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UNIVERSAL: Big thanks to Universal for listening to the fans and releasing more vintage titles; Wave Two of Universal Cinema Classics includes SCARFACE, NO MAN OF HER OWN, SO PROUDLY WE HAIL and UNCONQUERED.
Howard Hawks’ SCARFACE (1932), written by Ben Hecht, is one of the quintessential gangster classics, one of the Big Three Depression gangster flicks along with Mervyn LeRoy’s LITTLE CAESAR (1930) and William Wellman’s THE PUBLIC ENEMY (1931) [both available from Warner Home Video]. While my vote goes to the Wellman film as the best of the unholy trio, by virtue of the Jimmy Cagney performance, SCARFACE is a close second, as an over-acting Paul Muni plays Tony Camonte, an Al Capone-inspired thug who rises to the top of the gangland food chain. Because it was produced and owned by Howard Hughes, whose film vaults remained locked until after his death, SCARFACE was available for years only in bad 16mm dupes (I saw one when I was in high school at a downtown Philly cinema club); thankfully, it’s been restored, and like all the films in this series, looks great). Hawks and Hughes lend the picture lots of production value, and there is a rich supporting cast that includes George Raft in his coin-flipping breakthrough role, Boris Karloff as a rival gangster, and stunning Ann Dvorak as Tony’s sister and object of his incestuous desire. An alternate ending was filmed, and is included here. Wesley Ruggles’ NO MAN OF HER OWN (1932) is another pre-Code gem, a romantic comedy with Clark Gable, in his first year of super stardom, and on loan from MGM to Paramount, playing a con man who falls for a small town girl, Carole Lombard (two years away from her breakthrough in Hawks’ 20th CENTURY). The first half of the film has some wonderfully sexy, snappy dialogue, while the tone changes from comedy to drama for the second half. It’s a must see because of the Gable-Lombard pairing, six years before they fell in love and married in real life.
Mark Sandrich’s SO PROUDLY WE HAIL (1943) is a really well-done World War Two propaganda picture paying tribute to American Army combat nurses in the Pacific theatre. Sandrich gets excellent performances from a stellar cast including Claudette Colbert, Paulette Goddard, and Veronica Lake (Paramount’s top female stars at the time), as well as Barbara Britton, Walter Abel, Sonny Tufts and in a rare romantic lead, George “Superman” Reeves. The picture earned four Oscar nominations, for Goddard, cinematographer Charles Lang, screenwriter Allen Scott, and the special effects. Goddard also stars in Cecil B. DeMille’s UNCONQUERED (1947) opposite Gary Cooper; it’s one of DeMille’s lesser efforts but still a Technicolored gargantuan epic set on the Pennsylvania frontier in 1763 (on Ashton and Snake River, Idaho locations). The typically huge DeMille cast includes Howard DaSilva, Cecil Kellaway, Ward Bond, Henry Wilcoxon, C. Aubrey Smith, Virginia Grey, Mike Mazurki and Boris Karloff as Indian Chief Guyasuta (!). All four Cinema Classics include introductions by Turner Classic Movies host Robert Osborne.
Western lovers can rejoice with two new catalogue collections from Universal, drawn from the Paramount and Universal vaults. CLASSIC WESTERN ROUNDUP Volumes One and Two collect four films each in splendid transfers at a splendid price ($26.98 retail, $19.99 on Amazon.com). Volume One consists of THE TEXAS RANGERS, CANYON PASSAGE, KANSAS RAIDERS and THE LAWLESS BREED, Volume Two THE TEXANS, CALIFORNIA, THE CIMARRON KID and THE MAN FROM THE ALAMO.
THE TEXAS RANGERS (1936) was directed by one of the all-time greats, King Vidor (THE BIG PARADE, THE CROWD, NORTHWEST PASSAGE, DUEL IN THE SUN), and was one of the rare mid-Thirties Westerns with an A-budget. Originally intended for Gary Cooper, the movie stars young Fred MacMurray and perpetual jokester Jack Oakie as two outlaws who join the Rangers to get the inside scoop on gold shipments, and end up turning a new leaf as crime fighters, eventually pitting themselves against former crony Lloyd Nolan (in one of his first leading roles). There are some exciting setpieces, like the Indian attack and the final showdown between MacMurray and Nolan, great locations (in New Mexico, not Texas) and Vidor’s direction is, as usual, exceptional. Jacques Tourneur’s CANYON PASSAGE (1946) is an absolute gem, a dense cinematic treasure worthy of many viewings. Set in 1850s Oregon, the story by Ernest Haycox (STAGECOACH) is rich with subplots and strong characterizations, filmed by Edward Cronjager in absolutely stunning Technicolor on authentic Oregon locations. Walter Wanger was one of the Golden Age’s greatest producers (QUEEN CHRISTINA, YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE, STAGECOACH, THE LONG VOYAGE HOME, FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT), and he assembled a cast that includes Dana Andrews, Susan Hayward (in her breakout role), Brian Donlevy, Ward Bond, Andy Devine, Patricia Roc, Lloyd Bridges and Hoagy Carmichael.
There are so many memorably directed scenes in CANYON PASSAGE – a barn-raising sequence, a brutal barroom fistfight between Andrews and Bond, an Indian attack on outlying settlements, and any number of others that I can’t reveal for fear of spoilers. A huge success upon its original release, hailed in recent years by no less a cineaste than Martin Scorsese, the DVD availability of CANYON PASSAGE is a blessing.
Ray Enright’s KANSAS RAIDERS (1950) is a decidedly B-movie that mangles the historical truth about Quantrill’s Raiders, but it does have Technicolor, Audie Murphy in an early role, and a decidedly miscast Bernie Schwartz aka Tony Curtis as one of the Dalton Brothers ... complete with a very un-Western Bronx accent. Silent star Richard Arlen (WINGS) lends credibility as a Union officer, and any movie with Brian Donlevy can’t be all bad. Raoul Walsh’s THE LAWLESS BREED (1952) is much better, thanks to old maestro Walsh, who always knew how to keep a picture moving at a brisk pace. Walsh discovery Rock Hudson plays outlaw John Wesley Hardin; as the picture opens, he’s released from Texas’ Huntsville prison, and hands a publisher the memoir he’s written. The movie unfolds in flashback with a supporting cast Julie Adams, John McIntire, Hugh O’Brian, Dennis Weaver and Lee Van Cleef. I’ve spoken to many actors who worked with Raoul Walsh – Lee Marvin, Cliff Robertson, Ralph Bellamy, Anne Francis to name a few -- and they all told me the same thing … during a dialogue scene, ol’ Raoul would walk away from the set, roll his own, have a smoke, and call “Cut!” when the words stopped. He’d check with the script supervisor to make sure the actors got the dialogue right and if they did, it was on to the next step. If the scene called for action – a fight, a stampede, a chase – well, that was a different story; he’d be right on top of the camera a-whoopin’and a-hollerin’. It’s one reason every Raoul Walsh picture is entertaining as hell, and he is one of the great treasures of the American Cinema.
Volume Two kicks off with THE TEXANS (1938), directed by James Hogan (who usually handled B-movies), a forgotten Paramount epic starring Joan Bennett and Randolph Scott. A remake of the silent NORTH OF ’36 (1924), itself a follow-up to Paramount’s 1923 smash THE COVERED WAGON, the movie is set in post Civil War Texas, and involves a group of Rebels (led by Robert Cummings) who won’t accept that war is over. There’s a huge, well-staged battle scene, Miss Bennett is lovely, Mr. Scott is rugged, and the movie benefits from Walter Brennan, Francis Ford (brother of John) in one of his most substantial roles outside a Ford film, May Robson (LADY FOR A DAY), Raymond Hatton, and Robert Barrat. Stick around to the end for a surprising reference to the Ku Klux Klan. John Farrow’s CALIFORNIA (1946) boasts sumptuous three-strip Technicolor and a well-appointed production starring Barbara Stanwyck and Ray Milland in a saga involving mass migration to California in 1848. Disc Two holds THE CIMARRON KID (1952) with Audie Murphy, and THE MAN FROM THE ALAMO (1953), two excellent Technicolor Universals directed by Budd Boetticher, best known for his Randolph Scott Westerns of a few years hence (SEVEN MEN FROM NOW, THE TALL T, RIDE LONESOME). Universal also releases the PIRATES OF THE GOLDEN AGE MOVIE COLLECTION, featuring four early Fifties pirate programmers – AGAINST ALL FLAGS starring Errol Flynn, Maureen O’Hara and Anthony Quinn, BUCCANEER’S GIRL with Yvonne deCarlo, YANKEE BUCCANEER starring Jeff Chandler, and DOUBLE CROSSBONES with Donald O’Connor, all mildly entertaining diversions best suited for the kids in the house.
BUENA VISTA HOME ENTERTAINMENT: Mel Gibson’s APOCALYPTO (2006) is an extraordinary filmmaking achievement, a brutally violent evocation of the lost Mayan culture, a revenge film in the tradition of the director’s beloved Oscar-winning BRAVEHEART (1995), and a thrilling adventure that never lets up. In the wake of Gibson’s heavily publicized drunken anti-Semitic tirade last year, critics were poised to savage the picture, but reviews were consistently positive, and the picture grossed $50 million in the U.S. and $90 million worldwide. Gibson proved once again that he is an outstanding filmmaker, with an-in-your-face directorial punch perfectly suited to his last three efforts (BRAVEHEART, PASSION OF THE CHRIST, APOCALYPTO; his first feature as director, MAN WITHOUT A FACE, was a much gentler film). The National Board of Review, in fact, was the first organization to recognize Gibson’s directing gifts, giving him his first award for BRAVEHEART, the first NBR Special Filmmaking Achievement Award, months before his Oscar. Shooting APOCALYPTO on location in Mexico and Costa Rica, with a large cast of unknown actors speaking in a pre-Columbian language with subtitles, Gibson and cinematographer Dean Semler really deliver the visual and emotional goods, and do an amazing job of recreating a lost native culture on the brink of European domination and contamination. The DVD includes a documentary about making the picture, a rather brief deleted scene that they may as well have kept in the cut, and an entertaining audio commentary by Gibson and co-writer/co-producer Farhad Safinia, highlighted by Mel’s (sober) sense of humor. Also from Buena Vista Home Entertainment, SCRUBS: THE COMPLETE FIFTH SEASON maintains the quality of one of TV’s consistently best shows, with all 24 episodes, audio commentaries, deleted scenes, alternate takes and an extended cut of the 100th episode (directed by series star Zach Braff). Guest stars this season at Sacred Heart Hospital include CURB OUR ENTHUSIASM’s Cheryl Hines. Bright writing and direction, endearing actors, great music selections and brisk editing helped earned the show another Emmy nomination for Best Comedy Series. Check out some clips at:
http://www.totaleclips.com/Player/Bounce.aspx?eclipid=e32541&bitrateid=17&vendorid=3
WARNER HOME VIDEO: Clint Eastwood’s LETTERS FROM IWO JIMA was the National Board of Review’s choice for Best Film of 2006. At the NBR Awards gala, New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg presented the award to director-producer Clint Eastwood and producers Steven Spielberg and Robert Lorenz. I believe that LETTERS FROM IWO JIMA will go down in film history as one of the all-time greats, a treasure that can stand with museum pieces by Akira Kurosawa or John Ford. Eastwood’s masterpiece is pure cinematic poetry, all the more amazing in that its subject is the horrific World War Two Battle of Iwo Jima. A companion piece to his FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS, LETTERS presents the island siege from the Japanese point of view, in Japanese with English subtitles, from a screenplay by Iris Yamashita and screen story by Yamashita and executive producer Paul Haggis, based on the book Picture Letters from Commander-in-Chief by Japanese commandant Tadamichi Kuribayashi. There is a stunning performance by Ken Watanabe as Kuribayashi, exceptional cinematography by Tom Stern, and a haunting score by Kyle Eastwood and Michael Stevens. WHV releases a two-disc Special Edition that includes three excellent documentaries, and footage from the 2006 world premiere at Budo-Kan in Tokyo, and the press conference from that event. Dreamworks Home Entertainment follows up the single-disc release of FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS from a couple of months ago with a two-disc Special Edition that adds an introduction by Clint and six featurettes. Here’s what I wrote about FLAGS in my March column: “With this and LETTERS FROM IWO JIMA, Clint Eastwood reached a directorial pinnacle last year with American and Japanese versions of the siege of Iwo Jima. FLAGS is based on James Bradley’s best-seller; Bradley’s father was one of the Marines who raised the flag over Iwo Jima. The movie tells the story of the men in the celebrated photograph, and the U.S. government’s subsequent propaganda use of the photo through a series of bond rallies. The ensemble cast includes Ryan Phillippe, Jesse Bradford, Barry Pepper, and most memorably, Adam Beach as the tragic Pima Indian Ira Hayes. My only complaint with the movie-versus-the-book is that Clint focuses on the battle and the bond tour, but doesn’t spend too much time on getting to know the boys before the war; in the book, we spent an equal amount of time before, during and after the war, and consequently we had a greater emotional investment in the young men. Nevertheless, FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS is a mighty achievement, though overshadowed by the Eastwood masterpiece LETTERS FROM IWO JIMA.
THE GOOD GERMAN (2006) is another new WHV release, a murder mystery set in post-war Berlin, starring George Clooney in Cary Grant mode and Cate Blanchett doing a very good approximation of Marlene Dietrich in Billy Wilder’s A FOREIGN AFFAIR (1948). Director Steven Soderbergh actually used background plates from the Wilder film in THE GOOD GERMAN and shot the entire black-and-white film with lenses and setups from classic ‘40s films like CASABLANCA (1942) and THE THIRD MAN (1949). He should have paid more attention to the narrative and less attention to his camera (he’s also the cinematographer) because he bungles Paul Attanasio’s adaptation of the Joseph Kanon novel, and save for a couple of nice Clooney moments, the film just doesn’t work. The gimmick of recreating a noir is just that – a gimmick, and reminiscent of Gus Van Sant’s misguided shot-by-shot remake of PSYCHO. Unless you’re a rabid Clooney/Blanchett fan, don’t bother with this ersatz Michael Curtiz film – get the real thing rather than this failed experiment.
DROOPY DOG: THE COMPLETE THEATRICAL COLLECTION brings together 24 re-mastered and unedited animated shorts starring Tex Avery’s beloved basset hound creation, the undefatigable pursuer of Nasty Wolf. These inventive cartoons began at MGM during World War Two and continued into the late Fifties, though by then Michael Lah had taken over the animation. This is a wonderful collection, and includes the seven CinemaScope shorts restored to their original aspect ration (the Oscar-nominated ONE DROOPY KNIGHT is one of these). My favorite is perhaps NORTHWEST HOUNDED POLICE, with Canadian Mountie Droopy hounding the Wolf around the world, at one point sending him running off the sprockets of the film. Special features include “Droopy and Friends: A Laugh Back”, a documentary retrospective, and the priceless “Doggone Gags,” a montage edited in the form of a gag reel. There is endless entertainment in this set, with a total running time of 168 minutes at a $26.99 retail price.
WHV celebrates John Wayne’s centennial with sensational double-disc editions of two of his best movies – Howard Hawks’ immortal RIO BRAVO (1958) and Mark Rydell’s THE COWBOYS (1971). Watching RIO BRAVO for the umpteenth time (like watching the Hawks-Wayne HATARI! Of 1962) is like visiting with old friends. Hawks allegedly disliked HIGH NOON so much, with an entire town leaving sheriff Gary Cooper alone to face the bad guys, that he felt compelled to team Sheriff John T. Chance (The Duke) with a drunk (Dean Martin), an old cripple (Walter Brennan), and a green kid (Ricky Nelson). Their job is to keep Claude Akins in jail while John Russell and his gang move in for the kill. That’s about all there is to the story, and even though the film runs 141 minutes, it doesn’t feel like it. Like so many of John Ford’s Westerns, RIO BRAVO is just one of those brilliantly beautiful motion picture experiences, packed with memorable moments, so masterfully written (by Jules Furthman and Leigh Brackett) and directed. Warner Home Video does their typically great job, with commentary by director John Carpenter (whose ASSSAULT ON PRECINCT 13 was inspired by RIO BRAVO) and Richard Schickel; two new featurettes; and the Richard Schickel documentary THE MEN WHO MADE THE MOVIES: HOWARD HAWKS. Commemorative postcards featuring behind-the-scenes shots are included as a special bonus.
After years of working with his cronies on film after film, Wayne lobbied to be cast in THE COWBOYS for director Mark Rydell, a Neighborhood Playhouse/Actor’s Studio New York-trained director with a political outlook completely opposite from Wayne. As Rydell recalls in the audio commentary and the accompanying documentaries, he got along wonderfully with Wayne, the consummate film professional. THE COWBOYS is a delightful and emotionally involving Western adventure; when rancher Wayne can’t find any men to move his herd across 400 miles of wilderness, he hires eleven schoolboys (headed by Robert Carradine) for the job. If you haven’t seen the movie, I can’t go any further, except to say that Bruce Dern makes a great villain, the kids act beautifully, Wayne gives one of his best performances, and the picture is one of the best of a great decade for movies. Rydell does a fascinating audio commentary, there are more commemorative postcards and featurettes, and a reunion of director and some of the kid actors. Both RIO BRAVO and THE COWBOYS are highly recommended, sure to be hailed as two of the best DVD releases of the year.
SONY: From Russia comes THE ITALIAN (2006), an emotionally devastating story about a Russian orphan about to be adopted by an Italian couple, but who strikes off on a dangerous journey to find the birth mother who abandoned him. Director Andrei Kravchuk takes us behind the gates of a bleak Russian home for orphans, painting a detailed picture of its microculture, from the dissipated director to the homegrown underworld to the teenage girl who is the only mother to dozens of little boys. Evocatively photographed in a bleak, foggy landscape by Alexander Burov, THE ITALIAN has a great deal of heart, and reminds me very much of the neo-realist classics by Vittorio DeSica (BICYCLE THIEVES, UMBERTO D, MIRACLE IN MILAN). Inspired by true events, THE ITALIAN earned critical acclaim at the Telluride and Toronto Film Festival, and is well worth catching up with on DVD. SERAPHIM FALLS (2006) is a welcome new Western, directed by David Von Ancken, starring Liam Neeson, Pierce Brosnan. Michael Wincott and Anjelica Huston in a beautifully shot revenge trek film in the tradition of THE BRAVADOS (1958) and NEVADA SMITH (1966). It’s great to see two of our finer contemporary actors in such a traditionally classicist movie, and the camerawork by John Toll (BRAVEHEART, THE TIN RED LINE) has never been better. Brosnan, Von Ancken and production designer Michael Hanan provide the audio commentary, and there’s a making-of documentary as well.
DONNIE BRASCO: EXTENDED CUT adds 20 minutes to Mike Newell’s outstanding 1997 movie, one of the greatest gangster movies of all time. Based on the true story of an FBI agent (brilliantly played by Johnny Depp) who infiltrates a Brooklyn mob familky by earning the trust of a sad sack wiseguy (Al Pacino in a genius performance), DONNIE BRASCO crackles with drama, wit and suspense. The deeper that Depp gets in with the family, the further estranged he becomes from his own family (Anne Heche in a great turn as his wife) and indeed reality. Michael Madsen, James Russo and Bruno Kirby round out the cast of goodfellas, and Gretchen Mol makes one of her first screen appearances as Madsen’s girlfriend. Great cast, great story, great movie. This edition includes both old and new making-of documentaries.
THE CAINE MUTINY: COLLECTORS EDITION (1954) is a digitally remastered version of Edward Dmytryk’s powerhouse adaptation of the Herman Wouk novel and stage play, and it surely does look and sound terrific. Humphrey Bogart is still a wonder as Captain Queeg, the neurotic Bligh-like commander of a decrept minesweeper in the Pacific war, with very strong performances from Van Johnson, Fred MacMurray, and Jerry Paris as his rebellious officers, Lee Marvin and Claude Akins as crew members, and Jose Ferrer as the prosecutor at the court martial. The only bummer is the Robert Francis-May Wynn love story. Historians Richard Pena and Ken Bowser provide audio commentary, and there’s a retrospective documentary included.
THE GUNS OF NAVARONE: COLLECTOR’S EDITION (1961) is one of the best DVD releases of the year thus far, and a model for a retrospective title. The movie itself, lovingly restored, is one of the best action-adventures ever made; the J. Lee Thompson epic, written and produced by Carl Foreman, is a classic men-on-a-mission movie, based on the Alastair MacLean novel. Gregory Peck, Anthony Quinn and David Niven lead a team to take out the impregnable Nazi fortress of Navarone, nestled atop sheer cliffs in the Greek islands. In an era when so many new Hollywood movies are overlong, here’s a 157 minute picture that flies by, loaded with action and drama. What makes this edition so special are the many diverse special features. First, there’s a new commentary from film historian Stephen J. Rubin, as well as an audio commentary from director Thompson (who replaced the original Alexander McKendrick after just a couple of days of shooting). There are new documentaries, “Forging the Guns of Navarone” and “Ironic Epic of Heroism,” a wonderful piece on the brilliant Dimitri Tiomkin score, and a terrific piece about Robert Gitt’s restoration. The prologue and main title are presented separately without the narration, so we can enjoy the beautiful Tiomkin music, and the roadshow intermission music is presented as well. There is a retrospective documentary, “Memories of Navarone,” and a vintage message from Foreman, plus four 1961 featurettes about shooting the film on the island of Rhodes. THE GUNS OF NAVARONE ranks with SPARTACUS, LAWRENCE OF ARABIA, and EL CID as one of the great early Sixties adventure epics and an essential library title.
PARAMOUNT: DREAMGIRLS (2006) suffered from a tremendous amount of hype prior to its theatrical release, with many film journalists touting it as a sure bet for the Best Picture Oscar months before the nominations were announced. When I finally saw the movie, I was really disappointed, and apparently so were a lot of others; in any comparison with CHICAGO, which DREAMGIRLS director Bill Condon adapted for the screen, CHICAGO was the hands-down winner. It seemed to me to be the classic example of a great Broadway show that couldn’t be translated to the big screen. Many people were crazy about Eddie Murphy’s performance as a James Brown-like performer; to me he was just doing a variation on his old SNL Velvet Jones character. And people just flipped over Jennifer Hudson as she won everything from an NBR Breakthrough Performer award to the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress, and while she is certainly a great singer, and her show-stopping rendition of “And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going” was just that, a show stopper, I felt that all the other Oscar nominated actresses gave better dramatic performances – I mean, since when was an acting award about how good a singer you are? So, while I was not a fan of DREAMGIRLS on screen, I did dutifully watch the DVD, and I have to admit actually liking the movie the second time around, although I still found it 20 minutes too long at 130 minutes. I appreciated Jamie Foxx this time around, found Beyonce even more beautiful, and had fun with Murphy, especially in his musical numbers. I still don’t understand why people go bonkers over this movie, but hey, I love THREE AMIGOS, so to each his own. For those who DO love DREAMGIRLS, Paramount thoughtfully provides a double-disc edition with 12 “never before seen extended musical numbers” including a Hudson performance not seen in theaters, the Beyonce video “Listen,” a full-length documentary, auditions and screen tests and enough behind-the-scenes featurettes to keep the hardest core fan happy.
In 1982, Richard Gere and Debra Winger became stars in Taylor Hackford’s powerful romantic drama AN OFFICER AND A GENTLEMAN, and Lou Gossett won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar; now Paramount has released a 25th anniversary collectors edition, and the movie holds up well, as entertaining and moving as ever. Douglas Day Stewart wrote a perfect screenplay, Jack Nietzsche contributed a memorable score, and there were strong performances from David Keith, Robert Loggia, Lisa Blount, Lisa Eilbacher as well as the three leads. Hackford provides an audio commentary and the DVD includes all new featurettes covering every aspect of the picture.
On the Paramount TV front, THE ODD COUPLE: THE FIRST SEASON makes its bow with Tony Randall and Jack Klugman in their best known roles as Neil Simon’s immortal Felix Unger and Oscar Madison, respectively (Klugman won Emmys for the show in 1971 and 1973, Randall in 1975). This is a must disc for fans of the show obviously, with all 24 first season episodes, plus four of Randall and Klugman’s favorite installments, audio intros by Garry Marshall, original TV promos, and, on select episodes, audio commentary by Marshall, Jerry Belson, actress Carole Shelley and Klugman. There is also archival footage of Randall and Klugman on THE MIKE DOUGLAS SHOW, Klugman’s 1973 Emmy footage, a gag reel and an excerpt from a 1993 stage version of the Neil Simon play starring Tony and Jack. RAWHIDE: THE SECOND SEASON, VOLUME 1 is a four-disc set with 16 digitally re-mastered one episodes of the great Western series from 1959 starring Clint Eastwood as Rowdy Yates and Eric Fleming as Gil Favor. The Rawhides are very strong adult dramas with excellent writing and directing. Among the guest stars on this collection are Viveca Lindfors, Alexander Scourby, Vera Miles, John Barrymore Jr., Cesar Romero, Claude Akins and James Dunn; my favorite episode here is “Incident of the Shambling Man,” with Andrew McLaglen directing his father, the legendary Victor McLaglen, as a punch drunk ex-fighter framed by his daughter-in-law (Anne Francis) and her lover (Gene Nelson). Good stuff, and we look forward to the rest of Season Two later this year.
HBO VIDEO releases CASI CASI (2005) an award-winning Spanish-language teen comedy from writers/directors Jaime and Tony Valles. Unlike many American teen comedies (with the exception of MEAN GIRLS and ELECTION, both of which this can be compared to), CASI CASI has wit and intelligence; this writing/directing team has a promising future. IMAGE brings us THE CHALLENGE (2004), a (believe it or not) German-language martial arts film that is quite satisfying for action fans, as our hero Mathis Landwher leads a post-apocalyptic revolt against a mankind-enslaving warlord/. Yes, that’s the plot of dozens of 1980s B-and-C grade movies, but THE CHALLENGE has good production values, some cool butt-kickin’, good action direction rom Johannes Jaeger, and an awesome Klaus Kinski-like performance by Bela Felsenheimer as “The Executioner” (in addition to acting, Bela is a huge Euro rock star better known as Bela B., a rocker with a great hit solo album, and a 20-year career as the drummer of the hard rock group Die Artze).
JOHN GALLAGHER
jgmovie@gmail.com
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