#william one-shot beaudine

[screamscenepodcast]

How many tropes and plot-pivots can you throw in to an hour-long horror movie? Director William Beaudine gives his best shot with 1946's THE FACE OF MARBLE starring John Carradine, Claudia Drake, Robert Shayne and Maris Wrixon.

We have voodoo, ghosts, vampires, mad scientists, white faces of marble, and more!

Context setting 00:00; Synopsis 10:31; Discussion 34:03; Ranking 48:48

[buzzdixonwriter]

Framing The Issue

A while back writer Adam-Troy Castro wrote about contemporary film fans (for our purposes, anybody who primarily likes movies made in the last twenty years) who find older movies (for our purposes, films made during the golden age of the Hollywood studio system 1920-1950 though quite a few afterwards fall into this category) hard to watch because they seem slower and edited to a different rhythm than contemporary movies (we’re going to omit discussion of dialog and acting style because hey, the form evolved pretty fast once sound was introduced and some of the early sound era films do sound kind of creaky).

Full disclosure: I love old movies, have hundreds if not thousands on DVDs in my collection, watch them on YouTube all the time.

Fuller disclosure: I frequently take advantage of YouTube’s speed settings and watch these old movies and serials at 1.25X or 1.5X normal speed.

Because a lot of ‘em are slow by modern standards.

There are three reasons for this.

Practical: While that nice big flatscreen TV in your living room may occupy as much of your field of vision as a movie screen in a typical theater, the fact is your mind recognizes it as a smaller and closer image than the movie screen.

Most humans enjoy depth perception via binocular vision and those who don’t frequently learn to interpret other visual clues to give them a way to reliable estimate how far away something is.

Your mind accepts things on a big screen as moving at a different rate from the identical footage show on a TV set.

The best example of this is It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World which appears kind of pokey and lacking comic energy when seen on a TV screen in your home but suddenly zips along at a blinding pace when projected on an 80-ft Cinerama screen with every joke landing perfectly (and this is especially true if you’re unfortunate enough to be watching the pan-and-scan broadcast TV edit and not the restored theatrical print).

Director Stanley Kramer demonstrated he knew how to do comedy on the big big BIG screen with It’s A Madx4 World.  He staged and paced the gags and action so audiences could absorb what they were seeing.

If a car crosses a screen in one second of real time, it impacts an audience far differently on a TV set than on a big screen.

One second to cross eighty feet is blindingly fast -- the audience’s minds process the fact they’re watching a huge image, not a medium size one.

Many of the golden age Hollywood movies were filmed and edited with this sort of pacing in mind.  What seems like a plodding walk across a TV screen is a brisk little jaunt on the big screen.

When old movies were shot, they were shot with this in mind.

Which is why those films often seem a bit slow when depicting action.

Pragmatic: They made these movies in an assembly line fashion, and while they would do fancy editing and close-ups and insert shots if needed, they preferred to capture as much of a performance in a single take as possible.

There were filmmakers like the notorious William “One Shot” Beaudine who filmed almost exclusively in master shots, but filmmakers during the golden age preferred to capture scenes in as few takes as possible.

This contributes to good performances, the actors can play off each other uninterrupted, creating a more unified flow to the scene.

It also means it can drag some scenes out by a few seconds or even a minute or two.

Modern directors are used to splintering a scene into many, many individual shots and as long as they have the time to edit properly (and actors who can maintain consistent performances over several takes), they can squeeze out a second or two here, a second or two there by intercutting among characters.

Modern audiences are used to this fast paced editing rhythm and frequently grow impatient with the longer takes of older movies.

Padding: In Hollywood a feature is any film 50 minutes or longer.

Studios -- particularly independent productions and the B-movie crews at larger film companies -- tried to keep their productions as short as possible, but also needed to make sure they hit the required running time. 

There’s an old Charlie Chan movie where he tells his son he’s just received a message asking him to come to Washington DC for an important case.

He puts on his hat and leaves the office.

He walks out of the building to a taxi.

The taxi drives off.

The taxi reaches an airport.

Chan gets out of the taxi and enters the airport.

We dissolve to stock shots of an airliner in flight.

Chan leaves the Washington DC airport* and gets in a cab.

Brief montage of several stock shots of Washington monuments.

The cab stops outside the office where Chan is to report.

Chan leaves the cab and goes up the steps to enter the building.

In the Washington office, the secretary of the man who summoned Chan announces he’s arrived, and Chan enters the room.

Five minutes of padding to make sure they hit their 50 minute running time.

Moral: If you want to share your love of old movies, don’t fob them on an unprepared audience.  Let them know a little bit of what to expect.

There’s some great stuff in these old films, but the language of cinema has evolved since then.

  © Buzz Dixon

  * Just kidding; same airport, different angle.

[lushscreamqueen]

Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter (1966)

OPENING: Good evening and welcome to the SCHLOCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW. I am your host Nigel Honeybone. Pause for laugh. Sorry I shouldn't have read that stage direction. Darn the cue cards! Tonight's Public domain nugget is a little film classic called JESSE JAMES MEETS FRANKSTEINS DAUGHTER. Yes you heard right. I'm running a western, make no bones about it. So strap on the stirrups, and pull out your six shooter and get ready to ride with me as we watch JESSE JAMES MEETS FRANKSTEINS DAUGHTER.

Break: Hello again. How are you enjoying the film? If you think this is bad wait til you see this spine tingling, terror inducing vomit able, sweat filled fear fest. And then after the break more of JESSE JAMES MEETS FRANKESTEINS DAUGHTER.

MIDDLE: Aaaaaaaaaaaaand welcome back to JESSE JAMES MEETS FRANKSTEINS DAUGHTER. Produced in 1966 as part of a double feature with BILLY THE KID VS DRACULA, and boy can you think of a worse premise for a low-budget western horror hybrid films, it must have been a very slow year for director William Beaudine. He was between Dog shows at the time having finished with Rin Tin Tin in 1959 and taking a break from "Lassie" to make this, a fictionalized version of the real-life western outlaw Jesse James encounters who the fictional granddaughter the movie's title notwithstanding of the famous Dr. Frankenstein.

John Lupton, who plays the part of Jesse James, is actually a bit too old for the role. When the film was made, Lupton was already 38 years old. The real-life Jesse James died before his 35th birthday, and is probably still rolling in his grave after this piece of schlock, although John Lupton does have a star on Hollywood Boulevard which is more than Jesse James can say. I guess it's for his work on Broken Arrow in 1956. Or his bit parts in Kung fu, Ironside, Days of Our Lives or Time Tunnel. Or any of the other 137 TV shows he made. And although he went on to do volunteer work with the Multiple Sclerosis Association and the Special Olympics, he died of unreported causes on November 3, 1993, at age 65. I guess he never got over the embarrassment of this film. Nard Onyx plays Dr Maria Frankenstein and I guess being an Estonian born German speaker living in Sweden before fleeing to England and then Canada made her accent just right for the role. This was her last movie and that is probably for the best. I'm not sure she could have ever have topped this. And it's probably a good thing she didn't try. Although I would have like to see her mud wrestle Dr Quinn Medicine woman, but that's just me.

Estelita Rodgregiuz aka the Cuban spitfire plays her final role as well as the Mexican servant Juanita. And that is a pity. She died under "Mysterious" circumstances just a few months after filming while preparing to play Lupe Valez the Mexican spitfire who also dies in mysterious circumstances. Co-incidence? I think so. Steven Geray is a passable Dr Frankenstein but in those days just having a European accent was enough for most horror films. And after working on the Donna Reed show and Dick Van Dyke a few times I'm sure he appreciated the challenging new role. Naturally enough even with the shootin' rootin' and tootin' and I don't even know what that means this is a Frankenstein Movie so go on…guess the plotline! No hints now. At some point without giving away the spoilers we KNOW Jesse James is going to bring his wounded muscle-bound partner to the doctor although he soon wishes that he had picked a different physician. There is a very good reason this received a "Golden Turkey" nominee

JESSE JAMES MEETS FRANKSTEINS DAUGHTER was shot in 8 days using lab equipment provided by Ken Strickfaden, who used the same gadgets in the Frankenstein films made by Universal, as well as 'Mel Brooks '' Young Frankenstein in 1974. Ken was an electrician; film set designer, and electrical special effects creator. He created the science fiction apparatus in more than 100 motion picture films and television programs, from 1931's Frankenstein to The Wizard of Oz and The Mask of Fu Manchu to television's The Munsters. In fact this is one of the few times this equipment was ever filmed in colour. And on that shocking revelation we take you back to the 1966 Classic schlocky Horror Film, JESSE JAMES MEETS FRANKENSTEINS DAUGHTER.

CLOSING: So, contrary to the film's title, it should actually be JESSE JAMES MEETS FRANKENSTEINS GRAND DAUGHTER. The movie combines cowboys, Indians, old west robbers, old east European, a sheriff, Mexican villagers, Jesse James and his muscle bound partner, a European brother and sister mad scientist team, and a monster. All it needs is an alien transvestite, and with all that, you should have an exciting although strange movie. That's what I was expecting, a lot of action. That's not what I got. Surprisingly, there isn't that much excitement. The movie moves slowly and is pretty tame. The so called monster is also a bit of a dud. I've seen scarier things on Rove. Not that scary and could have been done so much better. Although this film was actually quite bland, I'm still glad I watched it. It's all in the title. I just had to see what this movie was all about. For any fan of the older monster movies, this should be on your list, maybe quite far down on the list, way way way down on the list, just under the wedding video's with drunken auntie Maude but never the less on the list all the same. And on that note until we meet again in the Public Domain, or the repeats…Toodles!!

by Lushscreamqueen Dec 24, 2008

[blschaos3000-blog]

Its 3:31 pm

Welcome to a another edition of “8 Questions with…..” I’m pretty jazzed up for today’s interview with George Rother. I’m finally getting to talk with a fellow film buff and critic who is very much like myself. And just like most SERIOUS film buffs,George just doesn’t stick with the latest blockbusters or trendy releases,he isn’t afraid to explore quality foreign offerings or B-movie fun. If it can be seen on a screen,George is there to offer fair and quality insight and honestly,one can spend hours on his website Movie Guy 24/7. I know because the cheetah and I have spent a few visits checking out some classics from days gone by. George also has a crazy interactive Facebook page with over 10,000 followers who enjoy talking films in a respectful way which is rather refreshing to see. I’ll post a link down below after the interview. But for now,let’s go ask George his 8 Questions…….

  Please introduce yourself and tell us a little about Movie Guy 24/7

 My name is George Rother. I am a lifelong movie lover. I started Movie Guy 24/7 in 2010 after health reasons forced me to retire early. I’m primarily a film critic but I do more than review movies. If you go on the Movie Guy 24/7 FaceBook page, I post things daily. I offer up trivia, I ask questions, I give challenges, I put up songs, clips and trailers from movies. I do all sorts of things to interact with my fans/friends. 

What makes film so important to you?

Film has been a constant in my life. I didn’t have a lot of friends growing up so I often went to the movies by myself. I got used to it actually. Film has always been a subject of interest to me. Even as a kid, I wanted to see adult-oriented films like All That Jazz, The Rose, Apocalypse Now and Kramer vs. Kramer. Of course, that pesky parental R-rated movie block kept getting in the way. LOL! Anyway, I just felt at home getting caught up in a filmed story. I became a regular filmgoer at 13 and always seemed to know more about movies than other people my age. 

Are movies better today then when you started watching them? What are the three biggest changes besides budgetsand special effects that you like/dislike from films of yesterday and today?

LOL! I hate to resort to cliches but they sure don’t make them like they used to. Most of today’s movies are so impersonal. They’re not art, they’re made by committee. A lot of them are derivative. Comedies aren’t funny anymore; they’re just foul, gross and vulgar. PG-13 horror movies are the cinematic equivalent of watered-down alcoholic drinks. Blockbusters are little more than convoluted, CGI-heavy noisefests. I don’t really care for CGI; it looks too fake. Give me old school practical effects any day. 

What makes a movie a “classic” in your eyes?

 That’s a subjective thing. Everybody has their own ideas as to what makes a movie classic. If pressed, I suppose I’d have to say longevity. Will it hold up 5, 10, 20 years from now? Sadly, not many of today’s movies are future classics. 

Did you feel Hollywood has played a huge part in the rise of gun violence with so many violent shoot-’em ups?

 There has always been shooting in movies. Look at the old westerns from the 20s and 30s. Look at the gangster movies from that era. They seemed very violent at the time. Nowadays, filmmakers can get away with showing a lot more. However, I think the depiction of gun violence in film (and TV) has little to do with the rise in real life gun violence. I think it has to do with a person’s nature and/or their surroundings. 

What is a difference between a movie critic and a movie buff?

 LOL! Why can’t somebody be both? OK, here’s my answer. A movie critic watches a film analytically whereas a movie buff is passionate about film in general. In other words, business vs. pleasure. 

What five films/five stars/five directors are you favorites and why?

 WOW! That’s a tall question. Let’s start with favorite movies. If you mean all-around cinematic perfection, perfect in every way, I’d have to say Casablanca. If you mean what movie gives me the most pleasure, I’d say the 1982 version of Conan the Barbarian. I can’t really give you a top 5 here so I’ll just give you my favorites in a few genres. Sci-fi: (tie) Blade Runner and 2001: A Space Odyssey, Horror: The Shining, Comedy: A Fish Called Wanda, Cop: Sharky’s Machine, Action: First Blood, Action-Adventure: Raiders of the Lost Ark, Drama: Gandhi and Western: Once Upon a Time in the West. Okay, top 5 (no particular order) lists coming up. My five favorite actors are Jack Nicholson, Clint Eastwood, Steve McQueen, Harvey Keitel and Samuel L. Jackson. My five favorite actresses are Bette Midler, Goldie Hawn, Scarlett Johansson, Audrey Hepburn and Ingrid Bergman. My five favorite directors are David Lynch, David Fincher, Quentin Tarantino, Alejandro Jodorowsky and Martin Scorsese. I don’t really have a reason why other than I like what/who I like.

 Is streaming going to kill both the theater experience and pyschical media in your opinion?

 I hope that there will always be movie theaters. Nothing matches the experience of seeing a film on the big screen. However, I think more and more small-to-medium budgeted films will premiere on streaming services. It will definitely cut into box office revenue. As for me, I will always see films at a theater.

What five films/fiver stars/fivedirectors do you dislike the most and why?

 Ah, my dislikes. Okay, here’s my Top 10 Worst Movies starting with 1979’s Caligula, In my not-so-humble opinion, that is the absolute worst film EVER! It is a vile, disgusting, degrading, depressing and artless piece of crap. The rest of the list is as follows: (2) Basic Instinct 2, (3) Windows, (4) It’s Pat: The Movie, (5) Gummo, (6) Wild Wild West, (7) Baby Geniuses, (8) Knock Off, (9) Dangerous Game and (10) Born American. My five worst actors/actresses: Tom Cruise, Roseanne Barr, Rosie Perez, Ben Affleck and Steven Seagal. Five worst directors: (1) and (2) are Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer, the guys behind lousy spoofs like Disaster Movie, Vampires Suck and Meet the Spartans. The others are Michael Bay, William “One Shot” Beaudine (Billy the Kid vs. Dracula, Jesse James Meets Frankenstein’s Daughter) and William Shatner (ever see Star Trek V?).

Your Facebook page is rising fast in popularity,what makes it such a hot spot for fans?

 I guess I’m just lucky. I try to make the page fun for everybody. It’s geared towards movie geeks like myself but I also try to make it accessible for casual movie fans.

What is your impression of TV in general?

 For years, I regarded TV as a cultural wasteland. I had no interest in it. As of late, it’s changed a lot. Episodic TV is rapidly becoming popular. Some stories just can’t be told in two hours. Look at Killing Eve and Big Little Lies. My wife and I do a lot of binge watching in the summer. Right now, we’re doing Stranger Things. It’s great. In May/June, we did all eight seasons of Game of Thrones. It was great too.  The other great thing is when a network cancels a good show like Designated Survivor, it might get picked up by a streaming outlet like Netflix. I’d say TV has come a very long way.

The cheetah and I are flying in to catch you hosting a film festival but we’re a day early and now you are playing tour guide,what are we doing?

 If I was to show you guys around Philadelphia, I’d probably take you to some places where movies were shot. Of course, we’d have to go to Philly’s best cheese steak joint, Jim’s on South Street. After that, who knows? Maybe we’ll catch a movie at one of the Ritz Theaters here in town.

I like to thank George for graciously taking the time to talk film and TV with us today. The cheetah and I seriously recommend following George’s Facebook page for Movie Guy 24/7.  Tell’em that we sent you…..you won’t be sorry and you’ll be very entertained! I should have asked George if Jim’s Steaks delivers……..

While the cheetah and I don’t have 10k fans as of yet,we too have a Facebook page called Have Cheetah,Will View which we hope you’ll drop by and join up…

Thank you all for your support,we have a whole new crop of interviews coming including two of my biggest names yet. Stay tuned…….

8 Questions with…………. film buff George Rother of Movie Guy 24/7 Its 3:31 pm Welcome to a another edition of "8 Questions with....." I'm pretty jazzed up for today's interview with George Rother.

[dweemeister]

Sparrows (1926)

In the silent era, actress Mary Pickford became one of the first female producers in Hollywood. Her influence allowed her to co-found United Artists with Douglas Fairbanks, Charlie Chaplin, and D.W. Griffith, and to become one of the few women charter members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS; an organization that earlier this week invited hundreds of women and non-white figures working in cinema to address diversity concerns). Yet during the peak of her career, audiences had expected “America’s Sweetheart” to be just that – a sweetheart. See, Pickford – even in her young adulthood – had been typecast by her adoring fans as the earnest young child with the curls trying to do the right things for others. The Poor Little Rich Girl (1917) and Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm (1917), among others exemplified that typecasting. And by the mid-1920s, Pickford had grown fatigued of these similar roles. Yet when she asked her fans through Photoplay magazine what would they like to see next from her, their answer was near-unanimous: “give us back our Little Mary!” Pickford obliged.

Enter Sparrows, directed by William Beaudine (and Tom McNamara in the final days of production, but he is uncredited) and also starring Gustav von Seyffertitz, Charlotte Mineau, Roy Stewart, and an endearing bunch of children. This would be one of the last Mary Pickford silent films, the last time Pickford would play a child. With Southern Gothic fiction (derived from literature, this includes twisted plotlines amid nefarious, oftentimes eccentric, and morally flawed characters) influences mixed with German expressionism (derived from silent films, this includes distorted geometries and highly stylized sets displaying intense juxtapositions of lights and darks), Sparrows is one of the finest Mary Pickford vehicles – poorly dated only if the viewer is unaware of the constraining public expectations heaped upon one of the silent era’s most important stars.

Somewhere in the Southern United States, surrounded by an alligator-infested swamp is the farm of Mr. and Mrs. Grimes (von Seyffertitz and Mineau). The Grimes’ farm is a “baby farm”, in which the children – mostly orphans – there are tasked with backbreaking physical labor. Whenever a stranger comes to the Grimes’ farm for business, the children are ordered to hide. The oldest child, Molly (Pickford), is a teenager and acts as a maternal figure to the fellow children. Molly and the others are starved, beaten, berated, manipulated, abused. So, to keep spirits up and to answer the many questions from the children why no one is coming to help them, Molly’s bedtime stories and motivational lines to the children borrow heavily from the Bible – that sound you heard was Cecil B. DeMille shedding a tear or two.

That frustration from the children is sometimes palpable. “A whole month ago you said the Lord would help us get away – what’s He been doing all month,” asks one. After reciting from a verse referring to God – some of these verses seem misplaced in the film – watching over sparrows, another child asks how come sparrows are receiving preferential treatment from God. The use of Christian allegories in Sparrows is a clumsy narrative tactic that only works in one of the film’s most surreal moments. One night after briefly mentioning Jesus’ story to the children, a sleep-deprived Molly must tend to an ailing baby in a barn. As soon as Molly falls asleep, this scene contains a wonderful, dreamy special effect (perhaps double exposure?) where a shepherd – Jesus Christ – takes the baby from Molly’s arms and to whatever lies beyond, where there might be less suffering. The poignancy here, the deliberate timing of this effect, and the realization by Molly – once she awakens to find the baby, not shown within the frame, has passed – that this young one need not suffer anymore is an emotional groundswell that Sparrows never recaptures.

Throughout the course of Sparrows, there is talk – among Mr. and Mrs. Grimes and among the children, separately – of a mass escape. Yet Molly, who could plausibly escape on her own, is duty-bound to her friends, her surrogate family of younger siblings. No harm should come to them. All Molly wants is that the children are spared additional torment beyond what has already characterized too many of their respective childhoods. For some viewers, I imagine this may appear to be silent film hokiness; no reasonable, able-bodied, self-interested person might keep themselves in this situation for so long. But that’s just the appeal of these melodramas that first appeared in the final years of the silent era (melodramas, by their very construction, require longer running times than what a short film could offer) – that the characters involved symbolize an ideal aspired to. That ideal is an affective one, and viewers are perhaps closer to that ideal than they might realize.

It is Mary Pickford, in this final role as a child, that makes this work. At thirty-four years old when Sparrows was first released, this film also marks Pickford’s delicate balance from being a crowd-pleasing waif to a singular girl with her own self-interests, not always wearing a bullish determination on her face. Again, I go back to the scene where Molly sleeps with the dying baby in her hands. Those few seconds looking at the departed baby say everything – surprise, sadness, solace – in just a brief moment. Such a turn needs no words, and has been rarely seen since synchronized sound in movies became the norm.

Meanwhile, Gustav von Seyffertitz and Charlotte Mineau are adequate as Mr. and Mrs. Grimes. From Mr. Grimes’ cartoonish appearance and the couple’s exaggerated bickering, these roles probably should have been played as straight as possible to heighten the dread and drama that I think Beaudine was intending in the final half-hour.

Credit cinematographers Charles Rosher (1927′s Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans, 1946′s The Yearling), Karl Struss (Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans, 1940′s The Great Dictator), and Hal Mohr (1927′s The Jazz Singer, 1935′s Captain Blood), and especially art director Harry Oliver (1925′s Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ, 1937′s The Good Earth) for beautifully shooting and designing a set that never seems stagebound. Hundreds of large trees and several hundred pounds of Spanish moss were ordered and used for the set – built on four acres of Pickford’s United Artists studio. Oliver even aged the wood before using it to build the Grimes’ abode and the children's’ shack, in addition to employing an aluminum powder to simulate a moonlight sparkling effect – cameras in the 1920s could not shoot at night without astronomically expensive lighting. This effort creates a gnarled, swampy forest that serves as the atmospheric backdrop to a climax that looks realistic, even if it is hard to believe the events onscreen.

That climax also included Mary Pickford carrying a baby surrounded by alligators. Beaudine, forgetting to take his common sense with him to the movie set that day, proposed that Pickford carry a real baby with real alligators snapping at her ankles. This plan almost became reality, if it weren’t for the irate intervention of Pickford’s husband at the time, Douglas Fairbanks. So though real alligators were used in some of the shots in Sparrows, Mary Pickford was probably never in any real danger during the climax, if you believe the account of Hal Mohr – most accounts claim that real alligators were attempting to bite Pickford’s legs off.

Actor endangerment or not (and this includes a scene about a perilous tree branch where I’m not convinced those alligators were fake), Sparrows is a good, moody silent film that united elements of German expressionism with Southern Gothicism. In a time when she was expressing her independence through her business transactions at United Artists and the roles she would later play, Mary Pickford is near the pinnacle of her enormous talent here, showing audiences then and today what silent film acting could be.

My rating: 7.5/10

^ Based on my personal imdb rating. Half-points are always rounded down. My interpretation of that ratings system can be found here.

[screamscenepodcast]

Three horror stars in one picture! Your deadicated hosts review VOODOO MAN (1944) from William "One-Shot" Beaudine, starring Bela Lugosi, George Zucco, and John Carradine.

Thrills, chills and meta jokes fill this Monogram picture to the brim.

Context setting 00:00; Synopsis 15:48; Discussion 25:41; Ranking 41:38

[screamscenepodcast]

Bela Lugosi investigates gorilla glands and human spinal fluid in Monogram's 1943 horror THE APE MAN directed by William "One Shot" Beaudine.

While not much to look at, it's a fun flick that had us wondering... Hey, why aren't you in the army?

Context setting 00:00; Synopsis 11:18; Discussion 20:55; Ranking 27:47