I just ran across this on Youtube the other day. Orson Welles last interview, on the Merv Griffin show. I guess Orson was friendly with Merv, he was always on his show. I had heard that Orson was at a fancy banquet, left went home and stopped at Pink’s hot dog stand on La Brea. Then he went home with two chili dogs, ate them and expired. A little research reveals the source of this myth, supposedly Welles held the record for hot dog consumption at Pink’s – 18 of them!
But here he is on TVÂ about two hours before he passed. Check it out, see the great man in his last moments on planet Earth.
Another rare discovery on Netflix streaming, the 1974 Grand Prize Winner of the Cannes Film Festival, Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Arabian Nights or Il fiore delle mille e una notte. I saw this film on it’s initial release back in 1975 in NYC and this is the first time I’ve watched it since then, I started watching it around midnight last night and couldn’t turn it off, I was so caught up in it’s mystic spell of storytelling, just like the caliph who can’t bring himself to kill Scherezade because he wants to hear how her story turns out.
It took a lot of courage for Pasolini to travel to these exotic locals (Yemen, Ethiopia, etc.) for one he was homosexual and in some of these places at that time that was punishable by death. He got the creme de la creme of Italian film artisans to work on the film, costumes-Danilo Donati, Set Design- Dante Ferretti, Editing- Nino Baragli, Music Ennio Morricone, Camera-Giuseppe Ruzzolini.
Pasolini and his intrepid crew penetrated hermetic societies, filming in locations that had never been seen by Western audiences, these places are like something out of a dream, it imbues the film with a sense of poetry and magic, bringing the intertwined tales of the Arabian Nights to life in a primal, savage, beautiful way. It is interesting to compare it with Korda’s Thief Of Bagdad,they both spring from the same source and have similar scenes, the prince transformed to an animal, discovering a princess in her garden, taking on a beggar’s clothing, but Arabian Nights tells the tales in a more authentic way, truer to the original. Pasolini was fascinated with the early roots of the novel, picaresque tales of travelers, collections of anecdotes that gave rise to the novels form. The Decameron and The Canterbury Tales come to mind, storytelling at it’s most basic interpreted by a 20th Century poet. A beautiful work of Art by a great artist. Check it out.
Robert Wiene’s Expressionistic masterpieceThe Cabinet Of Dr. Caligari will screen Sunday October 30 at Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeies. Robert Clark will accompany the film live on the massive organ. I have been wanting to hear that instrument since it was built and here is the perfect chance. Frank Gehery’s design was nicknamed the Box Of French Fries and you can see why.
Fritz Lang was supposed to direct this film but it didn’t work out. Robert Wiene did an excellent job.
Fritz was busy directing Die Spinnen. Conrad Veidt starred as Cesare the somnambulist. He later played Nazis in Hollywood films like Casablanca where he was Major Strasser.
It’s very cool that a film that influenced film design so strongly , cited by many as a major influence on Film Noir with it’s painted shadows and highlights, should screen at a Temple of Artistic Design, the Disney Concert Hall.
The only drag about this whole thing is that the tickets are too expensive. Halloween is a children’s holiday and what kids can afford tickets to this. They really should have free recitals of organ music for children and underprivileged people here. Music is a gift to all humanity not just rich patrons. Exposing youngsters to sound like this can only improve the quality of life for all denizens of our globe. Let’s hope it can happen.
Here is another Netflix find,The Libertine. An Italian sex film from 1968, directed by Pasquale Festa Campanile (writer of such classics as Rocco and His Brothers and The Leopard) starring the lovely Cathrine Spaak and Jean-Louis Trintignant, it features a wonderful jazzy score by Armando Trovaioli. The sets are super groovy 60’s Italian style modernity. Frank Wolf appears as a dentist and Phillippe LeRoy as a tennis instructor, both of these actors were in a lot of Italian films from that period. Wolf’s most noteworthy role is in Once Upon A Time in the West as the doomed patriarch. LeRoy is featured in Fernando DiLeo’s Milano Calibro 9 as a killer out for revenge. Check it out for some super cool 60’s fun.
Continuing my Netfliix streaming discovery theme today I present for your delectation two Westerns by the Ultra Violent, Ex cartoonist Sergio Corbucci. The Mercenary starring Django himself, Franco Nero, Tony Musante, in a semi Tomas Milian role as a Mexican revolutionary and Jack Palance as the evil fop, Curley.
Featuring a score by Morricone and his frequent collaborator Bruno Niccolai, and some of the best most operatic whistling by Alessandro Alessandroni, a must see for fans of the genre.
Also my favorite Corbucci western { That’s right I prefer it to Il Grande Silencio) Navajo Joe.
Spoiler Alert! This is the end of the movie! Don’t watch it!
Burt Reynolds at his best, another incredible score and for me one of the greatest endings ever! See it now! I warn you it is violent but hey that’s part of the other Sergio’s charm.
Dear Fans Of Film Forno I have decided to post interesting films I come across while rummaging around the Netflix streaming archive. Here’s an easy way to see films that were very hard to see for a long time and to start off my list I choose the films of Jean Rollin.
Unfortunately M. Rollin died last year, he had languished in relative obscurity for a while but was on the verge of a re-discovery when he passed. His semi- erotic fantasy/vampire films are worth checking out. even if it’s only to see what one can do with a castle, a beach, nude girls and very little money.
These films are unique and charming, the violence is underplayed and the erotic, fantastic aspects of these tales takes the fore.I recently watched Shiver Of The Vampire which feels like it may have inspired The Rocky Horror Picture Show. They share a lot of similar elements. Last night I watched Rollin’s first vampire movie,The Rape Of The Vampire, shot in glorious B&W, it was interesting, but I must confess I prefer Shiver with it’s garage band psychedelic score.
Netflix also has Lips Of Blood by Rollin, I haven’t checked it out yet but I will. So here’s your chance to view the work of a semi-obscure independent filmmaker, an obsessed visionary that returned to the very same beach to shoot the climax for almost all his films. Check them out.
See The skinny hippie vampire chick emerge from a Grandfather’s Clock at Midnite!
I watched this the other night and I must say it was a lot of fun. A 70’s Nudie movie with a great score by Charles Bernstein. The movie is worth watching for the music alone, a kind of Nashville session with a female chorus, really cool. Bernstein composed the scores for White Lightning, Gator and The Entity among many others. And his music is used by Quentin Tarantinio a lot as well.
The script for Invasion Of The Bee Girls was written by the writer/director of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan , Nicholas Meyer. I guess Meyer was inspired by the term “B Girl” ( A woman employed by a bar to get patrons to buy her drinks), Meyer let fantasy take over and transformed them to Bee Girls. Mutant crossbreeds of bees and women. The sexual mores of the period are on display and are fascinating. There is a very sexy transformation sequence in which the victim is stripped naked, slathered in white goo by other bee women and subjected to radiation, all inside a geodesic dome with flashing laboratory equipment. A great sequence.
Another treat, it features Victoria Vetri, Playmate, actress, sex kitten.
She was later put on trial for murdering her husband. The great thing is it’s available on Netflicks streaming so you can watch it anytime. Check it out.
I got an email announcing the release of a CD, Maurice Jarre’s score to the incredible Sundays and Cybele. The music has been re-recorded by Robert Lafond and the example I heard was very faithful to the original. It’s been a while since I’ve seen this amazing film but I do remember being struck by the soundtrack, especially some intriguing electronic tonalities.
This score so impressed Sam Spiegal that he hired Jarre to score Lawrence Of Arabia. It’s wonderful that his music from this forgotten gem is being brought to life once again. I had the distinct pleasure of working with Mr. Jarre on a film a few years back, Michael Cimino’s The Sunchaser. He was a warm, sensitive person and his score was great. All the musicians at the scoring stage were in awe of him. It was magical to hear his music come to life. Thanks to Clement Fontaine for bringing this to my attention. He is the producer of the album entitled Unpublished French Film Music available on Disques Cinemusique . See The Movie, Listen To The Score.
An intrepid band of young filmmakers got together and made a Western, it’s called The Scarlet Worm. Now they have a distribution deal, congratulations! The Scarlet Worm is an enjoyable foray into Morality Western Style, a gun, a Bible, a whorehouse, a killer with a conscience, a Scripture spouting abortionist. Very creative spin on the genre. Standout performers: Dan Van Husen, Aaron Stielstra, Kevin Giffin, Montgomery Ford, David Lambert, Mike Malloy. Impressive wide screen cinematography by Mike Martinez. Great production design and locations, these guys do a lot with a little, it’s difficult to pull off a period film without a big budget and their results are very impressive. I also thought the practical gunshot effects were outstanding, when someone gets shot you feel it. Lead actor Stielstra composed the score as well and it’s very good, atmospheric, lyrical, it elevates the film. An excellent script by David Lambert explores Religion, Spirituality, Morality, in a classic Western drama, fraught with unexpected twists and creative soliloquies that contrast Biblical verse and natural science and become the basis for man’s rationalization of his horrible behavior. Director Michael Fredianelli assembled a talented cast of actors and artisans and pulled off a coup. The Scarlet Worm will be distributed by Unearthed Films later this year (I got a chance to view an advanced screener). Check it out as soon as you can.
Fassbinders epic SciFi filmWorld On A Wire will screen at LACMA , Saturday August 20th at 7:30 pm. The recently restored 3 1/2 hour movie screened for the first time at the Museum of Modern Art last year, now it’s here in LA, being shown at the endangered LACMA film series. It looks like classic Fassbinder, check out the trailer. All the info can be found here.
Here is the 3rd installment in my Val Lewton article extravaganza! This time it’s from Life Magazine. It’s mainly about Bedlam , the last of Lewton’s films for RKO, notable for it’s use of Hogarth prints as inspiration. Then there’s a short section on Lewton and a great photo of him in a screening room. Val got a lot of good press. Lewton constantly amazed his contemporaries by producing quality period films on a minuscule budget. His techniques are still well worth studying .
As promised, I’m posting a scan of another article about the great Val Lewton. This one is from Liberty magazine back in 1946. This was just after Lewton left RKO for Paramount, where he would be morassed in political intrigue and backbiting. It was not a good move for Val. This article is sort of an overview of the Horror film genre with special emphasis on Lewton. By the way I just got another old film magazine with an article on Curse Of The Cat People and a remembrance by DeWitt Bodeen, writer of said film. I’ll post that one soon as well.
