Herschell Gordon Lewis, the wizard of eephing

Doctor X

John McElwee, and his Greenbriar Picture Shows has a highly interesting post up about Pre-Code Horror movie Doctor X:
" ... Doctor X and Mystery Of The Wax Museum are unique for being the only horror films shot in any kind of Technicolor during the thirties. The two-color process was never satisfactory for cartoons, and musicals suffered from pallid representations of costumes and décor, but horror films stood to reap enormous benefits from not of this earth color seemingly shot through lens smeared with formaldehyde. I don’t know how that Doctor X crew stood workdays that ran to twenty hours under the martinet direction of Michael "Skip Lunch" Curtiz (shown here with star Lee Tracy) [Edit by mrdantefontana: shown in the full post over at Greenbriar Picture Shows. Not in this post] . Unions in 1932 were proposed, if at all, in secret meetings among participants who knew not the meaning of days off. On Sabbaths while most rested, the Doctor X team had worked straight through Saturday night and into early morning hours, so that when they did finally arrive home, sheer exhaustion negated Sunday recreation other than blessed sleep. For those in the camera’s glare, lights needed to enable Technicolor were intense beyond endurance and some players sustained damage to eyes they’d keep for life. ..."

Enjoy the full post here.

Black Sunday

Screencaps from Mario Bava's 'Black Sunday aka The Mask of Satan' (La Maschera del demonio) kindly submitted and uploaded to Nostalgia Party No. 2.

The trailer:

Uploaded by drjitters

The (complete) Score:
boomp3.com

Ed Seeman "high contrast ecstasy" (1969)

A psychedelic vision of female ecstasy, with a music soundtrack by Edgar Varese and a vocal composition by Luciano Berio
Uploaded by Ed Seeman himself !

"Name: ED, Age: 66, MARRIED AND LIVING IN CORAL SPRINGS, FLORIDA. NO LONGER ANIMATING OR FILMMAKIING. NOW SHOWING ON YOUTUBE THE RESULTS OF A LIFETIME OF ANIMATING AND FILMMAKING, FROM TWO YEARS WITH FRANK ZAPPA (UNCLE MEAT) TO EXPERIMENTAL DANCE FILMS.CURRENTLY CREATING DIGITAL FINE ART AND SELLING CARTOON T-SHIRTS ON EBAY AND WHOLESALING TO A WIDE VARIETY OF TOURIST ATTRACTIONS AND GIFT SHOPS THROUGHOUT THE COUNTRY. I'M NOW CREATING DVD'S OF ALL MY FILMS FOR FUTURE SALES."

As you can read it on his YouTube profile here
--
Check his ... euh ... let's say ... "amazing" recent digital creations ?!
www.edseeman.com
Buy his early experimental movies on DVDs here

Farenheit 911

(via Videos with Bibi)

Bittersweet Samba

Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass - Bittersweet Samba:

Added by visualguidance

This scopitone was posted by Spike over at Bedazzled 2 days ago. As you'll learn by reading the post over there this pretty funny film apparently was shot and directed by Robert Altman!
The underwater scenes are great.

Interview with Herschell Gordon Lewis

" ...
GreenCine: -What redeems your exploitive gore films - if redemption is even necessary - is their abiding sense of humor. Can you speak some about the strategic blend of horror and humor?

H.G. Lewis: -... I recall when I first made a movie called 'The Gore Gore Girls', which was - I felt at the time, which shows how cloudy the crystal ball can be) - I felt it would be my last movie. I opened the spigot all the way. I had some things in there that I couldn't imagine anyone taking seriously. Well, as it turned out, and I'll make a sweeping, generic statement: anyone under age 40 thought it was hilarious; anyone over age 55 thought it was impossible, that I should be arrested, that I had spent my life in a Georgia chain gang, or whatever. That was the gap that existed then.

Today the people who were 40 then are now on MediCare and another generation has come up behind them. I will occasionally be invited to a horror film festival and the demographic there is really surprising because the average individual who attends these horror conventions was not alive when I made 'Blood Feast' and '2,000 Maniacs' and 'Color Me Blood Red' and 'The Gore Gore Girls' and 'Wizard of Gore', and so on. They weren't alive. So I am there, supposedly, not as emeritus but as sort of a historical icon. That's funny, too, because here were movies that cost absolutely nothing to make, with casts of nobodies, and certainly no production value worth anything, and they still live. They still breathe. They are still selling DVDs at a time in which some major companies' productions that were made six months ago simply vanished into oblivion.

I think the rationale behind that is that today's audiences know the difference between a producer or a director who's having a good time and saying, "Hey, c'mon, join me," and a producer or a director who is so enamored of what he is doing that he loses sight of the person on the other end of the camera, on the screen looking at it, saying, "Eh, so what?" Today, with the gap having narrowed so much between independent and major company product, it becomes more significant than ever.
... "

Michael Guillen interviews Herschell Gordon Lewis for GreenCine.

No Direction Home - stills

Screen caps from Martin Scorsese's 'No Direction Home' at Nostalgia Party No. 2.

John Carpenter, composer

Egg City Radio (formerly known as Post-Punk Junk) aims the spotlight On John Carpenter's soundtracks.
Bret has also posted the complete score to 'Halloween III: Season Of The Witch' at his other blog CineFile Video.

Horseville

Lars Von Trier has a new movie out!
The genious Danish director and photographer never cease to amaze.
Completely unannounced the new movie will premiere next week.
The press release from Zentropa productions:

"FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Friday, January 12, 2007

'HORSEVILLE'

The new movie project from Lars Von Trier is a film co-written and co-produced by Nicole Kidman. Shot by Lars Von Trier in one single 5 hour take inside Stonhenge, England.
Nicole Kidman is starring as "Nicole" a circus cowgirl trying to talk her horse, the show stallion "Tom", out of a nervous breakdown after being brutally mounted by a wild stallion.

Filmed on location autumn 2006.
Attention: No animals got killed or violated during the production of this film.

Contact Information: Zentropa Production"

Note: Thanks to Percy for sending these exciting, and horrifying, news my way.

The King of Sexploitation

Russ Meyer: The King of Sexploitation part 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6
(via Retrofap)
Note: YouTube links. NSFW.

El Topo, A Book of the Film

OLD MAN:
-Kill me. Have mercy.

EL TOPO:
-Who were they?

The old man doesnt answer.
El Topo grabs him and tries to make him speak,
but the Old Man only repeats his plea.

OLD MAN:
-Kill me. Have mercy.

El Topo hands his revolver to Brontis,
who shoots the Old Man in the heart.
El Topo takes the revolver from his son.
Brontis embraces his father.

El Topo places four rings set with precious
stones on the fingers of his right hand.

[Jodorowsky's footnoted interpretations of the film are sprinkled throughout the narrative, and are in brackets and red print.]

Alejandro Jodorowsky's El Topo - A Book Of The Film.
An online version of the book of the film.
With all book images and sound files.

Put online by Subterranean Cinema. (via The Crime in your Coffee)