My motive is that I thought we could use a break from all the madness. My motive for what, you ask. My motive for not writing about what you might expect me to be writing about in this week’s Topics/Questions/Exercises at The Auteurs’. What did I write about instead? The screen cap above is a clue. Not that it’s a difficult mystery to solve; just go to one of the links.
Glenn, I love your mention of Tayback as a “Raoul Ruiz collaborator”. I just recently watched Treasure Island, a film that took me something like six months to completely download through peer-to-peer, and I had nearly given up hope I would ever see it hit 100%. The fact that Tayback is in a film with Anna Karina and Jean-Pierre Leaud makes it even more of a curiosity.
Anyone who loves City of Pirates and/or Three Crowns of the Sailor will find themselves in familiar territory, even if everyone being dubbed makes it a harder thing to sit through. It’s a real trip of a film, and I had to re-read Stevenson’s story to make more sense of it. Also purchased Ruiz’s recently-published book In Pursuit Of Treasure Island, which is just as strange as the film.
Now if I could only get my hands on that three-part “Manoel on the Island of Marvels” from the same Ruiz period…
For me Glenn, the most aweome episode of “Murder She Wrote” is the one from season three where Jeffrey Lynn, Martha Scott and Harry Morgan recreate their roles from the obscure and noirish 1948 flick “Strange Bargain” (also seen in clips), joined by Gloria Stuart and Susan Strasberg! Those were the days!
Do you or your wife find that the quality of the show is consistent throughout, or are some seasons better than others? I’m familiar with a lot of Stracynzski’s work, for example, and I’m a casual fan.
Objectively speaking, Tony, I can’t say that any “Murder” episodes or seasons reach the heights of a really good “Columbo.” As Lou implies, it’s around seasons three and four that the series reaches the clever apex of its nostalgia-appeal factor. The Straczcinski seasons mix things up more, having Fletcher travel, and try to cut down on the quaint factor, and are only intermittently successful at doing so. As a whole, it’s very old-school television of a sort that’s really gone by the wayside in recent years.
Lazarus – perhaps this is not the best place for this, but despite that.…as a huge ruiz fan who of course struggles to catch up many of the difficult to see films (film comment selects has been quite good the last few years, showing two or three last year, one the year before, etc., and one this year, thankfully), any chance you could steer a fellow ruiz fan in the direction of where you tracked down “treasure island”?
not many directors of who you could say they are one of your all time favorites, you have seen maybe 40 films, or some number, and have still not even seen half their work.
A couple years back, when MGM home video began to trickle out one or two releases from their Cannon holdings (“Tough Guys Don’t Dance,” “The Apple”) a friend who has a DVD label and I considered contacting the label and inquiring about sub-licensing some of that stuff—Godard’s “King Lear,” Ruiz’s “Treasure Island,” etc., and manufacturing/marketing them as a kind of “Critic’s Choice” series, with intelligent but modest supplements and some kind of intro/commentary from a reputable champion of the film. As I recall, we weren’t even able to get MGM’s licensing person to return our calls. Then the economy tanked, and certain ambitions shriveled. Sigh. Requiem for a dream, indeed. And MGM’s current situation makes its own consideration of releasing such stuff less and less likely.
That’s a real shame, Glenn. But thanks for trying. Wasn’t the Godard released on VHS? I seem to remember seeing it at a video store I once worked at.
g: if you have aMule, eMule, Kadmilla any of that stuff, you can just search for it under “Treasure Island Ruiz”, but it is one long time investment, and hard to say if you’d even manage to get all of it.
I would certainly be open to mailing out copies.
Lazurus: Wasn’t the Godard released on VHS?
It was, as part of The Cinematheque Collection, which included other titles like Rohmer’s PAULINE AT THE BEACH, Ruy Guerra’s ERENDIRA and I think Bunuel’s NAZARIN and DIARY OF A CHAMBERMAID. Titles from this collection were staples in Blockbuster Video Stores’ Foreign sections back in the late ’80s-early ’90s. I own a used copy of LEAR due to a local Mom and Pop outlet which would sell off stock that hadn’t rented in some designated length of time, a practice which also helped me pick up LITTLE MURDERS and an obviously booted EL TOPO with burned in Japanese subs. And THE REFLECTING SKIN. And MIKEY AND NICKY. And HIGHWAY PATROLMAN. I kind of miss those days.…
Thanks for your response, Glenn.
“…it’s very old-school television of a sort that’s really gone by the wayside in recent years.”
If by this you mean non-serialized, I never thought I’d be in agreement on this. But in recent years, it seems like even the sitcoms require you be up on their “mythology” to understand a given episode. I do miss the simplicity of just being to tune in to a random show and being able to get into their self-contained story rather quickly and easily. The appeal of LAW AND ORDER and CSI, no doubt.
If you haven’t seen Angela in the The Private Affairs of Bel-Ami, you MUST. She’s so lovely and heartbreaking, definitely the only woman a cad like George Sanders could truly fall for. And she is crisply sexy in Red Danube, too, altogether too good for Walter Pidgeon.
Despite my abiding love for Judy Garland, I always thought it was disappointing that Lansbury wasn’t the romantic lead in THE HARVEY GIRLS– she’s so funny and sexy, and much more interesting than Garland’s character. I was rooting for her throughout the film.
My favorite Lansbury performance is in the completely wonderful The Private Affairs of Bel-Ami. I sold my VHS long ago under the false assumption that it would soon appear on DVD. Wish I still had it.
Bel-Ami is being remade with this Pattinson kid. Bobby, I know George Sanders, and you’re no George Sanders.
Michael, you are a man after my own heart…
@ Michael & The Siren: The hateful Pattinson is not only no George Sanders, he’s no Harry Reems, who starred in a surprisingly charming European-produced “adult” rethink of the de Maupassant tale back in 1976, a very good year for aspiring-to-respectability porn.
“aspiring-to-respectability porn”: Sounds like an intriguing topic for FSLC or Film Forum.
^^Or for the Erotic Connoisseur…
She was fab looking in the Tracy/Hepburn politics movie. While very good in Gaslight, I thought the actress in the English original was even better.