[Music]
[Applause] it's side
[Music]
[Music] [Applause]
tonight on movie Drome the kind of film which should make everybody happy a movie which was both a popular hit and a
critical Su scal Halloween Halloween was directed in 197
8 by John Carpenter it's one of the earliest and most imitated of that
overworked and seemingly endlessly popular genre the serial killer Maniac stalker on the loose in pursuit of
hapless teenagers movie the kind of film where you know beforehand exactly what's going to happen of course the teenagers
are going to split up and explore the mad house in total darkness in their underwear what else would they do I must
confess that when I saw Halloween in 1978 I found it ridiculous and utterly uninvolving but I am stupid the sort of
spoil sport idiot who says I wouldn't do that or that doesn't make sense in the same way I can't find any point of entry
to Mrs Doubtfire or the piano they just seem ridiculous to me maybe I'd feel different if I hadn't grown up on dead
of night an Easy Rider well anyway tonight's film features Donald Pleasants
in the kind of role he always seems to play his performance like Halloween itself received extravagant praise from
some of the most eminent film critics in the UK on its release it also features Jam Lee Curtis in the
role of the Plucky and resilient heroin Jam Lee is of course the daughter of Janet Lee star of that even more
celebrated Maniac at large movie Psycho this is just one of Halloween's many conscious or self-conscious references
to other movies Carpenter even goes so far as to use video extracts from earlier films like Forbidden Planet and
the thing a movie he was to remake a few years later much has been made of the
persistent use of steady cam in Halloween and of the camera as Killer's point of view which here in movie Drome
you will experience in the full Majesty of its original cinemascope form this technique has been done to death ever
since although devotees of the genre would say never to such ambiguous good effect for this reviewer John
Carpenter's best film is still his first the seriously funny space Saga darkar
made as a student film at USC and co-written by Dan O banan he also deserves credit for the extraordinary
first half of they live his 1988 alien takeover movie one fact for True
Carpenter Buffs the villain of tonight's piece is called Michael Myers reputedly
the director's odd way of saying thanks to the chief exec of Miracle films if it's a good film it's a miracle
distributors in Britain of Assault on Precinct 13 but for now trick or treat
here it is Halloween
[Music]
[Music]
transes is another example of the lowbudget science fiction that came out of Los Angeles in the early
1980s some of it like KN of the Comet which is also part of this season was made by the new independent companies
like Atlantic some was made by the venerable Roger Corman at his studio in Venice California a former lumber yard
and a lot of it including transes came from an independent outfit called Empire run by a man called Charles band who is
the director of this film most of this science fiction rips off alien or Star Wars Wars transas is a
ripoff of Blade Runner with a substantial nod to the Terminator in that sense its taste is excellent it has
the time traveling cops and the flying police cars but its eyes are bigger than its appetite everything in this film is
much too clean even the street people are freshly washed and laundered its greatest assets are its Father Christmas
scene which is fantastic and its locations it was all filmed in the industrial Wasteland south of Los
Angeles which really does look like a cross between the 1920s and a post-apocalyptic
landscape also don't fail to note the sequence in the LA River a huge concrete
Channel which divides the city in two and provides so many movies with
locations Merry
[Music] Christmas now on movie drum a very fine
variation on the same theme as ESC from Alcatraz r a man
escaped made in 1956 it's based on the true story of Andre dein a French
officer who was imprisoned by the Germans and the vichi collaboration government at Mont Luke jail in
1943 Bron was a former painter and script writer who was himself a prisoner of war from June 1940 to April 41
perhaps for that reason a man escaped is quite unlike Escape from Alcatraz or or any other film in this familiar genre
the story exists entirely in small details the minute mechanisms of the hero's Escape Plan the matter of fact
approach to violence which is quite terrifying although entirely unseen the natural use of sound and the absolutely
real performances no actors were used in this film that's part of Bron's Unique Style
as well he thinks that actors are incapable of projecting the truth all they can do is act and Bron isn't
interested in acting instead he always works with real people Bon's most famous film is the
trial of Joon of Arc made 6 years later in 1962 it too has a spare visual style in
which abstract details communicate much of the story it too employs non-actors in an intensely passionate and revealing
way given that the French Cinema has now degenerated like our own to the level of the rock video it's a great pleasure to
present this classic film and Great Adventure movie a man escaped
[Music]
[Music] tonight's film is Night of the Comet a science fiction Opus made in Los Angeles
in 1984 its premise is very similar to Day of the Triffids a British science
fiction movie based on the book by John Windam its working title was Teenage
Comet zombies night of the comet is a mixture of the wide-eyed 1950s type of science
fiction movie and the post-apocalyptic Punky science fiction style it had a lot
of time-lapse photography whereby the camera runs slowly shooting only two or three frames every second and as a
result cloud formations or what have you go extremely fast it also has a lot of
colored filters on the camera lens whereby an ordinary Street or sky or whatever is made to look
weird but what it doesn't have really is a sense of driving manic purpose compare
it to the Incredible Shrinking man or to the thing both part of this season they
were made in the 1950s and don't have the same attempts at humor they're better I think KN of the Comet does
feature one essential cult element in the presence of Mary waren of the very tall actress who starred in many Paul
Bartel films it also contains dick Roode from Repo Man and Chris Peterson from
Suburbia as mutant Punk Supermarket Bag Boys as often with this kind of film you
really sort of wish the villains were the heroes
American Werewolf in London isn't strictly speaking a cult film it was far
too popular with large numbers of people and made lots of money nevertheless it
is part of a very honorable cult genre the werewolf SL vampire
film the rules of these films are standardized and if you're watching this you probably already know them for
beginners vampires are blood drinking living corpses whose mere bite can turn you into one of their number werewolves
are people who turn into wolves or wolf-like humanoids every full moon their bite turns other humans into
werewolves vampires can only be killed by fire removal of the head or a stake through the heart werewolves can only be
killed by a silver bullet or the SAS
American wolf in London was directed by John Landis an American whose most notable cult feature was The Blues
Brothers he's also very famous for his work on Twilight Zone it's influenced by
dead of night a classic British aor film which also forms part of this season the
film contains every conceivable song in which the word moon appears it features a nice Cameo from Mr Frank Oz The
Muppet's genius and director of The Very Funny Dirty Rotten Scoundrels he he plays Mr Collins the man from the US
Embassy uh you can also spot Rick M playing chess in a pub called the slaughtered lamb alongside Brian Glover
who's a very good actor uh the film's a weird mixture of naive comedy and apocalyptic violence
with an Abrupt ending if you sit through all the credits you'll see that the film is dedicated to their Royal highnesses
The Prince and Princess of Wales on the occasion of their marriage which should set you up very well for the uh national
anthem at the end
[Music]
[Music] good evening tonight's film has a
historical subject it's an epic spanning an entire
continent it was directed by a legendary Italian director has scores of plots and
subplots thousands of extras lavish sets authentic period
props and costumes a highly acclaimed musical score it's also much too
long if it had been directed last year by Bernard baluchi it would have won a dozen
Oscars but it was made in 1966 by serg Leon and it's a Weston
called The Good the Bad and the Ugly The Good the Bad and the Ugly is the third in a Trilogy of films that
began with a fist full of dollars in 1963 all the Italians that made that
film were so nervous at that time about making a spaghetti western because it was one of the first but they all
masqueraded behind American pseudonyms we only chose the named Bob
Robertson they were also very concerned to have an American actor in the lead role but the first actor that Leone
approached James Coburn turned him down the second person he approached was
an American ex Patriot living in Rome called Richard Harrison but Harrison
didn't want to be a West and done by Italians and he turned him down too Le only said do you know anybody else I
could approach and Harrison said yeah I know a guy in La he hasn't got any work he might do
it Le only said has he done any films before and Harrison said not really but
he did play Rowdy Yates on rawh height the actor's name was Clint
Eastwood and the rest is
history this is BBC 2 now Alex Cox introduces tonight's movie drone presentation of the Terminator
although this film has been edited for television some viewers may still find it disturbing
[Music]
[Applause]
Terminator is a 1980s La science fiction film in the style of transes or teenage
Comet zombies which as you may recall we saw last year it contains all the necessary
elements of the sub genre punks chases down alleys tracking shots through the
Cop Shop obsession with guns what raises it above the level of the normal are the script and the bad
man who gets star billing in the film The Script is credited to James Cameron
and Gail an herd respectively director and producer this is a little misleading
though since the real source of the story is an old episode of The Outer Limits called Soldier the story of an
assassin sent back in time to kill someone and change the Future Soldier was written by Haron
Ellison terminator's greatest asset of course is Arnold Schwarzenegger it was the first of a
series of big budget science fiction action films which included Predator The Running Man and most recently the $75
million Total Recall what can you say about schwarzeneger well he Austrian he has
enormous muscles he obviously has a sense of humor and he's very rich he's
also a Republican and married to the daughter of one of America's most influential political dynasties
unfortunately Arnold isn't a native born American and so he can never be president but he's still doing his best
so sit back slam a few shells into the Chamber of your pump action load up the
30 or 6 and slip the safety off your 357 as Arnold does his bit for truth justice
and the almighty box office if you're interested in learning more about this film the other films
we're going to show or the ones we showed last year or the year before you can acquire for a very modest fee a
movie Drome book which also tells you where you can get Stills and soundtrack albums Terminator cost about $6 million
Terminator two now in production is budgeted at 60 million more than half of
which is fees $60 million is what the United States spends in military assistance to El
Salvador in one and a half months it's also what the wing of a stealth bomber costs makes you think or maybe
not I'll be back more Mayhem next week with the
rarely seen extraordinary honeymoon killers
w
[Applause] [Music]
[Applause] now on BBC 2 here's Alex Cox to introduce this week's offering from the
movie Drome [Applause] [Music]
[Music]
[Music]
[Music] Vamp is the perfect movie drum
film I don't mean a perfect film artistically this is no performance no
or is the direction on a par with say Joseph loses in the prowler or oron Wells In Touch of Evil actor wise you're
not about to see any Charlton hon or Joan Crawford's here Vamp is not a
perfect film by any means but it is a perfect movie Drome film a rarely seen
cult exploitation movie with irrelevant actors average Direction a Daft script
borrowing from other equally daed movies and guest appearances by such cult l Min
Aries as Grace Jones and Lisa lion plus original furniture by Keith Herring and
Andy Warhol Vamp is the story of some horrid college fraternity boys who go to the
big city to hire a stripper to perform in their Clubhouse could anything sound more awful don't worry it's going to be
great luckily for us the film is directed without any pretension the actors are completely mindless they just
point these big red and blue lights at them and go actually there's one good actor hidden in in there too his name's
Sandy Baron and he plays the Cockroach eating nightclub owner Vic Grace Jones
ain't bad either it's her best role to date even better than the James Bond film in fact they ought to let Richard
wank the director of Vamp loose on a couple of James Bond films or maybe the next Batman he certainly keeps the pace
going though he's no herk hervy like hervey's Carnival of Souls also in this year's collection and the Romero Living
Dead pictures vampo is a considerable debt to the old EC Alias educational
horror comics which if you're very very old you may remember with the subject of parliamentary debate and banning in the
1950s these comics with titles like the Crypt of Terror and the Vault of horror
had a sort of gleeful blankness about them till the mask of fear was torn away and ultimate horror revealed in the
final panel on the last page anyway without more Ado here's Vamp the first
film of Richard wank from New World pictures
[Music]
[Laughter]
[Music] tonight A rarely seen drama set during
World War II it's the hill directed by Sydney lumet the American director most famous for his dramas like Network and
Dog Day Afternoon it was made in 1964 the year after lumet's tense nuclear war
drama fail safe and the year before he made the then Sensational porn broker the hill is the story of a
British camp for Army prisoners in North Africa among the convicts are sha connory aie Davis and Roy kir it's an
outstanding cast the offices are played by Ian Bannon and Michael Redgrave and Harry Andrews is regimental sergeant
major Wilson who has designed a Mayan death cult style pyramid in the center
of the prison compound which the men are forced endlessly to run up and down this
hill is of course a metaphor for all sorts of stuff the army war obedience and Society with all its file
institutions and demented sexual sadism the film is so brilliantly photographed though that none of this symbolic stuff
intrudes until the end when the film's origins at a stage play do unfortunately become apparent the camera work was by
Oswald aie Morris how come nobody's called Aussie anymore he also photographed Moby Dick The Guns of
Navarone The Spy Who Came in from the cold and sleuth the opening shot is one
of those long takes that you read about in film textbooks it's certainly On a par with the famous opening of auson
Wells Touch of Evil the film uses wideangle lenses and long takes very effectively particularly in the scene
where the men are introduced and in the Interiors they even managed to make a jail cell
interesting as the warden says in Escape From Alcatraz this isn't about reforming
malactor there's no possibility of making good people here only good prisoners or in this case soldiers as
connory observes in Andrew's prison even the screws are doing time given how much of the hill is excellent it's strange
that it isn't more celebrated certainly it's equal to lumet's other work which sadly has degenerated lately into
formula ex Studio films perhaps the hill is largely unknown because it's so odd a
British war film with an American director and a relentlessly pessimistic take on everything no one gets off the
hook here there is no room for sentimentality and the script remains cruel and strong and plausible almost
until the very end
[Music]
[Applause] [Music]
sometimes also known as kill and say your prayers reques is a spaghetti
Weston directed by Carlo litani in 1968 lisani was a journalist and film
critic who published a major survey of Italian film cha Italiano in
1953 he's also a stage director seen here at the opening of one of his plays in Rome giving encouragement to a young
admirer unlike God whose leftist ideology led him to experiment with film
form in a way guaranteed to alienate the general audience bisani was attempting to communicate with as large a group of
people as possible popular Cinema seems to require considerable dollops of violence and the depiction of women as
victims and hence maybe a dubious vehicle for social reform nevertheless
some of the best art has a moral purpose and contains a message consider Picasso's gica a great painting born
from the artist's grief and outrage over Nazi atroc ities during the Spanish Civil War anyway about this spaghetti Weston
re esant as in requ escan in Pache rest in peace or in this case pieces is the
name given to the central character played by Lou Castell Castell is an interesting actor little scen he was the
bad guy in a bullet for the general and appeared sinisterly playing the piano in Vim venders the American friend here
he's a young innocent found wandering in the desert a traine preacher with the soul of a murdered gunfighter crying out
for Revenge you get the picture the film has a dark sense of humor and some genuinely bizarre moments that rival
anything in Johnny Guitar or Django kill check out the scene among the skeletons or the ingenious murder games even more
interesting is some of the casting Mark Damon is an excellent villain and several of the Pelini actors including
Neto Davoli and Franco chiti appear as indeed does that great Italian director
Pelini himself the role of a machine gun packing priest the previous year Nani made
another Western with the Magnificent title of the Hills run red unfortunately the film directed under the pseudonym of
Lee W Beaver didn't live up to the promise of its fine name requ esant does
like face to face requ esant works on a psychological as well as a political level here as a weird meditation on how
biology determines Destiny in the form of a boy born with gunfighters genes g n
s for the Discerning Enthusiast we profer the new movie Drome guide you can
[Music] find Cape Fear is a film of some
notoriety when it came to Britain in 1962 the sensor was a gast he demanded 6 minutes
of cuts before granting the film an X certificate tonight we've restored those cuts prepare to be
corrupted the problem wasn't with anything that happened on screen so much as with the character played by Robert
Mitchum Max Katie Katie is a sex offender who turns up in a small Florida
town and proceeds to terrorize the local Barrister played by Gregory peek his
wife Bergen and their 12-year-old daughter who wears a push-up bra Cape Fear has a very obvious
screenplay which lays the plot out clearly every chance it gets it's very modern in that respect modern in its
finality and inability to leave anything to the imagination the director is Jay Le
Thompson who was born in Bristol but made most of his films in the United States he too is a straightforward bread
and margerine director best known for The Guns of Navarone and Charles Bronson and Chuck Norris
epics what's best about Cape Fear is its performances The Supporting Cast
particularly Telly savales with hair and Martin Balsam very good but peek and Mitchum are just great peek never fails
to deliver the goods always communicating a sense of decency bewilderment anger and deep
frustration recently he played the writer Ambrose beer in the Dreadful Old Gringo he was the only good thing in the
film Max KY may be 's basest and best performance he plays it cool sexy smart
and really evil it's the sincerity of PEX and Mitchum's performances that make
Cape Fear a good film Cape Fear made a sizable impact on the minds of certain film directors
Nicholas Rogue filled his picture Track 29 with references to it even beginning with a shot of the Cape Fear Bridge and
Martin Scorsese has just remade it in the Florida Everglades with Theo in the MCH roll Nick n as Gregory peek and
Jessica Lang as Polly Bergen Mitchum Balsam and savales all make Cameo
appearances in the scorsi movie which is that director's first for into cinemascope apparently the music in the
scorsi version is the original score by Bernard Herman in the end Cape Fear
doesn't entirely work Florida is one of the most brutal police states in the USA
and if a man like Max KY were really to show up and start threatening the public prosecutor he would wouldn't be around
for very long but the American cinemar likes to pursue this fiction that all a crook has to do is hire himself a lawyer
and the copper hands are tied it's a great dramatic contrivance used in all the Dirty Harry films here Martin msom
tells us you can't arrest a man for something that might be in his mind that is dictatorship tell that to the Los
Angeles Police Department or to lonard Peltier or jono Pratt you might even try
it on the US Supreme Court which recently decided that coerced confessions are
constitutional where was Amnesty International that
[Music]
day oh my God
tonight from movie BR we present Escape from New York co-written and directed by
John carpenter carpenter is a director of a series of horror and science fiction films the most famous and
successful of which is Halloween his first film and in some way his best with
a science fiction comedy called bar star about sers in space bar star was written
by one Dan Oban who later wrote alien alien in spite of a much larger budget
and the inimitable chocolate box photography of lley Scott is essentially the same story with black star mad alien
of spaceship picking off the crew minus the very funny humor of K's original
super low budget film car is a varable director and in some way escap from New
York is one of his more disappointing films sometimes he really pulls it up as
we a f on PR 13 or his remake of The Thing Once he made an almost brilliant
film The highly underrated they live they live is one of the few recent American films to feature a homeless
person as a hero the first hour it's a mesmeric revelation of how yies and the
Soho video and advertising crowd are R Onan who having taken over the planet
and thrown the rest of us out of work they live fall down at the end stumbling
as do many modern science fiction films into a b Welter of chases down corridors and high-tech gunfire and even in this
it's not alone similar mes effects total recoil and terminated too escape from New World really should have been a
brilliant film it premises that 5 years from now all order has broken down and
New York has been turned into a vast Maximum Security Prison encircled by a giant World budgeted in 1981 at 7 milli
in bar it was carpet of most expensive fil toout date it featured some Splendid
actors including Le van C haran Stanton John deal and Kurt russle doing a very
funny Eastwood imitation with a great premise decent money and a good cast
what a state New York go wrong partially I think it's because of the inadequate special effects which were done at Roger
corman's Chapo studio in a Los Angeles rber yard if you study the C closely
you'll see the name of One Jim Cameron who St of a photographer and not artist
could this be the renowned James Cameron of Terminator and the abyss fame maybe
it could if you recall how bad the model work and the matters were in Terminator 1 more to the point well is that the
film obviously doesn't take place here in New York for budgetary reasons it was shot in St Louis and Century City Los
Angeles neither of which resemble Manhattan at all there's a certain laziness and sping quality to this
script which never really gets going the from the level of in jokes such as subsidiary characters named Romero and
cronenburg nevertheless here it
is now on BBC 2 tonight's movie drone presentation Manhunter introduced by
Alex Cox and based on the novel red dragon by Thomas Harris it depicts the hunt for a brutal serial killer the film
contains strong language and some viewers may find the subject matter disturbing
[Applause] [Music] [Applause]
[Music]
if you ever go out to the pictures or even if you only watch television programs about the pictures you can hardly fail to have heard about a film
called Silence of the Lambs directed by Jonathan Demi it's the story of a
hideous but Charming serial murderer named Dr Hannibal Lecter played by
Anthony Hopkins and an FBI agent played by jod Foster who uses the incarcerated
lector's homicidal instincts to track down another serial killer currently at
large what you may not have heard is that there is another film in which the Mad former psychiatrist and Bon Vivant
Lector appears it's called Manhunter and it was directed by Michael man in
1986 comparisons being invidious let's make some Jonathan Demi is a very good
director who keeps improving Michael man is the creator of Miami Vice and an incorrigible faddist Demi's film is
tightly plotted man's is not Demi's film has a real sense of place and so does
man's note the use of the High Museum Atlanta as the location for the high security mental hospital where lecta is
kept Manhunter is full of La stereotypes like the burned out big city cop who lives in a penthouse on the beach and
keeps a Lear jet waiting on the Run way he's more like a TV producer than a cop in fact man's hero is played by William
Peterson essentially reprising his role in to live and D in La both films have
their share of high technology and running jumping hiding shooting cops in Black SS outfits Silence of the Lambs
ends as Manhunter begins seen through a set of high-tech Green Tinted video night vision goggles symbol of psycho
Killers everywhere why then are we showing Manhunter three reasons one is that it's very similar to Silence of the
Lambs and was made four years earlier both films are in fact based on books by the author Thomas Harris second is Brian
Cox the outstanding Shakespearean actor who plays Dr Lecter the Mad intellectual
of whom we earlier spoke Cox and Hopkins looked the spitting image of each other and isn't it interesting that when they
need a literate psychopath in these movies for example Lector or Claus Von buou they cast a heavyweight English
actor and a question why is it that in cop Rock movies like this and To Live
and Die in LA all the characters stand with their heads permanently cocked to one side like this
oh my god oh
[Music]
tonight's offering is a horror film directed by only George clo it's called Le diabolic and yes it's in French with
subtitles in English down at the bottom of the screen but please don't turn off don't change channels and end up
watching some alternative cult film movie drone probably rejected keep watching you will not be disappointed
this film is at least 15 times more frightening than Friday the 12th part 14 or any of the other innan sequels you
can rent down at the news agents this is a real film directed by a real film director and it's really frightening if
you watch diabolique all the way to the end you will be scared guaranteed it's
very unfortunate my having to throw myself at your feet like this and beg you to watch diabo leque but there really does seem to be a lot of
resistance to foreign language films not only in this country but all over Europe France and Britain are relatively
civilized in showing foreign films in their original language assuming they get shown at all Germany Italy and Spain
on the other hand will generally only screen d foreign movies and all across the eec the most popular films are the
American ones with local products coming a distant second and other nations movies hardly registering at all welcome
to 1992 yet imagine a triple bill of repulsion diabo and Paul ven the Fourth
Man three fantastic sexy Euro horror films pit them against the Contemporary
Hollywood product say pet cemetery Freddy's Dead and William friedkin's the guardian why would anybody want to watch
films like these if they could watch films like those well social justice notwithstanding here is diaboli I can't
really tell you what it's all about since the plot is fraught with too many strange twists and surprises let me
instead briefly mention the director H kuo kuso's second feature Loro was made
in 1942 and produced by the german-owned Continental films the film's negative
and depressing view of provincial France was seen as German propaganda and as a result clo didn't direct again until
1947 when he made K cluzo evolved into a cynical highly pessimistic filmmaker and
also a very brilliant one his most celebrated film is the adventure drama wages of fear which was remade not badly
by the aforementioned William friedkin before his fall from high State wages of fear the story of four men paid to truck
High explosives through jungles and across mountains in Honduras is one of the greatest films of all time it was
made entirely in the south of France diabolique has much of the same intensity and mad invention though
unlike wages of fear it's about women not men it features implacable Simon Sor
and the fabulously beautiful Vera cluso wife of the director she was also the glamorously cringing love interest in
wages of fear
one of the problems of working for small independent film companies is that sometimes the funding for their small
Independent films runs out in the middle and the film is never finished or if it is finished the company goes bust and
never brings it out one of the problems of working for Big Rich Studios is that the studio May
lavish lots of money on big ambitious intellectually stimulating artistic films and then just not like the
finished product and refuse to bring it out this is what happened to Brazil
Brazil was made in 1984 by Terry Gilliam it's the film that 1984 wasn't and
should have been it has all the atmosphere and the preoccupations of Orwell's book plus references to heavy
metal comics eisenstein and mad gilam said when asked where the story took
place somewhere on the Los Angeles Belfast border it was also inspired by
his experiences of a police riot in Los Angeles and by a visit to Port Talbert in
Wales Gilliam began his career as a Cartoonist but made his reputation as the inventor of the cutout animation on
Monty Python's Flying Circus in 72 he co-directed Monty Python and the Holy
Grail the first and funniest of the Python films he then made jabuki which we saw last movie Drome season if you
recall and Time Bandits which was a big International hit gilam like Stanley
Kubrick is an American filmmaker who resides in Britain he's a highly skilled
visualist Batman was shot by Roger Pratt who photograph Brazil for Gilliam it
looks identical only not as good Gilliam is also a skillful director of actors
how can this be in one who comes not from the theater but from the drawing board Gillam's answer you just cast the
movie right and then the actors do the work gilliam's contract with the large
and nameless Studio said that the film had to be a maximum of 2 hours and 5
minutes long when he submitted a cut that was 2 hours and 11 minutes long the
sensitive Executives announced that they were going to re-edit the film take out the nasty and the naughty bits and
release it at a length of 90 minutes this happens all the time in Hollywood the same Fate beell The Magnificent
Amberson Star is Born Naked City Red Badge of Courage Invasion of the Body snatches and most of s paginas films the
same Studio when it couldn't figure out how to re-edit a film would simply sit on it this happened with two-lane black
top the last movie and rumblefish Brazil didn't get a wide release in the USA But Gile did manage
to prevent them from re-editing his film by going to war with the studio in the pages of variety gilean made the
executives look stupid and won a Los Angeles critics award for himself and for his film he called Brazil part two
of a Trilogy about the ages of man and the subordination of magic to realism part one being Time Bandits and part
three Baron Monken the studio Executives called Brazil inter minable to sit through and
unreleasable here are all 12,842 fantastic feet
Brazil something truly horrible for
you the baby was directed in 1972 by Ted post Ted post is probably not a name
that most people conjure with yet for me he was one of the best American directors for hire having made a very
passable spaghetti western imitation with Clint Eastwood hangam High and perhaps also the best of the Dirty Harry
films certainly the best of the Dirty Harry sequels Magnum Force most film and TV directors are
directors for higher in fact in the sense that they don't initiate their own projects but direct whatever comes along
a good American example would be Gordon Douglas who did fine work on movies as diverse as Baro and them on our side of
the Atlantic Mike Hodges Springs to mind he directed Get Carter Flash Gordon and
morons from outer space some directors start out for hire and become URS Don seagull being the
obvious example others start out URS and do the reverse William friedkin for
instance who after making sorcerer one of the most expensive personal projects of all time was reduced to doing ch
chase vehicles and ripoffs of his only The Exorcist like the guardian even highly respected American
directors hire themselves out on worthless projects from time to time cppa on Peggy Sue got married Scorsese
on The Color of Money in the hope of getting buck for personal projects Down the
Line Tonight Ted post takes us on a weird 60s Excursion which resembles a
cross between Play Misty For Me and the beg like the beg or which is whatever
happened to Baby Jane the baby is All About Women obsessive oppressive haridan
or predatory innocence who look and sound a lot like characters from an rrum cartoon or from a Corman Ed Gren Poe
movie the heroin appears to live in the house of aser too the dialogue by
Abraham psky who also co-produced the film with another psky Milton is
Sensational though made in 72 the baby is pure Hippa do you like physical
exercise says I'm a Scorpio we're very cautious which occasionally Rises to the
sublimely manic Heights of whatever happened to Baby Jane when you're a winner Alba the possibility of losing
doesn't exist Ruth Roman is excellent as Mrs Wordsworth a mad combo of Joan Collins
Elizabeth Taylor and Joan Crawford and Anna jet coma is a more than able foil I
didn't mean any harm Mrs Wadsworth I just want to help baby reach his full potential
are you sure that's all you want Mrs Gentry what more could there
be the baby does descend into the familiar girls creeping through the darkened corridors of the old darkhouse
mode in the last wheel but it redeems itself completely in its final minutes with the most outstandingly sick ending
of any film yet shown on movie drum
[Music]
[Music]
face to face is one of three political Western by the Italian director Sergio solima who sometimes operates under the
pseudonym of Sterling Simon the other two films with a big gundown an excellent Bounty Hunter movie starting
van CLE and Thomas Milan and run man run a rather worse than mediocre sequel
involving the Further Adventures of Milan they were political in much the same way as all the spaghetti western
setting up a rural urban conflict in which the city dwellers are always Insidious to generates or urious bankers
and the rural characters innocent exploitee Often championed by a glamorous social Bandit it's a
straightforward simple-minded view that you can find even in supposedly sophisticated Italian films the most
numbering example perhaps being 1900 face to face which was made in 1967
has been described as a parable of the rise of European fascism well maybe it certainly has the
political schematic outlined above but to me it seems more a basian tale of fate and
doppelgangers you can take your pick it also has and this is where it gets good some of the most improbable character
names and some of the most outlandish haircuts ever seen in a western Jan
Maria volun plays Professor Brad Fletcher a consumptive Boston University
teacher who heads West for his health Volante is of course one of the great spaghetti western actors he was the
Bandit Chief in Fistful of Dollars and for a few dollars more and he was the unwilling revolutionary in a bullet for
the general volunteer was a serious actor who'd been blacklisted for being a communist Leon was the first director to
break ranks and give him a job later he went on to appear in more serious political films including sacko and
vanetti and Franchesco rosi's lucky luchano he's always good and this is one
of his better Western roles in face to face Brad Fletcher becomes involved with
a Mexican Bandit with the unlikely moniker of Solomon borgard Bennett
leader of a hippias Outlaw gang called Bennett's Raiders borgard is played by
Thomas Milan theum actor who appeared in salma's other political Western and in many other spaghettis including the
truly extraordinary D Jango kill Milan like B is a proper actor he played the
priest in Dennis Hopper's Peruvian epic the last movie and recently was seen as one of the anti-castro Hitmen in Oliver
Stone's JFK the chemistry between Volante and Milan is really interesting and it keeps the film alive when it
might otherwise expire as for instance in the in congruous hippie commune scenes there are also those haircuts to
contend with but face to face is really quite an entertaining and intriguing film watch out for several spaghetti
western regulars including William Burger as the mysterious Charlie Singo Aldo sell as the treacherous Polecat
Zachary shot and anel Del porel in the role of the gentleman gunfighter
maximilan Doon for the Discerning Enthusiast we
profer the new movie Drome guide you can find out how to order your copy at the
end of tonight's film I have an Ann
now on BBC 2 we begin a new weekly series called movie Drome
good evening my name is Alex Cox and welcome
to the movie drone a season of cult films what is a cult film cult film is
one which has a passionate following but does not appeal to everybody James Bond movies are not cult
films but chainsaw movies are just because a movie is a cult movie
does not automatically guarantee quality some cult movies are very bad others are
very very good some make an awful lot of money at the box office others make no money at
all some are considered quality films others are
exploitation one thing they do have in common is that their old genre films that's to say a French word meaning the
type or category of film in question for example gangster films or
Western cult films also have a tendency to slush over from one genre Nora into
another so that a science fiction film might become a detective movie or vice
versa they're also generally cheaply made most of the films in this season
cost under $2 million some of them cost a great deal less they share common themes as well
themes which I would suggest are the common themes of all drama Love Murder
and greed murder and greed predominate in this
season tonight's film is called the Wicker man it was written by Anthony Schaffer who's the author of
sleuth cine fantastic magazine called it rather optimistically The Citizen Cane
of horror films it was directed by Robin Hardy a British director who formerly
specialized in television commercials it has a cult reputation
although most of the people who rate it very highly as a cult as far as I'm aware haven't seen it at least not in
its original version it was originally 102 minutes long but the owner of the film decided
that it would be much better if they cut 15 minutes out and put it on the second half of a double bill this was back in
the days when when you went to the pictures you used to get two films for the price of one so they cut it down to
87 minutes and in 1973 released it on a double bill with don't look now
as the years went by and the film's cult reputation grew attempts were made to restore the missing
portions but attempts to find the original negative were frustrated apparently the negative ended up in the
pylons that support the M4 Motorway the version that we're going to
show tonight contains a number of the original scenes that were thought to have been lost however there's one
principal scene still missing it's an early sequence in which Edward Woodward
who plays a Scottish police officer is introduced and we're told he's engaged
to be married and he has not yet known a woman so bear that in mind as you enjoy
the Pagan Delights of the Wicker man which include Lindsay Kemp the mime
artist Christopher Lee without his cape and Brit Eckland dubbed in Scottish
[Music]
movie drum as you may know is supposed to be a forum for cult films with this in mind we've shown the work of cult
directors like Robert Aldrich Don seagull John Waters and Roger Corman and we've screened some genuinely hardto
find cultist Rarities including honeymoon killers and Carnival of Souls because films of this nature don't
necessarily attract the biggest audience and Nick Jones the produc producer and director of the series and the man who
picks these movies is under an obligation to the corporation to attract some viewers now and then at times we
have departed from our brief in order to show commercial as hell super Blockbusters such as
Terminator tonight Nick and I both wish to atone for such incorrect Behavior by
screening a cult movie Power Excellence a 200% cult classic Frank zappers 200
motels you must remember 200 motels it was always playing at midnight on Saturday at the Scara back when you were
protesting against the Vietnam War and listening to atam Hart mother that's right it's that film probably you saw
the advert in the paper or on the Marquee and equally probably you didn't go and see it now you
can 200 motels was directed by Frank zapper and Tony Palmer in
1971 Tony Palmer was a British television director who also made musical biopics including one in which
Sir Richard Burton played Vagner example was as you're probably aware the leader of a famous band from the' 60s
and70s called the Mothers of Invention 200 motels is a rockumentary precursor
to spinal tap and contemporaneous to the monkey's head unlike say early Beatles movies where there was some attempt to
find a plot The Disappearance of Paul's Granddad for instance 200 motels has no
plot and consists of concert footage and comedic sketches of Aon and Martin's laughing nature naturally featuring
members of the band there is also so some animation of a sub Gillum variety
the movie was shot on video and later transferred to film there's actually some very funny stuff much of it
centering around the character of Jimmy Carl Black who at one point remarks just
as long as I get some beer and get paid I'll do anything I'm
professional it's interesting to note that 200 motels was made in Britain at Pinewood Studios this was the time when
American Studios were actually coming to England to do Productions because it was so much cheaper now European production
costs have driven the Americans and in many cases the Europeans mismos back to the United
States apparently Frank zampa conceived 200 motels as a musical work to be performed live in concert he attempted
to have the London philarmonic Orchestra play it but venue officials declared the libretto obscene and refused to allow it
to be performed on daunted Zappa turned the magnum opus into a film
incorporating footage of the Mothers of Invention shot over the previous 5 years the results follow among them Keith Moon
as a nun Ringo Star on the final solution to the orchestra question and Jimmy Carl's Immortal Lonesome Cowboy
Bert oh and the monolith from 2001 A Space Odyssey I wonder what you'll make of it
Frank Zappa is by any standards an extraordinary man in addition to this film and Records too numerous to mention
he owns a mail order business Barco swill which turns over a million dollar a year he once described himself as
never a hippie always a freak but never a hippie in politics he sees himself as
a traditional conservative although he views politics not as a matter of leftwing and right-wing but rather of
fascism versus Freedom as a pragmatist he is a registered Democrat but says he
might prefer to vote Republican if you were to extract the evil influence of the religious right from the Republican
Party
[Music] TW was brillig and the slidy toes did
guy and gimbal in the wave all Mimsy were the
boves and the mom wraths out grave beware the jabberwock my son the
Jaws that bite the claws that catch beware the Jubjub bird and shun the
fumus bander snatch he took his vpal sword in hand
long time the manom foe he sought then rested he by the tum tum
tree and stood a while in thought and as in offish thought he
stood the jabberwock with eyes of flame came whiffling through the tgy
wood and burbled as it came Snick snack Snicker snack the vpal blade
went through and back he left it dead and with its head
he went galumphing back and as thou slain the jaok come to
my arms my Beamish boy oh frous day c
c he chortled in his Joy it was brillig and the slidy toes did
guy and gimbal in the wave all Mimsy were the B
go here's Alex Cox [Music]
[Music]
[Music]
[Music]
in Invasion of the Body snatches is that rare thing a remake that is as good as the original film there have been
countless lousy and incompetent remakes stage coach for instance or Father of the Bride sometimes they are so bad they
have to be concealed under a different title the remake of out of the past was called Against All Odds off hand I can
think of only one other instance in which a genuinely good remake was made and that was William freins wages of
fear a truly inspired retelling of the French classic when Wes of fear was a
great film based on a great film it was also a Monumental failure at the box office Invasion of the Body snatches is
a good film based on a good film needless to say it made lots of money and made its director Philip cman that
equally rare thing an independent American filmmaker whom the studios considered bankable from Humble and
intelligent Beginnings like the great Northfield Minnesota raid he went on to achieve Grand eloquence in the form of
the right stuff and the unbearable lightness of Daniel de Lewis the original version of the Invasion of
the Body snatches has been shown on movie Drome as the gentle viewer will no doubt recall made in 1955 it was a dark
and Moody science fiction Thriller a bit intellectual and a tad more subtle than the radioactive Cloud that turns men
into giant ants 50s Norm directed by Don seagull was a parable of the
encroachment of a dangerous alien Conformity upon a small California town
at the time the great manufactured paranoia was communism and the film could be viewed as a warning against
said political Doctrine or as a criticism of those who would suppress it at all costs communism remained the Great
American fear through six presidencies justifying the enormous military expenditures of the Truman Eisenhower
Kennedy Johnson Nixon and Ford years by 1978 Carter was president and the Red
Menace didn't seem to Menace anymore in fact for a brief while it began to appear that the Menace might actually be
domestic rather than foreign hence the very different take of Philip cowman's film instead of a small town in northern
California we're in San Francisco a city filled with already threatening people and job
descriptions long before the aliens show up in force it's obvious that something's wrong the post Vietnam post
Watergate fear of big unseen power politics lurks at the edges of the film
one of the symbols of lurking corporate encroachment in this version of Invasion of the Body snatches is this oddl
looking skyscraper a little like a stretched out version of the Masonic pyramid on the dollar bill it appears
several times and always manages to aggravate our sense of unease ironically or maybe not this building is called the
trans Amer Tower Trans America being a massive corporation that owned among other assets United Artists the producer
of this film watch out for Don seagull playing a small role as a taxi driver
and Kevin McCarthy star of the previous body snatches reprising one of the scen from the original film also be on the
lookout for a 5-sec appearance from Robert Duval whose part is so small he doesn't receive a credit and Leonard
Nimoy in a nonoy eared role Grateful Dead fans should prepare to enjoy Jerry
Garcia on the banjo
[Music]
here on two tonight's film in the movie Drome is Ken Russell's controversial account of the composer trov tempestuous
sexual and emotional life introduced by Alex Cox
[Music]
a
[Music]
[Music]
[Music] Ken Russell is according to the conventional wisdom the baddest boy of
British Cinema it's fashionable among the critical and produc serial Elite to deride our Ken and treat him as a
finished madman from a bygone age this in spite of the fact that in just the last 2 or 3 years he's made at least
four feature films and in spite of the fact that any video shop you go into is
bound to be a veritable Trove of Russell films the list of his important films is extremely long the Devils Tommy Savage
Messiah women in love the boyfriend Valentino even his bad films principally Altered States have some very
interesting stuff in them and his recent work in salam's last dance and the lair of the White Worm shows no significant
dimming of Russell's Creative flare it's not hard to say why Russell's pictures tend to go the critics in the
intelligencia for a start he himself is a noted critic Basher having accosted a
notable critic on live TV in addition he's somewhat self-indulgent no recent
Russell film can be complete without a fantasy sequence featuring crucified sheep and writhing naked nuns but his
worst crime maybe is that no matter how elevated his subject matter his approach to it is always resolutely
anti-intellectual there is nothing Russell likes more than broad humor and hosts of people drinking and taking off
their clothes tonight's film the music lovers is the life story of chaikovsky
Russell is very fond of biopics about composers and other artists his early work for the BBC included dramatic
biographies of Rickard Strauss and Frederick Deus imagine how the music lovers would
have been if for example David partam had made it long reverential credit sequence black screen credits go on and
on music builds more credits cut to a fabulous Country House in the Ukraine
cut to 100 extras ping in the fields cut to a butler pouring a glass of vodka cut
to a shot of sunlight streaming through parted curtains onto a man at the piano music builds and so on for the next 3
and 1/2 hours we're talking Oscar material our Ken will have none of this his chaikovsky is a gay man married to
an infomaniac with a bit of music on the side a lot of music actually it's great
it's really funny has a screenplay by South Bank supro Melvin Bragg Great Performances particularly from glender
Jackson as Mrs chaikovsky and from Richard Chamberlain who appears to be really playing the piano in the concert
scenes I think it's this determination not to make a well-made film but rather
to make an entertaining madap film which really catches your attention that annoys the critics so your cultural
Elite like to believe that fellas like chaikovsky and mzori and rimsey corov are their property what Russell does is
to attempt to make highbrow stuff less posh less exclusive sometimes he fails as in his
Nightmare on Elm Street version of the Byron Shelly story Gothic but more often he succeeds as in salam's last dance or
in the Devils if you haven't seen the Devils you should try and get a copy on tape they don't make films like it
anymore and it isn't going to show up on TV uncut anytime in the next 5,000 years
but for tonight the music lovers set in Russia in the 1870s shot in England in
the 1970s a big budget British film with
balls the Silver Screen on the small screen now on BBC 2 with Alex Cox as a supporting feature just before a movie
drum double bill
[Music]
inside
[Music]
tonight movie drone presents Excalibur the story of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table known during
development and pre-production by a variety of titles including Merlin Merlin lives and knights it's held
together partially by the character of Merlin the magician portrayed by Nicole Williamson in a silver skull cap the
monthly film bulletin was scathing about Williamson calling his performance abysmal but I don't really agree
he has a difficult job holding together a vast array of unrelated and sometimes incomprehensible elements and I think he
does it well apparently Excalibur was conceived by director John Borman as an
alternative to his long planned but never executed version of Lord of the
Rings the buletin is an interesting take on this long rambling project observing that there is such a thing as too
personal a project an idea turned over for so long that it's individuality gets trapped inside it the consensus film
making dreamt of by Hollywood committees whoa well it's certainly is as unfocused
as a lot of Hollywood committee movies as Borman struggles to incorporate a lot of history and Legend and poetic sources
into an epic tale with no particular Central character but among the long proceedings
there is much good as well as bad the cast is great Helen mirin is a splendid
Morgana and the Knights are a veritable who's who of Future movie stars leam
niss is s gain Gabriel burn is Uther pen dragon and Patrick Stewart Captain Jean
luk Picard of the Starship Enterprise is Leon de gr the special Optical effects
are by veteran effectson Wally beavers and the special photography is by Oxford scientific films
the production designed by Anthony Pratt is sometimes predictable but sometimes fascinating as when the knights ride
into a medieval settlement and discover a hell's mouth wonderful period detail in the form of a stage on which
depictions of hell and other religious torments were portrayed by actors the predecessor of theater and
film my problem with Excalibur is that it's so legendary it's sometimes hard to
care what's going on will sir bucket find the Holy Grail or will he fall into to the fiery pit it's only interesting
if I know who so bucket is is he a minor league Knight or a major player how many
chattles does he have how many vassals how many surfs toil in his fields and
what sort of toiling do they do do they produce anything or merely gravel in mud as in Monty Python and the Holy Grail
now that film was full of surfs and so the film was grounded or mudded in this
film you rarely see a commoner it's all so long ago and shrouded in the mids of necromancy that it's a tad difficult to
relate to of course the director screenwriter producer might reply it's
not reality it's myth it's Legend and he'd have a very good point although if
it is meant to exist on a Mythic not mundane level shouldn't it be a bit bigger a bit more magical note the fine
beginning for example with its red sky and horses apparently breathing fire the kurasa would have cut to the big night
shot with a thousand men with flaming torches running down the hill excam anything but a cheap film but Borman
keeps almost everything in medium shock the search for the Grail if this is myth or Legend could take us to the Gobi or
Sahara Desert even to the rainforests of Mexico or Brazil but no all these canoby
Knights do is ride around the damper parts of Ireland in the Mist mustn't Grumble though whatever the film's
virtues and faults it was a tremendous achievement of the director producer getting many million dollars out of
Columbia Pictures Warner Brothers and Orion to make a film about a British subject with no American actors at all
this was back in the m and shrouded days of 1981 of course such a Mythic Quest
might not be as attainable today
[Music]
[Music]
oh my God [Music]
[Music]
good evening and welcome to the fifth season of movie Drome you see there really is no shortage of weird and
interesting cult type films in spite of the abysmal Dre which passes for entertainment in the Contemporary Cinema
in keeping with our traditional policy of only presenting the most positive and uplifting visions of the Dream Factory
we have three pictures depicting Hollywood as hell day of the Locust inserts and Robert aldrich's the big
knife Aldrich Remains the most prolific movie Drome director but he receives
strong competition this year from Canada's own David Cronenberg we're presenting the TV premieres of dead
ringers and the depraved rabid perhaps Mr cronenberg's most horrible and Brilliant film we have directorial
offerings from auson Wells Larry Co Clint Eastwood Stanley kubric and hly
George clol and Sterling performances by Dennis Hopper Vincent Price Ed Harris
Ida Lupino Bob Hoskins Shelley Winters Peter cers and Marilyn Chambers we have
a giant alligator in the New York sewer [Music]
system and a pterodactyl in the krya [Music] [Applause]
building several ingenious murder plots and a befuddled University Professor
infatuated with a teenage nymphet we even have a nonviolent peinar film to
say nothing of no less than two movies with the word serpent in the title how can the Discerning copile
resist our first film tonight is one of the last gasps of the once proud Australian Australian Cinema madmax 2
Mad Max one you may recall was a lowbudget science fiction action thriller which introduced M Gibson to
the agog world madmax 2 is that rare thing a sequel which is actually better
than the original the only other instance I can think of is for a few dollars more the sequel to a fist full
of dollars interestingly in both cases the director Remains the Same Leon of
course went on to make an even better sequel for Good the Bad and the Ugly the second Mad Max sequel Beyond Thunderdome
was by all accounts not of the same caliber despite the presence of the noted actress Tina Turner and Mr Gibson
yet again Mad Max 2 released in the US as the road warrior is a tremendous action film
benefiting from a bigger budget than madmax one it also lacks its predecessors dazzley borrowings and
pretentiousness it still borrows extensively from Road movies spaghetti Weston Punk fashion and John Ford
Cavalry films but in a very clever and entertaining way the director was George Miller and for my money it's his best
film but what's best for the Discerning viewer isn't always what's best for our favorite planet and Mad Max 2 really
should have been forced to file an environmental impact report before beginning shooting what with all the
burning tires blazing diesel fuel wasted petrol and the inevitable mounds of Styrofoam cups and flattened beer cans
dumped in the desert Mad Max 2 and all of its ilk of action films stands as a major ecological Menace as to all Motion
Pictures when you consider the volume of toxic chemicals produced by the processing laboratory and ultimately
dumped into the groundwater and the sewage system of the unhappy city where the film is edited films are a
petrochemical process and a waste intensive industry and if this relatively humble offering is bad what
about a 30 or a 40 million Buck Exploder armor such as Die Hard 3 or Terminator 9
can you imagine the amount of pollution generated by Arnold Schwarzenegger's camper or Mel Gibson's Lear jet
ultimately of course this trade means nothing films are big business like Napal manufacturer or the second
generation Concord but to reduce waste in the entire entertainment business
don't watch big budget Hollywood movies which are disproportionately idiotic in their excess don't ever watch
commercials or rock videos for the same reason and stay tuned to movie Drome home of the lower budget marginally
ecologically Sounder films yay
[Music] [Applause]
tonight's film rope is a famous Thriller by the director of so many famous Thrillers Alfred Hitchcock in seven
years this is the first Hitchcock film we've shown on movie Drome and there's a reason for that while movie Drome in
theory is a selection of cult and weirdo type movies Hitchcock is the epitome of the commercial director his films were
designed to be seen by the largest of mass audiences in the United States Europe and all over the world of all
Hitchcock films perhaps only psycho and the birds odd uncharacteristic movies made late in his career could be
described as cult movies why then are we showing rope because in addition to
being a celebrated Thriller rope is also famous as a cinematic experiment an
attempt to give the illusion that the film was made in one continuous shot
I've always wished for more artistic talent well Verda can be an art too the power
to kill can be just as satisfying as the power to create in fact the fame of rope is
slightly exaggerated there are at least two exchanges of close-ups at crucial moments in the film and an opening
exterior but the rest of the film is played as if it were one continuous shot
uninterrupted by close-ups medium shots or Masters at the time the average film
had anything up to 600 separate Cuts in it today with the fast editing
popularized by television programs and MTV videos the cuts can number in the thousands and there's nothing inherently
wrong in that a film can exist any way the filmmaker wants it to and some filmmakers as diverse as Bruce Connor
and Nicholas Rogue have produced fascinating films whose Excellence was in the
editing at the same time editing strategies especially the modern exchanges of televisual close-ups can
become predictable the long take if done well cannot remember the extraordinary
opening shot of Touch of Evil would that sequence be remembered today it had been accomplished by 30 shots instead of
one in rope Hitchcock goes one better than any other exponent of the long take
fashioning a film which appears to be one continuous sequence obviously it can't be a roll of 35 mm film is at the
maximum 1,000 ft long approximately 10 minutes hence every 10 minutes Hitchcock
and his cameraman Joseph Valentine were forced to find a solution to the problem of the real change and they often joined
reals by having a character walk past the camera momentarily blacking out the
frame if R the story of two dispassionate young Killers based on the Leopold and lobe murder case resembles
theater it's not surprising it's based on a play by the British novelist and playwright Patrick Hamilton his work has
recently been rediscovered rope was revived this year in London the entire film was shot on a
sound stage in a set specially constructed with flying walls and Furniture which moved on especially
greased rollers a special dolly was invented by the key grip Morris Rosen to
allow the bulky Studio camera greater freedom of movement as many as five
microphone boom operators were working simultaneously to record live sound to
complicate matters still still further it was Hitchcock's first color film and they had great problems creating the
right effect of evening light towards the end of the film when cameraman Valentine left the picture due to
illness Hitchcock reshot the final five reels in spite of its theatrical Origins
rope is far from staging able to act out entire sequences sometimes 10 minutes in
length the actors are able to deliver performances as opposed to Snippets
James art as the suspicious professor and John D and Farley Granger as the killers are
outstanding take it easy philli rubit on to something he isn't
now let got to have a drink brandid enough you're not take your hand off my arm don't you ever again tell me what to
do and what not to do I don't like it Brandon and I'm not going to take Ino I
uh hope I didn't upset Philip you never let me no no he's more likely mixing his
drinks you seem rather upset yourself do what special praise is due the model
making section of the art Department who produced a giant perspective model of the New York skyline outside the
apartment Windows including replicas of the Empire State and krysler building
the skyline contained 6,000 flashing lights 200 miniature neon signs 26,000
ft of wire and was operated by 47 different different switches the said
model also included cloud formations made from spun glass and chicken wire under the direction of the famous
meteorologist Dr Dinsmore alter rehearsals for rope took 10 days
filming began on January 22nd 1948 and ended on February 21st 4 weeks later
because it was based on an actual event rope was a cause of anxiety in certain parts of the United States it was banned
in Chicago where the crime occurred and also in Spokane Memphis and
Seattle well now on BBC 2 a welcome back to Alex Cox to introduce a new season of
cult films in movie Drome good evening and welcome to the
fourth SE season of movie Drome this year's selection of cult and obscure ephemera will take us from Finland to
Lawrence Kansas and from Notting Hill gate to Cape Fear most movie Drome movies aren't big
hits in Hollywood either with Cinema goers or the studios that Finance them in fact if there's a typical movie Drome
film it was probably financed by a major Studio which fired the director halfway through and then pulled out entirely
leaving the cast to pull their savings and finish the film and in another country under the directorship of a
generous used car dealer don't be surprised if many of the films we show were made by the likes of Joseph losy
Terrence Malik Richard rush and Aon Wells all of whom were given the old heave Ho by the conventional movie scene
likewise don't be surprised to find them making films about tormented artists to it this season's biopic of Mishima
chaikovsky and Lenny Bruce if you love big glossy Hollywood
Productions starring Robin Williams and Steve Martin Robert Redford and Merill stre stop watching turn off now be
warned the Drone may prove damaging to your taste but if you actually like
films that were shot in abandoned fun fairs in Lawrence Kansas or in the bowels of Russian rocket launching tubes
stay tuned [Applause] [Music] [Applause]
[Music] a
[Music] Clint Eastwood made three films with the Italian director Sergio Leon and five
with the American Don seagull he parted company with Leone in ' 66 and with seagull in the 70s and since then has
been pretty much his own director though he usually bequeaths the director's seat to someone else he hangs on to the
Reigns so to speak producing all the films in which he appears certain movies for certain reasons he directs himself
and most of those show substantial debits to Don seagull and Sergi Leone
Leone and seagull were top-of-the-line action directors in their respective countries Leone collaborated with Robert
alrich on Sodom and Gomorrah and directed Eastwood in three Millennial spaghetti westons seagull who had begun
life as an editor graduated the Top Flight B movies such as riot in cellblock 11 and The Killers seagull and
Eastwood made kuan's Bluff in 1968 it's an effective film about an Arizona
Sheriff who comes to New York to catch a bad man was his first film without a horse or a mule in 1970 they both made
Two Mules for Sister Sarah a dismal imitation spaghetti Weston co-starring Shirley mlan Eastwood appeared in
several imitation Italian Western actually including Ted post's Lively hangam high and Joe kid a wretched
ripoff of the big silence which we saw on movie dome last year in 1971 Eastwood
and Don seagull made the majorly successful Dirty Harry and in 1979 they did Escape escaped from
alcatra but in between Eastwood and seagull found time to make another film one that's extremely weird and
uncharacteristic of them and that's the film we're going to see tonight it's another Western set in the Civil War and
called the beged the begal is unlike anything else that seagull did for a start it's mostly
about women Eastwood is the only male character in the film nor is it a conventional cowboy film there are no
cowboys instead of his us heroic self Eastwood plays a deserter from the Union Army wounded but game for whatever's
going on in a weird Gothic house full of obsessive Confederate spinsters who decide to keep him it's a cross between
a jacoban tragedy and Ambrose beus which is not very far apart at all beus was a
civil war Scout who later became a cynical journalist and vanished in Mexico looking for Pancho via he wrote
about a dozen short stories set during the Civil War which just extraordinary really Vivid and grim and beautifully
written be's victorians or prev victorians are very mod in their evil
banality so are the villains of jacoban tragedies although a tad more flamboyant
and the characters in the beg well they're sort of 60s is in fact the beg
comes from that happy time when it was possible to experiment with Cinema play with film language with multi exposures
and dream sequences the era of Midnight Cowboy and the last movie today when the American film
industry makes a film about the Civil War they fill it with lies about honor and nobility and the privilege of being
gunned down carrying the flag and call it Glory Wilfred Owen would not approve
but be would be amused [Music]
up Alex Cox and the team are going out tonight with a bang it was the 70s thinking man's horror movie that Drew a
new benchmark [Music]
[Music]
[Music] the slow motion naked school girl shower
fantasy you are about about to see is one of the distinctive Hallmarks of the cinema of Brian the Palmer director of
Wan's wake get to know your rabbit Phantom of The Paradise Scarface The
Untouchables and various other films Thea is often described by film critics
as the air to Hitchcock but though he may share certain misogynistic traits in
common with the master the films which are mostly referred to as hitchcockian body double dress to kill and blowout
seem to be ripped off not so much from as from Dario agento agento as you
may recall is the Italian director of such films as four flies on gray velvet tpia Opera and the recent trauma most of
his films are so extremely horrible that they're not showable on television I'm serious here I honestly don't think that
argenta's films should be seen by The Accidental portion of a remote control button you have to want to see them
which many people do just as many people want to go and see pink flamingos or Peter Greenway m person on pass it does
seem odd to me the British Board of film sensors allows Dario agento films to be shown but still won't give a certificate
to Monty helman's fighter one of the very best American films of the 70s by what standard are we not allowed to
witness fights legally staged in the United States that we are permitted to watch the violent disemboweling of
women in our gento films or the Palmer's body double I suppose the answer would be that one is offensive to animal
lovers and the other is entertainment and agento and depa are good filmmakers there's no doubt about
it one agento film we might considerably show is his first movie bird with Crystal page it's a good filler with a
great soundtrack by anyo morone check out the music of Crystal plumage and the soundtrack of body double they are at
some points very similar the Palmer of course actually began to use Monon as his composer on his more recent films
anyway her tonight's film carry this was the Palmer's first big hit he made it
in' 76 a couple of years after his cult successes sisters and Phantom of The Paradise his films are marked by a
considerable degree of black humor and are sometimes framed as nightmares or dreams there are often paroxysms of
violence in the fury John cavetti explodes repeatedly from different camera angles which departa states is
his incorporation of eisenstein's theory of Montage as conflict film is violance
he has been quoted this saying Kye was the first film in which the name of Steven King appeared it's based on
his novel today of course it's impossible to see a horror film which doesn't bear the moniker of Step King
except the lawnmower man whose produ of King sued to force him to take his highly valuable nomenclature off the
poster not sure why speculation is that the film wasn't up to the normal artistic standard of your regular
Stephen King film well there have actually been some good Stephen King films among them Kujo and The multipart
Creep Show for my money carry is the best of them all the script is good has
great performances from SP and pyi the pal direct will abandon and it
provides an early example of the trick ending staple of all horror films thereafter often used to set up the
endless round of sequels as with Nightmare on Elm Street on Friday the 13th do not reveal the ending to your
friends for the Discerning Enthusiast we profer the new movie Drome guide for £3
and a limited number of the original guide at a special price of £5 for the
two copies are available by sending a check or Postal order made out to BSS to
movie Drome PO Box 7 London W3 6xj
[Music]
[Music]
[Music] welcome to the sixth season of movie
Drome this year we proudly offer a selection which includes several insane
Western a clutch of prison escape
dramas welcome to alcatra and the British premiere of no less than
four cult features never before publicly screened on these shs go
f
go I'm so sick of people trying to run my life you know babe bra this babe bra
that what's my name you dumb ass it's B brother my name is Sam Samuel sit
out what you I can't understand for the Discerning Enthusiast
we also profer the new movie Drome guide for a mere £3 and a limited number of
the original old movie Dome guide at a bonus price of £5 for the two buy both
and save a pound found copies of these heirloom quality Publications which future generations of
cave dwellers will undoubtedly be mystified by are available by sending a check or Postal order made out to BSS to
movie Drome PO Box 7 London w36
XJ tonight a film by Sam Ry director of the Evo dead you probably recall the
controversy surrounding ry's lowbudget 1980 Horror Picture in the cold light of day it's hard to see what all the
posturing was about Evil Dead was a good competent Cabin in the Woods horror flick certainly not a CO salor worthy of
all the anguish and outrage that surrounded its release on video ry's bigger budget crime wave made in 1985
was considerably less successful but Evil Dead 2 was a tremendous film full of all sorts of man
originality manic originality is less in evidence when we witness Sam ry's first
Studio picture Darkman late in 1990 Darkman was obviously
intended to be a sequel procreator along the lines of Batman the music for both films was composed by Danny Elfman
however it didn't work out that way Darkman lacks the well-developed comic book roots of Batman o Dick Tracy and
spends rather too much time referring to the Phantom of the Opera or indulging in familiar grotesquery definitely a case
of too many writers with no less than five names credited with the screenplay nevertheless blessed with with a massive
budget Ry does come up with some impressive action scenes though seemingly the picture was taken away
from him by the beneficent Studio during editing directors for hire John Landis
and William deer have tiny acting roles as do several hack producers from the studio what they couldn't find any
actors in Los Angeles ry's most recent film is Army of Darkness a sort of sequel to Evil Dead 2
which takes place where the previous film dumped its protagonist the dark ages one rather distasteful thing about
dark man is its use of the common American movie cliche the Disposable black man I had a girlfriend who worked
one of the major studios in Burbank California and she and the other secretaries were allowed to see the new
studio product every week and they used to take BS among themselves as to what real the black character would die in no
kidding this was a few years ago but nothing has changed to judge from Clint Eastwood's unsavory use of Morgan
Freeman in Unforgiven for a while it seemed like every action movie coming out of Hollywood had a white hero with a black
best friend who dieded somewhere between reals 2 and eight in order to supply the hero with a convenient Revenge motive oh
we don't go to see those Hollywood pictures much but a couple of years ago I made the mistake of seeing dark man
and David Lynch's Wild at Heart in a single weekend at the start of Wild at Heart The White hero beats a black guy
till his brains run from his head in dark man Ry establishes the villain's villainy by having him cut off a black
man's fingers with a cigar cutter coincidence or something else well I
don't know and I expect that sort of thudding mindless racism from thudding mindless Blockbuster directors but Lynch
and Ry come on boys do
[Music]
better but now on BBC 2 We join Alex Cox who will tell us a thing or two about tonight's classic cult film big
Wednesday ah big Wednesday which was made in 1978
is a film about the big score in its purest form three American Surfers in
search of the perfect wave it was critically unpopular when it first came out it was accused of being
grandiose and pretentious which it is but a lot of good films are grandiose
and pretentious including citizen Cain the director's name is John milus
he also co-wrote Dirty Harry Apocalypse Now and wrote and directed a magnificent
film called Red Dawn he has a reputation for being the
most right-wing film director in Hollywood which is rather like being the tallest player on a basketball
team he's a good director though very highly regarded I don't know if it's really
true about him being extremely right-wing or not I only saw a photograph of him one time and he seemed
a fairly normal guy um except that he was wearing a green beret uniform
I think he's upfront about the fact that he's a looney though and we should respect him for that and he is a very
good film director which is even more deserving of our respect his films are very well put together the acting is
normally excellent this film is based on his early days because in his youth he was a
surfer and when you see his name in the titles the photograph that accompanies the title is of millius and some friends
with their boards maybe one of the reasons the film wasn't popular the critics is that the
critics aren't Surfers but if you like the ocean if you admire these guys who get up really early in the morning and
go out where it's really cold and wet you might like big Wednesday it's milus
his American Graffiti one of the actors in it Gary buzy who played Buddy Holly in The Buddy
Holly Story taught himself to sing and play guitar for Buddy Holly and learned to swim and surf for this film big
Wednesday
portrayal of life in this divided country and contains strong language and disturbing scenes
[Music]
[Music]
inside Salvador was directed in 1986 by Oliver Stone although it always features
in his filmography as Stone's first film as a director it was actually his third or even and fourth for some reason his
early triumphs are not referred to by critics earnestly intent on evaluating the great man's work okay I'm being a
bit vious the truth is the worth of Stone's other films apart Salvador is a really great film I first saw it at the
film Market at the can film festival it was the film's first International screening and there were two other
people in the audience this was of course before the success of platoon also made by the stone John Daly Derek
Gibson team for my money platoon is complete rubbish a nasty bit of propaganda which suggests that if the
poor poor American GIS had only had better officers they would have won the Vietnam War by Salvador however I was
blown away I was so impressed by and involved in the film that I couldn't remember where I was so strong was the
film and so authentic that it was completely overpowering even in a tiny screening room at 3:00 in the afternoon
no get out of the car out the car
whatever you do doctor whatever you do okay don't get on the ground Jesus
Christ man this is scary Salvador is based on the experiences of American journalist Richard Bo who
covered events in El Salvador in the early years of the Reagan regime in Washington Bo is a great character
wonderfully played by James Woods a freeco ambulance Chaser whose partnership with the James Belushi
character Dr Rock seems more than a little based on the characters of Hunter Thompson and his American Samoan lawyer
Dr Gonzo in the celebrated counterculture narrative Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas in fact by
borrowing so heavily from fear and lothing in Las Vegas Stone has achieved The Impossible created a film with a
journalist protagonist whom you actually like because it's part of the course for Liberal films about foreign policy
issues to have a reporter for their hero think of the Year of Living Dangerously The Killing Fields and Under Fire all of
them miserable propagandistic failures with Bland wishy-washy Heroes who spend 2 weeks whatever the action is then run
back to New York to pick up their pullit of prize Under Fire was a particularly egregious example where the filmmakers
went so far as to pretend the Nicaraguan Revolution was actually won by American journalists interesting notion from my
experience reporters who spend a lot of time in war zones are a lot more like James Woods or Hunter Thompson than like
the saintly Wier Hero Of The Killing Fields face it war or as the Americans called
the ongoing massacre in El Salvador low intensity conflict is a dirty nasty
pointless and horrific business and any reporter who makes a living out of covering Wars is seriously Disturbed
which Richard Bole has written by Stone and played by Woods quite clearly is Salvador is that extremely rare item a
well-made thoroughly entertaining political film it does a lot more than the real boil did placing its
protagonist at the scene of the murder of Archbishop Romero by a right-wing Des Squad and having him on the spot
immediately after the Salvadorian Army murdered four American nuns it also depicts the political conversion of the
American ambassador played very well by Michael Murphy a conversion which actually occurred ultimately of course
the film cops out following a battle between the Army and the fmln guerillas who rided the town rather imp probably
on Horseback there comes the obligatory scene where the rebels shoot some of their prisoners and woods runs back and
forth shouting you're just as bad as you each other you're just as bad as each other to both sides actually the line
looks like an afterthought as if it had been dubbed in in post- production over Wood's back why then does stone having
depicted a grand eloquent high energy but especially truthful series of events undercut his own message at the end in
different circumstances one might blame the studio or the executives well they forced him to do it but in this case the
production company is hemdale and whatever the vice of messes da and Gibson neither one was ever were accused
of being a minion of right-wing politicians or liberal Aesthetics I'm afraid it's a case of the director
pulling his punches at the last minute because he's afraid to depict a National Liberation movement in too positive a
light in the same way in his most recent film having the Earth it's not the Americans but the Viet Kong who rape the
Vietnamese heroin this small quibble aside Salvador is an impressive piece of
work it was made mostly in Mexico by some of Mexico's best filmcraft people
it features some of the better Mexican actors Salvador Sanchez Rene Pereira and Roberto SSA in supporting roles the
editing by CLA Simpson and Carlos pente is outstanding and the camera work by a
Duo of American cinematographers Bob Richardson and Tom Richmond is
magnificent has anything changed in our Salvador since the film was made unfortunately it seems not in the runup
to the March elections 40 fmln candidates were killed by death squads and the US military has resumed war
games with the Salvadorian Army meanwhile the country slips further into a cycle of poverty and repression the
reason the Civil War began in the first place
oh my god oh
tonight we present the first of two films directed by David Cronenberg a Canadian biochemistry student who
switched to English language and literature Cronenberg can legitimately be described as the most original
director currently working on the North American continent his films which are always shot in Canada Canadian cities
doubling for New York or marac fall generally within the horror genre they deal with secret scientific experiments
gone wrong cannibalism sexual mutation and epidemic disease depending on your
point of view Cronenberg is either a maker of sick exploitation movies or an aesthetic profet of the Modern
Age Shivers made in 1975 was his first feature it dealt with a hotel suddenly
ravaged by a sexual virus which drove all the guests insane scanners deals in
exploding heads and mind control rabid the second film in our double bill tonight is the story of a woman who
mutates into an erotomaniac cannibal The Dead Zone deals with a man whose
precognitive gifts lead him into madness and political assassination and the Fly is about a man who turns into a giant
fly tonight's tale is that of Beverly and Elliot mantle twin gynecologists
from Toronto whose perverse relationship with their patients and each other leads them into familiarly nightmarish
Cronenberg territory compared to the MA's other films dead ringers is remarkably un bloodthirsty it's based on
a book called twins by Barry wood and Jack jand and is apparently a true story
not that it matters I doubt that the original tale of the mantles was any more like dead ringers than cronenberg's
Naked Lunch was like the William Burrows book Cronenberg films are always first and foremost Cronenberg films the only
compromise to which dead ring had to submit was a title change the word twins having been appropriated by an Arnold
Schwarzenegger film in some ways dead ringers is unique however it's the first Cronenberg film
which features really good acting now I know there are those who will insist that James Woods was good in video Drome
or Christopher walin excellent in The Dead Zone but to my taste the acting in the great man's films has always been
deliriously wooden dead ringers on the other hand has a genuinely fine performance by Jeremy Irons who plays
the twin gynecological brothers it's photographically remarkable too laid down on film via a process called motion
control whereby the camera's moves can be duplicated via computer animation thus enabling Mr irons to play one
brother and get changed go back and play the other brother while the camera tracks ahead of them around corners and
through doors in the old days of film about twin brothers you may recall the camera had to remain in one position and
there was always a blue line running down the middle of the screen the excellent of Photography was Peter
suitski Jeremy Irons is reported to have said that the way he differentiated between his two roles was by always
having one brother on the ball of his feet the other on his heels can it be true or is there more to
his extraordinary performance judge for yourself as you relax kick back and
enjoy dead
ringers did you you like that now movie Drome proudly presents
one of the finest cult films of all time rabid by David Cronenberg Cronenberg is
as we have said the director of The Fly remake and shivers and the Naked Lunch scanners in The Dead Zone a venerable
roster of cult horror movies surpassed by no other practitioner of the genre
not West Craven not Todd Browning not Mario Bava not Dario Argento not John
Carpenter not even the ineffable James whale made as many genuinely weird and
unsettling horror films of the above mentioned only our gento has as thoroughly thought out a worldview and
consistent take on vicious horror lurking behind the most mundane things
yet Argento is preoccupied by a rather infantile misogyny of the depa brand and
like dep makes ultimately boring films Cronenberg on the other hand transcends
misogyny and even misanthropy he stands like Fant in moller's play aside from
things disgusted by them yet amused and physically and fiscally involved as well
the ultimate Celluloid cynic cronenberg's movies portray a sense of physical horror at human sexuality
unmatched in any other charted area of Cinema in addition his films are
preoccupied with the mechanics of surgery and the transmission of disease bearing viruses many of the early ones
including rabid bear a a considerable debt to Night of the Living Dead Cronenberg is one of the only
English-speaking directors allowed the luxury of an unhappy ending could the unspoken rumor that cronenburg is
actually a renegade US army colonel from Fort detri biological weapons station
Maryland attempting to blow the whistle on secret releases of Airborne viral toxins in the New York Subway system
really be true no it could not Cronenberg is as we have said a Canadian
I had the pleasure of reading one of his scripts in the assistant to the producer's office and it was a highly pleasurable experience because there
were no embarrassing and Elementary mistakes of spelling and grammar such as you normally find in screenplays and
director's scripts in fact there were no mistakes at all I mean this guy is not only a great filmmaker he's
literate rabid is in my opinion cronenberg's best it was made in 1976
and is the story of one Rose played by Marilyn ch whose unfortunate involvement in a
motorbike accident leads to bizarre and disastrous results Marilyn Chambers you
may recall as a child was the Miss Purity soap advertising symbol all across the USA and in adulthood became a
major porno star combining the twin American obsessions of cleanliness and sex Miss Chambers is the quintessential
Cronenberg actor next on movie Drome life in and
out of the
saddle Steve McQueen and Ida Lupino in s Pekin PA Junior Bon
now bringing BBC 2's Kennedy night to a close slightly later than scheduled a movie drum special Alex Cox introduces a
highly charged political thriller The Parallax View
[Music]
in September 1963 a man called Richard case Nagel walked into a bank in El Paso
Texas and fired three shots into the wall he then sat down outside the bank
and waited to be arrested when the police came for him he surrendered peacefully telling them he
wanted to be in federal custody because the president of the United States was shortly to be assassinated and he did
not want to be the psy when the assassination occurred Nagel was a US Army intelligence agent
and if we can believe a new book about him also a Soviet spy that in itself is not implausible
double agents with questionable loyalties are the stuff of John lare novels and of actual spycraft consider
our own Kim filby or Anthony blunt agents are always being turned and working for both sides
simultaneously what's interesting about Nagel's claims reported in the book The Man Who Knew Too Much by the American
journalist dick Russell is that he says Lee Harvey Oswald was a double agent
too you don't have to believe all of what Nagel says he's a slippery customer
he served several years in jail for bank robbery although he made no actual attempt to rob the bank and he was later
arrested by stassy agents on the wrong side of the old East German border and exchanged for one of their top
spies but for the record Nagel says that he Oswald and a number of other military
men were sent by US Army or Naval intelligence to various Iron Curtain countries posing as
defectors their mission was to win the confidence of their KGB or Stasi minders
plant false information and come back with the real Goods in the case of Lee Oswald the real
Goods might even have been Marina the woman whom he married there she was the niece of a high-ranking Russian
intelligence Colonel whom the West Was anxious to have defect Nagel says that
he himself became uncertain of his loyalties he alleges Oswald a mediocre
Marksman whom the Marines had uncharacteristically taught to speak Russian actually went over to the other
side and returned to the United States a Soviet agent just as the right-wing
conspiracists always said he was in fact now on the 30th anniversary of the
JFK assassination we're presented with TV documentaries and books like case closed and conspiracy of one which
surprise surprise revealed that Oswald really did act all alone he wasn't a spy at all not for them not for us he didn't
have any friends or co-conspirators I really find it risible to see these CIA and KGB men shaking
their heads and saying ah he was a nut we had nothing to do with him well what do you think they're going to say these
men are paid professional spies employers of Assassins and Killers I question the common sense of any TV or
print reporter who Journeys to Minsk or Langley Virginia pokes a camera in the face of Lee Harvey oswal's case officer
and expects to get the true truth out of the guy it's a trifle naive to say the least the true truth about the JFK
assassination was probably known to most of the major intelligence organizations within a few days if not a few hours of
its occurrence of course the Russians have a big file on who killed JFK and Robert Kennedy they wouldn't be doing
their jobs if they didn't in the same way the FBI must have a file on who killed enrio mate the Italian
industrialist who went up against the Texan oil boys in the 1960s the Indians undoubtedly know who
blew up General Zia's plane the nicaraguans certainly know who ordered the murder of Olaf Palm they've been
dropping hints to that effect for years maybe the French can tell us who killed Hilda ml but of course they won't
because the purpose of secret intelligence is that it be kept secret not from our enemies because they know
already nor from our allies because they're spying on us too but from us
because it's very important we don't know now 30 years on from the most
notable political assassination of the century let's consider a few of the others and there have been a lot and how
the media have explained them to us mate General Zia president of Pakistan
General toos president of Panama all all died in plane crashes reason for the
accident unknown Dr Martin Luther King murdered by a lone assassin definitely
no conspiracy there palm murdered on the street by a lone madman who evaded the
police for months was no conspiracy there either San Francisco Mayor Moscone
and gay supervisor Harvey Milk murdered by a man who'd been driven temporarily mad by eating candy bars no one else
involved last year Petra Kelly murdered apparently by her lover who went mad and
shot himself as well no conspiracy at all well maybe it's comforting perhaps
to imagine all these murders mostly of left-wing politicians were the work of Lone loonies unpaid for and
unplanned but what if they weren't What If there really were conspiracies behind
one or more of these crimes which brings us to The Parallax view a feature film directed in 1974 by
Alan J pul what in it Warren batty and Paul Apprentice played two reporters in
Seattle somebody's trying to kill a lone assassin murder at top the Space Needle set some thinking what if the Assassin
didn't act alone what if a conspiracy was involved in this case the murder
itself seems modeled on the Robert Kennedy assassination with its gun wielding waiter its elusive Second
Assassin and even a briefly glimpsed girl in a polka dot dress the aftermath
however is pure JF FK a Warren Commission style cover up followed by a series of mysterious deaths of witnesses
and journalists the JFK murder really was rough on reporters and Witnesses the
catalog of witnesses who died from heart attacks car and plane crashes gun accidents karate chops to the neck Etc
is very long and justly notorious what's less known is the small core of journalists who lost their lives
investigating the case tonight Paul Apprentice displays a reporter clearly based on the popular
American columnist Dorothy kiligan the only journalist allowed a private interview with Jack Ruby who died of an
overdose of alcohol and bitrates after publishing several articles indicating a conspiracy was
involved two other reporters who dug into the Jack Ruby story also died one of them shot in the head by a patrolman
in Long Beach City Police Headquarters The Parallax view was
co-written by Lorenzo SLE Jr who penned the equally paranoid three days of the Condor along with the early
Batman TV shows he has a fine dark sense of humor as in the scene where batty finds
himself aboard a plane that's carrying a bomb the excellent cinemascope photography is by Gordon Willis who also
shot The Godfather and many of Woody Allen's films The Parallax view was influential
both on pula's own All the President's Men and on Oliver Stone's JFK which
revitalized the media's interest in the Kennedy assassination and contributed to the release of a large quantity of
doctored US Government files an uncharitable listener might suggest that
John Williams soundtrack for JFK was not uninfluenced by Michael Small's
excellent musical score for Parallax view pakula's film inevitably refers to
the Manchurian Candidate that prophetic tale of double agents brainwashing and political assassination magnific
recently filmed by John frankenheimer in 1962 interestingly frankenheimer also
made a film about an attempted military coup in the United States 7 days in May
the same year Kennedy was killed who done it in tonight's film a mysterious
company called The Parallax Corporation appears to be hiring Hitmen and PSIs in
order to commit perfect political crimes Jim Garrison the New Orleans da
who was the hero of Oliver Stone's movie actually accused the canadian-based company permindex of doing much the same
thing hiring political Hitmen to kill canedy and to attempt to kill
deal 70% of the adult American population believe their president was
murdered by a conspiracy who was behind the conspiracy depends on the political and social
inclinations of the person that you talk to right-wingers still claim from time to time that kusov or Castro did it via
their commi prot J Oswald almost everyone in Texas seems to think that Lyndon Johnson had a hand in
it people on the left are not slow to point out that Richard Nixon flew out of Dallas on the morning President Kennedy
died there's tremendous circumstantial evidence that the mafia was involved not least the use of Mafia Hitman Ruby to
silence the alleged assassin Mark Lane and Jim Garrison always said the CIA did it Kennedy
didn't like the CIA they said it led him into a political Fiasco at the Bay of Pigs he threatened to Splinter it into a
thousand pieces and he fired CIA head Allan Dulles and deputy director Charles
P Cabell whose brother was the mayor of Dallas on the fateful day it's possible
but the thesis of Dick Russell's book The Man Who Knew Too Much presents a new version the CIA says Russell was by the
early 60s pretty thoroughly infiltrated by the Russians remember CIA is
theoretically a civilian body which has fought turf wars with the US military since its Inception in
1947 Russell speculates that the clues pointing towards CIA as culprits in the
assassination were in fact false laid there by Texas oil men and an extreme
right-wing faction in the US military this group stretching beyond
the United States in fact an international fascist cabal had the president killed they picked oswal as
the py Russell says because he had intelligence fingerprints all over him
American Soviet and remember he was also a paid informant of the Dallas FBI he was the perfect Fall Guy
disgruntled alienated knowing just a little bit too much his death and that
of a few Witnesses satisfies the different Power groups allowing them to maintain much of their status while the
conspirators move a little higher up the ladder and settle comfortably into place
if it was a coup it was something of a gentlemanly one compared to the Bloodshed following Pet's takeover of
Chile or sukar's reign of terror in Indonesia all quite civilized except for
those Witnesses of course and to Dorothy killigan
one of their top spies but for the record Nagel says that he Oswald and a number of other military
men were sent by US Army or Naval intelligence to various Iron Curtain countries posing as
defectors their mission was to win the confidence of their KGB or Stasi minders
plant false information and come back with the real Goods in the case of Lee
Oswald the real Goods might even have been Marina the woman who whom he married there she was the niece of a
high-ranking Russian intelligence Colonel whom the West was anxious to have defect Nagel says that he himself
became uncertain of his loyalties he alleges Oswald a mediocre Marksman whom the Marines had
uncharacteristically taught to speak Russian actually went over to the other side and returned to the United States a
Soviet agent just as the right-wing conspiracists always said he was in
fact now on the 30th anniversary of the JFK assassination we presented with TV
documentaries and books like case closed and conspiracy of one which surprise surprise revealed that Oswald really did
act all alone he wasn't a spy at all not for them not for us he didn't have any
friends or co-conspirators I really find it risible to see these CIA and KGB men shaking
their heads and saying ah he was a nut we had nothing to do with him well what do you think they're going to say these
men are paid professional spies employers of Assassins and Killers I question the common sense of any TV or
print reporter who Journeys to Minsk or Langley Virginia pokes a camera in the face of Lee Harvey oswal's case officer
and expects to get the true truth out of the guy it's a trifle naive to say the least the true truth about the JFK
assassination was probably known to most of the major intelligence organizations within a few days if not a few hours of
its occurrence of course the Russians have a big file on who killed JFK and Robert Kennedy they wouldn't be doing their
jobs if they didn't in the same way the FBI must have a file on who killed enrio mate the Italian industrialist who went
up against the Texan oil boys in the 1960s the Indians undoubtedly know who
blew up General Zia's plane the nicar aans certainly know who ordered the murder of Olaf Palm they've been
dropping hints to that effects for years maybe the French can tell us who killed Hilda ml but of course they won't
because the purpose of secret intelligence is that it be kept secret not from our enemies because they know
already nor from our allies because they're spying on us too but from us
because it's very important we don't know now 30 years on from the most
notable political assassination of the century let's consider a few of the others and there have been a lot and how
the media have explained them to us General Z from the most notable
political assassination of the century let's consider a few of the others and there have been a lot and how the media
have explained them to us mate General Z president of Pakistan General torios
president of Panama all died in plane crashes reason for the accident unknown
Dr Martin Luther King murdered by a lone assassin definitely no conspiracy there
palm murdered on the street by a lone man mad man who evaded the police for months were no conspiracy there either
San Francisco Mayor Moscone and gay supervisor Harvey Milk murdered by a man who'd been driven temporarily mad by
eating candy bars no one else involved last year Petra Kelly murdered
apparently by her lover who went mad and shot himself as well no conspiracy at
all well maybe it's comforting perhaps to imagine all these murders mostly of
leftwing politicians were the work of Lone loonies unpaid for and unplanned but what if they weren't What
If there really were conspiracies behind one or more of these crimes which brings us to The Parallax
view a feature film directed in 1974 by Alan J Pula in it Warren batty and Paul
Apprentice played two reporters in Seattle somebody's trying to kill alone assassin murder at top the Space Needle
set some thinking what if the Assassin didn't act alone what if a conspiracy was involved in
this case the murder itself seems modeled on the Robert Kennedy assassination with its gun wielding
waiter its elusive Second Assassin and even a briefly glimpsed girl in a polka
dot dress the aftermath however is pure JFK a Warren Commission style cover up
followed by a series of mysterious deaths of witnesses and journalists the JFK murder really was
rough on reporters and Witnesses the catalog of witnesses who died from heart attacks car and plane crashes gun
accidents karate chops to the neck Etc is very long and justly notorious what's less known is the small
core of journalists who lost their lives investigating the case tonight Paul Apprentice plays a
reporter clearly based on the popular American columnist Dorothy kiligan the only journalist allowed a private
interview with Jack Ruby who died of an overdose of alcohol and bitrates after
publishing several articles indicating a conspiracy was involved two other reporters who dug
into the Jack Ruby story also died one of them shot in the head by a patrolman in Long Beach City Police
Headquarters The Parallax view was co-written by Lorenzo SLE Jr who penned
the equally paranoid three days of the Condor along with the early Batman TV
shows he has a fine dark sense of humor as in the scene where baty finds himself
aboard a plane that's carrying a bomb double agents with questionable loyalties are the stuff of John lar
novels and of actual spycraft consider our own Kim filby or Anthony blunt
agents are always being turned and working for both sides simultaneously what's interesting about
Nagel's claims reported in the book The Man Who Knew Too Much by the American journalist dick Russell is that he says
Lee Harvey Oswald was a double agent too you don't have to believe believe
all of what Nagal says he's a slippery customer he served several years in jail for bank robbery although he made no
actual attempt to rob the bank and he was later arrested by stassy agents on the wrong side of the old East German
border and exchanged for one of their top spies but for the record Nagel says that
he Oswald and a number of other military men were sent by US Army or Naval
intelligence to various Iron Curtain countries posing as defectors their mission was to win the confidence
of their KGB orasi minders plant false information and come back with the real
Goods in the case of Lee Oswald the real Goods might even have been Marina the
woman whom he married there she was the niece of a high-ranking Russian intelligence Colonel whom the West was
anxious to have defect Nagel says that he himself became uncertain of his
loyalties he alleges Oswald a mediocre Marksman whom the Marines had uncharacteristically taught to speak
Russian actually went over to the other side and returned to the United States a
Soviet agent just as the right-wing conspiracists always said he was in
fact now on the 30th anniversary of the JFK assassination were presented with TV
documentaries and books like case closed and conspiracy of one which surprise surprise reveal that Oswald really did
act all alone he wasn't a spy at all not for them not not for us he didn't have
any friends or co-conspirators I really find it risible to see these CIA and KGB men shaking
their heads and saying ah he was a nut we had nothing to do with him well what do you think they're going to say these
men are paid professional spies employers of Assassins and Killers I question the common sense of any TV or
print reporter who Journeys to Minsk or Langley Virginia pokes a camera in the face of Lee Harvey Oswald's case officer
and expects to get the true truth of the guy it's a trifle naive to say the least
the true truth about the JFK assassination was probably known to most of the major intelligence organizations
within a few days if not a few hours of its occurrence of course the Russians have a
big file on who killed JFK and Robert Kennedy they wouldn't be doing their jobs if they didn't in the same way the
FBI must have a file on who killed enrio mate the Italian industrialist who went
up against the Texan oil boys in the 1960s the Indians undoubtedly know who
blew
