I’ve been watching a lot of films submitted to me by talented film-makers, who usually make genre films (horror or science fiction) on zero budgets.   I make films with budgets lower than a pregnant ant, so I can relate.    What bothers me is that most of these film-makers make films that are imitating Hollywood successes. 
  
       One film that comes to mind is Florida based Writer/Director Michael Clinkenbeard’s Nightfall.   The film centers on a group of friends gathering for a backyard Memorial Day Bar-B-Q.  Newscasts off the living room TV tell of a sudden shower of destructive meteors.  One lands near the house, nearly wrecking the place.  Our barbequing heroes soon learn from the TV broadcasts that these meteors are a “vanguard of an invading army from the planet Mars.”  Recognize the wording?   It’s from Orson Welles’ famed 1938 The War of the Worlds radio broadcast.  In fact, Clinkenbeard’s TV newscasters here often recite the same dialog from the ’38 broadcast.   You would think Welles deserves a writing credit here.   The film feels too much like Cloverfield (both films have a big alien attack covered via hand-held home video camera), The Blair Witch Project (both films have mucho off camera monsters) and Night of the Living Dead (housebound monster-attack survivors arguing a course of action).    Nightfall sometimes has a genuine sense of claustrophobia.  You want his heroes to survive as unhurt as possible.  Clinkenbeard has potential for making Grade A horror, but he needs to stray from mimicking what Hollywood, and past indie directors have done.   George Romero made a name for himself because he took rules and clichés of Hollywood horror storytelling and kicked them down the stairs. 
      
       Film-maker Daron Ker’s documentary I Ride is a fascinating, heartfelt look at the more constructive side of American Biker culture.   After watching this constantly informative film, you learn bikers rise above the stereotype of drunken, bearded road-ragers with scary mammary-flashing wives.  We learn that many bikers are constructive members of society, who will even hold benefits to raise money to battle diabetes.   This film unearthed a long lost memory out of my head.  Forty years ago, my mother, my sister Wendy and myself (then a kid of about ten) were traveling along the Florida Keys.  We stopped at a Howard Johnsons for breakfast, only to find out the employees had all walked off their job, leaving many customers and us abandoned and hungry.  A biker gang pulled up, expecting quick service.  When they heard about the walkout, the bikers became waiters and waitresses, took our orders and served our food.  Other than oddball mix-ups like my orange juice served in a parfait glass, the food was fine.  I kept a permanent positive image about bikers.    If you have never been served breakfast by a biker gang, I recommend I Ride as a terrific eye-opening look at biker culture.

       Financially, independent film is slipping into an Ice Age.   The festivals and independent theatre chains cater mostly to indies made within the industry – directed by leading Hollywood actors and actresses.   This leaves true indies scrambling for venues to show our films, and to bring in a profit.   In fact, I just spoke to one independent film-maker who has won several international film festival awards, only to find out she has sold most of her possessions and furniture in order to keep her film playing at festivals.  This makes getting investors for your indie film production feel like a lost cause. 
  
       Many film-makers have successfully gathered production money by using sites like Kickstater and IndieGoGo.    Instead of offering a percentage in the film profits (which mostly likely won’t happen), a film project listed on one of these sites can offer real gifts for contributing.   For example, a film-maker can offer for a $ 25 investment, a copy of the finished film.    For a larger investment, let’s say of $700 to perhaps $10,000, a film-maker can offer invitations to the wrap-party, a piece of one-of-a-kind artwork associated with the film, a meet-and-greet with the film’s stars, or you or your business can make an appearance in the film.    According to a recent Wall Street Journal article, IndieGoGo has funded more than 24,000 projects since 2008.   According to the same article, in October 2011, The House Financial Services Committee backed legislation that would make it possible for small businesses to use “crowd funding” sources like IndieGoGo to raise money from percentage-sharing investors. 

       I welcome feed-back, and requests to review films.  I can be directly contacted through my e-mail address Gandreiev@aol.com or on my Facebook Page. 

We all wanted revenge on somebody. And, come on – some of your images of “getting back” would require rolls of paper towels to clean up afterwards. That is why we have such quirky and macabre gems like SOME GUY WHO KILLS PEOPLE. This new indie film starts off with a group of tough-looking guys brutally beating a helpless young man, Ken (Kevin Corrigan, THE DEPARTED). The reason for the beating is in a comic book one of thugs holds. The beating lands Ken in an asylum. Upon release, he gets a job at an ice cream parlor, mostly as a costumed ice cream cone. Ken’s sour facial expression and grim costume makes him look like a diabetics nightmare. His tormentors, now older but still volatile jerks, are all being brutally killed off, and the local sheriff hasn’t a clue (the sheriff is played with great comic timing by Barry Bostwick- of ROCKY HORROR fame). SOME GUY WHO KILLS PEOPLE is a triple-scoop cinematic ice-cream cone of scares, laughs and heart. A characters like Ken, who we care about, is put in truly suspenseful situations, and sometimes you feel like you’re watching an episode of FORENSIC FILES gone delightfully silly.

“I’ve always been attracted to films that effectively mix genres,” states director Jack Perez “That’s exactly what Ryan Levin’s screenplay for SOME GUY WHO KILLS PEOPLE offered — a unique mix of thriller, comedy and drama elements — all beautifully balanced. One of the genre-mixing films I love is THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN. In the same film you have that goofy king trying to climb out of a bottle, and than a few minutes later, you’re ready to cry when the monster meets the blind-man. The possibilities of making audiences laugh one moment, scare them silly the next, and ultimately have them genuinely invested in the characters was challenging and intoxicating. It was exactly the film I had been searching to make for many years.”

The cast does stellar work here, and the standout is Ariel Glade, who plays Ken’s wise-to-the-world daughter. Her performance isn’t going for typical cute – just genuinely smart. The filming of SOME GUYS WHO KILL PEOPLE was completed in under twenty days, whereas most Hollywood features have shooting schedules of 80 to 200 days! Given the rushed shooting schedule, Director of Photography Shawn Maurer achieved a look rich in color, reminding us of Robert Burks’ Technicolor cinematography for Alfred Hitchcock.

On a compact shoot like SOME GUY WHO KILLS PEOPLE, last minute pitfalls, such as locations suddenly becoming unavailable, add to the creativity. “You learn not to panic, but to make it work for the film,” remarked Perez.

I wonder, why does almost every reference to vintage Hollywood depict either GONE WITH THE WIND or CASABLANCA? It’s as if we are all forced to worship certain “iconic” films with strong fan-bases, films that have become cultural landmarks. There are better films, similar to these icons, that deserve a closer look. It doesn’t mean I hate these iconic films. I feel these are good, maybe very good, films worth having in a home video collection, worth a repeat viewing, but I don’t see them as being the very pinnacle of their genres.

THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA (1925) has been referred to in horror movie magazines and books as the definitive silent horror movie. For years, this was almost the only Hollywood silent horror film easily available for revival screenings. Of course, its most famous scene is still brilliant and a chiller – where lovely Christine (Mary Philbin) sneaks up behind her masked captor, The Phantom (Lon Chaney), and unmasks him. The rest of this 107-minute film doesn’t measure up. PHANTOM’s director, Rupert Julian had almost no grasp of making a horror film. Apparently he constantly fought with the cast to the point where romantic lead, Norman Kerry, physically attacked him. When Julian walked off the film, Buster Keaton’s sometimes director Edward Sedgwick worked on it uncredited. For quality silent era chills, go with other Lon Chaney horror films, which only recently became available on DVD, such as THE UNKNOWN, or HE WHO GETS SLAPPED. Universal’s silent horror masterwork THE MAN WHO LAUGHS is a far more compelling, suspenseful horror film than PHANTOM THE MAN WHO LAUGHS was intended for Lon Chaney, but Chaney dropped out and Conrad Viedt took the role (and created wonders with it.)

GONE WITH THE WIND (1939) The first half of this world famous screen adaptation of Margaret Mitchell’s novel about the fall of the old South is Hollywood studio film-making at full tilt! It is bursting with compelling characters, enticing history, scenery and breathtaking Technicolor cinematography (Cinematographer Ernest Haller deserves strong praise here!) But then the second half of the film, after the Civil War ends, where Scarlett (Vivien Leigh) rebuilds Tara, etc, is rather mediocre. Scarlett’s rocky marriage to the guy best suited for her, Rhett Butler (Clark Gable) is tainted by her wanting unattainable Ashley Wilkes (Leslie Howard). This is something straight out of a soap opera. It might as well take place in Long Island in 1939. GONE WITH THE WIND plays like a fireworks show in reverse: the spectacular overload of pomp and awe is all at the beginning, and the smaller introductory booms and pops conclude the show.

CASABLANCA (1942) Many “movie best” books and references to Hollywood’s golden era immediately depict this well-made mix of wartime angst and romance, but I always have a hard time getting drawn into CASABLANCA. I’m sorry, I find Ilsa (Ingrid Bergman) and Rick (Humphrey Bogart) to be uninteresting characters. Everybody involved in this film, cast and crew, did really good work here, but they are all better in other, less iconic titles. Humphrey Bogart will later show what acting is all about once and for all in THE TREASURE OF SIERRA MADRE. Ingrid Bergman will star in a more romantic and suspenseful wartime-valentine film – Alfred Hitchcock’s NOTORIOUS. Director Michael Curtiz did better films (THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD and ANGELS WITH DIRTY FACES instantly come to mind), and I have stronger memories of CASABLANCA’S co-stars (Peter Lorre, Claude Rains, Conrad Viedt, etc.) in other films.

RASHOMON (1950) Akira Kurosawa’s brilliant, minimalist study of how the shattering experience of a rape/murder rattles the human spirit was the first Japanese film to make a worldwide splash. That’s because it won, amongst other well-deserved awards, the Golden Lion at the 1951 Venice Film Festival. Those handing the award to Kurosawa didn’t know that this director made a better film one year earlier, which I feel is the film that should have opened the floodgates for Japanese cinema – his 1949 crime thriller STRAY DOG. STRAY DOG, which didn’t work the festival route upon release, has only recently become known amongst stateside Kurosawa fans. In STRAY DOG, rookie detective Murakami (Toshiro Mifune) tracks down the homicidal thief who stole his loaded pistol and is using it in robberies all throughout World War II torn Tokyo. It’s Japan’s BICYCLE THIEVES – a compelling search through a war-ravished city.

A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE (1951) This must have been 1951’s big shocker!. The film’s leading man is Marlon Brando’s Stanley Kowalski, a morally vacant control freak in dirty clothing with the violent temperament of a badly behaved six year old. Brando’s performance is so strong, your blood boils whenever he’s on the screen. My problem with STREETCAR is that it takes itself so seriously. Director Elia Kazan knew he was making something different, and dealing with such adult subject matter, that the film becomes painfully self-conscious. I feel Kazan was a breathe away from slapping a pulsating “See folks, this is just like real life…” subtitle whenever Brando misbehaves, or whenever the ready-to-boil living conditions are shown. Kazan would repeat this so-serious-it’s-deathly preachy approach with ON THE WATERFRONT (1954). His later film, A FACE IN THE CROWD (1957), about the rags-to-riches tale of a megalomaniac TV personality (Andy Griffith at his very best!) is a much better slice-of-real-life film. Unlike STREETCAR, A FACE IN THE CROWD delivers a strong message and doesn’t mind becoming satirical.

GIANT (1956) I feel horrible adding an Elizabeth Taylor film to my “iconic films that ain’t that great” list so soon after this wonderful lady’s passing. George Stevens’ film version of Edna Ferber’s novel about the rise of Texas as an empire is majestic, with great scenery and larger-than-life characters that need to be seen on a large screen. When James Dean’s bad-boy Jett Rink strikes it rich with his struggling oil well, the screen and our senses are full of life, but this segment is surrounded by endless drawn out material about the Benedicts (Rock Hudson and Elizabeth Taylor) adjusting to life in an awfully big house. GIANT gains energy again towards the end with the introduction of Rock Hudson’s modernized and emotional son, played with brooding gusto by newcomer Dennis Hopper. Apparently Dean was needed for post–production re-shoots but his untimely death caused Stevens to live with already-filmed mediocre material, for which he hired rising star Nick Adams to re-dub some of Dean’s dialogue.

MY FAIR LADY (1964) Jack L. Warner pulled Hollywood’s top drawer (Director George Cukor, costume designer Cecil Beaton, cinematographer Harry Stradling Sr. and musician Andre Previn) to create this colorful musical version of PGYMALION, George Bernard Shaw’s wonderful satirical spin on how the English should be spoken in much gooder and correcter ways. This film is gorgeous eye candy, and Audrey Hepburn is a delight here, but its 170-minute length is a killer. I prefer Anthony Asquith and Leslie Howard’s 1938 PYGMALION instead. That earlier film is not a musical, but Howard’s Professor Higgins is such a perfectionist-lunatic, you’re amused and intimidated by him at the same time. MY FAIR LADY took home that year’s Academy Award for Best Picture. Instead of being traditional and giving the Oscar to an expensive old-fashioned musical behemoth, why didn’t they give the award to the much funnier and more inventive musical, that same year’s A HARD DAYS NIGHT?

A CLOCKWORK ORANGE (1971) Stanley Kubrick’s film adaptation of Anthony Burgess’ in-your-face morality fable is blasted with such immoral and shocking imagery that it rivets you to your seat in the first act. This famous film starts off following a vicious young street gang in a futuristic, cheerless society. But, as soon as “your humble narrator”, Alex, is told by police “Your latest victim had died! You’re now a murderer!” the film falls apart all at once. Sophomoric humor is slipped in everywhere, as if during production a naughty fourteen-year old kid demonically possessed Kubrick. You’re trying to watch the film, get into the story, and every other second, it’s “here’s a line of dialog with dirty innuendo,” “here’s a man blowing kisses to Alex,” “another naked lady,” “another overdone reaction by star Malcolm MacDowell.” This almost X-Rated material resulted in CLOCKWORK getting copious amounts of press. CLOCKWORK was rushed into production after Kubrick’s failed NAPOLEON film, and it feels rushed, sandwiched between vastly superior Kubrick films – DR. STRANGELOVE, 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY, and BARRY LYNDON and THE SHINING.

THE GODFATHER (1972) Living within hollering distance of Brooklyn and Queens, “Godfather” imagery, tributes and satires are everywhere for me. Francis Coppola’s film, on first viewing in 1972 showed audiences, weary of political corruption, a society that made no-bones about it, a society that earned money by stealing and strong-arming. This society protects it’s own, and sometimes, allows for the growth of honest enterprises within it’s system. Corruption and savage violence are the elements that keeps “the lights on” in this society. I really enjoy THE GODFATHER, but it drags in spots, and it’s segments become predictable. Scorsese’s GOODFELLAS did Cine-Mafia much better. For me, Marlon Brando, in the title role, has little to do here, but it’s the individual stories about his varied sons that keep THE GODFATHER a grabber (Al Pacino, James Caan, Robert Duvall and John Cazale should have received a group Oscar). Coppola would return two years later with the much more compelling and better paced GODFATHER PART TWO. PART TWO gives the audience a clear cut “history” of the Mafia, forming in old Italy and becoming the other great power in 20th century America.

Again, I feel these are all very good films, but not great. Calling most of these films iconic is like calling a well-made tuna sandwich a five star delicacy. These films came at the right time, striking a mass audience nerve. However, circumstances have prevented better films, sometimes with the same cast, director or subject, from getting the proper release, or the well deserved critical response they deserved.

Here’re two obscure films from Hollywood’s naughty, edgy pre-code era, that time in early sound film before 1934, after which strict censorship codes dictated what exactly went up on that movie screen! Universal and TCM put their heads together and released two exotic, exciting pre-code film: SONG OF SONGS and THIS IS THE NIGHT on DVD.

SONG OF SONGS

With his pre-code films dealing with forbidden subjects, maverick director Rouben Mamoulian surely pushed the buttons of early 1930′s Hollywood censors! Mamoulian’s debut film, APPLAUSE (1929) was set in a seedy burlesque house, a protagonist in his DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE (1931) was Miriam Hopkins’ doomed prostitute, Ivy, and various songs in his revolutionary musical LOVE ME TONIGHT (1932) dealt with possessive lovers and undressing!

In his 1933 film, SONG OF SONGS, Marlene Dietrich strays from her famous, mysterious, exotic-beauty persona to play Lily, a simple peasant girl who is talked into posing nude for a brash young artist, Richard (Brian Aherne). Her love affair with Richard is very brief, and she soon takes up with a lecherous Baron (Lionel Atwill). Mamoulian’s handling of the subject of posing nude is amazingly mature – it’s not there for the peep-show value, but gives us an insight into Lily’s initial discomfort with the task, and how she relaxes afterwards. The film does take the Victorian-era stance that once you pose nude, it’s a hopeless downward moral spiral, but it’s a lot of fun, anyways. This is Dietrich’s first American film made without her “svengali-like” director Josef von Sternberg. To me, it is no accident that Atwill’s baron bears a close resemblance to that obsessive directorial genius. Mamoulian’s earlier films constantly burst alive with still now inventive uses of film technology (two examples include his single-take transformation of Jekyll into Hyde, and the brazen musical orchestration of everyday street sound effects that open LOVE ME TONIGHT). SONG OF SONGS is filmed in a rather pedestrian way. In fact, it often looks like Mamoulian is imitating von Sternberg’s use of shadow and exotic costuming.

THIS IS THE NIGHT

THIS IS THE NIGHT is much more than simply being Cary Grant’s screen debut. It is a lively early sound romantic comedy that often plays like an experimental silent film. Its night-time scenes are tinted soft blue. The film begins with a skit involving a Parisian smut peddler scamming a tourist, where they communicate using the same styled gibberish talk used by Chaplin in the opening of CITY LIGHTS. After this skit, an entire city block breaks into a wicked song about a gold-digger, Claire (Thelma Todd) accidentally losing her dress while partying with her sugar daddy boyfriend (Roland Young). Claire’s plans with the boy-toy are dashed when her unsuspecting but jealous husband (Cary Grant) changes vacation plans. The real star of THIS IS THE NIGHT is Lila Damita, who plays the sexy mistress to Grant’s girl hungry but jittery buddy, Bunny (Charles Ruggles, the perfect actor to play a man called “Bunny”). Damita’s Hollywood career never took off the way it should have. All eyes are on her in this film (her nickname in Hollywood was “Dynamita”). Damita, who was first married to director Michael Curtiz, then had a rocky seven-year marriage to Errol Flynn (Her union with Flynn produced a son, Sean)

THIS IS THE NIGHT could have been done in an experimental way where it’s technical wizardry excites cinema-philes and bores audiences. It’s a fun little ride meant to amuse a mass audience. Its director, New York born Frank Tuttle, would later helm such noir masterworks as the 1935 George Raft THE GLASS KEY and the film that made Alan Ladd a star – THIS GUN FOR HIRE.

“I am lying on the floor, with gulls and birds literally tied to my clothing, having birds thrown towards me by the bird handlers,” recalls a humor-filled Tippi Hedren. “Then Cary Grant walks onto the set. He looks at me on the ground and says ‘You’re the bravest lady I ever met!” Ms. Hedren was talking with a sold-out theatre packed with film fans there to see her and a screening of THE BIRDS, which instantly made her an iconic star. This free screening of Alfred Hitchcock’s boldly experimental and suspense-filled classic, at Huntington, Long Island’s Cinema Arts Centre, was part of TCM’s Road To Hollywood Tour. This was a nation-wide Festival of classic film screenings hosted by two of TCM’s hosts, Robert Osborne and Ben Mankiewicz, (Mr. Mankiewicz was here at the Cinema Arts Centre. My interview with Ben is nearby on FIR.)

Glenn Andreiev (GA): THE BIRDS ends with our heroes (Played By Ms. Hedren, Rod Taylor, Jessica Tandy and Veronica Cartwright?) in a car, slowly and carefully driving from the house and yard that is over-come by birds, who wait to launch another attack. At this point, the film fades out. I once read a shooting script where the action continues, where the birds begin flying after the car. Rod Taylor’s character. Mitch, has to drive on a curving road, slowing their escape, hoping to reach a straight highway where he can out-run the birds. They barely make it to the highway and speed off to safety. Was this ever filmed?

Tippi Hedren: No. Hitchcock didn’t know exactly how to end the film, and quite often he would invite all of us into his office to discuss possible endings. My favorite proposed ending had the car drive from Bodega Bay (where the film takes place) to San Francisco and they see that the Golden Gate Bridge is covered with birds. Than we see the St. Louis Arch covered with birds, than the Statue of Liberty covered with birds. The Arch de Triumph, covered with birds. Red Square in Moscow covered with birds. But, they didn’t end the film that way

GA: There is new biography of your BIRDS co-star Rod Taylor, titled ROD TAYLOR- AN AUSSIE IN HOLLYWOOD by Stephen Vagg, which claims Taylor was a bit of a bad-boy. How was he on the set?

Tippi: Oh, he was great. Absolutely wonderful.

GA: A year after THE BIRDS, you worked with Hitchcock again on MARNIE, which is now being re-discovered by audiences.

Tippi: That is my favorite. Because “Marnie” herself, was such a complicated character. (I mention that MARNIE works so well because nothing is ever explained a hundred percent – the audience is always guessing.) Reading the original book by Winston Graham was amazing. With a film, you can’t completely get into a character’s head, but Marnie was so brilliant in how she planned all her thefts, and her control of finances. She was pretty amazing.

GA: As I mentioned to Ben Mankiewicz earlier, during the 1970′s, movies like THE BIRDS would wind up on whatever few TV channels we had, so it was commonplace, lets say on the school-bus for your friends to say “Oh, did you see THE BIRDS last night?” But with the advance of so many cable channels, and so much newer, heavily marketed programming, films like THE BIRDS were for a while, tucked aside. Now it’s great to see places like TCM, or The Cinema Arts Centre where younger audiences can discover these films.

Ms. Hedren introduced the screening of THE BIRDS, giving the packed Cinema Arts Centre house quite the earful on herself and Mr. Hitchcock. She explained her pre-BIRDS days, living in Los Angeles as a struggling model. Her agent calls, stating that a director at Universal wants to meet her. She goes to Universal, meeting agents, Universal executives and associates about this upcoming big project by an un-named director. They lead her to a door, open the door, and there is Alfred Hitchcock! She goes on to tell a funny story that took place during the film’s production: a nervous assistant entered her trailer, muttering something about the upcoming scene to be shot (where the birds attack her in the bedroom) He’s too timid to make eye-contact with her, but after he exits, he exclaims; “Oh, there won’t be mechanical fake birds in this scene!!! You’re doing the scene with live birds!”

Ms. Hedren then went on to tell the unfortunate story about Hitchcock on the set of MARNIE, requesting she becomes his mistress, and that turning this offer down made Hitchcock sabotage her career. “And he did: he kept me under contract, kept paying me every week for almost two years to do nothing.” She explained. “It’s too bad. I was impressed at how he handled an audience, but he had these demons.” Tippi Hedren still works in films today, and she answered another calling – helping to save wild animals from extinction. She currently lives at a wildlife compound with 58 lions and tigers, and has become quite the veterinarian and wildlife expert. She told the audience about birds: “There are gulls, all types of gulls, but no such thing as ‘sea-gulls’. See, you all just learned something!”

You can learn more about Tippi Hedren’s endeavors to help preserve our wildlife at her website http://www.shambala.org/

You’ve entered a frightening city where guns and bombs hit you at random, where alongside vast poverty, overnight millionaires party in decadent, eerie nightclubs. You find this freaked-out city is secretly controlled by a mad genius leading a double life – Dr. Mabuse! England’s answer to Criterion, Eureka, which brings worldwide classic cinema to home video, has released a beautiful must-have DVD box set – THE COMPLETE FRITZ LANG DR. MABUSE, which includes all four Mabuse films directed by Lang. The first two films in the set – DR. MABUSE THE GAMBLER, and DR. MABUSE KING OF CRIME, two of the most exciting silent films you’ll ever find, were both produced in Germany and released in 1922. They are clearly a close examination of the chaotic city of Berlin a decade before Hitler came to power. The third film, and the first Mabuse talkie, 1933′s THE TESTEMENT OF DR. MABUSE is Fritz Lang at the height of his popularity and creativity. Aside from being a fast paced and macabre treat, it is also a thinly disguised dark satire and warning about Hitler. The fourth Mabuse film, 1960′s THE 1000 EYES OF DR. MABUSE, is Lang’s last film. It shows a post-war city and nation desperate to modernize and ally itself with a world it recently tried to dominate. (Other film-makers in the 1960′s would continue making Mabuse films, and Mabuse shows up as a guest villain in a GREEN HORNET episode).

DR MABUSE THE GAMBLER (1922) introduces us to Mabuse, a master of disguises and the ultimate midnight gambler! During the day, Mabuse utilizes several faces to help organize the heist of valuable international documents. Donning the look of an emotionless day-trader, Mabuse uses the panic caused by the document theft to make a stock market killing. At night, Mabuse frequents the many Berlin nightclubs to hypnotize fellow gamblers to make more of a killing. (These expressionistic night-club sets could be called “The Hard Rock Cafes of Dr. Caligari”) Mabuse uses his power of hypnotism to bring down fortunes and create city-wide chaos. Rudolf Klien-Rogge, an excellent Teutonic looking actor Lang would later use as a villain in METROPOLIS and SPIES, plays Mabuse with un-nerving gusto. In the second silent film, DR. MABUSE – KING OF CRIME (1922), Inspector Wenk is assigned to capture this mysterious master criminal. Wenk falls under Mabuse’s spell, and in a delirious scene that pre-dates Kubrick’s star-gate sequence by almost half a century, has a very close call during a car chase. (Lang would again incorporate an even more dream-like car chase in THE TESTEMENT OF DR. MABUSE). Part expressionistic horror, part early James Bond styled thriller and part PERILS OF PAULINE-like cliffhanger, these two silent Mabuse films proved Lang was a director worth watching. Many of his famed directorial touches start here. In METROPOLIS, our hero imagines a malfunctioning machine turning into the monstrous Moloch. A similar mind-bending hallucination has Mabuse’s furniture becoming hideous living creatures. As with the banker/evil megalomaniac/vaudeville clown in Lang’s SPIES and the mafia don/party animal in THE BIG HEAT, Mabuse has plenty of time to bask, in disguise, in his choice of nightlife. Motifs of a double – or a shadow, (The German word is “Dopple-Ganger”) has always dominated German culture. Look at the German expressionistic silents, like THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI, NOSFERATU, WARNING SHADOWS and MABUSE, which feature villains throwing evil shadows. Linear notes and accompanying documentaries in this box set explain how these silent films captured Germany’s state of mind at the time. The two silent MABUSE films are beautifully restored here. We see their original German inter-titles, with occasional gasp-inducing filthy-language. These films together run under four hours, and it’s well worth making a spooky, exciting evening of it!

THE TESTEMENT OF DR. MABUSE, a German production, premiered in Budapest in early 1933, but was banned in Germany until 1951. Mabuse, at the beginning of this film is a catatonic patient of Professor Baum. All Mabuse has been doing since his capture ten years hence is to sit in his asylum cell and draw senseless scribbles about world domination on scrap paper. A group of powerful thieves answer to an unseen man who follows the ancient writings of Mabuse. The protagonist here is the bulldog-ish Inspector Karl Lohmann, who was the side-of-the-law in Lang’s previous film, M (1931). As with M, Lang uses sound in revolutionary ways. Even before the opening titles appear, extremely chaotic music fills a jet-black screen. The titles and the title music dissolve into the first scene, set in a factory. On the soundtrack is the constant churning of a very evil-sounding, off-camera powerful machine. Later, these Mabuse influenced hoods pull off a daring broad daylight public assassination utilizing a barrage of noisy car horns. One could only imagine Hitler and his boys seeing this Mabuse film, where Baum, Mabuse’s doctor and soon to be victim, describes Mabuse as a criminal genius mastermind capable of “dominating and correcting our decadent world devoid of compassion and honor!”

After THE TESTEMENT OF DR. MABUSE, during the 1930′s, another European director of movie thrillers, Alfred Hitchcock, became known as the “British Fritz Lang”. While Hitchcock basically played ball with the Hollywood studios and producers who hired him, Lang, in Hollywood, remained stubborn in his film-making ways. Lang made some great Hollywood films at the same time, such as FURY (1936), MAN-HUNT (1941) and SCARLET STREET (1945), but he seldom turned a profit. By the 1950′s, Lang would become infuriated when he would be called “The German Alfred Hitchcock”. At the end of the 1950′s, Lang returned to Germany to make his last films. The final film in this set, and Lang’s last film as director is THE 1000 EYES OF DR. MABUSE (1960). Again, a criminal gang follows the orders of an unseen man calling himself Mabuse. The real Mabuse, long dead, is only seen via a modest grave-marker in a commoner’s cemetery. This film’s protagonist is Henry Travers, a sharp-thinking, likeable American businessman seeking to conduct business with Germany (Travers is played by Swiss actor Peter Van Eyck who, like Lang, tried Hollywood out in the 1940′s.) His leading lady, Marion (Dawn Addams) is a suicidal waif mourning the loss of a friend who was killed by the Mabuse-mob. THE 1000 EYES OF DR. MABUSE is Lang going out with a whimper, a sometimes-interesting James Bond styled thriller. (Gert Frobe, who would play GOLDFINGER a few years later, is the Lohmann-like police figure here.) With all four films together, the owner of this box set gets a first hand look at Germany before Hitler, Germany just as Hitler took power, and Germany emerging from the fall of Hitler. It’s a fascinating history lesson with spooky images and cliff-hanger thrills.

The box set comes with a fact-crammed documentary on the Mabuse films, which includes on-camera interviews with Lang in the late 1960′s, and a background on Norbert Jacques, the bohemian-life-styled author of the original Mabuse dime novels. It’s all part of Eureka’s MASTERS OF CINEMA series, a collection of DVDs that include classics such as JUDEX, KWAIDAN, and the works of Lang, Eisenstein, Murnau, and contemporary leading film-makers. They are soon to release a beautifully restored DVD of Lang’s second to last film, the colorful, manic and hypnotic DER TIGER VON ESCHNAPUR.

Check them out at http://eurekavideo.co.uk/informative/

FIR writer Glenn Andreiev and TCM host Ben Mankiewicz.

If you love movies, having Turner Classic Movies (TCM) in your cable package is like being a kid locked overnight in a candy store; only it’s much, much healthier! TCM has kicked off 2011 with THE ROAD TO HOLLYWOOD, their second annual nationwide tour where they screen, in ten various US cities, free to the public, classic films such as THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE, RIO BRAVO and ELMER GANTRY. At each screening, one of TCM’s film-history-knowledgeable hosts – Robert Osborne and Ben Mankiewicz – precede the film with a Q and A session with the audience, accompanied by one of the stars of the films. Chatting with audiences were screen legends such as Angela Lansbury, Eva Marie Saint, Ernest Borgnine and Burt Reynolds. For a screening of Alfred Hitchcock’s masterful THE BIRDS, TCM came to Huntington, Long Island’s Cinema Arts Centre. Tippi Hedren, the film’s star, and a charming raconteur, was there.

I got to speak with Ben Mankiewicz, telling him that Films In Review is the country’s oldest film publication, founded in 1909.

Ben Mankiewicz. (Ben) Back then did they write: “These new young fellows, D. W Griffith and Charlie Chaplin, do they have what it takes to make it in Hollywood?”

Glenn Andreiev (GA) In the 1970′s, the very few television channels out there often showed older films. With cable and home video venues popping up in the 1980′s, the older films were buried behind newer and better-publicized programming. Now, thanks to TCM, young audiences can become more familiar with people like Cagney.

(Ben) …and Lacey! I think what pleased so many of us at TCM at our last film festival were how many young people like film students, and friends of film students attended. We were impressed how many young viewers were of the age of film students, and how many families came, were bringing kids twelve and thirteen years old. And, you’re running the risk of kids dragging their feet to classic films saying (mimic kid) “I can’t believe you’re making me watch something in black and white!” But these kids were excited! They wanted to go to movie after movie. Then you had the serious film students who had the actors and directors that mattered to them. A whole world of classic films is opening up to a new generation.

(GA) You’re so knowledgeable about classic films. Do any films come up on TCM where you say “what is that?”

(Ben) Oh, all the time! I see new stuff on a regular basis! I can still pick a movie I don’t know, or don’t remember well, you see it for a second time, but now in a different light, because maybe you learned something new about the people in it. I think you can be as big an expert in film as possible, but the volume is so enormous, that there is always something rich you can take from a second viewing. We often get movies that are not great, they are not bad, like movies of today, but they may have something great in them.

Adolph Menjou and Joan Blondell in a CONVENTION CITY publicity still.

(GA) For example, TCM showed one morning a “routine” Joe E. Brown comedy from 1931 titled BROADMINDED. It had in a supporting role a pre-DRACULA, Bela Lugosi, who was the comic foil, like Laurel and Hardy’s Edgar Kennedy. Lugosi was genuinely funny in it. I simply had to watch, and it made me late for work.

(Ben) Lugosi could be very funny! So TCM was preventing you from going to work? It’s like those old stories of great radio that kept in you in your car listening in the parking lot! Pre-Code films are just great.

(GA) I enjoyed when you ran TCM Employees favorite films.

(Ben) Robert Osborne, my co-host, has an encyclopedic recall on film that few people have. But I had to ask Robert do you ever have to look up the info for some of these films?

(GA) The employees picked some really obscure stuff. One employee, I forget who it was, picked SAFE IN HELL, a wild jaw-dropper of a melodrama directed by William Wellman in 1931. I was blown away at how great and frank this rare film was.

(Ben) Some of those William Wellman Pre-Code films really pushed the racy elements more than any other director!

(GA) Does TCM have any Holy Grails, the lost films or the films you can’t get your hands on?

Adolph Menjou and Joan Blondell in a CONVENTION CITY publicity still.

(Ben) Most things we can get, even if it’s just temporarily. My closest friend is the head of programming and he does such a great job getting the films. Some films may be owned by the families (of cast members or directors) and it could get tricky there, or some other studio owns it. At the festivals, viewers put in requests and I write them in this little black book (shows me a small black book) so by the end of the festival I have four pages of requests! I take the list to my friend Charlie, saying “Here is what the people want!” and Charlie says “Oh, we have like half of these films, and we showed some of them.”

(GA) What about a lost film, where there is no known physical print or copy in existence?

(Ben) Do you have a film in mind?

(GA) Yes! CONVENTION CITY. (A 1933 racy and raunchy Warner Brothers comedy with Joan Blondell, Guy Kibbee, Hugh Herbert and Adolph Menjou. It supposedly has near nudity and a running gag involving a drunk man trying to coax a goat into his hotel room! After the Production Code started in 1934, the censors deemed CONVENTION CITY unsuitable for re-release, and in the 1940′s the film’s negative and many prints were purposely burned. Film collectors have searched in vain worldwide for a print, even contacting the descendants of the stars to see if they have a print in the attic.)

(Ben) So, why do they have to burn the films? Why set fire to it? Just put it in a safe, man! I once went on a tour of Warner Brothers studio with a tour guide.

They really weren’t tour guides, they were Warner Brothers archivist experts. I mean, you’d want to spend twelve days there in their vaults, digging!

(GA) Does TCM show certain films because they represent a time period, like the time period they were produced. An example that comes to mind is another William Wellman film from the depression – WILD BOYS OF THE ROAD (A gritty and powerful film about homeless depression-era children)

(Ben) I guess that means what perspective you have of that era, what the depression meant to you personally. My mother was a child back then, and she never stopped talking about the depression. She always talked about how she and her friends during the depression ate black tar because they could not afford chewing gum.

(GA) Tar? You mean like road tar?

(Ben) Yeah. I mean skip the tar. To my mother, THE GRAPES OF WRATH, where they showed the hard life during those times, was the depression. My father grew up in Hollywood, but he saw the depression. My father than moved from Hollywood to Washington, so I didn’t know the influence my family had on Hollywood until I was older. (Note: Ben Mankiewicz is directly descended from Herman J. Mankiewicz, who wrote the screenplays for DUCK SOUP, PRIDE OF THE YANKEES and co-wrote CITIZEN KANE, and Joseph Mankiewicz, who directed ALL ABOUT EVE, CLEOPATRA and SLEUTH) My mother always talked about THE GRAPES OF WRATH, so it made an imprint with me as to what was life during the depression.

Coming up – my conversation, and the Cinema Arts Centre’s conversation, with Tippi Hedren.

The pre-disco era in Manhattan’s Lower East Side saw the rise of punk bands. At the same time, smaller film formats like 16mm and Super 8mm gave Lower East Side underground film-makers like Jim Jarmusch, Beth B, and Amos Poe a canvas, a voice. Their films, part of the “no-wave movement” had an almost “reach into the screen and touch it” guerilla, punk style, placing mood and texture above technical polish. I had the pleasure of speaking with Mr. Poe about the no-wave movement and his career.

GLENN ANDREIEV (GA): What was the no wave cinema movement?

AMOS POE (AP): I came to New York as an untrained filmmaker. I didn’t go to film school. I had a Nizo Super 8mm camera, which I think I still have somewhere. I shot with that for many years. I was making these kind of music videos, usually to a song and the song would inspire me to create a visual story or some quasi-narrative. Then I would edit the film on this little super 8 editing thing and bring it to the Millennium Film Workshop on 4th street. On Friday nights they had open screenings for a handful of people. Then I would go for the next film, and I would do that constantly. The Millennium came from the experimental filmmaking 1960′s approach, you know, like Stan Brakhage and Michael Snow, and I liked some of that experimental film-making but thinking more towards narrative film-making. Then I got a 16mm camera and started hanging out at clubs more, so by 1975 I was shooting more bands and more of my own stuff, so it was getting more expensive. Ivan Kral and I shot a lot of footage, so we decided to edit it all together and we came up with The Blank Generation, and Night Lunch.

(Note: The Blank Generation is a rare you-are-there look at the beginnings of punk bands such as The Ramones, Blondie, The Talking Heads and Tuff Darts.)

AP: I wanted to do something that approximated the French Nouvelle Vague movement in New York. I had this attitude then that I didn’t know how to make a film, but I wasn’t going to let that stop me, which was kind of like the aesthetic of punk in a way. So, I figured if I couldn’t make a film, I could make a film movement, predicated on the idea of “do it yourself,” and if I could do a feature film for let’s say, under $4,000 in black and white reversal, and get other people to make films like that, maybe we could start a movement. I put an ad in the Village Voice for actors and crew and made Unmade Beds, which was a remake of Breathless, maybe not a remake like the Jim McBride (and Richard Gere) film, but more like a philosophical or theoretical remake in the post modern sense. Unmade Beds started the whole ball rolling. It was like the French New Wave, but we couldn’t call it the French New Wave, so we called it the No Wave. And that played into the punk aesthetic

GA: A $ 4,000 feature shot on 16mm? Every penny must have gone into film stock and processing.

AP: …and for some food and cabs. You think of people who could work for free, locations you could get for nothing. I cut the negative myself. It was a low budget film, a lot of people still do that The technology (where an hour of Video tape costs $5) has caught up to that thinking. You could do a lot of sound sampling on a tape. I wanted to repeat certain sounds and use it as an aural wallpaper, played at different levels and frequencies, and I was thinking, wow, it would be great to see the sound, but now with Pro-Tools you can, but back then, you had to record and re-record. I always liked using stuff (audio and visual materials) that people threw away – where they would say “That’s no good because it’s all echo-y and shit,” and I would think, “Hey, that will work!” So, I think things have changed. They’re much better now.

GA: I remember working with Super 8mm sound, which always sounded raw, like an answering machine at best.

AP: Pro8mm in Los Angeles has these Russian Super 8mm cameras where they changed the film gate inside around so you now have Wide-Screen Super 8mm. They take any stock you want and put it to Super 8. You buy it from them, give it back to them, they process it, transfer it to whatever digital format you want and then you can edit it on whatever editing software you have. The only thing is, you can’t do pre-production sound because the cameras are loud, like sewing machines.

GA: Let’s talk about, Alphabet City, a feature film about that really rough area of the Lower East Side, shot in 35mm (in 1984).

AP: It was my first film in 35mm with a real crew. One day my Line Producer said we have to start interviewing Script Supervisors. I was like “Oh, okay.” I was too embarrassed to ask “What the fuck is a script supervisor?”. I had already met Martin Scorsese and Francis Coppola. I called Scorsese, and said “What the fuck is a Script Supervisor?”, and Scorsese was like (in a Scorsese-like voice)” Well, basically the Script Supervisor is your best friend on the set. The Script Supervisor memorizes the whole script so they are somebody who reminds you what is going on in the film. You couldn’t make a film without a Script Supervisor.” Then Francis said “A Script Supervisor is like your wife on the set, tells you what to do, and you don’t do it.” So when I interviewed Script Supervisors I was interviewing for a best friend and a wife. I lucked out, we hired a great Script Supervisor. Alphabet City was a learning curve. It was supposed to be black and white. My favorite film at the time was The Battle of Algiers, so I wanted to make a Battle of Algiers in the Lower East Side. When the executive producers found out I wanted to shoot black and white, they flipped out. I showed the film this week in my class. I’ve seen the film only twice since we finished it. I used to hate the score mainly because Niles Rogers was hired on the film before I knew there was a film going on, so he wasn’t my choice. I thought his music not right, too disco-y. But now I see it, I think it’s great. I was lucky – it was shot a month before Alphabet City was shut down (by the police) with Operation Pressure-Point and cleaned up.

GA: I remember those days of shooting in super 8mm. Sending the little cartridge of super 8 film out to be processed, then kind of biting your nails waiting for the film to come back, and wondering “Oh, did the shot come out right? Did I have enough light? Was the focus right?”

AP: I didn’t give a shit. Ever see Poor Little Rich Girl by Andy Warhol? Andy had a 16mm Auricon (a metal camera used mostly by news crews). The first half hour is really interesting because the camera just sits on Edie Sedgewick, who is talking, all crazy and neurotic. She’s talking, and the whole first half hour of the film is out of focus because they didn’t have the lens mounted on the camera right. But the second half of the film is in focus, and it’s fantastic! You’re watching it, and straining, asking “Where are my glasses” then you are so relieved when the film goes into focus. Your eyes were almost adjusted to the out of focus image, and your brain is making focus out of something out of focus. Andy didn’t believe in editing because – who could make the decision to keep a scene in or throw it out. Kind of like with Blank Generation. I was going into CBGB’s with a silent camera shooting rock bands and who the fuck is doing that? You might as well shoot stills. People there saw me shoot and would say “Why are you shooting that band silent? Are you out of your mind? If you add sound it will be out of sync!” I think that adds to the success of Blank Generation. If it was in sync, it would just be a documentary. People would say “Next week, I’ll get you a sound 16mm camera, and I’m thinking “What am I going to do? Shoot the 20th performance of the Ramones or be the first? I mean the whole No-Wave movement was something like Rube Goldberg, like Godard, with a Warhol approach, making the mistakes work. The polished professional is boring compared to the insane amateur.

GA: That reminds me, I just saw again Kurosawa’s Yojimb o- during the opening credits we only see back of Toshiro Mifune’s head. Some people still consider that a flaw – you are looking at the back of this head – trying to look around it, the see the star’s face! The so-called “flaw” is drawing you in – back then that was going against the idea of Hollywood formula. Now so many people do that. What are you up to now?

AP: I am trying to do a series with Debbie Harry based on Alphaville, where she plays the Lemmy Caution character. You know, flip the genders around because we feel we are back into that zeitgeist right now. Things are kind of “Alphavillian”, because we are living in some really weird times right now. And there’s a script I’m trying to do in Italy, a narrative film.

GA: I guess with filmmaking tools being more accessible now, more people, especially kids, would know film lingo, like “jump-cut”-

AP: That’s good! So now, you have to learn how to make a jump cut edgier, because jump cuts have become part of our visual language. We’ve all seen so much imagery, that our brains are desensitized to many things, and for Hollywood films it has become boring. For example, if you’re shooting two people talking at a table like us, you wonder “where do you put the camera?” We’ve seen so many scenes of people talking at a table, so now it puts pressure on the writer because you have to make it interesting so that the boring quality of the shot, which we’ve seen a million times, now forces the dialog to be so interesting. You still want to take things to the edge. You wonder, how do I make it poetic? I’m becoming fascinated by Japanese films, because every decade or so you discover something new, that you are like “Holy shit- I never seen that film!” I’m teaching a class right now called Media Mavericks and I wanted to bring in guest speakers, so I bought in Salman Rushdie, and he said “There have been so many books written, and so many books in my library I have yet to read, that if I never bought another book for the rest of my life, and never left that room, I still couldn’t get through all the books I wanted to read.” The question is – if there are so many great books out there, why write another book? And why make another film? There are so many films I haven’t seen.

GA: In the 70′s I was learning the film genres, like film noir for example. There were so many films I wanted to catch up to. Films like Kiss Me Deadly were only on TV at 3 am on a school night or played at a theatre like Theatre 80 on St Marks Place in Manhattan. It became an event – traveling to the city, getting to the theatre, seeing it, then going home- a day event! Now you can download Kiss Me Deadly!

AP: Once I was watching Turner Classic Movies all weekend from Friday night to Monday morning. TCM was my last addiction so I had to get rid of my TV. There’s only so much time, only so much absorption, so the technology has the movies all at your fingertips. It gives you another form of ADD, because your attention is kind of cracked a bit. You can now project from an I Phone. I was walking with a friend, and she was projecting a film from her I Phone as we walked. We started watching Repulsion. She projected it on the street, on the subway wall, on people.
GA: Quite different from years ago where you needed skills just to show a film, hooking up feed and take-up projector reels, bulbs burning out, etc. Now, with a netbook, let’s say, you can show your film in full color and sound in the backseat of a car! Is the event of showing films missing?

AP: It’s just so different that it’s hard to compare. New technology makes a thing more available and democratic, that’s for sure. For the history of humankind the technology creates a more democratic thing, makes things more available. I was talking to Jim Jarmush about presently shooting super 16mm film and cutting on a Steenbeck (16mm editing table). Where do you find a Steenbeck? I just did a music video in Super 8mm and it was so much fun. It’s like, I have a friend in Switzerland who is a musician and he collects synthesizers from all the way back to the1940′s, so his loft is like a synthesizer museum. I saw the change coming. The 20th century was the film century and the 21st century is the digital century.

Amos Poe teaches writing for the screen & experimental film production at NYU. His website www.amospoe.com, offers a link to his background, the screenplays and his films.

THE RITE is one of those faulty films you want to like. Its cringe-inducing opening credit sequence, where young mortician Michael Kovak (Colin O’Donoghue) prepares the body of a suicidal goth-girl for her funeral, tells us this will be a horror film with all usual and expected boo-tactic trimmings. Kovak leaves the mortuary business (He works for his widower father) to join the priesthood. Shortly before graduation, Michael loses faith and e-mails a registration.

As Michael’s mentor, Father Matthew, quickly rushes across a busy California street to talk Michael out of resigning; a young woman cyclist swerves out of Matthew’s way and crashes into an oncoming truck. The priest-uniformed, but faithless Michael, rushes to the crash site, and gives the dying cyclist her last rites. It’s a gripping moment – all eyes and senses are on Michael. At this point, we are about one-third through THE RITE, and while there is a lack of visual horror, a discomforting amount of internal horror keeps us watching.

The film switches to Rome, where Michael is sticking out priesthood, and is to be tutored by Father Lucas (Anthony Hopkins) to become an exorcist. Lucas takes Michael to an exorcism he is performing on Rosaria, a pregnant Italian teenager. I wished that the interesting California sequences in the beginning, were longer, and the concluding Italian scenes, where you always know what is going happen two minutes before it happens, were cut in half.

Hopkins gives it his all as Father Lucas. He’s one of only two actors to win a Best Actor Oscar for playing a monster. (Of course, I am talking about SILENCE OF THE LAMBS. Fredric March in 1932′s DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE is the other). Lucas himself becomes demon-possessed, and Hopkins plays these scenes with conviction. His delivery of satanic ramblings is priceless. I am sure a reading by Anthony Hopkins of the horrific hate-filled “Craigslist Rants and Raves” section would be a jaw-dropper.

According to the opening credits, THE RITE is “inspired” by true events. The word ‘inspired’ gives the film-makers a great marketing loophole to lure audiences in. (Like saying INGLORIOUS BASTERDS is inspired by the true events of World War 2, or THE FLINTSTONES are inspired by the Cro-Magnon period!). Matt Baglio, the co-writer of THE RITE’s screenplay, attended seminars on exorcism held at the Vatican’s Regina Apostolorum, supposedly just for curiosity about the subject of exorcism. It was at the seminars that Baglio met Father Gary Thomas, who came from California to become an exorcist. Thomas became the basis for the character of Michael. Matt Baglio’s on-screen persona became Angeline, a pretty American reporter sitting in on the classes to write an article on exorcism. Michael and Angeline team up together when Father Lucas becomes demonically possessed. One suspects that the studio interfered, demanding Matt become Angeline, and be played by somebody as fetching as Alice Braga. The obvious studio interference hampers THE RITE’s second half. The exorcisms, with possessed people twisting and crinkling thanks to CGI, push the film towards the clichéd TWILIGHT territory. In order to keep THE RITE a PG-13 film, (and bring in loads of teen audience cash) the film becomes “cookie-cutter safe” and loses potential edge.

One of things that sent THE EXORCIST through the pop-culture roof in 1974 was the verbal nastiness coming out of Linda Blair’s mouth. When demons rant during the exorcisms in THE RITE, they are restrained, harmless, like a fowl-mouthed, bad tempered drunken teenager being told they are can’t use the car! Father Lucas lives in an Italian villa over-run by stray cats. (Thumbs up for the locations and atmosphere in THE RITE) As Michael and Angeline rush to the villa to perform the exorcism on demon-polluted and rampaging Father Lucas, frightened cats scramble to safety. As a cat owner, I was holding my breath; fearing animal torture would wind up on the screen. I’m glad it came to nothing, but I was wondering why all the build-up with the cats? I felt as if maybe director Mikael Hafstrom (whose previous credits include DROWNING GHOST and the very similar 1408 with John Cusack) filmed something the studio demanded removed. Remember, to Hafstrom and Matt Baglio, THE RITE is a film about exorcisms. To the studios, it’s a commodity about exorcisms.

Roy Frumkes’ Top Ten (or Twelve) DVDs, BluRays, Theatrical & TV releases.

I see two theatrical features a week, and try to watch one DVD or BluRay every night. At that there are those who see three or four times what I do, but I haven’t figured out how to reduce my other activities like showering, exercising, going to the bathroom, and sleeping. So I remain behind the front guard of cinema enthusiasts in terms of viewing. Still, I’ve seen a lot, as have FIR’s other writers, so here are a few TopTen lists for the year we left behind:

My DVD & BluRay choices first: At a certain point, these are no longer in order, but the first few are…

NIGHT OF THE HUNTER (Criterion) The archeological restoration of the year, this immaculate BluRay transfer is accompanied by a 2 1/2 hour compilation doc of equally pristine outtakes from the film, with sound, so that one can hear Charles Laughton directing, can see and hear the little girl chiding Robert Mitchum for forgetting his lines, Shelley Winters praying in Hebrew, the boy warmly following directions even though he comes off stiff in the final version, and countless other wonders. It’s one of the great treasure discs of all time. It’s been around for years, but has been updated slightly for this, its first home theater release.

THRILLER (Image/Universal) 14 DVDs containing 67 episodes. Though almost all the episodes have dated in one way – they now appear padded in an effort to support the hour time slot – they are still remarkably well lit (PIGEONS FROM HELL has the lowest key lighting I ever remember seeing on TV), elaborately scored by such luminaries as Jerry Goldsmith (with many M&E tracks isolated), dripping with fun star power (Henry Daniell is in five episodes – the first times I remember his being in the same films with Karloff since THE BODY SNATCHER in 1945), introduced and occasionally featuring Boris Karloff, and accompanied by insightful commentary tracks. It’s the best-produced DVD release of the year in terms of marshalling outside forces to bolster the original material. THE ALIEN QUADRILOGY, for example, is even more packed with phenomenal commentaries, featurettes, alternate cuts, etc. It’s astounding, to be sure. But all that material was within relatively easy reach. The producer of the THRILLER package had to think out what material would best accompany each of the 27 commentary-supported episodes without becoming redundant, and then go out and hunt down appropriate commentators, and he’s done a miraculous job. As examples: For THE FINGERS OF FEAR, a pre-meditated mixture of THE HANDS OF ORLAC and MR. SARDONICUS, about a pianist (played by SARDONICUS’ Guy Rolph) whose obsession with a rival performer leads to doom, the commentary track is all about horror filmusic, and for THE HOLLOW WATCHER, which has a vaguely Western theme, the commentary focuses on Horror Westerns.

METROPOLIS (Kino) Refer to Ben Peeples’ review, though it is better served on DVD, considering the format and degraded condition of the recently restored footage.

THE LEOPARD BluRay (Criterion) You don’t need a 3D TV, or 3D glasses, to get the depth effect here. The film is so gorgeously transferred, and Visconti layered it so elaborately with art direction, that you feel you are looking into those vast period rooms with bewildering dimensionality. Both versions are available, and there’s Nina Rota’s magnificent score.

THE ELIA KAZAN COLLECTION (Fox Home Entertainment) Plus a heartfelt doc by Martin Scorsese. This is a beautifully packaged, near-inclusive slew of Kazan films on DVD, showing his progression from stage-bound flicks to fully cinematic works.

THE ALIEN ANTHOLOGY (Fox Home Entertainment) This BluRay update trumps the earlier DVD release, something I didn’t think was possible. There are more supplementals, but just the increased sound quality alone is astounding.

KING KONG (Warner Bros Home Entertainment) Better than ever on BluRay.

THE HAMMER ICONS OF SUSPENSE COLLECTION (SONY Pictures Home Entertainment) – THESE ARE THE DAMNED, CASH ON DEMAND, THE SNORKEL, STEP ME BEFORE I KILL!, MANIAC and NEVER TAKE CANDY FROM A STRANGER. This was a genuine surprise – that so late in the game, six delightful non-horror Hammers would see the light of DVD. Pictorially they’re all fine. In terms of execution they vary in quality, but all of them are compelling, and CASH ON DEMAND and STOP ME BEFORE I KILL! Particularly so.

THE AFRICAN QUEEN (Paramount) – Refer to my review earlier in the year. On BluRay, it’s better-looking than it was when originally released.

GONE WITH THE WIND (Warner Bros) BluRay. Like film… And in a beautifully designed collector box.

DALI & DISNEY: A DATE WITH DESTINO (Disney) BluRay. I liked the end result of the long-buried, never completed short produced by Walt Disney and directed by Salvador Dali. But I loved the feature documentary made about the ill-fated venture. It captures their two creative personalities, and the times, and follies of creativity and genius.

OCEANS (Disney) The old True Life Adventures were never like this. From Monstro the Whale (in the flesh) to vast schools of fish doing head-trips on us, it’s an overwhelming experience.

TOP 12 THEATRICAL & TV releases:

THE SOCIAL NETWORK

BLACK SWAN

TOY STORY 3

THE GHOST WRITER

THE TOWN

HEREAFTER

TRUE GRIT

TRON LEGACY

WALL STREET: MONEY NEVER SLEEPS

MOVIES & MOGULS (Mini-seies)

FISH TANK

FROZEN

Bryan Layne next…