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My streaming gem: why you should watch Starcrash

The latest in a series of writers recommending under-appreciated films available to stream highlights a schlocky late 70s Star Wars rip-off

When the Emperor of the First Circle of the Universe (that is, Christopher Plummer, in a patent leather suit beneath silver armor, a cape and oven mitt-like gloves) wants to calm his worried son (David Hasselhoff) during a climactic moment, he steps forward amid a room full of warriors and slain robots and bellows: Imperial Battleship stop the flow of time!!!

It is an apogee of trash brilliance unrivaled anywhere else in the galaxy.

The Star Wars big bang created a universe that is still expanding, but never was the fiery scream of that first eruption felt more furiously than in the late 1970s. Producers far and wide hitched their fortunes to the Millennium Falcons hyperdrive, to varying measures of financial and artistic success.

It got Star Trek (the far superior of the two franchises) back into business, with the curiously terrific Star Trek: The Motion Picture in 1979 and begat Battlestar Galactica in 1978, Flash Gordon in 1980 and Buck Rogers in the 25th Century in 1979.

But these are the more respectable titles. On the lower budget shelf came Battle Beyond the Stars (penned on assignment by John Sayles), Galaxina (starring Playboy playmate Dorothy Stratten) and one of the all-time pieces of junk, Italys Cosmos: War of the Planets.

In the middle of all this is something that demands further study. Mixing low-budget schlock with genuine design brilliance is Starcrash. Produced at Romes Cinecitt Studios in 1978 and distributed by Roger Cormans New World Pictures, Starcrash was directed and co-written by future Dario Argento collaborator Luigi Cozzi (credited as Lewis Coates)

In addition to Plummer (only in a few scenes, whispering his ludicrous lines with a true thespians straight face) and Hasselhoff (dashing, and wielding a cheapo green lightsaber) is a nervous police robot with a wacky American Southern drawl, a goon named Thor with green makeup on his face (but not his neck), and the real reason this movie is as remembered as it is: Caroline Munro.

Munro, already known for appearing in Hammer Studio films, the Ray Harryhausen Golden Voyage of Sinbad and as Bond villainess Naomi in The Spy Who Loved Me, is Stella Star, a bikini clad smuggler with Patrick Nagel-like makeup and eternally blown-out hair. Though her voiced is dubbed by Candy Clark (Plummer referred to her accent as one you could coot with a fookin knife when I asked him about Starcrash in a recent interview), her charisma still blasts through the screen. Yes, it is absurd that all the men are wearing spacesuits or typical high fantasy gowns, but she wears her various skintight, fabric-light outfits with confidence and verve. She is a vision of vertices, a striking image on her own, but even more so against the primary colors of the various interplanetary interiors and spaceship bridges of the film.

At her side is Akton, played by former child preacher (and subject of an Academy Award-winning documentary feature) Marjoe Gortner. Resembling a lovechild of poultry magnate Frank Purdue and Foreigners Lou Gramm during his Jukebox Hero peak, Gortner is a baffling pick as a leading man, but he does have access to cool, neon-like laser magic and a red-and-black rubbery outfit.

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Photograph: Allstar/NEW WORLD PICTURES

The plot to Starcrash is submental a ripoff of Star Wars, which was already a ripoff classic action serials. Theres a gender-swapped rescue mission (David Hasselhoff is Princess Leia) and a big laser beam shoot em up at the end. We visit an outer space hard labor prison, a Zardoz-like rocky planet riddled with troglodytes, a frozen realm where clouds zoom across the sky in surreal high speeds and then theres the evil Count, Zarth Arn, who literally cackles after describing his plan to take over the universe. (It involves something called The Doom Machine.)

In addition to Christopher Plummer, the other grown up in the room, who youll notice immediately, is composer John Barry. His inimitable orchestral sweep lends the proceedings a strong boost. While his score to Starcrash is not going to top On Her Majestys Secret Service, Out of Africa or the (far more boring post-Star Wars flick) The Black Hole as a personal best, it is undeniably grand music.

And while the dialogue and performances in Starcrash are likely to lead to facepalms and outright laughter, I must state in no uncertain terms that the visual pop of this movie is tremendous. According to lore, production on Starcrash was marred by widespread food poisoning, then the negative was then held for ransom by striking workers. The effort was well worth it.

  • Starcrash is available on Amazon Prime in the US and UK

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/apr/13/starcrash-david-hasselhoff-film-amazon-prime

Ridley Scott on erasing Kevin Spacey from his new film: ‘He’s a very good actor. It’s a pity’

All the Money in the World was in the can and kind of perfect when its star became toxic. The director wasted no time recasting the role, but not necessarily for moral reasons …

Ridley Scott makes a long, pained sound when I ask how he received the news four months ago that Kevin Spacey had become radioactive just as their film, All the Money in the World, was gearing up for release. Eeeeeeeh, the director sighs at the memory. You get that nasty, deep, gut feeling: oh shit.

It was late October when allegations of sexual misconduct started flying around, sending the Oscar-winning actor into disgrace and planting a big question mark over Scotts $40m thriller about the 1973 kidnapping of John Paul Getty III. Spacey, wearing facial prosthetic makeup, played Grandpa Getty, the octogenarian tycoon who refused to pay a ransom for his grandson.

The film was in the can and trailers were in cinemas. Sony Pictures was touting Spaceys performance as Oscar-worthy, an opinion Scott seems to share: When I finished it with Kevin, it was kind of perfect. The director had enjoyed working with the House of Cards star. I got on very well with him. Hes a very good actor, great fun to work with. You might think, then, that Spaceys sudden toxicity created a dilemma for Scott, some anguish before he decided to expunge Spacey from the film and reshoot it with Christopher Plummer in the role. You would be wrong. The director who brought us Alien, Blade Runner, Thelma & Louise and Gladiator doesnt do anguish.

My decision was almost immediate. I said: We need to re-do this. I phoned Christopher and asked if hed meet me in New York. Met him that night. An unprecedented Hollywood gamble to reassemble cast and crew for breakneck shooting and editing in a race to deliver a new version in time for the US Christmas box office, just like that? Scott nods. I didnt agonise. I never dwell on a problem, only the solution. You learn to do that, doing what I do.

Audiences in Britain can judge the results for themselves now that the film has opened in the UK. The Guardians Peter Bradshaw has called it a raucous pedal-to-the-metal thriller. Spaceys erasure has emboldened the BBC to do its own vanishing trick: scrubbing Ed Westwick from the Agatha Christie drama Ordeal by Innocence in the wake of sexual assault accusations against the actor, which he denies. He will be replaced by Christian Cooke.

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Scott directs Christopher Plummer and Mark Wahlberg in the reshoot of All the Money in the World. Photograph: Giles Keyte/AP

One word recurs when talking to Scott: business. Sir Ridley, knighted in 2003, is an artist in addition to making films, the Royal College of Art alumnus paints. But questions about ethics, acting and storytelling are redirected to the realm of budgets, profit and loss and bums on seats. When youre in film, its a lot of money to lose if its not working. Business is always highly linked with the creative process.

The 80-year-old learned hard lessons half a century ago running his own advertising firm in London, and directing TV ads for Hovis and Chanel No 5. You do a budget. If youre wrong, you pay. If you go into overtime, thats your fault. Every time you waste time, youre losing money.

Its a balmy January afternoon, Californian sunshine streaming in the window, and Scott is perched in a Beverly Hills hotel suite, his black T-shirt and boots and sleek silver hair rather LA, but his accent more Durham than Malibu. His ability to write, produce and/or direct several films a year a workrate he acknowledges is crazy hinges on investors and studios having faith he will make them money. Its in the DNA. My mum wasnt a businesswoman but should have been. A frustrated business person, all 5ft of her.

Hes not keen on holidays. What the fucks Thanksgiving? Its a fucking turkey. I never think about things like that. The fact that the world stops for three weeks over Christmas is insane. You lose nearly a month.

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Expunged Kevin Spacey as John Paul Getty III in All the Money in the World. Photograph: TriStar Pictures/Zuma Press/PA Images

Erasing Spacey from a completed film was a bold move in a career packed with them: casting the unknown Sigourney Weaver as the lead in Alien; channelling Orwell in his 1984 Super Bowl commercial for Apple; sending his two heroines over a cliff in Thelma & Louise. The switch raised intriguing questions. Should a performance be extinguished because of the performers alleged off-screen misconduct? Should the performer be presumed innocent until proven otherwise? (Spacey apologised to Anthony Rapp, who said he was 14 when the actor made unwanted sexual advances, but stayed silent about other accusations.)

I tell Scott the decision reminded me of Stalin airbrushing purged comrades from group photos. He doesnt take offence, but it is not clear he agrees with the comparison because he goes on to say it was, of course, just business. Whatever you do in private is not my business. It only becomes my business if it infects the business that Im in. Then its my duty to do something about it. In cold print that may sound like Michael Corleone, but Scotts breezy cheer is closer to Del Boy.

Spaceys disgrace part of a torrent of allegations against prominent figures uncorked by those surrounding Harvey Weinstein triggered boycott calls against All the Money in the World. Scott sensed an existential threat to his film. Negative test screenings and nervous cinema-chain owners would make the films backers balk at spending an estimated $25m to $35m in so-called print and advertising on top of the $40m production cost to distribute the film.

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Scott on the set of Alien, 1979. Photograph: Stanley Bielecki Movie Collection/Getty Images

The P&A is going to untangle and at some point somebody will say lets not put the film out. It would infect the movie to the extent that wed eventually decide not to sell it … and not spend good money after bad. Its aways a business decision.

Scott calculated the cost of reshooting and editing at $10m. He told Dan Friedkin, a billionare auto tycoon and key investor, that they could pull it off. I told him we can fix this, Im almost certain we can get the next Getty. Speed was crucial to catch the Christmas box office and to get ahead of a TV version of the story directed by Danny Boyle.

On 7 November, Scott met Plummer in the Terrace Boardroom of the Four Seasons Hotel in Manhattan and asked him to step in for a whirlwind nine days of shooting. The veteran actor Captain von Trapp in the Sound of Music had been previously considered for the Getty role. We only went with Kevin because Kevin was younger, the part was challenging and Christopher was 87. I erred on the side of youth, which I shouldnt have.

Plummer accepted and Scott scrambled into action. Michelle Williams, who played the kidnapped teens mother, and Mark Wahlberg, who played a Getty family fixer, agreed to reshoot scenes for no extra payment, he says. He reassembled key crew members and arranged permission to reuse locations in England and Italy. For me it was just organisation, bang bang bang bang bang. If I was going to feel anxious about anything it would have been about my new Mr Getty because its a lot of words, 22 scenes. He had to get it down.

His new star nailed it. Plummers got this enormous charm whether hes doing King Lear or The Sound of Music. This guys a real colouring book, he can do anything. Plummers twinkle gave the miserly tycoon more warmth than Spaceys portrayal, but both actors captured the characters isolation, he says. You get so wealthy that there arent that many friends you can have. People are never normal with you. You become lonelier.

Scotts habit of using multiple cameras and doing few takes kept the schedule on track. Id say: Action. Bang, away we go. Because Im [simultaneously] doing close-up and wide-shot, Im capturing everything. The most important thing of all is the actor. To do less takes is better, because an actor wears out. Its a bit like being a standup comedian. You tell a joke once, its funny … the third time, its starting to wear a bit thin.

While shooting he worked closely with editor Claire Simpson like a two-headed computer to shape the material. You just become more practised and cut away the shit. He does screenplays at the same chop-chop pace. Start in the morning, get on another pot of coffee, write the fucker.

Audiences may shield their eyes during a graphic scene where the kidnappers, tough gangsters in southern Italy, slice off part of young Gettys ear, a mutilation that finally compelled the elder Getty to stump up part of the ransom (making sure it was tax-deductible). The film was nearly journalistic so I figured we may need a wake-up call in the middle. Rather than hear about it, why not show it, the whole bloody thing.

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Russell Crowe in Gladiator. Photograph: Allstar/DREAMWORKS/Sportsphoto Ltd./Allstar

Against stiff competition the film has done decent, unspectacular business at the US box office and generated award buzz: Golden Globe acting nominations for Plummer and Williams, and a directing nomination for Scott.

Whether Oscar glory beckons or not, Spaceys ghost will always hover over the film, his absence a singular testament to Hollywoods backlash against alleged sexual misconduct. Scott says he was unaware of casting couch abuses after moving to Hollywood in the late 1970s. I thought it was maybe something from the 1930s, 40s and 50s. He has not witnessed abuses. Im not a party-goer. I work so hard during the day that when I get out of there, thats enough. Ive taken one snort [of cocaine] in my life and I thought I was getting root-canal. It was absolutely disgusting. And Ive had one joint. I hated that loss of control, I didnt like it at all.

Spaceys sexual orientation did not completely escape the director. I knew he liked the chaps, you know. But its not my business. I never witnessed anything untoward. Hes a very good actor. Its a pity. A pity Spacey allegedly preyed on young men, or a pity his talent may no longer have an outlet? Scott doesnt elaborate.

He seems unsure if the outing of alleged wrongdoers has gone too far or not far enough. As a viewer he sees no need to shun films by Spacey or directors such as Roman Polanksi, who was convicted of rape. I can separate the creative talent from whoever the man is. He cites Arthur Millers play The Crucible, about witch-hunts. I just hope a lot of this isnt going OTT. I know thats a very unpopular thing to say, but there it is. He pauses and cracks a grin. Its certainly going to affect dating.

Scott, a father of three, turns serious when mulling the impact of abuse on children and the young. What Polanksi did to his 13-year-old victim, he says, was shocking and unacceptable. Morality aside, abuse is bad for the bottom line. In business, you cannot have that.

Hollywoods reckoning has further to go, he says. There arent enough people being pursued. It sounds a lot, but its not really. Its long overdue, honestly.He thinks actors who are trailed by misconduct rumours will struggle for work. The first people to pick that up would be the studio because its their money. Theyd say: Oi, we dont want any problems. Scott is amazed that several upcoming films, which he declines to identify, have not been kiboshed.

The director has on occasion hired actors with personal problems, such as the late Oliver Reed in Gladiator. He was an alcoholic. I said: Oliver, dont let me down. He said: Whatever I do after five oclock is my own business, so go fuck yourself. I said: Fine, but if you do it before five oclock, Ill fuck you royally. That was the conversation.

All the Money in the World is out now

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/jan/05/ridley-scott-on-erasing-kevin-spacey-from-his-new-film-hes-a-very-good-actor-its-a-pity

Charmian Carr Liesl von Trapp in The Sound of Music dies, aged 73

The actor, who performed Sixteen Going on Seventeen in the 1965 film, said people should consider singing the musicals songs like going to a therapist

Charmian Carr, who played Liesl von Trapp in The Sound of Music, has died at the age of 73.

The actors spokesman said she died on Saturday in Los Angeles, of complications from a rare form of dementia.

Carr was best known for her role in the Rodgers and Hammersteins 1965 film, in which she performed the song Sixteen Going On Seventeen. She was a college student when she auditioned for the film, which also starred Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer.

The actor fully embraced audiences reverence for the musical, frequently appearing at fan events commemorating the film, including sing-a-long performances at the Hollywood Bowl.

I tell people that they should consider sing-a-long Sound Of Music like going to a therapist, she told Associated Press before a 2005 appearance. Its just a kind of therapy. They can move around. They can dance and talk back to the screen. They can skip their appointment with the shrink that week.

Carr later wrote a pair of books about her experiences, Forever Liesl and Letters To Liesl. She went on to star with Anthony Perkins in Evening Primrose, the Stephen Sondheim television musical.

Kym Karath, who played Gretl, the youngest of the Von Trapp children, wrote on Twitter: It is with infinite sadness that I share the tragic news that the precious & exquisite Charmian Carr, beautiful Liesl, has passed away.

Ted Chapin, president of the Rodgers and Hammerstein organisation, said in a statement: Its always sad when a member of the family passes away and in the case of the family of the movie The Sound of Music, its especially sad when it is the first of the group to go.

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Charmian Carr photographed in 2000. She had a successful career as an interior designer but embraced her famous role by appearing in sing-a-long Sound of Music events. Photograph: Karen Robinson for the Observer

Charmian Carr played the oldest von Trapp child, and in some ways she maintained that role in real life guiding, cheering, supporting and generally being there for the rest of her sisters and brothers.

Carr was born in Chicago in 1942. Her mother was a vaudeville actress, and her father was a musician and orchestra leader. Her family moved to the San Fernando Valley when she was a child.

When she retreated from acting, she set up an interior design business in southern California. Her clients included Michael Jackson and Sound of Music screenwriter Ernest Lehman.

2oth Century Fox paid tribute to Carr on Twitter, writing: The Sound of Music lost a beloved member of the family w/ the passing of Charmian Carr. She will be forever missed.

Seth MacFarlane, the actor and director, wrote: So very saddened to hear of the death of Charmian Carr. She leaves behind one of the most memorable performances in movie history.

Carr is survived by her four siblings, her two children and four grandchildren. She is also survived by the six other actors who became part of cinematic history when they were cast as the von Trapp children.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/sep/18/charmian-carr-liesl-in-the-sound-of-music-dies-aged-73