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Frank Stein (Iván Zulueta, 1972)
Oct
30
Karloff
A [favourite] Boris Karloff film*
“Well, as I said before, I say again, here's… Here's to a son… to the house of Frankenstein.”
– Baron Frankenstein
Zulueta's mycotoxic fever dream of Whale's Frankenstein.
* the Bales 2025 Film Challenge for October is horror-themed as opposed to date-based, and is all about favourites. Expect non-horror and films I believe to be relevant instead.
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The Night That Panicked America (Joseph Sargent, 1975)
Oct
30
1938
Paul Shenar as Orson Welles (via). DP: Jules Brenner.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we interrupt our program of dance music to bring you a special bulletin from the Intercontinental Radio News.”
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Śledztwo [The Investigation] (Marek Piestrak, 1974)
Oct
28
A person offscreen shoots a handgun. DP: Edward Kłosiński.
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Il caso Mattei [The Mattei Affair] (Francesco Rosi, 1972)
Oct
27
1962
A group of well-dressed men, somewhere in a field, with Enrico Mattei (Gian Maria Volontè) in the centre. DP: Pasqualino De Santis.
“IF they want to kill me, let them do it.”
– Enrico Mattei
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The Friends of Eddie Coyle (Peter Yates, 1973)
Oct
26
1972
Eddie Coyle (Robert Mitchum) and Dillon (Peter Boyle) at the Boston Bruins game. DP: Victor J. Kemper.
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Emperor of the North Pole (Robert Aldrich, 1973)
Oct
25
Lobbycard. The blurb reads: “The battle for the title of “Emperor of the North Pole” begins between Shack (ERNEST BORGNINE) and A-No. 1 (LEE MARVIN)“. DP: Joseph F. Biroc.
“Stay off the tracks. Forget it. Its a bum's world for a bum.”
– Shack
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Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht [Nosferatu the Vampyre] (Werner Herzog, 1979)
Oct
22
eternal returns
Adjani, Kinski, and Herzog on set. DP: Jörg Schmidt-Reitwein.
[A favourite] horror remake*
“I never thought I could be friends with a German again. But here I am… Werner is somehow like Murnau brought back to life.”
– Lotte Eisner visiting the set of Herzog's Nosferatu (via)
Coming back to Murnau's expressionist masterpiece was Herzog's bridge between the films made by the grandfathers of German cinema and his era. Herzog, born in 1942 Munich, noted this void created by that philistine regime and felt that, by picking up the thread cut a quarter of a century earlier, German culture could see a restoration to its (non-nationalistic) greatness. Thus a menagerie of rats and actors was released in a reluctant, bourgeois Dutch town.
But that's a story for another generation to draw upon.
* the Bales 2025 Film Challenge for October is horror-themed as opposed to date-based, and is all about favourites. Expect non-horror and films I believe to be relevant instead.
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仁義なき戦い [Jingi naki tatakai / Battles Without Honor and Humanity] (Kinji Fukasaku, 1973)
Oct
16
Tetsuya Sakai (Hiroki Matsukata, L) and several of the other yakuza. DP: Sadaji Yoshida.
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0課の女 赤い手錠 [Zeroka no onna: Akai wappa / Zero Woman: Red Handcuffs] (Yukio Noda, 1974)
Oct
15
1937
Rei (Miki Sugimoto) wielding the long red chain of her handcuffs. DP: Yoshio Nakajima.
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Le passager de la pluie [Rider on the Rain] (René Clément, 1970)
Oct
10
Mélancolie 'Mellie' Mau (Marlène Jobert) and Col. Harry Dobbs (Charles Bronson), dancing. DP: Andréas Winding.
– You expect me to eat that?
– Americans live on ketchup and milk. I'm a whiz at geography.