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Posted: |
Jun 23, 2020 - 11:24 PM
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By: |
Bob DiMucci
(Member)
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Dan O’Bannon collaborated with his friend Ronald Shusett on the original story for ALIEN, which evolved from O’Bannon’s work-in-progress idea, “Star Beast,” and his 1975 screenplay, DARK STAR. Gareth Wigan, Vice-President of Worldwide Production at Twentieth Century-Fox, turned down the early draft after deeming it too violent, as did other studios. O’Bannon later submitted the screenplay to Brandywine Productions, led by producers Walter Hill, Gordon Carroll and David Giler, who had a close affiliation with Twentieth Century-Fox. Brandywine bought the option for $1,000. Hill rewrote the script in a few days and presented it again to Fox, noting that he was interested in directing the project. After consulting with studio executives on 7 February 1977, Fox president Alan Ladd, Jr. decided to purchase the script, whose terror reminded him of the shower scene in PSYCHO.
Prior to Fox greenlighting the project, O’Bannon and Shusett considered other offers, including one from Roger Corman of New World Pictures, who was willing to finance the film as a low-budget production with O’Bannon directing.
Yaphet Kotto, Sigourney Weaver, and Ian Holm in Alien
When Walter Hill became unavailable to direct, Ladd offered the job to Ridley Scott, based on his feature film directing debut, THE DUELLISTS (1977). Prior to making the transition to films, Scott had a successful ten-year career directing television commercials.
The shooting script represented contributions from O’Bannon, Hill and Giler; although in an arbitration ruling, the Writers Guild of America (WGA) awarded O’Bannon sole screenplay credit, despite the fact that Twentieth Century-Fox recommended Hill and Giler for the “screenplay” credit and O’Bannon for the “story by” credit. Both Hill and Giler described O’Bannon’s early script as “unsophisticated” and “a pastiche of Fifties movies.” Their contribution included adding the character of “Ash” (Ian Holm) and ultimately transforming him into a robot, changing two of the male characters to females, one of whom would be the lead “Ripley” (Sigourney Weaver), creating “Jones” the cat, and introducing a “noir edge” into the story.
Ian Holm in ALIEN
Originally, there was no subplot with the Company betraying the crew. When Giler and Hill re-wrote the first draft by O' Bannon and Shusett, they wanted to find ways to make the plot more interesting. They initially added a third act twist, where the ship's CPU had a hidden directive. Mother was supposed to allow the face-hugged Kane into the ship, despite Ripley's objections. Although the Company had programmed Mother to reroute the Nostromo, and investigate the origin of the species, the computer functioned under its own special protocol. As Mother states in the final scenes, she was not keen on betraying the crew, but she took a neutral place by allowing the creature to enter the ship, gestate and evolve. When Ripley scolds Mother, the CPU retorts that her allegiance lies only to science. The data for this "key-product" would be fascinating for the scientific world.
The producers and writers finally realized that this revelation would be too reminiscent of HAL 9000 in 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY. They kept Mother as the CPU, but incorporated Ash as the seventh and final character, who was always intended to be the spy. He was written as an android, and much of his attitude echoes the scrapped Mother storyline (he opens the hatch to allow the parasite to enter the ship, despite the quarantine rules). In the Director's Cut, he monitors the stain inside Kane, but lets it incubate; he wants to keep the dead face-hugger for further studies; and he repeatedly expresses his wonder for the new fascinating species. Ash even had extra dialogue about the key products found in space, and the orders by the Company, but Ridley Scott ultimately decided to streamline the death scene of him, and make it more foreboding for the remaining crew.
The character of Ash, and subsequently an android character being introduced into this movie, is what Dan O'Bannon calls a "Russian spy", someone on a mission, who it is discovered, intends to sabotage said mission. "If it wasn't in there, what difference does it make?" the screenwriter asks. "I mean, who gives a rat's ass? So somebody is a robot." O'Bannon was annoyed by the character being added, and called it "an inferior idea from inferior minds, well-acted and well directed." Although O'Bannon has been reluctant to acknowledge any positive changes by Hill and Giler, Ronald Shusett has described the addition as a significant improvement to the plot.
Director Ridley Scott said that he often imagined Ash being awake during much of the Nostromo's journey while the rest of the crew was in cryo, secretly communicating with the Company. He would be getting back in cryo shortly before the rest awoke, to avoid raising suspicions. This idea was later used for the android “David” (Michael Fassbender) in PROMETHEUS (2012).
The cast of ALIEN: John Hurt, Veronica Cartwright, Tom Skerritt, Yaphet Kotto, Sigourney Weaver, Harry Dean Stanton, and Ian Holm
The wiring revealed when the android Ash is decapitated includes several Foley catheters (urologic bladder drainage tubes) with balloons inflated. Ash's blood is colored water. Milk was not used, as it would have spoiled quickly under the hot studio lights. Milk was used however for the close-up of his innards, along with pasta and glass marbles. Ian Holm jokingly said that Ash's head contained spaghetti, cheap caviar, and onion rings. The scene where Ash is decapitated reportedly caused an usher in London to faint.
Before filming the scene where Ash shoves a rolled-up magazine into Ripley's mouth, Ridley Scott told Sigourney Weaver that Ian Holm was going to stick the magazine "up your hooter". That British slang term for nose left Weaver more than a little confused, since "hooter" is slang for "breast" in American English.
Holm and Scott recalled that one day, as Scott rolled into the studio in his Rolls-Royce, Sigourney Weaver quipped, "Nice car. Did your dad buy it for you?" The comment really irked Scott, but Holm observed that she was yanking Scott's chain, having recognized him as being self-made and proud of it.
Jerry Goldsmith's score has been most recently released by Intrada in 2007.
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Posted: |
Jun 24, 2020 - 12:04 AM
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By: |
Bob DiMucci
(Member)
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In the made-for-television film S.O.S. TITANIC, Ian Holm played J. Bruce Ismay, the chairman and managing director of the White Star Line, who became the highest-ranking White Star official to survive the sinking of the company's brand-new flagship RMS Titanic. David Janssen starred in the film as John Jacob Astor, who perished on the voyage. Other survivors were English science teacher, journalist and author Lawrence Beesley (David Warner), and the “unsinkable” Molly Brown (Cloris Leachman).
William Hale directed the film, which was the first feature-length Titanic movie made in color. The film aired on ABC on 29 September 1979, then, shortened by about half an hour, it played in theatrical release in many foreign countries. Howard Blake’s score was released by Silva Screen in 2013.
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I first became aware of him when I saw him perform in Henry 1V part one at Stratford in April 1966. It was a school trip, we were studying the play for O level. Stunning performance, as I remember.
Of course, many great performances since.
May he Rest In Peace.
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Posted: |
Jun 24, 2020 - 10:07 AM
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By: |
Bob DiMucci
(Member)
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In ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT, a young soldier, “Paul Baumer” (Richard Thomas), faces profound disillusionment in the soul-destroying horror of World War I. In this made-for-television remake of the 1930 classic, Ian Holm played “Himmelstoss,” the sadistic drill instructor, who later is transferred to the trenches, and although he has to be forced to attack by Paul, Himmelstoss later receives a medal from Kaiser Wilhelm II.
Ian Holm (right) in ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT
Delbert Mann directed the film, which aired on CBS on 14 November 1979. Subsequently, the film was shown theatrically in Europe, cut by about 20 minutes from its original 123-minute running time. In the full version of the film, the back story of Himmelstoss is greatly expanded to include an introductory scene in which Himmelstoss is shown to have been the town mailman, often harassed by Paul and his friends, and then in an ironic twist became their drill instructor since he was a reservist in the Army. This matches the same back story as shown in 1930 film. It also explains why some who have only viewed the shorter version of the film on video think that this back story was excluded.
Allyn Ferguson provided the film’s unreleased score.
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Posted: |
Jun 24, 2020 - 12:34 PM
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By: |
Bob DiMucci
(Member)
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CHARIOTS OF FIRE begins in 1919 Cambridge, England, where “Harold Abrahams” (Ben Cross), the son of a self-made, Jewish-Lithuanian immigrant, is subjected to anti-Semitism as a student at the University. Abrahams excels at running, and participates in a Gilbert and Sullivan club, where he meets and falls in love with a singer named “Sybil Gordon” (Alice Krige). Another standout in the world of competitive running is “Eric Liddell” (Ian Charleson), a devout Scottish man who was raised in China by his missionary parents before returning to Scotland. Although Eric plans to return to China to do his own missionary work, he feels it is his present duty to pursue running. Soon, he faces Harold Abrahams in a race and wins. Upset by the loss, Harold accepts help from professional coach “Sam Mussabini” (Ian Holm), despite the disapproval of some of his Cambridge college masters, who find it unbecoming for an amateur athlete to hire a trainer.
Ian Holm in CHARIOTS OF FIRE
Although it received a standing ovation when shown in competition at the 1981 Cannes Film Festival, CHARIOTS OF FIRE was mercilessly savaged by the French critics, because it called the French "the frogs" and "an unprincipled lot." In order to prevent the negative critical response from hurting its international distribution, Roger Ebert lobbied the other American critics in attendance to award it the "American Critics Prize", which they did in a 6-5 vote. This marks the only time in the sixty-year history of the festival that this “award” has been presented.
Ian Holm won the Best Supporting Actor award at Cannes, and was nominated for an Oscar as Best Actor in a Supporting role. He lost to John Gielgud for ARTHUR.
Hugh Hudson directed this Oscar-winning Best Picture, which was released in 1981 in the UK and the following year in America. Hudson originally wanted Vangelis' 1977 tune "L'Enfant", from his 1979 "Opera Sauvage" album, to be the title theme of the movie, and the beach running sequence was filmed with "L'Enfant" playing in the background for the runners to listen and pace to. Vangelis, however, finally convinced Hudson he could create a new and better piece for the movie's main theme, and when he played the new and now-familiar "Chariots of Fire" theme for Hudson, it was agreed the new tune was unquestionably better. But the "L'Enfant" tune still made it into the film: when the athletes reach Paris and enter the stadium, a brass band marches through the field, and first plays a modified, acoustic performance of "L'Enfant". Vangelis' electronic "L'Enfant" track was eventually used prominently in THE YEAR OF LIVING DANGEROUSLY (1982). The Oscar-winning score for CHARIOTS OF FIRE was released on a Polydor LP, which was one of the earliest CD re-issues.
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Posted: |
Jun 24, 2020 - 1:20 PM
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By: |
Bob DiMucci
(Member)
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In the 1981 fantasy TIME BANDITS, while lying in bed one evening, young “Kevin” (Craig Warnock) is startled by a gang of little people emerging from his bedroom closet. Employees of the Supreme Being, they've just stolen a valuable map from their boss, and are running for their lives. The map is a special one, revealing the exact locations of a series of time portals, which the diminutive thieves plan to use to plunder the riches of past civilizations. Led by “Randall” (David Rappaport), the group inadvertently pulls Kevin into their adventure, allowing the starstruck boy to meet some of history’s most influential people, including Napoleon (Ian Holm), King Agamemnon (Sean Connery), and Robin Hood (John Cleese). But what Kevin and his new friends don’t realize is that someone else also wants the map: the Supreme Being’s arch-enemy, “Pure Evil” (David Warner), who will do whatever is necessary to snatch it away from them.
Ian Holm, Preston Lockwood, and Terence Baylor in TIME BANDITS
Ian Holm, who was forty-nine, played a twenty-six-year-old Napoleon Bonaparte. Terry Gilliam directed the film. Gilliam laughed so hard while shooting the table scene with Holm that he had to leave the set, to avoid ruining any takes of the scene. Mike Moran’s score was released by Intrada earlier this year.
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Posted: |
Jun 24, 2020 - 3:11 PM
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By: |
Bob DiMucci
(Member)
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THE RETURN OF THE SOLDIER was a screen version of Rebecca West's 1918 novel about World War I. In the film, “Kitty Baldry” (Julie Christie) is a haughty society queen with a tunneled view of life. Kitty's complacency is rocked when her husband, “Captain Chris Baldry” (Alan Bates), returns from the front during World War I shell-shocked and suffering amnesia, not knowing who she is, and determined for a reunion with “Margaret Grey” (Glenda Jackson), a working-class lover from his past. Kitty employs psychiatrist “Dr. Gilbert Anderson” (Ian Holm) to help unscramble her husband's feelings for the women in his new disoriented life, including his all-too caring cousin “Jenny” (Ann-Margret), but ultimately, comes to realize that the man she knew is unreachable, as dead as the past for which he pines.
Alan Bridges directed the film. Richard Rodney Bennett's score was released on LP by That's Entertainment Records, but has never been reissued on CD.
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Posted: |
Jun 24, 2020 - 3:25 PM
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By: |
Bob DiMucci
(Member)
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GREYSTOKE is set in the 1880s, when “Lady Alice Clayton” and her husband “Lord John” (Cheryl Campbell & Paul Geoffrey) hope to conduct research in Africa, but are instead shipwrecked and marooned on the West African coast. Sickness takes Alice after she delivers a baby, and a local band of apes does in the unfortunate John. Having lost her own simian baby, the ape “Kala” (Ailsa Berk) adopts and suckles tiny John Clayton, who grows and thrives among his new ape tribe. He's not as powerful as his peers, but he's smarter and almost as athletic. He's protected by his ape "father", “White Eyes” (John Alexander).
When fully grown, “John” (Christopher Lambert) survives an attack by an expedition led by a brutal hunter, “Major Downing” (Nigel Davenport). Over the protests of Belgian guide “Captain Phillippe D'Arnot” (Ian Holm) and scientist “Sir Evelyn Bount” (John Wells), Downing shoots everything in sight. Pygmy retaliation effectively wipes out the expedition. Bount flees with the few survivors but the wounded Captain D'Arnot is left behind. John befriends and cares for the Captain, who realizes that his savior is a feral child.
Ian Holm in GREYSTOKE
This was Ian Holm’s second film for director Hugh Hudson, after CHARIOTS OF FIRE. Five other cast members from that film (including Campbell and Davenport) also appeared in GREYSTOKE. John Scott’s score was released on a Warner Bros. LP. Over the years, various boots, gray market, and imaginary CD releases were reported both in the U.S. and Germany, until La-La Land came out with an authorized CD in 2010.
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Posted: |
Jun 24, 2020 - 4:04 PM
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By: |
Bob DiMucci
(Member)
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In the quiet town of WETHERBY in Yorkshire, England, a young man (Tim McInnerny) attends a small dinner party given by a spinster schoolteacher (Vanessa Redgrave). He knows no one at the party, and each guest assumes he is the friend of someone else. The next day he visits the teacher again, alone, and while she prepares some tea, he casually pulls a gun and blows his brains out.
As a police detective (Stuart Wilson) investigates the incident and tries to find an explanation for it, the teacher and her guests, the "Pilboroughs (Ian Holm and Judi Dench), and the "Braithwaites" (Tom Wilkinson and Marjorie Yates) all recollect what transpired at the dinner party, from their own points of view. At the same time, the teacher reflects on her youth, when she lost her fiancée while he served in the military in Malaya. (In these flashback scenes, the young teacher is played by Joely Richardson, Vanessa Redgrave's daughter.)
Judi Dench and Ian Holm in WETHERBY
Playwright David Hare wrote the screenplay and made his directorial debut with this film. Hare has said that the film is obliquely "about English repression and how bad we are at expressing our feelings" and "the disastrous consequences of bottling up our feelings." More directly, it explores the lies that people tell themselves and the extent to which they will go (drink, cutting oneself off from others) to avoid dealing with their faults, their feelings, or their fears.
Nick Bicât's score was released on a Varese Sarabande LP, but has not been re-issued on CD. WETHERBY won the Golden Bear Award at the Berlin Film Festival.
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Posted: |
Jun 24, 2020 - 9:41 PM
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By: |
Bob DiMucci
(Member)
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In DANCE WITH A STRANGER, bar manager “Ruth Ellis” (Miranda Richardson) becomes embroiled in an abusive relationship with alcoholic womanizer “David Blakely” (Rupert Everett). Ruth is so consumed by Blakely that she neglects her son “Andy” (Matthew Carroll) and torments her other suitor, “Desmond Cussen” (Ian Holm).
Tom Chadbon, Rupert Everett, Miranda Richardson, and Ian Holm in DANCE WITH A STRANGER
Mike Newell directed this 1985 film, which was based on a true story. Richard Hartley’s score was released on a Varese Sarabande LP, but has not been re-issued on CD. The title theme song "Would You Dance With a Stranger," performed by Mari Wilson, was a U.K. pop chart-topper when it was released.
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Posted: |
Jun 25, 2020 - 11:04 AM
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By: |
Bob DiMucci
(Member)
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Ian Holm was part of the ensemble cast in Woody Allen's 1988 drama ANOTHER WOMAN. The film focuses on fifty-year-old philosophy professor "Marion Post" (Gena Rowlands) who lives with her second husband, a cardiologist named “Ken” (Holms), and at times his daughter, “Laura” (Martha Plimpton). Taking a sabbatical to write a book, Marion sublets a downtown apartment next to a psychiatrist's office, only to become drawn to the plight of a pregnant woman seeking that doctor's help. Betty Buckley plays Ken’s former wife, “Kathy.”
Betty Buckley and Ian Holm in ANOTHER WOMAN
According to Holm's memoirs, the role of Ken was originally offered to George C. Scott, who turned it down after refusing to read the script. Ben Gazzara was also considered before Holm was offered the part. In typical Allen fashion, the film had a needle-drop score of classical music and old standards. It appears as an isolated score track on the 2017 Twilight Time Blu-ray release of the film.
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Posted: |
Jun 25, 2020 - 12:04 PM
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By: |
Bob DiMucci
(Member)
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Writer Christopher De Vore and writer-director Franco Zeffirelli’s 1990 adaptation of William Shakespeare’s HAMLET cut nearly three hours of action from the play, which often runs five hours in live performance. For the film, Mel Gibson was cast as Hamlet. Zeffirelli chose Gibson, whose starring roles in the LETHAL WEAPON series had made him a highly bankable movie star, in an attempt to lure a younger audience, as the director had done with his 1968 film adaptation of Shakespeare’s ROMEO AND JULIET. Zeffirelli had also been impressed by Gibson’s near suicide scene in the first LETHAL WEAPON film. Zeffirelli was quoted as saying, “It’s very seldom that (Shakespearean) plays are done in a way that kids can identify with…and I think I’ve found a way to accomplish that.”
Ian Holm co-starred as “Polonius,” chief counsellor of the King, “Claudius” (Alan Bates), and the father of “Laertes” (Nathaniel Parker) and “Ophelia” (Helena Bonham Carter). Polonius connives with Claudius to spy on Hamlet. Hamlet unknowingly kills Polonius, provoking Ophelia's descent into madness.
Helena Bonham Carter and Ian Holm in HAMLET
The film’s budget was originally cited as $10.5 million, however, production costs rose to $15.5 million, and producer Dyson Lovell stated the final budget was $16 million. Mel Gibson and Glenn Close were paid “just above scale” and promised percentages of the film’s box-office gross. Other actors, including Alan Bates, Ian Holm, Paul Scofield, and Helena Bonham-Carter, also took salary cuts.
The 135-minute film garnered positive word-of-mouth during post-production, drawing the attention of major studios, including Warner Bros. and Paramount Pictures, which had previously turned down the project. Despite Nelson Entertainment’s non-exclusive deals with Orion Pictures and Tri-Star Pictures, and Orion’s insistence that HAMLET was on its release schedule as of 24 July 1990, Warner Bros. was announced as domestic distributor in a 25 July 1990 Hollywood Reporter article, which cited Warner Bros.’ objective to cast Gibson in LETHAL WEAPON 3 as an added incentive to distribute HAMLET. Warner Bros. paid $6 million for U.S. and Canadian theatrical distribution rights, as well as home video rights.
The film received Academy Award nominations for Art Direction and Costume Design, and was named one of the top ten films of the year by the National Board of Review. Box-office receipts amounted to $20.7 million. In August 1991, it was also noted that HAMLET was doing well in its second week of home video release. Ennio Morricone’s score for the film was released by Virgin Records.
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Posted: |
Jun 25, 2020 - 12:23 PM
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By: |
Bob DiMucci
(Member)
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NAKED LUNCH is director David Cronenberg’s adaptation of William S. Burroughs’ most famous novel. The surreal story finds exterminator “Bill Lee” (Peter Weller) developing an addiction to the substance he uses to kill bugs. He accidentally kills his wife “Joan” (Judy Davis) and becomes involved in a covert Government plot being orchestrated by giant bugs in an Islamic port in Africa, the Interzone. There, Bill eventually falls in with a dapper American named “Tom Frost” (Ian Holm) and Tom’s wife…“Joan” (Judy Davis, again).
The 1991 movie is packed with characters based on real people and events from the life of Burroughs. Like Bill Lee, William S. Burroughs was an exterminator and drug addict, who accidentally shot his wife during a drunken game of "William Tell". Joan Lee is based on Joan Vollmer, Burroughs' deceased wife. Hank and Martin, Bill's fellow writers, are Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg. Burroughs moved to a section of Tangier, Morocco, known as the "International Zone", hence "Interzone". Tom Frost is based on Paul Bowles, an American migrant composer, author, and translator. Frost became associated with Tangier, where he settled in 1947 and lived for 52 years to the end of his life.
Ian Holm and Yuval Daniel in NAKED LUNCH
This was originally going to be the first David Cronenberg movie to be made outside of Toronto, until a panicked Ontario Film Board offered him unparalleled financial inducements and incentives. As it transpired, however, the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait scuttled any plans to film in Tangier, Morocco, so the entire movie ended up being made in Toronto anyway.
The film’s score was a collaboration between Howard Shore and jazz musician Ornette Coleman. Milan released the soundtrack, with an expanded edition coming in 2014 from Howe Records.
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