This color test footage for Rowland Lee‘s Son of Frankenstein (released on 1.13.39), was probably shot in the early fall of ’38. This clip has been on YouTube since 2011, but I saw it for the first time today. It’s actually the first color image I’d ever seen of Karloff in Frankenstein monster makeup, period.
The makeup genius was Jack Pierce (1889 — 1968). Yes, that’s Pierce getting strangled starting at the 45-second mark.
Karloff’s tongue improv (35-second mark) is good for a chuckle, but what genuinely surprised me was the mint-green skin. Widely circulated color snaps of Peter Boyle‘s Young Frankenstein monster (’74) also showed green skin, but I always thought that was a one-off. One presumes that the mint-green makeup was chosen by director Mel Brooks and Young Frankenstein dp Gerald Hirschfield because it delivers an extra-deathly pallor in monochrome.
Either way I’d never read or been told that Boris Karloff‘s monster had the same skin shade, at least as far as Son of Frankenstein was concerned. No clues if Karloff and Pierce went green for the previous two he starred in, Frankenstein (’31) and Bride of Frankenstein (’35).
I’d actually come to believe, based on a December 2012 visit to Guillermo del Toro’s “Bleak House,” that Karloff’s monster had mostly grayish skin with perhaps (at most) a faint hint of green. (The below photo, taken on 12.22.12, shows life-sized wax models of Pierce working on Karloff for James Whale‘s 1931 original.) Nobody is a more exacting historian or connoisseur of classic monsters than GDT, so I naturally presumed that the skin tone on Karloff’s wax model was accurate. I stand corrected.
One of many shots snapped at Guillermo del Toro’s “Bleak House” — posted on 12.22.12.
3:50 pm Pacific: The clock struck midnight in Paris an hour ago, and there wasn’t much hoopla (appropriately) because of the citywide lockdown. The joy is fueled by the departure of 2020…relief and a belief that ’21 might be an improvement. Maybe, probably…let’s hope.
Posted on 12.31.13: “I say this every year, but no New Year’s Eve celebration of any kind will ever match what the kids and I saw in front of the Eiffel Tower when 1999 gave way to 2000. A bit dippy from champagne and standing about two city blocks in front of the Eiffel Tower and watching the greatest fireworks display in history. And then walking all the way back to Montmartre with thousands on the streets after the civil servants shut the Metro down at 1 a.m. No cabs anywhere.
There’s no question that (a) dying is a part of life, (b) we’re all gonna get there and (c) there’s nothing like a little wit and levity to brighten our awareness of the inevitable. And yes, Dick Johnson Is Dead has ratings of 100% and 89% on RT and Metacritic, respectively.
The user scores on these aggregate sites, however, are somewhat lower — 7.4 on Metacritic, 8.1 on RT. And that’s where the real truth lies.
Never, ever trust critics when it comes to films like this. They’re not allowed to be honest about their deep-down feelings about anything, and they know it and so do readers. Which is one of the ways in which Hollywood Elsewhere is different.
I watched my father and mother approach death and deal with the physical and mental decline aspects, and they weren’t especially happy about it, I can tell you. At the very end my mother just said “fuck it” and refused to eat or even talk with me or Jett when we last visited her. She just wanted it to be over.
I’m sorry but I’d rather contemplate life and all its myriad intrigues, expectations and pitfalls than the absolute finality of “lights out and adios muchachos”. And I really, really don’t want to submit to a meditation about old-age dementia.
If a deep dive into old age is required, give me Stephen Walker and Bob Cilman‘s Young At Heart (’07). I loved this film, and so did my mom when I finally managed to show it to her.
I’m not refusing to watch Dick Johnson Is Dead. I’m actually nudging myself in that direction by the very act of writing this riff.
But at the same time I’m a bit like Terrence Stamp in The Hit — philosophically or even serenely accepting of death on a certain level, but when the proverbial John Hurt figure pulls out the gun and says “we’re gonna do it now, Willy,” my reaction would be “not now…it’s tomorrow…we have to get to Paris first…you’re not doing the job…not now!”
Keith Watson’s Slant review: “A drawback to Johnson’s deliberately gimmicky style—which includes glitzy visions of Dick in heaven surrounded by notable personages as diverse as Frederick Douglass, Sigmund Freud, and Bruce Lee—is that it doesn’t allow us to access her father as a person. We feel his warmth and his abiding love for his family, but we learn relatively little of his personal history beyond the highlights.
“Dick’s attitude toward his own death is so breezy and his relationship with Johnson so frictionless that the film can at times feel remarkably undramatic.”
Producer pally: “Why aren’t you reviewing Palm Springs or Relic? Everyone wants to know which new films to watch. You’re getting wrapped up in the dark day-to-day malaise of our limited lives and it’s attracting the very worst from your snarkier readers. I love your column but your joy in reviewing good movies like The Outpost is getting trampled by the anger and bitterness of some posts.
“Your readers come for escape and inspiration. They are looking for some respite from despair. That’s what good movies can do, isn’t it? Don’t forget that part. It’s important.”
HE to producer pally: “Thanks for being a good hombre and a supportive friend. And yeah, escape and inspiration are important. People’s souls need watering but I can’t just turn on the garden hose like Mr. Greenjeans. That’s not how writing works. I have to be true to life in all its burdensome glory and the day-to-day bubble, bubble, toil and trouble AS IT IS, now how you or certain readers might want it to be. I am not a slap-happy escapist — never have been, never will be.
“I just saw Palm Springs last night. And First Cow, finally. Assembling articles as we speak. I wouldn’t watch Relic with a knife at my back.”
I was moderately excited by those Tribeca Film Festival reviews of FrancisCoppola‘sApocalypse Now: Final Cut. They appeared after it screened at the Beacon Theatre on 4.28.19. I was especially aroused by opinions that the 4K remastering had to some degree improved and upticked Vittorio Storaro’s cinematography, and generally made it look richer or more vivid or something in that realm.
I saw the 182-minute Final Cut last night at the Playa Vista IMAX facility, and there was no question it was anabsolutelyfirst–raterendering of an acknowledged classic. But it was no upgrade over what I saw in 70mm at the Ziegfeld in August of ‘79. It looked exactly the same as it did back then, which is fine as far as it goes. But the 4K upgrade effect (otherwise known in HE Land as a 4K “bump”) didn’t manifest.
This isn’t any kind of problem, per se, as the film was magnificently shot to begin with. But last night’s presentation wasn’t, to my eyes, an “oh wow” thing. Maybe it’ll pop more when I watch the 4K disc at home. I’ve noticed this syndrome before — 4K HDR renderings can look more robust than a theatrical presentation.
I also have to state that the sound was markedly better — more distinct and impactful — at the Ziegfeld than it was last night. Here are four examples:
(1) During the opening sequence as the opening stanzas of “The End” are heard, I distinctly remember hearing an ultra-crisp rendering of John Densmore’s high-hat as it kept time with the beat of the song. I had listened to “The End” endlessly on headphones, but hearing it inside the Ziegfeld was a “whoa!” because Densmore’s high-hat had never before aurally LEAPT OUT — sitting in my seat at the Ziegfeld I knew I was hearing something new. But it didn’t leap out last night at the IMAX facility;
(2) There was a huge subwoofer rumble — something that came up from the floor and vibrated my ribs all to hell — inside the Ziegfeld when the patrol boat approached the post-battle havoc that had been created by Colonel Kilgore and his Air Cav troops. There was a distinct bassy rumble at the IMAX theatre when this moment arrived, but no super-bass vibration that matched the Ziegfeld effect;
(3) Martin Sheen’s narration was louder at the Ziegfeld — every vowel and syllable cut right into your eardrums. But last night he just sounded normal;
(4) It was quite the thing at the Ziegfeld when Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries” suddenly stopped as Coppola cut to the villagers and the Viet Cong, and we could only hear a faint hint of Wagner in the distance — that aural contrast effect was more striking at the Ziegfeld 40 years ago than it was last night.
Overall my impression was “looks and sounds fine but I wasn’t blown away.” But maybe the 4K disc will provide the enhancement I was expecting.
A friend who knows all about projection reminds that impressions of restored films are sometimes “venue dependent.” So it’s possible, I suppose, that the IMAX guys just didn’t present the film as they should have. Who knows?
In my 20s I worked as a tree surgeon. Shitty money but at least I was in great shape. I did it all — shaping, pruning, tree removal (or “takedowns”), cabling, spraying. As a former professional I laughed out loud at the idiots in these videos. I always removed trees in a careful, methodical fashion. I would always climb to the top of a tree, tie in with my rope, saddle, spikes and chain, and then take the leaders and branches off one at a time, until the tree became a telephone pole. And then I’d start chainsawing chunks of it, one by one from the top and slowly working my way down.
If there was the slightest chance of any falling pieces hitting a shed or a swimming pool or (God forbid) the main residence, I would tie a rope to the piece I was about to cut and loop the rope over a nearby leader and have the ground crew slowly lower it down. And when it came time to drop the “telephone pole”, we would always make sure it would fall upon a bouncy bed of cut branches. There would always be a rope tied to the top with a couple of guys maintaining tension, and then I would carefully cut a pie slice at the base of the tree. The tree would always land exactly where I planned.
The guys in these videos (i.e., no women) are morons.
Taking my cue from Ernest Hemingway‘s “write hard and clear about what hurts,” I have an unpleasant confession to share. Sometime around 3:30 or 4 am (i.e., the hour of the wolf) I dreamt about waiting to die on death row. Draw your own conclusions but it happened. Everyone has nightmares from time to time, but nobody in my racket talks about stuff like this.
It was like a string of Twilight Zone mini-episodes. Two or three minutes and fade to black, and then the next one, etc. There was some debate by the death row honchos about what mode of execution to use — injection, firing squad, gas chamber a la Fred MacMurray in Double Indemnity, hanging, electric chair, guillotine or thrown to hungry wolves a la Ernest Borgnine in The Vikings. At one point I was led out to the MacMurray chamber with 20 minutes to go before they dropped the pellets, and then Sacramento approved a stay of execution.
The dream was so distressing that my left leg turned into concrete from the tension, and then succumbed to an agonizing charleyhorse. I leapt up and tried walking around to get the blood flowing, and then I used a heated vibrating muscle relaxer device that I bought a few years ago on Amazon. The death row + leg seizure double whammy was so traumatic that I decided to decompress on the living room couch by surfing Twitter and checking column typos. I crashed an hour or so later, exhausted. I awoke at 8:15 am Pacific.
I’m partly blaming the Sundance commissars along with everything else (A Star Is Born, James Wan and Aquaman worship and Jason Momoa‘s smug, shit-eating aqua-grin, the SJW twitter predators).
Life is demanding and draining and rarely relaxing, much less celebrative. The goal, of course, is to live as vividly and vibrantly and energetically as you can while you can. “We’re all gonna get there, no exceptions” — Terence Stamp in The Hit. But only a few of us can dance down staircases like Jimmy Cagney (okay, I haven’t done this over the last decade) and sing harmony on each and every Beatles song ever written and hike up super-steep 45 degree roads in the Hollywood hills (as I did last night with Tatyana), etc.
Last night I caught a special little screening of Amazing Grace, the nearly 47-year-old Aretha Franklin gospel concert doc, at the Park Avenue screening room. It was hosted by producer-savior Alan Elliott and director Spike Lee, a huge fan of the doc who’s trying to generate interest in hopes of landing a nomination for a possible Best Feature Documentary Oscar.
Amazing Grace has qualified itself with two recent theatrical bookings, one in Los Angeles and another at Manhattan’s Film Forum. The latter booking is totally sold out so I’m glad I was able to attend.
Filmed over two nights (Thursday, 1.13.72 and Friday, 1.14.72) inside L.A.’s New Temple Missionary Baptist Church (So. Broadway near 87th Place), Amazing Grace became an unfinished calamity when it became clear that director Sydney Pollack and his crew had captured 20 hours of footage without shooting clapper boards at the start of each take, which in the analog era made the footage impossible to synch in post.
Amazing Grace producer Alan Elliott, director Spike Lee following Thursday’s Park Ave. screening room showing.
How Pollack, who’d been directing features for six or seven years at the time, could have failed to realize that clapper-boarding was essential is oneoftheall–timegreatHollywoodmysteries. Maybe he felt it was more important to be unobtrusive — maybe he felt intimidated by the spiritual vapors and didn’t want to get in the way.
Elliott is the music-industry guy who eight or nine years ago finally synched the footage with digital technology. And yet despite this resurrection Franklin, who died from pancreatic cancer last August at age 76, was curiously opposed to letting the film be commercially released. Or even screened at film festivals. She legally prevented Telluride Film Festival showings in both 2015 and ’16.
After Franklin died her estate agreed to let the film be shown. Neon will distribute sometime in early ’19.
Amazing Grace is just as spirit-lifting as the early-birds have been saying. Classic rhythmic bass-throbby gospel, churning and turning and cranking it up…”Oh, my…oh, yeah! Oh, my…oh, yeah!” (That might have been my own private chorus.) I’ve been listening to Franklin’s singing all my life, but to watch her improvise and embroider and work through a song top to bottom, little beads of sweat covering her face and neck, her concentration fierce and unwavering — pure flight, pure emotion, pure reach-for-the-skies.
Franklin is supported by top-tier pros…maximum energy, discipline, coordination. The barrel-chested Rev. James Cleveland (who died at age 59 in 1991) at the piano. The Southern California Community Choir, led by Alexander Hamilton. And Franklin’s superb backup band — guitarist Cornell Dupree, bassist Chuck Rainey, drummer Bernard Purdie, organist Ken Lupper, conga player Pancho Morales — is as good as it gets. They were a kind of WreckingCrew-plus; Elliott said last night they were the session guys for the 1962 recording of the Four Seasons’ “Sherry.”
The bass-heavy soundtrack sounded analog-y. You could almost hear the tape hiss. It did wonderful things to my rib cage.
Oh, and there are two or three shots of Mick Jagger and Charlie Watts clapping along from behind the back row. Exile on Main Street had been recorded at the time, but was yet to be released. Sticky Fingers had been in circulation for eight or nine months.
Amazing Grace should obviously, definitely be Oscar-nominated. With a 47-years-in-the-making narrative and arriving only four months after Franklin’s death, there doesn’t seem to be much doubt about this.
Elliott and Lee did a q & a after the screening. I captured about ten minutes’ worth on the iPhone.
When the subject of Oscar attention came up, Spike sounded a little bit ambivalent. He mentioned his heartbreak about Driving Miss Daisy having won the Best Picture Oscar over Do The Right Thing, “like it happened yesterday.”
After the q & a ended I asked Spike if he’s seen Green Book, which some have incorrectly said is similar to Driving Miss Daisy. He said he hadn’t.
A few minutes ago a friend wrote me an email titled “don’t piss on my leg and tell me it’s raining.” It reads “obviously Woody had a low sperm count (per Hannah and Her Sisters) so Mia asked ex-husband Frank Sinatra to do her a solid. No one would ever know, except that Ronan Farrow looks like a Frankie. Look at the upper lip. The chin. The hairline. The eye shape.” Bottom line: Ronan doesn’t resemble Woody Allen in the slightest.
A friend who saw Haifaa al-Mansour‘s Mary Shelley (IFC Films, opening today in one theatre in Santa Monica) says the standout is 25 year-old Douglas Booth, who plays Percy Bysshe Shelley. I don’t even remember him from Darren Aronofsky‘s Noah (’14) or Lone Scherfig‘s The Riot Club (’14), and sitting through the Wachowski brothers Jupiter Ascending, in which Booth also costarred, made me too miserable to notice anyone or anything. I just wanted to die.
At age 16, the actual Mary Shelley (Elle Fanning) began a physical relationship with the already married Percy Bysshe Shelley. Together with Mary’s stepsister Claire Clairmont (Bel Powley, whom Booth is seeing in real life), Mary and Shelley left for France and travelled through Europe. Claire began sleeping with Shelley, and then started sleeping with Lord Byron, who dumped her. Mary became pregnant thrice by Shelley, but two of the babies died. Shelley’s wife committed suicide, after which he and Mary got married.
At age 18 Mary wrote “Frankenstein”, which was allegedly some kind of metaphorical saga about her life. Shelley was Dr. Henry Frankenstein — she was the unloved, spat-upon, misunderstood monster.
Hollywood Elsewhere arrived in Santa Barbara late this afternoon, and then attended a big SBIFF tribute for The Florida Project‘s Willem Dafoe at the Arlington theatre — a 90-minute q & a with Deadline‘s Pete Hammond, the usual array of clips, and a presentation of the Cinema Vanguard award by The Fault In Our Stars director Josh Boone.
Huzzah for one of our most gifted and tenacious indie-level actors, a guy who’s been digging in and chugging along for 40 years now, and was lucky enough to enjoy a brilliant nine-year streak from ’85 to ’94 — the counterfeiter in William Friedkin‘s To Live and Die in L.A., Sergeant Elias in Oliver Stone‘s Platoon, Jesus of Nazareth in The Last Temptation of Christ, FBI agent Alan Ward in Alan Parker‘s Mississippi Burning, a pissed-off paraplegic in Stone’s Born on the Fourth of July, Bobby Peru in David Lynch‘s Wild At Heart, Jon LeTour in Paul Schrader‘s Light Sleeper, and John Clark in Phillip Noyce‘s Clear and Present Danger.
Dafoe often works with the strongest and most innovative directors around. I especially respected his performance as Pier Paolo Pasolini in Abel Ferrara‘s Pasolini (’14). Sure, Dafoe appears in crap from time to time, but who doesn’t?
Earlier this month Dafoe’s Florida Project performance was an apparent lock for the Best Supporting Actor Oscar, but all of sudden Three Billboards‘ Sam Rockwell stole the heat with Golden Globe and Critics Choice wins, and now…who knows?
Dafoe spoke a bit about playing Vincent Van Gogh in Julian Schnabel‘s At Eternity’s Gate, which recently finished shooting. He said it would be a more inward-looking, painter’s-eye study at Van Gogh’s struggle.