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December, 2005: S.O.S. ICEBERG
by
John Gallagher
S.O.S.
ICEBERG: I'm
playing catch up this month – I've
had a heavy teaching schedule at The Neighborhood
Playhouse and the School of Visual Arts,
and I'm in preproduction on a new feature
so sorry for the delay in the column.
Check out my round table discussion with
SYRIANA's George Clooney, director Stephen
Gaghan, Jeffrey Wright, Alexander Weddig,
and former CIA agent Bob Baer at http://syrianamovie.warnerbros.com/
. It took place at New York's Warners
screening room on November 21, just a
couple of days before the film's release.
This
season's DVD releases were a harvest of
cinematic delights, offering obscure gems
as well as perennial classics looking
and sounding better than ever. Let's look
at some of the best, and keep them in
mind for your holiday gift purchases:
S.O.S.
ICEBERG : For years one of
the rarest of early Universal talkies
and among the greatest of forgotten films,
S.O.S. ICEBERG (1933) has been brought
to DVD by Kino. It is one of the most
stunning releases of the year, part of
a series of German director Arnold Fanck's
so-called "mountain" films that includes
THE WHITE HELL OF PITZ PALU
(1929) and STORM OVER MONT BLANC
(1930). Shot on real locations
from the Alps to the Arctic, starring
Leni Reifenstahl in her pre-filmmaking
days, these movies make for exciting viewing
75 years later. S.O.S. ICEBERG is the
jewel in the crown of this collection.
Here's an excerpt from my forthcoming
book on Tay Garnett, who directed the
English language version:
" The late '20s and early '30s saw a vogue
for adventure pictures shot in far-flung
locales, from the South Seas (Paramount's
Moana and Tabu , MGM's
White Shadows in the South Seas )
to Africa (MGM's Trader Horn )
and Malaysia (RKO's Bring 'Em Back
Alive ) to the Arctic (MGM's Eskimo
). The studios often sent units to
exotic locations for "atmosphere"
shots; Paramount, for example, dispatched
Ernest Schoedsack and cinematographer
Rex Wimpy to India in July, 1931 to photograph
a Bengal tiger hunt for their proposed
production of Lives of a Bengal Lancer
. In early 1932, Universal president
Carl Laemmle acquired Edward Small's independently
produced Igloo ; when it proved
successful at the box office, Laemmle
commissioned the most daring motion picture
expedition of all into northern Greenland,
the heart of the Arctic region.
At Universal's Berlin studio (Die Deutsche
Universal), producers Joe Pasternak and
Paul Kohner had scored with director-explorer-scientist
Dr. Arnold Fanck, whose series of mountain
films starring the beautiful young actress
Leni Reifenstahl had brought the company
unexpected revenues. Their biggest hit
to date had been the 1930 Alpine adventure
Das Weisse Holle Vom Piz Palu
( The White Hell of Pitz Palu ).
In April, 1932 Fanck went to Carl Laemmle
Senior at Universal City and secured his
backing for S.O.S. Eisberg ( S.O.S.
Iceberg ).
Fanck left New York harbor on the Bremen
on May 4th, arriving in Copenhagen
six days later. Since filming would take
place in Greenland, the cooperation of
the protectorate Danish government was
essential. The necessary diplomatic arrangements
were made, and Arctic explorer Knud Rasmussen
went along to safeguard the Fanck company
from the rigors of polar life, as well
as serve as technical adviser. Cameramen
Hans Schneeberger and Richard Angst, Olympic-caliber
skiers and veterans of Fanck's mountain
films, were signed to photograph the Arctic
vistas. Universal made the most out of
the venture by supplying a smaller crew
to make a second picture simultaneously
with S.O.S. Iceberg . This unit
was placed under the direction of 28-year-old
film editor Andrew Marton, an Hungarian
native who had gone to Hollywood during
the '20s and cut two Ernst Lubitsch films
( The Student Prince , Eternal
Love ) before returning to Berlin.
"I was working in Berlin for Universal,"
remembered Marton in our 1983 interview.
"They had a large office and studio
operation going on in Berlin when it was
decided to make S.O.S. Iceberg .
I had a call from Joe Pasternak, the producer,
and he asked me, `How would you like to
make a picture at the North Pole?' I thought
he was joking and I said, `Sure, when
do we start?' He said, `Tomorrow.' I said,
`You must be kidding.' He said, `No, come
over to the house and let's talk about
it.'
"So I left the next day, without
a script, to make a comedy up at the North
Pole. I had no actors assigned to me except
my wife, Jarmilla Marton, who played the
lead. The rest of my cast would come from
the cast of S.O.S. Iceberg."
Fanck and his company of 38 sailed from
Hamburg, Germany on May 25, 1932, having
chartered the English whaling vessel S.S.
Borodino . The expedition was outfitted
with 40 living tents, a kitchen tent,
and a dining room tent; two motor boats,
the Peer and the Poul ;
modern radio equipment; two double deck
airplanes and Major Ernst Udet's stunt
plane Der Motte ( The Moth
); plus hundreds of cases of foodstuffs,
including chocolate, tobacco, wine, rum,
cognac, port wine -- enough supplies to
last a year. The Danish government would
supply dogs and sleighs.
For this dangerous undertaking, Universal
claimed the largest insurance ever secured
for a motion picture. The plan was to
shoot two versions of S.O.S. ,
a German-language version and an English
one. They would shoot the bulk of the
picture in Greenland from Edwin H. Knopf's
script, return to Hamburg in the fall
of 1932, then Knopf would make studio
scenes in Berlin and additional exteriors
in Switzerland.
Andrew Marton recalled, "On S.O.S.
Iceberg we were saddled with an impossible
story. I was often kicked out of the story
conferences because on occasion I said,
`Big deal. Two men and a woman on the
North Pole. They come home to Berlin and
she divorces one of them and marries the
other one. Where is the big deal?' They
thought I was frivolous and didn't take
it seriously and said I had no place in
the story conference."
After a stop in Copenhagen, the Borodino
sailed into the harbor at Umanak
on the west coast of Greenland on June
4th, and the extensive eight-day unloading
period began the next day, with the company
living on board ship in the interim. The
unloading and assembling of Der Motte
was delayed when the mayor of Umanak
insisted that the film crew be given typhoid
vaccinations, and to further hold up the
company, the local natives held two feasts,
capturing whales and celebrating with
whale meat and blubber, expecting their
visitors to participate in the festivities.
Finally, Udet's stunt plane was mounted
and placed in a small private harbor in
the Bay of Umanak.
By June 11th, a camping site had been
found outside Umanak, but the unseasonably
warm weather posed more problems. There
was an infestation of mosquitoes, unusual
in the region, and the company couldn't
film on the icebergs off the Umanak shore
because they were brittle and liable to
crack. A more frigid climate was required,
so Fanck and twelve assistants embarked
in the Peer and Poul motorboats.
They returned to base two weeks later,
having discovered Nuljarfik, a tiny island
off the coast of Greenland about eighteen
hours' sail from Umanak.
Fanck brought his company to the new location,
where, living in tents and supplementing
their supply of canned goods with fish
and cooked seal, they filmed Sepp Rist's
swim through the freezing waters and several
of Ernst Udet's aerial scenes. The explorer
Rasmussen met them at their next location,
a village called Nugeizjaki. Rasmussen
was well respected by the natives, and
recruited over 100 locals for an epic
scene of dozens of natives paddling kayaks
off the coast. Fanck found a reasonably
safe iceberg here as well, and shot scenes
of Leni Reifenstahl stranded on an island
of polar ice.
Meanwhile, Dr. Ernst Sorge, a scientist
who had been with the Wegener Arctic Expedition,
left Nugeizjaki alone in a kayak to scout
the monstrous Rinks Glacier further north,
looking for photogenic iceberg formations
at the foot of the glacier. He was expected
to return in five days, but when he still
hadn't shown up at camp on the sixth day,
Udet was dispatched to fly out to locate
him. The company waited anxiously as Udet
returned from his rescue mission with
heartbreaking news -- Sorge was nowhere
to be found. Udet flew out a second time,
and found the trapped, starving scientist
on Rinks Glacier; he had built a signal
of rocks that stood out against the vast
white stretches of the Arctic.
Sorge had landed on the glacier when the
ice had given way in large fissures, and
a water geyser swept away his kayak. He
had witnessed the birth of an iceberg,
incorporated along with the rescue incident
into the film in a drastic case of art-imitating-life.
For five months, from May 25, 1932 to
October 25th, 1932, the S.O.S. Iceberg
company braved incredible hardship
and hazard. At one point Udet crashed
his plane into the base of an iceberg
while the camera crew filmed it; the propellor
broke and the flier was lucky to escape
with his life. When the iceberg on which
Fanck and his cameramen were shooting
began to crumble, they were thrown into
freezing Arctic waters. On another occasion,
the Borodino almost capsized,
and crew members along the railing were
tossed to the water. They were rescued
by Eskimos in kayaks, but the valuable
sound recording equipment was lost.
Laemmle was with them in spirit and Fanck
didn't forget his patronage -- when the
company filmed on the Rinks Glacier, they
erected a statue of "Uncle Carl"
with the inscription "It Can Be Done!"
But back in Hollywood, faced with the
expedition's mounting delays and costs,
the studio head was questioning his own
slogan.
Fanck wrote to Laemmle of the company's
problems: "I don't believe that an
iceberg film will ever be planned a second
time. It took me, the really incorrigible
ice fanatic, to plan this monumental stupidity,
and you may rest assured that I shall
never work again with these monsters,
provided I get back safely with all my
people from this first iceberg film."
With 175,000 feet of the movie in the
can, Universal called the Fanck/Marton
expedition back to Berlin.
"Although the photographic background
material that they shot was magnificent,"
Marton told me, "it just didn't cut
together. The footage was unsurpassed
photographically, but it didn't make any
sense. Paul Kohner decided to bring over
Tay Garnett from Hollywood to complete
the picture."
The 39-year-old Garnett had started in
the business as a gag man for Hal Roach
and Mack Sennett in 1923. Under contract
to Pathe, he wrote a successful trio of
William Boyd-Alan Hale action pictures
in 1928 ( Skyscraper , Power
, The Cop ), and later that
year made his directorial debut with Celebrity
. He joined the ranks of top directors
with Her Man (1930), a celebrated
early talkie variation on Frankie and
Johnny , and in 1932 made the romantic
classic One Way Passage for Warners.
Garnett had been under contract to Universal
since June, 1932, when he directed Okay,
America! , and still had several days
of shooting on his rum-running melodrama
Destination Unknown (1933) when
he was called in for a meeting in late
December, 1932 with the Laemmles and studio
manager Henry Henigson. Kohner, an old
friend of Tay's, had recommended the director
on the strength of his writing talents.
Garnett's contract at Universal had almost
expired and he was ready to move on to
MGM to prepare China Seas ,
but Carl Junior prevailed upon him to
salvage S.O.S. Iceberg . Tay welcomed
the prospect of his first trip to Europe
and an Arctic adventure, and besides,
his marriage to actress Patsy Ruth Miller
was on the skids. He accepted Laemmle's
proposition with the stipulation that
his regular assistant director, Robert
Fellows, accompany him. Laemmle agreed,
Tay packed his bags, and Garnett's agent
Myron Selznick worked out a new deal with
Metro's Irving Thalberg.
Best known for the John Garfield-Lana
Turner The Postman Always Rings Twice
(1946), Garnett was something of
a specialist in location filming. He had
shot backgrounds in Cuba for Her Man
, took a unit to the Florida Everglades
to simulate the Vietnamese jungles of
Prestige (1932), and his 1938
around-the-world cruise provided rear
screen footage for his Trade Winds
(1938). Garnett made The Black
Knight (1954) in Spain, segments
of Seven Wonders of the World
(1956) in India, The Night Fighters
(1959) in Ireland, and in 1972, at
the age of 78, directed his last two features,
Challenge to Be Free and The
Timber Tramps in Alaska.
Back in Berlin, Kohner was trying to make
headway with Fanck's footage. Much of
it was truly spectacular, but a good deal
of what had been filmed was not in Knopf's
script, while other scenes that had been
scripted proved impossible to film. Andrew
Marton was pulled onto the picture as
film editor: "Basically, Paul Kohner
put me on S.O.S. Iceberg because
I am such a good cutter. He was hoping
to cut out some of the cumbersome footage
that Dr. Fanck left in there, in his idealistic
way, and bring the whole picture down
to earth."
Universal contract writer Tom Reed was
vacationing with his wife in Europe when
Laemmle put out the call for a major rewrite.
Reed was contacted in Andalusia, Spain,
and flown to Berlin. In two weeks' time
he wrote a new screenplay built around
the Greenland footage, and it was decided
he would meet Garnett and Fellows in New
York before they sailed for Europe.
Once in Berlin, Garnett spent six hours
a day screening Fanck's footage and did
a rewrite on the Reed script, fashioning
a story about an expedition stranded on
a slowly melting iceberg, playing up the
suspense element. Garnett also hired Rod
LaRocque, a former DeMille/Pathe star,
who was also in Europe at the time with
his wife Vilma Banky, the co-star of Luis
Trenker's concurrently-filming The
Rebel (1933). Since Fanck owned a
substantial piece of S.O.S. Iceberg
, Universal decided he could complete
his own version.
The Arctic cold had made the sound equipment
freeze, so the Garnett company moved to
Bernina Hospiz in Switzerland in an effort
to simulate Greenland. Many of the new
scenes were to take place inside a protective
igloo, and an iceberg was built to match
conditions in the Arctic. A bamboo frame
was constructed on a frozen lake, covered
with burlap, and then the interior and
exterior were frozen with water pumped
from the Swiss lake.
"When you go on location," reflected
Garnett in our 1977 interview, "you
always finds conditions unlike anything
you have anticipated, and you learn to
adjust to the conditions you find. Either
that or you drop by the wayside because
on a great many pictures, particularly
when you get into the Western field, you
run into some rather rigorous locations.
I don't think any of them I did were as
rigorous as S.O.S. Iceberg ."
Even in the relative comfort of Switzerland,
the company had to ski seven miles to
the location. Schneeberger, Angst, Reifenstahl
and the rest of the company were skilled
in the Alpine sport ... but not Tay Garnett;
he was towed by the crew or by dog sled,
an arrangement that still didn't prevent
numerous spills for the director.
Shooting commenced with two crews for
the alternating English and German versions.
But, according to Marton, Garnett was
pre-occupied.
"Tay was absolutely crazy in Europe,"
he remembered. "I went down to Switzerland
to help out with the shooting and we became
very close friends. Hollywood was very
puritanical then and he discovered the
sexual freedom that was then unknown in
Hollywood. There was a double standard
in Hollywood, you couldn't show this on
the screen, you couldn't do that, and
some of that backwashed into the private
lives of people. Everything was taboo.
In Switzerland, when the German company
was shooting, Tay had a few days off,
so he took his time and went down to Milano,
in Italy. Like Hemingway in his time,
Tay discovered that there's easy living
in Milano. There were lovely whorehouses
and lovely whores, too, to spend his time
with.
"When his time came to shoot he was
notified by telephone and he hopped on
a little local train and came up the pass
into the snow region. Although this was
springtime, the snow started to melt,
but up in that altitude the snow stays
until July and we were still only in June.
"Our biggest trouble was to talk
to Tay. That little train made a stop
of five minutes up on the highest spot
where we had our little location shelter.
They opened a mountain shelter for us
that was usually closed in the wintertime,
because there was twenty feet of snow
there. They opened the shelter for us
and we actually lived under the snow.
They opened a tunnel into the snow and
we lived in this `hotel' with the windows
covered with snow.
"The little train made a stop of
five minutes, and in those five minutes
we had to convince Tay that it was time
for him to get off the train, leave the
girls behind, and start working. Tay had
a wagonload of easy ladies with him, four
or five, and he was reluctant to leave
them, and quite often it happened that
he stayed on the train which went down
the mountain for the next stop, St. Moritz.
He had hotel reservations there and he
lived it up with the girls. The next day
we said, `Come up here, Tay, we're ready
for you.' He took the train from St. Moritz
up the mountains, again the five minute
stop, and again we had five minutes with
which to convince him to get off the train,
otherwise he went down to Milano again!
"This went on for a number of days.
I had to pinch-hit for him. I had to do
some directing for him because he had
already laid out all the scenes. I had
to inform him of that and he'd say, `You
do it, I'll come back later.' He was a
marvelous guy, a fabulous character.
"I thought Tay's assistant, Bob Fellows,
was a marvelous influence on him. He balanced
him out, because Tay was sometimes erratic,
and Bob was down to earth, both feet on
the ground. Bob was very nice and I have
nothing but the highest praise for him.
"You know, I admired Tay Garnett
as a man who was taken right off the leash,
so to say, from Hollywood, and he made
full use of it. I envied him, actually!
In later years, we'd meet once in a while
at Directors Guild meetings in Hollywood,
and it was always a big occasion. We would
embrace like mad, because we went through
a lot of things together in Switzerland."
In addition to Tay's caprices, the unit
was plagued with bad weather during much
of their time in the Alps, and the continued
delays forced a cash flow crisis with
Universal. A flurry of wires were transmitted
between Switzerland and Universal City,
with Garnett and production manager Alfred
Stern (a Laemmle nephew) advising Uncle
Carl that they needed to take a small
crew to Jung Fraujoch, where the weather
was more obliging, in order to match Fanck's
ice floe scenes. Laemmle wanted Garnett
to stage the remaining sequences on a
Berlin stage; Tay wired back that it was
impossible and took a trip to the more
remote location where he wrapped S.O.S.
Iceberg 's Swiss scenes on May 18,
1933. He moved to Berlin for interiors
at the Jofa Studio from May 19th through
June13, 1933, then travelled to London
to dub in the voices of the German-speaking
actors. Garnett, Bob Fellows, and a young
English actress named Helga Moray (later
the second Mrs. Garnett) dubbed the German
actors.
Although Tay Garnett is the director of
credit on S.O.S. Iceberg , most
of what is good in the picture is Fanck's
extraordinarily realistic Arctic footage.
S.O.S. Iceberg opens with a foreword
signed by Carl Laemmle declaring that
Nature is the star of the film. In the
first scene, a dinner at the International
Society for Arctic Research, we meet the
members of the Lawrence Expedition --
Dr. Carl Lawrence (Rod LaRocque), his
wife Ellen (Leni Reifenstahl), Dr. Johannes
Brand (Sepp Rist), John Dragan (Gibson
Gowland, star of Stroheim's Greed ),
Dr. Jan Matushek (Dr. Max Holsboer), and
Fritz Kuemmel (Walter Riml) [1]
. The Lawrence Expedition sets out
from Berlin to rescue lost explorers,
with shots of their schooner travelling
into the Arctic wastes, moving through
ice floes, amid huge icebergs.
The team sets up camp in an igloo; a title
reads, "Terrifying days pass swiftly
in the barren wasteland where there is
no night." La Rocque leaves camp
alone to search for the lost explorers,
and he in turn is followed by the members
of his own expedition, gliding through
the snow in poetic skiing sequences. Lawrence
is found starving in an ice cavern, trapped
on an iceberg, but his rescuers are also
without food. There is one harrowing image
after another -- Gowland goes crazy and
tries to eat one of their dogs; when Riml
tries to intervene, Gowland kicks him
back over the edge of the iceberg. A polar
bear tears Riml to pieces, and Gowland
commits suicide. Sepp Rist goes for help,
swimming from iceberg to iceberg in a
remarkable feat before he reaches an Eskimo
village. Leni Reifenstahl (piloted by
an unseen Udet) flies across the Arctic
panorama in stunning aerial shots, before
crashing into LaRocque's iceberg. The
climax of S.O.S. Iceberg comes
with a flotilla of Eskimo kayaks sweeping
across the waters to rescue the survivors
just before the iceberg crumbles into
the sea.
Universal's publicity department had a
field day with their advertising: "The
Impossible Comes to the Screen! See the
rescuing airplane piloted by a beautiful
girl crash in flames against an iceberg!
See the crashing masses of white death
-- crumbling worlds of ice menacing man
and beast alike! See the terrific hand-to-claw
battle between a man and a Polar Bear
-- the man the loser! See the airplane
piloted by Major Ernst Udet perform unbelievable
feats among the ice crags! See a lone
woman trapped on a melting and crumbling
iceberg with five desperate men! See the
birth of an iceberg -- a mountain of ice
exploded into the sea -- mothered by a
giganic glacier! Icebound! Blizzard-Lashed!
Facing Unknown Terrors! Facing Death itself
-- Not Once, but a Thousand Times -- All
to bring you this picture! the Screen's
Supreme Adventure!"
Universal opened the film in New York
City at the Criterion Theatre on September
22, 1933, with twice daily screenings
at $1.50 a seat, as compared to the usual
25-to-50 cents admission. "For grandeur
of scenic investiture," wrote Variety
, " Iceberg stands alone
in the Arctic category." The New
York Times critic called it "a
lusty melodrama of the frozen wilds and
as such it is lurid, and frequently the
suspense is drawn out to the snapping
point." Wanda Hale of the New
York Daily News gave the picture
three-and-a-half stars out of a possible
four.
The public was not so enthusiastic. The
production delays had brought the film
to the end of the cycle, and audiences
were spending their money on Depression
escapism like Dinner at Eight ,
Lady for a Day , Bombshell ,
and Too Much Harmony . Seen today,
however, S.O.S. Iceberg is an
awesome feat of filmmaking, worthy of
the DVD treatment it has received
from Kino. " S.O.S. Iceberg ,"
said Andrew Marton, "was a very unusual
picture. It would probably run better
today because audiences are better prepared
after Kurosawa's Japanese pictures to
accept a picture that relies mainly on
beauty, on nature. That was a novelty
then, and the novelty didn't catch on."
Kino gives us both German and English-language
version of S.O.S. ICEBERG on one disc,
making for a fascinating comparison. Extras
on THE WHITE HELL OF PITZ PALU include
a photo gallery, an excerpt from the 1935
sound reossie version, and "The Immoderation
of Me" (2002), Leni Reifenstahl's final
interview, in which she speaks candidly
about her acting days and her directorial
credits under the Nazi regime. The STORM
OVER MONT BLANC DVD includes Fanck's rare
1924 short CLOUD PHENOMENA OF MALOJA (
www.kino.com
).
WARNERS
HOME VIDEO is setting the
standard for preservation and presentation
of vintage DVDs. Their autumn releases
continued to delight movie buffs:
GARBO:
THE SIGNATURE COLLECTION celebrates
Great Garbo birthday centennial with ten
of her movies and a feature documentary
in one box set. For Garbo fans, this is
the holy grail; I've always preferred
Marlene Dietrich to Garbo, but I have
to confess that Garbo's mystique and allure
is undeniable.
ANNA
CHRISTIE (1930): Garbo was the
last of MGM's stars to make a sound film;
Mayer and Thalberg were afraid her Swedish
accent would be insurmountable. Thalberg
chose the perfect vehicle for his star,
an adaptation of Eugene O'Neill's waterfront
drama ANNA CHRISTIE. Garbo's favorite
director, Clarence Brown, was placed at
the helm, the hugely popular Marie Dressler
co-starred, and the ads blared "Garbo
Talks!" Her sound career was assured,
and she earned a Best Actress nomination
from the Academy. The WHV DVD includes
a special treat, the German-language version,
with Garbo friend and sometime lover Salka
Viertel in the Dressler role, shot simultaneously
with the English-language film (the studios
hadn't yet developed the ability to dub
their films for foreign release).
MATA
HARI (1931) is a campy favorite
among Garbo fans, as she plays the famous
World War One spy, playing with the hearts
of Latin lover Ramon Novarro and scenery-chewing
Lionel Barrymore (as a Russian general).
George Fitzmaurice (Valentino's SON OF
THE SHIEK) provided atmospheric direction,
but this version just doesn't stand up
to the similarly themed Dietrich-Sternberg
DISHONORED of the same year. The DVD includes
a theatrical trailer.
GRAND
HOTEL (1932) is the grand-daddy
of all-star movies, winner of the Best
Picture Oscar with its overdone melodrama
still wildly entertaining today by virtue
of its cast – Garbo, John Barrymore,
Lionel Barrymore, Joan Crawford, Wallace
Beery, Lewis Stone, and Jean Hersholt.
Thalberg made sure this was the best MGM
had to offer Depression audiences –
Edmund Goulding's tasteful direction,
Cedric Gibbons' dazzling Art Deco sets,
Adrian's costume designs. The DVD includes
a new documentary, CHECKING OUT: GRAND
HOTEL; newsreel footage of the premiere
that includes appearances by Jean Harlow
and Clark Gable; the 1932 musical short
NOTHING EVER HAPPENS (a play on Lewis
Stone's lament that "Nothing ever happens
at the Grand Hotel"); and trailers for
the movie and the 1945 Van Johnson-Ginger
Rogers remake WEEKEND AT THE WALDORF.
QUEEN
CHRISTINA (1933) is as much
director Rouben Mamoulian's triumph as
Garbo's. Sheplays the 17 th Century Swedish
monarch, romancing John Gilbert, her ex-fiance
and former co-star. The movie featured
one of Garbo's favorite conceits, as she
dons boy's clothes to travel the countryside
incognito. Garbo and Mamoulian provide
a good deal of charm in these scenes;
conversely, they created an indelibly
moving sequence in which Garbo moves about
her room at the inn, caressing the furniture,
"memorizing" the room through her hands
after her tryst with Gilbert. Mamoulian
told me he achieved the rhythm of this
sequence by including a metronome on the
set and having Garbo time her movements
to it. The DVD also includes a theatrical
trailer.
ANNA
KARENINA (1935), another period
picture, was a typically lavish MGM production,
based on the 19 th Century Tolstoy novel,
with Garbo as the obedient wife and mother
who sacrifices all for true love. Producer
David O. Selznick (in one of his last
Metro films before starting his own studio)
and director Clarence Brown gave her an
outstanding cast – dashing Fredric
March, cruel Basil Rathbone, adorable
Freddie Bartholomew, beautiful Maureen
O'Sullivan. ANNA KARENINA made the NBR's
Top Ten list for 1935, and the New York
Film Critics named Garbo Best Actress.
Once again there's a theatrical trailer
included.
CAMILLE
(1936), the great tragedy from
Alexandre Dumas' story, set in 1847 Paris,
is one of Garbo's best known movies. Starring
opposite the beautiful young Robert Taylor,
working under George Cukor's sensitive
direction, Garbo is radiant in the role
of the doomed courtesan. Once more the
film made the NBR's Ten Best, the New
York Critics named her Best Actress, and
this time the Academy nominated her for
an Oscar. Warner Home Video does a beautiful
thing once in a while – on the HOUSE
OF WAX (1953) DVD they included the original
MYSTERY OF THE WEAX MUSEUM (1933), on
DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE (1941) they included
the 1932 Fredric March version, and here
on CAMILLE, we get the rare 1921 Alla
Nazimova-Rudolph Valentino silent film.
It's just another reason to applaud WHV
(oh, and the CAMILLE disc includes the
1936 trailer and the radio promo LEO IS
ON THE AIR).
NINOTCHKA
(1939): I really dig the kooky,
little-known Garbo/Gable pre-Code drama
SUSAN LENOX: HER FALL AND RISE (1931)
– maybe WHV will release it in a
Gable collection -- but hands down my
favorite Garbo is NINOTCHKA. Just look
at the pedigree – sophisticated
romantic comedy maestro Ernst Lubitsch
directs an irreverent Billy Wilder-Charles
Brackett screenplay about a hard-spined
Communist (Garbo) who comes to Paris to
retrieve three wandering comrades (the
delightful trio of Felix Bressart, Sig
Rumann, and Alexander Granach) and ends
up falling in love with Melvyn Douglas
(and capitalism). "Garbo Laughs in Her
First Comedy!" trumpets the theatrical
trailer, and you'll laugh too at this
greatest of classic Hollywood comedies,
whether or not you've seen it before.
Ina Claire is fun in support, and Bela
Lugosi is perfect as a hardcore Moscow
official.
TCM
ARCHIVES: THE GARBO SILENTS COLLECTION
is a spectacular two-disc set
including in the box set, presenting three
of Garbo's silent features – THE
TEMPTRESS (1926), directed by
Fred Niblo (who replaced Garbo's mentor
Mauritz Stiller), co-starring Antonio
Moreno; FLESH AND THE DEVIL
(1927), her greatest silent film, co-starring
John Gilbert, directed by Clarence Brown;
and THE MYSTERIOUS LADY
(1928), a forerunner of MATA HARI, directed
by Niblo, co-starring Conrad Nagel –
all restored with new musical scores.
There are fascinating audio commentaries
as well – Barry Paris on FLESH AND
THE DEVIL, Mark Vieira on THE TEMPTRESS,
and Tony Maietta and Jeffrey Vance on
MYSTERIOUS LADY. There's also a documentary
about TCM's Young Film Composers Competition
and the scoring of these classic silents;
photo montages on all three features;
alternate endings on FLESH AND THE DEVIL
and THE TEMPTRESS; and the only surviving
footage, nine minutes worth, from the
lost Garbo feature THE DIVINE WOMAN (1928).
Incredible!
GARBO
(2005): As if all of this isn't
enough Turner Classic Movies and Warner
Home Video includes a new documentary
on Greta Garbo co-directed by the greatest
film documentarian on the planet, Kevin
Brownlow. Narrated by Julie Christie,
loaded with clips, the feature-length
film is very much in the superior tradition
of the great Brownlow documentaries on
Chaplin, Keaton, Lloyd, Griffith, UNIVERSAL
HORRORS and HOLLYWOOD: THE PIONEERS. Garbo
retired from the screen in 1941 and lived
on Manhattan's East Side until her death
at 85 in 1990; among most fascinating
aspects of the documentary is the section
dealing with her reclusive life in New
York.
GARBO:
THE SIGNATURE COLLECTION should be the
prototype for every studio releasing their
vintage catalogue titles ... but Warner
is the only company that is doing it the
right way. Ten films, ten discs, bonus
documentary, extras ... this is how it should
be, and Warner Home Video is writing the
book on the subject. They do it again
with another MGM franchise:
THE
COMPLETE THIN MAN COLLECTION
gives us all six Thin Man comedy-dramas
plus a documentary disc. Dashiell Hammett
created Nick Charles, San Francisco detective
married to millionairess Nora Charles,
aided by pet terrier Asta and Woody Van
Dyke's 1934 production THE THIN MAN became
one of Metro's biggest hits ... because
in William Powell and Myrna Loy
they happened to have under contract the
perfect Nick and Nora. The movies were
a harmonious blend of mystery and laughs,
and were popular in no small part because
they showed a husband and wife lusting
after each other. Van Dyke directed the
first four installments – THE THIN
MAN (1934), AFTER THE THIN MAN (1936),
ANOTHER THIN MAN (1939), SHADOW OF THE
THIN MAN (!941) – and was well known
for the speed with which he worked ... "One
Take Woody" they called him. His style
imparts a breezy quality to these films;
after his untimely death in 1942, Metro
continued his style in Richard Thorpe's
THE THIN MAN GOES HOME (1944) and Edward
Buzzell's SONG OF THE THIN MAN (1947).
The THIN MAN series is especially fun
today because of the wonderful casts assembled
in support of Powell and Loy:
THE
THIN MAN: Maureen O'Sullivan, Cesar Romero,
Nat Pendleton
AFTER
THE THIN MAN: James Stewart (in one of
his first roles), Sam Levene, Penny Singleton
(BLONDIE), George Zucco (1940's Universal
B-movies)
ANOTHER
THIN MAN: C. Aubrey Smith, Sheldon Leonard,
Ruth Hussey (THE PHILADELPHIA STORY),
Tom Neal (DETOUR)
SHADOW
OF THE THIN MAN: Donna Reed, Barry Nelson,
Stella Adler (yes, the acting teacher!),
Tor Johnson (with hair)
THE
THIN MAN GOES HOME: Gloria DeHaven, Donald
Meek, Mike Mazurki
SONG
OF THE THIN MAN: Dean Stockwell (as Nick
Jr.), Keenan Wynn, Gloria Grahame, Jayne
Meadows
The
box set includes vintage shorts (including
Robert Benchley's HOW TO BE A PRIVATE
DETECTIVE) and cartoons (including Tex
Avery's SCREWBALL SQUIRREL and SLAP-HAPPY
LION), theatrical trailers for all the
THIN MAN films,a and radio shows and promos
with Powell and Loy. A seventh disc in
the set includes a so-so documentary on
William Powell and a better one (by Richard
Schickel) on Myrna Loy, but we also get
a terrific episode of the 1957 half-hour
TV series THE THIN MAN, starring Peter
Lawford and Phyllis Kirk. The episode
is called "Darling, I Loathe You," and
features D.W. Griffith actress Blanche
Sweet in a bit. I vaguely remember this
series airing at 1 or 2 AM in the 70s
on New York's Channel 4, and it was fun
to see it again.
THE
ASTAIRE/ROGERS COLLECTION: VOLUME ONE
should be an essential purchase
(or holiday gift) for any classic movie
buff. Warner Home Video brings together
TOP HAT (1935), SWING TIME (1936), FOLLOW
THE FLEET (1936), SHALL WE DANCE (1937),
and their reunion film, THE BARKLEYS OF
BROADWAY (1949) in an indispensable box
set full of extras:
TOP
HAT (1935) and SWING
TIME (1936): RKO first teamed
Broadway star Astaire and busy starlet
Rogers in support of Dolores Del Rio and
Gene Raymond in FLYING DOWN TO RIO (1933);
Astaire and Rogers were a sensation and
were rewarded with their own vehicle,
THE GAY DIVORCEE (1934), which set the
standard for the Astaire/Rogers musicals.
TOP HAT developed the formula and SWING
TIME perfected it -- Fred falls
for Ginger, Fred dances with Ginger, Fred
gets Ginger ... but with wonderful screenplays
(usually by Allan Scott), deft direction
(Mark Sandrich on TOP HAT, George Stevens
on SWING TIME), expert supporting comic
players like Eric Blore, Edward Everett
Horton and Helen Broderick, songs by America's
greatest (Irving Berlin with "Cheek to
Cheek," and "Isn't It a Lovely Day?,"
for example, on TOP HAT; Jerome Kern and
Dorothy Fields on SWING TIME with "Never
Gonna Dance." "Pick Yourself Up," and
"The Way You Look Tonight"), and of course
the Hermes Pan choreography filtered through
the chemistry of Fred and Ginger.
Irving Berlin was back with songs like
"We Saw the Sea" and "Let Yourself Go"
for Sandrich's FOLLOW THE FLEET
(1936), with Fred and Randolph
Scott romancing Ginger and Harriet Hilliard
(who went on to become the Harriet of
THE OZZIE AND HARRIET SHOW); a very blonde
Lucille Ball and Betty Grable have supporting
roles, and the movie features the beautifully
sublime number "Let's Face the Music and
Dance." Sandrich was in the director's
chair again for SHALL WE DANCE
(1937), with Fred and Ginger
singing and dancing the George and Ira
Gershwin classics "Let's Call the While
Thing Off," "They All Laughed," and "They
Can't Take That Away from Me."
After THE STORY OF VERNON AND IRENE CASTLE
(1939), Astaire became too expensive for
RKO and moved on to free-lance at MGM
(BROADWAY MELODY OF 1940, EASTER PARADE),
Paramount (HOLIDAY INN) and Columbia (YOU'LL
NEVER GET RICH), while Ginger won an Oscar
for her dramatic turn in KITTY FOYLE (1940)
and excelled in comedies like ROXIE HART
and THE MAJOR AND THE MINOR (both 1942).
When Judy Garland fell ill for 1949's
THE BARKLEYS OF BROADWAY ,
Rogers replaced her and reunited with
Astaire in a husband-and-wife show biz
story written by Betty Comden and Adolph
Green, directed by Charles Walters for
MGM's Arthur Freed musical unit. The movie
is the only Astaire/ Rogers in color,
with a reprise of the Gershwins' "They
Can't Take That Away from Me" as a highlight.
Warners has crammed the set with extras,
as usual – audio commentaries (including
Fred's daughter Ava Astaire MacKenzie
on TOP HAT), new featurettes on the making
of each film; musical shorts and cartoons
from each year represented (e.g., Tex
Avery's Droopy cartoon WAGS TO RICHES
on THE BARKLEYS disc). The magic of Astaire
and Rogers has finally come to DVD, jammed
with enough riches to hold us over until
next year's Volume Two, which will presumably
include FLYING DOWN TO RIO, THE DIVORCEE,
ROBERTA, CAREFREE and THE STORY OF VERNON
AND IRENE CASTLE).
But
hold on there, movie fans, there is still
MORE from our friends at WHV – an
incredible three-disc set of Victor Fleming's
THE WIZARD OF OZ (1939)
, restored with their
"Ultra Resolution" process, packed with
more than thirteen hours of special features,
including five new documentaries,
the original Oz storybook read onscreen
by Angela Lansbury and a reproduction
of the 1939 Grauman's Chinese Theater
souvenir premiere program and much much
more.
The studio has seemingly emptied out their
vaults for this set, preserving everything
OZ for posterity. Disc One includes the
restored movie with new commentary by
Oz historian John Fricke and arcgival
audio comments from Arthur Freed's daughter
Barbara Freed-Saltzman, Jack Haley, Ray
Bolger, John Lahr (son of Bert Lahr),
Jane Lahr (Bert's daughter), Margaret
Hamilton and her son Hamilton Meserve,
makeup artist William Tuttle, Buddy Ebsen
(replaced as the original scarecrow),
producer Mervyn LeRoy and Munchkin Jerry
Maren. There's a documentary on the restoration,
a profile of the supporting cast, and
THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF OZ STORYBOOK, read
by Angela Lansbury.
Disc Two features two documentaries, songwriter
Harold Arlen's on-set home movies, outtakes
and deleted scenes, the tornado special
effects tests, vintage featurettes, stills
and trailer galleries, and most incredibly,
more than six hours of audio rarities,
including multiple take original recording
sessions of "Over the Rainbow," "We're
Off to See the Wizard," and all the other
Arlen-Harburg standards. Disc Three has
four hours devoted to Oz creator L. Frank
Baum, including a new documentary on his
life, and the silent versions of Oz: THE
WIZARD OF OZ (1910), THE MAGIC CLOAK OF
OZ (1914), HIS MAJESTY, THE SCARECROW
OF OZ (1914), a restored THE WIZARD OF
OZ (1925) with Oliver Hardy, and the 1933
cartoon version. That's a whole lotta
Oz! While it's been released before, it's
never looked this magnificent, and again,
is a great gift idea for the holidays.
Another MGM classic gets the special treatment
from WHV ... a FOUR-DISC Collectors Edition
DVD of William Wyler's BEN-HUR
(1959). Newly remastered from
original 65mm film elements, with over
ten hours of bonus material, this is another
must-have DVD. Wyler expertly balanced
the personal story of Judah Ben-Hur (Charlton
Heston) and his conflict with former best
friend, Roman big shot Messala (Stephen
Boyd), against the epic backdrop of Christ's
Holy Land and Imperial Rome. The first
half of the 222-minute film, including
Ben Hur's enslavement as a galley slave,
the sea battle and the legendary chariot
race is an amazing spectacle, all the
more incredible since there were no computer
effects available at the time. Discs One
and Two contain the restored movie with
audio commentary from film historian T.
Gene Hatcher and scene specific comments
from Heston; Disc Three consists of the
brilliant 1925 silent version, complete
with several restored two-strip Technicolor
sequences. Disc Four offers a new documentary
with such filmmakers as George Lucas and
Ridley Scott remarking on the film's influence;
a 1994 making-of documentary; an audiovisual
mélange of stills, storyboards and production
sketches; a vintage newsreel gallery;
highlights from the 1960 Academy Awards
ceremony (eleven Oscars including Best
Picture, Heston's Best Actor, Wyler's
Best Director, Hugh Griffith's Best Supporting
Actor, Robert Surtees' Color Cinematography
and Miklos Rosza's music); and a group
of screen tests that include Leslie Nielsen
auditioning for the part of Messala!
Producer Val Lewton introduced a new brand
of psychological terror with a series
of horror movies produced at RKO during
the first half of the 1940s. To wild shrieks
of joy from fright film fans, Warner Home
Video has released THE VAL LEWTON
HORROR COLLECTION , nine features
and a new documentary, SHADOWS
IN THE DARK: THE VAL LEWTON LEGACY (2005),
a great introduction to the producer's
work, featuring interviews with Val Lewton,
Jr., Sara Karloff, George Romero, Joe
Dante, John Landis, William Friedkin,
and Robert Wise.
Jacques Tourneur's CAT PEOPLE
(1942) and Robert Wise's THE
CURSE OF THE CAT PEOPLE (1944)
are double-featured on one disc. CAT PEOPLE
stars Simone Simon as a beautiful young
woman cursed to turn into a deadly panther
when sexually aroused; the sequel is a
haunting study of a little girl's fantasy
world, with Simon recreating her character
from beyond the grave. Greg Mank provides
an excellent audio commentary, and there's
an audio interview with Simone Simon.
Another disc presents Tourneur's I
WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE (1943),
a voodoo version of JANE EYRE starring
Frances Dee; and Wise's THE BODY
SNATCHER (1945), starring Boris
Karloff and Henry Daniell as 19 th Century
grave robbers, with Bela Lugosi in support.
Wise and Steve Haberman do the audio commentary
on THE BODY SNATCHER, while Kim Newman
and Steve Jones share the honors on I
WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE. Tourneur's THE
LEOPARD MAN (1943), with commentary
from director William Friedkin, and Mark
Robson's THE GHOST SHIP
(1943) comprise another disc. Dennis O'Keefe
stars in THE LEOPARD MAN; the garish studio-imposed
title hides another subtle in fear; THE
GHOST SHIP features Richard Dix as the
mad sea captain in a title that was unseen
for years due to conflicts regarding the
film's underlying story rights. Another
disc double bills two Boris Karloff vehicles
directed by Mark Robson, ISLE
OF THE DEAD (1945), set on a
quarantined Greek island, and BEDLAM
(1946) set in a mental institution
in Georgian England, with audio commentary
by the great horror historian Tom Weaver.
Robson's THE SEVENTH VICTIM
(1943) is a chilling drama with Kim Hunter
trying to crack a Greenwich Village cult
of devil worshippers (Steve Haberman handles
the audio commentary).
The late Robert Wise shared his memories
of Val Lewton, Boris Karloff and Bela
Lugosi with me:
ROBERT
WISE: Val was an exceptional man, highly
cultured and well read, a writer himself,
a man of great imagination, a really creative
producer. Val was a director's producer
in every sense of the word. He contributed
tremendously to all of his films in every
way. He wrote on all the scripts but refused
to take credit. He was very involved with
all aspects of the film, yet he was fully
supportive of the director at all times
and never wanted to second guess or make
you feel that he was constantly looking
over your shoulder. He was a tremendous
creator, and it's just a shame that he
died at work at such an early age without
really fulfilling all his tremendous potential.
Karloff and Lugosi were completely different
gentlemen. Karloff was highly educated
and sensitive, and a well-read man with
great taste. Boris was marvelous to work
with. He was very excited about the chance
to do THE BODY SNATCHER. He took it to
be a chance to show he could hold his
own with top actors and give a real performance
as Boris Karloff and not have to depend
on the mechanisms of the monster role.
Of course, with Henry Daniell he was playing
opposite one of the best character actors
in Hollywood, so it was a delight to work
with them. The results show on the screen
in a really outstanding performance as
he really holds his own with Daniell.
Lugosi was another story. He actually
was rather forced into the piece. Somebody
at the front office thought it would be
a marvelous exploitation thing if they
could get both Karloff and Lugosi in the
same film, so Lewton came up with the
idea of writing in that janitor part which
Lugosi played. It had to be a part that
was not too demanding because Bela was
not well. He had been ill for some time
and his English wasn't terribly good.
I had no major problems with him, but
it was just hard to get through because
of the language problem and his illness.
I had to almost nurse him through the
scenes, whereas Karloff, as I said earlier,
was very stimulated by the prospect of
what he could do with the character of
Gray the grave robber."
Warner
has also released Francis Coppola's THE
OUTSIDERS: THE COMPLETE NOVEL ,
giving the director the chance to re-tool
his 1983 teen movie. Stylistically inspired
by GONE WITH THE WIND, vividly recreating
S.E. Hinton's novel about disenfranchised
youths in Tulsa, Oklahoma, THE OUTSIDERS
boasted one of the most impressive young
casts since AMERICAN GRAFFITI –
Matt Dillon, Diane Lane, Emilio Estevez,
Ralph Macchio, Patrick Swayze, Rob Lowe
and Tom Cruise. Coppola has restructured
the beginning and the ending, making it
more faithful to the book, integrated
an additional 22 minutes into the movie,
and replaced some his father Carmine's
orchestral score with rock 'n roll, making
for a kind of OUTSIDERS REDUX. The double
disc set has a commentary track by Coppola,
a second commentary track with comments
from many of the cast members, several
documentaries that include audition tests,
ten minutes of additional scenes, and
readings from the Hinton book by seven
cast members. THE OUTSIDERS was always
a good movie; I daresay it's better now.
Rounding
out Warner's fall releases were DRACULA
A.D. 1972 (1972), with Christopher
Lee's Dracula battling a descendant of
Van Helsing (Peter Cushing) in psychedelic
London, one of the least of the Hammer
horrors, but still good for some period
laughs. Donald Cammell's DEMON
SEED (!977) is more serious,
an effective and recommended horror thriller
inspired by ROSEMARY'S BABY, with Julie
Christie as the mother-in-distress. And
least as well as last, the gore remake
of HOUSE OF WAX (2005)
stars Elisha Cuthbert and Paris Hilton
(in red bra and panties) terrorized by
wax-crazy killers. Lots of extras make
up for the predictable slasher stuff,
including a gag reel and a featurette
of the cast watching and responding to
their own bloopers, which I found highly
entertaining. For the gore connoisseur,
there are several interesting documentaries
detailing how the special effects were
achieved.
And
of course, THE release of the year for
movie buff's is Warners DVD release of
the restored original KING KONG
(1933). This is truly like seeing
the movie for the first time, that's how
spectacular this transfer is. The two-disc
set includes an excellent new documentary
on the film's creators, Merian C. Cooper
and Ernest B. Schoedsack and a seven-part
documentary. Peter Jackson is prominently
and appropriately featured throughout;
this is of course his favorite film, the
movie that inspired him to become
a filmmaker. He has actually recreated
the lost spider pit sequence following
the original script and drawings, and
it's truly the highlight of a remarkable
set. So much has been written about this
release I'll just say that DVD was invented
for such a package. WHV has also released
beautiful transfers of Cooper-Schoedsack's
SON OF KONG (1933),
THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII
(1935) and MIGHTY JOE YOUNG
(1949). Milestone has re-released Cooper
and Schoedsack's GRASS
(1925) and CHANG (1927),
two silent documentaries about Persian
nomads and a Thai jungle family, respectively,
incredible on-location accomplishments.
The latter disc has an incredible nearly
two-hour audio interview with Merian Cooper
made by Rudy Behlmer in the mid-Sixties
in which "Coop" talks about his incredible
career; it's worth the price of the disc
alone.
PARAMOUNT
HOME VIDEO : Of all the major
home entertainment companies, Paramount
is the runner-up to Warner in the DVD
department, with a diverse release slate,
special treatment going to a few select
titles. I recommend the following batch
of Paramount releases:
THE
MIRACLE OF MORGAN'S CREEK (1944):
Preston Sturges' outrageous sex comedy
slipped through the censor's hands at
the height of World War Two and thank
goodness it did. Eddie Bracken, Betty
Hutton and William Demarest are priceless,
and Sturges' script and direction rate
with the best of American screen comedy.
Extras include a making-of featurette
and an interesting piece on the film and
the censors.
THE
STRANGE CASE OF MARTHA IVERS
(1946): Lewis Milestone's essential film
noir has only been available in dupey
public domain copies; Paramount has gone
to the master for the only version worth
renting. A very young Kirk Douglas (in
his film debut) and Barbara Stanwyck steam
it up in a passion play of drama and intrigue;
watch this on a double bill with DOUBLE
INDEMNITY (1944).
DETECTIVE
STORY (1951): Director Willam
Wyler and playwright Sidney Kingsley scored
with 1937's DEAD END; they reteamed for
this film version of the Kingsley play
about life in a Manhattan police precinct.
Against the gritty background, Kirk Douglas
and Eleanor Parker play out a marital
drama, all under the unerring eye of the
great Wyler. No extras, but a great supporting
cast including Lee Grant (fresh from the
Neighborhood Playhouse), William Bendix,
and Joseph Wiseman (a decade before he
played the title role in DR. NO).
THE
WAR OF THE WORLDS (1953): Here's
one of the year's highlights, one of the
most beloved science fiction movies ever
(reverentially remade this year by Steven
Spielberg), gloriously brought to DVD
in a special collector's edition. The
Technicolor transfer is ravishing, and
so are the Oscar-winning special effects,
and the movie plays like gangbusters;
the H.G. Wells story is played completely
straight by director Byron Haskin and
producer George Pal. There is an audio
commentary by the stars Gene Barry and
Ann Robinson, and another commentary by
director Joe Dante and historians Bob
Burns and Bill Warren, along with a fascinating
documentary, a featurette on Wells, and
the original 1938 Orson Welles radio broadcast
from the Mercury Theatre of the Air. Very
highly recommended.
Paramount
also released the latest two Batjac restorations
– HONDO (1953),
directed by John Farrow, and McLINTOCK!
(1963), directed by Andrew McLaglen,
both starring John Wayne, and both looking
sensational. HONDO is one of Wayne's best
films of the Fifties; he plays a cavalry
rider who looks after a lone woman (Geraldine
Page) and her son (Lee Aaker) on
ranch in the middle of Apache country.
Page (in her screen debut) makes an unusual
leading lady for the Duke, and the Louis
L'Amour story is more pro-Indian than
usual. Add in some good action sequences
and a supporting cast including Ward Bond,
Paul Fix, Leo Gordon and Michael Pate
as the Apache Vittorio, and you've got
a really good Western, an interesting
companion piece to the same year's SHANE.
This special edition boasts an outstanding
audio commentary from Frank Thompson and
Leonard Maltin (with interpolations from
Lee Aaker) and featurettes on the making
of the film, frequent Wayne collaborator
Ward Bond, favored Duke screenwriter James
Edward Grant, and the Apache nation. McLINTOCK!
set the tone for most of the Wayne films
to follow, a rowdy comedy with plenty
of fisticuffs and colorful characters.
This time there's commentary from Thompson
and Maltin, co-stars Maureen O'Hara, Stephanie
Powers and Michael Pate, producer Michael
Wayne and director Andrew McLaglen. There
is also a tribute to the late Michael
Wayne (the Duke's eldest son) and a variety
of featurettes on the making of the movies.
HONDO and McLINTOCK!, along with the previously
released ISLAND IN THE SKY and THE HIGH
AND THE MIGHTY, fill in some important
gaps in the filmography of this greatest
of screen icons.
DARLING
LILI (1969) was a terrible flop
upon its release; Blake Edwards' sentimental
ode to love and war during World War One
seemed hopelessly out of date in the year
of EASY RIDER. Seen today, it's damn near
the director's masterpiece, a stunning
evocation of the era with a wonderful
performance by Julie Andrews and some
of her finest musical work on screen,
singing standards as well as originals
by Henrt Mancini and Johnny Mercer.
She plays a spy patterned on Mata Hari,
romantically involved with Rock Hudson,
and Edwards fills the screen with extravagant
action. Hats off to Paramount Home Video
for including nearly an hour of
footage deleted after its original release.
By
now, all die hard Bob Dylan fans have
watched or taped Martin Scorsese's documentary
on the singer-songwriter on PBS; the double-disc
DVD of NO DIRECTION HOME: BOB
DYLAN (2005) is a keeper to
be enjoyed over and over. Scorsese limits
his study of Dylan to his early years,
ending with his self-imposed exile in
1967, and unearthed some incredibly rare
footage, including a performance of "Girl
from the North Country" from a Canadian
TV show. The DVD's special features include
nine additional rare Dylan performances.
THE SIXTIES makes a
good companion piece, another PBS documentary
about the tumultuous decade, focusing
on the socio-political changes through
interviews with such major players as
Henry Kissinger, Jesse Jackson, Norman
Mailer, Bobby Seale and Robert McNamara.
Paramount's
documentary MAD HOT BALLROOM
(2005) is an utterly charming film ---
and an Oscar contender – that traces
inner city New York fourth and fifth graders
as they participate in the world of competitive
ballroom dancing. They perform meringue,
tango, rumba and swing, offering candid
and amusing insights into their lives
... Marilyn Agrelo and Amy Sewell have done
a wonderful job in presenting the passion
of these kids for dance, as well as their
innocence and their heart. Very highly
recommended!
I'm
partial to Bob Hope, especially in period
films (THE PRINCESS AND THE PIRATE, THE
PALEFACE, MONSIEUR BEAUCAIRE), so of course
I like CASANOVA'S BIG NIGHT
(1954), in which Bob poses as Casanova
(an unbilled Vincent Price) while romancing
Joan Fontaine through the Paramount backlots-doubling-for-Renaissance
Venice. It's otherwise standard Hope,
with brisk Norman McLeod direction and
lavish Technicolor photography, costumes
and sets.
I
am also a major Jerry Lewis fan ... and
not just because he invited video assist.
That's right, as a director Jerry did
that. He's also provided millions of laughs
for millions of kids, not just in France
but right here in the U.S.A. As one of
those kids-whose-never-grown-up, I'm not
going to defend him. I will say that THE
BELLBOY (1960), THE ERRAND BOY (1961),
THE LADIES'S MAN (1961), THE PATSY (!964)
and THE NUTTY PROFESSOR (1964) are comic
masterpieces, and they're included in
the ten-title box set JERRY LEWIS:
THE "LEGENDARY JERRY" COLLECTION ,
new from Paramount. The set also includes
THE STOOGE (1953), a Martin and Lewis
comedy (Jerry's favorite of the team's
efforts) from the height of their
fame, when they were the highest grossing
screen comedy team in history; THE DELICATE
DELINQUENT (!957), Jerry's first film
after the split with Dean Martin; and
three more solo efforts that contain their
own moments of magic – CINDERFELLA
(1960), THE DISORDERLY ORDERLY (1964)
and THE FAMILY JEWELS (1965). Many of
the titles come with fantastic outtakes,
and select commentary from Jerry and singer
pal Steve Lawrence. If you're a fan, pounce
... if not, try THE ERRAND BOY (especially
the "Bending Feathers" scene) or THE NUTTY
PROFESSOR, including here in a special
edition.
Paramount's
most spectacular release of the year is
a dazzling three-disc Special Collectors
Edition of TITANIC (1997).
Get rid of your old DVD – this is
digitally mastered in THX and looks
incredible. I was surprised to see that
James Cameron's over-hyped epic actually
holds up very well almost a decade later
and eventually becomes a gripping thriller
and a potent love story. Disc One offers
a separate commentary track from Cameron,
and a separate cast and crew commentary
from Kate Winslet, Gloria Stuart, Lewis
Abernathy, Rae Sanchini and Jon Landau;
historical commentary by Don Lynch and
Ken Marschall, plus behind-the-scenes
featurettes. Disc Two concludes the movie
with the same commentaries, plus an alternate
ending that expands the Bill Paxton, Suzy
Amis and Gloria Stuart characters (but
was wisely withheld); more featurettes,
and the execrable music video of Celine
Dion singing the most overplayed song
of 1997-98, "My Heart Will Go On." Disc
Three is remarkable, with over 45 minutes
of deleted scenes with optional commentary;
a slew of historical material and production
goodies; and video tribute made by the
crew which includes some hilarious footage
of Leonardo DiCaprio mimicking assistant
director Josh McLaglen (son of McLINTOCK!
director Andrew). The Special Collectors
Edition of TITANIC makes for an especially
handsome holiday gift.
HIGHLY
RECOMMENDED FOR GIFTS (TO YOURSELF OR
OTHERS :
MAJOR
DUNDEE (1965, Sony Puctures
Home Entertainment). THE Western DVD release
of the year, a flawless transfer of the
reconstruction of Sam Peckinpah's maligned
masterpiece. In its new form, the picture
rates up there with the John Ford Cavalry
films. The original music has actually
been re-scored, missing footage reinstated
and the whole thing remastered. There's
fantastic commentary from Peckinpah historians,
a vintage featurette, a documentary excerpt
and an essay by DVD Savant Glenn Ericksen.
The film itself features great star turns
from Charlton Heston and Richard Harris,
and a terrific supporting cast including
Ben Johnson, James Coburn and Warren Oates.
Also from SPHE, check out Boris Karloff
in THE MAN WITH NINE LIVES
(1940); Karloff made a series of Mad Doctor
movies for Columbia in 1939-41. They're
great fun but this is only the second
one to be released (the other is THE
DEVIL COMMANDS ). Let's get rest
out there.
THE
BELA LUGOSI COLLECTION ( Universal):
No extras, no commentaries, but we do
get five of Bela's best –
MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE
(1932) and his Karloff collaborations
THE BLACK CUT (1934),
THE RAVEN (!935), THE
INVISIBLE RAY (1936) and BLACK
FRIDAY (1940). The first four
are from the first wave of Universal horrors
under the aegis of Carl Laemmle Senior
and Junior; the last named barely features
Bela but we'll take what we can get. This
set is essential viewing for Lugosi-philes.
TWO
CRITERION GEMS : In 1950,
working with screenwriter Federico Fellini,
Roberto Rossellini made the sensitive
THE FLOWERS OF ST. FRANCIS ,
a legendary film about the followers of
the saint long unavailable in a decent
print. Criterion releases a restored hi-def
transfer, with video interviews (including
the director's daughter Isabella Rossellini);
this is a beautiful film about the quest
for spiritual enlightment. At the other
end of the spectrum Criterion releases
the post-noir LE SAMOURAI
(1967), Jean-Pierre Melville's character
study of a hitman (Alain Delon), one of
John Woo's favorite thrillers. There are
video interviews with Melville historians
and archival footage of the director himself.
WEEKEND
(New Yorker): With most films
by Jean-Luc Godard it's pretty much love
it or hate it. WEEKEND (1967) is a little
more accessible,a satire on consumerism
that follows a couple on their way to
a weekend out of town. Special features
include Mike Figgis' take on the film,
an interview with cinematographer Raoul
Coutard, and audio commentary by critic
David Sterritt. New Yorker also releases
PUNISHMENT PARK (1971)
by David Watkin, the first in a
series of releases by the iconooclastic
maverick. This film takes as its premise
the McCarren Act, an early Fifties piece
of legislation that allows those who would
overthrow the government to be sent to
concentration camps. Watkin uses this
as a jumping off point to follow the tribunal
of political dissidents, with a desert
pursuit right out of THE MOST DANGEROUS
GAME.
DESPERATE
HOUSEWIVES and LOST
: Buena Vista brings us
Season One of both hit shows – hours
and hours of entertainment. Season Two
on both films have been less than stellar,
particularly LOST, which feels as if it's
being made up as they go along, but grab
these sets and enjoy some of the best
network TV programming in years. Season
Two of Disney's SCRUBS ,
on the other hand, fulfilled the promise
of Season One; it's one of the funniest,
best written, directed and acted shows
on the tube. Pop in one show and you'll
be watching the next! All three sets are
liberally dosed with outtakes, bloopers,
commentaries and even audition tapes in
the case of HOUSEWIVES and LOST.
JOHN GALLAGHER
jgmovie@aol.com
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