The Mummy Movie Season kicks off inauspiciously with Time Walker (1982). I watched this in snatched moments over four days, probably not the ideal way to watch a movie but I don’t think it would be improved at all by a continuous viewing.
The premise has promise – a mummy taken from an Egyptian tomb turns out to be an alien - but the promising premise is sadly squandered in this badly bungled, bargain basement, bandaged baddie bilge.
The first problem is the star, Ben ‘Alias Smith And Jones’ Murphy in the role of ProfessorDouglas McCadden. He’s either a.) wishing he were doing something else or b.) not a very good actor or c.) both. In any case he’s as wooden as a cricket bat but with less charisma.
The script (perhaps ‘teleplay’ would be nearer the mark) was obviously written to comply with the overriding directive – make it cheap! Thus the entire opening sequence comprises stock footage of the Pyramids and the entrance to a temple (supposedly the façade of Tutenkhamun’s tomb). Inside are McCadden and some other archeologist fellow. There’s an earthquake which causes a secret wall to collapse and inside is a sarcophagus (along the skeletal remains of a pharoahonic cortege).
So it is shipped to the Professor’s college in California, to be opened by….his students! This is a common set up in countless mummy (and ‘cursed artefact’ movies in general). You would expect a discovery of this magnitude to be handled by the world’s leading archeological specialists, in a strictly controlled environment and with the necessary security arrangements, not by a bunch of inept, horny, beer swilling teens in a modest laboratory which anyone can enter, on the science faculty of a minor college. But I could be out of touch, maybe it really does happen like that. They also seem to have their own on-site nuclear reactor…
The incompetence of the students in charge of X-Raying the contents of the sarcophogus leads to the Mummy being exposed to an overdose of radiation and we all know what that means. On the day that the press reporters (seemingly from the local rag) are convened to witness the grand opening, surprise, surprise! The Mummy’s not at home.
But his coffin does contain a green mould that turns out to be a flesh eating fungus. As it’s also all over his bandages, anyone he touches will be infected. And the theft of five crystals from a very obvious secret compartment in the base of the sarcophogus (which had been overlooked by everyone except the thieving bellend student) means that he’ll be ‘touching’ quite a few people in his quest to recover the glowing gems which somehow enable him to teleport back to his own planet. And at the end that’s what he does, vanishing in a blue glare and taking the willing McCadden with him.
Although there seems to be a lot going on, nothing really happens, we’re left with a lot of talking, endless Mummy POV shots (tinted green), some very brief ‘attacks’ and some more talking. There’s a crappy, Ancient Egypt themed ‘Frat party’ and a listless police investigation (conducted by the Campus Cop). Direction is pedestrian, acting just adequate, SFX cheap, and the whole perfunctory thing is as bleak as the moon and equally lacking in atmosphere and gravity. Instead of ‘The End’, the final caption warns the audience ‘To be continued….’ Luckily we never saw the return of this monster from the Id….stupid and insipid.
Paddington/Paddington 2. Just what this awful time calls for; two perfectly sunny and charming instant classics of British cinema.
Carry On Up The Jungle/Carry On Loving. If 1970 could be described as Hammer's annus horribilis it's pretty evident that the Carry On team were having bother with their annus too. Jungle is a huge misfire that feels like it was thrown together without a proper story and little more than a series of crude, rather than clever, double entendres to offer. The writing is much more like the feeble stuff that the Carry On TV series consisted of than the often brilliant movies. Terry Scott is awfully weak in the cod Tarzan role that was surely intended for Jim Dale. Valerie Leon turns up as a sort of African Amazon in a bit that might have been intended as a parody of Hammer's exotics, such as Slave Girls. Watching it tonight I realised that this was probably the film that Queen Kong aspired to be. Loving is a little better in that there's a bit more to the characters but, like most of the series entries that followed, it's mostly uninspired. One plus is that poor Imogen Hassall has a reasonably big role and shows a knack for comedy, particularly when her character is in dowdy mode.
Inferior remake, given a period makeover (set in Victorian / Edwardian England). It lacks the light hearted first half of the ’37 version and the antagonists are pretty bland. The serial wifekiller looks somewhat like John Travolta and the attempts to build suspense come to nothing. Admittedly, Basil Rathbone's edgy, twitching, shell shocked madman was a hard act to follow, but this comes nowhere near.
The title is a bit of a misnomer, but it’s snappier than “Charlie Chan In Retfordshire”, the fictional English county where the action mainly takes place. This time Charlie is asked to clear an innocent man due to be hanged for the murder of a friend among the huntin’fishin’shootin’ set. The film is peppered with offensive racial stereotypes - the English are portrayed as a race of either superficial, privileged, hedonistic, heavy drinking toffs, or dimwitted, headscratching, inarticulate Cockneys – including the local police inspector! It’s outrageous!
Another constant of the series initiated in this film is the “mystery arm through the window” weilding pistol, knife or other lethal weapon and a narrow escape for Charlie. There’s footage of an actual fox hunt and some neat stunt riding, and this is also the one which introduces the hereafter customary revelation that the culprit is always the one nobody suspects. Ray(mond) Milland has a supporting role and Madge (White Zombie) Bellamy is among the socialites.
The second film in Fox’s Charlie Chan series (the first is lost) gives us our first sight of Warner Oland in the role. Bela Lugosi co-stars as a phoney astrologer and Dwight Frye plays a butler as if he were Renfield. The plot is adapted from Earl Derr Biggers’ homonymous novel whose title supposedly comes from an old saying: "Death is a black camel that kneels unbidden at every gate."
It establishes the format which would continue throughout the series – contrived and convoluted plot, plethora of suspects, perfunctory romance, countless red herrings, the trap to make the killer give the game away, numerous cod-Chinese aphorisms (“Can cut off monkey's tail, but he is still monkey”) and witty ripostes ("Inspector, you need a lie-detector...an invention that detects instantly when anyone is telling a lie." “Oh, I see. You mean a wife. I have one”), plus the inevitable comedy relief character, in this case Kashimo, the bumbling Japanese assistant assigned to Charlie by the Honolulu Police Department - in the original Chan novels, Charlie has an almost xenophobic disdain for the citizens of the Land Of The Rising Sun.
The location filming in Hawaii adds local colour, but the cumbersome equipment of the time means these scenes are rather static and the rhythm sedate, while the interior/studio scenes seem to flow better, notwithstanding a few awkward pauses and an occasional abrupt edit.
The Assassination Bureau, in which journalist Diana Rigg engages the head of an assassin-for-hire organisation (Oliver Reed) to kill ... himself. The two stars shine in this period romp and there's a fun supporting cast. It lacks the directorial touch of a Richard Lester or maybe a Blake Edwards to turn it into a classic but it's well worth a look.
The Seventh Survivor, in which the survivors of a U-Boat attack are taken in by lighthouse keepers. Among the group are a British agent and a German agent. All the right ingredients then for a wartime comedy thriller and this one passes the time nicely enough that I'm not going to nitpick the plot. The capable cast includes Martita Hunt who always seems to be the same age in everything.
The Day of the Locust, a criminally long, unfocused drama set in 1930s Hollywood. I don't know why I'm supposed to be interested in the characters, who are as dull as they are unconvincing, or what passes for a story. Donald Sutherland plays a character called Homer Simpson. Karen Black was nominated for a Golden Globe for her role as a hooker/actress. Black is an acclaimed actress with multiple awards to her name but I've mostly found her to be absolutely atrocious. I don't know if this is because her severe squint is so distracting or whether she really is that bad. For no apparent reason, the film ends on gruesome scenes of mob violence that might well have influenced Romero's Dawn of the Dead. These scenes are so pretentiously directed by John Schlesinger that I laughed out loud. Dreadful, self-important crap.
Rising Damp, the feature film of ITV's best sitcom which is included in the series' complete boxset (a warning for anyone planning to watch that set - series 4 is presented out of continuity sequence which is a little annoying as there is some plot progression). The film is very much a "damp" squib as it lazily rehashes plots and jokes from the series and most of the new material (a brief Grease parody, for instance) is terrible. There is one nice, touching scene between Rigsby and Philip where we learn a truth about the latter that always seemed like a bit of unspoken subtext in the series. Otherwise, and despite a few decent performances, it's terrible. Made by Roy Skeggs' company and with a few Hammer alumni behind the scenes.
ETA: One of the worst things about the film is the set which replaces the sitcom's wonderfully grotty rooms (including a poster for a Tarzan movie) with much blander interiors.
Another José Larraz effort, this is one of those ambiguous affairs where what happens may be down to machinations, madness or manifestations of the supernatural.
The setting is a plantation in India in 1930. Lots of stock footage (as in lots), decent interior sets but so slow and lacking in incident, with an excess of expositionary dialogues and no mystery, suspense or surprises it soon outstays its welcome, and eventually peters out into an unconclusive ending.
Genre regular Rosalba Neri is in it for the first five minutes and the female lead is Mary Maude in her second Spanish picture, having appeared the same year in Narciso Ibañez Serrador’s La Residencia.
It didn’t help that I saw an old and damaged VHS rip in which all the colours had faded to pinky red, but I suspect even a pristine restored edition wouldn’t bring this one to life.
This is another film I’d never heard of and whose existence I discovered by chance after watching a video of an old British comedy show (At Last, The 1948 Show)….just two hours after I first heard of it I’d watched it. The wonders of technology – I remember the ‘good old days’ when the time between first reading about a film and actually getting to see it could be measured in years, depending mainly on TV programme planners.
La Familia Vourdalak de Alexie Tolstoi, one of the thirteen episodes of Televisión Española's El Quinto Jinete (The Fifth Horseman, 1975-6). Contemporay sex-symbol (also a fine actress) Charo López starred as a sexy vampire in an otherwise unremarkable and lacklustre adaptation of the story done so much better by Mario Bava.
I, Tonya, a semi drama-documentary depiction of figure skater Tonya Harding and the "incident" in which her rival was assaulted. This is lovely stuff that knows that it's true story is almost unbelievable and has fun with the idea, We even get some footage of the real people in the closing credits to prove that they really were absurdly cartoonish people. Script, direction, performances, music are all first rate. Highly recommended.
Director Richard Oswald’s quasi-remake of his 1919 portmanteau film turns out to be a semi-anthology.
A journalist named Richard Briggs (Harald Paulsen) pursues an unhinged (and unnamed) wife murdering inventor (Paul Weggener) through four distinct episodes based on / inspired by classic horror tales – guess which ones;
(1) The inventor’s wife’s black cat upsets one of his experiments, the inventor flies into a rage and kills the woman and bricks up the body in the wall of his cellar laboratory. The reporter, who had heard the woman’s screams while driving past, returns four days later with the police – the cat, which has been accidentally entombed with its mistress gives the game away.
The murderer flees into (2) a nearby travelling carnival’s Chamber of Horrors, exhibiting animatronic models of historical criminals (Mechanischen Museum). The journalist follows, there’s a fight, the killer escapes again, arriving at a nearby hospital where he deliberately acts insane in order to be sent to the nearby mental institution and thus give the authorities the slip.
But (3) the lunatics have taken over the asylum and when Briggs arrives the increasingly eccentric behaviour of the asylum’s director, staff and dinner guests and their refusal to let him leave make him realise his life is at risk. When his original quarry joins the party and starts inciting the loonies to murder, it looks like it’s curtains. Luckily, the police arrive in the nick of time but their man escapes again.
Some years pass and the paper where our newshound works receives an anonymous letter denouncing the existence of (4) a Suicide Club. Sent to check it out the investigator discovers that the man behind said ‘Selbstmörderklub’ is none other than…you guessed it. Defying death yet again, Briggs finally traps the elusive wife murderer and the men from Scotland Yard arrive to make the arrest.
A slightly lightweight and rather irregularly paced film, but nonetheless entertaining and fun to watch. The balance between the comedic and the horrific is well maintained and Paul Weggener, with his Slavic features and larger than life screen presence carries the film (Paulsen doesn’t leave much of an impression in the ‘hero’s role). The asylum sequence is both funny and disturbing, with some memorable performances and an appropriately anarchistic tone: there’s virtuoso ballad singing, delusional declamations, chamber music, violent fits, piano playing, grandilocuent speeches, brawling, pop-eyed oddballs in evening dress – it could be a sequence from a Marx Brothers movie with a more sinister edge.
The cinematography occasionally harks back to (or perhaps spoofs) German Expressionism while at the same the Anglicised names and supposed London locations seem to be foreshadowing the German cinema’s 1960s obssession with setting their Krimis in an imagined sterotypical English landscape.
Sunstruck, in which schoolteacher Harry Secombe gets a job in the Australian outback. Surprisingly charming family comedy, typically Aussie in its down-to-earth approach and its obsessive approach to the consumption of beer. Harry does very well.
Warn That Man, in which a German actor poses as his aristocratic double in a plot to capture a British war leader. Enjoyable wartime comedy thriller with a good cast that includes Gordon Harker.
GUNN, in which Peter Gunn investigates something or other while inappropriately young women inexplicably fling themselves at him. Blake Edwards breaks off from a run of massive hits to revive his TV PI hit in a cheap-looking and under-cast movie. Craig Stevens is somehow both bland and sleazy in the title role in the way that only American leading men of a certain age manage to be. Only the classic theme music thrills.
It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, in which various characters race to be first to dig up stolen loot. It's 40+ years since I last watched this on its ITV premiere when ad breaks pushed it to a(n even more) ludicrous running time. As it is, this is about 150 minutes of tiresome slapstick and top comedy actors yelling at each other until I just wanted to start yelling myself. Apparently some people consider this one of the funniest films ever made. I didn't laugh once, except nervously at the thought that the original roadshow version ran over three hours. Low point: Jerry Lewis gurning in a wordless cameo.
To Joy, in which we look back at the relationship between two musicians after the untimely death of the wife. Typically profound, funny, harrowing, heart-wrenching and truthful stuff from Ingmar Bergman. He's probably the only film maker who regularly makes me feel it in my stomach as well as stimulating my intellect.
The Dark Knight. The first superhero film to really feel like an epic although it's really driven by a single performance, Heath Ledger's extraordinary turn as The Joker.
Duel at Diablo, in which a dwindling number of US cavalry and a few civilians are trapped in a canyon by a band of Apaches. Tense, action-packed and violent western that comes with the traditional baggage of presenting Native Americans as one-note baddies to be disposed of. It's indicative of how big the western genre still was in the mid-60s that they were able to assemble such an eclectic cast of actors: James Garner, Sidney Poitier, Bibi Andersson, Dennis Weaver and Bill Travers. I was struck by how violent the film was with multiple arrow shootings, tortures and an attempted rape and decided to check the BBFC site only to find that it was originally released uncut as A certificate but it has always been a 15 on home video. Compared with some of the ratings handed out to the likes of Hammer films it does make me wonder whether the censors were more lenient with Hollywood studio product than they were with small British independents. Director Ralph Nelson's next western would be the notorious charnel house that is Soldier Blue.
Hail the Conquering Hero, in which medically-discharged marine Eddie Bracken is mistakenly lionised as a hero in his home town. One of Preston Sturges' best comedies and the second of two that he made back-to-back with Bracken, the other being the amazing The Miracle of Morgan's Creek, the poster for which can be briefly glimpsed at the railway station scene at the end.
Operation Mad Ball, in which Jack Lemmon organises an illicit soldiers/nurses dance in France just after WWII. Another very modest Lemmon comedy from the very weak Mill Creek set. Sammy Davis sings the title song, Mickey Rooney turns up for an obnoxious guest appearance.
The Desperate Hours, in which three escaped criminals hide out in a suburban home. Humphrey Bogart's compelling performance is the main draw in this influential film, the title of which was borrowed by episodes of both Steptoe and Son and Porridge.
The Palm Beach Story, in which Claudette Colbert screwballishly leaves Joel McCrea even though they're madly in love. Preston Sturges' comedy is wildly overrated, convoluted and rarely amusing. There's an extended scene on a train with a hunting club that made me want a shotgun of my very own. To make matters worse, Rudy Vallee has a major role and the old lech has creeped me out since I saw him interviewed in (I think) The RKO Story in which he boasted that his nickname back in the day was "The Man with the Cock in His Voice". Let them make a biopic of that! The highlight of the film is the opening credits which delivers at breakneck speed the story of what happened to our characters before this story begins. Then it's all downhill...
The Great Moment, in which Joel McCrea invents anaesthesia. This time Preston Sturges, one of cinema's greatest masters of sophisticated comedy, delivers ... a quite dreadful biopic that shoehorns in some badly misjudged comedy moments.
Three for the Show, in which Broadway musical writer (Jack Lemmon) comes out of the US Airforce to discover that he'd been reported dead and his wife (Betty Grable) has married his friend and writing partner (Gower Champion). Hijinks ensue and several standards are sung. Light, serviceable and forgettable, apart from the Gershwin covers which are now stuck in my head.
The Notorious Landlady, in which newly-appointed diplomat Jack Lemmon rents a London apartment from, and falls in love with, Kim Novak who is suspected of murdering her husband. Tonally bizarre film that starts off as a laughless comedy before taking a sharp turn into thrill-less thriller ending up in embarrassing slapstick. There's plenty of star power - Fred Astaire, Lionel Jeffries, even Henry Daniel turns up in a small role but the script from the usually reliable Blake Edwards and Larry Gelbart is a total mess that looks like it was made up as it went along.
Fantastic Voyage, the miniaturised sub inside the human body SF that they keep threatening to remake. It has not aged well but it's still fun. The best things about it are probably Leonard Rosenman's score and Donald Pleasence, oh and Racquel Welch in a skintight wetsuit. Apart from that, you can chuckle at the plotholes and the bits that seem to have come straight out of Airplane! Notable for having inspired at least two Doctor Who stories: The Invisible Enemy (in which the enemy is not invisible; it's a crustacean so awkwardly constructed that it has to be wheeled about on its arse) and Into the Dalek.
The Big Money, in which Ian Carmichael is the least successful member of a family of crooks until he pinches a suitcase full of counterfeit pound notes. I watched this with a bizarre sort of fascination, so misguided is its script. There's not a tolerable character in the whole thing. The thing about petty crooks in movies is that they really need to be stealing from faceless authorities like banks or other organisations but the family of crooks here are pinching wallets from ordinary punters or books from libraries, so there's something immediately repellent about them. Then they ostracise Carmichael after he accidentally steals too big and he stays ostracised when you might think that some sort of redemption might provide a bit of humanity to the proceedings. Then Carmichael has to pass off the forged money, again in ordinary small businesses, in order to launder it to try to impress the awful, gold-digging barmaid that he has fallen for. She's so ghastly that she even steals money from him to buy herself a mink coat. The "happy" ending is that she somehow has an unearned change of character and falls in love with him when he goes to prison and exonerates her. Horrible stuff.
Sweet Country, an Australian "western" in which an Aboriginal man goes on the run after killing a deranged, rapey "whitefella". It's perfectly fine but I suppose I was hoping for more given that it has had mainly stellar reviews. It never reaches the heights of the great Australian films of the 1970s like The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith.
The film debut of Voodoo in the cinema features one of Bela Lugosi’s most celebrated performances, which is just as well because the rest of the cast are lousy. Added to the silent-era style, over-gesticulating, exaggeratedly melodramatic, theatrical physicality of their performances, their line deliveries ironically lead one to think that they, and not Lugosi, are barely acquainted with the natural rhythms and speech patterns of the English language. In Bela’s case, his alien cadences lend the character a layer of sinister strangeness, but the rest of the company seem like they’ve been recruited from an inept amateur dramatics society.
Apart from Lugosi, the saving graces of the picture are the atmospheric sets (courtesy of Universal) and dreamlike B/W photography, plus Legendre’s rag-tag troupe of living dead slaves, who are effectively creepy rather than truly scary.
Director Victor Halperin exhibits the odd interesting composition and there’s some commendable experimentation with low key lighting, split screen, wipes, disolves etc. The infamous scene of the zombie toppling into the sugar cane grinder still raises a shudder while the running gag ‘excuse me, have you got a match’ remains eternally tiresome.
As I noted when reviewing Ritual (2002), the remake of 1943’s classic I Walked With A Zombie, the basic premise of White Zombie is tacked on to the end of that picture as a kind of reversed coda; the antagonist relishing the unresisting state of his zombie bride rather than experiencing Beaumont’s remorse at her unresponsiveness.
Twice-Told Tales, in which Vincent Price takes the lead in three adaptations of Nathaniel Hawthorne stories. Incredibly, this is two hours long which surely must have made it one of the longest horror movies up to this time (1963). That's a real problem, particularly as the first two stories are awfully similar - both feature triangles of a sort and plots that involve chemical experiments that have tragic effects on the human body. Things perk up a bit in the final tale, an adaptation of The House of the Seven Gables, which has a few grisly bits. All three stories have small casts and are shot on cheap, cramped sets, very much lacking the visual style of Roger Corman's Poe adaptations, which clearly inspired this film. I'm certainly glad I didn't have to watch this late at night with half an hour of adverts to extend the running time beyond endurance.
Recoil, in which Elizabeth Sellars fake romances the man who killed her father. Modest crime drama offers the opportunity to look at Sellars' startling beauty so that's nice. I've just learned that she only died in December at the age of 98.
Goin' South, a comedy western in which Mary Steenburgen marries outlaw Jack Nicholson to save him from hanging. Steenburgen, in her debut, is adorable but Nicholson, who also directs, goes way over the top, as do Christopher Lloyd and John Belushi (completely wasted as a Mexican).
Just William's Luck, Val Guest's adaptation of the Richmal Crompton stories about the mischievous schoolboy. I loved these books as a child, although I was always puzzled as to why William Brown's lifestyle bore no relation to that of me or my friends. The spooky bit: William and his gang decide to fake a haunting in a mansion.
The Dummy Talks, in which there is a murder backstage at a variety theatre. That means we're going to get a lot of variety acts; fortunately, they are mostly decent ones. Jack Warner makes his film debut - in the starring role no less - in his late 40s; Ivy Benson, of Dance Band fame, has a prominent role. The spooky bit: there's a faked seance to help expose the killer.
Phffft, in which Judy Holliday and Jack Lemmon get divorced and find out they're still in love. The first film from writer George Axelrod, whose comedies more often than not feel a lot more heavy-handed than they should (which explains the clunkiness of the screwball parts of Hammer's The Lady Vanishes), this one gets by on the charm of its two leads, freshly-reunited from the much better It Should Happen to You. Kim Novak makes an early appearance as a perpetually available dumb blonde of the same sort that Marilyn Monroe would portray in Axelrod's next film, The Seven Year Itch. Directed by Val Lewton protege Mark Robson.
Atomic Blonde, in which Charlize Theron is a kick-ass, lesbian agent in Berlin as the wall comes down. Brutal, pulverising fight scenes are the highlight here.
Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping, a sort of This Is Spinal Tap for the younger generation. Quite amusing with some hilariously awful lyrics but probably a lot funnier if you get the reference and know who more of the guest stars playing themselves are.
Smashing Time, musical comedy in which northern (English) lasses Lynne Redgrave and Rita Tushingham go to London. I wanted to like this one more than I did because '60s swinging London looks adorably colourful and the two leads are great but, oh my!, there are too many scenes of clumsy slapstick that go on and on and on. By the end I was more irritated than entertained.
Footsteps in the Fog, in which maid Jean Simmons blackmails Stewart Granger after he murders his wife. Entertaining stuff that feels a little like a proto-Hammer, only with fewer Gothic elements.
Moulin Rouge, the biopic of Toulouse-Lautrec. This one has been shown for decades in horribly faded prints which, considering the film's major appeal lies in its recreations of Lautrec's paintings, made it almost unwatchable. The recent restoration released on BD by the BFI at least restores the original Oscar-winning visual splendour. It doesn't stop it from being a rather lifeless portrayal of the artist though; it's really quite hard to believe that he didn't have more fun. It's of interest here though as it's the first film in which Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee appeared. (I know Lee always liked to claim he was in Hamlet but I'm not convinced that sneaking onto a set and shouting in the dark actually counts. By that token, I was in an episode of Bob Servant and at least I was invited). Each has one scene (Lee as dotty artist Seurat and Cushing as Lautrec's love rival) and both make an impact. Ballerina Colette Marchand made her feature film debut, was Oscar-nominated and only ever made two further features. A sizable hit in its day. perhaps its most lasting impact was in the amount of comedy sketches it inspired featuring kneeling comedians with shoes strapped to their knees. Like this one: https://youtu.be/Omg5YHJhoW0
The Girl with a Pistol, in which Sicilian Monica Vitti comes to Britain to shoot the lover who spurned her. Notwithstanding that this Italian comedy is absolutely terrible - unfunny, shrill, annoying and quite badly made - it has a number of points of interest. Firstly, it was nominated for an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, which is quite unbelievable, unless the Italian-language version is vastly different to the English-language one shown by Talking Pictures. Secondly, it features location shooting in various cities in Scotland and England that don't feature a lot in British films from the late '60s. It was quite fun seeing shots of Edinburgh from that period. Thirdly, there are a few well-known British faces in the cast, including Stanley Baker, Tony Booth, Corin Redgrave and Corrie's Johnny Briggs. I thought I spotted a very young James Cosmo in there as well but I can't find any confirmation of that.
I Know Where I'm Going, the charming Powell & Pressburger romance that benefits enormously from location filming in the Western Isles.
Searching for Ingmar Bergman, a personal documentary on the Swedish master by German director Margarethe von Trotta. Moderately interesting if you like Ingmar but not enormously deep or enlightening.
Wild Strawberries, in which an elderly professor takes a road trip, muses on his past and encounters various characters. One of Bergman's best-loved films and deservedly so. Woody Allen nicked a fair bit of this for Deconstructing Harry, his last really good movie.
Ratatouille, in which a rat becomes a chef. I think this may be my favourite Pixar, although a good case could be made for Up or Wall-E. I love Michael Giachinno's score and the Parisian ambiance. Star Patton Oswalt (voice of Remy) is a huge film buff and Hammer fan.
The House in the Woods, in which writer Michael Gough and his wife, Patricia Roc, in search of a quiet abode, go to stay with artist Ronald Howard. There's an interesting idea behind this one but the execution is very poor. Howard's pretentious artist has some hilarious dialogue, not helped by the examples we see of his paintings being terrible. There's a key moment where a villain is thwarted by stopping to pet a cat. The best bit is when the Larry Adler record that Howard plays obsessively finally gets the needle knocked off it. It doesn't help that Network's DVD has very poor sound, although maybe being unable to hear some of the dialogue helps.
Great news for anybody with a taste for Japanese exploitation, I stumbled across the 1973 revenge flick Sex and Fury in a decent print on Internet Archive.
https://archive.org/details/SexAndFury1973
Reiko Ike is incredible as a katana-wielding thief out to kill the people behind her father's brutal murder when she was a child - and a scene where she's ambushed in the bath only to slaughter a dozen would-be assassins naked in the snow rivals any sword fight I've ever seen.
Great arterial sprays, endless sleazy blokes and corrupt politicians fill out the rest of the bill nicely - all this, plus Scandsploitation legend Christina Lindberg in a support role and an epic final showdown.
A Canterbury Tale, in which 3 travelers find themselves in an ancient English burgh which is being terrorised by the "Glue Man" who throws glue in the hair of girls. I'd never seen this Powell & Pressburger film and thought it started out very well, almost like it was going to be an early folk horror tale but the outcome of the Glue Man plot left me feeling a bit nauseated to be honest. I don't want to go into spoilers but the violent misogyny of the character somehow being excuse or brushed off is more horrifying than if this had been an actual horror film.
I haven't seen any films for a couple of days, what with work, incipient socialising and outdoor activities in the sun drenched Jardin CMM.
My Voodoo Season is drawing to a close, with the best left to last - Sugar Hill, The Serpent And The Rainbow, Plague Of The Zombies, White Zombie and I Walked With A Zombie are the remaining titles.
“A wealthy industrialist hires the renowned hoax-buster Phillip Knight (Boris Karloff) to prove that an island he plans to develop isn't voodoo cursed. However, arriving on the island, Knight soon realizes that voodoo does exist when he discovers man-eating plants and a tribe of natives with bizarre powers.”
Perversely filmed in B/W in exotic Hawaiian locations, Voodoo Island is a rather unengaging example of the kind of low budget, low thrill ‘horror’ pictures so prevalent in 1950s US cinema.
Karloff seems to enjoy his role as a smug smart Alec who relishes scotching people’s beliefs in weird phenomena such as the Loch Ness Monster, the Yeti et al, and appears fairly sprightly at 70, wading ashore at said island and hacking his way through the jungle with brio (and a ruddy gurt machete).
The rest of the cast play their thankless roles in earnest, but the main problem is the feeble script. Apart from inventing ‘Voodoo’ goings-on in the Pacific Ocean instead of the Carribean (director Reginald LeBorg had previously directed Weird Woman (1944), which also located a ‘Voodoo Tribe’ on a South Seas island), practically the entire 78 minutes are taken up by talk, apart from the very occasional ‘horror’ scene of people being attacked and/or eaten by rubber ‘carnivorous’ plants.
Of course, ineptitude and incongruity are what make so many of these potboilers amusing to watch, and while the totally rubbish ‘tree crab’ and aforementioned ravenous shrubbery are indeed laughable, such ‘highlights’ are few and far between. Karloff gets to deliver the two most risible lines of dialogue in the whole movie; ‘ Carnivorous plants living in the water! There could be others on land – even more carnivorous!’ and urging his colleague not to resist the natives who have captured them with ‘Don’t be a fool, they’ll slaughter us to bits!’
One other notable element that adds a slight note of interest is the inclusion of a lesbian architect who makes tastefully veiled lascivious insinuations to the conventional damsel in distress. Of course, being 1957, the Sapphic siren gets killed first, leaving the way open for the macho boat captain to inveigle his way into the other girl’s…. arms.
Karloff and co are briefly held captive while the Chief (a vaguely camp white man who looks a bit like Ernest Thesiger) explains that he has led his people from island to island (but probably not all the way from Haiti), fleeing from the wicked ways of modern civilisation. ‘Don’t worry, we won’t tell anyone you’re here’ promises Karloff and the Chief replies ‘My men will show the way back to the boat. Goodbye’. Who needs a dramatic finale anyway?
(Co)incidentally, yesterday’s film was Zombie Nightmare, starring Adam West. And look! Here he is (uncredited) as a radio operator in his very first film appearance. What are the chances of that? Could it be Voodoo?
The Hurricane, in which South Sea islander Jon Hall is unjustly persecuted by the white authorities. Eventually there is a hurricane. Hall is so very, very dull, both as an actor and how his character is written, and the baddies (including Raymond Massey and John Carradine) so one-note, that this is a bit of a drag to watch, despite the slightly hilarious disaster scenes. Not one of John Ford's better directorial efforts.
Odds Against Tomorrow, in which Harry Belafonte and Robert Ryan rob a bank. The former is an indebted-to-the-mob gambling addict and the latter is a volatile racist. Both actors are superb in what is largely a character study of the two men with very little actual bank robbery. Robert Wise directs tautly. This is very close to brilliant but, unfortunately, it scuppers that with a terrible last couple of minutes. A shootout concludes with a laugh-out-loud bit of what-the-fuckery and this is followed by A MESSAGE, and a bit of a confused one at that. Well worth watching apart from that.
Copacabana, a vehicle for Groucho Marx and Carmen Miranda. There's fun to be had when Groucho is on screen, not much otherwise. It's amazing how massive Carmen Miranda was and how her image has sustained, based on very little as far as I can see.
Victor/Victoria, not the movie but a recording for Japanese TV of the Broadway version of the stage musical adapted from the film (adapted from the other film ...) in which Julie Andrews plays performer who disguises herself as a man so she can pretend to be a female impersonator. The film always felt to me like a musical was aching to burst out and only really burst into life during Julie's performances. The musical is a definite improvement.
Melody (AKA S*W*A*L*K*), in which schoolboy Mark Lester falls in love. Charming and truthful, if a bit slow, depiction of childhood. An early script from Alan Parker, several Bee Gees' numbers on the soundtrack and Doctor Who's Waris Hussein on directorial duties.
Just discovered Reggie Perrin, the 2009 remake of Rise And Fall of Reginald Perrin, starring Martin Clunes as Reggie. Despite initial misgivings it turns out to be a rather good updating and it's still very recognisably David Nobbs' creation, even if the middle class suburban ennui seems more suited to the 1970s than the 21st century. The laughter track is somewhat offputting and quite unnecessary because there is still a great deal of wit and hilarious silliness that doesn't need to be flagged up. Wendy Craig is magnificent as Reggie's Mum and Geoffrey Whitehead (Silas, son of Silas) is uncannily similar to Geoffrey 'cock up on the catering front' Palmer.
The Day It Came To Earth, in which a corpse is revived by a meteor. Very cheap, 1970s sort-of-pastiche of 50s grade-Z scifi with a hopeless monster and terrible performances. Having just checked BBC Genome it would appear that my long-standing memory of having watched this on the BBC and thinking "what is this shite doing on the BBC" is somehow a false one. Could it have turned up on Channel 4 in the early 80s? The only alternative I can think of is that I rented a pre-code VHS (the BBFC certified release was in 1996 and it certainly wasn't as late as that that I saw it).
Incidentally, the DVD I'm watching it on is a Grindhouse Double Feature from Frolic Pictures. It's paired with Tender Dracula. The programme starts with Lonely Water (quite an odd choice for a US disc), followed by trailers for The Witching (AKA Necromancy) and The Beast in the Cellar. After the first feature there is an intermission bumper and trailers for The Bloodstained Shadow and The Slayer.
Seven Days to Noon, in which a scientist steals an atom bomb and threatens to detonate in London if the government won't stop producing bombs. André Morell leads the police effort to track him down while the city is evacuated. Gripping stuff from the Boulting Brothers from a story idea by none other than James Bernard. I was reminded of The Day the Earth Caught Fire at times with its end of the world vibe and similar music cues.
Rotten to the Core, in which a gang try to rob an army payroll. More from the Boultings, this time a comedy. It's a strange effort that plays quite flat, partly due to casting issues. Somehow, the lead role is taken by Anton Rodgers. Imdb says that Peter Sellers was intended to play the lead and it would make total sense if this was the case and if it had been made a few years previously. There are parts that seem made for the likes of Lionel Jeffries and Bernard Cribbins and even character names that reference The Wrong Arm of the Law and Two Way Stretch. Ultimately, it's a bit tired and not very funny. Charlotte Rampling looks stunning though, there's a good jazz number over the titles and it's crisply shot in widescreen black and white.
Timeslip, in which an atomic scientist turns up in the Thames with a bullet in him. He "dies" on the operating table then things get really strange. Dull crime drama with some dull scifi bollocks thrown in as a red herring. This one takes the casting of imported US stars to a bit of an extreme as the leads are Gene Nelson and Faith Domergue with an "introducing" credit for Peter Arne (who is half American ... and had a very colourful life). Carl Jaffe, way down the credits, gives the best performance, somehow managing to deliver the scifi exposition with a straight face. Jaffe is German, as is Paul Hardtmuth. By the time you add Joseph Tomelty as the main detective there aren't many of the more prominent parts left for anyone with an English accent. US viewers must have been very disappointed to see Domergue turn in what they were presented as The Atomic Man when there's so little scifi in it, coming off a couple of genre classics in It Came from Beneath the Sea and This Island Earth. Charles Hawtrey has a small role as an office boy - he is in his 40s at this point. A comically over-emphatic score adds a couple of much-needed chuckles.
The Mummy Movie Season kicks off inauspiciously with Time Walker (1982). I watched this in snatched moments over four days, probably not the ideal way to watch a movie but I don’t think it would be improved at all by a continuous viewing.
The premise has promise – a mummy taken from an Egyptian tomb turns out to be an alien - but the promising premise is sadly squandered in this badly bungled, bargain basement, bandaged baddie bilge.
The first problem is the star, Ben ‘Alias Smith And Jones’ Murphy in the role of ProfessorDouglas McCadden. He’s either a.) wishing he were doing something else or b.) not a very good actor or c.) both. In any case he’s as wooden as a cricket bat but with less charisma.
The script (perhaps ‘teleplay’ would be nearer the mark) was obviously written to comply with the overriding directive – make it cheap! Thus the entire opening sequence comprises stock footage of the Pyramids and the entrance to a temple (supposedly the façade of Tutenkhamun’s tomb). Inside are McCadden and some other archeologist fellow. There’s an earthquake which causes a secret wall to collapse and inside is a sarcophagus (along the skeletal remains of a pharoahonic cortege).
So it is shipped to the Professor’s college in California, to be opened by….his students! This is a common set up in countless mummy (and ‘cursed artefact’ movies in general). You would expect a discovery of this magnitude to be handled by the world’s leading archeological specialists, in a strictly controlled environment and with the necessary security arrangements, not by a bunch of inept, horny, beer swilling teens in a modest laboratory which anyone can enter, on the science faculty of a minor college. But I could be out of touch, maybe it really does happen like that. They also seem to have their own on-site nuclear reactor…
The incompetence of the students in charge of X-Raying the contents of the sarcophogus leads to the Mummy being exposed to an overdose of radiation and we all know what that means. On the day that the press reporters (seemingly from the local rag) are convened to witness the grand opening, surprise, surprise! The Mummy’s not at home.
But his coffin does contain a green mould that turns out to be a flesh eating fungus. As it’s also all over his bandages, anyone he touches will be infected. And the theft of five crystals from a very obvious secret compartment in the base of the sarcophogus (which had been overlooked by everyone except the thieving bellend student) means that he’ll be ‘touching’ quite a few people in his quest to recover the glowing gems which somehow enable him to teleport back to his own planet. And at the end that’s what he does, vanishing in a blue glare and taking the willing McCadden with him.
Although there seems to be a lot going on, nothing really happens, we’re left with a lot of talking, endless Mummy POV shots (tinted green), some very brief ‘attacks’ and some more talking. There’s a crappy, Ancient Egypt themed ‘Frat party’ and a listless police investigation (conducted by the Campus Cop). Direction is pedestrian, acting just adequate, SFX cheap, and the whole perfunctory thing is as bleak as the moon and equally lacking in atmosphere and gravity. Instead of ‘The End’, the final caption warns the audience ‘To be continued….’ Luckily we never saw the return of this monster from the Id….stupid and insipid.
Paddington/Paddington 2. Just what this awful time calls for; two perfectly sunny and charming instant classics of British cinema.
Carry On Up The Jungle/Carry On Loving. If 1970 could be described as Hammer's annus horribilis it's pretty evident that the Carry On team were having bother with their annus too. Jungle is a huge misfire that feels like it was thrown together without a proper story and little more than a series of crude, rather than clever, double entendres to offer. The writing is much more like the feeble stuff that the Carry On TV series consisted of than the often brilliant movies. Terry Scott is awfully weak in the cod Tarzan role that was surely intended for Jim Dale. Valerie Leon turns up as a sort of African Amazon in a bit that might have been intended as a parody of Hammer's exotics, such as Slave Girls. Watching it tonight I realised that this was probably the film that Queen Kong aspired to be. Loving is a little better in that there's a bit more to the characters but, like most of the series entries that followed, it's mostly uninspired. One plus is that poor Imogen Hassall has a reasonably big role and shows a knack for comedy, particularly when her character is in dowdy mode.
Love From A Stranger (1947)
Inferior remake, given a period makeover (set in Victorian / Edwardian England). It lacks the light hearted first half of the ’37 version and the antagonists are pretty bland. The serial wifekiller looks somewhat like John Travolta and the attempts to build suspense come to nothing. Admittedly, Basil Rathbone's edgy, twitching, shell shocked madman was a hard act to follow, but this comes nowhere near.
Charlie Chan In London (1934)
The title is a bit of a misnomer, but it’s snappier than “Charlie Chan In Retfordshire”, the fictional English county where the action mainly takes place. This time Charlie is asked to clear an innocent man due to be hanged for the murder of a friend among the huntin’fishin’shootin’ set. The film is peppered with offensive racial stereotypes - the English are portrayed as a race of either superficial, privileged, hedonistic, heavy drinking toffs, or dimwitted, headscratching, inarticulate Cockneys – including the local police inspector! It’s outrageous!
Another constant of the series initiated in this film is the “mystery arm through the window” weilding pistol, knife or other lethal weapon and a narrow escape for Charlie. There’s footage of an actual fox hunt and some neat stunt riding, and this is also the one which introduces the hereafter customary revelation that the culprit is always the one nobody suspects. Ray(mond) Milland has a supporting role and Madge (White Zombie) Bellamy is among the socialites.
The Black Camel (1931)
The second film in Fox’s Charlie Chan series (the first is lost) gives us our first sight of Warner Oland in the role. Bela Lugosi co-stars as a phoney astrologer and Dwight Frye plays a butler as if he were Renfield. The plot is adapted from Earl Derr Biggers’ homonymous novel whose title supposedly comes from an old saying: "Death is a black camel that kneels unbidden at every gate."
It establishes the format which would continue throughout the series – contrived and convoluted plot, plethora of suspects, perfunctory romance, countless red herrings, the trap to make the killer give the game away, numerous cod-Chinese aphorisms (“Can cut off monkey's tail, but he is still monkey”) and witty ripostes ("Inspector, you need a lie-detector...an invention that detects instantly when anyone is telling a lie." “Oh, I see. You mean a wife. I have one”), plus the inevitable comedy relief character, in this case Kashimo, the bumbling Japanese assistant assigned to Charlie by the Honolulu Police Department - in the original Chan novels, Charlie has an almost xenophobic disdain for the citizens of the Land Of The Rising Sun.
The location filming in Hawaii adds local colour, but the cumbersome equipment of the time means these scenes are rather static and the rhythm sedate, while the interior/studio scenes seem to flow better, notwithstanding a few awkward pauses and an occasional abrupt edit.
The Assassination Bureau, in which journalist Diana Rigg engages the head of an assassin-for-hire organisation (Oliver Reed) to kill ... himself. The two stars shine in this period romp and there's a fun supporting cast. It lacks the directorial touch of a Richard Lester or maybe a Blake Edwards to turn it into a classic but it's well worth a look.
The Seventh Survivor, in which the survivors of a U-Boat attack are taken in by lighthouse keepers. Among the group are a British agent and a German agent. All the right ingredients then for a wartime comedy thriller and this one passes the time nicely enough that I'm not going to nitpick the plot. The capable cast includes Martita Hunt who always seems to be the same age in everything.
The Day of the Locust, a criminally long, unfocused drama set in 1930s Hollywood. I don't know why I'm supposed to be interested in the characters, who are as dull as they are unconvincing, or what passes for a story. Donald Sutherland plays a character called Homer Simpson. Karen Black was nominated for a Golden Globe for her role as a hooker/actress. Black is an acclaimed actress with multiple awards to her name but I've mostly found her to be absolutely atrocious. I don't know if this is because her severe squint is so distracting or whether she really is that bad. For no apparent reason, the film ends on gruesome scenes of mob violence that might well have influenced Romero's Dawn of the Dead. These scenes are so pretentiously directed by John Schlesinger that I laughed out loud. Dreadful, self-important crap.
Rising Damp, the feature film of ITV's best sitcom which is included in the series' complete boxset (a warning for anyone planning to watch that set - series 4 is presented out of continuity sequence which is a little annoying as there is some plot progression). The film is very much a "damp" squib as it lazily rehashes plots and jokes from the series and most of the new material (a brief Grease parody, for instance) is terrible. There is one nice, touching scene between Rigsby and Philip where we learn a truth about the latter that always seemed like a bit of unspoken subtext in the series. Otherwise, and despite a few decent performances, it's terrible. Made by Roy Skeggs' company and with a few Hammer alumni behind the scenes.
ETA: One of the worst things about the film is the set which replaces the sitcom's wonderfully grotty rooms (including a poster for a Tarzan movie) with much blander interiors.
La Muerte Incierta (1971)
Another José Larraz effort, this is one of those ambiguous affairs where what happens may be down to machinations, madness or manifestations of the supernatural.
The setting is a plantation in India in 1930. Lots of stock footage (as in lots), decent interior sets but so slow and lacking in incident, with an excess of expositionary dialogues and no mystery, suspense or surprises it soon outstays its welcome, and eventually peters out into an unconclusive ending.
Genre regular Rosalba Neri is in it for the first five minutes and the female lead is Mary Maude in her second Spanish picture, having appeared the same year in Narciso Ibañez Serrador’s La Residencia.
It didn’t help that I saw an old and damaged VHS rip in which all the colours had faded to pinky red, but I suspect even a pristine restored edition wouldn’t bring this one to life.
This is another film I’d never heard of and whose existence I discovered by chance after watching a video of an old British comedy show (At Last, The 1948 Show)….just two hours after I first heard of it I’d watched it. The wonders of technology – I remember the ‘good old days’ when the time between first reading about a film and actually getting to see it could be measured in years, depending mainly on TV programme planners.
La Familia Vourdalak de Alexie Tolstoi, one of the thirteen episodes of Televisión Española's El Quinto Jinete (The Fifth Horseman, 1975-6). Contemporay sex-symbol (also a fine actress) Charo López starred as a sexy vampire in an otherwise unremarkable and lacklustre adaptation of the story done so much better by Mario Bava.
I, Tonya, a semi drama-documentary depiction of figure skater Tonya Harding and the "incident" in which her rival was assaulted. This is lovely stuff that knows that it's true story is almost unbelievable and has fun with the idea, We even get some footage of the real people in the closing credits to prove that they really were absurdly cartoonish people. Script, direction, performances, music are all first rate. Highly recommended.
Unheimliche Geschichten (aka Eerie Tales, 1932)
Director Richard Oswald’s quasi-remake of his 1919 portmanteau film turns out to be a semi-anthology.
A journalist named Richard Briggs (Harald Paulsen) pursues an unhinged (and unnamed) wife murdering inventor (Paul Weggener) through four distinct episodes based on / inspired by classic horror tales – guess which ones;
(1) The inventor’s wife’s black cat upsets one of his experiments, the inventor flies into a rage and kills the woman and bricks up the body in the wall of his cellar laboratory. The reporter, who had heard the woman’s screams while driving past, returns four days later with the police – the cat, which has been accidentally entombed with its mistress gives the game away.
The murderer flees into (2) a nearby travelling carnival’s Chamber of Horrors, exhibiting animatronic models of historical criminals (Mechanischen Museum). The journalist follows, there’s a fight, the killer escapes again, arriving at a nearby hospital where he deliberately acts insane in order to be sent to the nearby mental institution and thus give the authorities the slip.
But (3) the lunatics have taken over the asylum and when Briggs arrives the increasingly eccentric behaviour of the asylum’s director, staff and dinner guests and their refusal to let him leave make him realise his life is at risk. When his original quarry joins the party and starts inciting the loonies to murder, it looks like it’s curtains. Luckily, the police arrive in the nick of time but their man escapes again.
Some years pass and the paper where our newshound works receives an anonymous letter denouncing the existence of (4) a Suicide Club. Sent to check it out the investigator discovers that the man behind said ‘Selbstmörderklub’ is none other than…you guessed it. Defying death yet again, Briggs finally traps the elusive wife murderer and the men from Scotland Yard arrive to make the arrest.
A slightly lightweight and rather irregularly paced film, but nonetheless entertaining and fun to watch. The balance between the comedic and the horrific is well maintained and Paul Weggener, with his Slavic features and larger than life screen presence carries the film (Paulsen doesn’t leave much of an impression in the ‘hero’s role). The asylum sequence is both funny and disturbing, with some memorable performances and an appropriately anarchistic tone: there’s virtuoso ballad singing, delusional declamations, chamber music, violent fits, piano playing, grandilocuent speeches, brawling, pop-eyed oddballs in evening dress – it could be a sequence from a Marx Brothers movie with a more sinister edge.
The cinematography occasionally harks back to (or perhaps spoofs) German Expressionism while at the same the Anglicised names and supposed London locations seem to be foreshadowing the German cinema’s 1960s obssession with setting their Krimis in an imagined sterotypical English landscape.
Sunstruck, in which schoolteacher Harry Secombe gets a job in the Australian outback. Surprisingly charming family comedy, typically Aussie in its down-to-earth approach and its obsessive approach to the consumption of beer. Harry does very well.
Warn That Man, in which a German actor poses as his aristocratic double in a plot to capture a British war leader. Enjoyable wartime comedy thriller with a good cast that includes Gordon Harker.
GUNN, in which Peter Gunn investigates something or other while inappropriately young women inexplicably fling themselves at him. Blake Edwards breaks off from a run of massive hits to revive his TV PI hit in a cheap-looking and under-cast movie. Craig Stevens is somehow both bland and sleazy in the title role in the way that only American leading men of a certain age manage to be. Only the classic theme music thrills.
It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, in which various characters race to be first to dig up stolen loot. It's 40+ years since I last watched this on its ITV premiere when ad breaks pushed it to a(n even more) ludicrous running time. As it is, this is about 150 minutes of tiresome slapstick and top comedy actors yelling at each other until I just wanted to start yelling myself. Apparently some people consider this one of the funniest films ever made. I didn't laugh once, except nervously at the thought that the original roadshow version ran over three hours. Low point: Jerry Lewis gurning in a wordless cameo.
To Joy, in which we look back at the relationship between two musicians after the untimely death of the wife. Typically profound, funny, harrowing, heart-wrenching and truthful stuff from Ingmar Bergman. He's probably the only film maker who regularly makes me feel it in my stomach as well as stimulating my intellect.
The Dark Knight. The first superhero film to really feel like an epic although it's really driven by a single performance, Heath Ledger's extraordinary turn as The Joker.
Duel at Diablo, in which a dwindling number of US cavalry and a few civilians are trapped in a canyon by a band of Apaches. Tense, action-packed and violent western that comes with the traditional baggage of presenting Native Americans as one-note baddies to be disposed of. It's indicative of how big the western genre still was in the mid-60s that they were able to assemble such an eclectic cast of actors: James Garner, Sidney Poitier, Bibi Andersson, Dennis Weaver and Bill Travers. I was struck by how violent the film was with multiple arrow shootings, tortures and an attempted rape and decided to check the BBFC site only to find that it was originally released uncut as A certificate but it has always been a 15 on home video. Compared with some of the ratings handed out to the likes of Hammer films it does make me wonder whether the censors were more lenient with Hollywood studio product than they were with small British independents. Director Ralph Nelson's next western would be the notorious charnel house that is Soldier Blue.
Hail the Conquering Hero, in which medically-discharged marine Eddie Bracken is mistakenly lionised as a hero in his home town. One of Preston Sturges' best comedies and the second of two that he made back-to-back with Bracken, the other being the amazing The Miracle of Morgan's Creek, the poster for which can be briefly glimpsed at the railway station scene at the end.
Operation Mad Ball, in which Jack Lemmon organises an illicit soldiers/nurses dance in France just after WWII. Another very modest Lemmon comedy from the very weak Mill Creek set. Sammy Davis sings the title song, Mickey Rooney turns up for an obnoxious guest appearance.
The Desperate Hours, in which three escaped criminals hide out in a suburban home. Humphrey Bogart's compelling performance is the main draw in this influential film, the title of which was borrowed by episodes of both Steptoe and Son and Porridge.
The Palm Beach Story, in which Claudette Colbert screwballishly leaves Joel McCrea even though they're madly in love. Preston Sturges' comedy is wildly overrated, convoluted and rarely amusing. There's an extended scene on a train with a hunting club that made me want a shotgun of my very own. To make matters worse, Rudy Vallee has a major role and the old lech has creeped me out since I saw him interviewed in (I think) The RKO Story in which he boasted that his nickname back in the day was "The Man with the Cock in His Voice". Let them make a biopic of that! The highlight of the film is the opening credits which delivers at breakneck speed the story of what happened to our characters before this story begins. Then it's all downhill...
The Great Moment, in which Joel McCrea invents anaesthesia. This time Preston Sturges, one of cinema's greatest masters of sophisticated comedy, delivers ... a quite dreadful biopic that shoehorns in some badly misjudged comedy moments.
Three for the Show, in which Broadway musical writer (Jack Lemmon) comes out of the US Airforce to discover that he'd been reported dead and his wife (Betty Grable) has married his friend and writing partner (Gower Champion). Hijinks ensue and several standards are sung. Light, serviceable and forgettable, apart from the Gershwin covers which are now stuck in my head.
The Notorious Landlady, in which newly-appointed diplomat Jack Lemmon rents a London apartment from, and falls in love with, Kim Novak who is suspected of murdering her husband. Tonally bizarre film that starts off as a laughless comedy before taking a sharp turn into thrill-less thriller ending up in embarrassing slapstick. There's plenty of star power - Fred Astaire, Lionel Jeffries, even Henry Daniel turns up in a small role but the script from the usually reliable Blake Edwards and Larry Gelbart is a total mess that looks like it was made up as it went along.
Fantastic Voyage, the miniaturised sub inside the human body SF that they keep threatening to remake. It has not aged well but it's still fun. The best things about it are probably Leonard Rosenman's score and Donald Pleasence, oh and Racquel Welch in a skintight wetsuit. Apart from that, you can chuckle at the plotholes and the bits that seem to have come straight out of Airplane! Notable for having inspired at least two Doctor Who stories: The Invisible Enemy (in which the enemy is not invisible; it's a crustacean so awkwardly constructed that it has to be wheeled about on its arse) and Into the Dalek.
The Big Money, in which Ian Carmichael is the least successful member of a family of crooks until he pinches a suitcase full of counterfeit pound notes. I watched this with a bizarre sort of fascination, so misguided is its script. There's not a tolerable character in the whole thing. The thing about petty crooks in movies is that they really need to be stealing from faceless authorities like banks or other organisations but the family of crooks here are pinching wallets from ordinary punters or books from libraries, so there's something immediately repellent about them. Then they ostracise Carmichael after he accidentally steals too big and he stays ostracised when you might think that some sort of redemption might provide a bit of humanity to the proceedings. Then Carmichael has to pass off the forged money, again in ordinary small businesses, in order to launder it to try to impress the awful, gold-digging barmaid that he has fallen for. She's so ghastly that she even steals money from him to buy herself a mink coat. The "happy" ending is that she somehow has an unearned change of character and falls in love with him when he goes to prison and exonerates her. Horrible stuff.
Sweet Country, an Australian "western" in which an Aboriginal man goes on the run after killing a deranged, rapey "whitefella". It's perfectly fine but I suppose I was hoping for more given that it has had mainly stellar reviews. It never reaches the heights of the great Australian films of the 1970s like The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith.
White Zombie (1932)
The film debut of Voodoo in the cinema features one of Bela Lugosi’s most celebrated performances, which is just as well because the rest of the cast are lousy. Added to the silent-era style, over-gesticulating, exaggeratedly melodramatic, theatrical physicality of their performances, their line deliveries ironically lead one to think that they, and not Lugosi, are barely acquainted with the natural rhythms and speech patterns of the English language. In Bela’s case, his alien cadences lend the character a layer of sinister strangeness, but the rest of the company seem like they’ve been recruited from an inept amateur dramatics society.
Apart from Lugosi, the saving graces of the picture are the atmospheric sets (courtesy of Universal) and dreamlike B/W photography, plus Legendre’s rag-tag troupe of living dead slaves, who are effectively creepy rather than truly scary.
Director Victor Halperin exhibits the odd interesting composition and there’s some commendable experimentation with low key lighting, split screen, wipes, disolves etc. The infamous scene of the zombie toppling into the sugar cane grinder still raises a shudder while the running gag ‘excuse me, have you got a match’ remains eternally tiresome.
As I noted when reviewing Ritual (2002), the remake of 1943’s classic I Walked With A Zombie, the basic premise of White Zombie is tacked on to the end of that picture as a kind of reversed coda; the antagonist relishing the unresisting state of his zombie bride rather than experiencing Beaumont’s remorse at her unresponsiveness.
Twice-Told Tales but once watched is enough.
Twice-Told Tales, in which Vincent Price takes the lead in three adaptations of Nathaniel Hawthorne stories. Incredibly, this is two hours long which surely must have made it one of the longest horror movies up to this time (1963). That's a real problem, particularly as the first two stories are awfully similar - both feature triangles of a sort and plots that involve chemical experiments that have tragic effects on the human body. Things perk up a bit in the final tale, an adaptation of The House of the Seven Gables, which has a few grisly bits. All three stories have small casts and are shot on cheap, cramped sets, very much lacking the visual style of Roger Corman's Poe adaptations, which clearly inspired this film. I'm certainly glad I didn't have to watch this late at night with half an hour of adverts to extend the running time beyond endurance.
Recoil, in which Elizabeth Sellars fake romances the man who killed her father. Modest crime drama offers the opportunity to look at Sellars' startling beauty so that's nice. I've just learned that she only died in December at the age of 98.
Goin' South, a comedy western in which Mary Steenburgen marries outlaw Jack Nicholson to save him from hanging. Steenburgen, in her debut, is adorable but Nicholson, who also directs, goes way over the top, as do Christopher Lloyd and John Belushi (completely wasted as a Mexican).
Just William's Luck, Val Guest's adaptation of the Richmal Crompton stories about the mischievous schoolboy. I loved these books as a child, although I was always puzzled as to why William Brown's lifestyle bore no relation to that of me or my friends. The spooky bit: William and his gang decide to fake a haunting in a mansion.
The Dummy Talks, in which there is a murder backstage at a variety theatre. That means we're going to get a lot of variety acts; fortunately, they are mostly decent ones. Jack Warner makes his film debut - in the starring role no less - in his late 40s; Ivy Benson, of Dance Band fame, has a prominent role. The spooky bit: there's a faked seance to help expose the killer.
Phffft, in which Judy Holliday and Jack Lemmon get divorced and find out they're still in love. The first film from writer George Axelrod, whose comedies more often than not feel a lot more heavy-handed than they should (which explains the clunkiness of the screwball parts of Hammer's The Lady Vanishes), this one gets by on the charm of its two leads, freshly-reunited from the much better It Should Happen to You. Kim Novak makes an early appearance as a perpetually available dumb blonde of the same sort that Marilyn Monroe would portray in Axelrod's next film, The Seven Year Itch. Directed by Val Lewton protege Mark Robson.
I recall the end credits song was a sequel to their biggest hit Underneath the Arches in which they sang that said arches had been demolished.
Atomic Blonde, in which Charlize Theron is a kick-ass, lesbian agent in Berlin as the wall comes down. Brutal, pulverising fight scenes are the highlight here.
Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping, a sort of This Is Spinal Tap for the younger generation. Quite amusing with some hilariously awful lyrics but probably a lot funnier if you get the reference and know who more of the guest stars playing themselves are.
Smashing Time, musical comedy in which northern (English) lasses Lynne Redgrave and Rita Tushingham go to London. I wanted to like this one more than I did because '60s swinging London looks adorably colourful and the two leads are great but, oh my!, there are too many scenes of clumsy slapstick that go on and on and on. By the end I was more irritated than entertained.
Footsteps in the Fog, in which maid Jean Simmons blackmails Stewart Granger after he murders his wife. Entertaining stuff that feels a little like a proto-Hammer, only with fewer Gothic elements.
Moulin Rouge, the biopic of Toulouse-Lautrec. This one has been shown for decades in horribly faded prints which, considering the film's major appeal lies in its recreations of Lautrec's paintings, made it almost unwatchable. The recent restoration released on BD by the BFI at least restores the original Oscar-winning visual splendour. It doesn't stop it from being a rather lifeless portrayal of the artist though; it's really quite hard to believe that he didn't have more fun. It's of interest here though as it's the first film in which Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee appeared. (I know Lee always liked to claim he was in Hamlet but I'm not convinced that sneaking onto a set and shouting in the dark actually counts. By that token, I was in an episode of Bob Servant and at least I was invited). Each has one scene (Lee as dotty artist Seurat and Cushing as Lautrec's love rival) and both make an impact. Ballerina Colette Marchand made her feature film debut, was Oscar-nominated and only ever made two further features. A sizable hit in its day. perhaps its most lasting impact was in the amount of comedy sketches it inspired featuring kneeling comedians with shoes strapped to their knees. Like this one: https://youtu.be/Omg5YHJhoW0
The Girl with a Pistol, in which Sicilian Monica Vitti comes to Britain to shoot the lover who spurned her. Notwithstanding that this Italian comedy is absolutely terrible - unfunny, shrill, annoying and quite badly made - it has a number of points of interest. Firstly, it was nominated for an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, which is quite unbelievable, unless the Italian-language version is vastly different to the English-language one shown by Talking Pictures. Secondly, it features location shooting in various cities in Scotland and England that don't feature a lot in British films from the late '60s. It was quite fun seeing shots of Edinburgh from that period. Thirdly, there are a few well-known British faces in the cast, including Stanley Baker, Tony Booth, Corin Redgrave and Corrie's Johnny Briggs. I thought I spotted a very young James Cosmo in there as well but I can't find any confirmation of that.
I Know Where I'm Going, the charming Powell & Pressburger romance that benefits enormously from location filming in the Western Isles.
Searching for Ingmar Bergman, a personal documentary on the Swedish master by German director Margarethe von Trotta. Moderately interesting if you like Ingmar but not enormously deep or enlightening.
Wild Strawberries, in which an elderly professor takes a road trip, muses on his past and encounters various characters. One of Bergman's best-loved films and deservedly so. Woody Allen nicked a fair bit of this for Deconstructing Harry, his last really good movie.
Ratatouille, in which a rat becomes a chef. I think this may be my favourite Pixar, although a good case could be made for Up or Wall-E. I love Michael Giachinno's score and the Parisian ambiance. Star Patton Oswalt (voice of Remy) is a huge film buff and Hammer fan.
The House in the Woods, in which writer Michael Gough and his wife, Patricia Roc, in search of a quiet abode, go to stay with artist Ronald Howard. There's an interesting idea behind this one but the execution is very poor. Howard's pretentious artist has some hilarious dialogue, not helped by the examples we see of his paintings being terrible. There's a key moment where a villain is thwarted by stopping to pet a cat. The best bit is when the Larry Adler record that Howard plays obsessively finally gets the needle knocked off it. It doesn't help that Network's DVD has very poor sound, although maybe being unable to hear some of the dialogue helps.
Great news for anybody with a taste for Japanese exploitation, I stumbled across the 1973 revenge flick Sex and Fury in a decent print on Internet Archive.
https://archive.org/details/SexAndFury1973
Reiko Ike is incredible as a katana-wielding thief out to kill the people behind her father's brutal murder when she was a child - and a scene where she's ambushed in the bath only to slaughter a dozen would-be assassins naked in the snow rivals any sword fight I've ever seen.
Great arterial sprays, endless sleazy blokes and corrupt politicians fill out the rest of the bill nicely - all this, plus Scandsploitation legend Christina Lindberg in a support role and an epic final showdown.
Very tasty
A Canterbury Tale, in which 3 travelers find themselves in an ancient English burgh which is being terrorised by the "Glue Man" who throws glue in the hair of girls. I'd never seen this Powell & Pressburger film and thought it started out very well, almost like it was going to be an early folk horror tale but the outcome of the Glue Man plot left me feeling a bit nauseated to be honest. I don't want to go into spoilers but the violent misogyny of the character somehow being excuse or brushed off is more horrifying than if this had been an actual horror film.
I haven't seen any films for a couple of days, what with work, incipient socialising and outdoor activities in the sun drenched Jardin CMM.
My Voodoo Season is drawing to a close, with the best left to last - Sugar Hill, The Serpent And The Rainbow, Plague Of The Zombies, White Zombie and I Walked With A Zombie are the remaining titles.
Voodoo Island (1957)
“A wealthy industrialist hires the renowned hoax-buster Phillip Knight (Boris Karloff) to prove that an island he plans to develop isn't voodoo cursed. However, arriving on the island, Knight soon realizes that voodoo does exist when he discovers man-eating plants and a tribe of natives with bizarre powers.”
Perversely filmed in B/W in exotic Hawaiian locations, Voodoo Island is a rather unengaging example of the kind of low budget, low thrill ‘horror’ pictures so prevalent in 1950s US cinema.
Karloff seems to enjoy his role as a smug smart Alec who relishes scotching people’s beliefs in weird phenomena such as the Loch Ness Monster, the Yeti et al, and appears fairly sprightly at 70, wading ashore at said island and hacking his way through the jungle with brio (and a ruddy gurt machete).
The rest of the cast play their thankless roles in earnest, but the main problem is the feeble script. Apart from inventing ‘Voodoo’ goings-on in the Pacific Ocean instead of the Carribean (director Reginald LeBorg had previously directed Weird Woman (1944), which also located a ‘Voodoo Tribe’ on a South Seas island), practically the entire 78 minutes are taken up by talk, apart from the very occasional ‘horror’ scene of people being attacked and/or eaten by rubber ‘carnivorous’ plants.
Of course, ineptitude and incongruity are what make so many of these potboilers amusing to watch, and while the totally rubbish ‘tree crab’ and aforementioned ravenous shrubbery are indeed laughable, such ‘highlights’ are few and far between. Karloff gets to deliver the two most risible lines of dialogue in the whole movie; ‘ Carnivorous plants living in the water! There could be others on land – even more carnivorous!’ and urging his colleague not to resist the natives who have captured them with ‘Don’t be a fool, they’ll slaughter us to bits!’
One other notable element that adds a slight note of interest is the inclusion of a lesbian architect who makes tastefully veiled lascivious insinuations to the conventional damsel in distress. Of course, being 1957, the Sapphic siren gets killed first, leaving the way open for the macho boat captain to inveigle his way into the other girl’s…. arms.
Karloff and co are briefly held captive while the Chief (a vaguely camp white man who looks a bit like Ernest Thesiger) explains that he has led his people from island to island (but probably not all the way from Haiti), fleeing from the wicked ways of modern civilisation. ‘Don’t worry, we won’t tell anyone you’re here’ promises Karloff and the Chief replies ‘My men will show the way back to the boat. Goodbye’. Who needs a dramatic finale anyway?
(Co)incidentally, yesterday’s film was Zombie Nightmare, starring Adam West. And look! Here he is (uncredited) as a radio operator in his very first film appearance. What are the chances of that? Could it be Voodoo?
Racial tension double bill (for some reason...)
The Hurricane, in which South Sea islander Jon Hall is unjustly persecuted by the white authorities. Eventually there is a hurricane. Hall is so very, very dull, both as an actor and how his character is written, and the baddies (including Raymond Massey and John Carradine) so one-note, that this is a bit of a drag to watch, despite the slightly hilarious disaster scenes. Not one of John Ford's better directorial efforts.
Odds Against Tomorrow, in which Harry Belafonte and Robert Ryan rob a bank. The former is an indebted-to-the-mob gambling addict and the latter is a volatile racist. Both actors are superb in what is largely a character study of the two men with very little actual bank robbery. Robert Wise directs tautly. This is very close to brilliant but, unfortunately, it scuppers that with a terrible last couple of minutes. A shootout concludes with a laugh-out-loud bit of what-the-fuckery and this is followed by A MESSAGE, and a bit of a confused one at that. Well worth watching apart from that.
Copacabana, a vehicle for Groucho Marx and Carmen Miranda. There's fun to be had when Groucho is on screen, not much otherwise. It's amazing how massive Carmen Miranda was and how her image has sustained, based on very little as far as I can see.
Victor/Victoria, not the movie but a recording for Japanese TV of the Broadway version of the stage musical adapted from the film (adapted from the other film ...) in which Julie Andrews plays performer who disguises herself as a man so she can pretend to be a female impersonator. The film always felt to me like a musical was aching to burst out and only really burst into life during Julie's performances. The musical is a definite improvement.
Melody (AKA S*W*A*L*K*), in which schoolboy Mark Lester falls in love. Charming and truthful, if a bit slow, depiction of childhood. An early script from Alan Parker, several Bee Gees' numbers on the soundtrack and Doctor Who's Waris Hussein on directorial duties.
Just discovered Reggie Perrin, the 2009 remake of Rise And Fall of Reginald Perrin, starring Martin Clunes as Reggie. Despite initial misgivings it turns out to be a rather good updating and it's still very recognisably David Nobbs' creation, even if the middle class suburban ennui seems more suited to the 1970s than the 21st century. The laughter track is somewhat offputting and quite unnecessary because there is still a great deal of wit and hilarious silliness that doesn't need to be flagged up. Wendy Craig is magnificent as Reggie's Mum and Geoffrey Whitehead (Silas, son of Silas) is uncannily similar to Geoffrey 'cock up on the catering front' Palmer.
The Day It Came To Earth, in which a corpse is revived by a meteor. Very cheap, 1970s sort-of-pastiche of 50s grade-Z scifi with a hopeless monster and terrible performances. Having just checked BBC Genome it would appear that my long-standing memory of having watched this on the BBC and thinking "what is this shite doing on the BBC" is somehow a false one. Could it have turned up on Channel 4 in the early 80s? The only alternative I can think of is that I rented a pre-code VHS (the BBFC certified release was in 1996 and it certainly wasn't as late as that that I saw it).
Incidentally, the DVD I'm watching it on is a Grindhouse Double Feature from Frolic Pictures. It's paired with Tender Dracula. The programme starts with Lonely Water (quite an odd choice for a US disc), followed by trailers for The Witching (AKA Necromancy) and The Beast in the Cellar. After the first feature there is an intermission bumper and trailers for The Bloodstained Shadow and The Slayer.
Bad Day At Black Rock (1955)
In CinemascopE and Eastmancolor. Sweaty, edgy, tense and suspenseful.
Seven Days to Noon, in which a scientist steals an atom bomb and threatens to detonate in London if the government won't stop producing bombs. André Morell leads the police effort to track him down while the city is evacuated. Gripping stuff from the Boulting Brothers from a story idea by none other than James Bernard. I was reminded of The Day the Earth Caught Fire at times with its end of the world vibe and similar music cues.
Rotten to the Core, in which a gang try to rob an army payroll. More from the Boultings, this time a comedy. It's a strange effort that plays quite flat, partly due to casting issues. Somehow, the lead role is taken by Anton Rodgers. Imdb says that Peter Sellers was intended to play the lead and it would make total sense if this was the case and if it had been made a few years previously. There are parts that seem made for the likes of Lionel Jeffries and Bernard Cribbins and even character names that reference The Wrong Arm of the Law and Two Way Stretch. Ultimately, it's a bit tired and not very funny. Charlotte Rampling looks stunning though, there's a good jazz number over the titles and it's crisply shot in widescreen black and white.
Timeslip, in which an atomic scientist turns up in the Thames with a bullet in him. He "dies" on the operating table then things get really strange. Dull crime drama with some dull scifi bollocks thrown in as a red herring. This one takes the casting of imported US stars to a bit of an extreme as the leads are Gene Nelson and Faith Domergue with an "introducing" credit for Peter Arne (who is half American ... and had a very colourful life). Carl Jaffe, way down the credits, gives the best performance, somehow managing to deliver the scifi exposition with a straight face. Jaffe is German, as is Paul Hardtmuth. By the time you add Joseph Tomelty as the main detective there aren't many of the more prominent parts left for anyone with an English accent. US viewers must have been very disappointed to see Domergue turn in what they were presented as The Atomic Man when there's so little scifi in it, coming off a couple of genre classics in It Came from Beneath the Sea and This Island Earth. Charles Hawtrey has a small role as an office boy - he is in his 40s at this point. A comically over-emphatic score adds a couple of much-needed chuckles.