The Man Who Laughs

Released from Eureka Entertainment, this classic silent film garners a new restoration in 4K as a part of the label's ongoing Masters of Cinema series.

Made in 1928, the film was made by Paul Leni famous German Expressionist director from the early 1920s and his cinematographer Gilbert Warrenton who had made The Cat and the Canary (1927). This film is considered an early entry into Universal Studios now famous purple patch of horror movie classics under the stewardship of producer Carl Laemmle. From the studio head down, along with art director Charles Hall and make up guru Jack Pierce this collaboration was married with a defining performance at its centre by Conrad Veidt.

Veidt plays Gwynplaine, a carnival performer whose face is mutilated into a permanent ghoulish grin by his executed father's royal court enemies. Gwynplaine struggles through life with blind Dea (Mary Philbin) as his companion, and despite his disfigurement Gwynplaine still considers himself unworthy of Dea's affection.

The make up on Veidt's role has been acknowledged as direct inspiration for the first portrayal of the Joker in the DC Comics of Batman in 1940 and has become common place in screen portrayals through the years culminating in Heath Ledger's Oscar winning turn in The Dark Knight (2008).

Featuring moments of humour, tragedy, doomed romance and swashbuckling fight scenes, The Man Who Laughs remains as one of the most stylish entries into the American silent cinema era. With the sound era about to burst prominently onto the scene and the monsters of Universal pictures being able to talk come 1930-31 with Bela Lugosi as Dracula and Boris Karloff as Frankenstein's monster; it is wonderful to see the richness and detail within the film's production from costume to sets to narrative construction.

The film has been restored from Universal's 4K transfer to Blu-ray and features a score by the Berklee School of Music along with featurettes by horror expert Kim Newman and a booklet by Travis Crawford and Richard Combs.

The Man Who Laughs is available now on Blu-Ray from Eureka Entertainment

When The Dead Speak - Sheila Bugler

The second novel by Eastbourne based novelist Sheila Bugler out from Canelo

Bugler turned some heads with her debut novel I Could Be You released at the start of this year (which seems like ages ago), featuring a gripping page-turning tale set in and around the Southern coastal stretch of Eastbourne with train trips to South London.

This time Bugler takes a tale that is very much based upon you never really know what goes on in your own town and how secrets stay with families.

Dee Doran returns, typically tenacious and takes it upon herself to find out what has happened to a missing Polish immigrant set against a police investigation of a young woman, which her boyfriend detective cannot work on due to a conflict of interest.

Told with real care and precision by Bugler who builds out from the relationships we hold dear, it is key to see how relationships are tested by a see-all community and how such relationship is held in public view.

Again featuring a strong female protagonist, Bugler weaves a narrative that is gripping and finishes strong after a somewhat slow beginning, akin to her contemporary and Canelo stable mate, Marion Todd

For fans of Fiona Barton's work, this is a novel that can be devoured in quick time.

When The Dead Speak is out on July 9th from Canelo 

Lies To Tell - Marion Todd

The 3rd book in the DI Clare Mackay series is released from Canelo on 25th June, written by Marion Todd

Marion Todd is a Scottish writer, which is perhaps wrong to put here in that stable of Scotland as a writer, but the book she writes is so of the region that it makes sense to attach that stigma to her.  Todd is also what you would consider no spring chicken, and is a writer making up for lost time.

Her Clare Mackay character has now appeared in three books, and each book has appeared within the last 15 months in a brilliant period of publishing by Canelo which they have done before with MJ Lee's DI Ridpath series which has had four releases in as many years.

This is not unusual for writers to be prolific, John Grisham and Lee Child the biggest selling writers on the planet release a new work like clockwork with James Patterson operating now a factory line of consumption for thriller readers.

Yet, this is not like pulp fiction or dime novels, Todd is writing a character that is both relatable, honest and eye-opening; to get a woman of a certain age writing about a woman of a certain age who is good at her profession yet struggling with the perception that she should be settling down for a family in the eyes of other people and society.

Mackay showed in the second book In Plain Sight, that she is an industrious individual, pragmatic and believable, respected by her peers in the pursuit of rescuing an abducted child.

Lies To Tell finds Mackay again at the crossroads of her relationship status, her love Geoffrey (a professor) has moved to Boston for his work and Mackay is enjoying her work, work is busy as always in the police force yet the action picks up straight away with her being picked up by her superior Alan to go to a meeting with a mysterious computer specialist Gayle, who may or may not know about a possible leak in the St. Andrews squad in relation to an ongoing trial.

Gayle asks to be positioned in the headquarters to try and sniff out the leak, then a sub-plot of students going missing yet with lots of money in their bank accounts open up a can of worms.  This is coupled with Mackay succumbing to temptation with Alan her superior, and becoming friendly with Gayle. If Todd did not take the plot so seriously, the narrative of Mackay having two very heavy sessions at home would be played for comedy yet Mackay knows this is a break in character and a sign of weakness which her partner, loyal Chris mentions to her.

Personally, this reader found the book a bit harder to get into compared to the two previous books written by Todd, this may have been my personal circumstances yet my adage is start slowly but finish strong especially in crime or thriller tomes - and this rings true of the plot for this novel with Todd cleverly painting this ominous air of paranoia and fear for Mackay as she gets deeper into understanding the source of the leak and for this Todd should be praised. The ending is dynamic and gripping which is exactly what you need and for this reader expects of her after three novels now.

Lies To Tell is out on 25th June from Canelo Press.

Galaxians - Chemical Reaction

The second album from Leeds disco funk trio, Galaxians, out via Stargaze, on 26th June.

During the lockdown period and Covid-19 crisis, the music I have reviewed has been mostly works of internal reflection and contemplation, there has not been that music which has been reactionary in a sense of letting your hair down. We forget that the weather has been glorious throughout this period of personal isolation with temperatures soaring to nearly 30 degrees.

This new album release from Leeds' Galaxians is the album this period of prolonged sunshine has been asking for, a burst of potent sunshine that we need for these periods of barbecues and gardening.

Starting off with the title track not merely as a statement of intent, it is a statement of direct persuasiveness, Chemical Reaction is a jolt of five plus minutes of funk that does not give you the vocals of Emma Mason until two plus minutes into the track. The track is a burst of vibrant energy full of retrospective sounds but full of influence and the DIY scene.

Mason along with Matt Woodward (drums) and Jed Skinner (synths) are a band that they themselves refer to as fuelled by 'too much coffee and too many donuts'.  It is this carefree nature that feeds into the tracks ranging from 'Heartbreaker' about female empowerment to 'Not the Money' about working for the pride of working.

This harkens back to old-school summer vibes of Montell Jordan, Coolio yet with the influence of Roisin Murphy in the vocal delivery of Mason; there is the 80s post-disco funk of Evelyn King for example along with boogie, garage and basslines aplenty.

Tracks remind this listener of that other great disco album of the 21st Century, that of the Scissor Sisters debut album which had that infusion of pop and disco cred, this is more akin to that band's apex along with Moloko - a titanic female lead vocalist with cool production chops to match.

Chemical Reaction is out from June 26th and is available here.

My thanks to One Beat PR for the review opportunity.

Criss Cross

One of the more underrated film noir movies is released by Eureka Entertainment as part of the Masters of Cinema series

Criss Cross was made in 1949 and marked the reunion of sorts of the creative team that had made the 1946 classic The Killers. This is also directed by Robert Siodmak, stars Burt Lancaster with music orchestration by Miklos Rosza.

Criss Cross tells the story of Steve (Lancaster) a man who has moved back to Los Angeles, hoping to move on from a disillusioned marriage to Anna (Yvonne De Carlo) and get back to normality. However, it does not take long for Steve to reconnect with Anna at a former hang out and upon realising she is now the partner of local hoodlum Slim Dundee (Dan Duryea), Steve and Anna begun a torrid affair that may be the end of them.

To cover up the affair, Steve lays a bank heist pan on Dundee where they split the loot 50-50, but the hope being that Steve will double cross Dundee and take all the money and his woman for himself.

Siodmak paints Criss Cross in this familiar battle of light and dark, but also reality and dream like state; Lancaster's drawl of voiceover narration making the audience feel that what they are watching is not merely a tale but unreality - you are never far away from being reminded that this is a film you are watching.  The combative nature of dark trying to ingress upon the natural light spaces is perfectly captured by cinematographer Franz Planer.

Rosza's score is understated also, with dips and troughs of high emotion to subtle sweeps of romance where love can be deadly.

As always in film noir, there is a cynical edge to the narrative and a fatalistic streak to the action; nobody in a true noir can ever be happy and nobody gets away with it.  For all the glamourisation of violence and the appeal of crime, the come uppance is not far away for our protagonists.

Lancaster's screen charm, this coming just three years after his debut in The Killers, shows how quickly he became a star his natural charisma sitting perfectly within the mayhem around him, De Carlo does very well as the femme fatale and she is granted the key speech at the denouement and Duryea is key as the slimy Slim. 

This is such a gripping watch by the film's conclusion culminating in a tense stand-off helped by Siodmak's ability to cast the perfect face to fit the role required.

Criss Cross is out now from Eureka Video.

Gum Country 'Somewhere'

The debut album from the duo of Courtney Gavin (The Courtneys) and multi-instrumentalist Connor Mayer, is released via Bandcamp on June 19th.

The album is a buzz of fuzz, feedback ricocheting off of walls and eardrums a plenty, Garvin’s open-tuned guitar has a warmness reminiscent of The Breeders and Mayer’s accompaniment is the perfect compliment of piercing percussion with gritty guitars.

There is a richness to the melodies being explored by the group, with a mixture of highs and lows in terms of expressions amidst the mundanity of normal life but touching upon love, loss, tennis and gardening.

All topics though are treated with sincerity and her dry delivery helps touch a nerve with the listener be it an instrumental portion of a song that concludes ‘There’s A Crumb’ or the vibrancy of ‘Talking To My Plants’.

In conclusion, this is an album that is ripe for listening and offers plenty of joys amidst the twelve track album. Gum Country are a band to keep an eye on and leaves you salivating at the thought of what they could become in years to come.

From the ferocity of ‘It Lives It Breeds It Feeds’ to the rightly so pomp and circumstance of ‘The Queen Rules’, this album serves as an entry point for punk and indie rock in this most uncertain of years.

The album is available on the band’s bandcamp page here.

My thanks to One Beat PR for the review opportunity.

This review first appeared on Backseat Mafia on 18th June 2020.

Pynch 'Somebody Else'

'Life is strange but at least I get paid' 

The new single from Pynch band is out July 6th from Speedy Wunderground.

A subtle political piece where the message is 'somebody else' the times have caused you to act and feel like someone else, when you are without the routine of everyday life, when it is taken away from you what do you become.

While this has a driving hum to it, there is a melancholy

'I just want to feel something real' - is the rallying cry after the lyrics go back and forth from defiance to being unassured, being uncertain about what you want is the only certain thing in this life currently.

This song is a distant relative of 'Born To Run' and that thread of uncertainty that runs through Springsteen's work or about the individual putting themselves front and centre in his own narrative in reaction to the oppressive society around him.

The video is a kaleidoscope of imagery from walks and activity during the lockdown period mainly in May 2020, so this is a time capsule piece featuring walks across fields, cycling without chains on your bike, harking back to a period of innocence ending on a journey at the lido this mythical place you used to attend when younger and more carefree.

Somebody Else is out on 6th July as a single.