Russian author Vladimir Nabokov’s first nine novels were written in the Russian language. The first of these novels, “Laughter in the Dark,” was also his first to be printed in English (it was originally titled “Kamera Obscura” when published in Russia in the 1930s). In later years, Nabokov wrote in English. His most famous novel, “Lolita,” was filmed by Stanley Kubrick in 1962, and the film, even given the censorship of the times, was a critical and boxoffice success.
Seeking to take advantage of the new screen freedoms of the late 1960s, director Tony Richardson [TOM JONES (1963), THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE (1968)] decided to film LAUGHTER IN THE DARK, a story about a married middle-aged art critic who has an affair with a 16-year-old theater usherette, which develops into a troublesome mutually parasitic relationship. Richardson and screenwriter Edward Bond changed the time period of the film from the novel’s Germany of the 1920s to contemporary London.
Cast in the film were Richard Burton and Danish actress Anna Karina, the ex-wife of Jean-Luc Godard and star of many of his films. LAUGHTER IN THE DARK was shot in Spain and England. After Burton had filmed only a few scenes, Richardson became fed up with Burton’s constant tardiness on set, and replaced him with Nicol Williamson. Raymond Leppard scored the film, but none of his music has ever been released.
When Lopert Pictures released LAUGHTER IN THE DARK in the U.S. in May 1969, the distributor cut the sexually-charged 104-minute film by 3 minutes. Nevertheless, the MPAA still gave the film an [X] rating. And most of the U.S. critics felt that the film fell well below the standard set by LOLITA. The principal complaint of this negative majority, which included Newsday’s Joseph Gelmis, was Richardson’s treatment of the central character: “Unlike the hero of LOLITA, the victim of LAUGHTER IN THE DARK is a pathetic, stupid, pitiful creature [and] we watch with increasing impatience and revulsion as the fool is tortured by a couple of human vultures.” Cue’s William Wolf called it a “sadistic little film” and found that it “soon becomes thoroughly incredible [because] the game is too transparent, the victim too gullible.”
But Variety’s “Kent” defended the picture as “an intelligent psychological exploration of evil,” arguing that “unless one is able to accept the inevitability of the characters’ actions, the tendency is to either laugh with nervous anxiety or with a kind of forced superiority.” Newsweek’s Joseph Morgenstern enthused that “Love is blind and gets a lot blinder before LAUGHTER IN THE DARK runs its hilariously funny course.” Although he agreed that the film’s creators had “scooped every last shaving of sadism” from Nabokov’s novel, Morgenstern allowed that “we do laugh, often and legitimately, for this stylish black tragi-farce keeps its own eye on Nabokov’s main target, the amorous hero’s preposterous powers of self-deception.” Nevertheless, the critical majority agreed with New York’s Judith Crist that “There is neither style nor grace nor irony in the film; it is a peek-freak show, inviting us to watch the squirms of the stupid, the frolic of the fornicators and the viciousness of the perverted.”
Nicol Williamson won the Best Actor award at the 1969 San Sebastián International Film Festival for his performance in LAUGHTER IN THE DARK. The film, which is now controlled by MGM, has never been issued on any home video format.
I was kind of hoping you might find some information on . . . Frank Perry's TRILOGY from 1969.
TRILOGY is an interesting film that had its roots in television. The film was comprised of three filmed short stories written by Truman Capote: "Miriam" (originally published in Mademoiselle, June 1945), "Among the Paths to Eden" (Esquire, July 1960) and "A Christmas Memory" (Mademoiselle, December 1956).
For the theatrical release, "Miriam" was newly filmed, but the films of the others were taken from their prior television airings. "A Christmas Memory" was originally telecast on December 21, 1966 on the series ABC Stage 67, and "Among the Paths to Eden" was telecast on December 17, 1967 as an ABC special. Maureen Stapleton won an Emmy for her performance in “Among the Paths to Eden.” “A Christmas Memory” received an Emmy nomination as Outstanding Dramatic Program, and won a Peabody Award for Best Entertainment Program of the year.
When "A Christmas Memory" was about to start production, Geraldine Page's commitment to appear in a Broadway play threatened to conflict with the shooting schedule. But the play was a flop and ran for only ten performances, closing only three days before shooting commenced in Snowdoun, Alabama. The other two segments were filmed in New York City.
Each of the segments was originally filmed to run about 52 minutes, so that they could be shown in a one hour television slot (with commercials). For the feature film, “A Christmas Memory” was slightly edited, and both "Among the Paths to Eden" and "Miriam" were each trimmed to approximately 30 minutes for a total theatrical running time of 110 minutes.
Along with Richard Lester’s PETULIA, TRILOGY was the only other American film chosen for exhibition at the 1968 Cannes Film Festival. TRILOGY was scheduled to be exhibited during the final week of the Festival, but a student revolution in France resulted in an abrupt end to the Festival, and TRILOGY was never actually screened.
When Allied Artists opened TRILOGY in New York on 6 November 1969, Howard Thompson of the New York Times remarked that “the tonic effect” of the film “is marvelous.” “Without a single hitch of transition, the television footage flows beautifully and vibrantly across the large screen, which deepens the theme of human loneliness linking the contrasting stories.” Thompson lauded the “flawless cast, down to the smallest bit player,” and remarked that “The color photography of the entire picture is muted and excellent.” His conclusion was “The cold fact is that TRILOGY is all talk and little action. But it quietly says and conveys more about the human heart and spirit than most of today's free-wheeling blastaways on the screen. Delicately, it towers.”
But Molly Haskell of the Village Voice was less enthusiastic about the film. She began by noting that “The recent television films of Rossellini, Welles, Bergman and Godard all stand on their own in theatrical showings and in the filmographies of their directors.” But the stories in TRILOGY, Haskell felt, “do not transcend the medium, and their grafting into a single film is more commercial expedient than artistic necessity.” And she contradicted Thompson’s opinion on the transitions: “The title and Perry’s use of slow dissolve transitions suggest an interrelationship between the stories which is misleading.”
One account claims that the full-length “Miriam” segment of TRILOGY later aired on television in April, 1970, but this cannot be confirmed. TRILOGY was issued on a videocassette in 2001 but has never been on DVD. The unedited version of “A Christmas Memory” was issued separately on DVD in 2007.
SKULLDUGGERY was a 1970 film based upon a 1952 novel, “Les animaux denatures,” by Vercors. The novel’s title is variously translated as “You Shall Know Them,” “Borderline,” and “The Murder of the Missing Link.” The author’s name, Vercors, was a pseudonym. While some believe the author to be Pierre Boulle, author of “Planet of the Apes,” Vercors is most likely Jean Marcel Bruller (1902 – 1991), a French writer and illustrator who, during the World War II occupation of northern France, joined the Resistance and published texts under the pseudonym Vercors.
During the late 1960s, producer Saul David had a string of successes at 20th Century Fox, with the James Coburn FLINT films, VON RYAN’S EXPRESS, and FANTASTIC VOYAGE. SKULLDUGGERY was his first film for Universal. Nelson Gidding (THE HAUNTING, 1963; LOST COMMAND, 1966) was hired to script the film, and Richard Wilson (INVITATION TO A GUNFIGHTER, 1964; 3 IN THE ATTIC, 1968) was brought on to direct. But one week into production, Wilson was replaced by Gordon Douglas, who had directed IN LIKE FLINT for Saul David. Oliver Nelson composed the music for the film, the second of only three features that he scored.
SKULLDUGGERY follows an adventurer looking for phosphorous deposits, played by Burt Reynolds, and an archeologist, played by Susan Clark, as they explore New Guinea. The group discovers an ape-man tribe, which they name the Tropis. They feel they must take action, however, when the financier of the expedition decides to breed the Tropis and sell them as slaves. Location scenes for SKULLDUGGERY were filmed in New Guinea and Jamaica.
Burt Reynolds had been in four pictures in 1969, only one of which, the action hit 100 RIFLES, had made any impression at the box office. The others (SAM WHISKEY, IMPASSE, SHARK) had quickly disappeared. Susan Clark, a Universal contract player, had been in some high profile 1968 films by director Don Siegel (MADIGAN, COOGAN’S BLUFF), and had last appeared in 1969’s TELL THEM WILLIE BOY IS HERE, Abraham Polonsky’s directorial comeback film after having been blacklisted.
SKULLDUGGERY opened in New York on 11 March 1970, whereupon Roger Greenspun of the New York Times blasted the film as consisting of “stock footage so venerable it seems to light a hundred memories of jungle adventure, grade C. In manner and feeling, it recalls the febrile luxury of the 3 P.M. movie on Saturday television, while everybody else is out ruining his mind with team sports, fresh air and sunshine.” Further, Greenspun declared that when the “utterly unimportant plot” began addressing “man's misuse of man from the beginnings of the Industrial Revolution until last week,” “what had been acceptably awful becomes unacceptably awful, as SKULLDUGGERY stumbles up to the histrionics of Hollywood humanism.”
Greenspun acknowledged, however, that “From time to time the dialogue produces a gleam of wit unearned by Gordon Douglas's dull direction. Susan Clark has an elegant manner and a pleasing face that suggests she could actually hold the Ph.D. her roles seem always to credit her with.”
Time Out magazine was a little more forgiving of SKULLDUGGERY, seeing it as an “engagingly ramshackle adventure” with a “rousingly melodramatic courtroom finale.” “Naïve, uncertain in tone,” said Time Out, “but despite all faults, an appealing curiosity.” Leonard Maltin, however, probably represents the consensus on the film, giving it one and a half stars and calling it “unusual but unsuccessful.” Maltin also claims that the “author had his name removed from the credits,” but his name appears on the one-sheet below.
SKULLDUGGERY was broadcast on ABC’s Monday Night Movie in 1974, but has rarely been seen since. There are mentions of VHS releases in Germany and the U.S., but I haven’t been able to confirm any release on any format. Universal still controls the rights to the film.
SKULLDUGGERY was the final film for actor Rhys Williams, who played a judge in the film. Williams had made his film debut as a Welsh miner in John Ford's 1941 classic HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY. Screenwriter Nelson Gidding would go from this film to scripting the very successful THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN the next year. Producer Saul David’s next project would be 1976’s LOGAN’S RUN.
There's a just announced Criterion Blu-Ray/DVD release that means another wanted title can come OFF the Pinterest Board: The rarely seen Robert Montgomery directed noir 'Ride the Pink Horse'. It's listed here with other exciting new releases: http://www.pinterest.com/arthurgrant9883/new-releases-on-blu-ray-and-dvd/
Ely Landau spent most of his life putting theatrical productions onto film and television. Landau won a Peabody Award for “Play of the Week,” a series of stage plays mounted for television from 1959 to 1961 by WNTA-TV in New York. In 1962, he turned to feature-film production. Landau was the co-producer of LONG DAY’S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT, a screen rendering of the play by Eugene O'Neill with Ralph Richardson and Katharine Hepburn. And in 1972, he founded the American Film Theatre (AFT) to make movies of distinguished plays. From 1973 to 1975, AFT released films of 14 plays, mainly American and British.
But one of Landau’s strangest productions was based on a 1954 novel by Helen Eustis. This was THE FOOL KILLER, a film starring Anthony Perkins and Dana Elcar. The film also marked the screen debut of Edward Albert, son of actors Eddie Albert and Margo. THE FOOL KILLER was set after the Civil War, and told the story of a 12-year-old orphan who leaves his foster home. The youth is befriended by an aging reprobate who relates to him the legend of the “Fool Killer,” an axe murderer. The legend of the “Fool Killer” was first written down by author O. Henry (aka William Sydney Porter). According to O. Henry, his tale of the Fool Killer was based on an old southern myth, “like Santa Claus and Jack Frost and General Prosperity and all those concrete conceptions that are supposed to represent an idea that Nature has failed to embody.” THE FOOL KILLER had been dramatized once before, when Lee Marvin starred in a televised version of it in 1956 for “Kraft Television Theatre.”
THE FOOL KILLER was the second feature film (and the only one in English) for Mexican director Servando González. The screenplay was written by Morton Fine and David Friedkin (THE PAWNBROKER, 1965). The film also features a memorable score by award winning Mexican composer Gustavo César Carrión. One reviewer of the film notes that “Outside of the typical musical cues usually found in Hollywood films of the same period, the music in THE FOOL KILLER is often eerie, rustic and unsettling. The discordant sounds that permeate the soundtrack perfectly express the dark and grungy tone of the film.” The film’s score also makes use of a song, "The Ballad of the Fool Killer," with music and lyrics by Mike Phillips and Tillman Franks, sung by David Houston.
THE FOOL KILLER was produced during 1963 and 1964, with portions of the film being shot on location in Knoxville, Tennessee. The film was screened for the press in the spring of 1965 and was subsequently reviewed by the trade press and some magazine critics. Most of these critics agreed with The New Republic’s Stanley Kauffmann that THE FOOL KILLER was “a disappointment.” Kauffmann mostly criticized director González: “His unsureness in drama makes him accept a good deal of counterfeit coinage, and his overreliance on mere pictures makes the film seem to be standing back and admiring its own bucolic beauty.” In agreement, Saturday Review’s Hollis Alpert chided the director for mingling “placid scenes of the countryside and small, peaceful villages with stark violence. Somehow the story becomes too pallid and too artificial, and at times sentimental.”
Although Ely Landau had made a one-year deal with Allied Artists to release the film nationally, it had only 25 bookings in the Southwest and was withdrawn from circulation. When the Allied Artists arrangement expired in 1966, Landau made another deal with American International to distribute the picture under the title “A Violent Journey,” but apparently no bookings ever materialized. Finally, in 1969, Jack Dreyfus, Jr., Landau’s producing partner on LONG DAY’S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT, purchased the exclusive theatrical rights to the film, reportedly made fifty editing changes, and began booking the picture on his own. THE FOOL KILLER opened in New York in June 1969.
“THE FOOL KILLER, made in 1964, took a long time coming,” wrote the N.Y. Daily News’ Ann Guarino, who then added that “perhaps it should not have come at all, for the production has a slow-paced, old-fashioned quality that seems out of step with today’s slick, sophisticated fare.” Time magazine, in its 1965 review had called the film “a somewhat foolish mystery thriller” that takes place “in a poetic but implausible neverland where ‘Tom Sawyer’ tangles with ‘Psycho.’” But in 1969, Time found that “THE FOOL KILLER remains valid for two reasons. In its picaresque explorations of a naïve, vanished America, it meanders into the Twain tradition of American fiction. And in its stinging exploration of God-haunted Gothic territory, it demonstrates that no ethnic group has ever had an exclusive hold on guilt.”
Nevertheless, Vincent Canby of the New York Times spoke for the negative majority of 1969 by declaring that in THE FOOL KILLER, Servando González “has anthologized almost five decades of cinematic clichés—obtrusive wipes, wobbly dissolves and bizarre camera angles that have no relation to the scene being performed. The picture is photographed in black-and-white with lots of filters that give cumulus clouds the look of great wads of cotton dipped in plaster of Paris.” The film is “describably bad.”
THE FOOL KILLER is now under the control of Republic Entertainment, which issued a VHS cassette of the film in 1998. Presumably it would be available to Olive Films for potential release on DVD or Blu-ray.
Ely Landau spent most of his life putting theatrical productions onto film and television. Landau won a Peabody Award for “Play of the Week,” a series of stage plays mounted for television from 1959 to 1961 by WNTA-TV in New York. In 1962, he turned to feature-film production. Landau was the co-producer of LONG DAY’S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT, a screen rendering of the play by Eugene O'Neill with Ralph Richardson and Katharine Hepburn. And in 1972, he founded the American Film Theatre (AFT) to make movies of distinguished plays. From 1973 to 1975, AFT released films of 14 plays, mainly American and British.
But one of Landau’s strangest productions was based on a 1954 novel by Helen Eustis. This was THE FOOL KILLER, a film starring Anthony Perkins and Dana Elcar. The film also marked the screen debut of Edward Albert, son of actors Eddie Albert and Margo. THE FOOL KILLER was set after the Civil War, and told the story of a 12-year-old orphan who leaves his foster home. The youth is befriended by an aging reprobate who relates to him the legend of the “Fool Killer,” an axe murderer. The legend of the “Fool Killer” was first written down by author O. Henry (aka William Sydney Porter). According to O. Henry, his tale of the Fool Killer was based on an old southern myth, “like Santa Claus and Jack Frost and General Prosperity and all those concrete conceptions that are supposed to represent an idea that Nature has failed to embody.” THE FOOL KILLER had been dramatized once before, when Lee Marvin starred in a televised version of it in 1956 for “Kraft Television Theatre.”
Didn't Burt Bacharach and Hal Davis compose a song for the film? THE FOOL KILLER was the second feature film (and the only one in English) for Mexican director Servando González. The screenplay was written by Morton Fine and David Friedkin (THE PAWNBROKER, 1965). The film also features a memorable score by award winning Mexican composer Gustavo César Carrión. One reviewer of the film notes that “Outside of the typical musical cues usually found in Hollywood films of the same period, the music in THE FOOL KILLER is often eerie, rustic and unsettling. The discordant sounds that permeate the soundtrack perfectly express the dark and grungy tone of the film.” The film’s score also makes use of a song, "The Ballad of the Fool Killer," with music and lyrics by Mike Phillips and Tillman Franks, sung by David Houston.
THE FOOL KILLER was produced during 1963 and 1964, with portions of the film being shot on location in Knoxville, Tennessee. The film was screened for the press in the spring of 1965 and was subsequently reviewed by the trade press and some magazine critics. Most of these critics agreed with The New Republic’s Stanley Kauffmann that THE FOOL KILLER was “a disappointment.” Kauffmann mostly criticized director González: “His unsureness in drama makes him accept a good deal of counterfeit coinage, and his overreliance on mere pictures makes the film seem to be standing back and admiring its own bucolic beauty.” In agreement, Saturday Review’s Hollis Alpert chided the director for mingling “placid scenes of the countryside and small, peaceful villages with stark violence. Somehow the story becomes too pallid and too artificial, and at times sentimental.”
Although Ely Landau had made a one-year deal with Allied Artists to release the film nationally, it had only 25 bookings in the Southwest and was withdrawn from circulation. When the Allied Artists arrangement expired in 1966, Landau made another deal with American International to distribute the picture under the title “A Violent Journey,” but apparently no bookings ever materialized. Finally, in 1969, Jack Dreyfus, Jr., Landau’s producing partner on LONG DAY’S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT, purchased the exclusive theatrical rights to the film, reportedly made fifty editing changes, and began booking the picture on his own. THE FOOL KILLER opened in New York in June 1969.
“THE FOOL KILLER, made in 1964, took a long time coming,” wrote the N.Y. Daily News’ Ann Guarino, who then added that “perhaps it should not have come at all, for the production has a slow-paced, old-fashioned quality that seems out of step with today’s slick, sophisticated fare.” Time magazine, in its 1965 review had called the film “a somewhat foolish mystery thriller” that takes place “in a poetic but implausible neverland where ‘Tom Sawyer’ tangles with ‘Psycho.’” But in 1969, Time found that “THE FOOL KILLER remains valid for two reasons. In its picaresque explorations of a naïve, vanished America, it meanders into the Twain tradition of American fiction. And in its stinging exploration of God-haunted Gothic territory, it demonstrates that no ethnic group has ever had an exclusive hold on guilt.”
Nevertheless, Vincent Canby of the New York Times spoke for the negative majority of 1969 by declaring that in THE FOOL KILLER, Servando González “has anthologized almost five decades of cinematic clichés—obtrusive wipes, wobbly dissolves and bizarre camera angles that have no relation to the scene being performed. The picture is photographed in black-and-white with lots of filters that give cumulus clouds the look of great wads of cotton dipped in plaster of Paris.” The film is “describably bad.”
THE FOOL KILLER is now under the control of Republic Entertainment, which issued a VHS cassette of the film in 1998. Presumably it would be available to Olive Films for potential release on DVD or Blu-ray.
French director Philippe de Broca had a string of successes during the 1960s. He first made a major impression on American audiences with his comedy thriller THAT MAN FROM RIO (1964), which was closely followed by the costume adventure CARTOUCHE. In 1967, de Broca became the darling of the college crowd with his anti-war social comedy KING OF HEARTS. And so, although some critics felt that his 1969 comedy THE DEVIL BY THE TAIL (Le diable par la queue) was not the equal of these earlier films, it still generally received a warm welcome.
In his prior films, de Broca had worked with many of the icons of 1960s French cinema: actors Jean-Paul Belmondo, Jean-Pierre Cassel, Jean-Louis Trintignant, and Jean-Claude Brialy; actresses Anouk Aimée, Jean Seberg, Françoise Dorléac, Geneviève Bujold, and Catherine Deneuve. In KING OF HEARTS he had used an English star for the first time, Alan Bates. And with THE DEVIL BY THE TAIL de Broca moved further afield, casting as his leads Yves Montand, an Italian actor who had become a French citizen, and Maria Schell, an Austrian-Swiss actress who had co-starred in Richard Brooks’ THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV (1958) and Anthony Mann’s CIMARRON (1960). The film also provided the first significant part for Swiss actress Marthe Keller, who would go on to stardom in such 1970s films as MARATHON MAN, BLACK SUNDAY, and BOBBY DEERFIELD.
Elsewhere, however, de Broca surrounded himself with his frequent collaborators. THE DEVIL BY THE TAIL was scripted by Daniel Boulanger, with whom de Broca had worked nine previous times. And Georges Delerue, who scored the film, had provided the music for eight prior de Broca pictures. Although only two Delerue tracks appeared on a 45 at the time of the film’s release, in 2003 Universal France released 6 tracks (14 minutes) of the score on a Delerue – de Broca compilation CD.
THE DEVIL BY THE TAIL concerned a Marquise who lures motorists to her chateau turned hotel by sabotaging their cars. She gets more than she bargains for when one guest turns out to be a bank robber on the run. When United Artists opened the comedy in America in June 1969, the majority of the critics, like the San Francisco Chronicle’s Paine Knickerbocker, found it to be “not only a bright traditional presentation, but completely cheerful, a rare combination.” Cue’s William Wolf concurred: “When Philippe de Broca is in high gear he has a marvelously light, civilized touch, and he is in high here.” And Time magazine said that THE DEVIL BY THE TAIL was filled “with sly performances and wry wit. It is the stuff of life—and laughter.”
But a few critics felt that the film was “not one of de Broca’s best.” (the New York Times’ Vincent Canby). Joseph Gelmis of Newsday opined that “THE DEVIL BY THE TAIL is so cute you’d like to put it in a sack and drown it. . . . The film is slow and silly and dull, rather than droll.” Despite the naysayers, however, the clear majority agreed with Variety’s “Mosk,” who declared that Yves Montand was “the highlight of this extremely well-written and well-directed film.”
THE DEVIL BY THE TAIL is controlled by MGM, but it has never had an English-accessible video release on any format.
[THE FOOL KILLER’s] score also makes use of a song, "The Ballad of the Fool Killer," with music and lyrics by Mike Phillips and Tillman Franks, sung by David Houston.
Didn't Burt Bacharach and Hal David compose a song for the film?
Bacharach-David did compose a song, titled "The Fool Killer," which was recorded by Gene Pitney, but the song did not appear in the film.
This is the exact same situation as with 1962's THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE. There, Bacharach-David composed a song based upon the film's plotline, which was recorded by Gene Pitney, and which reached No. 4 on the charts even though it was not in the film. Apparently the composers and Pitney were trying to replicate that earlier success. In this case, "The Fool Killer" did not achieve the same recognition, in large part because the film itself had such limited distribution.
Has STARDUST (1974) ever been released? I really want to see it as it is purported to be a sequel of sorts to the excellent THAT'LL BE THE DAY , which features Keith Moon (also not on dvd iirc) brm
Has STARDUST (1974) ever been released? I really want to see it as it is purported to be a sequel of sorts to the excellent THAT'LL BE THE DAY , which features Keith Moon (also not on dvd iirc) brm
There's been no U.S. release of either film, but the two have been issued on a double feature PAL DVD in the U.K.
MY OLD MAN'S PLACE (see post in this thread of Nov. 1, 2014) has been released on a limited edition DVD by Code Red. It is only available directly from the Code Red website:
MY OLD MAN'S PLACE (see post in this thread of Nov. 1, 2014) has been released on a limited edition DVD by Code Red. It is only available directly from the Code Red website:
I am currently trying to verify if the Spanish subtitles are removable on this DVD with one of the sellers in the U.K. If you already know something about this could you please post it on this thread?
