Streaming on YouTube - Reminders of Donald O'Connor and Ethel Merman...and Vera-Ellen

Donald O'Connor had the misfortune to play second banana to Gene Kelly in the greatest musical of all.  He had his moments but it's Kelly's rain-soaked street solo that everyone remembers. O'Connor does a bit of best mate stuff and some zany dancing in the Make 'em laugh number  but it's Kelly and Debbie Reynolds to the forefront.

"What else has Donald O'Connor been in?" was the question and the immediate YouTube answer was Call Me Madam  and There's No Business Like Show Business. Superb copies including full Cinemascope for No Business which you can find if you click on each film's title. And at least when we watched, totally uninterrupted by other than a single advertisement before each film started. 

In each O'Connor gets to do a seriously good solo... and in each he has to deal with the greatest song belter of them all Ethel Merman. Cole Porter is reported to have said: "When you write lyrics for Ethel Merman they'd better be good because everyone's going to hear them.''

Both of the films originate from that period in the early 50s into the 60s when Fox made some big budget, somewhat bloated musicals. Merman had starred in Irving Berlin's Call Me Madam on Broadway. It was a huge success and Merman recreated her Broadway role. O'Connor was brought in to play the brash young press attache Kenneth Gibson.  O'Connor has two brilliant numbers, the first a solo song and dance  and the second a number with the gorgeous Vera-Ellen. (13 shots in 4'46" and 13 shots in 5'04" respectively, the economy in the filming is remarkable) and Vera-Ellen demonstrates once again what a phenomenal dancer she was. Her singing voice was however dubbed. More of the O'Connor/Vera-Ellen magic is on show in one of the various iterations of "It's A Lovely Day Today".

Fox had Merman and O'Connor back in harness within a year with There's No Business Like Show Business. The star ensemble was added to by Dan Dailey, Marilyn Monroe, Johnny Ray and Mitzi Gaynor, to make a backstage showbiz family story of ups and downs and  happy endings. Sixteen numbers ranging by Irving Berlin, with the title song lifted from another Merman/Irving Berlin show Annie Get Your Gun. And that was basically it for Merman's starring screen career. 

During this time O'Connor was saddled (pardon the pun) himself with a contract at Universal. Wikipedia comes to the rescue for a succinct summary. "In 1949, O'Connor played the lead role in Francis, the story of a soldier befriended by a talking mule. Directed by Arthur Lubin, the film was a huge success. As a consequence, his musical career was constantly interrupted by production of one Francis film per year until 1955. O'Connor later said the films "were fun to make. Actually, they were quite challenging. I had to play straight in order to convince the audience that the mule could talk.

"He did Francis Goes to the Races (1951), another big hit. In February 1951 he signed a new contract with Universal for one film a year for four years, enabling him to work outside the studio.

"He received excellent notices for Francis Joins the WACS (1954) and was scheduled to play Bing Crosby's partner in White Christmas (1954). O'Connor was forced to withdraw because he contracted an illness transmitted by the mule." That's showbiz.

...and for another sample of Vera-Ellen's magic here's her Miss Sadie Thompson number from Love Happy

...and dancing with Fred Astaire in Three Little Words

Claude Gonzalez's GUIDE TO FREE MOVIES ONLINE (Part Two) - On YouTube

William Holden, Stalag 17

This is the second part of a list that was originally compiled by Claude Gonzalez after he took over the presentation of the final few weeks of David Stratton's long ongoing University of Sydney course on a the History of World Cinema. It is intended as a guide for those who will now have to self-navigate through the thickets of online cinephilia. As Claude remarked however, a good number of classics by established filmmakers are available online for free.  But not everything... 

The first tranche provided links to  Kanopy, Tubi, SBS OnDemand, ABC I-view and more. You can find it if you CLICK HERE 

Two sites that Claude advises could have been added to the first tranche are - https://rarefilmm.com/  Plus this one: https://www.ubu.com/film/index.html which is rich with obscure and experimental films. (Thanks Jenny Gray for the reminder.)

These are lists of resources and recommendations that Claude created for his own film students that could help with your search for elusive titles.  He hopes readers find the following useful, and that it brings you many hours of film viewing pleasure.  

Now read on as Claude explores the amazing world of YouTube

YouTube 

Since 2005 YouTube has been enabling people from all over the world to disseminate videos, with many of them feature films. Like other free online services, the quality, and the way to find the films varies, but within there are many listings that cater to film classics and that are of a high standard. 

 

Like the rest of the online services, I have mentioned it does not have everything, but it’s worth going to first when you’re trying to find a film or genre you want.  The majority of the videos available are free, but now and then YouTube will suggest that you can rent or buy it from them if it is not online.  Ads do appear, as this is part of their revenue, and they will pop on and off when you are watching some of the films on the site.

 

When searching for a film you’ll need to apply some lateral thinking and get used to how YouTube users group their films and playlist.  Each film page allows you to adjust the ratio, subtitles, and screen sizes.   To help you get started I have created a set of links that will help you find some films classics – most of the following tiles are good to high quality prints.

 

Old Films Revival Project 

https://www.youtube.com/@oldfilmsrevivalproject./videos

 

For example, here is Billy Wilder’s Stalag 17: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uv7cU-gXSFA

 

 

Example - King Vidor’s Duel in the Sun: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbgSlea9Udg

 

 

Akira Kurosawa and friends

Films by Akira Kurosawa:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgnJFweaJCY&list=PLrrKbHPKjy_PCXffzEsG8ezpwm2rNXyQm

 

Japanese cinema:

https://www.youtube.com/@n9999/videos

Ozu:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zA1D1QEcUXQ&list=PLrrKbHPKjy_NBqhVfCM_xUw9c_un6wWDH

 

 

Retrospective (hit the subscribe button)

https://www.youtube.com/@RetrospectiveMovies/featured

 

We Stream TV

https://www.youtube.com/@westreamtv1374/videos

 

Alfred Hitchcock (left)

Alfred Hitchcock – 56 Films:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tm_1HabLhok&list=PLYX7abEfoMM7bg9z5vEHjAQwoFKtZxEcQ

 

 

Robert Rossellini – 21 films:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oziPgZduO9Y&list=PLjp9cDM5tlPpQWcA9P5rN6qxTjjjl4jHG

 

An excellent copy of Rossellini’s Voyage to Italy:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eztMYLz2uSc

 

 

Hollywood Movies:

https://www.youtube.com/@HollywoodMovies01933/playlists

 

Flick Vault:

https://www.youtube.com/@FlickVault

 

Now Playing:

https://www.youtube.com/@007NobodyDoesItBetter/playlists

 

Mosfilm:

https://www.youtube.com/@Mosfilm_eng/videos

 

https://www.youtube.com/@Mosfilm_eng/playlists

 

 

Italian films

https://www.youtube.com/@FreeEnglishMovies/videos

 

French cinema:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h66gU9prCeM&list=PLdPEbhrWFwqZg0BDjzRDaoIEC6kqPbVwG

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xG_w3ae4B2o&list=PLjp9cDM5tlPpTe-wty03kLGo8rCSBUld2

 

Emeric Pressburger, Michael Powell

English Cinema:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFpsxZLKDzE&list=PLaRKKZSy6QJJQNoeH8gTKt3JMCqKh-Auk

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMJ8lVXXNP8&list=PLaRKKZSy6QJJQNoeH8gTKt3JMCqKh-Auk&index=2

 

 

Cult Cinema Classics:

https://www.youtube.com/@CultCinemaClassics/playlists

 

https://www.youtube.com/@CultCinemaClassics/videos

 

There you go that’s the Classics free list. 

In short use Kanopy, You Tube, SBS on Demand and Tubi first – they are all reliable and you’ll be able to watch many films that are part of the film canon plus some genre gems. If you cannot find what you're after there – then move onto the online libraries – the quality varies and they can become rabbit holes, but it sometimes has obscure film gold.  I hope theses links are helpful and bring you many hours of viewing pleasure. 

Kind Regard 

C.

 

A shout out from Mike Retter for Adelaide's SAM HYDE FILM FESTIVAL - Free at the Palace Nova Cinema Adelaide on Friday 15th and Saturday 16th December

 Mike Retter writes:

 Sam Hyde giving a fake Ted Talk at Drexel University
called "Paradigm Shift 2070" 

The Sam Hyde Film Festival - New film festival embraces meme culture and YouTubers 

The Sam Hyde Film Festival is presenting a mixture of experimental video work in Adelaide this Friday and Saturday at Palace Nova. The festival is named after an American artist who started out as a YouTuber and later became a controversial meme. But beyond that controversy, there are a lot of different aesthetic choices in Hyde's work that make him worthy of cinephile attention. So the festival is a mixture of Hyde, his contemporaries and local filmmakers operating in an "artistic youtube" style. We spoke with Leroy, the creator of this event about why it's a good idea to put contemporary online work in the cinema. 

Leroy: There is a lot of great filmmaking today that is entirely online.. But that doesn't mean it shouldn't be presented publicly in a cinema. In-fact it's quite odd that such work is rarely screened publicly when you consider how popular it is. Apart from Marvel movies and a few horror films, people are actually opting-out of contemporary cinema and choosing a mixture of long-form entertainment and youtube. But it's the latter, the independent youtubers that are speaking most to experimental cinema, even if the more beret-wearing haven't heard about that yet.  

Jet Neptune's Community Hour

Why is the festival named after Sam Hyde?

Sam Hyde is one of the icons that have emerged from YouTube and become this generation's Andy Warhol. The work often involves radical form and editing with a strong emphasis on graphic design. Early Hyde is often inspired by the "magazine program" format of Liquid Television or similar shows in Australia like Eat Carpet. The best way for people to learn about him is to experience his work and we have curated some of the best material from the start of his career to the present for this festival. Night one (Friday 15th, December) will have a classic documentary about Sam Hyde called "Blacklisted" and night two will have a documentary Sam Hyde shot while another documentary was being made about him by fellow youtuber Idubbbz. When Idubbbz refused to release his own documentary, Hyde decided to edit one from the footage he created himself.. It's an interesting dialogue between two prominent youtube artists and quite historic. 

Both nights also have a variety of important experimental shorts not just from Hyde, but also from his contemporaries such as Jet Neptune, acolytes and just interesting artists, mixture of local and international. Very excited to show some early work by Jet Neptune who would later become a Hyde collaborator. He has an incredible eye for editing and is able to take everyday footage and sculpt it into art. An obscure creator called Devived has submitted some exhilarating pieces too. Much of this is full of experimentation and constitutes the contemporary digital avant-garde. We can get a bit bogged down with labels and what qualifies as this or that. But we have to remember that David Lynch lived in poverty as a nobody to make his early experimental work, including Eraserhead. As did many others who we champion today in the academies. Some artists aren't appreciated in their own time. It takes a while for people to become canonised and acknowledged .. And academia has an unprecedented moat around it, so it's unlikely that they will be contextualising this work in any meaningful way soon.   

Why would academia ignore this work?

Academia is a bit slow and the world is moving fast. Like academia, in Australia almost all conventional filmmaking is funded by the Government. This allows them a level of control over the content because they fund it and much of the film culture surrounding it. The last thing the system wants is independent-minded work created outside their sphere of influence. And even outside that system, there is a lot of corporate censorship on platforms such as YouTube, which you could argue is the same thing in academia because corporations ultimately influence Governments. But this is fine, it creates opportunities for people like us to present the work and drive culture because there is an unmet need. Technology has enabled the average person to do a lot.  

Adelaide's Philippou Brothers, AKA Rackaracka and
their underwater car stunt

 

Why do an event like this in Adelaide and what kind of local work will be shown?

Well I'm from Adelaide so I have no interest in doing it anywhere else. And Adelaide being an obscure place adds an extra bit of randomness to things. We have a very interesting filmmaking history here, from the early days of the SAFC with Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975), Breaker Morant (1980), Gallipoli (1981) and Bad Boy Bubby (1993). 

But when you look at the present, who are the most successful filmmakers in Adelaide? Well that would be the Philippou Brothers, AKA "Rackaracka", who are YouTubers. They haven't just mastered the viral video for YouTube, they have now made Talk to Me, an internationally successful horror feature film. That's right, a rare Australian film that actually made money! But their journey to making this hit movie wasn't a conventional one. As far as I know, they didn't go to university but learned the nuts and bolts of video production at a TAFE equivalent called MAPS under the tutelage of the iconoclastic Peter Thurmer. They then went on to make work in various forms and genres for youtube, often incredibly violent and controversial, culminating in a stunt that made national news and could have put them in jail. This involved creating a car filled with water to the roof so that passengers had to breathe through tubes or scuba gear. Their vision of the road while driving would be diffused through several feet of murky water. So they then took this car on the road and visited a drive-through alcohol shop..  

This stunt reminds me a little bit of Orson Welles and his 1938 "War Of The Worlds" mock-alien invasion live radio news bulletin. Many Americans were convinced by this broadcast that aliens were invading planet earth because it was presented as a news report and not just a conventional radio play. After this event, Welles had to be very apologetic to the nation or perhaps face some harsh legal punishment. But this national news story ultimately led him to becoming a huge star overnight and being given unheard of creative freedom for his wildly innovative debut feature film Citizen Kane. Welles was using radio in an experimental way with all the impulsiveness of a 23 year old. He would complete Kane by the age of 25 and with no conventional training - change cinema. Like Welles and Hyde, I think the Philippou Brothers pathway to success was built on breaking the rules and their work as youtubers. So we will be presenting the under-water-car video at the Sam Hyde Film Festival on night two. 

Molly Husan's Four Years One Day

What other local films will you be showing? 

We have a textured film clip from Molly Husan that is very melancholic. A bizarre and hilarious animation by Zach Sengstock. There is a direct tribute to some of Hyde's work, a kind of Aussie remake of the "Wine Party" sketch.. And some work by the Port Film Co-op including a film clip for Adelaide band Night Rites and collaboration with Russian martial artist called Kolesnikov's World. It should be a good night where local filmmakers can meet each other. 

Admission is free for this event, how is it all being funded?

Yeah we felt it was important to make this one accessible.. It feels like a bit of an experiment.. The entire event is funded by the Cinematic Cultural Research Unit (CCRU), an independent group partly operating out of an office in Adelaide University.  We are hardcore film buffs who obsessively study certain things and want to inject some life into film culture. Despite embracing a lot of new online filmmakers, we prefer to operate away from social media. So the best way to learn more about us is come along to the screenings. 

You can attend the Sam Hyde Film Festival over two nights 6:30pm this friday/Saturday (15th and 16th December) at the Palace Nova East End Cinema. This is a free event. 

Inquiries: shift2070@protonmail.com

Goodbye by Devived 

CHANNEL SURFING - Sydney's supercinephile Barrie Pattison uncovers - THE FLYING SCOTSMAN (Castleton Knight, UK, 1929), SHADOWED (John Sturges, USA, 1946), WHAT DID JACK DO? (David Lynch, USA, 2017) and more

Ray Milland (centre), The Flying Scotsman

I’ve been dipping into DVDs and on air material, if for no other reason, to remind myself that I’m never going to get to the end of my movie viewing. In fact, with the current deluge, the horizon is even further away. 

I got around to watching 1929’s The Flying Scotsman which offers one of the few accessible glimpses of early British sound film making, by some measures their first sound feature, clocking in just under an hour and competing with Journey’s End, Escape and Blackmail. In this one, it’s a jolt when the first reels of inset title dialogue and music give way to the location noises of the railway social club.

 

Another of the film’s claims to our attention is the on-screen debut of Ray(mond) Milland, who had already experienced Arthur Robison’s silent version of The Informer, when the producers recruited him from his regiment as a marksman for their shoot-up action. Milland was rather hard on himself (“I couldn’t act worth a damn” he told me in the sixties) Not unlike other beginner performers of the day - John Wayne - he registers better than the trained players around him and already has his recognisable ironic delivery.

 

Pauline Johnson, The Flying Scotsman

We note that pre WW2 European movie trains were continually menaced by murderous staff (Gance’s La Roue, Adrien Brunel’s Without Warning, Bernard Vorhaus’ The Last Journey) in the way that jet liners now contain mad bombers. This film generates a lot of its interest from railway detail - the prestige Flying Scot service priding itself on making the London-Edinburgh Waverley journey on schedule, the actors dwarfed by the giant locomotive wheels, carriage material filmed while the cars are moving, footplate scenes and the striking sequence of heroine Pauline Johnson (above) clambering along the side of the speeding train without safety roping.

 

The script is dim melodrama, with retiring veteran driver, Will Hay side kick Moore Marriott no less, getting his fireman Alec Hurley dismissed for drinking on the job. Meanwhile Hurley’s replacement, young Milland contrives to pick up Marriott’s daughter Johnson at a two & sixpence Dance Palais, before he discovers the connection. A mirror is smashed foreshadowing misfortune. Hurley plots his revenge on Marriott’s last run, which of course comes with the obligatory montage of rails speeding past, filmed from the train.

 

The train footage, it’s place as a marker in the arrival of sound film and seeing Milland’s career begin, all contribute to The Flying Scotsman’s interest. Director Castleton Knight worked in newsreels and won another spot in movie history for his feature film of the fifties coronation. The handling is competent. It unconsciously projects the familiar drabness of the British scene. I do however like the little old lady presenting Marriot a chocolate bar to thank him for completing her trip on time.

 

The Filmrise DVD is good enough.

 

There’s also a minimally ambitious 1957 support movie called The Flying Scot or The Mailbag Robbery made by Herbert Compton Bennet, of 7th Veil fame, which gets the odd run on Channel 92.

 

I saw Shadowed on its 1940s initial release, one of the first films I ever watched, and I was intrigued to find that I still remembered Lloyd Corrigan finding the body in the railway culvert and the very noir image of Anita Louise on the shadowed (get it) stairs. This one departs from the usual mean streets, being set in a leafy suburb where the golf course sprinklers spray on cue.

 

It is mainly notable as early John Sturges, less interesting than his The Man Who Dared  and The Walking Hills.His talent doesn’t really assert till we get to his thrillers at Dore Schary’s MGM.

 

Widowed Corrigan is a prosperous gardening implements business owner, the father of girls Louise and teenaged Terry Moore. He’s first seen rehearsing his “Good fences make good neighbors” speech for the district lodge Wednesday Club. However, as we expect in one of these, sinister forces enter his ordered life complete with bullet-riddled body, counterfeit currency plates and an incriminating golf ball. Brenda Weisberg’s script is weak and the sub-plot with Moore and her would be criminologist admirer is embarrassing. Patience-playing heavy Paul E. Burns totally lacks menace. In fact, the film’s one class element turns out to be portly Corrigan's reluctant hero best performance.

 

However, the texture is impressive for a B movie - resembling Anthony Mann’s Republic crime films, similarly done in by feeble scripts. Cameraman Henry Freulich, son of famous stills man Roman Freulich, also did Blake Edwards’ first movie, antagonising his director, who turned round as one of their more complex movements was descending into chaos, to find Freulich practicing his golf swing. Edwards had his operator, Philip Lathrop, promoted for their next film, launching a couple of major careers. The anonymous score turns out to be by Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco.

 

The YouTube copy is just all right.

 

And for those who have seen everything, what about What Did Jack Do? directed, written, edited, sound & design by David Lynch in 2017? Absolutely Lynch - perverse, funny, surreal and, at seventeen minutes, a treat. In B&W, with film dirt visible on the image, detective Lynch faces a talking monkey (remarkable effects work) who became obsessed with a chicken (“there were feathers everywhere!”) while off-screen trains pull out of the rail station where the interrogation is taking place. Railway waitress Emily Stofle delivers a coffee and the monkey breaks out in song before the final pursuit.

 

"...detective Lynch faces a talking monkey..."
What Did Jack Do?

Whether this one has any intent beyond disorienting the audience and indulging its author is speculative but the process is richly enjoyable.

 

Curiously funded as an art project, what we would think of it without Lynch’s participation is irrelevant. No one else would have considered it. His set construction credit is a match for Sissy Spacek’s on Phantom of the Paradise.

 

The copy on Netflix is suitably grungy.

 

The Italian Film Festival currently offers films by Gabriele Salvatores, Pif, Eduardo Leo, Silvio Soldini, Gianni Amelio & Giuseppe Tornatore - pretty well the top Italian cinema heavyweight contenders. The ones I’ve seen so far haven’t fulfilled that promise and a Pasolini retrospective reminds me I’m sorry I watched his films the first time. Events like that prop up the notion that Italian films start with Bicycle Thieves when it’s the Genina-Blassetti-Camerini era we know the least about.

Calling all fans of Hollywood Pre-code Movies - Ross Barnard sets up an online film club.

Ross Barnard, whose history in film exhibition and programming spans the Sydney Uni Film Group, NFTA, Walker St Cinema and the Sydney Film Festival, has set up an online film society on Facebook.

The Group is called The Hurlstone Park Pre-Code Film Club, just because that’s where where Ross lives. He  is sourcing the best available quality Pre-Code movies on YouTube, posting the link and lots of wonderful stills, and writing a brief introduction to each film. Members are sharing their reactions to the films with the Group after watching.

Ross is focusing on rarities from the Pre-Code period (1929-1934), of which there are many now in the public Domain. YouTube actually checks for copyright on all posts, and blocks any attempted posts that are challenged by copyright holders.

Just search THE HURLSTONE PARK PRE-CODE FILM CLUB on Facebook. It’s a Public Group open to everyone.

Current links include:

Of Human Bondage

Waterloo Bridge (1931)

This is the Night

The Story of Temple Drake

The Sin of Nora Moran

Streaming on YouTube - Janice Tong recommends SIGMUND FREUD UN JUIF SANS DIEU/SIGMUND FREUD A JEW WITHOUT GOD (David Teboul, France, 2019)

Using widely collated footages and photos of Freud (above) from childhood to just prior to his death in 1939; the film is narrated through voice-overs - a winding and non-chronological epistolary narrative; mostly from the letters that he had received or had written, Freud appears to us through the perspectives of people who are central to his life: his daughter Anna Freud (narrated by Isabelle Huppert), Marie Bonaparte (Catherine Deneuve), Carl Gustav Jung (Micha Lescot), Lucie (Sandrine Kiberlain) and Lou Andreas-Salomé (Jeanne Balibar); with Freud himself narrated by Mathieu Amalric.  The narration of the film is by Denis Podalydès.

The film is especially poignant when his letters are spoken softly through Amalric distinctive voice; Freud’s thinking is no longer merely entombed in the books I have read of his, and his image is no longer that of the bespectacled, handsomely dressed and coiffured man with a neatly manicured beard you see in photographs; he literally comes alive in this film. It is as though a veil is suddenly lifted, and we move from the mythic figure of Freud, the father of psychoanalysis, to reveal Freud the man. 

 

It is astonishing to see how close a resemblance (in looks at least) that Robert Finster captured in last year’s Netflix show Freud. Which by the way, I really enjoyed despite its panning by critics and audiences, the main complaint being that it portrayed Freud as a ‘coke-fiend’. (Let’s not forget that it is readily documented that this was a drug he studied the effects of, on himself and others; as it was not taboo (or illegal) at the time, and was used to ‘loosen the tongue’). 

 

As Netflix’s response was to cancel the show, I have to ask the question - where has everyone’s imagination gone? And as Fran Lebowitz says - a book is a ‘door’ not a ‘mirror’; and so too is it the case with good films and TV shows. It’s a door where you’re opened to new worlds and experiences; and not ones that you can necessarily relate to, nor do they have to be historically accurate. What an odd world we live in to want to only identify with characters in a film or a novel that we watch or read?!

 

With Sigmund Freud, un juif sans Dieu, there is no mention of cocaine-taking; but there is a lot of footage of Freud in his handsome gardens in Vienna, surrounded by flowers, his wife and family members (above). The later footage of him in exile in London were especially beautiful with him sitting in the garden, a comforter on his lap and his beloved chow-chow, Topsy, by his side (below). 

 

Although there are no English subtitles in the YouTube version, for those who can read a little French (for me this helps, as spoken French can be a little hard to follow) you can put the auto-generated closed captions on. 

 

This is one documentary that should be watched on the big screen if it ever comes to a festival in your city.

 

Produced by Arte. Currently available to watch on #YouTube if you click here