulled in by the cops and put in a line up. But he intimidates the eyewitness, staring him down with murder in his eye, and the corrupt cop can’t out intimidate the guy so Dix walks. We are introduced to a group of criminals, an underworld association of safe crackers, wheelmen, hooligans, brains, bookies, and a high priced mouthpiece.

Lon The Mouthpiece and Cobby The Bookie

Also a rough police commissioner, he tears up the corrupt Lt. Ditrich’s ass in an early meeting. I can’t help compare this angry top cop to the Inspector in Melville’s Le Circle Rouge. But the Inspector is more cynical, sure everyone is corrupt while the american is still believing in some, still naive in a way that feels distinctly american. Dix to me is the hero of this piece. He is the post war, traumatized American male. He dreams of the Kentucky horse farm he grew up on. How great it was, his only goal in life is to get enough money to buy it back and to do that he must struggle in the dirty city, the asphalt jungle.

Doll loves Dix, The Only Guy Who Treated her Square

He tells Doll, his taxi dancing girlfriend, of his life back in Kentucky, of a particular Black Colt, the best horse they ever raised, and how everything went bad one year, the corn crop failed, the colt broke his leg and had to be shot, and his father died whereby they lost the farm. He is every American, naive, not understanding the horror that can overtake them at any moment. I’m referring to WWII and the devastating effect it had on our collective psyches. Dix just wants to get back home but as Doc Riedenschneider and Thomas Wolfe would tell him, you can’t go home again. Home to Dix is innocence, clean water, air, 30 acres of blue grass, heaven.

Doc, The Big Brain

Anyway this is a caper movie , a brilliant plan by the “Doc” (Sam Jaffe). Interestingly played as a German complete with accent. A mastermind, he’s figured out this heist down to the smallest detail. Unfortunately when you add violence to the mix, things can go wrong and they do. Huston keeps the action simple and real. I love his fight scenes. My favorite is the bar fight in The Treasure Of The Sierra Madre, when Bogie and Tim Holt take on Barton MacLane. You feel the struggle, the brutality just like a real fight, it ain’t pretty.

Dix Slugs The Watchman, His Gun Hits The Floor and Goes Off. The Safecracker with a New Baby catches it in the Gut. Just Unlucky, I guess.

The Doc’s vice is chicks, young, beautiful babes. Huston sets this up with a revealing detail. Doc can’t help scope a girly calendar when left alone in the bookie joint.

Doc’s Vice

James Whitmore plays Gus, the hunchback wheelman. He likes Dix, going out of his way to pay Dix’s gambling debt, to keep Dix from pulling another heist.

Gus The Hunch Loves Cats

Louis Calhern is Uncle Lon, the crooked lawyer that lives beyond his means and Marilyn Monroe is Angela, Uncle Lon’s plaything. Man is she sexy, just the way she shifts around on a divan makes your temperature rise.

Marilyn Sleeps On Uncle Lon’s Couch

The movie is shot beautifully. A lot of low angle two shots with one character in the foreground that show the ceiling of the room, creating a claustrophobic sense of everyone being trapped in little boxes, Dix’s room, the bookie joint, Gus’s luncheonette. Greg Toland and Orson Welles shocked the film world by showing ceilings in Citizen Kane. Sets were usually built without ceilings, a throwback to silent days when light came from glass roofed studios. Huston took that idea and ran with it. Maybe the ceiling represents the city, especially to Dix who grew up on a farm, outdoors with the sky for a roof. Harold Rossen did a great job, so atmospheric. It’s true Noir camerawork, with characters facing the camera as another speaks behind them. Rossen was nominated for an Oscar for Cinematography but lost out toThe Third Man! Gee, were movies better then?

Classic Noir Composition

And as the film progresses and the only characters still on the loose are Dix and Doll, Huston moves into Close Ups.

Huston moves in closer

Now that he’s got the audience invested in these people he shoves them in your face. It works like gangbusters.

And Closer

Another thing, watch the heist carefully. Where another director would focus on the drill bits and tools, Huston keeps us on the faces, the heist is portrayed purely through character.

The Heist Plays Out In Faces

There are a lot of little details about everybody that creates more 3 dimensional beings out of them. The fact that the safe cracker just had a baby, that Gus loves cats, that Lon has a sick wife. Backstory for everyone. The sets are great too, bare lightbulbs, pints of whiskey, dirty glasses. It gets under your skin. There’s a street at the begining that looks exactly like one in Melville’s Le Samourai. This nighttime world of people knocking on each other’s doors at 3AM, Melville’s milieu. Also, horses play a big part in Huston’s films. Reflections In A Golden Eye and The Misfits come to mind immediately. Towards the end of Le Doulous Belmondo stops off at a barn and checks out his horse before heading up to the main house where his killer is awaiting him. Is this an homage to Huston’s horse obsession? Quentin Tarantino has said that Melville did for the Crime Film what Leone did for the Western. I guess so, took elements from the Hollywood films they admired, stylized the heck out of them and revitalized a genre. This is one of Huston’s top two films, the other being The Treasure Of The Sierra Madre. In the end Dix makes it back to his farm, he gets to lie in the green grass under the beautiful sky surrounded by the horses he loved.

He Loved Horses More Than Anything

But he had to pay a high price, the price we all have to pay to get to Heaven.

Heaven

Lee Van Cleef VS. a Cucumber with Claws

I just noticed something. A guy I just met via email sent me a book he wrote about Lee Van Cleef. The guy’s name is Mike Malloy. Anyway I’m reading this book and I see that Lee Van Cleef’s first starring role in a film was given him by Roger Corman.

The Artful Roger

The film was called It Conquered The World and Van Cleef played a scientist who contacts a Venusian creature that wants to take over the Earth. And it almost does with Lee’s help, until he has to destroy it and save Mankind. I liked this movie when I was a kid.

The Monster Menaces The Beautiful Beverly Garland, doesn’t she own a motel in Studio City?

The only bad thing is the rubber monster. Van Cleef is great as always. Another thing, Corman gave Charles Bronson his first leading role in Machine Gun Kelly.

This is an excellent film and I whole heartedly recommend it to everybody. It features an outstanding performance by Maury Amsterdam of all people!

This movie got Bronson noticed in Europe and he was on his way. Van Cleef and Bronson both became huge stars through working in Europe.

Another thing Van Cleef and Bronson have in common. They both play the Harmonica!

They were both in their 40’s when they finally made it. Bronson had been in a lot of films, he was favored by Andre deToth and appears in several of his films. But even a giant talent like deToth didn’t or couldn’t give Charles a leading role.

Van Cleef is in High Noon and is very effective. But who gave him his first leading role? Roger Corman. Was it because he was a true independent filmmaker, answering to himself?

Was it Corman’s vision, ability to see talent for himself and the guts to take a chance? Probably a bit of both. These two stars were Galactic! International Box Office Giants. And they weren’t pretty faces, maybe to be a macho leading man you have to go to Europe and come back as one, like Clint Eastwood. Bronson’s nickname in Italy was Il Bruto (The Ugly), Van Cleef was mistakenly called “Mr. Ugly” in American ad campaigns after his appearence in The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly.(He played The Bad) Who are the macho leading men today? Russel Crowe? He’s from Australia, Mel Gibson? Ditto. Are there any home grown ones? I wonder why not.

They’re releasing a new DVD of Jack Nicholson’s directorial effort The Two Jakes. I always liked this movie, maybe I’m a sucker for anything set in 1940’s/50’s L.A. but I enjoyed it when it came out and thought it was unfairly condemned by critics. Sure it’s not Chinatown but what is? Only Chinatown! There are a lot of cool elements to this film, the locations (the Dresden Room!),

Are Marty and Elaine Still There?

the actors,( James Hong reprising his role as the faithful Manservant Kahn),

Jack & James, Hey! Wasn’t that guy in One Night With You!

the kind of overall melancholic atmosphere set against the boom town oil/real estate bonanza that was Los Angeles. I even like Van Dyke Parks music. I once had lunch with him and my old pal Bud Smith at Musso & Frank’s. He is a very funny guy!

But let me get on to Part II of my tale. Jere Huggins is an old friend. He’s an editor, he worked on Woodstock and a lot of other films. He worked with Robert Towne on Personal Best and was hired to edit The Two Jakes when Towne was going to direct and the two Jakes were to be Nicolson and Robert Evans. Jere was even going to play a small part in the film. He looks like a guy from the ’40’s tall, all American, a little Clint Eastwoodian. So Jere goes to work on the first day of shooting, he gets his period costume goes to the set, nothing happens, finally they call lunch. The caterers serve steak and lobster. After lunch they call a wrap for the day. Jere goes home, he gets a call, the film is cancelled! I guess Towne would not proceed with Evans playing the other Jake. So the film languished in turnaround for a while until they hashed out a compromise- Evans doesn’t act, Towne doesn’t direct. Jack does and Harvey Keitel plays the other Jake. And Jere Huggins doesn’t get to edit or play a bit part. That’s Hollywood!

I knew this re-release was in the pipeline a while ago, I know the brother of the colorist who did the new transfer for this DVD, he said Nicholson was supervising the color correcting himself so I figured it was for something big. I haven’t seen The Two Jakes for a long time, so I’m looking forward to this new release, why don’t they make a new print as well and show it in the theaters too! Hey Jack, my friends over at Triage Motion Picture Services will give you a great deal! But seriously, I love the attention to detail in this movie, I think it’s Nicholson’s directorial masterwork. You can tell he took this story to heart and gave it his all. It shows in every frame. I especially like the ending , it’s emotional tone is unique in Cinema. It expresses loss in a rare human way for such a larger than life character. There’s a third screenplay Towne wrote called Cloverleaf. The unproduced third act of the Jake Gittes Trilogy. I hope they make it soon.

Two Jakes Trailer

I went to the American Cinematheque to see Murray Lerner’s filmThe Other Side Of The Mirror. It’s a film about Bob Dylan. It was shot at The Newport Folk Festival in 1963, 1964,& 1965 and it shows how Dylan changed over that time period.

He starts off as a young folksinger. Singing songs about oppression , social iniquity, racism and other divisive techniques used by politicians. Anti-War songs, beautiful stuff. He does one of my favorite early Dylan songs, The Chimes Of Freedom Flashing.

If you’re a Dylan fan I recommend this film. But gradually Bob changes, he becomes more of a Media figure, more of an icon. His music becomes more abstract, more personal, more about himself in a way and less about oppressed people.

Finally in 1965 he performs with an electric band, Mike Bloomfield on guitar, Al Kooper on Organ, Sam Lay on Drums. The crowd boos him!

They were upset that he was playing amplified music, they wanted Mr. Tambourine Man. But I have to say watching the film this time, I agreed with them! Seeing that young Bob Dylan, so pure, so talented, just him, his guitar, his voice, his lyrics, entertaining thousands of people, singing about inequality, about people being the pawns of government, about life in a mining town, was so moving and inspiring. Especially today when such voices are not allowed to be heard.

Then seeing him with his rock band, Bleah! Commercialism, Sell Out! It just wasn’t as good! In 1963 he looked like an androgynous Pixie. his hair piled on top of his head, his skinny face, he was like Snap, Crackle, & Pop, a magical figure, not of this earth. Then suddenly he’s Lou Reed’s cousin, playing with junkie geniuses, down in the mud of existence. No wonder they booed. Lerner interviews some very young fans and they said ” Who needs Dylan anymore. He’s here, part of the establishment” He rode the folk scene until he was big enough to become an icon, a God not a human. He went to the other side of the mirror.

Joan Baez sings with you know who

A very young Johnny Cash appears in this film and comments on what a great songwriter Dylan is, and performs a song. Very Cool!

Murray Lerner makes a profound statement about the nature of fame, Art, Perception, and human frailty.

And he makes it in a deceptively simple way. That’s what makes it so powerful. It took Murray 44 years to get this film released. Bravo for not giving up.

Keith Robinson & Murray Lerner, two veterans of 630 9th Avenue, The Film Center Building

Like I said if you’re a Dylan fan, check it out. If you don’t know anything about Dylan it’s still worth seeing, you may learn something about the culture of those days and about the incredible music Mr. Dylan was making then.

Another gem from this wonderful noir collection.

Decoy is a great little film, in a similar vein to Edgar G. Ulmer’s Detour. Low budget but bursting at the seams with creativity, Decoy was recently re-discovered by a neighbor of mine, Bill Rush, who works at Warner Brothers. It hadn’t been seen since 1970 and it’s screening at the American Cinematheque Noir Program caused a sensation. Okay let’s begin at the beginning! A great weird opening! Close up on a battered, chipped porcelain sink, dirty hands come into frame, turn on hot water, steam blasts into the sink! Cold water will do, pan to a roll of paper towels suspended on a piece of twine, pan and tilt to a chunk of broken mirror revealing a disheveled zombie looking guy. We later find out he’s a dishonored doctor(Herbert Rudley).

Is this a Zombie Movie or a Film Noir?

He exits the gas station rest room, stumbling like the undead, ignoring the cheerful good morning patter from the pump jockey, Hitching a ride into the city. He goes into a snazzy apartment building , followed closely but not close enough by Sheldon Leonard who plays Sgt. JoJo Portugal. By the way Leonard looks exactly like Mickey Cohen in this movie, his hat, his suit, his manner.

Sheldon Leonard as Mickey Cohen…I mean, Sgt JoJo Portugal!

Mickey Cohen as Mickey Cohen, The Mickster

Portugal follows the Zombie but misses the elevator. When he gets off at the 2nd floor he has his gun out but he puts it away upon hearing a shot fired in a nearby apartment. Portugal busts in, the maid is crying, the zombie is finally dead and lying mortally wounded is one of the most evil females ever captured on Celluloid. Margot Shelby (Jean Gillie)

Beautiful, Ruthless, Deadly

She tells Portugal the story in flashback, a story so heartless and calculating, it makes you question your sanity. Let’s get this straight right now, this film is out there, crazy!

Let the Flashback Begin!

Margot wants money, she lives for the finer things, and she will do anything to get them, I mean anything! Her older beau is in stir, he killed a bank guard while stealing $400,000 and now he’s gonna get the big whiff! Cyanide gas up in Q.
She’s playing with the old letch, Robert Armstrong ( He was Carl Denham in King Kong!)

Trouble is he hasn’t told Margot where he stashed the loot and he won’t tell her unless he gets out. She hatches a diabolical plan with the aid of a gangster named Jimmy Vincent. But there’s a catch Vincent wants her and half the money.

Tough Guy Jimmy Vincent, just another sucker

She needs a doctor to help with her plan to spring her death row beau, Frank. They’re going to revive him after he’s pronounced dead! OK, this evil, amoral monster finds a dedicated doctor, he works in a poor neighborhood, he volunteers at a clinic. He cares about curing people not making money.

Fetishistic Detail #1 The Nurse’s Hair

But our femme fatale seduces him, not only does she seduce him, he falls so in love with her he sacrifices his ideals, his career, his life, everything for her. As a matter of fact every man in this film falls for this icy goddess of evil! They all want her for themselves and this enables her to destroy them all. Frank gets the gas chamber, the scene is shot from his point of view and the audience watching the execution looks like people in a movie theater watching a film! Maybe the director was holding up a mirror to the audience as if to say” Look at yourselves, entertained by watching a man suffer and die!”.

Mirror, Mirror

They steal Frank’s body and Dr. Craig brings him back to life.

Elements Of A Horror Film

He draws a map of where the money is hidden and then they kill him! They brought the guy back to life and 5 minutes later they kill him! Insane!

Fetishistic Detail #2- Jeweled Hands Strap A Dead Man’s Ankle To An Operating Table

They go to dig up the cash, along the way they stop for a quick bite and a drink. Dr. Craig gets drunk. Margot exits before the boys and let’s the air out of a tire. They drive a ways and it seems like they have a flat. Jimmy Vincent gets out to fix it and after he finishes, she runs him over! She’s not sharing the boodle with anyone! In the print shown at the Cinematheque she runs him over, backs up over him, then runs him over again! This is cut to just one run over in the DVD, too bad! She coldly takes the map and a gun from Jimmy’s dead body, gets back into the car where the doctor says ” I want to kill you!” She hands him the gun,but she has faith in her power over this yutz, he can’t do it!

Even Though she destroyed his life, killed a man in front of him, and will soon kill him, he can’t kill her, he still loves her and she knows it!

Margot drives gleefully to the buried treasure burial spot, paces it off, and goes crazy with gold lust, scratching at the ground and shrieking for the doctor to get something to dig with. He comes up with a huge knife, he raises it over his head, it looks like he’s about to kill her, but he drops to the ground and begins digging like a madman.

It looks like he might kill her, but no! He drops to the ground and digs like a will-less puppet!

He hits paydirt in the form of a small trunk. Margot laughs and screams like a delighted Banshee, then she pumps several slugs into the doctor. She grabs the trunk and splits, hysterically laughing in ecstasy.

The Ecstasy Of Gold

This is where we came in, the doctor wasn’t dead, he made it back town on willpower and sheer hate, and blasted Margot with his last bit of strength. The flashback ends, JoJo the cop has placed Margot on a couch. She looks up at him, flutters her eyelids. “Do you love me, JoJo?” she whispers. Jojo stops, looks at her, he does love her! He moves in for a last kiss. She laughs in his face! Makes a fool out of a man with her dying breath!

She died as she lived, laughing at foolish Men

Jean Gille gives a tour de force performance. She is incredible. This movie was made at Monogram Pictures, a low budget outfit that cranked out Bowery Boys films and some of Bela Lugosi’s final films. But the cheapness of this production actually adds something to this film. A mysterious element of inevitability, like we’ve seen it before but there’s nothing we can do about it. Jack Bernhard’s direction is top notch. Excellent understated camera moves, scenes that play in one shot. Fetishistic details that add an eerie underlying atmosphere of a Horror movie, a cross genre fertilization. The lighting is great, all broken light with shadows of leaves, venetian blinds etc., real noir touches. I also liked the props and the clothes, rings, jewelry, all felt hand picked. Once again the low budget gave the filmmakers a freedom to explore dark depths, to shed light on idiosyncratic psychology, to show us something we hadn’t ever seen before. Jean Luc Godard was a big fan of this movie and Monogram Pictures in general. He even dedicated his first film Breathless to Monogram. So once again I heartily recommend the Warner Bros. Film Noir Classics Collection, Vol.4, every film in this set is great!

Good Luck trying to see this one! I was able to see it last night at the American Cinematheque aka The Egyptian Theater on Hollywood Blvd. next door to the famous Pig & Whistle. It was great, such a treat to see a beautifully shot Black and White movie on a big screen.

The opening is a study in economy and atmosphere as three men make a break from a prison. The image is very dark and the setting stark, a few high walls, a watch tower with spotlight, some guards walking a narrow alley between the high walls. One of the three escapees dies in the attempt. The other two make it and after running through a deserted forest board a moving freight train. the older of the two almost doesn’t make it, he’s helped by the younger guy, who pulls him onto the moving train. Gus( Lino Ventura) lies there struggling to catch his breath and we feel for the man, getting older, on the run, with nothing in his pockets. Maybe this is illustrative of the title The Second Breath or second wind, where after being exhausted one gets a renewed burst of energy. Gus will soon put this energy to use but first we are plunged into a vortex of underworld connections, deals, murder, police procedures, and in the process we meet the rest of the players in this drama.

Manouche with Inspector Blot

Manouche ( Christine Fabréga ) runs a chic Parisian restaurant, she is very concerned when she learns of Gus’s escape. Is she his girlfriend? An ex-lover? No, she is in fact his sister and their relationship is an intriguing and unique one.

The Great Melville!

In Melville by Rui Nogueria, Melville says that in French gangster slang “sister” is a term for girlfriend. I believe Manouche is really Gu’s sister but the implied incest adds a compelling dimension to their relationship and Melville says “If I’ve let it be understood that Manouche is Gu’s sister, it’s because of the Enfants Terribles part of me- or rather because of the great homonyms Pierre or the Ambiguities.”

A Great Book, Rare these days!

We also meet Inspector Blot (Paul Meurisse) a wise and very human police chief. He comes across almost as a father figure trying to understand these criminals and guide them to justice rather than smash them to bloody bits. He respects their code of ethics, maybe even admires them. He first appears in a tour-de-force scene right after a murder, where he explains how each witness didn’t see anything. It’s a long, complicated scene with a lot of movement and it’s done in one take. Brilliant!

Figures In A Landscape

Setting Up The Heist

There’s also a armored car heist, pulled off with calculated ruthlessness that includes the cold blooded assassination of two motorcycle cops. Brutal.

These Masks will appear in Melville’s Masterpiece- Le Circle Rouge

And a torture scene, like something from Melville’s resistance film Army Of Shadows.

Give Him A Drink!

Except in this film it’s the French police doing the torturing. The censors didn’t like that so the scene fades out as the torture starts and fades in when it’s over. We have stills of the missing footage but can’t someone locate the original footage and restore it to the way Melville intended? It must exist somewhere, even just a workprint. It would be a wonderful addition to a great film.

A Still From The Missing Scene

The end of the film has an element reminiscent of Out Of The Past. When Gu lies dying, his last word is “Manouche!”. Later when Manouche asks Inspector Blot if Gu said anything, he says “No”. Trying to free her from a hopeless obsession. Like the deaf boy in Out Of The Past telling Jeff’s girl Jeff wasn’t coming back for her but was running off with the other woman when he was killed. A beautiful touch, one of the greatest endings in Cinema. This film was made at Studio Jenner. Melville’s own film studio in Paris. Unfortunately it burned a few years later and I understand there is no trace of it left today. I don’t think that Rue Jenner even exists. What a shame.

Lino Ventura, He and Melville didn’t get along but they made great films together

Le Deuxième souffle has never been released here in the USA. It’s not available on DVD here (I think it is in France). I was fortunate enough to see it through the good graces of the excellent programmers at The American Cinematheque during their French Crime Series. See it if you can. And to those that don’t think much of this film I can only say, open your eyes, you’re missing the Cinematic Part.

Peter Brook directs a young amateur

This masterpiece is another film I was exposed to at a young age through the auspices of The Million Dollar Movie. It had to be fairly soon after it was released theatrically (1961) I think I first saw it around 1963 or ’64. It made an indelible impression on me, I can still remember vividly many scenes and I have not seen it since back then! I found a Life Magazine article about the making of the film and the images here are from that.

Still Somewhat Civilized

A plane crash during a future nuclear war strands a group of English school boys on a deserted tropical island. All the adults are killed and the boys must fend for themselves. They start off by being democratic, electing a leader, setting up rules and regulations, it seems to be going well. There is an unforgettable image of a group of choirboys marching up the beach, single file, dressed in their choir robes singing a Latin hymn, Kyrie Eleision. This music is perfect, eerie and unsettling in this context. Needless to say as time passes and the school uniforms turn to rags the boys revert to primitive forms of existence. The choir boys become hunters and begin acting wild, like Pagans. They kill a wild boar, roast it, and devour it in an incredible scene. The eating of meat turns the boys even more wild, setting their bloodlust racing. They find a “monster” living on top of a nearby hill and begin worshipping it.

The boy playing Piggy had to keep stuffing himself between takes to remain big, he lost weight anyway

Eventually sacrificing a weak boy named Piggy. He is overweight and subject to much ridicule, the hunters take his glasses to start a fire thereby incapacitating him and finally they crush him with a huge rock, toppled from a sea cliff. It’s pretty horrible.

As the clothes disappear so does the morality

My hat is off to Peter Brook, he took amateur boys, some as young as 7 years old to an island for 3 months and created this whole brave new world, it’s nothing short of a miracle. The images and performances are absolutely superb.

Peter Brook, maestro of theater, hand picked these boys and engaged in a bit of make-believe, play infused with ritual, the basis of all theater, cinema, art. A raw and savage creation, bursting at the seams with vitality, life force, nature.

Ralph, the duly elected leader is hunted like an animal by the film’s end

Lord Of The Flies was based on a book by William Golding. The article tells of the book’s history. It’s fascinating. The book was first published in the USA in 1955. It was a flop, all but ignored. The filmmakers went into pre-production in 1959 before the 1959 Capricorn paperback was issued. This paperback edition became a college campus bestseller, usurping Catcher In The Rye. How did the producer’s know this would happen? They didn’t. Film is a commercial medium, to be a success without major stars, a film must catch a cultural wave and ride it to popularity. Maybe they sensed the spirit of change, of youthful rebellion in the air.

College campuses were influenced by the Beats, the Summer Of Love was nearing. The Vietnam War was heating up. Lewis Allen, Peter Brook and William Golding were in the right place at the right time. Below is a video someone posted on YouTube, It has music by Erik Satie and images from the film. Check it out, you’ll feel the primordial power of this film. Then rent it or buy it, but see it.

From the first frame of this movie you know you’re in for quite a ride, A big 40’s car hurtling through the desert night, filmed in such a way that you think it’s going to come flying off the screen into your lap.

This movie is so well directed. Raoul Walsh effortlessly takes us on an epic adventure, train robbery, prison, escape from prison,etc. It seems like so many short scenes flowing into another, fast paced full of action, tons of details, at the prison , the machine shop and mess hall all play a role in the story.

Raoul Walsh lost his eye when a jack rabbit jumped in front of his speeding car

The high tech crime fighting tricks of the G men, radio co-ordinating, these scenes remind me of Fritz Lang’s M , where he shows the technology of the police opposed to the tricks of the criminals. Walsh was a master of this fast paced action storytelling. Check out Gentleman Jim starring Errol Flynn. The scenes fly by like scenery outside a train window. Walsh was a master filmmaker. He had a lion for a house cat.

Raoul and his cat

I read Walsh’s autobiography, it’s very good.I found out we both went to the same prep school (Seton Hall). He gives a lot of credit to James Cagney for his portrayal of Cody Jarrett. When Cagney sits on his mother’s lap and when he kicks Virginia Mayo off a chair and a lot of other great bits were all Cagney’s creation, according to Walsh.

Can you shorten the sleeves a little?

This is subversive filmmaking of the highest order! Walsh and Cagney show Cody Jarrett as a psycho killer, merciless to his enemies, able to coolly blast a guy trapped in the trunk of a car, while eating a chicken leg and making a joke! “I’ll give you some air!” Blam, Blam, Blam ,Blam!!! Great!

Cagney grabs a Rat, I mean Edmund O’Brien

The feds are seen as hard working, tireless, prosecutors of criminals but Walsh has the head fed using a long cigarette holder, an effeminate if not depraved prop. Is this a dig at J. Edgar Hoover? The cross dressing tyrant of FBI fame? Later the Fed has his arm in a sling, is he less of a man? And what about undercover rat Edmund O’Brien? Infiltrating criminal gangs by pretending to be a loyal pal, a “kid brother” to Jarrett and others. Watch the way O’Brien escapes from the surrounded payroll office during the climactic end sequence. He runs out under the cover of tear gas and literally slithers on his belly like a snake or a worm to get through a narrow gap in some pipes and into the safe arms of his fed friends.

Come and get me ,copper!

Then he uses his sharpshooter skills to pump several bullets into Jarrett, who’s laughing his head off. “What’s holding him up!” O’Brien asks as he fires another round into his erstwhile friend. But Jarrett is buoyed up by his love for his mother, he’s finally fulfilled her lifelong prophecy, he’s made it to the top. “Top O’ The World, Ma!!” He yells triumphantly and he sees her watching him proudly, her eyes shining with admiration and love for a son only she can love, the flames of Cody’s immanent annihilation reflecting from those eyes that represent the whole world and everything in it to him.

The End of The Hollywood Gangster Icon

Ishiro Honda cops a feel off a Mysterian

Ishiro Honda created some of the most memorable images of my childhood. Rodan is an amazingly made film. Every shot looks like it was designed in the camera and the flashback sequence is one of the most powerful in Cinema. It’s an operatic monster movie. Ishiro was good friends with mega-director Akira Kurosawa and he directed 2nd unit on some of his epic battle scenes.

Look what a little radiation can do

The H-Man is another cool movie.I was lucky enough to see it projected in Technicolor at Film Forum in NYC, let me tell you, that is the way to see that film! The eye popping color and design. Delicious!. It has an incredible sexiness to it. The gangsters, their babes, the nightclub complete with Japanese Jazz and wild dance numbers. The super slick clothes everyone wears and the monster.

It’s a radioactive slime that slithers through storm sewers and dissolves people leaving only their clothes piled in a heap where they were taken. At one point a gangster kidnaps a woman and takes her into the sewer, he makes her strip and he gets naked so the police can find their clothes and think they were dissolvd into the collective radioactive slime that is The H-Man .

Slime in the Sewer
It slithers into the nightclub office during a rain storm and threatens a performer. Sometimes it assumes a humanoid shape, rearing up on two gelatinous legs maybe some kind of sense memory of when it was a human. The best sequence of the film takes place on an abandoned ship. A trawler finds a ship adrift at sea, the crew board the ghost ship and look for survivors but they can’t find anyone. Unfortunately for them they find The H-Man.

AKA- Beauty and The Liquid People
So open up a bottle of Nigori unfiltered Sake and checkout The H-Man, just remember you need someone to pour your Sake for you and you do the same for them, otherwise Bad Luck and you could wind up slithering in a sewer.