This Week in Rixflix #14: June 9-15, 2017

Going into this week, there was just one film on my mind: the new Universal version of The Mummy. I had a sense going in that it was probably not going to be great, and in a way that is quite unusual for me, I did not prepare for the film by watching a marathon of the original Universal Mummy flicks (all six of them, including the Abbott and Costello one), nor did I wade into the later Universal Mummy series with Brendan Fraser. (And don't even get me started on The Scorpion King spin-off series... to be fully honest, I am no fan of the Fraser films either.) Instead, I concentrated on other films and just waited for The Mummy to arrive. Jen had no interest in all with it and told me to "go see your buddy Tom" (a running gag that I must explain fully at some point in the future).

And yeah, the result was rather tepid. I did manage to have fun enjoying the film as a straight ahead monster flick, and enjoyed some of the character and set design. But I am so confused as to why Universal dropped the Universal Monsters label they had been pitching and keeping alive (like the truly undead) for so many decades. Now I can't, officially, say that I am going to the latest Universal Monsters picture, and am instead told that this is the first film of their – big fucking yawn – DARK UNIVERSE series, a title that has already supposedly been co-opted by Warner Brothers and DC Comics for their adaptation of Justice League Dark, which I guess is their own stupid move to not burning out the Justice League brand (even though they put out a comic and an animated film (this year nonetheless!) called Justice League Dark (which I will get to next week). So, now instead of a Universal Monsters series and Justice League Dark live-action, we have two stupid things called Dark Universe from different studios, neither of which has anything to do with the other except for shared elements of basic horror.

I have so much more to gripe about how Universal is screwing up the use of their monster franchises, especially at their theme parks. (You know how annoying it is to walk through Universal Studios in Hollywood and not find a single Dracula shirt in their gift shops? And yet, you can walk straight past the Universal store in CityWalk and go to Things from Another World and find scores of monster t-shirts. The company itself, though, doesn't care for selling its own creations.) Once I saw the new Mummy, apart from watching Svengoolie have fun with The Mummy's Tomb on his show the next day, Universal went away almost immediately in my mind. The film did not propel me into maintaining the mood because there was no real mood to maintain. (Honestly, the films it really reminded me of were Van Helsing and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, both huge disappointments in my book. I thought the new version of The Mummy was much better than both of them however.) 

I instead spent the week concentrating on classic western films. Five such films to be precise, starting with Stagecoach, and then plowing through They Died with Their Boots On, Red River, Winchester '73, and High Noon throughout the remainder of the week. The reason? An online course on the History of the Western that I found while signing up for TCM's upcoming course on Alfred Hitchcock. I decided to take the Western course to see if I would enjoy and benefit from the experience, and while I still have a few last items to complete, I have passed all of my tests and found it to be great fun. (I still have to watch Fort Apache this weekend, which I don't own anymore but is showing on TCM; Turner Classic Movies isn't hosting this particular online course, so it is complete coincidence that it is airing.) Mostly, I enjoyed simply watching each of these films again, even the one that I don't like all that much (the Custer one starring Errol Flynn).

Next week, you will notice that the aftermath of taking this course has done something the new Mummy movie couldn't. It inspired me to do an immersion in a bunch of westerns over a couple of days, including one this morning (the day of this writing). I have more lined up for this weekend, including two more John Wayne films, that should be the 86th and 87th films of his that I have seen in my lifetime. (Just writing that last part exhausted me...) I may not enjoy the western genre as much as I do classic horror or film noir, but I have always had more than a quiet appreciation for the genre, and taking this course has truly made me remember my roots in film, having watched a great number of western films and shows growing up in the '70s. 

The Numbers: 

This week's feature-length film count: 24; 13 first-time viewings and 11 repeats.
Highest rated feature-length film: Red River (1948), Stagecoach (1939), Out of the Past (1948), Winchester '73 (1950), High Noon (1952), and The Lost Weekend (1945) – 9/9
Lowest rated feature films: Island of Lost Women (1959) – 4/9
Average films per day in June so far: 2.86
Average films per day in 2017 so far: 3.02
Consecutive days with at least 1 feature-length film seen per day: 184

The Reviews:

Becoming Bond (2016) Dir.: Josh Greenbaum – Riding to physical therapy on the bus towards Riverside, I looked out the window at one of the bus stops and saw the smirking face of George Lazenby staring back at me. I was absolutely not expecting it, and in my half-awake daze, I started to wonder if I had really seen the poster that I had or if I had some strange daydream in which Lazenby popped in for a non-sequitur cameo. Riding on the bus back, I managed to look across the several lanes and see the poster at that stop. Then I started wondering if it was a film playing at a theatre at the mall next to that bus stop. Looking up the Jurupa Valley theatre there, I found no such reference to such a film as Becoming Bond. Riding the bus two days later (once again to PT), I took a longer look at the sign as we stopped to pick up a couple of passengers. Ah, so it is a Hulu documentary! The second that I got home, I fired up the Hulu page and found myself watching a most surprising and entertaining look at the most unlikely and oddball career of the guy who played James Bond once and lived to tell about it... almost 50 years later. And it is hard, even with it being so entertaining (or especially because of that) to believe many of the stories that spill out the corners of Lazenby's still charming, wide, handsome smile. 

This film may contain some of the best and most imaginative dramatic reenactments that I have ever seen in a supposed documentary, and the use of prime cameos by the likes of Jeff Garlin, Jake Johnson, Jane Seymour, and especially Dana Carvey (doing a full-size Johnny Carson impression) make this film a bouncy, fun trifle. Some names do get changed to keep off the lawsuit monsters, and so those not already aware at least lightly about Lazenby's story coming in may be confused about who is who behind the scenes on his single Bond effort, On Her Majesty's Secret Service. It is no secret that OHMSS is my personal favorite of the entire Bond series, so I had no problems. In fact, this film goes down so smoothly, I don't care at all if ol' Georgie Boy is stretching the truth a little bit here and there. You know, just like the best spies do...  – TC4P Rating: 7/9

Phantom Lady (1944) Dir.: Robert Siodmak – One of the joys of watching TCM's Noir Alley show on Sunday mornings is not necessarily discovering obscure film noir gems but actually speeding up the inevitability that I will get to each of these films on my own naturally. I am so attuned to tracking down as many of these films that I can that I really begin to surprise myself more and more when I watch a truly incredible example that has largely slipped by my notice to this point in time. Such is the case of the truly insane drumming scene by Elisha Cook, Jr. midway through this film as he practically drools over the prospect of an evening spent with the admittedly smoking hot Ella Raines. Cook bashes the drums in a sweat-filled jazz room in such an increasingly rabid manner that you swear he is going to collapse in post-orgasmic exhaustion. In the words of Doug Stanhope: "Blort!!!" (Raines is definitely blort-worthy, and is she ever gorgeous throughout this film.) Phantom Lady is soaked in noir atmosphere, and boy, is the villain (I won't say who) an utter creep every second he is onscreen (and they give it away fairly early anyway). I am not so big on the set-up of the film involving the lady in the outrageous hat who becomes the catalyst to the mystery, but I believe a viewing down the road may relieve me of my initial reluctance to accept this film wholeheartedly. With noir, familiarity only breeds greater obsession. Once you are in, you can never get out... – TC4P Rating: 7/9

The Strawberry Blonde (1941) Dir.: Raoul Walsh – When I saw this title pop up on TCM one afternoon, it was a total impulse watch for me. Deep in my movie history is the knowledge that The Strawberry Blonde was the very first film featuring James Cagney that I ever saw as a kid, and I had not really sat down to watch it since then. The real coincidence though comes from the fact that this film was directed by Raoul Walsh in the same year in which he lensed They Died with Their Boots On, one of the six classic westerns I watched this week for the Western Film History course. On a personal level, I enjoyed this film much more, especially as a showcase for Olivia de Havilland, who may play second fiddle to Rita Hayworth as the titular character, but who is (eventually) first in the heart of the film's main character. Cagney's tough guy dentist is by turns blustery and amusing, and well matched by de Havilland's slightly more intentionally modern (and shocking to others) version of a female at the turn of the 20th century. The film is caked thick in nostalgia for a bygone era but also is just spry enough to know that wallowing in it too long is no good for anyone. Cagney's dentist realizes he must move forward and so must the viewer. A far more rewarding return to this film for me than I expected. – TC4P Rating: 7/9

Girl of the Port (1930) Dir.: Bert Glennon – A guy wallowing in self-pity and clearly suffering from PTSD from his World War I experience loses himself in the Fiji Islands. He falls in love with a barmaid who works in the saloon where he has chosen to drink himself to death, but he doesn't let on that he is a British lord who is hiding out from his family and peers. And it is an appropriate thing that his war scars are embodied by a crippling fear of fire (from being surrounded by enemy flamethrowers) because the natives of the island practice the art of fire-walking. Eventually, all of this is going to work out exactly as you suspect from the start, and the film is fairly creaky as it glides by rather mechanically. But Sally O'Neil is pretty charismatic as the love interest, and the war scenes are well sketched (if not nearly on the same battlefield as All Quiet on the Western Front artistically). Intriguing enough for a quickie talkie but no more. – TC4P Rating: 5/9

The Boy (2016) Dir.: William Brent Bell – There are just so many of these types of horror films today that it becomes hard to recall which ones one has seen or not. Luckily, the inclusion of Lauren Cohan (The Walking Dead) was pretty much the only catalyst I needed to allow this one into my life. We have here another creepy doll movie, and I must say that this is not my favorite subgenre of horror. Fine with the Chucky series and a few other examples of the ventriloquist dummy variety, but I just really don't clamor for them when we start talking porcelain or baby dolls. Sure, I find them equally creepy -- all dolls are that way naturally -- but the films using those types usually are too far out of my disbelief range. The doll here is a boy who may or may not contain the black-hearted soul of an elderly English couple's son, who died mysteriously decades earlier. The couple insist on treating the doll like their dead son, Cohan is hired as an au pair to spell them for a short vacation, and all sorts of madness begins. The film had me until about halfway, until coincidence and logic refused to play together nicely any longer. Cohan is good in the role, though, as is Rupert Evans as the local delivery grocer who develops a more than slight interest in Cohan's well-being and other parts. Overall, the film is well filmed with an interesting score by Bear McCreary, but I can only give it a TC4P Rating: 5/9.

This Week in Rixflix #13: June 2-8, 2017

Boy, did my movie count dip the week of June 2-8, and if I had not watched a slew of films those first four days (13 of the 18 films overall), it probably would have been even less. The reason? The buildup to the James Comey testimony, then the actual sessions, and the discussion in the aftermath ate up so much of my spare time on the weekdays that it was really hard to think about anything else.

This year has been so dominated by news about He-Who-Must-Be-Orange that it is no wonder that I have smothered my senses so intensely in movie after movie after movie. It's not the real reason that I watch so many films, but an outsider, knowing at the least of my political leanings, could only surmise that the continued presence of President Rage Toddler has me in such a deep depression that I can only find solace by immersing myself in film history. Well, he does not. He annoys the hell out of me every time I even think about his voice or face, but he has no effect on my film viewing habits. Except when there is the possibility of hearings that will hopefully lead to exposing his criminal ways once and for all on legal grounds – not just on social media, though he does a fine job of that himself – that will – hopefully – eventually get him and his graceless family expelled from the White House.

No, I just naturally watch film after film – I have done this for most of my life, and will continue to do so because for me it is simply a part of breathing. I wake up, I put on a movie, I watch a big chunk of it, maybe I will stop it to write for a while, grab some breakfast, watch another 40 minutes of the film, or maybe I finish watching it instead and then write... it really depends on where the day takes me. Not having regular work has made it even easier to immerse myself in these activities, but even when I did have a solid gig, I still managed to average 2-3 films a day. As I said, it's how I breathe...

[Note: the above was written today during the news of the Washington shooting at the baseball field. There is a lot of talk about how deeply divided we are today, and I have always agreed that bipartisanship is the only way to get things done for this country. However, the White House is going to use this opportunity to try to distract us and pave over the investigations going on currently involving Drumpf and his toadies. However much I want peace and harmony in this country and especially the world, I also want the Angry Orange permanently away from any shiny, candy-colored buttons in the War Room. This must be achieved lawfully and correctly, and without any violence, as the use of violence in our democratic process degrades us all.]

The Numbers:

This week's feature-length film count: 18; 12 first-time viewings and 6 repeats.
Highest rated feature-length film: The Bride of Frankenstein (1935) – 9/9
Lowest rated feature film: Shark Babes (2015) – 2/9
Average films per day in June so far: 2.37
Average films per day in 2017 so far: 3.0063
Consecutive days with at least 1 feature-length film seen: 177

The Reviews:

The New Land [aka Nybyggarna] (1972) Dir.: Jan Troell – A couple of years ago, I watched the first of two films by Jan Troell about Swedish immigrants in the United States trying desperately to survive as they traveled through a strange new world in the mid-19th century. That film was called The Emigrants, and it was a remarkably vivid portrayal of people who could lived hardscrabble lives that were likely quite similar to those of my own Swedish ancestors at the same time. That the location of the land where the main characters set up their farm in Minnesota is less than an hour by car today from the county where my father grew up just across the border and north a bit in Wisconsin drives the point home even harder. The follow-up film, The New Land, based like The Emigrants, on the same series of novels by Vilhelm Morberg, is like its predecessor in that it is intricately and lovingly detailed with period touches and also glacially paced. (Both films are well over three hours in running time, so the easily bored should endeavor to avoid this pair.) But slow going does not mean the films weren't completely spellbinding to me, if not a little off-putting at times in how the immigrants react to their new surroundings and its inhabitants. This film in particular has the main characters, played by Bergman regulars Max von Sydow and Liv Ullmann, learning to deal with the native Sioux in the area. The use of indigenous peoples in The New Land is certainly far different than most American portrayals on film, and it will prove most effective when the story contains elements of the Sioux Uprising of 1862, which leads to some of the more jarringly graphic imagery in the film. I am not sure that I would wish to take this journey on film again, though if I did, I would prefer to watch both films back to back. And maybe with some of my older relatives to dig into their memories of our ancestors' corresponding experiences. Fascinating films overall.  – TC4P Rating: 8/9

Yentl (1983) Dir.: Barbara Streisand – There has not been a moment since 1983 where I haven't been prone to suddenly singing in mock fashion the words "Papa can you hear me?" And yet, I have never actually seen Yentl, the film musical directed, produced and starring Barbara Streisand from which the song that carries that line is derived. I had tried to watch it on VHS and cable back in the day but always pulled out of it, and in recent years had recorded it on DVR a handful of times but never quite watched it. Now, I tell you this because your first thought is going to be "Well, yeah, you're a guy (and presumably straight)... why would you want to watch a Barbara Streisand film, especially where she sings?" Well, I grew up with Streisand played in our house, and one memorable evening, I watched a network TV showing of What's Up Doc?, her 1972 Peter Bogdanovich romantic comedy with Ryan O'Neal. The film became a favorite, I came to understand that she was a terrific comedienne and actress, and accepted her from that moment onward. Sure, her music is not my thing normally, but she has that incredible voice, which is featured prominently in Yentl, though I found the music to really be secondary to the story in the film. It's big and brash and lovingly filmed (the heart is quite apparent in the storytelling), but wondered if maybe the musical portion of it wasn't really necessary. Of course, if you take the music out of it, then there is really no reason for a then-40-year-old Streisand to be in the film playing a teenage girl posing as a boy, but if you take her out of it, then the movie doesn't get financed. (The production history is quite convoluted, and really, the more you know about it, the less it looks like a Streisand vanity project in casting herself.) The film is at a tad overlong, and my patience for it actually ran out late in the film, but still I stuck around. It's a pretty film, has some lovely moments, Mandy Patinkin really is a force of nature, and Streisand does just fine despite the whole age thing. And I have checked off another Oscar nominee.  – TC4P Rating: 7/9

Joyride (1977) Dir.: Joseph Ruben – I sometimes wonder if people who actually live in New York and L.A. get upset these days when so many productions are filmed in Vancouver, even when the shows and films sometimes take place in N.Y.C. and L.A. Do they gripe about the minutiae as much as people in other places? Ah, studio filming... Me, I grew up in Alaska, and have had to deal most of my life with things being not quite right in the details when productions filmed elsewhere are supposed to take place in Anchorage, Fairbanks, Nome, Barrow, or some other (often fictional) Alaskan town. While trying to track down a different film from 1977 a couple of weeks back, a search on YouTube gave me a list of other productions from that year, some of which I had never heard before. One of those titles was named Joyride. Seeing that the film had Robert Carradine, Desi Arnaz Jr., and a young Melanie Griffith in it, a quick look at IMDb revealed that the film is supposed to be about three teenagers taking a literal joyride on the lam as they head up to Alaska. Count me in, if only to see if they actually get anywhere near my home state. Nope... I should have just assumed it was so. Joyride was instead shot in Washington, much like Northern Exposure and many other things with supposedly Alaskan locales. I was expecting typical teen prank antics and low grade sleaze, but the film was far grittier than I expected, with some surprisingly dark turns hidden inside. The watch, however, was lessened by the low quality version that I had found. Still, there was enough that I found of interest that I came away knowing I would like to track down a decent copy in the future. So, did anything in the film seem like the actual Alaska at any point? Only fleetingly, but I figured it was probably accidental, though I am not going to hold it against the film. You do what you can with what you've got...  – TC4P Rating: 6/9

The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) Dir.: Lewis Gilbert and For Your Eyes Only (1981) Dir.: John Glen – Roger Moore died recently, and while he has never quite been my favorite Bond (I was too influenced by the Connery films early on), Moore had been a constant presence in my life beyond Bond. I grew up watching Moore on two different series: Maverick, where he filled in for a season as Beau, the smooth English cousin of the Maverick brothers after James Garner left the series in 1960, and as The Saint, Simon Templar, on repeats of his 1962-1969 British series. By the time I was twelve, Moore was already established as the new James Bond, having appeared in Live and Let Die and The Man with the Golden Gun by that point. As I did with the Bond films with Sean Connery, I grew up seeing the films on the occasional Sunday night on ABC, where they were all regularly shown in the '70s. But it wasn't until 1977's The Spy Who Loved Me that I saw a Bond film in the theatre. With my parents' going through their divorce and me at the age where I was incessantly annoying about everything, but going to see movies was becoming most special of all to me (once more, we did not have a movie theatre in our small Alaskan town and had to drive to "big city" Anchorage to see them), my mom left my still too young little brothers with my dad and took me to see Bond on our own. It was showing in a double feature with Won Ton Ton, the Dog Who Saved Hollywood (more on that at another time), and we sat in the front row with a Ziploc bag of popcorn that we popped and buttered at home, Doritos that my mom sneaked inside of her bag, and a can of spray cheese in a can to load up the Doritos. It was magnificent!

Moore's death a few weeks ago coincided with the 40th anniversary celebration of the release of The Spy Who Loved Me, which served as arguably the high water mark for his series of seven Bond films at the time (I prefer Golden Gun overall now). I knew it was the anniversary, but hadn't really considered that I might have the chance to see it again on the big screen. Surprise! While we were at the AMC Dine-In Theatres getting ready to watch Wonder Woman on the day it opened, there was a special event advertisement for a double feature showing of Spy and For Your Eyes Only, but the first date (May 31) had past, but the second was in two days (June 4). I didn't really think about it that moment, but by that evening, I had determined that I was going to get to that double feature rain or shine. It meant going by myself since Jen worked, but nothing would stop me. That Sunday, I found myself in Orange, settling in for an afternoon double at the AMC at the Block, and had a terrific experience with the dozen or so other people in the theatre. 

A big thing for me was that these were two of the five Bond films that feature sharks in them (and Spy also has Richard Kiel as the metal-mouthed assassin "Jaws," who quite literally bites a shark to death in the film), but halfway through Spy, while Moore and the gorgeous Barbara Bach are wandering around the Egyptian pyramids, the projector totally stopped, and my fellow patrons and I found ourselves cloaked in darkness for almost 15 minutes. Part of the time, we discussed the film lightly – everyone was greatly enjoying seeing these films on a big screen again – but of course, a couple of us, myself included, ran out to talk to the management, and finally got someone to check on the problem. After the second film was over, the manager was standing by the side as we were exiting and handed each of us a free entry pass for another film, telling us that they didn't know what happened except that the projection system just completely shut down. I will take a free movie ticket any day, and since we saw the whole of the film regardless, no harm, no foul. I got two Bonds, I got Jaws, and most especially, I got tiger sharks. I also saw Alien: Covenant again right before the Bond flicks. That's a full, grand day at the movies for me. – "Spy" TC4P Rating: 7/9; "Eyes" TC4P Rating: 6/9

The Bride of Frankenstein (1935) Dir.: James Whale – No review here, just some quick editorializing and plugging. My love for the Universal Monsters films goes back ages to my very youth, when I saw most of the original films in my early teen years (with a few exceptions, like the later Mummy films featuring Kharis). I have also owned many of the films on VHS, all of them on DVD, and jumped a good portion of them up to Blu-ray a few years ago. That they are a constant presence in my life is to never be doubted. So, why is it that I still watch them on television every time that they cross my path? I don't mean just on Turner Classic Movies, where a handful of Frankensteins may show up from time to time, and not necessarily just in October when they usually hold special events for horror films. I refer to when something like The Bride of Frankenstein – arguably the most accomplished, giddiest and purest example of the Universal monster film – pops up on MeTV on the Svengoolie show on Saturday nights. 

Well, the answer is that I rarely skip out on watching ol' Sven even if I have seen all of the films he shows dozens of times outside the show. It is no surprise that I have a great fondness for horror host shows (especially if at least mildly professionally executed) and while I did not grow up with Svengoolie as a regular showcase like many others in different parts of the country did, I certainly wish to take advantage of him now, especially since Elvira's latest series only played for a short period and we have to wait a bit for the next MST3K season. (Yes, it has mostly sci-fi trappings, but I still count it in the same vein; they do show a lot of movies with monsters in them.) Me, I don't mind the commercials (if you DVR it, even better, but I like to watch it live) and the 12-yea-old in me still enjoys the intentionally lame jokes and interruptions. I am just happy knowing that someone is still putting Dracula, Godzilla, Frankenstein, and the rest of the gang on TV so that newer generations can discover and enjoy these films for themselves like I did as a kid. And when Rich Koz stops doing the show (he is now 65), hopefully someone else will come along to take up the cause. The monsters must live on!   – TC4P Rating: 9/9

The Shark Film Office [007 Edition]: Licence to Kill (1989)

Licence to Kill (1989)

Dir.: John Glen

TC4P Rating: 6/9
Species: Great white shark (Carcharodon carcharias); blacktip reef shark (Carcharhinus melanopterus); Sharkey (Frank McRae); manta ray (Timothy Dalton)

James Bond specimen: Timothy Dalton

Sharks and James Bond. Like chocolate and peanut butter. At least, that's the way it seemed for quite a few years. Thunderball (1965), Live and Let Die (1973), The Spy Who Loved Me (1977), and For Your Eyes Only (1981) all contain scenes where sharks are used as a menacing element, usually (but not always) kept in tanks by Bond's enemies for reasons of torture or dispatching of victims. In my head, I always lump the truly insane, Connery race-changing epic, You Only Live Twice into this bunch, but always have to remind myself that the deadly creatures in Blofeld's lair are piranhas, not sharks. Same concept; entirely different fish.

Hell, Bond even has a nemesis (and eventual ally, briefly) named Jaws, a giant of a man (Richard Kiel) with razor sharp metal teeth who gets the rare distinction of getting to appear in consecutive films in the series. Living up to his name, he even bites a tiger shark to death in his first film, The Spy Who Loved Me. (And we get "Jaws in Space" in the immediate followup, Moonraker.)

Let's get back to the actual fish. Where this immensely popular film series was once rife with appearances by our finny fellows, sharks have rather gone to the wayside in the last 25 years of Bond films. The Pierce Brosnan and Daniel Craig films have been totally lacking in sharky menace, and this may be due to public perception of sharks as villains being turned on its head in the mainstream. We know that this isn't true on the video shelves or on cable channels, where there are ceaseless iterations of Z-level shark attack films and even the viral hits from SyFy's Sharknado and Sharktopus series. Perhaps the James Bond films are just too, too huge to risk riling up the animal rights activists, whereas much lower (and sillier seeming) projects can slip by unnoticed.

But James Bond did take one last crack at villains using captured sharks to do their business, 1989's Licence to Kill, the second and final outing featuring Timothy Dalton in the 007 role. In attempting to turn the series in a darker, more realistic direction, frequent Bond helmer, John Glen, is only partly successful. What wasn't successful was the film's box office success, where it continues to rank very low on the list of Bond breadwinners. Because of this, Dalton was done, and there wouldn't be another 007 film for a full six years, the largest break in the run of a series that has continued to churn out super-spy thrillers since 1962. Brosnan and director Martin Campbell would reenergize the series in 1995 with Goldeneye, and it has continued to be an ever bigger success since. (Not that there weren't a couple of duds in there.)

The full plot of Licence to Kill is really inconsequential to our purposes here, but a slight wedge of it would be helpful in establishing some of the characters involved in the film's shark-related suspense. Bond visits Key West, Florida on vacation to act as the best man in his longtime pal Felix Leiter's wedding. Leiter (played here by David Hedison) is basically meant to represent the American version of Bond, and has been a mainstay in Bond films since Jack Lord played him in Dr. No. This is actually Hedison's second time playing the character (one of two actors to do so, the other being Jeffrey Wright), though he was played by John Terry in the previous film to Licence, The Living Daylights.

Things go awry when slimy drug kingpin Sanchez (played by Robert Davi) has his henchmen spring him from CIA custody (the opening sequence of the film involves his capture by Leiter and Bond, after which they parachute down to Leiter's wedding). Sanchez hides out in a scientific research aquarium run by another slimeball, Milton Krest (Anthony Zerbe aka the mad scientist from KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park), but shortly after the wedding, Sanchez and his thugs capture Leiter, savagely killing his new wife in the process. In the company of a DEA agent on the take, Ed Killifer (Everett McGill, Big Ed from Twin Peaks), as well as a young and relatively baby-faced Benicio del Toro, Sanchez hangs Leiter over a trap door built into the floor of the aquarium. In the tank is a large great white shark they have captured. After first enticing the shark with a side of something on a hook, Sanchez has Felix lowered into the tank, where the great white starts to feed on him.

Yes, it is supposed to be a great white shark, but it doesn't always look that way. In the usual way of Hollywood/British shark movies, shark species were still considered pretty interchangeable, despite their massive differences in size and looks, and the first shot we get of a real shark seems to be more of a tiger shark, as it glides forward through a tank. (The nose is too flat and broad for one thing.) However, the puppet shark head that is used for closeups, and which gets employed several times coming up, is very clearly modeled after a great white. Regardless of which shark it is, the shark character does its job. Felix loses his leg, and is carried back to his hotel suite where Bond will discover Leiter's wife's dead body on the bed, while Felix is also found by James, still breathing, wrapped up in a sheet on the couch. James finds a bloody note tucked into Felix's shirt that reads, in the tradition of bad Bond puns, "He disagreed with something that ate him."

I have heard people get upset about Felix's fate in this film (he lives, by the way), but it is not nearly as bad as that which occurs in the second of the original Ian Fleming Bond books, Live and Let Die. In fact, this film drew inspiration directly from that book, using elements that were never used in the film adaptation of the same name. Chiefly, having Felix Leiter getting attacked by a shark while losing an arm and a leg in the process. That's right... Felix gets it even worse in the book, but just like in this film, he lives to tell the tale. And the punning note is in the book as well.

Getting back to Licence, Bond has a buddy who has a name just dripping with foreshadowing and also entirely locale appropriate, Sharkey (played by Frank McRae, a familiar face from Cannery Row and Red Dawn). Sharkey, in addition to being an agent, also runs a charter boat service that specializes in shark fishing. Sharkey and Bond sneak back to the aquarium after Bond proclaims, "Let's go shark fishing!" As Bond makes his way across from grated flooring above the water, he is startled and pushed back by the head of the great white shark coming up through the grates. Bond collects himself and makes his way up a ladder into the air, while Sharkey remains on their craft to eye suspiciously the lurking shark. Bond passes a series of small aquarium tanks inside and we briefly get the one shot where Dalton and a real shark are in the same frame, a small blacktip reef shark swimming benignly about for some local flavor.

Suddenly, Bond is intercepted by Killifer (McGill), who is skulking about carrying a briefcase containing two million dollars. Killifer triggers the mechanism for the trap door containing the great white, but he is tripped up as Sharkey opens another trap door. Killifer falls towards the open tank and grabs onto a rope. With the great white snapping just below his dangling legs, Killifer offers to split the money with Bond, but James throws the briefcase at him, causing him to lose his grip and give the great white (not really a great white) a fairly decent meal. Eyeing the carnage, Sharkey shakes his head in disgust and says, "What a terrible waste... of money."

A short while later, M arrives from London and Bond is ordered to Turkey for another assignment. Bond refuses and quits MI6, and has his "license to kill" revoked by his boss. Ordered under arrest, Bond escapes, swearing vengeance against Sanchez. Later, at the hideout, a submersible craft used by the drug runners to carrying out their business encounters what looks like a manta ray swimming along the ocean floor. They are ordered by Krest to ignore it, but this will turn out to be a mistake. The manta ray is really a clever and very improbable disguise worn by Bond to take control of one of their other submersibles so he can sneak into their hideout.

After getting into all sorts of mischief that I won't detail here, he ends up in the boudoir (naturally) of Sanchez's abused girlfriend, Lupe Lamora (Talisa Soto). Finding no interference from her, as Bond makes to leave, he spies the now dead Sharkey hanging on the back of his charter boat, alongside a pair of small sharks that were caught earlier. Bond steps out of the bedroom and shoots one of the thugs controlling the charter boat through the stomach with a speargun, yelling, "This is for Sharkey!"

For the first time since The Spy Who Loved Me, the use of sharks and shark references (though quite lazy at that) actually figure fairly prominently in the plot of a Bond film. All of this shark nonsense occurs in the first 46 minutes of the film. The locale switches for the next portion to a casino in Vegas, but even though Bond and company return to Key West after that and engage in even more underwater action, the shark stuff is done for the film.

The remainder of Licence to Kill is all about Bond undercover as he earns the trust of the drug lord Sanchez somehow and then shatters his plot to hide cocaine inside gasoline and take over the drug trade in a still pretty rousing action finale using tanker trucks (and clearly influenced by the Mad Max films). Just don't ask me how in hell they got that one truck to balance on the wheels on one side like that (to avoid a missile); not just the truck but the tank as well. (Really... it's pretty crazy.)

I didn't even get to anything involving Carey Lowell, as a girl that Bond recruits to help him, and of course, to eventually get in the sack. Lowell, early in her career, is fairly stiff here as an actress, but man, is she cute. I fell in love with her instantly when I saw this movie in a theatre upon its release, and I was happy to learn that I still think she is a cupcake. Bond thinks so too, especially when she strips down to a still amazing swimsuit/lingerie (I have never been sure which) as they set up Krest for a violent fall. It's a one piece, but you won't remember that. And the looks that Dalton gives her as she reveals her swimsuit (and pretty much the rest of her) are about as dirty and leering as they get.

But this is the funny part. My memories of Carey Lowell in this film involve her being in the scenes where the great white comes up through the grates (maybe it is actually a "grate white"?) and where the trap door is opened, not Sharkey. I saw the film twice back then, but it has been many years since I saw it all the way through. Clearly, time has eroded my memory of the film, so it was good to get everything back in place again. 

Another image that had changed in my mind was the actual shot of the shark sticking its head up from the water. I had obviously supplanted it with other more recent imagery of sharks (possibly from documentaries) rising from the water, so when I watched Licence to Kill again, the picture just didn't seem right. It almost felt like there was some Lucas-style post-tampering going on here. Of course, there wasn't, because they would then use modern CGI to amp the shark up a tad and the whole thing would probably look even worse. Sorry, but I will take the shark puppet head any time.

RTJ

If you liked this piece, and would like to read more articles about sharks and other ocean species in film, please visit The Shark Film Office site at http://sharkfilmoffice.blogspot.com/.

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.

Auld Lang Cine-ma - Part I

On September 12th, on our first night of our second annual Walt Disney World vacation, Jen and I attended a late evening showing of the latest Coen Bros. effort, Burn After Reading.

It would be just over two months before we attended another film inside a theatre, when we hit an opening night showing of Quantum of Solace.

Two months without a movie. I do not do this very often.

For me, it almost becomes painful to not go and see a movie at least once a week, if not more. I am at my most relaxed inside a theatre; my most at peace. Even if the movie is unceasingly violent or unfathomably decadent, I am still deeply in peace in the surroundings of the theatre, the smell of the greasy popcorn (which I only buy perhaps one time out of every ten trips or so), the stickiness of the floors (not much of a problem these days) and even in the varied reactions of the audience, either in concert with the events in the film or merely immersed in their own rudeness and ignorance. Whether a positive or negative atmosphere, I am at most complete when I sit inside a theatre. I can breathe, I can think... I feel truly alive. It has little to do with the actual content of the films, since films vary so much from screen to screen. It has everything to do with finding my laughing place, where I am most content and free to be myself.

Even weirder than not seeing a movie for two months was my emergence back into the movie world. Once we started going again, we only saw about four movies together in the next seven weeks. I was feeling ever more disconnected from myself, and while I did fill much of the time with travel and the visiting of relations, odd trips to Disneyland and hanging with friends, I was increasingly ill at ease with myself. The fact that most of my writing was about notes from my travels and non-movie items proves this. I wasn't even watching videos. But I caught Bolt (in 3-D, no less) in Seattle with Tim and Kathryn's boys, and that allowed me to approach what is primarily a kid's flick on the level of a kid (though more like an avuncular babysitter). Even watching merely decent Disney affected far more than it would at any other time, so removed was I from my habit. This provided a needed jumpstart and reminder to me that I was too far gone from my happy place. And while I was able to hit The Tale of Desperaux in Santa Rosa with the M'otises over Xmas, all it chiefly served to do was remind me that I need to get back into the regular swing of things.

Except, looking back, it often seems that I do this near the end of every year, this seeming habit of going to the theatres less than I normally do. Since I tend to get most of my shopping done rather quickly over one weekend or a few days, and since I spend little or no time actually preparing for the holidays, I can't use them as an excuse. It's not like there are any more visitors in-town than there would be at other times of the year eating up my time and attention, so it can't be this. As for travel eating my precious time up, I have already mentioned that my last three trips or vacations in this period, I still managed to find myself inside a theatre at least once at each destination. The problem would seem to be more localized, but it has nothing to do with finding time for both Jen and I to hit films together. While I do tend to wait to see major films (or at least those she in which she is partially interested) with her, I also crawl into a seat on my own with regularity, which is how I manage to visit such dross as Twilight (surprising I have seen it, yes... but also a current and major cultural trend which also spills over, in a very juvenile way, into a genre over which I hold great concern. I had to see it. Plus, there are hot girls in it, so it wasn't a total loss...)

So what is it? I really am at a loss to explain, though perhaps now that I've made myself truly aware of the condition, I can study it closer next year. Something is keeping me from hitting the flicks like my normal self at the close of every year, and it has nothing to do with interesting new films, since I am able to find something of even the most minor interest through the sparsest of release weeks, even in the supposed doldrums of each movie year, post-Oscars to pre-summer and post-summer to pre-holiday rush. And I now get plenty of sunlight, so there is no cabin fever effect here as there was when I still dwelt in Alaska.

Luckily, I always have a way out of this situation, and while it ties in partly with all of the Oscar buzz-worthy films crashing at us like a tidal wave at this time of year (though that is certainly not all I will see), mainly I approach it the same way that I now approach writer's block: I attack it. Just as I will write non-stop about practically anything (such as this topic) just to get myself back on track, I also use a certain holiday to push myself back into the theatre seats.

Though I did not have a name for it then, nor did I know it would become a tradition with me (and, somewhat reluctantly, many of my sleep-deprived friends in the passing parade), twenty-two years ago, I turned New Year's Day into a living resolution: Auld Lang Cine-ma.

(To be continued tomorrow...)