J O S E P H L A N Z A' S N E R V E C E N T E R: "KISS ME DEADLY" -- In Praise of the Mangler's Cut!

Saturday, November 8, 2014

"KISS ME DEADLY" -- In Praise of the Mangler's Cut!

For years, many fans of Kiss Me Deadly, and Robert Aldrich fans in general, regarded this film's abrupt, disorienting, and apocalyptic final seconds to be a bold and creative statement for a movie released in 1955. This original theatrical ending, which was supposedly due to accidental film damage (but maybe not), is better because it is much more brash and ends the way an atomic explosion should. Instead, the "restoration" (with Mike Hammer and Velda watching it all from a nearby beach) makes the atomic explosion look more like a gas explosion.

Aldrich was known for some abrupt endings and beginnings (think of the crying jack-in-the-box at the start of "Baby Jane"), so appreciative viewers were right to assume that this was the ending the director intended. I, therefore, thank the projectionist or whoever else enabled us to see this supposedly "mangled" version for so many years. Sometimes directors don't know best.

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on ELEVATOR MUSIC

"Elevator Music is a fascinating tour of the sonic inferno we all unconsciously inhabit." -- J.G. Ballard

"Lanza takes background music seriously as both music and social utility. In doing so, he's written one of the few pop-history books that won't put you to sleep — not to mention the only one that dares to probe the very real connections between shopping-mall music and Devo."
-- David Browne, Entertainment Weekly

"Snobby musicologists ignore this fascinating topic, but I learned a lot while being well-entertained by Lanza's delightful book."
-- Wendy Carlos, composer

"It's still a surreal world, after all, and Lanza's neat tome is a great way to reflect on some of the aural factors that make it so."
—Washington Post - See more at: http://www.press.umich.edu/script/press/8718#sthash.kPkwdJLw.dpuf

"It's still a surreal world, after all, and Lanza's neat tome is a great way to reflect on some of the aural factors that make it so."
-- Jonathan Padget, Washington Post

"A fascinating tour of a genuine piece of American surrealism, diligently researched, sparklingly presented, surprising at every turn. Hilarious and at times terrifying."
—Phil Patton, author of Made in the U.S.A.

on VANILLA POP

"Joseph Lanza's writing radiates like a hit song! Uncanny depth of knowledge and obvious passion for his subject. He is someone who listens between the notes and tells stories between the lines. He hooked me!" -- Bobby Vee

"...this lovingly researched book attempts to defend the whitest of white music from the dismissive sneers of music snobs. With contagious enthusiasm, Lanza reveals the engineering tricks behind the dulcet sounds of '50s and '60s froth along with the artists who sang them."
-- Blender magazine

"Though Lanza is careful to detail the lives of his various subjects, his account becomes most interesting when he reveals the technical accomplishments of the singers and (especially) the engineers who helped make their sound... this is a surprisingly flavorful journey through an often-ignored musical landscape."
-- Publisher's Weekly

"The chapter on `ABBA's Vanilla Ice' is delicious."
-- Chicago Free Press

on PHALLIC FRENZY

"Lanza has managed to disguise his masterful research as a near-neo-novel with gothic and surreal overtones. I applaud the man, having done the same with my own biographies on composers."
-- Ken Russell

[Phallic Frenzy] is an often riotously entertaining romp through a life that even Russell's detractors would admit has been well lived... Biographer and subject are beautifully matched."
-- Sight & Sound magazine

"Phallic Frenzy: Ken Russell and His Films by Joseph Lanza is a nutty, hysterical bowl through Russell's huge oeuvre of television and feature films. The many random biographical details (for example, when Ken was little he thought a gorilla lived next door) add up to a tenderly enthusiastic portrait of the great man."
-- Antonia Quirke, Financial Times

"Phallic Frenzy covers Russell's entire life and career to date, revealing a cultured vulgarian whose often garish, offensive, and ostentatious cinematic landscape sweated, thrashed, bled, and ejaculated like the conceptual offspring of Breughel and H.R. Giger after a tequila-and-psilocybin-gorged weekend with Willy Wonka.
-- Steve Bunche, The Vault of Buncheness

"The core features are discussed in exhaustive detail, blending close analysis with lively anecdote . . . [Lanza] has delved extensively into the more colorful aspects of his subject's life."
—Book Review Digest

on FRAGILE GEOMETRY

"This brilliant and fascinating study of Nicolas Roeg is as close as we are ever likely to get to this most mysterious of present-day film directors. Mr. Lanza is shrewd, clever, and always entertaining."
-- J. G. Ballard

"By refusing to oust himself from his reading of Roeg and his films, Lanza engages us in a manner attempted by precious few tomes dedicated to the cinema. That he also approximates Roeg's own cinematic methods in doing so -- without seeming obtuse, coy, or mannered -- yields unexpected dividends."
-- Stephen R. Bissette, Video Watchdog

"This book should help explain why Roeg's films are the way they are. It might even make you want to go out of your way to see more of them."
-- Psychotronic Video

on GRAVITY

"Joseph Lanza is the perfect guide as he takes us on an exhilarating rollercoaster ride around the ups and downs of the most constant force in our lives -- a thrilling trip not to be missed."
-- J.G. Ballard

"Lanza's brilliance lies in the fact that he makes each precarious dip into the valleys of rollercoaster arcana serve as a prelude to ascending exhilarating peaks where the entire cultural landscape opens up, allowing you to glimpse -- if only for a moment -- the interconnectedness of all things, from Marilyn Monroe's coyly ballooning skirt to Corningware."
-- Linda Jaivin, Los Angeles Times Book Review

"[Gravity] is a thematically linked array of scholarly showmanship, wherein Lanza waxes all pop-cultural clever and erudite about the enigmatic force that pulls at everything. His attention roves among the legacies of cinema and elevators and airplanes and music and skyscrapers and rollercoasters and spaceships and more, weaving a brightly-threaded tapestry of facts and correspondences, of acumen and allusions, that will have you considering the phenomena of mass and force in ways you never have before."
-- Wayne Alan Brenner, Austin Chronicle

on RUSS COLUMBO

"An inspiration to ... wonderful singers like Perry Como. He had a much prettier face than Crosby and a prettier sound."
-- Frankie Avalon

"The wonderful flow of the writing combined with ... *new* facts and photos make this... A first class book!"
-- Vince Giordano

"Exceptionally vivid, colorful, appreciative ... one of the best books about a singer that I have ever read ... very attractive ... well-written."
-- Laura Wagner, Classic Images

"A humdinger of a book that zings along ... like a crooner ballad on wheels. A hell of a good read."
-- Ian Whitcomb

Saturday, November 8, 2014

"KISS ME DEADLY" -- In Praise of the Mangler's Cut!

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