For an economy that is supposedly affecting DVD sales, you wouldn’t know it to see the mega-disc-collections appearing in stores currently. As if the Fox Hitchcock Collection wasn’t enough to clog a DVD collector’s shelf, the new Fox Entertainment Murnau/Borzage/Fox box requires the construction of a new shelf entirely. I haven’t seen the inside of that box yet, and perhaps there’s a way, once opened, to deconstruct it so that it fits a normal shelf – but short of that, this $200.+ release may require some architectural rethinking. To honor Fox’s chutzpah, and at the request of foreign film societies, we’ve resurrected from FIR’s archives a 1974 article by William K. Everson which deals with Fox’s preservation efforts, including the work of Murnau and Borzage.

If, by chance, your friends’/spouses’ apartments aren’t quite large enough to encompass that volume, and yet we know that Xmas calls for a more substantial gift than a single platter, below are a few good choices for your consideration…

From SONY Pictures Home Entertainment comes a title we thought might never make an appearance, and it has arrived inside a most elegantly designed box cover – the Powell & Pressburger fantasy masterpiece A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH (aka STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN). This was cinematographer Jack Cardiff’s first feature and, great as his body of work is, he never surpassed it. And that includes the likes of BLACK NARCISSUS, THE RED SHOES, PANDORA AND THE FLYING DUTCHMAN (recently restored and hopefully soon to come to DVD in its sparkling new incarnation) and RAMBO: FIRST BLOOD PART 2. The British Technicolor is admirably recreated here. Subdued hues are infiltrated with myriad strokes and shades of luminous red. It’s a constant and delerious feast for the eyes. And the story’s not bad either. Powell (friend and) aficionado Marty Scorsese gives an American historical perspective in which he and his pals – amongst them Coppola and Spielberg – all loved the Archers’ films, but knew nothing about the filmmakers. David Lean, Carol Reed,Alfred Hitchcock — these they knew, but not Powell & Pressburger. In the decades since, Scorsese has done his best to remedy that situation for all of us. His editor, Thelma Schoonmaker, eventually married Powell. Also on the disc – a commentary track by historian Ian Christie, his delivery decidedly low key alongside the passion of the Scorsese, but it’s worth a listen for its many factual insights.

Also included on this double-disc edition is Powell’s last feature film, AGE OF CONSENT, made after his partnership with Pressburger had ended, released in 1969, truncated in the US, but seen here in its 103 minute form, and in a worthy transfer. Made outside the European studio system within which he’d functioned for decades, the film has an independent sensibility – including less glamorous lighting and more disrupting room tones, some of both of which Powell uses to his advantage. It also features a 24-year-old Helen Mirren (last year’s Best Actress AA winner for THE QUEEN) in her first performance as the island-bound Cora, much of it gloriously in the nude. Not since TARZAN AND HIS MATE, or THE MERMAIDS OF TIBURON (available on DVD from VCI Entertainment) has there been such a nude underwater swimming scene. Ms. Mirren, in a recently filmed interview, remembers the film the way one would a first lover. Also present is Scorsese, again making sharp insights in his brief intro/extro, and historian Kent Jones on the commentary track…

The earlier scenes are wooden and artificial, with oddly paced editing, leavened only by the presence of quirky Australian actor Frank Thring (THE VIKINGS, BEN-HUR, KING OF KINGS, EL CID, MAD MAX BEYOND THUNDERDOME). After disgruntled artist Bradley Morahan (James Mason) retreats to the Great Barrier Reef, the tone finds itself and stays put. It’s a delightfully rambling treatise on an artist’s obsessive personality – and in that way a statement by the director no less personal than the one that got him in trouble with PEEPING TOM. Mason co-produced with Powell, and I sense that it was personal for the actor as well – his THE HORSE’S MOUTH. Mason was sixty at the time, and his relationship with the supposedly-barely-legal Cora was pushing the envelope as much as the nudity. (Makes one wonder where Clint Eastwood’s BREEZY has been hiding). Powell and Mason yearned to work together again on a version of THE TEMPEST, some aspects of which are evident in this endeavor.

An aside: you know how sometimes there’s an information sheet adhered to the back of a DVD box by a dab of rubbery glop, which you slowly remove once you’ve unpacked the box? Well on this sheet there’s a photo of Helen Mirren in which she looks more stunning than she does in the actual film. So don’t be so quick to pull it off and trash it.

ALFRED HITCHCOCK – THE PREMIERE COLLECTION
Recommendation by Glenn Andreiev

20th Century Fox’s ALFRED HITCHCOCK – THE PREMIERE COLLECTION is an amazing treat for the Hitchcock fan, and essential for all of us who love great movies! The first of the eight films in the set is the silent 1926 THE LODGER, Hitchcock’s debut exercise in suspense cinema. This tale of a mysterious, cloaked tenant who may be a depraved sexual serial killer is an opportunity to see Hitchcock begin using his beloved cinematic trademarks. This lodger turns out to be a victim of mistaken identity; the police tracking him are fearful, and there’s a young women who places herself in horrid danger to save him. The film ends with the first climatic Hitchcock chase. Before this box set, those wanting to see the film, directed by the then 27-year old Hitchcock, had to settle for contrasty public domain dupes, usually made off of already-battered 16mm prints. One would think Hitchcock filmed THE LODGER with an elevator security camera! Here we get a beautifully restored LODGER, bursting in clarity, with gorgeous blue and red tinting, and that welcome chilling sense of dread that Hitchcock would build on in later years. The LODGER disc comes with great extras, one of which is “Hitchcock 101”, a short wherein Hitchcock’s grand-daughter tells of taking a college course on her grand-dad’s films – and she never told her professor who her famous grandpa was!

Others on this pristine collection are: SABOTAGE, YOUNG AND INNOCENT, REBECCA, LIFEBOAT, SPELLBOUND, NOTORIOUS, and THE PARADINE CASE.

To read the rest of Glenn’s in coverage…

This new addition to the excellent Walt Disney Treasures series collects the full 20-episode ANNETTE serial as it aired in the 1957-1958 season of The Mickey Mouse Club. After a slow start, ANNETTE soon drags you into a world of nostalgia, wishing you could get a shake at a malt shop, or take a hayride on the way to a BBQ, singing Disney’s greatest hits. ANNETTE’s vision of wholesomeness seems as if it may have been nostalgic even for those who watched it when it originally aired, as it obviously reflects the Disney 1950s vision of America, more then the country’s social realities.

ANNETTE stars Walt Disney’s favorite, and only, hand-picked member of the Mickey Mouse Club, Annette Funicello, as a dark-skinned farm girl who moves in with her aunt and uncle in an all-white, middle-class American suburb. She soon finds a friend in the class hunk, Steve, and a nemesis in his rich, snotty girlfriend, Laura. Other characters include Jet, a farm girl who is not a member on the cool-crowd, and Steady Ware, an always-hungry, dancing-pro, loud-mouthed youngster who hangs out with the older teenagers. Steady, holding up a giant, raw steak and telling the girl obsessed with him to beat off, is a sight to be seen. This lightweight soap is the closest live action could get to an Archie comic book (certainly more then ARCHIE: TO RIVERDALE AND BACK AGAIN, 1990).

If a person can authentically and realistically posses the Disney magic, it is Annette Funicello. There isn’t a shred of negativity throughout her career, and always with the most sincere intentions. From the Mickey Mouse Club through her roles in Disney movies and the American International Pictures BEACH PARTY series, she encompasses the idea of the ‘American Sweetheart’ more then any other. Her charm is still irresistible in her last feature film role as Annette in BACK TO THE BEACH (1987), but how could you ever resist the girl who inspired Paul Anka’s ‘Puppy Love’?

The DVD features 2 full episodes of The Mickey Mouse Club (the debut and concluding episodes of her serial) and 2 featurettes: Produced in 1993, “Musically Yours, Annette” looks at Annette’s musical career and the creation of her unique sound. “To Annette, With Love” is a loving tribute featuring some of Annette’s friends and her husband. The set truly does right by Annette, and is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

DR. SYN: THE SCARECROW OF ROMNEY MARSH, sits waiting in another Disney tin, on two discs, one containing the three-part TV presentation, the other, the tightened, theatrical feature. As Disney maven Leonard Maltin rightly explains, some degree of nuance is lost in condensing the series to a little over an hour and a half, though he praises the editing in the shorter version. You’ll find yourself in a conundrum when you watch them: the shorter piece is compressed, sometimes to its detriment, but it moves quickly, whereas the three-part version moves slowly enough, at times, to lose narrative focus. I’m for the alacrity of the condensed version.

Maltin also acknowledges Hammer Films’ take on the same historical story – 1962’s DR. CLEGG, starring Peter Cushing. What he doesn’t mention is how Hammer-esque the 1963 DR. SYN is, even replicating some Hammer musical ideas in the score. Of course Disney had more money to lavish on its productions than Hammer ever dreamed of spending, and so this is a particularly stunning movie, with dazzling day-for-night sequences, a terrific, theme-song driven title montage, and a fine cast, featuring Patrick McGoohan, who had a clipped way of delivering dialogue, as he does here, but as his alter-ego, The Scarecrow, he ramps it up a few notches, barking out his ultra-clipped dialogue like a burp-gun. Others who excel in the cast are Michael Hordern and Geoffrey Keen. James Neilson, very much a TV director, and at that very much a Disney in-house director, does an adequate job with atmosphere. The editing in the feature version does the rest.

2009 will see FIR’s tardy entrée into the esoteric world of BLURAY, but that doesn’t keep us from mentioning the medium a month early: Disney’s BluRay release of all three PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN films is a really neat Stocking Stuffer. Though the surprise success of the series was due, without doubt, to Johnny Depp’s fey interpretation of the lead character, he was supported with the most amazing make-up and CGI effects, both of which beg for the heightened detail of BluRay to strut their stuff, in particular the maelstrom sequence which, for me, was the best use of Special Effects in its year, and must be seen in that format to be believed.

From BBC Video comes a three-disc collection: KEN RUSSELL AT THE BBC. On the cover, Russell strikes a pensive pose, no doubt contemplating further sensational imagery he can perpetrate on an unsuspecting public. These six films, representative of his BBC work, are in some quarters considered for Russell what the Mutual shorts were to Chaplin. They show the artist finding himself, and at the same time creating his best work…or much of it.

Certainly SONG OF SUMMER (1968) fits that description. It is a somber B&W meditation on obsession, selfless devotion, artistic inspiration, and destructive egotism. Russell regular Max Adrian plays Frederick Delius, crippled and in need of a slave, who appears in the form of cinema pianist Eric Fenby (the film is based on his autobiography). It is a painful, claustrophobically controlled feature. The only Russell theatrical feature that comes near it in tone is SAVAGE MESSIAH (1972, currently unavailable on DVD). And it is a unique work of art, even among the many films about composers directed by Russell himself.

Oddly, this version, and one presented on a single disc several years ago by The British Film Institute, are different cuts, and neither of them are the cut originally aired, and which still exists on 16mm rental prints (a market that sees less and less commercial viability nowadays). I’m assuming the rights to footage from Laurel and Hardy’s WAY OUT WEST was not originally licensed for home video, and so had to be deleted. But the two releases also start with different shots? And to further complicate the issue, the BFI DVD release is smooth and creamy in its look, while the new BBC release is contrasty and harsh – aggressively different visual presentations, and I couldn’t tell you which was Russell’s intent. They both work, but accentuate different emotional attitudes in the narrative. I had to keep both.

ELGAR (1962) is 54 minutes long, a good documentary which was apparently more radical in its day (the box cover claims he was the first filmmaker to use re-enactments, and in his interview on disc one, he affirms this), tracing the life of the composer, who was recognized very late in his desperate career, always teetering on the verge of poverty. There’s good archival footage and still photos, all set to his music. And long, sensuous B&W tracking shots of his time in the country as a boy, which would carry him through his life, past great depressions and professional set-backs.

Others in the collection are THE DEBUSSY FILM (1965 – with Oliver Reed and Vladek Sheybal), ALWAYS ON SUNDAY (1965), ISADORA: THE BIGSEST DANCER IN WORLD (1966) – a rambunctious reverie on Isadora Duncan which far out-passions Karel Reiz’s elegant but sterile version, made the same year, with Vanessa Redgrave in the title role. DANTE’S INFERNO (1967), with Oliver Reed (another Russell regular) as poet/painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti. And there are special features, such as an 81-year-old Russell sitting outdoors on a park bench, commenting animatedly about his early work, while we are treated to fabulous footage of him at work in his BBC days, the footage looking as if he were in one of his own films. There is much Russell yet to make its way to DVD, but this is a wonderful, rewatchable dose of his output, and it should be owned.

On October 25th, we lost writer/director Gerard Damiano, aged 80. A major footnote in film history, he was the director of the first porno films to go mainstream in the early 70s. DEEP THROAT (1972) was distinguished by some smart editing, and THE DEVIL IN MISS JONES (1973) was a hard-core version of “No Exit”. Both films therefore had marketable pretentions of class, allowing the public to cross the X-barrier and see them without recrimination. DEEP THROAT made an estimated $600 million dollars.

A year after these milestones, I was working for Great Scott, a PR agency, and was put in charge of running the only (to my knowledge) Academy Award campaign for a porno film – Gerard Damiano’s MEMORIES WITHIN MISS AGGIE (1974). It was a miserable little piece of celluloid, but with touches of Ingmar Bergman in the characters’ behavior, and in the cinematography, thus, once again, giving the director’s work a veneer of respectability (on IMDB it notes that the film opened on July 8th in Sweden). What it really delivered, however, was an appalling vision of sex, and of the human body. I begged Boris Kaufman, the man who shot ON THE WATERFRONT, then in his 80s, not to come to the screening I’d set for Guild members. I didn’t offer quite the same advice to Tony Randall, who showed up with his coat pulled over his head.

One of the few articulate advocates of sexuality in the arts was Al Goldstein. (He and my brother Lewis had been the two outspoken members of an advanced philosophy class at NYU.) Goldstein found his calling, creating the publication Screw Magazine, which incurred its share of obscenity lawsuits, each of which Goldstein battled in the courts, and in the pages of his paper, winning some landmark cases, and hemorrhaging money in the process. Decades later, when Goldstein was penniless and his professional belongings were about to be either sold off or destroyed, Bill Lustig (owner of Blue Underground, a cherished DVD label) bumped into the former editor, who ended up working at the 2nd Avenue Deli in lower Manhattan, and learned that the entire collection of tapes of Goldstein’s cable show ‘Midnight Blue’ – representing the years 1975-2002 – were among the articles in a warehouse about to be destroyed. Bill struck a licensing deal with Goldstein for the tapes, which saved the show for posterity, and out of these countless hours, he has pieced together four feature-length DVDs (each running two hours), compilations of ‘Midnight Blue’ highlights, which are packaged in one collection for your viewing pleasure.

The fifth DVD in the boxed set is a feature doc – PORN KING – which displays the arc of Goldstein’s career, brought down in the end by his own self-destructive nature. This collection is not only valuable for historical purposes, but for its many pleasures. Guests such as Arnold Schwarzenegger, O.J. Simpson, Russ Meyer and Deborah Harry make appearances, and the work of porn pioneers such as Harry Reems, Georgina Spelvin, Marilyn Chambers, and Annie Sprinkle (who increased her professional options by taking classes at The School of Visual Arts) are on display. And throughout it all, Goldstein’s irreverent personality sets the tone. The titles of the compilations discs are: ‘The Deep Throat Special Edition’, ‘Porn Stars of the 70’s’, ‘Celebrities Edition’, and ‘Freaks & Geeks.’ Also included in the box is a sweet little booklet featuring a history of Screw Magazine along with reproductions of several of its covers, including the one done by R. Crumb, who also appears in the ‘Celebrities Edition’ DVD.

From Kino comes THE GRIFFITH MASTERWORKS COLLECTION, VOLUME 2

This includes several of Griffith’s features we’ve been really pining for, such as WAY DOWN EAST (1920), which, like his epics of the period, ran a staggering 149 minutes. Each of these features include many supplements, in this case a score by the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra, notes on Lottie Blair Parker’s original play, photos of William Brady’s 1903 stage version, and a clip of the ice flow sequence from the Edison Studio’s UNCLE TOM’S CABIN.

The other features and shorts on this five-disc boxed set are: SALLY OF THE SAWDUST (1925 – D.W.Griffith & W.C. Fields? And with an intro by Orson Welles), THE AVENGING CONSCIENCE (1914 – 84 mins), EDGAR ALLEN POE (1909, 7 mins), ABRAHAM LINCOLN (1930, 90 mins, ‘talking’), and THE STRUGGLE (1931, 87 mins, also ‘talking’). The difference between ABRAHAM LINCOLN and THE STRUGGLE is major, and it seems clear that if he’d had another few shots at it, he might have finally adapted to the ‘talkies’, but it didn’t happen. Uneven, to be sure, THE STRUGGLE has some powerful scenes, and it features one of the very few performances by the extremely exotic Zita Johann.

After a bad experience with Karl Freund on THE MUMMY (1932) she ditched Hollywood, a loss for the film capital, and for us. She doesn’t have the big emotional role here, sadly, but she’s still mesmerizing to look at.

And the plum in the pudding is a near three-hour documentary on the life and career of the director: D.W. GRIFFITH: FATHER OF FILM by Kevin Brownlow and David Gill. Brownlow, for the one or two of you who don’t know, is the world’s leading film historian, in part because of his remarkable archeological digs into the remnants of motion picture history, and equally for his filmmaking and literary skills. His docs are passionate, cinematic, and bring the shadows of the silent era to life for us. As do his books. ‘The Parades Gone By’ is still one of the ten greatest tomes on cinema history.

BOOKS:

UNFILTERED: THE COMPLETE RALPH BAKSHI.

This coffee table book from Universe, a division of Rizzoli International Publications, is a work of art depicting the work of a major artist in the field of animation. Bakshi, a gifted, difficult artist, has had a rewarding career and often a ground-breaking one. Best remembered for FRITZ THE CAT, a sweet translation of the R. Crumb comics, his work spans many genres within the animation field. More often autobiographical (or at least ferociously personal) than not, his best may be AMERICAN POP, but if so, it is followed closely by HEAVY TRAFFIC, COONSKIN, WIZARDS, and HEY GOOD LOOKIN’ (yet to find its way to DVD!!)

The book is a masterpiece of design, copiously illustrated with full color reproductions of not only film frames, but sketches, doodles, storyboards, etc. It’s informative, outrageous, and sexy. The Herculean task of assembling this book goes to Jon M. Gibson & Chris McDonnell. Quentin Tarentino does a Foreword, but Bakshi gets the last word.

CHEAP SCARES! LOW BUDGET HORROR FIMMAKERS SHARE THEIR SECRETS, by Greg Lamberson. From McFarland.

Greg Lamberson is nothing if not renaissance prolific. He’s a novelist (JOHNNY GRUESOME), a screenwriter (SLIME CITY), a film director (NAKED FEAR, UNDYING LOVE) and producer, a promoter, a horror website publisher/editor (FearZone.com), a columnist. He’s everywhere in this country at once, hawking his work and churning out new books or articles during breaks from his horror convention table signings. Did I hear he was going toe-to-toe with Caroline Kennedy for the Senate seat? Maybe not, but why would I not be surprised. And he helps raise a lovely little daughter simultaneously with all this.

‘Cheap Scares!’ is a terrific overview of the many and terrible obstacles awaiting the neophyte filmmaker on his journey through the process. It’s organized and written by Greg, and by interviews he’s conducted with key figures in the low-budget end of the genre, including Larry Fessenden, Scooter McRae, Brett Piper, James Lorinz, Paige Davis, Stephen Biro, and…alright, so I’m included, so what? I should have probably relegated this review to someone else at FIR, right? But hey, it’s Christmas, it’s my gift to all of you. Check it out.

“JUST BE THE BITCH…DARLING.”

The Cinema has on occasion been rather wicked in unleashing upon an unsuspecting public a Pandora’s Box of dramatic personalities whose faces light up the silver screen like no other, creating impressions of altered states fraught with subtexts that might confound Freud himself. The Polish character actor Vladek Sheybal had just such a face, with a fascinating persona to match, leaving in his wake a gallery of dazzling performances that shall not be forgotten.

This delightfully decadent actor made his entrance into my life thanks to the artistry of that brilliant if not exceedingly eccentric English actor/director Lindsey Kemp. Lindsey was a true renaissance man with abilities in all aspects of theater and film, a perverse individual to be sure but a genius in all things outré and fantastic in the theater.

Lindsey had produced the infamous ZIGGY STARDUST SHOWS for David Bowie during his glam rock period, as well as acting in such cult films as THE WICKER MAN. Lindsey had created his own bizarre vision of Oscar Wilde’s SALOME, and staged it at the Roundhouse Theater on the Chalk Farm Rd in the outer regions of London.

Vladek was honored with special billing in this production and, not one to disappoint those people out there in the dark, his first entrance as Herod was spectacular. Glittering in gold lame and covered from head to toe in jewels and feathers, he succeeded in channeling both Wilde and Josephine Baker in his performance, with more than a nod to Genet.

The theater was filled with the fragrance of exotic incense. A combination of that with the Beardsley décor, lit in smoky blues and reds, left me feeling like two pipes in an opium den, in others words Oscar Wilde would have been in his element, appreciating this kind of yellow book ambience, not to mention some of the more attractive members of the cast.

I was visiting London at the time and the Roundhouse location was a bit out of the way, with the train as the only transportation back into town. When the performance ended, most of the cast, along with Lindsey, had a wine bar reception in the dressing rooms behind the stage area, and I was invited to join them for a drink and to meet the cast. Vladek was in his element as both teacher and star of the company. I made a point of telling him that I came all the way from Los Angeles to see this performance, as well as to meet with John Russell Taylor, my then-editor at “Films and Filming” in London. Vladek was genuinely moved and flattered with my sincerity, so we then went through more than one bottle of Champagne, chatting and laughing away for well over two hours. As the party was breaking up I realized that I had missed the last train to London for the night and the possibility of finding a taxi was almost non-existent at that hour. Vladek and one of the actors in the show named David Haughton offered to drive me back into town. Later the next day I received a call from Valdek inviting me out for dinner. We agreed on a time and place, and Vladek suggested coming by the hotel to collect me. During our conversation he asked how the hotel was treating me and I said considering I arrived without notice I was just happy to get a room, even if the bath was down the hall. I thought nothing more about confiding to Vladek about my tiny accommodation without a bath until I was on my way down to the lobby. As the elevator door opened I could hear the unmistakable voice of Vladek Sheybal yelling at the desk clerk as he hit the counter with a very ornate cane with a Dragon’s head made of gold.. “How dare you give my friend a room without a bath, what do you expect him to do, urinate in the sink??” Do you know who he is?? This is David Del Valle the famous columnist from America….within minutes I was back in my room packing my things for the move up to the seventh floor and my very own bathroom. David Del Valle would not be urinating in the sink tonight…thanks to that fabulous madman who decided to be my protector and confidant. His parting advice was always “if you act like a star, then people will treat you like a star.” Vladek lived by those words and most of the time it seemed to work for him, although I think it helps enormously if you look and sound like Vladek Sheybal..

Thus was the beginning of our friendship, which would include more than one trip across the pond for both of us in the years that followed.

Vladek Sheybal achieved world wide attention playing “Kronsteen”the chess master with ties to SPECTER in Ian Flemings FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE. Vladek was always grateful for the support he received from Sean Connery, who suggested Vladek to director Terence Young. Vladek loved working with Lotte Lenya: “She was a fantastic lady that I adored.” “You know of course I nearly said no altogether to James Bond, It was Sean calling me personally at home telling me ‘Look Vladek, Listen to me this is going to change the world. It’s a new series, James Bond, and if you take part in it you are in a cult thing.’ So I agreed to play the three scenes, including getting killed by Lotte’s lethal shoe. My first day of work, Sean Connery was standing by the doorstep of soundstage door and said “welcome to FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE.’ What a sublime gesture and it made me feel like a star.”

“The only sour note during the filming was producer Harry Saltzman standing on-set trying to explain my part to me and how it should be played. This went on for the better part of two days until I had just taken all I was prepared to take from someone who knew nothing about acting on screen or in the theater.”

“At that time I felt confident enough to behave like a star, so I told Harry, of his “suggestions” regarding my acting, to allow Terence Young to do his job. Well Saltzman reminded me that he was the producer of the film and I said to him “Well you provided the money, but not the acting” and with that I walked off the set. Now Lotte backed me up totally, but still I went to my dressing room and took off my make-up and went home. Later that night Terence Young called and asked me to return to the film and swore that I would not see Harry Saltzman on-set again while I was working on FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE.”

One of Vladek’s greatest mentor’s in films was Ken Russell, who first worked with him on his feature length television play THE DEBUSSY FILM (1965). “Ken had seen me in my breakthrough role in Andrzej Wajda’s KANAL (1957) and approached me in the BBC canteen one day and asked if I would appear in his DEBUSSY as a film director.
I suggested that I might accept if I could also play another role as well. At first Ken thought me very greedy and said ‘no,’ and then later let me have my way, and so Ollie Reed and I worked for six weeks day and night on that film. After that Ken and I were connected in some magical way because I worked for him several times afterwards on BILLON DOLLAR BRAIN (1967), WOMEN IN LOVE (1969), DANCE OF THE SEVEN VEILS (1970) and THE BOY FRIEND (1971), not to mention the unfinished MOLL FLANDERS (1989). (Vladek was not in THE MUSIC LOVERS as many filmographies state.) Years later it would be an elderly Ken Russell himself telling me about the last days of our friend, in the back lawn of the British Counsel General’s house in Hancock Park. By then, with his glory days well behind him, Ken Russell looked like a tired strawberry in a white wig.

Around 1984 I had made a few trips to London, always finding the time to visit Vladek at his comfortable digs on Farm House Rd (which had a pub conveniently on the corner) when he confided to me that he was planning to teach acting classes in Stanislavski in California. A few months later Vladek turned up at my flat in Beverly Hills to watch WOMEN IN LOVE on tape, as he had not seen it in years. He was more than pleased to see that I had in my archive several photos from his films with Ken Russell, and made a point of sending me many others from his then-busy career as a working actor.

THE HAPPY COOKER

Monique Van Vooren

Monique Van Vooren has been a scene stealer ever since she appeared in TARZAN AND THE SHE DEVIL (1953). As Lyra, the She Devil of the title, Monique made a spectacular villainess although Raymond Burr kind of steals the show as a vile creep who finally gets his just desserts by being trampled by elephants in the last reel. Monique had already made her film debut in an Italian film entitled DOMANI E TROPPO TARDI with Vittorio De Sica and Pier Angeli in 1950. The Belgium-born entertainer arrived on the planet earth in 1933 and has been trying to figure a way to blast off of it ever since.

Monique has always turned heads with her ample figure, and later on by the sheer power and determination of her need to attract attention, which she craved like a drug. Long a front page fixture in New York club life as a society icon and jet setter, Monique hit her peak during the “Warhol years” when she managed to capture the imagination of the world’s most famous ballet dancer, Rudolf Nureyev. Rudy stayed for weeks in her New York penthouse posing for Interview and Vogue while nightclubbing at Studio 54 in the company of Halston, Liza and Andy. In this period it was impossible to not see Monique in total diva mode, dressed in the latest by Georgio Sant’Angelo, a “late night fantasy” as the disco song goes.

Monique tried to encourage an affair, especially for the tabloids, but alas Rudy was just too Gay to think of her in such terms. Later Monique would get her revenge by penning a veiled account of this relationship in her book the gossipy “Night Sanctuary” (1981), a promised glimpse into the boudoirs of the rich and famous. Unfortunately this attempt at prose, purple though it may have been, was decidedly dull and lifeless upon execution.

Monique’s claims to fame have almost always centered on someone just a little more in the limelight than herself. For years she dined on the story of renaming a young dancer (who was hoofing in one of her early reviews) Christopher. His last name was Walken. Thus Christopher Walken was born and went on to a lasting career in films. However it was her relationship with Nureyev that provided her with a blueprint for a lifestyle that could have only existed in that particular space and time.

While all this drama with Rudy was spinning away, leaving her to ignore her husband, the long suffering George Purcell by whom she would have her only child, a son named Eric. The marriage lasted until Mr. Purcell died at the age of 86 in 2001.

Monique would on occasion do her “act,” a Cabaret revue involving her life as a socialite as well as a confidant to the rich and famous. She tried to do a bit of Dietrich by way of talking her songs including “La Vie a Rose” and of course “falling in love again”. Nureyev was a part of this act whether he liked it or not. She provided a slide show during her revue that included photos of Rudy in which she would say very loudly to her audience “Is this MY forbidden fruit?” this always got a laugh as her audience was usually a combination of Gay men and fans of her Warhol tour de force FLESH FOR FRANKENSTEIN, which most of us saw in 3-D. I could never forget seeing Monique Van Vooren as the Baroness Katrin Frankenstein slurping madly into Joe Dallasandro’s armpit with such abandon that it quite simply stopped the show, and in 3-D no less. Monique earned her place in film history right on the spot.

My Monique experience took place around 1978 at the infamous Studio One (formally the old Factory) at 652 N. La Peer Drive in West Hollywood in their equally famous BACKLOT cabaret directly behind the disco. In that hallowed space I saw and mingled with Bette Davis, Geraldine Fitzgerald, Eartha Kitt, Sally Kellerman and the fantastic Francis Faye. (A future Camp David on all that is in the works never fear!) Monique was quite the rage that week: she played the club and I was taken to opening night by her “Frankenstein” director Paul Morrisey and Tab Hunter. Paul laughed at everything she did that night and promptly took us back stage afterwards to congratulate the Diva, who managed to keep her wig on throughout the evening when all about her were losing theirs.

Paul, it appears, had an ulterior motive in inviting me that evening as Monique needed an agent in Hollywood.. Well I could say nothing but yes and found myself at her hotel the following afternoon, The Westwood Marquis was the perfect setting for this encounter as it possessed certain glamour and Monique was nothing if she was not glamorous. She kept me waiting in her suite for about an hour as she adjusted her appearance just for me. Soon she appeared all in white, complete with a matching turban and a large MVV embroidered on her silk blouse. All she lacked was a long cigarette holder and within seconds she had that as well, waiting for me to light it for her as she asked “Can you get me the same parts Faye Dunaway is offered ?” After pondering that concept for a moment I replied “anything is possible. Let’s give ourselves a few weeks and see what happens”.

Well she had yet another surprise for me in that she had just written her first cook book, “The Happy Cooker” with such recipes as “Spanish Fly burgers” as well as “stoned chicken” made with a generous helping of marihuana in stuffing and so on, It was very clever and fun so I agreed to try and book her on the Dinah Shore morning chat show in a few weeks. Within days I received a box of cook books with a note “Get Cooking, Love Monique.”

Well as hard as I tried I could do nothing for the bombshell from Brussels. Dinah said no and would not change her mind as Monique was on Burt Reynold’s shit list and I never found out the reason, so that dashed what would have been a classic encounter with those two Divas in the kitchen cooking with dope!

During this time I was seeing quite a bit of Hiram Keller, as was everybody else in Hollywood apparently. When he discovered I was representing Monique Van Vooren, Hiram began laughing about her famous “quickie facelift” that was demonstrated to him one evening when they were club hopping in New York with ever present Rudy, of course. It seems Monique had a trick she learned from the divine Dietrich herself: if she pulled her skin tightly around her hair it would act as a lift if only for the evening. With her trademark hauteur Monique pulled both slides of her face up at the same time and did not tighten one as securely as the other so during the evening one side dropped dramatically, unbeknownst to Monique, but it certainly caught Rudy’s attention and soon the whole restaurant was howling at the poor woman as she ran to the ladies room for an adjustment. This gave Hiram and Rudy a chance to depart on what would prove a momentary affair, as they did resemble each other in more ways than one. Much like Rudy, the highly sexed Monique did like her “boy toys” even if they for the most part fancied each other. Amour tous jour Amour.

I still have my inscribed copy of the “Happy Cooker” and fond memories of this one-of-a- kind celebrity the kind they just don’t seem to make anymore. However the story does not end there. As luck would have it, several years later in the middle of 2000 I was doing my radio show in Palm Springs and who should walk in, chic as always, dressed in white and yellow with a large hat decorated with yellow roses – Monique Van Vooren, who was there to promote her appearance at a small venue known as “the Rock Garden restaurant and grill” on Palm Canyon Drive.

We embraced after nearly two decades, and she told me she was living at her country estate in Bayside Queens with her son Eric not far away. Good for her I thought, and we chatted away about her revue and her amazement at the following her Frankenstein film had with the kids nowadays, so later that night I sat once again in the audience as Monique stopped her singing long enough to bring out her well-worn slides and ask that famous question just as Nureyev’s image passed the though lens “Is this MY forbidden fruit?”