The Evil Dead series has fascinated me since I first discovered it in the early 1990s. I was aware of the films for a number of years but never bothered to investigate them, because I didn’t know anybody else who had seen them. That changed one night on a Halloween when I was at a friend’s party and we watched “Evil Dead 2” after the kids had gone to sleep. I laughed and screamed at the ridiculous amounts of blood, body parts, and Three Stooges jokes that were being thrown at me. These were my people.
I’ve seen the Evil Dead, and Army of Darkness, on the big screen multiple times. This may have only been the second or third time I have seen “Evil Dead 2” in a theater. But as with most theatrical experiences, the presence of an audience as well as the big screen, and the requirement that you stay engaged, makes the experience something that is far superior to home viewing.
I’ve been to two or three presentations where the “Man God” Bruce Campbell, has appeared in person to talk about the films we are watching. 3 years ago in this same theater we came for a screening of the original “Evil Dead”, and Bruce was there. We had sprung for an extra couple of bucks in order to get a picture opportunity, but it was Covid and the pictures required social distancing, which makes it look a little bit like it’s photoshopped. I don’t care, we were in the presence of greatness. The talent of Bruce Campbell is especially on display in “Evil Dead 2”. His performance involves a physicality that most actors in an action film would have a hard time achieving. In addition he has to convey some of those emotions that are going on in the character while under a layer of makeup and appliances that would make most of us cringe to think of having on our bodies. He is really quite effective and there are so many close-ups on his face that require him to communicate those emotions in a humorous way but in a way that is also quite immediate. He Nails it.
Some of the storytelling and much of the acting is deliberately ham-fisted in order to gain as much humorous power as possible. The audience last night laughed uproariously at each situation that required Ash to come up with another solution that was ridiculously violent. Most of those moments occur after he has decapitated his girlfriend with a shovel. I understand that budget limitations produced some of the slightly clunky stop motion effects in the film. I have always been a fan of stop motion special effects, I’m not sure that Ray Harryhausen would approve of the way the technique is used in the first part of the film. It’s definitely brilliant, even if it isn’t as polished as a Harryhausen film would be.
Even the cheesiest jokes work well in this film, because director Sam Rami, knows what he’s going after. The goal is to shock and entertain the audience with the most audacious visualized or violence, and the silliest hero’s journey you can imagine. There’s just one word for the whole thing… groovy!
Once again we are back at the Paramount for another Summer Classic film. This time it was the first film of this season in the “Robert Rodriguez Presents Series”, “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan”. Local hero Director Robert Rodriguez chooses films that he was inspired by or has some connection to and then introduces them with behind the scenes stories and tidbits about the actors. The villain in this film was played by Ricardo Montalban, who made a couple of the “Spy Kids” movies with Rodriguez. The director noted how the question always comes up about Ricardo’s physique and whether he wore a prosthetic chest piece. That is in fact Montalban’s own chest, and the costume designer was so impressed with his appearance, they created costumes that accentuated his look.
Director Rodriguez also recounted the sad history of Montalban’s back injury and the surgery years later that confined him to a wheelchair. Of course movie magic allowed the actor to run in one of the “Spy Kids” films and that was a nice moment that he shared with us. The director has a long list of notes in a notebook that he refers to as he prowls the stage like a tiger, not from anxiety but rather enthusiasm. He surveyed the audience and found one person who saw Star Trek II when it opened, at the same theater he had done so back in San Antonio in 1982. That audience member was presented with a nice picture book about the making of the movie. I suspect it was also autographed by our host.
“The Wrath of Khan” was a follow up to “Star Trek the Motion Picture”, which was financially profitable but at a huge cost. The sequel was done with a miniscule budget in comparison, and the production was taken over by the TV unit of Paramount to hold down costs. Still, there are several great production moments in the movie, including the battles between the two starships and the Genesis Project video. There are several spots where shots are cribbed from the first movie but it is not egregious. The fact that “Khan” was a continuation of an original series episode was discussed and Rodriguez had edited together a ten minute version of the episode for us to watch before the movie.
You can read my thoughts on the movie here, and here, and here. This is a movie that I adore and every chance to see it on the big screen should be jumped at. There are two things I would like to add about the screening. Robert Rodriguez explained that another way to save costs was by skipping the more expensive Jerry Goldsmith as the film composer and hiring James Horner. The future Academy Award winning composer was the go to Roger Corman and Star Trek II was his big break. Ironically, Director Nicolas Myer said he was hired because they could not afford Goldsmith, but when Meyer returned to the series for Star Trek VI, they could no longer afford Horner.
The other thing I wanted to mention was the beautiful artwork done by Bob Peak. The prolific film poster illustrator did images for all of the original cast movies, but his work on Trek II was superb. So good in fact, that I draped myself in it for the Sunday night show.
It is no secret that the Ti West film “X” was my favorite movie of 2022. Along with the immediate prequel “Pearl” director west has created an indelible set of characters, tied together by sexuality and a desire for fame. In two weeks we will be getting the next chapter in this franchise, “Maxxxine”, and it is my most anticipated fil of the year. I am always happy to see a movie that I love on the big screen, but this week’s screening was special because at the conclusion of the film, we get the five minute opening of “Maxxxine” as a dessert. The amazing Mia Goth, should have been nominated for an Academy Award for the tremendous work she did in “Pearl”, and it looks like there will be more of that caliber work in the new film. The tone of the clip we saw was perfect, and the exit line that leads to the titles, tells us that this character is a force to be reconned with. I can hardly wait.
As for “X”, this movie continues to impress me with it’s verisimilitude of the late 1970s film scene. The rag tag band of pornographers runs into a older couple that has a dark history and a misanthropic perspective of the world. The movie provides a variety of horror thrills, from slashers, to animal attacks and body horror. That it does so with a great sense of style and humor is what makes the film so memorable. The aforementioned Mia Goth has a dual role in the film, and she hits the right marks of both a scream queen and a horror villain.
The obvious horror influences are “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” and “Psycho”. The setting at an isolated farm in Texas with a weird family of residents is supplemented by the group arriving in a van, and going through some of the same stages of travel as were found in that 1974 classic. The “Psycho” connections are slightly more subtle but also more plentiful. There is an infirm old lady, watching from an upstairs window. Voyeurism is at the heart of the story as we peek at the sex being filmed for a low budget porno, the main antagonist does some peeking as well. “Psycho” gets name checked by the film student/director of the movie within the movie, and he has a shower scene that anticipates the Janet Leigh treatment he receives just a few moments later. The stud film star, who is acting sympathetically to the old man in the story, gets the Martin Balsam treatment.
In an early scene in the movie, we are treated to a Peeping Tom’s overhead view of Maxxine taking a nude swim. Included in the overhead shot is an encroaching crocodile, which is disappointed at the last minute, but Director Ti West knows that Chekov’s crocodile must play a part in the mayhem, and he does not disappoint. Brittany Snow plays the cocksure actress who can both make it and fake it. Martin Henderson as the ambitious film producer manages to be slimy but also somewhat charming and polite. Jenna Ortega was in her third horror fil of the first half of the year when she gets tempted to the dark side of sexual fame. Her hysterics in the final act are one of the things that make the climax feel so much like “Texas Chainsaw Massacre”.
Although there is gore a plenty in the film, the sense of terror does not rely on those bloody images. Two example perfectly explain what I am talking about. Wayne, the producer has a encounter with a rusty nail that invokes more horror than his final confrontation with a pitchfork. Ti West knows how to milk that suspense, and when the sudden puncture away from the foot happens, it is almost a relief and comic by comparison. The second scene that shows off the horror bona fides of the director comes when Mia Goth encounters Mia Goth in her bed. It is as disturbing as is possible while also having some sympathy for the horrible Pearl.
I hate that I have to wait an extra day to see “Maxxine”, we have some other commitments. I guess being an adult carries the weight of responsibility with it. Although I have to say, loving these movies may undermine all that I do in the rest of my life to prove I am a grown up.
Another packed family movie, although this one was presented under the “Banned Camp” label that the film series is using this summer. Steven Janise, the programmer spoke at the start of the show, pointing out that the original book of “Alice in Wonderland” appeared on some lists of books banned by schools or libraries. It was not more specific than that so I can’t tell you why.
The film experienced a renaissance in the late sixties when the drug counter-culture embraced all of the weird elements of the movie, and if you watch the movie, you will see why. This film is loaded with characters right out of a dream or a nightmare. The background flora and fauna are terrifically designed and would hold up in a contemporary film even if the form of animation was different.
“Alice in Wonderland” does not really have a structure. The main character of young Alice, simply wanders through the enchanted world, encountering odd stories and characters along the way. Although nominally chasing the white rabbit, there was no real purpose for doing so, and if she spends ten minutes listening to a story or song, it is perfectly acceptable because all that happens next is another story or song .The Walrus and the Carpenter is a little creepy, since the adorable baby oysters get eaten, but at least it happens off screen. The Queen of Hearts is a little shrill too often for my taste but the game of croquet was a lot of fun.
The Cheshire Cat and the Caterpillar are exactly the things that hippies smoking pot or dropping acid would relate to. They are surreal moments in an abstract kind of film that feels very ahead of itself, until you hear the songs. The songs are all standard child friendly 50s fare that have no hooks but are not unpleasant.
Lush backgrounds, fluid characters and amazing designs are the reason you want to see this movie. It is a lot of fun at times, but it does get a little tiresome with the story pattern repetition.
Midweek we enjoyed a double feature of horror films from the 1930s. The classic “Bride of Frankenstein”, and the lesser known but very stylish “Dracula’s Daughter”. It’s been less than 18 months since I saw the Bride of Frankenstein in a theater. Back in 2022 I saw The Bride with “The Mummy” in a Fathom event and I wrote about it then and you can read about it here.
The “Bride of Frankenstein” is one of the most stylish films from the 1930s. Filled with what might be described as German expressionism, the lighting and shadows are dramatic and exactly the kind of thing that foreshadows film noir coming in the next decade. Of course there are also the over-the-top performances of Dr Frankenstein and Doctor Septimus Pretorius. The one actor who clearly outshines everyone in the film continues to be Boris Karloff. Although he was against it, this version of the monster developed some language skills, and it helps the story take on some even greater moral dilemmas.
Where is Henry Frankenstein stitched together body parts of the Dead and used electricity to try and bring them back to life, Dr. Pretorius seems to have been using recombinant DNA to achieve his goal, and this is well before the concept of DNA was understood. He appears to have been using cloning and some kind of genetic Magic to produce his set of miniature living beings. That sequence is mostly used for humor, but it does set up the idea that they’re going to grow a body around a bone structure as opposed to trying to assemble one from body parts of others. Of course the one exception as they get close to creating the bride, comes when they have to have a fresh heart. Now we’re not dealing with grave robbers but murderers.
The Bride of Frankenstein does continue to raise the question of man’s control over life and death, and whether we are crossing a Rubicon by trying to create life. The film is all the better for the prologue that features Byron and Shelly and Mary Wollstonecraft Shelly telling the stories on a dark and stormy night. Byron in particular is portrayed as a romantic in a very theatrical way, which sets up the rest of the story very effectively.
“The Bride of Frankenstein” relies on a variety of special photographic effects, miniatures, and production design that creates a Gothic image in a faraway place to give us the creeps. “Dracula’s Daughter” is much more sparse in its use of any special effects. They are one or two moments where the process of hypnosis is visualized using some photographic techniques, but when they get to Dracula’s castle it’s a very basic sequence that is not drawing attention to itself the way the exploding Laboratory at the end of the “Bride of Frankenstein” was doing.
I know I saw this movie two or three times as a kid, but I remembered only a few particular moments. I remembered the ring the Countess Zeleska uses to hypnotize and subdue her victims. I remembered the creepy familiar, Sandor, with his pasty face greased down hair and deep set eyes. He looked like a vampire well before being given eternal life. I also remembered the sequence where the Countess is testing herself with a girl she acquires as a model. When the young woman takes off her blouse and drops down the straps on her chemise, there is a moment of desire that overcomes the Countess, and that largely accounts for the films Sapphic reputation.
The film is atmospheric and has some nice visuals, but it feels like a very straightforward drama with a few horror elements added. The opening and closing of the coffin at the count is sleeps in, and the wrap that she cloaks herself in, revealing only her eyes are as close to transforming into a bat or revealing fangs that we are going to get. We never even see the puncture wounds that doctors refer to on the victims. So everything is played very subtly. Of course that’s part of the story The Countess thinks now that Count Dracula is gone, that the spell she is under is broken and it is only her mental state that forces her into continuing to live the nocturnal vampire existence. Thus her interest in the mealy mouth psychiatrist/doctor that she begins to consult and ultimately decides that she wishes to make her Eternal mate.
I had completely forgotten that Van Helsing appears in the film, and that the reason the doctor is involved in the story in the first place is to help his former mentor escape conviction for murdering Count Dracula. The chief of Scotland Yard is portrayed as barely competent, and completely skeptical, but surprisingly accommodating to both Van Helsing and his young former pupil.
There are no big action scenes, we don’t get a stake through the heart, at least not on screen. The Countess is betrayed by her familiar rather than the hero. And the vampire doesn’t melt in the sunlight at the last minute. The movie ends with very little in the way of dramatic climax, and although we’re supposed to have some sympathy for countess Zaleska, we’re mostly left with a feeling of sadness for everybody involved. For a movie with very limited horror effects it manages to have the desired outcome on our emotions. A a very worthwhile sequel to the original Dracula.
So in the last 2 weeks we have been able to see three of the Best Picture winners from the mid-70s. A week and a half ago it was “Godfather Part 2”, two nights ago it was “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”, and last night was our chance to see “The Sting” the film that won the award between the other two. I’ve seen “The Sting” on the big screen several times, and it is always a pleasure. But seeing it with a full audience adds an extra dimension. Let me explain why.
When the auditorium is packed you can hear the reaction of other audience members around you. I could tell from the gasps and laughter of people sitting behind me and down a few rows, that they were seeing “The Sting” for the very first time. Those who are familiar with the movie are aware that there are several surprise twists in various spots in the film, but most especially in the last Act. It is a complete delight to listen to people who are surprised and amused at the twist that shows up next. Another one of the reasons that seeing a film with an audience on the big screen is so important to me.
The event had some special extras to go with it, in addition to our usual popcorn, a drink coupon was provided for us. We also had a selection of Halloween sized candy that we could pick up before we went into the theater. That stop also gave us a chance to wave at and say hi to Danielle who we had met the week before. Erin, the community outreach member that we met last year, greeted us as we were getting our popcorn. She also shared that our picture was used in the latest email to all of the film fans who signed up for Paramount notifications. That was cool.
Before the film started, a series of screen slides provided some trivia information about the making of the film. Included was a detail that Jack Nicholson had been offered the role of Hooker, ultimately played by Robert Redford. Yeah, I think this was a good outcome, having Jack in the part would have been a completely different kind of movie. The biggest draw for me has always been the outsized villain played by Robert Shaw. is Doyle Lonnegan is a joyless mobster who simply cares only for money and being the top dog. Any action that undermines his pride becomes a motivation for him to seek revenge. That’s why the poker game on the train is so important. It provides all the incentive that Lonnegan needs in order to accept a chance at getting back at Newman’s character. It allows the subterfuge to go undetected because of his desire for revenge. Shaw plays the part with barely a single smile in any of his scenes. Once in awhile a small smirk appears to indicate to Hooker or to Loneaggan’s lackeys that he has the upper hand. It’s a joy to see that smirk it wiped off of his face two or three times in the course of the movie.
Director George Roy Hill won the Academy Award for this particular film, and although he is a respected technician, you don’t hear many people speak of him with the same degree of awe as Scorsese, Coppola, or Spielberg. He did some amazing films in the ’70s and later on this summer we get a chance to revisit the movie that he made with Paul Newman and Robert Redford prior to this, “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid”. I recently saw the film “A Little Romance”, which he made with Lawrence Olivier and a very young Diane Lane, and it’s absolutely terrific. Combine that with the fact that he made the greatest sports movie ever, “Slap Shot”, and turned my favorite book into a fairly reasonable film version, “The World According to Garp”, and I feel he deserves a little more cache with film fans.
It’s not even the middle of June yet, and I feel like I’ve had a summers worth of great movies already. I’m looking forward to several things in the next few weeks, and you can expect continued updates on the Paramount classic film series 50th anniversary.
The Paramount continues to try topping itself with great programming on Friday evenings. This week we get a double feature featuring the great actress Pam Grier. The two films that are presented are at the far ends of her career. “Jackie Brown” was a prestige project from Quentin Tarantino that earned Pam Grier a Golden Globe nomination and should have earned her an Academy Award nomination for best actress. This movie was paired with a film from 1974, at the peak of her career in exploitation films, it is actually a pretty decent forerunner for “Jackie Brown”, This one is called “Foxy Brown”.
Let’s start with “Jackie Brown”. This is a Tarantino film based not on an original idea of his, or a hybrid of exploitation films that he saw as a child, but rather on the novel Rum Punch by Elmore Leonard. Tarantino adapted the book into a screenplay and made the central character a black woman so that Pam Grier could play the part. I haven’t read the original text, I only know the screenplay from having seen the movie several times, but I can’t imagine that the book is superior to the very clever screenplay that we get with this movie.
To Briefly summarize, Jackie Brown is an airline hostess for a low budget Mexican holiday flight operation, and she also makes extra cash by smuggling money for a gun Runner into and out of Cabo San Lucas. When things go wrong for Ordell, the gunrunner played by Samuel Jackson, Jackie looks like she is in the crosshairs of both the ATF and the violent Ordell. But you would never say that Jackie Brown was in over her head. This woman is whip smart, and fearless. And she devises a plan to get herself out of trouble with both of those sides.
The film is loaded with those Tarantino touches, such as mundane conversations turned into philosophical questions, expletive filled declarations of both love and hate, and a variety of characters that you don’t really like but find very interesting. So it is clearly under Tarantino’s thumb, and he makes the most of adapting somebody else’s work to his kind of film. In addition to Jackie, there is one other character that is smart and sympathetic and that we will find interesting and ready to root for. Max Cherry is a bail bondsman who is being used by Ordell to make his targets available after they have been arrested. Robert Forrester, plays Max as a sympathetic and wise older man, who does play by the rules but finds himself attracted to the charm of Jackie Brown. Forester has to sell the idea that he is falling in love with the least amount of dialogue possible, in often very brief scenes. That he does so successfully accounts for his nomination as best supporting actor that year, the only Academy Award nomination that the film received.
As usual, Samuel L Jackson is full of expletives and attitude, and his character Ordell is one of the most loathsome psychopaths that we have seen in a mainstream story. This is a movie that plays it straight, and although Ordell looks like a comic book villain at times, he really does seem to feel like a real person, just not one that’s very nice. Also along for the ride are Robert De Niro, as Ordell’s dimwitted partner in training, and Bridget Fonda as the beach bum girl that Ordell likes to have around as eye candy, primarily because she is white. The dialogue between Fonda and Jackson is frequently brittle and very funny. Fonda’s character is an attractive woman who is slightly over her youthful beauty and is now hardening into a harridan rather than a beach girl.
The cast is filled with very confident supporting actors including Michael Bowen, Chris Tucker, Tiny Lister, and most important of all Michael Keaton as the ATF guy that is interested in Jackie both professionally and romantically. Keaton and Bowen are the cops who are trying to manipulate Jackie into betraying Ordell, and Jackie has to outwit them as well as the dangerous gun dealer.
The film turns into a caper/con game movie in the last act, as Jackie and Max try to work out an exchange of money that implicates Ordell, frees Jackie from being under the thumb of the ATF, and also manages to separate the bad guy from his treasure. They do a dry run of the exchange so that the audience gets a sense of what’s going to be happening, but of course Tarantino twists it around when they get to the big exchange, and he gives us the process from three or four different perspectives, starting at different times, but ultimately overlapping. It’s a complicated sequence, but a good director has managed to make it completely understandable while still keeping us in suspense about what exactly is happening.
All of this only works because Pam Grier is a solid actress, who is finally getting a chance to play a smart character who doesn’t rely on belligerence to get her way but rather on cleverness. She is terrific in the scenes where she has to face down Ordell, or when she is flirting with Max. She does get to do the belligerent bit a couple of times in the film, but interestingly she is playing a part with that belligerence, sort of a meta reference to earlier characters that she’s played.
I was a guest on the Walt sent me podcast several years ago, where Todd Kristen and I talked about this film. The fact that Disney had bought Miramax, brought this movie into the house of Mouse, and the idea that Tarantino is responsible for a Disney movie just tickled us. I could not locate the episode, but believe me, we talked thoroughly about the film.
The second film in the program was from 1973, Foxy Brown. It’s not as intricately clever as Jackie Brown is, but it does give Pam Grier a chance to show the badass that we will be seeing 25 years later in the other movie. I’m going to do a separate post covering Foxy Brown on my site “Grindhouse Alley”. When that goes up I will link it here so you can see my thoughts on the second film in more detail.
I’m happy to say that even though it became a late night because of the double feature, most of the audience stayed for both movies. And everybody was very appreciative with Applause at the end of both films. I’ll say once more, the Paramount Summer Classic Film Series has hit the mark.
If you look elsewhere on the site you will find a list of my 10 favorite films. I cheated on one of the entries by listing both The Godfather and The Godfather Part 2 as a single unit. That’s because I always think of them as one big movie that just got separated by 2 years. The stories integrate so incredibly well, and the casting of the younger versions of characters that we come to know in the first Godfather is so spot on, that it feels like it was planned from the very beginning.
I’m so happy that the Paramount scheduled Godfather Part 2 on its 50th anniversary, because this is a movie that should be celebrated regularly. I don’t usually wait for a round number to rewatch the film, I think I saw it just a couple of years ago when I was doing my binge on “The Offer”, the streaming series based on the creation of the original Godfather. I like to catch up with this movie as often as possible although it is 3 hours and 20 minutes, which means that I’m not sitting down for a casual watch. Fortunately this is an opportunity to see the film on the big screen and once again it is as impressive as I remember.
Actor John Cazale famously made only five movies, all of which were nominated for Best Picture, and three of them won the award. It’s amazing to me that Cazale himself was never nominated. The only reason I can think that his performance in this film was overlooked is because there were three other supporting performances that were also pretty spectacular. It would have seemed odd at the Academy Awards if four out of the five slots had been taken up by actors in this film. Regardless Cazale’s performance as Fredo, is both heartbreaking and frustrating. If you’ve never seen the movie I certainly am not going to spoil it for you, but let’s just say that Michael never lets an offense to the family go unpunished.
The parallel structure of the two stories in this film starts with the rise of Vito Corleone as he and his family build a foundation in the early part of the 20th century in New York City , it is phenomenal. Robert De Niro, who did win this supporting actor award for his role in this film, actually looks like Marlon Brando might have looked in his leanest and hungriest years. He starts off as a naive waif, uncertain of where he fits in among the immigrants that he lives with and works around. When he encounters a young Clemenza, played with great personality by the late Bruno Kirby, Vito finds his way to his true destiny. Young Don Corleone was building his family up, but Michael Corleone in his desire to control his family completely, basically dismantles its core. In Godfather Part 3 we will get to see how it all plays out, but even without that pictures existence, we have a pretty clear idea of the wasteland that Corleone’s life had become.
It’s hard to imagine that Francis Ford Coppola was reluctant to do a sequel to the movie. He had so much success and a natural affinity for the material that it seemed inevitable that he would take on the task. The fact that he was able to use the studios desire for him to continue the story as a way of financing the film that he made between the two Godfathers, “The Conversation”, is just an extra bonus. When you watch the scenes of young Vito Corleone stalking Fanucci across the rooftops of the Italian neighborhood that this supposed member of the black hand was in control of, it’s like watching a tiger follow its prey. Inevitably there is violence, but Don Corleone does his best to keep the violence away from his family all of whom are all incredibly young at this point.
Michael’s story is of course a huge contrast, he starts off with all kinds of Power, but can’t keep the violence from intruding on the most personal parts of his life. The machine gun attack that takes place near the beginning of the film, highlights for his wife Kay, that the family is not really capable of going legitimate. Michael’s inability to confront problems with his son, or understand his wife’s pleas, makes him seem cold-hearted, when what he really is is a rock hard leader of a criminal organization. He lacks the warmth that his father had with his associates. There’s a great scene where he seems to be calling his adopted brother Tom Hagan on the carpet for fielding a job offer from another Institution. He comes across as bitter, and unsympathetic. Contrast this to the scene in the first Godfather when Vito actually comforts Tom when Sonny is killed. The difference between Father and Son is subtly displayed in these two scenes. Vito always played the humble part very well. Michael on the other hand is arrogant and self-assured, and never once allows anybody to see him sweat. Hell even in Cuba Michael has a hard time relaxing a little with his brother or the business associates that he is working with.
Coppola gives us fantastic set pieces, featuring hundreds of extras in elaborate costumes with distinctive music that clearly sets the time and place of the scenes that are playing out. The street festival where young Vito is stalking Fanucci, the confirmation party in Lake Tahoe, and the New Year’s Eve Revolution in Havana, are all spectacularly staged and probably a big part of why Coppola received the directors award that he was denied two years earlier. This was a big picture put together beautifully, with a huge degree of thought and care as to how the story was going to integrate the two lives.
I’ve told the story before of taking my girlfriend to see The Godfather and The Godfather Part 2 playing together back in the late 1970s. When the first film ended as we got up for an intermission to use the bathroom and maybe get something to drink, but the lights went down again and the second movie started immediately. We both sat down, skipped getting a drink, skipped going to the bathroom, and watch the second movie. We were hypnotized by the artistry of these two films. The fact that this woman sat with me for six and a half hours without a break only cemented my certainty that she was the woman I should spend my life with. So there’s that story again, hope you enjoyed it.
50 years ago was the start of a wonderful relationship for me. This was the year that I discovered Mel Brooks. Both “Blazing Saddles” and “Young Frankenstein” came out this year, and I saw them with my high school friends who all laughed as loud as I did. We knew we were in the presence of somebody who knew how to be funny, especially to high school boys. “Blazing Saddles” was the first of these two films to be released in 74, and it’s raucous, irreverent, and some times down right offensive. It was also a western, which I have a deep abiding Love for.
In spite of my admiration for “Blazing Saddles”, I’ve always felt that it was the second best Mel Brooks film of 1974. “Young Frankenstein” goes beyond silly parody, to be a genuine tribute to and echo of the classic Universal horror movies. Of course it is hysterical, there was little doubt that with the input of Brooks and co-screenwriter Gene Wilder, that this is going to be incredibly funny. It turns out that it is also incredibly sweet, with a soft spot for all of the characters in the film, even some of those loathsome villagers who think it’s time for a riot. There is something to laugh at and embrace in just about every scene.
To start off with, they made the film in black and white. In 1974 that was not very typical. Sure there were a few other films at the time that used black and white to suggest the past. Films like “The Last Picture Show”, “Paper Moon”, “Lenny” and a few more, They all use black and white to draw attention to themselves in a way that made them stand out in the crowded ’70s field. But in the field of comedy, you don’t get a lot of black and white films that are contemporary, until Woody Allen gets going a few years later. The truth is, this movie wouldn’t have worked in color, because our collective memory of the Universal films is black and white. Boris Karloff may have had green face makeup when the original Frankenstein was created, but we only saw the black and white and that’s what we remember. It would have been disturbing to have Peter Boyle on screen as the monster with a green face. Besides, all those great sets that were being used to make the movie wouldn’t look nearly as Gothic and creepy if they were in color. The villagers walking through the forest with fog rising from the ground in black and white just makes sense.
It would be pretty hard to go wrong with a cast that includes Gene Wilder, Marty Feldman, Madeline Kahn, Teri Garr, and Kenneth Mars, but when you add a surprise guest performance by my favorite actor in a completely unexpected role, I’m just going to have to say this film approaches perfection. Let’s face it Gene Hackman, as an avuncular blind man stumbling his way through making a new friend, may be the funniest 5 minutes in the whole movie, and that saying something.
The John Morris score is also something pretty special. It recalls Frankenstein with its limited score, Dracula with its borrowed themes, and classical source music. The little horn section gets its own joke when Marty Feldman as Igor, plays his little horn to accompany Inga on the violin. It’s guaranteed to get a chuckle for you. Next to the sequence with Gene Hackman, the dance routine with Gene Wilder and Peter Boyle to “Puttin’ on the Ritz” maybe one of the most bizarre, ridiculous, and ultimately perfect realizations of the absurdity of this story. Super duper.
As family-friendly as Young Frankenstein is, there are a couple of raunchy jokes built into the movie, especially at the end. Most of these will sail over the heads of kids, but teens and adults will smile at the sexual innuendo that is never explicitly stated. The film is certainly not as ribald as Blazing Saddles, but it’s not G-rated for a reason. We are reminded once again how sadly we miss Gene Wilder on screen, his performance is one for the ages. The moment of his frustration when he can’t get his two assistants to understand what he’s asking for as he’s being strangled by the monster, is both pantomime perfect, and then when he gets his voice back vocally hysterical. I have no patience for anybody who doesn’t think this film is funny. It’s so funny that I was amused by the slot machine that was based on it and was ubiquitous in Vegas two decades ago. Too bad you can’t find those slots now, I’m really in the mood for dropping some coin and hoping to get a bonus.
Hope Springs Eternal that seeing “Phantom of the Paradise” on the big screen will be an annual event. It has been for me for at least the last 2 years, now let’s keep our fingers crossed and pray that the streak can continue. This particular screening was opening weekend at the 50th Anniversary of the Paramount Theater Classic Summer Film Series. Since I got to Austin in the middle of the pandemic, I’ve discovered that the Paramount Theater in downtown Austin is my true second home. The theater is busy most nights with comedy shows and concerts from a variety of artists. In the summer however, especially during the week, the theater is filled with film fans who get a chance to enjoy some old classics in the way they are meant to be seen, on a big screen in a beautiful Movie Palace.
I started coming to the Paramount Theater in 2020 at the end of the summer when the lockdowns and the theater closures were finally dissipating. As it happened, the first two films that I saw at the Paramount were two of my favorite films of all time, Jaws and Lawrence of Arabia. Ever since then I have looked at the schedule for the summer series with anticipation. Last year my daughter and I sprang for the annual Club membership that allowed us to attend almost all of the film screenings in the summer series, as well as the Halloween “Panic at the Paramount” and the Christmas season offerings. This year we had no problem in deciding to renew, because this is how we live, and it’s how I roll.
Last year’s screening of “Phantom of the Paradise” was at an Alamo Drafthouse with an edited edition of the film done according to the specifications of director Brian DePalma. This version is unofficial, and the studio probably doesn’t really approve of it being shared. The version we saw this week was the one that played in theaters in 1974. It includes some of the bad floating matte work that was required to cover the “San Songs” logo, which was a copyright issue with the band Led Zeppelin. Steven Janice, the programmer at the Paramount, pointed out that the movie only made about $20,000 in its first week of release back in 1974. I’m pretty sure the $3.50 of that came from me, because I saw this film at the UA Theater in Pasadena in the fall that it came out.
It is hard for me to contain my enthusiasm for this movie. Brian DePalma was one of the most reliable directors in my formative years as a movie fan. This was the first of his films that I saw, and I loved it then as I do now. In addition to the outrageous premise the wild costumes and the over the top performances of some of the supporting cast, we have a fantastic score and a dozen songs from The Genius Paul Williams, who also happens to star as Swan, the villain of the movie.
I can never get “Goodbye Eddie” out of my head after hearing it in this movie. It’s the opening song played under the titles, and if you look at the promo that I’ve posted here for the classic summer film series, you’ll hear that it is the soundtrack for this ad. Winslow Leach may not approve of the “Juicy Fruits” but I was perfectly happy with their upbeat parody of a a 50s style lament about a rockstar who takes his life in order to increase his fame. Later on, the same band bastardizes Winslow’s Faust score to present a Beach Boys Style parody song “Upholstery”. This is another one of those Paul Williams tunes that gets hooked in your head and won’t go away. This movie is full of earworms.
I was a little brought down by the opening weekend of the summer classic film series because our annual pass was only good for one of the three screenings. We could have bought tickets separately for Casablanca or for Star Wars, but we did have other films that we were seeing that weekend so we limited ourselves to the Phantom experience. It appeared that a lot of other film fans felt the same way we did because they were out in mass on Sunday for this movie. The reception to the film was enthusiastic, and frankly I was sad that it was over because I wanted to do it all again immediately.
I’ve written about the film in a couple other places here on this blog so I will give you the links for those posts, so if you are interested in knowing more about the movie and the things that make it so special you can visit those musings. For now let me just say at the summer season is off to a rousing start and I have the Paramount Theater, Brian DePalma, and Paul Williams to think for my elevated mood this week. I’ll be seeing you regularly down on Congress Boulevard, if you see me say hi I’ll be the guy with a big smile on his face wallowing in classic movies.
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Kirkham A Movie A Day 