That said, here are some of our December picks available for FREE STREAMING all month long on the CMH Channel. All you need to do is click on the movie/show of your choice, then click ‘play’ — you do not have to opt for a 7-day trial.
In celebration of December Birthdays, we’re featuring Ava Gardner (born Dec 24, 1922) with two picks: the 1946 film noir Whistle Stop co-starring starring George Raft, and the 1952 adventure/romance The Snows of Kilimanjaro opposite Gregory Peck and Susan Hayward. We’re also celebrating George Stevens’ (born Dec 18, 1904) birthday with the classic 1941 romance Penny Serenade starring Cary Grant and Irene Dunne. Plus more movies from birthday girls Irene Dunne (Dec 20, 1898) and Dorothy Lamour (Dec 10, 1914), and birthday boys Edward G. Robinson (Dec 12, 1893) and Frank Sinatra (Dec 12, 1915) — and more!
We’re also celebrating the Holidays this month with some fun TV shows including The Jack Benny Show’s “Christmas Shopping Show”, Ozzie and Harriet’s “Fruitcake” and The Bob Cummings Show’s “Grandpa’s Christmas List”! And more…
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For those of you who aren’t familiar with the service, Best Classics Ever is a new mega streaming channel built especially for classic movie and TV lovers. The idea of the channel is to make lots of classic titles accessible and affordable for all. That said, Classic Movie Hub is curating titles each month that our fans can stream for free on the Classic Movie Hub Channelat Best Classics Ever. If you’d like access to the entire selection of Best Classics Ever titles, you can subscribe to everything for $4.99/month(Best Stars Ever, Best Westerns Ever, Best Mysteries Ever, Best TV Ever) or for an individual channel for $1.99/month.
You can read more about Best Classics Ever and our partnership here.
BFI Southbank’s “Marlene Dietrich: Falling in Love Again” From Europe to Hollywood and back again, the screen’s most enduring love goddess still smolders.
CMH is very happy to announce our partnership with the BFI, the UK’s lead organization for film, television and the moving image!
To kick things off, we’re offering our UK CMH fans an Exclusive Discount Code (see below) to purchase movie tickets for BFI Southbank’s Marlene Dietrich: Falling in Love Again season, programmed by film critic and writer Pamela Hutchinson. The season runs from Dec 3 through Dec 30, and celebrates the iconic actress, from her early silent performances to her Hollywood classics.
Use coupon code DIETRICH for a discount on your ticket purchase
Fans can discover Dietrich from one of her finest silent roles, The Three Lovers (Curtis Bernhardt, 1929), to her most compelling appearances in both European and Hollywood cinema, including The Blue Angel (Josef von Sternberg, 1930), A Foreign Affair (Billy Wilder, 1948) and Rancho Notorious (Fritz Lang, 1952).
Claude Jarman Jr. Child Star of The Yearling Talks about his film The Sun Comes Up (1949) AND offers Autographed Copies of His Book “My Life and the Final Days of Hollywood” for Purchase
In our 5th interview with Charles Jarman Jr, he talks about starring in the family drama The Sun Comes Up (1949), opposite Jeanette MacDonald, Lloyd Nolan and Lassie! The story was written by Marjorie Killings Rawlings, author of The Yearling (the film in which Claude made his debut at age 12 in 1946).
Claude also talks about his book My Life and the Final Days of Hollywood — AND offers fans a chance to purchase an autographed copy of the book directly from him! So, if you have a classic movie fan on your holiday gift list — you may want to take Claude up on his his very special and heartfelt offer!
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As Claude explains in the video, to order your autographed copy, just email Claude at thefinaldaysofhollywood@gmail.com. He will send you ordering and payment information. In a nutshell, each book is $15.00 and will cost around $5.00 to mail – no sales tax. Claude will send you a form that you can complete and email back with whatever personalization you’d like. Pretty simple and low tech. 🙂
So, without any further adieu, here is the clip in which Claude shares some fond memories of his days in Hollywood filming The Sun Comes Up.
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A Big Thank You to Claude for his time and sharing his wonderful stories — and for making these autographed books available for fans!
Stay tuned for more from Claude Jarman Jr. over the next few months, including more videos and some guest articles.
Thanks so much for watching and reading. Hope you enjoyed!
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–Annmarie Gatti for Classic Movie Hub
About Claude Jarman Jr.: Claude Jarman Jr. was discovered in a fifth grade class room in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1945 by film director Clarence Brown, taken to Hollywood where he starred with Gregory Peck and Jane Wyman in THE YEARLING. After receiving an Academy Award for his performance he went on to appear in ten additional films including John Ford’s RIO GRANDE with John Wayne and Maureen O’Hara and also William Faulkner’s story of racial strife in INTRUDER IN THE DUST.
Music by Max Steiner: The Epic Life of Hollywood’s Most Influential Composer We have 8 Books to Giveaway this Month!
“Gracefully written, this sympathetic portrait captures the prodigious composer’s personality and documents his many milestone achievements, from King Kong to Casablanca. I loved reading it.” –Leonard Maltin, Film Critic and Historian
In order to qualify to win one of these prizes via this contest giveaway, you must complete the below entry task by Saturday, Dec 26 at 6PMEST. However, the sooner you enter, the better chance you have of winning, because we will pick two winners on four different days within the contest period, via random drawings, as listed below… So if you don’t win the first week that you enter, you will still be eligible to win during the following weeks until the contest is over.
Dec 5: Two Winners
Dec 12: Two Winners
Dec 19: Two Winners
Dec 26: Two Winners
We will announce each week’s winner on Twitter @ClassicMovieHub, the day after each winner is picked around 9PM EST — for example, we will announce our first week’s winner on Sunday Dec 6 around 9PM EST on Twitter. And, please note that you don’t have to have a Twitter account to enter; just see below for the details…
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Dooley Wilson, Humphrey Bogart, and Ingrid Bergman in Casablanca
And now on to the contest!
ENTRY TASK (2-parts) to be completed by Saturday, Dec 26 at 6PM EST — BUT remember, the sooner you enter, the more chances you have to win…
1) Answer the below question via the comment section at the bottom of this blog post
2)ThenTWEET (not DM) the following message*: Just entered to win the “Music by Max Steiner: The Epic Life of Hollywood’s Most Influential Composer” #BookGiveaway courtesy of @OUPAcademic & @ClassicMovieHub #CMHContest You can #EnterToWin here: http://www.classicmoviehub.com/blog/music-by-max-steiner-the-epic-life-of-hollywoods-most-influential-composer-book-giveaway-dec/
THE QUESTION: What is one of your favorite Max Steiner scores and why? Or, if you’re not familiar with his work, why do you want to win this book?
*If you do not have a Twitter account, you can still enter the contest by simply answering the above question via the comment section at the bottom of this blog — BUT PLEASE ENSURE THAT YOU ADD THIS VERBIAGE TO YOUR ANSWER: I do not have a Twitter account, so I am posting here to enter but cannot tweet the message.
NOTE: if for any reason you encounter a problem commenting here on this blog, please feel free to tweet or DM us, or send an email to clas…@gmail.com and we will be happy to create the entry for you.
ALSO: Please allow us 48 hours to approve your comments. Sorry about that, but we are being overwhelmed with spam, and must sort through 100s of comments…
Mark Sandrich, Fred Astaire, and Max Steiner
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About the Book: During a seven-decade career that spanned from 19th century Vienna to 1920s Broadway to the golden age of Hollywood, three-time Academy Award winner Max Steiner did more than any other composer to introduce and establish the language of film music. Throughout his chaotic life, Steiner was buoyed by an innate optimism, a quick wit, and an instinctive gift for melody, all of which would come to the fore as he met and worked with luminaries like Richard Strauss, George Gershwin, Irving Berlin, the Warner Bros., David O. Selznick, Bette Davis, Frank Sinatra, and Frank Capra. In Music by Max Steiner, the first full biography of Steiner, author Steven C. Smith interweaves the dramatic incidents of Steiner’s personal life with an accessible exploration of his composing methods and experiences, bringing to life the previously untold story of a musical pioneer and master dramatist who helped create a vital new art with some of the greatest film scores in cinema history.
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Please note that only United States (excluding the territory of Puerto Rico) AND Canada entrants are eligible. No P.O. Boxes please.
“Hollywood is a Four Letter Town” We have FIVE Books to Give Away this month!
“Frank and Spicy!” – The New York Times
It’s time for our next book giveaway contest! CMH will be giving away FIVE COPIES of Hollywood is a Four Letter Town, by syndicated columnist James Bacon, courtesy of Doris Bacon, from now through Jan 2.
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In order to qualify to win one of these prizes via this contest giveaway, you must complete the below entry task by Saturday, Jan 2 at 6PM EST. However, the sooner you enter, the better chance you have of winning, because we will pick a winner on five different days within the contest period, via random drawings, as listed below. So if you don’t win the first week that you enter, you will still be eligible to win during the following weeks until the contest is over.
Dec 5: One Winner
Dec 12: One Winner
Dec 19: One Winner
Dec 26: One Winner
Jan 2: One Winner
We will announce each week’s winner on Twitter @ClassicMovieHub, the day after each winner is picked around 10PM EST — for example, we will announce our first week’s winner on Sunday Dec 6 around 10PM EST on Twitter. And, please note that you don’t have to have a Twitter account to enter; just see below for the details.
Cary Grant told James Bacon “I wish I looked as good as you in a tux.”
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And now on to the contest!
ENTRY TASK (2-parts) to be completed by Saturday, Jan 2, 2021 at 6PM EST — BUT remember, the sooner you enter, the more chances you have to win…
1) Answer the below question via the comment section at the bottom of this blog post
2)ThenTWEET (not DM) the following message*: Just entered to win the “Hollywood is a Four Letter Town” by James Bacon #BookGiveaway courtesy of @JBaconHollywood & CMH – #CMHContest You can #EnterToWin here: http://www.classicmoviehub.com/blog/hollywood-is-a-four-letter-town-book-giveaway-dec/
THE QUESTION: What is it that you love most about the Golden Age of Hollywood and its stars?
*If you do not have a Twitter account, you can still enter the contest by simply answering the above question via the comment section at the bottom of this blog — BUT PLEASE ENSURE THAT YOU ADD THIS VERBIAGE TO YOUR ANSWER: I do not have a Twitter account, so I am posting here to enter but cannot tweet the message.
NOTE: if for any reason you encounter a problem commenting here on this blog, please feel free to tweet or DM us, or send an email to clas…@gmail.com and we will be happy to create the entry for you.
ALSO: Please allow us 48 hours to approve your comments. Sorry about that, but we are being overwhelmed with spam, and must sort through 100s of comments…
James Bacon and Marlon Brando on The Young Lions set
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About the Author and Book: James Bacon was the ultimate insider of Hollywood’s Golden Era as a syndicated columnist for 41 years, first with the Associated Press and then with the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner. He sipped champagne with Sophia Loren, drank vodka with Joan Crawford and got a first-hand account of Marilyn Monroe’s affair with JFK. During his lifetime, Bacon compiled his memorable celebrity encounters in two books, “Hollywood is a Four-Letter Town,” (1976) and “Made in Hollywood” (1977), which the New York Times called “frank, spicy and entertaining.” He also wrote an acclaimed biography of Jackie Gleason, “How Sweet it Is” (1985) which was celebrated by notables like Paul Newman, Frank Sinatra and Laurence Olivier. His widow, Doris Bacon, has decided to reissue the books, long unavailable on Amazon, in Bacon’s spirit. They are entertaining reads, crammed with stories and inside scoop on Hollywood’s biggest names, from Monroe to Elizabeth Taylor to John Wayne to Bette Davis and more.
Even more than the famous “Here’s Looking at You” scene, the “La Marseillaise” scene in Casablanca is the one scene in the film that evokes more emotion from audiences than any other, as it propels the narration in a new direction and reveals more about the characters than we previously knew.
Laszlo conducts “La Marseillaise”
It begins with Germans wrapped around a piano inside Rick’s Cafe Americain singing their patriotic anthem, “Die Wacht am Rhein”. Their singing draws the attention of Victor Laszlo (Paul Henreid), a member of the resistance, who has just been denied help to escape by Rick (Humphrey Bogart), the club’s owner. Laszlo rushes to the house musicians and instructs them to play the French national anthem, “La Marseillaise”. He’s watched by his wife, Ilsa (Ingrid Bergman), who’s torn between the love of her husband and Rick, with whom she had an affair in Paris. At first she appears conflicted, but as she studies Laszlo, a look of admiration comes upon her face, as if she already knows “the problems of three little people don’t amount to a hill of beans” and the fight against fascism is what’s important.
Even Rick, who only moments before refused to help and claimed his politics were neutral when questioned by the Germans, supports Laszlo as he nods in approval to the musicians that it’s okay to play the song. This is the first sign that Rick’s hard shell that formed after Ilsa abandoned him in Paris is starting to crack, leading him to redemption and “joining the fight” later in the film.
Madeleine LeBeau
Yvonne (Madeleine LeBeau), a jilted lover of Rick’s, appears in an earlier scene with German soldiers. Her motive is to make Rick jealous, though she angers her fellow refugees in the process. Once the song begins, however, and everyone sings along, she is moved to tears. Upon the song’s completion, she passionately shouts, “Viva La France!” as a rebuke of the German presence in her native country. At this point, there are no more pleasantries amongst the two nationalities. The anthem has reminded the French of home and why they left.
It’s this excitement that causes Major Strasser of the Third Reich (Conrad Veidt) to insist Rick’s gets shut down. The threat of Laszlo’s influence is too great. From here on in, the film becomes much darker. Sam’s no longer singing and no one’s laughing at the bar. A curfew is instituted, and the escapism Rick’s provides comes to a halt. Inspired by Lazlo and his bold stance against the Nazis, refugees begin to organize, as political intrigue and love triangle complexities drive the picture home.
The ending scene to Casablanca will always be its most famous, as the audience waits to see if Ilsa ends up with Rick or Laszlo. Still, it’s on the “La Marseillaise” scene the entire narration pivots. In it, Rick starts to understand why Laszlo fights, Ilsa realizes why she loves her husband, and the refugees begin to feel emboldened. It’s an emotionally packed scene, one that is almost impossible to watch without getting choked up as the patrons of Rick’s take their first stand against the Germans, while Rick and Ilsa both begin to figure out what they’re looking for: the fight against fascism.
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–Kevin Egan for Classic Movie Hub
Kevin Egan is a songwriter and musician who’s been performing in New York City for over thirty years. His past bands are 1.6 Band, the Last Crime and the New York hardcore band Beyond, which is also the subject of his documentary film What Awaits Us, a Beyond Story.
At the beginning of this year, I wrote a column on three Westerns I consider “Hidden Gems,” lesser-known yet very entertaining movies.
Here’s a trio of three more Westerns I’ve really
enjoyed which aren’t widely known; they’re all quite well done, and even the
least of these films rewards the viewer with memorable characterizations and
surprises.
One of the films in my original “Hidden Gems” column, The Desperado (1954), was written by Daniel Mainwaring, who also wrote the classic film noir Out of the Past (1947) under another name, Geoffrey Homes.
Mainwaring turns up again here as the co-screenwriter, along with Hugo Butler, of one of my favorite lesser-known Westerns, RKO’s Roughshod. Roughshod was well directed by Mark Robson, who launched his career a few years previously making compact but spooky Val Lewton thrillers such as The Seventh Victim (1943) and The Ghost Ship (1943).
Claude Jarman Jr.
Robert Sterling and Claude Jarman Jr., who had both worked at MGM earlier in the ’40s, play brothers Clay and Steve Phillips, who as the film opens are driving horses over the Sonora Pass.
The brothers stumble across a broken-down buggy with four stranded dance hall girls headed to Sonora, played by Gloria Grahame, Martha Hyer, Jeff Donnell, and Myrna Dell.
As they assist the women, Clay tentatively
begins to develop a relationship with gorgeous, worldly Mary (Grahame), while
events push the other ladies to make significant choices about their futures.
It’s not all smooth going, however, as a trio of killers, led by an escaped convict named Lednov (John Ireland), are in the area, and Lednov is hunting for Clay.
The cast is excellent, and the film particularly made me wish that Sterling made more than a small handful of Westerns, as he seems quite at home in this genre. Jarman, a year ahead of making Rio Grande (1950) for John Ford, is likewise excellent as Clay’s loyal young brother, whose determination to help Clay at a critical moment belies his age.
Gloria Grahame and Robert Sterling
The film mixes pleasant moments centered on the
characters’ relationships, such as Mary teaching Steve to read, with a few
scenes which are quite dark, due in large part to Ireland’s believability as a
deranged killer. Director Robson handles the material so capably that,
just as with Sterling, I was left wishing he had made more Westerns
With the exception of a few interiors and
process shots, Roughshod was filmed entirely on location in
the Sierras. Joseph Biroc’s evocative cinematography beautifully captures
a “fresh air” feel in which the viewer can almost smell the dust and
the trees. The excellent location work gives the film an authentic kind
of “you are there” immediacy which helps enable the viewer to be
deeply immersed in the story.
Highly recommended.
Roughshod is available on DVD from the Warner Archive.
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Dragoon Wells Massacre (Harold D. Schuster, 1957)
Dragoon Wells Massacre (1957)
Actor-writer Warren Douglas penned the
screenplay for Dragoon Wells Massacre, using one of the
genre’s most familiar plot conventions, the disparate band of travelers under
attack from Indians.
John Ford’s Stagecoach (1939) is one of the earliest and best examples of this theme, which encourages filmmakers to simultaneously focus on both action and character development. As with other regularly used Western plot devices, the fun is in watching a film’s unique take.
Dragoon Wells Massacre is blessed with a terrific cast, headed by two excellent leading men, Dennis O’Keefe and Barry Sullivan.
Katy Jurado, Mona Freeman, Casey Adams, and Barry Sullivan
O’Keefe and Sullivan play polar opposites, with O’Keefe as a soldier who is the lone survivor of an Indian attack, while Sullivan is an accused criminal being taken to trial by a marshal (Trevor Bardette). Jack Elam costars as a second man in the marshal’s custody.
These men, representing both sides of the law, meet up with several others in the desert, including the passengers of a broken-down stagecoach (Mona Freeman, Katy Jurado, and Casey Adams).
Character is revealed as Indians constantly
attack the group, killing both men and horses. The supposed criminals
played by Sullivan and Elam prove to be among the most courageous in the group,
with Sullivan also finding time to romance the tempestuous Freeman, who has
previously been poorly matched with O’Keefe and then Adams.
Mona Freeman and Barry Sullivan
Sullivan, as is often the case in his career,
comes close to stealing the movie from a fine cast. His character has
wonderful bits of business, such as spending quieter moments playing cards with
the marshal. Elam is also a particular standout as a grizzled bad guy who
comforts a little girl (Judy Stranges) found by the group.
Director Harold Schuster keeps the action moving
briskly. This CinemaScope film was shot in Utah by William Clothier,
known for his work on many films produced by or starring John Wayne. Look for
screenwriter Douglas in a small role as Jud.
Dragoon Wells Massacre has had a Region 2 release in Germany but has not yet had an authorized home viewing release in the United States. I very much hope that one day it will be more widely available.
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Four Fast Guns (William J. Hole Jr., 1960)
Four Fast Guns (1960)
Late in his film career, former MGM leading man James Craig did some terrific work in “B” Westerns, including a supporting role in Man or Gun (1958), one of the films highlighted in my previous “Hidden Gems” column.
Craig stars in Four Fast Guns, a brisk 72-minute tale of gunslinger Tom Sabin, who kills a “town tamer” in self-defense and then takes the man’s job bringing law to the aptly named Western town of Purgatory.
A wheelchair-bound saloon owner (Paul Richards) has reasons for not wanting the town to be cleaned up and writes to three different hired killers, offering a fee to the man who kills Sabin. It’s noteworthy that one of the hired guns is played by Richard Martin, best known as Tim Holt‘s sidekick Chito in a long series of RKO “B” Westerns. It was Martin’s final film.
James Craig
The movie has some echoes of Audie Murphy‘s Ride a Crooked Trail (1958), with the seeming bad guy proving to be the man standing for justice, and there are also echoes of Budd Boetticher’s Seven Men From Now (1956) in the economically filmed yet quite entertaining ways Sabin takes out would-be assassins.
Craig brings a world-weary authority and
underlying sadness to his role, a part light years away from his easy-going
leading man roles of the ’40s. I especially loved Craig’s unexpected
scenes with the final gunman (Brett Halsey) to arrive in Purgatory.
Four Fast Guns was also the last film for actress Martha Vickers, well known to film noir fans for The Big Sleep (1946). She’s interesting as the saloon owner’s wife who is attracted to Sabin, though the role is somewhat underwritten; viewers watching closely will note that she almost never interacts with her husband, though they’re in many of the same scenes. I would have liked Vickers’ character to be better fleshed out in the screenplay, but otherwise, this is quite a well-written film, authored by James Edmiston and Dallas Gaultois.
Martha Vickers and Paul Richards
Edgar Buchanan also adds nice touches as the town drunk who proves to be Sabin’s ally.
There’s nothing better than watching a relatively unknown film like this “cold” and discovering a very worthwhile movie. Four Fast Guns is a wonderful example of a minor film that provides rewarding Western viewing.
Four Fast Guns is available on DVD from VCI Entertainment.
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— Laura Grieve for Classic Movie Hub
Laura can be found at her blog, Laura’s Miscellaneous Musings, where she’s been writing about movies since 2005, and on Twitter at @LaurasMiscMovie. A lifelong film fan, Laura loves the classics including Disney, Film Noir, Musicals, and Westerns. She regularly covers Southern California classic film festivals. Laura will scribe on all things western at the ‘Western RoundUp’ for CMH.
This month’s foray into director Alfred Hitchcock explores him putting characters into such black holes not even light can escape. I’ll give you a double whammy of two films where the legal system and the confessional go through the Hitchcock pretzel-making machine. And there ain’t nuthin’ glossy or romantic about it.
“THE WRONG MAN” ( 1956 ) – KAFKA AIN’T GOT
NUTHIN’ ON HITCH
What if a system that is supposed to protect and work FOR us, turns
against us? Hitchcock has explored the wrong man theme before, but
this time, the man is really…really…wrong.
Sheesh, is THIS one ever a downer. But it’s still Hitchcock, and he shows how one man’s world is turned upside down and inside out. The forces of The Law work against Henry Fonda as a man accused of a crime he did not commit.
With no lawyer and not even that one (Constitutionally-allowed) phone call on his side, Fonda is ground through the legal system like sausage meat. The police are oppressively not so law and order doing their due diligence which doesn’t bolster my confidence in the system. Hitchcock gives a play-by-the-numbers policier with this film.
Vera Miles
I like how all the bricks of Fonda’s alibi and whereabouts are laid out neatly and clearly beforehand. We, the audience, see the truth while The Law only sees what things look like, and not what they are. See…that’s a Hitchcock move, giving the audience more information than the characters have. How honestly and innocently Fonda’s Manny Balestrero’s answers questions – a man with nothing to hide. How terrifying events turn against him when all his actions look suspect to fit people’s perceptions. But worst of all is the collateral damage done to his family, specifically wife Vera Miles. Talking to my friend Wendy about the movie she says:
“I find it so SO heartbreaking.
He doesn’t hang, but it’s destroyed him and her already anyway, so it doesn’t matter. It’s so dark.”
Vera Miles
Miles loses hold of her sanity as Fonda goes deeper and deeper into this Kafka-esque rabbit hole. Hitchcock tells the story in a very straight-forward manner, and takes us to a very deep dark place where the letter of the law drops very heavily. This is grim, folks. You don’t want to be there. But Hitchcock takes you by the hand…
*****
“I CONFESS” ( 1953 ) ~ THE DIVINE BURDEN OR…I’M TOO SEXY FOR THIS COLLAR
Confession is good for the soul? In Hitchcock’s world, that’s iffy. An unstoppable force (the State) meets an immovable object (the Church), two forces in the grip of Hitchcock. When you deal with the State ~ the Law ~ the Police, they let you know anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. (See The Wrong Man). They’ll give up your secrets in a heartbeat and put you behind bars forever. But what if you confess to a priest…
I can just see Hitchcock meeting with his production team now with
this simple kernel of an idea:
“What if a murderer confessed to a priest?”
And they’re off to the races.
If you want to get the full ‘Monty’ of the genesis of I Confessbased on a play by Paul Anthelme, you can read the article in “Senses of Cinema”. What do you do when a man who confesses to murder implicates YOU in that crime? How galling is it to see a man taunt a priest with his confession of murder by saying: “you can’t tell, you’re a priest!” And as a priest, how bound are you by the tenets of religion, how committed are you to your faith that you say nothing, risking taking the rap yourself? What a pickle to be in. Well, I Confess is a movie about all that. It’s 1953. What young actor can you get to play such a man?
Why, Monty, of course!!
Montgomery Clift
Montgomery Clift. A Place in the Sun is the film he does just before this one. [Could he be making amends for letting Shelley Winters drown? ;-)] Monty would be perfect for this role. It’s such a crime he looks so good with that collar wrapped around his throat; his soulful dark beauty gives way to distracting thoughts about a priest. (I confess!) But he’s perfect for the role because he’s such an internal actor. He can get ideas across without speaking and much of this movie is about NOT speaking. You can believe Monty the Priest has the integrity and deep faith that would prevent him from giving up the murderer…even if it means he himself will be charged with the crime. Clift is shackled to his conscience, but it’s a divine burden he bears.
Strange pillow talk between O.E. Hasse and Dolly Hass
Human nature will win out. How ironic the murderer condemns Clift for talking, (Monty has not) when it is he who suffers and bursts from not talking. Actor O.E. Hasse plays the weaselly little murderer who seems to want to transfer his guilt onto other people. A wife cannot testify against her husband. Oh yeah, she knows. He made sure of that.
Alright already ~ spill the beans…or the damned rosary beads
But what better way to lock in that confession than by telling a priest. You kill two birds with one stone: absolution and the priest bears the burden of your crime. And you’re killing birds now, you creep. You can add that to your sins! I Confess is not one of Hitchcock’s sexy romantic technicolor thrillers. No one is being chased across the roofs of Paris or peeping in courtyard windows or crawling over presidents on Mount Rushmore. But it’s well-done and casts thoughts on religion and how deep one’s faith is. When everything hinges on not talking, Hitchcock makes the constraints of the confessional as suspenseful as hiding in a windmill.
Theresa Brown is a native New Yorker, a Capricorn and a biker chick (rider as well as passenger). When she’s not on her motorcycle, you can find her on her couch blogging about classic films for CineMaven’s Essays from the Couch. Classic films are her passion. You can find her on Twitter at @CineMava.
Silents are Golden: “For the Sake of the Picture” – The Dangerous Era of Silent Filmmaking
Most of us are familiar with the incredible stuntwork done for the 1910s and 1920s films – often by the main stars themselves, such as Douglas Fairbanks or Harold Lloyd. The extremes they were willing to put themselves through for the sake of a laugh or a gasp was extraordinary. But when it came to some productions, the risks didn’t end when those cameras stopped rolling. Whole camera crews and casts trekked to remote locations to make a picture, and often endured extreme heat or bitter cold. Extras put their bodies through the wringer for realistic battle scenes and large-scale stunts–often for little pay. When it came to endangering life and limb to make a film, we can say that the silent era truly had no peer.
Keep in mind that in the early 20th century, cinema wasn’t merely a new form of entertainment or a new, unusual way for performers to make a living. It truly opened up an entire world of creative possibilities. Buster Keaton recalled how exciting it was to realize that motion pictures could go far beyond the confines of the stage: “The camera had no such limitations. The whole world was its stage. If you wanted cities, deserts, the Atlantic Ocean, Persia, or the Rocky Mountains for your scenery and background, you merely took your camera to them. In the theater, you had to create an illusion of being on a ship, a railroad train, or an airplane. The camera allowed you to show your audience the real thing.”
So perhaps it’s understandable that this fervor about filming actual locations and capturing real stunts became almost a mania in silent Hollywood. The earliest studios started slowly, perhaps by sending a small crew to capture a local parade or to get shots of actors in natural scenery. Studios like the Keystone Film Company might send their crew to a public event and have the actors adlib their way through a simple comedy (Charlie Chaplin’s Kid Auto Races at Venice (1914) was famous for this).
A shot from Kid Auto Races at Venice (1914).
But these easy-access locations were only satisfying for so long–studios wanted to wow audiences with sweeping scenery. They were also swept up by the adventure of location shoots, even when they were difficult or even dangerous. Westerns were shot out in the desert, where actual cowboys often lent their horseriding skills to thrilling chase scenes and squirmishes in winding canyons. Films with wintery scenes might be shot up in a snowy mountain range–not always easy to access in those days. Crews might journey by train for several days to a remote location, where they might be hours away from any assistance. While filming the satire Moonshine (1918) in a deep river valley, Roscoe Arbuckle and his crew woke up one morning to discover that rain had caused the river to rise several feet. They waited over a week for the river to recede before they could head home.
Arbuckle and Buster Keaton on location for Moonshine.
One of the most dramatic stories about dangerous locations shooting involved star and director Nell Shipman and her director husband Bert. Around 1923, while filming by a frozen lake in snowy northern Idaho, they were separated from the rest of the crew and had to make a twenty-mile hike to get to the nearest ranch. Bert, who had a foot injury that had become infected, began suffering from delirium. Equipped only with a sledge–which frequently fell through the lake’s thin ice–they struggled through the snow for mile after mile. Nell’s feet would suffer frostbite, and Bert would have his infected foot amputated.
Going to great lengths for amazing shots could be accomplished in the studio, too. A prime example is the mighty Babylon set from D.W. Griffith’s Intolerance(1916), an amazing achievement to this day. Its broad floors and ninety-foot walls were packed with extras for the battle scenes–around 2000 people in all for some sequences. One of Griffith’s assistant directors, Joseph Henabery, recalled that during the filming of the most intense battle scene there were 67 on-set accidents in one day. Another time, one unfortunate man got an arrow shot into the side of his head.
Intolerance’s mighty battle.
While stuntmen were used in those days, extras were sometimes allowed to volunteer to do a long fall or other stunt-like work for some extra pay. In Cecil B. DeMille’s drama The Woman God Forgot(1917), a battle taking place on an Aztec pyramid was supposed to show men falling and sliding down the steep side. The pyramid’s surface was paper-covered wood that was coated in sand to look like stone–thus, extras that took the fall got their skin thoroughly scraped by sandpaper.
Several films became legendary for the hardships the cast and crew endured in the name of realism. Greed(1924) would film a key sequence in the blistering heat of Death Valley, where the temperature would rise to 120 degrees (actor Jean Hersholt needed several weeks to recover). Way Down East(1920) had its climactic scene on a frozen river, where Lillian Gish’s character collapses on a real ice floe (Gish trailed her hand in the water for dramatic effect and suffered permanent nerve damage). And Ben-Hur(1925) was renowned for its difficult, lengthy shoot, with one sea battle sequence that even today is rumored to have caused the deaths of several extras.
The Death Valley sequence in Greed.
It’s easy to gawk at the daring, practically devil-may-care nature of some early filmmakers, and to wonder just what drove them. The great historian Kevin Brownlow had a unique insight. In his seminal book on silent film The Parade’s Gone By, he wrote: “For many of them, the fact of working at something enjoyable was a new sensation. Some had known great poverty. While they earned thousands a week in California, their families still struggled, refusing assistance. It is no wonder that Hollywood cut itself off from the rest of the world, becoming a sort of…dream factory, which was a bit dreamlike itself…“
Chaplin during the making of The Gold Rush (1925).
“To allay the guilt which furtively gnawed at certain souls, technicians and players often endured the most incredibly rigorous conditions ‘for the sake of the picture.’ For some such an experience was an adventure, a challenge. To others, it was a purge.”
Lea Stans is a born-and-raised Minnesotan with a degree in English and an obsessive interest in the silent film era (which she largely blames on Buster Keaton). In addition to blogging about her passion at her site Silent-ology, she is a columnist for the Silent Film Quarterlyand has also written for The Keaton Chronicle.
As much as we love Bela Lugosi and our other iconic film Dracula, Christopher Lee, there’s a range of vampire films that go beyond these actors and The Count. Some aren’t memorable or even very good; others bear little resemblance to the blood-sucking count.
Then there’s Mario Bava’s atmospheric Black Sunday (1960), a great vampire movie filled with iconic imagery without a fang in sight.
The Mask of Satan being impaled on the Barbara Steele in Mario Bava’s horror film Black Sunday is a scene that’s hard to forget.
As a kid, I fought my parents to watch this when it was on TV. I lost the battle, but they were right. Once I finally saw Black Sunday it gave me nightmares. The well-known scene where the Mask of Satan with its spiked nails is hammered on to Barbara Steele’s face never leaves you. I get chills just thinking about it. It’s that type of unforgettable imagery that makes Bava such a master of Gothic Italian horror.
The movie transports us to the 17th century on Black
Sunday – a day that comes once a century when Satan walks the Earth and his human
followers become vampires.
One of those is Princess Asa Vajda (Barbara Steele), who has been condemned to death by her brother for sorcery. She’s branded by a hot iron with an S for Satan (gross) as she curses her brother’s family for eternity. Then the Mask of Satan is hammered on her face. It’s horrifying.
Two centuries later on Black Sunday, Dr. Choma Kruvajan (Andrea Checchi) and his handsome, young assistant Dr. Andrej Gorobec (John Richardson) are traveling through Moldovia when their carriage breaks down. In a precursor to the “don’t go in the basement” refrain of modern horror films, they head down into a crypt where they’re drawn to Asa’s tomb. She was deemed so evil that a glass pane is over her face so she’ll see a cross if she awakens. A bat startles Kruvajan who accidentally breaks the glass and the cross and cuts himself. We know where this is going.
Back outside, the men are startled by the striking Princess Katia (also played by Steele) and her two large dogs. Gorobec, of course, is smitten by her beauty and sadness.
Katia, her father and brother live in a castle where the specter of Asa’s family curse haunts them. They know the history of those who have fallen to the curse, including a princess who looked like Katia, and seem to be resigned to their fate. Give credit to Steele in the dual roles of Asa and Katia. The actress and her oversized eyes give each woman what she needs: an intense coldness for Asa; a sorrowful aura for Katia.
Back to those few drops of blood: They’ve helped awaken Asa, who telepathically summons her love Javutich to rise from the dead and do her bidding. The goal: to drain Katia’s blood so Asa can again walk the Earth.
Asa will need the blood of her ancestor Katia to live again and regain her beauty.
The two doctors are pulled into all of this – one willingly, the other not – as Asa works her evil from the crypt. Slowly she is being brought back to life, but not just yet as Bava lets the camera linger on her hideous face still marked by puncture wounds. He’ll return to this sight throughout the film.
It fits with Bava’s flair for the dramatic in his visuals, sound, music and effects. Fog is omnipresent and especially effective when it’s billowing along the ground inside the castle where it’s like a character walking through a room. Ghastly faces float in and out of the shadows, sometimes terrifying people to death. It’s an effect that worked equally as well when Bava used it again in The Drop of Water segment of his horror anthology Black Sabbath (1963).
* * * *
Black Sabbath also is worth noting for this story because of its interesting, but grim short film The Wurdulak, based on the vampire in Slavik folklore. It stars Boris Karloff, who also narrates the film.
A mother holds her son tight in fear of his grandfather in The Wurdulak, one of three short films in Mario Bava’s horror anthology Black Sabbath.
The Wurdulak is set in 19th century Russia, where a terrified family awaits the return of their patriarch, Gorca (Karloff). He has yet to return from a mission to kill the wurdulak and it’s nearly the time he warned his family about: If he hasn’t returned by 10 on the fifth day, he has failed and must be killed with a stake through his heart. They are wise to listen: the cadaverous wurdulak survives by drinking the blood of those he loves. If Gorca is now a wurdulak, guess who’s next?
But first, a handsome Russian nobleman (Mark Damon) arrives at the family cottage in time to learn about the wurdulak, witness Gorca’s return and fall in love with his lovely daughter Sdenka (Susy Andersen) all in a few hours.
Gorca is disheveled, wounded and acting irrationally leaving his family unsure if he is human or vampire. The way he eyes them all up – especially his young grandson – is disturbing, but they give him a chance because he’s family. It won’t take long to know if that’s a wise decision.
Boris Karloff isn’t looking too well when he returns from hunting a vampire in The Wurdulak, fromBlack Sabbath.
Bava packs a lot into this 15-minute segment. It feels like we’re getting the best parts of a 90-minute horror film – all substance, no filler.
While we’re talking Bava and vampires, let’s finish with one more.
* * * *
In Bava’s Planet of the Vampires (1965) we see the definition of a B-movie: bare-bones sets, weak special effects, low production values. The fact this sci-fi horror film also is directed by Bava seems odd. Then he hits us with some great imagery to remind us a master is behind the camera.
Two interplanetary ships respond to a distress call from the planet Aura and things quickly go wrong. Entering the planet’s atmosphere, crew members attack each other. On one ship, Captain Markary (Barry Sullivan) is immune to this “temporary madness” and saves his crew. The other crew isn’t so lucky as the entire group is found dead.
Barry Sullivan, second from right, leads his crew on a sparsely decorated set in Planet of the Vampires.
Strange things continue on the planet. Bodies disappear, weird light orbs zing about, mysterious shadows appear and the bones of giant creatures are discovered.
Wait: a distress call, a strange planet, bones of giant creatures? Yes, there are similarities to Ridley Scott’s Alien, and they’ve been pointed out by film fans and critics for years.
One of those fans is actor Nicolas Winding Refn who was
happy to make the point when he introduced the restored 4K version of Planet
of the Vampires in Cinema Classics at the Cannes Film Festival in 2016.
“Planet of the Vampires is the film that Ridley Scott
and Dan O’Bannon stole from to make Alien. We found the elements,
we have the evidence tonight. This is the original,” he said.
Now, no one is saying Planet of the Vampires is
anywhere near the quality of Scott’s masterpiece, just that there are
similarities.
Men wrapped in plastic rise from the dead in this creepy scene from Planet of the Vampires.
But don’t underestimate Bava’s directorial skills. Take the unsettling scene where men wrapped in clear plastic bags rise from the dead, like a vampire emerging from his coffin. You can feel them gasping for air – or something – as they rip the plastic that confines them.
Though these parasitic aliens don’t suck the blood out of your neck, they find other ways to drain the life from your body, turning you into their version of the undead.
It’s not Dracula or Black Sunday, but Planet of the Vampires is entertaining in that B-movie way. Plus it has the bonus of a Twilight Zone twist at the end.
Toni Ruberto, born and raised in
Buffalo, N.Y., is an editor and writer at The Buffalo News. She shares her love
for classic movies in her blog, Watching Forever.
Toni was the president of the former Buffalo chapter of TCM Backlot and now
leads the offshoot group, Buffalo Classic Movie Buffs. She is proud to have put
Buffalo and its glorious old movie palaces in the spotlight as the inaugural winner
of the TCM in Your Hometown contest. You can find Toni on Twitter at
@toniruberto.
