AN AFFECTIONATE LOOK AT WAYNE & SHUSTER, WAYNE & SHUSTER IN BLACK AND WHITE - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Retrospective Programming a Hallmark of the Toronto Jewish Film Festival (TJFF 2016) Two television specials focusing on the legendary Jewish-Canadian comedy team, behind and in front of the cameras.

Canuck comedy duo Wayne & Shuster were profiled
on this CBC-TV light news and public affairs program
entitled TELESCOPE. Pictured here are screen grabs from
one of the most insane opening title sequences of all time. I accept the astronaut, the illuminated lights coming from the skyscraper, the kid, the babe and the eyeball. But seriously, a golf ball that turns into the surface of the Moon? And I ask you, what's with the giraffe and creepy clown?

An Affectionate Look at Wayne & Shuster (1965)
Dir. Norman Campbell
Starring Johnny Wayne, Frank Shuster, Fletcher Markle

Wayne & Shuster in Black and White (1997)
Dir. Trevor Evans
Starring: Johnny Wayne, Frank Shuster

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Johnny Wayne and Frank Shuster were Canada's premier comedy duo. In fact, they were probably the only comedy team from the Great White North beloved on both sides of the Canadian and American border and across the Atlantic in the United Kingdom.

They met in high school and discovered they had an immediate rapport. Throughout both secondary and post-secondary studies, the lads performed in stand-up and sketches. They were eventually hired in the 1940s by Toronto's CFRB to present a comedic household hints show and soon after were given their own radio show on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC).

They enrolled in the armed services and throughout both World War II and the Korean War, they performed for the troops fighting abroad. With the advent of television, their careers jettisoned into the stratosphere with a regular series on CBC, followed by regular comedy specials on the same network. They were hired for a series of BBC comedy specials and even starred in an American summer replacement series produced by Jack Benny.

Their biggest success was appearing on the legendary Ed Sullivan show. Ed loved them so much, they broke the show's record of any comedy duo appearing more than once. Wayne & Shuster appeared on Sullivan's ratings hit an astonishing 60+ times. To this day, such multiple appearances by any comedy act on American TV, has never been beaten.

In spite of many offers dangled before them, they refused to make the permanent move to America. They loved Canada and preferred to live in Canada. This didn't really affect their careers in any negative fashion, but given their popularity, Wayne & Shuster could have joined the ranks of all the legendary 60s comedy variety shows on the U.S. networks.

It was not to be. They were Canadian, through and through.

* * * * *

One of the psychotically prolific programs Wayne & Shuster produced and starred in was called "An Affectionate Look at . . ." wherein the lads would sit back, relax and introduce the audience to some of their favourite comedians. Here they're about to launch into an appreciation of Bob Hope and Bing Crosby until they're freeze-framed, stopped and chided by obnoxious host Trevor Markle who tells them it's high time somebody created An Affectionate Look at Wayne & Shuster. What follows is all under the aegis of the extremely light 1965 CBC-TV public affairs program Telescope.

The value inherent in this program is clearly nostalgic. In addition to a lot of very cool period locations in both Toronto and London, it delivers plenty of interviews with supporters and fans and eventually with Wayne & Shuster.

Most of the show is devoted to "documentary" footage as they prepare to celebrate 25 years in show business. They're doing a comedy special on this theme in England with the BBC. So far so good until we're treated to a seemingly endless stroll through Toronto's airport with Wayne, Shuster and their entire families in tow (including a family pet wiener dog) to see them off. The boys kibitz around with their family, ticket girls, stewardesses and finally settle into their seats in the transatlantic jet.

Once they get to dear old Blighty, there's some shenanigans involving a breakneck car ride through London, scenes wherein they plan their special and eventually, in one of the more genuinely funny bits, they collect their BBC producer and go in search of a steakhouse that all three dined at over two decades earlier. When they get to the proper location, our boys are genuinely shocked that their favourite steak joint has been shuttered and turned into the local bookie's office.

Back home they prep and perform in a major touring show that premieres on Prince Edward Island and continues across Canada. Trevor Markle informs us that the fellas are on their way to Winnipeg. The show ends with Wayne & Shuster costumed as voyageurs, travelling from Toronto to Winnipeg by kayak.

If you're a Wayne and Shuster fan, you'll bust a gut. If not, you'll still enjoy the nostalgia of it all. It also looks grand because it was shot at a time when such programs were captured on black and white film. It sure beats the crap out of videotape and even digital.

The Wayne & Shuster Glory Days

Wayne & Shuster in Black and White is a three-part special from 1997 hosted by Frank Shuster (Johnny Wayne died of brain cancer in 1990). The emphasis is upon sketches from the 50s and 60s, which are not without amusement value (more so for fans) and perfectly representative of the literate, laid back Canadian humour the duo specialized in. The sketches include classic spoofs of movies like Ben-Hur, Shakespeare plays and old westerns.

As a kid in the 60s, I pretty much thought Wayne and Shuster were the dullest, most unhip comedians on TV. That said, I watched all their programs anyway and got a special thrill whenever I saw them on the decidedly uncool Ed Sullivan Show.

It's decades later now, though, and no matter what I thought as a kid, I have to admit to getting weepy and nostalgic over both of these programs. And yes, I laughed a lot. That's ultimately what any comedian wants.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: *** Three Stars

An Affectionate Look at Wayne & Shuster and Wayne & Shuster in Black and White are part of the stellar archival lineup that the Toronto Jewish Film Festival (TJFF 2016) excels at like no other film festival in Canada.

SANDRA (Vaghe stelle dell'orsa…) - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Electra Myth Sizzles as magnificent melodrama under Luchino Visconti's masterful rendering, screened on ALL-NEW 4K restoration at TIFF Bell Lightbox Cinematheque series "SUMMER IN ITALY", programmed by the inimitable James Quandt.

Sandra - Vaghe stelle dell'orsa… (1965)
Dir. Luchino Visconti
Starring: Claudia Cardinale, Jean Sorel,
Michael Craig, Fred Williams, Marie Bell, Renzo Ricci

Review By Greg Klymkiw

I can think of few juicier morsels of grand melodrama than Luchino Visconti's Sandra (Vaghe stelle dell'orsa…), a modern re-imagining of the Greek myth involving Electra, the Princess of Argos, who, in cahoots with brother Orestes, spins a mad plot to avenge the death of their father King Agamemnon at the hands of Queen Clytemnestra and their stepfather Aegisthus.

Visconti, however, never content to merely ape his inspirations, takes the aforementioned narrative base and careens wildly into the territory of an opera plunged into the deepest depths of genuinely perverse sexual obsession. (A layer of wartime collaboration, Auschwitz and a reclamation of Jewish Heritage is stirred in for good measure along with attempted rape and suicide for those so inclined.)

With the astoundingly baroque black and white cinematography of Armando Nannuzzi, Visconti spins a (seemingly) measured yarn which mounts ever-so broodingly to a shocking, over-the-top climax and a denouement which is as fraught with irony as it is deeply moving.

Beginning at a swank cocktail party in Paris and winding up amongst petty bourgeoisie squabbling within an ancient, crumbling, family estate in the provincial Italian enclave of Volterra, Sandra is a grandly entertaining belly flop into a pool of madness and incest. It makes the sordid spectacles of Giuseppe Verdi at his most floridly, bombastically romantic seem quaint and subtle.

Where Sandra deviates from the Elektra myth is in substituting the sexuality of Daddy worship (and competing with Mommy for Daddy's love) to a deep sexual spark between the sister (ravishing Claudia Cardinale as the title character) and brother Gianni (dreamy Jean Sorel) as a reaction to the siblings' joint belief that their long-dead Jewish scientist father was betrayed to the Nazis and Fascists by their Antisemitic concert pianist mother (Marie Bell) who has now gone completely insane and the mad matriarch's blusteringly petty lover and eventual second husband (Renzo Ricci).

Add to this mix Sandra's loving, but clueless American husband (Michael Craig) and the hunky town doctor (Fred Williams) who still carries a torch for her and we've got ourselves a heady brew, indeed.

Much of the action is centred within the family estate. Sandra and her hubby are visiting to convene at a special ceremony honouring her late father who died at Auschwitz. It's a nice enough tribute, but its reason for being is that the family fortunes are dwindling and the once massive grounds can no longer be cared for. They've been taken over by the town as a Memorial Park dedicated to Sandra's Dad.

There is much in the manner of slinking and skulking about the corridors, corners and shadows of the once grand old house, along with all manner of hushed whispers, most of them related to the unholy relations twixt Sandra and Orestes. The only time vocal timbres gush out full throttle are when we meet Mad Momma who screeches out her various hatreds and regrets with considerable bile and lung power.

The centrepiece of the entire picture is the voluptuous, pouty-lipped, big-ole-dark-eyed Claudia Cardinale, who manages to acquit herself as both a fine actress and ravishing camera-loves-her sexpot.

As is his wont, Visconti allows us to wallow in the majestic mire of the melodrama to our hearts' content, but for those seeking added noggin stimuli (the noggin that thinks, of course), Visconti handily invests the movie with moments of sheer visual poetry and much in the way of historical, social and class-related ruminations. Happily, one can take one's pick or go for the fully loaded big banana split of sex, sin, art and politics.

It's the Visconti way, God Bless Him.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: *****

Sandra is playing in Toronto at the TIFF BELL LIGHTBOX. For dates, times and tickets, visit their website HERE. For those who cannot make it to Toronto, a gorgeous import DVD from Italy is available through Amazon. One hopes it's merely a matter of time before the 4K restoration will be available for sell-through on Blu-Ray.

The Region 2 Italian Import of Sandra can be ordered directly via the links below (and as such, contribute to the ongoing maintenance of The Film Corner).

In Canada order HERE

In USA order HERE

In UK order HERE

THE MOMENT OF TRUTH - Review By Greg Klymkiw - This is a great film! But I HATE it!

This idiotically attired fop believes
he's a Man among Men because he teases,
tortures and slaughters a living creature
in front of screaming morons
who pay money to see this butchery.
Culture? If you want to call it that, be my guest.
Ignorance? Savagery? Stupidity? Yes!

Story of a Loser!!!

The Moment of Truth (1965) ***½
dir. Francesco Rosi
Starring: Miguel Mateo 'Miguelín', Linda Christian, Pedro Basauri

Review By Greg Klymkiw

It's probably a "cultural thang", but I just don't get bullfighting. It's a vicious, cruel and morally reprehensible "sport" (if you can even call it that) that involves teasing, torturing, then murdering a bull for the enjoyment of blood-lusting plebes (I include the "elite" here too) in mostly Spanish-speaking countries. Actually, I'll go further - call it ethnocentric or even racist if you will (and I will care less) - but anyone who would engage actively or enjoy watching this odious "art" (if you can even call it that) has got to have something seriously wrong with them. Yes, I'm aware of bullfighting's historical "importance" to Spanish "culture" (if you can even call it that), but why and how this crime against animals can continue in this day and age is beyond me.

And yes, I consider the teasing, torturing and wanton slaughter of animals a crime. Just because it's "cultural" doesn't mean reasonable, thinking people must accept its existence.

Thousands of stupid people who enjoy watching
animals tortured and slaughtered for sport.

There is a long tradition of bullfighting movies; the most well-known being the various versions of Blood and Sand (most notably the silent 1922 Rudolf Valentino version and Rouben Mamoulian's 1941 effort for Fox) and Budd Boetticher's studio butchered and recently restored The Bullfighter and the Lady. The above films are not without merit as films, but none of them can hold a candle to Francesco Rosi's The Moment of Truth.

I hate this movie, BUT The Moment of Truth is important on three fronts.

First of all, it's dazzling filmmaking. Secondly, it reflects the society and politics of Spain in the 1960s in ways that also shed light on the macho-blood-lust culture that would so proudly continue to extol the virtues of this heinous activity. Finally, it is an exquisite addition to the canon of the brilliant Italian director Francesco Rosi (Salvatore Giuliano, Hands Over the City, The Mattei Affair, Lucky Luciano) and, in fact, is a perfect melding of his Neo-realist and operatic tendencies (and influences).

The movie does not glorify bullfighting, but rather, it takes a no-holds-barred look at the entire world of the "sport/art" - behind the scenes and in the public spotlight. Rosi's film charts the rise of bullfighter Miguel Mateo 'Miguelín', an aimless young man who desperately seeks a better life and painstakingly learns the bullfighting ropes and rises to the top of the game. In spite of his stardom, he's still a simple country boy at heart and his handlers push him to ever-dangerous heights - exploiting him with absolutely no regard for his well-being. Miguel kills the bulls, but the men of influence kill his spirit and, in so doing, further feed the the centuries-old blood-lust of the "people".

Rosi's mise-en-scène is phenomenal. Attacking the tale with a mixture of classical, yet baroque shots reminiscent of his mentor Luchino Visconti, yet training his eye on the proceedings as a neo-realist storyteller and documentarian, this is a film that clearly springs from the loins of a born filmmaker. Sequences involving the running of bulls through the streets as their hides are pierced with ribbon-adorned harpoons, the dank basement of the bullring where Migeulin is trained by retired bullfighter Pedrucho (Pedro Basauri), the dusty rings themselves - surrounded by hordes of slavering, blood-crazed fans - these images are clearly unforgettable and, most importantly, are the real thing.

When we see fear in Migeulin's eyes as he faces an angry, snorting bull, this is not acting - it's the real thing. No rear-screen projection or opticals a la Blood and Sand are used here. It's real bullfighters, real swords, real gorings and real bulls.

While it is clear that Rosi's intent is to expose the macho myths of this world, I still find it sickening to watch. Even though it's SUPPOSED to be sickening, having to watch it is not unlike what it must be for non-pedophiles to watch real kiddie porn. Filmmakers who must take horrendous things to extremes in order to expose truth (like Kubrick, Pasolini, Scorsese, Friedkin etc.) do so within the realm of recreating violence. In The Moment of Truth, violence, pain and suffering happen for real and Rosi captures it on film with all the power and panache one would expect from a great filmmaker.

For Rosi to tell this story and explore the theme of the violent exploitation of man and beast - for him to break-down the perverse sense of masculinity that infuses the lives of those on both sides of the bullfighting world - he must, like all great artists avoid any sense of morality that will interfere with the horrors he seeks to display.

I understand this, but it doesn't mean I have to like it.

The most upsetting thing is seeing animals being teased painfully with the harpoons and to witness these beasts actually being stuck with swords, to watch - mouth agape - as real blood gushes out of these poor animals and worst of all, to bear witness to these animals having their spinal columns crushed with the cold steel of the torero's sword (and see even more blood gushing out of thee animals) is, frankly, more sickening than watching the re-created scourging and crucifixion of Our Lord in Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ.

In spite of my revulsion, I cannot deny that Rosi is at the top of his game here. This is brave and brilliant filmmaking. However, in order to expose exploitation, Rosi must also exploit his human and animal subjects. It's even more detestable that he focuses his camera so astoundingly and unflinchingly upon the balletic grace with which the bullfighters taunt their quarry and then kill it.

There's no two ways about it.

I admire this film and I respect it.

I also hate it and wish it had never been made.

"The Moment of Truth" is available on an exquisitely mastered Bluray on the Criterion Collection - a widescreen Technicolor print that's a perfect example of a terrible beauty. The release includes a new English subtitle translation, a handsome booklet and an interview with Rosi himself.

THE DEADLY BEES - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Brit horror from Hammer rival Amicus features Bees That Kill

The Deadly Bees (1967) **1/2
dir. Freddie Francis
Starring: Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, Patrick Wymark, Jill Bennett, Michael Gough, Patrick Magee, Peter Woodthorpe, Nigel Green, George Coulouris

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Can any movie featuring a whole passel of deadly bee attacks AND a cameo appearance by the inimitable Ron Wood be all bad? The answer is a resounding, “No!” That said, The Deadly Bees, a fun Freddie Francis-helmed thriller for British Hammer Horror rival Amicus Pictures is one of many pictures that received derisive scorn from those agog alien movie critics on the legendary spoof show MST3K - Mystery Science Theatre 3000 (where, for the uninitiated, a feature length movie is screened whilst the aforementioned non-humans barf out a steady stream of mocking verbal wisecracks as the picture unspools).

Frankly, I’ve never understood the appeal of MST3K. It’s a one-note joke and not an especially funny one – ridiculing a bunch of supremely easy targets like Grade Z horror and sci-fi and even occasionally mocking genuinely good fantasy pictures like Alexander Rou’s exquisite Russian fairy tale Morozko.

The Deadly Bees, another in a series of pictures from the Paramount library that have been farmed out to the cool, little company Legend Pictures for DVD release, is not, I suppose, an especially good picture, but it does pass the time amiably and is definitely not without entertainment value.

Vicki Robbins (played by a scrumptious Suzannah Leigh, Elvis Presley’s squeeze in Paradise, Hawaiian Style and the girls’ school dance teacher in the immortal Hammer Karnstein classic Lust For a Vampire) is a British pop star suffering from exhaustion and ordered by her doctor to a rustic locale on an island in northern UK for some much needed rest. While there, she becomes embroiled in a strange rivalry between her host Ralph (Guy Dolman), his harridan wife Mary (Catherine Finn) and their neighbour Professor Manfred (the always-great Frank Finlay). Ralph and Manfred, it seems, are rival beekeepers. I kid you not.

On an island – in northern England, no less – with a population that appears not to exceed the low budget the picture allowed, there are two – count ‘em – two beekeepers. One, Ralph, appears to have no reason to raise bees. The other, Manfred, is a scientist who is studying them. And what of the rivalry between them? Well, it appears as if both are accusing each other of raising strains of psycho bees to attack and destroy their respective bee farms – and ultimately, each other.

Excuse me, MST3K, but why, pray tell is such a picture worthy of your pea-brained, one-note derision? This is rich material. Stupid, yes – but it is most certainly entertaining and often so ludicrous that there really seems no point in mocking it. In fact, I always find people who dump on pictures like these to be snobs who get off on shooting fish in a barrel. The Deadly Bees is NEVER boring and is ALWAYS engaging.

It is, as I said though, unbelievably stupid – especially when our comely pop star turns into Nancy Drew and begins to delve into the mystery of the bees and their decidedly odd keepers.

The team behind this picture has obviously done better work. Freddie Francis, the legendary cinematographer and director will not be forever remembered for The Deadly Bees, but he handles the action with considerable proficiency. Co-writer Robert (Psycho) Bloch can rest assured that he’s written better pictures than this, but the plot and dialogue in this one are still exactly what the doctor ordered when it comes to genre amusement-value. The special effects, while old fashioned, have a fun retro quality to them and frankly, I found the bee attacks to be reasonably effective with the blend of makeup and optical printing.

The Deadly Bees is not, in any way, shape or form exceptional work. It is, however, not worthy of mockery and if one has 90 minutes to waste, there are many other ways to spend them less entertainingly. Its sting is definitely intact.

And have I mentioned that Ron Wood cameo yet?

“The Deadly Bees” is available on DVD from Legend Films.

THE SPY WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD - Review By Greg Klymkiw - WOW! God Bless the Criterion Collection!

The Spy Who Came In From The Cold (1965) *****
Dir. Martin Ritt
Starring: Richard Burton, Claire Bloom, Oskar Werner, Sam Wanamaker, Rupert Davies, Cyril Cusack, Peter van Eyck, Michael Hordern

Review By Greg Klymkiw

"What the hell do you think spies are? Moral philosophers measuring everything they do against the word of God or Karl Marx? They're not! They're just a bunch of seedy, squalid bastards like me: little men, drunkards, queers, hen-pecked husbands, civil servants playing cowboys and Indians to brighten their rotten little lives. Do you think they sit like monks in a cell, balancing right against wrong?" - Richard Burton as Alex Leamas in Martin Ritt's film adaptation of John le Carré's The Spy Who Came In From The Cold

There are few films that approach the overwhelming sight, sound and almost rank smell of damp cold as Martin Ritt's extraordinary adaptation of John le Carré's classic novel of dirty, double-dealing espionage in London and East Germany at the height of the Cold War. It's a movie that will have haunted anyone who saw it when it first came out and it continues to hold up superbly as a sad, yet strangely suspenseful plunge into the dirty business of spying. As an adaptation from a genuinely great literary source, it's both faithful to the spirit of its writer and yet a superb entity unto itself. For those who have not read John le Carré's book, I suggest that you, like I, see the movie first, then dive into the words of a true master to supplement Ritt's phenomenal interpretation of this genuinely great work of 20th Century literature.

Alex Leamas (Richard Burton) is a spy - weary, bitter and yet, not quite ready to leave the only life he's ever known - the foul world of double-crossing to keep the West safe from the scourge of Communism - a blight not all that far removed from the purported freedoms of Democracy. He knows he's little more than a nasty, lying bureaucrat with nothing left but cynicism and the skill to do what he does - to what end, he continues to even question - but to forge on, he must. His mission is to stay out "in the cold" which is to say, he must keep his carcass embroiled in the Cold War for yet another stinking job.

This time out, will not be much of a stretch. He'll live a life of alcohol abuse and loneliness until taken in by a sweet young librarian (Claire Bloom) with leftist ideals and ties. He'll hopefully be targeted by Eastern-Bloc double agents to sell out Blighty for some filthy lucre - though in so doing, he'll be part of a master chess game played out by his boss Control (Cyril Cusack) and agent George Smiley (Rupert Davies) - characters respectively played by John Hurt and Gary Oldman in the great Tomas Alfredson 2011 film adaptation Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy of 2011.

Eventually approached by the gay Brit traitor Ashe (Michael Hordern), he's placed in the hands of Peters (Sam Wanamaker, the superb blacklisted American actor) who transports Leamas behind the Iron Curtain to spill his guts out to the German-Jew Fiedler (Oskar Werner) whose ultimate goal is to out the vicious anti-Semite assassin Mundt (Peter van Eyck) and hence allow the Germans to execute their own man instead of getting Brit hands dirty.

Needless to say, things will go seriously wrong.

Ritt, of course, was perhaps one of the best directors to tackle this material - his ability to work within genres that required a much more humanist quality while maintaining a sense of razzle-dazzle is what made Hud such a tremendous revisionist take on the American West and so much of his later work continued in this tradition. Of course, as had already been established, Ritt was also a master of eliciting terrific performances and there is not a single false note from any actor in this powerful antithesis to the over-the-top derring-do of the James Bond franchise from the same period. The violence in Bond was pure cartoon viscera, le Carré's was just plain viscera and while Bond was banging anything and everything of the female persuasion, le Carré'gave Alex Leamas one single, gentle woman - a born victim due to high ideals and someone Leamas could genuinely love.

Legendary Brit cinematographer Oswald Morris created such a sumptuous range of grey here, which proves again just how much we've lost by not using genuine black and white FILM more often in the modern world of cinema and just how much the medium stands to lose by its full-on conversion to both digital photography and theatrical presentation. Morris also dazzles us with the fact that black and white is as replete with "colour" in its myriad of shades as anything splashed in full-on technicolor.

The Spy Who Came In From The Cold might well be the greatest espionage thriller ever made and this is certainly no mean-feat - especially when one considers how extraordinary Tomas Alfredson's Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy was. Granted, the films were based upon le Carré books separated by a few years (and lest we forget the huge span of over 40 years between films), but it's certainly a testament to Alfredson that he superbly dabbled with a completely different end-of-era take than Ritt - one didn't even live through as Ritt had. Ritt, of course, was well acquainted with one of the effects of the Cold War - the McCarthy witch hunts and years later made the very powerful blacklist drama The Front from Walter Bernstein's great screenplay. Also, Alfredson's source material proved, in many ways, far more challenging given that it centred almost solely upon the inside bureaucratic wrangling of British Intelligence whereas Ritt had the advantage of being "in the Cold" (as it were).

Burton and Oldman both proved to be extraordinary actors to render the two very different le Carré heroes - Oldman's poker face was perfectly in keeping with the role of George Smiley. Burton, however, had quite a few more opportunities to chew the scenery with his role, but he proved, as he so often did, that with the right role, material and director, he was an unstoppable force and when he needed to maintain a poker face, as he needed to here, he did it better than anyone.

Finally, The Spy Who Came In From The Cold, plays very much closer to tragedy - so much so, that it manages to have as much resonance now, if not more than it did at the time of its release. The Cold War of le Carré's work is long behind us and yet, we're currently in the midst of more than one Cold War - the "War" on Terror and the rise and seeming unstoppability of the Stalin-like Vladimir Putin (not to mention the conflicts between the West and countries like China and Northern Korea). Characters like the one played by Burton, Alex Leamas, are as numerous and expendable in today's dirty world of international espionage as they ever were. John le Carré and Martin Ritt, rendered works that were, like all great tragic tales, universal and timeless.

And here we are, 48 years later and The Spy Who Came In From The Cold feels like it could have been made just yesterday. If that's not universal, nothing is.

The Criterion Collection Blu-Ray is yet another masterpiece of home entertainment bravado and will hopefully introduce a whole new generation or two to the genius of Ritt's great film. The disc is replete with a bevy of fascinating extra features. Included in the presentation are the following: An all-new, high-definition digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack, a new exclusive interview with author John le Carré, a selected scene-specific commentary with Oswald Morris, The Secret Center: John le Carré, a 2000 BBC documentary on the author’s life and work, an interview with actor Richard Burton from a 1967 episode of the BBC series Acting in the ’60s, conducted by critic Kenneth Tynan, an audio conversation from 1985 between director Martin Ritt and film historian Patrick McGilligan, a gallery of set designs, the trailer and booklet featuring a Michael Sragow essay.

Milestone Rogosin Restoration joins Greg Klymkiw's 10 Best List of Blu-Ray/DVD Releases of 2012 - Today's Accolade is ON THE BOWERY, the American masterpiece of Cinéma Vérité documentary filmmaking.

The Best Blu-Ray and DVD Releases

of 2012 as decreed by Greg Klymkiw

This was a stellar year for Blu-Ray and DVD collectors that it's been difficult to whittle my personal favourites down to a mere 10 releases. So hang on to your hats as I'll be presenting a personal favourite release from 2012 EACH and EVERY single day that will comprise my Top 10. At the end of all the daily postings, I'll combine the whole kit and kaboodle into one mega-post with all titles listed ALPHABETICALLY. My criteria for inclusion is/was thus: 1. The movie (or movies). How much do I love it/them? 2. How much do I love owning this product? 3. How many times will I re-watch it? 4. Is the overall physical packaging to my liking? 5. Do I like the picture and sound? There was one more item I used to assess the material. For me it was the last and LEAST area of consideration - one that probably surprise most, but frankly, has seldom been something I care that much about. For me, unless supplements really knock me on my butt, their inclusion is not that big of a deal. That said, I always go though supplements with a fine tooth comb and beyond any personal pleasure they deliver (or lack thereof), I do consider the educational value of such supplements for those studying film and/or those who might benefit from them in some fashion (film students or not). So, without further ado, here goes.

GREG KLYMKIW'S 10 BEST BLU-RAY & DVD RELEASES OF 2012 (WHICH WILL BE COMPILED IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER IN ONE FINAL MEGA-POST). TODAY'S TITLE (MORE TO FOLLOW ON SUBSEQUENT DAYS) IS NONE OTHER THAN:

If this list was not alphabetical, "On The Bowery: The Films of Lionel Rogosin", available on a sumptuous Blu-Ray or DVD package from <a href="http://www.milestonefilms.com/">Milestone Films</a> would probably be #1. Not only do you get the stunning restoration of the title film, but this stellar package includes Rogosin's powerful 1957 short "Out" which deals with the displaced person refugee camps in Europe and his exquisite experimental documentary "Good Times, Wonderful Times" which juxtaposes the pretensions on display during a bourgeois party with the most sickening footage from the Holocaust and Hiroshima. Add to this mix a collection of archival films and several eye-opening documentaries on Rogosin and the making of "On The Bowery" and you have a magnificent item to cherish, study and watch over and over again.

On The Bowery (1956) dir. Lionel Rogosin
Starring: Ray Salter, Gorman Hendricks

*****

By Greg Klymkiw

"Rogosin is probably the greatest documentary filmmaker of all time." - John Cassavetes

"Postwar America experienced a dramatic economic expansion, sustained prosperity, and a huge population increase. By the 1950s, the United States ... manufactured half the world's goods, possessed over 40 percent of the world's income, and had by far the highest standard of living."- National Archives, USA

Postwar prosperity in America is a myth - bought and paid for at a very dear cost to a generation of forgotten men. This had far-reaching implications upon future generations and the nation as a whole. The ramifications of a somewhat spurious development of a middle class are felt today in ways the American people probably never imagined.

Not even in their wildest dreams would anyone have conjured the near-dystopian widening between rich and poor that's so prevalent in today's America. It's a history of building up a teat-suckling dependence upon greed and waste on the backs of those most vulnerable and susceptible to exploitation. During the early post-war era, this facade-of-plenty engendered escape in bottles of cheap booze and a class of working men who were sneered at - if and when they were noticed or remembered at all.

Cinema and indeed, mankind as a whole, owes a debt of gratitude to the late filmmaker Lionel Rogosin. Inspired by the Italian neorealist movement and in particular, the work of Vittorio (Bicycle Thieves) DeSica as well as the groundbreaking docudrama work of Robert (Nanook of the North) Flaherty and Lewis Milestone's evocative film adaptation of Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front, Rogosin created an important body of work. He gave voice to the disenfranchised in a style that built upon his chief influences and his own life experience experience whilst developing a unique style that was all his own.

Rogosin influenced such diverse talents as Cassavetes (Shadows), Scorsese (Who's That Knocking at My Door?) and the realist vérité of UK's "Angry Young Man" genre, including John Schlesinger (Terminus, Midnight Cowboy).

Rogosin earned a degree in Chemical Engineering at Yale and was poised to join his father's textile firm when World War II interrupted these career plans and he ended up serving in the Navy. His experiences during the war and especially after the war, when he travelled through the debris of a decimated Europe, affected him deeply. Returning to America, he did not stay with his father's firm long, deciding to pursue his interest in human rights, activism and cinema.

His ultimate goal was to create work that would benefit mankind.

On The Bowery was his first film - so extraordinary that it attracted the attention of the British film collective the Free Cinema - whose members included Lindsay Anderson, Karel Reizs and Tony Richardson. Along with Schlesinger, Rogosin was a chief influence upon the New Wave of British Cinema and they were the movers and shakers behind presenting his work to British audiences.

John Cassavetes declared: "Rogosin is probably the greatest documentary filmmaker of all time." He tempers the justifiable hyperbole with the word "probably", but it's certainly no stretch to place Lionel Rogosin in the unequivocal pantheon of great documentarians of all time. Cassavetes's respect for Rogosin was merely the tip of the iceberg.

In fact, Rogosin's importance to cinema has seldom been paralleled. He pioneered the forward movement of cinéma vérité (using the camera to provoke reality by blending "fly-on-the-wall" direct cinema with stylized approaches and specific set-ups that utilize overt narrative technique), thus forging a path that opened up a whole world of great filmmaking. I'd argue strenuously that without Rogosin, things might well have been a lot different.

The art form, the genre of documentary itself might not have easily yielded the work subsequently provided by the likes of Sinofsky/Berlinger, Michael Moore, Nick Broomfield, Ulrich Seidl, Claude Jutra, Michel Brault, Allan King, Albert/David Maysles, Alan Zweig, Peter Lynch, Nik Sheehan, D.A. Pennebaker, Fredrik Gertten, Barbara Kopple and frankly, a list that could stretch on for a few more miles.

On The Bowery, his first film (and surely one of the great first films in the history of cinema), focuses the camera upon the lives of America's forgotten men who lived in the squalor of the Bowery in New York City. Once an upscale neighbourhood, the Bowery transformed - almost overnight - into a symbol of urban blight.

When the city built a series of overhead train tracks in the area, it created an endless cacophony and worse, it blocked the daylight - enshrouding the Bowery in darkness, shadow and shade.

Slats of hazy sun crept into the district like a ghostly filter. Occasional dollops of sunlight where no track existed played tricks on the eye and seemed even brighter, more hyper-intense than it normally would have been.

Seedy hotels, flophouses, pawn shops, soup kitchens and sleazy taverns became the lifeblood of the district. Attracting a generation-or-three of men who had suffered through war, these aimlessly shell-shocked victims of American prosperity and might, eked out a living as seasonal and migratory labourers - many of whom "rode the rails", risking the brutality of rail bulls, a criminal element and even incarceration.

They sought cheap rent and cheap booze to drown their pain and sorrow. Blowing their earnings on potent mescal and beer chasers, a lot of them couldn't even afford flea-bitten flophouses and lived on the street. The Bowery ran rampant with homelessness.

Essentially, Rogosin fashioned a "dramatic" construct to examine the lives of these men. He found two exceptional real-life personalities and followed the simple tale of Ray Salter and Gorman Hendricks whilst using montages of the Bowery and its residents as transitional bookends and punctuation marks. All the gnarled, grizzled and blotchy mugs Rogosin picked to populate the film are completely and without qualification photogenic in extremis.

Ray Salter, however, was a rugged, handsome and relatively young man who came to the Bowery with money in his pocket and a spring in his step. With his two-fisted good looks - a Joel McCrae-type with a Barrymore profile - Ray was so critically praised and profiled in magazines and newspapers that he eventually received numerous offers to act in Hollywood.

Sadly, this was not in the cards for poor Ray.

The tale told in On The Bowery is true. At a sleazy bar, Ray meets the friendly Bowery veteran Gorman. In short order, they become close friends. Of a sort. Ray is slyly coerced into buying so many rounds of drinks that he eventually pawns a good many of his possessions. There are, however, a few items dear to Ray and he won't part with them, but in one massive blind drunk, he passes out on the street and what little he has left is stolen and hocked.

While dependent upon alcohol, Ray still maintains hopes and dreams of kicking the demon fire-water and leave "The Life" of the Bowery behind. Ray was, no doubt an alcoholic to begin with, but over time, like all the rest, he's sucked into the patterns so deep-seeded in the place and time. His desire to dry-out is sadly not strong enough to withstand the physiological toll alcohol takes upon him. Even in this day and age, alcoholism is a horribly misunderstood disease that's compounded by societal prejudice - ascribing personal "weakness" to the affliction. While help exists now, it's still far from adequate. In Ray's day, help was virtually non-existent.

As for poor Ray, the Hollywood dream dried up when he hit the open road and was never seen nor heard from ever again. Given the cards dealt to America's forgotten men, this is not so much a mystery, but the reality of what happened to so much of humanity.

The squalor and poverty in On The Bowery is, at times, shocking - not, however, because we're agog at how things were. In a sense, this portrait of disenfranchisement, whilst very specific to the postwar era and a neighbourhood long-transformed and almost gentrified, the sad fact of the matter is that the lives of Ray, Gorman and all the others in this film continue all over the world and in North America specifically, these conditions are escalating to a frightening degree.

Rogosin's camera eye never flinches from the filth, pain and inhumanity perpetrated against these men of the Bowery.

There are women too - alcoholic old whores offering their bodies in the bars to anyone who will buy them drinks. In some cases, they're hoping their johns will have a place to sleep for the night or vice versa.

Most of the men who can afford it, though, will stay in flophouses - no women allowed - where they're shoved into open-ceilinged cubicles covered with wire cages.


The men are essentially incarcerated - perhaps not in literal jails or prisons, but by the indigent lifestyle they've been forced into. The scenes in the flophouses are so evocative, one can almost recoil from the stench of filth, sweat and disease.

The film is replete, however, with so many aspects of humanity. A lot of what's extraordinary in the picture are the unbelievably funny, poignant and even dangerous moments captured in the bars where we follow mildly "improvised" conversations between the men. Rogosin "sets-up" certain "scenarios", but what we see is ultimately the real thing. Ray and Gorman are a great team - not only cinematically, but within the reality that unfolds - one of father-son, veteran-naif and teacher-student.

What the film ultimately exposes are the forgotten men - all those who were (and still are) abandoned, by society, family (if any are even left) and (like so many war vets) their country.

Rogosin's almost benign provocation of these men exposes their very hearts and minds. This, if anything, is what makes this one of the most stunningly moving portraits of humanity ever committed to film. Rogosin gives them a voice and presence they deserve - or at the least, a celluloid epitaph instead of a potter's field.

They're humanized in ways only the camera can achieve. Rogosin's sensitive caring eye helps us get to know these sad, yet extraordinary "ordinary" men who gave up everything for their country.

Everything!

Holding on to what scraps of existence are left for them, numbing their deep pain with booze and finding a sense of family with each other, Lionel Rogosin - documentary filmmaker extraordinaire - gives them a voice and on film, a place in the world.

The men of the Bowery, lest we forget, are remembered forever.

Support This Site By Ordering Your Copy of ON THE BOWERY from Amazon at the links below

In USA and the rest of the WORLD - BUY On the Bowery - HERE!

In Canada - BUY On the Bowery HERE, eh!

In the UNITED KINGDOM - BUY On the Bowery - HERE!

THE CINCINNATI KID - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Norman Jewison's lollapalooza of a movie that sizzles today as much as when it was first made.

The Cincinnati Kid (1965) dir. Norman Jewison
Starring: Steve McQueen, Edward G. Robinson, Ann-Margaret, Karl Malden, Tuesday Weld, Joan Blondell, Rip Torn, Cab Calloway, Milton Selzer, Jeff Corey

***1/2

Review By Greg Klymkiw

These days it's hard to for me to watch Norman Jewison's The Cincinnati Kid without wondering about the picture that could have been if its original director Sam Peckinpah had not been replaced after only two weeks of shooting.

This, of course, is always the problem with knowing too much about a movie before you see it and why in recent years I've refused to watch trailers, read reviews and/or puff pieces and resist, as best I can, the onslaught of publicity accompanying virtually every new theatrical release. It's tough to do, but I've been pretty successful at having a relatively clean slate when I see movies now.

Not so with older films, though.

And knowing too much kept me away from The Cincinnati Kid for far too long.

My first helping of Jewison's thrilling, finely crafted ode to the world of back-room poker games was at the age of six or seven and I distinctly recall loving it for many years afterwards and trying to see it whenever it was replayed on television (uh, we didn't have home entertainment options other than broadcast television, kids, and some of us didn't even have cable television until we were in our teen years or older).

What I remember most is loving Steve McQueen. I can't think of any kids my age who DIDN'T love him. He was the antithesis to established stalwarts like John Wayne and even the up-and-coming (oh yes, there was such a time) Clint Eastwood.

Steve McQueen was cool! Super cool! His laconic, tight-lipped brand of manhood was what WE all wanted to be as red-blooded young males. The Duke was what we wanted our fathers to be and Clint was, well, Clint - a screen hero ON-screen, but untouchable as a persona - even in our imaginations.

Kind of like Jesus Christ.

With Steve McQueen, though, it was so easy to slip into his shoes in both fantasy and play. He was the modern man and most importantly, EVERY MAN. And damn, if boys did not want to be MEN! And the man we chose to be, the man we imagined we could be, was McQueen.

The other thing I remember loving as a kid was the WORLD of The Cincinnati Kid. Like The Hustler, it depicted cool guys smoking Marlies or Luckies, surrounded by gorgeous dames (yes, DAMES, not WOMEN) who adored them. And they played games for a living instead of working. And they played hard.

What wasn't to love?

As the years advanced, The Cincinnati Kid faded from my thoughts and Robert Rossen's The Hustler replaced it as the movie to beat in the men-who-play-games genre. This certainly made sense in terms of how my tastes developed - something about the hip, breezy mid-60s style of Jewison's approach to the tale began to pale against my discovery and re-discovery of late 50s on-the-sleeve male angst of Walter Tevis's novel of the poolhall-hustle and Robert Rossen's grim, sweat-drenched film adaptation.

In addition to this, I became increasingly obsessive with the work of Sam Peckinpah and upon learning that the iconoclastic genius had been the original director of The Cincinnati Kid, I immediately wanted to know more about THAT movie - a movie that didn't even really exist except in Peckinpah's mind and by extension, ours.

During most of my early adult life, the only information I could find on the matter was a handful of odd reports in the trades about how Peckinpah was behind schedule, over-budget and most of all, wasting precious shooting hours on lascivious nude footage of an actress in bed with Rip Torn, the co-star and chief villain of The Cincinnati Kid.

Peckinpah's firing from the picture led to a long period of inactivity. He had, as it turned out, become persona non Grata in Hollywood.

More years chugged by and long after Peckinpah's death, I continued to watch and re-watch his work, while through this time, all I could think about was how Peckinpah could have brought his penchant for the grubby grotesqueness of life to the world of hardcore poker players. God knows, Peckinpah lived life as mean and hard as the men in his films and looking at his most personal work, Bring Me The Head Of Alfredo Garcia, the mere IDEA of Peckinpah directing The Cincinnati Kid was enough to get me salivating.

In 2001, David Weddle's great book "If They Move, Kill 'Em - The Life and Times of Sam Peckinpah" was published and for the first time, it became clear what happened. Peckinpah was hired by one of the least creative producers in Hollywood.

An inveterate deal maker, Martin Ransohoff's company Filmways specialized in television commercials, and then rural-based TV sitcoms like "The Beverly Hillbilles", "Green Acres" and "Petticoat Junction" and years later, the long-running game show "Hollywood Squares".

Ransohoff initially thought of The Cincinnati Kid as a western with playing cards instead of guns and was thrilled to have Peckinpah, the director of the acclaimed western Ride The High Country on board. Peckinpah started the project that had no script save for a long treatment by Paddy Chayefsky. Eventually, the treatment was cobbled into a screenplay by Ring Lardner Jr. and Terry Southern. Peckinpah took the writing he liked best and made the movie his own. And as always, he did a lot of the writing himself - uncredited, of course.

Ransohoff, for his part, wanted to make - no kidding, these are his words - a "Popsicle".

Shooting in black and white, Peckinpah retained a labour riot from Ring Lardner's script, dehumanized the female characters - objectifying them - not out of misogyny, but as a realistic comment on this male-dominated sub-culture of high-stakes back-room poker and, as was Peckinpah's wont, he added higher levels of violence and sex.

What a movie!

It was, however, never finished.

Ransohoff viewed two weeks of rushes, declared them as "dour" and promptly fired Peckinpah.

Peckinpah's previous picture, Major Dundee - a film that had "masterpiece" written all over it until the moronic producer on that one, Jerry Bresler, took the picture away from "Bloody Sam" in post-production and butchered it - going so far as to maliciously and intentionally sabotage the picture and lay blame on its director.

Bresler obsessively chided Ransohoff in the early going of The Cincinnati Kid - claiming a "maniac" was now at the helm. Peckinpah ignored all stupid suggestions from Ransohoff (which, it seems, were ALL stupid) .

Once shooting began, Ransohoff never went near the set. He sent a bum boy to spy while he busied himself on deal-making for future productions and oversaw his myriad of television productions - no doubt spending an inordinate amount of time auditioning swine for the role of "Arnold the pig" on the series "Petticoat Junction". The spy told tales out of school to his boss - all of which have since been publicly refuted by all major players on the set.

For his part, Peckinpah staged a fight scene, a chase scene and a labour riot with 200 extras. According to numerous witnesses on-set, he latter sequence was brilliantly and efficiently shot in ONE DAY!!!

Hardly the work of an out-of-control maniac.

Alas, Ransohoff wanted his "Popsicle" and did what needed to be done. He hired Norman Jewison. Surely the director of 40 Pounds of Trouble and Send Me No Flowers was just what the doctor ordered.

Jewison, as it turned out, had no intention of making a "Popsicle". He had already made his fair share of cinematic frozen lollies (exquisitely wrought, I might add) and was ready for a change in direction. For Jewison, entertainment would be the order of the day, but not at the expense of drama nor capturing a sense of time and place.

Seeing The Cincinnati Kid recently on Blu-ray, I was delighted that it held up magnificently. Everything I loved about the picture as a kid was there - and then some. In fact, seeing it recently, I was - on one hand sorry I avoided seeing it again for such a long time, but on the other, I was delighted to have done so as it seemed as fresh, vital and entertaining as when I first saw it. (Added life experience - including a 4-year stint surrounded by gamblers as a bet seller at a racetrack and seeing a few thousand more movies both didn't hurt.)

Jewison himself refers to the picture as his "Ugly Duckling" - that special favourite that provided his crossover from early-60s rom-com purgatory to a world where he delivered some of the coolest and most important American pictures of the last half of the 20th Century (In the Heat of the Night, Jesus Christ Superstar, Rollerball, Fiddler on the Roof and Moonstruck).

This classic gambling picture stands on its own as one of the best of its kind.

McQueen plays Eric Stoner (nicknamed the "Kid"), a poker player of the highest order who is just as happy cleaning out dubious lower-drawer sleaze balls in crummy joints as he is in more upscale surroundings. In fact, he probably enjoys the sleazier games, but like all those who prefer a steady diet of tough, but tasty flank steaks, he needs a tender filet Mignon to remind him what his ultimate goals are - wealth and more importantly, total domination.

When the Kid finds out that primo gambler Lancey Howard (Edward G. Robinson) is coming to town, he asks his old pal Shooter (Karl Malden) to set up a match. Malden once held the top-dog spot until Lancey gutted him many years ago and has since built his reputation as an honest dealer and match-maker. Shooter promotes a warm-up round and pits Slade (Rip Torn), a local sleazy "businessman" against Lancey. Slade is gutted mercilessly. He blackmails Shooter to fix the deals in the Kid's favour to get revenge on Lancey.

When the big game comes, the Kid wins so many hands he suspects something's up. He confronts Shooter privately and not only demands fair deals, but - almost in retaliation - beds down Shooter's woman Melba (Ann-Margaret) and in the process, cheats on his own woman Christian (Tuesday Weld). When the next round begins, the Kid fixes it so that Shooter is retired from dealing. The wise-cracking old dame Lady Fingers (Joan Blondell) controls the deck. No cheating now. And the Kid begins his handiwork - winning hand after hand and gutting top-dog Lancey.

The final hand, to determine the ultimate winner, is one of the most thrilling set-pieces ever committed to celluloid in an American film. It's a scorcher - cards dealt, lots of sweat, billows of smoke, money piled up, poker faces betraying little, but extreme closeups of eyes betraying all. The cutting in this sequence, as it is through most of the film, is expertly rendered by editor Hal Ashby (who eventually went on to direct such classics as Being There, The Last Detail and Shampoo, to name but a few).

I love watching card games on film. Many critics complained that The Cincinnati Kid paled in comparison to The Hustler because pool was more visual and hence, more cinematic. What a crock! You either buy into the world of this film and, in particular, card playing - or you don't. Given the picture's success upon its first theatrical release as well as its staying power, the movie made card playing as thrilling as any sporting activity on film. In fact, there's only one picture that bests it in terms of on-screen poker playing - that being Martin Campbell's James Bond reboot Casino Royale with Daniel Craig. That's not a bad run. It took 40 years for someone to edge out The Cincinnati Kid in the poker-on-film sweepstakes and, I might add, only by a hair.

Jewison's picture soars on a number of fronts. With cinematographer Philip Lathrop and a first rate production design team, Jewison drains the picture of primary colours which delivers a unique and visually stunning antiquity. During the poker scenes, the blood red on the face cards jump out with far more power than any 3-D effect - overused with such abandon now - and it's this combination of light and design that delivers a contemporary flavour to the proceedings. So much so, that the movie seldom feels dated in terms of its mise en scene.

Only the 60s hair-dos of the female leads betray the period in which the movie is shot - but this, has more to do with the numb-nuts Martin Ransohoff and his desire for a "Popsicle" instead of a movie. In fact, one of the producer's arguments with Peckinpah was his insistence that the picture's focus should be on the love triangle between Steve McQueen, Ann-Margaret and Tuesday Weld (will Steve choose the "good" girl or the "bad"?).

Interestingly, Jewison seems as disinterested in the love triangle as Peckinpah was. For Peckinpah, women just didn't figure prominently in such a world (save for charming tough old birds like Lady Fingers). Again, this had nothing to do with a misogynistic view (an erroneous, easy and oft-volleyed criticism), but rather, Peckinpah's exploration of worlds that, by there very nature harboured misogyny.

Jewison appears to be a good sport about indulging Ransohoff's overwhelming aesthetic obsession - the ladies are there as eye candy. Nothing more, nothing less. In fact, the ending that appears on the Blu-ray release is NOT Jewison's preferred ending, but rather, Ransohoff's - which, idiotically attaches a happy conclusion to one of the love relationships and detracts from Jewison's powerful choice (closer, no doubt to Peckinpah's).

With a huge, fine cast all delivering to-die-for performances, The Cincinnati Kid is a wonderful movie. Edward G. Robinson (who replaced an ailing Spencer Tracy) turns his role of the wise old poker hand into one of the screen's most memorable characters. Robinson commands every shot he's in with the sense of power, confidence and gentlemanly style the role demands.

Karl Malden, always the stalwart supporting player - deftly blends the attributes he was most gifted with: the almost pathetic sensitivity of his "Mitch" from A Streetcar Named Desire and the roiling conflict of love and nastiness he exuded as Anthony Perkins's father in Fear Strikes Out.

Of course, Rip Torn - surely one of the greatest screen actors of all time - weirdly chews the scenery with, I kid you not, restraint. There's not one likeable thing about the character he plays and yet, when he's on-screen, it's impossible to take one's eyes off him.

Two blasts from the past (even by 60s standards in the nostalgia sweepstakes) manage to add mega-wattage to Jewison's picture. I loved seeing Cab ("Minnie the Moocher") Calloway - so dashing, so stylish, so cool! And a thorough delight is getting ganders at the sashaying, ballsy Joan Blondell as the hottest, sexiest MILF who ever dealt a straight-up hand of poker. Throw in a snake pit of ferociously brilliant character actors like Jack Weston, Milton Selzer, Jeff Corey and the rest - down to even the extras and background players who always look like they belong in the film's world - and you have a picture that sizzles = as much today as in the 60s.

It's a lollapalooza!

Jewison has every right to be proud of it.

As for Peckinpah's version, all we can do is dream about the movie that never was, but could have been. After his firing from the picture, Peckinpah's life spiralled downwards. According to actor-director L.Q. Jones in David Weddle's book:

"It totally destroyed him for a long time . . . nobody would hire him, so he couldn't make movies. That's like telling a preacher he can't go to church. That's Sam's church. So what do you do? You go to pieces, which is what he did."

But years afterwards, Peckinpah directed The Wild Bunch.

He found his way back again.

"The Cincinnati Kid" is available on Warners Home Entertainment. The Blu-ray is a stunning transfer and beautifully captures Jewison's mise-en-scene and Philip Lathrop's great cinematography. One of the fabulous special features is a commentary track from Norman Jewison. Uncle Norman delivers great commentary. Along with Martin Scorsese, I'd argue Jewison's director commentaries are the finest wrought on all home entertainment mediums. He's seldom anecdotal, never dull and always full of great material on the art of filmmaking. If you're interested in purchasing the film, free feel to use the Amazon links below and, at the same time, support the maintenance of this site.

THE SKULL - Review By Greg Klymkiw - An enjoyable Amicus Horror film with Peter Cushing and directed by the legendary cinematographer of "Glory", "The Elephant Man" and "The Straight Story". Available on Blu-Ray as a double-feature with "The Man Who Could Cheat Death".

The Skull (1965) dir. Freddie Francis
Starring: Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, Patrick Wymark, Jill Bennett, Michael Gough, Patrick Magee, Peter Woodthorpe, Nigel Green and George Coulouris

***

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you one of the most perverse antagonists in horror movie history: the skull (yes, I'm not kidding, the skull) of one Donatien Alphonse François, The Marquis de Sade.

Yup, you got it - everyone's favourite pornographer, that happy-go-lucky libertine who, until his death in 1914, spent 30-or-so of his 78 years on this good, green Earth, incarcerated in prisons and asylums as a reaction to both his writings (including Justine and The 120 Days of Sodom) and (to say the least) his unconventionally cruel sexual practices.

During the 70s, Hammer, the reigning champ of British horror films, was given a considerable run for its money by Amicus, an upstart UK purveyor of all things ghoulish. Known primarily for its E.C. Comics omnibus pictures, the near-perfect Asylum and Tales From The Crypt as well as the solid Vault of Horror and Tales That Witness Madness, Amicus also delivered a clutch of non-portmanteau efforts. Based on Robert (Psycho) Bloch’s screen treatment and directed by the visually gifted cinematographer Freddie (Glory, The Elephant Man, The Straight Story, etc.) Francis, The Skull was the best of that single-story lot.

Getting off to a rip-snorting start, the picture opens with a fabulous grave robbing scene that involves the decapitation of de Sade’s rotting head. Followed closely by the pre-phrenologically-inspired prep that involves the removal of flesh, hair and other viscera by burning and boiled it all off, the result is a pristine and gleaming skull. The Marquis de Sade was never cleaner. Alas, cleanliness is only skin-deep (as it were). Do what you will to his skull, the good Marquis' thoughts are as dirty and nasty as one would ultimately hope in a movie designed to administer a few good jolts of horror.

As a Director of Photography who always delivered the goods, the work of Freddie Francis as a director could often feel phoned-in. The notable exceptions are this delectable de-Sade-o-rama and a handful of others in a directing career that spanned approximately 30 features. One can only assume Francis excelled in the task at hand ONLY when he was faced with material that truly tickled his fancy and that the rest was so much gun-for-hire fodder.

Though The Skull feels about ten minutes too long (and it’s already short), the movie still packs a decent wallop. Feeling more like a solid horror second feature from the 40s made smack in the middle of the swinging British New Wave period, it's a picture that ultimately does what it's supposed to do.

Peter Cushing plays an academic specializing in occult research who collects strange oddities from all over the world in order to study them. His wife begins objecting to the house corpulently overflowing with paraphernalia representing evil. Though one suspects she’s a typical harridan coming down on her collecting-obsessed hubby, she perhaps has a point when Cushing starts to slowly go psycho after he acquires the skull of the notorious de Sade.

The story is told with numerous visual flourishes – lots of cool dollies and pans, sumptuous lighting and endless Skull-Cam shots so we can get a glimpse of what the evil spirit of the Marquis de Sade gets to see. After the spirited opening, the movie does slow down a bit, but once it picks up steam, it seldom lets up and builds to a genuinely creepy and (at least for this fella) scary climax.

A superb supporting cast includes an extended cameo from the always-delicious Christopher Lee as a collector who realizes and tries to warn Cushing about the dangers of hoarding occult items and we’re blessed with a truly slimy turn from Patrick Wymark as an underground occult dealer and an even sleazier one from Peter Woodthhorpe as the dealer’s foul landlord.

If you’re a fan of British horror films, this won’t be the best you’ve seen, but you’ll still be glad you did – if, indeed, you do – and, of course, you should.

"The Skull" is one of several British genre pictures distributed in North America by Legend Films. It's currently available as a double-disc Blu-Ray with the added Hammer Horror attraction, "The Man Who Could Cheat Death".

This is a must-have Blur-Ray disc for vintage horror fans and the price is certainly right. The movies are also available as single-disc DVDs. If you plan to buy, please consider supporting the maintenance of this site by ordering it via the links below:










The Man Who Could Cheat Death (1959) dir. Terence Fisher
Starring: Anton Diffring, Hazel Court and Christopher Lee

***

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Even if The Man Who Could Cheat Death were an awful movie (and it is far from that), it would have one big thing going for it. Well, actually two big things – those soft, milky protuberances heaving ever so-delicately beneath the low-cut velvet dress of Heaven itself; namely, the breasts of that utterly flawless example of womanhood, Hazel Court. These bounteous pillows of perfection are, however, not all that mesmerize Dr. Georges Bonnet (Anton Diffring) the title character of this delicious Hammer Horror picture from master Terence Fisher. When his (and our) eyes gaze above her cleavage, then glide upwards along her perfect breastplate and delicate neck, they run smack into a delectable puss replete with full lips, exquisite cheek bones and eyes you want to dive into. There’s also that pile of soft scarlet atop her crown, tied and trussed in a manner that hints, ever so invitingly, at the cascading waterfall that awaits when the pins are removed and the locks tumble down. And beneath it all – beneath her upper bounties – is a svelte torso, supple, childbearing hips and, no doubt, other hidden fruits best left to our imaginations.

The estimable Miss Court as the comely model Janine Dubois makes her first appearance in the picture on the arm of the dashing Dr. Pierre Girard (Christopher Lee) during a private gathering in Bonnet’s home where the mad-scientist/artist is about to unveil his latest sculpture to a small, but admiring public of society people. It is obvious to all, including Girard, that she and Bonnet are former lovers and it is here we discover that Bonnet’s artistic output has been reserved to sculptures only of the upper portions of the most beautiful women imaginable. Once the party disbands, we are treated to the revelation that the 30-something Bonnet is, in fact, over 100 years old and that he’s found the secret to eternal youth through the occasional implantation of a fresh gland in addition to a lime-green potion. His goal is to steal, Janine from Pierre, implant a new gland – making her “immortal” – and to spend the rest of eternity in bliss.

And who wouldn’t want to spend an eternity with Hazel Court? Only a madman, right?

Well, there’s the rub. Implantation of the gland and adherence to steady doses of the lime-green bubbling Kool-Aid renders all those under its influence to go stark raving, psychotically bonkers. This, of course, will not do and it’s up to Girard (one of Christopher Lee’s few heroic roles) to save the day.

With a Jimmy Sangster screenplay adaptation of a creaky, but oddly literate play by Barre Lyndon (“The Man of Half Moon Street”, already made as a film in the 40s) is one part “The Picture of Dorian Gray”, with dashes of “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” and “Dracula”. It’s perfect material for Terence Fisher who delivered some of the finest and most stylish British horror films of all time. Though much of the action is constricted to a few rooms, it’s an always engaging thriller thanks, in part to Fisher’s splendid direction and, most of all, because of the superb cast. Peter Cushing look-alike Anton Diffring (star of the luridly magnificent “Circus of Horrors”) is the perfect tragic villain with his aquiline features and sorrowful eyes, Lee handles himself expertly as the hero and Miss Court is breathtakingly engaging in her role.

“The Man Who Could Cheat Death” is a welcome addition to Fisher’s fine work from the 50s (including “Curse of Frankenstein” and “Horror of Dracula”). In fact, it’s kind of cool seeing Fisher work his magic in a genre film that is bereft of an already identifiable monster (he also helmed versions of “The Mummy”, “The Werewolf” and “Phantom of the Opera”) and if the picture seems a trifle dated and a smidgen derivative, these are but minor flaws in an otherwise delightful chiller.

Besides, it stars Hazel Court and that is, of course, reason enough to see pretty much anything.

“The Man Who Could Cheat Death” is available on DVD from Legend Films.