Film Forno

The story goes that Paramount desperately needed to make a film in a hurry, Alan Ladd their box office giant was due to report for military service and they wanted a film to exploit his fame before he went in.

Ladd, a grip turned actor, for a non-actor he’s very good

So they asked Raymond Chandler to write a script in record breaking time. He asked for and got a bunch of special conditions that he insisted were absolutely necessary for him to finish on time. He wanted to work at home, he needed two cars and drivers at his disposal, round the clock stenographers and nurses and an unlimited supply of alcohol. Chandler felt the only way he could deliver was to be constantly inebriated, I guess this got his creative juices flowing. He delivered the script. Is it a film noir? Maybe but it does veer from the form in certain significant ways. The story starts with three returning WWII vets arriving in Hollywood, U.S.A., Alan Ladd, William Bendix and Beaver Cleaver’s future dad Hugh Beaumont. They stop in a bar for a celebratory drink and we learn that Bendix has a “plate in his head” from a war wound, also he is driven to near insanity every time he hears “monkey music” or big band swing/jazz. A soldier playing a tune on a juke box is the object of Bendix’s maniacal ire. This is an interesting twist, I always felt that WW II era big band music was almost a drug, that it relaxed soldiers far from home, reassuring them with it’s soporific harmonies that everything was going to work out, they’d return home to Mary Lou and grow old under the apple tree. Here Chandler takes the musical promise of normalcy and shines a bright light of reality in our faces by having it inspire madness and murder in the damaged mind of a returned veteran. The other false promise, the faithful wife awaiting her returning husband is likewise demolished when Ladd finds a wild party in full swing at his wife’s “bungalow apartment”, not only that but he sees his spouse smooching on nightclub owner-racketeer Howard DaSilva.

Evil Sparkly Doris with corrupt nightclub owner/paramour DaSilva

She delivers the coup-d’etat by informing Ladd that their son Jimmy died after she drove drunk and crashed. Doris Dowling plays the evil wife and she is pure nasty badness. OK, usually the femme fatale dupes the man, lies to him, appears sweet or sexy somehow lures him to his doom, like Eve with her Apple, not Doris! She is so nasty and evil she’s lucky Alan Ladd doesn’t kill her himself. She winds up dead pretty quickly which is another curve thrown in the noir structure, the femme fatale is killed in Reel One! Then we get some great Chandler set pieces, Ladd meets Veronica Lake in the rain, (Chandler called her”Moronica” Lake), the house dick (Will Wright) starts blackmailing everyone in sight and is treated like dirt by everyone in the film! He is at the absolute bottom of humanity, I found myself laughing out loud as one character after another insulted, degraded, and humiliated him, maybe I should say tried to humiliate him because he didn’t care, he just wanted a few bucks, or a cigar or whatever he could cadge from anyone in his path.

Ladd and Lake in fake Malibu. The poor, beautiful junkie paid dearly for fame.

There’s an incredible character- Leo(Don Costello), he’s DaSilva’s partner in the night club and he is great, a true Chandler character, a gangster that wears thick glasses, he looks more like an accountant than the cold blooded killer that he is. I think he’s a truer picture of what a lot of these racketeers were like, they considered themselves business men and killing was simply a part of their business. A sharp observer like Chandler surely based this guy on a real gangster in the papers at that time. Then there’s the obligatory kidnap the hero, take him out of town, tie him up, beat him into unconciousness scene. Just like in The Big Sleep where it happens to Bogie. A great bit of action occurs when Leo, who has injured his foot in a struggle with Ladd, is soaking his toe in a basin of hot water supplied by his kind henchman, Ladd awakens from being slugged and tips a table over that smashes down right on Leo’s injured toe! The reaction from Leo is classic! And I’ve never seen that particular move in a fight scene, another Chandler stroke of genius. There’s plenty of snappy patter such as “I’m not that kind of a rat” “Oh,what kind of a rat are you? or when Lake picks up Ladd in the rain ” I guess you could get wetter if you lay down in the gutter” etc. Chandler knew how to write that kind of stuff. Another anti-noir element is the lighting, there’s no use of shadows, venitian blinds, smoky silhouettes in this film. It actually looks like a Monogram el cheapo. The sets are crummy, under decorated, limned in just a few shades of gray, they actually remind me of the sets from the Abbot and Costello television show.

Cheapness Personified!

The whole production looks grade Z, which is kind of surprising since Ladd and Lake were big box office at the time, having recently struck gold in This Gun For Hire. Another weird aspect is the almost total lack of background music. The only music in the film is the big band stuff that drives Buzz (Bendix) into homicidal amnesiac rages. Most films of this era had incidental music playing under dialog scenes. This has none. Was this a budgetary consideration? I don’t know, the flat lighting and skimpy set design speaks more of the rapidity with which they needed to make this film, they were under the gun with Ladd’s induction looming. But I feel that the cheapness of the sets, the flat lighting and the lack of music works for this film, it makes it more creepy, it’s harder to dismiss it as a piece of fluff, it gets under your skin like the home movies of a serial killer. It’s more real, lifelike in it’s mundaneness, not movielike.

The one prop they seem to have spent any money on at all is the neon sign that bedecks the front of DaSilva’s nightclub, a large gaudy Blue Dahlia. That’s the name of the club. I think it represents a lot to Chandler and this story. Da Silva publicizes his club by handing out Dahlias dyed blue. Veronica Lake picks at one absent mindedly in DaSilva’s office triggering an outburst from Buzz “She was picking at a flower just like that when I killed her!” Buzz the disturbed veteran is the murderer! The Dahlia, an exotic hot house flower represented sex,debauchery, corruption to Chandler. Just like the opening scene in The Big Sleep that takes place in General Sternwood’s green house. Exotic flowers are perverse to Chandler, decadent. The fatal combination of Dahlia and “monkey music homicidally unhinges Buzz. I think it played out like this, Buzz met Johnny’s wife in a bar, not realizing who she was. They went to her bungalow to have sex, he couldn’t perform, she taunted him, tore up the flower( masturbated?) drove him to murder.

Femme Fatale Doris about to get her comeuppance from Shell Shocked Steel Plated Buzz

The film ends with Will Wright being named as the killer but in Chandler’s original script it was Buzz, the Navy intervened and demanded the script be changed, they didn’t want a veteran to be portrayed as a murderer. Chandler strongly objected to this but he was overruled. The film was a big hit and several spin-offs or rip offs were made in it’s wake, notably The Blue Gardenia by Fritz Lang. Shortly after this film’s release a young woman was hanging out in a drugstore in Long Beach, she had wavy black hair and a soda jerk referred to her as The Black Dahlia in a joking reference to this film. Thus pinning a name on one of the most famous unsolved murder cases in the history of L.A. and further assuring a place in history to this strange bit of celluloid.

Beth Short bedecked with flowers, the real Black Dahlia

The beautiful Veronica Lake was in reality a troubled young woman. Her husband and director Andre deToth revealed that she was a heroin addict and an alcoholic during her meteoric rise to fame. She was found near the end of her life working as a bar maid in NYC. She achieved the fame girls like Elisabeth Short ( Black Dahlia) came to Hollywood to find yet she wound up working in a bar, a fate Beth Short might have shared if she’d lived.

Wow! I just got an email from Mary, wife of Jerry, proprietor of Jerry’s Videos! Attached was an amazing song tribute to a bygone video store: Jerry’s ! I wrote about it when it closed here. Jerry’s Video’s closing left a big hole in our community and I’m so glad somebody did something to mourn it’s passing, namely Eleni Mandell and her band The Grabs. This song rocks ! It kicks ass! Check it out! Here is the link to the Grabs website. VHS!

I think this is the album with Jerry’s Video Store on it

Eleni Mandell-an incredible singer, songwriter

For your dreaming and listening pleasure, the great Santo and Johnny perform their hit Sleep Walk.

Check out this film of the great Django Rinehardt, the incredible thing besides his amazing musicianship is that his pinky and ring finger on his left hand were paralyzed in an accident and he still played like a genius! Inspirational.

Here’s an excerpt from Mack Sennett’s The Hollywood Kid. Shot at Sennett’s Edendale Studio, you can see the rotating cyclorama used for chase scenes.

I got a great album from a guy by the name of Tim Smith that I’d like to turn you on to. It’s called Caballero Del Mar by the band Primal Sky. There’s a lot going on in this mix of Surf, Latin, Jazz, Acid , Mancini, Morricone Music. The first track starts with a slightly laid back killer groove, with flute and sax calling and responding, acoustic guitar crashing like waves on the beach and then an amazing chorus of voices comes in like a 60’s Italian Spy Movie. The music just keeps on getting up, it never gets repetitive there’s do much going on, constantly evolving. All the tunes are great and very different. The 2nd track Rota La Ola has a really cool Spanish recitative vocal that grabs you and doesn’t let go and a cool almost New Orleans drummer working out underneath, a banda type accordion solo comes in, you just don’t know what to expect and that makes the album a lot of fun to listen to. It would make a great soundtrack for a cool beach party or it’s great to listen to while working on something, I’ve been playing it while I write lately.

Mr. Smith Goes To Huntington!

Tim Smith wrote and produced almost all of the tunes and he plays guitar on them as well, all the musicians are top notch, there’s a kick ass violin solo on Eres Hermosa, like I said you just don’t know what is going to turn up next! There’s a heavy surf connection to this album. I guess they are all beach living surfers that can jam, it comes across especially on Hijo Del Mar a kind of Caribbean Herb Alpert Groove. And Flamenco Beach rocks out like a Spaghetti Western soundtrack, hipped up and narrated by a demented Matador. Check it out. This is a great album, get your hands on a copy, apply liberally to your ears, you won’t regret it.

Extra Added Bonus- Tim with The Great Jack Palance!

A film of overwhelming moods, everything in this film seems filtered through a veil of sadness. Visually stunning, the art direction and cinematography are wonderfully rich. The colors jump off the screen in beautiful compositions. Director of Photography Nic Roeg really outdoes himself here. And Bernard Hermann’s music sinks you deeper and deeper into a state of lugubrious drugged oblivion, like a person slipping deeper and deeper into a bottomless vat of viscous oil. The powerful rhythms and images of dream logic make this film even more effective. For example the woman who burns herself with her books and Montag’s nightmare.

Also I love films made in the 60’s yet set in the future for their take on design, it’s the 60’s taken to a super cool extreme, like they had reached the apogee of design and then found a way to show that somehow in the future it would be improved upon in interesting ways.

The firetruck, the monorail, the doors that slide open on their own. Big flat panel TV’s hanging on your living room wall.Truffaut didn’t like this film that much although Ray Bradbury did. I think Truffaut is not always a fair judge of his own films since he didn’t like The Bride Wore Black either and to me that’s one of his best films. A fascinating depressing work of Art, check it out on a rainy Saturday afternoon. The opening credits are spoken over images of TV antennas, no writing allowed in the future! Montag forces a group of his wives friends to listen as he reads from a book by Charles Dickens, an emotional passage about the death of the writer’s wife. One woman breaks down in tears, the rest say he’s disgusting, “people aren’t supposed to upset other people, that’s why they did away with books in the first place!” This sounds to me like our politically correct society of today where you can’t say anything slightly off center without being pilloried. Also everyone takes massive amounts of prescription drugs, the whole population is medicated! The mindless totalitarian society hypnotized by Television and since there is no writing allowed, there can be no scripts for the actors on TV, sounds to me a lot like Reality Shows. Now The that the Supreme Court has allowed Corporations to spend as much as they want on political campaigns Fahrenheit 451 doesn’t seem so far away. I just heard that it will be re-made with Tom Hanks as Montag, Ray Bradbury is in frail shape this could finish him off. So check it out and see what you think, it is a very unique, disturbing film.

I finally started watching the Slapstick Encyclopedia I borrowed a few years back. I will return it to it’s rightful owner soon! Anyway one of the films jumped out at me in Volume 1. It was A Movie Star by Mack Sennett. It was produced under the Triangle Films banner, Sennett had left Keystone and gone into business with his old boss D.W. Griffith, the man who taught Sennett how to make a film. A Movie Star was one of the first Sennett pictures to have a script, the earlier ones were just ideas on paper and then cast and crew improvised the rest. It shows, The Movie Star is consistently funny from beginning to end. It also is a very early self referential film being about the movie business. The action takes place in a nickelodeon theater, a star (Mack Swain) aka Handsome Jack shows up where his latest picture is playing, so he can wallow in the adoration of his fans, especially the female ones.

Handsome Jack Poses Next To His Poster

A real actor shows up and is not impressed and shows it during Handsome Jack’s bow taking. Handsome Jack also starts clapping surreptitiously to cue the audience throughout the movie.

Handsome Jack Starts The Spontaneous Applause, A Technique Still Used At Previews Today!

The Shakespearean Actor Shows Contempt For Jack’s Antics

There are shots of the film on the screen in the theater and this is years before Keaton took this idea to a new level in Sherlock Junior.

Film Within A Film

Handsome Jack is scoring with the chicks after the show when his battle-ax wife and two kids show up to put an end to his fun.

The Wife And Kids Put A Crimp In Jack’s Game

A Movie Star is directed by Fred Hibbard, I guess Sennett was the producer, and the acting is so much better than in the Sennett directed movies where everyone is way too far over the top. I also read that nobody liked Sennett, especially the people that worked for him, they’d get skilled under his tutelage then head out for a job at another studio, even his stars, Arbuckle, Chaplin, and Normand did this. But still in all those were the days! Just cranking out films one after the other, how cool is that! There are some other great touches in this film, we get to check out the theater musician/sound effects man, he shoots pistols, whoops like a wild Indian, beats a drum, and plays the piano to accompany the film.

The Super Cool Sound Effects/Music Man!

And we get a glimpse into the projection booth and see the projectionist hand cranking the projector! If you want to check out a good Early Silent Comedy check this one out. It delivers.

The Wild Indian Smooches On Handsome Jack’s Girl, They Shot This In Front Of A Circular Rotating Background Panel!

Here’s a book all about Japanese master filmmaker Ishiro Honda. Primarily known for Godzilla, Rodan, Mothra and a slew of other fantasy sci-fi horror films.

Some of my favorites are The H-Man and Attack Of The Mushroom People. The book seems very well researched and written in an enjoyable easy to get into style. I especially liked a section on Eiji Tsuburaya, special effects guru and mentor to Honda. Mention is made of a WWII propaganda film War At Sea From Hawaii To Malaysia, that sounds fantastic, incredible miniatures showing the Pearl Harbor attack. I really would like to check that one out. The Japanese Sci-Fi, Fantasy films influenced generations of filmmakers the world over and dealt with Atom Age Angst as powerfully as any other Art, maybe even more so, seeing as they were created by the people that suffered the results of an Atomic Attack. Peter H. Brooks has done a great service to film students and film lovers in writing this book and illuminating the life of a hugely influential, yet somewhat unheralded filmmaker. I say to him “Bravo!”

Here at Film Forno we believe in supporting independent films and filmmakers. Case in Point : One Too Many Mornings, these guys hit the jackpot, they’re screening at Sundance! The odds are like one in 10,000 so congratulations! They are also implementing a radical marketing plan, they will sell the dvd from Sundance after they screen, that’s right they will mail you a dvd from the Sundance Post Office (if you order one online). This is pretty far out, I’ve never heard of anything like it and I wish them luck. I haven’t seen the film but the trailer looks funny and it’s in Black & White which is a definite plus in my book. So check out their website here. And check out the trailer below.

Hey 2010 is turning out to be the Year Of Exploitation here at Film Forno! Submitted for your consideration, Bitch Slap, a new movie opening January 8th in L.A., N.Y.C., and San Francisco. It looks like a lot of fun, hot chicks kicking ass and making out with each other, what’s not to love? I understand they reference such classics of Female Empowerment as Coffy , They Call Her One Eye , and Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill! and they do it all with a sense of humor. Also an added attraction, stunts and fights by super cool Zoe Bell! You remember her from such classics as Death Proof and Kill Bill, she was Uma’s stunt double and she is a remarkable performer! She’d be the best female to back you up in a bar fight!

America’s got Boobs, I mean Talent!

This movie appeals to everyone, case in point, America Olivo (one of the stars) graces the cover of Playboy and Bitch Slap was featured on the cover of the Lesbian News! So you know it’s got it going on!

Who You Lookin’ At?

Here’s a very cool film by a dedicated smart filmmaker. I’ve only seen the trailer but it’s excellent, I hope to see the film soon, maybe at a local cinema. The film is Modus Operandi and the filmmaker is Frankie Latina. The things that impress me about this project are many, first of all Frankie shot it on film! Super 8 but it looks great, the look only real film can give so Bravo for that, secondly he shot MOS and post synched the dialog, in his own words “the way the Italians did it”. This is a great way to work, economically and creatively, all Fellini’s films were made this way as well as Sergio Leone’s! Post synching is a disappearing Art, there’s something eerily atmospheric about images -total silence- dialog recorded in a studio- backgrounds- music all put together , it can be very effective. Also Latina’s lighting techniques are right out of the 70’s exploitation filmmaking and they look great, it really re-creates that Truck Turner, Coffy, Slaughter vibe. And the subject matter, the sexploitation Spy Gangster genre, a lot of my favorite Art was created in the guise of pulp material, The Maltese Falcon, Fast One, Out Of The Past, Touch Of Evil, etc., this is a great way to create something cool and popular.

Latina in a PorkPie

Then also the techniques of no budget filmmaking, I listened to a radio interview with one of the stars of the film, Mark Borchardt, where he asks people to show up at a theater as extras! They were filming that day! How cool is that! I remember hearing how Bootsy Collins went on the radio and asked all “Funkateers” to show up at a Detroit recording studio and sing a chorus for an album he was doing! This reminded me of that. Another creative solution to a production problem. All together a lot of admirable thought, passion, creativity and dedication went into this film and I’m looking forward to seeing it!