Movies Til Dawn

I believe Duke Ellington (one of my three cultural heroes, the other two being Orson Welles and Billy Wilder) would have been 115 years old today (had he not been thoughtless enough to die in 1974, that is). In honor of that fact, here's a rare clip of the 1930 Amos and Andy vehicle "Check and Double Check" which was Ellington's first foray into Hollywood. Though the band isn't really visible until three minutes into this six minute clip, there are some nice views of what white society people looked like when dancing. I like the perversity of posting this shamefully racist movie (A&A were white guys in blackface) as the NBA burns all around us. Perhaps I'll be forced to sell my team...   Subscribe in a reader

Yesterday I screened  Don Siegel's "Invasion Of The Body Snatchers"  (the original 1956 version) for my almost ten-year old son who has developed a real fascination for period sci-fi ('Twilight Zone", "Dr. Who", Ray Bradbury stories). Needless to say it got under his skin as it did mine when I saw it at the tender age of twenty-eight. Shot in nineteen days on a less-than-zero budget (a Siegel specialty), the film features many interesting views of mid-fifties LA--though its set in the fictional northern California town of Santa Mira, Allied Artists was not a company to allow a production out of their sight. Bronson Canyon and the little town square of nearby Beachwood Canyon (both in Hollywood and the latter pictured above) are prominently used as are some nice, still scrubby and unbuilt-upon chunks of Mulholland Drive. But the most famous scene in the film--the terrifically filmed and acted climax on the highway as Kevin McCarthy tries to stop cars t...

Don Siegel's first film with the star who would make Siegel a name director after forty years in the business, Clint Eastwood, was "Coogan's Bluff" . Filmed in 1969 on many actual locations in New York City, the film is primarily remembered for a scene in a famous New York City discotech of the era, "The Pigeon-Toed Orange Peel". On a number of occasions I've heard this place referenced by pop-culture historians, chroniclers of the music scene of the period and assorted other journalists of miscellaneous junk pop-culture. The problem is, it doesn't really exist. The club was in fact photographed on a sound stage at Universal, back in good old North Hollywood, California. And not just any soundstage, but the one that the Lon Chaney's "Phantom Of The Opera" was shot on in 1925. According to Siegel in his quite amusing memoir "A Siegel Film",  the weather in New York turned nasty and, facing a possible blizzard, the decisio...

As the inescapable fact becomes clear that "Rob The Mob" is fading from theatrical view and moving into its next cable/DVD/online phase, I hearby publish the last of the interviews I did promoting the film,  a rather garrulous but occasionally interesting talk about the reasons for making the movie. I'm delighted we got a theatrical release in today's incredibly difficult theatrical market and am greatly pleased with the reviews and attention we got. I'd be lying if I said I was entirely pleased with the distribution companies efforts to promote the film, which were undernourished to say the least. We had an audience movie--which we knew from testing it with real-people audiences--and they ultimately released it as an 'art film' (which means spending 'art film' money on ads--for which read as little as possible ). I'm pretty sure that with a little more swagger and confidence and a lot more showmanship they'd have made some real money o...

From a long ago Howard Stern show, here's a sampling of Jackie Martling's grab-bag of racist jokes that he performed in his club act. Does anyone remember hearing about the Stern group appearing at a place in Long Island called Club Benet (pronounced--and maybe even spelled--BENAY) back in the late 80's/early 90's? What about Susan Bezerkowitz (actually Berkeley), the traffic reporter who was so frazzled by the contempt with which she was treated that she actually quit on air? I'm talking vintage early K-ROCK Howard here. I spent way too much time listening back then and am spending way too much time recently finding this stuff on Youtube and reliving my lost (and very happy) twenties.   Subscribe in a reader

Here's Don Siegel, ("Dirty Harry," "Invasion of the Body Snatchers", "Escape From Alcatraz" to name his three best known films though I admit I considered going the snarkier route and naming "Spanish Affair", "Count The Hours" and "China Venture" instead) discussing how much he dislikes directing. If you'd shown me this twenty years ago when I'd only directed a short or two, I'd have thought he was kidding or drunk. But it really is as dispiriting a job as he says and I like the laconic, wry ease with which he patiently explains the reasons for his antipathy to his profession. This was shot in 1974 while he was in London, shooting a movie I've barely heard of called "The Black Windmill". I'd love to see the rest of this interview but the below minute is all that seems to exist on Youtube. I tried looking up Siegel's house address but could find nothing other than this  cool reminiscence ...

Why does Frank Sinatra make the strange nasal noise before singing the word "Downtown" in his recording of--er--"Downtown"? Is it a tribute to Jackie Gleason? Or is it Frank copping a feel of the trend du jour (circa mid-sixties) which was to make up weird noises when singing? I like to picture the guys in the booth while Frank is singing...the subtle but embarrassed looks at one another as the Chairman continues making the weird noise...the hushed conference about asking him for a take without the "nasal effect"...the drawing of straws to see who would actually take on the dreadful task of telling Frank he sounded weird...the final shrug of all present who decide: fuck it. If Frank likes it, we like it...   Subscribe in a reader