ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN

My Journalism 101 professor at the University of Texas (and forgive me, I can't recall his name) was a huge fan of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein's bestselling book, ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN. In fact, the book was on our course syllabus and was required reading for all students.

I had already read an excerpt from the book in PLAYBOY magazine (yes, I did read PLAYBOY for the articles, among other things). I read the book and enjoyed it immensely. The film version of the book was released that spring (1976), and our professor insisted that we all see the film in addition to reading the book. He also asked us to read the issue of PLAYBOY that contained the famous Jimmy Carter interview in which the then presidential candidate admitted to having "lust in his heart". That professor was pretty progressive and I think he saw Woodward and Bernstein as the new patron saints of investigative journalism (he wasn't wrong in this assessment). I also think he wanted each and every one of us in the class to become the next Bob Woodward or Carl Bernstein. I don't think any of us ever achieved that status. I know I sure as hell didn't.

I saw the film on first release at the old Capitol Plaza Cinema. I watched it again yesterday for the first time in years and I was amazed at how well it has stood up over the years. Even if you didn't live through the Watergate era and the fall of President Richard Nixon (as I did), anyone going into this film for the first time has to know the final outcome. Yet, director Alan J. Pakula and screenwriter William Goldman, manage to generate a fair amount of suspense in the film, which is both a  fairly accurate account of American history and a perfect example of the cinema of paranoia that existed in the 1970s. A paranoia, ironically enough, created in large part by the criminal activities of President Richard Nixon and his men.

Several things stood out while watching the film. When Woodward (Robert Redford) and Bernstein (Dustin Hoffman) are interviewing people for their stories, Pakula almost never has them all in the same frame. He cuts from shots of Woodward solo, Bernstein solo or W&B together, to their interview subject. It's a nice visual way of showing how the reporters try to remain detached and apart from their sources in their pursuit of the facts. Also, there's one terrific shot of Woodward sitting at his desk talking to sources on the phone. It's a long, single take in which Pakula starts fairly wide with a medium shot and then slowly, ever so slowly pushes the camera in on Woodward's face, eclipsing all of the background newsroom action. It's just a guy talking on a phone but the way it's filmed and acted, it generates a slow build up of suspense.

There's the cloak and dagger stuff of Woodward's midnight meetings in a parking garage with his unnamed source, Deep Throat (Hal Holbrook). In 2005, the identity of Deep Throat was revealed as F.B.I. Associate Director Mark Felt. Pakula  and Goldman get the details of the daily workings of a newspaper right. The supporting cast is outstanding with Jack Warden, Martin Balsam and Jason Robards all turning in fine work. The actual narrative ends with the second inauguration of Richard Nixon in 1973 playing out on a newsroom television set while Woodward and Bernstein continue to write stories in the background. Then, a series of tight closeups of wire service headlines and datelines are hammered out like gun shots reporting the arrests and convictions of various Watergate players, ending with the final one announcing the resignation of Nixon on August 9th, 1974. I remember it well.

ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN received 8 Academy Award nominations including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay and Best Supporting Actor and Actress. It won for Best Art Direction (the Washington Post newsroom set is incredible), Best Sound and Best Supporting Actor (Robards). It's a fascinating look at the way newspaper reporting used to be conducted using electric typewriters, rotary phones, telephone directories, lots of phone calls and shoe leather, countless face to face interviews and even a little bit of clever subterfuge to get to a source. Woodward and Bernstein did good, important work and the film honors what those men did. Highly recommended.

OPERATION PAPERCLIP

I finished reading OPERATION PAPERCLIP: THE SECRET INTELLIGENCE PROGRAM THAT BROUGHT NAZI SCIENTISTS TO AMERICA by Annie Jacobsen last night. It took me awhile to get through because this was one of those books that I read aloud in its' entirety to my lovely wife Judy. We can both enjoy a book that way. I had previously read Jacobsen's AREA 51 a few years back (also aloud) and liked her work. This new book doesn't disappoint.

The first part of the book, which takes place as WWII is coming to an end, is full of the kind of stuff you would find in a 1940s pulp science fiction novel, except it's all true. The amazing arsenal of wonder weapons that Nazi Germany had developed (or were developing) was incredible. If Germany could have somehow put all of this advanced (and deadly) technology to work against the Allies, history might have taken a different turn. V-2 rockets, "buzz" bombs, biological weapons, nerve gas, weaponized plagues and diseases, the list goes on. The Third Reich employed a small army of scientists to develop these weapons and used countless slaves (taken from various concentration camps) to construct them.

But when Germany surrendered, the Allies, especially the United States, were still conducting war with Imperial Japan. In the spring of 1945, no one knew how long that conflict might possibly last and it was deemed imperative that the U.S. military take possession of as much of the Nazi weapons program as possible in the event the weapons were necessary to defeat Japan. This involved taking possession of not only the hardware itself but the plans and designs and the brains who conceived these things. A mad dash to capture as many German scientists as possible was under way.

Of course, the war with Japan ended in August, 1945 when the U.S. deployed two of our own wonder weapons. But even with the threat of Imperial Japan neutralized, there was still the danger posed by the Soviet Union and Joseph Stalin, our once ally now become a deadly foe. The Soviets were also grabbing as many Nazi scientists as they could and the U.S. was forced to play keep up in this new arms race.

Many (if not all) of the captured German scientists had ties to the Nazi party. Many of them had the blood of innocents on their hands. Many were tried as war criminals at Nuremberg and some were sentenced to death. But many of the ones who weren't executed were given special visas to come to the United States where they were put to work on various projects including rockets, guided missiles, nerve gas, biological weapons, mind control drugs (including LSD) and other top secret endeavors. In short, the United States government, our armed forces and various intelligence agencies, made a deal with the devil to bring these men and their families to America, house them, feed and clothe them and put them to work under various government contracts.

The program was code named Operation Paperclip and for years, many of the documents and files pertaining to this program were classified. It's only been in recent years that the scope of the program has become known as various material has been declassified. There are still files that remain sealed and many that simply do not exist anymore.

Jacobsen does a great job tracing the careers of many of these scientists and doctors. Men like Werner Von Braun (the father of the American space program and a childhood hero of mine) are among the various characters covered in the book. Some men worked in the United States for the rest of their lives while a few of the more heinous ones were eventually deported.

The book raises the age old question: when does the end justify the means? Was the development of the U.S. space program, advances in aerospace medicine, the development of drugs and vaccines and other accomplishments, worth the price of paying some very bad men to do it while we collectively looked the other way? Jacobsen, and most of the sources quoted and interviewed in the book, say no. But the genie is long out of the bottle. The postwar landscape of the Cold War dictated a new kind of combat and the men involved in Operation Paperclip (both Americans and Germans) played a vital part in fighting that war.

Recommended.

NIGHTMARE IN PINK

"Her heart was as cold as a stone at the bottom of a mountain lake."

I finished reading NIGHTMARE IN PINK (1964) yesterday. This was the second time I've read this one. It's the second Travis McGee novel by the one and only John D. MacDonald and it's a good one. But then, MacDonald never wrote a bad book.

NIGHTMARE finds McGee in New York City, totally out of his more familiar Florida environs. He's there to help Nina, the kid sister of his military buddy Mike who is now a blind invalid in a VA hospital. It seems that Nina's fiance was mugged and killed on the streets of New York. He was also in possession of ten thousand dollars cash, which the muggers didn't take. Was he skimming from the real estate investment company he worked for? Or was something far more sinister going on?

McGee investigates and the trail leads to a financial swindle of enormous scope. Certain crooked parties are cooking the books at the investment company and they will let no one stand in their way. When McGee starts getting too close, he's drugged by a high priced call girl and sent to a private mental hospital where a frontal lobotomy is on the menu for our favorite beach bum/knight errant. He escapes (of course) and turns the tables on his captors but suffers some wicked side effects from the hallucinogenic drugs that have been injected into him.

In addition to busting the conspiracy, McGee beds Nina and the two develop a fairly deep relationship before parting ways at the end of the book. No permanent mate for McGee you know.

NIGHTMARE IN PINK is an excellent Travis McGee adventure full of the elements that make the series so addicting: great characters, wonderful dialogue, wicked villains, beautiful women, believable criminal schemes and lots of trenchant observations about modern society. Recommended.

THE WOMAN IN THE WINDOW

I watched THE WOMAN IN THE WINDOW (1944) for the first time the other night. I enjoyed it immensely except for one thing: the ending.

WOMAN was directed by Fritz Lang and stars Edward G. Robinson, Joan Bennett and Dan Duryea. Lang and those three actors worked together the following year on SCARLET STREET  (which I've written about on this blog). I have to say, I liked SCARLET STREET better but that's only because of the ending of WOMAN IN THE WINDOW.

The narratives of the two films have some similarities. Robinson plays a mild-mannered college professor whose wife and children are out-of-town for a brief time. He goes to his private club for dinner and drinks with two friends, one of whom is district attorney Raymond Massey. Outside of the club, Robinson is transfixed by a portrait of a beautiful young woman on display in the window. The object of the painting is, of course, the breathtaking Joan Bennett.

After dinner and drinks, Robinson chooses to remain at the club to read for awhile. He selects a book and settles in his chair with his brandy and cigar and he asks a waiter to awaken him at 10:30 p.m.

The waiter does so and Robinson leaves the club. He stops to once again admire the portrait of Bennett when she unexpectedly appears next to him. They strike up a conversation, go for a drink and eventually wind up back at her apartment. There's nothing sexual going on, just conversation but you can tell Robinson is attracted to Bennett (and who wouldn't be?). Suddenly, a man shows up at the apartment and flies into a murderous rage against Robinson. Robinson kills the man in self defense by stabbing him in the back numerous times with a pair of scissors provided by Bennett. And here's where, as in all classic film noir, things start to go off of the tracks.

Rather than call the police, they decide to cover up the killing and dispose of the body along with almost all of the evidence. Robinson takes the body to a remote area and dumps it but he leaves a long, telltale string of clues. Before you know it, Robinson is accompanying D.A. Massey on his investigation (as an interested observer) and it becomes obvious to Robinson that the police are beginning to suspect him of the crime.

But they're not. They're looking for the dead man's bodyguard who has gone missing. Said bodyguard, played by the supremely unctuous Duryea, shows up at Bennett's apartment and tells her he knows all about her affair with his wealthy boss. He puts the squeeze on Bennett and Robinson for $5,000. They give it to him but he wants more.

Robinson, convinced there's no way out of the predicament he's put himself into, decides to commit suicide. He takes an overdose and begins to drift off. At the same time, the police corner Duryea, a shootout ensues and Duryea is killed. Incriminating evidence is found on his body and the police decide they have their killer. Bennett runs back to her  apartment to phone Robinson to let him know the good news but it's too late. Robinson is already dead.

That's a helluva ending to one helluva film. Trouble is, it's not the ending. As the phone rings, a hand appears from off camera and shakes Robinson awake. He's in his chair at the club where he has been dreaming all of this time. The waiter tells him it's 10:30 p.m. Robinson leaves the club, passing the hat check man and doorman. The hat check man is the man he killed in his dream, while Duryea is the doorman. It's like the end of THE WIZARD OF OZ when Dorothy says, "and you, and you, and you were all there!" Robinson ends up looking at Bennett's portrait in the window. When a floozy comes up and asks for a light, Robinson runs down the street and into the night.

The "it-was-all-a-dream" ending was forced onto Lang by the studio. According to the motion picture code that was in effect at the time, it was forbidden to show someone getting away with murder in a film. Murderers must always be punished in some way and since Robinson got away with murder (although the case can be made that he was well and truly punished by the taking of his own life), the code insisted that the ending be amended to show that everything was only a dream.

This ending only slightly mars what is otherwise a terrific, tight and taut exercise in suspense. If you watch THE WOMAN IN THE WINDOW, turn it off  (or walk out) as soon as Robinson takes the overdose. You won't miss anything after that. Recommended.

PRIME CUT

Somehow, I missed seeing PRIME CUT (1972) in the theater when it was first released. I know I wanted to see it. My buddy Ray Kohler saw it and said it was great. I finally sat down and watched it the other day. I was disappointed.

PRIME CUT has a great pedigree. Three Academy Award winning stars: Lee Marvin (one of my favorites), Gene Hackman (whom I always enjoy) and Sissy Spacek (in her film debut). But despite the presence of those three stars (all of whom do admirable work in their roles), the film is thin and unsatisfying. If this is a prime cut of film, all of the fat (and flavor) has been trimmed off.

Gene Hackman is a corrupt meat packer named, of all things, Mary Ann. He operates a meat packing plant in Kansas City but it's a front for his vice operations, mainly drugs and prostitution. Mary Ann has been getting fat off of the profits of his enterprise but he refuses to share the wealth with the Irish mob back in Chicago that set him up in his illegal operations. The mob sends some enforcers to collect the take, all of whom meet their unfortunate ends in the slaughterhouse run by Mary Ann's brother, Weenie (the great Gregory Walcott, who was brilliant as Pope in THE EIGER SANCTION).

The Chicago mob has had enough. They send their top muscle man, Nick (Lee Marvin) to the Midwest to get the money that Mary Ann owes the mob. He's aided by a trio of young Irish thugs including Shaughnessy (Howard Platt, who was Hoppy on the TV series SANFORD AND SON). Nick finds Mary Ann holding an auction of naked, drugged young women in his show barn and rescues Poppy (Spacek) from Mary Ann's clutches. Then Nick goes after Mary Ann, letting nothing stand in his way, not even Nick's old flame, Clarabelle (the astonishingly beautiful Angel Tompkins). The most memorable sequence in the film takes place in a wheat field where Nick and Poppy are pursued by a threshing machine.

There's plenty of action but the plot is wafer thin. PRIME CUT seems made to revel in the sex and gore elements that marked many early '70s crime films. Director Michael Ritchie has trouble reigning in his satirical tendencies during a long sequence that takes place at a county fair. His camera focuses on the Midwestern men, women and children as both inherently evil and utterly banal. To emphasize this point, Mary Ann's enforcers are all corn fed, big blond meat heads who wear nothing but denim overalls.

I wanted to like PRIME CUT much more than I did. I waited 42 years to see it but I'm not sure the wait was worth it. I'm sure that had I seen this one when it first came out, back when I was in high school, I would have liked it much more. Worth seeing once if only for the presences of Marvin, Hackman and Spacek.

SHERLOCK HOLMES: THE WILL OF THE DEAD

SHERLOCK HOLMES: THE WILL OF THE DEAD (which I finished reading yesterday evening) by British science fiction author George Mann is a brand new Holmes novel published in 2013. It's about as close as you can get to a traditional, classic Holmes adventure by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Except it isn't. Let me explain.

THE WILL OF THE DEAD is comprised of two separate narrative threads. In one, Holmes, Watson and Inspector Charles Bainbridge of Scotland Yard (a character from Mann's other steam punk sf novels) combine forces to solve the mystery of a murdered man and his missing will. It's a straightforward, good old-fashioned detective story without a trace of the supernatural or paranormal to be found. It's a definite throwback to the works of Doyle.

But the other narrative thread concerns a serious of burglaries committed by a gang of "iron men", steam driven automatons that have glowing red eyes. Here's where the bizarre, steam punk element gets added to the book. Except, it's not blended with the first narrative concerning the missing will. In fact, Holmes refuses to aid Bainbridge in his investigation of the "iron men" until after he has solved the mystery of the missing will. Then and only then, in the last few pages of the book, does Holmes solve the riddle of the iron clad marauders. And of course, it's a Scooby Doo.

It looks to me like author George Mann had notes on two separate Holmes adventures and the editors at Titan Books perhaps asked him to combine the two in order to make a book-length adventure. Except, it's not a book-length adventure. The story, WILL OF THE DEAD, clocks in at 217 pages. Not quite enough to fill the 251 pages between the two covers. Those remaining 34 pages are given to a short story, THE HAMBLETON AFFAIR,  starring Mann's steam punk protagonist Sir Maurice Newbury.

So, we have a Sherlock Holmes novel that's really two, completely unrelated stories slapped together into one narrative and a short story starring a hero other than Holmes. To make matters worse, in WILL OF THE DEAD, Mann uses the long held traditional method of having Watson relate the story (as is done in all Sherlock Holmes stories) but he injects chapters told from the viewpoints of other characters in the story, including Inspector Bainbridge. This is simply not done, despite the foreword by "Dr. Watson" that offers an excuse and an explanation for this violation of the classic narrative structure of a Holmes story.

WILL OF THE DEAD isn't a bad little mystery yarn and I've read enough Holmes stories to have figured it out before the reveal  but I would have much preferred to read either that story entirely by itself or the "ADVENTURE OF THE IRON MEN" as a separate tale. And both tales should be told completely by Dr. Watson and only Dr. Watson. Oh, and save the Maurice Newbury story for a volume of Newbury stories. When I buy a Sherlock Holmes book, I want 100% Holmes.

THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN

I first saw THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1957) on a double-bill with Hammer's HORROR OF DRACULA (1958) in the early '60s at the old Austin Theater on South Congress. If memory serves me correctly, they were the first two Hammer horror films I saw. I loved them both. I watched THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN for the first time in years the other night and thoroughly enjoyed it.

THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN was a groundbreaking film in many ways. It was the first full-color film based on the Frankenstein story by Mary Shelley and it was the first time the Frankenstein monster had been seen on the big screen since ABBOTT & COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN (1948). It was the first of the wildly successful cycle of Gothic horror films produced by Britain's legendary Hammer Studios. In addition to featuring a fresh, new interpretation of the classic story and a new look for the creature, THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN also offered four key elements that came to define mid-century Hammer horror films. Blood, bosoms, Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee.

Peter Cushing is first rate as the mad Victor Frankenstein who will stop at nothing in his single minded quest to create life from dead bodies. He's reluctantly aided by Paul Krempe (Robert Urquhart) who continually begs Victor to cease his experiments. Victor will have none of that. Victor and Paul keep working until an unexpected wrench is thrown into the mix: the arrival of Victor's cousin Elizabeth (the oh-so-lovely Hazel Court). She wants desperately to be a part of Victor's life and that includes finding out just what exactly is going on upstairs at the castle behind that always locked door.

What's behind the door is, of course, the monster (Christopher Lee). Lee is magnificent in the part of the horribly scarred creature. He has no dialogue but Lee's physical presence is enough to carry the role. Things come to a fiery climax, the monster is destroyed (or is he?) and Victor  faces the blade of the guillotine, as he has been found guilty of murder. He blames the crime on his creation but alas, cannot produce the monster as evidence. The film ends with Victor going to his death but THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN proved so financially successful (much like the 1931 Universal FRANKENSTEIN) that a sequel starring Cushing was planned for the following year. THE REVENGE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1958) was the first of six more Hammer Frankenstein films with Cushing playing Dr. Frankenstein in all but one film (THE HORROR OF FRANKENSTEIN (1970)).

THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN is capably directed by genre legend Terence Fisher who would go on to be one of the chief architects of the Hammer horror phenomenon. Fisher gets the most out of his limited budget, a handful of sets and a solid cast. Cushing is the stand out here and I love the way he's constantly wiping his hands on his blood stained frock coat.

THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN holds up remarkably well for a film that's almost as old as I am. I loved watching it again the other night. It brought back lots of very fond childhood memories.

Warren Publications issued a magazine in the mid-'60s that featured fumetti versions of THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN and HORROR OF DRACULA. The stories of both films are re-told using black and white stills with comic book style word balloons and captions. As I kid, it was the only way I could own a version of these films since video tape did not exist at the time. I still have a copy of this magazine (seen below) and it's one of my most prized monster magazines.