Planet Of The Vampires (1965)

Directed by Danger: Diabolik director Mario Bava, this is a visually splendid, if somewhat basically scripted Spagetti Sci-fi movie.


http://www.scifilm.org/reviews3/planetvampires.html

Not a vampire movie but actually an alien bodysnatcher movie, 'Planet of the Vampires' has achieved a certain amount of fame as one of the inspirations for 'Alien' (along with A. E. Van Vogt's 'Voyage of the Space Beagle' and Colin Wilson's 'Space Vampires'), although in it's visual style and sound design it has more in common with 'Forbidden Planet'.

Following a distress call, the crew of a spacecraft land on a mysterious planet. Only to find the message is in fact... a warning!



The 'U' shaped space ship with it's uterine entrance.


The crew discover a derelict space ship containing the skeleton of a giant seated alien.


There are some genuinely creepy moments, most notably the possessed crew's jerky movements and the slo-mo zombie resurrections.


What Ridley Scott's version lacks are black leather space suits! D'ya think Bryan Singer saw this before he made X-men?


There's some fantastic imagery in the movie, Bava uses his limited budget well. Great use of colour and shadows. There are some very effective pans of the Spaceship interior, displaying the movie's widescreen format to good effect.


In common with 'Forbidden Planet', 'Planet of the Vampires' is an obvious influence on the 60s Star Trek. The spaceship has a very similar design, with groovy minimal retro interiors.There's also a female communications officer and the captain verbally dictates his log.

The gender roles are quite advanced for their time. The female crew scream a lot more than their male counterparts, but they're shown to be just as capable (one of them appears to be the first officer) and get stuck-in to any combat scenarios.

There's also a fine early electronic score. Like 'Forbidden Planet', it's not so much music as a series of weird 'bloopy' and 'bleepy' noises.

Gall et Gainsbourg.



I'm currently reading the excellent Gainsbourg biography 'Fistful of Gitanes'. I'm on the chapter involving France Gall, specifically the lyrics to 'Baby Pop', possibly the most brainlessly upbeat song ever created. A song which makes the Josie and the Pussycats theme sound like a funeral dirge.



"Sing, dance, Baby Pop, as if tomorrow, Baby Pop, in the early hours of the morning, Baby Pop, you must die".

Genius!

Another of his/her hits 'Les Sucettes' (Lollipops) involved a little girl called Annie who liked to suck on lollipops until the aniseed flavour ran down her throat. When the double meaning was pointed to the 16 year old Gall she was mortified and went into hiding for weeks.

"It's the most daring song of the century!" declared Gainsbourg, the dirty old man!

Michel Polnareff.

I discovered Polnareff's work only recently. His name isn't dropped with quite the same frequency as Gainsbourg but he's just as fascinating, certainly more interesting than the comparatively pedestrian Jacques Dutronc. His music is anthemic, ridiculously catchy and sonically intriguing, like Phil Spector, Brian Wilson and Joe Meek put through a telepod.
See for yourself:



You can see more of his videos here.

Bombastic orchestras, Triple tracked vocals, deafening pianos, angelic choirs, Jimmy Page-style guitar solos and throbbing basslines abound.

I was introduced to his work via a 'best of' CD compilation a friend burned. The music in no way prepared me for the 70s Polnareff glam look.

I guess it isn't always true what they say about French guys having a natural sense of style.

The terribly lovely Joan Lau provides an essential beginner's guide to french pop here.

Recommended Album:

Ignore the cover, this is the greatest album you haven't heard yet.
It's a proper album like they used to make. Each track is different, yet it flows to form one cohesive unit.
The only comparison I can attempt to make would be 'Tiny Dancer' era Elton John crossed with 'Screamadelica' era Primal Scream.
Incredibly dense, nutty pop music, it's like listening to ten albums all at once.
Né Dans Un Ice-Cream Mp3.
Monsieur L'Abbe MP3.
Hey You Woman MP3.

Alain Gree.

http://www.alaingree.com/








And
There's
Some
More
Images
Here.

Ryohei Yanagihara - it's Suntory time!

Fantastic 50s/60s book jacket designer/animator and creator of the 'Uncle Ryohei' advertising icon for Suntory whiskey.

Here are more images, a bio of Yanagihara and a Quicktime file one of his animated Suntory ads.

Rebecca Turbow - coolest girl in the universe!



http://www.safeclothes.com/
http://www.myspace.com/rebeccaturbow

Brooklyn-based designer Rebecca Turbow.

My eyes popped out of their sockets on viewing Ms. Turbow's fab (and I don't use the word ironically) designs.


In a perfect world, everyone would dress thus (I fear I haven't the figure for it though).



Not only does she talk the talk, she walks the (space) walk as well. Wearing her own Courreges inspired creations on the streets of Williamsburg.




Ain't she cute? Like a Glen Murakami drawing made real.

CQ/Codename: Dragonfly.
http://www.mgm.com/experiencecq/

A young film maker (Jeremy Davies) living in Paris in 1969 has to take over the reins of a Psychedelic Sci-fi movie when it’s temperamental director (Gerard Depardieu) storms off it’s production halfway through filming. All he has to do is reconcile art and commerce, juggle his introspection with the demands of his moody French girlfriend (Elodie Bouchez), and come up with a satisfying ending for the movie. Simple, right?

CQ has three distinct film styles. The grainy black and white 16mm Goddard-style (explicitly referencing ‘Deux ou trois choses que je sais d'elle') art films Davies’ character makes in his apartment. The camp, Technicolor, Dino de Laurentis type science fiction romp (referencing Barbarella, Danger: Diabolik and Modesty Blaise, amongst others). And the ‘real world’ of life with his girlfriend and movie making politics.
Sometimes the real world has as much artifice as the fantasy scenes, there’s a Fellini-esque party at the mansion of his flamboyant, Italian producer (Giancarlo Giannini). In fact the whole movie is rather like a game of ‘spot the reference’, a nod to ‘Annie Hall’, here, a shot from’ The Conformist’ there. Despite this, the movie has real heart and the game is more fun than distracting.

CQ was directed by Roman Coppola and I actually prefer it to any of his sister’s movies. The story is slight, but there's an appealing amount of period texture and loving attention to detail.

There are a number of scene stealing performances, mostly notably by Billy Zane as a Loved-up Revoutionary in the movie-within-a-movie, Jason Schwartzman as a extravagantly extrovert Mario Bava/Roger Corman type director and Dean Stockwell as Davies' estranged father.

The soundtrack is also excellent. Performed by the aptly named ‘Mellow’ it perfectly recreates the psychedelic pop loungecore stylings of Ennio Morricone, Bruno Nicolai, Manfred Hubler, Siegfried Schwab et al.

Pizzicato Five.
Website.

Riffing off 60s French Pop, Bossa Nova and Brill Building melodies mixed with the demented 90s dance rhythms of Deee-lite and Betty Boo.

Formed in 1985 Pizzicato Five were one of the originators of the 'Shibuya-Kei' sound, a frothy, upbeat, 60s inspired dance music.

In 1990 the lovely Nomiya Maki joined as their permanent lead vocalist and P5 really took off.

Part Diva, part muse to songwriter/producer Konishi Yasuharu, Nomiya was the Cindy Sherman of J-pop with her many wigs and costume changes.

Matador records released a few compilations of their work in the west during the 90s but it's worth tracking down their Japanese releases, if only for the lovely packaging.


"It's a Beautiful Day!"

'Happy Sad' from the Isaac Mizrahi documentary 'Unzipped'.
More P5 videos here.
Essential listening are:
Big Hits and Jet Lags 1994 -1997
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com
Pizzicato Five R.I.P. Big hits and Jet Lags 1998 - 2001
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com

"A new stereophonic sound spectacular!"

Brigitte Bardot Music DVD

It's worth it, if only for the Gainsbourg duets and the track 'Un Jour Comme un Autre' (At least I think that's what it's called). Bardot has never looked more like a 'Shane Glines' girl. The sound quality on the DVD is great.



Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful: The best DVD I own at the moment!!!!!!!!!, July 2, 2004 Reviewer: R. Carpio (Sacramento, CA) - See all my reviews *****This is a great document on sixties french pop. It features Brigitte Bardot on her TV music specials from 1961, 1963 & 1968. The whole dvd is music videos!!! The best footage is from the Brigitte Bardot Show in 1968 on her duets with Serge Gainsbourg on Comic Strip and Bonnie and Clyde. It also has the making of the '68 show. Brigitte is soooo sexy! Very essential!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


'Harley Davidson'.

BBC Radiophonic Workshop, 60s Electronica.

The following text comes from an amazing site about the history of the Doctor Who theme tune.

Doctor Who - The Original Theme
Delia Derbyshire, with assistant Dick Mills, created the original version of the theme in August 1963 using techniques, described here, that applied for years, whether the sound sources were electronic or concrete.



In 1963, when the job of producing the Doctor Who theme landed at Delia's feet, there were no synthesisers. The sound for electronic music came either from pure electronic sources, or from recordings of actual live sounds - the precursor of what we now term "sampling". But sampling now is easy: capture a sound, assign it to a range of notes on a keyboard, and play. But musique concrete was not so easy forty years ago.



There being no "synthesisers", the Workshop needed a source of electronic sound. They found this in a bank of twelve high-quality test tone generators, the usual function of which was to output various tones (square waves, sine waves) for passing through electronic circuits for testing gain, distortion and so on. They also had a couple of high-quality equalisers (again, test equipment - equalisers, or "tone controls", were not that easy to come by at the time) and a few other gadgets including a "wobbulator" (a low frequency oscillator) and a white noise generator.

Each sound in the Doctor Who theme was individually created using these instruments, and recorded to magnetic tape. By "each individual sound" I mean just that - each note was individually hand-crafted. The swooping sounds were created by manually adjusting the pitch of the oscillator to a carefully-timed pattern. The rhythmic hissing sounds were created by filtering white noise to "colour" it, as were the "bubbles" and "clouds". Examination of the original makeup tapes suggests that one of the two bass lines alone is a "concrete" sound, a plucked string sample.



Once each sound had been created, it was modified. Some sounds were created at all the required pitches direct from the oscillators, others had to be repitched later. This was done by taking the piece of tape with the sound on and looping it. The loop was placed on a tape machine and its playback speed varied until the pitch was correct, then the sound was rerecorded onto another machine. This process continued until every sound was available at all the required pitches. To create dynamics, the notes were rerecorded at slightly different levels.

Now the fun really started. They had all the sounds, all the notes, and now had to create the music. So each individual note was trimmed to length by cutting the tape, and stuck together in the right order. This was done for each "line" in the music - the main plucked bass, the bass slides (an organ-like tone emphasising the grace notes), the hisses, the swoops, the melody, a second melody line (a high organ-like tone used for emphasis), and the bubbles and clouds. This done, they ended up with a number of lengths of cut tape with the individual parts on. Most of these individual bits of tape, complete with edits every inch, still survive.



This done, the music had to be "mixed". There were no multitrack tape machines, so rudimentary multitrack techniques were invented: each length of tape was placed on a separate tape machine and all the machines were started simultaneously and the outputs mixed together. If the machines didn't stay in sync, they started again, maybe cutting tapes slightly here and there to help. In fact, a number of "submixes" were made to ease the process - a combined bass track, combined melody track, bubble track, and hisses. Eventually, the piece was finished.

The result is an astonishing piece of work with a magically organic quality to it that belies the many hours of patient work it took to create. As I said at the start, it is a "pure" electronic work - there is no element of "performance" at all, yet it still sounds alive. Even more extraordinary is that you can listen to the Doctor Who theme now, nearly 40 years later, and still not work out exactly how it was done. It must be one of the most timeless recordings ever - still fresh and modern when later versions sound dated and stale.

Delia Derbyshire recalls that Ron Grainer was delighted with the result and, realising that the music worked perfectly well as it stood, abandoned his original plan of overdubbing a small instrumental ensemble (as in Giants of Steam). Recognising Delia's immense contribution, he also suggested splitting his performance royalty income with her, but BBC bureaucracy meant that this was not possible.
More on the Radiophonic Workshop



Create your own version of the Doctor Who theme tune.

Ever wanted to mix a bit of Delia's Diddley-Dum with Howell's Wee-Wah-Woo? Well, now you can.
They've combined all those basses, bleeps and whooshes into a fun Flash application for you to play with.
Enjoy the Radiophon-A-Tron, but spare a thought for your neighbours too!

Mid 20th Century Children's books.

Here's an excellent link to images from 50s/60s children's books by the likes of Hawley Pratt, J.P. Miller and Elizabeth Brozowska.



http://www.biotope.biz/book/36/list/ Has Children's books by Bruno Munari, Paul Rand and Saul Bass.


And best of all is Eric Sturdevant's huge flickr gallery.
Abner Graboff; Mary Blair; Alain Gree; Alice and Martin Provensen, they're all there.

Polish poster artists.
http://polishposter.com


Waldemar Swierzy Midnight Cowboy


Wiktor Gorka Farewell, Doves.


Jerzy Srokowski Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The


Wojciech Fangor Apache

Jan Lenica Le Petit Soldat

Modern design classics: year by year.

http://www.101010.it/storiagrafica/1950.html

1950

1953

1957 and so on...

Miroslav Sasek.
http://www.miroslavsasek.com/

Late 60s/early 70s design

http://www.berting.nl/seventies/

Guy Burwell.

http://www.guyburwell.com/

Eggcellent artist and a swellegant individual.

Order some posters from him now!
I did and I don't even like these bands!


D'ya see what he did there?


The Kills shop at my local supermarket!

Jim Flora

Originally posted by snorenose on the Cartoonretro forum.

I remember the first time I saw Monsters Inc I recognized the monster version of Flora art on Sully's wall. It gave the movie bonus points in my book.Here are some scans from an article on Flora in American Artist magazine, January 1955.

British postwar modernity.

http://www.open2.net/modernity/

Architects, mostly emigres, who had a profound effect (for good and for worse) on British post-war architecture.

Including Wells Coats' Lawn Road Flats (Isokon Building):



and Berthold Lubetkin, designer (with Ove Arup) of the Penguin inclosure at London Zoo:



See also: http://www.wellscoates.org and http://www.c20society.org.uk/

Paul Rand.

http://www.commarts.com/CA/feapion/rand

Saul Bass.

http://www.saulbass.net/

Interactive gallery of many of his movie title sequences:

http://www.notcoming.com/saulbass/index2.php









There's a short film compilation DVD available with an Bass interview on it:
Amazon.com
Amazon.co.uk

A typical customer review:

Quote:
30 minutes of Saul Bass talking straight into the camera, explaining how he came up with his famous title sequences for IT'S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD and MAN WITH THE GOLDEN ARM. He talks about 10 different title sequences, most of which I had never seen before but which are all including in their full length (except WESTSIDE STORY and MAD, MAD, which Bass himself said had to be shorted or we'd be here all night). But since I've watched this piece, I'm seeing these films all over cable and watching them just to see if the films are as good as Bass's title sequence! P.S. The Bass piece was clearly made in the late '70s (Bass's shirt has huge collars!). P.S. #2 There's many other great pieces on this DVD (an Eames piece, a montage experimental film from the 1940s, and some recent festival hits). But for my money, BASS ON TITLES alone is worth buying this DVD.

And it's cheap!

Cipe Pineles.

50's art director of 'Seventeen' and 'Charm' magazine.
http://www.aiga.org/content.cfm?contentalias=cipepineles









Also:
George Lois of 'Esquire' magazine:
http://www.aiga.org/content.cfm?contentalias=georgelois
Alexy Brodovitch:
http://www.aiga.org/content.cfm?ContentID=670
Lester Beall:
http://www.aiga.org/content.cfm?ContentID=660
William Golden:
http://www.aiga.org/content.cfm?ContentID=668

Julian House CD covers.
http://rateyourmusic.com/lists/list_view/list_id_is_13749

Tadahiro Uesugi.
http://www10.big.or.jp/~tuesugi/

A master of composition, possibly the finest illustrator in the world right now.

An amazing combination of Bob Peak and Miroslav Sasek.

Eleanor Grosch.

http://www.eleanorgrosch.com/

Luca Tieri.

Italian cartoonist. So good I hate him.

http://www.lucatieri.com/

Lefor-Openo.

Lefor-Openo was the pseudonym employed by 60's French designer/illustrators Marie-Claire Lefort and Marie-Francine Oppeneau.

This is a fairly extensive site displaying the full range of their work in advertising and political posters of the sixties, cards, blotters, ashtrays and other objects.

It is interesting that Sasek, Blair (and Miller, Scarry, Gergely et al), Gree and Lefor-Openo were developing sympathetic styles simultaneously in their respective countries.

We even had our own "Mary Blair" influenced books in the UK.

There's evidence of the influence of Naive, Primitive and Folk Art in all their work I guess, but it's all so well realised that it led me to believe there was a single source for all of it.

I just find it so appealing. Like Schulz painting in the style of Matisse or Modigliani...or something.

Toru Fukuda.

My new favourite illustrator, the truly spectacular Toru Fukuda, now has his own website.HUNDREDS of drawings on his site. Like Abner Graboff mixed with Mister Rossi.






So influenced by Fukuda am I that I managed to rip off one of his drawings without ever seeing it before:



My mate JaKe has the same agent as Toru in Japan. I found Fukuda's work on their agent's website. Actually, there's lots of interesting artists on their books, such as Cozy Tomato, Masahiro Takase, Takeshi Terayama, and Toshiyuki Hirata. The influence of mid-20th Century American and European artists is very evident. Anyway, take a browse.

Danger: Diabolik!
Mucho Screengrabs.
Excellent Article.
Currently my favourite movie.

Directed by Mario Bava in 1967, Danger: Diabolik is, my opinion, the best comicbook adaption ever.

Sure, it doesn't make me cry (really!) like Richard Donner's Superman the movie, but it captures most accurately everything that makes action/adventure comics exciting without reduction to campery or 'what if this happened in the real world' banalities.

Bava had previously been involved in the direction of low budget horror and fantasy movies, typically budgeted at around $120,000. When Italian movie mogul Dino De Laurentis offered him a $3million budget to make 'Diabolik', Bava went wild...and spent $400,000 of it. So used was he to using shortcuts, matte paintings, forced perspective and 'in camera' special effects that he was able to complete the movie and return the change.

The whole set's a painting!

The plane's a paper cut-out!

Bava's camera effectively mimics the composition, sense of depth, colour and movement that artists of the time such as Alex Toth and Jim Steranko were recreating in their 2-D comics artwork.

The two leads, John Phillip Law and Marisa Mell are also terrific. They don't so much act as embody their roles. Real-life lovers at the the time, they share a papable on-screen chemistry. They look fab in all their various costume changes, from Diabolik's leather catsuit, to Eva's orange hotpant ensemble.

Did I mention the score's by Morricone?
As was common with Italian soundtracks at the time, the loungecore title theme is divided into three movements and is repeated in different arrangements during the movie, a love theme, an action and a comedy arrangement.

Sadly the mastertapes were destroyed in a fire so no soundtrack has ever been officially released. All that remains is the hotly sought-after vinyl single release of the main theme, 'Deep Down' and a semi-official bootleg CD derived from the Japanese laserdisc release.

Deep Down (45rpm) MP3.

Charading Chauffeurs in Wait MP3.

Money Orgy MP3.

Valmont's Go-Go Pad MP3.

Underwater Wah-Wah MP3.

Gainsbourg and some other stuff.

I'm really into 60s french Yé-yé pop and psychedelic funk at the moment, specifically the work of Serge Gainsbourg.


My flatmate gave me a 4 1/2 hour Gainsbourg DVD for my birthday, so now I'm hooked.
The clip for 'Monsieur William' has to be seen to be believed. Gainsbourg sings/talks in a garden machinery showroom while what looks like a go-go dancing version of the 'Sourgrapes Bunch' from the 'Banana Spilts' point accusatively at him.



I'm also obsessed with with an album called 'Les Monde Fableux Des Yamasuki'. It's music written in 1971 for a french choreography project to promote French/Japanese cultural relations. A French school choir were taught to sing Japanese phonetically over Judo yelps, waa-waa fuzz guitar and proto hip-hop beats. It's like listening to a rock opera based around 'Everybody Was Kung-fu Fightin' or the theme tune to 'Hong Kong Phooey'.

UPDATE: MP3 now available for download - Yamasuki. Thanks, Finder's Keepers!


Also: 'L'Enfant Assassin Des Mouches', a concept album by Jean-Claude Vannier with text by Gainsbourg. Vannier was Gainsbourg's arranger on 'Histoire De Melody Nelson' and collaborator on the 'Cannabis' soundtrack and it shows. Also evident is the thumbprint he left on the recordings Brigitte Fontaine and Michel Polnareff made with him. Somewhat unclassifiable, kinda funky, kinda scary, big strings, big piano, big choirs, makes all current music seem unambitious. You can dance to it too!