THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN

1957/ Director: Terence Fisher/ Writers: Jimmy Sangster (screenplay), Mary Shelley (novel)

Cast: Peter Cushing, Hazel Court, Robert Urquhart, Christopher Lee, Melvyn Hayes, Valerie Gaunt, Paul Hardtmuth

The Curse of Frankenstein is truly a history making movie. Prior to Curse Hammer had had some success as a film studio and with the Quartermass films and X The Unknown found a niche in the horror genre. Curse was their first color film, and what a first it was. The scenes are lush and vibrant as well as chilling and nightmarish. Under the direction of the brilliant Terence Fisher the movie revived the gothic horror film. While it was a return to the classic, atmospheric horror themes established in the 30’s by Universal studios, Hammer would certainly tell the stories with their own style. Hammer screenwriter Jimmy Sangster would turn the focus of the story on the character of Victor Frankenstein rather than the monster. The obsessed doctor and his hideous creation are played by Hammer first timers Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee. Lee got the role basically because of his 6’4” height, a feature that almost prevented him from landing the role he would make legendary, that of Count Dracula. However it is Cushing that shines as the driven and insane Dr. Victor Frankenstein. He does frequent himself with hunchbacks as he robs graves but he aligns himself with his brilliant tutor. In later Hammer Frankenstein films the Igor type hunchback is eschewed for career driven young men who fall under Frankenstein’s evil charm. Cushing is dashingly handsome and his face conveys the doctor’s charisma and madness. He is a sociopath really who will let no one stand in the way of his ambitions.

The story essentially follows the classic Frankenstein tale, that of a man whose supreme creation turns into a monster that sets out to destroy its creator. The film has a wrap around narration and opens up with a pries arriving at the jail house where a broken and disheveled Victor await the guillotine. He does seek absolution but just wants someone to believe his incredible story, and that it was a “monster” that murdered his jealous house maid. We are taken back in time to when an already rich and arrogant young Victor Frankenstein meets his brilliant new tutor Paul Krempe (Robert Urquhart) and the two form a deep connection as time passes. However Victor’s passion run darker and more sinister than Paul’s as he desires to test their live reviving techniques on humans and not just small animals. Paul, though strong willed, is susceptible to Victor’s vision and passion and he is soon cutting corpses from the gallows to use in experiments. As in all Frankenstein stories the sublime nature of Frankenstein’s creation is not its physical form, hewed together from collected body parts, but it is to be the thing’s magnificent mind.

While all of Paul’s and Victor’s experiments are going on the house Victor’s cousin Elizabeth (the lovely Hazel Court) has come to stay following the death of her mother. She and her mother have long been cared for financially by Victor and now the two are to be paired in an arranged marriage. But the ambitious Victor has been dallying with the house keeper Justine (Valerie Gaunt) and whispering sweet nothings in her ear… sweet nothings that while rear their ugly heads and spell Justine’s doom eventually. Paul grows fond of Elizabeth and pleads with her to leave and while she senses his sincerity she is intend on wedding Victor. And Victor in the meantime had solved the problem of how to get a brilliant brain into his patchwork Übermensch, he will simply invite the gifted Professor Bernstein up for dinner and chat, then push him over the banister and kill him in a truly amazing scene that does not look like a dummy was used. Paul is over wrought with disgust at Victor and a conflict ensues in the crypt and the brain is damaged, but Victor continues his experiment to success. But his success nearly kills him. After pleading with Paul for assistance in operating the apparatus he returns to his laboratory to find the creature has been brought back to life in his absence. There is a fantastic scene where Lee quickly unbandages his face and reveals the hideous features of Victors labors. This scene totally scared the daylights out of as a ten year old staying up and watching this late at night all alone. Hammer was careful not to provoke powerful Universal studios with the monster’s makeup and what they did was a creature that looks bloodless and grotesque, with clumps of mangled flesh hanging from its neck rather than neat stitching scars. Lee’s monster has little time on screen in comparison to Karloff’s, and the time spent is in anguish and despair. The creature looks disgusting and shows its homicidal rage instantly upon seeing its creator. The thing escapes and rather than befriending an old blind man kills him. Paul shoots it in the face and in a rather gory scene for the time.

Victor will not give up and digs the beast up and in the last parts of the film it kills the scorned Justine and is discovered by a desperate to understand Elizabeth. While there is moral ambiguity with Cushing’s Frankenstein, a feature not to found in his Van Helsing or other Vampire hunters, he tries to save Elizabeth in the end from the beast he has to destroy. He comes to his senses far too late and in the end he is deserted at the guillotine by Paul and Elizabeth. Could Paul have saved him by verifying the existence of a monster? Or would he have only implicated himself? Did he take it on himself to be Victor’s judge for his horrible crimes? Did Paul fall in love with Elizabeth and see this as a solution to more than one problem?

The film ends with these questions and as we know the story continues in more fine Hammer Frankenstein films. I have the next three in the series and I will get them in due time. Before closing I want to comment on two more things. One is on Terrence Fisher’s marvelous use of interior shots. He does this well in all his films (The Brides of Dracula for another example) and his use of cluttered rooms and exotic interior camera angles is a quality I have long loved in his work. In fact his exterior shots are often bland unless his is using studio sets. The other thing I found noteworthy of this true classic was the score by James Bernard, who scored some of Hammer’s best soundtracks. But this one is simply thrilling and you cannot help but feel Victor’s anguish and fear all the more because of this score. Most of you have probably seen this film and I hope more than once. If you have not seen it and want to see how great a horror film can be then I suggest you go out and give a go. It is priceless. and certainly one of the best of the Hammer repertoire

I felt it was time for a new installment to one of my personal favorite little perversions… er… I mean diversions, and that is my fasicnation with girls with guns, and in particualr Asian girls with guns. If you have not perused my sidebar yet you will see I have some static pages (nd there will you find my first two girl-gun collections. These pages along with my Julie Newmar , Bettie Page , and Fonda as Barbarella posts are my big number makers on Google Analytics. I killed my self on my Robert Fripp and Yes essays and they get hardly a beep. Go figure. The links to my other two pages are Girls with Guns One and (Asian) Girls with Guns TWO

The Alphabet Meme from Fletch’s BLOG CABINS

From Fletch: This is awfully similar to the Top 50 Films I posted recently, but this time it’s much more about you. Besides, I thought this was a fun idea that could spread like wildfire. Also, I’ve had it in my drafts for some time now and I wanted to post it before some other wildly clever individual did it and stole all my thunder.

It’s a simple concept (my favorite kind) - pick your favorite film for each letter of the alphabet. Some will be tough because there’s too many choices (R, S, T, L, N, E…wait a sec - that’s Wheel of Fortune) and others will be tough because there are so few choices that you have trouble finding much of anything (Q, anyone?). I’m sure I missed some great ones and I’m hoping that you find them.

The Rules

1. Pick one film to represent each letter of the alphabet.

2. The letter “A” and the word “The” do not count as the beginning of a film’s title, unless the film is simply titled A or The, and I don’t know of any films with those titles.

3. Return of the Jedi belongs under “R,” not “S” as in Star Wars Episode IV: Return of the Jedi. This rule applies to all films in the original Star Wars trilogy; all that followed start with “S.” Similarly, Raiders of the Lost Ark belongs under “R,” not “I” as in Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark. Conversely, all films in the LOTR series belong under “L” and all films in the Chronicles of Narnia series belong under “C,” as that’s what those filmmakers called their films from the start. In other words, movies are stuck with the titles their owners gave them at the time of their theatrical release. Use your better judgement to apply the above rule to any series/films not mentioned.

4. Films that start with a number are filed under the first letter of their number’s word. 12 Monkeys would be filed under “T.”

5. Link back to Blog Cabins in your post so that I can eventually type “alphabet meme” into Google and come up #1, then make a post where I declare that I am the King of Google.

From Bill: So here is my Meme and the only rule I am not following is the select five more people one. For two reasons: 1) All the people I know well enough to tag have been chosen, and 2) I feel like an Amway salesman when I do things like that.

Some of my choices may be attempts to reflect genres more than actual films under a certain letter. Certainly The Nutty Professor is not my favorite N film but I like old comedies and it was a chance to reflect that.  Onibaba was the same thing, just trying to show my love for old b/w Japanese cinema. And do I really like Quigley Down Under or was I desperate with the Qs? I actually had three choices in the Qs, with Larry Cohens’s Q, Hammer’s Quatermass films and Quigley, with Tom selleck as a wild west cowboy in Australia.  And yes, I do like Quigley Down Under very much. I love a good western and it more than qualifies.

I think a lot of time we can all feel like we are working in a vacuum doing this movie blogging stuff. I know I do at times. I actually work pretty hard collecting information and images and then editing all that stuff into a post that I hope will be readable to a few people. I have also had a lot of technical issues with my site that almost made me give up but I stuck it out and now and reasonable happy with the look and content though I want to get better at what I am doing. I am happy with my traffic but would like to double it someday. I have to admit that seeing higher numbers in Google Analytics or searching a topic and then seeing my own site appear on the first page of Google is a boost and has helped me to stay the movie blog course. But I wanted to say something about the LAMBs (the Large Association of Movie Blogs) and if you have a movie site you want to promote it is good place to start and to find others as well with similar tastes and interests. The LAMBs is a project headed by Fletch (or Dylan) and his site is Blog Cabins if you want to have a peek. At last look the total number of LAMBs was up to 215, with Kimberly’s most excellent Cinebeats blog being the last entry. There are lots of cool sites to be honest and I will refrain from naming the ones I like the most or naming some people that have been special and extra supportive to me and the Café here. That is because I might forget someone because I am spacey  and then they will get hurt feelings, turn paranoid and stalk me and try to hack me to pieces in an attic with a meat cleaver and I just don’t need that kind of trouble right now.

A recent survey showed that 75% of LAMBs are homeowners.

Seriously though, there are some great and supportive people there and while I do not join in with the cool reindeer games like some of the people do (I have been tagged twice on the alphabet MEME, okay, time to do something with that, sorry) there are actually activities and challenges of different kinds if you like at that stuff. I sort of live it all vicariously and read the stats, but I think I am going to try to do a few more things there to show my appreciation and this little post is my first step. I know some of the people who drop by here have movie blogs and I encourage you if you are not a LAMB then get on with it. It does not hurt and it is free. You can link to the LAMB Homepage here or find my link on the sidebar. I have a sort of freaky lamb from the sheep-zombie film Black Sheep, but do not let that mislead you. The sites there are varied, from Horror to Fred Astaire to Spaghetti Westerns to general culture blogs. By no means is it a horror or obscure film site.

There are other blog communities out there and I encourage you to join them as well but the LAMB is the first one I joined at number 85 or something like that and I made some blog friends right away. It seems a little more easygoing and not very impersonal like some of the big communities. I need to get back to welcoming newbies and spreading the LAMB message a little more. I have recruited a few good LAMBs and I feel proud of that, but there are still billions of unconverted and I cannot do it alone. And with that I will get that Alphabet MEME going and maybe even submit my first post to the Lamb Chops thing. And if I do not get around to it soon I will eventually and I just want to say thanks to the LAMBers out there and hope this post recruits at least ten more.

Bill

The last person I asked to join the LAMBs and refused found out that LAMBs are

not the type of bloggers to mess around with.

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.

The film is based, somewhat loosely I understand, on the 1963 spy thriller of the same name by Alastair MacLain. His earlier The Guns of Navarone was made into a successful movie with Gregory Peck and David Niven and MGM hoped to turn this new novel into another box office winner. The film in fact did well and earned a couple Oscar nominations for special effects and cinematography but lost out to 2001: A Space Odyssey. It also revived the career of Rock Hudson as an action star after he had become somewhat typecast in his pillow talk movies with actresses like Doris Day. Charlton Heston was originally slated to play Hudson’s role as Captain Ferraday but declined saying the script was too weak. While Heston would have shone in the role Rock does just fine as the capable Captain of the USS Tigerfish as it heads towards the North Pole on both a rescue and top secret mission that involves British spies, Russian defectors, U.S Marines and not one single female character in the entire film.

The story begins in Scotland where Submarine Captain Ferraday (Hudson) is given the mission of taking the USS up under the polar ice caps to rescue the scientific team stationed at Ice Station Zebra following a reported series of explosions there. An overland, or ovger ice pack, route is ruled out and Ferraday is none to pleased to receive orders that his command is second to a British spy named “Mr. Jones”, played by Patrick MacGoohan who took some time off from his The Prisoner TV series to do the film. Jones is brilliant but slightly jumpy and sleeps with a gun under his pillow and drinks plenty of “medicinal” whisky to balance himself out. The rescue mission is actually a cover for retrieving a capsule that was ejected to Earth from a satellite. The capsule contains something that both the Americans and Russians are racing to the North Pole to get first. The Tigerfish later receive by helicopter two unexpected visitors. One is a constantly smiling and helpful Russian defector named Boris Vaslov (Ernest Borgnine) and the other is tough and disciplined Marine Captain Anders (Jim Brown).

Sabotage becomes a concern on the Tigerfish after a torpedo tube that is being used to launch a torpedo through the ice becomes filled with sea water and floods the torpedo room when it is opened, killing one sailor. Of course we know this guys is totally dead since right before they open the hatch he is talking about his wonderful future and the girl he wants to marry. Never talk about that stuff before a dangerous mission. Suspicions bounce from Mr. Jones to Vaslov and even to Anders.

The scenes of the Tigerfish under the ice look spectacular really. Finally a thin enough layer of ice is found and the Tigerfish surfaces only to find Ice Station Zebra in smoldering ruins with scientific team all near death from exposure. In no time both Vaslov and Jones are looking for something and Ferraday wants to know what it is. We find out soon enough that Vaslov (and how can anyone trust a smiling overly helpful Russian, defector or not, during the Cold War period) is the saboteur after he waylays Jones with a crowbar. Jones mistakingly. shoots Anders when he wakes up groggy and sees the two mean fighting. It is soon learned that the capsule that landed at Zebra contained a Russian made camera with highly advanced American film inside, and soon the Russians, led by the serious and determined Colonel Ovstravsky (Alf Kjellin) arrive they and the Americans have a stand off over who goes home with the goods. In the end Ferraday detonates the canisters as it is hoisted upwards by a weather balloon, thereby symbolizing a draw between the two super powers. I have never read except in reviews and understand MacLean had a tenser and less optimistic ending.

A great movie for people who like Cold War thrillers and submarine dramas. The Artic sets looked wonderful, and all the more wonderful since they are in fact studio sets. I love old movies sets and if this film is ever remade they will probably film it on location somewhere and while it will look more realistic it will lose that magic, perfect appearance that sets often provided a scene. There of course are some problems such as the fact that while we hear wind effects no one’s hear is even blowing, the lack of frozen condensation when people exhale and I read that keeping the parka laden actors free of perspiration was a difficult task. Really happy I found this one and highly recommend you give it a shot.

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.

The film opens up with Hando and his band of neo-Nazi misanthropes intimidating and beating some Vietnamese skateboarders in the train station of a blue collar neighborhood in West Melbourne. The scene quickly set the tone and pace for the rest of the film and there is little let up as the tensions between Hando and his gang and the local Vietnamese escalate as the immigrants seek to find business opportunities in their community. Hando is the dangerous yet charismatic leader of the group and his best mate is Davey, a brooding, thinking type who has a softer nature. He hides his tattoos from his German speaking grandma and collects matchbook covers his father sends him. He seems to have roots the rest of the band lack, including Hando, who reads quotes from Mein Kampf and hurls Italian pasta rather than eat “wop” garbage. The friendship seems solid and deep until Gabe (McKenzie) is introduced into the story as a sexual diversion for Hando. Gabe is really screwed up herself as she is running away from her incestuous father Martin, played well and creepy by Tony Lee.

Gabe is more educated than the thugs she throws herself in with but she falls under the spell of Hando and is even excited by the violence and vandalism the gang dishes out on anybody  or anything that crosses them. This becomes really apparent than when it is discovered the local Vietnamese are going to buy the pool hall they hangout in and turn it into a restaurant. The skinheads become immediately enraged and their racial loathing becomes utterly apparent. They go and beat a couple teenagers nearly to death and perhaps would have, if not for the fact one boy who escaped the beating returns with carloads of Vietnamese youth, already fed up with the skinheads, who soon begin to outnumber and over power Hando and his gang. A really great chase and fight sequence develops with great sound effects and film score. In the end the skinheads are driven back to their warehouse hangout and are driven out and it is sacked and burned.

Seeking refuge the gang boot out some squatters from another warehouse and during their time there it is found out that Gabe is an epileptic after she has a seizure. The uncultured and crass skinheds mock her and call her “spazz” and imitate her seizures and only Davey has any sympathy. It is this incident that drives a wedge between Davy and Hando. Hando kicks Gabe out, both because he is put off by her epilepsy, but also because of her sarcasms about him and the gang botching an easy job the night before, that of robbing her father’s house.

Davey tells her to seek him out as soon as she can. She is totally pissed and in the heat of anger calls the cops and tells them where Hando and the gang are hiding and they are the ones responsible for the attack on the Asians and the robbery and assault on her father. The cops show up and the youngest member who waves a fake gun at the cops. Gabe spends the night with Davey (and there as a couple really wild sex scenes in this flick) and when Hando shows up the next day they all flee the police search. Hando kills a convenient store clerk who looks Indian or Pakistani with his bare hands and the three are fugitives for murder now. The film ends with Davey fighting Hando on the beach after Hando tried to choke the life out of her when he finds out she was the one who called the cops. Hando dies violently with the Nazi dagger he loaned Davy the money for earlier in the film.

The movie is simply powerful and Crowe is chilling as the sociopathic Hando. The acting and direction is excellent from start to finish. The film was shot on 16mm and has a look much older than 1992. Actors Daniel Pollack and Jacqueline McKenzie had an off screen relationship during the filming of the movie. Problems with the relationship as well as Pollock’s attempts to manage his heroin addiction may lhave contributed to his horrific suicide by jumping in front of a train shortly before the film was released. The incident was made into a song by Crowe’s rock band at the time 30 Odd Feet of Grunts and called The Night That Davey Hit the Train. McKenzie went on to a fairly respectable career in Australian film and TV, with some roles in Hollywood as well,  and Crowe to international superstardom.

Below is an MP3 sample of one of the catchy Aryan pop classics from the film.

A LITTLE NEO NAZI BOOGIE WITH

PULLING ON THE BOOTS

DOWNLOAD THIS NAZI FOOT STOMPER HERE

DANIEL GRIFFITH Says:

Greetings Uranium Willy and K. Gordon Murray fans,

An ALL-NEW, ten minute promo trailer for THE WONDER WORLD OF K. GORDON MURRAY entitled, “Citizen Murray”, will be available online December 19, 2008 (at kgordonmurraymovie.com). There will also be more information regarding the documentary on the ‘official’ website… as well as Rob Craig’s own kgordonmurray.com website!!!

The feature-length documentary will be completed and released in the fall of 2009, which marks the 50th Anniversary of K. Gordon Murray’s most successful Kiddie Matinee release, the 1959 mexican fantasy “SANTA CLAUS”.

The documentary features ALL-NEW interviews with Murray’s family, childhood friends, business associates, actors, directors, and a few surprise guests. I have spent the past two years traveling the US collecting interviews and other visual material to help shed some light on this obscure subject. This includes the discovery of ‘lost’ film footage, as well as the use of more than 250 ‘rare’ photographs covering every year of Murray’s life (and behind the scenes photos from his films). More to come…

And remember…. THE WONDER WORLD IS COMING!!!!!

Best,
DANIEL GRIFFITH
Director/Producer
BALLYHOO MOTION PICTURES

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 album in almost it’s entirety. I had to trim a couple minutes off of it even after reducing the size so it would fit into the 50 megabyte limit I have for daily downloads at my file hosting site. I have only listened to this piece a few times and like it overall, though some of the production is a little rough. I do not know if in the end the music stands up to the legends that surround it, but it is certainly something worth hearing once or more. The scratchy sounds you are hear are surface noise from the vinyl it was recorded from.

DOWNLOAD COMPLETE SONG HERE - PART 0NE

DOWNLOAD COMPLETE SONG HERE - PART TWO

Note of 2 January 09: Well, it seems my file hosting site at Boxster.com will not allow free downloading of files anylonger, or at least music files. I thought that was what sites like that were supposed to be all about. So I am really sorry about this. To go back and redo all the sites I have added MP3s to and find a new host seems like just too much work. I am tired of all this redoing stuff. When and if I come up with a viable solution I will be back posting downloadable music. Until then you will just have to settle for a free listen. Very sorry.

Kenneth Gordon Murray was born in the American heartland of Bloomington Indiana in 1922. His father was a funeral home director and young Ken,or Kagey, spent much of his time in the company of local carnival and circus workers who camped in the Bloomington area during the cold winters. By the time he was a teenager he was running bingo parlors and getting the knack for smooth talking the authorities. By the end of the thirties Murray was getting his circus pals small roles in films through casting directors he knew. His first big show business break was  helping to cast several height impaired persons (midgets, dwarves or whatever they are called) in 1939’s The Wizard of Oz. This would lead to him helping to cast circus folk for Cecil B. DeMille’s The Greatest Show on Earth. By this time Murray had moved to Ho