Famed Kubrick Producer James B. Harris Diffuses A Fetish in 1973’s “Some Call It Loving”

“Some Call It Loving” Screened On Sept 23, 2015

Recently, on a very humid Wednesday night, my wife and I traveled to a unusually empty Cinefamily screening of a somewhat notoriously fetishistic and ethereal film by James B. Harris entitled “Some Kind Of Loving.” A few years earlier, I was in the midst of a obsession of the writings of James Ellroy and found a copy of “Cop,” a 1988 film that Harris directed, which was based on Ellroy’s novel , “Blood On The Moon.” I really loved the book and appreciated what Harris had done to bring it to the screen, but I later found out that the film had been mercilessly panned by critics on its release back in the day.

Before going out to see “Some Kind Of Loving,” I had read a few critiques of the film written shortly after its release in 1973 and found them to be equally vicious in their attacks, with many of the reviews simply calling it “pretentious.” I could shrug a few bad reviews off, but unlike “Cop,” the source material was a short story by John Collier whom I have never been that great of a fan of, and the film starred Zalman King, the softcore writer-director of the “Wild Orchid” films of the late 1980s and 1990s, which were one-dimensional twaddle as was his screenplay for the immensely popular Adrian Lyne sex film, “9 1/2 Weeks.” Still, with little else in the theaters, why not see “Some Call It Loving” to see if perhaps Harris had been onto something, directing his second feature film away from producing Kubrick’s brilliant early works; “Lolita,” “Paths Of Glory,” and “The Killing?” After all, Harris’ directorial debut, 1965’s “The Bedford Incident” was a tightly told thriller starring Sidney Poitier that goes down as a lost action gem from a decade packed with excellent films in that genre. It should also be said that of Harris’ five directorial efforts, “Some Call It Loving” is the only non-action film with Harris’ last film being the very average Wesley Snipes police shoot em up, “Boiling Point.”

“Some Call It Loving” has for its center, an exquisitely bored, 70s natural looking adopted jazz saxophone player named Robert Troy (Zalman King giving a purposeful trance-like performance), who one evening attends a carnival to only be lured into the tent to witness an actual “Sleeping Beauty,” who our carny barker claims has been asleep for eight years. Our barker/carnival doctor begins charging a tent of overly creepy men a dollar a person to kiss our comatose yet seraphic maiden in the false hopes of awakening her, but our hero Robert chooses to not pay the dollar for the cheap thrill and instead opts to purchase Sleeping Beauty outright for twenty thousand dollars paired with what appears to be a beneficent set of motives. For his twenty Gs, Robert gets the entire carny act including the fair Sleeping Beauty and the good doctor’s Ford microbus, complete with a hippy’s painting of the act’s star attraction on the side of the vehicle. It is now back to his European-style villa where Robert sets Beauty up with elegant sleeping quarters, which doesn’t seem to phase the two women he lives with, who are coupled together in a bed of their own. One has to wonder from this point forward if Robert’s blasé countenance is due to a constant over-stimulation of libido and what role will Sleeping Beauty play in the further awakening of his own sexual malaise.

Robert’s Goes Numb While Jennifer Awakens

Soon after, with Sleeping Beauty tucked away, Robert goes off to the local jazz bar where he plays a set for a posh audience and for a virtually incomprehensible blathering junkie called “Jeff,” whom Robert considers his best friend, played by none other than Richard Pryor, who had played alongside Zalman King two years earlier in the now forgotten 1971 comedy-drama, “You’ve Got to Walk It Like You Talk It or You’ll Lose That Beat,” where Pryor plays another substance abusing character against King’s freewheeling hippy. To say that Pryor plays what Spike Lee normally refers to as “The Magical Negro” to King’s Robert in “Some Call It Loving” would be fairly accurate if it wasn’t for the fact that to assume that cliched role, the black character would have to say something that was somewhat philosophical or least coherent. Here Pryor takes his patented wino character to the ultimate extreme and makes him otherworldly in his inability to communicate any distinguishable word. I’m a lifelong Pryor fan, having listened to his albums all through my adolescence, but it was all beeps and buzzes to me here in this film. My best guess is that Pryor represents the unbridled soul that Robert represses with his stoic appearance.

Once back at home, Robert finds Jennifer (Sleeping Beauty’s actual name) awake and begins what would be a romantic and nurturing relationship, which by this point we can assume is less than what will be required based on the carrying on of Robert’s roommates. Bit by bit Jennifer embraces her freedom of sexual expression and becomes a willing participant in the fetishistic games that go on the mansion, which appears to disappoint Robert and his need to satisfy his voyeuristic desire to see her innocence corrupted, causing him to emotionally retreat and one one occasion, to even leave the mansion in order to seek out erotic stimulation from other women, which inevitably ends in failure as their willingness to participate through financial compensation only dampens his voyeuristic tendencies even more. With an acceptance that his sexual desires will not be fulfilled, Robert decides to flee the mansion and its ominous suggestions of depravity behind and takes Jennifer and the micro bus on a short road trip that eventually leads back to the mansion and to a scene of religious repression for the sake of the purification of all involved.

Though the plot of “Some Call It Loving” sounds a bit pretentious, I genuinely feel Harris’ intentions were to create an American version of the films that were successful in Europe during the late 1960s, as there are similar examinations of voyeurism in the Nouveau Roman novels and film work of French director Alain-Robbe Grillet for example. Past the issues mentioned before with a few of the performances, “Some Call It Loving” does possess great merit in its storytelling style and demands a second viewing. The intense diffusion used in the film was lensed by Italian cinematographer Mario Tosi, who a few years later would effectively layer diffusion all over Brian DePalma’s 1976 nightmarish horror classic, “Carrie.” It is clear that the deliberately slow pace of “Some Call It Loving” would not and did not go over well here in the USA, both with critics and audiences in 1973 as stated earlier, but the film was widely applauded in Europe as stated by Harris in this 2008 Q&A done with the director at Cinefamily:

The screening we attended last Wednesday was not a 35mm print, but a recently released Blu Ray from Etiquette Pictures, who did an excellent job with the transfer of this film. I personally am excited to pick up a copy as it possesses commentary and a featurette with director Harris and cinematographer Tosi, which I hope might shed more light on the low budget production of this misunderstood film that broke up a Wednesday evening and fostered an intense discussion and more than a few confused looks between my wife and I on trip home on that tepid evening last week.

The Texas Western for All Ages: Yehudi Mercado’s Pantalones, TX

Westerns have a certain timelessness to them that will always attract me to the genre. We’ve certainly seen revisionist Westerns and modern adaptations, but there is this vacuum that Westerns create to place their stories and characters in a distant time and place without ever really becoming a period piece, which pulls me closer to works in the style. Oddly, I related to the Western films even though the only connection I had to them was the fact that I grew up in Texas, but even the Texas I knew was so far removed from that of Duel in the Sun and For A Few Dollars More that I had no reason at all to connect with the genre, yet, I felt this extraordinary bond with it, despite the fact that I am a Vietnamese-American female. After much contemplation, I realized that the gun play did not tie me to Westerns–their code of ethics did. Western rules for morality, though today often scorned as barbaric, felt more reasonable to me than those of modern times, and the Western sense of honor especially resonated with my Vietnamese-Buddhist upbringing.

Given my own fascination (and borderline obsession) with the moral undercurrents of the genre, I always wondered how I would interpret Westerns to children, especially since I myself did not begin to devour the films until I was a teenager. How do you adapt the archetypal bounty hunter into an occupation that is less egregious to explain? How do you convey governmental corruption? How do you represent differences between different regions of the United States without being overly simplistic and patronizing? And most importantly, how do you convey the Western essence of adventure, defiance, and triumph without using violence (since I’m certain that most parents will not want to explain the technicalities of a duel to a child right before bedtime; I know mine left that discussion to my American history teachers when they explained the Burr-Hamilton duel and how a cornerstone of American government died in such an ordeal)?

Yehudi Mercado’s Pantalones, TX answers these questions with the adventures of kid daredevil and wild child Chico Bustamente as he attempts to become a legend in Texas history. Chico, as the bold and flashy folk hero of the town of Pantalones, TX, channels the fiercely independent and outspoken persona of the bounty hunters of Westerns but in a bit of a more modern time and with more societal accepted intentions. Rather than chasing a band of criminals or seeking revenge, Chico aims to have his own page in Texas history, but to do that, he must do something that tests the limits of humans.

To make his mark, Chico attempts to wrestle clouds, windsurf over thorny patches, and form a record large cannonball splash, but these stunts fail, since they exist to only accomplish a record, not really to change the face of history. Consequently, in order to get into the record books, Chico must accomplish something far bigger and far more impacting, even if he does not know it.

The Bright, Spirited Cover for Pantalones, TX

Thus, when Sheriff Cornwallis presents his prized giant chicken, his edge to defeat the rival Gengo County in the culinary contest of best poultry, Chico sees an opportunity to make his record; he bets he will ride the giant chicken for nine seconds. Chico and Pig Boy prepare for this day as Bucky, a vegetarian, does too, trying to scheme up a plan to convince Chico not to eat the chicken if he successfully wins the bet. Chico succeeds as the rider, but his adventure in the history of Pantalones is far from over after the ride. Post victory, Bucky convinces Chico to free the giant chicken, and rather than basking in freedom, the chicken, named Tony in order to give him somewhat of a persona, goes rogue and pulls a Godzilla on the town. With Tony tearing apart homes and businesses, Pantalones, more than ever needs a hero, and Chico rises to the occasion, eventually learning that his love for his hometown triumphs over his desire for fame.

Illustrated with vibrant colors and an overall vivacious joy, Pantalones, TX captures the attention and imagination of all readers. Like the narrative, the visual style melds traditional Western themes and styles with contemporary cartoon sensibilities, creating an overall playful take on the Western. Altogether, the action involved with all of Chico’s stunts and challenges keeps young ones entertained, and the sly jokes about Texas history balanced against a general appreciation for Texas as an odd melting pot of old and new cultures and beliefs adds a layer of complexity to satisfy adults. Pantalones, TX updates and transforms Western motifs for modern day audiences of multiple ages, making it a strong stepping stone into Westerns for young readers and watchers or anyone interested in seeing a lighter side to the genre.

Beyond my enjoyment of the tales (and name) of Chico Bustamente, I love the Texan spirit of Pantalones, TX. As a fellow transplanted Houstonian, Yehudi Mercado manages to capture the peculiar relationship modern day Texans have with our home state. Along with Chico, we also understand that our hometown is by no means a perfect place (so much so that we no longer live there), but something about it has formed a part of our identity and, as a result, always remains in our hearts (and stomachs) to lure our souls and minds back, even if we never set foot in the state again.

Pantalones, TX by Yehudi Mercado is available via Archaia Entertainment.

Generoso and Lily’s Bovine Ska and Rocksteady: Pat Hardy’s Kismet Label 9-22-15

A gem from the late great Freddie McKay

Welcome Bovine Ska and Rocksteady Listeners!

This week we have a spotlight for those of you who love rocksteady and reggae as we delve deep into Pat Hardy’s KISMET LABEL! We opened up the show with two sets of ska featuring a rare release by Vic Taylor on the Pussy Cat Label entitled “Yes.” Another gem from the first two sets of ska that opened the show is “You Say, She Say” from the Sneer Townersl, a fun vocal group that we always wish had recorded more. That cut came out on Kentone in 1965. We also realize that we rarely mention the background disco albums on this blogpost and as this week contained two gem LP, we must mention Lalomie Washburn superb 1977 LP on Parachute Records entitled, “MY Music Is Hot.” The second hour featured the Eurodisco sounds of La Pamplemousse from the self-titled record that came out on AVI in 1976. After a mento set and a long set of rare rocksteady tracks, we went into the Kismet Label spotlight which began the second hour of the show.

Little is known about the Kismet label, even though it was quite prolific.Some represses of Amalgamated records also existed on the label, making us suspect that Kismet may have been a Joe Gibbs imprint. We do know that Pat Hardy was the owner of Kismet, which emerged as an avenue for releases of The Progressions, his vocal group. The Progressions original members were Pat Hardy, Tony Russell, and Milton Henry with Derrick Bucknor and Rudy Mills joining as later members. As a result of the label’s focus on the group, multiple members would take a stab at producing and arranging for the label. The group and many other Kismet recordings were introduced to England with the Pama compilation, Reggae to the UK With Love. On early tracks from The Progressions, you’ll hear Lynn Taitt and the Jets backing the vocalists and Timmy George as the producer, including the track that opened the spotlight entitled, “Give Me Love.” You’ll hear some amazing cuts on this spotlight from Dave And Ansel Collins, Freddie McKay, The Emotions and more!

You can hear our show from Sept 22nd, 2015 HERE.

Enjoy!! Please spread the word and repost if you liked the show!

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Love,
Generoso and Lily

Generoso’s Bizarre And Delicious Scozzese Uovo Italiano

Generoso loves he Scotch Egg and has dined on them on many an occasion over the years but he always felt that something was missing so he transformed this classic dish into a bizarre Italian version that we enjoy every now and then. The basic idea is there, a 6 minute boiled egg nestled into the middle of a large meatball that is deep fried but Generoso makes a few changes to the recipe that we know you will enjoy.

What you’ll need is a pound of ground pork and a pound of ground beef (80% lean) as opposed to the sausage meat that is normally used in the traditional Scotch Egg. You’ll also need about 9 large eggs, a half pound of unseasoned bread crumbs (Generoso uses panko), a half pound of all purpose white flour, four carrots. one green onion with bulb, 12 cloves of garlic, two stalks of fresh oregano, three stalks of fresh parsley, one can of puree tomatoes, olive oil, 1/2 cup of ground parmesan, salt, and pepper. A deep fryer is awesome is you got one, otherwise please be careful when using a pot as a deep fryer. Please let us know how yours turns out and repost to your friends!

Music: Rachmaninoff: Suite No. 2 for two pianos, Op. 17

Andrzej Żuławski’s 1971 Nightmarish Debut Film, “The Third Part of the Night,” Brings Revelations 8:12 To War

Leszek Teleszynski In The Third Part Of Night

There are moments in war that almost seem too barbaric to have ever happened, and then there are those places such as Weigl Institute in Lwów, Poland, where the work was so completely bizarre yet sanely conducted to make it possible to save lives that it could not be imagined by the brightest minds of fiction. During the Nazi occupation of Poland in World War Two, Polish biologist Rudolf Weigl created the first effective vaccine against typhus, which was killing thousands every day during the war. At the institute, Weigl would place lice into a matchbox sized contraption that had a screen on one side, which would be mounted onto the legs of people who would be paid in extra rations to be blood donors for the lice. The lice would be drained of blood in order to create a typhoid vaccine that was not only given to the Nazis but also snuck out to the ghettos of Poland, saving countless infected people. For his intended lice feeders, Weigl would employ Polish underground agents, Jews, and Polish intellectuals to spare them from being taken to camps. One of these men who would be saved by Weigl by being employed as a “lice feeder” was Miroslaw Żuławski, the father of Andrzej Żuławski, the director of the film I will review this week, “The Third Part Of The Night.”

For anyone who has seen any film directed by Andrzej Żuławski these last forty four years knows that surrealistic imagery and a fantastic narrative are standard in all of his films but never has his work felt as personal as it is here with his debut work. Andrzej was born in Poland in November of 1940, a little more than a year after the German occupation of his homeland, which means that most of the story that plays out here occurred while he was still a young child, while his father Miroslaw (who co-wrote the screenplay) was a member of Związek Walki Zbrojnej, an underground army formed to undermine the invaded Nazi forces in Poland and, as such, was hidden by Weigl and at times “fed lice” in order to keep his affiliation with the underground army a secret.

The title and much of the framework of the film are derived from The Book Of Revelation, which in the mostly Roman Catholic country of the Zulawskis, naturally plays an important part in understanding the immense guilt the protagonist of Michal feels, which starts at the very beginning of the film when Nazi cavalry subbing in for the Four Horsemen Of The Apocalypse, ride into Michal’s stately country home and slaughter his wife and son. Michal and his father witness the killings from afar and escape to the town of Lwów where Michal (Leszek Teleszynski), an intellectual and violinist like his father, joins the resistance to make a difference in the war. Michal is immediately sent on a mission, which turns out to be a trap and results in his partner being killed and Michal wounded. Seeking refuge from the Nazis, Michal ducks into an apartment building stairwell where he watches in terror as a similarly dressed man is mistaken for him and taken away in a moment eerily reminiscent of a scene from Andrzej Wajda’s first feature film “Generation.” Michal then ascends the stairs into the arrested man’s apartment only to find the man’s wife, who is bears a striking resemblance to Michal’s own wife, Helena, in labor. Michal helps the woman deliver her child and now, due his guilt and complicity in her husband’s capture, must find a way to take care of her and support his new family.

In a way, Michal is given a second chance in life and tries to rectify his past cowardice by being there for his new family, yet his conscience is never truly clear as his dead son appears throughout the film to add to his guilt. These early scenes are punctuated with what would become a staple of all of Żuławski’s work for years to come: the erratic and unchained handheld camerawork and blue-green color scheme, here done by Witold Sobocinski who also lensed films for master Polish director Andrzej Wajda, whom Żuławski worked under for years prior to his feature debut. The music here also deftly adds to the hellish goings on and is scored by Andrzej Korzynski, another Wajda regular, who creates a mix of Ennio Morriconesque over distorted stick guitar and experimental/industrial samples.

Once Michal resides himself to the task of becoming his doppelganger’s wife’s sole support, it is off to the Weigl Institute (the actual institute was used for these scenes), where he is told to sit with a group of men as he voluntarily ties boxes of lice to his legs as to become a human feeding station. These factually based scenes of intellectuals, giving their blood for self-preservation and voluntarily carrying a disease become the perfect metaphor for the absurdity of war. Żuławski and Sobocinski highlight these moments with clinical close-ups of the feeding and subsequent removal of the blood from the lice that seem to come from Dante more than the pages of a history book. Michal’s ascent from simply a feeder to lab technician who extracts the tainted blood seems to happen easily, but it still does not lead to any sort of victory against evil as the world around Michal descends into deeper madness, leading him back the futility of mounting any resistance in the face of the oncoming apocalypse. This sentiment is made clear with the title sequence of the film which references Revelation 8:12-13:

The fourth angel sounded his trumpet, and a third of the sun was struck, a third of the moon, and a third of the stars, so that a third of them turned dark. A third of the day was without light, and also a third of the night. Then I looked, and I heard an eagle flying in midheaven, saying with a loud voice, “Woe, woe, woe to those who dwell on the earth, because of the remaining blasts of the trumpet of the three angels who are about to sound!”

A Trailer For The Third Part Of The Night

The actual closing of the Weigl Institute was not brought on by the Nazis but by the invading Russian forces whom, due the terms defined by the Pottsdam Conference, would soon claim Lwów, Poland as part of the USSR and eventually as a town in the Ukraine. The Nazis, as brutal as they were to the Jews, would at least allow the Polish Roman Catholics to practice their faith unlike the invading Communists, and Żuławski, in an interview conducted in 2004, finds this fact more distasteful than the Nazi occupation. The oncoming apocalypse may be seen in terms of replacing one Satan with another, making all attempts at defeating the Nazis just so the Soviets could resume a more severe process of dictatorship as futile a gesture as trying the stave off the impending Biblical prophecy of an end of days that will most assuredly come. In this world, for Michal, the only recourse to attain peace is the complete acceptance of his fate in the presence of something greater than it all.

Great Balls of Sesame! Lily’s Bacon Banh Cam

For anyone who has had Banh Cam (or Banh Ran if your family is from northern Vietnam), you know that it can have different fillings depending on the bakery you purchase it from. If you buy Banh Cam in a Chinese bakery, it is filled with red bean paste. If you buy it in a Vietnamese bakery, it can be filled with a sweet mung bean paste. Occasionally, you’ll even see it with a coconut mung bean mix inside.

I always felt that the sweetness of banh cam was too overwhelming, and consequently, when I decided to make Banh Cam in the Fierro house, I wanted to add a savory element to the mung bean filling I remembered eating as a kid. After a bit of thinking, I decided on one of my favorite pork products for flavor, bacon.

For my version of Banh Cam, I use a modified Banh It filling. The outcome is a crispy, chewy, sweet yet slightly salty, and creamy bite. Banh Cam requires a bit of patience and love when it comes to preparing the batches, but I promise you’ll enjoy the final treat. This recipe makes at least 10 Banh Cam, so be prepared to share them because they are quite rich! Enjoy!

Music: Claude Debussy: Chansons de Bilitis.

A Bear, Purple Hair, and a New Home: Robert Goodin’s The Kurdles

After reading Robert Goodin’s The Man Who Loved Breasts, which contained three comics with its humor slightly in the vein of Robert Crumb’s Snatch but with far more restraint and less genitalia, I did not know what to expect from Goodin’s first book, The Kurdles, a story with a tale and accompanying illustrations aimed toward children. However, when looking at the large album format and watercolor pages of the book, I knew I was in far different territory from the black and white clever and perverse pages of The Man Who Loved Breasts. And in addition to the different formats, the mostly non-human cast of characters of The Kurdles, led by a Snuggle-like, adorable bear, prepared me for a tale with just as much fun but far more innocence.

Cover for The Kurdles

The fundamental plot of The Kurdles is a simple one. Unwanted by her owner, Sally the bear gets lost in the forest where she meets Dog, Hank the miniature unicorn, Pentapus the five-legged color changing creature, and Phineas the little scarecrow. The group promises to help Sally return to the road to find her home, but only after they handle the disease plaguing their home. Consequently, Sally must return with the crew to their house, sick with a peculiar disease where purple hair grows and envelops it.

As the hair devours more and more of Hank, Pentapus, Phineas, and Dog’s home, it develops eyes, becomes a creature of its own, and begins to sing sea shanties, creating more urgency to find a cure in order to not only save the group from homelessness but also from insanity induced by the purple haired monster’s perpetual drunken songs. Consequently, Sally, originally a bystander, must jump into the mission to cure the house of the purple malady in order to try to make it back to her home. But instead of winding back up on the road in search of her owners who dismissed her, in the course of searching for a treatment and eventually creating and applying a yellow-green concoction to the house, Sally finds out the real meaning of the words home and family in the company of Dog, Hank, Pentapus, and Phineas.

Similar to other children’s tales of getting lost and finding a new home, The Kurdles distinguishes itself with a charming, inviting, and imaginative world and set of characters. While Sally is undoubtedly cute, so much so that you want to jump into the panels and give her a hug, Pentapus, Hank, and Phineas capture most of your attention. Pentapus’s color changes, sneezes and congested speech remind me of a goofier version of my childhood self in the midst of springtime allergies. Hank, the confident and somewhat temperamental unicorn, delivers some of the funniest insults, mumbles, and observations. And to temper the differences in personas between Pentapus and Hank, we have Phineas, the moderate, patient, and somewhat paternal of the bunch, who manages to keeps a level head throughout the course of the battle against the purple growth and leads the effort to take back the home.

With The Kurdles, Goodin makes a strong showing in his first venture into the children’s book arena. The sweet yet never sentimental plot influences the lovely artwork and vice versa, creating a complete work that will engage not only children but also adults. The setting and the characters are drawn and colored with the softness of Maurice Sendak’s Little Bear sprinkled with a touch of Dr. Seuss’s playfulness, humor, and imagination, taking you back to your own time of wide-eyed adventures and awe stemming from your own mental, magical creations. I look forward to seeing Goodin further develop children’s books, especially with further deviations away from traditional children’s storybook conventions and plots and more injections of his absurdist sense of humor and understanding of the oddities of the world as featured in The Man Who Loved Breasts.

A nice, short escape from reality, The Kurdles accomplishes the balance of light and dark concepts to elicit sadness, sympathy, and joy, teaching children about the emotional spectrum ranging from despair to hope and reminding jaded adults of the same and all because of purple hair and inebriated sailors’ sea songs.

The Kurdles by Robert Goodin is available now via Fantagraphics Books.

Generoso and Lily’s Bovine Ska and Rocksteady: Ronnie Nasralla’s BMN Label 9-15-15

The Brilliant Maytals On BMN

Hello Bovine Ska and Rocksteady Listeners:

First, we wish Happy Birthday to our dear friend and Studio One artist Dudley Sibley. Over the years Dudley has been a source of vital information to our show and we really appreciate it. In honor of Dudley, we began this week’s show with our favorite track that he recorded, “Message Of Old.” We followed with two sets of rocksteady to begin the show before going into a mento set that featured another gem from Chin’s Calyposo Sextet “Woman’s Tenderness.” We ended that first hour with a set of rare ska beginning with The Monarch’s 1965 cut for Kentone Records, “All Of Me” and ending with Roland Alphonso’s mighty instrumental “Jazz Ska” from King Edwards. We then began the second hour with our spotlight of the BMN Label…

Owned and founded by Ronnie Nasralla, BMN is an acronym. B for the Blues Busters. M for the Maytals. And, N for Nasralla.

A high school classmate of Byron Lee, Ronnie was an early member of the Byron Lee’s Dragonaires. The group received their first major moment of fame when featured as the house band seen in Dr. No. Then, in 1964, Ronnie as the manager and Byron as the band leader arranged for a special dance at the Glass Bucket, an uptown Kingston club, to promote ska to Edward Seaga and executives from Atlantic records in order to represent Jamaican culture to America. With this promotion, the group traveled to America to perform on TV and in American clubs and would eventually represent Jamaica at the World’s Fair, with Ronnie choreographing the dancers for the performance.

On a more production side, Ronnie worked with George Benson, the owner of WIRL after Edward Seaga sold it to him, in order to build a recording studio in the backyard of the WIRL building. In turn, he developed the knowledge for production and began to produce the bands he managed, including the major two in the name of his label and many others that you will hear on this BMN label spotlight.

Ronnie formed the Federation of Musicians with Byron Lee and Sonny Bradshaw to prevent musicians from getting exploited, creating new rules to prevent overlong hours and new standards to creating recording contracts and paying salary. In 1966, the label won the festival song of the year with Toots and the Maytals Bam Bam Festival song. Winner of the first ever Jamaican Independence Festival song competition. Ronnie received the Order of Distinction in 2013.

Listen to the entire program from September 15th, 2015 with the BMN spotlight HERE:

Please let us know what you think of the show via the comments and if you you enjoyed what we did, please subscribe to us on Mixcloud. It is FREE!

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XO
Lily and Generoso

Generoso’s Light and Bright Zuppa di Pesce!

Again, Italian is such a pretty language as Zuppa di Pesce simply means “fish soup.”

From the coast of Tuscany comes this awesome tomato and seafood based soup that is super easy to make!

The most time that you will spend in preparation is when you select your seafood. You will need shrimp, octopus, clams, and whatever sea fish you wish to add as well as a can of puree tomatoes, parsley, 8 cloves of garlic, red wine, extra virgin olive oil, salt, pepper, ground parmesan, and a hearty bread of your choice. Cooking time should only be about 70 minutes. Enjoy and let us know how yours turns out! XO Generoso

Music: Mahler – Symphony no. 5, I. “Trauermarsch”

The Erotic Comic Book Series “Valentina” Goes Big Screen In Corrado Farina’s 1973 Film, “Baba Yaga”

Baba "Connects" With Valentina In Baba Yaga

Valentina Is Really Not Feeling Baba Yaga Here

Having just spent the last two days at Long Beach Comic Con, attending panels, wading through a sea of cosplayers (both sensual and non), and speaking with a multitude of comic book writers and artists for our soon to be published Forces Of Geek piece, the inevitable concern of what the final goal of their art might be does come to mind. There are the comic creators who are clearly delving into the world of zombies, solely for the purposes of being pitched a film or television deal as “The Walking Dead” has made the shambolic undead the hottest commodity around. There are also cosplayers who dream of being in the circles of the more famous in their craft like Alodia Gosiengfiao who collects in millions in endorsements or those who simply create because of the reason we all hope for: The need of artistic expression with the final goal of making people laugh, cry, understanding a political leaning of some sort, or to just turn them on via overt eroticism.

Sadly, as far as erotic expression in comic books in the United States is concerned, there has not been a great deal of respect thrown that way, and a lot of what is produced that is sexually themed here is relegated to a niche market, and imports of such material (outside of manga) are currently incredibly difficult to locate in the US much less in the late 1960s. Such was the case with the work of Italian comic book writer, Guido Crepax whose important erotic series “Valentina” barely saw the light of day here in America despite its immense popularity in Europe.

Valentina was originally a character in an earlier science fiction based Crepax series called “Neutron,” who eventually became the protagonist of her own series in 1967 due to the popularity of the issues of “Neutron” in which her character was featured. This is not surprising as Valentina Rosselli was exceptionally illustrated and written as a gorgeous and intelligently opinionated Milanese fashion photographer and left leaning journalist who progressively abandons the more science fiction facets of her persona in “Neutron” for a more enticing and stark mix of promiscuity, sadomasochism, and just about any other kink that you could imagine. Though outrageously explicit, it is clear that Crepax did not want Valentina to be seen as only a sexual being but more as a fully rounded heroine to be admired. Unlike Theresa, the protagonist from “Looking For Mr. Goodbar,” (my review from last week) who is an American single Roman Catholic woman who engages in sexual escapades that end with guilt, condemnation, and death, Valentina’s stylistic fused sexuality is a celebration of her freedom as a woman who during her time could explore sexuality however she wants. I mean she is living in Italy, after all.

After achieving an almost cult status in Italy, Valentina was given a film adaptation by young director Corrado Farina who seemed like a solid choice as he had given Bram Stroker’s “Dracula” a truly bizarre giallo treatment in his 1971 film, “Hanno Cambiato Faccia, (They Have Changed Their Face). Isabelle de Funes (the niece of famed French actor, Louis de Funes) was selected to play Valentina as she bore a striking resemblance to the character that was illustrated in Crepax’s series. And playing the role of the older witchy dominatrix Baba Yaga is the luminous American actress Carrol Baker of “Baby Face” fame, who like many Hollywood stars had moved to Italy a few years before when her career in the States began to wane. So you may be wondering then: If this is the first film adaptation of the “Valentina” series then why is the title “Baba Yaga” and not “Valentina,” the latter title being the obvious choice for an American comic book adaptation. My theory is that given the state of sadomasochism that was depicted in giallos during the early seventies, producers must’ve been thrilled when “Baba Yaga” the 1971 issue of the then popular “Valentina” series was issued, as it was the first in that popular series to introduce the protagonist to the world of B&D.

The film opens with an occultist political theater production that is being staged by hippies in a cemetery (that resembles the graveyard scenes in Bob Clarke’s “Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things”), where we first see Valentina taking shots of the scene, which suddenly disbands once the police arrive and gets us to the opening credits and one of the true stars of this film, the jazz/prog score by Piero Umiliani. Soon after Valentina rejects her part time lover, a commercial director named Arno (George Eastman), she defiantly walks home alone and nearly dies while trying to rescue a dog about to be run over by a Bentley-driving society woman named Baba Yaga. Baba takes a more than subtle sexual interest in Valentina, even going as far as stealing a piece of Valentina’s stockings as a keepsake. Baba takes Valentina home but insists that Valentina visit her the following day. The next day Valentina is back behind the Hasselblad snapping picks of a ravenously gorgeous model in the comfort of her modern giallo set designed swanky Italian apartment, which is complete with animal skins on the walls, a blood red tiled kitchen, and glowing orbs for lamps. She discusses her left leaning politics with her clearly fascist model friend before going off to visit Arno on set at a slum where he fishes out a rodent that he films some hot rat action for the sake of symbolically shaming politicians.

Then its off to Baba’s home, a large gothic setting equipped with an old movie spookiness that Norman Bates would feel more than a bit comfortable wheeling around in if not for the scattered bondage gear, fetish footwear, and bullwhips. Valentina spears somewhat concerned and soon she finds a bottomless pit hidden under a Persian rug in the study that somehow doesn’t seem to freak out Valentina enough to leave the apartment screaming in terror. Finally, to make matters over the top creepy, Baba gifts Valentina a fetish doll named “Annette” who will “protect her (Valentina) from danger” because nothing scares away evil more than a sexed up cupie/voodoo doll. Valentina’s luck starts to turn very bad after she begins to photograph (after some incredibly politically incorrect motivational speech) a black man and white woman engaged in some aggressively naughty hand-holding to make a political statement about racial unity. After the shoot, the white model is felled by a puncture wound to the leg that no one can account for. Valentina also takes down a protesting hippy with the lens of her camera after taking his picture. It seems that these people are paying for Valentina’s leftist ways, but why would Baba curse her in that way? When more things go wrong, Valentina is off to return Annette to Baba at her home where we then have a scene of voluntary domination and discipline that is inflicted on Valentina by Baba. It is indeed an erotic turn of events, but Valentina never seems to be the victim, and although she is strapped in for the ride, she never loses control of her sexuality.

Original Trailer For Baba Yaga

I am completely onboard with the style of this film, as I am with many giallos of the early 1970s. It is a slickly shot film that is matched with a hip soundtrack and gorgeous actors, and the sexuality is provocative enough to keep one’s attention during the gaps, but I must admit that the politics of this film are a tad confusing. It seems that Baba Yaga is trying to use her sexuality to tame Valentina of the free sexuality that Valentina exhibits throughout the film, but if that is the case and Baba is some remnant of the right wing, then why would she use deviant sexuality to dominate her? There are a few scenes in the films where Arno knocks Valentina’s politics as well, leading me to believe that this film is a slam against the left wing, but you just cannot be sure as there is evidence to prove the opposite as well. You cannot escape the feeling that Farina’s intention of this adaptation is that politics is just the fodder of the well off, and you should just shut up and watch the sexual fireworks in all its eternal coolness.

There is a key scene early on when Valentina’s intellectual friends argue at a party about the value within the low budget film work of Godard to which Valentina replies, “I prefer Chaplin films, because at least you laugh.” Perhaps that message is the one we must follow when watching “Baba Yaga,” the message being that for the rich, the discussion of politics and art is just conversation for effect that has no real impact and that sometimes your best intention for creating art should what I stated earlier, to make someone laugh, or to cry, or in the this case to turn them on, but perhaps to leave the politics behind for the politicians.