Film Forno

Shock! John Phillip Law is dead, he was only 70. No word on what he died from. Daniele Luppi told me he saw him at a party a few months ago. He was in some classic films, Mario Bava’s Danger Diabolik,Giulio Petroni’s Death Rides A Horse, Roger Vadim’s Barbarella, Dennis Hopper’s The Last Movie and many, many others.

He got his big break in Norman Jewison’s The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming! and he was excellent in that film.


I recently heard he had a huge estate in the 60’s, a silent film star’s mansion that he called The Castle. He’d let visiting artists and musicians stay there, people like Bob Dylan and Andy Warhol. His wife at the time ( Lisa Law) came out with a book about that scene called Flashing The Sixties. Well, he’s finally got his angel wings.

Fly On!

Danger Diabolik title sequence with music by Ennio Morricone!

My old pal Michael Sullivan, the MadMan of Manhattan, animator , filmmaker, actor par excellance ( check out his performance as Lamy Homo in Bob Downey’s blasphemous epic Greaser’s Palace) But now after years of secret Alchemical work in his dusty attic somewhere on 29th street, in the shadow of the Empire State building, he has brought forth his epic creation, The Sex Life Of Robots! Here’s an article he sent me about it. More to come in the future!


If you want to read the article and see hi-rez images go here: TRIX ROSEN, download a zip file and check it out.

I just got word from the great Spaghetti Western Database that MGM is finally releasing Sergio Corbucci’s masterpiece Navajo Joe. This is an early vehicle for Burt Reynolds, he plays the title character , an Indian who doesn’t take any guff from anybody. He also does all his own stunts and is very impressive in that department. Also the score by Morricone is incredible, featuring the vocal talents of Alessandro Alessandroni’s amazing choir, I Cantori Moderni, and Gianna Spagnulo’s wild, earthy solos in particular. Also of note is Alessandroni’s incredible baritone electric guitar playing. Parts of this score were used to great effect in Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill, for example when Uma kills Bill with the 5 point palm exploding heart technique and Bill staggers off to die. Here it is courtesy of YouTube:

But back to Navajo Joe, it has an incredible ending, you’ll have to check it out for yourself, kind of abstract but incredibly moving. Here’s the trailer.

Tomorrow, Friday May 2nd Sergio Leone’s epic masterpiece Il Buono, Il Brutto, Il Cattivo will screen at the NuArt Theater in Los Angeles. They will show the uncut version with 20 minutes of deleted footage. The original cut of the film was 3 hours long. Chris Mankiewicz told me that he was a VP for United Artists at the time and it was his job to cut the movie down for an American release. He went to Leone and gave him the bad news. Leone grudgingly gave his OK but only on the condition that Chris use Nino Baragli, the film’s original editor. Chris agreed and made the cuts with Nino. Leone approved and that’s the version we all grew up with.

The Circle Of Death
Cut to a few years ago, John Kirk head of restoration for MGM contacted Triage Motion Picture Services, it seems an original uncut print of GBU had turned up at a Customs House in Italy. A print of a film had to be submitted to a government office to get a stamp of approval so it could be distributed. So using this as a guide I was called in by Triage to recreate as closely as possible to the original a new version of the film, using the best elements available and putting it in synch. Also rescoring one scene with a cue from an LP of the soundtrack. It was a real puzzle but I got it put back together with John Kirk, Tony Munroe, and Paul Rutan Jr. of Triage. That’s the version screening at the NuArt tomorrow. So go check it out and look for my name in the end credits!

The Soundtrack LP

Bebe Barron, groundbreaking composer of “electronic tonalities” for the seminal scifi flick Forbidden Planet is listening to the music of the spheres, looking down on planet Earth as she surfs with the Silver Surfer, skimming on comet dust throughout the Galaxy. What a shame that she only scored this one feature. I guess when synthesizers were invented people could create weird sounds at the touch of a button or a keyboard, not by hours of intense work with vacuum tube circuits, tape heads, razor blades and primitive mixers.

Bebe and Louis in The Village Studio

Soundtrack LP

But no one ever created those exact sounds that Bebe did, even with modern sophisticated equipment. Another lost art form.

Come Fly With Me!

Here’s a sample of Bebe and Louis’ music.

What a pleasure to see this great film projected in glorious 35mm B&W! One of the most beautiful noirs of all time splashed across the silver screen, Richard Widmark running like a cornered rat in a checkered suit through the alleys and back streets, under the bridges, along the waterfront, through the dives, the clip joints, the crooked nooks and crannies of London’s underbelly. Beautiful! Some of the coolest locations, so atmospheric, fog, magic hour photography, this film is a textbook of urban atmosphere.

Julie Dassin- Master of Cinematic Atmosphere

The noir guy (Alan K. Rode) gave a spiel at the beginning of the show, he spoke about Dassin’s uneasy relationship with Hollywood and how he formed a love/hate alliance with Darryl Zanuck. This film was produced by 20th Century Fox under Zanuck’s aegis. Mr. Z shipped Dassin off to London to escape the Commie witchhunts then igniting in Hollywood. Darryl also persuaded Dassin to put Gene Tierney in the film so she could get away from an exploding marriage and have something to do to occupy her mind. Zanuck told Dassin to write her into the script and he did, it’s pretty obvious, after a stellar opening of Widmark being chased through the seamy streets of London, he makes it home to a long dialouge scene with Tierney, not a great 2nd scene, obviously inserted to give Tierney a part.

Widmark and Tierney- tacked on love interest
I’m sure in the original script Widmark’s love interest was the fat club owner’s chick Helen, who he screws royally.

Widmark and Googie Withers aka Helen- original love object?

Also Hugh Marlow was tacked on as Gene Tierney’s other love interest, the patient good guy neighbor, waiting for Widmark to dump her so he can be there in the wings, rush out and pull her off the railroad tracks or whatever. His character Really does not belong in this movie. But forget all this fol de rol, this is a great movie! The wrestler Gregorius and Mike Mazurki have an epic battle that is unique in all of Cinema! It’s terrific!

Battle Royale- Gregorious (Stanislaus Zbyszko) Vs. Mike Mazurki!
And you can feel the noose inexorably tightening about Widmark’s neck, no matter what mad desperate genius scheme he comes up with, and he comes up with some brilliant twists and turns to avoid destruction. Probably one of the best hustlers ever to hit the screen! He makes Sidney Falco look like a chump! There is a montage of the word spreading across London ” Get Widmark! Big Reward!” that is pure cinematic bliss, locations, action, characters, genius. Like something out of Dickens or a scene from Fritz Lang’s “M”. Beautiful! Watching this film I was reminded of Mike Hodges “Get Carter” an English noir from 1971. I wonder if Mr. Hodges is a fan of Night and The City? Hats Off to The American Cinematheque for showing this masterpiece in all it’s silver nitrate glory! There was a big crowd on another Thursday night in Hollywood, the Center Of The Noir Universe!

They recently released Some Came Running on DVD. Vincente Minelli’s icy hot movie with Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, and Shirley McClain.

It was based on a novel by James Jones and it has become an iconic movie, mainly for me because of Dean Martin. Check it out and see what being cool in Technicolor in 1957 was all about.

Minelli

Godard/Coutard
Jean Luc Godard that genius, recognized Dino’s ultra coolness. He didn’t buy into the Sinatra legend, he made up his mind for himself and he went with Dean.

He has Michel Piccoli reading James Jones’s novel in the bathtub in Le Mepris and telling Brigitte Bardot that he’s wearing a hat “to be like Dean Martin in Some Came Running”.

A Treasure For The Ages- Brigitte Bardot’s Ass
I think Godard has another character reference this movie in another film, but I can’t remember if it’s Jean Paul Belmondo in Pierrot Le Fou or in Une femme est une femme. I’ll check but if one of you eagle eyed film brains out there knows, write in! Maybe you’ll win a delectable, hard to come by prize!

A Still From Highway 301, the 2nd half of the double bill
Scarlett O’Hara uttered this line in GWTW. It doesn’t have anything to do with this movie. Thank God. This noir gem starts out with brooding tough guy Steve Cochran being released from prison after an 18 year stretch. The kicker is he went in when he was 13 for killing his old man, Oedipus baby. The story zigs and zags with more turns than an anaconda doing the twist. He gets befriended by a guy in a greasy spoon, the guy buys him some pie, takes him to where he can get a job, then writes an expose about “the youngest killer in state history getting out of jail” complete with recent picture. Steve Cochran kicks the slimy reporter’s ass then he’s off to NYC for a 10 cent rendevous with destiny. He slides into a rent-a-date dance parlour and falls for the hardest chippie in the joint, Ruth Roman.

Ruth Roman, Va Va Voom!
He pursues her like a hound dog in the swamp and in spite of her acid edged personality, he makes progress. She invites him up to her pad where Bingo! An older dude is waiting, this angry cat tells Steve to blow and begins slapping the shit out of R.R. so Steve being a red blooded American convict starts slugging Mr. A-hole. The guy pulls a gun but Ruthie breaks a dish on his hand and Steve gloms the heater. He’s got grandpa covered but he has a flashback to when he plugged his old man and freezes up. The older guy slugs S.C. knocking him cold. R.R. grabs the rod and when hot head comes at her it goes off accidentally. The cool thing is when the guy gets up you can see a bullet hole in his back, the exit wound! Now this is a similar scenario to Fritz Lang’s Woman in The Window with Edward G. Robinson and Joan Bennett, but in that earlier film you don’t see any blood or wounds at all. Anyway it turns out Mr. Bad was a cop, a detective. So Steve tracks down Ruth, Steve doesn’t remember what happened so Ruth blames him! She says he did it!

More Ruth Roman, Can You Ever Get Enough!
He buys it and they’re off, a killer sequence has them hiding in a sedan on the back of a big car transporting rig. They head out cross country and the movie switches gears in a super cool way, up till now it’s been a typical 40’s type noir, all urban night, smoke, gunshots, hard dames that’ll get you strapped in the electric chair on the first date, the usual, now as the two star crossed lovers cross the big old USA it transforms into a 50’s movie, like a socially conscious teen angst James Dean type thing. They switch from double breasted suits and strapless chiffon numbers to blue jeans, leather jackets, Ruth even dyes her hair brunette, her real color. They’re like beatnik dharma bums living in a migrant farm workers camp picking lettuce and falling in love for the first time, Steve because he spent his entire adolescence in jail and Ruth because she had to fight off every guy that got within two feet of her. Things are looking good when the devil’s bargain rears it’s ugly head.

Steve looking like the Cat that swallowed the Canary
I won’t reveal what goes down but it’s a good predicament that ensnares the innocent as well as the guilty. Felix Feist did a great job with this epic. It’s got some excellent performances, a whole lot of story and several scenes that work like gangbusters. I didn’t like the end that much but other than that it’s pretty damn good. Check it out if you can, by the way the theater was pretty full, old Steve Cochran can still get people in off the street, even on a Thursday night in Hollywood!

Ciao Baby!

Hazel Court queen of 50’s horror and sci-fi has shuffled off this mortal coil at the age of 82.

She was an earthling terrorized by an early leather clad alien dominatrix in Devil Girl From Mars and screamed her head off in several Hammer films before coming to the USA and gracing a slew of Roger Corman helmed horror flicks, The Raven, The Masque Of The Red Death,Premature Burial. She also appeared in a bunch of cool TV shows, Twilight Zone, Burke’s Law, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The Wild, Wild West and a lot of others. She had red hair and green eyes, a real traffic stopper. Cheerio baby, you fueled countless adolescent fantasies with your sexy /horror one-two punch.

The American Cinematheque is holding the 10th annual festival of Film Noir, Return to Noir City. This Thursady April 17th at 7:30 they’re screening two rare gems starring the late, great Steve Cochran. Tomorrow Is Another Day Felix Feist’a masterpiece featuring a delicious performance by Ruth Roman and Highway 301, Andrew L. Stone’s early location crime feature, one of the first, “docu-thrillers” shot on real locations in a quasi documentary style.
Cochran is probably best remembered as Big Ed Somers, the double crossing henchman in White Heat. But this cowboy from Wyoming made it over to Italy to star in Michelangelo Antonioni’s Il Grido as well!

Il Grido
He is also reputed to have been hired as a pipe layer by Mae West and later heated up the screen and the dressing room with Mamie Van Doren. Cochran died under mysterious circumstances, he set out on a sailboat with 6 women, none of the women knew how to sail, Cochran keeled over from a coronary and the boat was found drifting off the coast of Mexico, the women had to be rescued after floating around with Steve’s corpse for a week! He’s a legendary character with a powerful screen presence. Check out this double bill, I sure as hell will!

Maybe Steve’s Good Friend, Max Baer, Jr. will be at the screening, I hope so!