Wednesday, September 30, 2015

Recently Rated Movies: Catching Up with Christopher Lee (the actor, not my brother…) Pt. 6

The Resident (2011)
Dir: Antti Jokinen
TC4P Rating: 5

I know Hilary Swank likes to work, but why The Resident? Isn't there something more noble she could do with her time? Isn't there a stern, hardheaded frontierswoman that needs to be portrayed somewhere? Yeah, I know she started out in the original film version of Buffy, but you just don't think of her in this genre. Not that it is a bad thing to have her in something horror-oriented, but I cannot imagine what would have attracted her to the job except a sizable paycheck. 

The Resident is product, cut and dried. Mostly dried, because it is as rote and numb as a stalker film can be. From its case, to its DVD label, to its trailer, to its DVD menu. Every move telegraphed, every camera angle expected, every emotion cut out with the rest of the cookies. The poster I show at the right has one big head (Swank's), and I chose this one over the other one with two big heads (Swank's and co-star Jeffrey Dean Morgan, who is fairly effective as her sweaty lover/antagonist). I did this to downplay to you, the reader, that you are going to look at a review about an edit-by-numbers feature, otherwise you might not stop by. Two heads: Too obvious. Must automatically be a dull, shitty movie. One head: Mmmm, maybe there is something more to this... nope, dull, shitty movie.

Christopher Lee's part in The Resident is the best thing in the film. He gets to be pretty creepy as Morgan's truly terrible, haranguing grandfather. It is not a surprise that something awful will happen to him eventually. Maybe working with Lee was the reason Swank did the film, but I am going to doubt she really knew much about him. Maybe working with the resurgent Hammer Studios was an attraction? I doubt that too, though they may have thrown some money her way to get a big name star for one of their comeback features. I just it would have been for something more fun-sounding like, say, Amelia Earhart: Gremlin Hunter.


Dark Places (1973)
Dir: Don Sharp
TC4P Rating: 5

An interesting thing (well, I find it interesting) happened to me while I was preparing my capsule for Dark Places, a typically well-mannered British horror film from the mid-1970s. I had worked up the first two paragraphs of what I thought was a solid short review, when I changed my mind. The cranial swerve engaged because, in the middle of the third paragraph, I went back to watch a couple of sections of the film a second time, as I wanted to make sure I had some details correct in my head. It struck me quite suddenly that this was the not the film that I was writing about earlier. Yes, it was the same film, but perhaps due to being tired or bored with the thing at the time I first viewed it, I had somehow burned the wrong remembrance of it into my brain. I also blame the several days delay between the viewing and the writing of the review. Thus, I ended up backtracking and watching the entire thing again.

In my original version, I was firm on the point that my chief problem with the film was the dual lead performance of veteran character actor, Robert Hardy. I had worked up details on my early exposure to him as Siegfried Farnon on All Creatures Great and Small in my teenage years, and how I have indeed enjoyed him in numerous parts ever since. And then I declared that despite the fact that I did like him, Hardy often comes off as too stagy for me. I reasoned that perhaps when the part was cheesy enough, he felt the need to serve a little extra ham with it, in a way that you could often get away with it on the boards, but rarely without notice on the screen.

But on the second watch, I settled into his performance, and I realized that the fault was mine entirely. Hardy was playing it as he needed to and I was the one who was approaching it with a jaundiced and incorrect viewpoint. I suddenly noticed that he actually introduced some nice subtle character differences between the psychological breakdown his main character is experiencing in the film and the raving, murderous lunacy off his secondary role. Because of my haste in getting through the film, I almost missed what is actually a decent performance.

Outside of this, the story is not particularly thrilling (heir to an estate returns home while various vultures roam about trying to locate some lost suitcases full of cash), but Dark Places has a bit of spookiness at play in its isolated country estate main setting, and it is chockablock with the sort of actors who generally make these sort of affairs so enjoyable; chiefly, notable British ones. Christopher Lee and Joan Collins (both at home here) are a kinky pair of scheming siblings who are trying to locate the money, as is the dependable Herbert Lom, downplaying his notorious scene-swiping and coming off very effectively. Jane Birkin is lovely in a small, undemanding role. Finally, a favorite of mine from childhood, Jean Marsh, gets to engage in some fantastic histrionics while she displays, in separate scenes, precisely how not to clear a large dining table and how not to keep your husband’s attentions from straying in the bedroom.

As for the horror bits, they are for the most part a little too understated for my tastes, but there is at least one good bloody reveal that works well, and there is a pretty memorable pickaxe scene that I enjoyed even more on the second go. And if you want to annoy me to Hades, add little giggling towheaded brats to your cast, and then punctuate their appearance by employing their disembodied giggles and voices on the soundtrack as added torment. I will wish the worst murder on them from the second they appear on the screen. (Just don’t renege on the promise of this.)

I am not afraid to switch directions on a review, or reverse my opinion altogether if I see a movie anew and leave the screen with a different take on it. But, even after my turnabout on Hardy’s performance, this was the first time that I was thinking noticeably different about a film but still came away wanting to give it the same exact rating as I had planned to give it. While there is much to recommend within the frames of Dark Places, I just couldn’t come around to moving it up to my “generally good” rating (a "6"). It has all that stuff you like in British horror from the 1970s, except that the results are more middling than anything. But I did end up accepting Robert Hardy in it.


Too Hot to Handle (1960) [aka Playgirl After Dark]
Dir: Terence Young
TC4P Rating: 5

I am not a Jayne Mansfield fan. As far as potentially unhealthy obsessions with dead blonde movie stars from the ‘50s go, I am solidly in the Marilyn Monroe camp. (And I actually got over her a good while ago.) But with Jayne, I find little about her that fascinates me. She has her defenders (every “star" does) and I am totally fine with that. She just has never done it for me. I have always seen her more as a gimmick than an actress. Director Frank Tashlin knew just how to walk that line with her, employing her talents effectively in The Girl Can’t Help It and Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?, films that are in my personal canon.

Jayne has the lead role in Playgirl After Dark, which can be found online in various places as Too Hot to Handle, but the film is not really about her. It’s a tough little British gangster pic, and the plot revolves chiefly around a “key” club owner, Johnny Solo (yeah, that’s his name), in London who runs afoul of another club owner, and decides to fight back against the protection racket. Mansfield plays his stripper/performer girlfriend named Midnight Franklin, and Jayne gets several opportunities onstage during the film to let the girls breathe.

In the mix is the real reason I watched this film, Christopher Lee, as Johnny Solo’s duplicitous right hand thug, Novak. It’s a small role, but Lee’s presence adds a lot to the film. Also here is Barbara Windsor as a newly hired blonde stripper named Pony Tail. She is also a tad bit underage, so I wonder if that will add anything to the plot? Oops! I recently got to see the chipper Windsor in a couple of Carry On films (her inclusion here and her inclusion there will tell you something of her looks) on TCM, so it was a pleasant surprise to see her show up in this.

Playgirl After Dark is a bit too monotonously talky for a gangster flick, and it is not particularly well-filmed. That said, for a low-budget crime piece, it does move along well, the plot is fairly engaging, and the stage performances and the OK songs break things up nicely. I prefer some of the other performers to Jayne, but that is just me. Must be the non-fan in me.

Monday, September 28, 2015

Recently Rated Movies: Catching Up with Christopher Lee (the actor, not my brother…) Pt. 5

Glorious 39 (2009)
Dir: Stephen Poliakoff
TC4P Rating: 6

Without doing much in the way of research, I don't know how far Britain's pro-appeasement movement went to protect their position during the rise of Nazism in Europe, but murdering opposing Parliament members and making them to appear suicides? I suppose if the movement were actually a front to eventually allow Hitler to have his way, then sure, I'd buy it. I'm not sure if that is what Glorious 39 is selling, as the majority of pro-appeasement figures seem to believe, like PM Neville Chamberlain, that such an approach is the only way to keep the Nazis from running roughshod over England. It doesn't seem like the sort of thing to call for the very noticeable and mysterious deaths of leading citizens.

Glorious 39 is about a true loss of innocence, as the idyllic country life of its lead character Anne (known as Glorious to her family, and played appealingly by Romola Garai) comes crashing down when she discovers pro-appeasement 78 rpm recordings stored in her family's estate. Is Anne just paranoid? Is she losing her mind? Does she simply need a lie down? All of this is suggested to Anne, and she will learn quickly that no one is to be trusted in her family and friends. 

The film is told in flashback through a bookend apparatus where we meet two of the family members played in old age by Christopher Lee and Corin Redgrave. The story they unfold reveals family skeletons long dormant since the lead character's disappearance in 1939. I like some of the details, like the "fat men dancing," revealed in spending time with what appears to be a happy family situation. There is a remarkable section where one begins to see the thin line that rests between order and chaos in the era, where the slightest changes can erode personal freedoms and leave their fates to history. Rest assured, I doubt my next visit to the veterinarian will happen without flashing back on the horrific chain of events that occur when Anne is made by her father to take her family's cats in to be euthanized (as is, according to the film, the fashion amongst the upper crust during that time of uncertainty).

It's a solid effort, though a bit dull at times, and easily goes on about twenty minutes longer than it needs to be. For those for whom all-star casts are a nod of quality, the film is top-loaded with British favorites: Bill Nighy, Julie Christie, Jenny Agutter, Jeremy Northam, a young Eddie Redmayne, an even younger Juno Temple, Charlie Cox (the current Daredevil), Hugh Bonneville, and the Tenth Doctor himself, David Tennant in a small but important role. Now, if only Tennant had dropped into the film in his legendary Tardis, Glorious 39 might be a far more exciting picture. Then I wouldn't have worried about historical accuracy.


Meatcleaver Massacre (1977) [aka The Hollywood Meatcleaver Massacre]
Dir: Evan Lee
TC4P Rating: 2

Christopher Lee's career definitely seems to speak of poor management, at least for large portions of it. For every big role in a major film or getting some of that sweet franchise cash, there seem to be five or six projects where he surely must not have either cared about the results or was duped into appearing in it. In Meatcleaver Massacre, the rumor is that he was told he was recording the narrative introduction and epilogue for one project, which was then implanted onto this supernatural, would-be thriller. His odd and, frankly, not particularly adept narration has not the slightest thing to do with the film at hand, but it does add a touch of Ed Woodiness to the finished product.

And by Ed Woodiness, I mean possible, actual Edward D. Wood, Jr. While rumors all over the internet about his involvement have ranged from appearing in the film (he is in the credits on IMDb in a bit part, but it could be just another Ed Wood) to writing the script to directing it under a pseudonym, according to Andrew Rausch's book Trash Cinema: A Celebration of Overlooked Masterpieces, a source from the set says that the actual Wood not only appeared in it along with other crew members, but also stepped in to direct a handful of scenes. Regardless of his input or even existence on the set, this is an appropriately shabby affair fit to rest alongside much of his oeuvre. The filmmakers were at least channeling his abilities when they threw this decrepit pool of cess together.

While there is the massacre of a family early in the film that sets up the rest of this mess, there is not a meat cleaver to be found (the killers, or at least a couple of them, only use butcher knives). The killers are supposed to be college students, but appear to be in their late thirties, and there is a serious hippie look to them, probably playing off the Manson vibe so prevalent in '70s films. (The film has a 1977 copyright, but was likely filmed several years earlier.) The father of the family, a professor, left in a coma in the hospital, somehow uses supernatural powers to get his bloody revenge on the killers, one by one.

Because the print is in such terrible shape, this film is not only a labor to watch all the way through but to even look at for five minutes. It's almost like watching a feature shot on PixelVision, except this film has some of the most nauseating color I have seen. (Fisher-Price's wonderful PixelVision camcorder only shot in black and white.) 

In fact, from start to finish, this film gave me an uneasy feeling, and I did suffer a huge headache while watching it. Perhaps it was the film or just my general health. Supposedly, the producers came up with the title Meatcleaver Massacre as a surefire way to grab an audience. I guess Out of Focus, Garishly Colored Cinematography Massacre was not as much of a grabber, but it may have been more truthful.


Triage (2009)
Dir: Danis Tanovic
TC4P Rating: 6

Apart from surviving employment with Cal South for a decade, I cannot speak with surety about post-traumatic stress disorder. And while I just made a joke involving it (but not about it), I don't find PTSD a laughing matter. Far too many people are affected by it, not just those returning from combat situations (PTSD is not exclusive to soldiers), but also their families, friends, co-workers, neighbors... anyone who knows someone that has it can also suffer the repercussions of the disorder.

To be sure, Triage doesn't play anything for laughs. It may be one of the more dour films I have seen in recent years, making Melancholia seem like a joyride. (Well, for me, Melancholia was a joyride, my favorite film of 2011.) Colin Farrell's character in Triage is a war photographer who returns from a combat zone in the Middle East with a big secret. Where is his best friend David, a fellow photog and expectant father who accompanied him to the region? Why have Farrell's emotions seemed to shut down since his return and why is he reluctant to talk about his war experiences?

Farrell is solid, but even better are Paz Vega as his wife and Kelly Reilly as his best friend's pregnant spouse. And this may be one of the best latter-day, non-Tolkien Christopher Lee performances, as he essays the role of Vega's grandfather, a therapist who at one time controversially counseled some of Franco's war criminals from the Spanish Civil War. Vega's character continues to take issue with her grandfather on the subject, but knows that he may be the key to unlocking the mystery in Farrell's head. It was an angle I was not expecting while watching Triage, and I found the film all the more interesting for its inclusion.

It's worth a look to anyone interested in the subject, though I feel, despite the relatively short length, Triage suffers a bit from pacing issues. I have been remiss in watching Bosnian director Danis Tanović's Oscar-winning feature, No Man's Land, having started it thrice and never getting more than a few minutes into it. (This was due to a series of interruptions in my life, not because of the movie itself.) Given my look at Triage, I definitely need to get back around to watching No Man's Land

Saturday, September 26, 2015

Recently Rated Movies: Catching Up with Christopher Lee (the actor, not my brother…) Pt. 4

Safari 3000 (1982)
Dir: Harry Hurwitz
TC4P Rating: 3

My first true experience with the car racing madness which gripped the entertainment world in the mid-to-late ‘70s was getting to see The Gumball Rally in a school gym. (This is not to discount my youthful love of Wacky Races in any way, but that was a previous iteration of the same madness.) I don’t remember the context of why we were allowed to see the film, but just that it made its way to our school and my friends and I all got a much needed break watching what we thought then was a hilarious film. (Honestly, it could have been The Diary of Anne Frank, and we still would have had a good, riotous time, as long as we got out of class.) I have heard from others in the Anchorage area who were around my age at that time that Rally played at their schools, so perhaps some enterprising exhibitor decided that if the kids weren't going to come to the movie theatre, bring the movie theatre to them. Regardless, Rally brings back memories of those days just before the home video crazy hit our household, when I had to take in every film I could when given the opportunity. Even an average film like Rally was cherished dearly for what it represented to me at the time. [Don't get me started on Won Ton Ton, the Dog Who Saved Hollywood.]

Safari 3000 is not even close to The Gumball Rally. Safari 3000 is a film that is more directly tied in influence to the wild Hollywood success in 1981 of The Cannonball Run, the Burt Reynolds starrer which used as its inspiration the same real life transcontinental race that begat The Gumball Rally and another film from 1976, Paul Bartel's Cannonball. Safari 3000 is also about a drastically elongated race, this time across Africa, and goes for an even broader comic style than the Reynolds film (itself barely reigning it in at all). The difference is that The Cannonball Run gave us numerous, clearly delineated teams and took the time to... I wouldn't say develop the characters, but did give many well-known (Dean Martin, Sammy Davis, Jr., Roger Moore, Jamie Farr) and soon to be well-known (Jackie Chan) comics and actors the time to do their respective schticks. Safari 3000's budget is much lower, and as such, while it is sometimes certain that teams from several countries are taking part in the event, only two teams -- that of the good guys (David Carradine and Stockard Channing) and the baddies (Christopher Lee and Hamilton Camp) -- are really given anything substantial to do in terms of the film's plot or even at least seem like they have a chance of winning the race.

Because of this, there is another obvious influence for this film: Blake Edwards' The Great Race (1965), one of my personal favorites. The relationship between Christopher Lee's character -- the flamboyant, Darth Vader-style helmet-wearing Count Borgia -- and his buffoonish henchman, Feodor (played with utter annoyance by Hamilton Camp) fully reminds one of Jack Lemmon's Professor Fate and Peter Falk's Max from The Great Race, except that Max could be counted on in times of crisis (the castle escape) and was really less of a klutz than Fate. I said Camp is annoying, but he does provide the one moment where I genuinely smiled during the movie, and that was the song he sings in one of Safari 3000's better moments, Baboons on the Road. I may have been smiling chiefly because it reminded me of Leona Anderson's execrably wonderful Rats in My Room (please look it up), but I smiled nonetheless. 

Also, just as the hero and heroine in the Edwards' film played it, Carradine and Channing do the "diametrically opposed partners who are obviously smitten with each other" routine as they bicker endlessly and struggle to get past whatever hijinks Lee and Camp lay in their path, and the film likewise struggles to convince the viewer it is all supposed to be a lot of fun. As for the car action, I got very little enjoyment out of the rally scenes, and never really believed any of these racers (even Carradine) could win such a race, let alone drive this film out of the mud in which it is clearly mired. And I'm not sure seeing this film in a school gym at the age of twelve would have helped me enjoy Safari 3000 any more either.


Eve (1968) [aka The Face of Eve]
Dir: Robert Lynn & Jeremy Summers
TC4P Rating: 4

I was only able to find a YouTube version of this jungle girl picture (cut into several small sections), which is sad because if I am going to spend 96 minutes wandering about a jungle with Celeste Yarnall in her skivvies, I would like to do so with a print that is not nearly as desaturated of color as this one was. Regardless, film watching on my behalf did commence, and if I squinted enough, I was able to enjoy the charms of the pulchritudinous Ms. Yarnall as long as they didn't include actual acting.

Due to my upbringing as an Edgar Rice Burroughs fanatic, I have little resistance to jungle pictures, and Eve is not as dull and cheap as many I have seen. It is certainly faint praise, because neither does this hack itself out of the thicket to crawl onto the heap of the slightly good. 

The cast is decent enough. Once again working under producer Harry Alan Towers and co-director Jeremy Summers, Christopher Lee portrays the title character's grandfather, who is having a long con pulled on him by his supposed friend, played by the reliably villainous Herbert Lom, and is unaware that the girl he believes is his lost granddaughter is an imposter. Steady Fred Clark plays a greedy saloon owner who wants to cash in on Eve's fame, even though he already has Maria Rohm (Towers' real life bride) as his songbird in keeping. And Robert Walker, Jr., who astounds me by how much exactly he looks like his more famous father, is merely OK in the hero's role.

I wish that I was able to see a better print of this film, though I doubt it would make it more exciting. It's workmanlike and inoffensive enough for a matinee visit, but there is nothing special to be discovered in this jungle.


Five Golden Dragons (1967)
Dir: Jeremy Summers
TC4P Rating: 4

I am not really a Bob Cummings fan. I found him pleasant enough in some films from the 1940s such as Hitchcock's Saboteur, The Devil in Miss Jones, Moon Over MiamiKings Row, etc. (I will admit I have never seen any of his early television work, for which he was nominated for several Emmys, winning one). But his light, mannered style doesn't always work for me, and I often feel he is miscast. (I still feel he is miscast in Saboteur, but the film works regardless.) Here he is 25 years later, still doing his light comedy schtick as the lead in the Bond/Hitchcock pastiche, Five Golden Dragons, yet another Harry Alan Towers/Jeremy Summers collaboration.

Christopher Lee is here again too, as one of the titular Dragons, but he only appears in this film fleetingly, and only when he is with three of the other Dragons, played by three other older film icons, George Raft, Brian Donlevy, and Dan Duryea. The Dragons are international businessmen who have formed a cabal intent on taking over the world's economy, and use Hong Kong as their base of evil. If you want to know the full extent of what these four renowned film stars do in this film, it goes in this order: 1) enter room wearing a cartoonish dragon mask and robe, 2) sit down, 3) put key in lock in center of table and hope that a gun doesn't shoot them, and 4) take off cartoonish dragon mask and discuss business. The four Dragons do this three times in the film, and nothing more, exciting for some varied emoting and eyebrow arching. Must be nice to get a paycheck.

Cummings' character is a middle-aged playboy who ends up smack in the middle of the 
Dragons' plans (and who knows... might even be the fifth Dragon?). He gets all the fun in the picture, being surrounded, toyed with, tortured, and teased by the likes of the omnipresent Maria Rohm, Maria Perschy, and Margaret Lee. Klaus Kinski is there too as the main toady for the Dragons, though he gets to do little but look exactly like Klaus Kinski (which is evil enough for some).

I am tempted to rate this film slightly higher because I actually did have a lot of fun watching small chunks of it. Five Golden Dragons looks gorgeous, chiefly because of the eye candy, but also for the Hong Kong locale. If you are looking for a groovy '60s flick for a party, this one might work, especially for the costumes and the swingin' nightclub scenes (of which there are several). But the movie itself is just really dopey, the whole Dragon angle fizzles completely as something on which to hang a plot, and any dialogue not involving good guy Bob talking to one of the female characters is strictly dullsville. 


As for Bob, he acquits himself well in what I believe was his last feature film role, and knows he is in a piece of dreck from the start, saying everything with his tongue as deep in his still handsome cheek as it would go. He was still miscast for the part (by about a chunk of twenty years), but at least he hit his marks and delivered his lines... with a knowing wink.

Thursday, September 24, 2015

The Best of Bread [Remastered Gluten-Free Edition]


When last we joined our hero [http://bit.ly/1VdrSKK], he was mired in sadness and not just a little bit of outrage at the exorbitant cost of a 24 oz. loaf of Udi’s Gluten Free bread at his local Target store.

As I stated in that post, the cost of the 24 oz. bag over the regular 12 oz. loaf they carried was just a shade under three times as much (for only twice the content). My suggestion was that this smacked of either taking advantage of those Target considered easy targets because of their hipster trendiness or being evil shits for making it insanely expensive for those who have a serious medical need to avoid normal baked goods and use a popular alternative.

My normal mode of operations is to create a personal boycott when such methods arise. I don’t need to drag the rest of the world into my temper tantrum; keep it small and confined to my own actions. And it would be easy for me to just simply not shop at Target anymore. There is nothing that they sell at Target that I cannot find elsewhere in the vicinity or even online. The only upsides of the place are that I can get many of the things we need in one place at the moment we need them and that they are only a mile away. So, it should be fairly easy not to shop there if I chose not to do so. If I could only instill and maintain longevity in such actions, a personal boycott would work for me.

However, my record in these things is pretty hit and mostly miss. I skipped most of a season of The Simpsons when Fox cancelled Firefly, but I melted like butter when there was something I really, really wanted to watch on (actually several somethings, but I don’t remember what), and so it didn’t take me long to relent on my anti-Fox stance. I went full vegetarian for about a year after seeing the movie Babe, then decided hamburgers didn’t actually have ham in them and I missed them, so then it became “I no longer eat pork products.” That lasted about two more years until I decided one morning that maple-cured bacon was just too delicious a thing to not have in a breakfast burrito, and my revolution lost its leader. Hypocrite, thy name be Rik.

And it wasn’t like I was going to change the minds of the others in our household, including my wife. I was not going to add even more to the tension in our current living situation with a frivolous denial of a local shopping outlet just because the place had what I considered too high a price on one item. So, I let it out in a blog post and just decided to see how long Target would carry the item at that ridiculous cost.

Cut to Tuesday, and a stop on the way home at that same Target a few weeks after my initial outcry. I wanted to see if the price was still set at $14.99 per loaf or if they were even still carrying that larger size of Udi's anymore. As you can see from the photos above, the regular price remained the same, but they had a special sales tag on the shelf reading “I’m New” and a price of $8.99, six dollars below the normal.

I was overjoyed to see this, so the question then was whether or not to purchase a loaf at this price. Right before our Target visit, we had gone to Trader Joe’s, where we picked up a bag of their own brand of gluten-free bread, so I had what I needed already for lunches. But here was a reasonable price on a very large loaf of GF bread (as in, what you lucky folks who can consume the real stuff would say was a normal-sized loaf, and bought for only a few dollars).

Of course, we did buy the larger loaf from Udi’s. My main reasoning was that, even if they price it regularly so high, I would rather have the option of buying it there than not have them carry it at all. Assuming that their tendency to carry a product is based at least a little on the public’s continued purchasing of said item, I figured that I should at least take full advantage of such an excellent sales price when I can. 

It’s odd that I have to consider such things when purchasing something as seemingly commonplace as a mere loaf of bread, but as I am finding out, when you are living suddenly in the realm of specialty foods, nothing can be taken for granted. We shall see what happens next.

Monday, September 21, 2015

Recently Rated Movies: Catching Up with Christopher Lee (the actor AND my brother…) Pt. 3

Here is another round of capsule reviews for several of the Christopher Lee films I have been pounding down for the last couple of weeks. 

An interesting note: While I was in the midst of finishing up the first segment of this series, I received a phone call from my youngest brother, whose first and middle names are also Christopher Lee. I had titled this series "Catching Up with..." and then appended the title with "(the actor, not my brother)," but now I had literally caught up with A Christopher Lee. 

Yes, I didn't post the first two parts of this series until after I talked to him, but I decided to keep things in the order in which they were created, and that includes changing the title this time to reflect that very necessary contact. Regardless, it was so good to hear from him after over a year of radio silence, and I won't allow time to pass like that again.

And now, more capsule reviews of some smaller C. Lee flicks, and I must say that it is a very diverse mix of genres this time...

Sherlock Holmes and the Deadly Necklace (1962) [Sherlock Holmes und das Halsband des Todes]
Dir: Terence Fisher
TC4P Rating: 4

An extreme disappointment, given that the very idea of seeing Christopher Lee filming a Sherlock Holmes film just a couple of years after his part as Sir Henry Baskerville in a Hammer production is immensely appealing. But his wonderful voice is dubbed over in this film, as are all of the actors (including Thorley Walters as Dr. Watson), and so the world would have to wait many, many years to hear Lee actually produce sounds out of the mouth of literature's most famous detective.

Also adding to the disappointment is learning that the rather staid direction is done by none other than Terence Fisher, who was at the helm of all those early Hammer horror hits for Lee, including The Hound of the Baskervilles. What a difference four years and filming in Germany instead of Britain can make.

The film itself is not so much a coherent mystery as it is several small set pieces that never jell together. Apart from Lee, who at least shows that he is working hard and displays abundant energy in his role, the film comes off rather dull and uninteresting, and when added to my stated disappointment that one will not get to hear Lee as Holmes at all, lessens the effect of the film even more. Oh well, at least the sets look swell.


End of the World (1977)
Dir: John Hayes
TC4P Rating: 3

How many films do you know that start off with a public payphone exploding in front of a desperate priest played by Christopher Lee, followed by a coffee shop owner getting scalding by an exploding coffee machine and then electrocuted by a neon sign as he blindly crashes through the window at the front of his shop? And then Lee meets what appears to be his doppelgänger, who welcomes him home? It’s probably a very slim genre, comprised of just this poorly produced (by none other than Charles Band, creator of Laserblast and father of the Full Moon studio) and far too dark, alien invasion flick.

The film is stocked with Ed Wood-level character motivations and dialogue, which in itself would make this seem to be a must-watch for “bad movie” enthusiasts, a contention with which I will agree. Looking at a shopping list of the elements of this film — coded messages from space warning of massive natural disasters, aliens disguised as nuns, a host of well-known character actors (MacDonald Carey, Dean Jagger, Lew Ayres, Sue “Lolita” Lyon, and the aforementioned Lee) — one would think that at the very least you are going to be in for some good, cheap thrills. And how wrong you would be.

Director John Hayes, working since the early ‘60s, would end up his career for the most part making X-rated films under a pseudonym, but I am certain those were far better lit than this film, which seems to mistake a pitch black screen for large portions of the running time as “suspenseful”. When the lead character, a scientist, is harangued again and again by his superior to get back on his speaking tour, then you realize it is not the most exciting setting for science fiction fun. And when one finishes watching a film and the chief image one takes away from it is that of the same scientist sitting endlessly in a room full of archaic computers while the nonstop clacking of a computer keyboard is heard on the soundtrack, then saying the film is bereft of real action is a true understatement.


Jaguar Lives! (1979)
Dir: Ernest Pintoff
TC4P Rating: 5

I must admit that I knew nothing of the star of Jaguar Lives! — kickboxing champion Joe Lewis — going into watching the film. I have yet to see his other big film, Force: Five (1981), and I was also not aware that he was apparently the first choice to play the villain role taken memorably by Chuck Norris in Bruce Lee’s The Way of the Dragon, in the famous fight finale in the Roman Colosseum. Possibly things may have gone another way for Lewis’ Hollywood career had he not lost the part, but it is hard to tell. He is about as wooden an actor as Norris was at that same point in time, though I think Lewis is certainly better-looking. (And now ol' Chuck is going to kick me in the face for that...)

Jaguar Lives! is filmed quite well (for the most part), and veteran director Ernest Pintoff keeps things tight and moving from scene to scene in a film quite obviously meant to be a James Bond pastiche. This a case where having a large cast of famous character actors works to the film’s definite advantage. Apart from Woody Strode (as Lewis’ taciturn sensei), John Huston, and Capucine, the film has been stocked to the rafters with actors who have previous experience toying around in the Bond series: Christopher Lee (The Man with the Golden Gun), Donald Pleasence (You Only Live Twice), Joseph Wiseman (Dr. No), and Barbara Bach (The Spy Who Loved Me).

Lewis’ secret agent character, Jonathan Cross aka Jaguar, zips around the world meeting several seemingly villainous characters who might have some information that will help him figure out who is behind an international drug cartel that tried to have him killed. I assume the intent of the Bond connections is to keep the viewer guessing who the Big Bad is behind the plot’s machinations, but it is pretty easy to figure it out. Each stop about the globe also presents Lewis with an action scenario from which he must use his formidable martial arts skills to extricate himself. As long as you are willing to swing along with the episodic format and don’t suffer from a need for any sort of emotional depth from a film, Jaguar Lives! can be a pleasant little time-waster, but nothing more.


Penny and the Pownall Case (1948)
Dir: Slim Hand
TC4P Rating: 5

Once upon a time there was a British comic strip in The Daily Mirror named Jane, which featured the title character, Jane Gay, in various misadventures where she would inevitably get stripped down to her undies (and eventually, in 1943, down to even less). It was exceedingly popular in the UK and with soldiers, kindled American strips which were far tamer, was subsequently distributed and rejected in America, and inspired stage, television and screen versions throughout the decades. (Does anyone remember Jane and the Lost City from 1987? I do.)

The British-made Penny and the Pownall Case is not a version of Jane, but it does revolve around a comic strip exactly like Jane. The lead character is a comic artist’s model who ends up getting sucked into a plot involving Nazi war criminals. She also tends to get undressed here and there, but it is all done rather innocently, and there is nothing truly prurient about the film. Lead actress Peggy Evans seems to be having a lot of fun in the role, as her character manages to keep unsullied as she teams up with a detective to stop the bad guys. One of those bad guys, Christopher Lee, is only 25 or 26 years old in this, but he is already a magnetic screen presence. (Having that voice helps…)

Penny is barely of feature film length — only around 44 minutes — and is practically over before you realize it. In fact, I had to research whether it was an early television film before I watched it. The plot is predictable but quick, there are some good farcical bits involving an adjoining hotel suite, and the comic strip trappings add a welcome twist of novelty to what could be just another Nazi potboiler. But it needs a bit more, because it doesn’t come off as nourishing entertainment overall. Maybe if it was stretched out for another 15-20 minutes with a bit more character development, Penny and the Pownall Case could have been something more than just standard.

Sunday, September 20, 2015

Donald J. Trump Revealed to Actually Be a Cartoon Character?


I'm not stating this as a certainty. I just think there is a slight chance that Donald J. Trump might actually be a cartoon character, due to his middle initial being "J".

Examples:

  • Abraham J. Simpson
  • Bartholomew J. Simpson
  • Bullwinkle J. Moose
  • Elmer J. Fudd
  • Homer J. Simpson
  • Hubert J. Farnsworth
  • Marge J. Simpson
  • Michigan J. Frog
  • Philip J. Fry
  • Phineas J. Whoopee
  • Rocket J. Squirrel
  • Sheldon J. Plankton
  • Simple J. Malarkey
  • Stimpson J. Cat

Yes, Trump has an actual middle name (John), and only a few of these cartoon characters also have middle names. However, that doesn't erase the fact that he acts far more cartoonish than some of these characters. And anyone falling for his bullshit is clearly living a rich fantasy life (though not nearly as rich as Donald J. Trump).

In the United States Constitution, Article II, Section 1, Clause 5, it reads:

"No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States."

So, as long as we can prove that he is the creation of some mad cartoonist's pen-and-ink scrawling sent to run amok amongst us Ko-Ko the Clown-style, we can wrap this thing up and get the real election process moving.

Thursday, September 17, 2015

Recently Rated Movies: Catching Up with Christopher Lee (the actor, not my brother…) Pt. 2

Of the Christopher Lee films I have seen to this point, the one area in which I hardly need delve are his most famous and popular roles. It has been decades since I first saw his Hammer Draculas and his turn as Frankenstein’s Monster, his villainous appearances in Bond and Three Musketeers films, and his Fu Manchu series countless times, and every role is etched in my memory. His later appearances in major modern epic series (LOTR, Star Wars) are also to be counted in this group, even if I hold little fondness for the last three Star Wars entries. I have also seen many of his supporting roles in films such as Serial (1980, of which I am still fond), a variety of turns alongside his old chum Peter Cushing in non-Hammer horror flicks, and his odd cameo in The Magic Christian (as a vampire waiter on an ocean liner). 

The point is that I am already well-versed in his major roles. In reviewing his oeuvre over the past couple of weeks and recalling his movies that I have actually seen to this point, there have been few thus far (except for some of the horror ones and The Magic Christian, which is certainly memorable but actually not very good) that I would describe as resting near even the lower rungs of the higher echelon of filmmaking.

But, as I make my way through his unseen flicks, I am discovering that there are plenty of near misses. As I recounted the other day, Hannie Caulder turned out to be a pretty good revenge western, if not great. Then I ran into three films which are ever so close to being good solid films, but just narrowly miss the mark for me. I am fairly certain that if I saw any of these three as a teenager or young adult, they would probably rank higher up in my memory, but I only just saw them in the past week. All three warrant follow-up viewings, and I will leave it to those moments to determine whether they move up or down in my rankings. So while I currently have assigned all three my middle of the road “5” rating, they were all worthy of my time and eventual, almost assured revisitation.


The Torture Chamber of Dr. Sadism (1967) [aka The Snake Pit and the Pendulum; Torture Chamber; Castle of the Walking Dead; Blood of the Virgins; The Blood Demon; and many, many more…]
Dir: Harald Reinl
TC4P Rating: 5

One of the first hurdles for any horror film is evoking and maintaining a haunting atmosphere. This film has atmosphere in spades, as long as the soundtrack doesn’t emit a single musical note. The Torture Chamber of Dr. Sadism is set in the same type of fairytale, Germanic burg as many of the more famous Hammer selections like Frankenstein Created Woman, and like those films, the fairytale backdrop is betrayed by a lurid series of events that lead to even more chaos. 

Christopher Lee plays Count Regula (which is what I would think Dracula would be if he devoured more fiber), and he is drawn and quartered in the beginning of the film for draining the blood from twelve virgins to give him immortality. (He fails because he had not gotten to the 13th victim.) He naturally swears vengeance before his body parts are ripped asunder, and sure enough, decades later, the script gives him the chance. Based partly on Poe’s The Pit and the Pendulum (at least, the sections involving both a pit and a pendulum), Torture Chamber has a wonderfully creepy middle section where the protagonists (including post-Weissmuller Tarzan, Lex Barker) travel through a dark forest with bodies and limbs hanging from the trees all around them. All of the later scenes of Lee torturing his foes are also memorably committed to film, and I certainly enjoyed how much fun the film seemed to be having with its absolute depravity. 

In fact, my one and only real gripe with the film is the soundtrack, which for much of the running time seems too comic and buoyant for the storyline. However, it does have moments where it matches appropriately, so my initial statement regarding the emittance of a single note was merely to provoke. In fact, I quite enjoy the score all the way through, even the absurd parts. I just feel that at certain moments in the film, the score doesn't seem to belong. Overall, though, this is a fine, new addition to my regular Halloween viewing list, goofy and inconsistent music regardless. 


The Bloody Judge (1970) [aka Night of the Blood Monster; Trial of the Witches; and many more...]
Dir: Jesús Franco
TC4P Rating: 5

I not only think that the British tradition of having wigs lodged atop the heads of their judges and lawyers is quaint and rather silly in these modern times (I will put on the brakes before calling it stupid, but.. yeah...), the thought of them actually makes me a bit physically ill. Much in the way that I used to be so repelled by early ‘70s fashion in films (even though I grew up in that time) that I couldn’t watch certain films without a feeling of nauseousness, the courtroom attire of England does the same thing to me when I see it in a movie or on TV. I even want to wretch at the very thought of it, and I really don’t know why. Which is precisely the reason I have always put off viewing The Bloody Judge for eons. Almost always available for me to view, I have never been able to get past the image of Christopher Lee topped off with one of those ridiculous wigs on his noggin, no matter how enjoyably maniacal he was likely to behave in the film.

Well, consider me wrong. I should have watched The Bloody Judge a long time ago. Not that it is any great shakes as a “normal" film, but as a gonzo piece of shock horror, this is a pretty lowdown and dirty but gorgeously shot flick with some nasty torture scenes and bountiful nudity throughout. What you don’t get is the loopiness and lack of narrative drive inherent in many of director Jesús “Jess" Franco’s soft-core “masterpieces” (I am rather fond of some of those loopier films, especially Vampyros Lesbos). 

But what you do get from the other Franco films is the lovely Maria Rohm, who also co-starred with Christopher Lee in other Franco epics, including Count Dracula (1970) and The Blood of Fu Manchu (1968), as well as in several films directed by Jeremy Summers. It is no coincidence that the producer of all of these films, including The Bloody Judge, is her husband, the notorious Harry Alan Towers. Rohm certainly adds sensuality to a film that might otherwise just be unrelentingly grim. (This is my subtle way of saying she gets naked a lot and it distracts you happily from the torture bits.) Of course, I am joking… she doesn’t distract from the torture bits at all, since her biggest scene in the film is when she is locked in a cage and forced to lick the blood from a bound torture victim. I cringe in fear for any perv who actually gets his jollies from such a portrayal, but I will admit that the scene does add to the creeping effectiveness and overall griminess of the film.

Lee himself is solid as usual as the lead character, only loosely based on the real 17th century judge, George Jeffreys, who bullied his way through defendants, attorneys, and juries alike, and in this film’s version of the events surrounding the Bloody Assizes, dispatches accused witches to their doom without remorse. Of course, Jeffreys begins to grow worrisome over the chaos ensuing from his brutal courtroom tactics, and he begins to have nightmares of torture. That he will undoubtedly get his comeuppance is part of the fun of watching Lee in such a villainous role. 

It all depends on one's tolerance of tooth-yanking, hand-spiking, racking, digit-chopping, and beheadings, Don’t go looking for historical accuracy and try looking instead for pure psychotronic thrills, and you will definitely get something out of this.


Crypt of the Vampire (1964) [La cripta e l'incubo aka Terror in the Crypt; Crypt of Horror]
Dir: Camillo Mastrocinque
TC4P Rating: 5

If you have seen and loved Roger Vadim's Blood and Roses (1960) as I have and do, then this Spanish-Italian version of Sheridan Le Fanu's novella, Carmilla will likely pale in comparison to the more famous earlier film. But it is a worthwhile rendering of its own, even if most character names have been changed, some bad dubbing is to be endured, and the director more than once betrays his obvious influencing by Mario Bava (never a bad thing).


Christopher Lee gets a heroic role this time, albeit a tortured one, and as in villainous roles, he has enough talent and range to pull the part off just fine. As Count Karnstein, he has to do battle against the light lesbian leanings of a mysterious vampire who is leaving drained bodies in her wake. It could be his daughter, who may be the reincarnation of an ancestor rumored to have committed such crimes, or it could be her recent companion, who has instilled herself into the daily life of the castle. The black and white cinematography is routinely effective if not spectacular, the sets and darkness of the castle are nicely rendered, and the heavy breathing, haunted ladies look divine onscreen.

This is the one of the three of these films where I am closest to giving it a higher rating, if only because it is the least gratuitous of the trio. This is likely due to it coming from a less permissive time in cinema (and just a handful of years earlier), so it relies more on subtlety and suggestion. However, there is a grandly gruesome sequence involving a dog tugging on the foot of a hanged peddler with his hand severed. Yes, it is derivative of Bava, but when a witch is seen using that hand as a candelabra in the very next scene while she invokes a spell, then you will know the film is a keeper.

[Postscript: I have since watched both Torture Chamber of Dr. Sadism and Crypt of the Vampire again, and while I am keeping Torture Chamber's rating at "5," I have shifted Crypt up to a "6," which is my general rating for "good."]

Tuesday, September 15, 2015

Recently Rated Movies: Catching Up with Christopher Lee (the actor, not my brother…) Pt. 1

In resurrecting many of the old regular columns on this blog, my favorite was often Recently Rated Movies, wherein I would shorthand my usual long-winded blathering and comment oh so very briefly on a series of films I had recently seen and rated on IMDb. To begin this column regularly again, I am tying it into a project in which I have been engaged for the past three weeks. I have been employing the Charts function on Flickchart to create lists that show me which films of one of my favorite actors I have yet to see. Because I have watched so many films overall (11,000+), for there to be films for someone like, say, Boris Karloff, they would either have to be films I have intentionally putting off for one reason or another, films that were harder to find in the past, or simply something I had little interest in viewing.

I began the project with Bela Lugosi, and quickly knocked out eleven of his films in short order (luckily most of them are barely over an hour long), including the infamously terrible (and justly so) Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla and Mother Riley Meets the Vampire. I then leaped over to the aforementioned Mr. Karloff (there was some slight crossover), and not only also took down eleven of his films, including three out of four of his late ‘60s Mexican flicks (where all of his scenes were directed at the same time by Jack Hill and then inserted into the films proper), but also four of his Mr. Wong films from the late ’30s and early ‘40s.

And now, I am on the chart for the recently departed Christopher Lee. He has 133 films listed on Flickchart (overall, he has 278 acting credits listed on IMDb), and of those 133 films, until the other day, I had seen ONLY 68 of them. That leaves a massive amount of his films left to see, and I doubt I have the time left or the energy to see them all. Lee himself had a quote he was fond of repeating where he is regularly told by fans, “I have seen all of your films!” His reply, “No, you haven’t.” Well, now I have ticked nine more films off that list over the last few days.

[Editor's note: All films are rated on a scale of 9.]


The Puzzle of the Red Orchid
[German title: Edgar Wallace: Das Rätsel der roten Orchidee | Alt. English title: The Secret of the Red Orchid]
Dir: Helmut Ashley
TC4P Rating: 4

When is it called for to have the very British legend Christopher Lee, with his deep and memorable speaking voice, to have his dialogue dubbed into English? Specifically, an American accent? When he originally recorded his dialogue for this would-be thriller based on an Edgar Wallace story (as many European films were in the ‘60s), it was reportedly into what I have read in some places as some rather decent German. That aside, it is incongruous to say the least to watch Lee in numerous scenes while hearing a ridiculously square and far too rigidly pronounced American accent pour from his lips (and obviously not matching what he is really saying), especially given that there is no attempt at all to try and match the timbre of his famous voice. 

A minor plus is that this film moves pretty fast, though the characters are involved in a mystery I don’t really care about while Chicago gangsters are kidnapping people in London. There are some fairly stilted attempts at comic relief, but like everything else in this movie, the dubbing also kills the chance for any humor to translate properly for the viewer. It’s not as horrid as you think it will be going into it, but it’s still a bit of a chore to watch.


Hannie Caulder (1971)
Dir: Burt Kennedy
TC4P Rating: 6

Let’s not get carried away here. Sensei Tarantino loves this film and has pointed to it as an inspiration for Kill Bill. It is easy to see why he loves it, and it is also easy to see the inspiration it served. But this is not a great lost classic. It’s merely a fairly decent western with an excellent male lead in Robert Culp, and some good, disgusting supporting roles for Strother Martin, Ernest Borgnine, and especially Jack Elam. 

There is also a dandy small part for Christopher Lee as the expert gunsmith that Culp and female lead Raquel Welch call upon to customize pistols with which Welch’s title character can exact revenge on the raping and murdering trio played by Martin, Borgnine, and Elam. The movie has some wit to it, and is engaging from start to finish. Welch is hardly believable in her gunslinger role, especially in what she is allowed to wear during the era in which they purport to be, though I mark this up to the ‘70s and the need for the studio to sell her remarkable exterior (if only they knew how). 

I do have a complaint about the blood, which gushes forth from numerous bullet wounds throughout the movie, as being too obviously fake. It rather galls me about the third time it happens. Other than that, watch it for a prime example of just how assured and captivating Robert Culp can be in the right role.


Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008)
Dir: Does it even matter?
TC4P Rating: 5

Let’s talk about product. Pure product. Yes, I am one of those original Star Wars kids from 1977. I read the paperback (with the purple cover and the pre-film character designs by McQuarrie) numerous times before the film was released that summer, and I bought the comics, toys, LPs, trading cards, posters, blueprints, t-shirts, puzzles, games, prints, and what have you without a second thought. Like any other religious convert, I gave up my allowance on a weekly basis to the Force reverently for a handful of years, and it never once struck me I was being manipulated at all as I followed the adventures of Luke, Han, Leia and their pals through the next couple of films. Nor would I have cared if I did realize the manipulation at hand. I was in my teens, I loved what I loved, and I didn’t want to hear otherwise.

Though George Lucas has crippled my opinion of his creation due to his obstinate mishandling of it in recent years, I still maintain a soft spot for the original films, enough so that I am like everyone else who can’t wait to see what J.J. Abrams will bring us come winter. Likewise, I am equally excited about Disney’s plans for a new Star Wars Land in the park. While that might further define me as a “sheeple” in regards to blindly going along with the rest of the flock, the quality of the product is likely to be so high that I couldn’t resist if I wanted, lest I be branded a curmudgeon, hipster, or troll or some unholy combination of the three.

But there is a difference between product of a remarkably high caliber and just mere product, rendered to the blandness of pabulum, still to be considered sustainable entertainment but absolutely lacking in real character or emotional depth. Even more interesting is when product of the second variety spews forth from the same factory creating the higher form. And thus, from that off-white void, crawls out Star Wars: The Clone Wars, animated to the far brink of what was accepted as popular animation in the year in which it was released (but no further), brightly colored, swift moving, and sporting the mind-numbing, political denseness that plagued the three most recent Lucas productions. However, it does have several presumably exciting battle sequences, mostly involving the younger Obi-Wan and Anakin, along with a young Padawan named Ahsoka (sadly, Lucas did not name an older brother for her as Supasoka, but I feel he would have), for those that have not already seen similar scenes in many, many other films. Therein lies the key to the film’s existence, both as product and as a part of Star Wars culture. It is also the same key that explains my reticence to embrace the later productions from my once beloved font of space opera entertainment.

I am no longer twelve years old. I might act like it at times. I may still adore most of the things I loved when I was that age. I may even still own most of the things I owned from that time (and I largely do). But I am no longer twelve. I am a 51-year-old man watching a film designed to attract actual twelve-year-olds to a possible entry point into the Star Wars universe, or to keep the kids already inclined to be inside that universe further entertained and to get them to buy the comics, toys, etc. that go along with it. Just like when I was that age.

So, I am no longer the target audience for Star Wars: The Clone Wars. In fact, I am about thirty years past it. But it does not mean that I can’t watch the film, have an understanding of it, nor speak my piece on it. But I can't embrace it like I did those earlier films. It’s just really no longer mine. I knew this when it was released, and so I put off seeing it. And I only watched it last week because it was film highest up on the Flickchart list of Christopher Lee films I had yet to see, and if there was going to be a Chris Lee flick I hadn’t watched, it was not going to be a Star Wars one. And so watch it I did. Mr. Lee voices his Count Dooku character from the later films, and he does his usual excellent job. He is barely in the film, and the rest is taken up by the politics, battle scenes, and Jedi nonsense I mentioned earlier. What the ads should have read is "Come for the Dooku. Stay for the product."

The 50 Something or Other Songs of 2017: Part 2

In our last exciting episode, I reviewed tracks 50 through 31 on Rolling Stone's list of the Best 50 Songs of 2017 . How did those ...