Month: February 2019

The Sins of Dorian Gray (1983)

THE SINS OF DORIAN GRAY (1983)
TV-Movie
Article 3303 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date 7-14-2010
Posting Date: 8-30-2010
Directed by Tony Maylam
Featuring Anthony Perkins, Belinda Bauer, Joseph Bottoms
Country: USA
What it is: Wilde novel reinterpreted

An aspiring actress wishes her screen test footage would age instead of her. Her wish is granted, but her seeming agelessness corrupts her and makes her cruel.

This version of the Oscar Wilde novel made me consider what I liked best about the 1945 movie version. I realized that it was the character of Lord Henry Wotton I liked best; as the libertine who corrupts Dorian Gray, he is given the wittiest lines in the story. This later version of the story switches genders on the title character, updates the time to the present, and moves the action from England to America, and somewhere in the transition the wittiness is lost. There’s an equivalent character, of course; entrepreneur Henry Lord is this movie’s substitution, but the character has been so thoroughly redone that there’s very little left of the original. Maybe it’s just as well; it’s hard to imagine Anthony Perkins playing the same character that was such a good fit for George Sanders. But the movie really has no substitution for the loss of wit, and I found Belinda Bauer singularly unconvincing as Dorian Gray, and to my mind, the movie degenerates into strident soap opera. And, given that it was a TV movie, it couldn’t even really turn to sleaziness to up the interest factor. For me, the oddest thing about this production is that it’s from Rankin/Bass; personally, I liked them better when they stuck to holiday specials.

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The Phantom of Hollywood (1974)

THE PHANTOM OF HOLLYWOOD (1974)
TV-Movie
Article 3302 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 7-13-2010
Posting Date: 8-29-2010
Directed by Gene Levitt
Featuring Skye Aubrey, Jack Cassidy, Jackie Coogan
Country: USA
What it is: Masked maniac on the loose

Worldwide Studios is selling their back lots, since all shooting is now done on location. However, there is a secret resident living on one of the back lots, and he doesn’t want them sold… and he’s not afraid to kill those who do.

The story here is no great shakes; it’s basically a variation on THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA. However, it’s the milieu that makes this movie memorable, as it takes place on the back lots of MGM. My favorite moment in the movie is near the beginning; as the camera pans across the decrepit and decaying buildings of the back lot, we cut to movie scenes where the buildings were used, and, for movie lovers, there’s something very sad about these scenes. It’s actually quite clever for MGM to use the destruction of their own back lot for a final movie there, and I spent a good deal of the movie watching the familiar scenery and trying to remember the movies where I first saw them. Furthermore, there’s something very ironic about the fact that this movie is both shot on the back lot AND location, since the back lot IS the location of the movie. I also liked the touch that the masked villain occasionally is able to walk about in public at times when the lot is peopled by other actors in costumes. A good performance by Jack Cassidy in a dual role is also a plus.

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Persecution (1974)

PERSECUTION (1974)
Article 3301 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 7-12-2010
Posting Date: 8-28-2010
Directed by Don Chaffey
Featuring Lana Turner, Trevor Howard, Ralph Bates
Country: UK
What it is: Psychological horror

A boy kills his mother’s cat out of jealousy, and she proceeds to punish him for the deed for the rest of his life. When the boy grows up, gets married and has a child of his own, his mother begins scheming on how to destroy the marriage. However, she herself has a few skeletons in the closet…

This bizarre foray into psychological horror is much maligned, no doubt due to the over-deliberate pacing and the fact that there’s a sense of absurdity underlying much of the action in the movie. Nevertheless, the movie has its supporters, and I count myself among them. I find something fascinating here about the ways in which the mother torments her child, and I’m entranced by the way that every atrocity that is committed in the household has a parallel atrocity at another part of the story. I’m not sure exactly what role the cat plays in the story, but I suspect that it serves the most evil person in the house; notice how the son can only embrace the cat when he himself turns the corner into madness. It’s a very sad story at times; watching the son burn his boyhood toys one by one, and then reliving his mother’s rejection of a Christmas present is hard to take. There’s certain moments that bother me; I’m not sure to what degree the death of the baby is an accident or intentional (due to the ambiguity of the role of the cat), and I think the final line of the movie overdoes things just a bit, but I generally found the movie interesting and satisfying.

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The Mummy and the Curse of the Jackals (1969)

THE MUMMY AND THE CURSE OF THE JACKALS (1969)
Article 3300 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 7-11-2010
Posting Date: 8-27-2010
Directed by Oliver Drake
Featuring Anthony Eisley, John Carradine, Robert Alan Browne
Country: USA
What it is: Monster mash

An archaelogist acquires a preserved Egyptian princess and a mummy, but inherits a curse that turns him into a werejackal. The princess and the mummy come to life. Havoc ensues.

Anthony Eisley claims that this movie was never finished and that director Oliver Drake was senile at the time the movie was made. In a comment on IMDB, one of Drake’s offspring claims that his or her father was not senile, but would have agreed that the movie was atrocious. Still, given the script and the budget that this cheapie had, I don’t think it was necessary for the director to be senile to result in a movie this bad. Between the cheesy soundtrack music and the horrendous cinematography, the movie is almost unwatchable. There’s the occasional interesting moment, but not enough to shake the movie out of its turgidity. The oddest moment has the two monsters shambling around Las Vegas while barely being noticed by the crowds that see them; they no doubt thought they were just actors in tacky costumes (which they were). Oliver Drake served as associate producer on WEIRD WOMAN and THE MUMMY’S CURSE, but spent most of his career on B westerns. Writer William Edwards would go on to pen DRACULA (THE DIRTY OLD MAN), which should give you an idea of the quality of this one.

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The Phantom (1943)

THE PHANTOM (1943)
Serial
Article 3299 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 7-10-2010
Posting Date: 8-26-2010
Directed by B. Reeves Eason
Featuring Tom Tyler, Jeanne Bates, Kenneth MacDonald
Country: USA
What it is: Masked hero jungle movie

A masked hero known as the Phantom must protect the native tribes from a group of spies planning to build a secret airstrip in a lost city.

If you can get your mind around the patently absurd premise (that for years a family of white men have been protecting the native jungle tribes under the guise of the masked bejumpsuited immortal hero known as the Phantom) and the strangeness of seeing an urban-style masked hero in jungle settings, you should find this to be one of the sturdier and more enjoyable serials out there. At least one advantage of the jungle settings is that we don’t have a single bail-out cliffhanger in the bunch, for one thing. Western actor Tom Tyler does a good job as the title character, and Kenneth MacDonald does one of the better jobs of playing a villain who manages to successfully cover up that role when dealing with the heroes. The plot also has enough story to avoid being repetitive, but not so much to be confusing. One of the episodes had to be redubbed due to the deterioration of the soundtrack, and you’ll spot the episode right off the bat with the opening narration. The most prominent fantastic content surrounds the legend of the Phantom’s immortality (which we know is faked); outside of that, it’s mostly marginally fantastic in that jungle-movie sort of way. This is one of the better serials out there.

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Mission Mars (1968)

MISSION MARS (1968)
Article 3298 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 7-9-2010
Posting Date: 8-25-2010
Directed by Nicholas Webster
Featuring Darren McGavin, Nick Adams, George De Vries
Country: USA
What it is: Old-fashioned science fiction movie.

Astronauts go to Mars. Will they encounter Martians? Will they come back alive?

Director Nicholas Webster has had a little experience with science fiction previous to this one; he gave us SANTA CLAUS CONQUERS THE MARTIANS. If that doesn’t sound encouraging, that’s because it isn’t. He has a bigger budget here, which results in slightly better special effects and a certain degree of star power, but it doesn’t help much. It’s sincere, but dull; nothing much happens until the astronauts get to Mars (which is a little more than halfway through the movie), and nothing is done to keep the first half of the movie from turning into a major snoozefest. The encounters with the strange Martians perk things up a little, but not enough to hide the fact that the movie has no real surprises in store for us. The story is by Audrey Wisberg, who also gave us some of the weaker science fiction movies of the fifties with THE NEANDERTHAL MAN, PORT SINISTER and CAPTIVE WOMEN after a relative high point of THE MAN FROM PLANET X; this movie is a lot closer to his low points.

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8 1/2 (1963)

8 1/2 (1963)
Article 3297 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 7-8-2010
Posting Date: 8-24-2010
Directed by Federico Fellini
Featuring Marcello Mastrioianni, Claudia Cardinale, Anouk Aimee
Country: Italy / France
What it is: Art film, Fellini style

A filmmaker suffering from artistic block has to contend with the making of his next movie as well as dealing with the complications of his love life.

This is the first time for this series that I’ve had to contend with a full-length movie by Fellini, though I’ve encountered him twice before in individual segments of the anthology films BOCCACCIO ’70 and SPIRITS OF THE DEAD; in both of the other cases, he was the best thing about them. This is a dizzying exploration of creativity, honesty, love, and whatever else Fellini had in mind for it. The plot summary above only gives the bare bones of what is going on in the movie, though it does serve as a starting pointing for trying to grasp it all. I’m not going to claim that I understand it all enough to give a worthwhile critique, though I do admit that I was enthralled enough by some of the scenes that I consider it a movie worthy of fairly deep exploration. The opening and closing sequences are particularly engrossing, and there are moments where it seems the movie they’re trying to make is the very movie we’re watching, and I can’t help but note that many of the characters in the movie have the same name as the actors playing them. As in many of the art films I’ve covered, the fantastic content may simply be that movies like this stretch the bounds so far that they become de facto fantasies. There are certain more substantial elements, though; the opening dream sequence has a flying man, and the movie that the director is making appears to be at least partially a science fiction movie involving nuclear war and spaceships. As for the title, Fellini had directed 7 1/2 pictures up to this point (the half was for a picture he co-directed), so the number for this one was 8 1/2. Horror fans may take note of the presence of Barbara Steele in the movie, which isn’t surprising; given Fellini’s love of interesting faces, it’s easy to see why he would cast her.

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Black Christmas (1974)

BLACK CHRISTMAS (1974)
aka Silent Night, Evil Night
Article 3296 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 7-7-2010
Posting Date: 8-23-2010
Directed by Bob Clark
Featuring Olivia Hussey, Keir Dullea, Margot Kidder
Country: Canada
What it is: Prototypical slasher film

Members of a sorority are being killed off one by one by a mysterious obscene phone caller.

Director Bob Clark had a very interesting career which largely began with a trio of horror films during the early seventies. This is one of his best, a prototype of the slasher film that would become popular in the wake of HALLOWEEN and FRIDAY THE 13TH, though this taut and suspenseful movie may be better than either of them or their spawn. The characters are three-dimensional and well acted here; one feels and cares about them because they don’t act like the usual slasher fodder. Granted, certain plot twists have now become cliches, and there is at least one moment in the movie where one character acts with a certain amount of stupidity, but at least you can understand that her motivation may be concern about her sorority sisters. The final twist isn’t extremely original, but it’s handled with such panache that you’ll like it anyway. And I always admire a horror movie that knows how to use silence rather than shrillness for its scares.

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The Bloody Judge (1970)

THE BLOODY JUDGE (1970)
aka Il trono di fuoco, Night of the Blood Monster
Article 3295 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 7-6-2010
Posting Date: 8-22-2010
Directed by Jesus Franco
Featuring Christopher Lee, Maria Schell, Leo Genn
Country: Liechtenstein / Italy / Spain / West Germany
What it is: Witch-hunting drama

The brutal Lord Chancellor of England, Judge Jeffries, deals with witches and rebels during his reign.

At one point, someone tells the title character that it might be worth his while to witness the executions he hands out, which I think is a rather fitting comment given the rumor that Christopher Lee had completed all of his scenes and was not around to see the gruesome torture scenes that were added to the movie. In fact, the scene where he makes love to a young woman may not feature him at all; all we see is of his character in that scene is a hand, which could well belong to anyone. Still, Lee considered his role in this one to be one of his finest performances, and he’s right; his character is extremely well drawn, and Lee does an exemplary job with it. Given that the director was Jesus Franco and the producer was Harry Alan Towers, I expected the worst going into this, but it’s one of those cases where Franco was given a decent budget to work with, and he makes wise use of it. Though I wouldn’t call it a great movie (it gets rather dull on occasion), it’s definitely one of Franco’s better efforts, and it even rises above being just another knockoff of WITCHFINDER GENERAL; the movie finds its own voice and doesn’t merely echo the earlier movie. Yes, there’s some added sleaze, but that’s pretty much what you would expect from Franco at this time, wouldn’t you?

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Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1972)

ALICE’S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND (1972)
Article 3294 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 7-4-2010
Posting Date: 8-21-2010
Directed by William Sterling
Featuring Fiona Fullerton, Michael Jayston, Hywel Bennett
Country: UK
What it is: Classic fantasy adaptation

Alice falls down a rabbit hole into the world of Wonderland.

This movie makes a real attempt to stick to the original story; in many ways, it may be the most faithful attempt yet, with only the appearance of Tweedledum and Tweedledee as sops to the sequel. It also has a bevy of famous British actors and comedians in the cast, including Ralph Richardson, Peter Bull, Roy Kinnear, Peter Sellers, Dudley Moore, Dennis Price and Spike Milligan. Nevertheless, I found myself hating the movie. Part of the problem is that the movie caves in to certain kiddie movie conventions, such as having Alice sing and dance with the other characters at every opportunity. Another problem is the score which, to my mind, gives the movie the air of “knees bent before a classic” rather than the sense of comic absurdism the story needs. The acting is frantic and confused, the cinematography is often static, and the editing increases the feeling of disjointedness. In the end, the movie left me feeling rather nauseous, and the sense of fidelity towards the story started to come across as the director’s attempt to get around the fact that he didn’t really ‘get’ the story. On the plus side, the costumes and makeup are excellent, and the casting is occasionally inspired; my favorite example of the latter is Peter Bull as the Duchess, a cross-gender conceit that is surprisingly appropriate.

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