Film Forno

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.

I attended the Theater Of Universal Images Filmmaking workshop in Newark N.J., my home town. I was paid by Manpower to learn filmmaking, What a great Program, we got to make short films and we were all paid! There were about 12 of us in the program, I was one of two white attendees. The rest were all African American except for two Puerto Rican guys. The teachers were all African American proffesionals from NYC. It was a great experience. The editing teacher was an amazing talented man named Frank G. Host. We became friends and he helped me get my first job in NYC on Madison Avenue at a commercial editing company called Editor’s Hideaway.Frank was a great friend and mentor. He helped me in a million ways. He was one of the first African American Film Editors in NYC, along with John Carter and Hugh Robertson. Frank told me he got his break into film editing from a guy named Irving Fajans, who fought in the Spanish Civil War, was a Union Organizer, learned filmmaking on the G.I. Bill and was openminded enough to give a young talented African American young man a break and get him into the craft of film editing. I am eternally grateful for the help Irving gave Frank and Frank gave me.

Irving Fajans                                                                                                                                                                              Frank G. Host

Here is a film Irv Fajans edited and maybe Frank G. Host worked on. P.s. the director of photography was the great Boris Kaufman, he shot films for Jean Vigo and On The Waterfront among many others.

Hear the late ,great Ingmar Bergman speak about the early influence of The Phantom Carriage, Victor Sojostrum’s classic supernatural silent film. It’s like Bunuel talking about seeing Fritz Lang’s Destiny and how it launched him on his film career. Bergman used Sojostrom in Wild Strawberries, and supposedly the old man was very difficult to deal with. Still it is a great film, with a magnificent ending.

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 is the trailer for Jacques Demy’s Model Shop. His only film made in Los Angeles. It captures a disappeared L.A. that I find really beautiful. It’s screening soon at the New Beverly, if you’re in L.A. go see it.

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!

Here is an amazing film made in an optical printer by the talented Zbignew Rybczyński. I met him in NYC years ago , he had a company called 525. He was an early adopter of Hi Def video. But this was done on film.

Here is a great behind the scenes view of maestro Federico Fellini directing Giuletta Delgi Spiriti, his first color film. Photographed by the amazing Gianni DeVenanzo, a true genius. The thing that gets me is how cheap everything looks in this footage, you see all the tricks that go into making a fim but when you watch the real movie, it all looks so amazinf=g! so beautiful, you can’t believe it’s the same thing. Watch this, then watch the movie and see for yourself the magic of movie making.

Here’s the final version of the scene.

I remember the insanity surrounding the release of The Exorcist. People waited in lines for hours to see any showing, midnight or 10 AM. I heard Warner Brothers had employees, who were heading home for the Holidays, hand carry prints to their local theaters. They were working round the clock to finish the film and make the Christmas Eve release. My pal Bud Smith edited the film, a magnificent job! My other friend, the late, great, Jack Nitzsche recorded special sound effects for the film, that add immensley to the experience. But here is a short documentary on the phenomenon of The Exorcist’s first release.

Here’s a cool TV documentary about Peter Sellers and his work with Stanley Kubrick. Great Strangelove stories and Weegee Speaks!