Movie review - "All Fall Down" (1962) ***

 A film that has much in common with Hud - Brandon de Wilde hero worshipping a no good womaniser pants man played by an Actors Studio superstar (Warren Beatty here instead of Paul Newman), a woman who's been around but is still attracted to the lout (Eva Marie Saint instead of Patricia Neal), small town setting (mid west as opposed to Texas), director who came up via TV (John Frankenheimer rather than Martin Ritt), black and white photography, gruff paterfamilias (Karl Malden rather than Melvyn Douglas).

There are key differences. This was mostly shot in studio not location so doesn't have Hud's excellent sense of place, which it needs (it was Frankenheimer's one big regret for making the movie and he was right). There's a mother here, Angela Lansbury. It also feels more, well, gay, as written by William Inge, with everyone panting heavily over Beatty - not one but two middle aged women meet him and go off with him after a few minutes, and so does Eva Marie Saint. Does that actually happen in the straight world? Maybe it does. There's also the domineering mother, a weak drunk father, a beautiful young boy.

Warren Beatty is very charismatic and pretty. He didn't often play such cads - helpless man children were more his stock in trade. Maybe he should've played more cads.

Brandon de Wilde is bland. He was in a lot of good movies for a bland actor - I think the eyes were useful.

The film doesn't really get going until Beatty arrives and it's one hour in. The story is simple - basically he knocks up Saint and flips out, she flips out and crashes and that's it. The film doesn't quite nail de Wilde's love for Beatty of fix its point of view.

Movie review - "The Chalk Garden" (1964) ***

 Not a typical Ross Hunter film in some ways - it's not American, not a remake, there's no Lana Turner or Sandra Dee. But there are Lana Turner-Sandra Dee type parts: Deborah Kerr is a mysterious governess with a Past involving murder and Hayley Mills is the spirited kid who is troubled and makes life hard for governesses.

There's some decent mystery - what happened to Mills' father? What's the deal with Kerr? Plus a strong cast including Edith Evans as Mills' grandmother and John Mills (in the John Gavin part I guess) as the butler, who probably should be creepy to make this more exciting but is actually nice.

I enjoyed it. Some movie stars hanging around a nice set, with decent Ronald Neame direction, lush music. I got a bit confused in places, the relationship between Mills and her mother Elizabeth Sellars felt under cooked, but it was entertaining.

TV review - "Succession - Season 3" (2021) *****

 Is it perfect? No. Some episodes feel like padding and they seem unsure how to pitch Alan Ruck's character, which I know is kind of the point but still. Is it brilliant? Definitely. Very British in its cringe comedy. Very smart. Lovely touches like Sarah Snook's character being a bad dancer. A bit harrowing. I love how they saved money with all the interior limo scenes at the beginning then blew the budget at the end for Tuscanny. I was weird sympathetic to Brian Cox's character in this one. His kids are dreadful. Jeremy Strong's aching insecurity and loneliness etched all over his face brilliantly supplements the fact his character is an incompetent and lousy father and brother. I wouldn't trust him to run a corner store.

Movie review - "Ned Kelly" (2003) **

 I was curious to revisit this. I remember what a big deal it was at the time and how no one seems to talk about it now. It made a lot of money (domestically) but certainly didn't "stick" in people's minds. I think they might recall there was a Heath Ledger Ned Kelly movie but that was about it.

The opening few minutes are effective with its beautiful score and photography and some nice images... and Heath Ledger is charismatic... but the problems soon emerge... 

What is the take they had on Ned Kelly? Villain? Hero? Enigmatic anti hero? Revolutionary? It all feels... blah. There's no passion. Or viewpoint. It's like no one wanted to make it except for maybe the art department.

I totally would have green lit a film on Ned Kelly from the team that made Two Hands. But that had a clear point of view. A hero battling with a clear goal. This doesn't. Ned is kind of put upon... but not really. He takes bunch of people hostage... then releases them and they are fired on so Ned is trying to save the hostages, is that right? (I wonder if the film had voice over added and lines of dialogue like "let's save the hostages" added).

He is hard to dramatise and the filmmakers don't succeed here. I don't mind inventing a Ned Kelly love story, I mean no one really knows but... there's no point to the Naomi Watts one. The scenes have no heat. You could cut her out of the film and it wouldn't mean anything. In contrast, Saskia Burmeister's quick turn as the girl who Ned gives a ride to and encounters at Glenrowan has real emotional weight because she clearly admires him and she's there. Why not put Naomi Watts at Glenrowan and have her killed? Give the piece some bite? 

On the sunny side the sets, costumes are great, as is the music. The beards, unfortunately, mostly look fake. There are some effective moments such as the death of Aaron Sherritt (this scene always works, it did in the Douglas Stewart play), Geoffrey Rush taking the sash at the end.

Other moments glimpse what the film could've been: the aforementioned Saskia-Heath stuff, the scene where Ned chats to his brother. I think this was the core problem for me: Ned Kelly had no relationship with anyone. He had a stock, removable romance with Naomi Watts, but I never got the sense of his friendship with Joe Byrne, or Steve Hart, or a relationship with his mother or his brother or sister. It fails to bring to life any of the Kelly women (this is a common flaw in all Kelly adaptations).

A mess. A frustrating mess. The Ned Kelly story is a challenging one for film adapters but one thing is clear... it needs a strong point of view. This doesn't have it.

Movie review - "King of Staten Island" (2019) ****

 Like a lot of people I was annoyed by Pete Davidson, with his early success, unfunny jokes and fantastic love life, but I've got to say this was a terrific movie. A fantastic depiction of a stuff up who is traumatised by the early death of his father, but also enabled more than he should. Like all Apatow movies the casting of every single part is first rate. It wears its heart on its sleeve and is very funny. Steve Buscemi's appearance was very moving.

Book review - "The Last Valley" by Martin Windrow

 The story of the Siege of Dien Bien Phu, an epic saga, Exhaustively researched, intelligently written. I found the drama got weighed down by all the details and descriptions, especially the numbers of various units and what not. Some compelling incidents sneak through - the French officer who killed himself during the initial attack, the swashbuckling soldiers - but not enough.

Book review - "Hangover Square" by Patrick Hamilton

 Starts marvellously, with an interior monologue of a crazy man who is going to kill a woman, with short chapters... but all those short chapters basically repeat that, so this was hard going. Surprisingly as I was looking forward to it, I liked the movie, and the writing is actually good. It's just a short story that has been expanded. So I felt anyway. The final chapter is great but that's because something actually happens. Set just after Munich and ends on the invasion of Poland.

Play review - "American Buffalo" by David Mamet (1975)

 I can appreciate the language. I'm sure it was powerful on stage. Like Pinter. I didn't really respond to it - I prefer more of a story. But I respect it. That sounds backhanded I know but it doesn't mean to be and Mamet won't care.

Play review - "Six Degrees of Separation" by John Guare

 Wonderful. Smart, fast, about Something. Hilarious the way all these New Yorkers flip out of Sidney Poitier and Cats. Really mean to their kids. Made a very good movie but it is heavily theatrical.

Movie review - "Devil Girl From Mars" (1955) **

 Impossible to dislike. It starts of as a typical 50s Britisn drama, with various subplots happening at an inn: an escaped convict (Peter Reynolds) is in love with barmaid Adrienne Corri, some old duffers who run the inn. model Hazel Court begins a romance with journalist Hugh McDemott, Joseph Tommelly as a professor.

Then Patricia Laffan turns up in leather from out of space saying her sex won a battle on Mars and they need studly men. She's got a killer robot.

Decent cast. Laffan is terrific, McDermott is dull and awkward, it's fun to see future Hammer startlets Court and Corris.

It's 72 minutes but does drag. David MacDonald wasn't much of a director.

Movie review - "The Delavine Affair" (1955) **

 Peter Reynolds was described when he started as a "blonde Richard Widmark" and like Widmark Reynolds wasn't as effective playing a hero as he was as a villain. Here he's a reporter type who is investigating a murder. He's competent - I just wish he was more of a cad.

This is a little dull. Made with reasonable skill. It's only 61 minutes.

The cast is interesting. A young Honor Blackman portrays Reynolds' wife (would've been more fun to have him as a womaniser). Gordon Jackson is a suspect.  He was in everything, old Gordo.

Movie review - "Red Notice" (2021) *** (warning: spoilers)

 Old fashioned big loud dumb action-adventure movie with stars. Ryan Reynolds pushes it home. Dwayne Johnson is bored, Gal Gadot looks beautiful and is having fun as a villain. I wish Gadot and Johnson had swapped roles to have some romancing instead of the homoerotic Dwayne Johnson stuff he seems to specialise in.

The film leaps to life right at the end when it's revealed Johnson and Gadot are in cahoots - the three leads really start interacting instead of it being a buddy movie with Gadot occasionally interrupting. The ending was fun.

Movie review - "Single Room Furnished" (1966) *1/2

 Last starring vehicle for Jayne Mansfield. It's her biggest challenge - she plays three roles. The film was directed by one of her husbands, Matt Cimber.

The film starts with a wise old janitor telling a rebellious daughter three stories: Mansfield plays a different character in each story. This was based on a play and that sort of device always works better in theatre than in film. Actually to be fair her third and second characters are meant to be the same person just with different names (was this added in post production?) But they feel like different peopole.

Story one has Mansfield as the pregnant wife of Martin Horsey, who is far too young - or rather Mansfield is too old for her part, especially in the scenes that flashback to when they met and she's meant to be just out of school. And she isn't very good. Sorry. She could've been protected by aging up the character at least.

Story two Mansfield plays another pregnant woman to an unseen man. She tells an older guy, Fabian Dean,about it. There's too much Acting from Dean and another older lady who is his friend.

Story three has Mansfield as a hooker in an abusing relationship with Walter Gregg. This one isn't bad and made me wish they'd just fleshed this one out. 

It could have done with trashier elements like sex, violence and nudity to liven things up. As it is too often this is like watching bad amateur theatre from recent graduates.

Play review - "The Price" by Arthur Miller

 Listened to LATW version with Richard Dreyfuss and Amy Irving. The play was profiled in William Goldman's The Season. Two brothers sort through their dead father's furniture - one kind of wasted his life being a cop out of security and has an unhappy wife the other became a successful doctor but cracked up. The themes spoke to me - bout wondering whether you made a right choice, decisions missed, lack of money, finding purpose. It doesn't really build like other Miller classics - I think because it doesn't naturally go to someone's death. It was his last hit play - the Jewish audience especially responded to it.

Play review - "I Love Lucy" by George Oppenheimer

 Bright recap of the events of the famous sitcom. Nothing new that I didnt know thanks to the Sorkin film but quite bright.

TV review - "Alfred Hitchcock Presents Season 1 Ep 12 - Hangover" (1962) **1/2 (warning: spoilers)

 Reunites Tony Randall and Jayne Mansfield from Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? and Randall even plays an ad man again. He's got a hangover and can't remember what he did. There was a Cornell Woolrich story with that plot but this one is based on a story by John D MacDonald.

Randall is excellent and believable in his descent to murder. Mansfield is quite good - better than the actor who plays Randall's wife. Mansfield's short hair is a shock and it works for the reality of her performance.

It didn't need to be an hour. It feels like half an hour. I thought it would be Randall retracing his steps and he does a bit of that but there's no real accumulation of narrative. It's more, he was on the piss, remembers how he stuffs up, accidentally kills his wife.

Worth a watch though esp for that Randall-Mansfield re-teaming.

Book review - "Mr Know It All" by John Waters

 Really lively, fun book - I think Waters made some good films but his real gift is being him. He seems to have the best life, with a staff and apartments in Baltimore and New York and holidaying in Provincetown and lots of friends.

This is a series of essays. A biographical account of his career from Polyster up til the present day, how he does his one man show, a comic rant on sex acts, a brilliant chapter on Andy Warhol, a discussion with this imaginary child, a look at death, and various other matters. Consistently stimulating and always entertaining, a lot of fun.

Movie review - "Guilt Is My Shadow" (1950) **

 British crime B film - an early lead role for Peter Reynolds even though he's billed after people like Patrick Holt and Elizabeth Sellars. Reynolds is a getaway driver who flees to the countryside to hide out with uncle Patrick Holt. He romances Lana Morris when ex wife Sellars turns up. Sellars makes eyes as Holt and it's looking intriguing but then Sellars accidentally kills Reynolds.

The fun goes out of things when Reynolds dies and the film becomes about Sellars feeling guilty and sort of covering it up with Holt then Reynolds' mother turns up... like who cares?

This film has no pep. You need Morris to be bad and Sellars greedy and to have Reynolds'  old gang members turn up and someone try to blackmail Holt and Sellars, and for it to take place over two days. This sort of ambles along.

The small town setting is unusual and the photography is gorgeous. Holt is dull but that juxtaposition could've been interesting - dull farm type mixing with these flashy city folk.

A movie of great potential not fulfilled. Reynolds is lively.

Book review - "Read all about Me" by Mel Brooks

 Jaunty recap of the life and times of Mel Brook. Everything is great and life is great. A divorce is dealt with briefly as is Anne Brancroft's death. There's a lot about Brooksfilms and The Producers and Gene Wilder and growing up in Brooklyn. The childhood and army stuff was maybe new... but really Pat McGilligan's book is the one to read. This just gets by on affection for Brooks.

Movie review - "It Happened in Athens" (1962) **1/2

Part of Spyros Skouros' Greek kick when he was the top dog at 20th Century Fox. It's not a bad idea for a film - the story of the Greek shepherd who won the original marathon at the Olympics - but it's hurt by lack of star power. Although Fox had plenty of young contract players they picked random Trax Colton and unknowns like Maria Xenia. Don't laugh but this would've made an ideal vehicle for someone like Pat Boone - wholesome, positive, maybe some songs.

I'm guessing they did it for budget reasons. Failing that they should have had Nico Minardros play the lead and had an English or American actor play the rival.

The money did extend to cover location footage and CinemaScope... the locations are gorgeous and in colour. But it's too "foreign" - at least I think it was for English speaking audiences. The biggest American actor after Mansfield was Bob Mathias.

Story wise there's too many scenes of people watching events and it's kind of hard to care too much about the romance between Colton and Xenia. It needed a real villain or another subplot or something. Three's about thirty minutes of story here.

Mansfield is fun and looks gorgeous in her outfits, either like a doll on a wedding cake, or in some lingere. It's fun how she tries to seduce Colton - they could've had more fun with this.

The spectacle of the crowd is fun, as is the colour. And it's hard not to feel roused as Colton runs into the stadium and all the Greeks leap to their feet to celebrate. It's pleasant enough I just wish it was better.

Movie review - "The Challenge" (1960) **1/2 aka It Takes a Thief

Jayne Mansfield was an imitation Marilyn Monroe but here she steps into a part that really should have been played by Diana Dors - the sexy leader of a gang of crooks.

Like Too Hot to Handle it's a lower budgeted British crime film, with an imported star, decent director (in this case John Gilling), European male lead (in this case Carl Monher), jazzy soundtrack, Mansfield sings a song.

It's got a solid story - a gang try to find out where Anthony Quayle hid money - and stakes - they kidnap Quayle's son. Mansfield isn't really convincing as the gang leader - and you know something? She didn't have to play that. It would've been better had she just been the femme dfetale who was decent with Mohner as the baddy.

Peter Reynolds, balding and pudgy faced, is scary as the gangster who befriends Quayle's kidnapped son and encourages him to run into a train. Edward Judd is good as a cop. The ending of this is suspenseful. Mansfield sings a song, which feels random.

This is a decent little movie.

Movie review - "Promises, Promises" (1963) **

Jayne Mansfield goes topless in a film starring, co written by and produced by Tom Noonan, the four eyed love interest of Marilyn Monroe in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.It's based on a play performed in Palm Springs - apparently they wanted Noonan to star in it which is how he knew about it.

The plot is quite racy involving two couples on a cruise ship: Mansfield and Noonan and Mickey Hargitay and Marie McDonald. They get drunk and there may have been cheating which becomes extra complicated when both women fall pregnant.

The cast is colourful to say the least. Three of them would be dead within a few years - McDonald from an overdose of pills, Mansfield in her car accident, and Noonan of a brain tumour. 

McDonald played a Mansfield type in The Geisha Boy and Noonan went on to make another racy comedy with a blonde, Three on a Nut.

Noonan is fine - he has a very long unfunny drunk scene with the other three watching awkwardly. Hagarity is awkward.  McDonald seems old. Mansfield is sweet. The nudity sparks things up. The comedy is hard to get through though there's some cuteness with split screem for the two couples.

 

Movie review - "Too Hot to Handle" (1960) ***

 Jayne Mansfield only had a few years in Hollywood studio pictures before she went to England for a few. It's a crime drama set in Soho, where there's dance numbers.

Mansfield plays the dancer girlfriend of manager Leo Genn. Mansfield does a few numbers. Carl Boehm plays a journalist doing a story on the club (snore). Chris Lee is dubbed as a treacherous associate of Genn's.

Genn isn't entirely well cast - too posh, not tough enough. It needed a Stanley Baker or someone. Mansfield isn't bad - she seems like a gal who's been around.

Lee looks the part though I hate they dubbed his lovely voice.

This feels like at heart it's a 60 minute film but they've added all these different musical numbers. Which has novelty, I admit.

There's some intense moments in this - an attempted rape scene at the end of a young Barbara Windsor by a crook.

This is a decent Soho thriller. Mansfield has a decent part. She's quite touching at the end, shopping Genn tot ehc ops.

Movie review - "Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?" (1957) **** (warning: spoilers)

 I wonder why Jayne Mansfield never worked with Frank Tashlin again after their first two films? She totally suited his world with her cartoony appearance and delivery. She's awkward in films like Wayward Bus and Kiss Them For Me but perfect here. I guess he went on to work for Jerry Lewis - but wouldn't Mansfield have worked in Lewis land? Marilyn Maxwell's part in Rock a Bye Baby feels very Mansfield as does Marie Windor's in The Geisha Boy.

This is fun. Apparently it's very different from the stage play which was gutsy but the story isn't super original - it's a fake fiancee story, with movie star Mansfield faking a romance with ad man Tony Randall to make her ex, Micky Hargitay, jealous.

Randall is an ideal lead - handsome enough but still dweeby. There's fun satire of TV, Madison Avenue, movie stars. I got some random jokes eg Mansfield starring in a Brothers Karamazov style piece.  Betsy Drake overs nice support, as does Joan Blondell but the film is stolen by Groucho Marx's cameo at the end.

Book review - "So Say We All: The Oral History of Battlestar Galactica"

 Exhaustive. Thorough. Epic. Maybe interviews actors too much.

For me the story of the 1978-79 series was the most interesting because it told the story of a flawed execution - so many "if onlys" and "could a beens". They don't talk about the Terra fascist arc but plenty of great goss: Richard Hatch pushing for more, the evocative depiction of Lorne Greene, Richard Colla was sacked during shooting the pilot, the challenges of Glen A. Larson. Galactica 1980 was a mess - the Richard Moore reboot was fantastic.

Terrific book for fans.

Book review - "Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimmage of the Flesh" by John Lahr (2014)

 Excellent look at Williams' life and times - occasionally reads like a series of in depth New Yorker profiles cobbled together but since those profiles are in depth that's okay. Very well researched, beautifully written, it analyses Williams' life and how it informed his work and vice versa. A had just read Williams' memoirs and this counter balanced it beautifully.

Full of exotic characters - the star, plus Elia Kazan, Audrey Wood, Maria St Just, Diana Barrymore (they were mates), Frank Merlo and so on. Worthy look at one of our greatest writers, even if he was a shit a lot of the times.

Movie review - "The Wayward Bus" (1957) **

Odd what was commercial cinema in the 1950s. This had CinemaScope but black and white, was based on a John Steinbeck novel, directed by someone called Victor Vicas, produced by Charles Brackett, using 20th Century Fox contract players like Jayne Mansfield, Joan Collins and Dan Dailey and newcomers like Dolores Michaels and Rick Jason.

The main plots: Rick Jason is married to boozy Joan Collins but they keep fighting, Dolores Michaels is a bit of a man trap and travels with her parents, 

I think they were hoping for another Bus Stop but it didn't turn out that way. Everything feels a bit off. The acting is inconsistent. I never bought Dailey and Mansfield... he's too cocky or something when it feels as though the role needs to be played by some old, bald loser grasping at happiness. They have no chemistry, the relationship feels rushed. Maybe if Mansfield's part was played by someone older, with more mileage - Lana Turner type.

Rick Jason feels too television and Anglo for a part that seems to require an Anthony Quinn. Collins tries and isn't bad but this needed to be a real boozer.

It just sort of clunks. They may as well made it trashier. Best scene is when Michaels (who's good) tries to seduce Jason in the barn. I think she succeeds though it's not sure.

Dumb endings - Mansfield unconvincingly goes off with Dailey, Collins unconvincingly reunites with Jason, Michaels unconvincingly proposes to her boyfriend.

Mansfield's part isn't that big.

Movie review - "Kiss Them for Me" (1957) **

A horny-sailors-on-shore-leave movie, based on a play (which was based on a novel), with the sailors being Navy fliers played by old actors, presumably so that star Cary Grant doesn't seem too old - his mates include Colonel Klink, Ray Walston and Larry Blyden. The director was Stanley Donen so there's a lot of talent here Added to that are Jayne Mansfield and Suzy Parker.

I think Fox might've wanted to make the film in part to use Mansfield. She doesn't have the female lead but it's a showy support turn as a comic blonde - Judy Holliday played it on Broadway (with Richard Widmark in the lead). Female lead goes to model Suzy Parker who isn't bad - beautiful and stylish. She's not great but she's not the problem. It's that the male leads are too old. I think Grant was like 30 years older than her. (I get the impression Parker was cast under the "we need a new Audrey Hepburn" grounds.) This needed some of Fox's younger brigade like, I don't know, Pat Boone and Stuart Whitman.

Scenes that are kind of done well like an angry Grant telling off a shipbuilding manufacturer who wants Grant to give speeches while Grant has PTSD don't fully work because Grant is so, well, old. Having said that I enjoyed the serious aspects of the film - Grant has malaria, dislikes war profiteers, meets a former colleague who is in a wheelchair and is dying, the team hears their old ship sunk and most of their comrades are dead. Also Mansfield propositions Ray Walston despite knowing he's married (he doesn't do it because he loves his wife and she just doesn't care).. and I think they do sleep together (she kisses him and he doesn't say no). And Parker and Grant seem to sleep together. This is effective. It just all feels like a film made too late (maybe it would've worked during the Korean War) with a cast too old.

Mansfield over acts at time. She does that silly squealing laugh that I think she was trying to make her trademark. That worked in her Tashlin movies which were cartoons but this needed to be more grounded and her performance has not adjusted accordingly.

Movie review - "No Time to Die" (2021) **** (warning: spoilers)

 Some of this ranks with top level Bond - the gloom, the references to On Her Majesty's Secret Service (including a reprise of "We Have All The Time in the World"), the new 007 (I loved that), the locations, Bond's dream house in Jamaica, Ana de Armas' Cuban agent, the acting, Remi Malek's villain, the action scenes.

The debits are clear and frustrating because so avoidable. Well, in a way. Lea Seydoux is gorgeous, can act and I loved her character and the romanticism of her relationship with Bond... but she looks so much younger than Daniel Craig it's like he's romancing his daughter. It never goes away. If only Monica Belluci had played this part in Spectre. Or they'd recast. But I guess they had to double down on a bad decision.

I didn't like that they killed off Felix Leiter. I guess they figured they needed motivation but if you can't get motivation in a film where Bond finds out he has a daughter... I mean, seriously?

The third act is a mess. And this was easy to fix. Just have them discover the plan, and the island, the world leaders get together (why keep it a secret, really? I know they try to explain it by having it be a secret British operation but it wasn't necessary), they decided to blow up the island, they need to open the hatch, Bond asks if he can extract his daughter and Seydoux, so you have a ticking clock I wish they'd brought along de Armas for the final attack. She was fun. The ending is messy. Malek is there, then he's gone, then he conveniently comes back.

And the death. It's a cheat. Because you know he's coming back and a missile hits him. They didn't even set up a clever "out". It's enough he can't see the woman he loves and his kid again. That's enough. Death is a cheat.

I think I could spot some Phoebe Waller-Bridge bits like the Ana de Armas being a bit ditsy and the associate of Leiter gushing over Bond. I could be wrong.

Movie review - "The Burglar" (1957) ***

 Entertaining little B picture, the feature debut of Paul Wendkos, with a decent cast: Dan Duryea in the lead, Jane Mansfield de glamorised as the female lead, Mickey Shaugnessy, Martha Vickers from The Big Sleep as a gal who hangs out with Duryea.

It's a B but it has charms of the time - the black and white photography, jazz music, police procedural scenes (sketching and so on).

It's fun to see Mansfield dressed down, still hot, playing quite a meaty role - she's one of Duryea's gang, who harbours incestuous feelings for him (she's his foster sister).  I wish I could say she was good in the role - she's not, she's amateurish... but also effective. She does have star power. She made this just before her stage success in Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?

Full of nice touches: the opening fake newsreel, location footage, finale in a fun house. And the film doesn't whimp out.

Movie review - "Hollywood Boulevard" (1976) *** (re-watching)

 Fun, breezy, energetic, especially in the first half. The second half isn't as good. There's two really unpleasant rape sequences - one where Candice Rialson is being filmed, the other where a drive in operator has a go. This is not fun. There's the murder of Tara Strohmeier which feels nasty because she's such a warm person and she's so terrified and dies bloody - it's an effective slasher sequence I admit it just felt mean spirited.

Candice Rialson is splended, Strohmeier is great too and I also liked Rita George as the third girl. Jeffrey Kramer is an affable romantic lead but the breakouts are Paul Bartel and Mary Woronov. Dick Miller is solid as always and there's fun turns from people like Jonathan Kaplan.

Its love for filmmaking is so endearing that its faults are forgiven.

Movie review - "Cry Baby Killer" (1959) **

 It took Jack Nicholson a long time to become a star but he did star in this feature film quite early in his career - it just took him another ten years to hit Easy Rider. 

This was made by Allied Artists with Roger Corman kicking in the finance. Corman didn't cast Nicholson, as is commonly assumed, but he did okay him and put in the money. One of the writers was Leo Gordon, who worked with Corman and his brother a number of times.

It's a juvenile delinquent picture - jazz soundtrack, black and white photography. The plot has Nicholson as basically a decent kid whose jealousy sees him get in a fight - he grabs a gun, it goes off, and Nicholson is now a killer. Then he takes three people hostage - a black man, a mother and her baby.

The female lead, Carolyn Mitchell, later married Mickey Rooney and was killed in a murder-suicide with her lover. Flloyd Crosby and Haskell Wexler worked on the crew. It is nicely shot.

It makes a mistake I think with Bretty Halsey, the guy who beats up Nicholson, being shot so early. Corman has a small role as a cameraman. Ralph Reed gives off Sam Petrillo vibes as a delinquent.

Story wise too much time is spent with boring cops finding out stuff the audience already knows. Really they should have had more interesting hostages, like the blonde girl and the bad boyfriend.

The finale has some decent suspense as we're not sure if Nicholson will be killed or not.

Movie review - "Cecil B. Demented" (2000) **

 I film I wanted to like more than I did because it had such a fun central idea - Stephen Dorff as a demented film director leading a team of oddballs who kidnap a movie star (Melanie Griffith) to appear in their film.

Dorff is fine and believable as a loony leader of the cult, who include a lot of good actors like Maggie Gyllenhall, Alicia Witt and Michael Shannon. It was probably a fun movie to work on.

It feels like a movie that needed another fe drafts of the script. Also it lacks a certain reality. Its soul is in the early 70s, when a lot more groups ran around doing kidnapping. Kidnapping doesn't feel like a late 90s thing. Neither does the whole band of outsiders or the fact they visit a drive in and a porno house.

Watching it, despite the strength of the cast, you just want Waters' old gang playing the parts - Divine, Mink Stole, Edie Massey and so on. They all felt genuinely weird. This feels like skilled actors playing weirdos which is a different thing. Alicia Witt is lovely but looks like, well, an actor playing a crazy rather than the real deal. (Dorff does have the right glint of madness.)

On a craft level, there's too many characters among the kidnappers and they all feel identical and Waters can't seem to dramatise his tale. For instance, it would seem natural to have a love triangle between Griffith, Dorff and Witt - it's all set up... but they don't go there. There's no conflict in the group, no twists and turns.

I'd love for this to be done as a musical with the story and character issues fixed because the central idea is to strong.