Tim Lucas / Video WatchBlog: October 2020

Friday, October 30, 2020

A Fond Look Back at THE BREMER TOWN MUSICIANS

DIE BREMER STADT-MUSIKANTEN (1959, Icestorm Distribution, 73m 37s PAL): This is the original German-language version of the film released to the US kiddie matinee market as THE BREMER TOWN MUSICIANS by K. Gordon Murray's Childhood Productions in late 1965. Based on the Brothers Grimm fable, it's a story that might have struck a more commercial nerve with the title THE BREMER TOWN MUSICIANS HAUNT A HOUSE. It's about an aging, overworked, and unappreciated donkey who discovers a discarded banjo while carrying grain for milling and finds that playing it makes him happy. He decides to run away with it, where he makes another discovery on the open road: a poster announcing that the city of Bremer is looking for instrumentalists to join their official state orchestra. The donkey decides to make this his new goal and, along the way, WIZARD OF OZ-like, he meets a similarly misfit dog, cat, and rooster, who are also good at making music so they form a band of their own. Needing shelter once the weather turns cold, the innocent, trusting animals fall into a trap laid by a band of jolly robbers that leads them to their hideout; however, the resourceful critters turn the tables on their captors with a plan to scare them away.

Directed by Rainer Geis (his only effort in this genre), this children's musical - to be honest - isn't particularly winning as cinema; however, if approached as a piece of live theater on film, it is remarkably entertaining and still looks fresh after more than 60 years. The animals, of course, are played by actors in costume and occasionally pantomime to winning music (as do the villains) by Raimund Rosenberger, whose work was replaced for the American market with original songs by Paul Tripp. When the rooster flies and the cat climbs a tree, we see the ropes (not wires - actual ROPES!) pulling them up - and, if you're attentive, you might even spot the moment when the rooster passes too near a lit candle, causing one of his tail feathers to sizzle and smoke. Therefore, while this entertainment might be too naïve a confection for older kids sated only by the latest upgrades in razzle-dazzle, it should appeal to younger kids with an interest in music and costume play, as well as adults with a taste for the nostalgic and bizarre. Mind you, this is a full decade before The Banana Splits, not to mention prior to the Mexican fairy tale films that Childhood Productions also acquired. Alas, this disc is not English friendly, but if you can find a copy of the English-language version, you'll see that the soundtrack is really all it has to offer. It's also about 7m shorter than the German version, which also offers so much more in the departments of color, beauty, and sharpness of detail.

This film is but one of a whole series of German fairy tales produced by Hubert Shonger Filmproduktion in the 1950s, which have been released on German DVD by Icestorm Distribution GmnH, both individually and in three box sets (containing four movies each) bearing the umbrella title DIE SCHÖNSTEN MÄRCHEN DER BRÜDER GRIMM ("The Most Beautiful Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm"). This charming body of work - which includes other films imported and often cut for pacing by K. Gordon Murray, such as RUMPLESTILTSKIN and PUSS IN BOOTS - collectively represent an important serial event in international fantasy cinema and really deserves preservation and the appreciation of a wider audience on English-friendly Blu-rays.

(c) 2020 by Tim Lucas. All rights reserved.

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Thursday, October 29, 2020

Where Have I Been?

My apologies for ghosting you during this time leading up to Halloween. I didn't intend to be off my blogging duties for the better part of three weeks, but it's been an unusually busy period, even for me - I've done several audio commentaries in a row, I'm working on a new short story, I read five thick Michael Moorcock novels, and Dorothy and I have been polishing our songs before they go into mastering, and also into submission for a songwriting competition.

Some recent work has already returned as holiday harvest. As I write this, I've just received advance copies of my next two audio commentaries - Clint Eastwood's directorial debut PLAY MISTY FOR ME (1970) and THE WONDERS OF ALADDIN (1961), a gorgeous widescreen restoration of the Arabian Nights comic fantasy co-directed by Henry Levin (THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF THE BROTHERS GRIMM) and Mario Bava. The latter - a work of sometimes jaw-dropping beauty - is a must for all Bava collectors, and the Eastwood film now looks like a genuine turning point in the mutation of the horror genre as it shifted from atmospheric fantasy to the terrors lurking in full, contemporary daylight. I don't often get much feedback on the work I turn into them, but my producer at Kino Lorber told me that he feels my PLAY MISTY track ranks high among my work. It will street on November 10, with ALADDIN on November 17, so get those pre-orders in now.

Two nights ago, Donna and I got caught up in THE QUEEN'S GAMBIT over on Netflix; we had to stop after two episodes because we had an early morning and it was actually painful to stop. We finished it up last night and, somehow, the spell cast by those introductory episodes was sustained right through to the end; the entire seven-hour drama is up there with the very best and most cinematic of contemporary television. It's based on a novel by Walter Tevis, who also wrote THE MAN WHO FELL TO EARTH, and as with that novel, it sets some important scenes in Cincinnati, which is always amusing to us when that happens. The Netflix limited series, directed by the gifted Scott Frank, manages to make a Cincinnati hotel circa 1963 look like the ritzy side of Manhattan - which it should, to its young heroine's eyes. It's essentially the story of how a young orphaned girl accidentally discovers herself in the game of Chess and goes on to be internationally recognized as an "astounding" prodigy. It doesn't matter how well you understand or appreciate Chess, because it's really a universal story of how anyone of talent becomes, through adversities, who they are. Also, anyone familiar with THE MAN WHO FELL TO EARTH, novel or film (or even miniseries, which I've yet to see), should be able to see ways in which THE QUEEN'S GAMBIT tells a variation on the same story, a story of ambition, addiction, and achievement. Anya Taylor-Joy and Isla Johnston (as the adult and child stages of the heroine, Beth Harmon) radiate a certain angular alien quality, and relation to the camera, that recalls some of the otherness that David Bowie brought to the role of Thomas Jerome Newton. My only gripe about the film is that it had to move on to the story it needed to tell, demanding the change in actors; Taylor-Joy definitely proves herself one of those actors the camera simply loves to watch - she can embody cinema simply by walking down a corridor or turning her direct gaze on an opponent - but Johnston's performance is one of the most gripping I've seen a child give.

Saturday, October 10, 2020

Finally! An Affordable Selection of Gaston Leroux

I was surprised and pleased to discover that Google Play Books is offering a Delphi Classics ebook of Collected Works (in translation) by Gaston Leroux for only $3.99. It’s not a complete works, not even a complete translated works, but considering that it’s too pricey for most people to read anything other than THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA by Leroux, this is something of a godsend. It includes my preferred translation of THE MAN WITH THE BLACK FEATHER (aka THE DOUBLE LIFE OF THÉOPHRASTE LONGUET), the marvelous ape-man novel BALAOO, THE HAUNTED CHAIR, and several of the novels featuring his beloved characters Rouletabille and Chéri-Bibi - as well as an assortment of short stories gleaned from pulp magazines of the day.

Last night, I read the first of these - “A Terrible Tale,” originally translated for THE WINDSOR MAGAZINE in 1925 - and was surprised to discover that this tale includes elements which anticipate the “one of us” climax of Tod Browning’s FREAKS! (I’ve not read SPURS, the credited source material.) As Jean Rollin once spelled out in a two-part article for MIDI MINUIT FANTASTIQUE, Leroux’s influence on fantastic cinema is far greater than is commonly known. My only criticism of this set is that, because some of Leroux's longer works were published in translation as two separate volumes, it includes only half of his E.T.A. Hoffmann pastiche THE KISS THAT KILLED (omitting the first half, THE MACHINE TO KILL) and his Jules Verne pastiche THE AMAZING ADVENTURES OF CAROLUS HERBERT (omitting is resolution in THE VEILED PRISONER) - they can be read individually, but who would knowingly want to? I also dearly wish it could have somehow included THE MIDNIGHT LADY and THE MISSING ARCHDUKE, the elusive English translations of his novel LA REINE DU SABBAT.

Even with these faults, this is by far the most complete omnibus of Leroux that we've ever had in English and I recommend it whole-heartedly on the basis of all it does contain - more than 4,000 pages of genius.

Thursday, October 08, 2020

15 Years A Blogger... and 50 Years Ago in Cincinnati Theaters

Well, the calendar over the crack on my wall tells me that it was 15 years ago today that I felt the twitch of the bored nerve that led to the launching of Video WatchBlog. Those early years were an exciting time, and sometimes it still is. What I like most about blogging is that it allows a group of readers to be present when a new enthusiasm, a new question or pursuit is at its most fresh and intoxicating, before the rough edges of a rushed delivery are smoothed away. Thanks to everyone who is still accompanying me on this (I hope) useful journey - much appreciated.

Here's a look at the movies that were opening in the Greater Cincinnati area a half century ago this week:

I didn't see this film till a few years later, but I was very attentive to the ads for PERFORMANCE when they first appeared. Some ads told me, "Somewhere In Your Head There's A Wild Electric Dream - See It In PERFORMANCE." I knew I had a wild electric dream in my head and I wanted to see it! But I was not yet of age. I soothed my wounds by latching onto the Original Soundtrack Album, which was an incredible experience and remains so. I still think "Memo From Turner" is far and away the most interesting song Jagger/Richards have penned. When I later managed to see PERFORMANCE for the first time, it was a nearly private screening of a 16mm print with a crummy soundtrack - it was impossible to understand the dialogue, but it didn't matter. Focusing on the adventures in editing, framing, contrasting it proposed were startling enough for a first go-around. It would be years before I started exploring the meaning of it all. So this ad represents a paradigm shift in what one might avail in a small neighborhood cinema. Life had changed.

Yes, you're seeing right; your eyes do not deceive you. This is a Jess Franco/Robert Altman double bill (!), with the Franco picture taking the lead. Franco was a big fan of Altman's THE LONG GOODBYE in particular, and I think he might have wept with sincere humility if he ever saw this advertisement.

I can never forgive the company that distributed DARKER THAN AMBER for omitting any reference in this ad to the film's stars (Rod Taylor, Suzy Kendall, William Smith) or its director (Robert Clouse), much less best-selling author John D. MacDonald, without whom. Needless to say, if you went to see this on the big screen (if a drive-in really counts as a big screen), you had plenty to smile about the next day.

Not a Streisand fan, but this is more watchable than most of her vehicles. Bonus: Jack Nicholson sings and plays the sitar. Bob Newhart, Irene Handl, Roy Kinnear, and Pamela Brown are also present.

I saw this once at a drive-in and probably shouldn't trust my memory, which was much younger and more clueless. What I remember is that it was well-produced and shot, but - aside from Franco Nero - it was cast with second stringers. And director Christopher Miles is no Ken Russell.

I've never seen THE SWAPPERS, but the IMDb tells me it was British, originally titled THE WIFE SWAPPERS (for those who might stumble in expecting a story about a flea market), and directed by Derek Ford (KEEP IT UP JACK, WHAT'S UP NURSE?). The story? "Six unconnected stories involving wife and husband swapping, or swinging, are described in a titillating way while analyzed by a pseudo psychologist." I've never seen BORA BORA either, but its poster boasts that it was "Twice Banned In Europe!" It was directed by the interesting Italian writer-director Ugo Liberatore (whose scripts include Damiano Damiani's THE EMPTY CANVAS and THE WITCH IN LOVE) and stars Haydée Politoff (imminent star of Eric Rohmer's LA COLLECTIONEUSE and Javier Aguirre's COUNT DRACULA'S GREAT LOVE). It's not the mondo movie it sounds, but is rather a sexy romantic drama about an estranged couple forced to confront their differences while stranded on a desert island. Tie on RIOT ON SUNSET STRIP, with Mimsy Farmer's classic slo-mo acid freakout and music by The Seeds and The Chocolate Watchband, and you've got a pretty fabulous drive-in menu at hand.

Wednesday, October 07, 2020

Franco's SINFONIA PER UN SADICO... and More

I want to alert my fellow Jess Franco completists to the release in Italy of some long elusive footage. Sinister Films' SINFONIA PER UN SADICO ("Symphony for a Sadist") is DVD only, unfortunately - nevertheless, it represents an essential upgrade of the film known to us here as THE SADISTIC BARON VON KLAUS (1963). It includes the same HD restoration as released in the US back in 2015 by Kino Lorber as a Blu-ray disc, but its greater purchase incentive is the bonus inclusion of a 2K restoration of a 16mm Italian scope print that includes the film's legendary but rarely screened prologue. Boasting some of the most striking visuals in the entire film, shorn of all narrative duty, this prologue is an impressionistic procession of cruel images that unfold as follows:

Opening with a black screen, the film fades up to reveal a view of a house, depicted in a lowering crane shot. There is visible movement by a shadow cast on the one illuminated window, but our view is partially blocked by a clothes line, from which are dangling various articles of intimate female apparel. The camera lowers while pushing forward past the clothes line.

This image then dissolves to a menacing shadow cast upon the outside of another closed window, the glass panes smeared with some kind of grease.

From this, we cut to what we presume is the prey sought by this menacing shadow. There is a slow zoom into the woman's face.

This close-up then dissolves to the woman's silhouetted hands, rising up to clutch at some dangling fabric, pulling it down in a pantomime of agony.

This then dissolves to the hanging skeleton on display in the Von Klaus torture chamber. It is a mobile shot but the action within - the woman's upright, outstretched hand - is frozen within it. The camera slowly pans down the length of the woman's arm to her face.

This then dissolves to another tableau vivant, of the woman standing in the foreground, with the skeleton displayed at screen right. Slowly, from behind the woman, a figure approaches her, dressed in black with his face swathed in opaque white material, a mouth painted onto it with what appears to be a gash of lipstick. Aside from his advance, the image remains perfectly still until the figure lowers a kind of soft rope around the woman's neck. As if on cue, her mouth opens in a silent scream.

A return to the earlier shot of the intruder peering through the window.

We next dissolve to an overhead view of the woman arranged supine on the bed in the torture room, as viewed by the mirror suspended above it, behind an arrangement of ceremonial candles. The shadowy male figure joins her on the bed and raises a dagger before plunging it slowly down. As it descends, we cut to the point of the dagger, already dipped in blood, lowering past the camera. As the wrist of the killer passes by, the image dissolves to the hands of the pianist as he plays the accompaniment to the main titles - where all other versions of the film begin.

As you can see, the sequence confirms the rumor that Franco's portrayal of the sadist anticipates the look of Mario Bava's masked assassin in BLOOD AND BLACK LACE by a full year, and now that we see that the prologue was part of the Italian release as well as the Spanish one, there are grounds to believe that Bava could have seen it.

Those familiar with the film will recall the astounding sequence of the killer's abduction of the tavern girl played by Gogo Robins. As with the bulk of this erotic sequence, the original soundtrack for this "continental" material appears to be lost. Eurociné (the film's co-producer) has covered the silent track with some of Franco's own impressionistic music of atonal glides across piano wires and off-kilter percussive thumps. Though this version of the film restores the startling prologue, it is otherwise a conservative presentation and presents Gogo's big scene with the "dressed" version shown in most countries. Therefore, the scene in which Inspector Borowski (Georges Rollin) discovers her body in the dungeon, her arms manacled above her head, she is clothed - rather than semi-nude, as she appears in the Kino Lorber release.

There have also been a number of recent worthwhile additions to the Franco Blu-ray discography, including the German imports ROTE LIPPEN, SADISTEROTICA (DigiDreams Studios), which is an uncut version of the film now known to US collectors as TWO UNDERCOVER ANGELS, and also a five-disc colossus box set of DER HEXENTÖTER VON BLACKMOOR (Koch Media), which includes three different cuts of the film and various supplements over two Blu-rays or two bonus DVDs, and a soundtrack CD of Bruno Nicolai's score - which can also be found at Diabolik DVD. Blue Underground has recently upgraded various Franco films from their catalogue to Blu-ray, including EUGENIE... THE STORY OF HER JOURNEY INTO PERVERSION and CECILIA (which includes as a bonus the Spanish alternative cut known as ABERACCIONES SEXUALES DE UNA MUJER CASADA). Blue Underground also recently posted on their Facebook page that there are now down to less than 100 remaining copies of their three-disc 99 WOMEN Blu-ray limited edition, so grab that if you can still find it. And finally, in the UK, Indicator is about to unleash their box set of THE FU MANCHU CYCLE 1963-1969, which will include much-improved 4K restorations of Franco's two conclusive entries in the series with - as I understand it - some previously unseen footage and a 120-page color booklet featuring an essay by Yours Truly. The set is limited to 6000 copies.