This is the new Blu-ray version from Eureka. I’d seen the film on YouTube a couple of times, mainly for the score, which has been a favourite since getting I Film Della Violenza, featuring Un Amico only a couple of years after the film itself came out.
This is one of Sergio Sollima’s three crime films, ostensibly a pretty straightforward kidnap/blackmail plot, but it diverges into a political thriller. Oliver Reed is a cop-turned-deputy prison warden in Monza, forced to spring Fabio Testi if he wants his very comely wife back (Agostina Belli). It’s gripping all the way through, and if Ollie thought this was a step down from working with Ken Russell he doesn’t show it, proving what a good actor he could be when engaged, even if several sheets to the wind almost all the time. Fabio Testi hasn’t got the widest range of any actor ever, but he’s very good here, turning this into a buddy movie for much of it.
The restored film shows how good Sollima was as a director, with a few tricks apparent on a 55” screen that weren’t obvious on my mobile on the train (both previous viewings). The backdrops are brilliant - Milan, the Alps, Paris - and used really well. There’s a scene where characters are crossing the snowy and mountainous border that is as beautiful as anything I’ve seen on the screen in a long time.
All this to the pulsating, aggressive Morricone score, punctuated by the well-known song, which appears in various guises. One of his best, in my ears.
As well as a glorious restoration, there’s an amusing and informative commentary track and some interesting extras that shed some light on the background to the film, Ollie’s antics during filming and the wider picture of Italian police thrillers.
Overall a stunning purchase, and I’m very, very happy with it.
Starcrash(1978) 5ish /10 With Caroline Munro, The Hoff, Marjoe Gortner and Christopher Plummer
Munro & Gortner are tasked, by emperor Plumner, with stopping the baddie and rescuing his son. Cue lots of shit special effects, hokey dialogue, big hair and impractical costumes. Nevertheless, it was , still, strangely watchable. Especially with a large pile of crackers. I even stayed awake! The floating city ( used to ram and destroy the villains base) looked like the inside of an old radio, with a few bits painted. Points break down - 1 for Munro, 1 for plummer ( adding a brief touch of class) and 1 for the perms.
You’re missing two points. --------------------------- I'm gonna guess the missing two points belong to Caroline Munro and are the reason Damian watched the film in the first place!!!
Simone Signoret stars as “Madame Rosa,” a French-Jewish survivor of the Holocaust and a retired prostitute who now runs a boarding house in Paris for the children of prostitutes, out of her fourth-story walk-up apartment. She takes in “Momo” (Samy Ben Youb), an abandoned Algerian boy whom she raises in the Muslim faith, a controversial decision in the midst of the Arab-Israeli conflict. But their bond transcends religion, and they scrape by as an unlikely but loving family. That is, until her health declines and the intolerance around them threatens to tear them apart.
This film starts out as a series of vignettes, and only gradually comes into focus as we learn more about the backgrounds of Madame Rosa, Momo, and the other neighborhood people, including “Nadine” (Michal Bat-Adam), a film editor who takes a liking to Momo; “Monsieur Hamil” (Gabriel Jabbour), an Arab cleric who is gradually losing his memory; and “Docteur Ramon” (director Costa-Gavras, in a rare acting role), who ministers to the ailing Rosa.
The film is full of sentiment, and Israeli director Moshé Mizrahi sometimes tries too hard to make his points on tolerance, but the interpersonal dynamics of the characters are often compelling, even if occasionally confusing. MADAME ROSA won the Oscar as Best Foreign Language Film, and Simone Signoret won the French César Award as Best Actress. The film grossed a decent $5.4 million in the U.S. Philippe Sarde’s monothematic chamber music score was released on a Polydor LP in France, but has not been re-issued on CD.
Paul Sorvino, who had a small part in director John Avildsen's CRY UNCLE! (1971), had the lead role in this Avildsen romance, which he directed right after ROCKY. The film follows an aging, out-of-shape reporter, “Lou Friedlander” (Sorvino), as he falls for a pretty but seriously ill ballerina (Anne Ditchburn). Sorvino's character was inspired by writer and real-life reporter Jimmy Breslin.
To cast the role of ballerina "Sarah Gantz," a months’ long casting call was conducted across the U.S. where around 400 dancers and actresses were tested. But none of these were successful, and the deadline approached for the start of principal photography. Then on a tour by the National Ballet of Canada performing at New York's Opera House, choreographer and principal dancer Anne Ditchburn was discovered. She was invited in to read, and won the part. Ditchburn marked her feature film acting debut with the picture.
The age difference between Sorvino and Ditchburn puts the romance into the “May-September” category, but Sorvino’s character is likeable enough that one can suspend disbelief. To further show the reporter’s wholesomeness, the story has him taking an interest in an 11-year-old Puerto-Rican boy, who is an aspiring drummer (“the next Gene Krupa,” says Friedlander), who also, tragically, is a heroin addict. The film has an improbable, corny ending, but by that time, you want to buy it, so you do. This is not a film for the cynical.
Bill Conti's lush score was released on a United Artists LP. It was re-issued on CD by Varese Sarabande in 2005.
Cave of the Vampires(1964) 6/10 With Andre Hoven, Carl Mohner and Wolfgang Preiss. Inspector Hoven is sent to a sleepy village to see who/ what is killing the young women. Some typical ingredients here- weird locals, village hag/witch, sceptical( at first) doctor, old castle, creepy big knob. It might not be anything really special but it gets some points for effort. Not a great deal happens but the makers.have tried to add a little style to what does go on. Plenty if creepy shadows, creeking doors, Long nailed fingers coming into view. They also get some milage out of a cave(s) location which looks, well spectacular would be a bit strong.
Paul Sorvino, who had a small part in director John Avildsen's CRY UNCLE! (1971), had the lead role this Avildsen romance, which he directed right after ROCKY. The film follows an aging, out-of-shape reporter, “Lou Friedlander” (Sorvino), as he falls for a pretty but seriously ill ballerina (Anne Ditchburn). Sorvino's character was inspired by writer and real-life reporter Jimmy Breslin.
To cast the role of ballerina "Sarah Gantz," a months’ long casting call was conducted across the U.S. where around 400 dancers and actresses were tested. But none of these were successful, and the deadline approached for the start of principal photography. Then on a tour by the National Ballet of Canada performing at New York's Opera House, choreographer and principal dancer Anne Ditchburn was discovered. She was invited in to read, and won the part. Ditchburn marked her feature film acting debut with the picture.
The age difference between Sorvino and Ditchburn puts the romance into the “May-September” category, but Sorvino’s character is likeable enough that one can suspend disbelief. To further show the reporter’s wholesomeness, the story has him taking an interest in an 11-year-old Puerto-Rican boy, who is an aspiring drummer (“the next Gene Krupa,” says Friedlander), who also, tragically, is a heroin addict. The film has an improbable, corny ending, but by that time, you want to buy it, so you do. This is not a film for the cynical.
Bill Conti's lush score was released on a United Artists LP. It was re-issued on CD by Varese Sarabande in 2005.
Hi Bob! Did you notice Conti as the rehearsal pianist in the film? I just bought this film last week on Blu-ray. Great score and I liked the film too.
Hi Bob! Did you notice Conti as the rehearsal pianist in [SLOW DANCING IN THE BIG CITY]? I just bought this film last week on Blu-ray. Great score and I liked the film too.
I thought the pianist looked vaguely familiar, but I didn't make the connection at the time.
Not a film I would generally bother with, but it was just starting on TV and my good lady seemed to get into it, so I went along with it. It's daft, but not unenjoyable. It's basically a murder mystery/black comedy/drama involving 3 characters (or so it seems). Light and peppy, with some pithy dialogue and sarcastic asides. It zips along in order to distract you from how implausible the whole thing is. It almost had a SERIAL MOM vibe to it (I remember enjoying that one too). Theodore Shapiro did the music but I don't recall a note of it, although at least it wasn't distractingly bad. The Serge Gainsbourg French songs stood out the most. The film was a decent sized hit at the box office, earning nearly 100 mill on a budget of 20 mill and a sequel is in the works (although where they go with that one JW only knows). Above average film overall though.
THE PLUNDERERS (Allied Artists, 1960). Had never seen it before. As the credits rolled, I recognised immediately that the music was Leonard Rosenman's. However, he did not supply Americana-tinged or "wide open spaces" music, it was more like the music for a tense thriller. Typically dissonant and I'm not sure if it's something I would particularly like to hear on it's own.
That apart, the film turned out to be tension-filled and watchable. Four young punks descend on a clapped-out desert township and discover that they can bully the population and have the run of the place. The only man who can stand up to them is Jeff Chandler (stolid as ever) but he is handicapped after losing the use of his left arm during the Civil War. It made for good drama, if only the direction by Joseph Pevney had been a bit tighter.
Bored by his secure but humdrum life, bookstore owner “Rob” (Bryan Brown) finds an unlikely friend in “Lou” (Judy Davis), a heroin-addicted prostitute, after the suicide of a college classmate brings the two into contact. (The three had all been active in the antiwar movement of the late 1960's.) Rob finds himself drawn to the troubled woman, and he begins spending time with her, which doesn’t seem to bother his distant wife “Gretel” (Cathy Downes) with whom Rob has an open marriage.
The focus of this Australian film is on Judy Davis’ Lou, as her friend’s death causes her to try to change her life’s circumstances. Rob aids her in this, but when Lou becomes attracted to him as a result, Rob has to make a decision as to whether to upend his blasé existence in order to be with her. John Duigan wrote and directed the film, and future director Baz Luhrmann made his acting debut in the film, playing “Pete,” a teenage junkie.
This is a decent, but not particularly stirring drama, and the lackluster advertising (see below) reflects that. Sharon Calcraft’s score doesn’t make much of an impression.
Writer-director Ralph Bakshi started off his feature film career with two X-rated animated films (FRITZ THE CAT and HEAVY TRAFFIC), but neither of them resulted in a tenth of the furor caused by his third feature, the R-rated COONSKIN, even well before its release. Once the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), led by Al Sharpton among others, got wind of the film, they were protesting promotional showings of the picture before it was officially released and before they had seen it. The controversy received wide coverage in the mainstream and African-American press. The uproar caused Paramount to back out of distributing the film, which was ultimately released by Bryanston Distributors.
According to Bakshi, his film was an attempted critique of American racism. The story proper begins with two black convicts, “Pappy” (Scatman Crothers) and “Randy” (Philip Michael Thomas), prepping for a prison break in a live-action sequence. While the inmates hide from guards, Pappy tells Randy a fable that Bakshi illustrates with animated sequences. The fable involves three black men—"Brother Bear” (voiced by singer Barry White, in his only film), “Brother Rabbit” (voiced by Thomas), and “Preacher Fox” (Charles Gordone)—getting into hassles with the law down South. Soon, the group heads for Harlem, where Brother Rabbit kills a high-powered gangster and takes over the criminal’s operation. As Brother Rabbit rises to power, he and his friends get into hassles with corrupt cops, manipulative prostitutes, unethical preachers, and vengeful mobsters, among others. Lots of animated bloodshed and sex ensues.
As is suggested by the names of his three animated protagonists, Bakshi also intended his film to be a satire on Disney’s SONG OF THE SOUTH—an antidote to that saccharine, sentimental view of Black culture. And its gangster sequences were intended as a satire on THE GODFATHER. (COONSKIN’s producer, Al Ruddy, also produced that film.) Every character, especially those other than the main three, is drawn as a complete grotesque, particularly a Mafia boss and his four cross-dressing sons. The characters often appear against live action backgrounds, both still and in motion, which Bakshi shot in New York, Los Angeles, and Oklahoma.
Every viewer will have to judge for himself as to whether Bakshi succeeds in criticizing racial stereotypes or in perpetuating them. But the film can be extremely uncomfortable because of the way Blacks, Whites, Jews, Italians, gays, and others are portrayed.
Chico Hamilton’s jazzy score for the film has not had a release. The film cost $1.2 million to produce, and Bryanston spent $250,000 on publicity through radio and newspaper ads. COONSKIN opened on 20 August 1975 in New York. Two weeks later, Bryanston declared bankruptcy. Because of the film’s notoriety, no critic at The Village Voice would consent to review the film; it opened in Buffalo under the title “Bustin’ Out;” and it got its only U.S. video release, a VHS tape, under the title “Streetfight.” It’s not known whether the film was profitable. One curiosity is the film’s poster (below) which frames its title with what appears to be a large “B”? What does that mean? “Black”? “Bakshi”?
Gunmen of the Rio Grande (aka Sfida a Rio Bravo (1964) 6/10 With Guy Madison, Massimo Serato and Fernando Sancho
Madison rides into town to help two women in their fight with town arsehole. One owns a mine and he want it . He pays honoury Mexican Sancho to rob, stop, the shipments. With the help of. Serato' sheriff the come out on top. This one is an early entry into the Italian cycle. It doesn't possess the characteristics of the genre. It is more akin to a US effort. There's some nice ( if harsh) looking locations, decent sets. Shootin' , punchin' are a plenty. Madison walks through his role with ease. Sancho, unusually for him, is rather restrained and benefits from it. It was nice to see Serato play a good guy and survive to the end. The music by AFL is fine. Though the main title seems different than that on the cd. Wither the cd one is two pieces edited together or the film is(?).
Sometimes Woody Allen riffs on past cinema masters like Fellini and Bergman; in this recent film he riffs and recreates scenes from Fellini, Bergman, Truffaut, Godard, Bunuel, Orson Welles, and ... himself. The protagonist of this tale is a schlumpy, aged, former film professor played by Wallace Shawn, but he's essentially Allen's mouthpiece - the familiar wonderings about the meaning of life, the sustainability of relationships, and the value of art. Shawn accompanies his publicist wife (the gorgeous, but preoccupied Gina Gerson) to the San Sebastian Film Fest in Spain. Gershon is publicizing and, to Shawn's suspicions, embarking on an affair with a young, trendy film director (Louis Garrel) whose films make grand (and obvious) statements like "war is hell."
While Gershon is off with Garrel, organizing cocktail parties and more private meetings, Shawn, at loose ends, meets a lovely, early 40-ish, woman doctor (Elena Anaya), a Spaniard who had studied near Shawn's old stomping grounds in New York. Shawn is taken by this intelligent woman and their conversations, once they make the move from a patient-doctor relationship (Shawn had been suffering from mild chest pains, and he keeps coming up with lame excuses - including a small bug bite on his hand - to visit Anaya's office) to a friendship, he finds a kindred soul. But a troubled soul too; Anaya lives with a crazed artist who cheats on her, yet she can't find a need to ever leave him. Elena Anaya gives the prize performance here, of an aging, sensitive, cultured, brilliant, attractive woman who, through Shawn's questions and conversations, is reminded that she's in a trap just as much as Shawn feels he's in. For all the Allen deja vu and familiar ground in this movie, the character Anaya plays sticks with you.
For added fun, there are recreations of scenes from films of the above great directors - but now with the characters of this film playing the parts. So we get Gershon and Anaya playing the Liv Ullmann and Bibi Andersson roles in the stark black-and-white close-ups of Persona or Shawn and Gershon as Belmando and Seberg in bed and under the covers from Breathless. (Shawn: "Why are we under these sheets anyway?")
As mentioned, Anaya fleshes out a well-written character, and Christoph Waltz brings spot-on comic delivery to his spoof of Death from The Seventh Seal. Another great thing about these classic movie recreations is hearing the music from those films. Nino Rota's wry 8 1/2 theme and, most glorious of all, Delerue's sunny music for the bicycle-riding scene in Jules et Jim. Shawn has to learn to be less rigid about these classic works of cinema being the only great films, but, damn and blast, they really don't make 'em like that anymore.
13 FANBOY - 10 out of 10 (Rating is only if you're into this kind of movie, otherwise beware)
Interesting idea of bringing back several actors from the original Friday the 13th movies from the 1980's to play themselves being killed off one-by-one by a deranged killer the way they did in their original movies. Cast: Dee Wallace as Herself Hayley Greenbauer as Kelsie Voorhees Poppy Gillett as the young Kelsie Voorhees Deborah Voorhees as Herself: Deborah had a supporting role as Tina McCarthy in Friday the 13th: A New Beginning (1985). C.J. Graham as Himself: Graham portrayed Jason Voorhees in Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives (1986). Kane Hodder as Himself: Hodder portrayed numerous incarnations of the murderous Jason Voorhees in the Friday the 13th franchise. Judie Aronson as Herself: Aroson portrayed Samantha Lane in Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (1984). Drew Leighty as Chris: Leighty portrayed Kyle McCleod in Never Hike Alone: A Friday the 13th Fan Film (2017). Lar Park Lincoln as Herself: Lincoin portrayed Tina Shepard in Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood (1988). Tracie Savage as Herself: Savage portrayed Debbie in Friday the 13th Part III (1982). Ron Sloan as Himself: Sloan portrayed Junior Hubbard in Friday the 13th: A New Beginning (1985). Corey Feldman as Mike Merryman: Feldman portrayed the younger version of recurring hero Tommy Jarvis. Jennifer Banko as Herself
The destruction of Herculaneum(1962) 4/10 With Brad Harris
Brad returns to Rome and is thrust into plenty of skullduggery. The usual thing evil nut trying to take over , while the viewer waists for vesuvius to swamp a model village. While the story was fairly decent, at 1h47m it was too long. Patches of action were interspersed with long dialogue sections. Sets, scenery, costumes looked good. And the destruction wasn't actually that bad.