THE SCARLETT WORM

Just watched TSW. Not a bad film and considering the budget.....it turned out, and looks much better, than I had expected. Acting was good overall...Dan van Husen and Brett (here using his spaghetti western monicker Montgomery Ford) Halsey were very good and and "Introducing Raymond Isenberg as Raymond Isenberg" was exceptional in his film debut. (The film needed more of this mild mannered man.) The lead played by Aaron Stielstra was credible. I thought the direction, the cinematography, the sound, the editing and the effects were very good and much better than recent other oaters, such as THE GUNDOWN, which had bigger budgets.....but less creativity(?). Everyone connected to this movie needs to be congratulated. However, one thing really bugs me to no end. This movie has the worst title of any "western" I can think of...THE SCARLET WORM! Don't tell me that this creative bunch couldn't come up with a more meaningful and better title? All in all, one of the best of the recent crop of very low budget westerns and definitely worth a look-see. I'd like to see these guys get together again with a bit larger budget and see what they would come up with.

Great new book out on Spaghetti Western participants

From James Prickette's web site: www.elcondorswest.com/book.html


Copyright © 2012 James Prickette


Spaghetti Westerns is a term tagged to the Italian film genre by fans across the world. This phenomenon era came into existence between mid 1960s to the 1970s. This new film era seemed to welcome all comers of actors. Many from in and around Europe, but also Americans came from across the big pond to join the action. Their participation would lend a more authentic feel to the films, relating to the American Old West. This revitalized genre, now coupled with colorful wide-screen action was sometimes sprinkled with maniacal violence that brought realism into a fantasy setting never seen by aficionados before.

Author James Prickette brings back the cynical morality tales of the said genre in Actors of the Spaghetti Westerns.

As a dedicated film researcher and collector, Prickette craftily compiles twenty-two of the popular actors of the Spaghetti Westerns era and charts the careers of the likes of Clint Eastwood, Klaus Kinski and Lee Van Cleef . It also scrutinizes the most popular offerings of the genre, like the Dollars trilogy to the obscure ones such as Sabata. Actors of the Spaghetti Westerns is certainly a unique and indispensable reference book delving deeper into the rowdy bunch of cult classics that invaded cinema and the world.

This is a must for all fans of the sw genre. Once you start reading it you won't put it down.

American Cinematheque goes gunning for Sergio Leone

The director's famed 'spaghetti westerns' will be on display in the retrospective 'Once Upon a Time.'


By Sari Heifetz-Stricke, Special to the Los Angeles Times
February 17, 2012

The best way to find a good guy in the westerns of directorSergio Leone is to look for a worse guy. The Italian director's penchant for blurring of the lines between heroes and villains stood in stark contrast with the clear distinctions found in traditional Hollywood westerns and helped modernize and revitalize the genre, two facts readily apparent "Once Upon a Time: The Films of Sergio Leone" at the American Cinematheque beginning Friday.

Born in Rome in 1929, Leone was the son of a film director and a silent film actress. After a brief stint in law school, the young Sergio promptly joined the family business in 1948, working as an assistant to the legendary Italian directorVittorio de Sica on his neorealist classic "Bicycle Thieves" (1948). Leone went on to work on several "sword-and-sandal" epics including "Ben-Hur," but his big break came in 1959 on the set of "The Last Days of Pompeii" when the film's director became ill on the first day of shooting and Leone took over and began developing a style that became so recognizable in his western films.

Leone adapted Akira Kurosawa's 1961 samurai film "Yojimbo" into "A Fistful of Dollars" (1964), moving the story from medieval Japan to the American Southwest and replacing Kurosawa's wandering samurai with a nameless, gun-slinging drifter. The film helped launch the career of one of Hollywood's most enduring western icons, Clint Eastwood.

As a mysterious outlaw who came to be known as "The Man With No Name," Eastwood embodied the director's combination of extreme violence and ambiguous morality while allowing for brief moments of compassion for innocents amid a quick-handed bloodbath. Eastwood returned as a bounty hunter in Leone's sequel "For a Few Dollars More"(1965) and "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" (1966), and attendees to the upcoming retrospective will have another chance to see the classic trilogy in its full widescreen glory.

"The American Cinematheque presented its first Sergio Leone retrospective in 2003," said the Cinematheque's series programmer, Gwen Deglise. "Every few years we bring back the films of one of the great, larger-than-life personalities of cinema."

Leone's films and other low-budget westerns shot in Europe by the Italian film industry were quickly coined "spaghetti westerns," a term initially meant to deride the low-budget sub-genre, but the name was quickly embraced by fans. These films were noted for their harsh and unsentimental depiction of the American West, demythologizing the genre's old-fashioned depictions of morality and its characterization of brutal gun violence in the name of justice as redemptive.

The retrospective also features Leone's revenge tale "Once Upon a Time in the West" (1968), which cast perennial good-guy Henry Fonda against type as a sadistic killer attempting to evade retribution at the hand of a young Charles Bronson. Also being shown is the director's lesser-known "Duck, You Sucker" (1971), which was also known by the title "Fistful of Dynamite" and stars Rod Steiger andJames Coburn as a pair of outlaws who are pulled into the Mexican Revolution.

In addition to their ironic and even nihilistic posture, Leone's films were known for their innovative cinematic techniques, including dramatic wide-angle shots and extreme close-ups, the use of slow motion paired with violence and the important role of music in the hands of Leone's longtime collaborator, composer Ennio Morricone. Morricone's unmistakable scores departed from the elaborate orchestral compositions of conventional Hollywood westerns, adding sound effects, human voices and electric guitar to punctuate the films' dark humor and operatic violence.

In terms of rising to prominence in the wake of working with Leone, Deglise placed the composer on equal footing with Eastwood. "[Morricone is] one of the most original, eclectically fluid soundtrack composers of the second half of the 20th century," she said.

Leone's flamboyant style and charismatic criminals leave a long legacy in their wake, and dozens of filmmakers have cited his films as an influence, including Eastwood, Quentin Tarantino, Martin Scorsese, John Carpenter, Robert Rodriguez and George Lucas.

"Each time [the Cinematheque presents a retrospective], a new, young audience discovers the iconic cinema of Sergio Leone," Deglise said. "This experience is made for the big screen."

'Once Upon a Time: The Films of Sergio Leone' at American Cinematheque

Where: Egyptian Theatre, 6712 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood, and Aero Theatre, 1328 Montana Ave., Santa Monica

When: Fri. and Sat., Thu. and Feb. 24

Fri., 7:30 p.m., Aero: "A Fistful of Dollars" (1964) and "For a Few Dollars More" (1965)

Sat., 7:30 p.m., Aero: "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" (1966)

Feb. 23, 7:30 p.m., Egyptian: "Duck, You Sucker" (1971)

Feb. 24, 7:30 p.m., Egyptian: "Once Upon a Time in the West" (1968)

Price: $7 to $11

Info: (323) 466-FILM; americancinematheque.com

calendar@latimes.com
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ROUL WALSH: THE TRUE ADVENTURES OF HOLLYWOOD'S LEGENDARY DIRECTOR

Finished this very entertaining and informative book on one of Hollywood's greatest directors by Marilyn Ann Moss. Book straightens out a lot of facts from fiction as Raoul was known to embellish, re-write and edit parts of his life.
He had some spaghetti western connections. He directed THE SHERIFF OF FRACTURED JAW which was one of the first westerns filmed in Spain and he directed Rik Battaglia and other sw participants such as Rosalba Neri, Folco Lolli, Sergio Fantoni, Renato Baldini and Gabriele Tinte in ESTHER AND THE KING in Rome. The great Mario Bava was Director of Photography on this film and Walsh really liked him and they got along quite well. Walsh also directed most of the battle scenes for Robert Wise's HELEN OF TROY.

Not only did Walsh direct a lot of classic films... westerns and many non-westerns (WHITE HEAT, for one, with James Cagney) but he also discovered and re-named Marion Michael Morrison...John Wayne and had him star in THE BIG TRAIL. Moss uncovered some evidence that John Ford was so pissed at Wayne working for Walsh that he had him black-balled into "C" western territory for years. Ford was vicious at Wayne many times during this period and for what-ever reasons Wayne put up with it. Walsh also put Kirk Douglas into his first western....ALONG THE GREAT DIVIDE.
Walsh over the years liked to remake his own films and the best example of this is he remade the classic Humphrey Bogart/ HIGH SIERRA as the great western COLORADO TERRITORY with Joel McCrea.

Walsh had a good relationship with Jack Warner and often, because he needed the cash (he had a weakness for horses and also was always behind in alimony) would take over troubled productions without credit, and he didn't mind doing this as long as he was well compensated. He completely took over and totally directed one film and, yet, let the novice director keep his credit. HE was a nice guy....very rare for Hollywood. He loved directing action scenes and often was called in by Jack Warner to direct them for many films. He had a unique directing style. Once he called "action" he would turn around and not watch the scene....only listening to it. If he liked the way it sounded and the camera man would say everyone hit their marks he would yell "print." Some say he developed a very keen sense of hearing to compensate for the lost of one eye. The loss of the eye cost him the lead in the first sound western as well as the directing job of IN OLD ARIZONA.

Iconic character actor L.Q. Jones is oft quoted in the book. L.Q. whose real name is Justice McQueen adopted the name of the character he played in Walsh's BATTLE CRY.....L.Q. Jones.

Good read. Walsh went from directing silent films to directing "talkies" well into the 60's when he was 77.

TOUGH AS NAILS: THE LIFE AND FILMS OF RICHARD BROOKS

Just finished this interesting and very entertaining book on Richard Brooks. Made more interesting since I knew so little about his life other than his films. Lot of people didn't like him and after reading the book you will know why. He was very demanding and could be very very cruel at times. He wanted things done one way and that was HIS way. You do have to admire him for being his own man even while working under the studio system but you don't have to admire or even like his tactics. He did make some very great movies and deserves to be on the list of the greatest of Hollywood directors.....and screen writers. He opened up important screen roles for minorities and women.

Brooks had a chance to do a lot of other well known and successful films but turned them down, instead choosing to do only movies for which he would write the screenplays....mostly adaptations. Before he started directing he wrote the screenplays for THE KILLERS and KEY LARGO among others. His writing and directing accomplishments are many....THE BLACKBOARD JUNGLE, THE LAST HUNT, SOMETHING OF VALUE, CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF, ELMER GANTRY, SWEET BIRD OF YOUTH, LORD JIM (a flawed but noble effort), THE PROFESSIONALS (my favorite of his), IN COLD BLOOD and BITE THE BULLET among many.

A couple of interesting pieces of trivia that came from this book....Early in the casting process, David Carradine had been given the Dick Hickock role in IN COLD BLOOD and was told not to tell anyone and Brooks meant this....he was very secretive about all his projects...and as soon as he heard that David had been telling people that he had gotten the plush part Carradine was fired and terminated immediately from the project and was replaced by Scott Wilson.

Columbia Pictures has purchased the screen rights to Frank O'Rourke's novel "A Mule for the Marquesa" with the hopes of turning it into a movie starring...get this....Frank Sinatra, Gregory Peck and Robert Mitchum. Later Richard came aboard the project and rewrote the screenplay and renamed it THE PROFESSIONALS which he ultimately made with Lee Marvin, Burt Lancast and Robert Ryan instead.

This book and Peter Ford's book on Glenn were both published by the University of Wisconsin Press.

A dang good and fast read.

GLENN FORD: A LIFE BY PETER FORD

Peter acknowledges in this book that his dad documented his life on cassette, letters, notes and in journals. At every opportunity Glenn would record his thoughts, fears and observations. And Peter, himself, had the chance through the years to talk with and meet many of his dad's co-stars, contemporaries and various other Hollywood luminaries. And, yes, Glenn never told his son that he loved him....near the end (of Glenn’s life) they were more like brothers than father and son. As Peter says in the book...he (Glenn) often told others that he loved me, but he never said those words to me. Glenn was a momma's boy and until her death she either lived in the same house with Glenn or in an apartment located on the same property.

Glenn sure had his way with the ladies and especially his leading ladies. He had torrid affairs with almost all of his female co-stars. It was kind of accepted at this time that leading men and their leading ladies would hook up. The only name that popped up that I was not aware of was Connie Stevens. His affair with her started when she was playing Cricket on HAWAIIAN EYE....their age difference doomed it. Peter mentions that Glenn and Judy Garland were a number at one time. Other than Eleanor Powell...Rita Hayworth was probably Glenn's greatest love. Rita lived next door to Glenn for years and she had a special gate in the fence which separated their properties that allowed her to visit Glenn without anyone knowing.

Glenn loved making westerns and, according to Peter, appeared happiest when making them. Here is what Glenn had to say about foreign westerns....ie. spaghettis. "No foreign country can make a western. In Spain, it's not a western. It's got to be done where it happened....The public knows a real western and God help anybody who tries to fool 'em......." Interesting thing here is...to be the devils advocate.....Glenn made THE BLACKBOARD JUNGLE totally on the back lot of MGM which stood in for the gritty streets of New York...yet people were fooled into thinking that it was made on location. What's the difference whether it be a western or an eastern?

Some interesting tidbits...Glenn always was a heavy drinker off the job but by the time THE SACKETTS was made he was also drinking heavily on the job and Peter said he could tell by his dad's looks and performance when he was loaded. On one of Glenn's westerns, DAY OF THE EVIL GUN, Lon Chaney was flown in to play one of the roles and they couldn't sober him up enough to say his lines...so he had to be sent home.

Book is a very realistic and honest portrait of Glenn, in my opinion, not like the damning books written by the daughters of Bette Davis and Joan Crawford. The sad thing is...towards the end Glenn had to be hospitalized several time to detox and each time he seemed to latch onto a nurse who had ulterior motives…pretending to like Glenn and under the pretext of this and taking care of him got him to sign over powers of attorney, etc...thus shutting him away from his family and his Hollywood friends and using Glenn’s money for their benefit. Fortunately before the end Peter and some of Glenn's friends, especially Debbie Reynolds, were able to sway the courts and get back control of Glenn's health and his property. (t was a similar situation with Burt Lancaster years before his end....his young wife supposedly cut off and shut out everybody and totally isolated Burt until the day he died....to protect her interests and not Burt's.)

Peter and Debbie Reynolds and other Hollywood greats tried to get the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to honor Glenn with an honorary Oscar, to no avail, even though in the late 50's Glenn was number one at the box office in the world. The Academy of Motion Pictures and Arts and Sciences when Peter and other approached them about honoring Glenn they seemed to dismiss his career...forgetting that THE BLACKBOARD JUNGLE was a major, major breakthrough in film making and story telling. They couldn't even get AFI to honor Glenn AFI’s statement was that he never supported them....yet he was one of the founding fathers of the organization.

Book goes into a lot of other details about Glenn's life and there are other interesting anecdotes from the making of his films. In my opinion Glenn lived too long to be appreciated. If he had died 20 years earlier he would have been deified. Glenn did a lot of crappy things towards the end of his career, but he didn't do any of them just for the money. He did them because he liked to work.

One more thing about THE BLACKBOARD JUNGLE. This is the first movie wherein Glenn wore his hair short. He didn't want to cut his hair, even though the director Richard Brooks insisted he do so....he didn't want the military-like haircut. He almost had to be tied down for them to cut it.....but when he saw the look, he liked it so much that he kept his hair short for the rest of his career.

Totally worth reading.

One thing I remembered that was either over looked in the book or totally ignore… Johnny Carson's attack on Glenn during his opening monologues. After Johnny and his wife Joanne Carson broke up (separated or divorced....not sure) Glenn started dating Joanne and this was during his Cade's County days. I remember Johnny making some really bad jokes about Glenn and often he included Edgar Buchannan in them...sometimes they bordered on being homophobic. I remember hearing them live. Lot of people wondered why Carson was being nasty to Glenn. Glenn and Edgar were friends for many many years....as was Glenn and William Holden even though in their early years both were often up for the same roles.

One sad note...everyone that Glenn picked to be his pallbearers died before he did..such as William Holden, Henry Fonda, Frank Sinatra, and Edgar Buchanan.

I found this amusing. Peter did The Dating Game....he actually cut a few records that did ok. The other two personalities involved in the show were Bobby Sherman and Rod Lauren. I knew Rod , back in the day, under his real name of Rod Lauren Strunk. Rod had a career moment of a couple of years with some records in the top 40 and he made movies with Rory Calhoun and Peter Breck. Years later Rod moved to The Philippines and married one of the top movie/tv stars there. Then she died under mysterious circumstances and he returned to Visalia where he died a few years ago. Until the day he died Rod was under suspicion of having had something to do with her death. Never charged and, obviously, never proven.


Interestingly Glenn's bedroom was so big that one of his granddaughters learned how to ride her bike in it. Glenn had his bedroon suite at one end of the house and Eleanor's was at the other end. AND...between them was Glenn's mother's bedroom. It was common back in the day for stars and their spouses to have their own bedroom suites...but not ones with a parent located in the middle. Glenn was a momma's boy from day one and his mother really doted on him.....she was good to Peter, too.

Book is well written and a very good read. I wholly recommend it.



COWBOYS AND ALIENS

Saw COWBOYS & ALIENS this morning and really liked it....excellents blend of oater and sci-fi. Like several other reviewers have said....Craig does remind me of Steve McQueen...and not in a negative way.......Steve McQueen lite. I will probably see it again in the next week or so with my son, if he can find the time. Movie kept moving along and time sped with it....not a slow spot in it. Lottsa fun. We gotta encourage all our amigos out there to go see this movie or the cycle of big budget westerns might end before it begins. Sure some of the stuff was a bit preposterous, but so what! And to top it off the movie was well cast...maybe the weakest of the actors was Paul Dano as Harrison Ford's son. But then an unwritten rule of the western, continuing from back in the day, is that either Rance Howard, John Carradine or Royal Dano had to be in every oater made. Since the last two are deceased John's son Keith was cast as the town sheriff and the only Dano they could find was Paul. Kudos to Producer Ron Howard for having the balls to not cast brother Clint or dad Rance...but then Rance probably couldn't find time in his schedule to do COWBOYS & ALIENS since it appears he's going to be in 700 movies released in the next year.