BLACK TIGHT KILLERS

1966/Director: Yasuharu Hasebe/Writers: Ryuzo Nakanishi, Michio Tsuzuki

Cast: Akira Kobayashi, Akemi Kita, Mieko Nishio, Bokuzen Hidari, Eiji Go, Toshizô Kudô, Chieko Matsubara, Hiroshi Nihon’yanagi, Kaku Takashina

AKA: Don’t Touch Me I’m Dangerous, Ore Ni Sawaru To Abunaize

Recently got in two films by Japanese director Yasuharu Hasebe. I watched Black Tight Killers first and later skimmed over Assault! Jack the Ripper! to just check the quality -if it is bad then I have to find another rip somewhere- and was fairly stunned at how different the two films were. Not only in style but content matter as well. Surely Black Tight Killers falls more into the category of films I prefer more and that is not to say the more graphic content matter of Assault! offended me in some way. It did not. But I am talking here of film style and presentation. A review of Assault! Jack the Ripper! will be made after I have watched all of the film but just from the few moments I watched I can tell it is more in the syle of the Pinky Violence films of the seventies -which along with the softcore Roman Porno films is what Nikkatsu wound up making almsot exclusively by the end of the 70′s- while Black Tight Killers is a stylized Nikkatsu Studios Yakuza type film which is paying homage in many scenes to the James Bond films of the time. Some of the scenes are similar to what Seijun Suzuki –for whom Hasebe worked as assistant director for eight years- was doing at the time though Suzuki seemed to prefer luscious  b/w for his noir/gangster films. I do have some earlier Seijun Suzuki films that are in color but, to be honest, have not got around to watching them though what I have seen of them look marvelous. Anyway for Black Tight Killer Yasharu Hasebe chose not only to work in color but in a bright and lurid style of color that is reminiscent of some of Mario Bava’s work during the 60’s. Black Tight Killers has been compared to Bava’s 1968 Danger Diabolik and not without good reason though Black Tight Killer’s predates Danger Diabolik by a couple years so it could hardly have been influenced by Bava’s film. Both films have a comic book feel to the look and feel. Both films are lit rather garishly to say the least and both seem to be inspired by the Sean Connery James Bond films as far as the use of life saving secrets gadgets go. Of course Danger Diabolik was actually based a comic book character. I have actually read a couple reviews that said the lighting and photography of Black Tight Killers is horrible and I am at a complete lose as to what the hell these folks are talking about. And before moving on another element of the film that reminds me of Bava’s superb work of the 60’s is Hasebe’s use of how to stage and frame a shot. The technical word is mise-en-scène and there is some dispute over what the term actually refers to. I tend to keep things simple and define at as the total visual aspects of a scene. This includes the lighting and all props and placements of the objects in the scene. Bava –as an art director and cinematographer himself- understood this in his early films. I have only seen one complete Hasebe film –but have other lined up for downloading soon- and am not qualified to comment on those films at the moment but I can say I love the visual style of Black Tight Killers.

Before going into the film and bombarding my readers with spoilers out the wazhoo I want to mention it stars leading man Akira Kobayashi whose charisma, acting ability and dashing good looks holds the film’s story together during some pretty weak moments. As I mentioned a couple posts back when I posted a video of the groovy title sequence Kobayashi sang the theme song as well. I want to find some of the Wandering Guitarist and Rambler series of films where he plays, I guess, a wandering/rambling guy with a guitar and gets into all sorts of adventures. In fact the title song for Black Tight Killers translates as Don’t Cry Drifter and must be some reference to these earlier films since his gainfully employed photo-journalist character Daisuke Hondo in Black Tight Killers hardly seems like a rambling drifter to me. But Kobayashi adds a James Bond type of flair to the character that he plays straight and serious to good effect for the most part. Now the film does have a few problems in the story department but much of it is done tongue in cheek –I hope- and so it never really falls apart the way films that take themselves too seriously do when things begin to get confusing or absurd.

The story follows photographer Hondo on his return to Tokyo from Vietnam where he worked as a war photographer. On the plane he falls for stewardess Yoriko (Chieko Matsubara – who had previously played along Kobayashi in three Seijun Suzuki films making them somewhta of a team by this time) and pursues her in the why men always pursued women in films from the 60’s which amounts to nothing short of felony stalking these days. He refuses to take no for an answer as far as dinner goes –and women in these older flicks love it when a guy makes all their decisions for them and never hear the word no- and later they are in a ritzy night club. Hondo is soon dancing with Yoriko and compliments on her on how well she holds her liquor. Men in these old movies like women who have drinking problems it seems. The evening takes a turn for the sinister when Yoriko runs from the restaurant in fear that she is being followed. Hiondo chases her outside and soon finds himself in the midst of a violent confrontation between black leather clad females and what appears to gangsters. They appear to be gangsters because they dress well but look ugly and make scowling facial expressions all the time. The girls kill the man by stabbing him in the back and then setting up Hondo for the crime after they have thrown some hi-tech spy weaponry his way. And that would be bubble gum in his eyes. The plot suddenly gets rather convoluted and best to just go along for the ride rather than try to figure it all out. His American friend Lopez –who is totally white and not Hispanic- helps to bail him out of the frame-up using his perfect Japanese. In fact there are lots of big Americans in the film and they all seem to be in league with the Yakuza or up to no good. I have read that Hasebe seems to take an unkind look at the American occupiers of Japan in many of his films and the negative effects they had on Japanese culture. Hey but they should have thought of that before they began WWII right! And the sexily clad Black Tight Killers are in the middle of it all. They are a group of go-go dancers from Okinawa who have come looking for the same thing the Yakuza are looking for; information leading to a fortune in gold that Yoriko’s uncles knows the location of. But he was killed in the war and left a clue somewhere to be found and figured out. It becomes a race between the Black Tight Killers and the Yakuza to get their hands on Yorika and find the location of the gold that she has no clue about. In the middle of all this Hondo is trying to pursue a relationship with Yoriko who constantly being kidnapped and re-kidnapped. While, he is serious about Yoriko –telling a friend that she is special and that she may be the one- this does not stop him from doing the dirty with one of the Black Tight Killers… and hell, who can blame him. Although the seduction is actually a trap set by one of the girls so she wrap her thighs around him and lock him into place while pinching s pressure point on his neck to get information out of him. But it still looks fun.

And now some word about the Black tight Killers themselves. Some reference is made by someone where in the film that they must be ninja trained. And that may well be though we never find out for sure. Not only can they adroitly use the traditional ninja weapon of bubble gum to blind an adversary but they are equally skilled in slinging vinyl records as shurikens and ordinary tape measures become a lethal tool in their capable hands. They are also able to hit exploding golf balls that do not explode when struck byt golf clubs when when they impact with office doors. But one big problem with the lovely gals is that after they ruthlessly stab one guy in the back with a switchblade they suddenly start dying off with relative ease at the hands of the Yakuza. One by one they die off and for the most part in the arms of Hondo where they exchange some sweet words before the heroine succumbs. After a couple die Hondo mutters how she was a “nice girl”. What? Nice girls? They just stabbed a Yakuza in the back earlier over gold. The death scenes are a trifle corny to say the least in particular one scene where a girl is shot in the back and falls over a stair railing several floors high. She lands with a splat but manages enough life to not only say some sweet words to Hondo but to appropriately cover her nipples with cupped hands before she dies. Now that is Japanese modesty at it best. another problem I had with the Black Tight Killers is that I got confused as to which girl was which most of the time. In fact this might not sound PC but I bet I am not the only one out there who has this problem at times. In most Asian pictures I have a hard time telling one character from another. Unless the character stands out like Akiro Kobayashi does I start getting bewildered as to who is now talking to who and especially with female character who all dress the same and have the same hairstyle. And I want to tell you something, I live in China and I know for a fact that Chinese people have the same problems! They often cannot tell one female character from the other themselves especially when it comes to the newer, mainstream films where all the ‘good’ females have the same sort of overly innocent, doe-eyed look anymore. Women do not have to look like a manga cartoon character okay. But I degress and this post is not really about newer Asian cinema which I rarely enjoy the way I do the stuff from the 50′s to the 70′s. And one more issue; the subs for this film do not make solving these problems -like who the hell is who- any easier. While readable in most areas they are white and, as I understand it, burned into the original print.  Meaning they can never be edited. So when the background is white you simply cannot read the subs. But I tend to not worry too much about these trifles in a film like this and some consternation is part of the package.

The film, as I said, seems to be paying homage to the James Bond films of the time and one scene in particular seems lifted right out of 1964’s Goldfinger. In the memorable scene from the opening of Goldfinger Jill Masterton (played by Shirley Eaton) is spray painted gold and dies from suffocation as her skin pores are all closed up. Does seem like this is a bit of a scientific error and people would die of suffocation so long as they could still breathe through their nose and mouth but they could die of  excessive heat exhaustion from not being able to sweat any longer, though it would take a couple days perhaps for this to happen. In any case it is a neat idea for a spy film and it is recreated in Black Tight Killers when the Yakuza begin to spray paint Yoriko unless she gives them the information they seek. The deal is she still has on her bikini top and bottom so she would hardly be covered head to toe in spray paint. But the scene and the following conflict with what’s left of the Black Tight girls and the Yakuza mobsters is another vehicle for Hasebe to go a little crazy with the lights, colors and camera work. In one part a ganster is in front of cans of paint that spew forth bright primary colors of blue and red when bullets hit them. Yoriko’s body is covered in paint but she is placed in front of a wall of multi-colored hues that was used for testing spray paint. The fight sequence is exceptional, as are most in the film, and the image of Hondo walking around with a spray gun as flame thrower is as powerful as any image of a  gunfighter in a Sergio Leone film.

The film ends up with all the Black Tight Killers dead as far as I can tell and the white guys being the real bad guys. If we can learn any lesson from the film –as Hondo certainly did- it is do not close your eyes for a girl when she asks to, especially when you just confessed to having slept with a slinky ninja femme fatale. Of course be sure to tell it was only one time. That way she only knocks out a few of your teeth. The film has me more than a little interested in  seeing more of Nikkatsu’s Yakuza Eiga (gangster films) from this time period, but I doubrt most will be as light hearted and fun as this one. It is a delight to watch scene to scene and it is not crucial to try and follow all the action and plot twists. I guess next I will be checking out Assualt! Jack the Ripper! but somehow I feel I will comparing it to this one, the way I compared Bava’s 70’s films like Shock to his 60’s masterpieces like Planet of the Vampires and Black Sabbath. I always get the feeling when I see these latter type films that it is a sign of a visionary losing creative control and power to the studio that needs to turn a profit. Hey, you gotta make a buck to survive, right? But I haven’t seen the film yet and will get back, eventually, after I do. For now I will savor the good taste left in my mouth by Black Tight Killers.

]]> http://uraniumcafe-the.com/2010/07/10/yasuharu-hasebes-1966-stylized-spy-thriller-black-tight-killers/feed/ 0 http://uraniumcafe-the.com/2009/11/16/eeire-art-horror-from-france-george-franjus-les-yeux-sans-visage-eyes-without-a-face/ http://uraniumcafe-the.com/2009/11/16/eeire-art-horror-from-france-george-franjus-les-yeux-sans-visage-eyes-without-a-face/#comments Mon, 16 Nov 2009 12:07:30 +0000 Uranium Willy http://uraniumcafe-the.com/?p=7819

EYES WITHOUT A FACE (Les Yeux Sans Visage)

1960/Director: Georges Franju/Writers: Jean Redon, Pierre Boileau

Cast: Pierre Brasseur, Alida Valli, Juliette Mayniel, Edith Scob, François Guérin, Alexandre Rignault, Béatrice Altariba

I cannot say honestly that I have seen much French cinema. I went through a phase almost a couple decades ago where I watched a batch by the big names like Jean-Luc Goddard and Francois Truffaut but other than the Truffaut film The 400 Blows I can’t remember any of that stuff. I do now recall I saw Goddard’s Breathless and it was so much better than the remake with Richard Gere. I guess the only French filmmaker I may follow at all would be Jean Rollin. Well I had read about the film Yeux Sans Visage for a while and had had it on disk for months before I was in the mood one night for some Euro-fare. I did not expect too much going into the film other than maybe some nice black and white cinematography and loads of spacey acting. I am happy to report that I was surprised by this film and it deserves the praises it normally receives in reviews. The cinematography was great as was the score by Maurice Jarre and the acting was down to earth and believable. I mean, for a French film. I am not into the European ‘existential’ school of depressed method acting. For example like Catherine Deneuve in Polanksi’s Repulsion. Damn, I can’t finish that film no matter how hard I try. I guess depression is scary. I mean just watch Woody Allen’s Interiors. That’s some scary stuff!

Director Georges Franju’s Eyes Without a Face has many of the elements of Euro-depression cinema that I found I was never hip enough to appreciate really but it also has the qualities of a good film noir story as well which I can appreciate. In fact I would say the film is more of a crime drama than a horror film. Outside a fairly graphic operation scene, that was pretty ahead of its type in terms of shock and gore, the film is more like an Alfred Hitchcock movie than any sort of horror film. The movie was even released in the States as a double bill with the Japanese-American horror film The Manster (a great film that will be reviewed here someday). A more fitting double feature would have possibly been Eyes Without a face and Psycho. Reviews mention the influence of German Expressionism and filmmakers Cocteau and Murnau and I am pretty much out of my element here for the most part so will leave all that to the experts. What I can say about this film is that it looks beautiful and the story moves along briskly. It never gets too pretentious and, as far as I concerned, does not try to deliver some unnecessarily deep message. I mean that is there if you want to look for it. It has to be. The film is French for God’s sake. This is the place that produced Sartre and Camus. Probably coffee commercials on TV there have some existential message about the isolated individual standing naked before a cold, merciless Universe. But this is also a reasonably straightforward and watchable suspense film.

The story is about the anguish of the horribly disfigured and masked  Christiane (Edith Scob). We are not sure of the details other than that it was her father who was driving the car that wrecked her face beyond recognition in an accident one night. As chance would have her father is Dr. Génessier (Pierre Brasseur) , a renowned surgeon. Now he is driven by his guilt and love for his daughter to restore her face at any cost. And of course this includes murder if necessary. The film opens with his devoted assistant Louise (Alida Valli) disposing of a body in a dark, cold river. The body belongs to the last females Dr. Génessier used in his experiments to graft the face from one young female with similar features onto Christiane. The operation failed and I am not sure why the girl is dead but it is of little consequence really. As anyone who is familiar with the ‘face restoration’ sub-genre in horror knows the doctor will stop at nothing to not only restore the face of the one he loves but to prove his own genius to the world. Dr. Génessier actually seems to be driven more by guilt than glory and this twist rescues Eyes Without a Face from becoming simply another mad doctor movie. In fact he never comes off as insane or deluded, but as simply driven.

There is little doubt, however, that Louise and Dr. Génessier are ultimately a dark and sinister pair. When the body of the dead girl is fished from the river Génessier identifies the body as that of Christine’s, much to the despair of the girl’s real father who is at his wit’s end. Louise soon sets out to trolling Paris looking for the next ‘subject’ and it is found the form of the lovely young Edna (Juliette Mayniel). Edna is looking for a room to rent and Louise gains her trust and drives her out to the remote country chateau of Génessier and his clinic. Edna soon develops reservations but it far too late. She is chloroformed and soon on a surgical table having her face lifted off in one of the most uncomfortable scenes ever put to film. It is unflinching and done slowly. The flesh is actually lifted from the girl’s face in a fairly graphic fashion that had it been in color would have been simply exploitative gore not far removed from the likes of Hershall Gordon Lewis. Not to suggest the film resembles the shabby exploitation fare of Lewis as a whole. Just that this one scene is more disquieting than, in black and white, than any of Lewis’s full color comic book style violence. It is all the more disturbing because the character of Edna is developed fully in her short time on screen and you really do not want anything so horrible to happen to her. Edna soon commits understandable suicide and the yet the operation at first seems to be a success. But soon Edna’s body begins to reject the new face and little by little it deteriorates and a new subject is needed.

Christiane spends her days alone in an upstairs bedroom and sometimes in moments of lonely despair calls her former fiancée Jacques (François Guérin). She listens to him say hello over and over before hanging up in anguish. Jacques is in contact with the local police and suspects that there is more to Christiane’s case than meets the eyes. Soon the police have the same feeling and in a recurring scenario that happens in often in European styled crime films they enlist the help of an untrained civilian in acting as bait to attract the attention of the killer or killers. In this case the civilian is Paulette (Beatrice Altariba) who resembles Christiane and is all but blackmailed by the cops in securing her cooperation. The film ends with Christiane setting Paulette free and realizing that she can never have her face back and that the cost is too great for her to bear any longer. She stabs Louise with a scalpel and turns loose the dogs used by her father in his early skin grafting experiments. In true poetic justice the dogs turn on their master and rip his face. Christiane walks off into the night surrounded by the fluttering white doves she also set free from their captivity.

The images of Christiane’s morose eyes staring through the unmoving mask are haunting and convey a surprising range of emotion. Well, a surprising range of depressing emotions but what else would we expect. John Carpenter said the mask used in the film was an influence on his final selection for the mask he chose fro Michael Myer’s in his Halloween films. The French title of the film, Yeux Sans Visage, is sang in the chorus of the Billy Idol song Eyes Without a Face. The movie inspired two Jesse Franco films, Gritos en la noche (with Dr. Orloff) and Faceless. The interesting Italian film Atom Age Vampire (review coming someday) also deals with an obsessed surgeon trying to restored his daughter’s disfigured face at any cost. Cannot recommend this one enough. Also now have Franju’s first film Le Sang de Betes (Blood of the Beasts) which is an experimental film about animals being butchered in lovely black and white in an arbitoir. I’ll get back on that one some sunny day.

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GIALLO

2009/Director: Dario Argento/Writers: Jim Agnew, Dario Argento

Cast: Adrien Brody, Emmanuelle Seigner, Elsa Pataky, Robert Miano, Byron Deidra

God knows I have tried to like Dario Argento. His name pops up everywhere in the horror world and yet I have to admit I have cared for very little he has ever done. His sycophantic supporters say that even if his newer work is weak we must acknowledge the genius of his ‘high period’ when he helped to usher in the great giallo films of the late 60’s and early 70’s as well as his unique brand of horror. And that may well be unarguable. Some of his films from the period, that I have seen, are Bird With the Crystal Plumage, Tenebre, Deep Red, Suspiria, and Phenomenon. While these are classics of some sort, I guess, I have to admit that  all of these films are some of the most confusing and haphazard movies I have ever sat down to watch. When the killer and her motives is finally revealed in Deep Red (some minor female character who had about two or three minutes of screen time earlier in the film) I was so disappointed. Not to say that that is a reason to pan a film and not see it but I seem to missing something that hordes of other people are getting and don’t know what it is. Why is Deep Red (Profundo Rosso) considered to be one of the great giallo films of the 70’s? It is a mediocre film at best. One defense I have read of Argento (and most Italian giallo and horror in general) is that one must not look for a linear story in the Hollywood fashion and instead you have to let yourself go along with the surreal quality of the film and receive its messages on an almost unconscious level.  One is to not watch and analyze the film as a whole but you have look for those special moments that cannot be found in any other genre. I am not sure about all that but as time has gone on I have to admit I have developed a liking for Italian horror and suspense films I did not have when I was younger. I liked Italian post war dramas and pepla and spaghetti westerns for some reason but was confused by Italian horror until I explored Mario Bava’s work. Then I read that Bava was an inspiration for Argento and the men even worked together on some projects at the end of Bava’s career. I decided there had to be something there my Cro-magnon mind could not fathom. Years later I finally concluded some of the stuff is okay after all though I can still be at a loss and typically cannot finish an Italian made horror or crime film in one setting.

Now what totally surprises me is how much I enjoyed Argento’s latest film Giallo. In fact when I bought the DVD I did not actually know it was an Argento film. Shows how out of touch I am I guess. I could tell by the title and cover art that it was going to be an homage film and I like both Adrien Brody and Emmanuelle Seigner so figured it had to be a decent enough film for an evening’s viewing. In fact I watched it after watching the really disappointing remake of The Taking of Pelham 123. I picked up the box and noticed for the first time it was a Dario Argento film and my heart sank. I had recently rewatched Suspiria (which I mostly enjoy) and had not seen anything recent by Argento since the TV movie Do You Like Hitchcock. In that case I expected an homage type film with lots of clever references to Hitchcock’s work but I was so disappointed that I went back into another long period of Argento loathing. I do not understand why I liked Giallo but I simply did. I have read scathing reviews of the film online and how the old master has lost his touch. I guess for me I never thought he had much of touch to begin with so I did not expect much. After seeing it I decided to find some other recent Aregento works, like Mother of Tears, I have dismissed in advance in a childish, judgmental fashion not appropriate to a purveyor of trash cinema. It is time I rethink this bias and deal with it and lay it to rest.

Giallo tells the story of a ugly, tormented and more than slightly demented man who suffers from jaundice, ergo the nickname ‘Yellow’ or giallo. The charcter of yellow is played by Byron Deidra. It is also the story of the eccentric and focused cop, Enzo Avolfi (Brody), who is obsessively on the bloody trail of Yellow. Avolfi does things his own way and is left alone by the department for the most part as he has a history of results. The name Byron Deidra happens to be a clever little anagram for Adrien Brody and both Avolfi and Yellow are played by Brody. Some sites have totally panned Brody’s performance but I feel it is pretty good. The lines he is given by writers Jim Agnew, Sean Keller and Argento are the most inspiring and he delivers them in a dead pan fashion that recalls troubles film noir detectives more than the classic giallo style detective who often lacked any dimension at all. Also coming into the mix is the American Linda (Emmanuelle Seigner aka Mrs. Roman Polanski) who is in Milan with her fashion model sister Celine (Brody’s real life fiancée Elsa Pataky) who suddenly vanished the night before. Seems Celine took the wrong taxi, driven by Yellow, and is now held captive in a creepy basement with what is left of Yellows last victim Keiko (Valentina Izumi). There the bitter Yellow engages in his hobby of torturing and disfiguring beautiful women before brutally killing them in various fashions, like pounding a hammer through their foreheads. Celine is a little more resistant than his last victims and eventually causes him a bit of trouble.

Linda seeks the help of the police and is sent to Avolfi’s isolated office in the police head quarter’s basement area. Of course Avolfi is rude and wants to be left alone but soon he drags her into the case and even starts showing her graphic crime scene photos and asking her for her opinions of them. Maybe not the choicest thing to do a woman whose kid sister is being held by the same killer that sort of thing happens a lot in mystery films. Of course a connection forms between Linda and Avolfi and at one point she invites him to spend the night at her place but in true lone wolf fashion he passes on the offer and sulks off into the night to brood over the case more. The violence in the film is pretty graphic,  as it is in most all of Argento’s work,  and there is a strange scene of Yellow choking his jaundiced chicken while looking at pictures on his laptop of his past victims. He is sucking on a baby pacifier at the same time and you can’t help but wonder what the hell Argento is really like as a gray haired man in his twilight years. There are of course inferences to past giallo flicks and while this film has it flaws I can’t help but hope it inspires a trend in this type of movie making for a while. The film score by Marco Werba is suitable and is an improvement on the type of scores that usually accompany Argento’s films, though I do like Goblin.

I am not saying that this is a great film and many of the criticisms are applicable. But if you go into with the idea that there will be some cheesy moments, perhaps intentionally cheesy for all I know, and that the leads are hamming it up here and there then I don’t think you will be all that disappointed. My wife watched it along with new The Taking of Pelham 123 and said she preferred Giallo of the two movies. I was happily surprised. I will probably give it another watch or two in the future and I feel Argento did well enough here. Definitely an improvement on things like The Phantom of the Opera and Do You Like Hitchcock.

GIALLO TRAILER

Until only recently I had never seen a episode of the British television production, by Granada Television, of the 1984 to 1994 Sherlock Holmes series starring Jeremy Brett as Conan Doyle’s master sleuth and David Burke and Edward Hardwicke taking turns at Dr. Watson. There were a few reasons for this that I will go into but in the end I think I may have been simply hard headed and biased towards anyone playing the role other than Basil Rathbone. But that is not the only reason and as time has gone on I can see some flaws in the Rathbone films, though not in his particularly perfect portrayal of Holmes. I picked up the boxed set with Brett a month or so ago and at the same time begin re-reading some of the stories in my two volume collection of the complete adventures of Sherlock Holmes that I keep on my bedside table, usually along side a couple books by Louis Lamour and Fyodor Dostoyevsky (my moods fluctuate obviously). I went into the series with some skepticism but not to the degree I will approach the new Guy Ritchie/Robert Downey Jr. interpretation.

My main concern was not with Jeremy Brett, who I knew nothing of but had read for some time that his performance is highly praised, but with the fact it was a British TV production. I typically do not like British TV shows, with exceptions of course, simply because of the way they look. The sets usually look like stage sets (even when they’re not) and the camera work looks jumpy and washed out, as if it were all shot on video rather than film. For all I know it may be. Sometimes the camera work is in and out of focus and the sound quality is flat at best. More like some drama you would see on PBS than on American prime time or cable. Which is not to say that what shows up on US TV is really better in substance but is usually better in form than most British TV which is in strange contrast to the usually above average look and feel of British cinema.

While the visual quality was better than lets say Fawlty Towers (which I think is a superb comedy) my aesthetic worries were soon confirmed and I had to force myself through to the end of the first couple episodes I watched but soon I was hooked by Brett’s riveting interpretation. Brett brought life to the Holmes character in a way I have transposed over into my reading. The character I imagine still looks like Basil Rathbone for the most part but has more animation and emotion than before thanks to Jeremy Brett. Brett appeared to have a hard time after a while with leaving Holmes on the set and certainly suffered from the intensity he put into the role. He had personal issues as well dealing with manic depression and eventually persistent despair following the death of his wife. Brett, who died in 1995 from heart failure, was considered a kind and warm hearted man with a charming sense of humor. He hid these personal qualities in order to create the near misanthropic character of the brilliant but egotistical Sherlock Holmes whose passion for his work process rather than his love for mankind drove him into his profession of solving crimes.

I now have completely arrived at a state where I am not worried about how the series was shot and for the most part have changed some of my old opinions about the look of British TV shows. It all seems to work out fine. The show also addresses and corrects two major problems I always had with the Basil Rathbone films. First the series puts Holmes back into Victorian England where he rightfully belongs. The Rathbone films took the extreme liberty of making Holmes contemporary to 1940’s England and even created stories where he dealt with Nazi’s. To be fair at times the scenes in the films often had a look and feel that slipped in and out of eras and certainly Rathbone’s Holmes was a man of the 19^th century. But an even larger issue with the Rathbone films was the portrayal of his biographer, professional associate and only true friend Dr. Watson by Nigel Bruce. Now as a film partnership the dichotomy created by Rathbone’s shrewd and logical Holmes and Bruce’s simply bumbling and clueless Watson is great. I do not hate the way it comes off at all, but being a fan of the stories I have always felt that Bruce’s Watson came nowhere close to the man in the story who actually assisted Holmes in the solving of the cases. Bruce’s Watson is usually shown mumbling to himself and essentially being intellectually worthless to Holmes. Burke and Harwicke present a Watson that is more worthy of being Holmes’ closest human companion.

The series tries to stay as true as possible to the stories but with some liberties of course. I just watched The Dancing Men and The Speckled Band and found them to be extremely close to the written stories. The series also touches on Holmes dependence to various drugs such as cocaine and morphine during times when he has no work or a conundrum to solve with his exquisite mind. I certainly regret that my biases kept me from watching these shows until now but I am delighted that I finally got the series and have been watching a couple a night lately. I do not even know if I have the entire series or not since the information on the box and disc is in Chinese (I live in China for those who do not know) and I hope I have all the 41 episodes Brett did before his tragic death at 61 years old. Like Rathbone Brett’s performances as Holmes have become the roles that have defined his professional career, but what a grand thing to be remembered for. I can say with little reservation (but with fear of blasphemy) that Brett’s interpretation of Sherlock Holmes is the definitive one, even eclipsing Basil Rathbone’s brilliant performances. For what is worth coming in third place would be Peter Cushing in the atmospheric Hammer production of The Hound of the Baskervilles. Sadly it would be his only performance as Sherlock Holmes. * See my post on Basil Rathbone here.

Two other great Sherlock Holmes actors:

The marvelous Basil Rathbone and Peter Cushing

* Addendum: Thanks to commenter Doanld G. for the following valuable information that I will look into further. From his informative comment:

“For the record, with regards to Peter Cushing as Holmes. In addition to the Hammer version of THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES, he also played Holmes in a 16 episode BBC series of adaptations in 1968 opposite Nigel Stock as Watson, and later played Holmes again in 1984’s THE MASKS OF DEATH opposite Sir John Mills as Watson.”

I have since researched the information slightly and am excited to find out that Cushing actually did more than the Hammer production of The Hound of the Baskervilles but distressed as well that this look pretty hard to find. May take Holmes himself to locate these treasures but I set myself upon the task and see what happen. Here is a link to a page on the Cushing BBC episodes.

HEAVENLY CREATURES

1994/Director: Peter Jackson/Writers: Fran Walsh, Peter Jackson

Cast: Melanie Lynskey, Kate Winslet, Sarah Peirse, Diana Kent, Clive Merrison, Simon O’Connor, Jed Brophy

On June 22, 1954 the peaceful little port city of Christchurch, New Zealand was shaken to the core by the murder of one Honora Rieper in idyllic Victoria Park. The horror only grew when diary entries by Honora’s daughter Pauline Parker (Pauline used her mother’s maiden name during the subsequent trial since Honora and Herbert Rieper had never actually married, though it proved to be a minor issue scandal wise) led police to arrest her and her friend Juliet Hulme for murder. The trial and its press coverage was something of a phenomenon for the citizens of New Zealand who had not had much excitement since Sir Edmund Hillary scaled Mt. Everest a year before. The papers were rife with conjecture concerning the relationship between the two girls. Did the girls share some type of insanity? Were they lesbian lovers? That may seem trivial now, or it may not, but in 50’s New Zealand homosexuality was an indication of a severe mental disorder as well as criminal behavior. The real life Juliet Hulme, who went on to live in Scotland and write mystery novels under the name Anne Perry, has denied there was ever a lesbian relationship between herself and Pauline, who now resides in England under the name Hilary Nathan and, as a Roamn Catholic convert, devotes her life to helping handicapped children. One thing for certain was that the girls had formed over a period of a couple years  deep bound that they were not about to split apart by the decisions of their families without resistance.

Peter Jackson had gained a reputation up to this point for making splatter horror/comedy films such as Bad Taste, Meet the Feebles and Braindead (Dead Alive). The movies were pretty good low budget fare that have all gone to genuine cult status but were hardly the sort of thing that would attract mainstream attention or approval. He was approached by friend and writer Fran Walsh with the concept of turning the Parker-Hulme murder story into a motion picture. Walsh had long been fascinated with the story and hoped to give the story a fact based retelling. The story had actually loosely been told before in the 1971 French film Mais Ne Nous Délivrez Pas Du Mal (Don’t Deliver Us From Evil) and while there are elements of the story in this interesting film there are lots of liberties as well, the most obvious being the story is set in France. I do recommend Don’t Deliver Us From Evil as a decent movie however. I had the fortunate opportunity of seeing Jackson’s Heavenly Creatures at the small and cozy Grande Illusions Cinema in Seattle. I knew the name Peter Jackson at the time from his horror/fantasy work and still connect it to the alien vomit drinking scene in Bad Taste. I was not sure what to expect. I was more than happy with the film and Jackson’s decision to move away from slapstick-gore films (though if he wanted to return once in awhile that would be okay too).

Jackson and Walsh decided to focus the film on the story of the girl’s relationship rather than make it a courtroom drama. In fact there is never a court room shot at all nor even an arresting police officer. The film introduces female leads Melanie Lynskey and Kate Winslet. Winslet competed against 175 other actresses to get the role. She is really brilliant here but Melanie Lynskey, who went on to a more modest degree of stardom in lesser known films and TV, is simply fantastic as the underprivileged, embittered and desperate Pauline Parker.

Juliet’s parents move to the small community of Christchurch from England. There her father takes the  position of regent at a University  and it must be a step down for him but the move is necessary for Juliet’s health. The intellectually disciplined Dr. Henry Hulme (Clive Merrison) would develop conflicts eventually with the small town provincialism of the Christchurch school leaders that would lead to yet one more element of insecurity in the life of Juliet. She has tuberculosis in one lung and the warm climes of places like the Bahamas and now New Zealand are more suited to treating her ailment. She befriends classmate Pauline Rieper while both of them sit out gym class each day due to health concerns. Pauline suffered from the bone disease osteomyelitis in her legs and has the scars of numerous operations to show for her ordeal, scars that Juliet wants to gaze at over and over. Juliet is a bright and vivacious girl with a sharp intellect. Her family is affluent and well bred and educated. Frumpy and insecure Pauline comes from a working class family and she is soon overwhelmed by the opulent lives led by the Hulmes. At the same times she becomes all but ashamed of her own family and its crude views of the world.

The girls escape reality in many seemingly innocuous fashions. They develop a fantasy world they call Borovnia where the inhabitants seem to be parodies of the royal family. The world of Borovnia showcases Jackson’s fascination with animation and fantasy scenes that are a part of all his films. Juliet has inherited her father’s agnosticism and she develops a non-Christian quasi-spiritual realm known as the Fourth World and Pauline is invited to be a part of this world were images of their favorite opera singers and movie actors are enshrined and worshipped . Singer Mario Lanzi is held in godlike reverence by Juliet but she is revolted when Pauline tries to include a b/w photo of Orsen Welles into the shrine. A later nightmare sequence would show Welles stalking the girls through film noir type sets.

While Pauline seems to entertain fantasies that she has become a part of the Hulme household nothing could be further from reality as not only does Henry Hulme become concerned over the nature of the girl’s relationship but he and his wife Hilda (Diana Kent) are drifting apart and looking to get a divorce eventually. For now they live together, with Hilda’s psychiatric and lover Bill, out of convenience and propriety. At her home Pauline has become more and more distant from her parents and particularly combative with her mother Honora (Sarah Peirse) who really seems to do the best she can but has her hands full. After Pauline is caught in the sack with one of the boarders her parents put even more restrictions on her comings and goings. The final nail in the girl’s coffin comes after Juliet is released from a TB hospital and Henry is asked to resign from the University and he decides to return to England and leave cheating Hilda in New Zealand. Juliet will not stay with her two timing mother and refuses to go to England without Pauline, and England is simply bad for her health at this time. She needs a warm, dry climate to get better and so the family decides to send her to live with an aunt in South Africa. The girls image that Pauline can leave and go live in South Africa with Juliet  but Pauline’s mother makes it clear that her 15 year old daughter is not going anywhere. They then have big plans of getting together some money and running away to America to become writers but that dream is squashed as well when Honora refuses to sign for her passport.

Driven to such a situation what else can you do but hatch a murder plot where you put half a brick into a stocking and repeatedly beat poor your own mother’s skull in after having a cup of tea with her. According to information not presented in the film the girl’s made up the story that Honora slipped and fell and hit a rock while walking with them through a park. The body showed she had been beat in the head and face multiple times and there were defensive wounds on her hands as well. Well, maybe she fell and got up and fell again, and then got back up and…

The girl’s story unraveled the very same day when police discovered Pauline’s diary in her bedroom. They both only served five years in jail ad were released on the condition they never contact one another again, and as far as anyone knows they never have. The film treats the characters sympathetically. And not just the girls. Juliet’s parents are distant from her but they are trying to sort out the mess of their privates lives at the same time. Pauline’s parents are simple folk but love her and cannot quite deal with her sudden bitterness and hostility. Juliet’s beaming personality hides an anguished soul and Pauline’s brooding nature only intensifies as the film progresses. The onscreen chemistry between Winslet and Lynskey is of a rare variety. They became so immersed in their roles that they continued to portray the characters off screen as well. Watch for one scene were a jubilant Juliet kisses a bum on the street. It is a cameo by Peter Jackson. Producer and Jackson’s friend and associate Jim Booth died when the film was completed and it is dedicated to him. A dark and marvelous journey from a man could have just continued making zombie movies.

THE REAL JULIET HULME AND PAULINE PARKER

Pauline Parker                                    Juliet Hulme

News clipping of Juliet              Can you find Pauline in this school photo?

Pauline and Juliet                          Melanie and Kate

For further information on the actual events check out this site from The Christchurch Library archives. It is loaded with newspaper clips covering the case from start to finish.

A fan based site with laods of trivia about both the film and actual crime can be found here at a site called The 4th World after the imaginary world the girls created between themselves. The site has a massive FAQ as well as information on the victim Honora (Nora) Parker.

Here is the web page for mystery author Anne Perry (Juliet Hulme). In her site bio there is no mention of the fact she once helped a friend of hers brutally murder the friend’s mother with a brick stuffed inside a stocking. Probably best.

THE GRANDE ILLUSIONS CINEMA

The atmospheric interior of the Grande Illusion Cinema where

I saw Heavenly Creatures and many other fine films.

HOMEMADE CLIP OF ACTION SCENES

FROM THE MACHINE GIRL

]]> http://uraniumcafe-the.com/2009/01/07/eighteen-minutes-of-action-from-the-machine-girl/feed/ 1 http://uraniumcafe-the.com/2008/12/19/eric-roberts-as-super-sleazy-paul-snider-in-bob-fosses-dorothy-straten-bio-pic-star-80/ http://uraniumcafe-the.com/2008/12/19/eric-roberts-as-super-sleazy-paul-snider-in-bob-fosses-dorothy-straten-bio-pic-star-80/#comments Fri, 19 Dec 2008 13:06:32 +0000 Uranium Willy http://uraniumcafe-the.com/?p=2979

STAR 80

1983/ Director: Bob Fosse/ Writers: Teresa Carpenter (article), Bob Fosse (screenplay)

Cast: Mariel Hemingway, Eric Roberts, Cliff Robertson, Carroll Baker, Roger Rees, David Clennon, Josh Mostel, Lisa Gordon

Star 80 is the 1983 film by Bob Fosse that deals graphically and unflinchingly with the rise of Playboy Playmate of the year Dorothy Stratten to modest fame and her brutal murder by her controlling and fame obsessed husband Paul Snider. The film is done in a type of documentary style with actors playing the significant people in Dorothy’s life adding hindsight to the event. We know what the ending of the film will be and Fosse takes us directly right to the bloody scene itself in and then retells the story in various flashbacks and narrations. While perhaps not Fosse’s best movie it is a well shot and edited film that has actually been criticized for dealing with the subject matter in such a glossy and stylish manner. It is significant for Fosse as well in that it is the last film this great director ever directed. He went on to work in other areas of film making and production. This it too bad really as this is the same skilled director who also gave movie goers Lenny and All That Jazz.

Eric Robert’s performance as the pimpish and success driven Paul Snider is not over praised. He does a masterful job of showing the shallowness and insecurity Snider possessed as well as the depth of his jealously and manipulativeness of a naïve Dorothy Stratten. Some scenes are worth several replays simply for Robert’s performance alone. On the flip side however I have read several overly critical reviews of Muriel Hemingway’s portrayal of Dorothy Stratten, the one most common criticism seems to be that she simply was not as beautiful or sexually enticing as Stratten was. I agree that Dorothy Stratten had that perfect Playmate charm that made her the object of any red blooded man’s fantasies, but I feel Hemingway, and director-scriptwriter Fosse, were trying to reveal more about Stratten’s character and personality than her Playboy bunny body. However Hemingway did get breast implants to get the role, implants that later would rapture and cause a series of health issues for her.

Hemingway’s prior film performance was as Woody’s schoolgirl love interest in Manhattan. It is a similar role in that she plays an innocent and trusting waif that slowly comes to maturity and independence by the end of each film, but Manhattan ended on a much more optimistic note than the fatalistic and despairing Star 80. We know even before we see the film what the ending is and as I said the films opens with a blood covered Eric Roberts casting aspersions to the people who drove him to kill Dorothy and reveling in his victory. If he can’t have her no one will.

Roberts plays the streetwise hustler Paul Snider who meets Dorothy in a Vancouver B.C. Dairy Queen where she is working the counter. Hemingway convincingly plays a bored girl fresh out of high school who becomes quickly susceptible to Paul’s charms and lavish gifts. Less susceptible is Dorothy’s mother played by Carol Baker. Her distrust of Snider is immediate and the antagonism between the two characters is palpable at times. After Paul has decided Dorothy is Playboy material there is a great scene where he and Dorothy’s mother have a conflict over her signing the papers to allow under aged Dorothy permission to fly to LA and be shot for the spread. She is having none of it but he forges her signature and she is soon at the Playboy Mansion hobnobbing with all the people Paul want to be associated with. It is apparent that he sees Dorothy as his ticket to the life he has always wanted, his chance to move away from his small time deals and hustles and to mingle with the jet set of the late 70’s celebrity crowd. He will simply stop at nothing to protect his investment and secure his own road to fame and riches. He soon pressures Dorothy into marriage and is in LA and riding her coattails into the Playboy Mansions where he quickly alienates himself with his crass and aggressive personality.

Among the people concerned about Dorothy is Hugh Hefner, who is played here by Cliff Robertson. Hefner was so upset by the performance he actually sued Fosse though I myself see nothing negative about the portrayal. She now has made friends and associates and has begun to grow as a person and seeks some independence from Snider’s exploitative schemes. Among her new associates is film director Aram Nichols played by Richard Rees and is a less than veiled representation of Dorothy’s new lover director Peter Boganovicvh. Boganovich wrote his version of events in the book Death of the Unicorn, and he was sued by Hugh Hefner as well for an unflattering portrayal. Just how noble does Hugh expect himself to appear in film and print? Bogdanovich was crushed and distraught over Stratten’s murder, so much so in fact that he essentially began “caring for” her younger sister Eileen (Lisa Gordon in the film) and would wind up marrying her when she turned twenty years old, the same age as Bogdanovich’s daughter.

The final scenes of the movie were shot in the actual house where Stratten was murdered. As Snider sees his chance at the big time slipping away little by little he employs a private eye played by Josh Mostel (son of comedian Zero Mostel) to track her while she is in New York filming with Aram. When it becomes clear she is having am affair his first response is how can he sue Aram and get some money. The matter is seen as a breach of contract almost, but soon his macho ego is shattered and the slimy Paul Snider soon turns into the lethal Paul Snider when he buys a pump action shotgun. Despite her promises to Aram not to see Snider again she stops by for one last meeting, to settle things. She brings some money as a way to sever the partnership and when she turns her nose up at the poster Paul has made, that will outdo Farrah Fawcett’s in his opinion,  he is further insulted. Of course no one can really know what happened in the last hours but the event in the film are portrayed in a chilling fashion. As the movie winds down the viewer has become dazed by Dorothy’s plight and by Snider’s untiring persistence in controlling her up to the very end. While the film shows Snider incapable of having sex with Stratten the facts seem to show she either had consensual sex or was raped by him. She was at some point trussed up a sex device he designed and is shot in the face point blank. Snider would turn the weapon on himself and when their bodies were found hours later in the August heat of Los Angeles they were both covered with swarms of black ants.

The film is often interpreted as showing the dark side of the American dream and what people will do for fame and power. While Snider is obviously the most evil person in the film Hefner and Bogdanovich are felt to be as exploitative of Stratten beauty and naiveté as he was. This is explored in the Pulitzer Prize winning article by Teresa Carpenter for the Village Voice which I uploaded to Boxster.com and made available for download at the end of this commentary. They certainly were not violent men but certainly one has to question their motives as well. There is a lot of stuff on the net and one thing that is not explored in the movie is the very real possibility that Dorothy had slept with Hefner and even other people at the Mansion. I do not know if this is important to the film or the story and film makers always have to bend the truth in one direction or another to make a person’s life a watchable film.

I am usually not satisfied when I review a difficult film and in this case I am the most dissatisfied with any review I have ever written, long or short. The movie has struck me in a deep way each time I have seen it (the last time being last night with my wife) and yet I cannot seem to put into words why I am so impacted. It is a fast paced and chilling film and not one that is easy to watch. Even the scene where beautiful Dorothy is shot is brutal, showing the blast impact on her cheek. While a great technical achievement it is too bad that Fosse elected to have this grim story be his film directing swansong. If you have not seen it you simply must.

THE REAL PLAYERS

PAUL SNIDER        DOROTHY STRATTEN        HUGH HEFNER AND DOROTHY

PETER BOGDANOVICH                        DOROTHY AND PETER

PDF OF THE COMPLETE VILLAGE VOICE ARTICLE BY TERESA CARPENTER

I have been hearing about this infamous falling out between Led Zeppelin maestro Jimmy Page and filmmaker, writer Kenneth Anger for decades now. Sadly the only the material I can find on the net still seems to the same variety of articles that appeared in rock fan magazines back in the seventies. This is actually one of the few great legends in the world that I have some sort of  connection with. Well, in a sort of incalculably indirect  way. I saw Page with Zeppelin back in 1977 in Ohio, and briefly met Anger at a book signing at the fantastic Scarecrow Video store in Seattle, where he signed my special copy of Hollywood Babylon with the Aleister Crowley quote Do What Thou Wilt from The Book of the Law. I had a nice little collection of Crowley books, most from Samuel Llewellyn  Press at one time, though I doubt it could compare to the collection by Anger and of course the filthy rich Jimmy Page who was reputed to have had at one time the 2nd largest collection of Crowley books and memorabilia in the world, including Crowley’s Boleskin House, perched on the cheery shores of Loch Ness in Scotland. It was one of three fantastic houses a then young Page owned (all have since been sold I believe). He also owned a house in the Kensington district of London called the Tower House, designed by Victorian architect William Burgess and formally owned by Richard Harris, and it is in this house  that the drama between Anger and Page unfolded.

Anger had been inside the rock circle for some time, in part due to his avant garde (a fancy word for confusing usually) films such as Scorpio Rising which had a score of old rock music that actually prevented the film from being shown publicly for decades due to copy write issues. He met Anita Pallenberg who was seeing soon to be deceased Rolling Stones guitarist Brian Jones. She would later become Keith Richards’s common law wife. The Stones took a liking to Anger and his liberated views views on life and vast knowledge of occult matters, and in particular his passion for British occultist Aleister Crowley. Their public image would shift from Brit bad boys to decadent and sinister rockers during their time with Anger. Their song Sympathy for the Devil from On Her majesty’s Satanic Service was inspired by conversations with Anger. Jagger would even score an Anger film called Invocation of My Demon Brother. I have seen the film and it is a really horrendous soundtrack in my opinion. Some repetitive experimental sounds on what sounds like an early Moog synthesizer. Jagger is a good musician as well as singer and could ahve done something a little better maybe.

Jimmy Page had developed his own interest in matters occult and with Crowley in particular. He owned an occult bookstore called the Equinox and, as mentioned, out bid other rock dignitaries like David Bowie in the purchasing of Boleskin Manor. Page and Anger met at an auction of Crowley memorabilia in about 1973 and a friendship was formed. Anger asked Page if he would be interested in scoring his latest and most ambitious film project Lucifer Rising (or whatever the working title may have been) and Page enthusiastically accepted. Anger was allowed access to a film editing facility in the basement area of the Tower House that was set up to edit scenes for The Song Remains the Same, the Led Zeppelin concert film. Exactly what the reasons for Jimmy’s alleged loss of interest in the project are depend on what source you are reading. A lot of things were said later in the press that seemed fueled by resentment on both men’s part. Essentially after a period of time the friendship began to cool off and  Anger returned to one day to find himself locked out of the lower area of the house he was working in. The rest of the house had always been off limits to Anger. as well as the general public, being ast the tiem the only of William Burgess’ houses not open to the public. It seems there was a domestic quarrel between Page and his girlfriend (perhaps Charlotte Martin who Page had a long a stormy, though little publicized,  relationship with, including marrigae and divorce) the night before and it was she who locked Anger out. Anger claimed he could not reach Page despite repeated attempts and Swan Song offices did not communicate with him as they are known to do with people and the public regarding Led Zeppelin issues. He eventually gathered his belongings and called the offices to inform them Page was fired as the film’s composer. In interviews following the incident Anger blamed Page’s lack of productivity (after more than year he had produced only 23 minutes of music that Anger found too morbid) on his increasing use of heroin. In some interviews (there is a brief comment by Anger on youtube but the video was all “psychedelic” looking, so I did not link it) Anger does not seem that bitter and says Page is a beautiful person who has let his drug use get control of him. In other statements he has also said Page has a good work ethic and commitment to projects, but that he had basically became a junky and now behaves like a junky in unpredictable ways and asocial ways.

Page seemed surprised by his firing and has said he had been kept busy with Zeppelin matters and getting Swan Song off the ground and thought Anger was happy with the music he had so far produced and that he had more than the 23 minutes but not in a final stage of production. Page was less hostile in press statements than Anger was (what do you think with a name like that, right? Though he was born Kenneth Wilber Anglemyer) but seemed disappointed byt he whole affair. The simple truth is that Page did have a drug problem and it did affect his decisions and performances in later Zeppelin periods. Too what degree that affected this situation, or did not,  we can only speculate. However it did not seem like an appropriate issue for someone as normally  polite as Anger to keep bringing up publicly.  It simply made him appear vindictive and simply too bitter.

Anger would eventually enlist the help of ex-protégée Bobby Beausoleil in getting a finished soundtrack for the film. This was no simple task since Beausoleil had been a California prison since 1969 for a Mansion Family related murder. It was a prior murder of Gary Hinman over a bad drug deal and  not of Sharon Tate. A soundtrack of Jimmy’s completed 23 minutes was released in the early eighties on Anger’s own Boleskin House Records, catalog number BHR666 and was limited to a release of 1000 copies on clear blue vinyl and these are considered almost priceless now to vinyl collectors.

Well, I have linked the composition here and you can be the judge of it all. Page plays all the instruments, including guitars, ARP synthesizers, percussion and the theremin (or sometimes theramin, the musical instrument that responds to hand motion). There is some interesting vocal sections near the beginning area that sound like the chorus in 2001: A Space Odyssey when the apes are flipping out around the monolith. The intro to In the Evening from In Through the Out Door is supposed to from some of the recording sessions. It has also been said that some of the incidental music from Death Wish II was based on what Page was working on during the Lucifer Rising sessions. For years I had always heard of this mentioned to as “the Black Album” and it was the substance of myth. Along with the myth of the album were the myriad rumors that began during this period of the late seventies that jimmy’s involvement in black magic had led to the bands misfortunes, such as the death of Robert Plant’s son, Robert’s serious car accident, Page’s health issues and declining ability to work and perform as he once had and finally the death of John Bonham at Page’s house. These rumors and legend still persist in the history of the band. Both Page and Anger, as far as I can tell, got over their period of conflict and moved on with their lives though the friendship was over. In later interviews the men had good things to say about each other and any mention of a black magic curse is done tongue in cheek by the both of them.

Here is the Jimmy Page OST to Lucifer Rising in its entirety:

LUCIFER RISING

Download audio file (jimmypageluciferrising.mp3)

My Rapidshare link to the complete Lucifer rising OST

HOW TO DOWNLOAD AND SAVE AUDIO/VISUAL FILES FROM THE URANIUM CAFE:
If you want to download and save an audio (or even video) file this is the easiest way to do it:
1) Use Mozilla Firefox
2) Install any number of add-ons that capture Flash Media. I use Fast Video Download. It is straight forward and easy.
3) Play the file let it buffer a bit then click on FVD in your status bar and select the file then rename it after the download completes.

If you do not know who El Santo (The Saint) is he was a real professional wrestler in Mexico who also became a matinee idol and comic book hero. He made some 50 or more films in his career and a few were imported into the US by K. Gordon Murray, most noted for importing and dubbing loads of children’s fairy tale films. Santo in the Wax Museum was one of the more successful Santo films because it was one of them that was dubbed into English. I also have a about six or seven other Santo films here and the other one I watched, Santo and the Diabolical Brain is in Spanish with English subtitles. I don’t know why, but I like some movies more dubbed. Not because I am lazy and cannot read subs, but it really adds to the campiness of the already corny translated dialog, as in the case of many of the Toho kaiju (strange monster) films. And most certainly the dubbing adds to the zaniness of this Santo (called Samson for some reason in the Murray releases, as if gringos can’t accept a Spanish sounding name) film from 1963, made when Santo himself was already 45 years old.

A series of murders and disappearances  are tied to people who have recently visited Dr. Karols’s (Claudio Brook) wax museum. The museum is a strange collection of figures on one floor, ranging from Gandhi to Gary Cooper, but housed in the lower level is Dr. Karol’s collection of infamous murderers and monsters, the pride of his little museum. When photographer Susana Mendoza vanishes Santo is called in by a friend to investigate. The first part of the movie seems to plod along and I almost forgot it was a Santo film, until he arrives on the scene in his trademark silver mask, tights and cape. He rides around in a sports car and has a “Batcave” type laboratory that seems to be located in his apartment. Later when thugs set out to kill him they just come in through his back door. He is renowned for his crime solving abilities but once in a while he has to put the case on the back burner and rush off to the arena to do some wrestling. In fact there are three bouts in the film.

The movie culminates of course with Santo fighting the bad guys and monsters (humans changed into wax figure zombies by Dr. Karol, who plans to somehow destroy the world with them) with lots of wrestling moves. The girl is saved from being turned into a “panther girl” and put in the museums lower floor and in one scene Santo cooks four or five monsters with a vat of boiling wax. Claudio Brook is great as Dr. Karol and in one scene does a classic mad scientist laugh that goes on and on. Santo is really strange as he stands around people’s apartments discussing the case in his mask and with his exposed chest and belly seemingly drawing no special attention from anyone. Like I said the dubbing adds to the fun, especially Dr. Karol’s radio announcer monotone. I liked it a lot and look forward to getting my others Santos films burned so I can lie back on my sofa and be thrilled at the marvel that is El Santo. For cheese lovers only.

THE COLLECTOR

1965/Director: William Wyler/ Writers: John Fowles (novel), Stanley Mann (writer)

Cast: Terence Stamp, Samantha Eggar, Mona Washbourne, Maurice Dallimore

The Collector is a film by William Wylers, based on the novel by John Fowles, starring basically only two actors in a almost stage style performance. Terrance Stamp plays butterfly collector Freddie Clegg who is actually rather brilliant but has an incredible inferiority complex. He works as a clerk who is taunted daily by his co-workers until he one day wins a substantial fortune in the British football pool. He uses his money to buy and equip a isolated, rustic old house in the lush British country side. By equip I mean he turns the Gothic looking cellar into a furnished holding cell meant to contain one Miranda Grey ( Sammantha Eggar ) who he has developed an obsession with and is determined to make her fall in love with him. The first step in his bizarre courtship is to chloroform her then kidnap her and haul her back to her cell. She has no idea where she is or what Freddie’s intentions really are and in some ways neither do we, as the viewer is uncertain of how sincere he really is with his promises and comfortings.

The film focuses on the tension and conflicts between educated and born into money Miranda and once working class Freddie who is now wealthy and has a lot of free time on his hands. Both actors deliver excellent performances. The movie came on the heels Hitchcock’s Psycho (and so cannot avoid often undue comparisions) and while technically Psycho is a better made film, The Collector is a more believable study of a broken mind and psychosis. One cannot help but sympathize somehow with Freddie’s plight (and Stamp’s insightful performance adds to our ability to connect with the unhinged young man). We almost hope that Miranda will little by little actually come around to Freddie or that he will honor his word and release her at the time he promises at the beginning of her captivity. Not just for her sake, but for his own because does not seem to be an evil person. None of this is to be and the film ends tragically, but not with Freddie being killed off by his captive, as is the norm for modern captor/captive films, but with the unintentional death of Miranda from exposure to the elements basically.

Some reviews I scanned refer to Freddie as a serial killer, but this is not the case at all. He sincerely seems to mean no harm to Miranda and while he is forceful he is never brutal or sadistic. As the film progresses however and the worlds from which Freddie and Miranda were born into seem to remain distant and unknown to the other Freddie becomes more and more frustrated and Miranda more and more terrified and dependent at the same time. In one scene Freddie tries to understand Miranda’s interest in Picasso and J.D Salinger and angrily destroys the books he bought her. In another Miranda insults Freddie’s prize winning butterfly collection that he shyly reveals to her, hoping to show something of his true self to her.

As I said, the film ends not with the death of the captor but with the slow decline and death of the captive. The last shots of the film show Freddie stalking his next victim, now more experienced and not apt to make the wrong choices as before, such as choosing someone he has nothing in common with. Freddie, while at times likable and almost naïve in nature, in the end has little remorse left for Miranda and concludes she brought it all on herself. One scene is left to the viewer to decide what really may have or may not ahve happen when Freddies lies down in bed wit the again chloraformed Miranda and caresses her hair as the scene fades in typical 1960′s fashion. He promises nothing happened as she was unconscious but why even mention the incident all then.

While the movie is nicely shot and I might say it suffered a little from a lack of a truly claustrophobic atmosphere. It also suffered from a really inadequate soundtrack by the usually capable Maurice Jarre. The soundtrack is nice… but too nice and at times a little corny and seems like more of a soundtrack for the films of the 1950’s. The movie needed a score that was a little more tension creating, rather than, honestly, soothing and inappropriate.

Another great British movie that, like The Servant, uses the action and drama as a vehicle for other messages, here such as British class struggle, the basic problems of loneliness and men and women communicating in general. I am also preparing a post on what I call Miranda style movies, and have about eight films to try and pander. Some may seem a little odd and may stretch the category a little and I will see if I can manage to be convincing or not. I searched for some quotes from the film but could find none really and will see if I can get a script from online and select some of my own, as some of the lines are so unsettling and chilling. A truly creepy film that relies on acting and atmosphere and well written lines. I have never read the book by John Fowles and being in China I may have a hard time locating it unless I can back to Beijing or Shanghai. I would certainly like to read the book after seeing this film again the other night. I cannot recommend a movie like this high enough.