Deep Down

I didn’t make it to every night of the Bava series at the Egyptian, but the ones I did show up for were well worth it. The one big disappointment was that the print of PLANET OF THE VAMPIRES apparently wound up elsewhere, through no fault of the Cinematheque. I heard rumblings that there would be a make-up screening of the film some point this summer. That should please not only the people who were there Thursday night, but the ones I talked to who hadn’t been able to make it and will be thrilled if they get another chance.


As for what I did see, LISA AND THE DEVIL remains fascinating, if very much a tough film to get a grip on. The lead character of Lisa Reiner as played by Elke Sommer seems to affect the events around her as much as an average dream where we ourselves have no control over anything. While this adds to the unique mood of the film, and I give Sommer a lot of credit for being willing to play such a role, it still makes her a difficult character to willingly follow along with. But while the overall experience may be slightly ponderous, some of its more humorous moments involving Telly Savalas lend a sort of gallows humor feel to it, as if Bava was trying to say that none of this should be taken too seriously, it’s just the legendary mysteries of life and death that we’re dealing with here. If nothing else, it’s an attempt to expand the boundaries of the genre beyond where it ever goes even today and if it’s never really been seen by many people. The privilege of viewing one particular shot of Sylva Koscina with that ultra-plunging neckline that doesn’t seem to be held up naturally on a giant screen at the Egyptian is one of those moments that you simply don’t easily forget.


Seeing A BAY OF BLOOD aka TWITCH OF THE DEATH NERVE in such a place is also slightly revelatory because it frees it from grimy looking and sounding tapes, discs and grindhouse prints and lets us judge it in a manner which makes it play as more of a pitch-black comedy of manners more than anything else. It’s a surprising development considering it is esentially a very early version of what we know as the slasher movie. But after countless examples of those types of movies with essentially nothing to them, it’s great to see one which not only remains enjoyable, but seems to have more to offer as the years go by. Along with its viewpoint on the ways of the world is an enjoyably eccentric group of chacters including—hell, especially—the women, represented by Claudine Auger, the unknown Anna Maria Rosati and the eccentric Laura Betti. And it was a print which beautifully showed off the array of colors throughout and sounded great, the better to focus on the striking score by Stelvio Cipriani. Plus it has that ending. Few things will ever top the giddy feeling that you could sense in the audience when I saw a screening of this film about a decade ago, but hearing the audience response yet again was a wonderful thing.


What can I say about FOUR TIMES THAT NIGHT, which played after A BAY OF BLOOD? No, seriously, what can I say about it? The RASHOMON-stylings of the plot—presenting four possibilities of what really happened on a date between a young couple—aren’t really worth getting into, but what is worth discussing are the moments throughout where Bava is clearly doing something unexpected with the material such as the compositions of gorgeous female lead Daniela Giordana presented nude but not really nude or how he implies a busy nightclub with very little means at his disposal. It goes on too long and by a certain point I really didn’t need to see the doorman run up and down the stairs yet again, but I still feel like watching a few sections of it again. I should point out that not only does male lead Brett Halsey seem to drink nothing but J&B based on how many bottles of it he has but, as the friend I was with pointed out, he doesn’t even seem to have a kitchen in his swanky bachelor pad that comes complete with a swing. And I know how random this sounds, but am I the only person who expects the “Scientist” who appears to explain things to us to be revealed as the devil at the end? Yeah, probably.


I didn’t need to see DANGER: DIABOLIK again, especially since it just played at the New Beverly a few months ago. But I wanted to. Getting to see it in a theater yet again (even in this Paramount archival print that seems to have some sound issues) is just pure pleasure for me. It’s the look of the film, it’s the mood, it’s the music, it’s all ultra-cool, guilt-free pleasure for me. Diabolik and Eva, as portrayed by John Phillip Law and Marisa Mell are a couple without an ounce of realism to them, played by actors who barely seem human to begin with. And yet, they each bring a dimension of feeling, of heat, to what they play and it’s a combination of elements that somehow works. You don’t need to be convinced that he’d do anything for Marisa Mell. Looking at her when she looks at him, you could believe that maybe anything is possible. Just like how the films of Mario Bava give us something other than what is normally expected and while you may not be able to pin down what is so unique, the effect it has is unmistakable. There’s nothing really to add in closing right now. It’s just another series of reminders of why I love film as much as I do.

Knowing a Lot About Monsters

“I’ve got good news and bad news, girls. The good news is your dates are here.”
“What’s the bad news?”
“They’re dead.”


So now I guess we’ve gotten to the point where there’s a Fred Dekker double bill at the New Beverly. Nothing wrong with that, I suppose. I watched NIGHT OF THE CREEPS plenty of times on cable way back when. I was working as an usher the summer THE MONSTER SQUAD came out. It opened the same day as CAN’T BUY ME LOVE, which did much better business, and was gone in two weeks. Then years later suddenly it was as if I looked up one day and there was this massive MONSTER SQUAD cult out there. When did that happen, anyway? Outside the New Beverly the sign with the showtimes for the SQUAD/CREEPS double bill trumpeted “Rare 35mm print!” and “The only 35mm print Sony has!” respectively. When I bought my ticket the cute girl taking my money asked, “Are you excited?” Well, yeah, it’s a Fred Dekker double bill, how could I not be?

Two films very much sharing a lot of the same sensibilities, even though one is ostensibly for kids and one is very R-rated, THE MONSTER SQUAD and NIGHT OF THE CREEPS will always be stuck back in the 80s. Extremely slight in plot, haphazardly scripted and lacking in well-drawn characters, they are nevertheless two films that are extremely hard to dislike. Part of this is nostalgia, yeah, but they’re also very eager to please and it’s hard not to get at least a little caught up in their extremely earnest desire to entertain.


Essentially THE LITTLE RASCALS MEET FRANKENSTEIN (and the other Universal monsters) the non-Universal THE MONSTER SQUAD follows a group of kids with their own monster club who spend most of their time arguing about matters such as whether or not the Wolfman could drive a car. When one of them stumbles onto the diary written by the one and only Abraham Van Helsing, the kids learn of the existence of a powerful amulet and become aware of the arrival of actual monsters, in the form of Dracula, Frankenstein’s Monster, the Wolfman, the Mummy and The Gill Man, seeking that amulet in an attempt to rule the world.


The kids aren’t all that memorable, but much of the rest of THE MONSTER SQUAD holds up pretty well. Running only 82 minutes, the film, scripted by Dekker and his friend Shane Black (the same year LETHAL WEAPON opened), contains a narrative (pretty obviously inspired by ABBOT AND COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN) which moves at such breakneck speed that you might not notice all the things that don’t make much sense—did the mom really buy Van Helsing’s diary at a garage sale? Rated PG-13 it’s obviously aimed at kids but for this day and age there’s some surprisingly un-P.C. dialogue and a few bits that kids might be genuinely scared by—in the best way, of course. Maybe that explains the cult—kids who watched it on TV when they were young and actually got scared by it. But those scares all seem appropriate with the tried-and-true monster movie atmosphere the movie is going for. With the advent of CGI just a few years away when this was made, this was one of the last times that a movie could present Dracula turning into a bat by panning away and showing us the action only in shadow, but the movie feels thrilled that it is able to show this to us. There’s a genuine respect and appreciation throughout for what these monsters represent in history—the opposite approach taken by Stephen Sommers when he made his own monster rally, the reprehensible VAN HELSING.

Among the monster action there’s plenty of smart-aleck dialogue which could only have been written by Black, along with the reprise of a joke from NIGHT OF THE CREEPS involving a character saying “Two-thousand year old dead guys do not get up and walk away by themselves!”—cut to the two-thousand year old Mummy walking down the street. Along with the comedy, there are a surprising number of weighty moments which help give the movie its own identity, one of the best of which has Frankenstein’s monster faced with a Halloween mask of his own face. It’s these very special touches that help give THE MONSTER SQUAD its own identity, as the young characters seem to learn that sometimes the ones that they think are monsters don’t always turn out to be that way. Adding to this is the memorable character of “Scary German Guy” enjoyably played by Leonardo Cimino who has his own secret (“You sure do know a lot about monsters.” “Yes, I suppose I do.”) that only we in the audience are ever privy too.


The kids, while cute, don't make much of an impression and the story may be a little thin, but the adults in front of the camera manage a lot of the heavy lifting. Duncan Regehr is a slimy Dracula who gives his own unique interpretation to the role. Tom Noonan is an absolutely amazing Frankenstein monster, providing it with more of a tortured soul than any actor has probably brought to the part since the forties. Stephen Macht and Mary Ellen Trainor (also in the LETHAL WEAPON movies) are the main parents, on the verge of divorce in a real-world subplot that contrasts with the fantasy elements. Jonathan Gries (REAL GENIUS, but also Benjamin Linus’s father on LOST) has just a few short scenes as the human half of the Wolfman but nails the part to such a surprising extent that you almost remember him as being around more than he actually is. Familiar faces like Stan Shaw and David Proval turn up as well for plenty of wisecracks. The movie is very well shot in Scope (it was produced by Peter Hyams and at times looks like one of his films) and the exciting Goldsmith-like score is by Bruce Broughton. I could toss out some more criticisms about it but the more I think about it, it just seems like too likable a movie. I’ve long said that I always like it when a movie contains a final shot which cranes up from all the wreckage of the climax as all the characters seem to congratulate each other as the credits roll. Coming as that damn Monster Squad Rap plays, this might be one of my very favorite examples of that. Patrick’s sister is still pretty damn good-looking, too.



NIGHT OF THE CREEPS opened a year earlier in August 1986. I think I went to see THE FLY instead, but finally caught up with it on cable. A mish-mash of different genres, it’s even more rooted in the eighties, has several uninteresting actors in the lead roles, a script that holds up to even less scrutiny than THE MONSTER SQUAD and is pretty juvenile. It’s nearly impossible for me to dislike it.


After a short prologue in outer space and a long prologue set in 1959, we settle in at Corman University during Pledge Week in 1986. Chris Romero (Jason Lively, Rusty in NATIONAL LAMPOON’S EUROPEAN VACATION) is bemoaning his loser status to roommate James Carpenter Hooper (Steve Marshall, essentially the poor man’s Ilan-Mitchell Smith) when he suddenly finds himself smitten by Cynthia Cronenberg (Jill Whitlow, the perfume salesgirl in WEIRD SCIENCE). Desperate to win her over, he convinces his roommate to join him in pledging a fraternity, unaware that the frat’s biggest jerk Brad (Allan Kayser, the poor man’s William Zabka) is already Cynthia’s boyfriend. Given the task to steal a dead body from one of the college labs, the two guys chicken out, but not before freeing a cryogenically frozen body which for 27 years has housed a collection of slithering creatures in its brain and now that it is out is ready to unleash more creatures on the unsuspecting campus. Enter Police Detective Ray Cameron (Tom Atkins, in the role of his career) who is awakened from a pleasant dream which turns into a pertinent nightmare, coming to the crime scene where he discovers the cryogenics lab (“What is this, a homicide or a bad B-movie?”) but is annoyed to learn that there is a body missing (“Corpses that have been dead for twenty-seven years do not get up and go for a walk by themselves!” Cut to…). As he seeks out the two college kids, he finds himself confronted with an unthinkable threat involving zombies, the slithering alien creatures and also something which forces himself to confront his own past.


The character names listed above should give the idea of the in-jokey vibe that the movie goes for. The frat comedy scenario when we hit the present day section goes on too long but the slithering creatures, when they take hold on the plot, are pretty creepy. There are a few definite similarities to James Funn's SLITHER from a few years ago, but I honestly prefer CREEPS. Once it becomes a full-fledged horror movie, with comedy fully intact, it’s at times extremely enjoyable. It is, after all, hard to hate a movie which has a reanimated corpse bursting through the floorboards of a house as Tor Johnson rising from the grave in PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE plays on the television. But it can’t be denied that once Tom Atkins hits the scene as Detective Cameron everything clicks together. Answering every phone call with the catchphrase “Thrill me!” ( a line Shane Black, who wasn’t involved in this film, gave to Val Kilmer in KISS KISS BANG BANG) he owns the movie, making it hard to ever be all that interested in the college kids. He’s twisted because of his past, yet the more you learn about him, the more you root for him and when he is forced to defend himself within the walls of the sorority house during the climax, it all becomes a thing of twisted, pulp beauty.


I’m not going to even bother with the younger cast members. Tom Atkins is the show here. His character is a noir goof; he knows it, Dekker knows it, the movie knows it. But somehow within all the craziness he brings a dimension to the performance showing that he totally gets this guy and all the elements he brings to it combined with that priceless dialogue he has becomes unforgettable. Future Oscar nominee David Paymer plays a med student who gets killed and becomes a zombie. Suzanne Snyder, actually one of the lead girls in WEIRD SCIENCE, gets busted down to a bit part here as a sorority girl and Dick Miller, given a “Special Appearance by” credit, appears as a Police Armorer in an enjoyable bit.

Fred Dekker was still in his twenties when he directed these two movies. CREEPS has a lot of show-off camerawork expected from a first-timer and SQUAD dials this down a little, but not too much, as it very much is the product of the Spielberg-era of fantasy filmmaking. But within their frenetic approaches and wise-guy dialogue is the feel of somebody having fun creating these two films and it shows. It’s hard to ignore that each has its own not-inconsiderable flaws, maybe expected from someone still learning the craft, but it’s still too bad that Dekker never became the top-flight director it looked like he might become for about five minutes back in the eighties. Tom Atkins as Detective Cameron barks out “Thrill me!” many times. These two movies live up to the demand of that phrase.

But What Good Is A Dream

After all of the negativity that’s out there in the world, I need to talk about something which is the exact opposite for me. There are some films that you love that you want to share with everyone you ever meet. But there are also films that you want to somehow keep to yourself, to not share with others. Maybe they won’t get it, maybe they won’t understand. Maybe, even worse, they’ll have such an opposite reaction to it that the negative energy of that will drain away a little bit of what makes the film so special for you and that just can’t happen, no way. Jacques Demy’s THE YOUNG GIRLS OF ROCHEFORT is just that sort of film. If you watch enough films with a degree of darkness to them, maybe it takes something so deliriously happy, hopeful, full of life and all the possibilities within to cause you to fully embrace what is within its frames. Over the years I’ve lost interest in a lot of musicals, both vintage and recent, which seem to be about a fake sort of emotion that I can’t relate to. Often to me their images of perfection, like in old MGM films, make them seem remote and stifling. ROCHFORT, a cinematic collision of the French New Wave and the feel of those old Hollywood musicals, feels alive, feels real, however stylized as every frame of it is. The film was a box-office failure in the states when released and even now, through some brief searches around the net, I can still find harshly negative opinions on it. A Gene Kelly biography I once glanced at dismissed it as garbage in a few paragraphs. Maltin gives it two stars. And yet there’s not a single thing you could ever say which would keep me from being absolutely convinced that it’s one of the most beautiful things in the history of, well, anything.


The plot is both simple and as complicated as a kaleidoscope. While THE UMBRELLAS OF CHERBOURG, Demy’s previous film which was presented in the form of an operetta, took place over a period of years and focuses on one single couple, ROCHEFORT takes place over one long weekend and deals with a large group of people. As a large fair comes to the provincial town of Rochefort, twin sisters Delphine and Solange (real-life sisters Catherine Deneuve and Françoise Dorleac), are planning their imminent move to Paris as they yearn for love. Their mother (Danielle Darrieux) owns a café in town which is the hub of much activity. She still thinks of the man she left ten years ago named Simon Dame, because she couldn’t imagine being known as “Madame Dame”. Unbeknownst to her, Dame (Michel Piccoli of DANGER: DIABOLIK and CONTEMPT) has moved back to town to open up a music store where he has unknowingly struck up a friendship with Solange, whose music career he tries to help by contacting his old friend, the famous composer Andy Miller (Gene Kelly). Delphine, meanwhile, has broken up with her boyfriend, bitter gallery owner Guillaume (Jacques Riberolles), who has been displaying a painting which looks remarkably like her. What she doesn’t know is that it was painted as a vision of “feminine ideal” by sailor Maxence (Jacques Perrin) who though he spends much of his time in her mother’s café, their paths have somehow never crossed…and so it goes. It’s a world of fate, of chance, of people yearning for the hope that their true love is just around the corner, not knowing that they really are and they don’t know to look to see them. And amongst all this, I haven’t even brought up the members of the fair played by George Chakiris and Grover Dale or the ax murder which gets a few musical numbers of its own.


When Deneuve and Dorleac turn around just a few minutes in to sing their “Twins Song” directly to the camera you’re either going to revolt or embrace every single glorious second of what is to come. I know that some people revolt. I’m the guy who does that sometimes. But the films of Demy, including LOLA, BAY OF ANGELS, THE UMBRELLAS OF CHERBOURG and the Los Angeles-set MODEL SHOP possess a world view which I somehow click into instantly. It’s an extension of the PETER PAN intro “All this has happened before and will happen again,” extended to the matters of how every love story is at once unique to the person experiencing it and identical for what people have always gone through. It’s the possibility of relationships, that the next person you pass on the street could be a love from the past or the last great love of your life. This is all brought to its utmost extreme in ROCHEFORT, which is shot entirely in real locations—even many interiors are shot with many windows to the outside visible to continue the feel of the town as character—yet it’s beyond stylized with people everywhere dancing in the streets, mostly outfitted in bright Tutti-Frutti colors, almost filming the actual town of Rochefort as if it were a backlot. This may be one of the only places on the globe which I would want to visit simply because of it’s appearance in a movie (Piz Gloria in ON HER MAJESTY’S SECRET SERVICE is another which comes to mind). While Michel Legrand’s music for CHERBOURG was done in a more classical style, the approach here is more big-band/jazz, adding a more appropriately upbeat tone for this story. And the choreography that goes with it, sometimes criticized, feels to me just right in its imperfections and ideal to go with this film. It may love Hollywood musicals, but it very much has its own idea of what it wants a musical to be.


Many elements from Demy’s earlier films recur here, such as life in a provincial town, a centralized café, old lovers reappearing in life, a stranger arriving in a white convertible. There’s even a brief mention of a character from LOLA in dialogue, a touch Demy used in a number of films, even to the point of having characters recur, lending the feel of a continuing universe. At one point Michel Piccoli’s character muses aloud that a visiting friend may not recognize him, yet later when the friend arrives it’s Piccoli who doesn’t recognize him right away. That sums up a great deal of what Demy’s films are about—worrying about what is coming, then when it’s right in front of us we never seem to realize it right away. THE UMBRELLAS OF CHERBOURG is about that time when you are 20 and you know exactly what you want and the way the world works. Of course, the film’s characters learn otherwise. THE YOUNG GIRLS OF ROCHEFORT, on the other hand, is about that time in life when you are a few years older. You’ve learned a few more things, maybe you’ve already been hurt and things seem that much messier. The film is messier as well and it feels totally appropriate. Within that frenzy is the joy which makes up the film and the hope in life for what may still be to come.

The reputation the film has has, at least in the United States, goes back to when it was first released. While CHERBOURG may have been an arthouse hit in 1964, by the time ROCHEFORT rolled around in 1968, it simply wasn’t the right time for such a candy-coated musical. There’s also the sad fate of Deneuve’s sister Françoise Dorleac, who, after filming BILLION DOLLAR BRAIN but before the release of this film, was sadly killed in a car crash in Nice in June of 1967. She was only 25. Additionally, its American release was no doubt hampered by being shown in a dubbed version. All of these misfortunes seem to have combined into making it the wrong film at the wrong time. Fortunately, the dubbed version seems to have vanished off the face of the earth and the current DVD, in French with subtitles, is immaculate and the right way to see it.


It’s a thrill to watch every single cast member, even after multiple viewings. Deneuve is of course luminous, but there is additional bittersweet joy in watching Dorleac, maybe because it’s all too obvious what a tragedy it is we never got to see her in more films. I went through a period a number of years ago when I began to wonder if Michel Piccoli was in every film made in Europe in the sixties. His demeanor, a man resigned to the sadness in life, makes him instantly likable, maybe more than anyone else in the film. Gene Kelly, fittingly, is given the most memorable introduction. Around 55 when this was shot, he’s still spry, if not quite what he used to be, but I suppose this was the last look at ‘classic’ Gene Kelly that ever existed. His first number, shot more like a traditional Hollywood musical than anything else in the film is a thing of wonder. It’s very clearly not him singing, but that’s definitely his voice speaking French and dialogue scenes and it’s obviously the actual production audio. In these scenes he looks eager to please, happy to be there and not a little terrified. Watching the film again I’m very aware that it runs a little over two hours. But at one point as a section began which I didn’t remember favorably, I suddenly found myself enjoying it as much as any other scene in the film. That’s what ROCHEFORT does—it strips away your defenses, your cynicism. While it plays, all is right in the universe.


The notion that it feels like a thematic follow-up to THE UMBRELLAS OF CHERBOURG and the fact that it presents characters very much in a transitory stage in life has long made it seem like THE YOUNG GIRLS OF ROCHEFORT was meant to be the second film in a prospective musical trilogy. Sadly, that third part was never made. But by the time we get to the celebrated final shot of ROCHEFORT it seems to me like the entire film is almost as pure an expression of joy, of hope, of potential, that I can imagine. I can’t guarantee that everyone will have the feelings of love for THE YOUNG GIRLS OF ROCHEFORT that I do. But it has stayed with me through the years as I think of its characters, of what it says about all the right things in life. It’s a film I truly love and I make no apologies for that.

There's Always a Bottle

You know that you’ve been doing this for a long time when you not only attend a double bill that you’ve seen before, but it consists of the exact same prints that you saw the last time. On night two of the Mario Bava festival at the American Cinematheque it was the same 35mm print of 5 DOLLS FOR AN AUGUST MOON they showed in 2002, still looking immaculate and BLOOD AND BLACK LACE was screened once again using Joe Dante’s personal 16mm print. Just like Thursday night, the Egyptian was surprisingly crowded. I wondered how the audience would react to 5 DOLLS. Would there be a sudden revolt once the opening party sequence began with all those zooms? Fortunately, the audience stayed seated and seemed to enjoy the film. Yes, there was some laughter at those fashions and probably some bafflement at a few of the plot turns, but with this film deadpan silence isn’t a total necessity. Even more surprisingly, I found myself loving this oddball film maybe more than I ever have before.


There’s little point in once again going over the plotline of this TEN LITTLE INDIANS knock off where jet-setters vacationing on an island are knocked off one by one as there’s much discussion over scientific formula-MacGuffin and the money that is being offered for it. Watching the film this time I found myself paying more attention to Jill, the sensitive artist played by Edith Meloni, who is currently having an affair with Trudy, the wife of the formula’s creator, played by Ira Furstenberg. In thinking about the attention the film pays to Jill’s paintings it occurred to me that the film is actually populated by characters who represent some of the key aspects of society, specifically the industries of art, science, finance and service. Along with those factions, there are several additional wives to several of the men who seem to serve little relevant function in this world. It’s as if 5 DOLLS presents us with its own microcosm of the world and what happens to the rich, the weak, the strong, the indentured and the bystanders. The order the characters are knocked off —or, it should be stated, the order we believe they are being knocked off—seems somehow equivalent to how people fall by the wayside in the rat race of life itself. What we learn at the end seems to tie into all this, forcing us to reevaluate the seemingly noble proclamations of a key character. And among these adults, we have the barely explained character of Isabel who represents youth—a child, specifically, who darts in and out of the film, eavesdropping on people as would a child hiding at the top of the staircase listening enviously to the adults downstairs having a good time. Or, in other cases, cowering around the corner as they yell and scream at each other, as if hiding from ones parents. The way she interacts with several of the characters at various points indicates that she could become like any one of them later in life and the way she seems to be going at the end, what the film seems to be saying about what happens to youth…well, sometimes that’s just the way the world works. Maybe it’s a crazy theory but this is 5 DOLLS FOR AN AUGUST MOON we’re talking about, so thinking outside the box is probably allowed. Either way, it made this film about some of the shallowest people imaginable seem richer than it ever had and even more deserving of praise that I could give it, as truly off-the-wall as Bava’s direction in the film might be. And if it’s all nonsense, then I still have moments like the remarkable Edwige Fenech running along the beach after discovering the houseboy’s body as the exhilarating score by Piero Umilani plays on. It’s lingering moments like that which make 5 DOLLS such a favorite of mine and make me want to watch it again right now.


From the elegant trash of 5 DOLLS the second feature of the night brought on the elegant brutality of BLOOD AND BLACK LACE, the classic early giallo about beautiful models at the Christian Haute Couture fashion salon being savagly murdered by a masked maniac. Even on 16mm, I found myself continually looking for all the background details going on during the scenes at the Christian Haute Couture. There’s continual activity going on in those sections that keep the eyes darting all around the frame. It also stood out for me how adult the film is, not just in its depictions of violence in a sexually charged atmosphere, but how even in the midst of the sometimes-stilted dubbing, there’s a maturity to the characters relationships on a level that is almost unheard of today in films of this genre. This feels especially true when viewing what Eva Bartok as Countess Christina Cuomo does with her performance in the last part of the film. It’s the sort of element which adds to the intrigue and it also to the elegant-yet-sleazy tone, reminding me that these characters inhabit a world nothing like the one we know today. As stated before, it was Joe Dante’s own 16mm print that the Cinematheque screened, one which looks to be cobbled together (by Dante himself?) from various sources to make a complete version. As far as I can tell, it’s pretty much identical to the version available on DVD, except that it features the American title sequence, not the more stylized cast introduction credits seen on disc. It’s good that it’s there and maybe the vibe it gives off adds to how effective it is, but it’s a shame such a beautiful looking film is presumably only available to be screened like this. The compositions and colors throughout seem to demand an emphasis of that feel of luxurious deviance and I can only hope that at some point a print will exist that allows it to be viewed in such a way.


Dull films, like houseboys, come and go, but there’s always a bottle, to steal a familiar line heard in this double bill. Fortunately, there’s also 5 DOLLS FOR AN AUGUST MOON and BLOOD AND BLACK LACE, two films which continue to unveil new shadings in their own unique moods, giving me an added appreciation for what was accomplished in Italy long ago. Now I’ve got to figure out where I left that J&B.

Drops of Water

Opening night at the American Cinematheque for the Mario Bava festival was well-attended and enjoyable. I even spotted Edgar Wright on the premises at the Egyptian. Joe Dante introduced the double bill of BLACK SUNDAY and BLACK SABBATH, telling a little bit about the background of both films and also specifying which version of each film we were going to see. The prints, both dating from the early part of the decade, were in decent shape and great to view on the huge screen.

Both films played just great to me. BLACK SUNDAY (titled THE MASK OF SATAN on this version) expertly holds its mood and if its English-produced soundtrack isn’t entirely ideal (I’ve never seen the Italian version and the last time I saw the American AIP cut was a long time ago) the many effective passages throughout overwhelm anything else. This tale of a witch (the otherworldly Barbara Steele) who returns several centuries after being put to death to hopefully feed off her ancestors plays like a dark, sinuous adult fairy tale that genuinely feels like it has come to earth from some other realm. The moment of that mist appearing at the bottom of the frame just before Andrea Checci’s Dr. Kruvajan has his first unknowing encounter with the supernatural is the sort of effect that helps make the movie. Not an effect that serves as a loud crash, but an encroaching feeling of dread from a force that is unknown and beyond the comprehension of an intellectual mind. And maybe the effect of Barbara Steele’s performance is hampered by the dubbing, in both roles she manages to sell that feeling of someone so imbued with the feeling of being haunted in ways she doesn’t understand that it truly is a part of her soul. And it’s hard to take your eyes off those eyes.


But as great as it is, it was the triple-pronged horror of 1963’s anthology BLACK SABBATH which had the greater effect on me last night. Shown in the subtitled Italian version under its original title which translates as THE THREE FACES OF FEAR, this print has obviously been shown several times during the past few years. But the way the colors leapt off the screen and the effect this gave off more than made up for any scratches. “The Drop of Water” has imagery that is powerful and haunting in its primal nature, the proto-giallo lounge vibe of “The Telephone” is infectious, but viewing “The Wurdalak” in this context struck me as being a more successful exploration of certain ideas presented in BLACK SUNDAY—though not having Barbara Steele is definitely a drawback—and all of the elements combined here make it a true masterwork of the horror genre. I’m now convinced of that. Even Boris Karloff being dubbed into Italian cannot be considered a real drawback. Again, I haven’t seen the American cut of the film in years (the last time may have been during an all-night marathon at the Nuart back in 1994) but, more than any version of BLACK SABBATH I’ve ever seen, this feels like the true version of this film. Seen together, this double feature of magic, desire and the power of seemingly benign drops of water are films which serve not only as an enjoyable kickoff to the festival, but an ideal entryway into the world of Mario Bava for anyone who is interested.

Of the Dark and Light

Something I always feel I need to remember is how sprawling the history of film is. There are far too many movies to see and there’s only so much time I have to see them. What I have to do is deal with the ones I do see in the best way I know how. And keep in mind that there is always more to learn about them.


The Mario Bava series at the American Cinematheque is about to begin and I am anxiously looking forward to going, but first there is some unfinished business I need to take care of. I never got around to putting down any thoughts on Tim Lucas’s epic biography on the director, MARIO BAVA: ALL THE COLORS OF THE DARK when it was finally released last fall. In some ways, coming up with the right way to describe my reaction to it was a little daunting at the time. It still is, but I think I also wanted to keep my response a little bit to myself. I’d waited a long time for that book. I can remember talking with someone at a Christmas party in 2000, wondering just how much longer we’d be waiting for it. I actually own every issue of Video Watchdog, the journal that he has published with his wife Donna since 1990. I never subscribed for reasons which are just as mysterious to me. No, I’ve simply bought every copy in stores, on newsstands, wherever I would find the latest issue. But not at all mysterious is the fact that it did truly affect how I looked at films. The birth of the magazine coincided with a time in my life when I was open to new concepts, new types of movies that I hadn’t explored yet. Way back then I was really beginning to study Preston Sturges, Billy Wilder, Howard Hawks, countless others…but there were the more fantastic areas of cinema to explore as well. Looking into horror movies that I learned about through reading Video Watchdog led to Hammer Films, to Dario Argento, to Italian Horror films…and of course to Mario Bava. What I get from his films is not expert narrative, but a mastery of a feel which can so rarely be found in such genre films. From him I get a mood, a feel of color, a frisson, which is unavoidably different from what many lesser filmmakers ever seem to think to offer. From his eye came a particular way of photographing Barbara Steele’s face, Christopher Lee’s hands, Boris Karloff in his twilight, John Phillip Law scaling the side of a castle, the pure and utter dream feel to LISA AND THE DEVIL along with many others including the unforgettable finale of TWITCH OF THE DEATH NERVE, which Joe Dante once referred to as “the greatest ending since CITIZEN KANE.” I remember the gleeful expressions on the faces of the audience after a Cinematheque screening ten years ago and it would have been hard to convince any of them otherwise. His films are sometimes slow and very much come from another time and place but if you’re willing to take that dive, it can be hard to go back to the way it was before where other movies can seem more…normal.


Learning about the films he had made and the circumstances they were made in increased my interest in movies that came from that part of the world during that point in time. The Euro-lounge vibe of DANGER DIABOLIK and FIVE DOLLS FOR AN AUGUST MOON tied in to my increasing fixation on lounge scores overall…I could go on with this, but I won’t. MARIO BAVA: ALL THE COLORS OF THE DARK is a book I have waited a long time for and the wait was more than worth it. A volume which has essentially been in the works for Tim Lucas’s career as a journalist and film historian, it’s a physically huge piece of work, weighing a full 12 pounds and is 1128 pages. It’s bigger than most coffee table books and has several times the text of any normal book as well. Fortunately I pre-ordered it years ago before the price went up, a wise choice on my part. It is daunting, yes, but like diving off that cliff to explore Bava, his films and Italian genre cinema in general, it is worth it. It’s a culmination of what Tim Lucas has spent a lifetime learning, but it’s also a pure expression of love for cinema. Reading Video Watchdog through the years has been an outlet towards allowing my love of film to grow. An accomplishment on the level of this book reminds me of how much I have actually discovered and loved about films through these years, but it also feels like a signpost telling me how much more there is to learn. It’s a thrill to have this book in my possession and I feel proud every time I open up to see my name in there, my real name, among the patrons who purchased it early on. And it’s spelled correctly, too…even my high school yearbook didn’t get that right.


The book reveals Mario Bava as a man who affected the world of film in ways which have never been fully appreciated. The cult which has been deservedly building around his name in recent years is actually somewhat similar to the character of Max Castle in Theodore Roszak’s novel FLICKER...only the effect Bava has had on the world has been a positive one. In Bava’s films, it is possible to get the feel of the true joy of making a film. And within that, you can get a true sense of the personality of the man who made it. I’m not sure how much more is needed from a movie.


Martin Scorsese, who was praising Bava in Film Comment way back in the seventies, provided the introduction to ALL THE COLORS OF THE DARK, writing of it, “It deserves a place on the bookshelves of all serious film lovers.” As usual, he’s right.

Yes, many of Bava's films can be found on DVD these days. But there's nothing like seeing them in the theater. The American Cinematheque series Mario Bava: Poems of Love and Death runs from March 13th and through the 23rd. If you need to find me, I’ll be at the Egyptian.

Pulling a Heist with Martine

THE BANK JOB is a terrific entertainment, a heist movie that makes no bones about what it wants to do and pulls it off extremely well. Maintaining an expert consistency of tone throughout, it pulls off being smart, funny, suspenseful and exciting. It never falls into the trap of being overly convoluted like these things become sometimes and yet the crisp quality of its storytelling never allows it to fall into dumb-dumb land. It’s tough to tell how these things are going to last sometimes but I walked out of it totally satisfied. While it may not be much of a thing to say in March, right now it’s the best film I’ve seen so far in 2008.

With a plot inspired by an actual occurrence in London in 1971, Jason Statham plays Terry Leather, a small-time bookie and car dealer in desperate need of money to pay off some mobsters coming after him. Approached by ex-girlfriend Martine Love (Saffron Burrows) with a unique idea for a bank heist, he brings in several mates who are also on a small-time level to work the job with them. What none of the men are aware of is that she has recently been arrested by Mi5 on a drug charge and the whole thing is merely a plot she has been roped into engineering to recover what are believed to be incriminating sex photos of a member of the Royal Family.


Like it should, THE BANK JOB assembles its pieces in an appropriate amount of time then moves on to the heist and never looks back. The setup has an obvious resemblance to SMALL TIME CROOKS, but even when things get mildly funny it’s never enough to rob it of its credibility so it’s not too much of a shift in tone when things become more serious in its second half. Filled with unique and interesting characters, it’s more of a thriller than an action movie and remains gripping throughout, never becoming dull. I can believe there’s a few heist movie fans out there who have been waiting for one that pulls it off as well as this one does. The early seventies-setting, pulled off in a matter-of-fact fashion, manages to be convincing yet never overwhelms the story.


Jason Statham is excellent in the lead and while it’s not really a Statham vehicle like the TRANSPORTER movies, he’s ideal as the leader of this group and proves that he’s one of a few really believable tough guys working today. I know I’ve seen Saffron Burrows in something before, not that I can remember offhand what it is, but she’s never made an impression on me before like she does here. Beautiful, enigmatic, she resembles Charlotte Rampling but very much has her own things going on. As the wonderfully-named Martine Love (actually, there are a lot of really good character names throughout) she’s a femme fatale who isn’t fully bad, she’s just scared and fearful of her own precarious situation. It’s a tricky character and one that another movie would possibly insist on shading her as the bad girl, but THE BANK JOB knows that there’s more to its cast of characters than by making things so simple. The whole film is excellently cast down to its smallest roles, with some of the other standouts being Daniel Mays as Dave Shilling, the member of the group who has dabbled in porn acting, Keeley Hawes as Statham’s wife, whose resemblance to Susan George makes her ideal casting for the period and David Suchet as the porn kingpin the gang manages to unwisely cross.

THE BANK JOB sets up what it wants to do and sticks with it, refreshingly treating its audience with intelligence and never succumbing to a dumb action climax simply because that’s what is expected these days. That’s not to say it’s not exciting—the way the tension ratchets up as the characters get deeper and deeper works very well and is not boring for a second. It’s easily director Roger Donaldson’s best film since NO WAY OUT back in 1987. How it holds up over time is something I’ll have to wait to find out. For now, it’s very much an extremely entertaining genre piece. We should always be so lucky.

Pay the Two Dollars

I can remember realizing one day that screenwriter Peter Stone was responsible for both CHARADE and THE TAKING OF PELHAM ONE TWO THREE and, my head spinning from that realization the the same person was responsible for such dialogue and plotting, I thought about the possibility of maybe contacting the man. I could tell him what a fan I was of his work, of his place in film history and maybe in conversation I could learn a little about how he did what he did, maybe pick his brain a little. I think there was a brief period around 2000 where this was actually possible through certain people I knew but I never took advantage of that opening, to my everlasting regret. He died in 2003.

These thoughts ran through my mind while watching THE TAKING OF PELHAM ONE TWO THREE at the Aero on Thursday night. Last fall I wrote a lengthy tirade against the impending remake and maybe part of the reason I went was not just to enjoy the rare occurrence of seeing it in a theater again but maybe to savor that one last time when I wouldn’t have to refer to it as the ‘the original’. The lousy remake for ABC in ’98 couldn’t accomplish that but there’s nothing I’ll be able to do against the firepower of Tony Scott and Denzel Washington. Nobody’ll be able to hear me over all that noise. So for this one final time I could go to a theater, thanks to the American Cinematheque, and experience the 1974 classic as simply PELHAM ONE TWO THREE.


And I got Hector Elizondo, alias Mr. Gray, alias Joe Welcome, in person for a Q & A after the movie (surprisingly, the evening at the Aero was not directed by Garry Marshall). No great revelations emerged from the talk—he talked about how most of the film was shot in an abandoned subway station in Brooklyn, how intimidating the intelligence of Robert Shaw was, that they played ping pong during down time on the set, pointed out the total lack of graffiti on the trains in the movie per Transit Authority insistence (hijacking and murder was, presumably, acceptable). Elizondo seemed most engaged when asked specific questions about his approach to his craft, from saying how he had to approach Mr. Grey as a person with no scruples whatsoever to talking about some of his extensive stage work in New York back in the 60s and 70s. While he obviously looks back fondly on those days in New York, he’s of course better known now for roles in many, many Garry Marshall films and while allowing that he misses New York he mused, “Not liking L.A. is like not liking ice cream.” If he didn’t get that line from Marshall, maybe it’s at least it’s a good indication of why they get along so well.


A fitting thought considering the Santa Monica location we were viewing PELHAM in was as far removed from the New York 70s as you can get. It may not be one of the best movies of 1974, or of the 70s overall, but it is one of the most enjoyable. It feels like it simply nails the tone of what that New York was just at the cusp of my conscious memory, a place which is now far in the past. It nails the attitude, it nails the sarcasm. Matthau is incredible but so for that matter is the entire cast, down to the smallest roles. And the most dynamic, propulsive parts of David Shire music are some of my very favorite moments in all of film scoring.

I don’t want to hear about the remake. I don’t want to talk about it, I don’t want to acknowledge it. And since this is my blog, not a goddamn democracy, to steal a line from Deputy Mayor Warren LaSalle, that’s the way it’s going to be. It’s the least I can do for Peter Stone and the inspiration he’s provided me.

“Screw the goddamn passengers! What the hell do they expect for their lousy 35 cents, to live forever?”

Fifty Bucks Never Killed Anybody

Over on Ken Levine’s excellent blog he recently posted a review of NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN written by BACK TO THE FUTURE co-screenwriter Bob Gale, who took the opportunity to not just voice his disapproval of the film, but to tear it apart from top to bottom, letting it be very clearly known how much he despised the Oscar winner. Unless, of course, it was meant as satire, which I really don’t think it was. He states that the film, written and directed by the Coen Brothers, from the novel by Cormac McCarthy, makes “no sense” and goes through the whole film beat by beat criticizing it, mostly from a writing standpoint, in such detail that it becomes open to question that the very idea of it offends him and nothing anyone argues would convince him otherwise. I suspect that he maybe have been expecting more of a traditional thriller, maybe similar to something directed by John Dahl in the mid-90s (films I like, by the way) and had an allergic reaction to a story which offered a little more ambiguity to it. And by the time he began one thought with the phrase, “Meanwhile, Tommy Lee is pontificating about nothing with some crippled fucker in the middle of nowhere,” I pretty much found myself throwing up my arms wondering why I’d spent so much time reading this.

I like BACK TO THE FUTURE. A lot. The swiss watch-like precision remains so entertaining that I’m not the least bit surprised it’s held up as a model of the form. But as great as it is, as I get older I can’t help but look at it as a shallow piece of work. And it’s not because it’s a comedy, because there are plenty of comedies which are very defiantly not shallow. And it’s not simply that I could think of a few story flaws in BACK TO THE FUTURE that go far beyond saying, “A DeLorean can’t really travel through time!” (but hey, if he’s going to nitpick, why does it need to go at 88 mph. anyway?) It has to do with the film’s own comic tone which sometimes feels divorced from the reality of recognizable human behavior building up to it’s case of an ending which is happy at least partly because the hero now has a new truck. Reading the review I flashed on a memory from the audio commentary for the film where Robert Zemeckis talks about this ending of the film, musing about how it plays as so representative of the 80s now with its acquisitions of objects by Marty McFly seen as such a victory and how no critics at the time pointed it out. Gale points out, “Hey, he’s got a truck now,” but Zemeckis argues, “Yeah, but they’re material things,” and while they almost immediately move on to other topics it occurred to me that maybe Zemeckis had matured into a different realization of what the film he had directed may have been saying. Gale, as far as I could tell, hadn’t and that made me wonder about what sort of person he was and why he may have had the response he did to NO COUNTRY. Does he fundamentally object to a genre piece which aspires to say something more? Was he upset that it wasn’t what he thought it was going to be? Does he object to films that take a different approach from what he believes screenplay structure should be? Sometimes when a film character does X instead of Y, it’s not a case of that person being badly written but an example of how the individual might be reacting to something in a way unique to that person. And I get the feeling that Bob Gale believes that all characters should behave in ways which are in accordance to his own screenwriting beliefs. I suppose he’s entitled to feel that way, but it seems like such an uninteresting way to approach writing screenplays and the characters within them.


When we reached that scene with the “crippled fucker” played by Barry Corbin in my first viewing of NO COUNTRY, I found myself sinking in my seat as I began to realize what this movie was really about. It wasn’t about the money and it wasn’t about the excitement of the brilliantly executed suspense sequences as Javier Bardem is chasing Josh Brolin and it wasn’t about plot of the Mexicans and what have you. It was really about something much deeper, something I was relating to in my own life and no, I’m not going to get into what that is. It’s too personal and it’s my own business. But those thoughts didn’t suddenly come from nowhere—they had to do with the effect the movie was having on me.

This realization is something which will lead me back to NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN numerous times and I look forward to that. Any shallowness I get out of BACK TO THE FUTURE will cause it to diminish over time in my head. Sometimes it can be difficult to put into words what are those extra elements of flavor, of substance, of life that can go into certain films. And it’s not limited to genre, considering the amount of comedies, action and horror films which have thrilled me over the years and have enough substance to allow me to continually evaluate what those movies are. Maybe a film can offer an idea of what its director (and, by extension, writer) is like as a person and from that you may think “I’d like to sit down and have a conversation with this person about life” or “I’d like to sit down, have a beer and watch the game with this director” or, in the case of Michael Bay, “I never want to be anywhere near this person for the duration of my life.”


More than BACK TO THE FUTURE, the Zemeckis-Gale production which really holds up these days is their 1980 comedy USED CARS. Crass, vulgar, politically incorrect, excellently performed by its cast and consistently hysterical, it’s the film of theirs which should be taught in classes and is a true example of how brilliantly a comedy could be constructed. And, of course, it gave immortality to the phrase, “Fifty bucks never killed anybody.” On the off chance that you’ve never seen it, I can’t recommend it more highly. Within that humor is a feeling of creative minds saying something unique about its characters and the world they live in. Part of what can be so addicting about films is discovering these creative views given to us, whether by the Coen Brothers or the team of Robert Zemeckis & Bob Gale. I still like a number of the films that Bob Gale has his name on, but I’m not sure of the opinion I now have of that creative mind which contributed to making them.

If Only for an Hour

It’s strange to say, but Idina Menzel kind of creeps me out. Not because I find her unattractive or untalented, because it’s definitely not that. In some bizarre kind of way, I almost strangely find her a little too attractive. To be more blunt about it, to me she essentially comes off as a genetic amalgam of every woman that I’ve ever been attracted to yet have never had much interest in me. Okay, maybe a few others who did actually have some interest as well. And her role as Vera Rivkin in the film version of ASK THE DUST only serves to emphasize that feeling. As films about the struggle of writing in Los Angeles during the first half of the twentieth century go, it’s no BARTON FINK and doesn’t fully succeed in translating the essence of Fante’s prose onto the screen. There’s also the problem of leads Colin Farrell and Salma Hayek who never fully mesh together and even separately never seem to be fully inhabiting their roles. It’s not that they seem disengaged from the piece—like the film itself their work is well-meaning but it falls short. I’m glad that Robert Towne was able to make it, but I wish it were better.


These misgivings do not come into play whenever Menzel is onscreen. She appears fairly deep into the film and really only appears in two sections (more than just scenes) playing her entire role opposite Farrell. More than a few times now I’ve stumbled across the film on cable during her first section and found myself waiting around to view the rest of her role. As Vera Rivkin, a young woman working as a housekeeper bearing scars both physical and emotional, in her brief screen time she believably goes from comical to annoying to crazy to ecstatic to sad and ultimately heartbreaking. The true effect her character has on Farrell’s Arturo Bandini and his character’s journey is felt mostly when she is not even onscreen and that manages to give the film what power it does have. Much of her dialogue actually comes directly from author John Fante’s text in the original book but what she is able to get across just by her very presence shows that she understands the fear and sadness of the character more than she ever gets the chance to say. As crazy as she might very well be, the hesitant yearning clearly in her voice when she talks about reading Bandini’s story for the first time makes it hard for me not to fall for her. And it makes me want to be a better writer. A moment like that makes it seem like ASK THE DUST would be a lot more interesting if Bandini would forget about Salma Hayek’s Camilla and stay with this much more compelling wounded flower.

I never saw RENT on the stage, but I thought the movie was a crock. She’s fine in ENCHANTED but the movie isn’t very interested in her character and she’s clearly there more as a reference point to her musical background anyway. The songs from her album heard on her MySpace page don’t interest me, nice as her voice might be, she seems more interested in the stage than films and she’s also married to Taye Diggs. I definitely can’t compete with that. Her fanbase seems to be mainly teenage girls and gay men which means that her career aspirations clearly lie in a different demographic path than I tool around in.


So I’ll take her brief role in ASK THE DUST and hope for maybe another look at her talent and beauty at some point in something else that I would actually want to see. Her attractiveness has a soulful feel of depth and intelligence to me, to a much greater extent than certain popular actresses who are way overexposed these days. There’s something in Idina Menzel’s face, in her eyes, that I can’t ignore. But I won’t tell her that it kind of scares me too. I’ll keep it secret.