If you want to catch up on your Spaghetti Western watching look no further than Amazon Prime. I guess they acquired the FilmRise catalog and have a whole slew of Italian Westerns from the 60’s. I’ve watched A Pistol For Ringo, The Return Of Ringo, Cemetary Without Crosses, Django Kill, and last night a crazy one with Lou Castel called Requiescant. But there are a ton on there. You can watch The Great Silence, The Grand Duel, Navajo Joe and many others. So saddle up companeros and tune into Westerns on Prime.
I just watched Werner Herzog’s magnificent film Stroszek. Starring the incomparable Bruno S. I had never seen it before and it really impressed me. All the acting is terrific especially Bruno as the title character. The film is filled with an undeniable poetry, the ending is a visionary critique of Capitalism and the American way of life, something that was not scripted but found by chance as Herzog filmed on location. A miracle of Synchronicity. You should watch it and be amazed. 10 thumbs up!
Jack Nitzsche told me he was there when the Rolling Stones asked for their idol Howlin’ Wolf to be a guest on Shindig when they appeared on the show. He said he was talking to Wolf when he noticed an older Black man sitting nearby, Wolf said” I’d like to introduce you to my friend, Son House.” So here thanks to the miracle of YouTube is that show from way back in 1965,
Here is a scene from the great Ermanno Olmi’s film The Legend of The Holy Drinker. I haven’t seen the film but I will watch it as soon as I can. I love Olmi’s films, he was such a cinematic genius. And here’s to Rutger Hauer who just died, another great talent gone on to the next level.
P.S. This film won the Golden Lion at The 1988 Venice Film Festival.
P.P.S. it’s available to watch FREE on Amazon Prime so check it out!
Here she is on the Mike Douglas show talking about Wanda and how she met John and Yoko at Cannes. Pretty Cool. They even show a scene from Wanda, notice how dirty it is, she probably only had one print. Pretty cool.
Here is the great Barbara Loden, writer,star, and director of the wonderful film Wanda, playing the scantily clad sidekick to Ernie Kovacs magician. Loden said Ernie Kovacs took pity on her and hired her over the objections of a producer. Enjoy the shtick.
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.
