It’s easy to see why David Cronenberg was interested in remaking this semi-classic picture. Under the guise of a b-movie James Clavell’s screenplay from George Langelaan’s story of a scientist who turns himself into a half-man/half-fly is remarkably poignant and emotionally-affecting atomic age cautionary tale of science-gone-wrong.
Showing posts with label B-Movie. Show all posts
Showing posts with label B-Movie. Show all posts
Monday, 30 September 2013
Thursday, 7 October 2010
Forbidden Planet
Starring: Leslie Nielsen, Walter Pidgeon, Anne Francis, Warren Stevens and introducing Robby the Robot
***
By Alan Bacchus
There’s no doubt the impact of Forbidden Planet on science fiction cinema. In fact, the accompanying featurette on the brand spanking new Warner Blu-Ray edition features some of the most revered science fiction filmmakers lauding the MGM spectacle piece for influencing them to get into filmmaking – John Carpenter, Joe Dante, John Landis to name a few. I’ve seen it a number of times, this viewing the first time in 10 years or so, but my reaction is the still same. Admiration for its magnificent production design, admiration for its influence on sci-fi series Star Trek, acknowledgement for the filmmakers’ attempt to incorporate metaphors to real world themes and issues which exist on this green earth and a few giggles at the b-movie sensability which ultimately shines through all other purported redeemable qualities.
The story, which was refashioned from William Shakespeare’s The Tempest, seems like a narrative template for a Roddenberry-era Star Trek episode. Commander J.J. Adams (Nielsen) commands a earth-born flying saucer into the deep reaches of space to make contact with the planet Altair IV and look for survivors of a lost expedition some 20 years prior. Once there, Adams, despite warnings from the only survivor of the previous mission, Dr. Morbius, his crew lands and explores this strange new world. Other than Morbius the only other inhabitants are his comely and impressionable daughter Alaira and Morbius robo-companion/servant Robby.
Morbius seems a little off, and his story that he and his daughter were immune to the unknown phenomenon which killed the rest of his crew, is a little fishy. Adams explores the planet and learns about exitinct previous inhabitants the Krell who all died off suddenly despite their great advancements in technology. The unknown phenomenon eventually rises up again attacking Adams’ crew, the effect of which forces Morbius to examine and reconcile his own culpability in the disaster.
Thematically the film’s greatest strength is it’s commentary on man’s voracious and often misguided and hasty desire for technology and knowledge, with the Krell serving as the metaphor for man – a society which advanced itself too quickly that ultimately destroyed itself by it’s own creation. The final line in the film which Adams says to Altaira, ‘We are, after all, not God” hit this point home not-so-subtley.
The revered production design by Cedric Gibbons, who was worked on many of the great MGM pictures (Wizard of Oz, An American in Paris), is indeed a marvel. Gibbons brought the same kind of spectacle MGM put into their musicals into the design of this new planet, fabulous colours, spectacular sets and painted backdrops are rendered with great details, which shows that good old fashioned sets instead of green screen scenery can look as good if not better than the overly processed CG effects of today.
The character of Robby the Robot actually gets a credit in the film and on the poster. His popularity is well documented, one of the first robot companions in cinema, a benevolent character rendered under Isaac Asimov’s three laws of robotics:
1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey any orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
Unfortunately Robby’s narrative influence in the film doesn’t go beyond comic relief, and though painstaking work was done to design it, with today’s eyes it still looks like a man waddling around in a sumo-suit.
Prior to Airplane Leslie Nielsen was a very serious actor – a Canadian actor, whom Marlon Brando once called the best actor Canada has to offer. He’s very serious in this role, which might also be a direct influence on the character of Captain Kirk, or least fellow Canadian William Shatner’s dramatization of it. Unfortunately there’s little in Adams’ character beyond the masculine authority figure Nielsen portrays. He’s exclusively a reactionary character, almost completely inactive to the events which befall him.
Morbius is a classic delusional madman, with his sinister-looking goatee reminds us of the moustache-twirking Zaroff in The Most Dangerous Game, again portrayed by a Canadian, Walter Pidgeon. Morbius’ daughter (Anne Francis) arguably was ahead of the curve as well, dressed in suggestive miniskirts and characterized as so sheltered she’s willing to swim nude in front of other men and presumably go to bed with them at will.
There’s a lot which doesn’t translate well to today. Along with the uninteresting and rather dull hero character, Wilcox’s direction (production design notwithstanding) is as pedestrian. There seems to be so much attention to the sets and backdrops that every shot is a flat two-shot. The camera rarely moves beyond this two-dimensional plane, resulting in a rather stagey theatrical feel.
So while the film can get aggrandized and made bigger than it is doesn’t mean it’s overrated. It’s one of the great event films in the long history of science-fiction and the reason why a Hollywood remake has been floating around for years – a story which no one as of yet seems to have been able to crack.
Forbidden Planet is available on Blu-Ray from Warner Home Video
Thursday, 24 June 2010
Death Race 2000
Starring: David Carradine, Sylvestor Stallone
***
by Alan Bacchus
In the mondo special features of this latest DVD incarnation of Death Race 2000, Roger Corman describes his reaction to reading sci-fi novelist Ib Melchior's 1956 short story The Racer, then a serious, cautionary, futurist tale. Corman, ever the astute producer and money maker, saw this story as a comedy and thus turned it into a raucous road movie, part action, part comedy, part science fiction and part cultural satire.
Twenty-five years later, when the millennium rolled around, we didn't exactly see our society debased to the level of nihilism of Death Race 2000, but with the onset of reality TV, which was only a couple years away from really breaking out, Corman wasn't that far off, and as social commentary, it's surprisingly sharp. While proponents might overdo the profoundness of the film's critique on the media and society's growing insatiability for violence, we can't forget that it's also a b-grade action picture with some titties.
It's a story that has been told in many other forms since 1975. Natural Born Killers, The Running Man, Battle Royale, Speed Racer and much of the modern videogame culture, whether conscious or not, all take influences from Corman/Bartel's vision, however kooky and bizarre.
It's the year 2000, and society has devolved into a Roman-like world where the people's need for violence is organized into a gladiatorial event called the Death Race: a cross-country car race/game show where contestants earn points by killing opponents and pedestrians. Among the contestants is Machine Gun Joe Viterbo (played well by a pre-Rocky Sylvester Stallone), Roberta Collins' Matilda the Hun, Martin Kove's Nero the Hero and the best of the best, Frankenstein (played with cool, iconic aloofness by David Carradine).
As the racers cruise the highways running down innocent victims with glee, we see a clandestine resistance movement angling to subvert the games and take down the government. Frankenstein feels the threat from all angles, including his trusted navigator, who may or may not be working for the resistance
Most of the laughs come from the audacity of the extreme concept and the audience's ability to embrace the kitsch. The cartoonish tone aids in the satire, as well as taking our attention away from the production deficiencies.
The DVD is chockfull of special features, more than enough to please geeky film buffs and collectors. There are multiple commentaries, including Corman, assistant director Lewis Teague, editor Tina Hirsch and director John Landis, interviews with Corman, Carradine and story author IB Melchior, and multiple featurettes on many of the film's production elements.
Friday, 16 April 2010
Never Take Candy From a Stranger
Starring: Gwen Watford, Patrick Allen, Felix Aylmer, Niall McGinnis, Bill Nagy, Michael Gwynn and Budd Knapp
***
By Greg Klymkiw
In the movies, Canada never gets a break. As noted in Pierre Berton's almost pathologically well-researched (and very funny) book "Hollywood's Canada", he outlines Canada's penchant for offering up its anus to any two-bit non-Canadian huckster in exchange for the equivalent of coloured beads. In the case of Berton's book, the Canadian government gives away its aspirations to manufacture an indigenous film culture (save for National Film Board of Canada documentaries) with the promise from all the major studios in Hollywood that Canada will be featured prominently as a setting in Hollywood films to promote tourism to Canada.
The product yielded from this was mostly B-movie westerns that portrayed voyageurs as boozing lechers looking primarily for white women to rape (since they get "it" easily from Native women), peaceful Canadian Plains Indians as blood-thirsty psychos wildly attacking wagon trains, geographical locations completely unlike what they were in reality and pole-up-the-butt Mounties bent on "getting their man". Burton details over 600 such films.
Berton even gives examples of how Hollywood gets their fingers into the pie of Britain's indigenous film industry during the "quota quickie" period (where unscrupulous Brits generated micro-budgeted trash to appease the government quotas, yet still make money) by hiring a puppet Canadian to be the "producer", use Hollywood-based British talent - on and behind the camera - and then to collect the financing and profits. This was an especially easy way to exploit Britain as well as Canada since anything made in Canada, counted as British, since Canada was essentially a colony belonging to the monarchy.
"Never Take Candy From a Stranger" is a low-budget Hammer production from Britain. It's not a western, nor is it a British "quota quickie".
It is, however, set in Canada.
And while, as the film's narrator tells us, this story could be set anywhere, we will see the tawdry events unfold in Canada.
And what, you ask, is the tawdry event?
CHILD MOLESTATION!!!!!
Yes indeed - child molestation in Canada! Eastern Canada, to be precise. What the makers of the film mean by Eastern Canada is somewhat unclear since that would place the film in the rugged, rocky landscape of inbred territory in the Maritimes. Funny though, it looks like the backlot of Bray Studios - in Mother England, not in the Dominion of Canada. An Eastern Canada setting in the fiddle playing environs of the Maritimes would also mean that the child molestation was being carried out by Roman Catholic priests upon young boys in orphanages and troubled-boy schools. As well, none of the law enforcement people in the film appear to be the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, but are in fact, a lot like sheriffs and state troopers from the good old Red, White and Blue below the 49th parallel.
No matter, Canada it is. Britain has always had a long history of misrepresenting their own colony in the Great White North. One of my favourites is Powell-Pressburger's "The 49th Parallel" which depicts Nazis entering Canada via U-Boat through Hudson's Bay, encountering a Quebecois fur trapper played by Laurence Olivier, dining in the swinging city of Winnipeg, hooking up with some Mennonites on the prairies, encountering a war-weary non-patriot played by Leslie Howard and finally, an American soldier played by the Canadian actor Raymond Massey.
But, I digress.
We open with little Sally Carter (genuinely well played by Gwen Watford) as she plays with a new chum. Sally is a new arrival to this Eastern Canadian enclave of perversion. The gentle rough-housing between the two girls leads to Sally losing 35¢ in the grass. She laments that this was to be her candy allowance for the week. Her all-knowing new friend helpfully offers to take her to a place where they can both get all the free candy they want. Lo and behold, just behind them is a creepy old mansion and from a top window we discover they are being spied on by a foul, dirty old man, Clarence Olderberry (Felix Aylmer).
Later that evening, Sally admits to her parents that she and her friend went to visit a kind old man for candy and stripped naked for him and did a little dance. Dad (Patrick Allen) is furious. He is the new principal of the school in this small town (though it looks reasonably urban) and he is a square-jawed type looking for justice. When he visits the local constabulary, he's told not to press charges since the old man really didn't "do anything" to the children. They also mention that the old man is essentially the patriarch of the town - responsible for starting its chief industry. He's been a highly influential citizen and well respected. Besides, the sheriff/state-trooper/constable/RCMP-officer adds, Olderberry's son, Clarence Jr. (CANADIAN ACTOR Bill Nagy) will use all his power to make their lives miserable and defend his Dad which will end in complete acquittal for the disgusting, slavering old lecher who, as it turns out, has quite a long history of child molestation that's been hushed up.
Peter is even more intent than ever to press charges and go to trial. From there, we go to an extremely intense courtroom battle, followed by a beautifully directed sequence of nail-biting suspense.
Canadian flubs aside, I really have to say this movie was a great find. The scenario as depicted more-than-adequately, depicts how child molestation was, for far too long, ignored, repressed and misunderstood. As well, far beyond its time period, it shockingly and frankly depicts the horrors that victims of sexual violence go through during a trial where unscrupulous defence lawyers will pin blame and shame upon them instead of their repulsive clients who deserve a bullet between the eyes rather than the mollycoddling afforded to them.
Cyril Frankel's direction is lean and mean. In addition to directing endless hours of British cop, crime and sci-fi TV series, he also delivered one of the most terrifying and sadly underrated Hammer Horror pictures of all time, "The Witches" as well as "The Trollenberg Terror", one of the trippiest genre blenders you'll ever see. "Never Take Candy From a Stranger" barrels along with the force of a souped-up GTO engine and the suspense set piece at the end is worthy of J. Lee Thompson's school "chase" between the Bob Mitchum's brutal rapist and Greg Peck's daughter in "Cape Fear". It might actually dazzle further as certain twists and turns during this final sequence in "Never Take Candy From a Stranger" had me on the edge of my seat until the devastating resuts. Add to the stew some truly rich cinematography from the legendary Freddie ("The Straight Story", "The Elephant Man", his first Oscar win " Sons and Lovers" and his second Oscar win "Glory") Francis and you have an intelligent, suspenseful, powerful and slam-bang little thriller.
On a side note, one of Canada's greatest stage, television and voice veterans, Budd Knapp, appears in a small supporting role. Mother England was always happy to toss us colonial savages a few bones.
"Never Take Candy From a Stranger" is currently available on the great new 3-disc DVD set entitled "Icons of Horror - Hammer Studios" from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment.
Friday, 5 February 2010
Turner Classic Movies - Sci-Fi Adventures
By Alan Bacchus
It was the '50s, the height of the cold war, nuclear testing is at its peak and Joseph McCarthy is running wild. Out of this fervour and paranoia came a rash of topical sci-fi flicks playing against these post-war fears. Warner and Turner Classic Movies have packaged four of these not-so-classics — 'Them!', 'Beast From 20,000 Fathoms', 'World Without End' and 'Satellite in the Sky' — to form this DVD collection.
'Beast from 20,000 Fathoms' works as a structural template for modern-day creature/disaster movies. A nuclear detonation in the Arctic unleashes a prehistoric dinosaur frozen in the ice, which runs amok in New York City. Ray Harryhausen's stop motion effects make for some stunning scenes of sci-fi spectacle, with the creature toppling a lighthouse, destroying skyscrapers in NYC and its fiery death at the Coney Island roller coaster. Unfortunately, whenever the beast is not on screen it's a slog to watch. A love story between the hero scientist and a female palaeontologist slows the picture down to a crawl in between scenes of mass destruction.
The two lesser pictures are a couple of colour cinemascope b-movies: 'World Without End' and 'Satellite in the Sky'. World Without End features a 'Planet of the Apes' scenario where a team of astronauts on a space mission get transported 600 years into the future to a violent version of Earth where they have to convince the cowardly group of shut-ins to use violence and aggression to stave off an army of beast mutates. Production values and creature effects are especially poor, even within its b-movie context.
'Satellite in the Sky' is actually an interesting movie. In fact, it's the most science-oriented film of the bunch. A fictionalized story of the birth of American space exploration, starting with the breaking of the sound barrier by test pilots, and then the first manned mission into space. A technical glitch in the mission results in a harrowing fight to rescue the men from the clutches of deep space. 'The Right Stuff' or 'Apollo 13' this is not, as the production values are no better than Ed Wood's cardboard models and fishing wire.
The movie to cherish and celebrate, however, is 'Them!', which is atomic age genre filmmaking at its best — giant ants, mutated from nuclear fallout, fighting the U.S. military, with American civilization at stake. Unlike the other films in this set, the production values, from special effects to production design, are surprisingly top notch. In fact, 'Them!' was Warner's top grossing film of 1954.
Back in the day, Hollywood studios didn't waste too much time with their B-movies. Not only do their highly literal titles tell us exactly what to expect, the average running time for these films is a scant 83 minutes. It's a trend I wish Hollywood today would adhere to ('2012' clocked in at 150 minutes). So have fun with these pictures.
Saturday, 21 November 2009
Godzilla (1998)
Starring: Matthew Broderick, Maria Pitillo, Michael Lerner, Jean Reno, Hank Azaria
*
By Alan Bacchus
However silly and cornball “Independence Day”, there was a thrill in bringing back the simple earth vs. aliens b-movie plotting. And certainly watching major landmarks in New York and Washington get destroyed in such magnificent fashion was a visual delight. Thus “Independence Day” is a genuine guilty pleasure. There can be no pleasure on any level derived from “Godzilla” – a loud, ugly, tedious and repetitive version of the beloved ‘man-in-suit’ Japanese monster franchise.
Emmerich recycles the same plotting from ‘Independence Day’, except replacing the aliens invasion of the earth with a more confined invasion of New York. In the opening credits Godzilla’s existence is explained as a mutation from illegal nuclear testing in French Polynesia, but has now swam off the island toward the United States. While world scientists track this mysterious beast around the world, he seems to be taking the long way around for an attack on Manhattan. Once ashore he runs amuck in the city destroying buildings and fighting off the military. The humans collaborating to combat the beast include nerdy scientist Niko Tatopoulos (Matthew Broderick), his wannabee TV journalist ex-GF (Maria Pitillo) her cameraman (Hank Azaria) and a slimy French government agent (Jean Reno).
Emmerich commits some of the most blatant creative theft since Brian De Palma’s 70’s-80’s Hitchcock fixation. Emmerich’s victim is Steven Spielberg shamelessly lifting direct shots, scenes, visual composition and camera movement from “Close Encounters of the Third Kind’, ‘Jurassic Park’ and more. The opening moments which has the scientists tracking the trail of destruction of the lizard across the Pacific is lifted directly from ‘Close Encounters’, and final the stadium sequence is essentially the raptor chase from ‘Jurassic Park’. But it’s Emmerich’s overall tone of wonder and amazement which rings as nasty and deliberate pilfering.
Emmerich’s monster, as designed by Patrick Tatopoulos, who had previously created some wonderful designs in “Independence Day” and “Stargate” chooses to create a literal version of the Godzilla beast – a nuclear fallout-mutated monster which appears to be just an anatomically correct blow-up of a real lizard. As such, Godzilla’s legs are bent out of shape like a four legged creature and his face is a square muscular mass of cold-blooded leather. Emmerich eschews any attempt at creating a personality to the beast – which was one of the endearing hallmarks of the Toho beast – a monster with a distinct personality. This Godzilla is simply a giant lizard.
Emmerich’s tin ear for casting is front and centre. Michael Lerner is a great character actor, but in the skin of a U.S. President rendered as a sour grapes jab at Roger Ebert is an awful creative choice. Same with the casting of “The Simpsons” voice actors Hank Azaria as the Eng camera operator named ‘Animal’ (seriously, his name is Animal), the diminutive Harry Shearer as a womanizing news anchor man and the affable funny man Kevin Dunn as a hardnosed military general (whaat???). Dr. Niko Tatopoulos as played by Matthew Broderick is a typical Emmerich character and carbon copy of the protags from Stargate (James Spader) Independence Day (Jeff Goldblum), The Day After Tomorrow (Jake Gyllenhaal) and though I haven’t seen it yet, most likely John Cusack’s character 2012.
Without a personality to the beast, all of the action is just noise. And with a particularly dark and wet colour palette the entire picture is rendered soulless, inert and dead.
“Godzilla” is available on Blu-Ray from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
Monday, 26 October 2009
War of the Worlds (1953)
Starring: Gene Barry, Ann Robinson, Lewis Martin, Les Tremayne, Bob Cornthwaite
****
By Alan Bacchus
Based on the famed H.G. Wells 1898 novel which told the story of a Victorian town overrun by alien ‘tripods’ which advanced weaponry, the 1953 George Pal-produced sprawling epic is a violent, destructive, balls out action picture which holds its ground even today as one of the greatest science-fiction pictures ever made.
It’s been over 50 years since the release of this film and the special effects, tension and suspense render the b-movie material so immersive it’s almost invisible to its age. Sure its low tech by today’s standards, but Pal and director Byron Haskin manage to create as film which such unrelenting force and destruction, it feels even more violent and vicious than any disaster movie made today.
Of course, the story was famously adapted by Orson Welles’s Mercury Theatre radio program in 1938 as real (perhaps the first-ever mockumentary), according to legend causing mass panic in many cities and towns across America. With that bar set as high as it was by Welles, Hungarian-born puppeteer-animator turned sci-fi movie producer, George Pal had to reach higher than Hollywood sci-fi had ever gone.
The marvel is in its simplicity – Martians land on Earth and attack, but with a sense of epic scale executed to perfection. The set up is simple: In the peaceful Southern California town of Linda Rosa, physicist Clayton Forrester (Gene Barry) along with most of its citizens watch a meteorite crash into the ground. Later that day the meteorite uncorks revealing giant alien warship lifepods inside. Attempts at appeasement are deadly as their powerful ray guns make for easy kill and much destruction. When the American government discovers these pods have landed in other place around the world, they know the planet is under attack.
Send in the Marines!
Southern California soon becomes a battle ground for Army vs. Aliens battle with buildings, tanks, and most of the landscape scorched to flames. We watch the movements of Forrester and his girlfriend Sylvia flees the warzone, only to crash their plane behind enemy lines. With the couple split up Forrester has to navigate his way through the warzone back into town to find his beloved.
‘War of the Worlds” is mean, tough, merciless. The aliens are faceless, and go about their mission of mass destruction without any remorse or pause. The mere sounds of the alien’s cannons is so loud and ear-piercing it implies a level of violence equal to that any Roland Emmerich disaster movie. And the violence seem even more destructive than films of today. There’s nothing sanitized, or restricted for audiences.
Not even Steven Spielberg could better the Pal/Haskin version. Spielberg's 2005 version was surprisingly literal to Pal's film. The introduction of the pods in the ground are built up with the same kind of tension. The humanist struggle from Forrester's point of view is attempted, but made too sappy and on-the-nose-preachy lacking the violent nihilistic edge of Pal's penchant for destruction. Spielberg smartly kept the home invasion scene intact from the 53 version. A suspenseful moment when Forrester and Sylvia fight off the prying eye of a pod tentacle while holed up in a vacant home is choreographed and shot almost identically to Haskin's version.
I'm sure Mr. Spielberg is proud of his own film, but I'm sure even he will admit it never even came close to touching the power and resiliance of the original.
Sunday, 4 October 2009
Mothra/Masura
Mothra/Mosura (1961) Dir. Ishiro Honda
Starring: Frankie Sakai, Kyoko Kagawa, Jerry Ito, Emy Ito, Yumy Ito and Takashi Shimura
***
By Greg Klymkiw
The threat of nuclear annihilation has always been a theme at the forefront of science fiction, but nowhere is this more profound than in the cinema of Japan. The devastation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki loomed large within the frontal lobes of most filmmakers from the land of Nippon, but at Toho Studios, a long-running series of fantastical pictures that began with 1954’s “Gojira” (aka “Godzilla”), took the islands of Japan by storm and crossed the waters to tantalize audiences worldwide.
The director who is associated most closely with these pictures is Ishiro Honda, a visionary whose work is often ignored, neglected and/or derided by many critics. That said, if Akira Kurosawa is to be considered the John Ford of Japanese cinema, I’d argue quite strenuously that Honda is the Nipponese Spielberg – an entertainer of the highest order, an expert stylist/craftsman and a serious film artist. Like Spielberg, Honda created a wealth of product that appealed to kids of all ages – from east to west and back again!
Sadly, in the Western world, Honda’s work was so manipulated by American distributors that his dark, thrilling morality tales of nuclear mutated monsters were often reduced to the most basic elements of the monster movie genre with much of the political subtext removed in order to remain palatable to the narrow interests of the Occidental world. With substantial re-cutting and dialogue dubbing, most Western audiences lost out on the opportunity to not only enjoy rip-roaring entertainments, but also do so with considerable food for thought.
In 1961, Honda’s “Mothra/Mosura” was a slight change of pace from his dark horrific explorations of the effects of nuclear radiation. The message of peace is still front and centre, but the delivery of this important missive has a colourful, fantasy-infused lightness. Dappled, as it is, with this lightness of tone and touch is what gives the audience a fresh perspective and creates a creature-feature endowed with a very unique vantage point.
When a strange island is discovered in an area spoiled by nuclear contamination, the world comes face to face with a civilization that devotes itself to worshipping the splendours of the natural world. On this island are two beautiful miniature women – fairies who sing the loveliest of melodies. When an unscrupulous promoter kidnaps and subsequently forces them to perform in his circus, a ragtag group of journalists seeks to rescue them – especially since the tuneful crooning becomes mournful and summons the awakening of the ancient monster Mothra. This snail-like behemoth eventually cocoons and transforms into a horrifying winged beast hell-bent on rescuing the fairies and wreaking major havoc upon the towns and cities of Japan - most notably, Tokyo.
Blending slapstick humour with the sort of destruction one expects from Honda’s monster pictures, “Mothra” is a magical and supremely entertaining thrill ride. Amidst the serious thematic concerns about Western greed and exploitation the entire concoction delivers a fine homage to “King Kong” and a delightful mix of laughs and thrills. The humour is, thankfully, not tongue-in-cheek, but rooted in the characters and situations so that, while broad, it never renders the picture into a knowing gag-fest.
The hallmark of Honda’s work is undoubtedly his handling of the carnage and “Mothra” does not disappoint in this regard. When our title monster transforms into a flying avenger, the force of its wings beating is enough to create hurricane-like winds that send cars, trucks and tanks hurtling into skyscrapers.
A considerable chunk of the running time in the first half is devoted to a debate between the forces of exploitation and those who desire a more harmonious relationship to the forces of nature. Within these debates, humour abounds – thanks mainly to the comical turns by the blustery Frankie Sakai as the rotund reporter “Bulldog” and the fiery female photographer Michi (played by the delightful Kyoko Kogawa). Jerry Ito is a deliciously slimy villain while fave Kurosawa thespian Takashi (“Ikuru”) Shimura makes a welcome appearance as the news editor who lights a flame under his writers’ butts and has them become actively involved in the proceedings. The real life singing sensation twins (the Ito sisters), known to the world outside of this film as “The Peanuts”, deliver great screen presence and are in very fine voice.
Ultimately, “Mothra” does not disappoint and lovers of Japanese monster movies will get their fair share of peace through superior firepower as the title monster must be cruel to be kind as it cuts a huge path of destruction in its instinctive, single-minded purpose to rescue the twins.
It’s a terrific monster movie and one of the best from Toho Studios. Lovers of this fare will especially be delighted, but even for those not immersed in the canon of Nipponese behemoth pictures, the pleasures to be derived are immense indeed: great carnage, lots of laughs and a worthwhile message about peace and ecology – the latter of which is way ahead of its time.
Sony’s great DVD collection is an especially worthwhile buy for anyone who worships this genre. You not only get s fantastic commentary by Honda scholars, but the transfer to DVD is gorgeous - with deep blacks to offset the vivid colours. Most importantly, the original Japanese version with English subtitles can be viewed along with the truncated, dubbed American version. The only flaw is the horrendous packaging with all three discs in the collection packed onto one spindle – each movie on top of the other and a definite accident waiting to happen.
“Mothra” is available on Sony’s New DVD release “Icons of Sci-Fi: Toho Collection” with two other Ishiro Honda classics “H-Man” and “Battle in Outer Space”.
Thursday, 26 February 2009
LAST MAN ON EARTH
The Last Man On Earth (1964) dir. Sidney Salkow and Ubaldo Ragona
Starring: Vincent Price
***
Guest Review by Greg Klymkiw
Let’s get this out of the way – Richard Matheson is one of the great American writers of the 20th century and his impact upon popular culture, literature and the art of writing is, perhaps, as insurmountable and important as the impact of someone like Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald or Raymond Carver. The difference between Matheson and the aforementioned scribes is that he gets very little in the way of egghead (academic) respect (save, no doubt, for the likes of screenwriter extraordinaire George Toles and uber-menschian-pop-culture-guru Will Straw) – probably because his genres of choice were horror, sci-fi and fantasy and much of his writing was at the (supposedly lowly) level of screenplays and teleplays. There are, however, few great living and working filmmakers who do not owe a lot to the ground broken by Matheson. His genres of choice are pulp and it is pulp that often does not get the reverence it truly deserves.
That said, Matheson not only wrote some of the best movies and television (the monumental “Incredible Shrinking Man”, classic episodes of the original Rod Serling “Twilight Zone” series, and a number of the Roger Corman big-screen Poe adaptations – among many others), but his astounding novel “I Am Legend”, first published in 1954, still has the power to chill and provoke. Matheson’s terse prose style captures the voice of his central protagonist so expertly that the horrifying, lonely journey taken by Robert Neville, the last man on an Earth populated by vampires, is so simple, yet so complex in its exploration of life in an apocalypse – an apocalypse that can be seen as both the end and a new beginning for mankind.
It’s a great book, and has spawned three film versions. The most recent is the execrable Will Smith action vehicle that takes the novel’s title and premise and does little besides providing a handful of visceral shocks. 1971 brought us Boris Sagal’s supremely entertaining and seriously, almost-hilariously dated Chuck Heston vehicle. And then there is “The Last Man On Earth” – an oddball 1964 film adaptation produced by schlockmeister Robert Lippert and made in Italy with a cast of dubbed-in-English Italians and a very odd, but also very compelling Vincent Price in the title role.
While the picture veers, on a number of fronts, from Matheson’s novel, it manages – more than the other versions – to come the closest to the spirit of this strange, terrifying tale of one man battling post-apocalyptic vampires. Moodily shot in black and white, we watch as Robert Morgan (inexplicably renamed as such in the movie, and played by Price) spends his days bombing around the city in a station wagon, killing vampires and burning their corpses while alternately taking care of mundane errands like shopping (in eerily-empty shops).
As dusk approaches, our hero locks himself in his secured suburban dwelling to calmly sip wine and listen to jazz LPs while roaming hordes of vampires call tauntingly to him from outside, threatening to kill him before he kills more vampires. Luckily, his home is secured with all the anti-vampire accoutrements including clusters of fresh garlic hanging on every possible entrance – the smell of which repels the vampires. (I must admit this particular bit of lore always confused me when it came to Eastern European vampires – you’d think all those bloodsucking Bohunks would be attracted to the aroma of garlic. But, I digress.)
Matheson himself wrote much of the screenplay adaptation for “The Last Man On Earth” and I suspect this is why the picture feels very close to the tone of the source material. In spite of this, Matheson was not satisfied that his script was rewritten by a number of other writers at the behest of Lippert and his pasta-slurping co-producers and he removed his name and had it replaced with the nom-de-plume of Logan Swanson. Oddly enough, looking back over all the film adaptations of his novel, this is still the best of the lot.
In spite of this, the picture is not perfect. The Italian locations look great, but are weirdly masked in the dialogue to be American instead of European. This is especially disconcerting since the locations contribute so much to the eerie quality of the movie. The standard dubbing into English of actors who are clearly not speaking English was de rigeur in the 60s, but seems a bit wonky in a contemporary context. The flashbacks employed feel shoehorned in rather than wended expertly and seamlessly into the narrative (Sagal’s “Omega Man” actually did this rather well – in spite of the kitsch factor of most everything else in the picture).
These are minor quibbles, however. “The Last Man On Earth” captures Matheson’s dark, nasty tone and for much of the picture’s running time, it is a truly creepy and scary sci-fi horror thriller. Especially worth regarding is how this version captures the whole notion of how vampires (creatures of legend) become the new mundane humanity and how the mere mortal becomes the legend. It is this very thematic layer that takes Matheson’s “pulp” into the realm of worthy literature and thankfully, this particular picture is respectful of the theme.
“The Last Man On Earth” is as fine an adaptation of Matheson’s novel that we’re likely to see for some time. Sadly, the Will Smith version will put the kibosh on any future attempts to remake the film. In the meantime, see this version and be sure to read Matheson’s original “I Am Legend” and then you, like I, can dream of a remake in a generation or two that tackles this classic and universal work with EVERYTHING it deserves.
“The Last Man On Earth” is available on many DVD labels, but the best ones are the Legend Films release (that includes an odd, but rather pointlessly colorized version in addition the B/W original) and MGM’s terrific version that is double-billed with “Panic in Year Zero” and appears to be re-mastered from truly pristine elements.
Sunday, 11 January 2009
TARANTULA
Tarantula (1955) dir. Jack Arnold
Starring: John Agar, Mara Corday, Leo G. Carroll, Raymond Bailey and Clint Eastwood
***1/2
Guest Review By Greg Klymkiw
It’s often noted that the best science fiction features “good science” – wherein the “facts” can hold up (or almost hold up) to the scrutiny of actual scientists. While I suspect this view is not without considerable merit, I prefer to think that the science should at least SEEM credible or, at the very least, play out within a context that reveals some sort of truth about the world and/or humanity, as we know it.
Such, I think, is the case with Jack Arnold’s Tarantula, the classic big-bug picture he made for Universal – a movie wherein the science is, in a manner of speaking, dubious, but where some of the truths it explores are not only valid with respect to the period they reflect, but given that the picture is over fifty-years-old, they are indeed issues and themes which touch (or plague, if you will) all of us – even today. It is in this respect that Tarantula was very much ahead of its time, in spite of clearly being a product of its time – not unlike Arnold’s other great sci-fi thrillers such as The Incredible Shrinking Man, The Creature From The Black Lagoon and, among others, It Came From Outer Space.
The theme of world hunger and the need to find ways to successfully address it is something that hangs over the picture with significant weight. The fact that this issue is something that plagued the world in the 50s – especially during the post-war/cold-war prosperity in American during the world of McCarthy’s witch hunts – somehow seems so unbelievable, yet it is clearly something the filmmakers emphasize and in a contemporary context, the issue of world hunger that serves as one of the picture’s thematic backdrops, is something that seems to place Tarantula firmly in the pantheon of pictures that truly deserve their classic status.
Set in a sleepy Arizona desert town, the resident doctor (played with characteristic stalwartness by the ex-Mr. Shirley Temple, John Agar) investigates the mysterious death of someone who was working as a researcher on the outskirts of this sleepy, hot and definitely dusty Southwestern hamlet. The Doc suspects there’s more to this death than meets the eye, but his suspicions are ignored by the town’s sheriff who prefers to believe the diagnosis proposed by the head of the research lab, a respected local scientist (played deliciously by the venerable old ham Leo G. Carroll).
The old doc, as it turns out, is trying to find a solution to world hunger. His experiments involve finding a way to make animals bigger – much bigger, actually – in order to provide more flesh to render from slaughtered beasts so that more food will exist in the world for all those who are poor.
The old doc takes on a new assistant, a fetching, young female scientist (played by the mouth-wateringly sexy Mara Corday) who not only provides him with ample (in more ways than one) support, but also delivers an amorous target for young Doc Agar. When old Doc Leo is injected with the serum he’s been using on tarantulas, bunnies and other assorted small animals, hell begins to break loose. The old Doc starts turning into an erratic, crazed monstrosity and, eventually the increasingly mysterious deaths and disappearances are attributed to one of the old doc’s experimental subject, a tarantula who’s been fed just a bit too much growth formula.
Another characteristic of note in the picture is how it examines a scientist’s obsession with his experiments. In that sense, one might argue that Leo G. Carroll’s character is yet another in a long line of mad scientists, but the actual fact of the matter is that his character is genuinely obsessed with finding a cure to world hunger. He has no self-interest in any of this – he is not looking for wealth, nor power – all he wants is to help the world. The old doctor’s suffering is all the more poignant because his blind obsession to give something good to the world is a life’s work that ends his life and the lives of others. His failure – given that his experiments result in something destructive – is especially frustrating and finally, very moving – tragic, even. Carroll, in all of this, delivers a splendid performance and one that rises well above the clichés otherwise inherent in roles such as these.
The performances are all superb and the writing is more than serviceable. Though the screenplay doesn’t quite reach the transcendent heights of Richard Matheson’s work on The Incredible Shrinking Man, it does feature more than a few lines that are genuinely campy – genuine because they are INTENTIONALLY cheesy and goofy and NOT a result of being dated.
Most impressive are the optical effects involving the blowing up of actual tarantula footage. I’d argue Clifford Stine’s work on the special effects is as effective as some of today’s best digital work. Yes, the effects (very) occasionally fall short, but then, so do many digital effects these days. One ignores this, as we are wont to do ultimately when something is genuinely good. At the end of the day, we let the picture work its considerable magic.
One fun note of trivia is that Clint Eastwood appears in a tiny, but important role during the climax of the picture. It seems thoroughly appropriate that it is Eastwood who commands all his bombers to let rip and decimate the brick-shithouse that is the Tarantula. And, even more interesting, is that Tarantula’s fetching leading lady Mara Corday was cast years later by Eastwood as the wise-acre waitress who signals Harry Callahan that danger is afoot in her café in the now-almost-classic Sudden Impact.
All in all, Tarantula is an absolute must-see. It holds up admirably and will also provide great entertainment for the kiddies (of ALL ages). Most importantly, like all great sci-fi thrillers, it provides big emotions, food for thought AND one hell of a rollercoaster ride.
Friday, 19 December 2008
THE DEADLY BEES
The Deadly Bees (1967) dir. Freddie Francis
Starring: Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, Patrick Wymark, Jill Bennett, Michael Gough, Patrick Magee, Peter Woodthorpe, Nigel Green and George Coulouris
**1/2
Guest Review By Greg Klymkiw
Can any movie featuring a whole passel of deadly bee attacks AND a cameo appearance by the inimitable Ron Wood be all bad? The answer is a resounding, “No!” That said, “The Deadly Bees”, a fun Freddie Francis-helmed thriller for British Hammer Horror rival Amicus Pictures is one of many pictures that received derisive scorn from those agog alien movie critics on the legendary spoof show “MST3K - Mystery Science Theatre 3000” (where, for the uninitiated, a feature length movie is screened whilst the aforementioned non-humans barf out a steady stream of mocking verbal wisecracks as the picture unspools). Frankly, I’ve never understood the appeal of MST3K. It’s a one-note joke and not an especially funny one – ridiculing a bunch of supremely easy targets like Grade Z horror and sci-fi and even occasionally mocking genuinely good fantasy pictures like Alexander Rou’s exquisite Russian fairy tale, “Morozko”.
“The Deadly Bees”, another in a series of pictures from the Paramount library that have been farmed out to the cool, little company Legend Pictures for DVD release, is not, I suppose, an especially good picture, but it does pass the time amiably and is definitely not without entertainment value.
Vicki Robbins (played by a scrumptious Suzannah Leigh, Elvis Presley’s squeeze in “Paradise, Hawaiian Style” and the girls’ school dance teacher in the immortal Hammer Karnstein classic “Lust For a Vampire”) is a British pop star suffering from exhaustion and ordered by her doctor to a rustic locale on an island in northern UK for some much needed rest. While there, she becomes embroiled in a strange rivalry between her host Ralph (Guy Dolman), his harridan wife Mary (Catherine Finn) and their neighbour Professor Manfred (the always-great Frank Finlay). Ralph and Manfred, it seems, are rival beekeepers. I kid you not. On an island – in northern England, no less – with a population that appears not to exceed the low budget the picture allowed, there are two – count ‘em – two beekeepers. One, Ralph, appears to have no reason to raise bees. The other, Manfred, is a scientist who is studying them. And what of the rivalry between them? Well, it appears as if both are accusing each other of raising strains of psycho bees to attack and destroy their respective bee farms – and ultimately, each other.
Excuse me, MST3K, but why, pray tell is such a picture worthy of your pea-brained, one-note derision? This is rich material. Stupid, yes – but it is most certainly entertaining and often so ludicrous that there really seems no point in mocking it. In fact, I always find people who dump on pictures like these to be snobs who get off on shooting fish in a barrel. “The Deadly Bees” is NEVER boring and is ALWAYS engaging.
It is, as I said though, unbelievably stupid – especially when our comely pop star turns into Nancy Drew and begins to delve into the mystery of the bees and their decidedly odd keepers.
The team behind this picture has obviously done better work. Freddie Francis, the legendary cinematographer and director will not be forever remembered for “The Deadly Bees”, but he handles the action with considerable proficiency. Co-writer Robert Bloch can rest assured that he’s written better pictures than this, but the plot and dialogue in this one are still exactly what the doctor ordered when it comes to genre amusement-value. The special effects, while old fashioned, have a fun retro quality to them and frankly, I found the bee attacks to be reasonably effective with the blend of makeup and optical printing.
“The Deadly Bees” is not, in any way, shape or form exceptional work. It is, however, not worthy of mockery and if one has 90 minutes to waste, there are many other ways to spend them less entertainingly. Its sting is definitely intact.
And have I mentioned that Ron Wood cameo yet?
“The Deadly Bees” is available on DVD from Legend Films.
Thursday, 4 December 2008
THE MAN WHO COULD CHEAT DEATH
The Man Who Could Cheat Death (1959) dir. Terence Fisher
Starring: Anton Diffring, Hazel Court and Christopher Lee
***
Guest Review By Greg Klymkiw
Even if “The Man Who Could Cheat Death” were an awful movie (and it is far from that), it would have one big thing going for it. Well, actually two big things – those soft, milky protuberances heaving ever so-delicately beneath the low-cut velvet dress of Heaven itself; namely, the breasts of that utterly flawless example of womanhood, Hazel Court. These bounteous pillows of perfection are, however, not all that mesmerize Dr. Georges Bonnet (Anton Diffring) the title character of this delicious Hammer Horror picture from master Terence Fisher. When his (and our) eyes gaze above her cleavage, then glide upwards along her perfect breastplate and delicate neck, they run smack into a delectable puss replete with full lips, exquisite cheek bones and eyes you want to dive into. There’s also that pile of soft scarlet atop her crown, tied and trussed in a manner that hints, ever so invitingly, at the cascading waterfall that awaits when the pins are removed and the locks tumble down. And beneath it all – beneath her upper bounties – is a svelte torso, supple, childbearing hips and, no doubt, other hidden fruits best left to our imaginations.
The estimable Miss Court as the comely model Janine Dubois makes her first appearance in the picture on the arm of the dashing Dr. Pierre Girard (Christopher Lee) during a private gathering in Bonnet’s home where the mad-scientist/artist is about to unveil his latest sculpture to a small, but admiring public of society people. It is obvious to all, including Girard, that she and Bonnet are former lovers and it is here we discover that Bonnet’s artistic output has been reserved to sculptures only of the upper portions of the most beautiful women imaginable. Once the party disbands, we are treated to the revelation that the 30-something Bonnet is, in fact, over 100 years old and that he’s found the secret to eternal youth through the occasional implantation of a fresh gland in addition to a lime-green potion. His goal is to steal, Janine from Pierre, implant a new gland – making her “immortal” – and to spend the rest of eternity in bliss.
And who wouldn’t want to spend an eternity with Hazel Court? Only a madman, right?
Well, there’s the rub. Implantation of the gland and adherence to steady doses of the lime-green bubbling Kool-Aid renders all those under its influence to go stark raving, psychotically bonkers. This, of course, will not do and it’s up to Girard (one of Christopher Lee’s few heroic roles) to save the day.
With a Jimmy Sangster screenplay adaptation of a creaky, but oddly literate play by Barre Lyndon (“The Man of Half Moon Street”, already made as a film in the 40s) is one part “The Picture of Dorian Gray”, with dashes of “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” and “Dracula”. It’s perfect material for Terence Fisher who delivered some of the finest and most stylish British horror films of all time. Though much of the action is constricted to a few rooms, it’s an always engaging thriller thanks, in part to Fisher’s splendid direction and, most of all, because of the superb cast. Peter Cushing look-alike Anton Diffring (star of the luridly magnificent “Circus of Horrors”) is the perfect tragic villain with his aquiline features and sorrowful eyes, Lee handles himself expertly as the hero and Miss Court is breathtakingly engaging in her role.
“The Man Who Could Cheat Death” is a welcome addition to Fisher’s fine work from the 50s (including “Curse of Frankenstein” and “Horror of Dracula”). In fact, it’s kind of cool seeing Fisher work his magic in a genre film that is bereft of an already identifiable monster (he also helmed versions of “The Mummy”, “The Werewolf” and “Phantom of the Opera”) and if the picture seems a trifle dated and a smidgen derivative, these are but minor flaws in an otherwise delightful chiller.
Besides, it stars Hazel Court and that is, of course, reason enough to see pretty much anything.
“The Man Who Could Cheat Death” is available on DVD from Legend Films.
Saturday, 8 November 2008
THE SKULL
Image courtesy of Offscreen.com
The Skull (1965) dir. Freddie Francis
Starring: Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, Patrick Wymark, Jill Bennett, Michael Gough, Patrick Magee, Peter Woodthorpe, Nigel Green and George Coulouris
**1/2
Guest Review By Greg Klymkiw
While hardly a classic of the genre, “The Skull” is a solid horror outing from upstart British studio Amicus that during the 70s gave reigning Hammer Films a considerable run for their money with some astounding omnibus pictures – most notably, the near-perfect “Asylum” and “Tales From The Crypt” as well as the solid “Vault of Horror”. Departing from the aforementioned E.C. comic structures, “The Skull” is a single feature length tale based – appropriately enough – on Robert (“Psycho”) Bloch’s story and directed by the visually gifted cinematographer Freddie (“Glory”, “The Elephant Man”, “The Straight Story”, etc.) Francis. The picture is an occasionally fun and decidedly creepy tale with a deliciously insane antagonist.
Who might that be, you ask?
Why none other than the title entity – the skull of – I kid you not! – The Marquis de Sade.
Opening with a fabulous grave robbing scene that involves the decapitation of de Sade’s rotting head and closely followed by a delectable sequence wherein the flesh, hair and other viscera are burned and boiled off to make the skull pristine and gleaming, one is drawn ever-so avidly into a tale that, while paced a tad too deliberately, delivers more than its fair share of shocks.
Much of these shocks come from Francis’s unusually flashy direction. For an artist who always delivered the goods visually as a Director of Photography, his own work as a director could often feel phoned-in. The notable exceptions are “The Skull”, “Tales From The Crypt” and a handful of others in a directing career that spanned approximately 30 features. One can only assume Francis directorially excelled ONLY when he was faced with material that truly tickled his fancy and that the rest was so much gun-for-hire fodder.
Though “The Skull” feels about ten minutes too long (and it’s already short), it still manages to pack a minor wallop and feels more like a good horror second feature from the 40s (in spite of being made right in the middle of the British swinging New Wave period). In a superbly fussy and obsessive performance, we follow Peter Cushing as he plays an academic specializing in occult research who collects strange oddities from all over the world in order to study them. His wife starts to object to the house being filled up with paraphernalia that represents evil and though one suspects she’s a typical harridan coming down on her collecting-obsessed hubby, it eventually becomes obvious that perhaps she has a point when Cushing starts to slowly go psycho after he acquires the skull of the notorious de Sade.
The story is told with numerous visual flourishes – lots of cool dollies and pans, sumptuous lighting and endless Skull-Cam shots so we can get a glimpse of what the evil spirit of the Marquis de Sade gets to see.
After the spirited opening, the movie does slow down quite a bit, but once it picks up steam, it seldom lets up and builds to a genuinely creepy and (at least for this fella) scary climax. A superb supporting cast includes an extended cameo from the always-delicious Christopher Lee as a collector who realizes and tries to warn Cushing about the dangers of hoarding occult items and we’re blessed with a truly slimy turn from Patrick Wymark as an underground occult dealer and an even sleazier one from Peter Woodthhorpe as the dealer’s foul landlord.
“The Skull” is one of several British genre pictures distributed in North America by Paramount Pictures and yet another undiscovered delight being unleashed upon the world through Legend Films.
If you’re a fan of British horror films, this won’t be the best you’ve seen, but you’ll still be glad you did – if, indeed, you do – and, of course, you should.
“The Skull” is available on DVD from Legend Films
Wednesday, 8 October 2008
THE TWO FACES OF DR. JEKYLL
Image courtesy of Cinefantastique Online
The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll (1960) dir. Terence Fisher
Starring: Paul Massie, Christopher Lee, Dawn Addams
***
From the vaults of Sony Pictures comes a new two-disc DVD set “Icons of Horror” featuring four b-movie ‘classics’ from the British studio Hammer Films. This includes “The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll” a watchable piece of pulp with a surprisingly intelligent take on the familiar Robert Louis Stevenson story “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde”.
In this version, which still takes place in the late 19th century London, has Dr. Jekyll (Paul Massie) as a married scientist on the cusp of breaking through with his mind experiments. His obsession with his work has resulted in a fractured relationship with his wife (Dawn Addams) who has taken up an affair with Jekyll’s best friend Paul Allen (Christopher Lee). In haste Jekyll performs the mind-altering experiments on himself. Of course, things go wrong and he is transformed into his diabolical alter-ego Mr. Hyde, with the twist being that Mr. Hyde is not a beast but a good-looking suave other version of himself.
The strongest statement the film has to make is its overt target of the British class system. As the beast, Mr. Hyde is a British gentleman who desires to both, take revenge against his wife and best friend for their affair, and take part in the debaucheries of the big city London underworld. There’s frequent reference to Paul Allen’s status as a gentleman, and his license to commit egregious acts of immorality.
Labelling the film a horror film would be a misnomer as well. No one is killed until the third act when Hyde resorts to physical violence when his psychological games are thwarted. As with the Stevenson novel, the film is also a metaphor about the duality of personality - that Freudian internal conflict or desire vs. social normalcy.
Paul Massie’s makeup is important in visualizing the distinction between Hyde and Jekyll and thus good and evil. When we first see Jekyll, actor Paul Massie is wearing a ridiculously fake beard and bushy eyebrows. It all becomes clear when we see the first transformation scene. Suddenly Massie has a clean face. Truthfully he’s not unrecognizable. And so the fact that Jekyll’s wife and best friend are fooled by his lack of facial hair and slight voice change provides some unintentional humour. But it’s consistent with the theme of class – a British gentleman is never questioned.
Despite this discussion of metaphor and theme “The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll” is still just a b-picture. Like most Hammer Films, they compensated for a lack of budget with sharp colour cinematography and an anamorphic widescreen 2:35:1 frame (at the time usually reserved for prestigious pictures). The British actors say their lines with such authenticity it masks the bad acting and often on-the-nose atrocious dialogue. If these lines were said by American actors much would be lost in the interpretation. So the film never loses the fun factor of Hammer b-horror. Enjoy.
“The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll” is available on DVD from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
Sunday, 21 September 2008
CHANDU THE MAGICIAN
Chandu the Magician (1932) dir. William Cameron Menzies, Marcel Varnel
Starring: Edmund Lowe, Irene Ware, Bela Lugosi
***1/2
“Chandu the Magician” is a rare and underappreciated adventure film from the great period of early horror/adventure classics. The 30s was the era of "King Kong", "Dracula", "Frankenstein", "The Mummy", and more. “Chandu the Magician” stands up well against all of these films for its production value, cinematic energy and exuberance and innovations in cinema that inspired the likes of George Lucas and Steven Spielberg.
Edward Lowe plays Frank Chandler a British secret agent trained in the eastern mystics of “Yogi”, which has given him powers of hypnosis and mind control. After completing his training he’s told to “go forth with his youth and strength to conquer the evil that threatens mankind.” He's assigned to combat the nefarious Egyptian megalomaniac Ruxor (Bela Lugosi) from seeking world domination. Ruxor has kidnapped Chandler’s brother-in-law and scientist Robert Regent who has developed a dangerous death ray with the ability to kill lots of people half way around the world. Chandu encounters a series of spine-tingling adventures and daring escapes in order to save the world from destruction.
Chandu appears to be one of the main influences on Stephen Somers to make his version of "The Mummy". In fact, I'd argue "Chandu" was more influential than even the original 1932 "The Mummy". The film's three main protags, Chandler, his sister and the drunken comic relief Biggles form the same bumbling trio played by Brendan Fraser, Rachel Weisz and John Hannah.
Chandu is credited with two directors, Marcel Varnel, a stage director who directed the actors and William Cameron Menzies who was in charge of the technical design of the picture. Varnel must have phoned this one in because the acting is simply atrocious. But with today’s eyes, Edmond Lowe’s mixture of British superiority and uber-seriousness is just too silly to criticize. It’s so much fun.
Menzies is the real star of the show and one of cinema’s most ambitious filmmakers. He was a director or co-director in the 1930’s on pulpy films such as “Chandu”. Perhaps his crowning achievement is the British science-fiction masterpiece “Things to Come” – a cautionary tale of war which spans 2000 years of history. In “Chandu” he sets to the tone of adventure, mysticism and intrigue with a number of inspired sequences, which, unlike the acting, stands up against any of the films of it’s era, including “King Kong”. You just need to watch the opening sequence for evidence - a wonderful shot which introduces us to to Chandler’s Yogi training fortress. The shot starts with a miniature of the Yogi castle high atop a mountain (dramatically lit with noir-like texture by the great James Wong Howe), then seamlessly transitions to a tracking shot through the hallways of the lair. The sequence is capped with a wonderful showcase of Menzies’ fine superimposition photography demonstrating Chandler’s new mystical powers.
“Chandu the Magician” is a pulp classic, and wonderful time capsule of the ambitiousness of early Hollywood to entertain it’s audiences and amaze them with new worlds, mad scientists, death rays, charming heroes and exotic villains. Enjoy.
“Chandu the Magician” is available a new “Horror Classic” box set from 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment
Other relevent postings:
THE MUMMY (1932)
THINGS TO COME
Sunday, 20 July 2008
X - THE MAN WITH X-RAY EYES
X - The Man With X-Ray Eyes (1963) dir. Roger Corman
Starring: Ray Milland, Diana Van der Vlis, Harold J. Stone, Don Rickles
***
Roger Corman is one of the great independent film producers. According to IMDB he has 384 films credits as producer between 1954 and 2008. Yes, that’s seven films a year for 54 years! Anyone who’s ever made a film would never be able to comprehend such a acccomlishmeny. What’s even more remarkable is that, it’s been said that Mr. Corman has “never lost a dime”.
Corman officially retired himself from directing in 1971, but before that he directed dozens of classic horror and b-exploitation movies. One of his best is “X”, or “The Man With X-Ray Eyes”.
Ray Milland plays James Xavier a doctor who’s on the brink of discovering a way for regular human eyes wave length other than traditional the light waves. When an opportunity arises to present his findings to grant funders, he decides to test his eye drops for the first time on himself. He discovers an ability to see through different layers of matter – including the human body.
His world is thrown upside down when he accidentally kills someone, which forces him to flee and go into hiding. On his journey he uses new skills to become a miracle healer, a carnival mindreader, and a Las Vegas gambler. Corman scares the bejeses out of us with a climatic reveal when he uncovers his tainted eyes.
The X-Ray special effects provides some interesting psychedelic visuals. When Xavier discovers he can see everyone as naked if he wants to, it provides a classic swinging-60’s sequence in a dance hall. And in Vegas we see from Xavier’s point of view the skeletal figures of people walking around, which creates a surreal melange of colours and horrific imagery.
As the movie played on DVD, my wife, as always, was casually watching as she was surfing the internet. She didn’t see the beginning of the movie and didn’t know what I was watching. Though I knew she didn’t know what movie it was, as a fun experiment, I casually asked her if she could guess the title. And yes, she got it right! B-Movies have never felt the need to be coy with their titles. This film is no exception – the title is completely literal to the story of the film.
But it’s b-movie material and so we don’t expect Corman to go much deeper than his literal title, but having seen Jack Arnold’s “The Incredible Shrinking Man” recently b-movie science fiction has room to expand our minds. “X” provides some existential thoughts about the responsibility of science (there are some things man was just never meant to see), but like a psychedelic trip, the film provides us pretty pictures for an hour and a half, without much of a hangover. Enjoy.
Sunday, 29 June 2008
CULT OF THE COBRA
Cult Of The Cobra (1955) dir. Francis D. Lyon
Starring: Faith Domergue, Richard Long, Marshall Thompson, David Janssen
Horror
**1/2
Guest Review By Greg Klymkiw
While one cannot justify delivering more than two-and-a-half stars for this copycat of Val Lewton’s “The Cat People”, it is a rating that doesn’t adequately represent the picture’s considerable entertainment value and its extremely interesting commentary on post-war life in America. “Cult of the Cobra” is another film from Universal Home Video’s magnificent DVD box-set “The Classic Sci-Fi Ultimate Collection” and though it lacks panache (save for the terrific cinematography of Russell Metty), it represents just the sort of picture that home consumption appears to have been invented for – a medium to deliver product that might otherwise be consigned to a slag-heap of forgotten cinematic refuse. And for “Cult of the Cobra”, the fate of neglect would be a shame. In spite of Francis D. Lyon’s perfunctory direction, there’s something extremely haunting about this story of a group of young American soldiers who have survived the horrors of war and yet, when the clouds of strife are lifted, find themselves stalked and cut-down on home turf by a mysterious, evil and (naturally) foreign killer.
While some contemporary audiences get all high and mighty in their idiotically myopic political correctness when it comes to the ethnocentrism of older pictures, they should just swallow a humour pill and enjoy the fact that the film begins in Asia. Yes, Asia! The film does not specify where EXACTLY in Asia we are – all that really matters is that we are not in AMERICA and that our brawny, normal, American and WHITE heroes are in a mysterious, foreign land. Foreign, in this context equals EVIL!!!!! And even though we’re supposed to be in “Asia”, we’re really in some crazed never-never-land of cloaked, turban-adorned snake charmers. Looking for some exotic action before returning to their normal lives back in America, our motley heroes manage to buy their way into a mysterious ceremony of snake worshippers where they witness a boner-inducing cobra-charming burlesque routine then interrupt the proceedings in that brashly rude, American way when one of them snaps a flash photo and then, to make matters worse, they engage in a brawl with these foreigners and steal their sacred snake basket. One of the soldiers at a later juncture opines that perhaps they went a “little too far”. You bet, fella! These goddamn foreign snake charmers don’t take to your kind at the best of times and now you’re in for one kick-ass curse that’s not only going to follow your infidel rump back to the homeland, but to your ever-loving grave. And believe, there ain’t nothing Homeland Security can do about cobra curses.
As the picture progresses, things get especially entertaining back in America when we primarily follow the adventures of roomies Richard Long (the eventual star of T.V.’s “Nanny and the Professor”) and Marshall Thompson (eventual star of T.V.’s “Daktari”) as they vie for the affections of wholesome platinum blonde apple-pie babe Kathleen Hughes. When she eventually picks stalwart hunk Richard Long to be her main swordsman, Marshall Thompson dejectedly finds himself in the arms of the mysterious, exotic and FOREIGN Faith Domergue. And a good thing too: Faith Domergue represents everything that was so great about 50s movie babes – nice full lips, melt-in-your-mouth curves and sex appeal that never lets up. (Domergue was especially semen-draining to young, pud-pulling male movie-goers in “This Island Earth”.) Domergue, of course, is an agent of the cobra-worshippers and her mission is to kill each and every last one of the infidel soldiers.
The cast and the vaguely derivative (but compelling) screenplay work overtime. Russell Metty, the cinematographer, especially delivers the goods. Metty, who shot most of Douglas Sirk’s great melodramas and, lest we forget, Orson Welles’s “Touch Of Evil”, contributes marvelous lighting and some really effective cobra point of view shots. One only wishes that Francis Lyon wasn’t such a dull director. His lack of voice is what keeps this picture from really soaring. It’s unfortunate, since Lyon was a great editor (he won an Oscar for his astounding cutting on the classic boxing picture “Body and Soul”), but as a director, he played things strictly by the numbers. This workmanlike approach is not always a bad thing in a director, but this picture is so entertaining to begin with that one wants it to be better than it ultimately is.
Alas, they can’t all be masterpieces. If they were, the world would actually be a dull place (oddly enough). It’s probably enough that this picture exists and that it’s as fun and interesting as it is. One does wonder, however, what it might have been like with a livelier directorial presence at the helm – a Jack Arnold, a Richard Fleischer, a Joseph Lewis or an Edgar Ulmer – or, for that matter, a producer like Val Lewton. In fact, any one of those directors and Lyon editing (instead of directing) might have delivered the goods.
It’s still a good picture though. Seeing these hunky, fresh-faced young soldiers get mysteriously whacked by the stunning Faith Domergue will keep you on the edge of your seat. And, you know what? I’m almost inclined to revise my two-and-one-half stars a little more in the direction of Heaven. I won’t, but one can dream, can’t one?
“Cult of the Cobra” is available on DVD in Universal Home Video’s “Classic Ultimate Sci-Fi Collection”
Please read these other similar postings:
The Incredible Shrinking Man
The Land Unknown
The Leech Woman
Dr. Cyclops
Monday, 16 June 2008
THE LAND UNKNOWN
The Land Unknown (1957) dir. Virgil Vogel
Starring: Jock Mahoney, Shawn Smith and William Reynolds
***1/2
Guest Review By Greg Klymkiw
The Land Unknown, a stirring, imaginative and entertaining feature-length sci-fi fantasy in the “lost world” mode is the work of a directorial non-entity by the name of Virgil Vogel. Vogel eventually distinguished himself as a camera jockey par excellence when he directed literally thousands of hours of dramatic television series including “The Big Valley”, “The Streets of San Francisco”, “Bonanza”, “Mission Impossible” and “Magnum P.I.” (to name but a few). Vogel helmed the shooting of some of the very best and certainly most popular dramatic programs, but as a T.V. director, he would always be taking a creative back seat to the artistic vision of the producers. In television this has (and still is) almost always the case - the producers are the auteurs – not the directors.
With feature-length motion pictures, however, critics and audiences generally tend to wax oh-so-eloquently about the considerable stylistic signature touches that directors bring to the table. This is especially so with genre pictures. Argento, Bava, Fulci, Cronenberg, Shyamalan, Browning and Whale – to name but a very few – are all directors associated with a wide variety of stylish horror, suspense and fantasy pictures and who all have distinctive signatures. But alas, when one thinks of phantasmagorical cinema, one virtually never conjures the name of a producer.
There was, however, a time when producers and/or studios and studio heads and/or production executives were often the primary driving creative force behind genre pictures. The most famous example is, of course, Val Lewton – the genius behind such noir-like RKO horror pictures from the 40s as The Cat People, I Walked With A Zombie and The Body Snatchers, among many others. While Lewton worked with a number of the same directors on these pictures (Jacques Tourneur, Mark Robson and Robert Wise), the overriding stylistic voice is so consistent from picture to picture that it is clearly Lewton who is the auteur. Any individual signature touches belonging to the directors of those pictures are overshadowed to the point of obscurity. Lewton’s vision rules. (Interestingly enough, Lewton is such an important filmmaker that he is the only producer in all of film history to be afforded a DVD box set devoted to his productions. Not even true producer auteurs like David O. Selznick or Jerry Bruckheimer have box sets devoted to their distinctive oeuvres.)
Lewton might be King, but there remain a number of other great visionary producers of genre pictures.
Under Carl Laemmle and his son Carl Jr., Universal Pictures (during the 30s) was home to a myriad of iconic horror pictures including the Dracula, Frankenstein, Invisible Man, Wolf Man and Mummy franchises. While these properties utilized some of the aforementioned auteur directors (Browning and Whale), there is a consistency in tone and look to these pictures – a grand sense of humour mixed with the guignol. This is clearly the influence of the Laemmles - especially when one compares the Laemmle-produced franchise horror pictures to the subsequent sequels under Charles R. Rogers who took over as production head of Universal when the Laemmles were forced out in the late 30s.
In the 50s, we saw the beginnings of Roger Corman’s considerable influence as a producer of genre pictures and while his stature should not be diminished, he ultimately is in a separate league due to the fact that he eventually exercised his visions as a director too.
The actual fact of the matter is that the unsung hero of genre pictures was none other than William Alland, an in-house producer of genre features at Universal Pictures during post-war-cold-war America. Alland not only created a series of entertaining and original sci-fi horror pictures (Colossus of New York and This Island Earth), but created one of Universal Pictures’ most enduring and beloved horror franchises – the Creature From The Black Lagoon. Alland also worked with a number of directors – namely Jack Arnold and Nathan Juran (as well as the abovementioned Virgil Vogel), but again, there is a consistency to the pictures that suggests that the true auteur is Alland himself.
Alland’s most obvious trademark is his interest in sci-fi horror pictures that blend an ecological theme with a kick-ass monster (the latter to justify the activism and politics of the pictures and make them commercial). This approach to genre storytelling was not only a major influence upon other films and filmmakers at Universal, but the entire industry – during and after this period.
And, of course, one of Alland’s best pictures, The Land Unknown was not only a big hit at the time, but provided at least two generations of nerds with thrills and chills when the picture became a staple of creature-feature television broadcasts during the 60s, 70s and 80s. And it’s no surprise why it was and still is a much beloved genre picture – everything one would want from such a picture (including the kitchen sink) is on display here and then some.
We get a granite-jawed two-fisted handsome hero who provides more than able leadership to a motley assortment of adventurers (including a requisite babe) who find themselves in a mysterious world below sea level in the Antarctic where everything is heated by volcanoes and shrouded in a mist that allows for the continued preservation of dinosaurs.
Yee-haa! Let the fun keep a coming!
The script is lean and mean, the cast is highly attractive (from hunky Jock Mahoney to babe-a-licious Winnipeg-born Miss California beauty queen Shawn Smith) and the effects from Universal’s whiz-bang Clifford Stine rock big-time (even some of the cheesier man-in-suit and/or enlarged lizards work well thanks to some superb composite work and first-rate production design).
The expert and virtually seamless use of actual footage shot in Antarctica blended with the exceptional visuals creates the kind of mood necessary to plunge us wholeheartedly into the magical world The Land Unknown.
Most interestingly, we get a film which not only shows how man (in the name of science, exploration and ultimately, big money) infiltrates and encroaches upon an otherwise pristine natural world, but given the actual setting of the lost world itself, we have a film that eerily anticipates what has become global warming.
The Land Unknown is one of several terrific new films that are part of Universal Pictures wonderful box set called The Classic Sci-Fi Ultimate Collection. In addition to The Land Unknown, the box features three other magnificent William Alland productions, The Deadly Mantis, Tarantula and The Mole People.
One last note about William Alland – Alland actually began his career as an actor. He was an original member of Orson Welles’ Mercury Theatre Company and he performed in the now-legendary radio broadcast of The War Of The Worlds. Alland also toiled for Welles as an assistant director – un-credited, of course. Even cooler is that William Alland, as an actor, portrays what is perhaps the most important character (save for the title character) in the greatest picture of all-time – Citizen Kane. Seen mostly in long or medium shots, and often from behind, Alland is the reporter entrusted with getting Kane’s story and through whom much of the film is mediated.
Like the near-faceless reporter in Citizen Kane, William Alland always remained in the background, but was clearly an ever-present mediator and conveyor of great drama and, most importantly, grand entertainment. The Land Unknown is proof positive of that fact.
"The Land Unknown" is available on DVD from Universal Studios Home Enetertainment
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