Viewings: August 2023

Feel like I struck out this month as it’s mostly been a dour lot; the only notable film discovery was François Truffaut's The Bride Wore Black.

Film:

Anatomy of a Psycho (Boris Petroff, 1961)*

For a Few Dollars More (Sergio Leone, 1965)

The Torture Chamber of Dr. Sadism AKA The Blood Demon (Harald Reinl, 1967)

The Bride Wore Black (François Truffaut, 1968)*

Something Evil (Steven Spielberg, 1972)*

Kidnap Syndicate (Fernando Di Leo, 1975)*

Cat Murkil and the Silks AKA Cruisin’ High (John A. Bushelman, 1976)*

Blue Sunshine (Jeff Lieberman, 1977)

Arrebato AKA Rapture (Iván Zulueta, 1979)*

Tourist Trap (David Schmoeller, 1979)

Harlequin (Simon Wincer, 1980)

The Deadly Camp (Bowie Lau, 1999)*

Erotic Nightmare (Wai-Man Cheng, 1999)*

Television:

The Avengers (random episodes) (Sydney Newman, 1961 - 1969)* 

"New" Alfred Hitchcock Presents - Season 1, Episodes 0 - 4 (Christopher Crowe, Jon Slan & Michael Sloan, 1985)

Mastermind (random repeats) 

The Chase (random repeats)

 

* First time viewings.

 

Dada Debaser Notes:

• Blaming the Handover of Hong Kong on the decline of quality Cat. III films as the ones I watched this month were poor. There's a fine art to making exploitation, and The Deadly Camp and Erotic Nightmare lack any creatively OTT finesse.
• Arrebato isn’t the lost seventies masterpiece revisionist hipsters make it out to be. It’s an incoherent and boring mess themed around drugs and film making with a predictable climax.
• Although it’s a bit of a dud, Spielberg’s TV movie has some distinguishable elements that are later reused and improved in Poltergeist (1982); adding more credibility to the rumour he might have ghost directed it.
• Kidnap Syndicate was decent, but a real chore to sit through at times. Would have been more enjoyable without all the heavy-handed social commentary on classism weighing it down.
  
• Expected Anatomy of a Psycho to be another maniac film capitalising off the success of Psycho (1960). The reality is it's a dull juvenile deliquent movie.
  
• Revisiting Blue Sunshine and I've come to the conclusion it's basically a David Cronenberg film helmed by Larry Cohen instead. 
• Adding the Silks from Cat Murkil and the Silks in the same league as the Hi-Hats from The Warriors (1979) and the boat punters in Baby Love (1969) as lamest looking gang in a film. Surprisingly dark and twisted in places. Bloke who played Cat Murkil also briefly appeared in the intro to Halloween (1978) as Judith Myers's boyfriend. 
  
• While Christopher Lee might have top billing and is hardly in it, The Torture Chamber of Dr. Sadism is a gorgeous gothic euro horror. Because of this, I can't believe it's a German production and not an Italian or Spanish one. Also, Karin Dor is unrecognisable in it as a raven-haired brunette. Looked totally different when she played the S.P.E.C.T.R.E woman fed to the piranhas.

Other media related stuff I enjoyed while avoiding the Womens' World Cup: The Martorialist's songs that bring him joy; both volumes in Rob Hill's Alien knock-off films video essay; and the Emlyn Hughes of film criticism having a go at another movie I really like.

"I Don't Give a Flying F*ck Into a Rolling Donut About What Al Pacino Thinks!"

William Friedkin Interview

Youtube

Don't usually create dedicated obiturary posts, but in the case of the recent passing of William Friedkin, this is a notable exception to the rule. 

Amongst the New Hollywood era collective, William Friedkin was one of the few film makers who didn't sell out or lose all of his mojo during their career. Friedkin taught us how to make money and how to kill in his films. That's more educational than anything I ever learnt at school.

His anecdotal tales were always entertaining, and most of all, he always threw caution to the wind and didn't pull his words. This element, and more importantly, an oeuvre which would leave most of today's film makers green with envy, made him a truly based individual.

Obviously, he will always be associated as the man who gave us the horror classic The Exorcist (1973), but The French Connection (1971) was my first Friedkin film and it's etched itself way more onto my brain. The chase sequence with Gene Hackman's Popeye Doyle pursuing a hijacked train through the grimy and busy streets of NYC is one of my fave chase sequences of all time. More recentlly, the film entered the limelight again when that great bastion of refined cinema known as Criterion Films censored it on its subscription channel. Another example why physical media is still important today.

The French Connection (Chase Scene)

William Friedkin, 1971 

Despite it being a musical, I've tried to catch one of Friedkin's earliest and hard to find films, The Night They Raided Minsky's (1968). The reason why I've always wanted to check it is the late British comedian Norman Wisdom in it. Knowing there's a film out there helmed by Friedkin which features Albania's adopted son in it makes me want to see it, regardless of quality. Not many directors out there make me want to do that, which made Friedkin such a special film maker, in my opinion.

R.I.P. William Friedkin.