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WILLIAM K. EVERSON: Author, historian, archivist, educator – William K. Everson (1929-1996) was an international film treasure, universally acknowledged as the greatest film historian of the 20th Century. Bill Everson was a longtime member of the National Board of Review, and we honor his memory every year with the William K. Everson Film History Award (recipients have included Martin Scorsese, Jeanine Basinger, Peter Bogdanovich – who dedicated his film THE CAT’S MEOW to him), George Feltenstein, and most recently, Donald Krim). In their acceptance speeches, every honoree has eloquently remarked on Everson’s influence, inspiration and kindness.
Bill Everson was the most generous of men. His apartment in the West Seventies was one of the richest archives in the world, loaded from stem to stern with prints, prints and more prints. There was a small screening area, replete with old movie theatre seats. He insisted on sharing the wealth, loaning these priceless, often one of a kind film prints to anyone he deemed worthy. I was honored to be included among that vast cinematic constituency. He loaned me many prints over the years – Tay Garnett’s 1932 pre-Code Universal OKAY, AMERICA!, starring Lew Ayres and Maureen O’Sullivan, for example, a faux-Walter Winchell gangster picture that is one of the great films of the early Thirties, impossible to see outside the on-premise screening facilities of the Library of Congress. Indeed, he once loaned me the only existing print of the silent WHITE GOLD (1927), an existentialist Western written by Garnett and future director John Farrow, directed by William K. Howard, one of Bill’s favorite directors. Imagine my wonder as I rode on a Manhattan subway at one o’clock in the morning, clutching this rare print, prepared to fight to the death for its preservation from whoever might try to wrest it from me!
I loved Bill’s writing on film, concise, entertaining, informed by his encyclopedic cinema knowledge. He wrote hundreds of articles for dozens of periodicals, including the old Films in Review magazine – I especially loved his “Rediscovery” column in the Seventies, where he wrote every month about a neglected gem. It’s worth listing his bibliography, all of which represent the last word on their respective subjects:
Shakespeare in Hollywood. New York: US Information Service, 1957.
The Western, From Silents to Cinerama. New York: Orion Press, 1962 (co-authored with George N. Fenin).
The American Movie. New York: Atheneum, 1963.
The Bad Guys: A Pictorial History of the Movie Villain. New York: Citadel Press, 1964.
The Films of Laurel and Hardy. New York: Citadel Press, 1967.
The Art of W.C. Fields. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1967.
A Pictorial History of the Western Film. Secaucus, N.J.: Citadel Press, 1969.
The Films of Hal Roach. New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1971.
The Detective in Film. Secaucus, N.J.: Citadel Press, 1972.
The Western, from Silents to the Seventies. Rev. ed. New York: Grossman, 1973. (Co-authored with George N. Fenin).
Classics of the Horror Film. Secaucus, N.J.: Citadel Press, 1974.
Claudette Colbert. New York: Pyramid Publications, 1976.
American Silent Film. New York: Oxford University Press, 1978.
Love in the Film. Secaucus, N.J.: Citadel Press, 1979.
More Classics of the Horror Film. Secaucus, N.J.: Citadel Press, 1986.
The Hollywood Western: 90 Years of Cowboys and Indians, Train Robbers, Sheriffs and Gunslingers, and Assorted Heroes and Desperados. Secaucus, N.J.: Carol Pub. Group, 1992.
Hollywood Bedlam: Classic Screwball Comedies. Secaucus, N.J.: Carol Pub. Group, 1994.
Bill Everson taught thousands of cineastes throughout the world through screenings from his archives. For many years, he held forth every Friday night at New York City’s New School on West 12th Street with amazing double bills of mostly impossible-to-see features; he provided fantastic program notes on all the movies. I was thinking about Bill Everson recently and did a Google search on him. Imagine my delight when I found an NYU website – he taught there for years and left most of his archive to the institution --that has preserved these incredible program notes, written over the course of nearly 50 years:
http://www.nyu.edu/projects/wke/notes.htm
One can chart the history of American and British cinema through these writings. A lot of titles remain to be uploaded onto the site but what’s there gives a good idea of the Everson style of film history. The notes are conveniently organized by directors, from giants like Griffith, Ford and Capra to filmmakers who Bill championed through the decades – James Whale, William K. Howard, Tay Garnett, Luis Trenker. Don’t look for big names like Billy Wilder – he was too major a contemporary when Bill was writing these in the 50s, 60s, or 70s, or even the latter day Fords and Wellmans for that matter – Everson was much more interested in promoting the lesser known films of these cinematic titans. Lose yourself for hours reading these notes – the site is free – and you’ll find yourself aching to see the movies he wrote about.
20th CENTURY-FOX HOME ENTERTAINMENT has a cool new promotion going. They’ve packaged film adaptations of classic novels, and included Cliffs Notes Study Guides with the DVD. For example, Robert Stevenson’s stunning adaptation of Emily Bronte’s JANE EYRE (1944), with Joan Fontaine in the title role and Orson Welles especially memorable as Rochester includes the classic Cliffs Notes with author bio, chapter summaries, character analyses and essays. The DVD has making-of featurettes, an isolated track with Bernard Herrmann’s score, audio commentaries by Welles biographer Joseph McBride, actress Margaret O’Brien, and historians Nick Redman, Steven Smith and Julie Kirgo, a restoration comparison, and Stevenson’s World War Two documentary KNOW YOUR ALLY: BRITAIN. In the featurette, Stevenson’s son and daughter remind us that their father was one of the highest-grossing directors in cinema history by virtue of his many Walt Disney features like THE ABSENT-MINDED PROFESSOR (1961) and MARY POPPINS (1964). Other titles in the series include Kenneth Branagh’s brilliant Shakespeare adaptation of HENRY V (1989), starring Branagh, Emma Thompson, Ian Holm, Judi Dench, Paul Scofield and Christian Bale; and Tolstoy’s ANNA KARENINA (1948), directed by Julien Duvivier, starring Vivien Leigh and Ralph Richardson. While the 1935 Clarence Brown/David O. Selznick version is superior, I find Leigh’s performance more compelling than Garbo. Extras include include a featurettes on Tolstoy and the production.
Check out the always excellent Dave Kehr blog http://davekehr.com/?p=195 for the DVD news event of the year – a December release from 20th of the 21-disc collection FORD AT FOX, collecting 25 of John Ford’s Fox and 20th Century-Fox films. No details yet but this should be a staggering box set.
UNIVERSAL: Two new Screen Legend Collections from Universal, one on Jimmy Stewart, one on John Wayne. The James Stewart set is a mixed bag, but still recommended. We get Stewart in one of his first starring roles, Edward H. Griffith’s NEXT TIME WE LOVE (1936), an effective romantic drama with Margaret Sullavan; the strained comedy YOU GOTTA STAY HAPPY (1948), directed by H. C. Potter, starring Stewart and Joan Fontaine; the popular but sentimental Civil War family drama SHENANDOAH (1965), directed by Andrew V. McLaglen and clearly inspired by William Wyler’s much better, unavailable-on-DVD FRIENDLY PERSUASION (1956); and the highlights of this set, two pictures directed by Stewart’s frequent Fifties collaborator Anthony Mann – THUNDER BAY (1953), about oil men in Cajun Louisiana, and THE GLENN MILLER STORY (1954), with Stewart as the legendary Forties band leader, with June Allyson as his devoted wife. Mann and Stewart’s other films were WINCHESTER ’73 (1950), BEND OF THE RIVER (1952), THE NAKED SPUR (1953), THE FAR COUNTRY (1955), STRATEGIC AIR COMMAND (1955), and THE MAN FROM LARAMIE (1955), all outstanding works; THUNDER BAY and GLENN MILLER are lesser entries in the Mann/Stewart canon, but still worthwhile. Incidentally, there is only one book on Anthony Mann and it’s definitive on the subject, and indeed one of the best director studies ever, written by the NBR’s own Jeanine Basinger. The original book came out in 1979, but a revised edition will be published on November 30th of this year – more on that when it’s available. You can pre-order Anthony Mann on Amazon.com.; it will send you diving headlong into (re) discovering the great Mann noirs (T-MEN, SIDE STREET), the great Mann Westerns (see above, plus the Gary Cooper MAN ON THE WEST), the great Mann epics (EL CID, THE FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE, both rumored to be on their way to DVD).
The John Wayne collection is quite a disappointment – all five films are already available on DVD – Cecil B. DeMille’s REAP THE WILD WIND (1942) with Paulette Goddard, Ray Milland and a giant octopus that was recycled ten years later by Ed Wood for BRIDE OF THE MONSTER, Ray Enright’s THE SPOILERS (1942) with Marlene Dietrich and Randolph Scott, Burt Kennedy’s THE WAR WAGON (1967) with Kirk Douglas, Andrew McLaglen’s HELLFIGHTERS (1968) with Katharine Ross, and Stuart Millar’s TRUE GRIT sequel ROOSTER COGBURN (1975) with Katharine Hepburn. It’s an otherwise fine selection of films, and if you’re a Wayne fan and don’t own them, then grab it. But Universal has the rights to three super rare 1937 Wayne pictures, made between his Republic bread-and-butter Western days and his 1939 breakthrough into A pictures with Ford’s STAGECOACH – I COVER THE WAR, IDOL OF THE CROWDS and ADVENTURE’S END, all non-Westerns that would be a gift to the Duke’s many admirers. By virtue of their control of the pre-1949 Paramount library, Universal also owns BORN TO THE WEST (also 1937), a title that has fallen into the public domain; it would be great if Universal collected these on a future DVD.
Universal also releases the fifth and final season of Michael Mann’s groundbreaking TV series MIAMI VICE from 1988-89; by then the show was starting to lose its sheen, but it’s still action-packed Eighties fun with Sonny Crockett (Don Johnson) and Rico Tubbs (Philip Michael Thomas). Guest stars that season included John Leguizamo Rita Moreno, Michael Chiklis and Pam Grier, with music by U2, The Cure, Public Enemy and Guns N’ Roses among others.
WARNERS: Every month brings great new box sets from WHV – and this month is no exception. CLASSIC MUSICALS FROM THE DREAM FACTORY VOL. 2 collects seven restored and remastered MGM musicals, along with new featurettes and Warners’ usual array of bonus features. Vincente Minnelli’s THE PIRATE (1948) is a lush, sumptuous Technicolor extravaganza, one of the most dazzling uses of three-strip Technicolor ever. Look what the movie has to offer – a parody of swashbuckling Fairbanks pirate movies, Gene Kelly, Judy Garland (Mrs. Vincente Minnelli), the Nicolas Brothers and Cole Porter songs (including “Be a Clown”). Box office was disappointing upon its initial release, but the movie has gained in stature over the years, belying the difficulties of production (Judy was not at her best personally during this time). Garland expert John Fricke provides detailed audio commentary, and extras include the Oscar nominated Pete Smith short YOU CAN’T WIN (1948), the MGM cartoon CAT FISHIN’ (1947), a new featurette on the making of the film, a stereo remix of “Mack the Black,” audio outtakes of “Love of My Life” and “Mack the Black,” Roger Edens’ guide tracks of “Be a Clown,” “Manuela,” “Nina,” “Voodoo,” and “You Can Do No Wrong,” and promotional radio interviews with Gene Kelly for ON THE TOWN and Judy garland for THE PIRATE.
WORDS AND MUSIC (1948) is an entertaining and enjoyable film bio of Lorenz Hart (played by Mickey Rooney) and Richard Rodgers (Tom Drake). Twenty-two songs and specialties are included from an all-star cast: Judy Garland sings “Johnny One Note,” Lena Horne does “Where or When,” and Gene Kelly and Vera-Ellen perform “Slaughter on Tenth Avenue.” Author and historian Richard Barrios provides audio commentary (check out his outstanding book A Song in the Dark about musicals of the early talkie era), there’s a new featurette, the Oscar-nominated Theatre of Life short GOING TO BLAZES! (1948), the MGM cartoon THE CAT THAT HATED PEOPLE (1948), outtakes of “Lover” and “You’re Nearer” featuring Perry Como; and audio-only outtakes of “Falling in Love with Love,” “I Feel at Home with You,” “Manhattan” (alternate version), “My Funny Valentine,” “My Heart Stood Still,” “On Your Toes” (alternate version), and “Way Out West on West End Avenue.” THAT’S DANCING (1985) was an obvious follow-up to THAT’S ENTERTAINMENT, gathering some of the best dance numbers from the great Hollywood musicals, not just from MGM but just about every other studio as well, in an effort to present a history of dance on film. Again hosted by Gene Kelly and directed by Jack Haley Jr., the ambitious compilation includes clips of Astaire, Kelly, Ruby Keeler, Shirley Temple, Bill Robinson, Busby Berkeley numbers, Shirley MacLaine and Chita Rivera in SWEET CHARITY, Travolta in SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER, Jennifer Beaks in FLASHDANCE, even Michael Jackson’s video “Beat It,” among many others. Ray Bolger, Sammy Davis Jr., Mikhail Baryshnikov and Liza Minnelli co-host; special features include an intro by Kelly and Haley and a series of contemporary featurettes, including a 1985 gathering of Astaire, Rogers, Kelly, Keeler, Davis, MacLaine, Charisse and Travolta as they pose for a commemorative photograph by the great Milton Greene.
In a cool marketing move for fans, this set also includes two double-disc double features. Operatic tenor Mario Lanza stars with Kathryn Grayson in his screen debut THAT MIDNIGHT KISS (1949) and with Grayson and David Niven in THE TOAST OF NEW ORLEANS (1950), with a BBC documentary on Lanza on the latter disc. Both DVDs have vintage cartoons and shorts. Fred Astaire fans will welcome two of the master’s most charming films, Stanley Donen’s ROYAL WEDDING (1951) and Charles Walters’ THE BELLE OF NEW YORK (1952). The first film features two of Fred’s best known scenes, his dance with a hat rack, and his gravity-defying dance up the walls and across the ceiling. The Donen film includes Robert osborne’s TCM special PRIVATE SCREENINGS WITH STANLEY DONEN, a new featurette, on the film, two Tex Avery cartoons (CAR OF TOMORROW and DROOPY’S DOUBLE TROUBLE), an outtake of “Ev’ry Night at Seven” with Peter Lawford and Jane Powell, and an Astaire-Powell promotional radio interview. BELLE is a charming evocation of turn-of-the-century New York teaming Astaire with Vera-Ellen and Harry Warren-Johnny Mercer songs. Extras include the Pete Smith short MUSIQUIZ, an unused alternate take of “I Wanna Be a Dancin’ Man,” and an amazing Tex Avery cartoon, MAGICAL MAESTRO. WHV is offering the whole collection at a $59.92 SRP, with each single DVD priced at $19.97 and the two-disc sets at $24.98. Esther Williams certainly has her fans, and they’ll be excited by TCM SPOTLIGHT: ESTHER WILLIAMS, a collection of five first-time-on-DVD Technicolor titles. George Sidney’s BATHING BEAUTY (1944) with Red Skelton, Basil Rathbone and Harry James; Richard Thorpe’s ON AN ISLAND WITH YOU (1948) with Peter lawford, Ricardo Montalban, Jimmy Durante and Xavier Cugat; Edward Buzzell’s NEPTUNE’S DAUGHTER (1949) in which she co-starred with Skelton, Cugat and real-life husband Fernando Lamas and danced with the animated Tom and Jerry; and Charles Walters’ DANGEROUS WHEN WET (1953) with Lamas and Jack Carson provide ample opportunities for the curvaceous brunette to demonstrate her incredible swimming prowess in what have been coined “Aqua Musicals.” They are all good campy fun, lavishly produced in the MGM fashion. Tremendously popular in their day (she was among the top ten box office stars of 1949 and 1950), today these movies are almost surreal but always entertaining. The set also includes Buzzell’s delightful non-musical EASY TO WED (1946), a remake of LIBELED LADY (1936), with Esther, Van Johnson, Lucille Ball and Keenan Wynn in the roles originated by William Powell, Myrna Loy, Jean Harlow, and Spencer Tracy. The set is loaded with a dozen vintage shorts and cartoons, musical outtakes and a Robert Osborne TCM interview, PRIVATE SCREENINGS WITH ESTHER WILLIAMS.
No less than ten digitally remastered titles make their DVD debuts in THE FILM NOIR CLASSIC COLLECTION VOLUME 4, the latest in WHV’s essential collection of noir greats. This time the programmers have really outdone themselves by digging deep into the vaults for some forgotten treasures. Five discs contain two films each, with commentaries and new featurettes on every single title.
Where to begin? Well, how about Andre DeToth’s CRIME WAVE (1954) a neglected classic, a taut tough crime thriller that begins with three escaped cons (Ted DeCorsia and a very young Charles Bronson, billed under his birth name Charles Buchinsky) knocking off a gas station and killing a motorcycle. Ex-con-gone-straight Gene Nelson and wife Phyllis Kirk are caught in the middle between the thugs and hard-as-nails detective Sterling Hayden, with steel-drum-tight direction and genius cinematography by Bert Glennon (STAGECOACH) on real L.A. locations; DeToth has great supporters (Scorsese, Stone, Tarantino, Tavernier), perhaps best known for the 1953 3D HOUSE OF WAX, this is his masterpiece, a truly great film worthy of major rediscovery. The film is doubled with an obscure 1946 Monogram noir, DECOY, starring Robert Armstrong, Sheldon Leonard, and the fascinating but apparently lost-to-the-ages starlet Jean Gillies. Novelist James Ellroy (L.A. CONFIDENTIAL) and noir expert Eddie Muller do the commentary on CRIME WAVE, screenwriter Stanley Rubin and my favorite DVD reviewer/historian Glenn Erickson (of www.DVDSavant.com) do the honors on DECOY.
Nicholas Ray’s THEY LIVE BY NIGHT (1949) is long overdue on DVD, and undoubtedly the best known title in the set. Farley Granger and Cathy O’Donnell star as the star-crossed lovers inspired by Bonnie and Clyde; the movie itself is based on the Edward Anderson novel Thieves Like Us, beautifully remade by Robert Altman in 1973 under its original title, with Shelley Duvall and Keith Carradine. The Ray film made the director’s reputation, and brought a romantic pathos to the noir genre. Granger and O’Donnell were reteamed for Anthony Mann’s SIDE STREET (1950), and much as I admire the earlier film, the Mann movie just seems to reward you more the more you watch it. Nicholas Ray always seems to be striving for emotional and directorial effects; Anthony Mann achieved the same or better results and made it all seem incredibly effortless – don’t get me wrong, I love Ray, he was one of the Fifties greats … it’s just that I love Mann more … and thank God we have both directors to cherish and revere. SIDE STREET: Trying to give wife O’Donnell a better life, Granger succumbs to temptation by stealing some dough and finds himself in a whole world of trouble. The New York City locations are a revelation, with Mann’s incredible super high camera angles peering down upon the famous chase scene as the good guys chase the bad guys through a Lower Manhattan maze. Don’t take my word for it – go to www.amazon.com and order Jeanine Basinger’s above referenced Anthony Mann for a brilliant, detailed analysis. Granger and Muller do the commentary on the Ray film, Richard Schickel does the Mann.
Fred Zinnemann’s ACT OF VIOLENCE (1948) explores the post-war trauma of WWII veterans, with Van Heflin, Janet Leigh and especially Robert Ryan delivering fine performances in a very unsettling film. It’s doubled with John Sturges’ MYSTERY STREET (1950), a murder thriller with Ricardo Montalban shot on Boston locations. Dr. Drew Casper provides the audio commentary on the former, noir authorities Alain Silver and Elizabeth Ward handle the job on the latter. John Farrow’s WHERE DANGER LIVES (1950) is one of those weird flicks produced during Howard Hughes’ tenure at RKO in which the director seems to have had no supervision (notable examples include the Robert Mitchum-Jane Russell vehicles HIS KIND OF WOMAN and MACAO). Mitchum and Hughes’ paramour Faith Domergue hightail it to Mexico, pursued by her cuckolded husband Claude Rains; underrated auteur Farrow (WAKE ISLAND, THE BIG CLOCK, HONDO) takes advantage of the creative freedom to keep things interesting. The same disc includes TENSION (1950), which has a similar theme, as wife Audrey Totter leaves husband Richard Basehart, and he schemes for revenge. Soon-to-be-blacklisted John Berry directs. Silver and James Ursini do the Farrow commentary while Silver, Ward and Audrey Totter speak on the TENSION commentary. Finally, there’s a double disc of Lewis Allen’s ILLEGAL (1955), starring Edward G. Robinson and Nina Foch in a remake of the Warren William pre-Code classic THE MOUTHPIECE (1932), with Edward G. compromising his legal skills (commentary by Foch and Patricia King Hanson and a 1955 featurette are included from the series WARNER BROTHERS PRESENTS, hosted by Gig Young); and THE BIG STEAL (1949), with Mitchum and Jane Greer chasing a suitcase full of cash to Mexico, another quirky Hughes/RKO picture, an important early crime movie from Don Siegel, later to direct INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS (1956) and the seminal Clint Eastwood movies COOGAN’S BLUFF (1968), DIRTY HARRY (1971) and THE BEGUILED (1971). RKO historian Richard B. Jewell is on hand for the audio commentary. Incidentally, it was fun to see my friend Christopher Coppola, a fine director and cineaste who I know from our yearly visits to the Oldenburg Film Fest in Germany, in a number of the featurettes discussing these killer noirs … particularly CRIME WAVE.
WHV has also released four volumes of themed CULT CAMP CLASSICS. Some titles are campier than others, and there are some excellent auteur-driven work here in addition to the campy titles. SCI-FI THRILLERS includes ATTACK OF THE 50 FT. WOMAN (1958) with audio commentary from star Yvette Vickers and stellar genre historian Tom Weaver, the Zsa Zsa Gabor-starring QUEEN OF OUTER SPACE (1958) with commentary by Weaver and actress Laurie Mitchell, and THE GIANT BEHEMOTH (1958). The last title has some terrific Willis O’Brien (KING KONG) stop-motion animation as a prehistoric monster terrorizes London. Special effects masters Dennis Muren and Phil Tippett (JURASSIC PARK) do the commentary. WOMEN IN PERIL features two so-bad-they’re-good clinkers, THE BIG CUBE (1968), a “psychedelic freakout” starring an unfortunate Lana Turner, and Joan Crawford’s final film TROG (1970), in which she and Michael Gough battle a prehistoric troglodyte (a guy in a monkey suit), but also the outstanding women-on-prison drama CAGED with Eleanor Parker in an Oscar-nominated performance, directed by John Cromwell (THE PRISONER OF ZENDA, ABE LINCOLN IN ILLINOIS, THE GODDESS). Hope Emerson and screenwriter Virginia Kellogg were also nominated. TERRORIZED TRAVELERS is the weakest set, with Dana Andrews and family in peril on the road from HOT RODS TO HELL, the misguided jet hostage drama SKYJACKED (1972) with Charlton Heston and James Brolin, and the laughable ZERO HOUR! (1957), the movie that inspired the parody of AIRPLANE!, with character names and dialogue lifted from the original film. Ironically, ZERO HOUR isn’t that far removed from parody itself. The best set is HISTORICAL EPICS, with Howard Hawks’ underrated Egyptian epic LAND OF THE PHAROAHS (1955) – a favorite of Martin Scorsese -- with Joan Collins vamping in skimpy outfits while Jack Hawkins tries to build the Great Pyramid. There’s a literal cast of thousands in a sprawling CinemaScope canvas, and an audio commentary by Peter Bogdanovich that includes excerpts from his Hawks’ interviews. The Lana Turner vehicle THE PRODIGAL (1955) is ludicrous, but Sergio Leone’s first credited feature is here, THE COLOSSUS OF RHODES (1960), looking forward to his later classic Westerns with action and style, and has the added bonus of typically informative commentary by Sir Christopher Frayling.
Animation fans have to grab POPEYE THE SAILOR 1933-1938 VOLUME 1 which collects 60 original remastered and unedited shorts from pioneer Max Fleischer. The quality here is astounding, truly like seeing Popeye, Olive Oyl, Bluto and Wimpy for the first time. We’re talking nine hours of cartoons and five hours of extras, including commentaries, featurettes, documentaries and bonus Fleischer cartoons.
CRITERION: Billy Wilder’s ACE IN THE HOLE (1951) has long been unavailable; coming in between the director’s SUNSET BOULEVARD (1950) and STALAG 17 (1953), it’s a brutal motion picture, with Kirk Douglas as an unscrupulous newspaperman exploiting the tragedy of a man trapped in a mine to advance his own journalistic career. Dark, nasty and cynical, the movie is loaded with brilliant Wilder dialogue; the picture is years ahead of its time, prescient in its condemnation of the media overkill that has poisoned our culture. The movie is one of the only box office flops of Wilder’s career, a picture that could only be made by a filmmaker coming off a smash hit (SUNSET BOULEVARD). Featuring a truly great performance by the perfectly cast Kirk Douglas and typically great Charles Lang Jr. cinematography, this is must-see cinema (Lang earned 18 Oscar nominations for cinematography, the most by any artist in a single category; Lang’s highlights include the original A FAREWELL TO ARMS, LIVES OF A BENGAL LANCER, PETER IBBOTSON, THE UNINVITED, THE GHOST AND MRS. MUIR, THE BIG HEAT, SOME LIKE IT HOT, THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN). The double disc set includes a wonderful documentary from 1980 with Michel Ciment interviewing Wilder in his office, his home, and his Malibu retreat, an AFI interview with Wilder from the mid-80s, a 1984 interview with Douglas, and an afterword by Spike Lee.
SONY presents the 50th Anniversary Edition of Ray Harryhausen’s 20 MILLION MILES TO EARTH (1957), one of the animation masters best. A rocketship returning from Venus crashes into the Mediterranean near Sicily, containing a gelatinous mass that breeds a strange bi-ped creature, the Ymir. At first it’s only a few inches high, but it quickly grows to menacing size, and ends up rampaging through Rome. This is a two-disc set with a perfectly remastered version of the film in both its original black-and-white and in a very good colorized version. There’s audio commentary by Harryhausen and modern FX masters Dennis Muren, Phil Tippett and Arnold Kunert. There’s a new documentary, a featurette on the colorization process, an interview with Harryhausen by Tim Burton, an interview with star Joan Taylor, and a 20 MILLION MILES comic book.
PARAMOUNT: GUNSMOKE: THE FIRST SEASON assembles all 39 episodes with beautiful quality. The ground-breaking adult Western series introduced the world to Marshal Matt Dillon (James Arness), his deputy Chester (Dennis Weaver), saloon-keeper Miss Kitty (Amanda Blake) and cranky Doc (Milburn Stone) in what would become the longest running dramatic television series in history (20 seasons). Guest stars on this first 1955-56 season include Claude Akins, Sebastian Cabot, Keye Luke, John carradine, Strother Martin, Robert Vaughn, Chuck Connors, Charles Bronson, Dan Blocker, Bing Russell (father of Kurt) and a young Aaron Spelling in his acting days. The set includes a contemporary introduction by Arness mentor John Wayne (Arness had appeared with Wayne in William Wellman’s ISLAND IN THE SKY, Edward Ludwig’s BIG JIM McLAIN and John Farrow’s HONDO and THE SEA CHASE).
HBO: Tom Vaughan’s STARTER FOR TEN (2007) is a charming, well-made romantic collegiate comedy from producers Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman. James McAvoy (LAST KING OF SCOTLAND) stars as a small town student in his first year at college, trying to fit in, win the girl of his dreams, and compete on a quiz show. This is a refreshing change of pace from the usual college movie, intelligent, and well-acted. There’s also a wonderful soundtrack features such great 80s groups as The Cure, New Order and Bananarama. Extras include a pop-up music guide and a making-of featurette. HBO has also released the second season of its Emmy-winning series ROME. This five-disc season is set in 44 B.C. following the assassination of Julius Caesar. It’s a lavish, beautifully produced series which vividly brings ancient Rome to life. There are many extras dealing both with the production as well as the history of the empire, as well as select audio commentators.
MARTIAL ARTS: At long last some of the greatest kung fu movies of all time hit DVD courtesy of The Weinstein Company and Genius Products. Dragon Dynasty/The Shaw Brothers Classic Collection bring gorgeously restored martial arts movies to action fans everywhere. KING BOXER: FIVE FINGERS OF DEATH (1967) kicked off the international kung fu phenomenon with its spectacular action sequences. Quentin tarantino, Elvis Mitchell and David Chute provide audio commentary, and there are interviews with director Chang-Hwa Jeong, action director Lau Kar-Wing and film scholars Chute and Andy Klein. THE 36th CHAMBER OF SHAOLIN (1985) is considered the CITIZEN KANE of the genre, with a scintillating action performance by legendary Gordon Liu (best known to Western audiences as Johnny Mo in KILL BILL VOL. 1 and Pai Mei in KILL BILL VOL. 2). Extras here include commentary by hip hop master RZA (one of KILL BILL’s music composers) of Wu Tang Clan and film critic Andy Klein, a Wu tang Clan concert video, the featurette “Shaoilin: A Hero’s Birthplace,” and interviews with Gordon Liu, RZA, Chute and Klein. ONE-ARMED SWORDSMAN (1967) is another pioneering martial arts film, again with Tarantino, Chute and Klein doing audio commentary, while YOUNG AUNTIE (1981) is a comic take on the genre, with Klein, Mitchell and Chute on commentary. These movies put American action movies to shame. They’re stunningly restored in their proper formats and are a must for action fans. This is a really fantastic series – thanks a million to The Weinstein Company for their commitment to giving these releases the A+ treatment.
Magnolia Home Entertainment also releases two Asian martial arts films of more recent vintage, DYNAMITE WARRIOR (2007), from the creators THE PROTECTOR, BORN TO FIGHT and ONG-BAK, starring BORN TO FIGHT’s Dan Chupong, and YO YO: GIRL COP (2006), both fast and furious action flicks worth taking a look at if you’re into the genre. Extras included making of featurettes.
CD’s: What summertime without the Beach Boys? Capitol/EMI celebrates the perpetual boys of summer with a wonderful compilation of 28 classic tunes, BEACH BOYS: THE WARMTH OF THE SUN. There are so many great songs on this disc, including “All Summer Long,” “Disney Girls (1957),” “Break Away,” “Surf’s Up,” “Sail on, Sailor,” and the title number. The collection once again proves the genius of Brian Wilson and offers the consumer a lot of bang for the buck.
Another golden oldie is back with a brand new CD, none other than Sir Paul McCartney with MEMORY ALMOST FULL (MPL Communications). It’s one of his strongest works and one of the best CD’s of the year so far, loaded with fantastic new songs, including “Ever Present Past,” “Dance Tonight” and the title tune. This is simply a must album, even for fans who don’t remember The Beatles or Wings. Remember the classic McCartney song “When I’m 64” from SGT. PEPPER’S LONELY HEARTS CLUB? Well, Paul is 65 and still making audiences happy the world over with brilliant new work. Check out his website for more info: http://www.paulmccartney.com/.
BOOKS: Horror fans will devour Guts (Baby Tattoo Books), an oversized collection of photographs by Tim Palen from the SAW movie, the HOSTEL movies, BUG and HIGH TENSION. There are some really disturbing but artful pictures here, what HOSTEL exec producer Quentin Tarantino aptly describes as “The perfect blend of splatter, porn and Diane Arbus.” It’s not for the faint-hearted.
Let’s end on a more uplifting note: University of Wisconsin Press has published the second edition of Richard Neupert’s A History of the French New Wave Cinema, a great introduction and a fine re-appreciation of the daring movement in the late Fifties and Sixties that gave us Godard, Truffaut, Rivette, Chabrol, Rohmer and Varda, among others. Highly recommended.
JOHN GALLAGHER
jgmovie@gmail.com
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