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BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN (Kino)
2 discs. 1925. B&W/Color. 69 mins. 1.33:1 AR.

Part 4 in the scene selection process is identified as ‘THE ODESSA STAIRCASE’. If you were to pick ten scenes representing the iconic film images of the first century of cinema, this would surely be one, and if you were to list them in order of their psychic impact on the masses, where would this fall? BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN would be an interesting double bill with THE UNTOUCHABLES, don’t you think? And the clip from BONNIE AND CLYDE where Penn duplicates the shot of the screaming woman (on the back of the POTEMKIN DVD box) as a bank employee jumps onto the robbers’ getaway car and is shot in the eye.
It’s also revealing, watching the Odessa Stairway sequence, about what Eisenstein might have done with WAR OF THE WORLDS had he helmed the proposed Hollywood project. The montage of faceless, merciless soldiers marching down the stairs, trampling and shooting the defenseless masses, would have been an ideal sequence to recreate, this time using Martians. But the project didn’t come through, and eventually he went back to Russia.
Kino has joined with the Deutsche Kinematek, Russia’s Goskinofilm, the British Film Institute, Bundesfilm Archive Berlin, and the Munich Film Museum to present this definitive version of the historically imperative feature, with dozens of missing shots replaced, and all 146 title cards restored to Eisenstein’s specifications. To think, all these years – in my case all forty-seven of them since I first laid eyes on the film – I’ve been seeing it not as it was meant to be seen. I mean, I knew the 16mm print quality was degraded when we showed it at the Film Society at the Horace Mann School in Riverdale, NY. But I assumed it was all in order aside from that. After all it came from The Museum of Modern Art. But no, it was what they’d been given, and what they’d been given was incomplete for all sorts of reasons relating to German censorship and Russian political machinations.
The striking Russian poster art for the film adorns the front of the DVD box. Edmund Meisel’s (the composer selected by Eisenstein for the German premiere in ’26) score has been performed by the 55-piece Deutches Filmorchestra in 5.1 Stereo Surround. It has its fine moments, particularly in the sailboat sequence.

The set includes:

Disc One: Restored film with English intertitles. “Tracing Battleship Potemkin” – a 42-minute doc. Photo Gallery. Original 1926 Edmund Meisel score.
Disc Two: Restored film with Russian intertitles. Also: 8-page brochure.

Directed by Sergei Eisenstein. Screenplay – N.F. Agadzhanova-Shutko. Head Cinematographer – Eduard Tisse. Music – Edmund Meisel.

With: The Russian people…

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DANTE’S COVE (Here!) DANTE’S COVE: THE GUILTY PLEASURE COLLECTION
Review by David Dell Valle

I feel compelled to start this review by stating the obvious regarding the universal appeal of soap operas and their undying popularity in our Pop culture. Here it is… There is an addictive quality about each and every one of them regardless of how sophomoric or clichéd the premise may be, and furthermore the era of soaps being just a woman’s guilty pleasure is over.” The era of soft-core sex in every aspect of cable television is upon us. Where is Howard Beal when you need him?
Now having said that I must confess that screening the first season of DANTE’S COVE – filled to the rafters with soft core sex between beautiful young guys who, when pressed into service, get hot and sweaty over witchcraft and demonology, while residing sinfully in a cursed hotel – was a real turn-on and most defiantly a guilty pleasure. The downside to the mix was the lack of good scripts, not to mention the reluctance for the aforementioned hot guys to try and act the roles assigned to them beyond taking steamy showers while French kissing in slow motion, not that there is anything wrong with that; it just adds to the time allowed to move the plot from one curse to the next.
The funniest moment in the first season came early on in the prologue where we learn how our resident warlock lost his powers to a diva-like witch, acted by Tracy Scoggins, who channels a bit of Barbara Steele in her demonic glare. This woman can actually compel her cheekbones to act when provoked. Having said that, our Diva walks in on her studly fiancé, the brooding William Gregory Lee (who seems to be channeling Joe Dallesandro, at least with his humorless line readings) behaving as most bottoms do by enjoying anal sex with his buff butler…yes, you heard me – his butler. Well, our Tracy just puts the Devil’s whammy right on Mr. Nude Butler man, complete with his ample manhood swaying in the breeze, and we get to watch him smoke and sizzle away with his funky stuff shaking like jelly on a plate.
What makes all this so much fun for me is the producer’s press releases making no bones about this being a gay version of DARK SHADOWS from late sixties afternoon television.
The director of both seasons, Sam Irwin, has been a horror fan par excellence all his life. At one time, still in his late teens, he even edited a fanzine called BIZARRE that took him to England where he spent quality time watching Hammer films being made first hand, and the ones Hammer made at that time were the sexed-up lesbian vampire films like THE VAMPIRE LOVERS and LUST FOR A VAMPIRE. All of his observations have come to serve him well on this series, as he knows the landscape of camp horror only too well.
Getting back to the DARK SHADOWS connection, I believe the gay subtext was always there to begin with. I mean go figure a decidedly fey middle aged actor, Jonathan Frid, playing a fussy camp vampire named Barnabas Collins, loaded down with Cleopatra eye liner and pancake make-up, wandering around an old manor house filled with antiques, while being “attended” by a servant named Willie. It’s just too Fire Island to begin with, and our Sam knew that from day one.
The DVD boxed set that I received to review is called DANTE’S COVE: THE GUILTY PLEASURE EDITION, and so it is. The first two seasons are represented with interviews with both the men of Dante’s Cove as well as the ladies. The second season promises to be more evenly matched with lesbian encounters so we will see where this leads us as far as the original gay male fan base is concerned. You must not judge the series too harshly by the first season because the guys were just getting adjusted to the scene, and what a scene it is. The locations are stunning as the whole production is shot on Maui in Hawaii.
I know there is probably another steamy series there in the wings if they decided to go with a reality show on watching the production crew of DANTE’S COVE with most of the actors being openly gay and did I say – Hot… manage to keep it together or more likely not in such a steamy locale? Well just forget LOST; lets set up some cameras in those cabanas for the season and see what’s up.
OK the first season is pretty shaky as far as the acting and story lines go, yet the hook is already there in the prologue, which explains that the vengeful Diva witch placed a curse on our randy warlock who remained chained in a basement for centuries until “the kiss of a young man can set him free.” Yes you heard me right…
The second season is much tighter, if you catch my drift….. The ladies tend to walk away with the acting honors this season, the production values are first rate, and they have added a gay sex club on the Island from what was to be a spin-off of this show called THE LAIR, but more on that at a later date when I review THE LAIR.
One thing about the two leads: Charlie David, and Gregory Michael in particular, need to get it together about their “relationship,” because it REALLY wore thin in season one and goes nowhere in season two. I mean these dudes are wild in bed but just can’t make it work in day-to-day life. If I have to watch Gregory Michael tear up and whine one more time, well… I might just have to read his beads. Listen, Charlie, you are the hot one as far as this reviewer is concerned, so lose the blonde drama queen and rock out.
One thing you tend to notice on this show is the wishful alternative universe these characters dwell in…I mean there are no old fat dudes wandering around, no aging queens sitting at the bar waiting to be hustled by the local studs who are in ample supply. And most importantly, not one mention of AIDS or anything of real concern other than a make believe drug called SAINT, which is used by the witches for enlightenment, whereas the ordinary users just gets silly and fall around a lot like actor Jon Fleming, who has a great body and just can’t keep his shirt on at all…he also is unsure of his sexual identity, however by the end of season two he has been had and it was about time. I think we will see more of this character well acted by our Mr. Fleming.
The so called “Lost Pilot” is really the work print they started with and it is a real eye opener as far as how bad this show could have been without good old Sam Irwin in the director’s chair. I was amused to catch his cameo, which occurs at the very beginning of season one: Sam is the cab driver who has to put up with watching Charlie go down on his boyfriend in the back seat. Our director keeps his cool while adjusting his rear view mirror to check it all out.
The work print has a time code and no music or special effects, it also has different cast members and most of them were replaced, thank God, as they were truly awful. I am so proud of what Sam Irwin has done with this show. His influence is everywhere from the very high tech disco theme “DYING TO BE WITH YOU” which he co-wrote and I am sure is already in the dance bars as an extended dance track.
Now I predict that The HERE! NETWORK has a bona fide hit on their hands and as you read this the third season is already airing on cable, with most likely more to follow. With the original DARK SHADOWS it took a couple of seasons for the show to catch on, and no one was getting it on in that one, so give this show a little more time and I bet they will find their “Barnabas”.

THE LOST PILOT
Special introduction by Paul Colichman CEO of Here! Networks
And Meredith Kadlee VP of programming

THE FIRST SEASON
Starring William Gregory Lee Tracy Scoggins, Charlie David, Nadine Heiman, Gregory Michael, Thea Gill, Jon Fleming.
Directed By Sam Irwin

THE SECOND SEASON
Same cast as above
Directed by Sam Irwin

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* Well, this Christmas, film fans can look forward to two great classics getting a royal DVD treatment. The first is VCI’s re-release of the Alastair Sim 1951 A CHRISTMAS CAROL. All other adaptations of Charles Dickens’ beautiful holiday tale pale behind this wonderfully acted, photographed and directed (By Brian Desmond Hurst, who later gave us THE PLAYBOY OF THE WESTERN WORLD) classic. Cinematographer T.M. Pennington-Richards never got to work on anything as visually and thematically challenging before or since. Dickens first worked as a clerk in night court in Victorian London, so he saw the underbelly of that society. It is marvelously preserved in this film. The other DVD resurfacing this holiday season is Arthur Rankin and Jules Bass’ YEAR WITHOUT A SANTA CLAUS (1974) For the most part, this animated yarn about Santa (voiced beard-in-cheek by Mickey Rooney) catching a cold and wanting a year off from present delivery, is about the same as all the other animated holiday specials that overcame 1970’s Network TV screens. It’s cute, harmless, fun. About halfway through YEAR WITHOUT… we are introduced to the egomaniacal and battling Miser Brothers. Heat Miser (Voiced by Broadway legend George Irving) is an overgrown middle-aged baby who controls the world’s tropical weather, while his brother, Cold Miser (a hilarious voicing by the great Dick Shawn) is full of smarmy sarcasm and he controls the planet’s cold climates. Both their introduction songs will stay with you longer than most Christmas Carols. (Although this a film column, I have to add, most Christmas songs are nice but some are hideous and belong only in mean-spirited horror movies. When I hear “Baby It’s Cold Outside”, I’m thinking, “Yo, Bimbo! Let the poor man in before he freezes to death and you’re bought up on manslaughter charges!” Eartha Kitt’s “Santa Baby”, – eeuuww! A seductive come-on to Santa by some high-maintenance chick! And don’t get me started on the poor logic of “Little Drummer Boy” Yeah, what mother wants an unknown youth banging a homemade drum inches away from her newborn?)
My favorite film of 2007 (not that Roy asked, but I feel compelled to tell you…)? It has to be THE KEY TO RESERVA? What is that? Well, it starts off with Martin Scorcese talking in his usual thinking-faster-than-he-can-talk manner, claiming he found three pages of an unplanned Alfred Hitchcock. Scorcese proclaims he will film this three minute piece the way Hitchcock would have shot it, not in the Scorcese style, but in Hitchcock style.
This fun three minutes is so Hitchcock. You have a hero in a blue business suit, an icy blonde heroine, a harmless-looking villain who can be oh-so-deadly, the camera angles, the bizarre Hitchcock logic (Wait till you see where Scorcese’s MacGuffin is hidden!), the borrowed Bernard Herrmann score and countless other references to classic Sir Alfred. There’s a sly whimsical joke behind all this, and you will love it, dear film fan.

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