tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2627032459273165000.post789422117911194462..comments2024-03-26T05:01:57.793-07:00Comments on DREAMS ARE WHAT LE CINEMA IS FOR...: THE TRIPLE ECHO 1972Ken Andersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04940648971296673233noreply@blogger.comBlogger12125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2627032459273165000.post-8176348795152268212023-01-13T22:41:31.944-08:002023-01-13T22:41:31.944-08:00The pleasure's mine!
- RobertThe pleasure's mine! <br />- RobertAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2627032459273165000.post-16327474811060921232023-01-13T06:05:28.585-08:002023-01-13T06:05:28.585-08:00Hi Robert - Right? Hard to tell if that title is a...Hi Robert - Right? Hard to tell if that title is an act of desperation or stupidity, but it certainly wins the prize for most confoundingly misleading. And it wouldn't surprise me in the least if your hilarious alternate title for THE CRYING GAME wasn't also on the docket for this one.<br />Cheers, Robert, and thanks for the laugh!Ken Andersonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04940648971296673233noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2627032459273165000.post-83595060340452318942023-01-09T18:15:43.312-08:002023-01-09T18:15:43.312-08:00Soldier in Skirts?! The mind boggles. That title i...Soldier in Skirts?! The mind boggles. That title implies an I Was A Male War Bride-type romp something that the blood-spattered finale emphatically...blows away. What were the distributors thinking? Crass. Lucky they didn't distribute The Crying Game in the '90s, they would likely have had the impeccable taste and sensitivity to change the title to C*ck in a Frock. <br />- RAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2627032459273165000.post-5317731216262838532021-04-05T15:04:56.813-07:002021-04-05T15:04:56.813-07:00Hi Max
I never thought Jackson would return to act...Hi Max<br />I never thought Jackson would return to acting, so it's been a thrill not only to see her presence online, but to have her referenced and recognized by young people discovering her work.<br />I'm so jealous you got to see Jackson in Three Tall Women! A friend of mine saw it and said it was an unforgettable experience seeing Jackson on the stage. <br />When I saw Jackson in the BBC movie "Elizabeth is Missing" that kicked off a week of my revisiting her work.<br />Although I haven't seen it in several years, I hope a copy of Jackson in "The Devil is a Woman" makes an appearance on a streaming site, soon. I don't recall much about it.<br /><br />And what a surprising (if not downright astounding) bit of news about that DVD extra. I remember the days of the Super-8 home-viewing versions of major motion pictures. We had a couple as well, although I'm taxed to remember if it was "The Poseidon Adventure" or "The Towering Inferno." In any event, I remember them as you describe, largely highlights and action sequences. If there is one movie that seems ill-suited to this sort of marketing, it's "The Triple Echo." <br />Makes me wonder if they did that sort of thing for other highly unlikely titles like "The Devils" or "A Clockwork Orange."<br />Great that you got the import Bluray, the list of extras looks fantastic. Thanks for commenting, Max!Ken Andersonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04940648971296673233noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2627032459273165000.post-8664982276578183432021-04-04T03:35:19.622-07:002021-04-04T03:35:19.622-07:00Hi Ken!
I loved Glenda Jackson in the 70s and whe...Hi Ken!<br /><br />I loved Glenda Jackson in the 70s and when I was lucky enough to see her on Broadway a few years ago in Edward Albee’s Three Tall Women I got Jackson fever all over again and started re-watching everything I could get my hands on. The Triple Echo was one of the few films of hers I’d never seen. I got it on an import Blu Ray and it was a revelation. So was a “special feature” on the Blu Ray…<br /><br />A Super-8 version for “home viewing pleasure.” When I was kid we had a few “super 8” versions of films – but all of them were horror and science-fiction and mostly just opening credits, highlights, and The End. It struck as me as so bizarre that they thought there would be a market for The Triple Echo in this early format. Running 19 minutes, the movie doesn’t make a lot sense, of course, but I thought it was kind of fascinating,<br />Max Frosthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15972312299258687652noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2627032459273165000.post-43488454736402011352021-04-01T08:41:49.227-07:002021-04-01T08:41:49.227-07:00I have not seen "Elizabeth is Missing" y...I have not seen "Elizabeth is Missing" yet but will. It's so wonderful that she continues to find work she wants to do.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2627032459273165000.post-5131452044747910442021-03-25T21:28:28.990-07:002021-03-25T21:28:28.990-07:00Hi Rick!
Ah, yes...you reminded me of that OTHER v...Hi Rick!<br />Ah, yes...you reminded me of that OTHER very good reason THE TRIPLE ECHO had a difficult time finding an audience in 1972…some folks found it terribly dreary!<br /><br />I like your question about one’s love for ‘70s films and nostalgia and all that. Because I write about it, I’ve thought about it a lot. In my case, nostalgia is the doorway, not the destination. I don’t want to look at movies I saw when I was 13 and see them with the same eyes. Nor do I want to escape the now and reimagine the era as some sort of safe emotional haven. I’ve been in love with movies all my life, and not only as a fan. I wanted to be a filmmaker since I saw ROSEMARY’S BABY in 1986, and like an athlete, from that moment on I watched, studied, read about and experienced films. Up to and through attending film school, movies were an integral part of my most formative and impressionable years—as a passion, an intellectual pursuit, a study, a source of personal exploration, and a spiritually stimulating area of aesthetic development. <br /><br />What Hollywood was during this time, that movies like AIRPORT were in theaters the same time as THE DAMNED or EL TOPO or BEDKNOBS AND BROOMSTICKS…it was a time I lived through, but could only experience through the prism of experience and understanding of an adolescent or teen. As I said, it’s not valuable to see this films through a 13-year-old’s eyes again, I did that. But it’s very good to see these films as an adult. One can trace what has changed within when viewing a film that meant something to me 40 or 50 years ago. Film is a living art, a film changes as we see it in different stages of our life. That’s a valuable experience. Nostalgia is nice, but it’s like a dream…it doesn’t last and it doesn’t move anything forward.<br /><br />Looks like I go to do a little bloviating of my own!<br /><br />Are you one of the few who enjoys NASTY HABITS? That cast!! Sandy Dennis! I love it, even as I don’t think it entirely works. But Glenda Jackson is great (she almost hits an identical stride in Altman's HEALTH. By the way, I suspect you have Altman’s BEYOND THERAPY, too? I don’t much like the film but Jackson, to me, is very funny in it). I have a copy of all the films you named except MARAT SADE, which I haven’t seen since the 80s, and a very fuzzy DVD copy at that. Definitely needs a revisit. Nice to hear you speak so fondly of it.<br /><br />My copy of STEVIE is lousy as well, but I too like that the film does not try to be cinematic. With an actress like Jackson, I tend not to care about much else if she’s speaking. She’s that riveting a performer and she’s very moving in that role.<br />The one Glenda Jackson movie I want to write about and have only seen once is THE DEVIL IS A WOMAN. Once again, a very '70s feel to that odd film.<br /><br />Thanks for sharing your love of Glenda Jackson and allowing me to indulge in a little Jackson fawning of my own. I always appreciate your perspective and thoughts.<br />(Working on catching up to responding to a backlog of past comments on previous posts. I appreciate your reading those older pieces!)<br />Cheers, Rick!<br />Ken Andersonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04940648971296673233noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2627032459273165000.post-44161916627737355122021-03-25T18:58:22.346-07:002021-03-25T18:58:22.346-07:00Hi there, loulou
THE GAY DECEIVERS! My older siste...Hi there, loulou<br />THE GAY DECEIVERS! My older sister took us to see that movie SO many times. She was a big fan of Rosalind Russell and Michael Greer reminded her of Russell in "Auntie Mame." Also, my sister--like everybody else in the audience--thought "sissies" were hysterically funny. <br />I mostly recall it as being an uncomfortable viewing experience.<br /><br />And yes, this is a terrible poster. But the original trailer (available on YouTube) is hardly much better. This was definitely an instance of a delicate movie needing to find the right marketing agency, and failing spectacularly.Ken Andersonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04940648971296673233noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2627032459273165000.post-26304609572017584972021-03-25T12:46:16.734-07:002021-03-25T12:46:16.734-07:00Hi Ken, loulou here. "Soldier in Skirts'&...Hi Ken, loulou here. "Soldier in Skirts'" - the cliched epitome of every morally bankrupt Hollywood executive who'll do anything for a buck. And the poster with the laughing faces of Jackson and Reed no less! It reminds me of that old chestnut "The Gay Deceivers".Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2627032459273165000.post-36833542597061739842021-03-25T08:34:37.918-07:002021-03-25T08:34:37.918-07:00"...between the assembly-line days of the stu..."...between the assembly-line days of the studio system and the market-research era of the franchise blockbuster." <br /><br />Well said, Ken. <br /><br />I think I saw Triple Echo for the first time right around the time you did, Ken, and I confess I found it pretty dreary. But do you sometimes wonder, Ken, if your enthusiasm for seventies cinema, something I believe I share with you to an even more passionate degree, is based on a more-or-less mature assessment of the relative qualities of the films themselves, or whether it is merely a sort of reactionary nostalgia on the part of someone who, like myself, is old enough to remember when a creaky, ancient-looking museum-piece like Airport was actually in the theaters? Is nostalgia always such a salutary instinct, I wonder? As someone in recovery, I am reminded almost daily that so very few of us are able to apprehend the present moment, to say nothing of the future, with optimism, gratitude, or even with anything less than mortal terror (Exhibit A: Jan. 6th). So are all of our fond remembrances of the past ultimately harmless, benign, or, on some level, the spiritual equivalent of what made Lot's wife look like one of those desiccated pieces of liver who were once mommies and daddies before those fabulous zombie mop-tops locked on one of their nuclear-hugs in The Children, 1980? <br /><br />Well, thank God John Belushi once said: NAAAHHH!!! And sorry to bloviate so shamelessly, Ken. I would probably get laughed out of a community college English 101 class. But on a lighter note, I notice the great Glenda Jackson now has eight films next to her name in your index, second only to Elizabeth Taylor. And as a breathlessly-monomaniacal Glenda Jackson completist, I hope you will one day tackle: <br /><br />Nasty Habits, 1977, a Watergate satire set in a convent, but with a cast of actresses capable of crashing the Supporting Actress Smackdown! website. <br /><br />The Persecution and Assassination of Jean Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum at Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade, 1967: tough-going at times, but my personal choice for the greatest movie musical of all time. <br /><br />And Stevie, 1978, which in my opinion does something extraordinary: a filmed play that is almost the definition of the word 'static' and that goes out of it's way to be as awkward as possible in adapting a work from one medium to another, and whose subject matter is nothing more than the drab, uneventful, morbidly death-obsessed life of the poet Stevie Smith, but that simultaneously manages to be as hypnotic as maybe a Tarkovsky epic on the Ecstasies' of St. Teresa of Avila; and with an atmosphere, a mood that is all it's own, and perhaps even unique in the history of cinema: a sort of suffocating, airless, dust-swirling in-the-pale-light-from-the-window-pane melancholy that is absolutely spell-binding, and that could choke tears from a stone. And largely this is because of our dear Glenda, but with a HUGE assist from Stevie Smith's verse itself. Rick Steven Dhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14958359804607033136noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2627032459273165000.post-91010482737286129312021-03-24T18:57:22.966-07:002021-03-24T18:57:22.966-07:00Bill! So nice to hear from you –
While you know I...Bill! So nice to hear from you – <br />While you know I never “expect” readers to comment, I do appreciate your sharing that your life has been going through major changes. Something we can all relate to in varying degrees. Especially as per what the future presents for us on a socio-political landscape. (You stated it well in coining the phrase “ national situation” …I don’t think I could find a phrase to describe 2020 or the last four years without finding room for the word “clusterfuck.”)<br /><br />But I do know what it’s like (from my infrequent visits to favorite blogs I follow) to read something and want to leave a comment, but the words just don’t come, or you can’t think of anything significant to add. Your instinct to just be OK with that is perfect.<br /><br />That being said, I’m glad to know I brought a heretofore unknown Jackson?reed film to your attention. One that seems to be ripe for reappraisal after leaving audiences divided or apathetic in 1972.<br /><br />Like it or hate it, think the film is worthwhile and I’m positive you’d come away from it with much to think about. Oliver Reed is more Oliver Reed in this movie than in any of his films I’ve seen to date (honestly, that man is terrifying sometimes), and your citing Deacon’s resemblance to Isherwood and Cillian Murphy is spot on for the quality that character has. Murphy is now too old, but he would have been ideal in a remake. <br />Speaking of, I saw on IMDB that there is a film in production titled TRIPLE ECHO. No information is given as to whether it has anything to do with the H.E. Bates novel, but I’d love to see a remake of THE TRIPLE ECHO. The performances in this version are primo and couldn't be imitated or (in Jackson's case) surpassed, but sexual politics and what is considered progressive has changed a great deal since 1972. I would love to see someone with a stronger script tackle this story.<br /><br />As a fan of Glenda Jackson, I hope you have had the opportunity to see her in 2019’s “Elizabeth is Missing.” She has lost not ounce of her edge or brilliance. She gives a very fine performance in THE TRIPLE ECHO, the simplicity of the role showcasing her skill in a way unexpected.<br /><br />This film is available on Amazon Prime, so hope you get a chance to check it out.<br />Thank you very much for all the kind things you wrote, I appreciate your readership, and I hope that all the changes you speak of yield for you nothing but happiness and growth and peace of spirit.<br />Take care! Ken Andersonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04940648971296673233noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2627032459273165000.post-53116315233436840562021-03-24T09:30:52.369-07:002021-03-24T09:30:52.369-07:00Argyle, here. I feel I should say something about...Argyle, here. I feel I should say something about my absence from here. There have been major life changes, still happening, and then the pandemic, and the welcome and challenging reconsideration of our national situation (so awkward to articulate, but I hope that works.) I have visited here many times for your intelligent perspective, but responses just didn't flow as before, so I tried to just be ok with that. Thank you sincerely for still being here and doing this. This film looks fantastic. I've never heard of it. I can't believe it got made and it looks like it doesn't take any wrong turns.<br />I will have to continue to ponder your sentence:<br /><br />"So much of life is being who we have to be, what we're told to be, and what we're expected to be, it feels like a genuine stroke of luck if any of those align with who we actually are." <br /><br />I feel like that is where I am and have been.<br /><br />Glenda Jackson and Oliver Reed are in my Pantheon. Brian Deacon looks perfect. I am not familiar with him. In the stills, he reminds me a bit of Cillian Murphy, and in the "tea time" shot young Christopher Isherwood. These are good things! Also, Ms. Jackson's bemused expression in "tea time" is so evocative.<br />Thank you, Ken for bring this film to my attention. My best wishes to you.<br /><br />BillAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com