comment #1

le corbeau says ...

"...omits one of the ugliest and most repellent s & m sleaze movies of all time -- Ilsa, She-Wolf of the S.S."

What, Bosley Crowther is guest-blogging for Jeff today?

comment #2

jeffmcm says ...

This is confusing. The amount of wordage Wells spends expounding here suggests that he quite enjoys this subgenre.

comment #3

Movie fan09 says ...

he doth protest too much.

comment #4

ratskiwatski says ...

Mg, dropping a Bosley Crowther reference... man if you go back and read his stuff it's unbelievable. Man wrote like he had a bottle of the finest port up his ass when he sat down to "compose..."

(Insert huffy, "Why, I Nevah" tone) Are you insinuating that The Proprietor's insufficient respect for the Decadent Nazi genre is akin to Crowther skulking off from the Times Building after not getting "Bonnie and Clyde?" Can't see it. And where would Wells skulk off to, anyway? Long Beach?

Tinto Fucking Brass - kill me now...

comment #5

Jeremy Smith says ...

Bosley Crowther is a hero for ending his TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE review thusly:

"To the honor of Mr. Huston's integrity, it should be finally remarked that women have small place in this picture, which is just one more reason why it is good."

comment #6

ratskiwatski says ...

From the grand finale of Crowther's "Psycho" review:

"The one thing we would note with disappointment is that, among the stuffed birds that adorn the motel office of Mr. Perkins, there are no significant bats."

I can hear him chuckling at his private oddity while Scuttling down 42nd Street, rushing to an apppointment wherein his toy terrier was to be deballed...

What lumpy oatmeal. What on Earth would he have made of "Ilsa?" And did he ever get around to "Blood Feast?"

comment #7

malibugigolo says ...

I'm with Boz on his take on Bonnie and Clyde. That is one awful movie.

comment #8

Jeremy Smith says ...

"And did he ever get around to 'Blood Feast?'"

Something killed him in 1981. I'd like to think it was BLOOD FEAST.

comment #9

malibugigolo says ...

Boz wrote a line once, I forget which movie it was for, but I have used it in conversation after a movie screening in which the publicist asks me about what I thought about the direction:

"I was not on the set, so I am not able to determine what contributions he made to the film."

comment #10

le corbeau says ...

Crowther was in the grand tradition of big media types who try to slow down the world for their readership... that said, he was a little more progressive figure within the world of NY film critics than he's made out to be. Remember that he was the one trying to get his hidebound fellows to vote for Dr. Strangelove over My Fair Lady at the '64 New York Film Critics Circle awards. He wrote a couple of books after his retirement, in which he looked back at some of those movies like Bonnie & Clyde and The Wild Bunch that had shocked him at the time, which are quite good. No longer being the institutional voice helped a LOT.

The Times reviewers were a strange lot. Mordaunt Hall, the fusty silent era reviewer, was an ex-WWI intelligence officer; he wrote like he'd been attending the theater since gaslight days, but he was actually surprisingly young, and lived long enough that HE could have reviewed The Wild Bunch, which is really bizarre to contemplate ("The latest photoplay of Mr. Samuel Peckinpah confronts the viewer with a most disagreeable spectacle of frontier Grand Guignol"). Andre Sennwald came to a tragic end-- the story was that he was going blind, the truth is probably that he was depressed because his wife left him, either way one night he turned the gas on and blew out the side of his West End Avenue brownstone. Frank Nugent went on to write The Searchers-- his review of Gone With the Wind reads like he suspects a lynch mob of fans of the book is waiting to string him up if he says one less than absolutely glowing thing.

And Crowther nearly lost his position right at the beginning in a scandal-- he apparently urged his fellow Critics Circle voters to pick Charlie Chaplin for The Great Dictator because Chaplin would get better ratings for the radio broadcast, and Lee Mortimer of the Hearst paper (and later to co-write those great "New York Confidential" type guidebooks that are such a treasure trove of gossip and dirt on major cities) finked on him in his column, getting Crowther in hot water at the Times.

comment #11

Silverscreenvideos says ...

Another shocking exclusion from this film fest is one of my all time favorites, Invasion of the Bee Girls. William Smith, who ranks as one of the greatest B-movie villains of all time has a rare hero role, but the film is really all about gorgeous female scientists (all played by Playboy playmates) who get nuclear irradiated so that their eyes turn into insect eyes and their breasts get even bigger. They then go around killing the men in the film by having sex with the guys and making buzzing noises until the guys die of overexertion or overpleasure.

It doesn't get any better than that.

comment #12

Rich S. says ...

Reading this I'm sorry there was no mention on this site of the passing of Andy Sidaris. Andy was one of a kind. Sort of a latter-day Russ Meyer, with more nudity and less chutzpah. I still fondly recall working as an usherat a theater that had Hard Ticket to Hawaii. We had to police the credits because they had so much nudity and kids were always sneaking in there.

Cinemax and Showtime will be poorer for his passing.

comment #13

Craig Kennedy says ...

Even in Crowther's generally positive review of Dr. Strangelove, he has reservations:

"I am troubled by the feeling, which runs all through the film, of discredit and even contempt for our whole defense establishment, up to and even including the hypothetical Commander in Chief...When virtually everybody turns up stupid or insane—or, what is worse, psychopathic—I want to know what this picture proves. The President, played by Peter Sellers with a shiny bald head, is a dolt, whining and unavailing with the nation in a life-or-death spot. But worse yet, his technical expert, Dr. Strangelove, whom Mr. Sellers also plays, is a devious and noxious ex-German whose mechanical arm insists on making the Nazi salute."

He sort of gets the point but he's 'troubled' by some of the very things that make it brilliant. Of course if Strangelove didn't trouble the old guard in the early 60's it wouldn't be a classic.

comment #14

Rich S. says ...

cj,

When I first read that quote, I thought that he didn't get the point at all. Upon second reading I think you're right. He completely gets the point, but almost doesn't believe that it's the point Kubrick is trying to make.

comment #15

christian says ...

in some ways i'm disappointed by some of qt's choices for the new beverly. he could have dropped two nights of bad 70's sex films with better picks from his qt fest selections. his horror pickings are slim, as is monster movies.

and no DION BROTHERS?

comment #16

ratskiwatski says ...

Mgmax, throwing down the knowledge! Though I'd hope that in a quarter century of reviewing the man would occasionally champion something worthy, my take still holds, with a caveat - I can empathize with how doing that gig for that long could turn one's style into self-parody and a figure of fun. I'd also forgotten that he'd run off for a gig at Columbia Pictures... that factoid's from my current rereading of "A Year In The Dark," Renata Adler's book on her brief stint replacing Crowther. I like it just as much as the Graham Greene or Agee collections, and the introduction is priceless - she wasn't really that into the gig, the whole scene kind of flummoxed her. Talk about your non-institutional voice... and, getting MgMeta, gotta check outta this thing and go watch "Ultraviolet." (sigh)

comment #17

ratskiwatski says ...

...and, boy, did it ever suck - do I get a cookie (laced with arsenic) for lasting 40 minutes?

comment #18

nemo says ...

"It stinks, it's diseased, it was produced and performed by untalented people and it makes you feel skanky...why not?"

With that introduction, Wells goes on to establish himself as one of the leading authorities on the history and influences of the Nazi softcore porn genre.

comment #19

christian says ...

maybe even qt has his limits...but rob zombie does not...

comment #20

Rich S. says ...

Hear, hear! The best thing on television last year was TCM's Cult Movie series, introduced by Rob Zombie.

comment #21

The Hoyk says ...

THE DION BROTHERS is actually going to get a screening at the American Cinematheque's Aero theatre in Santa Monica this April. Perhaps they asked QT to hold off on screening his print so they could get a better turnout.

Plus, THE DION BROTHERS is not a grindhouse film, it's just a good quirky comedy.

comment #22

christian says ...

wha-wha-wha what? DION BROS at the aero? why not the egyptian?

well, that's a point. but PRETTY MAIDS IN A ROW is a vadim film. so more artful soft core. ROLLING THUNDER is more a character thing with violence, so a wild comedy...okay, yeah.

comment #23

corey3rd says ...

Jesus Franco's Ilsa the Wicked Warden was not an Ilsa movie. It was Wanda the Wicked Warden. But the distributor decided to change the title since for the most part it plays like an Ilsa flick. It allows them to box it up with the others.

Ilsa the She Wolf of the SS is historical since it was the last thing shot on the old Hogan's Heroes exterior set.