Spinning My Website

 

I just launched a new website. I'm still working out the kinks, and still uploading art to it. But it will be the center of my online activities, with links to my Patreon page, my blogs, and my instagram account. And it's where you can purchase my original art, prints, and artbook.
Currently there is a gallery of comic book covers, and I will be adding more in the coming months. You can visit it here.

Some Things Don't Go Better with Coke

This is a panel from a story about the Fatty Arbuckle scandal that I drew for the BIG BOOK series at DC's Paradox Press. I used pen instead of my usual brush to evoke the fine line illustrations of the silent film era. I also made sure to clear using the "Coke" logo on the bottle--but of course it was whited out--and on the original art. From The Big Book of Scandal!, Paradox Press (which was an imprint of DC Comics), 1997. Only a three page black-and-white story, it's one of maybe 50 in the book by as many artists.

Texas Toasted

TERROR IN A TEXAS TOWN (Joseph H. Lewis, 1958)

Well, it was another great night at the Portage Theater in Chicago, with a beautiful mint 35 mm print of a terrific film. With its storyline of a community crumbling from fear and intimidation, in danger of falling prey to divide-and-conquer tactics, the script by blacklisted screenwriter Dalton Trumbo makes an obvious reference to the McCarthy hearings. But the plot is shared by many westerns. What's unusual is the slow build and heavy sense of dread, set up in part by the pre-credits flash-forward to the climactic showdown (which I'll return to later).

TERROR IN A TEXAS TOWN has a quiet intensity, with a minimalist score and repeated, rhythmic theme, and the stark, underpopulated feel that permeates many low budget films. But the intensity goes further, extending to Hayden's performance as the Swedish whaler, George Hansen. The actor fills the screen with his lumbering physicality, at times seething with repressed emotion. By far the most interesting character is Crayle, the brooding, black-clad gunman played by Nedrick Young. The personification of the pall that hangs over the entire film, Crale carries death and doom in his tired gait and equally black worldview. His perverse relationship with his companion Molly (Carol Kelly) recalls other such sexually twisted and charged couples in director Lewis's GUN CRAZY and THE BIG COMBO.



The pre-credits flash-forward I referred to earlier is effective, but is also a bit odd in a feature. It is likely it was inspired by the technique to hook viewers used in television shows at the time. But its novelty made me wonder if it was planned in pre-production by Lewis, or added later in the editing by the producer.

Reign-y Day

Off to the Film Center tonight to see an archival print of Anthony Mann's Reign of Terror, shot by the great John Alton.

Passage to Adventure

Susan Hayward, Brian Donlevy and Dana Andrews in Canyon Passage.

The Music Box theater is in the middle of a Jacques Tourneur series in their weekend matinée. This weekend is Tourneur's terrific western Canyon Passage, starring Dana Andrews. That will be followed by The Fearmakers and Night (aka Curse) of the Demon.


Hoagy Carmichael sings "Ole Buttermilk Sky" in Canyon Passage.

The Film Center is in the middle of a weekly Film Noir series. This week they're screening Gilda. I'll be there next week for Otto Preminger's Whirlpool, starring Gene Tierney, Jose Ferrer and Richard Conte. Upcoming films include Crossfire, The Black Book/Reign of Terror, Out of the Past and In a Lonely Place.


Gene Tierney in Whirlpool.

Noir City Chicago 2

Eddie Muller's Noir City film festival returns to Chicago's Music Box Theatre, August 13-19, 2010. This year's line-up includes Cry Danger (in a newly restored print by the Film Noir Foundation), the Chicago based City that Never Sleeps, Gun Crazy, Nightmare Alley, Drive a Crooked Road, He Ran All the Way, Don't Bother to Knock, Sudden Fear, Cry of the City and Fly-By-Night. The entire Music Box summer schedule--including Noir Chicago--can be downloaded here.

Tutti Beauty

Catching up on a few films I've seen recently...at Bank of America Cinema I saw The Enchanted Cottage (John Cromwell, 1945), a fable of romantic fantasy that has not aged terribly well. Budd Boetticher's Decision at Sundown (1957) is another story, one of the oddest of Boetticher and Randolph Scott's chamber Westerns. As is usual with Boetticher, Decision features a very ambiguous take on the driven, revenge-seeking Western hero and villainous bad guy. Though criticized at Only the Cinema for an undercurrent of misogyny, I found that the film's female characters were far more interesting than is typical in Westerns, making many of the important decisions.





Up at Northwestern's Block Cinema in Evanston...Max Ophüls' 1934 film La Signora di Tutti (Everybody's Woman). An impressive early work from the master, La Signora di Tutti has his usual mixture of glamor and tragedy, with a flashback structure similar to that of Lola Montes, recalling the life of an infamous woman. It's amazing how much of the Ophüls style and subject matter was already in place. Also fascinating to see the different moral standards at work in an Italian versus American film from the early thirties, as well as differing acting styles, with much over-the-top emotionalism from La Signora's older male lover.





I'm glad I waited to see Cobra Woman (Robert Siodmak, 1944) on the screen. Due to overbooking, Block was sent an immaculate master 35mm archival print. This has to be what it was like to see technicolor in all its glory in the 1940s. I just sat back at let the tropical camp sear my retinas. Absolutely amazing. Hail King Cobra!


Photo sources: Only the Cinema, Dvd Beaver, and filmfanatic.org

Cobra Woman

This month and next there are a few film revivals that I'm looking forward to. This Friday, May 14th, Block Cinema in Evanston is showing Cobra Woman (Robert Siodmak, 1944) in a 35mm. archival print. This piece of over-the-top Technicolor camp is something I've been waiting to see on the big screen for many years. Block is also screening Max Ophul's La Signora di Tutti (Everybody's Woman, 1934) on June 11th.



Unfortunately I will be out of town on May 22nd when Bank of America Cinema is screening a 35 mm. print of the Lon Chaney silent Mr. Wu (William Nigh, 1927), along with live organ accompaniment by Jay Warren. Back in January Jay did a terrific job with with Pandora's Box. But I will be able to attend Decision at Sundown (Bud Boetticher, 1957), which they'll screen in 35 mm. on June 5th.

Don't Bank on It

The future of the Bank of America Cinema, a venerable--and fun--Chicago institution, is in jeopardy. The BOAC is a revival house located in a bank, and the bank building is up for sale. Formerly owned by Northwest Federal Savings and Loan, Talman and LaSalle banks, films were first screened in the building's basement in 1972, and then in the theatre, built in 1977.

On a recent visit to there I saw a terrific 35 mm. print of the German silent Pandora's Box, with glorious theatre organ accompaniment by Jay Warren. The Cinema has films scheduled through this June. I'm already planning on attending the January 30th showing of My Name is Julia Ross, the film that put director Joseph H. Lewis on the map. You can view the schedule for their upcoming season--perhaps their last--on their unofficial blog, here. Or, go to their Facebook page, here.

Bank of America Cinema
4901 W Irving Park Rd, Chicago
Use the rear entrance and parking lot behind the bank.
Screenings are at 8:00 PM Saturdays
Admission is a measly $5

Stop, Thief!

Tonight, Monday October 5 -

Sonotheque - 1444 W. Chicago - 312.226.7600

CINEMATHEQUE SONOTHEQUE

CINEMATHEQUE SONOTHEQUE PRESENTS: NOIR ON THE MARGINS

THE THIEF (1952) 86 MINUTES – DIRECTED BY RUSSELL ROUSE

CINEMATHEQUE SONOTHEQUE: FROM ARTHOUSE TO GRINDHOUSE
FILMS SELECTED BY JOE BRYL
6PM to 9PM --Film starts at 6:30
NO COVER
21+

“The Thief remains superior to most other propaganda films – the loss of dialogue in itself is an asset in toning down didacticism – and director Russell Rouse, experienced in the noir cycle (D.O.A. – 1950), imbues the film with the necessary elements of fear, persecution, alienation, and loneliness.”

- Robert Porfirio: ‘Film Noir – An Encyclopedic Reference to the American Style’ – Edited by Alain Silver and Elizabeth Ward