Hello!

It’s Book Review time, and this week’s offering is pretty special. Unlike many film-related books, we read this one front-to-back straight through. It felt more like a good novel than a career bio.

We’ve been privileged to review filmmaker biographies written by Joseph McBride and Alan K. Rode, and now we have a new authoritative voice covering a classic director, Jason A. Ney. The subject is a director with a remarkable career, whose achievements were passed over by the rush of Auteur worship initiated by Andrew Sarris in 1968. Sarris slammed Fleischer as inconsistent, with a career that he said ‘sputtered, alas, at less than 50 percent efficiency.’  Ney’s new book  Richard Fleischer: Journeyman uses a less narrow index to assess the director’s work, enlarging his stature in our eyes. Never a hog for publicity, Fleischer’s goal was just to make the best movies he could. He didn’t trumpet his personality, but Ney shows us several themes that run through his work.

The new book Journeyman also corrects some misconceptions borne of Richard Fleischer’s own 1993 autobiography, Just Tell Me When to Cry: A Memoir. As now seems typical of the man, instead of touting his own accomplishments, Fleischer recounted the outsized filmic personalities he worked with, celebrities that would appeal to a wider swath of readers. He didn’t dwell on the details. Jason Ney has found a way to turn Fleischer’s remarkable personal story into a page-turner. The early chapters covering his roots and upbringing are not something we want to skip past; the passages about his courtship of his wife — their marriage lasted 63 years — are a great read. Fleischer is of course a son of the animation legend Max Fleischer. He might have become the heir to a film studio if his dad’s empire of Popeye and Betty Boop hadn’t been taken over by Paramount, and re-dubbed ‘Famous Studios’ to replace the family name. He was part of a warm and loving family that started poor but kept moving to better neighborhoods in the New York boroughs as Max and his brothers’ fortunes rose.

Author Ney convinces us that Richard succeeded through his own efforts, first in college theater and then in various road companies, where he experimented with Theater In the Round. He confected a way to repurpose old silent comedies as new attractions, and made his first mark in short subjects and documentaries. He collaborated with talents like Theodore Geisel (Dr. Seuss), Carl Foreman and producer Stanley Kramer. One of documentaries won an Oscar — which went to its producer, of course. Fleischer was never personally nominated. One of his shows was nominated for its writing, and three others for their special effects.

Many know the way Richard Fleischer came to direct the huge production  20,000 Leagues Under the Sea — for Walt Disney, his father Max’s long-time business enemy. And we’ve only heard one side of Fleischer’s direction of  Compulsion, prevailing against the egotistical interference and outright sabotage by his star Orson Welles. But Fleischer didn’t detail his early successes at RKO, moving from family films to noir thrillers. That’s where he made his first masterpiece  The Narrow Margin, which Howard Hughes almost junked. He re-shot much of a big  Robert Mitchum-Jane Russell opus without credit, to get out of his contract with Hughes.  He was one of the few RKO staffers to leave the employ of Howard Hughes with a full skin, a maneuver that enhanced his industry reputation. Walt Disney picked him for the Verne Sci-fi epic, because he was capable, qualified and trustworthy … and likely a bargain.

Through all of this Richard Fleischer comes off as an even nicer guy than we thought. His patience with problem people and his skill at interpersonal diplomacy sound almost too good to be true. Much like director John Sturges, Fleischer became known for getting along with demanding and sometimes unreasonable stars and producers. Besides Orson Welles, there was the imperious Anthony Quinn and the infinitely egotistical Kirk Douglas. We get a full accounting of the sometimes-edgy filming of  The Vikings. The prize for noxious charmlessness goes to the infinitely insufferable Rex Harrison. I’ve never made it through a full viewing of  Doctor Doolittle, but Ney’s account of its filming will make anyone appreciate Fleischer’s refusal to just give up and ‘let it be what it is.’  He never walked off a picture, and his temperament kept several troubled pictures on the rails.

John Huston also failed Sarris’s Auteur Test; both directors varied their subject matter and didn’t pepper their work with too many personal references. Fleischer wasn’t one to billboard his directing personality. He was good at most everything; the lamest criticism I’ve read said that he got the directing nod when somebody needed a specialist in submarines and sea-going effects.

Fleischer spent most of his career as a free agent, working steadily because he was in demand, and not just an available asset on a studio’s payroll. He did good work on projects other directors might have turned down, such as the sprawling, historically accurate epic  Tora! Tora! Tora!.  Its pre- CGI action effects are filmed on a spectacular scale, right where the events happened. Some of Fleischer’s best movies are his least well-known:  Trapped,  Violent Saturday,  The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing,  Barabbas,  The Last Run. His late career was sustained in part by his ability to cooperate with producer Dino De Laurentiis, but he also turned in some mature masterpieces. Fleischer made the best dramatic use of split screen effects in  The Boston Strangler. He then directed the over-achieving English true-crime story  10 Rillington Place, a tragedy so forceful that it’s difficult to watch.

Writer Ney had the cooperation of the Fleischer family, and was encouraged to be as truthful as possible. We do read of some of the director’s less than optimal choices. Like most established directors in the ’70s and ’80s he had to defend his turf against those who had never heard of his older movies. His physical decline was steep, but he was always surrounded by a loving family. His final farewell with his wife was as touching as anything from a sentimental romance.

At all times in Journeyman we feel we’re dealing with a forthright personality making the best of his opportunities, and trying to do his best work without abusing those around him. I have to admit that I began the book with a high opinion of director Fleischer. Working on a big feature that reunited his special effects crew from Tora! Tora! Tora!, I was befriended by the effects ace A.D. Flowers; his pros remembered Fleischer as one of the best filmmakers they ever worked with. And I still remember film writer Stuart Galbraith IV’s account of recording an audio commentary for a DVD of Tora! Tora! Tora!: after taping the entire 2.5 hour track with Fleischer, the Fox people told Stuart that a mistake had been made, that the session hadn’t been recorded at all. To Stuart’s surprise, when he gave Fleischer the bad news, the 85+ year-old director simply said, “let’s go back tomorrow and do it again.”

Every chapter backs up that impression of Richard Fleischer. Journeyman tells the story of the making of twenty interesting pictures, but it also gives us a positive personality that we wish we had known.

Here is the sales page for Ney’s book directly from The University of Kentucky Press. It was published three weeks ago, on May 12:

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson

Hello!

We found something interesting while spooling through a better-than-average compilation of 1930s travelogue pictures of Hollywood and environs … you know, those YouTube things that show up optimized and colorized.

This one has some pretty good items, such as the still-standing radio buildings and the Earl Carroll theater on Sunset, the Griffith Observatory on mostly undeveloped hills, the Hollywoodland Sign, etc. Also, (at 8:04) we see some really handsome shots of the Pan Pacific Auditorium and its distinctive pylons, from right in my neighborhood. The present day replacement building has but one pitiful pylon.

The big surprise was seeing, on the Columbia Ranch Lot, a glimpse from afar of  the giant set for Frank Capra’s 1937   Lost Horizon. The shot pans right from a fake mountain until we see the distinctive art deco towers poking out over the edge of a wall. The really impressive set looks even bigger on screen.  (beginning at 7:22 )

Looking online for a good photo, we came across these Instagram movies of the stars posing for pictures on the huge Lost Horizon set — Ronald Colman, Jane Wyatt, John Howard, H.B. Warner. Jane can’t have been happy bundled up in that costume.

Then, CineSavant correspondent Phil Smoot responded to last week’s column picture of Vincent Price, to write to tell me about seeing a screening of A.I.P.’s Vincent Price horror show  The Last Man on Earth with a completely different main title card … The Damned Walk at Midnight.

CineSavant’s go-to authority on all things A.I.P. is Gary Teetzel, so I asked him if he knew anything about such a title change. It wasn’t rare for distributors and theater owners to ‘invent’ new titles for movies, especially far away from Hollywood. The title might be changed for print ads, but the movie itself would usually retain the original title. John McElwee brought up this subject at least once on his  Greenbriar Picture Shows page, about  Major Dundee.

Gary had heard about the title The Damned Walk at Midnight. He forwarded a picture from the web, supposedly taken at a drive-in theater. Not only does Last Man have a new title card, it’s obviously a studio-produced job. The lettering matches the original design, and the text is cleanly matted over the correct background scene.

My idea of deep research, reviewer’s style, is a double-click to the IMDB. It indeed lists The Damned Walk at Midnight as an alternate title …. but where, how, and why?  No doubt about it, CineSavant is a treasure trove of important mysteries to be solved.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson

Hello!

Hey! From The Warner Archive Collection, it’s the FEEL BAD movie of the decade!

Frank and Eleanor Perry’s Last Summer was a shocker in 1969, and a star-making release for actors Bruce Davison, Richard Thomas and especially Barbara Hershey. It was adapted from a best-seller by Evan Hunter, the author behind  Blackboard Jungle,  High and Low and  The Birds.

I’ve heard from time to time from readers wanting desperately to see this Allied Artists release, as many as wanted to see the now-elusive Darker than Amber. The build-up is so great for Last Summer that I wonder what new viewers will think of it. Back in the day, I remember seeing it at least three times in a theater. After it ran its course it more or less disappeared. Desspite being heavily requested on DVD, it was always unavailable.

We’re told that the film was distributed in two versions, an initial “X” rated cut and a slightly trimmed “R” a little later on. The sticking point is a ‘controversial’ rape scene. I didn’t know which I saw in 1969; according to what the AFI has to say, we probably saw the ‘R.’  That was the year of  The Wild Bunch (“R”) and  Midnight Cowboy (“X”).  The conservative theater owners in San Bernardino blocked 17 year-olds from attending, and stopped screening many pictures with those ratings.

But the saving grace for me was the U.S. military, which showed everything released by the majors at its base theaters, as I explain in  an autobiographical article. Being able to see shows like  If …,  Medium Cool and  Age of Consent was a big benefit that my fellow high-schoolers didn’t have.

It looks as if Last Summer will become The Warner Archive Collection’s big rediscovery for 2026. Their copy text says that they’ve resolved a rights dispute, located the original elements and will have a Blu-ray available on June 30. The new 4K restoration will revive the original ‘X’ rated cut; I guess we’ll find out if it’s something new and/or shocking.

In 1969 my teenaged girlfriend and I were strongly impressed by the movie, and somewhat depressed as well. It certainly doesn’t present a favorable view of people.  Later movies like  River’s Edge tried to express the same kind of inbred nihilism, but weren’t as compelling. We hadn’t run into such malevolent personalities, and it probably put us on the lookout for them. Back then I’d have called it the toxic side of affluence, although I’ve met kids and people just as vicious from every strata.

A number of years back somebody did track down what happened to the elusive actress Catherine Burns, who was good in  Red Sky at Morning and amazing in this, but faded from film work almost immediately. I’m sure we’ll once again be reading more about her.

Anyway, that’s the very short explanation for folks wondering what the fuss is about.

And here’s some very promising news, only a day old; we think it qualifies as Get Up and Dance news. Following up on hints from last year,  Hammer Films has made a bold announcement regarding its top title  Dracula   aka  Horror of Dracula.  They’re promising a new 4K remaster before Halloween, for both theatrical and 4K disc, that will be a version of the film before it was censored by the BBFC back in 1958. In Hammer’s words,

“Painstakingly restored in 4K from the best original archival materials sourced from around the world, Dracula (1958) returns in its most complete form ever presented. For the first time outside of Japan’s original 1958 theatrical release, footage believed lost for over six decades has been meticulously restored and reintegrated into the film. This footage has never been released in the UK or the US, and has never been seen on home entertainment anywhere in the world.”

Well Hokey Smokes, we’re all for that. John Gore says that a pre-censor director’s cut of was simply discovered in the Warner Bros. film vaults. So this won’t be the ragged (but wonderful) rescued fix-up with Japanese shots that came out 13 years ago. Those were an extended scene of Melissa Stribling and Christopher Lee, and added makeup effects cuts at the climax. Rumored unseen footage might include shots of Valerie Gaunt actually biting John Van Eyssen. John Gore mentions that ‘3 minutes of material were deleted;’ we thought the additions would be just a few seconds.

We weren’t fully sure that rights issues would allow Hammer to do a full-on Dracula/Horror of Dracula revival, so this is very good news. So far the ‘new’ John Gore Hammer is one happy surprise after another.

Hammer’s accompanied its announcement is a slick teaser-trailer. We even like its color values:

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson

Hello!

It’s awful but it needs to be seen to be believed. That notorious Star Wars Christmas Special has become something to avoid, but it was accompanied by many agonizing TV guest star arrangements involving personal appearances by robots and wookies. Michael McQuarrie found this 1970s example, a Donny and Marie variety special.

Only a part of the show is present. At about a minute-twenty in, they call out the night’s guest stars, all of whom are costumed for a galaxy far away:

“Tonight, our guests are Redd Fox (cloaked like Obi-Wan), Kris Kristofferson (no costume), Paul Lynde (in an imperial uniform), The Osmond Brothers (split screen), and from Star Wars, R2-D2, C-3PO, Chewbacca, Darth Vader — and our own Ice Angels! (cakewalk line)”.

The show has been trimmed down to favor the Star Wars skit, with Donny as Luke and Marie as Leia. A storm trooper chorus enters snapping their fingers. Why wasn’t this filmed in IMAX?

Advisor Gary Teetzel turns us toward something that might be fun, although it might help to be 14 years old again — a reboot of a classic Japanese fantasy from Toho, and from the effects people that made Godzilla Minus One.

Ishiro Honda and Eiji Tsuburaya’s original The Human Vapor (Gas Ningen Daiichigo) from 1960 starred the great Yoshio Tsuchiya. It wasn’t released here until 1964, imported and dubbed by ‘Brenco Pictures Company’ to serve on a double bill with Toho’s  Gorath. Both pictures soon went to TV, and rights issues have so far held up a U.S. disc release of any kind. In the original, the Human Vapor commits his crimes ‘for the sake of his love, a beautiful dancer.’

Back around 1999, Gary Teetzel and I asked author Stuart Galbraith to loan us his Japanese laserdiscs of numerous Toho classics. They were letterboxed and sometimes in stereo sound, but none had English subtitles. So we picked our way through the fun visuals of  Atragon (why are there so many characters?) and  Furankenshutain Tai Barugon (what, it’s all different!) without really following the stories. The Human Vapor was no exception. I vaguely remember an ending set up as a double suicide situation — could that be correct?

This new streaming promo sees the new Human Vapor shaping up as an action spectacle. It’s a pretty classy teaser edit. The transformation visuals certainly harmonize with the original, and the rest looks reasonably stylish. It’s coming to Netflix early in July.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson

Hello!

Michael McQuarrie came through again — we’ve been checking out this little video prize: 45 minutes of fabulous 16mm home movies from the set of Franklin Schaffner’s original  Planet of the Apes.

It’s the work of actor Roddy McDowall, whose still photos and home movies are legendary. Some of these scenes showed up in featurettes promoting the release of the first Planet of the Apes discs, but this is McDowall’s entire uncut reel.

The location is the Malibu cove that serves as the Chimpanzees’ archeological dig that proves heretical to the Ourang powers that be. If I’m not mistaken, the rocks at the south of this particular beach is the location for the fabulous crane setup and effects composite for the film’s famous final shot.

Everybody cooperates with Roddy and his camera — it looks like a happy set. The 16mm footage was posted by one ‘twilightfan69.’

And since we’re on the subject of monkeys, this is a good time for a Book Review that I should have posted a week ago.

The book in question is by Ray Morton, whose  Close Encounters Making-Of Book from 2007 is also a good read. This tome is King Kong, The History of a Movie Icon, published on April 2 of this year. It’s an updating, revision and enlargement of a first edition published in 2005.

Especially with its new material, this overall survey of all things King Kong is a good follow-up to George Turner’s older making-of book, which of course only covers the 1933 original. Morton chronicles the entire Kong saga, through the 1933 sequel, the Toho films of the 1960s, Dino De Laurentiis’s films, Peter Jackson’s 2005 reboot and the ongoing series from Legendary Entertainment.

None of the chapters are given short shrift, not even Toho’s effort. This where the fans divide into two groups, where the ‘Willis O’Brien or Nothing’ purists face off against those that see merit in some of the newer versions, or just choose to be non-judgmental. Author Morton is good at organizing the facts in a logical and entertaining way. We read about what the major players Merian Cooper, Ruth Rose and others did to earn their fandom fame, as well as their backgrounds and other accomplishments.

The book sticks to the major ‘official’ Kong films first, which brings in a great many players in films made in different decades. There’s the infamous John Beck, and the beloved Eiji Tsuburaya, the mogul Dino de Laurentiis with his super-Kong given a 99% to 1% split between Rick Baker and Carlo Rambaldi, and Peter Jackson choosing Kong as his pet project after Lord of the Rings.

Along the way Morton offers succinct and (to this date) definitive accounts of subjects as diverse as the ‘missing’ 1933 spider pit sequence, Ray Harryhausen’s work on Mighty Joe Young, the non-functioning robot Kong and De Laurentiis’s full-court press to have said robot win an Oscar. Jackson’s Kong and the Legendary reboot are covered just as thoroughly as the classic versions. And the book winds up with what seems like an endless stream of Kong TV shows, special films, and outright rip-off productions that used the Kong name but sometimes didn’t even have a giant ape.

The text offers up nuggets we hadn’t heard. Apparently the rights holder RKO General was going to sue the makers of the rip-off feature Konga, until its producers arranged to buy a lot of advertising on RKO General’s TV stations.

At about 360 pages, Morton’s book is a substantial read and a good reference to all filmic angles on the Big Monkey of Skull Island. The text is accompanied by many B&W photos and illustrations. It can be ordered from most booksellers; the link given here is a direct line to Bloombury Academic:

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson