adriangr

I thought if I finally watched "Manhattan Baby" on DVD in widescreen rather than the poor full-screen video copies of it that were previously available, I'd be able to re-appraise it, but sadly, I still find that it's among Lucio Fulci's worst efforts. Fulci displays no evidence whatsoever in this movie that he knows what to shoot to make an interesting or suspenseful film. Half the time, he can find nothing worth putting in front of the lens except extreme close-ups of the actors eyes. Time and time again, the camera zooms in for lingering close-ups of the actors eyes, when there could have been - there must have been - so many other creative possibilities to choose from...did nobody point this out?

Anyway, whatever the artistic "vision" was supposed to be, the story goes roughly as follows: A husband and wife take their young daughter on a trip to Egypt, so that the husband can investigate an ancient tomb, and the wife can take pictures of all the tourist sights. The daughter, Suzy, wanders off alone and is ambushed by an Egyptian crone who gives her a mysterious amulet. (Cue the first of many extreme close-ups of eyes, and of the amulet, which also bears the design of an eye). At the same time the husband is blinded by a flash of blue light that emanates from a forbidden burial chamber that he has just discovered. Back in New York, the family is reunited with Suzy's younger brother Tommy (played by the same child actor who played Bob in "House By The Cemetery" ), and their nanny. From this point on, Suzy begins to act strangely, wandering about the house (cue extreme close-ups of eyes), scaring the nanny by playing odd hide and seek games with Tommy (cue more extreme close-ups of eyes), and putting the amulet in various random places for some unfathomable kind of dramatic focus (cue more extreme close-ups of the amulet). While all this inconsequential nonsense is going on, the parents of the children drift in and out of the action, occasionally looking fraught or troubled at the goings on (cue more close ups of eyes, naturally). A few people die in unremarkable ways. The end of the film sees Suzy fall more perilously under the spell of the amulet (cue more close-ups of the amulet) and the struggle to save her by a mysterious antique shop owner who comes to visit Suzy and tells the worried family that he can undo the curse (cue more close-ups of eyes).

Watching this film is only slightly more fun than watching paint dry. Fulci seems to have entirely run out of ideas about how to make a film that is visually stimulating - there is nothing even approaching interesting on the screen for about 90% of the running time. Just endless talking heads and those never ending eye close-ups. The trademark gore scenes are all but absent, save for one right near the end when a character is attacked by stuffed birds. The slant that the birds are stuffed rather than alive - having supposedly been re-animated by the evil power - is quite a good one, but sadly you can see the wires carrying them around the room in EVERY SINGLE shot during the attack. At least there were some good old-school close ups of bloody flesh-pecking to wake me up at this stage, but the film was over an hour and twenty minutes through by this time...far too late for redeeming the movie as a whole.

The dubbing is also terrible, the worst I have seen for a long time. Especially of the children. When an instant photo turns out badly, Suzy exclaims chirpily "It's a dud, defective stock!"...What the...? And when the parents ask where the babysitter has vanished to, young Tommy exlaims "She's gone on a voyage!" A voyage? What 8 year old boy uses words like "voyage"? It's almost a shame to see poor Giovanni Frezza, who appears to be an unselfconscious and lively child actor, crippled by such a hideous dubbed script. At least be thankful he does not have the same sounding voice he had in "The House by the Cemetery", which similarly ruined his character. But the fault lies way beyond pinning this on lame performances (Although I would have loved to see Katherine MaColl take the role as the mother rather than the lacklustre Martha Taylor, and Christopher Connelly is equally forgettable as the father.). There is really nothing worth keeping your attention on the screen for. A passably attractive prologue filmed on location in Egypt soon gives way to the rest of the film almost entirely taking place in the family's nondescript apartment. The antique shops looks like the set of the basement from "The House by the Cemetery" with just the cobwebs removed, and even the music is lifted from previous Fulci films, most notably some very recogniseable music from "The Beyond". How any self-respecting director can just re-use a score that was (one would presume) originally composed to match the story and atmosphere of one of his previous films is beyond me.

The plot, as usual, does not serve up anything cohesive to the audience, so without any arresting visuals or jolting gore scenes, watching the film is a pretty boring experience. There's no climactic ending, just a rather tame suggestion of the cyclical recurrence of the evil curse, the origins or intentions of which are never explained anyway during the entire plot. And as if you hadn't had enough by now, the film closes with - yes you guessed it - more extreme close ups of eyes and another, final (thank god!) close up of the wretched amulet, not that the sight of it produced any sense of dread throughout the whole dreary story. I will allow that there have been reports of imposed conditions behind the making of "Manhattan Baby" that lead Fulci to make some severe compromises, but he has to take responibility for what he delivered to his audience, and he should be ashamed of the undeniable weakness of the end result.

Dead Ringer is a sensational thriller starring Bette Davis in a dual role as twin sisters Edith and Margaret. Edith is poor, while Margaret is loaded, having married into wealth. Trouble is that Margaret's wealthy husband was once Edith's first love, and when the sisters meet at his funeral after a decade of silence, sparks begin to fly again, and Edie plots a fiendish scheme to escape from her unhappy and debt-ridden life.

If you don't know the film, and have not heard much about the plot, you are in for a treat. This is a first class, highly entertaining thriller. For a black and white Hollywood star vehicle from 1964, the movie still stands up strong today with a plot that keeps you gripped from the moment the wheels of crime start turning, until the bitter end - and it's bitter, believe me! Bette Davis makes a real feast of her dual role, and the effects that keep her on screen as both sisters at the same time are flawless. I was scrutinizing the screen to spot the joins on some occasions, but completely failed. Davis also skilfully makes herself into two different personalities, showing why she is considered to be one of the greats of the Hollywood golden age. True, at this point in her career some of her subtlety had gone, and the familiar Baby Jane screech is in full effect, but she still does a great job, constantly smoking like a chimney as Edie (amusingly lectured by the other sister at one point, that smoking is unhealthy!), and throwing juicy insults around. Although the direction and cinematography are fairly mundane, Davis' performance makes the film shine. You can practically see the machinations of Edie's mind as she starts to flounder among the constant stream of obstacles that threaten to sabotage her plan, and its great fun to watch her. There are good performances all round from the rest of the cast as well, plus some fantastic surprise twists in the plot, so do yourself a big favour and avoid reading any plot summaries before you watch it.

It may only be Saturday matinee entertainment now, or a filler DVD for a rainy afternoon, but Dead Ringer will keep you hooked right through to the end if you give it your time, and there's no shortage of films around even today today that can't beat that.