John Phillip Law as the sexy silent super thief, Diabolik.
One of my favorite actors and one of the most beautiful men to ever appear in movies has passed away at the age of 70. It’s mind-boggling to consider how many terrific and entertaining films that John Philip Law appeared in. He may not be a household name and if imdb.com is to be believed, I don’t think he ever won any acting awards but he was always fun to watch and I never get tired of looking at him. He’s really one of cinema’s great male beauties and an important counterculture figure. I will miss him but I’m thankful that I got to enjoy the man in so many wonderful movies.
My Top 10 favorite John Phillip Law films
(numerical order subject to change at anytime!):
1. Diabolik (1968) (Diabolik made my list of 10 Favorite Eurotrash films that I compiled last year.)
2. Barbarella (1968)
John Phillip Law as the blind angel Pygar in Roger Vadim’s surreal and sexy sci-fi fantasy Barbarella (1968)
3. Death Rides a Horse (1967) (This film made my list of Top 10 Spaghetti Westerns)
4. The Love Machine (1971)
5. The Sergeant (1968)
6. Whisper in the Dark (1976)
Dyan Cannon and John Phillip Law having some fun
in the sex-charged Jack Haley Jr. film The Love Machine (1971)
7. The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming (1966) (I wrote about this film in-depth last year after revisiting it)
8. Skidoo (1968)
9. The Last Movie (1971)
10. The Golden Voyage of Sinbad (1974)
John Phillip Law must deal with Rod Steiger’s unwanted advances in The Sergeant (1968). A fascinating film about a gay military man struggling with his emotions.
Honorable Mention:
The unforgettable ’80s horror fantasy Night Train to Terror (1985)
It’s really a shame that The Love Machine, The Sergeant and Skidoo are not available on DVD yet. Some studios will probably try to cash in on the actor’s death so we may see these films finally find there way onto DVD soon. Skidoo seems to be getting a lot of attention lately so I suspect that it will be released in the near future.
Finally… a must see video clip for The Swinging Lust World of John Phillip Law. This wonderful psychedelic video tribute to John Phillip Law contains brief action clips from many of his best films accompanied by the title song from Ennio Morricone’s brilliant soundtrack for Diabolik. It appears to be a trailer for a longer upcoming film:
UPDATE: The very nice Chris Casey was kind enough to leave a comment on my Myspace Blog letting me know that John Phillip Law had been suffering the effects of terminal cancer, which led to his sudden death. You can find Chris’ comments here.
Top: David Hemmings and Steve Marriott
Bottom: Jennifer Moss and Heinz Burt
I recently watched two entertaining and important musicals directed by British B-movie maven Lance Comfort called Live It Up! (1963) and its sequel Be My Guest (1964), which are currently available on DVD from Guillotine Films. After my failed attempts at finding any good articles about these films available online I figured I’d try and compile something for Cinebeats. I hope readers will find these films as interesting as I did and enjoy the results of my rather lengthy investigation into the mod musicals of Lance Comfort.
Director Lance Comfort is mostly known for the dark melodramas, crime pictures and low-budget thrillers he made in Britain during the ’40s and ’50s but late in his career he was hired to direct two films that shined a spotlight on some of Britain’s up and coming musical acts. These films also showcased some of the fashions, style and stars that would go on to shape and influence pop culture for decades to come.
I’ve only seen a few other Lance Comfort movies myself so my experience with the director’s work is minimal at best, but from the accounts I’ve read and the informative commentary made available on the DVDs by the film’s executive producer, it seems that Lance Comfort was mainly acting as a “director for hire” on these films even though he also helped co-produce them. Live It Up! and Be My Guest were both low-budget promotional films created by the Film Music division of the British entertainment company known as The Rank Organisation. At the time it was run by producer Harold Shampan who made these movies in an effort to sell more records. Much like the music videos found on MTV today, during the late ’50s and early ’60s numerous bands and musical acts appeared in similar films with the hope that it would give them an opportunity to be heard by a much larger audience. In 1963 BBC Radio ruled Britain’s airwaves with an iron fist and it only offered listeners minimal access to popular music. These films often provided young audiences with their first opportunity to see and hear new recording artists.
Top: The Outlaws (with Ritchie Blackmore)
Bottom: The Nashville Teens
The groundbreaking British record producer and songwriter Joe Meek was the real driving force behind Live It Up! and the film features many of Meek’s original songs as well as live performances by some of the artists he produced including The Outlaws (featuring Ritchie Blackmore), The Saints, Kim Roberts and Sounds Incorporated. The film also features Meek produced recording artists Jennifer Moss and Heinz Burt who both have lead roles in the movie. At the time Joe Meek was rather obsessed with the tall blond German born musician Heinz Burt. Burt had been a member of the Joe Meek produced band The Tornadoes but Meek thought Heinz Burt was worthy of a solo career and he was spending a lot of his time and energy focusing on launching Burt’s career at the time that Live It Up! was made. After Joe Meek’s unfortunate suicide in 1967, rumors about Meek and Burt’s romantic relationship spread but they were always denied by Burt, which probably had more to do with the social pressures placed on both men in the early ’60s than the actual truth.
Live It Up! also features memorable performances by trad jazz artist Kenny Ball, popular singer Patsy Ann Noble and American rock and roll pioneer Gene Vincent. Gene Vincent had recently moved to England after facing tax problems in the U.S. and he was enjoying a sort of career revival there among British youth who were still excited by early American rock and roll. Dave Clark (of The Dave Clark Five) also makes a brief appearance in the film but he doesn’t perform any songs.
Besides showcasing various styles of popular music, Live It Up! also features cutting-edge fashions by important designers of the period such as Mary Quant and John Stephen who had both recently opened up shops on London’s infamous Carnaby Street. Even the hairstyles in the film were provided by Vidal Sassoon whose modern recreation of the “bob cut” would become a staple of sixties fashion. The young people in Live It Up! are also seen driving scooters and motorcycles, which became popular modes of transportation associated with the mod and rocker scenes in Britain.
Live It Up! provides viewers with a brief but unforgettable glimpse of a more innocent time just moments before pirate radio, drugs, shorter skirts, Beatlemania and the merseybeat sound would transform the capital city into “Swinging London.” From pop music to beat, trad jazz and American rock-n-roll, Live It Up! is a fascinating concoction of sounds and styles aimed at Britain’s youth during a pivotal point in pop culture history. Soon after Britain’s youth culture would begin to fragment more into different groups (rockers, mods, hippies, etc.) with different haircuts, different fashion sensibilities and different social concerns and attitudes. Of course most individuals during this period combined their various interests in music and fashion and rarely fell into easily defined categories usually created by the media in order to sell newspapers and magazines.
Female Reporter: Are you a mod, or a rocker?
Ringo Starr : Um, no. I’m a mocker.
- from A Hard Day’s Night (1964)
Be My Guest is a little less interesting than its predecessor but it’s still well worth a look. The film’s musical score was compiled and co-written by the celebrated American producer Shel Talmy who’s mostly known now for his groundbreaking work with British bands like The Kinks and The Who. The film contains some worthwhile musical performances from acts that Talmy worked with including The Zephyrs, Kenny and the Wranglers, The Plebs (featuring Danny McCulloch from The Animals) and most notably The Nashville Teens and American rock-n-roll legend Jerry Lee Lewis, who just about steals the show with his performance of “No One But Me.” Like other American rock-n-roll artists such as Gene Vincent, Jerry Lee Lewis was enjoying a career revival in Britain at the time and he really kicks the film into high gear with his energetic performance. The talented composer John Barry also provides some of the songs and background music in Be My Guest, including a quirky pop song called “Gotta Getaway Now” that is sung by the singer and dancer Joyce Blair.
Both Live It Up! and it’s sequel Be My Guest star a very young David Hemmings as a guitar playing lad named Dave Martin along with a very young Steve Marriott as a drummer named Ricky. In the films they play friends and bandmates who are trying to form a beat band called The Smart Alecs and make it big in Britain’s burgeoning music scene. Both men started acting early in life and had previously appeared on stage in musicals before making Live It Up! together. David Hemmings’ first role was in Benjamin Britten’s well-received 1954 opera The Turn of the Screw, which was based on Henry James original story. Steve Marriott’s first big break came in 1960 when he got the role of the Artful Dodger in the extremely popular British musical Oliver!, which was later made into a film by director Carol Reed. The role of the Artful Dodger was played by many talented British boys who would later go onto bigger and better things including Genesis’ Phil Collins and The Monkees’ Davy Jones. But it was young Steve Marriott who was asked to provide vocals on the Artful Dodger’s songs for the original stage recording and it’s easy to understand why. Right after filming Live It Up! and Be My Guest Steve Marriott would go on to help form one of the most important and influential bands that has ever come out of Britain, The Small Faces. Phil Collins and Davy Jones are both good vocalists and by all accounts they were also impressive child actors, but neither of them could match Steve Marriott’s powerful vocal talents when he was at his peak.
David Hemmings has been one of my favorite actors for many years and I’ve seen most of the films he made after 1966, but I had only previously had the opportunity to see one of his “pre-Blowup” films (Eye of the Devil, 1966). Even as a young man Hemmings was clearly a better actor than the material he’s working with in Live It Up! and Be My Guest, where he spends a majority of his time arguing with his fictional mum and dad. Hemmings’ youthful enthusiasm is extremely appealing in both films. He projects an easygoing personality on screen, which makes him appear very modern and just plain cool in the role of young Dave Martin. The actor seems to sum up everything that was wonderful, carefree and even dangerous about British youth at the time. It’s easy to see why Michaelangelo Antonioni would cast Hemmings in his seminal film Blowup (1966) just a few years later where the actor’s good looks and natural charm made him perfect for the role of a British photographer working in swinging London. It’s hard to measure the impact that Hemmings’ character in Blowup had on a generation of British youth but it’s safe to say that he’s one of most important style icon of the ’60s. His defining roles in films like Live It Up! and Be My Guest undoubtedly helped shape public opinion about popular music and fashion during that decade. And they also helped make David Hemmings the important pop culture figure he became a few years later after starring in Blowup.
I was unfamiliar with Steve Marriott’s early film roles before watching Live It Up! and Be My Guest, but Marriott is very good in both movies and incredibly cute with his big eyes and wide smile. He seems to enjoy playing comedic scenes and acting like a clown whenever the opportunity presents itself. His natural charisma is impossible to overlook. It’s a shame that the talented singer was forced to act as if he was playing the drums in both films and wasn’t given an opportunity to show the world his amazing vocal abilities. But if you’re a Marriott fan these films are an absolute must see just to get a glimpse of young Steve before he formed The Small Faces and made music history.
The young female stars of these film are often reduced to girlfriend roles or nonspeaking parts, which is unfortunate considering some of the talented women involved with both movies. As I mentioned above, Live It Up! features the talented Australian singer and actress Patsy Ann Noble (aka Trisha Noble) as well as Jennifer Moss who later gained recognition on the popular British drama Coronation Street. Patsy Ann Noble has no dialogue in the film and Jennifer Moss isn’t given much to do as David Hemmings’ girlfriend. Moss spends most of her time moping over the fact that Hemmings’ character shows little interest in her and seems to prefer hanging out with his bandmates. The female actresses don’t fare much better in Be My Guest, which features a little-known cute and spunky American actress named Andrea Monet who doesn’t do much except kiss David Hemmings. Joyce Blair has a somewhat meatier role in the film as a bad girl called Wanda who seems to enjoy using her sexual prowess to get ahead in life but overall the women in these films are reduced to playing stereotypical roles or providing some occasional eye and ear-candy.
Patsy Ann Noble and Joyce Blair
Both films are very formulaic and director Lance Comfort didn’t make many creative directing choices while he was behind the camera. But the movies do include some nice exterior shots and the musical performances have a lot of energy considering that the artists had to pretend that they were performing live. There are also some nice set designs, which should probably be credited to the talented art director Jack Shampan who is better known for his work on films like Modesty Blaise (1966) and popular British television shows such as Danger Man (1964) and The Prisoner (1967). My fellow film buffs might also get a kick out of seeing the outside and insides of legendary Pinewood Studios in Live It Up! since the British studio is used a lot in the film. In the ’40s Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger shot many of their most celebrated films at Pinewood Studios and in the ’60s the James Bond films were shot there. Interestingly enough, the second Bond film From Russia with Love (1963) was being filmed at the studio at the same time that Lance Comfort was shooting Live it Up!
If you’re familiar with Franc Roddam’s film Quadrophenia (1979) you might be as surprised as I was to discover how much Live It Up! and By My Guest may have influenced that film. Quadrophenia was based on the 1973 rock opera written by Pete Townshend and The Who. It chronicled a few days in the life of a mod youth during the infamous mods vs. rockers fight known as the “Second Battle of Hastings” that took place in 1964. Live It Up! and Quadrophenia both feature young men working as mail carriers or company “runners” who want something more out of life and it seems impossible that anyone could watch lanky Heinz Burt playing Ron in Live It Up! and not be reminded of Sting’s character Ace Face in Quadrophenia. The bleached blond hair and leather coats obviously link the two memorable characters together but I seem to be in the minority since I haven’t been able to find any other critical information about these films that connects them to Qaudrophenia. It’s also worth noting that Be My Guest was made in Brighton in 1964 where the real “Second Battle of Hastings” happened. I don’t know if the film’s crew or cast was aware of the events but they must have taken place around the same time that Lance Comfort started shooting Be My Guest. As I mentioned earlier, The Who’s one time producer Shel Talmy helped write and compose music for Be My Guest so I’m sure members of the band must have been familiar with both of these Lance Comfort films before they wrote and recorded Quadrophenia.
Live it Up! and its sequel Be My Guest make for a fun and entertaining double feature if you happen to enjoy music, fashion and pop culture from the early ’60s as much as I do. Both films were released on DVD in late 2005 from Guillotine Films with interesting commentary tracks from the film’s executive producer but they’re currently out of print. You can still find used copies of both films selling at Amazon for about $10 (or $5 a piece) and the movies are also available for rent from Netflix.
Closing music clip from Live It Up! (1963).
Featuring David Hemmings, Steve Marriott, Heinz Burt and John Pike.
(Note: The music was actually performed by Heinz Burt and his band The Tornadoes).
I was sad to learn of Richard Widmark’s death this morning after returning from my vacation. He lived a long and productive life, but Widmark has long been one of my favorite actors and since I share my birthday with the man I’ve always felt a sort of camaraderie with him. Widmark was a truly talented actor who could play incredibly nasty bad guy such as the iconic Tommy Udo in Kiss of Death (1947) or a heroic doctor in Panic in the Streets (1950) with an equal measure of skill. He might not be “typically” attractive by Hollywood standards, but in his younger years he was a great looking man with a wicked grin and he was just lot of fun to watch. In recent years actors and directors such as Jane Fonda, Robert De Niro and Peter Bogdonavich had been trying to get him awarded with an Honorary Oscar since he had never received one, but sadly that won’t happen now and it’s a shame.
Besides Kiss of Death and Panic in the Streets, some of my favorite Widmark performances can be found in a lot of the early noir films he made and stylish crime thrillers such as The Street with No Name (1948), Night and the City (1950), No Way Out (1950), Don’t Bother to Knock (1952) and Pickup on South Street (1953), which all come with my highest recommendation, but he was also terrific in the influential sixties era police drama Madigan (1968) and he appeared in some entertaining horror films and thrillers in the seventies such as Murder on the Orient Express (1974), To the Devil a Daughter (1976), Rollercoaster (1977), The Swarm (1978) and Coma (1978). He often made sub par films more watchable just with his presence. These days’ actors with Widmark’s kind of charisma and versatility are few and far between in my opinion and he’ll be missed.
I’ve only had the opportunity to see a few of the films nominated for Academy Awards this year and besides David Cronenberg’s Eastern Promises, I haven’t been all that impressed with what I’ve seen. Since I don’t write about modern film that often I wasn’t going to mention the Oscars this year, but I will be watching the award show tonight and I hope to catch a glimpse of two of my favorite modern actors; Viggo Mortensen and Tadanobu Asano.
I’ve been following Viggo Mortensen’s acting career closely since I first saw him the entertaining horror film Prison back in 1988. Viggo really stood out and it was clear to me back then that he had the good looks and acting abilities to become a major star. Besides acting Viggo Mortensen is an accomplished poet and artist, and he’s also recorded multiple albums. He’s a truly talented individual and an American original who’s not afraid to speak his mind and stand up for what he believes in.
After enjoying Mortensen in somewhat lackluster films like Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III (1990) and Young Guns II (1990), he went on make some of his best films in the early 1990s such as The Reflecting Skin (1990), The Indian Runner (1991) and The Passion of Darkly Noon (1995). By the late 1990s, I had sort of lost track of him and stopped paying attention to his films until his name was suddenly everywhere following the success of the Lord of the Rings movies. I naively assumed he would continue making blockbuster action films in Hollywood after that so I was completely caught off guard by his incredible performance in David Cronenberg’s A History of Violence (2005) and I’m really happy that the director and actor seem to have forged an interesting creative bond that I hope will only evolve over time. I’d like to see Viggo Mortensen take home the Oscar for Best Actor tonight, but the odds are not in his favor.
Top: Viggo Mortensen in Eastern Promises
Bottom: Tadanobu Asano in Mongol
Much like Viggo Mortensen, Tadanobu Asano is a true “Renaissance Man” and besides being one of Japan’s most accomplished modern actors, he’s also a talented artist and musician.
I first discovered Asano’s talent back in 1998 (exactly 10 years after I came across Viggo Mortensen in Prison) when he starred in the excellent Japanese crime thriller and satire Shark Skin Man and Peach Hip Girl (Samehada otoko to momojiri onna) followed by his impressive role in the samurai drama Taboo (Gohatto, 1999). I lost track of Asano for a few years until I caught him starring in Takashi Miike’s Ichi the Killer (Koroshiya 1, 2001), but he was hard to recognize at first. His hair was bleached bright blond and it took me awhile to figure out that he was the same handsome actor that I had been impressed with in earlier films. From that moment on I was determined to know more about Asano and I’ve made an effort to see many of his early films as well as his newest efforts whenever I can. Some of his best films in recent years include Bright Future (Akarui mirai, 2003), Last Life in the Universe (Ruang rak noi nid mahasan, 2003), Zatoichi (2003), Vital (2004), Survive Style 5+ (2004) and Rampo Noir (2005).
Unfortunately I haven’t had the opportunity to see Tadanobu Asano’s new Oscar nominated film Mongol (Sergei Bodrov; 2007) yet but it’s up for Best Picture in the much-contested Foreign Film category. I hope Asano will be able to attend the award show tonight on the off chance that the film he starred in might win.
Countless Oscars have been handed out as consolatory prizes for overlooked work and Viggo Mortensen and Tadanobu Asano’s ongoing and impressive acting careers have been overlooked by Hollywood and American film audiences for much too long. The odds might be stacked against them both tonight, but I’ll be rooting for them!
Update (2.25.08)
- Unfortunately my guys didn’t win anything and I thought the Award show was dull as dishwater this year (my favorite moment was when the Coen brothers won best director and Joel’s wife Frances McDormand couldn’t contain her happiness!). Oh well, there’s always next year. In the meantime, here are some pics of the most interesting actors who attended last nights red carpet affair. For my money, Asano was the best looking and best dressed man there. Even Viggo looked terrific with his bushy beard.
Viggo Mortensen and Tadanobu Asano at the 80th Academy Awards
The great actor Amitabh Bachchan (the “Big B”) starred in many of the best Bollywood films produced in India during the ’70s and he has millions of devoted fans all over the world. There is probably no actor more loved and respected in India and since I love Amitabh too, I couldn’t resist sharing this bit of news from MSN Entertainment.
Recently one of Amitabh Bachchan’s fans by the name of Jitendra Shivhare penned a Sanskrit poem on a 101-metre-long scroll of paper as an “invocation to the Bollywood actor whom he treats as a god.”
“Amitabh is my God
and I am his priest.
Whenever I land in any trouble,
I always remember him to get out of it.”
- excerpt from the poem by Jitendra Shivhare
Jitendra Shivhare titled his creation Bachchan Mahakavya and he is currently pursuing a BA in Sanskrit from Devi Ahilyabai Vishwa Vidyalaya University in India.
All hail the great Big B! Sign me up for the church of Amitabh. That’s a religion I could get behind.
A trailer for my favorite Amitabh Bachchan film Don (1978)
One of the great action stars of Japanese cinema turns 74 today and I’d like to wish Joe “Dirty Joker” Shishido a very Happy Birthday! It’s hard to put into words all the joy that Joe has managed to give me over the past 18 years or so since I first discovered his work, but I will say that whenever I’m asked what my favorite films are Youth of the Beast (1963), Gate of Flesh (1964) and Branded to Kill (1967) are all films that instantly come to mind. Joe made many incredible films in the sixties, but he’s still acting today and has never really stopped.
Joe (or Jo) got his start in acting in 1954 after he auditioned for the Nikkatsu film studios. He began appearing in action films almost immediately, but he wasn’t getting the tough guy roles he wanted. Like many actors he ended up undergoing some plastic surgery to alter his appearance and after the surgery Joe went on to appear in some of Nikkatsu’s most popular action films and he quickly became a star. He often worked with the great Japanese director Seijun Suzuki and together they made some of the best Japanese films of the sixties.
Joe Shishido has appeared in almost 300 movies, but unfortunately most of them are not available in the US. I would love to see more of Joe’s sixties era Nikkatsu films find their way onto DVD. Besides lots of crime films, Joe also made some Japanese westerns or “sukiyaki westerns” in the sixties that look amazing, but haven’t been seen much outside of Japan. Hopefully more of Joe’s films will be made available on DVD for American audiences in the future!
Besides acting, Joe Shishido is also an accomplished author in Japan and he has written many cookbooks and even hosted a long-running popular cooking show. He also sings and has recorded a few albums. To celebrate Joe’s birthday, I thought I’d share one of the hard to find Japanese songs he recorded for the film Rokudenashi Kagyo in 1961.
Richard Harris in one of his many Nehru style jackets he designed himself (1968)
Blame TCM for recently showing Lindsay Anderson’s brilliant This Sporting Life (1963), blame the wonderful Colin for sending me a copy of Richard Harris’s 1968 album A Tramp Shining as an early Christmas gift and last but not least, blame The Simpsons for parodying one of my favorite musical numbers from Camelot (1967) in a recent episode that I just watched. All these factors have somehow combined to put the incredible Richard Harris in the forefront of my thoughts lately.
I first became aware of Richard Harris when I was a very young thing. My parents had a copy of the Camelot film soundtrack and the original Broadway recording, and both of them got a lot of play in our home. I can distinctly remember my father loudly singing all of Richard Harris’ songs from the film while he was in the shower.
Don’t let it be forgot
That once there was a spot,
For one brief, shining moment
That was known as Camelot.
As the years wore on I became enamored with Richard Harris, as well as that rowdy bunch of womanizing British & Irish actors who drank too much and had egos as big as their booming voices. Along with Richard Harris, I can never get enough of Richard Burton, Oliver Reed, Albert Finney and Peter O’Toole. They’re all personal favorites and I’ll watch them in anything.
With that pronouncement out of the way, you may be asking yourself, besides Richard Harris, what do This Sporting Life, A Tramp Shining and Camelot all have in common? Well, they all feature Richard Harris singing of course!
I was surprised while watching This Sporting Life recently to see Richard Harris take the stage at a pub and belt out a rather lackluster song called Here In My Heart. I love the film and I had first seen it many years ago, but I didn’t remember Harris singing in the movie. It’s one of his earliest and best films and his performance in it made him a star, but his singing voice seems rather underdeveloped in 1963. Even though Here In My Heart is a rather dull tune, it was released as a single in 1963 and was the first song Richard Harris ever recorded. It had previously been a hit for Al Martino in 1952, but I haven’t been able to track down any information about how Harris’ version of Here in My Heart was received by the record buying public.
Harris was never a great singer but he was a great orator, and there is an obvious improvement in his voice when you compare his singing in This Sporting Life to his singing in Camelot four years later. Harris got the part of King Arthur in Joshua Logan’s version of Camelot after Richard Burton (who had been in the stage version) turned it down. In Camelot Harris gets to perform a few songs, including the impressive opening and ending themes. The film and the soundtrack were very popular with listeners in 1967 (including my parents!), and the film went on to win an Oscar for Best Music Score. Camelot is one of my favorite musicals and with a terrific cast that also includes fabulous sixties stars like Franco Nero, Vanessa Redgrave and David Hemmings, what’s not to like?
The popularity of Camelot led Richard Harris to record the pop album A Tramp Shining in 1968, which contained the hit song MacArthur Park. The song has become the butt of a few jokes over the years and is often parodied, but I think it’s amazing for it’s length, memorable lyrics and bombastic tone. Listening to it today might make you wonder how in the world it ever became a hit, but I think it’s a really remarkable tune.
MacArthur’s Park is melting in the dark
All the sweet, green icing flowing down…
Someone left the cake out in the rain
I don’t think that I can take it
‘cause it took so long to bake it
And I’ll never have that recipe again
Oh, no!
Richard Harris’ album A Tramp Shining was written, arranged and produced by the American songwriter Jimmy Webb. Webb is best known for writing hit songs like Up, Up, and Away for The Fifth Dimension and By The Time I Get To Phoenix for Glenn Campbell, but the hit single MacArthur Park that he wrote for Richard Harris may be his most ambitious effort. MacArthur Park was #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1968 and A Tramp Shining was nominated for Album Of The Year. Richard Harris was also nominated for Contemporary Pop Male Vocalist of The Year in 1968 for MacArthur Park.
After the success of his album A Tramp Shining, Harris would go on to record 10 more records, but he never really had the same success with his musical efforts that he achieved in the sixties. Listening to the record now, it’s impossible to not be reminded of the Camelot soundtrack since they share a similar musical style at times. MacArthur Park is undoubtedly the best song on the album, but I also like the sweet and short Dancing Girl and the epic unconventional composition The Yard Went on Forever, which rivals MacArthur Park in length. I’m sure my rather sentimental opinion of Richard Harris colors my view of A Tramp Shining, but the record is just plain fun to listen to.
There’s no video on YouTube featuring Harris actually singing MacArthur Park, but I did come across this video featuring Richard Harris’ hit song:
Newly added (1/2008) - another video detailing the recording and performance of the song from a British program called the “50 Greatest One Hit Wonders.”
On Monday I finally got hooked up with Cable TV after years of avoiding it due to the high cost and my tight budget. It’s been well worth it thanks to all the great channels I now get like TCM, which is currently hosting a fabulous Louis Malle birthday bash and playing lots of his films.
Last night I watched Murmur of the Heart, which is one of my favorite Malle movies, along with the director’s impressive Black Moon. Black Moon is a beautiful experimental film that I had never seen before and I really enjoyed it. It was categorized as a horror movie on TCM, but I personally thought it was more of an adult dark fantasy that really defies categorization.
Black Moon follows the misadventures of a pretty young girl named Lily (Cathryn Harrison) who is caught up in a violent civil war between men and women, which seems to take place in a sort of dystopian future. She finds herself at a mysterious house that belongs to a strange old woman and a beautiful sister and brother played by Alexandra Stewart and Joe Dallesandro. The film has no clear narrative structure and Malle’s uses his own kind of dream logic to tell his mesmerizing tale. As I mentioned way back in February, I love the way that Malle explores the complex and often conflicting emotions of young people in his films and Black Moon is no exception. Malle delves deeply into Lily’s subconscious without reservation and we’re offered an intimate look at the inner workings of her young mind. The film plays out like a somewhat more adult version of Louis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland where talking unicorns appear and flowers weep when they are stepped on. Cathryn Harrison is very good as Lily and as usual, it was impossible to take my eyes off of Joe Dallesandro every time he appeared. Dallesandro really looks amazing in Black Moon and I only wish he got a little more screen time in the film.
Black Moon was shot at Louis Malle’s French estate and the grounds are rather rural and wild, but extremely lush and lovely. There’s an intimacy to the film and an almost claustrophobic feel at times, which is probably somewhat due to Malle’s closeness with the location. It’s a really fascinating movie from one of France’s greatest filmmakers and it is a shame that Black Moon is currently only available on PAL Region-2 DVD at the moment.
Today would have been Montgomery Clift’s 87th birthday and Film Experience is celebrating the event with a Montgomery Clift Blog-a-thon. I’m too busy writing about horror films at the moment to write anything substantial for the event, but please stop by the if charlie parker was a gunslinger blog to see all the Monty eye-candy I’ve posted there in honor of today.
“He had a legend, the aura of genius, a friend to the mysterious and the strange. I arrived full of holy terror and mad hope all at the same time. I was struck immediately by one thing, only one: he’s a man of whom you only see the face. The fabulous mouth, worked by life, heavily wrinkled skin, the driven eyes, but in their black ring, a sparkling light. I was incapable of saying a word, I don’t even remember if it was a production office, an apartment, a hotel room. I looked at the deep earth of his face, the clear water of his regard. They told me ‘Speak loudly, we don’t know if he’s deaf or if he pretends to be . . .’ But how to speak? I repeated to myself ‘Come on. You have to speak.’ I thought that my silence and my insistence on staring would become intolerable. Someone else would surely have addressed me, would have started to speak, if only to reduce the tension a little. He was content to just look at me. Simply, directly, as if we had met there for a mutual exam and that words weren’t necessary. A guy walked in, perhaps an assistant, I can’t remember. Buñuel turned towards me. ‘This is Clémenti. Show him the script.’ If I understood properly, I had just been hired for Belle de Jour…With no other director did I have such a feeling of confidence.”
- Pierre Clémenti on Luis Buñuel and his role in Belle de Jour from his book Quelques Messages Personnels
My favorite character in Louis Buñuel’s Belle de Jour is Pierre Clémenti’s wonderful turn as the sexy thug Marcel. Pierre Clémenti was a beautiful and talented actor who appeared in many great films before his untimely death in 1999 including The Leopard (1963), Benjamin (1968), Les Idoles (1968), Partner (1968), The Conformist (1970), Sweet Movie (1974), La Cicatrice intérieure (1972) , Steppenwolf (1974), Quartet (1981) and Belle de Jour (1967).
I haven’t written anything substantial about Pierre Clémenti yet, so I thought I’d take the opportunity provided by Flickhead’s Buñuel Blog-a-thon to post a photographic tribute to Pierre Clémenti’s character Marcel in Belle de Jour, which was haphazardly put together from various screen shots I recently took from the film.
The leaves are starting to turn brown and the days are getting shorter. Autumn is fast approaching and with it comes Halloween. This is easily my favorite time of the year and in September I always start getting a spring in my step and an insatiable craving for sweets. This is also the time of year that DVD companies start rolling out their pre-Halloween DVD releases in order to cash-in on the seasonal spirit and please horror fans who have come to expect some extra special autumn viewing. And there’s no better way to kick-start the season than with the new Vincent Price: MGM Scream Legends Collection!
This fabulous collection of seven horror films from MGM all feature stand-out performances from the great Vincent Price and are sure to please even the most discriminatory horror film fans. I’m especially impressed by the variety of films that buyers get in this DVD Box set which contains everything from dark horror comedies like The Abominable Dr. Phibes and Theater of Blood (which I wrote about earlier this year), to creepy anthologies like Tales of Terror and Twice Told Tales, as well as one the most horrifying films that Vincent Price ever made, the classic Witchfinder General. The seven films featured in this terrific set include:
- Tales of Terror (1962, dir. Roger Corman)
- Twice Told Tales (1963, dir. Sidney Salkow)
- Witchfinder General (1968, dir. Michael Reeves)
- The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971, dir. Robert Fuest)
- Dr. Phibes Rises Again (1972, dir. Robert Fuest)
- Theater of Blood (1973, dir. Douglas Hickox)
- Madhouse (1974, dir. Jim Clark)
The films are also being released on DVD separately, but the Vincent Price: MGM Scream Legends Collection comes with all the films as well as a bonus DVD with no less than three special documentaries about Vincent Price including Vincent Price: Renaissance Man, The Art of Fear and Working with Vincent Price. The highlight of the DVD Box Set is undoubtedly the 1968 film Witchfinder General which has finally been restored to its original splendor and is being released on NTSC Region-1 DVD for the first time. The other films have been available on DVD previously, but some of them have been out of print for a while.
If you’re a Vincent Price fan like myself or just enjoy good sixties and seventies era horror films, the movies in this new collection are all well worth a look and that’s why this terrific Box Set is my DVD pick of the week. The Vincent Price: MGM Scream Legends Collection is available at Amazon and better online rental sources such as Netflix and Greencine will probably have the movies available for rent as well.
“This film is really in one sense about Lee Marvin. It’s about him as a character. He went out to the war and he was a sensitive 17 year-old boy and you know, he was brutalized and in a way he was expressing himself through violence. He was always trying to recapture his humanity that he felt he had lost and that’s really what the story is about. It’s about a man who comes back from the dead and tries to find his humanity.”
- Director John Boorman on Point Blank (DVD commentary)
After appearing in countless war films, westerns and crime dramas, Lee Marvin won his first Oscar in 1965 for Cat Ballou and followed it up with a starring role in the extremely successful movie The Dirty Dozen. Hollywood was impressed with Mar
and the movies are also available for rent from 
Recently one of Amitabh Bachchan’s fans by the name of Jitendra Shivhare penned a Sanskrit poem on a 101-metre-long scroll of paper as an “invocation to the Bollywood actor whom he treats as a god.”
- 
(1996)
(1995)
(1994)
(1992)
(1988) - An amazing anime film that Joe did voice work for
(1969)
(1967)
(1964)
(1963)
(1963), blame the wonderful 
as an early Christmas gift and last but not least, blame The Simpsons for parodying one of my favorite musical numbers from 
(1967) in a recent episode that I just watched. All these factors have somehow combined to put the incredible Richard Harris in the forefront of my thoughts lately.
Don’t let it be forgot
MacArthur’s Park is melting in the dark
!
This fabulous collection of seven horror films from MGM all feature stand-out performances from the great Vincent Price and are sure to please even the most discriminatory horror film fans. I’m especially impressed by the variety of films that buyers get in this DVD Box set which contains everything from dark horror comedies like The Abominable Dr. Phibes and Theater of Blood (