Film Fridays Spotlight: "Carnival of Souls" & "Yella"

Two films that ask: "Is this the real life or just fantasy?"

Caught in a landslide, no escape from reality: Candace Hilligoss in “Carnival of Souls” and Nina Hoss in “Yella.”

Back in May, Pratt Library launched “Film Fridays,” a weekly virtual program hosted by librarians Tom Warner (Best & Next Dept.) and Gillian Waldo (Humanities Dept.) to discuss films available for patrons to watch for free using our digital streaming services Kanopy and Hoopla. For their first film talk, the pair selected two films that, like the lyrics in  Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody,” asked the question: “Is this the real life or is this just fantasy?” It seemed a fitting double-bill for these pandemic times when, in the midst of an unprecedented social lockdown, we’ve all had to adapt to a strange new reality. Just in case you missed that live film talk, following is a print review of the two films discussed, both of which are still available to stream on Kanopy: Carnival of Souls (1962) and Yella (2007).

Both films explore the eerie mutability of place and the purgatorial state of dreaming, offering a meditation on the popular folklore belief that the dead don’t know they are dead. And both can trace their roots to Robert Enrico’s Oscar-winning 1962 short film adaptation of Ambrose Bierce’s 1890 story “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,” as well as the 1960 Twilight Zone episode “The Hitchhiker,” with Yella further inspired by the plot and narrative structure of Carnival of Souls.

CARNIVAL OF SOULS (1962)
Click here to view the trailer for Carnival of Souls.

Candace Hilligoss as Mary Henry

Made in just 3 weeks for $30,000, Herk Harvey’s cult classic Carnival of Souls (USA, 1962) is one of the most original and unsettling independent horror films in history, with striking black-and-white cinematography by Maurice Prather and a spooky organ soundtrack by Gene Moore that became a spectral character in the film itself. George A. Romero later confessed that the look and makeup of the film’s ghouls was a direct influence on his cult film Night of the Living Dead (1968).

After a woman mysteriously survives a car wreck ( or did she?), she moves to Utah where she takes on a job as a church organist and finds herself drawn to the dilapidated carnival (Salt Lake City’s long-abandoned Saltair amusement pavilion) on the outskirts of town. There the woman, Mary Henry (played by newcomer Candace Hilligoss in her film debut), finds herself dogged by a mysterious figure known only as “the man” (played by director Herk Harvey himself) as she deals with a seemingly hostile environment and her inability to connect with people. It isn't long before she discovers the terrifying secrets her new life holds.

Carnival of Souls has been cited as a pioneering example of the “purgatorial horror” subgenre, with its disorienting spatial logic and surreal images influencing everyone from George Romero to Lucrecia Martel and David Lynch (a connection made all the more plausible by the fact that Lynch’s longtime composer, Angelo Badalamenti, was once a songwriting partner with Carnival of Souls screenwriter John Clifford). As Criterion Collection critic Kier-La Janisse observes, the film challenges “the objective physical definition of ‘place’ itself, posing the question of how much of our experience unfolds solely within the confines of our own imaginations.” This is the plight Mary Henry finds herself in, as she physically flees the trauma of her past by trying to forge a new life in a new town, much like Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960).

Although Harold “Herk” Harvey made over 400 films for Centron Films, an educational/industrial film company based in Lawrence, Kansas (where most of Carnival of Souls was shot) this was his lone feature film. The script was co-written by Harvey with Centron staffer John Clifford, and filmed in Lawrence and Salt Lake City over the course of a three-week vacation the two took from their day jobs, where they worked on such comparatively mundane fare as Pork: The Meal That Squeals and the Monsanto landscape thriller Operation Grass Killer.

After making countless educational/commercial films for other people, the pair wanted to express themselves artistically, creating something with “the look of Bergman and the feel of Cocteau,” to cite two of their favorite European directors, Swedish arthouse auteur Ingmar Bergman and French poetic-realism director Jean Cocteau. Shooting guerilla-style with a low-budget and a mostly non-professional cast - star Candace Hilligoss, a Method actress who trained in the same Lee Strasbourg class as Marilyn Monroe and Roy Schneider, was the only professionally trained actor -  their efforts resulted in a film that has been called everything from  “Orpheus meets An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” to “an episode of The Twilight Zone directed by Ed Wood and Antonioni.”

But Carnival of Souls wasn’t a success at the time of its release. Plagued initially by financial and distribution problems, the film entered the public domain due to a copyright not appearing on the theatrical prints and only became a cult classic with the advent of the video boom in the 1980s. Harvey didn’t recover the copyright until 1989, the same year horror master Wes Craven produced a remake that bore little resemblance to the original. And, ironically, another cult classic greatly influenced by Carnival of Souls - George A. Romero’s Night Of the Living Dead - also failed to register its copyright and also entered the public domain!

Despite a strong performance that carries the weight of the film on her shoulders, star Candace Hilligoss only made one other feature film in her career: a minor role in 1964’s The Curse of the Living Corpse. But her acclaimed debut continues to be one for the ages, one that rewards repeated viewing.

YELLA (Germany, 2007)
In German with English subtitles
Click here to watch Yella trailer.

Nina Hoss as Yella Fichte

In Christian Petzold’s Yella (Germany, 2007), the titular young woman, Yella Fichte (Nina Hoss) plans to flee her unhinged ex-husband Ben (Hinnerk Schönemann) and her economically-challenged hometown in former East Germany for a new life in the West. But as she departs, she accepts a lift from Ben and, as they drive across a bridge, he plunges their car into the Elbe. She miraculously survives (or does she?) and continues on to Hanover in West Germany, where she finds a promising job with Philipp (David Striesow), a handsome venture capitalist with whom an unlikely romance soon blossoms. But she soon finds herself haunted by buried truths that threaten to destroy her newfound happiness.

If that premise sounds familiar (especially the bridge accident), it’s because Yella is basically a retelling of Carnival of Souls, one colored by Petzold’s fascination with examining how Germans are adjusting to the "new" (post-unification) Germany, where the economically bleak post-socialist East clashes with the cut-throat capitalism of the affluent West. No doubt Petzold’s interest stems from the fact that, though he was born in the West, his parents were East German refugees, and this contrast remains a constant theme throughout his work. Through Petzold’s finely focused lens, the whole film is marked by an acute sensitivity to this concern with place and space, with recurring images of things that both connect and separate people - bridges, corridors, rivers, roads. Yella’s small, verdant hometown in the former East Germany is contrasted with the cold glass-and-steel hotels and generic office towers of the industrialized West, where she and Philipp conduct ruthless business deals rife with lies and illusions.

And viewers should note the multiple references throughout the film that question whether what we’re seeing is real or imagined, from recurring water sounds and  imagery - Philippe’s laptop screensaver depicts a tidal wave; Yella drops  glass of water and stares at the spill during a business meeting; countless scenes of rivers and bridges; a man drowning in a pond behind his house - to Ben (like “The Man” shadowing Mary Henry in Carnival of Souls) beckoning Yella to return to “home.”

And it is home that Yella yearns to return to when, near the end of the film, she makes a sobering discovery that brings the story full-circle. Is Yella a political ghost story? An allegory of German reunification? A young woman from the East’s dream of life in the West? In Petzold’s hands, it’s all of these and more.

While Herk Harvey and Carnival of Souls star Candace Hilligoss only worked together on one feature, Christian Petzold has called on his muse Nina Hoss a half-dozen times, most recently to critical acclaim in 2014’s Phoenix in which, once again, she played a tragic, tormented heroine. While American audiences may be familiar with Hoss for her portrayal of Astrid, a German intelligence agent on Homeland (2014-2017), Hoss has long been a leading star in German cinema. For her portrayal of Yella, Nina Hoss won the Silver Bear for Best Actress at the 2007 Berlin International Film Festival and Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role at the 2008 German Film Awards.

To see more of Hoss, check out two more films she made with Petzold that are available through Kanopy: 2012's Barbara (another study of the East-West Germany divide) and 2009’s Jerichow (a reworking of the classic film noir The Postman Always Rings Twice). Christian Petzold’s latest film Transit (2018), based on the novel by Anna Seghers, is also available to stream on Kanopy.

[This review originally appeared in the Enoch Pratt Free Library's PrattChat blog.]

In the Woods with Tana French's "Dublin Murder Squad" Mysteries

[The following review was written for the Enoch Pratt Free Library's PrattChat blog.]

There are two types of people in the world: those with an obsessive devotion to French’s books — and those who haven’t read them yet." - Anne Donahue (IndieWire, Nov 10, 2019)

Life under quarantine has given me the luxury of having the time to reread In the Woods, the first book in the bestselling and award-winning “Dublin Murder Squad” series, by my favorite contemporary mystery writer, Tana French. Though her latest book, 2019’s The Witch Elm, was an unrelated standalone novel, it is the six titles in the Dublin police series written between 2007 and 2016 that led to French’s critical acclaim and now to Dublin Murders, an eight-part Starz network television adaptation of the first two novels in the series, In the Woods (2007, winner of the Edgar, Anthony, Barry and Macavity award for Best First Novel) and The Likeness (2008). Starz is a commercial streaming platform (though you can sign up for a free seven-day trial subscription), so if you don’t want to pay to play, I recommend using your library card to check out the free eBook or eAudio versions of these titles.

Though French has gained renown as a crime writer, critic Laura Millar argues that her work shatters the distinction between “genre” and “literary” fiction — “the notion that although crime novels might be better plotted and more readable, only literary fiction, supposedly blessed with superior writing, characterizations and intellectual firepower, deserves the respect of serious readers.” Tana French herself also rejects the distinction, saying “I’ve never seen why audiences should be expected to be satisfied with either gripping plots or good writing. Why shouldn’t they be offered both at once?”

French certainly offers more than mere whodunnits, and that’s why her fans are so devoted and, like me, are eagerly awaiting her newest book, The Searchers (set to be released in fall of 2020.) She presents her readers with a portrait of deeply detailed characters living in a contemporary Ireland that finds itself in the aftermath of an economic boom, one where, as Laura Millar observes, they are torn between “the desire to cling to history and the urge to jettison it for brighter horizons.” Thus, in her debut, the story is set on the edge of a historically-important archeological site soon to be paved over for a crass motorway, leading to tensions between the Knocknaree townies and outside interlopers.

Given her skill in depicting the intricacies of contemporary Irish society, you would assume French is a native of the Emerald Isle, but in truth she was born in Burlington, Vermont. She crossed the pond to attend school at Trinity College Dublin 30 years ago and has lived there ever since, soaking up the post-boom property bubble downturn that increased the gap between the rich and the poor, the mighty and the downtrodden. Her keen observations on the Irish state are always there, quietly coloring the police procedural narrative that anchors her stories.

And while on its surface In the Woods is about two homicide detectives, Rob Ryan and Cassie Maddox, trying to solve the murder of a young girl, the search for the killer not only becomes a journey of self-discovery for Rob (with its possible connection to a traumatic incident in his secret past), it also comes to affect the close-knit relationship he has with Cassie - one that questions whether a man and a woman can truly be friends without romantic entanglements spoiling the harmony or trust being betrayed.

The relationship between these two, is what separates In the Woods from ordinary crime novels and adds another dimension. Like Dashiell Hammett’s Nick and Nora Charles, Rob and Cassie have a mental “alchemy,” a bond that finds them sharing a common “currency” of language or, as Rob puts it, “...we planted seeds without thinking, and woke up to our own private beanstalk.” He adds, “If it hadn’t been for Cassie, I think I might have ended up turning into that detective on Law and Order who has ulcers and thinks everything is a government conspiracy.” Their friendship, and its surprising denouement, will have you turning page after page, as eager to learn where it leads as, well, whodunnit.

In the Woods also features one of the best introductions to a mystery since Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep (1939), as the narrator sets the story’s template (and anticipates its outcome) with these frank words:

“What I warn you to remember is that I am a detective. Our relationship with truth is fundamental but cracked, refracting confusingly like fragmented glass. It is the core of our careers, the endgame of every move we make, and we pursue it with strategies painstakingly constructed of lies and concealment and every variation on deception. The truth is the most desirable woman in the world and we are the most jealous lovers, reflexively denying anyone else the slightest glimpse of her. We betray her routinely, spending hours and days stupor-deep in lies, and then we turn back to her holding out the lover’s ultimate Moebius strip: But I only did it because I love you...What I am telling you, before you begin my story, is this - two things: I crave truth. And I lie.”

That narrator is Rob Ryan and it’s this insight that will inform his attempt to uncover both the mystery of the case before him and the long-buried memories of his own shadowy past. For, far from being silent, the woods around his childhood home of Knocknaree speak volumes to him.

Every Dublin Murder Squad book follows a “passing the baton” model in which a secondary detective in one novel goes on to becomes the primary focus in the next. So while you yearn to continue following one protagonist, the author yearns to move on and create interest in a new one. Thus, while In the Woods is mainly about Rob, 2008’s The Likeness features Cassie, who teams up with undercover operations boss Frank Mackey. Then Cassie disappears and Mackey becomes the focus of 2010’s Faithful Place; that novel introduces detective Scorcher Kennedy, who becomes the protagonist of 2012’s Broken Harbor, working with squad rookie Stephen Moran. Moran then gets his moment in the spotlight working with abrasive detective Antoinette Conway in 2014’s The Secret Place; then Antoinette takes over in the final Dublin Murder novel, 2016’s The Trepasser.

Tana French’s main characters may come and go, but you’ll want to meet each new one she introduces. Still, the initial alchemy of Rob and Cassie in her debut is so winning that it’s worth revisiting time and again. You may even be tempted, like me, to break down and watch Starz’s Dublin Murders series to spend even more time with them.

All of Tana French’s books are available for download as digital eBooks or eAudio.

Kanopy for Captive Audiences

[This was a posting originally submitted to my workplace library's blog. They didn't use it.]

In these days of pandemic anxiety, when social distancing has most of us holed-up at home with cabin fever and too much time on our hands, it's a great time to take advantage of your library card to use Kanopy, your library's free streaming resource for cinema lovers, to borrow digital movies, television shows, documentaries and foreign films. Digital streaming enables all of us to safely watch movies from the comfort of our home; and, best of all, these “viral videos” don’t require us to touch or wipe off a Redbox or store-bought DVD.

Kanopy takes its name from "canopy," which in ecology is a layer of something that spreads out and covers an area, like the thousands of branches and leaves that spread out at the top of trees in a forest. Likewise, Kanopy's catalog is so vast (over 30,000 titles!), that it is easy to "miss the forest for the trees." So, we've put together this guide to help you discover some of the best content in the collection.

Criterion Collection
Unlike most streaming platforms that stockpile popular mainstream fare, Kanopy offers a diverse and carefully curated selection of important classic and contemporary cinema from around the world, including 50 titles from the esteemed Criterion Collection - from Fellini’s 8 ½ to Ingmar Bergman’s Wild Strawberries. (Personal fave: Michelangelo Antonioni’s 1950 debut, Story of a Love Affair, starring the luminous Lucia Bose in the director’s most narrative-structured film.) What makes Criterion “art house” movies so special? Criterion pioneered the correct aspect ratio letterboxing presentation of movies, as well as commentary soundtracks, multi-disc sets, special editions, and remastered versions. Watching these films is like taking a class in the history of film itself.

The Story of Film
And speaking of film history, Kanopy offers The Story of Film: An Odyssey, a 15-episode journey through the history of world cinema, from the invention of motion pictures at the end of the 19th century up through the multi-billion dollar globalized digital industry of the 21st. Narrated by film historian Mark Cousins (based on his book of the same title), this acclaimed series is filled with vintage clips from some of the greatest movies ever made and features interviews with legendary filmmakers and actors, including Stanley Donen, Wim Wenders, Lars von Trier and Abbas Kiarostami.

Pioneers of African-American Cinema
Long before Spike Lee, John Singleton, Jordan Peele and Ava DuVernay took mainstream Hollywood by storm, African-American cinema had its humble roots in the "race films" that flourished from the 1920s-1940s. These films not only starred African-Americans but were funded, written, produced, directed, distributed, and often exhibited by people of color. Entrepreneurial filmmakers like Oscar Micheaux (Within Our Gates, Body and Soul) not only built an industry apart from the Hollywood establishment, they cultivated visual and narrative styles that were uniquely their own. The 17 films represented in the Pioneers of African-American Cinema collection highlight the legacy, innovation and artistry of Micheaux, Spencer Williams, Paul Robeson and countless others in newly restored versions of these historically important films.

Wise Up To Wiseman
If you like objective documentaries, Kanopy has 42 titles by renowned documentarian Frederick Wiseman, from his controversial debut, Titicut Follies (1967), to his latest, Monrovia, Indiana (2018); librarians and library-lovers will no doubt be drawn to 2017's 3 1/4-hour opus Ex Libris: New York Public Library. As a filmmaker, Wiseman is an "observational” fly-on-the-wall purist who avoids voice-overs, soundtrack music or any hint of subjective editing; his films are chiefly studies of American social institutions, such as hospitals, high schools, prisons - and libraries! Wiseman formerly only sold his films directly to institutions on video and DVD, making them hard to find by consumers and prohibitively expensive to add to public library collections. World-wide digital access to his films makes this one the best deals imaginable for library patrons!

Georges Melies's "A Trip To the Moon"

Flicker Alley
Named after the business center of the British film industry during the silent film era, distributor Flicker Alley specializes in rare early U.S. and foreign silent films, as well as classic, experimental and independent cinema. Kanopy has over 180 Flicker Alley titles, ranging from Georges Melies’s A Trip To the Moon (1902) and Robert Flaherty’s documentary-pioneering Nanook of the North (1922) to lost Film Noirs like Too Late For Tears (1949), starring Lizabeth Scott and Dan Duryea, and Woman On the Run (1950), with Ann Sheridan and Dennis O’Keefe. Of particular interest are silent classics like Dziga Vertov’s Man With a Move Camera (1929, with musical accompaniment by The Alloy Orchestra) and the newly restored The Lost World (1925), a story of living dinosaurs from the Jurassic Age written by the creator of Sherlock Holmes, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, that laid the groundwork for future films like King Kong, Jurassic Park and Godzilla.

Local Documentaries
Kanopy enables you to create your own Maryland Film Festival at home by watching these “locally-sourced” films by or about Maryland people or institutions.

• Jeffrey Schwartz’s I Am Divine (2013) chronicles the career of John Waters’s most famous underground star, Glenn Milstead (better known as “Divine”), who was on the brink of mainstream success before tragically passing away in 1988. 
• Theo Anthony’s Rat Film (2017) uses rats as a passageway into the dark, complicated history of Baltimore. 
• Maryland Institute College of Art grad Lofty Nathan’s 12 O’clock Boys (2013) follows the exploits of a notorious West Baltimore dirt bike pack as they pop wheelies, weave at excessive speeds through traffic, and outrun the police, as seen through the eyes of an impressionable adolescent. 
• Baltimore native Richard Chisolm’s Cafeteria Man (2011) takes a behind-the-scenes look at Tony Geraci's sweeping, tenacious efforts to kick start school lunch reform in Baltimore's schools, a large urban district that serves 83,000 students, and later in Memphis schools, with 200,000 kids. 
• Lynne Sachs’ Investigation of a Flame (2001) is an intimate portrait of the Catonsville Nine, a band of activists led by priests Daniel and Philip Berrigan,who in May 1968 burned selective service records in a defiant protest against the Vietnam War.

Cult Movies
If you’re looking for something off the beaten track, Kanopy also has a surprising number of cult and exploitation movies in its collection. Before you see Eddie Murphy’s remake, you may want to see Rudy Ray Moore in the original Dolemite (1975). Or how about Oscar-winner Francis Ford Coppola showing signs of the directing promise to come in his 1963 horror film Dementia 13 (1963). Before he made Easy Rider, a young Dennis Hopper was falling in love with an alluring but dangerous mermaid in Curtis Harrington’s hauntingly stylish Night Tide (1961). We’re also big fans of Jess Franco’s gothic mad scientist tale The Awful Dr. Orlaf (1962), Herk Harvey’s Twilight Zone-eerie Carnival of Souls (1962) and the madcap martial arts mayhem of The Eagle Shooting Heroes (1993) and Kung Fu Zombie (1981). These are but a few of the low-budget sci-fi, horror, fantasy and drive-in gems waiting to be discovered here.

And, of course, Kanopy caters to more mainstream tastes with extensive lists of Independent,Classic and World Cinema, as well as Sundance Film Festival Favorites, Short Films, LBGTQ and Staff Picks. Libraries and movie theaters may be closed at the moment, but Kanopy enables you to bring their content home to enjoy for free on your computer, television or mobile device. Time to grab your library card and start watching!

Essential Film Guides I Can't Live Without

This Top 10 List goes to...Way Beyond!

Playing the "Top 10 Movies Game" with my cineasta pals Marc Sober and James McGlothlin (and our Facebook Family) got me thinking about a new game: Top 10 Movie Books. But who am I kidding? I can't limit it to just 10...or 20, 30, 40...how about 50? These are the books that Marie Konda will have to use a crowbar to pry from my cold, dead fingers. I only pray that my wife will find a good home for them when I perish and fight the urge to dump them at the local Goodwill for a tax write-off. So, without further ado, I give you my "Essential Film Guides I Can't Live Without (And Which I'll Probably End Up Rereading If This Quarantine Continues)":

1. INCREDIBLY STRANGE FILMS (RE/SEARCH #10) by V. Vale

RE/Search #10 certainly lives up to its title. Profiles of Herschell Gordon Lewis, Russ Meyer, Larry Cohen, Ray Dennis Steckler, Ted V. Mikels, Doris Wishman, as well as "Industrial Jeopardy Films." Cover from Julian Roffman's 3D classic THE MASK (1961).

2. FILM AS A SUBVERSIVE ART by Amos Vogel

Before many of us even knew these films existed, the images contained within made us seek them out like a quest for cinenatic Holy Grails. If a picture ever spoke a thousand words...and sometimes the stills gathered here were the only proof of an obscure film's existence. Cover from Dusan Makvejev's W.R.: MYSTERIES OF THE ORGANISM.

3. CULT MOVIES by Danny Peary

Danny Perry, curator pat excellence, with Volume 1. A charismatic cult leader of the only cult I'd consider joining.

4. CULT MOVIE 2 by Danny Peary

But wait...there's more! 50 more! The sequel we all asked for, Vol. 2 introduced me to MORGAN, NIGHTMARE ALLEY, A BOY AND HIS DOG, THE WICKER MAN and ZARDOV. Not to mention cult cutie Claudia Jennings in THE GREAT TEXAS DYNAMITE CHASE.

5. CULT MOVIES 3 by Danny Peary

A Three-peat treat, Vol. 3 featured BLADE RUNNER, DIVA, GLEN OR GLENDA?, THE NAKED LISS, NIGHT OF THE HUNTER, FASTER PUSSYCAT KILL KILL, DR STRANGELOVE, IN A LONELY PLACE, THE ROAD WARRIOR and WALKABOUT.

6. GUIDE FOR THE FILM FANATIC by Danny Peary

Even more capsulized cult movie reviews that couldn't fit in the first 3 CULT MOVIE volumes. See also: Danny Peary's List of "Must See" Films from GUIDE FOR THE FILM FANATIC (1986) and 2,600 Additional "Must See" Films from Danny Peary's GUIDE FOR THE FILM FANATIC.

7. FILM NOIR: AN ENCYCLOPEDIC REFERENCE TO THE AMERICAN STYLE edited by Alain Silver and Elizabeth Ward

Alain Silver is my go-to sensei for all things Noir. Released in 1979, this was the first comprehensive survey of film noir published in English. Arranged alphabetically like an encyclopedia, this was also the first book to list a personal fave, John Berry's TENSION (1949). Respect!

8. THE SAMURAI FILM edited by Alain Silver and Elizabeth Ward

Need I mention that Alain Silver is also my go-to sensei for all things Samurai, as well? Silver's razor-sharp "first cut" swipe at the genre IS the deepest.

9. HOLLYWOOD BABYLON by Kenneth Anger

Kenneth looks back in Anger, and fondly too, at all the dishy dirt beneath the Hollywood Dream. A hardback tabloid.

10. SELECTED SHORT SUBJECTS by Leonard Maltin

No one knows Shorts like Maltin. It's all here, from OUR GANG and THE THREE STOOGES to Robert Benchley (pictured on the cover), W.C. Fields, Charley Chase, Joe McDoakes' SO YOU WANT TO...and BEHIND THE EIGHTBALL shorts, Pete Smith's MGM Specialties...you name it, Maltin's seen it!

11. MIDNIGHT MOVIES by Stuart Samuels

Before Netflix, before video stores, before cable, there was only one way to see the weird shit: staying up late! The original Sublime 9: ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW, THE HARDER THEY COME (the only one I never saw), REEFER MADNESS, HAROLD AND MAUDE, ERASERHEAD, PINK PLAMINGOS, KING OF HEARTS, EL TOPO, NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD.

12. REVOLUTION! THE EXPLOSION OF WORLD CINEMA IN THE SIXTIES by Peter Cowie

Cowie covers the children of the revolution: Godard, Truffaut, Pasolini, Bertoluci, Oshima, Tocha, Polanski and Cassavettes. All leading up to the Cannes Film Festival riots of 1968 . Viva la revolution!

13. VISIONARY FILM: THE AMERICAN AVANT-GARDE 1943-1978 by P. Adam Sitney

Sitney, quite simply: master of the experimental film. This is the essential book to read on the American Avant-Garde: Stan Brakhage, Kenneth Anger, Jordan Belson, Harry Smith, James Whitney, Maya Deren...and all the usual unusual suspects.

14. THE AVANT-GARDE FILM: A READER OF THEORY AND CRITICISM edited y P. Adam Sitney

Another essential P. Adam's Sitney collection.

15. SEX AND ZEN & A BULLET IN THE HEAD by Stefan Hammond and Mike Wilkins

My favorite guide to Hong Kong Cinema's 1990s' Renaissance and the global emergence of John Woo, Ringo Lam, Tsui Hark and others.

16. HOLLYWOOD EAST by Stefan Hammond

More Hong Kong Phooey from SEX AND ZEN & A BULLET TO THE HEAD author Stefan Hammond.

17. MONSTERS ARE ATTACKING TOKYO! by Stuart Galbraith IV

Renowned Godzilla scholar Galbraith's guide is essential reading for all fans of Japanese fantasy, kaiju eiga and terroryaki!

18. DVD DELIRIUM edited by Nathaniel Thompson

DVD DELIRIUM is an encyclopedic guide to 1,000 obscure films that have fallen between the cracks of recognition...until the DVD Era led to their excavation and rediscovery. Heavy on cult, horror, exploitation, sleaze and arthouse.

19. THE PARADE's GONE BY by Kevin Brownlow

Silent Is Golden: Kevin Brownlow is THE bible of the silent era. He was able to interview many of the pioneers while they were still alive. A celebration of what Brownlow considers cinema's peak period, superior to all that came thereafter.

20. IMMORAL TALES by Cathal Tohill and Pete Tombs

Tohill & Tombs's terrific tome (say that three times quickly!) covers the sexy horror films and filmmakers others consign disparagingly to "Eurotrash": Jean Rollins, Jess Franco, Walerian Borowczk, etc. This was the first book to treat them with FILM COMMENT-style reverance.

21. MONDO MACABRO by Pete Tombs

Tombs's followup to IMMORAL TALES is even better, as he shifts his focus from Europe to Bollywood; Hong Kong Kung-fu; Chinese Ghost and Hopping Vampire stories; Mexican masked wrestlers (El Santo!) and monsters; Turkish ripoffs of Dracula, Superman and Star Wars; Filipino spy-spoof FOR YOUR HEIGHT ONLY (starring midget Weng Weng as Agent Double 03 1/2); Japanese Pink Films and J-Horror. What's not to love.

22. A HUNDRED YEARS OF JAPANESE FILM by Donald Richie

You can't love Japanese Cinema without reading what Donald Richie has to say. A critical master who lives, breathes and eats all things Nipponese. The cover features "Beat" Takeshi Kitano as The Blind Swordsman Zatoichi.

23. THE YAKUZA MOVIE BOOK by Mark Schilling

Mark Schilling writes film reviews for JAPAN TIMES and his YAKUZA MOVIES collects the best writing on Japanese gangster films and filmmaker auteurs like Kinji Fukasaku, Takashi Miike, and Takeshi Kitano. The cover features the Japanese Robert Mitchum, Bunta Sugawara, in a scene from Kinji Fukasaku's BATTLES WITHOUT HONOR AND HUMANITY (1973).

24. OUTLAW MASTERS OF JAPANESE FILM by Chris D.

Chris D's OUTLAW MASTERS covers genre films - samurai, yakuza, pink, horror - and filmmakers like Seijan Suzuki (BRANDED TO KILL), Kinji Fukasuka, Kiyoshi "The Other" Kurosawa (CURE), Yaseharu Hasebe (BLACK TIGHT KILLERS)and Masahiro Shinoda. Plus great profiles of superstars Meiko Kaji (LADY SNOWBLOOD, STRAY CAT ROCK, FEMALE CONVICT SCORPION) and Sonny Chiba.

25. THE PSYCHOTRONIC VIDEO GUIDE by Michael J. Weldon

This is an update, as well as a sequel, of Michael J. Weldon's THE PSYCHOTRONIC ENCYCLOPEDIA OF FILM (1981), itself an anthology of his reviews from PSYCHOTRONIC VIDEO mag (I still have all my issues of this pop cultural treasure trove!).  Booklist described Weldon as "the leading authority on films deemed to be "psychotronic," a designation he stretches to encompass horror flicks, spaghetti westerns, low-budget quickies, exploitation films of all stripes - in short, anything disdained by the critical establishment." In other words, my kinda movies!

26. NO BORDERS NO LIMITS: NIKKATSU ACTION FILMS by Mark Schilling

This is Schilling's examination of the stylish crime exploitation movies from Nikkatsu, the B-movie AIP of Japan's studio system, whose most famous director was Seijan Suzuki (Branded To Kill, Tokyo Drifter). Nikkastu's modern yakuza stories were considered "borderless" because they borrowed heavily from international influences, like Hollywood gangster films and the French New Wave (i.e., Godard's Breathless). We get profiles of the "Diamond Guys" (Yujiro Ishihara, Keiichiro Akagi, Tetsuya Watari and guitar-toting singer Akira Kobayashi of the Wataridori "Rambler" films) and the Westernized Joe Shishido (he of the artificially enhanced cheekbones, pictured on cover), female stars (Mie Kitahara, Ruriko Asaoka, Izumi Ashikawa, and the mesmerizing cult heroine Meiko Kaji); and studio auteurs like Seijun Suzuki, Yasuhara Hasebe (Black Tight Killers), Toshio Masuda (Velvet Hustler, Rusty Knife) and Koreyoshi Kurahara (I Am Waiting, Black Sun).

27. HOLLYWOOD LESBIANS by Boze Hadleigh

All the usual suspects (confirmed or otherwise). I like this interviews collection because it's got one of the few chapters devoted to personal favorite, the icy-cool French star Capucine (THE PINK PANTHER, WALK ON THE WILD SIDE), FELLINI'S SATYRICON).

28.  EASY RIDERS, RAGING BULLS by Peter Biskind

Subtitled How the Sex-Drugs-and-Rock 'N Roll Generation Saved Hollywood, Biskind's book is a Who's Who of the movers and shakers who made their mark in 1970s Hollywood, a period of American film known for the production of such films such as The Godfather, The Godfather Part II, Chinatown, Taxi Driver, Jaws, Star Wars, The Exorcist, and The Last Picture Show. Most of the young Hollywood film directors (aka "movie brats") profiled have disavowed Biskind's interviews with them, with Spielberg remarking, "Every single word in that book about me is either erroneous or a lie." Fascinating reading, though, with all the usual (disavowing) suspects on hand: Altman, Ashby, Coppola, DePalma, Evans, Friedkin, Lucas, Rafaelson, Schrader, Scorsese, Town.

29. SPIKE, MIKE, SLACKERS & DYKES: A GUIDED TOUR ACROSS A DECADE OF AMERICAN INDEPENDENT CINEMA by John Pierson

The title refers, of course, to Spike Lee (of whom's She's Gotta Have It indie distributor Pierson was a staunch supporter), Michael Moore (Pierson was his rep for Roger & Me), Richard Linklater (Slacker) and various female directors/films (Susan Siedelman of Smithereens and Desperately Seeking Susan, Lizzie Borden of Working Girls, Donna Dietch of Desert Hearts), with the decade being the 1980s - the decade that saw the rise of video as a conduit for distributing otherwise neglected films by rising auteurs whose ranks included not on Spike, Mike, et al, but also Kevin Smith (of Clerks fame, who provides intermittent commentary via humorous Q & As with Pierson throughout the book), Pierson favorite Jim Jarmusch (Stranger Than Paradise, Down By Law), Steven Soderbergh (Sex, Lies and Videotape), Hal Hartley (Trust, The Unbelievable Truth) and countless others.

30. HARD-BOILED HOLLYWOOD: THE TRUE CRIME BEHIND THE CLASSIC NOIR FILMS by Max Decharne

Berlin-based British writer Max Décharné chronicles 11 gangster films, not all of which would be considered "classic" noirs, such as LITTLE CAESAR and GET CARTER. But no matter, he looks to the books that inspired these films as much as the celluloid end-product, with a passion and detail that impresses, especially his chapters on Robert Aldrich's KISS ME DEADLY (based on the Mickey Spillane novel), John Boorman's POINT BLANK (wherein I discovered the great "Parker" crime novels of Richard Stark, alias of Donald Westlake; this film was based on the first Parker book, 1962's THE HUNTER), Mike Hodges' GET CARTER (based on Ted Lewis's JACK'S RETURN HOME) and Nicholas Ray's IN A LONELY PLACE (based on Dorothy B. Hughes's titular novel - I discovered Hughes after reading this chapter and discovered that the book, told from the point of view of the killer, is even better than the movie, is even better than the movie, which offered a watered-down version of protagonist Dix Steele because having Humphrey Bogart portray a psycho killer was too dark for Hollywood). Of negative reviews of IN A LONELY PLACE, Decharne quotes one of my favorite lines: “If the director had taken the trouble to be French, we would be licking his boots in ecstasy.” Love that! Of course, it can't top Bogart's classic quote from the film: "I was born when she kissed me. I died when she left me. I lived a few weeks while she loved me." One for the Film Noir ages.

31.  THE DEVIL THUMBS A RIDE & OTHER UNFORGETTABLE FILMS by Barry Gifford

Barry Gifford takes his title from a 1947 film noir starring Lawrence Tierney as sociopath Steve Morgan (of whom Gifford says, "evil doesn't lurk in his face, it gloats"). The author of countless books, his 1989 novel "Wild at Heart," was made into a David Lynch film the following year. In 1997 Gifford co-wrote the screenplay for Lynch’s, LOST HIGHWAY. Gifford's short, punchy two-page capsule reviews give an idea of what Charles Bukowski would be like as a film reviewer.  An expanded edition of 1998's THE DEVIL THUMBS A RIDE, called OUT OF THE PAST: ADVENTURES IN FILM NOIR, came out in 2001. Ted Hicks has a great profile of Gifford at his Films, Inc. blog.

32. MENTAL HYGIENE: BETTER LIVING THROUGH CLASSROOM FILMS 1945-1970 by Ken Smith


In their day, the educational films shown in school were considered the future of liberal education, providing educators an opportunity to indoctrinate captive audiences in the proper ways of mental hygiene and physical safety. From the classic era of the ‘50s and ‘60s right up until ABC’s star-studded after-school TV specials in the ‘70s and ‘80s (which featured future celebs like Jodie Foster and Scott Baio), these cautionary tales covered everything from dating do’s and don’ts to the perils of drug abuse and wreckless driving in a hard-hitting style full of tragedy and devoid of subtlety. They were scary, yes, but also titillating – after all, where else could kids get the cheap thrill of seeing the kind of gratuitous drug use, sexual situations, death, destruction, and mayhem typically reserved for mature audiences in restricted motion pictures and late-night TV?

According to genre expert Ken Smith, author of Mental Hygiene: Classroom Films 1945-1970, these films constituted "a uniquely American experiment in social engineering" whose message was to “fit in” and follow “correct behavior” in grooming, manners, and citizenship. Smith synopsizes well more than a hundred leading examples, including Soapy the Germ Killer, a film tailor-made made for our COVID-19-challenged times.

33. HONG KONG ACTION CINEMA by Bey Logan

Bey Logan was one of the first to cover the exciting Hong Kong Action Cinema phenomenon when it was happening in the mid-'90s (now every Johnny To-Come-Lately has a book out about the genre), and this lavishly illustrated guide covers all the essentials, from Peking Opera to Chang Cheh (the master auteur!) and the Shaw Brothers, from Tsui Hark's fantasy warrior epics to John Woo's "Heroic Bloodshed" bullet ballets. Profiles of male stars Bruce Lee, Danny Lee, Chow Yun-Fat, Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung, Jet Li, Donnie Yen, Aron Kwok, Andy Lau, Yuen Biao, Simon Yam. Salutes to female stars Angela Mao Ying, Chang Pei Pei, Michelle Yeoh, Bridgette Lin, Chingmy Yau, Anita Mui, Sibelle Hu and Maggie Cheung. And a chapter on the oft-neglected "Chinese Ghost Story" films, including all those wild "Hopping Vampire" movies starring Mr Vampire himself, Lam Cing Ying. Cover depicts Chow Yun-Fat in Ringo Lam's Full Contact.

34. FILM NOIR READER edited by Alain Silver and James Ursini

There are several sequels to this ongoing series, but none better than the first, which compiles key early writings on film noir with newer essays. The best part is the "Case Studies" section, which profiles some of my favorite films and filmmakers, especially Mia's dad and "unsung auteur" John Farrow (THE BIG CLOCK, HIS KIND OF WOMAN, WHERE DANGER LIVES, NIGHT HAS A THOUSAND EYES); Robert Siodmak's THE KILLERS and his Cornell Woolrich adaptation PHANTOM LADY; Jules Dassin's NIGHT AND THE CITY ("I can think of no other title that better satisfies the formal criteria of the noir movement and...that delineates the noir universe so immediately for the uninitiated viewer," writes DVD TALK editor Glen Erickson), Otto Preminger's ANGEL FACE, Robert Altman's THE LONG GOODBYE, the films of Anthony Mann, and Alain Silver's own essay on "KISS ME DEADLY: Evidence of a Style."

35. THE GREAT MOVIES by Roger Ebert

Over 300 films cited as "landmarks of the first century of cinema" by the late great "Everyman" film critic, Roger Ebert.

36. 100 GREAT FILM PERFORMANCES YOU SHOULD PROBABLY REMEMBER - BUT PROBABLY DON'T by John DiLeo

DiLeo covers everything from Lillian Gish in Way Down East (1920) to Renee Zellweger in Nurse Betty (2000). Standout shout-outs include praise for Charles Laughton in Ruggles of Red Gap (1935), Lon Chaney in He Who Gets Slapped (1924), Tyrone Power in Nightmare Alley (1947), Robert Mitchum in Night of the Hunter (1955), Barbara Stanwyck in Remember the Night (1940), Claudette Colbert in Midnight (1939), Marilyn Monroe in Bus Stop (1956) and Richard Burton in The Spy Who Came In Out of the Cold (1965).

37.  TOMS, COONS, MULATTOES, MAMMIES & BUCKS by Donald Bogan

The classic study of black images in American motion pictures, from The Birth of the Nation to Malcolm X. What it lacks in dynamic prose style it more than makes up for with its extensive documenting of African-American film history.

38. LEONARD MALTIN'S 151 BEST MOVIES YOU'VE NEVER SEEN by Leonard Maltin

Props to Maltin for resurrecting lesser-known worthies such as Man Push Cart, Matewan, The Tao of Steve, Idiocracy, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Duck Season, Bubba Ho-Tep, The Harmonists, Rian Johnson's Brick and Roy Del Ruth's 1931 version of The Maltese Falcon starring Ricardo Cortez in place of Bogey.

39. VIDEOHOUND'S CULT FLICKS & TRASH PICKS edited by Carol Schwartz and Jim Olenski

As an Amazon reviewer put it: "This is a book that any cult movie lover should own. If the names Roger Corman, Lloyd Kaufman, Ray Dennis Steckler, David Lynch, Frank Henenlotter, Jack Hill, Herschel Gordon Lewis, Dario Argento, Paul Bartel, Russ Meyer, Terry Gilliam, Alex Cox, Edward D. Wood, Ken Russell, George Romero and John Waters mean anything to you then you need this book." Reviews of hundreds films, bios, pictures, pull quotes from featured movies and category indices (a Videohound specialty!) to help you find exactly what you're looking for.

40.  VIDEOHOUND'S DRAGON: ASIAN ACTION & CULT FLICKS by Brian Thomas

This is the Bible of Asian Cinema. From blockbuster's like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, to cult faves like Mothra, and classics such as the Seven Samurai, readers will be treated to insights and highlights of the movies, casts, directors, and influences.

41. CARTOONS: ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF CINEMA ANIMATION by Giannalberto Bendazzi

Where to begin? I'll leave it to Library Journal: "This chronological history analyzes animated film as an autonomous art form that has nevertheless been affected by the economics of live-action cinema as well as social and political forces (e.g., the dislocation of Continental Europe's animators by World War II). This comprehensive study describes concepts and practice, profiles innumerable animators, and concludes with a chapter on computer animation. Because of truly global coverage (from Mali to Mongolia), Cartoons introduces such important animators as Russia's Alexandre Alexeieff and Scotland-born Canadian master Norma McLaren while providing details on familiar names like Disney, Walter Lantz, and Tex Avery. Despite the subject's popularity, this should not be considered a coffee-table book but a scholarly reference whose notes and bibliography are valuable sources for further study."

42. OF MICE AND MAGIC: A HISTORY OF AMERICAN ANIMATED CARTOONS by Leonard Maltin

The definitive guide to the history of American animated cartoons, covering the first 100 years up through the 1980s, including the "Golden Era" of '30s and '40s Warners Bros. and Disney 'toons, of which Maltin is the de facto expert. T-t-t-t-that's all folks!

43. THE ANIMATED MOVIE BOOK by Jerry Beck

Going beyond the mainstream hits of Disney and Dreamworks, Beck reviews every animated movie ever released in the United States, covering more than 300 films over the course of nearly 80 years of film history.

44. THE ROUGH GUIDE TO ANIME by Simon Richmond

From Amazon: "The Rough Guide to Anime provides a comprehensive overview of the diverse and amazing world of animation from Japan. Combining a critical approach with all the essential background information – from history and short biographies of the key people in the industry to the different genres, themes and cultural references of anime – this is the ultimate guide to Japanese animation. The book introduces the creative talents behind the major anime movies, TV series and OVA (original video animation) – from the Oscar-winning Spirited Away to classic works like Howl's Moving Castle, Princess Mononoke, and the iconic shows Astro Boy, Kimba the White Lion, Speed Racer and Robotech. Written by anime expert Simon Richmond, features include the Top 50 must-sees, with details on the most influential directors and creative artists. There''s an exploration of the art form''s history, plus information on the anime conventions and manga-related attractions in Japan. Newcomers will love the glossary of all the anime slang and jargon, while devoted fans will relish the fresh exploration of themes, genres and obsessions in the colourful anime universe."

45. THE INCREDIBLY STRANGE FILM BOOK by Jonathan Ross

This is a spin-off of English presenter Jonathan Ross's Incredibly Strange Film Show, a 12-episode television series examining "Psychotronic" B-movies and the low-budget filmmakers - John Waters, T.V. Mikels, Russ Meyers, Ed Wood Jr., Ray Dennis Steckler and Herschell Gordon Lewis - who made them. With a title referencing his TV show (which took its name from the RE/Search book Incredibly Strange Films), The ISFB examines those aforementioned heroes as well as gimmick-King William Castle, agromegaly-afflicted "Creeper" villain Rondo Hatton, drive-in movie schlock and "J.D." films.

46. THE COMPLETE THREE STOOGES: THE OFFICIAL FILMOGRAPHY AND THREE STOOGES COMPANION by Jon Solomon

The Complete Three Stooges is the reference guide for die-hard Stooge fans (I proudly count myself in that demographic), with detailed synopses, production notes, and anecdotes on every single short and feature-length film ever made by Les Stooges Trois, presented in chronological order (from their Rube Goldberg written first, 1930's Soup To Nuts to 1970's vacation travelogue Kook's Tour with Joe DeRita), as well as a handy-dandy detailed index.

47. EXPANDED CINEMA by Gene Youngblood

This 1970 book was the first to consider video as an influential media art form. Youngblood describes special effects, computer art, video art, multi-media environments and holography that "expand" the concept of filmmaking. Filmmakers reviewed include Jordan Belson, Patrick O'Neill, Stan Brakhage, Carolee Schneemann, Michael Snow, John Whitney, Paul Morrissey, Aldo Tambellini, Scott Bartlett and Nam June Paik.

48. FILM NOIR edited by Paul Duncan and Jurgen Muller (a Taschen book with texts by Alain Silver, James Ursini, et al.)

A typically gorgeous, copiously illustrated example of the Taschen treatment of subject matter, in this case the dark and brooding world of  Film Noir from 1940-1960, an essential guide brimming with the  "private eyes and perfect crimes... corrupt cops and doomed lovers...enigmatic dames, desperate gangsters and psycho killers that continue to cast a long and captivating shadow over cinema." The editors have a personal Top 10 (Double Indemnity, Out of the Past, T-Men, Detour, Criss Cross, Gun Crazy, Touch of Evil, In a Lonely Place, The Reckless Moment and Kiss Me Deadly), as well as a chronological Top 50 - from Hitchcock's Rebecca (1940) to Truffaut's Shoot the Piano Player (1960) - that makes up the latter part of this chunky-with-goodness little tome. The first part of the book is broken into critical analysis chapters (What Is Noir, The Caper Film, The Private Eyes, Women in Film, Love on the Run, etc.) that explore the genre's various themes (The Haunted Past, the Fatalistic Nightmare), archetypes (The Truth Seeker, The Hunted, The Femme Fatale), signature visual iconography (Chiaroscura Lighting, Odd Angles, Moving Camera, Urban Landscape, Flashback and Subjective Camera) and diction (Hard-Bitten Poetry and Voice-over Narration).

49. DOCUMENTARY: A HISTORY OF THE NON-FICTION FILM by Erik Barnouw

One of the best historical overviews of documentary film, though somewhat dated. I had the 1983 edition, which has subsequently been brought more up to date to reflect the technological upheaval of digital film and smaller, more intimate-access camera techniques (looking at you here, Errol Morris). Still, I like Barnouw's approach of presenting thematic chapters devoted to Prophet (Louis Lumiere), Explorer (Robert Flaherty of Nanook of the North), Reporter (Kino-Pravda's "Man with a Movie Camera" Dziga Vertov), Advocate (modern documentarians like John Grierson, Axis of Evil advocate Leni Riefenstahl, Pare Lorentz of The River), Bugler (Frank Capra's Why We Fight war series), Prosecutor (post-WWII films like Alain Resnais' Night and Fog), Poet (post-war neo-realism from Rossellin's Open City, Arne Sucksdorff, Bert Haanstra), Chronicler (Colin Low and Walter Koenig's 1957 Oscar winner City of Gold, which told the story of the celluloid treasures buried beneath a Yukon Gold Rush town years before Bill Morrison's 2016 film Dawson City: Frozen Time), Promoter (corporate-sponsored films), Observer (Karel Reisz and Lindsey Anderson of Britain's so-called "Free Cinema" movement, Richard Leacock, Robert Drew of Primary, Albert and David Maysles, Fredrick Wiseman), Catalyst (Jean Rouche), Guerilla (Cold and Vietnam War-era stark "black films") and Discoverer.

50. 100 DOCUMENTARY FILMS by Barry Keith Grant & Jim Hillier

This is one of those great BFI Screen Guides, and it's hard to argue with any of the choices, from Jean Vigo's A Propos de Nice (1930) to Douglas Gordon and Philippe Parreno's Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait - the latter following the football superstar Zinedine Zidane through the course of a 2005 match between Real Madrid and Villareal, with a soundtrack by Mogwai. I haven't seen that film and, in fact, I haven't seen most of these docs, but I use this book as a handy little reference guide to what I need to see and check off my non-fiction bucket list. I especially liked the inclusion of Arthur Lipsette's Very Nice, Very Nice (1961), an extremely short 7-minute film composed almost entirely of still photographs gleaned from the files of his fellow National Film Board of Canada filmmakers. This is one of my favorite films that I discovered in the Enoch Pratt Library's 16mm film collection, and I was delighted to see it turn up as #94 in the alphabetic film chronology here. Lipsette, a former associate of Norman McLaren, depicts Western society as "alienated and determined by mass culture, advertising, consumerism, and militarism." His film-ending comment, "Bravo...very nice, very nice," is a cynical savaging of the shallowness of contemporary culture.