Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? (1957) * * *

Rockwell P. Hunter (Tony Randall), is a writer of TV commercials and low on the ladder at the company he works for: LaSalle, Raskin, Poole, and Crocket. He's planning to marry Jenny Wells (Betsy Drake), who's a secretary at the firm. He gets the inspiration of using Hollywood's reigning sexpot Rita Marlowe (Jayne Mansfield) to endorse "Stayput Lipstick" from his teenage niece April (Lili Gentle), who is the local president of the Rita Marlowe fan club. Marlowe is in fact spending some time in New York to recuperate from a bad affair with jungle-man actor Bobo Braniganski (Mickey Hargitay), with her companion Violet (Joan Blondell) in tow.

Rockwell Hunter: I'm not a failure. I'm the largest success there is. I'm an average guy. And all us average guys are successes. We run the works! Not the big guy behind the big desk.

Hunter goes to the apartment of the blonde bombshell to get her endorsement. In order for Marlowe to endorse the lipstick, however, Hunter has to pretend to be her boyfriend to make her real boyfriend Branigansky, the star of a TV Tarzan show, jealous. It will also reap publicity for her studio and career. She tells Bobo that Rockwell is the president of the firm. Bobo leaks the news of Marlowe's new romance to the tabloids and Rock Hunter is suddenly famous. He becomes a world-famous symbol of "Lover Doll". His life then takes a tailspin for the better and wilder. He is mobbed by bobbysocksers in the same way the Beatles would be seven years later. Women are crazy about him and he moves steadily up the ladder at work, becoming company president, only to find it is not what he really wants.

Rock Hunter: That's right Sweetie, I'm president of Rita Marlowe Productions, Incorporated, but Miss Marlowe is the titular head.
Rita Marlowe: I picked him up, I can pick him down.

However, things with Jenny become strained as he and Marlowe become an item, and it's clear that Marlowe genuinely falls in love with him. Hollywood's reigning sexpot reads "Peyton Place" by Grace Metaliousin in the bathtub. The book eventually became a feature film and a popular TV series that is claimed to be the forerunner of prime time soap operas, and that the buxom characters in the book were inspired by Mansfield. Meanwhile, Hudson comes home one night to find both his niece and his fiancée paralyzed from overdosing in bust-expanding exercises.

Violet: What you need is a drink.
Rock Hunter: And how!
Violet: Maybe two drinks! What'll it be?
Rock Hunter: Something simple. A bottle and a straw.

There is a half-time intermission, where Tony Randall speaks on the wonders of TV, which back then was a 21" screen with a "wonderful clean picture".
Hunter: Ladies and gentlemen, this break in our motion picture is made out of respect for the TV fans in our audience, who are accustomed to constant interruptions in their programs for messages from sponsors. We want all you TV fans to feel at home, and not forget the thrill you get, watching television on your big, 21-inch screens. Of course, the great thing about television is that it lets you see events live as they happen, like old movies from thirty years ago.

At the behest of his agency, Rock is forced to propose to Rita on a coast-to-coast TV show, which breaks the heart of his Jenny, but she takes him back in the end. Both Hunter and Marlowe are saved from a marriage neither one wants by the last-minute arrival of Rita's hometown boyfriend, George Schmidlap (Groucho Marx).

Rita Marlowe: George, how come you never tried to kiss me before?
George Schmidlap: I never could get close enough.
(turns his head to the camera and raises his eyebrows up and down)

Tony Randall and Jayne Mansfield have perhaps their best roles ever in WILL SUCCESS SPOIL ROCK HUNTER? This devastating film satirizes the advertising business, Hollywood, American culture, male-female relationships, television, and just about every other available target. It skewers its first victim immediately after the 20th Century Fox logo, where Tony Randall is seen playing the drums and cello from the Fox fanfare with Cinemascope extension. After Randall briefly explains the plot of the movie, the credits continue with some satiric commercials on products that obviously don't cut the mustard. Examples: "Pour yourself a full glass of that heavily-brewed, clear swamp water, Shelton's Beer", and "Wow Soap contains fallout, the exclusive patented ingredient".

Breakfast Food Demonstrator: Each little Crunchie contains energy, contains pep for your growing youngsters, builds strong legs so that when they're older they can stand the long waits in the unemployment lines.

Based on the successful Broadway play by George Axelrod, WILL SUCCESS SPOIL ROCK HUNTER? is an entertaining film reminiscent of a Doris Day-Rock Hudson film. The play ran from 1955-1956 with Jayne Mansfield recreated her starmaking stage role, for which she received a Tony. In this film adaptation of the comedy, it manages to pack a lot more punch. Marlowe's best takes: Seclusion and Catherine the Great. Mansfield's depiction of a Hollywood sex symbol is somewhat mannered but still relevant. Her love interest in the film, the neanderthalian Bobo Branigansky, is played by her real-life husband of the time, Mickey Hargitay, a former Mr. Universe. Jayne Mansfield's "Rita Marlowe" character is based on Marilyn Monroe during the 1950s and is quite funny. It's also a dig at her own image.

Tony Randall hogs the center of this show and grabs out wildly in any directon for a gag, be it popping his eyes at Miss Mansfield's chassis or smoking three pipes at one time. He even has a little sequence in which he steps out of the scene and calls for a "break" in the proceedings to accommodate the commercial-minded TV viewers in the audience. The jokes are not always in the best of taste. Joan Blondell as Miss Mansfield's pal and Henry Jones as muddle-headed huckster Henry Rufus are put through some shameless routines, and Betsy Drake and John Williams are directed to act only slightly less insane. In for a bit is Mickey Hargitay as Marlowe's jealous boy friend. He gives an imitation of a monkey-cluttered Tarzan.

Vibrating with comic energy, the Cinemascope screen is a playpen of joyous brassiness, compounded by superb performances. We may loathe the fact that the characters sell their souls, yet we can't help but admire the enthusiasm and creativity with which they do it, like the ravenous force with which Rock embraces his new stud persona or the slippery glibness his associate Henry Rufus employs in navigating Madison Avenue's polluted waters. Lured and trapped by consumerism, the characters yearn for a return to Nature. Hudson dreams of a chicken farm, while the company president Irving La Salle Jr. (John Williams) would rather be tending to roses than clients. The tragedy of WILL SUCCESS SPOIL ROCK HUNTER? is that the cartoon surfaces are closer to the entrapping gloss of Douglas Sirk than is first apparent. The ending is happy, yet the characters remain frozen in their rigid roles, becoming, as Jonathan Rosenbaum has pointed out, "abstract Brechtian commentators on their own dilemmas." Our laughter explodes only to dissipate.

The cast also includes: Lili Gentle (April Hunter), Georgia Carr (Calypso Number), Dick Whittinghill (TV Interviewer), Ann McCrea (Gladys), Alberto Morin (Frenchman), Louis Mercier (Frenchman), Robert Adler (Mailman), Majel Barrett (Hair Spray Ad), Phil Chambers (Mailman), Don Corey (Ed Sullivan voice), Richard Deems (Razor Demonstrator), Minta Durfee (Scrubwoman), Barbara Eden (Miss Carstairs), Larry Kerr (Mr. Ezzarus), Edith Leslie, Carmen Nisbet (Breakfast Food Demonstrator), Lida Piazza (Junior's Secretary), Patricia Powell (Receptionist), Benny Rubin (Theater Manager), Edith Russell (Scrubwoman), Jay Sayer (Reporter), Sherrill Terry (Annie), and Mack Williams (Hotel Doorman). Cyril J. Mockridge composed the original music. Frank Tashlin wrote the strory and screenplay based on George Axelrod's stage play. He used little more than the title and the character of Rita Marlowe from the play. Tashlin also produced and directed.

WILL SUCCESS SPOIL ROCK HUNTER? received a nomination for a Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture Actor: Musical/Comedy (Tony Randall) and a nomination for the Writers Guild of America, East WGA Award (Screen) for Best Written American Comedy (Frank Tashlin). French critics enjoyed this picture immensely, and Jean-Luc Godard had it on his 10-best list. In 2000, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". For some reason the video of this gem is not easy to find.

North by Northwest (1959) * * *

Roger Thornhill (Cary Grant), a middle-aged suave Madison Avenue advertising executive, is mistaken for a CIA agent named George Kaplan by a gang of spies. He is kidnapped by Valerian (Adam Williams) and Licht (Robert Ellenstein) and taken to the house of Lester Townsend (Philip Ober). There he is interrogated by a man he assumes to be Townsend, but who is really Phillip Vandamm (James Mason). When Thornhill repeatedly denies he is Kaplan, Vandamm becomes annoyed and orders his right-hand man Leonard (Martin Landau) to get rid of him.

Roger Thornhill: Now you listen to me, I'm an advertising man, not a red herring. I've got a job, a secretary, a mother, two ex-wives and several bartenders that depend upon me, and I don't intend to disappoint them all by getting myself "slightly" killed. And what the devil is all this about? Why was I brought here?
Phillip Vandamm: Games, must we?
Roger Thornhill: Not that I mind a slight case of abduction now and then, but I have tickets for the theater this evening, to a show I was looking forward to and I get, well, kind of unreasonable about things like that.
Phillip Vandamm: With such expert playacting, you make this very room a theater. Has anyone ever told you that you overplay your various roles rather severely, Mr. Kaplan?

Valerian and Licht try to stage a fatal car accident, but Thornhill, after a chase on a perilous road, is apprehended and charged with drunk driving. He is unable to get the police, the judge, or his mother (Jessie Royce Landis) to believe what happened to him, especially when a woman posing as Townsend's wife informs them that Townsend is a United Nations diplomat.

Thornhill and his mother go to Kaplan’s hotel room. Narrowly avoiding recapture by Valerian and Licht, Thornhill catches a taxi to the General Assembly building of the United Nations, where Townsend is due to deliver a speech. When he meets Townsend, Thornhill is surprised to find that he is not the man who interrogated him. When Thornhill questions him, Townsend states that his wife is dead. At that moment, Valerian throws a knife that strikes Townsend in the back. He falls forward, dead, into Thornhill's arms. Unthinkingly, Thornhill removes the knife, making it appear that he is the killer. A passing photographer captures the scene, forcing him to flee. Thornhill (Grant) is on the run, traveling incognito.

From Kaplan's itinerary, Thornhill knows he has a reservation at a Chicago hotel the next day. Thornhill goes to Grand Central Terminal and sneaks onto the 20th Century Limited train. On board, he meets Eve Kendall (Eva Marie Saint), who helps Thornhill evade policemen searching the train for him by hiding him twice: once in the overhead, fold-up bunk in her compartment. She asks about his personalized matchbooks with the initials "ROT". He says the O stands for nothing. Unbeknownst to Thornhill, Eve notifies Vandamm and Leonard, who are in another compartment.

Eve Kendall: What happened with your first two marriages?
Roger Thornhill: My wives divorced me.
Eve Kendall: Why?
Roger Thornhill: They said I led a dull life.
Eve Kendall: I tipped the steward five dollars to seat you here if you should come in.
Roger Thornhill: Is that a proposition?
Eve Kendall: I never discuss love on an empty stomach.
Roger Thornhill: You've already eaten!
Eve Kendall: But you haven't.

Arriving at Chicago's LaSalle Street Station, Thornhill borrows the uniform of one of the porters and carries Eve's luggage through the crowd. Although the police are alerted to his disguise, the sheer number of porters saves Thornhill. Meanwhile, Eve (who is Vandamm's lover) lies to Thornhill, telling him she has arranged a meeting with Kaplan. In an iconic sequence, Thornhill travels by bus to meet Kaplan at an isolated crossroads in the middle of a perfectly flat, open Indiana countryside. The only other person in sight is a man who is dropped off and waits at the opposite bus stop. Before boarding the next bus, he notes that a plane is "dusting crops where there ain't no crops." Without warning, the plane flies towards Thornhill and starts shooting at him. He is chased through a cornfield and dusted with pesticide. Finally, Thornhill steps in front of an oncoming gasoline tank truck, which stops barely in time. The plane crashes into it and explodes. When passing drivers stop to see what is going on, Thornhill steals a pickup truck.

Thornhill goes to Kaplan's hotel, but is surprised to learn that Kaplan had already checked out when Eve claimed to have spoken to him. Thornhill spots Eve in the lobby. He goes to her room, but she tells him to stay away from her. She allows him to stay and use the shower as she leaves. Using a pencil to reveal the indentations of a message on a notepad, Thornhill learns her destination: an art auction. There, he comes face to face once more with Vandamm, who purchases a pre-Columbian Tarascan statue. Thornhill tries to leave, only to find all exits covered by Vandamm's men. Thinking quickly, he starts placing nonsensical bids, so the police have to be called to remove him. Thornhill identifies himself as a wanted fugitive, but the officers are ordered to take him to Midway Airport where a gate for Northwest Airlines is seen--playing on the film's title.

Thornhill meets the Professor (Leo G. Carroll), a spymaster who is trying to stop Vandamm from smuggling microfilmed secrets out of the country. The Professor reveals that George Kaplan is a fiction created to distract Vandamm from the real government agent--Eve, whose life is now in danger because of Thornhill. In order to protect her, Thornhill agrees to help the Professor and his agency fool Vandamm.

Roger Thornhill: I don't like the games you play, Professor.
The Professor: War is hell, Mr. Thornhill. Even when it's a cold war.
Roger Thornhill: If you fellows can't whip the VanDamm's of this world without asking girls like her to bed down with them and probably never come back, perhaps you should lose a few cold wars.
The Professor: I'm afraid we're already doing that.

At the cafeteria at the base of Mount Rushmore, Thornhill (pretending to be George Kaplan) meets with Eve and Vandamm. He offers to allow Vandamm to leave the country unhindered in exchange for Eve. The deal is refused. In a staged struggle, Eve shoots Thornhill and flees. Vandamm and Leonard hastily depart, as the apparently critically wounded Thornhill is taken away by stretcher in a station wagon, accompanied by the Professor. When the makeshift ambulance reaches a secluded spot, Thornhill emerges unharmed to speak with Eve privately. He becomes highly agitated when he learns that she is using the "shooting" to get Vandamm to take her with him, so that she can gather further intelligence. Thornhill is knocked out. He wakes up in a locked hospital room, but escapes through a window.

Thornhill arrives at Vandamm’s mountainside home, scales the outside of the building, and slips inside undetected. He learns that the microfilm is in the Tarascan statue, then watches as Leonard convinces Vandamm that Eve is a government agent and the shooting was faked by firing the gun Eve used (filled with blanks) at him. Vandamm decides to throw Eve out of the plane once they are airborne. Thornhill manages to warn her by writing a note inside one of his distinctive matchbooks and dropping it where she will see it.

Just before she boards the plane, Eve escapes with the statue and joins Thornhill. Leonard and Valerian chase them across Mount Rushmore. In a struggle, Thornhill throws Valerian off Mount Rushmore to his death. When Eve slips and clings desperately to the mountainside, Thornhill grabs one of her hands, while precariously steadying himself with his other hand. He holds on for dear life to the facial features of the Presidents on Mount Rushmore (backlot sets were used). Leonard arrives and begins grinding his shoe on Thornhill's hand. They are saved by the timely arrival of the Professor and a police marksman, who kills Leonard. Vandamm is taken into custody.

The film cuts smoothly from Thornhill pulling Eve to safety on Mount Rushmore to him pulling her into an overhead train bunk, where they are spending their honeymoon. The final shot shows their train speeding into a tunnel--a famous bit of self-conscious Freudian symbolism reflecting Hitchcock's mischievous sense of humor. Alfred Hitchcock's cameo is a signature occurrence in most of his films. In NORTH BY NORTHWEST he can be seen missing a bus, two minutes into the film.

Cary Grant teams with director Alfred Hitchcock for the 4th and final time in this classic espionage caper. The master of suspense presents a 3000 mile chase across America. A strong candidate for the most entertaining and enjoyable movie ever made by a Hollywood studio, the film is positioned between the much heavier and more disturbing VERTIGO (1958) and the horror of PSYCHO (1960). NORTH BY NORTHWEST is Alfred Hitchcock at his most effervescent in a romantic comedy-thriller that also features one of Cary Grant's best performances. It's a classic Hitchcock "wrong man" scenario: Grant is Roger O. Thornhill (initials ROT), an advertising executive who is mistaken by enemy spies for a U.S. undercover agent named George Kaplan. There are the famous set pieces: the stabbing at the United Nations, the crop-duster plane attack in the cornfield, and the cliffhanger finale atop the stone faces of Mount Rushmore.

The cast also includes: Josephine Hutchinson (Mrs. Townsend), Adam Williams (Valerian), Edward Platt (Victor Larrabee), Robert Ellenstein (Licht), Les Tremayne (Auctioneer), Philip Coolidge (Dr. Cross), Patrick McVey (Sergeant Flamm), Ed Binns (Captain Junket), Ken Lynch (Charley), Stanley Adams (Lieutenant Harding), Paul Genge (Lieutenant), Madge Kennedy (Mrs. Finlay), Maggie (Roger's Secretary), Alexander Lockwood (Judge Anson B. Flynn), Nora Marlowe (Anna), Maudie Prickett (Elsie), Harry Seymour (Victor), Robert Shayne (Larry Wade), Frank Wilcox (Herman Weitner), Robert Williams (Patrolman Waggoner), Carleton Young (Fanning Nelson), and many others. Bernard Herrmann composed the original music. Ernest Lehman wrote the screenplay and Alfred Hitchcock directed.

The DVD extras includes a documentary presented by Eva Marie Saint, an audio commentary by screenwriter Ernest Lehman, two theatrical trailers , a TV Spot, and an isolated music audio track. The film itself is spruced up with a new digital transfer and remastered in Dolby 5.1 Audio and 1.66:1 widescreen anamorphic format. The only problem is it comes in a snap case like all Warners DVDs, not allowing a booklet with production notes. Many customers have complained about their DVD purchase being defective, especially the last half.

Author and journalist Nick Clooney praised Lehman's original story and sophisticated dialogue, calling the film "certainly Alfred Hitchcock's most stylish thriller, if not his best". The film is one of several Hitchcock movies with a film score by Bernard Herrmann and features a memorable opening title sequence by graphic designer Saul Bass. This film is generally cited as the first to feature extended use of kinetic typography in its opening credits. NORTH BY NORTHWEST was nominated for three Oscars and was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

Flash Gordon (1980) * * *

The voice of Emperor Ming the Merciless (Max Von Sydow) of planet Mongo indicates he will destroy Earth. Ming has been testing the Earth with unnatural disasters, and concludes it a threat to his rule.

Emperor Ming: Klytus, I'm bored. What play thing can you offer me today?
Klytus: An obscure body in the S-K System, your majesty. The inhabitants refer to it as the planet Earth.
Emperor Ming: Pathetic Earthlings. Hurling your bodies out into the void, without the slightest inkling of who or what is out here. If you had known anything about the true nature of the universe, anything at all, you would've hidden from it in terror.
Klytus: Most effective, Your Majesty. Will you destroy this Earth?
Emperor Ming: Later. I like to play with things a while before annihilation.

Sometime later on Earth, New York Jets football quarterback Flash Gordon (Sam J. Jones) boards a small plane when the "hot hail" begins. On board, he meets travel journalist Dale Arden (Melody Anderson) who is also flying back to NYC. After they take off, the disasters become progressively worse, and the pilots are sucked out of the cockpit. Flash and Dale rush to the cockpit and take control of the plane, and promptly crash land into the laboratory of Russian scientist Dr. Hans Zarkov (Topol). According to Dr. Zarkov's research, the disasters are being caused by an unknown physical source in space sending the moon out of orbit, with moon fragments plummeting to Earth, causing the hot hail. Zarkov has been secretly working on a rocket ship for several years to test his theory, and now intends to go to the coordinates for the source of the attacks. He launches the rocket ship with his unwilling passengers on-board and sets a course for the planet Mongo. Arriving on the totalitarian planet of Mongo, the three are promptly taken prisoner.

Flash, Dale and Zarkov are brought before Ming the Merciless. Ming orders Dale to be removed and prepared for his pleasure, but Flash openly defies Ming and picks a fight with his men, adapting his athletic skills from American football. Ming orders Zarkov into Klytus’ custody for reconditioning and orders Flash's execution. Following Flash's disposal, Princess Aura (Ornella Muti) and Ming’s Chief Surgeon, one of her numerous lovers, open Flash’s casket and resurrect him. Aura and Flash quickly retreat to Arboria, kingdom of Prince Barin (Timothy Dalton), another of Aura’s lovers.

Flash Gordon: I demand to see the governor! I can hardly breathe in this thing!
Klytus: Yes... you don't look well. I'm told you refused your final meal. The chef will be upset...
Flash Gordon: Tell 'em to go to hell!
Klytus: Maybe just as well. Gas works more quickly on an empty stomach.
Klytus: No one--but no one--dies in the Palace without a command from the Emperor.
Flash Gordon: This isn't happening, Dale. We're not here. It's just a bad dream.
Dale Arden: Oh, I agree completely. We'll wake up in any minute in Dock Harbor and have a laugh about this.
Flash Gordon: Only this time I won't just ask the maitre d' your name. I'll walk over and talk to you.
Dale Arden: You promise?
Flash Gordon: I promise. Cross my heart and hope to...

On the way to Arboria, Flash coerces Aura to teach him to use a telepathic communicator so that he can contact Dale and let her know he is still alive. Relieved, Dale informs Flash she is locked in Ming’s bedchamber. She later escapes and tells a reconditioned Zarkov that Flash is still alive. Dale and Zarkov subsequently escape, but they are quickly captured by Prince Vultan's (Brian Blessed) Hawkmen and taken to his kingdom, Sky City.

Klytus informs Ming of Flash’s resurrection and asks Ming’s authority to pursue the investigation. Ming agrees. Aura and Flash arrive at the forest moon Arboria. When Aura leaves, Prince Barin throws Flash into a cage and lowers him into a swamp. Barin decides to lure Flash into a trap by sending one of his Tree Men into the cage with a key to get out. Flash eventually tricks Barin and escapes into the swamp, and Barin soon follows in pursuit. He catches up with Flash, but before he can kill him, the two are taken prisoner by more of Vultan’s Hawkmen. Aura returns alone to Mingo City only to be taken prisoner and violently interrogated by Klytus and General Kala. They eventually get a full confession.

Klytus: Bring me... the bore worms!
Princess Aura: No! Not the bore worms!

Flash and Barin are taken to Prince Vultan’s kingdom, where Flash and Dale are briefly reunited. Klytus later arrives to arrest Barin and Zarkov for treason. But Flash and Barin double-team Klytus and kill him. In a panic, Vultan orders all the Hawkmen to evacuate, leaving Barin, Flash, Dale and Zarkov behind. Ming’s ship arrives shortly afterwards. Ming orders that only Barin, Zarkov and Dale are to be taken aboard his ship. Ming returns to his ship and gives the order to destroy Vultan’s kingdom with Flash still on it. But as the bolts of energy tear the place asunder, Flash finds one of the Hawkmen’s rocket cycles, and once again escapes death.

On Mongo, Dale is being prepared for her wedding to Ming in Mingo City, Flash approaching alone on the rocket cycle. General Kala (Mariangela Melato), orders weapons to open fire at him. Kala orders Ajax, an Imperial war rocket, to go after Flash and bring back his body. After a huge battle, the Hawkmen, heavily outnumbering Ajax’s crew, seize control of the rocket and, with Flash taking the helm, make their way toward Mingo City. In Mingo City, Princess Aura overpowers her guard and makes her way to the execution chamber, freeing Barin and Zarkov. Barin and Zarkov head for the control center, where General Kala orders all weapons to fire upon Ajax as it is out of its proper flight pattern, and also orders Mingo City’s protective lightning field to be charged up.

Zogi, the High Priest: Do you, Ming the Merciless, Ruler of the Universe, take this Earthling Dale Arden, to be your Empress of the Hour?
The Emperor Ming: Of the hour, yes.
Zogi, the High Priest: Do you promise to use her as you will?
The Emperor Ming: Certainly!
Zogi, the High Priest: Not to blast her into space?
(Ming glares at Zogi)
Zogi, the High Priest: Uh, until such time as you grow weary of her.
The Emperor Ming: I do.
Dale Arden: I do not!

In Mingo City, Ming and a defiant Dale’s wedding has just begun. The lightning field deactivates to reveal Ajax plummeting toward the temple. There is a frantic dash for safety as Ajax smashes into the sanctuary, and its lance-like bow impales Ming right through his midsection. The impact throws Flash clear of the rocket, dazed but uninjured. He grabs a dead guard’s sword and gives Ming an ultimatum: call off his attack on Earth or die. Ming aims his power ring at Flash, but it seems to have no effect. With his power fading, he aims his ring at himself and vanishes. Ming's robot servant declares that Flash has saved the Earth. Barin and Vultan and his Hawkmen arrive, Flash is again reunited with Dale, and a huge victory celebration ensues. Vultan announces to the multitude that Barin is the rightful heir to the now-vacant throne. The newly-appointed King Barin shows his gratitude to Flash, appoints Vultan as the new Army General, and decrees that everyone live together in peace.

The last scene focuses on Ming’s empty power ring, and a hand picking it up as the words "The End" fade onto the screen, followed by a question mark and Ming's evil laughter.

Heroic earthling Flash Gordon saves the world from the nefarious Ming the Merciless in this lavish, intentionally campy adaptation of the famous sci-fi comic strip. The story is as basic as space operas get: Ming has developed a plan to destroy the Earth, and Flash Gordon, Dale Arden, and Dr. Zarkov try to stop him. Along the way, Flash must battle Ming's goons and the temptations of a luscious space princess. The simplistic plot mainly serves as an excuse for spectacular sets and cartoonish action sequences, all set to a rock score by Queen. Certainly not a film to turn to for serious excitement, fine performances, or character development, FLASH GORDON has nevertheless developed an appreciative cult of fans. It is definitely much better than the Buster Crabbe 1930s movie serials in every way.

Based on the classic comic strip and its 1930s film serialization, this trashy classic is campy, adventurous, colorful and bold. Everything is bright and shiny and the sets are huge. At times the production design looks delightfully cheesy, but it's very expensive cheese. The legendary Max von Sydow appears to be having fun as the evil Ming the Merciless, while Ornella Muti as his daughter is the living embodiment of what attracts adolescent boys to comics in the first place. One of the most shamelessly entertaining movies ever made, this is a knowingly absurd sensory freak-out that intentionally uses a camp style similar to the 1960s TV series BATMAN in an attempt to appeal to fans of the original comics and serial films.

The cast also includes: John Osborne (Arborian Priest), Richard O'Brien (Fico), John Hallam (Luro), Philip Stone (Zogi, the High Priest), Suzanne Danielle (Serving Girl), William Hootkins (Munson), Bobbie Brown (Hedonia), Ted Carroll (Biro), Adrienne Kronenberg (Vultan's Daughter), Stanley Lebor (Mongon Doctor), John Morton (Airline Pilot), Burnell Tucker (Airline Co-Pilot), Robbie Coltrane (Man at Airfield), Peter Duncan (Young Treeman), Ken Sicklen (A Treeman), Tessa Hewitt (Hawk Woman), Venetia Spicer (Hawk Woman), Francis Mughan (Wounded Hawkman), Oliver MacGreevy (Klytus Observer No. 1), John Hollis (Klytus Observer No. 2), Paul Bentall (Klytus' Pilot), Leon Greene (Colonel of Battle Control Room), Graeme Crowther (Battle Room Controller), Tony Scannell (Ming's Officer), David Neal (Captain of Ming's Air Force), Bogdan Kominowski (Lieutenant of Ming's Air Force), George Harris (Prince Thun of Ardentia), Colin Taylor (King of Frigia), Doretta Dunkley (Queen of Frigia), Sally Nicholson (Queen of Azuria), and many others. Howard Blake composed the incidental music. Queen wrote and recorded the music score. Lorenzo Semple Jr. wrote the screenplay from Michael Allin's adaptation of characters created by Alex Raymond. Mike Hodges directed.

Rock band Queen's soundtrack is one of the highlights of the film. The music was composed by by Brian May, Roger Taylor, Freddie Mercury, John Deacon, and Howard Blake. Brian May wrote all the lyrics and Howard Blake arranged and conducted the orchestra, in some cases with Mercury and May. The title song "Flash's Theme" is first rate and relies on a blistering heavy electric guitar and a choir singing "Flash! Ahhhhh Savior of the universe". Unfortunately it also includes some very dated and primitive synthesizer patches played by Freddie Mercury. The other musical numbers are: In the Space Capsule, Ming's Theme, The Ring, Football Fight, In the Death Cell, Execution of Flash, The Kiss, Arboria, Escape from the Swamp, Flash to the Rescue, Vultan's Theme, Battle Theme. The Wedding March, Marriage of Dale and Ming, Crash Dive on Mingo City, Flash's Theme (Reprise), and The Hero. Queen released the soundtrack recording the same day John Lennon was assassinated.

The DVD quality is OK, but the picture transfer could have been better. This film has a lot of blue screen work, but surely it's not that grainy. The Savior of the Universe edition DVD lacks a lot of the extras found on the European Silver Anniversary Edition DVD. While you do get a remastered film with 2.35:1 anomorphic widescreen, 5.1 Dolby Surround and the movie trailer, it lacks the special features of the European DVD. That one has commentaries by director Mike Hodges and actor Brian Blessed, production stills, interviews and concept art. The SotU DVD has none of it.

What you do get is two featurettes. One is from Alex Ross and the other is called "Writing a Classic" by screenwriter Lorenzo Semple Jr. The remastering itself is definitely a big step up from the original DVD release, but still not perfect. The matte blocks are painfully noticeable on the spaceships early in the movie. There is however a whole lot less dirt and distortion compared to the first DVD release. Don't expect an incredible audio experience even if they remastered in 5.1 Dolby Surround. The SotU Edition of Flash Gordon is remastered and available in the US, but a real fan might only go for it if you can't play region 2 DVDs or if you want that Alex Ross featurette. The Silver Anniversary Edition is probably the better of the two, but both are fine.

Goldfinger (1964) * * *

In the pre-title sequence, secret agent James Bond (Sean Connery) destroys a Mexican drug lord's base with plastic explosives and defeats an assassin by electrocution. "Shocking! Positively shocking!" he says. The actual story begins in Miami Beach, Florida, with CIA agent Felix Leiter (Cec Linder) delivering a message to Bond from M to watch Auric Goldfinger (Gert Fröbe). Bond foils Goldfinger's cheating at gin rummy by distracting his employee, Jill Masterson (Shirley Eaton). After blackmailing Goldfinger into losing, Bond and Jill consummate their new relationship in Bond's hotel suite. Bond is knocked out by Goldfinger's Korean henchman Oddjob (Harold Sakata), who then covers Jill in gold paint, killing her by epidermal suffocation.

In London, Bond learns that his true mission is determining how Goldfinger transports gold internationally. He plays a high-stakes golf game with his adversary with a recovered bar of Nazi gold as the prize. Despite Goldfinger's cheating, Bond wins the match. Goldfinger warns Bond to stay out of his business by having Oddjob decapitate a statue by throwing his steel-rimmed top hat. Undeterred, Bond follows him to Switzerland, where he unintentionally foils an attempt by Jill's sister Tilly Masterson (Tania Mallet) to assassinate Goldfinger for the death of her sister Jill. Bond sneaks into a factory belonging to Goldfinger and discovers Goldfinger's Rolls-Royce being melted down. Its bodywork is fabricated from 18 carat gold, and if Goldfinger makes six such trips a year he must be making a fortune out of smuggling.

He overhears Goldfinger talking to a Red Chinese agent about "Operation Grand Slam". Leaving, he encounters Tilly as she is about to make a second attempt on Goldfinger's life, but accidentally trips an alarm. Bond attempts to escape using his Aston Martin DB5. During their escape, Oddjob breaks Tilly's neck with his hat. Bond is soon captured and Goldfinger has Bond tied to a table underneath an industrial laser, which slowly begins to slice the table in half. Bond then lies to Goldfinger that British Intelligence knows about Grand Slam, causing Goldfinger to spare Bond's life until he can determine how much the spy actually knows.

James Bond: Do you expect me to talk?
Auric Goldfinger: No, Mr. Bond. I expect you to die. There is nothing you can talk to me about that I don't already know.
James Bond: Well, you're forgetting one thing. If I fail to report, 008 replaces me.
Auric Goldfinger: I trust he will be more successful.
James Bond: Well, he knows what I know.
Auric Goldfinger: You know nothing, Mr. Bond.
James Bond: Operation Grand Slam, for instance.
Auric Goldfinger: Two words you may have overheard, which cannot have the slightest significance to you or anyone in your organization.
James Bond: Can you afford to take that chance?
Auric Goldfinger: (thinks for a moment, then orders the laser switched off) You are quite right, Mr. Bond. You are worth more to me alive.

Bond is transported by Goldfinger's private jet, flown by his personal pilot, Pussy Galore (Honor Blackman), to Goldfinger's Kentucky stud farm near Fort Knox, Kentucky.

Pussy Galore: We'll be landing in twenty minutes. Do you want to play it easy, or the hard way? And this isn't a tranquilizer gun.
James Bond: Now, Pussy, you know a lot more about planes than guns. That's a Smith and Wesson 45, and if you fire at me at this close range, the bullet will pass through me and the fuselage like a blowtorch through butter. The cabin will depressurize, and we'll both be sucked into outer space together. If that's how you want to enter the United States, you're welcome. As for me, I prefer the easy way.
Pussy Galore: That's very sensible.
James Bond: Besides, there's always so much going on around Mr. Goldfinger. It would be a shame not to accept his hospitality.
Pussy Galore: I'm sure he'll be happy to see you, too.
(touches the gun barrel to his chin)
Pussy Galore: You like close shaves, don't you?

Bond manages to escape and witnesses Goldfinger meeting with U.S. mafiosi, who have brought the materials he needs for Operation Grand Slam. Each of the hoodlums has provided something--nerve gas, manpower, a laser cutter--and they expect a hefty return on their investment. Instead, Goldfinger kills the hoodlums and reveals to Bond that he is being paid by the Red Chinese to detonate a nuclear device in Fort Knox in order to irradiate the entire gold supply of the USA, thereby rendering it useless for 58 years and greatly increasing the value of his own gold. This will also give the Chinese increased power following economic chaos in the West.

Auric Goldfinger: I prefer to call it an "atomic device". It's small, but particularly dirty.
James Bond: Cobalt and iodine?
Auric Goldfinger: Precisely.
James Bond: Well, if you explode it in Fort Knox, the... the entire gold supply of the United States would be radioactive for... fifty-seven years.
Auric Goldfinger: Fifty-eight, to be exact.
James Bond: I apologize, Goldfinger. It's an inspired deal! They get what they want, economic chaos in the West. And the value of your gold increases many times.
Auric Goldfinger: I conservatively estimate, ten times.
James Bond: Brilliant.

Goldfinger uses Pussy Galore's Flying Circus of female pilots to spread what he thinks is nerve gas across the Fort Knox military base. But Bond has managed to subvert Pussy Galore and get a message out to Felix Leiter: the nerve gas has been replaced with something harmless and the troops who fall over as if dead are actually faking. Goldfinger's people invade Fort Knox and make their way into the vault. Goldfinger has an atomic bomb wheeled into the gold reserve and chains Bond to it. The "dead" troops attack, and manage to disrupt Goldfinger's operation, but Goldfinger activates the bomb and escapes in the uniform of a US General, killing his Chinese liaison as he goes. Bond attempts to defuse the bomb, fighting off and killing Oddjob while he does so. In the end, an expert disarms the bomb.

With Fort Knox safe, the President of the United States invites Bond to the White House to thank him. Bond boards a military plane for Washington D.C., but Goldfinger has forced Pussy Galore to hijack it. Bond and Goldfinger struggle for the latter's gold-plated revolver and accidentally discharge it, shattering a window, and creating an explosive decompression of the aircraft, causing Goldfinger to get sucked out of the cabin. Bond rescues Galore, and they parachute safely from the aircraft before it crashes.

Pussy Galore: What happened? Where's Goldfinger?
James Bond: Playing his golden harp.

Though DR. NO (1962) and FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE (1963) got the ball rolling, it was GOLDFINGER that started the 007 phenomenon, establishing an enduring cinematic formula. Dry as ice, dripping with deadpan witticisms, Sean Connery is without a doubt the definitive James Bond. No one but Connery can believably seduce women so effortlessly, kill with almost as much ease, and then pull another bottle of Dom Perignon 1953 out of the fridge. GOLDFINGER contains many of the most memorable scenes in the Bond series. From the "shocking" prologue to the exhilarating mid-air climax, it's a lightning-paced James Bond adventure that pits 007 against one of his most formidable opponents. GOLDFINGER is a thriller brimming with non-stop action, humor and excitement. With style, wit and wildly imaginative stunt sequences, this spy adventure ranks as one of the all-time great action films. It's an electrifying thrill ride that will captivate viewers from beginning to end.

GOLDFINGER is the third spy film in the James Bond series, and the third to star Sean Connery as the fictional MI6 agent James Bond. It is based on the novel of the same name by Ian Fleming. The film was the first official Bond blockbuster and made cinematic history by recouping its production costs in record-setting time, despite a budget equal to that of the two preceding films combined. It was also the first Bond film to use a pop star to sing the theme song during the titles, a hallmark that would follow for every Bond film since except ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE (1969). Shirley Bassey sings the theme song "Goldfinger", and she would go on to sing the theme songs for two other Bond films, DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER (1971) and MOONRAKER (1979).

The cast also includes: Bernard Lee (M), Martin Benson (Solo), Austin Willis (Simmons), Lois Maxwell (Moneypenny), Bill Nagy (Midnight), Michael Mellinger (Kisch), Peter Cranwell (Johnny), Nadja Regin (Bonita), Richard Vernon (Smithers), Burt Kwouk (Mr. Ling), Desmond Llewelyn (Q), Mai Ling (Mei-Lei), Varley Thomas (Swiss Gatekeeper), Margaret Nolan (Dink), John McLaren (Brigadier), Robert MacLeod (Atomic Specialist), Victor Brooks (Blacking), Alf Joint (Capungo), Gerry Duggan (Hawker), Peter Brace (South American Guard), Terence Brook (Security Officer at Airport), Anthony Chinn (Servant at Stud Farm), Marian Collins (Girlfriend of Goldfinger), Michael Collins (Auric Goldfinger's voice), Denis Cowles (Brunskill), Hal Galili (Mr. Strap), Caron Gardner (Flying Circus Pilot), Lesley Hill (Flying Circus Pilot), George Leech (Man in Bulletproof Vest at Q Branch), Garry Marshall (Hoodlum), Aleta Morrison (Flying Circus Pilot), Tricia Muller (Sydney), Lenny Rabin (American Gangster), Janette Rowsell (Chambermaid), Bob Simmons (James Bond in Gunbarrel Sequence), Les Tremayne (Radio Newsman voice), Michael G. Wilson (Soldier at Fort Knox), Maggie Wright (Air Squadron Leader), and Raymond Young (Sierra). John Barry composed the original music. Richard Maibaum and Paul Dehn wrote the screenplay adapted from Ian Fleming's novel. Guy Hamilton directed.

This film was both a critical and financial success. The movie's $3 million budget was recouped in two weeks, and it broke box office records in multiple countries around the world. GOLDFINGER went on to be included in the Guinness Book of World Records as the fastest grossing film of all time. The film grossed a total of $51,081,062 in the United States. It won an Oscar for Sound Editing and is a definite highpoint in the 007 series.

The DVD contains 2 very good commentary tracks, 2 documentaries, photos, radio interviews, trailers, etc. Picture quality is the same as the previously released DVD-version and looks very good, but the trained eye can notice some grit and dust in the print. The mono soundtrack is adequate, and the start-up motion-menu is high-tech and gets you in the Bond mood.

Journey to the Center of Time (1967) * *

Stanton (Scott Brady) is a hard-nosed gruff boss who is the head of a scientific research company he has taken over following the death of his benevolent father. His employees are scientists Mark Manning (Anthony Eisley), "Doc" Gordon (Abraham Sofaer), and Karen White (Gigi Perreau). The scene is a research center, where experimental time-travel is in its formative stages. Unless they prove that their time travel experiments can produce some results in 24 hours, their funding will be cut off.

A journey through time is rapidly set in motion. Desperate, they push their operating equipment past the level of safety and travel 5000 years into the future, with Stanton along as an accidental participant. The time travelers discover a totalitarian Earth under attack by alien laser beams. There, they confront a hostile band of extraterrestrials led by Vina (Poupée Gamin) who are looking for a planet to colonize and conquer the world. The aliens find no welcome on Earth, which is in the midst of a global war that threatens the human race. The group of four travelers chat with some aliens for a few minutes during a nuclear attack. Vina urges them to go back and warn humanity about the danger, then dies in an attack by humans. The time travelers retreat to their chamber and head back. On the way, they detect another time machine on a collision course. Gordon tries to communicate with them. When that fails, they fire at it, but their weapon is too weak. Stanton takes charge, boosts the power and destroys the other vessel.

However, all is still not well. They overshoot the present and end up in the distant past, in the age of dinosaurs. Their giant ruby, a key component of the machine, is destroyed, leaving them stranded. However, when they explore a nearby volcanic cave, they find it studded with all sorts of jewels, including rubies. Overcome by greed, Stanton grabs handfuls of the precious gems, returns to the time machine, replaces the ruby and takes off without the scientists. However, on his return trip, he encounters another traveler in time. He hears a radio broadcast, and it is from Gordon! He is racing towards the earlier version of the time machine. Then he is destroyed by a blast initiated by his earlier self.

Meanwhile, as the scientists leave the cave, Gordon stumbles and falls to his death in molten lava. The other two find the time machine gone. Then it mysteriously reappears. They board it and return to the day before their initial departure. But something is wrong. They find past versions of themselves living at a much slower time rate. The couple hasten back to the time machine to try to rectify the problem, but end up hopelessly lost in time and space. In the final scene, the machine is shown in space among the stars.

Also known as TIME WARP, this movie is one of those cheaply made sci-fi films whose minuscule budgets are matched only by an equally minuscule plot, direction, scripting, and acting. In this one, Stanton is your typically beefy industrialist whose only interest in the advancement of science is the financial bottom line. His unwillingness to provide further funding forces his scientists to prematurely zap ahead to the future in a time machine. Naturally, there is a mishap that lands then squarely in a nuclear war, whose own weirdly made-up leaders prance about for their few minutes of screen time. Stanton and his time traveling cohorts travel back to 1,000,000 BC where they meet dinosaurs. Apparently, the script writers did not know that dinosaurs died out when a comet crashed into Earth 65 million years ago.

At this point, whatever plot coherence there was dissolves into a misty mess of chintzy special effects whose only apparent purpose is to divert the viewer's attention from the huge plot holes. Further complicating matters is a series of potentially interesting temporal paradoxes that might have engaged the viewer if the script had incorporated them into a coherent plot. By the end, the viewer is asked to accept another silly science fiction ending of how it all began. The movie had potential and tried to say something important, but it is a classic bad sci-fi film. In fact, it is better than anything Ed Woods produced. Parts of the plot are actually interesting as the time travel space ship goes back and forth from the future to the past and ends up getting lost in time.

To the film's credit, things do move along fairly quickly as the film is pretty well paced. But everything is so incredibly cheap and cheesy looking. If you miss something the first time in the movie, don't worry, you will see it again because the film is padded with lots of annoying flashbacks of earlier scenes. If you like bad and cheap films loaded with scientific explanations that make no sense, you will enjoy this film. The DVD transfer looks better than the VHS version, but the visual quality is disappointing. There are no extras.

The cast also includes: Austin Green (Mr. Denning), Tracy Olsen (Susan), Andy Davis (Dave), Lyle Waggoner (Alien), Larry Evans, Jody Millhouse, and Monica Stevens. David L. Hewitt wrote the screenplay and directed.

The Mondo Cane Collection (1962 - 1971) * * ¾

"All the scenes you will see in this film are true. If they are shocking, it is only because there are many shocking things in this world..."

MONDO CANE (A Dog's World) is a 1962 Italian documentary film consisting of a series of travelogue vignettes providing glimpses into cultural practices throughout the world intended to shock or surprise the mostly Western film audience. It includes an insect banquet and a memorable look at a practising South Pacific cargo cult. MONDO CANE's shock-exploitation-documentary style started a fad known as "Mondo film".

The original "shockumentary" is a collection of mostly real archive footage displaying mankind at its most depraved and perverse, showing bizarre rituals, cruel behavior, and animal violence. Nominally a documentary, this film combines a number of unrelated sequences both real and staged, including tribal dances and rituals, butchering and torture of animals, images of genocide, dramatizations of African slavery, a most-likely very real execution, and a visit to an ornate pet cemetery--all focused on the lurid, sensational, and eccentric.

There are eight separate DVD titles in The Mondo Cane Collection, representing 5 films and a documentary made exclusively for this set from Blue Underground. Franco Prosperi and Gualtiero Jacopetti created this series that seeks to show the weird, the hilarious, the brutal and the frequently offbeat people, places and events that exist on our planet. Two of the films, AFRICA ADDIO and ADDIO ZIO TOM, are offered in both an original English version and an alternate Director's Cut on their own separate discs. The set follows the chronological release of these movies and represents the best, most complete versions of these films ever offered. The Collection includes:

MONDO CANE (1962): A globetrotting travelogue of unusual customs and rituals from around the world. We witness events as diverse as a native "man" hunt and a lifeguard competition, an Asian woman shopping for fresh snake meat, and the Italian relatives of Rudolph Valentino celebrating the anniversary of his death. The American fixation with the automobile is contrasted with the vehicle's final resting place in a junkyard, and an artist manipulates nude models covered in blue paint to function as "brushes" as he creates another "masterpiece" of modern art. Genuine nature is matched with the man-made metropolis and the taint of the tourist is decried while the purity and violence of the native is celebrated. The purpose of the documentary is clear: it wants to show how diverse, and yet how really interrelated, we all are, the primitive and the privileged, the backward and the Bacchanalian. The movie's great theme song "More" was written by Riz Ortolani and Nino Oliviero and was given new lyrics in English by Norman Newell. In 1964 the song was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Song.

MONDO CANE 2 (1964): Using the same style as the first landmark film, the sequel wants to further probe the dark and delirious inner workings of the world. It moves from shots of ladies giving up their hair for wigs to the average gal who dons the fake coiffures. We see unbridled worship of God as women and children go completely insane in a lunatic celebration of faith. Art is again under the microscope as a Greek painter spits his medium into jars for his painters to consume and regurgitate onto canvases. Jewelers encrust live bugs with precious gems and gold for high society ladies to drape across their bodices. Parties are depicted as degenerating into celebrations of sexual assault, and the children of Mexico are fed the marzipan body parts of Judas and eat the sugar custard "brains" of the dead in celebration. More political and psychological than the first outing, MONDO CANE 2 is still a strange look at an even more bizarre dog's world. It is also known as MONDO PAZZO.

WOMEN OF THE WORLD (1963): Made in between the two MONDO CANE films, this movie wants to champion and challenge our preconceptions about women. We see the female members of the Israeli military involved in combat training. Models are shown posing for true crime magazine covers, and the "ritual" of topless sunbathing is explored. Around the world, sex is still the number one trade as women are exploited. We follow prostitutes as they ply their trade on the streets and windows of specifically designated districts and hang around nightclubs that feature scandalous shows. Posing in the nude for money is discussed, as is the strange career of being a "professional mourner". From quickie Vegas marriages to the horrors of Thalidomide and the tragedy of Lourdes, this is a film that focuses on how important the female is to the planet.

AFRICA ADDIO (1966) (English Version and Director's Cut): This entry declares "You May Love It! You May Hate It! But You'll Not Forget It!" Tiring of the travelogue approach, the filmmakers headed to Africa to document the unrest that had erupted in the wake of colonial abandonment. In the early 1960s, many African nations gained their independence from colonialist rulers such as Britain, France, and Portugal. For a period of three years, the creators of MONDO CANE scoured the Dark Continent to find proof of the effects of such domination on the population and the policies of these newly freed regions. The truth was harsh and vile. Animals, once protected by strict international regulation, were made available for collective slaughter. Rebels, hoping to gain political power and the land that was "stolen" from them, aligned with outside forces and left a trail of rape and murder across the veldts and villages. The mass graves of animals and people are showcased and atrocities against all species are caught on film. Occasionally, the narrative looks at the poor, deluded white man, living in virtual exile in the Apartheid heaven of South Africa, still feeling forcibly removed from their homeland and mourning their lost way of life. Interestingly, we see how readily the African tribes revert to Western ways and the decadent subservient lifestyle they fought so hard against.

AFRICA ADDIO is also presented in a Director's Cut that deeply politicizes the events depicted in the English version, rearranging them and adding more scenes of governmental rallies and crackdowns. The narration (Italian with English subtitles) is also more factually accurate and detailed, explaining certain power struggles and the bloody results of tribal conflicts. We still see the wholesale slaughter of wildlife and the death of human beings, but the tone is now more newsworthy and less inflammatory. Perhaps the most telling moments come when, in South Africa, the ghettos of Soweto are juxtaposed against the metropolis of Johannesburg, predicting the collapse of Apartheid two decades before it would occur.

ADDIO ZIO TOM (1971) (Goodbye Uncle Tom: English Version and Director's Cut): It sports the tagline "300 years of hate explode today!" Hoping to show a nation in denial just how horrendous the slave trade was prior to the start of the Civil War, this "documentary recreation" of the social, political, and moral environment of the Deep South is both pointed and powerful. Our filmmakers seem to travel back in time as they arrive in Louisiana to make their movie. They film the vile treatment of Africans as they are shipped, processed, and passed about like wholesale inventory, complete with humiliating physical and psychological tortures. The gentility of the slave owner is matched only by their bravado and abhorrent behavior. Blacks are killed, castrated, raped, and ravished by their white owners. Auctions are attended, the life of the house slave is explored and a Mengele-like scientist is shown "experimenting" on his "camp" full of natives, trying to decipher their "primitive, animalistic" tendencies. After we see the capture and massacre of hundreds of runaway slaves and the farm-like "breeding stables" of a slave "stud service," we jump to modern America, to see how eons of mistreatment still seethes in the unconscious daydreams of the supposedly "equal" black man.

Like AFRICA ADDIO, ADDIO ZIO TOM is presented in a Director's Cut that plays as a completely different, equally compelling cinematic experience. Deleting much of the old South footage and inserting more modern scenes of Black Panther rallies and the riots that resulted after the death of Martin Luther King, Jr., the Director's Cut (Italian with English subtitles) tells a more political and divisive story about black and white relations in the United States. Gone is a great deal of the fictional recreations and the film has been reedited to tell a more fact based, historical story of slavery and its practices.

THE GODFATHERS OF MONDO (2003): Made specifically for the collection, this 90-minute documentary directed by Blue Underground's David Gregory covers the history of the films in this series and the collaboration between Gualtiero Jacopetti and Franco Prosperi. From their individual roots in documentaries (Jacopetti) and naturalism (Prosperi) to the breakthrough epiphany of MONDO CANE, these aging Italians are full of life and wonderful stories. Not shy to express disgust at the terrible Mondo mutations that came in the wake of their success, they are also quick to point out their own failures (MONDO CANE 2) and genius (AFRICA ADDIO). Other crew members (including cameraman Benito Frattari, composer Riz Ortolani, and production manager Giampaolo Lomi) provide outside insights into the process of making this new kind of movie. Filled with editing theory, discussion on the importance of music, and the overall impact of this kind of film on modern media, this documentary is a very special look at an infamous set of films and filmmakers.

The Mondo Cane Collection is an 8 DVD set that shows the Mondo film for what it is: daring, quirky, and brazen cinema at its most pure and perfected. All the films in the collection may look real, but some things are obviously staged. The damage of MONDO CANE is done early on with its sensationalist, up-close style and in its choice of dialogue for the narrative. As we watch, we know that some of the things we witness are real and true, yet far too often there is doubt about authenticity. Sound is also a very important part of the Mondo movies, and the Dolby Digital Mono here is superb. Dialogue is crisp and clear, and the music score never overruns the narration. And speaking of the music, the Mondo films have some of the most beautiful and lush accompaniment ever included in documentaries.

But where is MONDO CANDIDO (1975)? The last collaboration between Jacopetti and Prosperi, this lost film would have been the perfect last piece in the Mondo puzzle from the two filmmakers. Blue Underground must have been unable to secure the rights, find a pristine print, or decided it is not a documentary, but its lack of inclusion here makes The Mondo Cane Collection incomplete. With the wealth of material here and the glorious versions of the movies that are offered, the lack of MONDO CANDIDO is excusable, but the fact that it is not included as part of the box set means that while it is a comprehensive look at the Mondo trend, The Mondo Cane Collection still has a final piece missing.

MONDO CANDIDO is based on the cynical satire "Candide" by Voltaire. Candide (Christopher Brown) is a nice innocent young man who is raised in a castle of a noble family in Westphalia during the middle ages. Dr. Pangloss (Jacques Herlin), a teacher of metaphysics and philosophy educates him and tells that he lives in the best of all possible worlds and that any apparent absurdity, misery and conflict are actually all parts of a greater good that mortals cannot perceive. The happy life of Candido changes drastically when he falls in love with the Baron's daughter Cunegonda (Michelle Miller) and is caught with her. Candide is banned from the castle and starts traveling into a timeless world, searching for his lost love. Candide attempts to stay optimistic as unbelievable horrors unfold in a world full of brutality, war, slavery and sickness.

Fantastic Voyage (1966) * * *

Set during the Cold War, CIA agent Charles Grant (Stephen Boyd) is called in to escort scientist Jan Benes (Jean Del Val), a man behind the Iron Curtain with information vital to the safety and security of the United States. When their motorcade is attacked, Benes is injured, causing a blood clot to form in his brain and he goes into a coma. Grant and Benes escape to the West. The United States and the former Soviet Union have both developed technology that allows matter to be miniaturized using a process that shrinks individual atoms, but its value is limited because objects shrunk return to normal size after a period of time--the smaller an object, the quicker it reverts.

Benes figured out how to make the shrinking process work indefinitely to keep soldiers shrunken for long periods. To save his life, agent Grant, pilot Captain Bill Owens (William Redfield), Dr. Michaels (Donald Pleasence), surgeon Dr. Peter Duval (Arthur Kennedy) and his assistant Cora Peterson (Raquel Welch) board a high-tech military submarine, the Proteus, which is then miniaturized in a lab and injected into Benes body. The ship is reduced to one micrometre in length, giving the team only one hour to repair the clot. After that time, the submarine will revert to its normal size and become large enough for Benes' immune system to detect and attack.

Grant: Wait a minute! They can't shrink me.
General Carter: Our miniaturizer can shrink anything.
Grant: But I don't want to be miniaturized!
General Carter: It's just for an hour.
Grant: Not even for a minute!
General Carter: (after the briefing before the mission) Any questions?
Grant: Yes. When can I catch the next train back to town?
Cora Peterson: We're going to see things no one has ever seen before. Just think about it.
Grant: That's the trouble. I am.

The crew of the Proteus faces many obstacles in a colorful and thrill-packed journey inside the human body. They encounter the body's natural defense systems, nearly get smashed by the force of the beating heart, and have to repair damaged blood vessels in the brain. "That's plasma," somebody mentions, and now we know what the blood in the human body looks like from the point of view of a germ. They are forced to detour through the heart where a temporary cardiac arrest is induced to avoid destructive turbulence, the inner ear (all in the lab must remain quiet to prevent turbulence) and the alveoli of the lungs where they replenish their supply of oxygen. When the surgical laser needed to destroy the clot is damaged, it becomes obvious there is a saboteur on the mission. They cannibalize their radio to repair the laser. When they finally reach the brain clot, there are only six minutes remaining to operate and then exit the body.

The traitor, Dr. Michaels, knocks Owens out and takes control of the Proteus while the rest of the crew is outside for the operation. Duval successfully removes the clot with the laser. Michaels tries to crash the sub into the clot area to kill Benes, but Grant fires the laser at the ship, causing it to veer away and crash. The climax comes when the good guys are out of the capsule, clearing the blood clot with a laser ray, and the evil saboteur tries to run them down. Just then a white corpuscle, a great cotton avalanche, looms to engulf the operation. Michaels is trapped in the wreckage and killed when a white blood cell attacks and destroys the Proteus. Grant saves Owens from the ship, and they all swim desperately to one of the eyes, where they escape via a teardrop.

Dr. Peter Duval: The medieval philosophers were right. Man is the center of the universe. We stand in the middle of infinity between outer and inner space, and there's no limit to either.

FANTASTIC VOYAGE is the original psychedelic inner-space adventure. Stephen Boyd stars as a colorless commander sent to keep an eye on things, while Donald Pleasance is suitably twitchy as the claustrophobic medical consultant. Raquel Welch performs well and is not especially sexy. The science is shaky at best, but the imaginative spectacle is marvelous: scuba-diving surgeons battle an attack by white corpuscles, get caught in a tornado-like storm in the lungs, travel the aorta like daredevil surfers, and struggle to survive sabotage from one of their own.

The cast also includes: Edmond O'Brien (General Carter), Arthur O'Connell (Col. Donald Reid), Barry Coe (Communications Aide), Ken Scott (Secret Service), Shelby Grant (Nurse), James Brolin (Technician), Brendan Fitzgerald (Wireless Operator), Brendon Boone (MP), and Christopher Riordan (Young Scientist). Leonard Rosenman composed the original music. Harry Kleiner wrote the screenplay from David Duncan's adaptation of a story by Otto Klement and Jerome Bixby. Richard Fleischer directed.

Fans of 1960's science fiction will appreciation the deluxe DVD reissue of FANTASTIC VOYAGE put out by Fox. While very much a product of the mid 1960s, the movie holds up surprisingly well in just about every area. We get a good looking transfer for the film. It isn't perfect but it couldn't be because of the source material. Some shots appear soft and a bit blurry due to the process photography/visual effects added to shots. But it's unavoidable and typical of films from this time before digital video. Colors are bold and bright.

There are some good extras as well. Except for the theatrical trailer, all the extras were created especially for this release. The featurette on visual effects has special effects cinematographer Richard Edlund discussing the difficulty of shooting a film like FANTASTIC VOYAGE in 1965. Like FORBIDDEN PLANET (1956), it pushed the barrier of visual effects for its time. Edlund points out that building the Proetus both in full size and miniature allowed director Richard Flesicher opportunities that most directors wouldn't have in being flexible in his shooting. We also get an isolated music score with a commentary track as well featuring Nick Redman, Jon Burlingame and Jeff Bond discussing Leonard Rosenman's score. They are quiet about 40 minutes in when Rosenman's score kicks in but the first 40 minutes these music/film historians focus on everything from the casting, to bits of trivia about the shooting of the film. There is also a storyboard to film comparison of the whirlpool scene as well as a deleted scene from the script with storyboard illustrations. The electronic press booklet includes the original press booklet. Plus we get lobby cards, posters, radio and TV ads as well as the original theatrical trailer. The interactive portion of the gallery also allows us a 360 view of the 5 foot model of the Proetus as well as its slightly smaller version used for long shots and visual effects mattes. Fox has done a very nice job on this 40th Anniversary Edition of this classic Science Fiction film.

Bantam Books obtained the rights for a paperback novelization based on the screenplay and approached Isaac Asimov to write it. According to the introduction of the novel, Asimov was rather reluctant to write it because he believed that the miniaturization of matter is physically impossible. But he decided that it was still good fodder for story-telling and that it could still make for some intelligent reading. Asimov had the crew provoke the white cell into following them, so that it drags the submarine to the tearduct. The submarine then expands outside Benes' body. Because the novelization was released six months before the movie, many people believed Asimov's book had inspired the movie. "Fantastic Voyage II: Destination Brain", was written by Isaac Asimov as an attempt to develop and present his own story apart from the 1966 screenplay. This novel is not a sequel to the original, but instead is a separate story taking place in the Soviet Union with an entirely different set of characters.

A comic book adaptation of the film was released by Gold Key in 1967. Drawn by industry legend Wally Wood, the comic follows the plot of the movie with general accuracy, but many scenes are depicted differently and/or outright dropped, and the ending is given an epilogue similar as that seen in some of the early draft scripts for the film. Two years after the film was released, ABC aired an animated series on Saturday mornings. The series was produced by Filmation. In the series, a different team of scientists perform their missions in a craft known as Voyager, a submarine which features wedge-shaped wings and a large swept T-tail, and is capable of flight. A model kit of Voyager was offered by Aurora Model Company for several years, and has become a sought-after collectors' item since then. As of June, 2008, the Voyager kit has been re-released by the Moebius model company.

Salvador Dali did a painting inspired by FANTASTIC VOYAGE. The film took home Oscars for Best Visual Effects and Best Art Direction (Jack Martin Smith, Dale Hennesy, Walter M. Scott, Stuart A. Reiss). One scientific contradiction is how do miniaturized humans breathe full-sized air molecules?

Woodstock (1970) * * *

WOODSTOCK is a documentary on the Woodstock Music & Art Festival held in Bethel, New York from August 15 - August 18, 1969. It was located on Max Yasgur's 600 acre dairy farm and gives an intimate look at the festival from preparation through cleanup, with historic access to insiders, concert footage, and portraits of the concertgoers. Negative and positive aspects are shown, from drug use by performers to naked fans sliding in the mud, from the collapse of the fences by the unexpected hordes, to the arrival of National Guard helicopters with food and medical assistance for the impromptu city of almost 500,000. It is widely considered the most famous rock festival ever held. For many, it exemplified the counterculture of the 1960s and the "hippie era". Many of the best-known musicians of the times appeared during the rainy weekend. So many people turned up that the festival had to be declared free.

Max Yasgur to crowd: This is the largest group of people ever assembled in one place, and I think you people have proven something to the world: that a half a million kids can get together and have three days of fun and music and have nothing but fun and music, and I God bless you for it!

The festival is named "Woodstock" because it was originally scheduled to take place in the town of Woodstock, in Ulster County. However, the town offered no appropriate site to host such a large event due to their belief that over a million people would attend. A site was found in the town of Wallkill. When local opposition arose, the event was almost canceled, but Sam Yasgur persuaded his father Max to allow the concert to be held on the family's alfalfa field, located in Sullivan County, about 40 miles southwest of Woodstock. Although the show had been planned for a maximum of 200,000 attendees, over 400,000 eventually attended, most of whom did not pay admission. The highways leading to the concert were jammed with traffic. People abandoned their cars and walked for miles to the concert area. Performers came and went via helicopter because it was the only way in or out. The weekend was rainy, facilities were overcrowded, and attendees shared food, alcoholic beverages, and drugs. Local residents of this modest tourist-oriented area gave blankets and food to some concertgoers.

Hugh Romney: Good morning! What we have in mind is breakfast in bed for four hundred thousand. We must be in heaven, man! There's always a little bit of heaven in a disaster area.

Woodstock's promoters were Michael Lang, Artie Kornfeld, John Roberts and Joel Rosenman. Lang was a hippie who had owned a head shop and hoped to build a recording studio in the Woodstock area to serve artists such as Bob Dylan and Janis Joplin, who had homes nearby. When Lang and Kornfeld presented the idea to Rosenman and Roberts, Rosenman hatched the idea of a rock concert. After toying with an Age of Aquarius theme, they settled on the slogan "Three Days of Peace and Music", partly as a way to placate suspicious local officials and partly to appeal to anti-war sentiment. They hired commercial artist Arnold Skolnick to design the artwork, which incorporated a catbird design.

This documentary covers the 3 day music festival that symbolized the late 1960s in terms of musical, social and political ideology of the era. American audiences are introduced to Ten Years After, featuring guitarist Alvin Lee. Jimi Hendix, The Who and Joe Cocker give riveting performances. As naked flower children romp, the New York freeway is closed because of traffic congestion. Music lovers leave their cars and travel on foot to experience torrential downpours of rain, food shortages and non-stop music. Jefferson Airplane gives the wake up call with their song "Volunteers Of America". Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young give an uneven live performance, their second ever. John Sebastian gives an impromptu set with a borrowed guitar from Tim Hardin. Santana, Sly and The Family Stone, Sha-Na-Na, Arlo Guthrie, Richie Havens and Joan Baez also appear. The Grateful Dead, The Everly Brothers, Credence Clearwater Revival and Janis Joplin performed but were not shown in the original film. The Grateful Dead's Jerry Garcia recalled that it was the worse live show the band ever did, ironic for a band known for their spirited live performances. Because of problems with the sound, John Fogerty didn’t want Creedence Clearwater Revival’s performance included.

David Crosby: This is our second gig.
Stephen Stills: This is the second time we've ever played in front of people, man, we're scared shitless.

WOODSTOCK set the standard for all rockumentaries to come. Sensing that the now-legendary 1969 Woodstock concert would be something more than a mere "happening", director Michael Wadleigh brought along a battalion of cinematographers and assistants. He arrived with sixteen camera operators from Warner Bros. and thousands of reels of film. They reportedly shot 120 miles of footage, which was edited primarily by Thelma Schoonmaker, who would go on to cut most of Martin Scorsese’s movies--with help from Scorsese as an apprentice editor. Utilizing widescreen, splitscreen, and stereo-sound technology to the utmost, Wadleigh puts us right in the middle of the 400,000 screaming, mud-caked spectators, then zooms in to loving closeups of the stars.

As a result, what could have been an aloof, detached record of the landmark concert is as "up close and personal" as it was possible to get without actually being there. The finished product won the 1970 Oscar for Best Documentary--and was also stamped with an "R" rating due to some innocuous nudity and profanity. The original 184 minute running time was expanded to 224 minutes for the 1994 video version, featuring previously excised footage of Janis Joplin and Jefferson Airplane. Canned Heat’s "Going Up The Country" was heard in the 1970 version, but the band actually performs in the extended cut as well. One of the best shots in Woodstock has no music at all: the final image, as a group of dour policemen survey the garbage and debris left behind by the Woodstock Nation.

Richie Havens starts the show off fiercely on acoustic guitar with "Handsome Johnny", followed by an improvised "Freedom". Canned Heat does a rocking blues version of "A Change Is Gonna Come". The Who are shot in dazzling slow motion dissolves and split screens performing "See Me/Feel Me" and "Summertime Blues", though we don’t get to see Pete Townsend kick Abbie Hoffman off the stage. Country Joe McDonald sums up the anti-war message with his "Fixing to Die Rag" ("Give me an 'F'!"). Carlos Santana noodles, Janis Joplin screeches, but the highlight is probably Sly and the Family Stone blasting out "I Want To Take You Higher". Another showstopper is Ten Years After's rendition of "I'm Going Home".

Country Joe McDonald leads the crowd through "I Feel Like I’m Fixin To Die Rag". Lyrics appear on the bottom of the screen with bouncing ball for those like me who have not committed the anti-war anthem to memory. Joan Baez and Sha Na Na perform. In addition to Jefferson Airplane ("Saturday Afternoon", "Uncle Sam’s Blues") and Janis Joplin ("Work Me, Lord"), Jimi Hendrix had a big impact with his version of "The Star Spangled Banner". It was controversial, as the Vietnam War was underway and the sound effects that Hendrix generated with his guitar paralleled the sounds of the violence of the conflict. His performances is considered one of the greatest in rock history, though Hendrix regarded it as sub-par.

Jimi Hendrix: I see that we meet again, hmmm...

A warning goes out concerning bad brown acid, Joan Baez tells the crowd about her imprisoned husband, the weather gets worse and some are blaming it on government helicopters seeding the clouds, and the mud rises. Festival goers begin to starve because there's not enough food to go around, there are drug overdoses and not enough doctors are there to help, and all the while the Vietnam war colors the mood. However, the audience are determined to enjoy themselves despite the hardships, because there is the music to listen to. Arlo Guthrie is surprisingly good doing "Coming Into Los Angeles" and marveling that traffic has shut down the New York Thruway.

Arlo Guthrie: It's incredible. I heard the New York Thruway's closed.
News Reporter: Closed? This morning we heard that they were backed down Route 17 with an eight hour delay.
Arlo Guthrie: Right. Well, the New York Thruway's closed. Isn't that far out?

WOODSTOCK is probably sixty percent concert, forty percent concert-goers. An interesting scene is a camera crew filming the toilet facilities and telling a dude that they’re making a movie. "What’s it called?" Response: "Port-O-San." The townspeople, including the chief of police, weigh in and almost unanimously support the kids, remarking how well they’ve behaved. One of those kids, interviewed on the side of the road and who may have never even made it to the show, sums it up best: "People who are nowhere are coming here because there’s people they think are somewhere. Everybody is looking for some kind of answer. When there isn’t one."

There was some crime and other misbehavior at Woodstock, as well as a fatality from a drug overdose, an accidental death caused by an occupied sleeping bag being run over by a tractor, and one participant died from falling off a scaffold. There were also 3 miscarriages and 2 births recorded at the festival as well, and logistical headaches. Furthermore, because Woodstock was not intended for such a large crowd, there were not enough facilities such as toilets and first-aid tents. There was profiteering in the sale of "electric Kool-Aid" laced with random hallucinogens, which made many people ill. Drugs were commonly used and available at Woodstock. LSD and marijuana use were prominent throughout the festival.

The movie did big box office business and a successful three record set sold millions of copies. Two albums of the concert have been released. The first was officially titled "Woodstock: Music From the Original Soundtrack and More". It sold millions of copies and was based on the documentary film. Due to that album's success, a second album, "Woodstock 2", was released about a year later. The festival did not initially make money for the promoters, although record sales and proceeds from the film made it very profitable.

In 1994 a director's cut of WOODSTOCK, subtitled "3 Days of Peace & Music", was released that added over 40 minutes to the film and included performances by Canned Heat, Jefferson Airplane and Janis Joplin that were omitted from the original release. Jimi Hendrix's set at the end of the film was also extended with two additional numbers. Some of the crowd scenes in the original film were replaced by previously unseen footage. There is bonus footage of performers, and a post-credits tribute to activists, performers, and organizers who passed on since the original release. The list of prominent people from the "Woodstock Generation" who had died includes John F. Kennedy, Malcolm X, Che Guevara, Martin Luther King, Jr., Mama Cass Elliot, Jim Morrison, John Lennon, Max Yasgur, Abbie Hoffman, Paul Butterfield, Keith Moon, Bob Hite, Richard Manuel, Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix.

PERFORMERS

Friday, August 15

The first day officially began at 5:07 p.m. with Richie Havens and featured folk artists.

* Richie Havens
* Swami Satchidananda: invocation for the festival
* Sweetwater
* The Incredible String Band
* Bert Sommer
* Tim Hardin
* Ravi Shankar
* Melanie
* Arlo Guthrie
* Joan Baez

Saturday, August 16

The day opened at 12:15 pm, and featured some of the event's biggest psychedelic and guitar rock headliners.

* Quill
* Keef Hartley Band
* Country Joe McDonald
* John Sebastian
* Santana
* Canned Heat
* Mountain
* Janis Joplin and The Kozmic Blues Band
* Grateful Dead
* Creedence Clearwater Revival
* Sly & the Family Stone
* The Who
* Jefferson Airplane

Sunday, August 17 to Monday, August 18

Joe Cocker was the first act on the last officially booked day (Sunday). He opened up the day's events at 2 PM. His set was preceded by at least two instrumentals by The Grease Band.

* Joe Cocker
* After Joe Cocker's set, a thunderstorm disrupted the events for several hours.
* Country Joe and the Fish
* Ten Years After
* The Band
* Blood, Sweat & Tears
* Johnny Winter
* Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
* Paul Butterfield Blues Band
* Jimi Hendrix

New DVD and Blu-ray versions of WOODSTOCK: THE DIRECTOR'S CUT are scheduled for release by Warner Home Video on June 9, 2009. The "Ultimate Collector’s Edition" reportedly includes an hour of performances not seen in the film, or not seen in full. Director Michael Wadleigh is overseeing the release, Warner said. Robert Klein's documentary "The '60s and the Woodstock Generation" will be among the extra features. WOODSTOCK is being restored and remastered for the release. The previous DVD edition was released in 1997, with reviewers on Amazon complaining of its VHS-like quality. WOODSTOCK is a priceless document. In 1996, Woodstock was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

Message to Love: The Isle of Wight Festival (1997) * * *

From August 26 to 31, 1970, rock music fans flocked to the English Isle of Wight to witness the third and final festival to be held on the island. It was held on Afton Down, an area on the western side of the island. The last of three consecutive music festivals to take place on the island between 1968 and 1970, it was the largest musical event of its time (until Summer Jam at Watkins Glen in 1973), greater than the attendance of Live Aid, Woodstock and Rock in Rio. The Guinness Book of Records has cited its attendance as 600,000, which is well above the organizers' estimate of 500,000.

For about a year after the Woodstock Music and Art Fair in 1969, it seemed as though everyone wanted to stage a rock festival. However, The Rolling Stones' disastrous Altamont free concert, documented in the film GIMME SHELTER (1970), forever tarnished the image of the rock festival in the USA, while in Europe, the 1970 Isle of Wight Festival was fortunately less disastrous than Altamont, but nearly as controversial. Staged by two men with greater ambitions than practical experience, the festival was held on a small island off the British coast. But while at Woodstock no one had given much thought about keeping gatecrashers out, at the Isle of Wight those without tickets were greeted with corrugated steel fences that sealed off the festival grounds. Huge numbers of visitors simply camped on hills surrounding the grounds, while others broke down the fences by force after refusing to pay the 3 pounds admission. This led to heated conflicts between the promoters, who ranted bitterly to the audience from the stage, the festival's security staff, the concert-goers, and the performers. The documentary examines the concert both on-stage and behind-the-scenes, capturing performances from many of the artists who appeared.

The Isle of Wight Festivals already had massive reputations in 1968 and in 1969 by attracting acts such as Jefferson Airplane, T.Rex, The Move, Pretty Things, Joe Cocker, the Who and Bob Dylan--in his first performance since his 1966 motorcycle accident. The organizers Fiery Creations (alias brothers Ronald Foulk and Raymond Foulk) were determined to make the 1970 event a legendary event. In this aim they enlisted Jimi Hendrix. With Jimi confirmed, artists such as Chicago, The Doors, The Who, Joan Baez, and Free willingly took up the chance to play on the island. The event had a magnificent but impractical site, a strong but inconsistent line up and the logistical nightmare of transporting 600,000 on to the island with a population of less than 100,000. The aftermath and commercial failings of the festival ensured it would be the last event of its kind on the Isle of Wight for thirty-two years.

This is a complete rockumentary showing everything from the performances of several rock legends to the backstage squabbling that nearly destroyed the festival, but was a precursor of the greed and cynicism that would strike the rock music scene of the 1970's. The film depicts the many problems associated with the festival, including gate-crashing, numerous crowd incursions onto the stage, Kris Kristofferson being booed offstage, and head promoter Rikki Farr's whining and ranting to the audience, which only intensified as the situation deteriorated: "We put this festival on, you bastards...we worked for one year for you pigs!"

Unlike the films MONTERERY POP (1968) and WOODSTOCK (1970), with their cheerful sense of innocence, MESSAGE OF LOVE details a major cultural movement in fast decline. The big draws here are rough, spacey performances by rock's ragged aristocracy of the time: the Doors, the Who, Hendrix, Ten Years After, Jethro Tull, and the Moody Blues. Standout numbers include Hendrix's "Voodoo Chile (Slight Return)" and the Doors' apocalyptic songs "When the Music's Over" and "The End." Also documented are the endless posturing and infighting among the egotistical festival promoters, the bands' managers, and the artists. Only 50,000 of the 600,000 attendees were paying customers, and war between the capitalist interests and the hostile hippies outside the gates eventually overwhelms the good vibes. The film hits all the usual targets, but reaches the heights of counterculture craziness when an overwrought Marxist hippie storms the stage and screams, "This is a psychedelic concentration camp!"

Opposition to the proposed festival from the residents of the Isle of Wight was much better co-ordinated than it had been in previous years. The Isle of Wight was a favourite retirement destination of the British well-heeled, and a haven of the yachting set, and many of the traditional residents deplored the huge influx of hippies. Renting a few acres of suitable farmland to hold a music festival had in earlier years been a simple commercial matter between the promoters and one of the local farmers, but by 1970 this had become subject to approval decisions from several local council committees who were heavily lobbied by residents' associations opposing the festival. As a result of this public scrutiny, the preferred ideal location for the third Festival was blocked, and the promoters in the end had no choice but to accept the only venue on offer by the authorities, East Afton Farm, Afton Down, a site that was in many ways deliberately selected to be unsuitable for their purpose. One unintended result of the pick of location was that, since it was overlooked by a large hill, a significant number of people were able to camp out on the hill and watch the proceedings for free.

This documentary was shot in 1970, but for many reasons was not shown to the public until 1995 in Great Britain. Director Murray Lerner and his film crew were hired by the Isle of Wight Festival promoters to make a movie of the events and music. Due to financial problems and lack of interest from the film distributors, the film footage sat unreleased for 25 years, although bits of Hendrix, The Who, and Free's performances surfaced in other presentations.

FESTIVAL SCHEDULE

Wednesday, August 26

* Judas Jump: A heavy progressive rock band featuring Andy Bown and Henry Spinetti of The Herd and Allan Jones of Amen Corner
* Kathy Smith: A Californian folk singer, was well-received.
* Rosalie Sorrels: Another folk musician.
* David Bromberg: He was not on the bill, but performed a popular set.
* Redbone: A native American pop/rock outfit.
* Kris Kristofferson: He performed a controversial set. Due to poor sound, the audience was unable to hear his set, and it appeared that they were jeering him.
* Mighty Baby: A psychedelic rock band.

Thursday, August 27

* Gary Farr: The brother of Rikki Farr, Gary had been the front man of the T-Bones, an R&B combo that featured Keith Emerson on keyboards. By this time, he had become a solo artist, and his only album, "Strange Fruit", for CBS Records, had been released in 1970.
* Supertramp: Their debut album had just been released a month prior to the festival.
* Andy Roberts' Everyone
* Howl: A Scottish hard-rock band formerly known as "The Stoics", featuring Frankie Miller.
* Black Widow
* The Groundhogs: English blues rockers
* Terry Reid
* Gilberto Gil: Representing the Tropicalia movement, the Brazilian musician played to a frenzied audience.

Friday, August 28

* Fairfield Parlour: They had recorded a single called "Let The World Wash In", released under the name "I Luv Wight", which they hoped would become the festival's theme song. They had also previously recorded as The Kaleidoscope.
* Arrival: Their set, which included a Leonard Cohen cover was well received.
* Lighthouse: This popular orchestral Canadian act performed two sets at the festival.
* Taste: Legendary guitarist Rory Gallagher had a blues trio from 1968 to 1970. This was one of their final shows, which was filmed and recorded. An album was released of their set in 1971.
* Tony Joe White: He performed his hits including "Polk Salad Annie" The drummer was Cozy Powell.
* Chicago: Their set, including "25 or 6 to 4," "Beginnings" and "I'm a Man" was a highlight of the night.
* Family
* Procol Harum: Frontman Gary Brooker commented that it was a cold night.
* Voices Of East Harlem: Not actually a band, but a bunch of singing school children from Harlem. They had one studio album. Their set received several standing ovations.
* Cactus: A bluesy hard rock band. Two songs from their set were featured on the LP "The First Great Rock Festivals Of The Seventies".

Saturday, August 29

* John Sebastian: The showstopper of the Festival performed an 80-minute set, during which Zal Yanovsky, former Lovin' Spoonful guitarist, made a surprise guest appearance.
* Shawn Phillips: An American folk musician performed an impromptu solo set.
* Lighthouse (second set)
* Joni Mitchell: She played a controversial set. Following her rendition of "Woodstock", a hippie named Yogi Joe interrupted her set to make a speech about Desolation Row. When Joe was hauled off by Joni's manager, the audience began to boo until Mitchell made an emotional appeal to them for some respect for the performers. She called the audience "tourists". Contrary to popular belief, Joe was not the man who was ranting about a "psychedelic concentration camp". That was another incident that took place the previous day. After the crowd quieted down, Mitchell closed her set with "Big Yellow Taxi".
* Tiny Tim: His rendition of "There'll Always Be an England" can be seen in the film Message To Love.
* Miles Davis: The jazz superstar played a single, continuous version of "Call It Anything" lasting 38 minutes, which can be seen on the "Miles Electric--A Different Kind Of Blue" DVD released in 2004. The documentary shows an edited segment of that performance.
* Ten Years After: The British blues rockers basically reproduced their famous Woodstock set. Highlights included "I'm Going Home" and "I Can't Keep From Crying Sometimes", which was featured in MESSAGE TO LOVE.
* Emerson Lake and Palmer: This was actually their second gig. "Pictures at an Exhibition", which featured the Moog synthesizer was the centerpiece of their historic set. Commercially released as "Emerson, Lake and Palmer Live at the Isle of Wight Festival 1970" in 1997.
* The Doors: Their set was shrouded in darkness due to Jim Morrison's unwillingness to have spotlights on the band. Their performances of "The End" and "When The Music's Over" are featured in MESSAGE TO LOVE.
* The Who: Their entire set, including the Tommy rock opera, was released in 1996 on CD as "Live at the Isle of Wight Festival" (1970). Three years later their set appeared on DVD with significant cuts from Tommy and a few other songs such as "Naked Eye" missing. In addition, the DVD song set order was radically altered to present Tommy as if having been performed at the second-half of the concert, when in fact, Tommy was performed in the middle of their lengthy set, and the closing title was "Magic Bus", which concluded some Who concerts at that time. Unfortunately, a 2006-reissued DVD of the concert was not corrected for these major deficiencies, despite having been personally supervised by Pete Townshend.
* Melanie: This Woodstock veteran played a well-received set. Prior to her set, Keith Moon of The Who offered her some moral support and encouragement. Not until afterwards did Melanie realize who he was.
* Sly & The Family Stone: The showstoppers of Woodstock performed to a tired audience on the early morning of Sunday. However, the audience woke up for spirited renditions of "I Want To Take You Higher," "Dance To The Music" and "Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)", which featured Sly on guitar. Prior to their encore, another political militant decided it was time to make a speech, and the booing audience started to throw beer cans onto the stage. Freddie Stone was hit by a flying can and an angry Sly decided to skip the encore. He did promise a second appearance, but this never occurred.
* Mungo Jerry were there but decided not to play

Sunday, August 30

* Good News: An American acoustic duo.
* Kris Kristofferson (Second set)
* Ralph McTell: Despite an enthusiastic reception from the audience, he did not play an encore, and the stage was cleared for Donovan.
* Heaven: England's answer to Chicago and Blood Sweat & Tears
* Free: Their set list consisted of "Ride On A Pony", "Mr. Big", "Woman", "The Stealer", "Be My Friend", "Fire & Water", "I'm A Mover", "The Hunter", their classic hit "All Right Now", and concluded with a cover of Robert Johnson's "Crossroads".
* Donovan: He first performed an acoustic set, and then an electric set with his band Open Road.
* Pentangle: A British folk combo. A German woman interrupted their set to deliver a political message to the audience.
* The Moody Blues: A popular British act and veteran of the 1969 festival. Their rendition of "Nights in White Satin" can be seen in MESSAGE TO LOVE.
* Jethro Tull: Their set is featured on "Nothing Is Easy: Live at the Isle of Wight 1970".
* Jimi Hendrix: The star of the festival performed in the early hours of August 31st with Mitch Mitchell on drums and Billy Cox on bass. His set has been released on CD and video in various forms. In the beginning Hendrix had technical problems, which at one point during "Machine Gun" involved the security's radio signal interfering with his amp's output. He arrived at the festival very tired from lack of sleep. Most of the time he played a Gibson "Flying V" guitar, and he does not have the same inimitable tone he gets from his Fender Stratocaster.
* Joan Baez: Her version of "Let It Be" can be seen in the film MESSAGE TO LOVE.
* Leonard Cohen: Backed by his band The Army, his tune "Suzanne" can be seen in the film.
* Richie Havens: The musician who opened Woodstock closed this festival with a set during the morning of August 31. As Havens performed his version of "Here Comes the Sun," the morning sun rose. Havens' set, which is available as an audience recording also included "Maggie's Farm", "Freedom" and "Minstrel From Gault".

In an important way, MESSAGE TO LOVE is the final chapter in an unofficial trilogy of concert films, along with WOODSTOCK and GIMME SHELTER, that paint a picture of the highest and lowest points of Woodstock Nation politics--from mass goodwill to anarchy. However, MESSAGE OF LOVE is a rock & roll movie with several performances that are outright revelations, such as the Who's triumphant show, the Doors' "The End", and Jimi Hendrix's "Machine Gun". But some are superfluous, including Ten Days After, Emerson, Lake, and Palmer, and Jethro Tull. Cameras are often focused on the increasingly testy relationship between deadbeat hippies who travel a long way to see the show but refuse to pay, and capitalist concert producers who resort to using guard dogs, cops, and aluminum walls to keep crashers at a distance. The mood becomes so bad, in one scene Joni Mitchell breaks down in tears after singing her ode to peace and love, "Woodstock". A crazed hippie bothers her on stage, she calls the audience "tourists", and carries on singing "Big Yellow Taxi." Kris Kristofferson is booed off stage, but the film does not show his come-back performance a few days later, when he was better received.

Most of the performances are good, although a little too brief and some songs are edited. The Miles Davis segment lasts about one minute. This is more of a documentary of the event than anything else. You'll see the promoters and the crowd get almost as much time on the camera as the performers. The Isle of Wight wasn't exactly Britain's answer to Woodstock. Altamont ended the Woodstock spirit and this is Hippydom's last true hurrah at a great festival.

There are poignant moments, like Jimi Hendrix' final performance featuring "Message to Love", "Machine Gun" and "Voodoo Chile (Slight Return)", and one of the Doors' final performances featuring "When the Music's Over" and "The End". After disasters like Altamont, the promoters add security like police dogs and a metal fence dividing the young teens and adults who've paid admission from those who haven't. So, naturally, there's plenty of arguments between the promoters and the music fans. Due to the war between them, Kris Kristoferson is unfairly booed onstage. Folks are too busy trying to get in to listen to the original "Me and Bobbie McGee". Joan Baez, after her performance of "Let It Be" is interviewed. She's honest and says "This is my job, so naturally, I expect to be paid." A humorous moment is Tiny Tim singing via megaphone "There'll Always Be An England".

An alarming moment is when one hippie says he's given his young son LSD. It's interesting to see a young thin Ian Anderson perform with Jethro Tull ("Whoever said we wouldn't perform tonight is full of...") on "My Sunday Feeling", and a young thin Paul Rogers perform "All Right Now" with Free. This is also Emerson, Lake and Palmer's debut performance, and each of them celebrates by Emerson nearly destroying his organ, Lake setting off a cannon and Palmer removing his shirt while performing "Pictures at an Exhibition/Blue Rondo a la Turk". It's also one of the Moody Blues' first performances live. Fortunately for the freeloaders, the fence is taken down and all hold hands in peace, while a guitar plays "Amazing Grace". You begin to sympathize with Rikki Farr as he tells the audience that he and the other promoters will have to pay for this decision. As the festival comes to an end, Farr sums it all up when he says "This is the last great event."

The DVD has a runtime of 127 minutes, whittled down from 175 hours of footage. Sony Music released it on February 24, 2004. Too many of the music performances are extremely edited-down. Donovan is only seen for about three seconds. John Sebastian's show stopping performance is poorly edited too as they come in for the ending of his song. Performances from Tony Joe White, Melanie, Cactus, and Procol Harum weren't even included in favor of "Machine Gun" (Hendrix) ", All Right Now" (Free), and "Young Man Blues" (The Who)--all redundant footage available in other presentations. Finally, the film is generally downbeat, focusing on the problems that plagued the festival. The violence and unpleasantness are exaggerated. It was actually a good festival, with great bands and many positive aspects. Too bad Lerner didn't focus more on this. All songs are live except for Bob Dylan's "Desolation Row", which is the studio version, played over the end credits of the film. The American title is MESSAGE TO LOVE: THE ISLE OF WIGHT FESTIVAL: THE MOVIE, whereas the UK title is simply MESSAGE TO LOVE.