This Saturday August 9th UCLA will screen The Night Of The Hunter Outtakes at the Billy Wilder Theater. This material was donated to UCLA by Laughton’s widow, Elsa Lancaster (The Bride Of Frankenstein), Robert Gitt, retired head of Preservation restored the film and is presenting this screening. I’ve long been a fan of this film, Charles Laughton’s directorial debut and swansong, and this is a chance to see Laughton in action behind the camera, he kept it rolling as he directed actors between takes. Preston Neal Jones, author of the wonderful book Heaven And Hell To Play With, The Filming Of Night Of The Hunter has screened the footage and describes it in detail in his book. It just made me want to see it even more and now I have my chance. Besides I will look at any frame of celluloid that Robert Mitchum appears in. I’ll report back about the experience when I can.
Yo Everyone! I went to the screening of Inglorious Bastards at The New Beverly and it was great! it was also packed! A great turnout for this cool film. The film was action packed, a story full of enough twists and turns for three movies! But the real surprise was how funny the film is! Fred Williamson has a ton of great lines, great reactions. There are many cool bits including stopping a V2 rocket from exploding by shoving a pencil into a worm gear, such a great Italian solution! Bo Svenson is great too, as the playboy fighter pilot. Fred Williamson jumps from a bridge onto a moving train. It’s really him doing the stunt , and he talked about it during the Q & A. He said he couldn’t see the train as it went by because of the smoke from the locomotive. But he heard Enzo’s voice yell “jump!” and he did. He landed on his butt because he couldn’t see otherwise he would have ” jumped cool”. Fred, Enzo and Bo spoke at length about the film, and the crowd sang Happy Birthday to Enzo, he couldn’t believe it and he was extremely happy. Kudos to Severin Films for striking a new print of this cool movie. Check it out if you can! It’s showing again tomorrow night at the New Beverly.
Enzo G. and Q.T.
I attended Enzo G. Castellari’s 70th birthday party at the Italian Cultural Institute last night and it was a blast! I got to talk for quite a while with Enzo, a true maestro and a real gentleman. This was kind of amazing since it was a party in his honor and everyone was there to see him. We were interrupted several times by actors from his films, including Bo Svenson and Fred Williamson who appear in the original Inglorius Bastards akaQuel maledetto treno blindato. Lou Ferrigno ( the Incredible Hulk) , Edd “Kookie” Byrnes, Pia Zadora and John Saxon were there as well. I tried to complement John Saxon on his work in Mario Bava’s La Ragazza Che Sappeva Troppio, or The Girl Who Knew Too Much, or The Evil Eye, but he didn’t want to hear it. I guess he was in a hurry to get back to The Planet Of Blood . But Enzo really got excited when I asked him about his working as an editor. His father, Marino Girolami, directed over 100 films and Enzo told me that he grew up in the editing room. That’s how he got to spend time with his father, by hanging around the editing room. Also he’d go to the cutting room every night after shooting and tell the editor how to cut the scene he’d shot the day before. He loves editing and tells his students at the Arte Institute, ” If you want to be a director you must first learn editing!” Any way it was a great evening, honoring this giant of Italian Film, It made everyone there happy, seeing how happy Enzo was at being honored for his birthday and for the DVD release of his great Inglorius Bastards! Go out and buy it! From Severin Films!
Here’s the trailer!
Thanks to my good pal Film Walrus for telling me about the upcoming film series at Webster University in St. Louis. They’re showing a bunch of Sam Fuller films this summer in their” Summer Of Sam” film series. Here’s a link to the schedule: Webster University Film Schedule Check it out Fuller Fans!
I’m working on a piece about Jess Franco but I’m also working on an editing gig so I don’t have much time, there is a major Franco retrospective going on right now at the Cinematheque Francaise, if you’re going to be in Paris soon, check it out! Stay tuned in for more! In the meantime here’s a promo for a cool documentary on the ultra-prolific Spainiard, Man of La Cinema, Jesus Franco!
They screened the recently restored print of Sergio Leone’s epic masterpiece at The Academy Of Motion Picture Arts And Sciences last night. All I can say is “It was magnificent!” The crew at Triage Motion Picture Services went all out. Paul Rutan flew to Rome and got a 2 perf Techniscope Interpositive made from the original camera negative. Then they borrowed Martin Scorsece’s IB technicolor print from the original theatrical release and timed to that. I must say it looked like Technicolor! They got great saturation that comes close to IB Technicolor. It was amazing.
The sound was restored as well and the mono mix sounded great. Did you ever notice in this film, whenever somebody is shot and killed a horse whinnys immediately afterwards and really loudly. Check it out. Also this is the epic Leone Western that features a powerful female character. Claudia Cardinale is as big a character as Bronson, Robards, and Fonda.
It’s in…
The Eyes, Chico…
They Never…
Lie!
These beautiful giant faces filled the enormous screen at the Academy in Incredible Leone Close Ups and the magnificent vistas of Monument Valley never looked so good as photographed by Tonino Delli Colli on 2-perf! You can really see the attention to detail Leone and his crew put into the sets and costumes by watching this film on a big screen. The pace may be slow compared to films made today but it gives you time to look around the frame and see all the beautiful objects, textures, lighting. Leone did scrupulous research on Western costumes and props and it comes through.
One Of The Greatest Flashbacks In All Of Cinema
When you top it all off with the music of Ennio Morricone it’s an unbeatable combination. The movie is really incredible images accompanied by soaring emotional score, wonderfully arranged and performed by great musicians, interspersed with great dialogue, not many words but all carefully chosen, it was a revelation to hear how many laughs the dialogue got. The audience was right there with the film for the entire time. Thanks also in part to the masterful editing of the great Nino Baragli. If you get a chance to see the restored version of this film in a good theater, I urge you to go and see it. It will be a revelation.
Hello, Good Day, Bon Soir, Cheerio to all Film Denizens of Toronto. My film One Night With You will be shown Friday, June 20th, 9:30 pm as part of the ReelHeART International Film Festival [RHIFF]. Here’s the link for all the info. http://www.reelheart.com/2008/festival/friday-june-20/main-programming-a-friday-930-pm/ Come on out and see a movie! You’ll like it!
Akira Kurosawa sued Sergio Leone claiming that Leone ripped off Yojimbo and based his Per Un Pugno De Dollari on it. Leone claimed that it was a common story used many times before notedly by Dashiel Hammet in his novel Red Harvest. A story about a gangster who infiltrates a gang and plays one side against the other.
Samuel Fuller, Maverick
That is exactly what happens in Sam Fuller’s excellent Underworld U.S.A. Cliff Robertson grows up on the wrong side of the tracks, as a youngster he witnesses his father’s demise at the bloody hands of a group of thugs in a back alley. The young protagonist swears to take vengeance on the men who offed his old man and when he grows up he starts tracking down the killers. They have moved up in the world becoming big time gangsters and Cliff uses everyone to set them up, the police, the gangsters themselves, even the woman he loves. This movie pulls no punches, a hit man runs down a 10 year old girl after befriending her and giving her some gum.
Richard Rust, Psycho Killer with Cliff Robertson
It seems her bookkeeper father has disappeared with some sensitive information about “Mr. Big”. Robert Emhardt the large guy with the snide attitude is great as the Big Boss, after Cliff (Tolly) sets up one goon, Richard Rust the happy hitman douses the poor slob with gas and lights him up. Emhardt is watching from the back seat of his his ’60 Caddy , he leans forward with a cigarette, “Gimme a light.” he orders.
Last One In Is A Rotten Egg!
This film is great, it really demonstrates how to make a lot out of a little, something Fuller was a master of. It inspired many filmmakers and is chock full of great ideas executed with style and power. Check it out.
I recently watched Truffaut’s Jules And Jim on Ovation. I had seen the film many years ago and I recall being angry, almost outraged at the ending. I won’t give it away for those of you who haven’t seen it. But watching it again recently I found I liked it a hell of a lot! Sometimes this happens to me, maybe it has to do with my state of mind at the time of watching something.
Truffaut/Moreau
Anyway on rewatching J &J I saw things in Jeanne Moreau’s performance that now made perfect sense to me since I now knew how the film would end. Watch an Ingmar Bergman film, then watch it again. Things that seem mysterious suddenly become perfectly clear, I’m speaking about the motivations of a character in the film. I recall seeing a Bergman film with Erland Josephson, maybe Scenes From A Marriage.
I was puzzled by certain aspects of Josephson’s character’s behavior, I watched the entire film, then for some reason I began to watch it again. Now that I knew what his real motivations were his actions made perfect sense to me. He was completely in character. Bergman and his actors knew their characters intimately from the first frame to the last, it was up to us the audience to catch on. It also makes rewatching a film more rewarding for us , more hidden treasures for us to mine. Of course this kind of filmmaking is very rare, especially today when the mantra is “Manipulate The Audience, Have No Respect For Their Intelligence”.
I just found out about a British TV series called Eurotika. It’s about great “B” Euro Cinema, the episode I saw was called Blood And Black Lace all about Italian horror with a special emphasis towards Mario Bava.
It’s a great little foray into this genre. An eye-popping credit sequence, much in the style of those classic animation stand high color openings of Italian yesteryear, then great clips intercut with insightful interviews. There are wonderful comments by Antonio Margheriti, Erika Blanc, Luigi Cozzi, Orchedia de Santis to name just a few, but Michel Lemoine’s words about the creative process and what he learned from Bava were the most inspirational.
Michel Lemoine
Beautifully made by Andy Starke and Pete Toombs, this documentary left me hungry to see the rest of the series, which I will order ASAP. Some of the other titles are:Virgins And Vampires regarding the films of Jean Rollin, Diabolical Mr. Franco, focusing on Jesus Franco, Blood And Sand looking at Spanish horror, and one I really want to see The Blood Beast, The Films Of Michael Reeves, this is the guy who made Witchfinder General with Vincent Price, a brutal indictment of the abuses of power by an evil Inquisitor. Reeves died under mysterious circumstances at the tender age of 26. He’s a favorite of Quentin Tarantino and I believe Pete Toombs wrote a book about him which I also want to check out. So fans of Euro Genre Cinema, Rejoice! And track down this incredible series, The Eurotika team is also distributing films so check out their recommendations, you won’t be disappointed!
