At the moment, the only thing which can be stated with certainty is that, to quote Quentin Tarantino, "Movie theaters would be much happier places with a new Monte Hellman movie playing in them."34
Notes
Introduction
1. Preface to Cinéma 1, l'Image-Mouvement (Les Editions de Minuit, 1983).
2. Consider, to take only one example, the opening of Ride in the Whirlwind. For Hellman, it is not enough to simply show a group of bandits robbing a stagecoach. He must first spend nearly a minute of screen time watching them laboriously make their way to the bottom of a cliff.
Chapter 1. Beast from Haunted Cave (1959)
1. Monte Hellman, e-mail to the author, January 31, 2001, and "Moving Along with Love and Obsession" by Gordon Gow, Films and Filming October 1974, p. 61.
2. In an interview conducted by Beverly Walker (published in Sight and Sound, Winter 1970/1971 and reprinted in a slightly different form with the Two-Lane Blacktop screenplay), Hellman notes, "I'd always been interested in photography. I had built my own enlarger when I was about fourteen and I was always shooting pictures and printing them myself. I started shooting portraits and making money at it while I was still in high school." Martin Landau's foreword to Charles Tatum, Jr.'s Monte Hellman contains some interesting information about the director's photographs, many of which (including portraits of Landau, Jack Nicholson, Sal Mineo and Robert Towne) were exhibited as part of a Hellman retrospective held in Austin, Texas, during March 2000.
3. Monte Hellman, e-mail to the author, January 31, 2001, Paul Joyce's film Plunging on Alone (1986) and "Moving Along with Love and Obsession." Asked to choose his ten favorite films, as well as favorite director, actor and actress, for a poll conducted by London's Time Out magazine (No. 1095, May 10-17, 1995), Hellman responded with the following list (in order of preference): Spirit of the Beehive, A Slave of Love (Mikhalkov), Outcast of the Islands, Persona, Broken Blossoms, Stavisky, A Place in the Sun, Sherlock Jr., It's a Wonderful Life, Celine and Julie Go Boating. Director: Hellman. Actor: Depardieu. Actress: Binoche.
4. Monte Hellman, e-mail to the author, August 21, 2001, and Bill Krohn's "You Get Screwed Either Way," 1997 Locarno Catalogue, p. 203.
5. "Monte Hellman: In His Own Words," Cashiers du Cinemart 7 (1998, available on the Internet).
6. Monte Hellman, e-mails to the author, January 24, and September 3, 2001.
7. Monte Hellman, e-mail to the author, January 31, 2001.
8. Barboura Morris, who was occasionally employed as Roger Corman's secretary, acted under the name "Barboura O'Neill" in Corman's Sorority Girl (1957), then under her own name in many other Corman films. She died in 1975. According to Hellman, "She was named after a grandfather whose surname was Barbour" (e-mail to the author, February 1, 2001).
9. Monte Hellman, National Film Theatre lecture, London, January 3, 1995.
10. "Monte Hellman: Exploitation or Existentialism?" by Ron Wells, November 7, 2000. Available on the Internet.
11. Monte Hellman, e-mails to the author, February 1, and August 21, 2001.
12. Monte Hellman, e-mail to the author, February 3, 2001.
13. NFT lecture, ibid.
14. Monte Hellman, e-mails to the author, January 31, August 21 and September 2, 2001. Patrick McGilligan's biography of Jack Nicholson mistakenly claims that the theater owned by the Dahl brothers was called The Store Theater. According to Hellman, "I don't know what it had originally been called when the Lab built it, but certainly not The Store, which didn't exist until after my theater was converted into a movie theater. The Store was one of several 'hole in the wall' theaters that sprang up after I closed. I believe there were only two 'off-off-Broad way' theaters contemporary with mine — The Circle Theater (the first) and The Players' Ring — both of which were 'theaters-in-the-round'" (e-mail to the author, August 21, 2001).
15. Monte Hellman, NFT lecture and e-mail to the author, September 2, 2001.
16. Monte Hellman, audio commentary on the Iguana DVD (2000).
17. Monte Hellman, e-mail to the author, September 2, 2001.
18. Monte Hellman, e-mails to the author, February 1, 2001, and February 7, 2002.
19. Steve Voce, "Monte Hellman," Psychotronic 25, 1997, p. 77, and Monte Hellman, email to the author, February 4, 2001.
20. Monte Hellman, e-mails to the author, February 1, 2001, and February 7, 2002. Although the film's score is credited to Alexander Laszlo, the music actually consists of library tracks by Laszlo which had already been used in many Corman productions. As Sam Moyer pointed out to me, Beast also makes generous use of Fred Katz's score for Corman's The Wasp Woman. According to Moyer, "Katz's music is often run into Laszlo's in mid-phrase" (e-mail to the author, August 27, 2001).
21. Walker, ibid.
22. The monster was designed and played by Chris Robinson (who also appears as an extra sitting at the bar — not, as the IMDB claims, the bartender). According to Tim Lucas, "Robinson won the opportunity to provide the monster for that film by winning a Famous Monsters of Filmland contest for best homemade monster. He went on to work as an actor in prime time TV dramas like Twelve O'Clock High" (e-mail to the author, November 30, 1999). Robinson continues to appear on network soap operas such as General Hospital and Another World.
23. Charles Tatum, Jr., Monte Hellman (Festival d'Amiens/Editions Yellow Now, 1988), p. 24. Author's translation.
24. "Monte Hellman: In His Own Words." Cashiers du Cinemart 7 (1998, available on the Internet).