Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Now Playing: APRIL 4, 1962

It seems like weeks have gone by without a new Tennessee Williams movie -- but the latest has been rolling out across the country over the past two weeks. Today it hits Schenectady NY:


The ad promises a perfect storm of "provocative adult entertainment" given author, director and producer. Perhaps the trailer, courtesy of Turner Classic Movies, will do more to convince you.


Williams did not have a monopoly on adult entertainment in Hollywood. Here's "exciting adult entertainment" from a quartet of author James Leo Herlihy, adapter William Inge, producer John Houseman and director John Frankenheimer, making his first of several appearances this year. It opened on this day in Salt Lake City.


TCM ran this one a few weeks ago and I took a look. From Frankenheimer it's certainly slickly made, but it can't help but seem somewhat campy, in the original sense that presumes absolute sincerity, given Angela Lansbury's presence as a demon-mother figure, which Frankenheimer would use again later in 1962. Is young Mr. Beatty really more exciting than Paul Newman? The trailer tries hard to put him over as the man of the moment. Again, TCM lets us take a look.



The second feature is a precursor of Mondo Cane: an Italian documentary focusing on nightclub and cabaret entertainment from around the world. Director Luigi Vanzi would later direct spaghetti westerns under the name of Vance Lewis. Haven't seen it but would like to.

Here's adult entertainment of another degree, opening wide in Pittsburgh.


Not For Henry! is an alternate title for Not Tonight, Henry! -- which gets closer to the idea of the picture. The trailer brings us even closer; rstvideo uploaded it to Dailymotion.


Not Tonight Henry by rstvideo

Raymond Burr in Desire in the Dust may sound like it belongs on a horror double-bill, but rest assured that Burr does none of that sort of desiring in this 1960 white-trash melodrama.

More adult entertainment in Miami: plus a personal appearance -- and camera club time!


According to Something Weird Video, Eve or the Apple is a reconstruction by K. Gordon Murray of an earlier nudie-cutie, Naughty New York. We may therefore get an idea of Eve from a clip of Naughty, which Something Weird has provided at YouTube.



Somehow I'm thinking that a film with Danielle Darrieux and Kenneth More doesn't quite belong in the same company. Loss of Innocence is, in fact, a British film called The Greengage Summer, but this is what American audiences, including that Miami crowd, when the movie started. HenryOrientJr uploaded this clip to YouTube.

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