some local pictures old and new

facebook wrote:Charles Lulley
Charles Lulley Was there in 76---------Towed ourselves in with our skiff on a Tuna seiner and anchored to await parts. Cleared Customs on the hill and began the long wait for parts to be trucked in from San Diego.I remember one hotel on the beach....A hollywood crew was filming a movie in the bay and not too happy to have so many San Diego Fisherman around.There was a brawl...but we all made up. The movie was quite a production.A few of my crew got some extra positions....but I remained out of it.TEQUILA!!!...The movie was the "The far side of paradise" with Peter O.toole...a complete Asshole who was miserable being stuck in a place like Cabo...Most of the actors were assholes as well...whining about primitive living conditions. ...but I do remember an interesting production lady....that is another story.

Arturo Ripstein | Mexico, Switzerland | 1975



   
To date, this is the only English language film directed by relatively unknown Mexican film-maker Arturo Ripstein, whose most acclaimed film — Profundo Carmesí aka Deep Crimson (1996) — is a Spanish language account of the infamous ‘Honeymoon Killers’ murders. Made much earlier in his career, The Far Side of Paradise, is a offbeat, somewhat cryptic but nevertheless very capably directed melodrama, portraying a group of filthy rich aristocrats setting up their own microcosm of 1930s decadence on a isolated Pacific island. Roger Corman’s New World Pictures distributed the film in the USA, where it was given the title Foxtrot.

At the same time that World War II is heating up in Europe, Romanian Count, Liviu Midescu (Peter O’Toole) and his glamorous wife, Julia (a painfully thin Charlotte Rampling), arrive by boat to a recently purchased remote island — a paradise on which they leave a problematic world behind them. To maintain their comfortable lifestyle, they are accompanied by their butler Eusabio (Jorge Luke; Ulzana’s Raid) and a wide variety of luxurious supplies. The only other island resident is Larsen (Max von Sydow), an old military friend of Liviu’s who is charged with maintenance and inventory.

They set up a giant red marquee in which to live, spending their days in the sun eating gourmet food and drinking champagne, all the while waiting for a supply ship filled with building materials for their new residence. The unscheduled arrival of a large yacht, filled with Liviu’s aristocratic friends from Europe, temporarily disrupts their boredom, but the day after their arrival, the entourage decimates the island’s wildlife on a senseless shooting spree. The group leave, but one evening their vessel drifts back towards the island — totally abandoned with pages torn from the log book. Discovering rats on board, Larsen sets the yacht on fire, an event which marks the beginning of the end: paradise lost.


Nothing less than totally neglected, not even the presence of major star Peter O’Toole has lifted the film out of the depths of obscurity. Odyssey's circa. 1987 video release did little to help the film's exposure, which is further aggravated by the lack of an entry in the BBFC's database.

The colourful and attractive sleeve attempts to cash-in somewhat on Nicholas Roeg's Castaway (1987), but whilst the renditions of Peter O’Toole share a recognizable likeness to the actor, the representations of Charlotte Rampling are very much wide of the mark.

The recent Dutch DVD presents the film in a slightly shortened version (some expository scenes are truncated), but although the packaging states English language, the film is dubbed in French (with the French fluent Rampling dubbing herself).

 
aka : Foxtrot

cast : Peter O'Toole, Charlotte Rampling, Max von Sydow, Jorge Luke, Helena Rojo, Claudio Brook, Max Kerlow, Christa Walter, Mario Castillón Bracho, Anne Porterfield