As a young boy coming of age in the era of VHS, I was acutely aware that certain movies were so forbidden the simple act of plucking them off the shelves at the local video store seemed like an act of transgression that may well be the first baby step towards a life of sin, crime, and moral corruption. Faces of Death was one such video. The oversized box that barely fit on the shelves; the bold proclamation that it was “Banned in 43 Countries;” the hideous skull face with the serpentine tongue and glowing eyes; the foreboding Gorgon Video logo: everything about it seemed so vile and horrible that the prospect of actually putting the videocassette in the VCR and watching the movie was almost a rite of passage – a true test of my ability to confront my greatest fears. By the time I did finally work up the courage to walk up to the counter and slap down my $3.00, I was nearly quaking in my KangaROOS.
Take a long hard look at that hideous mug… horror fans have been doing it for decades, all the while hoping that one day, with a little luck, they may finally enjoy the fright of having it peer back at them from the reflecting light of the silver screen.
How did one of the most rawly entertaining Hollywood features of the past 30 years get completely trounced and buried by an ignorant studio? That’s the question posed by the checkered history of Cattle Annie and Little Britches, a superlative western directed by Lamont Johnson (One on One) back in 1980 and shamefully trashed by Universal Pictures.
According to a recent post on Boing Boing, Dublin, California moviegoer Adrian McCarthy noticed a curious sign at the Hacienda Crossing Regal Cinema indicating what may be a disturbing new trend in the ongoing war against movie piracy. McCarthy claims that management posted a notice informing patrons purchasing tickets for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skulls that portions of the film had been intentionally silenced, and that the theater manager had no control over the situation. Eagle-eyed multiplex patrons have no doubt noticed the so-called “cap code” system of watermarking film prints (“cap code” consists of a series of red dots that appear in a frame at certain intervals) that has grown popular amongst the studios over the last few years, but could this be the next step in combating piracy?
If you, like me, adore both Paul Thomas Anderson’s Punch-Drunk Love and singer/songwriter Harry Nilsson, you might want to go check out For the Love of Harry, simply the best website devoted to the man whose song “He Needs Me” from Robert Altman’s adaptation of Popeye PTA used so effectively in PDL. A recent post to that site reveals the existence of a very rare Nilsson track, also from Popeye, called “Everything Is Food”. This unravels the mystery of a seeming non sequitur from the party scene in Punch-Drunk Love (skip to 1:38 if you just can’t wait).
Film buffs curious to catch a long-lost part of cinema history can finally do so thanks to the arduous efforts of film preservationist Eric Spiegelman, whom after learning of a never-before-seen propaganda film executive produced by the late John Ford personally rescued the reels of the Rio Grande director’s “Vietnam! Vietnam!” from the National Archives. Spiegelman’s story regarding the efforts that he and his cousin made in restoring the film are pretty fascinating, and while the “Vietnam! Vietnam!” was apparently deemed “obsolete and embarrassing” the moment it was finished it’s still interesting to have this unique record of a crucial point in history.
Check out the embedded video for the full-length film, and hear the story of it’s restoration in Spiegelman’s own words here.
Some years back, I began hearing rumblings of a curious movie phenomena known as “The Wilhelm Scream.” Having been an avid movie buff my entire life, I instantly thought I knew precisely what this was. Over the years I had repeatedly heard a very distinct scream in various films and, excited at the prospect of finally finding out exactly where this scream originated, I clicked on a YouTube link directing me to a compilation of so-called “Wilhelm” screams. Much to my dismay, I instantly realized that a lingering movie mystery had not been solved, but in fact grown more complex than ever before. The scream I had been hearing all these movies and falsely assumed to be the “Wilhelm Scream” was in fact something else entirely - but what? …and where did this scream originate?
I wish I had the answer to this question, though the research I have conducted simply hasn’t yielded any solid results. That said, I’m putting this out there in hopes that our readers may be able to shed some light on a movie mystery that has perplexed me for some time now. Included below is a link to the scream I had assumed to be the “Wilhelm Scream.” The most recent places I recall hearing the scream are in the movie Face/Off as Sean Archer (in Castor Troy-face) shoots a guard in the foot while making a dangerous prison break, and in the final frames of the trailer for the hallucinogenic comedy horror Shrooms.
Check out the mystery scream by clicking here, and by all means let us know if you can shed some much needed light on the matter!
As a young boy coming of age in the era of VHS, I was acutely aware that certain movies were so forbidden the simple act of plucking them off the shelves at the local video store seemed like an act of transgression that may well be the first baby step towards a life of sin, crime, and moral corruption. Faces of Death was one such video. The oversized box that barely fit on the shelves; the bold proclamation that it was “Banned in 43 Countries;” the hideous skull face with the serpentine tongue and glowing eyes; the foreboding Gorgon Video logo: everything about it seemed so vile and horrible that the prospect of actually putting the videocassette in the VCR and watching the movie was almost a rite of passage – a true test of my ability to confront my greatest fears. By the time I did finally work up the courage to walk up to the counter and slap down my $3.00, I was nearly quaking in my KangaROOS.
How did one of the most rawly entertaining Hollywood features of the past 30 years get completely trounced and buried by an ignorant studio? That’s the question posed by the checkered history of 
According to a recent post on 
Some years back, I began hearing rumblings of a curious movie phenomena known as “The Wilhelm Scream.” Having been an avid movie buff my entire life, I instantly thought I knew precisely what this was. Over the years I had repeatedly heard a very distinct scream in various films and, excited at the prospect of finally finding out exactly where this scream originated, I clicked on a YouTube link directing me to a 
