clore
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Posts posted by clore
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TCM aired his film THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY, the fact-based story of a German POW who escapes. I hadn't seen it since I was a kid and I thought that it held up well. Having Hardy Kruger in the lead helped.
I'LL NEVER FORGET YOU was a TV perennial when I was a teen, I haven't seen it since. The Fox Movie Channel never ran it while i had it - they put it on as a premium channel this last July and the extra cost isn't worth their meager selection of vintage films.
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There is a nice remembrance on the Hammer website:
Marcus Hearn pays tribute to the Hammer director Roy Ward Baker, whose death was announced today.
Roy Ward Baker, who died on 5 October, directed Marilyn Monroe in Don?t Bother To Knock (1952) and made the classic Titanic drama A Night To Remember six years later. In television, he was one of the leading lights of The Saint, The Avengers and Minder, amongst many other series. But he was also one of Hammer?s most prolific and accomplished directors.
Baker came to Hammer after a long stint in television, lending Quatermass And The Pit an epic sweep more common to his Hollywood or Rank productions. Hammer were so impressed they asked him to take over the embattled production of The Anniversary just weeks later. Baker took Bette Davis? diva-ish demands in his stride, and in the process became a confident and efficient addition to Hammer?s A-list of directors. In 1968 he happily accepted an assignment to direct an episode of Hammer?s television series Journey To The Unknown, although by this time his association with the company had revived his film career.
Baker proved his versatility by handling Michael Carreras's 'space western' Moon Zero Two in 1969. The following year he set Hammer on a new course with The Vampire Lovers, but as Hammer?s old formula started to unravel he found himself at odds with the film?s independent producers. In later years he privately regretted some of the sexually explicit scenes that came to characterize Hammer?s change of tone in the early 1970s.
Later in 1970 he directed the similarly uninhibited Scars Of Dracula for producer Aida Young, participating on the condition that he could give the film the brutality he considered fitting for a Hammer horror. He remained justifiably proud of the scene where Christopher Lee?s Count scales the outside wall of his castle, as per Stoker?s novel.
Baker?s greatest success for Hammer in the 1970s was Dr Jekyll & Sister Hyde (1971) where, reunited with his old Avengers producer Brian Clemens, he delivered an arch and inventive twist on the classic tale. He later considered this and Quatermass to be his favourite Hammer productions.
In between consummate work for rival company Amicus, Baker directed his final Hammer film, The Legend Of The 7 Golden Vampires, in 1973. A widescreen Gothic horror/kung fu extravaganza, the subject and the Hong Kong location took Baker way out of his comfort zone. But the lavish-looking result proved once again that his was a remarkable talent that defied categorisation.
Roy enjoyed a long retirement, and earlier this year told me, ?I didn?t expect to live this long!? During our meetings at his club it was clear that his traditional values and old-fashioned discipline distinguished him as a man after his time. But beneath his old-school exterior Roy was a liberal at heart, with a generous spirit and a passion for his craft. That passion burned brightly in his autobiography The Director?s Cut (2000) and remained undimmed to the end.
Roy Ward Baker was the last of the great directors from Hammer?s golden age. It was a privilege to know him, and we are all richer for his legacy.
Roy Ward Baker
19 December 1916 ? 5 October 2010
http://www.hammerfilms.com/news/article/newsid/246/roy-ward-baker-1916 ---2010
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Roy Ward Baker, director of A Night to Remember, dies at 93
Roy Ward Baker died peacefully in his sleep in a London hospital on Tuesday, says son Nicholas
Roy Ward Baker, director of A Night to Remember, died aged 93 on Tuesday.
The director who made A Night to Remember, the 1958 film recounting the final night aboard the Titanic, has died, his son confirmed today.
Roy Ward Baker died peacefully in his sleep at a London hospital on Tuesday. He was 93.
His son Nicholas said that preparations were being made for a funeral in London, adding that his father's work "speaks for itself".
Ward Baker, who was born in London in 1916, started out as an assistant director on Alfred Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes in London in 1938. After serving in the army during the second world war, he went to Hollywood, where he directed Marilyn Monroe in the 1952 movie Don't Bother to Knock.
He later returned to England where he directed a number of television dramas including The Avengers, The Persuaders and Minder.
During the latter half of his career, Ward Baker directed a number of British horror films including the 1970 flick The Vampire Lovers, as well as Scars of Dracula, which was followed by The Vault of Horror in 1973.
He returned to television during the late 1970s and 1980s before retiring in 1992.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2010/oct/08/television
A good reason to make sure to watch FIVE MILLION YEARS TO EARTH this month. I think that his DR. JEKYLL AND SISTER HYDE is one of the best Hammer films and ASYLUM is my preference of all of the Amicus anthologies.
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I wonder if Helen Broderick was beginning to feel a bit of a complex. In WE'RE ON THE JURY, she had the role originated by Edna May Oliver in LADIES OF THE JURY.
I liked ZaSu Pitts in certain roles - I grew up with her on THE GALE STORM SHOW. But her blithering ninny gets a bit tiresome. She was originally cast as Lew Ayres' mother in ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT, but the reactions of preview audiences had Universal reshot the scenes with Beryl Mercer.
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Even Helen Broderick is preferable.
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>>Were Kirk Douglas and Curtis that close? I was not aware of it.
Well, they were in THE VIKINGS and SPARTACUS and Tony Curtis does show up to take off a mask in THE LIST OF ADRIAN MESSENGER. While several actors were supposedly cast in heavy disguises for the film, it has since come out that they only showed up for the unmasking.
Even as a kid I thought that there was no way that Burt Lancaster was really playing the character that was claimed.
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>>Now, what's the title of the E.G. Robinson/ George Raft flick?
How silly of me to forget the title. Maybe the Commies have put something in the water to make me forget it.
It's A BULLET FOR JOEY. I warn you, it's not very good. TCM ran it perhaps a year ago and my adolescent memories of it being rather slow going didn't fail me. I guess that the drinking water hadn't started affecting me yet.
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>>And I need to add a correction to my commentary in the original post. The Last Flight (1931) stars Richard Barthelmess and not, as I wrote, Richard Dix.
An easy enough mistake to make as Richard Dix WAS in the aerial film THE LOST SQUADRON and I'll confess to mixing up those two titles myself.
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>>I feel like something of an outsider on this subject, as I am not American, and while I believe Canada also experienced the "Red Scare" in the 50s, it was as far as I can tell only a faint echo of how it was in the U.S.
Well then, you just have to check out Russian Dana Andrews in the 1948 film THE IRON CURTAIN which has him torn between the Party and the Canadian government, whom he expected to be quite different.
There's also Edward G. Robinson as a Montreal policeman trying to keep gangster George Raft from aiding the Commies in a kidnapping plot.
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There is a documentary about Kazan airing on my PBS station tonight. You may want to check your own local listings if interested:
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My favorite one of all, the cult classic SHACK OUT ON 101? This makes up for all of the silliness of BIG JIM McLAIN (which does have some campy moments), MY SON JOHN or THE WOMAN ON PIER 13.
And what a cast of familiar faces - Seinfeld's Uncle Leo, Chief Wild Eagle from F TROOP and that "what the heck" scene with Lee Marvin and Keenan Wynn working out together over a decade prior to POINT BLANK.
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Warren William
Steve Martin
Tony Martin
John Wayne
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>>Back OT, I don't recall the name, but there was an awful Japanese scifi film, from the 60s, or 70s, that had the Red Chinese digging a hole through the Earth, to invade the USA.
That was BATTLE BENEATH THE EARTH wasn't it? Kerwin Matthews was in it - he was better off a decade earlier. fighting the cyclops in 7TH VOYAGE OF SINBAD.
Now you have me curious about that Craig Baldwin film, I'll have to locate it.
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>>Hopefully this was pretty clear from the start, but I just wanted to state it outright.
It's kind of sad that even after all these years, you felt the need to have to say that. It never struck my mind for an instant.
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>>I read somewhere that the reason he had so few lines was because the lines, as written, were really corny and Lee refused to say them. If so, good for him.
At the time of its release. Christopher Lee in a magazine called "Shriek!" claimed that the Dracula of the film was some re-embodied spirit of Dracula and thus could not speak. Slightly later, Lee claimed similarly in "Castle of Frankenstein" magazine. Years later he would say that the dialogue was so awful that he refused to speak it.
Jimmy Sangster, the writer of the film claims that there was never any dialogue written for Dracula in the first place.
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Then there's the incredibly awful MY SON JOHN from Leo McCarey, unseen for many years until TCM aired it a few months ago.
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>>when her husband comes home and she is safe and sound he still makes her find her way and walk to his arms and really if you just found out what kind of harrowing danger your wife had just endured would a person really do this?
>>wouldn't he run to her and hug her being thankful she was safe and unhurt
I could not agree more - and this has bugged me since I saw the film in 1967. I don't recall that same ending when I saw it on Broadway in 1966 with Lee Remick and Robert Duvall in the leads.
There's poor Suzy, the place is a mess after all that she has been through, she's obviously a wreck, and the dumb clod of a husband wants her to be the "champion blind lady." It would have been some ending were she to trip over something unexpected, bang her head, and injure herself (perhaps fatally) because of her husband's insistence.
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>>"Up The River" with Spencer Tracy and Bogart is the one I have yet to see. That is no. 1 on my watch list.
Just be warned that the print is in terrible shape. Lots of jump cuts, missing frames - the kid of stuff there wrecks dialogue. Fox restored it as well as possible, but there's not much that they could do with what they had.
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>>I agree on both "counts". In RISEN, perhaps Dracula wanted Michael Ripper to make him a batch of raisin scones.
Or some lady fingers or devil's food cake.
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Well, we agree on BRIDES. What I like about that one is that Dracula or not, at least that film's vampire has some interaction with the rest of the cast other than hissing at them. Plus, he has considerable footage in the film.
The story is a good one too - the Lee sequels seemed to always be tied to some silly revenge plot. There's all that fresh blood out there and Drac is so keen on getting even with some mere mortal(s), getting some unreliable slave to do his dirty work...
You think the guy would have learned a thing or two over the centuries.
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Siegel and McCarthy insisted that it was not meant as a Communistic invasion allegory. Siegel was something of a rebel, always having trouble with "the suits" and his claims were (as you mentioned), the film reflected his non-conformist attitude.
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I suppose it's sacrilegious but I don't care for BONNIE AND CLYDE at all. It's just too anachronistic for me and while I've seen it at least five times since 1967, I have never been able to grasp it as the classic that most consider it to be.
The same year's THE GRADUATE never rang my bell either. I just don't see the attraction happening between Ben and Elaine and I just know that the relationship is doomed as soon as she asks him "So, who's better - me or my mother?"
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WALK ON THE WILD SIDE was a good film? The song perhaps, but the film is a piece of claptrap about a guy who makes the mistake of falling for a hooker. One can only laugh at its sheer awfulness and feel sorry for Barbara Stanwyck and Anne Baxter.
But to each his own I guess.
Dmytryk should have been jailed for giving us ALVAREZ KELLY, SHALAKO and the Richard Burton BLUEBEARD. ANZIO does have some decent battle scenes among the characters that were already cliches twenty years earlier. With the negative way it depicts the American army, one would think it was produced by Soviets.
I will admit having a fondness for THE CARPETBAGGERS. It's trashy, but well-made of its type and our last glimpse of Alan Ladd.
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BRIDES is my favorite of the Hammer Dracula films. Christopher Lee has great presence, but he seems to be a special guest star in his own chapters. DRACULA HAS RISEN FROM THE GRAVE has him hiding in the basement of a bakery for most of the film.
Monroe diaries
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I was cleaning out the cellar yesterday and while sweeping i thought "Why not put the dirt in an envelope and put it up for auction as dust from Marilyn's basement?"