Ed Gorman's Blog, page 272

Thanks to Thrilling Days of Yesterday-i

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As Max Collins once said to me, Shemp is the only one of the Stooges who even dimly realizes that life shouldn't be this way. There's a vulnerability--and dim intelligence--in Shemp that I liked even when I was seven years old.[image error]

How Quatermass Saved England, Hammer Films and British SF Cinema

For many of us over fifty-five the first two Quartermass films (especially the first one for me) brought a darkness and realism I'd never seen in science fiction movies before. The scenes with the infected escapee are vivid in my mind fifty years later. I'd never seen suffering and panic portrayed so violently. None of the Quartermass films can be reviewed without the obligatory dissing of Brian Donlevy, something I've never understood. Donlevy was a solid actor and did a good job as a bully-boy

Davd Carradine; Charlie Stella

By coincidence I happened to spend half an hour last night going through Christopher Wicking's book on TV directors from the inception of network TV up through the eighties. One of his points is that visually TV quickly became static. For reasons of budget and laziness, there was a corporate style used by most TV directors. The best men and women found ways to do good work within those confines but too much "product" was dull and unimaginative.

Wicking credits Jerry Thorp and his Kung-Fu show wit

The Not-So-Magnificent-Seven

Please God say it ain't so:

From Cinema Retro:

Irvine Welsh, the author of Trainspotting, has another unique story that's being developed for a film. The Magnificent Eleven is a contemporary British football spoof of the classic 1960 western The Magnificent Seven, which itself was a remake of Seven Samurai. The new film will deal with an amateur football team, a Tandoori restaurant and a gang of thugs. Even more intriguingly, it's rumored Robert Vaughn will be approached to appear in the film. Vau

NIGHT ROAD by A.M. Jenkins

A friend of mine who writes YAs suggested I read NIGHT ROAD by A.M. Jenkins. Two chapters in I saw what he was so excited about.

This is one of the most unique vampire novels I've ever read. If it doesn't have the power and range of I AM LEGEND it does offer the reader a freshly constructed underground world in which "hemovores" (though they drink blood they do not consider themselves vampires because there is a scientific explanation for their condition) function on the edge of contemporary soci

Eliot Ness; The Last Quarry; Wild West Monday

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I've reviewed both ELIOT NESS: AN UNTOUCHABLE LIFE and THE LAST LULLABY BEFORE. Ness is a brilliant recreation of the famous lawman's life. A true dramatic blockbuster. THE LAST LULLABY is one of the three or four finest crime films I've seen in the last two years. Tom Sizemore was never stronger. And the direction is superb. Here's news from Max Allan Collins on both these projects.

MESSAGE FROM M.A.C. — May 26, 2009

Iowa Public Television (IPTV) will air the two-part mini-series, "Eliot Ness:

American Movie Classics

There was a time when I bought TV Guide just to see what AMC would be running. For classy and classic movies AMC was the place to go. I have to admit I switched to Turner Classic as soon as it appeared though every once in awhile I'd flip to AMC to check out its offering. Then one day I noticed something terrible had happened to the channel.

Here's By Lee Pfeiffer from Cinema Retro

"You would think that AMC, the American cable channel, would be happy with the fact that their esteemed series Madme

The Whistler

Vince Keenan has kindly given me permission to reprint some of his previous columns, which is fine for me because I think he's a particularly astute writer no matter the subject. Since Vince and I share an admiration for strange but compelling B series called The Whistler, I thought I'd lead with Vince's opening column on those movies.



posted by Vince # 1:03 AM (1) comments
Saturday, September 06, 2008
Movies: The Films of the Whistler, Part One

Amidst multiple deadlines, I’ve been making my way

Best rock producer?

Neil McCormack has an interesting piece on the people who produce rock and roll records and CDs, especially fitting that Phil Spector is front and center on the day he's sentenced to nineteen years in prison.


"I speak to Ian Broudie of The Lightning Seeds in today's Telegraph. Broudie is a legendary post punk producer, who started out making the early classic albums for Echo & The Bunnymen and most recently discovered and developed The Coral and The Zutons. When I asked him who his own favourite

Charlie Stella; Robert Ludlum; Romance novels

Ed here: I was privileged to read Charlie Stella's knockout novel Johnny Porno in manuscript. I mentioned it to Greg Shepard at Stark House and he said that while he might like it he wasn't sure about publishing an original novel. He read it and changed his mind immediately: Here's what Greg wrote today:

"Up until now I've resisted publishing anything that wasn't a reprint of what I considered a classic or long-neglected mystery. But when Ed Gorman introduced me to Charlie Stella's new book, I si