Black Sunday (La Machera del Demonio) was Mario Bava’s first fully directed film. Prior to this 1960 film he had worked as set designer and cinematographer primarily, but also as a replacement director (receiving no credit) for a couple projects. The story is reputedly based on a short story by Nikolai Gogol but Bava apparently took great liberties with his retelling. Bava was a lover of Russian literature and the only thing that seems to reflect the story is the setting of the tale in Moldavia and the resurrection of a dead witch. The plot is pretty basic and has been done a million times since then. A witch is burned at the stake and in her dying moments swears a curse on the descendents of the towns people, a curse she eventually begins to fulfill after her entombed corpse is revived with the blood of a vampire hunter. This may be one of the first movies though to use this theme so it was fresh territory back then. That trifle aside the film is a beautiful work and for the time the violence caused quite a stir, causing the film's release to be delayed for years in Britain (as The Mask of Satan) and in America having several prime scenes trimmed. Lovely Barbara Steel has the spiked door of an iron maiden slammed on her face causing blood to shoot towards the camera and rather than have a stake driven through a vampire’s heart Bava opts for the less traditional method of driving it through the beast’s eyeball. For the time it was quite new for American matinee audiences to see such scenes. AIP had distribution rights for the film in the US and most of their fare was the cheesy sci-fi and formula American horror material of the day, mutant bugs and mad doctors mostly. They cut over three minutes of violence from the movie before release. BLACK SUNDAY aka THE MASK OF SATAN The film is shot in moody and sharply contrasted black and white and the look is a tribute to the glory days of Universal’s atmospheric horror classics. Bava wanted some one special to play the lead role. British actress Barbara Steele had only had a couple minor roles prior to playing the witch Asa in Black Sunday and Bava was attracted to her “strange type” of beauty and she was selected from a set of photos he saw. She was purportedly difficult to work with and a wee bit xenophobic and even paranoid, at one point being convinced Bava was using a special film stock that would make her appear naked when developed. In fairness Steele was only nineteen years old and far away from her home in England. She spoke no Italian and worked under harsh budget restrictions. She never saw the completed script at any time and was given her lines and instructions each morning just before going on the set. She would go on to work with Bava again so things must have been suitable enough. She would also make a large number of films in Italy and generally became type caste as an Italian gothic horror queen (a title she later resented) and many people questioned why an ‘Italian” actress would change her name to an English sounding one. I have read some harsh reviews of this film online but dismiss them all. This is great little movie. Even if you just turn the volume off and look at it with some music you like it is stunning and lovely to behold. I wish Bava had done a few more black and white works like this. There are two versions of this film out and I have seen both. The purely Italian version called I Tre Volti Della Paura and the AIP version called Black Sabbath (which by the way is where the band got its name). There are some significant differences in the order the short films are played, some deleted scenes and plot changes in The Telephone and removing Karloff’s distinctive narration and introduction to each episode. While I like the Italian version and in particular because of The Telephone story which in the purely Italian version becomes less a supernatural story and more a crime story with lesbian overtones, I have seen the AIP version so many times that is what I am used to. Made in 1963 the film is a trilogy of stories that are claimed to based in part on stories by Chekhov and Tolstoy but no one has yet to discover exactly which stories the film scripts are based on and it is likely the names were used by AIP to give a literary quality to the movie, as they had done with Roger Corman’s Edgar Alan Poe films of the same period. It is beautifully filmed movie with good acting and not a bad score for the time. Bava's use of color is lavish and has recieved some criticism that it is overblown and unrealistic, but I do not get the same feeling. It is wonderful to behold and some parts of The Wurdulak are similar to the lush scenes Bava filmed for Hercules in the Haunted World (there is a clip from Haunted World somewhere in the Cafe). BLACK SABBATH/ITALIAN TRAILER I have been reading reviews of Bava on the net and gather some that people really do not like the guy’s collective work. I do not like everything he did and find some of his later films have a low quality to them, that begin to look contemporary rather than timeless. I think these naysayers simply miss the point or they are not swept away by his brilliant use of Technicolor or his intricate sets so prominent, for example, in the story here called The Wurdulak with Karloff. His films are artsy and European, of course, in their feel and that can be good or bad. Here it is not only good it is fantastic and if some people do not get then it is their loss. I hate people who feel elevated when they scoff at pure talent. May they all be entombed in an iron maiden for eternity! Most people’s favorite is the piece called The Drop of Water though I prefer the moody, medieval and lush The Wurdulak myself. The Drop of Water has a simple retribution plot and the ghost of the revenge seeking old lady is actually creepy for a bit. But there is drawback in that it is a modeled, grotesque dummy and after a while you want it to do something, show some expression, though it is unnerving for the lack of expression as well. It is a great, timeless movie not bereft of a few flaws. Seems some people miss the really big picture by concentrating on creative flaws which someone like Bava would have, considering his preference for small budgets and therefore more creative freedom and less corporate scrutiny. Now I have a twinge of regret at my harsh words towards Dario Argento in my post on Jenifer, as both Bava and Argento worked in the genre known as "giallo" or Italian suspense theater and literature. Similar to our pulp fiction culture. After reading a few negative remarks about Bava I wish I had been gentler on his devotee Dario. His films still confuse me, but they are not without merit now that I think about it, otherwise why would I have seen almost every one he ever made. More about giallo and Bava's and Argento's contributions to it in a future post. But for every ounce of spite there is a pound of praise for his work, and for the next one in particular, which was Bava's darkly, visionary foray into the world of science fiction. Bava did a curious and eerie science fiction movie in 1965 called Terrore Nello Spazio and it is translated as Planet of the Vampires, although the protagonists here are more like zombies than actual blood drinking vampires. AIP, having achieved some fair success with previous Bava films and Italian horror-fantasy films in general, took a more active role in the production of this and subsequent films out of Italy. Not only did they pay for distribution rights but film legends Samual Z. Arkoff and James H. Nicholson co-produced the film as well and thus had more say over the general creative process. Over time this new type of closeness with cooperate higher ups would make Bava bitter and drive him away from AIP. Some people have criticized the film for it low production values and in particular for the use of cheesy miniatures. In truth it seems in this case that Bava, who usually preferred low budgets and therefore creative freedom, felt constrained by the budget for this type of film himself. He complained in one interview of the entire set consisting of two plastic rocks. “…yes, two. One and one!” Actually if you look at the clip it appears there are lots of rocks, but maybe Bava was just really upset when he made this statement and perhaps he is talking of the larger rock props. In any case the two rocks in question were left over props from another fantasy film and were essentially donated to the production. Bava uses lots of fog and filtered lighting to make up for the dismal sets and in the process created a truly eerie effect. Mirrors were used to multiply the two plastic rocks and add some depth. The film relied on mood and atmosphere over gadgets and so it is a very gloomy and gothic sci-fi film, one of the first and a good one at that. PLANET OF THE VAMPIRES The creatures, as I have stated, are more like supernatural zombies that have reanimated the corpses of previous landing parties. The creatures are spooky enough and the film is claustrophobic and tense. Some scenes were recreated in Ridley Scott’s Alien, in particular the scene of a huge dead and petrified alien in an ancient space ship. The cast was international and led by Barry Sullivan (USA) and sexy Norma Bengell (Brazil) as the Captain and chief officer of the rescue ship Argos. To further complicate matters the cast all spoke their native languages on the set and the dialog was dubbed later into either English or Italian. They often had no idea what they were saying or what directions they were being given. I have not seen the film in years really. I recall not being bothered much by the miniatures and now find it resourceful on Bava’s part. The rocket landing scenes were miniatures shot in a fish tank full of fog and crazy lighting forcing the persceptive to appear larger and closer than it is. Sure, it looks silly in a way if you are thrilled by noticing such shortcomings. I believe Bava would have wanted to do more but he took what he had and made it work and that was one of the things he had come to be respected for in not only the film community of the time but in film history as well. Mario Bava was born one day after the beginning of WWI in San Remo Italy in 1914. His father was Eugenio Bava and it was at the side of his father that Bava would learn the tricks of his trade in the world of set design and cinematography. Eugenio was a master film technician during the period of Italian silent cinema and a creator of film special effects. Mario would work for several years as his father’s assistant and apprentice. Like his highly creative father Mario was an artist who painted and sculpted and developed a fine sense of design that made him one of the great arrangers of the “mise en scene”, or what can be explained as the total scene one views in a film, as it is shot and framed by the camera. This includes the arrangement and placement of not only the actors but of all parts of the set as well as choices for color and position of props. It means in one sense that nothing you see on the screen is accidental, in the same way nothing placed on a stage for a play is accidental or random. There is no denying that at his peak Bava's stage sets were on the one hand revoultionary in regards to lighting and shading, and yet at the same time they seem to pay homeage to a bygone era of not only Italian cinema but of old Hollywood as well. His transition from set design to cinematographer was gradual and almost accidental. Bava gained not only artistic recognition behind the scenes but was seen as a man who could work fast and on a small budget as a director after he finished a small number projects that were abandoned half way through (or less)by their original tempermental directors. He received no directing credit for these films. One was I Vampiri (I Vampire). Bava was working as cameraman and optical effects designer when Riccardo Freda left the project over time disputes. Bava finished half of the 12-day shoot in only two days. A professional conflict seemed to developed between Freda and producers and Bava, who producers were beginning to favor. Freda abandoned another project after only two days of directing. Bava finished the film to the delight of producer Lionello Santi, who gave Bava the opportunity, at age 46, to direct his first film with near complete freedom. Drawing on his fascination with Russian literature he chose a short story by Nikolai Gogol entitled “Vij” to film and which Bava changed significantly into La Maschera del Demonio (translated in Britain as The Mask of Satan or as it was released in the States, Black Sunday). See the comments above for my opinions of this B/W masterpiece. Bava’s true strength rested not on his beautiful B/W work (which harkened back to the finest horror films of Universal studios) but in his unbelievably lush and atmospheric Technicolor films. His first color film in 1961 was the sword and sandal epic Hercules in the Haunted World (there is a clip available in the Café somewhere, as of this writng I am using an old template which does not support site search but will resolve that problem at the next secret counsel meeting). While as far as the story went it was a slightly above average Hercules epic it was the hallucinogenic and fantastic cinematography and camera work that made the film one of the best of the genre ever made (and believe it or not I saw this film on a fine print in a small theater in Seattle and it was lovley). He would go on to film some of the greatest color gothic horror movies to ever come out of Italy (or anywhere else for that matter) over the next few years, including I Tre Volti Della Paura (Black Sabbath) and Terrore Nello Spazio (Planet of the Vampires). See above for my personal comments on these films. Also during this period he made Blood and Black Lace and The Whip and the Body. These and a few others from this period show Bava in control of his craft and as his work became increasingly more violent and erotic conflicts developed with American International Pictures. There seemed to an issue as well with the consistently downbeat tone of his films and their endings, usually which meant the deaths of all heroes, and they were becoming viewed by commercially concerned AIP as unmarketable matinee fare. Bava did one more film for AIP I have never had much interest in seeing even though it starred one of my favorite B-actors, Vincent Price, Dr. Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs. His next 1966 movie, Kill, Baby… Kill!, is a stylish, nice looking film with dreamy sequences and the reappearance of a haunting looking little girl bouncing a ball that drives people to suicide. Though alow budget film it has become rather influential in its theme and technique, and directors as varied as Felleni, Scorese and David Lynch have admitted to using the film for inspiration. Money ran out for the film and towards the end and Bava, actors and crew finished the film without pay. In 1966 Bava’s father and mentor died and the distress over the loss combined with personal and professional problems Bava took a two year break from filmmaking. He returned to the process in 1968 with one of his last great stylistic films based on a European comic book called Danger Diabolik. It is an action type movie about a jewel thief and adventurer who has a bunch of James Bond like gadgets to get him out of trouble and Marisa Mell running around in some tight white hot pants to ehlp get hm into trouble. Like the other films here it has been many years since I saw this really nice looking work and it is hard to give a good comment on it from memory alone. It is one of the last movies where he used his trademark lighting and slick sets before he shifted gears and went into a series of pysho-thriller movies such as A Hatchet for the Honeymoon (1969), Five Dolls for an August Moon (1970), Twitch of the Death Nerve (1971) (which is credited with starting the “body count” style movies of the 70,s onward,) Lisa and the Devil (1973) with sexy Elke Summer. The films all focused on sex and violence in the 70’s Euro style but they also distanced Bava from his old techiniques and images. Twitch of the Death Nerve is basically a splatter film and considered groundbreaking, but it is also less lovely a work than what Bava had been consistently churning out prior to 1966. Bava was finding it harder to work in the mid-70’s and many of his movies were just were not receiving the attention and respect his earlier films did. They were panned as failures and compared to his more brilliant early work. He was becoming disillusioned and now spent time helping his son Lamberto’s career develop and even did set designs for Dario Argento’s Inferno (1980). In 1977 he did the very odd Beyond the Door II (a sequel of sorts of the Exorcist rip-off Beyond the Door with Juliet Mills and directed by truly awful Italian director Ovidio G. Assonitis) which wound up being Bava's last complete film. The movie is also released as Shock. I will say that Beyond the Door II was not so great a movie in my opinion and even a little unsettling even for my taste in a couple scenes, for example where a little boy develops incestuously oedipel feelings towards his mother and in one scene where they are playfully wrestling he begins to, well, gyrate on her. Kind of out there really. When I first saw it years and years ago I had no clue who Bava was then really and figured it was the work of yet another disorginzed Italian director. Some great films have come out of Italy in all genres, but some of the most atrocious have as well. Bava died of a heart attack in 1980 and while some of his latter films showed his lack of passion and vision his earlier work did it is worth noting Bava did not direct his first film until he was 46 years old, and so he is some twenty years older and disillusioned and still trying to make horror movies. Even most of his 70’s work has an entertaining quality his films from 1960 to 1966 is simply some of the best the genre has ever turned out. They are lavish and beautiful and Black Sunday has been called the most beautiful horror movie every made. His classic work is stylish and lush and loaded with beautiful, mysterious European women. He is a great director and artistic visionary.
Vacancy 2007/Director:Nimród Antal/Screenplay:Mark L. Smith Cast: Kate Beckinsale, Luke Wilson, Frank Whaley, Ethan Embry,Scott G. Anderson, Mark Casella, David Doty
The story here is a Psycho type thriller that really was not as bad as the reviews made me think it was going to be. There are a few references to Psycho, for example in the assorted stuffed birds that decorate the office, the quirky manager played very well by the dependable Frank Whaley and the invasive voyeurism that takes place in the honeymoon suite. The voyeurism though lacks the psycho-sexual peeping Tom aspect that characterized Norman Bates though, and here it instead is done in the form of videoing taping snuff films and supplying them in quantity to the booming snuff film trade I guess (though I belong to the school of thought that puts snuff films into the category of urban-myth… but what a suitable myth to base a slasher style movie on).
The film is not a gratuitous gore film and the edgy drama is built up perfectly before the actual mayhem breaks loose. While there are no real surprises for the most part it is a watchable film. The story centers on an unhappy couple played by Kate Beckinsale and Luke Wilson who have some serious problems in their marriage that are about to break them apart when suddenly in the middle of their ongoing tirade of insults to one another their car fan breaks after Wilson swerves to miss a raccoon on a dark and sparsely populated stretch of highway in the middle of backwater USA. They trek back to a gas station and hotel and reluctantly stay the night to wait for the garage to open. Frank Whaley plays the genuinely unnerving hotel manager who from the very beginning makes you uncomfortable. The simple scene where he is counting out dimes is sheer personality disorder incarnate. He is a Norman Bates type psycho in that he does not belong to the class of modern film "super" pyscho slashers and he dispalys uncertainty and anxiety later in the film as he loses control of the situation little by little. His unimposing physique seem to make his character more believable and common and therefore more frightening. I am so happy there was no "sexy master mind" killer here. God, that is such a bore anymore.
Frank Whaley shows consternation at the realization that his hotel has a phone booth that still only takes dimes for a phone call. After Beckinsale and Wilson get in to their room and continue their litany of complaints and criticism the tension begins in the form of banging doors and phone calls. It is done very well and soon they find copies of video tapes showing the former occupants of the very same room being murdered and taped. The film develops into a cat and mouse game soon as our couple go on the offensive but the predators are well seasoned and have all the upper hands. Beckinsale is a commanding presence of a woman (Underworld and Van Helsing) and this movie would be much different had Mia Farrow been in the lead role, but she is vulnerable and shaken up and out of control here and does some good acting. Wilson is fine in the role of the more sentimental of the wayward couple who wants to salvage some of the relationship and confront some losses (the death of a child?) that Beckinsale wants only to forget. He is not a strong man really but soon takes control and shows Beckinsale he has some testosterone after all, until he is knifed in the gut in front of her. In movies it always works out that as you show the woman what a real man you are you get knifed or shot saving her and she can suddenly realize that she had over looked all this qualities and feel a little bad. Not only is our couple stranded in Hicksville and are the unwilling stars of a snuff movie but they suddenly find out that the magic fingers machine is out of order. The ending is no surprise as Beckinsale kicks all the bad guys asses in no time flat. The movie is predictable in the way a good movie like this will be (the only alternative ending is what, where the bad guys win and kill all the good people and you are left feeling depressed and nihilistic... I guess you could have an ending where the good guys and bad guys all decide to change and team up and become friends, but that would really suck too). But it is how the formula unfolds that makes the difference I suppose, the way two roller coaster rides can be different and yet you expect the same ending from both. The film is well made and well acted and not over the top in the violence department which can be a relief really. There is blood and violent death, do not worry about that okay. But it is controlled effectively by director Nimrod Antal who does not use the film as an excuse to simply show intestines and livers dangling from people, which brings us to our second film, the dismal and forgettable, exploitation mess Maintenance.
Maintenance 2007/Directors: Paulo Diaz and Jil Guenther/Screenplay: Paulo Diaz and Jil Guenther Cast: Mark Masten, Melissa DeBaca,Rondi Temple, Justin Frumkes, Doc Pingree
This movie has the feel of the type of films made by the Film Threat Video company. Really low quality, almost with a shot on video look, and usually with an emphasis on gore and graphic violence and no concern towards the acting or technical aspects. I will admit that there were a couple scenes in the beginning where the dialog and basic acting looked promising, but all those hopes disappeared quickly. The story is so simple as to defy belief. Of course the story line in Vacancy is simple too and it has been done in one form or another a million times. The problem with a movie like Maintenance is that it takes a simple form and makes no effort to do anything with it other than exploit it for gore purposes. If you think about it the concept for Rocky is simple and unoriginal, but Stallone made a great script out of it. Okay, not every movie will be Rocky, I know. I did not buy this DVD thinking it would be an Oscar winner (as if that were an indicator of a good movie). Two female victims frantically run down the hall after watching ten minutes of this movie to get their money back. This is the plot. After a short introduction that shows some percentages about the release of dangerous prisoners back into society and their reoffense rate the movie goes right into the story. A guy played by Mark Masten gets a job in a high rise apartment complex with only four female tenets living in it at the time because of ongoing renovations and then immediately begins killing them off one by one. Well, that’s about it. Okay the ad in the classified said no deposit necessary and 1st month's ulities free. Now Ms Pennypincher realizes, if it sounds too good to be true then it probably is. The murders are brutal and are followed up by dismemberment scenes. He stores his “trophies” in his refrigerator and a clueless detective never seems to consider searching his apartment since he is a violent ex-con and he began work the same day the disappearances begin. It ends on a fatalistic note with the heroine being killed by the landlord himself. I hate these kinds of endings as they are not a twist in any way. They are a cop out and an attempt to make the film have some sort of impact on the viewer that the film maker could not acheive in some more subtle or sophisticated fashion. Another thing that drove me up the wall was the camera work. It seems like 80% of the film is shot from a really low angle, like the camera is mounted on a hand dolly and is pushed around everywhere. Even in scenes where two people are simply having a conversation the camera is aimed up from knee level and it gets old real fast. Furthermore, the film is all washed out in some green tone or something. I do not know if this is on purpose or what. The look of the scenes I posted from IMDB.com is exatcly how the movie looks! The happy ex-con thinks of all the fringe benefits his new job has... a nice room... TV... flexible hours...girls to hack up at will... a sauna... It is hard to get into the suspense because the acting is bad and the story is implausible and the camera work is inane. Like I said before, these two films are like two different roller coaster rides. They do the same thing, but take the one with some vacancy because this one needs a lot of maintenance.
Born Philip St. John Basil Rathbone in Johannesburg, South Africa, Basil Rathbone’s family fled after his father was accused of being a British spy. An auspicious beginning for a man who play suave and sophisticated villains as well as portray the master mind sleuth Sherlock Holmes. His long and colorful career included work in silent films as well as on the stage. He most wanted to be remembered for his stage work and yet he will no doubt be remembered not only for his engaging interpretation of Arthur Conan Doyle’s keen detective but also for his swashbuckling adventured along the likes of Errol Flynn and his host of often campy horror films. I have hardly even read a quarter of the Sherlock Holmes adventures that originally appeared in the Strand magazine (and the illustrations by Sidney Paget, to me, look like Rathbone, though have it on good account by my friend and G.K. Chesterton devotee Delsen Wall that Doyle did not like the Paget drawing all that much) , but when I read or reread the tales I fashion the image of Holmes in my mind after Rathbone’s portrayal. I will be frank, I have not seen another Holmes I like except for the performance by Peter Cushing in the fine Hammer version of the Hound of the Baskervilles. I have about eight of the fourteen Holmes movies filmed between 1939 and 1946. Twelve were filmed by Universal and the first two (Hound of Baskervilles and The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes) by 20th Century Fox. Now I have to admit I not always satisfied with the fact that 20th Century Fox took Holmes out of his late Victorian period and placed him in then contemporary London. A couple have WWII themes and one even has Holmes fly to Washington DC and cruise around the capital in a convertible car. But some of the films capture a gothic essence that is atmospheric and timeless. Another slight issue I have is with the way that Dr. Watson is portrayed as a bubbling often addle headed good meaning oaf. It is not the way the stories portray him at all. In the stories he is married and quite sharp and keen himself. You must recall he is the chronicler of the stories and all interpretations of Holmes comes through the eyes of dr. Watson. That being said however, the portrayal by Nigel Bruce is endearing and the balance created between Rathbone’s moody and arrogant Holmes and Bruce’s kind and mumbling Watson are one of the classic “cop” partnerships in movie history. Rathbone would become type caste after Holmes and found it hard to escape the huge shadow the role cast over his life. Despite this his career continued onward at a busy pace until his death in 1967. As a note, unlike many of his fellow country men who came to Hollywood in the 30’s and 40’s, Rathbone never renounced his British citizenship and was a decorated for service in WWI.
I am not such a student of film that I can explain why it is that the postwar period of film-making in Japan proved to be one of its most fruitful. Besides the astonishing samurai movies that came from that period there were also the touching and often tragic human drama films and the atmospheric horror films as well (and not only the great monster ones from Toho). Onibaba is sometimes classified as a horror film but if it is it is in the sense that Hitchcock made horror films as well, but it was the horror of the human mind and soul rather than ghosts and demons the characters have to deal with. Filmed in 1964 by Kaneto Shindo this film is unnerving and suspenseful with out ever being too graphic. The tone is set by incredible b/w cinematography, edgy music and excellent acting. The mood is claustrophobic as the action occurs mostly inside a large field of tall grass and reeds that is constantly undulating and swirling in the breeze and you cannot see beyond where you are at most of the time and you can never know what be laying only feet away in the tall grass. The themes are murder, lust, betrayal jealously, fears of death and insanity. How can you go wrong with this one? Also filmed in 1964, and also in stunning b/w, Horoshi Teshigahra’s Woman in the Dunes shares another quality of Onibaba’s; that is it is set in an unbearably claustrophobic situation. More so even as the drama unfolds in a huge sand pit where an educated Tokyo man is tricked while gathering butterflies for his collection into staying the night in the pit with a woman in a small hut, only to find the rope ladder he needs to exit as been removed the next day. There he is gradually forced oout of necessity into digging out buckets of sand to prevent the house from being buried as well as using the sand as a trade for food and water. The local villagers taunt him and torment him and the mysterious woman, who has long resigned herself to her fate, becomes dependent on him and infatuated with him. The mood is excruciating and it is never really explained who the villagers are or why the whole thing even happens. Rather we witness the man’s reluctant acceptance of his perpetual Sisyphus like task and even his inevitable immersion into it. The cinematography is fantastic and the acting tense and nerve racking. There is a steamy erotic quality to the film without it ever once being graphic or exploitive. Both films are masterpieces of postwar Japanese cinema and I do not have to be a film scholar to make that statement.
THE SEDUCTIVE INNOCENCE OF LOLITA AND THE SAVAGE HUNGER OF A BLACK WIDOW I once owned an autographed copy of Spider Baby by Jack Hill and gave it to my buddy Matt Gehringer when I left for China. He seemed more addicted to the film than I ever was so I hope he still has that priceless video tape. Also billed as Cannibal Orgy and The Maddest Story Ever Told and The Liver Eaters, Spider Baby is a superbly shot b/w film by Hill that was held up for four years after it was completed (in 1964) as an asset in a bankruptcy case. I have not seen the DVD version but have read on the net that the quality is much better than the video. Stars Lon Chaney Jr as the caregiver of a household of afflicted youngsters who have no qualms about murder due to a heredity disorder. I believe this was Sid Haig’s first role and he spends much of time in the dumbwaiter looking creepy. He would go on to do other Jack Hill films including Pit Stop and The Big Doll House, a women in a Filipino prison movie, where he pretends to be the weirdest gay guy ever in one scene. If you were gay would you fall for Sid Haig in any situation? If you weren't gay would you? THE FANTASTIC STORY OF THE MEN WHO PIT THEIR FLESH AGAINST THE SHREEKING OF TIRES AND THE GRINDING OF STEEL This is a really good and gritty movie about demolition derby drivers, the kind that do the figure 8 style races. It was released in 1969 and like Spider Baby is shot in effective b/w. Unlike some other hotrod movies of the time this film is really rather despairing and well done and has little of the shlocky teenage angst the other films of this short lived genre tried to convey. These are all older guys and this is their life. They are not “rebelling” they just trying to survive by making a living at the only thing they know how to do. The acting is all pretty good with handsome Dick Davalos as the brooding, silent but determined new guy to the track. Sid Haig returns to a Jack Hill production as a really edgy driver who has had his brains jostled around one too many times. There is also a fine early role by Ellen McRae. If the name does not ring a bell she would soon change her name to Ellen Burnstyn and she would become famous for her roles in Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore and The Exorcist. A really moody movie and one of Hill’s best.
Tarzan the Apeman 1932/Director: W.S. Van Dyke / Screeplay: Edgar Rice Burroughs (novel)Cyril Hume (adaptation) Cast: Johnny Weissmuller, Neil Hamilton, Maureen O'Sullivan, C. Aubrey Smith, Doris Lloyd, Forrester Harvey, Ivory Williams I recently picked up all the Tarzan movies on DVD here in Beijing and have watched them all a couple times except for Tarzan’s New York Adventure which I never really liked even as a kid, but one night I will pop it in and give it a go. Tarzan the Ape Man was the 1st of the Tarzan films from MGM and Johnny Weissmulller at the time was under contract with the BVD underwear company and MGM had to do some quick bargaining to allow BVD’s spokesman to appear clad only in a loincloth. The movie only generally follows the Edgar Rice Burroughs narrative of the adventures of Lord Greystoke who is the sole infant survivor of a plane crash in the African Jungle, near the fabled Mutia Escarpment. Rather this movie takes up with the arrival of Jane Parker, played perfectly by Maureen O’Sullivan, in Africa to assist her aging father in his duties there. A safari is soon set up to go to the escarpment in search of the elephant’s graveyard, a veritable Fort Knox of ivory. Tarzan comes in to the story gradually and the direction by W.S Van Dyke in some instances is pretty good, but in others pretty shoddy. For instance in the early scenes where the characters are talking about images that are obviously being back-projected as the proportion and contrast is utterly wrong. Johnny Weismuller plays a great Tarzan, the greatest of them all in the first three films by MGM. This went not without protest from Burroughs who objected to the dumbing down of his character and the fact there were no plans for Lord Greystoke to be anything other than a monosyllabic Adonis. And Weissmuller does look great, as does Maureen O’Sullivan. It is a great little movie that caused a stir in its day. Some interesting things to look for are the trapezes Tarzan uses for vines and the men in ape costumes that resemble in some way the costumes that Stanley Kubrick used for the apes in 2001: A Space Odyssey. We are also introduced the recurring “bad bawana” and “good bawana” characters. Some other cool tidbits is that in no film did Tarzan ever utter the oft quoted line: Me Tarzan. You Jane. Also, there is no such thing as an elephant’s graveyard despite the perpetually generated myth that there is. It was a concoction of Edgar Rice Burroughs, and last, the famous Tarzan yell is the voice of sound man Douglas Sheaer. It is normal call that is monkeyed with electronically then played backwards.
In all these movies my favorite parts are usually the elaborate sets and backgrounds that look simply surreal in black and white.
Tarzan and His Mate 1934/Director: Cedric Gibbons / Screenplay: Edgar Rice Burroughs (characters)Leon Gordon (adaptation) Cast: Johnny Weissmuller, Maureen O'Sullivan, Neil Hamilton, Paul Cavanagh, Forrester Harvey, Nathan Curry Tarzan and his Mate was the next Tarzan movie from MGM and it surpasses the original by far. It is considered by many Tarzan fans to the best Tarzan movie of all time, hands down. While Weissmuller still plays a simple minded Tarzan there can be no denying the sexual energy between him and Maureen O’ Sullivan. O’ Sullivan appears so scantily clad it is exhilarating for any time in history, much less 1934 The DVD the deleted nude under footage of Jane swimming with Tarzan. It is not, unfortunately, really Maureen O’Sullivan. She does flash her breasts as she emerges from the water and the nude silhouette undressing in a tent scene. Her costume was so skimpy and revealing it prompted the creation of the Hayes Office, a censorship committee that soon had influence over the entire industry. The jungle scenes are more elaborate and the action is directed better by the more visionary Cedric Gibbons though there were conflicts and in early films two other directors were listed at different times. Some people claim that James McKay actually directed the bulk of the film but on the new DVD version Gibbons is the credited director. It was his first directing job, as he was MGM’s brilliant art director prior to this film. To be honest, along with the blatant sexuality of the film there is a rather strong violent aspect to the movie as well and the next two movies were toned down in both areas considerably. There was not much being done in 1934 that was like thins one. The bad bawana is played creepily by Paul Cavanagh. He is looks down on the savage Tarzan as no more than a real ape and spies on Jane as she undresses in her tent. The action involves a return to Africa by good bawana (although in the 1st film I did not think he was so good really) Harry Holt, played again by Neil Hamilton.
The "natives" are stereotyped to the point of comedy and makes for many unintentional laughs. Most definitely a great movie with lots of history behind it. Check it out if you like ape men and jungle girls... and who doesn't?
UNBEARABLE SUSPENSE AND SADISTIC TERROR The Z-movie classic Astro-Zombies comes from exploitation “genius” Ted V. Mikels, who also brought us such timeless family classics as The Doll Squad with Tura Satana and his undisputed magnum opus The Corpse Grinders. Astro-Zombies was co-written by M*A*S*H’s Wayne Rogers and it also stars as a mad scientist John Carradine who is accompanied by a classic hunch back assistant who resents his private experiments on girls strapped to tables in bikinis being interrupted by the mad doctor all of the time. The dialog (as this trailer attests to) is timeless and Tura Satana is devilishly naughty and murderous, just the way we like her.
Some people really diss this gem on the net as if it is supposed to be something other than it is: a cheap, low budjet drive-in movie shclock-fest. One cruel critic complains that he cannot keep his eyes open during viewings of it. So what! I have the same problem with The Titanic and Dances with Wolves usually and those movies won Oscars. And to be clear I love great and genuinely good movies. Those two movies are not bad movies of course in any way, they are in fact excellent movies. Perfect movies, okay. But that does not mean I prefer them over trash like Astro Zombies all of the time. Sometimes I am in the mood for a true camp classic.
I am perplexed by commentors who take what is universally accpeted as a bad movie (albeit a GOOD bad movie in most people's view) then write a review about how bad a movie they think it is. Yes... it is a bad movie! And I think I have seen Astro Zombies about a dozen times and if I had a copy here in China now I would pop it in the DVD player and have a great time with it. They just do not make bad movies like this anymore. Nowadays bad movies are just plain bad and will never, ever in a million years hold a revered position in cult film history the way Astro Zombies, The Corpse Grinders and The Doll Squad do. In a couple posts check out the trailer for Corpse Grinders I am preparing. By the way, if you research "Corpse Grinder" in some variation on the net (of course, why would anybody be seacrching the word corpse grinder in any variation on the net) you will find that that is also the name of the singer of the Grindcore Death Metal band Cannibal Corpse. Maybe I will do a post on them soon. If you are curious a little about Ted V. Mikels and Astro Zombies I refer you to an interview with Mikels about the making of the film: http://www.dvdmaniacs.net/Features/ted_mikels.html
FASTER PUSSYCAT, KILL! KILL! WHAT YOU GOT FOR SIN VARLA A short but good quality clip from the middle of Faster Pussycat. The b/w photography is excellent and the acting here is tough and rugged, just like the hardened vixens who are delivering the lines. I am searching for a good quality trailer online to embed the link here but so far no luck. I did have one posted in this place previously but that clip is no longer available for some reason. When a watchable trailer emerges I will get on it and post it here for you. So I changed the trailer to this pretty high quality clip from what is about the middle of the film. It is a tough talkin' scene between Varla and Linda on how to the handle the hapless hostage if she gets out of line. Great stuff.
One Eyed Jacks Director: Marlon Brando/Screenplay: Charles Neider (novel) Guy Trosper (screenplay)/
Cast: Marlon Brando, Karl Malden, Katy Jurado, Pina Pellicer, Ben Johnson, Slim Pickens, Elisha Cook Jr, Tim Carrey, Larry Duran, Sam Gilman This 1961 Western is really a pretty good movie I never get tired of watching while at the same time not a perfectly flawless work. It deserves some of the criticism it gets yet is in no way deserving of the harsh abuse sometimes thrown at it. It is Brando’s only work as a director and the movie has so much historic behind the scenes drama that it rivals the epic adventure on the screen. Stanley Kubrick was slated to direct the film originally and Sam Peckinpah was to write the script. Kubrick fired Peckinpah who used his idea for the film as the inspiration for his later Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid. There were a couple more script writers before the script got to a workable state by Guy Trosper. However Kubrick and Brando simply could not work together and Kubrick bitterly left and Brando took over chores as director under the guidance of his own film company. His first big decision was to replace Spencer Tracy as Dad Longworth and replace him with movie pal Karl Malden. They worked on several films together including A Streetcr Named Desire and On the Waterfront. Critics claim Brando was not secure with his job as first time director and the movie is famous for having set records at that time for the amount of film used by Brando for all his retakes. It was said to be six times the amount usually used and his finished product was a five hour psychological Western that the studio felt was too long and rambling. They trimmed it down to its current running time of almost 2 ½ hours much to Brando’s chagrin and he was so devastated he never directed again. To be fair I am not sure if this move would have worked at five hours long and feel the studio had some rights in making the movie presentable to the general public. But that said, I would like to see some of the missing footage and see the alternate ending were Pina Pellicer’s fragile character Louisa is shot in the back by Dad Longworth and dies. This was Brando’s vision of the ending and the studio gave it the definitely more up beat ending it has now. Maybe Brando was inexperienced as a director but he seems to have gotten the feel for it quick enough and the movie ultimatley is very entertaining and well made and I have always held this movie in high regard. In fact it is stunning in some ways both visually and narratively. Peckinpah's script originally based the Johnny Rio character on Billy the Kid and Brando did not want to play such an obvious outlaw and instead crafted the morally ambivalent Rio into one of the most genuinely interesting film characters in history. The cinematography is beautiful and it is the only Western I can think of that takes place on a beautiful ocean coast. It looks like the beaches around Monterey or Carmel. The color is lush and the acting is perfect and the dialog and delivery is priceless. GET UP YOU SCUM SUCKING PIG! GET UP! The basic plot is one of deep revenge after Johnny Rio is deserted by friend and fellow bank robber Dad Longworth in Sonora Mexico. Longworth high tails it north with all the horses and gold and no boots rather than risk his life returning with fresh horses to pinned down Johnny Rio. After five long years in a stinking hell hole of a Mexican prison he escapes with compadre Chico Modesto played by Larry Duran. He wastes no time in turning all his attention to tracking down and getting his revenge on the man who betrayed him. Along the way he hooks up with saddle tramp bandits Ben Johnson and Sam Gilman. Johnson is excellent as the shifty, cowardly, and ruthless Bob Amory. Together they plan a bank job in the city where Dad Longworth is now the "redeemed" sheriff. He rules the town with a high hand and lots of hair trigger back up shot-gun led by brutish deputy Lon played by Slim Pickens.
Rio works his way back to the edge of Dad’s life enough to charm and shame his innocent step-daughter played convincingly by demure Pina Pellicer. Her mother is played by Katy Jurado and she is protective of her little girl and was suspicious of the overly charming Rio from the first time they all had dinner together. Things go askew when Dad crushes Rio’s trigger hand after Rio guns down the always freaky Tim Carrey in a great barroom scene. Carrey is drunk and manhandling a bargirl, at one point shoving her face in a bowl of chili extolling "thats 's how you gotta treat 'em". Rio is guilt ridden over his own misdeeds the night before with Louisa and confronts the less subtle mysogonist. He throws some good looking punches (he was once a boxer) at bigger Carrey and orders him as he lays on the floor to “Get up you tub of guts!” After his hand is shattered he convalesces at a tiny fishing village run by some Chinese fishermen and some good and tense interaction occurs between the stir crazy cowboys as they wait for Rio’s hand to heal. In one scene (included in clip form here) Rio becomes enraged at Bob Amory simply for referring to Louisa as a “little jumpin’ bean” and in the best line of the movie almost commands him to “Get up! You scum sucking pig. Get up!”
It may not be a stretch of a movie watchers imagination to guess Rio has a change of heart and decides to forego his once consuming revenge after learning Louisa is pregnant. He cancels the bank job and decides to ride north and lay low but this does not sit well with Amory and Harvey. Loyal Chico Modesto is murdered and Amory and Harvey clumsily try to pull off the bank job alone and a little girl is killed. Elisha Cook Jr. nails Amory before he eats some hot lead himself and Rio is captured on the outskirts of town and sentenced to be hanged without a trial. The great scenes go and on and despite some implausibility’s here and there one can go with it and enjoy it thoroughly. The break out scene is great and Rio whoops the bigger and pot bellied Lon to pieces in the cell. Of course it ends in a shoot around a water fountain and Dad Longworth is killed and Rio high tails it to the wilderness with the promise of returning one spring night.
Though the movie is long at 141 minutes the time does not drag by at all. The little synopsis I laid out above hardly does the scenes justice. It is truly an epic western and an underrated movie but it definitely has gained a reputation as a true cult classic with a devoted following.
On a sad closing note lovely Pina Pellicer committed suicide not long after the movie was released. She and Brando had an affair during the filming and to what degree this played a part I am not sure. I have read strange stories of how Brando gave her amphetamines to increase her nervous appearance for the camera but I do not know if these stories are true. He is a much maligned man in many ways and I tend to like his work but I am not sure about all the stories I hear about his personal life. Some seem unbelievable. I could not find that much information on Pellicer on the net nor could I find a decent still of her from the movie and the picture posted above is from another film. I was surprised really and will do some research and see if I can at least find some good pictures. Her performance here was so sweet and delicate. It is a tragic footnote to an otherwise immortal film.
Two female victims frantically run down the hall after watching 
Okay the ad in the classified said no deposit necessary and 1st month's ulities free. Now Ms Pennypincher realizes, if it sounds too good to be true then it probably is.
The happy ex-con thinks of all the fringe benefits his new job has... 
I have hardly even read a quarter of the Sherlock Holmes adventures that originally appeared in the Strand magazine (and the illustrations by Sidney Paget, to me, look like Rathbone, though have it on good account by my friend and G.K. Chesterton devotee Delsen Wall that Doyle did not like the Paget drawing all that much) , but when I read or reread the tales I fashion the image of Holmes in my mind after Rathbone’s portrayal. I will be frank, I have not seen another Holmes I like except for the performance by Peter Cushing in the fine Hammer version of the Hound of the Baskervilles.
November 2009January 2010
WIDGETIZE