The French Connection (1971)

Why are some films considered classics and others are not? Obviously it is all the elements of the film combining together to take the ordinary and push it beyond expectations into extraordinary filmmaking. One or two elements alone are generally not enough to help a film become a transcendent work of art as opposed to merely commercial fare. Lush cinematography but lousy acting, or a great script but inept mise-en-scene will rarely raise a film into the pantheon of all time best movies ever. And perhaps there aren't that many films which do achieve overall greatness in the scheme of things. The AFI Top 100 is a good launching pad even if it does leave off some and include others which might not be appropriate.



In the realm of the classic crime film, though, The French Connection (#70 on the AFI list) is considered to be near the top of the game. Popeye Doyle (Gene Hackman) is a tough, rules breaking narcotics officer who's playing a hunch that a major shipment of herion is about to hit the streets of New York City. Along with his partner, Cloudy Russo (Roy Scheider), they begin following a small time hood (Tony Lo Bianco) on a twisting, dangerous path towards a French drug kingpin (Fernando Rey).



While the story is fairly standard, it is the embellishments to that make it great. In the beginning, Popeye chases an informant through the streets dressed as Santa Claus. Hackman and Scheider throw themselves into this sequence with an energy that appears near lung busting as they pump down the streets after their quarry. Another chase later on is classic surveillance footwork, with one man on one side of the street who passes off to another coming another way while someone else is waiting further down the line. Even this is played with when Popeye follows Frog One/The Frenchman onto the subway and they cat and mouse each other back and forth onto the subway car. The highlight, for many, is the full out car chasing a subway sequence. The driving is great, but it is the pulse pounding editing which really ramps this up.



All the action doesn't mean a thing without the character bits, the banter, and the sense of mind numbing police procedural details. The New York winter is as much an adversary to the cops as the drug dealers. During one of the stakeouts, Popeye gets stuck in a doorway, freezing his ass off, while the Frenchman luxuriously takes his time dining in a fine restaurant. Several times the Popeye and Cloudy get stuck in a car waiting for something to happen. If you've ever spent time in a car during the winter with it turned off, you know just how cold and miserable that can be. And while they're stuck waiting, they talk It seems simple, but this is what makes the film more immediate in its realism. This isn't Dragnet with Joe Friday working his Technicolor detail and never getting his hands dirty. The French Connection tries, and succeeds, at showing how crime is really fought.



William Friedkin's background as a documentary filmmaker is partially the reason the realism works. His use of extended takes and hand held camera work breaks down Hollywood's expectations of standard storytelling up to that point. The influence of this movie on police films and TV is not to be underestimated. In fact, the success of this film led to three other variations: The French Connection 2 (where Popeye goes to Europe and gets hooked on herion), The Seven-Ups (which features Roy Scheider in a role not unlike Cloudy), and the TV movie Popeye Doyle (starring Ed "Married With Children" O'Neill as the titular character). In many ways, though, this film and Friedkin's next, The Exorcist, would be the pinnacle of his career.



Perhaps it is also the time period which is the final influence on the greatness of this film. The 1970's were a time of risk taking and envelope pushing. Friedkin was one of the leaders of the movement, along with Penn, Altman, Coppola, Ashby, Scorsese, amongst others. The grittiness was a reaction to white washed Hollywood standards which began to erode in the 1960's. The establishment of a ratings system helped films like to be made even as they eventually began to censor them. There isn't anything that controversial by our standards today in The French Connection (and its hard to say if there was even then), but there is more freedom for the coarse language and violence which is there.

Deathwatch (2002)

A pro-war film, on a basic level, is still a treatise against war because someone always suffers. Even with the remote control wars we see waged on TV in our living rooms, the smart bombs which are supposed to extract the ones we don't particularly like still kill and/or wound people. WWI is often cited as one of the most brutally horrific wars man has engaged in. Of course the reason for this is that we had yet to write the rules by which modern day warfare would be waged. Sadly, we are those rules are still being written. While there have been quite a few films which have showcased the grimness of that time period, and while the horror film genre owes a bloody debt to that international conflict, there have been precious few horror movies set within that timeframe, if any.



- HBO's late lamented Carnivale utilized WWI in flashbacks to show the origin of a few characters, but it was never the main action.

- Edgar Ulmer's The Black Cat trods upon the bones of WWI as a backstory for the dark rites of the Satanist Poelzig (Boris Karloff), but never visits there.

- Gods and Monsters acknowledges the mental anguish which helped stimulate the nightmares of writers and filmmakers, but again on in a passing memory.

- The comic book which reads like a lost Universal Monster classic, The Black Forest, truly embraces the time period as being a fertile breeding ground for the WWI experience being a time of monsters both real and imagined.


Otherwise there really doesn't seem to be any examples of horror movies (cheating with the comic book, of course) set in the WWI theater.


That is until the recent UK/Czech co-production, Deathwatch (2002) which tries to fill the hole. Charlie Shakespeare is a sixteen year old British Private who finds himself terrified of trench warfare. After a disastrous battle, he and his squad find themselves wandering behind enemy lines. As luck would have it, they find an almost completely deserted set of German trenches which they commandeer. Taking a German soldier prisoner, they decide to wait for reinforcements despite the fact they have no contact with HQ. Overrun with viscous mud and hungry rats, there's more in the trench than meets the eye: either psychological breakdown from battle fatigue or a psychic force meting out retribution.


While low on gore and special effects, the film never looks cheap. A sprawling set was dug for the trench and the cinematography keeps things well framed and nicely lit. Add on an effective cast of actors including Jamie Bell (King Kong, Billy Elliot), Andy Serkis (Gollum from LOTR, King Kong), and the usual suspect working class British actors and there is enough weariness and short fused paranoia to spare. Doubtful they had much military training, but the gauntness and wild eyes and short fuses all add up to believability.


The ambitions of the film to imbue a supernatural overtone while suggesting simple madness is lofty and bit beyond the first time director, Michael J. Bassett. The task of marshalling an ensemble cast results in confusion for the viewer in terms of who is who and what exactly are they doing. Also, a more forceful hand might have lent greater unease as concerns the mystical forces at work as it does come off a bit too matter of fact. The deleted scenes show that the director may have had some of ambiguity imposed upon him, but it does weaken the film nevertheless. If you had to tag line the general feeling, though, I would rank it as a cross between John Carpenter's The Thing for paranoia/madness amongst the ranks and Michael Mann's The Keep for mixing war with unknown horrors. This isn't to say this is a great film, but definitely serviceable.

Halloween 2006: Volume Three and more!!!

Had a great time tonight at Doc Gangrene's birthday bash with good friends, food and undead music! The heated volleyball match was scary. Tried a pumpkin brew of John's which was yummy. Thank you again, sir.

So, this was round one of handing out the Halloween comps. If you didn't get one and would like one, we're going to be doing a round two so get your request in now.

Here's the cover and contents for Volume Three. Personally, this is probably my favorite with the range stretching from early Kate Bush (Anastasia's current passion) to the sad fate of poor Frederick in The Tiger Lillies cabaret song to the skeletal ska rhythms of The Specials. Again, enjoy!

PS: My dad wrote the last song on this CD back in the 1960's around the same time he had a top ten hit with "Day for Decision". I like this one better.



1. Kate Bush – Hammer Horror
2. Les Paul – Bewitched
3. Les Baxter – Terror
4. Combustible Edison – Carnival of Souls
5. Band of Bees – These Are the Ghosts
6. Swamp Zombies – Unemployed
7. Ike & Tina Turner – Mojo Queen
8. Roger & The Gypsies – Pass the Hatchet
9. Screamin’ Jay Hawkins – Little Demon
10. Gene Vincent – Race With the Devil
11. LaVern Baker – Voodoo Voodoo
12. Jackie Morningstar – Rockin’ In the Graveyard
13. Blind Lemon Jefferson – See That My Grave Is Kept Clean
14. The Tiger Lillies – The Story of Cruel Frederick
15. Hank Thompson – Drivin’ Nails In My Coffin
16. Half Japanese – Kiss Of the Vampire
17. Steady Earnest – Vampires
18. The Ventures – Fear
19. Talking Heads – Psycho Killer
20. The Clash – The City Of the Dead
21. The Specials – Ghost Town
22. The Residents – The Electrocutioner
23. Marc Ribot – Witches And Devils
24. Jimmy Rodgers – The Bell Witch

Five Minutes to Live (1961)

A.K.A. Door-To-Door Maniac

“People here live the kind of lives magazine ads talk about.” – Fred Dorella

The saying goes that actors want to be rock stars and rock stars want to be actors. Elvis Presley tried to emulate James Dean in his acting, but he never had the intensity like his fellow Sun Records label-mate Johnny Cash did in this, his noirish film debut. Cash is Johnny Cabot, a murderous hood hiding out in sunny Carmella Gardens after machine gunning down a cop in New Jersey. He hooks up with Fred Dorella (Vic Tayback) for a bank heist with a twist. The scheme involves Johnny holding the bank vice-president’s wife at gun point in her home while Fred goes to the bank and extorts the moolah. Everything would be perfect except that banker Ken Wilson (Donald West) is not in love with his wife, Helen (Cay Forester), anymore and plans to run away to Vegas with his mistress that night.



The film works because of Cash’s performance. His dark eyes and leering mouth make him the perfect anti-Elvis. He oozes menace with a wound-up nervous energy that crackles when he waves his hands about, caresses his guitar, or points his muffled gun. Lines are snapped with a laid back Southern drawl which purrs evil intent. When Cash first approaches Ms. Wilson, he pretends he’s a simple salesman, trying to catch flies with honey and $10 bills. But then he’s up behind her, menacing her with his gun, undressing her with his speed freak eyes. The implication of rape even comes up. This is one bad man in a suit. No black here, that would be too simple. A checkered suit for a checkered past. We even get some guitar picking and a couple of snarled songs to amp up the coming violence.

Vic Tayback is great as the partner in crime, but his haircut cries out male pattern baldness. Merle Travis, the country music genius, plays the owner of the bowling alley where the two criminals meet up and he’s pretty slick at being a low-life sycophant. The real shock is young Ronnie Howard as the precocious son of the Wilson’s who has a very dramatic moment near the end of the film.

The ending is probably the biggest let down because it doesn’t know when to stop. The script was written by Cay Forester, who also stars, and you can tell she just wanted to have more screen time than was necessary. However, the general trajectory of the story works and there is enough of a mix of humor and menace to keep the film humming along.

The version I watched on DVD was very dupey. Chandra said it felt as though you were watching a movie underwater. But it is watchable and very entertaining. I have wanted to see this film for a few years now and my anticipation did nothing to lessen the impact of finally seeing it. Well worth your time!

Broken Flowers

Part of the intrigue of a Jim Jarmusch film is the space he allows to fall between words and action. The moments of waiting for a reaction stretch on and on in an imitation of reality as opposed to constant forward momentum of typical Hollywood fare. Broken Flowers, the newest film from Jarmusch, stars Bill Murray as Don Johnston, an aging Don Juan, in search of the woman who has anonymously informed him twenty years down the line that he has a son. Murray is more understated in this performance than he has ever been. There is no mugging for the camera, no nervous energy, no puppy dog eye rolls; just stillness and slight reactions. In fact Murray could challenge Buster Keaton for the title of “Stone Face” with his turn here.

The energy of the film is derived from the women in Don Johnston’s life, the ex-lovers: Sharon Stone (widowed white trash mom), Frances Conroy (repressed hippie real estate agent), Jessica Lange (ex-lawyer turned animal communicator), and Tilda Swinton (biker chick). In fact, two of the supporting actress roles are perhaps even more memorable. Chloe Svenigy as Lange’s overprotective assistant is territorial in her rebuking of Johnston’s intrusion. The other is Alexis Dziena as the exhibitionist daughter Lolita who smolders in that peculiar naïf way that Humbert Humbert knew so well.

Also in a superb turn is Jeffrey Wright (Angels in America) as a spleef-smoking, amateur sleuth (Winston), who Mapquests the journey for Johnston and provides an excellent mix disc for him to listen to in the car. That’s one thing about Jarmusch; his taste in music is excellent. Starting with Screamin’ Jay Hawkins’ “I Put a Spell on You” in Stranger Than Paradise, to the Tom Waits’ score in Night on Earth, to the jazzy tunes in Broken Flowers, he picks evocative tunes. Surprisingly there isn’t any great musician turned actor performances this time out. Mystery Train contains two such turns with Screamin’ Jay as the desk clerk and Joe Strummer.

All in all, I find Broken Flowers to be a better film than the last couple by Jarmusch. Coffee and Cigarettes was fun, but slight, as any cobbled together series of shorts made over a twenty year period would be. The best bit was probably Iggy Pop and Tom Waits hanging out together. Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai was interesting, but lacked a sense of “realness” that his other films possess. Even when the ghost of Elvis shows up in Mystery Train its OK because everything else is so grounded in probability (Japanese tourists; widows transporting coffins; drunken late night shootings) that the impossibility gains weight. With Ghost Dog the “realness” of Mafioso types and an avenging African-American samurai becomes too fantastic. I can relate to the reality of playing cards, losing money at the track, and listening to the same song over and over again like in Stranger Than Paradise, but I can’t relate to killing someone. Maiming, yes. But not killing.

Avante Garde Mix Tape

Before the advent of CD-R mixes and Ipod, there was a great subculture known as the mix tape. I used to pride myself on the ones I would make, laboriously slaving till the wee hours of the morn. One of the earliest influences on me for the mix tape was this cool comic trade paperback called Mad Peck Studios: A Twenty Year Retrospective by the Mad Peck. A huge section of the book detailed the musical obsessions of two female superheroes, The Masked Marvel and I. C. Lotz. Basically The Mad Peck used his two heroines to write record reviews which were published in Fusion, Creem, The Village Voice, and later, Spin. What made the book really cool were all the detailed mix tapes that they had published along various themes, with song title, artist, label and running time so you could create a perfect mix tape as well. It was a mixtape manifesto. Recently one of the members of Sonic Youth published a book about mix tapes, but it was more from the perspective of designing their look.

So, with my CD player currently on the fritz in the car, I grabbed a few moldy tapes out of a box to listen to yesterday. Strangely, I can carbon date many of my tapes by what brand they are. Blue Kmart tapes are the earliest that I used to buy and were used to tape Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, the Star Wars radio dramatization, and this cool Beatles radio documentary where they played every song off every album with some sort of commentary or associated audio clip. Denon tapes date back to when I worked at Cat’s Records and we had a promo on them. Black Maxell tapes date to the late 80’s and early 90’s when I worked at Tower Records and was getting mucho swag from the Maxell rep. And clear Maxell tapes date from the mid-late 90’s to the early 21st Century. The first tape I grabbed was an old Denon. Sadly, it’s life expectancy had come to an end. The wheels on the tape went round and round but the tape didn’t.

OK, tape number two (a black Maxell) was slammed in. Most of my tapes were pretty normal, a compilation of whatever I was into at the moment. A great example was when I had bought a bunch of really cheap 45’s at Phonolux, so I just comp’d them all together into one big scratchy collection. Generally there were musical smash-ups of two genres which wouldn’t normally go together but which always kept my ear interested. And there were the straight theme tapes like the Balvenie Surf Mix tape which I made one night while drinking single malts. But this tape was different. This one stands apart from everything else I ever did and I had completely forgotten about it.

The tape starts off with Screamin’ Jay Hawkins off the Feast of the Mau Mau album. But not a whole song. No, instead I took grunts, groans, and screams and the occasional verse from the whole album and edited it down to a 2 or 3 minute sound collage. I’m not sure why. It is kinda cool in Cliff Notes way or as a bizarre commercial for what to expect from the Wild Man of Rock and Roll.

The majority of the tape consists of Southern Rock guitar solos from all the greats: “Ramblin’ Man”, “If You Wanna Get to Heaven”, “Free Bird”, “Highway Song”, “Champagne Jam”, “Bell Bottom Blues”, and many others. But remember, these aren’t the songs, these are only the guitar SOLOS! They’re mashed together in a sometimes sloppy but sometimes brilliant editing scheme that eliminates all the pesky mushy love lyrics and jingoistic anthems. And it lasts almost 30 minutes! I have no idea why I did this. In a “Name That Tune” way, it works. In an extended guitar solo that never seems to end kind of way, it almost works. In fact, I would almost love to try recreate it now with digital technology. The rest of the tape is more traditional with three instrumental songs from Tom Waits.

So, what kind of story do you have about mix tapes?

Halloween 2006 - Garage Mix

Frankly I was inspired by John's enthusiasm for creating his mammoth collection of songs celebrating Halloween. So, I've spent the last two nights compiling a number of CDs and then burning the first of two discs which am I happy to share. Here's the contents of Disc Number One!


1. Blue Oyster Cult - (Don't Fear) The Reaper

2. Unnatural Axe - They Saved Hitler's Brain

3. The Germs - Lexicon Devil

4. Total Coelo - I Eat Cannibals (Part One)

5. October Country - My Girlfriend Is A Witch

6. Stone By Stone W/Chris D. - I Pass For Human

7. Slayer - Necrophiliac

8. Deuce Coupes - Satan's Chariot

9. Albert King - Born Under A Bad Sign

10. Eddie Kirk - Them Bones

11. Honeyboy - Bloodstains On The Wall

12. Johnny Fuller - Haunted House

13. The Nomads - Where The Wolf Bane Blooms

14. Quincy Jones - Superstition

15. The Cherry Valance - Two Headed Woman

16. Gas Huffer - Ghost In The Lighthouse

17. Man Or Astroman? - Electrostatic Brain Field

18. Dragula - The Maltese Martian

19. The Makers - Death Of Mr. Monster

20. Crystalites - Undertaker's Burial

21. Bob McFadden & Dor - The Mummy

22. Laika & The Cosmonauts - Psycko

23. The Sonics - Psycho

24. Famous Monsters - Blood Of Frankenstein

25. Sugar Shack - My Girl The Vampire

26. Tarantuala Ghoul & The Gravediggers - King Kong

27. Jan Davis - Watusi Zombie

28. Duplex Planet - Thats Halloween!

A great compiliation by my standards and done on a very impulsive whim. Volume Two is promising to lean a bit more towards Brit Goth, but we'll see (or hear) soon enough