Words fail me at the size and heft of ALL THE COLORS OF THE DARK, a real monster of a book that will likely take weeks to work through. My first thoughts are that I was surprised, paging through it, at how interesting the early family and archival photos were, and it's nice to see the copious amounts of Bava-related paraphenalia (not just stills and photos, but personal effects that have miraculously survived the years) that dot the pages.

Amid the prologue, Tim (on pages 30-33) pens a lengthy concluding piece directly addressing the writing of the book and the efforts it required. There's some moving anecdotes and also a surprising note to the effect that the amount of new research and interviews he was able to do over the past 5 years (a few of those occupied by the gargantuan effort to design and layout the thing) would have led him to disown any version of the book that had come out circa 2001 or 2002.

The book is beyond detailed, and paging through it you really feel overcome by the amount of effort that evidently went into researching it and writing it. For anyone that wants to take a crash course immersion into the world of Italian cinema and culture, this book will be a godsend. I want to start learning Italian in a month or two, and having this book as something to dip into and absorb will greatly enrich the process.

The design is remarkably polished and sumptuous. It's a genuine pleasure to stumble across nifty stills, ad mats and foreign poster art that I've never seen before, and to have these discoveries shown in crystal clear color and sharp printing on glossy paper. With a number of genre books and mags, I've seen a great looking poster and felt, gee, I'd like to see a nice reproduction of that sometime. Here your wish is granted as soon as you lay eyes on it. Glancing over the pages, a number of early pictures are presented in careful sepia or with a tint, others are in smooth, clean black-and-white, and many again are in raging color. When Tim and Donna suggested that you might first spend a long while just paging through the book, soaking it all in, they weren't exaggerating. I'm looking forward to this volume becoming part of my mental landscape, and of me slowly becoming more and more familiar with what's inside. This is clearly a once-in-a-lifetime product and investment, and I doubt I'll ever own a more lavish or beautifully produced book.

This book is going to take a long time to absorb and digest. I'm going to post again with first, second and third thoughts as I make the time to start really reading it. Still, this is El Dorado for film fans, and a genuine treasure for me personally. I'm looking forward to reading colorful reactions from other owners of the book whose ability to sum up the massive scope and range of this achievement will easily surpass mine. Words really fail me. (If anyone wants to pop pics of themselves with the book on this thread, please do).

I'd like to respond to your comments, but have yet to receive the book.

My copy arrived today. Needless to say, the content will provide endless information and reading enjoyment. I would like to comment on the book's design, as it's clearly a triumph. In spite of its sheer volume, the nearly square size of the book and the four columns of text per page makes it incredibly easy to read. The choice of typeface, the space between text and images, the quality of the printing, the contrast and brightness level of the images, it's all first rate. (Cf., THE HAUNTED WORLD OF MARIO BAVA. That book was printed in sans serif with one massive block of text per page, which definitely isn't easy on the eyes).

I'd like to see a picture of Henrik -- with or without the book.

We are loving the comments; very gratifying. Keep 'em coming.

Well...I doubt anybody's going to say it sucks... ;)

Okay, It sucks....










that I don't have my copy yet! :lol:

Just got the book. What a thing of beauty and madness. I'd like to reiterate what everyone else has said and say that the sheer look of the book is a work of art in itself. Aside from being a testament to Bava's legacy, I couldn't help but think that the book is also a monument (a word I feel can be used literally in this case) to cinephilia itself. I just watched the Langlois documentary, PHANTOM OF THE CINEMATEQUE, that aired on Turner Classic Movies a couple of nights ago, and I think the passion and dedication seen on every page of ALL THE COLORS OF THE DARK evokes Langlois' lifelong devotion of cinema. This book gives the lie to all those proclamations of cinephilia's death and cinema's decline over the last ten years. I look forward to going back over Bava's oeuvre during the next couple of months with ALL THE COLORS OF THE DARK by my side.

I received mine on Friday. Opening the boxes and finally having hold of the book--after one of the longest publishing pregnancies this side of Harlan Ellison--was a jaw-dropping moment. It really is... just beautiful!, and breathtaking in its scope.

And it arrived at the perfect time of the year--summer's end. Cooler temps (fewer chances of sweaty fingers on those glossy pages!), falling leaves, earlier sunsets, Halloween. I'm going to be watching a lot of Bava this September/October, reading this book will make that time spent even more enjoyable.

Thank you, Tim and Donna, and everyone at Video Watchdog!

Got mine yesterday!

While, based on just the first few chapters, I think Bava would be deeply embarrassed by such a fêting, it's one he's owed - and overdue at that, even apart from the time specific to Tim and Donna's crafting of it. It will stand as quite a rebuke to all the facile critical dismissals in Bava's lifetime, especially Stateside - and by film scholars, no less. The simple respect for the context of History on Bava - his own, and that of the industry bound to his heritage - is really rather profound. I hope Tim will share something of the reactions of Bava's progeny to this tribute - just as a family chronicle, it's sure to move to tears.

As to the book itself, it only intimidates at first blush - the sheer fact of it brings one up short. It's deceptively accessible, however. Once it's opened everything changes, and I was down to the business of actually reading it within minutes, spurred on by the comfortable visual arrangement of word to image. I don't find myself thumbing ahead. Donna's done a great job of anchoring the reader's interest to the page - not overwhelming it in the coming onslaught. There's a sense that the eye is rewarded for its effort, and warmly invited to continue on.

I hope Tim and Donna will likewise be amply rewarded for their Herculean (Ercolean?) efforts, and that we'll all encourage them to continue wherever their muse leads them.


P.S. Anybody else, you know - a little scared of the book? As a collector's piece, I mean. It's a very well put-together volume, but I'm even more than usually mindful of it colliding with things, as it's so dense that the impact would be considerable. I wouldn't want to drop it, I'll tell you that much - it might really hurt itself. As it is, I'm a little concerned of how the slipcover's 'underfold's' will compress into and scar the cover. I may remove the slipcover, and only put it back on once I've finished the book and it's set to rest vertically somewhere - and not between two other books.

OMG, I know there's been comments on the weight of the book but I had the thing practically dropped into my already full hands by my mail carrier. It's gonna take me some time to read all of it but I've been reading chapters selectively (as much as I love Bava and Terzano's B&W photography on BLACK SUNDAY, those color stills suggest what a sumptuous film it would have been in Technicolor.*


On a side note, I saw a B&W trailer for KILL BABY KILL on an SWV DVD a while ago and though what an incredible film that would be in black and white.

There's definitely a 'Black & White - in Color' quality to Bava's work. The outrageous pools of color exhibit the same sorts of contrast tonalities Bava employed in his monochrome films, so they achieve an overlay aspect that really brings out the idea of the fantastical invading 'reality'.

As a general rule, books of this size and heft should not be placed vertically, but should lie flat. It places too much stress on the spine stitching, especially at the top, which can lead to nasty surprises a couple years down the road. That doesn't help with the possibility of the d/j impression, but you can minimize that risk with a d/j cover from Demco or other library supply houses.

---Your Friendly Ex-Librarian

Thanks - that makes sense, considering this thing definitely shifts its center of gravity based on how you hold it, even when closed.

It really is a monster.

Not sure though how a dust jacket cover would protect from the jacket's 'underfold' design.

Not to mention stress on the consumer grade wooden shelves (don't put it in the center of any of your shelves).

It provides protection from the underfolds causing localized scuffing to the exterior if say the book is slid around. Cf. old LPs that show circular wear on the jacket. That is much less likely to happen with LPs stored in plastic sleeves.

Ah, gotcha.

What's concerning me is that the slipcover is of a thick enough material that when compression from the uber-weight of the book itself is taken into account, the underfolds will 'bite' into the backside of the slipcover, permanently creasing it.

Related, the undercover has already impressed lines into the clothbound hardcover, just in the time it took to come back from the printer, ship, and for me to notice.

I don't mean to harp unduly, but I figure if any wear is preventable, now's the time to address it.

I keep a supply of Bro-Darts and use them to protect all the dust jackets on books that I buy. A 13” Bro-Dart fits the Bava book’s height, but it’s not wide enough to fit the entire length of the dust jacket. A 15” inch Bro-Dart covers more lengthwise, though still not enough to cover the entire d/j. It does cover the entire outside of the book, so it’ll do for now. Thanks for the tip on Demco, Mark. I had tried googling “Bro Dart” but couldn’t find an online source to purchase them. Also, thanks for the tip about storing books horizontally. I pulled the 3 volumes of Russ Meyer’s autobiography that I had stored vertically on a shelf and am now storing them flat.

The Bava book is thicker than any of the Meyer volumes, and it’s also thicker than my Webster’s dictionary. It’s now the thickest book I own! I put it on my coffee table and then sit on my couch. When I take the book off the coffee table to read it, my couch cushion sinks another 3”-4” under the added weight!

Jeffrey, if you’re worried about the d/j’s underfold, I’d simply store the book without the jacket. You can wrap an 11 x 17 sheet of paper around the book for protection (or you can buy a large, cheap remainder book that has a dust jacket without the underfold and use that for the Bava book).

I’m a little concerned about opening the book flat (180 degrees) on a table to read it. The binding is solid and flexible, but I usually never open any book flat while reading it, out of concern for keeping the spine intact. However, holding the Bava book (monster?) at an angle and reading it for any length of time is a bit of a challenge, a real workout. There’s an upside, though—my forearms will be bigger and stronger by the time I finish the book!

It is still remarkably eye-catching without the dust jacket. Has everybody looked underneath it to check out Charlie Largent's rendition of the Mask of Satan?

Brodart's website

Google was probably thrown off the track if you spelled it as two words instead of one. Probably more than anyone really wants unless they plan to cover multiple books, but Brodart used to sell cut-to-fit rolls of their dustjacket protectors in various widths. Something like that would probably be a better fit for the sizable girth of the Bava book than the standard-sized, pre-cut protectors.

The lack of response suggests those who did have met with terrible deaths.

No, but I will when the book arrives :)

Vincent

I'm keeping mine in the white inner box. I didn't buy it as an investment so avoiding dust jacket marks isn't an issue. But now everyone's brought it to my attention, I can see them bothering me. I might separate the cover but as long as the book's handled with due care and pages don't go missing, that's alright by me. It's too heavy for comfort to cradle on the lap so I'll read it flat on the table with a cushion or something on one side to reduce the angle to about 120' without straining the spine.

I just want to enjoy the book. I can picture myself quaffing large glasses of red wine as I carefully study the text and wallow in the imagery but in reality it won't happen in my household. Brief snatches on the kitchen table between chores and work are all I can hope for.

Victor

Another blog online made mention of ALL THE COLORS OF THE DARK really being several books in one. Among other things, it's a production history, biography, study of Italian cinema, an analysis of Bava's films, and (spot on, I thought) an art book. All these things are done seamlessly and are carefully balanced throughout, making me feel that you could really devote an entire thread just to the look of the book. There are countless examples, but check out pages 816-817. We get the cast of FIVE DOLLS FOR AN AUGUST MOON spread across two pages, all in nicely framed stills that initially expand in length down the first page as you pan your eye across it, balanced by evenly matched descending stills elegantly placed along the bottom of the second. It's clever, striking, and yet it draws little attention to itself, as it's just one of hundreds of incidents where the text and illustrative content is assembled with confidence. Another quick one - on pages 732-733, the DIABOLIK still of Marisa Mell and John Phillip Law lounging in a bed full of cash is presented larger than full-page size across the centre gutter of the book, two clean rows of text at far left and right, and (very nicely) the main still itself evenly divided across the two featured points of interest, the model building on the left and the entwined couple embracing on the right. Certain title pages for various chapters on each film have a giant two page illustration behind the text, (see Mary Arden on the BLOOD AND BLACK LACE page), whilst others simply feature the main poster on the left, but the background behind the poster has a gentle drop shadow and a faint echo of the main image, to soften the overall page and to allow the eye to relax and comfortably take it all in.

With a book this size essentially devoted to a single guy, covering his ambitions and achievements and sympathetic character, it's hard to really avoid being touched emotionally. Look at page 896 (in the LISA FOR THE DEVIL chapter) with Bava taking time out on the beach with his beloved pooch, who Bava joked looked a lot like him. You can see the years in Bava's face, and you sense a generous, down to earth fellow who loves his family.

Every still is valuable, and I also love the INFERNO shots, particularly as a number of the images in that chapter are iconic, and all are beautifully printed. The shot of Rose submerged on page 1012 (and how many books on cult cinema, let alone Eurocult cinema, do we have that reach page 1000-and-anything?) is gorgeous. The lipstick/ skull INFERNO poster on page 1019 is reproduced more cleanly than in any other Argento book I've seen.

These are just a few thoughts, and I still don't think I've done the presentation justice, but this book is really a phenomenal achievement that fulfills absolutely every ambition you can think of.

I'd like to say something about the Bava book, which just arrived an hour ago. But I can't; my wife, who's off today, and who shudders at horror films, has hijacked it from my grasp. She's utterly fascinated. First, by the terrific boxed packaging it came in, which we can reuse (a Bava bonus!). But primarily by its design, and the obvious love that went into its production. "An amazing achievement," she says.

And that's from someone who had never really heard of Mario Bava till earlier today. I can just imagine how I'll feel...and I have to imagine it, as I have no idea when she'll put it down.

Looking forward to it, however!

Bob, give your wife a hug for us. She made our day.

Anthony, your comments continue to be gratifying. Suitable images for opening the chapter spreads couldn't be found for all the titles, and I don't think Donna wanted the layout to become too predictable, either, so she decided to insert some poster art in the spreads here and there. As for the DIABOLIK still, your comments remind me that I've never forgotten the impact of seeing a still from CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN reprinted at that size in CFQ's Terence Fisher issue, back in 1974. It opens up so much more detail to the eye and gives the impression you could almost step into the shot; that's the effect we were aiming for in such cases.

On the DVD Maniacs board, someone was complaining about the book looking too much like an issue of VW; I don't agree with this -- not that there should be anything wrong with using a "house style" if you've cultivated one -- but I suspect he meant the four-column text layout. I find it very easy on the eye, but furthermore, it was the only way to compress the text into a single volume and also accomodate all the pictures. The joy of a four column layout is that it allows you to run photos full-page, half-page, quarter-page, whatever -- with perfect ease.

It's wonderful to have someone appreciate the quality of that INFERNO poster reproduction. I wouldn't be surprised if Donna spent an entire day sweating over the fine points of something like that, making sure that her monitor looked like the poster art and that our printer would be receiving all the gradations of light and color she saw on her screen and could replicate them exactly the same way on paper. Those were rough days I am glad to have behind us now!

I received my copy today! It really feels like years of work went into this. I'm looking forward to it, my only problem is that it feels like I should be handling it with protective gloves and punching anyone that goes near it with unclean hands saying "lemme see that?"

Well, slap a spiked mask on my face and call me a bloody asa! A big heavy ol' box from Cincinnati was waiting for me when I got home today, after all my anxious waiting and conspiracy-theorizing. What an amazing and enormous tome! It's so big! And black! Tim, you've caused quite a stir here with my cats. They started touching it excitedly and before I knew it, they were smashing things with bone clubs and building spaceships and whatnot.

This Encyclopedia Bavannica already feels like the pinnacle of a lifetime obsessing over oversized horror movie coffee table books. As a child, I would spend hours at the local library pouring through those huge Octopus books filled with amazingly lush color promotional stills (you know, the kind that made movies like Scars Of Dracula look 100 times better than they were). These images gave me a rush and fired my imagination. I just had that feeling again, but decades later. Just flipping through the book (no easy feat) has my brain spinning with all the special effects tricks explained (wow, it's also a magic book) and those lurid color photos I just want to escape into forever. This is it, the ultimate film nerd book, the Sistine Chapel ceiling of cult movie fandom.

While examining the clothbound cover (folks, it feels niiiice) with the Mask Of Satan golden embossing, I realized what this moment felt like. I'm Jean Shepherd's Ralphie and I've finally got my Official Red Ryder Air Rifle With The Engraved Stock And This Thing On The Back That Tells Time. And I didn't shoot my eye out.

Congratulations Tim! Congratulations Donna! Your efforts here will not be forgotten.

Oh, and that early 70s Bava ball-breaking self-portrait at the end is priceless. I'm sure it will be immortalized by an online avatar any day now.

*sigh*

WHEEEEEEEE! :D One of my copies arrived last night, safe and sound. And it's indeed everything one could have imagined, and then some. I feel like I need to wear archival gloves to look through it though, with the glossy black on nearly every page.

And I'm glad it's sort of in VW's house style. How else would one want to read Tim writing about film??

Now, shall we round up a listing of all those forum postings on the Interwebs of people who were declaring "It'll never come out!" and "Lucas is just ripping you off! " and sending them nice photos of our books? :ph43r:

You know, I keep hearing tell of this sort of thing, but can't actually recall instances of it...

Oh, they're out there, but you don't want to read them, trust me. Some of it is pretty ugly. I remember one prominent actor/writer/record producer getting bent out of shape by Tim's delays, so much so that he was genuinely angry and mean and insulting. Someone asked him why he didn't just get a refund (which the Lucases would gladly have given) if he was so upset by it, but his answer (which I don't recall exactly) didn't make much sense. My impression was that, if he got his money back, he wouldn't be able to complain anymore, which I think he was more charged up about than receiving the book itself.

Don't bother... they're here. You can't have a bridge without trolls.

As Oscar Wilde said: "Let them talk. Let them all talk!"

(It was Oscar Wilde, wasn't it?)

Actually, I believe it was Elvis Costello.

Finally arrived last evening via FedEX. I usually read books from beginning to end (whether they be fiction or non-fiction) but I couldn't help myself. I started flipping through this gorgeous tome and found one amazing page after another. Turning each next page as if I was opening up a new Christmas gift. 1,128 Glossy Christmas gifts. After several minutes of skipping around chapters (and sniffing the pages) I decided to be strong and put the book down to read from cover-to-cover so I can fully enjoy all the little surprises as they pop up.

Thank you Tim and Donna. Never have I so fully anticipated and enjoyed a book's arrival as this.

[I would've shared pics with you, Tim but I don't have a working camera at the moment]

So last night I'm at the part in CITIZEN KANE where Susan Alexander Kane is going ballistic over all of her bad reviews - a great movie meltdown moment - and my wife comes into the room and nonchalantly says - "Oh yeah, that book you ordered a hundred years ago came today..."

I jumped off the couch like I just got my Quisp decoder ring that's been MIA since 1969...

She had placed the box on a shelf, which I would never have seen - despite the enormity...

I yanked it out of its packaging and have been reading ever since. Its a hefty tome to take to bed, but that I did last night and got a work out while reading!

Way beyond my expectations...

Sound the fanfare.

Fire the cannon.

Muster all 76 trombones for the biggest parade since VE day.

Yes indeed: my copy arrived yesterday. Reality now seems oddly far away... B)

Mission accomplished, Tim and Donna. :)

So what are Tim and Donna gonna do with all their free time now? ;)

I actually ordered the book in semi-protest to those kinds of trolls a couple years ago. I remember Lucas was set to print the book back then, but something went wrong with his usual printer so he had to pull it and find a new printer. In the interim, even more material was added to the book anyway, so this delay was actually a blessing in disguise.

Anyway, I had always planned to order the book but never seemed to have enough spare cash handy, but as it happened I serendipitously did have the funds available at almost the exact same time that this on-line onslaught of undeserved attacks on Tim and Donna occurred due to the delay, so I happily ordered the book and had no problem waiting for it to be ready and get released.

The book arrived yesterday, and it was well-worth the wait, and then some. I really, REALLY hope all those impatient blowhards are eating some serious crow right now as I delve into and enjoy this fantastic, utterly amazing book. I was showing it off to some friends who aren't even into horror movies last night and they were amazed at the quality of it. It's not just a book, it's a work of art in and of itself.

Vincent