Cinema Sojourns

Slither (1973) is a film of firsts in many ways. It marked the directorial debut of Howard Zieff, who would go on to become one of the most sought-after comedy directors in Hollywood during the ’70s (Hearts of the West [1975], House Calls [1978], Private Benjamin [1980]). It featured the first screenplay by W. D. Richter who would later pen the 1978 remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, the 1979 remake of Dracula, and Brubaker [1980] as well as direct the cult film, The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension [1984]. And it was James Caan’s first starring role after his critically acclaimed success in The Godfather [1972] and the beginning of his reign as a Hollywood leading man after struggling to break through in smaller scale movies like Rabbit, Run [1970] and T.R. Baskin [1971].

A dying Richard B. Shull (right) reveals clues to a missing fortune to James Caan in the oddball road trip comedy-drama Slither (1973), directed by Howard Zieff.

Slither opens as two recently paroled convicts, Dick Kanipsia (Caan) and his friend Harry Moss (Richard B. Shull), are taking a train to Harry’s home in the country. Once there they are ambushed by unknown assailants and Harry is mortally wounded but before he blows himself and his home sky high with dynamite, he reveals two names to Dick that supposedly know the hiding place of a huge sum of money Harry had stolen before being arrested. Dick tracks down one of the men, Barry Fenaka (Peter Boyle), who along with his wife Mary (Louise Lasser), take to the road with Dick in their RV to find the missing Vincent J. Palmer, the only man who really knows where the loot is hidden.

Louise Lasser, Peter Boyle and James Caan join up in a kooky treasure hunt in the offbeat comedy, Slither (1973).

Along the way they are joined by the hyper, emotionally unstable Kitty Kopetzky (Sally Kellerman) whom Dick had previously met and abandoned on the road during one of her firearms freak-outs. The foursome make uneasy traveling companions as they cruise the back roads of America while being followed by two mysterious black RVs.

Sally Kellerman plays a drifter who believes in UFO conspiracy theories in the road movie comedy, Slither (1973), co-starring James Caan.

From its opening frame to its last, Slither maintains a cheerful quirkiness and looney charm that more than compensates for its rambling narrative which remains as vague and ultimately inconsequential as one of Hitchcock’s “MacGuffins.” One of the more eclectic entries in the road trip movie genre, Slither is both a chase thriller and a comedy with the latter dominating the overall tone. At times the film threatens to move into darker, noir territory similar to Jonathan Demme’s later road trip movie, Something Wild (1986), but never actually descends into the disturbing violence and dramatic intensity of the latter film. Instead, the deaths, shootings and car chases are directed with a light hand with an emphasis on the colorful and goofball characters that populate this world of donut shops, trailer parks, roadside diners and bingo parlors. All of this is wonderfully captured in Laszlo Kovacs’s golden-hued cinematography which has a real feel for offbeat Americana.

Peter Boyle as Barry Fenaka is one of the highlights in Howard Zieff’s quirky road movie comedy, Slither (1973).

One of the film’s chief virtues is the loose, improvisational nature of the performances with James Caan slyly underplaying to Sally Kellerman’s manic hippie hitchhiker while Peter Boyle makes something original and funny out of his wanted embezzler, a rather mundane Middle America-guy who is obsessed with RVs and big band music.

These are the mysterious black vans that stalk the central characters in Howard Zieff’s road movie comedy, Slither (1973).

Louise Lasser, the ex-wife of Woody Allen, who had appeared in three of his films starting with Take the Money and Run [1969], also shines in her role as a former schoolmate of Dick’s, who worshipped him from afar in high school. The supporting cast is equally appealing and includes standout roles for Allen Garfield and Alex Rocco as unlikely and rather inept villains.

Allen Garfield (left) threatens James Caan in the oddball comedy-mystery Slither (1973), directed by Howard Zieff.

MGM didn’t know how to market Slither or what to do with it and the film received half-hearted distribution despite positive reviews from most of the nation’s prominent film critics. Roger Ebert wrote, “Slither is the kind of movie that’s constantly changing gears, it’s kind of a cinematic four-on-the-floor. It begins with violence, ends with tranquility, and along the way there’s a chase involving no less than three recreational camper vehicles…What makes it goofy, and nice, is that little effort is made to explain things. They just sort of happen as our friends race down the road. What holds everything together is the nice sense of timing displayed by the director, Howard Zieff, who is the guy behind many of the best TV commercials these days (Alka-Seltzer, Benson & Hedges)… Zieff would rather go for good moments than construct an over-all structure. So the movie is heavy on moments, light on structure, and that’s OK.”

Director Howard Zieff circa the 1970s

Pauline Kael of The New Yorker also concurred, calling the movie, “a suspense comedy with a prickly, flea-hopping humor – a sort of fractured hipsterism…The picture never delivers on its promise, but the gags are sneaky and offbeat, and the cast is full of crazies.”

James Caan tries to unravel a buried fortune mystery in the road trip comedy, Slither (1973).

Richter would end up being nominated for a Writers Guild of America award for his screenplay for Slither and he would eventually earn another Writers Guild nomination for Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978) and an Oscar nomination for his Brubaker (1980) screenplay. Zieff would eventually graduate to the big leagues with such box office hits as The Main Event (1979), Private Benjamin and My Girl (1991) but movie buffs seem to prefer his earlier comedies and Slither is a true original and an engaging example of the sort of cinematic freedom available to first time directors in the early seventies. You should also check out Zieff’s delightful romantic comedy House Calls (1978) with Walter Matthau, Glenda Jackson, Art Carney and Richard Benjamin.

Peter Boyle and James Caan struggle over a gun in the comedy-mystery Slither (1973), directed by Howard Zieff,

Slither was released in February 2010 as a Warner Archive Collection manufacture on demand DVD as a stand alone disc with no special features. It could certainly use a Blu-Ray upgrade but I doubt Warner will take the trouble for such a little known film despite its quirky charms.

Other websites of interest:

http://adcglobal.org/hall-of-fame/howard-zieff/

https://www.dga.org/Craft/VisualHistory/Interviews/Howard-Zieff.aspx

https://www.counter-currents.com/2018/10/coen-no-caan/

https://www.fandango.com/people/wd-richter-564238/biography

https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bs-xpm-1991-09-20-1991263126-story.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=676IcO99nWo

Have you ever had to look away from the screen while watching a movie because you couldn’t bear to see what happened next? Do you have a threshold tolerance level of what you will watch before you become outraged or repulsed and walk out of a film? There have certainly been controversial movies over the years – both art and exploitation features – that have tested the limits of what viewers will watch. Lars von Trier’s Antichrist (2009), Gaspar Noe’s Irreversible (2002), Meir Zarchi’s I Spit on Your Grave (1978), Nagisa Oshima’s In the Realm of the Senses (19776), Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975), and Wes Craven’s The Last House on the Left (1972) are just a few of the more famous offenders that have provoked heated debates over censorship and creative expression. We now have a new test case – The Painted Bird (2019), Czech filmmaker Vaclav Marhoul’s big-screen adaptation of Jerzy Kosinski’s dark masterpiece from 1965.

Petr Kotlar in his film debut plays a young boy subjected to the horrors of war-torn Eastern Europe in The Painted Bird (2019), directed by Vaclav Marhoul.

Kosinski’s novel recounts a harrowing tale about a young boy placed in foster care by his parents during World War II. Set in an unspecified Eastern European location, the protagonist is soon left to fend for himself amid a rural landscape of superstitious villagers, predators and armed invaders from German and Russia. Originally Kosinski led readers to believe that the novel was a thinly disguised autobiography of his own experiences in Poland during the war based on statements he made about his childhood. Some suspected that he had based the story on the wartime experiences of his childhood friend Roman Polanski, who had lived with several families in the countryside after his parents were sent to concentration camps.

Jerzy Kosinski, author of The Painted Bird

In recent years it has been revealed that The Painted Bird is a work of pure fiction but controversy has surrounded it and Kosinski ever since the novel first garnered international acclaim. Claims of plagiarism over the authorship of both The Painted Bird and Being There have followed him for years as well as accusations of manufacturing false narratives about himself. There was an undeniable dark side to the mercurial, womanizing celebrity and talk show fixture that eventually emerged after his suicide in 1991 but despite the enigma that is Kosinski, no one can deny the power of The Painted Bird.

The world is a cruel and indifferent universe as depicted in the film version of Jerzy Kosinski’s The Painted Bird (2019).

I read the novel more than forty years ago and images conjured up from Kosinski’s prose have stayed with me for years, all of them nightmarish and haunting. His terse episodic narrative is not only deeply compelling but has an almost cinematic style which makes a film adaptation unnecessary. Yet Vaclav Marhoul has spent almost a decade bringing Kosinski’s novel to the screen and the result is a two hour and forty-nine minute epic, stunningly photographed in black and white by award winning cinematographer Vladimir Smutny (Kolya) and featuring an all-star cast of Stellan Skarsgard, Harvey Keitel, Julian Sands, Udo Kier, Barry Pepper and others. The boy, the film’s much-abused protagonist, is played by newcomer Petr Kotlar, who was spotted on a city street by the director and cast in the film.

Vaclav Marhoul’s film version of The Painted Bird (2019) received a mixed reception at the Cannes Film Festival.

Marhoul’s adaptation of The Painted Bird is remarkably faithful to the tone and storyline of the novel despite having to omit certain details and incidents for length. But what is lost in the translation from book to film is the protagonist’s attempts to process what is happening to himself as he wanders from one horrific encounter to the next. The novel is narrated by the boy so we know his inner thoughts and motivations but in the film there is no narrator. Instead the young actor is practically mute and functions as a human receptacle of pain, suffering and humiliation. Terrible things happen to him but we are denied access to his thoughts so he remains a complete cipher.

War refugee Petr Stach (on cart) is briefly adopted by a superstitious elderly woman in The Painted Bird (2019), based on Jerzy Kosinski’s novel.

As a result The Painted Bird becomes a catalogue of atrocities which are dehumanizing and increasingly meaningless as the film proceeds from one vignette to the next. The opening scene sets the mood as the boy attempts to outrun a group of bullies who beat him and set his small dog on fire. The director has said in interviews that no animals were harmed in the making of the film but this scene and others involving animal deaths are so realistic that they are beyond cruel.

Cossacks massacre villagers and are in turn slaughtered by invading Soviet troops in The Painted Bird (2019), directed by Vaclav Marhoul.

The same is true of the fate of numerous human victims as witnessed by the boy. A miller’s assistant has his eyes gouged out with a spoon, a village whore is assaulted by women in her village who ram a huge glass bottle into her vagina, Jewish prisoners escaping from a train are massacred including a young woman and her baby who are shot at point blank range and so on. Viewing all of this through the eyes of the young protagonist should create a huge sense of empathy for him and the victims but instead I found Marhoul’s approach strangely detached and almost clinical in its depiction. There is no real character development due to the vignette-like structure and so the events become a numbing catalogue that require the viewer to make sense of it all. The fact that Petr Kotlar is a neophyte actor doesn’t help but even a skilled child performer would have had a difficult time conveying depth and complexity in this role as conceived by the director.

One of many disturbing images from The Painted Bird (2019), based on Jerzy Kosinski’s famous 1965 novel.

While The Painted Bird never becomes as grueling or as explicit as Pasolini’s Salo, it still feels exploitive by the very nature of dramatizing some of the more notorious passages from Kosinski’s book. One film critic, who saw it at the Cannes Film Festival, compared it to a “torture porn” art film but I wouldn’t go that far. Still, it raises troubling issues. Is survival at all costs worth losing one’s humanity in the process? Do we become more inured to violence by seeing it? Do the depictions enhance our understanding of the behavior on display? I was relieved, however, to see that the boy’s rape by a pedophile was not shown; nor do we witness the sex offender’s death from being devoured by rats. So much for small favors.

Julian Sands plays a diabolical pedophile who comes to a grisly end in The Painted Bird (2019).

On the positive side, the black and white cinematography does transport the viewer to another time and place, one that reminds me of the wild natural beauty and bucolic landscapes in Andrei Tarkovsky’s Ivan’s Childhood (1962) and Andrei Rublev (1966). There is also no music score but none was needed since the sound design is highly immersive and adds genuine tension and drama to specific scenes. The mixture of nonprofessional actors and cameo turns by actors like Harvey Keitel is seamless and conveys a sense of authenticity instead of being a distraction.

The stunning black and white cinematography of Vladimir Smutny is the main virtue of The Painted Bird (2019), directed by Vaclav Marhoul.

And the ending of The Painted Bird offers a brief glimmer of hope for the traumatized protagonist but it doesn’t really provide a satisfying emotional catharsis for viewers who have suffered through the almost three hour ordeal. If there is a message to the film, it would be the polar opposite of what Anne Frank once wrote in her diary, “I keep my ideals, because in spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart.” In Kosinski’s view of the world, evil is inherent in human nature and it takes a chaotic event like a world war to bring out the worst in mankind. The decision for the moviegoer is to watch or not to watch.

The young protagonist of The Painted Bird (2019) is cast adrift in an indifferent world populated by cruel, ignorant villagers, sexual predators and other amoral human beings.

Other websites of interest:

Vaclav Marhoul On His Oscar-Shortlisted ‘The Painted Bird’: A Message Of Hope And Humanity

https://nabarveneptace.cz/?lang=en

https://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/educational-magazines/painted-bird

https://www.neilstrauss.com/books/the-painted-bird-afterword/

https://www.thefirstnews.com/article/from-painted-bird-to-ugly-bird-what-is-the-truth-behind-kosinskis-acclaimed-autobiography-6377

http://boryanabooks.com/?p=4850

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/sep/03/the-painted-bird-review-vaclav-mahoul

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1982/02/21/jerzy-kosinski/6f8a4a42-dd35-4cc6-a184-904e07c60b45/

https://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/sight-sound-magazine/reviews-recommendations/painted-bird-vaclav-marhoul-black-white-violent-war-story-jerzy-kosiński-adaptation

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/painted-bird-review-1236151

Have you ever had to look away from the screen while watching a movie because you couldn’t bear to see what happened next? Do you have a threshold tolerance level of what you will watch before you become outraged or repulsed and walk out of a film? There have certainly been controversial movies over the years – both art and exploitation features – that have tested the limits of what viewers will watch. Lars von Trier’s Antichrist (2009), Gaspar Noe’s Irreversible (2002), Meir Zarchi’s I Spit on Your Grave (1978), Nagisa Oshima’s In the Realm of the Senses (19776), Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975), and Wes Craven’s The Last House on the Left (1972) are just a few of the more famous offenders that have provoked heated debates over censorship and creative expression. We now have a new test case – The Painted Bird (2019), Czech filmmaker Vaclav Marhoul’s big-screen adaptation of Jerzy Kosinski’s dark masterpiece from 1965.

In recent years it has been revealed that The Painted Bird is a work of pure fiction but controversy has surrounded it and Kosinski ever since the novel first garnered international acclaim. Claims of plagiarism over the authorship of both The Painted Bird and Being There have followed him for years as well as accusations of manufacturing false narratives about himself. There was an undeniable dark side to the mercurial, womanizing celebrity and talk show fixture that eventually emerged after his suicide in 1991 but despite the enigma that is Kosinski, no one can deny the power of The Painted Bird.

Marhoul’s adaptation of The Painted Bird is remarkably faithful to the tone and storyline of the novel despite having to omit certain details and incidents for length. But what is lost in the translation from book to film is the protagonist’s attempts to process what is happening to himself as he wanders from one horrific encounter to the next. The novel is narrated by the boy so we know his inner thoughts and motivations but in the film there is no narrator. Instead the young actor is practically mute and functions as a human receptacle of pain, suffering and humiliation. Terrible things happen to him but we are denied access to his thoughts so he remains a complete cipher.

As a result The Painted Bird becomes a catalogue of atrocities which become dehumanizing and increasingly meaningless as the film proceeds from one vignette to the next. The opening scene sets the mood as the boy attempts to outrun a group of bullies who beat him and set his small dog on fire. The director has said in interviews that no animals were harmed in the making of the film but this scene and others involving animal deaths are so realistic that they are beyond cruel.

While The Painted Bird never becomes as grueling or as explicit as Pasolini’s Salo, it still feels exploitive by the very nature of dramatizing some of the more violent passages from Kosinki’s book. I was relieved, however, to see that the boy’s rape by a pedophile was not shown; nor do we witness the sex offender’s death from being devoured by rats. So much for small favors.

On the positive side, the black and white cinematography does transport the viewer to another time and place, one that reminds me of the wild natural beauty and bucolic landscapes in Andrei Tarkovsky’s Ivan’s Childhood (1962) and Andrei Rublev (1966). There is also no music score but none was needed since the sound design is highly immersive and adds genuine tension and drama to specific scenes. The mixture of nonprofessional actors and cameo turns by actors like Harvey Keitel is seamless and conveys a sense of authenticity instead of being a distraction.

And the ending of The Painted Bird offers a brief glimmer of hope for the traumatized protagonist but it doesn’t really provide a satisfying emotional catharsis for viewers who have suffered through the almost three hour ordeal. If there is a message to the film, it would be the polar opposite of what Anne Frank once wrote in her diary, “I keep my ideals, because in spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart.” In Kosinski’s view of the world, evil is inherent in human nature and it takes a chaotic event like a world war to bring out the worst in mankind. The decision for the moviegoer is to watch or not to watch.

Other websites of interest:

https://nabarveneptace.cz/?lang=en

https://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/educational-magazines/painted-bird

https://www.neilstrauss.com/books/the-painted-bird-afterword/

https://www.thefirstnews.com/article/from-painted-bird-to-ugly-bird-what-is-the-truth-behind-kosinskis-acclaimed-autobiography-6377

http://boryanabooks.com/?p=4850

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/sep/03/the-painted-bird-review-vaclav-mahoul

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1982/02/21/jerzy-kosinski/6f8a4a42-dd35-4cc6-a184-904e07c60b45/

https://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/sight-sound-magazine/reviews-recommendations/painted-bird-vaclav-marhoul-black-white-violent-war-story-jerzy-kosiński-adaptation

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/painted-bird-review-1236151

For that small number of gifted actors who become screen legends, the path to stardom is rarely predictable. Sometimes it’s a case of pure luck. Other times it’s achieved after years of honing their craft and screen persona through hard earned experience. I can’t think of a better example of the latter than Humphrey Bogart who made twelve films (two of them short subjects, 1928’s The Dancing Town and 1930’s Broadway’s Like That) before his breakout supporting role as the vicious gangster Duke Mantee in The Petrified Forest (1936). The irony is that despite playing that same character on Broadway where he won unanimous critical acclaim, Warner Bros. wanted Edward G. Robinson for the role. If it hadn’t been for the film’s star, Leslie Howard, who played opposite Bogart on Broadway and demanded that he be cast in the film or he would quit, Bogart might not be as famous today.

Humphrey Bogart circa 1920

Yet he obviously had genuine talent and a unique screen presence which you can see in his early films before casting directors or the studios knew what to do with him. Probably my favorite example of this is Love Affair (1932), which I finally got around to watching after recording it off TCM when Bogart was the star of the month.

Humphrey Bogart, in one of his first starring roles, opposite Dorothy Mackaill in Love Affair (1932).

In what was his first leading role, Bogart plays Jim Leonard, an aspiring airplane engineer who is pursued by Carol Owen (Dorothy Mackaill), a vivacious socialite with a wild streak. Jim is an earnest, unpretentious working-class hero with a personality that fluctuates between stolid and cheerful. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him smile this much before in a movie – at least in the first half when he’s falling in love – and it’s a smile that’s open and innocent. Not the fixed, cynical grin or self-satisfied leer he would flash in his later films.

Dorothy Mackaill makes a morning house call to see Humphrey Bogart and catches him in his breakfast attire in Love Affair (1932).

Bogart also displays character traits which would be unthinkable in later roles such as a distinct bashfulness. The scene where Jim is sitting at his kitchen table in a sleeveless undershirt and fooling with a model airplane is particularly memorable. Carol drops in on him unexpectedly and he is clearly embarrassed by his appearance and messy apartment and excuses himself to change. When he reemerges from the bathroom, he is dressed in a jacket, shirt and tie – for breakfast. There is also a tenderness in his love scenes with MacKaill (they have great screen chemistry) which reflects none of the confident sexual swagger of his flirtatious spurring with Lauren Bacall on screen. Clearly, it’s a requirement of the part he is playing – the young romantic lead – which was essential for films like Love Affair and others aimed at female audiences of its era.

Humphrey Bogart plays the creepy undead title character in The Return of Doctor X (1939).

Most of all, it’s amusing and fascinating to see Bogart this young – with a full head of hair, a higher pitched voice and noticeable makeup that makes him appear a little less cadaverous than his mad scientist in The Return of Dr. X (1939). At the same time, some of Bogart’s iconic persona is already in place – that distinctive way of moving his arms when he walks; his gift for talking fast when he’s agitated, enunciating each word clearly; his ability to convincingly shift from passive to aggressive in a heartbeat and an array of facial expressions (disdain, cockiness, self-amusement, defeat) that look forward to his more effectively realized performances of the ’40s.

I also tend to forget that his unique way of speaking, marked by an immobile upper lip and a slight lisp, was not a personal affectation but caused by an accident though the details vary from source to source. Ephraim Katz’s The Film Encyclopedia states that he was on board the Navy vessel Leviathan when he was injured by a shell that left him with scars and a partly paralyzed upper lip. Another account claims that “Bogie’s lip was cut when he was escorting a prisoner to Portsmouth Naval Prison in New Hampshire. He and his man changed trains at South Station in Boston and when the man asked Bogie for a light he hit him in the face with his manacled hands and tried to run away. Seaman Bogart unholstered his Colt .45 and shot the man as he tried to escape. The doctor who stitched his lip wasn’t very good and that’s why he had the trademark lip/lisping thing. He didn’t report to the Leviathan until AFTER the end of WW1…the shell splinter story is one of the many non-facts about him that still persist.”

LOVE AFFAIR, top from left: Humphrey Bogart, Dorothy Mackaill, 1932.

Love Affair was not a Warner Bros. production; it was made for Columbia Pictures during a period when Bogart had returned to Broadway and was about to give up on moviemaking altogether. Someone at Columbia had seen Bogart on the stage opposite Helen Hayes in After All in 1931, however, and the studio offered him a six-month contract which only yielded this one film. While the movie is little more than a formulaic romantic drama on a B-budget, it is still an engaging minor entertainment.

Love Affair begins as if it’s going to be a screwball comedy with Dorothy Mackaill playing Carol as a slightly less daffy socialite than the ones who drive the narratives of My Man Godfrey and Bringing Up Baby. She hires Jim to take her up into the clouds in his two-seater plane and he takes an almost sadistic pleasure in breaking her cool composure, performing daredevil spins and loops (the aviation footage is quite thrilling). In turn, she offers Jim a ride back to the city and proves to be a wild, reckless driver who likes speeding through stop signs at 70 mph.

Hale Hamilton and Astrid Allwyn play major supporting roles in the romantic drama, Love Affair (1932) starring Humphrey Bogart & Dorothy Mackaill.

Just when it seems that Love Affair is creating an early blueprint for Love Me If You Dare, Yann Samuell’s 2003 comedy fantasy in which Marion Cotillard and Guillaume Canet try to outdo each other in outrageous competitions, it transitions into a romantic drama with two storylines. The main one is the popular scenario of the bored, wealthy society girl who is attracted to the penniless but attractive suitor who holds the promise of true love among the rich playboys and sugar daddies in Carol’s life. The second storyline is less compelling but provides a negative flipside version of the Jim-Carol courtship. Jim’s sister, Linda (Astrid Allwyn), is an ambitious actress who has been led astray by crooked theatre producer Georgie Keeler (Bradley Page). He has convinced her to blackmail her lover Bruce Hardy (Hale Hamilton), a wealthy entrepreneur, in order to raise the money needed for a star vehicle produced by Keeler. At the same time, Hardy, who has been pursuing Carol for years, is pressuring her to marry him and the time may be right since she has lost all of her investments in the stock market.

Humphrey Bogart and Dorothy Mackaill on the set of Love Affair (1932), directed by Thornton Freeland.

The movie, directed by Thornton Freeland (Flying Down to Rio, 1933), follows these dual narratives in a predictable, unsurprising manner up to the point where they collide and Hale and Jim clash over both Carol and Linda’s blackmail scheme. Love Affair then throws us a curve ball, culminating in one of the more bizarre and unlikely resolutions for a movie of this type. Carol, realizing that her own selfish, irresponsible behavior has ruined her chances at happiness, goes to the airport and rents a small plane for the day (this is the first time we realize she knows how to fly). Her intention is to kill herself and she leaves a suicide note with Gilligan (Jack Kennedy), Jim’s boss. Jim arrives in time to read Carol’s note and see her racing down the airstrip. What does he do? He runs after her and manages to jump on the tail of the plane as she increases her speed and achieves liftoff. Soaring into the sky, Carol is oblivious as Jim crawls up the back of the plane and eventually manages to squeeze himself into the cocktail with her. It might not be the conventional happily-ever-after finale to this 68-minute programmer but it’s certainly original.

Inventor Humphrey Bogart shows Dorothy Mackaill his recent innovation in Love Affair (1932).

At the time Love Affair was made, the Production Code was not being heavily enforced yet so the film does reflect a looser attitude toward romantic and sexual relationships though it is rather benign compared to more risque fare such as Baby Face (1933) and Safe in Hell (1931); the latter also stars Dorothy MacKaill and is one of the more memorable performances of this often overlooked actress. According to AFI notes on Love Affair “…the Hays Office strongly urged that shots of “Carol Owen” crying in the mirror the morning after she sleeps with “Jim Leonard” be eliminated from the film in order to avoid enforcing the fact that she indeed did sleep with Jim. The scene remained in the film, however. The Hays Office also was against the portrayal of “Georgie Keeler” as a “pimp” who urges “Linda Lee” to have a sexual affair with Hardy so that she can use “Bruce Hardy’s” money to support Keeler’s theatrical career, and insisted that Hardy propose to Linda Lee early in the film, thus making his payment of $10,000 to her at the end of the film part of a “breach of promise” settlement, instead of the efforts of a man to buy off his mistress.”

Dorothy Mackaill and Humphrey Bogart in Love Affair (1932), a combination of light comedy, melodrama and romance.

When Love Affair was released, it was a modest success but no box-office hit and it didn’t help advance Bogart’s career. In fact, his name didn’t even appear in the opening credits for his next movie, Big City Blues (1932), in which his part barely qualified for a cameo role. Bogart would have to wait several years before he got a shot at top billing again – Two Against the World in 1936 – but he wouldn’t become a major star until 1941 with the double whammy of High Sierra and The Maltese Falcon.

A pre-stardom Humphrey Bogart enjoying a day at the pool.

Sony released Love Affair on DVD in June 2013 as part of their Choice Collection but it could be out of print now. The film could certainly use a Blu-Ray upgrade and maybe it will get one someday if any distributor decides to release a package of early Bogart films from the Pre-Code era. It is certainly worth seeking out for any Bogie fan who wants to see a tentative, unpolished version of him. The potential is clearly there and it’s fun to watch a screen legend at an embryonic stage of development.

Dorothy Mackaill has some reservations about her new beau Humphrey Bogart in Love Affair (1932).

*This is a revised and updated version of a post that originally appeared on Movie Morlocks (later renamed Streamline), the official blog for Turner Classic Movies.

Other websites of interest:

https://www.neatorama.com/2012/10/04/The-Secret-of-Humphrey-Bogarts-Distinctive-Voice/

https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/bogart-article

https://www.notablebiographies.com/Be-Br/Bogart-Humphrey.html

https://immortalephemera.com/25159/dorothy-mackaill-hawaii-five-o/

https://11east14thstreet.com/2011/08/29/a-blonde-less-tragic-dorothy-mackaill/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PuIjhacidrQ

A stunning sequence from the 2019 documentary, Picture of His Life about underwater photographer Amos Nachoum.

Swimming with dolphins is a lifetime dream for some people and they can realize it at several destinations around the world for a price like Orlando, Cancun and the Bahamas. But who in their right mind would want to swim with polar bears? Wildlife photographer Amos Nachoum does. His obsession with this quest and the realization of it is the central focus of Picture of His Life (2019), a documentary by Dani Menkin and Yonatan Nir.

Wildlife photographer Amos Nachoum on location in the Canadian Arctic to film polar bears in the documentary Picture of His Life, directed by Dani Menkin and Yonatan Nir.

For those who don’t know, Amos Nachoum is a world renowned photographer from Israel whose photographs have appeared in National Geographic, Time, Conde Nast Traveler, The New York Times, Life and numerous other publications and diving magazines. For most of his career, Nachoum has distinguished himself by his unique approach to photographing wildlife, especially in underwater environments, and that involves getting up close in intimate quarters with his subject. This is not recommended if you are shooting alligators or orcas or anacondas but Nachoum seems to have an innate instinct for when to keep filming and when to retreat from a life-threatening situation.

Amos Nachoum photographs a seal in this scene from the 2019 documentary, Picture of His Life from co-directors Dani Menkin and Yonatan Nir.

The closest he ever came to being attacked was when he tried to film a polar bear underwater and he barely escaped unharmed. That encounter only increased his desire to photograph these deadly carnivores at close range and Picture of His Life documents his attempts to achieve his dream as he searches for his subject in the Canadian Arctic, accompanied by local Inuit natives and a crew that includes award-winning photographer Adam Ravetch.

The crew that accompanies photographer Amos Nachoum on his search for polar bears in Picture of His Life (2019) includes (from left) Billy Kaludjak, Adam Ravetch, and directors Yonatan Nir and Dani Menkin.

If you are looking for an autobiographical portrait of Nachoum, this is not that kind of documentary. It does provide personal details and information about his life in bits and pieces but Nachoum remains something of an enigma. What we do learn is that he had a tumultuous relationship with his father who was strict and unyielding in his expectations – he wanted Nachoum to become a carpenter and raise a family. Instead, Nachoum became a nomad, wandering the globe after becoming a self-taught photographer and deep sea diver. It may have been his experiences as a soldier during the horrific Arab-Israeli War of 1973 that shaped his strong sense of risk-taking as well as an aversion to a traditional lifestyle. What becomes clear during the course of Picture of His Life is that Nachoum is married to the sea and the creatures he photographs are more like family members.

Amos Nachoum prepares to film polar bears in the Canadian Arctic in Picture of His Life (2019), a documentary by Yonatan Nir and Dani Menkin.

One refreshingly different aspect of the documentary is that co-directors Dani Menkin and Yonatan Nir avoid the typical talking head interviews that usually punctuate any biographical film portrait. Concentrating instead on filming Nachoum’s preparations and eventually launch of a five-day expedition, the filmmakers serve up selected audio bites from the photographer’s two sisters, friends and colleagues like Jean-Michel Cousteau (son of Jacques-Yves Cousteau) who provide intriguing insights into Nachoum’s personality and aesthetics.

A polar bear swims in the freezing waters of the Canadian Arctic in the 2019 documentary, Picture of His Life about wildlife photographer Amos Nachoum.

If the eventual encounter with a female polar bear and her two cubs seems a bit staged and not an unscripted development, it nonetheless provides a dramatic finale to Picture of His Life as well as a spectacular visual highlight. In fact, selected photographs from Nachoum’s career and film footage of his past adventures around the world provide the most fascinating moments of Menkin and Nir’s documentary. In one sequence, we see a Nile crocodile chow down on Nachoum’s camera when he gets too close, in another we see a polar bear stalk and kill a seal with lightning speed. Leopard seals, Greenland sharks and a manta ray become memorable supporting players and there is a poignant sequence of an Orca trying to revive its dying offspring. A lot of what Nachoum captures is survival of the fittest in the natural world but there is an extraordinary sense of wonder and beauty in his images.

A fateful encounter between a penguin and a leopard seal is one of the more famous photographs of Amos Nachoum (as featured in Picture of His Life).

Picture of His Life is currently on the film festival circuit and has already won a number of awards including Best Documentary at the 2019 Israel Film Festival and the Audience Award at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival. It seems inevitable that it will get picked up for theatrical distribution in the near future.

Other websites of interest:

https://amosphotography.com

https://www.timesofisrael.com/in-arctic-polar-bear-is-final-frontier-for-famed-israeli-wildlife-photographer/

https://www.destinationwildlife.com/blog/how-to-get-killer-photographs-amos-nachoum

https://www.mares.com/us-US/ambassadors/photo-&-film/amos-nachoum/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luBHj63Eryc

From the mid-fifties to the mid-sixties, if there was a dance craze or a musical trend, producer Sam Katzman was there to exploit it in low-budget B-features targeted for teenagers in saturation bookings at drive-ins and movie houses. Many of these were directed by Fred F. Sears and the plotlines were minimalistic and interchangeable from film to film but the musical acts featured were usually first rate and today serve as wonderful time capsules of their era. Rock Around the Clock (1955), showcasing rock ‘n roll pioneer Bill Haley and His Comets, was Katzman’s first major hit in this new “youth market” genre and he followed it up with Cha-Cha-Cha Boom! (1956) in order to capitalize on the current popularity of the Cuban and Latin music sweeping the nation.

But the audience for this music weren’t teenagers but a more sedate nightclub/lounge act crowd who didn’t show up to buy tickets. Besides, teenagers weren’t about to trade their rock ‘n’ roll music for the cha-cha and the mambo so Katzman went back to the rock ‘n’ roll well and churned out another hit the same year – Don’t Knock the Rock, with Billy Haley and his Comets again plus Little Richard, The Treniers and Dave Appell & the Applejacks.

Cha-Cha-Cha Boom!, on the other hand, vanished quickly and has languished in obscurity over the years except for rare screenings on television such as Turner Classic Movies. The film is nothing unexpected in the Katzman canon but it was the first Hollywood movie to showcase Latino music, introducing many moviegoers for the first time to the sounds of Perez Prado and his Orchestra as well as bandleaders Manny Lopez and Luis Arcaraz and their orchestras. And as usual there were a few novelty acts such as the dance team of Nita & Elvarez, vocalist Helen Grayco, and the Mary Kaye Trio.

Being a long time fan of Prado’s music, it was a treat to finally see him perform some of his signature songs in a movie. In fact, it would be his only U.S. film appearance except for a brief cameo in Underwater the previous year (1955) in which he performed his best-selling hit single, “Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White.” Most of his other on-camera appearances were in Mexican films and U.S. television specials such as his delightful guest spot on The Spike Jones Show in 1954.

Bandleader Perez Prado shows off some dance steps in the 1956 musical Cha-Cha-Cha Boom!, directed by Fred F. Sears.

Nicknamed the “King of the Mambo”, Prado’s music is an irresistible mix of tropical rhythms played out as call-and-response riffs between the bass and sax musicians and punctuated by Prado’s famous grunts and cries which gives the entire number an extra zing. And he’s clearly the consummate showman in Cha-Cha-Cha Boom! where he sways back and forth to the music, occasionally leaping into the air or doing high kicks. As Prado is slightly chubby with a diminutive height of 5 ft. 6 inches, it’s a sight you want to see again and again – as unexpected as it is incongruous.

Bandleader Pérez Prado

Among the songs Prado performs in Cha-Cha-Cha Boom! are “Que Rico El Mambo,” “Mambo No. 8” (one of his most famous numbers), “Voodoo Suite,” “La Nina Popof,” and “Crazy Crazy.” You’ve probably heard his music without knowing it at some point as a moviegoer. His 1958 hit song “Patricia” has been featured in Fellini’s La Dolce Vita (1960), Goodbye, Columbus (1969), Space Cowboys (2000) and the sitcom The Simpsons, to name a few. “Mambo No. 8” was heard in Office Space (1999) and Company Man (2000); “Que Rico El Mambo” aka “Mambo Jambo”, has been used in Real Women Have Curves (2002) and The Motorcycle Diaries (2004); Tim Burton used “Kuba Mambo” in Ed Wood (1994) and the “Marco Polo” episode of The Sopranos used Prado’s “Cherry Pink & Apple Blossom White.”

The specialty dance team Dante & Sylvia are one of the highlights of Cha-Cha-Cha Boom! (1956), a Sam Katzman production.

The other music in Cha-Cha-Cha Boom! isn’t as dynamic but it has its charms. The Mary Kaye Trio specialize in the sort of jive-happy vocal harmonizing that is typical of groups like the Hi-Los and Lambert, Hendricks and Ross. They perform a catchy, upbeat version of the folk standard, “Lonesome Road” and a frenetic rendition of the signature Judy Garland song, “Get Happy,” where they get into this robotic, smiling, finger-snapping groove that seems in danger of getting stuck. Also featured is Helen Grayco whose voice has a sultry, smoky quality that’s perfect for intimate jazz clubs or cabarets.

While Cha-Cha-Cha Boom! has more plot than you’d like for a typical Katzman musical revue, it’s often interesting for its exploitation and embrace of both Latin music and Latino stereotypes. For example, character actor Jose Gonzales Gonzales has the thankless role of assistant to music scout Bill Haven (Steve Dunne); his prime function is to provide a translation service for Haven when he travels to Havana to discover new talent but mostly he’s used for unfunny comic relief, crying “Ah chi-wha-wha!” when things get complicated. The film is also amusing for the male-female rivalry between former lovers Haven and Debbie Farmer (Alix Talton), who work for competing record companies and try to steal each other’s acts. Farmer actually appears to be the more enterprising and savvy of the two agents. She’s also the aggressor in the relationship but she quickly agrees to give up her career for marriage to Haven in the “happy” finale. Here’s a typical example of their banter: Debbie: I’m going to buy a trousseau that’ll make you forget I have a brain in my head!

A lobbycard featuring the main cast members of the mambo musical Cha-Cha-Cha Boom! (1956), directed by Fred F. Sears.

Katzman would go on to mine other musical fads and trends after Cha-Cha-Cha Boom!, some clicked like Twist Around the Clock (1961), Don’t Knock the Twist (1962), and Kissin’ Cousins (1964) starring Elvis Presley in dual roles. And some didn’t such as Calypso Heat Wave (1957), Hootenanny Hoot (1963) and A Time to Sing (1968) with Hank Williams, Jr. But all of them are invaluable artifacts of their time for pop culture and music aficionados.

Cha-Cha-Cha Boom! is not currently available on any format from a licensed distributor in the U.S. although you might be able to find a DVD-R of it from grey market suppliers. However, you can still purchase the original soundtrack album on Amazon or through other sellers.

Dante & Sylvia are a dance team headliner in the mambo novelty film, Cha-Cha-Cha Boom! (1956), directed by Fred F. Sears.

*This is a revised and expanded version of a post that originally appeared on Movie Morlocks (later renamed Streamline), the official blog for Turner Classic Movies.

Other websites of interest:

http://www.jewage.org/wiki/ru/Article:Sam_Katzman_-_Biography

https://www.fandango.com/people/fred-sears-608934/biography

https://www.last.fm/music/Pérez+Prado/+wiki

http://moviemagg.blogspot.com/2009/02/cha-cha-cha-boom-katzmancolumbia-1956.html

https://www.fender.com/articles/gear/cult-classic-the-mary-kaye-stratocaster

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_T35xt9iuM

Among the French New Wave directors, Claude Chabrol was the most prolific filmmaker after Jean-Luc Godard but his work was always divided between personal projects and commercial vehicles which he felt obligated to make so he could finance the former. Unfortunately, most of his “for hire” projects like Code Name: Tiger (1964) and Who’s Got the Black Box? (1967) were not successful with the public and ended up adversely affecting his reputation among film critics after his acclaimed film debut, Le Beau Serge (1958). Although he enjoyed a major comeback in the late sixties-early seventies with such well-received efforts as Les Biches (1969), La Femme Infidele (1969) and Le Boucher (1970), the films he made between 1959 and 1967 were mostly regarded as minor or flawed works by French critics, which hurt their distribution chances outside of France. One title that fell through the cracks and is now being reassessed as one of his most important early works is The Third Lover (1962), which was released on Blu-Ray in late February of 2020.

Jacques Charrier plays a second rate journalist who becomes obsessed with meeting a glamorous couple in his rural village in Claude Chabrol’s L’Oeil du Malin (1963) aka The Third Lover.

The film’s original French title, L’oeil du malin, which translates as The Evil Eye is a reference to the film’s protagonist, Andre Mercier (Jacques Charrier), a second-rate journalist who goes by the pen name of Albin Mercier. He is sent to a rural village in West Germany to write some articles on the local culture and learns that Andreas Hartmann (Walther Reyer), a renowned writer, lives in the vicinity with his wife Helene (Stéphane Audran). Fascinated with Hartmann’s fame, Albin schemes of a way to meet this glamorous couple whom he has secretly observed through an opening in their walled estate. After a chance meeting with Helene at the local grocer, Albin is invited for tea with the couple and begins to worm his way into their inner circle. What does he want?

Andreas (Walther Reyer,left), a famous writer and his chic wife Helene (Stephane Audran) entertain a guest for lunch in The Third Lover (1962), directed by Claude Chabrol.

Mercier’s motives are never a mystery because he is the narrator of The Third Lover and Chabrol creates a fascinating dichotomy between what Mercier is thinking and what he says to his new friends, which are often not the same thing at all. At first Mercier is delighted with his good luck and enjoys Andreas and Helene’s hospitality. “I was perfectly aware that my goal was to enter this happy couple’s bubble,” he reveals. “To be part of it, to cling like ivy to a wall, to step if needed into this man’s shoes, to replace the man who shared my first name.”

Albin Mercier (Jacques Charrier) stalks his intended prey with a camera in Claude Chabrol’s The Third Lover (1962).

There is an unsettling voyeuristic quality about The Third Lover because we are seeing everything from Mercier’s point of view and he is the epitome of someone who doesn’t live life but eavesdrops on it as an envious but almost invisible spectator. Yet, in the manner of Rear Window and other Hitchcock films (Chabrol was a great admirer) that flirt with the scopophiliac personality, the viewer becomes an implicit witness to the proceedings in Chabrol’s film while remaining powerless to stop Mercier from spinning his spider’s web of lies and deceptions. Maybe spider is the wrong analogy. Scorpion is more appropriate. Like the famous Aesop fable of the frog and the scorpion, Mercier has a deadly sting that brings doom to his victims but also himself in a more figurative way.

Andreas (Walther Reyer) reveals his traumatic wartime experiences to Helene (Stephane Audran) and his new friend Albin (Jacques Charrier, off-camera) in The Third Lover (1962).

Andreas and Helene are also not the golden couple we first glimpse through Mercier’s eyes. Andreas, the gregarious bohemian with a unique literary talent, has a dark side. In a candid moment, he drops his mask and confesses, “The war left me a broken man. It left me empty and hard.” These are prophetic words that come back to haunt us at the film’s violent climax. As for Helene, she is a serene, calming presence but her placid beauty is a cover for deception. Chabrol has built a career on demonizing the hypocrisies and decadence of the French bourgeoise but he also makes Andreas and Helene so much more sympathetic and likable than the poisonous Mercier that you begin to fear for them both.

Albin Mercier (Jacques Charrier) sabotages the car of a famous writer as part of a revenge plot in Claude Chabrol’s The Third Lover (1962, aka L’Oeil du Malin.

The Third Lover generates an almost unbearable amount of tension as it moves toward its bleak resolution; it is like watching a car wreck in slow motion. Certainly, the film seems inspired by Othello with Mercier as a gallic Iago and Chabrol would reference Shakespeare again with his 1963 melodrama Ophelia, in which a supporting character in Hamlet becomes the heroine. But most of all, The Third Lover serves as a compelling template for the sort of brilliantly cynical dissections of bourgeoise society Chabrol would later depict in masterworks like La Ceremonie (1995).

Helene (Stephane Audran) is the seemingly happy wife of a famous author but she might be hiding something in The Third Lover (1962), directed by Claude Chabrol.

The Third Lover also benefits immensely from a collaboration with three key contributors in the director’s filmography. First, of course, is Stéphane Audran as Helene, who would become his wife in 1964. She has rarely been more lovely and seductive and it is easy to see why men are drawn to her like moths to a flame. It is also the first of several Chabrol films in which Audran would play heroines named Helene. Audran had previously appeared in Chabrol’s Les Cousins (1959), Les Bonnes Femmes (1960) and Les Godelureaux (aka Wise Guys, 1961) but The Third Lover is her first showcase and starring role in a Chabrol film and she is magnetic and mysterious as the film’s sacrificial victim to male pride. Audran is probably best known for her acclaimed performed in the art house hit, Babette’s Feast (1987). She won the Best Actress award at the Berlin International Film Festival.

Albin Mercier (Jacques Charrier) ponders what to do with the incriminating photos he has taken in The Third Lover (1962), directed by Claude Chabrol.

The evocative black and white cinematography is by Jean Rabier, who would go on to work on more than twenty-five Chabrol films starting with Les Godelureaux (1961) and ending with Madame Bovary (1991). In between he also lensed some other landmarks of French cinema such as Agnes Varda’s Cleo from 5 to 7 (1962) and Le Bonheur (1965) and Jacques Demy’s The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964). Set in a bucolic area in rural Germany near the French border, The Third Lover unfolds in beautiful natural surroundings – forests, lakes, pastoral landscapes, and a luxurious country villa – that provide an ironic contrast against the diabolical plot turns.

A stripper performs a private show for a select clientele in The Third Lover (1962). Director Claude Chabrol makes a cameo appearance in the background, far left.

One sequence accents the voyeuristic nature of the tale when Mercier accompanies Andreas and Helene to a private back room strip club (Chabrol can be glimpsed in a cameo). Another memorable set piece takes place at a crowded Octoberfest event as Mercier tries to snap candid photos of Helene and her secret lover. The hand-held cinema verité-like flavor of this sequence is further enhanced by numerous festival attendees looking directly at the camera (Obviously Chabrol instructed Rabier to shoot everything on-the-fly without using professional actors or paid extras for the crowd).

Andreas (Walther Reyer) savagely attacks his wife Helene (Stephane Audran) in the shocking conclusion to The Third Lover (1962).

The other major collaborator on The Third Lover is film composer Pierre Jansen, who has worked on almost as many Chabrol films as Rabier. Jansen’s use of string ensembles and percussion effects create nerve-fraying results in the manner of Bernard Herrmann’s scores for Hitchcock and often suggest a free-form mixture of classical, jazz and avant-garde influences. His first score for Chabrol was Les Bonnes Femmes (1960) but some of his later work for the director was his most memorable and includes the music scores for La Rupture (1970) and Violette (1978).

A rare photo of director Claude Chabrol on the set of his 1962 film, The Third Lover aka L’Oeil du Malin.

The failure of The Third Lover to find an audience or many admirers upon its original release is not particularly surprising when you consider the grim trajectory of the storyline and the fact that the protagonist is such a nasty piece of work. Jacques Charrier certainly deserves kudos for making Mercier such a memorable villain and it is quite a departure for the sort of debonair, dashing young men Charrier had been playing in films like Marcel Carné’s Les Tricheurs (1958) and Babette Goes to War (1959). Unfortunately, Charrier is probably better remembered today as the second husband of Brigitte Bardot (from 1959 to 1962) and not for his movie roles. As for Austrian actor Walther Reyer, most of his work was in German cinema but film buffs may recognize him from Fritz Lang’s two-part epic, Tiger of Bengal and The Indian Tomb (both released in 1959 and later re-edited into one film in 1960 for distribution in the U.S. as Journey to the Lost City).

Married couple Jacques Charrier and Brigitte Bardot were constantly hounded by the media during their brief marriage.

After being unavailable for years, a beautifully restored version of The Third Lover is now available on blu-ray from Kino Lorber. It is presented in the original French language with optional English subtitles and includes a fascinating, well-researched commentary by film historian Kat Ellinger. The only other extra is a collection of trailers spotlighting other Claude Chabrol films.

Other websites of interest:

http://www.frenchfilms.org/biography/claude-chabrol.html

https://www.indiewire.com/2011/09/the-essentials-the-films-of-claude-chabrol-116205/

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2001/jun/16/features.weekend

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/mar/27/stephane-audran-obituary

https://peoplepill.com/people/jacques-charrier/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPd_WfOA5VE

In the many peaks and valleys of his long career the Mickster never shied away from taking on difficult or questionable roles in his relentless desire to perform and entertain. While this adventuresome spirit might alienate part of his fan base that prefers to remember him as Andy Hardy or Judy Garland’s musical partner, it has won him an entirely new set of admirers. I’m talking about those who have seen and been amazed by his participation amid those lost post-MGM years in such eclectic fare as The Private Lives of Adam and Eve (1960), Platinum High School (1960), Everything’s Ducky (1961 with Buddy Hackett and a talking duck), Roger Corman’s The Secret Invasion (1964), How to Stuff a Wild Bikini (1965), the Mafia-Hippie-LSD comedy Skidoo (1968), and 1971’s The Manipulator (aka B.J. Lang Presents), where he plays a psychotic former director living in an abandoned warehouse with a female captive.

Rooney’s energy, range and versatility are truly awe-inspiring from his desperate loser of Quicksand (1950) to his subtle, moving portrayal in Requiem for a Heavyweight (1962) to his unexpected cameo in Babe: Pig in the City (1998). But I’m willing to bet that La Vida Lactea (aka The Milky Life), made in Spain in 1992, is probably the weirdest thing he’s ever done and very few people have seen it.

Helmed by Juan Estelrich, Jr., who has only directed two other films in a 33-year career where he has mainly worked as a second-unit director, this is a black comedy in the spirit of Luis Bunuel but without the sure touch of that master of the surreal. Yet, despite its uneven tone which wavers between broadly played social satire and a melancholy character study, The Milky Life is often fascinating in ways that probably weren’t intended.

Mickey Rooney plays a billionaire who wants to return to an infant state in the black comedy, The Milky Life aka La Vida Lactea (1993), from Spanish director Juan Estelrich Jr.

Here’s the set-up: Barry Reilly (Rooney) is a billionaire who decides on his 80th birthday to retire but his announcement comes with an unexpected zinger that is a shock to his greedy family and in-laws. Reilly intends to spend his twilight years reliving that carefree, pre-consciousness state when he was a new born infant. He wants to regress to a state where he can be coddled, bathed, fed and loved – and he has the money to replicate the conditions and environment necessary for his indulgence. His vulture-like family has no choice but to humor him if they expect an inheritance and their devious schemes to sabotage the grand plan provide an intriguing subplot.

Marianne Sagebrecht stars in the romantic fantasy Zuckerbaby aka Sugarbaby (1985), directed by Percy Adlon. It was her breakout film role and launched her international career.

The main focus stays on Reilly who wastes no time in hiring Aloha (Marianne Sagebrecht), a wet nurse, and getting down on all fours, crawling around in an oversize diaper and communicating in baby talk gibberish (which is dubbed into Spanish by an actor whose hilariously incongruous voice adds another layer of bizarreness to Rooney’s performance).

The make or break moment – the one where you decide to either flee the room or continue watching in astonishment – is when Rooney begins breast-feeding on Marianne Sagebrecht’s more than ample bosom. Did she read the script and say, “I have to do this role”? Or was it the idea of working with the legendary Rooney regardless of the front and center suckling? Of course, this is just one aspect of their relationship which also involves the inevitable bathtub scene, playtime activities and the odd detail – Mickey rolling around in his giant crib or stuffing his overweight body into a high chair. It’s a brave performance – or maybe it’s an insane performance. And kudos to Ms. Sagebrecht too who is courageous beyond words.

Billionaire Mickey Rooney regresses to an infant state and his greedy family play along in hopes of getting his fortune in La Vida Lactea (1993, aka The Milky Life).

The Milky Life takes a dark turn in the final third that in some ways is a purer form of Reilly’s desire to return to a state of infancy – in some ways you could say he finally gets his wish – but the final fadeout is still decidedly downbeat. The director might have been aiming for profound tragedy but the climax feels anticlimactic instead as if he never found the desired resolution to his story. Still, if you’ve looking for a Mickey Rooney film that will make his fans think they are hallucinating, this is it.

I’m actually surprised that The Milky Life was reviewed by any film critics in the U.S. Variety stated, “ This tasteless and painfully unfunny film, a Euro-pudding with no distinguishing features, will probably emerge as a cult item because of its very awfulness. Imagine Mickey Rooney with shaved head wearing nothing but diapers and talking baby talk. That’s the gimmick here, and it’s an unworthy one.” Sorry, but dismissals like this only make people want to see it all the more and the film is much more ambitious and fascinating than other Rooney projects from the early nineties like Sweet Justice, The Legend of Wolf Mountain and Silent Night, Deadly Night 5: The Toy Maker.

Mickey Rooney plays an evil toymaker who creates havoc at Christmas time in Silent Night, Deadly Night 5: The Dollmaker (1991).

Unfortunately, the only way to see The Milky Life in the 1990s was via a VHS bootleg copy from Video Search of Miami in Spanish with English subtitles. The third-generation dub visual quality was less than desirable but once the weirdness began, you quickly forgot about that. But now, it appears to be an almost lost film. This is not the sort of thing you would ever see at the TCM Classic Movie Film Festival but Mickey Rooney completists who appreciate his unusual career arc will want to see it NOW.

* This is an updated and expanded version of a post that originally appeared on Movie Morlocks (later renamed Streamline), the official blog for Turner Classic Movies.

Other websites of interest:

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/apr/07/mickey-rooney-obituary

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/culture-obituaries/film-obituaries/10749333/Mickey-Rooneys-most-famous-screen-moments.html

https://www.fandango.com/people/marianne-sagebrecht-591898/biography

https://variety.com/1993/film/reviews/la-vida-lactea-the-milky-life-1200431422/

https://www.shockcinemamagazine.com/milky.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOifjWvAgpo

Released in the U.K. as The System and the U.S. as The Girl-Getters in 1964, this unheralded little gem of a film is not only a vivid snapshot of the swinging sixties but a surprisingly frank and intelligent treatment of sexual gamesmanship and barely disguised class warfare promoted as a typical youth exploitation picture in the style of a “Beach Party” movie by distributor American International Pictures.

Director Michael Winner in his younger days

More surprising is the fact that it is directed by Michael Winner, who never got much if any respect from U.S. critics. Most of them dismissed him as a hack based on a checkered film career that includes the immensely popular Death Wish and its many sequels starring Charles Bronson as well as Won Ton Ton, the Dog Who Saved Hollywood (1976), a satanic horror thriller – The Sentinel (1977), a sluggish remake of The Big Sleep (1978) and Scream for Help (1984), which prompted one critic to state, “Where most Winner films go straight from offensive to forgotten, this teenager-in-peril movie went from forgotten to such deep obscurity that it’s often missing even from Winner filmographies.”

But there was a great stretch between 1964 and 1971 when Winner was making some truly unique and unconventional mainstream movies – Hannibal Brooks (1969), an eccentric WWII action-adventure with Michael J. Pollard, Oliver Reed and an elephant named Lucy and Lawman (1971), a cynical, hard-edged take on the American West starring Burt Lancaster, Robert Ryan and Lee J. Cobb. Yet it’s his mid-sixties movies that I love. In addition to The System, Winner also directed the delightful heist film The Jokers, and a cynical satire of the advertising world, I’ll Never Forget What’s ‘isname (1967). The connection between all three of these movies is Oliver Reed.

Oliver Reed has an axe to grind in Michael Winner’s advertising satire, I’ll Never Forget What’s ‘Isname (1967), co-starring Orson Welles and Marianne Faithful.

Forget those images in your head of Reed in his later career when he was bloated, indiscriminate about the roles he took and overacted with abandon in Spasms, Fanny Hill, Gor, Hired to Kill, Superbrain, and many more. In The System, you get your first look at Reed after the opening credits, as he waits for a train to arrive, bringing hordes of tourists, particularly young single girls, to the seaside town of Roxham. We see Jane Merrow peering out the train window as it pulls in and spots Reed watching her – the camera pushes in on him in a sudden rush of movement and – you are suddenly struck by this dark, intense presence. It’s like discovering an exciting new actor except it’s the young Oliver Reed and his performance in The System feels like a major screen debut even though he had already been acting in films for at least seven years.

The Girl-Getters (1964) aka The System
Directed by Michael Winner
Shown: Oliver Reed, Jane Merrow

Reed stars as a photographer nicknamed Tinker who uses his camera as a means to chat up, date and seduce an endless number of “birds” throughout the summer season. While he does make a modest living selling the tourist photos he takes for local businessman Larsey (Harry Andrews), his main interest is the hunt, a relentless pursuit of pleasure and sexual conquests that often become little more than gaming bets among his mates. From first impressions, Reed is a total cad, supremely self-confident and devilishly handsome with no real ambition to do anything else, even though he is long past his teenage years. From the moment he meets Nicola (Jane Merrow), however, the gauntlet is thrown down.

Unlike any of his previous victims, she is a cool, slightly aloof upper-class beauty, completely at ease with herself and her effect on the local men. As they begin a dance of seduction, she matches Tinker’s flirtations and witticisms in often provocative ways and the challenge to win her becomes an obsession for him. The odds are stacked against him, of course, because she is clearly out of his league yet they enter into a passionate affair anyway.

The Girl-Getters (1964) aka The System
Directed by Michael Winner
Shown: Oliver Reed, Jane Merrow

Is Nicola just slumming, getting her sexual kicks with someone beneath her class? Or will she choose Tinker over her stuffy Eton and Cambridge educated suitors? The film has a bittersweet flavor to it with a layer of sadness running just beneath the surface. It’s not what you expect to find in a movie with the tag line, “How boys get girls…and where! And why! And How!”

Winner’s film captures the sunny, carefree days of a seaside resort in the summer and also the end of the season as winter closes in, the tourists go home and all of the love affairs come to an end. Nicolas Roeg’s black-and-white cinematography evokes another time and place when young men wore blazers and ties, their dates had teased hair and bouffants, and they all did the twist. The British Invasion was in full swing in the U.S. and radio stations were playing the songs of The Beatles and other UK pop stars like Petulia Clark, The Animals and The Searchers, who provide the film’s catchy title tune, “The System”.

Nicola (Jane Merrow) and her posh friends receive an unexpected visit from Tinker (Oliver Reed, offscreen) in The System (1964), directed by Michael Winner.

Winner employs many of the stylistic devices of the French New Wave and even today the film feels fresh and spontaneous. Reed, in particular, is a revelation as a cheeky bastard who somehow makes us care about him. The sequence where he is beaten at tennis in front of Nicola by one of her posh boyfriends is one of many standout scenes, illustrating the huge social gulf between the couple as well as Tinker’s attempt to hide his complete shame with self-deprecating humor. Another unforgettable bit is the sensual bubble-blowing mating dance between Tinker and Nicola.

The infamous bubble blowing seduction scene from The System (1964) starring Jane Merrow and Oliver Reed.

There’s plenty of humor too – intentional or not – as Tinker cuts loose on the dance floor. There is obviously a madman lurking just beneath that dashing facile.

Jane Merrow is gorgeous and suitably enigmatic as Nicola (Winner originally wanted Julie Christie for the role but his producer nixed the idea because he didn’t think she was sexy enough!). Unfortunately, Merrow made few films, concentrating instead on British television for most of her career. She was once engaged to David Hemmings, who turns up in The System in an early role as one of Tinker’s new friends who is learning the system.

For many years The System was only available in the U.S. on VHS from Kino International. You could also purchase an all-region DVD of it from the UK as part of “The Best of British Collection” if you owned an all-region player. The best option arrived in September 2019 from Powerhouse Films which issued the film on Blu-Ray as part of their limited edition Indicator series. Once again you need an all-region player to view this PAL edition but it is worth the extra effort because it is a stunning high definition remaster and chock full of great extras like Winner’s rarely seen documentary short Haunted England (1961), interviews with Reed co-stars Jane Merrow, John Porter-Davison and Jeremy Burnham on the film, audio commentary with film historians Thirza Wakefield and Melanie Williams and a collectible 32-page insert booklet.

Of course, the Powerhouse release raises the question of what other early period Michael Winner films are available on Blu-Ray or DVD. The answer is rather disappointing. I’ll Never Forget What’s‘isname, one of the other great Oliver Reed/Michael Winner films, is an out of print PAL DVD but you can still find used copies of it on Amazon (it has an excellent audio commentary by Winner). The Jokers, a stylish heist comedy that made Reed a star in England and gave Michael Crawford one of his first leading roles, is still not available on any format.

The good news is that you still pick up a PAL DVD from Network On Air of West 11 (1963), a crime drama crossed with the “kitchen sink” social realism of the period that features Alfred Lynch in a role that should have elevated him to star status. Two Winner titles from his peak years that I mentioned earlier are also available: you can also purchase a PAL Blu-Ray from Powerhouse Films of Hannibal Brooks and Twilight Time Releasing offers Lawman on Blu-Ray.

*This is a revised and updated version of a post that originally appeared on Movie Morlocks (later renamed Streamline), the official blog for Turner Classic Movies.

Oliver Reed is excellent in The System, an early showcase for the up and coming actor directed by Michael Winner.

Other websites of interest:

https://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/bfi-news/michael-winner-1935-2013

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/news/michael-winners-remarkable-career-was-driven-by-equal-parts-energy-and-cheek-8460775.html

https://www.theguardian.com/film/1999/may/03/news

http://sensesofcinema.com/2013/feature-articles/fan-filmmaker-and-star-struck-celebrity-an-interview-with-michael-winner/

https://janemerrow.com/interview-with-shock-cinema-magazine

https://sites.google.com/a/blowupthenandnow.com/blowup-then-now/cast-crew-biographies/david-hemmings-the-photographer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhSgsPfejdI

Have you ever felt like you didn’t fit in or were completely out of sync with everyone in your immediate world? That is the existential dilemma that drives the narrative of Smog, a 1962 film from little known Italian director Franco Rossi that depicts a European traveler’s first impressions of Los Angeles. The man in question is Vittorio Ciocchetti (Enrico Maria Salerno), a lawyer from Rome who arrives at LAX airport en route to Mexico on business, and the title of the film, of course, refers to the toxic mixture of fog and car exhaust that has characterized Los Angeles weather since the 1940s when cars began to clog the streets and freeways of the city.

The LAX airport is featured in the opening moments of Smog (1962), directed by Franco Rossi.

Vittorio is informed his Visa clearance may take several hours so he decides to do some sightseeing during the brief layover which becomes an extended stay. Almost immediately he feels disoriented and unable to easily maneuver his new surroundings. As he wanders along Hollywood Blvd. he sees few pedestrians and block after block of non-descript businesses, apartments, used car lots and sidewalk newstands. After failing to hail a cab (Welcome to L.A.!), he wanders into an art gallery that is promoting a show by the renowned Italian abstract painter Lelio Marpicati (a fictitious character played by Len Lesser). While there, Vittorio meets Mario (Renato Salvatori), a fellow Italian who has been living in the U.S. for years and is struggling to support himself with a variety of odd jobs. Mario offers to show Vittorio around town and what starts out as a brief sight-seeing tour becomes a long day’s journey into night as Vittorio meets several other Italians living in Los Angeles and becomes swept up in their world.

Annie Girardot plays Gabriella, an expatriate Italian working in Los Angeles in Smog (1962), directed by Franco Rossi.

One of his new acquaintances is Gabriella (Annie Girardot), the owner of a company that installs music systems in pools, galleries, offices, wherever. She provides an entrance into the city’s nouveau riche society through her contacts and Vittorio tries to make sense of it all. Smog is less of a plot-driven film than one that is observational and anecdotal. Rossi is clearly more interested in exploring cultural attitudes, differences and the past vs. the present in a free-flowing narrative that also positions Los Angeles as the epitome of a modern American city where people come to re-invent themselves.

Cinematographer Ted McCord (left) on the set of Deep Valley (1947) with Ida Lupino and Dane Clark.

Generally considered one of the first films shot entirely on location in the city by a European film director and crew with the exception of the cinematographer, Ted McCord (The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, East of Eden), Smog was a collaboration by four Italian screenwriters (Franco Brusati, Pasquale Festa Campanile, Massimo Franciosa, Ugo Guerra) based on ideas by Franco Rossi, Pier Maria Pasinetti and Gian Domenico Giagni. Director Rossi had spent months exploring the city during the pre-production phase and his eye for capturing iconic details are evident in every frame with vivid snapshots of Beverly Hills, Culver City, Hollywood Hills, Pasadena and other key locations.

Italian director Franco Rossi at work

When Smog was released in Italy, some critics compared it unfavorably to the work of Michelangelo Antonioni. You can certainly see some similarities in terms of juxtaposing people against sterile, inhospitable landscapes of their own making or focusing on the superficiality and pretentiousness of the bourgeoisie at play. But Rossi takes a much more spontaneous, cinema-verité like approach to his subject which is often lightly satiric and occasionally melancholy. He never achieved the international fame of someone like Pier Paolo Pasolini but his 1960 feature, Morte di un amico (Death of a Friend) is now considered a gay cult film in Italy and other career highlights include the Alberto Sordi comedy, Il Seduttore (1954), and Amici per la pelle (The Woman in the Painting, 1955). The performances in Smog are first rate and Enrico Maria Salerno is perfectly cast as Vittorio. Salerno is probably best known to film buffs for playing inspectors, commissioners and other bureaucratic officials in Italian genre films like The Bird With the Crystal Plumage (1970), Execution Squad (1972) and The Left Hand of the Law (1975). As the main protagonist in Smog, Salerno creates a subtle but unsympathetic portrayal of an elitist and social climber. You get a telling detail about his character in an opening scene where Vittorio offers assistance at the airport to some fellow travelers from Italy but when he is asked about them by an airline official, he dismisses them as “just immigrants.”

Enrico Maria Salerno plays Vittorio, an Italian lawyer who is baffled by the lifestyle in Los Angeles in Smog (1962), directed by Franco Rossi.

Much more intriguing than Salerno’s stuffy Vittorio are Renato Salvatore and Annie Girardot as transplanted Italians living in the city. Salvatore’s Mario is both amusing and pathetic as a constantly scheming hustler who sees Los Angeles as a paradise – if only you can own a piece of it. Girardot’s Gabriella is more of an enigma, alternating between a sensuous, carefree jet-setter and someone who is almost nostalgic about the sort of traditional life she could have had back in Italy. There are also some curious cameos such as American character actor Max Showalter aka Casey Jones as a party guest who mistakes Vittorio as the Italian Ambassador.

American character actor Max Showalter aka Casey Adams (on left) at an upscale party for the Los Angeles elite in Franco Rossi’s Smog (1962). Annie Girardot and Enrico Maria Salerno (on right) co-star in the drama.

Interestingly enough, Salvatore and Girardot, who play casual lovers in Smog, were a couple in real life. They met on the set of Luchino Visconti’s Rocco and His Brothers in 1960 and they married in 1962. The couple had a child together and later separated but never got officially divorced.

Real life husband and wife Renato Salvatori and Annie Girardot play lovers in the Los Angeles based drama, Smog (1962).

For Angelenos and fans of L.A.-based films, the main attraction of Smog is the film’s wonderful documentation of the city streets, neighborhoods and buildings circa 1962. First you have the Los Angeles International Airport sporting its new LAX terminal (built in 1961) which looks like something out of Jean-Luc Godard’s Alphaville and is practically deserted in terms of the passenger traffic it has today. You also get a glimpse of the famous Encounter restaurant exterior which is now the center for the Bob Hope USO non-profit organization.

The famous space age design for the Encounter restaurant at the LAX airport in the early sixties.

Other memorable locations that provide background for Vittorio’s wanderings include Hollywood Legion Lanes (a former fight and wrestling palace converted to a bowling alley in 1960); Hollywood Memorial Cemetery (now renamed Hollywood Forever Cemetery); the Stahl House aka Case Study House #22 in the Hollywood Hills designed by Pierre Koenig (it serves as Gabriella’s temporary residence in Smog).

The famous Stahl House in the Hollywood Hills of Los Angeles is prominently featured in Franco Rossi’s drama Smog (1962).

There are also glimpses of Ted’s Grill in Santa Monica (closed in 1972); Max Berman & Sons legendary costume rental agency; the dusty, arid oil fields of Culver City; the countless used car lots, sidewalk newsstands and cheap apartment buildings of Hollywood Blvd. and, last but not least, Bernard Judge’s Triponent House in the Hollywood Hills (a variation on R. Buckminster Fuller’s geodesic dome model).

Bernard Judge’s Triponent House in the Hollywood Hills is featured in the absurdist conclusion to Franco Rossi’s Smog (1962).

I’m sure native Angelinos who were born in the fifties or before will spot other now vanished landmarks and buildings. I also wonder if some of the interior locations used were created solely for Smog such as the bowling alley/bar-restaurant where the Italian expatriates hang out and all the waitresses dress like Bavarian beer maidens. I want to go there!

An expatriate bar/restaurant/bowling alley is featured in Franco Rossi’s Smog (1962) starring Annie Girardot (second from left).

The music score for Smog is by Piero Umiliani (still available on CD) and highly recommended for fans of West Coast jazz since it features trumpet solos by Chet Baker and vocals by singer Helen Merrill. There is also a good deal of incidental music in the film (not on the soundtrack album) which includes a few seconds of the 1961 radio hit, “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” by The Tokens. In 2003 documentarian Thom Andersen completed a video essay entitled Los Angeles Plays Itself, which was a remarkable 167-minute critique of the city that was divided into three sections: The City as Background, The City as Character and The City as Subject. Narrated by Encke King in a tone that was both deeply personal and occasionally sarcastic, the documentary used clips from roughly 400 films to make specific points about the city. The usual suspects were included such as Chinatown (1974), Sunset Blvd (1950), Blade Runner (1982) and Rebel Without a Cause (1955) but there were plenty of lesser known movies showcased like Jacques Demy’s Model Shop (1969), Haile Gerima’s Bush Mama (1979), set in Watts, and Kent MacKenzie’s The Exiles (1961), shot in the Bunker Hill neighborhood. All of them are wonderful time capsule documents of the city from their respective years. Of course, even with a 167-minute running time, not every Los Angeles based film could be included like Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982) or Jackie Brown (1997) but it is too bad that Franco Rossi’s Smog (1962) was overlooked, probably due to its relative obscurity. Yet it is one of the best visual records of Los Angeles from the early sixties. Smog is not currently available on any format in the U.S. and I doubt it will show up in the near future either. An Italian DVD of it was released which you might still be able to find but you would probably need an all-region DVD player to view it and the disc may not offer an English subtitle option. You can also view a washed-out, sub-par print of it from Italian television on Youtube or purchase a gray market DVD-R of it from outfits like European Trash Cinema.

Other websites of interest:

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2000/jun/10/guardianobituaries.filmnews

https://peoplepill.com/people/enrico-maria-salerno/

http://www.frenchfilms.org/biography/annie-girardot.html

https://socalarchhistory.blogspot.com/2011/07/living-lightly-on-land-bernard-judges.html

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2011/mar/01/annie-girardot-obituary

https://alchetron.com/Renato-Salvatori

https://iiclosangeles.esteri.it/iic_losangeles/en/gli_eventi/calendario/incontro-sui-fratelli-pasinetti.html

https://www.getty.edu/research/exhibitions_events/events/smog.html

http://www.bechtler.org/mobile/events/modernism-film-28

http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1838333_1838342_1838329,00.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7FN51OYFw4

Joshua Logan, director of the Broadway stage musical and the 1961 film version of Fanny, based on the famous Marcel Pagnol trilogy.

The Way It Was Meant To Be Seen! This was allegedly Logan’s proposed marketing tag line for his 1961 film adaptation of Marcel Pagnol’s famous trilogy which included Marius, Fanny and César. More grounded in urban myth than reality, this silly anecdote does call into question how audiences responded to movie marquees displaying the title Fanny. The expensive Warner Bros. production turned out to be a boxoffice hit but it might have sold even more tickets if Logan had called it Leslie Caron’s Fanny. At least in France there was nothing funny about the name. It was in their cultural DNA and was a name with a beloved literary pedigree that went all the way back to 1929 when Pagnol first premiered his play Marius which introduced his colorful cast of characters from the Marseilles waterfront.

I once attempted to watch the entire Pagnol trilogy (The Criterion Collection offers the entire trilogy on Blu-Ray) but couldn’t make it past Marius. While the film had a naturalistic quality that was rare for an early thirties studio film, it was still too theatrical for my taste and so immersed in the cultural and social detail of Marseilles life – something I knew nothing about – that my appreciation of it was limited to say the least. Naturally, I had little interest in seeing an American director’s condensed version of the trilogy in an English language adaptation. I also was not that fond of Leslie Caron’s earlier work. My idea of hell is to have my eyes pinned open like Malcolm McDowell in A Clockwork Orange and forced to watch Gigi or Lili repeatedly. Despite this, I decided to watch Fanny on DVD in a double-disc edition from Image Entertainment because I was curious to see why TCM host Robert Osborne had selected it for inclusion in a current season of The Essentials on TCM. The other reason was because my wife had seen it as a teenager, which led to a lifelong crush on Horst Buchholz. I figured I’d bale after the first ten minutes but instead I was drawn into the film almost immediately. First, there is the stunningly beautiful Marseilles on-location cinematography by Jack Cardiff, which was nominated for an Oscar. That alone doesn’t always justify a viewing but in this instance the setting is crucial to the story – it is a major supporting character – and Cardiff vividly brings it to life.

(From left to right) Lionel Jeffries, Maurice Chevalier and Salvatore Baccaloni star in Fanny (1961), directed by Joshua Logan.

I also had preconceptions about the performances, imagining the worst from Maurice Chevalier and Charles Boyer. Chevalier, who always seemed to be playing some caricatured image of a Parisian bon vivant in his American films, drops the artifice here and gives a surprisingly unaffected and moving performance…and so does Boyer. Then there’s Leslie Caron who is no longer the gamine with the pixie cut but a sensuous and vibrant female lead. Even Horst Buchholz, who had a tendency to overplay his German James Dean image, makes Marius a mostly sympathetic character despite some occasional actor tics.

Horst Buchholz as Marius and Leslie Caron as Fanny in a publicity shot for the 1961 film Fanny.

My biggest obstacle to enjoying the film was what I knew of the plot, which sounded like a sentimental Gallic soap opera. Yet once you start watching Fanny you realize it is a tale that goes beyond cliché. It’s almost primeval in the way it evokes strong emotional responses from the viewer because it is about a wide array of human bonds – the ones that exist between a daughter and mother, between a father and son, between young lovers who have the same passion but not the same dream, between lifelong friends who have shared each other’s joys and tragedies. The Marseilles waterfront becomes a microcosm of human experience from the cradle to the grave and it rings true in those moments when the main characters have to face the consequences of decisions they have made. The 1961 film version of Fanny was actually based on the stage musical which was adapted from Pagnol’s trilogy by Logan, S.N. Behrman and Harold Rome (who wrote the music and lyrics) and condensed the three stories into one, taking some liberties with the story arc and the sequencing of events. Logan’s film version strayed even further from the stage musical because all the songs were eventually dropped from the film.

FANNY, Charles Boyer, on-set, 1961

Part of this decision was due to the casting of Charles Boyer who refused to sing or be lip-synched with someone else’s voice. Logan felt he was crucial to the film’s success and wouldn’t replace him. Another reason was the film’s running time. Initially planned as a roadshow attraction with an intermission, Warner executives panicked and forced Logan to reduce Fanny from a more than three hour feature to one that was 134 minutes. Their fear was based on the fact that movie musicals were no longer a popular genre and were losing money at the box office.

FANNY, Leslie Caron, 1961.

In the end, Logan’s screen version of Fanny became a streamlined version of Pagnol’s trilogy: Marius longs to leave his waterfront home that has become a prison for him. His father César expects him to take over the family café and has no idea of the intensity of his son’s wanderlust. Fanny, the daughter of Honorine, a lifelong friend of César’s, is in love with Marius but realizes his urge for going is unstoppable. On the eve of his departure from Marseilles, Marius and Fanny spend the night together. She later discovers she is pregnant and her mother, at first scandalized, encourages her to be more receptive to Panisse, César’s closest friend and a wealthy shopkeeper who has always adored Fanny. Resigned to her fate, Fanny marries Panisse and has her child, a son, Cesario. Even though Panisse is aware that Marius is the real father, he raises Cesario as his own child. Then Marius returns from the sea, filled with regret for the past and the life he could have had. The resolution of Fanny copied the ending of the stage musical but was a departure from the original Pagnol trilogy. While it is a happy ending in the best tradition of Hollywood movies, what you’ll remember most is everything that transpires before – real lives in flux with all the attendant disappointments, dashed dreams and compromises. It is this sense of underling sadness and romantic longing mixed with a type of madcap bohemian humor (the scenes with Panisse’s friends featuring an unexpectantly hilarious Lionel Jeffries) that makes Fanny a richer viewing experience than I’d ever imagined. Also, Harold Rome’s evocative music, scored by Morris Stoloff and Harry Sukman, adds immeasurably to the mood of the film. It was also nominated for an Oscar. Fanny garnered 5 nominations in all including Best Picture, Best Actor (Charles Boyer) and Best Editing (William Reynolds) but lost in every category. The big winner that year was West Side Story, which garnered 10 Academy Awards.

Fanny (1961)
Directed by Joshua Logan
Shown from left: Lionel Jeffries, Salvatore Baccaloni, Maurice Chevalier, Charles Boyer

According to research compiled by the American Film Institute, other casting possibilities were initially considered for Fanny before the official lineup was in place. Audrey Hepburn, Pier Angeli and Brigitte Bardot were all suggested for the role of Fanny with Alain Delon a possibility as Marius and maybe even Fredric March in one of the supporting roles. It’s fascinating to think about an alternate cast for the film featuring some of these actors but I’m fine with what Logan eventually brought to the screen.

Horst Buchholz and Leslie Caron star in Fanny (1961), filmed on location in Marseilles, France.

The universal appeal of Fanny makes me believe that the storyline could easily be adapted to other cultures and locales. I can imagine a version set in another port city – New Orleans, post-Katrina, for example – in which the background is not the shipping industry but the music scene. Or maybe Hong Kong where the major characters work in the film business and the Marius character sets out for Hollywood with dreams of becoming an international star.

Horst Buchholz (left) stars as Marius and Charles Boyer is Cesar in the 1961 film version of Fanny, directed by Joshua Logan.

For years Fanny was only available in a less than satisfying VHS transfer from Warner Bros. Image Entertainment released a fine digital upgrade on DVD in June 2007. In September 2016, Shout Factory released Fanny on Blu-Ray and this is the best viewing option yet even though the disc comes with no extras. Other websites of interest:

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Joshua-Logan

https://50plusworld.com/leslie-caron-lili-and-gigi-grown-up/

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2003/mar/05/guardianobituaries.film

https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/4670-the-marseille-trilogy-life-goes-to-the-movies

https://catalog.afi.com/Film/23062-FANNY?sid=2c95ad76-83a8-451e-8183-0cb6098abf9a&sr=10.169276&cp=1&pos=0

https://variety.com/1960/film/reviews/fanny-3-1200419971/

https://articles.dhwritings.com/m26.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2fwv7aX_t4

Somewhere between William Castle’s rebirth in the late fifties as the genius movie marketeer of such gimmicks as Emergo (House on Haunted Hill), Percepto (The Tingler), Illusion-o (13 Ghosts) or death by fright insurance policies (Macabre) and his prolific stint as a B-unit director at Columbia Pictures and later at Universal-International is the missing link that connects the two. Although it probably qualifies as Castle’s most exploitive film in the true sense of the word, It’s a Small World (1950) is also the director’s most forgotten film.

Directed by Castle, produced independently by him and distributed by Eagle-Lion Films, It’s a Small World is no forgotten masterpiece or even very compelling as cinema but it’s definitely a curiosity simply for the way in which it tries to balance a sympathetic case study of a midget with the lurid, sideshow aspects of its advertising campaign which proclaimed “The Amazing Story of a Man Forced to Live in a Child’s World!.” This was accompanied by suggestive illustrations which suggested a more perverse pulp fiction treatment.

Director/Producer William Castle

Castle doesn’t even bother to mention the film in his entertaining autobiography, Step Right Up! I’m Gonna Scare the Pants Off America, but It’s a Small World marked the first time he ventured away from the formulaic B-movies he was making at the time (Johnny Stool Pidgeon, Undertow) in terms of subject matter. And it was certainly an unusual film for its time and an evolutionary step toward his later development of sure-fire audience hooks.

Like Tod Browning before him, who had seriously misjudged the response of MGM and the movie-going public to Freaks (1932), Castle had no better luck in attracting audiences to It’s a Small World. Since the film didn’t earn the notoriety or controversy of a movie like Freaks, it quickly vanished and was rarely revived except for an occasional appearance on late night television in later years. It’s a Small World has the structure of a three-act play which is portentously emphasized in the illustrated chapter headings for each section – “The Boy”, “The Woman”, “The Circus.” Yet, despite the film’s sensationalistic poster, Castle touts his sincere intentions in an opening preface to the movie that appears over a bird’s eye view of a small rural town, which comes to symbolize ignorance and narrow-minded attitudes: “This is the story of a special group of people. It concerns the great difficulty they have in adjusting themselves to a normal world. It is hoped that by better understanding the lives of these people a greater and deeper knowledge of all humanity will come to us.”

ITS A SMALL WORLD, left to right: Will Geer, Paul Dale, 1950.

Part one introduces us to our protagonist, Harry Musk (Paul Dale), a young boy who discovers at the age of 12 that his small size is due to a medical condition that affects “one in a million.” When it becomes obvious that Harry is not going to grow any taller, his affectionate but unenlightened father (Will Geer) decides to remove him from public school saying, “It’s the best thing son for you…People, they don’t understand. They’d only laugh at you. It’s best that nobody sees ya son.”

It’s a Small World (1950)
Directed by William Castle; Shown: Margaret Field, Paul Dale

As Harry grows older but no bigger – the passage of time is depicted by Harry’s playmate Janie and his puppy dog growing to full size – his presence at home creates tension for his sister Susie. She finally snaps telling her father, “I can’t even invite my friends in….why can’t we send him someplace where he can be of some use like a circus or something?….I’m not going to let him ruin my life.” Anxious to get away from this stifling environment, Harry, now 21 years of age, leaves home to work for Mr. Jackson, a carnival promoter, but he escapes from this cruel taskmaster almost immediately and heads for Los Angeles. There he strikes up a friendship with Sam (Todd Karns, son of character actor Roscoe Karns), who hangs out in the park and shines shoes for a living. Soon, thanks to Sam, Harry has his own shoeshine operation and his future looks more promising.

Todd Karns (left) and Paul Dale enjoy a smoking break in William Castle’s It’s a Small World (1950).

Enter trouble in the form of femme fatale Buttons (Lorraine Miller), a brunette golddigger who lives across the hall from Harry in his boarding house. If the first third of the film plays like a dramatized special ed film, the second section of the film feels like a low-budget crime melodrama. Harry succumbs to Button’s seduction and she knows exactly how to play him: “You’re a gentleman, Harry. Anybody can see that and like I was saying, shining shoes is ok if you’re satisfied with nickels and dimes but you’re cut out for bigger things.” Harry is soon lured into aiding a gang of thieves led by Rose (Nina Koshetz) and Charlie (Steve Brodie), Button’s lover His initial training echoes the Fagan/Artful Dodger pickpocket lessons in Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist.

It’s a Small World (1950)
Directed by William Castle; Shown: Paul Dale, Lorraine Miller

Dressed and posing as a child, Harry is then taken on excursions to ball parks, stores, any crowded public places where pickpockets can thrive. All of this is depicted in a montage sequence but we never actually see Harry committing any crimes, probably due to budgetary reasons. This chapter comes to a swift end when Buttons cruelly rejects Harry and the little guy comes to his senses; he turns himself and his gang into the police, avoiding jail time by agreeing to be placed in the custody of Mr. Winters, the owner of the Cole Bros. Circus, which is headquartered in Miami, Florida.

ITS A SMALL WORLD, second from left: Paul Dale, 1950.

Act three of It’s a Small World finds Harry succumbing to the fate he had tried to avoid from the beginning but has now come full circle. Instead of feeling exploited for his size, he discovers acceptance, friendship and even love within his new extended circus family and the movie has a happy fadeout, but not before Harry delivers a stirring, heartfelt rendition of the song “It’s a Small World” (by two-time Oscar nominated composer Karl Hajos) to his diminutive fiancee Dolly (Anne Sholter).

It’s a Small World (1950)
Directed by William Castle; Shown: Paul Dale, Anne Sholter

While Leonard Maltin’s succinct capsule review of the film accurately labels it a “truly strange B movie,” It’s a Small World is so flatly staged and directed and overly earnest in its sincerity that it never does come close to the exploitation tactics of such films as The Terror of Tiny Town (1938). Still, it has its share of odd moments, in particular a handful of surreal sequences in the first part of the film that look forward to Castle’s nightmarish interludes in The Tingler. In one, Harry is taunted by his shadow looming over his bed: “You better grow. I’m not gonna stay small.” In another scene, as he makes his escape from Mr. Jackson and races through the countryside at night, he is haunted by floating images of the evil carny smoking double cigars. A later segment, when Harry is dumped by Buttons and goes on a drinking binge, achieves a dream-like film noir quality as he goes from bar to bar and ends up on a piano top, laughing hysterically before tossing a drink in the face of an obnoxious heckler.

ITS A SMALL WORLD, left to right: Paul Dale, Will Geer 1950

Considering the ultra-low budget of the film, it is surprising to see a few familiar faces in the cast such as Will Geer as Harry’s well-intentioned father and Steve Brodie (The Steel Helmet, Donovan’s Brain) as a small change hoodlum. Geer, who will be forever associated with the TV series The Waltons, appeared in a lot of independent and liberal themed films during his early career such as Pare Lorentz’s The Fight for Life (1940), which is set in a maternity clinic in a city slum, Intruder in the Dust (1949), based on William Faulkner’s novel, Salt of the Earth (1954), a socialist drama co-produced by the International Union of Mine, Mill & Smelter Workers, and Black Like Me (1964). In the pivotal role of Harry, Paul Dale aka Dale Paulin, a disc jockey from Des Moines, does the best he can in his only starring role. He is no actor and was clearly cast because he is the real deal. His performance mostly consists of two different expressions, depending on the situation at hand. The one used most often is a forlorn, wounded look and the other is a sweet, innocent smile but regardless of the expression sadness radiates from this tiny actor. In that regard Dale effectively evokes compassion and empathy for his character. Probably the most troubling aspect of his casting though is that Castle choose to use him in the childhood sequences as well instead of casting a child actor. The result is both bizarre and distracting.

ITS A SMALL WORLD, Paul Dale, Lorraine Miller 1950.

Very little appears to be known about Dale. Some sources claim he was one of Henry Kramer’s Hollywood Midgets and appeared as one of the three tough kids in “The Lollipop Guild” musical number in The Wizard of Oz. Anne Sholter, who makes her only screen appearance in It’s a Small World as Harry’s bride, was a member of Nate Eagle’s Hollywood Midgets and was often billed as “the miniature Lana Turner.”

It’s a Small World (1950)
Directed by William Castle Shown: Anne Sholter, Paul Dale

In real life, Sholter was married to Frank “Cookie” Cucksey, a fellow member of Nate Eagle’s outfit, and they later moved to Sarasota, Florida where Frank worked for the Ringling Circus Museum as a tour guide. The buxom Miss Sholter is a lot more animated and expressive than her co-star and has a priceless response when she first sees Harry. “Yum Yum,” she says delightedly and we know the two of them will soon be an item.

Cinematographer Karl Struss

One interesting aspect of It’s a Small World is that it was filmed on location in Los Angeles and Miami, Florida by the great Karl Struss. While his usual virtuosity is hard to detect here – he won the Best Cinematography Oscar for Sunrise (1927) and was nominated three more times – there are some fascinating behind the scenes glimpses of the Cole Bros. Circus as the trainers and riders rehearse their dancing elephant and horse acts under the big top. Speaking of animal acts, the Cole Bros. Circus had been in the news for many years due to accusations of animal cruelty, especially their treatment of elephants. Knowing this makes that footage more upsetting to watch even though Cole Bros. Circus has been inactive since 2016.

The elephant acts at the Cole Bros. Circus were considered a violation of the Animal Welfare Act and were discontinued.

It’s a Small World was released on DVD-R by the Warner Bros. Archive Collection in October 2010. It is a no-frills release sporting a clean, acceptable transfer and no extras of any kind. You can also view it on Amazon Prime for a minor fee. According to IMDB the director supposedly has a cameo in the film as a cop but either I blinked and missed that scene or it didn’t make the final cut. *This is a revised and updated version of a post that originally appeared on Movie Morlocks (later retitled Streamline), the official blog for Turner Classic Movies.

Other sites of interest:

https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/life/2014/02/09/the-munchkin-of-marshalltown/5280439/

https://whotv.com/news/iowas-munchkin-paullin-sets-the-record-straight/

http://wtfcinema.blogspot.com/2014/03/wtf-its-small-world-1950.html

https://filmsofthegoldenage.com/current_issue/william-castle-scaring-the-pants-off-america/article_d99443d5-344e-517a-bd4e-f13ee2f63a43.html

http://greatentertainersarchives.blogspot.com/2015/03/born-on-this-day-will-geer.html

http://colebroscircus.com/

https://www.bornfreeusa.org/2000/02/24/new_cole_brothers_circus_fact_sheet/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8vJseqkr5uc

For most Americans, life, work and daily interactions with the outside world have been interrupted indefinitely and self-isolation at home is the new normal. How we fill those hours are a personal decision but even in the worst of times people need escapism. If you are an avid movie lover, you have a lot of options.

Hundreds of movies are available for free streaming from a variety of legal websites as long as you have access to a computer and a good Wi-fi connection. Below are a handful of options in no specified order for the more discriminating cinephile. These offer everything from classic Hollywood films to cult and indie fare to foreign language selections.

Vudu.com

Vudu is a movie rental/purchase website but if you check out their free category you will see countless offerings of popular movies and TV shows. You will need to go through a simple registration process to access Vudu content and one to three ads may precede any title you select but the website is easy to navigate with free, rental and purchase options. Contemporary classics like Bull Durham, The French Lieutenant’s Woman and Woody Allen’s The Purple Rose of Cairo dominate the free selections but here are some of the more offbeat and unexpected titles you can experience.

Luchino Visconti’s 1948 neorealism masterpiece, La Terra Trema.

Dziga Vertov’s Man with a Movie Camera (1929), a visually stunning essay on the city of Moscow, the 1914 Italian epic Cabiria and sex symbol Clara Bow in the romantic comedy It (1927) are among the outstanding silent era offerings in fine transfers from Kino Lorber Films. International cinema runs the gamet from Luchino Visconti’s neorealism masterpiece La Terra Trema (1948) to Belladonna of Sadness, the 1974 anime by Japanese director Eiichi Yamamoto to Michel Gondry’s Mood Indigo (2013), a quirky romantic fantasy with a dark side featuring charismatic French actors Audrey Tautou and Romain Duris. Classic Hollywood is represented by such landmarks as Howard Hawk’s western Red River (1948) and Otto Preminger’s controversial The Man with the Golden Arm (1955) with Frank Sinatra as a heroin addict and there are some key film noir titles as well – He Walked by Night (1948) with Richard Basehard as a cop killer based on a real-life Los Angeles crime case, The Hitch-Hiker (1953), directed by Ida Lupino, and Phil Karlson’s Kansas City Confidential (1952).

Animal rights activist Timothy Treadwell is profiled in Werner Herzog’s Grizzly Man (2005).

Among the more intriguing documentary films are Werner Herzog’s Grizzly Man (2005), a tragic portrait of animal activist Timothy Treadwell, and Two in the Wave (2010), which chronicles the friendship and eventual rivalry between French New Wave directors Francois Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard. Euro-trash and spaghetti western fanatics can cherry pick from cult favorites like Lucio Fulci’s Don’t Torture a Duckling (1972), a disturbing giallo featuring a child murderer on the loose and Sergio Corbucci’s highly influential Django (1966) with Franco Nero in the title role and a rousing score by Luis Bacalov. Last but not least a wide range of indie films from around the world are available and two of my current favorites are Always Shine (2016), Sophia Takal’s thriller about two actress friends on vacation in Big Sur, and Easy Money aka Snabba Cash (2010), the first in an exciting three-part trilogy from Swedish director Daniel Espinosa about a compromised drug runner played by Joel Kinnaman. Best known for the lead role in the unnecessary 2014 remake of Robocop, Kinnaman deserves to be a bigger star on the basis of his work in Easy Money and the U.S. TV series The Killing (2011-2014), which was based on the original Danish TV crime drama, Forbrydelsen (2007-2012). Tubitv.com

Here is a sprawling collection of movies that are ad supported and are broken down into more than 50 categories that range from Black Cinema to Films in Spanish to Martial Arts and more. Print quality is variable but there is no registration required and there are plenty of worth-viewing curiosities which flew under the radar during their original theatrical release. The classic film selections tend to favor the western genre with entries like One-Eyed Jacks (1961), Santa Fe Trail (1940) and Stagecoach (1939) but there are plenty of other choices for fans of TCM like the historical drama Becket (1964), the 1940 fantasy The Thief of Bagdad, Anthony Mann’s terrific noir drama T-Men (1947) and the Oscar-winning British drama Room at the Top (1959) starring Laurence Harvey and Simone Signoret. Horror and sci-fi fans will find plenty of campy delights – William Castle’s The Tingler (1959) with Vincent Price, Blood of the Vampire (1958), The Day of the Triffids (1963), etc. – and the exploitation genre is well presented by Dog Eat Dog (1964) featuring Jayne Mansfield and Cameron Mitchell, Devil’s Harvest, a 1942 anti-marijuana drama. Ed Wood’s The Violent Years (1956) and Johnny Cash as the Door to Door Maniac aka Five Minutes to Live (1961). The most appealing aspect of Tubitv is the depth and range of their library which catalogues everything from David Holzman’s Diary (1967), Jim McBride’s underground satire of personal narrative filmmaking, to the New Zealand coming of age drama Whale Rider (1982) to Yorgos Lanthimos’s weird and unclassifiable Dogtooth (2009).

L.M. Kit Carson plays an underground filmmaker in Jim McBride’s pioneer indie feature, David Holzman’s Diary (1967).

Snagfilms.com

This website bills itself as a streaming service that specializes in socially relevant documentaries and independent cinema with categories like “Climate Change & the Environment,” “History Lessons,” and “Veterans & the Military.” Best of all, there is no registration process or ad sponsored content. You just select a title and start streaming. Here you will find critically acclaimed offerings such as Marcel Ophuls’ Hotel Terminus: The Life and Times of Klaus Barbie, the Oscar-winning Best Documentary of 1988, The Atomic Café (1982), an entertaining compilation smash-up of cold war era propaganda films from directors Jayne Loader, Kevin Rafferty and Pierce Rafferty, and Michael Cuesta’s L.I.E. (2001), a tough, realistic coming-of-age tale with a young Paul Dano in his first starring role and Brian Cox in a superb performance as a suspected pedophile.

Charlie Chaplin and friend in the 1918 short, A Dog’s Life.

There are even some classic cinema titles such as Charlie Chaplin’s A Dog’s Life (1918), Bellissima (1951) starring Anna Magnani as a poor, working class mom trying desperately to secure a movie audition for her daughter, Carnival of Souls (1962), a cult horror film filmed in Lawrence, Kansas and Magna, Utah, and Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Medea (1969) featuring opera icon Maria Callas in the title role.

Director Pier Paolo Pasolini (right) with Maria Callas on the set of Medea (1969).

Youtube.com

Founded in 2005, Youtube remains the most popular aggregator of free, streaming video content and if you know what you are looking for in advance, you will be surprised at some of the lost treasures you can dig up here. The streaming quality can vary from a high definition transfer to a beat-up looking 16mm print but the thrill of the hunt is part of the attraction.

A scene from Shohei Imamura’s Profound Desires of the Gods (1968).

Youtube is my go-to destination when I am trying to find some forgotten B-movie or neglected genre film. And it’s a great place to go fishing for foreign films, many of which are presented in their original language, occasionally offered with English subtitles. Here are just a few of the gems I’ve unearthed lately:

An Italian film poster of the 1957 German film, The Devil Strikes at Midnight.

The Devil Strikes at Midnight (1957), made by Robert Siodmak after he returned to Germany from his Hollywood phrase, is a masterful suspense thriller about a serial killer on the loose in Hamburg during WW2. Profound Desires of the Gods (1968) from Japanese director Shohei Imamura is a fascinating but challenging exploration of a culture clash between an engineer from Tokyo and the backward inhabitants of a tropical isle. Aleksandr Ptushko’s The Stone Flower (1946) is a colorful fantasy adventure from the man who gave us Sadko (released in the U.S. as The Magic Voyage of Sinbad) and Ilya Muromets (released in the U.S. as The Sword and the Dragon). Ro.Go.Pa.G. (1963) is an ambitious quartet of short films about modern life which showcases the work of Jean-Luc Godard, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Roberto Rossellini and Ugo Gregoretti and features Orson Welles as a pretentious director in the Pasolini episode. Naked Alibi (1954) is an overlooked film noir starring Sterling Hayden as an ex-cop on the trail of suspected murder Gene Barry. Gloria Grahame plays the nightclub singer in a Mexican border town who becomes an unwitting link between the two men. The atmospheric black and white cinematography is by Russell Metty (The Stranger, Ride the Pink Horse) and the supporting cast includes Marcia Henderson, Max Showalter aka Casey Adams, Billy Chapin (the child actor from The Night of the Hunter) and Chuck Connors.

A scene from Cairo Station (1958), directed by Youssef Chahine

Gang War in Milan (1973) is a gritty, English dubbed Poliziotteschi (crime drama) from Italian genre director Umberto Lenzi which is anything but dull. Cairo Station (1957) by renowned Egyptian director Youssef Chahine is an evocative melodrama that reaches operatic heights of emotion.

Lurid and trashy are appropriate descriptions of The Girl in Black Stockings (1957), a murder mystery filmed in Kanab, Utah and featuring one of the most eclectic casts ever – Anne Bancroft, Lex Barker, Mamie Van Doren, Marie Windsor, John Dehner, Ron Randell (in an unforgettable, hate-spewing performance) and Stuart Whitman and Dan Blocker in bit parts. Popcornflix.com

This is another movie streaming website that requires no registration but, like Vudu.com, all films are usually preceded by advertising and the majority of titles are from the 1980s to the present, represented by titles like the Tom Cruise box office hit, The Firm (1993), Internal Affairs (1990), a crime drama with Richard Gere, Alexander Payne’s Oscar nominated drama Nebraska (2013) and The Hunter (1980), Steve McQueen’s final film role. The best thing about Popcornflix is their large library of independent films and lesser-known efforts like The Double (2013), Richard Ayoade’s intriguing adaptation of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s novel with Jesse Eisenberg in a dual role, Anomalisa (2015), Duke Johnson & Charlie Kaufman’s existential animation drama about an alienated urban dweller (voiced by David Thewlis), The Stunt Man (1980), and Richard Rush’s sleeper hit about a megalomaniac film director (Peter O’Toole). The only drawback is that the visual quality on the featured films can vary from excellent to mediocre or worse.

Jesse Eisenberg plays a dual role in Richard Ayoade’s The Double (2013), co-starring Mia Wasikowska.

Hollywood golden age fare is offered here – Sabrina (1954), Sunset Boulevard (1950), Orson Welles’s Othello (1951), The General (1926) starring Buster Keaton – and most international films are presented in their original language with English subtitles like the Danish historical tragedy, A Royal Affair (2012) from Denmark, a wild Russian documentary entitled The Road Movie (2016) and Holy Motors (2012), a dream-like dawn to dusk journey from French director Leos Carax. My favorite aspect of the website is a collection of cult movies, courtesy of Shout! Factory that includes Roger Corman’s The Wasp Woman (1959), Jack Hill’s The Big Bird Cage (1972), a woman-in-prison drive-in classic with Pam Grier, Assault on Precinct 13, John Carpenter’s 1976 homage to the Howard Hawks western Rio Bravo, and the original 1974 version of Black Christmas starring Olivia Hussey, Kier Dullea and Margot Kidder. There are many other legal, free streaming movie services you might want to investigate like Hoopla.com or SONY Crackle. Just make sure you avoid using illegal sites like GoStream.site and others who are a major threat to the movie industry and filmmakers. If the site is not supported by advertising partners, that makes it highly suspect (Snagfilms, listed above, is a rare exception). More importantly, if you patronize unauthorized websites like GoStream, you are guilty of a criminal act!

The Japanese film poster for I Live in Fear (1955), directed by Akira Kurosawa and starring Toshiro Mifune.

One of the first Japanese commercial features to directly address the fear of nuclear holocaust and the implications of the atom bomb, Record of a Living Being, which is better known as I Live in Fear (1955, aka Ikimono no Kiroku) was an unusual and unexpected movie for director Akira Kurosawa. He had recently completed Seven Samurai (1954), a huge box office and critical success in both Japan and around the world, but his new work was much smaller in scale compared to that sprawling period epic.

Instead of the pure physicality of Seven Samurai, I Live in Fear was a more introspective, cerebral work but its concerns were more timely and relevant to contemporary Japan during the post-war era. Even though it had been ten years since the U.S. military had dropped the atom bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in March of 1945, Japanese filmmakers had avoided the subject in studio features for years. Recent events, however, such as the nuclear testing in Bikini Atoll which exposed Japanese fishermen to fallout and the radioactive rain that fell on northern provinces, compelled Kurosawa to make I Live in Fear.

A scene from Kaneto Shindo’s Children of the Atom Bomb (1952, aka Children of Hiroshima).

While an educational film about the aftermath of the Hiroshima-Nagasaki bombings was distributed in the school system in 1953 – Children of the Atom Bomb (aka Children of Hiroshima) by Kaneto Shindo – it did not focus on the motives behind the incident or explore the psychological impact of it. It simply showed the horrific devastation caused by a nuclear weapon without a political or social point of view. Hideo Sekigawa’s Hiroshima released the same year was an even more explicit re-enactment of that fateful day on August 6, 1945. Kurosawa, however, approached the topic of nuclear annihilation in the guise of a melodrama with philosophical overtones.

Toshiro Mifune, in one of his most challenging roles, plays an elderly businessman who is fearful of a nuclear holocaust in I Live in Fear (1955), directed by Akira Kurosawa.

In I Live in Fear, an elderly businessman, Nakajima (Toshiro Mifune), has become convinced that Japan will be destroyed in a nuclear attack. Fearful that this could occur very soon, he behaves rashly, at first spending a lot of money to build an elaborate underground shelter (which is never completed). He then decides to move his entire family (along with two mistresses, their children and the son of a third, now deceased mistress) to a farm in Brazil. Nakajima’s family think he is behaving irrationally and try to have him declared mentally incompetent. Their main fear, though, is that he will squander all his money (and their inheritance) on his plan of fleeing Japan. Nobody in his family really wants to go to Brazil either but as long as Nakajima is controlling the money, they have no choice in the matter until they decide to involve the Tokyo Family Court in their squabble.

Takashi Shimura (pictured), who played the leader of the seven samurai in Akira Kurosawa’s 1954 film, has a more sober role as a law clerk in I Live in Fear (1955), featuring Toshiro Mifune in the leading role.

Harada (Takashi Shimura), a volunteer worker for the court, hears the complaints on both sides but, despite empathizing with Nakajima’s fears, rules in favor of his family. This decision only makes Nakajima increasingly desperate and, in a final effort to force his family to accept his original decision, commits an act which has tragic repercussions for everyone.

A scene from Akira Kurosawa’s I Live in Fear (1955), a modern drama about a generation living in fear of the atom bomb.

Kurosawa later claimed that I Live in Fear was inspired by conversations he had with his longtime film composer Fumio Hayasaka, who had become seriously ill during the making of Seven Samurai. Hayasaka had said to him, “The world has come to such a state that we don’t really know what is in store for us tomorrow. I wouldn’t even know how to go on living – I’m that uncertain. Uncertainties, nothing but uncertainties. Every day there are fewer and fewer places that are safe. Soon there will be no place at all.”

Nakajima (Toshiro Mifune, far left) and his family view bombed out ruins in the 1955 drama, I Live in Fear, directed by Akira Kurosawa.

These thoughts eventually led to a screenplay about the nuclear age and a man who was driven insane by it but at first, Kurosawa wanted to approach it as a satire. “But how do you make a satire on the H-bomb?” he asked. Instead his story became a tragedy and the somber tone deepened when Hayasaka succumbed to tuberculosis during the film’s production.

Toshiro Mifune (far left) on the set of I Live in Fear (1955), directed by Akira Kurosawa.

Kurosawa was devastated by his friend’s death and said, “I was completely overwhelmed. It went so far that I wondered if this loss would not incapacitate me, ruin me. Truly, at that time, I was like a person half of whom is gone. Hayasaka was indispensable to me….There are many experiments in my films which are the result of the two of us talking things over and most of them are good…Actually, I think it was our work – his and mine – which set a kind of precedent, at least in Japanese films. We showed that sound effects, dialogue, music when put under the image do not simply add to it – they multiply it. It is as though a three-dimensional effect is created.”

A scene from Akira Kurosawa’s 1955 drama, I Live in Fear (aka Record of a Living Being) starring Toshiro Mifune (pictured in center).

Compared to Kurosawa’s previous film, Seven Samurai, I Live in Fear has a claustrophobic intensity with much of it shot in the manner of a documentary. The high contrast cinematography emphasizes washed-out whites and the blackest of black tones with frequent cutaways to inanimate objects – typewriters, fans, machinery in the police station and in the foundry – to stress the sense of dehumanization. “This film is again about a social problem,” Kurosawa stated. “And one of the reasons that I like social problems is simply that by using them I can make a question better understandable to my audience. Indeed, there is something topical about films. If they don’t have topicality, they are not meaningful. Films are not for museums.”

The many faces of Toshiro Mifune in I Live in Fear (1955), Akira Kurosawa’s drama about a man being driven mad by his paranoia over the A-bomb.

Perhaps I Live in Fear was too topical at the time of its release. Tokyo had just experienced a disaster in the local tuna industry – all the fish were contaminated by radioactivity – and Kurosawa’s film certainly didn’t do anything to reassure the public’s fears. “It was my biggest box office loss,” he later said. “After having put so much of myself into this film, after having seriously treated a serious theme, this complete lack of interest disappointed me. When I think about it, however, I see that we made the film too soon. At that time no one was thinking seriously of atomic extinction. It was only later that people got frightened and that a number of films – On the Beach [1959] among them – were made.”

Japanese poster for I Live in Fear (1955)

Akira Kurosawa was nominated for the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival for I Live in Fear in 1956 but it wasn’t until 1961 that the film received wider distribution outside Japan; it was screened in a Kurosawa retrospective at the Berlin Filmfestspiele, where it was acclaimed as a major rediscovery by the critics.

Toshiro Mifune (left) and Takashi Shimura star in the 1955 drama, I Live in Fear (1955).

Still, I Live in Fear is rarely ranked by film scholars as one of Kurosawa’s masterpieces for various reasons. Some have noted Mifune’s unconvincing, old age makeup (he is playing a character more than half his age) and the film’s occasional slow pacing as liabilities while others have pointed out the film’s uncertain tonal shifts. Is Nakajima crazy or is it society? In the end, Nakajima becomes a King Lear-like figure of tragedy but all along he is no less troubling than those who question his rantings with responses like “H-bombs, eh? That’s a foolish thing to worry about. Let the Prime Minister do the worrying. If you’re so worried why don’t you just move off the earth altogether?”

Toshiro Mifune ponders the future of his family and himself in I Live in Fear (1955), directed by Akira Kurosawa.

Even if I Live in Fear is not in the same league with Seven Samurai or Ikiru (1952), it is nonetheless a thought-provoking, still topical drama and mandatory viewing for any Kurosawa fan. TimeOut movie critic Rod McShane said it best when he wrote, “It’s a problematic film, wearing its uncertainties on its sleeve; but whether shooting in long takes or cutting the footage from multiple camera shooting, Kurosawa remains the cinema’s supremely humanist emotional manipulator. See it and worry.” I Live in Fear was released on DVD by The Criterion Collection in January 2008 as part of their Eclipse Series set: Postwar Kurosawa. The disc came with no extras other than an essay on all of the films in the collection by Michael Koresky. The other films in Eclipse Series 7 included No Regrets for Our Youth, One Wonderful Sunday, Scandal and The Idiot. I Live in Fear is not currently available on Blu-Ray and may never be released on that format since it is not one of the director’s more popular titles.

Dr. Harada (Takashi Shimura, left), a domestic court counselor, visits Nakajima (Toshiro Mifune), a man being driven mad by his anxieties in I Live in Fear (1955).

*This is a revised and updated version of an article that originally appeared on the Turner Classic Movies website

Sources used for the Kurosawa quotes: The Films of Akira Kurosawa by Donald Ritchie (University of California Press); The Waves at Genji’s Door: Japan Through its Cinema by Joan Mellen (Pantheon)

Other websites of interest:

https://www.nytimes.com/1967/01/26/archives/screen-a-55-kurosawai-live-in-fear-is-at-the-5th-avenue-cinema.html

https://akirakurosawa.info/2012/09/01/film-club-record-of-a-living-being-1955/

http://kurosawainreview.blogspot.com/2009/07/i-live-in-fear-1955.html

https://www.carleton.edu/curricular/MEDA/classes/media110/Fitch.removed/bio.html

https://biography.yourdictionary.com/akira-kurosawa

http://www.mifuneproductions.co.jp/english/biography/ebiography.html

https://www.nippon.com/en/column/g00317/mifune-toshiro-a-world-class-act.html

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jul/15/quite-odd-coral-and-fish-thrive-on-bikini-atoll-70-years-after-nuclear-tests

https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/627-eclipse-series-7-postwar-kurosawa

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxtGdV288zU

You wouldn’t think there would be a connection between these two people but they were linked forever in 1953 over the film adaptation of Rachel L. Carson’s award-winning book, The Sea Around Us. Carson was a respected marine biologist and an unusually eloquent nature writer whose first book, Under the Sea Wind, received critical acclaim in 1941. Irwin Allen, on the other hand, was relatively unknown at the time. A journalism graduate of Columbia University, he was trying to break into the film industry and wasn’t yet famous as the producer of such sci-fi TV series as Lost in Space and disaster genre films like The Poseidon Adventure (1972) and The Towering Inferno (1974).

When The Sea Around Us was published in 1951, it became a best seller for Carson and RKO Studios quickly purchased the film rights with the intention to turn it into a documentary. Allen, who already had an impressive resume of magazine and advertising work by this time, was hired to write and direct the movie adaptation and Carson was hired as a consultant – but not on the script. She was only retained for her input on film footage selected for The Sea Around Us and had no power to change or alter Irwin’s editorial approach to her book. The resulting film is one of the most unintentionally amusing and wrong-headed attempts by Hollywood to turn a landmark book of scientific investigation into an accessible entertainment for the masses. Landing somewhere between the kitschy playfulness of such Walt Disney nature films as The Living Desert (1953) and The Vanishing Prairie (1954) and the Mondo Cane exploitation films of the sixties, The Sea Around Us is nonetheless presented as the authorized, big screen equivalent of Carson’s book and even impressed the Academy members enough to win an Oscar for Best Documentary. But Carson was appalled by Allen’s misrepresentation of her fascinating and articulate survey of one of mankind’s greatest natural resources and if you see this, you’ll know why. (The Sea Around Us airs on TCM on Wednesday, April 22, 2020 at 1:15 am ET.)

Writer Rachel Carson is considered a pioneer of the modern environmentalist movement.

Instead of Carson’s focus on the ecosystems within and around the oceans of the world, Allen’s approach is to show the value and importance of the sea to man – it’s all about us. After all, who else is at the top of the food chain? If you have any doubts, the portentous narration featuring two voice talents (Don Forbes and Theodor von Eltz) drive it home in the opening moments of The Sea Around Us as one of them proclaims over beautifully photographed vistas of the ocean: “Fresh food locker of the world. Treasure chest of the Earth larder. Almost 30% of all the food eaten by people comes from the sea.” In fact, most of the underwater movement glimpsed in this film from microscopic denizens of the deep to killer whales is motivated by the desire to eat or not be eaten. This kill or be killed approach is still the reason most people continue to be fascinated by nature shows on TV and was simply one more exploitation angle for Allen but has little to do with the intellectual thrust of Carson’s bestseller.

Hollywood producer-director Irwin Allen circa the 1950s

According to author Linda Lear in Rachel Carson: Witness for Nature, Allen sent the marine biologist the final draft but her response was not favorable. ‘Frankly, I could not believe my first reading,” she told Shirley Collier, her film agent in Hollywood, ‘and had to put it away and then sneak back to it the next day to see if it could possibly be as bad as I thought. But every reading sends my blood pressure higher.” Carson was shocked that instead of sticking to the basic concepts of her book and presenting authoritative data about the ocean, Allen’s script was full of outmoded ideas, presented in a distressingly amateurish manner. She particularly objected to the anthropomorphism of the language Allen used to describe ocean creatures and their relationships with each other. In her cover letter Carson told Collier, “the practice of attributing human vices and virtues to the lower animals went out of fashion many years ago. It persists only at the level of certain Sunday Supplements.”

A scene from the Oscar winning Best Documentary, The Sea Around Us (1953).

A typical example of this is Allen’s frequent attempts to inject some playful humor into the proceedings by giving voice to some of the animals on display. For example, he concludes a section on the cormorant, a fish hunting sea bird, with a visual joke. We see a cormorant on a pier being heckled by a nearby porpoise as the narrator, enacting the part of the bird, says “The fishing was bad enough today but the sarcasm is almost too much to bear. Oh well, tomorrow is another day but you should have seen the one that got away.” And the punchline is accented by the waa-waa-waa music.

Irwin Allen and an assistant inspect film footage during the editing of The Sea Around Us (1953).

You know you’re heading into troubled water when the opening credits of The Sea Around Us gives acknowledgments to such companies and special interest groups as Imperial Oil Limited, Marineland (Florida), Wakefield’s Deep SeaTrawlers, Fouke Fur Company and Union Pacific Railroad to name a few. And it gets worse – or funnier – from there as Allen feels it is necessary to present a recap of The Big Bang theory and the formation of the planet with plenty of stock footage of volcanic eruptions, lava flows and biblical allusions: “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth….” While this opening section does mirror Carson’s introduction to her subject in the original book, it seems like bombastic overkill and needless exposition for a documentary that is trying to encapsulate Carson’s book within a running time of only 61 minutes. As the film whizzes from close-up photography of unusual sea life to a brief overview of famous literary and historical figures associated with the sea (Jack London, John Paul Jones, etc.), it’s hard to know where Allen is leading us and he keeps us guessing. But one thing is constant – the relentless voiceover narration that reduces many of the film’s stunning visuals to educational film cliches. Over footage of an octopus embryo, we are informed, “These innocent, cute looking little fellows will grow up to be as deadly and vicious as their parents.” Sounds like people I know. Or how about this typical example of Irwin Allen hyperbole as we witness some underwater predator in action: “All the fury of the sea explodes in this snake like killer. The jaw snaps, the tail thrashes, the hate becomes a living thing.”

A storyboard illustration from the 1953 documentary The Sea Around Us, produced and directed by Irwin Allen.

While Carson is now considered a pioneering environmentalist, that term and the meaning of it was relatively new in the popular vernacular of its time and not something the average person discussed or read about in the daily news. Allen’s take on The Sea Around Us, aimed at a wide, general audience, is more a reflection of mainstream values and populist viewpoints than a true representation of Carson’s theories and research. No wonder it seems so unenlightened and cringe-inducing from our privileged perspective of more than half a century later. In Allen’s version – and I’m sure this was not his intention – the biggest predator of the ocean is – man (though this is very much one of Carson’s concerns). Instead Allen exalts and condones the behavior of man in almost every scene as if he was making an infomercial about deep sea fishing, harvesting and water sports. We see much footage of whaling boats and their crew slaughtering the great mammals for their valuable physical properties. In one truly shocking scene, we watch as a dead whale’s huge bloated tongue is pierced with a harpoon and deflates like a giant balloon. We witness sharks being given doped bait so they can be captured and put in Marineland shows. In one underwater encounter, a shark is even killed on camera by a diver armed with a huge knife.

A moray eel is among the fascinating denizens of the deep in the 1953 documentary, The Sea Around Us.

Even less threatening creatures such as the fiddler crab are served up as novelty acts while the narrator reminds us of what a sweet delicacy they are. Before the movie is half over, you even begin to fear for the hideous looking moray eel as we are shown divers with spearguns as the narrator boasts, “The world beneath the sea is a new frontier for sportsmen. Here great game, still unknown to man with rod and reel, lurks and hides in the chilly depths.”

THE SEA AROUND US, underwater documentary, directed by Irwin Allen, 1953.

Other troubling sequences in The Sea Around Us include a grisly battle between a shark and an octopus which most certainly was staged for Allen’s cameras. And who really enjoys watching the hatching of baby turtles and their slow crawl toward the sea as predatory sea gulls swoop down gobbling them up, a sequence which was depicted in much more graphic terms in the original Mondo Cane (1963), another unexpected Oscar nominee, but for Best Song, not Best Documentary. Most audiences have seen all of this before and won’t be nearly as bothered by it as they will by Allen’s depiction of porpoises and dolphins. You’d never know from this movie that these creatures are highly intelligent mammals with a language of their own and communication skills that are more highly evolved than humans. Instead, the narrator tells us that porpoises are “the clowns of the sea. They can be trained to answer a dinner bell or actually jump for their dinner.” We get to see how wacky they can be in their waterworld sideshows.

The Gurnard, a type of walking fish, is featured in the 1953 documentary The Sea Around Us, based on the Rachel Carson book.

Yet, for all the dumbed down philosophizing, willy-nilly continuity and failed attempts at whimsy, there is also some truly stunning cinematography on display in The Sea Around Us. Footage of the Great Barrier Reef, porcupine fish, the peculiar gurnard (a species of “walking” fish), sponge harvesting, ghost shrimp, medusa jellyfish and other unusual sights are so fascinating that you may be driven to find out more about them on your own or even pick up one of Carson’s books in her deep sea trilogy, which in addition to The Sea Around Us, includes Under the Sea Wind and The Edge of the Sea (1955). As for Irwin Allen, he goes for a highly theatrical apocalyptic finish to his documentary that is prophetic in more ways than one when you consider the long trajectory of his movie career (this was his first directorial debut). He chooses to end The Sea Around Us in the Arctic where we witness glaciers cracking apart and sliding into the sea. The voice over talent ominously informs us that “the melting of all these glaciers coupled with the drastic upheaval of the land masses of the globe will one day drown more than half the earth.” Then he tops this stock footage orgy of heavy melting with doomsday music and the disturbing on-screen question: Is this….THE END? While this is certainly one of the concerns Carson expresses in her book, Allen simply uses it for dramatic effect to close his film. But did you really expect anything else from the future creator of the Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea TV series and most of the escapist fare he peddled to Saturday matinee audiences across the U.S. from The Animal World (1956) with its Ray Harryhausen/Willis H. O’Brien dinosaurs to Five Weeks in a Balloon (1962) and beyond?

Seals are among the aquatic life featured in The Sea Around Us (1953), an Oscar-winning documentary.

Regardless of Rachel Carson’s poor opinion of Allen’s adaptation of The Sea Around Us, the film certainly didn’t hurt her reputation or popularity and may have even enhanced it as the documentary reached audiences which might not have read any of her books. It was also well received by most film critics and reviewers. A typical example was Bosley Crowther’s review in The New York Times: ” The pleasure of ichthyologists and those who respond to the allure of the beauties and mysteries of the oceans and the wonders of the deep should be served in satisfying abundance by Irwin Allen’s Technicolored nature film “The Sea Around Us”…. For this assemblage of vivid color footage, which bears the name, at least, of the popular volume on oceanography and evolution that Rachel L. Carson wrote, is full of handsome pictures of the ocean, of fishes, of birds and of marine life, from microscopic creatures to giant Antarctic whales.”

Spanish lobby card for “El Mar Que Nos Rodea” (The Sea Around Us)

After her experience with Irwin Allen on The Sea Around Us, Carson refused to sell the film rights to any of her other work. Her most famous book was undoubtedly Silent Spring (1962), which documented the dangerous effects of pesticides on the environment and stirred up considerable controversy upon its publication. (It was required reading in some high schools in the sixties). The bestseller was later said to have inspired the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Excellent underwater photography is one of the highlights of the 1953 documentary, The Sea Around Us.

Carson’s visionary work was cut short by her early death at the age of 57 in 1964; She was being treated for breast cancer and in her weakened condition died of a heart attack. She did live long enough to see CBS Reports produce two highly acclaimed documentaries on her recent book, “The Silent Spring of Rachel Carson” (1963) and “The Verdict of the Silent Spring of Rachel Carson” (1963). I’m actually surprised that Carson hasn’t been the subject of a documentary herself when you consider the popularity of such recent documentaries as An Inconvenient Truth (2006) and the fact that during her own lifetime Carson and her research was attacked by other scientists and government officials as being the work of a “hysterical woman.” However, for an interesting juxtaposition of past and present, compare The Sea Around Us to some of the Oscar nominees for Best Documentary over the past decade – The Cove (2009), Gasland (2010), Virunga (2014), Honeyland (2019) – to see how far we’ve come in that category. The Sea Around Us was released on DVD by Warner Bros. as part of their Archive Collection in November 2010. It is a no-frills release with no extra features and is not available on Blu-Ray at this time.

*This is a revised and updated version of a post that originally appeared on Movie Morlocks (later renamed Streamline), the official blog for Turner Classic Movies.

Other websites of interest:

https://www.rachelcarson.org/Bio.aspx

http://www.uwosh.edu/filmandhistory/documentary/scienceandfiction/seaaroundus.php

http://www.iann.net/movies/sea_around_us/index.htm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ql52n9Rvzdo

Lisbeth Movin stars as Anne Pedersdotter, a young widow accused of witchcraft in Carl Theodor Dreyer’s Day of Wrath (1943).

When social order breaks down, rational thought or common sense do not always follow. The result could be the kind of mass paranoia and hysteria that created the persecution of people as witches in Europe during the 13^th to 15^th century as well as in America (such as the Salem Witchcraft Trials of 1692). That shameful chapter in history has been the subject of numerous books and literary works such as Arthur Miller’s 1953 play The Crucible. As for the cinema, most movie critics seem to agree that the finest film to ever address this kind of aberrant phenomenon is Carl Theodore Dreyer’s Vredens dag (1943, English title: Day of Wrath).

Set in a small village in Denmark in 1623, Day of Wrath (1943) tells the story of Anne, the young wife of Pastor Pedersson. Trapped in a loveless marriage and hated by her mother-in-law, she seeks solace in a love affair with her stepson Martin. Her indiscretion ultimately seals her fate; Anne’s husband dies of a heart attack when he learns of her infidelity, Martin deserts her and the villagers accuse her of witchcraft, a charge which condemns her to be burned at the stake.

Anne (Lisbeth Movin) and her stepson Martin (Preben Lerdorff Rye) have a secret rendezvous in Day of Wrath (1943), directed by Carl Dreyer.

Day of Wrath, Dreyer’s second sound feature, was based on real events that took place in Bergen, Norway in the sixteenth century and became the basis for a play by Hans Wiers-Jenssens – Anne Pedersdotter – written in 1908. It had been eleven years since Dreyer’s last feature, Vampyr (1932), which was poorly received in his own country and forced him to seek film opportunities elsewhere. Unfortunately, projects initiated in France, England and even Somalia, all fell through and Dreyer eventually returned to his former profession of journalism, until his interest in making a movie of Anne Pedersdotter spurred him to return to filmmaking.

Anne Pedersdotter (Lisbeth Movin, far left) is accused of witchcraft in Carl Dreyer’s Day of Wrath (1943).

From the beginning, Dreyer had very specific qualities he was looking for in his actors. In the key role of Anne, he cast Lisbeth Movin, a relatively unknown stage and screen actress at the time, because he “fell in love with her eyes.” Her remarkable portrayal, comparable in its intensity to Falconetti’s performance in his earlier The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928), is a complex one, mingling innocence with a suggestion of the sinister. Part of the credit is due to Dreyer who, according to Raymond Carney in Magill’s Survey of Cinema, used “moving key lights, scrims, barn doors, and even objects in the path of the key lights to throw an ever-changing pattern of shifting brightness and shadow on her eyes and face.”

Marte (Anna Svierkier) pleads with her neighbor Anne to help her hide from witch hunters in Day of Wrath (1943).

Equally memorable is Anna Svierkier as Marte Herlof, the elderly peasant woman who is accused of witchcraft and burned at the stake in the film’s harrowing opening. Nearly eighty years old at the time, the actress was put through quite an arduous physical ordeal for her part by Dreyer whose perfectionism often bordered on the sadistic. For one scene, the director recalled in My Own Great Passion: The Life and Films of Carl Th. Dreyer by Jean Drum and Dale D. Drum, “…she was so seized with the part I couldn’t get her to move slowly. Then I remembered she had said she had bought a pair of tight new shoes. So I asked her to put them on and then ran a number of rehearsals. Her feet became more and more sore, and after some time she could only move slowly and the scene was quite successful. She said to me, ‘How could you do it?’ Afterwards, when she saw the scene, she thanked me.”

Authorities prepare Marte (Anna Svierkier) for public execution in Carl Dreyer’s Day of Wrath (1943).

Another difficult shoot was Marte’s death scene when Svierkier was tied to a ladder and forced to wait until the sun emerged before the cameras could roll. A fellow crewmember said, “It was terrible for her, and she cried a little because her back ached terribly. When Dreyer saw this he exclaimed, ‘Oh that is just wonderful, wonderful. Keep that when we are going to shoot.”

Anne (Lisbeth Movin) worries about her impending fate in Carl Dreyer’s Day of Wrath (1943).

Dreyer’s obsession with the smallest detail in his films is well documented, from the setting to the props. In one instance, he searched half a year for the right soap dish for a scene in Day of Wrath. In striving to capture the period look and appropriate atmosphere for the film, he shot exteriors at the Frilands Museum (aka The Open Air Museum), which is located on the outskirts of Copenhagen and features an open air village composed of 17th and 18th century Danish houses. All of the interiors for Day of Wrath were shot in the Palladium Studios in Hellerup.

A committee of judges prepare to hear testimony against people accused of witchcraft in Day of Wrath (1943).

Despite Dreyer’s meticulous care in crafting Day of Wrath, the film received an even worse reception from the Danish critics than his previous film, Vampyr. Not only was it attacked for its stark, austere style but some critics accused the film of being a thinly disguised allegory of the Nazis’ persecution of the Jews. It was also released at the height of World War II in Europe when theatrical distribution for films was extremely limited at best. It also didn’t help matters that Dreyer was approached by the Germans with an offer to make movies for them. Instead, he fled the country with his wife, relocating to Sweden and not returning to Copenhagen until after the war.

Reverend Pedersson (Thorkild Roose) and his wife Anne (Lisbeth Movin) in a quiet moment before the approaching storm in Day of Wrath (1943).

Today, Day of Wrath is seen as one of Dreyer’s undisputed masterworks and a powerful critique of religious intolerance, superstition and basic human nature. The film also possesses an intriguing ambiguity in which Marthe behaves at times as if she might indeed be guilty of certain accusations. Peter Cowie in Eighty Years of Cinema best summed up the film’s greatness when he wrote, “Like The Passion of Joan of Arc, Day of Wrath is a protest against the bigotry which spread like a shadow across the lives of ordinary people in the middle ages…Practically every composition has the clean, measured proportions of a Flemish painting. The white ruffs contrast sharply with the dark robes of the characters and some of the faces could have been chosen by Rembrandt. The scenes in the presbytery are claustrophobic. Every movement is furtive, and the soundtrack is so discreetly composed that when someone does cry out in terror or anguish, the sound strikes like a dagger. The ponderous narrative is faithful to a state of mind and a way of life at a certain point in history. In Day of Wrath slowness becomes a terrible inevitability.” Day of Wrath was released on DVD by The Criterion Collection in August 2001 as part of their Carl Theodor Dreyer set which also included Ordet, Gertrud and the documentary on Dreyer, My Metier (Day of Wrath was not available as a single disc). The Criterion set has been out of print for years and would seem to be an inevitable choice for re-release on Blu-ray at some point in the distant future. The only other option to see Day of Wrath is the BFI box set, The Carl Theodor Dreyer Collection, which was released on Blu-Ray in April 2015 and includes Day of Wrath along with Master of the House, Ordet, Gertrud and several other short films and supplements. The BFI set is in the PAL format so you would need an all-region Blu-Ray player to view it and that is not something that is easily available to most U.S. movie lovers. *This is an updated and expanded version of an article that first appeared on the Turner Classic Movies website.

Other websites of interest:

https://www.carlthdreyer.dk/en/carlthdreyer/about-dreyer/biography/biography-extended

https://www.carlthdreyer.dk/en/carlthdreyer/films/features/day-wrath

http://sensesofcinema.com/2002/great-directors/dreyer/

https://www.carlthdreyer.dk/en/carlthdreyer/hans-wiers-jenssen-anne-pedersdotter

https://www.carlthdreyer.dk/en/carlthdreyer/about-dreyer/collaborators/lisbeth-movin

https://www.livescience.com/55431-infamous-witch-trials-in-history.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_SATxIRMts

He was the man behind such soft core sleazefests as Girls for Rent (1974), The Naughty Stewardesses (1975) and Cinderella 2000 (1977). He was also the schockmeister responsible for exploitation classics such as Satan’s Sadists (1969), Five Bloody Graves (1970) and the seriously deranged Dracula vs. Frankenstein (1971). He would be the last person you’d expect to make a child-friendly movie but that’s exactly what he attempted with Carnival Magic, which was completed in 1981 but not released until 1983. The film is almost tame enough for a six year old kid but also a terrifically weird and strange experience for older audiences who have seen any of Adamson’s previous work. He’s marching to the beat of a different drummer here and that drummer just happens to be a talking chimpaneze named Alex.

Filmed on location in the EO Studios in Shelby, North Carolina and on the grounds of the Childrens Carnival in Gaffney, South Carolina, Carnival Magic has multiple storylines and a cast of colorful characters to match. There’s Stoney Martin (Mark Weston), the struggling circus owner, who has a possessive relationship with his daughter Ellen (Jennifer Houlton); she dresses like a tomboy in baseball caps and t-shirts and is nicknamed “Bud.” When the carnival’s publicist David (Howard Segal) begins to pursue her and Bud develops a romantic interest in him, even changing into a dress for a date. But her father has an abandonment crisis, telling her, “Take off that dress…You’re Bud and that’s that.”

Jennifer Houlton plays a tomboy named Ellen who works in a traveling circus in Carnival Magic (1983), directed by Al Adamson.

Plot number two focuses on Markov the Magnificent (Don Stewart) whose magic act can’t compete with his chief rival, Kirk (Joe Cirillo), the lion tamer. The latter’s specialty act involves a caged ring of snarling tigers but his attempts to tame them are becoming increasingly difficult. He blames this on Markov who appears to communicate telepathically with the beasts and is able to calm them down when agitated. Markov also has a secret hidden in his trailer which turns out to be the aforementioned talking chimp who soon becomes the big hit of the circus (Alex is introduced early in the film so this isn’t a spoiler).

The tigers are not cooperating with the lion tamer in Al Adamson’s Carnival Magic (1983).

Another plot introduces a sinister doctor (Charles Reynolds) who tries to persuade Stoney and Markov to loan him Alex for a few weeks for primate research. When rebuffed, he bribes Kirk to kidnap Alex and bring him to his laboratories where he plans to dissect the hapless chimp as part of his tests. There are plenty of other eccentric detours too while Adamson works in the occasional big top act, scenes of the midway and gawking customers, plus several action sequences – the best one being a madcap chase in which Alex steals a car with a terrified blonde in the back seat and the police in hot pursuit.

Alexander the Great steals a car and leads the cops on a merry chase in Carnival Magic (1983).

Carnival Magic combines the cornpone humor of Smokey and the Bandit (1977) and the Clint Eastwood/Clyde the orangutan films (Every Which Way But Loose, Any Which Way You Can) with the soap opera melodramatics of a circus picture like The Greatest Show on Earth (1952)….but on the production budget of a bake sale. With its uneven mix of non-professional and barely adequate actors, peculiar directorial touches, and that nutty talking chimp, it comes across like some kind of naïve cinema or bad folk art.

Kate (Regina Caroll) and Marko the Great (Don Stewart) are among the traveling players in Carnival Magic (1983).

For the most part this Al Adamson anomaly presents a traveling carnival that is almost wholesome compared to the usual cinematic treatment. There are no freaks of nature on display (although there is a chase sequence where a dwarf is glimpsed amid the pursuers). No sordid sexual encounters or explicit gore either; the only scene with any blood is when Kirk is wounded in a tiger attack. But Carnival Magic is kinky around the edges if you pay attention from the unusually close relationship between Markov and Alex (they have their own branded t-shirts) to the post-I’m Okay, You’re Ok New Age dialogue (“We all have our cages – with or without bars”). Other questionable scenes include Kirk physically abusing his girlfriend in one frantic outburst and the exotic dancer wardrobe of buxom Regina Carrol who always seems to be on the verge of bursting out of her clothes (Regina was married to Adamson and appears in many of his films including memorable “star” turns in Brain of Blood and Angels’ Wild Women, both released in 1972).

Kate (Regina Carrol) demonstrates her magician kills in Carnival Magic (1983).

Some people who have seen this are even convinced that Bud is giving Alex a hand job in one oddly framed shot. Even the atrocious theme song (“Love Speaks to the Heart”), which unfortunately, is used more than once, and such clumsily staged action sequences as Alex the chimp battling a room full of laboratory assistants make this orphaned indie worth seeking out for collectors of eccentric cinema and especially for anyone who has seen and loved/loathed Adamson’s other….eh…work.

Howard Segal (left) and Don Stewart star in Al Adamson’s bizarre kiddie flick, Carnival Magic (1983).

Of course, the real wild card and main attraction is Alex the talking chimp who is actually played by a female simian named Trudi. The animal looks well past middle age and is quite lethargic. Alex’s language skills turn out to be underwhelming to say the least and his dialogue is usually limited to brief comments, dictated by the dubber’s attempts to match his occasionally lip flap. For example, as he is poking around in Miss Carrol’s circus wardrobe, he mutters, “Preeeetty. Hot Stuff!,” or when he wraps a bra around the top of his head, he blurts out “Stealing coconuts.” To top it off, they have dubbed Alex with a gruff, slightly Brooklynese accent which is all the more surprising when you read the final credits that reveal the dubber for Alex was a woman named Linda Sherwood. Huh?

Al Adamson (far left) on the set of Dracula vs. Frankenstein (1971) with actor Zandor Vorkov and cameraman Gary Graver (right).

Adamson’s strange dubbing practices don’t stop there. You’ll notice that the character with the strangest voice in the film is the seedy looking Dr. Poole. Not only does he fail to impress one as a research scientist or professional doctor (he would even be suspect as a used car salesman) but his voice has a slight speech impediment and is delivered in a rather fussy, high pitched manner. When the final credits reveal that actor Charles Reynolds was dubbed by someone named David Pendleton, you have to ask yourself, was Charles Reynolds’ voice so bad that they had to dub him and the best they could do was this? It all contributes to the film’s warped sense of reality.

Of all the actors and crew people who worked on Carnival Magic, there are no familiar names except to those who are familiar with Psychotronic cinema. Director Al Adamson and Regina Carrol are, of course, well known in those circles but the only one who appears to have had a legitimate acting career is Don Stewart, aka Markov the Magnificent, who appeared in countless TV series (The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, The Virginian, Adam-12, Knots Landing, The X-Files) and made-for-television movies such as The Doomsday Flight (1966), Valley of Mystery (1967) and The Betty Ford Story (1987). Carnival Magic was Adamson’s next to last feature; his final film was Lost (1983), another family-oriented picture about a little girl gone missing in the Utah wilderness. The cast includes Sandra Dee, Jack Elam and Ken Curtis. It is quite possible Adamson was trying to move into the mainstream and away from exploitation cinema in the early eighties but with a rapidly changing film distribution system Al and his partner, producer Sam Sherman, soon found it difficult to find exhibitors for their product and their filmmaking days together came to an end. While Adamson continued to try and launch projects – his last attempt was an unrealized sci-fi movie called Beyond This Earth – his life came to a violent end on June 21, 1995. He was murdered by Fred Fulford, a contractor who was living in his house at the time, and buried in his Jacuzzi which was filled with cement and tiled over. According to David Konow in Schlock-O-Rama: The Films of Al Adamson, “Al died of “blunt force trauma” – three blows to the head with a weapon. It is rumored that Al was alive when he was buried under the cement. He had been missing for five weeks before he was found on August 2, 1995.” Fulford was soon connected with the crime and arrested in Florida where he had fled with his girlfriend and her daughter. He was convicted of murder and sentenced to 25 years in jail.

Satan’s Sadists (1969) was typical of the type of exploitation fare Al Adamson churned out in the 60s and 70s, many of which featured his wife Regina Carrol.

According to Chip Butty of Cinemachine, it wasn’t until after these events that anyone had any awareness of Carnival Magic, the print was found in the home of “Adamson after he was murdered… and the completed independent production never reached the drive-ins. There were no prints struck except the master.” Enter the organizers of Cinemapocalypse, Lars Nilsen and Zack Carlson, who featured a beautiful print of it during their West Coast festival tour during April 16-26, 2010 in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland and Seattle. Their web site program notes on the film stated “….unless you’ve guzzled embalming fluid on the moon with Bigfoot you’ve never seen anything as awe-inspiringly jacked-up as this “inspirational” kids’ movie from the director of Satan’s Sadists and Black Samurai. Why anyone thought this was appropriate for children we’ll never understand…we don’t know if we’d be prepared to field Junior’s many questions about the unsavory goings-on in the cheapest, most depraved carnival this side of Tod Browning’s Freaks.” While the latter copy is wildly over-hyped, Carnival Magic is not really that subversive as kiddie far but there is something unique and original about this formerly lost film and one has to wonder if the makers behind HBO’S failed series Carnivale (2003) had ever taken a gander at this oddity.

Carnival Magic as seen on Mystery Science Theater 3000 (MST3K) in 2017.

Carnival Magic never had an official video release and has remained an obscurity until recent years when Turner Classic Movies aired the movie on their TCM Underground franchise in 2010. This was followed by a Blu-ray release in 2011 from Film Chest and HD Cinema Classics which included some supplementary material such as interviews with producer Elvin Feltner and cult film historian Joe Rubin. The film gained more visibility when it was roasted by the hosts of Mystery Science Theater 3000 (MST3K) in 2017. Finally in April 2020 Severin Films released an upgraded Blu-ray of Carnival Magic and the disc comes with numerous extra features such as outtakes, audio commentary, rushes from The Happy Hobo (an unproduced children’s film by Adamson), and best of all, the bonus feature Lost, which is mentioned above. Other links of interest:

https://www.fandango.com/people/al-adamson-3773/biography

https://originalcinemaniac.com/2018/09/13/the-murder-of-director-al-adamson/

https://variety.com/1992/scene/people-news/regina-carrol-100109/

https://severin-films.com/shop/carnival-magic-blu/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZsXwmRvmdQ

Luis Trenker – Alpinist, film director, architect, actor. photographer: Atelier Binder – property of Ullstein Bild – Atelier Binder/Everett Collection

Rarely seen in the U.S. and not one of the better known films about a famous mountain-climbing expedition, The Challenge (1938) is an intriguing bridge between the German mountain films of Arnold Fanck (White Hell of Pitz Palu, 1929) and contemporary man-against-nature survival tales such as Philipp Stozl’s Northface (2008), where two Germans and two Austrians try to scale the Eiger in Switzerland, and Kevin Macdonald’s documentary reenactment Touching the Void (2003), the ill-fated trek by Joe Simpson and Simon Yates up the face of the Siula Grande in the Peruvian Andes. Luis Trenker, one of the stars of The Challenge, was honored in person at the Telluride Film Festival in 1983 at age 90 and Turner Classic Movies aired the film in one of their Telluride programming tributes in 2010. The Challenge was also offered on The Criterion Channel.

Filmmaker Luis Trenker on the set of Berge in Flammen (1931) aka Mountains of Fire.

Trenker (1882-1990) was a famous alpinist, skier, architect and filmmaker who entered the film industry as an actor, working first with Arnold Fanck on Der Berg des Schicksals (1924, aka The Mountaineers) and later opposite actress Leni Riefenstahl in two key entries in the German Mountain film genre, Der Heilige Berg (1926, aka The Holy Mountain) and Der grobe Sprung (1927, aka The Great Leap). He took on the additional duties of producing, writing and directing in 1929-1930, serving as a co-producer of Der Ruf des Nordens (1929), contributing to the screenplay of Mario Bonnard’s Les chevaliers de la montagne (1930) and co-directing De Sohn der weiben Berge (1930 aka The Son of the White Mountain). Trenker’s rugged good looks, athleticism and mountaineering/skiing skills made him a natural lead for the romanticized adventure tales in which he starred. These movies also glorified the outdoors and natural landscapes while celebrating man’s attempts to explore and test himself in these environments. The Challenge, however, is an anomaly. By no means great cinema, it is interesting for a lot of reasons. It was one of the first forays into the “Mountain film” genre by British filmmakers and clearly an attempt to carve out their own national identity in this area. After all, it is based on a true story – the first successful attempt to scale the Matterhorn in 1865 by an English-led team of explorers. Emeric Pressburger, prior to his partnership with director Michael Powell, is one of the co-authors of the screenplay, and Vincent Korda was the supervising art director on the film. Most importantly, Luis Trenker, who was so strongly associated with this type of film, was recruited to co-direct The Challenge with Milton Rosmer and to play Jean Antoine Carrel, the famous Italian mountain climber. (Trenker was was born in Urtijei, in the Dolemites, which was then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire; it is now a town in Italy).

The real-life Jean Antoine Carrel who is portrayed by Luis Trenker in the 1938 film, The Challenge.

The movie takes dramatic liberties with the real story which is usually expected in any cinematic treatment of an actual event. It also introduces a lot of other elements that render it a mixed genre film. It’s an adventure drama, a buddy movie, a culture clash melodrama and a pre-WWII morale builder for the British moviegoing public. When the story begins, Edward Whymper (Robert Douglas), an artist and engraver who sketches mountains for his London publisher, meets Carrel while climbing the side of the Matterhorn and hires him as a guide. Weather prevents them from ascending to the top but Whymper later tries the climb on his own without telling Carrel and is injured and then rescued by his guide. While he is recuperating, Whymper abandons his competition with Carrel and proposes they team up together as equals the following year and tackle the peak again.

English mountaineer Edward Whymper who is portrayed by Robert Douglas in The Challenge (1938), directed by Milton Rosmer.

In the meantime, the Italian government realizes the importance of conquering the Matterhorn for reasons of both commerce (tourism) and national pride, they pressure Carrel to abandon the Englishman and claim the peak in honor of his fellow villagers and countrymen. By the time, Whymper returns to the village of Breuil, where the expedition is based, he learns that Carrel has his own team of climbers, assembled from the best local alpiners, and is preparing to race him to the top. The rest of the movie depicts these events, which result in a victorious climb for Whymper followed by an unforeseen tragedy – four of his climbers fall to their death on the descent.

Jean Antoine Carrel (Luis Trenker, left) and Edward Whymper (Robert Douglas) star in a true life drama about a race to the top of the Matterhorn in The Challenge (1938).

The story doesn’t end there and, in the tragic aftermath, villagers blame Whymper for the deaths of the four men, claiming he cut the rope to save his own life. When it appears that the enraged locals might inflict harm on the English explorer, Carrel comes to the rescue, rushing out into the howling winds to climb the Matterhorn in search of the evidence, convinced the rope wasn’t cut. All of this builds to a dramatic finale and the expected happy ending but the real life story had no pat resolution and questions linger today. As Luis Trenker was already internationally famous as a German film star and world class alpiner, there must have been great anticipation surrounding his appearance in The Challenge, even though it was not his first English language film; he had previously appeared in Doomed Batallion (1932) and The Rebel (1933). And this turns out to be one of the film’s major drawbacks. Speaking in a foreign language does not come easy to Trenker and his performance suffers as a result. He comes across as a simplistic, one-dimensional hero – strong, courageous, proud and a little dim.

The Challenge (1938)
Directed by Milton Rosmer, Luis Trenker (co-director Alpine sequences)
Shown from left: Robert Douglas, Luis Trenker

As his friend-turned-rival, Robert Douglas is not much better, providing an acceptable but colorless performance as the very British Whymper. There are other problems too such as the uneven direction which flags during interior exposition scenes but comes to life during the outdoor sequences. Often the scenes set in the competing villages of Breuil and Zermatt, both serving as entry points to different routes up the Matterhorn, seem like an unintentional parody of provincial life with low brow humor involving a goat (who is always shown eating something), a wily innkeeper and a local constable who treats every stranger in town as a potential border-crossing smuggler.

A scene from the mountaineer drama, The Challenge (1938), a British film directed by Milton Rosmer.

Early in the movie we see some villagers in the local pub grumbling about Whymper and they seem like the sort of superstitious peasants depicted in Universal horror films. The village priest gravely says, “There are secrets up there the mountain says must not be found out.” As if on cue we hear thunder and lightning flashes outside the window as the priest notes, “It’s saying so now….The devil sends the fools and the mountain sends the storms to destroy them.” This insular, almost pagan world view of the villagers provides a marked contrast to the Italian government emissary and other outside officials who see the commerce advantage in whichever town becomes famous for hosting the team that conquered the Matterhorn.

The Challenge (1938)
Directed by Milton Rosmer, Luis Trenker (co-director Alpine sequences)
Shown: Joan Gardner, Luis Trenker

Much more compelling are the mountain-climbing sequences in The Challenge. The often stunning cinematography is by Albert Benitz (The Captain from Kopenick, 1956) and Georges Perinal (Bonjour Tristesse, 1958). The beauty, allure and danger of the Matterhorn is captured vividly and there is one genuinely harrowing passage when Whymper’s team begins to descend the peak. When the rope breaks and four men tumble to their death, the moment is startlingly realistic, even shocking, with its long, lingering view of the falling bodies.

The great British character actress Mary Clare is featured in The Challenge (1938).

Adding some much-needed dramatic weight to the story is Mary Clare as Carrel’s indomitable mother. She’s like a force of nature, tempestuous yet righteous, and clearly capable of standing up to and repelling a crowd of villagers who suspect her son of siding with the British intruders. Most movie lovers will remember Clare from her sinister role as the Countess in Alfred Hitchcock’s The Lady Vanishes (1936) or her portrayal of Mrs. Corney in the 1948 film adaptation of Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist, directed by David Lean.

Trenker Luis – actor mountaineer at the shooting for the film ‘Der Berg ruft’ aka The Mountain Calls, Germany 1938 – 1938 Vintage. Photo by: Ullstein/Everett Collection

Unlike his former co-star Leni Reifenstahl, who would go on to glorify the Aryan ideal in films which became recruitments for the Nazi party (Triumph of the Will, 1935), Trenker was never a willing accomplice in the German government’s exploitation of his movies. Despite later accusations of aiding Nazi propagandists with his idealized view of the German people, that was not his intention at all. Trenker’s pastoral dramas were actually celebrations of rural people living in harmony with nature, away from the corrupting influences of urban life. According to most biographical sources and film scholars Trenker’s directorial efforts were not limited to mountain-climbing adventures and that some of his best work were documentaries and dramas inspired by his World War I experiences. Some sources even cite that his later films were precursors to the Neorealism movement of Italian cinema. Even if The Challenge is not the best introduction to Trenker as an actor, you still might be able to find an out of print VHS copy of it from 1994 or the DVD release from Firecake Entertainment that came out in 2010. You can also currently view it on Youtube. The good news is that other, more representative films of Trenker are still available in some format. Kino Lorber offers The Holy Mountain (1926, aka Der Heilige Berg) and The Great Leap (1927, Der Grobe Sprung) in both DVD and Blu-Ray editions. Mountains on Fire (1931, Berge in Flammen) is available on DVD from International Historic Films, Inc. And if you have an all-region DVD player, you might be able to find German import releases of his films (often without English subtitles). Still, until someone mounts a retrospective of Trenker’s work or releases a collection of his best work on Blu-ray, the actor/writer/director remains an almost forgotten figure in cinema history. Other websites of interest:

https://www.nytimes.com/1990/04/14/obituaries/luis-trenker-97-dies-made-films-since-30-s.html

http://www.polylogzentrum.at/weltprojekt-der-berge/dokumentation/realitaet-und-virtualitaet-der-berge/the-artistic-films-of-arnold-frank/

https://www.museumgherdeina.it/348.html

https://alchetron.com/Luis-Trenker

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/leni-riefenstahl

https://www.madman.com.au/actions/directors.do?directorId=1123&method=view

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tE0wqGm6EVs

Will there be a happy ending for Prince Rodrigo (Omar Sharif) and Isabella Candeloro (Sophia Loren) in More Than a Miracle (1967), directed by Francesco Rosi.

Imagine, if you can, a rustic Neapolitan fairy tale directed by Francesco Rosi in the docudrama style of his post-neorealism films of the early sixties like The Moment of Truth (1965), shoot it in Technicolor and Techniscope, add a lush musical score by Piero Piccioni and you get More Than a Miracle (1967), a zesty Southern Italian fantasy-romance that was more appropriately titled Cinderella, Italian Style in Europe.

Sophia Loren, who has rarely looked more beautiful, plays Isabella, a poor peasant girl who falls in love with the handsome but arrogant Prince Rodrigo. Knowing she can’t compete with the seven aristocratic princesses vying to become Rodrigo’s bride, Isabella resorts to witchcraft with the help of a mischievous crone. But the love spell they cast on Rodrigo doesn’t quite work (he is temporarily frozen in mid-meal, unable to lower his hand from his mouth) and Isabella eventually realizes she must win him without the aid of magic.

Prince Rodrigo (Omar Sharif) is the victim of a witch’s love spell in More Than a Miracle (1967), an Italian fairy tale.

Loren’s husband, producer Carlo Ponti, wanted to make sure that More Than a Miracle would have a broad international appeal and cast the film accordingly. Dolores del Rio, the exotic Mexican beauty who enjoyed Hollywood stardom during the thirties, was selected for her marquee value and glamorous appearance (she plays the prince’s marriage-minded mother).

Hollywood legend Dolores del Rio plays the Queen Mother in Francesco Rosi’s fairy tale, More Than a Miracle (1967).

It also features Georges Wilson, a French character actor who often appeared as judges, priests, inspectors and autocrats in numerous European films like Luchino Visconti’s The Stranger (1967) and Lucio Fulci’s The Conspiracy of Torture (1969). The rest of the cast were relatively unknown Italian actors except for Omar Sharif, who was chosen to play the prince.

Flying monks, witches, love spells and dishwashing contests make More Than a Miracle (1967) an eccentric fairy tale for Italian film lovers.

At the time, Sharif was at the height of his popularity thanks to his performance in Doctor Zhivago (1965) plus Sharif and Loren had previously worked well together in The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964). For a brief time, Loren was even considered as Sharif’s love interest in Doctor Zhivago before Julie Christie won the role. Yet even though Loren was happily married to Ponti, the tabloids were still full of speculations about a possible off-screen romance between the two stars during filming.

Francesco Rosi (left) directs Omar Sharif and Sophia Loren in a scene from More Than a Miracle (1967).

Although More Than a Miracle is set in 17th century Italy, the movie was actually shot in the countryside surrounding Naples, the city where Loren spent her childhood. The choice of Francesco Rosi for director was an unusual one since his previous features were serious docudramas with social and political themes (Salvatore Giuliano (1961), Hands Over the City, 1963) and were obviously influenced by such neorealism classics as The Bicycle Thief (1948) and Umberto D. (1952). Nevertheless, Rosi clearly demonstrates a flair for the fantastic in More Than a Miracle and even manages to smuggle in some of his previous thematic concerns in his depiction of the huge gulf between the aristocratic and peasant classes. In the biography Sophia by Stefanio Masi and Enrico Lancia, Rosi envisioned Isabella as “a farm girl with all of the naivete and cunning of a woman of the people. Sophia gave a distinguished portrayal of her. She’s a great worker….You can ask any sacrifice of her. I remember that I asked her to always perform barefoot. Keep in mind that the ground she had to walk on with her bare feet was rough and rugged. Sophia has very beautiful feet. She was very patient: she moved forward fearlessly, as if she had walked barefoot all her life. Sometimes her feet would bleed, but she didn’t complain. Unlike many Neapolitans, Sophia never complains.” One of the chief virtues of More Than a Miracle is the evocative cinematography by Pasqualino De Santis which accents the 17^th century period detail and the sunbaked landscapes of Basilicata, Campania and other Southern Italian locations. De Santis would go on to win the Oscar for Best Cinematography for Franco Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet (1968) and his other career highlights include The Damned (1969), Death in Venice (1971) and Robert Bresson’s Lancelot de Lac (1974).

The Queen Mother (Dolores del Rio) and Prince Rodrigo (Omar Sharif) preside over a royal banquet in the Italian fairy tale, More Than a Miracle (1967).

When More Than a Miracle opened theatrically, it was well received by most Italian film critics but failed to find an audience outside its own country. Maybe the mixture of flying monks, jousting tournaments, cackling witches and dishwashing contests (a major set piece near the end of the film) was just too eclectic for American moviegoers. Either that or sixties audiences felt they were too hip for an old-fashioned fairy tale. Pauline Kael, critic for The New Yorker, commented on the film’s visual beauty and oddball charm that “has some of the magical silliness and sweetness of De Sica’s Miracle in Milan and the Alexander Korda production of The Thief of Bagdad…the dubbing is both funny and charming, especially when the warty old witches speak in voices that seem to come from another planet. (Some of them were actually Italian peasant men dressed as women, and some were elderly English actresses).” The reviewer for Time magazine was also captivated by it: “That anybody would bother these days to make so slender and fanciful a film is a miracle in itself; to do it with such a profusion of visual beauty is More Than a Miracle.”

Sophia Loren plays a peasant girl who uses witchcraft to win a prince in More Than a Miracle (1967).

One of the few negative reviews came from Bosley Crowther of The New York Times who called it “no less than a mess, a pointless comedy” but also added, “it has been extraordinarily well-photographed in color. However, grand vistas of tawny-colored wheat fields and beautifully framed shots of medieval castles and tournaments cannot hide the essential humorlessness and confusion of a story that is part spectacle, part love story, part fantasy and part farce.”

Omar Sharif plays a dashing prince in Francesco Rosi’s romantic fantasy, More Than a Miracle (1967), co-starring Sophia Loren.

Still, More Than a Miracle is not a typical fairy tale at all and it’s a little too bawdy for children what with Sophia’s tight peasant blouses on the verge of popping open or odd scatological humor like the famous urine cure scene at the nunnery. The only aspect of the film that generated any major buzz at all were the peasant outfits worn by Sophia in the film (they were designed by Giulio Coltellacci); their natural, free-flowing quality actually influenced mainstream fashion at the time which quickly glamorized the rustic rag-tag look. For many years More Than a Miracle was only available on VHS but in June 2014 it was released on DVD in the English language version by the Warner Archive Collection. The disc sports an attractive if unexceptional widescreen presentation and has no extra features other than a theatrical trailer. A major upgrade to Blu-ray would be most welcome along with the Italian language version with English subtitles. *This is a revised and expanded version of an article that originally appeared on the Turner Classic Movies website.

Other websites of interest:

http://sensesofcinema.com/2003/great-directors/rosi/

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/jan/11/francesco-rosi

https://www.hindustantimes.com/hollywood/sophia-loren-turns-83-a-look-at-her-5-career-defining-films/story-32FMSHyVz7osi5Af8Uj7bM.html

https://www.thedailybeast.com/from-desert-bandit-to-bridge-player-omar-sharif

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKwMqi9on5g

In 2011, Justin Kurzel, an Australian director, first attracted attention for his feature film debut, The Smalltown Murders, which was based on the crimes of serial killer John Bunting in South Australia. For his follow-up film, he went to Scotland and made a savage, stylized interpretation of MacBeth (2015) starring Michael Fassbinder, which was nominated for the Palme d’Oro at the Cannes Film Festival. Then Kurzel graduated to the major leagues for Assassin’s Creed (2016), a big budget fantasy adventure filmed in Malta, Spain and the UK and based on the popular video game series. The critics savaged it, moviegoers were indifferent, and it was considered one of the biggest bombs of 2016. After that, Kurzel returned to his homeland and decided to focus on a folk hero who is still a polarizing figure in his country’s history – Ned Kelly. The subsequent film, True History of the Kelly Gang (2019), is a visually dynamic and emotionally chaotic biopic which might be the most unusual interpretation yet of Australia’s infamous outlaw.

There have been numerous films based on Ned Kelly’s exploits over the years but almost all of them have been Australian productions which are little known outside their own country. Among them are The Story of the Kelly Gang (1906), which is often considered the first feature length movie ever made (it runs 60 minutes), When the Kellys Rode (1934), directed by Harry Southwell, The Glenrowan Affair (1951) starring Australian football star Bob Chitty, and the comedy Reckless Kelly (1993) with Yahoo Serious in the title role. The best-known film about the infamous bushranger is probably Ned Kelly (1970) from British director Tony Richardson, which featured Mick Jagger in his first dramatic role. In 2003 Gregor Jordan offered another variation on the legend with Heath Ledger as Ned Kelly but it is rarely listed among that actor’s career highpoints and neither Jordan’s or Richardson’s film were successful with critics or audiences.

George MacKay (center) plays the infamous Australian outlaw Ned Kelly in Justin Kurzel’s revisionist biopic, True History of the Kelly Gang (2019).

Kurzel’s True History of the Kelly Gang is an attempt to redefine the folk heroes as a creative and liberating force that channeled their fury at authority figures much like the pioneers of the punk rock movement. In an interview on the Deadline website, the director said that the Kelly Gang reminded him of “a particular period in music and a particular punk scene in Australia that was a hugely creative, interesting time with bands like The Saints and Birthday Party. There was a sensuality to that time, and there was an enormous kind of creativity….That spirit and humor I borrowed enormously for Ned.”

A few of the Kelly Gang at the fiery clash with British law officers in the 2019 drama, True History of the Kelly Gang.

Loosely based on Peter Carey’s 2000 award-winning novel of the same name, Kurzel and screenwriter Shaun Grant have added their own ideas and embellishments to the tale to make it their own so if you are looking for a historically accurate or fact-based biography of Ned Kelly, this is not the place to start. Kurzel is more interested in challenging prevailing attitudes about Aussie culture, national identity and the kind of toxic masculinity that permeated films like Wake in Fright (1971), The Road Warrior (1981) and Romper Stomper (1992).

George MacKay stars in Justin Kurzel’s eclectic portrayal of a famous Aussie outlaw in True History of the Kelly Gang (2019).

History of the Kelly Gang presents the formative events in the outlaw’s life through a three-act structure with chapter headings of “Boy,” “Man” and “Monitor.” The latter is a reference to the USS Monitor, the ironclad Union warship in the Civil War, which inspired Kelly and his men to create their own metal body armor as protection during gunfights with law officers.

Essie Davis plays the tough love mother of Ned Kelly in the 2019 biopic True History of the Kelly Gang and Orlando Schwerdt plays the young Ned Kelly in the first third of the film.

In some ways, the first act of the film is the most compelling and evocative since it shows how the grinding poverty, deprivation and dysfunctional upbringing by woefully unfit parents shaped Ned’s personality and view of the world. It also sets up the intense love/hate relationship between Ned and Ellen Kelly (Essie Davis), his ferocious, indomitable mother. One moment she is verbally abusing him, the next cuddling up to him in bed like a lover. Ned’s conflicted feelings about her might be one reason he is more relaxed and content in the company of men, particularly his best mate Joe (Sean Keenan). In one of the more surprising turn of events, Ellen sells young Ned (a memorable performance by Orlando Schwerdt) to her lover Harry Power (Russell Crowe) to serve as his indentured servant and become a man in the process. It becomes a horrific education to say the least, involving thievery, murder and other criminal acts.

Russell Crowe gives a scene-stealing performance as a thief and murderer named Harry Power in the 2019 drama, True History of the Kelly Gang (2019).

The rest of the film follows Ned’s transition from a brooding, resentful outsider to an openly defiant renegade and George Mackay, the young actor who played the main message runner in Sam Mendes’s war epic 1917, is tasked with this challenging role. Although he gives an intensely physical performance, MacKay is less successful at making Ned an empathic character or articulating the emotions and dark thoughts that drive his behavior.

George Mackay plays a brooding and rebellious outsider in Justin Kurzel’s fictional biopic, True History of the Kelly Gang (2019).

Mackay also doesn’t look anything like the real Ned Kelly. He is clean-shaven with a lean but remarkably chiseled physique (which explains the numerous semi-nude scenes) and looks much younger than a 28-year-old man (the actor was born in 1992). In his photos, the real Ned Kelly had a thick, bushy beard, a stocky physique not unlike that of actor Oliver Reed and the appearance of a man in his late thirties, even though he was only 25 when he died. Of course, historic authenticity is not what director Kurzel is after here and his deconstruction of the mythic has a subversive spirit that stands out in certain scenes and in some of the supporting performances.

The real Ned Kelly, Australia’s famous outlaw, was born in 1854 and was executed in 1880.

Essie Davis, who is married to Justin Kurzel and was so excellent as the star of 2014’s The Babadook, is a formidable force of nature as Ned’s hellcat mom, and Nicholas Hoult as Constable Fitzpatrick makes a wickedly flirtatious villain with the suggestion that he wants something more than friendship from Ned. The real scene stealer, however, is Russell Crowe, who brings a palpable sense of menace and dark humor to his portrayal of the highly dangerous Harry Power.

Russell Crowe as the deceptively dangerous Harry Power gives a standout performance in True History of the Kelly Gang (2019).

Other notable cast members include Thomasin McKenzie as Mary Hearn, the teenage prostitute who becomes Ned’s companion for a brief time, and Charlie Hunnam as a corrupt policeman. McKenzie, who received a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination for JoJo Rabbit, is given little to do here and barely makes an impression as Ned’s first sexual experience. Likewise, Hunnam tries his best to make something substantial out of his despicable lawman but it remains little more than a cameo role.

Charlie Hunnam plays Sergeant O’Neil, a corrupt lawman, in the period drama True History of the Kelly Gang (2019), directed by Justin Kurzel.

What does distinguish True History of the Kelly Gang from other versions of the tale is Ari Wegner’s expressionist cinematography that sets the right tone, mood or emotion required for key sequences such as the early scenes of Ned’s childhood which are set in a hellish landscape – a ramshackle house on a dusty, scrub-grass prairie, surrounded by blackened tree trunks from a brushfire. The sequence where the Kelly gang stages a spontaneous ambush on some hapless trackers is both brutal and shocking and the climatic attack at night by the British authorities on the outlaw gang is truly hallucinatory as the lawmen surround the hideout, looking like white-robed space invaders, while we get disorienting point of view shots from Ned through a slit in his metal helmet.

The outlaw Ned Kelly (George MacKay) inside his famous metal armor in the 2019 film, True History of the Kelly Gang.

Another aspect of Kurzel’s film that makes a lasting impression is the way it defies and subverts the uber-macho behavior and attitudes we associate with the depiction of outlaws in movies. Cross-dressing is a recurring motif throughout True History of the Kelly Gang and is first introduced when Ned’s brother Dan (played by Earl Cave, son of musician/singer Nick Cave) steals some dresses from a bordello because he likes the way they look. Even Constable Fitzpatrick reveals a fondness for women’s refinery, saying to Ned, “Have you ever f*cked in a dress. It’s nice. It feels like you’re breaking the rules.” And over the course of the film, Ned and his gang begin to dress as women during their outings because they make good disguises and confuse their enemies.

Nicholas Hoult plays Constable Fitzpatrick, a treacherous but seductive rival of outlaw Ned Kelly in the 2019 film, True History of the Kelly Gang.

It all culminates in a wild rave-up where Ned, jumping around in a gown like a total nutcase, exhorts his army of cross-dressers to rise up: “Are we gonna kill some coppers? Are we gonna rewrite history? Are we gonna write it in blood? We are the stolen men in a stolen land and we are gonna take back what is rightly ours.” The scene has a primal anti-British rage that conjures up memories of Johnny Rotten and the Sex Pistols crashing the Queen’s 25^th Silver Jubilee in 1977.

Ned Kelly (George MacKay) comes across like a 19th century punk rocker in Justin Kurzel’s revisionist biopic, True History of the Kelly Gang (2029).

Although the subject matter may lack resonance or appeal for some stateside moviegoers, True History of the Kelly Gang is a film that deserves to be seen and experienced on the big screen. Subtitles would be helpful too since the thick Australian accents are occasionally difficult to understand. For the time being, however, new film releases are going to be targeted at home viewing. True History of the Kelly Gang is scheduled for release on April 24^th at various streaming platforms such as iTunes, Amazon, GooglePlay/YouTube, Vudu, PlayStation and many more.

Director Justin Kurzel on the set of True History of the Kelly Gang (2019).

Other websites of interest:

https://deadline.com/2019/09/true-history-of-the-kelly-gang-director-justin-kurzel-interview-toronto-film-festival-1202710763/

https://www.nine.com.au/entertainment/latest/true-history-of-the-kelly-gang-justin-kurzel-interview-stan/7fe2d027-9496-47e8-a411-81f0bd110a62

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/jan/15/true-history-of-the-kelly-gangs-justin-kurzel-there-is-always-room-for-new-stories-about-familiar-legends

https://www.slv.vic.gov.au/search-discover/explore-collections-theme/australian-history/ned-kelly/ned-kelly-fact-sheet

http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/kelly-edward-ned-3933

https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-21077457

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7WzNmia-Iqk

By today’s standards, it doesn’t seem like such a novel movie concept — take a low-budget film, re-dub the soundtrack adding new dialogue, music and sound effects, and create an entirely new experience. You can trace pioneers in this technique back to the syndicated TV series Fractured Flickers hosted by Hans Conried in the early sixties and maybe even before that (Fractured Flickers took silent movies and gave them new soundtracks with voices, sound effects and music). Certainly one of the more famous practitioners of this idea is Woody Allen, who explored the possibilities of redubbing found footage – in his case, a Japanese spy movie – with What’s Up, Tiger Lily? (1966).

The concept didn’t stop there. The surreal comedy troupe Firesign Theater created a madcap storyline using clips from Republic Studio serials, added a new dialogue and music track and released it as J-Men Forever in 1979. A decade later, the Mystery Science Theatre 3000 gang begin dabbling in similar territory, inserting their presence into films like This Island Earth (1954) and Manos: The Hands of Fate (1966), while providing a steady stream of wisecracks and insults to accompany the original soundtrack. A more recent example includes Kung Pow: Enter the Fist (2002), in which writer/actor/director Steve Oedekerk reworked a 1977 martial arts movie entitled Savage Killers and turned it into a goofy parody of the genre. Still, I tend to favor What’s Up, Tiger Lily? over other examples of the form because of my love of Japanese sixties cinema, the music of The Lovin’ Spoonful, and the chance to see Woody Allen in an embryonic stage in terms of developing and directing his own material. The result is a crazy-quilt concoction that is alternately nonsensical, stupid, tedious and occasionally hilarious. You might hate it but some film critics took the bait and loved it. Sight and Sound magazine proclaimed it “a frantic counterpoint of sound and image as deliriously silly as a Tex Avery cartoon…this inspired screwball one-off remains as fresh as the day it was born.”

Woody Allen, Romy Schneider and Peter O’Toole star in What’s Up Pussycat? (1965).

The story behind the creation of What’s Up, Tiger Lily? is as twisted as the movie. On the strength of his success as the screenwriter of What’s New, Pussycat? (1965), a surprise box-office hit, Allen was offered an unusual project — to write comic dialogue for a Japanese spy thriller entitled Kokusai Himitsu Keisatus: Kagi No Kagi (1965, International Secret Police: Key of Keys). American International Pictures, the distributor, had already created an English-dubbed version of the film, but when it was previewed before audiences it provoked intermittent gales of laughter. Many U.S. reviewers would later claim that Key of Keys was an inferior B-movie that deserved to be re-dubbed but this wasn’t really the case. With a plot about missing microfilm and international spies, Key of Keys was a highly successful commercial hit in Japan and the fourth installment in a five-film series starring Tatsuya Mihashi as secret agent Jiro Kitami. It was also intended as a playful parody of the genre. Before Woody Allen entered the picture, however, producer Henry G. Saperstein approached another comedian to write the new dialogue – Lenny Bruce. When informed that he couldn’t use obscenity in the film, Bruce passed on the project and Saperstein decided to offer it to Allen after seeing his nightclub act. In case you aren’t familiar with Saperstein, he was the owner of UPA Productions, the animation outfit that introduced us to Mister Magoo, Gerald McBoing Boing and other popular characters. He also acquired the licensing rights to Gojira (1954), which was dubbed in English, re-edited with new footage featuring Raymond Burr and released here in 1956 as Godzilla, King of the Monsters.

Film producer Henry G. Saperstein

Saperstein had an excellent relationship with Toho Studios after his successful release of Godzilla so he didn’t want to jeopardize his relationship by refusing to distribute Key of Keys, Toho’s top recommendation for the U.S. market. In an interview with The Los Angeles Times, Saperstein recalled, “It was a slick, James Bond-type film…very well done, except everyone was Japanese. I said to myself, ‘You dummy, what will you do with this? Audiences will laugh you right out of theaters.’ But what do you do when you think someone might laugh at you? You beat them to the punch. I decided to do our own spoof.” Allen’s genius for one-liners and stand-up comedy were already well known in the industry and he soon focused all of his attention on the re-editing and re-dubbing of Key of Keys. (Some sources claim that footage from the third film in the series, International Secret Police: Keg of Gunpowder (1964), was also used in What’s Up, Tiger Lily?). Operating on a limited budget of $75,000, Allen and several actors, including Louise Lasser, Frank Buxton and Lenny Maxwell, holed up in a room at the Stanhope Hotel in New York City and screened the film several times, compiling jokes, one-liners and funny dialogue which were then worked into the script. The new plot centers around Phil Moscowitz, a Japanese imitation of James Bond, who is on a quest to find the world’s greatest egg salad recipe, before it falls into the wrong hands.

Kumi Mizuno plays one of the seductive female spies in Key of Keys which was re-edited as an English-dubbed nonsensical comedy by Woody Allen – What’s Up, Tiger Lily? (1966).

The outrageous incongruity of the whole enterprise is heightened even further by the ethnic New York accents (Allen, Lasser, screenwriter Mickey Rose and others provided the voices) emanating from the mouths of the Japanese cast. Typical of the film’s humor is the scene where a scantily clad female spy, wearing a raincoat, sneaks up on a male adversary and flashes him as she says, “Quick, name three presidents.” After re-dubbing the dialogue, Allen still felt that the movie needed some padding so he added a few comic inserts featuring himself and a handful of sight gags, bringing the running time to barely over an hour. You’ll notice that Allen makes four appearances in What’s Up, Tiger Lily?: first as an animated character in the title sequence, then as an interview subject, later as a superimposed silhouette on the screen, and finally as an observer to a striptease performed by former Playboy centerfold China Lee (the real-life wife of comedian Mort Sahl). After Allen left the project, the producer felt that the running time was still too short and stepped in to add additional scenes and several musical interludes featuring the top-forty hitmakers The Lovin’ Spoonful, who perform “Fishin’ Blues,” “Respoken,” “Pow,” and other tunes. Allen was so angered by Saperstein’s meddling with the project that he sued him and tried to halt the picture’s release. His attitude changed though once the reviews began to appear and several mainstream critics actually praised the movie’s sense of lunacy and comic invention.

Tatsuya Mihashi plays a James Bond-type spy in Woody Allen’s What’s Up, Tiger Lily? (1966), a re-edited, English dubbed version of the Japanese film Key of Keys (1965).

What I particularly love about What’s Up, Tiger Lily? is being able to see Key of Keys, even in its re-edited new form with English dubbed dialogue. You can see that the original Japanese film was a stylish, sexy spy thriller. The director was Senkichi Taniguchi who helmed other Japanese cult films like The Lost World of Sinbad (1963) and The Gambling Samurai (1960). Key of Keys also had an exceptional cast featuring some of the biggest names in Japanese genre films. The film’s hero played by Tatsuya Mihashi had appeared in The Human Vapor (1960) and Blueprint of Murder (1961) but also in prestige productions like Akira Kurosawa’s The Bad Sleep Well (1960) and Hiroshi Inagaki’s Chushingura (1962).

The original cast of Key of Keys, which would become the basis for the Woody Allen comedy spoof What’s Up, Tiger Lily? (1966) stars (from left to right) Akiko Wakabayashi, Kumi Mizuno, Tatsuya Mihashi and Mie Hama.

The three female leads – Akiko Wakabayashi, Mie Hama and Kumi Mizuno – would also become famous on an international scale due to their appearances in some key films of the sixties. Both Wakabayashi and Hama star in the James Bond adventure You Only Live Twice (1967) opposite Sean Connery and then there are the sci-fi/horror fantasies; Wakabayashi is featured in King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962), Dogora, the Space Monster (1964) and Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster (1964) while Hama appears in The Lost World of Sinbad (1963) and King Kong Escapes! (1967) and some of the aforementioned films with Wakabayashi.

Kumi Mizuno plays one of the doomed shipwreck survivors on an island of strange fungi in Matango (1963) aka Attack of the Mushroom People.

As for Kumi Mizuno, she was a popular poster girl pin-up for Toho fantasy films of the sixties with memorable parts in Gorath (1962), Matango aka Attack of the Mushroom People (1963), Frankenstein Conquers the World (1965), Invasion of Astro-Monster (1965) and The War of the Gargantuas (1966). If nothing else, What’s Up, Tiger Lily? launched Allen’s directorial career and is a crude blueprint of his humor and comic obsessions, which would begin to flower in Take the Money and Run (1969), his first critical and popular success as a director. It was also during the making of What’s Up, Tiger Lily? that Allen married his fellow collaborator, Louise Lasser, who would later score a hit as the title character in the TV soap opera parody, Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman (1976). What’s Up, Tiger Lily? has been released on VHS and DVD in several editions over the years but the 2003 DVD release from Image Entertainment is probably the best known version. It would be great if some distributor could release a special edition of What’s Up, Tiger Lily? with Key of Keys on Blu-Ray with supplements and English subtitles for the Japanese film.