Hello!

It was fun to learn that my favorite author the last few years, Leonardo Padura, has been awarded the prestigious Liber Award, as reported two days ago online. Padura’s most popular books follow the career of Havana detective Mario Conde, a professional who has gone through all the bad times in Cuba, solving crimes while seeing the souring of his country’s social dream. The books chart the changes as Cuba went into survival mode, starting in the early 1990s.

I’m deep into reading Padura’s historical novels, about present day investigations into the past. One is a ‘Conde’ book, in which Mario digs into the last days of Ernest Hemingway living in Cuba, that may have involved a murder. The best-known of his historical books is his masterpiece The Man Who Loved Dogs, about the Spaniards and Russians who assassinated Leon Trotsky in Mexico City in 1940.

I’ve only found a few film productions based on Padura’s works. He wrote the screenplay for 2014’s Return to Ithaca (Retour à Ithaque), a lively drama that transpires over one night on a Havana rooftop … the only private place that old friends can gather to talk the truth, and feel somewhat secure from political repercussions. I’ve only found European Region 2 DVDs of Return to Ithaca.

The more conventional  Four Seasons in Havana (Cuatro estaciones en La Habana) is a four-feature miniseries adapting the Conde books known as ‘The Havana Quartet.’ It’s a really fine production.

The problem is that Four Seasons in Havana is now difficult to find. It made its debut on Netflix but has been gone for six years. On streaming platforms, content can be made available or be erased from existence by whim. There are no domestic disc releases. I’ve only found one DVD set, produced in Holland and available only in Europe. It’s a very good encoding of the four features on two discs, but to most American fans it’s useless: it’s only in Spanish Language, and the only subtitles are Dutch. Not only that, the thick Cuban accents can be daunting to non-Cuban Spanish speakers. Oh, it’s a Region 2 DVD as well, so an all-region player is a must. If your Spanish skills is good, I reccomend it. It was filmed in Havana and the acting and directing are excellent.

I’m glad that Leonardo Padura won this award. His film work really ought to be available here, and make him better known. People that like Michael Connelly (me) will love him.

And because people ask, this last entry is just a list, of discs on hand to review, and the ‘wish list’ of what’s expected.

Already in hand at CineSavant Central are these … some are partly written:

Spike of Bensonhurst  4K   (Fun City Editions)
Sergeant Rutledge (The Warner Archive Collection)
French Dressing (Powerhouse Indicator)
The Saragossa Manuscript  4K   (Radiance Films)
The First Deadly Sin (Vinegar Syndrome)
Cruel Story of Youth  4K   (The Criterion Collection)
The Island (KL Studio Classics)
The Wings of Eagles (The Warner Archive Collection)
Hell’s Highway, the True Story of Highway Safety Films (Kino Cult)
The Human Comedy (The Warner Archive Collection)
Hud  4K   (The Criterion Collection)
Project Hail Mary  4K   (MGM/Alliance)
Coup de Torchon  4K   (The Criterion Collection)

Expected soon or hoped for in the next couple of months:

Forbidden Planet  4K   (Arrow Films)
Danza Macabra 5 (Severin Films)
The First Films of Samuel Fuller (Eclipse 5)
Out of the Past  4K   (The Warner Archive Collection)
Ryan’s Daughter  4K   (The Warner Archive Collection)
Fantastique: The Dreams and Nightmares of French Cinema (Radiance)
Skyscraper Souls (The Warner Archive Collection)
Planet of the Vampires  4K   (Radiance)
The Shout  4K   (The Criterion Collection)
The Lost Patrol (The Warner Archive Collection)
The Silence of the Lambs  4K   (The Criterion Collection)
Frankenstein (The Criterion Collection)
Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors (The Criterion Collection)
The Right Stuff  4K   (The Criterion Collection)
Shoot the Piano Player  4K   (The Criterion Collection)
(Horror of) Dracula  4K   (Hammer)

Plus these three, just confirmed.

Operation Kid Brother (OK Connery) (Explosive Media)
Machine Gun Kelly (Explosive Media)
The Giant of Marathon (Explosive Media)

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson

Hello!

I couldn’t resist this … maybe I should go looking for the CD. In keeping with a Paris theme this coming month, we found a pretty glorious re-recording session video for the patriotic Maurice Jarre song Paris en còlere. The melody is the theme for liberation in the film  Is Paris Burning?

The equally glorious vocal is by Melinda Million:

And there’s an older recording by  Mireille Mathieu,  too.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson

Hello!

We welcome new guest reviewer Denise Morrison to CineSavant today … and look forward to more coverage of silent movies … and whatever else appeals to her… !

First up as an item sent over by Gary Teetzel, who found something amusing in an old movie Press Book.

The United Artists / Stanley Kramer sales job for the producer’s sobering atomic Sci-fi drama  On the Beach  was a bigger milestone and must have cost a pretty penny. With the serious notion of ‘changing the world’, the campaign held multiple premieres in numerous world capitals, spreading the film’s stars across the globe for extra publicity. This was touted in the film’s trailer, which also had film footage of the giant billboard in New York, with the slogan written to the right.  →  Ad taglines tended toward hyperbole — this one certainly claimed to have an inside track on the film’s grim subject matter.

The pressbook has plenty of examples of standard ballyhoo ideas, plus tie-ins with record albums, the pocketbook edition. It’s all pretty classy … with a few exceptions.

←  This one’s not bad … a plug in a taxicab to start up a conversation with the drive. It sounds like a good idea in theory, but what kind of inducement does the taxi driver get?  Are the drivers invited to a special screening?  If they were given tickets for their families, I’d think half would accept, and then tell their fares that a buncha Hollywood crooks wanted them to shill for their pinko soap opera. We need footage of Travis Bickle pontificating on the pros and cons of missile defense systems.

→  Now, when I ponder the problem of radioactive fallout, I always light up my best pipe and look for the right tobacco to put in it. I’m sure you do too, but in reverse order. Once upon a time, it wa s standard for stars to endorse products they might never go near; old magazines were full of plugs for booze and cigarettes and everything else, from a galaxy of stars. Did the mention of the upcoming movie mean that United Artists helped pay for the ad, or that they provided Gregory Peck?  I wonder how much money changed hands, and who it went to.

In the defense of this ad, Mr. Peck does seem the kind of guy who smokes a pipe.

←  Things start to go Psychotronic with this tie-in ad for a Hasbro toy. Did anybody in the 1950s say that we’d become a warline nation?  My only way to answer that is my clear memory of a cereal box (sometime between 1958 and 1961) that somehow let kids choose what kind of machine gun toy they wanted … the back panel had at least 9 different models.

This ad for an ‘Atomic Submarine Torpedo Toy” seems to want to generete ‘On the Beach’ fever in little kids. It suggests a giveaway “to promote small number of subs for special matinee prizes for youngsters.” Whoa, I never met a kid who saw On the Beach when it was new … my parents treated my curiosity about it, as if it were pornography, or at least something I shouldn’t be worrying my pointed little head about. I guess that’s better than a lobby display of a fallout shelter, or a nurse with a geiger counter, to see which of our classmates has picked a lethal dose from the family reactor. Yep, On the Beach is about peace and harmony, except for the part about the Atomic Submarine Torpedo Toy.

→  The winning entry is the one that Gary pointed out in the first place. Fred Astaire did indeed co-found a nationwide chain of dance studios, and they in fact are still going strong as franchises. He was directly involved on some level until 1966, which means that this tie-in plug may have been something he knew about.

According to this blurb in the Press Book, The Free Dance lesson idea can be taken up in several ways. The connection is the waltz ‘Waltzing Matilda’ — which to musically-challenged me is more like a ballad. Can one force it into a form that one could use it to teach the waltz?

To me the Waltzing Matilda tune is one of On the Beach’s weakest ideas. A couple of cues with the melody would be fine, but it’s grossly over-used and becomes a pain when re-watching the movie. Leaning to dance with it sounds like torture.

Anyway, Gary’s email helps lighten the mood at CineSavant Central — we’re presently reviewing the atomic-misery epic Threads.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson

Hello!

Fans of Mario Bava potentially have something to love or hate in a big screening / concert event this Halloween in Los Angeles. The United Theater on Broadway will present a full opera written to be sung to a presentation of Mario Bava’s muscleman costume epic Hercules in the Haunted World, the Technicolor fantasy starring Reg Park and Christopher Lee. The new opera is called  Hercules vs Vampires.  Its music score is by Patrick Morganelli.

A full description is at the link; the ‘campy, vampy’ show describes itself as a “thrilling blend of cinema and live performance [that] transforms the film’s mythic characters into operatic larger-than-life legends. It’s high art meets high camp, with equal parts beef and cheese for an unforgettable Halloween weekend.”

That makes me think that   Ercole al centro della Terra is going be the focus of an MST3K-like roasting. But saying so sounds like reviewing something before seeing it.

The synopsis given follow the story of the original movie; the website says that the new Opera score replaces the original soundtrack, with singing in English. The duration given makes it looks as if about 10 minutes have been cut from the film’s running time. It’s the kind of show where the audience is encouraged to come in costume. Sounds like a new thrill for Rocky Horror folk.

Dependable Michael McQuarrie finds a winner, one that supplies needed information to survive in the modern world.

It’s a public service film by the Navy, about safety in offices. These people have to go to extreme lengths to find the hazards of office work — which becomes a non-stop string of slapstick stunts. We think this one was more to entertain viewers being subjected to informational films. Did serious casualties really come from office buildings as well as the sea lanes?  Gee, why couldn’t WW2 office workers work from home, we ask.

The primary actress doing the pratfalls appears to be channeling Betty Hutton … at least in my humble opinion. A brunet gets herself felt up (our judgment) when she falls off a stepladder. It’s murder in the workplace, honest.

Does the main title music sound like it came from Warners? This is not a cheap-looking short subject. Wish we could identify the leading players.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson