Mary Dawne Arden (1933 - 2014)

Best remembered as Peggy, one of the loveliest of the "sei donne" in Mario Bava's BLOOD AND BLACK LACE [Sei donne per l'assassino, 1964], actress, model and entrepreneur Mary Dawne Arden passed away Saturday, December 13, in a Brooklyn, New York hospital at the age of 79. She was one of the many people I interviewed for MARIO BAVA - ALL THE COLORS OF THE DARK, and one of those with whom I became and remained friends.  

Mary Dawne (she insisted on never being addressed as simply Mary) was the daughter of a single mother, born in St. Louis during the the years of the Great Depression, and had to face adult responsibility early on in life. This forged her character as a hard worker, entrepreneur and self promoter. Though I liked - and, more to the point, respected - her immensely, she was one of those people who didn't seem able to ever fully relax or have a good laugh, though she was always friendly and good natured. She told me that she had never acted for money ( a good thing too, she philosophized, because she sometimes got stiffed on those Italian films come pay day), but to promote herself - quite an unusual and avant garde attitude for an actress, but Mary Dawne was, above all, a businesswoman. 

She likewise saw her successful career as a fashion model as a means of "branding herself," to use today's parlance - and she did seem proud of her accomplishments in that realm, which were indeed stunning, as she was of the fact that Federico Fellini had cast her in a role as a television hostess meant to be recurring in his JULIET OF THE SPIRITS, but which was cut from the final assembly. She asked me to keep on the lookout for other films in which she appeared and, over the years, I was able to get copies of the B&W giallo A... come Assassino (1966) and the fumetti adaptation KRIMINAL (1966) into her hands. When I asked what she thought of the films, she would dodge that uncomfortable issue by saying "Kind of a cute kid, wasn't I?" Indeed she was, a classic Grace Kelly type, and her modelling portfolio was truly stunning. But looking at those photos, at those VOGUE covers, I can always see the practical side of Mary Dawne, the good soldier and the good egg. I imagine that, as a young woman in the full bloom of her beauty, she must have been very like Peggy, who, finding herself the object of a co-worker's infatuation with her, sits him down, assures him of her friendship, and patiently copes with the problem till she can make the nutter see plain sense. 

It was during the period when we were most closely in touch that VCI announced their plan to release BLOOD AND BLACK LACE on DVD. I was hired to record an audio commentary and arranged for Mary Dawne to film a video introduction for the movie, which she was very happy to do. When I later told her that I had enjoyed the zany energy of her introduction, it seemed to confuse her, to make her worry and feel self-conscious, which was not at all my intention. She exuded such confidence that I was surprised to find a sensitivity there, not often tapped but still very present; it was one of the things about her that I found touching, which got to me. In short, I liked her tremendously - she was strong and loyal and, above all, dependable - which I remember telling her were characteristics I prized especially, since I see and value them in my wife.

When the Bava book finally came out, Mary Dawne was quite effusive about it and the lovely pictures I found of her, some of which she had never seen. As a thank-you, Donna and I presented her with a print of the color shot that opens the BLOOD AND BLACK LACE chapter, which she told me she planned to frame and hang near the entryway of her apartment. As this news reached me via a Facebook friend sharing her NEW YORK TIMES obituary this morning, Mary Dawne and I fallen out of touch for some time. I'm both sorry to know that she's gone and grateful to know that this dear and driven woman is finally at rest.

Here is a link to her NEW YORK TIMES obituary.

DR. KILDARE, Season One - My Diagnosis

I recently finished watching the first season of DR. KILDARE (1961-62) on Warner Archive Instant, the first time I'd been able to view the show since my vague memories from childhood - therefore, for the first time with real adult understanding. This show is very much the medical counterpart to its fellow NBC series MR. NOVAK, which was about teaching; both shows are supremely humanistic and address themselves, in a similarly down-to-earth but aspiring way, to the nobility of their respective professions - something sorely lacking from programming today.

Of course, neither show would work if the lessons learned by their protagonists were limited to their respective professions, and so serve as Trojan horses to learned instruction about how people might better interact with others in a variety of emotionally fraught, everyday circumstances. This being very much what German novelists liked to call a bildrungsroman - a story of education, a character's journey from callow youth to experienced adulthood - the central character of Dr. James Kildare (Richard Chamberlain) learns a bit more in each episode of what he needs to know to become not only a complete doctor (as exemplified by Blair Hospital's chief of staff Dr. Leonard Gillespie, played with eloquence and authority by Raymond Massey) but a more fully rounded human being. I remember a time when Chamberlain was taken less than seriously by the critical establishment owing to his good looks and his side career as a teen idol crooner; he spent years distancing himself from the memory of this show, doing fine work in Ken Russell's THE MUSIC LOVERS and Richard Lester's MUSKETEERS films, among many other productions, but DR. KILDARE is really nothing to be ashamed of. It would not work so well as it does unless he was on his toes as an actor every step of the way. This is his journey and Chamberlain's evolving, deepening character makes us want to accompany him on it.

What stands out to me from this first season are two episodes directed by the season's MVP, Boris Sagal (THE OMEGA MAN): "Immunity", in which a female doctor (Gail Kobe) who fled to her profession to escape her impoverished Polish roots is forced back to them to prevent an epidemic threatening her old neighborhood (this epic colorfully inserts a Polish wedding into the midst of an emergency immunization procedure), and "My Brother, the Doctor" in which far-down-the-totem-pole supporting player Eddie Ryder (as Dr. Simon Agurski) gives an outstanding performance in a story examining his strained relationship with an older brother who is supporting his residency at the cost of his own dreams. (Like "Immunity" with its Polish community background, "My Brother, the Doctor" uses its story to familiarize a broader viewing audience with Jewish holiday traditions.) But the season's highlight is a performance by Dean Jagger in the Paul Wendkos-directed "A Distant Thunder" as a retired Lt. General suffering a nervous breakdown caused by unresolved guilt over leading hundreds of thousands of young men to their doom. I think it might very well be the finest work I've ever seen from this brittle, eccentric but sometimes moving actor.

My earlier awareness of this show was frankly occluded by all the noise made back in the day about Chamberlain wanting in the end to distance himself from the Kildare image, and the fact that the series was spun off into a lot of tacky merchandise, ranging from comic books for girls to toy stethoscopes. Fortunately I was drawn back to DR. KILDARE by its availability through Warner Archive, and also by the rich range of talent who made guest appearances. The first season alone encompasses the likes of William Shatner, Anne Francis, Charles Bickford, Suzanne Pleshette, Dan O'Herlihy (in two episodes!), Edward Andrews, Beverly Garland, Cathleen Nesbitt, Charles Bickford, Dina Merrill, Dick Foran, Edward Platt, Gloria Talbott, Hershel Bernardi, future BEWITCHED husbands Dick York and Dick Sargent, and the ubiquitous Billy Mumy.

In short, classic television well worth revisiting.

With The Lub: Michael Lennick (1952-2014)

One of my dearest friends, Michael Lennick - writer, director, producer, cameraman, editor, visual effects designer and mensch (a word he taught me) - has sadly left us away at the age of 61.

Donna and I first met him on the set of VIDEODROME (for which he was the video effects supervisor) in December 1981. Of all the people I met there, Mikey was the one I bonded with most closely and lastingly. When I returned to Toronto the following March, we celebrated the end of the shoot with an all-night summit in his living room, at which time he introduced me to the pleasures of home video, obviously a major eureka in my life. 

He also presided over others. It was Michael who introduced me to sushi, which has been my favorite thing to eat since that fateful day in 1983. In the first year of the new century, he produced my first two DVD audio commentaries - and he was astounded when I told him that I'd now done more than thirty. He was also a favorite VIDEO WATCHDOG contributor, whose ten pieces for us include feature articles on STAR WARS, STARSHIP TROOPERS and his hero Stanley Kubrick, as well as a recent review of John C. Fredericksen's 1950s series MEN INTO SPACE that presently awaits publication. He gave me a place to crash whenever I was in town, and took me to shop at Sam the Record Man's and Memory Lane Books, both of which are now history. We read and critiqued each others' unpublished and unproduced work. I introduced Michael, a milk drinker, to the pleasures of Chivas Regal scotch and cigars, and we braved one early morning set call on THE DEAD ZONE after only three hours' sleep; it was the day they filmed Christopher Walken in the burning room - it's a miracle that we, in our dark glasses, didn't spontaneously combust. He would show me scenes of films we both loved - including Mario Bava films - and help me to deconstruct the special effects shots, some of the most important lessons in filmmaking I ever had. During my last visit north of the border, we shared the experience of synching up the Stargate sequence of 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY to Pink Floyd's "Echoes." It worked remarkably well. Michael also filmed a wonderful testimonial for our Indiegogo campaign for VIDEO WATCHDOG's Digital Archive; he was delighted by the demonstration he saw and was looking forward to seeing the technology applied to his own articles.

Michael as I first knew him, with his VIDEODROME team, Lee Wilson and Rob Meckler.

As you can imagine, I loved Mikey as much as I've ever loved any man. He called me Timmy, and I let him. He signed most of his letters to me with the warm salutation "with the lub," so I know it was mutual. Thus the news came hard when we found out, a few weeks ago, that he had suffered a collapse and been hospitalized, where he was being kept comatose as tests were being made. Over the weekend, the news finally came that he had succumbed to a virulent form of brain cancer last Friday, November 7th. Michael, my brother from another mother, whom I met on the set of a now-classic movie about a video signal that causes brain tumors.

I know what he accomplished, and though he would argue it was not enough, his career was a triumph that he largely managed on his own terms. He produced work that was loved: his early cult hit THE ALL-NIGHT SHOW; his special effects work for the teleseries WAR OF THE WORLDS (where he got to recreate the Martian war cruisers of George Pal's classic film); the documentary DR. TELLER'S VERY LARGE BOMB, which featured the last interview granted by Edward Teller; the acclaimed documentary series ROCKET SCIENCE and THE SCIENCE IN FICTION, with their access to pretty much anybody who was anybody in the space program; the top-shelf film documentaries THE NEW MAGICIANS and 2001 AND BEYOND; and so many other projects that enabled Michael to meet and befriend his heroes in the space program and the annals of classic science fiction. Children of the 1980s also loved him as the voice of Boneapart, the skeletal sage of OWL TV.

Michael's classic character performance: OWL TV's Boneapart.

Michael spent much of this past year reconnecting with and interviewing people he had known from the Cronenberg days (including the recently departed Gary Zeller) for "The SCANNERS Way,"  the documentary he contributed to Criterion's recent SCANNERS Blu-Ray release, and conducting preparatory interviews and research for a projected documentary called THE CHILDREN OF PEARL HARBOR, which brought him back into the orbit of his old friend, artist Shary Flenniken - so his last year was ultimately one of closure. In our last telephone conversation, a couple of months ago, he told me that things were looking good for a projected series based on the short stories of Harlan Ellison, another of his idols who became a good personal friend.

My heart goes out to Michael's siblings David and Julie and to everyone who loved him - especially his beloved partner Shirley, the love of his life. I was staying with him when they had their first date and I remember how excited he was as he was getting dressed to go out. Our last communications were on Facebook and about grief, concerning the untimely passings of Michael's friends and colleagues Reiner Schwarz and Linda Griffiths. Linda also died at 61 years of age. Too young, we agreed.

This Week's Film Notes - From My Facebook Page

Wow. DARK SHADOWS episode 1198. The last episode for so many characters, including - or so the DS Wiki tells me - Barnabas, Julia, Angelique, Elizabeth and so many others, though the repertory players will remain to carry on into a new, dissociated storyline. But, unexpectedly, this is really where the show ends as we always knew it. A somewhat sloppy execution, as always, a bit too hurried, but it works - except I wasn't expecting to say goodbye to so many old friends today. Excuse me, I seem to have something in my eye.

In an effort to feel more Halloweenish, I decided to watch THE RETURN OF COUNT YORGA (1971) after dinner. I think I've only seen it once or twice since its theatrical release, once on television and again as a bootleg VHS. It's odd how time can change some things; I don't remember so much of the film being lamely funny - on the contrary, I remember it being fairly tense and scary, on the first pass anyway. Now I can see that the film was heavily influenced by NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, DARK SHADOWS (it's an early case of the vampire in love, not at all credible here) and, strangely enough, KILL, BABY... KILL! with a ball-carrying, homicidal little boy in the thrall of the undead and a few shock zooms into the faces of antique dolls. A few effective, suspenseful scenes, with an especially well-handled first act with lore concerning the Santa Ana winds, and a bevy of rotten-faced, lumbering vampire brides who are much closer to the zombies of DAWN OF THE DEAD than anything traditionally blood-sucking, but then it begins to shoot itself repeatedly in the foot with too much self-conscious, jokey dialogue. So I'm afraid it hasn't aged for me as well as I'd hoped. One strange thing, though, concerning a tongue-in-cheek moment that shows Yorga (Robert Quarry) absorbed in a late night TV showing of THE VAMPIRE LOVERS. I remember the televised clip being shown in B&W (I even seem to remember one critic pointing out this anachronism), but it's in color in the HD version being shown on Netflix - and looking far sharper than it should on Yorga's dinky portable 1970s set.

Watched Herzog's NOSFERATU THE VAMPYRE (1979), which I appreciated more in this viewing than ever before, though I still find the ending the work of a genre amateur. Kinski and particularly Adjani are magnificent. Then I finished off the evening by enjoying my PLANET OF THE VAMPIRES commentary - the first time I've actually seen the film in 1080p. I can endorse this disc whole-heartedly.

Enjoyed BEWARE OF MR. BAKER (2013) and think it's probably as fine a documentary on the subject as it could possibly be, so I'm a trifle infuriated that the filmmaker Jay Bulger opens by laying his ignorance of Ginger Baker on the table and 'fessing up to the fact that he misrepresented himself to his subject initially as a writer for ROLLING STONE - and then did sell his interview to ROLLING STONE. I'm a man of peace but I want to punch the little $#@!#% too.

Today I felt it was time to revisit Vincent Price's swan song at AIP, MADHOUSE (1974), which is on Netflix. With Jim Nicholson gone, Sam Arkoff returned to partnership with Amicus to complete Vincent's contract. I suspect that the recently late Michel Parry, who was then working for AIP's London office, must have had something to do with nominating Angus Hall's novel DEVILDAY for filming; Hall was one of Mike's Hammer novelizing colleagues, having written the paperback SCARS OF DRACULA. The movie has a stale look about it and it would have benefited from a tighter edit (get rid of the blackmailing parents of the first victim), but it is well-written with some believably catty movie biz dialogue and the film as a whole does serve as a gracious thank-you to Vincent for his rewarding years of service to AIP. The performances have their ups and downs, but on the whole, I'm starting to like it. If this film were better-known, I think Adrienne Corri's Faye, the spider-loving madwoman, might be a popular Halloween dress-up option today. All this, plus Peter Cushing and Robert Quarry (who attends a costume party as Count Yorga!), and Vincent sings! It was obvious that some gore opportunities were trimmed to appease the MPAA - the sword-stabbing of the blackmailers, for example. Also, I suspect the discovery of the blonde assistant's body was refilmed, because there's very little blood on her when she's found, then her blouse is drenched in it as Price is carrying her downstairs! But what I can't understand for the life of me is why - after actress gave a remarkably steady performance as her own corpse - director Jim Clark would insert shots of a blatantly waxen stand-in literally melting during the ensuing inferno! It completely destroys the verisimilitude of the climax!

RIP Michel Parry (1947-2014)

A sad and much too early farewell to Michel Parry, the devoted Belgian celebrant of le fantastique who has now succumbed to cancer at the age of 67.

Mike was an irreplaceable source of knowledge and talent, perhaps undervalued because he was such a brilliant jack of all trades. I first knew of him as a journalist for CASTLE OF FRANKENSTEIN magazine; when he first wrote to me about a VIDEO WATCHDOG matter, I seized the opportunity to thank him for his short article about Fantômas and Judex in CoF #9, which introduced me to what has become one of my life's great obsessions. He also conducted CoF's multi-issue interview with Christopher Lee, the first in-depth interview I can recall a horror star every granting. Over the course of the following decade, Mike helped Christopher to collect stories befitting a trio of wonderful anthologies, CHRISTOPHER LEE'S "X" CERTIFICATE and two volumes of CHRISTOPHER LEE'S ARCHIVES OF EVIL. 

Although he wrote and published at least a couple of novels (one a novelization of Hammer's COUNTESS DRACULA), it was as one of the genre's leading story anthologists that Mike ultimately found his career niche. Among his collections: five volumes of REIGN OF TERROR (Corgi's Victorian horror story anthologies), THE DEVIL'S CHILDREN, BEWARE OF THE CAT, STRANGE ECSTASIES, SPACED OUT, WAVES OF TERROR: WEIRD STORIES ABOUT THE SEA, THE SUPERNATURAL SOLUTION, THE RIVALS OF FRANKENSTEIN, THE RIVALS OF DRACULA: A CENTURY OF VAMPIRE FICTION, THE RIVALS OF KING KONG, JACK THE KNIFE: TALES OF JACK THE RIPPER and, last but not least, six volumes in the MAYFLOWER BOOK OF BLACK MAGIC STORIES series. 

He also took an occasional active part in horror cinema, writing and directing his only short film "Hex" in 1969 and writing the screenplay for THE UNCANNY (1977) starring Peter Cushing, Ray Milland and Donald Pleasence (an anthology of scary cat stories that likely drew upon his 1972 anthology BEWARE OF THE CAT), the original treatment for the sf-horror film XTRO (1983) and a teleplay for MONSTERS called "Rouse Him Not," based on a story by Manly Wade Wellman, starring Alex Cord and Laraine Newman.

Translating Arsene Lupin: An Interview with Josephine Gill

As a collector of French pulp fiction of the early 20th century - by which I mean the novels of Gaston Leroux, the adventures of Fantomas by Pierre Souvestre and Marcel Allain, the exploits of Judex and Belphagor and Chantecoq by Arthur Bernede and more - I am proud to have amassed most of Maurice Leblanc's novels and stories about the gentleman thief Arsene Lupin that were translated for the English market. Of all the novels in this sphere that I have read, Leblanc's are generally the wittiest - but collecting his work in English is not without challenges.

For one thing, the later translations can be devlishly hard to find and tend to be costly; for another, the early books exist in a number of different translations - the first Lupin book, Arsene Lupin - Gentleman Cambrioleur (1907), appeared under different imprints - and in different translations! - as ARSENE LUPIN - THE GENTLEMAN THIEF, THE BLONDE LADY, THE CASE OF THE GOLDEN BLONDE and THE ARREST OF ARSENE LUPIN. Although Leblanc concluded his book with the first of several meetings between the wily Lupin and Arthur Conan Doyle's detective Sherlock Holmes, some English publishers were wary of trading on that character's name, so he was introduced as Hemlock Shears. Then, when the second book Arsene Lupin contre Sherlock Holmes was translated, the book's title was twisted yet again in English to become ARSENE LUPIN VS. HERLOCK SHOLMES. Further down the line of Leblanc's 21 volumes of Lupin adventures, two very different novels appeared in English under the same title, THE RETURN OF ARSENE LUPIN! 

For these and other reasons, English-speaking connoisseurs of these adventures have long pined for some reliable consistency to be applied to these translations. Jean-Marc Lofficier of Black Coat Press has done some work in this area, recently publishing a volume entitled COUNTESS CAGLIOSTRO, which includes THE COUNTESS CAGLIOSTRO (previously translated as THE MEMOIRS OF ARSENE LUPIN in 1924) and the never-before-translated sequel COUNTESS CAGLIOSTRO'S REVENGE of 1935, but his approach has been highly selective and non-chronological. So you can imagine my joy when I recently discovered that someone by the name of Josephine Gill had apparently undertaken to translate the entire Lupin series in chronological order, as Kindle books, which are being sold through Amazon for the wonderfully reasonable price of only $3.00 apiece!

To date, there are a dozen of Ms. Gill's translations available, from the first through the first volume of a two-parter, THE TEETH OF THE TIGER (1921). Aside from the natural continuity that comes from sharing a constant translator, the best news about the series is that it has already yielded one entire novel not previously translated into English - 1931's La Barre-y-va (translated as ARSENE LUPIN AND THE LA BARRE-Y-VA MYSTERY). Thus, even the most seasoned and thorough collectors of Lupin in translation will find something unique and special at this bargain price.

I bought and downloaded all of the Gill translations that were available and was very pleased with how their texts compared to the sometimes century-old translations of the novels I already had. Ms. Gill translates the books into more contemporary language, which takes away some of the antique charm of these novels and stories - but not their charm, an important distinction. Furthermore, Ms. Gill's enhancement of their readability extends to filling in passages and sometimes presenting for the first time entire chapters that the earlier translations by Alexander Teixeira do Mattos omitted for the sake of expediency.

The more I looked into the Josephine Gill translations, the more impressed and curious I became about the industrious woman behind them. With the help of my friend David White, I was able to locate her website and invite her to be interviewed here for my blog. She graciously consented to reply to a set of questions, and the results appear below.

Translator Josephine Gill, photographed at the Saint Valery sur Somme in 2007.

 

First of all, please tell us a bit about yourself and your background. 

I first saw the light of day just before the onset of WW2, in an industrial town near Birmingham where my formative years were spent. I then moved away to Leicester University to study for a degree in modern languages. The course involved teaching English conversation in a French lycée for a year and it was during this time in Blois, Loir-et-Cher that I met my future husband, who was involved in a similar activity. We married and embarked on teaching careers, but unfortunately mine was curtailed when rheumatoid arthritis was diagnosed after the birth of my first child. However, two more babies came along later and now there are six grandchildren to add to the family tree! For almost 50 years, we have been living in a small Essex village about 60 miles NNE of London.

Your translations are very well written. Had you done any writing of your own prior to this?

You say my translations are well written. That could be because I follow really closely what the author Maurice Leblanc has written. He deserves all the praise, not me! I have not done any writing myself to speak of – a letter to the press now and then!

What led you to the Lupin books in the first place? Did you begin at the beginning?

Arsène Lupin was just a name to me until... one Tuesday afternoon in July 2000. We were on holiday in Fécamp, a port on the Normandy coast with an important history of cod fishing in the Northern Atlantic. We were hoping to join a guided tour of the former cod salting factory but, as wheelchair access was impossible, I waited in the car on the quayside reading a book I had just bought - Arsène Lupin Gentleman Cambrioleur! I couldn’t put the book down. I was hooked there and then and my fascination increased as I read more adventures.

At what point did you commit yourself to translating the series?

I wondered why Arsène Lupin was not so popular in Britain as he once was, especially as the British are such great fans of other crime fiction characters like Sherlock Holmes, Miss Marple and Poirot etc. Having seen one of Alexander Teixeira de Mattos’ translations - in which the English is somewhat old fashioned - it occurred to me that more up-to-date versions were needed which might renew some interest.

I assume, before you did commit to translating the series, that you looked into the state of the existing translations of these works. How much did you investigate the original translations and in what way did you find them lacking?

Not only are some of de Mattos’ expressions outmoded, but I have discovered that he occasionally takes liberties with the text. Books by Maurice Leblanc are few and far between on the shelves of bookshops in the UK.  I found eBay to be my best source of finding them.

Ha! Then you and I may have been bidding on some of the same titles at some point! What was it about Maurice Leblanc's writing that spoke to you? If someone were to ask you why they should care about these books - some of which were written more than a century ago - what would you say?

Maurice Leblanc is a brilliant story teller. I enjoy the coups de théâtre, the humour, the suspense, the mystery, the variety of characters and situations, the romances, the ingenuity of the plots, the games with the police, the occasional horror, and even the ventures into fantasy! The passage of time does not alter the appeal of his books.

Some of the Lupin novels - such as THE HOLLOW NEEDLE - involve actual geographic locations. Does this complicate your task as a translator, or do you stick strictly to the original text?

The fact that so many locations are actual places is a great attraction to readers who enjoy literary trails. THE HOLLOW NEEDLE has made Etretat a huge tourist centre. French author Patrick Gueulle has written a book, Carnet de Route d’Arsène Lupin - available on Kindle - which covers all sites of interest and includes directions on how to find them, opening times and other bits of information.

At the moment you are translating the second volume of THE TEETH OF THE TIGER. Are there any Lupin books you have still not read?

I believe I have read all of the Lupin novels.

Do you have a personal favorite?

My personal favorite is ARSENE LUPIN ENCOUNTERS SHERLOCK HOLMES. It is perhaps the most amusing because of the interaction between Holmes and his hapless assistant Watson, quite apart from the constant games the two protagonists play as they attempt to outwit one another.

When did you first set out on this project?

Circa 2000. I bought a laptop computer specifically for the purpose.

What is your process as a translator? Which editions are you translating from? Once you have a first draft, how extensively do you polish? How long does it generally take for you to complete a translation?

I translate from the ‘Livres de Poche’ editions. After my first draft, I go through the whole thing carefully and then again using the Word Review programme. A translation can take up to a year to finish depending on the length of the book and on my state of health.

Are there any particular challenges in adapting Maurice Leblanc's work to the English language?

I find translating the expletives the most difficult part - 'saperlipopette’ ["Goodness gracious!" or "Gadzooks!"], for example - not being used to using them myself! They need alternatives, but I don’t feel I can use the F-word! 
 

Do you in fact intend to translate all of the Lupin books?

I will continue translating as long as I am able. I hope I can do more.

Did you make any attempt to find a publisher that might be interested in issuing your translations in print form?

 

It takes energy and stamina, which I lack, to find an agent or a publisher - sending off chapters and receiving rejection slips. After ages, becoming increasingly dispirited in the UK, I thought I would try Wildside. Imagine my delight when John Betancourt offered me a contract after reading the first  three chapters of my translation of Arsene Lupin contre Herlock Sholmes! However, little happened after that. In the meantime, Mme Florence B. Leblanc [the granddaughter of Maurice Leblanc] had put me on to an Italian agency who were also doing their best unsuccessfully for me. I kept asking John Betancourt what was going on and he would reply that the contract would be ready soon but he had been very busy, overworked, taking on new staff, etc. Once I even got the promise that he would complete things "tomorrow." Then... silence. Maybe it was all too complicated with four nationalities being involved. I'll never know. This took place in Autumn 2006.

How disappointing!

After the Wildside flop, I gave up translating for a couple of years, thinking I had failed. Only the coming of Kindle and the end of the copyright made me think again. I think my Kindle contract forbids me from publishing my work elsewhere. 

I wanted to ask you too about the distinctive logo art that adorns your Kindle editions. Where did it originate?

I found it right at the end of a long list of Arsene Lupin images on Google! It was in the public domain. 

Have you read any of Maurice Leblanc's non-Lupin novels? If so, I was wondering if you had any favorites among those.

Translating Lupin takes all my time but I have read a few of Leblanc’s other novels, some of which can be quite erotic, and others supernatural. Voici des Ailes (We’ve Got Wings!, 1898) was written to celebrate the innovation of the bicycle at about the same time as H. G. Wells wrote THE WHEELS OF CHANCE.

Of the books you have translated thus far, which one has given you the greatest personal satisfaction?

Pass! I have greatly enjoyed translating all of them.

Josephine Gill's Arsene Lupin Kindle books can be found and purchased here.

Reviewed: SEE NO EVIL 2

Sylvia and Jen Soska, promoting their new film before they could say what it was.

I'll say it straight up: I think the Soska sisters - Jen and Sylvia, the Twisted Twins - are the most positive and energizing creative force the horror and exploitation genres have seen in some time. Their two previous features, DEAD HOOKER IN A TRUNK (2009) and AMERICAN MARY (2012), respectively represent a victory over budget and a triumph over expectation that left any number of possible roads open to them. The latter - a black comic, feminist fable that, among other things, uses the genre to describe how contemporary society has made criminality too profitable to deny - warrants recognition as one of the best horror films of the last decade. In addition to being talented filmmakers who have already forged a voice of their own within the genre, they have also proven themselves to be self-promoters with few peers. With their matching hairstyles, distinct personalities and personal charisma, they are the Beatles of Blood.

The Soskas have been keeping busy since completing AMERICAN MARY - making two features almost back-to-back for WWE Studios, as well as a segment for THE ABC'S OF DEATH 2 - but only now is this fund of finished work beginning to surface with the imminent release of SEE NO EVIL 2, a direct sequel to a 2006 film that introduced wrestling star Glenn "Kane" Jacobs as Jacob Goodnight, a seven-foot-tall, 400-pound mountain of muscle dedicated to collecting the eyeballs of all those who have sinned in his eyes.

The original SEE NO EVIL was nothing to write home about. Directed by Gregory Dark - a.k.a. Gregory Brown, Gregory Hippolyte, Alexander Gregory Hippolyte, and Jon Valentine, depending on whether the format was music video, softcore or hardcore porn - from a script by Dan Madigan, it followed the misfortunes of a group of arrogant teenage coed delinquents bussed to the burned-out Blackwell Hotel, where they have been promised that some months will be knocked off their sentences if they help to fix the place up. Unknown to them and their prison supervisors, the hotel is being used as an elaborate spider web of sorts for the lumbering Jacob and his diminutive, nattering, Bible-crazed mother (Nancy Bell). The only remarkable thing about SEE NO EVIL - a film covered in grime and slime and generally awash in misery - is not its evident misogyny but rather its misanthropy; it shows an absolute non-partisan loathing for all humanity. The most likeable characters suffer the most and the worst, while the most loathsome character ultimately leads the final exodus to safety. When you watch the film, you can see the germ of an idea that might have worked - wherein the derelict hotel becomes an onscreen variety of Halloween haunted house - but the camera is on permanent throttle and it is not an enjoyable ride.

It's no surprise that this oppressive, unpleasant franchise bid didn't spawn any immediate return trips - eight years passed between its two chapters, which is virtually the distance between HALLOWEEN and HALLOWEEN IV (which, by coincidence, introduced Danielle Harris, the star of the film I'm on the point of getting to). What is surprising is that the WWE approached the Soska Sisters to helm a sequel, and that they accepted - it seems they are wrestling fans and, making no secret of their disappointment with the earlier picture, were eager to demonstrate what they could achieve with a fixer-upper. It seems they could do quite a bit.

Glenn "Kane" Jacobs as Jacob Goodnight.

In its skill and cleverness, in its playfulness and bawdiness, SEE NO EVIL 2 reminds me very much of John Carpenter's HALLOWEEN, though it is set in an environment closer to that of the hospital in HALLOWEEN 2 - a perpetuation, perhaps, of the Soskas' evident misgivings about the medical establishment. Unlike its oppressively heavy predecessor, it is something of a rare bird among today's horror fare in that it is a horror film that intends its audience to enjoy it. Though Lionsgate has sadly made the decision to deny it this, SEE NO EVIL 2 was clearly built to be enjoyed on the big screen, in the dark (into which it plunges us occasionally with great glee), in the company of a lot of other like-minded people who want to have fun with it. It sets its tone of tongue-in-cheek irony right away with loving details of numerous tools of death which are gradually revealed to be the forensic instruments in a mortuary, not the savage tools of Jacob's workshop, which are then followed by what may be the most delightful director's screen credit in movie history.

Danielle Harris and Kaj-Erik Eriksen.

Working from a script by first-timers Nathan Brooks and Bobby Lee Darby, the Soskas immediately set about fixing the original's most faulty carpentry by establishing a core group of characters that we come to quickly care about. Our heroine is Amy (Danielle Harris), a pretty morgue attendant who, we learn, surrendered her dream of becoming a doctor because "we all end up here eventually" - meaning the morgue. There are hints that life has disappointed her, and it is also passing her by - it's her birthday, which she planned to spend partying with a group of friends, until she, her infatuated pathologist co-worker Seth (Kaj-Erik Eriksen) and paraplegic boss Holden (BATES MOTEL's Michael Eklund) are suddenly inundated with the incoming from the previous film's slaughterfest. But some friends don't take "no" for an answer and the birthday party finds its way to Amy at the morgue, led by her best friend Tamara (AMERICAN MARY lead Katharine Isabelle). Dragged along in Tamara's undeniable wake are her boyfriend Carter (Lee Majdoub), another girlfriend named Kayla (Chelon Simmons), and Amy's brother Will (Greyston Holt), who intuits Seth's interest in Amy and advises him that his sister deserves better. There is a lot of sublimated, frustrated attraction going on - between Amy and Seth, also between Will and Kayla (who manages to overturn Will's tendency to see her "as a sister" with a hot kiss), and Tamara sits on Holden's numb lap to coerce some grisly details out of him. Anxious, fascinated by weird crime details, and feeling up for some dangerous drama, Tamara feigns a need to pee to seek out the remains of Jacob Goodnight, which she ends up straddling and teasing with an apparently effective kiss of life - it's the only explanation we get of his imminent resurrection, but better a sexy kiss than a lame deus ex machina.

Raising Kane: Katharine Isabelle and Glenn Jacobs.

SPOILER AHEAD: Once Jacob's cold carcass vanishes from his slab, the movie is off and running and the next half hour or so is fresher than anything the American slasher genre has seen since the 1970s. The Soskas delight in their morgue's haunted house possibilities, turning out the lights, letting us see just a little, and startling us with sudden bursts of violence and volume. The film becomes a thrill-ride not solely through their expert modulation of their suspense pieces and shock effects, but thanks to the fine ensemble work of the cast, who invest the film with a lot of life before the machinations of death take over. Danielle Harris and Kaj-Erik Eriksen make a resourceful and touching screen duo, so much so that one is almost reluctant to praise them individually; together, they invest the film with that charge of pending life, pending disclosure, pending passion that is placed in perpetual peril. Katharine Isabelle steals the first third of the film as Tamara, one of those characters who get under our skin as an uncontrollable and not especially likeable force of nature, making her an unexpectedly dear price to pay. I don't think it will come as too much of a spoiler to mention there comes a time when we must kiss Tamara goodbye (there must have been jokes on the set), and when this happens, the whole tone of the picture shifts with startling gravity, the galloping good time settling down to keep its promised body count. If the film's first half is unexpectedly playful and buoyant, it is the second half that is most surprising and lingering in the mind, building to a spent and sobering conclusion that looks to me, unless I'm very much mistaken, like a conscious nod to Antonioni.

The problem with most slasher films is that they are designed without the necessary sense of mischief that characterized the capital works of Hitchcock, Mario Bava and John Carpenter in this area. By consigning their artistry to their makeup effects departments, these films often default to tedious exercises in nihilism. This was the fault with SEE NO EVIL, which indicated no value to the lives it was designed to mow down. What is exceptional about SEE NO EVIL 2 is that it uses the genre to celebrate life in all its variety, in laughter and shyness and moments of resolve, and the dance of love whether tentative or careless, until its story must finally keep its promises to the franchise and the genre - at which point we are made to feel something, repeatedly - in the final tally, perhaps something more than the genre has traditionally taught us to expect. Not everyone will approve of where this film ultimately goes, but its final port is, I think, a courageous one and wholly consistent with the Soskas' previous work. It is bound to provoke discussion.

SEE NO EVIL 2 comes to View On Demand outlets this Friday, October 17, and will then be released on BD/DVD by Lionsgate on October 21. It is a shame that a horror film so obviously designed to be enjoyed on the big screen is being denied a full theatrical release - that said, it is having its World Premiere theatrical screening tonight (October 15) at the Screamfest Horror Film Festival in Los Angeles.

I envy the experience that crowd will be having as they sit together in the dark, and the talk that will inevitably follow.


  

Book Report: THE WORM & THE RING by Anthony Burgess

Finished reading Anthony Burgess' 1970 revised version of his 1963 novel THE WORM AND THE RING last night. This is one of his most difficult novels to find; the original British edition was withdrawn by its publisher and pulped when threatened with libel litigation from persons who knew Burgess at one of his earlier teaching posts - including, the biographies say, a fellow woman teacher with whom Burgess had been smitten. There never was an American edition. Finding an unpulped original edition will run you into the high hundreds or low thousands; even this less elusive edition doesn't come cheap, but I take my Burgess seriously.

Though meticulously observed and typically well written, with the author's attention bobbing and dipping from the surface of life to its most profound interior monologue depths, this is a disappointingly slight novel about the awakening, indecisive and dying passions among the students and teachers at a British public school. It juggles and toggles between four major and a couple of minor characters, some of whom are pointedly Catholic and ponder the disadvantages of this when one is assailed by the temptations of life. The book hits its high points during a field trip to Paris, where two married (but not to each other) teachers, tempted by temporary liberty while being entrusted to supervise a mixed group of students, but there is no sense of momentum to carry us along, and the book's comic, serious and philosophic selves are not smoothly blended. The last few chapters - where the revising took place, is my guess - feel rushed and alternately blunt and jagged as glass. The title is drawn from a rhapsodic latter chapter paragraph that maps the highs and lows of existence, from the rings of church bells and holy matrimony to the lowliest worm subsisting on death, but it also carries an ornery allusion to male and female sexual apparatus. The book is full of such ornery wordplay, as when one student improbably calls out "Merde de chat!" after tossing a ball to a classmate. ("Catch it" - get it?)

This was one of the five novels Burgess wrote in the year after being given his imminent death notice by a doctor who allegedly found in him an inoperable brain tumor; A CLOCKWORK ORANGE was another. The tumor turned out to have been a false alarm and a Burgess went on to write dozens of more books. I'm glad I was finally able to find and read it, but THE WORM AND THE RING is among the least of them.

Reviewed: TOPKAPI (1964)

I have a potent childhood memory of seeing the trailer for Jules Dassin's TOPKAPI at my neighborhood theater, where I remember being similarly impressed by the otherworldly sights offered by the coming attractions for BLACK ORPHEUS and ATOMIC AGENT. With TOPKAPI, the trailer presented me with my first ever glimpses of Istanbul, that great Turkish city so memorably celebrated in Alain Robbe-Grillet's L'IMMORTELLE and various Jess Franco films - I was impressed by the dreamlike conflation of its crabbed wooden dwellings, its domed temples, its turbanned throngs and the deep blue of the Bosphorous, whose dense gelid complexion is like that of no other sea.

I didn't actually get around to seeing TOPKAPI until last night; it's newly available on Blu-ray from Kino Lorber ($29.95) as part of their new Studio Classics line, licensed from MGM. It is a handsome presentation - 1.66:1, 1920x1080p - and the colors, which are important to the storytelling, are as rich as my childhood memory of its trailer, which is also included. Though it is mostly forgotten now, TOPKAPI was pretty big for an international production as the time of its first release in 1964; for some reason, it was not considered as a foreign film - the National Board of Review included it on their list of the year's top ten films; screenwriter Monja Danischewsky was nominated by the Writers Guild of America for their WGA Award for "Best Written American Comedy" (it seems anything but an American film!), and Peter Ustinov won his second Oscar (after SPARTACUS) for his supporting role as the timid "schmoe" Arthur Simpson, a performance he seems to have patterned in part on Bert Lahr's Cowardly Lion in MGM's THE WIZARD OF OZ.

A brilliante heist thriller based on Eric Ambler's Edgar Award-winning 1962 novel THE LIGHT OF DAY, TOPKAPI turned out to be one of those films whose far-reaching influence was explained to me as I watched it, as were the reasons why time has not been particularly kind to it. The opening titles are kaleidoscopic, a procession of spinning colors that reminded me immediately of the main titles of Mario Bava's DANGER: DIABOLIK (1967), another heist picture that was - I suddenly understood - showing its respect for this one. But what a more interesting film TOPKAPI would have been with Marisa Mell in Melina Mercouri's role! (Interesting echo of her initials there.) I have to assume that Mercouri is an acquired taste that I have somehow never acquired; I find her thick accent, gravelly voice, and hard features pretty much the antithesis of sexy, though the same act somehow worked for Eartha Kitt. But Jules Dassin - who was enamored with her, had guided her to an Academy Award-nominated lead performance in 1962's NEVER ON SUNDAY, and would marry her in 1966 - saw something in her that I, at least, do not. I could almost say the same for everyone else in the picture, because I count Maximilian Schell and Peter Ustinov among those actors for whom I've always felt no more than a watered-down liking, based in part on their being continually attracted to films that held no more than watered-down appeal for me. They are both on their best behavior here, however; I found them both likeable if not particularly compelling.

The story concerns the wish of criminal diva and self-described "nymphomaniac" Elizabeth Lipp (Mercouri) to own the jewel-encrusted dagger displayed as part of a stuffed sultan's wardrobe on display inside Istanbul's Topkapi Museum. She is particularly adoring of its handle, which sports four of the largest and most perfect emeralds in existence. (In a key scene, Mercouri becomes the centerpiece of a brain trust meeting by wearing an eye-commanding emerald green dress, replete with emerald-lacquered finger- and toenails.) After introductory scenes in which she breaks the fourth wall in the most annoying way ("Hey, Melina!" calls out an offscreen voice, "What are you doing?"), Mercouri's character uses her personal appeal to attract and hold a group of diverse men to steal the dagger for her, though she has already used her craft skills to execute a perfect replica of the piece. She recruits a former lover, Walter Harper (Schell). to mastermind the theft, which he conceives to do using only the help of a crew of amateurs, because using professional thieves would attract too much attention. Since the floor of the museum is tricked out to signal an alarm with the slightest amount of weight applied to it, the theft must somehow be conducted weightlessly, which is eventually done with the help of a circus acrobat and trapeze artist, Giulio the Human Fly (Gilles Segal). In short, using wires, he lowers himself into the room and intends to swap Elizabeth's replica with the actual treasure.

To render my most important criticism of the film, it is necessary to spoil the end result of its masterfully executed heist sequence - so stop reading this paragraph now, if you haven't yet seen the picture. There comes a point during the robbery, just as he lifts the precious dagger, that Giulio loses his balance, just before placing the false dagger inside the display case. Most viewers will be holding their breath by this point, and thus highly attentive to every small detail, so as he clutches both daggers to his chest, it's natural for the viewer to think "Oh no! He's going to mix up the fake dagger with the real one and all this will be for naught!" This would have led to a well-telegraphed but appropriately ironic ending for the film - our thieving heroes could have been let off the hook when their dagger was found to be inauthentic (think THE GREAT ESCAPE's tunnel diggers emerging on the very cusp of German soil) - but that is not how it plays out. Instead, as Giulio makes his escape through a high window, a bird flies unseen into the display room. In time, it eventually settles down on the floor, tripping the museum's alarm. The only problem is that the bird doesn't trigger the alarm until the thieves have voluntarily gone to police headquarters about another matter, which posits them in the best possible place to be at the moment the alarm goes off! They have an alibi. Nevertheless, the film then cuts immediately away to the entire group in prison, doing time. It is one of the most senseless and appalling cheats I have ever seen in a lifetime of watching movies.

The only explanation I can think of is that Dassin must have shot the film the way the footage suggests - that the thief accidentally absconded with the false dagger, a fact then slowly discovered by the would-be thieves in the aftermath of their efforts - but that the resulting film didn't test well, either with studio executives or test audiences, perhaps because they felt cheated or because they were concerned that letting the criminal gang elude punishment even for a foiled heist would seem highly immoral. It would be interesting to know how Eric Ambler navigated the story's final third.

If TOPKAPI ultimately breaks its trust with the viewer, its rollicking trek to that point of betrayal is diverting enough to make the film commendable. Every heist picture to follow was influenced to some degree by its example, and that influence is particularly obvious in the classic television series MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE and its later feature film franchise. Along for the ride are Robert Morley, Jess Hahn and Akim Tamiroff (as an openly homosexual lush), and the exotic location photography is the work of Henri Alekan, beloved for his exquisite work on Cocteau's BEAUTY AND THE BEAST and Clouzot's THE WAGES OF FEAR.

Nine Years A Blogger

My calendar tells me that it was nine years ago today when I had the sudden and suddenly acted-upon brainstorm to launch Video WatchBlog. According to Blogger's archive (which I fear may have lost track of some entries along the way), I have authored 1117 postings under this banner since that fateful day - 1,117 entries over the roughly 3,285 days (not counting leap years) that constitute nine years, which works out to something like one new entry every three days.

Wait, can that be true?
Is that really possible?
If that's so, why do I feel like such a slacker in regard to this blog? I suppose it's because I'm a busy guy - focusing mostly, these days, on extracurricular projects and Facebook - and, the faster one moves, the slower one's surroundings tend to appear.

It's been awhile since I've offered any kind of update, so here's what's going on. VIDEO WATCHDOG still exists (!) but, much as it did when Donna and I were working like crazy to produce the Bava book, it has gone off-schedule due to the work that we are obliged to do to produce our VW Digital Archive in time for its promised December launch date. We're two issues behind schedule at the moment (not good for us, since the print magazine remains our bread and butter), but we are confident there will be at least one more issue, possibly two, before the end of the year. One of these issues is fully edited and ready to go into layout; the other is a stack of solicited and selected material waiting to be edited and shaped into an issue. This has been such an incredible year for new releases that it pains me not to be keeping up with it, and I need to be more diligent about picking up some of that slack here during the time when our voice isn't being represented on newsstands. I intend to do this, so stay tuned.

I have been a busy boy during this (ha) off-time. I recently finished an elusive third novel I have mentioned here in the past, THE ONLY CRIMINAL, which you'll be hearing more about in the coming year. I've recorded some more audio commentaries - PLANET OF THE VAMPIRES for Kino/Scorpion (US) and EYES WITHOUT A FACE for the BFI (UK) - and there are tentative plans to do more for some exciting 2015 releases. I've actually had to turn down some tempting invitations of late, because these tracks take time to research and script and there simply hasn't been enough time. Most recently, I've been selecting and plotting a good deal of the supplementary materials for the Digital Archive, and this work is going to become particularly intensive now as I presently still have another hundred or so issues to fill before my deadline.

Completing THE ONLY CRIMINAL and feeling like a novelist again has prompted a renaissance in my reading. This year I reread, with great satisfaction and richer appreciation, Thomas Mann's THE MAGIC MOUNTAIN, which I first read in my twenties. Other titles I've read and enjoyed recently: Arthur Bernede's JUDEX (now available in an English translation), Peter O'Donnell's MODESTY BLAISE, Gaston Leroux's DOROTHY THE ROPE DANCER, Patricia Highsmith's THE ANIMAL LOVER'S BOOK OF BEASTLY MURDER, Joan Schenkar's deep dish biography THE TALENTED MISS HIGHSMITH, the first two Perry Mason novels by Erle Stanley Gardner, and VW contributor Brad Stevens' debut novel THE HUNT. I'm presently reading my mentor Anthony Burgess again for the first time in decades, having tracked down an affordable copy of his elusive THE WORM AND THE RING, and it's a particular pleasure to hear his voice ambling around inside me again. When I finish this, I'm looking forward to reading the recently translated final Robbe-Grillet novel, revisiting Henry Green, discovering Maurice Blanchot, pushing on to the second Modesty Blaise, and delving more deeply into Maurice Leblanc and Gaston Leroux.

I find that the two most important reasons to read fiction are that 1) it enriches the person you are with the wisdom and perspective of others, and the more personal 2) it makes me want to write more fiction myself. Accordingly, I'm presently about 60 pages into a new novel that I don't want to jinx by saying more about it.

In the midst of all this, I'm changing from PC to Mac with some difficulty - and, as if learning one new language wasn't enough, I recently acquired Rosetta Stone for French in the hope of gaining some access to the many cool French-language books lying around my house.

So, as you can see, there is much to do - but that's no reason not to expect further activity here as Video WatchBlog heads into its 10th year. As the old saying goes, "If you need to get something done, ask a busy person."    

Early French Pulp Fiction Findings

Here are some tidbits pertaining to early 20th century French pulp fiction in translation. A month or so ago, I found a used copy of a book by Maurice Leblanc entitled DOROTHY THE ROPE DANCER, which I enjoyed very much. I've now discovered that it is the same novel - even the same translation - as another Leblanc translation titled THE SECRET TOMB, a book that was already in my collection at the time I acquired DOROTHY (and not too cheaply). THE SECRET TOMB was the US publication title and DOROTHY THE ROPE DANCER (a precise translation of the novel's original French title) was the UK edition.

Black Coat Press is offering a newly translated Arsene Lupin mystery by Leblanc called THE COUNTESS CAGLIOSTRO, which they claim has never appeared in translation before. In fact, upon receiving the book, I quickly deduced that its first half had been previously translated as THE MEMOIRS OF ARSENE LUPIN - however, the second half, which they call COUNTESS CAGLIOSTRO'S REVENGE, is making its English debut here to the best of my knowledge. The entire book is a fresh and unexpurgated translation by Jean-Marc Lofficier, who is presently occupied in a new translation of Leblanc's classic Arsene Lupin mystery 813, which he tells me has entire chapters missing from its previous English translation by Alexander Teixeira do Mattos.

Killing Me Alphabetically With Their Songs

Tristan Risk in the "T Is For Torture Porn" segment of THE ABC'S OF DEATH 2.

I very much enjoyed THE ABC'S OF DEATH 2; this compendium of 26 horror shorts on the shared theme of violent premature demise is a fountain of macabre creativity, encompassing J-horror, black humor, political commentary, feminism, sexual politics, surreal satire, Bill Plympton animation and even stop-motion animation. My favorite segments were Robert Morgan's "D Is For Deloused" (the stop-motion one), Kristina Buozyte's "K Is For Knell", Jerome Sabel's harrowing "V Is For Vacation" and the closer, Chris Nash's deeply unsettling "Z Is For Zygote." Of course, your mileage may differ - there is a lot of variety here, and it's all very watchable. And, if you should ever find yourself thinking otherwise, the next segment will be along in a few minutes.

I was particularly looking forward to the contribution by AMERICAN MARY's Jen and Sylvia Soska - "T Is For Torture Porn" - but I found it a bit insubstantial even in this context. If it only felt slight, that would be one thing, but it also feels abbreviated (not necessarily their fault) - to the point of leaving one unsure even of how the story relates to its title. It doesn't help matters that it's placed alphabetically amid some of the most visually and conceptually ambitious segments in the feature. As it is, one feels rushed through a blunt sketch of humiliation and inexplicable mutant revenge that needed more development and pay-off. That said, on the plus side, it stars Tristan Risk (AMERICAN MARY's Beatress), who gives the two-hour-plus film the biggest shot of star power it has. Looking at first like a Margaret Keane ballerina, she emerges from some unpleasant manhandling with her dignity intact and, when she turns the tables on her abusers, she becomes the aurora of cackling horror that is the film's single most arresting and memorable image. The Soskas themselves also appear as witches in the backgrounds of Steven Kostanski's clever TV commercial spoof "W Is For Wish," which also features support from ANTIVIRAL's Brandon Cronenberg.

Not yet in theaters, THE ABC'S OF DEATH 2 premiered yesterday as a VOD title which you can find at the following outlets:

iTunes: http://bit.ly/ABCs2iTunes
On Demand: http://bit.ly/ABCs2OnDemand
YouTube: http://bit.ly/ABCs2YouTube
Amazon Instant: http://bit.ly/ABCs2AmazonInstant
Google Play: http://bit.ly/ABCs2GooglePlay
VUDU: http://bit.ly/ABCs2VUDU

Postscript 10/6/2014: 

Well, color me stupid. I was just informed that the last scene of the Soska Sisters' segment in THE ABC's OF DEATH 2 is shown after the movie's end credits. I dutifully watched all of the end credits - and with 26 different crews, they roll on eternally - but when the book appeared afterwards and faded to black, I assumed the movie was over and ran the renta-film back to watch my favorite segments again - not knowing there was still more to come. So I didn't see all of what I tuned in for. Of course, this may alter the tenor of my criticism - in fact, I'm told it makes sense of the "Torture Porn" title.

Strictly Mono

I've always wanted to hear STRICTLY PERSONAL by Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band in its elusive mono mix, and now - after winning a copy of the first UK pressing - I've finally had the pleasure.

It was not what I expected, and not fully what I'd heard described; I'd read that it was a more powerful mix, the "truer" mix, if you will. But it sounds to my ears, unusually, like Bob Krasnow's stereo mix came first and that the mono version is a compression of that. It's usually the other way around with albums of this vintage, but stereo was becoming standardized by 1968 with some important albums (like Jefferson Airplane's CROWN OF CREATION) not even receiving a mono release.

The album's controversial phasing is still in evidence, it just doesn't travel anywhere, except maybe up and down along the Human Totem Pole. Some elements buried in the hectic stereo mix - cymbals, bass, background vocals - are squeezed closer to the fore, and so can be heard more clearly, while other instrumentation collides in its compression into a shambolic miasma of sound.

I need to spend more time with it. After one listen, I'm not sure that I don't prefer the stereo mix.

Revisiting Oliver Stone's SALVADOR

I've always remembered SALVADOR (1985) - now available as a limited edition Blu-ray disc from Twilight Time - as Oliver Stone's best film, but last night's revisit found it not aging so well. The early scenes set in San Francisco, introducing rogue journalist Richard Boyle (James Woods) as someone whose personal life is spiralling out of control, seemed so nakedly contrived and phony (in that special pastel way so many 1980s films seem to be) that it set up the question, "If the scenes shot in your own country seem unbelievable, how is this going to fare any better once we get to El Salvador?"

Well, I found much of the El Salvador material overly contrived as well. Stone can't be faulted for not warning us - we're told that the characters have been fictionalized up front - but there is fictionalizing that is done with delicacy to lure the viewer to truths underlying characterization, and then you have composited caricature, which is closer to what we have here. In the plus column, John Savage steals every scene as photojournalist John Cassady - by becoming his character rather than aspiring to a grand slam, and Cindy Gibb gives her role as an ill-fated American nun exactly what the film needs to make her eventual loss emotionally resonant and calculable. What I remembered as a strong, possibly career-best, performance by James Woods is basically James Woods giving us more James Woods than we need to decide for ourselves whether or not Boyle (Stone's co-screenwriter, incidentally) is an asshole; the whole movie seems pitched to confirm this, even in so many words, and his tendency to overshoot the mark draws more comic attention to himself than to the sober intentions of the movie. It can't be denied that SALVADOR contains some powerful scenes, but almost without exception what makes them powerful is the grim requiem music played over them and the viewer feels imposed upon by music that requires a rote response.

Toward the end of the picture, a lot of scenes start ending with dissolves all of a sudden, indicating a much more protracted fleeing from El Salvador in an earlier cut than we're given, which is grueling enough. The agony of these final scenes depend on the film having established the authenticity of Boyle's love for the Salvadoran woman Maria (Elpidia Carillo), which it takes pains to do, but having Boyle return to the Catholic church for the first time in 30 years, confessing his ruinous sins to a priest for a pittance of a penance, but Woods can't help playing these scenes for too much of a laugh, so the film is ultimately deprived of the unbearably heart-rending finale it was aiming for. As it is, it's what we might adequately term a downer.

There is a great film in here somewhere, and it resides in the Stone-Boyle script, which uses Boyle's self-destructive spiral and his self-serving retreat (with pal DJ Rock, played by Jim Belushi as a walking, talking, smoking, drinking, whining pig pinata of American consumption and greed) into El Salvador as one of several foregrounded metaphors for a corrupt America's contribution to El Salvador's violent instability. The implication with Boyle's character is specifically what the film says pointedly when the Sandanistas ride into town on horseback, overthrow the local military base and start performing executions in the public square - that the solution is no better than the problem. Boyle thinks he's making a difference by drawing attention to this conflict, but he's really looking for a second chance - not even that: another way out.

This release marks SALVADOR's Blu-ray debut, and high definition lends impressive depth and detail to the film's compositions, and the 5.1 audio is wildly directional when it counts. Limited to the usual 3000 copies, Twilight Time's Blu-ray disc includes the 62m making-of documentary and 25m of deleted scenes included with the previous 2001 "Special Edition" DVD release from Fox Searchlight. Exclusive to this release are an isolated track of Georges Delerue's score, and a new audio commentary by Stone. I've not yet dipped into these extras, but I am interested in doing so. The film may have dated into more of an argument than it used to be, but it's still an argument worth having - and this disc comes to the debate generously prepared.

Viv's Sliterary Debut

I blasted through Viv Albertine's memoir CLOTHES CLOTHES CLOTHES MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC BOYS BOYS BOYS like a box set of my favorite teleseries. The chapters are short (short enough for the reader to keep thinking, "I can read another and THEN go to sleep" until the sun comes up) but profound nonetheless, piling up into a potent, endearingly candid overview of a life in search of its own meaning.

The book is divided into two "sides," like an album, each side documenting the slow and sometimes grueling climb toward an achievement of artistic expression which for that period redefined Viv - namely, the short reign of the Slits and her decision, after sixteen years of marriage to a not entirely supportive husband, to reclaim her identity as a musician - which she in fact improved upon, reinventing herself as a fairly unique (and still musically innovative) minstrel of the joys, sorrows, ironies and bitter absurdities of female middle age experience. Much of the book also details her quest for love, which - unusually for any book on the subject - differentiates between her experiences of men who generated in her feelings of sexual attraction, intoxication and/or tension; it also includes some heartbreaking descriptions of her debasement at the hands of men who abused her physically or emotionally (my characterization, not necessarily hers), beginning with an abusive father who may have predisposed her psychologically to be attracted to disrespectful men and outright nutters (ditto). Yet the book's most personal and powerful episodes are those about her determination to overcome terrible, graphically described physical ordeals to become a mother.

I've known women with similar backgrounds and must consider this book an absolute success because I closed it feeling as though I'd known Viv her whole life - as a child, as an idealistic and adventuring teenager, as an earnest guitar student and ever-striving recording artist with the Slits, as a dreamer, as a woman, wife and mother, and as the reborn artist - body and soul, partly because her writing is so acute and her self-exploration so thorough and unsparing, that she takes one not only into her confidence but into her self. Her documentation of what she experienced emotionally as the female lead in the film EXHIBITION is the most honest description of the acting process I've read by a contemporary actress. As for her coverage of the Slits, it's everything I wanted from the TYPICAL GIRLS biography (which I didn't feel fully delivered, though it covered more ground), though it does skimp a bit on Budgie's contribution/departure and the second album - which Viv describes as being an advance on the first in some ways, something I would have liked to hear more about.

In fact, if this book is lacking anything, it is descriptive appreciation of the music that inspired Viv and made her want to become a musician, and specifically a guitarist - and its value to her is made more mysterious when she claims that she didn't listen to music for 25 years after leaving the Slits. (Her husband preferred that she leave music behind, to focus on family, and she also says it reminded her too much of her foiled ambitions.) Perhaps her muse was more environmental than musical, aroused in her by a desire to make sense of the clothes and boys that attracted her in the first place, to belong to the excitement they generated in her, but Viv was certainly in the right place and in the right company to seize the opportunity and she used it to make a contribution that was significant then and continues to be.

Above all, CLOTHES/MUSIC/BOYS is a human document about a talented but unsure woman struggling with the voices and forces in her life that would prefer that she conform to them, rather than address (much less fulfill) her own potential, and finally finding the center of strength and larger network of support that begins to make this possible. In its telling, it exposes so much below the author's steely but tender surface as to expose most other musical autobiographies as so much show business.

Out now in the UK, with a US edition coming in November.

Joan Rivers (1933-2014)

Joan Rivers, circa 1965.

I imagine that Joan Rivers left this plane as she would have wished, fresh from making another audience laugh, without knowing what hit her, and looking considerably less - or at least considerably other than her 81 years. David Del Valle reminds me that Joan was a fellow talking head of ours on an episode of A&E's BIOGRAPHY devoted to Vincent Price, which aired the week he died - so there was a connection there, which I'd forgotten. I admired her when she started out, when her comedy was based in things she had in common with her audience, when half the battle was getting laughs from the shock of recognition and when she let her vulnerability show. But as comedy changed, in its determination to reflect the world around it, she changed too, and the rewards that should have come with her success and longevity were not always forthcoming. She became more manically aggressive in her comedy and there was something about the grating, in-your-face caricature she became that, to me, was ripe with bitterness and a determination to outlast all those other bastards out of sheer cussedness. There is a poignant arc to her story, which is the story of a qualified artist surviving in a traditionally alpha male business, and I imagine it will be told and examined from more than one angle in years to come. She was not always my cup of tea, but she had my respect. She was one strong lady.