An Irish ghost story as told by Orson Welles

Return to Glennascaul is a wonderful 2-reel short from 1951, written and directed by Hilton Edwards of the famous Gate Theatre in Dublin. The film is best remembered for the participation of Orson Welles who became involved with the project during some downtime on the troubled production of Othello (which starred Gate co-founder Micheál Mac Liammóir), and was asked to narrate the film as well as appear in the opening and closing sequences of the film.

In the first scene of the film, Welles is seen taking time away from the Mercury production of Othello to travel to Dublin to see Edwards. On the way, Welles picks up a man whose car has broken down, and passing the time, the man tells Welles a story about two strange women he once gave a lift to. Invited in for a night cap at the stately home of the women, the man leaves a cigarette case behind, but moments later when he returns to the house to retrieve the case, the grounds appear over grown with weeds, the house locked up and in a state of disrepair and seemingly abandoned for years...

A short story straight from the haunted land of Ireland as Welles puts it in opening narration, Return to Glennascaul is an atmospheric little film, with beautiful lighting, (in a style reminiscent of Welles' own films) and an evocative harp music score. It's quite a creepy film too - there's a wonderful sequence where the man walks through the empty house and becomes frightened when he hears ghostly whispering all around him. There's some nice touches of humour too, at one point Welles reacting to his passenger's car trouble, replies "I've had trouble with my distributor too", and a scene where a suitably spooked Welles drives off at speed past two women looking for a lift!

The film has had quite an interesting history since its initial release. After a few screenings in 1951, the film vanished and was largely forgotten about, only to be rescued from obscurity when horror movie producer Richard Gordon (Tower of Evil, Inseminoid) found the film in the archives of Irish television broadcaster RTE. The film was cleaned up by the BFI and Gordon commissioned Peter Bogdanovich to film an introduction to accompany the film. In 1992 the film was re-released in a program entitled A Tribute To Orson Welles

Return to Glennascaul can be found on UK label Second Sight's DVD of Othello, as the complete A Tribute To Orson Welles program. The image quality is very good for an obscure title of this vintage while the dialogue is a bit hissy at times, it's perfectly fine. The DVD is region free.

Whore

Fans of Ken Russell are well accustomed to taking the rough with the smooth when it comes to the director's long career in film making. Whore from 1991 is significant in that it would be Russell's last good film, his filmography from then on is a wasteland of mediocre, uninteresting projects. The film is a day in the life portrait of an LA prostitute trying to make a quick buck under the nose of her former boss, a violent and dangerous pimp who's patrolling the streets looking to recoup his investment...

The film, adapted from the David Hines one-woman play Bondage, which Hines wrote based on conversations the playwright had with a number of prostitutes he regularly drove home whilst working as cab driver in London. Russell's transposing of the play to Los Angeles might seem drastic but the director rarely opens up the film, retaining the tight claustrophobic set ups of the stage play, with most of the film taking place in bathrooms, bedrooms, strip bars, empty sidewalks and anonymous public spaces.

The strength of the film leans heavily on Theresa Russell, her performance as the foul mouthed Liz is very impressive, most of the time speaking directly to the camera about her unhappy life before drifting into the prostitution, the do's and don't's of hooking and the constant dangers she faces - abuse, humiliation, violence and at one point a vicious gang rape. Good turns too from Antonio Fargas as a homeless man and impromptu guardian angel, and Benjamin Mouton playing Blake, Liz's sadistic pimp, grumbling about the price of rubbers and abortions. Look out too for a quick cameo from Eraserhead's Jack Nance and an early appearance by Danny Trejo as a tattoo artist.

Whore is grim stuff to be sure, but the film is not without humour - Liz dishes out hilarious swipes at male sexual sensibilities, and ultimately the film is a realistic and sensitive treatment of the oldest profession and a far more potent film than Hollywood trash like Pretty Woman. And this being a Ken Russell film, expect plenty of sleaze and sex.

As far as I know, Whore has not surfaced on DVD in the UK or North America, (where its US VHS release was sometimes repackaged as If You Can’t Say It, Just See It (?)). I believe there was German DVD at one point but its most likely out of print now. In the meantime, check the comments for a very good, uncut VHS rip.

Messiah of Evil

Now here's something you don't see everyday - a film that opens with director Walter Hill having his throat slashed by a dreamy looking teenage girl ! Messiah of Evil is one of the great secret masterpieces of 70's American Horror. In the film, a woman is drawn to the sleepy coastal town of Point Dune in search of her artist father, whose letters have become increasingly bizarre and worrisome. Arriving at her father's deserted home, the woman gets involved with a strange bohemian aristocrat and his two groupie girlfriends. Stranger still are the townsfolk of Point Dune, who seem to be in a zombie-like trance and keep a vigil of beach fires awaiting the arrival of a mysterious "dark stranger"...

Directed in 1973 by husband and wife team Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz, during a hiatus from writing American Graffiti for George Lucas, Messiah of Evil is one of the most unusual zombie films to emerge in the wake of Night of the Living Dead. The film's scope and ambition are only fully revealed in the final act, and for once you wish there was a second installment to continue the story. The film recalls the moodiness of Carnival of Souls, and you'll find shades of Messiah in films like The Fog and Dead And Buried. John Carpenter and Dan O'Bannon may have seen the film at some point in the 70's, but it seems unlikely Lucio Fulci would have caught it, yet seasoned fans of Italian Horror might recognize elements of the film in Fulci's City of the Living Dead, both films tapping a rich vein of weird Lovecraftian horror.

Visually, Messiah of Evil looks hugely impressive - shot in Cinemascope (unusual for an independent horror film of this era) with striking Bava-esque lighting, and some quite amazing art direction - the film is full of surreal perspective artworks which dazzle and disorientate the eye. There are excellent set pieces too - a cinema which slowly fills up with sinister patrons, and an eerie sequence where a girl wanders into to a supermarket to find the living dead chewing down on raw meat. Special mention too for Phillan Bishop's wonderfully evocative electronic score.

Code Red's DVD of Messiah of Evil is excellent. The print used for the film exhibits quite a fair degree of dirt and debris but its a minor complaint considering the film can now be seen the correctly framed in all its 2.35 glory. Surprisingly Code Red have managed to dig up some very worthwhile extras - a very enjoyable, engaging commentary track by the film makers, a comprehensive featurette, Remembering Messiah of Evil, and two b/w short films. Messiah of Evil is a film you will want to see again and again so be sure to pick this masterwork up as soon as possible.

Count Dracula (BBC production, 1977)

Among the endless films based on Bram Stoker's iconic creature of the night, this BBC production, originally made for television in 1977, has over the years earned itself quite a considerable fan base. Gerald Savory's screenplay is one of the more faithful adaptations of Stoker's novel (if you haven't read the book, the plot closely resembles Coppola's film), with some minor departures from the text made to streamline the story - Mina and Lucy are now sisters; Arthur Holmwood, one of Lucy's suitors is combined into the character of Quincey Morris; and Dracula himself, is portrayed as an eternally youthful man, and not the aged vampire of the book.

Director Philip Saville brings a strong visual sense to the film, with some fine location work - crumbling castles, nocturnal graveyards, dark haunted woodlands, and the gloomy wind-swept coast of Whitby. Style wise the lacks the garish technicolor of Hammer, or the operatic bombast of the Coppola film, and bears more of a resemblance to Herzog's Nosferatu, both films rich in atmosphere. The film has few special effects shots, perhaps due to budget reasons, but the odd negative image effect strays in from time to time, adding a touch of weirdness to the proceedings.

Louis Jourdan plays Dracula with a quiet, understated power - charming, with impeccable manners and deeply sinister. His Dracula is refreshingly unpretentious, not simply some emissary from Hell, but rather a creature who needs to feed on the blood of humans to further his race. Impressive too is Frank Finlay as the courageous and strangely paternal Van Helsing, and Jack Shepherd as the twitchy and ill-tempered Renfield. Some of the minor players lack certainty, and Richard Barnes' Quincy is quite disastrous, his faltering Texan accent will remind you of the equally inept turn by Keanu Reeves in Coppola's film.

BBC's DVD (coded for R2 and R4) containing the full 152min film is completely barebones as one might suspect. It's a shame some liner notes could not be provided to shed some light on the production (which originally aired a few days before Christmas of '77). The image quality is good, if a little underwhelming. The transfer exhibits some noise not helped by a certain televisual blandness inherent in small screen productions of this vintage (think of BBC sci-fi series Blake's Seven, or the British serial Thriller for a visual reference). Still, the DVD comes highly recommended and for the best results see this one on a cold winter's night to generate the required thrills.

Hour of the Wolf

Watching Hour of the Wolf, Ingmar Bergman's 1968 film, feels like wading through a full blown nightmare. Bergman had played with macabre imagery in his previous films - the character of Death in The Seventh Seal, and two impressively eerie sequences in The Magician and Sawdust and Tinsel, but Hour of the Wolf is one of the Swedish director's darkest, most intense films.

The film takes place on a small, isolated island where Johan, a painter accompanied by his wife Alma, has set up home to work on his art. Johan's fragile mental state, given to bouts of moodiness and plagued by vivid dreams of nightmarish creatures, is weakened further when the couple are courted by the mysterious Baron and his eccentric entourage. These unwelcome guests in the lives of Johan and Alma are not so benevolent as first appears, in fact they may not even be human...

On the face of it, Hour of the Wolf is an abstract and difficult film, but early on in the film, Liv Ullman's character Alma reveals a clue to the audience when she posits a theory that over time, lovers can come to mirror each other, even sharing their very thoughts. And demons. For Bergman, being an artist is a dangerous business, a constant wrestle for control over the spectres of self-doubt, flagging creativity and humiliation. The film shot like a surreal Gothic Horror, is full of strange, hallucinatory images - the corpse of a murdered boy sinking into the depths of the sea, a man walking on a ceiling, and a corridor full of frenzied, flapping pigeons. Bergman's perennial cameraman Sven Nykvist's work here is utterly extraordinary, lighting faces so they resemble the rugged surfaces of the rocky island.

If you're looking to discover the work of Ingmar Bergman, Hour of the Wolf may present an enormous challenge - instead stick with conventional wisdom and see The Seventh Seal first. But if this is a Bergman you've missed in the past, the film is highly recommended. If you bear the weight of such heavy drama, the film makes for a fascinating double-bill with Lars Von Trier's Antichrist, both sharing some interesting parallels with one another.

MGM's DVD of Hour of the Wolf, available as part of their Ingmar Bergman Collection, or on its own, presents the film in its original full-frame ratio. The b/w image is good, grainy at times but sharp nonetheless. It's not up to the standard of Criterion's Bergman discs but it should suffice. The audio is quite standard, but the Swedish dialogue is free from hiss and distortion, and Lars Johan Werle's sparse avant garde score is well represented. Subtitles are offered in English, French and Spanish. The R1 disc (unlike its barbones R2 counterpart) has some interesting extras - a short feature on the film, interviews with Liv Ullmann and Erland Josephson, and a commentary by Bergman scholar, Marc Gervais. The disc is rounded out with the inclusion of two stills galleries

Phantom of the Paradise - the French Blu-Ray

One of 3 Blu-Rays I picked up in Paris last week, Phantom of the Paradise has been given a very impressive hi-def makeover for its French release (Region-free by the way). Brian de Palma's 1974 film looks absolutely superb, transferred from a clean, spotless print, full of eye-popping detail (you can spot Cheryl Smith of Lemora fame bedding down with Swan in one scene) and gorgeous color - Larry Pizer's gaudy cinematography positively radiates off the screen. Film grain is present but not excessive and there is only one instance where the picture looks anything less than stellar - the scene where Swan gives his press conference at the airport looks a little soft, but I would guess this is how it always looked. The audio is extremely robust - the opening sequence of the Juicy Fruits rockin' out is wonderful. Turn this baby up !

The extras** on the Blu have been carried over from the previous French DVD, the best of which is Paradise Regained, the excellent and meaty 50-min documentary about the film, which gathers together all the principle cast and crew including a very proud Brian De Palma. I won't spoil all the surprises but some interesting factoids gleamed from the doc - the film originally began life as The Phantom of the Fillmore, Taxi Driver's Peter Boyle was originally considered to play Beef, and Led Zeppelin had de Palma optically replace all references to Swan's record label Swan Song, which was Zep's own label !

The film itself can be viewed without the French subtitles, but the French subs are forced for the Paradise Regained documentary. The French subs are discreet enough to ignore although actor Gerrit Graham does one of his interview segments in French !

** Edit Thanks to reader Principal Archivist who left this comment regarding the extras on the French Blu:

It's probably fair to warn your North American readers that although the French BluRay is region free, the extra features can only be played on a PAL-compatible BluRay player; most North American BluRay players aren't.

Phantom fans should check out the Principal Archivist's incredible website The Swan Archives for all thing Phantom related...

Bullet In the Head

It may not be as revered as A Better Tomorrow or The Killer, but John Woo's 1990 film Bullet In the Head is one of the director's most ambitious films, working out the familiar gangster themes of loyalty, betrayal and revenge against the backdrop of the Vietnam war. Its 1967, and three lifelong friends looking to make a fast buck on the turbulent streets of Hong Kong escape to Saigon after the accidental killing of a small time hood. Initially, sent there to run contraband in and out of the country, the three friends make a hit on a gangster for an ammunition box full of gold, and are inadvertently thrust into the very heart of the Vietnam conflict...

Directed with style and verve by John Woo, Bullet In the Head may not feature the kind of balletic World War III carnage of Hardbolied, but rather the film's violence is harsh and ugly, the central section of the film where the three heroes are captured by the Viet Cong is often harrowing, the director putting a disturbing twist on the Russian roulette sequence from The Deer Hunter, one of the key influences on the film. Thankfully Woo for most of the film, keeps the mawkish sentimentality that spoils a lot of his work in check - no white doves were harmed in the making of this film I can assure you.

The screenplay co-written by John Woo has a pleasing symmetry and the director in an early section of the movie, very bravely smuggles in one extraordinary shot of a student standing before a tank, a sly reference to Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 - no small thing for a Chinese film maker. Performances throughout are strong, with the always dependable Tony Leung delivering another solid turn. Even in this early lead role, he was obviously destined to be a great star. Great support too from Simon Yam, playing an ultra-cool Saigon contract killer.

Bullet In the Head is not without its weaknesses - at two hours the film is perhaps overlong, the synth score is a little flimsy compared to the ferocity of the visuals, and Woo doesn't quite nail the Vietnam sequences, the flat looking Thailand locations looking more like Missing In Action, rather than moody jungle vistas of Apocalypse Now. Minor criticisms aside, this being a pre-Hollywood John Woo film, the action is nothing less than jaw-dropping, demonstrating that the Hong Kong film crews simply were the best in the world at making this kind of movie. Hardly anyone escapes from the film without being ripped apart by machine fire, beaten, stabbed, chopped, burned or blown to bits by grenades and bombs.

The best way to see Bullet In the Head is the R2 two-disc edition courtesy of Hong Kong Legends, which features a good, sharp 1.78:1 anamorphic transfer and strong audio. The film can be watched in the original Cantonese, or with an English dub. A bounty of extras are contained on the second disc, the best of all, a superb commentary by Hong Kong film expert Bey Logan. The disc is officially out-of-print these days, but you can still score a copy from Amazon UK relatively cheap.

What an excellent day for an exorcism...

I'm re-reading William Peter Blatty's The Exorcist this week before I screen the new Blu-Ray edition. Blatty's novel made the transition from page to screen very well - only a few peripheral characters were excised from the film treatment. The biggest casualty of the original text was the elimination of a very minor subplot involving Chris McNeil's housekeeper Karl and his drug-addicted daughter. My favourite sections of the book are Damien Karras' initial meetings with the demon in possession of Regan. Much of the playful dialogue between demon and priest would end up in the film, but pared down. The following excerpt from the book is from one of Karras's exchanges with the demon, and illustrates the mischievous but deeply malevolent persona of the demon in Regan...

As he approached, it was watching with mocking eyes. Full of cunning. Full of hate. Full of power.

"Hello, Karras."

The priest heard the sound of diarrhetic voiding into plastic pants. He spoke calmly from the foot of the bed.

"Hello, devil. And how are you feeling?"

"At the moment, very happy to see you. Glad."

The tongue lolled out of the mouth while the eyes appraised Karras with insolence.

"Flying your colors, I see. Very good." Another rumbling.

"You don't mind a bit of stink, do you, Karras?"

""Not at all."

"You're a liar!"

"Does that bother you?"

"Mildly."

"But the devil likes liars."

"Only good ones, dear Karras, only good ones," it chuckled. "Moreover, who said I'm the devil?"

"Didn't you?"

"Oh, I might have. I might. I'm not well. You believed me?"

"Of course."

"My apologies."

"Are you saying that you aren't the devil?"

"Just a poor struggling demon. A devil. A subtle distinction, but one not entirely lost upon Our Father who is in Hell. Incidentally, you won't mention my slip of the tongue to him, Karras, now will you? Eh? When you see him?"

"See him? Is he here?" asked the priest.

"In the pig? Not at all. Just a poor little family of wandering souls, my friend. Yon don't blame us for being here, do you? After all, we have no place to go. No home."

"And how long are you planning to stay?"

The head jerked up from the pillow, contorted in rage as it roared, "Until the piglet dies!"

And then suddenly, Regan settled back into a thick-lipped, drooling grin.

"Incidentally, what an excellent day for an exorcism, Karras."

A trip to Père-Lachaise

Anyone heading to Paris for a vacation should consider paying a visit to Père-Lachaise cemetery. One of the most famous cemeteries in the world, the sprawling but peaceful Père-Lachaise is a wonderful break from the endless hustle and bustle of the city, and is home to some well-known residents, most famously Jim Morrison, Marcel Proust, Édith Piaf and Oscar Wilde. Oliver Stone filmed one of the final scenes of The Doors in Père-Lachaise, but Jim Morrison's grave today is a far more subdued scene than that depicted in the film. Over the years, the grave has been vandalized numerous times and bust of Morrison (seen in the the film) was stolen in 1988.

Another resident of Père-Lachaise I wanted to visit was Georges Méliès, the great French film maker who around the turn of the 20th century, pioneered special effects with dissolves, time-lapse photography, split screen, multiple exposures and so on. All film makers past and present owe Georges Méliès a huge debt, and arguably all Fantastic Cinema can be traced back to Méliès' early film experiments like A Trip To The Moon. Next to the bust of Méliès in the picture below, someone had left a handwritten message of gratitude, and rather amusingly someone left a business card for a video copying service !

An expensive Lunch in Paris

Just back from an enjoyable few days in Paris, ensconced in the Latin Quarter district, literally two minutes from the Notre Dame cathedral. For our first day in the city, we walked from the Notre Dame, along the Seine, past the Orsay museum to the Eiffel Tower, crossed over the Pont d'Lena bridge, to the Arc de Triomphe, down the Champs-Élysées, past the Louvre museum and finally back at the Notre Dame. If you're into walks I'd recommend taking this same route - its an excellent way to soak up the sights, sounds and smells of the Left Bank. If all that seems a little intense, a bus will take you around to all the must see tourist-spots, and if you're more inclined to descend into the Parisian Underworld, the Metro will get you to just about anywhere...

Paris is of course awash in bookstores, but one of the treats for bibliophiles are the Bouquinistes selling their wares on the banks of the Seine, offering everything from old and new books, art prints, posters (old ad campaigns, movie posters and movie stars etc) and lots of strange and bewildering knick knacks. I almost snagged a few old issues of Cahiers du Cinéma, of which were in plentiful supply. I grabbed this pic of one such stall from the one of the ubiquitous hop-on/hop-off buses whilst stopped in traffic.

No booklover worth their salt should pass up a visit to the Shakespeare and Co. store handily located just across the street from the Notre Dame. And if you're in town this week you will find a rare copy of the first UK edition of The Naked Lunch, published by John Calder, in association with The Olympia Press, from 1964. I've leafed through this book, and it's in fine, clean condition. As for the price, this Burroughs will set you back a cool €250 (£218/$349) - even though this price is in line with what collector's would expect to pay for this edition, it was far too rich for my blood, so with much regret I carefully placed it back on the display. My wife Irene, growing impatient by my endless deliberations rummaged around in her jeans and handed the book and three shiny Euro coins to the confused American working the counter. And much to my mortification, Irene on seeing the actual price, gasped "Two hundred and fifty ? - it's not worth two Euros fifty!"