TIFF FILM REVIEW: Keira Knightley in ‘Anna Karenina’

Posted on September 7, 2012 by admin


By Ray Bennett

TORONTO – With a smart and entertaining script by Tom Stoppard and vital contributions from his creative team, Joe Wright has rendered a sumptuous film version of “Anna Karenina” starring Keira Knightley (pictured) that will cause a rush on sales of Leo Tolstoy 1870’s novel.

The film is so gorgeous and the music so perfect that the Motion Picture Academy might as well give composer Dario Marianelli (Wright’s “Atonement”) his second Oscar now, and cinematographer Seamus McGarvey, production designer Sarah Greenwood, and costume designer Jacqueline Durran (all nominated for “Atonement”) will be right there with him.

The tragic love story lends itself to a tale of “Dr. Zhivago” epic proportions but Wright and Stoppard have elected to spin their yarn from the fabric of the theatre. It’s that rare time when budgetary considerations result in artistic triumph as Stoppard stays faithful to the original story in inventive ways.

The early scenes take place within the confines of a theatre including the stage and backstage areas. Soon, like a fireside story that transports a reader, it surges out into wondrous landscapes, impossibly attractive buildings, and lavish halls and ballrooms.

Rooted in theatricality, the film’s use of model trains and sets fuels the imagination so that when a scene cuts suddenly to a close-up of Knightley as Anna on a train, her beauty and the sigh-inducing elegance of her clothes take your breath away.

It’s the third Joe Wright film to star Knightley and the collaboration obviously is very good for them. The actress has never looked more radiantly beautiful than she does in “Anna Karenina” but now she is more womanly where before she always seemed like a girl.

It appears quite proper that she should succeed former screen sirens Greta Garbo and Vivien Leigh in the title role of a wife and mother who succumbs to the temptation of a young man whom she finds wildly romantic.

Aaron Taylor-Johnson (“Kick-Ass”) plays the handsome soldier Count Vronsky, who encounters Anna at a snowy train station and is smitten instantly, and Jude Law plays Anna’s sedate older husband. Taylor-Johnson is barely into his 20s and in this, Wright has opted to follow the 1947 Leigh film in which Vronsky was played by a very young Kieron Moore.

Garbo had Fredric March, who was in his late 30s, as was Sean Bean in the 1997 version that starred Sophie Marceau in the title role. But with Knightley not yet 30 and the 40-year-old Law playing much older, it seems reasonable that Anna would be attracted to a dashing soldier even if he is callow, as Tolstoy wrote.

Matthew Macfadyen steals every scene he’s in as Anna’s cheerfully unrepentant hedonist brother and Kelly Macdonald portrays his wife’s sadness and forgiveness effectively. Domhnall Gleeson and Alicia Vikander grow increasingly appealing as an earnest young landowner and the young beauty he wishes to wed.

Wright contrasts cleverly Knightley’s remarkable stillness in many shots with her sudden energy as her passion takes hold. It’s an impressive performance as Anna’s willfulness does not always inspire sympathy.

Movement is an integral part of the story-telling whether it’s people and things or the camera that’s on the move. There’s a horse race, horses and carriage in the snow and a train accident, and they are all done with flare. The credits mention Belgian choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui and that is worth a note because the ballroom dances of the period are made to look not just lavish and fluid but also great fun and devilishly sexy.

Marianelli’s music matches the film’s mix of spectacle and intimacy with lush orchestrations and delicate solos from the likes of celloist Caroline Dale. If the film gains the box office traction it deserves, then “Anna Karenina” will be well in the running when the awards come along.

Opens: Sept. 7 UK (Universal) Nov. 15 US (Focus Features)
Cast: Keira Knightley, Jude Law, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Kelly Macdonald, Matthew Macfadyen, Domhnall Gleeson, Ruth Wilson, Alicia Vikander, Olivia Williams, Emily Watson; Director: Joe Wright; Screenwriter: Tom Stoppard, based on the novel by Leo Tolstoy; Producers: Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, Paul Webster; Executive producer: Liza Chasin; Director of photography: Seamus McGarvey; Production designer: Sarah Greenwood; Music: Dario Marianelli; Costume designer: Jacqueline Durran; Editor: Melanie Ann Oliver; Production: Working Title. 130 minutes. Rating: UK: 12A / US: R.

Posted in Film, Reviews, TIFF Toronto International Film Festival | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Toronto International Film Festival kicks off

Posted on September 5, 2012 by admin

By Ray Bennett

The 37th annual Toronto International Film Festival gets under way on Sept. 6 with the world premiere of “Looper” and a slate that will include several new British movies including an animated tribute to Monty Python’s Graham Chapman titled “A Liar’s Autobiography”.

With 150 films due for release in Q4, the major film festivals in Toronto and London set the scene for the awards season and the home entertainment slate for months to come.

TIFF’s opening film “Looper” is a time-travel action thriller directed by Rian Johnson and starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt (“The Dark Knight Rises”), Bruce Willis, Emily Blunt, Jeff Daniels and Piper Perabo (pictured above). Entertainment One will release it in the UK on Sept. 28.

TIFF Artistic Director Cameron Bailey says he saw Johnson’s debut feature “Brick” at the Sundance festival and was able to premiere his second, “The Brothers Bloom”, in Toronto. “I was impressed by his ability to engage both the mind and the heart. Now, with “Looper”, Rian has taken his filmmaking to a new level. This is a new kind of Opening Night: an exciting, thinking-person’s action film from a director who really understands the genre.”

Walt Disney’s “Frankenweenie 3D” will open the 56th BFI London Film Festival on Oct. 10 with a gala screening at the Odeon Leicester Square in London that will go live to BFI Imax and 30 screens across the UK.

The Tim Burton animated film about a boy and a very strange dog named Sparky was made in the UK and has a voice cast that includes Catherin O’Hara, Martin Short, Martin Landau, and Winona Ryder.

BFI Exhibition Head Clare Stewart called the film from “one of cinema’s great visionaries” a “gloriously crafted stop-motion 3D animation that revels in the magic of movies”. She said, “Tim Burton has chosen London as his home city and hundreds of talented British craftspeople have contributed to this production.”

Manchester-based puppet designers and fabricators Mackinnon & Saunders contributed to the film and their work along with props, sets and Burton’s original sketches will be on display at “The Art of Frankenweenie Exhibition” that will run Oct. 17-21 at BFI Southbank Centre’s Festival Village.

Sponsored by American Express, the BFI London Film Festival runs from Oct. 10-21. The full programme will be announced on Sept. 5.

Before that, however, comes TIFF, which has established itself as the driving force for Hollywood, independent and world cinema and as an event more attractive to producers and distributors than the Venice International Film Festival, which began Aug. 29 and runs through Sept. 8.

Festival de Cannes has honoured many films in its history but “The Artist” last year was only the second Palm d’Or winner to go on to win the Academy Award for best picture and Oscar-winning director Michel Hazanavicius says the buzz really kicked off when it screened at TIFF.

The festival announced 20 galas and more than 60 special presentations with around 50 world premieres across its various strands that include Masters, Mavericks, Rising Stars, Contemporary World Cinema and Midnight Madness.

TIFF CEO and Director Piers Handling says it will have the most diverse gala programme to date: “This year’s festival is looking particularly strong with bold, adventuresome work coming from established and emerging filmmakers.”

World Premieres from the UK will include Mike Newell’s “Great Expectations” with Holiday Granger, Ralph Fiennes, Helena Bonham Carter and Jeremy Irvine (“War Horse”); Roger Michel’s “Hyde Park On the Hudson” with Bill Murray and Olivia Williams as Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Samuel West and Olivia Colman as King George VI and Queen Elizabeth; Deepa Mehta’s “Midnight’s Children”; Dustin Hoffman’s “Quartet” with Maggie Smith, Tom Courtenay, Billy Connolly and Pauline Collins as squabbling retired opera singers; Paul Andrew Williams’s “Song For Marion” with Gemma Arterton as a choir director plus Terence Stamp and Vanessa Redgrave; and “A Liar’s Autobiography – The Untrue Story of Monty Python’s Graham Chapman”, an animated 3D depiction of the late comedian’s rich life.

Ben Timlett, one of the producers and directors of “A Liar’s Autobiography”, says that TIFF is “absolutely the best place to introduce this film”, which he says reflects Chapman’s writing, which was the most anarchic of Monty Python’s comedy. He says, “The Toronto cinemagoing audience is steeped in Python, as really the first to discover it in that part of the world coupled with their link to the British colonial past. It means that Python has very much become part of their DNA.”

Timlett says he’s excited but “if I’m honest a little apprehensive to see if the Toronto audience will recognise and enjoy his return to the screen: “After Michael Palin saw the film a couple of weeks ago, he said Graham has been given a second chance to shock and disturb everyone, I can’t see a better place to start this off but Toronto.”

As producer, Timlett also has a film called “Theatre of Dreams” screening to buyers at Toronto. It’s a fictional football story about how legendary Manchester United manager Matt Busby helps a wayward lad find his dream. He says, “Toronto is very much made up of a diverse audience led, filmgoers market. This film is funny and touching but also quirky and I think Toronto audiences will respond to it.”

He’s not alone among producers who praise the Toronto audience. Informant Producer Judy Cairo’s film “Writers”, directed by Josh Boone and starring Liana Liberato (“Truth”), Jennifer Connolly, Greg Kinnear, Lily Collins and Kristen Bell, will have its world premiere there. There was a gala screening of Informant’s film “Hysteria” last year and Cairo says, “The TIFF audiences are famously warm and accepting. They didn’t just applaud at the end, they roared and we had multiple offers for the film. Sony Pictures Classics bought it after SPC President Michael Barker heard our second public audience’s laughter. It’s a combination of amazing venues in convenient proximity to each other, the smart, vocal Toronto audience and the TIFF team’s expertise that makes it all work.”

Producer David Miller (“Amal”) whose film “Blackbird”, directed by Jason Buxton, will have its world premiere at TIFF this year, says: “Toronto is one of those benchmarks, one of those amazing opportunities that we all hope for, one of those seals of approval that we all strive to achieve.”

Toronto-based producer Lewin Webb, whose film “I Declare War”, directed by Jason Lapeyre and Rob Wilson, will have its debut, says: “TIFF understands mainstream cinema, commercial cinema, as well as the vibrant indie.  It isn’t just a sophisticated festival, it is a smart festival and attracts amazing audiences.  It knows how to present films and how to support the films it presents.”

This story appeared in Cue Entertainment.

Posted in Film, News, TIFF Toronto International Film Festival | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on Toronto International Film Festival kicks off

John Williams on Sinatra, Gene Kelly, and Hitchcock

Posted on August 30, 2012 by admin

By Ray Bennett

John Williams celebrates his 80th birthday this year with concerts at The Hollywood Bowl on Aug. 31 and Sept. 1 and the Royal Albert Hall on Oct. 19.

He is celebrated rightly for his extraordinary work with Steven Spielberg but in an interview in 2000, I asked him about the many other movie directors he worked with such as William Wyler, Frank Sinatra, Gene Kelly, Robert Altman, and Alfred Hitchcock.

On William Wyler:

That was for “How to Steal a Million” back in the middle ’60s and it was quite a delicious comedy with Peter O’Toole. What I remember about Wyler was that was he was a very, not a gruff person, but very direct and also very quiet. I don’t recall playing any music at the piano before we scored. At the scoring sessions he was very friendly and appreciative. The dubbing went extremely well. My recollection of him is of a very focussed professional. I think he was the kind of person that relied on musicians to compose and interpret and record his music. I don’t know this for a fact, whether he was a concert-goer or a particular music lover, but I don’t remember him being specific about the details of the musical score. We got on very well and that’s about it. Anecdotes about Wyler don’t come to mind particularly beyond that.

On Frank Sinatra.

I conducted several times for Frank singing at shows and appearances, but I had the privilege of composing the score for the only film he ever directed, “None But the Brave.” Again, along the lines of my continued good fortune, I mean, Frank Sinatra had the reputation of being a very difficult guy, but he couldn’t have been sweeter to me. We discussed the music a little bit. He came on the recording stage briefly when we recorded the music. He sent thank you notes and beautiful gifts and was very attentive and very friendly. It was a very good experience. That score, incidentally, was conducted by Maurice Stoloff. It was done at Warner Bros. but Stoloff was a very good and longstanding friend of Sinatra. It might have been Stoloff who convinced Frank to ask me to do the score. I was very surprised about that because Frank Sinatra knew all the musicians in Hollywood and could have had anyone he wished. I felt at the time, and still do, that I was a very lucky person to have that assignment. I had known him slightly before. I never played the piano for Frank because he always had his own pianist; but later I conducted some shows for him, many years later. We would reminisce about “None But the Brave.” He was then, as he was earlier on, very grateful and appreciative of what I tried to do for him.

On Gene Kelly:

Williams: Yes, yes. “A Guide for the Married Man.”A good experience also. Gene was very demanding. In contrast to Wyler, for example, he was very hands-on, so to speak, where music was concerned. He would stand over the moviola and talk about tempo, where it should increase where the comedy does this and that and almost kind of directing the composition of the music the way that a choreographer would do, dealing principally with aspects of speed and dynamics. He was very good and very experienced and very helpful. I also had known Gene before. My wife was a friend of his wife and while we’d never worked together before it seemed as though I’d known him for quite a few years. I found him a very hard working guy. He could be a tough taskmaster where music was concerned. I enjoyed it. We got on very well. I felt instructed by him.

On Robert Altman:

We did a television series called “Kraft Theater.” Bob was the director and I did many shows at Universal with him. I did several shows for Altman on the “Kraft Theater” and several pictures for him and he has been a close personal friend through the years. I will also say that indirectly through Stanley Wilson, and through Jennings Lang, being the vice president of the company, these two fellows introduced me to Steven Spielberg, and that was one of the more important connections in my professional and personal life. They also introduced me to Alfred Hitchcock, for whom I did “Family Plot,” which was the last film he made.

On Alfred Hitcock:

We could have another whole conversation on that relationship because it was filled with wonderful stories. I used to have lunch with him alone and we’d talk about the film for about five minutes and then he would speak to me, knowledgeably about the state of British music. He was enormously interested in British music from between the wars, of Vaughn Williams, Benjamin Britton, William Walton, and others. He knew their work and knew what was happening in British music and was greatly interested in it. He knew British theater as well. He was a man full of marvelous stories and history. It was a great experience being in his presence. He was a lover of Elgar, I think, more than anything. He talked about Elgar and Holst all the time and was very interested in Walton. He had such detail at the tip of his fingers of all things theatrical in London in that particular period. As well as musical. He paid attention to all of this, and retained it all. Very impressive.

© Ray Bennett

Posted in Film, Interviews, Memory Lane, Music | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Lancaster, Curtis and La Lollo fly high in ‘Trapeze’

Posted on July 20, 2012 by admin

Trapeze_(1956)_trailer_1By Ray Bennett

LONDON – One year before Burt Lancaster and Tony Curtis made cynical music together in Alexander Mackendrick’s “Sweet Smell of Success”, they spent some time flying through the air for Carol Reed in “Trapeze”.

The 1956 circus picture is released on DVD in the UK on July 30 by distributor Second Sight and while it’s not as good as their Broadway picture, it has great atmosphere with scenes that show the promise of what Mackendrick was able to draw from the two actors. It was a big hit when it was released originally.

A former circus athlete and still remarkably fit in his mid-40s, Lancaster famously did his own stunts in the picture as veteran trapeze artist Mike Ribble who shows cocky youngster Tino Orsini (Curtis) how to do a triple somersault in mid-air. As the flyer, Curtis had a stuntman (including consultant Eddie Ward from Ringling Brothers) but Reed makes it all seamless.

Italian bombshell Gina Lollobrigida, who had made her Hollywood debut three years earlier with Humphrey Bogart in “Beat the Devil”, plays an ambitious and cunning circus performer who works her charms on both men.

It’s a fairly hackneyed love triangle but the action is terrific and it’s fun to see Lancaster and Curtis tangle albeit without the kind of biting dialogue they would get the following year from playwright Clifford Odets (“Golden Boy”, “The Big Knife”) and Ernest Lehman (“North by Northwest”).

It’s easy to see why La Lollo made such an impact although she lacks the knock ’em dead looks of Sophia Loren or the stunning beauty and sublime comic timing of Claudia Cardinale. Also, costume designer Veniero Colasanti (“El Cid”), following the Hollywood style of the day, constricts her in stiff outfits that lack any natural femininity.

Katy Jurado gives a typically smouldering turn as Lancaster’s ex-lover, Thomas Gomez is the breezy circus owner and Sid James strolls about to no obvious purpose with a snake draped over his shoulders.

The continental setting is convincing thanks to Production Designer Rino Mondellini, who made many French films, and cinematographer Robert Krasker, who also was DP on Reed’s “Odd Man Out” (1947) and “The Third Man” (1949), for which he won the Oscar. The colours are rich with wet streets to contrast against the sawdust of the ring.

Composer Malcolm Arnold had a very good range and won the Oscar for “The Bridge On the River Kwai” (1957) but he has a thankless task in “Trapeze” as so much of the action is on the high fliers with the traditionally clunky and repetitious circus music.

The film is based on a novel titled “The Killing Frost” by British writer Max Catto, who had a great many of his titles adapted for motion pictures. It’s a surprisingly rich seam of work that includes “A Hill in Korea” (1956) with Stanley Baker, Stephen Boyd and Robert Shaw; Robert Parrish’s “Fire Down Below” (1957) with Robert Mitchum, Rita Hayworth and Jack Lemmon; Lewis Gilbert’s “Ferry to Hong Kong” (1959) with Curt Jurgens, Orson Welles and Sylvia Syms; Henry Hathaway’s “Seven Thieves” (1960) with Rod Steiger, Edward G. Robinson, Eli Wallach and Joan Collins; Mervyn LeRoy’s “The Devil at 4 O’Clock” (1961) with Spencer Tracy and Frank Sinatra, Ronald Neame’s “Mister Moses” (1965) with Robert Mitchum and Carroll Baker, and Peter Yates’ “Murphy’s War” (1971) with Peter O’Toole.

I saw all of them when they were first released and they are well worth a look for one reason or another. Second Sight has a very good catalogue of interesting films on Blu-ray including Hal Ashby’s “8 Million Ways to Die”, written by Oliver Stone and starring Jeff Bridges, Rosanna Arquette and Andy Garcia. After “Trapeze”, perhaps they will consider the other Catto films.

Posted in Comment, Film | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on Lancaster, Curtis and La Lollo fly high in ‘Trapeze’

Recalling … Jim Morrison and The Doors live in Detroit

Posted on July 14, 2012 by admin

This review was written right after the concert that was recorded for “Live In Detroit” on the night of May 8, 1970.

By Ray Bennett | The Windsor Star | May 9 1970

DETROIT: The Doors exploded in Cobo Hall Friday night. Big bad Jim Morrison led his men to a hard rock eruption that shattered the night with more than two hours of blue rock fury.

First there was the Blues Image, then came John Sebastian. Late of the Lovin’ Spoonful and still picking and singing beautiful gems like Daydream, She’s a Lady and Younger Girl, Sebastian had bad technical troubles at Cobo.

With only his nimble guitar-playing fingers for accompaniment the lad was fouled up with feed-back troubles with his microphones and a faulty strobe light that flashed maddeningly every few seconds during the majority of his performance. But the near-capacity crowd was with him all the way and yelled for his return when his performance was over.

Intermission time. Lights were subdued. Morrison strolled insouciantly on stage in a multi-colored jacket and smoking a cigarette. The lights went down. The men began to play – organ, drums, one guitar. Still smoking and taking occasional sips from a bottle of beer, Morrison began to sing.

It was heavy stuff and if you didn’t know the songs you wouldn’t recognize them but that mattered less. No talk. One song runs into the next with Morrison – his jacket off and his stomach beginning to bulge a little over his belt these days – unsmiling and almost treating his adoring audience with disdain.

The audience was his. Completely. To those of us not hard-core Doors fans the reason for this at first was not clear. The music was loud and heavy with Morrison standing stiffly clutching the microphone screaming into its amplified recesses.

For almost an hour it went on like that. Pounding, driving, roaring sound that battered your ears and left your head spinning. The noise gains a monotony. But then the monotony settles into you.

You begin to wonder where it can go. Then you feel the monotony dissolve into something almost tangible. There are rhythm patterns and drifts and waves amid the compulsive sound. The band is really into it and getting tighter by the minute. Morrison is screaming.

Looking around you see other kids screaming back and suddenly you know what’s going on. You know what Morrison and the Doors are doing.

The loudest sound in the world, they say, is the human scream. Morrison is the human scream. The crashing repetitive music sets you up and dumps you right in the middle of a memory of when you last wanted to scream. For whatever reason – frustration, grief, anger, joy. But you didn’t scream, you held it in. Now there’s Morrison screaming at you, the music is pounding within you. You want to scream, and scream.

That’s how it is.

Friday night, Morrison showed the way and the audience at Cobo screamed their heads off. At what looked like the end of his set people were standing on their chairs yelling for more.

“We’re not going to let them throw us out, are we?” demanded Morrison. The crowd roared a defiant no. The organ intro to Light My Fire began and the kids on the main floor of the arena surged forward spontaneously. They never played Light My Fire better.

The Doors did another number then Morrison called for John Sebastian to join them. That’s when Morrison dropped his bombshell. Tension in the pace was almost tactile. The sense of defiance that Morrison personifies was rampant.

Then the lead Doorman let everyone in on the secret that the show was being recorded for possible release as an in-concert record album Live in Detroit. Flattered, the kids roared their approval.

The final song was This is the End. Kneeling down Morrison put the microphone between his legs, drew it up slowly to his face and let rip the most incredible gut-tearing scream of his career.

Exhausted he fell off the stage into the crowd of bra-less girls who grabbed him ecstatically. Stewards rushed to haul him back and the show was over.

 

Posted in Memory Lane, Music, Recalling ..., Reviews | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

Video earns 50% of film revenues, says the BVA

Posted on July 13, 2012 by admin

By Ray Bennett

The British Video Association has produced a report called “Ready To Face The Future” with case studies of titles such as “Paul”, “Senna” and “The Inbetweeners Movie” that show one half of feature film revenue comes from video.

Sales of video entertainment on DVD, Blu-ray and digital formats are the single biggest revenue source for the production of film and television drama in the UK, the report said.

The BVA said that its latest data, a year on from the Oxford Economics study it commissioned, reveals that “in a rapidly evolving market, video revenues remain critical to British film and television production”.

From sources that include Oxford Economics, Kantar Worldpanel, the Official Chart Company, IHS Screen Digest and the BVA, the report said that video entertainment spending in 2011 was £2.3 billion compared to £1.1 billion on cinema admissions. Cable and satellite subscriptions earned £6.9 billion and the BBC Licence Fee generated £3.8 billion while £1.5 billion was spent on videogames software with £0.8 billion on music.

The report used new case studies from recent British films including Universal’s “Paul” (pictured) and “Senna” and 4DVD’s “The Inbetweeners Movie”to highlight the significance of the video industry, which supports directly the creativity, skills and employment in the UK’s audiovisual sector.

It includes data from Kantar Worldpanel’s Entertainment Panel that shows physical discs still account for 88% of consumer entertainment spending. It also underlines the importance of measures to combat copyright theft and what the BVA said is the potential threat to the future health of the video entertainment market from proposed changes in copyright policy.

Universal Pictures International Entertainment President Eddie Cunningham said the BVA report shows that video continues to be a critical part of the film industry’s ecosystem and a significant driver of revenue. “Working Title’s “Paul” and “Senna” are two great examples of British filmmaking at its best, and the revenue generated from video – more than 60% coming from home entertainment on these titles – is hugely important in helping British producers like Working Title re-invest back into production and continue to create great films,” Cunningham said.

4DVD Head David Root said that the success of “The Inbetweeners” TV series on DVD meant that Channel 4 could fund the feature film with the confidence that it would see a return on its investment. “Without this, millions of ‘Inbetweeners’ fans might not have been able to enjoy their exploits on the big screen,” he said.

The case studies showed that “The Inbetweeners Movie” made 54% of its revenue from video, 40% from cinemas and 6% from TV. “Paul” made 60% from video, 17% from cinemas, and 23% from TV while “Senna” earned 62% from video, 6% from cinemas, and 32% from TV.

BVA Director General Lavinia Carey noted that digital technologies have led to rapid and dynamic changes in the audiovisual industry along with huge challenges and opportunities. She said the report showed that the creative sector relies heavily on video entertainment to generate returns on investment in film and TV production.

Carey said, “It is vital, therefore, that additional uncertainty is not introduced into the sector by simplistic copyright policy changes or hesitancy in enforcing copyright law while our industry evolves, offering more innovative digital services alongside the ever-popular DVD and Blu-ray Disc while maintaining the quality in video entertainment that is so widely enjoyed by British audiences.”

This story appeared in Cue Entertainment

Posted in Film, News | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on Video earns 50% of film revenues, says the BVA

Recalling … Jimmy Edwards and Eric Sykes in Detroit

Posted on July 8, 2012 by admin

By Ray Bennett

British comedian Jimmy Edwards sauntered into the lobby of the Pontchartain Hotel in Detroit an inch or two behind a magnificent white moustache, cane in hand and a Moss. Bros. light brown bowler atop his portly frame. January 7, 1976.

“I wouldn’t be seen dead looking like this in England,” he confided, smiling, “but over here I wanted to look English.”

Eric Sykes

A few moments later, another British comedy legend, Eric Sykes, Edwards’ partner in the comedy “Big Bad Mouse”, which had opened at the Fisher Theatre on Jan. 6 for a month, strolled down nursing a cigar and the after-effects of a first-night brush with a testy 12-year-old named Glenlivet. Malt whisky, that is.

“That is absolutely the last alcohol I will ever touch in my life,” groaned Sykes.

“Bloody twit stayed at the party ‘til three,” roared Edwards. “I got out at 1:30. Glenlivet will do it every time.”

“Never again” said Sykes as a photo session concluded and we adjourned to Edwards’ room briefly before going to lunch.

Two seltzers later, Sykes sipped a Schlitz beer as Edwards sipped a Bloody Mary and reflected on the problem of being virtually unknown in the United States.

Jimmy Edwards

“People know us in most places we go to in the English-speaking world. But here they don’t know us from Adam. What we face here is what every young comedian starting out faces every night. We really have to work. We have to let the audiences know who we are so that by the third or fourth acts they can anticipate and identify with us,” he said.

“I enjoy that, though. It’s very nice in England to play to a full house of people who’ve known you fir years and show they like you. Then we can coast through a show. We don’t have to work at the laughs. Here, we have to slog and it’s a creative challenge that I like.”

That Sykes and Edwards could be so famous in certain parts of the world and almost anonymous in others was a show-business phenomenon shared by such as Johnny Carson and the late Ed Sullivan. Household names in North America, they were virtually unheard of elsewhere.

In Great Britain, Sykes and Edwards had the kind of fame accorded the likes of Jack Benny and George Burns in the States.

Edwards, 55, was the son of schoolteachers and planned a teaching career until the Second World War came along and he joined the Royal Air Force. Her served as a pilot until 1946 and was stationed in Ontario for a time, making runs from Hamilton to Sarnia and Windsor.

As with many famous British comics, he got his first break at the notorious Windmill Theatre in London. Noted for its slogan during the war of ‘”We never closed”, the Windmill offered patrons naked ladies who were not permitted by the Lord Chamberlain’s office to move, and young would-be comedians.

Soon, Edwards was on the radio with a show called “Take It From Here” with Australians Joy Nichols and Dick Bentley. It was a hit and he went on to stage and film successes and three BBC television series including one called “Whack-O”.

In the early ’60s, he ran for British parliament as a Conservative and when he lost it nearly cost him his career. “I had a bit of a lean time of it for a while. People were afraid that because I’d stood for the Tory party I had alienated at least half of the population. But soon after that, ‘Big Bad Mouse’ came along for the first time. I’d turned it down once but then Eric decided to do it, and I joined him,” Edwards said.

The pair had been doing the show on and off since 1966 in London and on tours around the world. The show was in Toronto and Hamilton before Detroit and would move on to Rhodesia and South Africa later that year.

Sykes, 52, left his Oldham home at 14 and had assorted jobs until he, too, joined the RAD for the war. Afterwards, he began writing comedy material for comedians such as Frankie Howerd, Tony Hancock and Norman Wisdom and wrote 40 variety shows for ATV, the private television group, in England.

He was known best in Great Britain for a long-running comedy series in which he stars with tubby comedienne Hattie Jacques. The show was into its 18th year by then and Sykes had written every one although there were much fewer shows in a British season than in the United State.

Sykes said he was appalled by the state of situation comedy on U.S. television: “They do it by computer in the States. They take a show like ‘Till Death Us Do Part’, which is hard-hitting, biting satire, and turn it into funny families, the Archie Bunker show. It’s terrible. It’s pap.”

Sykes, along with Peter Sellers, Harry Secombe and Spike Milligan of “The Goon Show” and Michael Bentine of “It’s A Square World” were the British forebears of “Monty Python’s Flying Circus”. Sykes made many films including “Theatre Of Blood”, “The Spy With The Cold Nose” and “Those Magnificent Men In Their Flying Machines”.

One picture could have made him an international movie star if the deal had come off. He played a serio-comic assassin in a spy spoof called “The Liquidator” starring Rod Taylor as a reluctant James Bond type who hated guns and always turned to Sykes to carry out his dirty work for his boss Trevor Howard.

Sykes told me: “It was supposed to have been a three-picture deal and that’s why I liked it. The idea was that in the second one Trevor Howard found out about Taylor hiring me for the killings and in the third one he decided he didn’t need Taylor and simply used me. Unfortunately, the backer ran out of money, or something, and the first film was held up in litigation for over a year. By the time it was released, the spy boom was over and it had missed its time. The deal on the other pictures fell through.”

Sykes wrote and directed movies, too, in the manner of Richard Lester’s inspired Goon picture “The Running, Jumping And Standing Still Film”. “You’d Better Go In Disguise”. “The Plank”, and one titled “Rhubarb”, were not released widely outside Great Britain but they attained cult status there. “Rhubarb”, for example, involves characters whose sole dialogue is the rhubarb-rhubarb mumble used for crowd scenes in radio comedies.

Sykes and Edwards teamed up for “Big Bad Mouse” when the spirit moved them although there was no set pattern and both felt that might be the last run.

Both men are perturbed about the current state of England. Sykes said, “We’re sitting on a tinder-box and it could explode at any moment. Everyone who’s successful has thought of leaving. The taxes are so punitive you can’t even leave your kids anything you’ve worked for. But it’s difficult when you love the place.”

Edwards, who plays polo with the Duke of Edinburgh – ”I’m, what’s married to ‘er’ as he said in the play, said, “I don’t think I could leave but I do accept all the foreign tours I’m offered. After South Africa, Eric will go back to do the telly in England and I’m off to Australia for three months with my act.”

Then Sykes would return to his wife and four children in southern England.  He signed the guest book at London’s famous Top of the Tower restaurant drop what is now the BT Tower below another famous signature. Muhammad Ali signed his: Heavyweight Champion of the World. Eric Sykes signed his: Welterweight Champion of Weybridge.

Later during their Detroit stint, I invited Edwards and Sykes to cross the border to join me at lunch at Ye Olde Steak House in Windsor. They praised the steak and kidney pie and shared yarns about characters from Tony Hancock to John Lennon. Edwards also joined me for a lunch at the Pontchartrain with John Dankworth and Cleo Laine who also were in town to perform and had never met. Sykes begged off, but not with a hangover, he assured me, simply a bad cold. Great characters!

This story was first published in The Windsor Star newspaper, Ontario, Canada, on Saturday Jan. 10, 1976. Jimmy Edwards died on July 7 1988 aged 68. Eric Sykes died on July 4 2012 aged 89.

Posted in Film, Interviews, Memory Lane, Recalling ..., Theatre | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on Recalling … Jimmy Edwards and Eric Sykes in Detroit

Why Andy Griffith could never be ‘A Face In The Crowd’

Posted on July 6, 2012 by admin

Patricia Neal and Andy Griffith in Elia Kazan’s 1957 picture ‘A Face In The Crowd’

By Ray Bennett

Andy Griffith made his big screen debut in Elia Kazan’s 1957 drama “A Face In The Crowd” as a charismatic media sensation named Lonesome Rhodes who exploits his sudden popularity for political gain. In the second excerpt from my 1986 interview with Griffith, I ask him if anyone had ever tried to manipulate his popularity as Andy of Mayberry in a similar way.

ANDY GRIFFITH: “First of all, I don’t think the character in ‘A Face In The Crowd’ was manipulated. He did a number on himself. He believed … there’s a line near the end, he said, ‘I am a power. I am a force.’ He believed the things that were happening to him. If anything, I go the other way. I go the other way altogether. There has never been that problem for a number of reasons. My personality does not go that way. I can be fooled for a short while but I don’t think I can be manipulated … certainly not by a man. A woman might be able to do it, but I don’t think men could do it. I don’t think so.”

With a script by Budd Schulberg and a cast that includes Patricia Neal, Anthony Franciosa, Walter Matthau and Lee Remick, the Warner Bros. film remains a powerful depiction of corruption in media and politics.

ANDY GRIFFITH: “It’s a powerful show. That was a crash course in acting, certainly in film acting, under Elia Kazan. It was three very difficult months but three of the best months of my life. He was wonderful. What a teacher! I would get up in the morning and study. I had pretty well learned the whole script before we started; I like to do that if I can. I’d get up and I would try to guess the colours he wanted. He always wanted about 12 more than I had imagined. He would tell me what he wanted, and then he’d say, ‘Now, go off and prepare.’ That’s the method: recall. You find the way. You find out what you’re trying to do and then go off by yourself to try to conjure up something in your mind that can create that. It’s very difficult. It’s very, very difficult. Especially when you’re playing a megalomaniac.”

Posted in Film, Interviews | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on Why Andy Griffith could never be ‘A Face In The Crowd’

Andy Griffith on why ‘No Time for Sergeants’ cheated

Posted on July 5, 2012 by admin

Nick Adams and Andy Griffith salute a WAC in the movie ‘No Time For Sergeants’

By Ray Bennett

Andy Griffith didn’t do a great many interviews but I spent most of the afternoon of March 18, 1986 with him, just the two of us in an otherwise empty dining room at what I seem to recall was the Lakeside Golf Club in Burbank.

Griffith had joined me to talk about ‘Return to Mayberry”, a TV movie with most of the old cast from “The Andy Griffith Show”, but we had lots of time so we spoke of many things. This is the first in a series of excerpts from that interview.

ANDY GRIFFITH: “My first experience with people talking about something before it happened was a good one. It was a play called ‘No Time For Sergeants’. We were rehearsing at the Alvin Theatre (now the Neil Simon) there on 52nd Street, and they were telling about how we were a hit already. I recall that Morton Da Costa, he was the director, said, “I wish they wouldn’t do that.” But then we went to New Haven and then Boston and then back to New York and we were an absolute smash. Standing room only for two years.

The [1958] movie was in no way as good as the play. The movie was, as far as I’m concerned, OK. Not to step on anyone’s toes, but a play doesn’t necessarily translate to screen. If you’re gonna put a play on the screen you need to give it a screen treatment, and that’s not what happened with that, pretty well.

The only thing that changed … and it’s a shame … was a scene in the play that came from the book. You know, it was a bestselling book first, and the man who wrote it, his name was Mac Hyman. He only wrote two books and he died at 42. Anyway, there are two central characters, Will Stockdale, that’s the part I play, and Ben Whitledge, his friend [Roddy McDowell in the play, Nick Adams in the movie]. They were going through testing to see if they could make it to Air Force gunnery school, which is not what Will wanted and not what Ben wanted.

At a certain point, the two of them are standing and Ben becomes very angry and throws his cap down and stomps on it. A lieutenant comes by and he’s black. The man who played him originally was Earle Hyman, a fine, fine actor, Shakespearean actor. I think his line was ‘Is that any way to treat government property, private?’ Ben Whitledge snaps to a salute and Will is just staring at this man. There was a little more dialogue, mostly from the lieutenant. Finally Ben elbows Will and Will salutes in a kind of limp way. The lieutenant leaves and Ben says, I think the line was, ‘Don’t you know enough to salute an officer when you see one?’ And Will says, “You know, that man talks whiter ‘n I do’, and it always got this gigantic, huge, wonderful laugh.

That’s what made the sergeant and the rest of ‘em think that Will was colour blind. In the movie, they made the lieutenant a woman. To put a WAC in instead, as if he couldn’t tell the difference between a man and a woman, was a real cheat. I was always, always sorry about that. Even in those days, I said, “Gee, isn’t there some way we can go ahead and do this?’ But they were afraid. But it was in the play. What a scream that got every night. Still, it’s a pretty good show. It made a fortune for Warner Bros.”

Posted in Film, Interviews, Memory Lane, Television | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on Andy Griffith on why ‘No Time for Sergeants’ cheated

Scots, droogs and rock ’n’ roll in HMV Jubilee Poll

Posted on June 9, 2012 by admin

By Ray Bennett

HMV’s Jubilee poll to find the nation’s favourite British film and album of the last 60 years threw up some interesting results, not least what failed to make the Top 60 list.

Danny Boyle’s 1996 film “Trainspotting” (pictured) was voted the best British movie of the last 60 years and Iron Maiden’s 1982 heavy metal release “The Number Of The Beast” best album in HMV’s Diamond Jubilee Best of British poll.

The Beatles claimed four spots in the Top 10 albums but their films failed to register at all in the four-week national survey to find the most popular films and records released during the reign of Queen Elizabeth II. The Top 10 movies featured two Harry Potter titles, two Monty Python films and two by Stanley Kubrick (“A Clockwork Orange” and “2001: A Space Odyssey”).

Michael Caine is the clear winner as Britain’s favourite movie star with five titles in the overall list: “The Italian Job” (8th), “Zulu” (34th), “Get Carter” (43rd), “Battle Of Britain” (47th) and “Alfie” (52nd). Colin Firth has four titles named in the poll: “The King’s Speech” (10th), “Love Actually” (11th), “Bridget Jones’s Diary” (19th), and “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy” (37th).

Thousands vote

HMV said that 30,000 fans voted in the music section and 24,000 voted for their favourite movies. The voting was widespread — 60 titles in each section registered multiple votes — and “Trainspotting” won with almost 1,500 votes, 6% of the total, while “The Number Of the Beast” claimed 2,754 votes or 9.2%.

Warner Home Video has four of the Top 10 titles on DVD, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment has two, and the rest are spread among other distributors.

Winner Danny Boyle’s 2008 Academy Award-winner “Slumdog Millionaire” placed 15th in the HMV poll and his 2002 horror picture, “28 Days Later”, came in at 21. Iron Maiden’s winner was the band’s only release named.

The Oscar-winning “King’s Speech” resounded with voters (10th) but several other films with royal connections were overlooked including “The Queen”, for which Helen Mirren won the Oscar in the title role and “Shakespeare In Love”, for which Judi Dench won an Oscar as Queen Elizabeth I. Other well-regarded regal pictures missing from the Top 60 included “Becket”, “The Madness Of King George”, “The Lion In Winter”, and “A Man For All Seasons”.

Comedies are well represented including “Love Actually” (11th) “Hot Fuzz” (12th), “Bridget Jones’ Diary” (19th), “Four Weddings And A Funeral” (22nd), Kubrick’s “Dr. Strangelove Or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb” (25th), “The Full Monty” (26th), “Notting Hill” (27th), “Withnail And I” (27th), “A Fish Called Wanda” (33rd) and “The Ladykillers” (45th).

War pictures continue to have major support with several on the list including “The Great Escape” (16th), “Lawrence Of Arabia” (24th), “The Bridge On The River Kwai” (29th), “Zulu” (34th), “The Dam Busters” (46th), and “Battle Of Britain” (47th).

Crime and gangster films garnered plenty of spots including “Snatch” (17th), “Get Carter” (43rd), “Dead Man’s Shoes” (54th), “Layer Cake” (56th), and “The Long Good Friday” (57th).

Films with a big music connection are fairly sparse amongst the most popular films with dancing tale “Billy Elliot” top ranked at 14 followed by mods versus rockers film “Quadrophenia” (19th) followed by the Oscar-winning musical “Oliver!” (38th), Joy Division tale “Control” (40th) and oompah picture “Brassed Off” (50th). Richard Lester’s Beatles films was nowhere to be seen and nor were Ken Russell’s “Tommy” (1975) and Alan Parker’s influential “The Commitments” (1991).

In the albums list, absentees include heralded performers such as the Animals, the Kinks, Tom Jones and Cliff Richard. Releases from the 1990s dominated with 18 tiles named in the Top 60, 15 from the 1970s, 13 from the 2000s and just four from the 1980s including the winner.

Albums from the formative decade of the 1960s earned 13 spots but fans’ memories for films from the 1950s and 1960s have faded with no place in the Top 60 for iconic titles from the BFI’s Top 100 British films such as “Room At The Top” (1958), “I’m All Right, Jack” (1959), “Saturday Night and Sunday Morning” (1960), “The Loneliness Of The Long Distance Runner” (1962), “Tom Jones” (1963), “This Sporting Life” (1963), “Darling” (1965), “Doctor Zhivago” (1965), “Blow Up” (1966), “Far From The Madding Crowd” (1967), “Women In Love” (1969) on “Carry On Up The Khyber” (1968).

James Bond claimed two spots but only in the form of Sean Connery – “Goldfinger” (13th) and “Dr. No” – and Michael Caine, despite his popularity, did not get a look-in for his anti-hero Harry Palmer, including “The Ipcress File” (1965).

Period classics from the BFI list that were overlooked in the HMV poll include “The English Patient” (1996), “The Go-Between” (1971), “Sense And Sensibility” (1995), “Remains Of The Day” (1993), and “Hope And Glory” (1987). Cult films on the BFI list that failed to register included “The Draughtsman’s Contract” (1982), “Local Hero” (1983), “Brazil” (1985), and “Distant Voices, Still Lives” (1988).

HMV said that the Iron Maiden record had broad-based national support rather than a regional focus and “Trainspotting” also scored well across the whole country but especially in London, the North East and Scotland

Depeche Mode’s “Violator” was the top album in London and the South East ahead of “Adele 21” and “Withnail And I” placed third in the capital although it did not make the national Top 20. Iron Maiden and Oasis did well in the South West with “Hot Fuzz” the top movie. Adele was top in the Midlands with “The Life Of Brian” the favourite movie there followed closely by “Shaun Of The Dead”.

The top album in the east of England was Muse’s “Origin Of Symmetry” while “The Italian Job” and “Shaun Of The Dead” were the top films. “Adele 21” was No. 1 in Yorkshire where “Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows, Part 2” was the winner and Sheffield-set “The Full Monty” landed in the Top 10.

Voters in the North East picked Oasis’ “(What’s the Story) Morning Glory?” as the top album while Manchester opted for Elbow’s “Seldom Seen Kid” with “Trainspotting” atop the film lists in the region and the city. The North West went for Elbow and Radiohead (“OK Computer”) and “Withnail and I” at third although Liverpool and Merseyside chose the five Beatles albums along with the two Harry Potter films in the Top 10.

Pink Floyd’s “Wish You Were Here” and “Led Zeppelin II” scored well in Wales with “Love Actually” and “Notting Hill” in the Top 5. Primal Scream’s “Screamadelica” and Teenage Fanclub’s “Bandwagonesque” did well in Scotland but Iron Maiden came first, as did “Trainspotting” despite strong support for the Monty Python.

HMV conducted its poll via a dedicated Facebook page that resulted in a total of 54,545 votes made up of 63% males with 53% of voters aged below 35 years-old and just 8% over 55 years-old.

This story appeared in Cue Entertainment; full lists follow: Continue reading →

Posted in Film, Music, News | Tagged , | Comments Off on Scots, droogs and rock ’n’ roll in HMV Jubilee Poll