FILM FAILURES I REFUSE TO ABANDON Part One

The Sicilian (1987: Dir. Michael Cimino)

I pride myself for my loyalty. If a filmmaker makes even a single work that I fully embrace, then I consider myself a custodian of his entire oeuvre. Michael Cimino is one of these artists I will defend at any opportunity. Under the screenwriting mentorship of Clint Eastwood, Cimino made a memorable directorial debut with an eccentric heist buddy comedy Thunderbolt and Lightfoot in 1974.  His follow-up was The Deer Hunter (1979), one of the most influential films of the Seventies, and the first Oscar-winning movie made about the Vietnam War. High on his sophomore success, Cimino garnered an unprecedented budget and schedule commitment from United Artists to make his mesmerizing mega-budget western Heaven's Gate (1980), a nearly four hour box office disaster that bankrupted the studio, and became the tipping point for directorial excess in Hollywood. Chastened by his fall from grace, Cimino regrouped for the slightly less ambitious Year of the Dragon (1985), a dynamic though money-losing cop picture plagued by protests for its "racist" portrayal of Asian culture. Undaunted, Cimino accepted the assignment to direct the film adaptation of Mario Puzo's sequel novel to The Godfather, entitled The Sicilian, a largely fictionalized retelling of the life of Salvatore Giuliano, an actual post-war Italian bandit, known as the Robin Hood of Sicily. Puzo, in a crass bid to give historical credibility to his invented Corleone family, shoe-horned them into Giuliano's real-life exploits. With all cinematic rights to The Godfather still in the hands of others, any mention of the Corleones were excised from the script of The Sicilian, and Cimino also distanced himself from Coppola's landmark saga by avoiding the casting of any familiar Mediterranean faces. This led to some downright odd casting choices, including German Fassbinder almuni Barbara Sukowa as an American-born Countess, Cockney Terence Stamp as an effete sphinx-like Italian Prince, and fair-haired Irish actor Ray McNally as a Roman politician. Cimino personally campaigned for Frenchman Christophe Lambert as Giuliano, and at the time his choice must have seemed right, given the era's paucity of young bankable Italian stars. Lambert, whose myopic intensity and physical grace often compensated for his limited emotional range, perfectly embodied Cimino's romanticized hero, a direct contrast to the docudrama approach favoured by Neopolitan writer-director Francesco Rosi for his 1962 film Salvatore Giuliano. Much like Rosi, Cimino saw his Giuliano film as a personal statement, the third in his mythic trilogy of criminal systems and the rebels who oppose them. In Heaven's Gate, it was Kris Kristofferson's cynical betrayal by the robber barons of the East Coast, a reality lived by Cimino himself when the film was cut in half and forsaken by its distributors. In Year of the Dragon, it was Mickey Rourke's noble redemption in his one-man war with the Chinese Tong, revealing a determination which mirrored Cimino's own rising from the ashes, but it would all come to a fateful conclusion with The Sicilian, where the optimism of altrusitic banditry is proven to be no match for the seemingly eternal corruption of Mafia-controlled Sicily. Cimino learned the same hard lesson about the Hollywood system when his 146 minute director's cut of the film was legally butchered to 115 minutes and released with minimal enthusiasm by a fledgling production company founded by former Columbia Pictures chief David Begelman, the convicted embezzler in a notorious 1977 cheque forging scandal that almost fatally damaged the career of actor Cliff Robertson. Maimed in previous battles, Cimino now seemed to have lost the war, making only two forgotten subsequent films in the Nineties (The Desperate Hours; Sunchaser), before pursuing a career as a novelist in Europe. With its lacklustre North American reception, The Sicilian was effectively orphaned, with only a later home video version of Cimino's cut, where the virtues of David Mansfield's lush Italianate score, Alex Thomson's burnished cinematography, and the director's own eye for visually epic composition, could still be appreciated by those who believe that a true artist is the author of his or her own fate and can never be silenced by the opposition or indifference of their corrupt benefactors. DVD REGION 1 & 2

FAR-OUT FLASHBACK

SPACE STATION 76 (2014: Dir. Jack Plotnick)

For fans of my generation it is the Science Fiction send-up we never imagined. A laugh-out-loud love letter to the groovy dystopian space fantasies populated by swinging stereotypes in all their bell-bottomed glory. If you grew up, as I did, devouring everything Sci-Fi in the Seventies, then filmmaker Jack Plotnick 's Space Station 76 is the ultimate nostalgia trip back to the future. By cunningly stealing external elements from such treasured television trash as The Starlost, Buck Rogers, and Space:1999, and emotionally combining them with the narcissistic angst of a John Cheever story, Plotnick and his collaborators have created one of the most amusing recent critiques of the so-called "Me Decade". The film is an evocative compendium of the social and sexual self-involvement of the Seventies, embodied by the isolated inhabitants of the film's eponymous space station. As the lives of these egocentric avatars were being played out in front of me, I couldn't help experiencing cringes of recognition in between prolonged bouts of ribald laughter. Plotnick not only knows that hair, make-up and clothes are the easiest of visual gags when summoning up such a colour-blind fashion epoch, but he also cleverly underlines the emptiness of his character's lives by recreating the cloying consumerism and psychedelic suburban styles that saturated the interiors of homes from my childhood memories. Just as this was an era when it was o.k. to have wood paneling and blue paisley wallpaper in the same kitchen, it was also a time when the tradition of marital fidelity was being challenged by a generation raised on a steady Sixties diet of freedom and experimentation. Western society was in transition, trying to make sense of a culture liberated by the enlightenment of new gender roles, and until 1977 when the retro-pulp fantasy of Star Wars changed the channel, the Science Fiction genre in film and TV reflected this disillusionment with outmoded ideologies. The danger is that films like Space Station 76 can fool us into thinking we have come a long way since those days, but it's Plotnick's ingenious intention to question that assumption, thus allowing the chilly air of truth to temper his warm mirthful memories. DVD REGION 1

ACTION HEROES WHO DELIGHT ME: Jean-Paul Belmondo

"THAT MAN FROM RIO" (1964: Dir. Philippe De Broca)

There are very few actors in the history of world cinema who are willing to risk their lives for a film. During the silent era, both Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd seemed to dance with death regularly, Lloyd even lost a thumb and forefinger in a botched explosion. For succeeding generations various performers have exhibited a desire to do their own stunts, and in France starting in the Sixties one daredevil actor perched himself above all others on the precipice of excitement. Jean-Paul Belmondo may not have been a vaudeville tumbler like Cary Grant, or a circus acrobat like Burt Lancaster, but this classically trained stage actor was just as fearless taking a punch or leaping from a tall window. Belmondo`s career as a leading man was auspiciously launched in 1960 with the art house hits Breathless and Two Women, and soon after his dramatic talents were firmly established in the challenging role of an intellectual cleric in Leon Morin, Priest (1961).  The next year he began a collaboration that would last for nearly his entire career, when director Phillipe De Broca cast him opposite Tunisian starlet Claudia Cardinale as the eponymous swashbuckling rogue in Cartouche. In this lively romp, Belmondo was allowed to finally cut loose, winning over a delighted audience with his abundant charm and seemingly boundless energy. Both men basked in the unprecedented success of their endeavour, so when De Broca was denied the film rights to the famous Belgian comic book hero Tintin, he quickly developed his own similar adventure film featuring a star whom he knew could deliver the requisite heroic stunts on camera. As with all action adventure films of that era and despite its roots in the traditions of European pulp literature, That Man From Rio, couldn't help but be also influenced by the recent 007 craze, even featuring future Bond baddie Adolfo Thunderball Celi in a supporting role. Proudly flaunting its bubbly buffoonery the film's damsel-in-distress plot concerning stolen native artifacts, was in reality just a pretense to stage all manner of chases, fights and daredevilry, all the while featuring the jet set locations of Brazil, the sweet ethereal beauty of Francoise Dorleac, and of course, Belmondo`s affable humour and awe-inspiring physical courage. Even fifty years later, it still stirs the blood when Bebel (Belmondo`s nickname), performs his own vertigo-inducing high jinks in full view of the lens. It was a feat not attempted again by a major star until a generation later, when Jackie Chan took even bigger risks with often injurious results. That Man From Rio proved to be a substantial hit, and after collaborating on a more comedic follow-up project Up To His Ears (1965) co-starring Belmondo`s then girlfriend Ursula Andress, he and De Broca took a break from each other until their hilarious James Bond fantasy spoof The Man from Acapuclo a.k.a. Le Magnifique (1973), subsequently succeeded by the entertaining con man comedy Incorrigible (1975) and finally Amazon (2000), a late career mis-step uncomfortably combining the science fiction, comedy, and jungle adventure genres. Belmondo would vault into action for other filmmakers as well, but few of the those pictures possess the pure fun and innocence of those he made with De Broca, the filmmaker who made him France`s greatest action star. BLU-RAY

ACTION HEROES WHO DELIGHT ME: Roger Moore

MOONRAKER (1979: Dir. Lewis Gilbert)

For some he was the Bond that should have never been. For others he was a delightedly droll hero from the intensely paranoid era of Popeye Doyle and Dirty Harry. Roger Moore was never going to be the greatest actor to wear the mantle of Ian Fleming's ageless spy, but he was, for more than a decade, the unflappable personification of Seventies British Cool. Fresh from his debonair TV characters of The Saint and The Persuaders, Moore scored an immediate hit as 007 starting with the Blaxploitation Bond film Live and Let Die (1973), followed by the dreary Kung Fu antics of The Man With The Golden Gun (1974), and finally hitting his stride with the witty and sophisticated action adventure cocktail of The Spy Who Loved Me (1977). For Your Eyes Only, was intended to follow, but in the meantime Star Wars had proven Sci-Fi could be huge box-office, so the third James Bond novel Moonraker, with its out-of-this-world title, was substituted instead. It became the highest grossing film in the series to date, but it was not without its detractors. For Sean Connery, and even George Lazenby fans, Roger Moore's interpretation was just too light and self-mocking, an eyebrow-raising maitre d' presiding over a full course meal of snide one-liners, pigeon double takes, and silly set pieces. For the young film fans coming of age during this new era of the blockbuster, the tall fair haired Moore represented the ultimate parody of the British stiff upper lip, always ready with a witty rejoinder for every deadly situation and never with a hair out of place. This characterization mined a different vein from his predecessors but it was Moore's personal irreverence for his own acting abilities that sold his breezy Bond to a willing public. Possessing none of Connery's cat-like grace, Moore embodied the stiff action man, thereby diminishing much of the tension and suspense of Fleming's popular literary protagonist. Aware of these shortcomings, producer Albert R. Broccoli, embraced the infectious drollery of his new leading man, boldly anticipating an audience who didn't need to be shaken and stirred, just pleasingly satisfied with the deluxe morsels of a stylish Bondian banquet. Moonraker represents the zenith of the Moore era, containing the most extravagant set designs by series veteran Sir Ken Adam, the stunning in-camera miniature effects of Derek Meddings, the sensual cinematography of Jean Tournier and the majestically elegant score by Bond theme arranger John Barry. It was also the first of the series to be based outside of Britain, nearly overwhelming its Parisian crew of technicians with an ambitiously sprawling production matched only by the recent mega-budget spectacle of Superman. A middle-aged Moore would go on to star in three further Bonds, with progressively less enjoyable results, and despite futile attempts to cover his wrinkled visage, he would never lose his sense of facetious fun in a role that brought unaffected joy to a cynical post hippie generation. DVD and Blu-ray REGION 1 & 2

ACTION HEROES WHO DELIGHT ME: Errol Flynn

THE ADVENTURES OF DON JUAN (1948: Dir. Vincent Sherman)

Seven years ago I wrote a blog entitled Where Have All The Heroes Gone? in which I praised the traditional heroes of an earlier era whose selfless acts bore none of the cynicism of our selfish post-millenial age. With most screens now officially dominated either by the adolescent antics of  "super-heroes" or the machine gun marauding of weary, middle-aged "expendables", the old joy of light comedy action seems like a foreign language to a generation raised on violent video games and the morbid fascination of crime scene corpses.  I have always believed that humour is a vital component to all films, and as a fan of cinematic athleticism, I can think of no better actor who embodies both of these attributes better than Errol Flynn. Bursting onto the screen with the swashbuckling earnestness of Captain Blood (1935), the dashing Tasmanian thrusted himself into the pantheon of classic movie heroes. With the assistance of Belgian fencing master Fred Cavens, Flynn developed his superior skills with a sword, which combined with a devil-may-care charm and matinee idol looks made him the greatest action star of his day. Perhaps the most important aspect of his screen persona is his pure joie de vivre, an overpowering life force energy that envelopes the viewer in its sureness of purpose. Any actor can dexterously wield a blade or shoot an arrow, but Flynn's grin makes it fun in a uniquely satisfying way, as if we the audience are partaking in the exhilarating hijinks ourselves. I still find myself almost immediately drawn into the rousing action of The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) due to the infectiousness of Flynn's zestfully witty performance. His unparalleled run of escapist entertainments continued unabated for nearly a decade after Captain Blood had made him a star overnight, but it wasn't until after a fallow period of dramas during WWII, that Flynn returned to make his testament film, The Adventures of Don Juan. It would be a rollicking swashbuckler in the quintessential Flynn style, this time taking full satirical advantage of the aging star's real-life reputation as a notorious lothario. Directed by veteran Warner Bros. craftsman Vincent Sherman (Mr Skeffington), Don Juan is a fascinating and enjoyable hybrid film in the Flynn canon, full of self-deprecating jokes, electrifying action, and melancholy romance. Flynn, still able to perform much of his own swordsmanship, owns the screen, seeding little ground to his flavourful supporting cast, including Errol's jovial cinematic sidekick Alan Hale, the oily villainy of Robert Douglas and the luscious pulchritude of Viveca Lindfors. Its all topped off with composer Max Steiner's playfully Spanish score, pushing the already exciting action sequences into exuberant overdrive. Maybe the film's energy should be credited to Sherman, a man who nearing his 100th birthday can be heard still waxing excitedly about his and Flynn's achievement on the DVD commentary track, six decades later!  DVD REGION 1 & 2

PRINTER'S INK PROTAGONISTS Part Two

DANGER: DIABOLIK (1968: Dir. Mario Bava)

When the American counterculture came into full-bloom during the late Sixties, there were very few cinematic heroes for disaffected youth to embrace. Most were government agents or other guardians of the status quo. This was an era before anti-heroes dominated the mainstream, with the closest Hollywood approximation being Harper, an irreverent gum-chewing private eye played by Paul Newman ( Hud, Hombre) in the hippest of his Sixties "H" roles. By 1967, the seeds of cultural and political revolution were also being sown in France and Italy, where a generation of teenagers grew up with comic book "heroes" whose behavior and mores represented an enviable anarchistic hedonism that fulfilled their now adult yearnings for a new world order. Many of these lawless protagonists were loosely based on the fictional template of the seminal French super-thief Arsene Lupin, created in 1902 and later the inspiration for such nefarious continental characters as Fantomas and Diabolik. Parisian arch villain Fantomas, having been around since 1911, was adapted for the screen many times, including a trio of films starting in 1964 that softened the dark psychopathy of its titular master of disguise, in favor of a more farcical approach. The knife-wielding Diabolik was the Italian anti-hero equivalent, eschewing Fantomas' ruthless power-hungry killing of innocent civilians. Instead, Diabolik confined his thieving ways to a greedy pursuit of personal wealth, aided by his gorgeous paramour Eva Kant. Created in 1962 by the Guisanni sisters, he first appeared in digest-sized monthlies or fumetti, printed in a black and white format well-suited to the noir atmosphere of his adventures. After an aborted attempt at bringing these characters to the screen in the mid-Sixties starring French actor Jean Sorel and Italian actress Elsa Martinelli, the rights were subsequently acquired by flamboyant producer Dino De Laurentiis who immediately hired ace genre director Mario Bava, an acknowledged maestro of  in-camera special effects. De Laurentiis chose as his leads, lanky American actor John Philip Law and petite French superstar Catherine Deneuve, but personalities clashed early on, so Deneuve was quickly replaced by statuesque Austrian cult actress Marisa Mell. With the characters' chemistry now rightfully restored, the resultant evidence was immediately apparent from their very first lovingly erotic embrace, when Law, breathtaking as Diabolik emerges from his flash sports car clad in a black head-to-toe skin tight rubber suit, to greet Mell, ultra sexy in her go-go boots and diaphanous orange mini dress. Glowing from their simultaneous off-screen affair, these two striking stars effortlessly draw focus in every scene, leaving Bava alone to dazzle the audience with his astonishingly substantive foreground miniatures and deceptive glass matte backgrounds. Having been one of Italy's premier cinematographers, he also took pains to suggest the visual two dimensionality of the original fumetti by dynamically employing wide angle lenses and the dreamlike layering of  rear projection.  Of course the comic book's original muted tones had no place in a Sixties romp, so Bava fully embraced the film's vivid colour scheme, particularly emphasizing a gold motif to symbolize the avarice of his doomed hero. Given its dazzling production design, one would imagine that Danger: Diabolik must have cost a comparative fortune. It was after all budgeted at the large sum of nearly 3 million dollars, however Bava, accustomed to achieving miracles on low budgets, shockingly completed the entire film for a measly $400 000 dollars. A sequel was proposed using the remaining funds, but Bava declined, having felt that the scrutiny he had endured as a director on such a high profile project was ultimately not worth the extra luxuries of production that were afforded to him. The film's resulting success both financially and artistically was further underscored when producer De Laurentiis followed up Danger: Diabolik with the 9 million dollar comic book adaptation Barbarella, once again starring John Philip Law. A bloated, static, and sometimes cheap looking fantasy, it has little of the joie de vivre of Bava's film and today is mostly remembered as an ambitious gamble by provocative filmmaker Roger Vadim (Blood and Roses), featuring his then-wife Jane Fonda in an unseemly salacious role. Signalling the end of a cycle, it would be ten more years before Richard Donner's Superman finally gave dramatic credibility to comic book heroes, initiating a blockbuster legacy that has irrevocably altered the entire Hollywood filmmaking model, seemingly forever. DVD REGION 1 & 2

PRINTER'S INK PROTAGONISTS Part One

MODESTY BLAISE (1966: Dir. Joseph Losey)

As hard as it is believe, films based on comic books and strips were once considered the lowest form of big screen entertainment. Confined to cliffhanger movie serials, or low budget B-films, these adaptations of superhero and science fiction properties such as Buck Rogers, Captain Marvel, and Dick Tracy, were considered basic fodder sold to kids en masse for their Saturday afternoon's amusement. Written and directed with a perfunctory enthusiasm for the genre, they were disposable delights for youngsters reared during the turbulent WWII years. When television arrived in the post war period these heroes migrated to the small screen where the new medium became an electronic babysitter for a generation of baby boomers. It didn't take long for heroes such as Superman, The Lone Ranger and Flash Gordon to excite the imaginations of television's captive audience. This remained the norm for most of the next decade with the exceptions being Superman and the Mole-Men (1951) and Batman (1966), both big screen spin-offs of their popular TV series. In fact, it would be the Europeans who would finally break the stigma for cinematic superheroes. In the U.K.and the rest of Europe there had been a tradition of adult comic strips produced for their many newspapers, even James Bond enjoyed a successful run in the dailies. Writer Peter O'Donnell began his career scripting comic strips, having cut his teeth adapting Dr. No for the Daily Express, and later creating the most famous illustrated female heroine ever to appear in print, Modesty Blaise. The eponymously named Evening Standard strip began in 1963 and ran virtually uninterrupted for 38 years with O'Donnell simultaneously publishing Modesty Blaise novels and short stories during that time. It had all started when O'Donnell was hired to convert a rejected first draft screenplay of a Modesty Blaise feature, into a tie-in book, marketed to promote the film version, thus inaugurating his career as a novelist. Although originally the intent of producer Joseph Janni, director Joseph Losey (These Are The Damned, Accident) had little use for a female James Bond, instead he wanted to utilize the character's exploits as a hook on which to hang a collection of satirical commentaries, an idea totally antithetical in tone to O'Donnell's original hard boiled pulp aspirations. What resulted was an amusing hodgepodge of genre and tone, mixing slapstick, surrealism, and social satire in an emblematic cocktail of psychedelic Sixties mod. Starring as Modesty, a mysterious criminal adventurer recruited by the British Secret Service, was sensuous siren Monica Vitti, the Italian IT Girl of the era thanks to her longstanding artistic and romantic relationship with auteur filmmaker Michelangelo Antonioni ( L'Avventura, Red Desert). Sharing in this dangerous assignment is her Cockney sidekick Willie Garvin portrayed by Terence Stamp, whose screen charisma more than makes up for his less than stellar singing voice featured in the musical numbers. In the original strip Garvin was modelled by artist Jim Holdaway after the then young stage actor Michael Caine, coincidentally Stamp's own roommate at the time. Our two fashionable heroes, prone to hair and costume changes sometimes in the middle of a scene, are well-matched by the effete blonde-wigged villainy of diamond smuggler Dirk Bogarde, in the most playfully delicious of the film's many arch performances. Losey always decried the result, perhaps due to an arduous production hampered by constant script rewrites, and a self-conscious leading lady who forbade profile shots of her Roman nose. However despite such travails, its loyal cult still thrives to this day, embracing the film's provocative production design, sybaritic cinematography and snappy score, a campy concoction well represented by the indelible poster art of Bob Peak. DVD & BLU-RAY

THOSE SUPERNATURAL SEVENTIES Part Two

MAN ON A SWING (1974: Dir. Frank Perry)

When I was young in the Seventies, the world seemed obsessed with the supernatural. Television shows such as: In Search Of.., Ripley's Believe It Or Not, and That's Incredible dominated the ratings. The paperback racks of my local drugstore were filled with books like Chariots of the Gods?, The Bermuda Triangle, The Amityville Horror, and The World Almanac Book of the Strange, and my hometown cinemas were always showing genre films about UFOs, Bigfoot, Telekinesis, Reincarnation, and Demonic Possession drawing crowds of people willing to explore the unknown. Clairvoyance was a particular interest of mine. To me, the idea of being able to communicate with spirits, sense the history of inanimate objects, and read the minds of others in distress, was both a thrilling and frightening possibility. Director Frank Perry (Diary of a Mad Housewife) must have also felt the same way, having brought to the screen in 1974 one of the most credible depictions of a clairvoyant ever, in Man On A Swing. As personified by the recent Oscar Winner for Cabaret Joel Grey, self-proclaimed psychic Franklin Wills is an unnerving study in narcissism and neurosis. A man who is convinced that his extra-sensory abilities can help skeptical police chief Cliff Robertson solve a small-town sex murder. Based on a true story, the screenplay by David Zelag Goodman (Straw Dogs, Farewell My Lovely) expertly draws the audience into the investigation as Robertson becomes more and convinced that Grey's supposed "powers" are merely a smoke-screen for his direct involvement in the crime. Director Perry had a reputation for getting courageous performances from neophyte talents as well as established Hollywood stars, and with this offbeat genre exercise, he continued his near perfect string of psychological character studies. At first it seems as if Grey has the more flamboyant role, physically acting out his violent "visions" in front of an audience of cynical cops, but as the mystery deepens, Robertson rises to the emotional challenge of his role, as a man whose beliefs and even sanity, are put to the test. The result is a disturbingly enigmatic whodunit and although some viewers are left unsatisfied, its opaque atmosphere only serves to rekindle my fond memories of an era before the mysteries of the paranormal were replaced in the public's imagination by the explainable wonders of technology. DVD REGION 1

THOSE SUPERNATURAL SEVENTIES Part One

THE LEGEND OF HELL HOUSE (1973: Dir. John Hough)

Western society has always been fascinated by the paranormal, particularly as a reflection of the powerlessness felt during certain times of war and civil unrest. In cinema, as with the rest of the culture, the late Sixties and Seventies were a very fertile period of fascination with the supernatural. Horror cinema in particular entered a new maturity with the release of Roman Polanski's Rosemary's Baby (1968), a rare mainstream horror hit, purposefully conceived for contemporary adult audiences. Still recovering from the twin tragic assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy, and fearing an escalation of the war in Vietnam, North American cinema-goers flocked to escapist entertainment, making blockbusters out of such ground-breaking genre classics as The Planet of the Apes (1968) and 2001:A Space Odyssey (1968). Most horror films however, were still trapped in a gothic style fostered by filmmakers such as Roger Corman, and Britain's Hammer Films. Unlike those traditionalists, Polanski dared to tell a hip urban story of the supernatural that would ultimately sow the sensational seeds of a Seventies sci-fi and horror boom shrouded by Watergate paranoia and Middle-East conflict. Under the growing influence of a youth culture obsessed by free love and the occult, movies had finally started to relax their parochial self-censorship, thus allowing a film such as The Exorcist (1973) to be made, despite explicit content which would have prevented it from even being considered for production only a few years before. Veteran fantasy author and screenwriter Richard Matheson (The Incredible Shrinking Man) witnessed these changing winds, so when he came to write his sexually provocative horror novel Hell House in 1971, he took advantage of this new-found freedom. As with most authors, Matheson had experienced both good and bad times adapting his literary works for Hollywood, but he was well aware that controversial material sometimes had to be excised or toned-down for mass consumption. With box-office in mind, he turned out a PG-rated screenplay of his own R-rated novel, re-titled The Legend of Hell House, the story of the Belasco estate in Maine, with the reputation of being "the Mount Everest of haunted houses". For more traditional cinematic purposes, Matheson moved the novel's stately mansion to England, but the book's four ghost-hunting protagonists, a renowned para-psychologist (Clive Revill), his wife (Gayle Hunnicutt), and two spiritual mediums (Roddy McDowall & Pamela Franklin) remain largely unchanged. British director John Hough, who had cut his cinematic horror teeth on Hammer's last great vampire film Twins of Evil (1971), brings an appropriately sober eye to the potentially baroque paranormal atmosphere. The story unfolds in a visual and editing style that approximates realistic rhythms and lighting, without sacrificing any of the screenplay's carefully constructed sequences of suspense and terror. Hough even eschews a conventional film score, choosing instead to use sound effects and aural environments to convey the manor's macabre mileu. Although the novel featured a more graphically debauched incubus, Matheson's adaptation possesses a sufficient number of genuinely disturbing scenes, enough to convince audiences at the time that a perverted evil was manifesting itself amongst the vulnerable cast of characters. Although a modest success in America, it was unfortunately preceded in the U.K. by The Stone Tape (1972), a memorably harrowing television film with a spookily similar premise. Hough would later re-visit the haunted house genre with the disastrous Walt Disney production The Watcher In The Woods (1980), a film compromised by a re-shot vague ending intended to make it more palatable for family audiences. With The Legend of Hell House Hough and Matheson experienced no such pressures, for they knew what it takes to frighten a willing audience, and the result is a small marvel of tasteful terror. DVD & BLU-RAY

AUSTRALIAN ACTION MAN Part Two

THE THIRTY NINE STEPS (1978: Dir. Don Sharp)

Now well at home in the genre, director Don Sharp embarked on a third excursion into espionage, this time a loyal adaptation of John Buchan's famous novel previously brought to the screen (in bastardized form) by Alfred Hitchcock in 1935 and Ralph Thomas in 1959. Starring Robert Powell (television's Jesus of Nazareth) as Richard Hannay, and supported by a who's who of British talent including, David Warner, Eric Porter and Karen Dotrice, The Thirty Nine Steps is a model of olde fashioned suspense. Starting in 1914 and detailing the demise of paranoid British secret agent Scudder, played with school-boy enthusiasm by Sir John Mills, the film breathlessly keeps pace with Hannay, Buchan's initially unwilling hero, as he is relentlessly pursued across Great Britain by a pair of devious Prussian assassins. Powell, who possesses some of the gaunt intensity and wiry physicality of a young Peter Cushing, makes for a believably intrepid protagonist and is well-matched by the calculated upper-class villainy of Warner's Lord Appleton. Together with his editor Eric Boyd-Perkins and cinematographer John Coquillon, Sharp forcefully brings to life the threatening days before The Great War, when precarious politics dictated the fate of nations. Ironically, each cinematic version of the novel preceded a corresponding threat to world order : Hitchcock's presaging WWII, Thomas's auguring the tense era of The Cuban Missile Crisis, and Sharp's foreshadowing Reagan/Thatcher's nuclear brinkmanship of the early Eighties. The Thirty Nine Steps was also the first of a production slate of spy thrillers from the dying days of venerable Rank Film Studios, made up of: The Human Factor (1979), The Riddle of the Sands (1979), and The Lady Vanishes (1979), and like its brethren it was a disappointment at the box-office, effectively ending Powell's leading man status in British Cinema. If the film is remembered at all today, it is for one of Sharp's hall of fame action set pieces, a white-knuckle climax that has Hannay dangling from the clock face of Big Ben in order to prevent a bomb from destroying the Palace of Westminster. Sadly, when it is said that they don't make feature films like this anymore, they are regrettably correct and we are all the poorer for it. DVD REGION 2

AUSTRALIAN ACTION MAN Part One

CALLAN (1974: Dir. Don Sharp)

After Errol Flynn, filmmaker Don Sharp is the second most famous person to be born in Hobart, Tasmania, and like his swashbuckling countryman, Sharp was also identified with flamboyant action and stunts, albeit from behind the camera. Beginning his career in Britain as a director of B-movie programmers and early episodic television, Sharp was eventually hired by Hammer Films to oversee a trilogy of quality genre films: Kiss of the Vampire (1963), The Devil-Ship Pirates (1964), and Rasputin: The Mad Monk (1966). At the same time maverick producer Harry Alan Towers chose Sharp to direct the first two films of his Fu Manchu series starring Christopher Lee. All of these projects demonstrated Sharp's strong eye for visual composition and pace, whisking the audience along despite plot absurdities and limited production resources. Working in these rip-roaring genres, Sharp rapidly built a reputation as an action specialist, particularly in his role of second unit director on two logistically complicated features, directing both the vehicular mayhem in Those Magnificent Men In Their Flying Machines (1965), and the comedy spy antics in Bang, Bang, You're Dead (1966), as well as the heart-stopping Amsterdam boat chase in the narcotics crime thriller Puppet On A Chain (1971). Assignments like these made him a natural to bring scale and excitement to the cinematic incarnation of creator James Mitchells' popular TV spy series Callan (1967-1972). Starring a magnetically intense Edward Woodward, David Callan is a street smart agent/assassin whose disdain for authority coupled with his sang froid and skill with small arms always draws the most unsavory jobs from his British Intelligence superior, code-named Hunter. The original series although highly acclaimed was hampered by its cost-cutting videotaped mise-en-scene, mostly taking place in cramped, seedy offices or dull flats. Adapted from the original pilot episode, the movie version of Callan re-introduces the character, this time in a more expansive though no less gritty, big-screen format. In an effort to compete with the new realism coming from Hollywood in the early Seventies, Sharp uses atmospheric locations in and around London, where he efficiently stages nerve jangling car chases, forceful fisticuffs, and non-gratuitous gun-play. Essential to the mythos of the series, are the characters of  Lonely (Russell Hunter), "a smelly little man" who is Callan's cringing criminal contact, and fellow agent Toby Meres (Peter Egan), Callan's younger jealous associate, always ready to stick the knife in to get ahead. Both actors are superb in their roles, particularly the utterly believable Hunter, although one pines for actor Anthony Valentine, TV's original oily Meres, more of a coiled cobra than Egan's impetuous toffee-nosed school prefect. Being the off-shoot of the most compelling espionage series ever made for television, director Sharp had much expectation to contend with, but with his steady hand at the wheel, audiences were assured of a smoothly entertaining ride, with all of the suspense and drama of what was, and is Callan. DVD REGION 2

ST. PATRICK'S DAY SWORDPLAY

EXCALIBUR (1981: Dir. John Boorman)

Filmmaker John Boorman is considered the godfather of contemporary Irish cinema, having famously fostered the talents of writer/director Neil Jordan (The Crying Game), and actor Brendan Gleeson (In Bruges) among others. Although raised in London, Boorman has lived in Ireland's County Wicklow for over 40 years as well as shooting four features there. The first was the surreal dystopian fantasy ZARDOZ (1974), a project self-initiated when he was forced by United Artists to abandon his version of The Lord of the Rings starring The Beatles. At the time of its release ZARDOZ was derided as a bizarre folly after his unprecedented popular success with Deliverance (1972),  however, despite a healthy cult following, its lasting legacy may be that it marked Boorman's introductory use of the spectacular Irish countryside. Surrounded by rugged mountains and boggy grasslands, Wicklow was an ideal setting for his Freudian themes of an evolved civilisation, where the superego Eternals, are overthrown by their id-like warriors, the Exterminators. This ongoing conflict of the rational versus the natural would be further developed in the director's three subsequent films: Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977), The Emerald Forest (1984), and Excalibur, his first truly Irish film in production and character. With Excalibur, Boorman was finally able to realize his long held ambition to film the King Arthur myth, and he took full advantage of the then burgeoning pool of acting talent in Ireland to tell the violent and carnal tale, by showcasing such future international stars as Liam Neeson, Gabriel Byrne and Ciaran Hinds. The story of the Round Table and the Grail quest had always held him in thrall, reflecting his belief in the profound magic of the elemental world, personified in the film by the whimsical Druid wizard Merlin (Nicol Williamson) and the sensuous witch Morgana (Helen Mirren). As envisioned by Boorman, the Arthurian age heralded the ebbing of mystical spirituality to make way for the dominance of Christainity, a belief system based more on reason, and therefore less connected with the primordial earth. This dichotomy could also be applied to the Irish character itself, often in strife between the emotive, i.e. earthy urges of conviviality, versus the "higher" mental aspirations of art and intellect. With ever-present organic greenery reflected upon the gleaming steel surfaces of sword blades and knight's armour, Boorman foregrounds his themes of man and nature, and is aided in these sensorial allusions by the painterly eye of cinematographer Alex Thomson (Legend), the baroque style of costume designer Bob Ringwood (Batman) and accompanied by the exhilarating Wagnerian music cues of Trevor Jones (The Dark Crystal). Made entirely in his adopted homeland of Ireland and cast with his own children in important roles, Excalibur more than any other work is John Boorman's testament film, communicating through the ancient medium of mythology, man's eternal struggle with himself and his environment. DVD & BLU-RAY

SONS OF GUNS Part Three

THE SEA WOLVES (1980: Dir. Andrew V. McLaglen)

What began in 1961 with The Guns of Navarone now comes full circle almost twenty years later as two of its stars are reunited for a geriatric WWII marine sabotage operation that given the respective ages of the actors, now seems more impossible than ever. Based on a true story, The Sea Wolves is the third in a zestful trilogy of films starring Roger Moore and directed by Andrew V. McLaglen, following the mercenary adventure The Wild Geese (1978) and the eccentric terrorist thriller North Sea Hijack a.k.a. ffolkes (1979). With a cast whose average age is over 60 years old, one can't expect the kind of rip-roaring action that normally comes with war movies. However, there are compensations to be had from stars Gregory Peck, David Niven and Trevor Howard, in jovial collaboration with such veteran supporting players as Patrick Macnee (The Avengers), Kenneth Griffith (I'm All Right Jack) and John Standing (The Eagle Has Landed). For James Bond completists, Roger Moore even gets a chance to don a tuxedo for a deadly dinner date with stiletto-wielding femme fatale Barbara Kellerman. Other behind-the camera Bond alumni are on hand to lend their expertise as well, including editor John Glen (Moonraker), production designer Syd Cain (On Her Majesty's Secret Service) and main titles designer Maurice Binder (Thunderball). Old fashioned entertainment to say the least, but also a rousing episode of WWII history, enthusiastically directed and performed with craft and wit. DVD

SONS of GUNS Part Two

HORNETS' NEST (1970: Dir. Phil Karlson)

If Roger Corman's The Secret Invasion was the low-rent version of The Guns of Navarone, then Phil Karlson's Hornet's Nest was the juvenile take on the same material. Instead of hard-bitten men, this time the commandos are a group of Italian war orphans trained by American officer Rock Hudson to destroy a dam in Northern Italy, strategic to the occupying German army. They may be young boys, but their hand to mouth existence has made them into fairly ruthless adversaries, as mustachioed Rock and winsome Aryan doctor Sylva Koscina soon discover. Director Phil Karlson (Walking Tall, The Phenix City Story) was a specialist in violent realism, and he didn't pull any punches in dramatizing the sometimes grueling details of this coming-of-age-in-war drama, eliciting particularly emotive performances from the adult stars as well as the formative supporting cast. Save for some glaringly Seventies haircuts, all of the technical credits for this Italian-American co-production are above par, with special praise for Ennio Morricone's memorably mournful score, and the plentiful pyrotechnic effects by Paul (The Rat Patrol) Pollard. Less ambitious than its genre predecessors, Hornet's Nest is a modest but successful attempt to ring the changes of the impossible mission formula. DVD & BLU-RAY

SONS OF GUNS: Part One

THE SECRET INVASION (1964: Dir. Roger Corman)

In Hollywood there are often individual films that initiate a subsequent cycle of copycats. The Guns of Navarone (1961) was the first film of the Sixties to inaugurate a series of similar high concept action spectacles. Its forerunners in the previous decade such as The Cockleshell Heroes (1955) and Ice Cold In Alex (1958) were mildly popular "impossible mission movies" but didn't catch on with a wider public, content to enjoy the new home comforts of television. Producer Carl Foreman (The Bridge on the River Kwai)  recognized this, so when he purchased the adaptation rights to Navarone from its author Alistair MacLean, he set about creating a pure Boy's Own adventure by combining the box-office star power of Gregory Peck, David Niven, and Anthony Quinn, with colourful CinemaScope WWII action and intrigue on a scale never before attempted. It became the second biggest hit of the year, with the expected result of encouraging others to follow suit, the first being Roger Corman's The Secret Invasion, a low budget independent production from the notoriously frugal filmmaker. By detailing the mission of a commando group made up of criminals and psychopaths sent behind enemy lines, Corman envisioned the prototype for such future hits as The Dirty Dozen (1967) and The Devil's Brigade (1968). Sort of a " Dirty Half-dozen", and written by regular Corman collaborator R. Wright Campbell under the more evocative title of The Dubious Patriots, it featured a parsimoniously chosen cast of inexpensive yet familiar faces including former matinee idol Stewart Granger, middle-aged Mickey Rooney, Italian Neo-Realist star Raf Vallone, TV pretty boy Edd "Kookie" Byrnes, and Rat Pack alumnus Henry Silva. Following the exotic Nazi occupied country locations established by Navarone's Greek setting, Corman chose the charming Yugoslavian port city of Dubrovnik as his locale, making sure to maximize production value with stunning widescreen panoramas that serve to offset the story's potent violence and tragic pessimism. As an avowed liberal leaning exploitation filmmaker, Corman's films are always representative of his personal and political values. The Secret Invasion, made during early American troop build-ups in Vietnam, was his profitable yet unsparing anti-war statement about sacrifice and rebellion in a time of dangerous cold war brinkmanship.In my opinion, it's his most mature and underrated film. DVD & BLU-RAY

TEN TO WISH FOR Part Five

9.

FIVE DAYS ONE SUMMER (1982: Dir. Fred Zinnemann)

At one time, every new film released by director Fred Zinnemann (High Noon, A Man For All Seasons) was considered a cultural event. This excitement was strangely absent for Five Days One Summer, Zinnemann's valedictory film, starring Sean Connery during his career doldrums , opposite two young unknowns, American Betsy Brantley and future French heartthrob Lambert Wilson. Perhaps it was the mountain climbing milieu, which has never attracted large audiences, or it could have been the film's very uncomfortable love triangle, featuring a 51 year-old Connery in a seemingly incestuous relationship with a women half his age. Regrettably, its reputation remains unfairly maligned to this day, thus disregarding a courageously vulnerable performance by the once and future Bond. Nevertheless, it was admittedly a personal project for Zinnemann, conjuring up the serene majesty and thrilling danger of his boyhood treks through the Austrian Alps. Being a Warner Bros. film it will likely become available in their MOD Archives series, but in the meantime I'm keeping my VHS copy in a safe place.

                                                                    10.

                                          THE KEEP (1986: Dir. Michael Mann)

Michael Mann (Last of the Mohicans, Heat) is now anointed an auteur filmmaker, but if one chooses to accept The Keep in the company of his other works, there emerges an odd schizophrenia. For almost his entire career Mann has chosen stories drawn from history or the headlines to create ultra-stylish entertainments. The Keep is a fantasy/horror film with none of the gritty realism of his usual subjects, instead it embraces a supernatural religious mysticism that would be laughed off the screen by any of his own cinematic protagonists. That might be why, after its commercial failure, Mann retreated back into the familiar territory of the crime genre. It is possible the film's reputation might have been salvaged with a different theatrical cut made from the original three hour director's version, but despite its vague and confusing plot, I defend the boldness of Mann's vision, a view not shared by the novel's author F. Paul Wilson. The fact that it introduced Ian McKellen to an international audience should alone secure its place in cinema history, if not also for the film's memorably foreboding atmospherics, heightened by an operatic score from German electronic band Tangerine Dream. Six years ago, I was fortunate enough to meet one of its stars Alberta Watson shortly before its then-promised debut on DVD, and while I found her most appreciative of my praise for her performance and the film itself, I could sense her disappointment with the finished product. I guess Paramount shared her reservations, cancelling its release without explanation, and leaving me with the evermore unlikely chance of adding it to my collection.

TEN TO WISH FOR Part Four

7.

ROUGH CUT (1980: Dir. Don Siegel)

Without a doubt the most troubled production on my list, Rough Cut boasts not only two uncredited directors (Peter H. Hunt & Robert Ellis Miller), but four filmed endings. Nevertheless it is a treat for Burt fans, being his only attempt at a Cary Grant type role, an actor of whom he had always expressed great admiration. Originally a Blake Edwards project before his early departure, it became Burt's only film directed by Clint Eastwood's mentor Don Siegel (Escape From Alcatraz), a former Cambridge graduate whose personal Anglophilia was an asset for this made in England diamond caper comedy. Unfortunately a falling out between Siegel and tyrannical producer David Merrick led to the director's firing, rehiring, then permanent removal, resulting in a denouement completely re-written and shot by others. A bit of a dog's breakfast but a must for Reynolds and Siegel completists. 

8.

PHOBIA (1980: Dir. John Huston)

The Paramount party poopers strike again! A particular obsession of mine is the general unavailability of Canadian films from the so-called "tax shelter era" between 1975 to 1982. Phobia was one of the higher profile movies from this busy period of production, not least because it was directed by Hollywood legend John Huston (The Maltese Falcon, The Man Who Would Be King). Huston returned to Toronto, the city where his father was born, to make this unique addition to his eclectic oeuvre, a Hitchcock style horror with a nearly all-Canadian cast. Seen at the time to be a crass slumming job for Huston, it was torn to pieces by the critics and soon forgotten. Also contributing to the film's negative reception, was its notoriety as the only feature film to star Paul Michael Glaser of Starsky & Hutch fame. An actor of limited charisma, his casting provided none of the box office draw required for this lower budgeted genre exercise. According to prominent Canadian film historian Gerald Pratley, a not unworthy film from Huston and one that is ripe for re-examination. 

TEN TO WISH FOR Part Three

5.

PERMISSION TO KILL (1975: Dir. Cyril Frankel)

The spy film is my default genre whenever I am undecided about what to watch. There are only a handful of espionage movies that I do not own in one form or another, but at the top of my list is this cynical Seventies entry. Directed by Brit television veteran Cyril Frankel (The Baron, The Champions, Department S), Permission To Kill stars Dirk Bogarde as a chilly spymaster ruthlessly manipulating the lives of various men and women for government-sanctioned purposes as well as his own nefarious ends. Co-starring are Ava Gardner, one of Dirk's favourite leading ladies, Bekim Fehmiu, an unlikely Serbian sex symbol of the era, and future James Bond Timothy Dalton. I saw this film only once on VHS, and its final moments still linger in my memory nearly two decades later.

                                                                            6.

                                    LOOKING FOR MR. GOODBAR (1977: Dir. Richard Brooks)                                                                       

Richard Brooks was a major filmmaker having directed such classics as Cat on a Hot Tin Roof  and In Cold Blood, so when he decided to adapt Judith Rossner's controversial bestselling novel about the dangerous nightlife of a sexually promiscuous single woman, it seemed like a natural fit, one that paid off both critically and financially. Diane Keaton, in one her most vulnerable performances, is joined by a flawless supporting cast including Richard Gere and Tom Berenger in their first major roles, and the always fascinating Tuesday Weld, whose unpredictable career choices rarely paid off with such commercial success as this. Special mention must also go to the cinematography of William A. Fraker, whose chiaroscuro lighting bathes the film in suitably ominous textures. Yet another Paramount casualty of neglect, rumoured to be tangled up in nearly insurmountable music rights issues.

TEN TO WISH FOR Part Two

3.

GUNN (1967: Dir. Blake Edwards)

The life of a completist collector is often a frustrating one, especially when the final piece of the puzzle remains consistently beyond one's grasp. I am a devoted fan of Blake Edwards and his seminal jazzy television hero Peter Gunn, having acquired nearly all of Edwards' feature films and the entire 1958-1961 run of his Peter Gunn TV series. Then why can't I get my hands on Gunn, the feature film spin-off, that like many vintage Paramount productions, seems buried in a vault somewhere, never to see the light of day. I salivate as I read about its swinging Sixties style and risque plot twists dreamed up by screenwriter and author of The Exorcist William Peter Blatty, but alas, I am resigned to gaze longingly at its kinetic poster campaign wishing for the miracle of its long-delayed reappearance.

                                                                         4.

                                 FRAULEIN DOKTOR (1969: Dir. Albero Lattuada)

Another lost Paramount classic and for many years my most wanted film after an unforgettable viewing on A&E channel in the late Eighties. Fraulein Doktor is Sixties Euro-pudding at its finest, an Italian co-production shot in Yugoslavia with a predominantly British cast and co-written by three Italians, an Irishman and a Canadian, detailing the heart-stopping adventures of a female German counter-spy in World War I. Impressive for its careful balancing of large scale action with intimate drama resulting in a potent anti-war film that deserves to be expeditiously rescued from its imposed obscurity.

TEN TO WISH FOR Part One

A little something different for a while as I chose ten films that I have always wanted to own but are not available in any officially sanctioned digital versions. Some I may have seen long ago and some I have longed to see. These are personal choices and in no way reflect artistic merit unless otherwise noted. 

1.

I WALK ALONE (1948: Dir. Byron Haskin)

I have been a Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas fan forever, so not having access to I Walk Alone, their first appearance on film together seems unjust in the extreme. The film also marked the screen debut of Tony Curtis, another famous co-star of Burt's, as well as the directorial debut of Byron Haskin (War of the Worlds), one of the earliest special effects men to become a fully fledged filmmaker. Having no memory of ever seeing it, I cannot comment on its status as an important film noir. Until recently another film missing in action was Burt's other 1948 noir Kiss The Blood Off My Hands, a film with a haunting title cherished by every Lancaster fan.

                                                                   
                                                                        2.

                                 THE STRANGER'S HAND (1954: Dir. Mario Soldati)

Novelist and film critic Graham Greene enjoys a sterling reputation for his cinematic contributions, both as a screenwriter and an author whose works have been adapted into numerous espionage and suspense dramas. His most lauded film was Carol Reed's The Third Man starring Orson Welles and Joseph Cotten. Trevor Howard and Alida Valli co-starred, and were opportunistically reunited five years later in another Greene adaptation, The Stranger's Hand, an Anglo-Italian co-production that has been unavailable in any home video format. I remember watching it twenty years ago on television in Halifax, and being struck by its atmospheric Venetian scenery, a rather obvious attempt to replicate the ominous shadows of The Third Man's fabled post-war Vienna setting.

A VALENTINE'S DAY VIXEN

PLAY MISTY FOR ME (1971: Dir. Clint Eastwood)

There is nothing more dismal than enduring weeks of Valentine's Day commercialism when you have just experienced a bad break-up. My cinematic antidote of choice to such ubiquitous displays of affection is the thriller, Play Misty For Me, Clint Eastwood's directorial debut, and one of the most trenchant films from his entire 40+ years behind the camera. Based on a story idea by co-screenwriter Jo Heims, this nail-biting nightmare is the prototype film of romantic obsession gone horrifyingly wrong. While its values are firmly rooted in the swinging Seventies, the entirely plausible scenario continues to resonate due to Eastwood's clear understanding of his main characters, Dave Garver (Eastwood), a jazz d.j. who reads poetry to his lovelorn listeners, and Evelyn Draper (Jessica Walter), a delusional fan whose one night stand with Garver spirals into a paranoid fixation. Walter's barnstorming performance is the film's raison d'etre, veering from girlishly sexy, to sympathetically vulnerable, and finally, violently dissociative. The girlfriend from hell may now be a genre stereotype, but Walter got there first, and her seminal interpretation has the edge on all successors. Although a neophyte film-maker, Eastwood shows remarkable tonal maturity, wisely establishing the perceived sexual freedom of the era before he carefully unleashes the full psychopathic threat of his female antagonist. It is a deft balancing act best represented by the way pianist Eastwood uses music to convey the suspense surrounding the relationships on screen, such as underscoring the romantically pastoral interlude between Garver and his girlfriend Tobie (Donna Mills) with Roberta Flack's signature hit The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face, or staging a tense scene during a crowded Cannonball Adderley concert at the Monterey Jazz Festival. To shore up his confidence, Eastwood cast close friends in featured parts including veteran director Don (Dirty Harry) Siegel in a rare acting role as Garver's bartender pal, and memorable character face John Larch, Clint's golfing partner at the time, as the powerless policeman assigned to the Garver's harassment case. That same year, Heims would contribute, without credit, to Eastwood's mega hit Dirty Harry, but most importantly she would write the screenplay to his much overlooked May-December romance Breezy (1973), the first film he directed in which he did not appear. There had always been the rumor of a romantic relationship between these two creative partners, but sadly Heims early death at 48 years old robbed them of any further collaborations. Her feminine point of view would prove to be an important lasting influence on Clint, paving the way for his future feminist films, Tightrope (1984), Heartbreak Ridge (1986), and The Bridges Of Madison County (1995). DVD & BLU-RAY