RED LIGHT BYTES: The Red Light Roundup (5-29-2024)

Classics, Deep Cuts & All-New Killers in Art & Entertainment...

OVERVIEW

Simply put: we got a lot going down here. My podcast Quality Candor has effectively ended its three-episode curse (by the power invested in radio), 365 Infantry is chugging along, Friends of the Force JD Cowan and Cirsova Publishing closed out the Star Wanderers campaign on a handsome $4K, but don’t mistake that as a prelude to showing up empty-handed!

While not quite as much as I usually have queued up, we’re going for depth today, particularly in the realm of music…

REVIEW: The Taking of Pelham of One Two Three (1974)

Let’s cut to the (literal) chase: this film rules. The 1974 thriller The Taking of Pelham One Two Three concerns a New York subway train held hostage for a million dollars, and the mad dash to either fulfill the criminals’ demands or stop them however they can. It is a film not only simmering with suspense and live-wire sequences where time is very much money, but loads of personality.

Directed by the inveterate Joseph Sargent, Pelham is part of a trend I like to call “the urban crime thriller.” While an ordinary descriptor it may seem, look closely at the trend in action cinema across the 70s and you may be shocked find how apt a descriptor it is. Note how, after the birth of hit shows like Ironside in 1967 and box office smashes like the immortal 1968 neo-noir Bullitt, you may notice that the rising crime rates of the 1970s birthed a breed of city-set, streetwise, gut-punching thrillers that looked crime and corruption square in the face. From the birth of franchises like Dirty Harry and Death Wish to titanic classic The French Connection, the era delivered on action, suspense, and the state of society from both sides of the law. And that’s not even getting into how the Blaxploitation boom factors in, exploring these themes along racial lines while making legends of actors like Richard Roundtree and Pam Grier.

Very few films of this era were as taut, tense, and humorful as Pelham. The deliciously deadpan Walter Matthau leads a cast of truly colorful characters beneath New York City, the employees inhabiting the subway system are as much a joy to watch as the thugs holding the train hostage are, the quartet in question performed with aplomb by Robert Shaw, Martin Balsam, Hector Elizondo, & Earl Hindman. The cast and acid wit of the story ensure that you are as invested in the characters as you are the action, and that's a quality few modern action pictures grasp.

Owen Roizman of French Connection fame lenses the film, bringing his gritty touch to New York City once again, and of frankly legendary status, is the knockout avant-garde jazz score by the versatile & criminally underrated David Shire. The main theme he pens is a grooving number rocked by a strong brass ensemble and a jamming rhythm section, managing to bring out a quite foreboding quality while staying supremely catchy. When all's said and done, this film is a goddamn triumph. A masterclass of urban crime cinema that remains as witty as it is tense. And damn is it ever witty. Available on Tubi

THE FORCE’S TOP TEN

Here are ten tracks that haven’t left my mind since discovering them. I’ve been working on an Ozploitation-styled story for a non-365 project and to no one’s surprise, there is SO much more to Australian rock than the planet-smashing export AC/DC, from the raw edge of Rose Tattoo and Buffalo to the infectious pub stylings of The Angels and Th’ Dudes.

The electric 80s also make a comeback with infectious New Wave funk from the likes of Talking Heads and Culture Club and soundtrack selections from the 1980 UK gangster favourite The Long Good Friday and the Jim Steinman-penned Wagnerian rock opus “Nowhere Fast” from Walter Hill’s 1984 rock-n-roll fable Streets of Fire. But perched high upon the top of the list is a killer new cut from heavy rock icons Deep Purple, and something I never thought I’d see the day of.

This was the album Black Sabbath decided to disband over. The album that turned them into on-again-off-again festival fodder before a Heaven & Hell-era reunion with metal god Ronnie James Dio, and ultimately a final album with the iconic Ozzy Osbourne. An album that represented some of the final work of drum demigod Cozy Powell and was the last to feature Tony Martin, whose underrated iron pipes made him the second-longest serving singer in the band.

It was an album called Forbidden, and whose reputation I fully believe hinges on two things: infamous rap-rock collaboration “Illusion of Power” (a truly unfortunate backfire seeing as it was mounted with legit metalhead and Body Count frontman Ice-T), and the production of Body Count guitarist Ernie C. The latter in particular has been cited by many as the key flaw. It’s often too bright, sucks the bass damn-near dry, and renders one of the greatest drummers in rock-n-roll sounding like his kit is composed of dirty mattresses.

And now, we sit here with our first taste of Tony Iommi’s remix, and I am absolutely overjoyed. The songwriting of Forbidden is no greater or worse than anything else released in Sabbath’s run of the 90s, but that consistency allows it to be a slamming collection of classic, doomy tracks. And now afforded the proper mix it deserved, it shines like the diamond it is. One of the great successes of the recent Anno Mundi boxset, covering the Tony Martin-era under I.R.S. Records, from the immortal Headless Cross to what will hopefully now be the not-so-maligned penultimate album (or third in line if you count Heaven & Hell’s The Devil You Know), a wonderfully refurbished Forbidden.

As always: stay searching, stay jamming, and always dig where no one else will. Be seeing you, soldiers!

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