Hello!

A Book Review for a new film studies book: frequent CineSavant reviewer Lee Broughton has been covering the film world for us since the beginning of ‘DVD Savant.’ Having emerged as a UK film scholar, he’s run several seminars on Euro Westerns, and recently recorded a commentary for a new Blu-ray of the Italo Western Arizona Colt.

I was finally able to read Lee’s latest book Euro-Western: Reframing Gender, Race and the ‘Other’ in Film and am happy to contribute this review. . . the title sounds like New Curriculum for an equity & social justice-woke film study class, but it’s really a sharp academic analysis of aspects of the Euro-Western — not just Italo Spaghetti oaters — that further elevate the subgenre.

The Euro-Western has come a long way since the birth of genre studies, when non-Hollywood oaters were mainly ignored in favor of ‘discovering’ unheralded American auteurs. Sir Christopher Frayling’s books on Italo Westerns turned the tide of academic study. Frayling’s hearty endorsement distinguishes Lee Broughton’s Euro-Western book from fan-oriented publications.

Broughton’s tightly organized book is laid out in three sections. With some general observations, and many comparisons and close readings of selected films, he establishes that European westerns were more socially progressive than American oaters in their depiction of ‘others’ — American Indians, African Americans and women (‘Frontier Femmes’). While acknowledging the presence of pro-Native American sentiment in Hollywood Westerns since the beginning of the genre, he shows that West German ‘Karl May’ adventures foregrounded Indian heroes in a way that made them equal to or more important than the Anglo hero. The Winnetou character is a far more respectful and mature evocation of the ‘Tonto’ archetype. Broughton’s explanation of the long-standing German fascination with America’s wild west is also well documented.

Broughton’s measure of the representation of African-Americans in westerns really gives the advantage to Europe, indicating a ‘liberation’ that really didn’t happen in U.S. films, but that came naturally in Italo westerns. While mid-’60s America fumbled with Civil Rights Tokenism (Duel at Diablo, even Major Dundee), black characters, often women, were at the center of the conflicts in numerous Italian pictures. The prominent study examples are Lola Falana in Lola Colt and Vonetta McGee in The Great Silence, where Lee observes that blacks in Italo films aren’t obliged to acknowledge a subservient position, as was typical even in the John Ford westerns supposedly elevating actor Woody Strode to star status. Strode’s Italo westerns don’t force him to function as a symbol of the filmmakers’ liberalism.

The surprise third part looks at representations of women primarily in English westerns — perhaps because most female roles in Italo genre films aren’t as progressive?  One argument given is that even the more liberal American films with strong female characters (or extra-strong, as with Joan Crawford in Johnny Guitar) eventually revert to softer, more feminine roles. American formulas insist that life on the wild frontier ‘tames’ outlaws like Cat Ballou and the vengeful Mattie Ross of True Grit. Meanwhile, from the 1930s forward, British comedies consistently presented female frontierswomen as being more aggressive and capable than their male partners, who functioned as Music Hall straight men in comedies like The Sheriff of Fractured Jaw. When a frontierswoman takes charge in a comparable American film something seems amiss, as in The Furies and Forty Guns. In wrapping up this argument we get a close reading of two ’70s Euro-westerns with strong female characters that break the mold: Raquel Welch in Hannie Caulder and Stella Stevens in the less familiar A Town Called Bastard aka A Town Called Hell.

Besides setting this reader in the direction of the German Winnetou movies and A Town Called Hell, Broughton’s enthusiasm and clarity brings back memories of good academic film books; thanks to better video access and the IMDB authors can no longer briefly describe two hundred titles, add an index, and hang out a shingle as a film historian. Euro-horror has certainly received a lot of attention, but the Euro western subgenre needs more books like this one. It reads well and would indeed serve as a good reference work for millennial film students — the word I get from film schools is that much of what’s taught these days has a strong revisionist bent toward social justice and inclusion. Lee Broughton knows his westerns backward and forward, that’s for sure.

The book’s Amazon link is Euro-Western: Reframing Gender, Race and the ‘Other’ in Film; and here’s the link to the publisher, Bloomsbury Academic and their specific page for Lee Broughton.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson

Hello!

First up is an audio link. . . our generous correspondent Richard McQuillan has given me permission to upload this inspiring, heartwarming 25 seconds of cross-Holiday cheer. A Norman Bates Christmas will make you laugh, cry, and feel like children again. Is it FUN or INCONSEQUENTIAL?   Each of us must make our own moral choice. Pass that Halloween candy please, no not that, something with chocolate in it.

My mellifluous croak of a voice is back again, with a guest shot talking about a classic western at the podcast DVD Classics Corner on the Air: Dick Dinman & Glenn Erickson Visit ‘Vera Cruz’. Can’t talk enough about crazy Burt Lancaster and sober Gary Cooper in Robert Aldrich’s insane revolutionary oater, the one that Sergio Leone dubbed ‘the double-cross western.’  I still haven’t figured out some of the screwy editing in that picture.

And we thank David J. Schow for our (cough) borrowing of his link to A Tribute to Paul Blaisdell. It’s from 2017 and written by Christopher Stewardson.  The master monster maker Blaisdell forged a hipster’s ’50s sci-fi look, a style all his own.

And wow, the Warner Archive Collection has officially announced their November disc line-up, which is practically a Christmas acquisition list in itself — once again they’ve hit upon titles I’ve hoped would show up for years.

In short, we’ve got Fritz Lang’s Fury, Stephen Sondheim and Anthony Perkins’ The Last of Sheila, the hot Barbara Stanwyck pre-Code Ladies they Talk About, the next Nick & Nora picture The Thin Man Comes Home, Little Liz Taylor in National Velvet, Doris Day in Lullabye of Broadway, Vincente Minnelli’s Some Came Running and Nicholas Ray’s eccentric Party Girl.

That’s nothing but good news. Plus, the word on the web is that the WAC has both Angels with Dirty Faces and Ivanhoe on the way.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson

Hello!

Is this a CineSavant ‘gift guide?’

Two months short of the holidays, it’s disc round-up time. I’m here to report on what’s on hand to review, and what’s expected in the mail hopper. I’m glad I have Charlie Largent’s capable input — he’s keen on horror and animation subjects that I’m not.

As I said last time we’re again current with The Warner Archive Collection, and happy that George Feltenstein is once again on the team over there in Burbank. Besides today’s review of the WAC’s Mad Love we’ve got the favorites Straight Time, The Ghost Ship + Bedlam, Children of the Damned, The Window, Santa Fe Trail in reach for review, as well as Eye of the Devil, Night Shift, Dinner at Eight and the really very good Mary Stevens, M.D.. Not yet here but said to be on its way is Tex Avery Volume 3.

Also in-house and looking for review openings are, from KL Studio Classics: Misery 4K, The Cheat, Devil and the Deep, Torch Singer, The Mad Doctor, Mystery of Edwin Drood and Secret of the Blue Room. Charlie has dibs on the W.C. Fields pix The Old Fashioned Way, It’s a Gift and The Bank Dick. Through Kino Charlie also has Scorpion Releasing’s Fritz the Cat and The Nine Lives of Fritz the Cat on tap. Kino also distributes Code Red’s One More Train to Rob and the Cook + Moore Hound of the Baskervilles.

The Criterion Collection gives us Satyajit Ray’s fascinating Devi, and from Powerhouse Indicator we’re looking at Midway and Macarthur. Midway is one that I want to give another chance — I once saw a trailer for that thing in Sensurround, and it nearly deafened me. Also can’t leave out Arrow’s Legend and Deep Red 4K, and Viavision [Imprint] Television’s massive box of Space: 1999, The Complete Series Ultimate Edition.

That’s what’s presently in hand; here’s what’s expected momentarily, or soon, or who knows?  If The Film Detective’s Frankenstein’s Daughter arrives it might get the last open review slot before Halloween; the same goes for Severin Films’ coveted An Angel for Satan with Barbara Steele. Expected from overseas are a brace of desirable Viavision [Imprint] September titles, which include two different films of The Browning Version; A Reflection of Fear, Ned Kelly, The Assassination Bureau (Oliver Reed, Diana Rigg, Telly Savalas!) and a gift box with all three Harry Palmer spy adventures: The Ipcress File, Funeral in Berlin, and Billion Dollar Brain.

Flicker Alley has three interesting items: a quaduple bill of Call it Murder, Back Page, Woman in the Dark and The Crime of Dr. Crespi called ‘In the Shadow of Hollywood’, plus two Argentinian Noirs restored by The Film Noir Foundation, The Beast Must Die (La bestia debe morir) and The Bitter Stems (Los Tallos Amargos). A little later will come the release of Flicker Alley’s Cinema of Discovery: Julien Duvivier in the 1920s silent film collection. I’ll look to friend and scholar Allan Peach for help with that one.

Paramount has come through lately with screeners; should copies be freed up we’re on tap for some attractive 4K items: The Addams Family 4K, Scream 4K, and later on, It’s a Wonderful Life 4K and Reds 4K.

Criterion promises a new restoration of La Strada, Mulholland Dr. 4K, Once Upon a Time in China, Menace to Society and Citizen Kane 4K. And I have my eye on KL Studio Classics’ Invasion of the Body Snatchers ’78 4K and the noir classics The Accused, Among the Living, Deported and the poetic Night Has a Thousand Eyes. Through Kino, The Cohen Collection also has a CineSavant favorite coming up, The Deceivers with Pierce Brosnan.

That’s a lot of discs to sort out — we don’t necessarily receive all of them, so we’ll do our best to give proper coverage!

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson

Hello!

Gary Teetzel points the myriad fans of Dr. Frank Baxter to an episode of The Burns and Allen Show in which Baxter guest stars. We ’50s kids know Baxter from his Frank Capra Bell Science TV specials, and Sci-Fi fans have always wondered what possessed him to perform as a fake scientist in the crazy prologue for that (ulp) epic The Mole People.

The real-life USC professor Dr. Baxter had quite a roll going in 1956, in terms of TV exposure. He apparently inspired this episode of The Burns and Allen Show because of a TV show he made for CBS talking about Shakespeare. Gary explains:

“The episode aired in October of 1956, one month before the premiere of Our Mr. Sun, the first of the Frank Capra Bell Science TV specials with Baxter, and two months before The Mole People hit theaters and changed the landscape of American entertainment forever. Both Our Mr. Sun and The Burns and Allen Show aired on CBS, so I wonder if his appearance was a promotional tie-in for the Bell Science specials.”

“George and Gracie’s son needs to write a college paper on Shakespeare; Gracie interferes, meeting Dr. Baxter when she impersonates a fellow professor. Wackiness ensues.”

“BTW, there is a subplot in which announcer Harry Von Zell wants George to help him get an acting role through producer William Goetz. Goetz’s name turns up a lot on the show, so he must have been a real-life friend of Burns. — Gary“

Dr. Baxter is actually not bad playing opposite George and Gracie; his delivery fits the show’s near-surreal take on sitcom situations. Something tells me that Baxter’s jaw-dropping prologue for The Mole People changed his mind about pursuing more film roles, although his guest shots on TV (as himself) kept him busy for ten more years.

Well, the Warner Archive Collection has arrived in a big way — we will be reviewing most of these in the next few weeks. We’ll try to get a couple of horror items up before Halloween — especially the Val Lewton pictures and the Karl Freund/Peter Lorre classic. And the western The Naked Spur is a major favorite — I’ll be discussing it with Dick Dinman on his podcast, in a few weeks.

I remember Night Shift from when I was assisting on TV commercials in the early 1980s. It and the movie Splash! were the first time I saw a studio-produced ‘Electronic Press Kit’ (EPK) edited for a feature film — a tape for distribution to media outlets with the trailer, interviews, a featurette and maybe a music video, all fluffy hype for easy access for TV producers. Four years later at Cannon I was cutting them, and after that I did several for MGM and Orion, like Silence of the Lambs and The Addams Family.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson