The Fleischer's Gulliver's Travels surfaces on DVD....

The great retroscope (using human movenment as the basis for animation work from the great, underappreciated Fleischer studios-Gulliver's Travels makes it to a 21st century DVD/Blu Ray release...

Charlton Heston: Great Comedic Actor....

In very recent obituaries Charlton Heston's work was praised in high profile epic type films that were popular in the 50's. Heston work in films such as Ben Hur, The 10 Commandments and El Cid was more interesting and influential than most realize. This style of heroic acting has informed performances by such popular present day icons as Russell Crowe, Viggo Mortensen and especially Harrison Ford.

Few, if any obituaries mentioned the humor Heston often brought to his roles. This was especially true in the later part of his career when his performances relaxed in a way that revealed his enjoyment of his own sense of humor. Heston's famous rant at the end of Planet of the Apes (1969) is justifiably memorable, but on later viewings it is possible to detect a certain kind of humor within the cadence and timing of Heston's verbal and physical hysterics.




Following close on the heels of Planet was Omega Man (1971). This work was similar in theme to Planet of the Apes and Heston's performance was even more enjoyably stilted and mannered and the comedian in his rock of gibraltar persona began to show itself.



Another minor performance of Heston's during this time also showed a willingness to display a certain sardonic humor to humanize what might have been an ulikeable character otherwise. The film, Major Dundee, was a minor Peckinpaugh film with Heston in the lead. The film was a bit of a mess, but Heston has fun chewing the scenery.



After a 30 year run of strong performances in high profile films, Heston's work in the 80's was less memorable. He did work regularly and had a couple of good roles in nightime soaps and television mini-series, but nothing resonated with the public and in many ways these role were beneath him.



The 90's saw Heston return and make strong impressions in some popular and high-profile films. He was long past his leading man work, but he did run off a series of very memorable and often hilarious cameos. Most notably in a self-conciously bit part in Wayne's World 2 (!) in which he conspired with Mike Meyers in a riff on The Graduate.



Other nice bits followed in a variety of films such as Ken Branagh's Hamlet where he had a nice, memorable turn as the Player King.



Heston's prospects in television improved as well and he did nice work, playing against type, as Long John Silver in a well-crafted adaptation of Treasure Island (directed by his son Fraser).



Heston had other nice moments in popular films like True Lies (sporting a Nick Furyesque eyepatch) and returning to his western roots in Tombstone.
By the early 21st century Heston had mostly retired from film work, but he did a great deal of narration work. Unfortunately, his last memorable film appearance was in Michael Moore's Bowling for Columbine. Much has been written about Heston's participation in this film and it need not be re-visited here. It is hoped that film afficianados will give Heston's work a much deserved re-discovery as his life and work have been remembered this week.

Richard Widmark's Greatest Hits...

Richard Widmark was an actor ahead of his time in many ways. His reptilian elegance and willingness to give quirky performances in "heavy" roles can be seen in the work in many of today's more interesting character actors like Willem Dafoe, John Malkovich, Nicolas Cage and Viggo Mortensen.

Widmark's career was unusual in that he didn't really begin his acting career in film until his early thirties. His debut in Kiss of Death (1947) is one of the most electrifying film debuts in motion picture history. His cackling psychopath, Tommy Udo remains one of the most vivid portrayal of a sadistic character captured on film.
The most famous scene of this film and possibly in film noir is Widmark/Udo's pushing an old woman down a flight of stairs in a wheelchair. The scene loses none of its power even today.



20th Century Fox was duly impressed with Widmark's rookie effort and so they kept him busy with a series of mostly forgettable films through the late 40's and early 50's. During this period his most noteworthy work was in Jules Dassin's Night and The City (1950) and in Panic in the Streets (1950)



If Widmark's work in Kiss of Death remains his most iconic, his role in Pickup on South Street (1953) showcased all of Widmark's best qualities as a screen performer. The film, one of the great Samuel Fuller's best showed Widmark's attractiveness, sensitivity, selfishness and brutality (especially in the love scenes) in a way that no other director had been able to do previously or for the rest of his career.




Widmark worked regularly through his professional life and his career became more workmanlike and he settled into being a reliable craftsmanlike actor. Strangely enough, for an actor so at home in an urban setting, Widmark began to gravitate
towards Westerns and many of his more high profile roles were in this genre. One of his most memorable and high-profile roles in this area was in the John Wayne epic The Alamo (1960) where he played Jim Bowie to John Wayne's Davy Crockett.



Widmark's screen legacy is interesting and remains influential (even to those who may not be completely familiar with his work). It would be nice if his passing would trigger a re-examination and renewed appreciation of his long and varied career.

Tracing Martial Arts in US Cinema

Martial Arts is such a staple of contemporary American Cinema that it is hard to remember how it was once a sign of real exoticism in a film. Among the first, if not the first classic Hollywood produtions with martial arts were the Mr. Moto series of films starring Peter Lorre.




These films, based on the pulp works of writer John P. Marquand had the character of international operative Mr. Moto (Lorre) deploy judo as a means of self-defense and to showcase his unflappable and exotic character traits. Lorre, one of Hollywood's great character actors was hardly a conventional action hero, but his charisma is as odd and electrifing as Bruce Lee's in these films.


Another unlikely martial arts practicioner was Spencer Tracy in the film Bad Day at Black Rock (1955). In the most famous scene in a fine film, the one armed John J. McReedy (Tracy) disarms a brutish, bullying Ernest Borgnine with a very deft and well-filmed
series of judo moves. The film, often credited with introducing martial arts to US audiences, helped usher in the idea of eastern martial arts as a recognizable feature in US film.



(Footnote: This scene was referenced in 1989's Blind Fury with Rutger Hauer where Hauer played a blind swordsman)

There is a reasonable argument that Bruce Lee is the most influential performer in cimema in the last 40 years. Without Lee there is probably no Matrix, no Terminator, no Die Hard,no Rambo, no John Woo and no Tarantino. Lee's fame rests with his one undeniably great film Enter the Dragon, but his work in the underappreciated Green Hornet (1966) TV series gave US audiences a look at a truly genius martial artist who (unlike Lorre or Tracy) was more than capable of doing his own stunts.



Lee also was used to great comic effect in the film Marlowe (1969) starring James Garner as the archetypal private eye. Lee has a virtuoso scene in Marlow's office where he balletically trashes Marlowe's office as a means to intimidate the private eye.



Lee's other television appearances helped make him a familiar face to the American public. He worked steadily turning in charasmatic performances in several popular American televison series such as Ironside and Longstreet. In these roles, he often played Karate instructors, a potentially limiting role which Lee transcended with his
strong persona.



The television series Kung Fu (1972) ranks as one of the most unusual and interesting shows in the history of mainstream television and its influence is still felt in edgy, contemporary fare like Deadwood. The series was as influential on mainstream America's recognition of the martial arts as any of Lee's films. Ironically, the series was developed to a large extent with Lee's input with the idea that he would be the lead. At some point it was decided that the public was not ready for an Asian-American leading man (despite his electrifying turn as Kato on the Green Hornet a few years earlier). Interestingly enough, the lead went to David Carradine who was an even more unconventional choice for a lead in a network series. Carradine's hipster persona and charisma was strong enough to make him one of the most offbeat leads in a major television series to date. He was a natural enough athlete and apparantely a series amateur in the practice of martial arts which helped make him convincing in the fight scenes.



Enter the Dragon qualifies as the Citizen Kane of Martial Arts films as it is endlessly duplicated and infinitely influential in this genre. The film was Lee's swan song as he died just 3 weeks before the film opened.

Enter the Dragon concerns around three main characters. Lee, a man recruited by an agency to investigate a tournament hosted by Han, since they believe he has an Opium trade there. Roper and Williams are army buddies since Vietnam and they enter the tournament due to different problems that they have. Roper is on the run from the Mafia due to his gambling debts, while Williams is harassed by racist police officers and defends himself from them and uses the car for his getaway. It is a deadly tournament that they will enter on an island. Lee's job is to get the other two out of there alive.

The film itself is not a perfect work of art, but it does have a memorable score by Lalo Schifrin and one of the most impressive physical specimens put to celluloid by Lee. It also has a couple of impressive set pieces including the memorable and visually striking "Hall of Mirrors" battle at the end of the film.

Author Foster Hirsch on his new bio of Otto Preminger

(Courtesy Preminger Archives)




Foster Hirsch's new biography Otto Preminger, The Man Who Would Be King (knopf) is a supremely researched work (over 100 new intereviews with family members and co-workers) on one of the most controversial directors of Hollywood's Golden Age. The work charts Preminger's work and career arc and makes a strong case for a re-appreciation of Preminger's work and status as one of Hollywood's stronget and most creative craftsmen. Author Hirsch was kind enough to correspond with FSW about his work and the legacy of Preminger the Director and iconoclast.


FSW: Preminger's films were noteworthy for breaking taboos, with language, situations and the like. Was this a reflection of his viewpoint, or was it merely a way to court controversy?

FH: "Preminger's taboo-breaking came from two sources: his personal convictions about freedom of speech and his instincts as a showman. He courted confrontations with the Production Code Administration because he knew they would be good for business but also because he objected to censorship. At the time his moral sincerity was widely questioned, but that was not an accurate or fair response. Preminger knew the consequences of censorship -- he had looked on in horror at what happened to Austria, where he had been raised, once Hitler took over in 1938, and as a naturalized and patriotic American he fought for Constitutional rights and principles."

FSW: Preminger's scores are some of the most noteworthy in film history (Laura, Anatomy of a Murder), etc. Was the musical aspects of his films something he was involved in closely? Also, it appears that he never worked with the same composer more than once. Did this signal that he liked to work with a variety of artists and performers rather than have a reliable, familiar group around when he worked on a film (like Hitchcock)?



FH: "Preminger regarded scores as of integral importance to his films, and he obviously had a good ear and very good taste. Unlike most directors, he expected his composer to be on the set throughout shooting, so, as he said, the composer could "breathe the film." He did use one composer David Raksin, several times during his years at Fox; in fact, Otto preferred having the same crew, and despite his tantrums many of the same personnel returned for project after project."

FSW: Many of Preminger's best work was done from popular literary works. Did screen adaptations suit his best instincts and talents in some particular way?



FH: "Preminger's taste in bestsellers has often been criticized -- by snobs! Otto was a commercial, mainstream filmmaker at the same time that he was an artist, and he had strong instincts about the kinds of stories that would be congenial to filming. He resisted literature in favor of potboilers, and the results of this adaptations were almost unfailingly positive. The one or two times he adapted works of genuine literary excellence -- Shaw's SAINT JOAN and Nelson Algren's MAN WITH THE GOLDEN ARM -- the results were disappointing. Working on potboilers like ADVISE AND CONSENT, ANATOMY OF A MURDER, THE CARDINAL, and EXODUS he made excellent films."


FSW: Preminger's best work seems to have been behind him by about 1965. Is there any easy explanation for this drop in his work?

FH "There is no easy explanation for Preminger's decline. Partly it was choice of material, partly aging (he began to suffer from Alzheimer's perhaps as early as the late 1960s, partly plain bad luck, partly mistiming. The late films, which have their following, by the way -- revisionist critics are eager to rehabilitate them -- are by no means without interest. Only TELL ME THAT YOU LOVE ME, JUNIE MOON, risible on every level, is beneath consideration; the others all have merit and are the work of a clearly talented, if misguided, cineaste."

FSW: Preminger had a couple of noteworthy film roles, did he enjoy acting?

FH: "Otto began his career in Vienna as an actor, but he was not really a very good actor: the voice lacks color and shading, the eyes are too veiled. And he really was effective in only one part, that of a Nazi. As as Otto quipped, explaining his retirement from acting, 'How many Nazis can you play?' Once he determined, at age 19, that he wanted to be a director, he lost his interest in acting, and he only acted when he was talked into it."

FSW: Do you see Preminger's influence in any films or filmmakers in contemporary cinema?

FH: "Influence is very hard to determine or gauge, but I would say, reluctantly, that Preminger's style -- long takes, few closeups, smooth camera movement, objectivity -- is not in favor in contemporary Hollywood. Filmmakers addicted to fragmented editing should study Preminger's best films to see how to make movies!"

Author Julie Kavenaugh on Ballet Icon Rudolph Nureyev's offbeat film career

The Ballet Icon in typically dynamic form (Pantheon)


As a dancer, Rudolph Nureyev was one of the most electrifying performers of the 20th century. The fine new biography by Julie Kavanaugh of the great ballet icon, Nureyev: The Life (Pantheon) traces the drama of the great Nureyev in his life and work. The work is also a reminder that Nureyev was an exotic screen personality and starred in one of the most sensational films of the 70's, Valentino. Ms. Kavanaugh was kind enough to correspond with FSW about Nureyev's limited, but fascinating screen work.


FSW: Is it really true that RN was up for the role of the snake in Huston's segment of The Bible?

JK: From what I was told this was a serious consideration. In addition, for his section of the film, Orson Welles had RN in mind as the Angel of God who wrestles with Jacob

FSW: Was there ever a moment when it was possible that RN could have a serious career as an actor? Did he have any real interest in this?

JK: Film was almost as much of a passion as dance for Nureyev. His London friends the Goslings used to rent films - usually the classics - and screen them on a projector in their house. RN directed the feature film of his ballet Don Quixote and impressed famous veterans like cinematographer Geoffrey Unsworth by his profound knowledge of the art. There was a time in the midSeventies when he would have loved to have made an impact as a film actor, but unfortunately never found the right vehicle. Both Valentino and Exposed were disasters.


FSW: Do you think that if Nureyev had arrived on the film scene today (or at some other point) he would have been better utilized as a film presence? Did his potential as a film performer conflict with the style of 70's films?



JK: He was very badly directed by Ken Russell in Valentino (and his co-star Leslie Caron would agree). But the fact that he looks so superb and charismatic in the stills suggests that his main problem was having to speak the lines. He'd have been the most wonderful silent film star. Pauline Kael wrote in her New Yorker review, 'Seen up close...Nureyev has the seductive, moody insolence of an older, more cosmoplitan James Dean.'

Tough Guys Can't Act: Norman Mailer's Fascinating Film Legacy

Mailer as the Great Houdini in Cremaster 2


Norman Mailer's legacy as a great American author has been cemented long ago. Interestingly enough, most recently, Mailer's film work has undergone the process of re-discovery culminating with a series of screenings last summer at the Film Society at Lincoln Center.

It is often assumed that Mailer's film career has been a kind of long train wreck while his literary career has been an unchecked march to Mount Olympus. Strangely enough, Mailer's output as an author was often poorly received. In fact, the New York Times noted in today's obituary that few if any of his works were well-received after his first novel The Naked and the Dead.

Mailer the filmmaker and film subject, however, leaves a strange and interesting legacy. This legacy begins with one of the oddest films of the 70's (which is really saying something), Maidestone. Conceived in June 1968, the project started filming just days after the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy. In the film, Mailer plays Film Director and potential Presidential Candidate Norman T. Kinglsey. As Mailer plays him, Kingsley is a charismatic, sexist artist with a philosophical interest in poitics and boxing. In many ways, this portrayal seems to be something close to the public, even stereotypical persona of the great author.

The film is a mess, but its fame is justified as it has one of the weirdest climaxes in cinema history as Rip Torn (who plays Kingsley's half brother) attacks Mailer/Kingsley with a hammer and Mailer bites off a portion of Torn's ear in a strange, horrific brawl while Mailer's children are screaming. The ending pushes real cinema to its limits and connects the film to the arbitrary violence of its time.

Mailer's film, for all its sensation and connection to the zeitgeist was a financial bomb and wiped him out financially for a time. As Mailer famously put it, "I would have done as well to have bought a yacht, taken it out to harbor, and sunk it."



Work in Cremaster series...

Mailer's most conventional foray into filmmaking was as director of the film Tough Guys Don't Dance. The 1987 film, an adaptation of his novel, involves a severed head, crooked cops and a detective with a past has some of the conventions of traditional film noir. But, the odd, bad performance of Ryan O'Neal and the crazed, charisma of eighties fave Wings Hauser make this a kind of fascinating misfire. Oddly enough, (and rarely pointed out) the film anticipates some of look and feel of Twin Peaks (an idea underlined by the presence of one-time David Lynch muse Isabella Rosselini.




Matthew Barney the All-American avant gardist used Mailer as a kind of icon in his Cremaster 2 series where the great author portrayed the great illusionist Harry Houdini. Mailer's work in Barney's film somewhat grounds the strangeness of the series and Mailer's comforting presence is a relief to the viewer. He also looks great with his snowy hair and Victorian bearing.



Mailer's late acting work took yet another weird turn with his avuncular turn as himself on the Gilmore Girls. It is an odd, but somehow touching performance by the old lion.