Godzilla is more than just some guy in a cheesy rubber suit terrorizing badly dubbed Japanese actors and stomping miniature cities. The original film, made in 1954, is actually a tragedy of epic proportions, a potent warning of an escalating nuclear arms race and messing with atomic power. Of course, Godzilla mainly works as an entertaining monster movie, too.
When a 7,500 ton freighter is mysteriously lost in the South Seas off Japan, the authorities are baffled. Soon afterwards, a fishing boat is destroyed in the same manner: from an underwater explosion. It is a mine? An underwater volcano? There are only a few survivors and one of them claims to have seen a creature in the water. Some elderly citizens immediately claim that it was Godzilla, a creature that lives in the sea and occasionally surfaces to feed on mankind when food in the ocean is scarce.
Sure enough, late one stormy night, something destroys several houses in a village in such a way that it could not have been the result of natural causes, like a hurricane. Director Ishiro Honda wisely prolongs the first actual appearance of Godzilla for 21 minutes, cleverly employing traditional horror film techniques to create tension and build anticipation. We never actually see the monster in the initial attacks – just a hint of him but nevertheless his presence looms large, much like with King Kong (1933). When we finally do catch a good glimpse of the creature, it is little more than a head but it is a fantastic shot that effectively establishes his massive scale and is more than enough to send the locals running for their lives.
The country’s leading scientist Professor Yamane (Takashi Shimura) theorizes that Godzilla is the result of atomic testing, a mutation that exists to punish his country for dabbling in the dangerous waters of atomic energy and radiation. Naturally, the Japanese government wants to destroy Godzilla but Yamane respects the beast and wants to study it. Yamane represents a sobering humanistic voice that mirrored Honda’s own beliefs and acts as a sharp contrast to the government’s foolhardy shoot first, ask questions later attitude.
Look past the guy in the rubber suit and the obvious miniatures and you’ve got atmospheric black and white cinematography by Masao Tamai that is haunting, especially the night scenes with an almost silhouetted Godzilla destroying Tokyo that is a devastating site to behold.
Godzilla was born from the ashes of A-bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki – the fallout of which Honda witnessed first hand. In fact, the film’s opening scene, where a freighter is destroyed by an explosion from under the water, was a reference to an incident in which a tuna trawler got too close to an H-bomb test courtesy of the United States and its crew became sick with radiation poisoning. With this knowledge, it’s hard not to see Godzilla’s swath of destruction through urban Japan as a metaphor for the A-bomb and a powerful critique of the dangers of atomic radiation. This is what elevates Godzilla above countless other monster movies from the 1950’s and has inspired countless sequels that have transformed the giant monster into a pop culture icon. The Japanese version is the way this film was meant to be seen with all of the stark footage of the dead, maimed and shell-shocked and numerous the A-bomb references – something that is missing from subsequent sequels that have turned into admittedly entertaining battle royales.
Special Features:
A few years ago, Classic Media released an excellent special edition of Godzilla with an unimpressive transfer and a decent collection of supplemental material, none of which has been carried over to the Criterion Collection’s new and improved edition so completists may want to hold onto that previous incarnation. As you would expect, Criterion’s transfer is near flawless and a significant improvement on the Classic Media version, making it more than worth the upgrade.
The first disc features an audio commentary by film historian David Kalat who provides a nice mix of analysis and production information. He goes into great detail examining the relationships between the characters and their purpose in the film. Kalat also touches upon the difference between the Japanese and American names for Godzilla. He also good-naturedly addresses the absurdity of the oxygen destroyer and other scientific inaccuracies. At times, he comes across as a little too enthusiastic but this is tempered by his encyclopedia knowledge of all things Godzilla.
“Photographic Effects” features effects director Kawakita and effects photographer Motoyoshi Tomioka revealing how some of the special effects for Godzilla were done with examples from unused footage. They point out the extensive use of matte paintings and composite shots.
Japanese film critic Tadao Sato examines Godzilla’s role in Japanese culture. He remembers seeing the film when it first came out and recalls his first impressions. He also points out how aspects of the film evoked memories of the atomic bomb attacks on Japan.
“The Unluckiest Dragon” is a 2011 audio essay about the Daigo Fukuryu Maru fishing boat tragedy that inspired parts of Godzilla. The crew witnessed a powerful U.S. atomic bomb test and became sick with radiation poisoning. This essay examines the socio-political implications of the incident.
Also included is a theatrical trailer.
For completists, both versions – the original 98 minute Japanese version and the 80 minute Hollywood version, entitled Godzilla, King of the Monsters – are included, each on their own disc, but after seeing the original it is really hard to go back to the other. American movie producers acquired the North American rights and promptly Americanized the movie, inserting a reporter played by Raymond Burr with only 60 minutes of the original film intact, the rest was cut and new footage shot. Criterion has also included a trailer and David Kalat returns for a commentary where he starts off by providing the brief backstory to the nuclear arms race between Russia and the U.S. He discusses the Americanization of Godzilla including its unusual structure of flashbacks, which he explains may actually be reminiscent of film noir.
There is an interview with actor Akira Takarada who talks about his experience working on Godzilla. He talks about his initial impressions of the screenplay and tells several filming anecdotes, including working with the legendary Takashi Shimura (The Seven Samurai).
Godzilla performer Haruo Nakajima (who played the creature in 12 films) talks about the challenges he faced playing the iconic monster. He recalls being told to study King Kong for how to move like a mythical creature. He talks about what it was like moving inside the suit and how he had to adjust his performance.
Features effects technicians Yoshio Irie and Eizo Kaimai talk about their work on the film. They start at the project’s origins and go all the way through production providing invaluable recollections on how the various effects were achieved.
Composer Akira Ifukube talks about his long, illustrious career and, of course, his groundbreaking work on Godzilla. He talks about his humble beginnings in forestry to how he eventually got involved in scoring films.
Adapted from the 1954 teleplay of the same name, 12 Angry Men (1957) marked the auspicious feature film debut of director Sidney Lumet who had cut his teeth on live television in New York City. He brought a gritty, edgy realism to this film, an approach that flew in the face of traditional, more polished Hollywood cinema. With the exception of Henry Fonda, Lumet eschewed movie star casting in favor of actors with a background in New York stage and T.V. work, like E.G. Marshall, Lee J. Cobb, and Jack Warden. The film’s legacy has endured and been felt for decades and without it there would be shows like Law & Order or John Grisham novels. While 12 Angry Men was well-received by critics at the time, it certainly didn’t set the box office on fire but over the years its reputation has grown and is now regarded as a classic.
Lumet begins the film with a solemn opening shot of the impressive pillars of the hall of justice in New York City. In a court room, a Puerto Rican teenager has been charged with murdering his father. If the 12-man jury can find him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, then he could be given the death penalty as is the case with first-degree murder. And so, the rest of the film plays out in a small room on “the hottest day of the year,” with no air-conditioning as these men must decide the fate of another.
Before they get started, the men engage in idle chit-chat – getting to know you stuff as their various personalities begin to emerge. During a preliminary vote, everyone says the kid is guilty except for one man (Henry Fonda) who doesn’t want to condemn him to death until they talk about it. As he points out, suppose they’re wrong. Each man says why they think the teenager is guilty and some range from flimsy (“I just think he’s guilty.”) to logical (E.G. Marshall) to opinionated (Lee J. Cobb) but no one can convince the dissenting juror who makes some pretty good points. The juror isn’t saying that the boy is guilty, just that he’s not sure that he did it. The longer they stay sequestered in that hot room, the more tempers flare up as their prejudices come to bear and the dissenting juror begins to garner support with his rational dissection of the evidence and the testimony from the case.
As the film progresses, this impressive cast of actors really impress as they bounce off each other in the small room, from the quiet, reserved juror played by Jack Klugman to the bluster of the juror played by Lee J. Cobb to the unwavering decency of the juror played by Henry Fonda. Lumet is able to keep our interest in the story that unfolds by maintaining the focus on his brilliant cast. He doesn’t try to get fancy with the camerawork or manipulate us with music. He lets the actors do their thing with the first-rate screenplay by Reginald Rose that results in a film that epitomizes the phrase, “hard-hitting drama.” 12 Angry Men is a powerful statement about the American judicial system – one that hasn’t changed much since this film was made except maybe it’s gotten worse – and how personal views and prejudices can influence a jury.
Special Features:
The first disc starts off with “The Television Version” that was directed by Franklin J. Schaffner and which first aired on September 1954 for the series Westinghouse Presents Studio One. It obviously doesn’t feature the star-studded cast of the film but is a pretty solid adaptation in its own right. Ron Simon, curator at the Paley Center for Media in New York City, introduces it and puts the program into context, talks about the director, cast and so on. He points out that it was experiment to see if theater could work on T.V.
“12 Angry Men: From TV to The Big Screen” features film scholar Vance Kepley talking about how it went from a teleplay to film. Rather fittingly, he briefly gives the origins of 12 Angry Men and its numerous adaptations over the years. He talks about the challenges of working in live T.V.
Also included is a trailer.
The second disc includes “Lumet on Lumet,” a collection of archival interviews with the director who talks about his long career. He talks about getting into show business as a kid. He also discusses his work ethic and how he applied it to his films. Lumet also shares some of his interesting life experiences.
“Reflections on Sidney” features friend and collaborator Walter Bernstein sharing some of his observations of Lumet, like how he enjoyed working with actors. Bernstein also talks about how they became friends and tells some good stories.
Ron Simon returns to talk about the importance of writer Reginald Rose who wrote 12 Angry Men. He points that among the great early T.V. writers Rose is the least known and explains the reasons why.
Also included is Tragedy in a Temporary Town, a teleplay written by Rose and directed by Lumet. It aired in 1956 and features a few of the actors who would go on to appear in the film version of 12 Angry Men.
Finally, cinematographer John Bailey talks about fellow cinematographer Boris Kaufman’s visual style and work with Lumet. He gives a brief biographical sketch of the man. Bailey talks about Kaufman’s early, groundbreaking work with French filmmaker Jean Vigo. He also examines Kaufman’s work on 12 Angry Men.
When Nicholas Ray's Rebel Without a Cause was first released in 1955, critics read the film as a statement on how the confused, misunderstood youth of the day viewed society. The film was labeled a juvenile delinquent picture with its star, James Dean, becoming a spokesman for disaffected youth everywhere. Rebel Without a Cause can also be read on a more oblique level. The film presents a classic Oedipal narrative in the form of Jim Stark's dysfunctional family where the mother (Ann Doran) is seen as overpowering presence who dominates all the males, in particular the father (Jim Backus). Jim (James Dean) throughout the film searches for an ideal father figure to look to for guidance, to show him what it takes to "be a man" and to understand what constitutes an ideal man.
Early on in the film Ray shows how Jim's family life operates. Pulled in for public drunkenness, he confronts his parents who arrive to bail him out. Jim's mother and grandmother (Virginia Brissac) dominate the conversation with the former questioning everything the father says. Jim is clearly agitated by this "zoo," as he later tells Ray Fremick (Edward Platt), the tolerant police officer, but is unable to do anything because of his father's weak will. Once alone with the Ray, Jim reveals that his family avoids any problems, moving when Jim gets into trouble. As Jim remarks, "they think they can protect me by moving around." Ray gets Jim to open up and admit that his parents are the real source of the problem when he says, "She eats him alive and he takes it." Jim sees his father as a weak man who cannot stand up for himself. As Jim sees it, if his father would only stand up to his mother, "and knock mom cold," and be a man, then he would feel more confident about his family and himself.
Ray constantly stresses the powerful presence of the mother figure throughout this scene by not only showing an actual conversation between all the family members, where she clearly dominates, but even when Jim is removed from them. He spies at them through a peephole in the Fremick's office and sees that his mother is still hounding his father. No matter how hard he tries, Jim cannot escape his mixed up family life. Ray shows that the police officer can still be strong, but also gentle and kind to the young man by having the lawman change his attitude partway through their conversation. The cop seems strict and uncaring at first, but after Jim cools off he is understanding and helpful. Fremick is presented as a stronger, more attractive male role model for Jim to follow than his own father who cowers under the glare of his wife. This scene also verifies Jim's lack of a strong male role model. His father is clearly not Jim's idea of an ideal man and he says as much when he tells Fremick, "I never want to be like him." Jim must somehow fill this void and resolve his situation at home.
Ray presents several tests of masculinity in Rebel Without a Cause that Jim must solve and lead to a solution to his lack of a male role model. One such test is the "chickie run" that Jim has against Buzz Gunderson (Corey Allen). The "chickie run" is clearly a test of honor, a test of manhood that Jim must face, and he looks to his father for help when he asks, "What can you do when you have to be a man?" This line seems almost comical as his father is shown wearing an apron over his suit and carrying a tray of food to his sick wife. Jim's father hardly fits the ideal image of a "man" in his ridiculous state. To further complicate matters, the father cannot answer Jim's question. Instead, he merely babbles on about nothing and Jim flees the house in frustration to face his test without any guidance from anyone. He must rely on his own instincts because his father cannot even give him advice. The apron gives Jim's father a more feminized appearance that confuses Jim even more. Jim must become his own man as he has no one else to show him how.
After the disastrous "chickie run," Jim returns home and tells his parents what happened. Tired and confused, Jim wants desperately to engage his dozing father in a conversation, but is interrupted by his mother. Ray depicts the confusion of Jim's character in this scene by showing the mother's entrance from Jim's point of view. Jim sees his mother coming down the stairs, upside down, the camera moving in counter-clockwise fashion until righted with a 180 degree pan. The mother is clearly intruding on the talk between Jim and his father. Jim becomes trapped by his parents during the course of this "three-way verbal brawl." Once again, the mother eclipses the conversation, blaming Jim for all the moving around they have done. Ray emphasizes the mother's dominate position by placing her on the staircase looking down at Jim and her husband. A low angle shot is also used so that she towers over the two men even more, making them look impotent and insignificant. Jim looks to his father for guidance, to stand up for him, but he is too weak in the face of such overwhelming superiority. Jim explodes in Oedipal rage and begins strangling and in effect, "killing" his own father. His mother intervenes and Jim blindly runs out into the night.
Another test of masculinity that Jim faces in the film is his relationship with Plato (Sal Mineo). From the start of the film it is clear that Plato also lacks a strong father figure. In fact, Plato lacks both a father and a mother with only an African American housekeeper (Marietta Canty) to help him grow up. Throughout the film Plato gazes longingly at Jim with almost homoerotic intensity. Plato's gaze symbolizes his desire for a idealized father figure that first manifests itself in the form of a picture of Alan Ladd in his locker, and which later is transferred to Jim. This transfer takes place at the "chickie run" when Plato talks to Judy (Natalie Wood) about Jim. Plato begins talking about Jim as if he were already his father when he tells Judy that "maybe next Sunday he'll take me fishing." Plato sees Jim as a father he never had and wishes he had, and he says as much to Jim after the "chickie run." Jim rejects this classification and leaves Plato to go back to his empty home. Jim cannot be a surrogate father to Plato when he does not even know how to be a man himself. Ironically, Plato does not see Fremick at the beginning of the film like Judy and Jim, which may account for his death at the end of the film. Plato was not shown the kindness and understanding that Judy and Jim where and this results in his own destruction.
Perhaps the most telling point in the film is when Jim, Judy, and Plato take refuge in an old, abandoned mansion. Ray takes this opportunity to comment on the whole notion of family and an ideal man. Upon arriving at the mansion, the three teenagers take a mock tour of the site with Jim and Judy posing as newlyweds and Plato acting as a tour guide. Everyone hams up their respective roles, presenting a mock parody of the family as they act out their idea of their parents' attitudes towards them. Jim and Judy become Plato's family as in reality he has no family save a housekeeper. When Judy does ask about Plato's family, in particular his father, he replies, "He was a hero in the China Sea." Jim realizes that Plato is lying, that this is only an idealized image of a father he wishes he had. Later, when Jim and Judy are alone, she reveals that Plato was talking about him in the same way, that he wishes Jim was his father. This statement reinforces the belief that Plato views Jim and Judy, particularly Jim, as parental figures, the only people he can look to for direction in his life. Judy also tells Jim her idea of the perfect man as someone who "can be gentle and sweet," but also strong. She could easily be describing Jim who has both a strong, masculine side as shown in the knife fight and the "chickie run," and a gentle, sweet side when he is with her or Plato. Judy could also be describing Fremick, the police officer who is also seen at the beginning of the film to be strong and masculine in dealing with both Judy and Jim while also being understanding and sympathetic to their plights.
At the end of the film Judy and Jim survive, but Plato is gunned down by the police. Jim and Judy's situations are salvageable because they belong to families, as dysfunctional as they may seem, they are complete families with the possibility of resolution. Plato has no family and no way out of his problems and therefore cannot exist in the same world. In consoling Jim, his father says, "you did everything a man could." It is the first time that Jim's father has supported his son and mentioned being a "man." The father not only supports him verbally, but physically as he comforts the sad youth, lifting him to his feet. To reinforce this support he reassures his son, "you can depend on me, trust me ... Stand up and I'll try and stand with you." It is the first step for both of them. They must learn and become men together.
On the surface, Rebel Without a Cause can be read as juvenile delinquent film, but underneath this facade, its director, Nicholas Ray, has made a film about the nuclear family in the 1950’s. Ray presents a family that is not the ideal image as shown in a sitcom like Leave to Beaver, but one that is matriarchal in structure. Jim Stark is a confused youth who looks to his parents, in particular his father, for help, but instead finds more confusion and questions. By film's end, Jim has had to deal with his problems on his own, until they get too big for him to handle alone. Now, he has help in the form of both Judy who loves him and his father who is willing to stand by him no matter what happens. They are now Jim's support group who will teach him how to be a "man," Judy developing the kind, gentle side, while the father developing his strong, masculine side. Plato dies because he has no such support group. He is the "other," neither masculine nor feminine, with no real family, just an artificial one in the form of Jim and Judy. Plato does not conform to the notions of what an ideal man should be and therefore dies as a result. The ideal man in Rebel Without a Cause is presented in the form of Ray Fremick, who is seen as a strong, masculine figure, while being sympathetic and understanding as well. By the resolution of the film, Jim Stark is well on his way to possessing these attributes with the help of Judy and his father.
Before graduating to studio films for the remainder of his filmmaking career, Stanley Kubrick cut his teeth on several lean independent films with producer James B. Harris, chief among them was The Killing (1956), a masterful take on Lionel White’s novel Clean Break. Adapted by Kubrick with dialogue written by none other than legendary crime novelist Jim Thompson, The Killing tells a fairly standard tale of a heist gone wrong. However, it is how Kubrick tells it, which makes the film one of the all-time classic noirs. He rearranges the sequence of events in a way that puts a fascinating spin on how everything goes down, decades before Quentin Tarantino made it cool again with Reservoir Dogs (1992).
During the fifth race at a horse track several incidents occur, which are seemingly unrelated to the casual observer but, of course, are all part of a masterful plan as conveyed by the knowing looks between a number of men. Johnny Clay (Sterling Hayden) is the de facto mastermind of the job and a savvy crook who understands the odds: “Anytime you take a chance you better be sure the rewards are worth the risk because they can put you away just as fast for a $10 heist as a million dollar job.” He plans to take his cut and fly off with his girlfriend and childhood sweetheart Fay (Coleen Gray).
Kubrick skips around chronologically to introduce all the significant players in the drama: bartender Mike O’Reilly (Joe Sawyer); track cashier George Peatty (Elisha Cook) and his shrewish wife Sherry (Marie Windsor); as well as her lover Val (Vince Edwards); gambler Marvin Unger (Jay C. Flippen); with two hired hoods – sniper Nikki Arcane (Timothy Carey) and brawler Maurice Oboukhoff (Kola Kwariani). Like most heist films, everyone has their own agenda and nobody can be trusted. Kubrick establishes these characters, shows their roles in the job and their respective fates in its aftermath.
The Killing features an impressive cast with the likes of Sterling Hayden, a veteran of these kinds of films (see The Asphalt Jungle) and ideally-suited as the no-nonsense leader. Idiosyncratic character actor Timothy Carey has a small but memorable role as a grimacing sharpshooter, but it is Elisha Cook and Marie Windsor who steal the show as a deeply dysfunctional couple. She is a two-timing schemer who has her husband wrapped around her finger (or so she thinks) while he’s the proverbial doormat, ignorant of his wife’s duplicitous ways. Some of the film’s best scenes feature their rocky relationship – one that can only end badly.
Like most film noirs, The Killing chronicles the inevitable countdown to the doomed finale for all involved. We know it’s coming, we just don’t know how and one of the perverse thrills is watching as everything goes horribly wrong. An early film in his career, Kubrick already demonstrated a masterful touch as he orchestrates a meticulously plotted heist film with the confident hand of a seasoned maestro. He also shows his knack for observing human behavior – in this case that of the criminal mind as he illustrates how a carefully planned job is ruined by greed and jealousy.
Special Features:
On the first disc is an interview with producer James B. Harris who talks about working with Stanley Kubrick and, of course, The Killing. Harris recounts how he met the director and the genesis of this film. He gives a nicely detailed account of several aspects of the production and his contributions.
Also included are excerpts from a 1984 interview with actor Sterling Hayden for French television. He talks about working in Hollywood and with Kubrick. Quite the colorful character, Hayden is refreshingly candid about his experiences making films.
“Polito on Thompson” features Robert Polito, author of Savage Art: A Biography of Jim Thompson, talking about the legendary writer’s relationship with Kubrick and the problems he encountered while working in Hollywood. Kubrick was a great admirer of Thompson’s books, especially his knack for writing dialogue, and wanted to utilize this strength in The Killing. Polito recounts how the two men met and their collaboration on this film.
There is a theatrical trailer.
The second disc starts off with a fantastic extra for Kubrick fans – a newly re-mastered transfer of Killer’s Kiss (1955), a low budget film noir the director made prior to The Killing. Shot on the streets of New York City, it concerns a small-time boxer by the name of Davey Gordon (Jamie Smith) who is past his prime. He becomes romantically involved with his neighbor and dancer Gloria Price (Irene Kane) while also getting mixed up with her violent boss Vincent Rapallo (Frank Silvera). Kubrick’s background in documentaries is evident in the way he shoots every day life in New York. The city is almost a character unto itself and the film serves as a fascinating snapshot of a metropolis that no longer exists.
Film critic Geoffrey O’Brien talks about Killer’s Kiss. He compares it to a student film in the sense that it was done for very little money, was an opportunity for the young Kubrick to experiment, and demonstrates his promise as an aspiring filmmaker. He points out that there is a loose, almost improvisational quality that would be less evident in later films as Kubrick became a more skillful director.
Along with The Big Red One (1980), Park Row (1952) may be Sam Fuller’s most autobiographical film. It was a labor of love for the scrappy director who made it as a tribute to the journalists he knew as a newsboy in the 1920’s. By the time he was 17, Fuller became a crime reporter in New York City working for the New York Evening Graphic. He attempted to get Park Row made at 20th Century Fox but when studio head Darryl Zanuck wanted to turn it into a musical, Fuller refused and started his own production company, which allowed him to make it without any creative compromises.
Dedicated to American journalism, Park Row takes us back to the early days of newspapers and depicts the bitter rivalry between Charity Hackett (Mary Welch), owner of The Star, and one of her employees Phinneas Mitchell (Gene Evans). He resents her tactics, which include condemning the wrong man to death. As he says at one point, “The day The Star reports the facts Judas Escariot will be sainted.” He dreams of running his own newspaper, free of political influence and that would answer to no one. As luck would have it, a wealthy businessman offers to bankroll Mitchell’s dream.
Mitchell is ambitious and quickly assembles a staff that is equally hungry, chief among them veteran reporter Josiah Davenport (Herbert Heyes) who gets to deliver one of Fuller’s trademark impassioned speeches about journalism: “But a fighting editor is a voice the world needs. A man with ideals.” Mitchell’s The Globe gets off to a strong start with its attention-grabbing headlines which doesn’t sit well with Hackett over at The Star.
Frequent collaborator Gene Evans breaths life into Fuller’s pulpy prose and with an omnipresent cigar and no-nonsense attitude, he is the director’s cinematic alter ego, a blue collar Charles Foster Kane. Evans plays Mitchell as a passionate man, a two-fisted defender of the truth and freedom of speech.
Fuller does an excellent job recreated period details on an extremely low budget right down to the tools of the trade, the clothes that people wore and how they spoke. Park Row takes an authentic look at how newspapers were run in the 1880’s, from copyboys to the editor-in-chief. He shows how an issue of a newspaper is put together in a way that hasn’t been done in many years making this film a valuable historical document. In many respects, Fuller’s film is Citizen Kane (1941) on a much lower budget and scale with Evans playing a Kane-esque newspaperman that influences and sometimes creates the news his paper reports on in typical tabloid journalism fashion. However, where Orson Welles’ film attacked the worst aspects of tabloid journalism, Fuller also celebrates its best aspects – call him a cynical idealist. He spends more time showing the actual process of putting together a newspaper and the hard work involved as well as the cutthroat competition that arises among rival papers.
Nick Gomez’s Laws of Gravity (1992) was part of an exciting crop of American independent films to come out in the early to mid-1990’s and arguably the best of the Mean Streets (1973) wannabes to be made. It also featured a cast of young, up and coming actors that would go on to solid careers in film and television. Peter Greene and Edie Falco are probably the two most well-known to come out of this film but Adam Trese (Law & Order: Criminal Intent) and Paul Schulze (The Sopranos) also have prolific careers as regular character actors on T.V.
Set on the gritty streets of New York City, Laws of Gravity is about the relationship between two friends – Jimmy (Peter Greene) and Jon (Adam Trese), two small-time crooks that deal in stolen goods. Jimmy is the responsible one while Jon is the wild card always getting into trouble. When we meet them, Jon has skipped out on his court date for a shoplifting charge because he didn’t feel like showing up. Naturally, this doesn’t sit well with his girlfriend Celia (Arabella Field). Jimmy has problems of his own – he owes a sizable chunk of money to local tough guy Sal (Saul Stein) who’s breathing down his neck. As luck would have it, Jimmy and Jon’s friend Frankie (Paul Schulze) rolls back into town with a bunch of guns he wants to sell. Jon and Jimmy see this as an opportunity to make some fast, easy money but of course it doesn’t go as well as they planned. As Jon’s behavior gets increasingly erratic, Jimmy has to make a decision whether to stick by his friend and risk his future or cut him loose and focus on his own problems.
Gomez does a good job showing how a good-natured conversation can turn into a shouting match when Jon gets annoyed with Celia’s nagging criticisms. The dialogue and the way the scene is shot – cinema verite style – feels like we are intruding on an intimate conversation between real people. Gomez employs a restless hand-held camera, which replicates Jon’s anxious energy. He’s a schemer always looking to make some easy money and doesn’t care about who he pisses off.
Based on his solid work in Laws of Gravity, it’s amazing that Peter Greene isn’t a bigger star. He has had small but memorable parts in classic films like Pulp Fiction (1994) and The Usual Suspects (1995) but nothing as substantial as Laws of Gravity (although, there is his startling turn in the little seen Clean, Shaven). He has natural charisma and brings an authenticity to the role of Jimmy that is impressive to watch. This was also an early role for Edie Falco and she demonstrates considerable acting chops. It is easy to see why she has become such an accomplished actress.
Jimmy and Jon are constantly roaming the streets pulling petty crimes like shoplifting but to what end? They get into arguments that break into fights where nobody wins. These guys seem to have little aspirations and are content to live in the moment. Laws of Gravity is a fascinating slice of life look at people just trying to get by any way they can. It depicts the unstable relationship between two men and how it affects their friends and family. Gomez really captures how people from this social strata speak and act. His film is an under-appreciated gem waiting to be discovered and will hopefully find new life thanks to MGM’s MOD program.
After the classy film noirs of the 1940’s, Robert Aldrich’s adaptation of Mickey Spillane’s hardboiled crime novel Kiss Me Deadly (1955) was as tough and uncompromising as its protagonist Mike Hammer. The film reflects the Cold War paranoia that was rampant during the 1950’s and fuses it with an apocalyptic science fiction climax that still packs a powerful punch after all these years. Aldrich worked for RKO in 1941 as an assistant director and got his solo start on the anti-American film Apache (1954) and the cynical western Vera Cruz (1954). The edgy Kiss Me Deadly ran afoul of the MPAA during the script stages for its depiction of drugs and violence. Aldrich removed the drugs but the violence remained and upon its release he defended it in the press.
The film begins with a barefooted woman (Cloris Leachman) running breathlessly along a stretch of highway road at night. Mike Hammer (Ralph Meeker) nearly runs her over. He picks her up and it’s a decision he will regret later. Even though Hammer gives her a hard time he lies for her at a police roadblock when he finds out she’s escaped from a mental hospital. However, they are run off the road by three unidentified men and over the soundtrack we hear the woman’s terrified screams which carry over to the next scene where she’s being tortured but all we see are her dangling feet, leaving the rest to our imagination.
The men attempt to get rid of Hammer and the woman by staging a car accident that he somehow survives. Once he gets out of the hospital, government officials unsuccessfully grill him. Why? And who was the mysterious woman and why was she killed? Intrigued and understandably pissed off at almost being killed, Hammer decides to get some answers – ones that lead to something bigger than he could have possible imagined.
Kiss Me Deadly is saturated with a paranoia vibe, like when Hammer comes home from the hospital and carefully checks out his apartment for intruders. Later on, his secretary, Velda (Maxine Cooper), warns him to stay away from the windows because “somebody might blow you a kiss,” which implies that someone is trying to kill him. Aldrich employs shots of Hammer talking to people as if he’s being spied on by someone and this keeps the viewer on edge. Later on, things get serious when Hammer finds dynamite and a bomb rigged to blow up his car. Aldrich also doesn’t skimp on the violence, which must’ve been shocking for its time. Hammer viciously beats a man who tries to kill him with a switchblade by punching him down a flight of steps. In another scene, Hammer disables a henchman so quickly and efficiently that he scares off his cohort.
Ralph Meeker anchors the film with his uncompromising performance. Hammer is a crude, sexist man with a deep distrust of authority, anticipating Dirty Harry by several years as a righteous avenger with his own brand of justice. Meeker is a good-looking tough guy that does a fantastic job of portraying Spillane’s protagonist.
Kiss Me Deadly features a smart, cynical screenplay by A.I. Bezzerides who tweaked the book’s setting and removed the first person voiceover, but retained the hardboiled attitude. Aldrich’s film takes us on a journey through the seedy underbelly of Los Angeles culminating in an explosive finale that would influence the likes of Repo Man (1984) and Pulp Fiction (1994). It came out around the time that other grim, bleak noirs, like Pickup on the South Street (1953), were starting to appear, and anticipated films like Touch of Evil (1958) Don Siegel’s The Killers (1964).
Special Features:
There is an audio commentary by film noir experts Alain Silver and James Ursini. They talk about how Kiss Me Deadly is a commentary on the 1950’s. They point out innovative things for the time, like how it begins in the middle of the action before any opening credits, which play over the film backwards like a road sign. They point out that Aldrich wanted to turn the source novel on its head and use the female characters to comment on and critique Hammer. In addition to the excellent analysis, Silver and Ursini provide biographical and production information on this solid track.
“Director Alex Cox on Kiss Me Deadly” features the English director praising the film and talking about how radically it differs from Spillane’s book. He describes Aldrich as a “bold and radical” filmmaker.
“Mike Hammer’s Mickey Spillane” is a condensed cut of a 1998 documentary about the author’s life and career in which he also agreed to participate. Fellow writers and admirers speak highly of the man and the innovations he pioneered in crime fiction. Fascinatingly, Spillane wrote for comic books in their early days along with Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. This is a fantastic primer on Spillane and his work.
“The Long Haul of A.I. Bezzerides” features excerpts from this 2007 documentary where writers Barry Gifford, George Belecanos, Spillane and Bezzerides talk about the film version of Kiss Me Deadly. Spillane criticizes the script as “lousy,” while Gifford calls the film a classic. Bezzerides says that he changed what he didn’t like about the novel and wrote his own version, “fixing” it.
“Bunker Hill, Los Angeles” features writer and L.A. film buff Jim Dawson talking about some of the film’s locations. We learn about the rise and decline of the Bunker Hill neighborhood. Dawson points out where in the city key scenes were shot in this fascinating tour.
“Altered Ending” shows the truncated ending which offers a much different fate for Hammer. A minute of footage was cut out from the film and finally restored in 1997, which is the version of the film that is on this DVD.
While Sweet Smell of Success (1957) was a hit with film critics at the time, it was not a box office smash as fans of the film’s two leads – Burt Lancaster and Tony Curtis – were put off seeing their matinee idols portraying unlikable characters. Based on Ernest Lehman’s novelette and adapted by Clifford Odets, Alexander Mackendrick’s film is a cynical love letter to New York City – seen as a dog-eat-dog town with a richly textured film noir look courtesy of legendary cinematographer James Wong Howe. Sweet Smell’s reputation has only grown over time and is now generally regarded as one of the best-written films with quotable dialogue and also one of the finest takes on tabloid journalism.
Sidney Falco (Tony Curtis) is an unscrupulous press agent, a bottom feeder who does anything he can to get his clients mentioned in mainstream publications like The New York Globe. For some time, he’s been trying to get in the good graces of J.J. Hunsecker (Burt Lancaster), the most influential newspaper columnist in the city. He’s even willing to break up the romance between Hunsecker’s kid sister Susan (Susan Harrison) and Steve Dallas (Martin Milner), an up and coming jazz musician, by planting a story that her boyfriend dabbles in drugs. Falco sees Hunsecker as “the golden ladder to the places I want to get,” which is a position where he’s the one calling the shots instead of spending all of his time hustling.
Odets’ much celebrated hard-boiled dialogue crackles with energy and intensity as evident in the scene that introduces Hunsecker. “You’re dead son. Get yourself buried,” is how he casually dismisses Falco. “Match me, Sidney,” is another witty remark courtesy of Hunsecker. Falco gets his own clever remarks as he tells Hunsecker at one point, “Cat’s in the bag and the bag’s in the river.” In a film like Sweet Smell of Success, words are weapons which men like Falco and Hunsecker use to destroy people with no remorse.
The film was quite a risky venture for both Tony Curtis and Burt Lancaster at the time. They were popular box office draws and their roles in Sweet Smell of Success were very different from what their fans were used to seeing. Curtis, in particular, wanted to shed his pretty boy reputation by taking on more substantial material while Lancaster was a maverick within the industry and formed his own production company in order to generate personal pet projects like Sweet Smell.
Right from the opening shot, Mackendrick presents New York as a busy, claustrophobic and noisy place drenched in noirish shadows. It’s a place where heartless individuals like Falco and Hunsecker prey upon the weak. While the latter was based on infamous gossip columnist Walter Winchell, he is also a predecessor to muckraking gossip hounds of today, including websites like TMZ and feared industry insiders like Nikki Finke. Sweet Smell of Success, with its snappy acerbic dialogue, anticipates the stylized tough guy banter of David Mamet and the fast-talking characters in Aaron Sorkin’s television shows. It was one of the rare, uncompromising films from the 1950s that dared to be critical of the establishment and still get made and released within the system. The folks at the Criterion Collection have given this cinematic classic the deluxe treatment it so richly deserves.
Special Features:
Time to throw away the bare bones MGM DVD that was released years ago as this new edition features a pristine transfer that restores the Sweet Smell of Success’ exquisite black and white cinematography, and includes several wonderful extras.
The first disc features an audio commentary by film scholar James Naremore who wrote the BFI Film Classics book on Sweet Smell of Success. He offers excellent analysis of various aspects of the film and also provides biographical detail on the principal cast and crew. In addition, Naremore provides important details on Walter Winchell, the inspiration for the character of J.J. Hunsecker. He also takes us through the genesis of the film in this engaging and very informative track.
Also included is a theatrical trailer.
The second disc starts off with “Mackendrick: The Man Who Walked Away,” a 1986 documentary about director Alexander Mackendrick that runs 44 minutes in length. Contemporaries, like Burt Lancaster, and fellow filmmakers, like John Milius, speak highly of the man. Mackendrick himself talks about his beginnings in advertising thanks to his aptitude as an illustrator – a skill he applied to his filmmaking. This doc sheds light on this often-forgotten film director.
“James Wong Howe: Cinematographer” is a 1973 documentary that features the Academy Award-winning director of photography giving a tutorial on film lighting. In addition, he also tells some entertaining filming anecdotes from his illustrious career and shares his approach to cinematography.
“Gabler on Winchell” takes a look at the columnist that inspired Hunsecker in the film. We learn of Walter Winchell’s importance to American journalism, including the notion of celebrity and the concept of personal style in reporting. He grew to great prominence in the 1930s and wielded a lot of power with the ability to make or break people’s careers.
Finally, there is a 25-minute interview with director James Mangold (Cop Land, Walk the Line) who was one of Mackendrick’s students. Mangold recalls his initial impressions of Mackendrick and what drew him to the man. He says that in his teachings, Mackendrick stressed the ability to tell a story, an understanding of acting, and how a scene worked. Mangold speaks with obvious affection for his mentor in this engaging extra.
It is one of the great tragedies of cinema that The Night of the Hunter (1955) was Charles Laughton’s lone film directing credit. An acclaimed character actor by trade, he decided to adapt David Grubb’s 1953 novel of the same name into a haunting southern gothic horror film cum fairy tale. He enlisted film critic/screenwriter James Agee (The African Queen) to write the screenplay and hired cinematographer Stanley Cortez (The Magnificent Ambersons) to bring his considerable expertise to the textured black and white imagery. Sadly, audiences at the time were not ready for this atmospheric fable and it failed to perform at the box office. Laughton died seven years later and never directed another film. However, over the years, The Night of the Hunter was rediscovered by critics and film buffs and its reputation grew as people finally caught up to a film that was ahead of its time. Its legacy is now firmly established and the film is regarded as a classic. It is rather fitting that the Criterion Collection has delivered the definitive edition of this film.
One of The Night of the Hunter’s earliest images is a disturbing one as a group of children playing come across the body of a dead woman. All we see are her legs lying on steps leading down to the cellar of a house. There is something unsettling about how one of her shoes is twisted off an odd angle from her foot. This scene sets the tone for the rest of the film – that of innocence lost. We are soon introduced to Harry Powell (Robert Mitchum), a fire and brimstone preacher who preys on vulnerable widows – killing them and stealing their money, all in the name of God. He talks to God about his disgust for the feminine aspects of women and the next thing we see is him watching a curvy burlesque dancer swaying suggestively in front of him. Powell clearly embodies the dual nature of love and hate – the words of which are tattooed on the fingers of both his hands.
We meet John (Billy Chapin) and Pearl (Sally Jane Bruce) playing in an idyllic rural setting. Their fugitive father, Ben Harper (Peter Graves), arrives with the law hot on his trail. He has stolen $10,000 and hides it amongst his two children. He goes to prison and is put in the same cell as Powell. The crazy preacher finds out about the money but Harper doesn’t tell him where it’s hidden. After his cellmate is executed for his crimes, Powell gets out and makes his way to Harper’s hometown, traveling on an ominous-looking train by night. He ends up marrying Harper’s widow, Willa (Shelley Winters) in an attempt to get closer to the children and find out what happened to the money.
John learns pretty quickly that not many adults can be trusted, especially Powell whom he figures out his true intentions early on. John also looks out for his sister as their mother and her friends are easily captivated by Powell’s charisma. This is beautifully illustrated in a scene where Powell tells the story of love and hate, quoting The Bible with a gusto that is pretty funny and brilliant in the way Robert Mitchum enthusiastically tells it. Normally cast as laconic soldiers (G.I. Joe) or film noir tough guys (Out of the Past) prior to this film, he cranks up the intensity with this role and is not afraid to look silly at one moment and viciously evil in the next. Powell is the film’s metaphorical boogeyman that ends up chasing John and Pearl across the countryside in pursuit of the money like if the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn had been written by William Faulkner.
Laughton gets very impressive performances out of the two children, both of whom more than hold their own with veteran actors like Mitchum, Shelley Winters and Lillian Gish. The latter is excellent as Rachel Cooper, a kind old lady who takes the children in and protects them against Powell. The showdown between her and Mitchum is one of the film’s best scenes.
With The Night of the Hunter, Laughton fuses a theatrical sensibility in the performances with a German expressionistic look that results in a fairy tale unlike any other. There are images that linger afterwards and haunt you for a long time, like the iconic shot of a woman bundled up in a car at the bottom of a lake. The Night of the Hunter explores the destructive nature of greed and the dangers of religious fanaticism while the eternal struggle between love, as represented by Cooper, and hate, as personified by Powell, plays out with the two children’s lives hanging in the balance.
Special Features:
The first disc starts off with an audio commentary moderated by film critic F.X. Feeney and featuring the film’s second-unit director Terry Sanders, film archivist Robert Gitt, and Preston Neal Jones, author of Heaven and Hell to Play With: The Filming of The Night of the Hunter. They point out that Laughton wanted the film to seem like it was being told from the children’s point-of-view, as if they were having a nightmare. The participants analyze the use of humor throughout the film and how it offsets the darkness of the Harry Powell character. They also get into a lively discussion about James Agee’s screenplay and how the original, longer version was very faithful to the source novel. There is some debate about how much of it Laughton rewrote. This is a very informative track, chock full of factoids, analysis and filming anecdotes to satisfy any fan of this film.
“The Making of The Night of the Hunter” is a 38-minute retrospective featurette that takes us through the genesis of the film as producer Paul Gregory talks about how he met Laughton. Interestingly, Laurence Olivier was considered for the role of Powell. Laughton worked closely with Davis Grubb and James Agee to make sure that the film was a faithful adaptation.
“Moving Pictures” is a 15-minute documentary about the film with interviews with key cast and crew members, including Mitchum, Winters and cinematographer Stanley Cortez. While this extra does repeat information from the previous supplement, it is nice to hear these details directly from the people that actually worked on the film.
There is a 1984 interview with Cortez about filming The Night of the Hunter. He speaks admiringly of Laughton and his ability to work with the actors. Cortez says that Laughton knew nothing about the technical aspects of cinematography and trusted him implicitly with the look of the film. Cortez also touches upon the use of light and how he lit certain scenes for a specific effect.
Also included is a theatrical trailer.
“Simon Callow on Charles Laughton” is an interview with the author of Charles Laughton: A Difficult Actor. He talks about the man’s career and how The Night of the Hunter affected his life. Callow points out the irony that Laughton is known more for directing this film than his extensive acting career. He was very active in live theater and this is what led to his involvement in the film. Callow talks about what drew Laughton to Grubb’s novel and covers the production with an obvious emphasis on Laughton.
There is an interest excerpt from the September 25, 1955 episode of The Ed Sullivan Show where Peter Graves and Shelley Winters perform a scene not in the film. Willa visits Harper in prison, which sheds some insight into their relationship.
“Davis Grubb Sketches” is a collection of drawings that he produced for Laughton to help convey how he envisioned his novel. These sketches are juxtaposed with stills from the film to demonstrate how closely Laughton stuck to them while filming.
The second disc contains the crown jewel for fans of the film. “Charles Laughton Directs The Night of the Hunter” is two-and-a-half hours of unused footage and outtakes. There is a conversation between film archivist Robert Gitt and film critic Leonard Maltin that provides some backstory on how this footage was discovered. Gitt was given it in the mid-1970s but it was so disorganized that it took him several years to make sense of it all. Doing it piecemeal when he had the time, he and many volunteers worked away until they had eight hours of footage. He then edited it down to two-and-a-half hours and screened it at UCLA. This footage provides fascinating insight into Laughton’s working methods, especially how he got those great performances out of the two children. For fans of The Night of the Hunter, this is a treasure trove of material.
The subject of war was one that fascinated Stanley Kubrick for much of his career. His first film, Fear and Desire (1953), was an allegorical war picture and with Dr. Strangelove (1964), he made a scathingly satirical anti-war film. Full Metal Jacket (1987) depicted war as a waking nightmare bordering on madness. It could be argued that Paths of Glory (1957) is his most straightforward take on warfare but this doesn’t make it lesser than any of Kubrick’s other war films. Much like Full Metal Jacket, Paths of Glory presents combat in the battlefield as dirty, noisy and chaotic – in other words, dehumanizing. Whereas Full Metal Jacket depicted the prelude to war and then actual warfare, Paths of Glory’s focus is primarily on warfare and then its aftermath, shown with unflinching honesty. Made early in his career, this film established Kubrick as a cinematic force to be reckoned with – a self-taught filmmaker who would go on to re-define every genre he tried his hand at.
It is France, 1916 and the country is mired in World War I against Germany. It is literally a series of battles for inches with each side trying to get every bit of real estate that it can. Two French generals (Adolphe Menjou and George Macready) debate about taking a piece of land known as the Anthill. The one wants the other’s soldiers to take it in an unrealistic amount of time but is convinced to do so anyway. Kubrick soon immerses us in the trenches and we see the appalling living conditions – mud, cramped quarters and the sounds of gunfire and bombs all around. We see the wounded and even one soldier suffering from shellshock.
The soldiers, led by Colonel Dax (Kirk Douglas), are given a suicide mission: take the Anthill with no support and with severely depleted numbers with conservative losses estimated at half their forces in the ensuing battle. Kubrick’s depiction of the battleground itself is that of a desolate area of dirt decorated with large craters created by bombing. Wreckage and dead bodies litter the landscape. The battle sequence where Dax and his men attempt to take the Anthill is as harrowing and realistic as the D-Day sequence in Saving Private Ryan (1998) only with less money and many years before. Three soldiers (Ralph Meeker, Timothy Carey and Joseph Turkel) are selected from the battalion that failed to take the hill, put on trial for cowardice and sentenced to be executed by a firing squad. In the hearing, Dax defends the men against the pompous General Mireau (Macready).
Kubrick does a fantastic job showing the vast disconnect between the generals and the soldiers in the trenches. It becomes readily apparent that the military leaders have no idea what is going on in the battlefield and expect the impossible from their soldiers. The director has crafted a fascinating anti-war film with a trademark intense performance from Kirk Douglas. This is an angry film that rails against the hubris and arrogance of military leadership and how disposable the average foot soldier is in their eyes. It is a theme that is sadly relevant today. Paths of Glory juxtaposes the brutality of war with the farce that is the subsequent court case with Dax as the lone voice of reason in an unfair world. Kubrick is often described as a cold and calculating filmmaker but what stands out in this film is the humanity of the three soldiers doomed to be executed for completely arbitrary reasons. Kubrick ends the film on an emotional and poignant moment that is incredibly moving and lingers long after the end credits.
Special Features:
There is an audio commentary by film critic Gary Giddins, author of Warning Shadows: Home Alone with Classic Cinema. He points out that Kirk Douglas was at the peak of his popularity and he was responsible for getting Paths of Glory made. Giddins balances analysis with production information while also pointing out brief biographical details on key cast and crew members. He touches upon the differences between the source novel and the film. Giddins delivers an eloquent and informative track.
There is a brief audio interview conducted with Stanley Kubrick from 1966 about the origins of the film.
Also included is a television interview with Kirk Douglas on the popular British talk show Parkinson in February 1979. The actor speaks with his usual candor and enthusiasm, proving to be quite a lively subject. He talks about his career and, of course, Paths of Glory.
There is an interview with producer James B. Harris and he talks about the film and working with Kubrick. He also speaks about how the film came together, done independently and then presented to a studio to back financially. Harris provides fascinating detail on the genesis of the film as well as various other aspects of production.
Also included is an interview with Kubrick’s wife, Christiane. She talks about how meeting Kubrick for the first time and being cast in the film. She actually picked the song she sung in the film. Christiane offers her impressions on her husband’s directing style.
There is an interview with Kubrick’s long-time executive producer Jan Harlan. He talks about the themes in Paths of Glory and in Kubrick’s films in general.
Also included is an excerpt from a French news program about World War I French soldier Theophile Maupas whose tragic story partly inspired Kubrick’s film.
If Lola Montes were alive today I’m sure she would be a tabloid sensation or perhaps a reality television star famous for her notoriety. Born Eliza Gilbert, she reinvented herself during the late 1800s and tried her hand at singing, acting and dancing – failing miserably at all three. What she lacked in talent, however, she more than made up for in sex appeal. Rumors swirled around her about various lovers and Bavaria’s Ludwig I bestowed upon her the title of Countess of Landsfeld. She challenged her critics to duels and dared to smoke in public.
In short, Montes led a pretty exciting life ripe for cinematic treatment. Director Max Ophuls took up the challenge in what would be his last film and the only one in color and Cinemascope. When Lola Montes was released in 1955, the critics savaged it causing the film’s producers to panic and re-edit it. The film did have its admirers, chief among them filmmaker Francois Truffaut and critic Andrew Sarris. By 2008, Lola Montes was restored to Ophuls’ original intentions and digitally remastered to its original glory, preserving its vibrant color scheme.
In a very clever and rather fitting (considering the colorful life she led) framing device, the ringmaster (Peter Ustinov) of an extravagant circus introduces Lola Montes’ (Martine Carol) life, informing us that it will be told “in pantomime, acrobats, tableaux vivants, with music and dance and with the entire orchestra.” As he is saying this, Montes is brought in wearing a gorgeous gold dress. Soon, the lights go down and she is bathed in blue light. The ringmaster promises that she will answer the most shocking, intimate and indiscreet questions about her “scandalous career as femme fatale.” It’s an audacious opening sequence filled with midgets, clowns and acrobats in a way that would make Baz Luhrmann (or Fellini) green with envy at its flamboyance.
Ophuls flashes back to Montes’ affair with composer Franz Liszt (Will Quadflieg), one of several lovers that flirted in and out of her life. The film keeps returning to the circus so that the ringmaster can introduce us to another period of her life. Montes dealt with an uncaring mother and an unfaithful husband and went on to become a successful ballerina despite her obvious lack of talent. And so began a short but eventful career in the arts. What she lacked in actual talent, she more than made up for in sheer determination.
Martine Carol brings an enticing sensuality to the role. She’s beautiful but also brings an intelligence to a woman that knew exactly what she wanted. Montes wears one amazing outfit after another which only serves to highlight Carol’s natural beauty.
Lola Montes is a marvel of production design as we are presented with one incredibly detailed and decorated set after another, each with their own dazzling colors enhanced by Cinemascope. Ophuls’ film is a fascinating, inventive biopic about a true original, a woman that packed a lot of living into her 39 years, defiantly refusing to be tied down by any man, and traveling the world. Ophuls employs a stunning color scheme fitting for such a colorful character. His use of Cinemascope gives Montes’ life an epic look. Lola Montes is an underappreciated masterpiece finally being given its due with this top notch DVD release from the Criterion Collection.
Special Features:
The first disc includes an audio commentary by film scholar Susan White, author of The Cinema of Max Ophuls. She states that Lola Montes is not a film for everyone because of the unusual attention to style. She discusses the odd casting of Martine Carol and what she brought to the film. White does an excellent job of analyzing the film’s style and what it means in relation to the characters and the story. She also sheds light on the film’s rocky production. This is a very informative track full of insight into the film and the people that made it.
The second disc starts with “Cineastes de Notres Temps,” an episode of the French television series featuring several of Ophuls’ collaborators, many of whom worked on Lola Montes. The film’s cinematographer talks about the director’s love of movement. In fact, everyone talks about his working methods and obsession with movement within film.
“Max by Marcel” is a 2009 short film by Marcel Ophuls (Max’s son) where he talks about his work on the film as an assistant director. Marcel interviews a few people who also worked on the film. The producers did not like the footage Ophuls was shooting forced Martine Carol and the use of color and Cinemascope on him.
“Martine Carol Hair Tests” features silent footage of the actress showing some of the fantastic hairstyles she sports in Lola Montes.
With the recent and unfortunate passing of Forrest J. Ackerman, I thought I would post a tribute to a classic science fiction film of the 1950s as a nod the kinds of films that Ackerman championed over the years.
There have been three remakes of the classic 1956 film, Invasion of the Body Snatchers— 1979, 1994, and 2007 respectively. This does not include the countless rip-offs and homages that have been made since the original graced the screen: some good (They Live), some bad (The Astronaut’s Wife) and some just plain ugly (Body Snatchers). By far the superior film in every way is the 1956 version directed by Don Siegel, which continues to thrill and entertain while hopeless rehashes like Abel Ferrara’s film try in vain to recapture the power and the impact of its predecessor. What Ferrara and other imitators don't understand is that extravagant special effects and elaborate chases do not compensate for a non-existent story and weak characters — something that Siegel understood implicitly and wisely avoided in his film.
Adapted from Jack Finney’s excellent novel The Body Snatchers(1954), Siegel’s film is the best of all the versions made because it is the most faithful to the novel. The film begins with suspenseful music while the credits are shown over a sky filled with rushing clouds. After the credits end we meet a frantic Dr. Miles Bennell (Kevin McCarthy) who is being questioned by the police. When a psychiatrist arrives Miles goes wild, until reassured that his story will be heard. What follows is a flashback account of how Dr. Bennell, with the help of an old girlfriend, Becky Driscoll (Dana Wynter) uncover a secret plot by aliens from outer space to take over the inhabitants of the small town of Santa Mira. It is a subtle invasion that at first glance does not appear to be that much of a threat, but as Miles and Becky soon discover, its implications reach far and wide, threatening not only close friends like Jack and "Teddy" Belicec (King Donovan and Carolyn Jones), but all of humanity.
The film's inception lies in the hands of producer Walter Wanger who had read Finney's story in its original serial form in Collier's magazine. He felt that it would make a good low-budget film for Allied Artists and asked Don Siegel to direct. After convincing screenwriter Daniel Mainwaring to join the production, the film began to take shape. From the start, the three men shared the same approach to the material. Their intention was to have the film act as a metaphor for the way "the majority of people in the world unfortunately are pods, existing without any intellectual aspirations and incapable of love,” remembers Siegel. Originally, producer Walter Wanger and director Don Siegel wanted to shoot Invasion of the Body Snatchers on location in Jack Finney's model for Santa Mira, MillValley, just north of San Francisco. In the first week of January 1955, Siegel, Wagner, and screenwriter Daniel Mainwaring visited Finney to talk about the film version and to take a look at MillValley. The location proved to be too expensive and Siegel and some Allied Artists executives found locations resembling MillValley in nearby Sierra Madre, Chatsworth, Glendale, the Los Feliz neighborhood and in Bronson and BeachwoodCanyons. However, much of the film was shot in the Allied Artists studio on the east side of Hollywood. Invasion of the Body Snatchers was originally budgeted for a 24-day schedule at $454,864 and the studio asked Wanger to cut the budget significantly. The producer proposed a shooting schedule of 20 days and a budget of $350,000.
Initially, Wanger considered Gig Young, Dick Powell, Joseph Cotton, and several others for the role of Miles. For Becky, he thought of casting Anne Bancroft, Donna Reed, Kim Hunter, Vera Miles, and others. With the lower budget, Wanger had to abandon these choices and cast Richard Kiley, who had just starred in Phoenix City Story for Allied Artists. Kiley turned the role down and Wanger cast two relative newcomers in the lead roles: Kevin McCarthy, who had just starred in Siegel's Annapolis Story, and Dana Wynter, who had done several major dramatic roles on television but had not done a film.
The film was shot in 23 days between March 23, 1955 and April 18. The cast and crew worked a six-day week with only Sundays off. The production went over schedule by three days because of night-for-night shooting that Siegel wanted. The final budget was $382,190. Siegel used his lack of budget and unknown actors to create an authentic, natural feeling of normalcy to the proceedings. This became one of the strengths of the film. We so easily believe that this is Smalltown, USA that when the horror of what is really happening becomes apparent the shock is that much more significant. Siegel, a former special effects expert knew full well the pitfalls of relying too much on effects and not on the plot. "Instead of doing what so many science fiction and horror films do — spend all their money on special effects and put poor actors on the screen — we concentrated on the performers. The main thing about the picture, however, was that it was about something and that's rare." And so Siegel actually used the handicap of a small budget to his advantage by downplaying the special effects in favor of creating strong, three-dimensional characters and telling a suspenseful, often scary story.
The project was originally called, The Body Snatchers after the Finney serial. However, Wanger wanted to avoid confusion with the Val Lewton 1945 horror film with a very similar title. The producer was unable to come up with a title and accepted the studio's choice, They Come from Another World that was assigned in summer 1955. Siegel protested this title and suggest two alternatives: Better Off Dead and Sleep No More, while Wanger offered Evil in the Night and World in Danger. None of these were chosen as the studio finally settled on Invasion of the Body Snatchers in late 1955. Wanger saw the final cut in December 1955 and protested the use of the Superscope format. Its use had been a part of the early plans for the film but the first print was not made until December. Wanger felt that the film lost sharpness and detail. Siegel had originally shot Invasion of the Body Snatchers in the 1.85:1 aspect ratio. The Superscope look was a post-production lab process designed to make the film resemble the popular Cinemascope format.
The studio scheduled three previews for the film on the last days of June and the first day of July 1955. According to Wanger's memos at the time, the previews were successful. However, later reports by Mainwaring and Siegel contradict this, claiming that audiences could not follow the film and laughed in the wrong places. In response, the studio removed much of the film's humor, "humanity", and "quality", according to Wanger. He scheduled another preview in mid-August that did not go well. The studio decided to change the film's title to a more conventional science fiction one. In later interviews, Siegel pointed out that it was studio policy not to mix humor with horror. Both Siegel and Mainwaring were satisfied with the film as shot. It was originally intended to end with Miles screaming hysterically as truckloads of pods pass him by. The studio, wary of such a pessimistic conclusion, insisted on adding a prologue and epilogue to the movie that suggested a more optimistic outcome to the story which is thus told mainly in flashback. Siegel decided to shoot these scenes because he knew the studio would put them in regardless and if he filmed them then perhaps he could do a little damage control. Mainwaring scripted this framing story and Siegel shot it on September 16, 1955 at Allied Artists.
Siegel had problems with these sequences because as he saw it, they let "you know right away that something unusual is going on. If you start, as I wanted to, with McCarthy arriving in the town of Santa Mira, it reveals it slowly, we understand why McCarthy can't readily accept the terrible thing that appears to be happening. And the dramatic impact of the ending is reduced with the epilogue." Allied Artist also made Siegel cut out a lot of the humor in the film, but enough survived for the director's intended effect. "I felt the idea of pods growing into a likeness of a person would strike the characters as preposterous. I wanted to play it that way," Siegel remembers, "with the characters not taking the threat seriously. For example, if you told me now that there was a pod in my likeness in the other room, I would joke about it. However, when I opened the door and saw the pod, the full shock and horror would hit me and the fun would be gone. I wanted the people in the film to behave like normal people." Despite the studio's constant meddling, Siegel managed to create an impressive film whose impact has not diminished over the years.
In addition to these bookends, Wanger wanted to add a variety of speeches and prefaces. He suggested a voice-over introduction for Miles. While the film was being shot, Wanger tried to get permission in England to use a Winston Churchill quotation as a preface to the film. The producer also tried to get Orson Welles to voice the preface and a trailer for the film. He wrote speeches for Welles' opening on June 15, 1955 and spent considerable time trying to convince Welles to do it but was unsuccessful and considered science fiction author Ray Bradbury instead but this also did not happen. Mainwaring eventually wrote the voice-over narration himself. The shorter version of the film was often rerun late at night on TV stations and one PBS showing in 1988. The full theatrical version was not widely released until 1978 when a remake was produced starring Donald Sutherland.
Like the novel, Invasion of the Body Snatchers is a real marvel of pacing — achieved by gradually building the suspense, until the tension is too much. When Miles begins to tell his story, he starts by saying, “At first glance everything looked the same. It wasn’t. Something evil had taken possession of the town.” While these words are spoken, Siegel presents an ordinary looking small town. Miles’ words are a teaser that makes us curious. We want to know what this evil force is, how it has taken the town captive, and why it seems so normal. It is this curiosity that draws us into the story. At first everything seems normal, but little details appear that suggest otherwise. Maybe it is the scared child running out in front of Miles’ car, the same boy who later claims that his mother is not his mother, crying, “Don’t let her get me!” These events are all warning signs that point to a larger, impending danger that threatens the small town.
By giving us only bits and pieces at a time, Siegel slowly begins to reveal the threat of alien invasion. People act normal enough, but something is slightly askew. People seem to have emotions, but as one character observes, “There is just the pretense of it.” Body Snatchers feeds on our fear of dehumanization and conformity — not only of ourselves, but our family and friends. A lot of the suspense in the film is derived from the fact that the characters must stay awake to remain human; to sleep means becoming a pod. Sleep is an important motif of the film, to the point where Siegel originally wanted it to be called Sleep No More, a reference to Shakespeare's play, Macbeth. For Siegel, sleep is a metaphor for conformity or the stifling of any intellectual curiosity. People often sleepwalk through their whole lives — never truly alive. And like Miles in the film, we are surrounded daily by these intellectual sleepers, being subtly invaded by their ever-growing numbers. Again, the studio stepped in and imposed a more science fiction/horror-like title which the filmmaker had no choice but to accept.
Despite the compromises Siegel was forced to make, his original intentions were not diminished. Through subtle references and imagery, he managed to convey his fears of conformity and present the solution to this problem in the form of its hero: Miles Bennell who embodies individuality and humanity — something that the pods (read modern industrial society) try to destroy. Unfortunately, Invasion of the Body Snatchers was not blessed with a big budget or big name stars and as a result critics and box office success ignored it upon initial release. Over the years film buffs and student groups began to take interest in the film and an ever-growing cult following developed leading to its rediscovery in the 1960s by French New Wave critics who declared it to be one of the best and most influential science fiction films of the 1950s, along side such classics as The Thing (1951), The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951), and Them! (1954). American critics underestimated the widespread influence it has had since its initial release. A much imitated (see The Hidden amongst many others) film, it still manages to captivate and delight people today. The film has been read on many different levels, most often as a subtext for protesting Senator Joseph McCarthy and his Red Scare mentality or as an anti-Communist allegory. First and foremost it is an entertaining film that blends a science fiction premise with film noir and horror elements (in particular, its use of unusual camera angles, close-ups, sharp editing, music, and lighting). Despite two remakes, the original film is the superior version because its director, Don Siegel understood Finney’s novel and was able to translate its intent successfully to the screen without relying on flashy special effects and trickery like so many contemporary science fiction films.
For more tributes to Ackerman, check this one, this, and this, as well as an old blog-a-thon done in his name.
