The Horse's Head

The Plot: At a small diner outside Reno, Nevada, Al Roberts (Tom Neal) sits despondently and narrates to us how he got there. We flashback to his life as a piano player in a New York nightclub with his girlfriend, the club’s lead singer Sue Harvey (Claudia Drake). When Sue breaks up with Al and moves to Hollywood, Al becomes depressed, but ultimately decides to head out West to reconcile. While hitchhiking across the country, Al is picked up by Charles Haskell Jr. (Edmund MacDonald), a bookie en route to LA with a briefcase full of cash. While serving as Haskell’s relief driver, Al discovers that Haskell has died of an apparent heart attack. Realizing that the police will assume he killed Haskell for his money, and determined to get to Sue in Hollywood, Al hides the body and keeps driving, but a mysterious hitchhiker named Vera (Ann Savage) complicates matters. “Detour” is prime film noir and a gem from one of Hollywood’s lesser-known Poverty Row studios.

Why It Matters: The NFR calls it “one of the most stylish B pictures ever produced”, praising the “bleak nightmare existence” Ulmer was able to create under budget constraints. An essay by film critic J. Hoberman is mostly a biography of Ulmer, though he amusingly compares the film’s art through adversity style to “a Rembrandt drawing wrapped around a wad of bubble gum”.

But Does It Really?: I figured out pretty early on why “Detour” got selected for the NFR. At a time when the NFR only had 100 movies on it, “Detour” is an excellent representation of the ’40s B movie. “Detour” feels like someone put every ’40s film noir in a blender, and the results are occasionally uneven, but always watchable. With great lead performances by Neal and Savage, and the artistic eye of Edgar Ulmer behind the camera, “Detour” stands out as one of the best of the Bs. I’m glad “Detour” made the NFR so early, and continues to get discovered by new generations of film lovers.

Everybody Gets One: Born in what was then Austria-Hungary, Edgar G. Ulmer started his film career as an art director, heading to Hollywood to help his mentor F.W. Murnau with “Sunrise“. His directing career got off to a promising start with the horror film “The Black Cat”, Universal’s biggest hit of 1934. Unfortunately, Ulmer’s affair with his script supervisor Shirley Beatrice Kassler (who was married at the time to the nephew of Universal head Carl Laemmle) got him blacklisted from working with the major studios. Ulmer eventually found work with Producers Releasing Corporation (PRC), one of the “Poverty Row” movie studios that cranked out cheap B pictures. Ulmer’s penchant for economically made yet artistically stimulating films earned him the moniker “The King of PRC”. Fun Fact: The G stands for Georg.

Wow, That’s Dated: This is one of many movies that would play very differently if smart phones and the internet existed. If nothing else, Al could contact Sue directly and find out how she’s doing, or just stalk her on social media. And almost everything in the film’s second half would fall apart if everyone was under modern surveillance. That all being said, there is something almost romantic about living life “off the grid”. There’s an anonymity we’ve lost in recent years that this movie reminds us of. But enough of my Andy Rooney rant, back to the movie…

Seriously, Oscars?: Unsurprising for a B movie, “Detour” received no Oscar love. In fact, as best I can tell the only film made by Producers Releasing Corporation in their seven year existence that got any Oscar nominations was 1944’s “Minstrel Man”, a sleeper hit with an unfortunate title.

• You can sense the film’s budget constraints pretty clearly. The nightclub Al and Sue perform at has maybe five people in the audience, and the street they walk on afterwards is the foggiest street in movie history.
• Tom Neal has one hell of a face. Sometimes he looks like Charlton Heston, other times Brian Williams. I gotta say though, he looks great staring off into nothing and sulking in his bleak existence.
• Also dated: The lost profession of switchboard operator. No early Hollywood movie is complete without a row of women moving phone plugs around and connecting people to their parties.
• I think the working title for “Detour” was “Rear Projection: The Motion Picture”. I get the sense that most of this movie’s production was the cast in a stationary car pretending to drive and/or sitting in silence as Al narrates.
• Speaking of driving, I noticed a few shots during the hitchhiking montage where the steering wheel is on the wrong side, and it looks like Al is hitchhiking across Europe. Turns out that in order to save money, some of the shots of Al hitchhiking back East from the film’s opening were flipped and used for his trip out West, hence why some of these shots look slightly off.
• In another alleged bit of B movie cost cutting, Haskell’s car – a 1941 Lincoln Continental convertible – was Edgar Ulmer’s actual car. Could he bill the mileage to PRC?
• Because movies like “Detour” tend to fly under the radar, I was completely unaware of the film’s twists and turns. Once Haskell becomes unresponsive I immediately started saying “Oh no oh shit oh no” over and over. It’s a delightful twist, the moment that starts the domino effect for the rest of the movie, and Haskell hitting his head on a rock as he falls out of the car is the cherry on top. From this point on, Al is royally screwed.

• What can I say about Ann Savage? She doesn’t show up until about halfway through the movie, but once she does she owns every frame of it. In a Hollywood filled with glamorized, uninteresting ingenues, Ann Savage lives up to her last name with a brassy, cutting performance. She’s somewhere between a young Bette Davis and a young Elaine Stritch, with a bit of Barbara Stanwyck thrown in for fun. Side note: As much as I wish Ann Savage was her real name, it’s actually Berniece Lyon.

• Also, it doesn’t help that Al makes several bad decisions after he discovers Haskell’s body, including PICKING UP ANOTHER HITCHHIKER. Did you learn nothing?
• I will once again advocate for black-and-white film as an aesthetic choice for certain movies, including this one. The film’s third act in Hollywood would have been too bright and flashy in color, especially compared to its New York beginning. Every spot in this movie is bleak, because Al and Vera make it bleak.
• “Detour” contains what I assume is the second most famous movie scene where someone on the run tries to quickly sell their car at a lot. Three if you count “The Muppet Movie“.
• I don’t want to spoil the ending, suffice it to say that there was a point where I had no idea where the movie was going, and it was great. It all culminates with Al’s final narration, in which he concludes that at any time “Fate or some mysterious force can put the finger on you or me for no good reason at all.” It’s this unrelenting pessimism towards life that makes “Detour” an irresistible antidote to its more upbeat big studio contemporaries.

• After PRC folded in 1946, most of their film library was sold off and started making the late night TV rounds in the 1950s. At some point in the early ’70s, “Detour” slipped into the public domain. Mixed with Ulmer fitting in neatly with the then-popular “auteur theory” of film, “Detour” found a second life with a new generation of film critics and became a prime example of a classic Hollywood B movie. 
• While Ann Savage lived long enough to see the film and her performance be re-evaluated and celebrated, Tom Neal…did not. In a bizarre bit of life imitating art, Neal was convicted of involuntary manslaughter when he accidentally shot and killed his wife Gale Bennett. He served six years before being released on parole, and died less than a year later.
• And finally, “Detour” got the remake treatment in 1992, using the original script with several deleted sequences intact. Al was played by Tom Neal’s son Tom Neal Jr. in his first and only on-screen performance.

The Plot: With the U.S. on the verge of entering World War I, producer Thomas Ince presents his unapologetic parable for peace. The kingdom of Nurma is sent to war by its King (Herschel Maydall), and his court inventor Count Ferdinand (Howard C. Hickman) takes his latest invention – a submarine – out to battle. While on a mission to sink civilian ship the ProPatria, Ferdinand is struck unconscious and ends up in Purgatory. There he meets Jesus (George Fisher), who urges him to repent and advocate for peace in His name. When Ferdinand returns, his newfound anti-war pleas fall on deaf ears, and the King has him put to death. As Ferdinand lies dying in his cell, Jesus intervenes and shows the King how his needless war has ravaged his kingdom. It’s an epic anti-war statement that unfortunately still holds up today.

Why It Matters: The NFR gives a rundown of the movie, and admits that Thomas Ince is best remembered today “for his infamously mysterious death in 1924” rather than for any artistic achievement. An essay by Ince expert Brian Taves contextualizes the hell out of this movie and its relation to the first World War.

But Does It Really?: Oh brother, this movie. “Civilization” is definitely on the historical side of things; an Important Movie of its time that has all but disappeared in the last century, and even at 83 minutes it is a slog to get through. I get why “Civilization” is on the list, and I’ll give it a pass for representing America’s trepidation to enter World War I, but I’m ready to check out of Inceville for a while.

Title Track: “Civilization” was originally titled “He Who Returned”, but was changed shortly before the film’s premiere when Thomas Ince decided it was “misleading and ambiguous”. “Civilization” was chosen for its straightforwardness, with the opening prologue stating there is no civilization until we have achieved peace. So…I guess we’re still waiting on that one.

• “Civilization” was Thomas Ince at his peak as a Hollywood producer. A few years later Ince sold his share of Triangle Studios back to Mack Sennett and D. W. Griffith (the other two “sides”) to focus on independent productions. In 1924, Ince was in the middle of negotiations to loan out his studios to William Randolph Hearst when he died aboard Hearst’s yacht. Cause of death: pre-existing heart conditions. End of story.

The Plot: After several documentaries focusing on some of music’s greatest headliners, Morgan Neville turns his camera to the backup vocalists. “20 Feet from Stardom” is a celebration of the singers who, despite being in the background, are as outstanding as the artists they’re supporting. Of the singers interviewed, “20 Feet” primarily focuses on four: Darlene Love, Merry Clayton, Lisa Fischer, and Judith Hill. Each recounts their early passion for singing, their first successes singing backup for bigger acts, their struggles branching out into solo careers, and their surprisingly unresentful feelings about where they ended up in life.

Why It Matters: Once again, the NFR write-ups for 2023 are lacking in superlatives, with “20 Feet” only getting a basic rundown; though they do call Merry Clayton’s “Gimme Shelter” contribution “[a] highlight”.

But Does It Really?: How can anyone not like this movie? In a culture teeming with talking head rock documentaries, “20 Feet from Stardom” stands out thanks to its unique perspective and sensitive storytelling. In a brisk 90 minutes, Morgan Neville takes us on a journey with these women, and gives us a newfound appreciation for all of the artists that contribute to our favorite music, not just the headliners. It’s too soon to know if “20 Feet from Stardom” will be a classic or essential documentary, but I’m awfully glad it’s on the NFR. 

Shout Outs: Among the clips shown of projects the interviewees have provided backup vocals for are NFR entries “Thriller“, “Stop Making Sense“, and “The Lion King“. “Stop Making Sense” backup performer Lynn Mabry is one of this film’s interviewees.

Everybody Gets One: Morgan Neville started his career as a journalist before pivoting to documentary filmmaking at age 25. Almost all of his early documentaries center around musicians, with subjects including Johnny Cash, Muddy Waters, and Brian Wilson. Neville was pitched the idea for “20 Feet from Stardom” by record producer Gil Friesen, who had just watched a Leonard Cohen concert and was impressed with its backup singers. Neville quickly realized that there was virtually nothing documenting the careers of backup singers, and interviewed dozens of singers (as many as 50) for an oral history. These interviews served as the backbone for what became “20 Feet from Stardom”.

Everybody Gets One – Zero Feet from Stardom Edition: Thanks to their participation in the film’s interviews, this is the only NFR appearance for such music legends as Sting, Bruce Springsteen, Stevie Wonder, Sheryl Crow, and Bette Midler.

Title Track: Interestingly enough, although all of the film’s promotional material lists the title as “20 Feet from Stardom”, the actual title in the film spells out the number as “Twenty Feet from Stardom”. Usually I side with whatever is in the film proper, but I’m sticking to the number 20 because I’ve already updated this site and I’m too lazy to change everything.

Seriously, Oscars?: A hit upon release, “20 Feet from Stardom” won the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature. Morgan Neville was joined onstage by co-producer Caitrin Rogers, Janet Friesen (representing her late husband Gil), and Darlene Love, who brought the house down with her rendition of “His Eye Is On the Sparrow”.

• The closest this movie gets to a bad guy is Phil Spector, the convicted murderer/record producer who had Darlene Love under a very restrictive contract in the ’60s and ’70s. Also mentioned briefly is Ike Turner, who interviewee Claudia Lennear did backup for (along with Tina of course). If you know anything about Ike Turner, it should come as no surprise that his mention here segues into a conversation about toxic work environments and emotional abuse.
• Speaking of Tina Turner, I can see how she earned her nickname “The Hardest Working Woman in Show Business”. She and her backup singers have choreography that blows the roof off of anything else that was going on back then. Watching Tina’s backup performers (the chauvinistically named Ikettes) be able to match her boundless energy on stage is still an incredible thing to watch. You just wish they had all been treated better at the time.
• Claudia Lennear’s interview fascinated me, as she is the only major interviewee in this movie who walked away from showbiz and never returned, spending the last several decades teaching high school Spanish, French, and Math. She slyly skirts around her relationships with Mick Jagger and David Bowie in her interview, and seems to have forgotten that she posed for Playboy in 1974. What a life.
• As the NFR write-up mentions, the real treasure of the movie is Merry Clayton relating the story of how she got a late-night call to sing a solo for a Rolling Stones recording session, which ended up being the solo in the middle of “Gimme Shelter”, arguably the most famous vocal solo in rock history. The highlight is when Merry, nearly 50 years later, gets to hear her isolated vocal track, allowing us to hear her contribution in all its raw glory.

• Lisa Fischer speaks fondly of her time singing backup for Luther Vandross, who I always forget started off as a backup singer himself. Side note: Mr. Vandross sings backup on Bowie’s “Young Americans”, one of my favorite songs.

• Also on hand throughout are the Waters siblings – Oren, Julia, and Maxine – who rattle off the impressive list of films and music they have supplied vocals for. Oren even mentions supplying bird noises for “Avatar” (possibly the Mighty Ikran). It amuses me that a movie that includes a clip from “Avatar” made the NFR before “Avatar” (which as of this writing hasn’t made the cut).
• Of course, the most heartbreaking segment is when all of these singers recount their attempts at solo careers that never got off the ground. One of this film’s main points is that talent doesn’t always equal fame, a hard lesson to learn in your youth. Merry Clayton sums it up when she says, “I felt that if I gave my heart to what I was doing I would automatically be a star.” Backup singer/interviewee Tata Vega gives her own spin on the upside of not being famous, theorizing that if her solo career had taken off, she would have OD’d long before this documentary was made.
• As a lifelong devotee of David Letterman, it shocks me that there was a time when Darlene Love was anything other than a star. Her annual performance of “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” on Letterman’s show was always a season highlight, and it’s just not Christmas for me (and many others) without Darlene.
• Judith Hill is positioned within the film’s narrative as a rising star, and understandably so. She was touring with Michael Jackson when he died, and her performance at his memorial concert made her an overnight sensation. Hill talks here about her struggles to focus on her solo career while turning down backup gigs, and the backlash she got on Twitter when she was spotted singing backup for Kylie Minogue on a Leno appearance. This may be the first NFR movie to mention the hellhole that is Twitter/X.

• I walked away from this movie really liking Lisa Fischer. She just seems like the loveliest human, and one who is happy with her lot in life; getting to share her talents without dealing with the hassles and hazards of fame. It’s funny how after 90 minutes I feel like I know Lisa (as well as the other subjects), with my main takeaway being “I hope she’s doing well.”
• The finale is Darlene Love recording a cover of “Lean on Me” with Lisa and Judith (alongside singer Jo Lawry) on back-up. It’s hard to think of a song that works as a metaphor for backup singing, but “Lean on Me” does the job, and it is no surprise that these four knock it out of the park with a simple, sincere, yet powerful rendition.

• Morgan Neville’s immediate follow-up to “20 Feet” was as far away from this movie as you can get: 2015’s “The Best of Enemies: Buckley vs. Vidal”. Subsequent films include “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” and “Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain”. My personal favorite is “They’ll Love Me When I’m Dead”, his 2018 companion piece to Orson Welles’ final film “The Other Side of the Wind”.

• In the decade since “20 Feet” came out, Darlene Love, Merry Clayton, Lisa Fischer, Judith Hill, and Tata Vega have all continued to perform both as solo artists and backup singers (and as best I can tell Claudia Lennear is still teaching). Darlene Love recently reunited with Letterman to do another rendition of “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” and I’m not crying you’re crying.

Listen To This: Unsurprisingly, some of these singers show up doing backup vocals on songs in the National Recording Registry. Darlene Love (along with The Blossoms) can be heard singing backup on The Righteous Brothers’ “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling“, the Waters do backup on Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” album, and Maxine Waters is featured on Irene Cara’s “Flashdance…What a Feeling“.

The Plot: Jim Apperson (John Gilbert) has no interest in working for his wealthy businessman father (Hobart Bosworth) or for anyone. When World War I breaks out, Jim is initially indifferent, but is convinced by his friends to enlist. Jim soon finds himself in the U.S. Army’s 42^nd Infantry Division (aka the Rainbow Division), stationed near a farm in the French village of Champillon. Jim meets local farmer Melisande (Renée Adorée) and while there is some initial friction between the two, they begin to develop feelings for each other. When Jim’s unit is sent to the front, the couple tearfully part, with Jim vowing he will return. And that’s just the first half of this big, sprawling, war epic.

Why It Matters: The NFR write-up gives a rundown of the film’s significance, and quotes Moraunt Hall’s New York Times review of the film, in which he called it “an eloquent pictorial epic” that showed “all the artistry of which the camera is capable.”

But Does It Really?: This is definitely in the “historical significance” camp of NFR movies. On its own “The Big Parade” is a well-made epic that holds up reasonably fine almost a century later, but has more or less disappeared from the conversation of great movies. While I found the film a bit of a chore to sit through, I knew I was watching the silent film medium at the height of its artistry, with King Vidor successfully balancing the film’s blend of romance, light comedy, and grim warfare. “The Big Parade” is not the greatest movie ever made, but it is an undeniably important film that deserves to be brought up and reappraised every now and then, and its NFR induction is warranted and respected.

Everybody Gets One: Laurence Stallings was a journalist who served with the Marines in France during World War I. After the war, Stallings co-wrote the war play “What Price Glory” with Maxwell Anderson, and the play’s Broadway success allowed Stallings to write full-time, focusing primarily on his wartime experience. Shortly afterwards director King Vidor and producer Irving Thalberg of MGM approached Stallings about the film rights to “What Price Glory”, which had already been snatched up by Fox (and made into a movie there in 1926). Undeterred, Vidor and Thalberg commissioned Stallings to write another WWI screenplay, and the result was “The Big Parade”. Side note: Some sources say that “Big Parade” is an adaptation of Stallings’ 1924 autobiography “Plumes”, but I couldn’t find any official source that could corroborate that claim.

Title Track: According to the intertitles, the “big parade” is the march of soldiers off to war. “Men! Guns! Men! Men! Guns!”

Wow, That’s Dated: Mostly all of the WWI references sprinkled throughout, including a shoutout to General John “Black Jack” Pershing, as well as about 900 verses of “You’re in the Army Now“.

Another very hard to find movie, “La Venganza de Pancho Villa” is currently available on a YouTube channel called “ArchiviaFilms”. Enjoy it while it lasts.

This post can only scratch the surface of the complex political life of Pancho Villa and the Mexican Revolution. As always, let this post be the beginning of your research, not the end.

The Plot: Culling from several narrative and documentary films of the era, Felix Padilla’s “La Venganza de Pancho Villa” is a retelling of the highs and lows of the famous Mexican revolutionary. Roughly chronicling Pancho Villa from his rise to prominence in 1913 to his death in 1923, the film combines its multiple film sources (plus original footage shot by Padilla himself) to paint a picture of the man that is simultaneously celebratory and condemning.

Why It Matters: The NFR rundown is a few brief sentences about what the film is, stating that it “combines the cinematic traditions of the United States and Mexico”. An essay by USC film professor Laura Isabel Serna, PhD is as detailed a write-up about the film and its creators as we’re ever going to get.

But Does It Really?: Oh yes. Right out the gate, “La Venganza” made it very clear why it was on the NFR. Everything about this film stood out to me as unique among its fellow NFR entries: its subject matter, its production, and its presentation all create a wholly original piece of filmmaking. This all being said, you should definitely do your homework before watching “La Venganza”. I got so much more out of my second viewing once I knew more about Pancho Villa and the Mexican Revolution. A yes for NFR inclusion, though definitely more on the historical side of things.

Everybody Gets One: All of my information regarding Felix Padilla comes from the NFR’s essay from Laura Isabel Serna. According to Serna, Felix Padilla was a film exhibitor in East El Paso, Texas who pivoted to traveling exhibitions when his theater closed. Like many a silent film exhibitor, Padilla knew how to curate and tailor his program to time allotment and regional tastes. Throughout the late ’20s and early ’30s, Padilla crisscrossed the US-Mexican border, collecting films on Pancho Villa from both countries and splicing them together to make his own film. When Padilla died in the mid-1930s, his son Edmundo continued work on his father’s film.

Everybody Gets One (Archival Edition): Pancho Villa rose to prominence in 1910 when he helped end the dictatorship of President Porfirio Diaz, which kicked off the Mexican Revolution. By 1914, after overthrowing yet another Mexican dictator (Victoriano Huerta), Villa was at the height of his fame and power, with his mythologized exploits coming to America thanks to journalist John Reed. Villa was in need of additional funding for the Revolution, and turned to Hollywood. He signed a contract with Mutual Film Corporation to make “The Life of General Villa” and film his subsequent battles (in daylight, night shooting hadn’t been perfected yet). Villa was given a $25,000 advance (roughly $760,000 today), and received 50% of all film profits.

Title Track: Earlier versions of the film went by the names “La Venganza del Guerrillero” [The Vengeance of the Guerrilla Fighter] and “El Vengador de la Raza” [The Avenger of the Common People]. “La Venganza de Pancho Villa” was the title given to the final version completed by Edmundo.

• The first major event of the film is 1913’s First Battle of Torreón, which saw Villa and his revolutionaries occupying the city of Torreón, Coahuila. This is definitely taken from one of the anti-Villa films, as the occupation is depicted as an all-out attack on the town. Quick, someone call the Three Amigos!
• This compilation is not unlike “The Atomic Cafe“, in which historical footage is restructured to create a semi-revisionist narrative. It may also be film history’s first fan edit.
• As someone who knew of Pancho Villa in name only before this viewing, I kept asking myself, “Is he the good guy or the bad guy?” This film oscillates between making Pancho Villa the Robin Hood-esque savior of Mexico and, to quote another NFR movie, the Shame of a Nation. Very confusing if you don’t know Mexican history, but it definitely helps hold your interest.
• I know we’re working with duplicate positive prints here, but some of this newsreel footage is pretty rough. “Decasia” looked better.
• So the titular revenge is against America? Villa actually had a good reputation with America for a good chunk of the 1910s due to his public rejection of Venusitano Carranza, a fellow revolutionary that Villa had a falling out with. By 1915, however, after Villa’s defeat by Carranza’s Constitutionalists in the Battle of Celaya, President Woodrow Wilson shifted his support to Carranza, feeling the Constitutionalists could create a more stable Mexican government. And as we all know, getting Wilson’s endorsement wasn’t always a good thing.
• Pancho Villa exacts his “revenge” through two events depicted here: an attack on a train in Santa Isabel, Chihuaha that killed 18 Americans, and a border-crossing assault on Columbus, New Mexico in 1916. The Battle of Columbus is definitely the centerpiece of the film, with a lot of screentime devoted to it and probably the strongest pro-American bent in the entire film.
• All of this propoganda just reminds me of that “Viva Señor Burns!” scene from “The Simpsons”. “We did 20 takes, and that was the best one.”
• One attack on an American camp occurs (according to an intertitle) at “Midnight on April 6” …in broad daylight. This must be one of the Mutual-sanctioned day-shoots.
• It’s worth noting that the intertitles for most of this film are presented in both Spanish and English. The Serna essay is quick to point out, however, that the narrative changes depending on which one you read. During the attack on American troops, the Spanish intertitles translates to “The Villistas did away with the entire American deployment”, while the English intertitle informs us that “The Americans die like heroes”.
• Is it just me or does the real Pancho Villa kinda look like Teddy Roosevelt?
• The film ends with Villa’s peace settlement with the Mexican government and retirement in 1920, and his assassination in 1923, recreated using still photos. I didn’t realize Pancho Villa went out the same way as “Bonnie and Clyde“.

• In addition to “Los rollos perdidos”, Gregoria Rocha made a film specifically about the making of “La Venganza de Pancho Villa”: 2006’s “Acme & Co.”

Further Viewing: 2003’s “And Starring Pancho Villa as Himself”, HBO’s take on the making of “The Life of General Villa” and the influence Hollywood had on the Mexican Revolution. Starring Antonio Banderas as Pancho Villa as Himself.