WESTWOOD – The master of sensual European cinema golden years have a tint of blue. UCLA just hosted retrospective of Radley Metzger’s films. His most important films are being released on Blu-ray. He’s about to take the director’s chair as he approaches 83.
His masterwork Camille 2000 was just released Blu-ray with an extended version from Cult Epics. The 1969 update of Dumas’ The Lady of the Camellias takes place in an esoteric Italy. The restored high definition transfer gives a detailed look at that magical time. The Party Favors had a chance to chat with Radley Metzger about the release.
Trailer provided by Video Detective
Radley is a true independent filmmaker. He owns the rights to his films instead of selling them off to distributor. He’s not at the mercy of an indifferent studio executive to keep his cinematic legacy available. The first question had to be how does he take care of his film elements so that he can have such a top notch high-definition transfer?
“We do the best we can in terms of the storage facilities that we use,” Radley said. “Fortunately they’ve survived very well. The material I saw on the new Blu-rays, I was just blown away. It’s the closest thing to seeing them in the shape they were in when we originally made the films.”
Over the years his films have been released on a variety of formats. He’s most impressed by the latest.
“Knowing what the film looked like on the old VHS and the early DVDs, they really didn’t survive at that point very well,” Radley admitted. “We didn’t even have the complete frame on the image. The color saturation that we have now is just phenomenal. I’m so impressed by the technology.”
The color timing was done using a 35mm print and plenty of production stills. “Having had some experience in distribution we always made sure we had a lot of stills,” Radley said. He and Ava Leighton ran Audubon Films in the early ’60s. They focused on European films. They were housed in the Audubon theater which was beneath the Audubon Ballroom where Malcolm X was assassinated. Was he there for the event? “No. No. It was long gone,” Radley said. “I don’t think the theater was functional at that time.”
Did his background in distribution help him get an idea of what an audience desires from a film?
“Very much so. We had all this, you could call it, testing,” Radley said. “When we acquired a film, we could see what an audience responded to. One of the things that helped me was the very first film I did (Dark Odyssey); the exercise of doing it was love based. I was possessed with wanting to make a film. It’s kinda of come into its own in recent years, we’ve got some good reviews on it. When it first came out, it did absolutely no business. That pointed me in a direction of wanting to make films that people would respond to.”
His business model really depended on building an audience.
“The way we worked, every film we did would finance the next film. It was important that the film was successful and attract an audience. You wanted to recoup your investment, but you wanted enough to make another movie. That way we didn’t have the burden to go out and raise money for each film.”
While Radley is a native New Yorker, his movies were shot all over Europe. What gave him the desire to cross the Atlantic to tell his tales?
“It was just the fact that if you had ten dollars that ten dollars would buy you a lot more in Europe than here because of the exchange rate,” Radley said. “The dollar was very important at that time. Wages were just that much less. You could avail yourself of better technicians and facilities. There was a certain exotic quality that you were dealing with something not terribly familiar to American audiences.”
There is a more expensive look to Radley’s films compared to the low budget films that were being made in America at the same time. He doesn’t settle for the gritty, grainy images captured around New York. For a majority of Radley’s films during this period, Hans Jura was the cinematographer. But for Camille 2000, Ennio Guarnieri took control of the Panavision.
“He was so good. It was overwhelming,” Radley gushed. “The best people are always the easiest to work with. I didn’t know this at the time, about a week ago I went to see the restored version of La Dolce Vita. He got create for helping in the restoration. Turns out he was the second assistant cameraman on the film. I didn’t know that when we were working together. He was wonderful. He was the first or second cameraman of Europe. Right after Camille he did the (Vittorio) De Sica film The Garden of the Finzi-Continis. That’s the level he worked on. He caught the enthusiasm of the project. He really tried to give his best. We had good people all around. We had Enrico Sabbatini for art direction. Everybody just picked up on the enthusiasm.
Did Radley ever figure out how much of a movie he could have made if he stayed in America.?
“I didn’t do it in terms of sitting with a calculator,” Radley responded. “You brought up Guarnieri in Camille. He was the second most important cameraman in Italy at that time. I don’t think I could have gone to Hollywood and gotten the second most renowned cameraman in California. I don’t think those people would have been available to me. But in Italy he was.”
While Camille was shot around Italy, the didn’t use the legendary CineCitta Studios. “In Camille we used Dear Studios,” Radley said. He’d return to Rome to shoot part of Lickerish Quartet at CineCitta.
Having grown up in West Germany when Radley was making his early films, I joked about the fear of seeing my family in the background of crowd scenes. Radley didn’t liked to steal shots at public events. “We were very careful to not put strangers in the movies. We weren’t overly sophisticated,” Radley said, “But we knew that you had to have permission to put someone in the movie.” Thus my mother is not lurking the edge of a frame in The Dirty Girls.
One of the charms of shooting in Europe is a lack of using location sound. Between the city noise and international casts, the boom microphone holds up the production speed. How did he handle this issue?
“We did mostly post synching,” he said. “Score was live sound. We did cue tracks so you had an exact record of what you were shooting. You knew exactly what the actors were saying so you could post sync it. I uncovered that soundtrack with the picture of the actors doing their lines. On the DVD of Lickerish Quartet we did a little documentary comparison of the original sound to the post sync sound.
How many of the actors ended up doing their lines? On “Lickerish Quartet there were four people. It was fifty percent. Two of them did the track and two of them did post synching. Camille, those actors that were fluent enough did their own voices. The others we had to get other actors.”
One of the actors that contributed a voice to his films was Peter Fernandez. The name might not sound familiar, but his voice belongs to Speed Racer. I asked if when his films came out, were people taken back hearing Speed Racer? “No. I think that came much later,” Radley said. “Peter was a dubbing actor, but I think the cartoon was after I worked with him. He wrote The Alley Cats.. We were very friendly and he helped me out.” Did they maintain a friendship since the early films. “I did, but not the last couple of years. I was very sadden by the fact that he passed away.” Fernandez died last July.
Russ Meyer and Radley appear to have a lot in common. Both learned filmmaking from their time in the military. They were fiercely independent even though Meyer did a couple major studio films. They both had a carnal element to their cinema. Were Radley and Russ pals?
“My relationship was as follows: I saw the Immoral Mr. Teas. As a matter of fact, if there was no Immoral Mr. Teas, there would be no Audubon films. He really changed the path of erotic films. That’s my only contact. I never saw another film of his. I never met him,” Radley said. “At UCLA, two weeks ago, someone came up to me after the show and said he worked very closely with Russ Meyer. (Russ) was a fan of the Henry Paris films. Which I was very happy to hear. But I really didn’t know his pictures. Frankly I’m always a little surprised that people compare us. From his reviews, he was a skillful filmmaker and certainly had an audience. From what I gather the stuff he did is so different from what I did. He did a kind of a rough movie with heavy busted women. We didn’t do that thing at all. Perhaps we should have, but we didn’t. I’m sorry I didn’t know him. He was only a couple older than I am, but he was World War II generation and I was kinda Korean War generation and that makes a difference I think.”
Because of the erotic nature of Radley’s films, he often had an issue with frames being snipped out by naughty projectionists.
“A lot of them were planned that way and some were butchered by the exhibitors,” he said. “Your prints go out into the country and you try to keep very tight control of it. There were so many theaters at the time that you couldn’t police everything. In some cases we had two versions, Score was like that. After the release of Score, we just gave up on the longer version. It was just too much trouble.
The longer version of Score is now available on Blu-ray.
Metzger would go through a major career change midway through his filmmaking career. He became Henry Paris, the director of The Opening of Misty Beethoven. How did he decide on his new name for X-rated films?
“At the time, it’s hard to think of it now, we didn’t want to be known. I was associated with a certain kind of movie. They were not explicit films. Now that we were doing explicit films, I didn’t want to get confused. I took my middle name which was Henry. Paris…I did early work there. It’s a city that was very good to me. So I decided on Henrietta Paris. I figured if you were going to be anonymous, you might as well change gender in addition to changing your name. I thought I would be the first female director to make an explicit movie. I thought that was kinda very funny. During production it turned out there was a young lady making an explicit film. So this character I created was no longer valid. So I took Henrietta and shortened it to Henry.”
He didn’t see the young lady’s film. But he did worry about getting outed in film community. This was the days before the internet so it was harder to start the buzz.
“It sort of got around in the trades,” he said, “I had a very big discussion with Variety. They were going to tell the story that I was doing these films. I said, ‘Please, please don’t. You’re going to hurt my ability to make a living. Please respect my silence.’ They did. They were very kind. After a while it came out. I think Henry Paris in the mid-70s got better known than I was. But now the names are used interchangeably.”
There are many big name directors that started out making adult films. Many did it so they could get access to film equipment. Why did he decide to get into explicit films so far into his career?
“The decision to do it was one of necessity. We had a couple of Italian films which were not successful. This was about two years after Deep Throat came out. That consumed the audiences for any kind of eroticism. So we decided to go with the flow and join the movement.”
Radley wasn’t making that great of a leap since he wasn’t known as the director of children’s films.
“I really just did what I was doing. It’s all I knew what to do. We just extended the scenes a little more. I didn’t do anything different because I didn’t know how. I did what I did. I had already done twelve or thirteen features at that time,” Radley said. “I always thought it was unfair to compare the stuff I did with the stuff other people were doing in the field of explicit movies. They were very talented, but they didn’t have the experience I had.”
His experience paid off with an early AVN for Best Director. “I have a little statue from them on Misty,” he said.
One of the stars of the film was Jamie Gillis. The actor won the Best Actor AVN and remained an adult entertainment fixture until his death last year. What was Jamie like in those early years?
“He was so right for the part. I kinda wrote it for me. He just resonated with the part and it made everything very easy. It was a very stressful production and he took every thing very seriously. I hate to think what it would be like without him. Actually I cast the film with somebody else. That didn’t work out during preproduction. SO I called Jaime. He was in California at the time. He said, ‘I have my tap shoes and I’m ready to go.'”
There are a lot of filmmakers that are nasty about home video. How did Radley react when the VCR came on the scene?
“That came in when we were in the middle of the Henry Paris stuff, he said. “The way they sold home video players was that you could show pornography at home. You didn’t have to go through the embarrassing of going to a theater. I remember when Misty Beethoven came out it sold for $99 a cassette. They would give them away with the home video player. That was one of the big stimuluses to purchasing them. From the beginning home video was very good to us.”
Even though Radley can be seen as one of the fathers of Cinemax After Dark, he doesn’t think any his films aired on the pay channel back in the ’80s. “We didn’t have too much exposure in that medium,” he said. His audience comes directly from theaters and home video.
Home video is being very good to him right now. He’s ready to come back and make another film. How did this come about?
“The distributor of the Blu-rays (Cult Epics) asked me to do a script. I did it. He’s out now trying to do his best to put it together,” he said. The movie will be shot in HD. But the change from 35mm won’t be a shock. “Over the years I’ve done a number of documentaries on video. So it’s not unfamiliar,” he said.
The HD will allow him to move faster. What he won’t have is the same amount of production time he had on Camille 2000. “It was 8 to 10 weeks. It was very long,” he said. “I was looking at the making of documentary, it was a study in exhaustion. Very long days.
One thing that drove him nuts was a scene shot on clear inflatable furniture. What they didn’t count on was the heat from the actor’s bodies and light would cause them to inflate more. It gets covered on the director’s commentary.
“That wasn’t a publicity story,” he swore. “It was really aggravating. Very demanding on everybody including the actors. We were working with Panavision’s very long lenses. The focus was so critical. Any variation in the focus was critical. Once the body heat took over, you could lose half a foot which was a lot in those days. It was one of the many challenges.” And what happened to the inflatable furniture? He didn’t take it home as a set souvenir. “I think it wasn’t something susceptible to reuse. It had done it’s job.”
Camille 2000 became one of his biggest hits thanks to a good publicity buzz.
“We had an enormous spread in Playboy at the time. They always reviewed them, but that was the one were they sent one of their staff photographers to Italy to cover it. He gave me a lot of wonderful ideas, actually.”
The photographer would ask to set up his camera in certain positions. Radley realized it would be a good place for his Panavision. “Whatever ideas he had were extremely good ones.
How did Ennio Guarnieri handle the Playboy photographer altering the shot list?
“Cinematographers love photographers. He would explain to him that critics would very often see the film, but they were left with the stills. The stills would have as much of an impact as the film. They love him because he had a very good reputation.”
Was there any confusion of people thinking Camille 2000 was a science fiction film?
“I think that may have come up once or twice,” he recalled. “As soon as it came out with the Playboy spread, that confusion didn’t carry on.”
I mentioned to Radley that his real influence was less on filmmakers and more on the audience. It was easy to see how a couple in a dark theater might want to experience his screen moments. Who wouldn’t want to attend a kinky party in Rome with a jail house motif? Does he find people telling him how he helped them be more experimental in their pleasures?
“Yes,” Radley said. “I think that’s true. It’s also very flattering.”
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CORMAN CULT CORNER
Roger Corman’s Cult Classics: Battle Beyond the Stars is out on Blu-ray! Forget all the hype over the Star Wars films getting a high def buff job. You want to see Greedo shoot Han Solo first in 1080p? Battle Beyond the Stars deserves all your attention. This was the largest Roger Corman production ever made. Which means it cost about as much as the “refreshment” budget on Spielberg’s Close Encounters. The peaceful people of Akir find themselves at the mercy of an evil mutant John Saxon. Inside Saxon’s spaceship is weapon that can turn planets into small suns. They have a couple days to decide if they’ll worship Saxon or get zapped. Their only hope lies in farm boy Richard Thomas (John Boy Walton) flying into the galaxy looking for mercenaries. He finds them in a Space Cowboy (A-Team‘s George Peppard, an assassin (Man From U.N.C.L.E.‘s Robert Vaughn), and a Valkyrie (Chained Heat‘s Sybil Danning). Are they real enough to take on John Saxon? He’s a superstar. But will the peaceful Akir’s resort to violence to keep themselves free? How can they deny Peppard when a plan comes together? Basically it’s a reworking of The Seven Samurai with John Sayles (Eight Men Out) making sure the script is original enough to avoid a lawsuit. The special effects will look familiar to anyone buying up all the Roger Corman’s Cult Classics since the folks at New World reused the in other sci-fi films. Some may scoff this film as inferior to George Lucas’s Star Wars, but this is where James Cameron got his start as box office king. Rather funny think of Cameron working miracles with minor budgets now that he’s the budget busting legend having spent over half a billion dollars on his last two films. No more spray painting McDonald’s packaging for him. Mr. Chow’s take out containers is all he’ll touch now. In the interest of full disclosure I took a class from sound designer David Yewdall. He would go on to create the spaceship sounds in Starship Troopers. He spoke of the desire to create a different ambient sound for each ship. Even with Corman budget, he keeps the noise unique for each location. He doesn’t merely slap together a collage of Star Trek bridge noises with a little reverb. There’s quite a few bonus features on both the Blu-ray and DVD. Producer Gale Anne Hurd does the commentary track. They catch up with Richard Thomas. The big bonus is “Space Opera on a Shoestring.” While James Cameron once more no shows on talking about his Corman days, his peers discuss him taking control of the special effects to make this look better than an Ed Wood production.
Trailers From Hell Volume Two brings fresh episodes with a stunning bonus feature. The Trailers From Hell website features famous filmmakers giving commentaries over movie trailers. Think of it as the Cliff’s Notes of DVD commentaries. These trailers have not appeared on the website so you’re not getting old stuff. Jack Hill gets to give us the highlights of his classic film Pit Stop. Imagine a cross between stock car racing and the demolition derby. They zip around on a figure 8 track. Guillermo Del Toro breaks out Dario Argento’s Deep Red. Joe Dante has fun with Donovan’s Brain. Troma’s Lloyd Kaufman plugs away on Terror Firmer. Mick Garris brings the love with Flesh Gordon. Roger Corman talks about his acting weirdness in Ski Troop Attack. Turns out he couldn’t ski or speak German, but in order to save money, he cast himself as a Nazi skier. All these trailers lead to the cult delight of the season: a prime transfer of The Little Shop of Horrors in 16:9 anamorphic widescreen. After 25 years of public domain EP speed tapes and DVDs, Corman’s sci-fi tale of a man eating plant from outer space gets a proper release. There’s detail to the image. This is not the washed out, low resolution transfer offered at a dollar store. You can finally see the detail in Jack Nicholson’s teeth after his visit to the dentist. You can appreciate the beauty of both Audreys. The Trailers are fun, but Little Shop is the prime reason to invest in Volume Two. If you buy Volume 2 from Shout! Factory, they’ll throw in Volume 1 – although supplies are limited. Act now. Operators are standing by. I think this offer is valid in Tennessee.
Oblivion is the Will Owen pick of month. Mainly cause it will allow Will to finally retire his original VHS copy for the beauty of DVD. Oblivion is a Sci-Fi Western from 1994 by producer Charles Band at Full Moon Productions. This is more fun than Cowboys Vs. Aliens. The script was written by comic book legend Peter David. He has a bit part as a cowhand. Zack Stone (Richard Paul Joesph) returns to the distant outpost town of Oblivion looking for the man who killed his daddy. That guy is the menacing alien Redeye (Andrew Divoff). To complicate matters, Zack is a bit of a pacifist so he’s not fixing to take revenge on Redeye even through the locals want him to be the new sheriff. Zack looks good with a badge. Can this really work out? With the casting of George Takei as Doc Valentine and Julie Newmar as Miss Kitty, the cult worlds of Star Trek and Batman are united. If that isn’t enough, there’s also Isaac Hayes (Truck Turner) as Buster. If you know Will Owen, you know what to get him for the holidays.
Damnation Alley rules in Blu-ray. After World War III, George Peppard (Bancek), Jan-Michael Vincent (World’s Greatest Athlete) and Paul Winfield (Gordon’s War) build a mega-van (Landmaster) so they can find out who else survived the holocaust. America has been torn apart. They have to deal with a rugged terrain, giant bugs and Peppard’s mustache. Not to spoil the film, but they do discover Jackie Earle Haley (Watchmen) among the living. The world’s greatest troubled teen actor can’t be taken down by nuclear warheads! He doesn’t come in until late in the film so don’t pester me with emails demanding to know where is Jackie? The film is a great piece of post-apocalyptic fun from the mid-70s when the Soviets were the threat. If only Hummers looked like the Landmaster, I’d own two of them. If you order the DVD or Blu-ray from Shout! Factory’s website, they’ll send you a limited edition lithograph of Landmaster. The high definition transfer brings the nuclear destroyed landscape to your house. This has been on my “when is it coming out list” for a decade. The wait has been worth it.
Transformers Headmasters – The Japanese Collection is what happened when the Japanese manufacturer of the toyline created their own cartoon series to promote the Headmasters collection. It should be noted that this DVD features a Japanese audio track with English subtitles. That means you shouldn’t buy this for kids who can’t read unless you plan on reading it to them. The action takes place in the year 2011 so it’s appropriate for it to finally get released in America this year. The series stars after The Return of Optimus Prime. Characters get rebuilt including Soundblaster and Twincaster. Things get confusing when after a bomb blast several Decepticons and Autobots get their parts confused and fused. This is the first installment of a trilogy of series made for the Japanese market. It’s also the first time it’s been legally available in North America. The 35 episodes spread over 4 DVDs at a price that’s far below what the creepy guy at the comic convention was asking for VHS EP speed bootlegs.
Rocko’s Modern Life: Season One has all the weirdness of a wallaby and his cow pal can dish up. The show became a cult sensation on Nickelodeon during the early 90s. Rocko is a timid wallaby from Australia that’s arrived in America to find himself being yanked in every direction at once. The duo and Rocko’s dopey dog get dragged through numerous weird events. “”Power Trip” has him working at a comic book shop. “Trash-O-Madness” turns garbage day into a furious ordeal. “Carnival Knowledge” sets up a amusement park right next to the waste treatment plant. This is not a kiddie show with “Leap Frogs” involving an older neighbor wife attempting to seduce Rocko with the help of Spanish Fly. This is not Rugrats. Rocko’s Modern Life did bring together the key elements of the SpongeBob SquarePants creative team including the future creator and Tom Kenny (the voice of SpongeBob). Rocko is voiced by Deputy Garcia of Reno 911. The first 13 episodes are spread over 2 DVDs. This is a show worth rediscovering.
A MILLION MOMENTS IN 1080P
While Father’s Day might over, you can still get quite a few odd deals from Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment and MGM Home Entertainment’s twelve-month campaign, Year of A Million Moments. According to their press release the promotion “continues by recognizing heroes during the month of June. Between heroes from movies like Oliver Stone’s masterpiece PLATOON, the underdog fighter in ROCKY, or the comedic spy father in TV’s AMERICAN DAD, pay tribute by logging on to www.YearOfAMillionMoments.com for the opportunity to win $1 million dollars! There are four titles under this deal that excited me to nab on Blu-ray.
Some Like It Hot is a comedy masterpiece. Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis are struggling musicians in Chicago. The duo stumble upon the St. Valentine’s Day massacre. Their only hope to live is disguising themselves as women to play in a female band. Curtis might blow their cover since he’s got the hots for Marilyn Monroe. Don’t be fooled by the color illustration on the cover. The movie is in black and white. The 1080p transfer shimmers. They went with a 1.66:1 anamorphic image inside of merely cropping it to 1.78:1. Why slice away Monroe’s charms? There’s plenty of bonus features including Leonard Maltin’s interview with Curtis and a commentary track with both Curtis and Lemmon. This is the best Marilyn Monroe film. This was worth upgrading from my old DVD.
Manchurian Candidate is one of the great political thrillers. A group of soldiers returns from the Korean War with a hero leader (Laurence Harvey). Except all they guys use the same words to describe him. They also keep having freaky dreams about their time fighting in Asia. Frank Sinatra wants to get to the bottom of it. What he uncovers is a communist plot that involves Angela Lansbury (Murder She Wrote) selling out America for personal gain. Khigh Dhiegh (Hawaii Five-O‘s Wo Fat) is diabolical. Numerous bonus features from the Laserdisc and DVD releases have been brought over. This includes Sinatra’s talk of the film having the first Hollywood Karate fight between him and Henry Silva. The hi-def transfer helps you spot the Queen of Hearts around the sets.
The solo release of Alien and Aliens are perfect for those who don’t want to buy all the Alien movies in the Alien Anthology mega-Blu-ray boxset. The Blu-rays contain both the theatrical releases with the director’s cuts. While Ridley Scott didn’t dig up too much extra stuff on Alien, James Cameron’s director’s cut on Aliens really boosted the film to another level. Decades ago when word leaked out about the longer cut, people were eager to see. Bootleg VHS floated of the laserdisc. Unlike the hype that greats most director’s cuts, Aliens proved more can be a good thing instead of self-indulgent. Alien is about a space tug that gets invaded by a pesky alien. Aliens sticks a group of marines on a planet overrun by the aliens. Both films are classics of sci-fi. Neither film should be shown to small children that love Star Wars. These are the nightmare inducing kinda flicks. The only downside of getting the solo DVDs is the lack of the extensive behind the scenes documentaries. Although if you bought the Alien Quadrilogy, you already have them. Each film does have major commentary tracks. Alien includes Ridley Scott; actors Sigourney Weaver, Tom Skerrit, and Veronica Cartwright; writer Dan O’Bannon; editor Terry Rawlings; and producer Ronald Shusett. They also include Scott’s track from the 1999 DVD. The group on Aliens features James Cameron, producer Gale Anne Hurd, Alien effects creator Stan Winston, effects supervisors Robert and Dennis Skotak, miniature effects supervisor Pat McClung and actors Bill Paxton, Michael Biehn, Lance Henriksten, Jennette Goldstein, Carrie Benn and Cristopher Benn. You can also just listen to the score with the grotesque imagery.
BLU-RAY HEAVEN
Hobo with a Shotgun is the greatest thing to come out of Grindhouse. The filmmakers created a fake trailer as part of a contest sponsored by the Tarantino & Rodriguez double feature. Enough buzz was built that they made it a full movie with the brilliant Rutger Hauer (Bladerunner) as the Hobo with a Shotgun. This is the perfect vehicle for the Dutch star since he does look like a down on his luck guy and not merely a pretty boy slumming it. Rutger arrives in a town that makes Philly look like a posh town. The Hobo merely wants to buy a lawnmower and go into the landscaping business. Turns out what needs to be trimmed is the out of control crime. He’s grabs a shotgun and goes to work pruning a drug kingpin’s empire. Robb Wells of Trailer Park Boys makes a gruesome cameo. Hobo with a Shotgun goes overboard in the right way. This makes a great double feature with Rutger’s The Hitcher. There’s three packages. A solo DVD, a 2-Disc Collector’s Edition and a Blu-ray. The Blu-ray and the 2-Disc sets come with tons of bonus features and a digital version. You’ll want to watch Hobo while riding the rails with John Hodgman. Hobo With a Shotgun is perfect viewing after a day blasting skeet. Only wish I’d seen this film at the drive-in.
13 Assassins is Takashi Miike’s massive feudal Japan tale. What happens when the locals get upset that Lord Naritsiga is a complete animal? He rapes and murders without a care in the world. He views himself as a God that’s beyond the law. But is he? He’s not beyond the reach of a samurai warrior. He gathers up a team of other fighters to plot the best way to take out Naritsiga. Their plan seems to be working until they receive a low figure of how many guards travel with him. There’s three time the numbers of men, but the odds don’t scare off the samurai. They are on a mission to stop a man from becoming a god. The film a rollercoaster rush. The action scenes are better than the superhero tripe clogging up the theaters this summer. The movie goes up their with the Lone Wolf and Cub movie series. Miike has build his reputation around here based on Audition, Visitor Q and Ichi the Killer. 13 Assassins can now be added to those highlights. The bonus features including an interview with the prolific director, deleted scenes and a digital copy of the film.
DVD SHELF
Mannix: The Fifth Season is another brazen and thrilling time from the case files of Joe Mannix (Mike Connors). He’s still the top private investigator in Los Angeles. His trusty secretary Peggy Fair (Gail Fisher) has his back. His cop connections include Mr. Brady (Robert Reed). “A Step in Time” curiously features Dean Stockwell of the future hit Quantum Leap. Shelley Fabares. “Wine From These Grapes “Marion Ross.
“Days Beyond Recall” hires him to track down an allegedly dead crime writer that might be in the dumpy part of town. Along the way Mannix deals with Anitra Ford (Big Bird Cage and Price Is Right), Geoffrey Lewis (the man who isn’t Robert Pine) and Vic Morrow (Combat and Bad News Bears). “Cats Paw” forwards a cursed letter that kills. Vic Tayback (Alice) might be on the chain of death. Milton Berle is a comic being blackmailed in “Nightshade.” The main suspect is MIA in Vietnam. This is one of my favorite Berle performances that doesn’t involve him dressed like a Golden Girl. “Babe in the Woods” gives us a babyface Ed Begley Jr. This was before he was a greenie. “Moving Target ” makes Mannix figure out why a fake name on a contract has become a real person. A tempting Jessica Walter (Arrested Development) gets tangled in the legal voodoo. “Scapegoat” almost sends Mannix to London to shuttle jewels to a museum. But he gets knocked out and a double does his job. How is John Vernon (Animal House and Chained Heat) tied into this weirdness? “Death Is the Fifth Gear” gives electricity to Elsa Lanchester (The Bride of Frankenstein). She’s gone over the edge and wants to take Mannix with her. The Fifth Season is another fine collection of two fisted, whiskey drinking P.I. love. The 24 episodes are on 6 DVDs. Only three mores seasons before the entire show is released.
Dynasty: The Fifth Season Volume One and Volume Two splits up the 29 episodes over two sets. This was the season when the prime time soap opera leaped over Dallas for the most watched show on TV. The Carringtons of Colorado had out tawdried the Ewings of Texas. Volume One has 15 episodes that cover enough twists for a season. The big swap comes when they declare daughter Fallon dead. That’s right, no more Pamela Sue Martin (Nancy Drew). Now we get Amanda (Catherine Oxenberg), the long lost daughter of Blake (John Forsythe) and Alexis (Joan Colby). She’s trouble. She ends up dating her mama’s man. Why does a guy named Dex Dexter get to enjoy a mother-daughter score? Alexis goes on trial for killing Mark Jennings. The big guest star is Rock Hudson! This was Rock’s last acting gig before word got out that he was dying of AIDS. Volume Two 14 episodes end with the Moldavian Massacre. The cliffhanger of the season has a slaughter at the church. Who survives? This nearly shocked people as much as Who Shot J.R.? Only their agents truly can decide if they live or die. The producers also bring on a new Fallon with Emma Samms in the role. It’s like Dr. Who with large amounts of cash. Only four more seasons to go and soon Ted McGinley arrives. Both volumes have 4 DVDs.
MGM MOD DVD
Riot On Sunset Strip should have been part of the Midnite Movies collection. It’s a great American International Pictures release that cashed in on the real Sunset Strip riots that took place a few months before in Los Angeles of 1967. Mimsy Farmer is a high school student that wants to rebel with the help of Tim Rooney (Andy Rooney’s son). They go to the freaky clubs of the Sunset Strip in order to see the groovy psychedlic sounds of The Chocolate Watchband and the Standells. It’s like watching the Nuggets boxset on stage. Farmer’s the child of divorce. She’s stuck with her hag of a mother. She hasn’t seen her dad (Aldo Ray) in years which is good since he’s now the cop in charge of keeping troubled kids from causing problems with the merchants. The girl goes wild in the swinging ’60s including hitting a drug fueled party and getting sexually extreme. Can Aldo save his missing daughter? Can the Standells understand that they’re still superstars in Boston when they play “Muddy Water” at Fenway? Why can’t the man let the kids do their thing?
Call Me Bwana is what happens when the creative artists behind James Bond swap Sean Connery with Bob Hope. The film was produced by Harry Saltzman and Cubby Broccoli. Ted Moore handled cinematography. Peter Hunt edited. Syd Cain did the art direction. Monty Norman scored. Maurice Binder created the monkey themed opening credits. All that was missing was Sean. A moon capsule drops into the deep jungle of Africa. The only hope of retrieving it is Bob Hope, but he’s more of a blowhard than an African expert. Luckily he has Edie Adams (Ernie Kovacs Show) to save his bacon. Anita Ekberg (La Dolce Vita) wants to hit him with the frying pan. She’s a foreign agent using all her bodily tools to seduce Bob. Arnold Palmer has a cameo. This ought to be offered as a bonus feature in a James Bond boxset. A poster for Call Me Bwana has a major role in From Russia With Love.
Johnny Cool rocks. Henry Silva is best known for being a member of Ocean’s 11 and the world’s tallest Korean houseboy in The Manchurian Candidate. Silva’s a killing machine that’s come to America to knock off a bunch of rivals. For a little luck, he’s got Elizabeth Montgomery (Bewitched) along for the cross country ride. She has not clue that Silva’s trip involves killing Telly Savalas (Kojack), Jim Backus (Gilligan’s Island), Richard Anderson (Bionic Woman), Mort Sahl and Joey Bishop (Ocean’s 11). There’s a mini-Rat Pack nature to the film with Bishop co-starring, Peter Lawford produced and Sammy Davis Jr. with a key cameo. Where was Frank and Dino? Sammy gives a swinging opening theme song for Henry. Silva rules the screen in the cold blooded role. Director William Asher is best known for the Beach Party films and Bewitched – that starred his then wife Elizabeth Montgomery. This makes a great double feature when you’re running the original Ocean’s 11 for your cocktail party.
Curse of the Faceless Man is the Mummy with a volcanic twist. You might remember in history about how the Roman city of Pompeii was covered in lava when Mt. Vesuvius erupted. Centuries later the town would become famous when Pink Floyd played a gig there. Before Roger Waters arrived, there were scientist digging around the once vanished town. One day they found the remains of a body and dragged it to a museum that had Richard Anderson as their leading scientist. That’s right, Oscar Goldman of The Six Million Dollar Man and The Bionic Woman had a starring role in a ’50s monster movie. Turns out the body covered in lava was not quite dead. It comes alive when being driven to the museum and killed the driver. Because this undead creature is coated in harden lava, he doesn’t go too far. It does form a mental bond with Anderson’s fiance, Elaine Edwards. This is one slow moving monster since it’s like watching a cement lawn ornament attack. Strange to see Anderson as the hero. Keep expecting the real hero to show up and stop the monster. This is a worthy of being included on your Creature Double Feature night with any Mummy or Golem movie.
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