Happy Birthday Lena!

Hoffman (1970)

Hoffman is a 1970 British film directed by Alvin Rakoff and starring Peter Sellers, Sinéad Cusack, Jennifer Ruth Dunning and Jeremy Bulloch.

Hoffman is the tale of an older man, played by Peter Sellers, who invites a young lady to his flat in England for a sexual liaison. As the film progresses, it is revealed that Sellers' character caught one of his workers dealing in a scam, and decided to blackmail the man's lovely fiancée away for a weekend to convince her to fall in love with him. Mostly a drama, the film has an almost terrifying performance by Sellers, involved in intricate mind games with the other protagonists.

Reportedly, Sellers despised Hoffman because the lead character too closely reflected his own personality.

Notable for the haunting music by Ron Grainer, and as one of Sellers' few 'straight' performances.

Águas de Março

"Waters of March" (Portuguese: "Águas de Março") is a Brazilian song composed by Antonio Carlos Jobim. Jobim wrote both the English and Portuguese lyrics. When writing the English lyrics, Jobim endeavoured to avoid words with Latin roots, which resulted in the English version having more verses than the Portuguese. Another way in which the English lyrics differ from the Portuguese is that the English version treats March from the perspective of an observer in the northern hemisphere. In this context, the waters are the "waters of defrost" in contrast to the rains referred to in the original Portuguese, marking the end of summer and the beginning of the colder season in the southern hemisphere.

In 2001, "Águas de Março" was named as the all-time best Brazilian song in a poll of more than 200 Brazilian journalists, musicians and other artists conducted by Brazil's leading daily newspaper, Folha de São Paulo.

The song lyrics, originally written in Portuguese, do not tell a story, but rather present a series of images that form a collage; nearly every line starts with "É..." ("[It] is...").

In both the Portuguese and English versions of the lyrics, "it" is a stick, a stone, a sliver of glass, a scratch, a cliff, a knot in the wood, a fish, a pin, the end of the road," and many other things, although some specific references to Brazilian culture (festa da cumeeira, garrafa de cana), flora (peroba do campo) and folklore (Matita Pereira) were intentionally omitted from the English version, perhaps with the goal of providing a more universal perspective. All these details swirling around the central metaphor of "the waters of March" can give the impression of the passing of daily life and its continual, inevitable progression towards death, just as the rains of March mark the end of a Brazilian summer. Both sets of lyrics speak of the water being "the promise of life," perhaps allowing for other, more life-affirming interpretations, and the English contains the additional phrases "the joy in your heart" and the "promise of spring," a seasonal reference that would be more relevant to most of the English-speaking world.

The inspiration for "Águas de Março" comes from Rio de Janeiro's rainiest month. March is typically marked by sudden storms with heavy rains and strong winds that cause flooding in many places around the city. The lyrics and the music have a constant downward progression much like the water torrent from those rains flowing in the gutters, which typically would carry sticks, stones, bits of glass, and almost everything and anything. The orchestration creates the illusion of the constant descending of notes much like Shepard tones.

The song was used by Coca-Cola for a jingle in the mid-1980s concurrent with the "Coke is it!" campaign, which ran until 1988, and is currently the track for a 2008 British Gas advert in the UK and in Italy. In the Philippines, it was also used in the early 90s as the soundtrack for an advertising campaign for the newly developed Ayala Center.

Composer-guitarist Oscar Castro-Neves relates that Jobim told him that writing in this kind of stream of consciousness was his version of therapy and saved him thousands in psychoanalysis bills.

Prof. Charles A. Perrone, an authority on contemporary Brazilian popular music (MPB), wrote about the song in his doctoral dissertation (1985), an abridged version of which was published in Brazil as Letras e Letras da MPB (1988). He notes such sources for the song as the folkloric samba-de-matuto and a classic poem of pre-Modernist Brazilian literature.

In Memoriam : Michael Jackson (1958-2009)

Moonraker 30° Anniversary

Moonraker was released on June 26, 1979, in the United Kingdom and was released three days later in the United States, grossing $70,308,099 in the UK. It opened in 788 theaters, grossing a total of $210,308,099 worldwide. In mainland Europe the most common month of release was in August 1979, opening in the Scandinavian countries of Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden between the 13 and 18 August. Moonraker was released in Kenya on 27 August 1979. Given that the film was produced in France and involved some notable French actors, the French premiere for the film was relatively late, released there on 10 October 1979.

Moonraker is the eleventh spy film in the James Bond series, and the fourth to star Roger Moore as the fictional MI6 agent James Bond. The film, directed by Lewis Gilbert, co-stars Lois Chiles, Michael Lonsdale, Corinne Clery, and Richard Kiel. In the film, Bond is sent to investigate the mysterious theft of a space shuttle, leading him to Hugo Drax, the billionaire owner of the shuttle-manufacturing firm. Along with the space scientist Dr. Holly Goodhead, who later is identified as also being a Central Intelligence Agency agent investigating Mr. Drax, Bond follows the trail of clues from California to Venice, Italy, Rio de Janeiro, and the Amazon rain forest, and finally into outer space in a bid to prevent a genocidal plot to wipe out the world population and to re-create humanity with a master race.

Moonraker was intended by its creator Ian Fleming to be turned into a film even before he completed the novel in 1954, since he based the novel on a manuscript he had written even earlier than this. The producers of the James Bond film series had originally intended to do Moonraker in 1973 with Roger Moore making his debut as Bond, but the making of this movie was put on hold and finally released in 1979, coinciding with the science fiction genre which had become extremely popular during this period with films such as Star Wars (1977).

Derek Meddings, a long-time contributor to the James Bond series, was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects for the special effects used in this movie and its space scenes.

Moonraker was the highest grossing film of the series until the Pierce Brosnan Bond film GoldenEye. Moonraker earned a total of $210,300,000 world wide - surpassing the earlier Bond movie The Spy Who Loved Me (1977). Moonraker was also noted for its high production cost for a Bond film, spending almost twice as much money as the preceding James Bond movie The Spy Who Loved Me.

Ian Fleming had originally intended the novel, published in 1954, to be made into a film even before he began writing it and was based on an original manuscript of a screenplay which had been on his mind for years. In 1955, the film rights to Moonraker were initially sold to John Payne of the Rank Organisation for £10,000 (£188,775 present value), paying a $1000 a month option for nine months. Payne was the first person interested in making the novels into a film series, but later rejected the idea based on the fact it wouldn't be possible for him to obtain the rights to the entire 007 series. In spring 1959, due to on-going difficulties, Fleming eventually bought back the rights for his novels, shortly before selling them to Harry Saltzman.
As with several previous Bond films, the story from Fleming's novel is almost entirely dispensed with, and little more than the name of Hugo Drax was used in film, in favour of a film more in keeping with the era of science fiction. The 2002 Bond film Die Another Day makes further use of some ideas and character names from the novel. Tom Mankiewicz had written a full screenplay of Moonraker that was eventually partly discarded. According to Mankiewicz footage shot at Drax's lairs was considerably more detailed than the edited result in the final version. The crew had shot a scene with Drax meeting his co-financiers in his jungle lair and they used the same chamber room below the space shuttle launch pad that Bond and Goodhead eventually escape from. This scene was shot but later cut out. Another scene involving Bond and Goodhead in a meditation room aboard Drax's space station, was shot but never used in the final film. However press stills were released of the scene which featured on Topps trading cards in 1979 as was a theatrical trailer which featured Bond punching Jaws in the face aboard the space station, neither of which featured in the complete film. Some scenes from Mankiewicz's script were later used in subsequent films, including the Acrostar Jet sequence used in the pre-credit sequence for Octopussy, and the Eiffel Tower scene in A View to a Kill.
In March 2004, an Internet hoax stated rumours about a lost 1956 version of Moonraker by Orson Welles, and a James Bond web site repeated it on April Fool's Day in 2004 as a hoax.

Supposedly, this recently discovered lost film was 40 minutes of raw footage with Dirk Bogarde as Bond, Welles as Drax, and Peter Lorre as Drax's henchman. A film poster was created displaying the actors and the title of the film.

The role of the villain, Hugo Drax, was originally offered to James Mason. However well-established French actor Michael Lonsdale was cast as the billionaire Drax, partly due to his fluency in English, and Corinne Clery for the part of Corinne Dufour, given that the film was produced in France. American actress Lois Chiles had originally been offered the role of Anya Amasova in The Spy Who Loved Me (1977), but had turned down the part when she decided to take temporary retirement. Chiles was cast as Holly Goodhead by chance, when she was given the seat next to Lewis Gilbert on a flight and he believed she would be ideal for the role as the CIA scientist. Drax's henchman Chang, played by Japanese aikido instructor Toshiro Suga, was recommended for the role by executive producer Michael G. Wilson, who was one of his pupils. In Moonraker, Wilson also continued a tradition in the Bond films he started in the film Goldfinger where he has a small cameo role. He appears twice in the film, first as a tourist outside the Venini Glass shop and museum in Venice, then at the end of the film as a technician in Drax's control room.

The Jaws character, played by Richard Kiel makes a return, although in Moonraker the role is played more for comedic effect than in The Spy Who Loved Me. Jaws was intended to be a villain against Bond to the bitter end, but director Lewis Gilbert stated on the DVD documentary that he received so much fan mail from small children saying "Why can't Jaws be a goodie not a baddie", that as a result he was persuaded to make Jaws gradually become Bond's ally at the end of the film.

Production began on August 14, 1978. Main shooting was switched from the usual 007 Stage at Pinewood Studios to France, due to high taxation in England at the time. Only the cable car interiors and space battle exteriors were filmed at Pinewood. The massive sets of Moonraker designed by Ken Adam were the largest ever constructed in France and required more than 222,000 man-hours to construct (roughly 1000 hours by each of the crew on average). They were shot at three of France's largest film studios in Boulogne-sur-Mer, Epinay and Billancourt. 220 technicians used 100 tonnes of metal, two tonnes of nails and 10,000 feet of wood to build the three-story space station set at Eponay Studios. The elaborate space set for Moonraker holds the world record for having the largest number of zero gravity wires in one scene.The Venetian glass museum and fight between Bond and Chang was shot at Boulogne Studios in a building which had once been a World War II Luftwaffe aircraft factory during Germany's occupation of France. The scene in the Venice glass museum and warehouse holds the record for the largest amount of break-away sugar glass used in a single scene.

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Drax's mansion, set in California, was actually filmed at the Château de Vaux-le-Vicomte, about 55 kilometres (34 mi) southeast of Paris, for the exteriors and Grand Salon. The remaining interiors, including some of the scenes with Corinne Defour and the drawing room, were filmed at the Château de Guermantes.

Much of the film was shot in the cities of London, Paris, Venice, Palmdale and Rio de Janeiro. The production team had considered India and Nepal as a location in the film but on arriving there to investigate they found it inconceivable to write it into the script, particularly with time restrictions to do so. They decided on Rio de Janeiro relatively early on, which Cubby Broccoli had visited on vacation, and a team was sent to the city in early 1978 to capture initial footage from the Mardi Gras festival which featured in the film.

At the Rio de Janeiro location, many months later, Roger Moore arrived several days later than scheduled for shooting due to recurrent health problems and an attack of kidney stones he received in France. After arriving in Rio, he was immediately whisked off the plane and went straight to hair and makeup, before reboarding the plane, to film the sequence with him arriving as James Bond in the film. Sugarloaf Mountain was a prominent location in the film, and during filming of the cable car sequence in which Bond and Goodhead are attacked by Jaws during mid-air transportation high above Rio, stuntman Richard Graydon slipped and narrowly avoided falling to his death. For the scene in which Jaws bites into the steel tramway cable with his teeth, the cable was actually made of liquorice, although Richard Kiel was still required to use his steel dentures.

Iguazu Falls was a natural location depicted in the film, although as stated by Q in the film, the falls were intended to be located somewhere in the upper catchment of the Amazon rather than where the falls are actually located in the south. The second unit had originally planned on sending an actual boat over the falls. However on attempting to release it, the boat became firmly embedded on rocks near the edge. Despite a dangerous attempt by helicopter and rope ladder to retrieve it, the plan had to be abandoned, forcing the second unit to use a miniature at Pinewood instead. The exterior of Drax's pyramid headquarters in the Amazon rain forest near the falls was actually filmed at the Tikal Mayan ruins in Guatemala. The interior of the pyramid, however, was designed by Ken Adam at Pinewood studio in which he purposefully used a shiny coating to make the walls look plastic and false. All of the space center scenes were shot at the Vehicle Assembly Building of Kennedy Space Center, Florida although some of the earlier scenes of the Moonraker assembly plant were filmed on location at the Rockwell International manufacturing facilities in Palmdale, California.

The early scene involving Bond and Jaws in which Bond is pushed out of the aircraft without a parachute took weeks of planning and preparation. The skydiving sequence was coordinated by Don Calvedt under the supervision of second unit director John Glen. Stuntman Jake Lombard was hired to double for Bond, who would later pose as Moore's double in films such as Octopussy and for Necros in The Living Daylights. B. J. Worth, who played the stunt double of Jaws, would also later become a consistent member of the stunt team for aerial sequences throughout the 1980s, into Timothy Dalton's films such as The Living Daylights. Members of the U.S. championship skydiving team aided the stunt team with the planning and the team's master rigger designed a one-inch thick parachute pack that could be concealed beneath the suit to give the impression of the missing parachute. When the stunt men opened their parachutes at the end of every shoot, custom-sewn velcro costume seams would separate to allow the hidden parachutes to open. The skydiver cinematographer used a lightweight Panavision camera, bought from an old pawn shop in Paris, which he had adapted, and attached to his helmet to shoot the entire sequence, The scene took a total of 88 skydives by the stuntmen to complete it.

For the scene involving the opening of the musical electronic laboratory door lock in Venice, producer Albert R. Broccoli requested special permission from director Steven Spielberg to use the five-note leitmotif from his film Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977). In 1985, Broccoli would return the favor by fulfilling Spielberg's request to use the James Bond theme music for a scene in his film, The Goonies (1985).

Moonraker was the third of the three Bond films for which the theme song was performed by Shirley Bassey ( following Goldfinger and Diamonds are Forever) Kate Bush and Frank Sinatra were both considered for the vocals, before Johnny Mathis was approached and offered the opportunity. However Mathis, despite having started recording with Barry, was unable to complete the project, leaving producers to offer the song to Bassey within just weeks of the release date. Bassey made the recordings with very short notice and as a result, she never regarded the song 'as her own' as she had never had the chance to perform it or promote it first. The film uses two versions of the title theme song, a ballad version heard over the main titles, and a disco version. Confusingly, the United Artists single release labelled the tracks on the 7" single as "Moonraker (Main Title)" for the version used to close the film and "Moonraker (End Title)" for the track that opened the film. The song made little impact on the charts, reaching 159, partly attributed to Bassey's failure to promote the single, given the last-minute decision to quickly record it to meet the schedule.

Finally in 2005, Bassey sang the song for the first time outside James Bond on stage as part of a medley of her three Bond title songs.

Title sequence is designed by Maurice Binder.

The soundtrack of Moonraker was composed by John Barry and recorded in Paris, again, as with production, marking a turning point away from the English location at CTS Studios in London. The score also marked a turning point in John Barry's output, abandoning the Kentonesque brass of his earlier Bond scores and instead scoring the film with slow, rich string passages - a trend which Barry would continue in the 1980s with scores such as Out of Africa and Somewhere in Time. For Moonraker, Barry uses for the first time since Diamonds Are Forever (1971) a piece of music called "007" (on track 7), the secondary Bond theme composed by Barry which was introduced in From Russia with Love over the end credits. Barry also made use of classical music passages in the film. For the scene where Bond visits Drax in his chateau, Drax plays Frédéric Chopin's Prelude no. 15 in D-flat major (op. 28), "Raindrop") on his grand piano. Tritsch-Tratsch-Polka by Johann Strauss II was featured during the hovercraft scene on the Piazza San Marco in Venice, and Tchaikovsky's "Romeo and Juliet Overture" was used for the scenes in Brazil in which Jaws meets Dolly following his accident. Other passages pay homage to earlier films including Richard Strauss's Also Sprach Zarathustra (op. 30), associated with 2001: A Space Odyssey) with the hunting horn playing its distinctive first three notes, Elmer Bernstein's theme from The Magnificent Seven when Bond appears on horseback in gaucho clothing at MI6 headquarters in Brazil, and the alien-contacting theme from Close Encounters of the Third Kind as the key-code for a security door as mentioned previously.

Reviewing Moonraker, Danny Peary wrote that “The worst James Bond film to date has Roger Moore walking through the paces for his hefty paycheck and giving way to his double for a series of unimaginative action scenes and “humorous” chases. There’s little suspense and the humor falls flat. Not only is Jaws so pacified by love that he becomes a good guy, but the filmmakers also have the gall to set the finale in outer space and stage a battle right out of Star Wars.”

But other reviews of Moonraker have expressed that the film is one of Moore's stronger films as James Bond. James Berardinelli of Reelviews.net for instance remarked that, "the solid special effects, well-executed action sequences, and a strict reliance upon the 'Bond Formula' keep this film among Moore's better entries." Despite criticism about the far-fetched nature of the plot, websites such as Rotten Tomatoes have awarded the film a 62% "fresh" rating.

Aside from being nominated for an Academy Award for Best Visual Effects, the film, given its unusual attention to the science fiction genre than the average James Bond film, received attention from the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films and was nominated for several Saturn Awards in 1980. The nominees were for Best Science Fiction Film, Best Special Effects, and Best Supporting Actor (Richard Kiel). The DVD of the film was later nominated in 2004 for the Golden Satellite Award Best Classic DVD Release. Moonraker won the Golden Screen Award in Germany in 1980.

The exaggerated nature of the plot and space station sequence has seen the film parodied on numerous occasions. Of note is the Austin Powers spoof film The Spy Who Shagged Me (1999) which whilst a parody of other James Bond films, pays reference to Moonraker by Dr. Evil's lair in space. The scene in which Drax is shot by the cyanide dart and ousted into space is parodied by Power's ejection of Dr. Evil's clone Mini-Me into outer space in the same way.

In Memoriam: Farrah Fawcett (1947-2009)

The Big Clock (1948)

The Big Clock is a 1948 film noir thriller directed by John Farrow, based on the novel of the same name by Kenneth Fearing. The black-and-white film is set in New York City and stars Ray Milland and Maureen O'Sullivan, wife of the director and mother of Mia Farrow. Real-life married couple Elsa Lanchester and Charles Laughton appear in the film, as does Harry Morgan, in an early film role, as a hired thug.

The story is told in flashback. When it begins, George Stroud (Ray Milland) is shown hiding from the police behind the "big clock" ― the largest and most sophisticated one ever built, which dominates the lobby of the giant publishing company where he works.

Stroud, a crime magazine's crusading editor who is eager to spend more time with his wife (Maureen O'Sullivan), plans a long-postponed vacation from his job. Instead of meeting his wife at the train station, however, Stroud is preoccupied by an offer by his boss. He begins drinking and spends the evening out on the town with a glamorous blonde. She is later murdered and Stroud is assigned by his Hearst-like publishing boss Janoth (Charles Laughton) to find the killer.

While investigating, Stroud tries to keep the facts of his night with the woman a secret because witnesses could recognize him. As the investigation proceeds to its conclusion, Stroud must try to disrupt his ordinarily brilliant investigative team as they increasingly build evidence (albeit wrong) that he is the killer.

The Big Clock is a great movie, full of surprises and alot of fun to watch. Ray Milland and Charles Laughton are terrific together in this truly hidden film noir gem. The film is possibly a tad lighthearted to be considered genuine Noir. Nevertheless, the endless twists and turns and non-stop action will keep you entertained. Mix it all up with a wacky Elsa Lanchester and a sinister George Macready, and this film is easily worthy of four stars. Charles Laughton is as usal magnificent and Ray Milland has seldom been better.

The story was remade in 1987 as No Way Out with Kevin Costner and Gene Hackman. The 1948 version is more similar to the novel, with the 1987 remake updating the events to the American political world in Washington D.C. during the Cold War.

Witness for the prosecution (1957)

Witness for the Prosecution is a 1957 courtroom drama film based on a short story (and later play) by Agatha Christie dealing with the trial of a man accused of murder. This trial movie was the first film adaptation of the story, stars Tyrone Power, Marlene Dietrich, and Charles Laughton, and features Elsa Lanchester. The movie was adapted by Larry Marcus, Harry Kurnitz and the film's director Billy Wilder.

Witness for the Prosecution was nominated for Academy Awards for Best Actor in a Leading Role (Charles Laughton), Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Elsa Lanchester), Best Director, Best Film Editing, Best Picture, and Best Sound.

Sir Wilfred Robarts (Charles Laughton), a master barrister in ill health, takes Leonard Vole (Tyrone Power) on as a client, over the protestations of his private nurse, Miss Plimsoll (Elsa Lanchester), that the doctor had told him to stay away from criminal cases.

Vole is accused of murdering Mrs. French (Norma Varden), a rich, older woman who had become enamored of him, going so far as to make him the main beneficiary of her will. Strong circumstantial evidence all points to Vole as the killer.

When Sir Wilfred speaks with Vole's German wife Christine (Marlene Dietrich), he finds her rather cold and self-possessed, but she does provide an alibi. Therefore, he is greatly surprised when she is called as a witness for the prosecution. While a wife cannot testify against her husband, it is shown that Christine was in fact still married to another man when she wed Leonard. She testifies that Leonard admitted to her that he had killed Mrs. French, and that her conscience forced her to finally tell the truth.

During the trial (in the Old Bailey, carefully recreated by Alexandre Trauner), Sir Wilfred is contacted by a mysterious woman, who (for a fee) provides him with letters written by Christine to a mysterious lover named Max. This correspondence gives her such a strong motive to lie that the jury finds Leonard not guilty.

However, Sir Wilfred is troubled by the verdict. His instincts tell him that it was too tidy, too neat. And so it proves. By chance, he and Christine are left alone in the courtroom. She takes the opportunity to take credit for the whole thing. When she heard him say at the beginning that a wife's testimony would not be convincing, she decided to set it up so that hers would be for the prosecution and then be discredited. An ex-actress, she had played the part of the mystery woman so well that Sir Wilfred did not recognize her when he negotiated for the letters. She knew that Leonard was guilty; her testimony was the truth. Her letters are a fraud — Max never existed. When asked why she did it, she confesses that she loves Leonard.

Leonard appears and, now protected by double jeopardy, nonchalantly confirms what Christine had said. A young woman (Ruta Lee) then rushes into his arms. When he admits that they are going away together, Christine kills him with a knife in a fit of fury. Sir Wilfred remarks that Christine did not murder Leonard, but that she "executed him". Miss Plimsoll then cancels Sir Wilfred's holiday, realizing that he cannot resist taking charge of Christine's defense.

Fedora (1978)

Fedora is a 1978 American drama film directed by Billy Wilder. The screenplay by Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond is based on a novella by Tom Tryon included in his collection Crowned Heads, published in 1976.

The film's central character is a reclusive foreign-born actress, one of the greatest movie stars of the century, who inexplicibly has retained her youthful beauty despite her advancing years. In the opening scene she commits suicide by throwing herself in front of a train, and among the mourners at her funeral is aging has-been Hollywood producer Dutch Detweiler, with whom she once had a brief affair and who serves as the film's narrator.

We flashback to a villa on an island near Corfu, where Dutch visited Fedora two weeks earlier, determined to convince her to star in a new screen adaptation of Anna Karenina. She tells him she's a prisoner in her remote retreat, held captive by aged Polish Countess Sobryanski, her overprotective servant Miss Balfour, her chauffer Kritos, and Dr. Vando, who seemingly is responsible for keeping the one-time star looking so young. When he tries to respond to Fedora's plea for help, Dutch is knocked unconscious by Kritos. He awakens nearly a week later, only to learn Fedora has killed herself.

At her funeral, Dutch accuses Vando and the Countess of driving Fedora to her death. The Countess reveals she actually is Fedora, and the woman who died was her daughter Antonia, who had been impersonating the actress for years after she was disfigured by one of the doctor's treatments. Antonia's charade was successful until she fell in love with actor Michael York (playing himself) while making a film with him and decided to tell him the truth. In order to ensure her silence, she was held captive and kept drugged, until she finally killed herself. Dutch bids the real Fedora farewell, and six weeks later, she dies too.

Wilder's previous film, The Front Page, had been released four years earlier and was a critical and commercial failure. Furthermore, two more recent Hollywood-based films, Gable and Lombard and W.C. Fields and Me (both released in 1976), had failed to engender any interest at the box office. As a result, executives at Universal Pictures were hesitant to offer the auteur his usual deal. Instead, they paid Wilder and Diamond to write the screenplay with the understanding the studio would have 45 days following its submission to decide if it wanted to proceed with the project. They ultimately put it in turnaround, and Wilder began shopping it to other studios with no success. An infusion of capital from German investors enabled him to proceed with the film.

Wilder originally envisioned Marlene Dietrich as Fedora and Faye Dunaway as her daughter Antonia, but Dietrich despised the original book and thought the screenplay was no improvement. Sydney Pollack invited Wilder to a pre-release screening of 'Bobby Deerfield, in which former fashion model Marthe Keller had a featured role. Wilder decided to cast her as both mother and daughter in Fedora, but the actress had suffered facial nerve damage in an automobile accident and was unable to endure wearing the heavy makeup required to transform her into the older character, so he cast Hildegard Knef in the role.

After viewing a rough cut of the film, Wilder realized neither Keller nor Knef could be understood easily, nor did they sound very much alike (which was crucial to the film's plot), so he hired German actress Inga Bunsch to dub the dialogue of both women for the film's English-language release. Keller eventually recorded the voices for both characters in the French version, and Knef did likewise for the German release.

Allied Artists dropped its deal to distribute the film after it was screened at a Myasthenia Gravis Foundation benefit in New York City and the audience response was unenthusiastic. The film was picked up by Lorimar Productions, which planned to peddle it to CBS as a television movie. Before the network could agree to the offer, United Artists stepped in. They ultimately released the film in only a handful of select American and European markets with little fanfare, prompting an insulted Wilder to claim the studio spent "about $625 on a marketing campaign."

After cutting twelve minutes of the film based on studio recommendations, Wilder sneak previewed the film in Santa Barbara. Halfway through it the audience began derisively laughing at all the wrong places. Dejected by the response and despondent from all the problems he had encountered up to this point, the director refused to make any more edits. On May 30, 1978, it had its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival as part of a retrospective of the director's work.

Both Henry Fonda and Michael York make cameo appearances in the film, Fonda as the President of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, who presents a lifetime achievement award to Fedora, and York as himself.

No Way to Treat a Lady (1968)

No Way to Treat a Lady (1968) is a darkly comic thriller directed by Jack Smight, with a screenplay by John Gay adapted from William Goldman's novel of the same name. The film starred Rod Steiger, Lee Remick and George Segal, the latter of whom was nominated for a BAFTA for his role as Detective Moe Brummel.

New York detective Moe Brummell (George Segal) is assigned to track down a serial killer who has been preying on lonely middle-aged ladies. Each of the bodies is discovered with a lipstick kiss drawn on the forehead. We know (but Brummell doesn't) that the murderer is Christopher Gill (Rod Steiger), a round-the-bend actor whose hatred for his mother has driven him to his killing spree.

Gill is fond of adopting a different personality and costume with each killing (a priest, a homosexual, a plumber etc.), making him doubly difficult to trace. When Brummell comments to the media that he's up against a criminal genius, he finds himself the reluctant recipient of Gill's anonymous phone calls, wherein the killer plants cryptic clues leading to his next crime.

It may not be readily apparent from the previous sentence, but No Way to Treat a Lady is a comedy-albeit a jet-black one. Moe Brummell is hampered with an archetypal Jewish mamma (Eileen Heckart), who in her own way is as deadly as the elusive Christopher Gill. Lee Remick plays Brummell's girl friend, who, as the only person who might be able to identify Gill, is placed in harm's way at the film's climax.

A curious by-product of No Way to Treat a Lady is the fact that Rod Steiger was cast in the lead in the 1976 biopic W.C. Fields and Me on the basis of the third-rate Fields imitation he offers to George Segal during one of his taunting phone calls.

Nowadays, when it seems that a successful film has to be either a big holiday or summer special-effects blockbuster, or a cheap independent circuit success, it makes one long for the days when good films with good stories were made for modest budgets and provided a decent piece of entertainment without overloading the senses. This dying breed of the movies is still around, however, and although often under appreciated, should be sought out. One case in point is No Way to Treat a Lady, a black comedy that combines a crime drama with the often humorous relationships men have with their mothers. In spite of the film being a thriller, we know from the beginning who the bad guy is. It's Rod Steiger, who gets to really stretch and ham it up as a theater manager/serial killer who murders each of his victims in some outlandish disguise to win their trust. George Segal is the cop who must crack the case and, at the same time, fend off his wonderfully annoying mother, Eileen Heckart (whose running gag line, "Who ever heard of a Jewish cop?" gets repeated over and over again throughout).

Steiger's character is one of those vain killers who checks the newspaper for reports of his exploits and who takes to calling Segal when the facts are reported wrong or when he wants to taunt the authorities. Segal is rather bland, although it's not really his fault since the role doesn't give him much to do other than to react to the other characters, particularly his mother, Steiger, and Lee Remick, as his love interest and would-be victim of the murderer. Steiger goes way, way over the top, but it works because the film has set him up to be not only flamboyant, but overreactive to mother issues of his own. His various disguises get odder and odder as the film moves along, and when it shifts from comedy into resolution of the crime mode, his character becomes that much more menacing, not because he's funny but because we learn, as Segal puts the pieces together, that he is honestly and truly deranged. Remick serves as the breath of fresh air, only because her character is the only one who isn't dealing with some sort of emotional crisis. The scene where she meets and charms Heckart is an overlooked comedic gem.

Although murder and mental illness are hardly laughing matters, director Jack Smight squeezes legitimate comedy from the corrosive camaraderie of Steiger and Segal in their hare-and-hound relationship.

Segal gives his best performance since King Rat, and Steiger offers the audience a cornucopia of characters and caricatures. Some are overplayed while others are slighted, but consistency is beside the point: not many other major American actors could have brought off this kind of multifaccted tour de force, which once was the exclusive property of Alec Guinness.

The Killing of Sister George (1968)

Sister George is a beloved character in the popular radio series Applehurst, a nurse who ministers to the medical needs and personal problems of the local villagers. She is played by June Buckridge, who in real life is a gin-guzzling, cigar-chomping, slightly sadistic masculine woman, the antithesis of the sweet character she plays. June lives with Alice "Childie" McNaught, a younger dim-witted woman she often verbally and sometimes physically abuses. When June discovers her character is scheduled to be killed, she becomes increasingly impossible to work and live with. Mercy Croft, an executive at the radio station, intercedes in her professional and personal lives supposedly to help, but she actually has an agenda of her own.

Lukas Heller wrote the screenplay for the 1968 feature film version directed by Robert Aldrich. Beryl Reid was cast as June. Bette Davis and Angela Lansbury were considered for the role. Susannah York played Alice and Coral Browne as Mercy. In the movie Applehurst became a television soap opera, and the lesbian aspects of the plot are much more explicit.

The film added many characters and shot many scenes on location. The opening sequence has June wandering through the streets and alleyways of Hampstead west of Heath Street. Another is in a real-life London lesbian hangout, the Gateways Club. Alice is portrayed as childishly naive rather than dim-witted, and June is more of an alcoholic. In one scene, while under the influence, she molests two novice nuns in a taxi, behavior that precipitates the beginning of the end for Sister George.

Between the time the movie started filming and ended production, the movie industry instituted the new MPAA ratings system. Largely on the basis of a graphic sex scene involving Alice and Mercy (deleted in some TV screenings) Sister George received an X rating, which limited its exposure in theatres and ability to advertise in mainstream newspapers. Aldrich spent $75,000 battling the rating, but his lawsuit was dismissed, and the film died at the box office.

Beryl Reid was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture Actress in a Drama.

The Legend of Lylah Clare (1968)

Sometimes, you see a film so splendidly, memorably, unforgettably awful that you begin to wonder why it’s not more well-known. Then you remember the hell you had to go through just to get a chance to see it, and you say, “Oh, that’s why.” The Legend Of Lylah Clare is one such film.

Notorious for being one of the first “dramatic” feature films greeted with outright laughter upon its prémiere, MGM has taken great pains to bury The Legend Of Lylah Clare. It’s never been released on DVD, laserdisc or even videotape. It turns up from time to time on TV, but that’s about it.

Director Robert Aldrich had an odd career. Mainly known for “men’s pictures” such as The Dirty Dozen, he attempted his first “women’s picture” in 1956 with the forgettable Joan Crawford vehicle Autumn Leaves. He eventually hit his stride in 1962 with the legendary Whatever Happened To Baby Jane. Casting famous leading ladies of the past in a Grand Guignol horror situation was a stroke of genius, and became much imitated. It also served to provide a spark to both Bette Davis’ and Joan Crawford’s careers, though they would spend the balance of same struggling to live this particular film down. Lightning struck twice for Aldrich with Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte a couple of years later, one of the first Hollywood features to feature outright gore.

1968 was supposed to be a banner year for Aldrich. Flushed with the success of The Dirty Dozen, he formed his own production company, Aldrich and Associates. The result consisted of merely two films: The Killing of Sister George and The Legend of Lylah Clare.

Both of the films are full-on Aldrich at his most unfettered. Neither was much of a success. Well, the controversial “lesbian” storyline in The Killing of Sister George brought in an audience of the perversely curious, but interest fell off rapidly. But really, as The Killing Of Sister George was at least “artistically” successful, The Legend Of Lylah Clare stands alone. It’s a film that shows flashes of brilliance, but is for the most part ineptly rendered in the worst way. You can tell what Aldrich was going for much of the movie, but the lapses in plausibility in the screenplay, the heavy derivation of other sources and the overripe dialogue really make this hard to take seriously.

Film star Lylah Clare is dead, but her legend lives on. Movie-producer Barney Sheean (Ernest Borgnine) hires Elsa Brinkmann (Kim Novak), the living image of the late Lylah, to star in a film based on Ms. Clare's life. Barney hires director Lewis Zarkan (Peter Finch), Lylah's former husband, to transform the talentless Elsa into a facsimile of the deceased screen queen. Elsa not only learns to imitate Lylah but, at crucial junctures, becomes the dead woman. While restaging the accident that killed Lylah, the obsessed Zarkan deliberately drives Elsa to her doom -- and in so doing reveals his complicity in the death of his wife. The film ends with Lylah's onetime housekeeper (Rosella Falk), gun in hand, lying in wait for Zarkan to return home while her TV blasts forth a grotesque (and possibly symbolic) dog-food commercial.

Say what you will about the rest of the film, the ending is not only apt, but also one of the greatest endings to any film, ever. And it’s just so totally Robert Aldrich. That one scene speaks volumes about the whole film, probably even about Aldrich.

Un Taxi Mauve (1977)

The Purple Taxi (French: Un taxi mauve) is a 1977 French-Irish-Italian film directed by Yves Boisset, based on the 1973 novel of the same name by Michel Déon. It was entered into the 1977 Cannes Film Festival.

The film is about a group of emotionally troubled expatriates living in a self-imposed exile in a small village in Ireland. The cast includes Peter Ustinov, Charlotte Rampling, Philippe Noiret, Edward Albert and, somewhat eccentrically cast as a small-town Irish physician, Fred Astaire.

The film's score was performed by The Chieftains.

To heal a private wound, Philippe Marchal, a French writer, moves to the Irish countryside. Here, he makes friends with a young American, Jerry Kean who left his own country after a tragic incident. Philippe succumbs to the charms of Jerry’s sister, Sharon, whilst Jerry is attracted to the mysterious dumb daughter of the reclusive Mr Taubelman, a Russian exile who lives in a run-down castle. Then there is a retired American doctor, Dr Scully, who drives a curious purple taxi…

Un taxi mauve makes a stark contrast to the kind of film that director Yves Boisset was making in the 1970s – tough, slightly cynical thrillers with a keen political edge. This film is much lighter in tone than Boisset’s other work, a pleasing comedy-drama which explores the interactions between a disparate group of characters in a rural setting, and featuring an extraordinary international cast. Fred Astaire makes one of his last film appearances, along side such luminaries as Peter Ustinov, Philippe Noiret and Charlotte Rampling. Whilst the plotting is a little heavy (making the point that this really isn’t Boisset’s genre), the exquisite performances and some stunning location photography make it an attractive cinematic treat.

Last Embrace (1979)

Last Embrace is a 1979 Hitchcockian thriller film directed by Jonathan Demme. Based on the novel The 13th Man by Murray Teigh Bloom it stars Roy Scheider, Janet Margolin and Christopher Walken.

The misic is composed by Miklós Rózsa.

CIA secret agent Harry Hannan (Roy Scheider) has not been the same since his wife's murder. He suffers a nervous breakdown after the tragedy, which lands him in a sanitarium. Once released, he is pushed in front of a train and only narrowly escapes. Then he receives a cryptic letter that foretells his death. Now Harry suspects that he too is in danger and perhaps the target of a larger conspiracy, especially after he meets a graduate student named Ellie who might not be whom she claims to be, and malevolent types such as a homicidal prostitute and a pushy detective begin to crowd his sinister world. Are Harry's mournful anxieties just degenerating into paranoid madness? He has to discern reality from illusion while on the run because the menace is closing in on him fast.

Jonathan Demme directed this elegant homage to Alfred Hitchock that features several sequences that mirror the suspense master's own. A shower curtain pulled quickly back might remind viewers of PSYCHO; a frame filled with people all wearing the same raincoat mimics the famed overhead shot of a crowd of umbrellas in FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT; and the ominous soundtrack was composed by SPELLBOUND scorer Miklós Rózsa.

Last Embrace II

Little Voice (1998)

Little Voice is a 1998 British drama film with music written and directed by Mark Herman. The screenplay is based on the play The Rise and Fall of Little Voice by Jim Cartwright.

Set primarily in a lower-middle-class home where the fuses constantly blow and what little food there is in the refrigerator has turned rancid, the film tells the story of lonely, shy, agoraphobic young Laura, commonly known as Little Voice, who seems to display many of the symptoms of selective mutism, a rare anxiety disorder similar to social phobia. She spends her time obsessively listening to her deceased father's extensive collection of vintage recordings by such all-time singing greats as Edith Piaf, Judy Garland, and Shirley Bassey. Impersonating their performances is her only source of joy, life, and escape from her boozy, abusive mother, Mari.

A hint that Little Voice might be able to have a social life beyond her mother occurs when the family telephone has to be repaired, and meek assistant telephone installer Billy shows interest in her, even returning to the house to deliver information pamphlets. Her life of solitude is turned upside down when Ray Say, a manager of third-rate acts, becomes romantically involved with her mother and, upon recognizing Little Voice's amazing talent, attempts to make her the star she doesn't want to be. He convinces Mr. Boo to showcase her at his seedy nightclub, where the girl, overcoming her fear by imagining her father is in the audience, presents a succession of show-stopping numbers that has the crowd clamoring for more.

Complications ensue when the girl retreats into her private world and refuses to participate in a heavily-hyped second appearance attended by a top London press agent. In the aftermath of Little Voice failing to perform, the family house catches fire destroying the record collection. Little Voice's soulmate, Billy, who is also a pigeon fancier, ultimately saves her both literally and figuratively.

It stars Michael Caine, Brenda Blethyn, Ewan McGregor, Jim Broadbent and Jane Horrocks in the title role.

Dead Ringers (1988)

Dead Ringers is a 1988 psychological horror film starring Jeremy Irons in a dual role as identical twin gynecologists. Director David Cronenberg co-wrote the screenplay with Norman Snider; their script was based on the novel Twins by Bari Wood and Jack Geasland. The film is very loosely based on the lives of Stewart and Cyril Marcus.

It's the story of twin gynecologists Elliot and Beverly Mantle (both played, via special effects, by Jeremy Irons) who are so close that their identities are intertwined. Indeed, they take advantage of their identical appearance to swap places with one another at will, taking turns giving public appearances, performing surgeries and research, and even switching off with the women they date. The arrogant, confident Elliot and the shy, sweet Bev are two sides of the same personality, complementing and completing one another, together forming a whole person; neither of them could really exist independently.

Nevertheless, Bev decides that he wants to try severing this intimate bond between the brothers when he falls in love with the movie star Claire (Geneviève Bujold), who starts out as just another of the brothers' mutual conquests. As usual, the more confident Elliot seduces and sleeps with her, then allows Bev to take his place the next night. But when Beverly's bond with the needy, masochistic Claire begins to threaten the connection between the brothers, things start falling apart for all three of them. The film is a nightmarish study of psychological dependency, of unhealthy bonds between people — symbolized by the horrifying dream in which Bev envisions himself and his brother joined together by a meaty umbilical cord, which Claire tries to bite through. The film certainly doesn't lack Cronenberg's signature disturbing imagery, but for the most part its "body horror" is more psychological and internal rather than being inscribed in blood and gore. When Bev, driven mad by isolation and grief, simply unveils his set of tools for operating on "mutant women," it's a visceral chill on par with any of Cronenberg's more grisly set pieces. By locating the film's horror almost entirely in the minds and personae of these twins, Dead Ringers becomes one of Cronenberg's finest, most creepily incisive works.

Cronenberg takes the notion of the divided self beyond mere metaphor in this story (suggested by actual events) of identical twin gynecologists and their descent into madness. The subject matter alone ensures an almost unprecedented level of creepiness, and you can bet Cronenberg makes the most of it; when one of the twins commissions a set of surgical tools for use on "mutant women" (for he is just about at the point where he thinks all women are mutants), it's permanent gooseflesh time. But the picture ultimately goes deeper, plunging us into the desperate, confused loneliness to which we are all prey, whether we're cursed with doppelgängers or not.

Roberto Fonseca Akokan

Two years on from his confident debut, this leading young Cuban pianist has made another wide-ranging and accomplished album. Akokan follows a similar template to Zamazu, and comes across as a slightly more mature and subdued work.

Aside from having had the best possible exposure through working with several Buena Vista Social Club veterans, Fonseca’s success is in no small part down to having had a stable working relationship with the same core group for the last twelve years. The other major reason is the accessibility and eclecticism of his original melodies, which are rooted in Cuban styles, but show that he has his ears wide open to the world of Latin music, jazz and beyond.

He dedicates the dreamy ballad Como En Las Películas (Like In The Movies) to the music of France, and claims that Bulgarian was inspired by that country. Even so, the combination of Fonseca’s piano, the complex time signatures and Javier Zalba’s eastern-inflected clarinet on this piece most obviously suggest Turkey’s wonderful Ayse Tüntüncü Trio.

The pervading influence of South Africa’s Abdullah Ibrahim is apparent on both Lo Que Me Hace Vivir and La Flor Que No Cuidé, while the ghost of Rubén González haunts Cuando Uno Crece. And the contrarily titled Lento Y Despacio (Slow and slowly) is a stop-start percussive jam that could easily have come from Aron Ottignon’s inspired Culture Tunnels album.

As on Zamazu, this album kicks off with a short incantation by Fonseca’s mother, Mercedes Cortes Alfaro. Perhaps the most striking piece is Drume Negrita, which has a cool, relaxed vibe and features some lovely sax work by Zalba.

Fonseca doesn’t seem to scat as much as he used to, but on Siete Potencias (Bu Kantu) he ropes in Cape Verdean singer Mayra Andrade, who provides her own words and acquits herself well. Perhaps more jarring is the arrival of Venezuelan Raul Midón, singing his own composition Everyone Deserves A Second Chance in English. It’s only this and the occasional tendency of drummer Ramsés Rodrigues to over-reach himself that mar an otherwise classy set.

Shutter Island (2009)

Shutter Island is an upcoming American thriller film directed by Martin Scorsese and starring Leonardo DiCaprio. 

The film is based on the 2003 novel Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane. 

Production started in March 2008; Shutter Island is slated to be released on October 2, 2009

The story takes place in 1954 on Shutter Island, home to a psychiatric hospital called Ashecliffe. U.S. Deputy Marshals Teddy Daniels and Chuck Aule investigate the disappearance of a patient, Rachel Solando, who had committed multiple murders. The deputy marshals search the island for the patient as a hurricane bears down on them, and they find that the hospital has practiced sinister measures during its existence.

With Shutter Island, author Dennis Lehane sought to write a novel that would be a homage to Gothic settings, B movies, and pulp. Lehane described the novel as a hybrid of the works of the Brontë sisters and the 1956 film Invasion of the Body Snatchers. The author wanted to write the main characters in a position where they would lack twentieth-century conventions such as radio communications. He also structured the book to be more taut than his previous book, Mystic River.

Feature film rights to the 2003 novel Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane were first optioned to Columbia Pictures in 2003, but the rights lapsed back to the author. The author's representatives then sold the rights to the production company Phoenix Pictures, who hired screenwriter Laeta Kalogridis to script the novel for a film adaptation. The project was in development for a year. By October 2007, the project had developed into a co-production between the studios Columbia Pictures and Paramount Pictures. Director Martin Scorsese and actor Leonardo DiCaprio, who had worked together on three films, were both attracted to Shutter Island as their next collaboration. Locations like Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Nova Scotia were scouted.Production began on March 6, 2008.

Production took place in Taunton, Massachusetts to film World War II flashback scenes of DiCaprio's character, who served as an American soldier. Scorsese filmed the scenes in old industrial buildings in Taunton's Whittenton Mills Complex, which replicated the Dachau concentration camp. Extras portraying the Dachau Prisoners were called back to reshoot a scene in July, due to the film of one scene being damaged going through Logan Airport Security. Scenes were filmed at the old Medfield State Hospital in Medfield, Massachusetts. Peddocks Island was used as a setting for the story's island and East Point, in Nahant, Massachusetts for the lighthouse scenes. Filming ended on July 2, 2008.