TERMINATION CLAUSE

Not had a a chance to watch anything very interesting recently and little time for blogging other than to update the "Masterpiece" series of stills each day. I have however had some more interesting reactions to my list of choices. One friend, who works in the film industry finds the list "surprisingly unadventurous" and thinks I should have gone for more off the wall choices, while a younger follower of the blog feels totally mystified by a list of films that he feels no connection with. To the later I can only say "seek them out" but the former criticism is more difficult. One of the films my friend suggested as an oddball choice was THE TERMINATOR, the suggestion being it is technically darn near perfect. Now, I love THE TERMINATOR and my friend is certainly in a position to judge its technical merits. No doubt it qualifies as a "great" film but there is, to my mind, a big gap between "great" and "masterpiece" and a big gap between a film that is entertaining bubble gum for the eyes and something that tries to look a bit deeper into the human condition. I'm sure that might sound a bit pretentious to some but if it does so be it, I'll have to live with that. Looking at the films I've chosen so far I think one of the linking elements of the movies is a sense of poetry and I'm aware that for the most part it is a rather sad, dark poetry. As I write this I am at no 18 of 25 and each day the choice becomes harder - mainly because for this list (there may be more in the future) I have limited myself to one film per director. Finally for now - I will return to the subject when the list is complete - I'd like to say a special thanks to Fiona who has suggested some interesting "Ten Favourite" lists for the future which includes the intriguing "Ten Favourite films that made me cry" and "Ten Favourite films that are undervalued" and David who made some very good suggestions for "tweeking" the look of the blog slightly, a couple of which I will incorporate in the future.

A word from our editor.........

If you are a regular visitor to FLEAPIT OF THE MIND, you will notice that today it looks a little different. FLEAPIT was my first born and still the blog I am most proud of. My blog YESTERDAY'S WINE is a rambling affair about almost anything not covered by FLEAPIT and WEAVERMAN ARCHIVES is really just an annex for listing films I own. But FLEAPIT itself is special to me but its been around for a few years now without ever changing its format. The old adage that "if ain't broke don't mend it" is a true one so the changes that you will see to the template are minimal and really not more than a refreshing of the old elements. I hope you like the slightly new look.

FILM MASTERPIECES - WHO SAYS SO?

Now that my series of still and trailers from film masterpieces is well under way I thought it might be a good time to have a word about the thoughts behind this new feature. One of my regular correspondents wrote and actually challenged - in a good natured way - my choices, saying they were "predictable" and "unimaginative". Well, what can I say to that except I plead guilty on both counts. The films I have picked are films that I consider the greatest achievements of the cinema, true works of art in every respect. I'm not picking films that I think are Good or even films I think are Great - I'm picking twenty-five films which are to me the creme de la creme of films. Now in answer to my friend's challenge I will say that to a film fan of my generation there will not be too many surprises in my choices. It really doesn't need me to point to these films as Masterpieces because time and the opinions of many fans, critics and film-makers have recognised them as such. I am sure that everybody's list would be different and that is fine. Nobody's evaluation of the worth of a film is the final one and everybody has the right to make their own list. But it is worth remembering that when polls of the greatest films of all time are held there is probably a very good reason why CITIZEN KANE usually comes somewhere near the top. I do not consider myself to be a critic, I am at best a reviewer, an enthusiast, a fan. I enjoy exploring all types of films from the sort of films I've picked for this list down to the modest b-movies, exploitation films. I like talking about films, I listen to what other people say and the films they think are worth seeing. One of the films on my list, Jean Vigo's L'ATALANTE, I only saw for the first time about two weeks ago - a film director friend sat me down and showed it to me - I will forever be grateful as I would probably never have gotten around to it on my own. Likewise a review of the Russian film THE CRANES ARE FLYING on the excellent website FILMS DESERVING OF GREATER RECOGNITION has made me eager to see that film because of the enthusiasm of the person writing about it. I know there are people out there who only really care about the latest blockbuster that Hollywood throws at them and that is fine - they probably have no interest in exploring the classics of the past. That is up to them - but for me I want to enjoy both.

HOUSE OF MYSTERY (1934)

Director William Nigh is better known for his MR.WONG films with Boris Karloff but here he turns his hand to a creaking Old Dark House mystery. I admit I'm a sucker for this sub-genre of the horror movies and can't resist them even if many turn out to be plain dull. Luckily this one is fairly entertaining even if not a prime example of cinematic art. The cast were all unknown to me with the exception of George "Gabby" Hayes but they equit themselves well enough in a plot that involves the god Kali, a Hindu curse, an ape, sliding panels etc. Fans of this sort of thing will have no difficulty sorting out the murderer or spotting elements from Edgar Allan Poe and THE MYSTERY OF THE WAX MUSEUM. I thought the script contained a few good jokes and I actually liked the three comedy relief cops. Rating ***

View the whole film at THE INTERNET ARCHIVE.

CATTLE QUEEN OF MONTANA (1954)

Thoroughly routine Western with the always watchable Barbara Stanwyck and a rather wooden Ronald Reagan. Babs arrives at the head of a herd of cattle in Montana, does some nude bathing, gets spied on by indians, meets Ronnie and sees her father gunned down during a stampede - and thats all in the first fifteen minutes. The indians are very post BROKEN ARROW but evil white men are giving them guns and whisky. Any interest there is is with the supporting cast which includes Chubby Johnson, Jack Elam, Gene Evans, Anthony Caruso and Myron Healey. The theme music that runs throughout the movie (credited to Louis Forbes) is very reminiscent of the song by Nelson Riddle and John Gabriel sung over the credits of Howard Hawks' 1967 EL DORADO. Director Allan Dwan directed his first film in 1911 and was one of the most prolific of all Hollywood directors. Rating **

A STAR IS BORN (1937)

After my rave for the 1954 George Cukor version I thought it only fair to take a look again at the 1937 William Wellman original (unless one counts the 1932 Cukor WHAT PRICE HOLLYWOOD?), especially as I'd never seen it in colour - and that is Technicolor not colourisation. A warning here, though - the Delta DVD release is pretty dreadful with a noisy soundtrack and for some reason Delta have decided for no discernible reason to have the film in two halves on a single disc! I enjoyed the film very much but good as it is I still think the remake is better. Not that Wellman's film can really be faulted on any level - Janet Gaynor, Frederic March, Adolph Menjou and Andy Devine are all excellent in the roles later played by Garland, Mason, Bickford and Noonan. I can't say I'm inspired to dash out and buy the Barbra Streisand version again and neither am I particularly excited by the thought of the promised Beyonce remake even if Clint Eastwood is rumoured to be attached as director. I suppose one pays your money and makes your choice. Rating ****

THE RETURN OF THE WHISTLER (1948)

Last film in Columbia's Whistler series and the only one without Richard Dix. Based on a story by Cornell Woolrich this is a neat little mystery that wastes not a minute of its 62 minutes. Michael Duane's fiancee (Lenore Aubert) goes missing on their proposed wedding night and he sets out to find her with the help of a private eye. But all is not what it seems and the story twists and turns to its climax. An entertaining hour. Rating ***

See the whole film on THE INTERNET ARCHIVE.

BEFORE I HANG (1940)

For me this is a really under-rated B-Movie. Karloff's films for Columbia in the later Thirties are often dismissed as below par efforts and while I think this justifiably describes THE BOOGIE MAN WILL GET YOU, I certainly couldn't say the same about the excellent BLACK ROOM or the genuinely bizarre THE DEVIL COMMANDS both of which were efficently directed by Roy William Neill and Edward Dmytryk respectively. Watching BEFORE I HANG for the first time in many years made we realise that while the material may not be the strongest it does feature an excellent performance by Karloff as the kindly professor turned homicidal strangler by his experiments. But the real star of the movie for me is cinematographer Benjamin Kline. The film is beautifully shot. Nick Grinde's direction is first class and certainly belies his reputation. This is a neat little effort. Rating ***

BEHEMOTH THE SEA MONSTER/The Giant Behemoth (1959)

A windy Saturday afternoon, the shopping done, I raid my DVD collection and come up with this 1950's monster pic. Despite the presence of Willis O'Brien on the credits this certainly isn't KING KONG. But it is undemanding fun. The monster looks a bit tatty but I particularly liked the many shots of panic stricken extras running through the streets of a part of London that seems to consist of buildings due for demolition. My disk has an awful commentary by two minor American FX guys who spend the whole time bitching about the short comings of the movie and its script - but they've obviously done no research beyond their own little specialist area and have nothing to say about the cast which includes Andre Morell, Gene Evans, John Turner, Maurice Kaufman and Jack MacGowran (they seem to be totally unaware of who he is). How much did they get paid? The word Tossers comes to mind. Rating **

LA CASA NEL TEMPO/House of Clocks (1989)

I admit that I'm not much of a Lucio Fulci fan. I've always felt that he had a poor grasp of story. This film was made for Italian Cable Television but still manages to include a fair amount of Fulci's signature gore. Three young wasters break into a secluded mansion and are responsible for the deaths of three of the inhabitants - an old couple and their handy-man. As the victims have already been revealed as murders themselves we don't have to waste too much sympathy on them. The owner of the house collects clocks and when he is killed the clocks all stop and then start to run backwards - a signal that all kinds of weird and bloody stuff is going to happen to the three young intruders. Despite seeing the double twist at the climax coming very early into the film I was quite surprised to find myself enjoying the creepy proceedings. Based, it seems on a novel, it is stronger on narrative that most Fulci films I'm and it seemed rather closer to the world of Mario Bava than his other films. Rating ***

CARLTON-BROWNE OF THE F.O./The Man in the Cocked Hat (1959)

My visits to the White Bus Company in Southend are becoming addictive. The enthusiasm of the organisers is quite infectious and their ability to come up with what seems to be random gems from the backlog of British cinema is wonderful. Last night was a good example. The programme started with an episode of the 1950's BBC documentary series WAR IN THE AIR with fascinating footage of World War Two aerial warfare with, in this epsode, emphasis on the daylight/nighttime bombing raids by the RAF and USAF. This was followed by Lindsay Andersons very first film - a documentary about conveyor belts - called MEET THE PIONEERS which may have some historical significance in the director's career but which propelled the audience into a vortex of near terminal boredom. Promises of more Anderson documentaries in the future were not appreciated. The main feature was a Boulting Brother's comedy which, perhaps not as highly regarded as some of their Ian Carmichael classics was nonetheless a wonderfully uncomplicated and very funny slice of British comedy featuring a cast of great British character actors who I'd have been prepared to watch reading extracts from the London Telephone Directory let alone in this satire on the English diplomatic service. Just look at the names involved : Terry-Thomas, Peter Sellers, Thorley Walters, Miles Malleson, John Le Mesurier, Kynaston Reeves , Ronald Adams, Raymond Huntley, Nicholas Parsons, Irene Handl, Harry Locke, Sam Kydd and Basil Dignam. Add to this the lovely Luciana Paoluzzi and Ian Bannen as the heirs to the throne of the fictional island of Galardia. I was particularly pleased to see in the supporting cast the actor John Van Eyssen - more famous as Jonathan Harker in Terence Fisher's DRACULA (1958) - who was a production executive in my days at Columbia Pictures. The film was greatly appreciated by the audience (certainly as an antidote to the Lindsay Anderson film) and recieved an ovation. Rating ***

Courtesy of The Whie Bus Company.

TOTALLY FUTILE WASTE OF TIME.......

Over in the madhouse known as THE LAND OF CERPTS AND HONEY friend Cerpts obviously has nothing more productive to do with him time than make silly lists. Well, come to think of it, neither have I - so I'm going to rise to the bait and echo his list of favourite films by various film directors. Like him I emphasise favourite above "best". I have also followed, more or less, his list of directors, although I have omitted some and added only a couple. The deleted names are of directors I really don't have a favourite film by or who I have no experience of. Poor Von Stroheim (above) is obviously about to phone and complain about not being on either list.

Robert Aldrich : ATTACK!
Woody Allen : ANNIE HALL
Robert Altman : PRARIE HOME COMPANION
Michelangelo Antonioni : L'ECLISSE
Dario Argento : DEEP RED
Mario Bava : LA MASCHERA DEL DEMONIO
Jacques Becker : TOUCHEZ PAS LE GRISBI
Ingmar Bergman : WINTER LIGHT
Budd Boetticher : TALL T
Peter Bogdanovich : THE LAST PICTURE SHOW
Mel Brooks : YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN
Luis Bunel : VIRIDIANA
Tim Burton : ED WOOD
Frank Capra : IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE
Marcel Carne : LES ENFANTS DU PARADIS
John Carpenter : ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13
John Cassavetes : SHADOWS
Claude Chabrol : LA FEMME INFIDELE
Charles Chaplin : MONSIEUR VERDOUX
Georges Clouzot : WAGES OF FEAR
George Cukor : A STAR IS BORN
John Ford : MY DARLING CLEMENTINE
Milos Forman : AMADEUS
Georges Franju : EYES WITHOUT A FACE
John Frankenheimer : THE TRAIN
Samuel Fuller : PICKUP ON SOUTH STREET
Robert Hamer : KIND HEARTS AND CORONETS
Howard Hawks : RIO BRAVO
Werner Herzog : AGUIRRE WRATH OF GOD
Alfred Hitchcock : VERTIGO
John Huston : THE MALTESE FALCON
Elia Kazan : ON THE WATERFRONT
Stanley Kubrick : THE KILLING
Akira Kurosawa : IKIRU
Fritz Lang : METROPOLIS
David Lean : LAWRENCE OF ARABIA
Sergio Leone : ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA
Joseph H.Lewis : GUN CRAZY
Sidney Lumet : SERPICO
Alexander MacKendrick : SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS
Rouben Mamoulian : DR>JEKYLL AND MR.HYDE
Joseph L.Mankiewicz : ALL ABOUT EVE
Anthony Mann : THE FAR COUNTRY
Michael Mann : LAST OF THE MOHICANS
Jean=Pierre Melville : LE SAMOURAI
Vincente Minnelli : THE PIRATE
Robert Mulligan : TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD
Max Ophuls : LA RONDE
Ozu : TOKYO STORY
Sam Peckinpah : PAT GARRETT AND BILLY THE KID
Michael Powell : THE LIFE AND DEATH OF CO> BLIMP
Otto Preminger : LAURA
Sam Raimi : THE QUICK AND THE DEAD
Nicholas Ray : JOHNNY GUITAR
Michael Reeves : WITCHFINDER GENERAL
Alain Resnais : LAST YEAR IN MARIENBAD
Roberto Rossellini : LITTLE FLOWERS OF ST.FRANCIS
Martin Scorsese : MEAN STREETS
Ridley Scott : BLADE RUNNER
M.Night Shyamalan : UNBREAKABLE
Don Siegel : CHARLEY VARRICK
Douglas Sirk : WRITTEN ON THE WIND
Stephen Spielberg : CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND
Robert Siodmak : THE SPIRAL STAIRCASE
Preston Sturges : SULLIVANS TRAVELS
John Sturges : THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN
Quentin Tarantino : KILL BILL
Jacques Tourneur : NIGHT OF THE DEMON
Francois Truffaut : DAY FOR NIGHT
Luchino Visconti : IL GATTOPARDO
Josef von Sternberg : SHANGHAI EXPRESS
Jean Vigo L'ATALANTE
Raoul Walsh : THE ROARING TWENTIES
Orson Welles : A TOUCH OF EVIL
William Wellman : PUBLIC ENEMY
Wim Wenders : THE AMERICAN FRIEND
James Whale : BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN
Billy Wilder : SUNSET BOULEVARD
William Wyler : THE LITTLE FOXES
Fred Zinnemann : HIGH NOON