Reviews

January 1943, Hitler authorizes use of females in war effort. One of the military specialties the girls serve is as *Blitzmadels* = *Lightning Girls*: they crew for 88mm anti-aircraft Flak Batteries, fighting Allied bomber raids of ever-increasing intensity. This qualifies as a WWII NOIR due to the number of deaths of the girls. This is one of the few war films that is a *Perfect Object* = they got everything right. The cast couldn't be any better --- Keep an eye-out for ultra-cool Horst FRANK, as an amorous Frenchman, putting the moves on hot cutie Antje GEERK. The action scenes are as intense as can be---scenes of the Blitzmadels firing their 88s are unique; no other movie can match the spectacular awesomeness of these teen-age girls letting rip with their flak guns firing artillery that throw lead at 10,000 feet-per-second. Don't sleep on the scenes of the girls doing PT in short-shorts and tight tank tops. Barracks scenes also give the girls the opportunity to show off their, uh, *structural integrity*. This is the one that got away. Don't believe the negativity of film critics of the day: "Politically and morally questionable war film in a supposedly documentary style" ---Lexicon Of International Film. LIGHTNING GIRLS AT THE FRONT is unlike any other war flick you ever saw; it is in a class by itself. Noted German author Hans Helmut KIRST worked on the screenplay, and you can tell --- this one does not pull any punches. It is *satisfying* in a way few war films can equal. Check out director Werner KLINGER's Filmography --- there's a whole lot to like there. You really do owe it to yourself to track this one down this one has stood the test of time --- it has actually grown in power over the years.

Nobody and I really do mean NOBODY could do *bad* like George Colouris. As soon as he enters a scene G.C. is the center of gravity. The change of atmosphere is palpable---This guy is in full command of his skill set and in a matter of seconds everything changes: G.C. is in the house, his *bad guy* goes zero to seventy in the blink of an eye. He brings to the scene a compressed tension unlike any other actor. Nazi? You think you've seen Nazis ? Get a load of G.C. in HOTEL BERLIN (1945)---he reset the bar on smoldering evil. A veteran of Broadway when that meant something, G.C. made his screen debut in CITIZEN KANE (1941), a star turn if ever there was one. If you haven't seen G.C. on a BIG screen (not less than 850 seats), you're in for a treat: the screen positively crackles with G.C. on the set. His physical presence is just the beginning---nobody could put top-spin on his lines like G.C. When G.C. is speaking, everyone else shuts up and listens, you bet. His multi-layered *bad guys* stand alone in Golden Age Hollywood---He could reveal the full inventory of negativity in the human enterprise, one trait per line. His clipped stacatto baritone is WAY UP in the moment, revealing Contempt, Resentment, Greed, Snobbery, Anger, Menace, the lot, all in less than one-two minutes. G.C. had Old School star quality---He made the OTHER guy look good. Check out the other flick G.C. made with John Garfield, NOBODY LIVES FOREVER (1946). There is NO analog for G.C. in today's "actors" (hawk-*ptoo*). How could there be---G.C. was unique, one-of-kind. If you are fed up with the dreck that is today's cinema, give yourself a break and stream you some GEORGE COLOURIS and luxuriate in the sheer awesomeness that is G.C. Cheers!

Everything about this film has been said elsewhere here except for this film's tip-top HORSE ACTION. Few men in Golden Age Hollywood could sit a horse like Joel McCrea. I've been at the racetrack all my life and I've seen the best riders---Joel McCrea was right up there with the best of them. At a full gallop,, he's stock-still, one with his horse, an ice-man. Joel McCrea has the coolest horse, a chestnut with a nice blaze on his nose. The way he handles this horse is a tell---this was J.M.'s own personal horse, for sure. You don't get horse action this fine out of some crap nag from some corral somewhere. Director Raoul Walsh was a master at staging/photographing top-quality horse action, a real delight and revelation for horse fans. Consider this scene towards the end, one of many in this classic: J.M. is at a full-out gallop coming straight at the camera, when J.M. brings the horse to a sharp halt while AT THE SAME TIME getting the horse to do a half-pivot, stopping with the horse's left side---in perfect profile---at just the right amount of horse visible in the shot, as if the horse hit PREDETERMINED marks. This horse is then perfectly still, doesn't even move his head a little bit. You don't get that level of performance out of a horse you just met for the first time this morning: It takes THOUSANDS of hours of working together with a horse to achieve what J.M. does with this horse. And J.M. and his ultra-cool horse have real Old School star quality---they make it look easy. These "actors" today (hawk-*ptoo*) when they make what passes for westerns, they sit a horse like scared little boys. These modern-day "westerns" come unglued when it comes to horse action. If you are fed up, give yourself a break and stream you some JOEL McCREA and see what REAL horsemanship is all about.

Nobody, and I do mean NOBODY could do cool like Albert Finney. Come to that, nobody since can come within shouting distance. Those other guys, they have their moments, but at the end of the day, Albert Finney's cool stands alone as unique, peerless. And comes now Shirley Anne Field, so hot you watch in that scene at the beginning when she's in the background, slightly out of focus, taking off her coat ---you were eating her up with your eyes, you dog, admit it. I dedicated more than a few to Shirley Anne Field, and I don't care who knows it: NOBODY could fill a sweater like our Shirley---pert and impudent. For more of the same check out Shirley in THESE ARE THE DAMNED (1964). These "actors" today, they're shriveled, truncated, no inner life, no spark. If you are fed up, give yourself a break and stream some Albert Finney and Shirley Anne Field.

Everything that can be said about CRISS CROSS has been said, except this: It features a star turn by Steve McNally. Up until 1953, Steve appeared as good guys, most notably BEWITCHED (1945) and NO WAY OUT (1950). It was Steve's role as the worst-case-scenario bad guy in SPLIT SECOND (1953) that changed everything---from then on, Steve became the go-to guy for villainy. Check out Steve's credits on this site. With rugged dark good looks and an authoritative baritone, Steve brought power to every scene he's in the 1949 CRISS CROSS. Steve's prescence is so formidable, his final scene only features him on screen for half the scene---the rest is a medium close-up of Burt Lancaster with Steve's voice---that's star power. Steve had true old school star power---he made the other guy look good. If you are getting tired of today's two-dimensional pretty boys, give yourself a break and stream some Steve McNally.

Nobody in Hollywood could sit a horse like Jim Davis. That's a fact, and I've seen 'em all. Like champion racetrack jockeys he is one with his horse, seamless. At a full gallop, he's perfectly straight and still, an ice man. If you like horses and large scale horse action, you've come to the right place. Republic Pictures had a lock on that kind of film making, nobody else came close. Check out the best large scale horse stampede in BELLE STARR. Jim Davis also had real star quality---he made the other guy look good. For the last 30-40 years what passes for "westerns" come unglued when it comes to horse action. Give yourself a break and check out SOTC on youtube.

This originally played on the bottom half of a double-bill toplining "The Horrible Dr. Hichcock" (note: NO *t* in "Hichcock) and was a bonanza for every theater that played it, especially the drive-ins: I saw it at a drive-in in Rhode Island near Narragansett August '64, which was a cool '60s summer spot---they even had a race track (thoroughbreds, not NASCAR).

Featuring a classic ad campaign---the one-sheets in mint condition are prized by collectors---this twin-bill followed a well-established trajectory for independent "exploitation" films: Played drive-ins Memorial Day to Columbus Day, then regular theaters ("hard tops" in trade lingo of the era) from Thanksgiving through New Year's.

It topped the box-office grosses (reported in weekly Variety) when it broke wide in New York and Chicago Thanksgiving 1964. Unusually for such a tandem, both films fully delivered on their opening premise : mad doctor goes off the rails with his obsessions. "Hichcock" was director Freda's best---the U.S. version was only 76 min., the original ran 88 min---I saw this latter when I lived in London 1969, and was surprised that the English version had dubbing by English voices: this is *definitely* the version to get.

I am aware that certain Franco aficionados regard this first "Dr. Orloff" as his best---I think "Succubus" aka "Necronomicon" ( in U.S. '68, Trans-American Films, subsidiary of A.I.P.) is and I saw it at its N.Y.C first run at the 59th Street East Theater, though I'd like to see ·VENUS IN FURS aka "Paroxismus" ('69)again, as well as 99 WOMEN ('69) aka "Island Of Despair", as well DIABOLICAL DR. Z ('66).

I never trust home-viewing to give the full measure of a film---films of the pre- 1980 era were made with the theatrical audience firmly in mind. That goes double for B & W horror sci-fi. Like "The Awful Dr. Orloff".

All other posts here note the similarity to what they call "Les Yeux Sans Visage". That film saw release as "Horror Chamber Of Dr. Faustus" ('62, Lopert Films through UA) with "The Manster". I was aware of the original title because at the time I got the French film mags "Positif" and "Midi Minuit Fantastique". For French class in high school I would do film reviews of these horror films and quote these mags while the other kids were reviewing "The 400 Blows" (*hawk-ptoo*), "Jules And Jim" (*barf*) and other flicks that were WAY too sensitive for my crude and primitive mental process.

Franju's classic did not hit the U.S. with its original title until the late '80s, with the advent of the dvds catering to film"buffs".

It is more plausible to point to "Circus Of Horrors" ('60) as a primary influence since it was a much bigger hit worldwide , by far. Same set-up: Mad surgeon undone by his obsessions.

Since I've only seen "Awful Dr. Orloff" at home recently, I must reserve judgment. I'm very "high church" about that---the small screen experience is nothing like the impact of a theatrical viewing. This films was, and remains, ruggedly serviceable of its type. If you go for '60s mad doctor films, and relish black & white, this will fully satisfy. Others looking for more gore should stick with the post-1980 product.

I first saw HORROR OF Dracula, at the RKO Hill Street, of blessed memory, in downtown Los Angeles---first show (morning) on opening day in 1958. Early show admission 25 cents (*Eat your hearts out bitches*).

It was paired with THE THING THAT COULD NOT DIE (a small B & W mood piece that has an atmosphere all its own)---most movies were sent out as double bills, the heyday of which was from the early '30s to the mid- '70s. Until HOD horror films in the 1950s were essentially low-budget affairs, b & w "quickies" as they were known in the trade.

HOD was the first quality horror film to break big, and I mean it broke HUGE. Hammer had had great success with CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN ('56, WB), but it didn't have anything like the impact HOD did. The box office bonanza that was HOD---it was a gusher of cash in a year that saw only sporadic hits---spawned renewed respect for the quality horror film among the majors unseen since the 1930s. The succeeding Hammers were handled by the majors---EVERY major handled at least one Hammer.

NOTE: IMDb is lax about indicating which distributor handled a film in its ORIGINAL theatrical release. That's like not having a birth certificate. And you don't need a work history managing movie theaters and drive-ins, like me, to realize that a film's distributor says a lot about that film, especially when the film was not produced by the distributor, as in the case of HOD.

There's hardly anything that hasn't been said about HOD, except THIS: Seeing this film in a HUGE classic era movie palace seating more than 2000, in the balcony, with a master blaster sound system, offered an experience unmatched by home viewing. Consider this: the RKO Hill Street had a screen 17 feet high by more than 50 feet across. For a quarter ! It's worth noting too that a theater of this size makes the music a major character as it were---and James Bernard's HOD score became a lasting influence on orchestral horror film music.

The film makers of the day made their movies with just that kind of theater in mind and HOD delivered the goods, and how ! The posts here reflect home viewing of HOD---NOT the same animal. I've seen HOD on TV, and I saw it again at the annual Halloween horror festival at the old NEW YORKER THEATER Broadway/88th in Manhattan in the mid-'60s. After a steady diet of Godard and Truffaut, these college film "buffs" were really taken by surprise. Even after ten years, HOD still packed its punch.

But HOD had another effect---young boys were the primary audience for horror films back then, and watching these films accustomed us to the British way of movie-making. It made them as easy to watch as any American film. They weren't considered "foreign" films. Their way of speech, their technique and viewpoint were just that much different from anybody else's.

It has been forgotten that England used to be a major player in the American movie scene---hardly a week passed without a new English film hitting the theaters. BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI ('57), LAWRENCE OF ARABIA ('61), DR. ZHIVAGO ('65) and GOLDFINGER ('64) were the most gigundous hits: EVERYBODY saw these films. England had real box office muscle in the U.S.A., their films seeing wide release by all the majors. Hammer films saw wide release for the twenty years after HOD.

When was the last time YOU saw an English film at a first-run theater, that wasn't some crumb-bum down-in-the mouth indie thing, about "quirky" lovable losers or some embalmed costume Masterpiece Cinemah ?

Besides the big budget spectaculars, young boys saw many English war films during the 1950s-'60s such as THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY ('57), SINK THE BISMARCK ! ('60), PURSUIT OF THE GRAF SPEE ('59). English stars also became American stars---Sean Connery, Michael Caine, Alec Guiness, Julie Christie, Christopher Lee---the list is a long one.

It was the early Hammer classics like HORROR OF Dracula that made this possible.

(FULL DISCLOSURE: My parents, Communist Party members, were blacklisted out of show business in Los Angeles, where I was born ('49) and raised. The others theorize, I know: I was there, I lived it and it was very much more complex than the film school party line would have it)

There was a vogue for caper-gone-wrong films mid-late 1940s,dating from THE KILLERS (1946), but since "noir" (hate that term, see my post in "POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE") only had box office legs '45-'47, this one, perhaps the best of the lot, suffered from a fatal flaw: No stars with b.o. muscle.

For a late cycle film, that's the kiss of death--- I managed theaters NYC and drive-ins in Connecticut '60s-'70s, and I saw good films, exceptional extraordinary films sink like stones for that very reason. Looked at from the viewpoint of (boxoffice take/tickets sold) vs. (capacity seating-per-showing), everything snaps into sharp focus. Movies are show business, emphasis on the *business*. The only post-'47 "noirs" that earned themselves out at the box office had *stars*: CRISS CROSS, SORRY, WRONG NUMBER etc.

*** *** *** The end of the "noir" cycle has been conflated with the onset of the blacklist. This is a primary error in logic---to confuse temporal and proximal similarities with actual cause & effect. That there was a sharp change in American culture was true enough, but "noir" had long since run out of steam at the b.o.

"...the fifties were baffling, a time...without a dominant accent or form." Arthur Miller (TIMEBENDS, 1987, p.363)

"Gut nationalism, all but read out of existence by both Marxist and capitalist rationalism, was now taking center stage." Arthur Miller (op.cit., p.254)

As the 50s dawned, Americans were no longer "Waiting For Lefty"---they were waiting for "Ozzie And Harriet". And that's EXACTLY RIGHT: After 25 years of unremitting crisis---the Great Depression, World War II, Cold War with Communist take-over of East Europe and China and the Korean War--- Americans were sick to death of rancorous conflict and casualty lists, tribulation, privation and bloody horror. THEY'D HAD ENOUGH. THEY DIDN'T WANT TO HEAR IT.

They really meant it *from the guts* when they said "If you don't like it here, move to Russia".

Peace, security and yes, conformity in the sense of this was the best it had been in 25 years and what's YOUR problem?

America made a choice and they chose Lucy and Ricky over the Hollywood Ten. America craved stability---a balance where the center held.

Mom, the flag and apple pie---these are contemptible? I love my mom, salute the flag and devour apple pie with both hands. That makes me contemptible ? OK, I'm cool with that and I'll have another slice of apple pie, with cinnamon, please.

Later it became fashionable among writers and academics of a certain type to denigrate the 1950s with dreary memoirs of alienation, hostility and loneliness---all of which was VOLUNTARY. They had no friends, no steady date, didn't go to parties or the prom, never made the team---they were losers by premeditation.

For the cold fact is these misery mavens would have been miserable in the 1850s, the 1650s, the 1350s, ANY '50s. They were miserable, by definition and predisposition, because they elected to be miserable, they volunteered for a lifetime enlistment in the Misery Corps. They're the same type who are miserable in the '60s, '70s, '80s right down to today. These characters were chronic malcontents ANY TIME ANYWHERE: Raised in unprecedented comfort and security they had multiple personality disorders which made fulfillment at any level impossible, because THEY were impossible. And they LOVED it---they reveled in their self-created alienation and rejection because it validated their self-image as martyrs to the vast herd. Well, boo-hoo.

The greatest 20th century president was General Eisenhower ('52-'60). What happened to make this so ? NOTHING. That's right, NOTHING: After 25 years of crisis-to-crisis existence, America luxuriated in the restful, restorative peace and undisturbed prosperity of the 1950s. THEY EARNED IT: Hundreds of thousands of moms weren't getting Mother's Day cards any more, or have sons to bake pies for. That's not a small thing, to be trivialized or lightly dismissed.

And I grew up in L.A. in the '50s answering the door to the F.B.I. But my parents never tried to indoctrinate me, or turn me into a little Robespierre like some blacklistees and their kids. When the time came they didn't send me to "peace" camp or "progressive" schools. For all their Communist fervor, they were culturally conventional: they sent me to Lutheran parochial school in West L.A., and Y.M.C.A. camp.

What's this to do with ASPHALT JUNGLE, you ask ? EVERYTHING since it has been turned into a launch pad for another film professor exegesis on the blacklist and how bad the '50s were---this from people who simply weren't there. The blacklist and HUAC were topics of interest to the chattering classes only, in several urban postal codes. PERIOD.

I feel blessed that I was born when I was---growing up in L.A. 1950s was the best of all times to be a young boy. And I am doubly blessed to have had MY parents--- they never allowed their problems to become mine. They not only loved me, they PUT UP with me. Later on, when I went wrong for a spell, they loved me still. They were the most forgiving people I ever knew or even heard of, a forgiveness born of strength: they were not soft suckers...EXCEPT for the CP...And thereby hangs a tale: Why the CP, and why them? My mom and dad, as 1950s as Ozzie and Harriet !!!---WHY ? It took a while, but I think I've got it.

TO BE CONTINUED --- in posts for other titles 1948-1958.

(FULL DISCLOSURE: My parents, Communist Party members, were blacklisted out of show biz in L.A. at this time. I'm 61: I was there and I lived through those years. The others theorize, I know. )

That this film was a box office flop is not only predictable---it was inevitable. Noir as a style & theme with b.o. legs had a 3-year run, '45-'46-'47, the way horror films did '31-'32-'33. The film school professors have tried to blame forces of reactionary social repression---the Production Code in '33, HUAC in '48. These events were but tombstones for film cycles that had run out steam at the box office.

In my time working in movie theaters (hardtop & drive-in) '60s-70s, I saw many cycles come and go, most in 3 years: *Spaghetti westerns *Kung Fu *Biker *Drugs as "cool" *Trucker/hot car/backwoods *Blaxploitation *Euro heist

That's the way the cookie crumbles in the movie biz; audiences are fickle. No more complicated than that.

It is emblematic of the delusional university apparatus that the BUSINESS aspect of film-making---THE DOMINANT element---is ignored in books on "film noir". After all, these characters not only have no private sector work history, they view business the same as FOE---*Capitalism is a racket*. That's not something Americans will pay to see, and MGM gave this film "the big build-up": I saw the '48 press-book.

It is even more telling that that these professors, lefties all, only quote reviews and coverage in the generic press but NEVER EVER feature the "trades"--- publications catering to exhibitors such as Box office, MOTION PICTURE EXHIBITOR, MOTION PICTURE HERALD, etc. Coverage was from the theater operator's viewpoint---a world away from film school fantasists.

These film school wackos only interview the creative types and NEVER the studio exec in charge of Exhibitor Relations---the man who reports to the top on b.o. performance. They NEVER interview the producers, as if these films somehow were made with money from Santa Claus. They never banked a box-office take or met a payroll or dealt with distributors---they never even ran a lemonade stand as kids.

FOE was a flop because Americans of the post-WWII era took strong exception to those who believed to their last nerve that America would be better off as a Communist police state. Americans are funny that way: we got rid of one tyranny in 1776 and weren't about to lie down for another.

FOE is a fine production defeated by its view of American business as a criminal conspiracy--- putting the JG character's law firm on Wall Street is too crude, typical lefty device. And the sickeningly sanctimonious Beatrice Pearson character is typical Group Theater/1930s---the "little people" waif, a type which disfigured drama right into the 1960s. Many actors sank themselves with this type (Salome Jens comes to mind), even many major stars tried it on: Natalie Wood, for instance.

The blacklistees, their acolytes and the film-school nuts have tried to paint a picture of the blacklistees abrupt demise as the result of "hysteria". That they'd say this shows how clueless they are, and remain, about the country of their birth.

There was NO "hysteria": it was a foregone conclusion among wide-awake grown-ups that communism=enslavement, a view verified, abundantly, by the historical record. But they weren't "hysterical" about it---they pulled the plug on the Left and moved on without a backward glance or second thought.

And what was there to think about? The equation was communism=death just as nazism=death, and Americans had had it with these police state isms. The U.S.A. had the body count to point to erasing the Nazis and weren't up for a rerun fighting another ism. Which they did anyway in Korea.

So yeah, the lefties got stepped on, hard, and kicked to the curb, right into the gutter. It's the blacklistees who were hysterical---they'd hung themselves on a meat hook, HUAC just provided the footstool.

FOE's star John Garfield, the finest actor of his generation committed seppukku at his HUAC hearing saying he wouldn't say anything about his "friends".

NOW HEAR THIS: Political extremists have NO friends, only accomplices and co- conspirators. And J.G. had been snitched off by his good "friends": HUAC knew everything already anyway.

All apolitical people, like me(70% of any population) know this---Political extremists at BOTH ends of the political spectrum, right OR left, meet in the SAME PLACE: Secret police dungeons, barbed wire camps, mass graves. Only partisans of either ism see a difference, those of us outside the political nut ward see only bloody devastation. This was the future envisioned by the blacklistees---"friendship" had nothing to do with it.

The blacklistees weren't believed because they simply weren't credible. They married a political philosophy that was nothing but lies and were caught out. They wanted it BOTH ways: to live the Hollywood high life while slandering the nation that made it possible. OF COURSE America reacted with revulsion and rejected them, harshly.

That the blacklistees are romanticized by the film school apparatus merely shows the enduring resilience of the leftist lie.

My parents were party members, knew Garfield as "Julie", and I grew up hearing them & their CP buddies spout the party line. I loved my mom & dad in life and more than ever since their death, in '83. I miss my parents terribly---every day. They gave me the internal resources to survive, endure and even triumph. And because I had the BEST mom & dad it baffled and infuriated me that they were so clueless, so lacking in self awareness when it came to the Party. They were true police state cheerleaders and I am their son.

>>>TO BE CONTINUED under "Nobody Lives Forever", "Postman Always Rings Twice", "Fallen Sparrow", and "The John Garfield Story". Also posts in "Asphalt Jungle", "Nightmare Alley" deal with the blacklist, and films known as "noir".

Hubert Selby was one of those tiresome flash-in-the-pan enthusiasms that infected the 1960s, when anti-social lowlife/outsider/under-achiever marginal types became the rage---for the fifteen minutes it took for it to wear out its welcome.

My mother was the exec for library services at Grove Press in the late 1960s so this book, and others like it ("Naked Lunch", "Cain's Book", etc.) were around the house. I read "Last Exit To Brooklyn" and found it terminally boring---its "appeal" was readily apparent: small-time pathological nonentities consumed with negativity destroying themselves, described in morbidly clinical detail. Yuck.

Selby's claim to fame as the King Of The 1960s Hipster Dung-heap was that he poured it on like a manic-obsessive autodidact junkie, which is what he was, and what the hipsters gobbled up---he furnished a proctologist's view of life. They're all here: the junkies, drunks, whores, perverts, psychos, all in the language of the gutter, the bullpen, the dopehouse.

*Yawn*.

"Last Exit To Brooklyn" is an ugly book about ugly losers doing ugly things. No insight, no challenge-revelation-transformation, nothing that characterizes *real* literature that stands the test of time. Authors of the previous dispensation used lowlifes as *counterpoint*---think Faulkner, Chekhov, Hemingway, Anderson et al. Marginal lowlife-outsiders are inherently uninteresting because they've got nothing to declare but their pathologies.

Boring BORING B-O-R-R-R-I-N-G.

Selby stood in apostolic succession to Malcolm Cowley, another one-book drunk, who wrote "Under The Volcano"-- -a tedious panorama of chronic inebriation. Boring at the sub-atomic level.

This is what passed for "cool" back then, and now, at the dawn of the new century, lowlife-outsider types are back in fashion, so it's inevitable that the sludge of the 1960s-70s would be resurrected, like zombies in a cheap horror flick. It's a wish-fulfillment fantasy for posturing chasers of "cool" who never missed a meal and always slept in their own beds.

"Last Exit" and "Naked Lunch" had/has its biggest appeal for suburban undergraduates, (and perpetual adolescents who never outgrow their teenage fixations) consumed with self-loathing who have a twisted emotional need to immerse themselves in the cesspool of semi-pornographic urban filth like "Last Exit", "Taxi Driver", John Waters movies, Robert Mapplethorpe photos, etc.

People who actually come from neighborhoods like the one in "Last Exit" don't read books like "Last Exit". Why would they? It's not only loathsome and disgusting, it's dishonest writing at the most basic level---it furnishes a wish-fulfillment fantasy for spoiled college types, and perpetual adolescents in "the arts" (*hawk-ptoo*).

The inside of this Selby's head is fully revealed in the next book he wrote, called "The Room". If you liked "Last Exit" you'll really get the hots for "The Room". It's the apotheosis of all that Selby was. But with that book, he was basically "written out"---he had nothing more to say, nothing anyone would pay to hear---his fans of the 1960s had grown up, and moved on.

Now Selby is back, for another fifteen minutes. This numbing "documentary" about a Johnny-one-note "author" whose brief success was due solely to fashion, *not* merit (he's a terrible writer, like most self-taught scribblers) trots out all the inevitable '60s relics---Amiri Baraka, John Calder, Lou Reed, Gilbert Sorrentino, Ellen Burstyn as well as present-day porn-addicts Robert Downey Jr., Jennifer Jason Leigh, Jared Leto, Henry Rollins, Marlon Wayans, John Turturro, the usual suspects. Half of the aforementioned are communists, junkies, atheists and perverts themselves, and several have significant police records,which figures. This sorry cast all subscribe to the '60s mantra that to be "art" it's got to be SICK AND DIRTY.

Uh, r-r-right. Moving right along...

It's emblematic of these coprophagics that they stridently call junk like "Last Exit" "art", as if that's the get-out-of-jail-free pass for their morbid obsessions.

This is the slimy bottom of the stinkiest dumpster you ever saw, and there will always be a market for it. If that sounds good to you, by all means, dive right in.

More boring indie-cult rubbish from the "art-house" junk yard, this time it's yet another teen angst retread, indie style. *Yawn*.

Movies about teenagers are boring because *teenagers are boring*: boring, BORING, B-O-R-I-N-G ---they have nothing to declare, less than nothing.

Attempting to compensate for this vacuum, they load-'em-up with "edgy" cynicism --- this from brain-dead teen bimbos who never missed a meal and always slept in their own beds.

There's a really sick-sick-sick sex scene in this...this *thing*...which ranks right up there with the most gruesome horror films: When the girl goes to bed with Steve Buscemi, indie- cult fave weirdo.

Do NOT eat your fill before watching this.

Back when I worked in drive-ins, we played a flick called "Mark Of The Devil" (1971) where we handed out air-sickness bags. This film might have profited from such a marketing approach.

From what I read here, this pustule got few bookings and nobody saw it. No, really ? I'm shocked, shocked do-you-hear---nobody wanted to see *yet another* indie teen-angst/coming-of- age flick ?? Dear me.

And, not for nothing, "Mark Of The Devil" didn't disappoint. This is nothing but disappointments, big ones.

This kind of suppurating sore says more about the pathology of its makers---and those who actually pay real cash money to sit through this, than its nominal "story line" reveals. which is nothing.

Attempting a rational review of this sorry hair-bag is beside the point---it would be like kicking a cripple.

You DO have better things to do with your time, your money, your *life* than squander it on loathsome duds like this.

I stood this for 41:33---root canal is more bearable than this gruesomely predictable time- waster from the indie psycho ward.

All the by-the-numbers indie elements are here: zero budget, non-existent production value, flaccid pace,"edgy" characters (=weirdos), cut-&-paste "script" (no more than a collection of notions about what a film *really* is)---in other words, the same old indie riff.*Yawn*

They crank these things out, like sausages, for the tax break that these born-to-lose duds provide- --their only reason for being. These indie dogs have a liturgical quality---lovable losers struggling through life, make you laugh/make you cry, blase blase. Absolutely nothing new here.

The inevitable Steve Buscemi--- hideously loathsome in the stomach-turning "Ghost World" (2001), is here doing his indie thing (=pre-psychotic nut-job) for the ten thousandth time. Next case.

This is pure indie, to the bone: ad infinitum, ad nauseum, ad absurdum. There will always be a small hard-core audience for junk like this, just like the market for '70s TV sit-coms, banjo music, political "documentaries", etc.

"Bad & The Beautiful" (1951) and "Le Mepris/Contempt" (1963) are the real-deal films about movie-making, made by pros who knew what they were doing---but for grown-up adults only. Indie-stoner characters will salivate over this, for sure---they're an easy sell.

It's worth noting this pimple got SEVEN "awards". From whom, and for what ? "Citizen Kane" (1941) only got three.

Saw this as HAMMER OF GOD @ Loew's DELANCEY with Mario Bava's HATCHET FOR THE HONEYMOON-- -one of the *best* twin-bills I ever saw and I saw hundreds from the mid-1950s till the *end of the double-bill*, as a movie-going fact-of-life, mid-late 1970s.

The DELANCEY was a huge old "movie palace"-style theater, with humongous screen, super sound system, balcony, full-service concession stand in a big-BIG lobby, *the works*.

The big screen is absolutely *vital* to the peak enjoyment of the rich color, speed-of-light action of HAMMER.

The impact of HATCHET on a small home screen must be terribly attenuated, the atmosphere sharply reduced, surely.

BOTH these films were made with *big screens* in mind. The film-makers of that bygone era could not have foreseen today's cracker-box 'plex "theaters" (*hawk-ptooi*) which generally seat >500, in malls built in the ever-popular Birkenau style of architecture.

I'm High Church about the big-theater films of that era ---I simply won't see them again: My *memory* serves me well enough.

It is simply too depressing, too degrading to see the scratched and pitted prints with their bleached-out "colors" and raggedy soundtracks on a tiny home screen.

I wouldn't accept THE LAST SUPPER or LA PRIMAVERA as thumbnails, and that's what watching vintage movies of happy memory is to me today.

Cheers !

"Giants of mighty bone"---Milton

This film is a one-off oddity: Richard Burton as the *central dominating* figure. It is forgotten today that *most* of Richard Burton's films were ensemble-type films. "Lead" though he was nominally, he was actually playing the *alpha male* in an all-star cast: "The Robe", "Cleopatra", "The V.I.P.s", "Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf","The Wild Geese", etc.

The only films in which he was the *dominant lead* recently previous to this were "Spy Who Came In From The Cold" and the way-under-rated "The Comedians" in which he starts out as merely another in all-star cast and through his magnetic high-voltage star power winds up as the hypnotic center-of-gravity. And with Alec Guinness and Peter Ustinov and the rest in top form,that was hard to do---but Burton does it.

*This* film has no such "movie stars", just a top-notch supporting cast of solidly reliable actors who really *deliver* for a first-time director. Burton was very kind to Tuchman and extended himself to the young neophyte, for which he remains eternally grateful.

Burton unlimbers his carnivorous acting chops playing a crime-boss born bad and getting worse daily. Again, the lesson is learned: *This* is the Real Deal, This is *how it's done*--- Richard Burton drunk phoning- it-in is superior by whole-number orders-of-magnitude than any body else, then *or* now. And in this one he's *not*---this is a fully- committed, full-blooded star-turn of a type not seen today : It's out of fashion---which is why today's crime films are nothing but *fashion shoots* on the down-low with the "actors" displaying their "instrument", so dainty and lady-like.

I saw this on the Deuce=42nd St. NYC, when it came out---I can't remember what it was with: How could I, with Burton as the *Do-What-I-Say-Or-I'll-Kill-You* psychopath in top form, a lesson and a rebuke to today's mutts and frauds play-acting on camera.

Burton on a BIG screen is a wonder, a delight and a revelation---who of today's performers can hold a candle to this man---that's *MAN*. The perpetual adolescents on-screen today with their Tourette Syndrome-like take on the *business* of acting are boneless and deflated fakes, moist-&-fluffy poseurs---laughable compared to the *mighty* Richard Burton.

Yes, *mighty* in the dictionary sense: "Having great power or authority; extraordinary; wonderful; denoting an extraordinary degree or quality in respect of size, character, importance, consequences". Does that describe any of the comical nonentities up there today ? Over to *you* !

Finally, chew on *this*: Richard Burton NEVER GOT AN Oscar. Think about that next time you're watching an Oscar telecast. Isn't that a *howler* ?

James MASON never got one, either.

Edward G. ROBINSON not only never got an Oscar, he was *never even nominated*.

Cary GRANT never got one---that "Lifetime Achievement Award", after he'd retired from acting, was a *sop* to "one of the greatest film stars, ever" (Michael Caine, TCM) because the lack of a Best Actor Oscar to Grant during his working years had become an *open scandal* in the Hollywood film community.

Robert RYAN never got one.

Boris KARLOFF not only never got one, he was never nominated either. ***BORIS KARLOFF***, if you please !

The list of non-winners is like an *Honor Roll* of Hollywood's all-time greats. For many decades now "The Academy's" awards have had all the significance of winning a regional beauty pageant. It's become like the Special Olympics of the film world, "awards" doled out by a coven of communists, witches, junkies and perverts on the basis "right-minded political views". There is NO observable difference between the "Academy" awards and "awards" from Sundance, Seattle, San Francisco or Outfest (*snicker*).

So let's *do honor* to the memory of the mighty Richard Burton and *savor* his legacy---he is one of ***The Immortals*** !

And may God be praised !

Cheers !

The majority of posters here have plainly viewed this giallo on DVD, on a small screen. I saw this film at the old UA Academy Of Music on East 14th Street, NYC on its opening day, and while not quite up to the level of Il Maestro (Bava), it is one of the better giallos of the period. The original color-scope print was fine---this sort of film was meant to be viewed on a *big* screen (=seats 800+). Viewing a film like this on a small screen gives no hint of its original impact. I know from bitter experience that the modern prints of old films seldom live up to the original release prints' quality. Indeed, in too many cases, all that is left is a bleached, ragged fossil of the original. This is something that must be borne in mind when viewing old films. The poster art for EVELYN is a classic---I wear a t-shirt with the poster on the front. This, and many others, are available from Filmfax.com. Cheers!

Here's Schrader again, spinning his wheels in the same muck:

Lowlifes In Torment, for the umpteenth time. This contraption has the same morbid pathology as 'Taxi Driver", an ugly POINTLESS movie about stupid ugly losers doing the things that identify them as a species, like grubs under a rotten log.

By endowing his characters with fully differentiated personalities, motivations, ambitions even, God help us, Schrader betrays himself yet again as the perpetual adolescent he's always been.

With the grotesque Willem Dafoe and Susan Sarandon, who reminds me of a drag queen on dope, this film should appeal to the depressingly sizable audience who love bad movies about lowlifes-in-torment by kings of arrested development---like Schrader, Scorcese, DePalma and their acolytes.

NEWS FLASH: Narcotics dealers, wise guys, hit men and their like have the "inner lives" of venomous predatory reptiles. PERIOD. To maintain otherwise is to indulge in a despicable sentimentality. Which Schrader has made a career of. The inside of his head must be a dark and fearful place.

Maupin's stories always repelled me because their mushy-squishy soft center. But it took these TV movies to crystallize what was really at the core of the skin-crawling creeped-out feeling I got watching.

It's THIS: This Maupin doesn't know women. I'll bet long money that he never had a girlfriend or any kind of intimate relationship with a real, live female.

These "women" are fantasy figures---wish-fulfillment confections created by someone who actually wrote stories about two gay guys, and then turned one of them into a girl as a way to reach a wider market, and wider appeal = $$$. Nothing actually wrong with that, but it must be done RIGHT; like Cole Porter, say, or Noel Coward.

Adding to the creepiness is the arrested-development tone these stories have: there's a distinct undergraduate romanticism here---coming from a middle-aged man, that's real SPOOKY.

TWO Stars for its insight into the pathology of a bad writer.

This turkey is one more in the bill of particulars that illegal drug use was hitting its all-time high in Hollywood. How else to explain how bad it is, how many dramatic cheap shots, the way it telegraphs its sanctimonious "insight" into contemporary America of that time. With absolutely leaden direction by Mike Nichols---a former stand-up comic who specialized in smug superiority which he carried over to his next job description. His former partner in stand-up, as well as one of his exes, dealt in the same shoddy goods---Elaine May. Their rap-sheets read like indictments. Here we have Dustin Hoffman miscast as a "sensitive" guy---Dustin Hoffman is miscast every time he works: All the acting ability of a sea anemone. This thing falls on its face and DIES when Dustin Sensitive turns down Mrs. Robinson, played by the blow-torch HOT Anne Bancroft, in favor of-- -drum roll, please---Katherine Ross. WTF ??? With music by, wait for it now, Simon & Garfunkel !!! And not just a little bit of it: it is ubiquitous, like some sort of skin disease. If this sounds good to you, then roll one, plug in the lava lamp, don your "granny glasses" and Love Beads, and have at it !!!