GIVEAWAY: The Girl on the Balcony by Olivia Hussey

Today I have a special treat for my film book loving readers! Here's your chance to win an autographed copy of The Girl on the Balcony by Olivia Hussey. Yes you read that correctly. Autographed!

I reviewed Hussey's new memoir back in September. You can read the full review here. But to recap here is an excerpt of that review:

At the tender age of 15, Olivia Hussey landed the role of a lifetime: Juliet in Franco Zeffirelli's Romeo and Juliet (1968). Alongside newcomer Leonard Whiting, the duo captivated audiences around the world breathing new life into Shakespeare's renowned play. In Olivia Hussey's memoir The Girl on the Balcony, she takes readers on a journey of her entire life from her early days in Argentina to the present day.  Hussey recounts in wonderful detail the making of Romeo and Juliet. I was especially pleased by this because like many others that is one of the reasons I was drawn to the book. The reader settles into to the world of 1960s Cinecitta. I particularly loved reading the passages of the sweet bond she developed with Whiting, they remained friends for decades, and the mutual admiration between her and director Zeffirelli. He could be a tough director but she acknowledges that he knew what he was doing and could bring out the best performances from her. The two would later work on Jesus of Nazareth together.

Hussey is a gentle soul who wears her heart on her sleeve. You can tell this from her book. We follow the ups and downs of her life. Her marriages to Dean "Dino" Paul Martin (her first great love who died tragically in a plane crash), Akira Fuse (the Japanese rock legend) and her current husband David Glen Eisley with whom she's been in a loving and supportive marriage since 1991. We learn about her children Alex, Max, and India. There are also the various films and TV shows she worked on over the years which culminated with another role of a lifetime, Mother Theresa in the TV movie Madre Teresa. She discusses moving to LA, living in the Tate-Polanski home just weeks after the Manson murders, her abusive relationship with Christopher Jones (Ryan's Daughter), and her tender bond with the Dean Martin clan. We learn about the classic Hollywood legends that entered her world over the years including Robert Mitchum (he was a good cook), Frank Sinatra (helped her out with Dino Martin was arrested), Elizabeth Taylor (Burton once said Hussey was like Taylor), Bette Davis ("working with her was its own kind of suffering), David Niven ("like me he was a giggler"), Burt Lancaster (she was in awe of him) and many more.

The Girl on the Balcony

Olivia Hussey Finds Life After Romeo & Juliet

by Olivia Hussey

Kensington Publishing

320 pages

Thanks to the good folks at Kensington Publishing one winner will receive an autographed copy of Hussey's memoir.

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CONTEST IS NOW OVER

Congrats to winner DKoren!

To enter:
1) Leave a comment below describing your favorite scene from Franco Zeffirelli's Romeo and Juliet (1968)
2) Include your e-mail address in the comment so I can contact you if you win. Addresses will be removed after the contest is over. 

 * Open to US only.
 * Must be age 18 or over.
* One entry per person.
* Entry must be complete based on criteria above to qualify.
 * Contest ends October 28th at 11:59 PM EST.
* One winner will be selected, contacted via e-mail, and announced here.

Found at Mostly Lost Vol. 2

Found at Mostly Lost Vol. 2

On sale October 30th

Amazon — Barnes and Noble — Best Buy  — Deep Discount

TCM Shop — Undercrank Productions

Earlier this year at the TCM Classic Film Festival I attended a presentation on the Mostly Lost workshop and let’s just say I was utterly fascinated. For those of you unfamiliar with Mostly Lost, it’s a film identification workshop run by the Library of Congress at their National Audio-Visual Conservation Center in Culpeper, VA. Started in 2012, the workshop gathers historians, experts and fans to collaborate on identifying silent and early sound films. These are movies, pulled from the LoC’s film archive, that are missing titles or other identifiers or have been previously  misidentified. Attendees are encouraged to shout out anything they recognize whether it’s an actor or actress, a film studio logo, a location, a period style of dress or hairdo, car models, or anything that will provide some information about the film. Live music, by silent film accompanists like Ben Model, is performed at these screenings. Attendees bring laptops, smartphones, books, etc. to help them in their research. This sounds like such a fun workshop especially for any film historian who loves research. It's also another way in which the Library of Congress contributes to film preservation and knowledge.

Thanks to Ben Model and his distribution company Undercrank Productions, a selection of films identified during the workshop are now available on DVD! In Found At Mostly Lost: Volume 2, Model offers 10 shorts ranging from 7-22 minutes in length. These films were identified by the Mostly Lost team during 2015-2017 workshops and features new piano scores by accompanists Philip Carli, Andrew E. Simpson and Ben Model.

Do Me a Favor (1922)

The DVD includes the following:
Adolph Zink (1903) - Thomas A. Edison Co. - 11 minutes
And the Villain Still Pursued Her; or the Author’s Dream (1906) - Vitagraph - 8 minutes
Derby Day (1922) - Monty Banks - 12 minutes
Do Me a Favor (1922) - Snub Pollard - 10 minutes
The Faithful Dog; or, True to the End (1907) - Eclipse - 8 minutes
The Falling Arrow (1909) - James Young Deer - 8 minutes
Fresh Fish (1922) - Bobby Bumps (animated)  - 7 minutes
In the Tall Grass Country (1910) - Francis Ford, Edith Storey - 10 minutes
The Noodle Nut (1921) - Billy Bletcher - 8 minutes
The Sunshine Spreader (1920s) - 22 minutes

Monty Banks and Lucille Hutton in Derby Day (1922)

My favorite film of the collection was Derby Day, a hilarious 12 minute short starring Monty Banks as a guy who just wants some lunch. In his pursuit for food, he gets caught up in random, bizarre situations that culminate with him racing in a local Derby. The only downside to the short is that it came with German title cards, one of which I stopped to translate online just to figure out what was going on.

Another comedy short I enjoyed was The Noodle Nut, a zany story about two noodle factory workers vying for the hand of one woman. They compete to sell a pack of 5 foot long noodles to a Mack R. Roni, a noodle buyer. The man who sells the noodles gets the girl. Things go awry and hilarity inevitably ensues.

Fresh Fish was an interesting short, a mix of live action and animation. This cute story features a young boy hand cranking an animated movie while his cat watches on. Within the animation is the story of a boy going fishing with his dog. Eventually the animated dog and the live action cat interact with each other.

The collection also features a few dramas. My favorite of those was The Faithful Dog, a tragic tale of a blind beggar and his beloved companion who sticks with him to the bitter end. I also enjoyed In the Tall Grass Country, a modest story of a country boy in love with a girl who has mistaken his sister as a rival love interest.

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Found at Mostly Lost: Vol 2 DVD goes on sale 10/30/18. This would make a great gift for the silent film enthusiast or film history buff in your life.

Thank you to Ben Model of Undercrank Productions for sending me a copy for review!

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)

"At first glance, everything looked the same. It wasn't. Something evil had taken possession of the town."

Set in the fictional Santa Mira, California, the epitome of small town America, Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) follows Dr. Miles Bennell (Kevin McCarthy) as he uncovers the truth behind the bizarre behavior in his community. It all starts with a frightened young boy who claims his mom is not really his mom. Dr. Miles' high school sweetheart Becky (Dana Wynter) has a cousin who's convinced that her uncle is not quite right. While he looks and acts like her uncle, something is off. Then suddenly a lifeless form appears at the home Jack (King Donovan) and Teddy (Carolyn Jones). And then they all make a shocking discovery: giant plant pods are replicating the townspeople and replacing them with lifelike creatures that seem like the real thing but are devoid of everything that makes someone truly human. It's up to Dr. Miles and Becky to escape Santa Mira and let the outside world know what's happening before the plant pods take over the world. Can these two get the word out before the plant pods replace them?

Inspired by Sloan de Forest's book Must See Sci-Fi, I'm tackling a genre that I've always avoided. When I read Sloan's description of this movie I thought to myself "why haven't I seen this one yet? It sounds terrific!" On the surface, a story about over-sized plant pods from outer space invading a small town did not appeal to me. However, Sloan described this not as a movie about alien invasion but as a Cold War paranoia film that tapped into the fears of the time. And with that I was sold.

The film is based on the novel The Body Snatchers by Jack Finney, serialized in Collier's Magazine from November to December 1954. Producer Walter Wanger and Allied Artists Productions got the rights to the film and writer Daniel Mainwaring (author of Build My Gallows High/Out of the Past) adapted it to screen. Sam Peckinpah, who has a small role in the film as a gas meter reader, worked with Wanger and also served as dialogue director. Peckinpah's contributions to the script have been inflated over the years and Mainwaring at one point filed a complaint with the WGA and Peckinpah recanted his claims.

The title was changed from The Body Snatchers to Invasion of the Body Snatchers to separate it from Val Lewton's 1945 film The Body Snatcher. Titles such as Sleep No More, They Come From Another World, Evil in the Night, Better off Dead, A World in Danger, It Could Happen, and Out of the Darkness were considered but ultimately shelved.

Directed by Don Siegel, Invasion of the Body Snatchers was shot over 23 days (other sources claims it was 19) on location in the famous Bronson Cave in Griffith Park, other parts of the Hollywood Hills and Los Angeles. Sierra Madre served as the small town Santa Mira. Filmed in SuperScope and with a budget of $300k, the filmmakers could not predict that their low-budget B-movie would go on to become one of the most beloved and influential science fiction movies of all time.

"How long can we keep going without hope?" - Kevin McCarthy

Invasion of the Body Snatchers is gripping and suspenseful. The build up was perfectly paced. At no point did it seem hokey or cheesy. It's a sophisticated 1950s B-movie that did a lot with a little. Kevin McCarthy was a perfect fit for the role of Dr. Miles. Not only did he have the acting chops to deliver a great performance but he also had the stamina for a very physically demanding role. McCarthy had that everyman look that made him well-suited for the part. Dana Wynter is perfectly matched as Dr. Miles' partner. While her part could have been solely as damsel in distress but she has much more autonomy than that. I was fascinated that both Dr. Miles and Becky are divorcees. It sets them up as characters who refuse to remain in a bad situation because of societal pressure.

Whether the social and political commentary was intentional or not, Invasion of the Body Snatchers has been seen as both anti-Communism and anti-McCarthyism. And while it spoke to the fears of Cold War America, the film is ultimately timeless. The story is about inherent fears that we all have: conformity, complacency, submission and the loss of identity, control and free will. It also explores mass hysteria and to some extent mob mentality. I was particularly drawn by the fear of sleep, a state in which we're at our most vulnerable, and the fear of not being believed, especially when we have something really important to say.

Amazon — Barnes and Noble — Deep Discount — TCM Shop

Olive Films has recently released a limited edition Blu-Ray and DVD of Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) as part of their Olive Signature series. This edition has a limited run of 5,000 copies and is packed with lots of extras.

The limited edition Blu-Ray includes:

• Blu-Ray with new high-definition digital restoration
• booklet with essay by Kier-La Janisse
• Two audio commentaries: 1) film historian Richard Harland Smith 2) Kevin McCarthy, Dana Wynter and filmmaker Joe Dante
• Visual essay - The Stranger in Your Lover's Eyes by Kristoffer Tabori, son of Don Siegel
• The Fear is Real - 12 min short doc, interviews with filmmakers Larry Cohen and Joe Dante
• I No Longer Belong: The Rise and Fall of Walter Wanger – 21 min doc with film scholar Matthew Bernstein
• Sleep No More: Invasion of the Body Snatchers Revisited – 26 min retrospective including Kevin McCarthy, Dana Wynter, John Landis, Mick Garris, and Stuart Gordon
• The Fear and the Fiction: The Body Snatchers Phenomenon –  8 min short doc including Kevin McCarthy, Dana Wynter, John Landis, Mick Garris and Stuart Gordon
• 7 min 1985 archival interview with Kevin McCarthy hosted by Tom Hatten
• Return to Santa Mira – a series of 1 minute vignettes on the filming locations (only downside is that you can't play all of these together, have to be played one by one)
• What’s In a Name? – 2 minute short doc on the history behind the title
• Photo gallery of archival documents
• Original theatrical trailer

The quality of the Blu-Ray is fantastic, the new cover art is stunning and I enjoyed exploring all the extras it had to offer. It's a very nice package and would make a great purchase for Halloween or Holiday gift. I would snap this one up quickly because I wouldn't be surprised if it sells out soon.

Check out my latest YouTube video! I show the new Blu-Ray set around the 7:50 min mark:

Thank you to Olive Films for sending me a copy of Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) Olive Signature Blu-Ray for review!