2007: A Classic Year Ahead? November 29, 2006
Posted by John Hodson in : DVD News & Info , add a commentHear that? That’s the sound 2006 makes as it tears through the air, cracks on up, up, up to the upper atmosphere and finally disappears with a barely audible popping noise into the maw of history. Another year. Gone.
Well, practically. For us fans of older films, there haven’t been too many momentous announcements recently, and for the first time in several years, we’re heading into the new year unsure of what treats are in store with relatively few official announcements.
There are plenty of clues for what is, and what might be, heading our way in 2007 strewn around, however, if you know where to look. For instance, Universal has very quietly announced the W.C. Fields Comedy Collection Volume 2 for release next March, with some of Fields’ finest work: You’re Telling Me, The Man On The Flying Trapeze, The Old-Fashioned Way, Poppy, and Never Give A Sucker An Even Break. There are trailers for each title and what sounds like a throwaway featurette Wayne and Schuster Take an Affectionate Look at W.C. Fields.
In both R1 and R2, Sony intends to release Here Comes Mr Jordan (extras free, but this is Sony) alongside an R2 Ship of Fools in February, and the following month, it seems the UK is to get new special editions of A Man for All Seasons and The Guns of Navarone. Death Wish 3 and Death Wish 4 (not my cup of tea, but someone will probably rejoice at the news) follow, as will My Sister Eileen. In June, R2 will also get more titles long out in R1: Bitter Victory, Fail-Safe and Gun Fury. Also in the UK, Universal offers the Douglas Sirk Collection in January: All I Desire, All That Heaven Allows, Has Anybody Seen My Gal?, Imitation of Life, Magnificent Obsession, The Tarnished Angels and Written on the Wind.
Deep breath now, thanks to Zetaminor.com, we’re going to look at what Optimum has for us in the first quarter in R2. Since their takeover by Studio Canal, the British (now Franco / British, I suppose) label’s output has been phenomenal. However, they’ve not always hit the target quality wise, so caveat emptor, gentle reader.
In January we have Belle de Jour, a 40th Anniversary Edition, with such listed features as History of a Film, a commentary by Professor Peter W. Evans, and a theatrical trailer. This is closely followed by The Luis Buñuel Collection (eight discs packaged in two digipacks, in a slipcase: Belle de Jour, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, The Diary of a Chambermaid, Tristana, The Milky Way, That Obscure Object of Desire, The Phantom of Liberty, La Joven (The Young One)). The set will feature Making of… documentaries for seven of the films.
Optimum continues their Comic Icons series (their Tony Hancock set featured two dreadful transfers carried over from the days of the Studio Canal / Warner deal) with The Leslie Phillips Collection, four disc set containing Please Turn Over, Watch Your Stern, No Kidding and Crooks Anonymous, with commentary by Phillips, although this still has to be confirmed. In the same series, The Frankie Howerd Collection, a ‘three disc’ set containing Up Pompeii and Up The Chastity Belt, there’s also been some speculation that the mysterious third disc might be The House in Nightmare Park. Again TBC, but I do hope so.
The Comic Icons theme also debuts The Terry-Thomas Collection, a six-disc set containing School For Scoundrels, His and Hers, Private’s Progress, Make Mine Mink, Too Many Crooks and The Naked Truth), plus The Sidney James Collection, a three-disc set containing The Big Job, Make Mine a Million and The Lavender Hill Mob.
I’m looking forward to Optimum’s disc of Walter Hill’s Southern Comfort; the current R1 has dreadful audio. They’ve also scheduled a January release for Nic Roeg’s The Man Who Fell To Earth, a two-disc set in Amaray case with metallic board slipcase. This features a ‘new and exclusive Roeg interview; Watching the Alien documentary; trailer; DVD-Rom featuring pages from the theatrical campaign brochure’.
In February we have The Go-Between (alarmingly, it looks like it might feature the same open-matte transfer as the newspaper giveaway from several months ago), and Stephen Frears’ The Grifters. Also February, Kathryn Bigelow’s Near Dark, the Narrow Margin (lord knows which version however), and the David Essex double That’ll Be The Day and Stardust. Look out too for Highlander; Immortal Edition in an ‘embossed steel tin including artcards; newly-created extra features (TBC); new hour-long retrospective documentary; new audio commentary by director Russell Mulcahy (TBC); “soundtrack / music video disc” (TBC).
February also sees David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive; Collector’s Edition, featuring Making of… documentary and interviews, plus 20-page booklet ‘extracting Lynch on Lynch’, special packaging and artcards, The John Sayles Collection (three UK DVD debuts: Lianna, Return of the Secaucas Seven and Brother From Another Planet), and possibly most exciting, an Early Hitchcock Box Set; Blackmail, Murder!, The Ring, The Farmer’s Wife, Rich & Strange, The Skin Game, The Manxman, Number Seventeen and Champagne.
In March we have The L-Shaped Room, The Raging Moon, Darling, The Jean-Luc Goddard Collection Volume One; Alphaville, Pierrot le Fou, Une Femme Est Une Femme, Le Petit Soldat, A Bout de Souffle, La Chinoise and Made in the USA. Steve McQueen fans in R2 might like Wanted: Dead or Alive, Series One Volume Two, a five-disc set containing twenty more episodes of the Western series. Features photo’ gallery and Life In The Fast Lane featurette.
Also March: Emmanuelle; Special Edition, featuring interview with director; Emmanuelle - An Erotic Success (52m documentary, “new to DVD”) plus a booklet containing behind-the-scenes stills, Fu Manchu Double-bill - The Castle of Fu Manchu and The Blood of Fu Manchu, and the Classic Horror Collection; The Beast Must Die, I, Monster, Night of the Eagle, Black Sabbath, Circus of Horrors, A Bucket of Blood, Ghost Ship and Doctor Crippin, all available separately.
Look out too for two boxes entitled Screen Icons, the first with the delectable Julie Christie (The Go-Between, Billy Liar, Far From The Madding Crowd and Darling), the second with the delicious Catherine Deneuve (Umbrellas of Cherbourg, Belle de Jour, Donkey Skin, Manon 70).
Later on in the month Sweeney! and Sweeney 2, and then, yum, Michael Powell’s Peeping Tom: Special Edition in a slipcase containing an Amaray case; The Eye of the Beholder documentary (30m); The Strange Gaze of Mark Lewis documentary (25m); booklet containing essay by Ryan Gilbey and interview with screenwriter Leo Marks; behind-the-scenes production stills; commentary by Powell expert Ian Christie.
Network has announced the titles (no details yet) on its first quarter schedule of R2 titles, which includes the usual mix of films new to DVD, those - because of their arcane deal with Granada Ventures - replicated by DD Home Entertainment and those replacing out of print Carlton / Granada versions: January - Kidnapped (which version? My guess is the 1971 Delbert Mann film, but it could even be one of the many TV adaptations), John Mills in H.G. Wells The History of Mr Polly, Carve Her Name With Pride Special Edition, The League of Gentlemen Special Edition and Mason and Lockwood in The Man in Grey. February - British produced Charles Bronson spring/autumn romance Twinky, The Four Feathers, the Mike Bentine comedy The Sandwich Man, Peter Finch in Simon and Laura, Hawk the Slayer, and I think that’s the ‘71 crime drama Assault on the list. March - Alec Guinness in the marvellous The Card, The Tamarind Seed, Bronson again in The Evil That Men Do, Hell Drivers and the previously postponed Things to Come, curiously, no longer an SE.
Still in R2, and over at DD Home Entertainment, finally - finally - George Formby fans have something to shout about in January with the release of Boots! Boots! (1934), and in March, Sidney Hayers Revenge (1971), the Holmes spoof Without a Clue, 1937’s Fire Over England and The Tamarind Seed.
Criterion looks to hit 2007 running, pop over to their forthcoming page for the low down (though you won’t see there that Criterion has let it slip Salo will make a reappearance next year, and dropped a heavy hint that they’ll release The Naked City); I’m looking forward enormously to Sidney Gilliat’s Green for Danger, which was announced completely out of left field. In the UK, Eureka say that their Masters of Cinema range will be extended by 2007 releases of Shoah and F For Fake early in the new year, later on among the goodies coming we’re told to expect a defintive 2-disc Nosferatu, plus Tabu: A Story of The South Seas and The Blue Angel.
No sign of that promised Ernest Hemingway Collection from Fox, but apparently Blood and Sand will be amongst their early ‘07 releases for R1 that also includes, among a handful of Doris Day titles, Caprice. Come February, Fox releases The Alice Faye Collection: That Night in Rio, Lillian Russell, On the Avenue, The Gang’s All Here, while in March three postponed westerns finally make their appearance, the 1939 Jesse James, the following year’s The Return of Frank James, and 1957’s The True Story of Jesse James.
In R1 from Warner, we know there’s a terrific looking Robert Mitchum Signature Collection in January (Angel Face, Macao, Home from the Hill, The Sundowners, The Good Guys & the Bad Guys and The Yakuza) and that Literary Classics Collection (Billy Budd, Captain Horatio Hornblower, Madame Bovary (1949), The Prisoner of Zenda (1937 & 1952 Double Feature) and The Three Musketeers(1948)) the same month. Performance is coming February in both R1 and R2, alongside (R1 only this one) The Loneliness of The Long Distance Runner (we’ll see if Warners transfer can better the OOP R2 from the BFI; still available at some etailers if you want to snap it up…), and they’ve flagged a new SE of Cool Hand Luke for 2007, the film’s 40th anniversary. Thanks to this year’s Warner/HTF Chat, we know Warner is also looking at Quo Vadis, that multi-disc edition of Blade Runner is definitely coming and we await those Kubrick SEs with great interest.
The Clock is coming, we may also see The Pirate plus a box set of the four ‘let’s put on a show’ musicals that Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland made (Babes in Arms, Babes on Broadway, Strike Up the Band, Girl Crazy), and the Ginger Rogers’ RKO films such as Vivacious Lady, Bachelor Mother, and Once Upon a Honeymoon. We might get a set of Andy Hardy films next year, or ‘08, and there’s a likelihood of another Joan Crawford box including Flamingo Road, plus The Strawberry Blonde in a James Cagney set. Glenn Ford may be boxed (pardon the expression), and Warner say it will put together another Errol Flynn boxset in 2007 including Gentleman Jim and The Charge of the Light Brigade.
Hell, with Warner claiming they will probably market up to two box sets a month next year, we’ll all have to dig deep, or at least be very, very choosy (or win The Lottery; I’m easy) - another Powell/Loy collection, a box of Allied Artists films, Warner has stated that Twilight’s Last Gleaming will be part of a Burt Lancaster boxset next year, another Lon Chaney collection with Tell it to the Marines, He who gets Slapped and both versions of Unholy Three being restored from the original camera negative, A Summer Place is a possibility next year as well as a Natalie Wood boxset, and releases for The Hill, the O’Toole Goodbye Mr Chips, plus some other unnamed Delmar Daves films. Warner is still looking for 35mm film elements for the full length 102 minutes of The Sea Wolf. They say they have 16mm elements of it, but will continue to look for the very best that’s out there; fingers crossed. Also a lip-smacking prospect is a The Man Who Would Be King SE for ‘07.
Film Noir Box Four may contain Anthony Mann’s Side Street, and look out for some more MGM musicals - a makeover for the current iteration of Garland’s A Star is Born and the ‘37 version too - and possibly, to accompany their That’s Entertainment set, That’s Dancing. Possibly around September or maybe a little after (to hit the Christmas ‘07 market), Warner has said they’ll be doing a new Dirty Harry SE Collection, will ‘all-new’ extras.
It’s Bonnie and Clyde’s 40th birthday next year so, say those brothers Warner, watch out for a SE. Executive Suite is slated for 2007, Carbine Williams is ‘a possibility’ for the second James Stewart boxset, and - huzzah - a 2-Disc SE of Deliverance has been scheduled; John Boorman’s commentary is already in the can.
I don’t know about you, but I feel distinctly impecunious already; and, alarmingly, I’ve only just scratched the surface of what’s to come during 2007…
My Money Saving Plan; Spend, Spend, Spend… November 16, 2006
Posted by John Hodson in : General, DVD e-tailers, DVD News & Info , add a commentMy brand spanking new policy of trying to avoid buying too many films that will appear at a later date - at a fraction of the price - in box sets, and which I discussed in this post, has coincided with the 20% off sale at Deepdiscountdvd.com, where, having been careful with the pennies of late in anticipation, I’ve had a bit of a splurge.
As outlined on my ‘Bought & Watched’ page, I’ve been suckered into buying - beg pardon - used my newly acquired financial acumen to purchase The Paul Newman Collection, The Gary Cooper Signature Collection, and The Marlon Brando Collection in DDD’s sale for the simple reason that the 20% off offer brought all three sets (not including p&p obviously, which does not come into the equation for customs until you exceed the limit) under the £18 ‘VAT-free’ customs ceiling (£18? Gordon Brown - and prudence - are having a larf!)
Thus I’ll be avoiding a further £7-£8 per parcel bill, £4 of which is the Royal Mail’s outrageous, painful - just plain criminal - ’handling’ charge. I mean, they pop a card through my door and I have to drive five miles to their depot for the pleasure of queuing, handing over their ransom and then collecting the damned things myself. And the chap on the other side of the counter isn’t even wearing a mask (though he may be riding Black Bess for all I know…) Handling fee - pshaw!
It also means I hopefully won’t have to put up with a delay of anything up to a fortnight while the civil servants at Mount (Un)Pleasant stick my parcels in a corner (as they get their abacus out), before they pass them on to the posties, who stick ’em in another corner and stare at them. For days. Well, just because they can, I reckon.
I also took the opportunity to nab the Warner Legends of Horror Collection, tagging on Paramount’s Oh! What a Lovely War to the same order, the two coming to well under the customs limit. I’d been mulling over getting Universal’s Cary Grant Screen Legends Collection, but I finally caved and, again - so I had a cost efficient customs beating parcel - added Charley Varrick and another bargain (I’m really quite good at convincing myself I’m somehow saving money am I not?), the almost Criterion worthy release from the former sub-Criterion label Home Vision, of the quirky British film, The Rocking Horse Winner.
I’d railed against Universal’s piss-poor release of Siegel’s excellent crime flick (or is it a chase? Or a caper? Well, maybe not quite a caper…); they just tossed it out onto the market like some love starved orphan (the swine) open-matte, no menu, no chapter stops to be seen, no extras (obviously). No passion, sometimes Universal.
At least it is open-matte, and since it was released, I’ve acquired the combination of an Oppo DVD player and Toshiba LCD screen which means that, much to my astonishment, even half-decent transfers scale up quite nicely - so I should be able to watch the film in decent OAR. Well, here’s hoping, and it does come in at under $5. So if I have to turn it into a coaster (or a cat scarer, or a frisbee), there’s not too much damage done.
Oh, and I chucked in the Criterion The Fallen Idol from CDWow simply because I had a soon to expire £2 voucher. More money, er, invested (Mrs H’s word - the madness is catching)! Fiscal genius, I tells ya!
All that money I’ve saved. By spending it. Brilliant. (Ah, isn’t it…?)
Meanwhile, the DDD 20% off sale ends November 23 (it should have been Nov. 18, but it’s been extended. Sadists), which can’t come soon enough for us ’savers’ and card holding members of DVD’s Anonymous. The bad news is that there will most likely be another Spring / Summer ‘07; if I keep saving money at this rate, I’ll soon be bankrupt.
By the way, those of you who love their classic films, and love them even better in a sale or on special offer, could do worse than visit The Classic Cinema & DVD Forum Bargain Thread for up to date offers on classic films. If, however, like me, you’re saving money, then please stay well clear…it’s bad for your wealth.
High Noon; Dutch Delight November 14, 2006
Posted by John Hodson in : DVD News & Info, Film & DVD Reviews, Westerns , 2 comments‘Kane will be a dead man in half an hour and nobody’s going to do anything about it. And when he dies, this town dies too. I can feel it. I am all alone in the world. I have to make a living. So I’m going someplace else. That’s all.’
Helen Ramirez
Life very much imitating art, Carl Foreman’s world was going to hell in a handcart as he was writing the script for High Noon. He was under investigation by the House Committee on Un-American Activities (commonly known as HUAC, presumably because it doesn’t make much of an acronym any other way…), as were many of his colleagues, indeed, many of the cast and crew that were working on what - in fact if not in spirit - is a low budget ‘quickie’ western.
Foreman faced a moral dilemma. He either danced to HUAC’s tune or, in imitation of his pragmatic woman of ’dubious reputation’ Helen Ramirez, who quits Hadleyville because she has to ‘make a living’ somehow, he can get out of the country of his birth…before the clock strikes noon. Foreman, unlike his protagonist Will Kane, chose to flee.
There was a hokey slice of condescending cold war wisdom that went, if I can recall it correctly, ‘if you’re not a communist when you’re 18 there’s something wrong with your heart. If you’re still a communist when you’re 80, there’s something wrong with your head.’
As a working class Jew in the 1930s, young Carl saw the effects of the Great Depression on his countrymen, and, like many 1000s of other American young men and women of conscience, joined the American Communist Party. He later told HUAC, when he was called before them during the production of High Noon, that, yes, he had been a party member, but had become disillusioned with ‘Uncle Joe’ Stalin and had quit. Yet he steadfastly refused to give the Commission names of fellow party members, was labelled an ‘unfriendly witness’, and blacklisted. Can’t work, can’t eat. Not HUAC or Senator Joe McCarthy’s problem.
By the time High Noon was finished, a storm bursting over Foreman’s head, the Chicago born Oscar nominated (for Champion) screenwriter had decamped to England, to continue making his living, but behind he left a picture that, though ostensively a simple western tale, left few in doubt of its allegorical origins. And while Foreman would liked to have been Will Kane - a man alone, strapping on his gun for the final confrontation - his screen doppelganger is actually a combination of the frontier marshal and his former squeeze, the proud but practical Ramirez, a woman who fears that her town is about to die and die bloody at the hands of something evil, like her former lover Will, and so gets the hell out from under.
It’s something of a triumph that High Noon made it to the screen at all in the political climate of ’50s America. Foreman’s script is particularly and deliberately unsubtle, and word got out as filming was taking place. The hounds of the right were soon on the trail of the Reds under this particular bed, and were subsequently let loose not only on screenwriter Foreman (he was also associate producer but producer Stanley Kramer, in a bid to placate the witch hunt, had that credit removed and bought him out of the Kramer company. The two never spoke again), but also on Lloyd Bridges, who was also blacklisted alongside cinematographer Floyd (father of musician David) Crosby.
Laughter was in short supply for many in Tinsel Town, but it was Foreman who enjoyed a last guffaw, albeit from beyond the grave. High Noon won four Oscars (not bad for a film with a budget of $750,000, shot in less than a month), Foreman’s script was nominated (again, though he didn’t win), but he later did in fact win one of the little statuettes, while blacklisted, for The Bridge on The River Kwai (he was originally uncredited, but, like fellow writer Michael Wilson, finally received recognition posthumously from the Academy in 1984. Better late than never…).
Ironically, it was John Wayne who picked up Gary Cooper’s Oscar award for Best Actor at the 1952 ceremony, though the old cold warrior couldn’t resist having a verbal pop at the absent Foreman and his film. Wayne always professed a distaste for High Noon, but it would be seven years before the ‘Duke’ and the equally right wing Howard Hawks delivered their riposte, the tremendous Rio Bravo. Both director and lead actor thundered that High Noon was somehow anti-American, that real heroes didn’t go around begging for help and, as Wayne would erroneously recall, grinding their badges into the dust. “I didn’t think a good sheriff was going to go running around town like a chicken with his head off…” said Hawks (from Hawks on Hawks by Joe McBride).
My deep suspicion is that it wasn’t High Noon either man had a problem with as such, it was Foreman and what they deduced were his politics. Wayne later said that he was ‘proud’ to have helped drive Foreman from the country. And while reactionaries at the centre of the HUAC storm might have been affronted by the allegory, your average cinema-goer wasn’t that concerned; what they saw was an exciting, thrilling, ground-breaking western. In fact, up until the moment Kane drops that badge on Main Street (and as far as Wayne was concerned, he might as well have pissed on the Stars and Stripes) and looks at the townspeople with utter contempt, it could be read entirely the other way; a triumph of rugged individualism over the collective will. Most people just bought their popcorn and had a great time.
As for Cooper, well, therein lies one of the stranger aspects to all this. First off, let me get this out of the way, for it seems the fashion today to compare Gary Cooper to the knottiest of 3 x 2 pieces of pinewood. Various reports say that ‘Coop’ had trouble with bleeding ulcers and / or back trouble while filming, thus explaining how easily the look of a man with the troubles of the world on his broad shoulders. I suppose it couldn’t have hurt (no pun intended), but the man from Montana, whose father was a genuine western pioneer, who, though untrained, had been acting on screen for three decades (and had been a 24-carat Hollywood star most of that time), was very fine actor indeed.
I’ll say that again for those who prefer to believe the idiocy put about that Coop was as wooden as a cigar store injun. Gary Cooper had a style that was almost wholly transparent, on set he appeared to be doing very little, in fact when it came to the rushes, it was apparent that he and the camera were made for each other. As a screen actor he was almost perfection itself; watch the close-ups (of which there are many) in High Noon. Zinnemann knows what his star, though entering the autumn of his career, is capable of and trusts him with the tightest of tight shots. This is how good Coop is; there’s a brief two sentence exchange with Katy Jurado in Spanish. You don’t have to know the meaning, Cooper invests his two words - two words - with a tear-jerking mixture of love, loss, pain and sadness. I’m a fan; I hope it shows.
But, far more intriguing for me at least, is the fact that Cooper, whose politics were very much on the liberal wing as a young man, willingly, almost eagerly, volunteered to testify before HUAC.
Far from stupid, he must have known not only of Foreman’s troubles, but also the subtext must have leapt from the pages of his copy of the screenplay. Cooper knew that one of the dangers of getting involved with High Noon was a guilt by association, a fact Foreman confirmed later after Cooper defended the screenwriter. And yet he stuck that chin out and went ahead and took the role, a role in a movie that few predicted would end in glory, in an Oscar, and in movie immortality. Will Kane would have been proud.
So, backstory over. The main feature.
It’s not clear where Hadleyville is (the name is only seen on signs, never spoken), but it’s probably Texas / New Mexico, possibly mid-1880s, the town (it thinks) having put it’s lawless past behind and looking to the future, for growth, for investment. An injection of capital(ism). It’s summer in this ‘dirty little village’, and the sun beats down mercilessly from a cloudless sky.
It was the late, great Dimitri Tiomkin’s idea to have the film open with the three members of the Miller gang meeting by a ‘hanging tree’ just outside of town, then riding in, the scene covered by no natural sounds, just Tiomkin and Ned Washington’s song, sung in stripped down country fashion by ’oater’ star Tex Ritter. By the time the credits end, pages of narrative have been covered (sing this; come on, sing dammit!);
Do not forsake me, oh my darlin’
On this, our weddin’ day
Do not forsake me, oh my darlin’
Wait, wait alongI do not know what fate awaits me
I only know I must be brave
And I must face a man who hates me
Or lie a coward, a craven coward
Or lie a coward in my graveOh, to be torn ‘tweenst love and duty
S’posin’ I lose my fair-haired beauty
Look at that big hand move along
Nearin’ high noonHe made a vow while in state’s prison
Vowed it would be my life or his’n
I’m not afraid of death but oooh!
What will I do if you leave me?Do not forsake me, oh my darlin’
You made that promise as a bride
Do not forsake me, oh my darlin’
Although you’re grievin’, don’t think of leavin’
Now that I need you by my sideWait along, wait along, wait along
Wait along…
It was a brilliant concept (not least Washington’s rhyming of ‘prison’ with ‘his’n’). Tiomkin always said that his favourite score was the one he wrote for Wayne’s The Alamo, but it’s in this film that we have the almost perfect marriage of music and image, the notes pounding out like a metronome, tick-tocking down the the seconds of Marshal Kane’s life. Tiomkin uses the tune throughout, sometimes giving it a romantic lilt, but also as part of proceedings, jauntily knocked out by the saloon pianist, it’s played on harmonica by Colby (Lee Van Cleef; the only sounds he makes onscreen, otherwise, he doesn’t utter a word), heard in church, and it’s there on on a small portable pump organ as Kane marries Amy. And then dramatically, at the climax, each note, each second is marked, down to the terrible shriek of the train whistle as it, Kane’s doom, enters plain view. Noon.
By the time the Miller gang - Ben Miller (Sheb Woolley), Jim Pierce (Robert Wilke), Jack Colby (Van Cleef) - get to town, and the credits have ended, we’re already well into the story.
Marshal Will Kane (Cooper) and his new bride (the gorgeous Grace Kelly, like Van Cleef, making her film debut) are getting hitched in the company of all their great and true friends; all of them, including Amy Fowler Kane, would within a few short minutes ’forsake’ Kane when they hear that an evil they thought had been eradicated five years previously is about to hit their town like a twister. Kane, unlike many western heroes, is an everyman, as far away from a social outsider like John T. Chance as is possible. Kane’s cleaned up the town, he’s part of the community, and he’s about to give up being a law man to settle down and become a storekeeper. Practically everyone that matters, is, after all, at his wedding. They are, as said, his ‘friends’.
But those ‘up north’ commuted Frank Miller’s death sentence and now, for some unexplained reason he’s been pardoned. He’s out and he’s coming back to town. And not for the wedding. Both Kane and Miller (Ian McDonald) go against the grain of typical western characters good and bad. Kane is willing to face down his nemesis, indeed he knows he has no option, but he also seeks help. And he’s not only afraid, he’s not afraid to admit it.
Miller, well, for well over an hour this black demon is never seen and what he’s done, what dark crimes he’s committed, are never made clear. There are obtuse references, Kane tells Ramirez (Katy Jurado): ‘You know how he is…’ and an odd look comes over her face, as if the Marshal has dredged up a memory from the dark recesses of her mind of something particularly nasty, and painful.
In fact, at the mere mention of his name, grown men grow queasy and bolt their doors, yet the most we see of him during this period is the empty chair from which he was sentenced to hang. It’s not a dead man that’s coming back to Hadleyville, but like the spectre at the feast, Miller’s presence is tangible, we share their fear, and he dominates the whole proceedings. By the time we do see him, the boys, as dirty and dusty as all get out, greet him off the train, and Frank is the real city slicker, in brand new, expensive store bought duds, quite the dude. As if he’s ready to go to that little white boarded church with the rest of the folks. All the same, he has a killer’s blank eyes.
One by one, as Kane tries to gather a posse, they desert him. First and foremost his Quaker bride, who has taken many months to persuade her man to forsake the gun, but is horrified that he now has to kill, or be killed on the day of their betrothal. Will’s deputy, the feisty and opportunistic Harvey Pell (Lloyd Bridges) sees a chance to get the job of Marshal that he feels Kane has denied him. In turning his back on Will, he shows just why. Kane’s former mentor Martin Howe (a lovely understated cameo by Lon Chaney) will not help him. Living on the edge of town in a small wooden shack (a future Kane has seen and was determined would not be his), Marty tells him: ‘You risk your skin catching killers and the juries turn ’em loose so they can come back and shoot at you again. If you’re honest you’re poor your whole life and in the end you wind up dying all alone on some dirty street. For what? For nothing. For a tin star.’
The town fathers, all his old back-slapping buddies deny him, talk themselves out of helping the man they all agree has made their town the peaceful law-abiding place it is; Kane is reduced to considering, then almost reluctantly rejecting, aid offered by first a one-eyed drunk, then a 14 years old boy (’I'm big for my age’). And the clock is ticking.
Foreman brings them all on; men who disappear at the first signs of trouble, the excuses they dredge up (’Go on home to your kids Herb’), those that are desperate to see him get his ‘comeuppance’, all of whom are telling him to get out of town, and by implication, take his trouble far away with him.
Vienna born Fred Zinnemann hadn’t directed a western before and he clearly comes to the project with an open mind, not bound by convention; indeed for such a thrilling story, it’s something of a surprise that it’s 73 minutes before there’s anything we can accurately describe as western action (i.e. gunplay). It was Zinnemann, with the help of cinematographer Crosby, who determined to give his movie a stark, high contrast look; it’s beautifully shot in black and white, dry and dusty, those lines deeply etched in Cooper’s tired and dirty face. Time and again we return to two central motifs, a simple shot of miles and miles of empty railroad, down whose parallel tracks, death is coming. And those clocks; the seconds ticking away on huge clock faces, pocket watches, train station chronometers, the pendulums swinging like bodies at the gallows. Kane can’t stop time and we, the audience, are able to feel the sands trickling through his fingers.
When they produced the first cut, Zinnemann and his editor Elmo Williams, were dissatisfied. Then Williams screened a cut he’d made as an experiment. It was trimmed to almost real time, so two minutes into the picture Kane would wed at 10:35am, and while it be wrong to say the whole film is played out in ‘real’ time, it’s as near as dammit, a succession of those clocks would count us down to ‘high noon’, the tension becoming palpable as each clock face, each watch is checked, time slipping inexorably away. Out went a whole back story, of another sheriff bringing in a wanted man to Hadleyville, and a comic interlude with town drunk Jack Elam in the saloon. The normally taciturn Zinnemann almost jumped for joy; this was it, this was his film.
From Ben Miller rearing his mount at the Marshal’s door -‘You in a hurry?’ ‘I sure am.’ ‘You’re a fool…’ - to Judge Mettrick (Otto Kruger) pointing at that empty chair (’…have you forgotten what he said? …’I'm going to kill you Will Kane…’), Mayor Henderson’s (Thomas Mitchell) stunning betrayal, Tiomkin’s score hammering down those final few seconds to noon as Will scratches away at his last will and testament, the blast of that train whistle and the score rising in time with a magnificent towering crane shot of Cooper, alone in an empty street to face his destiny - it’s spine-tingling cinema, cinema that makes the pulse race, that feeds those neural pleasure receptors the good stuff. The real good stuff.
And the Academy agreed, giving it - despite a behind the scenes campaign firmly against it - awards for Best Actor (Cooper’s second after Sergeant York), Editing, Best Original Song (the first time a non-musical had scooped this) and Best Score. In 1953, the defiant Writers Guild of America awarded Foreman, in absentia, their prize for ‘Best American Written Drama’ for High Noon. Screw you, Senator Joe…
Today, there’s a growing school of thought that is of the opinion that Leone and later Peckinpah came out of nowhere with their ‘revisionist’ westerns, which is total and utter tripe. Indeed there are many fans of Italian westerns in particular that would never dream of watching a Hollywood western.
Theirs wasn’t a revolution as such; High Noon is yet another step on the western’s evolutionary ladder. Leone’s bad guys weren’t the first ones to look as if they’ve been dragged through sagebrush backwards. The denizens of the Hadleyville saloon are a bunch that would sit well in any Leone casting call, and by the time he faces down the Miller gang, Marshal Kane is bruised, battered and dirty, his clothes torn, his nerve almost shredded. Indeed Leone, a western fan since he was a child, crammed as many references from his favourite westerns as he could into the delectable Once Upon a Time in The West (and, of course, that opening sequence is the heaviest nod possible to Zinnemann’s masterpiece). From John Ford to Raoul Walsh, Budd Boetticher, Sam Fuller, Anthony Mann and many more; both ‘Bloody Sam’ and Sergio would acknowledge the debt they owed to the masters of cinema’s oldest genre.
I suppose there’s more than a touch of the evangelist in me when it comes to film classics (maybe you’ve noticed?)
Whisper it, gentle reader, but sometimes I have been known to, well, shall we say, be slightly economical with the truth in a bid to spread the word when an older, sometimes, little known, or less-loved, film debuts on DVD. It’s not that I aim to dupe anyone - heaven forfend - but, damn it, I just want to share the joy. So, sometimes a quite decent transfer becomes ‘brilliant’. Come on; just watch the bloody thing.
This is no ‘little known or less-loved’ film and so you can trust me, Scouts honour, when I tell, I have just watched Paramount’s Region 2 Dutch Special Edition of High Noon, and it was akin to looking into the face of God.
In the UK, rights issues mean we’ve had to put up with Universal’s nasty, worn and tattered transfer for years (the only good news is, aside from being included in their Grace Kelly Screen Goddess set, it appears to be out of print). In R1, fans were looking forward to the home video rights for a whole slew of back catalogue classics owned by Republic, returning to the ownership of Paramount, after several years with Artisan (now Lion’s Gate), who, shall we say, failed to do many of them justice. In mitigation, for most, they didn’t hold the best elements, which are securely in Paramount’s Los Angeles vaults.
The twist is that Paramount actually declined to take the whole catalogue back, save for some TV titles, it’s said, and It’s a Wonderful Life. Quite why this should be is a puzzle, though rumours abound that the current suits could not care less about classics on DVD (except, obviously, Capra’s fable), which is why their output has slowed to a crawl. In fact, a crawl would be welcome.
We should be thankful then, that the above doesn’t seem to be the case the world over. The new High Noon Special Edition has been issued in Holland, France and Australia. In terms of extras there is no difference between the new disc and Artisan’s R1 50th Anniversary release, with ‘Hi - I’m Leonard Maltin…’ present and correct with a ‘Hi - I’m Leonard Maltin…‘ type featurette, and interviews with a whole slew of people, some, sadly no longer with us - Fred Zinnemann, David Crosby, John Ritter (son of Tex, who is himself heard in a vintage radio interview), Jonathan Foreman, Tim Zinnemann and Maria Cooper, all of whom also feature on the commentary track. So far so good.
But the transfer, the transfer - it’s truly blissful.
Look, when I had a first peek at it, I was so thrilled I sat down and practically watched the whole thing straight through. At breakfast. I shed tears of joy - I swear - when Grace Kelly’s luminous face turned upwards to gaze lovingly into Cooper’s at the wedding. It’s so good, it makes the Artisan - both iterations, one being slightly better than the other - look like VHS. It’s clean as a whistle, beautifully defined and detailed, and not only, as is their practice at Paramount bless ‘em, does it have a stereo track (phooey…), but also a full throated restored mono track (huzzah!), so that ol’ Tex and his chug-chugga-chug-chugga-chugga-chugga-chug can be heard loud enough to make the china rattle with no distortion.
It is, without a shadow of a doubt one of the best presentations of a black and white movie of this vintage (or possibly any other) extant on DVD. Screencaps simply do not do this justice (they never can tell the whole story) - you must see this yourself to believe just how good a job Paramount have done here - but there are a few stills of the R4 version posted in The DVD Forums Westerns Thread here.
I picked up my R2 Dutch copy - English friendly, right down to the menus - from Mediadis.com for €8.99 plus postage. And after all that good news, there’s more; more European (and possibly Antipodean) R2 Paramount classics on the way in 2007 apparently - newly restored versions of The Godfather, Godfather 2, we can expect Don Siegel’s Invasion of The Body Snatchers, Ford’s The Quiet Man, a lip-smacking prospect if it is restored at last, Looking for Mr Goodbar and more (full list here). If they are anywhere near the standard of High Noon, then I can see a lot of fans in the UK and US ‘going Dutch’ next year…
The Incredible Shrinking Robby November 9, 2006
Posted by John Hodson in : General, DVD News & Info , add a commentRemember when you were a small child and everything looked so big?
Everything that mattered at least; the telly, toys, food, bed, your first primary teacher’s breasts (precocious child, I). Wasn’t hard to empathise with Grant Williams in The Incredible Shrinking Man who had to put up with baggy clothes (hand me downs from my older brother), gigantic scraps of food (I swear the local chippy deep fried cod two-foot long) and huge, scary arachnids (they’ve always looked huge to me; me and Woody Allen, who once famously dealt with a spider ‘the size of a Buick’).
But toys; when you’re seven or eight, those little wind up things look, thanks to a childs almost limitless capacity to create worlds within worlds (cardboard boxes becoming anything from a three masted man ‘o war, to Supercar, a Tardis, or an arrow punctured stagecoach), as gi-normous as the real thing. Or in the case of Robby The Robot, the real, imaginary thing.
As I described in Monsters, John! Monsters from the id!, my childhood model of Robby was so damned cool, though it stood probably no higher than eight, maybe nine inches (20 - 25 centimeters for those confused by Imperial measure). In my head it was an unstoppable, mechanical hero or villain (depending on the scenario), spitting fire from it’s tiny clockwork head, falling over when it hit anything larger than a tinned bean (or the back of mum’s hand - ‘get that thing off the table!’)
So, my Forbidden Planet Ultimate Collectors Edition arrived today. It’s a humongous tin which, in itself (size being everything), is exciting. In transit (to the suppliers I suspect, the package being unmarked), it’s taken a couple of whacks, nothing serious. I claw, somewhat frantically, at the plastic cover, whip open the tin’s hinged lid, and…blow me, what’s that?
I feel like the kid on Christmas Day who wakes after dreams of sacks full of goodies, hand delivered by Santa himself…only to find that it’s still barely November (and, besides, Christmas is cancelled this year). Yup, there’s the Forbidden Planet digipak 2-disc set, complete with a sleeve of nicely produced lobby card reproductions, and underneath is Robby.
Barely three inches tall, like a pea on a drum. Shrunken in stature a la Fantastic Voyage. Tiny. Not big. Small.
Look, I’m 50-years-old and I can’t even wind the damn thing up and play with it? It’s not a wind-up toy, dummy, it’s a faithful reproduction of the actual Robby, scrupulously detailed….aw, screw that. I wanted to wind him, watch him go, spit phony mechanical sparks and tell me that there is ‘danger! Danger…!’ No danger of that. He’s about the size of your average (economy) fish finger, and about as threatening.
Bugger. Bugger, bugger, bugger (bugger). So, here I am, running out of shelf space, buying an Ultimate Collectors Edition the size of a medium sized roasting tin (and far less useful), for almost triple the cost of buying the two-disc set itself, which, when it comes down to it, is all I’m interested in. I am a marketing man’s dream.
Come on, the voice of reason (or justification) whispers softly in my head, you’ve got yourself a collectible tin, a finely crafted homage to a Hollywood legend (‘not a toy’ should be printed on there in 72-point bold), a desirable piece of…no, won’t wash. I repeat, all I’m interested in is the 2-disc set. Well, that and turning back time.
Your youth. When it’s gone, it’s gone. You can’t even buy it back, it seems…
My Brain Hurts… November 8, 2006
Posted by John Hodson in : General , add a commentEver had one of those days? I mean, one of those days when your brain just simply lets you down.
Oh, I can walk and talk, so the motor functions are a-okay; I know my name, address and telephone number (on reflection, that last one’s a toughie though; after all, I’ve only had it 17 years), so another day without dementia, but, well, the little things just go butter side down.
First up; I read DVD Savant’s nicely rendered review of The Fallen Idol. I hop on over to the Criterion website and read: “The Fallen Idol was the first of three masterpieces to result from the legendary meeting of director Carol Reed and writer Graham Greene, who together would also create The Third Man and Our Man in Havana.”
Okay. So I do two things - I fire off an email to Glenn Erickson to congratulate him on his review (it was a good review, deserved a pat on the back, it’s the least us watchers from the sidelines can do), then I tell him of my fervent wish that Criterion would release Reed and Greene’s Brighton Rock. I then go back to Criterion and snippily tell John Mulvaney, with the greatest hauteur I can manage, that they musn’t think much of Brighton Rock in view of their comments in the notes on The Fallen Idol and would they pul-lease consider it for release. Y’know. John Boulting’s Brighton Rock. And not the one by Carol Reed. Which he didn’t do (as you well know). Ouch.
With deepening horror I realise my schoolboy error. Which Glenn points out me as gently as he can in a return email, because I am either (a) a mental defective and must be kept at arms length or (b) …well, to be honest, there is no other possible explanation, so we scrap (b). Criterion don’t answer. I assume that even now the mythic Mulvaney is applying for a restraining order.
I knew that, honestly, I bloody well knew that. I can flap my arms and repeat that a zillion times, but it still doesn’t stop teenage film students (the lowest form of life) from pointing at me, guffawing and slapping me with rolled up copies of Sight & Sound. Look guys, I bleat, it’s just that I’m on one of those days when my brain is on a work to rule; it’s a ‘lower brain functions’ only day. One of those, ‘let’s just keep this sucker alive and no more’ days.
Mid-way through the afternoon, I post at the DVD Forums about the 2-disc Network version of the R2 Black Narcissus. A gorgeous, gorgeous disc, as in singular, because there is no second disc. It hits me like a bolt of lightening several hours later, and I have a track down a similar post I’d made on a different forum a few days ago. In fact, I can’t remember which bloody forum, only that I’d made one. Phew, made it, edited both posts, and no-one pulled me up. My secret is safe.
I have the damned Network Black Narcissus, I know it’s a single disc. I can count (all the way up to two on this evidence). Only my brain doesn’t. Not today.
I have form for this kind of thing. There are loads of crass errors I could point to, but for some reason, I recall two particularly clearly. I once mixed up which scenes were in colour and which were monochrome in Lindsay Anderson’s If…, even though I was pontificating about it as if I was some sort college lecturer (it’s not so bad; I’m pushed now to recall. But, hey, I was nurturing a reputation here…), and I remember typing some rubbish in some film forums thread (about silent films), about Fritz Lang’s M. Easy mistake to mix up silent movies with subtitled ones isn’t it? Especially when your brain goes on an away day to Inverness without you.
It’s hard work trying to cultivate an on-line persona as some sort of bleedin’ cinematic know all, when you, it is apparent, can’t tell your Boultings from your Reeds. Years of hard work trying to convince people you’ve never met (and who could care less) that you actually know something, to establish a cyberspatial rapport, undone in a few key strokes.
Not my fault. My brain wasn’t plugged in today…but shush! Let’s just keep it between ourselves.
Scrooged November 6, 2006
Posted by John Hodson in : DVD News & Info, British Film , add a commentIt’s like a nightmare; an ‘undigested piece of beef.’
Since the dawn of DVD, I’ve been waiting for a definitve release of Alastair Sim’s magnificent 1951 tour de force as Scrooge in what, for me, remains the definitive film interpretation. Both sides of the Atlantic, we’ve had to endure nasty, worn out, tram-lined prints slapped on to DVD, reflecting all the care and attention Bob Cratchit enjoyed at the hands of his employer.
What appeared to be the best version, from DD Home Entertainment in the UK, was, as is usual, ‘digitally restored from a pristine print’ but in reality it’s from a faded, sometimes dirty, marked source, with blown whites and boasting an extra feature that terrifies more than Jacob Marley - scenes from the horrendous computer coloured version. Ghoulish stuff. I borrowed it from a friend before parting with my own hard earned, and needless to say, crossed it off my ‘wanted’ list.
Sadly, with the original elements apparently in poor condition, it’s only to be expected. Unless there is something beautiful lying in a vault, or something near beautiful that DD, or someone, anyone, is willing to spend a few bob - more than a few bob - on.
Bah humbug!
Last year, help seemed to be on the way, when BBC Worldwide announced that they were producing a Region 1 special edition, packed with some super extras, and possibly - just possibly - the gorgeous restored version that fans had been hoping for. But the Beeb had forgotten one teeny-weeny detail.
They didn’t hold the USA home video rights.
Incredible though it may sound, the discs were prepared, even down to the box art, but then R1 rights holders VCI broke the the news that, no chaps, the film did not actually lie in the public domain. The release was scrapped, literally.
Bah humbug!
Morningstar Entertainment, one of the numerous PD specialists over The Pond spotted a chance, and marketed an Emerald Edition; was this it? The Holy Grail of Scrooge releases? Only available in Canada (rights again), it’s about as welcome as a moose at a Mountie’s ball. Produced from ’seven different prints’? That explains the huge variations in quality throughout (from bad to worse and all stops in between).
Bah humbug!
Up popped DDHE again late last year, with the tidings that they were launching their own Collectors Edition, complete with - ta da! - a George Cole commentary, but for some strange reason it wasn’t put on general sale until now. This is it, right? The definitive edition?
Bah humbug!
Over at the Britmovie forums, they’ve been reporting on this flim-flam for a while now. Moderator JamesM, in fact, hunted down George Cole, who played young Ebenezer Scrooge for his mentor Sim, but he wasn’t interested in recording a commentary for VCI…because, it was thought, he’d already recorded one for DDHE.
So, Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat…and it’s time to get those yuletide DVDs out into the marketplace. DDHE’s latest ‘CE’ is a two discer and boasts, pretty much from what I can gather, the transfer they’ve been sticking to us for years, two (?) short versions of the film mastered for that doomed BBC Worldwide release (no word on quality yet, but as they’re shorter versions, it’s a little moot), the full crayoned in version, a Beeb ‘Traditions of Christmas’ feature, an interview (with George Cole)…but no commentary.
It’s there on the back of the box apparently, and in the MovieMail catalogue ‘George Cole Commentary’. But not on the disc. Astonishingly DDHE put it about that a commentary was, in fact, recorded but not used, and there was a subsequent ‘mix-up’ with the box art.*
Bah humbug!
VCI are still looking to produce a better R1 release, JamesM has tracked down ‘an assistant director’ to do a proposed commentary, but that definitive release of the definitive portrayal of Scrooge still eludes us, it seems. After all these years, I may have to settle for what’s out there and buy DD’s Collectors Edition (in the best spirit of Charles Dickens’ creation, when the price has gone down, of course - say Easter?)
Bah (well, you know the rest..)
*January 7, 2007, edit: good news, good news indeed here.
Bond-age November 5, 2006
Posted by John Hodson in : General, Film General , 1 comment so farStraight off the bat; I’m not a fan, per se, of James Bond on film.
I will declare, however, that I am a fan of Fleming’s novels, which boasted a titillating cocktail of ’sex, sadism and snobbery’ that appealed hugely to this teenage reader back in the day (and a special mention too, for Colonel Sun, so well written by Kingsley Amis that it was hard to see where Fleming ended and Robert Markham began. I still have the first edition.)
And when I say I’m not a fan of Bond on film, I mean every Bond. You see, I’m a Sean Connery man (a ‘Sir’ Sean Connery man…), an admiration cultivated in an even younger incarnation of myself. I grew up with the iconic images and sounds; Ursula Andress emerging from the sea, Bond shooting down the helicopter, John Barry’s familiar themes (’million dollar Mickey Mouse music’ he called it), the rotund Auric Goldfinger being sucked through an unfeasibly small aeroplane window into the upper atmosphere, all pressed the buttons of boys of all ages, everywhere. But for different reasons.
I remember fingering the pages of my Auntie Nora’s Great Universal Stores catalogue and staring lasciviously at the Dayglo orange wet-suit and spear-gun accessory that was the Thunderball outfit, little pieces of plastic that could miraculously turn your workaday Action Man into 007 (just ignore the crew cut and the scar. He didn’t need a penis by the way. That came later when my cousin bought Sindy. Hmmm…). If only mum could afford it. No, not even over 16 weeks. Actually, as I couldn’t even afford an Action Man at the time, the point was moot, but you see where I’m going - Bond, was - is - a fantastic character, a gigantic money making machine, that appeals to a huge demographic; young (oddly, young children fer cripes sake), old, rich, poor, males and females across the continents.
As a child, I couldn’t see quite where they were going with a name like ‘Pussy Galore’, all I knew was that ‘Oddjob’, that fiendish, mute, oriental master of the martial arts, died in a shower of special effect sparks - cor! By the time I got to ‘Plenty O’Toole’, I knew exactly where they were going, because I was headed in similar directions. Well, not so much the sadism and snobbery (though there’s an element of both in all of us), but sex. Oh, yes please. Commander Bond was well and truly on top with lines of submissive girls to bed, bad girls to turn ‘good’, lesbians to be made ‘normal’, and, in Bond world, STDs had not even been invented. Which teenager, hormones zooming around his system, would not want to be in his tuxedo? For decades, Americans had had the celebate super hero that was Superman, we Brits got James Bond. No contest.
Alas, Sean’s sad abdication of the role and George ‘Big Fry’ Lazenby’s roasting at the hands of News of The World hacks meant that my love affair with the screen Bond was near its end too, though oddly, OHMSS is one of my favourite Bonds today. OHMSS, by the way, not only contrived to defy expectations, it also followed the novel quite closely (Fleming, ironically, by this time writing with Sean’s Bond firmly in his mind). The spark was rekindled when Mr Connery did his bit for charity (and wig makers everywhere) and came back for Diamonds are Forever, but it was the Greatest Living Eyebrow who more or less did for me and Mr Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang.
I mean, fer Gawd’s sake, what was Ivanhoe, what was The Saint, doing impersonating James Bond? It was on an Away Weekend to London that I saw Live and Let Die. I was 17 years old, with two chums equally determined to paint the capital red. Sadly we were given the bad news that our hotel had been overbooked, but at no extra charge, they slapped us into the Piccadilly Hotel. So, three teenagers, pitch up at this five star monolith, just off Trafalgar Square. We arrive as the top hatted doorman is ushering an Arab gentlemen in flowing robes through the door; he doesn’t bat an eye as three likely Lancashire lads slide out of their black cab complete with duffel bags and silly grins.
I’d never stayed in a ‘hotel’ before; the occasional guest house, but never a ‘hotel’. Were they all like this? Did they all have ‘Press Rooms’ (where we were too young to drink), restaurants (where we were too poor to eat), maids in black uniforms and frilly aprons (I kid you not), and plumbing that dated back to old King George? Was being woken by the Horse Guards trotting past outside de rigeur for a London stay? I know visiting Soho was, as was giggling as we bought porn magazines that promised much in their expensive vacuum packing, but delivered little (black spots printed over the naughty bits, Bah! We’d been ripped off. Well, I never…)
We queued for Live and Let Die at Leicester Square and, while waiting, were each offered a ‘good time’ by an over made-up good time girl in a skirt that was much too short for the time of year. No vest, the hussy (and, puzzlingly, a five o’clock shadow evident above her Adam’s Apple…)
What the hell? (No, not the prostitute - I owned a copy of The Kinks Lola after all). Roger Moore; I’m sorry, but James Bond you are not. Dismal - he even raised an eyebrow when he said ‘Bond - James Bond’. Bugger off. Useless porn, transvestite prostitutes, and Roger Moore. That London - a huge disappointment in almost every way.
A few years ago Mark Cousins asked the question of Connery during a BBC ‘Scene By Scene’; just what did he think of Bond post his tenure? The answer was succinct and, to my mind, perfectly correct: “Not quite hard enough, not quite dirty enough.”
Now read that again doing your best ‘Seany-Sean-Sean’ impersonation. Come on, the one you bore everyone to death with every Christmas when they show a Bond film on ITV: “Not quite haarrrd enuff, not quite durrrty enuff”. Better. And you can see the point can’t you?
Connery’s Bond was a steel hard ex-Navy Commander, licensed to kill. He could, with Her Majesty’s sanction, take it on his own initiative to snuff out the opposition through any means he felt necessary, with whatever weapon he had at his disposal; knife, bomb, garrot, Walther PPK, his bare hands. Up close and personal; strip away the girls, the gadgets, the jokes, the martinis, the dress suits, the globe trotting, the fast cars, the superannuated cartoon villains. What we have is a man who is perfectly willing and able to face you down, extinguish your life, quietly and quickly (but not painlessly) and then have enough strength of character not only to justify it in the name of duty, but, after washing away the blood, to sit down and enjoy a good dinner. Rights and wrongs don’t come into it.
And you could believe that of Connery’s Bond, those cold, cold executioner’s eyes, those whipcord muscles, the straightening of the tie before the bad guy even hits the ground. Hard enough. Dirty enough. All of it, I think, captured in that breathless, sweaty, bone-crunching fight scene with Robert Shaw’s equally frosty killing machine in From Russia With Love. It even hurts just to watch it; wonderfully written, directed, acted and, above all, edited. A fight in a train compartment; simple is best.
I accept totally the argument that I grew up with Connery’s interpretation, so, culturally, he’s bound to be ‘my’ Bond, but nothing will change my view that Sean is Bond, Bond is Sean. And down through the years the fights became bigger, the stunts became more daring, the bad guys more colourful. But as we moved on from Sean, to Roger, to Tim and Pierce, Bond became as predictable as the average episode of The Incredible Hulk (you know; sad start, Hulk change, lots of nothing (more nothing), Hulk change. Sad end).
So after the debacle that was Sir Rog, I’ve largely stayed away from Bond in the cinema, except when Timothy Dalton briefly intervened; the buzz seemed to have gone and, besides, real life inconviently barged in, curtailing regular cinema visits. Even on the smaller screen, I just couldn’t believe Brosnan, and it all seemed so bloody forced and contrived (and yes, I know it is ‘contrived’ or it wouldn’t be a film, but you know what I mean.)
But like Bond, I’ll be back to see Daniel Craig; tick the boxes - hard enough? Looks like he could be. Dirty enough? Again, the signs are good. And simple, a stripped back, licensed to kill secret agent for this, the 21st century, or indeed, any century, a truly timeless character? Just might be, though not everyone seems convinced.
23 years ago, after saying I’d finished Bond watching, Never Say Never Again took me back to the cinema for a film that I actually quite enjoyed. It wasn’t top drawer, but Sean was really quite close to the right age for Fleming’s Bond, though, at the very least, it missed the music (which is vitally important to Bond don’t you think?) and much of the verve. But Alec McCowen’s ‘Q’ had a great line: “Good to see you Mr. Bond. Things have been awfully dull around here. I hope we’re going to see some gratuitous sex and violence.”
I hope so too. Altogether now: #Da-da, di-da, da-da-daaaa, daaaaiiiahhh da-da-dahhhhhh (da-dada-di-dadaaaa!)#
Warners Stoke Up The Fever For 2007 November 2, 2006
Posted by John Hodson in : DVD News & Info , add a commentWhile other studios pussyfoot around (scuttlebutt has it that, in the great scheme of things, for instance, Paramount don’t consider that hauling classic films out of their vault to be worth the effort), Warners continue to steamroll the opposition in terms of sheer output of classics on DVD.
This year, the boys from Burbank have released barrow loads of classic movies on those little shiny discs, piles and piles of ‘em stuffed into boxed sets, special, and not so special, editions. This may be the year, however, that many may feel that volume has outstripped quality - they’ve dropped a few very definite clangers - but overall, Warners has kept film lovers the world over happy in releasing treasures from their back catalogue. In return, those same film lovers have poured dollars by the bucketload back into the Brothers deep, deep pockets. A symbiotic relationship.
We’ve had jewels from - to name but a few - John Ford, Sam Peckinpah (though that set contained one of the clangers that still smarts when I think about it), John Wayne, Astaire and Rogers, ‘Film Noir’, ‘Horror Legends’, on and on and on.
And this somewhat frantic output will continue unabated into 2007. According to The Digital Bits’ Barrie Maxwell:
‘…Warners’ plans to release 200 or so titles new to DVD this coming year. Although no specific titles were mentioned, classic enthusiasts can look for at least one collection and usually two each month. These will include all new-to-DVD titles except where a previously released title has been substantially upgraded in terms of master quality and supplements (such as was the case with The Maltese Falcon recently). In addition, there will be some repackagings of previously-released titles into box sets, but that will be distinct from the 200 or so new titles. There will be no sets issued that include a mixture of old and new releases. It sounds like Warner Bros. is already staking out best studio of the year status for 2007. Classic fans can only rejoice in the continued commitment!’
Of course, there is a danger that this prodigeous release schedule may lead to a fall off in quality, indeed, as mentioned, many feel that’s already happening, with less than stellar releases for, for instance, The Naked Spur, and On Dangerous Ground (one of the worst Warners transfers I’ve seen; the BBC’s print is much, much better), to add to the bizarre decision to hack Peckinpah’s magnificent Pat Garrett and Billy The Kid about while at the same time editing it for seniors and those possessing the concentration span of a goldfish. The only saving grace was that the unmolested version was included in the same set, though it had received less of a digital cleanup.
Nevertheless, can anyone deny that when Warners get it right, boy, do they get it right (and of course, when they get it wrong, the yardstick has to be the very best they themselves can produce. Petard. Hoist by); The Maltese Falcon, Kings Row, The Searchers (which falls somewhere between right and wrong. Personally I love this years iteration), The Spirit of St Louis, the Controversial Classics Box 2, Classic Musicals from The Dream Factory, The Tennessee Williams Collection - well, you get the idea. And so it goes.
As far as next year, from Warners R1 arm (the R2 division, in the UK at least, appears largely clueless), we can, I would guess from hints dropped, look forward at least to a James Cagney Signature Collection, a second Errol Flynn Signature Collection, a Spencer Tracy Signature Collection, plus special editions of Cool Hand Luke, Raintree County and How The West Was Won. Remember; 200 classics new to DVD in 2007, in 2006 they issued 50 plus box sets (classics and non-classics). Wow (and that’s only the reaction of my bank manager).
Personally, I’m tending to hold off buying single releases (except when I’m feeling particularly wealthy…or twitchy) these days unless I feel there is absolutely no chance of it appearing in a set at some time. That line ‘there will be some repackagings of previously-released titles into box sets’ means that not only will I pay less for each movie, but there’s a strong chance, with Warners adoption of slimcases in boxes, that they’ll take up less shelf space, space which is, chez ‘H’, getting to be something of a premium.
And space where you’ll find more Warners discs than any other. No profit in classics? The Brothers Warner are guffawing at that one all the way to the (Bur)bank.
Meanwhile in R2-land, this month’s BFI release of Jack Clayton’s The Innocents - see here - appears to trump Fox’s R1 with a ‘making of’ featurette, a commentary, trailer and stills gallery. And HMV has got Optimum’s forthcoming SE of Don’t Look Now up for pre-order and those extra features are:
- Audio Commentary By Director Nic Roeg
- Looking Back: The Making Of Documentary - 20 Minute Featurette Including Interviews With Roeg, The Cinematographer And Editor
- Introduction By Alan Jones, Author Of ‘The Rough Guide To Horror’
- Interview With Composer Pino Donnagio
- Digitally Restored Feature
- 16 Page Booklet Including Rarely Seen Behind-The-Scenes Stills And A New Essay By 70s Cinema Expert Ryan Gilbey
Not a two-discer as some were reporting, by the way, but still, as far as I’m concerned, a must purchase.
In Like Flynn… November 1, 2006
Posted by John Hodson in : Film & DVD Reviews, Swashbucklers , add a commentFirst published in another form at The DVD Forums.
Was there ever a more charismatic movie star than Errol Flynn? Yes, there are swarms of stars who can boast of being better actors, but was there ever a Hollywood figure more handsome, who the camera positively lusted after, who lit up the screen so incandescently by sheer dint of personality?
And yes, a case can be made for Douglas Fairbanks, an equally dashing, brash, larger than life personality. But as his natural screen successor, it was Flynn who this movie fan wanted to be when he grew up. I wanted to buckle my swash with style, throw my head back and laugh in the face of danger, skewer Basil Rathbone at every available opportunity, dance across huge castle rooms, the fire thowing my humongous sword toting shadow across the walls. As for Olivia de Havilland, to be frank, Flynn could have her. I’m more of an Ava Gardner kinda guy (and I suspect the testosterone rich Tasmanian would have joined me in that sentiment; in like Flynn indeed…)
So; The Prince and The Pauper, a 1937 swashbuckler, directed by William Keighley (later to oversee The Adventures of Robin Hood before being ousted by Michael Curtitz; Warners wanted a director who could deliver more oomph…), with an Erich Wolfgang Korngold score, and Errol Flynn getting into his stride as a Hollywood star. The real deal, right? A genuine Flynn swashbuckler of the first order? Well, not quite…
For a start, though he gets top billing (this was two years after the sublime Captain Blood and the year after The Charge of the Light Brigade), Flynn doesn’t actually hit the screen until half way through our tale. But I’m jumping ahead of myself.
Based on an intriguing ‘what if’ story by Mark Twain, The Prince and the Pauper (this was the third filmed version, out of a total of 10 thus far) invites us to imagine the court of an aging Henry VIII (Montagu Love excellent as a Holbein-esque monarch). His son Prince Edward (Bobby Mauch) is not the sickly child of history, but a gutsy, bossy King in waiting. After he sneaks into court, put upon beggar boy Tom Canty (Billy Mauch) and the Prince change clothes - but they look identical (why is never explained). The King, now in rags, is mistaken for the urchin and thrown out of the palace, leaving Tom in royal regalia, alone, afraid, and taken for the now missing Prince.
The evil Earl of Hertford (the magnificent Claude Rains) sees his chance to take the crown for his own, and using the beggar boy, has himself dubbed Lord Protector when the King dies. With me so far?
The Prince, meanwhile, soon finds that life outside the palace is not a bed of roses, is set upon, but rescued by dashing blade Miles Hendon (Flynn). But the boy is now in real danger when the Earl decides he must be found and killed before the beggar is crowned. Can Miles save the day before a pauper is crowned King of England and the Earl seizes power?
This is a fantastic production, the costumes and the sets are all first class. Much was made at the time of the set-piece coronation in Westminster Abbey, and it is this scene most of all which is superbly enacted. For modern viewers, used to live broadcasts from the Abbey, it may seem a little passé; for audiences in 1937 this authentically recreated set was a genuine spectacle, a real ‘behind the scenes’ look at English pageantry in all it’s glory.
Freddie Bartholomew was going to play the duel roles of Canty and The Prince, but casting real twins does away with what would have been some dodgy split screen filming; besides the Mauch twins seem to have a high old time, are great fun, and not half as annoying as Bartholomew could be (fine actor that he was). As usual, 16th century London is filled with lots of ‘wotcha’ cock-er-nees, and Hollywood’s English community was plundered by central casting (though it is something of a surprise to see Eric Portman as a courtier). Sergio Leone would have been jealous of some the of characters chosen to play the beggars of Offal Court - those line-etched crumpled, lived in faces! One of my favourite Hollywood ‘B’ actors, Henry Stephenson plays a minor role, and Alan Hale is, for a change, on the wrong side as the murderous Captain of the Guard. Barton MacLane makes a grim father for poor Tom.
It is a typical Warners 1930s swashbuckler, and as such, it’s pretty much a joy from beginning to happy end. Maybe the only bum note is Flynn himself. Never the best actor (though he would, most definitely, hone his craft), here, still pretty naive on-screen, he does occasionally overplay his hand, but there’s enough of that charismatic grin to atone. He may not have been a brilliant thesp, but he was the real deal; a dazzling supernova. When he promises to give one of the bad chaps ‘20 inches of steel’, the audience spends the next 20 minutes or so waiting for Flynn to deliver, and, with a sword in his hand, he doesn’t disappoint. Bliss. So, not the fully formed Flynn swashbuckler, but still great entertainment. Have at ye, base varlet!
Warner’s R1 release, now some three years old, is excellent. The greater percentage of this DVD contains some of the finest examples of vintage monochrome film transferred to DVD. The print has been restored to a very high standard, with few speckles, great contrast and blacks covering the whole grey scale. The transfer is up to the same standard; some of the detailing for a film that is 69 years old is breath-taking, though this is what we’ve come to expect - indeed demand - as the norm from Warners.
Puzzlingly there are a few feet of film - fleeting scenes - that are in comparatively poor shape contrast wise, but one view of the trailer shows how bad it could have been (and how I’ve seen it in the past). It’s brilliant, simply brilliant. Warners have pulled a couple of strokes in the transfer BTW; I’ve a strong suspicion some of the title cards, and the prologue titling, are simply single, cleaned up frames, held on screen for a few seconds. No complaints, but I’m sure this isn’t rolling film.
The sound is mono, obviously, and is also in good shape, with little discernible background hiss. Sadly, there few extras, the aforementioned trailer, and a brief ‘essay’ on Mark Twain on screen, but the quality of the film compensates.
By the way, Warners are going to give us a second Errol Flynn Signature Collection next year (play your own guessing games, but I believe Dive Bomber- already out in R2 - is a shoo-in, and I’ll eat my chapeau if The Adventures of Don Juan and The Charge of The Light Brigade aren’t there too). But, if, for some unaccountable reason, you haven’t got what we must now call Volume 1, then you’re in luck - it’s currently on offer at Deep Discount DVD for $26.60, plus shipping here - hurry!