Here’s the trailer for Roman Polanski’s masterpiece Chinatown. I worked with several individuals from this film on the film Mobsters. Doc Erickson, a producer who also played the banker in the barbershop that Jack Nicholson almost gets in a fight with and Dick Sylbert, the genius production designer. James Hong, the great actor who plays Kahn, Faye Dunaway’s faithful manservant appears in my film One Night With You. I’m hoping to do a podcast interview with James sometime soon and I’ll post more on that soon. I also am working on a post featuring an interview with Dick Sylbert about the locations used in Chinatown. Keep your eyes peeled for that one. Finally I’d like to offer a bit of information about the last line in the movie, the scene takes place on North Spring Street just south of Ord Street, in front of the old Yimmy Lu’s. One of Jake’s operatives is leading a dazed Jack Nicholson away when he turns to him and says “Forget it Jake. It’s Chinatown.” This line was spoken to Jacob Riis, a photographer and reformer working to help poor immigrants at the turn of the century in New York City. He tried to infiltrate Chinatown and bring about some changes but he had no luck penetrating the closed off culture of the Chinese immigrants. A detective uttered those exact same words to Mr. Riis in an attempt at consolation.
Here is the trailer for Tristana, an incredible film by the Surrealist maestro and maker of the world’s driest Martini, Luis Bunuel. Fernando Rey is excellent and Catherine Deneuve gives an incredible performance. When I see an actress give her all like this I cannot help but be moved. Deneuve, one of the most beautiful actresses of all time, but not worried if she looks good or are they portraying her in an unflattering way. She sublimates her ego for the sake of the film, you can’t ask more of an actor (especially a beautiful movie star). I’m reminded of Isabella Rossellini in Blue Velvet. Her courageous performance made that film great.
Check out Tristana, it has one of the most original endings in Cinema! Bunuel understood this rule of Dramaturgy that descends from the Deus Ex Machina, at the end of the play or movie, you can have anything happen. God can come down and strike someone dead, you don’t have to explain it, it’s over, THE END.
Here is the trailer for Black Sunday and a short trailer for Eraserhead. I think they rate a comparison. The images are kind of similar. An obsession with texture, skin, mortified flesh, mud, decay, decomposition, punctured heads, a sexual revulsion, irresistable, much to the horror of the aroused. Bava’s tells a story, a vampire story that ends with the death of the monster. A monster brought to life by a drop of blood dripped into the eye socket of the corpse of the once beautiful, sexually voracious vampire. Eraserhead tells a story of a monster, brought to life by sperm ejaculated into a vagina. I have a theory, once upon a time David Lynch lived in Philadelphia, the mid 60’s. He experimented with mind altering drugs, LSD for example. He went to a run down movie theater and watched Mario Bava’s La Maschera del Demonio, released in America as Black Sunday. It had a profound effect on him, like Bava he became a master of the Art/Horror film.
Here’s the trailer for Du rififi chez les hommes, the 1955 noir by Jules Dassin. An excellent movie available on Criterion with great added features. Back in the 80’s I was cutting trailers in New York. I was working with Nick Meyers, a great editor, music editor extraordinaire, and a fine composer as well. Nick grew up in cutting rooms, his father was Sydney Meyers, a famous New York editor as well as a director. Also one of the founders of the New York Editor’s Guild. Nick worked as an editor on a George C. Scott television show East Side, West Side while still in his late teens! Anyway his dad was a Socialist and was very involved in film and Socialism in New York. So one day at work I mentioned the great french film director Jules Dassin,( I pronounced it Jhoooles Dahssan, in my best fake French accent). Nick says “Who?”, I repeat my francophonic prononcement. Nick says” Oh you mean Julie Dassin, he’s from Brooklyn.” Nick’s dad and Jules were running buddies back in the NY Theater/Communist days. Julie had to go to Europe to escape the Communist witch hunts of the 50’s. Sydney Meyers, by the way, edited Film the Samuel Beckett/ Buster Keaton collaboration. It was shot by Boris Kaufman who won an Oscar for On The Waterfront (featuring a great performance by my uncle’s brother-in-law “Two-Ton” Tony Galento). Boris also shot films for Jean Vigo, Zero De Conduit, L’Atalante, in his own words his greatest collaborations.
I posted this trailer for your viewing pleasure. It’s chock full of groovy techniques, opticals, titles, graphics and great music. A must see movie in my book. Things to look for: The opening is shot on location in NYC, they filmed in the wreckage of the old Penn Station, before Madison Square Garden was built. Penn Station was an amazing place, look up some pictures. Marcello with blonde hair, “Hey, Blondie!”, Ursula Andress and her super groovy costumes, including the infamous 25 caliber brassiere. The cult that worships the Sun, The futuristic Citroen DS with the plexiglass roof. And how ingenious to shoot a film that takes place in the future in Rome! The ruins will still be there in 500 years, it’s not going to change that much. Also an incredible jazz score by Pierro Piccone, that’s Pierro himself playing the organ. It gives the movie an unforgettable ambience. I read somewhere that Marcello read the sci/fi story this film was based on and he made it happen! Handsome, a great actor, and smart too! And guess what, the editor was Marcello’s brother Ruggero Mastroianni. So find a copy, sit back, sip some Prosecco, and enjoy!
Here’s a scene from Bob Downey’s Putney Swope, it’s the Face Off pimple cream commercial. At the begining of the clip is a scene of stewardesses jumping up and down in slow motion, that’s from another commercial in the movie. Bob told me that after the premier, Billy Dee Williams chased him around the block because one of the stewardesses was Billy Dee’s girlfriend and he didn’t take kindly to her boobs being exposed in Bob’s movie. When you watch the whole movie there’s something else to be aware of, the voice of Putney Swope is really Bob Downey’s! He dubbed the entire part in that raspy growl. Bud Smith, the editor of Putney, told me he had to keep supplying Bob with tea and honey so his voice didn’t burn out during the dubbing. Maybe this is the origin of Bob Downey’s obsession with iced tea!
We all know about the 1936 Mercury Theater Production of MacBeth staged by Orson Welles, Welles set MacBeth in Haiti and used an all black cast. Ahead of his time don’t you think. (Around 1978 I met an old woman in a bar on 8th Ave. called Le Coq Au Vin. She was working in the wardrobe department at the Metropolitan Opera, she told me she had done costumes for Orson Welles and the Mercury Theater, including MacBeth!)
But did you know that just after the end of WWII Welles was broadcasting a weekly radio show from Hollywood. He received word from the NAACP about an injustice done to a returned black veteran, Issac Woodard Jr. Mr. Woodard had served with distinction in the South Pacific and earned a battle star. A cop back in his home town in South Carolina had beaten him savagely for no apparent reason other than the color of his skin. Mr. Woodard did not get medical attention in a timely manner for the same racist reason. As a result he was permanently blinded. Orson was outraged and began a one man campaign to bring the racist cop to justice. And after weeks of broadcasting dramatisations and accusatory monolouges “Wash your hands, Officer X!”,”We will give the world your Christian name!”, he succeded. The Dept. of Justice brought charges against the perpetrator who confessed. Ahead of his time as an artist and as a human being.
Fernando Rey was asked how he liked working with Luis Bunuel. He replied that he loved it with one exception. Whenever a scene was damaged in the lab or had some technical difficulty Bunuel would not reshoot it. He would just cut it out of the movie. This drove Rey crazy. Bunuel realized that you can cut anything out of a movie, it’s a very liberating thought. The human mind loves putting together puzzles, imposing patterns on chaos. Bob Downey told me he once bribed a projectionist to show the reels of one of his films out of order to see how it would play. So have a glass of champagne and toast the great Fernando Rey. Maybe his best scenes were damaged in the lab and never saw the light of day.
I found this BAD review of Sergio Leone’s great western For A Few Dollars More. It’s from an old copy of Time magazine. It perfectly illustrates the smug, superior attitude that Italian B movies have been subjected to. The idiot that wrote this review actually puts down Ennio Morricone’s magnificent score! I am posting this to make a point. Anything new or different is initially put down. If people don’t understand something they want to destroy it. But time has proven the Time reviewer wrong. Unfortunately the piece is unsigned, otherwise we could set the reviewer’s house on fire and shoot him when he comes running out! Just like the Rojo’s in A Fistfull of Dollars (which this review also puts down). Read full entry to see the complete review…
Okay in preparation for my podcast interview with Pablo here’s the Dr. Strangelove trailer, a work of genius! Pablo was contacted by Stanley Kubrick and asked to work on Dr. Strangelove. Kubrick had seen some commercials Pablo had made in England and was impressed so Pablo wound up doing the title sequence and the trailer. Pablo told me that Weegee was the still photographer for the film, Kubrick knew Weegee from his days in N.Y.C. when they were both struggling photogs. Ray Lovejoy was an editor I once worked with, a very nice guy and a great editor. He was the assistant editor on Dr. Strangelove ( also on Lawrence Of Arabia !). According to Ray, Peter Sellers did a lot of improvising during this film. Somewhere in Stanley Kubrick’s vault are outtakes of Sellers portraying the president as totally gay, and other wild variations on his characters. Sellers was to play the bomber pilot as well but he broke his ankle and Kubrick had to bring in Slim Pickens. Also Ray told me that Pablo ( who was sporting a Mohawk haircut and wearing an electric poncho- it was an electric blanket that Pabs turned into a poncho, so he could plug it in to keep warm) so terrorized the nighttime negative cutting crew at the lab in England that they all resigned! And when Kubrick had to move his Original Camera Negative from one lab to another, he used an armoured car, like a WWII tank. In any case check out the trailer, the use of quick cuts, the funny use of text, the sense of humor, it’s all vintage Pablo Ferro. And the music, Pablo recorded a xylophone player just hitting notes one at a time then cut them in as musical accents, a cool technique he invented. And also for your viewing pleasure the title sequence! There will be more about Kubrick, Dr. Strangelove and all the rest in upcoming episodes, so don’t touch that dial! Stay tuned in.
Here’s the trailer for Lucio Fulci’s Una Sul’Altra. A great movie! Fulci’s riff on Vertigo. I will soon publish a comparison between the two films but in the meantime enjoy this trailer! it’s full of groovy optical effects, done on an optical printer on film! I love the Italian title sequences that are full of crazy freeze frames, tinted images, animated titles, sand blowing away to reveal text. All shot on film and with a texture so rich you can almost taste it! Plus dig that crazy Riz Ortolani score! And Marisa Mell!
Here’s the Zardoz trailer in all it’s glory! It was created by the great Pablo Ferro. Pablo has done some incredible trailers like for instance Dr. Strangelove, A clockwork Orange, Z, . He also has created title sequences for Dr. Stangelove, Bullitt, Midnight Cowboy, Harold and Maude, A Clockwork Orange and many others. I will be posting a podcast interview with Pablo in the near future, so in the meantime I’ll upload some of his work as a preview of coming attractions.
P.S. I noticed that there is a cut in the trailer,after the line “The Gun Is Good” and after the giant head vomits guns all over Sean Connery and his men, the Giant head should say “The Penis Is Evil”. I guess the word “penis” is a no no, or maybe the censor really believes that the penis is evil so they castrated the trailer.
