Hello!

First up —
Dick Dinman has a new webcast up, an interview with William Wellman, Jr. about Kino Lorber’s Blu-ray release of William Wellman’s favorite of his silent films Beggars of Life, with Louise Brooks as a train-hopping hobo who dresses like a boy to escape the law and the lecherous Wallace Beery and his ‘rambunctious band of hobos.’

The CineSavant review of Beggars is here. On his ‘Dick’s Picks’ feature, Dinman takes on Flicker Alley’s still-hot Blu-ray restoration of The Lost World which also stars Wallace Beery, as the prehistoric monster-hunter Professor Challenger.

About a week ago (September 27) correspondent Gary Teetzel attended a ballet. . . which has relevance here because the ballet was an adaptation by Matthew Bourne of The Red Shoes, with music by Bernard Herrmann. The Center Theater Group publicity states that this ” American premiere is set to a new score arranged by Terry Davies using the mesmerizing music of golden-age Hollywood composer, Bernard Herrmann (most famous for his collaborations with Alfred Hitchcock, Orson Welles, and Martin Scorsese), whose work ranges from the witty and playfully robust to the achingly romantic and bittersweet.” Knowing how many Herrmann fans read Savant, I asked Gary for a report, which I belatedly print now:

“Last night I saw a performance of The Red Shoes ballet–based upon the movie — at the Ahmanson. I am unqualified to comment on it as a ballet but I can say that I was able to follow the story well enough. It did have have some very creative visual design with the sets, costumes and lighting. (Although I will say that The Devil in the ballet-within-the-ballet of The Red Shoes, with his slick hair, mustache and striped suit, tended to remind of Gomez Addams!)

My main interest was the use of the music of Bernard Herrmann. The music was derived chiefly from The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, Fahrenheit 451, Citizen Kane and Hangover Square. There were a couple pieces I did not recognize that did not sound Herrmannesque; I suspect they came from the classical repertoire. The music was pre-recorded for playback, not live. The orchestrations were sometimes altered slightly to make them easier to perform for a small orchestra, and also to make some of the pieces more ‘dance friendly,’ one might say.

One can imagine Herrmann fuming over this, but something else would have made him positively apoplectic: among the Citizen Kane pieces used was the End Title music, based around the “Oh Mr. Kane!” song — which Herrmann did not write. It was adapted from a Mexican pop song called “A Poco No” by Pepe Guizar, who also composed the standard “Guadalajara”. Conrad Salinger arranged the song, without credit, for the Kane end titles. One can picture the ghost of Herrmann flying into a rage and demanding his name be removed from the credits.

I took note of the way Herrmann’s music was used: Fahrenheit 451 became the Red Shoes ballet-within-the ballet. The Ghost and Mrs. Muir was used for the love story. The Citizen Kane music was used primarily for scenes of the entire ballet company busily preparing, celebrating, etc. (Herrmann’s arrangements for the “Welles Raises Kane” suite were purposed for most of these selections); Hangover Square was associated with the fiery passions of the composer.

How did the music work? Surprisingly well — or perhaps it would be more fair to say far better than I had anticipated. Herrmann, after all, is not a composer one typically associates with dance music. Choreographer Michael Bourne makes it work, although devoted Herrmannphiles won’t be able to entirely separate the music from its prior associations. (“Oh, look, people are dancing to the Fahrenheit Fire Truck music to suggest a bustling city street.”) Still, worth seeing for fans of Herrmann’s music and/or the Powell/Pressburger film. — Gary”

Unfamiliar with the catchy song “A Poco No”? Gary forwarded YouTube links to a Spanish-language version by Aída Cuevas (1990), and a low-res clip from the 1938 Mexican film Noches de gloria with a version of the same song by Esperanza Iris that sounds even more like what’s heard in Citizen Kane. You know what they say — The things that you learn, if you live long enough.

And because I haven’t linked to the wonderful Greenbriar Picture Shows page as often as I should, here’s a link to a terrific John McElwee article from October 2, with more facts about the upcoming (October 10) Warner Archive Collection Blu-ray of a reconstituted full-length The Sea Wolf. Enjoy!

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson

Savant’s new reviews today are:

Hello! A Book Review today.

Ha! Universal has nothing on author Tom Weaver. The studio fibbed when it claimed that This Island Earth took 2.5 years to film. After promising McFarland that his book on Universal’s monster movies of the 1950s would be ready in two years, Tom delivered it in just under twenty!

Written with David Schecter, Robert J. Kiss and Steve Kronenberg, Universal Terrors 1951-1955: Eight Classic Horror and Science Fiction Films is 440 pages of monster fan Nirvana, a fully-detailed rundown on practically everything known about eight Universal shows in the first half of the decade of Eisenhower and 3-D. It’s got gothic chillers with Boris Karloff and Charles Laughton, the initial moneymakers from producer William Alland and an exotic horror item that’s now most noted for its gallery of future TV stars. Tom Weaver is no stranger to this territory. I’ve reviewed several of his in-depth tomes on individual movies, and his books of classic-era monster movie interviews have made him the go-to authority for years. Tom was the first and the fastest to nab the horrible truth from the filmmakers and actors of our favorite pictures. His 1980s book on Universal’s classic horror pictures, written with Michael and John Brunas, remains the best-researched resource on those pictures, as well.

This book wisely limits its purview to eight films, so as not to go chintzy on the details — a second volume is planned, and hopefully not for 2037. As is Tom’s custom, he divides up the territory. Robert J. Kiss covers the distribution of the pictures — he knows where and with what each picture was double-billed, if you happened to see it first-run. David Schecter provides an essay on the music scores in equally obsessive detail, although I most enjoyed his overview of Universal’s music department for those years. Steve Kronenberg writes up serviceable review-essays on each title as well.

I think that Kronenberg has been set free to make with the critical opinions because Tom’s own modus operandi has never been to dictate what we ought to like in these pictures. The book’s real meat & potatoes is his meticulous production notes, which throw a very wide net: basic facts, personnel profiles, etc. Tom pieces together ‘who wrote what’ and ‘who did what’ directly from his research. That’s not easy, considering how often he’s faced with contradictory ridiculously contradictory testimony. Even more interesting is Weaver’s almost day-by day account of the filming of each show, with locations and special problems that weren’t expected, such as the monster frogman that didn’t work out on the first Creature sequel. Since Tom has vaccumed up every bit of publicity and Trade Paper mention in the public record, he has it all — the legit facts on each movie contrasted with the publicity baloney that often found its way into print. These end off each chapter with what amounts to a scrapbook of addenda and tangential information.

We learn some surprising things about the on-set personalities of Charles Laughton and Boris Karloff, and hear the first-person stories of then- ingenues like Barbara Rush (swoon) and Kathleen Hughes (swoon swoon), who were learning how to get ahead in the fight for decent roles, and how to avoid the unwanted advances of liberties-taker Jack Arnold. Tom gives a pretty good account of how most of the special effects were done, without becoming technically fixated to the point of distraction. He acknowledges the input of other researchers, like Robert Skotak. Since Tom is not shy about detailing the personal problems of our favorites — John Agar’s drinking, Lance Fuller’s apparent major problems with reality — I was a bit disappointed not hearing a definitive account of what happened to optical whiz David S. Horsley, who the rumor mill says held out for better effects and more recognition on This Island Earth and found out the hard way that he could be replaced. Although we learn about every stray note of music from Mr. Schecter, we don’t find out much about Clifford Stine, an effects camera whiz and problem solver behind many of the best scenes in these movies. Nobody was taking down the memoirs of the technical talent, it seems.

To his credit Tom Weaver will never be accused of being a gushing fan-boy; if anything he at times seems a little too hard on these film, with a joking attitude about bad actors or weak visuals that can be a little cruel. We assume that some of these shows are among his favorites, so maybe that’s a good stance to take — he’s not like a lot of other film writers, trying to convince us to love the pictures because they saw them at age five.

Taking this slightly standoffish position, Tom Weaver tells us more about the films’ success as money earners for the Studio, and as training grounds for actors in need of seasoning (Rex Reason, for one). This allows Tom to be brutally honest when relating the various hi-jinks of the men who made most of the pictures, several of whom come off as liars, knaves, credit-stealers and garden-variety Hollywood dastards. Producer William Alland claims to have initiated every show concept. He stuffed the writing credits for his films with his cronies, including a couple of no-talents that swiped authorship from Ray Bradbury, not to mention each other. Good director Jack Arnold must have felt stifled by the small pond of the Alland film unit, for in later years he tried to take credit for everything, even the partial direction of movies he had nothing to do with. It’s so depressing that we have to remind ourselves that some solid entertainment came out of this den of backbiting careerists.

The proof of the fun of Universal Terrors is that reading each chapter renewed interest in seeing the films again, even those I’ve seen too many times to count. The chapters on The Strange Door and The Black Castle are mostly new news to me. The bigger canvas allowed Tom to tell more of the story of the making of It Came from Outer Space than I knew, and I thought I knew a lot. I expected repetition from his earlier book on the first two Creature-Gill Man movies, and was pleased to read fresh material and (I think) see new photos. The out-and-out monster romp Tarantula is packed with new info, much of it concerning helpful deviations from the screenplay, like Nestor Paiva apparently changing his lines to give various scenes an extra bite: “THEY won’t stop it!” Cult of the Cobra concentrates on its interesting cast, with more info on Faith Domergue, the vixen from the perplexingly cool/klunky space epic This Island Earth.

This Island Earth is the one film where I think Tom’s literal, just-the-facts reportage can’t quite encompass what’s on the screen. The show can be called infantile, inconsistent or incompetent, yet it’s a genuine classic, a piece of unexpected film poetry. That’s I think why Robert Skotak loves it so much. Tom does the right thing, slamming the Mystery Science Theater mangling of the film as an unwanted act of cultural mutilation. We KNOW the effects are uneven, but (sigh) in the long run it doesn’t make a difference. TIE and the first Gill Man epic The Creature from the Black Lagoon make the leap from camp matinee nonsense to something greater.

Also setting Tom’s work apart from other coverage of these favorites is his insistence on documentation. Take away his jokes and there’s not a single unsubstantiated fact in the book, and when he extrapolates or makes a judgment call, he’s very clear about it. For instance, he has testimony from the filmmakers of Tarantula that the little spiders were placed on plaster of paris mini- landscapes to match the film clips in which they were to be inserted. Then the spiders were guided by little puffs of compressed air. I first wrote that exact description long ago (like, the 1970s) and have repeated it many times, but I now have no idea where I got it. It’s good to find out that, if I’m a scoundrel who just made it up, I guessed right.

Universal Terrors 1951-1955 has an attractive, nicely designed cover, a full index and an appendix with even more tidbits from the Weaver fact files on these pictures.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson

( note: a test link to A Chronological Review List for 2017 )

Savant’s new reviews today are:

Hello!

As Maynard G. Krebs would say, the stack of Blu-rays in the CineSavant review hopper is a regular Colonel-Copious of interesting items, even some good Horror items for fans that customarily start Halloween sometime in mid-August. Arrow has a definitive disc of Fulci’s Don’t Torture a Duckling and a new release of Children of the Corn, and Criterion has given us an intriguing 2015 Polish fantasy called The Lure. Kino has The Adventures of Captain Marvel and Cyborg 2087.

Up on Saturday will be a review of Powerhouse Indicator’s second Region B Ray Harryhausen boxed set, with It Came from Beneath the Sea, 20 Million Miles to Earth and The 3 Worlds of Gulliver. Each carries new, exclusive extras. PI is also offering the Mia Farrow horror thriller See No Evil in Region B.

The Warner Archive Collection is giving us Waiting for Guffman; I’m hoping that The Hidden will be walking in the door shortly. Criterion’s Othello and Barry Lyndon arrived just as this Column ‘went to press.’

A review of Twilight Time’s dazzling new Blu of Beneath the Twelve Mile Reef is on the way, and I also want to tackle the TT disc of Michael Winner’s Lawman. Cohen’s new Churchill disc has just arrived. And I hope to double back on Kino’s Take the Money and Run (finally, a worthy disc version) and They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson

Savant’s new reviews today are:

Hello!

Gary Teetzel comes across with the quality links today: a video piece from Talkin’ Toons with Rob Paulsen is self-explanatory: John DiMaggio Does Bender as HAL 9000 in 2001: A Space Odyssey. There’s no reason somebody can’t cut these lines into the film !

Gary also forwards this link (reportedly discovered by Steve Haberman) from the Les archives de la RTS page, to Films d’épouvante: Horror!, a twenty-minute film by Pierre Koralnik from 1964. Gary’s introduction says it all:

“Here’s a French docu on horror films with a ton of great, rare footage — the only drawback is it’s all narrated in the French language. It has an interview with Karloff, a brief chat with Roy Ashton (who speaks French), behind-the-scenes footage on the set of Roger Corman’s Masque of the Red Death, an on-set interview with Corman and Price, and behind-the-scenes footage from the making of The Gorgon, including Prudence Hyman being made up, and walking downstairs to the set carrying a long hose that, I imagine, controlled the snakes. It’s also nice to see a little of the physical layout of Hammer’s Bray Studios on film, instead of just in still photos. So grab a friend who speaks French.”

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson