Claudine (1974)

Made during the time when most cinema featuring African Americans had to star in "blaxploitation" vehicles to make a living, this lovely and charming film concerns a single mother (Diahann Carroll) who finds romance with a garbageman (James Earl Jones). Some people dislike the upbeat ending (set to the tingling strains of Gladys Knight's "Make Yours a Happy Home"- we can do it, we can do it now baby), but it is a welcome relief from the hardship that always seems to greet this group. I've never forgotten the seen where Carroll's older son (played by Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs, AKA Washington from "Welcome Back Kotter") gets a vasectomy because he doesn't want to bring kids into this world.

The Overnight Man

This Tom Weinberg-produced short is a great half-hour documentary about newsman Joe Cummings, and his usual "beat" on the graveyard shift, collecting stories from the firemen and the police blotter, and occasionally stopping off to get his beloved chewing gum. We also get a lovely portrait of the man off-hours, with his (very camera shy) wife in a restaurant, and a candid look of Cummings at his AA meetings. This was made on the then-radical videotape technology of half-inch video, better known to you and I as VHS! As such, the washed out quality of the picture seems to add to its feel, and the shots of the desolate, snow-swept streets of Chicago are quite haunting. It's a keeper.

Promises! Promises! (1963)

Dion Conflict, an old friend to ESR, began showing some outdoor movies as of last Sunday, in his parking lot. Last week he showed APPOINTMENT IN HONDURAS, as a "test screening" (a last-minute kind of thing to try it out and see if such a venue would work)... and then continued with tonight's film PROMISES PROMISES, the notorious Jayne Mansfield sex comedy which featured the fading starlet in the buff. So desperate is this movie that it has to show this fleeting footage again and again.. and again. But it almost works as a Dada-ist nightmare, as the movie almost acts as some kind of dream logic, with these incongruous cut-ins, and weirdo dream sequences. In its day, the plot for this film was quite vulgar- two couples on a ship play around with each other, and then a pregnancy makes them wonder who the father is. Jayne's husband Mickey Hargitay, former Mr. Universe, is one of the hubbies in this confusion of sexual mores, and then good old Tommy Noonan, the gimpy lead who starred with both Marilyn Monroe and Mamie Van Doren, adds Jayne Mansfield to his troika of starlet vehicles in which he is unlikely paired off to a bombshell.

The Ballad of Andy Crocker (1969)

This low-key, character driven TV-movie features Lee Majors as a Vietnam vet returning to his hometown in Texas to find that everything has changed. While this plot line may not sound original by any means (as it has been re-used for two decades since), who is to say that this film didn't invent it? Joey Heatherton plays his ex-girlfriend, and there's even a supporting role for Marvin Gaye as Lee's war buddy! Less concerned with Vietnam politics, this movie is also a precursor to a lot of theatrical films of the 1970's with a similar feel of wandering and "What now?"

WJR: One of a Kind (1966)

This delightful short, which you can find on the Internet Archives, is a 15-minute documentary about what makes Detroit's AM radio station, WJR, so unusual. While perhaps in this day and age, one may be hard-pressed to see what is so unusual, but it is an entertaining piece nonetheless- perfect viewing for audiophiles and radio nerds. My favourite is the guy who teaches musical theory on the air, and then plays out the chords on the piano right in the soundbooth. You also see J.P. McCarthy, long-standing WJR personality, right up until his death in 1995. And they get the atmosphere of the station right down to the money-- the control booth is littered with ashtrays, crumpled paper and styrofoam coffee cups. This movie also features hilariously stilted shots of people doing everyday activities, like shaving and housecleaning, while listening to the radio, plus some cool images of mid-1960s suburbia. Lots of fun.

Panic in the Streets (1950)

In remembrance of Barbara Bel Geddes, who just passed away, today's movie is Elia Kazan's amazing noir thriller PANIC IN THE STREETS (1950). Although TV Nuts from the last 30 years will best remember her as JR's mom in "Dallas", classic movie fans possibly best recall her as the woman who stood by Jimmy Stewart while he messed around with Kim Novak in VERTIGO (1958). Prior to that, however, this stage actress did a string of classic films noir in the late 1940s- Max Ophuls' CAUGHT and Anatole Litvak's THE LONG NIGHT (1947). Ms. Geddes' roles on film seemed to typefy the all-American woman that men would eventually come home to after venturing in the dark side.

Richard Widmark is a doctor racing against time to find a murderer who is also the carrier of a plague! Film also features some great work by Jack Palance and Zero Mostel as the heavies, plus superb use of sweaty seedy New Orleans locations to add to the authenticity. Also a plus is the expert use of long single takes. Despite a lot of the success accorded his later years (STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE, EAST OF EDEN), Kazan nonetheless remained a controversial figure because he named names at the McCarthy hearings to save his own hide. Therefore, it is ironic in the way that Widmark makes a speech in front of some dock workers for someone to come forth and name someone they are looking for as they are a danger to society! For all that, though, when his day's work is done, Dr. Widmark comes home to his wife (Ms. Geddes) in nice boring 1950's suburbia. Not only that, but Tommy Rettig (from TV's "Lassie") plays their son! How's that for 1950's wholesomeness?

Rip-Off (1971)

Out of respect to the passing of Richard Leiterman (see below), I decided that today's movie would be his and Don Shebib's followup to GOIN' DOWN THE ROAD.... the wonderful hippie road movie RIP-OFF (1971). This was also released on VHS way back in the early days of video rentals with the title VIRGIN TERRITORY, which makes it seem like a PORKY'S ripoff, which it certainly is not.

Don Scardino (today a TV director) stars as a hippie high school student who goes on an odyssey to check out this commune property that he has appropriated out in the sticks, chiefly just so he can get into bed with a classmate (played by the angel-eyed Susan Petrie). Don't let this synopsis fool you- this is a very funny, wise, and even rather touching movie. Yes, adolescent growing pains have been an oft-filmed subject for eons, but when the result is as engaging as this, why carp?

Not only are the small group of young men on the verge of being adults, they are also being seduced by the archetypal image of the hippie, so that they can forsake their prep school ties and jackets. You get to see some great footage of a rock concert in Nathan Phillips Square, a poster in a school hallway advertising a Friday night dance with music by Sonny Greenwich (!!!), as well as people with a lot of bushy sideburns. Scardino had just been in HOMER, a Canadian-lensed counterculture movie where he again plays a restless hippie youth, and he was an enjoyable presence in 1970's movies. After making a handful of pictures in the 1970's (including Cronenberg's SHIVERS, and one of my favourites, LIONS FOR BREAKFAST), the charming and talent Susan Petrie just seemed to disappear. Ah, Ms. Petrie, where are you now?

Richard Leiterman 1935-2005

I just learned the night before that Richard Leiterman passed away last month. Mr. Leiterman is an institution in Canadian cinema. This very busy cinematographer is perhaps best known for his work on the classic GOIN' DOWN THE ROAD. However, he had done several films for its director Don Shebib and also several features for Allan King. among others.

An important early credit in his career was as DOP for Frederick Wiseman's cinema verite masterpiece HIGH SCHOOL (1968). Wiseman was/is one of the Godfathers of the Direct Cinema movement, which brought a fresh new approach to documentary filmmaking (filming on the moment, no voiceover narration) that still stands miles above the diluted version of the format seen in all of that horrible Reality TV. Unsurprisingly, Mr. Leiterman was hired by Allan King for his Direct Cinema classic, A MARRIED COUPLE (1969), a searing documentary in which an all-too-candid camera shows us the crumbling marriage of Billy and Antoinette Edwards. When King went on to fictional narrative films, he often employed Leiterman as well (specifically, WHO HAS SEEN THE WIND and SILENCE OF THE NORTH).