How Edgar G. Ulmer, the director of DETOUR and THE BLACK CAT made two cool Ukrainian-Language films for a megalomaniacal Ukrainian/Canadian/American impresario-dancer-film producer-thief. "THESHOWMAN AND THE UKRAINIAN CAUSE" is a terrific biographical portrait of Vasile Avramenko by Orest T. Martynowych that sheds new light upon ethnic cinema in North America - Book Review By Greg Klymkiw

The Showman and the Ukrainian Cause (2014)
Folk Dance, Film and the Life of Vasile Avramenko
University of Manitoba Press, 219 pages
By Orest T. Martynowych

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Anyone who knows and loves cinema is a huge fan of the brilliant Edgar G. Ulmer. His most memorable titles include the nasty film noir classic Detour, which he made for the mega-poverty-row studio PRC (Producers Releasing Corporation), People on Sunday, the astonishing co-directorial effort with Robert Siodmak (a strangely beautiful experimental docudrama from a Billy Wilder script and Fred Zinneman handling the moving camera duties) and the grimly black comic shocker The Black Cat for Universal Pictures (starring Boris Karloff, uttering some of the most ridiculous Black Mass incantations in movie history: "in vino verities", "in wine is truth" and my personal favourite, "reductio ad absurdum est", "it is shown to be impossible").

Before directing films, Ulmer had an amazing career working in the art departments under the tutelage of such greats as Rouben Mamoulian, F.W. Murnau, Clarence Brown, Fritz Lang, Max Reinhardt, Erich von Stroheim, G.W Pabst and even Sergei Eisenstein on the ill-fated Que Viva Mexico. The list, frankly, goes on and on, plus the influence of these great artists clearly provided so much inspiration for Ulmer.

Unfortunately, Ulmer's promising major studio career began and ended with The Black Cat. Ulmer was forced to reshoot many sequences to tone down the film's utter insanity, but mostly to add a sense of audience-identification with the floridly overwrought characters. This was, perhaps, not his most egregious act since he acquiesced without much protest and handled it prodigiously (still maintaining a wildly nutty sense of expressionism to the piece). Ulmer's aptitude for maintaining his voice whilst attending to the demands of marketplace concerns held him in very good stead throughout his strange and wonderful career.

Ulmer's biggest "crime" was falling in love with the wrong person. Universal topper Carl Laemmle Jr. viciously blacklisted the filmmaker for daring to woo, then win the hand of his script girl who'd once been married to the mad mogul's favourite nephew. As preposterous as this sounds, Ulmer was eventually forced to make a living on low budget items for independent production companies. This is how Hollywood worked (and still does, actually). Ulmer, however, was probably the real winner here. His wife Shirley not only proved to be the love of his life, but she became his valued creative partner for well over forty years.

Immediately after this, Ulmer was hired to direct From Nine to Nine, a British "quota quickie" (many of which were made in Commonwealth Dominions) in Montreal. The budget and arduous working conditions on this film (gloriously restored in the 90s by the brilliant Canadian archivist John J.D. Turner), in addition to horrendously huge medical expenditures upon their return to the USA, forced Ulmer and Shirley into abject poverty.

Little did Ulmer realize that his deliverance from total obscurity and poverty would rest with one of the most forgotten movie producers in movie history, a bonkers Ukrainian emigre by the name of Vasile Avramenko.

* * * * *

"The Showman and the Ukrainian Cause" is the terrific new book by Orest T. Martynowych which combines meticulously researched scholarship with a compulsive prose style. It handily delivers superb non-fiction literature detailing the life and career of a visionary madman devoted to maintaining and promoting Ukrainian culture throughout the world, in spite of its repression under both Communism and the intensely rigid policies of Russification in post-revolutionary Soviet-dominated Ukraine.

Vasile Avramenko, a Ukrainian-born dancer, choreographer, teacher and eventually, film producer, led a mostly itinerant and beleaguered life - saying and doing whatever he had to do in order to raise funds for his occasionally brilliant and most often, cockamamie cultural initiatives. He was a thief - pure and simple, but one gets the impression that his desires were less linked to lining his own pockets, save for when he needed to live and continue his mad work. The bottom line is that he was a scattered, often-megalomaniacal, truly-visionary and irredeemably poor businessman.

He had dreams though, and his loftiest fantasia was to create an industrial and cultural model for Ukrainian-language cinema in Hollywood, one which would generate motion picture product for Ukrainians amongst the diaspora as well as opportunities for Ukrainian artists in North America, on-and-of-screen, to ply their trade.

Alas, he pretty much bolloxed this up, but what he did, was open a door for one of America's greatest directors to ply his trade and become, during the 30s, the true king of "ethnic" cinema in America. Ulmer made two Ukrainian-language features for Avramenko, Natalka Poltavka and Cossacks in Exile, both rich in culture, folklore and as dazzlingly directed as one could want, especially given the cut-rate budgets afforded to the work. Avramenko's belief in Ulmer led to his long career generating cinema aimed at the Jewish diaspora as well as African-America audiences.

Ulmer's work in this field eventually led to his long-term contract with PRC which allowed him a great deal of creative control and opportunities to generate a (mostly) solid body of work, including the aforementioned Detour.

Martynowych's book allows for a fascinating glimpse into the world of financing, producing and marketing ethnic cinema in North America as well as a detailed look at how Avramenko's productions fell under the horrendous spectre of Anti-Semitism when noted Ukrainians including, sadly for me, the musical impresario Olexandr Koshets, whose name has long been affixed to my late, great Uncle Volodomyr Klymkiw's important Ukrainian choir, the O. Koshetz Memorial Choir in Winnipeg.

Koshetz hated Avramenko and led the charge with public criticisms of the films based on his nasty, spurious suggestions that they could not have been purely "Ukrainian", replete with inaccuracies and were instead "little Russian" since the director and many of Avramenko's creative team were Jewish. Even Avramenko and Ulmer's staunchest defender was discredited by Koshetz as being s "Ukrainian-Jew" and Avramenko himself, mostly due to his megalomania, would occasionally downplay Ulmer's contributions.

Still, Ulmer directed the hell out of these pictures and in spite of spotty returns at the box office, they garnered wildly enthusiastic reviews in the mainstream press. Elements do exist out there for these important films and I do hope that specialty companies, either the award winning Milestone Films or Kino-Lorber, will undertake proper new 4K transfers and Blu-Ray releases of these two fine works in Ulmer's canon.

In the meantime, though, we have Martynowych's great book. It offers top-of-the-line materials for Slavic Studies and Film Studies scholars in addition to pretty much anyone interested in one hell of a fascinating tale of a genuinely visionary nutcase like Vasile Avramenko.

The Film Corner Rating: ***** 5-Stars

The Showman and the Ukrainian Cause is available from University of Manitoba Press. In Canada, order directly from this link HERE
. In the United States, order directly from this link HERE
. In the UK, order directly from this link HERE
. Any one of these links will suffice for anyone in the world to order by clicking on any of the aforementioned links. Doing so on these links, assists with the ongoing maintenance of The Film Corner.

TAB HUNTER CONFIDENTIAL: 25th Anniversary Inside Out Toronto LGBT Film Festival 2015 - Review By Greg Klymkiw

Tab Hunter Confidential (2015)
Dir. Jeffrey Schwarz

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Jeffrey Schwarz is one of America's stellar documentary filmmakers. He's contributed an important body of work on cinema as well as gay pop culture. With a solid career generating superb specialty product for television and added value materials for home entertainment releases, he's become especially notable for his slickly produced feature documentaries Vito (a profoundly moving portrait of gay cinema historian Vito Russo) and I Am Divine (the lovely, entertaining biographical portrait of everyone's favourite 300 lb. transvestite and John Waters muse).

Based on the hugely successful and insightful autobiographical book Tab Hunter Confidential, Schwarz has another winner to add to his canon of essential work.

Tab Hunter was one of the biggest movie heartthrobs of the 50s, a huge music recording star and a damn fine actor to boot who was groomed by Warner Bros. to make them a lot of money, but seldom allowing him the opportunity to grow as an actor. Gorgeous, blonde, kind-hearted and affable in real life as he appeared on screen, Hunter was, like so many gay actors, forced to keep his sexuality deep in the closet in order to maintain his spot at the top of the box-office.

When he eventually changed agents to assist him with getting more challenging roles, his first talent rep released information to the scandal press about Hunter's brief brush with the law (which had been repressed quite ably) wherein he'd been found in the (gasp!) company of homosexuals. Hunter was so beloved by his studio - Jack Warner in particular - because of the oodles of substantial grosses he pulled in, that even this was reasonably covered over by the powerful studio so he could keep making them money.

Unfortunately, Hunter extricated himself from his Warner's contract to become independent so he could more ably dictate better roles for himself. Without the protection and regular cheques from the studio, he quickly became persona non grata in the industry and was relegated to working in even more slight product than ever before. He eventually stopped working altogether in the movies and became a stalwart on the dinner theatre circuit. It brought in steady money, but was also drudgery in terms of both the travel and non-stop demand of daily live performance in front of thousands of audiences slurping back globs of grotesque comestibles at the all-you-can-eat troughs of this horrendous circuit used to capitalize on actors who were "past their prime".

Eventually, Hunter was back on top as a film cult personality thanks to his great work in John Waters's Polyester and the gay-tinged spaghetti western spoof Lust in the Dust. Again though, he faced obscurity after this brief resurgence and Hunter turned to his first love, horses, and became a master of equestrian competition - something he continues with to this very day.

It's a great story and Schwarz juggles all the balls (as it were) at his disposal to create a significant document of the studio period in Hollywood and the burgeoning years of independent cinema. Perhaps even more meaningful is the frank look at what it meant to be gay in America and Hollywood when homosexuality was not merely frowned upon, but considered criminal deviant activity.

Using a star studded cast of interviewees and the best selection of film clips and archival materials money can buy, Schwarz is also granted unfettered access to Hunter himself. In a series of penetrating interviews, we learn about Hunter's abusive father, loving mother, his devotion to God and the Church, his heartbreaking experience with the nasty repression of Catholicism and, of course, his often scintillating, but secret love life.

On the surface, he was paired up by the studio with the gorgeous Natalie Wood and the two of them were "lovers" in the eyes of the world, accompanying each other to a myriad of events, parties, premieres and pretty much anywhere paparazzi were present to grab fodder for fan magazines. Hunter's recollection of these dates with Wood and other female stars provide deeply loving relationships, albeit of the purely platonic kind (though there is one "straight" story that offers us much in the way of genuine tears).

As for the fellas, we're privy to Hunter's secret relationships with other gay men in the industry, most notably Anthony Perkins; as intense and deep a love relationship one could imagine twixt anyone and yet one which crashed and burned when Hunter was betrayed professionally by Perkins.

Tab Hunter Confidential has anything any movie lover could want, but at the end of the day, it also offers an extremely crucial history of gay life from the 1950s and beyond. It's also worth noting that all the interviews with the celebrity experts are beautifully rendered by Schwarz and deliver a lineup of people who are both entertaining and magnanimous.

The one exception, however, is an interview with Clint Eastwood. I've always admired him as an actor and director, but frankly, he comes across as a complete asshole - at least that was my feeling. Schwarz only keeps this one bit with Eastwood in the film which, suggests to me that Eastwood must have been an even bigger asshole in material that found its way to the cutting room floor.

Then again, some might find Eastwood's remarks funny and the real reason he's represented as such. I don't know. You can be the judge. The movie was so moving, that Eastwood's bit just stuck out like a sore thumb to me.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: **** 4 Stars

Tab Hunter Confidential is playing at the Inside Out 2015 Toronto LGBT Film Festival. For further info, please visit the festival's website by clicking HERE.

NATAN - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Toronto Jewish Film Festival 2014 (TJFF 2014) - French Cinema's Pioneer

I AM NOT BERNARD NATAN, I AM A FILM OF BERNARD NATAN

NATAN'S LEGACY
FRENCH CINEMA

Natan (2013) ****
Dir. David Cairns and Paul Duane
Writ. David Cairns, Prod. Paul Duane

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Antisemitism is responsible for erasing the memory of Bernard Natan. He was, in many ways, the Father of French Cinema as we now know and love it. This visionary Romanian-Jew who made Paris his home from childhood onwards was eventually the victim of Nazi genocide in Auschwitz, but if there can be anything more horrific than that, the legacy of Bernard Natan was first tarnished by a series of Vichy-and-Nazi-orchestrated smear campaigns, prosecutions and persecutions, but has further been obliterated from the history books by the sullying at the hands of American academic Joseph W. Slade at Ohio University who proclaimed and furthered the myth that Natan was not only a pornographer, but in fact, acted in the hard-core films he purportedly produced, engaging in on-screen sexual acts including bestiality.

To say this is appalling is an understatement of enormous proportions and we must bless and kiss the ground walked on by filmmakers David Cairns and Paul Duane for making the film Natan and righting the wrongs that so many have never bothered to even think about doing.

The film details a bevy of important facts about Natan, beginning with his arrival in Paris as Natan Tannenzaft and his early years working as a lab technician and projectionist in the burgeoning motion picture industry. Changing his name to Bernard Natan, we're given what few facts remain about Natan's involvement in pornography and frankly, other than being charged and convicted with several other individuals for the distribution of obscene materials, it's clear the young man was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Besides, even if he had been peripherally or directly involved in the manufacture of pornographic films, one could surely condemn a long list of important filmmakers for such scabrous activities including everyone from Francis Ford Coppola's early foray into film via a nudie feature The Bellboy and the Playgirl, to a highly esteemed Canadian mogul who once demanded that a young art-film director in his charge add more "woman on woman" action to his film because "the man [who goes to the movies] likes the woman with the woman, but more importantly, the woman [who goes to the movies] loves the woman with the woman, too." (And full disclosure, lest some readers charge me with being the pot calling the kettle black, I co-wrote and produced the controversial Bubbles Galore, a feature length satire of pornography starring Nina Hartley, Annie Sprinkle, Penthouse Pet Shauny Sexton, a whole whack o' strippers as well as some of Canada's finest legit actors Daniel MacIvor, Tracy Wright, Thea Gill and many others.)

Natan's real achievements quickly eclipsed all the aforementioned pornography nonsense. Not only did Natan build a huge sound studio BEFORE sound, he pioneered several aspects of film technology, art and the business of making, distributing and exhibiting film. In 1929, his company Pathé-Natan was born when he purchased the reigning French studio and in spite of the Stock Market Crash and subsequent Great Depression, Natan took Pathé to unbelievable heights.

Profits were huge, Natan began to back several filmmakers to produce some of the greatest epics in French cinema's history (Joan of Arc, Les Miserables) and he invested huge amounts of capital into the research and development of such groundbreaking cinematic technical developments as anamorphic lenses and cinemascope. Natan was, without question a visionary who contributed to the explosion of French Cinema as a major artistic force that created indigenous product for a French-speaking market, thus putting a major damper on Hollywood's desire to dominate the world marketplace (to an extent that the studios predicted "English" would become the leading world language).

Astonishingly, when Natan heard that pioneering French filmmaker Georges Méliès had been reduced to bankruptcy, he sent regular cheques to the filmmaker at the little toyshop he worked in.

BERNARD NATAN
A MAN ERASED by
ANTI-SEMITISM

The film argues quite successfully that Natan's devotion to FRENCH cinema was unparalleled and that the true groundwork was laid by his vision and genius. Alas, vision and genius invite enemies and when several members of the Pathé board (one of whom was tied to the Nazis in Germany and others who become dirty Vichy pigs when the Nazis invaded), decided Natan had to be taken apart - piece by piece. Not only was Natan charged with fraud, but a disgraceful campaign attacking his Jewish roots and questioning his French citizenship was instituted without mercy. Natan was eventually imprisoned and it was during this time that the Nazis and Vichy took control. Natan was singled out in Nazi Documents as a Jew, a pornographer and directly responsible for sullying the French people and he was released, only to be sent to the concentration camp of Auschwitz.

We learn that after he'd been murdered by the Nazis, the French Government tried and convicted him even further and in absentia (death). We learn that in France, there are no monuments to Natan. Even more egregious is that the famed French film school La femis exists on the first sound studio built in France, Natan's studio, yet there is nothing to honour him and none of the students have any idea that their school is on sacred ground, nor do they even know who Bernard Natan was.

Natan is a deeply and profoundly moving film that expertly seeks to place the great man of French Cinema where he truly belongs. Cairns and Duane create a brilliant and downright imaginative artistic vessel to tell Natan's story. The film is narrated, NOT by Natan, but by the film itself. The documentary is personified as "a FILM about Bernard Natan" and we are led through his life story by a mysterious figure who appears first as Natan, but is transformed, through the magic of cinema into a figure wearing what appears to be a paper bag over his head, one which has been configured in an odd Papier Mâché mask resembling Natan. The "film" narrates and is skillfully interspersed with a series of superb interviews with a variety of cinema experts, Natan's surviving family, a wealth of archival footage, photos and clips as well as from Natan's output as a production chief.

Yes, we also see the offending pornographic material and though some of the shots bear a slight resemblance to Natan, it's also pointed out how the dates of production are incongruous with Natan's genuine rise to power. No studio head would need or want to be making hard-core pornography.

The footage detailing the anti-Semitic slags against Natan during his fall from grace are heartbreaking beyond belief - so much so, that one is not only shocked by what occurred in the past, but that there's been so little done until this film to restore Natan's place in cinema history.

Having a "film about Natan" telling the tale isn't the only interesting approach, but it's a stroke of mad genius that Natan's image be cloaked with a receptacle to hide his identity. It somehow parallels the idiotic assertions of the aforementioned academic Joseph Slade who appears on camera reading from his seemingly spurious paper which declares that Natan "unquestionably" generated hardcore pornography, appeared in it and "bled [Pathé] to ruin". The film presents this as the utter nonsense it is and Slade comes off like some stuffed shirt bonehead who defends his paper by declaring that the films that came in his possession once belonged to actor Michel (Boudu Saved From Drowning) Simon who not only owned the largest collection of pornography in France, but "said" the films were made by Natan. Someone "said" this. What a pathetic tidbit to base this academic assassination on.

"Scholarship" by the - ahem - esteemed
Professor Joseph Slade

Finally, Natan is an absolute must-see film for anyone who cares about French Cinema, but furthermore, anyone who cares about cinema period. Without him, this God-given art might not even exist as it does now. This is a film that changes all that. It is as important a work as it is a lovingly crafted little work of art unto itself.

My only quibble is that I'd have enjoyed seeing Professor Slade adorned with a huge dunce cap over his entire head - a huge white cone with eyeholes cut out and resembling a Ku Klux Klan hood.

Well, I can at least dream about it.

Natan makes its Canadian Premiere at the Toronto Jewish Film Festival 2014 (TJFF) For tickets and info, visit the festival's website HERE.