In his 1996 book Michael Powell (Batsford), author James Howard reveals through recollections of the filmmaker's associates that the directorial half of "The Archers" was not an especially pleasant boss.  In fact, some who worked with him have claimed that Powell seemed to have a sadistic streak, sometimes reducing actors to tears if their performance didn't please him.  

Although dancer Moira Shearer, the star of Powell's classic The Red Shoes, found him to be "a director of great cinematic invention and originality," she also observed that "he neither understood nor respected actors and, far from creating a sympathetic atmosphere in the studio, he created the reverse.  It was a damaging experience for many people."

The late, great cameraman Jack Cardiff (1947's Black Narcissus, among many others) termed Powell's directorial style as "very abrasive," and recalled that he would be intentionally rude to lesser-known actors.  "You're not very good, are you?  Who's your agent?" are examples of Powell's attacks cited by Cardiff, who observes that the director "...believed this sort of insult would prick them into a better performance, but I don't think it ever did."  

Tyrannical filmmakers are a staple of the film industry, as anyone who has watched the YouTube clip in which director David O. Russell verbally - and almost physically - assaults Lily Tomlin (whose own tirades are legendary) on the set of I Heart Huckabees (2004) will attest.  Perhaps whenever perfectionist artistes must entrust their vision to interpretation by others, frayed nerves and rising tempers are an inevitable byproduct of the creative process.  Joseph von Sternberg, John Ford (who purportedly made John Wayne cry!), and Kurosawa Akira are only three examples of filmmakers known for their imperious behavior toward actors and crew members.

Conversely, something markedly different occurred when a former co-worker of mine, an amateur actor who occasionally appeared in television commercials and off-Broadway stage productions, was given a non-speaking role in John Waters' Serial Mom (1994).  This part-time actor fondly recalled that the Baltimore filmmaker was the kindest, most considerate professional he had ever worked with.  Although his part in the film was ultimately cut to mere seconds of screen time, my co-worker and the other members of the cast and crew received a personally written thank-you note from Waters and an invitation to the premiere.  

Life is indeed full of wonder when the self-professed "Prince of Puke," whose once-transgressive films reveled in eye-gouging, feces-eating mayhem posts thank-you cards to the least significant members of his cast, but the proper British director behind such sensitive character studies as I Know Where I'm Going (1945) frequently bestowed on his actors the aural equivalent of a shoebox full of dog shit.

New this installment are reviews of William Castle's It's A Small World (1950) and Georges Franju's Le téte contre les murs (1958).  Added to the archive is Joe D'Amato's Eva nera (aka Black Cobra, 1976).

Though I generally make a practice of writing about a film shortly after I've seen it, with this post I'm making an exception.  In fact, it's a television program from nearly 52 years ago that aired two weeks after I turned nine years old.  The Dupont Show of the Week was an NBC production that ran for four years and won eight primetime Emmy awards.  Unlike programs with recurring characters, each episode was a discrete performance, and the content veered from adaptations of stage productions to documentaries.  Such anthology series were not uncommon in the fifties and early sixties; an earlier program, CBS's Playhouse 90, is perhaps the best-remembered of these broadcasts.

The Richest Man In Bogota, episode 28 of the first season of The Dupont Show of the Week, aired on Father's Day, June 17, 1962.  Based on the 1899 short story "The Country of the Blind" by H. G. Wells, Frank Gabrielson's teleplay was turned down by sponsors when first proposed five years earlier for being too bizarre for prime time television.  Only through the ministrations of television director Ralph Nelson, who six years earlier had helmed Rod Serling's award-winning Requiem For A Heavyweight for Playhouse 90, did the script finally see production.  As a condition for broadcast, the title of Wells' story was changed to the more palatable The Richest Man in Bogota.

Gabrielson's script follows the strange adventure of Juan de Nunez (Lee Marvin), a prospector from Bogota, Colombia searching for uranium in the snow-capped mountains of his homeland. Trapped by an avalanche, he tumbles down a ravine and discovers a hidden valley inhabited by a race of people without eyes.  

Initially taking faith in the maxim, "in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king," de Nunez soon learns otherwise.  The words "eyes" and "sight" have no meaning in this world.  Reluctantly, he is forced to conform to the kingdom's strange beliefs, such as that their sightless community is the only world in existence.  

Convinced that de Nunez' vision is a source of evil, the villagers set out to "cure" him by gouging out his eyes.  Marina (Miriam Colon), the daughter of the group's powerful leader, manages to free him before he is blinded.  Together they attempt to escape their sightless pursuers.

Wells' original story was a caustic denunciation of the uneducated, unenlightened people of his era who, in his view, might as well be blind.  The eyeless villagers and their leaders live in ignorance of the outside world, just as the isolationists of Wells' era refused to see the turmoil beyond their own communities.  Screenwriter Gabrielson elaborated on this theme, providing the villagers with a book written by their once-sighted ancestors that explained why they were losing their vision and, eventually, their eyes.  Of course, such a book would be useless to those without eyes.

Originally broadcast in color, The Richest Man In Bogota exists today only as a black-and-white kinescope negative, with separate soundtrack, in the collection of the Library of Congress.  The 2009 release of the Criterion Collection's The Golden Age of Television DVD (which includes director Nelson's Requiem For A Heavyweight) offers a slight glimmer of hope that the kinescope for this unusual television adaptation might one day be made available.  

Special thanks to Tom Weaver and Marty Baumann for helping to match this distant memory with its title.

Also in this installment:  a revised review of Antonio Margheriti's La vergine di Noremberga (aka The Virgin of Nuremberg and Horror Castle) has been added to the Reviews section.