Here’s the opening sequence from the seminal 60’s TV show The Prisoner. It starred Patrick McGoohan as Number 6. One of the most surreal things ever to appear on the small screen. Check it out, I still don’t know what the final episode means!
Here’s the trailer for Antonioni’s Blow Up. I’ve been thinking about this film a lot lately, the ambiguity, the way it doesn’t explain anything, the tension created by you not knowing what will happen next, something sorely missed in contemporary films where you know everything that will occur. Great Art Direction, Great Camera Work, some of the best driving footage since Touch Of Evil. Maybe I’ll write an in depth piece on it soon. It deserves it.
Here’s an interview with Franco De Gemini, he played the harmonica on the soundtrack of Sergio Leone’s masterpiece Once Upon A Time In The West. It’s in italian but even if you don’t speak Italian you’ll get a lot out of it. What an incredible movie and what a magnificent score. I went to a screening of a restored version of this film last year, my friends at Triage Motion Picture Services did the restoration and it was beautiful. You can really see the attention to detail Leone put into making this film when you watch it on a big screen. But check out Franco and dig his playing of two notes that clash and how he bends notes and how he gave a voice to The Man With The Harmonica.
Here’s some of Planet Patrol. I used to watch this and drink chocolate milk after I got home from Sacred Heart School. It was made in England in some guy’s garage and there it was called Space Patrol. I love the sets, futuristic cities made of plastic and the music is outstanding. Electronic tonalities reminiscent of Forbidden Planet. Check it out!
Here’s a documentary on the great maestro of Cinema, Don Luis Bunuel. This is the first part but you can find the rest on YouTube.
Here’s some footage shot during the making of Fellini’s Satyricon. Thanks to Jeff Gent for pointing this out. Oddly enough a guy I worked with many years ago told me he shot a lot of documentary footage on the set of this film, his name is John Taylor, we worked on a PBS kids film with Morgan Freeman. This was just before Freeman’s breakthrough role as a pimp in Street Smart. He had just finished working on Electric Company as The Count and the first thing he told us was ” I ain’t putting on that fucking cape!” So here’s to John Taylor, maybe this is some of his film.
Bernie Hamilton has shuffled off this mortal coil. Bernie was probably best remembered as the gruff, no no nonsense Captain Dobey on the 70’s TV series Starsky And Hutch. But he also appeared in some interesting films , most notably The Swimmer and Bunuel’s The Young One. The latter was almost impossible to see until fairly recently.
Bernie in Bunuel’s “The Young One”
It opened to extremely mixed reviews due to it’s racially charged subject matter, nominated for the Palm D’Or and winning a Special Mention at Cannes , one Harlem newspapper called for Bunuel to be hung from a lamppost! Hamilton plays a marooned jazz musician fleeing a potential lynch mob, an interesting role considering his brother is the great jazz drummer Chico Hamilton. Chico appears in the super cool Sweet Smell Of Successwith Burt Lancaster, Bernie was in The Swimmer with Mr. Lancaster. Bernie was also in The Jackie Robinson Story, a strange, yet moving film starring Jackie Robinson chronicling his breaking of the baseball color barrier. He also appeared in some 70’s classics like Nam’s Angels, Scream, Blacula, Scream, Hammer, and Synanon . So farewell Bernie , see you at the South Central Memorial Bar-B-Que with a hell of a band playing some cool tunes./
Bernie Got His Own Action Figure!
“Peace On Earth” or ” Purity Of Essence”! The letters P.O.E. are the A-bomb attack recall code thought up by General Jack D. Ripper in Stanley Kubrick’s masterpiece Dr. Strangelove or How I learned to stop worrying and love the Bomb!
Rainwater and Grain Alchohol!
My old pal Pablo Ferro told me that WeeGee was the still photographer on Strangelove. Stanley knew WeeGee from his days as a young New York photographer for Look magazine.
Watch The Birdie!
Pablo also told me that Peter Sellers was going to play bomber pilot Maj. T. J. “King” Kong but Sellers broke his leg and Kubrick brought in Slim Pickens.
Major Kong Rides The Bomb!
Another friend. Ray Lovejoy, worked as the assisstant editor on the film. He told me that Peter Sellars did many improvised variations in his performances as President Muffley and Dr. Strangelove. Maybe one day Stanley’s daughter will investigate the outtakes.
Lt. Mandrake trying to cope with Gen.Ripper
Legend has it that some negative was destroyed in a lab in England, Kubrick flipped and moved his negative to another lab but he insisted it be moved in an armored car! Ray also told me that Pablo went to the lab late one night, he was working on the title sequence. He barges in at midnight, sporting a Mohawk haircut and wearing an electric Indian blanket. The entire negative cutting department resigned! They quit, walked off! Pablo was ahead of his time.
So Happy Holidays from Dr. Strangelove and all his friends here at Film Forno. Peace On Earth, Purity Of Essence or whatever floats your holiday boat.
Here’s Peter Sellers interviewing WeeGee:
Sellers riffs on English accents on the Strangelove set.
Thanks to The Film Walrus for bringing to my attention the fact that Inspirace was posted on Youtube. This is an incredible film! A truly inspired and inspirational piece of art. Zeman heated blown glass figures and bent them between exposures to bring them to life. This magical film takes place in a drop of water on a leaf. Zeman opens a window into a jeweled world of fantasy and wonder, like a glimpse into a phantasmagorical Fabergé Egg.
Check out this doc on the great Karel Zeman, Czech animator, special effects guru, all around genius. I don’t know about you but I vastly prefer mechanical, physical, optical effects to the digital junk created by an army of ants with computers. Zeman made the super cool Fantastic World of Jules Verne in a Victorian roto-gravure style, it rocks! Anyway here’s a couple of videos as a sample.The first is the doc, the second is a trailer for Jules Verne.
Xmas is just around the corner so here’s a tale of holiday magic from the old days in NYC when I worked as a film cutter on all kinds of stuff. I needed some sound effects for a project I was working on, I made some calls, finally I found what I was looking for so I jumped into a cab and shot over to 45th st.
Night Falls On 45th St.
Back in the day everything was on 45th street, optical houses, editing rooms, sound transfer, you name it. Once I was on 45th st. , it was also at xmas time, Dec. 16th 1985. It was late afternoon, getting dark, cold, windy. I came out of the Optical House at 45 w 45th and heard sirens , I could swear I saw some guys in overcoats hurrying down the street, looking back and laughing nervously. That night on the news I found out Mafia don Paul Castellano had been hit at Sparks Steakhouse over on 46 th st.
Anyway, I headed over to Magno Empire, a small office in a big building, an offshoot of Magno Sound, a big sound mixing outfit. I go in and ask for Larry, an older gent comes out and goes to get my sound effects, a yong guy working there comes up and we start talking. “You know who Larry is?” he asks. ” Nah, who is he” I reply. “He directed Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer.” the young guy answers. When Larry comes back,I tell him what a fan I am of the show, what a pleasure it is to meet him. Larry lights up like an Xmas tree, he invites me back into his den and we talk for a while. Finally I have to leave, back to work. Larry stops me. “You like Spike Jones?” he asks. “Sure.” I reply. “Here, you’ll love this.” Larry hands me a cassette of Spike Jones greatest hits that he’s put together. I noticed in the end credits of Rudolph that Ralph Friedman was a sound mixer on it. Ralph was the founder of Magno Sound, I guess he was throwing Larry a bone, giving him a gig at Magno Empire in his waning years, not much stop motion to direct in those days. I see on IMDB that Larry (in 1966, two years after Rudolph) directed a stop motion Ballad Of Smokey The Bear. This featured the voice of the great James Cagney.
Larry Roemer wherever you are I salute you.
What the heck, here’s another classic Kung Fu epic starring the great Gordon Liu. This film influenced Quentin Tarantino quite a bit and the ShawScope opening banner seen on this trailer is the one used at the beginning of Kill Bill. It came from a print of this film. Here’s the trailer – This is essential Kung Fu, Check it out!