Movies

Show Boat (1936) This version follows the stage show more closely than the later Technicolor film, and sadly that is its greatest weakness. The first third is the best, and that's what was expanded into a full movie in 1951. The plot then becomes a multigenerational melodrama that becomes quite wearying, though the effect must be quite different onstage where the impetus is to flow from one song to the next. It succeeds far better than the later version in capturing the look and feel of the times it depicts - the later film is beautiful but it always looks like a 20th century back-lot historical fantasy. The costumes for both sexes are outstanding in at least providing a feeling of verisimilitude, and Helen Westly as Parthenia Hawks, fearsome matron of the showboat, gets the most astonishing of them. I have seen literally thousands of American movies and can say without a doubt that the film's other great success is in giving African Americans a squarer deal than they got from any Hollywood studio until The Jackie Robinson Story. Hattie McDaniel is funny, but because she is witty and at times an awesome force of nature, and her natural beauty really comes through. Paul Robeson is a slackmaster whose pursuit of freedom from labor is not vice but virtue, and his rendition of Old Man River, often seen, needs to be viewed in context to show its true stirring power. Clarence Muse's appearance later in the film as doorman of the Trocadero is also handled with quiet dignity, not made into a comedy relief caricature. In the latter (almost all-white) part of the movie, pleasures are fewer, but one standout is Irene Dunne's angelic performance of the music-hall classic After the Ball. Maybe not a movie to be seen just for fun, but certainly one of great importance. 7/10

Beauty Natural and Contrived

Movies

Penelope (1966) Natalie Wood is the pert young wife of a wealthy New York banker but she has one little quirk - she just likes to steal! Luckily she is also a master of disguise, meaning she can duck down behind the seat of a taxicab and pop up with a different color of wig on and nobody recognizes her. Has potential to be one of those bright cheerful bits of fluff, but somehow ends up being kind of terrible. Wood was good in similar light pieces, and great as a serious actress even in overwrought melodrama like Splendor in the Grass, but here she is never convincing in the role, certainly not in her flashback recollections of bohemian life in the Village as a folk singer and artist. Much of the credit goes to the poor script, with some basically bad ideas and continuity. I certainly don't mind seeing any young actress disrobe, but not when a rape-mad Jonathan Winters is ripping her dress off. It doesn't help at all that Edith Head was in her salad bowl hat period. Someone probably loves this movie, I thought it stunk all the way through. Luckily there were lots of bright colors and moving shapes. 2/10

Movies

Old Master Q 2001 (2001) Based on a long-running Chinese gag comic strip, this is a semi-live-action treatment with the main characters in 3DCG - an absurd concept but it works well enough that one's mind soon ceases to revolt at the idea and accepts it as the norm. I first learned of Master Q through my habit of grabbing the weirdest looking things off the library video shelf, though in this case it was a semi-primitive cel animated film from the 1970s inexplicably titled Older Master Cute. The official website of Old Master Q comics is here. I like how they are almost funny, similar to my all-time favorite newspaper strip Henry. In this film the plot is, not unexpectedly, utterly irrelevant - an excuse for a lot of chasing around. The musical number was actually painful. I see these things so you don't have to. 4/10

Master Q and Potato explaining to a policeman.

Movies

The Rainbow Thief (1990) Aimless fantasy of squalor directed by Alejandro Jodorowsky, starring Omar Sharif, Peter O'Toole and Christopher Lee. The sort of movie where the protagonist is frequently chased by a dwarf dressed as a potato bug who shouts "You stole my gramophone!" Much of the film is spent in an elaborate and wet sewer set, and during the climactic torrential flood sequences I could only feel pity for the elderly actors who had to spend so much time having filthy water dumped on them. It all seemed forced, trying to be weird but not really succeeding. I do have to give Sharif a lot of credit for putting in a great deal of hard work in this. 4/10

Movies

You're a Widow, Sir! (1971) A bizarre brain-transplant farce from Czech comedy master Vaclav Vorlicek. The plan is to assassinate the king by transplanting the brain of a female serial killer into an artificial body (made of veal) which is an exact replica of a famous actress who is the king's mistress, but things don't go as planned. The fact that Vorlicek's amazing and imaginative farces are so little known in the U.S. is something I hope shall be rectified in the coming years. They abandon the constraints of reality and create ludicrous situations and circumstances which are completely unexpected. Brightly colorful and entertaining throughout, with excellent work by lead actress Iva Janzurova who successfully portrays the distinct mannerisms of three entirely different characters. 9/10

Movies

Ask Any Girl (1959) Career Girl/Battle of the Sexes farce. Shirley MacLaine asks her employer David Niven to help her use psychological marketing techniques to hook his brother, Gig Young. Cute and funny, almost racy given the cultural constraints of the day. MacLaine is as cute as a bug's ear, and this is the first time I have have seen any appeal in Gig Young - maybe because he is not playing a lovable lush. Nifty costumes by Helen Rose whom I am noticing for the first time and find she did some of the most memorable of MGM's comedies and musicals from the late '40s through the '60s. As good as any such film of that era and better than quite a few. Surprise one-line appearance by young and manly William Smith, champion bodybuilder who would eventually become a biker movie star and all around movie supervillain. 8/10

Look at that one splash of color - Genius!

Movies

Ghost in the Well (1957) Tragic Japanese romance between nobleman and servant, literally titled Ghost Story of Broken Dishes at Bancho Mansion. When the maidservant deliberately breaks the heirloom plates that were to have sealed the deal on her beloved master's wedding, destroying his prospects and those of his entire family, he strikes her down in a rage and she falls into the courtyard well, becoming the titular ghost. At 45 minutes it is exactly half as long as I would have liked. Nothing truly outstanding, but all very nicely done and quite touching at times. 6/10

Goodbye Again (1933) Muddled hotel room farce - Warren William is the author of salacious novels on a promotional tour, Joan Blondell is his secretary who reminds him what city they are in and what he is supposed to be doing there. A Cleveland matron who had a brief college fling with him has always believed that his novels were all about her, and her appearance at his door begins the conflict. Hugh Herbert is unusually subdued as the vague boob who doesn't know how cuckolded he really is. Composed more of set-pieces than a coherent plot. Warren William has always seemed to me to be a dime-store Barrymore getting by on looks rather than ability - his version of Perry Mason is unnerving to anyone who has grown up with Raymond Burr - and Blondell's devotion to him here is inexplicable if not offensive. Gowns by Orry-Kelly featuring layered cape shoulders and asymmetrical bodices. Overall rather hard to like. 5.5/10

Movies

Visitors from the Galaxy (1981) Yugoslavian SF comedy - an aspiring author finds his characters have become real - a female robot, two space children and their toy monster which grows to startling size and goes on a beheading rampage at a wedding celebration. The destruction is always humorous and never gruesome, and there is a strange amount of nudity - a crowd of people seeking the aliens remove all their clothes to show they mean no harm, resulting in the unique spectacle of a cave full of naked people with flashlights looking for aliens. Surprisingly, on a shelf in the author's apartment is the model time-ship used in the Czechoslovakian time-travel comedy Tomorrow I Will Wake Up and Scald Myself With Tea reviewed here earlier. Fairly amusing throughout, and interesting to see the locations and settings on the Adriatic coast. 6/10

Horrors of Malformed Men (1969) Japanese film based on the writings of Edogawa Rampo. (I continue to believe that the unavailability of his work in English translation is a global conspiracy against me personally.) This is completely indescribable and one of the strangest things I have ever seen - and you know I am no dilettante when it comes to strange. 10/10

Movies

The Fifth Cord (1971) Directed by Luigi Bazzoni, an excessively complicated murder thriller. Contains many of the classic motifs of the "giallo" (literally "yellow" - meaning lurid as in yellow journalism) genre - gloved murderer describing his intentions into a tape recorder, whispered threats by telephone, an excess of clues and suspects, etc. Always-handsome Franco Nero is a gloomy hard-drinking newspaper reporter who is caught up in the complex tale as one of the suspects. The major appeal of this is the settings and photography, which is what I expected. Many repeating motifs such as spiral staircases, stark geometric architecture surrounding bleak plazas, vertical or horizontal bars such as venetian blinds and balcony railings in scene after scene. Interesting to watch for those reasons but an overly elaborate scheme wrapped up with a lot of quick explanation at the end make it less than fully satisfactory - again what I expected. The biggest mystery is what the English title has to do with anything in the movie. 6/10

Miss Pinkerton (1932) Excessively complicated murder thriller. Joan Blondell is a hospital nurse fed up with routine - "Why doesn't someone do something to break the monotony?" she exclaims, then yanks her dress off over her head. "Yeah, LIKE THAT!" I responded. She soon gets more than she bargained for when assigned as private nurse in a murder mansion where every person acts extremely suspiciously. George Brent is the young detective who gets everything wrong and almost gets to kiss her when suddenly the phone rings. There was a bit of imaginative staging and camerawork occasionally. Pretty ridiculous overall, but I haven't seen a 1930s movie yet that Blondell can't make watchable for me. (A single test radio episode of Miss Pinkerton Inc. was made, starring Blondell and Dick Powell, but it bears little similarity to this.) 6/10

This pretty much explains the whole movie.

Movies

What's So Bad About Feeling Good? (1968) Mary Tyler Moore and George Peppard are members of a group of Greenwich Village beatnik dropouts whose lives are changed by a toucan carrying a virus that makes people happy. Happiness in this case including a shave and a haircut and the urge to be meaningfully employed, or a new pink dress and the urge to be married with lots and lots of children. It also means a sharp reduction in the most profitable aspects of society: cigarettes, alcohol, anti-depressants, false advertising and war - so it must be stopped. Fun and silly, but the first half is the better. Interesting to watch the protagonists deliberately infecting others, carrying on acts of biological terrorism in New York City. I don't think this movie could get made today. 7/10

Movies

Rongraem Narok [Country Hotel] (1957) Extremely long (2hr 18min) and slowly paced Thai film. It seems like the film version of a one set stage play - Paradise Hotel has one bedroom, occupied by an accountant who is there to pick up the payroll for a nearby factory. Its lobby is also a rehearsal space for local musical groups who drop in and play a song every once in a while. Then a pretty girl arrives, followed by bandits, and there is conflict. It took me days to get through this because everyone likes to think for about five seconds before they say their lines, and the pacing is absolutely deadly. Slightly educational without being very entertaining. 4/10

Holiday on the Buses (1973) Third and last of the On the Buses movies - main characters all lose their jobs with the bus company and find new ones at a Holiday Camp, which is what made this of interest to me. British holiday camps are a mass vacation experience with excursions, entertainment, swimming, dances etc. like what you would get on a cruise ship only more like a huge motel behind iron gates - a kind of Auschwitz of fun. I don't suppose they are nowadays what they once were. They are also a bit of a secret outside of their island home and therefore interesting to me. Otherwise it's just a mess of comedic situations. It seems that the protagonist must suffer some form of genital torture in each of the films as he tries and fails to have sex with beautiful women who somehow find him extremely attractive. In this one he gets his groin shocked by an electric fence and has his ass boiled in a soup kettle and then fried on a griddle of eggs. I'm glad I don't have to watch more of these. 4/10 for educational value.

This purports to be the Complete Guide to British Holiday Camps.

Movies

Mutiny on the Buses (1972) The second On the Buses movie, not quite as blatantly lewd and offensive as the first, though still pretty low and primitive. No real story, just a string of comedic situations relating to home life and bus driving. Recurring theme of a farting baby. Plunging down a hill in a vehicle with no brakes or steering seems to be a common fall-back for British comedies of this level, and there is an out of control foam machine as well as a lion and chimp attack at a safari park. Antics galore, but not one laugh in it for me. 3/10

Movies

Yokai Monsters: Spook Warfare (1968) Ancient Babylonian demon awakens and goes to Japan where he faces off against the legions of Japanese Apparitions. It's a monster suit movie, with the monsters being traditional grotesque spooks; the protagonist is a Kappa, or water imp, who calls upon creatures like the one-legged cyclops umbrella with the huge licking tongue (actually a big marionette) the beautiful girl with a hideous face on the back of her head, dwarf with giant stone head, squeaking mushroom blob, snake neck woman, etc. Completely nuts except for the incredibly tedious human plot elements in between the monster suit fight scenes. There is a definite nationalist angle in this as in much of Japanese culture, with emphasis placed on the supremacy of the Japanese Apparitions over the foreign invader. First of three such Yokai Monsters films. 6/10

Lake of the Dead (1958) Norwegian psychological thriller that plays with levels of reality in a weird way. A writer reads to his wife from the manuscript of his new novel about a group of people staying at a cabin by a lake said to be haunted by the ghost of a one-legged axe murderer - one night a year you can hear his screams and that is just three nights away. They find and read aloud from a dream journal, and there is uncertainty about whose dreams they are. Hypnosis and telepathic dream-sharing are also involved. What really threw me was that I kept remembering it was just a guy reading a story to his wife, and they never resolve that at the end. Kind of talky, but it's filmed with a sort of cautious staging that makes it seem more fantasy than reality. Really more like a 1940s American b-movie with a more precise presentation. I can't tell if they meant it to be as much of a proto-ironic exercise as it appears. Kind of long to sit through. 4/10

On the Buses (1971) Movie cash-in based on hugely popular British sit-com about bus drivers. Crude low humor throughout, with lewd innuendo, snide cruel asides, and juvenile pranks. It's really an extension of schoolboy humor with the lads standing around cackling over the absurd predicament they've gotten their inspector into, scheming up pranks and drooling over cleavage. The situation in this case is that female bus drivers have been introduced, leading to various other situations occurring. This is an anthropological exercise for me - I see how certain types would find this amusing but it is pretty dreadful to a thinking person. British comedies of this sort have a far stronger anti-authoritarian and class-conflict angle to them than their U.S. counterparts, there is no effort made to heal the rift and strive for co-operation which would be the lesson here. The closest American sitcom to this is Hogan's Heroes - the authority figures are the enemy to be fooled and humiliated. I have two more of them to watch, having rashly downloaded the set. 3/10

Movies

Who Wants to Kill Jessie? (1966) Directed by Vaclav Vorlicek, a bizarre and extremely inventive Czech comedic fantasy. A scientist develps an experimental serum to banish nightmares and give people good dreams. The first experiment is on a cow, and by using a dream-viewer we are actually shown a cow's dreams! Using her home dream-viewer, the scientist finds that her engineer husband is dreaming about the beautiful heroine of a comic strip he read in a technical journal at work so she injects him with her serum, not knowing that a side effect causes the dream images to manifest in reality. The scantily-clad heroine and her nemeses, the Superman and the Cowboy who are trying to wrest from her the secret of the anti-gravity gloves, soon appear and chaos results. Being cartoon characters, they continue to speak in speech balloons which pop up above their heads. Any movie which requires this many sentences just to outline the basic concepts is a work of mad genius. Truly original and very entertaining. 9/10

Snake Woman's Curse (1968) Directed by Nobuo Nakagawa. A tenant farmer and his family are driven one by one to misery and death by a cruel landowner and his rape-happy son, resulting in vengeance from beyond the grave. I am very impressed by what Nakagawa and his crew achieve with simple stories and effects. The cinematography is precise and beautiful, the fantastic elements striking and original, and the total experience is emotionally stirring. I also appreciated the depiction of the activities and industries of a large self-sustaining country household of the late 19th century. 8/10

The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires (1974) Nonsensical Anglo-Sino kung fu vampire movie. This Chinese guy goes to Transylvania to get Dracula to come to China and revive the 7 Golden Vampires (6 actually since one got burned up from touching a Buddha statue) and Dracula suddenly remembers he can just take the form of another person and not be burdened by all that vampire stuff of avoiding sunlight and sleeping in his old coffin etc. which he somehow never thought to do before. So these Chinese vampires are mummy sort of guys with gold skull masks that ride horses around and chop people up with swords and rip women's shirts off exposing their bare breasts, and then they take them to the temple where the Chinese Dracula lives and bite them and let the blood flow into a bubbling cauldron. Luckily Peter Cushing is there as Dr. Van Helsing to eventually make Dracula crumble into dust for about the millionth time. Well you knew it was going to end that way. Julie Ege appears in a thin undershirt which does not get torn off by a Chinese Vampire. Lots of that phony kung fu fighting which people seem to like so much - occasionally it is ridiculous enough to be amusing but mostly I find it boring. Lots of bright colors. 3/10

Countess Dracula (1971) Countess Elizabeth Bathory discovers that bathing in the blood of virgins restores her youth but it only lasts a couple of days and every time it wears off she looks even more horrible than before. Any lifestyle that requires one to commit murder a couple of times a week is unsustainable. A pretty lush production for a late Hammer film, and quite a bit of female nudity. The one thing I couldn't bring myself to accept was that a beautiful Gypsy fortune teller from a traveling circus could possibly be a virgin. Fairly entertaining for this sort of costume shocker. 5/10

Movies

Hepcat in the Funky Hat: The 2,000,000 Yen Arm (1961) Jazzy Japanese slapstick action - the hepcat in question is son of the head of a private detective agency, and thus becomes involved in the case of a missing championship high school baseball player (a huge thing in Japan) and a cute female sports reporter. Frenetic action, lots of camping and mugging, imaginative cinematography, and only 51 minutes long so it's not too hard to take. Young shirtless Sonny Chiba developed the ability to knock down six guys with one punch and not get hit by a hundred short range gunshots at a very early age. 6/10

Hepcat (right) and sidekick, in funky hats.

Movies

Le orme [Footprints] (1975) Italian psychodrama. A woman discovers she has lost three days and one earring, and finds a torn postcard from a Turkish hotel on the kitchen floor. Is she really being persecuted by a malicious science organization headed by mad scientist Klaus Kinski, that abandoned a man to suffocate on the moon - or was it just a movie she saw? Not a strong story but what appealed to me was the photography, the settings and the muted colors. The protagonist (Florinda Bolkan) almost always wears the same color as her surroundings, and her sculptural face and silent expressions of puzzlement and dread were fascinating. Dreamlike and unsettling, although not entirely satisfactory. I wouldn't mind seeing what else director Luigi Bazzoni has done. 7/10

Finding the mysterious postcard.

The Monitors (1969) Screwball science fiction comedy made in Chicago by Second City, based on a Keith Laumer novel. The Monitors are here to help us, but we don't want to be helped. Unique, experimental, radical hippie propaganda. Co-star Susan Oliver was never much of an actress, but CUTE. Avery Schreiber and Keenan Wynn add to the joy, and Larry Storch in drag should not be missed. The whole production is eccentric enough not to get too boring, and it is punctuated by oddball cameos, including Senator Everett Dirksen. Sprung it on Donna as a surprise, and she thanked me. 8/10

Movies

The Famous Ferguson Case (1932) Preachy journalistic melodrama based, if I remember rightly, on the Hall-Mills case which set the standard for the modern Media Circus. Joan Blondell is top-billed and gets a few stirring speeches out, but it is really an ensemble piece and it's familiar face Grant Mitchell as the most honorable of newsmen who gets the serious ethical monologues. Somewhat less interesting than I had hoped. 4/10

Movies

Bloody Pit of Horror (1965) I chose to see this based on the title alone. Ill-fated bodybuilder Mickey Hargitay portrays a reclusive former bodybuilder obsessed with his perfect body, who becomes possessed by the spirit of a long-dead Torture Fiend called the Crimson Executioner. Luckily he has a costume and a dungeon full of torture devices ready to go when the models and crew arrive to take lurid cheesecake bookjacket photos at the quaint old castle. I guess this is from the Italian Torture Movie genre. Filmed in PSYCHOVISION, it says. More torturing than I care to see but it certainly was interesting badfilm otherwise. 5/10

The Crimson Executioner torturing a scantily clad model.

Re-watched Tomorrow I Will Wake Up and Scald Myself With Tea (1977) [Reviewed May 17] with Donna. Fun. I couldn't follow some of the dates and numbers the first time because I am a bit of a dope in that regard so it made more sense this time.

Blondie Johnson (1933) Crime weeper with Joan Blondell as a girl who learns that society won't provide the minimum in healthcare and social welfare for those who need it most - the only thing that counts is dough and she is going to do what it takes to get as much as she can. But she's smart, see - it's all business with her and she becomes queen of the rackets without ever giving in to any guy. Chester Morris is the sleek hunk who finally breaks her shell. Less of the wisecracking gold-digger here with some tragic scenes for her to play. As usual, fabulous attire by Orry-Kelly; no negligee but some great lounging pajamas, and there are always a couple of stark black and white numbers that just knock you out. 8/10

Movies

The Punch and Judy Man (1963) Written by and starring British comic actor Tony Hancock, this is a mild comedy of class conflict in a seaside resort town. Social-climbing wife promises the protagonist will perform his Punch and Judy show at a Gala Affair - he is an anti-snob who mocks and despises the upper classes, and they respond to his needling with hatred. In the egalitarian U.S.A. such a story from this period might end with some degree of mutual understanding, but in Merrie England the message from start to finish is know your place and keep it. The posh crowd takes a real drubbing in this and comes off as a lot of hateful fools who deserve to be despised. The ever-present John Le Mesurier has a significant role as a sand sculptor who lectures on the death of Lord Nelson. My reason for viewing this was my interest in folk entertainments but I learned an interesting lesson on British class culture too. 6/10

Movies

After You Came In, We Didn't See You Leave (1984) One of two comedies Jerry Lewis made in France. Here he is teamed with French actor Philippe Clair and much of the humor seems to be based on their status as "pieds noir" if that is the correct pluralization, half-breed and/or foreign born and viewed as not a real Frenchman. The first half is pretty dreadful, setting up Lewis' circumstances as a half-assed half-american private detective whose mother operates a health club for big women. Once he runs into Clair, a childhood friend, the story takes a surprising Tunisian Nationalist and strongly Anti-American turn which ups the interest value considerably. Mistaken for Sicilian gangsters they are plunged into a shooting war between the pasta and cous-cous interests, who bomb each others' restaurants to attain culinary supremacy. Meanwhile the American hamburger interests (with their torture chamber and lion pit) wait to swoop in and conquer the remnants. Remarkable scene of small boys in American flag shirts trying to ride rebellious donkeys, which apparently was meant to be vaguely insulting. Actually gets pretty good by the end. 5/10 for cultural education.

10,000 BC (2008) Roland Emmerich's epic prehistoric fantasy/romance. As usual with this guy, a very nicely dressed string of every possible cliche. Worth seeing just for the first shot of mammoths dragging stone blocks to the top of the super-pyramid. Those mopey prolonged death scenes get pretty wearing, and the female protagonist looked like a "hollywood indian" from the 1930s - a white girl with a wig on. But, they really came through with the mammoth stampedes. 6/10

Movies

The Shape of Things to Come (1979) Titled onscreen as H. G. Wells' The Shape etc., this bears no resemblance to anything Wells ever wrote, but is Canada's entry into the Crummy Star Wars Ripoff genre. There isn't much in this that couldn't have been done twenty or thirty years earlier, except for the shots of the Toronto geodesic dome. Jack Palance in a purple cape is the evil Robot Master who wants to conquer the moon, with Carol Lynley as the rebel leader sitting around a campfire in the old quarry. John Ireland also got roped into it. The evil robots are walking trashcans that wave their flexible ductwork arms up and down when they waddle. There is a good robot too for comedy relief and when it shows the good guys that it can teleport, violating the very laws of physics and reason, they react with mild interest as if it had shown them a dance step, proving this was written by people who don't know anything about anything, but that can be deciphered from the first scene. A load of half assed crap and I don't think even taking drugs could make it enjoyable. 3/10

Eric Morecambe and Ernie Wise as The Magnificent Two (1966) It's a case of mistaken identity that makes Eric leader of a victorious revolution and new Presidente of Parazuella. Moderately amusing at times. The women of the revolutionary army are all bikini models and eventually find an excuse to charge into battle in their matching red underwear. M&W only made three movies together so now I am done. 5.5/10