Amph Turner Classic Movies: RARE FILM ALERT: "Haxan: Witchcraft Through the Ages" (1922) on TCM Tonight

Early Friday am TCM is showing Tod Browning's "Freaks". Features genuine articles. Not for the faint of heart.

 

And for all those who ever wondered why the convicts in "The Shawshank Redemption" liked Rita Hayworth, here's the movie they were talking about. On Saturday, 5:00 p.m. PT. Look even slightly below the surface, and it's one of the most perverse movies ever made, and under the Production Code, too.

 

Weekend is free, posted on my wall calender, thanks Zaz, your a life-saver.

I ain't gonna miss this one!

 

Check the time, Zombi, in case you are in another time zone. TCM has a website.

 

Classic. Great movie.

 

Watch for 'that thing with her hair' Red talks about in "Shawshank'. It comes right at her first entrance.

 

I look forward to it, Zaz.

 

Please tell me you guys watched Sunrise. Seeing it on a big screen was one of my greatest viewing experiences.

 

Yes, I watched it, and it is extraordinary, no question.

 

Peckinpah's first great movie, "Ride the High Country" (1962) is a really extraordinary film. It was the last film of both Joel McCrea and Randolph Scott. Peckinpah modeled the McCrea character after his own father; when his sister saw the film, she burst into tears.

Saturday at 5:00 pm. PT.

 

Tune into this one folks. Fabulous western. I have the DVD now finally in my Peckinpah treasures.

He has been called Ford's Successor by many and I find the remark quite correct. Peckinpah has uncanny gift for lyricism and ambience on the subject of the declining wild west. In fact, in many regards, I feel he is the greatest the genre ever saw.

 

It was a tremendous flop at the box office, and they shoved it out on double bills, if you can believe it.

 

MGM placed the picture on the bottom half of the double bill with The Tartars. Just shows how heated things got between old fashioned movie mogul MGM president Vogel and Peckinpah once his great supporter Producer Sol Siegel whom eventually himself run out by Vogel too. Ad campaigns for Ride The High Country were nonexistant.

Here is the top feature's tagline: "Hordes storm fortress! Tartars abduct Viking Beauty! Orgy celebrates conquest!"

OMG, no wonder it didn't sell well. Plus, Peckinpah came in at time the western was just experiencing a similar transition in form. Not everybody was ready for the great Sam Peckinpah most critically the studio heads. If they had any intelligent thought and consideration, they should have turned Sam Peckinpah loose like a rabid pack of wolves instead they became large thorn in the whole duration of his mostly illustrious career.

It angers fans such as I at what Columbia did to his second feature Major Dundee. Sam's cut, the one that was his beloved film, ran at 161 minutes, even today with restorations and recovery of film, the DVD only runs at 136 minutes.

 

I have this on DVD. I need to watch it. Most of Peckinpah's stuff I've seen has been great (The Wild Bunch, Straw Dogs, Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia), but there have been a few exceptions (The Killer Elite, Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid).

 

I understand The Killer Elite, that atrocious film doesn't resemble a Peckinpah film. But Pat Garrett and Billy The Kid is one of my favorite # 1s from the director.

Fabulous dialogue and masterful editing, stirring score and great performances. All his hallmarks are present indeed.

Anyways, I think you'll enjoy Major Dundee despite being trimmed by 25 minutes.

 

I was so short on time this morning readying for work but would love to further add, Pat Garrett And Billy The Kid is so massively underrated. A masterpiece.

What he translated on screen were intimations of his upbringing and yet another realistic depiction so perfectly capturing his vast encyclopedic knowledge of the west the dying west at the dawn of encroaching civilization. Because he lived in those times, he came from industrious families whom were lumberjacks, ranchers, and even frontier lawyers whose historical roots were steep in California pioneering.

Peckinpah lived pretty hard and glamorous, between and after shoots met pilgrimages to the local Mexican taverns and mingling in 'hole in the wall' places. And Pat Garrett And Billy The Kid captures that 'hole in the wall' ambience and the soul of men too familiar with facing death down the barrel of a gun or the hangman's knot at the end of the lynch rope.

He didn't address audiences in romantic black and whites. Peckinpah painted pictures in more realistic terms.

The outlaws in the picture have a craziness brewing beneath the surface, yet, remain tragic and sympathetic figures as victims trapped in changing times. Peckinpah gave us a genuine measure of the west.

5 out of 5

 

The problem with "Pat Garrett" is getting a non-butchered edition. It's not too easy.

On Wednesday, TCM is showing five 1940's Bette Davis movies:

"The Old Maid" (1939) Don't bother. Sudsy nonsense.
"The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex" (1939) with Errol Flynn as Essex. Again, don't bother.
"The Letter" (1940) Perhaps Davis's best performance, or at least among the top three. Directed by William Wyler, one of the few directors strong enough to put a lid on Davis's mannerisms (they fought furiously throughout the picture). Based on a Somerset Maugham short story (itself based on a true story), it's the story of a planter's wife who shoots a man who attacks her--she says. The story that comes out later is somewhat different. Herbert Marshall is good as her husband, and James Stephenson is terrific as her defence attorney. 9:00 PT
"All This and Heaven Too" (1940) Another murder mystery based on a true story. Davis is pretty good, but Barbara O'Neill and Charles Boyer as her unhappily married employers, are dynamite.
"Juarez" (1939) Haven't seen this one. Davis as Empress Carlotta of Mexico, Claude Rains as Napoleon III; but the good performance is said to be Brian Aherne as Emperor Maximilian.

 

From Rants on Celluloid:

First version: 1973 (106 minutes). The movie was severely truncated by nervous moguls when Peckinpah went (as always) gonzo, behind schedule and over budget.

I have never seen the theatrical cut and am thankful too

Second version: 1988 (122 minutes). In the 1980s, Turner Classic Movies bought the rights to a boatload of older MGM titles. When Peckinpah died, among his personal items were a fuller print of the movie, closer to his original vision. Cleaned up by the guys from Z Channel and presented on TV and VHS, this was presented as the "director's cut" (which is only true in the sense that it was the print of the film owned by the director. This version is widely regarded as unfinished.)

Third version: 2005 (115 minutes). Until now. Once Bob Dylan gave up the rights to the music in the movie, Warners was ready to put a Pat Garrett DVD on the market. Peckinpah "scholars" Paul Seydor and Nick Redman supervised the new cut, explaining to FLM magazine:

"In directly comparing the theatrical cut with the '1988 preview version,' Paul Seydor determined what Peckinpah would have wanted, ideally, was the longer version, but with the editing schematic of the shorter - and therein lay the key to what would form the basis of the 'Special Edition,' finalized this past year."

The theatrical version is no longer acquirable (which pisses me off; by including all three versions, WB could have taught us a valuable lesson in the merits of postproduction) but the new DVD includes the second two versions.

 

For the curious, TCM is showing six silent films starring Rudolph Valentino, starting at 8:00 EST (5:00 PT). The films are: "Beyond the Rocks", "Moran of the Lady Letty", "The Young Rajah"; "The Delicious Little Devil"; "The Conquering Power," and "The Four Horsemen of the Apocolypse".

I have only seen the last one, and on the basis of that one only, Valentino wasn't much of an actor.

 

Tomorrow, TCM is showing six Bette Davis movies. If you're curious, here's the lineup:

"Now, Voyager" (1942) Soapy nonsense, which she elevates, as does Gladys Cooper as her nasty mother;

"The Little Foxes" (1941) Her makeup is terrible, and she's a thorough-going villainess, husband-killer and all-around bad person; and a good time is had by all. The pick of the bunch. This was one of Sergei Eisenstein's favorite movies.

"The Great Lie" (1941) Mary Astor has the good role here. Giant soap opera otherwise.

"Old Acquaintaince" (1943) And Miriam Hopkins has it here. Ditto.

"The Watch on the Rhine" (1943) Davis has a supporting role to Paul Lukas who won Best Actor for this performance. It's an anti-Nazi role, which explains a lot. Rather surprising conclusion and a lot of preaching.

"In This Our Life" (1942) Another nasty role. Second best movie, after "The Little Foxes" but hugely strange.

 

Little Foxes is a fantastic film. Great cast all around.

 

Jean Renoir's 1951 Indian film "The River" will be shown late Friday night. Supposedly one of the best colour films ever made.

 

For those who like film noir (cough*Zombi*cough), they are showing noiriest noir of them all June 12 at 10:00 am PT: "Kiss Me Deadly" (1955) starring Ralph Meeker, Cloris Leachman, and Albert Dekker. Pandora's box.

 

There are couple of shocking images in the film (like the torture sequence in The Big Combo whose brutality echos to this day -- Reservoir Dogs, etc).

This is the one with the Great What's-It. That pandoras box with the blinding light. And of course, was an influence on the French New Wave.

 

I'm not sure which ending this film will have: the nihilist ending, or the semi-nihilist ending.