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Monday, March 18, 2024

More Batjacs ...

 


Produced by John Wayne --- Part Two


Of the Batjacs, Seven Men from Now may be an only one called canonical. Of westerns, it is close to a top of fifties heap. Extras for Seven Men from Now are lush with profiling of Budd Boeticcher, Kennedy, Gail Russell, more from the 1956 project. 2010 and thereabouts was when DVD buyers really got a money’s fillup. “Sparkhill” made these pocket documentaries. I don’t know if they are still in business, but they did a crackerjack job. Where your 78-minute feature comes with as much length again of bonuses, there is $5.99 well spent (Amazon’s current price, used discs low as $2.50). How much visual difference does Blu-Ray, let alone 4K make, unless you intend projecting your image on a coliseum wall? Between online bargains and what flea markets turn up, one could build a more than imposing DVD collection for as many dimes, though there is argument too for streaming option, where Seven Men from Now is had in HD for $3.99. Seven Men from Now once nowhere is accessible now as a commonest object. “Collectible” is quaint term by modern parlance. I thought to have hung the moon with my turned-red 16mm print of Seven Men from Now, like revealing treasure to ones my age or less I knew would not have seen it elsewhere. Where/how could they? Here was artifact exclusive to whoever had luck of discovery and pride of ownership. Open access to come was more democratic, so of course to be preferred, but what was having a Faberge egg when anyone might get cartons of them? I could exit the house today and fairly trip over Seven Men from Now.


Coming out of late seventies televised cloud courtesy CBS (a single run), The High and the Mighty seemed less high despite fond memories from 1954, not so mighty as hit status from earlier time implied. Were watchers easier to please in the fifties, or had airplane disaster films become too much more sophisticated, like air travel itself? A damaged reputation can seep into bones of anyone’s revisit, even those making any/all allowance for things vintage. The High and the Mighty, twenty-five years old when the network booked 1979 flight, seemed older and was cramped besides by square-tube the bane of post-53 product. I had focused on what was weak about High/Mighty until recent visit to discover instead fine aspects of it, easy at last to grasp what made this a historic hit for John Wayne and distributing Warner Bros. Here was first-time spectacle of modern air travel on Cinemascope/color terms, suspense of near-doom for star ensemble for seasoning. If ever there was can’t miss feeling among trade watchers and WB sales force, The High and the Mighty had it. Peril plays for me because aspects of then-aeronautics raise concern of how resource of seventy-years back can save this planeload of humanity. DVD extra said flights from Honolulu to US west coast were a longest in the world over ocean and with no landing available in case of emergency, twelve hours aboard unless you come down sudden into water like a mountain you’d slam into. Shivers me to think on it … imagine same in 1954. Did The High and the Mighty discourage commercial air travel? Can’t imagine major lines being happy, despite repeated mantra that one is safer on planes than driving an automobile. Some reassurance when you’re going down …


Spencer Tracy was supposed to do the Wayne pilot part. I’m glad he didn’t. Like name actresses who turned down spots among crowded cast, Tracy may have balked at High/Mighty not revolving around him, as John Wayne might were this not his company producing. Wayne was chief pilot aboard whatever craft he sat, let alone one flying under his own colors, off-casting his compromised “Dan Roman,” perceived failure and now underling who saw passengers, including wife and son, perish years before in a crash impliedly his fault. Roman is humble/humbled to a finish where Wayne dynamic force comes to final act rescue of his imperiled flock. Dan Roman is among Wayne’s best and quietist leads, his authority the greater for being withheld so long. Flashback of him stumbling off a doomed craft to find his child’s burning teddy bear packs expected wallop, moment reminiscent for me of Wayne as Sean Thornton in the boxing ring just after killing his opponent, or Ethan finding torn clothes of victims in The Searchers. It works splendidly in context of full-out melodrama that is The High and the Mighty. Success of latter and previous Hondo were career peaks for Wayne, both done on his terms and without crutch that was Ford or Hawks. I don’t wonder that impetus for The Alamo increased the more around this time. If Wayne could ramrod High/Mighty/Hondo, where was limit to energy/resource? Suppose anyone suggested to Wayne a reissue for The High and the Mighty after success of Airport in 1970? Guess he would have felt it too spent by then.


Some picture DVD as a dead format, but discs like these Paramount Batjacs should be cherished. We need Blu-Ray to fill properly a jumbo screen, but for television large in themselves, plain discs work fine. The High and the Mighty has a second DVD devoted to extras, one about passenger flying in the fifties with survivors of the era, many of whom had flown during the war. I was captivated. You’ll not duplicate this today for such veterans being gone. Track of the Cat was next of watches, scope and strange and largely bereft even of color by director William Wellman on experimental tour. Never mistake him for conventional. And yet coming from Wayne meant money, Robert Mitchum the star, Track of the Cat good for two million in worldwide rentals against negative cost of $1.1 million. Wayne/Fellows and later Batjac had keen commercial instinct. Track of the Cat was bleak, dark, radical almost, yet profited. William Wellman wished in hindsight he had never done it, but could late interviews really reflect his views?, the director acknowledging upheaval that had come with age, his seventies memoir which he referred to as necessary therapy entitled A Short Time for Insanity. Wellman was in fact house director for Wayne/Fellows, having signed to do six features, overall prosperity of the firm result in part of his being there and able/ready to pitch in not only to projects where credited, but ones needing eleventh hour help.


One limping was Ring of Fear, a circus cloak of many colors (plus Cinemascope) adjudged unreleasable until Wellman did repairs. Ring of Fear gave 1954 three rings of precisely what it wanted  … a wide screen, circus-based thrills, and of all incongruous things, Mickey Spillane, as himself, cracking a midway mystery at behest of lion wrangler Clyde Beatty, something for every-single-one it seemed. Wellman did miracles at his forge, Ring of Fear entertaining well as any such hodgepodge, and again, it was a hit, a sizeable one (finished for less than a million, and $1.8 million in profit). Besides being valued record of Beatty taming cats, not a thing to be underestimated, there is Spillane as actor, and a pleasing one. Sean McClory as a psycho killer applies acid-to-aerial ropes the bane of performing under movie big tops it seems. Wayne had grown a stock company of players, all good and seemingly liked by viewership. A number of support folk are profiled within Paramount/Batjac DVD’s. Others recommended but not here in depth are Island in the Sky, another by Wellman, and some say best of his for the company, Hondo directed by John Farrow, an outstanding Wayne western with or without 3-D. With Man in the Vault there is opportunity to observe Batjac’s second string showing what they could do with leads, a 73 minute B by definition but good at the time to absorb overhead for what had become a major-minor operation, Wayne-Fellows/Batjac being how-to for making star independence work.





Monday, March 11, 2024

A Feature Group Up from Depths

 


When Paramount Played with Batjac --- Part One


Call this “When DVD Was King,” or Gold Age for Discs. Guess all formats have such apex, be they laser, even cassettes of long past. CD’s still come out, though I’m not certain who buys them. DVD stunned for quality when initially arrived. First toe-in I recall was 1999 and Teenagers from Outer Space. Suddenly we knew 16mm was kaput. Now it is discs that are dinosaurs, for why buy when streaming will do? Except streaming is them deciding what you watch, and when, “physical media” the retreat we make to possession that is true. Must be merit there, for Teenagers from Outer Space still lies upon home shelf, but watch it again? There might be the rub. Old enough DVD’s breed nostalgia all their own. Folk in younger category treasure first spin of a favorite on shiny disc. To show age now is to recall VHS you once collected, hoarding laser discs plain eccentric. I dusted off a DVD from Paramount's group of John Wayne estate assets, Track of the Cat seen for a first time in a long time. Starting with voluminous extras rather than the 1954 feature, I came out of hour’s instruct with a Track/Cat masters, ready to school the world on a feature out of circulation since I was childish as in seven or eight, Track of the Cat but one of a bunch Paramount unveiled in 2010 along with others of lost lot owned by Batjac and Wayne heirs. These belonging to the star’s estate assumed myth place for being gone amidst rumor negatives rotted on inadequate storage vine, and maybe we’d not see the movies again. Remember relief when the lot came back in bulk?


John Wayne formed his independent company with a producer named Robert Fellows. Wayne-Fellows teamed with Warner Bros. for financing and distribution. Negatives after eight years would revert to Wayne, as in they’d be his and nobody else’s (Fellows bought out and gone by then). This was arrangement similar to Alfred Hitchcock’s with Paramount, eight years opportunity for partner firms to realize return from reissues and perhaps television play. Trouble with both Wayne, Hitchcock, others like them, was ill-equip to protect fragile elements once Warner, Paramount, whoever, relinquished interest. It was a same situation with Alan Ladd and his “Jaguar” group. Movie stars, directors, are folk much gifted, but not necessarily at archiving. Did John Wayne take casual attitude toward oldies the stuff of warehouse expense and limited prospect for return? Like keeping one-eye or three-legged cats you’re too kind to put down. Remember panting for return of Hondo and The High and the Mighty and nobody showing them? Both limped finally onto CBS during 1979 for new-got VHS recording. My cassettes may still be around … but here’s oddity, to this day we don’t have The High and the Mighty on Blu-Ray, or Hondo on home 3-D. It’s as though they’ve retreated again. Both stream in high-def, privilege that could be withdrawn by flick of a Paramount/Batjac pen. What age of uncertainty this still is for collectors, owners preferring we not possess for keeps, objective to charge on each occasion watched, televisions a toll booth like what I drive through in West Virginia on ways to Columbus each year. Enjoy at choice and leisure? Even if you “own” a streaming film, it can be dammed up a next day. Gather ye nuts while you may but know curtains can lower anytime.


Paramount leased whole of the Batjac properties for home release, “all or none” from what I understand, no cherry pick of Wayne ones with stray pups left in the pound. It is one thing to have Hondo with generous extras, quite another where it’s Plunder of the Sun, an average if that Glenn Ford melodrama that never had legacy so good. Being friend to underdogs, I began much as Glenn did for Mayan treasure, Plunder of the Sun him soldier-of-fortuning over Mexico locations for gold from ancient time. Almost a total was done on location, among disc bonuses a letter Ford sent from there to his beloved mother, nice human interest as narrated by Ford son Peter. There is also background explained by an archeologist who has dug ruins which was Sun backdrop for action, explaining facts they got right, or sweetened for sake of narrative. This all almost makes Plunder of the Sun a pleasure watching, one I won’t call dull, as Glenn Ford in action mode and exotic settings will sustain 81 minutes. Directing is John Farrow, minus celebrated long and traveling takes, but doing imaginative stalk through what was left of pyramids, these open to cast/crew in such way to make me wonder if Wayne himself went down to grease authorities for freest access to sacred spots. Pity plot wasn’t tighter wound, Ford and Sean McClory beating each other up to fatigue effect. There once were movies like Plunder of the Sun by the peck, and Glenn Ford seems to have been in most of them.


Trouble is, I fall asleep during one like this or another Batjac, Man in the Vault, even in close to a straight-back chair, best revive a small square of Lindt Dark Chocolate, eighty-five percent cocoa, like what comes from way south of border, this not product placement, just proposal of chocolate as safe alternative for outright speed one might otherwise take to get through sluggish shows. A Glenn Ford actioner was as safe a bet as Wayne-Fellows (precursor to Batjac) could make on formula product. To later application of same (1956) came a western, Seven Men from Now, which then seemed not markedly different from a host of like-others starring Randolph Scott, assurance against loss as what of his ever failed with paying crowds?, especially now with drive-ins at peak of playing any/all to eager parkers and eaters of meal-size concessions. In brief, Seven Men from Now and like were best in all-outdoors, being shot open air and pledged to please. What by-now Batjac did not see was classic status Seven Men from Now would achieve once auteur status adhered to director Budd Boetticher and writer Burt Kennedy. Turns out this was arguably the best of whole lot Batjac licensed to Paramount, and more than worth effort to restore far-gone, but not irretrievable, elements. Seven Men from Now got most fest exposure for Boetticher and Kennedy being present to hear fresh huzzahs for long-past effort.


Herewith for the record are titles within Batjac group Paramount issued, though none save Hondo and McLintock have so far surfaced on Blu-Ray (most can be streamed in HD): Plunder of the Sun, Hondo, Ring of Fear, The High and the Mighty, Track of the Cat, Island in the Sky, Man in the Vault, Seven Men from Now, and McLintock. There were other Batjacs, some having stayed with Warners since initial release (like Blood Alley), or housed with United Artists (Escort West, China Doll). What made the Paramount group unique was rarity once they finished first-runs and retreated back to Wayne possession. Warners tried using ones they had distributed for television in the early sixties, putting Hondo, The High and the Mighty, others, into a syndicated package offered first in 1960. That did not last long, John Wayne suing to stop tube release, denied court relief, then biding time till Warner distribution deal ran out, at which point titles disappeared from local stations. Said sour experience may have resolved Wayne not to share inventory with other distributors who surely came calling afterward. Fans would not have access to most of these pictures until the CBS runs, although McLintock saw endless network play to become a most familiar of Wayne titles on TV. Others became stuff of legend and object(s) of collector quest. Seven Men from Now began showing up on dealer tables at cowboy cons, ten dollars for as wretched a transfer as man could render, but what was Seven Men from Now by the seventies-eighties but obscure object of cult interest, a “must-see” among Danny Peary selections in his Guide for the Film Fanatic, a connoisseur’s western few else were familiar with.





Monday, March 04, 2024

Parkland Picks with Popcorn #3

 


PPP: The Scarlet Claw and 1975 Homecoming Parade, and The Lodger (1944)


A right combination of setting and selection makes memorable time spent with shows. Mine of late was The Scarlet Claw with The Lodger (both 1944), seen in pocket of paradise that is the Parkland, this third of recorded visits there, and so far a most stimulating for favorites ideally suited to a small corner of home sweet childhood home. We’ve all found tenderest view spot from which to recline back and let the rest of a world turn as will. Does private theatre work best in jewel box proportion, just room for you in the chair, one more alongside, and walls close as those confining Irene Ware and Lester Matthews in The Raven? Add concessions and wonder how afterlife at peak of splendor could surpass it. What charms particular about The Scarlet Claw and The Lodger? Just everything. With age comes winnowing, cream risen truest to the top and firmer embrace of what meant most over watching lifetime. Greenbriar explored The Scarlet Claw and The Lodger before, notably in 2016 and 2009. There is, as with any that’s best, fresh discovery to be had, but are those as visible to others? That would be for readership to address, nominate other titles perhaps, advise me to put these finally at rest. Cling denotes senior status, but what is the Parkland if not site to reflect upon past impressions, it after all host to 8mm in begin and benign times. In fact, Big Business from Blackhawk premiered there, as had Castle’s Dracula and The Lost World in digest format. To call this a “mancave” is to trivialize via term trendy and like others long hackneyed (might “fever dream,” “dumpster fire,” and “Sound familiar?” be also retired?).

Everybody's Friend Dr. Watson Smooths Path for Less Socially Gifted Holmes

Holmes Puts Two and Two Together to Identify Former Actress Now Murder Victim



Did Holmes need Watson more than Watson needed Holmes? Watson makes it easier for Holmes to merge with society, this because despite his “bumbling,” Watson puts folks at ease, and they like him for it. He is a buffer for Holmes, who alone is less adept negotiating subtleties of human interaction. I’ll take Nigel Bruce over Watsons more cerebral, latter combined with Holmes often two guys essentially the same guy, one superfluous for so little contrast from the other. Watson as grease to communal wheel in The Scarlet Claw allows Holmes to investigate upon his own, suspects disarmed by the good and garrulous doctor thus less likely to interfere with master detective moves. Query this time: Why do Holmes and Watson sail, or fly (?) across the Atlantic, risk German aircraft or subs, to attend a gathering of the Canadian Occult Society when Holmes is so disdainful of their findings? He is tactless when Lord Penrose (Paul Cavanaugh) proposes supernatural cause for dire events in home village La Mort Rouge. Here is where Watson can leaven moods and perhaps get between serious arguments that might otherwise develop. Repairing to La Mort Rouge with remainder of action set there, The Scarlet Claw becomes the horror film posters promise, much so for character faces that populate central-based tavern where dread is nightly hashed out. Here was where actors were cast for ugly alone, in fact making a career of it. Ted Billings for one need not speak, merely have his close-up and be Ted Billings for discomfit that implies, such fraternity for which Rondo Hatton could serve as sergeant-at-arms. When Nigel Bruce first sees Ted’s face and blanches, he might be any one of us, except we know Ted and comfort at his being there. Whole of the Sherlock Holmes series was asylum to such near-freak men (sometimes women) whose visages good as signed paychecks for long as they had capacity to work.

Gerald Hamer as Alastair Ramson nee Postman Potts Menaces Kay Harding

A 1975 Alastair Ramson Crashes the Homecoming Parade in Clown Guise 


The Scarlet Claw
teaches value of disguise, its killer several identities in rotation and each eluding Holmes, “Alastair Ramson” (Gerald Hamer) a once actor of many faces whose intended victims live in La Mort Rouge. We are reminded that stage artists of a past century could, often did, vanish from public sphere to private obscurity, nothing to bespeak their career but faded portraits and torn playbills. Think of real-life stock personnel and travelling mummers of that era who made the switch to screen work. We’d not know of them save surviving film from early on. Those who solely populated stages are if anything faces from the Daniel Blum book, or other long-ago histories of legit life, forgotten but by few. Consider names that would be unknown today had they stayed on boards or quit same once careers were done: Buster Keaton, Boris Karloff, Marie Dressler, so many others --- their permanence bought by film, not for years spent entertaining live. Alastair Ramson enjoys privileged access to victims and unknowing authorities by simply switching from one character to another however it/they suit him. I once borrowed Ramson’s device to create, utilize, then discard an identity so as to march in a homecoming parade during college, an event for which the school community was invited to build floats and spend much of the morning canvassing streets to amusement of onlookers. I let no one see me gather getup that was a clown suit, fright mask, flame-red wig, and lace-up knee boots. The masquerade so far as I know fooled everyone. How could they detect? I was covered from head to toe. What fun to approach people who knew me, but never like this. I was not exposed for whole of the day, nor did I cop to staging the stunt, even from years’ hindsight. There was a photograph, taken quite by chance, which appeared in the school’s 1976 annual as shown above. For one day at least I was Alastair Ramson, minus homicidal impulse. Did The Scarlet Claw inspire my charade? Possibly, for by then I had seen it innumerable times. However the notion was planted, it made for a unique and pleasurable deception.



How honest are we in picking our identification figures? More would choose Victor Mature than Laird Cregar, but having looked at The Lodger, then Hangover Square and I Wake Up Screaming, I’d submit that many more are like Laird Cregar than Victor Mature. Cregar was the actual as opposed to the ideal, an isolated image many know from mirrors where they’d prefer to see Mature. Latter is “Frankie Christopher” in I Wake Up Screaming, a breezy operator who attracts sisters Carole Landis and Betty Grable. Both could readily love him, in fact one does, Frankie a sort of man other men would emulate, especially “Ed Cornell” (Cregar), who is obsessed by Landis and bitterly resentful that she will be attracted by sort who’d score on approach to any mound, his hitting the ball a foregone conclusion. Victor Mature was who we were expected to bond with --- what’s he got besides looks, physique and ready charm that we haven’t got? Truth was (and is), there was more to identify with in Cregar’s Cornell, or “Mr. Slade” in The Lodger, or “George Harvey Bone” in Hangover Square. Laird Cregar delved places private to viewership, his a persona movies did not need, let alone want, too many of. Ease of shorthand would call him a villain, or more descriptive “heavy,” as yes, he was by definition both these things, but Cregar touched nerves lots did not know they had, took his being to places we all dwelled, result reflection that said: He’s me, not Victor Mature. I suspect Cregar had fans less comfortable being fans, him the dark side of stardom’s moon. Ed Cornell is among Cregar outsiders, a lone cop but uncool as loner cops would later be, wanting and dreaming of a woman he’ll never have, in movies or outside them. No man in the audience could honestly imagine he’d get Carole Landis, or something like her, so they might just as well be Ed Cornell. Less disturbing were sick, twisted things Laird Cragar did in films than his characters living more/less like these guys were living as Victor Mature and lucky kin grazed on impossible dreams, onscreen and off.

Image Restoration Courtesy Mark Vieira/Starlight Studios


Cregar as The Lodger’s “Mr. Slade” is polite, keeps to himself, minds his own business … might rigorous therapy have ridded him of impulse to rip? Cregar worked at making his bent characters relatable. He may have underestimated how relatable they’d end up being. Mr. Slade slays because his brother was corrupted by a woman of the stage. He reveres the gone sibling in ways near creepy as the murders, none shown though George Sanders describes each lovingly and that was queasy enough for most in 1944. For better or likelier worse, The Lodger made Cregar a star. His Oscar Wilde on an L.A. stage had been calling card to a film industry so far unconscious of him, result a local triumph with a Fox contract secured. What tragedy and waste to lose Laird so early. Gregory Mank wrote a well-received biography, talked to many who knew or worked with the ill-fated character lead. Mank tells how Cregar was set to be Waldo Lydecker in Laura till pulled out and replaced by Clifton Webb. Occurs to me that had Laird lived, he might have gone on and played many if not most of roles Webb eventually had, though I concede that as Waldo he might have overpowered the ensemble, for sheer size if not personality, not so much a matter of weight as presence, like if Orson Welles were Waldo (did TCF brass discuss such possibility?). What-ifs are pointless if not annoying, and besides, had Cregar gone on, he would have somehow had to overcome a horror niche his lot thanks to The Lodger and Hangover Square, not easy considering high profile of both features.



A single scene in The Lodger turned a lock for which there was likely no key out, even had the actor lived, that being where he corners Merle Oberon near the end and she’s trying to reason him out of killing, an exchange between assailant and would-be victim that movies had not ventured so near to that time, Oberon’s “Kitty Langley” effort to soothe a maniac stuff of terror not even Hitchcock would go near for years to come (Frenzy a rough parallel, too rough in fact). Oberon does controlled panic beautifully while Cregar embodies the menace. Did audiences wonder if this was who the actor really was? Would Cregar have gotten out from under the Ripper role or ended up like Anthony Perkins after Psycho? He resented Hangover Square for being little more than a remake of The Lodger, as was acknowledged by credited writers. Peter Lorre had same trouble being cast as creeps over a long career … M had done that to him, while Lon Chaney, Jr. could thank the "Lennie" part for typing him forever more. Both would ultimately circle a drain that was casting to type with results easily predictable. Laird Cregar may well have seen such fate awaiting him. Was it any wonder he took such desperate measures to amend his physical self and become, if not Victor Mature, at least a countenance more presentable?





Monday, February 26, 2024

Useful Relic Format That is DVD

 


Digging For, and Finding, Disc "Extra" Gold


Once there stood mighty fortress that was DVD with extras and talkers and sometimes Easter Eggs, a bargain for modest price to have them. Blu-Ray buried a generation of these in the name of image improved but for most part not much else. I get out an old disc to always surprise of how much is there to enjoy, a couple returned to by sheer chance, years since exploring either, but glad to have done so. Was there really a time when Fox Video released all their Charlie Chan features and did them up deluxe, each box, as in seven boxes, with oodles of bonus content that carry 65-minute movies to a two hour finish? Here’s how excavating happens for me: a happenstance visit to Philo Vance via The Garden Murder Case, then the Kennel, the Dragon, and wanting more if not of Vance, then why not C. Chan whom I’d not called up since The Black Camel, only this time Sidney Toler rather than default choice Oland, thus Charlie Chan at Treasure Island, among best of Tolers, and more so a treat for Fox documenting the World’s Fair of 1939 in San Francisco where an entire island rose out of the bay thanks to man-effort and engineering, color home movies and testimony of those who recalled first-hand what creation was like. Segments being made in 2007 puts us sixteen years past ones who saw the real Treasure Island and were still around to speak of it. Then there was a wow of an extra comparing “Zodiac” villainy of the film with real-life Frisco serial killings a generation after. Chilling to contemplate are links suggested between the two.




So what influence led to retrieve of dust-laden Fall of the Roman Empire, Bronston behemoth of 1964 not consulted since 2008 when proud double-disc marched ways into household that till 2024 has watched Fall but once. Did its three hours daunt? Memory of the feature faded over sixteen years save much shooting in snow and honey of a
 chariot race plus duel to make Ben-Hur look like a Sunday surrey ride. Fall of the Roman Empire was owned in ’08 by “The Weinstein Company.” Is it still? Glory that was Rome looks still glorious here, what with production to take breath truly away. Why did I go see Duel of the Titans and not this? Checked for Blu-Ray access in the US and found none. Lots from elsewhere Regions however, these clearly digging what once straddled the world and remains longest lasting of all civilizations. Picture looked fine on my standard disc, a cinch that newer ones, even if Blu, would lack all of bonus content this ’08 release has. Never knew a lot about Samuel Bronston, but experts taught me here. Bronston and bunch rebuilt Rome on Spanish plains, him fleeced a whole time by “assist” lining own pockets to tune of millions, Bronston fated to fall upon Roman sword that was fail of this most massive among his ventures. Each of what Bronston made had to be mighty hits in order to enable a next. In this case, it was El Cid to grease chariot wheels, always-threat a boxoffice reverse that would fell Bronston’s fragile empire. The producer was himself a sort of update Rome, doing one more as colossal which was Circus World, which like Roman Empire, also available off-shore only on Blu-Ray.



All Chans were not created equal, as neither are discs hosting them. I began Chan (Toler) in Reno and had a good time till the image froze around fifteen minutes in, not to regain footing and henceforth a coaster. Some DVD’s last, others not. Extras play fine, the feature lasting barely past the first murder. One that did play, until lights out dictated by me, was a cluck called City in Darkness, CC in Paris (again) but this time sans son, any of them, comic that was no relief enacted by Harold Huber who was test of endurance beyond mish-mosh of a story I could/would not follow. Always a bitter pill to concede failure at watching any feature, though preferable to taxing oneself past point of boredom. Don’t want to sour myself with Chan for after all there may be Monograms to cope with down the line. Does Sidney Toler please as substitute for Warner Oland? I say yes for recognition of large shoes former had to fill, as who really could be so graceful as true-life mystery that was Oland? There was something distinctly uncanny about this man so few seemed to know well. He came and went to work till one day he simply went and never came back. Do I go on a limb by declaring Oland second only to Shirley Temple as most valued Fox property? The Chan series always made profit, and he was principal reason for it, Oland loss like Will Rogers for leaving major hole in release schedules. Toler filled in, someone had to, but things would never be quite the same. Time answered the riddle of how long the series could last when Fox let it go in 1942, bargaining with Toler so he could carry Chan elsewhere.



Wish I had lived more in a roadshow age. Saw some on two-a-day terms, mostly of musical bent, but what a treat The Fall of the Roman Empire would have been, surely balm for ages mostly young, talk in plenty giving way to action resplendent on scale movies had not so far touched. Don’t know how Bronston slept for pressure of finance and keeping massive force organized toward finish of undertaking that was Rome. One of disc interviews was a Bronston son who went to medical school rather than follow elephantine Dad footsteps. Offspring and wife visited massive forum sets, decorated inside and out, stunned as any civilian confronted by such effort. Imagine life as spawn off Olympian that was S. Bronston. And yet even gods do tumble, for Bronston went begging to Paramount for completion cash, giving up much to see over-bloated Rome through. Critics and much of viewership called Fall too much a downer, but let’s be fair, it wasn’t called Rise of the Roman Empire, even if maybe that should have been the concept and title. Taking three hours for a civilization to collapse was less burden at least than three centuries the real Rome took to fold, but what matter come 1964 with Paramount’s ill investment facing tepid turnstiles? Frustration for us is the monolith withdrawn from modern inspection, as with others of Bronston lineage. Fans call regular for US Blu-Ray release of Rome, Cid, Circus World, the spectacle-lot, but so far nothing. Maybe it needs the Cinerama restoration crew to pull these mastodons back from oblivion.





Monday, February 19, 2024

Works Well with Whiskey #3


 WWW: Robocop, The Sea Wolves, Sign of the Gladiator, and The Hill


ROBOCOP (1987) --- Outlaw action thriller they’d not dare today, Robocop silly on surface, a title giving exclamation to that, but don’t confuse with safe spandex  served over twenty years past (really, that many?). Robocop runs rapid, tawdry in the cut-price doing. Used to be flummoxed by those calling the eighties a golden era, or “last” golden era, but hang if things like Robocop don’t open my eyes. Robocop is fun in disorienting ways. No wonder it made a star director of Paul Verhoeven, forever young in maverick spirit it seems, yet the man is now eighty-five. I call Robocop pre-CC, that is Current Code. There are more of those than expected, Robocop near top for trashiness (seen Starship Troopers? Great), yet with plenty bold to say, nothing like Current Code compliant always safe and spineless. Robocop shines like a beacon from distant past (thirty-seven years anyway) to remind us there once were wolves in sci-fi clothing to challenge status quos rather than remain in resolute service to them. Robocop and kin are refreshing rebuke to chains binding now-Hollywood, good start to hang up super-suits or give same back to children where they belong. But what of baby teeth too sharp for marshmallows latterly “heroes”? I venture it is kids getting bored with current stuff, not just grown-ups. An “Unrated Director’s Cut” Robocop can be had on Blu-Ray. See it for a bloody good time.



THE SEA WOLVES (1980) --- Watched this plus The Guns of Navarone and what dispiriting difference mere nineteen years made. Old folk actioners were a late seventies staple, visible into the eighties, a final stand for stars once major stars who could fight and die convincingly for war or western purpose. Action in the end was all vets were saleable for, as what else would an international market support? Gregory Peck in drama might float TV-movie boats, but on a big screen, he, like others, must pack a gun where starring, or character-support where not starring. It was work, the best a player of venerable age could expect, many of comparable years finding reassurance in Peck, David Niven, giving good account of themselves in a scrap. From the producers of The Wild Geese, said trailers, and so indeed was this more of same, us left to wonder whose appetite was best served by should-be retirees buckling up again to quell international villainy. What I noticed of these Wolves was caution at movement and firing of arms, Niven uneasy with his pistol for lately being more-less sedentary on screen. We expected Gregory Peck to always be battle-ready, for hadn’t he been so just last night on a late movie? Concept is for Boer War colleagues, formed of late as “Calcutta Light Horse” members, to rouse themselves toward sink of German shipping for King and Country, much of two acts played for comedy except for junior recruit Roger Moore (in his fifties, but junior among these) whose mission is to seduce a could-be Axis operative after 007 fashion. Part of separating men from well-spent men was this group standing for camera inspection, which could be pitiless, for instance Trevor Howard, once reliable soldier in greasepaint now greased by years of tipple and damage that did him. Be patient re pace, forgive sluggish script (Reginald Rose) and direction (Andrew V. McLaglen), and you’ll get by. What is the word they use for stuff like this … elegiac?



SIGN OF THE GLADIATOR (1959) --- Rome --- long ago … the Liberty, almost as long it seems, since we sat for what is called “Peplum” by fans of such. I mainly recall men tied between horses whipped toward opposite directions, or Gordon Scott fighting Steve Reeves (Romulus/Remus), maybe Reeves piloting a Trojan Horse, which I persuaded our Sixth-Grade teacher to let us attend for extra credit. Did it have scholastic value? Don’t remember, but the idea seemed viable. Sign of the Gladiator streams on Amazon Prime, Italian-spoke, but there is menu of subtitles from which to choose, and ratio is scope-correct. True value of viewing enterprise is Sign’s status of earning biggest-to-then rentals for American-International, $883K (hold my toga, Horrors of the Black Museum). Goliath and the Barbarians would do even better, an astounding $1.818 million. This was the best money Jim and Sam saw till Beach Party in 1963. Admiring Sign of the Gladiator and sitting through it, however, are two different things. There is no principal “strongman,” Georges Marshal more wiry than muscle-bound, and he’s no gladiator either, that just to sugar marquees. What we get for strength is Anita Ekberg, zaftig to nines and barely clad aboard steed (wouldn’t that itch after a while?). She is referred to alternatively as “Bathsheba” and “Zenobia” --- in either case, the “Virgin Queen” of Palmyra, or whatever place she ruthlessly rules in opposition to Rome itself. I had fun at isolated moments even as they became increasingly isolated over 98 minutes which seemed like more and maybe was. I hope Jim/Sam gave this one a haircut before release, Amazon tendering not their version, but presumed “original” from Euro source.



THE HILL (1965) --- Star all of sudden Sean Connery had pick of properties by the mid-sixties and so chose The Hill, meat-on-bone recite of conditions within a military stockade in desert deep fry and shot in a spot parched as what story depicted. Connery wanted out of Bond-age early on. They hadn’t treated him well, saying no to percentage terms he sought, major burn coming of conversation with Dean Martin where SC learned the Matt Helm series got Dean much more than 007 brought its portrayer. But who fielded outside projects for Connery? We, at least me, wanted more Bond, not A Fine Madness, Woman of Straw, or The Hill. Woman of Straw is actually OK, especially so The Hill, neither fare for youth wanting more of Aston-Martins and jet packs. The Hill was of sort that might not have got American release were Connery absent. Makes one thirsty just watching, which explains WWW placement. Connery was to large extent a misplaced British actor, despite his being Scots, and you could say the Bond thing was, if a happy accident, anyway an accident. He was startled and made largely miserable by fan frenzy the product of 007. What could have prepared journeyman Brits for worldwide celebrity? So few had experienced it, none to degree Connery now did. He couldn’t chuck Bond quick enough once his contracted five were done, even if there was reluctant return with Diamonds Are Forever, which he did for extraordinary fee donated to Scottish charities, then a much later Bond accepted with personal control strings attached. The Hill is grim, sweaty, frankly hopeless, one of military setting that might appeal to vets who said such themes were too often fairy-tailed by movies. Directing was Sidney Lumet, whom Connery respected a lot, MGM back of the project with finance and US distribution. They surely did not expect much from it, but lo/behold The Hill did well in an otherwise bleak season, modest $1.5 million spent on the negative bringing back $3.9 million in worldwide rentals for ultimate profit of $706K.





Monday, February 12, 2024

Film Noir #27

 


Noir: Breakaway, Canicule aka Dog Day, Circle of Danger, Clash by Night, and Cloudburst


BREAKAWAY (1956) --- It’s another Tom “Duke” Martin thriller with Tom Conway! There were two, lensed in Britain, one US-released, Murder on Approval, while this one, Breakaway, I’m not for sure. Maybe RKO in waning days floated it to a handful of Yank cinemas. Someone more patient to do necessary research will enlighten us. Breakaway showed up in a “Forgotten Noir” DVD box, itself forgotten for coming out of VCI years back, but these  please where it’s small change intrigue one wants, or Conway toplining for a next to last time (The Last Man to Hang would follow, which based on Tom’s support cast, plus Terence Fisher directing, looks mighty interesting). Duke Martin as limned by Conway is described by online writers as a “suave, if a trifle elderly, private eye,” which troubles me (1) because Tom Conway was a sprightly fifty-one when he made Breakaway, and (2) I like to think I have much in common with suave, if elderly, private eyes, thus Tom Conway more an identification figure as I transition to “trifle” (plus) elder status. Duke detects as avocation rather than livelihood, involving himself in Breakaway’s mystery more for curiosity than quid a day plus expenses. For all narrative reveals, he never got paid for his troubles, as who invited Duke to horn in? Do real-life private dicks do pro bono work? Lawyers sometimes do, if seldom realizing so until their effort is spent, like J. Stewart as chump advocate in Anatomy of a Murder. Duke is on the trail of “a formula which may reduce metal fatigue,” which I had to look up, but still don’t really understand meaning of. Femme assist is Honor Blackman, nine years away from Pussy Galore, and hanged if I could reconcile the two. What culture shock must it have been for jobbing Brit players like Blackman to sludge along years in such disposables as Breakaway, then overnight find themselves catapulted to international stardom by the James Bond series? Such talent should have formed a support group to ruminate on how such an utterly mad thing could have happened to them, Blackman and Sean Connery to co-chair meetings.



CANICULE, aka DOG DAY (1984) --- I got vapors watching Lee Marvin dragged through this swampy French crime story, among final things he did and I’m guessing a job he regretted once plane touched down and he got a slant on what Euro hosts were planning. Lee was but sixty, seemed leagues older, or just plain spent. He was an action star now trapped doing action, a next after Canicule pairing him with Chuck Norris. I found no evidence of Canicule having a US release, but English-language prints were issued, alternate title Dog Day sounding like something Yanks would call a Lee Marvin vehicle. As “Jimmy Cobb,” he and confederates muff a bank job, Lee alone and hid in a barn way out from Paris where trouble started, cops and a rival gang in pursuit. Degenerate rurals stall a getaway, a brat kid making off with loot Marvin thought was hid. Canicule becomes more the farmers’ story than Lee's, patches of comedy leavened by violence to call up memory of Herschell Gordon Lewis, not a felicitous mate to Marvin. Frankly never heard of Canicule or Dog Day before Kino made their Blu-Ray available, but on proposition anything with Lee Marvin has to be worth watching once at least, I bought in. Not sorry for the ride, as you can’t call this boring, outrages and unexpected frequent nudity enough to renew conviction that there’s nobody like the French to upend expectations. Never saleable as an art film for being so frankly disgusting at times, this what saves bacon for those who’d not equate Lee with art in any event. Maybe he knew, or hoped, no one would ever see finished result, and until now, I’d guess few had. Canicule reminded me of those Mexican horrors Karloff did near the end where he had not notion of other and exploitative stuff they shot with intent of slotting same in with his work. Did Lee realize what sleaze he had let himself in for? And yet there is raw stuff that includes him, so we can’t let him off hooks altogether. Canicule is fine to sate grim curiosity, is even enjoyable on lowdown terms. Certainly R-worthy, had anyone bothered to rate it.



CIRCLE OF DANGER (1951) --- Don’t recall a shot fired or fist thrown in this subdued thriller, Brit-produced, where Ray Milland travels abroad to investigate a brother’s peculiar wartime death. Considerable interest comes of Jacques Tourneur directing, him never putting a foot wrong where in charge, especially when topic is noirish which this is despite cottage and country backdrop. Milland is for tracking members of a former Commando team whose return from a mission behind enemy lines saw but one casualty that is Ray’s sibling, each of the disbanded team with plenty to hide. War guilt and/or unresolved issues made basis for much melodrama to follow WWII, Circle of Danger among quieter ones, and the better for it, Milland older enough not to need or benefit from action spasms or tilt with femme fatales. Romance comes courtesy Patricia Roc, appealing in singular way this actress was, plus Marius Goring of Red Shoes background as possibly dangerous director of dance revues, an offbeat occupation for noir villains, if indeed he is one. There too is Naunton Wayne, formerly of comedy for Hitchcock and others, amusing if possibly sinister here. “Coronado Productions” was an independent spearheaded by David E. Rose. Cuts were made for a US release, though a Region Two DVD appears complete. Eagle-Lion promised Circle of Danger for US market as part of an “art” group to play specialty houses, “three to four years” a window promised before it and other titles would be offered to television, by mid-1951 on United Artists docket for stateside play-off. Reviews were mixed, “placid” among words bandied, though one reviewer saw merit in an ending “unconventional and a surprise,” which indeed it is, for I did not see same coming, this to further advantage for Circle of Danger, which while undeniably obscure, has much to please, and toward closure of noir watch lists, should prove a worthwhile detour.



CLASH BY NIGHT (1952) --- Melodrama for me seems “overheated” where same arguments are aired repeatedly, point made by each but beaten silly and exhausting by a welcome end. Not saying Clash by Night falls full in this category, but it tickles edges. There comes point in any third act where you’re ready to wrap things up and go home, more ongoing case nowadays than in a Classic Era where writing at least was more disciplined, as here it for most part is, but there is something wearing about a cuckold who takes forever getting wise, Paul Douglas ramping up voice volume till end point where all he does is shout at Barbara Stanwyck, who does her own reach in decibels, a trademark to go down smoother when male opponents stand there and take it, which Douglas and other male lead Robert Ryan distinctly do not. All this came indirectly of pen wielded by Clifford Odets, whose work we recognize for distinct P.O.V., but how much of Odets survived other cooks like Jerry Wald and Norman Krasna, producing for RKO release? They even copyrighted Clash by Night, so must have had ownership or at least large stake in the negative at one time. Howard Hughes gave them a rich deal and carte blanche for multiple features, and Clash by Night bears bold creative signatures. The Ryan character vocals a hate for women, which makes me wonder if Odets/whoever was letting off steam of his/their own. Stanwyck is black sheep come home to a fishing village she left in disgrace years before, soiled and thus shunned. Clash by Night has would-be adult content diluted by Code compliance, but intent is good and they take things at least far as any project could at the time. Marilyn Monroe is in for a better than small part, being one of stars over the title if not a lead. She’s as good here as would be case after she got more self-conscious and was grazed upon by acting coaches. Directing is Fritz Lang, this amidst work where he could find it, hobbled by reputation spread by players who couldn’t stand him, their number not topping ones who understood his genius and how it could help them. Clash by Night is out via Warner Archive on put-right Blu-Ray, always happy outcome for RKO’s that can use all of visual enhance they can get.



CLOUDBURST (1951) --- Another where we don’t want the killer caught but know for certain he must be. Cloudburst turns on irresistible premise that those who killed during the war will do so again given right provocation. They are trained and ready to even scores where conditions call for it, in this case Robert Preston as a resistance veteran tracking a criminal couple that did in his wife. Preston plays admirably subdued, a code breaker who’d not harm a fly but has deadly reflex to check conscience and do away with anyone who wrongs him. The war must surely have done this to many. How do you come home from wholesale killing without ever having impulse to do so again? Cloudburst puts sympathy with Preston --- we support his tracking quarry and having his revenge. Fact he does so satisfies, bringing him to justice less so. American release for Cloudburst in early 1952 saw little reward. Motion Picture Daily called it “a murky little importation from England … boxoffice output seems to be on the moderate side, which is on a par with its entertainment substance.” Variety spoke of Cloudburst in terms of “palatable celluloid,” fit at most for duallers, which was as much as distributing United Artists could expect from any of trades. They had taken over the title from Eagle-Lion, which folded its enterprise into UA, and we may assume promotion was perfunctory, as likely were receipts. Still, for Cloudburst explore of wartime fallout there is much to admire, its topic barely addressed by US filmmakers, though Act of Violence (1948) had certain parallels and was similarly rewarding. Cloudburst streams at present on Amazon Prime. There is also an On-Demand DVD from MGM/UA.

grbrpix@aol.com
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