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Bright Lights Film Journal
Issue 32 | April 2001

editorial

This issue is one free of theme, order, or even — as some cruel readers will undoubtedly tell us — sense, but that won’t stop us from publishing it. Indeed, our legions of fans may welcome the helter-skelter, crazy-quilt, simmering stewpot of goodies we’ve got lined up this time.

BL associate editor and curmudgeon Alan Vanneman continues his exhaustive trek through the sound stages of RKO that once hosted Astaire and Rogers. On a more gruesome note comes C. Jerry Kutner’s unflinching look at one of cinema’s most horrific creations: Old Yeller! (Kids: Be 21 or begone for this one.) Eminent movie scholar Joe McBride brings us out of the doggie depths and into the bright lights of George Cukor’s fabulous career. From Robert Castle comes a provocative linking of Scorsese’s "goodfellas" with the medieval knights of yore (readers are welcome to submit their definitions of "yore"). Wrapping up the Features Rotunda is a two-part tribute to Tod Browning’s stomach-churning meisterwerk Freaks.

The Sex ‘n Sadism Foyer revives the 1968 film De Sade, whose authorship is still in question, while other ‘60s grindhouse fare gets the once-over in yours truly’s sampling of Euro sex ‘n horror. Entering the Experimental Film Niche offers some welcome relief from such trash with a glance at the wonderful work of New York avant-garde master Abigail Child. And three film festivals get heavily cruised this time: two worthy San Francisco fests; and from the redoubtable Cleo Cacoulidis, a survey of rare documentaries from one of the most beleaguered of the world’s many hotspots of the last decade.

Homo Corner turns the lavender light on another rarity, the queer Indian film Bombay Boys, done to the nines by Andrew Grossman. And there’s a review of Nico and Dani, a fabulous stroll through gay teenage sexuality that’s both respectful of the boyz and, well, sexy. DVD and book reviews are a little thin this issue (compared to last issue’s elephantine list, at least of video reviews). But wonderful indeed is Vanneman’s review of Jazz on a Summer’s Day. (In another piece, the author spits back at The New Yorker’s Anthony Lane’s smug dismissal of Our Lady of the Compassionate Tube Top, Julia Roberts.) We’ll leave the reader to judge the merits of your editor’s look at Ulmer’s strangely fascinating The Pirates of Capri with the, well, sexy Louis Hayward. Two book reviews, of Mick LaSalle’s curiously overpraised revival of pre-code cinema Complicated Women, and Jan Stuart’s tribute to an Altman masterpiece, wrap it up.

Gary Morris

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Visit the archives for hundreds of other articles, dear.

features rotunda

Fred & Ginger Get Their Feet Wet in Follow the Fleet — "There may be trouble ahead"

Good Dog, Bad Dog: The Horror of Disney’s Old Yeller — "Yeller, you’ve been so good to the family but you’re sick now so we’re gonna blow your damn brains out!"

George Cukor: The Valor of Discretion — An affectionate look at one of cinema’s still undervalued masters

Average Nobodies: The Dark Knights of Goodfellas — Scorsese’s tragic-trashy gangsters as modern-day knights errant

Tod Browning’s Freaks (1932): Production Notes and Analysis — The normals are the real freaks in this still gut-wrenching horror classic

sex ‘n sadism foyer

Decadence AIP Style: De Sade — "No actual fucking!" as the author says, but there are plenty of other pleasures in this lurid ‘60s rarity whose authorship remains contested

"They Ate His Genitals!" A Sampling of European Sex and Horror Films — These seminal sleazefests — and a couple of arty classics — will make you twist and shout

experimental film niche

Private Eye: Abigail Child in Brief — Child’s compulsive visual collages are visual and aural legerdemain

chamber of miscellany

Manhattan to America: Drop Dead! — The New Yorker takes a slap at Julia Roberts

film festivals alcove

Yugoslavia in Focus: Observations From the Thessaloniki Documentary Festival — Archival footage, dramatizations, and dark satire capture the dire end-of-century events in the former Yugoslavia

San Francisco’s 2001 International Human Rights Watch Festival — Celebrating activism and exposing some of the more chaotic corners of world politics

San Francisco’s IndieFest 2001 — Some bright lights and a few dim bulbs distinguish this year’s preeminent indie showcase

homo corner lanai

The Boyz of Bollywood: Kaizad Gustad’s Bombay Boys — These boys mix it up, sort of, in what seems to be India’s first gay indie

The Boys Deliver: Cesc Gay’s Nico and Dani — A beachhouse, no parents, and the fleeting pleasures of "krampach"

dvd reviews porch

Too Haute to Handle: Jazz on a Summer’s Day on DVD — The best jazz documentary just got better

Unmistakably Ulmer: The Pirates of Capri on DVD — Louis Hayward has tights!

book reviews boudoir

The Nashville Chronicles: The Making of Robert Altman’s Masterpiece, by Jan Stuart

Complicated Women: Sex and Power in Pre-Code Hollywood, by Mick LaSalle