The New York-based Film Chest, Inc., via their HD Cinema Classics label, has released two films in DVD and Blu-ray combo-packs that have long been public domain eyesores, junking up the bottom rows of your local video store (you remember, the one that closed a while back) and thickening the VHS remainder bins. (You remember VHS, the cassette tapes, the things that looked a little like paperback books on your shelf.) Both DEMENTIA 13 (1963) and THE TERROR (1963) have a connection to Roger Corman — the latter being directed by Corman (for the most part – more on this later) and the former being produced by Corman and helmed by his once-upon-a-time protege, Francis Coppola — yes, the Francis Coppola, who went on to direct CAPTAIN EO (1986) and JACK (1996) and do some really great print ads for Mondavi wines and Louis Vuitton luggage and also had a hand in such obscure films as THE GODFATHER (1972), THE GODFATHER: PART II (1974), THE CONVERSATION (1974) and APOCALYPSE NOW (1979). All right, all right, I’m messing with you… but these movies mess with you, too, so it all fits, believe me.

Or don’t believe me!

But seriously, back in the day, it was easy to get mad at these movies because they were everywhere and in such crappy condition that it was like watching them through a scrim of elementary school toilet paper.  The very thought of these movies so put you off that you wouldn’t even read about them in genre overviews because they felt so done to death. (I’m getting a little angry just thinking about it.) Of course, all of that rancor was unfair and the movies themselves were not to blame. Though both were low budget programmers aimed at the punters, they had value, something to say and killer casts, with Jack Nicholson taking an early starring role in THE TERROR opposite aging horror king Boris Karloff and the iconic likes of William Campbell, Luana Anders and Patrick Magee headlining DEMENTIA 13, which is just one of the best movie titles ever. Nearly fifty years after their theatrical debuts it’s high time for a reassessment now that both look so good. READ MORE

Today marks the beginning of TCM’s Classic Film Festival taking place April 28-May 1. A number of people have asked me if I’m attending the festival this year but unfortunately I’m stuck at home writing about it. Personal budget constraints make my attendance impossible but there are a lot of film screenings and events taking place at the festival that I wish I could see. I thought it would be fun to imagine how I might have planned out my trip to TCM’s Classic Film Festival this year and share a few movie recommendations in the process.

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The Tribeca Film Festival still exists. Having succeeded in its intent to help revitalize the economy of lower Manhattan after 9/11, the festival has spread out across the city, and has maintained its commerce-over-art stance. As a business venture it seems like an unqualified success, and has gained a little more respect as a market for distributors along the way. But as for the films themselves, it’s always been a bit of an embarrassment. Heavy on celebrity directorial debuts (this year: Billy Corgan and Vera Farmiga) and slumming stars in sub-Sundance “indies”, the movies are essentially waiting lines for the after-parties. With a festival this huge, there is always something to be salvaged, usually in the shorts or genre programs. But in recent years I haven’t been willing  to pay the price (Steve Dollar in GreenCine and Matt Singer and Stephen Saito at IFC News are two doing such yeoman’s work). The only title in TFF’s program I was aching to see was Tsui Hark’s Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame (2010), and as it was already available on DVD and Blu-Ray in Asia, I watched it at home instead of braving the beautiful crowds.

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What do movie stars Kirk Douglas and Marlon Brando, painter Childe Hassam, writer Mark Twain, New York Times photographer Bill Cunningham, and dancer Isadora Duncan have in common?

These American artists, who so excelled at their crafts that their names can be found in the history books, lived or trained in the artists’ colony that existed for over 100 years in the two towers above Carnegie Hall. The towers contained 160 artist studios where painters, musicians, actors, photographers, dancers, and teachers lived, worked, or taught.  Prior to seeing the documentary Lost Bohemia at the Sarasota Film Festival, I didn’t realize that this magical world—where art was the center of the residents’ lives—had ever existed.  “Had existed” is the operative phrase as the artists were evicted and their uniquely designed studios destroyed or reconfigured by the Carnegie Hall Corporation. Why would they destroy a 100-year-old artists’ colony that was a living history of the popular arts in America? Well, the operative word there is “Corporation.”

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The film series I program celebrated its 70th year anniversary last night with a concert film matinee from 1988, followed by a musician-studded film that was retooled last year, all of which was capped off with two live concerts in a building that was once an 800-seat film theater smack in the middle of downtown. I’m still recuperating from the festivities, which stretched out to into the morning hours. In the interest of full disclosure I should let you know that I’m writing this in a state of only semi-consciousness and am probably still legally intoxicated, this thanks to the 70-cent Imperial Stouts we had on tap to promote our 70th anniversary. If this post gets ugly or sloppy I’ll blame more than the booze and also point the finger to rock-and-roll. It’s what happens to be on my throbbing brain right now. Specifically: some of my favorite concert docs that are usually overlooked by the mainstream.

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Tonight is the season premiere of DOCTOR WHO on BBC America.  I have no business promoting a television program on a rival network, when this is (ahem) TCM’s movie blog. . .  but DOCTOR WHO is my favorite show, and has been since I was 10.  But I’m no shill—I want to talk about DOCTOR WHO and what makes it great, but I’ll do so by the back door.  This week I’m blogging about one of DOCTOR WHO’s rare forays into the world of cinema, the 1966 Amicus film DALEKS INVASION EARTH 2150 AD starring Peter Cushing!

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[I'm turning over the microphone today to my fellow HorrorDad Paul Gaita, who recently chatted with one of our favorite people: artist Drew Friedman. - RHS]

For the past two decades, award-winning illustrator Drew Friedman has chronicled the lives – both real and imaginary – of the entertainment world’s most unusual and extreme figures, from cellar-dwelling sub-stars like Tor Johnson, Joe E. Ross and Joey Heatherton to larger-than-life personas like Jerry Lewis, Michael Jackson and Howard Stern. His “stippling” style of caricature, which employs thousands of pen-marks to depict every wattle, sweat bead and jowl on his subjects, has been featured in the pages of The New Yorker, Entertainment Weekly, Time, Rolling Stone and The New York Times, and a series of books, including the collections Warts and All (with brother Josh Alan Friedman), Too Soon: Famous/Infamous Faces 1995-2010 and two volumes of Old Jewish Comedians, which paid tribute to such venerable figures as Sid Caesar, Larry Storch, Milton Berle and Buddy Hackett. (Readers may also remember his work in the pages of Heavy Metal, Psychotronic Video and Spy). READ MORE

Canadian born actor Michael Sarrazin passed away on April 17th after a brief battle with cancer. He was 70 years old at the time. With his tall lanky frame, large soulful eyes and calm demeanor, Sarrazin is probably best remembered for uttering the unforgettable last line, “They shoot horses, don’t they?” in Sydney Pollack’s Oscar-winning 1969 film of the same name.

In some of Sarrazin’s most interesting films he portrayed characters that seemed at odds with the world and out of place in their surroundings. He was often searching for something better. Grasping for an unobtainable future or that tempting gold ring that was always dangling just out of reach. Sarrazin was a thoughtful and easy-going anti-hero and his naturalistic approach to acting helped usher in a new kind leading man that would become widely popular throughout the 1970s. Although he never had the same kind of success and fame that many of his contemporaries did, Michael Sarrazin’s work speaks for itself. He appeared in some terrific movies during the height of his career and I thought now would be as good a time as any to share a few of my favorites.
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“It is too early to establish any coherent pattern to Dwan’s career as a whole, but it may very well be that Dwan will turn out to be the last of the old masters. …there may be much more to be said…” -Andrew Sarris, The American Cinema

“My weakness was that I’d take anything. If it was a challenge to me, I’d take a bad story and try to make it good.” -Allan Dwan to Peter Bogdanovich, Who the Devil Made It

Allan Dwan has one of the more intimidating IMDB pages, with 405 directorial credits listed, spanning the years 1911 -1961. As with my on-going infatuation with Raoul Walsh, my haphazard path to Allan Dwan began with a random repertory screening, this time at Anthology Film Archives. The French filmmaker and critic Serge Bozon (La France), programmed an evening of idiosyncratic Westerns that handle male friendship in starkly different terms: Dwan’s Tennessee’s Partner (1955) and Jacques Tourneur’s Canyon Passage (1946). The former is a tender and forthright charmer, while the latter is an opaque and elliptical mystery. As I’ve been frequently enraptured by Tourneur recently (see here), I was surprised to find I found myself more wrapped up in the laconic rhythms of the Dwan film (although both are equally worthy). I then quickly queued up his two other 1955 features, Pearl of the South Pacific and Escape to Burma – and so I begin another auteurist binge.

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