Recently Rated Movies #9: Birthday Drums but a Non-Drumstick Thanksgiving in Santa Rosa

"This is exactly the sort of music that could get me pregnant!" - J-Men Forever (1979)

Every time that I travel somewhere, whether a new city or a town which I have visited numerous times (such as Santa Rosa), and no matter what I am doing and how much I am enjoying it, my eye is always automatically drawn towards every movie theatre that I pass. We could be passing through the schlumpiest village, with no intentions on ever stopping in the accursed hole, and if I see even the most bedraggled movie-house, invariably trapped in between some antique store and some Mom and Pop Hardware Stop, my heart will immediately yearn to stop for a look-see at the joint and, if time permits, a movie. But my love for the movies doesn't merely end at viewing a film. 

I enjoy collecting visits to movie theatres nearly as much as I enjoy going to museums and zoos and the other touristy things that I tend to do on vacations. Especially older theatres from the early or middle part of the 20th century, but I even find a thrill in hitting modern cineplexes, if only to gather extra fuel on how much I continue to despise the postage stamping of the cinema (though I fully acknowledge the upsides of cineplexes, too, minor though they may be). In any hobby, collectors set their own standards: philatelists may prefer to only gather materials from a certain area or era of stamp collecting, or they can try out stamps from any and all eras, countries and types. Such is the way it is for myself and movie theatres. I wish to check out any theatre, and by proxy, any movie, anywhere that I can find one.

Unfortunately, we were so busy that we were unable to hit any theatres on this past weekend's trip up to my brother's house, especially with most of the time taken up with preparing and pulling off my nephew Aerin's (also known as Rupert or the Rupe) awesome fifth birthday party. There was talk of a visit to the Rialto in Santa Rosa to see a midnight show revival of Young Frankenstein, talk which only served to drive me mad: happily insane at first at the possibility of such an occurrence, which then switched to despondency once we discovered that the Brooks-Wilder classic had actually shown two weeks earlier. Drat... and double drat.

Despite this horrid setback, I did manage to view a near handful of DVDs while happily ensconced at The M'Otis Arms (and pick up two interesting discs on our travels into San Francisco). An inaugural viewing of The Princess Bride for the Rupe was nearly as much of an adventure as the film itself. Armed with shield and wooden sword, the self-proclaimed "fearless" five year-old found himself much tested on the field of battle. My brother Otis and I spent the majority of the film calming his anxieties regarding bad guys that start out looking like good guys, good guys that start out looking like bad guys, a hero who dresses in the garb of a masked pirate, the torture machine in the Pit of Despaiiiirrrrr, and especially, the R.O.U.S.'s in the Fire-Swamp.

Refreshingly, though not for the Rupe, the scene that was most upsetting was the savage bit of violence involving Count Rugan's throwing of the dagger into Inigo Montoya's stomach. I recalled my bad dreams after I saw Flynn's Captain Blood at an early (though slightly older) age, even though the film led me to a love for swashbucklers. Of course, despite his fears, the Rupe wouldn't let us turn off the film. And, of course, I spent the majority of the rest of the weekend being lassoed and dispatched in my new role as an avuncular R.O.U.S., though I was often joined in my monstrous service by my Brother Rodent of Unusual Size. As for the film itself, seeing it alongside a much younger pair of eyes that thrilled to its every turn of plot, reminded me of just how nearly perfect Rob Reiner got the original book's tone, and also of what a grand adventure The Princess Bride remains to this day.

Later on Thanksgiving evening came time for the adults (ha!) to watch Jean-Pierre Jeunet's Un long dimanche de fiancailles (A Very Long Engagement), which I missed in the theatres because I was too deeply involved in my move to So Cal, and which I was really pissed off about missing because I adore Audrey Tautou. Marci (my sister-in-law) said that she had heard that Ms. Tautou wasn't really the sweet thing that she portrayed in Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain (also Jeunet), and that she was supposedly a twat. I answered "Precisely..." 

I enjoyed A Very Long Engagement, as much as I can enjoy a film that immerses itself in the human misery that was World War I so deeply and savagely. I get upset by war pictures (as any sane human should) in much the same way that the Rupe was upset by the dagger scene mentioned above, so much so that much of the film was extremely rough going for me. But I enjoyed the mystery in the film, there were some gorgeously filmed set pieces, and there was some well-played dark humor, as well. As with other Jeunet joints, I will definitely get my own copy at a later date.

Friday night was spent putting together an awesome drum set for the Rupe (and seeing the Keith Moonisms erupt at the party the next day -- by which I mean on the drums -- was the high point of the trip, though the music jam that took hold of the party was pretty sweet, too), but I had spent two nights swearing that Mark and I were going to stay up late some night and watch his copy of J-Men Forever, a spoof of Republic serials and conservative mores that two members of the Firesign Theatre contrived in the late '70s. It says quite proudly on the case that it was a staple of USA's Night Flight lineup throughout the '80s and, sure enough, that is exactly the last place that I saw it myself, around 20 years ago, and I was not going to leave Santa Rosa without watching the goddamn thing. So, our path was clear and, tired as we were from the day's travels and travails, we set ourselves down to view it. 

Luckily, for our sleep-deprived heads, J-Men Forever is only 75 minutes long, though Otis zonked for the last 20 minutes of it. Of course, he had already seen it several times recently. I am most happy to report that J-Men Forever holds up beautifully. Only a few of the jokes are truly dated, and most of the film had me howling with nostalgic delight. It also spawned a small civil skirmish in my brain, with one side laughing uproariously at the screen antics and the other side seeking to heroically defend the '40s serials that were being mocked. But merriment reigned supreme in this battle, and I set aside my outrage and simply enjoyed the experience.

Late Saturday night, my brother Chris, flung down from the boondocks of some wilderness village known as Seattle, joined us for a small reunion which we ended with an early a.m. viewing of a DVD from an issue of The Believer, a literary magazine much in vogue at this point in time. 6 short films of varying genre, style, attitude and length, ranging from less than a couple of minutes to over 20, all joined together at the hip in brother/sisterhood due to the fact that they are merely different from the mainstream mindset. 

Chief amongst these films for me was a hilarious short by Guy Maddin (he of The Saddest Music in the World fame) called Sombra Dolorosa, in which Mexican wrestling, voodoo and cannibalism are combined in an odd-tasting but satisfying stew (much like most of the Maddin that I have seen). The longest short, and equally satisfying as a film, was Squash, where the cutthroat business world finds its way onto a racquetball court, and everything is on the line for a much put-upon employee and his hissable villain of a superior. Ethics schmethics! The briefest film, and the one that I have been thinking about most since I viewed the disc, was Sweeter As the Years Roll By (Pt. 3). It consists of a single static shot of an escalator (it could even be from a surveillance camera), and while the escalator continues to roll ceaselessly, a hand holds a white marker down over the safety grip of the device, drawing one long white line that eventually connects once the track is played out completely. I, for one, have never considered just how much track there was in an escalator, and really have never given escalators much thought in general. That has changed.

On our trip into San Francisco to see the De Young Museum, we did take a side trip over to Haight-Ashbury, where we not only ate our fill of neo-Cuban cuisine at Cha Cha Cha's, but I also managed to hit the Giant Robot store across the street. As much as I would have liked to purchase nearly everything in the joint, I only walked out with a box which could have held any number of figures from Shichinin no samurai (The Seven Samurai), but which turned out, happily for me, to contain Kurosawa-san himself (or, rather, a tiny plastic molded figurine of the director). He even has a change of swell hats! 

At Amoeba Records, I made off (legally) with a copy of The Archers' The Tales of Hoffman, a film which I have never seen but has consistently remained on my "To See" list for much of my life. Additionally, while at the gift shop at the De Young, I purchased, at the passionate behest of Otis, a DVD of In the Realms of the Unreal: The Mystery of Henry Darger. Henry Darger was an artist of whom I have read a several retrospective articles, though I have only seen his art in those same magazines. I was even inspired enough by the little that I had seen and by his story to construct a brief poem in which he is a central figure. I am looking forward to viewing the disc given just how ecstatic both of my brothers are about it.

So, to sum up, while I didn't get to any new (or rather, old) movie theatres, I did manage to see or collect a few things on my travels.

And I am still mad about the Young Frankenstein debacle, though...

The List:

The Princess Bride (1987) DVD - 8
A Very Long Engagement (2004) DVD - 7
J-Men Forever (1979) DVD - 6
Deformer (2000) Believer DVD - 5
Is A Woman (unknown) Believer DVD - n/r
Tortured By Joy (unknown) Believer DVD - n/r
Sombra Dolorosa (2004) Believer DVD - 7
Sweeter As the Years Roll By (Pt. 3) (unknown) Believer DVD - n/r
Squash (2002) Believer DVD - 7

Recently Rated Movies #8: Lucking Out at Good Night, and Good Luck

This Monday past, as we approached the doors of the Century 25 in Orange, intent to make our way through said doors to finally check out Good Night, and Good Luck, Jen and I were stopped by a clipboard-bearing fellow of relatively youngish bearing. Having become accustomed to such people in Alaska standing outside theatres bearing queries as to our general standing on the pet political issue of the moment (such as aerial wolf shaving), I was more than prepared to hear the lad out. As I prepared my soapbox for a good stepping up, I was stunningly surprised when he asked us a most mind-boggling question: "Would you like to attend a test screening of a new motion picture tomorrow night?"

Ye cats! I had totally forgotten that I was now living in Southern California, and that such things, I had been told, were a regular part of life down here. Nearly everyone I know that has spent even a minute portion of time in this area seems to have a story involving an invitation to a test screening. People will offhandedly tell me "Oh yeah, I was in town for twelve minutes and someone approached us about going to see a free screening of some film. We were leaving the next day, so we couldn't go" or "Yeah, someone asked us as we were leaving the abortion clinic if we wanted to see a test screening. We weren't doing anything, so we went" or "I was having a gruntie one afternoon and someone slid the bottom half of a clipboard underneath the bathroom door and asked me about seeing some film." Apparently, these people are everywhere down here.

Edward R. Murrow

Well, I'm not one to miss out on the free advance goodies, so, of course, the moment that the question was out of his mouth, I was delivering my joyous response in the affirmative. The only possible way that I could have answered "yes" faster were if I were offered the position of Charlize Theron's personal Thighmaster.

I will not report on nor rate the film in question, outside of saying that it was a positive experience and momentarily overrode my qualms about test screenings in general. I have artistic issues with their use by studios, but Jen waylaid those issues by convincing me that it was a chance to use my powers for good, and that I could help the artistic process along the way. Perhaps in the future (closer to or on the film's release) I will discuss the matter. Meanwhile, the jury is still out on this subject...

The jury, however, is in on Good Night, and Good Luck, and in my best Gene Shalit style (I promise to never do this again!), I am declaring it GUILTY... guilty of being one of the best films that I have seen this year! I will be sorely disappointed if David Strathairn is not just handed an Oscar for his performance as Edward R. Murrow. Everyone has "ringer" films, films that you know are coming out that are "ringers" for your affection; films that are so locked into you as its target audience, due to personal interests, political leanings, etc., that you are almost definitely presold on the idea of the film before you have seen more than just the trailer. Personally, there are three films this year that fulfill such a role: Serenity, King Kong and Good Night, and Good Luck. Of course, "ringer" films can go horribly awry (witness "Phantom Menace," for instance), but I have been fortunate with the two released thus far.

It is a definite pleasure seeing this story retold for Generation I. The parallels to today's media and political climate are devastatingly clear ("the more things change, the more they stay the same" has never been more true), and you get a savage buzz watching these people fly by the seat of their pants prepping their campaign against the insane Sen. McCarthy. (Yes, I said insane. I would add evil, too, but I'm in a time crunch. So, I'll leave things polite.) Having been obsessed with Murrow briefly as a young adult, I poured through numerous recordings and biographies on him before moving on to my next obsession (which I believe was, briefly, Lord Dunsany). I highly recommend Murrow: His Life and Times by A.M. Sperber, and I am quite angry at myself for selling off my hardback copy of the book right before I left Alaska. (I am especially angry because I knew this movie was coming out and would most assuredly want to read it again either before or after I saw the film. Oh well...guess I'm buying the paperback...)

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire was not a "ringer" film, except in the idea that the ticket was "presold" (which, I assume, is all that really matters to the studio). I know full well that I will see each of the films in this series, so they might as well take vouchers from all of the devoted fans of the books, too, and tabulate future box office earnings right now. I'm glad that they are intent on seeing the series through with the same actors, and I will check out each film, even though I am always hesitant in the area of sequels. The Potter series has been that rare series where the films, have grown stronger with each succeeding volume (much like the books), mainly due to the series growing up (sometimes in a very severe way) along with the characters. 

This film is quite enjoyable, though a notch slightly below the third film, and this is mainly due to what I view as some awkward editing (mainly in transitional scenes) that would jar me just enough to take me out of the fantasy of the film. That said, the dragon sequence was very well-turned; the underwater sequences were a murky and creepy wonder, and I really liked the look that they designed for Voldemort. When Ron cries out "Bloody Hell!" when the hottie French chicks enter the hall, I was staggered briefly for two reasons: I had forgotten the slightly more adult tone of the fourth book, and because I pay no attention whatsoever to the rating of a film, I had no idea the film was PG-13. I figure by the time the seventh film rolls out, there will be an NC-17, because I hear Rowling is planning to have Hermione's pumpkin juiced at an All-Slytherin graduation party gangbang. Good luck with the MPAA with that, J.K.

I wanted to really love Walk the Line, but (and I will skip the obvious Shalit-ism apparent in the title) the film turns out to be standard bio-pic fare (much like the joyously entertaining but overrated Ray) and could have almost been a TV movie-of-the-week (if such things truly existed anymore). What is great here is totally held within the performances of the leads and in the energy produced by the musical sequences (sung surprisingly well by Phoenix and Witherspoon). I just wish that someone would break the stagnant mold of the bio-pic over their knee, and give us a truly bold new vision of the biographical picture. Of course, safe is the way that the studios play with these projects, so it will never happen. (This same problem is why the Bond series is still being shot with the safety on. Give a film to Tarantino or Rodriguez and LET THEM PLAY! Let David Lynch shoot the Martha Stewart story! Let Altman remake Sybil so that all of her personalities talk over each other's lines!)

On the down side of things, I caught Catwoman on HBO on Saturday night. Now I remember why I am getting rid of HBO at the end of the month. It's not HBO's fault: they only scheduled the damnable thing. No, it's purely and simply the filmmakers' fault. Halle Berry is indeed a perfect choice to play Catwoman, just not the one portrayed in this movie. There is a section in the middle of the film, before she dons the ridiculous-looking kitty mask for the remainder of the film, where the recently revived Patience Phillips (no Selina Kyle here) foils/heists a group of jewelry store burglars. The scene is fun, has great kinetic energy, and has Berry looking and acting like the lost daughter of Eartha Kitt's Catwoman from the 60's. (She even affects an outrageous purr in her voice.) This is the way they should have gone, so it's too bad the rest of the film is so... so... so-so. It's not even camp enough to be fun in a Showgirls sort of way, just... boring. And monumentally stupid.

Sharon Stone seems to get it though. She has the perfect tone -- high camp -- throughout the film, digging her teeth into the role. And it is a shame that the rest of the crew and cast didn't just go with her on this one. As for people ragging on the plot about killer makeup products that can give you super-strength and flesh of marble, well, we are talking a genre involving radioactive spiders and babies crashing into earth from other planets. That part of the film was the most believable component. All in all, it would be a yawn-rousing time, except that a yawn might cause me to hack up a furball.

The List:

Good Night, and Good Luck (2005) - 8
Svengali (1931) TCM - 6
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005) - 7
Road to Bali (1952) TCM - 6
Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker (2000) HBO - 6
The Naked Spur (1953) TCM - 7
Return of the Bad Men (1948) TCM- 5
Catwoman (2004) HBO - 3
The Velvet Goldmine (1998) IFC - 6
Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2001) IFC - 8
Kiru [Kill!] (1968) IFC - 7
Dai-bosatsu toge [Sword of Doom] (1966) DVD - 8
Bollywood/Hollywood (2002) Sundance - 6
Walk the Line (2005) - 7

Recently Rated Movies #7: Lemmy Caution & Mad Science Apery

"All things are normal in this whore of cities..." - Alphaville (1965)

I am gleefully stuck this weekend in Godard's Alphaville. I have not seen this film since I was eighteen and the owners of my favorite video store loaned me their personal copy of it. It has not changed: it is still one of the strangest films that I have ever beheld, and I'm sure it would tax the patience of even the hardiest of viewers. Myself, I think it is marvelous fun, and I have dug into its treasures three times over the course of the last two days. A caveat: I say that I am having fun, but of course, to me, Eraserhead is a casual walk in the park.

The film seems to take itself seriously, yet is obviously a parody of both spy and science-fiction films, especially those of the dystopian future genre. It is clearly a case of Godard having a good deal of fun at the audience's expense, especially if the decidedly mixed history of reviews for the film are any indication. I was having fun with the puzzle within the film, and even if half of the questions raised do not get resolved, I really did not care. The journey seems to be the point. And speaking of journeying, and it could be the translation is highly faulty, or perhaps in French it might make more sense, but somehow you can drive your car from planet to planet. (I just had flashbacks to the car from Repo Man...)

Eddie Constantine is absolutely riveting as a tense, bulldog-looking version of James Bond named Lemmy Caution, whom he played in several films previous to this one. He might be parodying his former turns in the role, but I have not seen any of those other films, so I cannot say such a thing with any certainty. And if all Seductresses Class Three were as smolderingly heart-breaking as Anna Karina, I think I would probably get sucked into the machinery of Alphaville myself.

Regardless of the black-and-white starkness that much of the film takes place in, Godard fills the film with visual punnery, and he gives many of the characters that we meet or hear of names from all over popular culture, and seems to take great delight in giving it to practically all ideologies right in the ass. Not a perfect film by any means, and it trips over its own feet here and there (or does it, Jean-Luc?), but I feel it is far better than I have read or remembered from my previous viewing.

On the sleazier side of the tracks, I next watched a poverty-row Monogram thriller starring Boris Karloff from 1940 called The Ape. as readily as I will view anything that the Great Karloff appeared in, this proved to be not such an enjoyable undertaking. However, it provides me the opportunity to add a side-note on Curt Siodmak.

Siodmak adapted the play (!) and co-wrote the screenplay for this one, and while the film seems to be a horror film, it is actually a rather under-average thriller, wherein the doctor played by Karloff, in order to obtain spinal fluid in which to restore hope to a young woman's stricken with polio, kills and skins an escaped circus gorilla, and then dons the skin to take out his victims while all of the blame is placed on the "killer gorilla". This would be a great idea if the entire county weren't out for blood and shooting at anything hairy that moves. Thus, the doctor's plan and timing are sheer idiocy. Since he already has the gorilla's skin, why doesn't he just bludgeon his victims, extract their precious spinal fluid, and then leave tufts of the gorilla's fur at the scenes of the crime? Why parade around in the gorilla suit? Luckily for him, the circus gorilla has apparently been groomed to look and trained to move just like Ray "Crash" Corrigan in an unrealistic gorilla suit, so the doctor doesn't have to work too hard to effect the proper (improper) gorilla impression.

I mention all of this because The Ape is another Siodmak film, much as in Curucu, Beast of the Amazon (1956), where the supposed "monster" is revealed at the end of the film to be simply a man in a "monster" suit, though the difference this time is that the audience is in on the killer's plan, rather than an audience full of kids believing they are watching a monster movie and then having the rug pulled out from under them at the film's conclusion. So, did it take Curt over fifteen years to finally stew up a variation on the ol' "blame everything on the escaped gorilla" plot, which this extremely average Karloff "thriller" embodies? (There is a fellow who wrote a review on IMDB who says that, like him, you have to be a fan of the old black-and-white horror movies of the 30's and 40's to enjoy this film. Well, I am, and no, I did not...) Even taken as cheese, it is unfulfilling even as an appetizer.

I followed this inanity with another similarly produced PRC poverty-row effort, though of considerably greater quality, from 1944 called The Monster Maker . Despite sporting another guy-in-a-bad-gorilla-suit, the film is directed, with far greater talent than I expected, by PRC vet Sam Newfield, This film is a surprisingly nasty piece of work, especially given the era in which it was made. J. Carroll Naish is a clearly mad scientist who craves the affections of a piano virtuoso's daughter, who just so happens to be the spitting image of his dearly departed wife. To force her hand in marriage, Naish injects the father (Ralph Morgan) with the virus that causes acromegaly, which is the affliction that cursed Rondo Hatton. The makeup work on Morgan is extremely weird-looking and well-done, somewhat approaching the look of the real-life "Elephant Man," Joseph "John" Merrick. There is a stunning-looking shot of Ralph Morgan done up in overcoat, hat and scarf that totally reminds me of Darkman, at least, to my eyes. All in all, I am saddened that I took so long to actually watch this film, as I have had a copy for a number of years yet had never gotten around to viewing it. Of this, surprises are often made...

As for Bharat Mata (English title: Mother India), this supposed Bollywood "Gone With the Wind" I found by turns beautiful, enchanting, funny, tragic, and ultimately, after an interminable nearly 3 hours, boring and disappointing. I found the resolution completely unsatisfying (though a bit shocking, which was nice) as I would have taken care of the nasty business that occurs about 15 years earlier than it does in the film. I'm sure there are details about Indian village protocol that I am not privy to here in the U.S., but I found the molasses-like way that the put-upon family deals with the villain completely annoying. I did not have any problem with the musical sequences, though they are the source of some comedic chuckling amongst people generally unfamiliar with Bollywood films. I will admit to being a relative novice myself, having only seen about fifteen examples of the genre or so, but to a certain degree, most of those examples have all seemed to be the same movie in many respects. While there is a good deal of variety within each film, almost like someone is re-assembling the same grab-bag of ideas for each film, I prefer some elements of my films to be separated once in a while. In the end, while I have no problem with lengthy Bollywood epics, and look forward to seeing others, this one left me wanting something a little more.

Turner Classic Movies, almost unwittingly it seems, showed a pair of Jack Arnold films over the weekend that he directed for Universal in the same year (1957). No comment was made by Ben Mankiewicz in his introduction, which might not be surprising as he is not actually doing the intros live, but Turner did show these films within the same 24-hour period, and I thought that maybe a little contrast and compare would have been interesting. Turner does often sync these things up, so I was surprised that no mention was made.

In the first, a modern western called Man in the Shadow, Orson Welles stars in a fun but small and ultimately indifferent role as shady ranch dictator Virgil Renchler (who has a grown-up daughter with the moniker Skippy! She also has a pet kangaroo named Jif... nah, I'm pulling your leg). The film moves nicely to its predictable conclusion, there are many comments made about racism and class distinction, and Jeff Chandler takes a pretty impressive screen beating as the sheriff in over his head with trouble.

However, if I were a shady ranch dictator, and one of the migrant ranch hands were beaten to death on my property by a couple of my boys, and all of the evidence were taken care of and there wasn't the slightest possibility that anyone in a predominately white county bought and paid for by my money were going to take the word of another migrant worker seriously, I think my orders would be to let the sheriff onto the property unprovoked and without sticking guns in his face. On my end of things, as that shady ranch dictator, why act unbelievably suspicious and distrustful? Were it me, I would have been, "Come on in! Take a look around! Have some coffee? Game of checkers? Take a ride on Skippy?"

There are two other amusing things in Man in the Shadow: Royal Dano plays a character named Aiken Clay. That's right: Aiken Clay. And William Schallert shows up dressed up in cowboy gear. Pretty funny, given that he plays the doctor in the next film that I watched: the still worthy science-fiction classic, The Incredible Shrinking Man. I don't need to say much about this one, except that they keep trying to recast this film as a comedy, and I believe that is a mistake. They failed with the distaff Lily Tomlin version, and I am not holding out much hope for the upcoming Keenan Ivory Wayans version, which I'm sure will be top-loaded with penis jokes.

Sure, the original version has moments of unintentional comedy, especially to eyes viewing it almost fifty years later, but that can be said about nearly any film made in another era when attitudes, acting styles, and technological effects are so different from what we know today. Remember, or try to understand, the era that this was made in, and you will discover a very sober and somber reflection of a man dealing with his rapidly changing place in the universe, and I believe that the movie's effects, on the whole, hold up remarkably well today, especially once the shrinking Scott Carey (Grant Williams) ends up trapped in the basement and his epic battle begins against the resident spider. (The house spider is slightly miscast as a tarantula, but they are scarier looking. At least to most people; not to me.) The movie has one of those endings where I am not sure whether I am happy or sad for the protagonist. Just as he has to shuffle his feelings toward his experience, the viewer seems to be asked to take the simple stance of acceptance in the face of amazing odds, rather than railing against them. Whether this a good idea or not (I would rather go down spitting in the face of such odds myself), it is a remarkable stance for what most would consider a standard B-picture. At least, all of the picture's existential musings haven't been ruined by a plethora of dick jokes.

Herewith, all of the films from the past week:

Alphaville, une etrange aventure de Lemmy Caution (1965) Criterion Collection DVD - 8
Tirez sur le pianiste (Shoot the Piano Player) (1960) DVD - 8
Les quatre cents coups (The 400 Blows) (1958) DVD - 9
Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1961) TCM - 6
Captain Nemo and the Underwater City (1969) TCM - 5
The Ape (1940) DVD - 3
The Monster Maker (1944) DVD - 5
School of Rock (2003) DVD - 7
The Last Waltz (1978) IFC - 8
The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) TCM - 9
Blade II (2002) DVD - 7
The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957) TCM - 8
Bharat Mata (Mother India) (1957) TCM - 6
Man in the Shadow (1957) TCM - 6

A Magnificent Display of Effusion...

There was a morning a couple weeks back, after I had woken up before 4:00 a.m. to take care of an emergency that was rather liquid in fashion (and to also feed my cry-baby of a cat, who always picks the most inopportune times to whine about something, i.e. usually the middle of the night... the jerk), when the TCM announcer informed me that the Marx Brothers' classic Animal Crackers was about to come on the air. Settling back in bed, I sighed a deep sigh of comfort and happiness, assuming that I would be swept back into Dreamland with the antics of my favorite comedy team glowing across the bare white walls of the bedroom.

This would have been a great plan if I had fallen asleep before the movie had actually started, because once it did, any thought of drifting mellowly back into slumber went away swiftly. It wasn't even the Marx Brothers that did the deed: it was the film's opening six minutes, from the opening credits and music, Robert Greig addressing the bellhops, Margaret Dumont and Louis Sorin setting up the plot, cutie pie Lillian Roth being adorable, and then Zeppo singing... every line, every pause, every sound served to keep me awake. The worst part was that I wasn't even watching the screen; I slept on my side, as I always do, facing away from the television, but everything that was occurring on the screen was fresh within my mind, and everything said was passing through my lips by rote. And Captain Spaulding had yet to even make his entrance.

And when the esteemed Captain did glide into the hotel lobby, I knew that I only had two options: watch the entire damn film again, or change the channel. (Turning off or turning down the TV are not on the option menu. While I usually prefer total darkness and silence, Jen uses the TV like a singing nightlight, requiring both the light and a decent sound level to lull her to sleep.) I started out, as expected, with the first option, sitting up in bed and singing quietly along with the full Captain Spaulding number and the first appearances of Chico and Harpo. But as soon as Harpo's gun battle with the statuary occurred, I knew that sleep was a far more important course to take (I did have a rather important meeting later that day), and that my affection for the Brothers Marx would not be hurt by this minor betrayal. And so, for the first time in my life, I turned off a Marx Brothers film.

This was tempered by the fact that, while I did already own a DVD copy of Animal Crackers, wending its way in the mail to me was the Marx Brothers Silver Screen Collection, a Universal DVD compilation of the first five (sound) films of the Marxes' oeuvre: The Cocoanuts, Animal Crackers, Monkey Business, Horse Feathers, and my hands-down favorite Marx film, Duck Soup. This purchase, bought through the auspices of a very nice and timely gift certificate given to me by my boss, was something I had been putting off for a longer time than I wished, as I was not buying films for most of a year until I got established in my new locale, and it would finally complete my Marx film collection. (Jen had given me the Warner/MGM Marx Bros. Collection the previous year.) Thus, while it definitely hurt my heart to turn off Animal Crackers, much-needed sleep was the issue, and soon I would be wallowing in as much of the Marxes' silliness as I wished.

When my parents took my brothers and I to our first Marx Brothers film, which just so happened to be Animal Crackers, it was 1974. I was ten years old when our family drove the twenty miles or so from our home in Eagle River to the Polar Theatre in Anchorage. The Polar Theatre at the time had only one screen, but would eventually switch to a multi-theatre set-up, with one large screen and two postage stamp ones. The Polar was the theatre where I saw The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi in their original release, and where I also saw Blue Velvet, Re-Animator and The Evil Dead (amongst many others) for the very first time. A few years before I left Anchorage, the Polar was shut down and was cruelly converted into an alternative school which was named, in a very taunting fashion that I just know was solely directed at me to piss me off further, Polaris. 

Our appearance there was due to the fortuitous national re-release of Animal Crackers that year, thanks to a particular rabid Marx Brothers fan named Steve Stoliar. Having recently seen a much degraded copy of Animal Crackers at a revival house, the UCLA student enlisted the aid of none other than Groucho Marx himself, then in his dotage, to whip up wild support and begin a campaign to have Universal release the picture nationally. The Marxes were exceedingly popular among college students of the day. While only Groucho and Zeppo were alive at the time, the counterculture had picked up the Marxes as anarchist symbols, and Groucho did nothing to dissuade the resulting adoration. He used the attention to tour the country nationally and quite successfully, releasing several books, and making numerous appearances on television. The eventual outcome of all this would be an Honorary Oscar in 1975, but in 1974, all I knew about the Marxes was what I knew from television and my mother.

I knew who the Marx Brothers were before that day: I had certainly beheld many clips of their films on television for years, and it had been explained to me that the voice that Alan Alda on M*A*S*H would break into on many episodes was an impression of Groucho Marx. I also owned a series of audiocassettes of old radio shows that I would listen to at night, and one of those tapes was a solid hour of "You Bet Your Life", which I had pretty much memorized by that point in time. (It was my favorite after Abbott and Costello's "Who's On First?", of course, which was my choice by default, owing to my baseball obsession.) So, to be honest, I did have some exposure to the Marx family before this trip to the Polar Theatre.But I didn't know exactly what was going to happen to me after that trip. I recall that Animal Crackers was shown in conjunction with a Ma and Pa Kettle film, the actual title in that series I don't remember. In fact, except for a flash of pickup truck careening down a backroad that is still stuck in my memory, I don't remember anything else of that movie. I'm sure that I laughed at the Kettle flick (my parents certainly loved it), but the world stopped for me when Groucho and his brothers hit the screen.

And once Animal Crackers started, and those same opening six minutes I described above in that modern TCM showing came to life on the screen, I almost died of boredom. I knew nothing at that age of musicals, of plot development (such as it is), of setting up characters or scenes later in the film. To this day, I have almost zero interest in the plot of any Marx film. Yes, there are films like A Night at the Opera, where the plot seems to be a well-considered component of the total film, but I personally can do without its intrusion. I just wanted to see the Marx Brothers... where the hell were they? Well, Zeppo is there in those first six minutes, but I really did not know him by sight then. No, it wasn't until Groucho was carried in by his African porters (complete with a separately carried gun rack) that I perked up in my seat. From the moment he first spoke -- and especially when he sings his famous Hello, I Must Going song -- I was hooked.

Truth be told, and this is no surprise to any of my longtime friends who have had to suffer through thirty-odd years of my poor imitation of the fellow, it was actually Harpo Marx that won my heart in that first film. Harpo is the one that kids automatically identify with the most, and I was no exception. As much as Groucho and Chico carry the story along with their taunts and jibes, it is Harpo who was the true spirit of anarchy in the film. He is the bratty child unleashed, and there are little or no consequences for him to pay for from his silly though often violent or shocking actions. 

Groucho is more of a bratty adult; he might act at times like a child, but he is very recognizably an adult playing at children's games, relying more on adult wit (and his abuse of the wits, or generally lack of it, of others), and he is only as wild as the plot allows him to be. An example would be in the opening musical sequence, where he will be goofing on some piece of Marxian business, but the story demands that he has a line to sing, and it snaps him momentarily back into accepted civilized behavior, but only until the demand is met and then he is off again skewering the snobs. Groucho, however much he jokingly sneers at society, because he is the closest thing to an adult in the team, is our sole anchor to whatever plot there is in the film. (Zeppo seems to be the adult, but he is hardly necessary to the plot at hand, even when they try to force the issue.) 

Harpo, on the other hand, is barely controllable even by his brothers, and almost entirely a creature of destruction (except for the harp solos, which are the sole evidence of Harpo having, well, a soul), ruled completely by his id, and is flat-out a large-sized child (albeit with some very lecherous tendencies towards blondes). Chico seems to maintain the middle ground between the other two brothers, jumping from bits with Groucho to bits with Harpo with ease, playing the punning pinhead in the first and then jumping to almost straight man status for the mute, frenetic Harpo. Zeppo, though I have more of a appreciation for him than most people I know, is practically furniture when the other three are in the room together. He does well in his verbal sparring with Groucho in their famous "Take a letter" scene, but when all is said and done, Zeppo is Zeppo.

So Harpo won out that day, though this may be due to my being most familiar with Groucho already. He was less of a surprise to me, and Harpo did mostly physical comedy that I could try to replicate badly on my own. Eventually, Groucho would win out with me. His verbal wit, whether on screen, radio, or in his numerous books (all of which I would own eventually) would be hard for most others to match, even Harpo and Chico. If any angel guided me in my often angry but more often frustrating battle against the forces of society throughout the rest of my life, it has been Groucho.

But, at the age of ten, when I saw the Marxes unchained and on a big screen for the first time, satire, surrealism and anarchy were unknown concepts to me. Fears of the adult world to come were not a concern yet. I was only a child, and even with my limited world view and experience, I just knew that the Marx Brothers were the funniest people in the history of our planet. And to me, no matter how much comedy I had seen or read since then, no matter how much I grew to revere Chaplin or Keaton or Lloyd or Fields or Kaye in the following years, the Marxes are still at the top of the heap.

Which is why I was completely delighted when my boss Jonathan asked me recently to loan him a couple of Marx movies, so that he may introduce his young children to them for the first time. I gave him my original discs of Animal Crackers and Duck Soup, and when he asked which one to let them watch first, naturally I gave him only one choice: Animal Crackers. To find out the next day that, like me, they were a little confused and bored at first, but completely ecstatic about the brothers by the end of the film and begging to see Duck Soup, made this Grinch's heart grow three sizes that day. I suddenly had some small hope for the future of mankind.

And wishing that I were Jonathan's kids watching the Marxes for the very first time? I don't need to wish for that time back. All I need to do is watch Animal Crackers again... and I am there.

[This article was updated and re-edited slightly on April 14, 2016.]

Dis-Rik of Columbia? (Pt. 2)

[Continued from Pt. 1, which you can read here.]

I am now faced with this dilemma: Having just decided to finally take a stab at the Super Cheap DVD Offer, what could I possibly find to order from a company that seems to only specialize in doling out mainstream entertainment choices?

I'm not saying that my tastes are in any way special. I am no different than anyone else in this aspect: I like what I like, and that is all. I enjoy films of all varieties, no matter where my brow happens to be set, high or low. (Yes, even if my tastes can get a little arty at times, I am always leveled out by the fact that I am a fan of monster movies. You can make a case that they are a metaphor for this-or-that, blah-blah-blah, etcetera, etcetera, and some of the better ones might be exactly that, but deep down at the core of things, they are merely monster movies. Even if ninety percent of them are complete garbage, I still love them. I watch them like frustrated housewives used to read Barbara Cartland and Harlequin novels. They would be my prime guilty pleasure if I ever held or displayed any guilt over them. Which I don't.)

For the record, I have favorite movies in just about any genre. I am partial to silent films (especially Keaton, Chaplin, Lloyd, and Murnau), team and romantic comedy of the 1930s, real and fake film noir, Orson Welles, Fritz Lang, Michael Powell, Howard Hawks, Richard Lester, Stanley Kubrick, Anthony Mann, John Sturges, Sergio Leone westerns, pre-1970 animation from just about any studio, horror and sci-fi (no matter how schlocky), Flynn, Power, Fairbanks and Lancaster swashbucklers, and Astaire, Kaye and Kelly musicals. I will watch anything by Hitchcock and Bergman. Currently, I love Lynch, Cronenberg, Coppola, Burton, Linklater, Lee, and del Toro. I think Tarantino is simultaneously sad, annoying, hilarious and brilliant, and I think Robert Rodriguez is fun, erratic, and insane in both mind and talent.

I will own up to a small measure of pride in the fact that I have a little bit more of a sense of film history than most people that I have met, and you can call this film-nerdy if you wish (because it is) and egotistical (which it would be if this obsession had ever gotten me anywhere), but that always comes any time that you properly immerse yourself in a subject so thoroughly. I get angry when people say how original a film is when they don't realize it's a remake or an homage to a style of the past, or say a film is a rip-off from something else when in reality the source material for the current film was written years before the film they are defending, or say something off-handedly dismissive about an actor or film without having any real knowledge to back them up.

And the worst thing that a film can be? B-O-R-I-N-G. Bo... ring. This is the true Hollywood crime (outside of bad CGI). Not the low-budget, Ed Wood-type B-movies that everyone loves to gang up on. (I will always defend them because they are sad and misbegotten little treasures that are fascinating to watch.) Great-to-very good films (as well as truly wretched ones) live on in the mind, but boring films serve no real purpose except as time filler. The worst films in the world are the ones that you forget two days later, the ones that leave your head as swiftly as you can stumble out of the darkness of the theatre, the ones that make you go "It was oh-kayyy..." 

You know... the ones that make up the bulk of DVD choices in the Columbia House Offer.

So, go ahead and call me a film geek and/or snob. You've got me pegged, and I have been called far worse. But, now maybe you might understand a little more why simply choosing six films from a list of 200 is so troubling for me. Now, let's move back to the dilemma at hand: What films could I have possibly chosen from this list?

As it turned out, I actually chose around 20 films from the list. Since I left behind about 75% of my prerecorded VHS collection before I moved (I traded them off for credit), I have many noticeable gaps in my film library now, and I thought this would be a perfect way to amend that situation. I had gotten rid of my copies of The Usual Suspects, The Godfather, The Godfather Part II, Batman, and Dazed and Confused, and here they were in glorious widescreen, all of them begging me to make them my first choice. But because I have not been regularly purchasing films for about a year, there were other more recent wonders to fish out from the depths of this list. Spider-Man 2, School of Rock, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, Big Fish, Once Upon A Time in Mexico, Blade II, and Hellboy all were definitely going to find their way into my collection at some point. So, why not now? Likewise, despite a handful of flaws that drove me to distraction, The Last Samurai, The Aviator and the remake of Dawn of the Dead seemed interesting additions to the library. And for shits and giggles, Cheech and Chong's Up in Smoke and The Spongebob Squarepants Movie made the short list.

And that was it. The rest could languish in DVD hell for all that I cared. I could easily tell that while I would have no problem fulfilling my commitment to the project, I would also not be so readily tempted as one might think by my being such a video freak. (Of course, the resolution to all of this will have to wait until I actually try to finishing off my obligation.)

So, choosing six films from the under twenty that remained would be easy, but there was something else looming in the works that would tempt me: an offer to reduce my commitment from 3 DVDs to only 2 if I were to purchase a 7th DVD for only $9.99. Done. And, hey! You can also buy an 8th DVD for only $9.99 (though it would not affect your commitment). Done and done. So, 8 films to choose (they turned out to be the Godfathers, Spongebob, Sky Captain, Blade II, School of Rock, Suspects and Spidey 2), and I will be getting them, after tacking on the shipping and handling charges, for around 25 dollars total. Three dollars a film.

Three bucks a film! Slowly, I turned... suddenly, my head filled with thoughts of secret identities and all manner of fakery where I could continue this deal forever. But I only think those thoughts: I never have the cojones or duplicity within me to actually carry something like that off. No, I will pay my $25 and get my movies, buy two more films over the next two years (which I'm sure I will finish off in about a month), and be done with it.

Or will I...?

Dis-Rik of Columbia? (Pt. 1)

From the slight rolling of Jen's eyes, I could easily tell that she not only thought that I was standing on the brink of yet another mire filled with financial quicksand, but also that merely the slightest push would find me waist-deep in the money pit before I had even half-considered the situation. The reason for her concern? The cause of the gyration of the ocular orbs? I had received an offer from Columbia House in the mail just minutes before, upon which I was informed of these words: "Own Any 6 DVD's for 49 Cents Each!"

There aren't many phrases in this world that can make my head spin a 360 quicker than "Own Any 6 DVD's for 49 Cents Each!" The Super Cheap DVD Offer is the adult version of those comic book ads from my childhood where you could buy not just 200 army men for ONLY $1.99, but also an entire FULLY ARMED BATTALION! They would show you a picture on the back cover of the comic (not all the time, but quite often enough) of a trunk with soldiers pouring out from under the lid, while the bulk of the page showed you an awesomely detailed (but bloodless) Normandy-like battle. Your head would be filled with a vision of the postman having to struggle while lugging a regulation-sized, army-issue trunk down the street full of howitzers, jeeps, tanks and all of the other accoutrements of war, in addition to your fully-armed and ready-for-action division of willing dog soldiers. 

In reality, as I had a friend who actually purchased one of these kits, the cardboard box the "battalion" came crammed in was about eight inches long and the soldiers were each about half an inch high, though just as tall as any of the machineries of war that were also jammed in the box. Before I discovered the results of this japery, I remember laying awake at night studiously determining exactly how many allowances it would take to build up an army of 5,000 soldiers to take on any and all enemy generals across the neighborhood. (Answer: ten allowances at that time, but the money always got spent on bubblegum cards and comics before I could ever send off anything. Plus, I would have never cut an ad out of my precious comics, so that horrible scenario prevented me from making good on my plans for world domination as well.)

Once I stopped the Tilt-A-Whirl in my noggin from jumping its moorings, I noted the additional information that my only obligation was to "purchase 3 more DVDs at regular club prices (approx. $19.99 each) over the next two years". As my head slowly careened to a halt in its original position, it finally allowed me the oxygen to puff out "Two more years! I can do that time standing on my head!" I then proceeded to fully expand the accordion-section of DVD stickers placed inside of the envelope, from which I was to select my choices which would begin my servitude to the House of Columbia. I figured that all of the choices would be the same generic pap that you could find at any Wal-K-Target-Costco-Sam's-Mart, and that this being the obvious case would provide me with an out, allowing me to toss the offer into File 13 without any further delay. I could then move on with my life.

And I was right. They were mostly the same movie fodder that you can find in any national chain or grocery store: those ubiquitous titles (and their inevitable, generally abominable sequels) that everyone and their brother are expected to purchase or rent without fail in the best knee-jerker American fashion. There are no Criterion Collection wonders here. No foreign films unless you count the odd Americanized Jackie Chan entry (I don't). Nothing remotely outré or even fashionably bizarre. Just good ol' fashioned Grade-A, Hollywood strip mall blah-baroo. It was going to be tough to find enough films to fill the offer.

And I was wrong. Because I couldn't simply move on with my life. No matter how much eye-rolling it caused, I just had to send in for this offer. I just had to do it!

This is the problem... When I lived in Alaska, I would be relentlessly inundated with mail offers for Columbia House, which would always piss me off because no one in Alaska could actually send in for that offer! The fine print always read, "CONTINENTAL U.S. ONLY!" Residents of Alaska and Hawaii could not reply to the offer stated. Columbia House, why the hell did you bother to send me the friggin' offer in the first place? Over and over and over again? I know I was on your mailing list somehow, but surely you could have someone look at the list once in a while and purge all of the Hawaiian and Alaskan addresses from off of it so you didn't pay the extra, wasted cash on a useless mail-out. Then you could take the non-continental addresses and slam them into another mailing list, which you would use for the "separate offer" that you asked "Customers from Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, U.S. Territories, APO and FPO addresses and Canada" to write in to request, since they couldn't partake of the regular offer. Why wouldn't you just send that separate offer to those addresses in the first place? Because it was a much suckier offer from your sorry-ass company? I never found out, because when I did write in (BOTH TIMES!), I never received any reply from the House.

BMG allows Alaskans to sign up for the same offer as the rest of the country, so why couldn't Columbia House? While living in Anchorage years ago, I joined BMG, and except for receiving a Tiffany CD in lieu of the Kinks album I ordered and a Keith Urban disc rather than Pavement, I had nothing but fine service from them, even if I think my monthly Featured Selection was wildly off the mark rather consistently. (I don't believe that my Purchase History, with the rare exception, showed that I was an eager connoisseur of urban/hip-hop music, nor do I believe that I ever ordered anything that would cause anyone to think that I was the target audience for whatever garbage Ashlee Simpson was pushing. Even though I believe the term to be shite, I had chosen "alternative" long ago as my catalog preference, yet I rarely seemed to receive a catalog that was focused toward that genre.) But I digress...

So, now that I actually live in the Continental U.S. (and boy, do I feel so much more special), do you think that I'm not going to test this offer out? 6 DVDs at 49 cents apiece? Less than 3 dollars for six DVDs, and I, of whom it is most clear that madness reigns in these circumstances, won't finally get my shot at the Super Cheap DVD Offer? Of course, I am doing it! The only question is "What could I possibly order?"

(To be continued...)

Succumbing to Netflix-iation

Once I moved here, and once the dread of actually finding a new video store to attend and battle over other customers for the lone copy of this or that piece of crap overtook me, I took it upon myself to finally became a customer of Netflix. I had been wanting to do this for awhile, and the fact that there was a relatively close Netflix center nearby in Santa Ana, which cut down considerably on the turnaround and transport time (as opposed to postal delivery to and from Alaska, which isn't bad, but nothing like living down the road a short piece from something) was definitely a boon to the positive resolution of such a decision.

Now, I have had nothing but a positive experience thus far with Netflix. No, the problem that I ran into had nothing to do with Netflix directly. The fault lies with myself, and with my rather lax attitude toward my queue on their website. I tend to do things like this in rather large batches, so I will click on a samurai movie, and a thousand recommendations for other samurai or Japanese flicks will pop up, and I will click on all of them, whether I have seen them before or not. The films pile up in the order that I click them, but before I can arrange them in some order of preference, I am distracted by some other genre that I simply must add to my list.

Normally, this is not a problem. Since I am so resolutely lax in my queue maintenance, I have come to accept whatever DVD shows up in the mail, and watch it without regretting the appearance of one of the other films on my list. However, I then ran into the "Great Halloween Problem". That is, while I have a good many horror and sci-fi flicks in my queue, I didn't have any of them at the top to coincide with late October. As a result, I hit the mother lode of French New Wave films in the last couple of weeks, clicked on when I went off on one of my "I need to see that again!" tangents, and which were then received in a period where I really had no inclination at all to watch them. Truffaut and Godard are fine in the waning weeks of March, but not in the ghoul-haunted woodland of 'Tober.

I did watch the first batch (and rated and posted their scores, appropriately). It seems that it would be a bit strange hopping from Breathless to Cat People, but it was actually not that weird, and you can almost make the case that Val Lewton shook things up just as much with his films in the early '40s as the French boys did in their time. So there are parallels to be made if you wanted to make a study of it... which I don't.

For now, I am stuck with another fistful of French films for this weekend, two which I have seen before and one that I have never seen (Shoot the Piano Player). And I did go on Netflix in the middle of writing this and gave that queue of mine a good, solid shaking and cleaning up, as there were many films that I have seen already elsewhere in the interim since I set the damned thing up.

Of course, I then ran into a film on Netflix that I hadn't seen yet, and ended up clicking indiscriminately on about thirty more films, and I will probably end up with the same situation again in a couple months. 

And so it goes...

Recently Rated Movies #6 (Halloween Weekend Edition, Day 3)

So, it turned out that those three movies that I watched before work Halloween morning were the only movies that I got to watch for all of Halloween. As much as I would have liked to have stayed home and enjoyed the Turner Classic Movies Halloween Marathon (with occasional forays over to Bravo, AMC, and Sci-Fi for their commercial-laden but still fun marathons), I haven't built up enough personal leave at the new gig yet to warrant taking extra days off before our upcoming vacation early next year. Thus, to work I did go, though I did wear my awesome King Kong tie to show my true colors, and I was quoting Peter Lorre from Mad Love for much of the day.

After work, though I had bought much candy in anticipation of numerous costumed neighborhood brats knocking on our door, we went straight over to Disneyland to ride all of the rides which have skeletons on them, which, not coincidentally, are our favorite rides anytime that we go to the park. Some snacking, some Halloween costume watching and critiquing, and rides on the Mansion, Indy, Pirates and the Jungle Cruise made for a nice Halloween night. Running into friends from Anchorage in Downtown Disney was an added bonus, for now I will get to hang with them for much of the remainder of the week. And then a call to the theatre in Anchorage to two of my most Halloween-crazy friends to taunt them with our whereabouts was another bonus.

I did get home in time to watch the second half of a special on Houdini, which was terrific, and a National Geographic special called Monsters of the Deep kept me Ogopogo-ing to the Halloween beat until bedtime, though there were some films that I was really hoping to watch. Whatever is a poor boy to do?

The Vampire Bat (1933) (TCM) - 6
White Zombie (1932) (TCM) - 6
Mad Love (1935) (TCM) - 8