People We Like: Lauren

No, not that one, the other one: Lauren Hutton in AMERICAN GIGOLO.

We have covered Paul Schrader's 1980 hit AMERICAN GIGOLO quite a bit here, see label, usually focusing on Richard Gere, this is the role, as gigolo Julian Kaye, which established him after DAYS OF HEAVEN and YANKS. The film for me ushers in the glamour and glitz of the Eighties, with that Moroder soundtrack. But the more I see it the more I am fascinated by Lauren Hutton as the senator's wife, she is the still centre of the film and is marvellously watchable, and how she wears clothes, being a top fashion model of course (she was on the cover of VOGUE 25 times). Her character though is so sympathetic compared to the others on view here and the climax is so affecting when she gives Julian the alibi he needs to get off that fixed murder rap. 

Lauren, in her seventies now, is as fascinating to look at as Joni Mitchell - they both have that blonde, Nordic look. She is also effective in Alan Rudolph's WELCOME TO L.A. and THE GAMBLER with James Caan, and Altman's A WEDDING, as well as assorted tv series like NIP/TUCK and FALCON CREST.  She has notched up 57 movie credits and has turned producer. Like that other fashion model turned actress, Marisa Berenson, it is always a pleasure to see Lauren. 

Thats a double bill!: Barbarella and American Gigolo

For those who saw them initially, or over the years, AMERICAN GIGOLO and BARBARELLA are the height of fashion and glamour and define the 1960s and the 1980s. So, as they were both on Sky Movies the same day (saves getting the dvds out...) let head off once again in Barbarella's space ship and enjoy the lush life as we cruise along with Richard as that Giorgio Moroder soundtrack sets the mood ...

The initial poster we liked

After experiencing Scorsese's TAXI DRIVER last week, scripted by Paul Schrader, now its back to his 1980 breakthrough movie AMERICAN GIGOLO which for me kickstarted the 1980s. I could rhapsodize about this for hours, and have, as per previous posts - see American Gigolo label.  Here though is David Thompson from his huge tome: "Have You Seen..."

"Paul Schrader directs from his own script and puts his every love and desire into the picture, so it thrills to the pulse of disco music, voyeuristic sex, Robert Bresson, the LA light, the Polo Lounge at the Beverly Hills Hotel, driving on the freeway in a convertible, the “privacy” of Palm Springs, and the infinite blossom of corruption in Southern California. It is often like an advertisement (shot with exquisite taste by John Bailey), and it delights in streamlining moderne-ism and the sultry swish of the passing moment. The whole thing is poised on an edge where collapse or public mirth are equal possibilities, yet it survives and brings its fatuous Sirkian plot to a lovely finale. Within the delirium of cliches and pretension, something absolutely true strides forward, personified by Gere’s lounging walk and his shameless attitudinizing. This was a new kind of riveting trash. If you want to know about American in 1980, then go to American Gigolo and Raging Bull."

Looking at it this time, I was riveted by Lauren Hutton - Gere is so extraordinary here that one initially tends to overlook her, but she is the complex heart of the film and delivers exactly what is required. Whether its Gere's Julian in THAT apartment, or laying out his Armani clothes to that perfect Smokey Robinson track, or Moroder's soundtrack (I had it on vinyl and cd) pounding as he drives to Palm Springs, or "Love and Passion" by Cheryl Barnes as he enters the gay disco ---- Scharader's Calvinist upbringing makes this seem like a circle of hell - it is all a perfect re-working of Bresson's PICKPOCKET as Julian has to turn on himself and wreck his apartment to find those stolen jewels ... and then that moment of redemption. Schrader continued his obsessions with that remake of CAT PEOPLE in 1982 another glossy sexy exercise, as per my review, Schrader label. As much as I like Gere here, after Malick's DAYS OF HEAVEN and Schlesigner's YANKS, I had no desire to see him in most of his following films. This is what I said a while back:  He is so central to the movie, like how Antonioni idealised David Hemmings in BLOW-UP.

I will have to upgrade mine to Blu-ray - as a great looking movie its up there with BARRY LYNDON, THE AGE OF INNOCENCE, THE LEOPARD or THE GREAT BEAUTY. 
Here is some more on it:  http://altscreen.com/03/02/2012/thursday-editors-pick-american-gigolo-1980/

BARBARELLA, 1968, by contrast is a dated, throwaway comic strip but not without its own amusements, a key 60s movie certainly, with some great sequences and imagery, not least David Hemmings as the revolutionary, John Philip Law as the blind, blond angel Pygar, Milo O'Shea as Duran Duran, those dolls with the teeth - and Anita Pallenberg's evil Queen with designs on our heroine and who is surely voiced by the unique Joan Greenwood, and of course Jane's wide-eyed innocent in and out of those amazing costumes. A lot of fun all-round then, almost as good as MODESTY BLAISE! 

The taxi driver scores an ace in the hole

Or The Chuck Tatum /Travis Bickle show ...

Watching two searing dramas one after the other left one limp on the sofa. I had not seen Billy Wilder's 1951 ACE IN THE HOLE for years (its before my time obviously, I only started going to the movies in 1954 when I was 8) and maybe only ever saw it once so it was rather unfamiliar to me, whereas we over-dosed on Scorsese's TAXI DRIVER back in 1976, and in that pre-video age, went to it several times and even got the soundtrack album, but again I had not seen it for a long time ...

Chuck Tatum (Kirk Douglas), a ruthless former New York newspaper reporter now trapped in a dead-end job at a New Mexico newspaper, sees his way out by covering the story of a man trapped inside a mine. He sees this as his way back to the big time and New York. When Tatum's first story appears, crowds begin arriving at the mine site to watch the unfolding rescue. Although the man, Leo Minosa, can be rescued in about a day, Tatutm gets the local corrupt sheriff and the mining engineer to prolong the rescue by using a drilling process that will take about a week, thus ensuring that Tatum can milk the story for all its worth, as crowds gather to see what happens. It becomes a carnival as everyone is out to make a fast buck. 

This Wilder film is a dark allegory and he outdid himself in cynicism and savage wit with this assault on the trashy press which was a colossal flop at the time, even changing the title to THE BIG CARNIVAL did not help - Wilder stuck to proven hits and successful plays for most of the 50s after that. Kirk Douglas plays another heel (THE BAD AND THE BEAUTIFUL) and is the man you love to hate. 

Jan Sterling too plays another sneering, trashy blonde, a real hard-boiled number who won't kneel to pray, as it "bags her nylons". She is the trapped man's wife and runs that forlorn diner which does not make any money - soon, though the cash register is ringing as she caters to the crowds arriving - she too wants to get away, as Chuck slaps her around and gets her to act the part of the concerned wife, only he goes too far ... 

The film undoubtedly exaggerates not only the greed of the reporter and of local traders but also ghoulishness of the public. In the end, though, it all backfires on him as the trapped man dies, thus making him effectively guilty of manslaughter, as the public and the media circus leave.  Presumably back then, the heel has to pay for his callousness, it might be a different ending today, as we are used to television cashing in on tragedies ... Co-written by Wilder and Lesser Samuels and Walter Newman, not his usual collaborators. 

TAXI DRIVER. The plot of Scorsese's classic is too well known to go into again, but here it is anyway:

Travis Bickle is an ex-Marine and Vietnam War veteran living in New York City. As he suffers from insomnia, he spends his time working as a taxi driver at night, watching porn movies at seedy cinemas during the day, He is a loner who sees New York as a cesspool. His one bright spot in New York humanity is Betsy, a worker on the presidential nomination campaign of Senator Charles Palantine. He becomes obsessed with her, but takes her to the porn cinema when she agrees to a date with him..He then wants to save Iris, a twelve-year-old runaway and prostitute who he believes wants out of the profession and under the thumb of her pimp, and he may also want to shoot the senator. so the scene is set for a showdown of savage intensity. 

After years of seeing De Niro in lesser movies or movies one does not need to see at all, one forgot how stunning he was in TAXI DRIVER, and of course MEAN STREETS. I particularly like NEW YORK NEW YORK and then there was RAGING BULL and GOODFELLAS, among others (1900, THE DEER HUNTER). 
But Travis Bickle is his iconic role, "God's loney man" the classic loner going out of his mind, whether alone in his room ("You talking to me?"), or his eyes in close-up as he drives that big yellow taxi as the brilliant Bernard Herrmann score plays - and then that final shoot-out. Everyone is excellent here: Jodie Foster, Harvey Kietel, Cybill Shepherd, Peter Boyle, even Scorsese himself in that cameo as the client spying on his wife, and of course Paul Schrader's script. It was the film of 1976 for most of us.  

October Trashfest

The IMDB Classic Film Board people are having their annual October challenge, seeing and reviewing the obscurer-the-better horror films for the Halloween season. I’ve rustled up my own October Trashfest, with some choice doozies:

Paul Schrader in 1982

CAT PEOPLE. The glossy 1982 remake from Paul Schrader (of DeWitt Bodeen’s story as filmed by Jacques Tourneur in 1942, a '40s classic) after his AMERICAN GIGOLO (which defined the early '80s), where he continues exploring his Calvinist background (he couldn't see any films until he was 18) and attitudes to sex and violence (as in his terrific script for TAXI DRIVER and early films HARDCORE and BLUE COLLAR, and his later LIGHT SLEEPER). Schrader certainly liked getting his attractive leads out of their clothes – as in GIGOLO and here, where leading lady Nastassja Kinski is starkers for the closing scenes …. I can’t imagine it being shown on TV uncut!

SPOILERS AHEAD:First thing, it looks terrific of course, shot by John Bailey (who lensed GIGOLO), and again Ferdinando Scarfiotti (1941-1994) is “visual consultant” (presumably like Hoyningen–Heune used to be for Cukor), the score is again by Giorgio Moroder, and David Bowie contributes that dynamic song “Putting Out Fire with Gasoline” – which leads us to the subject matter. Brother and long lost sister re-unite in suitably spooky New Orleans (OBSESSION, ANGEL HEART) – Irina (Kinski) though turns into a black panther when erotically aroused – brother Malcolm McDowell, who also transforms, wants her to sleep with him so they can protect each other, but she falls for a zoo director (John Heard). The copious amounts of nudity and the erotically charged story and the stunning visuals keep one watching, but the ending is problematic. We get a man tying a naked woman with rope to the four corners of a bed (which will be a turn-on for some people) before having sex with her – to save himself when she transforms into the panther! – and then the last scene has her as the panther in her cage at the zoo, as he looks at her wistfully and pets her and gives her treats, his pet captive. 

It seems it is her choice to be captured and sacrifice her freedom and he goes along with it, but will she turn back into human form again? There are gruesome scenes along the way, as well as Annette O’Toole’s topless swim in the pool, and some terrific special effects. Kinski (TESS), McDowell, Heard and Ruby Dee all do as their director requires and the Bowie song rounds it off nicely. Its certainly a fascinating, offbeat, cult movie that bears a rewatch. Interesting features on the dvd have interviews with Schrader (now married to Mary Beth Hurt) on set discussing Scarfiotti and the cast. Bowie of course went on to THE HUNGER with Deneuve, the next year in 1983, another stylish horror movie (as per my review Deneuve label).

THE KILLER NUN.  This is the real eurotrash treat, from 1979.

A demented nun sliding through morphine addiction into madness, whilst presiding over a regime of lesbianism, torture and death. Sister Gertrude is the head nurse/nun in a general hospital, whose increasingly psychotic behavior endangers the staff and patients around her.Or as the blurb says:

Legendary Swedish sex bomb Anita Ekberg (LA DOLCE VITA) stars as Sister Gertrude, a cruel nun who discovers depraved pleasure in a frenzy of drug addiction, sexual degradation and sadistic murder. Warhol superstar Joe Dallesandro (ANDY WARHOL’S FRANKENSTEIN), Alida Valli as the mother superior, Lou Castel, Massimo Serato co-star in this notorious “Nunsploitation’ branded as obscene around the world and banned outright in Britain, but now available in a new restored transfer …

Well, yes, it’s a lot of fun, Trash Heaven in fact. Anita still has that Ekberg magnetism here (see label for my other reviews on her classics like SCREAMING MIMI or ZARAK), hilarious moments include her stamping on false teeth and having some hot girl on girl action. Directed by one Giulio Berruti.

THE NUN OF MONZA, 1969. “The Nun of Monza” by Mario Mazzuccheli was a respected Penguin paperback in the ‘60s which I remember enjoying reading. The film, by Epirando Visconti (a nephew of Luchino), finally turns up, a 1969 romp from that era of nun exploitation cinema. The story is based on real events emphasizing on the hypocrisy and abuse of power of the Catholic Church in 17th Century Italy. 
It all looks great of course, the buildings and the costumes. Anne Heywood is the Mother Superior who against her will has to give shelter to handsome Antonio Sabato who soon has those nuns all aflutter. Hardy Kruger is the priest who wants him protected. Soon though Sabato and Anne have a passionate affair resulting in a baby. Then they have to go on the run due to various plot twists and turns. It all ends with her being walled up alive for 10 years …. A fate worse than death, probably. Not as lurid as THE DEVILS it still packs a punch and looks great. Good score too by Ennio Morricone. 

RED RIDING HOOD, 2011. The classic fairly tale re-imagined for the TWILIGHT generation, as its director Catherine Hardwicke fashions a marvellous village and forest setting for more werewolf mischief … This time, Amanda Seyfried is Valerie (and she seems as vapid as she was in MAMMA MIA!) the girl torn between two men, the man she loves and the one her parents want her to marry. Gary Oldman on autopilot is Solomon, the werewolf hunter brought in to aid the villagers as it seems the wolf who prowls the forest is actually one of them in daylight hours … Julie Christie (right) is the grandma with her cottage in the woods who gives Valerie her scarlet cloak. I would not really bother with this, apart from Christie, who has some good moments. The ending though is rather a mystery as Riding Hood kills the werewolf (her own father!) but does not mind that the man she loves will also become one, as she takes grandma's place and waits for him. It has moments of campy fun but left a lot to be desired, some of it looks so murky one can hardly see what is going on – I was wishing I was back at Neil Jordan’s THE COMPANY OF WOLVES in 1984. 

I KILLED RASPUTIN. A rather tatty entry in the Rasputin stakes, this 1967 farrago is directed by actor Robert Hossein, who also appears. Hossein did some neat French thrillers I like a lot, but this one is not in those league. Peter McEnery is young Prince Yusupof , with Geraldine Chaplin as one of Rasputin’s devotees. Rasputin though is Gert Froebe – perfect as GOLDFINGER but all wrong here (Christopher Lee was a much more compelling Mad Monk for Hammer Films). Hossein’s father Andre did the music score. The real aged Prince Yusopov appears in person at the start, a few months before he died, which is the only fascinating thing here. We like Peter McEnery too, the first HAMLET I saw on stage about that time, in 1968, but wasted here. 

SERIAL MOM, 1994. Director John Waters puts a twist on the everyday mediocrity of suburban life in the hilarious satire SERIAL MOM. See Kathleen Turner like never before as Beverly Sutphin, the seemingly perfect homemaker who will stop at nothing to rid the neighbourhood of anyone failing to live up to her moral code. This is great fun but not quite in the same league as Waters’ HAIRSPRAY or indeed his earlier, wilder classics like FEMALE TROUBLE or PINK FLAMINGOS. Turner lets rip as people who do not recycle properly or who do not re-wind their rented video-cassettes get into a lot of trouble, as the body count piles up, even a leg of lamb can be a murder weapon! With Sam Waterston, and Waters regulars Ricki Lake, Mink Stole, Tracy Lords, Patricia Hearst and Suzanne Somers. Kitsch is the word! 

BEVERLY HILLS MADAM. I recorded this 1986 telemovie from a cable channel and foolished wiped it, I wish I had kept it now Its a kitschfest with all the requisite '80s glossy trappings and with those big hair and big shoulders, and Faye Dunaway cheerfully chomping the scenery as the Madam - hadn't she learned anything from MOMMIE DEAREST? - we are a long way from CHINATOWN here! A bordello catering to rich and wealthy clients, run by Lil Hutton (Faye) experiences a series of crises as one girl ends up pregnant, and another dead. As a subplot, a young woman, Julie Taylor, makes a trip to LA to surprise a friend, but never finds her. Julie is mugged, and seeks help from Lil. She sees how much the callgirls are making, and is tempted into the lifestyle. On her first "job" is hired by a rich father for his 18-year old virgin son as a birthday gift, and they fall in love. But the relationship comes to a quick end as soon as the son learns she is a "whore"; Julie breaks down and runs off after realizing prostitution is a cold and loveless occupation that cannot fulfill her emotional emptiness.This treat also features Louis Jourdan, Melody Anderson (those 80s names!), Donna Dixon, Terry Farrell and Robin Givens who sashay through this farrago, directed by Harvey Hart. 

LADY CHATTERLEY’S LOVER, 1981. Sylvia Kristel is the lonely young wife of a wealthy aristocrat in this tale of love, lust and forbidden fantasies as adapted from D.H. Lawrence’s famously erotic novel, featuring the tortuous conflict between duty and desire. Paralysed from the waist down due to a war injury, Sir Clifford Chatterley urges his wife Constance to take a lover to satisfy her physical needs, but when she begins an intense affair with a man of shockingly lower class – the virile and rugged gamekeeper Mellors – the unexpected stirring of passions will spell the end of their marriage ….. 
Shane Briant makes Chatterley a nasty bore, whereas Nicholas Clay is a perfect Mellors, totally at ease washing himself au natural. I suppose Kristel is adequate as Lady C, as directed by Just Jaeckin, and Ann Mitchell scores again as that devious nurse with it seems her own plans for the estate and Lord Chatterley. It’s a Golan/Globus production with better than usual production values. I wonder how it compares to the ’93 Ken Russell version? Can I be bothered to find out?

TOO HOT TO HANDLE, 1960. Sex bomb Midnight Franklin is the star at the Pink Flamingo nightclub in London’s wild Soho district. Midnight’s lover, club-owner Johnny Solo, carefully handpicks the exotic dancers from the scores of actresses, art students and young housewives that seek to join the well-paid Flamingo strippers. Johnny and the girls are not adverse to after-hours “deals” with the club’s wealthy clientele. The cash is rolling in and life is good. So good in fact that a rival club owner wants a piece of the pie and is prepared to use violence to get it. But Johnny is not one to back down from a fight, setting off a downward spiral of events that will explode in betrayal and murder! 

Delirious blurb – delirious movie. I had thought this was a cheapo effort not worth bothering with, but it proves a delicious cocktail of 1960 tropes among the Soho stripper set, tawdry but fun, like 1958's PASSPORT TO SHAME (revew at Diana Dors label) or EXPRESSO BONGO. It is directed by Terence Young (a few years before he moved on to James Bond and DR NO) and the cast all shine. Leo Genn is just right as Solo, while Jayne Mansfield is sweet and likeable as Midnight – this may have been the start of her slide from 20th Century Fox to cheapo movies, but she shines as the den mother to the strippers, and she has a nice scene with young Barbara Windsor (right, with her own assets to the fore, well they would have to be to compete with Jayne…) as 15 year old Ponytail. (Barbara is now one of our National Treasures here in the UK, so its amusing seeing her this early in her career in this context). Carl Boehm (PEEPING TOM that same year) is also to hand with nothing much to do, and Christopher Lee is actually rather sexy with that moustache as the devious club manager. Its all a lot of fun actually. 

Weekend treat ....

I will be going back to 1980 and re-seeing Paul Schrader's AMERICAN GIGOLO again, it defines the early '80s for me (along with Kasdan's BODY HEAT)  as the combination of Schrader's Bresson-like tale, Gere in those Armani clothes, Giorgio Moroder's pulsing soundtrack, the fabulous Lauren Hutton and that-to die-for apartment (visual consultant: Ferdinando Scarfiotti) combine to make a fashion/glamour statement that still works now. I will have to re-see Schrader's unique take on CAT PEOPLE (1982) as well ... and Gere's recent ARBITRAGE which seemed better than usual. More on GIGOLO at label ...

Rainy day thoughts ...

Some musing after reading the weekend papers ...

Nobody I presume sets out to make a bad movie, but some certainly turn out bad - how do the actors feel then having to promote them?  I caught sight of Simon Pegg a couple of times last week on early morning tv shows sitting on sofas (what has he done to his hair ? - he seems to be wearing something new ....) talking up this new piece of drek A FANTASTIC FEAR OF EVERYTHING which according to the reviews here is possibly the worst film of the year or as one says "is unarguably one of the worst British films I've ever seen" - what, worse than SEX LIVES OF THE POTATO MEN or LESBIAN VAMPIRE KILLERS which temporarily killed off James Corden's career here - once I saw that first review of it in "Time Out" followed by that "Sunday Times" page I knew it would take him a long time to recover, but of course he is now wowing them on Broadway. 

Pegg of course has form with bad movies - he may turn up in major franchises like that recent MISSION IMPOSSIBLE but there's also that awful BURKE & HARE and that take on Toby Young's HOW TO LOSE FRIENDS & ALIENATE PEOPLE, RUN FATBOY RUN etc - but I dare say he's not too worried, as he has several others in the pipeline since ... perhaps he should read the rave reviews from everyone for rapper Plan B (Ben Drew) and his film ILL MANORS - that should be suitable punishment.

Then there is Will Ferrell: "A word for CASA DE MI PADRE: rotten. This would have been stretched as a 5 minute sketch on Saturday Night Live. I have rarely laughed so little at a comedy", what on earth were Gael Garcia Bernal and Diego Luna thinking?

Here's Grace ...

By now everyone must have seen those photos and clips of Grace Jones wowing them at the Royal Jubilee Concert as she hula-hooped her way through "Slave to the Rhythm". Everyone is commenting on how amazing she looks at 64 as she showed youngsters like Cheryl how it's done - Grace is bigger than ever now and headlines the annual Lovebox festival next Sunday here in London. (Music label). I saw her 10 years ago exactly at a festival in 2002 - where she was also the headline act and kept us all waiting as it got darker for 45 minutes so just as we were getting annoyed there she was and blew us away - it was an amazing act, one of the best I have seen. Those albums like NIGHTCLUBBING and LIVING MY LIFE are still essential and I love that COMPASS POINT double album sessions .... Grace can be known to be difficult but it was great seeing her chatting to The Queen. Grace's was actually the first 12" vinyl record I bought, back in the '80s - that double sider of "I Need A Man" and "La Vie En Rose" - and all those stunning videos ... Have a great Lovebox - it may be wet as our bad weather is set to continue.
Now the latest Hot Chip cd has arrived .....

What became of the movie brats ?

An interesting piece too on those other '70s directors we liked ...(apart from Scorsese, Spielberg, Coppola, De Palma):

• Hal Ashby - , THE LANDORD, HAROLD AND MAUDE, SHAMPOO, COMING HOME, BEING THERE etc - died in 1988, aged 59. "His increasingly erratic drug-fuelled behaviour meant that by the end of the 80s he could only get work directing minor tv shows".
• Peter Bogdanovich - THE LAST PICTURE SHOW, PAPER MOON etc- but flops like DAISY MILLER and AT LONG LAST LOVE put paid to that interesting career that began with TARGETS. His books though like "Who the hell's in it?" are fascinating as he knew them all .... 
• William Friedkin - still working
• Dennis Hopper - died in 2010 aged 74.
• Rob Rafelson - last film in 2002
• Robert Altman - died in 2006, aged 81
• Paul Schrader - writer of TAXI DRIVER, director of AMERICAN GIGOLO, BLUE COLLAR, LIGHT SLEEPER etc - still working at 65, now in indie films - I liked THE WALKER ...
• Alan J Pakula - died in 1998 aged 70 in a freak automobile accident when a pole crashed through his windscreen while driving - I am seeing KLUTE again later this week ...

Movies I love: Obsession

1976 and the key movie of the year is Scorsese's TAXI DRIVER, but for me there was also Brian De Palma's breakout movie OBSESSION (and Lumet's NETWORK too of course) - what an exciting year with the New Hollywood cementing their reputations. What also links the two movies of course is that they both have those final scores by the great Bernard Herrmann - I had both on sountrack albums (video had not yet arrived!) so one had to have those pounding scores.... OBSESSION was such a dazzling movie seeing it for the first time in the cinema.

The story is deceptively simple as New Orleans businessman Cliff Robertson loses his wife and daughter in a kidnapping that goes wrong. The style, the editing, the music, all contribute to the air of delirium and then our grieving hero is left with his memories, the memorial in the business park, and his business partner John Lithgow... Then years later there is that fateful trip to Florence as he retraces his steps with his wife, and that church where the Italian girl is restoring frescoes. He approaches, he sees her and his frozen ..... as the images and the music reach a crescendo. She is of course the reincarnation of his dead wife - he has to get to know her and unbelievably they fall in love. We see her ill mother and after she dies he has to bring her, Sandra, back to New Orleans where she has promised to marry him. She begins to explore the house and another level is reached, as the kidnapping is replayed .... what is happening, how is it all going to end?

Hitchock of course is the obvious influence here, particularly VERTIGO, and one can see De Palma's relishing of the material and the twists and turns of the plot until the final satisfying conclusion. We watch in amazement as Sandra reveals her side of the story (just like Kim in VERTIGO) and the real villain of the piece emerges. There is also that flashing pair of scissors (just like DIAL M FOR MURDER). The photography by Vilmos Zsigmond complements the music perfectly, and both Roberton and Bujold are astounding, one simply falls in love with Genevive's Sandra Portinari.

In the pre-video '70s though VERTIGO was long unavailable, most Hitch fans only had a memory of it (as I had), and it actually ends on a downbeat note as Scottie loses his great love once again - but that does not happen here, in Paul Schrader's very adroit re-telling of the story.

In the cinema though the lights went up and the curtains closed over the final moments as the camera does that 360 degree sweep around our couple so one did not see the final frames. One has to see it to the very end to appreciate what is really happening as they begin to realise who they really are as puzzlement gives way to understanding and joy. It is totally affecting. For me it is De Palma's masterpiece (I hated DRESSED TO KILL but OBSESSION will always be a Movie I Love).

Taxi Driver

It's back! A new re-issue of TAXI DRIVER for its 35th anniversary ... it would be good to see it properly again - it was probably one of the most viewed of the early video cassettes back in the 80s and 90s.

An essential 1976 movie - how we were gripped and enthralled by it, it is certainly a vividly expressionistic depiction of big city breakdown and one of the true masterpieces of American cinema. One had to read the extensive coverage on it in "Film Comment" as Scorsese, Paul Schrader and De Niro were the heroes of the hour. I had that album too with that pounding Herrmann score - and then those images: the taxi emerging from the steam, the reds and neon colours. Perfect, simply perfect. I also loved NEW YORK NEW YORK and in fact that is one to re-visit too now.

The other movie that excited me as much in 1976 was De Palma's brilliant OBSESSION where one fell totally in love with Genevieve Bujold, and it too had stunning images and another final Bernard Herrmann score. They were the top movies of the year for me, along with Visconti's last L'INNOCENTE (maybe the greatest costume period film ever) and Lester's ROBIN AND MARIAN. Some year ... (like 1975 was the year of Antonioni's THE PASSENGER and Kubrick's BARRY LYNDON

Just a gigolo

I noticed AMERICAN GIGOLO was showing late in the tv schedules so I decided to record it and have another look. I have the dvd of course but I would never have got around to playing it. So I had another look - and I loved it all over again!

Sometimes one can love a movie too much - you can become obsessed about it, go back to see it several times [this is before video, let alone dvd...], one gets the poster, the soundtrack album, it becomes part of that period of your life. Then you get over it and never want to go back to it but it will always be there for you: EAST OF EDEN, THE MISFITS, CLOSE ENCOUNTERS, 2001, EL CID, CHARADE and THE PINK PANTHER, KLUTE for Jane Fonda's Bree Daniels, Isabelle Adjani stunning me in THE HISTORY OF ADELE H, Genevieve Bujold in OBSESSION, MODESTY BLAISE, BLOW-UP [ideal when I was 21], UN HOMME ET UNE FEMME, A BIGGER SPLASH, THE PASSENGER, CHINATOWN, TAXI DRIVER, BARRY LYNDON and AMERICAN GIGOLO for my early 30s. It caught that end of the 70s and into the 80s vibe exactly and made Los Angeles a dream city, Hockney-esque as Richard Gere drove around to Giorgio Moroder's score and Blondie's "Call Me".

That sequence is still perfection: Gere full of himself laying out his clothes in that apartment I wanted to live in, as Smokey Robinson sings that perfect song which the scene seems to be edited to: "We used to meet in romantic places .... the way you wrecked my life was just like sabotage ... the love I saw in you was just a mirage". Pity the song wasn't included on the soundtrack album, but I found it on a Smokey compilation! and then of course for the disco scene with all those macho guys dancing - how very 1980 - Cheryl Barnes' "Love and Passion".

By the mid 70s Paul Schrader was the guy to watch with his scripts for TAXI DRIVER and OBSESSION and being lionised by the likes of "Film Comment" - then his gritty early movies like BLUE COLLAR and HARDCORE emerging from his Calvinist upbringing. Then the glossy AMERICAN GIGOLO caught the moment perfectly and sealed Richard Gere's reputation after those roles in those key movies like DAYS OF HEAVEN, LOOKING FOR MR GOODBAR and Schlesinger's YANKS. Oddly enough I had no interest in him after that - I didn't want to see the big hit AN OFFICER AND A GENTLEMAN (which like TOP GUN became symbolic of the era) and seeing some of the BREATHLESS remake on television confirmed that he was now playing to his admirers.

But as Julian Kay, alone in his apartment with his weights and his clothes and learning Swedish for a new client he does not realise the enemies he is making by falling out with Nina Van Pallandt's madam who created him, or the pimp Leon - before he knows it he is framed for murder and has to turn on himself and wreck his apartment to find those hidden jewels. His clients and socialite friends desert him - but there is Lauren Hutton as the woman he is finding out how to love another person who stands by him. Hutton has hardly been accused of acting, but I love her here; she is perfectly in tune with the film and displays great vulnerability and layers of character. Gere too steps up to the mark with Schrader's exploration of his vulnerabilities and why he does what he does, including that nude scene. One could hardly picture John Travolta doing it. He is so central to the movie, like how Antonioni idealised David Hemmings in BLOW-UP.

This is a perfect summation by Jed Medina of its themes: "A slick Los Angeles callboy finds love and redemption in Paul Schrader's ultra-stylish drama. High-living prostitute Julian Kay has it all: the Mercedes, the clothes, access to Beverly Hills' swankiest establishments, and a stable of rich, older female clients. But it all falls apart after he does a favor for his former pimp (Bill Duke) and the trick turns up dead a short while later; Julian's actual client won't give him an alibi, and police detective Sunday (Hector Elizondo) doesn't believe the gigolo's denials. The one person who can help him is frustrated politician's wife (and sole non-paying bedmate) Michelle (Lauren Hutton), if only Julian could let down his defenses and accept her gesture of love. Mixing his admiration for European art cinema with a voyeuristic view of the seamier side of sex and affluence, Schrader renders Julian an inscrutable, emotionally disengaged purveyor of pleasure, decked out in Giorgio Armani clothes coordinated with Ferdinando Scarfiotti's meticulous production design.

With some audiences reportedly showing up for repeat viewings of Gere's seductive charms, it became a moderate hit, turning Gere into a star and Armani into the new fashion sensation. Whatever reservations one may have about the movie, it provided two indelible images of 1980s decadence to come: Gere's perusing his "artist's palette" of shirts, ties, and jackets, and cruising down the Pacific Coast Highway in his convertible to the New Wave strains of Blondie's "Call Me"."

The other elements - the stylised apartment, Moroder's score, the set design of Ferdinando Scarfiotti (a victim of the 80s Aids crisis), the Armani clothes and Schrader's script and direction, all those serpentine camera movements - blend to create a perfect zeitgeist movie for its time, like Fosse and ALL THAT JAZZ. And of course those Robert Bresson influences, like that ending echoing PICKPOCKET as Julian finds redemption by finally accepting love. It all still works now. Nice to have seen it again and put it back for some other future time. Schrader went on to his intriguing remake of CAT PEOPLE and LIGHT SLEEPER and then after a dip while exploring his demons, returned the other year with THE WALKER, with its echoes of AMERICAN GIGOLO and another great central performance one would not expect from Woody Harrelson. Hopefully there will be more Schrader films to fascinate us. The older Gere is also turning out the occasional interesting movie as well as some very disposable ones!