What are you watching now? - (This is my brain on TV!)

[Store Hadji]

I bought the Kino releases of Foolish Wives/The Man You Loved to Hate (Richard Koszarski's documentary - he also wrote a book of the same name) and Blind Husbands/The Great Gabbo (which features Von as actor only, but it has some pretty, um, interesting moments.) Both have excellent extras. I've been looking for the Kino release of the restored Queen Kelly (which still is missing the tobacco juice I believe) but I haven't seen it in the shops. Don't know why I don't just look online.

Speaking of Stroheim, the RARE and WONDERFUL Schmidlin reconstruction of Greed (the four hour version) is showing on TCM this month. I don't believe this has ever been released on video, so get your VCRs and Tivos ready if you're interested in it.

And speaking of TCM, they are showing Journey into Fear this month, if you need a copy of that.

[Jeff Wilson]

Just finished watching King Vidor's HALLELUJAH (1929), which being made at the cusp of the changeover to sound, is crudely acted, but it has some nice shots amidst a generally overlong film. Too many sequences set among revival meetings or the like that just seemed to go on and on...

[Store Hadji]

Just for reference (my own as much as anyone else's) here are the dates/times for TCM the next few months:

Greed (1999 reconstruction) - Jan 24, 11:15 pm (EST?)
The Stranger (1946) - Jan 27, 8:00 pm (maybe it's a better print than that PD crap)
Journey into Fear (1943) - Jan 27, 4:45 am
The Magnificent Ambersons (1942) - Feb 4, 9:00 am
Man in the Shadow (1957) - Mar 11, 9:00 am
The Third Man (1949) - Feb 2, 6:15 pm and Mar 4, 1:15 am

TCM has some odd Welles titles in its archives, along with a button for "suggest this movie:"
Orson Welles A La Cinematheque (1982)
Orson Welles En El Pais De Don Quijote (2000)
All Is Brazil (1998)
Falstaff (1985) (uses clips from Welles' version)
Legendary Hollywood Homes (1999)
Magic with the Stars (1982)
Marco the Magnificent (1965)
Martian Mania: The True Story of WOW (1998) (w/James Cameron)

[Kevin Loy]

I did see the new "Kong" yesterday. Very enjoyable, but not a masterpiece and certainly too long for an adventure film. It greatly respects the original (a first!) and I thought most of the modifications were interesting. I was perhaps more impressed with how Jackson's visual effects team recreated 1930s New York than the effectiveness of the dinosaurs or Kong himself! I adore the new DVD of the original Kong; the two-and-a-half hour making-of documentary is superb.

The new DVD version of Kong looks beautiful. It certainly looks better than any other film from the early 30s that I have seen with this restoration (well, actually, the recent reissue of M by Criterion was pretty good as well, though a few of the reel changes were rough).

I have to ask, though...just how faithful were they to the original in the re-make? I hope they didn't remove my 'favorite' line of dialogue...."say...I think I love you..." I can't help but laugh at the way that line is delivered every time that I see it. Still, at 100 minutes, I think that the original Kong was really in danger of pushing it, so I doubt that I would be able to sit through the recent remake, which is supposed to be 180 minutes or so.


Anyway, to add my two bits, I've mostly spent the past few weeks with the two-dvd King Kong set (despite that laughable bit of dialogue and the actor who delivers it, it really is a great movie) and the Looney Tunes Golden Collection (they never get old).

[Roger Ryan]

Jackson cleverly works in dialogue and action from the original "Kong" into his remake. Some of Bruce Cabot's lines to Fay Wray on board the ship in the original become part of a scene Jack Black's Carl Denham is directing in the new version. When Kong is introduced to the New York audience, Jackson stages it like a Broadway musical that mimics the action/costumes of the original film's sacrificial ceremony. At other times, Jackson simply uses the original film's dialogue verbatim ("It was beauty killed the beast", "We'll be millionaires boys, I share it with all of you").

As I mentioned earlier, the new version is very respectful of the original, but it does create a much more sympathetic Kong, which is its real attribute beyond the obviously modern effects.

[Roger Ryan]

Val Lewton did Cat People, didn't he? I've read that one of those Cat People films reused the Ambersons sets, but I haven't seen it.

The "Ambersons" sets were used predominently in "Curse Of The Cat People" directed by Robert Wise. A strange sequel in that it is primarily a fantasy ghost story with almost no relevance to the action of its predecessor. Regarding reusing Mercury Production sets, I believe Mike Teal pointed out that Lewton's "The Ghost Ship" utilizes the same boat sets seen in "Journey Into Fear".

The Val Lewton productions are wonderfully atmospheric; my two favorites are both directed by Jacques Tourneur - "Cat People" and "I Walked With A Zombie" (don't let the title fool you - this one is a very eerie tale involving voodoo curses).

I just finished watching "Cat People" and "Curse of Cat People" again (I hadn't seen them in about twenty years), and wanted to update my earlier post for accuracy's sake. The "first floor" section of the "Amberson" staircase is seen only in "Cat People" (the first appearance is marked by the line "It always surprises me what you'll find in these old brownstones"). I also suspect that Simone Simon's apartment is a reuse of Eugene Morgan's home interior. "Curse" reuses the "upper floors" portion of the "Amberson" staircase along with numerous props from Welles' film to decorate the home of the eccentric older woman.

I found I had more respect for the sequel upon viewing it again. It's fairly radical how Lewton created an entirely different story and mood from the first film while retaining some of the original characters. The fact that the sequel has very little action and an unresolved ending makes it even more of an anomaly.

[mteal]

When The New Yorker magazine reviewed the IT'S ALL TRUE documentary in 1993, they remarked how CAT PEOPLE and I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE were 'masterpieces beyond anything glimpsable (in It's All True)', and were made at the same time 'for a fraction of what Welles blew in Rio'. Seeing as they used many of the Ambersons and Journey sets, it was ironic to see the low budgets of the Val Lewton films being used as a stick to beat Welles with.

Despite it's excessive length, I enjoyed the new KING KONG alot, although not nearly as much as the original, corny dialogue and all. I probably won't bother with the new KONG on DVD, although it looked great on the big screen, and I think the creature was a masterpiece of CGI the same way the old Kong was a masterpiece of stop-motion animation. That two-and-a-half hour docu on the old Kong DVD does an excellent job of explaining it's place in film history.

I didn't notice much that was Fruedian (or Jungian) in the new KONG, but I did notice some curious allusions to Conrad's HEART OF DARKNESS. Makes me wonder how much Welles's film of HOD might have been inspired by the old KONG if it had been realized.

[jaime marzol]

mteal:
it was ironic to see the low budgets of the Val Lewton films being used as a stick to beat Welles with.

haaaaaaaaaaaaa, i love this. so true. what will they use next.

i watched the 2 Dmytryk films that were fabulous, MURDER MY SWEET, and CROSSFIRE. i love shodow films.

[Store Hadji]

Um, who was that reviewer, who glimpsed noting notable in Four Men on a Raft? I think Godzilla should visit New York.

I just watched Paper Moon again, since it was on TCM tonight. I still think Bogdanovich was paying homage to Welles in that picture - it still seems a hybrid of Ambersons and Touch of Evil...the frame compositions, the close-ups, the deep focus, the looooong takes - all so Wellesian. Great flick. PB takes Moses down a very different road to Hell than Welles would have, though Welles' characters were all doomed by their own weaknesses as well.

Anybody remember the TV spinoff with Jodi Foster as Addie?

[mteal]

mteal:
it was ironic to see the low budgets of the Val Lewton films being used as a stick to beat Welles with.

haaaaaaaaaaaaa, i love this. so true. what will they use next.

I actually stole that from Michael Anderegg's Welles/Shakespeare book, when he mentions how Olivier's HAMLET was used by critics as a convenient stick to beat Welles's MACBETH with. I'm sure there are many other examples too

[jaime marzol]

i have that book, and had a few starts on it that didn't grab me. then a few months back i tried it again, and appreciated it more. it has a lot of quotable stuff in it.

[Roger Ryan]

One more note regarding Welles' set/props/locations showing up in Lewton's work: Greg Mank mentions in his "Curse Of The Cat People" commentary that the exterior of the dilapidated old house shown frequently in the film was an actual home located at 900 W. Adams in Los Angeles. According to a shooting report, the boarding house exterior for "Ambersons" (where Eugene visits Fanny in Welles' original ending) was also a home located on W. Adams. It's possible that it's the same house.

As revealed in an interview conducted years later, Bernard Herrmann mistakenly thought that Welles intended to show that the boarding house was actually the converted Amberson Mansion. Interestingly, the "Curse" home looks enough like the Amberson Mansion that I can see how Herrmann might have gotten that idea (if, in fact, the same home served as the boarding house exterior).

[Store Hadji]

Nope...

[Store Hadji]

I don't want to be reminded of that terrible movie I saw!

[Store Hadji]

I don't want anyone else to see it either.