Farewell Leatherface

Sorry to hear about the passing of Gunnar Hansen after a bout with cancer.

The original TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE was one of the first things I ever rented on VHS and it immediately became part of the heavy rotation that also included THE EVIL DEAD, BLOODSUCKING FREAKS, THE TOOLBOX MURDERS and RE-ANIMATOR.

Many nights after my pals and I had pulled an all-nighter of trash film viewing we'd head outside to get some much needed fresh air and do "The Leatherface Dance" under the streetlights. RIP.

And, oh yeah, cancer sucks.

THE STABILIZER's Arizal Dead at 71

Plenty of genre icons have left us in recent months but this one will probably not get much digital ink.

Sutradar Arizal – simply credited as Arizal – died at the age of 71. I had no idea who or what an Arizal was until good pal and Cinema Arcana honcho Bruce Holecheck introduced me to the magic and majesty that is THE STABILIZER. An Indonesian action flick starring Brian May lookalike Peter O'Brien, it's such a magnificently enjoyable slice of sinema it's nearly impossible to put it into words (though one of these days I'll try).

Arizal also directed such actioners as AMERICAN HUNTER (another over-the-top winner starring Chris Mitchum), FINAL SCORE (Mitchum again) and DOUBLE CROSSER, not to mention a number of other Indonesian flicks I won't pretend to know anything about.

RIP FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 5 Director Danny Steinmann

It's never fun to comment on somebody's passing and it particularly sucks to have to do so around the holidays. As seems to happen too frequently these days I was scanning through social media yesterday afternoon during a break from work and saw that another veteran of the trash trenches was gone – director Danny Steinmann had passed away at the age of 70.

Steinmann isn't exactly a household name with horror buffs and despite meeting him at Cinema Wasteland a few years ago, up until yesterday I could only tell you one movie he made – 1985's FRIDAY THE 13TH PART V: A NEW BEGINNING.

Longtime ER readers can tell you that I'm a big time FRIDAY THE 13TH series fan and it's probably my favorite of the long-running, multi-installment horror franchises like HALLOWEEN, ELM STREET, HELLRAISER, etc.

But up until a few years ago I always regarded PART V (which Steinmann also wrote) as one of the series' lesser efforts, a bottom-feeder like PART VII: THE NEW BLOOD or PART VIII: JASON TAKES MANHATTAN. That opinion changed back at the aforementioned Cinema Wasteland when we all piled into a screening of the flick attended by Steinmann. (I believe the evening's Q&A was hosted by ULTRA VIOLENT's Art Ettinger but I may be wrong.)

Good pal and TOUGH TO KILL/TOMB IT MAY CONCERN scribe David Zuzelo encouraged me to keep an open mind and forget my decades old biases towards the flick. (SPOILER ALERT: It doesn't have the real Jason in it. Which seems like a stupid bone to pick now but as a follow-up to the genius of PART IV: THE FINAL CHAPTER it was a real sticking point with me back in the 80s.)

Not sure if it was the crowd of like-minded miscreants, Steinmann's insights into the making of the flick, the boobier, bloodier uncut version (which I'd never seen) and/or the liberal application of adult beverages we enjoyed throughout the show, but I left the room with a newfound sense of appreciation for the flick.

Steinmann also directed 1980's THE UNSEEN (with Barbara Bach and an uncredited Stephen Furst as "Junior") and the Linda Blair revengeploitationer SAVAGE STREETS (1984), neither of which I've ever seen but have gone on my 2013 Required Viewing List.

FRIDAY THE 13TH PART V (available in a deluxe edition with commentary by the director is available from Amazon) turned out to be Steinmann's cinematic swan song.

Another Kinski Co-Star Bites the Dust

When I heard the news that Herbert Lom had passed away I was pretty surprised.

Not because I figured Lom, who died earlier today at age 95, was the picture of health or anything like that. It's just that I was almost positive Lom was already dead. In fact, I was pretty sure I'd already posted a tribute to him on this blog. (If I did, my apologies to the Lom estate!)

Lom, of course, is best known for his role as Inspector Clouseau's boss in the PINK PANTHER flicks starring Peter Sellers, the unused footage of Peter Sellers and to a far, far lesser extent Ted Wass. But here at Exploitation Retrospect he'll always have a special place in our heart for his Eurotrash turns as Van Helsing in Jess Franco's EL CONDE DRACULA and as a prison warden in Franco's sweaty women-in-prison flick 99 WOMEN.

Check out the NY Times obit.

Adios Ernie

Sad to hear about the passing of Ernest Borgnine the other day. Not only did I grow up with him thanks to endless re-runs of 'McHale's Navy' on Philly UHF channels but as I got older and dipped my toes into the trashy waters of sinema, there he was as well, in everything from THE WILD BUNCH and DEADLY BLESSING to the amazing THE LAST MATCH and with ER poster-boy Klaus Kinski in Margheriti's CODENAME: WILDGEESE.

More on Lina Romay

The news of Lina Romay's death at the tragically young age of 57 has certainly had an impact on those who appreciate "genre" cinema. Facebook and various blogs/sites have been filled with thoughts, remembrances and reflections from writers, directors, historians, critics and fans alike about the passing of the charismatic charmer. (Just try watching her cabaret dance scene in 1976's JACK THE RIPPER with Klaus Kinski and not end up with a smile on your face.)

I won't pretend that I was a huge fan of Romay or even Jess Franco's. My feelings about Franco's work tend to run hot and cold and I've only seen a small sampling of the man's massive cinematic output, but I always had a soft spot in my heart for him thanks to what appeared to be a genuine appreciation for my boy Klaus. (I'll have to dig around for the great Shock Xpress interview in which he talks about making EL CONDE DRACULA with the German Olivier.)

As for Franco and Romay, theirs appeared to be a unique and inspiring relationship, thriving even after the two had passed their creative peaks. Not only was Romay the director's muse and partner, but also a creative collaborator who led more than one mourner to remark that the two had become like one over the course of their relationship. Frankly, one couldn't watch the footage of Franco receiving his lifetime achievement award a year or so ago without seeing the love, devotion and pride in Romay's eyes.

For a true fan's perspective be sure to check out our good buddy and longtime Franco/Romay buff David Zuzelo's appreciation at his Tomb It May Concern blog.

Lina Romay Passes Away

Never a good sign when you get home and see that several friends are using the same actress' face for their profile picture.

News coming out of Spain is that Lina Romay – Eurotrash star and the muse of Jess Franco – lost her battle with cancer back on February 15th. 

Romay was a fixture in Franco's flicks, appearing in everything from THE SINISTER EYES OF DR. ORLOFF and WANDA THE WICKED WARDEN to BARBED WIRE DOLLS and more recent efforts like SNAKEWOMAN and PAULA PAULA.

Kinski fans will probably best remember her as Marika, the comely cabaret dancer in Franco's JACK THE RIPPER.

Thanks Steve!

ER co-founder Lou "The Gonster" Goncey and I hard at work on ER #2 in front on my Mac. And a pair of Pee-wee Herman Giant Underpants. (Photo by Nancy Rokos from a Burlington County Times article, October 1986.)

I'd be remiss if I didn't take a moment to acknowledge the passing of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs.

Were it not for Jobs and the Apple Macintosh I'm not 100% sure you'd be reading this blog.

In the summer of 1984 I was getting ready to start my freshman year at Drexel University in Philadelphia. It wasn't where I wanted to go to college but my parents hadn't given me much choice. On top of that they were making me commute from our home in New Jersey and the school was making me buy some stupid computer.

We had a computer at our house, I reasoned. A big, boxy PC thing that took floppy disks the size of 45 RPM singles, made a colossal amount of noise, displayed green type on a black screen, and couldn't compete with my Atari 2600 as far as gaming was concerned.

Why did I need another computer?

Actually, I believe my exact words – as I pulled the computer from its box – were, "What the f#*k am I supposed to do with this thing?"

It would take a few years before I really figured out what I was supposed to do, but it's safe to say that the discovery that I could take that thing – which had been "upgraded" to 512K with an external floppy drive – and make publications was pretty eye-opening.

Pretty soon my friends and I were writing, editing and publishing our own drive-in movie newsletter, getting written up in local papers, major dailies and national magazines, receiving movies and mail from all over the world... and just starting to see the potential held in that little box sitting on my desk in the photo above.

Publishing a zine led to a job in an ad agency which led to freelancing which led to creating catalogs which led to designing web sites which led to starting my own company which led to starting another company and, well, you get the idea.

For the last ten years my "office" has been wherever I set up shop and since 2007 I've been able to be home every day to help raise my daughter while I juggled everything from design and writing to on-line retailing.

All in front of a Mac.

Maybe if Jobs and the Mac hadn't come along somebody else would have invented something that made dreams and aspirations I didn't even know I had a reality. Perhaps. But for the ways he affected my life and the world around us, all I can say is, "Thanks Steve".

Barry's Bond Legacy

I've gone through a ton of various phases in my lifetime – tennis nut, conspiracy buff, thrift store addict, hopeless Atari collector, PLANET OF THE APES-phile, you get the picture – but I'd venture that the World of James Bond was one of, if not the first, that I really immersed myself in.

My brother-in-law had original paperbacks of all the Fleming Bond books and as soon as I could appreciate them he started letting me borrow them so I could read the series in order. This was also around the time of the release of THE SPY WHO LOVED ME, arguably Roger Moore's finest moment as 007, and I remember trekking up the street to the local theater to see it a handful of times during the summer of 1977. Couple that with ABC's frequent airings of the earlier Connery classics and I was totally hooked on Bond.

It didn't hurt that my older brothers had already been through this phase, so our garage was littered with vintage Bond board games and not one, but two of the gadget-packed attache cases that sell for hundreds of dollars on eBay. My friends and I played with them till the cases fell apart and the guns, rubber bullets, soft plastic knives, cap bombs and booby-trapped notebooks broke or were buried in my backyard. Only a couple decoders survived my childhood.

So it was sad to hear the news that legendary soundtrack composer/conductor John Barry passed away earlier this week. Though his legendary career truly runs the gamut (the man did the score for the amazing STAR CRASH for god's sake!) I think most folks will remember him as the man behind the music of Bond. And rightly so... the oft-imitated, never duplicated 007 theme has become a cinematic music icon, copied, ripped-off and parodied to the limit.

Luckily, one small piece of my Bond collection that has survived eight moves is my cache of Bond-related LPs. While I think I only own one or two original soundtracks (including the LP for the underated ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE featuring the great "All the Time in the World" written by Barry and sung by Louis Armstrong) I've never been able to pass up an album of tracks "inspired by" the soundtrack contributions of Barry and Co.

In Barry's memory, here's a sampling of tunes that will forever cement his legacy as the Man Behind the Bond Theme. (You can right-click and download any of the MP3s to your computer for listening at your leisure or click and play them now.)

Once United Artists realized they had a hit on their hands with the James Bond film franchise there was no stopping the spin-off machine. In fact, the explosion of 007 merchandise in the wake of GOLDFINGER's release is simply amazing to behold.

One of the many offshoots was the 007 album, in this case an authorized United Artists release featuring songs from the first three flicks as well as "interpretations of the Bond scene" by artists like Sir Julian, The Leasebreakers, Dick Ruedebusch and others.

This particular selection – entitled 'Golden Girl' – comes courtesy of LeRoy Holmes who left MGM for United Artists in the 1960s. He became a staple of their movie-oriented LPs and has several tracks on this slab. I'm not sure what mood LeRoy was trying to evoke here, but 'Golden Girl' is more "bawdy strip club" than "action-packed spy affair". It also flirts with the revved up music that accompanied the late-1960s 'Spider-Man' animated series that warped my fragile little mind.

United Artists must have been in a hurry to get this one out as nobody noticed the back cover blooper that suggests taking a tip from 007 and settling back with a "tasty martini, gently stirred and not shaken."

The success of GOLDFINGER inspired many other record companies to get in on the action, including RCA whose "GOLDFINGER AND OTHER MUSIC FROM JAMES BOND THRILLERS" features naturalized British subject Ray Martin and his Orchestra interpreting 007 soundtrack standards such as the super-spy's theme as well as title tunes from GOLDFINGER and FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE.

The back cover of this particular classic features some fine LP copy from one Mort Goode...

James Bond is the inspired 007: Sir Hocus-Pocus; Lord Hokkum; Duke of Deviltry; a combination of the Royal Marines, the FBI, the Rangers and Houdini; a name that makes Casanova sound like a Brazilian supper club. He scales super-heights in the erasure of inhuman Bondage and sparks romantic ideas for the timid, the tiresome and others who can't even entertain an option.

Wow! Keep that in mind as you enjoy the cut 'Girl Trouble' from the magnificent FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE.

Here's a couple choice cuts from the Springboard Records release: "Music from THE SPY WHO LOVED ME & Other Great JAMES BOND THRILLERS As Performed by the Film Festival Orchestra". I've had this album since I first snagged it in a grocery store back in the late-70s and it was probably the first piece in my Sounds of Bond collection, as well as the first of many Springboard records and tapes I would own (and sell or trade) over the years.

Looking at the cover now I wonder how I was expected to resist it – curvy babes, cars, helicopters, explosions and sharks! Even at 10 I knew this was super cool and that I was helpless against the power of cheesy ads.

Enjoy two tracks from this great release: the theme from ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE (arguably my favorite 007 flick) and Barry's historic "James Bond Theme" from DR. NO.

The "Sleepwalk" Guitars of Dan and Dale may be – along with Chubby Checker – one of the few accurate names in the history of recorded music. Never has surf guitar inspired so many naps on my part. Check out this surf- and western-influenced take on the theme from GOLDFINGER.

I love these split LPs with seemingly-disparate movies like GOLDFINGER and ZORBA THE GREEK getting the knock-off soundtrack treatment. Another favorite in my collection features FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE coupled with Henry Mancini's iconic score for THE PINK PANTHER. It might not make sense for everybody, but Bond and the Panther were probably the first two cinematic tunes I ever identified with and that LP feels like it was made just for me.

Last but not least, the world of Bond has inspired plenty of gentle and not-so-gentle parodies over the years. Matzoh jokes and politically incorrect schtick are the trademarks of the borscht belt 007 spoof, JAMES BLONDE: THE MAN FROM TANTE. In this sequence, Blonde confronts matzoh maker and master criminal Goldflaker on the set of his latest commercial, gently tweaking both Bond and Barry's tunes along the way.

Farewell Jean and Blake

Why does it always seem like the end of the year brings a spate of passings? Yesterday we had conflicting "is he or isn't he dead?" reports about Eurotrash filmmaker Jean Rollin (he is, apparently) while today brought news that Blake Edwards is gone.

Despite being a huge Eurotrash fan, I am a definite neophyte when it comes to Rollin's work. I can honestly say that the only one of his films I know for a fact I've sat through is ZOMBIE LAKE. And I always thought it was a Jess Franco flick. Hell, even after seeing it I think it's a Jess Franco flick.

Ironically, the latest update to the ER website features a handful of Jean Rollin reviews from the pen of Louis Fowler (including FASCINATION and REQUIEM FOR A VAMPIRE), though not everybody on our crack staff feels as fondly about the man.

I'll always have a soft spot in my heart for the man, though. After our daughter was born in June 2007, the first film my wife and I sat down and watched with her was the aforementioned ZOMBIE LAKE. That's me holding her next to the on-screen menu to commemorate the event. Hey, what can I say – she was a week old and we took pictures of her doing everything!

The passing of Blake Edwards definitely means a lot more in our house, though. I was a HUGE fan of his Pink Panther flicks as a kid and they provided me with hours and hours of laughs both in the theater and via countless viewings on TV. I also remember all the controversy and outrage that accompanied the release of his flick SOB and the earth-shattering news that Maria from THE SOUND OF MUSIC was going to show her boobs.

In other manly endeavors, Edwards wrote and directed 10 and created PETER GUNN and MR. LUCKY. Nice.

For my wife, though, this is the man who made OPERATION PETTICOAT (a perennial fave whenever it shows up on TCM) and THE GREAT RACE, not to mention BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S and probably a few other classics I missed while I was watching RE-ANIMATOR for the 27th time.

RIP Tony Curtis

Farewell, Tony Curtis. Though I'll always remember you for your performances in HOUDINI and SPARTACUS, I'll never forget/forgive you for driving me from a room during OTHELLO, THE BLACK COMMANDO.

Bonus points for not being able to star in REVENGE OF THE STOLEN STARS due to whatever was "ailing" you at the time. After an unsuccessful bid to have Ernest Borgnine play the part, director Uli Lommel turned to his idol – irascible Eurotrash star Klaus Kinski – and cast him without benefit of a script rewrite as Barry Hickey's ghostly uncle.

A Couple Klaus Shout-Outs on a Saturday Morning

Gotta love the internet. While looking for some info on what BAD MOON star Michael Pare is up to these days (working with Uwe Boll, apparently!) I stumbled across a few Klaus Kinski shout-outs. One was something I'd been meaning to mention for a few weeks and the other is just one of those silly "Top 10" lists but I never pass up the opportunity to give Klaus some props.

First up, 70s starlet Vonetta McGee passed away in early July at the age of 65. Though best known for her roles in such 70s fare as BLACULA, HAMMER, THE EIGER SANCTION and SHAFT IN AFRICA, Eurotrash and Spaghetti Western fans will always remember her as Pauline in Sergio Corbucci's amazing THE GREAT SILENCE starring Kinski as a vicious bounty hunter. The flick is a Top 10 Eurotrasher in my book, features one of Klaus' all-time best performances, and would likely top my list of Favorite Spaghetti Westerns.

Do yourself a favor. If you've never seen the film get your hands on it.

Next up, the site We Are Movie Geeks posted one of their Top 10 lists and Kinski gets a small, but deserving, plug in their list of Top 10 Evil Henchmen. The character of vampire flunky Renfield makes the list and the writer gives a shout out to Klaus for his remarkable interpretation of the character in Jess Franco's EL CONDE DRACULA. Though the flick didn't quite hold up for me when I caught it on DVD a couple years ago, Kinski's wordless, impassioned performance is well worth checking out.

(ER receives a small referral fee for purchases made through our Amazon links. Thanks for your support.)

Farewell Joe Sarno

Tim Lucas is reporting at the Video Watchdog blog that sexploitation legend Joe Sarno passed away at age 89 after a short illness. I know Sarno directed Christina Lindberg in YOUNG PLAYTHINGS and helmed some of the INSIDE flicks (including INSIDE SEKA) under a pseudonym, but for me he'll always be the man that warped my fragile little mind when his LAURA'S TOYS showed up on Prism, our local premium movie channel when I was an impressionable teen. Yowza! Thanks Joe.

You can check out reviews of some of Joe's flicks at the ER web site, including...
MOONLIGHTING WIVES
DADDY, DARLING
SUBURBAN SECRETS

Chas. Balun RIP

Sad to read over at Fangoria that Chas. Balun lost his battle with cancer the week before Christmas. To a horror zine publisher in the 80s like me, Balun was the closest thing we had to a rock star. I still remember, in those pre-internet days, haunting my local comic and book stores to find a copy of DEEP RED HORROR HANDBOOK.

RIP Paul Naschy

I always hate when I log on to Twitter or Facebook and get smacked in the face by sad news. Especially when you know the news was inevitable even if you wish it wasn't.

This morning's cold dishrag of reality came via the news that Spanish horror icon Paul Naschy (aka Jacinto Molina) had died at the age of 75. (Here's a link to a Spanish-language report of his death.)

Naschy, who starred in some of the most entertaining and original horror films I've ever seen, was instrumental in the rise of the Spanish horror film and a standout force in Eurotrash cinema, both in front of and behind the camera. A prolific writer, director and star, Naschy is probably best known for his frequent appearances as the cursed werewolf Waldemar Daninsky, but is also appreciated by this fan for roles like Alaric de Marnac in HORROR RISES FROM THE TOMB and Gotho in the amazing HUNCHBACK OF THE MORGUE (whose DVD release was recently pushed by Mya from late November to January).

Do yourself a favor and discover some of Naschy's lengthy and entertaining filmography for yourself. No Eurotrash actor other than Klaus Kinski has brought me as much cinematic joy as Senor Naschy and that is high praise, indeed.

Check out our reviews of:
PANIC BEATS
NIGHT OF THE HOWLING BEAST
WEREWOLF SHADOW
HORROR RISES FROM THE TOMB
NIGHT OF THE WEREWOLF
HUMAN BEASTS
EXORCISM
THE HANGING WOMAN
BLUE EYES OF THE BROKEN DOLL
HUNCHBACK OF THE MORGUE

Farewell to a THG Contributor & Influential Zinester

A week or so ago I heard some sad news and hoped it wasn't true. Unfortunately, it was. Frequent THG contributor and influential zine creator and writer Bill Landis passed away in December.

Bill's gritty Times Square trash film and street-level sociology zine Sleazoid Express was hugely influential on a number of the junk cinema zines that appeared in the 1980s as horror and sleaze cinema had its last gasp in the theaters and exploded on VHS. It would be years before I got my hands on copies of those original cut and pasted, photocopied zines and for a long time I was only familiar with Landis and his zine through articles he occasionally wrote for the pages of Film Comment.

By the time I started Exploitation Retrospect in 1986 Landis was gone from the scene but I finally had the chance to get to know him a little when I interviewed him and Michelle Clifford, co-author of the Sleazoid Express book and his partner in reviving the zine back in the late 1990s when we needed it more than ever.

After the interview Landis, Clifford and I exchanged e-mails on occasion and the pair wrote a great piece entitled 'Eating Out the Deuce: Remembrances of Meals Past' for the pages of THG, one of the most popular pieces to appear in the print edition or on-line. Landis and I continued to chat via e-mail over the years, discussing everything from articles he'd written for the pages of Carbon 14 to topics I was exploring for freelance pieces.

The world of sleaze cinema and junk culture will miss his insights and observations into a world most will never know.

Recent Deaths

I was a bit disappointed to see that the death of beloved and influential horror/sci-fi/publishing icon Forrest Ackerman merited a whopping 18 words in the latest issue of Entertainment Weekly. That's too bad, since Forry (as he was known to many) helped popularize the horror and monster genres, teaming with publisher Jim Warren to produce the popular and influential Famous Monsters of Filmland, which influenced such genre trend-setters as Steve Spielberg, Joe Dante and Stephen King to name a few.

FM's heyday was a bit before my time and by the age I was diving into horror and monster magazines grittier stuff like Fangoria had come along. I was far more interested in the latest slasher flicks and gory gut-munchers from Italy than the quaint, pun-packed coverage Forry's mag provided.

I did encounter the man once, though, riding in a hotel elevator with him after some pals and I had downed a largely liquid dinner during a horror convention not far from where I now live. We drunkenly chatted with him and I think I may have even tried to give him a poster we'd removed from a newspaper box. I can't remember if he took it or not but he smiled graciously as he probably wondered if this was what horror fans had come to.

Jim Warren, the aforementioned Famous Monsters publisher, first tried to take on the growing Playboy empire with a cheesecake T&A mag called After Hours, which featured photos of such future stars as Tina Louise (GILLIGAN'S ISLAND) and pin-up queen Bettie Page.

Page, who disappeared from the limelight after discovering religion and only surfaced in recent years, died this week as well. She had been hospitalized recently and suffered a heart attack while suffering from pneumonia.

I wasn't a huge Page fan by any stretch – there was something itchy skitchy about the fact she was basically the same age as my mom – but I found her story fascinating and it's hard to argue her status as one of the most influential of all pop culture icons, without even trying. Page was the queen of the photo mag pin-ups, disappeared, was celebrated by artists and illustrators who probably remember seeing her pics in skin mags stuffed in their dad's underwear drawer, was the subject of zines and books, finally re-emerged, capitalized (and rightly so) on some of the popularity of her image, and then slowly faded back out of the limelight.

You can check out reviews of the fictional BETTIE PAGE: DARK ANGEL as well as the compilations THE BETTIE PAGE COLLECTION and IRVING KLAW CLASSICS: VOL 1-4 over at the ER site. And be sure to read Bryan White's euology over at Cinema Suicide.

As if the passing of Page and Ackerman wasn't enough, I was surprised to learn that Manhattan socialite Sunny Von Bulow was still alive. Okay, well, I only learned she was still alive because of news of her death, but you get the idea.

When I was living with my pal Rik back in the early 90s we were obsessed with a few things, namely bowling, SAVED BY THE BELL reruns and the movie REVERSAL OF FORTUNE. If I were to sit down and really think about the films that I have seen all or part of the most times, REVERSAL would easily crack the Top 10 and might even battle the likes of RE-ANIMATOR, PSYCHO, THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, DAWN OF THE DEAD, ABBOTT & COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN and BLOODSUCKING FREAKS for inclusion in the Top 5. The flick was constantly on cable at the time and it wasn't strange for a quiet weekend morning or late night of working on the print version of ER to be punctuated by shouts of "It's ON!!!" coming from the living room.

Highlighted by Jeremery Irons' brilliant, chilling portray of maybe-he-did-it-maybe-he-didn't villain Claus Von Bulow (he won the Best Actor Oscar for the role and rightly so), the flick is more than just a one-man-show. Ron Silver is great as Alan Dershowitz and the flick features a solid supporting cast featuring Annabella Sciorra, Felicity Huffman, Fisher Stevens and more. Director Barbet Schroeder – who had just done BARFLY and would follow this with SINGLE WHITE FEMALE – and screenwriter Nicholas Kazan deliver a beautifully paced and intriguing look at the case from several angles, never indicting Claus but never absolving him of blame, either.

It's one of those rare films that no matter how familiar I am with every twist, turn and nuance I could watch any day, any time.

Last but not least, Hollywood lost actor and – according to my wife – "movie star" Van Johnson yesterday. Like Sunny Von Bulow I'd have lost had you bet me whether Johnson was alive or dead. His impressive career stretched from the 40s to the early 90s and included everything from big Hollywood productions and TV shows to Eurotrash and a Woody Allen flick. But I'll remember him best as The Minstrel, a nefarious member of Batman's Rogues Gallery from the beloved 1960s TV show.

RIP Robert Hazard

So this sorta makes me feel old.

Robert Hazard, Philly songwriter and one-time contestant for the title of "the next David Bowie", is dead at the age of 59 after a bout with pancreatic cancer. For those of you too young to remember or not from the Delaware Valley, Hazard put out one great self-released EP (featuring the tracks "Escalator of Life" and "Change Reaction"), got signed to RCA Records, never really broke through, and wrote "Girls Just Want to Have Fun".

Check out the video for "Escalator"...



My only real encounter with Hazard came years ago while staying in Cape May, NJ. Hazard was running an antique/collectibles store there. It was one of those awkward moments where the once-sorta-famous guy knows you're the right age to know who he is and you know he knows so you spend the whole time you're in the store not making eye contact so you don't have to say, "Hey, weren't you Robert Hazard?".

Kinski Co-Star Pinkas Braun Dies

Just heard from Holger over at Hammer and Beyond that actor Pinkas Braun has died at the age of 85. Though Braun's name might not be instantly recognizable, fans of Eurotrash films (especially Edgar Wallace krimis) will recognize his face from such films as THE DOOR WITH SEVEN LOCKS, MARK OF THE TORTOISE and THE SECRET OF THE RED ORCHID, all of which also featured Kinski as well as Eurospy outings (NEW YORK CALLING SUPERDRAGON), spaghetti westerns (CLINT, THE NEVADA'S LONER) and the star-studded Sidney Sheldon adaptation BLOODLINE.

Stan Winston RIP

Stan Winston was probably involved with more movies I've watched than anybody in cinema history, except perhaps Klaus Kinski (including the recently reviewed MONSTER SQUAD).

Sadly, news comes that Winston died last night. Everybody will mention his Oscar-winning effects work on JURASSIC PARK, TERMINATOR 2 and ALIENS but let's not forget about the trashier entries on his resume including FRIDAY THE 13TH: PART III, THE THING, DEAD & BURIED, THE HAND, THE EXTERMINATOR, DRACULA'S DOG, MANSION OF THE DOOMED, GET CHRISTIE LOVE!, GARGOYLES, MANIMAL, LEVIATHAN, PUMPKINHEAD, PARASITE and the legendary STAR WARS HOLIDAY SPECIAL.

Hats off to Stan.