A BOY AND HIS DOG (1975)
Article 3821 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 1-20-2012
Posting Date: 1-30-2012
Directed by L.Q. Jones
Featuring Don Johnson, Susanne Benton, Jason Robards
Country: USA
What it is: Science fiction satire

It’s after the apocalypse. A young man roams the wasteland with his telepathic dog; he finds food for the dog, and the dog finds girls for him. However, there’s an underground society that has been watching the boy who they want for their own purposes… and they send out a girl as bait to lead him into a trap.

I remember recently looking through my cable movie schedule, and this movie was slated to show at one of the family-oriented channels, a circumstance I attribute to the fact that title of the movie makes it sound like something other than it is. Out of curiosity, I set it up to record, and sure enough, when the time came for it to run, another movie had been substituted in its place. It looks like someone took the trouble to double-check the movie before showing it.

The title is one of the most prominent jokes in the Harlan Ellison story on which this movie is based; the story itself is the antithesis of wholesome, what with its incessant foul language and its subject matter in which the main character is something of a serial rapist (as is practically every other male roaming the wasteland). If anything, the movie cleans up the story a bit by toning down the language, though it remains true enough to its source story that it still nets an ‘R’ rating. This is the third time I’ve seen this one; I was familiar with the story long before I ever saw the movie version. Perhaps the most striking changes from the story occur when the drifter enters the underground civilization; some of the changes are really bizarre, such as having all the residents wear clown-like makeup on their faces, and some of the changes make the movie more conventional than the story; in the movie, I get the impression that anyone in the drifter’s place would want to escape the underground world, whereas in the story, I get the impression that the decision was shaped much more by his own character, which I found more interesting. Still, it is a striking movie in many regards, and it’s the last of the handful of movie L.Q. Jones co-produced with Alvy Moore, who here also plays a doctor in the underground world. My favorite performance is probably Tim McIntire, who provides the voice for the wise-cracking dog. Reportedly, the movie is slated for remake this year.

THE BESPOKE OVERCOAT (1956)
Short
Article 3778 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 12-6-2011
Posting Date: 12-18-2011
Directed by Jack Clayton
Featuring David Kossoff, Alfie Bass, Alan Tivern
Country: UK
What it is: Ghost story

An elderly clerk, unable to afford a sheepskin coat from the factory where he works, commissions a tailor to make him a new coat. Unfortunately, the clerk is sacked and dies before the coat is completed. The tailor is then visited by the ghost of the clerk, who wants one last favor from him – to help him steal a sheepskin coat from his former employer.

This short, by the director who would later helm THE INNOCENTS and SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES, was based on a story by Nikolai Gogol. Given the subject matter, I was expecting a twist ending of sorts, but that’s not the way this one works; it’s more of a character piece, and both David Kossoff and Alfie Bass give excellent and memorable performances as the tailor and the clerk. Actually, it reminded me a bit of THE BICYCLE THIEF, in the way that it shows us some characters for whom an ordinary item (that you or I might take for granted) becomes the center of their existence. The short is moving and beautifully photographed. My favorite moment has the ghost deciding to not try walking through a wall because he would feel rather silly.

THE BLUE BIRD (1976)
Article 3751 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 11-9-2011
Posting Date: 11-21-2011
Directed by George Cukor
Featuring Elizabeth Taylor, Jane Fonda, Ava Gardner
Country: USA / Soviet Union
What it is: Allegorical fairy tale

Two children are sent out by Light to search for the Blue Bird of Happiness so that can give it to an ill child.

It’s been a while since I’ve seen the 1940 version of this story with Shirley Temple, but I remember not caring much for that version. I’m afraid I don’t care a whole lot for this version either. Despite having had a fairly expensive (and reportedly trouble-filled) production, it looks a lot like a photographed stage play at times, and the story itself is too steeped in allegory and messages to ever be fun or energetic. Oddly enough, I found the most striking moments to be the depressing ones, and that’s hardly a good recommendation for a children’s movie. For a fantasy, it’s singularly lacking in magic, and the movie was both a commercial and critical flop. Still, the performances are mostly decent; my favorite performance came from Ava Gardner as Luxury, while the most disappointing came from Jane Fonda, who would have been a lot more fun if she had hammed up her role as Night rather than underplaying it.

BURNT OFFERINGS (1976)
Article 3739 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 10-28-2011
Posting Date: 11-9-2011
Directed by Dan Curtis
Featuring Karen Black, Oliver Reed, Burgess Meredith
Country: USA / Italy
What it is: Evil house movie

A family is offered a good deal on a house for the summer, provided they care for the owners’ mother who lives on the top floor. The family soon discovers that the house has a baleful influence on those who live in it… and that influence begins working on them.

I found this to be a very interesting but flawed movie. First of all, I love the central concept; the house has the ability to regenerate itself from the suffering and death of its residents, and this gives the house more of a reason for its being evil than many other residences in similar movies. There’s also some creepy scenes with a chauffeur in a dream sequence, and some of the acting is really good; in particular, I like the intensity Oliver Reed brings to his role as the father. Unfortunately, I did feel the movie was flawed, with part of the reason being the script and the other being some of the other performances, which were problematic. First of all, I think Bette Davis is miscast; she plays what amounts to a rather ordinary elderly character, but Bette Davis is such a bigger-than-life actress that she comes across too strongly in the role, and I think a lesser-known and more ordinary actress would have worked better. There’s been some sniping at Lee Harcourt Montgomery’s performance here, and though it’s true that he becomes a fairly annoying character by the end of the movie, at least part of the problem is a script that gives him awkward moments. The biggest problem I have is with Karen Black’s performance, and for an odd reason. The movie works itself up to a final twist which I found was anything but surprising, and part of the reason I wasn’t surprised is that Black’s performance is so sharply realized that I knew exactly what was happening to her character, and this gives away the final twist; had her performance been less clear and more ambiguous, it would have worked better. All in all, this one was a mixed bag, but I think the good parts of it outweigh the bad parts, and so I like the movie all right.

THE BRIDES WORE BLOOD (1972)
Article 3732 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 10-19-2011
Posting Date: 11-2-2011
Directed by Bob Favorite
Featuring Rita Ballard, Chuck Faulkner, Dolores Friedline
Country: USA
What it is: Regional vampire tale

The DeLorca family has a curse on it; every male heir becomes a vampire, and his bride dies shortly after birth. An uncle tries to break the curse, but things go awry…

At one point in this movie, a woman who has received an invitation to take a tour of the DeLorca mansion asks a waiter for directions. The usual cliche here is that the waiter will try to dissuade the woman from visiting the mansion because of the horrible curse; instead, he just gives her directions, and goes to leave. Then, he turns back to talk to her further, and I was thinking that we were going to get the warning for sure, but instead, he recommends she go on the tour because the young mail heir is still unmarried and may enjoy the company of a beautiful woman.

Maybe I’m making too much of this, but this single refusal to follow a hoary cliche made me feel much more sympathetic to this slow-moving, poorly acted, and mostly ineffectual tale of vampires and black magic. No, it really doesn’t work, but at least it’s not just following some well-worn path; it’s really trying to find its own voice, and every once in a while, it succeeds a little. I don’t think I’m alone in this feeling; its IMDB rating is 4.2, and the fact that I expected a much lower rating seems to indicate that at least a few other people see a little bit more here than just another bad movie. Though I can’t recommend it myself, it’s at least different enough that it’s not a waste of time.

BLOOD BEACH (1980)
Article 3729 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 10-15-2011
Posting Date: 10-30-2011
Directed by Jeffrey Bloom
Featuring David Huffman, Marianna Hill, Burt Young
Country: USA
What it is: Terror from beneath the ground

Something is pulling down people through the sand on the beach and devouring them. Can the police figure out what it is and how to catch it?

The central idea isn’t a bad one, but I’m not sure the makers of this movie ever really figured out what to do with the idea. So what we get is the occasional attack scene alternating with scenes involving two former lovers reuniting or scenes of a police investigation that is getting nowhere or scenes involving colorful characters involved in one degree or another with the story. I quickly tired of both the crass policeman from Chicago (Burt Young) who does little but make tasteless comments and the homeless lady with the shopping cart, but I do kind of like the doctor investigating the case, even if his conclusions about the menace involved are really nothing but speculation. My favorite performance is from John Saxon, whose low-key no-nonsense manner I liked; it’s a pity that the story didn’t really give him a whole lot to do. Overall, the movie feels tired and jaded, even when things start moving during the last twenty minutes. All in all, it’s not memorable and not recommended.

BLACK NOON (1971)
TV-Movie
Article 3728 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 10-14-2011
Posting Date: 10-29-2011
Directed by Bernard L. Kowalski
Featuring Roy Thinnes, Yvette Mimieux, Ray Milland
Country: USA
What it is: Mysterious events in a western town

In the nineteenth century, a preacher and his wife become lost in the desert, and are rescued by members of a nearby town. The town has had a run of bad luck; their previous preacher died when the church burnt down, the coal mine which was their source of sustenance emptied out, and they’re being terrorized by a villain in black. While giving a sermon, the preacher apparently miraculously heals a cripple, and then finds that his presence has brought a string of good fortune to the town. But why is his wife mysteriously ailing? Who is the strange man he sees in his mirror? And what does the strange dumb girl have to do with it all..?

Sometimes you shouldn’t read blurbs about a movie before you watch it; the listing for this movie in the John Stanley book I use gives away a revelation that doesn’t occur until the end of the movie. It’s a bit of a shame; the final revelations put the movie into very familiar territory, but the setup is very clever and leaves you wondering how it’s all going to play out. It’s a little rough around the edges; it’s not particularly well-directed, and Roy Thinnes’ big sermon at a crucial point isn’t effective. But I do like a movie that can keep me guessing, and this movie does that well enough. And it’s also nice to catch another TV-Movie that wasn’t a pilot for a prospective series.

BEYOND BELIEF (1976)
Article 3726 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 10-12-2011
Posting Date: 10-27-2011
Directed by Alan Baker
Featuring Richard Mathews
Country: USA
What it is: Documentary about psychic phenomena and UFOs

Footage is shown involving psychic experiments, poltergeists, key bending and UFOs.

Like any documentary of this kind, what you’ll get out of it is bound to be tied up with what you bring in with you in the first place. Believers will probably go along with it, skeptics won’t, though I suspect the former will enjoy the movie more than the latter. My own approach would be to decide if it was entertaining and/or well-made. As for the latter, the answer is no; the only new footage shot for the movie was that of the narrator; the rest was lifted from other documentaries and thrown into the mix, with the UFO section in particular feeling as if it was lifted from somewhere else at the last minute and tacked on to make the movie last longer. It’s not well-organized, nor does it build up to any real point. Entertainment-wise, I found it mostly dull, with little in the way of anything new or novel. I did find a couple of moments a bit interesting. One is during the second half of the poltergeist sequence, in which one man discovers he can calm down the poltergeist activity if he empties his mind and lets the forces take control of his hand to write messages. The other was in an interview with an astronaut during the UFO sequence, in which he is asked if UFOs exist. For once, someone addresses that UFO stands for “Unidentified Flying Object”, and so anytime you see something flying you can’t identify, you have technically seen a UFO; most of the time, when UFOs are envisioned, it’s almost always attached to the concept of spaceships from other planets. Nevertheless, despite these moments, I found this movie singularly dull.

BARRY MCKENZIE HOLDS HIS OWN (1974)
Article 3722 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 10-8-2011
Posting Date: 10-23-2011
Directed by Bruce Beresford
Featuring Barry Crocker, Barry Humphries, Donald Pleasence
Country: Australia
What it is: Wild Aussie comedy

When Barry McKenzie goes abroad with his Aunt Edna, the latter is mistaken for the queen of England by Transylvanian spies who intend to kidnap her and take her to the castle of Count von Plasma, a communist vampire. Can Barry rescue her?

This Australian comedy (an example of the current renaissance of Australian culture, or so the man tells me at the beginning of the movie) is what is generally described as “outrageous”; it’s certainly not politically correct, with its flirtations with racism and homophobia, and it’s often crude and very lowbrow (with its incessant foul language and its emphasis on bodily functions, sex, scatology, and nonstop beer-drinking). And, truth to tell, it’s only sporadically funny. But what may be more to the point is that even when the movie doesn’t work, it doesn’t annoy me; the jokes that fall flat don’t do so in a way that makes me cringe. In truth, I think, on a whole, the movie more or less works. I think it’s because it succeeds in its primary purpose, which I believe is to present a somewhat endearing yet over-the-top parody of broad Australian stereotypes. Somehow, all the cussing sounds natural when peppered with a plethora of Australian idioms, so it doesn’t grate on the ear. My favorite moments are the musical numbers; somehow, these crude ditties gain a lot of comedic value when whole crowds of people sing along with them. I do find myself wondering just how much of the budget of the movie was dedicated to creating the geyser of foam that emerges from every can of Foster’s opened during the run of the movie. Sadly, one of the things that does not work is Pleasence’s performance here; his vampire character is saddled with a bad speech impediment that simply isn’t funny.

BABY: SECRET OF THE LOST LEGEND (1985)
Article 3721 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 10-7-2011
Posting Date: 10-22-2011
Directed by Bill L. Norton
Featuring William Katt, Sean Young, Patrick McGoohan
Country: USA
What it is: Dinosaur film

A female paleontologist and her husband discover a family of brontosauruses living in an African jungle. When a rival paleontologist discovers them, he captures the mother dinosaur, and the father dinosaur gets killed in the process. Can the husband and wife rescue the mother dinosaur while keeping the rival from also kidnapping the baby dinosaur?

Because in my heart, I believe that dinosaur movies will always have a special magic for children, I believe that when they’re made, the filmmakers should take a certain amount of consideration of that audience. I think that’s why this movie leaves an unpleasant taste in my mouth; though the basic story itself could appeal to children, the movie is peppered with touches that make it somewhat inappropriate for that audience; there are nasty and mean-spirited characters, an ugly strain of sexism, a certain preoccupation with sex, and too much violence, much of which could have been left out without harming the basic story. I also found the special effects to be a real mixed bag; the dinosaurs look more impressive in full body shots and from a distance than they do in the up-close head shots, where they look rather unexpressive. Quite frankly, the movie betrays a certain lack of care and thought. In the end, the problems sapped the fun out of the movie for me.