Foster on Film » Page 93

A Challenge for Robin Hood (1967)

Feb 221967

Robin (Barrie Ingham)—this time a Norman and named “de Courtenay” instead of “Loxley”—is framed for the murder of his cousin by his other cousin (Peter Plythe). He escapes to the woods with Friar Tuck (James Hayter) to join outcasts currently lead by a grumpy Alan-a-Dale (Eric Flynn). Even though they all hate Normans, they immediately make Robin their leader and he turns them into bandits so they can buy green fabric for new outfits (that is the reason, honest). Things go as they always do in Robin Hood movies, including the hero falling for Maid Marian (Gay Hamilton), who seems a bit sleepy and has around five lines.

Challenge? The title suggests Robin Hood has some chores to do around the house before his parents get home. That might have made for a better film.

The 1960s were not a great time for swashbucklers. Swashbucklers are about movement and speed. The Challenge of Robin Hood is a film of stillness. People stand. They sit. And they speak slowly and very theatrically (someone should have pointed out that this was a movie, not a stage production). Warriors step leisurely forward only to fall dead from an unseen arrow. A good swashbuckler requires money, skilled choreography, and lithe direction. This one had none of those. C.M. Pennington-Richards made a few nice small comedies (I’ve always loved Ladies Who Do), but action requires a different kind of talent.

In 1967 I doubt there was a child alive who did not know Robin Hood’s origin story, so a retelling was old hat. Almost any other tale of Robin would have been a better choice. But any swashbuckling story would have required action beyond the capabilities of Hammer, a studio known almost exclusively now for their horror productions. This was their second crack at Robin Hood, and while it is an improvement over Sword of Sherwood Forest , it is isn’t enough of an improvement to be worth the price of a ticket.

While far from a great swashbuckler, it is also avoids the lower echelon. Within its humble scope, The Challenge of Robin Hood is watchable children’s fare. It doesn’t take itself too seriously. A few lines are witty and it has a pie fight—yes, a pie fight. While Robin is uncharismatic, John Arnatt’s Sheriff is amusingly dry. I see the origin of Alan Rickman’s Sheriff in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. The sets are claustrophobic, but look reasonable and would be spectacular in a Frankenstein film. Add in a monster or two and they might have had something.

Other Robin Hood Swashbucklers I’ve reviewed: The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), The Bandit of Sherwood Forest (1946), Rogues of Sherwood Forest (1950), Sword of Sherwood Forest (1960), Robin and Marian (1976), Robin Hood (1991), and Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991).

Back to Swashbucklers

Reviews, Swashbucklers Tagged with: Two Reels

Kill, Baby… Kill! “Operazione paura” (1966)

Oct 121966

Dr Paul Eswai (Giacomo Rossi-Stuart) is summoned to a remote village to perform an autopsy as part of a murder investigation. The deeply superstitious and frightened populous is hostile to the doctor and his modern ways, relying on the local witch (Fabienne Dali) for safety from a force few are willing to speak of. Only Monica Schuftan (Erika Blanc), who has recently returned to her hometown, is willing to help.

Let’s get the title out of the way. The Italian Operazione paura (apparently chosen to sound like a string of spy films at the time) is normally translated as “Operation Fear” though “Fearful Events” might be more appropriate. An edited version of the film was released in England as Curse of the Dead while the USA got Curse of the Living Dead, though I see no reason why our dead are more alive than theirs. Uncut but dubbed, it has been given the irrelevant title Kill, Baby… Kill! that makes it sound like some kind of beatnik slasher flick. None of the titles fit the film. As I don’t speak Italian, I’m less bothered by its original title, so I’ll refer to it as Operazione paura.

Like in most Italian horror, the story comes second. It is the lush visuals that carry the show. Director Mario Bava dismisses realism, and instead paints an impressionistic piece with ever-present drifting fog and thick cobwebs. Colors sway toward red and gold, when not absorbed by black. There’s a twirling spiral staircase, a room that opens into itself, a ball that bounces down corridors without a visible owner, and a creepy child that shows up at windows. I’ve seen all of it before, primarily because so many filmmakers have swiped ideas from Operazione paura, but I can’t think of a case where it works better. A few of the dreamlike images get the better of Bava, such as a non-scary doll nightmare, but those are the exceptions.

While at first appearing as a variation of the standard ghost story, Operazione paura is something different, and you’ll be sorely disappointed if you compare it to The Uninvited. Ghost Stories in general are vary plot oriented, focusing on the unveiling of twists and secrets. But the mystery in Operazione paura is no mystery at all, and isn’t the point. There’s nothing to be solved here, at least not by heroic Paul. Standard Ghost stories tell you what you should do if you find yourself haunted; Operazione paura tells you what it is like.

The dubbing is surprisingly good, with the voice actors supplying the proper emotions in a majority of cases. Only the Burgomaster and the policeman have that, stiff, overstated manner so common in dubbing. The actors’ lips are almost always in synch, which makes it appear pleasantly natural, but is undoubtedly responsible for a few tongue twisting bits of dialog.

Operazione paura influenced a generation of filmmakers and created the Italian gothic horror movement. Like most pivotal films, it is superior to what followed.

Foreign Language, Ghost Stories, Reviews Tagged with: Three & 1/2 Reels

The War of the Planets (1966)

Oct 101966

The continuing adventures of space station Gamma 1, Commander Mike Halstead (Tony Russel), his sidekick, Jack (Franco Nero), and his spirited girl, Connie (Lisa Gastoni). In this second movie, alien light clouds are taking over Earth’s space stations, and it is up to our plucky heroes to save the day.

Ah, things are still groovy in the future as painted by this Italian space opera, one of four made simultaneously by genre director Antonio Margheriti, but the swinging sixties aren’t swinging enough this time around. Except for a bizarre New Year’s party where drunken spacemen make pyramids and swing back and forth on long strings, the go-go boots and mod lifestyle are missing in this outing. Instead, we get green-lit smoke. Yes, the universe is in danger from lime colored mist. But don’t worry, the future Space Command is ready to talk and talk and talk about it. They are also prepared to shoot at it with little blow torches that they seem to think are lasers. Hint to all future heroes: shooting at fog doesn’t work. Try it yourself.

The plot holes are as huge as in the other episodes, and the characters continue to be nonsensical, but in The War of the Planets, the absurdity doesn’t illicit any laughs. Russel over-emotes at every opportunity, but it is more likely while complaining than while shooting-it-out with bad guys. None of the other actors are any better, and the sets and effects are a joke, just not a funny one.

With no budget and little talent, a fast pace and light silliness is essential, but that’s not what is available. The War of the Planets trudges along and actually takes itself seriously.

There’s some amusement to be found in the ridiculous dialog, such as when the scientist advises that, “It’s zero to the tenth power.” Hummmm. Wouldn’t that be…zero? Better still, while discovering the bodies on a recently attacked space station, the captain radios to base repeating that everyone is dead and finishing with, “Dead. Dead. Dead like statues. All dead.” Which is followed immediately by a crewman’s comment of “Hey Skipper, come here; I think she’s alive.”

The other films in the series are Wild, Wild Planet, War Between the Planets, and The Snow Devils. The producers made The Green Slime in Japan, which has the same feel as these films and takes place on a station named Gamma 3.

Aliens, Foreign Language, Reviews, Space Opera Tagged with: One Reel

War of the Gargantuas (1966)

Oct 081966

A giant, shaggy, green humanoid is rising out of the sea to lunch on unsuspecting humans. Due to their previous work, Dr. Paul Stewart (Russ Tamblyn) and his assistant Akemi (Kumi Mizuno) are called in to help find, and perhaps kill the monster. As the military moves in, Paul and Akemi attempt to prove that this isn’t the adult form of the gentle brown creature they once studied.

It might be nostalgia, but War of the Gargantuas has always worked for me. For a kid (and I was a kid when I first saw it) looking for cool giant monster action, this was the answer. It still ranks as one of my favorite kaiju eiga from the ’60s and ’70s. That has less to do with what it does than with what it doesn’t do. It avoids the mistakes of so many of the others. There are no cute kids. There is no irrelevant human storyline that runs while the monsters are off stage: no alien ape-men, no greedy developers, no toy manufacturers or inventors, and no thieves. There is no unfunny attempts at slapstick. There’s no comedy-relief sidekick. There’s no half-hearted attempt at a theme. There’s no guy in a poorly made rubber suit crawling around on his hands and knees pretending to be a quadruped.

What it does have is a couple of monsters going at it, a lot of city smashing, some folks eaten (loved that), and everyone else trying to deal with it. The monsters look like color coded abominable snow men, and while the makeup isn’t perfect, it is miles ahead of the simplistic rubber suits or marionettes that were so common in other films. (The juvenile gargantua’s appearance is reminiscent of a ten-year-old with a store-bought werewolf costume, but he’s not on screen long).

War of the Gargantuas has a confusing relationship with the inferior Frankenstein Conquers the World. In Japan, where it goes by the title, Frankenstein’s Monsters: Sanda vs. Gaira, it is a sequel. The Brown Gargantua is a regenerated Frankenstein, named Sanda. Yes, Frankenstein is now the name for a species; they even use the word Frankensteins. But is Sanda supposed to be the same Frankenstein that was in the earlier film? He doesn’t look the same (the monster in that film was an Asian guy with a flat head). It depends on who the other characters are. In both movies there is one American research scientist, a Japanese doctor who is somewhat subordinate, and a female assistant that is emotionally involved with the American, but still calls him Doctor. Are these the same people? They have different names, but they do the same jobs, and the girl is portrayed by the same actress. The American is played by second tier actor Russ Tamblyn (“When you’re a jet you’re a jet all the way”), replacing second tier actor Nick Adams. Replacing Nick Adams is always a sign that a project is on the right track. Like Adams in the previous film, Tamblyn speaks English, so is dubbed for the Japanese release. In the American version, all references to Frankenstein are removed. Dr. Stewart is not a specialist on Frankensteins, but on giant monsters. It makes the story less coherent, but as any connection to the earlier movie is a bad idea, it is an improvement.

Foreign Language, Giant Monsters, Reviews Tagged with: Three Reels

Wild, Wild Planet (1966)

Oct 081966

Mutant males with black raincoats and women with beehives are kidnapping Earth’s best and brightest. Meanwhile, the devious Mr. Nurmi (Massimo Serato) is carrying out experiments with human organs. It looks like a job for Space Commander Mike Halstead (Tony Russel) and his sidekick Jack (Franco Nero).

Wild, Wild Planet takes us to the mod future where female scientists wear go-go boots, bubble cars have a top speed of twenty miles per hour, and real men don’t dance. Fighting mad scientists has never been so groovy.

In 1965, Antonio Margheriti directed four colorful sci-fi flicks at once, with overlapping casts and crews. The results, meant for the American market, were: Wild, Wild Planet (which has a “The” in front of it on the title card, but even Margheriti’s son drops it), The War of the Planets, War Between the Planets, and The Snow Devils. These Flash Gordon-type tales told of the adventures of two commanders on the Gamma I space station, Mike Halstead in the first two and Rod Jackson in the later two. Both were ’50s-style he-men who weren’t above abusing some women to save the universe (Halstead keeps trying to strangle anyone in his way). In the ’60s paradise which is the future, our heroes are the only ones who aren’t able to relax and enjoy the psychedelic world.

The first Gamma I film could never have been made in the U.S. There is a touch of insanity joining the normal Italian disinterest in a coherent plot. Considering what that plot is, and the giant holes that fill it, the less anyone dwells on it, the better. The same can be said with the characters. But, with a group of friends, and maybe a drink of two, Wild, Wild Planet is hysterical. There are strangers in raincoats attacking children, a man transformed into a midget, “laser” pistols that shoot flame about two feet, and a scientist who wants to be joined with a woman, vertically, as in sewn together. These are no Star Trek characters able to adapt to strange life-forms. When they find a four-armed man, a guy goes crazy at the sight, a woman becomes hysterical, and our hero just repeats angrily, “This is a Freak!” For entertainment, the people of the future stand in a large, red curtained room, and watch people dressed as butterflies skip about.

I don’t know how much of the peculiar dialog comes from the dubbing, but as it gives the film its special flavor, I’d hate to think it all sounds reasonable in Italian. Tony Russel was an American from Wisconsin and Franco Nero had no trouble with English, starring as Lancelot in the film version of Camelot few years later. But I don’t know if they dubbed their own voices (or if someone else dubbed Russel’s into Italian as the lips match the dialog). Whatever the case, the lines are as trippy as the sets. It’s nice to know that current obscenities will give way for the insult, “You helium head!” However, the finest snatch of dialog comes when our brave spacemen are fighting the artificial women, who happen to be wearing their negligees. Commander Halstead yells out the immortal words, “Watch out for those gadgets on their chests.” I think that’s good advice to any man wrestling with a half naked girl.

Antonio Margheriti also directed the ghost story Operazione paura. The Green Slime is a vaguely-connected 5th film in the series made in Japan, but without Margheriti.

Foreign Language, Mad Scientists, Mad Scientists, Reviews, Space Opera Tagged with: Two Reels

Fahrenheit 451 (1966)

Oct 041966

In a dystopian future where books are illegal and everything is fireproof, Montag (Oskar Werner) is a fireman, part of a force that burns books. He is well respected and his chief (Cyril Cusack) tells him he is soon to be promoted. His wife, Linda (Julie Christie) is a normal member of society, taking drugs and watching TV obsessively. But then he meets Clarisse (also Julie Christie), which stirs his dissatisfaction and makes him curious about what is in the books.

Ray Bradbury’s superb novel, Fahrenheit 451, along with Orwell’s 1984, Zamyatin’s We, and Huxley’s Brave New World, defines literary dystopian fiction. A political statement, as they all are, it paints a grim picture of the future that could result if we allow censorship to grow and prosper. Taking a different approach than Orwell, Bradbury’s tale is a fable, letting impossible extremes emphasize his point. It doesn’t lay down a starkly real world as it is no more important that this world could never exist than it is in the Tortoise and the Hare. In both cases, we get the point.

Bradbury has always said that his works are easy to convert into films, if only the filmmakers would take them unchanged and stuff them into the camera. In this, he is mistaken. Bradbury’s talent is with words. He is a poet that makes sentence dance for him, forming fantastical images in the reader’s mind. Fahrenheit 451 is a particularly difficult work to prepare for the screen, since film has always had an awkward time with fables and poetry. But, it can be done.

That said, the translation isn’t done here. The film Fahrenheit 451 is the result of vanity, ignorance, and a lack of skill. Most of that is on the head of director François Truffaut, but there is plenty of blame to go around. At least, when it was over, Truffaut knew he had failed. When I look over how this project was developed, I’m surprised they even ended up with developed film stock.

Truffaut, a major figure in the French new wave movement, was an originator of the auteur theory that stated that a film should reflect its director’s experiences, style, and point of view. (Truffaut initially thought of this as a mode of criticism; it was Andrew Sarris that called it a theory.) The director, according to the theory, is like a novelist, and all of the mechanisms of filmmaking, the cameras, the film, the sets, and all of the people, are just his pen. Those who are familiar with my writings know I am contemptuous of the auteur theory, and those who hold to it. It is an ego-trip for insecure directors, and forgets that film is a collaborative art form.

Naturally, the auteur Truffaut wants to be involved in all parts of the filmmaking process, no matter how unqualified he might be for many of them, so that the project will have his imprint. So, naturally, he worked on the script. One tiny problem pops up there. You see, Truffaut didn’t speak English. Fahrenheit 451 was his first, and only, English language production, and it shows. The dialog is something I’d expect to get after running Bradbury’s story through an online translator, first into French, and then back into English. He doesn’t get the metaphors wrong (which an online translator would do—don’t want to be too hard on the guy…) but rather removes them in favor of bland, simplistic, third grade writing. Writing is an art, and if you don’t have the tools, leave it to someone who does.

After losing better choices, Truffaut cast Oskar Werner, an Austrian stage actor and director who had worked with Truffaut before (and as an auteur, such connections are more important than who is actually right for the role) as Montag. The fact that Werner had a strong accent, difficult to explain in the story, did not bother Truffaut. What did was Werner’s decision to create his own character, something no auteur could allow. The two fought each other through the production, with Werner playing the part his way, and Truffaut cutting out anything that couldn’t nominally be stuffed into his narrow view of the character. By the end, the two hated each other, and Werner purposely tried to sabotage the film. Countering, Truffaut shot scenes with doubles. Both men were far more concerned with themselves than the production. Naturally, the performance that ended up onscreen is a mess, lacking life, and any kind of direction.

Other poor decisions can be seen everywhere, although how many were Truffaut’s, and how many were producer Lewis M. Allen’s, I can’t say. One of the most glaring is the double casting of Julie Christie to hammer home the contrasting natures of the two female characters. In what should be a drama, this only draws attention to itself as a gimmick. But then I wonder if this is a drama. Taking it to be a comedy is the only way I can explain the second double casting, that of Anton Diffring as both the fireman Fabian and as the headmistress of the children’s school. Yup, the headmistress is played by a man in drag. I’m baffled on what Truffaut thought this was saying. Since there is also a handshake-salute that would have fit into the Marx Brother’s Duck Soup, it sure seems like the film is a comedy. Additionally, there is the television play that Linda watches and believes she’s actually part of, where two men blabber on for several minutes about seating and sleeping arrangements for a party. It is undoubtedly supposed to be funny, and is the only scene worth watching in the picture. Too bad most of the rest of Fahrenheit 451 is so deadly serious.

One of the largest mistakes (Can I really say that this one is larger than all the others? It’s so hard to tell when there are so many mistakes.) is ignoring the fairy tale nature of the material. The story and setting has enormous holes (why can everyone read? What do they learn in school? How does the wholly illiterate society function? Why do the firemen know the names of all the authors—do they stop to read before they burn?), which is not problematic in the book, as it is concerned with creating a poetic image. But in a movie, shot with drab normality (except for an increase in the color red) the improbability of the world is glaring. Either the shooting style should demonstrate the unreal nature of the world (as in The Wizard of Oz, Sin City, and Sleepy Hollow), or those holes need to be filled in. As this was Truffaut’s first film in color (perhaps he shouldn’t have tried so many new things at once…), I’m not surprised he lacked the skill, the eye, and the imagination, to do something interesting with the imagery.

What we are given is policemen with jetpacks. In a film where everything looks like the ’50s and most mechanical devices belong in a ’30s film (like the phones), there are jetpacks. The guys using them don’t do anything, which is odd, but there they are, stripping away whatever small shreds of integrity remain.

One good decision was hiring Bernard Herrmann, best known for his work with Hitchcock, to write the score. The music is tense, and romantic, and put to poor use, often heralding a nonexistent climax.

With a stripped down story, crude dialog, un-engaging acting, and a failure to understand anything more about the novel than it has book burning, Fahrenheit 451 is a monument to arrogant filmmaking.

Dystopia, Reviews Tagged with: Toxic

The Great St. Trinian’s Train Robbery (1966)

Sep 291966

A gang of train robbers, including Alphonse (Frankie Howerd), stash the loot in an abandoned building, that later becomes the new home of St. Trinians, thanks to a grant from the new minister of education (Raymond Huntley). While Headmistress Amber Spottiswood (Dora Bryan), Flash Harry (George Cole), and the girls of St. Trinian’s return to their old tricks, Alphonse enrolls his daughters in the school to search for the money.

Society (or at least how it was portrayed) had changed substantially in the twelve years since The Belles of St. Trinian’s, and while the girls of St. Trinian’s were bizarre creatures in 1954, they were becoming commonplace by the mid ’60s. That the elder girls smoke, drink, and like to dance with males to rock-n-roll is hardly shocking, making The Great St. Trinian’s Train Robbery feel stuffy as it attempts to play these behaviors as astonishing. Only when the girls kidnap the agents of the department of education and when a fourth form girl acknowledges that, of course, she knows how to run a steam engine, do they feel properly antisocial and precocious.

Returning to the roots of the series, the setting is a boarding school (which hasn’t been the case since the first film). There is even a full staff, including a con artist, a prostitute, a card cheat, a stripper, a drunkard, and a greedy headmistress, played with the right mix of elegance and smarminess by Dora Bryan. And, like in The Belles of St. Trinian’s, the plot follows a criminal using his daughter (daughters in this case) to infiltrate the school. But unlike that earlier outing, the comedy doesn’t come from playing with the audiences’ expectations of the behavior of little girls, but from slapstick. There are people falling off a ladder, Morris dancers running into each other, and a piece of coal dropped on a bare foot. The film ends with a twenty minute chase. Cheapening the look of the movie, much of the “action” is played at an accelerated frame rate, which isn’t funny the first time, but does have the advantage of fast forwarding the picture through many of its least engaging moments. A few of the old jokes still work (and many of the jokes are old–previously appearing in the earlier films) and the cast, though weaker than in the other films, is still good.

The Great St. Trinian’s Train Robbery, the first St. Trinian’s film in color, is not a Post-War British Comedy. Too much time had passed. The same may be true of directors Sidney Gilliat and Frank Launder, who were the force behind all five films. Their edge was gone, as this is a St. Trinian movie as an old man, who feels comfortable only in an earlier age, might make it. The other films in the series are The Belles of St. Trinian’s (1954), Blue Murder at St. Trinian’s (1957), The Pure Hell of St. Trinian’s (1960), and The Wildcats of St. Trinian’s (1980).

Post-War British Comedy, Reviews Tagged with: Two Reels

Dracula, Prince of Darkness (1966)

Aug 181966

Two arrogant British couples find themselves, through excessively unlikely circumstances, in Dracula’s castle ten years after the vampire’s destruction. A previously unknown servant drains one of the men over a tub, reconstituting Dracula (Christopher Lee). For no good reason, the resurrected Count ignores the other couple and they escape, teaming up with a Van-Helsing-ish abbot (Andrew Keir) to fight the undead.

Eight years after The Horror of Dracula, Hammer brought Lee back to his iconic role, though this time without Cushing’s Van Helsing. While Lee’s name was good for selling tickets, he wasn’t so good for the film, through no fault of his own. The biggest failing is that Lee never speaks. He claims, and I have no reason to doubt him, that the lines in the script (including “I am The Appocalypse!”) were too horrible to utter and he refused to do so. Hammer claims otherwise, that there were never lines for him, but that makes even less sense. Whatever the case, the result is a villain with no personality. He hisses and growls, which some find entertaining. Worse, he is once again a wimpy villain. He does very little and ends up unable to deal with a comically small and artificial ice flow.

With unlikeable protagonists and a mute monster, it is left to Andrew Keir to carry the film, with an assist by an undulating Barbara Shelley as a brief vampire who gets to speak. Keir does an amiable job, as he usually does, though he isn’t in the film enough.

The movie is not theme-heavy, but what is there has not aged well. Dracula represents an excape from repression and the most important thing for any society to do is to keep those wild, free urges, particularly sexual ones, bottled up. It’s the rules of Victorian society, and it is hard to figure why Hammer thought those should be the rules of the ’60s. The image of a group of men, standing around the sexually awakened vampire girl, and staking her to rid her of her fowl desires, is uncomfortable at best.

While no one would be shocked by Prince of Darkness now, in ’66 it was thought to be even more titillating than Horror of Dracula had been eight years before. The blood draining and staking were often noted for their graphic gore, and Dracula pressing an intended victim to his chest was the height of mid-sixties horror sex. Now it is tame. Without that kick, Prince of Darkness is a mild and simple film.

The other Hammer Dracula films are: The Horror of Dracula (1958), The Brides of Dracula (1960)—which lacked Dracula, Dracula Has Risen From the Grave (1968), Taste the Blood of Dracula (1970), Scars of Dracula (1971), Dracula A.D. 1972 (1972), The Satanic Rites of Dracula (1973), and The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires (1974).

Reviews, Vampires Tagged with: Two Reels

A Man For All Seasons (1966)

Aug 071966

In 16th Century England, King Henry VIII (Robert Shaw) wants a divorce from his second wife to marry his third. Sir Thomas More (Paul Scofield), Chancellor, who found his way to go along with the first divorce, finds his Catholic faith won’t allow him to support this one. He trusts that the law, and careful use of words, will keep him alive and his wife (Wendy Hiller) and daughter (Susannah York) well. But Cromwell (Leo McKern), with the help of Rich (John Hurt), works to have More either publically change his position, or die.

Writing as one who had his catechism classes at Saint Thomas More church, A Man For All Seasons isn’t about a man who is for all seasons. It’s about the path of a saint. It, and Becket before it, were the new strand of religious films in the 1960s. There was still money to be made from pop Christianity, but the Biblical-adjacent action epic (Ben Hur, The Ten Commandments, Samson and Delilah, Quo Vadis) had run its course. So miracles were put on hold and humans became center stage—humans defending The Church. The costumes and settings were still flashy and “historical,” but the armor was gone and now when people spoke English, its because it was their language. These films were more respectful than fun. They were a calm service instead of yelling “halleluiah” in the aisles. They aimed for awards, and a return on investment.

A Man For All Seasons, again like Becket, was based on a popular play, with Paul Scofield being ported over from the stage as More. The most substantial change was the elimination of the “Common Man”–the portal character who spoke to the audience and steered their emotions. Without him, this becomes a story of one rich and powerful guy (saint) against more rich and powerful guys, with little concern for regular people.

More is the man of conscience. He sticks to the truth, and to himself, while others bend, and thus, is the hero. Well, not if you read the screenplay without already having accepted More as a saint. If you start with the assumption that he’s holy, then you’ve just got your day’s catechism. If you don’t, then the dialog doesn’t give us the white hats and black hats that the filmmakers wanted. More doesn’t speak as the cinematically expected unflinching paragon, but as a conman using sophistry. He may be for the truth, but he won’t stand up and state the truth to the king. Instead he twists words and the law around to find a loophole to escape through. Smarter than mouthing-off to Henry? Absolutely. It just isn’t heroic. And without that boldness, his position looks less reasonable and more stubborn. People are going to die. Cromwell’s words are the reasonable ones. He knows that the king will have his way, and wants the least trouble (that is suffering and death). Cromwell gives More an out, a way to agree without completely agreeing, and Henry gives More his own sophistic way around the problem, but More won’t budge.

Without that Common Man character, More comes off as an idiot and an ass. Well, if you just read the words. But we can’t have that as he’s a saint. So the good guys and bad guys are assigned not by what they say, or what they do, but how they say it. More is the good guy because Scofield speaks calmly, with a bit of a twinkle in his eye and a self deprecating smile. Likewise his daughter. Henry is a bad guy because Shaw yells and rants (it doesn’t matter what he yells, simply that he yells) and generally overacts. Cromwell is an evil schemer because he rubs his hands together and cackles evilly. Rich is a traitorous weakling because John Hurt stutters and looks guilty and mugs for the camera (he’s appalling bad—since I like Hurt elsewhere I blame director Fred Zinnemann). And More’s son-in-law-to-be is loud and crude, to show how reasonable More must be.

There are other problems with the A Man For All Seasons: The nighttime cinematography is wretched (lighting matters), the story drags in the last half, and the project was underfunded, giving us too small sets shot from a single angle in some cases, but what kills the film is trying to make More the saint that the Catholic church would later certify him to be. The play was on his side, but he’s a man, and there is nuance involved. The Common Man is more important than More. In making it all about More himself, and shooting it so that it’s very clear that he’s always in the right and the others have no valid points, A Man For All Seasons becomes a film really only fitting for those looking for reverence, not art.

Overrated Films, Reviews

The Plague of the Zombies (1966)

Jul 031966

Distraught physician Peter Tompson (Brook Williams) writes his mentor, Sir James Forbes (André Morell) a rambling letter about deaths with no natural explanation in a rural village. Forbes’s daughter (Diane Clare), interested in seeing her friend Alice (Jacqueline Pearce) who happens to be Tompson’s wife, convinces her father to take train and coach to visit the Tompsons. Once there, they find things worse than implied, with empty coffins, a violent upper-class, and Alice exhibiting the symptoms of the recently dead.

Pre-Night of the Living Dead zombie films failed far more often than they succeeded, so it is nice to find one that works. The Plague of the Zombies is tense and a bit nasty, as it should be. It has two scenes that every zombie fan must see and plenty more worth the time. Add in solid, if unexceptional performances, and a plot that holds together, and you have a satisfying zombie film.

Made in the tarnished gold period of Hammer Horror (yup, some gold tarnishes, particularly when it was never really gold), Hammer was looking desperately for a hit, and a cheaply made one. What they got was a pretty good movie, cheaply made. Score for art if not for finances. Part of the cost savings was that director John Gilling made this back to back with The Reptile, using the same sets and some cast overlap. And even if the town doesn’t have enough streets, the ones it has are nice.

Hammer was notorious for plot holes—or just plot nonsense—and The Plague of the Zombies has a few (Why are the hot women being turned into zombies? Potential sex toys is the obvious answer, but then the “zombie” side of things messes that up unless someone has an unstated fetish. So why? It would make far more sense to create a few more bulked up zombies for the task they are given), but very few comparatively. People have reasons for what they do, both good and evil, and the fears and superstitions make sense. The big answer to it all is particularly rewarding and contains a strong message about the problems of class divisions and the cruel way the working class is treated. This is nice to see from Hammer, which had a habit of supporting class distinctions while other film companies were specifically working against them.

No one will list The Plague of the Zombies on any “best of” lists, besides “Best of Hammer Horror,” but it is creepy fun.

Reviews, Zombies Tagged with: Three Reels

Harper (1966)

May 181966

Private detective Lew Harper (Paul Newman) is hired by rich invalid Mrs. Sampson (Lauren Bacall) to find her degenerate and neurotic husband who disappeared a day ago. Helping, or hindering, his investigation is Sampson’s spoiled daughter Miranda (Pamela Tiffin), the family pilot (Robert Wagner), and Sampson’s lawyer (Arthur Hill). The trail passes by an aging film star, a cult, and a heroine addicted piano player. Along with working on the case, Harper is trying to patch up his broken marriage with Susan (Janet Leigh).

The problem with Harper is that—although I’m reviewing it as Noir—it isn’t Noir. The dialog is, as is the characters and situations. It owes a good deal to The Big Sleep. Mrs. Sampson maps onto General Sternwood while Miranda is close enough to Carmen. The plot is a convoluted search for a missing person and the particulars don’t matter. It’s all about the characters. And like Marlowe, Harper spends his share of time beaten up.

This is prime Noir material, with every character being a bit (or massively) cruel and amoral. Newman makes a fine detective and the oversized supporting cast are all good. The lines are sharp and smart. But it looks like a TV movie and sounds like a cop show. There’s no flair. Cinematography says something about the film and its world, and this time it says bland. The music would be OK as incidental music for Mannix, but not in a feature. Film Noir requires a look that echoes the themes and characters, one filled with sickness and corruption, and touched by German expressionism. We get generic color pallet and stiff camera work lacking in artistry. It takes all the energy out of what should have been an excellent picture. It should have been a Film Noir, but it could have worked being something else. It ends up being nothing at all.

Film Noir, Reviews Tagged with: Two Reels

The Matt Helm Franchise (1966-1968)

May 141966

The Silencers (1966)
Murderers’ Row (1966)
The Ambushers (1967)
The Wrecking Crew (1968)

Matt Helm was one of the earlier Bond film parodies, and can be consider the earliest American one. The character is loosely—very loosely—based on a series of dark novels by Donald Hamilton. For the films, the grim tone was replaced with one of indolent fluff and the novels’ plots were ignored, leaving a series of nearly random events for Helm to swagger through.

The films don’t go for big laughs, like Carry On Spying, or the much later Austin Powers movies that borrowed a surprising amount from the Helm Franchise. Instead of jokes there is smirking. While humor is hard to find, sincerity is totally absent. Nothing is given weight. If you are going to avoid both humor and depth, you need to have real talent behind the typewriter, not the guy who’s greatest achievement was King Creole. The scripts should have celebrated absurdity (they did, after all, include death rays, force guns, back-firing and time-delayed pistols, and a flying saucer), but they are listless affairs that muddle along without doing much of anything.

Dean Martin, who was simultaneously hosting his TV show, did not put any effort into constructing a character for Helm (or into anything else in the films), but just played a variant of his public persona. He was Dean Martin from Vegas, but with a gun. He wasn’t the suave he-man that Bond was, or the perfect specimen that was Derek Flint (of the far superior Our Man Flint and In Like Flint), but a cheesy lounge lizard. Yet we are supposed to consider him debonair, clever, and skilled—qualities he never demonstrates. He shows no ability with hand-to-hand combat (it is unlikely Martin would have put in the physical effort for a fight scene) and he never deduces anything. His dealings with women are the most perplexing element. Bond wants women. Flint truly loves them. But Matt Helm seems to mainly be annoyed by them. Repeatedly it is too much effort for him to bother to sleep with them. It makes sense that Derek Flint would have women throwing themselves at him, but not Matt Helm. If Bond’s sins are pride and lust, then Helm’s is sloth.

For a spy who should have been cool, Helm is strangely out of style. Sure, James Bond made fun of rock-n-roll and The Beatles, but Matt Helm questions “what’s with these new fangled dances” and makes a crack about long-haired youths and not being able to tell boys from girls. He was hip according to filmmakers from the wrong generation.

The movies managed to obtain decent casts: Daliah Lavi, James Gregory, Victor Buono, Karl Malden, Ann-Margret, Janice Rule, Elke Sommer, Sharon Tate, Nancy Kwan, Nigel Green, Tina Louise, and somehow a slumming Cyd Charisse. They are better than the material. But they are not enough to explain why the series was a success. No doubt Dean Martin’s popularity and the small budgets helped, as did the acres of scantily clad women, but not enough to dispel the mystery.

The films vary only slightly in quality; one is pretty much like the next. The first has slightly better reviews while I prefer the third, but they all fall into a small range between barely watchable and more-or-less watchable as long as it is on free TV. Giving them 2 Reels is generous, but they are culturally notable and not a bad time. But there’s no need to see them all.

The Silencers (1966)

In the first film, photographer and semi-retire spy Matt Helm is called back into action by MacDonald (James Gregory), the head of the spy organization ICE, to stop the evil plans of Big O and its leader, Tung-Tze (Victor Buono with his eyes taped). He teams with his ex-partner Tina (Daliah Lavi) and Gail Hendricks (Stella Stevens), a klutzy innocent bystander.

The Silencers is slightly less ridiculous than its sequels. It’s not clear if that’s a good thing or not. It makes for fewer truly stupid moments, but as there are no smart moments, we aren’t left with much. The constant bickering between Helm and Hendricks should have sounded like a 1940s romcom, but that requires wit. Stevens does her best, but with the incompetent script, it’s just tiring. So, you are left with a lot of pretty girls to ogle and Gregory and Lavi committing to their roles in an attempt to offset Martin. Well, the backward firing gun is amusing.

Murderers’ Row (1966)

Arch-villains Julian Wall (Karl Malden) and Coco Duquette (Camilla Sparv) have captured a scientist who has developed a death ray. Matt Helm works with the scientist’s daughter (Ann-Margret) to stop the evil scheme.

Released ten months later, Murders Row is probably the low point of the franchise. The dialog has actually gotten worse. After shooting a man with a freeze gun, Helm quips languidly, “Well, if it isn’t Frosty the Snowman.” That’s not a joke. It barely counts as a sentence. Bond had some questionable one-liners, but nothing like that, and that kind of line is all Helm ever says.

Malden, with his purposefully changing accent, makes for a passable villain. He isn’t memorable, but I didn’t hate him.

Ann-Margret is the film’s only trump. She was the epitome of the ‘60s sex-bunny and she dives into that, go-go dancing with passion. She’s not particularly a good actress, but she’s charismatic and sensual, and more importantly, energetic, which puts her miles above Martin, and the picture wouldn’t know what to do with great acting. If you watch Murderers’ Row, it’s for her.

The Ambushers (1967)

The governments new secret flying saucer—that can only be flown by women—has been stolen by Ortega (Albert Salmi) who plans to use it for some evil purpose. The pilot, Sheila Somers (Janice Rule), escapes, but is traumatized, and believes an old cover-story, that she is Matt Helm’s wife. The two set off to recover the saucer.

The Ambushers is probably the most remembered of the Matt Helm films, and it is the best. It is also the most offensive. The title refers to women, who are a constant threat as they trick you into marriage. It is also a light, fluffy, silly film structured around a women being sexually abused and tortured over time such that she has developed severe mental trauma. And all that, along with the flying saucer, are to its advantage. It is better to be offensive than forgettable. If your film is silly and in bad taste, then embrace that, and The Ambushers does.

Martin is still putting in minimum effort, but the rest of the cast are putting in extra. The double-entendres flow like a river, the science fiction elements are more evident and everything is broader. There are occasional jokes that approach being funny. If there is a laugh to be had in the series it is in this entry (and not a few of those jokes were reworked for later spoofs, including the nipple guns, belt sword, and a henchmen confusing combat for wild sex).

The Ambushers also has the advantage of having a competent female character, the only time in the franchise. And there is even something approaching action with Helm getting into a fist fight that lasts more than two punches. He’s still not an action hero, but he comes his closest here. Don’t take any of that to mean things have really changed; this is still a Mat Helm film.

The Wrecking Crew (1968)

Count Contini (Nigel Green) and Linka Karensky (Elke Sommer) steal a billion in gold, threatening to destabilize world financial markets. MacDonald (now John Larch) calls in Matt Helm to get the gold back. Additional attractive women wandering in and out of the picture include annoying Freya Carlson (Sharon Tate) of the Danish tourist Bureau, gypsy dancer Lola Medina (Tina Louise), and henchwoman Yu-Rang (Nancy Kwan).

Tate is given the thankless role of the troublesome klutz, more or less repeating Stella Stevens’s role in the first film. Think Tiffany Case from Diamonds are Forever, only more so. She’s cute, but in a film with Sommer, Louise and Kwan, cute isn’t going to get you far. Like Stevens before her, she’s tiring, only more so.

As for the rest, Martin is still sleeping, the plot is still barely existent, and the dialog is still weak. On the bright side, and it is a very bright side, there is Sommer and Kwan (Louise isn’t around enough to really do much). They are both beautiful and fun. They carry the picture, to the extent that it moves at all.

Of note: Bruce Lee choreographed the fights and a young Chuck Norris shows up to do stunts, but don’t take that to mean there are any fights or stunts worth seeing. I don’t think either would put it on their resume.

The film ends with a promise of another installment entitled The Ravagers. There are several stated rumors on why that didn’t happen, including the poor box office of The Wrecking Crew, Martin’s disinterest and time constrains, and the shadow cast by Sharon Tate’s murder.

Four films were probably three two many in any case. If you are asking very little of your film viewing for the day, and want to see some attractive women is sexy outfits, a Matt Helm film will do. But try a Flint one first.

Reviews, Science Fiction Tagged with: Two Reels

1 2 … 91 92 93 94 95 … 131 132