The song was released as a single back in April, but the video has been getting a lot of play on VH1 and the MTV networks as of late. The four minute eleven second clip, directed by Todd Edwards, is almost a shot-for-shot remake of Ray Charles’ “Shake Your Tailfeather” scene in The Blues Brothers.

It’s not an exact copy. We are visiting Tay’s Music Exchange instead of Ray’s Music Exchange, Zac Hanson apparently doesn’t own a black suit, and since the Hanson song is longer than the Ray Charles’ song, the former deviates from the latter  towards the end of the song.

And if the person stepping into the shoes of Murphy “Murph” Dunne in the Hanson video looks familiar, well, that’s because he is. He is recording legend “Weird Al” Yankovic. Yankovic is friends with Hanson, and appeared in the cameo as a favor.

For your viewing comparison, here is the original:

And here is the Hanson remake:

Personally, I think this is pretty darn cool.

Bend It Like Beckham (2002) – One thing that makes for potent drama or comedy is the clash of cultures, how one group of people reacts to ways different from their own. At the surface, that’s what the British dramedy Bend It Like Beckham appears to be.

Jess Bhamra (Parminder Nagra) is a young British girl who wants nothing more to pursue her dream of playing soccer, like her idol footballer Dave Beckham. Her traditional Indian parents, however, feel that she should be spending her time making herself a good potential wife for a nice young Indian boy like her older sister has. They are particularly upset when Jules (Keira Knightley) recruits Jess to play on a local girl’s team. Forbidden from playing, Jess sneaks out to matches behind her parent’s backs. However as the team begins to gain attention for their winning streak, it becomes harder for her to keep her secret.

While the film seems to be about the clash of British and Indian culture, it’s more about the traditional clash between generations. When you scratch the surface, both Jess and Jules’ parents are quite similar. Both mothers don’t understand their daughters’ fascination with soccer and seem to be more concerned with what others will think. Both fathers just want their girls to be happy. Director (and co-screenwriter) Guirinder Chadha  assembled an outstanding cast of young actors for the film. Nagra and Knightley share an easy chemistry on screen, which helps to elevate the one section of the film that feels a little too “Hollywood”- when Jess and Jules’s friendship is tested by their mutual attraction to their team’s soccer coach (Jonathan Rhys Meyers). – Rich Drees

The Damned United (2009) – It is no joke that other countries around the world take their soccer seriously. I won’t say that there have never been riots or fights at American sporting events, but when you look at the death tolls from soccer disagreements worldwide, they make America seem positively civilized by comparison. That said, as a complete non-fan of soccer (any sport where you can’t use your hands or arms is not much of a sport) and as someone who knows next to nothing about the game’s history, it would seem odd that I recommend The Damned United so highly, but I do. While the names Brian Clough, Peter Taylor, Don Revie and Sam Longson may bring forth exciting memories to British soccer fans, they mean nothing to me. But, if there is a film written by Peter Morgan (The Queen, Frost/Nixon) and starring Michael Sheen (Unthinkable, Frost/Nixon), Timothy Spall (Sweeney Todd, the Harry Potter films) and Jim Broadbent (Bullets Over Broadway, Moulin Rouge, the Harry Potter films), I will certainly fork over my nine bucks to see it.

The Damned United follows the true story of Brian Clough (Michael Sheen), who was brought in to manage the Leeds United football club in 1974 replacing the team’s beloved manager Don Revie (Colm Meaney). Clough’s controversial 44-day stint at Leeds United was full of hubris, jealousy, betrayal, incompetence and was such a condensed human drama that it has spawned novels, plays, countless hours of critical analysis and now a film. Not knowing anything about the real people involved, or how they have been portrayed in the newspapers enabled me to perhaps see the film with fresher eyes than a knowledgeable fan may have. So, while I can’t comment on the films historical accuracy, I can say that the dramatic accuracy is spot on.

We meet Brian Clough and learn how he adopted Muhammad Ali’s boisterous braggadocio as a personality template much to the chagrin of players and fans alike. We see what a constant headache Clough was to the team owners and how he had little regard for the huge amounts of their money he was spending. But we also learn how effective Clough was. One thread of the story shows us how Clough managed to take his previous team, Derby County, from a national joke to serious first division competitors.

We also see that behind the outrageous public persona of Brian Clough lay the unheralded strategist Peter Taylor (Timothy Spall) who handled the games play books, starting line-ups and the other day-to-day minutiae that make up the running of any professional sports team. And we see how Clough’s reckless egomania nearly destroyed this decades long friendship. I wasn’t expecting an affecting bromance when I went into see The Damned United and I was pleasantly surprised to find out that the theme of how a friendship can survive through fame, fortune and failure was what The Damned United was really about. The soccer was incidental.

So, even if you know nothing about British soccer leagues, The Damned United works as a powerful well-written drama, full of great acting and unforgettable characters. – Michael McGonigle

Offside (2006) – Four years has been an awful long wait for the ‘beautiful game’ to hit fever pitch amongst the nations of the world again. Sadly, this country still has yet to take this game seriously, instead focusing on Tiger’s tribulations or Lebron’s career moves. Of course, it doesn’t help that the US team stumbled and lost early. Nevertheless, when my trusting editor suggested we shine a light on some soccer films, I leapt at the chance. Many soccer movies came to mind, but one really stood out, and oddly enough, there’s utterly no soccer action seen in the film. This film, which deserves to be seen by many is Offside, by Iranian director Jafar Panahi.

The film opens with fan-filled buses passing, and the camera focuses on one rider sitting quietly and alone. Two male fans hint that the loud, animated riders on the other bus have definitely seen soccer matches before, but not this quiet rider. They recognize she is a female, but choose not to tell anyone. At the stadium, she persuades a reluctant ticket scalper to sell her a ticket. Glad to have a ticket, she attempts to sneak past stadium security, but is caught and promptly put into a holding cell.

Okay, many of you are likely saying, “Hold on a minute! The girl has a ticket. She doesn’t need to sneak past security. She shouldn’t be jailed for her eagerness to watch a game.” Ah, but, this is Iran. While nearly everyone in Tehran is buzzing with excitement over Iran’s chances to enter soccer’s greatest tournament, no women are allowed inside the stadium. This is a man’s game and women’s interest in the game is highly frowned upon. So, the daring girl, along with a handful of others who tried to sneak in, are held in a pen, unable to truly see or hear the mounting action.

The women are guarded by several soldiers, all of whom are just doing their national service but find it increasingly difficult to maintain their stance. It becomes glaringly clear that the soldiers are bothered by the prohibition. The soldiers become bored and express they do not particularly care whether women should be allowed to attend football matches. Little by little, the barriers of social position and gender dissolve and the soldiers volunteer a small commentary on the match to the women.

During the second half of the game, the women are bundled into a bus headed for Vice Squad headquarters and listen to the radio commentary on the match as it concludes. When all of Tehran erupts in celebration, the bus is caught up in a growing traffic jam, and the girls and soldiers filter out into the party. The celebration suggests an odd social chiaroscuro, punctuating how a nation unstable in its wrongly founded Islamic gender principles can be united by a thrilling soccer victory.

Offside is a carefully crafted satire providing fascinating insight into the social hypocrisies so prevalent in modern-day Iran. Panahi shot the film in a very personal manner, using a modest $2500 budget and non-professional actors, and therefore doesn’t create an uncomfortable barrier between the movie and his audience. Instead, Offside’s realistic, documentary feel enables the camera’s POV to connect the audience to Iran’s prohibitions, making the viewer feel the jarring experience beat for beat.

Soccer fan or not, this is an entertaining social commentary which needs to be seen. Soccer is the instrument which brings total strangers together, and Offside really speaks as a brutal political statement just as much it does as a soccer movie extolling Iran’s nationalism and soaring victory. – John Gibbon

Rudo Y Cursi (2008) – Quite a few fierce and exciting rivalries take place in the sport of soccer. If you take a serious look in any direction, you’ll discover two teams with a rich background and undying passion for the game clashing for full recognition and greatness. Liverpool and Manchester United, Real Madrid vs. Barcelona, and even the United States taking on Mexico draws out the best and worst from both players and fans.

Sometimes rivalries can get a bit more personal, as in the case of brothers Beto and Tato. The film depicts the changing relationship of two brothers who become soccer stars. These two men dream about escaping the drudgery of the banana plantation. The two play together in local soccer matches and draw small crowds due to their skill on the pitch. Tato (Gael Garcia Bernal) is the star striker and Beto (Diego Luna) is the eccentric goalkeeper. During one match they are spotted by a talent scout (played with comical ferocity by Guillermo Francella) and he offers them an opportunity to go to Mexico City with him to try for one of the country’s big teams. Only there’s a catch. Batuta can only take one of the brothers. The decision rides on a penalty shot and it is Tato who slips one by Beto, earning him a chance at his dream.

Batuta brokers a career for Tato, who starts off slow but rises to stardom, earning himself the nickname ‘Cursi’ (Tacky). Surprisingly, Cursi’s real passion is not the game of soccer but music, and he begins to pursue a second career as a balladeer. His surefooted skills and his vocal talent secure his place as a national hero and he lands his dream girl Maya Vega (Jessica Mas), a famous model. Meanwhile, a resentful Bato waits for his golden opportunity to play the game. He’s a devoted family man with a wife and kids, but his jealousy fuels his passion. When he finally gets the chance he sneaks off and heads to Mexico City, playing for a rival team and earning the nickname ‘Rudo’ (Rude) because of his hot-headedness on and of the field.

Neither brother is well-equipped to deal with the trimmings of success and find themselves victims to excess. Cursi loses his goal scoring touch while Rudo drifts into a dark, downward spiral tainted with drugs and gambling. Everything comes down to match of the rival teams, and both players face humiliation and worse depending on the outcome.

The film could have been a silly, sloppy dud, but thankfully that doesn’t happen here. While the movie is lively and engaging, the energy moves with same fever as a soccer match – from a brisk, lighthearted pace to a darker, more cynical crawl and back again. Yet, it is a movie which perversely keeps the cameras away from the game most of the time. I say this because when the film does roll on game action, the scenes shine with accuracy and flesh out the intensity of the game. But it’s the brotherly relationship that adds the extra texture and equilibrium to the film. Luna and Bernal possess such a magnetizing and realistic machismo when they are on screen. I’ll admit I was drawn to this movie, not so much for the soccer element, but because these two actors were so dynamic together in Y Tu Mama Tambien, easily one of the better films of this past decade. Some of the thinner moments in the film are made more engaging by Luna and Bernal and they make their characters more believable by adding skilled depth and emotion. It’s a pleasure to watch the chemistry and engaging humor between actors who clearly enjoy each other’s company.

This is soccer story in which no one actually goes home a winner. In fact, I expect some might get mad at the ending and that’s understandable. Nonetheless, even as the credits role, Rudo y Cursi scores from every angle — comic, personal and cross-cultural. – JG

Shaolin Soccer (2001) – Every so often a film comes along that has a freshness to it that is simply a joy to behold. Stephen Chow’s comedy Shaolin Soccer is one such film. Sing (Chow) is a former Shaolin monk looking to find a way to fulfill his master’s dying wish of bringing the teachings of the Shaolin to the public. He teams with Fung (Ng Man Tat), a former soccer star who allowed himself to be disgraced in a scandal years earlier, to form a soccer team consisting of his former fellow monks from his temple. Although resistant to the idea at first, the monks join Sing in forming a team to enter in a national soccer tournament. Opposing them is Hung (Patrick Tse Yin), the head of the soccer association, orchestrater of Fung’s humiliation and owner of a team that is strengthened through drugs and rigorous experimental training regimes.

Shaolin Soccer’s story is simple, and that’s where its genius lies. It’s a tale of reclaiming honor and one’s sense of personal worth. Sing’s brother monks have been out in the world too long and have found that the specialized training they received has not prepared them for modern society. Unlike Sing, they have lost their faith in the teachings they learned and are struggling to fit in to what is for them an alien environment. There’s also no moral ambiguity to the story. You know exactly who the bad guys are. (The opposing tem is called Team Evil, for goodness sakes.)

The movie is pure cinema, with a visual wit, energy and imagination that will evoke laughter of surprise and delight. Players fly through the air in the style of the old Shaw Brothers kung fu films, spinning and whirling as they move the ball down the field for a goal. Balls are kicked with such power that they threaten to burst into flame, but are still stopped dead by a goalie’s calmly outstretched hand.

Chow goes all out to get his audience to laugh, demonstrating ability at physical humor that definitely transcends the language barrier. Some of Chow’s wordplay humor might not work as well when translated to English, but that’s forgivable here. This movie strives to please and it does. Chow even manages to bring new life to that oldest of slapstick clichés, slipping on a banana peel. But to say more though would ruin several of the surprises that the film contains.

The Year My Parents Went On Vacation (2006) – When the editor of Film Buff On-Line asked me to write a recommendation for a soccer film, this was the first title that came to my mind. So, even though soccer only plays a small part of the story, it is such an important element in the DNA of the film, I had to include it. The film is The Year My Parents Went On Vacation from Brazilian writer/director Cao Hamburger. The year mentioned in the title is 1970 and excitement is in the air as Brazil makes it to the World Cup Finals and with Pele on their team, what could possibly be wrong!

Well, lots actually.

Our protagonist is 11 year old Mauro (Michel Joelsas) who, along with his political dissident parents is on the run from the military police. In order to protect Mauro, his father arranges to leave him with his paternal Grandfather while they “go on vacation”, which is a euphemism for hiding out from the authorities. So Mauro gets dropped at the entrance of a large scary apartment building in a run down section of Sao Paulo and with a quick hug and a kiss, his parents are gone. Unbeknownst to them however, Mauro’s Grandfather has just died that morning from a heart attack. Things then go from bad to worse for Mauro as this is a very Orthodox Jewish area of Sao Paulo and most of the residents only speak Yiddish, a language that sounds like so much gibberish to young Mauro who didn’t even know his father was Jewish. Now enters Shlomo (Germano Haiut), a crabby, ill-tempered old duffer who lives in the apartment next door to Mauro’s deceased grandfather. There is a great discussion among the neighbors about what to do with Mauro and finally, the local Rabbi decrees that since God dropped Mauro on Shlomo’s doorstep, HE must know what he’s doing and orders Shlomo to care for the boy until his parents return, albeit with help from the community. Talk about an odd couple!

But this is where soccer comes into play. Because Brazil is in the World Cup Finals against Mexico, the entire country gets united behind their national team and before long everyone from Communist to Capitalist, old to young, male to female or whatever combination you can come up with manages to put aside their differences long enough to root for Pele and team Brazil. If I have made The Year My Parents Went On Vacation sound like a Brazilian Home Alone, I apologize; nothing could be further from the truth. What I liked about this film was the way it managed to negotiate the growing friendship between Mauro and Shlomo without resorting to emotional tricks or false sentiment.

In fact, The Year My Parents Went On Vacation is one of the least sentimental films I have seen. With its excellent performances, well written script, exceptional cinematography and understated, but effective music score, The Year My Parents Went On Vacation is a coming of age dramady that is light years ahead most other films in that usually overwrought genre. I can’t recommend this film enough. – MG

Can a director swipe from themselves? Sure, they do it all the time and it is usually passed off as “directorial style” or as a trademark of some sort. But sometimes a director can copy something they did in an early film for a later one, and it has a deeper meaning within both. Such is the case with Ivan Reitman and scenes from his comedies Ghostbusters and Dave.

Through the 1980s and early 90s, Reitman was one of Hollywood’s kings of comedy both as a director and producer with Stripes, Twins, Kindergarten Cop, Dave and Ghostbusters to his credit. There was little that he could do wrong. (Though some would argue the point with Ghostbusters II.)

If one could find a theme to his films, it would be that of the loveable underdog rising up to make or inspire changes in the world around them. In Ghostbusters, it’s a trio of dog-eared and discredited academics starting a business and saving the world. In Dave, an average joe whose idealism in the United States hasn’t been soured by participation in the political process is called upon to impersonate the President and manages to avoid being manipulated by the real President’s staff long enough to get the ball rolling on legislation that would help numerous unemployed.

Interestingly, Reitman chose to stage the scenes where both films’ heroes take their first steps of their journey – announced by Bill Murray’s “Anybody seen a ghost?” and Kevin Klien’s spontaneous “God bless you! God bless America!” – at almost the exact same real world location, the entrance lobby to the Los Angeles Biltmore Hotel.

Like Reitman, the Biltmore had a pretty good film career in the 80s, appearing in films like  Rocky III, The Adventures Of Buckaroo Banzai: Across The Eighth Dimension, Beverly Hills Cop, Splash and Pretty In Pink. Built in 1923, its use as a film location goes as far back as Hitchcock’s 1958 thriller Vertigo and extends all the way to 2009’s The Soloist. For Ghostbusters it was the swanky fictional Manhattan “Sedgwick Hotel.” For Dave, it magically transports itself to Washington DC to appear as “The Monaco.” As you can see from the views of each scene, it appears that either they dressed the location a little differently for Dave or the hotel had gone through some renovations in the intervening time. However, in the wide shot (above) of Klein walking towards the door before turning back to the face the camera zooming in on him (below), you can definitely see some of the same architectural detail visible

But I don’t think that Reitman’s use of the location in both films was to draw a parallel between the two. On the Ghostbusters DVD commentary track he mentions that he liked filming there for Ghostbusters that he went back for Dave. At best, if there is any connection beyond that, it has its origins in Reitman’s subconscious. But that doesn’t make it any less of a swipe.

Even if he never admitted it, it is fairly obvious that Star Wars impresario George Lucas is an admirer of David Lean’s 1962 epic classic Lawrence Of Arabia. One just has to look at how he shot the sequences taking place on the desert planet of Tattoine in the science-fiction saga’s initial installment to figure that out. But with the 2002 Star Wars prequel Attack Of The Clones, Lucas raised his game and went from inspiration to outright homage.

For the scene where Senator Padme Amidala (Natalie Portman) and Jedi Anakin Skywalker (Hayden Christensen) return to Amadala’s home planet of Naboo, Lucas and crew traveled to the Plaza de Espana in Seville, Spain. Built in 1929 for the Ibero-American Exposition World’s Fair, its Moorish revival style architecture stood in for the Cairo Headquarters of the British Army to which Lawrence (Peter O’Toole) reports to following the successful raid on the town of Aqaba. As you can see below, the one shot in Attack Of The Clones is an almost direct copy of the one that closes out the first half of Lawrence Of Arabia, where British General Allenby (Jack Hawkins) confers with diplomat Mr. Dryden (Claude Rains). Of course, Lucas shoots it a little tighter and adds CGI  background details to keep the plaza from looking too Earthbound, but you can still tell that it is the same location. Click on each photo below for a larger view.

Presently, the Plaza houses numerous government offices, including the Seville Town Hall. However, it is open to the public for those film fans who want to walk in the footsteps of either heroes of the Middle East or a galaxy far, far away.

*And in the spirit of the swipe, we readily acknowledge that we were “inspired” by a similar feature over at Rich Johnson’s comic book news and gossip site, Bleeding Cool.

Yo’ll have a chance to see one of those early films tonight as TCM is airing Downey Sr’s 1969 broad social satire Putney Swope late night at 2 am, Eastern. When the chairman of the board of a big advertising company unexpectedly dies, the one black member of the board, the titular Putney Swope, is elected to replace him. Through a quirk in the company by-laws, no board member is allowed to vote for themselves for the position, so they all separately voted for the person they thought no one else would. Once in charge, Swope fires a majority of the firm’s white employees, changes the name of the company to “Truth and Love, Inc.” and decrees they will no longer create advertisements for alcohol, tobacco and war toys. This leads to t he obvious step of the government declaring Swope a threat to national security.

A stinging shot at black militants, the entrenched rich white elite of the country, advertising and the nature of power to invariably corrupt, Putney Swope is really a neglected gem of it’s time. Although the film is mostly in black and white, the satirical commercials that are scattered through out are in color, as you can see from the sample below.

Via Cinema Retro.

Well, now you can get that same slug to help you prepare your own dinner with the Space Slug Oven Mitt.

I can’t tell you too much more specific about it except that its manufacturer states that it is totally safe to use and is made from a fire-retardant nomex cotton blend.

But come on. I don’t think a Star Wars fan has to be a foodie to want this. I’m not even one for lots of Star Wars collectibles and I want one for my kitchen!

The Space Slug Oven Mitt isn’t going to be available until sometime in August, but you can advance order yours over at the Star Wars Shop.

Via SlashFilm.

Fenn was a guest at the bi-annual Chiller Theatre convention in Parsippany, NJ, where I was able to have a brief chat with her. While discussing her non-involvement with the Twin Peaks movie Fire Walk With Me due to her working on the 1992 Steinbeck adaptation Of Mice And Men (“David was so upset!”) she let slip the following -

[Lynch]  initially asked me to do Mulholland Drive, which he had written originally for Audrey. David wanted to do a movie between the first and second seasons and it was Audrey goes to Hollywood.

Unfortunately, the press of fans lined up for autographs behind me prevented me from following up with some of the dozen questions that were already starting to form. Did Lynch already have a script written or was this just the germ of a story idea he was just beginning to toy with? Could this have been one of the two other Twin Peaks film ideas that Lynch purported to have that were scotched by the box office failure of Fire Walk With Me?

Previously, we knew that Mulholland Drive started as a new television series that Lynch had pitched to ABC. The network greenlit a pilot, but decided after viewing it that it was a little too extreme and declined to go to series. Lynch took the pilot, shot some additinoal footage and reworked the ending, transforming it into a feature film.

But this puts the origins of Mulholland Drive at a period earlier than most have assumed before. And it does offer us a small glimpse into how an idea may percolate in David Lynch’s imagination until he feels it is the right time to bring them to life.

Open this past weekend to a surprisingly low box office gross of $13 million, Hot Tub Time Machine sends four guys back to 1986 via the titular jacuzzi with the expected comedic results. To help set the mood, director Steve Pink has peppered the film with a number of references to teen comedies and dramedies of the `80s. Some are extremely subtle, but others are much more obvious. But no reference is more apparent than the scene where John Cusack’s character spends some time getting to know Spin magazine reporter April played by Lizzy Caplan. Pink decided to stage the scene in a way extremely familiar to anyone who has seen John Hughes’s Sixteen Candles. (And that’s a lot of people.)

As the scene comes late in Hot Tub Time Machine, I won’t spoil it by comparing it directly to the scene in Sixteen Candles. Suffice it to say, though, that there is a similar romantic tension, which Pink shorthands for us with the reference.

*And in the spirit of the swipe, we readily acknowledge that we were “inspired” by a similar feature over at Rich Johnson’s comic book news and gossip site, Bleeding Cool.

One of the most sought after short films by fans of the silent era is the 1910 production of Frankenstein from Thomas Edison’s Edison Studios. For many years the only image thought to exist from the 15-minute feature was a single photo of wild haired, shambling monster grimacing at the camera. Fortunately, recent years have revealed that it’s not as lost as one would think.

Frankenstein was filmed at Edison Motion Picture Studios located on the corner of Decatur Avenue and Oliver Place in the Bronx, New York, one of several dozens pictures the studio produced that year. The studio was built between 1906 and 1907 in response to the growing demand for films. Edison had been the leading pioneer of first kinetoscopes and then projected motion pictures. His first film studio, located near his laboratories in Orange, New Jersey, was too inconvenient to the majority of actors based in New York City. A studio opened on the roof of a building on 25th Street in Manhattan proved too small to keep up with the demand. The Bronx location was designed to be a state of the art facility to handle all of the Edison Company’s production requirements. It’s proximity to the end of the recently constructed Third Avenue El subway system is believed to have been so actors could slip away to make films without attracting the attention of their peers who may have disapproved of participating in the new and vulgar medium.

By 1908, the studio was in full operation, putting out several short, one-reel films a week. The motion picture arm of Edison’s business was also quickly becoming its most profitable- pulling in $200,000 plus an additional $130,000 from the sale of projectors. Still, Edison was losing his grip on being the sole technological innovator for the new medium as more studios sprang into existence with legitimate rights to certain patents.

To combat the problem, in 1909 Edison and his lawyers approached nine of the other top studios with the plan to form The Motion Picture Patents Company, commonly known as The Trust, to share patents, pool resources and keep control over everything from the manufacture of production equipment like cameras to film production itself. The Trust then set up the General Film Company to buy out the 52 leading film distributors, just so they could control the distribution of their films. Theatre owners were forced into paying a $2 a week fee for the rights to screen Trust films. (Never mind the fact that Edison’s company was earning almost a million dollars a year on from the other Trust members through patent royalties.)

As the popularity of motion pictures grew, so did the attention they received from moral crusaders and reform groups, who decried the new medium as being dangerous and encouraging of immorality. Some called for strict laws governing film content and some communities banned theatres all together. Knowing that these groups could pose a serious threat to his bottom line, Edison ordered that not only the production quality of his films be improved, but also their moral tone. The Trust even set up the first Board of Censors, consisting of film executives and religious and education leaders.

Frankenstein was the perfect choice to kick off production under this new moral banner. It’s a story that deals with the extremes of the human condition, life and death, and the dangers of tampering in God’s realm. Plus, Edison made sure that publicity stressed that some of the more sensational elements of the Mary Shelly’s novel had been toned down. The March 15, 1910 edition of The Edison Kinetogram, the catalog that the Edison Company would send to distributors to hype their new films, described the film as such-

To those familiar with Mrs. Shelly’s story it will be evident that we have carefully omitted anything which might be any possibility shock any portion of the audience. In making the film the Edison Co. has carefully tried to eliminate all actual repulsive situations and to concentrate its endeavors upon the mystic and psychological problems that are to be found in this weird tale. Wherever, therefore, the film differs from the original story it is purely with the idea of eliminating what would be repulsive to a moving picture audience.

One of those changes made to the narrative concerns the creation of Frankenstein’s monster. While Shelly’s novel did not go into specifics about the monster’s creation, the creation scene in the film certainly owes more to alchemy than science. The film certainly didn’t stress the danger of unchecked scientific experimentation, not when the boss has transformed the world with his own scientific marvels. Instead, the monster is cast more as a reflection of Frankenstein’s baser instincts and dark reflection of a mind that presumed to meddle in God’s domain.

The part of the monster was portrayed by Charles Ogle. He joined the Edison Stock Company Players in 1909 and had essayed parts as far ranging as Scrooge in a 1910 production of A Christmas Carol to George Washington in a series of films on the history of the United States. Since actors at the time were responsible for their own wardrobe and makeup, Ogle was probably the one who developed the monster’s shambling appearance, perhaps inspired by drawings of how actor Thomas Porter Cooke looked for an 1823 English Opera House stage production of the novel called Presumption or the Fate of Frankenstein.

Edison Stock Company Player Augustus Phillips was chosen to portray the role of the monster’s creator Frankenstein. Very little is known about this actor beyond the films that he made at Edison and then Columbia Pictures. He continued to make features into the early `20s at Pathe, Metro and Goldwyn studios.

Rounding out the cast is Mary Fuller as Frankenstein’s fiancée Elizabeth, though she is never referred to by name in the film. She had joined the Edison Stock Company Players in 1909 and would ultimately appear in a reported over 500 productions, often with Charles Ogle. She was also one of the first motion picture stars to receive an on screen credit in 1911 for her lead role in Aida.

The film’s director was J. (James) Searle Dawley and had started at Edison as a writer in 1907. He was soon apprenticed to director Edwin S. Porter who had shot the landmark The Great Train Robbery in 1903. A quick study, Dawley was soon directing his own films at Edison within a year. Stylistically, Dawley was the antithesis of Porter though. Porter is generally credited with the development of much of the language of cinema including matched edited shots and the close up. Dawley preferred to shoot each scene as if it were a play, with the camera stoically removed from the action.

As director of the film, Dawley was responsible for personally overseeing every aspect of the production from writing the script to approving the set construction and Ogle’s makeup design. In this respect his job was more synonymous with what both a producer and a director would do today. He was only answerable to studio head Horace Plimpton. As was the case with most of his films, it is assumed that Dawley wrote the scenario for the film himself. It is unknown whether Edison himself encouraged or approved the production at its start as he made only rare appearances at the Bronx studio. More than likely, the go ahead was given by the Studios managers, making sure that the script would conform to the decrees of the Trust’s Censor Board.

The film opens with Frankenstein leaving to study at University, bidding goodbye to his sweetheart. Two years pass and Frankenstein has finished his contemplation of the mysteries of nature and seems ready to try his own hand at God’s work. However, his attempt at creating life goes awry, with a hulking, twisted creature emerging from the alchemical vat. Aghast at his creation, Frankenstein returns home to marry his fiancée and escape his mistake. But the creature follows him and confronts his creator, tormenting him. But, as the film’s final title character tell us, the creature “is overcome by love and disappears” into a mirror in Frankenstein’s study.

Most films were shot in a day, but due to the special effects work involved Frankenstein’s production lasted nearly a week, stretching from some time between January 13, 1910 to January 19, 1910. (What little records survive are unclear. It is known the Dawley was out of the country filming in Cuba by January 19th. Some sources state that studio head Plimpton approved the film’s scenario on January 14th.) The film was completed and sent over to the Orange County, New Jersey offices for approval on January 28th and received that approval on February 1st. Over the next two weeks, musical accompaniment was picked and certain scenes were run through a stenciling machine to be tinted.

Edison had pioneered the idea of tinting films to add color in 1884. Edison Studio’s Annabelle the Dancer, featuring music hall performer Annabelle Moore recreating her stage act “The Butterfly Dance,” was one of the first commercially projected motion pictures and was first exhibited at the Cotton States Exposition in Atlanta, Georgia in mid-September 1885. Since her act used a projection of colored stereopticon slides as she danced with long silk draperies, Edison touched on the idea to have prints of the film hand painted frame by frame, in the same manner that some photographs and portraits were tinted at the time. By 1910, tinting of films had become common, with blue often being used for night scenes, green for woodland scenes and so on.

In the second half of February, the film was assembled with each scene was pasted together to form a complete print. In early March, Edison Studios copyrighted the picture and submitted paper prints of several scenes to the Library of Congress. In a cost cutting measure started right before the turn of the century, the studio had begun to have a positive print of each film developed on sheets of paper instead of actual film prints for submission for copyright. (The studio would later switch to paper rolls.) That a number of Edison films that have survived did so mainly through the existence of these paper prints. Currently, the Library of Congress only has selected scenes from Frankenstein, not a whole copy.

The film premiered on Friday, March 18, 1910, a mere two months after it had finished shooting. Such a quick turnaround was not uncommon at the time. There was great demand for films and the week of Frankenstein’s release there were over 30 films released by Trust members. The film was received favorably by critics. The New York Dramatic Mirror in a review published on 3/26/10 stated “This deeply impressive story makes a powerful film subject, and the Edison players have handled it with effective expression and skill.”

However, Frankenstein did not generally do well with audiences. There are several possible reasons that may have contributed to its less than stellar reception. Frankenstein was the first horror movie and audiences possibly weren’t sure what to make of this weird story. Moving pictures were already becoming more sophisticated with the use of close-ups and editing within a scene becoming more common. It’s possible that audiences found director Dawley’s stage-y, wide shots to be old fashioned.

It has also been reported that in some communities there was objections to the film due to its perceived blasphemous content. Debates were ongoing around the country over Darwinism and a film that could be seen as mocking the creative power of God was sure to draw fire from the pulpit. Regardless of the reasons, the film made its distribution rounds and was then withdrawn from circulation. While some films like 1903’s The Great Train Robbery remained popular and in circulation for years, Frankenstein quickly faded from the public’s minds.

At the time, Edison Studios would only strike approximately 40 prints of each of their productions, which would then be sent out for distribution. After the films had circulated for seven months or so, they were returned where they were stripped for their silver content. The films were quickly forgotten by the studio and the public and no thought was given to any future value they may hold. That even a handful of Edison Studios films still exist on celluloid is only due to the efforts of private collectors.

And the fact that just a single print of Edison Studio’s Frankenstein still exists is all due to one Wisconsin film collector, Alois Felix Dettlaff Sr., and a little bit of luck. The print in his possession had originally belonged to his wife’s grandmother who used to screen it along with a silent version of Hiawatha. As he relates in Frederick C. Wiebel Jr’s self-published book Edison’s Frankenstein, “She dressed up as an Indian and danced on the stage, and she had short subjects along with it, and one of them was Frankenstein.”

However, the film would take a roundabout way to Dettlaff’s possession. After his wife’s grandmother left show business, she passed her film collection and projector to her son, who in turn passed them on to his son, Dettlaff’s brother-in-law. Not knowing what he had in the collection, Dettlaff’s brother-in-law sold the entire collection to a film collector, who then sold it to another collector of Dettlaff’s acquaintance, from whom Dettlaff purchased them in the mid 1950s. Since he was running silent films for his children as a way of teaching them to read, he did screen the film. However, noting that the film had some wear and tear, and about 8% shrinkage due to age, he placed the print aside, so as not to damage it further.

It was in 1963 that a film historian discovered the March 15, 1910 edition of The Edison Kinetogram with its picture of Charles Ogle in full make up on its cover in the Edison archives in New Jersey. The picture was published in numerous magazines and books, sparking interest among film buffs worldwide. But no print could be found. In 1980, the American Film Institute declared the 1910 production of Frankenstein to be one of the top ten most “Culturally and historically significant lost films.”

When Dettlaff heard of the film’s placement on the AFI’s list, he announced that he had indeed had a copy. However, knowing the worth of such a treasure, Dettlaff has been reticent about releasing the film to be seen. In the late 1970s he had allowed a few minutes to be shown as part of a BBC documentary, later released to home video. These snippets would later wind up in various silent cinema video compilations without attribution or payment made to Dettlaff. Feeling slighted and perhaps not appreciated for his archival efforts, Dettlaff has been guarded in allowing the film to be screened. In 1986, he donated a “copyright protected” version of the film, with a copyright notice that scrolled across the center of the film making viewing difficult, to the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences. He has also reportedly made numerous safety copies of the film on 16 and 35 mm.

In 1975, at the urging of TV news photographer Charles Sciurba, Dettlaff undertook making a copy of the film with the aid of Clarence Stelloh, who had worked as an engineer at Western Electric during the early days of sound film. Working over several weekends, the pair used a 16mm camera and a modified step printer to copy some 14,000 to 15,000 images at a rate of one to two frames a second to create a 16mm backup copy of the film. Complicating the project was the fact that the film had shrunk by up to 8% at some spots, necessitating Stelloh to make changes to the printer to accommodate for the varying space between the sprocket holes.

Detlaff held the first public screening of Frankenstein in decades on October 30, 1993 at the Avalon Theater in his hometown of Milwaukee. It was the first of several annual screenings at various venues in the city. In April 2003, Dettlaff screened the film at the Landmark Loew’s Jersey Theatre in Jersey City, New Jersey as part of a weekend long festival of Frankenstein films. Both evenings’ shows were packed with people curious to see the fifteen-minute short that has so captured the imaginations of film buffs through just one frame. The screening was also used to launch the film’s release on DVD, available from Dettlaff’s own A. D. Ventures, International.

We continue our celebration of the shortest month of the year with a look at some movies featuring Hollywood’s shortest actors…

There’s a scene in Under The Rainbow that had I seen the movie in its original 1981 run would have made me love it forever. In it, Carrie Fisher cowers in slinky underwear while two little people sword fight through a hotel’s kitchen. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the pre-teen me who first saw this movie, but one entering his fourth decade on the planet and is having a hard time forgiving all the rest of the crappy film that brackets this great scene.

It’s hard to decide which is the fatal factor that contributes to Under The Rainbow’s failure as a film- the screenplay or the direction. The script is a muddled mess. The year is 1938. We are first introduced to Rollo, a little person Rollo (Cork Hubbert), who hopes to head to Hollywood to become an actor. We then cut away to Chevy Chase as a Secret Service man protecting a European Duke and Duchess (Joseph Maher and Eve Arden) from assassination attempts while they cross the country by train. Everyone converges on a Hollywood hotel where studio employee Carrie Fisher is housing the 150 little people who will be playing the Munchikins in the upcoming production of The Wizard Of Oz but seem more occupied with just running amuck. Added into the mix is midget Nazi spy Billy Barty, who is supposed to receive a map of American coastal defenses from Japanese spy Mako. However, Mako appears to be indistinguishable from the bus load of stranded Japanese tourists also staying at the hotel.

That’s a lot of plot, but the film never lives up to its potential, story-wise or comedicaly. For having all the makings of a screwball comedy of mistaken identity, Under The Rainbow is a paceless mess. Director Steve Rash seems to be totally adrift here, not building any kind of comedic momentum to any scene. Take the below scene from early in the film in which many of our characters first start to intersect with each other. The shot choices are poor and none of the action, a word I use in its loosest definition here, seems to build to anything.

When a movie announces its comic ambitions in its opening reel by having a midget Nazi give a “Heil Hitler” salute that results in the Fuhrer doubling over from a shot to the nuts, you may suspect you’re in for a rough, low brow ride. By the time you hear one of the little people come out of a room remarking, “That’s the first time I’ve ever gone up on someone,” your suspicions should be confirmed. Even the normally quippy Chevy Chase seems relatively sedate here. Add in the most racist caricature of the Japanese since Mickey Rooney in Breakfast At Tiffany’s and you’ve got the makings of a picture that managed to earn itself two Razzie Award nominations.

Of course, the film’s big draw, if we are to believe the advertising, is a hotel of little people gone wild. Needless to say, nothing like that ever remotely happened during the actual production of The Wizard Of Oz. And I have to wonder how the producers managed to snare original Munchkin actor Jerry Maren for a few scenes, given his vocal denouncements of the film after its release.

There are a few things, though, that will make film fans smile. In the film’s climax, as the cast runs amuck through MGM Studios’ backlot, the little people disrupt the shooting of Gone With The Wind, causing Clark Gable to yell out, “Hey Victor (Flemming), I think you should leave this scene in the picture!” In various scenes of the little people partying hard in the hotel, you can see some of them swinging from chandeliers as if they were trapezes and walking on balcony railings tightrope-style. This would be in keeping with the fact that many of the Munchkins had been circus performers in Europe before coming to America.

But as bad as the film was, I didn’t actively hate it until the very end. It attempts to ape a certain 1939 MGM classic (and shame on you if you need three guesses to figure out which one), but while the ending makes internal sense in the original, it stands out here like as an illogical sore thumb.

Interestingly, until recently, Under The Rainbow has been missing on DVD since the format’s inception, especially when it seems as if every other studio film from the past 30 years or so has gotten at least a cursory, bare-bones edition issued. But when you look a little closer, maybe that isn’t so surprising. Although produced by Orion Pictures, Under The Rainbow was distributed by Warner Brothers, who still own the rights. Warners also distributes The Wizard Of Oz on DVD for Turner Entertainment. As Oz is a perennial money-maker for they studio and Turner, I would think that Warners might be hesitant to do anything that would jeopardize their relationship with Turner. Still, it has recently been added into the list of films that are available on burned-on-demand DVD from the Warner Archive program. It’s up to you if you find the #19.95 price tag justified, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Billed as a “rollickin’, rootin’, tootin’, shootin’ drama of the great outdoors”… “with an all-midget cast,” The Terror Of Tiny Town is probably known to most people more by reputation than by dint of having actually been seen. Hollywood legend has it that producer Jed Buell got the idea for his film when he overheard two employees of his production company discussing the depressed status of the film business saying “if this economy doesn’t turn around, we’ll have to start making pictures with midgets.” And the rest, as they say, is cinema history.

Sure, a western, or any genre film for that matter, with an all little people cast is a gimmick. But when the novelty of its cast wears of, which it does fairly quickly, what are we left with? Unfortunately the answer is, “a rather lousy western.” Frustratingly, outside of a few (unintentional?) sight gags, such as walking under a saloon’s swinging doors, and ironic bits of dialogue (“One day I’ll be the biggest man in the county!”), even the movie itself seems uninterested in its own gimmick. Why is the town built for average-sized people? Was it abandoned only to be re-populated later by little people?

Bat Haines (“Little Billy” Rhodes) is the black-hatted villain of the piece, pitting against each other two ranches with a long hostory of animosity in the hopes of grabbing both their lands and cattle. It is a fairly story and it is not helped by the fact that a majority of the cast are not trained or very talented actors. A bit of a Romeo And Juliet love story between Billy Curtis and Yvonne Moray doesn’t do much to liven up the procedures. And even though it clocks in at a trim 62 minutes, The Terror Of Tiny Town winds up feeling longer.

The scene below pretty much illustrates my point.

Many of the actors in The Terror Of Tiny Town would of course go on to appear as Munchkins the following year in MGM’s The Wizard Of Oz. Star Billy Curtis would go on to have a decent and long career all the way up to the mid-1980s. Oddly enough, although there have been films where little people make up a majority of the cast (Under The Rainbow, Time Bandits, Tom Cruise’s home movies) no one has ever tried to make another film with a cast exclusively consisting of them. Which I guess makes The Terror Of Tiny Town the best all-midget movie ever, if only by default.

It is unknown what gave Zanuck the initial idea of turning the hero of Johnston McCulley’s adventure stories into a singing, romantic hero. Perhaps he was looking for a unique spin on the story to interest the public. But as head of the recently merged Fox Film Corporation and 20^th Century Pictures studios, he had a responsibility to deliver some sure fire hits for the new company and must have thought that this could have been a sure-fire winner.

Writer Bess Meredyth, a contract writer at the studio, was assigned by Zanuck to develop a new story outline based on the original 1920 silent version which starred Douglas Fairbanks. Songwriters Arthur Schwartz and Irving Caesar (That Girl From Paris, A Star Is Born) penned six songs for the project. Presumably somewhere in a file in Fox’s archives lies sheet music for such unheard tunes as “My Saddle Is My Throne,” Zorro’s main song, “The Night Has Lost The Moon,” “Lolita Love Song” and three other tunes.

Very little has ever been published about this aborted project. The only mention I have ever been able to find is in Rudy Behlmer’s book A Memo From Darryl F Zanuck. In it, Behlmer reports that  notations made by Zanuck on Meredyth’s 1936 outline for the film indicate that he was eyeing the project for possible Technicolor treatment and maybe even location at the Grand Canyon. It was definitely going to be an A picture for the film.

In the lead role of Zorro, Zanuck envisioned opera singer Lawrence Tibbett. With his good looks, the popular Metropolitan Opera bass was one of the first opera singers to take a stab at a film career, though with mixed results. Tibbett had the lead role in Metropolitan (1936), the first film released from the newly formed 20^th Century Fox studios. Although it opened at Radio City Music Hall to strong, positive reviews, the public was apathetic. With the film flopping at the box office, it seems as if Zanuck reconsidered his idea of Tibbett heading up a musical version of Zorro.

While Zanuck would go on to bring Zorro to the silver screen just a few years later, with Tyrone Power headlining, the idea of a musical version of the story stayed with him.

In an August 1943 reprinted in Behlmer’s book, Zanuck asked the head of Fox’s story department Julian Johnson, to look into the possibility of reviving the screenplay and songs developed in 1936. What sunk the development of a musical Mark Of Zorro this time around is unknown. Perhaps Johnson saw some potential problems with the basic idea and argued Zanuck out of it. Maybe Zanuck lost interest or changed his mind on his own. It is possible that there was some other financial or business consideration that brought the enterprise to a halt.

And while Zanuck’s vision never reached the screen, another crooning adventurer would make his way to the big screen in a manner of fashion. Stanley Donen’s 1952 Singin’ In The Rain was a love letter to the early talkie era and featured in its plot a silent film about a dashing and romancing cavalier that is retooled into a musical version of the same story. Could screenwriters Adolph Green and Betty Comden, who interviewed several MGM studio employees who were around during that time as research, perhaps heard of Zanuck’s attempt over at Fox with Mark Of Zorro and used it as a partial basis for their own story? It’s possible, but with all of the principals involved long gone to that big movie palace in the sky, we may never know.