Tim Lucas / Video WatchBlog

Barbara Steele, among the interviewees in Delphine Seyrig's SOIS BELLE ET TAIS-TOI.

Finally caught up today with a film I've long wanted to see: SOIS BELLE ET TAIS-TOI ("Look Pretty and Shut Up," shot 1970-76, released 1981), a documentary directed by actress Delphine Seyrig. Shot on prehistoric videotape in grainy B&W, the film finds her interviewing a number of actresses (including Jane Fonda, Ellen Burstyn, Maria Schneider, Anna Wiazemsky, Candy Clark, Cindy Williams, Millie Perkins and others) about the cruel realities of their profession and how unrealistically women were depicted onscreen, at a time when many of the most popular films were about male relationships.

I can't say it's a well-made film - Seyrig doesn't use videotape too differently than audio tape, and the interviews are crudely assembled - but what it contains is of terrific interest as a time capsule of what the female artists of this period were coping with professionally. You might expect it, but there is zero discussion of sexual harrassment - the Seventies weren't that outspoken.

Jane Fonda, speaking impeccable French in footage added to the film in 1976, talks about filming JULIA (1977) with Vanessa Redgrave and how the men who wrote, produced and directed it were paranoid about telling the story of a close friendship between two women, actually counting how many times they touched in each take, fearing that too much touching would make them appear like lesbians. Fonda is the only woman interviewed who had ever been asked to play the friend of another female character, and none of the women interviewed could recollect ever playing a scene in which they were required to show warmth toward another woman.

Also revealing is a clip of Barbara Steele (pictured), lamenting her work onscreen, which she insists is the absolute opposite of who she is. She admits to having been a cult actress in "Grand Guignol, outrageous kind of horror flicks" and that she's "done a lot of films I didn't want to do" and that she's now [1970] actually stopped working because she hated what she was being offered so. "I have bad karma also, you know," she says. "I think that you should really try and stick with what you want to do, what makes you LIKE yourself. I mean, I have this incredible shyness about it. I feel like hitting people in the head, when people come up and say 'Hey, we loved you in...' and I say 'But THAT'S not me... it's somebody else's image... screw THAT!' Don't tell me that you liked me in THAT because I wasn't even THERE! That was somebody else!"

Word reaches us today of the passing of the striking Romanian actress Veronica Lazar, at the age of 75. Lazar, who settled in Rome and was married to actor Adolfo Celi (Valmont in DANGER: DIABOLIK), is perhaps the only actress to have been directed by three generations of the Bava family. She was a featured player in Dario Argento's INFERNO (pictured), playing the Nurse/Mater Tenebrarum; in this role, she was directed by Mario Bava for the final special effects reveal of her character and also by the film's credited assistant director Lamberto Bava on the days when Argento was hospitalized for hepatitis, and she more recently appeared in the "Gemelle" episode of the 2012 Italian miniseries 6 PASSI NEL GIALLO directed by Lamberto's son Fabrizio Bava. She worked again with Argento in THE STENDHAL SYNDROME, and also played Martha in Lucio Fulci's THE BEYOND. She was also a recurring cast member for Michelangelo Antonioni and Bernardo Bertolucci, appearing in IDENTIFICATION OF A WOMAN and BEYOND THE CLOUDS, as well as LAST TANGO IN PARIS, LUNA and THE SHELTERING SKY.

Just watched the new German release of DR. ORLOFF'S MONSTER (1964) called Die Lebenden Leichen des Doktor Jekyll ("The Living Corpses of Doctor Jekyll"), released by Edition Tonfilm. English-speaking Franco fans will be interested to learn that it runs a bit longer than the Image Entertainment release (85m 18s as opposed to 84m 53s; I'm not sure what was added) and offers the English soundtrack (previously limited to a French Mad Movies release), as well as German and French tracks. To see the film uncut and in English is something special, as the US release didn't include any of the nude scenes.

Seeing the film again for the first time in several years, I found myself looking at some scenes I had completely forgotten (like Dr. Fisherman's visit to an opium den) and more impressed with it than previously, perhaps a result of the English track. Another thing that took me by surprise with this viewing were the similarities of Melissa's homecoming to her uncle's castle and Christina's advent into the same predicament in A VIRGIN AMONG THE LIVING DEAD (1971). The character of the aunt played here by Luisa Sala is very similar to Rose Kienkens' character in VIRGIN and, of course, both families consist of killers and corpses! Though not a complete success, this is an ambitious film of its station and a stylistic advance beyond THE AWFUL DR. ORLOF (1962, with which it shares some exteriors and interiors), with Perla Cristal's nightclub performance a particular standout of staging and the tender relationship between Melissa (Agnes Spaak) and the robotized corpse of her late father (Hugo Blanco) looking forward to another important Spanish horror film yet to come: Victor Erice's THE SPIRIT OF THE BEEHIVE (El espíritu de la colmena, 1973).

The disc includes the 11 minutes of nude outtakes that Image included, and as a nice bonus, it adds on the French and Italian trailers (content is identical) and a pinkish Super 8 sound version of THE AWFUL DR ORLOF called THE DEMON DOCTOR, which runs 16m 41s and includes the original (non-nude) surgical sequence. For some reason, though it's in English and opens with the film's BBFC certificate, the Super 8's main titles are from the Italian version, the one with the fake Anglicized credits like "Regia di Walter Alexander." It makes for quite a happy, nostalgic, if pleasingly dirty package.

I obtained this fine product from the good folks at Diabolik DVD. Here are some frame grabs from the main feature and the Super 8 film:

I had forgotten it's a Christmas picture! Here is Franco's idea of how to decorate a tree!

I neglected to mention that, on June 15, VIDEO WATCHDOG marked the 24th anniversary of the printing and delivery of its very first issue. So VW is now officially in its 25th year of publication. It's hard to believe that we're not only still doing this after all these years, but still evolving it.

You're surely wondering what has happened to the Digital Edition of VW 176, especially since 177 is already in the hands of our first-class subscribers. It is coming, but Donna has been very tied up with other duties - sending out the new issue, prepping the next one (which I'm programming and editing now) and also working with associates to get our back issue inventory digitized and digitally restored so that we can keep our Indiegogo promise to deliver that Digital Archive before the end of the year. But all the digital bells and whistles are in place for 176 - she just has to find the time to drop everything into its proper place and upload it.

For those of you who keep track of my audio commentaries, we're now in the midst of a virtual epidemic of them. Since last fall, I've recorded an even dozen commentaries for various companies, most of them in the UK. My most recent ones for Kino Lorber/Redemption have been out for awhile now, the three Jess Franco titles (A VIRGIN AMONG THE LIVING DEAD, NIGHTMARES COME AT NIGHT and THE AWFUL DR. ORLOF) and Bava's 5 DOLLS FOR AN AUGUST MOON. Available now, or in the immediate future, are two from Arrow Films: Roger Corman's PIT AND THE PENDULUM (also available as a steelbook) and Robert Fuest's DR PHIBES RISES AGAIN in their box set THE COMPLETE DR PHIBES. The cherry on top of the cake (or is it the cake on top of the cherry) will be the release of the BFI's ALAIN ROBBE-GRILLET 1963-1974 box set which includes a new commentary from me on each of the five main features; as audio commentaries go, I have to say this is my proudest accomplishment. I've also delivered a commentary for one of my favorite movies, Georges Franju's EYES WITHOUT A FACE, for the BFI's upcoming release of that title. I've agreed to do another commentary for an upcoming US release which hasn't yet been announced, and still another is being discussed.

Donna and I also intend to be adding some material to our digital edition of MARIO BAVA ALL THE COLORS OF THE DARK in acknowledgement of Mario's centenary on July 30 of this year. If you've already bought and downloaded the book's digital edition, your copy will be automatically updated. And if you haven't, what are you waiting for?

Donna tells me that we are now officially down to our last 100 copies of MARIO BAVA ALL THE COLORS OF THE DARK. The book will never again be published in this same deluxe, unexpurgated format and there are no plans for us to reprint it in any form at present. Remember, this is not just a critical biography of Mario Bava; it also tells the entire story of Italian cult cinema from its silent origins till its climactic crisis in the 1980s. It also encompasses the careers of many other important players in Bava's filmography, notably those of Aldo Fabrizi, Gina Lollobrigida and Steve Reeves. If you want to own a copy, I'll tell you, in all seriousness, that this would be the time to start seriously pooling your resources to do so. We're not going to do a countdown or anything; we'll just be suddenly announcing one day that it's no longer available from us. And then -- as you and I will both sadly see -- the going price will shoot up even higher as it falls under the control of secondary sellers. But the digital edition will remain available - with all the advantages of the tangible edition (save tangibility!) and none of the disadvantages. It's even easy to read in bed!

I've got some other projects in progress as well. I've been editing and revising an unpublished novel of mine, THE ONLY CRIMINAL, which I've mentioned here before, in the hope that it might soon see the light of day. My BOOK OF RENFIELD appeared some ten years after THROAT SPROCKETS, and it's now going on ten years since BOOK OF RENFIELD appeared, so I'm due to return as a novelist. I also completed a novelette last year that we expected to bring out this year, but which got pushed aside by the imperatives of the Digital Edition project... I got some fabulous advance blurbs on it and am looking forward to its release sometime next year as well.

What else? Oh yes, don't forget that I'm writing a column for GOREZONE called "Tales From the Attic." In their next issue, I offer my own personal list of the Ten Best horror cinema-related books I've read, along with another ten back-up recommendations. Till now, GOREZONE has been available by subscription only, but I understand this is now changing and the next issue will receive some limited newsstand circulation. Check it out!

Caught Delmer Daves' THE RED HOUSE late last night on Hulu Plus, almost in the spirit of emergency after failing to find anything else acceptable to the two of us. It's a bit overlong, helpless to resist adding loving brushstrokes to secondary characters, but so much of value to savor here... It's not exactly a horror movie, but its mystery and suspense are of a high order, conveyed within an unusual but effective atmosphere that is hard to peg, somewhere between a Lewton RKO and a Disney Hardy Boys serial. (It's beautifully shot by DP Bert Glennon, who had earlier pictures like the 1933 ALICE IN WONDERLAND, Sternberg's THE SCARLET EMPRESS and John Ford's STAGECOACH under his belt.) Had this movie been presented to me without credits, I would have thought it was the work of Jacques Tourneur, if only for its deceptively mild, delicate handling of young romantic leads Lon McCallister and Allene Roberts -- whom I remembered from a couple of ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN appearances, notably the (again) similarly pitched episode "The Haunted Lighthouse." The scenes between a very young but quickly ripening Rory Calhoun and Julie London look ripped from the pages of LIL' ABNER and have the snapping, lusty vitality of early Russ Meyer -- in fact, the entire film, while superficially wholesome, contains a surprising number of fairly forthright sexual references in its dialogue; this serves to foreshadow the romantic obsession/mental ilness that's finally revealed as the prime motivator behind the mystery, which builds to a surprising, semi-giallo intensity given Edward G. Robinson's somewhat fetishized dread "The Red House."

In today's mail, I received a copy of Culture Factory USA's limited edition high-definition CD of Paul Williams' soundtrack for PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE, which I've heard is on the verge of exhausting its 3000 print run. I'm glad I snagged it (from Amazon); the soundtrack album hits the listener differently than the music heard in context, even on the 5.1 Blu-ray discs; as I listened to this CD, I could hear the instrumentation deployed as a means of complementing the lyrics, of couching the lyrics; the placement of a Hammond organ here or an electric guitar there stands out more as an element of composition - as the official statement of this musical idea - than it does when there is a visual element also in play. For these reasons, I found "Upholstery" - in some ways the wittiest of its musical satires if one of the score's less compelling songs - is in some ways the most revelatory cue from a production angle. But listening to this collection of songs again confirmed for me all the more that this is Williams' masterpiece. The libretto cuts deep into matters of life and love and metaphysics, not in the least shying away from the film's satirical basis in FAUST, but also the forces of irony that bring us all to our knees at one time or another. In some ways, it's more than De Palma's film warranted, and the primary key to its greatness.

Here's a song that I think could stand as an epitaph for almost anyone who's been around the block, in the arts, in business, in life or love - which I think gives its vaudevillian/music hall trappings a real sting, one that says that all stories must come to an end because the show must go on.

New York Review of Books editor Robert B. Silvers in his office, as seen in THE 50 YEAR OLD ARGUMENT.

I got to see Martin Scorsese and David Tedeschi's documentary feature THE 50 YEAR OLD ARGUMENT (about THE NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS) last night - I had to go looking for it online, as it has so far aired only on the BBC. The film's onscreen commentators surprisingly favor the British and Irish contributors to the venerable newsprint journal, and it may well be too intellectual to qualify for broadcast on PBS here in the States - and where else would you find it? But it's a surprising, welcome and often engrossing study of the leading role played by one publication in a time when American life was more involved and stimulating, when our culture was being actively determined by books and writers, by intellectualism, literacy and worldliness - as well as revealing yet another facet of Scorsese's love for the New York of his own life and times. In the 1970s, I was a regular reader of the NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS and probably a happier person for it; Scorsese and Tedeschi made me feel guilty for falling off the wagon. One speaker in particular reminded me of the importance of reading and responding to the work of one's own time, because literature is a dialogue; it is involvement and interaction that keeps literature vital and moving forward. No one should ever fear of writing the first book to be read by no one.

I found particularly engrossing a segment concerning Joan Didion's NYROB essay about four young black men arrested in connection with a series of Central Park rapes, and how they were subliminally pre-judged in the mainstream press by the introduction of the biasing term "wilding." So well did this word work on the fears of the city's influential white populace that the suspects were identified in the press with their full names - including that of one 14 year old later forensically proved innocent. Didion recalls that working with NYROB editor Robert B. Silvers increased the length of her essay by three-fold. I only vaguely recall the case, but I found this almost scary in its prescience, as our politicians now use similar tactics all the time in the press, against one another and against other countries, biasing the public with their loaded lingo. Didion is not only interviewed but shown reading from her essay.

When the film ends, you may feel appalled at the emptiness of our time, how our lives have become engulfed not only by ungrounded images, but images taken at face value in media that continually grows more tyrannical without context and without that grounding in an engaged and informed, conscious dialogue. Life should not be processed in clicks.
__________

Updates:

According to VARIETY, THE 50 YEAR OLD ARGUMENT will debut on HBO on October 6. Not a likely outlet for this sort of programming, but bravo to them.

Also, reader John Seal writes:

"In light of your blogpost today, you may be interested to know the CP5 [Central Park 5] were finally (FINALLY!) exonerated... http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/20/nyregion/5-exonerated-in-central-park-jogger-case-are-to-settle-suit-for-40-million.html?_r=0

"There's a very fine documentary about the case that I highly recommend: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2380247/?ref_=nv_sr_1. "

This new science fiction film from the UK was way oversold to me. There is quality here, a very watchable, occasionally engrossing technique of style and subtraction, but the serial monotony of the story - a female of extraterrestrial origin lures a series of men into an apartment that traps and absorbs them (think the scenes in Adjani's apartment in Zulawski's POSSESSION played out on black Astaire-Rogers studio floor) - should have more substance or purpose. The old saw about the alien who finds themselves becoming more human after prolonged wearing of their human skins also gets played again, and the film is basically reducible to an abstract remake of JAWS in which the shark ultimately gets eaten. Jonathan Glazer's directorial stance withdraws from the story to a point that initially seems godly but is ultimately atheistic. I've heard this described as Kubrickian, but there is absolutely none of the poker-faced humor that is Kubrick's hallmark. If anything, there are moments reminiscent of Lynch's ERASERHEAD and these are the moments that make this movie so pleasingly environmental and demanding of larger screen immersion. I did not think Scarlett Johansson was exceptional, but I've always found her competent. Worth a look, but hardly the Second Coming.

What is your idea of perfect happiness?
Those moments when I feel outside of time - when I'm engrossed in reading a book, watching a film, looking at a painting, or gazing at the ocean; when I feel lost (and found) in conversation, or kissing; when I'm caught up in the urgency of writing something beautiful and true.

What is your most marked characteristic?
Productive.

What do you consider your greatest achievement?
MARIO BAVA: ALL THE COLORS OF THE DARK.

What is your greatest fear?
Losing my wife. That, and being conscious during my cremation.

What historical figure do you most identify with?
Tim Lucas.

Which living person do you most admire?
Donna Lucas.

Who are your heroes in real life?
Writers and artists and filmmakers too numerous to mention; their fabulous muses; good mothers; people who care for animals and the aged.

What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
Need.

What is the trait you most deplore in others?
Dishonesty.

What is your favorite journey?
A correspondence.

What do you consider the most overrated virtue?
Success.

Which word or phrases do you most overuse?
Hello. What?

What is your greatest regret?
Not believing enough in myself; not speaking French.

What is your current state of mind?
Impatient.

If you could change one thing about your family, what would it be?
My parents... but this would also change me - and so, having already survived the hand I was dealt, maybe not.

What is your most treasured possession?
My manuscripts.

What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?
Unrequited love.

Where would you like to live?
A clean and spacious house, large enough to hold everything without a hint of clutter, conveniently located in a cheerful, interesting neighborhood, in a country with a good health care system.

What is your favorite occupation?
Writing.

What is the quality you most like in a man?
Reliability.

What is the quality you most like in a woman?
Reliability.

What are your favourite names?
Van Neste Polglase, Lady Ottoline Morrell, Paul Vaguely, Dolores Haze.

What is your motto?
Never give up.

Dick Smith - the cinema's most important makeup artist since the immortal Lon Chaney - has passed away at the age of 92, leaving behind him a treasure trove of character and horror makeups whose imagination and scientific detail were truly indistinguishable from magic: LITTLE BIG MAN, HOUSE OF DARK SHADOWS, THE GODFATHER, THE EXORCIST, ALTERED STATES, THE SENTINEL, GHOST STORY... and so many more. As many of the stories being repeated today confirm, he was also one of the great gentlemen of the business. This - I'm happy to say - I got to experience, a few times, by telephone.

I had the pleasure of interviewing Dick a couple of times, back in the 1980s and 1990s - first in relation to an uncredited favor he did for his protégé Rick Baker in relation to David Cronenberg's VIDEODROME (in the basement of his home, he and Steve Johnson took a full body cast of Deborah Harry for a scene that was ultimately not filmed), and then again as Donna and I were preparing VIDEO WATCHDOG's sixth issue, devoted to THE EXORCIST - an issue whose impact directly led to the publication of Mark Kermode's BFI Modern Classics books on the film, his documentary on the making of the film (which appears on the DVD and Blu-ray of the film, and William Friedkin's own "The Version You Thought You'd Never See" recut.

While interviewing Dick for a VW piece about the film's subliminal imagery, I asked him about this now-famous facial makeup done for THE EXORCIST. At that time (in 1990), he had - or, I briefly suspected, pretended that he had - no recollection of it, because the moment had the aura of a secret that wanted to be kept, and no one had really explored this aspect of the film in it's nearly 20 years of release. I explained that it was a subliminal image, something I had first seen pop out at me in a darkened theater the day before the film officially opened in December of 1973; I promised to send him a copy of the image to examine and comment on. To get one, I had to freeze-frame my VHS of the film, sit in front of my analog television set, and shoot a whole reel of film of the image, hoping to get just one that wouldn't have "roll bars" interfering with it - this was long before digital frame grabs. It worked - and I was later also able to pull some other shots of the makeup (not in the film) from a rare 16mm reel of withdrawn TV spots.

When Dick saw the images, he remembered doing the makeup and - something I'll never forget - he congratulated me on the acuity of my vision, one of the nicest compliments I've ever received, considering from whom it came. William Friedkin separately had identified the actor wearing the makeup to my co-author Mark Kermode as Eileen Dietz - this was something not previously known, though Eileen's participation elsewhere in the film was well-known at the time; Friedkin said that the "Apparition" image, as he called it (which I dubbed "Captain Howdy" because this is how Regan identifies the voice inside her elsewhere in the picture), was actually that of a demon test makeup that "didn't work" in its intended use on Linda Blair, but which he later decided might have power if used onscreen briefly.

Mark and I were not at all sure, given its crude, high-school theatrics look, that Dick had done the makeup, but he did admit to doing it, explaining that it was something done in relative haste and not really agonized over. It wasn't anything meant to be seen clearly. He remembered it appearing in the film only once, in a brief scene where the Apparition was double-exposed onto the face of the rotating head model, giving it the brief appearance of literal possession as Regan's room was shaking and quaking - which he considered "probably the most terrifying image in the picture." He was genuinely surprised to learn that it had appeared elsewhere in the movie.

We published the Captain Howdy image for the first time anywhere back in June 1991, and it has since gone on to be paused on countless VCRs and DVD players, to appear on T-shirts and even album covers. But seeing it linger in a still frame is quite different to having it flash out of you in the dark of a big-screened theater. Though it was a makeup that Dick Smith had literally done so quickly that it was instantly forgotten as he pursued some other on-set challenge, it has gone on to become one of the most famous horror images of all time, and I'm sure - in retrospect, and rightfully so - one of his proudest accomplishments.

See also this earlier blog entry about the origins of Captain Howdy.

THE GREEN GIRL (2014, thegreengirlmovie.com)
This documentary by George Pappy is a most welcome profile of the late and unjustly forgotten actress Susan Oliver, who died in 1990 at the age of 58, but it's also - in many ways - the story of a profession with its own growing pains and related sacrifical victims. Though named in tribute to Oliver's best-remembered role, as the torrid dancer Vina on the pilot STAR TREK episode "The Cage" (which became the later two-part episode "The Menagerie"), the film doesn't dwell unduly on that one highlight; it correctly attends to Oliver's remarkably unique and diverse career as possibly the only "Guest Star" of the Golden Age of Television to have earned that distinction without first (or ever) becoming a top-billed star in films or television. She achieved that standing by bouncing from one outstanding one-shot performance to another. She did have a dozen or so film roles to her credit (the biggest being the second female lead, after Elizabeth Taylor, in BUTTERFIELD 8), and she held onto her blonde, blue-eyed good looks so long she was able to play a college student while in her late thirties. However, she did not play "the game"; Oliver rejected both a Warner Bros. feature contract and several offers of her own series, so determined was she to remain available to whatever best opportunities on stage or screen might come along - alienating moguls and agents alike, regardless of the outstanding performances she continued to give or how well-liked she was by her directors and fellow actors. Indeed, one of her last career-sabotaging decisions was to decline a friend's campaign to secure a star for her on the Hollywood Walk of Fame - because she didn't "believe" in stars, only in good work.

Interviewing Oliver's surviving relatives, fellow actors, friends and lovers, as well as some critics, Pappy delineates the special person she was: spontaneous, adventurous, courageous, creative, but above all, willful and determined to live by her own rules - though, ironically, she would only briefly outlive her even more dominant, controlling mother, the astrologist Ruth Oliver, who raised her as a single mother from the age of three. The film packs an overwhelming legacy of work (represented by numerous film and TV clips) into its first 30 minutes, with the balance exploring her personal life and secondary lives as an aviator and feminist, and she comes across vividly in all her splendor and faults. Though the film is complimentary about her few efforts as a director, the clips don't really support the commentators' enthusiasm, and while the film industry is often blamed for not being more flexible in accommodating her, it's apparent that many of her problems originated (as one friend bashfully admits) with "Susan just being Susan." That said, whatever her personal angels and demons may have been, they were also the raw materials she brought into play as an exceptional and memorable actress, whose talent played a large part - more than 130 guest appearances on different series! - in making the 1960s the first great decade of television drama.

If you already remember Susan Oliver's work fondly, I don't have to sell this; you already want it. But I'll go the extra mile to say that, if you're a working actor, you can't really say you know your profession unless you are familiar with this woman and her story. Available on DVD-R directly from this link for $19.99.

(c) 2014 by Tim Lucas. All rights reserved.

THE LOST MOMENT (1947, Olive Films)
Lurking behind this bad title is a surprisingly grand, highly romantic gothic mystery based on Henry James' THE ASPERN PAPERS. Robert Cummings stars as a New York publisher determined to obtain the never-before-published love letters of a 19th century poet to his muse. To obtain them, he poses as a novelist and arranges to rent a room in the villa in Venice where the poet lived and died, and where his muse still lives at the age of 105 (Agnes Moorehead, giving an impressive performance in astounding makeup for its time), looked after by her icily prim niece (Susan Hayward). Shortly after he moves in, the sound of piano music lures Cummings to a closed section of the villa where he is astonished to find the poet's muse - as he knew and loved her, nearly a century before - has he really travelled back in time, or is she the muse's niece, reliving her aunt's famous love story to compensate for her own loveless life? Tragically, this was the only film ever directed by actor Martin Gabel, a member of Orson Welles' Mercury Theater who shows a tasteful yet economical command of the medium; it's doubtful that Welles himself could have done much better with the material, and it's very good material indeed, scripted by Leonardo Bercovici (PORTRAIT OF JENNIE, THE BISHOP'S WIFE). The film is slightly let down by Cummings' light-weight, possibly miscast presence, but Hayward is ravishing and Moorehead unforgettable. With memorable support from Joan Lorring, Eduardo Ciannelli and Minerva Urecal.

This review (c) 2014 by Tim Lucas. All rights reserved.

RADIO DAYS (1987, Twilight Time)
Though not as high profile as ANNIE HALL or CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS, this warmly nostalgic, episodic look back at the preeminence of radio in 1930s and '40s life is one of Woody Allen's finest achievements. Because the subject is radio, and because Woody's representative is a youngster (Seth Green), the fantastic side of radio programming is accentuated, but the whole film and each of its vignettes could furthermore be said to address the thin wall dividing fantasy from reality - the revelation that radio's "Masked Avenger" is played by Wallace Shawn, the squeaky voiced cigarette girl (Mia Farrow) who becomes a haughty-toned high society commentator, the woman spied undressing through her apartment window by a group of kids later being introduced as their new schoolteacher, and the haunting moment when a Nazi U-boat may or may not be spied off the coast of Rockaway Beach. Even the biggest names in the movie have the smallest parts. Best of all, while the film has its share of neurotic characters, the film itself doesn't feel remotely neurotic for a change, and while there is a discernible AMARCORD influence at work, it doesn't cop the operatic style of that influence. The period setting is impeccably well sustained, from the five-and-dime storefronts to the heavenly interior of Radio City Music Hall, and it all builds to what may be the finest closing shot in Allen's filmography. I could easily see this film becoming a New Year's Eve favorite, much like A CHRISTMAS STORY has become for Thanksgiving and Christmas Day, if more people were aware of it - even though it tells us that the technology that really brought people together is a thing of the past. A must-see, beautifully brought to BD by Twilight Time, with an isolated Music and Effects track.

This review (c) 2014 by Tim Lucas. All rights reserved.

Joan Rivers, circa 1965.

I imagine that Joan Rivers left this plane as she would have wished, fresh from making another audience laugh, without knowing what hit her, and looking considerably less - or at least considerably other than her 81 years. David Del Valle reminds me that Joan was a fellow talking head of ours on an episode of A&E's BIOGRAPHY devoted to Vincent Price, which aired the week he died - so there was a connection there, which I'd forgotten. I admired her when she started out, when her comedy was based in things she had in common with her audience, when half the battle was getting laughs from the shock of recognition and when she let her vulnerability show. But as comedy changed, in its determination to reflect the world around it, she changed too, and the rewards that should have come with her success and longevity were not always forthcoming. She became more manically aggressive in her comedy and there was something about the grating, in-your-face caricature she became that, to me, was ripe with bitterness and a determination to outlast all those other bastards out of sheer cussedness. There is a poignant arc to her story, which is the story of a qualified artist surviving in a traditionally alpha male business, and I imagine it will be told and examined from more than one angle in years to come. She was not always my cup of tea, but she had my respect. She was one strong lady.

I blasted through Viv Albertine's memoir CLOTHES CLOTHES CLOTHES MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC BOYS BOYS BOYS like a box set of my favorite teleseries. The chapters are short (short enough for the reader to keep thinking, "I can read another and THEN go to sleep" until the sun comes up) but profound nonetheless, piling up into a potent, endearingly candid overview of a life in search of its own meaning.

The book is divided into two "sides," like an album, each side documenting the slow and sometimes grueling climb toward an achievement of artistic expression which for that period redefined Viv - namely, the short reign of the Slits and her decision, after sixteen years of marriage to a not entirely supportive husband, to reclaim her identity as a musician - which she in fact improved upon, reinventing herself as a fairly unique (and still musically innovative) minstrel of the joys, sorrows, ironies and bitter absurdities of female middle age experience. Much of the book also details her quest for love, which - unusually for any book on the subject - differentiates between her experiences of men who generated in her feelings of sexual attraction, intoxication and/or tension; it also includes some heartbreaking descriptions of her debasement at the hands of men who abused her physically or emotionally (my characterization, not necessarily hers), beginning with an abusive father who may have predisposed her psychologically to be attracted to disrespectful men and outright nutters (ditto). Yet the book's most personal and powerful episodes are those about her determination to overcome terrible, graphically described physical ordeals to become a mother.

I've known women with similar backgrounds and must consider this book an absolute success because I closed it feeling as though I'd known Viv her whole life - as a child, as an idealistic and adventuring teenager, as an earnest guitar student and ever-striving recording artist with the Slits, as a dreamer, as a woman, wife and mother, and as the reborn artist - body and soul, partly because her writing is so acute and her self-exploration so thorough and unsparing, that she takes one not only into her confidence but into her self. Her documentation of what she experienced emotionally as the female lead in the film EXHIBITION is the most honest description of the acting process I've read by a contemporary actress. As for her coverage of the Slits, it's everything I wanted from the TYPICAL GIRLS biography (which I didn't feel fully delivered, though it covered more ground), though it does skimp a bit on Budgie's contribution/departure and the second album - which Viv describes as being an advance on the first in some ways, something I would have liked to hear more about.

In fact, if this book is lacking anything, it is descriptive appreciation of the music that inspired Viv and made her want to become a musician, and specifically a guitarist - and its value to her is made more mysterious when she claims that she didn't listen to music for 25 years after leaving the Slits. (Her husband preferred that she leave music behind, to focus on family, and she also says it reminded her too much of her foiled ambitions.) Perhaps her muse was more environmental than musical, aroused in her by a desire to make sense of the clothes and boys that attracted her in the first place, to belong to the excitement they generated in her, but Viv was certainly in the right place and in the right company to seize the opportunity and she used it to make a contribution that was significant then and continues to be.

Above all, CLOTHES/MUSIC/BOYS is a human document about a talented but unsure woman struggling with the voices and forces in her life that would prefer that she conform to them, rather than address (much less fulfill) her own potential, and finally finding the center of strength and larger network of support that begins to make this possible. In its telling, it exposes so much below the author's steely but tender surface as to expose most other musical autobiographies as so much show business.

Out now in the UK, with a US edition coming in November.

I've always remembered SALVADOR (1985) - now available as a limited edition Blu-ray disc from Twilight Time - as Oliver Stone's best film, but last night's revisit found it not aging so well. The early scenes set in San Francisco, introducing rogue journalist Richard Boyle (James Woods) as someone whose personal life is spiralling out of control, seemed so nakedly contrived and phony (in that special pastel way so many 1980s films seem to be) that it set up the question, "If the scenes shot in your own country seem unbelievable, how is this going to fare any better once we get to El Salvador?"

Well, I found much of the El Salvador material overly contrived as well. Stone can't be faulted for not warning us - we're told that the characters have been fictionalized up front - but there is fictionalizing that is done with delicacy to lure the viewer to truths underlying characterization, and then you have composited caricature, which is closer to what we have here. In the plus column, John Savage steals every scene as photojournalist John Cassady - by becoming his character rather than aspiring to a grand slam, and Cindy Gibb gives her role as an ill-fated American nun exactly what the film needs to make her eventual loss emotionally resonant and calculable. What I remembered as a strong, possibly career-best, performance by James Woods is basically James Woods giving us more James Woods than we need to decide for ourselves whether or not Boyle (Stone's co-screenwriter, incidentally) is an asshole; the whole movie seems pitched to confirm this, even in so many words, and his tendency to overshoot the mark draws more comic attention to himself than to the sober intentions of the movie. It can't be denied that SALVADOR contains some powerful scenes, but almost without exception what makes them powerful is the grim requiem music played over them and the viewer feels imposed upon by music that requires a rote response.

Toward the end of the picture, a lot of scenes start ending with dissolves all of a sudden, indicating a much more protracted fleeing from El Salvador in an earlier cut than we're given, which is grueling enough. The agony of these final scenes depend on the film having established the authenticity of Boyle's love for the Salvadoran woman Maria (Elpidia Carillo), which it takes pains to do, but having Boyle return to the Catholic church for the first time in 30 years, confessing his ruinous sins to a priest for a pittance of a penance, but Woods can't help playing these scenes for too much of a laugh, so the film is ultimately deprived of the unbearably heart-rending finale it was aiming for. As it is, it's what we might adequately term a downer.

There is a great film in here somewhere, and it resides in the Stone-Boyle script, which uses Boyle's self-destructive spiral and his self-serving retreat (with pal DJ Rock, played by Jim Belushi as a walking, talking, smoking, drinking, whining pig pinata of American consumption and greed) into El Salvador as one of several foregrounded metaphors for a corrupt America's contribution to El Salvador's violent instability. The implication with Boyle's character is specifically what the film says pointedly when the Sandanistas ride into town on horseback, overthrow the local military base and start performing executions in the public square - that the solution is no better than the problem. Boyle thinks he's making a difference by drawing attention to this conflict, but he's really looking for a second chance - not even that: another way out.

This release marks SALVADOR's Blu-ray debut, and high definition lends impressive depth and detail to the film's compositions, and the 5.1 audio is wildly directional when it counts. Limited to the usual 3000 copies, Twilight Time's Blu-ray disc includes the 62m making-of documentary and 25m of deleted scenes included with the previous 2001 "Special Edition" DVD release from Fox Searchlight. Exclusive to this release are an isolated track of Georges Delerue's score, and a new audio commentary by Stone. I've not yet dipped into these extras, but I am interested in doing so. The film may have dated into more of an argument than it used to be, but it's still an argument worth having - and this disc comes to the debate generously prepared.

I've always wanted to hear STRICTLY PERSONAL by Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band in its elusive mono mix, and now - after winning a copy of the first UK pressing - I've finally had the pleasure.

It was not what I expected, and not fully what I'd heard described; I'd read that it was a more powerful mix, the "truer" mix, if you will. But it sounds to my ears, unusually, like Bob Krasnow's stereo mix came first and that the mono version is a compression of that. It's usually the other way around with albums of this vintage, but stereo was becoming standardized by 1968 with some important albums (like Jefferson Airplane's CROWN OF CREATION) not even receiving a mono release.

The album's controversial phasing is still in evidence, it just doesn't travel anywhere, except maybe up and down along the Human Totem Pole. Some elements buried in the hectic stereo mix - cymbals, bass, background vocals - are squeezed closer to the fore, and so can be heard more clearly, while other instrumentation collides in its compression into a shambolic miasma of sound.

I need to spend more time with it. After one listen, I'm not sure that I don't prefer the stereo mix.

Tristan Risk in the "T Is For Torture Porn" segment of THE ABC'S OF DEATH 2.

I very much enjoyed THE ABC'S OF DEATH 2; this compendium of 26 horror shorts on the shared theme of violent premature demise is a fountain of macabre creativity, encompassing J-horror, black humor, political commentary, feminism, sexual politics, surreal satire, Bill Plympton animation and even stop-motion animation. My favorite segments were Robert Morgan's "D Is For Deloused" (the stop-motion one), Kristina Buozyte's "K Is For Knell", Jerome Sabel's harrowing "V Is For Vacation" and the closer, Chris Nash's deeply unsettling "Z Is For Zygote." Of course, your mileage may differ - there is a lot of variety here, and it's all very watchable. And, if you should ever find yourself thinking otherwise, the next segment will be along in a few minutes.

I was particularly looking forward to the contribution by AMERICAN MARY's Jen and Sylvia Soska - "T Is For Torture Porn" - but I found it a bit insubstantial even in this context. If it only felt slight, that would be one thing, but it also feels abbreviated (not necessarily their fault) - to the point of leaving one unsure even of how the story relates to its title. It doesn't help matters that it's placed alphabetically amid some of the most visually and conceptually ambitious segments in the feature. As it is, one feels rushed through a blunt sketch of humiliation and inexplicable mutant revenge that needed more development and pay-off. That said, on the plus side, it stars Tristan Risk (AMERICAN MARY's Beatress), who gives the two-hour-plus film the biggest shot of star power it has. Looking at first like a Margaret Keane ballerina, she emerges from some unpleasant manhandling with her dignity intact and, when she turns the tables on her abusers, she becomes the aurora of cackling horror that is the film's single most arresting and memorable image. The Soskas themselves also appear as witches in the backgrounds of Steven Kostanski's clever TV commercial spoof "W Is For Wish," which also features support from ANTIVIRAL's Brandon Cronenberg.

Not yet in theaters, THE ABC'S OF DEATH 2 premiered yesterday as a VOD title which you can find at the following outlets:

iTunes: http://bit.ly/ABCs2iTunes
On Demand: http://bit.ly/ABCs2OnDemand
YouTube: http://bit.ly/ABCs2YouTube
Amazon Instant: http://bit.ly/ABCs2AmazonInstant
Google Play: http://bit.ly/ABCs2GooglePlay
VUDU: http://bit.ly/ABCs2VUDU

Postscript 10/6/2014:

Well, color me stupid. I was just informed that the last scene of the Soska Sisters' segment in THE ABC's OF DEATH 2 is shown after the movie's end credits. I dutifully watched all of the end credits - and with 26 different crews, they roll on eternally - but when the book appeared afterwards and faded to black, I assumed the movie was over and ran the renta-film back to watch my favorite segments again - not knowing there was still more to come. So I didn't see all of what I tuned in for. Of course, this may alter the tenor of my criticism - in fact, I'm told it makes sense of the "Torture Porn" title.

Delphine Seyrig's Feminist Acting Documentary

Farewell, Mater Tenebrarum

DOCTOR ORLOFF'S MONSTER: From Germany, In English

Some VIDEO WATCHDOG (P)updates

THE RED HOUSE (1947)

The Hell of It

Scorsese's NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS Documentary

Soledad Miranda: Born 71 Years Ago Today

On UNDER THE SKIN (2013)

The Proust Questionnaire

Per Mario

Remembering Dick Smith (1922-2014)

Susan Oliver Documentary Now Available

THE LOST MOMENT reviewed

RADIO DAYS reviewed

Joan Rivers (1933-2014)

Viv's Sliterary Debut

Revisiting Oliver Stone's SALVADOR

Strictly Mono

Killing Me Alphabetically With Their Songs