Taking Tiger Mountain (film)

Last updated
Taking Tiger Mountain
Taking Tiger Mountain (1983) poster.jpg
Promotional release poster
Directed byTom Huckabee
Kent Smith
Written byPaul Cullum
Tom Huckabee
Kent Smith
Based on Blade Runner (a movie)
by William S. Burroughs
Starring Bill Paxton
Distributed byHorizon Films [1]
Release date
  • March 24, 1983 (1983-03-24)(San Francisco)
Running time
96 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish

Taking Tiger Mountain is a 1983 American science fiction film directed by Tom Huckabee and Kent Smith, and starring Bill Paxton in one of his earliest on-screen acting roles. Originally conceived as an experimental art film inspired by Albert Camus's 1942 novel The Stranger and a poem by Smith, the film was initially directed by Smith and shot in Wales. Aside from Paxton, the film's cast is made up of townspeople from the areas in which shooting took place. It was filmed without sound, with the intention of adding dialogue in post-production.

Contents

During post-production, Huckabee took over as the film's director, abandoning Smith's original concept and instead loosely basing the film on the 1979 novella Blade Runner (a movie) by William S. Burroughs. The film premiered on March 24, 1983. Over three decades later, Huckabee re-edited the film and released it as an alternate cut titled Taking Tiger Mountain Revisited.

Production

In 1973, Kent Smith wrote a poem about the kidnapping of John Paul Getty III, which was loosely adapted as the initial script for Taking Tiger Mountain. [2] Smith also drew inspiration from the 1942 novel The Stranger by Albert Camus. [3]

Smith, who worked as an employee at Encyclopædia Britannica Films with actor Bill Paxton, journeyed with Paxton and University of Texas at Austin student Tom Huckabee to Morocco in 1974 to begin shooting the film. [2] [3] They brought with them leftover film stock from the film Lenny , as well as a leased Arriflex Techniscope camera and "probably a tripod", and intended to film in the city of Tangier. [2] [3] [4] However, they lost equipment at Charles de Gaulle Airport in France, and by the time they reached Tangier, they were arrested and their remaining equipment impounded because they had not paid the Moroccan authorities' baksheesh . [2] [4] After being bailed out of jail by Smith, they were deported to Gibraltar, [3] and proceeded to drive to South Wales, where Paxton was once a foreign exchange student, and filmed there. [4]

Paxton's co-stars were residents of the towns in Wales where the film was shot, rather than professional actors. [2] The film was shot in black-and-white and without sound, with the intention of having dialogue be dubbed in later. [2] [4] In 1979, Huckabee leased the footage from Smith to turn it into a film. [3] Huckabee and Paxton decided to abandon the initial idea based on the Getty kidnapping, and enlisted the help of Paul Cullum to change the script. [3] According to Huckabee, author William S. Burroughs was "giving away [his] stories to any film student or amateur that wrote him a letter" around that time, and so Huckabee paid Burroughs $100 for the rights to Burroughs' novella Blade Runner (a movie) . [3]

Nudity and sex

A groundbreaking feature of this film is that it employs frontal female and male nudity and graphic sexual activity presented as entirely consensual and mutually pleasurable. This is accomplished throughout in whole scenes and vignettes usually with dispassionate narrative overlay about social-psychological matters. Such graphic material, ubiquitously found in pornographic films, is rarely featured in those outside of that industry. [5] Indeed, a naturally occurring penis, flaccid or erect, is atypical in Hollywood productions. [6] It is also noteworthy because Paxton, age 28 the year the film was released, would later move into prominence and acclaim in the commercial film industry. Paxton later starred in blockbusters including Aliens (1986), Apollo 13 (1995), Twister (1996), and Titanic (1997).

Release

Taking Tiger Mountain premiered at the Roxie Theater in San Francisco, California on March 24, 1983. [7] [8] It was screened at the Inwood Theatre in Dallas, Texas that same year. [3]

Taking Tiger Mountain Revisited

In 2016, film restoration and distribution company Vinegar Syndrome contacted Huckabee with an offer to digitally remaster and release Taking Tiger Mountain on home video. [8] Huckabee accepted the offer, and re-edited the film to create an alternate cut known as Taking Tiger Mountain Revisited. [2] [3] Changes in this version include on-screen graphics having been replaced with digital text, the addition of computer-generated rain and lens flares, and a different ending that features color footage shot on an iPhone. [2]

Critical reception

Upon release, Taking Tiger Mountain received some positive reception. [3] However, Joe Leydon of the Houston Post gave the film a negative review. [3] Similarly, a critic writing for The Dallas Morning News called the film "Murky, meandering, and mind-numbingly pretentious". [8]

In a retrospective assessment, Andrew Todd of Polygon referred to the film as being "about as coherent as you'd expect a movie built out of 60 minutes of silent footage to be, but it's designed to be watched emotionally or sensorially rather than narratively." [2] He called it "a testament to the power of post-production to change the entire meaning of footage, adding context that simply wasn't there to begin with." [2] Regarding the 2016 Revisited cut of the film, Todd wrote that it is "filled with pointless and embarrassing additions", and that "[Huckabee's] attempts to 'fix' the movie make it substantially worse." [2]

Conversely, Michael Hall of Texas Monthly wrote positively of the Revisited cut, calling it "a beautiful tangle of images and sound, with sinister, oscillating music [...] and a blanketing sense of doom." [8] He also commended Paxton's performance as "spellbinding and funny". [8]

Home media

In June 2019, Vinegar Syndrome released a 4K restoration of Taking Tiger Mountain, along with Taking Tiger Mountain Revisited, on DVD and Blu-ray. [2] [9]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William S. Burroughs</span> American writer and visual artist (1914–1997)

William Seward Burroughs II was an American writer and visual artist. He is widely considered a primary figure of the Beat Generation and a major postmodern author who influenced popular culture and literature. Burroughs wrote eighteen novels and novellas, six collections of short stories and four collections of essays, and five books have been published of his interviews and correspondences; he was initially briefly known by the pen name William Lee. He also collaborated on projects and recordings with numerous performers and musicians, made many appearances in films, and created and exhibited thousands of visual artworks, including his celebrated "shotgun art".

<i>Twister</i> (1996 film) American film by Jan de Bont

Twister is a 1996 American disaster film directed by Jan de Bont and written by Michael Crichton and Anne-Marie Martin. It was produced by Crichton, Kathleen Kennedy, and Ian Bryce, with Steven Spielberg, Walter Parkes, Laurie MacDonald, and Gerald R. Molen serving as executive producers. The film stars an ensemble cast that includes Helen Hunt, Bill Paxton, Jami Gertz, and Cary Elwes. It follows a group of storm chasers trying to deploy a tornado research device during a severe outbreak in Oklahoma.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bill Paxton</span> American actor (1955–2017)

William Paxton was an American actor and filmmaker. He starred in films such as Aliens (1986), Near Dark (1987), Tombstone (1993), True Lies (1994), Apollo 13 (1995), Twister (1996), Titanic (1997), Mighty Joe Young (1998), and A Simple Plan (1998). He had supporting roles in Weird Science (1985), Edge of Tomorrow (2014), and Nightcrawler (2014).

<i>Naked Lunch</i> (film) 1991 film by David Cronenberg

Naked Lunch is a 1991 surrealist science fiction drama film written and directed by David Cronenberg and starring Peter Weller, Judy Davis, Ian Holm, and Roy Scheider. It is an adaptation of William S. Burroughs's 1959 novel Naked Lunch, and an international co-production of Canada, Britain, and Japan.

<i>Berserker</i> (1987 film) 1987 American slasher film by Jefferson Richard

Berserker is a 1987 American slasher film written and directed by Jefferson Richard. The film centers on a group of campers who are stalked and murdered by a Viking berserker.

<i>Swiss Family Robinson</i> (1960 film) 1960 US adventure film by Ken Annakin

Swiss Family Robinson is a 1960 American adventure film starring John Mills, Dorothy McGuire, James MacArthur, Janet Munro, Tommy Kirk, and Kevin Corcoran in a tale of a shipwrecked family building an island home. It was the second feature film based on the 1812 novel The Swiss Family Robinson by Johann David Wyss, a previous adaptation having been released by RKO Pictures in 1940. Directed by Ken Annakin and shot in Tobago and Pinewood Studios outside London, it was the first widescreen Walt Disney Pictures film shot with Panavision lenses; when shooting in widescreen, Disney had almost always used a matted wide screen or filmed in CinemaScope.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joe R. Lansdale</span> American novelist, martial arts instructor

Joe Richard Lansdale is an American writer and martial arts instructor. A prose writer in a variety of genres, including Western, horror, science fiction, mystery, and suspense, he has also written comic books and screenplays. Several of his novels have been adapted for film and television. He is the winner of the British Fantasy Award, the American Horror Award, the Edgar Award, and eleven Bram Stoker Awards.

<i>Body Melt</i> 1993 Australian film

Body Melt is a 1993 Australian independent science fiction black comedy body horror film directed by Philip Brophy and written by Brophy and Rod Bishop. Brophy and Bishop are ex-members of the art punk group → ↑ →. The pair also composed the film's soundtrack. The movie satirizes suburban lifestyles and fitness fads.

<i>Blade Runner (a movie)</i> 1979 novella by William S. Burroughs

Blade Runner (a movie) is a science fiction novella by Beat Generation author William S. Burroughs, first published in 1979.

<i>Shriek of the Mutilated</i> 1974 American film

Shriek of the Mutilated is a 1974 American horror film directed by Michael Findlay, and starring Alan Brock, Jennifer Stock, and Michael Harris. It follows a group of university students who, with their professor, visit a remote island in upstate New York to investigate sightings of a Yeti-like creature.

<i>Blood Mania</i> 1970 film

Blood Mania is a 1970 American horror film written by Peter Carpenter and Tony Crechales and directed by Robert Vincent O'Neil, and starring Carpenter, Maria De Aragon, Vicki Peters, Reagan Wilson, Jacqueline Dalya, and Alex Rocco. The film stars Carpenter as a doctor whose mistress, an heiress, murders her terminally ill father to help him pay off a debt.

<i>The Fiend</i> (film) 1972 British film by Robert Hartford-Davis

The Fiend is a 1972 British horror film produced and directed by Robert Hartford-Davis and starring Ann Todd, Tony Beckley and Patrick Magee. It was written by Brian Comport. The film is set against a background of religious fanaticism and, as with other films directed by Hartford-Davis, includes elements of the sexploitation genre of the early 1970s.

<i>Uninvited</i> (1987 film) 1988 film by Greydon Clark

Uninvited is a 1987 American science-fiction horror film written, produced and directed by Greydon Clark and starring George Kennedy, Alex Cord, Clu Gulager, Toni Hudson and Eric Larson. The film primarily takes place aboard a luxury yacht owned by a criminal multimillionaire and bound for the Cayman Islands, whose passengers and crew are terrorized by a mutant cat.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Howard Brookner</span> American film director

Howard Brookner was an American film director. He produced and directed the documentary Burroughs about William S. Burroughs (1983), Robert Wilson and the Civil Wars on theatre director Robert Wilson (1986), and directed, co-produced and co-wrote Bloodhounds of Broadway (1989).

<i>A Gun for Jennifer</i> American film

A Gun for Jennifer is a 1997 rape and revenge film thriller film directed by Todd Morris and starring Deborah Twiss. It follows a feminist vigilante group who castrate suspected rapists and batterers while a female police officer attempts to stop them. It is shot in a retro exploitation style and premiered at the Fantasia Festival in July 1997, where it was sold-out an hour before screening and received a standing ovation.

Vinegar Syndrome is an American home video distribution company which specializes in "protecting and preserving genre films". The company was founded in 2012 in Bridgeport, Connecticut by Joe Rubin and Ryan Emerson, who created it to restore and distribute old X-rated films that were lost or otherwise unavailable. Their catalog has since expanded to include other types of cult and exploitation films, including horror films and action films.

<i>Jungle Blue</i> 1978 American pornographic film

Jungle Blue is a 1978 American pornographic exploitation film directed by Carlos Tobalina under the pseudonym Troy Benny. The film stars Kathie Kori as Jane, a woman who journeys into the jungles of South America in search of her missing father, accompanied by explorers who secretly plan to steal jewels that they believe are being guarded by a native tribe. The other members of the cast include Nina Fause and Bill Cable.

<i>Welcome Home Brother Charles</i> 1975 American film

Welcome Home Brother Charles is a 1975 American blaxploitation film written and directed by Jamaa Fanaka. The film stars Marlo Monte as a wrongfully imprisoned man who seeks vengeance upon his transgressors using his prehensile penis. The film, which was shot on weekends over the course of seven months, was completed while Fanaka was a student of UCLA Film School.

<i>New York Ninja</i> 2021 American film

New York Ninja is a 2021 American action film written, directed by and starring John Liu. It was shot in 1984, but was not edited or released until 2021, when its footage was discovered and restored by the film preservation and home video distributor Vinegar Syndrome.

Gabriel Horn is an American actor and filmmaker. He has appeared in and produced or consulted on numerous television shows, documentaries, and independent films, including Tom Huckabee's Carried Away and the 2023 Christina Ricci/Steven Ogg science fiction film The Dresden Sun.

References

  1. ↑ Barkan, Jonathan (January 16, 2019). "Bill Paxton's First Film Taking Tiger Mountain To Be Released After 40 Years". Dread Central . Retrieved February 2, 2020.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Todd, Andrew (August 6, 2019). "The late Bill Paxton's first movie finally sees the light of day — but not as intended". Polygon . Retrieved January 30, 2020.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Whittaker, Richard (August 9, 2019). "Bill Paxton's Lost Film Ties Together UT, Bob Fosse, and William S. Burroughs". The Austin Chronicle . Retrieved January 30, 2020.
  4. 1 2 3 4 Gaydos, Steven (May 22, 2015). "'Texas Rising' Star Bill Paxton Recalls Early Indie 'Taking Tiger Mountain'". Variety . Retrieved January 30, 2020.
  5. ↑ Chapman, Wilson (24 May 2024). "Unsimulated Sex Scenes in Film: 'Nymphomaniac,' 'The Brown Bunny,' 'Little Ashes,' and More". IndieWire.
  6. ↑ Titterington, David (21 Dec 2018). "Why Hollywood keeps the penis out of sight". Medium.
  7. ↑ "Taking Tiger Mountain Revisited". Tiger Mountain the Movie. Retrieved February 2, 2020.
  8. 1 2 3 4 5 Hall, Michael (July 24, 2019). "A Restored Cult Film Starring Bill Paxton Gets a Fort Worth Premiere This Week". Texas Monthly . Retrieved February 2, 2020.
  9. ↑ "Taking Tiger Mountain – Vinegar Syndrome". Vinegar Syndrome . Retrieved January 30, 2020.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.