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Copland was supposed to be Sylvester Stallone’s comeback movie. Despite earning decent box office and generating Sly’s best reviews in decades, it seemed to be the final nail in his coffin as a leading man, and I don’t understand why. Before Copland, Stallone was headlining huge action movies like Daylight and Judge Dredd, and while they underperformed domestically and overseas, they were still big. One would think that Stallone would have been given an old-school action film to revive his career, but all of a sudden, he was slotted into cheap movies, such as the slasher thriller D-tox, which is also called Eye See You. That movie was so bad that it went direct-to-video, which pretty much meant the end of Stallone’s career for half a dozen years until he managed a major comeback with Rocky Balboa. It would get pretty dire for Sly, but Warner Bros...

Most noted for its troubled production background, this hospital-set murder thriller turns a doctor into a detective: James Coburn’s medico undertakes an amateur investigation of a crime involving an illegal abortion, and the cover-up thereof. Although tangled up in the crazy James Aubrey-Kirk Kerkorian regime at MGM, Blake Edwards’ film can boast a strong supporting cast: Jennifer O’Neill, Pat Hingle, Elizabeth Allan, Dan O’Herlihy, James Hong, Michael Blodgett, Regis Toomey and John Hillerman.

The Carey Treatment

Blu-ray

Warner Archive Collection

1972 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 101 min. / Available at Amazon.com / General site Wac-Amazon / Street Date May 10, 2022 / 21.99

Starring: James Coburn, Jennifer O’Neill, Pat Hingle, Skye Aubrey, Elizabeth Allan, Dan O’Herlihy, James Hong, Michael Blodgett, Regis Toomey, Jennifer Edwards, John Hillerman, Alex Drier, Robert Mandan, Melissa Tormé-March.

Cinematography: Frank Stanley

Art Director: Alfred Sweeney

Film Editor: Ralph E. Winters

Original Music: Roy Budd

Screenplay by “James P. Bonner” and...

By Lee Pfeiffer

The Warner Archive has released the 1972 MGM thriller The Carey Treatment on Blu-ray.  James Coburn has one of his best roles as Dr. Peter Carey, a rebellious but esteemed pathologist who moves to Boston to take a prominent position at one of the city's most highly regarded hospitals. The charismatic Carey loses no time in gaining friends, alienating top brass and bedding the comely chief dietician (Jennifer O'Neill). However, he soon finds himself embroiled in a politically volatile investigation when a fellow surgeon is arrested for performing an illegal abortion on the 15 year-old daughter of the hospital's crusty administrator (Dan O'Herlihy). (The movie was released a year before the landmark Roe V. Wade decision that legalized abortion in America and now appears to be on the verge of being reversed.) Coburn believes his friend's protestations of innocence and decides to launch his own investigation into the matter.

Secret agent Michael Caine must take on both the kidnappers of his son and his own suspect Army Intelligence colleagues in Don Siegel’s efficiently filmed, curiously tame suspense thriller. Delphine Seyrig is enticing and Donald Pleasance an unlikeable security bureaucrat, while the capable Janet Suzman and John Vernon fill out a top-flight cast that performs well in thriller surprisingly lacking in dramatic impact.

The Black Windmill

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1974 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 106 min. / Street Date December 4, 2018 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring: Michael Caine, Donald Pleasence, Janet Suzman, Delphine Seyrig, John Vernon, Clive Revill, Joss Ackland, Catherine Schell, Joseph O’Conor, Hermoine Baddeley, John Rhys-Davies

Cinematography: Ousama Rawi

Film Editor: Antony Gibbs

Original Music: Roy Budd

Written by Leigh Vance, from the novel Five Days to a Killing by Clive Egleton

Produced and Directed by Don Siegel

Something seems wrong from the first with The Black Windmill: the...

One of the last pieces renowned British composer Roy Budd was working on before his tragic death in 1993 was a brand new score for Rubert Julian’s 1925 horror masterpiece The Phantom of the Opera, which was based on the… Continue Reading →

The post Roy Budd’s Score For The Phantom of the Opera to Premiere This October appeared first on Dread Central.

The Internecine Project

Blu-ray

Kino Lorber Classics

1974 / Color / 1:78 widescreen / 89 min. / Street Date January 3, 2017 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring: James Coburn, Lee Grant, Harry Andrews, Ian Hendry, Michael Jayston, Christiane Krüger, Keenan Wynn, Julian Glover.

Cinematography: Geoffrey Unsworth

Film Editor: John Shirley

Original Music: Roy Budd

Written by: Barry Levinson, Jonathan Lynn from a book by Mort W. Elkind

Produced by: Barry Levinson

Directed by Ken Hughes

Don’t let the ugly Italian poster art on the disc box throw you — The Internecine Project is a clever plot-driven murder tale in an espionage vein that gathers a string of B+ stars from the early 1970s for ninety minutes of suspense. It’s not the kind of suspense that makes you wonder what’s going to happen next, but the kind that points to a finish that we know will employ a big surprise, a killer-diller last-minute twist. Or three.

The...

Hardboiled! kicks off this week at Trailers from Hell, with filmmaker Neil Marshall introducing "Get Carter."Directed by Mike Hodges and starring Michael Caine, the shocking and stylish Get Carter is the crème de la crème of 70′s British gangster movies. As the vengeful mobster Jack Carter, Caine retains the cool, sardonic nature of his Harry Palmer character but with a distinctly ruthless violent streak. Roy Budd’s jazz-infused funk score has developed as much of a fan base as the movie itself.

Blow The Bloody Doors Off | Al Pacino Season | We Love Wes! | Takeover Film Festival, Glasgow Youth Film Festival

Blow The Bloody Doors Off, London

His was the bespectacled face of swinging London to be sure, but Michael Caine's movies also inspired some of the era's greatest scores. This event, hosted by Phill Jupitus, replays highlights from four of those classic soundtracks, live, for the first time in history: Sonny Rollins's Alfie, John Barry's The Ipcress File, Quincy Jones's The Italian Job and, getting special attention, Roy Budd's Get Carter. The band includes members of Polar Bear, Madness and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, and movie clips on screen will complete the nostalgia trip.

Barbican Hall, EC2, Thu

Al Pacino Season, London

To his critics, Pacino is basically Pacino whatever role he's playing, despite all that "method" stuff. But even if you admit that, most actors would...

Michael Caine's early films defined the look of an era, but with scores by John Barry, Quincy Jones and Sonny Rollins they also defined its soundrack

There is a kind of music in Michael Caine's voice: deceptively flat, barely inflected, emitting just the tiniest glints of detached insolence and laconic menace as it maps the area between the pre-war docklands community of Rotherhithe, his birthplace, and Elephant and Castle, where his family was rehoused in a prefab built on bomb-damaged land not far from the location of Shakespeare's theatres. Few people alive know more about the actor's craft than Caine, none is more gifted in the art of underplaying, and that voice is integral to his virtuosity.

But there is music of a more conventional kind in the films that made him famous – when the former Maurice Micklewhite rather unexpectedly became the model of a new kind of English leading man,...

By Darren Allison

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Our good friends at Vocalion Records have released three excellent CDs. First is the super score to Bernard Kowalski’s 1969 B-movie thriller Stiletto (Vocalion Cdsml 8501). Starring Alex Cord in the lead role and with support from Britt Ekland, Patrick O’Neal, Joseph Wiseman and Roy Scheider, the film was based on the Harold Robbins novel of the same name. Whilst Stiletto was never going to be an Oscar contender, as so many of these great little thrillers proved, it did gather something of a cult following. More often than not, restricted budgets and tight schedules surprisingly lead to great production values, with artists and crews having to think instinctively on their feet and with little time to elaborate. Stiletto music by American composer Sid Ramin is a truly evocative score. Ramin’s work was often uncredited and as a result,...

Above: A rack focus in Bullitt.

Trespassers Will Be Eaten

Perhaps a less eye-grabbing, but still “driving” title for this third Mubi soundtrack mix should be Shifting Gears...as such, it’s a free-falling, propulsive survey of scores focusing on the thriller in all of its manifestations: detective procedurals, bank heists, neo-noirs, spy films, psychodramas, giallos, chases, races, and sci-fi mind-games. Featured also are a few composers better known for their more famous musical projects. Police drummer Stewart Copeland’s metallic, rhythmic score for Rumble Fish, gamely taunts the self-conscious black and white street theatre of Francis Ford Coppola's film. So-called fifth Beatle, producer George Martin’s funky Shaft-influenced Live and Let Die score ushers in a more leisurely 70s-era James Bond, as incarnated by Roger Moore. Epic crooner visionary Scott Walker’s fatally romantic melodies for Leos Carax’s inventively faithful Melville adaptation Pola X is remarkably subdued and lush.

In this week’s Music in the movies, Glen rounds up more of the summer season’s blockbuster scores...

The latest part of our summer score round up features cowboys, aliens, a superhero, apes and a particularly famous barbarian. What more could you want?

Captain America: The First Avenger – Alan Silvestri

Alan Silvestri may not enjoy the level of success he once did, but he’s still had an impressive output over the past few years, with his work often being overlooked due to the type of films it accompanies. Here, Silvestri comes up with a score that both recalls the film’s 40s era, and his best work, notably his 80s output. Like nearly every aspect of the film itself, Silvestri’s score perfectly captures the WWII feel of the film.

Detractors may point out that it’s not the most original score, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing here.

Welcome to the first Notebook Soundtrack Mix—Hyper Sleep! A word about the mix: There's no thematic thread through this collection, it's a variety of intriguing music. In making soundtrack mixes, I'm drawn to the subjective qualities of association and meaning that arise from experiencing the musical narratives that result from transitions and combinations of tracks in succession. Though there are several favorite films, Seijun Suzuki's Branded to Kill, for one, individual pieces are chosen simply for the music. I haven't seen some of the films. Robert Drasnin, Vladimir Cosma and Antoine Duhamel are represented with curious French T.V. work, rather than with some of their more well known output (The Kremlin Letter, Diva and Pierrot le fou, respectively.) Maybe this is the first of a series…I have several ideas for themed mixes, but wanted to start this way, including work that reflects jazz, classical, experimental and pop influences.

As Sucker Punch arrives in UK cinemas, Glen looks back at the work of its composer, Tyler Bates...

Tyler Bates is a composer with a variety of credits to his name, including movies, TV and videogames. He started off scoring B-movies, but has gone on to become the favoured composer of Rob Zombie and Zack Snyder. With his work about to accompany Snyder’s Sucker Punch, I though now would be an ideal time to look at some of his best work to date.

Get Carter

Roy Budd’s score for the original 1971 Get Carter was absolutely fantastic, and perfectly captured the mood of the film. Tyler Bates’ score for the remake, much like the film itself, pales in comparison to the original, but unlike the film it accompanies, has a number of interesting moments that make it worthwhile.

Bates hints at Budd’s score, but fails to match its minimalistic subtlety,...

Viva! Spanish Film Festival, Manchester

Opener Tear This Heart Out recreates a 1930s Mexican town with all its intrigues, and there are star-studded shorts to mark the 100th anniversary of the Mexican revolution, but much of this year's Spanish-lanugage film festival is bang up to date. Chilean movie The Life Of Fish is set at a party, while Aurora Borealis: My Final Day is presented as a Mexican teenager's video suicide note. The Colours Of The Mountain contrasts a rural village with guerrilla wars, and Spanish comedy Fat People focuses on obesity. Also, the documentary Circus tracks one of Mexico's last travelling circuses, while Sins Of My Father is a son's view of drug baron Pablo Escobar.

Cornerhouse, Sat to 27 Mar

Minghella Film Festival, Newport

Three years after Anthony Minghella's death, the shoring up of his legacy continues thanks to his fans, family and celebrity mates. The latter...

The weekend’s here. You’ve just been paid, and it’s burning a hole in your pocket. What’s a pop culture geek to do? In hopes of steering you in the right direction to blow some of that hard-earned cash, it’s time for the Fred Weekend Shopping Guide - your spotlight on the things you didn’t even know you wanted…

(Please support Fred by using the links below to make any impulse purchases - it helps to keep us going…)

I really could have done without the over-the-top violence, because I actually found the story behind Kick-Ass (Lionsgate, Rated R, Blu-Ray-$39.99 Srp) to be pretty damn good, adapted from the comic book of the same name that envisions what it might be like for a real-life teen to decide to become a superhero-styled vigilante. What elevates it, though, is an impressive cast - including Nic Cage...