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Specialist dedicated to Weird Tales TV teleplays and film noir.
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[jump4] WANTED! [jump4]
WAY OUT (besides the 6 episodes I have), GREAT GHOST TALES, 1984 (Edmond O'Brien),
The Pat Michaels Show (KTVU, April 10 1968)
Originally aired in color, is even a b+w kinnescope extant?
I have a complete transcript of the snappy repartee between
Instructor Kaffke and Pat Michaels.
I don't have any recordings of my father's voice and that is one aspect sorely lacking. If anyone has any tapes, art, slides, or views featuring Roberto - please call, or drop an email! You would be given credit or anything you require.
With help from family and friends I have assembled a sizable selection of my Father's manuscripts; rare one-of-a-kind prints (hand-stamped on the back with the names of the photographers & studios; newspaper articles about his Golden Gloves boxing events, Kaffke's experimental college seminars at SFSU, and his last days on the Sausalito Waterfront.
From the KRON investigative series Assignment Four, I salvaged a few moving frames of the 1964 Cadillac demonstration featuring Kaffke in plain view.
I also found footage of Kaffke in the midst of &The Squaresville Tour&, the 1959 beatnik counter-invasion of Union Square.
I'd like to hear from Brian Dixon, Annie Hallot, Dianea Karasik, Terry Chambers, Katie Phillips, Chris Phillips, Lloyd Davis, Carole Barknecht, Ernie Barry, Phil Garlington Jr., Robin Miguel, Diane Johansen, Donna Ottosen, Tom Sanders, Tex Dobkins, Sue Helenius, Eileen Brandt, Scott Rovzau, Bob Fries, Terrence Hallinan, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Mark Lane, Susan Hearson, Kate Gould, Katina Kay, Lucy Kemnitzer Trollman, Kathy Anderson, Linda Montminny (Lelihana Devi), and Ann Schumacher.
I was contacted recently by Gregory Pontecorvo & Natasha Eisenstein, Ray Furey, Helen Kaffke, Walter Kaffke, Phil Kay, Hal Verb and Roger Kotila.
This is a shout-out for the friends of Robert Kaffke... WHERE ARE YOU?
Ratings
Most Recently Rated
Reviews
Hugo (2011)
The automaton steals the show
HUGO dazzled, delighted and inspired me as Scorsese intended. Under the guise of a family film HUGO is really a plea for film preservation. It's as much about the life of pioneer filmmaker Geo. Melies as it is the child Hugo. And it was nice to see both Christopher Lee, whom I had no idea was in the picture prior to seeing it, and the young actress Chloe Grace Moretz a few short years after her breakout role in the fun though ultra violent KICK-ASS.
The real stars of the movie were Ben Kingsley and Helen McCrory who play the Melies (husband and wife) during their hey day on stage performing magic tricks and making/starring in (nearly 500) films, then in later years living in obscurity never dwelling on their all but forgotten past. The automaton steals the show in parts and seemed almost lifelike, but Scorsese never crosses the boundary into fantasy. My friend whom I saw HUGO with wanted the automaton to wink at us at the end. I'm glad it didn't! Based on the book The Invention of Hugo Cabret. While somewhat dramatized, many of the historical details in the film are based on fact. Included are scenes from early cinema, actual footage (bits of A TRIP TO THE MOON are tastefully enhanced with 3-D) from THE GENERAL, SAFETY LAST and other nascent flickers shown being watched by astonished audiences of the time. Overall beautifully done!
Shadow of the Vampire (2000)
Good to the last drop!
Not everyone was satisfied, finding precious little to sink their teeth into.
Bored, disappointed and terrible are descriptions posted in several summaries.
Down for the count? Relax and just let the vampire do all the work.
Others eagerly lapped up the subtle outré blend of horror, irony, tragedy and absurdity.
Why are the reviews so widely split regarding this movie about the making of the timeless classic, NOSFERATU (1922, F.W. Murnau, dir.)
To quote Boris Karloff (who's own last great role was "Byron Orlok" in TARGETS) from The Incredible Doktor Markesan, "We will review your testimony - over and over and over again!"
*****Spoiled reviewer alert: It may be necessary to read other comments for insights if my review isn't overly helpful.
Question to reviewers of this movie who lamented the lack of Insights into Murnau's life... expecting a full account of his homosexuality... isn't the hint of such things enough?
As to reviews complaining that not enough was said in Shadow of the Vampire about the real Murnau, is it the job of the film... to do your homework and roll up everything inside a mini-biopic before the film within the film finally gets underway?
To have gone on and on about the historic figures and their other films within this film, would have dragged the story down to pandering or ponderous depths.
The "10 minute" on and on talk between Malkovich and Dafoe one reviewer found boring... I did not find it at all to be so painfully extended! Did the reviewer watch this film on last year's iPod while waiting at a bus stop during a blizzard (dressed to kill, perhaps)?
Dafoe as Max Schreck as Count Orlock as Schreck as the vampire is convoluted and perhaps not even the real villain of the film - he's both wickedly funny and tragic, scarred by old, forgotten wounds. Some say Dafoe's performance was over the top; others called it the best thing about the film. Or claim that Dafoe didn't exactly resemble or do justice to the "real" Schreck.
Among the 30 pages of reviews on this film here, it's not unusual to find one that praises Dafoe as the vampire yet a few sentences later adds that the vampire looked terrible. NO make-up for you! Next!?
After several sips of VSOP (half-decent brandy labeled as made in France), I found myself copying some of Dafoe's gestures. He really nailed the uncanny movement of Schreck from the 1922 film.
One gesture Dafoe makes, not that I'm aware directly reenacted from Nosferatu, has amusing subtlety... Introduced by Malkovich/Murnau (to his stunned crew getting their 1st look at Schreck), as "unconventional", Dafoe waves one hand and shrugs, as if to say yes, so?
Some didn't like the German accents (please... if you want a genuine German accent, get a genuine German... or maybe an Austrian). Some found the Malkovich phrasings all wrong, the (Murnau) statements of intention over the top. If they found the film's beginning boring, so did the Murnau character:
When Murnau shouts, "at last an end to artifice", the filming as he intends begins.
When he philosophizes on the life beyond life of film, is he being pretentious?
Yes, but that's the way German artists in the 1920's expressed themselves... with more zeal than Americans then and now, who tend more to downplay the eternal whatsit of film, so casually consumed like so much popcorn (yet marketed with hard sell that Dr. Goebbels might have appreciated).
What about the caution advised for those that see this that haven't seen the 1922 original? I bet many modern viewers (present company excepted) would be bored by the original Murnau, though they might be entertained by Dafoe as Schreck... I doubt whether they would look further. Even if a fan tried to expose them to Nosferatu it would do no good, but who knows? I hope I'm wrong!
A scene some found to be a highlight, where Schreck describes the sadness of the book Dracula, makes me want to read those passages to see if Bram Stoker's vampire did indeed suffer the loneliness of one who has forgotten how to select cheese.
Comments varied wildly trying to define what type of a picture this even was. I don't think it matters greatly whether it's a horror-spoof, psycho-thriller, costume drama or a "what if" movie.
One reviewer praised it's avoidance of comic relief, all too often found even in otherwise serious horror movies such as The Exorcist and Psycho.
Many "purists" simply put their disbelief on hold and enjoyed the movie for what it is. Good for you.
If you have seen this sitting upright with high expectations and were disappointed, and were bored, try watching it again in a very relaxed frame (bed frame). As some have noted, you may see a new detail in the frame previously unnoticed.
By the way, I tend to sleep through the opening credits, which some reviewers disliked while others said were the best thing about the film.
The Enforcer (1951)
Dark underworld of tough guys, nervous wrecks, double-crosses and dead ends!
Literally one of the darkest of noir films, though not everyone's favorite it seems.
THE ENFORCER is criticized in several comments posted on IMDb in part for its portraying cops learning code words such as "hit" and "contract", for the first time.
The words are a minor springboard device which aren't crucial to the evidence. Eye-witness testimony is what the cops badly need to put the top man in the chair.
The historical context loosely linking the plot to Murder, Inc. hardly diminishes the ability of the film to hold up as an edgy crime suspense drama some 55 years later.
It's a movie with a great ensemble cast of character actors relishing the juicy dialog.
Of course viewers today aren't going to drop their jaws over the cinematic debut of words that have long since become common in the colloquial lexicon.
Especially when there are plenty of great lines in the film to enjoy, and even mimic over and over again:
Such as Ted De Corsia's "He ain't human!", "I gotta get-out-of-here!" and "You know what to use. Use it!"
And the meeting between the #1 man and his #2 man, whose repartee enriched with sinister gestures is well worth rediscovering:
Mendoza- "I've been worked over by some of the best, and you're just what I'm looking for." Rico -"What? You want some more?" Mendoza - "I can use a guy like you!"
Rico - "You must be nuts!" Mendoza - "I've still got a dime left. C'mon, I'll buy you a cup of coffee!"
Mendoza - "Someday you'll realize I'm a great man. I'll make you a rich man." Rico - "I must have kicked you in the head!"
Mendoza - "This is my first contract. I'm getting paid $500 for the hit." Rico - "You'll never have $500 as long as you live!"
My favorite shock scene is when a hit man realizes he's about to be "taken care of" by an old crony, he makes a desperate break for it into the night, letting out a blood-curdling scream.
THE ENFORCER is not presented as a bio or semi-documentary at all, really. There is no narration, no final moral. Bogey doesn't indirectly lecture the viewers, instead he's picking his own brain as Ferguson.
Though he's a dedicated lawman, Bogey's not playing a preachy reformer as did John McIntire (Police Commissioner Hardy), quite admirably to be sure, in the 1950 John Huston crime caper classic, THE ASPHALT JUNGLE.
ASPHALT JUNGLE and FORCE OF EVIL are also films with scenes of double-crosses and back- stabbing that I enjoy as much as THE ENFORCER.
Relentlessly grim, and for the most part original, THE ENFORCER stands on it's own.
The ending is a bit anti-climatic only because it wraps up so quickly after all the tension and flashbacks have reached the anticipated moment of the "pay-off", so I rate it a 9 out of 10.
I had no problem with the way the story unfolds as we are given pieces of the puzzle. The flashbacks get better and better so my advice is stick with it.
Underrated gem, deserving better than the reserved reviews and short shrift it often gets.
Zero Mostel, Everett Sloane, Ted De Corsia, Jack Lambert etc. all contribute what are perhaps among their best, if brief, performances on film,
TWO ICE-PICKS, WAY UP!
Der Untergang (2004)
What's Wrong with this picture?
This movie is a major breakthrough in the art of telling history in a media that usually comes up short on accuracy. But there are problems, such as selective editing obscuring actual communication and statements. By leaving out minor important details, even this agenda-bender tends in subtle ways to reinforce the perception, for instance, that Hitler was practically senile and in complete denial about the inevitable end. In point of fact, to certain associates he lucidly admitted that the war with Russia could never be won; and in rare moments of honesty brushed aside notions that any armies were coming to save Berlin. These people were not stupid or completely crazy. Perhaps they clutched at straws, but in the diaries and specific day to day communications, Goebbels and Hitler were putting up a front for the others, they themselves weren't as deluded as edits make them out to be. What's missing from the film are about a thousand pages of inter-office memos, private discussions and phone conversations that reveal they're saying very different things to one another ranging sometimes to the total opposite, yet keeping it all sorted out. Hitler was often lucid with a surprising grasp of reality when he'd let his guard down in the bunker; including more baffling contradictions of that aspect of Hitler's personality might have revealed more of his inner motivations.
While Ganz turns in a well researched Oscar-quality portrayal, Hitler himself was giving a portrayal, of a leader as the one man who would never give up, especially at 5 minutes to midnight; as the Kaiser had at "the eleventh hour" - prematurely in many German's minds - in 1918. Hitler's ruthless determination to stand and fight against all odds saved countless German lives, while coldly sacrificing many others, though not nearly in as detached a manner as Stalin, who wasted millions upon millions of Russian lives in order to win.
Hitler's greatest achievement of the war was preventing total catastrophe and collapse of the Russian Front, and thus perhaps subsequent Soviet capture of central and western Europe. I'm referring to the conclusions of serious historians such as John Toland, not those of Nazi sympathizers. As dramatized in DOWNFALL, young boys were sent personally by Hitler to die for their country; and against all odds a few doomed boys actually held a bridge long enough for civilians and deserters to reach American lines. The implication is that these boys died to keep Hitler alive a few more days. Yes, but it's more than that.
If a tiny tinge of humanness is so astonishing to associate with Hitler, there was much more of that going on in recorded history from that period alone than this movie can show, since real time is very different than a 2 hour condensation. Something had to be left out. The question is what, and why?
Many viewers of DOWNFALL have been genuinely shocked by the stand-out scene of Magda Goebbels taking the lives of her own children. Ask why she did it, by reading between the lines. Would it have made sense to surrender herself and her young daughters to the sympathetic Soviet soldiers of the Red Army? Should we interpret Magda's personally administering the execution of her children as an act of insanity? Was her last statement a calculated epitaph to secure a place in history for not betraying Hitler at the last minute as he said he had been by Himmler, Goering and everyone in the old guard except for Joseph Goebbels? Was she fearful of what would happen to her family if captured alive - especially her daughters? Reports reached the bunker that the Red Army, ever since taking East Prussia, were openly raping German women to death, age 3 to age 80; imagine 50 to 100 guys going wild with your daughters and that's the last time you'll ever see them, alive. Maybe that morphine/cyanide cocktail is starting to sound like a preferable solution to a worst case scenario.
Bruno Ganz has transcended the limitations of the final edit, which in spite of a sincere effort, selectively waters down the reality of certain events going on. That's a tall order to fill, to be fair, and meanwhile Ganz playing a very difficult part nails it, soaring above performances given by other fine actors playing Hitler in the final days: Richard Baseheart "HITLER"; Alec Guiness "HITLER: THE LAST 10 DAYS", Anthony Hopkins "THE BUNKER"; though they provided some insight into the man dragging everything with him into the abyss. I'd be more impressed if a filmmaker from Germany dared to look without flinching and reflect without filtering, the naked face of the actual man. Whoever and whatever Hitler is. Start from scratch. As little bias as possible. As much detail as possible. Shoot it in real time if possible. Just run the damn speeches, watch the real thing but, we want to see the private life and inner man don't we? The last 10 days or so are least entertaining period of Hitler's life, as far as film goes. A few kind comments about the spinach, that's controversy enough for now, one bite at a time. Chew slowly. Stick to the chronology and facts, let the chips fall where they may. No admission under 17 maybe. Can we tell it on film without reinforcing the same old stereotypes? That is my challenge. German films have faced the dark side of humanity head-on like none others, as in "M", "The Testament of Doctor Mabuse", "Metropolis" and "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" perhaps. Maybe German films are getting up the nerve to face their demons again. I'd like to see Bruno Ganz involved in another illuminating historical epic.
"That's our Hitler!"
The Grey Zone (2001)
Just desserts for Judas goats who lead lambs to slaughter
We're only human, no one is going to get the Holocaust period on film 100% perfectly. That would be too horrific and almost impossible, from what I've read and seen of the actual documents.
This was a sincere effort, and it has an excellent cast. Regardless of the results, they were trying. It's not a clinical recreation of the events, and not historically accurate in every sense by any means- that wasn't the point or even possible, let alone feasible. It's loosely based on the facts. On that basis, I'll weigh the logic of the film, not actual events it loosely portrays with occasional pinpoint accuracy.
This is a Hollywood film, not a documentary after all. The Nazis are portrayed (especially the guard Keitel plays, and Mengele) as logical, albeit cold, realists.
The liquidations in this movie depiction are apparently based on the available food and the amount of time left before the Russian encirclement rather than an insatiable bloodthirst.
The Germans as well as the Hungarians are often seen obliterating their consciousness of the daily chores with vodka (the final solution). The idea of keeping a girl alive is a pathetic, hopeless dream. In reality, this happened several times but meant very little in the scheme of things as run by the Nazis.
Mengele is portrayed as sensitive, understanding, yet more than capable of the double speak, such as "increase in research"... This is for me one of the more sinister horrors - that Mangele appears reasonable, granting privileges to the Jewish doctor, and as history turned out, Josef Mengele had a long life.
The movie suggests the German guards such as Keitel were as fatalistic as the Sonderkommando - knowing they too would soon be executed, by the Red Army; or killed by American bombers (which never came). No one seems to be in total denial... all of them just trying to survive or die for a good reason. Or no reason.
To be a cut above the average camp population, if only for a season. For a bottle of wine you'd escort 1,000 people into the gas chamber. Why not? We all die anyway. Welcome, friend, to the Sonderkommando.
The Black Cat (1934)
Of what use are these melodramatics?
I've watched it 15 times in a row on an old VHS commercial
release that includes The Raven... what a wonderful pair!
Some comments seem to find it a plot hole when Lugosi kills a
house pet and no one is alarmed -indeed, not something
common in the world as we know it. My view is that the Black Cat is Karloff, whom Lugosi goes there to
kill slowly... does he not? Also, in a few moments we see that Karloff has the same black cat
in hand, very much alive, and he mentions the cat has nine lives. Other words are said about the two men having in effect already
died years ago... look beneath the surface of this movie... don't
take it literally, and much richness is there... the art deco, Bauhaus
architecture... the wondrous infusion of Beethoven's 7th after the
2nd appearance of the Black Cat. I could watch this movie a hundred more times and not tire of it.
Black Magic (1949)
Under-rated gem!
Orson Welles is mesmerizing and perfectly suited to the roll of Count Cagliostro. The Count has waited silently for over 20 years secretly planning revenge on the ruling class he holds responsible for the drunken public execution of his mother he witnessed as a boy.
Is Cagliostro an ambitious Gypsy charlatan or a demonic master of the black arts? Is he really a Count?
There are several entertaining scenes where Cagliostro gains the upper hand over odds stacked against him such as the "choking rope" switcheroo in the jail, and the "your legs are like wax" turnabout. Yet similarly to SVENGALI (John Barrymore) he will not be able to exert this will power forever over everyone.Welles seems to be thoroughly enjoying himself throughout.
BLACK MAGIC has threads in common with "The Prisoner in the Mirror" Boris Karloff presents THRILLER teleplay, an updating of the evil magician known as Cagliostro. The real mystery is why such an enjoyable movie starring Orson Welles was so long overlooked, not released on DVD until 2016 (unfortunately the source print used by Hen's Teeth is not nearly as clear as the sharp print TCM aired in January 2017).
Though considered by some as a costume melodrama with little more than Welles and the art direction going for it, ever since I watched a primitively colorized print of BLACK MAGIC (aired on a local San Francisco station KOFY-TV20 around 1990) it's been my favorite off- beat Welles movie, always a fun find to share with friends who hadn't seen it!
Revolution (1968)
Rock band footage makes this a valuable artyfact
Jack O'Connell produced and directed this patchwork portrait of the hippie scene in 1967. The best parts are the rock band live performance sequences, although some of these clips were staged to appear as though they were filmed at ballroom dance concerts. Which is similar to what other films and TV shows at the time tended to do, rather than film an regularly scheduled club or ballroom dance concert with all the craziness of a real gig in full swing. PETULIA (1967) for example featured Janis Joplin with Big Brother & the Holding Co. performing at the unlikely venue of The Fairmont Hotel. PETULIA also captured The Grateful Dead playing on the dance floor - not even on a stage -in a very small club setting. REVOLUTION (later reedited and retitled THE HIPPIE REVOLUTION, briefly released theatrically in 1996) had a soundtrack album of studio takes that doesn't include all of or match versions of songs played live in the movie: Quicksilver Messenger Service are hard to make out in the dark, but perform a rousing "Codine" before the band is abruptly cut away from half way through the number; the all-girl band Ace of Cups perform "The Grass Is Greener" live in the park - sounding about as garage as any SF hippie rockumentary ever get; Dan Hicks of The Charlatans does an acoustic solo ditty called something like "He's Stoned" that's a nice rarity; and I'm not too wild about the footage of Country Joe & the Fish or the early Steve Miller Band but it is after all a hippie movie with Hare Krishnas and everything else that defined the wide-eyed idealism of the age.
Kitten with a Whip (1964)
Ride the Whip!
The title says it all! A whip is not always a lash... the whip in the title of this cult movie favorite refers to the many ways and means sociopathic sex kitten Jody (Ann-Margaret) dominates and lashes out at everyone in her path. At one point she yanks and tugs the phone cord while the candidate for Senator (John Forsythe) is on the horn to his wife trying to act like nothing's the matter! Cmon, that length of wire is definitely a whip -in Jody's hands! Then later Jody flings a cocktail into the scratchmarks she's inflicted on Forsythe. She's whipping him back and forth, he just wants her to leave without any guilt or scandal- and she uses this over him at any given moment, not sparing herself, as her own guilt and confusion whips her from self-loathing to frenzied party animal in stacatto snaps - I find this movie full of innuendo, black humor, Hitchcockian situations, it's a guilty pleasure! The music is often reminiscent of Pete Rugolo's THRILLER TV soundtrack, and indeed, the director Douglas Heyes directed many of THRILLER's best episodes, including "The Cheaters" I give this two twisted thumbs up. Don't miss it!