L.A. residents rejoice, everyone else check your frequent flyer miles.This just in from Joe Dante, who is finally claiming the above title (impressed upon him by movie reviewers for so many years) for an upcoming series of retrospective screenings.** Prepare yourself for at least one "Holy $%#@!" booking:
I'm hosting a series of screenings at the recently renovated NEW BEVERLY CINEMA in Hollywood from April 9 thru 22. (I'm not there every night tho.) Come down and wallow if you're in the neighborhood. Here's the final rundown:
April 9 + 10 MONDO CANE and ZULU
It's hard to imagine today the impact this tawdry but fascinating Italian "shockumentary" had on the world in 1962, when the bizarre customs of people in other lands seemed both exotic and horrifying to Western eyes. Its smash success spawned a whole genre of mostly phony Mondo movies, each outdoing the other for pure sleaze, which lasted into the 80s and paved the way for something much more upsetting: Reality TV.
Cy Enfield's ZULU is simply one of the great historical epics ever--100 stuff-upper-lip British soldiers battle 4000 Zulu warriors in a beautifully staged reenactment of the 1879 Battle of Roarke's Drift. John Barry should have won (but didn't) an Oscar for his brilliant score. The cast, led by producer Stanley Baker, is terrific, but the great Nigel Green steals the show as the consummate side-whiskered, mustached Victorian Sergeant-Major. With Jack Hawkins, James Booth, Patrick Magee and a very young Michael Caine, whose work here got him THE IPCRESS FILE.
April 11 + 12 HOLLYWOOD BOULEVARD and TRUCK TURNER
We called it "Day For Nothing" when we made it (shot in ten days around footage from 12 other movies on a bet with Roger Corman). One of the last of New World Pictures' popular "three girl" drive-in movies where pretty girls doff their duds and chase around non-permitted LA locations. The late great Candice Rialson plays a version of herself as a naive Indiana girl trying to make it in scuzzy 70s Hollywood. Pulled from 42nd Street after two days, it seems to have survived as a cult movie. It's certainly an accurate record of what it was like to make a New World Picture. Producer Jon Davison, co-director Allan Arkush and co-star Dick Miller are scheduled to appear.
TRUCK TURNER, which came out late in the blaxploitation game, got lost in the Hollywood shuffle but it's as dazzling a piece of action filmmaking as the 70s had to offer. Isaac Hayes is a bounty hunter on the trail of a big-time pimp whose vengeful, bitch-slapping squeeze is played by Star Trek's Nichelle Nichols! Along for the violent ride are Yaphet Kotto, Alan Weeks, Scatman Crothers, Sam Laws and Dick Miller. One of the overlooked gems of the decade.
April 9 + 10 MONDO CANE and ZULU
It's hard to imagine today the impact this tawdry but fascinating Italian "shockumentary" had on the world in 1962, when the bizarre customs of people in other lands seemed both exotic and horrifying to Western eyes. Its smash success spawned a whole genre of mostly phony Mondo movies, each outdoing the other for pure sleaze, which lasted into the 80s and paved the way for something much more upsetting: Reality TV.
Cy Enfield's ZULU is simply one of the great historical epics ever--100 stuff-upper-lip British soldiers battle 4000 Zulu warriors in a beautifully staged reenactment of the 1879 Battle of Roarke's Drift. John Barry should have won (but didn't) an Oscar for his brilliant score. The cast, led by producer Stanley Baker, is terrific, but the great Nigel Green steals the show as the consummate side-whiskered, mustached Victorian Sergeant-Major. With Jack Hawkins, James Booth, Patrick Magee and a very young Michael Caine, whose work here got him THE IPCRESS FILE.
April 11 + 12 HOLLYWOOD BOULEVARD and TRUCK TURNER
We called it "Day For Nothing" when we made it (shot in ten days around footage from 12 other movies on a bet with Roger Corman). One of the last of New World Pictures' popular "three girl" drive-in movies where pretty girls doff their duds and chase around non-permitted LA locations. The late great Candice Rialson plays a version of herself as a naive Indiana girl trying to make it in scuzzy 70s Hollywood. Pulled from 42nd Street after two days, it seems to have survived as a cult movie. It's certainly an accurate record of what it was like to make a New World Picture. Producer Jon Davison, co-director Allan Arkush and co-star Dick Miller are scheduled to appear.
TRUCK TURNER, which came out late in the blaxploitation game, got lost in the Hollywood shuffle but it's as dazzling a piece of action filmmaking as the 70s had to offer. Isaac Hayes is a bounty hunter on the trail of a big-time pimp whose vengeful, bitch-slapping squeeze is played by Star Trek's Nichelle Nichols! Along for the violent ride are Yaphet Kotto, Alan Weeks, Scatman Crothers, Sam Laws and Dick Miller. One of the overlooked gems of the decade.
Director Jonathan Kaplan (HEART LIKE A WHEEL) will introduce the film.
April 13, 14, 15 THE SADIST and THE PRIVATE FILES OF J EDGAR HOOVER
Fairway-International was a tiny company specializing in grade-C drive-in movies like WILD GUITAR and EEGAH! But from such unlikely soil springs a chilling surprise! James Landis' intense 1963 drive-in classic is based on the same true crime story as BADLANDS-- the serial killing exploits of Charles Starkweather and his underage girlfriend. Brutally unfolding in Real Time over 94 taut minutes, mad killer Arch Hall Jr. terrorizes our small cast in a junkyard -- maybe the best-photographed junkyard ever, courtesy of the great Vilmos Zsigmond, who will appear in person on the 15th.
THE PRIVATE FILES OF J EDGAR HOOVER - Tabloid genius Larry Cohen brings his guerilla style Sam Fuller-lite approach to this 1977 ripped-from-the-headlines pop-culture AIP comic book about the near fifty-year reign of America's "top cop", who dug up the dirt on famous personalities through six turbulent administrations. It's gutsy and disreputable and Broderick Crawford 's finest hour. Eat your heart out, Oliver Stone!
April 13, 14, 15 THE SADIST and THE PRIVATE FILES OF J EDGAR HOOVER
Fairway-International was a tiny company specializing in grade-C drive-in movies like WILD GUITAR and EEGAH! But from such unlikely soil springs a chilling surprise! James Landis' intense 1963 drive-in classic is based on the same true crime story as BADLANDS-- the serial killing exploits of Charles Starkweather and his underage girlfriend. Brutally unfolding in Real Time over 94 taut minutes, mad killer Arch Hall Jr. terrorizes our small cast in a junkyard -- maybe the best-photographed junkyard ever, courtesy of the great Vilmos Zsigmond, who will appear in person on the 15th.
THE PRIVATE FILES OF J EDGAR HOOVER - Tabloid genius Larry Cohen brings his guerilla style Sam Fuller-lite approach to this 1977 ripped-from-the-headlines pop-culture AIP comic book about the near fifty-year reign of America's "top cop", who dug up the dirt on famous personalities through six turbulent administrations. It's gutsy and disreputable and Broderick Crawford 's finest hour. Eat your heart out, Oliver Stone!
Larry Cohen will be on hand to introduce.
April 16 + 17 THE SECRET INVASION and TOMB OF LIGEIA
This scenic WWII epic, shot in Yugoslavia in 1964, is one of Roger Corman's least-seen yet most accomplished films, with essentially the same plot as THE DIRTY DOZEN -- which wasn't made until three years later! Stewart Granger, Mickey Rooney, Edd Byrnes, Henry Silva and Raf Vallone are felons recruited for a mission to rescue an Italian general from behind enemy lines. Roger used this story idea in his first movie, FIVE GUNS WEST. I haven't seen this since it came out!
TOMB OF LIGEIA was the last of Corman's popular series of Edgar Allan Poe adaptations, but unlike the others it has many beautiful English countryside exteriors and mostly departs from the stylized stage-bound unreality of its forebears. Robert Towne (CHINATOWN) wrote the script in a more romantic vein, thinking Richard Chamberlain would play the lead--but AIP intervened and sure enough, Vincent Price took over.
April 16 + 17 THE SECRET INVASION and TOMB OF LIGEIA
This scenic WWII epic, shot in Yugoslavia in 1964, is one of Roger Corman's least-seen yet most accomplished films, with essentially the same plot as THE DIRTY DOZEN -- which wasn't made until three years later! Stewart Granger, Mickey Rooney, Edd Byrnes, Henry Silva and Raf Vallone are felons recruited for a mission to rescue an Italian general from behind enemy lines. Roger used this story idea in his first movie, FIVE GUNS WEST. I haven't seen this since it came out!
TOMB OF LIGEIA was the last of Corman's popular series of Edgar Allan Poe adaptations, but unlike the others it has many beautiful English countryside exteriors and mostly departs from the stylized stage-bound unreality of its forebears. Robert Towne (CHINATOWN) wrote the script in a more romantic vein, thinking Richard Chamberlain would play the lead--but AIP intervened and sure enough, Vincent Price took over.
Roger Corman will elucidate further in person, schedule permitting.
April 18 + 19 WRONG IS RIGHT and Mystery Movie
When Richard Brooks' star-studded adaptation of Charles McCarry's spy novel The Better Angels came out in 1982 it was roundly dismissed as a confused jumble. From the hindsight of 2008, it looks like the STRANGELOVE of its era. So many aspects of this film have come true, it's up there with NETWORK as a predictor of the future, our sorry present. Sean Connery stars as a globe-trotting tv reporter who's tracking a terrorist dealing nuclear weapons in the mideast. Along the way we meet a President who goes to war to boost his ratings, a (Condi-like) Vice President, CIA and FBI figures who are so broadly caricatured they seemed divorced from reality in 1982-- but who closely resemble figures we now see on the news every day! Suffice it to say the climax involves the World Trade Center. One of the all-star ensemble will join us--John Saxon!
Plus another movie in the same vein TBA with guest.
April 20 + 21 BLOOD ON SATAN'S CLAW and HORROR EXPRESS
Piers Haggard's atmospheric and beautifully photographed (Dick Bush) entry in the burn-the-witches genre benefits from a prolonged sense of dread, literate dialog and an unusually convincing period flavor -- sort of a Masterpiece Theater horror film. When hairy patches of "satan's skin" start cropping up on the bodies of nubile 17th century teenagers, local judge Patrick Wymark gets to the bottom of things, starting with voluptuous teen temptress Linda Hayden's. Less well known than the same studio's earlier WITCHFINDER GENERAL, but equally effective, with more emphasis on the supernatural. Great score by Marc Wilkinson.
I love train movies. HORROR EXPRESS was made because the producers had access to the train models from NICHOLAS AND ALEXANDRA. One of my very favorite vehicles (get it?) for Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing, this Spanish-made extravaganza (also known as Panic on the Trans-Siberian Express) has it all -- good characters, lots of wry humor, a mad monk, a mysterious countess, a prehistoric fossilized monster alien, eyeballs in a jar, Telly Savalas as a bellicose Cossack (it's 1906) and a surprisingly complex science fiction plot. And I left out the zombies! Seriously, this one of my top favorites of all time.
April 22 THE MOVIE ORGY
This the first, one nite only public showing in many years of my first project. In 1968 when "camp" was king, Jon Davison and I put together a counterculture compendium of 16mm bits and pieces (tv show openings, commercials, parts of features, old serials etc.), physically spliced them in ironic juxtapositions and ran the result at the Philadelphia College of Art interspersed with parts of a Bela Lugosi serial. The reaction was phenomenal. This led to THE MOVIE ORGY, a 7-hour marathon of old movie clips and stuff with a crowd-pleasing anti-war, anti-military, anti-establishment slant that played the Fillmore East and on college campuses all over the country for years -- always the one print, viewed through a haze of beer and controlled substances. We called it a 2001-splice odyssey. We kept adding and subtracting material over time so this, alas, is not the original version-- it's the later cutdown, running a mere 4 hours and 19 minutes! But it's still a pop time capsule that will bring many a nostalgic chuckle from baby boomers and dazed expressions of WTF?! from anyone else.
Admission to THE MOVIE ORGY is FREE, so buy plenty of concession stand items!
April 18 + 19 WRONG IS RIGHT and Mystery Movie
When Richard Brooks' star-studded adaptation of Charles McCarry's spy novel The Better Angels came out in 1982 it was roundly dismissed as a confused jumble. From the hindsight of 2008, it looks like the STRANGELOVE of its era. So many aspects of this film have come true, it's up there with NETWORK as a predictor of the future, our sorry present. Sean Connery stars as a globe-trotting tv reporter who's tracking a terrorist dealing nuclear weapons in the mideast. Along the way we meet a President who goes to war to boost his ratings, a (Condi-like) Vice President, CIA and FBI figures who are so broadly caricatured they seemed divorced from reality in 1982-- but who closely resemble figures we now see on the news every day! Suffice it to say the climax involves the World Trade Center. One of the all-star ensemble will join us--John Saxon!
Plus another movie in the same vein TBA with guest.
April 20 + 21 BLOOD ON SATAN'S CLAW and HORROR EXPRESS
Piers Haggard's atmospheric and beautifully photographed (Dick Bush) entry in the burn-the-witches genre benefits from a prolonged sense of dread, literate dialog and an unusually convincing period flavor -- sort of a Masterpiece Theater horror film. When hairy patches of "satan's skin" start cropping up on the bodies of nubile 17th century teenagers, local judge Patrick Wymark gets to the bottom of things, starting with voluptuous teen temptress Linda Hayden's. Less well known than the same studio's earlier WITCHFINDER GENERAL, but equally effective, with more emphasis on the supernatural. Great score by Marc Wilkinson.
I love train movies. HORROR EXPRESS was made because the producers had access to the train models from NICHOLAS AND ALEXANDRA. One of my very favorite vehicles (get it?) for Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing, this Spanish-made extravaganza (also known as Panic on the Trans-Siberian Express) has it all -- good characters, lots of wry humor, a mad monk, a mysterious countess, a prehistoric fossilized monster alien, eyeballs in a jar, Telly Savalas as a bellicose Cossack (it's 1906) and a surprisingly complex science fiction plot. And I left out the zombies! Seriously, this one of my top favorites of all time.
April 22 THE MOVIE ORGY
This the first, one nite only public showing in many years of my first project. In 1968 when "camp" was king, Jon Davison and I put together a counterculture compendium of 16mm bits and pieces (tv show openings, commercials, parts of features, old serials etc.), physically spliced them in ironic juxtapositions and ran the result at the Philadelphia College of Art interspersed with parts of a Bela Lugosi serial. The reaction was phenomenal. This led to THE MOVIE ORGY, a 7-hour marathon of old movie clips and stuff with a crowd-pleasing anti-war, anti-military, anti-establishment slant that played the Fillmore East and on college campuses all over the country for years -- always the one print, viewed through a haze of beer and controlled substances. We called it a 2001-splice odyssey. We kept adding and subtracting material over time so this, alas, is not the original version-- it's the later cutdown, running a mere 4 hours and 19 minutes! But it's still a pop time capsule that will bring many a nostalgic chuckle from baby boomers and dazed expressions of WTF?! from anyone else.
Admission to THE MOVIE ORGY is FREE, so buy plenty of concession stand items!
** Actually, "Dante's Inferno" was the title of Joe's first published article, which appeared in FAMOUS MONSTERS OF FILMLAND #18. But he's never used it on a movie. Not that this is a movie, of course, it's a film festival, but... oh, never mind.
