April 9: You’re With the Band — A movie that has a band cameo. Here’s an article to inspire you.

In 1994, director Tony Scott was sent an article by his business manager Neville Shulman. “My Gun for Hire: Why a Movie Star’s Rebel Daughter Turned Into a Bounty Hunter” by Sacha Gervasi was about Domino Harvey, a bounty hunter working for the Celes King Bail Bond agency in South Central Los Angeles and the daughter of actor Laurence Harvey, who was in Room at the Top, The Manchurian Candidate and Life at the Top, and British fashion model Paulene Stone, who refused to have her name be used for the movie, so she’s called Sophie Wynn and played by Jacqueline Bisset.

After completing a bail recovery agent training course, Harvey began working with her teacher Ed Martinez as one of female bounty hunters in the United States. She didn’t make much money, but did the job for the excitement. Living above her mother’s garage in Beverly Hills, she became friends with Scott, who started to observe her as she tracking her marks.

Scott taped hours of conversations with Harvey over twelve years and she spent three weeks on set, appearing in a featurette that’s on the DVD, as well as contributing to the soundtrack and appearing at the wrap party. There were rumors she was unhappy with how she appeared in the film, but sadly, she didn’t live to see it. While she appears as the end of the cast credits, she would not live to see its release, overdosing on fentanyl after years of drug addiction. The movie is dedicated to her.

The first two scripts for this movie were written by Steve Barancik and Roger Avary, but Scott felt they were too normal. He went to Richard Kelly (Donnie Darko, Southland Tales), who used transcripts of the interviews and wrote what he said was “one of the most subversive films released by a major studio since Fight Club.” As for Scott, he said,  “I didn’t let the movie breathe enough. The script was great — Richard Kelly wrote a great script — and I got overcome by the insanity of the world I was touching. I think I fucked up on that one.” He did say it was one of his favorites.

Domino (Keira Knightley) has been arrested by the FBI after the theft of ten million dollars from an armored truck. As criminal psychologist Taryn Mills (Lucy Liu) interviews her, she tells how she went from being a model and society girl to working with Ed Moseby (Mickey Rourke), Choco (Edgar Ramirez) and their driver Alf (Riz Abbasi), an Afghan whose unpronounceable name leads them to name him after the TV character because it’s said he eats cats.

Their boss, Claremont Williams III (Delroy Lindo) is having an affair with a DMV employee named Lateesha Rodriguez (Mo’Nique) who has a daughter suffering from a blood disease. The operation costs $300,000 so Claremont sets up a deal where some criminals will rob an armored truck from his other business and take the money of Drake Bishop (Dabney Coleman), the owner of the Stratosphere Hotel and Casino, the bounty hunters will track down the robbers, get back the money and get a $300,000 finder’s fee which will go to Rodriguez. Yes, it’s complicated. Yes, it gets much more complicated.

That’s because Lateesha has been running a counterfeit driver’s license scheme that the FBI learns all about. They want info on one of the licenses she made for Frances (Kel O’Neill), the son of the Cigliutti crime family. She throws the operation off by blaming them for the upcoming robbery, which she plans on doing with Claremont after she’s on Jerry Springer’s show talking about how she’s a grandmother at 28.

The bounty hunters apprehend Frances, his brother and his two friends and delivers them to Bishop, who learns that they had nothing to do with the crime. Thinking that his sons are dead, their father heads for the casino while Domino takes $300,000 of Bishop’s money and gives it to Lateesha for her granddaughter’s operation.

Meanwhile, there’s a TV show in the works called Bounty Squad — produced by Mark Heiss (Christopher Walken), which brings her into the orbit of Brian Austin Green and Ian Ziering, who speak to the actual bounty hunters and are terrified.

Of course, everything ends up in a Mexican standoff — and blow up — inside the Stratosphere. The money goes to the little girl — and Afghanistan — as Domino is told to retire.

This movie feels very early 2000s — well, of course — but also like you’re on coke when you watch it. That’s no accident. Scott claimed that there was a high usage of cocaine by the actual bounty hunters he consulted while researching the film and he wanted to get that across. As for that goldfish named Sammy that dies, the symbolism of that is pretty simple. Dakota Fanning told Scott during the making of Man on Fire all about her goldfish who had died.

One of the odder things — I mean, other than the constant snap zooms and the camera feeling its closer than its ever been to actors — is The Wanderer, a character who saves the bounty hunters in the desert and shows up to offer spiritual advice. Keep in mind these are the kind of people who would cut the arm off a man and show it to their mother to get her to open a safe. Waits’ songs “Cold Cold Ground” and “Jesus Gonna Be Here” are also on the soundtrack. Beyond his amazing music, Waits was also in the movies Paradise Alley, Wolfen, One From the Heart, The Outsiders, Rumbles Fish, The Stone Boy, The Cotton Club, Down By Law, Iron Lake, Greasy Lake, Candy Mountain, Big Time, Bearskin: An Urban Fairy Tale, Cold Feet, Mystery Train, The Two Jakes, Queens Logic, Night On Earth, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Short Cuts, Mystery Men, The Last Castle, Coffee and Cigarettes, The Tiger and the Snow, Wristcutters: A Love Story, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, The Book of Eli, The Monster of Nix, Twixt, Seven Psychopaths, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, The Old Man & the Gun, The Dead Don’t Die, Licorice Pizza, The Absence of Eden and Wildwood.

Speaking of rock star cameos, Macy Gray also shows up as Lashandra.

On August 19, 2012, Scott jumped off Los Angeles’ Vincent Thomas Bridge. He had been fighting cancer but was supposedly in remission. His brother Ridley said that the suicide was inexplicable. One witness said he had no hesitation while another said he looked nervous and held off for two seconds before leaping near a tour boat. He and his brother both came from commercials. After this film, he made Déjà Vu, The Taking of Pelham 123 and Unstoppable, but is best known for Top Gun. He also directed the music video “One More Try” for George Michael and the love scene in his video “Father Figure.”

Domino seems like a parody of an action movie by being the kind of action movie that gets parodied. But I kind of love it for how ridiculous it is. Yet it also feels like a movie steeped in tragedy and pain. Kelly said, “The film opens with a title card that states: “This film is based on a true story… sort of.” The film is very tongue in cheek in its intentional distortion of the truth. This is part of its design… and this design is something that Domino loved about the project. I made it clear to her when I met her that we would capture her fiercely unapologetic, dystopian and ultimately tragic worldview. She saw America through a very subversive punk rock lens (Steve Jones of the Sex Pistols was a friend of hers), and Tony has captured this worldview in a way that she approved. This is a satirical interpretation of a biopic… one that shifts from fact to fantasy as a way of expressing her rebellious spirit and rejection of traditional values, restrictions and archaic traditions forced upon women.”

April 8: Eclipse — Protect your eyes, stay inside and watch a movie about an eclipse.

Luther Heggs (Duane Whitaker) escapes from prison and gets his old gang back together, which is made up of Buck Bowers (Robert Patrick), C.W. Niles (Muse Watson), Jesus Draven (Raymond Cruz) and Ray Bob (Brett Harrelson). As they wait in a motel, Luther’s car breaks down after he fights a bat. This leads him to the Titty Twister, where he gets a ride from bartender Razor Eddie (Danny Trejo). Soon, he and the bat — Victor (Joe Virzi) — turn Luther into a vampire.

Luther comes after Jesus, who has just finished making love to Lupe (Maria Checa). He turns her and she attacks Jesus, who cuts her head off and dives out a window. Luther gets turned and Buck doesn’t know as they head off to complete a robbery. By the time of the actual break-in, everyone but Buck has become undead and forces him to work with the police, who are commanded by Ranger Otis Lawson (Bo Hopkins) and Ranger Edgar McGraw (James Parks, who played the same role, sort of, in Kill Bill: Volume 1, Kill Bill: Volume 2, Death Proof and Machete).

The fun part of this is when the cops try to stop the vampires, an eclipse happens which empowers the vampires to kill just about everyone.

From Dusk Till Dawn 2: Texas Blood Money and From Dusk Till Dawn 3: The Hangman’s Daughter were produced at the same time with Quentin Tarantino, Lawrence Bender and Scott Spiegel making this sequel and Robert Rodríguez and his cousin Álvaro Rodríguez making a prequel.

Tarantino and director Scott Spiegel met with Bob Weinstein — whom Spiegel worked with on a script for Halloween 6 — and Weinstein suggested that Spiegel direct this movie. Spiegel also directed Intruder and Hostel 3.

Unlike the original From Dusk Till Dawn, this is more about the gore effects than subverting what you expect. It was Miramax testing to see if they could make direct to video sequels — of course, they did — after The Prophecy II. It’s alright, but your expectations are probably as high as mine were.

April 7: Jackie Day — Celebrate Jackie Chan’s birthday!

A Hong Kong and American co-production, The Big Brawl was directed by the same man who made Enter the Dragon, Robert Clouse, along with a lot of the same crew. It was Jackie Chan’s first movie to try and make him a star in America, which would be followed by a smaller role in Cannonball Run and another movie that did even worse, The Protector, with Jackie not coming back for nearly ten years until Rumble In the Bronx.

Jerry Kwan (Chan) lives a quiet life in Chicago with his girlfriend Nancy (Kristine DeBell, who was in the erotic musical Alice In Wonderland and Meatballs). He protects his family’s business with the fighting skills he learned from his uncle Herbert (Mako), which gets mob leader Dominici (José Ferrer) interested in having Jerry fight his best brawler, Billy Kiss (H.B. Haggerty, a former pro wrestler), whose finishing move is a bearhug after he kisses his opponent.

After the bad guys kidnap his brother’s girlfriend, Jerry, Herbert and Nancy travel to Battle Creek where he fights a literal army of people, including Stroke (“Judo” Gene LeBell, the coach of Rhonda Rousey and the policeman for the LaBell wrestling territory; his name is where Bryan Danielson got the name the LaBell Lock from), Iron Head Johnson (Sonny Barnes, who is also in Golden Needles and Force: Five), Atashi (pro wrestler Phil Mercado), Spear (martial artist Donnie Williams), Jamaican (Earl Maynard) and unnamed fighters played by pro wrestlers Ox Baker (who fought Kurt Russell in Escape from New York) and Jeep Swenson (Bane from Batman and Robin). One of teh fight judges is Larry Drake from Darkman.

Speaking of wrestling, Lenny Montana is in this. He’s best known as Luca Brasi from The Godfather, but was a pro wrestler as Zebra Kid and as Lenny Montana. As his wrestling career slowed, he was trying to get into films as well as working for the Colombo crime family as an bodyguard, enforcer and an arsonist. During filming of The Godfather, he explained that he would tie a tampon to the tail of a mouse, dip it in kerosene, light it and let the mouse run through a building. This is where I remind you that Italian-Americans are not criminals and there is no such organization as the Mafia. His last role was in the Frankie Avalon slasher Blood Song, which he co-wrote.

To help Jackie break in America, producers surrounded him with American actors. This was strange for him, as his lack of English language skill and knowing cultural ways caused him to have no chemistry with them. Chan was in a self-imposed exile, due to a dispute with director Lo Wei, who was purported to have Triad connections. He threatened Jackie his contract which was resolved with the help of Jimmy Wang Yu, which is why Chan is in Fantasy Mission Force.

The big brawl that closes the movie has more than twenty fighters and over a thousand extras. There’s also a roller derby scene, which I was totally down with. It’s way better than I thought it would be, even if it’s so sedate by what you expect from a Jackie Chan movie.

You can watch this on Tubi.

April 6: Until You Call on the Dark — Pick a movie from the approved movies list of the Church of Satan. Here’s the list.

When Robert Altman left Hollywood, he directed a stage play and this movie version of Ed Graczyk’s play, which all takes place within a Woolworth’s five-and-dime store in McCarthy, Texas, as the Disciples of James Dean meet for the first time in twenty years. The store is close to Marfa, Texas, where Dean filmed Giant. The manager of the store, Juanita (Sudie Bond), welcomes Sissy (Cher in her first dramatic role), who has also been working at a truck stop, the first of the girls to arrive.

The others are Mona (Sandy Dennis), Stella Mae (Kathy Bates), Edna Louise (Marta Heflin) and Joanne (Karen Black), who — spoiler warning — used to be Joseph Qualley (Mark Patton, in his first movie, made a few years prior to A Nightmare On Elm Street 2), the only guy in the fan club.

A lot has happened in the last few years. like Mona claiming that she had a baby — we never see her son, who she believes is trapped as a child in a man’s body even if Sissy thinks otherwise — with Dean as she tried to be in the movie. Of course — another spoiler — it was with Joe and she’s upset now that Joe has become Joanne, which is a tremendously big thing today much less in 1982.

The girls all used to sing “Sincerely” by the McGuire Sisters and sing it one more time before we see the store closed, faded away, as all things do. This ending destroyed me, as the girls said they would meet again in twenty years, in the same spot, but the same place no longer exists.

This played a small theatrical series of dates at four theaters before airing on Showtime.

Critics didn’t like how the mirrors showed the past but I feel that it works well. Despite those mixed returns, Pauline Kael said, “When Robert Altman gives a project everything he’s got, his skills are such that he can make poetry out of fake poetry and magic out of fake magic.”

How is this film Satanic? According to the Church of Satan film list, “Some of the Satanic points in this wonderful film include touching upon the Satanic Sins of Pretentiousness, Self-Deceit, Herd Conformity, and Lack of Perspective. And the acceptance of all forms of human sexual expression between consenting adults.”

It’s also an exploration of how women must suppress their emotions, personalities and sexuality to be part of the male-dominated world instead of giving in to their true carnal nature. It’s also about the power of myth and how movie stars can transcend our reality.

It’s writer, Ed Graczyk, said of his play “Jimmy Dean can only be described as the result of my own observations and frustrations with progress that ignores a past; the lack of personalization and pride and the recurring need of people to build facades to conceal the truths of their lives. It is the facade that makes abnormal people seem normal and the sad people seem happy, a personal observation which I feel makes the people I write about colorful, theatrical, but most of all, honest. The inspiration for Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean came many years ago during my five-year association with the Midland Community Theatre in west Texas. While I was there I had the opportunity to visit Marfa, the site used by Warner Bros. in filming Giant. The only remaining evidence of the film was the facade of the mansion Reata used to film the on location scenes, now crumbling and supported by six telephone poles. It was the memory of that site, the pace of the people and the vivid recollection of the idol James Dean on the youth of the period that resulted in the writing of this play.”

I’m struck by the love that the girls have for one another despite all of the pain between them. Yet you feel as if they could murder one another at nearly any second.

April 4: Repeats Again? — Write about a movie that is based on a TV series.

The Phil Silvers Show, originally titled You’ll Never Get Rich, is a sitcom which ran on CBS from 1955 to 1959 but is better known as Sgt. Bilko. It started Phil Silvers as Master Sergeant Ernest G. Bilko, who runs a series of scams at Fort Baxter to make money instead of doing his job. Most of the first two seasons were written by creator Nat Hiken and Neil Simon was one of the writers in later seasons. DC Comics also published a Sergeant Bilko comic book which lasted 18 issues and a Sergeant Bilko’s Private Doberman series that lasted 11 issues.

Jonathan Lynn created the TV show Yes, Minister and directed Clue, Nuns on the Run, My Cousin Vinny and The Whole Nine Yards, so he knew comedy. Andy Breckman worked on Late Night With David Letterman and Saturday Night Live, as well as writing the movies Rat Race and Arthur 2: On the Rocks before creating the TV show Monk.

So with talent like that and Steve Martin, Dan Aykroyd and Phil Hartman in the cast, this movie should have been a success. It wasn’t, losing around a million dollars. It also won Worst Resurrection of a TV Show at the 1996 Stinkers Bad Movie Awards.

But you know, for a film that was critically savaged when it came out, I couldn’t help but enjoy it. Sure, Martin is a long way from his best work in this and so much further from his stand up, but you know, if you like Steve Martin, it works. As far as I’m concerned, Aykroyd and Hartman are the two best Saturday Night Live cast members ever, so I’ll watch anything they do. And I love old TV being repurposed.

Master Sergeant Ernest G. Bilko (Martin) is in charge of the motor pool at Fort Baxter, serving under Colonel John Hall (Aykroyd), who is more concerned with developing a hover tank than Bilko and his men’s money plans until Major Colin Thorn (Hartman) threatens everything by inspecting the base and even trying to steal Bilko’s long suffering girlfriend Rita (Glenne Headly, who teamed with Martin before in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels).

You also get new recruit  Pfc. Walter “Wally” T. Holbrook (Daryl Mitchell), Spc. Dino Paparelli (Max Casella), Spc. Tony Morales (Dan Ferro), Spc. Luis Clemente (John Ortiz), Sgt. Raquel Barbella (Pamela Segall, the voice of Bobby Hill), Pfc. Mickey Zimmerman (Mitchell Whitfield) and 1st Lt. Monday (Phil Silvers’ daughter Catherine). Chris Rock briefly is in it as is Travis Tritt as Travis Tritt, which is the perfect role for Travis Tritt.

Somehow, this is the only movie that Aykroyd and Martin appear in together. What’s funny is that Phil Hartman loved to impersonate Paul Ford, the original Colonel John T. Hall on TV, and used the impression during his Saturday Night Live. Everyone thought he was too young looking to play Colonel Hall in the film.

My favorite laugh is the end credit: The filmmakers gratefully acknowledge the total lack of co-operation from the United States Army.

Maybe movies have gotten so much worse since 1996 — they have — but I really had fun with this. I laughed a few times and yes, it’s kind of silly, but that’s what a comedy should be.

April 3: Remake, Remix, Ripoff — A shameless remake, remix or ripoff of a much better known movie. Allow your writing to travel the world (we recommend Italy or Turkey).

The first Bollywood film to be completely shot in Los Angeles, Kaante combines The Usual Suspects with Reservoir Dogs and the inspiration of Tarantino’s movie, City On Fire, and becomes its own movie. Director and co-writer Sanjay Gupta said of the movie, “The whole world thinks Kaante is Reservoir Dogs. No, it isn’t. There are a few similarities in the second half of the film, but the genesis of Kaante was the Tribhovandas Bhimji Zaveri & Sons Jewellers robbery case, which was later made into the film Special 26. Till today, that’s unsolved. My idea was: ‘What if they were six boys from Dagdi Chawl, who conducted the most successful heist in the history of India, go back to Dagdi Chawl, which is suddenly surrounded by cops?”

Six Indian men living in America — all with a criminal record — are arrested by the police and interrogated about stealing laptops. Enraged at being profiled, they work to rob a bank where the LAPD paychecks come from.

They are Jay “Ajju” Trehan (Sanjay Dutt), Yashvardhan “Major” Rampal (Amitabh Bachchan), Marc Issak (Suniel Shetty), Andy (Kumar Gaurav), Bali (Mahesh Manjrekar) and Mak (Lucky Ali). After the bank robbery — during which they have an extended gunfight with a SWAT team — they go back to their secret hideaway. There, Bali goes all Mr. Blonde on a police officer and gets killed by Mak, who ends up being Mr. Orange.

So, yes, imagine Tarantino but add in a near 3 hour running time because, of course, Indian Hindi-language movies need music numbers.

Quentin himself said that this movie was his favorite of all the movies influenced by his work. “I think it was fabulous. Of the many rip-offs, I loved Hong Kong’s Too Many Ways To Be No.1 and this one, Kaante. The best part is, you have Indian guys coming to the U.S. and looting a U.S. bank. How cool is that! I was truly honoured. And these guys are played by the legends of Bollywood. Here I am, watching a film that I’ve directed and then it goes into each character’s background. And I’m like, “Whoa.” For, I always write backgrounds and stuff, and it always gets chopped off during the edit. And so I was amazed on seeing this. I felt, this isn’t Reservoir Dogs. But then it goes into the warehouse scene, and I am like, “Wow, it’s back to Reservoir Dogs.” Isn’t it amazing!”

Tarantino later screened Kaante at his New Beverly Cinema with Reservoir Dogs and City on Fire.

It is amazing as it shows so much more than its inspiration. There’s a lot that explains why the characters are getting involved in the robbery, such as Marc wanting to save his dancer girlfriend from a club owner, Major is trying to save the life of his terminally ill wife and Andy is trying to get custody of his son.

It also has so much influence from other American movies, as Gupta tried watching Reservoir Dogs but found it boring as he loved the movies of  Bruce Willis, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone. He didn’t want too much talking and instead, you get explosive battles. The arrest and interrogation scenes are very close to The Usual Suspects and the tip of the cap to that movie is that the main officer is named Detective MacQuarrie, a reference to screenwriter Christopher McQuarrie.

How realistic is the idea of this movie? Suniel Shetty, after going back to his hotel after working out, was taken by the police as they suspected he was a terrorist as this movie was filmed right after 9/11.

You can watch this on YouTube.

April 2: Mondo Madness — Write about a mondo movie.

There was no internet in 1977 and the world was much larger, so the idea of what was in America could be seen as mysterious as countries like Africa that mondo filmmakers had already explored.

Directed and written by Romano Vanderbes (who also made This Is America Part 2, The Sex O’Clock News, America Exposed and the compilation Sex Maniac’s Guide to the U.S.A.), this is also known as Jabberwalk and starts with “America the Beautiful” being played by The Dictators.

The America in this movie is the one that the right warns you about. It’s a place where demolition derbies, pro wrestling — there’s Ivan Putski! — and mud wrestling are our three biggest sports. Polygamy, nude beaches are packed, love boutiques are shopped by teenage girls, quick divorce and fast marriage is the order of the day, plus there are rentable BDSM dungeons, group sex encounter groups, dildo factories and legal brothels are everywhere. Even when people decide to actually get married, they go to the Poconos and have to undertake mandatory gun shooting classes to prepare them for the cities and suburbs of the United States where violence is a celebrated fact of life. Even church is just done inside your car now so you can keep moving to whatever is next, which is usually sex or death or being hooked up to electrodes that shock you when you eat too many french fries. Sorry. Freedom fries.

Also known as Crazy Ridiculous American People, this has everything from Don Imus hosting the 1975 Miss All Bare American pageant to a worship ceremony at the Church of Satan (incorrectly saying that people get so excited that they start hurting one another during rituals), a dildo salesman, the Eros Awards for pornography — look for Fanne Fox, Bree Anthony, female rock band Isis, Ron Jeremy, C.J. Laing, Marc Stevens, Helen Madigan, Darby Lloyd Rains and naked people painted silver — as well as Arnold casually walking out of a Gold’s Gym, the AccuJack masturbation machine, a man getting his penis tattooed, hot dogs being made, a clown church, suicide’s being fished out of the water around the Golden Gate Bridge (by the way, when my wife and I were first dating, she made me watch The Bridge doc about this while drunk and I was worried why I was allowing her in my house and now we’ve been married for nine years), cryogenics, drive-in funerals, brothels for senior men where older women are paid five and even ten dollars to sleep with them, a bank robbery, the many deaths in an Indianapolis 500 race, co-ed prisons, Mormon men with twelve wives and so much more.

At one point, before that internet I discussed at the open and the one you’re reading this on now, these movies were shocking. Then again, Vanderbes is Dutch and should know all about Amsterdam and that America is pretty puritanical, but maybe in 1977 we were all about sex before Reagan and the Religious Right and AIDS.

It’s all voiced over by Norman Rose, who narrated Harold and the Purple Crayon, Tennessee Tuxedo, Message from Space, Pinocchio in Outer Space, War Between the Planets and Destroy All Monsters. He’s also Mr. Smith, the perverted dirty caller who gets Alice so excited in The Telephone Book.

What really gets me is that no matter how much sex is in this movie, there’s also the specter of Americanized violence leading everything. Our country was won by the gun and as movies like this and The Killing of America remind me, this kind of bloodshed that we gives hopes and prayers for every time and say that we can’t stop it and then it happens every single day. But it was like that in 1977 too as this movie continually reminds us. Worse, if it can get that way, kids today are upset about anything sexual while also fascinated, but not enough to make anything artistic or awesome. What I;m saying is that the 1970s of this movie are so far away that they only exist in this amber-grasp of VHS scuzz.

You can watch this on YouTube.

April 1: Drop A Bomb — Please share your favorite critical and financial flop with us!

No, not Jess Franco’s Justine which came out the same year.

This is a bigger movie.

Maybe not better.

Directed by George Cukor and Joseph Strick and written by Lawrence B. Marcus from the novel by Lawrence Durrell, Justine takes what is seemingly an impenetrable source and turns out, well, something.

Why two directors? The pre-production was done by Strick, who intended to shoot the movie in Morocco. He did some location filming there, but battled Fox execs and star Anouk Aimée. When he did not hire along with the studio’s wishes — and fell asleep on the set while working — Cukor was brought in. Instead of shooting on location, the rest was shot in Hollywood.

It ended up losing $6,602,000, which in today’s money is $55,824,857.00.

Let’s go back a bit. The book that this was based on is part of The Alexandria Quartet, a tetralogy of novels by British writer Lawrence Durrell. The first three books are a Rashomon-like telling of three perspectives on a single set of events and characters in Egypt, before and during the Second World War. The fourth book is set six years later. Justine is the best-known of these books. The author saw the four novels as an exploration of relativity and the notions of continuum and subject–object relation all within the theme of modern love.

Seems like a blockbuster, right?

In the book, the narrator — unnamed but revealed as a man named Darley in later novels — tells of his time in Alexandria and his tragic romance with Justine, a mysterious Jewish woman who was once poor and now married to the rich Egyptian Nessim. Darley is quite similar in background and life to the actual writer of this book.

I love the way that Justine herself is described: “alluring, seductive, mournful and prone to dark, cryptic pronouncements.” Feels like my dating history. There’s also another book within the book written by another lover of Justine, as well as her diary, all of which tell of her many lovers and teh dark hurricane that she brings into the lives of men.

There are also bits about the study of the Kabbalah and secret political games.

As for Durrell, he was born in India to British colonial parents and spent much of his life traveling the world. He worked as a senior press officer to the British embassies in Athens and Cairo, press attaché in Alexandria and Belgrade and director of the British Institutes in Kalamata, Greece and Córdoba, Argentina. He was also director of Public Relations for the Dodecanese Islands and Cyprus. Yet he resisted only being listed as British and didn’t even have citizenship, needing to apply for a visa every time he came to the country, which was embarrassing to diplomats. Also, he may have had a relationship with his daughter Sappho Jane, who was named for the Greek poet whose name is associated with lesbianism.

It’s hard to sum up an artist’s complex life in one paragraph but there you go.

Anyways, this movie feels cursed. Even people who left it worked on bombs. For example, Joseph L. Mankiewicz was working on the screenplay when he was approached to take over Cleopatra. Speaking of that movie, it’s failure led to original producer Walter Wanger being fired and original star — and the person often blamed for Cleopatra — Elizabeth Taylor being replaced.

The actress who was picked to play Justine, Anouk Aimée, was so upset at being separated from her lover Albert Finney that she wanted to leave. The actor had to visit her and tell her to complete the movie. In the book Conversations with My Elders, Cukor was asked who the worst actor he had ever worked with. He answered Aimée, saying “That picture could have been much more than it was allowed to be.” He said that the problem was “Attitude. Intractible. Like Marilyn Monroe, but without the results. Let me tell you, that girl knew she’d probably never work in Hollywood again, or she’d never have defied me like that.”

I love this review from Roger Ebert: “What Cukor has salvaged from this morass is rather remarkable. “Justine” is a movie that doesn’t work and is usually confusing, but all the same it’s a movie with a texture, an atmosphere, that’s almost hypnotic. People who go to movies to enjoy the story will be enraged, and people who go to Justine with any familiarity with Lawrence Durrell’s Alexandria Quartet will be appalled. But people who go to movies to watch the way scenes work, and to relish the rhythm of an actor’s performance, will like Justine more than they expected to.”

There’s a great cast at least. Nessim is played by John Vernon, Darley by Michael York, Narouz is Robert Forster, Pursewarden is Dirk Bogarde, plus there are roles from Jack Albertson, Michael Constantine, Michael Dunn, Barry Morse and Severn Darden. They’re great actors seeking a script to work with and sometimes it works, but there’s so much to get through and the first hour seemingly is formless. I don’t know if this film came out today if anyone would even feel like wading through it; attention spans have changed greatly in its lifetime.

In the 60s, 20th Century Fox seemed like they were unable to get anything going. Cleopatra was such a failure that they had to release all of their contract actors just to save money and sold their studios to Alcoa. They were saved by the box office of The Longest Day, The Sound of Music, Fantastic Voyage and Planet of the Apes but would make other flops from 1969 to 1971, including Hello, Dolly! and Myra Breckinridge.

You can watch this on YouTube.