[Thursday Nostalgia] Frankenstein Must Be Snowed In

In its day, Frankenstein On Campus (1970) gained some notoriety as the first film to be produced with assistance from the Canadian Film Development Corporation, and summarily was met with jeers that such a film was funded by taxpayers' money (and this was years before David Cronenberg's Shivers received greater controversy for its public funding). The film (re-titled Dr. Frankenstein On Campus) was picked up for American distribution on a drive-in double bill with Night Of The Witches, but has been seldom seen since, except for sporadic revival screenings, or late night viewings on Canadian television (when they still showed movies). To date, it has never had an official video release (although, as of this writing, Sinister Cinema offers it for sale, and a funky copy can be viewed on YouTube). 

Way back, in a time before YouTube really became a thing (that is, when singular uploads could only be ten minutes in maximum length), yours truly had planned to attend a revival screening of this "should-be cult classic", at the University of Toronto (where it was filmed). One March weekend, the U of T Film Festival was scheduled at Hart House. 

On the Thursday night (when our tale took place), the festival would commence with Horror 101, a series of horror-related student films, followed by a screening of Frankenstein On Campus, with a panel of participants from the film! Scheduled to attend were the film's director Gilbert W. Taylor, writer-producer Bill Marshall (later a founding member of TIFF), and Paul Hoffert (of the band Lighthouse, who appears in the film's party scenes), with Rodrigo Gudino of Rue Morgue magazine, and Adam Lopez of Toronto’s After Dark Film Festival. 

Alas, I didn't go, because.... and this is so Canadian... Hogtown was hit with a freak snowstorm! 

A blizzard, coupled with wind and thunder, descended upon the city, which created a big snarl of traffic. (Our city usually turns into a commuting nightmare with the first raindrop or snowflake, but this was something else!) At the time, I was still working downtown. Our office had closed early because of the weather. I was the last to leave, either because I was still debating going to the screening after work, or just waiting it out to see how the weather would change. I now forget exactly what prompted the decision not to attend. Perhaps it was the hour-long streetcar ride to the subway (a jaunt that normally took fifteen minutes), after which I was too dragged out to wait around for an event that may have been cancelled for all I knew. Or if I had decided to go home and head out later, that decision would have changed upon arrival in our neighbourhood, when I had to walk thigh deep in snow to the front door!

Instead, the evening was more low-key, spent in the kitchen with a couple of drinks, and watching Larry Buchanan's Curse of the Swamp Creature on the portable DVD player, while making pot roast. Still, to this day I wonder if that screening continued. This week, I finally got around to seeing the film (via a squiggly bootlegged copy), and was reminded of that crazy day all over again. Art and life were in sync: that day's frustration and ultimate surrender mirrored much of Canadian cinema in a nutshell. Our movies could be sub-titled "Cinema Of Frustration", as many narratives are characters falling short of their goals, and our feature film industry in general has a pervasive tone of self-deprecation. (This notion is deserving of its own future blog post.)

Frankenstein On Campus deserves better than its resignation to bootlegs or the occasional screening, because it is much more entertaining than its reputation would have you believe, with its hip (though not jokey) sense of humour, and inventive ideas. It was understandably picked up for American distribution (such as it was), because the film doesn't feel Canadian, if that makes any sense. It lacks the self-conscious tone of so many Canadian genre pictures of the time. If proper film elements still exist, a boutique company like Vinegar Syndrome should restore it for a DVD or Blu-ray release. After fifty years, it is time for this Frankenstein to rise again. 

While I regretted skipping that screening as soon as I set foot in the snow, I smile while thinking of those days, for it was a true Cinema Paradiso back then. For three years, Susan and I worked around the corner from each other. We were steps away from Cinecycle, Queen Video, Trash Palace, Centre For The Arts (where I hosted my own screenings at the time), to say nothing of numerous restaurants and taverns we'd frequent between gigs. By the end of the decade, we were both gone from this location. Our departure seemed synonymous with much of the area's re-development. Many of our favourite haunts (and "slop shops") would soon disappear as the landscape began to resemble something out of Blade Runner.

Oh yes, about the U of T Film Festival. The Friday night had three programs (student films, plus an initiative entitled UofTube, followed by a feature, Drop Box). On Saturday, Super 8 films were projected, with live accompaniment by Guh! (Oh, where was I then? Were we still snowed in?)

[Zine Review] Drive-In Asylum #19

In recent years, we've witnessed a resurgence in film-related print zines: Tim Paxton's Monster!; Brian Harris, Paxton and Tony Strauss's Weng's Chop; Mike Watt's Exploitation Nation; Pete Chiarella's Grindhouse Purgatory. The first generation of film zines (in the 1980s and 90s) was supplanted by the Internet, and blogs in a sense became the new film zine for those who follow less-than-mainstream cinema. But, to quote Tim Paxton, "The Internet is getting boring." So, it is a pleasure to see fellow film enthusiasts continuing the older tradition in print-on-demand formats. To the list of the film zine's new generation, editor-publisher Bill Van Ryn's Drive-In Asylum is a fine addition, itself recalling the cut-n-paste xeroxed fanzines we used to read in the heyday.

To date, Drive-In Asylum has had twenty quarterly issues (the latest just came out, and has yet to arrive), and four special issues, "in print only". (In other words, no e-book.) If your passion lies in horror-exploitation from the drive-in's heyday, circa the 1960s to the 1980s, then this publication is a worthy addition to your shelf. In addition to film reviews, this digest-sized gem is noteworthy for other reasons. 

Each issue features an interview with someone who worked before or behind the camera. For enthusiasts (like yours truly) of regionally-produced genre films from that era, these interviews are important documents of an alternative cinema history that needs to be preserved. In Issue #19, actor Terry Tenbroek shares his memories of working in the 1979 horror film Delirium (such as juggling his acting career with his full-time job as a firefighter), as well as other highlights in his career before the camera. After reading about this film (which was also added to the dreaded "Video Nasty" list back in the day), I had an interest to watch it. I remembered the VHS box art from my beloved Paragon label, and went to pull it from the "Paragon pile", only to discover that I didn't have this movie after all! Oops! YouTube, here I come!

The film reviews are refreshingly personal, as Bill's writing staff often conveys how they first encountered the movies, or how much they play in their lives. For instance, in Issue #19, Joseph Perry's overview of Sunn Classic Pictures, Andy Turner on Fireball Jungle, Sam Panico on the late Mexploitation classic Cemetery Of Terror (coincidentally, being released by Vinegar Syndrome next month), and Robert Freese's Manhattan Baby, will surely give you a deja vu feeling of discovering these films for the first time at the drive-in, grindhouse or even on the late show. I especially like Roger Braden's reminisces of seeing Mario Bava's Beyond The Door II (aka- Shock) in the bottom of a drive-in triple-bill, and J.H. Rood's discovery of the Thriller TV series on late night television. (Note to self: research Psycho Cinema from KASA TV 2 in Albuquerque.) But Drive-In Asylum exists as more than just nostalgia. I like how JC Greening's correlates his revisiting of Stray Cat Rock: Delinquent Girls to the "unprecedented" times in which we now live. 

Additionally, Drive-In Asylum is noteworthy for its eye-filling pages of vintage movie ads from newspapers and TV Guides. Their "in print only" mandate cited above is most telling here. This design simply couldn't be replicated properly in an electronic medium. (Even the front cover is designed like a marquee: the logos are the "attractions" you will read about within these pages.)

This plethora of ads also reminds you of the moviegoing experience back in the drive-in's golden age. There were dozens of films to choose from, instead of today's usual handful. And in a time before Internet, before Rotten Tomatoes, before IMDB, you just picked something and went. Discovery is part of the fun!

The Drive-In Asylum enterprise exists online in several fashions. Their Facebook group, entitled Groovy Doom (itself a cool title neatly summarizing a time and place), has of late featured Saturday night live streaming events, hosted by Bill and Sam, introducing a double bill of vintage exploitation. Groovy Doom also exists as a blog. Additionally, Sam Panico and his wife Becca review similar genre fare online in B&S About Movies. 

As prevalent as they are online, though, do pick up the print zine of Drive-In Asylum, and prepare to get lost in those pages. (Bring your own tinny speakers and mosquito coils.) You can order their zines at the link below. If you're a Canadian reader, to save shipping costs, it would be advisable to order several issues at once. (And believe me, you'll want to get a few anyway.) Check out their shop today!

Links:

Drive-In Asylum's online store at Etsy

Groovy Doom on Facebook

Groovy Doom's blog

B&S About Movies

Buyer Beware: Subway Riders on DVD

For the past several weeks, I've been on a "Downtown New York" kick, watching as many films as I can from New York's Lower East Side scene circa late 1970s to early 1990s (which included, but was not limited to, such movements as No Wave and The Cinema Of Transgression). This is timely because, of late, films by Amos Poe (a mover from this era who did cross over to comparatively mainstream success) have enjoyed a resurgence on disk. Vinegar Syndrome (via the subsidiary label, Fun City Editions) recently released Alphabet City to Blu-ray (review forthcoming). This month, MVD Visual has released three of his films to DVD as part of "The Amos Poe Series": The Foreigner, Unmade Beds, and Subway Riders. 

As far as I knew, Subway Riders had previously not been available here in any home video format, so I was thrilled to acquire a copy. That feeling quickly evaporated upon tearing off the shrink wrap and dropping the disk into the player. It is one of the most piss-poor "mastering" efforts I've ever seen, making Cheezy Flicks look like Criterion. I could live with the fact that their print was murky and washed out, knowing how hard it is sometimes to find a pristine master of such a rare title. HOWEVER. Not only is the movie stretched to 16x9 from its original 4x3 source, it is also rendered unwatchable due to interlace problems throughout. 

Come on, MVD. This is really lazy shit. I was so disgusted that I watched the movie on YouTube instead. The copy currently floating on there is much more watchable, even if it has non-removable German subtitles, with better colour and in its proper aspect ratio. If Poe's other two films are presented by MVD in the same piss-poor fashion, you're better off searching instead for those two titles on the now out-of-print releases by Eclectic DVD.

The DVD cover is posted above, so you know what to avoid. Definitely wanting a refund on this release.

Ennio Morricone (1928 - 2020)

Ennio Morricone was, for my money, the greatest film composer. Perhaps I'm biased, but he was certainly the most meaningful to me, because my cinematic education began with Sergio Leone. It was only upon viewing Leone's films, that I first paid attention to what a director could do. By extension, Lee Van Cleef was the first actor I ever cared about, and Ennio Morricone was the first film composer whose work I really explored. So enamoured was I of his work in Leone's "Dollars" trilogy (starring Clint Eastwood in his breakthrough role as The Man With No Name), that when the films aired on TV (in those pre-VCR days) I would hold my little Radio Shack tape recorder up to the big wooden box (with one little speaker) to record Morricone's music. In many ways, he was the soundtrack to my early cinephile days.

Sergio Leone and Ennio Morricone were one of cinema's greatest director-composer teams, right up there with Hitchcock and Bernard Herrmann. One cannot think of the extreme closeups or the rugged vistas in Leone's spaghetti westerns, without recalling Morricone's distinctive tones. And vice versa, one's first thought of Morricone is perhaps his work with Leone. Yes, his name is synonymous with the spaghetti western genre (having composed for several other films than Leone's), but as his hundreds of credits evidence, Ennio Morricone was so versatile. Comedies, thrillers, historical epics, etc., had the fortune of being graced with the prolific composer. While his work was diverse, it was also distinctive for its unusual instrumentations that were novel to orchestral scores (guitars, harps, voice, reeds), or at least distinctive in how he used them:  he could be easily adept at rock, psychedelia or electronics, as attested by his work in giallo films or John Carpenter's The Thing. It is rather fitting that his soundtrack for Leone's masterpiece Once Upon A Time In The West was included in a book of the best rock records of all time, for its guitar stings and harmonica solos (the latter presages Supertramp's "School" on the Crime Of The Century album.)

It was often said that the best film music was that which you didn't notice. Morricone on the other hand refuted that theory. Heard without the intended accompanying visuals, his music is cinema for the ears, that could elicit excitement, melancholy, humour or pathos in equal measure. No wonder his work is so collectable (as some Morricone fans have soundtrack albums well into the triple digits): they are mini movies unto themselves. 

His sounds could bring the unfilmable to the viewer, adding psychological layers to characterization. Take the moment in Leone's Once Upon A Time In The West which is simply Morton staring at a painting of a seashore. Morricone elevates this moment to great tragedy, and we end up feeling pity for the villain and his unrealized dreams! As in life, there is no simple division between good and evil. 

Although decades have passed since those Radio Shack days, I admittedly still return time and again to his work with Leone and other westerns. However, he left an incredible legacy of hundreds of soundtracks for numerous genres that are still there to explore, and will endure long after we all have gone to Sad Hill. (Just weeks ago, I heard for the first time his thrilling work for Veruschka: Poetry Of A Woman.)

Thank you, Maestro.

Here is a selected filmography of his massive résumé. (I'm sure I've neglected a favourite of yours, but this is just a sample.)

1964: A Fistful Of Dollars; Before The Revolution. 1965: Nightmare Castle; Fists In The Pocket; For A Few Dollars More; The Return Of Ringo. 1966: The Bible: In The Beginning; The Battle Of Algiers; The Good, The Bad And The Ugly; The Big Gundown. 1968: Danger: Diabolik; The Mercenary; Death Rides A Horse; Teorema; Partner; Once Upon A Time In The West. 1970: Burn!; The Red Tent; Two Mules For Sister Sara. 1971: Duck, You Sucker; Cold Eyes Of Fear; The Cat O Nine Tails; A Lizard In A Woman's Skin; Sacco & Vanzetti. 1973: My Name Is Nobody; Massacre In Rome. 1974: Allonsanfan; Arabian Nights. 1975: Salo or the 120 Days Of Sodom. 1976: 1900. 1977: Orca; Exorcist II: The Heretic. 1978: Days Of Heaven; La Cage Aux Folles. 1979: Luna. 1980: Windows. 1981: So Fine. 1982: White Dog ; The Thing. 1983: Thieves After Dark. 1984: Once Upon A Time In America. 1986: The Mission. 1987: The Untouchables. 1988: Frantic; Cinema Paradiso. 1989: Casualties Of War. 1990: Hamlet; Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!. 1991: Bugsy. 1992: City Of Joy. 1993: In The Line Of Fire. 1994: Wolf; A Pure Formality. 1995: The Starmaker. 1996: The Stendahl Syndrome. 1997: U Turn. 1998: The Legend Of 1900; Bulworth. 2000: Malena. 2002: Ripley's Game. 2015: The Hateful Eight.

Secluded Cinema: Ed Hunt's POINT OF NO RETURN

Most people's Holy Grail of Lost Films would include such famously elusive titles as Tod Browning's London After Midnight (1927), or F.W. Murnau's Four Devils (1928). Fair enough. High on my list too, is the 1976 Canadian thriller, Point of No Return, written and directed by the one and only Ed Hunt. 

To viewers north of the US border, Edward Hunt will always be synonymous with for the 1977 Canadian camp classic Starship Invasions. Seriously, how can people not love this movie? Say what you will about its shortcomings in the production and effects department, the movie unquestionably has a lot of heart. And no wonder it has endeared genre fans of a certain age.  On that basis alone, the staff at ESR has always gone out of its way to screen anything else by the man. It is clear that Ed Hunt had something to say for himself; at the very least he sure knew how to set a mood.

His short but eccentric career includes such curios as the creepy paranormal doc UFOs Are Real, the biological thriller Plague, and the "children run amuck" horror favourite, Bloody Birthday. Although Ed Hunt was born in Los Angeles, much of his filmography was Canadian-made. After another beloved piece of Canuxploitation, The Brain, in 1988, Mr. Hunt disappeared from the silver screen, until his 2014 comeback with Halloween Hell.

Almost all of his feature films have been made available either on VHS or DVD. Except Point Of No Return. This title is included in the "Top Five Missing Films" at the Facebook group for Canadian Cult Films of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. (The other four titles will likely appear in this column at a later date.) 

Here is Clive Denton's film review, from the February 1977 issue of Cinema Canada. (I apologize in advance for the length of his review, but feel it's necessary to leave some kind of Internet footprint about this film.)

Whatever limitations there may be to the impact of Point of No Return, one thing you can say for it right away: it isn't boring. In fact, though the story it tells is basically unlikely, it seems more plausible while it lasts than did a slightly similar recent Canadian shot at a thriller. Sudden Fury.


Ed Hunt has directed with some flair. The location shooting in and around Toronto (the ferries and the island, Buttonville airport) is effective and the film decidedly benefits from the presence of a young leading actor who has presence, Nicky Fylan. He possesses an aggressive charm and an ability to make even far-fetched situations convincing. With more controlling direction he might later on be, in his slightly John Garfield way, very good indeed.

The plot of Point of No Return concerns two brothers. They have some eccentric traits, such as a strong belief in flying saucers and a loyalty to the Toronto Sun. They are, otherwise, likely Canadian lads and the one brother (Fylan) is understandably peeved when the other is murdered, thrusting him (still Fylan) into what used to be called a "web of strange and baffling mystery". The film's makers also seem fairly sure that UFOs do exist and that they visit Ontario regularly, to the extent that this intriguing possibility is only a side issue of the story. What it really revolves around, not to give away too much, is the building of a "small but effective atom bomb," as the chief villain rather Goonishly describes his pet project.

One feels some goodwill towards this film, compared to altogether too many past Canadian features which have been more ambitious and serious but also more pretentious and dreary. Were the producers wise, however, (to be very realistic about marketing) to make their content fairly decently "Adult Entertainment" rather than blatantly "Restricted"? This inhibits fashionable swearing - the worst words having to be bypassed - and cuts off lovemaking at a discreet fadeout. (In compensation, the hero's covered crotch is often literally in focus). The film would pass the fairly tough scrutiny of audiences at theatres like (in Toronto) the Yonge or Odeon Coronet. But "Adult Entertainment" movies can only fill the lower half of an exploitation double bill.

As often happens, there seem to lurk ideas behind the commercial facade of Point of No Return. Its hero has been to jail, he has extreme violence pent up within him and yet he is vaguely trying to a reasonable life, if left to it in peace. Such issues could be made a little clearer, dwelt on more maturely and interestingly than they are. It’s possible within a thriller movie framework. Remember The Big Heat, Cry Of The City, even On The Waterfront. (Sorry, there are no Canadian counterparts in existence yet.) Point Of No Return suffers from either too much characterization (on one, purely saleable, level) or not enough (on a higher, more promising plane). To this higher plane, Ed Hunt - to his credit - surely aspires.

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This film, which co-stars familiar Canadian actors Eli Rill, Cec Linder and Susan Petrie, played briefly during the fall of 1976, in the Toronto area at least, on the bottle of a drive-in double bill with Paul Bartel's Cannonball! Allegedly, the film elements are now past the point of no return: residing as landfill in the Leslie Street Spit. But, according to our research, the movie did play on City TV as late as 1984. Who is to say that an early VCR owner didn't record it for posterity? 

Film titles once thought lost still get unearthed, so one is hopeful that Point Of No Return will be found again some day. At this remove, we'd be happy even with a chromium dioxide, EP-mode copy. Check your attics!