DVD-MIA Sam Fuller’s Run of the Arrow: Irish Confederate-War Vet Cowboys IS Indians!

Run of the Arrow (1957)
Producer/Director/Screenplay: Samuel Fuller
Cinematography: Joseph Biroc
Film Editing: Gene Fowler, Jr.
Original Music: Victor Young
Cast: Rod Steiger (O'Meara), Sarita Montiel (Yellow Moccasin), Angie Dickinson (uncredited; Yellow Moccasin’s voice), Brian Keith (Capt. Clark), Ralph Meeker (Lt. Driscoll), Jay C. Flippen (Walking Coyote), Charles Bronson (Blue Buffalo), Olive Carey (Mrs. O'Meara), H. M. Wynant (Crazy Wolf), Frank DeKova (Red Cloud).
RKO Pictures/Universal, 86m.
A must-see for all fans of Sam Fuller movies (DVD Savant, whose opinions I absolutely respect, calls it a “near masterpiece”), but I am not sure Run of the Arrow is “essential viewing” for all cinephiles.

I’m not sure why Run of the Arrow is unavailable on DVD;
(Although I am going to slam the flick a little, so it would be disingenuous of me to claim to not see any reason why a company might not want to spend the bread on a flick nobody’s going to buy):
Its original studio, RKO, went bankrupt during production,
but Universal picked up the film and released it in 1957.

But
If you are not interested in Rod Steiger’s method-ology,
the films of that triple-threat auteur of the hard-boiled Sam Fuller,
Westerns,
and/or the young, hot Charles Bronson
(there isn’t an ounce of fat on him in this flick!
No wonder Jill Ireland dumped David McCallum for Chuck!),
then Run of the Arrow isn’t for you.
(I know, how could anyone not fit into one of those slots? I dunno, you tell me….)



I would consider Fuller’s Shock Corridor or The Naked Kiss as “essential viewing” to anyone interested in the Great American Films of the 20th Century.

Meanwhile, The National Film Board of Ivanlandia highly recommends these Sam Fuller films:
The Steel Helmet
Shock Corridor
The Naked Kiss
Fixed Bayonets
Pickup on South Street
Underworld USA
and
even though we don’t really like it, we absolutely recognize the importance of
The Big Red One
as Fuller’s most autobiographical film
(And I’m particularly fond of Fuller’s goofball 1970s thriller Dead Pigeon on Beethoven Street)

--All these flicks need to be watched before you have to snoop around for Run of the Arrow.

BUT! If you are interested in Rod Steiger’s method-ology,
the films of that triple-threat auteur of the hard-boiled Sam Fuller,
Westerns,
and/or the young, hot Charles Bronson--
Be that as it may, there are downloads and bootlegs out there, if you know where to look.

One website says Run of the Arrow was released to DVD in Italy, another thought the film was still owned by Universal, and a third said its rights were owned by Warner Brothers--which means it could end up in their Warner Archives, like The D.I., or still in limbo, like Ken Russell’s The Devils?
For me, Run of the Arrow stumbles--
I would never say it fails, but certainly stumbles--
because it never quite gels.
Fuller has put too many ingredients in the stewpot--
Steiger’s character is an Irish immigrant (with thick brogue) who fought for the Confederacy,
and fired the last bullet of the Civil War,
and then, upset at the surrender, headed West to start a new life,
and becomes a member of the Sioux tribe.
Oh wait, I forgot--the man who Steiger shot on that last day of the war, he’s with the cavalry now, riding against the Sioux.
Whew!

So, Mr. Fuller, the story of an Irish immigrant fighting for the South wasn’t enough?
Nor was the story of the last bullet fired in a war?
Neither was the chronicle of all the disenchanted Southerners who headed West to get away from the rotten Yankee carpetbaggers?
Nope, you had to tie it all together with our protagonist becoming blood-brothers with the Sioux.

Big Sam F. is just making an absurd sandwich, piling on roast beef, pastrami, glazed ham…

Not that Run of the Arrow
isn’t a fascinating ride,
but I have to add that finally seeing it
after knowing about it
and craving to see it for over 30 years
(and hearing it praised to high heaven)
was a bit of a let-down
(but really, what wouldn’t be?)

Run of the Arrow is a good entry into the White Man Going Native subgenre of the Westerns, very much in the tradition of
revisionist Westerns, like A Man Called Horse and Dances With Wolves--not to mention Avatar.
(Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if Kevin Costner--and then James Cameron--had something to do with keeping Run of the Arrow out of print… so they could corner the market…)


Sad News:
Kevin McCarthy, Ivanlandia fave, has passed away.
RIP

“Decrucify the Angel…or I’ll Melt Your Face!”

Welcome to the final entry into
Ivanlandia’s The 47th Minute Project--
On January 16th, we posted this frame (above), and it was correctly guessed as the 47th minute of Barbarella!

It’s been fun working on the 47th Minute Project, but with the moving of the Embassy, as well as other stuff, like the death of my Endpoint column (sniff!), I’ve lost interest (for now) in 47th minutes.
But who knows?





Barbarella (1968)
Directed by Roger Vadim
Produced by Dino De Laurentiis
Screenplay by Terry Southern and Roger Vadim
In collaboration with Claude Brule, Vittorio Bonicelli, Clement Biddle Wood, Brian Degas/Tudor Gates, and Jean Claude Forest
Based on the comic book by Jean Claude Forest
Cinematography: Claude Renoir
Production designer: Mario Garbuglia
Editor: Victoria Mercanton
Special effects supervisor: August Lohman
Optical effects: Charles Staffell
Special animation effects Gerard Cogan, Thierry Vincens-Fargo
Cast: Jane Fonda (Barbarella), John Phillips Law (Pygar), Anita Wallenberg (The Great Tyrant), Milo O’Shea (The Concierge/Duran Duran), David Hemmings (Dildano), Marcel Marceau, Ugo Tognazzi
98 minutes/released by Paramount

Why is Barbarella a favorite of The National Film Board of Ivanlandia?
The flick’s got a very unique ANTI-REALISM that I find very appealing.
The movie is also witty, kinky, weird and very stylish:
It has a gentle loving spirit--without hammering you over the head about it--the flick is all about “love.”
It’s a groovy, psychedelic love universe, baby.

And the perfs are all top-notch, perhaps helped by so many actors being dubbed in later (a good dubbing job can hide a multitude of sins), but
acting kudos are especially for Jane Fonda, who’s very game throughout the flick--the movie only succeeds because of her deft balancing of virtue and naivite, as well as some great comic timing/delivery.

I like how her introduction to “barbarian sex” turns Barbarella into a little horndoggette, but she’s still focused on her mission to find Duran Duran--she’s like James Bond: love ’em and leave ’em--but with a smile, natch!






Barbarella may be naïve, but the film’s most innocent character is Pygar, the blind angel (angel is love, angel is blind, love is blind? Angel has no memory: love always forgives?), who even saves the evil queen.

And the casting of Anita Pallenberg was very cool (even though she’s dubbed), bring a cache of decadence to the Tyrant of Sogo: meow!




Barbarella was re-released in 1978 or ’79 (during the winter shared by the two years) to cash in on Star Wars mania, when there wasn’t enough product to satisfy the masses--
Around this time Starcrash,
Message From Space and
Laserblast were rushed out,
and Paramount took their sexy space adventure out of the vaults (home video wasn’t the behemoth it later became, and some movies, like 2001 or James Bond flicks, as well as Disney’s collection, were routinely re-released at second run theaters),
gave Barbarella a new Boris Vallejo poster and the subtitle, “Queen of the Galaxy.”
(As well as removing the wings from the angel, Pygar: huh?!?)

That’s when I first saw the movie, at the now-no-longer-a-movie-theater Oceana Theater in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn.

Even as a kid, I liked the flick’s cool/weird/sexy design and the rampant anti-realism in style and content.

Psychedelic star-swirls were
a change of pace, and a breathe of fresh air (to me) after the dirty-space-junk look of Star Wars, Space: 1999, 2001, Silent Running, etc.--not that I don’t love that look, but I’ve always appreciated “different” views of space:
A sort of Anti-Realistic artistic interpretation of the whirling cosmos--




Dino De Laurentiis routinely eschews the “realistic hardware” look of movies like Star Trek or Star Wars--
In Dino’s Barbarella, Flash Gordon and Dune, space has the pallete of a madman--Barbarella’s universe is a lavalite!
But if anything, Barbarella owes more to the De Laurentiis-produced/Mario Bava-directed super-their cult favorite Danger: Diabolik!, than to any space operas---which may mean that Barbarella is more of a spiritual parent of Star Wars than 2001 (let’s face it, Star Wars is goofy space fantasy, while 2001 is a thoughtful mediatation on the development of human evolution)--
And two of Diabolik’s screenwriters contributed to Barbarella’s script (Tudor Gates and Brian Degas)!

The very Italian production designof Barbarella reinforces the fever-dream atmosphere--like The Kuchar Brothers with unlimited funds! But why not? It’s life in the year 40,000!
[Seeing this during it’s orginal 1968 release must’ve been wild; director Roger Vadim really knows how to use the wide-fram Panavision screen, and it’s a visual feast.]
Although campy, it’s never condescending, neither to the audience or to its characters.



Barbarella’s plot is a simple structure (very Perils of Pauline; but where Barbarella saves herself as often as she‘s saved by others) that allows a lot of strange details to be hung on it,
from Jane’s witty, almost post-modern asides (“What a poetic way to die”) to all the costumes and situations (a giant hookah containing “Essence of Man,” with Jane’s awesome “Hmm…not bad” expression after trying a puff)

And it has a very happy ending: The Angel, the Great Tyrant and Barbarella, a trio of beauties flying into the universe for a groovy and cosmic menage a trois: Wow!

Barbarella has a pace that is its own, and yet, even when things seem to stop cold--like the endless trippy effects during the Queen’s Dream Chamber--I cannot complain: I’m absolutely enthralled by this movie.
Barbarella is not just a movie, it’s an experience!

Barbarella wasn’t a financial or critical hit, but it most definitely is a
Cult movie
And as such, has its share of dedicated followers.
For an incredible essay/tribute to Barbarella, go HERE at Dreams Are What Le Cinema Is For…

And for the Ultimate Movie Guide to Barbarella (a truly impressive piece of work and dedication), go HERE to the studs at Black Hole Reviews!

“You are so good, you made the Matmos vomit.”

Friday's Triple Feature!!!

Alexander Nevsky (1938)

Alexander Nevsky is a must-see for all fans of war movies.

A rousing anti-German Soviet propaganda film that may be short on story (and the romantic subplot is an absolute snoozer---but probably demanded by that big old softie Uncle Joe) but is long on style, action and gung-ho Rooski patriotism. (It is a Sergei Eisenstein film after all.)

From J. Hoberman’s essay:
A spectacle of skeleton battlefields and devastated cities, Alexander Nevsky is framed as a near-cosmic struggle between good and evil. Scenes emphasize German atrocities against Russian civilians, with the invaders further dehumanized by their sinister, horned helmets.
And the heart of the movie is the 30-minute Battle on the Ice sequence. A triumph for Eisenstein as well as for Nevsky, this strategically undercranked and brilliantly-edited mix of massing soldiers and slashing close combat—alternately horrifying and carnivalesque—would serve as a prototype for the battlefield scenes in Laurence Olivier’s Henry V, Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai, and Stanley Kubrick’s Spartacus.

Meanwhile, film geeks take note:
Alexander Nevsky wound up being a big influence on the costumes for Monty Python and the Holy Grail (go HERE and then go 2:03 into the scene---and tell me Terrys Gilliam or Jones wasn’t influenced by these costumes), and genius-madman Ken Russell swiped Alexander Nevsky’s battle on the ice for the conclusion of his Billion Dollar Brain (also an Ivanlandia fave).

And today’s other film:
Samurai Vendetta (1959)

Lush, violent, richly detailed tale that, if like me, you have no tolerance for overly romantic subplots, is often a snooze.

But the swordplay in Samurai Vendetta is worth the wait, especially one scene set on a bridge at sunset. Worth a look!


Virus (1980)

I expect disaster movies to be poorly acted and poorly written,
and even to have bad special effects,
but I do not expect them to be this BORING!
Wow, is Virus a snooze:
Lots of long speechifying and overacting, and not enough shots of corpses in the streets and total destruction and mayhem.
Avoid. Like the plague.


And some of you may know that 47 is a special number here in Ivanlandia---so welcome to our 47th follower, Ponyorama! Hooray!