British postcard by Memory Card, no. 605 (Lobby card). Christina Ricci in Sleepy Hollow (Tim Burton, 1999).

Sleepy Hollow (1999) is an American Gothic Horror film directed by Tim Burton. The film is based on the short story The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving, published in 1819, which gets a few new twists. The film stars Johnny Depp and Christina Ricci, with Miranda Richardson, Michael Gambon, Casper Van Dien, Christopher Lee and Jeffrey Jones in supporting roles.

The story of Sleepy Hollow (1999) begins when scientist Ichabod Crane (Johnny Depp) tries to convince the court of justice in 1799 New York of his new, forensic methods of solving crimes. A method that meets with a lot of resistance, at a time when, even in the court of law, methods based on superstition and the supernatural are still highly valued. To prove himself right, Crane goes to Sleepy Hollow, a settlement of Dutch colonists in the state of New York, where mysterious things seem to happen and people are mysteriously beheaded. After a long journey by carriage, Crane arrives in the village. There he is informed of the existence of the "rider without a head" who haunts the woods and occasionally comes to crush a villager. Initially, Crane does not believe the story and sets out to find the real killer, until he discovers that the apparition does exist. The headless horseman (Christopher Walken) was once a Hes, a cruel Germanic mercenary in the American War of Independence who entered the war not for money but for pleasure. To look even more fearsome, he had sharpened his teeth to a point. One day, however, he was chased into the woods of Sleepy Hollow and finally decapitated by his own sword. For some months now, the horseman has been resurrected, beheading people from the village and taking their heads with him. After some time, Crane begins to suspect that the horseman does not kill at random, but that he does so at the behest of someone, a person who owns his head and therefore has power over the horseman. Eventually, he manages to eliminate this person and give the rider his head back. Finally, with the beautiful Katherine van Tassel (Christina Ricci), whom he has met in the village and with whom villager Abraham van Brunt (Caspar Van Dien) initially has a crush, he returns to New York.

Development of Sleepy Hollow began in 1993 at Paramount Pictures. Kevin Yagher, a make-up effects designer who had turned to direct with the horror anthology television series Tales from the Crypt (1989-1996), was originally set to direct Andrew Kevin Walker's script as a low-budget slasher film. Through his agent, Yagher was introduced to Andrew Kevin Walker. They spent a few months working on a film treatment that transformed Ichabod Crane from a schoolmaster from Connecticut to a banished New York City detective. Disagreements with Paramount resulted in Yagher being demoted to prosthetic makeup designer, and Tim Burton was hired to direct in June 1998. Burton made Sleepy Hollow a homage to various Hammer Film Productions, including Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde, and other films such as Frankenstein, Bride of Frankenstein, various Roger Corman horror films, Jason and the Argonauts, and Scream Blacula Scream. Johnny Depp was cast in July 1998 for his third collaboration with Burton. He did not wish to portray the character of Ichabod as a typical action star would have and instead took inspiration from Angela Lansbury's performance in Death on the Nile. Depp modelled Ichabod's detective personality from Basil Rathbone in the 1939 Sherlock Holmes film series. He also studied Roddy McDowall's acting for additional influence. Sleepy Hollow also reunited Burton with Jeffrey Jones (from Beetlejuice and Ed Wood) as Reverend Steenwyck, Christopher Walken (Max Shreck in Batman Returns) as the Hessian Horseman, Martin Landau (Ed Wood) in a cameo role, and Hammer veteran Michael Gough (Alfred in Burton's Batman films), whom Burton tempted out of retirement. The Hammer influence was further confirmed by the casting of Christopher Lee in a small role as the Burgomaster who sends Crane to Sleepy Hollow. Filming took place from November 1998 to May 1999. The film had its world premiere at Mann's Chinese Theatre and was released in the United States on 19 November 1999, by Paramount Pictures. It received generally positive reviews from critics, with many praising the performances, direction, screenplay and musical score, as well as its dark humour, visual effects and atmosphere. Roger Ebert: "This is the best-looking horror film since Coppola's "Bram Stoker's Dracula." It is not, however, titled "Washington Irving's Sleepy Hollow," perhaps because the story has been altered out of all recognition from the Irving classic. Perhaps not. No power on earth could persuade me to reread the original and find out. What it depends upon is Burton's gift for bizarre and eccentric special effects, and a superb performance by Johnny Depp, who discards everything we may ever have learned or thought about Ichabod Crane and starts from scratch." Jason Buchanan at AllMovie adds: "Often cited as a homage to the infamous films of Hammer Studios, upon deeper investigation into the influences of director Tim Burton, it becomes increasingly clear that, while the film does indeed have much in common with the British horror classics, the majority of visual influence is instead derived from the lush, gothic films of Mario Bava. Bearing a striking resemblance to 1960s Black Sunday in particular, Burton's muted color palate, vividly splashed with abundant amounts of blood so unnaturally red it seems to drip from the screen, represents a masterful command of color scheme rarely seen since Bava's color-era heyday. " The film grossed approximately $207 million worldwide. Sleepy Hollow won the Academy Award for Best Art Direction.

Sources: Roger Ebert (RogerEbert.com), Jason Buchanan (AllMovie), Wikipedia (Dutch and English), and IMDb.

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

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British postcard by Memory Card, no. 606 (Lobby card). Johnny Depp in Sleepy Hollow (Tim Burton, 1999).

Sleepy Hollow (1999) is an American Gothic Horror film directed by Tim Burton. The film is based on the short story The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving, published in 1819, which gets a few new twists. The film stars Johnny Depp and Christina Ricci, with Miranda Richardson, Michael Gambon, Casper Van Dien, Christopher Lee and Jeffrey Jones in supporting roles.

The story of Sleepy Hollow (1999) begins when scientist Ichabod Crane (Johnny Depp) tries to convince the court of justice in 1799 New York of his new, forensic methods of solving crimes. A method that meets with a lot of resistance, at a time when, even in the court of law, methods based on superstition and the supernatural are still highly valued. To prove himself right, Crane goes to Sleepy Hollow, a settlement of Dutch colonists in the state of New York, where mysterious things seem to happen and people are mysteriously beheaded. After a long journey by carriage, Crane arrives in the village. There he is informed of the existence of the "rider without a head" who haunts the woods and occasionally comes to crush a villager. Initially, Crane does not believe the story and sets out to find the real killer, until he discovers that the apparition does exist. The headless horseman (Christopher Walken) was once a Hes, a cruel Germanic mercenary in the American War of Independence who entered the war not for money but for pleasure. To look even more fearsome, he had sharpened his teeth to a point. One day, however, he was chased into the woods of Sleepy Hollow and finally decapitated by his own sword. For some months now, the horseman has been resurrected, beheading people from the village and taking their heads with him. After some time, Crane begins to suspect that the horseman does not kill at random, but that he does so at the behest of someone, a person who owns his head and therefore has power over the horseman. Eventually, he manages to eliminate this person and give the rider his head back. Finally, with the beautiful Katherine van Tassel (Christina Ricci), whom he has met in the village and with whom villager Abraham van Brunt (Caspar Van Dien) initially has a crush, he returns to New York.

Development of Sleepy Hollow began in 1993 at Paramount Pictures. Kevin Yagher, a make-up effects designer who had turned to direct with the horror anthology television series Tales from the Crypt (1989-1996), was originally set to direct Andrew Kevin Walker's script as a low-budget slasher film. Through his agent, Yagher was introduced to Andrew Kevin Walker. They spent a few months working on a film treatment that transformed Ichabod Crane from a schoolmaster from Connecticut to a banished New York City detective. Disagreements with Paramount resulted in Yagher being demoted to prosthetic makeup designer, and Tim Burton was hired to direct in June 1998. Burton made Sleepy Hollow a homage to various Hammer Film Productions, including Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde, and other films such as Frankenstein, Bride of Frankenstein, various Roger Corman horror films, Jason and the Argonauts, and Scream Blacula Scream. Johnny Depp was cast in July 1998 for his third collaboration with Burton. He did not wish to portray the character of Ichabod as a typical action star would have and instead took inspiration from Angela Lansbury's performance in Death on the Nile. Depp modelled Ichabod's detective personality from Basil Rathbone in the 1939 Sherlock Holmes film series. He also studied Roddy McDowall's acting for additional influence. Sleepy Hollow also reunited Burton with Jeffrey Jones (from Beetlejuice and Ed Wood) as Reverend Steenwyck, Christopher Walken (Max Shreck in Batman Returns) as the Hessian Horseman, Martin Landau (Ed Wood) in a cameo role, and Hammer veteran Michael Gough (Alfred in Burton's Batman films), whom Burton tempted out of retirement. The Hammer influence was further confirmed by the casting of Christopher Lee in a small role as the Burgomaster who sends Crane to Sleepy Hollow. Filming took place from November 1998 to May 1999. The film had its world premiere at Mann's Chinese Theatre and was released in the United States on 19 November 1999, by Paramount Pictures. It received generally positive reviews from critics, with many praising the performances, direction, screenplay and musical score, as well as its dark humour, visual effects and atmosphere. Roger Ebert: "This is the best-looking horror film since Coppola's "Bram Stoker's Dracula." It is not, however, titled "Washington Irving's Sleepy Hollow," perhaps because the story has been altered out of all recognition from the Irving classic. Perhaps not. No power on earth could persuade me to reread the original and find out. What it depends upon is Burton's gift for bizarre and eccentric special effects, and a superb performance by Johnny Depp, who discards everything we may ever have learned or thought about Ichabod Crane and starts from scratch." Jason Buchanan at AllMovie adds: "Often cited as a homage to the infamous films of Hammer Studios, upon deeper investigation into the influences of director Tim Burton, it becomes increasingly clear that, while the film does indeed have much in common with the British horror classics, the majority of visual influence is instead derived from the lush, gothic films of Mario Bava. Bearing a striking resemblance to 1960s Black Sunday in particular, Burton's muted color palate, vividly splashed with abundant amounts of blood so unnaturally red it seems to drip from the screen, represents a masterful command of color scheme rarely seen since Bava's color-era heyday. " The film grossed approximately $207 million worldwide. Sleepy Hollow won the Academy Award for Best Art Direction.

Sources: Roger Ebert (RogerEbert.com), Jason Buchanan (AllMovie), Wikipedia (Dutch and English), and IMDb.

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

Tags:   Johnny Depp Johnny Depp American Actor Acteur Hollywood Film Star Movie Star Film Cine Cinema Kino Picture Screen Movie Movies Filmster Star Vintage Postcard Carte Postale Cartolina Tarjet Postal Postkarte Postkaart Briefkarte Briefkaart Ansichtskarte Ansichtkaart Sleepy Hollow 1999 Sleepy Hollow Tim Burton Lobby Card Memory Card

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American lobby card, no. 6. Photo: Columbia / Universal. John Belushi in 1941 (Steven Spielberg, 1979).

John Belushi (1949-1982) was an American actor and comedian. Belushi was a member of the original cast of the sketch programme Saturday Night Live and later appeared in successful comedies such as Animal House and The Blues Brothers. He died at the age of 33 from the effects of an accidental overdose. He was the brother of actor James "Jim" Belushi.

John Belushi was born in Chicago, Illinois, in 1949, to Agnes Demetri (Samaras) and Adam Anastos Belushi, a restaurant owner. His father was an Albanian immigrant, from Qytezë, and his mother was also of Albanian descent. He grew up in Wheaton, where the family moved when he was six. Though a young hellion in grade school, John became the perfect all-American boy during his high school years where he was co-captain of the Wheaton Central High School football team and was elected homecoming king his senior year. He also developed an interest in acting and appeared in the high school variety show. Encouraged by his drama teacher, John decided to put aside his plans to become a football coach to pursue a career in acting. After graduation in 1967, John performed in summer stock in rural Indiana in a variety of roles from Cardinal Wolsey in 'Anne of a Thousand Days' to a comic detective in 'Ten Little Indians'. In the fall of his freshman year at the University of Wisconsin at Whitewater, John changed his image into a bad-boy appearance by growing his hair long and began to have problems with discipline and the structure of attending classes. In 1965, Belushi formed a band, the Ravens, together with four fellow high school students (Dick Blasucci, Michael Blasucci, Tony Pavilonis, and Phil Special). They recorded one single, 'Listen to Me Now/Jolly Green Giant'. Belushi played drums and sang vocals. The record was not successful, and the band broke up when he dropped out of Wisconsin. John spent the next two years at the College of DuPage, a junior college a few miles from his parents' Wheaton home, where his father began persuading him to become a partner in his restaurant, but John still preferred acting. He also attended the University of Wisconsin–Whitewater for a year, which inspired the famous Animal House scene of D-Day driving a motorcycle up the stairs. Belushi started his own comedy troupe in Chicago, the West Compass Trio (named after the improvisational cabaret revue Compass Players active from 1955 to 1958 in Chicago), with Tino Insana and Steve Beshekas. Their success piqued the interest of Bernard Sahlins, the founder of The Second City improvised comedy enterprise, who went to see them performing in 1971 and asked Belushi to join the cast. At Second City he performed in various on-stage comic performances with others, who included Harold Ramis and Joe Flaherty. John loved his life at Second City where he performed six nights a week, perfecting the physical "gonzo" style of comedy he later made famous. A year later, John and his live-in girlfriend from his high school years, Judith Belushi-Pisano, moved to New York because John had joined the cast of 'Lemmings', a parody of Woodstock and a production of the humorous magazine National Lampoon. Besides Belushi, the young comedians Chevy Chase and Christopher Guest were also part of the cast. The off-Broadway rock musical revue was originally booked for a six-week run but played to full crowds for nearly 10 months.

In 1973, John Belushi moved to New York with his girlfriend Judy Jacklin. In that year, National Lampoon also began broadcasting the comedy radio show The National Lampoon Radio Hour. Belushi made regular appearances on the radio show, along with Chevy Chase, Gilda Radner, Bill Murray and his brother Brian. Jacklin, who also became producer of the programme, married Belushi in 1976. During a trip to Toronto to check out the local Second City cast in 1974, he met Dan Aykroyd. In 1975, Chase and writer Michael O'Donoghue recommended Belushi to Lorne Michaels as a potential member for a television show Michaels was about to produce for NBC called NBC's Saturday Night, later Saturday Night Live (SNL). Michaels was initially undecided, as he was not sure if Belushi's physical humour would fit with what he was envisioning, but he changed his mind after giving Belushi an audition. Many employees of The National Lampoon Radio Hour moved to Saturday Night Live. Belushi, Radner, Chase, Dan Aykroyd, George Coe and others made up the cast of the sketch programme's first season. The ground-breaking TV variety series made Belushi a star. His unpredictable, aggressively physical style of humour flowered on SNL. Two years later, Bill Murray also made his SNL debut. Over his four-year tenure at SNL, Belushi became one of the programme's best-loved comedians, thanks in part to his character Futaba, a samurai. With Aykroyd, Belushi created Jake and Elwood, the Blues Brothers. Originally intended to warm up the studio audience before broadcasts of SNL, the Blues Brothers were eventually featured as musical guests. In 1978, while still working on Saturday Night Live (1975), John appeared in the films Old Boyfriends (Joan Tewkesbury, 1978) and Goin' South (1978) which starred and were directed by Jack Nicholson. Director John Landis cast him in National Lampoon's Animal House (John Landis, 1978) as the notorious, beer-swilling "Bluto" and he stole the movie which portrays college fraternity shenanigans at a small college set in the year 1962. Upon its initial release, Animal House received generally mixed reviews from critics, but Time magazine and Roger Ebert proclaimed it one of the year's best movies. Filmed for $2.8 million, it is one of the most profitable movies of all time, garnering an estimated gross of more than $141 million. In 1979, John Belushi along with fellow SNL regular Dan Aykroyd quit the series to pursue movie projects. They appeared together in Steven Spielberg's financially unsuccessful comic war film 1941 (1979) and the next year, in the massive hit The Blues Brothers (John Landis, 1980).

Around this time, John Belushi's drug use began escalating. Cocaine, which was ubiquitous in show-business circles in the 1970s, became his drug of choice. After he first experimented with cocaine in the mid-1970s, John almost immediately became addicted to it. His frequent cocaine sniffing binges became a source of friction between him and Judy, whom he married in 1976. John's love for blues and soul music inspired the "Blues Brothers". He and Aykroyd first appeared as Joliet Jake and Elwood Blues, a pair of white soul men dressed in black suits, skinny ties, fedora hats and Rayban sunglasses, as a warm-up act before the telecasts of Saturday Night Live (1975). Building on the success of their acts and the release of their album "A Briefcase Full of Blues", John and Dan Aykroyd starred in the movie, which gave John a chance to act with his favourite musical heroes including Ray Charles, James Brown and Aretha Franklin. It became his best-known film. Using some of his money, John Belushi bought his father a ranch outside San Diego for him to live. John helped set up some of his Chicago friends with their own businesses and even financially helped his younger brother, Jim Belushi, who followed his older brother's path to both Second City and Saturday Night Live (1975). In 1981, John appeared in the film Continental Divide (Michael Apted, 1981), playing a hard-nosed Chicago newspaperman who finds romance in Colorado with eagle expert Blair Brown. That same year, John and Dan Aykroyd appeared again in the movie Neighbors (John G. Avildsen, 1981), which gave them a chance to reverse roles, with John playing a straight-arrow family man whose life is turned upside down when a wild family man (Aykroyd) moves in next door. However, neither film could repeat the success of The Blues Brothers. In 1982, John checked into a bungalow at the Chateau Marmont, a popular celebrity hotel in Los Angeles. John's drug use had been steadily increasing for over a year now, which alarmed his wife and friends, but he continued to promise Judy that he would quit someday. On 5 March 19872, John Belushi was found dead of a drugs overdose in his hotel room. He was 33. The local coroner gave the cause of death as a lethal injection of cocaine and heroin. Several years later, John's drug dealing/drug user companion during his final weeks, Cathy Evelyn Smith, was tried and sentenced to three years in prison for supplying John with the drugs. Close friend James Taylor sang "That Lonesome Road" at a memorial service at Martha's Vineyard cemetery where John was buried. Colleague and friend Dan Aykroyd wrote the screenplays for Ghostbusters and Spies Like Us. In both films, he had foreseen a role for Belushi. The role in Ghostbusters was eventually played by Bill Murray, and in Spies Like Us by Chevy Chase. Belushi was posthumously honoured with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2004.

Sources: Wikipedia (Dutch and English) and IMDb.

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

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British postcard by Memory Card, no. 607 (Lobby card). Publicity still for Sleepy Hollow (Tim Burton, 1999).

Sleepy Hollow (1999) is an American Gothic Horror film directed by Tim Burton. The film is based on the short story The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving, published in 1819, which gets a few new twists. The film stars Johnny Depp and Christina Ricci, with Miranda Richardson, Michael Gambon, Casper Van Dien, Christopher Lee and Jeffrey Jones in supporting roles.

The story of Sleepy Hollow (1999) begins when scientist Ichabod Crane (Johnny Depp) tries to convince the court of justice in 1799 New York of his new, forensic methods of solving crimes. A method that meets with a lot of resistance, at a time when, even in the court of law, methods based on superstition and the supernatural are still highly valued. To prove himself right, Crane goes to Sleepy Hollow, a settlement of Dutch colonists in the state of New York, where mysterious things seem to happen and people are mysteriously beheaded. After a long journey by carriage, Crane arrives in the village. There he is informed of the existence of the "rider without a head" who haunts the woods and occasionally comes to crush a villager. Initially, Crane does not believe the story and sets out to find the real killer, until he discovers that the apparition does exist. The headless horseman (Christopher Walken) was once a Hes, a cruel Germanic mercenary in the American War of Independence who entered the war not for money but for pleasure. To look even more fearsome, he had sharpened his teeth to a point. One day, however, he was chased into the woods of Sleepy Hollow and finally decapitated by his own sword. For some months now, the horseman has been resurrected, beheading people from the village and taking their heads with him. After some time, Crane begins to suspect that the horseman does not kill at random, but that he does so at the behest of someone, a person who owns his head and therefore has power over the horseman. Eventually, he manages to eliminate this person and give the rider his head back. Finally, with the beautiful Katherine van Tassel (Christina Ricci), whom he has met in the village and with whom villager Abraham van Brunt (Caspar Van Dien) initially has a crush, he returns to New York.

Development of Sleepy Hollow began in 1993 at Paramount Pictures. Kevin Yagher, a make-up effects designer who had turned to direct with the horror anthology television series Tales from the Crypt (1989-1996), was originally set to direct Andrew Kevin Walker's script as a low-budget slasher film. Through his agent, Yagher was introduced to Andrew Kevin Walker. They spent a few months working on a film treatment that transformed Ichabod Crane from a schoolmaster from Connecticut to a banished New York City detective. Disagreements with Paramount resulted in Yagher being demoted to prosthetic makeup designer, and Tim Burton was hired to direct in June 1998. Burton made Sleepy Hollow a homage to various Hammer Film Productions, including Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde, and other films such as Frankenstein, Bride of Frankenstein, various Roger Corman horror films, Jason and the Argonauts, and Scream Blacula Scream. Johnny Depp was cast in July 1998 for his third collaboration with Burton. He did not wish to portray the character of Ichabod as a typical action star would have and instead took inspiration from Angela Lansbury's performance in Death on the Nile. Depp modelled Ichabod's detective personality from Basil Rathbone in the 1939 Sherlock Holmes film series. He also studied Roddy McDowall's acting for additional influence. Sleepy Hollow also reunited Burton with Jeffrey Jones (from Beetlejuice and Ed Wood) as Reverend Steenwyck, Christopher Walken (Max Shreck in Batman Returns) as the Hessian Horseman, Martin Landau (Ed Wood) in a cameo role, and Hammer veteran Michael Gough (Alfred in Burton's Batman films), whom Burton tempted out of retirement. The Hammer influence was further confirmed by the casting of Christopher Lee in a small role as the Burgomaster who sends Crane to Sleepy Hollow. Filming took place from November 1998 to May 1999. The film had its world premiere at Mann's Chinese Theatre and was released in the United States on 19 November 1999, by Paramount Pictures. It received generally positive reviews from critics, with many praising the performances, direction, screenplay and musical score, as well as its dark humour, visual effects and atmosphere. Roger Ebert: "This is the best-looking horror film since Coppola's "Bram Stoker's Dracula." It is not, however, titled "Washington Irving's Sleepy Hollow," perhaps because the story has been altered out of all recognition from the Irving classic. Perhaps not. No power on earth could persuade me to reread the original and find out. What it depends upon is Burton's gift for bizarre and eccentric special effects, and a superb performance by Johnny Depp, who discards everything we may ever have learned or thought about Ichabod Crane and starts from scratch." Jason Buchanan at AllMovie adds: "Often cited as a homage to the infamous films of Hammer Studios, upon deeper investigation into the influences of director Tim Burton, it becomes increasingly clear that, while the film does indeed have much in common with the British horror classics, the majority of visual influence is instead derived from the lush, gothic films of Mario Bava. Bearing a striking resemblance to 1960s Black Sunday in particular, Burton's muted color palate, vividly splashed with abundant amounts of blood so unnaturally red it seems to drip from the screen, represents a masterful command of color scheme rarely seen since Bava's color-era heyday. " The film grossed approximately $207 million worldwide. Sleepy Hollow won the Academy Award for Best Art Direction.

Sources: Roger Ebert (RogerEbert.com), Jason Buchanan (AllMovie), Wikipedia (Dutch and English), and IMDb.

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

Tags:   Sleepy Hollow Sleepy Hollow Hollywood Film Star Movie Star Film Cine Cinema Kino Picture Screen Movie Movies Filmster Star Vintage Postcard Carte Postale Cartolina Tarjet Postal Postkarte Postkaart Briefkarte Briefkaart Ansichtskarte Ansichtkaart 1999 Tim Burton Lobby Card Memory Card

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British postcard by Memory Card, no. 610 (Lobby card). Christopher Walken in Sleepy Hollow (Tim Burton, 1999).

Sleepy Hollow (1999) is an American Gothic Horror film directed by Tim Burton. The film is based on the short story The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving, published in 1819, which gets a few new twists. The film stars Johnny Depp and Christina Ricci, with Miranda Richardson, Michael Gambon, Casper Van Dien, Christopher Lee and Jeffrey Jones in supporting roles.

The story of Sleepy Hollow (1999) begins when scientist Ichabod Crane (Johnny Depp) tries to convince the court of justice in 1799 New York of his new, forensic methods of solving crimes. A method that meets with a lot of resistance, at a time when, even in the court of law, methods based on superstition and the supernatural are still highly valued. To prove himself right, Crane goes to Sleepy Hollow, a settlement of Dutch colonists in the state of New York, where mysterious things seem to happen and people are mysteriously beheaded. After a long journey by carriage, Crane arrives in the village. There he is informed of the existence of the "rider without a head" who haunts the woods and occasionally comes to crush a villager. Initially, Crane does not believe the story and sets out to find the real killer, until he discovers that the apparition does exist. The headless horseman (Christopher Walken) was once a Hes, a cruel Germanic mercenary in the American War of Independence who entered the war not for money but for pleasure. To look even more fearsome, he had sharpened his teeth to a point. One day, however, he was chased into the woods of Sleepy Hollow and finally decapitated by his own sword. For some months now, the horseman has been resurrected, beheading people from the village and taking their heads with him. After some time, Crane begins to suspect that the horseman does not kill at random, but that he does so at the behest of someone, a person who owns his head and therefore has power over the horseman. Eventually, he manages to eliminate this person and give the rider his head back. Finally, with the beautiful Katherine van Tassel (Christina Ricci), whom he has met in the village and with whom villager Abraham van Brunt (Caspar Van Dien) initially has a crush, he returns to New York.

Development of Sleepy Hollow began in 1993 at Paramount Pictures. Kevin Yagher, a make-up effects designer who had turned to direct with the horror anthology television series Tales from the Crypt (1989-1996), was originally set to direct Andrew Kevin Walker's script as a low-budget slasher film. Through his agent, Yagher was introduced to Andrew Kevin Walker. They spent a few months working on a film treatment that transformed Ichabod Crane from a schoolmaster from Connecticut to a banished New York City detective. Disagreements with Paramount resulted in Yagher being demoted to prosthetic makeup designer, and Tim Burton was hired to direct in June 1998. Burton made Sleepy Hollow a homage to various Hammer Film Productions, including Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde, and other films such as Frankenstein, Bride of Frankenstein, various Roger Corman horror films, Jason and the Argonauts, and Scream Blacula Scream. Johnny Depp was cast in July 1998 for his third collaboration with Burton. He did not wish to portray the character of Ichabod as a typical action star would have and instead took inspiration from Angela Lansbury's performance in Death on the Nile. Depp modelled Ichabod's detective personality from Basil Rathbone in the 1939 Sherlock Holmes film series. He also studied Roddy McDowall's acting for additional influence. Sleepy Hollow also reunited Burton with Jeffrey Jones (from Beetlejuice and Ed Wood) as Reverend Steenwyck, Christopher Walken (Max Shreck in Batman Returns) as the Hessian Horseman, Martin Landau (Ed Wood) in a cameo role, and Hammer veteran Michael Gough (Alfred in Burton's Batman films), whom Burton tempted out of retirement. The Hammer influence was further confirmed by the casting of Christopher Lee in a small role as the Burgomaster who sends Crane to Sleepy Hollow. Filming took place from November 1998 to May 1999. The film had its world premiere at Mann's Chinese Theatre and was released in the United States on 19 November 1999, by Paramount Pictures. It received generally positive reviews from critics, with many praising the performances, direction, screenplay and musical score, as well as its dark humour, visual effects and atmosphere. Roger Ebert: "This is the best-looking horror film since Coppola's "Bram Stoker's Dracula." It is not, however, titled "Washington Irving's Sleepy Hollow," perhaps because the story has been altered out of all recognition from the Irving classic. Perhaps not. No power on earth could persuade me to reread the original and find out. What it depends upon is Burton's gift for bizarre and eccentric special effects, and a superb performance by Johnny Depp, who discards everything we may ever have learned or thought about Ichabod Crane and starts from scratch." Jason Buchanan at AllMovie adds: "Often cited as a homage to the infamous films of Hammer Studios, upon deeper investigation into the influences of director Tim Burton, it becomes increasingly clear that, while the film does indeed have much in common with the British horror classics, the majority of visual influence is instead derived from the lush, gothic films of Mario Bava. Bearing a striking resemblance to 1960s Black Sunday in particular, Burton's muted color palate, vividly splashed with abundant amounts of blood so unnaturally red it seems to drip from the screen, represents a masterful command of color scheme rarely seen since Bava's color-era heyday. " The film grossed approximately $207 million worldwide. Sleepy Hollow won the Academy Award for Best Art Direction.

Sources: Roger Ebert (RogerEbert.com), Jason Buchanan (AllMovie), Wikipedia (Dutch and English), and IMDb.

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

Tags:   Christopher Walken Christopher Walken American Actor Acteur Sleepy Hollow Sleepy Hollow Hollywood Film Star Movie Star Film Cine Cinema Kino Picture Screen Movie Movies Filmster Star Vintage Postcard Carte Postale Cartolina Tarjet Postal Postkarte Postkaart Briefkarte Briefkaart Ansichtskarte Ansichtkaart 1999 Tim Burton Lobby Card Memory Card

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