As TCM winds down a month featuring one of the greatest character actors who ever stole a picture, (Claude Rains, the September Star of the Month),  my appetite for  character actors in the spotlight has been whetted. Partly in response to repeated requests from those interested readers who frequent these pages, I thought a deserving glimpse of more supporting players might enliven the month of October. Each week this month, I’ll focus one of those actors who may not have been the stars of the show, but whose work invariably stood out from the crowd of “5000 others”. This week, I thought I’d tip my hat toward at least one of the gifted Russian émigrés who trained at the Moscow Art Theatre.

Maria Ouspenskaya, whose talent came out of that creative seedbed for some of the finest actors and boldest hams, stands out among them, despite being under five feet tall. Many of her colleagues lent their credibility and indelible gifts to Hollywood, but she may be the most readily identifiable of the bunch. While hightailing it away from the Cossacks, the Whites, the Reds, the Mensheviks, the Bolsheviks, the anarchists and the fascists who made life a bit too “interesting” in the first half of the 20th century from Siberia to the shores of Ellis Island, several of these actors found a pretty fair living in Hollywood, among them Akim Tamiroff, Olga Baclanova, Vladimir Sokoloff, Leonid Kinskey and Konstantin Shayne. They may never have felt completely at home in what sometimes seemed the Babylonian splendor of “barbaric” American culture in the studio era. Cut off from their cultural roots and often having lost their families and nearly their lives during the revolutionary times they lived in, these actors often proved their strength of character and professional versatility when asked to play characters of almost every class and ethnicity in American movies.

READ MORE

I really should be talking about Summer Storm, a rare Douglas Sirk film from 1944 that only has one small capsule review to represent it on IMDB. Instead, I feel like weighing in on District 9 which, as of this writing, already has 121 film critic posts, close to 400 customer reviews, and God knows how much else out there amassing itself to the IMDB ballyhoo. Adding to the craziness is the fact that you can’t have a party this size without breaking some chairs and tipping some bikes. Not that brawling film geeks can quite summon forth the fury of Altamont, but I still have to admit to being a tad bit mesmerized by it all. READ MORE

Set your home-viewing systems for 9:45 am on March 13 (Friday the 13th) because one of my favorite movies from childhood is showing on TCM. This little comedy features one the best one-word titles in all of film history simply because it is fun to say — Zotz!

This comedy-fantasy stars Tom Poston, television actor par excellence, as Professor Jonathan Jones who comes into possession of “zotz,” a coin that has three magical properties. If the coin’s owner points an accusatory finger at an intended victim, the coin causes intense pain; another command causes everything to move in slow motion; finally, if the accusatory finger and the command are used simultaneously, the victim dies. Released in 1962 during the height of the Cold War, Zotz! is an obvious product of the times. Professor Jones tries to involve the Department of Defense in his discovery, but they think he is a madman. Then Communist agents plot to get possession of the coin from Professor Jones.

I was surprised to discover that promotion king William Castle codirected Zotz!, because with its wacky naïve professors, crazy antics, and bureaucratic government officials, this kids-oriented movie is more like The Absent-Minded Professor or Son of Flubber than Castle’s usual schlocky horror-film fare, such as 13 Ghosts, The Tingler, or Macabre. As a matter of fact, both Absent-Minded and Flubber follow Zotz! on the TCM schedule on March 13. But, Zotz! does share something with Castle’s other films — a gimmick, albeit a little one. During the initial theatrical run, the movie’s patrons were rewarded with a plastic replica of the Zotz! coin. According to the Internet (now, there’s a reliable source), the Zotz! coins are highly sought after by collectors. Well, eat your hearts out sci-fi buffs, because I own a Zotz! coin. A gold-colored hunk of hard plastic with a zany design on the front, the coin is one of my prized possessions.

READ MORE

The Norwegian horror film about Nazi Zombies, Dead Snow, had it’s U.S. premiere at Sundance. I always try to make at least one midnight screening at Park City’s Egyptian theater so as to be able to tap into the rowdy revelry of the late-show crowd, and the filmmakers for Dead Snow knew how to pack ‘em in. According to staff this sold-out screening was their busiest one in five years. Small wonder… the viral marketing for Dead Snow was so successful that I’d gotten three different trailers forwarded to me by friends who didn’t even know I was at Sundance. The filmmakers also know how to have fun with their screening in a way that would make William Castle proud; they had two guys dressed up as Nazi zombies playing to the ticket holders and, later, the crowd inside. The film was preceded by Treevenge, a disturbing and amusing Canadian short film about killer Christmas trees. READ MORE

Any films buffs near Denver this November 13 – 23 are advised to check out the 31st Starz Denver Film Festival. Here is a glimpse at what S.D.F.F. offers: Red Carpet Presentations (gala screenings with special guests followed by parties), Special Presentations (these are titles that programmers feel are destined for various awards), Films In Competition that vy for The Krysztof Kieslowski Award (reflecting the sensibilities of the late Polish director), the Emerging Filmmaker Award (presented to first or second-time directors who have yet to gain U.S. distribution), and the Maysles Brothers award for Best Documentary (presented annually by Albert Maysles to a feature-length nonfiction film without U.S. distribution). But that’s not all, there’s also: Contemporary World Cinema (one of my favorite sections), Documentary Films, a New Directors Showcase, a Tributes section (this year bringing out Carolee Schneemann, Richard Jenkins, Majid Majidi, Thomas Imbach, and Wally Pfister), a showcase called In Memoriam for recently departed artists (this year: Anthony Minghella, Paul Newman, and Sydney Pollack), a selection of late-show/cult fare titled The Watching Hour, two  different platforms for short films (one for vets, one for students), and this year a spotlight on animation. Also: too many attending guests, panel discussions, etc., to list here. Phew! Still with me? Good. Below is a brief look at four films screened at the 31st S.D.F.F. 

READ MORE

If you read Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine during the 1960s, you’ll be familiar with this ad or others like it.  The back pages of that wonderful publication (the abnormal brainchild of Forrest J. Ackerman, the original fanboy) were filled with ads for all kinds of curios and grotesqueries offered mail order from the Philadelphia-based outfit Captain Company.  Flipping these pages was like being in The Circus of Dr. Lao – it was a secret world of unparalleled neatness, from back issues (oh, how I studied those thumbnail covers, imagining the manifest horrors pressed between their pages) to werewolf rings (designed, I think, to repelwerewolves) to 8mm movie projectors and a wealth of monster movie “cutdowns” (4 and 12 minute silent versions of the classic monster films) to genuine (it seemed) “crawling hands” to 7′ Frankenstein monsters (turns out it was just a poster with glow-in-the-dark dots to stick on his eyes) and masks, masks, masks.  READ MORE

On September 16th, Harper Colllins will be releasing THE BOOK OF LISTS: HORROR, AN ALL-NEW COLLECTION OF SPINE-TINGLING, HAIR-RAISING, BLOOD-CURDLING FUN AND FACTS (SRP: $14.95), which is exactly what you think it is… a head-spinning (all the way around) concordance of lists (favorites, bests, worsts, the underrated, the overrated, the forgotten, the unknown, the classic, the seminal) written by and for horror fans.  Not strictly focused on movies (although fright films do account for a shocking percentage of the book’s contents), these lists cover literature, music, poetry, movie posters, you name it.  In the spirit of full disclosure, I should point out that I’m one of the many contributors to THE BOOK OF LISTS: HORROR, which puts me in the strange but happy company of novelists Stephen King, Ray Bradbury, Poppy Z. Brite, Jack Ketchum and Ramsey Campbell, horror comics visionary Steve Niles, film directors James Gunn, Edgar Wright and Eli Roth, late great rocker Johnny Ramone, Video Watchdog  editor/publisher (and Video Watchbloger) Tim Lucas, my fellow VW contributor Kim Newman (a frightfully prolific novelist and film critic in his own right) and many, many more.  (Those I’ve neglected to mention shouldn’t feel in any way slighted, as in all official press releases I too am lumped into the “and many, many more” category, being an all together lower wattage name on the marquee of this production.  But that’s okay – there are no bad seats at this freakshow.)  The book also boasts an introduction by cartoonist Gahan Wilson, whose bizarre take on life has influenced my own worldview ever since I began sneaking my Dad’s Playboys into the bathroom.  Which, come to think of it, is where I read the lion’s share of THE BOOK OF LISTS and where I will no doubt learn a lot from my fellow contributors to THE BOOK OF LISTS: HORROR.  This project is the red-handed stepchild of the original BOOK OF LISTS, an international best seller compiled by Irving Wallace back in 1977 with the assistance of his son David Wallechinsky and daughter Amy Wallace.  My family had that un-put-downable volume in our house and I think it eventually turned to powder from overuse.  I think you’ll find THE BOOK OF LISTS: HORROR equally compelling, even if horror movies aren’t your cup of tea.  The editors of this latest stab at list-making are original BOOK OF LISTS editor Amy Wallace, Scott Bradley and Del Howison, proprietor of the legendary Dark Delicacies horror bookstore in Burbank, California, and editor of the Dark Delicacies anthologies of horror fiction. 

Amazon.com is currently offering THE BOOK OF LISTS: HORROR at the attractive presale price of $10.17.