David's DVD Corner: White Dog Unleashed!

If you know me and/or this blog, you know that I've long advocated the release of Samuel Fuller's suppressed movie White Dog on DVD.

I'm happy to report that, as of December 2, sanity has prevailed—thanks in part to Criterion!

So, if you haven't yet seen this movie, which stars Kristy McNichol and revolves around a dog trained to attack dark-skinned people, please consider it. It's not for everyone and it can come across as cheesy, like run-of-the-mill '70s TV and exploitation movies, but if you look beyond the kitsch element you might agree that the movie ultimately comes together in an ingenious, "cinematic" way.

Below is Criterion's trailer for the movie (with music by Ennio Morricone), followed by a key moment in the movie that is something of a spoiler.

Thanks to birthday boy Ben for the lead—and special congrats to Christa Fuller on this accomplishment!



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NYC NOIR [AND NON-NOIR] AT THE FILM FORUM

Bruce Goldstein melds New York movies and film noir in the Film Forum's midsummer repertory schedule for 2007. There's a mix of the familiar and the obscure (at least to me), so here is a very likely incomplete list of top-notch flicks in the series.

SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS
July 27 and 28
Gossip columnist Burt Lancaster lords it over the city in this metropolitan melodrama featuring great location shooting from James Wong Howe.

THE CAMERAMAN with SPEEDY
July 30
Silent-era comedians Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd wreak havoc in the black-and-white Big Apple. Try to see the 3:50 pm or 7:00 pm screenings of The Cameraman for live piano accompaniment by Steve Sterner.

PICKUP ON SOUTH STREET with KISS OF DEATH
August 1 and 2
This isn't quite the millionth time I've plugged Samuel Fuller's Pickup on South Street on this blog, but by now my regular readers must know how much I admire this hardboiled and still unnerving Cold War noir featuring Richard Widmark and a strong score by Leigh Harline. Kiss of Death scores high on IMDB.

THE TAKING OF PELHAM ONE TWO THREE
August 3 and 4
Travel back into the NYC subway system circa 1974—if you dare—in this Blog About Town favorite.

ROSEMARY'S BABY
August 10 and 11
Roman Polanski's masterful, moody exploration of a Dakota Hotel tenant's somewhat unusual pregnancy (based on the novel by Ira "Stepford Wives" Levin, Rosemary's Baby was produced by gimmick king William Castle, whose cheesy movies (such as The Tingler) were once a staple of Film Forum summer programming. See the amazing trailer below!

MEAN STREETS and TAXI DRIVER
August 12 and 13
If you dig movie couples, few programs could be more appealing than this pairing of the flicks that solidified the relationship between Robert De Niro and Martin Scorsese in the Seventies.

KILLER'S KISS with SOMETHING WILD
August 22 and 23
Killer's Kiss is an early Kubrick quickie, but Something Wild is what really catches my interest in this double bill. The talent includes Carroll Baker, Ralph Meeker, Jean Stapleton, Aaron Copland, and Eugen Sch¨aut;fftan, a refugee from Breslau who also worked on visual effects for the Fritz Lang masterpiece Metropolis (which is closing tonight).

REAR WINDOW and ROPE
August 24 AND 25
Two of Hitchcock's most impressive movies. He never made a movie more taut than Rope.



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Stills courtesy Film Forum/Photofest

WERNER AND LUCY AND DESI AND HOMER

This weekend the Film Forum kicks off its Werner Herzog non-fiction film festival. Want a recommendation? To be honest, I don't know where to start...except to mention that Herzog is scheduled to make personal appearances at a few screenings of the first films, which get glowing reviews on IMDB. (The most intriguing appearance isn't at the Film Forum, actually; it's at Goethe House on Saturday afternoon, when he'll screen footage from his forthcoming Antarctica flick--but it's sold out!) Otherwise, he's to be at Little Dieter Needs to Fly/Wings of Hope at 7 pm on Saturday, The Great Ecstasy of Woodcarver Steiner/The Dark Glow of the Mountains/The White Diamond at 8:20 pm on Sunday, and "Werner's Picks" Sans Soleil/Les Maîtres Fous at 7 pm on Monday. Wanna go? Be aggressive--tickets seem to be going...going....

On Sunday at the Museum of the Moving Image there will be a free "street fair and celebration" called New York on Location. You'll be able to step inside 20 film trailers and trucks--and perhaps see what's behind the doors marked Lucy and Desi (as if you didn't know). Plus, you can get into the museum for free (and see Sam Fuller's newspaper movie Park Row) and get bargains at the gift shop, which is having a big sale.

And Sunday night is the 400th episode of The Simpsons. Amazing. (There will be two episodes that night, actually, as the 18th season of the series reaches its finale.)

BONUS I've been hearing and reading great things about the movie Once and the people who made it. Here's the trailer.



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THIS WEEKEND: TOO MUCH! TOO MUCH!

I'm still sticking with Saturday's Sam Fuller at Falkenau screening as the thing to do in the area this weekend. But it's true that the movie program at Loew's Jersey Theatre has a lot of appeal. And there are many other great things to do, too.

In fact, this weekend turns out to be an example of what sets the metropolitan area apart as a cultural center. Here are some other events:

The Encores! production of Stairway to Paradise, starring Kristin Chenoweth

The Emile de Antonio documentary series at Anthology Film Archives featuring screenings of Point of Order, a tightly edited view of how Joseph Welch managed to give Joseph McCarthy his well-deserved comeuppance. Saturday afternoon there's a panel discussion of that film.

The last days of Tom Stoppard's The Coast of Utopia. I saw Part One courtesy of TKTS last night and loved it--my main disappointment is that, barring a miraculous extension, I won't be able to see the other two parts.

Guy Maddin's Brand on the Brain!, with live music and sound effects plus live narration by the likes of Laurie Anderson, Justin Bond, Anne Jackson, Lou Reed, Isabella Rossellini, and Eli Wallach (also seen in two of the three Jersey City screenings)

And tonight there's that Air/TV on the Radio gig

I'm sure I'm missing a lot of other great (or at least promising fare. For the moment, I'm simply dizzied by cultural overload.

Here's the trailer for Brand Upon the Brain!



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JERSEY CITY SHOWDOWN(S)

I know I just touted this weekend's Sam Fuller offerings at the Museum of the Moving Image--especially Saturday afternoon's Falkenau program. And I stand by the recommendation. But there's another attractive movie program this weekend, in Jersey City, that I also want to note.

Three big Westerns from three continents will be shown on the big screen of the Loew's Jersey Theatre on Friday and Saturday. As you can see from this Scoboco post, the grand, old-timey moviehouse is an attraction in itself. Adult admission is $6, with combo discounts available.

Sergio Leone's great The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly will show Friday night at 8 pm--it's arguably the main attraction of the this "East Meets West(ern)" series, as it is a quintessential example of widescreen moviemaking. Be warned, though: It's violent and 161 minutes long.

Here's short trailer featuring Ennio Morricone's famous theme.



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Another superb example of filmmaking shows on Saturday at 2 pm. Akira Kurosawa's The Seven Samurai is a masterfully told and meaningful adventure story enhanced by exemplary casting that underscores the personality differences among the main characters. This offering is the longest of the bunch, clocking in at 208 minutes. Beforehand there will be programs related to Japanese culture.

Here's a fantastically done scene: A crowd watches in amazement as an unarmed master samurai, posing as a Buddhist priest, rescues a baby from an armed rogue.



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The Seven Samurai "inspired" Hollywood's The Magnificent Seven, the third offering, which will play at 8:30 pm. The storyline holds up well, the acting is also good, and rousing Coplandesque score by Elmer Bernstein is one of the "classics." This one is relatively short, at a mere 126 minutes. There will be a talk with a Q&A after the movie.

Here's a trailer.



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FULLER FEST FEATURES FALKENAU FOOTAGE

A very special screening will take place at the Museum of the Moving Image at 4 pm this Saturday, May 12, 2007. The program, entitled Falkenau, Vision of the Impossible, offers valuable insight into a key moment in modern history and a pivotal experience in the life of B-movie auteur Sam Fuller. It is part of a tribute to Fuller scheduled to run at the museum from May 12 through June 10, 2007.

Here's the backstory, drawn from Fuller's memoir A Third Face: Sam Fuller served in the army during World War II. His division, the Big Red One, saw action in North Africa and Sicily and Omaha Beach before making its way deep into Nazi-occupied Europe. Around the time of the German surrender (62 years ago today--more or less), Fuller's division came upon Falkenau, site of a concentration camp.

Fuller had witnessed months of carnage, but the camp at Falkenau was, in his words, "beyond belief, beyond our darkest nightmares." The camp reeked of rotting bodies, but the townspeople who lived nearby denied that they knew what had happened there.

Fuller's commanding officer was outraged. He ordered the townspeople to assemble at the concentration camp and prepare a funeral for those who had been slaughtered within. And he asked Fuller to film this event.

Using a handheld 16mm camera (a gift from his mother), Fuller joined the ranks of still photographers such as Margaret Bourke-White as a film chronicler of the liberation of concentration camps. Under such powerful circumstances, Fuller made what he called his "first movie"--an experience that led him to devote himself to filmmaking and to become so extraordinarily concerned with frankness that it became an overarching motif in his movies.

Saturday's program consists of Falkenau, Vision of the Impossible, the 1988 documentary by Emil Weiss in which Fuller watches his Falkenau footage and talks about the experience. The concept is simple--not very different from today's DVD commentary tracks--but the result is one of the most impressive documentaries I have seen. Also on the program--to my amazement--is Fuller's footage itself, which is very rarely shown. (According to the museum, this is its first public screening.)

The program is so important--historically and cinematically--and the footage so rare that, as far as I'm concerned, it makes the June 9 screening of the long-suppressed White Dog look like less of a event than it is. And it also sheds light on some other films in the series that relate more directly to the Falkenau footage.

So, besides insisting that you go to Saturday's Falkenau program if you possibly can, I encourage you to see the restored version of The Big Red One (evenings of Sunday, June 3 and Sunday, June 9), which was the fulfillment of Fuller's long-held desire to make a movie drama reflecting his wartime experiences. And to also see Verboten! (Sunday, May 27 at 2 pm), one of Fuller's more emphatic statements drawing on those experiences.

The rest of the series encompasses some of Fuller's more celebrated efforts--The Naked Kiss, Shock Corridor, and Pickup on South Street--as well as others that are personal favorites, including The Crimson Kimono. And, towards the end, there are even more rarities. If you're not familiar with Fuller's movies, I recommend giving some of the early entries a try to see if they pique your curiosity.

And take note of the admission prices ($10 adults, $7.50 seniors and students) versus the benefits of a $65 individual membership, which can be advantageous.

Credit: Photofest, courtesy Museum of the Moving Image, for image of director Samuel Fuller during the production of White Dog (1982)

WHITE DOG DAY. Yes, today there will be screenings of a new print of Samuel Fuller's suppressed movie White Dog at The Film Forum (1:00, 5:10, 10:20).

The story of White Dog is one of the strangest in U.S. movie history. Based on writings of Romain Gary excerpted in the October 9, 1970 Life, the plot revolves around the disgusting practice of training dogs to attack black people. As a movie concept, the story floated around Hollywood for years before B-movie master Samuel Fuller finally made it into a movie in 1982.

Fuller had previously portrayed the impact of racial hatred in such films as The Crimson Kimono (1959) and Shock Corridor (1963), yet even though White Dog was consistent with his fundamentally humane (albeit provocative) style, wild rumors of racism somehow spun out of control, leading Paramount to shelve the film and keep it away from U.S. (but not European) audiences for more than twenty years with very rare exceptions.

White Dog is still not legally available on video in this country, though I remain optimistic that sanity will ultimately prevail. (I take today's screening of a new print as a positive sign.) It is a good, quirky, gutsy, and acclaimed film that portrays the sickness and ugliness of racism through imagery as well as the twists and turns of its storyline.

If you can make it to the Film Forum, you can judge for yourself. Fuller co-wrote the screenplay with Curtis Hanson. Ennio Morricone wrote the music. The cast includes Kristy McNichol, Burl Ives, Paul Winfield, cult actor Dick Miller, and Fuller, his wife Christa, and their daughter Samantha.