The TSL’s Grindhouse: Penitentiary (dir by Jamaa Fanaka)

Posted on January 1, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

In the 1979 prison/blaxploitation film Penitentiary, everyone gets a nickname.

For instance, the main character, played by Leon Isaac Kennedy, may be named Martel Gordone but everyone calls him “Too Sweet,” because he’s addicted to Mr. Goodbar candy bars. Just because Gordone has been sent to prison for a murder that he didn’t actually commit, that’s not going to stop him from going out of his way to eat all the candy that he can. Fortunately, all that candy has not effected his ability to throw a punch or win a fight because this prison is obsessed with boxing.

Too Sweet’s first cellmate is known as Half-Dead (Badja Dola). Half-Dead got his name because he’s already dead on the inside. At least, that’s what I assume the nickname means. It could also mean that, if you find yourself sharing a cell with him, you’re already as good as dead. Half-Dead is violent and sadistic and when he feels that Too Sweet isn’t showing him enough respect, Half-Dead attacks. After an extremely long and grueling fight (one that is made all the more intense by the fact that it’s taking place in a cramped cell), Too Sweet succeeded in kicking Half-Dead’s ass.

Seldom Seen (Floyd Chetman) is Too Sweet’s second cellmate. Seldom Seen is …. well, he’s seldom seen. He has spent 50 of his 65 years in prison. Seldom avoids all of the prison drama and instead, he spends his time in his cell, reading books while sitting in front of a poster of Malcolm X. Seldom Seen, it turns out, used to be a boxer and, when Too Sweet decides to enter the prison boxing tournament, Seldom Seen not only serves as his trainer but also as his mentor.

Jesse “The Bull” Amos (Donovan Womack) is also entering the boxing tournament. Jesse is know as the Bull because he’s big, he’s tough, and he never stops coming after his opponents. He becomes angry when Too Sweet encourage the Bull’s cellmate, “Genie” (Thommy Pollard), to stand up for himself and to not let any man treat him as being “property.” The Bull wants revenge.

Of course, there’s more to the prison boxing tournament than just getting revenge. Win a fight and the warden will allow you an entire week of conjugal visits. Win the tournament and you’ll get early parole and …. wait, a minute, what? I’m all for emptying the prisons and giving people second chances but I’m pretty sure that’s not how parole works. Oh well, it’s a movie, right?

Penitentiary was directed by Jamaa Fanaka, who also directed the very first film that I ever reviewed for this site, Welcome Home Brother Charles. Like Brother Charles, Penitentiary is a film that is obsessed with the idea of being a prisoner of not just the legal system but also of society as a whole. Too Sweet doesn’t just learn how to box. He also learns, from Seldom Seen, that the key to being the “freest man in the world” is to learn how to control your desires and to exercise the self-discipline necessary to make something of yourself. Penitentiary never quite reaches the lunatic heights of Welcome Home Brother Charles, of course. Penitentiary is a far more straight-forward film. Welcome Home Brother Charles featured the title character using his penis to strangle his enemies. In Penitentiary, Too Sweet is content to just beat them up in the boxing ring.

Penitentiary gets off to a strong start. Leon Isaac Kennedy gives a likable performance as Too Sweet and the initial fight between Too Sweet and Half-Dead is handled well. Surprisingly enough, it’s during the boxing scenes that the film starts to run out of energy. The boxing matches go on forever and Fanaka gets bogged down with repetitive scenes of prisoners ducking into a prison restroom to get it on while the guards are distracted by the fight. The film’s narrative momentum stalls out long before the inevitable match between Too Sweet and the Bull. For all the build-up, the final fight turns out to be oddly anti-climatic.

Penitentiary has some strong moments but it doesn’t really come together as a whole. Still, it did well-enough at the box office that Fanaka would go on to direct two increasingly surreal sequels.

Miniseries Review: Mario Puzo’s The Last Don (dir by Graeme Clifford)

Posted on January 1, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

First broadcast over three nights in 1997, The Last Don tells the story of a powerful and respected Mafia family. They control politicians across the country and they own casinos in Vegas and their power even extends all the way to Hollywood. Despite having many enemies, the family has thrived due to the leadership of a wise but ruthless Don. This Don remembers the old ways and imparts lessons about honor to the members of his own family. Never let anyone know what you’re thinking. Never side against the family. If someone like you were to make enemies, they would become the Don’s enemies and then they would fear you …. you know, stuff like that.

However, times are changing and America is changing with it. The underworld is no longer run by men of honor. On top that, the Don is aging and in ill-health. Who will succeed him? One possible successor is respected by all but he’s stayed out of the dirtier aspects of the family’s business and, in fact, he seems to have no desire to be a feared man. Another possible successor is ruthless and has a terrible temper. He sometimes speaks out of turn, because the Don has a sentimental weakness for his children. This possible successor’s anger is feared but perhaps fear is the future of the organized crime in America. The old ways are changing but one thing remains the same. The Don believes in America and he believes in family and….

Wait.

Okay, is it just me or does this all sound just a little bit familiar?

If it does, that’s probably because The Last Don is based on a novel by The Godfather‘s Mario Puzo. Though the family may be called The Clerichuzios and the action may have been moved fro the 40s and the 50s to the 60s, 70s, and 80, the story is still the same basic one that was told in The Godfather. Don Clerichuzio (Danny Aiello) is an honorable man whose time is coming to an end. His grandnephew, Cross (Jason Gedrick), is the possible successor who isn’t crazy. His grandson, Dante (Rory Cochrane), is the possible successor who is violent and doesn’t know how to negotiate. Don Clerichuzio’s dream is for the family to become completely legitimate but good luck with that when the film business and the political world are just as corrupt as the Mafia. I supposed one could argue that The Last Don is narrated by Don Clerichuzio while The Godfather has no narration at all but, seriously, once you have to add a voice-over to explain what’s going on, you have pretty much already last the war.

And yes, I did mention the film business. When Francis Ford Coppola first read The Godfather, he famously hated the Hollywood sections of the book and, with the exception of Tom Hagen’s visit to Jack Woltz (and Woltz’s subsequent discovery of a horse’s head in his bed the next morning), Coppola refused to include them in the movie. The second half of The Last Don, however, goes full Hollywood and, more or less, proves Coppola’s point. Cross’s sister, Claudia (Michelle Burke, who also co-starred with Cochrane in Dazed and Confused), gets a job as an agent and one of her clients is the world’s most famous actress, the ludicrously named Athena Aquataine (Daryl Hannah). When Athena has trouble with her crazy ex-husband (Chris Meloni, bringing a spark of genuine danger to the production), Cross helps her out, falls in love, and gets involved in the production of her next film. This brings him into conflict with a studio exec named Bobby Bantz (Robert Wuhl). Unfortunately, all of the Hollywood stuff is pretty dull. One gets the feeling that Puzo was perhaps settling some old scores with the character of Bobby but Robert Wuhl is one of those goofy actors who belongs nowhere near a Mafia drama. And don’t even get me started on country singer k.d. lang, who is bizarrely cast as a film director.

(Add to that, how can anyone take a character named Athena Aquataine seriously? I never miss an Athena Aquataine movie!))

The Hollywood stuff distracts from the Mafia stuff, which is unfortunate because the Mafia stuff is at least occasionally interesting and it’s certainly better-acted than the Hollywood scenes. Joe Mantegna plays Pippi, who is Cross’s father and who, years earlier, killed Dante’s father. (Mantegna’s always good but it’s a struggle to take any character named Pippi seriously.) Kirstie Alley plays Rose Marie, who is Dante’s mentally unstable mother and the Don’s only daughter. Aiello, Mantegna, and Alley all give good performances, as do Burt Young and Seymour Cassel in the roles of family associates. As for the “younger generation” of Clerichuzios, Gedrick is a bit dull but then again, Cross isn’t a very interesting character. The slightly-built Cochrane is miscast as Dante but ultimately, that miscasting kind of works in that it reminds us that, due to his father being the scion of a rival family, Dante is destined to always be viewed as being an outsider.

As I said earlier, The Last Don was originally broadcast over three nights. I watched the whole thing — all five hours of it — in one sitting and, yes, it was a bit of an endurance test. It’s not just that it’s long but also that it keeps getting bogged down in all of the Hollywood stuff. You don’t watch a film like this because you want to spend five hours watching Robert Wuhl mug for the camera. You watch a film like this for the Mafia action and, for a film called The Last Don, there really wasn’t enough Mafia action. It has its moments but it never feels as authentic as The Godfather, Casino, Goodfellas, The Irishman, The Sopranos or any of the other classic films and shows about the Mafia.. The Last Don needed to be extremely Italian but instead, it was only slightly Italian. Robert Evans famously said that Coppola was selected to direct The Godfather because Coppola would make audiences “smell the pasta.” There’s very little pasta in The Last Don.

The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean (1972, directed by John Huston)

Posted on January 1, 2022 by Jedadiah Leland

During the lawless day of the old west, a drifter named Roy Bean (Paul Newman) wanders into the desolate town of Vinegaroon, Texas. When he enters the local saloon, he meets the vagrants who run the town. They beat him, they rob him, and they tie him to the back of his horse and leave him to die.

Bean, however, does not die. Instead, he’s nursed back to health by a beautiful young woman named Maria Elena (Victoria Principal). Carrying a gun, Bean reenters the saloon and promptly kills nearly everyone who previously attacked him. (“I’m not done killing you yet!” Bean yells at one fleeing woman.) Bean sits down in front of the saloon and waits for justice. Instead, he’s visited by a lecherous traveling preacher (Anthony Perkins), who buries the dead and gives Bean absolution. Bean declares that he is now the “law of the West Pecos.” As the preacher leaves, he looks at the audience and says that he never visited Bean again and later died of dysentery in Mexico. He hasn’t seen Bean since dying so the preacher is sure that, wherever Bean went, it wasn’t Heaven.

Judge Roy Bean dispenses rough and hard justice from his saloon and renames the town Langtry, after the actress Lillie Langtry. Bean has never met Langtry or even seen her perform but he writes to her regularly and pictures of her decorate the walls of his saloon. Bean hires outlaws to serve as his town marshals and sentences prostitutes to remain in town and marry the citizens. Lawbreakers are left hanging outside of the saloon. Bean enters into a common law marriage with Maria and, for a while, they even own a bear, who drinks beer and helps Bean maintain order in the court. Bean may be crazy but his methods clean up the town and Langtry starts to grow. As Langtry becomes more civilized and an attorney named Arthur Gass (Roddy McDowall) grows more powerful, it starts to become apparent that there may no longer be a place for a man like Judge Roy Bean.

The real-life Judge Roy Bean did hold court in a saloon and he did name the town after Lilly Langtry. It’s debatable whether or not he was really a hanging judge. Because he didn’t have a jail, the maximum punishment that he could hand out was a fine and usually that fine was the same amount of however much money the accused had on him at the time of his arrest. Because of his eccentricities and his reputation for being the “only law west of the Pecos,” Roy Bean became a legendary figure. The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean acknowledges from the start that it’s not a historically accurate, with a title card that reads, “Maybe this isn’t the way it was… it’s the way it should have been.”

Based on a script by John Milius and directed by Hollywood veteran John Huston, The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean is one of the strangest westerns to ever be released by a major studio. Featuring multiple narrators who occasionally speak directly to the camera, The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean is an episodic mix of low comedy, graphic violence, and syrupy romance. (The film’s sole Oscar nomination was for the song that played over scenes of Bean and Maria going on a romantic picnic with their pet bear.) Familiar faces show up in small roles. Along with Perkins and McDowall, Tab Hunter, Ned Beatty, Jacqueline Bissett, Ava Gardner, and Anthony Zerbe all play supporting roles. Even a heavily made-up Stacy Keach makes an appearance as an albino outlaw named Bad Bob.

Jacqueline Bisset in The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean

Milius has gone on the record as calling The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean a “Beverly Hills western” and he has a point. He envisioned the script as starring Warren Oates as a less likable and much more morally ambiguous version of Judge Roy Bean and he was not happy that his original ending was replaced by a more showy pyrotechnic spectacle. Milius envisioned the film as a low-budget spaghetti western but Huston instead made a Hollywood epic, complete with celebrity cameos and a theme song from Maurice Jarre and Marilyn Bergman. Milius said that his experience with The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean is what led to him deciding to direct his own films.

Again, Milius has a point but John Huston’s version of The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean has its strengths as well. Though he may not be the madman that Milius originally envisioned, Paul Newman gives a good, grizzled performance as Roy Bean and the role served as a precursor for the type of aging but determined characters that Newman would specialize in during the final phase of his career. Due to its episodic structure, the film is uneven but it works more often than it doesn’t. The chaotic early scenes reflect a time when the west was actually wild while the later scenes are more cohesive, as society moves into Langtry and threatens to make formerly indispensable men like Roy Ban obsolete. Even the cameo performances fit in well with the film’s overall scheme, with Anthony Perkins standing out as the odd preacher. Finally, the young Victoria Principal is perfectly cast as the only woman that Roy Bean loved as much as Lily Langtry.

Though it’s impossible not to wonder what Warren Oates would have done with the title role, The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean is a good end-of-the-west western.

What Could Have Been: The Godfather, Part II

Posted on January 1, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Years ago, I wrote a post called What Could Have Been: The Godfather, in which I discussed all of the actors and the directors who were considered for The Godfather.

It remains one of the most widely viewed posts that we’ve ever had on this site. I guess that shouldn’t be a surprise. People love The Godfather and they love playing What If? Would The Godfather still have been a classic if it had been directed by Otto Preminger with George C. Scott, Michael Parks, Burt Reynolds, and Robert Vaughn in the lead roles? Hmmm …. probably not. But, in theory, it could have happened. All of them were considered at one point or another.

However, in the end, it was Francis Ford Coppola who directed The Godfather and it was Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Cann, and Robert Duvall who brought the Corleone family to life. The Godfather, as everyone knows, was a huge hit and it went on to win the Oscar for Best Picture of the year. As the film ended with the future of the Corleone family still up in the air, there was obviously room for a sequel.

When Paramount Pictures first approached Coppola about writing and directing a sequel, he turned them down. He said he was done with The Godfather and didn’t see any way that he could improve on the story. It’s debatable whether or not Coppola truly felt like this or if he was just holding out for more money. It is known that Coppola did suggest to Paramount a possible director for Part II and that director’s name was Martin Scorsese.

What would Martin Scorsese’s The Godfather Part II have looked like? It’s an intriguing thought. At the time, Scorsese was best-known for Mean Streets and it’s probable that Scorsese’s film would have been a bit messier and grittier than Coppola’s version. If Coppola made films about the upper echelons of the Mafia, Scorsese’s interest would probably have been with the soldiers carrying out Michael’s orders. While Scorsese has certainly proven that he can handle a huge productions today, he was considerably younger and much more inexperienced in the early 70s. To be honest, it’s easy to imagine Scorsese’s Godfather Part II being critically and commercially rejected because it would have been so different from Coppola’s. A failure of that magnitude would have set back Scorsese’s career and perhaps even led to him returning to Roger Corman’s production company. As such, it’s for probably for the best that Coppola did eventually agree to shoot the sequel, on the condition that Coppola be given creative control and Paramount exec Robert Evans not be allowed on the set. While Coppola was busy with Godfather Part II, Scorsese was proving his versatility with Alice Doesn’t Live Her Anymore.

After Coppola was signed to direct, the next best question was whether or not Marlon Brando would return to play the role of Vito Corleone. The film’s flashback structure would ensure that Vito would remain an important character, despite his death in the first film. Coppola reportedly considered offering Brando the chance to play the younger version of Vito but he changed his mind after he saw Robert De Niro in Scorsese’s Mean Streets. Still, it was felt that Brando might be willing to show up in a cameo during the film’s final flashback, in which Michael tells his family that he’s enlisted in the army. Frustrated by Brando’s refusal to commit to doing the cameo, Coppola told him to show up on the day of shooting if he wanted to do the film. When Brando didn’t show, the Don’s lines were instead rewritten and given to Tom Hagen. It’s hard not to feel that this worked to the film’s advantage. A last-minute appearance by Brando would have thrown off the film’s delicate balance and probably would have devalued De Niro’s own performance as the younger version of the character.

Brando wasn’t the only member of the original cast who was hesitant about returning. Al Pacino held out for more money, which makes sense since he was literally the only cast member who could not, in some way, be replaced. Richard Castellano, who played Clemenza in the first film, however learned that he that hard way that he was not quite as indispensable as Al Pacino. In Part II, Clemenza was originally meant to have a large role in both the flashbacks and the present-day scenes. However, when Castellano demanded more money and the right to rewrite his own lines, the older Clemenza was written out the film and replaced by the character of Frankie Petangeli (played by Michael V. Gazzo).

It’s impossible to find fault with Gazzo’s performance but it’s still hard not to regret that Castellano didn’t return. Imagine how even more poignant the film’s final moments would have been if it had been the previously loyal Clemenza who nearly betrayed Michael as opposed to Frankie? Indeed, even after the part was rewritten, many of Frankie’s lines deliberately harken back to things that Clemenza said and did during the first film. Because Clemenza is a very prominent character during the film’s flashbacks, his absence in the “modern” scenes is all the more obvious.

When the role of Young Clemenza was cast, it was still believed that Richard Castellano would be appearing in that film. One of the main reasons that Bruno Kirby was selected for the role of Young Clemenza was because Kirby had previously played Castellano’s son in a television show. Also considered for the role was Joe Pesci, who was working as a singer and a comedian at the time. (His partner in his comedy act was Frank Vincnet.) If Pesci had been cast, he would not only have made his film debut in The Godfather Part II but the film also would have been his first pairing with Robert De Niro. (Interestingly enough, Frank Sivero — who played Pesci and De Niro’s henchman, Frankie Carbone, in Goodfellas, also had a small role in Godfather Part II, playing Vito’s friend, Genco.)

As for the film’s other new major character, there were several interesting names mentioned for the role of gangster Hyman Roth. Director Sam Fuller read for the role and Coppola also considered Elia Kazan. Perhaps the most intriguing name mentioned as a possible Roth was that of James Cagney. (Cagney, however, made it clear that he was content to remain retired.) In the end, the role was offered to Al Pacino’s former acting teacher, Lee Strasberg. Like Gazzo, Strasberg made his film debut in The Godfather Part II and, like Gazzo, he received his only Oscar nomination as a result.

The legendary character actor Timothy Carey (who was courted to play Luca Brasi in the first film) met with Coppola to discuss playing Don Fanucci, the gangster who is assassinated by Vito. A favorite of Stanley Kubrick’s, Carey reportedly lost the role when he pulled out a gun in the middle of the meeting.

Originally, the film was supposed to end in the mid-60s, with a now teenage Anthony Corleone telling Michael that he wanted nothing to do with him because he knew that Michael had Fredo murdered. (That famous scene of Michael bowing his head was originally supposed to be in response to Anthony walking out on him as opposed to the sound of Fredo being shot.) Cast in the role of teenage Anthony was actor Robby Benson so perhaps it’s for the best that the scene was ultimately not included in the film.

Some of the smaller roles in Part II were played by actors who were considered for larger roles in the first film. The young Tessio was played by John Aprea, who was also considered for the role of Michael. Peter Donat, who played the lead Senate counsel in Part II, was considered for the role of Tom Hagen. The rather tall Carmine Caridi, who played Camine Rosato in Part II, was originally cast as Sonny until it was discovered that he towered over everyone else in the cast. And, of course, Robert De Niro famously read for the role of Sonny and was cast in the small role of Paule Gatto before he left The Godfather to replace Al Pacino in The Gang Who Couldn’t Shoot Straight. (Of course, the whole reason that Pacino left The Gang Who Couldn’t Shoot Straight was so he could play the role of Michael in The Godfather. In the end, it all worked out for the best.)

Finally, former teen idol Troy Donahue played Connie Corleone’s second husband, Merle Johnson. Merle Johnson was Troy Donahue’s real name.

Personally, I think The Godfather Part II is one of the few films that can be described as perfect. Still, it’s always fun to play what if.

Icarus File No. 6: The Man Who Killed Don Quixote (dir by Terry Gilliam)

Posted on January 1, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

For many years, The Man Who Killed Don Quixote was a film best known for not having been made.

In the past, we’ve used the Icarus Files as a way to write about filmmakers who flew too close to the sun of their own ambition and who plunged down to the sea as a result. However, in the case of The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, the sun is not director Terry Gilliam’s ambition. Instead, the sun is a combination of shady financiers, natural disasters, and film industry silliness that seemed to all conspire to keep Gilliam from making his film. And yet, unlike the real Icarus, Gilliam insisted on continuing to fly, regardless of how many times he crashed into the ocean.

Terry Gilliam first started to talk about adapting Migel de Cervantes’s Don Quixote into a film in the late 80s. The tale of a Spanish nobleman who becomes convinced that he’s fighting giants when he’s actually only jousting with windmills, Don Quixote sounded like an obvious project for Gilliam. Gilliam’s films have always dealt with the power and importance of imagination. However, it’s often forgotten that Gilliam’s protagonists are often both saved and eventually destroyed by fantasy. (One need only think about the end of Time Bandits, in which the young main character goes on the journey of a lifetime but then watches as his parents blow up in front of him.) It’s easy to forget that Don Quixote dies at the end of Cervantes’s tale, having regained his sanity and having announced that his niece will be disinherited if she marries a man who has ever read a book about chivalry.

From 1990 to 1997, Gilliam started pre-production on his version of Don Quixote several times, just for the production to be canceled. Sometimes, this was due to Gilliam not being able to get the budget that he felt would be necessary to bring his vision to life. Frustrated with the Hollywood studio system, Gilliam wanted to raise the money for and make his movie in Europe but this turned out to lead to a whole new set of financial and regulatory complications.

Filming finally started on the film in 2000, with Jean Rochefort playing a former film actor who thinks that he’s Don Quixote and Johnny Depp playing the director who fills the role of Sancho Panza. Unfortunately, as shown in the poignant documentary Lost in La Mancha, the production seemed to be almost cursed from the start. The footage from the first day of shooting was unusable, due to planes flying overhead. The 2nd day of shooting was ruined by a flash flood that swept away much of the set. Jean Rochefort injured himself and, despite his best efforts to act through the pain, he had to step away from the role. Filming was suspended in 2000 and, for the next 16 years, Gilliam tried to find a way to get the stalled film started up again. Many actors came and went, including Robert Duvall and, most promisingly, John Hurt. Hurt agreed to play the role of Quixote but, just when it seemed that the film was finally going to go into production, Hurt passed away from pancreatic cancer. A few months later, the original Quixote, Jean Rochefort, also passed away. The film went back into limbo.

Finally, in 2016, a producer named Paulo Branco offered to fund the film. Pre-production started up again, this time with Adam Driver in the Sancho Panza role and Michael Palin playing Quixote. However, the project was soon once again stalled, as Branco wanted creative control of the film. When Branco slashed both the budget of the film and Palin’s already reduced salary, Gilliam denounced Branco’s actions. Branco suspended production but, by this point, Gilliam had already hooked up with another set of producers. Jonathan Pryce replaced Michael Palin as Don Quixote and, finally, Terry Gilliam’s The Man Who Killed Don Quixote was filmed!

Once filming was complete, however, Paulo Branco popped up yet again. Claiming that he owned the rights to the story and not Terry Gilliam, he sued to keep the film from being distributed. The courts ruled in Branco’s favor but Gilliam countered that he hadn’t used one frame of footage that had been shot while Branco was serving as producer and that, while Branco had the rights to his version of The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, he did not have the rights to Gilliam’s. While the lawyers argued, Amazon Studios withdrew from an agreement to distribute the film. Once the case was finally settled, The Man Who Killed Don Quixote was finally given a haphazard release in a few countries, often in edited form.

And that’s a shame because The Man Who Killed Don Quixote is a delight. It’s a film that is both playful and snarky, a celebration of imagination that also serves as a satire of Hollywood narcissism. Adam Driver plays Toby Grummett, a director who returns to a Spanish village to direct an big-budget, epic adaptation of Don Quixote. Ten years earlier, as a student filmmaker, Grummett shot a previous adaptation of Don Quixote in the same village. When he tracks down the old shoemaker (Jonathan Pryce), who starred in his student film, he discovers that the shoemaker thinks that he is Quixote and that he’s become something of a tourist attraction.

And from there, the film follows Don Quixote as he takes Toby on a quest to fight giants and protect the helpless and to live a life of chilvary. Along the way, Toby finds himself getting caught up in Quixote’s elaborate fantasy world. It leads to a lot of comedy but there’s also something rather poignant about the old shoemaker’s attempts to be a hero and Toby rediscovering the love of fantasy and the imagination that he had when he was a film student. And yet, it would be a mistake to assume that this film is simply a light-hearted fantasy. The laughs are tinged with melancholy. The enemies that Quixote and Toby meet are not just imaginary giants. This a film that mixes comedy and tragedy in a way that few other films have the courage to do so.

As is typical with Gilliam’s later films, it bites off a bit more than it can chew but it’s still hard not to get caught up in it. Driver and Pryce are both wonderfully cast and the film’s satire of the film business carries a sting to it. Watching the film, it becomes apparent that Gilliam sees himself as being both Quixote and Toby. The film’s ending seems to be Gilliam’s defiant message that he will always choose to fight the giants.

Previous Icarus Files:

Book Review: Behind the Bell by Dustin Diamond

Posted on January 1, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

How bitter can one celebrity be? The 2009 “memoir,” Behind the Bell, attempts to answer that question.

I was originally planning on reviewing Behind the Bell last year. I didn’t, for the obvious reason that Dustin Diamond passed away in April of 2021 and Diamond did not come across particularly well in the book. At the time, I know that a lot of culture bloggers, myself included, felt a bit conflicted when Diamond died. Several years ago, I was one of the contributors to a blog about Saved By The Bell: The College Years, in which we spent nearly every review trashing the character of Screech Powers and the performance of the actor who played him. To be honest, if I had to do it again, I probably wouldn’t change a thing that I wrote because Screech was a terribly-written character on a show that was full of them and Dustin Diamond’s increasingly cartoonish performance in the role didn’t do anything to help matters. But still, after he died, I did find myself thinking about all the crap that Diamond took over the years for playing the character and I realized that it wasn’t entirely fair. With the scripts that were being written, I doubt any actor could have made Screech any less annoying of a character.

That said, it also doesn’t diminish the tragedy of a non-smoker dying of lung cancer at the age of 44 to admit that Dustin Diamond did some fairly shady things after his time on Saved By The Bell. There was the sex tape. There was the controversial fundraiser to save his house. There was the stabbing incident in a Wisconsin bar and his subsequent arrest for violating the conditions of his parole. But again, you have to ask yourself if any of that would have happened if Diamond hadn’t, at the age of 11, been cast on the television show that would both make him famous and also pretty much typecast him as everyone’s least favorite student at Bayside.

Yes, Dustin Diamond was only 11 years old when he was cast as an 8th grader in Good Morning, Miss Bliss, the show that would eventually become Saved By The Bell. He was considerably younger than the rest of his castmates, which undoubtedly led to him becoming the show’s outsider. Along with Dennis Haskins, he stuck with the franchise all way to the end, for ten years. He was 21 when Saved By The Bell: The New Class ended. At a time when most people were having their first legal drink, Diamond was trying to figure out what to do with his life now that his acting career was pretty much over. One would have to be heartless to not have some sympathy for the kid.

Behind the Bell deals with Diamond’s time on Saved By The Bell and his attempts to figure out what to do with his life after the show ended. Unfortunately, as I mentioned earlier, Diamond doesn’t come across particularly well in Behind the Bell. If anything, it’s perhaps one of the most bitter showbiz memoirs ever written.

Of course, before I write anything else, I should point that Diamond himself claimed that he didn’t actually write the book. In 2013, during an interview for Oprah: Where Are They Now?, Diamond said that the book was ghost written by a guy who interviewed him and who either exaggerated his answers or took things out of context. That may be true. There are a few obvious factual errors in the book, a big one being the claim that Elizabeth Berkley starred in Showgirls while also appearing in Saved By The Bell. Everyone knows that the original Saved By The Bell had already ended its run before Showgirls even went into production. At the same time, the book’s bitterness is so obsessive, so detailed, and so personal that it’s hard to believe that it could all just be the product of a ghost writer’s imagination. Diamond may have told the truth about having a ghost writer but it’s hard to buy his claim that the entire book was just based on a few vague and general answers that Diamond provided in an interview.

The majority of the book’s bitterness is directed at his fellow castmates. Mario Lopez is described as being a bully. Tiffani-Amber Thiessen is portrayed as being a bitch. (And yet, at one point, Diamond mentions that he briefly lived with Tiffani-Amber and her family while he was being stalked by a fan.) Elizabeth Berkley and Lark Voorhies are both described as being vapid while Dennis Haskins is apparently difficult to work with. Diamond insinuates that Ed Alonzo seduced Neil Patrick Harris while Harris was still underage. Still, the book reserves most of its ire for Mark-Paul Gosselaar. Interestingly enough, Gosselaar is never described as doing anything that bad and, if anything, he comes across as being rather level-headed for a teen idol. And yet, Diamond insists on telling out that Mark-Paul was actually a “douchebag” who got all of the attention and didn’t want to hang out with “the Dust.” Throughout the book, Mark-Paul is frequently referred to as being “the golden child,” as if Mark-Paul owed Diamond an apology for being the best-looking actor on a show that was all about appearance.

When Diamond (or his ghost writer) isn’t trashing the rest of the cast, he’s telling us about the 2.000 women that he claims to have had sex with while playing Screech. Diamond even claims to have had an affair with one of the show’s executive producers, who was in her 30s at the time. (Diamond would have been 14.) The woman later died of cancer and, as such, was not available to respond to Diamond’s claims. An entire chapter is devoted to getting laid at Disneyland or “the Dizz” as Diamond (or his ghost writer) calls it. Diamond really should have insisted on a better ghost writer.

(He also should have insisted on better copyeditor and fact checker. The book is full of formatting errors and, at one point, a paragraph appears twice. Hopefully, a fact checker would have noticed that Elizabeth Berkley was no longer on Saved By The Bell when Showgirls went into production.)

And yet, there are moments in the book that are actually kind of sweet. The middle section of the book described a typical week in the production of Saved By The Bell and, for once, Diamond stops bitching about his castmates and trying to impress the readers and instead, he just talks about a unique experience that only he and a few other people experienced. For a few brief chapters, the book actually becomes an interesting read and you can briefly see who Diamond was when he wasn’t busy being bitter. There’s a wistful nostalgia to this section of the book. Unfortunately, it only last for a few chapters and then we’re back to accusations of drug abuse and a nauseating “open letter” to all the women who Diamond claimed to have had sex with over the years.

In the end, I guess the main lesson of not just Behind the Bell but also of Dustin Diamond’s life in general is that child actors need a strong support system around them. Too many people will try to take advantage of them and the pressure to often be the sole provider for the family is too much weight to be put on any 11 year-old’s shoulders. Diamond needed someone to look out for him and sadly, it appears that very few people were willing to do that.

Book Review: The Godfather by Mario Puzo

Posted on January 1, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

“The book,” it is often said, “is always better than the film.” But is that always true?

No, it’s not and, if you need proof, just read Mario Puzo’s The Godfather and then re-watch the movie. Or re-watch the movie and then read the book. Either way, you’ll be left with the conclusion that, while the novel did lay the foundation for what became the greatest movie ever made, the novel itself is still a bit …. off.

The Godfather was originally published in 1969 and, before I write anything else, it should be noted that Mario Puzo himself never claimed that the book was meant to be a great work of literature. Puzo had previously written three novels and one children’s book. One of those novels was a pulp paperback that he wrote under a pseudonym for a quick payday. The other two novels were both meant to be works of “serious literature” that examined the human condition. Puzo considered his second novel, The Fortunate Pilgrim, to be his best and most poetic work. The only problem is that, while the reviewers were respectful, hardly anyone read Puzo’s “serious” fiction. As such, The Godfather was Puzo’s attempt to write the most commercial book possible, a page-turner that would climb the best seller list and help Puzo pay off his gambling debts. The Godfather certainly did that, spending 67 weeks on the New York Times’s Best Seller List and selling over 9 million copies in two years. Producer Robert Evans was so sure that the novel would be a hit that he even paid for the film rights while the book was still in the galleys.

Reading the book, especially after watching the movie, can be an odd experience. The film itself is largely faithful to the book. Just about everything that happens in the movie can be found in the book. Michael, Sonny, Tom, Fredo, Vito, Kay, Barzini, Sollozzo …. they’re all here. Usually, characters are more complex in the original book than they are in the subsequent film adaptation. In this case, the opposite is true and reading Puzo’s somewhat leaden prose really does make you appreciate the depth and nuance that actors like Al Pacino, Marlon Brando, James Caan, Robert Duvall, and John Cazale brought to the characters. (Perhaps the most extreme example is Kay Adams, who was written as a dull nonentity with none of the nervous likability than Diane Keaton brought to the role.) To be honest, perhaps the only character who comes across more vividly in the book than in the film is Luca Brasi. The book goes into the details of what Brasi did for the Don in the past and, as a result, it’s much easier to understand why everyone was so terrified of him.

But, as I said, all of the events that can be found in the movie can also be found in the book. However, there’s also a lot of things in the book that we’re left out of the film and it’s easy to see why. In the film, for instance, Johnny Fontane shows up in only two scenes. Tom Hagen goes to Hollywood. Jack Woltz ends up with a horse’s head in his bed. And that’s it for the film industry. (In the book, the horse’s head is just placed in Woltz’s room as opposed to his bed. Francis Ford Coppola later admitted that he misread the passage where Woltz finds the head.) In the book, however, the Hollywood scenes go on forever. Large sections of the narrative are handed over to Johnny Fontane and his best friend as they party in Hollywood. It gets frustrating. You want to read about the Corleones but instead, you’re reading predictable Frank Sinatra fanfic.

When the book’s not getting bogged down on Fontane, it’s getting caught up with Lucy Mancini and her quest to find a man who is as well-endowed as the late Sonny Corleone. Lucy was Sonny’s lover. He was the only man who was large enough to satisfy her. After Sonny’s death, Lucy is given a casino in Las Vegas. It’s while in Vegas that Lucy meets Dr. Jules Segal, an abortionist who explains to Lucy that she can’t achieve sexual satisfaction because her vagina is too big. Fortunately, he can help. Or, as he puts it, “Baby, I’m going to build you a whole new thing down there, and then I’ll try it out personally.” Awwwwwww!

Anyway, for whatever reason, Francis Ford Coppola decided not to include any of this when he made his film version. And it’s for the best. When it comes to The Godfather as a book …. well, the movie’s great. And the sequel’s even better! The book really makes you appreciate what Coppola and his amazing cast and crew were able to accomplish.

The Unnominated: Monty Python and the Holy Grail (dir by Terry Gilliam and Terry Jones)

Posted on January 1, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Though the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences claim that the Oscars honor the best of the year, we all know that there are always worthy films and performances that end up getting overlooked. Sometimes, it’s because the competition too fierce. Sometimes, it’s because the film itself was too controversial. Often, it’s just a case of a film’s quality not being fully recognized until years after its initial released. This series of reviews takes a look at the films and performances that should have been nominated but were,for whatever reason, overlooked. These are the Unnominated.

Really, Academy?

No nominations for one of the most influential and widely-quoted films ever to be released?

Well, actually, I get it. Monty Python and the Holy Grail was first released in 1975 and 1975 was an unusually good year for cinema. Back in the 70s, of course, the Academy only nominated five films for Best Picture and, as a result, a lot of good films were not nominated that year. There just wasn’t room for them. Check out the five films that were nominated and ask yourself which one you would drop to make room for a different nominee.

Would you drop:

Barry Lyndon, which was directed by Stanley Kubrick was considered to be the most realistic recreation of the 18th Century to ever be captured on film,

Dog Day Afternoon, in which director Sidney Lumet brilliantly mixed comedy and drama and which featured wonderful performances from Al Pacino, John Cazale, Chris Sarandon, and Charles Durning,

Jaws, the Steven Spielberg-directed hit that changed the face of Hollywood,

Nashville, Robert Altman’s sprawling and ambitious portrait of a country tying to find itself after a decade of trauma,

One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, in which Milos Forman paid tribute to individual freedom and Jack Nicholson gave perhaps the best performance of his legendary career?

I mean, those are five great films. Even the weakest of the nominees (which, in this case, I think would be the eventual winner, One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest) is still stronger than the average Best Picture nominee.

So, I can understand why there wasn’t room for an episodic and rather anarchistic British comedy, one that largely existed to parody the type of epic and period filmmaking that the Academy tended to honor. If there had been ten nominees in 1975 and Monty Python and the Holy Grail had been snubbed to make room for something like The Other Side of the Mountain, my feelings might be different but there weren’t.

That said, even if there wasn’t room in the Best Picture slate, what to make of the lack of nominations for a script that is so full of quotable lines and memorable incidents that even people who haven’t seen Monty Python and the Holy Grail are familiar with them? No nominations for the costumes, the production design, or the cinematography, all of which are surprisingly good for a low-budget film that was directed by not one but two untested neophyte directors? No nominations for the thrilling music or the Camelot song? How about a special award for the killer rabbit?

How about at least a best actor nomination for Graham Chapman, who played King Arthur not as a comedic buffoon but instead as being well-intentioned but also increasingly frustrated by the fact that his subjects cared not about his quest or his royal title? Though 1975 may have been a strong year for movies, it appears that the Academy still struggled to find five best actor nominees and they resorted to giving a nomination for James Whitmore’s performance as Harry Truman in a filmed version of his one-man stage show, Give ‘Em Hell Harry. Nothing against James Whitmore or Harry Truman but I think we all know that spot belonged to Graham Chapman and his performance as King Arthur.

Monty Python and the Holy Grail is often described as being a satire of the Arthurian legends. I think, even more than being a film about King Arthur, it’s a film about a group of people trying to make an epic despite not having the resources or the patience to do so. Python humor has always featured characters who were both foolishly confident and stubbornly aggressive and both of those traits are on wide display in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. The production can’t afford horses so Arthur and his knights hit two coconuts together to duplicate the sound of the hooves on the ground and when they’re confronted about it, they attempt to change the subject. Can’t afford to shoot in a real castle? Simply declare Camelot to be a silly place and walk away. Can’t afford to get permits to film on a certain location? Film illegally and run the risk of getting arrested just when you’re about to start the film’s climatic battle scene. Can’t afford to hire God for a cameo? Use a cut-out. Can’t afford a real knight? Just hire some people who get carried away and then hope one of them doesn’t kill the local academic who has shown up to explain the film’s historical context.

“I just get carried away,” John Cleese’s Lancelot says more than once and he has a point. But the entire movie is about people getting carried away. The Black Knight is so carried away in his belief in himself that he continues to fight despite having neither arms nor legs. The villagers are so carried away in their desire to burn a witch that they cheer when it’s discovered that she weighs the same amount as a duck. (“It’s a fair cop,” the witch, played by Connie Booth, admits.) Eric Idle’s Sir Robin is so carried away in his ability to answer questions that he doesn’t consider that he might be asked about the capitol of Assyria. The Knights of the Round Table as so carried away in their dancing and their singing that no one wants to go to the castle. Even the film’s animator gets carried away, suffering a heart attack and saving Arthur and his surviving knights from a fate worse than death.

Monty Python and the Holy Grail is a very funny film, of course. We all know that. (I once read a story about a woman who, having learned she only had a few weeks to live, decided to watch this film everyday until she passed. I don’t blame her.) But what I truly love about this film is that, in scene-after-scene, you can literally see the Pythons realizing that they were actually capable of making a real movie. Michael Palin, especially, seems to be having so much fun playing the eternally pure Sir Galahad that it’s impossible not to get caught up in his happiness. There’s a joie de vivre that runs through Monty Python and the Holy Grail, even at its darkest and most cynical. The Pythons are having fun and it’s impossible not to have fun with him.

And, while the Oscars may have snubbed Monty Python and the Holy Grail, the Tonys did not. When the film was later turned into Spamalot, it received 14 Tony nominations and won three.

Previous entries in The Unnominated:

The Covers of Fantastic Universe

Posted on January 1, 2022 by Dazzling Erin

by Edmund Emshwiller

It’s a new year and I don’t know about you but I feel like looking to the future. From 1953 to 1960, Fantastic Universe did just that. It was one of the many sci-fi magazines to be published in the 50s. While it was never as financially successful as some of the other magazines of the age, it has since been acclaimed for the quality of its writing and for its covers!

Here, to get 2022 off to a good start, are a few of the covers of Fantastic Universe:

by Virgil Finlay

by Alex Schomburg

by Ed Moritz

by Frank Kelly Freas

by Leo Margulies

by Virgil Finlay

Cleaning Out The DVR: And Now For Something Completely Different (dir by Ian MacNaughton and Terry Gilliam)

Posted on January 1, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

A tall, dark-haired British man sits behind a desk that is rather oddly sitting in the middle of a field. He wears a dark suit and he looks quite serious as he says, “And now, for something completely different….”

Cut to a short film about a man with a tape recorder up his nose, followed by another short film about man who has a tape recorder up his brother’s nose.

A Hungarian man tries to buy cigarettes while using an inaccurate English phrasebook. The publisher of the phrasebook is later brought before the court.

Poor old Arthur Pewty goes to marriage counseling and can only watch impotently as the counselor seduces his wife. Having filed to stand up for himself, Pewty is crushed by 16-ton weight.

A self-defense instructor teaches his students how to defend themselves when they are attacked by a man with a banana.

A loquacious man in a pub says “nude nudge” and “wink wink” until his drinking companion is finally forced to slam down his drink.

A man who sees double recruits a mountaineer to climb the two peaks of Mt. Kilimanjaro. Hopefully, they’ll be able to find last year’s expedition, which was planning on building a bridge between the two peaks.

There’s bizarre, almost Dadaist animation, featuring classic works of art interacting with cartoonish cut-outs.

Uncle Sam appears to explain how communism is like tooth decay. A toothpase commercial explains how taking care of your teeth is like racing a car. A motor oil company shows how it can destroy darkness and grim.

A prince dies of cancer but the spot on his face flourishes until it falls in love and moves into a housing development.

A man tries to return a dead pigeon. The store clerk insists the pigeon is merely stunned and then sings about wanting to be a lumberjack.

A general complains that things have gotten much too silly.

The narrator appears randomly, announcing, “And now for something completely different….”

Okay, okay, you get the idea. First released in 1971, And Now For Something Completely Different was the first film to be made featuring all of the members of Monty Python’s Flying Circus. It was their initial attempt to break into the American market, a collection of surreal sketches that they had previously performed on television for the BBC. Unfortunately, at the time, no one in America really knew who Monty Python was and the film failed at the box office, to the extent that many in the UK advised against Monty Python even allowing their program to later air on PBS because it was felt that Americans just wouldn’t get it. Of course, Americans did eventually get it. The show remains popular to this very day. Countless Americans are convinced that they can speak in a perfectly convincing British accent, as long as they’re quoting a line from Monty Python. The previous 4th of July, when the town band played John Philip Sousa’s Liberty Bell, I saw hundreds of people stamping down their feet at the end of it. As for And Now For Something Completely Different, it was re-released in 1974 and became a bit of a cult favorite in the States.

That said, the members of Monty Python were never particularly happy with the film. They were convinced to make the film by Victor Lownes, who was the head of Playboy’s UK operation. Lownes, however, alienated the members of the group by trying to exert control over the material. He particularly objected to the character of Ken Shabby, a perv who probably had a stash of sticky Playboys back at this flat. Lownes also put up very little money for the production, meaning that the Pythons had to resort to shooting the film, without an audience, in a deserted factory. Apparently, even the deliberately cheap-looking special effects of the television show were considered to be too expensive to recreate for the film. Michael Palin and Terry Jones both later complained that the film itself was series of scenes featuring people telling jokes while sitting behind desks.

Of course, Lownes’s biggest sin was trying to insinuate that he was somehow the Seventh Python. (One can only imagine how many people were guilty of the sin over the years. Claiming to be the Seventh Python was probably a bit like claiming to be the Fifth Beatle.) When Terry Gilliam was animating the film’s opening credits, the names of the cast were shown in blocks of stone. Lownes insisted that his name by listed the same way. Gilliam reluctantly acquiesced but then redid the names of the Pythons so that they were no longer in stone. Fortunately, Victor Lownes would not involved in the subsequent Python films.

All that said, there’s no denying that And Now For Something Completely Different is a funny movie. I mean, it’s Monty Python. It’s John Cleese, Michael Palin, Graham Chapman, Eric Idle, Terry Jones and Terry Gilliam, all youthful and at the heights of their considerable comedic talents. Even if all of the sketches are familiar from the show, they’re still funny and it’s impossible not to enjoy discovering the way that the movie threads them together. (Combining the Lumberjack song with the dead parrot sketch worked out brilliantly. “What about my bloody parrot!?” Cleese is heard to shout as Palin walks through the forests of British Columbia.) Personally, my favorite Python is Eric Idle but I also love any sketch that involves Michael Palin getting on John Cleese’s nerves. Everyone knows the dead parrot sketch, of course. But I also like the vocational guidance counselor sketch. It’s hard not to get caught up in Palin’s excitement as he discusses his lion tamer’s hat. Almost as wonderful as Palin’s turn as Herbert Anchovy, accountant was Michael Palin’s turn as the smarmy host of Blackmail. Actually, maybe Michael Palin is my favorite Python. I guess it’s a tie between him and Eric.

And Now For Something Different has been on my DVR for quite some time. I’ve watched it several times. I’m not planning on deleting it any time soon.