Sanguinaire

In the Golden Age of Hollywood, amid the storied eons of the great glamor stars, you had the Stanwyckian tough cookies, the Rogers-like high society sophisticates, and the Garboish fragile beauties - but no one was quite like the Jazz Age wild child Clara Bow. When she made an entrance, she burst onto the screen like a whirlwind and didn't look back, positively exuding earthy vitality. That she didn't have a significant sound career is truly unfortunate, for one's imagination plays happily with the notion of Clara bawdily defying the frigid censors well into the culturally stolid war years. Though we didn't get much in that way, CALL HER SAVAGE is fortunately a picture worth a thousand words.

Okay, the first ten minutes make it look like a dusty old western, but STAY WITH IT...otherwise you'll be missing one of the boldest and brightest pre-Code items this side of CONVENTION CITY. When Clara first appears on horseback, the wind blowing through her hair, you will be transfixed for the remainder of the show. The narrative opens in Texas, with a rich landowner punishing his tomboy daughter Nasa (Clara) by sending her off to Chicago for charm school. He also has latent motivation in wanting to marry her off to the man of his choice. Once in the big city, Nasa becomes known as "Dynamite" in the tabloids for her volatility and elopes with a slippery charmer instead of her intended beau. He strays, so to speak, as soon as their honeymoon, leading Clara to take her leave. From here, it's a road to ruin and back again for the young lady, with a startling secret in store for her at the climax. A free-form blend of western, romantic comedy, tragedy, and everything in between, CALL HER SAVAGE takes (sometimes jarring) turns from comedy to pathos, creating an absolutely unique experience.

I can only imagine how Joseph Breen and his ilk must have gnashed their teeth over this film - virtually every scene seems to have been calculated to drive them up the wall. For all its brazenness, it's surprising that CALL HER SAVAGE was a Fox production, for one would expect it more from Warner Bros. We first see Clara in a tight-fitting white shirt, enthusiastically whipping a snake - then a handsome ranch hand when he laughs at her! Clara then tears off a portion of her shirt to tend to his wounds (my, hasn't that one been appropriated time and time again!). Further mix in race relations, prostitution, and an attempted rape of Nasa by her STD-ravaged husband ("Don't get up" she cautions. "I GET UP every afternoon!" he answers). And don't miss the detour to cinema's very first gay bar where the waiters sing about sailors in pajamas (!). On a seedier level, there's a brief but unsavory taste of pederasty when a drunken old fool approaches a little girl.

But it's Clara who makes this movie. The early scenes of her scantily clad and writhing on the grass have a palpable erotic charge that no black and white vintage can dilute (remember, this was the woman who sat through a stage performance of Dracula dressed in a fur coat - and little else). I really hope that Clara is well remembered today, for she was TRULY a star and incredible personality. A lively, vital, and eternally beautiful free spirit. But there was always a touch of sadness in those big, childlike eyes, wasn't there...

The television horror anthology has a long and noble history. In the Fifties, Rod Serling blazed the trail with THE TWILIGHT ZONE; though the series mostly veered in the direction of what may be called "speculative fantasy", it did produce its share of horrific/macabre episodes. This was to be followed by THRILLER in the early Sixties, a much more overtly Gothic series hosted by Boris Karloff, and one of the first television series to catch flack for experimenting with graphic violence (one episode featured a man staggering down a flight of stairs with an ax buried in his head!). Serling struck again with NIGHT GALLERY in the Seventies, an often genuinely weird and experimental series that, like THRILLER, often drew from the great pulp horror tales of the past for inspiration. And, in the Eighties, came George Romero's TALES FROM THE DARKSIDE.

I vividly remember the show as a pre-teen; it would premier late at night, around 11:30 after the news and "normal" programming concluded. As that bleary witching hour approached, when the wholesome prime-time like of FAMILY TIES and THE FACTS OF LIFE seemed miles gone by, disorientation and apprehension would set in - the atmosphere was right for a kid to be scared! And nothing was scarier than DARKSIDE's opening sequence. What looked like pastoral postcard scenes of rural Vermont would give way to the ominous intonations of Paul Sparer, backed up by a prickly synthesizer score. The title card would then appear in dripping letters of crimson. It was, in a word, unforgettable.

For budgetary reasons, the episodes were shot on video; on the one hand, this gave them an air of cheapness, but on the other lent them a kind of creepy immediacy. The frequent appearance of veteran stars meanwhile, some of who hadn't then worked in years, provided some old-fashioned cachet. Eddie Bracken starred in one I'll never forget - A Case of the Stubborns, based on a story by Robert Bloch. Bracken plays a cranky old grandfather who refuses to accept the fact that he has died, much to the distress of his family. As the days pass, Bracken begins to decompose, to the point of literally sneezing his nose off. Another one that stuck with me was called Inside the Closet, which starred Fritz Weaver as a doctor with a horrible Tom Savini-designed secret locked in his doll closet. One of the (deservedly) best-loved episodes was a Christmas-themed affair called Seasons of Belief. This one had E. G. Marshall sadistically terrorizing his children with stories of The Grither, a sort of demonic Santa being whose name must never be spoken. Building to a truly spectacular conclusion, Seasons of Belief stands out as an endearingly bilious Yuletide classic. In addition to the old-timers, TALES FROM THE DARKSIDE boasted some up-and-coming talent as well - the aforementioned A Case of the Stubborns also starred Christian Slater. Another one I remember, called Monsters in My Room, had little Seth Green as a boy who faces the titular trouble. To further sweeten the package, horror masters like Romero, Savini, and Bloch frequently contributed behind the camera.

TALES FROM THE DARKSIDE looms large in the pantheon of Eighties horror (when the genre wasn't afraid to be bold and nasty), as well as in the hearts of those of us who remember it. As it's been off the air for some time, a DVD release may well be in order, so that a whole new generation might behold what gave many Children of the Eighties a pleasant little chill back in the day. As the show's closer immortally put it: "The Darkside is always there, waiting for us to enter, waiting to enter us. Until next time - try to enjoy the daylight."

Never turning up on television, long out of print on video, and never released to DVD, HOUSE OF THE LONG SHADOWS has fallen prey to neglect in recent times. To a degree, this is understandable; taken purely on its own, HOUSE at first seems to emerge a bit disappointing today. The oft-cited problem is that the four horror stars seem painfully marginalized in order to make way for Desi Arnaz Jr. But, when seen in a larger context, HOUSE rises far above its humble origins and becomes something much greater than the sum of its parts. Much like James Whale's THE OLD DARK HOUSE - a film that shares much in common with HOUSE - it is a film that requires multiple viewings to fully appreciate.

Just as Universal's Dracula of 1931 inspired and influenced a cycle of horror films that would grow, mature, mutate, and ultimately flounder in various forms till the late Forties, so too did another horror zeitgeist bloom during the late Fifties, Sixties and Seventies. The British studio that had produced 1957's groundbreaking THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN, Hammer Films, found great success in the genre over the next twenty years, not infrequently making use of Christopher "Dracula" Lee and Peter "Frankenstein" Cushing. Meanwhile, in Hollywood, American International found their superstar in Vincent Price, whom they headlined in a series of literate, atmospheric Edgar Allan Poe adaptations, beginning with THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER in 1960. Eventually, this series too would cross the Atlantic. The popularity (and profitability) of these scare shows insured a legion of second-rate cheapness from various entities, many of which utilized Shakespearian actor and erstwhile Universal horror veteran John Carradine, who crept his arthritic way through such low-budgeters as GALLERY OF HORRORS and BLOOD OF DRACULA'S CASTLE.

But, by 1982, this cycle of traditional horrors had seemingly come to a dead end. Hammer and AIP were no longer producing feature films, and most of the great horror stars of the time were now electing to either shoot for mainstream success or a semi-retirement save for the occasional film and television cameo appearance. As the Eighties dawned too, the genre was foregoing Gothic horror in favor of the summer camp bloodbath, the holiday massacre, and the dream-slaying slasher. In the midst of these gruesome developments however, director Pete Walker, not unfamiliar with bloody subject matter himself, decided to provide the old-fashioned approach one last go-around, and gather the very icons of that style to do it.

The plot is old humbug, another revitalization of Earl Derr Bigger's old standard Seven Keys to Baldpate, which had been filmed a number of times before. Jaded novelist Arnaz accepts a bet from his impish publisher (Richard Todd), which involves him spending 24 hours in an old Welsh mansion and writing a Bronte-like Gothic story. As the stormy night progresses, various dodgy characters turn up who, as it emerges, are all members of the benighted Grisbane family, gathered on this night to release a horrible secret in the attic. Before long, various unwary visitors - as well as the Grisbanes themselves - begin to be murdered in grisly ways by a mysterious psychopath. Many twists and turns later, the narrative works its way toward a lighthearted conclusion.

There had long been plans to unite the four horror superstars in one film, but scheduling conflicts had made it impossible. Finally, the opportunity arrived with this project, and all are well served by their roles here. Each is allowed to indulge in his particular acting persona. Price is flamboyant and theatrical, Lee imperious and sinister, Cushing genteel and sympathetic, Carradine sonorous and stentorian. Price in particular excels here, and this was his last real opportunity to shine in a full-fledged horror film. Though he would return to the genre two more times before his death in 1993, neither his embarrassing appearance as an expletive-spewing sorcerer in BLOODBATH IN THE HOUSE OF DEATH or his cantankerous turn hosting THE OFFSPRING can compare to his grandly overstated Lionel Grisbane. In particular, Lionel's pitched introduction at the doorway is unforgettable, a true highlight of horror cinema.

If there is a major regret here, it's that Cannon opted to re-cut the film for some theatrical showings - and that's the version released to VHS years ago. This move appears to have been done in order to play up the horror content and mute the comedy. Though I've never seen the original cut, it almost unquestionably would have been preferable. Both Price and Cushing seemed to feel so, and lamented the fact that many of the comic build-ups were left in, only to have the punch lines cut. The real loss was the original end credits sequences, in which each member of the cast steps out of character to take a final bow.

But, in the end, the shortcomings matter little. HOUSE stands as truly the last of its kind, and more than that, can be seen as the point of embarkation for a new style. Just as Universal provided the iconographic monsters of the Thirties and Forties with a peculiarly reverential send-off in ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEN, so too does HOUSE OF THE LONG SHADOWS allow its four veteran bogeymen of the Sixties and Seventies to gracefully bow out, in character and with their dignity intact. It's sublimely appropriate that the film should meld Eighties slasher/body-count horror themes (gruesomely accented ax murders, stabbings, acid baths, etc.) with the traditional Gothic approach these men specialized in; by taking part in those very situations themselves, Price, Lee, Cushing, and Carradine thereby "pass the torch" to the knife-wielding maniacs that would come to rule the genre in their place. Seen in this light, the film's faults seem to considerably melt away, and one realizes what a true, unique gem we have here. That is, a lighthearted but affectionate good-bye to twenty-five years of classic horror films executed with great deft and style.