Film Forno

A Young Bob Downey in NYC

The Film Fund headed by Martin Scorscese recently funded the restoration of some Underground classics made by the maverick director Bob Downey, a prince. I’m fortunate to say Bob is an old friend and that we worked together on several features and a couple of short films. He’s a great guy, an original who loves film and has made some of the coolest hit films of the Swinging 60’s. He’s getting his due with the restoration and re-release of some wild titles, Chafed Elbows, No More Excuses, and the excellent political satire Babo ’73.

Talk about making something out of nothing, Bob went on a tour of the White House with his actor (Taylor Mead playing the Pres of the USA) and after the tour group left the Oval Office, he stayed behind and filmed Mead at the desk. For No More Excuses Bob dressed as a Confederate soldier, then ran onto the field at Yankee Stadium with a musket during a game. He had cameramen stashed around the stands filming. He told me they were going to take him to Bellvue but finally a cameraman showed up to back up Bob’s story, he first had to take the film to the lab so it wouldn’t get seized. Hey film programmers out there, get in touch with Andrew Lambert at Anthology Film Archives and get a restored print of one of these classics to screen at your Cinema! Here’s a link to an NPR broadcast interview with Bob about his films:Interview

In case you’ve been wondering what JLG has been up to, here’s a trailer he put together for the 2008 Viennale.

They’re screening Stanley Kubrick’s mega opus 2001 at the Edison as part of the Jules Verne Fantasy Film Festival right here in downtown LA. Info here. I saw this film in a re-release in 1975 at the Bellvue Theater in Upper Montclair, New Jersey. It was projected in 6 track 70mm. I went to a matinee show with my girlfriend and when we got to the box office the ticket seller said “Wait a minute.” Then she came back and said “OK, the manager said we’ll run it.” We were the only people at that screening! Just the two of us in the gigantic theater with an enormous screen! It was incredible. I knew the editor of 2001. A guy named Ray Lovejoy. This was the first film he edited! He had been 1st Assistant editor on Dr. Strangelove and Lawrence Of Arabia. He told me that Kubrick basically lost his mind making this film. Before 2001 he was a fun guy, great to hang out with. But 2001 was such a gigantic, complicated project and Kubrick was such a perfectionist he lost himself in the overwhelming tide of technical details, personally overseeing every aspect of the film, even ( so I’ve been told) calling every first run theater the film was shown in to make sure it was presented properly! Yow! Oh well, hats off to Stanley Kubrick, Ray Lovejoy, Arthur C. Clark and everybody else who worked on this film and passed on through the Stargate or obelisk or whatever portal to the next dimension.

P.S. I met this guy at the Chelsea Hotel back in the 70’s

A great but flawed film, the likes of which we may never see again. Grazie Zia ( Thank You Auntie, USA) has many incredible elements, the acting, especially by the leads- Lou Castel as Alvise

Lou Castel as Alvise gets a check-up

and Lisa Gastoni as Aunt Lea.

Beautiful Lisa Gastoni, Fantasy Aunt!

The incredible music by maestros Ennio Morricone and Bruno Nicolai.

The Vietnam War as viewed by an Italian proto-adolescent. Beautiful B&W cinematography by Aldo Scavarda and excellent direction by Salvatore Samperi. The story centers on Alvise, a young man with a mysterious medical condition that’s paralyzed his legs, forcing him to ride around in a motorized wheelchair. Alvise travels to his Aunt Lea’s country villa for a rest. He reads comic books obsessively especially Diabolik.

He is also obsessed with the Vietnam War, going on at the time this film was made. Alvise’s Aunt Lea obviously cares a great deal for her nephew even though her millionaire husband dislikes him quite a bit and with good reason, Alvise is just shy of being a sociopath. First we learn that he can walk. His mysterious paralyses is fake.

Treating his Legs with Magnetic Mud!

He then takes out a rifle with telescopic sight and aims at his Aunt and her husband.

Later during a small party a sexy young blond flirts with Alvise, singing to him, dancing up to him, embracing him. He responds by biting her like a mad dog!

Party Italian Style!

But for me the most amazing scene is where Alvise plays his war games. A radio report drones on reciting casualty figures in the Vietnam conflict. Alvise dutifully records these updates on a bulletin board that lists living and dead Viet Cong, Americans, lost arms, legs etc.

He has created a tabletop reproduction of a battle field, complete with American army base and vietnamese village.


He starts the conflagration, burning the village in a napalm storm.


He salutes a fallen American toy soldier, yelling at a Viet Cong that ” He’ll never drink Coca-Cola again!” This strange tableaux, accompanied by an anti-war Italian pop song is very moving.

Most of the Americans sent to Vietnam were barely out of their teens. They should have been reading comic books and chasing chicks rather than spraying napalm and Agent Orange, having their legs blown off and suffering acute psychological damage. The guy that re-stuccoed part of my house told me his story. He shipped over to Nam just out of high school. He thought it would be fun, adventure. As his plane was coming in for a landing at the American base he saw puffs of smoke down by the runway. The Viet Cong were mortaring the base. He thought ” Wait a minute, this doesn’t look good!” It went downhill from there, one trauma after another.

Another guy I knew back east had been captured. He spent 3 years in a wooden cage displayed as a weak American. When he got back he could barely speak to anyone. It took about 2 months before he said hello to me. My Laotian friend told me that he was shocked to see the Americans were sending “kids” over to fight trained soldiers. He couldn’t figure it out. This movie makes this point in a powerful way.

The story evolves and Alvise seduces his Aunt. Now this part of the film I didn’t enjoy as much. Simply because Alvise is such a jerk and his Aunt is a beautiful mature sexy woman. Charming, classy, first rate. I found it hard to believe that she would fall for this guy. But maybe she did out of love for him, not passion but the desire to let Alvise realize his fantasy with her. The film is in Italian with no subtitles so I may have missed some nuances.

It’s still great and worth watching. As I said at the begining of this piece, we may never see films like this made again. Why? It’s a very personal film, dealing with anti-war sentiments, incest, a charming/repellant hero, not a marketable crowd pleaser and Thank the Gods Of Film for it’s existence! We need more filmmakers willing to take a chance, try something out of the ordinary, break free of the stupid conventions of storyteilng where everyone knows whats going to happen next.

Take Me To A Screenwriting Class!

Stop going to these idiotic screenwriting seminars to learn cookie cutter film structure! Take a chance and make a bold visionary film or better still support these films by renting, buying, going to see them! The world needs artists more than ever to present other views than the media crap force fed to everyone. Get out there and make it happen!
p.s. the score for this film is pure genius. Morricone and his ex-partner Bruno Nicolai created a unique sound for this film. Those guys created so many different sonic palates, it’s incredible. Compare this score to Citta Violenta or Il Mercenario, they’re all very different. p.p.s I checked out Lou Castel on IMDB. This guy has had an incredible career! He’s in some of the greatest films of all time. Including some Fassbinder, Viscounti, Wenders,the excellent Irma Vep, etc. etc. and he’s still acting! Also Lisa Gastoni has had an illustrious career. She appeared in a film by the sublime Fernando Di Leo-(La Seduzione) and interestingly enough she appeared in a film called Amore amaro ( Bitter Love) with my pal Leonard Mann. When I interviewed Leonard he spoke fondly of this film but admitted he had never seen it! I found a copy on ebay and turned him on to it. He bought it( it was expensive) and now I need to borrow it so I can write about it. In Closing. Bravo! to Salvatore Samperi, Bravo Lou Castel! Brava Lisa Gastoni! Bravo Morricone, Niccolai! Bravo to all involved in making this film.

Here’s the party scene via YouTube:

And here’s the title sequence so you can hear some of the score.

Thanks to my pal Mike Malloy I had the great good fortune to meet an icon of Cinema, Henry Silva! Henry started out in the Actors Studio, after passing an audition for Elia Kazan and Lee Strasberg. A play he worked on at the Studio moved onto Broadway to rave reviews and the rest as they say is history. Henry told of meeting Frank Sinatra , visiting him on the set of Some Came Running at MGM and working with him on The Manchurian Candidate. What a cool guy, but he was being interviewed for a Euro Crime documentary that Mike is putting together and so he mainly spoke of his experiences in Italy and working with great directors like Umberto Lenzi and Fernando Di Leo. I wrote about one of Silva’s and DiLeo’s collaborations in an earlier post, Il Boss. Anyway it was a great pleasure to meet the funny, talented, energetic Henry Silva. Dear Producers and Directors call him, give him a part in your latest epic. He’s great, check him out in Jim Jarmusch’s Ghost Dog.

Here is Henry in the opening of Il Boss

Here’s the trailer for Johnny Cool

Saturday September 6 the American Cinematheque at the Egyptian Theater in Hollywood U.S.A. will screen two classics starring Jean Gabin. The Sicilian Clan at 7:30 pm and the ultra-rare Moontide at 9:30. The Sicilian Clan also features two other Titans of Cinema acting, Alain Delon and Lino Ventura. What a great opportunity to see these greats in 35mm! Here’s the trailer!

Moontide features sexy, smart Ida Lupino and the ever popular star of Hollywood epics, Bette Davis melodramas and Italian Space operas, Claude Raines. Go see them! You Must Obey!
Sunday they’re showing the unseen House On The Waterfront a gritty tale of a tugboat captain emeshed in an intrigue involving his daughter, a gangster, a diver and a corpse trapped in a sunken ship that’s about to be salvaged. Then the incredible grandaddy of French noir Touchez Pas Au Grisbi. A great movie ! I reviewed it at length here. Go see it! You Will Love It! Bravo Cinematheque! Here’s the schedule: Cinematheque
It’s all part of a celebration of Jean Gabin and a new book about him : World’s Coolest Movie Star: The Complete 95 Films (and Legend) of Jean Gabin, the author, Charles Zigman will be there as well.

SSOS just showed on TCM as part of a Tony Curtis retrospective.

Sidney Falco on the threshold of Success, the entrance to “21”

This time it really brought back memories of Lost New York. Some of the spots are still there but they’re not the same. First off, this is an incredible movie. Great classic performances out of Burt Lancaster and Tony Curtis. Great dialog, “Match me Sidney.” ” I’d hate to take a bite out of you, you’re a cookie full of arsenic.”

One of Burt’s Greatest Roles
There’s more quipping in this movie than any other that I can think of. ” Here’s your head, what’s your hurry.” It does not stop. James Wong Howe’s cinematography is amazing, they went for a reverse, long lenses to shoot long shots, exteriors of NYC stacked up in a telephoto lens, wide angle lenses for close ups, distorting, paranoid, powerful images of the characters and this technique works incredibly well. The characters jump off the screen at you with all the dynamism of a Steve Ditko comic.

Pure Genius!
The environs of New York never looked better. Great locations! Shots of a bygone NYC. There’s a scene at A Times Square hot dog stand, you can picture Jack Kerouac walking in. It reminds me of Papaya King, a stand I used to frequent. Two dogs and a papaya drink for $1.50! That was a deal!

Time Travel via HotDog Stand!

Hey Kerouac! Pass The Mustard!
All that stuff in midtown, the 40’s and 50’s , the “21” club, the Ed Sullivan Theater, the crummy offices, the streets, J.J.(Burt Lancaster) lives in the Brill Building, 1619 Broadway. I used to work there, there were a lot of editing rooms in that building. Saturday Night Live had offices there, I once had a run in with a belligerent John Belushi on the service elevator.

Sidney in the lobby of The Brill Building, 1600 Bway was right across the street

Reverse on the Brill lobby. This was it, Tin Pan Alley!

Across the street was 1600 Broadway, the National Screen Services Building. They had a ton of cutting rooms in there as well and it was one of the last buildings in the city to have elevator operators! Next door was the Rincon Argentina, a great restaurant, full of editors at lunch time, half a chicken, french fries, salad for $3.59, plus a demi boutee of house red for a buck! Those were the days. So to see J.J. and Sidney cruising my old neighborhoods blew me away. I worked up the street at my friend’s company “CineHaven”, 254 W.54th street. Rumor had it that Marlon Brando and Wally Cox were roommates there in the 50’s.

I used to work (and crash) right up the street!

Just up the street from Studio 54 and Trans Audio , a mixing studio with a lot of cutting rooms. But back to SSOS, the bar that Martin Milner plays at when Sidney sets him up, I think it’s by the old West Side Highway, the location is so cool, Sidney up on the overpass signaling Kello the bad cop to get Martin. Incredible!

West Side Highway Location?

Evil Cop Harry Kello beats up Jazz Guitarist Martin Milner

Life imitates Art, Miles Davis was beaten up by a cop on 52nd Street while standing outside a gig

The great Chico Hamilton Quintet appears in the film and they are excellent. Great score by Elmer Bernstein, great screenplay by Ernest Lehman and Clifford Odets, great direction by Alexander Mackendrick.

Chico Hamilton on drums, the guy on cello is Fred Katz, he wrote the super cool score for Roger Corman’s Little Shop Of Horrors!

Great characters, supposedly J.J. was based on Walter Winchell, the influential columnist. It’s an interesting character, he wraps himself up in the flag spouting a lot of rhetoric about patriotism, all the while spewing vitriol on everyone he doesn’t like, and if anyone complains, they’re un-American! A petty tyrant whose motivations are his personal vendettas and small minded attacks pretending that he’s doing it for the good of his “60 million readers”. I think this is a very timely character, as relevant now as back then, even more so. We’ve got a J.J. Hunsecker in the White House, only without the witty quips. The movie introduces the wonderful Susan Harrison, what happened to her?

If you want to get a feel for that old lost New York check out this guy, Jean Shepherd. He had a late nite radio show broadcast from NYC, I’d listen to him when I was a kid. Sometimes he talks about NYC and it doesn’t get any better than this. He also wrote the Christmas Story film. Here’s a link to some of his shows. Here it is : Jean Shepherd Shows
I used to live around the corner from the Flatiron Building, an early structural steel building in NYC courtesy of Chicago architect Daniel Burnham

I can’t believe it myself! I actually really liked this film, I went to see it with low expectations, hoping to get some views of Barcelona and enjoy Javier Bardem and Penelope Cruse but the movie was great! Wonderful story, beautiful locations, great actors. My only nitpicks are as follows: too much narration from some unknown narrator and a lot of out of focus shots. I don’t mind a few but it seemed like half the shots were soft! I read an interview with Woody and he mentions how he loved foreign films from the 60’s and they’re always out of focus, so the question is was this an intentional homage or did he spin that story into the press to make up for the buzzy focus? You decide. Javier Bardem is a wild artist sort of like the guy in Turkish Delight, if you’ve seen that film.

Trying to forget his lost love by jumping into bed with everyone he can. Scarlett Johansson and Rebecca Hall are two young American chicks spending a summer in Barcelona. They are both excellent as well/ But Penelope Cruse has the Dr. Wu part. That’s a part ( according to Orson Welles) where everyone talks about the mysterious person for the first 20 minutes of the film (or play) , they all keep saying how incredible Dr. Wu is, what a genius etc, so when he finally shows up, the audience really believes he is the greatest. It works! Penelope Cruse doesn’t show up till about 20 minutes in and she is the most memorable character in the film. See for yourself! I recommend seeing this in the theater while you can, it’s worth it.

I was just reading about Jean Luc Godard, I hadn’t know that he studied anthropology in college. His early films definitely show the influence or sensitivity to this interest. The life on the street that is in the background of his films, it captures a moment in time , a particular point in a society’s evolution, a view informed by a study of anthropology.

The same can be said of The Exiles. From the opening montage of Edward Curtis photographs of Native Americans we are made aware of this point of view. Godard set his genre/pulp plots in this particular setting whereas the setting and characters were the point for Mackenzie. But I knew there was a reason, outside of the B&W cinematography and downtown urban settings that The Exiles made me think of Godard. Another filmmaker that has this magical talent is Jess Franco, he can capture a revealing portrait of a city in a single shot. Check out The Obscene Mirror or Eugenie to see for yourself.

Jesus! Franco!

It was worth the wait. The Exiles operates on many levels and succeeds on all. First of all it is extremely beautiful to look at, lush, delicious B&W cinematography, deep blacks, sparkling highlights, rich greys, such contrast and texture. Bravo to everyone involved. Secondly it is a time capsule par excellance. Los Angeles 1959 how cool is that? The way people dressed and slicked back their hair, the music they listened to on old Seeburg jukeboxes, “Play E7!” The incredible cars! There is a scene of two young Native couples driving a late 40’s convertible through the 3rd street tunnel that blows your mind! They’re blasting through the tunnel with the top down, passing a bottle of wine, the radio blaring some rockabilly hit, smoking, flirting, the joy is infectious! I want to do that too!

Also all the locations are A#1!! They all live on Bunker Hill, the bygone neighborhood of LA’s golden age. In the shadow of Angel’s Flight no less! Right next to it! This is where John Fante set his masterpieceAsk The Dust, the protagonist lived right next to the elevated railway Angel’s Flight.

They party at a bunch of downtown dive bars, man you can just see Bukowski slumped on one of these barstools. The bars are amazing and the clientele is incredible, even the bums are well dressed, especially compared with today, everybody dressed better, looked cooler and had more fun. At one point they stop off for some gas, the gas station is incredible! All white and chrome, brightly lit, I saw the address 3501 Sunset Blvd. I’m going to have to go check out what’s there today. If you are a fan of film noir or hardboiled LA fiction or Los Angeles history in general you will dig this film. Another thing the actors in this drama are all Native American, just real people not actors at all and they are terrific. The dialog is all post synced and is probably the weak point of the film but it’s not that big of a deal. I guess Kent Mackenzie recorded interviews with his subjects and structured the film around them, reconstructing what they spoke about, an interesting technique. In a lot of ways this film reminds me of early Godard, B&W, shot on the streets and in the bars of a big city, an improvised plot, a crazy dance scene in a bar with a jukebox, the internal monologue of characters expressed in voiceover. Super Cool!

The Natives all head up a hill that overlooks LA after the bars close, I think it’s Radio Hill or someplace near the Eastern edge of Elysian Park. Here they beat a drum and sing and dance all night! Just like back on the reservation. The Spiritual Life goes on even in a big city. It remimded me of an experience I had once, I walked up the hill to the top of Elysian Park to watch the 4th of July fireworks from Dodger Stadium, there was a car parked up there and an old Indian was beating a drum and singing, several other Indians were there with him, burning sage and dancing. This was all Indian land, there were big settlements of Gabrelino or Tongva Indians all around here. Their Spirits are still here in the Land and Sky. The Exiles makes this point in a timeless way. Finally I’d like to say Bravo again to Kent Mackenzie, he made a film that reflected his interests ,his concerns as a human being and an artist. He didn’t care about commercialism or market research, he created and documented a truth and as a result his film will live forever.

Finally they restored Kent Mackenzie’s The Exiles! They’re screening it at the Billy Wilder Theater August 15 through August 23 also it’s going to be shown across the country check here for your area. I’ve never seen this film but I’ve wanted to see it for a long time. The true story of a Native American community on Bunker Hill in Los Angeles.

Bunker Hill is a mythical part of LA that was dismantled during the 60’s and replaced with office buildings, it was a neighborhood of crumbling Victorian mansions, some carved up into rooming houses and Angel’s Flight was smack dab in the middle.

This neighborhood features prominently in pulp writing(Chandler, Ellroy) and classic film noir. So come on down and check it out! Los Angeles does have history, it’s just buried under a strip mall.
Here’s the trailer:

Laughton reads from the Bible in an unused scene

I went to see the Night Of The Hunter Outtakes last night and I’m glad I did. It was an excellent show, narrated by the restorer, really the man responsible for this wonderful artifact existing at all, Robert Gitt. By the way the show was packed! This magical film draws people, even it’s outtakes! And it wasn’t just a bunch of academics, there were all ages and types of people. It’s sort of especially wonderful considering that Laughton had thought he failed in making this film. That the film was basically a flop when it was initially released. I blame United Artists! They had a technique of under budgeting films, then when the filmmakers were faced with needing more money or shutting down, UA would swoop in and supply the cash but take all rights, profits, etc. They used this same technique on my pal Robert Downey when he directed Pound for UA. But back to last night, I was extremely gratified to see that Preston Neal Jones, the author of the incredible Heaven and Hell To Play with- The Filming Of Night Of The Hunter was there. I love this book and I think it should be required reading at every film school in the country, on second thought the world! He is a very nice guy, very humble, and was so pleased that people liked his book and had many complimentary things to say about it. I wrote about the book in a previous post, check it out here.

Me & Preston Neal Jones, I know I look like a psycho

Anyway the show was great, Bob Gitt narrated the proceedings from a podium at the side of the stage, first he gave a bit of history of the footage, Laughton’s widow donated the footage to the AFI back in 1974. Students there began using it as fill leader, i.e. just to fill spaces between sections of magnetic track, in other words as junk film. Someone noticed this and put a stop to it and the film was shipped to the AFI in Washington D.C., Bob Gitt worked at the AFI and found out about the film. He later moved to UCLA and got the film shipped back to LA and began restoring it. It took 20 years of work to get it pieced back together and restored! Thanks for being so resolute!

Bob Gitt, restorer and narrator

The first scene was something Laughton shot for the opening of the film, a close up of himself reading from the Bible, it was never used but I think some of the audio may have appeared on the soundtrack album. Some of the highlights were, seing scenes that didn’t appear in the movie. For example a nighttime shot of downtown Cresap’s Landing where Robert Mitchum first comes to town, This was replaced by a stock footage shot of a locomotive steaming furiously at the camera. A wise move by Laughton and Robert Golding, the film’s editor. Outtakes of Mitchum screwing up were always amusing, especially when 5 year old Sally Jane Bruce would tell him ” You forgot your lines again”.

There was footage of the actor originally cast to play Uncle Birdie, a much more mild mannered man than James Gleason who replaced him. I think if he had continued in the part it would have been more realistic, less showbiz than James Gleason. I guess Laughton felt he needed more energy in that part. It’s pretty cool to see Robert Mitchum dressed as the Preacher sitting in his jalopy on a dark stage, then a slate comes in , the background projection starts, they begin rocking the car and Mitch starts speaking to the Lord! Incredible! Shelly Winters acts up a storm in this film. In the outtakes from her torchlit testifying scene she seems on the edge of a psychotic episode. Lauhton’s off camera voice commands her to say a prayer, any prayer and she begins chanting in Yiddish! This got quite a reaction from the crowd. Another powerful scene dealt with in depth is the one where Mitch kills Shelly. She’s alone in bed, illumined by a shaft of moonlight, a beatific gleam in her eyes, she’s at peace with her God and about to join him. Laughton hammers at her relentlessly, tweaking her performance, giving line readings, stopping her in mid sentence, starting her over. Bob Gitt included all the outtakes of this scene ostensibly to demonstrate what a great director Laughton was, how he shaped Winter’s performance but for me it had a different effect.

Robert Mitchum and Shelly Winter’s and many other members of this cast were excellent even incredible actors. That they would allow someone to constantly interrupt them, give them readings, talk at them the whole time they were on camera is a sign of the respect they had for Laughton. I think they would have told anyone else to shut the hell up! Laughton, a great actor, basically played every part in the movie off camera, often delivering the lines of whoever was in a scene but not on camera, playing the little girl or the boy’s father or whoever. I did feel he created a tension with his off camera direction that added to the depth of seriousness or weight of particular scenes but I think his real direction was probably given in the preliminary discussions with the actors, especially Mitchum and Winters. It’s fascinating to watch Shelly Winters, a devotee of the Actor’s Studio strip herself bare emotionally. It’s like being in her psychiatrist’s office during an especially heated session. But I think this is one of the things that makes a great actor, the ability to expose true naked feelings, things everybody else tries so hard to hide. A tribute to Laughton’s genius is the fact that he allowed Shelly to go to that point of hysteria but the used the more restrained takes that were in the end much more effectual. It’s also great to see Lillian Gish’s outtakes, once again Laughton is on her like an octopus, she begins a take ” Too Much!” bellows Charlie time and again and he’s always right. Another tragic element connected with this film is put clearly on display by screening these scenes, the talent of Billy Chapin who played John Harper. He took direction like an old pro, capturing nuances Laughton demanded of him. He was a great actor at that young age and yet he never worked again! I don’t get it. Another example of the stupidity of the Hollywood system. I have a theory about Laughton, I think he was a tortured soul, gay at a time when that was anathema to a career, having to live a secret life of self-loathing, I think he used this in his performances, like his great Quasimodo, read Fun In A Chinese Laundry and see what von Sternberg said about his acting in the unfinished I, Cladius, it’s all about torturing himself to give a good performance.

Von Sternberg

I think he projected his technique that he used on himself onto the actors in this film and I think instinctively they knew what he was doing and respected it, otherwise I don’t think they would have put up with it. I’ll close my review with two musical notes. One, we get to hear Sally Jane Bruce’s original track singing the “Pretty Fly” song as they float down the river. It was later replaced by a professional adult singer, Sally Jean’s is pretty amazing, for a 5 year old to sing a minor key song acapella blew me away, she got the part because she had just won a singing contest.

Sally Mayes, she sang the beautiful version that’s on the musical theater (Varese
Sarabande) CD of HUNTER

Then over the end credits we get to hear Mitchum sing a sort of boogie woogie version of ” Leaning On The Everlasting Arms” really Cool. There are a lot of other moments that make this show so great, and make us so lucky that this material exists and that a man like Bob Gitt loves film so much that he took the time to preserve this treasure trove. I overheard Bob say they’re trying to get this released on dvd, keep your fingers crossed.