Birth Days

Even in the face of recent passings, we should celebrate those talents still alive and creating. Oh, and it’s Woody’s birthday too:

Irvin Kershner RIP

I don’t even want to write another one of these — so in simple tribute here’s my favorite scene from THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK with my favorite John Williams track from the STAR WARS trilogy:

 

Leslie Nielsen RIP

Talk about a life with a second and third act. Leslie Nielsen started out as a stock 50′s square in classics like FORBIDDEN PLANET (1956), moving into character actor roles on TV shows such as BONANZA, THE WILD, WILD WEST, COLUMBO, NIGHT GALLERY and in films like THE RELUCTANT ASTRONAUT,  THE POSEIDEN ADVENTURE (1972) and of course, AIRPLANE! (1980), which led to a career resurgence with his coldly malevolent husband in CREEPSHOW (1982), and as Lt. Frank Drebin in the Zucker brothers brilliant series, POLICE SQUAD! The huge success of THE NAKED GUN (1988) feature brought Nielsen back to the big screen as a star — I probably laughed the longest and loudest in a movie theater during his hilarious umpire scene. He continued to work all the way until his passing at the age of 84. I always liked his ability to go from calm to manic, and his straight-faced humor endeared Leslie Nielsen to generations.

Forgotten Films: Netflix Streaming Theatre Edition

We’re interrupting the usual rant to bring you a “Forgotten Films” Special Streaming Edition courtesy of your friends at Netflix and MGMHD. As of this moment you can “Watch Instantly” dozens of cult or curio films unavailable on VHS, Laser or DVD. Some of these can be had on generational bootlegs (thank Gawd) but through some movie miracle via a slew of MGM and Paramount owned titles, you can viddy such MIA rarities as HARRY IN YOUR POCKET (1973); THE FINAL OPTION (1983); BOBBI JO AND THE OUTLAW (1976); A CHILD IS WAITING (1964); FAST BREAK (1978); SHOUT AT THE DEVIL (1974); VISIT TO A SMALL PLANET (1960); LORD JIM (1965); THE EVICTORS (1976); FITZWILLY (1967); among more I’ll be listing here. The prints are generally terrific remasters, as in the case of PUSSYCAT, PUSSYCAT, I LOVE YOU (1970), while others aren’t even wide-screen, but they’re tight-clean. You should watch them while they’re available. It’s been a film treat to Ludovico myself to the ol’  Instant Queue since the selections are literally overwhelming. So Let’s Get DOWN:

CULT OF THE DAMNED (1969) – Originally released as the more apropos ANGEL, ANGEL, DOWN WE GO, the title was changed after the prescient plot reflected the horrific Manson murders. I’ve always wanted to see this American International Pictures rarity, the spiritual sequel to Robert Thom’s nihilistic anti-youth, WILD IN THE STREETS (1968), a big hit that allowed him the chance to write/direct his own film. And man, you ain’t seen nothing until you see what might be AIP’s most avant-garde feature after THE TRIP (1966). Starring folksinger Holly Near as Tara Steele, the tart, cherubic scion of a fucked-up wealthy family, under the thumb of her dominating mother, Astrid, outrageously played by Jennifer Jones. Then there’s Jordan Christopher in the proto-Christopher Jones role as the improbably named rock guru, Bogart Peter Stuyvesant; lacking smoldering charisma, he comes off more like Dick Shawn playing Jim Morrison. Roddy McDowall pops in to steal his scenes as the very gay groupie, Santoro, and gets to spit out Thomisms like “God..Is…American!” Lou Rawls is in there as well for some reason since he does no singing. Thom’s script and direction is something to behold, filled with pop psychology and Bergmanesque symbolism, capped by an astounding scene with Holly Near scarfing down food in an orgy of abasement. Any movie with Jennifer Jones saying, “I never faked an orgasm” and skydiving as death trip metaphor must not only be seen, but experienced.

LEO THE LAST (1970) – We all remember this award-winning United Artists’ John Boorman film starring Marcello Mastroianni…You know, about a privileged monarch resting at his family’s mansion and becoming shocked by the impoverished black neighbors whilst his advisors plot a counter-revolution…What do you mean you’ve never ever heard of LEO THE LAST? Well, you’re in for a fascinating adventure – this is Boorman’s strangest, most experimental movie (which is saying a lot) written by him and William Star, beautifully shot by Peter Suschitsky. Any film that contains long, lingering verite-style shots of Marcelo Mastroianni’s telescopic view of his deprived neighbors going about their surreal business is ripe for rescue from the vaults. This is 70′s major studio fringe cinema at its nadir, swathed in social commentary and maxiumum metaphor, featuring one of the great leading actors of the decade. And the fact that Boorman won Best Director at Cannes for LEO THE LAST shows how much the cinematic landscape has changed.

THE SWINGER (1965) – A rarely-screened, incredible, ridiculous effort from George Sidney, the director of BYE, BYE, BIRDIE (1963), whose camera eye practically qualifies for visual harassment against Ann Margaret. This is almost like a living trashy 50′s pulp novel ill-fit into the groovy 60′s with its risque tale of a writer who pretends to be a sexual adventurer to serialize her work in “Girl-lure” magazine. Sleazy editor Tony Franciosa falls in love of course and attempts to steer her straight while the sleazier publisher attempts to comically assault her. The sexual politics are neanderthal, and worse, the most risque scene is her writhing on a beatnik club floor in gallons of paint. This must be the most brain-dead film Ann Margaret ever made, but it’s also the height of her Tiger Grrl persona porn (next to KITTEN WITH A WHIP) and she changes wild outfits at practically every cut. In an attempt to cash in on the campy “Batman” series mania, a new opening and ending was added with Ann Margaret go-going at dutch angles replete with sound effects balloons — POW!

INSERTS (1974) – Another famous X-Rated film starring Richard Dreyfuss, Veronica Cartwright, Bob Hoskins and Jessica Harper in her stunning debut as stag movie makers in early 1930′s Hollywood. You mean you haven’t…Well, it was briefly available on VHS, and finally released uncut on a bare bones DVD last year. Written and directed by John Byrum (THE RAZOR’S EDGE (1984), shot on a low-budget, one set in London, INSERTS could probably work as a daring stage play; yet this is another prime example of the kind of movie Hollywood would never make nor distribute today, the X-Rated Studio Film. Dreyfuss stars as a burned-out boy wonder director reduced to shooting stag reels for a wannabe big shot producer, played by a thin, youthful Bob Hoskins. Veronica Cartwright plays the junkie actress who’s seen better days when she was a recognizable extra in silents, and Stephen Davies is the dumb stud with big dreams of breaking out. Hard to believe this was also Jessica Harper’s debut as Hoskin’s excitable gal pal. Harder to believe are the graphic sex scenes that would get the film an NC-17 today. Cartwright is a revelation in a sexy, brave, wounded performance that should have garnered her a Best Supporting Actress nom; Harper is no slouch herself in a less defined role. Of course it’s Richard Dreyfuss’s show all the way (one year before JAWS), and his descent into brash obscurity is an actor’s dream part, yet I’m less impressed with his literary reasons for withdrawing from the movie mugs of Holly and Wood Land – though Lord knows I understand. Nonetheless, INSERTS is required viewing for film students and scholars of the decade.

HURRY SUNDOWN (1966) – Otto Preminger does the Deep South. John Philip Law and Faye Dunaway in a love shack. Law told me that Preminger knocked their heads together when they kissed to force them into passion. Dunaway bought out her contract with Otto so she would not have to appear in SKIDOO. Meanwhile, racist judge Burgess Meredith rants against a “syphillitic nigger” and proud farmer Robert Hooks ain’t gonna take it from The Man. Jim Backus kills as a liberal lawyer versus corrupt slicker Robert Reed. For good measure, Jane Fonda suckles on Michael Caine’s saxophone and he paws her breast. Nuff said, y’all hear?

DIRTY O’ NEIL: THE LOVE LIFE OF A COP (1974) – The sub-title isn’t listed on the print but that’s how it’s advertised on the poster and exciting trailer that piqued my interest since I’d never even heard of this AIP release co-directed by Leon Capetanos and Lewis Teague (!). Starring the amiable Morgan Paul as a Vietnam vet turned local police officer, he narrates a variety of tonally uneven adventures, primarily sexual, with the only narrative thread being the three thugs who taunt him and end up assaulting a girlfriend among their other acts of random violence. Then he shows this sleepy corrupt town what a Dirty O’Neil can do with a pistol and a bulldozer. Even by AIP standards, this film is sloppy, albeit sleazy, and probably why it had such a limited shelf-life. I imagine Teague was learning his directorial chops that would serve him better in ALLIGATOR (1980) and the nature of the co-director bill remained elusive until I learned that he was replaced by Capetanos for unknown reasons. DIRTY O’NEIL would make a great streaming double-bill with the equally unavailable-on-DVD, LITTLE CIGARS (1973). For drive-in AIP completists like me, this is still worth a view along with a few beers and a pizza, followed by a shower.

GAILY, GAILY (1969) – I’ve wanted to see this off-the-radar film ever since I noted the Henry Mancini LP always tucked within the soundtrack section of record stores through the years. Directed by Norman Jewison hot off his success with THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING, THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING (1966) and IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT (1967), this big budget United Artists picture starring Beau Bridges and Brian Keith was based — oh so loosely — on the autobiography by Ben Hecht, famous cynical Chicago journalist and Hollywood screenwriter. Produced by Hal Ashby, this lavish production shot through the rough lens of the New Cinema is a strange egg, and it’s easy to see why the soundtrack is more available than the film. Which immediately loses its street credibility by turning Jewish Ben Hecht into WASP “Ben Harvey” — an overanxious youth with a penchant for lust, writing and innocence, who displays not an iota of Hecht’s world-weary wit. He escapes his confining small-town life for the big city newspaper world, ending up a mascot of a brothel favored by politicos, and confronts the forces of greed and venality with a Candide-like attitude that never fits the character. Bridges was being groomed for stardom and sadly, he was ill-served by the screenplay, which reduces him to an almost mental cretin in some scenes. Brian Keith fares better as the hard-drinking reporter who takes Bridges under his crooked wing, and Margot Kidder makes her debut as the prostitute with a heart of…you know. Jewison’s direction is uneven, bouncing from hand-held nuevelle vague cuts to glossy big-studio slapstick machinations. “He’s jammed up with his juices!” shouts the boy’s crusty grandmother in another attempt at risque controversy; as in many films of this era straddling the old and new cinema, the tone is always inconsistent, thus unlikely to satisfy a blue-haired Radio City Music Hall audience or the revolutionary cinephiles of Bleecker Street. While GAILY, GAILY is but a footnote to a fascinating period, I’m glad to finally view this forgotten epic made at a time when the whole world was jammed up with the juices of movie-love.

ZANDY’S BRIDE (1974) – The year’s biggest box-office phenomenon was this quiet, “dirty western” of which Gene Hackman might be the king. Okay, nobody saw this film and I only learned of its existence two days ago (!). From possibly the most disturbing western ever made, THE HUNTING PARTY (1971) (which Pauline Kael termed “loathsome”) to the frivolity of BITE THE BULLET (1975) to the revisionist UNFORGIVEN (1991), Hackman specialized in a cold, calculating, bully and he’s in fine form here as a quiet farmer who orders a spinster mail bride played by Liv Ullman. Treating her as child-bearin’ property, he wastes no time in raping her the first night and then the Taming Of The Brute begins in earnest. Ullman is very good as is the whole cast, especially Susan Tyrell as the one pining for Hackman, and it’s nice to see Harry Dean Stanton as a more enlightened cowboy here who advises Ullman, “Just cross your legs until you get what you want.” Directed with uber-70′s low-key style by Jan Troell, he captures the grime and conformity of the period as well as the cruel, casual sexism. I was grateful the film wasn’t out to depress me with western sadism, and though Ullman’s attempt to civilize Hackman are questionable under the circumstances, his own enlightenment is handled with subtlty and satisfaction. Sadly, this is not in its proper Panavision ratio though its intimate scope fits the Netflix screen.

THE KEEP (1983) – This unique Michael Mann supernatural horror epic was severely cut by Paramount, reducing the story’s coherency to nil and keeping audiences from entering the narrative. Basically the tale of Nazis versus a monstrous force in the Transylvania Alps, the book’s author, Paul Wilson, was confused that Mann refused to identify the vampiric origins of the creature, Molasar, among other things: “He did not build character. He did not tell a coherent story. When I read the script, I wrote to him and I pointed out all of this to him in a very gentle, non ego trampling way, I thought. But he ignored me, and when I did make a visit to the set, he was very cool. I don’t know if he felt threatened, or what, but he wanted no input at all from anyone. It was to be a Michael Mann picture.” And a Mann picture it is, whose style you either like or do not (I’m more in the latter camp) with lingering shots of steely atmospheres and the electronic throb of Tangerine Dream, which gives this period piece an odd sonic flavor the same way as their score for LEGEND. The story is indeed truncated to obliqueness, despite good performances by Jurgon Pronchow and Gabriel Byrne, strange ones by Scott Glenn, whose mystic character is not even named, and Ian McKellan, who sounds as if he’s from Brooklyn by way of the Thames. Still, there is stunning production design, old-school giant expressionist sets and nifty make-up in Molasar, the awesome red and blue creature that was not well-reviewed. His mist-cloaked introduction is like a modern Cocteau image in Technicolor, one of the most unique scenes in genre history. Wally Veevers did the effective effects, and sadly died in mid-production; the film is dedicated to him. It’s no surprise THE KEEP has attained cult status and hopefully there’ll be an official release of the three-hour version — for now, Netflix has an excellent widescreen print to exhume.
CHILLY SCENES OF WINTER (1978) – Joan Micklin Silver’s cult adaptation of Ann Beattie’s novel is a bittersweet, humorous look at the dissolution of a troubled love affair, starring John Heard and Mary-Beth Hurt in career highlight performances. This movie will sting you with its honesty and naturalism, and Silver’s ambitious script capture Beattie’s wry literary style. Produced with loving care by Mark Metcalf (“Neidermyer”)’ Griffin Dunne; and Amy Robinson, it’s a pleasure to hear terrific actors, including Metcalf, Dunne, Peter Reigert (in full Jamie Gillis fro-mode), Kenneth McMillan, and Gloria Grahame speaking witty, insightful dialogue. McMillan has a lovely scene dancing in a hospital that defines what the 70′s Cinema was all about. John Heard has never been seen as much as he should onscreen, and he’s excellent as the overtly-obsessed boyfriend who can’t give up on his love. The character is almost a stalker, but the story never confronts this issue, although he has enough insight to understand when he’s crossing lines. Mary Beth Hurt is funny, revealing and they make a watchable pair. The film was initially released with the lame title, HEAD OVER HEELS, then re-titled and re-edited with a less happy ending. It’s great to see this resonant piece that favors truth over exploitation. Silver’s other rare film, HESTER STREET is also available on streaming, but MIA is my favorite of her ouvre, BETWEEN THE LINES (1976), about a Boston underground newspaper.

GORP (1980) -AIP’s last theatrical release is a MEATBALLS/ANIMAL HOUSE clone, with the minor interesting cultural difference being that the action takes place in the Catskills between the young residents of a Jewish resort (“Gorp” is trail mix). The film is fascinatingly incompetent and manages to miscast Dennis Quaid, fresh off the lovely BREAKING AWAY (1979), as one of the worst “wacky military psychos” in comedy history. Michael Lembeck and Fran Drescher add to the stoic merriment while future Salkind SANTA CLAUS David Huddleston is the beleagured head of Camp Oskemo. The wacky hijinks are the usual cut-rate gags involving sex, food and toilets minus actual wit or humor. The requisite glassy nerd character is particularly appalling, as is the whole motley crew. Joseph Ruben shows no skill in setting up any kind of joke or scene, and the editing is so half-hazard as to be incomprehensible. The best thing (sic) about GORP outside its scarcity and unexplained title is the scene where the camp watches a screening of I WAS A TEENAGE WEREWOLF, bringing the awesome exploitation legacy of Samuel Arkoff and American International Pictures full circle…

THE HAPPY ENDING (1970) – I’ve been wanting to see this Richard Brooks rarity for a long time that nonetheless garnered Jean Simmons (his wife) a deserved Best Actress nomination and some critical brickbats. Brooks is an interesting writer/director, a tougher Stanley Kramer who navigated the censorious studio system with his own high-minded pursuit of Truth, from the explosive THE BLACKBOARD JUNGLE (1955) that unleashed the first rock n’ roll credits to the controversial ELMER GANTRY (1959) to the 1960′s literary bloat of LORD JIM (1965) to the verite stylings of IN COLD BLOOD (1967). Not surprisingly, his biggest hit was a Western and the most personally thematic of his films, THE PROFESSIONALS (1966). THE HAPPY ENDING fits perfectly with the period’s cultural malaise and self-loathing, a scathing attack on marriage that pounds most points with the subtlety of a jackhammer: it’s not enough to show a roomful of women sweating on exercise machines, “God Bless America” must be played over the scene for maximum obvious irony; an anniversary party is just a cover for suburban excess, addiction and debauchery, replete with Nanette Fabray holding a tray of pills and Dick Shawn ogling under a woman’s dress; Robert aka “Bobby” Darin shows up as a pathetic Bahamas hustler amid too many references to CASABLANCA. Of course, Simmons wants the classic storybook romance, yet she’s trapped by the conformity of her life with bland John Forsythe; while Brooks aims for a liberated filial manifesto, the women are so stupefied by men and marriage that they all seem like “zombies” as Tina Louise calls herself. Shirley Jones (very sexy here) plays a serial adulterer whose world-weary cynicism is supposed to pass for world-weary wisdom. Brooks presents the wife’s awakening with fragmented timeline and Michael Legrand montages, plus his patented cinematic histrionics, all gorgeously shot by Conrad Hall. THE HAPPY ENDING was certainly ahead of its time, the prologue to 70′s feminist films such as DIARY OF A MAD HOUSEWIFE (1970), AN UNMARRIED WOMAN (1977) and proto-feminist films like Brook’s own LOOKING FOR MR. GOODBAR (1977). A worthy entry in cinema obscura with a startlingly apropos final scene.

Dig Thanksgiving ’69

Gobble Gobble

Ingrid Pitt RIP

Another legend passes the veil. Just watched her the other night as a tough terrorist who gets in a deadly cat fight in the exciting, right-wing, THE FINAL OPTION (1983). She was still as lovely with her Nordic cheekbones and husky authoritative voice. I’d let her cat fight me too. Film fans adored her as the screen’s first full-on lesbian creature of the night in Hammer’s groundbreaking THE VAMPIRE LOVERS (1970) and COUNTESS DRACULA (1971), about which I gush here, and she already established her badass credentials as the machine-gun totin’ double agent in WHERE EAGLES DARE (1968) — here’s a column she wrote about the film at the Den Of Geek. Pitt was also immortalized in the occult classic, THE WICKER MAN (1973). She was certainly typecast in genre roles, and she would have been great as a sexy Bond villainess, but she was rightly proud of her fine work, especially given her trailblazing cinematic status. Raise a crimson glass.

Favorite Musical Scene Theatre: On A Clear Day You Can See Forever (1970)

Since the planets are now in Sagittarius’s zestful orbit, you deserve to start the week with the promise of bloom and regeneration. What better way than the opening number “Hurry! It’s Lovely Up Here” from Barbara Streisand’s truncated Road Show from 1970, ON A CLEAR DAY YOU CAN SEE FOREVER. Directed by Vincent Minnelli in archetypal ponderous big studio fashion, the film attempted to straddle the wonky ground between the elephantine musicals that were bankrupting Hollywood and the raw, ragged New Cinema that was confounding the executives. As Pauline Kael pointed out of those grasping for THE SOUND OF MUSIC success in her brilliant review of PAINT YOUR WAGON (1967), “the studios are being crushed under their own weight.” Yet Streisand was a genuine star, a multi-talented phenomenon who shared a 1968 Best Actress win for FUNNY GIRL along with Katherine Hepburn’s for A LION IN WINTER. Even after the bloated excess of HELLO DOLLY — which cost as much as TITANIC would have in 1969 — Streisand gave the ol’ Broadway Show Tunes one final bow in this adaptation of the 1965 musical starring Barbara Harris (who should have reprised) about a kooky woman with ESP and the ability to make plants grow. I know, I know. But I like the songs. And this version updates the story for “now” with a college protest and yes, Jack Nicholson in his first big Hollywood film as a hippie with a sitar, whose duet with Barabara Streisand was cut! Paramount got cold feet at the last minute and shortened the film from its Road Show status. While OACDYCSF doesn’t work and Yves Montand might be the most miscast lead in movie musical history, Streisand is at the height of her smokin’ 60′s style and where else can you see Nicholson, Bob Newhart, Simon Oakland and Roy Kinnear in the same film with psychedelic credits?

Saturday Afternoon Matinee ’82

Friday Song: Carpenters

The AM sirens of 70′s suburbia remain Carpenters, Karen and Richard (who never wanted “The” put before their name), the good-lookin’ nice kids from Downey, California who were the biggest selling American pop group of the decade. Herb Alpert (yes, that one) signed them to A&M in 1969 and with a hit cover of “Ticket To Ride” their career was born. Their repertoire was comprised of covers and originals culled from folks like Paul Williams, who wrote the song “We’ve Only Just Begun” as a bank jingle turned into a massive hit and one of the most popular wedding songs ever. Karen played drums as well as sang in her appealing mellow voice and Richard acted as the more angelic Swan to her Phoenix. Their most popular LP remains 1973′s “Now And Then,” a musical journey through pop suburbia featuring one of the great album covers of the era, a three-panel fold out of the pair sitting in a Ferrari before their family home in Downey. I can’t think of a more defining image for the brother and sister. The hits came and went, and by 1977, the musical landscape was changing to FM rock and disco and their songs were relegated to the “Adult Contemporary” sections, even though they could still chart unusual hit singles. Unarguably their strangest cover song has to be Klaatu’s “Calling Occupants Of Interplanetary Craft” which was a minor UK hit for the pair in 1977, and clearly reflected the time’s UFO-CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND mania. The Carpenters were making music videos early on, so thankfully we still have this galactic message that I hope is still bouncing off solar systems beyond, carrying the late Karen Carpenter’s angelic voice and Richard Carpenter’s bombastic orchestrations to a place beyond now and then…

The Media Is The Meme

It’s bewildering but not surprising to watch the Professional Left eat themselves up after the mid-term non-Tsunami (media meme FAIL) that nevertheless led to more teeth and keyboard gnashing from the usual suspects like The Daily Kos, Huffington Post, etc. So called liberals and progressives now attack President Obama as a “pussy” “weak” “spineless” or in Michael Moore’s sad case, accusing him of wearing a “pink tutu” on Bill Maher  — because he’s like TOTALLY GAY, get it? The problem is a non-stop chattering class of TV and blogosphere pundits who have to find an Outrage Du Jour to drum up necessary hits or ratings. Arianna Huffington has proven to be the most irresponsible of the new “left” media, the former Republican and yachting buddy of Newt Gingrich, who makes sure that the HP always has a daily false or misleading headline to spread the fear and paranoia and OUTRAGE over things that have not yet happened or never will. Her newest pet, Howard “Hack” Fineman, spun off the latest FluffPo Fantasy with the news that Michael Bloomberg and Joe Scarborough were considering a 2012 presidential run. Even after Scarborough vociferously denied this, the big brains at Kos and elsewhere think this was a “trial balloon” to test the reaction. As if anybody cares what Markos Moulitas thinks about their chances. And the new gullible sheep of the left, who crave their own FOX brainwashing apparently, simply say, “Oh, sure he denied it, but I bet it’s still true!” Why? Because they READ it on The Huffington Post. And then Daily Kos repeats. Spin. Wash. Repeat. And the cannibalistic dwellers of the left will march lockstep to eat their own arms off to spite their keyboards. Ever since Bill Clinton signed the 1996 Telecommunications Act – effectively severing the public airwaves from their original purpose and owners (that would be “We The People”) — our media has been taken over by a thousand Lonesome Rhodes, left and right, who simply create a lie and watch as others run with the meme. I’ve never seen the populace so collectively polarized or stupid, and there is no actual NEWS anymore — even Keith Olbermann straight up cried out against “Worshipping before the false god of utter objectivity” in a bizarro rant that I guess means we need more blowhards like him to guide us into the truth. No thanks, Keith. I’ll take the BBC over the MSNBC, two anchors sitting at a desk in front of green screen from 1974 and simply going over the stories of the day instead of the ADD spinning cams and hieroglyphic chyrons that clog up the screen these scoundrel days. The Media controls the flow of information and we are being subjugated by their false corporatist agenda. But Americans have within their reach more unfettered access to genuine information than at any other time in history — and the nation does not seem to be the smarter for this. Good Night and Good Luck.

Bloody America

Sunday Night at the Movies

Friday Song: The Strawberry Alarm Clock

Along with such archetypal 60′s bands such as “The Chocolate Watchband” and “The 1910 Fruitgum Company,” the only group to achieve more lasting status was “The Strawberry Alarm Clock,” whose biggest hit, “Incense and Peppermints,” you need not hear today since it will be playing in whatever grocery store you hit this week or in any documentary that needs to quickly define The Hippies. The band holds a special place in my heart for their incredible “Pretty Theme Song From Psych-Out” from the third best counter-culture film of the decade, PSYCH-OUT (1968). They solidified cult movie status with songs and another appearance in Russ Myer’s/Roger Ebert’s BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE DOLLS (1970). I’m a fan of their first two LP’s, and their sunny psychedelia was one of the soundtracks to my Berkeley days. Here’s their rarely-played follow-up, “Tomorrow,” which peaked at #23 on the charts in 1968. This is a live version from The Steve Allen Show and it’s more jamming than the single version. LOVE those keyboards, baby. Peace.

Dino De Laurentiis RIP

On the heels of Ennio Morricone’s birthday comes the news that fellow Italian film compatriot Dino De Laurentiis has passed through the curtained veil at the spry age of 92. A legend among old-school producers who combined taste and trash, he gained fame for producing Fellin’s LA STRADA (1954) and his eclectic output is arguably unmatched. We all love him for putting Mario Bava, John Phillip Law and Morricone together for the smashing pop-art comic book, DANGER: DIABOLIK (1967) and for letting Roger Vadim shoot Jane Fonda nude in outer space in BARBARELLA just to do her thing.

We’re not such fans of his infamous KING KONG (1976), even though it had a huge advertising campaign with non-stop commercials, toys and t-shirts, the Reeses-like candy, and the tagline above that made me laugh since this “most exciting original motion picture” was a remake. As an early stop-motion nerd, I was stupefied they would use a guy in a monkey suit — even if that guy was the brilliant Rick Baker, who played Kong and designed its superb, expressive, scary face. Jim Danforth resigned his membership from the Academy when KING KONG was nominated for a special effects award due to the silly life-sized Kong that was used for a few laughable shots. Still, I was there opening day and even enjoyed the film on a primal level thanks to John Barry’s ominous score, the Lorenzo Semple script dripping with 70′s cynicism, well-played by Jeff Bridges and Charles Grodin, and the debut of the nubile Jessica Lange. And KING KONG is rather frightening in certain scenes up until the tragic climax of the beast atop the World Trade Center, a genuine iconic poster image.

De Laurentiis didn’t always make great films — read editor Sam O’Steen’s awesome book where he goes into explicit details about the travails of HURRICANE (1979); then there’s his repeated attempts at another JAWS with ORCA (1977) and WHITE BUFFALO (1977), but he did take chances on films like SERPICO, THREE DAYS OF THE CONDOR, CONAN THE BARBARIAN, BLUE VELVET, and yes, EVIL DEAD 2. Let us not forget the wacky FLASH GORDON (1980). De Laurentiis even once turned up at Rocket Video with his lovely daughter, and I had just popped in to browse. It wasn’t a large crowd; Dino’s entourage seemed larger, but it was lively and instead of joining in, I went through the rows of VHS and DVD, counting off films he had produced, awed by the fact that a man who worked with Fellini, Antonioni, Bergman, Bava, Morricone and my pal John Law, was only a few feet away, that I felt I already knew him. Ciao!