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).

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Here is a homemade clip  of the opening sequence from Star 80 highlighting Eric Robert’s performance as the slimy but lethal Paul Snider. I uploaded it to Google Video and I hope it stays since there are not many clips or decent trailers to be found online for this film.  There  are no trailers to be found on Youtube or Google Video at all, at least not that I could find and for certain reasons I was anxious to upload this clip to Youtube right now.  I got my 1st ever warning at my Video Cavalcade site there for uploading a trailer to the Japanese  sex/gore flick Killer Pussy (and you can follow that link to my review and Google Video clip at Necrotic Cinema). Since this scene has some nudity and naughty words I did not want to upset the censor committee  at Youtube there and get my site removed. If I can find a good trailer online and download it I will get it back up somewhere and post it here at the Cafe. For now enjoy this homemade clip from Star 80.

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.

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ICE STATION ZEBRA

1968/Director: John Sturges/Writers: Alistair MacLean (novel), Douglas Heyes (screenplay)

Cast: Rock Hudson, Ernest Borgnine, Patrick McGoohan, Jim Brown, Tony Bill, Lloyd Nolan, Alf Kjellin, Gerald S. O’Loughlin

My dad was stationed on Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio Texas in the late 60’s. One of the little perks of being the son of a military dad was having the ID card that got me onto the base and then into some cool places, like the bowling alley, the PX (base exchange), the cafeterias and of course the various bland looking movie houses. With my ID card it cost me all of 35 cents to see assorted spaghetti westerns, horror and sci-fi films, comedies and once in a while a real movie. Such was the case with Ice Station Zebra, a film I saw all alone in the base theater at about the age of eleven. Shot in stunning 70mm  with a dramatic score my Michael Legrand (restored in full with intermission music on the version I have) it was awesome to behold on the big screen and if I remember right I saw it about three times in a week. (more…)

ROMPER STOMPER

1992/Director: Geoffrey Wright/ Writer: Geoffrey Wright

Cast: Russell Crowe, Daniel Pollock, Jacqueline McKenzie, Alex Scott, Leigh Russell, Daniel Wyllie, James McKenna,    Eric Mueck, Frank Magree,

Romper Stomper was early on in Russell Crowe’s movie acting career and when I first saw the film on VHS back in the 90’s he had yet to achieve the level of stardom he has since attained. Had I known Crowe already and some of the Hollywood work I have seen of his lately, such as A Beautiful Mind and Cinderella Man I would have thought something like “wow, he really made some wild movies way back then, not like Gladiator at all”. But when I first saw the film I really knew very little of the guy and doubt that I even knew his name, which only added to the intensity of this already riveting drama about angry skinheads in Melbourne Australia. Crowe is simply mesmerizing as Hando, the leader of a band of skinheads who at the moment are focusing their plentiful hatred and violent behavior on the local Vietnamese community. The film was written and directed by Geoffrey Wright and has a blood pumping soundtrack of instrumental music as well as the “Oi” type skinhead punk rock music. The photography  is often rawand grainy and the editing fast at the right moments but not overboard and constantly jerky, as it often can be with this type of film. Along with Crowe are Australian actress Jacqueline McKenzie and actor Daniel Pollock, who had played a small role with Crowe in 1991’s Proof, another great independent Australian film.

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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.

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IN A LONELY PLACE

1950/ Director: Nicholas Ray/ Writers:Dorothy B. Hughes (story), Edmund H. North (adaptation)

Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Gloria Grahame, Frank Lovejoy, Carl Benton Reid, Art Smith, Jeff Donnell, Martha Stewart

It has been said that the character of “Dix” Dixon Steele in Nicholas Ray’s In a Lonely Place comes closer to conveying Bogey’s real character than any other of his film roles. Steele is a once successful screen writer who has not had a hit in years and now is cynical and inclined to drink heavily and sulk. His disposition is moody and prone to violence. It is a small wonder that he becomes the main suspect when a young girl is found murdered after she spent her last night alive at his apartment reading a book meant for adaptation. Steele is so burned out and bitter at the shallow movie industry that made him a celebrity he cannot even read the book himself.
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THE SERVANT

1963/ Director:Joseph Losey/Writers: Robin Maugham (novel)Harold Pinter (screenplay)

Cast: Dirk Bogarde, Sarah Miles, Wendy Craig, James Fox, Patrick Magee, Catherine Lacey, Richard Vernon

I had never really heard about this movie, a collaboration between director Joseph Losey and playwrite/screenwriter Howard Pinter except in passing while reading reviews of other films. I had had the DVD lying around for a couple months and decided I would pop it in one night and was so stunned by the film I felt compelled to do a post on it here at the Cafe though it tends to fall outside what I would normally write about though is one I want to promote. In fact, the film is not easy to critique and really is one that must be seen and allowed to wash over you with its dark waters and sinister shadows. I made a clip from the movie and uploaded it to youtube (see the next post… I must post videos separately from posts heavy laden with text and graphics for technical reasons), as well as uploading the trailer, as there was very little there about this marvelously malevolent story of role reversal, British class struggle moral decay and sexual decadence. (more…)

I am a huge enthusiast of film noir style films and especially those of the 40’s and 50’s. I decided to finally begin this category dedicated to noir films. I have seen plenty and have a decent DVD collection to review. I might add that for me film noir is not limited to tough talking detective films, though those movies represent the core of what film noir is noted for, but can include boxing films such as The Set Up and Requiem for a Heavy Weight, and in a stretch even westerns such as High Noon or Gregory Peck’s The Gunfighter. Some newer films such as the excellent Body Heat and L.A. Confidential draw from the film noir tradition but are not really film noir to me for one big reason: they are not in sensational black and white. Color just eleviates the despair and suffering to a tolerable point. The soul is to so dark and stained any longer and you cannot get those great smoke rings against the black background any longer. Lets begin this category with triple doses of the underbelly of life, beginning with pretty boy Tyrone Power’s experiment in carny angst:

Nightmare Alley

1947/Director: Edmund Goulding/Screenplay: Jules Furthman , William Lindsay Gresham (novel)

Cast: Tyrone Power , Joan Blondell, Coleen Gray, Helen Walker, Taylor Holmes, Mike Mazurki, Ian Keith

From what I understand Tyrone Power bought the rights to Lindsay Gresham’s novel for something like $60,000 and wanted it to be a vehicle to shed his romantic lead image and establish him as a legitimate actor. The studios at first felt the material was unfilmable but Powers and prospective director Edmund Goulding were persistent and the movie was filmed. Powers plays a traveling sideshow carnie on the look out for his big break who he finds in the sideshow fortune teller. They team up after her alcoholic husband or boyfriend drinks a bottle of wood grain alcohol and do a mind reading act that soon grows too small for Powers. He is shotgun married to the strongman’s (Mike Mazurki) naïve but sexy daughter played convincingly by pretty Collen Gray.

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