Jalopnik recently did a post about the so-called 8 greatest Mustangs from racing history and obviously there were some real classics in the list, if you know what I’m saying.

Take a look at this 1965 Ford Mustang A/FX for instance, a Mustang that was commissioned by Ford and built with express intent of drag racing. Exactly 11 were built, half with 427 cammers, and sold to drag racers for a princely sum of $1.

Or what do you think of this 1965 Ford Mustang GT-350R that raced in the SCCA series from 1965-1967.

And of course not to miss a 1970 Mustang BOSS 302, that raced the Trans Am from 1970 to 1973. Not my personal favorite Stang but sure looks mean

And one commenter shows us this Coca-Cola BOSS 302 that got 101 wins out of 150 odd starts when it was still racing.

And last but not least – a little bit more extreme – this ‘Trojan Horse’ another commenter on Jalopnik asks: “How did you forget this one?”

Don’t tell me you don’t fancy a good old classic race now

Check Jalopnik for the other – more recent – great Mustangs from racing history.

As I’ve noted a million times before, the fall of 1970 is where time really begins for me—when the record charts first became the calendar of my life. I heard the season like the 10-year-old I was, gravitating toward my generation’s answer to the Jonas Brothers or Hannah Montana—the Partridge Family and Dawn. But while I was buying that stuff, I was also buying “Love the One You’re With” and “Domino,” and digging “Tears of a Clown” and “Share the Land” and “Immigrant Song.” And in the lifetime since, I’ve discovered the context in which those first beloved records appeared. And there’s context aplenty on the survey from WIXY in Cleveland, dated November 27, 1970:

3. “Back to the River”/The Damnation of Adam Blessing (up from 4). A Cleveland band from the same scene that produced the James Gang and the Raspberries, the Damnation of Adam Blessing made three albums between 1969 and 1971 before renaming itself Glory and eventually disbanding. The group’s bassist, Ray Benich, has an extensive website covering his and the group’s history, in which he mentions that he did nearly 18 years in prison (1982-2000) for a domestic shooting, “despite having no prior criminal record (except for that Glory album).” You gotta respect a man able to retain his sense of humor after all that. I’ve cooked up and discarded a whole string of metaphors describing what “Back to the River” sounds like (crappy example: “like ‘Run Through the Jungle’ done by Iron Butterfly, only without the organ”), so click the link, see if you can do better, and share in the comments

10. “No Matter What”/Badfinger (up from 15). Here’s a record that loses something in pristine stereo sound. It’s meant to be processed for AM radio and blasted, preferably from a few hundred miles away, into a little speaker you can hold in your hand. It was produced by Beatles’ road manager Mal Evans, and it should have made Phil Spector proud (although it more likely made him envious and bitter).

12. “Only Love Can Break Your Heart”/Neil Young (down from . According to Young’s biographer, the After the Gold Rush album, from which this comes, was Young’s attempt to merge the sounds of Crazy Horse with Crosby Stills Nash and Young. If so, “Only Love” comes pretty close. Here’s Young with Graham Nash and David Crosby performing it live in 1970:

Plus, it’s a waltz, which you hardly ever got on the Top 40.

13. “You Better Think Twice”/Poco (down from 10). The clip below is from a TV series called Something Else, hosted by comedian/impressionist John Byner that ran in the early 70s. It featured an impressive array of then-current stars, many of whom didn’t appear on television much, including the Flying Burrito Brothers, Canned Heat, the Ides of March, Richie Havens, Melanie, the Turtles, CCR, Taj Mahal, and others. I’ve been able to find precious little about this show online, but I intend to keep looking.

19. “Be My Baby”/Andy Kim (up from 27). This is one of the greatest made-for-AM-radio productions of all time—the echo, the ringing piano chords, and the skittering bass guitar, and that’s just the first 10 seconds. And whatever’s playing the instrumental break before the final refrain—string section? Theremin?—came sizzling out of your little speaker and straight into your brain. I can’t hear it without thinking about how WLS sounded at night—or about the 10-year-old me, listening on one little speaker, 135 miles away.

“No Matter What”/Badfinger (buy it here)

SEEN on Monday’s edition of The Black Commentator:

After the Mustang Forest… we got the Mustang Ranch, and it can be yours for $700.000 (well if it ain’t sold already that is).

It’s a shame to see such a collection of fine cars rot away, anyway here’s the story on how it was discovered by a reader of Jalopnik:

“I have just returned from a vacation somewhere tropical. On the way back form a day excursion I chose an alternate way back to the highway. Ok, I made wrong turn somewhere and rolled with it. This "scenic route" brought us upon what was recorded by these images. It was my wife who first saw them. "Oh look, Mustangs!" I turned my head in time to see a metric shitload of vintage ponies. I immediately turned around and pulled into the driveway. There was a gentleman in the yard who turned out to be the caretaker for the owner of the house/treasure trove. It turns out that the guy who collected all these cars recently succumbed to cancer and his wife wants all these pretty ponies sold en masse for what is by local standards the princely sum of $700 large (I think there plenty of room for negotiation here).”

More images on Jalopnik.

Well, tomorrow morning, like millions of others here in the U.S., the Texas Gal and I – joined by my mother – will head off for Thanksgiving. In our case, we’ll be going to my sister’s home in the Twin Cities suburb of Maple Grove for turkey dinner with all the trimmings. Our contribution will be a plate of deviled eggs, a dish that’s become a holiday tradition for us since the Texas Gal first brought them along in 2000.

We missed Thanksgiving at my sister’s last year due to some health issues. And the plan to return there got me thinking about the various places I’ve celebrated Thanksgiving over the years.

For years – until I was out of  college, I think – we gathered at my grandparents’ home, first on their farm outside the small town of Lamberton, Minnesota, and then at their home in Lamberton itself. Sometime in the mid-1970s, after Grandma passed on, the Thanksgiving celebration shifted to my parents’ home here in St. Cloud. And after about twenty years there, the annual feast shifted venues again, and my sister and brother-in-law have hosted Thanksgiving since then.

Besides last year’s celebration, I can recall two other Thanksgivings that have found me in different places. In 1980, I think it was, the woman who was then my wife had the idea of hosting Thanksgiving in a restored 1860s cabin owned by friends of hers. We prepared the food in our own home and then moved the entire feast about two miles to the cabin. The food was fine, but the cabin was uncomfortably cold despite the presence of a fireplace. It was an interesting experiment, but I’d rather flip it: I’d be interested in using Nineteenth Century recipes and work from a modern kitchen.

The other Thanksgiving that found me in another place was during the time I spent in Denmark. The Danes don’t celebrate the holiday, of course, but my ladyfriend – another American – and I decided to cook a traditional American Thanksgiving meal for my Danish family and a few other students, both American and Danish.

There was no turkey for sale in Fredericia, so we made do with a couple of chickens. Potatoes were easy enough, as was flour for the gravy. Green beans amandine went well enough after a tussle with the Danish language. Not knowing where the nutcracker was, I looked up the word in my Danish/English dictionary and called my Danish mother at her office. Danish uses some sounds that are, well, foreign to English, so it took some time before she understood that I was trying to say nøddeknækker.

Beyond the linguistic difficulties, the main challenge of the day was the pumpkin pie. We could find neither canned pumpkin nor a fresh pumpkin in Fredericia. Luckily, my ladyfriend had made pumpkin pie from scratch with her mother, and she assured me that an orange winter squash would meet our needs. We cleaned it, cut it up and cooked it with the appropriate seasonings and then baked it in a homemade shell. As dinner came to a close that evening, our Danish guests were a bit puzzled by the pie, but our American guests marveled at how close we’d come to the Thanksgiving dessert they’d all had for years.

That may have been my most memorable Thanksgiving ever. Does that mean it was the best? Well, no. As the fourth Thursday of November comes along year after year, each Thanksgiving somehow seems better than the one before it . . . as long as I share that table with my loved ones, especially the Texas Gal.

A Six-Pack of Thanks
“Now Be Thankful” by Fairport Convention, Island WIP 6089 [1970]
“Thank You” by Led Zeppelin from Led Zeppelin II [1969]
“I Thank You” by Mongo Santamaria from All Strung Out [1969]
“Thank You For The Promises” by Gordon Lightfoot from Shadows [1982]
“Thanks to You” by Jesse Winchester from Humour Me [1988]
“Be Thankful for What You Got (Pt. 1)” by William DeVaughn, Roxbury 0236 [1974]

Of these six, only the Fairport Convention tune really seems to fully address the sentiments of the holiday. The others generally work with only their titles; their content has at best only a glancing connection to the day. But that’s good enough for me.

The Texas Gal and I wish you a joyful Thanksgiving. May you all have many reasons to be thankful.

Ramsey Nasr. Ik moest gisteren onwillekeurig aan hem denken toen ik Leonard Cohen live op DVD zag. 1970, Isle of Wight. Ik weet niet waar het aan lag. De krulletjes en nonchalante ongeschorenheid, denk ik.

Ze hebben meer met elkaar te maken dat je op het eerste zicht zou denken. De een is een halve Palestijn, de ander een hele Jood. Ze schrijven allebei gedichten, maken allebei muziek. De een al wat beter dan de andere. Maar allebei hebben ze iets waardoor je naar hen wilt blijven kijken.

Ik heb maar 2 herinneringen aan Ramsey Nasr. Ik heb namelijk nooit echt iets van hem gelezen, of nooit veel naar hem geluisterd. (Met Cohen ligt dat wel even anders)

De eerste was ergens op Canvas. Nasr vertelde verhalen, mooie verhalen. En Nadia Dala onderbrak hem keer op keer met een irrelevante vraag. Ik wou gewoon dat ze hem liet uitspreken. Sindsdien heb ik een grondige hekel aan Nadia Dala.

De tweede keer was in de KVS. De première van een show van Behoud de Begeerte, met Ramsey Nasr en Mauro Pawlowski in de hoofdrol. De voorstelling was gruwelijk slecht, dat mag gezegd zijn. Het geheel straalde enkel wanhoop uit, met een tikkeltje hysterie en een enkele mooie scene. Pawlowski leek, zoals zo vaak, volledig onvoorbereid (wat hij me zelf ook bevestigde) en Nasr probeerde het hele spel op zijn eentje te redden en redde het niet.

Hoe zou het nu met Ramsey Nasr zijn?

Rio Lobo di Howard HAwks (1970)

Pierre Cordora (Jeorge Rivero): Sai… mi piaci

Shasta Delaney (Jennifer o’Neill): Perchè

Pierre: Perchè tu non piangi

Shasta: Si che piango, mi hai vista

Pierre: Piangevi per il tuo amico e non per te stessa. C’è una bella differenza

—————————————————————————————————————————————————

Sceriffo: Avrei dovuto prenderla stamattina

Cord McNelly (John Wayne): Avresti dovuto provarci.

Taken from Jean-Jacques Perrey’s album Moog Indigo, the French synth master tore up the early 70’s funk sound with this genius cut of Electro-Funk excellence. Yes, we all know it as the sample from “Just to Get A Rep” by Gangstarr but is it not in another league. The guys did well to only “borrow” parts. The full track is too large for anyone but Perrey to contain…

From Discogs
Jean-Jacques Perrey was born in France in 1929. He was studying medecine in Paris when he met George Jenny, inventor of the Ondioline. Quitting medical school, Perrey travelled through Europe demonstrating this keyboard ancestor of the modern synth.
After moving to New York he befriended Robert Moog and became one of the first Moog musicians, creating “far out electronic entertainment”. In 1965 Perrey met Gershon Kingsley, a former accomplice to John Cage. Together, using Ondioline and Perrey’s loops, they created two albums for Vanguard: The In Sound From Way Out (1966) and Kaleidoscopic Vibrations (1967). Perrey & Kingsley collaborated on sound design for radio and television advertising. Perrey returned to France, composing for television, scoring for ballet and continuing medical research into therapeutic sounds for insomniacs.

Conversation Piece (1969 demo).
Conversation Piece (1970 b-side).
Conversation Piece (2000 remake).

[The poor man] feels himself out of the sight of others, groping in the dark. Mankind take no notice of him. He rambles and wanders unheeded. In the midst of a crowd, at church, in the market, at a play, at an execution, or coronation: he is in as much obscurity as he would be in a garret or cellar. He is not disapproved, censured or reproached; he is only not seen.

John Adams, Discourses on Davila.

I get lonesome right in the middle of a crowd.

Elvis Presley.

There have been few songs written about academics, whether tenured or failed. All that comes to mind are REM’s “Sad Professor” and this one, and “Conversation Piece” may not be about an academic at all. An independent scholar, let’s say—a shabby young man with an old man’s habits, who lives above an Austrian grocer: his rug is scattered with the pages of unpublished essays, and he spends his time wandering the streets begrudging life. He may throw himself off a bridge at song’s end.

“Conversation Piece” was Bowie’s most recent composition when he made a demo tape in April 1969 (John Hutchinson calls it “a new one” and Bowie has to prompt him with the opening guitar chords (“G-D-G”).) It’s unlike most of the songs written in this period, which are either love ballads or self-mythical explorations, as it hearkens back to the oddball character sketches of the first Bowie LP, like “Little Bombardier” or “She’s Got Medals.” (That said, some, like Bowie’s manager Ken Pitt, have said the song is fairly autobiographical, a sketch of the frustrated composer and failed pop singer Bowie of 1968.)

Most of all, it captures well the curse of urban anonymity—its title is a cruel joke, the “conversation” only going on in the singer’s head. Once during a hard spell while living in NYC I spent a weekend almost entirely out of doors, going from shop to cafe to library, and realized at some point during it that I had talked to absolutely no one, except maybe to mutter thanks to a ticket-taker or cashier. The sense of moving among a great mass of people and feeling utterly invisible and isolated from them is almost addicting at first, and then it can just sink your soul.

It’s a fairly simple song—three meandering verses, three tight eight-bar choruses (half lyric, half wordless). For the final verse, Bowie uses a standard trick and changes key, bumping all the chords up one step (so while the third line of the verse—for example, “he often calls me down to eat“—has been C/G, it’s now D/A (“and they walk in twos and threes or more“), and so forth). To further the sense that the singer is breaking down, the last verse extends into a faster-paced section with shorter sung phrases until collapsing into the final chorus.

The studio take, recorded during the Space Oddity sessions ca. July-September 1969, was eventually released as the B-side to “The Prettiest Star” in March 1970. It’s unclear why “Conversation Piece” was left off the Space Oddity LP, as it’s stronger than most of the other cuts, and if LP time was an issue, they could’ve shaved at least three minutes off “Memory of a Free Festival” and no one would’ve wept. Over the years, it’s become many people’s favorite Bowie obscurity (Stuart Murdoch seems to have lived in this song at some point).

Bowie revived “Conversation Piece” in 2000 for his scotched LP Toy, and eventually released it on a bonus disc for his 2002 Heathen album. He sings it in a lower register and without much emotion. The flailing scholar of the original recording at least had energy in his desperation; here, all is resigned, empty despair.

Top: Pascal Grob, “Paris, 1969.”

That’s it until after the holiday. Happy Thanksgiving. For non-U.S. readers, happy Thursday.

oneculture’s signature thread color references, “1970” (beige, olive and brown) and “1978” (orange, brown and turquoise), are comprised of colors that were prevalent during that period.

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“Foi a época em que aconteceu a crise do petróleo, o que levou os Estados Unidos à recessão, ao mesmo tempo em que economias de países como o Japão começavam a crescer. Nesta época também surgia o movimento da defesa do meio ambiente, e houve também um crescimento das revoluções comportamentais da década anterior. Muitos a consideram a “era do individualismo”. Eclodiam nesta época os movimentos musicais do Rock and Roll, das discotecas, e também do experimentalismo na música erudita.” – Wikipedia

Foi por isso e outros motivos que vou postar uma galeria com o estilo da década de 70 e toda sua beleza.

Fonte: Deviantart

Belva Cottier and a young Chicano man during the Occupation of Alcatraz Island, May 31, 1970. Photo: © 2009 Ilka Hartmann

Today marks the fortieth anniversary of the start of the Indian Occupation of Alcatraz, an action that lasted over eighteen months until June 11th 1971.

Photographic documents of the time are surprisingly scant. Over the past few decades, Ilka Hartmann’s work has appeared almost ubiquitously in publications about the Indian Occupation. We spoke by telephone about her experiences, the dearth of Native American photographers, the Black Panthers, Richard Nixon, the recent revival of academic research on the occupation and what she’ll be doing to mark the anniversary.

Your entire career has been devoted to social justice issues, particularly the fight for Native American rights. Did your interest begin with the Alcatraz occupation?

No, it began earlier. I came the U.S. in 1964 and that was during the human rights movement. I was a student at the time but I really wanted to go and work with the Native Americans on the reservations of Southern California. I was connected to the Indian community here through a friend who had emigrated to California earlier. I learnt very early about the conditions for American Indians. It reminded my of what I had learnt as a teenager about Nazi rule.

When the occupation began I wanted to go but I couldn’t because I was not Native American, but I waited until 1970.

Concurrently you were photographing the Black Panther movement – centered in Oakland – and the other counter culture movements of the late sixties in the Bay Area. How did they relate to one another?

They were all the same, each group struggling to advertise their conditions, the police brutality and the lack of educational and cultural institutions. I was involved in the fights for American Indians, African Americans, Chicano and Asian Americans in Berkeley. We were protesting as part of the Third World Strike. For me everything was connected and it was the same people who were speaking up later at Alcatraz.

My new book is actually about the relations between the different groups of the civil rights movement. There was a lot of solidarity between groups. The Black Panther Party understood this.  Many people think that the Black Panthers were concentrated on their own politics but they understood solidarity and got a lot of help from non-Black people. If you look at my pictures of the Black Panther movement a lot of supporters were the white students of Berkeley. There is a saying, “The suffering of one, is the suffering of everybody”.

In the Bay Area people were so willing to help the Indians at Alcatraz and help in the Black Panther movement and they really felt things were going to change.

I was a student at UC Berkeley and stopped in February 1970. I went to Alcatraz in May of 1970. I had learnt to open my eyes and emotions at UC Berkeley through all the different groups we had.

How many times did you visit Alcatraz during the occupation? And how long did you stay each time?

I only went twice to the island. It is funny because I didn’t even know if my photographs would turn out. I had a camera that I’d borrowed from a friend with a 135 mm Pentax lens … and also a Leica that a friend have given me too. But I didn’t have a light-meter for the Leica so I didn’t know if the photographs I took in the fog would come out. It was so light. I was amazed that they came out. I also went over in a small boat that same year.

So I made contact sheets and tried to get them published which was a big problem because you had to really work on that. My first picture of the occupation was published in an underground paper called the Berkeley Barb then in June 1971 I was at KQED, a Northern California Television station, for an interview with an art editor. I had hitch-hiked there from the area north of San Francisco and I just opened my box of pictures to show him topics I was concerned about when over the intercom came an announcement “The Indians are being taken from Alcatraz.”

I saw some video guys run by, I grabbed my bag and camera and asked them if I could join them. They said, “Yes, ride with us and say you are with us.” We got into an old VW and drove around on the mainland to see the occupiers and that is how I got those shots of the removal. It was an incredible coincidence because I actually lived far from the city. It’s quite incredible. I only went two times during the occupation and then I got those shots afterward.

From then on I made contact with people and in that year I showed my pictures at an Indian Women’s conference, making very good friends with people in the American Indian movement. From then on I went to cultural events, powwows and so on and my pictures appeared in the underground press. I wrote articles and people contacted me for images. That’s how I made the connection.

So really you made no arrangements?

I didn’t make any arrangements. I followed everything from the first day in the papers and on that day in May … on May 30th the Indians asked all the journalists to go and I wanted to be there. That’s how it all started; they invited us there that day.

Did you realize at the time how profound an historical event it was?

Yes, I always felt how important it was. This was the first time they [Native Americans] spoke up. All over the world people wrote about it and the cause became known globally, and especially known in the United States. I believed in it … I still do.

What are your lasting memories of your time and work during the occupation?

It was a prison that had been closed so it was surrounded by barbed wire fence. Some of it had become loose and I took some pictures. The wire swung loose in the air and there was a sound across the island of the wind whispering over it. And if you looked out over the beautiful waters, you really got the sense – with the barbed wire – that the Indians were prisoners, as well as occupiers of the Bay. Prisoners of the Bay; which means prisoners of the World. In that sense I really had a strong feeling of the prison.

How did you react to the environment?

For me, strangely, the experience of going to Alcatraz has always been a very high and wonderful experience. It is hard for me to even explain. Of course I know it was a prison. On the tour of Alcatraz I got very upset, especially during the part when you’re taken downstairs to learn about the lesser known incarceration of Elders and also the cells for those people who didn’t want to go to war. So of course I know it is was a prison, yet when I go there I am struck by exuberance and hope about [Indian] people being able to make statements about their conditions.

I was a witness to that and wanted to be a conduit for those statements. There were no American Indian journalists, we were nearly all white. There was one Indian photographer, John Whitefox, who is now dead. But he lost his film. So we really saw it as our job, politically, as underground photographers and writers to cover what was part of the revolution and social upheaval.

Eldy Bratt, Alcatraz Island, May 1970. Photo: © 2009 Ilka Hartmann

Two Indian children play on abandoned Department of Justice equipment. Alcatraz Island, 1970. Photo: © 2009 Ilka Hartmann

San Francisco Bay has a strange history with islands, incarceration and subjugation. San Quentin was the focus of the Black Panther resistance – it is just ten miles north of the city. Angel Island was an immigrations station for Asians – it is known as the “Ellis Island of the West” and some Chinese migrants were kept there for years. And, then there’s Alcatraz. How do you reconcile all this?

It’s totally horrible to me. I come form Germany. Before I came I’d heard about Sing Sing on the river on the East coast. It was a horrible thought to me that they could put people in such prisons.

I drive past San Quentin most days, I have actually been inside and taken photographs. And of Angel Island – it is almost sarcastic to imprison people like that; it’s such a contradiction to the beauty of the Bay. It’s the hubris of human beings to do that to one another.

Of course there are people who should be in prison, like at San Quentin, but certainly the Chinese should not have been treated like that on Angel Island. The Indians and the anti-war demonstrators should absolutely not have been treated like that on Alcatraz. Actually the authorities were respectful to the antiwar demonstrators than they were to the Indians, but still both are an aberration of human nature to treat others like that. I don’t know what to do with murderers but I do know I am against the death penalty.

An Indian man arrives at Pier 40 on the mainland following the removal in June 1971. Indians of All Tribes operated a receiving facility on Pier 40, where donated materials were stored and where Indian people could wait for boats to transport them to Alcatraz Island. Photo: © 2009 Ilka Hartmann

"We will not give up". Indian occupiers moments after the removal from Alcatraz Island on June 11, 1971. Oohosis, a Cree from Canada (Left) and Peggy Lee Ellenwood, a Sioux from Wolf Point, Montana (Right). Photo © 2009 Ilka Hartmann

How do you see the situation for Native Americans today?

When I started there was said to be one million American Indians and now statistics say there are one and a half million. This is down to two things: first, the numbers have increased, but secondly more people identify as Native Americans where they had tried to hide it before due to racism and prejudice.

I went on one trip with a Native American Family for six weeks across the southwest and I kept asking if the Indians were going to survive and there was some doubt, but now people really think the culture is growing and there has been a notable revival. There advances being made dealing with treatments for alcoholism and returning to free practices of traditional worship. I know that the Omaha are talking of a Renaissance of the Omaha culture. My friend and historian, Dennis Hastings, who was also an occupier of Alcatraz, said to me ten years ago “It could still go either way. Half the Native peoples are debilitated with alcoholism and the other half are vibrant and healthy.”

Great afflictions still exist but there are many more Indians who are able to function in the Western aspects of society and traditional ways of life. When I entered the movement there was only one [Native American] PhD; now there are over a hundred. There is hope now.

What we felt came out of Alcatraz was the influence that it had on Nixon. Because he was a proponent of the war I always used to think of him in only negative ways but that is a learning experience too. It is a shock that someone responsible for the deaths of so many people in the world, of so many Vietnamese, could do something good. He signed the American Indian Religious Freedoms Act (1978). Edward Kennedy also worked a lot on these laws.

We believe the returns of lands such as Blue Lake/Taos Pueblos in New Mexico and lands in Washington followed on from the occupation of Alcatraz. There is a famous picture of Nixon with a group of Paiute American Indians. I believe a former high school sports coach of Nixon’s from San Clememnte was Native American and so we think this teacher influenced him.

As a result of Alcatraz, as well as the land takeovers, the consciousness has been raised among non-Indians and this was very important. People in the Bay Area were very supportive of the occupation, until the point where people were not responsible; it got messy the security got too strong and there were drugs and alcohol. Bad things did happen but in the beginning all that was important to expose to the world was written about, particularly by Tim Findley and all the writers working to get this into the underground press.

Until about 15 years when Troy R. Johnson and Adam Fortunate Eagle wrote and researched their books we didn’t understand everything that had happened – we just knew it was exhilarating. We now have the information of policy changes and the knowledge of people who went back to the reservations; leaders such as Wilma Mankiller who was the principle chief of the Cherokee for a long time. Dennis Hastings was the historian of the Omaha people and brought back the sacred star from Harvard University.

Many people have done things to allow a return to the Native culture and it is so strong now – both the urban and reservation culture. American Indians are making films about urban America – part of modern America but also within their Indian backgrounds. Things have changed enormously.

The benevolence of Richard Nixon is not something I’ve heard about before!

Yes, You can read more about it in our book.

What will you be doing for the 40th anniversary?

I’l be going to UC Berkeley. I’ve been working on an event with a young Native American man who is part of the Native American Studies Program which was established in 1970 as a result of the Third World Strikes. I walked and demonstrated at that time many times. I’m very happy to be returning. LaNada Boyer Means who was one of the leaders of the occupation will be present. We’ll be thinking of Richard Aoki, who was a prominent Asian American in the Black Panther movement, who died just a few months ago.

When these people would lead demonstrations, I would photograph it and then I’d rush to the lab, work through the night to get them printed the next day in the Daily Cal and then have to teach my classes and then take my seminars and it would go on like that for weeks.

So, a young man Richie Richards has organized a 40th Anniversary celebration at Berkeley. It includes events that will run all week, films, speakers, I’ll be showing my slides and then on Saturday we’re going to Alcatraz for a sunrise ceremony. Adam Fortunate Eagle, who wrote the Alcatraz Proclamation, will lead the ceremony on the Island.

In addition at San Francisco State where the 1969 student protests originated their will be a mural unveiled to mark the occasion. There have already been recognition ceremonies for ‘veterans’ of the occupation this week in Berkeley and starting tonight there are events for Native American High School students from all over the area in Berkeley also. Interest has really rekindled recently. The text books have really changed so much and I think that is excellent for younger generations.

And many more to come …

Thanks so much Ilka.

Thank you, Pete.

_________________________________________

For this interview I used Ilka’s portrait shots from the occupation. There are many more photographs to feast on here and here.

Overcoming exhaustion and disillusionment, young Alcatraz Occupier Atha Rider Whitemankiller (Cherokee) stands tall before the press at the Senator Hotel. His eloquent words about the purpose of the occupation - to publicize his people's plight and establish a land base for the Indians of the Bay Area - were the most quoted of the day. San Francisco, California. June 11th 1971. Photo: © 2009 Ilka Hartmann

Casting about for a topic for this post, I thought about famous birthdays. Gordon Lightfoot’s birthday was Tuesday, and I have plenty of Lightfoot tunes in the stacks and in the folders. But another day would be better for that, as there is a tale connected that I’m not yet prepared to tell.

I thought about writing about the books on my reading table, as I do occasionally. But I started a book yesterday that’s fascinating, and I want to finish it before I write about it. So that will have to wait.

We’ve had an odd November: sunny and warmer than one would expect. But I wrote about my fascination with autumn not that many days ago, and a post about the weather itself should wait until we have some truly remarkable meteorological happening.

I glanced at the front page of the Minneapolis paper: Budget cuts, a fatal bus crash, health care advisories and so on. Nothing there I care to write about.

It’s just one of those days. So here’s an appropriate selection of titles.

A Six-Pack of Nothing
“There’s Nothing Between Us Now” by Grady Tate from After the Long Drive Home [1970]
“Ain’t Nothing Gonna Change Me” by Betty LaVette from Child of the Seventies [1973]
“Nothing But A Heartache” by the Flirtations, Deram 85038 [1969]
“Nothing Against You” by the Robert Cray Band from Sweet Potato Pie [1997]
“Nothing But Time” by Jackson Browne from Running On Empty [1977]
“Nothing Will Take Your Place” by Boz Scaggs from Boz Scaggs & Band [1971]

One of the things I love about the world of music blogs is finding great tunes by folks who I’ve never heard about before. It turns out that Grady Tate, according to All-Music Guide, is a well-regarded session drummer who’s done some good vocal work as well. I’d never heard of the man until I somehow found myself exploring the very nice blog, My Jazz World. The brief description of Tate’s album After the Long Drive Home and the accompanying scan of the album cover drew me in, and I’ve spent quite a few quiet moments since then digging into Tate’s reflective and sometimes stoic album.

I’ve tagged Betty LaVette’s gritty piece of southern soul, “Ain’t Nothing Gonna Change Me,” as coming from 1973, as that’s when it was recorded. But the story is more complex than that. LaVette recorded the album, Child of the Seventies, for Atco in Muscle Shoals. But AMG notes that after a single from the sessions, “Your Turn to Cry” didn’t do well, the label shelved the entire project. It took until 2006 and a release on the Rhino Handmade label for the album itself to hit the shelves. The CD comes with bonus tracks that include LaVette’s cover of Neil Young’s “Heart of Gold,” which was also released as a single. (My thanks to Caesar Tjalbo.)

A listener without the record label to examine would be excused from thinking that the Flirtation’s driving “Nothing But A Heartache” came from Detroit. The bass line, the drums and the punchy horns all proclaim “Motown,” but this nifty piece of R&B came out of England on the Deram label. The Flirtations, however, had their roots elsewhere: Sisters Shirley and Earnestine Pearce came from South Carolina and Viola Billups hailed from Alabama, so the record’s soul sound is legit, and it sounded pretty good coming out of a little radio speaker, too. The record spent two weeks in the Top 40 during the late spring of 1969, peaking at No. 34.

For Sweet Potato Pie, Robert Cray and his band made their way to Memphis and pulled together an album of blues-based soul. The combination of the Memphis Horns, Cray’s always-sharp guitar work and a good set of songs made the album, to my ears, one of Cray’s best. “Nothing Against You” is a good example of the album’s attractions.

“Nothing But Time” comes from Running On Empty, one of the more interesting live albums of the 1970s: All of the songs were new material, with some of them being recorded backstage, in hotel rooms or on the tour bus instead of in concert. As it happened, the album’s hits – “Running On Empty” and “Stay” – were concert recordings. But I’ve thought for a while that the recordings from the more intimate spaces – “Nothing But Time” was recorded on the tour bus as it rolled through New Jersey (you can hear the hum of the engine in the background) – might have aged a little better. That thought could stem from weariness after hearing the two hits over and over on the radio over the years; I do still like some of the other concert recordings from the album.

To my ears, Boz Scaggs’ slow-building and echoey “Nothing Will Take Your Place,” carries hints of the sound that would propel him to the top of the charts in 1976 with Silk Degrees. I guess it just took the mass audience – including me – a while to catch up with him.

A Reservoir Dogs-inspired doubleheader!

- Gyro

The Brood

Director: David Cronenberg.

Guión: David Cronenberg

Intérpretes: Oliver Reed, Samantha Eggar, Art Hindle, Cindy Hings, Henry Beckman, Nuala Fitzgerald.

Música: Howard Shore.

Fotografía: Mark Irwin

Montaje: Allan Collins

Canadá. 1979. 92 minutos.

Eslabón a recuperar

Forjado en el medio catódico de su país de origen, Canadá, pero donde se le dejó dar rienda suelta a su independencia y avidez expresiva, David Cronenberg inició su singladura cinematográfica con Shrivers (1975) y Rabid (1977), dos piezas hoy consideradas de culto, cuyos relatos -marcados por epidemias venéreas- servían para proponer originales y mórbidas variaciones de, respectivamente, la suplantación de la personalidad y el mito vampírico, con formas visuales de ponencia más que osada y regusto gore. En 1981 le llegaría el primer reconocimiento internacional con Scanners, un relato de suspense para un trasfondo reflexivo sobre la telepatía. Pero antes realizó la obra que nos ocupa, Cromosoma 3, filme en el que, de hecho, Cronenberg ya pudo contar con más medios (remarcable es la presencia de dos actores de renombre, Oliver Reed y Samantha Eggar –que además ofrecen, en sus diversos careos íntimos, un magnífico recital interpretativo-; además, es la primera película en la que Howard Shore colaboró con el realizador), y que, poco a poco, va reclamando su trascendencia tanto en el devenir del imaginario de Cronenberg (y las tan traídas y llevadas teorías de la Nueva Carne) como del Cine Fantástico en general (sin ir más lejos, David J.Skal, en su magnífico tratado Monster Show: Una historia cultural del horror, la compara con la coetánea Alien de Ridley Scott).

Traumas familiares

Dicen que Cromosoma 3 es un filme de tintes autobiográficos, pues Cronenberg se hallaba en pleno proceso de divorcio durante la escritura y ulterior dirección de la película. El propio Cronenberg ha manifestado que proyectó esa agria experiencia en buena parte del meollo temático y argumental del filme, y es evidente que, bajo su –tan hiperbólica y salvaje como aguda y penetrante- síntesis fantástica –a la que después nos referiremos-, el filme plantea severas, bien pesimistas, meditaciones sobre las enquistadas relaciones familiares. Pero no se trata sólo de esas meditaciones propuestas por la vía alegórica, sino también por la propia textualidad. El filme empieza con lo que se nos antoja como una representación teatral, y que después descubriremos que es una sesión de psiquiatría (“psicoplásmica”) impartida por el doctor Hal Raglan (Reed), pero en cualquier caso su sustancia es el enfrentamiento entre un padre y su hijo, que se pretende catárquico. De ahí pasamos a conocer el protagonista, Frank Carveth (Art Hindle), que recoge a su hija pequeña, Candice (Cindy Hings), y se la lleva a casa. Frank está divorciado de Nola (Eggar), y ambos comparten la custodia de la niña. Frank ha tenido que ir a las dependencias del Dr. Raglan a recoger a su hija porque Nola reside con el psiquiatra, quien le está sometiendo a un proceso de tratamiento psiquiátrico. Frank descubre en la espalda de su hija rastros de rasguños, y sospecha de su ex-mujer, amenazando a Raglan (que media entre ellos, porque no le deja ver a Nola) con un procedimiento judicial para quitarle la custodia. En el devenir narrativo, Frank contactará primero con Julianna, la madre de Nola, y después con Barton, su padre, y en los dos encuentros, los dos progenitores de la chica hablan de las enquistadas relaciones familiares, ambos maculados por el mismo pasado traumático (que les concierne como pareja y padres al igual que concierne a Nola como hija). Como digo, el texto se incardina, continuamente, bajo los parámetros de esa dolorosa introspección en los espacios hostiles, traumáticos, del pasado familiar (y cuando no son Frank, Nola, o los padres de éste, quienes hablan, lo hacen los psiquiatras: Raglan suplantando a los padres de Nola en las sesiones psiquiátricas, o un psiquiatra de la policía que ha explorado a la niña Candice). Pero la cámara de Cronenberg, bajo la apariencia de esa funcionalidad narrativa que se le suele asignar, no hace otra cosa que inspeccionar esos turbios sentimientos. Atiéndase al modo más bien ambiguo en el que filma el rostro de la niña, caracterizada con la imagen más virginal de la inocencia –la melena rubia, el flequillo que cubre su frente, el vestido de muñeca…-, pero descrita como una personita ya atormentada, cuyos silencios y expresiones neutras esconden el cultivo de esa herencia traumática. Atiéndase a la secuencia del aeropuerto, donde Frank y su hija recogen a Barton, y Cronenberg propone encuadres (frontal y trasero de los tres, primeros planos de cada personaje) que, por un lado los aislan, y por otro subrayan las alusiones dialogadas. Atiéndase sobretodo a la circunspección narrativa en la secuencia de la otra abuela de la niña, Julianna, que se inicia con un primer plano de unas fotos en blanco y negro –de cuando Julianna era joven y Nola tenía la edad de Candice- que la niña contempla, mientras en segundo plano vemos a su padre y abuela materna conversando, alternancia que se va repitiendo mientras vemos a Julianna hablar dramáticamente del pasado mientras consume alcohol, la estancia con poca luz desprendiendo esa frialdad tonal tan cara a los propósitos de Cronenberg.

La Camada

Quien haya leído hasta aquí echará de menos el comentario recurrente en las reseñas de la película: que tiene secuencias muy sanguinarias y desagradables, tanto que requiere estómagos fuertes. Es cierto que hay imágenes perturbadoras, marca de estilo del autor –la más llamativa durante años, hasta Dead Ringers, por lo menos- que, y eso es lo fundamental, implica al espectador de forma más que intelectual, visceral, en sus complejos aparatos narrativos simbólico-metafísicos. Esto es, esa violencia no tiene nada de gratuita, y cada una de esas secuencias sanguinolentas tiene un pleno sentido, una imbricación en la trama y en el discurso. Sí que he mencionado la técnica psiquiátrica del Dr. Raglan, la psicoplasmia, una terapia que canaliza los trastornos mentales mediante reacciones físicas, erupciones en la piel, eccemas, sarpullidos…, que surgen a modo de catarsis. En el caso de Nola, la más prometedora paciente –o más bien conejillo de indias, o, como la llama otro paciente, “la abeja madre”- de Raglan, la terapia llega a una nueva e inaudita dimensión, que no es otra que la definida en el título original del filme, “la camada” (The Brood): Nola engendra unos pequeños seres, con apariencia de niños monstruosos, asexuados, cuyo cometido no es otro que el de aniquilar a aquellas personas por las que Nola siente aversión. Primero, en lógico y terrorífico sentido, atacan a los padres de la mujer. Más tarde, Nola desata su hostilidad contra una profesora de Candice, Ruth, porque cree –erróneamente- que ésta es la nueva novia de su ex–esposo: poco después, se produce la reacción: dos de esos pequeños engendros asesinan a la profesora, de forma salvaje, delante de sus alumnos… (secuencia que, por cierto, termina con un plano antológico: aquél en el que Frank, para evitar a los niños la visión del rostro ensangrentado de la profesora, cubre ese rostro con un dibujo hecho por un niño). El planteamiento cronenbergiano, tan aberrante como acostumbra, como el potencial de la psique humana, salta, de las alteraciones anatómicas, al engendro de una nueva forma, no de vida –pues está regida psicológicamente por la matriz-, que lleva a la literalidad, a la realidad, las obsesiones y deseos más recónditos de una mente traumatizada por el odio y el rencor. En el formidable clímax de la función, Cronenberg funde todos los conceptos narrativos mediante dos secuencias cruzadas: una en la que Frank asiste, atónito, a la revelación del secreto anatómico de Nola, y otra en la que, al mismo tiempo, el Doctor Raglan intenta rescatar a la niña que los hijos de Nola tienen retenida en su estancia. Con la clarividencia del mejor escritor y de avezado storyteller, Cronenberg plantea un solo desarrollo para las dos secuencias, consciente de que Nola y los niños son la misma identidad, y, por tanto, la progresión debe ser única (magníficamente ilustrado en cada encadenado; v.gr. plano en el que vemos a Raglan inspeccionar cautelosamente las dependencias oscuras y, de súbito, darse la vuelta, momento en que por corte se enfoca a Frank en la dirección de la mirada del doctor: Raglan, que hasta entonces lo controlaba todo, ahora depende absolutamente de lo que Frank pueda hacer y decir para mitigar la rabia de Nola… le va la vida en ello).

Significados

Las interpretaciones sobre la temática del filme (y su abordaje del mismo) pueden extenderse de modos muy variados. Yo me he limitado a referir el pesimismo de Cronenberg en su mirada a lo complejos que resultan los nudos familiares y lo nocivo de ciertos lazos o implicaciones afectivas (o, si lo prefieren, los horrores que yacen bajo la plácida apariencia –y el peso cultural/económico- de un seno familiar). En cualquier caso, Cronenberg no nos deja indiferentes. Bien al contrario. Desde un foro del todo humilde –el que caracterizaba sus producciones por aquellos tiempos, y que, en cierto modo, alcanza a la actualidad, pues las historias del autor de Spider, lógica y tristemente, por ende despiertan las alergias de la maquinaria industrial-, el cineasta explora de un modo muy particular, indómito, implacable y brillante items universales imbricados en lo psicológico y/o en lo metafísico. Desde su trinchera, y tan callando, va desplegando una (eminente) casta al entramado artístico del Cine Fantástico contemporáneo.

 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078908/

http://billsmovieemporium.wordpress.com/2009/05/04/review-the-brood-uncut-1979/

http://cinemafantastique.net/film1228,Chromosome-3.html

http://classic-horror.com/reviews/brood_1979

http://horrortalk.com/reviews/Brood/TheBrood.htm

Todas las imágenes pertenecen a sus autores 

As I’ve said before, one of the things I find fascinating about music is its connection with memory: Some tunes, even the barest snippet, pull listeners back to a certain place, sometimes to a specific moment at that place.

Sometimes that place was important, sometimes the moment was. And sometimes, nothing about either seems significant at all. It’s just a musically triggered memory. One of those popped up the other day, as it sometimes will, when I heard Elton John’s “Benny and the Jets” on the car radio.

There is, on St. Cloud’s north side, a strip mall called Centennial Plaza. It went up in, oh, 1963 or so, and I think it was the second strip mall in the city. (For what it matters, it sits across the street from a residential development also named “Centennial,” which tells me that the development and the ensuing shopping center were planned in the late 1950s and named for the 1958 centennial of the State of Minnesota. I’d never thought of that before.) Its main tenant when it opened was a variety store called Grants, which sold the same sort of stuff as did the other dime stores of the day like Woolworth’s and S.S. Kresge. We didn’t shop there often, but when we did, I happily tagged along; the same old stuff seemed somehow different in a different store. In addition, a trip to Grants felt like an adventure: Centennial Plaza was on the north side, which was – in the mid-1960s – distant and unexplored territory. (An online mapping site tells me that the distance from our home on Kilian Boulevard to Centennial Plaza is 2.59 miles; it seemed much further than that in 1963.)

Along with Grants, one of the early tenants at Centennial Plaza was a tavern and restaurant that specialized in basic German food. In St. Cloud and the surrounding area, folks of German descent outnumbered any other ethnic group during the years I was growing up and still may do so. So the owners of the Bratwurst Haus were playing to their crowd, offering a multitude of sausages with sauerkraut and hot German potato salad, all washed down with beer. There were likely other dishes on the menu, but I don’t recall. The few times we went there, we ate bratwurst and kraut.

The Bratwurst Haus is long gone. I have no idea when it closed, but in its place is what appears to be a generic sports bar. One of the last times I went to the Bratwurst Haus was in the summer of 1974, when mom and I had lunch there with my sister, who was going to graduate school at St. Cloud State. I don’t recall what we ate – sausages and kraut and beer, most likely – but I do remember that another patron kept feeding the jukebox and playing “Bennie and the Jets.”

Now, that’s not anywhere near my favorite Elton John tune. If I were pressed, I’d nominate “Levon” and “Tiny Dancer” from among the hits, along with the album track “Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters.” But to this day, it’s the most memorable: From the first fade-in of the applause and the chopping piano chords, “Benny and the Jets” puts me face to face with bratwurst and beer. That’s not necessarily a bad place to be, but I just wish it were a song I liked better.

So I began rummaging through Sir Elton’s catalog to see if there were any songs I liked more than “Benny” that had any kind of memory attached to them at all. The three favorites listed above triggered nothing. I cast my net wider and saw in the list “Take Me To The Pilot,” from the 1970 Elton John album. The only time I saw Elton John perform, that was the song that changed a good performance into a great one: Following a slower number, Elton stood up and kicked his piano bench back out the way. Leaning over the keyboard, he murmured into the microphone, “I love this song.” And then he launched into a kick-ass version of “Take Me To The Pilot.”

The memory’s not quite as indelible as that of the Bratwurst Haus, but it’s a far better song in my mind. And as I pondered “Take Me To The Pilot,” I wondered about cover versions. So I went looking. All-Music Guide lists fifty-one CDs that contain the song; about twenty-five of those are Elton John’s own versions.

Among the other performers listed as having recorded “Take Me To The Pilot” are Kiki Danielsson, José Feliciano, Tony Furtado, Ben E. King, Latimore, Enoch Light, Hugo Montenegro, Odetta and Rick Wakeman. That’s a pretty diverse list.

I have cover versions of “Take Me To The Pilot” by groups named Orange Bicycle and Joy Unlimited. Orange Bicycle, says AMG, was a British psych-pop group that released half a dozen singles during the late 1960s and then put out one album, a self-titled release of mostly covers (with some tracks produced by the great John Peel) in 1970. The group’s cover of “Take Me To The Pilot” is competent if a little bit plodding.

Joy Unlimited was a German pop rock group fronted by a singer named Joy Fleming. The one album the group released in 1970 had three titles, depending on where it was released. In Germany, it was called Overground, in the U.K., it was titled Turbulence, and in the U.S., the LP was called simply Joy Unlimited. (I’ve tagged it as Overground.) AMG calls the group’s music “a competent amalgam of trends in American and British mainstream rock, pop, and soul, rather like the kind flashed by numerous bands emerging in neighboring Holland at the same time, like Shocking Blue.” Joy Unlimited’s version of “Take Me To The Pilot” is certainly more interesting, what with the punchy horn parts and other production filigree. I can do without the hypersonic shriek at the end though.

“Take Me To The Pilot” by Elton John from Elton John [1970]

“Take Me To The Pilot” by Orange Bicycle from The Orange Bicycle [1970]

“Take Me To The Pilot” by Joy Unlimited from Overground [1970]

Check out more dumb inventions at http://kitschcache.wordpress.com

Shower accessory or birth control device?

Oh no!  You’ve applied your make-up before you showered.  This would have been disastrous before the invention of the ’shower hood’ in 1970.  Is this really a shower accessory or a birth control device?  I fear that it was always going to take more than a naked woman to sell this one…

Crazy, naked gimp with a fetish for transparent, plastic balaclavas…

Here are the top-30 movies from the 70’s. This decade is the best one. I always said that the best movies were made in the 70’s. Take a look for yourself and hit that video store on the way home. Ladies and gentlemen, the best movies from 1970-1979…

1. The Godfather part II (1974) Director: Francis Ford Coppola
2. A Clockwork Orange (1971) Director: Stanley Kubrick
3. The Godfather (1972) Director: Francis Ford Coppola
4. Jaws (1975) Director: Steven Spielberg
5. Barry Lyndon (1975) Director: Stanley Kubrick
6. Annie Hall (1977) Director: Woody Allen
7. Chinatown (1974) Director: Roman Polanski
8. The Deer Hunter (1978) Director: Michael Cimino
9. The Exorcist (1973) Director: William Friedkin
10. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975) Director: Milos Forman
11. Apocalypse Now (1979) Director: Francis Ford Coppola
12. Marathon Man (1976) Director: John Schlesinger
13. Manhattan (1979) Director: Woody Allen
14. National Lampoon’s Animal House (1978) Director: John Landis
15. Papillon (1973) Franklin J. Schaffner
16. Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) Director: Steven Spielberg
17. The Tenant (1976) Director: Roman Polanski
18. Deliverance (1972) Director: John Boorman
19. The French Connection (1971) Director: William Friedkin
20. Taxi Driver (1976) Director: Martin Scorsese
21. Love and Death (1975) Director: Woody Allen
22. Dog Day Afternoon (1975) Director: Sydney Lumet
23. Five Easy Pieces (1970) Director: Bob Rafelson
24. Serpico (1973) Director: Sydney Lumet
25. Kramer vs. Kramer (1979) Director: Robert Benton
26. All the President’s Men (1976) Director: Alan J. Pakula
27. The Last Detail (1973) Director: Hal Ashby
28. Midnight Express (1978) Director: Alan Parker
29. Three Days of the Condor (1975) Director: Sydney Pollack
30. Play It Again, Sam (1972) Director: Woody Allen

THE TRAILERS FOR THE TOP 3 BEST MOVIES OF 1970-1979

Countess Dracula

Director: Peter Sasdy.

Guión: Jeremy Paul, Peter Sasdy y Alexander Paal.

Intérpretes: Ingrid Pitt, Nigel Green, Sandor Elès, Maurice Denham, Patience Collier, Peter Jeffrey.

Música: Harry Robertson.

Fotografía: Kenneth Talbot

Montaje: Henry Richardson

GB. 1971. 93 minutos.

Eterna juventud

Producción de la Hammer que cabe ubicar en el periodo del principio del fin de la celebérrima productora británica. Realizada por Peter Sasdy, Countess Dracula no alcanza ni de lejos las cotas de las grandes obras que realizó Terence Fischer para la productora, si bien se nos aparece como una película cuyo visionado no resulta desdeñable: auspiciada por ese título-trampa que juega con la sexualidad del mito creado por Bram Stoker (y digo –trampa porque nada tiene que ver esta película con el vampiro transilvano que tantos momentos de gloria le dio a la Hammer y al cine fantástico en general), el filme nos adentra en un tiempo (el medioevo) y lugar lóbregos (la mayor parte de la acción transcurre en un castillo regentado por la condesa en cuestión, y mostrado como ese espacio claustrofóbico y sombrío que establecen los cánones, con pasadizos y vericuetos secretos, alcobas y esquinados rincones), para describir la historia de una búsqueda de la eterna juventud pagada al precio de ingentes cantidades de vidas humanas.

Ingrid Pitt

A la cabeza de semejante truculencia se sitúa la figura de Ingrid Pitt, quien ofrece una presencia tan fastuosa como tenebrosa (contribuyendo no poco -aunque más con su mera presencia que con su matizable interpretación- a ese erotismo cool que la Hammer nos ofreció en aquel periodo de su existencia), que aparece acompañada de un buen número de veteranos secundarios cuya solvencia estaba ya entonces fuera de toda duda. Una y otros, bajo la batuta de la rítmica (e incluso, en algunos momentos, filigranera) narración de Sasdy, ofrecen un filme menor pero dotado de diversos momentos de un innegable interés, tales como la aparición de la condesa rejuvenecida, desnuda y llena de sangre, o esa última secuencia en la que vemos y escuchamos los rostros y voces demacrados y despiadadas de una sucesión de aldeanas entre cuyas hijas sin duda pudieron encontrarse algunas de las víctimas de la condesa, y que ahora parecen querer evidenciar a los ojos del espectador que el peso del destino justiciero caerá como una losa sobre aquel que ose desafiar su propio curso.

 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0065580/

http://moria.co.nz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=891&Itemid=0

http://dvdenlared.com/dvd/La%20Condesa%20Drácula/Analisis/20091012120027.html

http://obscurehorror.com/horror500.html

http://www.dvdverdict.com/reviews/draculalovers.php

http://www.channel4.com/film/reviews/film.jsp?id=102341&section=review

http://www.britishhorrorfilms.co.uk/countessdracula.shtml

http://www.thecinemalaser.com/dvd_2003/cd-tvl-dvd.htm

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