Na Mira da Morte

Roger Corman explains in his autobiography that he handed this "spec" project to the up-and-coming Bogdanovich primarily because he could basically pay the kid peanuts. Bogdanovich understood Corman's economic sensibilities well, and cut as many corners as he could. He uses Cormans regular bit-players as well as plenty of Jack Nicholson footage from 1963's "The Terror" - another Corman B-movie. Corman's specifications for the film were simple: make a cheap film referring to the recent Charles Whitman shootings at the University of Texas, and make it fast. The script draws heavily from the real-life Whitman story; the all-American boy gone bad kills his wife and mother, and then proceeds on a killing spree, shooting anyone in his sights from a snipers nest. This story is intertwined with that of Byron Orlocks ageing horror legend nearing retirement; here Boris Karloff plays himself, for all intents and purposes. Bogdanovich plays a major role in the film himself, and there is obvious affection between the young director and Karloff in the scenes they share. Although Bogdanovich's wife Polly Platt takes a screenwriting credit, it is often said that her role was actually more of a partner in all Bogdanovich's early work, collaborating and counter-balancing his excesses. There is probably a lot of truth to this theory, as after the couple separated Bogdanovich's suffered a deep decline. I had read much of the history of `Targets' in Peter Biskind's `Easy Riders - Raging Bulls' and Corman's own `How I Made a Hundred Movies in Hollywood and Never Lost a Dime', and have been lucky enough to catch it twice on cable in the last week. It really is a very competent debut, and Bogdanovich truly makes the most of what humble resources he had at his disposal. See it.

Ageing horror actor Byron Orlock (Boris Karloff) has just finished what will be his final film. The campy nature of the horror films he stars in, and the decline in moral society leads him to believe that horror films are no longer scary, especially when compared with what is happening in the real world. Young director Sammy Michaels (Peter Bogdanovich) has just written a great script especially for Orlock, and tries to persuade him to re-think his retirement plans on the build-up to Orlock's final public appearance at a drive-in for his new movie The Terror. Meanwhile, suburban husband and gun-obsessive Bobby Thompson (Tim O'Kelly) is planning a massacre using his sniper rifle, starting with his wife and family.

As usual when it comes to Roger Corman productions, the story behind the film is just as interesting (often more so) as the film itself. Karloff apparently owed Corman a couple of days work, so he was handed to Corman protégé Peter Bogdanovich, and told him to make whatever film he liked - as long as it was cheap, quick, included footage of his film The Terror (1963), and drew on the recent Charles Whitman killings. So, with the help of screenwriter Samuel Fuller, Bogdanovich crafted an intelligent, shocking, and extremely interesting film that what way ahead of its time.

Targets is many things. On one hand it is a warm love-letter to the legendary actors of old. In one scene, Michaels enters Orlock's hotel room, them both being drunk, and watch the end of Howard Hawks' The Criminal Code (1931), which starred a younger Boris Karloff. They briefly discuss the genius of Hawks and Michaels comments on what a fine screen presence Orlock (really Karloff) was, and still is. It is also a first-rate thriller. Tim O'Kelly is very effective as the clean-cut, all-American boy, who is becoming increasingly shaken about the person he finds himself becoming. In real-life, Whitman was found to have an aggressive brain tumour that was believed to be the cause of the sudden killing spree. The violence, though not gratuitous or exploitative, is shocking and nasty. The murder scenes are shot with a slow and detailed precision that are scary given the real-life occurrences.

Most interestingly, the film is a commentary on the generation gap, in both society and in cinema. Michaels states that "all the great films have already been made." Of course, this is not true - America was about to enter its true golden age, when the likes of Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Dennis Hopper, Francis Ford Coppola, Michael Cimino, and Bogdanovich himself shook Hollywood to its core. But Michaels is reflecting Orlock's fear of the new. Orlock is retiring because "it's a young person's world," and he feels he no longer has his place. The film builds up to the inevitable meeting of Orlock and Thompson - the old vs. the new, if you will.

Targets is quite hard to sum up. It is genuinely a hidden gem, and a true original that should be seen by anyone interested in cinema. Karloff would sadly pass away a year after this film was released, and he gives what is possibly his finest career performance. He has no scary make-up or sets to drown him out. He is simply an old man, walking stick and all. Although he made a couple more films after this, Targets seems his true and fitting exit from cinema. This is close to an 'A'-movie that I've seen a B-movie get, and again proves that Roger Corman was a true cinema genius.

www.the-wrath-of-blog.blogspot.com

and for the right reasons as it contrasts a Monster from the pages of real life, a quite seemingly normal fellow who unexpectedly goes off the deep end and winds up on a killing spree, with an old Horror film icon named Byron Orlock, clearly based on the man who plays him Boris Karloff himself. Karloff gives one of the finest performances of his career here and thereby raises this film's overall quality. Along with a brisk pace and some scenes that disturb and haunt the viewer long after viewing, TARGETS is a masterpiece of terror.

In the DVD introduction to this film, writer/director/actor Peter Bogdanovich explains how it happened. B-movie mogul Roger Corman came to Peter in late 1967 with a proposal: take 40 minutes of footage from Corman's film "The Terror", film 20 minutes of Boris Karloff (who owed Corman 2 days of work), film 40 minutes of other stuff with other actors to tie it all together, and complete a feature film all for a budget of $125,000.

You'd think this would be a recipe for a colossal turd of a movie, but on the contrary, it pushed everyone's creativity to the max and resulted in a remarkable work of cinema.

Peter & his wife grabbed their typewriters and wrote a modern horror story contrasted against a classic Victorian horror. Assisted by Peter's friend & successful writer/director Samuel Fuller (not credited), they churned out a profound & poetic script loosely based on the news story of Charles Whitman, a former marine sniper who went on a mass shooting rampage the year before. A bit was also inspired by the Highway 101 sniper shootings in which a 16-year-old boy killed 3 motorists in 1965. That's the "modern horror" part. The Victorian horror comes with the character Byron Orlock (played by Karloff) who is a classic horror icon at the end of his career, realizing that his brand of horror is outdated.

If you can see where this is going, you're in for a great experience. Yes, it's a story of change, out with the old & in with the new, but in a chilling way I've never seen before. The idea that fear has evolved into something far different. Ghost stories & creepy characters no longer cut it. The new brand of terror is faceless, anonymous, soulless and random. Enter the phenomenon of the mass killer.

"Targets" was ahead of its time, and Peter even mentions how its release was delayed because studio execs were afraid of how its message would be received, especially with the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr and Bobby Kennedy just months prior to release.

It is extremely relevant today, and even if it weren't so artistically done & expertly acted, I would recommend this film for its message alone. The directing, cinematography & acting is icing on the cake, and oh what icing it is! If you're like me, you probably know Boris Karloff as the lumbering creature in "Frankenstein" (1931)... a big, stiff lunk in electricians boots who drags himself around as if he's murderously constipated. Here in "Targets" he is eloquent, charming, tragic, comic and instantly worthy of our attention. My favorite scene is in a hotel room when he tells a ghost story. Director Bogdanovich is very respectful with his camera work in that scene: it opens wide and fixes itself on Karloff with its (and our) undivided attention as it slowly narrows on Karloff's face. No cuts, no jumps, no distractions, just pure Karloff.

The movie is full of thoughtful camera work like that. As you watch the film you get the idea that every camera angle, movement, pan & zoom, and every shadow and inch of background action was very carefully planned to the millimeter. I confess I've never seen a Bodanovich film, but I know he's a very respected director. Now I see why. On a tiny budget that, today, wouldn't cover the catering for a big studio film, he cranked out a magnificent film.

I would put "Targets" squarely in the class of Hitchcock, as compelling as my favorites "Rope", "Rear Window", "Vertigo" and so on. But as I mentioned earlier, it's the blending of Victorian horror (Hitchcock, Vincent Price, etc) with modern horror (Fox News, etc) that makes this an unforgettable show.

Just an epilogue to the story of how the film was made... Although prints caught the attention of major studios, it wasn't officially released until it caught the eye of a film professor who invited Paramount execs to a screening in his classroom. Paramount bought the film for $150,000 (netting Corman a whopping $25,000 profit... hope he didn't blow it all in 1 night!). The film was eventually released, and it received rave reviews from critics but never did well with the public at large. Way ahead of its time. Lucky for us it survived onto DVD 40 years later when perhaps the world will understand it better. Don't hesitate for one minute to see this film if you have the chance!

Targets is directed by Peter Bogdanovich who also co-writes the screenplay and story with Polly Platt and Samuel Fuller. It stars Boris Karloff, Tim O'Kelly and Bogdanovich himself. Story is patterned around real life mass murderer Charles Whitman, who in 1966 murdered 16 people during a shooting rampage at the University of Texas in Austin.

Cineaste Peter Bogdanovich's debut directing effort, sadly, to this day remains a topical hot spot. Released as it was just after the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy, Targets carried much relevance even though it was hardly a success at the box office. Over the years it has come to gain a cult following that is much deserved, the low budget production value actually helping to keep it uneasily potent.

Story is structured by way of two separate narrative threads, one sees Karloff as veteran horror film actor Byron Orlock, who sees himself as an anachronism and announces his retirement from movie making. His reasoning, warranted, is that his type of horror is way behind the times, the real horror is out there on the streets, bleakly headlined in the local newspaper. The other thread concerns Bobby Thompson (O'Kelly), a handsome boy next door type who has a pretty wife but finds himself unemployed and still living with his parents. He is a ticking time bomb, his mind soon to fracture and devastation will follow. The two stories converging for a bloody finale at a drive in movie theatre, where Orlock is making a special guest appearance, the old time horror of the movies coming face to face with the real terror of the modern world.

Though uncredited by choice, the screenplay belongs to Fuller, something that Bogdanovitch has always been keen to point out, and it's with the writing where the film gets its quality factor. The messages within are serious and handled evenly by Bogdanovitch, his pacing precise and in Karloff he has the perfect icon from which to underpin the story. True enough the acting around Karloff is sub-standard, notably from the director himself, but with Bogdanovich deliberately keeping the psychological explanation for Bobby's actions vague, film manages to rise above its flaws to leave an indelible mark. 8/10