Carnival of Souls (1962)

Carnival of Souls
Starring: Candace Hilligoss
Director: Herk Harvey
Writer: John Clifford
Genre: Horror
Year: 1962
My rating: 

Two cars drag race on a desolate stretch of road in rural Kansas. One car runs off a bridge, plunges into a deep river and quickly sinks. All three young women inside are assumed dead. However, hours after the crash, one woman emerges from the river, alive and unharmed, but unable or unwilling to explain her miraculous survival.

That intriguing premise, ladies and gentlemen, is merely the pre-credits opening sequence of CARNIVAL OF SOULS.

I hadn't heard of this movie before. However, quick trips to IMDB and Wikipedia tell me that I should have. It was an cheap, obscure, throwaway flick when it was first released, but has gained a cult following in the decades since. And it's easy to see why. Because despite its flaws, there is a lot of atmosphere and horror here.

The story follows Mary Henry (Candace Hilligoss), the young woman inexplicably left alive when all reason would indicate that she be dead. Following the accident, she leaves town as she has been hired as a church organist in Utah. During her trip, she is haunted by bizarre and unexplainable visions. After her arrival, the sightings continue and she finds herself drawn to a mysterious, abandoned carnival. Also, despite making a serious impression on a man living in her building, she begins temporarily slipping out of reality, unable to make herself seen or heard by those around her.

I'm not the first (nor will I be the last) to notice that CARNIVAL OF SOULS has the definite feel of a lost, elongated episode of THE TWILIGHT ZONE (indeed, it contains similar themes to "The Hitchhiker", although CARNIVAL is creepier and has more going on). This is very atmospheric, very creepy and unsettling. It's the kind of movie you watch and then don't want to look out of dark windows at night because if you don't look, you won't have to see what's out there.

I liked that the central character is both an identification point (we, like her, want to discover what is going on around her) and a enigmatic mystery. How did she survive the car crash? That event must have something to do with her visions, but what is the connection? Why is she drawn to the carnival? 

Of course, I found it difficult to watch CARNIVAL without being distracted by the cheap production values and numerous technical flaws. While occasionally the mistakes add to the atmosphere of confusion, overall they can't help but detract from the film as a whole. Keep in mind that this film gets a lot of attention based on how good it is despite its flaws. So don't go into it expecting perfection.

However, those flaws almost enhance the genuinely effective moments, because they seem to rise like roses out of, well, if not manure, than certainly ordinary film making. There are many creepy individual shots I'll remember, most of which concern the unnerving ghostly apparitions. Sometimes simple, primitive special effects are more chilling than there expensive counterparts, and the shots of the specters stalking the protagonist are clear evidence of that.

I really enjoyed the ending of the film. Sometimes a script will attempt to explain too much, leaving the movie feeling a little too neat. Other times, the producers will leave things so vague as to render any coherent theory impossible. CARNIVAL hit the magic median for me. I got a lot out of the ending, and was happy to see that while there are numerous theories on-line "explaining" the conclusion, not one of them exactly lines up with my own. I like that about a film.

The inexpensive Digiview Productions release of this DVD is quite watchable, and while I'm sure the Criterion version has a vastly superior picture, this is great for people like me who are discovering this for the first time.

Dancing Pirate (1936)

Dancing Pirate
Starring: Charles Collins, Frank Morgan
Director: Lloyd Corrigan
Writers: Ray Harris, Francis Edward Faragoh, Emma-Lindsay Squier (story), Jack Wagner (adaptation) and Boris Ingster (adaptation)
Genre: Musical
Year: 1936
My rating: 

THE DANCING PIRATE billed itself as "the first dancing musical in 100% new technicolor." Now, you may be wondering to yourself (even if you're not a fan of musicals) why on Earth you've never heard of this film before. One would think that such a cinematic first would be less obscure. Few people today have seen THE JAZZ SINGER, but many more would recognize the title as being the first talkie.

Well, I'll tell you why you've never heard of this technicolor marvel. Because it's no damn good, that's why.

Now, granted the cheap DVD version of this film is actually a scratchy black and white print rather than the full color experience. However, I doubt that seeing this film in technicolor would improve it significantly, even if the producers had managed to invent some new color and painted Harry Morgan's mustache with it.

And before I get to the plot summary, I need to point out an annoyance courtesy of the DVD cover concerning the actor in the previous paragraph. At the end of the description on the box, the simple sentence follows: "Frank Morgan (of MASH TV series fame) costars."

Well, almost. Frank Morgan (who is indeed in this film and best known as the cinematic Wizard of Oz) died of a heart attack in 1949. The MASH television series began in 1972. Clearly someone over at Digiview got Frank Morgan confused with Harry Morgan (who played Colonel Potter on MASH). Harry Morgan, however, does not appear in this film. I've tried cutting back on criticism of Digiview's grammar and factual errors, but this is far too egregious to ignore.

The plot is simple and silly (although, to be fair, musicals aren't really supposed to have very involved storylines). The opening slide informs us of the setting: Boston, 1820. At this locale is a flamboyant dancing instructor teaching his class about a new craze called "the waltz". While horrifying the older generation because of the increased male-female physical contact, his students are pleased. He closes his class, leaves the building and is immediately hit over the head and kidnapped by pirates. Taken onboard the pirate vessel, he is now forced to perform menial tasks for the ship's cook.

Fortunately, these are singularly unobservant pirates, so he rapidly escapes them, and finds himself in a small Hispanic village somewhere in California. He is immediately mistaken for a real pirate and sentenced to death. However, his sentence is commuted on condition that he teach the villagers to dance. This gives the dancing pirate (who isn't a pirate at all) the opportunity to dance a lot, give waltz lessons to the film's audience and fall in love with the movie's love-interest with whom he has absolutely no chemistry and who happens to be the daughter of the village's leader.

Rereading my description of the plot, I'm realizing that it's far goofier and hokier on paper than when I was actually watching it. I suppose it says something that the film manages to convey a fairly strong suspension of disbelief. On the other hand, you could point out that the script totally fails to capitalize on what could be a very entertaining premise. The plot summary makes it sound like a bad film, but a bad film that could be fun. Unfortunately, it isn't. 

One of the first things that jumped out at me in the opening few scenes is how appallingly low-budget the film looks. It looks like a small high school did a production of this and then the movie crew simply filmed on the same sets. It's hard to take the film seriously when it looks like one mistimed twirl could take down half the village.

But the worst thing about the lack of money spent on the film is that these period musicals only really work if they look spectacular. Like them or not, those MGM musicals of the '30s and '40s looked epic. Picture in your mind those giant dance numbers with dozens of extras and enormous towering sets. Even if you don't care for the overall experience (and I generally don't), one can still appreciate all the time and painstaking effort that must have occurred to produce something so overwhelming, intricate and energetic. 

You simply do not get that effect here. It doesn't look special. It doesn't look extraordinary. It just looks like a small number of guys jumping around a movie studio. The costumes are bland; the sets are uninspired. And moving beyond the mere budget, there just isn't anything imaginative about any of this. 

The acting is acceptable. Our hero is played by Charles Collins. He spends 50% of his screen time with a cheesy Howard Dean grin plastered onto his face, which makes him a bit difficult to accept as a) a strong protagonist and b) as someone who could reasonably be mistaken for a pirate.

As mentioned, Frank Morgan appears in this film, and -- bizarrely -- he appears to be playing the exact same character from THE WIZARD OF OZ, albeit without access to the impressive equipment that allowed that wizard to rule by fear. He's the same bumbling man behind the curtain. So much so that you almost expect him to leave the movie in a hot air balloon shouting, "I can't come back; I don't know how it works!" 

One thing about this character I could figure out was how Morgan became leader of this village given that it's clearly a Hispanic village, and Morgan obviously isn't. I suppose we should be grateful that Morgan doesn't attempt a Mexican accent or use Charlton Heston's TOUCH OF EVIL makeup.

As for what's left, I personally got nothing out of the singing and dancing. Usually with musicals, I can at least remember some of the more catchy tunes, even if I don't actually like them. But none of them stayed in my mind more than an instant after "The End" appeared on the screen. On the subject of the dancing, I tried to teach myself the waltz from the endless sequences where he teaches the steps, but I had about as much luck from this film as I did from the free salsa dancing tutorial DVDs I once got in the mail.

You might get some enjoyment out of the film by asking your friends to come over with a few adult beverages and giving this the full Mystery Science Theater 3000 treatment. But even then, this is a film to be endured, not enjoyed.

Two Weeks To Live (1943)

Two Weeks To Live
Starring: Lum and Abner
Director: Malcolm St. Clair
Writers: Roswell Rogers and Michael L. Simmons
Genre: Comedy
Year: 1943
My rating: 

I had no idea who Lum and Abner were before I bought this DVD, so I did a little Internet research before I watched this moving picture. (Yes, I do research for these reviews. Stop laughing). Lum and Abner got their start in radio, starring in a serial comedy simply titled "Lum and Abner", each episode running 15 minutes. The series lasted thirteen weeks a year starting in 1932 and finishing in 1954 with minor changes to the format in that time. In 1940, they began supplementing their radio entertainments with feature length movies using the same characters and fictional setting.

Their celebrity doesn't seem to have lasted into the modern age as memorably as Laurel and Hardy, or Abbott and Costello, but they were extremely popular in their day. The series was set in the fictional town of Pine Ridge, Arkansas, which based itself and its inhabitants on the real town and colorful characters of Waters, Arkansas. According to the Wikipedia, the popularity of this radio series led to a name change. The town of Waters, Arkansas became Pine Ridge, Arkansas, the name of the fictional locale it had inspired.

Based only on viewing this movie, I can see how their comedy may not have aged as well as others of this time. The jokes seemed a little lame to this modern viewer. The punchlines are obvious about half a beat before the characters even begin reciting them. They don't even have the extreme groan-inducing corniness power of a Wheeler and Woolsey film. That said, I did enjoy this movie, though I doubt I will ever feel the need to watch it again. 

Introductions aside, here's how the movie proceeds. Lum and Abner are two elderly hillbillies living in the middle of nowhere in rural Arkansas. A letter slowly makes its way to Abner and informs him that he has inherited a railroad company from his deceased Uncle Ernie. Abner names himself the railway's chief conductor and Lum talks himself into becoming the company's president.

Lum, as president, decides that the railroad needs to have a stop in Pine Ridge, so they sell shares in the company to the townsfolk and use the money to buy all the land needed to divert the rail. However, once they arrive in Chicago and see the railroad for themselves, they realize that there has been a serious misunderstanding (a staple of all these type of films). They've completely wasted the townsfolk's money, and will need to find some way of raising money to pay back their neighbors.

Later, at the lawyer's office building Abner falls down a flight of stairs. He's taken to a doctor's office, but due to a mix up, he mistakenly believes that he has only two weeks to live (you saw that coming from the title, didn't you?). Given Abner's condition and their own desperate situation (and egged on by a friendly, Shakespeare-quoting window-washer), Lum decides that Abner should sell himself out as a daredevil, figuring that even if Abner kills himself in some crazy stunt, he's only going to miss out on two weeks anyway.

I found the first portion of the film a bit slow going and relatively dull. It's not actively bad, it's just not especially funny or entertaining. The action only really picks up after Abner's misdiagnosis and the subsequent stunts he finds himself performing. This is where the film breaks out of tired "dumb hillbillies in the city" clichés and becomes relatively original.

Among the various stunts that Abner is forced to perform are: painting a flagpole on the top of a skyscraper, staying the night in a haunted house, drinking a mad scientist's potion, and piloting the first rocketship to Mars. These gags aren't laugh-out-loud funny, but they are somewhat amusing, especially in their implementation. For goofiness, I'd put this movie about midway between a Three Stooges film and a Cary Grant comedy -- not exactly a fully zany, off-the-wall experience, but a little more wacky that a straight comedy. I found them to be falling between two stools, but I could see how someone else would enjoy this somewhat gentle sense of humor.

I viewed the Digiview Productions release of this movie. The picture and sound quality are adequate; it's certainly watchable. Given that these comedians are virtually unknown today, I suppose it's only down to luck that a halfway decent print even exists.

I could imagine other period comedy teams taking this simple premise and making a better film from it. The Marx Brothers, for example, would probably create something delightfully perverse (I'm picturing Harpo as the poor schmuck leaping from planes, scaling the sides of buildings and attempting to reach escape velocity). I did enjoy Lum and Abner's take on this, even though I doubt I'll ever feel the need to pop this DVD into the player ever again.

American Vampire (1997)

American Vampire
Starring: Trevor Lissauer, Johnny Venocur, Carmen Electra and Adam West
Director: Luis Esteban
Writers: Rollin Jarrett
Genre: Horror
Year: 1997
My rating: 

I had high hopes for his film given its genre and cast. It looked like a fun cheesy horror film. A stereotypical teen-slasher film with vampires and lots of blood. Seeing both Carmen Electra and Adam West on the DVD package, I was filled with the hope that perhaps I had stumbled upon an often dreamed of, but elusive to capture treasure: the "so bad it's good" film.

But the cheesy horror film genre is deceptively difficult to succeed in. You'd think it would be easy to create a dumb, silly, but entertaining film. Yet this one fails where others have failed before. It's greatest crime is that for the much of the proceedings it is utterly and completely dull.

Every bad teen movie cliché is present, from the soft rock "inspirational" soundtrack (follow your dreams, kids!) to the coming-of-age theme to the "is your girlfriend giving it up yet?" conversation to the moral lesson ending (the moral of the story is apparently not to allow Adam West to do your killing for you).

Getting to the story, the film begins with Frankie's (Trevor Lissauer) obnoxiously rich parents departing for a summer-long vacation, leaving their teenage son behind to take care of the house by himself (something which only parents in silly teen movies do). Frankie has a big dumb friend named Bogie (Danny Hitt, who presumably changed his name from Danny Hitt-Me-Baby-One-More-Time) who is obviously supposed to be the obligatory Bad Influence. Bogie encourages Frankie to do all kinds of wild things, such as bringing an entire six-pack of beer to the beach (amusingly, the beer is obviously Heineken, but the filmmakers obscure the logo with black electrical tape).

Once at the beach, the wild pair meet "Moondoggie" (Johnny Venokur) who appears right after a bat attacks Bogie which obviously makes Moondoggie the film's main vampire. Bogie -- not knowing that he's in a vampire movie -- ignores the bat-attack (he brushes it off as an angry fish... flying through the air at his neck) and invites Moondoggie over to Frankie's house. Moondoggie arrives the next day and moves into the house with a bevy of gothy weirdos (one of whom is Carmen Electra). At this point, the movie gets stuck in a plotless holding pattern where nothing happens. The gang of vampires won't leave the house and Bruno the Vampire won't stop eating the neighborhood's pets. Wash, rinse, repeat.

To give you some idea of the movie's missteps, I'm now going to detail the contribution to the film made by TV's silliest Batman, Adam West. For any filmmaker looking to create a goofy, silly, cult horror film, landing Adam West is like having the movie gods throw free publicity at you. Adam West is the King of Camp, and having him in any movie raises it from something that's merely of interest to something that is a must see.

And I have to say the filmmakers got most of this part right. They hire Adam West. They give him a pony-tail. They make him a beach-bumming, vampire-hunting surfer-guy. They make his character a descendant of van Helsing. They give him a delightfully silly nickname like "The Big Kahuna" (a sick sad part of me would like to believe that West was given this nickname shortly after he was first seen in his Batman tights) . They make his first line a long, exaggerated: "Duuuuuude."

How could they possibly screw this up after getting so much right?

Here's how. They only put Adam West in two scenes.

Madness! I honestly don't know what they were thinking. Adam West is by far the most entertaining thing about this film. He's a campy treat every time the camera is on him. So, why on Earth did they give him such a small role? Every scene that he's not in has a huge Adam West-shaped hole.

As for the other celebrity (although she was unknown at the time), Carmen Electra's role of the vampire named Sulka is fairly small (at least smaller than one would presume given that the DVD cover is a giant closeup of her head encased in vampire makeup which she doesn't actually wear in this movie). But it says something about the other actors that Electra's performance is the most restrained of this movie.

The filmmakers do make some attempt to stay true to classic vampire lore. Unfortunately, they're slightly inconsistent. Take, for example, the fact that vampires cannot be exposed to sunlight. The film asserts this in later scenes, but forgets about an earlier sequence where Moondoggie stands and rants right in front of a giant window, bathed in direct sunlight with no apparent ill-effects. There is also some other confusion and I'm not sure if I missed something or the filmmakers were conflating werewolves and vampires. Moondoggie's name is not the only reference; there are multiple scenes with dogs howling at the moon in the background. They don't actually state that the vampires are also werewolves, but these moments completely baffled me.

I think the writer was confused at whether he was writing a straight horror film or a parody of bad horror films. A movie like SCREAM works because it hilariously satirized the conventions of the genre, but still managed to be scary. AMERICAN VAMPIRE doesn't work because it isn't scary, and for the most part it isn't funny. The "jokes" are awful. They aren't even worthy of a groan. It's obvious one-liner followed by obvious one-liner. (On the other hand, I don't care if Adam West kicking in a door and bellowing, "Stop that sucking!" is a Signal From Fred. It's the best moment of the film.)

Also, there are two pointless musical group cameos. The first is Dick Dale and his Del-Tones, a mere three years after PULP FICTION turned on a new generation to their style. The second is a random ska group called Out Of Order, who didn't function well enough to have much of a career after this movie. Both bands are reduced to playing on a sad looking beach to a handful of extras.

At least a portion of my initial hope was fulfilled. At one point Carmen Electra attempts seducing Adam West. But it's not enough to rescue this film. The movie is less than a decade old, so Digiview Productions' version has excellent picture and sound quality. But you won't be buying this for the extreme digital experience. In fact, you shouldn't be buying this at all. Stay away, except for you Adam West or Carmen Electra fans -- but only those fans who have the ability to fast-forward to just their scenes.

Commandos (1968)

Commandos
Starring: Lee Van Cleef, Jack Kelly
Director: Armando Crispino
Writers: Menahem Golan (short story), Don Martin (story), Artur Brauner (story), Lucio Battistrada, Armando Crispino, Stefano Strucchi, Dario Argento
Genre: War
Year: 1968
My rating: 

I've seen a handful of Spaghetti Westerns, but I've never seen a Spaghetti World War II film. Given that Italy was on the losing end of that particular conflict, I was curious to see how they would portray the event. 

As it turns out, COMMANDOS is a relatively interesting war film -- if a little lacking in substance. It's tense in places and exciting enough that I never felt bored. There are better war films out there, but there are also worse.

During WWII, the Allies are putting together a very special raid. The US Army has assembled a band of Italian-Americans -- all literate in Italian, and all knowing enough to reasonably pass for Italian solders. The mission is to parachute into the northern Africa desert and take possession of a critical oasis. Seems simple enough. Except on the eve of the mission, the commander who was supposed to lead is replaced by a man with a lot of desk-bound experience, but no practical knowledge. 

This infuriates second-in-command Lee Van Cleef (DEATH RIDES A HORSE and "the bad" in THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY), who was not only very close to the original commander, but loathes the fact that he will be lead by an inexperienced yahoo. In a previous mission, Van Cleef was nearly killed because of a know-nothing commander's bungling. His determination to prevent history from repeating itself is what fuels Van Cleef's quietly bubbling anger.

Compared to other, more spectacular files of the genre, COMMANDOS does look a little on the cheap side. But by relegating most of the action to the eponymous commandos, the director is able to wring a lot of tension out of very little money. The film's most intense moments are split between the initial commando raids and the subsequent scenes in which the squad is desperately trying to fool passing convoys into believing that they are indeed all members of the Italian army.

I don't have much to say about the movie, because at the end of the day there isn't much to it. It makes for exciting and entertaining viewing, but not much to think about afterwards. There are numerous attempts to humanize both sides of the conflict and to make the commando's prisoners of war come across as sympathetic characters. And while these moments are successful, they aren't especially original either. Which pretty much sums up my opinion of the film's entirety.

The Giant of Marathon (1959)

The Giant of Marathon (La Battaglia di Maratona)
Starring: Steve Reeves, Mylène Demongeot, Sergio Fantoni
Director: Jacques Tourneur, Mario Bava
Writers: Alberto Barsanti, Ennio De Concini, Augusto Frassinetti, Raffaello Pacini, Bruno Vailati
Genre: Sword and sandal
Year: 1959
My rating: 

One of the few facts offered by the summary on the back of the Digiview Productions DVD case is that THE GIANT OF MARATHON features "a bevy of beautiful actors and actresses outfitted in very skimpy costumes". While I welcome words like "bevy" from a DVD distributor that once put the word "rewenge" (sic) on a front cover, this description -- appealing as it is -- does not suggest that the film will be filled with witty dialog, cunning plot twists and well-drawn, multi-dimensional characters.

And after viewing the film, I feel my initial suspicions were proved correct. However, this does not make GIANT a bad film. Indeed, I felt this was only half a bad film. The good half of the film is its large-scale battle sequences which are truly staggering and go a long way towards affirming the DVD cover's proclamation of this film as an epic.

But before we get to the battles, we must discuss the story. You'll remember Steve Reeves from his stint as Hercules in the most famous "sword and sandal" movies (a genre in which this film comfortably sits). Here he plays Phillipides, the eponymous hero, a person defined almost entirely by the characteristics of being huge and strong (I had to keep reminding myself that he wasn't playing Hercules again). Phil opens the movie winning the Olympic Games by being better at throwing pointed sticks, hurling massive stones, running in circles, and all the other sports from before the introduction of aberrations such as Olympic beach volleyball and snowboarding.

After doing so well at these sports and being declared the champion, he is naturally given the opportunity to head the Athenian army (thankfully this practice of awarding military commands in lieu of gold metals has been discontinued today, thus we are spared the spectacle of Rear Admiral Flying Tomato). Unfortunately, this isn't a cushy Pentagon desk job; these are busy times for the Athenian military. Not only are they facing an impending invasion by the Persians, but there are traitors in their midst. Sadly for Athens' sake, Phil may be an excellent javelin thrower, but he is unable to realize that the Very Obviously Evil character is actually working for his enemies. 

Phil basically has two things to accomplish during the course of this film. He wants to win the affection of Andromeda (an Athenian woman, not the galaxy, and apparently no relation to the Andromeda of myth) away from the man her father has declared she will marry. He also must unite Athens and Sparta against the incoming hordes of Persia. Fortunately for Phil, he's a hell of a lot bigger than anyone else, so he can accomplish these goals without too much effort.

The depiction of Ancient Greece is actually not that bad at all. Of course, you must realize that this is an Ancient Greece where both women and men run around in mini-dresses and baggy underpants because dignity would not be invented for hundreds of years. But there are some nice references to actual mythology which should bring a vaguely remembered story out of the far recesses of the audience member's mind. Of course, the movie does take some liberties. Phil, for example, becomes the man behind the story of the first marathon runner (note the film's title). While -- according to legend -- the first marathon runner died after high-tailing the 26.2 miles from Marathon to Athens in order to bring news of the Battle of Marathon, Phil just needs a couple minutes of rest to recover.

However, for the most part, this is a fairly dull movie. Even allowing for the fact that I'm not a big fan of the sword and sandal genre, this one seemed particularly slow at moving pieces of the story around. The characters need to do things that are obvious, their schemes are predictable, and they take forever to actually do anything.

That said, when the movie does get around to having something occur, it's surprisingly good at it.

Now keep in mind that I am usually bored by most battle sequences. For my money, large battle sequences are the points in movies where audiences are expected to get up and get themselves a fresh beer or, alternatively, to get up and empty the previous beer from their person. (SAVING PRIVATE RYAN is the ultimate get drunk or get dehydrated movie.) However, this film truly does offer a spectacle worth watching.

It's not just a bunch of sweaty Italian extras beating the hell out of each other (though there is that); there are some very well staged battle sequences that look extremely impressive and must have taken a lot of time and effort to implement. I don't know if real life huge battles with long lines of soldiers on horses attacking rows of men in fixed shielded positions would have looked exactly like they're portrayed here, but they must have looked damn close.

While most of the fights look impressive, even the more ludicrous or physically impossible scenes are hard to dislike. Case in point: there's a long underwater battle which would have required the soldiers to hold their breath (while fighting!) for about a quarter of an hour. It's silly on its face, but I won't deny it's still visually spectacular.

It's hard for me to summarize my overall reaction to this film, because I spent no time between the two extremes of either falling asleep or staring at the screen in awe. So, I'll give this a wishy-washy middling ranking. If you like the sword and sandals genre, then I'm guessing you'll like the Scenes That Didn't Involve Massive Bloodshed a lot more than I did. And even if you don't care for the genre, I dare you not to be impressed by the Scenes That Do Involve Massive Bloodshed.

The Beatniks (1960)

The Beatniks
Starring: Tony Travis, Joyce Terry, Peter Breck, Karen Kadler
Director: Paul Frees
Writers: Paul Frees, Arthur Julian
Genre: Crime, Drama
Year: 1960
My rating: 

I've got a problem with you, THE BEATNIKS. You go around calling yourself THE BEATNIKS and yet you seem to have a fairly large omission. It's a pretty big problem given what you've titled yourself. Simply put, you do not have a single beatnik within you.

I'm not kidding, either. There are no beatniks anywhere to be seen. I don't mean that the portrayal of beatniks is slightly unflattering or inaccurate. I mean that whoever gave this movie its title obviously had no idea what a beatnik is. There is no one in any way resembling a beatnik. No bongos. No berets. No silly facial hair. The last time audiences were so lied to by a film's title was the movie ABBOTT AND COSTELLO GO TO MARS in which Abbott and Costello do not go to Mars.

The story involves young Eddy Crane who is not a beatnik. He has a great voice, but he hangs out with a dangerous gang, none of who are beatniks. Through a chance encounter at a diner with a talent agent (not a beatnik), he is poised to become the next big thing in the music world. Eddy also finds himself torn between two women, neither of which is a beatnik. Iris is his girlfriend, and part of the bad crowd. Helen is the assistant to his new agent and represents a possible new life for himself. (The only members of the cast who aren't hopped up on goofballs are the ones who seem to have OD'ed on Nyquil.)

In stereotypical form, his old friends seem destined to ruin his big chance and to forever keep him from reaching his potential. You see, they simply can't help getting Eddy mixed up with all manner of criminal activity. No matter how good Eddy's voice, he simply cannot escape his past and his place in society. (The apparent moral of the story would seem to lie in complete contrast to actual beatnik philosophy. Not only is Eddy's quest for fame and fortunate portrayed as a positive goal, the movie itself suggests that there's no getting beyond one's designated station.)

This is a very simple and dumb movie. It takes 78 minutes to get through the absurdly shallow plot summary given above, and even that relatively short amount of time is a struggle for this movie to fill.

I wasn't prepared for the amount of singing that appeared in this film. There are three songs within the movie's opening twenty minutes. You'll need to prepare yourself not only for the sheer number of songs, but also their bizarre and banal content. There's a song with a chorus of: "Sideburns don't need your sympathy." I assumed I was mishearing it, but after multiple listens, I really think that's what he's singing. 

Besides the inaccurate film title, there's a fair amount of fictional false advertising in this movie. In one scene the "beatniks" arrive at Charlie's. Charlie's is a diner with two large signs outside. One says, "Cafe"; the other says, "Beer". Once the gang get inside, they are told that there is no food. And alcohol is not being served. And the only worker is not named Charlie, but Gus.

Given the obvious drawbacks, is there any reason to spend over an hour watching this? It depends on how much enjoyment you get from pure cheese. (Also, if you get off spotting visible boom mikes, then you'll be in heaven.) In a movie like this, the only parts that are enjoyable are the parts that are just ludicrously over the top. Personally, I found those moments to be few and far between; there is too much boring filler between the moments of utter silliness. But, that said, when the movie is unintentionally funny, it is shockingly unintentionally funny.

Take, for example, the scene where a weedy hotel manager is nervously complaining to the "beatniks" about the hotel room they've trashed. The goofiest member of the gang takes care of business. 

Does he pull a gun on the hapless employee? 

No. 

Does he roll up his sleeves and threaten the smaller gentlemen with a physical thrashing?

No.

Does he respond with some stunningly insulting and cutting remark?

No.

Does he point his finger at the man's neck and loudly growl, "I'm gonna MOON you!"?

Yes. Yes he does.

The picture and sound quality on the Digiview Productions version of this release are adequate. But given that I didn't like the movie, I didn't care much about whether I was seeing it in its full digital glory. In retrospect, I wish the sound quality had been a little worse. At least during some of the musical numbers.

Whoever gave this movie its moniker really should have called it something like THE HOODLUMS or THE HOODS or THE COMPLETELY UNIMAGINATIVE MOVIE FULL OF PLOT POINTS AND CLICHÉS YOU'VE ALREADY SEEN BEFORE. If you want to get some fun out of this movie, I recommend watching it with someone who has seen it before and can tell you where the silly parts are. Just make sure you fast forward through everything else.

(I didn't realize before I bought the DVD, but this movie has been featured in an episode of "Mystery Science Theater 3000". Now all the jokes I cracked while suffering through this are going to seem a lot less funny when I finally see that episode.)

The Bat (1959)

The Bat
Starring: Agnes Moorehead, Vincent Price
Director: Crane Wilbur
Writers: Avery Hopwood (novel/play), Mary Roberts Rinehart (novel/play), Crane Wilbur
Genre: Horror, Thriller
Year: 1959
My rating: 

I am disappointed to have to inform the general, unprepared public that the film THE BAT does not feature a giant evil bat, or a genetically enhanced killer bat, or even Adam West doing the Batusi. No, the movie is only titled thusly because the (human) villain has given himself the name "The Bat". Unfortunately, this is one of the only interesting things about the bad guy in this film.

As cheesy, cheap horror movies go, THE BAT isn't half bad. It's unpredictable in the sense that the movie keeps the identity of the killer a secret by throwing so much information at the viewer that each character has half a dozen clues pointing to him. The number of red herrings may make the Sherlock Holmesian portion of the audience weep, but it makes for an entertaining –- if totally incoherent -– ride.

The movie stars Agnes Moorehead (of CITIZEN KANE and "Bewitched" fame) as Cornelia van Gorder, a writer of cheap thrillers. (Her books are described as corny, and her friend shortens Cornelia to "Corny". Did you catch the joke there? Did you?) She's one of those fictional authors who somehow makes a huge amount of money from her scribblings, so she's taking the entire summer off and renting a luxurious mansion in a picturesque locale out in the country.

Ah, but where would a cheap horror movie be without Vincent Price? He shows up in his first scene wearing a stupid flannel shirt and wielding a shotgun. He purrs his way through the rest of the movie as Dr. Wells, one of the characters who keeps getting drawn back to the mansion. 

The mansion is where the bulk of the story takes place. You see, there's a hell of a lot of plot, and all of it comes back to the mansion. A million dollars has been embezzled from the local bank. There's already been one murder because of this. The money is hidden inside a secret room in the mansion, and while Moorehead and her maid/friend Lizzie are ignorant of these events, they have their own problems. Newspaper reports are hyping the recent killing spree of a serial murderer called "The Bat", a mean fellow who specializes in killing women, and who has taken a healthy interest in the mansion.

Scenes featuring the Bat show the nefarious villain creeping through the shadows in a black suit, a black ski-mask and a Jack Abarmoff black fedora. Is he attracted to the mansion because of the ill-gotten loot? Or is he simply preying on the women for kicks? Well, you'll have to wait during most of the movie while the screenwriter makes up his mind on that one.

The Bat is a relatively lackluster villain. He has no great lines of dialog, no fun character quirks. He does, however, have one redeeming feature. One of his methods of murder is to release a rabid bat into a room where his victim sleeps. Unfortunately, he only does this in one scene. A scene with one of the worst special effect animals I've seen in a long time. Indeed, I have vague memories of the Three Stooges being harassed by the same rubber bat prop to equally hilarious effect some years before. (The difference, of course, is that the Three Stooges were deliberately trying to amuse.)

Agnes Moorehead and Vincent Price are really the only two memorable people in this movie. I watched this movie a few weeks ago, and when playing it again this evening to refresh my memory for this review, I realized that I had completely forgotten about every character who wasn't played by Moorehead or Price. The rest of the cast simply stand around blankly, passively waiting their turn to be killed off. (Basically, if you aren't Moorehead or Price, then there are only two actions for you to perform. You can either discover a new corpse, or you can be the new corpse.)

I mentioned that this is a decent film, but one gets the impression that this could have been much better. The appeal comes mostly from the cheesy, camp factor, yet with little effort, this could have been much better. Indeed, other films that were derived from the same source material have a much better reputation than this. 

There's no real tension, no sense of danger. A haunted spooky house is a common location for horror movies, but this mansion does nothing to distinguish itself. There are no ominous shadows, no creaky staircases. (There's the requisite dusty suit of armor, but it gets killed off in the first act.) In fact the only way we have of knowing that this is indeed a spooky, eerie house is that the characters keep insisting that it is.

I'm reviewing the Digiview Productions release of this DVD and the picture and sound quality are more than adequate for this kind of movie. There is an odd purple blotch that occasionally shimmies across the picture. Annoying as this interference is, it's often times more lively than the actors currently appearing on screen.

While this version of THE BAT is entertaining, it's nothing to write home about. I suspect that if I track down the other versions of this movie (1926's THE BAT and 1930's THE BAT WHISPERS) I'd probably enjoy them in the manner in which they were intended. As it exists, THE BAT is a fun movie, if goofy at times. Moorehead and Price at least make this watchable.

The Ape (1940)

The Ape
Starring: Boris Karloff, Maris Wrixon
Director: William Nigh
Writers: Adam Shirk (play), Kurt Siodmak, Richard Carroll
Genre: Horror
Year: 1940
My rating: 

THE APE is a badly made and badly written film, but one which I am happy to report is actually entertaining. Its badness makes it fun, which -- despite the existence of the phrase "so bad it's good" -- is actually a rare phenomenon in my experience.

To begin with, this is the first horror movie I've ever encountered that displayed the opening credits accompanied by happy, cheerful circus clown music. Forget dark, ominous, atmospheric orchestration which can set the mood immediately. Disregard all attempts to initially set the viewer in mind of deep hopelessness, imminent despair and slow lingering death. Play clown music! You're trying to scare me, but all I can think about are guys with big shiny pants jumping through rings of fire.

Anyway, the movie is about Boris Karloff as a mad scientist (he wears a white coat, has loads of test tubes and kills in the name of science), and his desperate search to find a cure for polio, the affliction which has prematurely ended the lives of his wife and daughter. He's working feverishly to cure the paralyzed eighteen-year-old woman next door -- Frances -- who reminds him of his deceased daughter.

But there's an interruption to Karloff's work. A big, mean, angry ape has killed its trainer and run away from the nearby circus (hence the goof-ball music in the opening credits). This disagreeable primate is killing and maiming loads of folks in this small town, and the bodies are making they way through Karloff's lab (he's the town's doctor, even though almost everyone thinks he's a nut). Karloff takes advantage of his good fortune by using these patients for experimentation purposes.

Soon, the ape breaks into Karloff's lab and things start getting really odd. Karloff kills the ape in self-defense. Then, realizing that his supply of corpses will dry up, he hollows out the body of the ape, wears it like a suit, and continues the ape's killing spree.

Now, depending on what you expect from bad movies you can either throw your hands up in complete disgust, or you can accept the movie's wonderfully goofy premise. Personally, I dug it, precisely because it's so fundamentally hokey. I know you don't need me to tell you this, but you simply cannot hollow out an entire ape and wear it like a Halloween costume. I mean, okay, maybe you can, but you wouldn't look like an ape. You'd look like a giant jackass with bits of dead ape wrapped around him. (Forgive me for assuming the male gender in that last sentence, but I'm thinking that the whole hollowing out an ape and draping yourself in its carcass is definitely a guy thing.)

I won't discuss any more of the plot. Partially, because I'd then be getting into spoiler territory, but mostly because the movie doesn't have any plot left. There are just a few annoying things left that I wish to mention.

Francis' boyfriend actually dislikes the idea of his girlfriend being cured because he doesn't want her to stop being dependent on him and also because, as he says, "I don't like things I don't understand." 

Um, wow. I mean, I fully grok the natural suspicion one has towards new advances, but isn't the blanket rejection of all things he doesn't understand going a bit far? ("Sorry, can't drive into town; I don't understand that fangled internal combustion engine! ... No, no email for me; I never did get the hang of binary! ... What? A pickle? No, I can't eat them; I never figured out how they work either.")

And I'm sure his viewpoint was a great source of comfort to any members of the audience who actually were themselves stricken by polio. There shouldn't be a cure in the future, because there isn't a cure in the present? Forcing people to be dependent on other people is fine? They must have been outraged. They'd have walked out of the movie before the end if they'd been able to walk. (Sorry.)

There are some painfully sloppy moments throughout and many of them could have been corrected so easily that it gives the impression that the filmmakers simply didn't care. Take, for example, what is (very) arguably the film's most ludicrous scene. Karloff has just discovered a potion which is the cure for paralysis. He places the only drops of this previous fluid in a small, fragile test-tube. Which he sits down flat on its side onto an ordinary tabletop in his lab. Which then rolls off said table and smashes into tiny pieces on the floor.

As hilariously inept as this scene is (and you have to see the look on the faces of the actors to really appreciate it), it could easily have been fixed. You see, the very next scene at the lab is a sequence where the ape breaks in and smashes most of it before being killed. Wouldn't it have made more sense to have the ape itself smash up the test tube? (And it would have made the desecration of the monkey's corpse a little easier to understand too.)

Also, as a complete aside, I wish to question Karloff's credentials as a physician. During his early experiments with animals, he injects a paralyzed dog with a solution and then confidently states, "You'll be chasing bones in the morning." 

I'm no dog expert, but dogs generally chew bones and chase cars. If a dog is chasing a bone, then either he's A) still paralyzed or B) left his bone in the glove compartment. (A third possibility exists, which is that the bone is still in the possession of its original owner, but I don't think this is something Karloff should be encouraging in his pets.)

The Digiview Productions version of this movie is not in good shape. The image is mostly decent, but the picture keeps jumping and the sound cuts off. It almost seems like three or four frames every few minutes just went completely AWOL. This problem affects some scenes more than others. Most of the movie is acceptable, but some passages are almost unwatchable.

Before leaving this movie, I'm going to reveal myself as a complete softy and say that the final scene between Karloff and his young patient is actually quite touching. (Ignoring the monkey costume, of course.) But in any event, I do recommend this as the proverbial fun, bad movie. Boris Karloff, guys in ape costumes, stupid townsfolk -- this movie's got 'em all!

Vengeance Valley (1951)

Vengeance Valley
Starring: Burt Lancaster, Robert Walker
Director: Richard Thorpe
Writers: Luke Short (novel), Irving Ravetch
Genre: Western
Year: 1951
My rating: 

This is the most difficult kind of a review to write: a movie that had absolutely no impact on the reviewer at all. The film exists. I exist. I experienced the film. After the film, what did I take away from it? Nothing. (I'm forcing myself to write this, because after doing seventeen one dollar DVD reviews, I'm far too anal to simply start skipping titles now.)

VENGEANCE VALLEY (1951) is a movie that I wouldn't expect many people to love, but which I also wouldn't expect many people to hate either. There's just not a lot of substance to get excited one way or the other.

Ray Collins (Boss Jim Gettys in CITIZEN KANE) is the aging owner of a cattle ranch. He has two grown sons: one who was adopted as a child (Burt Lancaster) and one biological son (Robert Walker). The adopted son is this western's good son and the biological is the movie's bad son.

That's basically all you now need to know. The good son moves through the picture doing good deeds and picking up the pieces left behind by his bad brother who goes around being -- you guessed it -- bad. That sentence summaries about ninety percent of the movie's scenes. There's no questionable morality, no ethical ambiguity, no real reason to think much, give any thought to the character's inner lives or even to think of them as real people at all.

As an aside, there would appear to be the glimmers of a good idea buried deep within the backstory. It's the adopted son who turns out good. Is there some resentment from their shared childhood that turns the biological son into a twisted, petty, immature adult? Ray Collins mentions that he adopted Lancaster partly because he needed help raising Walker. Was it the influence of this boring and disgustingly moral older sibling that turned Walker from the path of nice to the path of naughty? Was Walker damned from birth? Unfortunately, the movie doesn't seem very interested in these questions.

What makes the film even more unlikable is that even within the broad strokes of the good guy vs. bad guy characterizations, the individual people aren't even portrayed in an interesting manner. For instance, given that Robert Walker is an out and out baddie, you'd have hoped that the filmmakers could have made him an interesting villain – a bad guy you could cheer for, or at least sympathize with. But he isn't a powerful and strong evil guy. His bad nature is communicated through him being extraordinarily whiny, sniveling and annoying. Sure, this makes the audience dislike him, but it doesn't make him fun to watch.

The only character I really enjoyed seeing was played by John Ireland. He enters the film initially seeking revenge for his sister (she's impregnated and then abandoned) and later becomes the bad son's hit man. Ireland understands how to create an enjoyable villain. He scowls, growls and grumbles. He also has the advantage of getting the script's best lines: "I'm gonna kill a man before I leave here," he barks at the town's sheriff immediately after getting off the inbound train. ("Anybody special, or will I do?" retorts the sheriff.) This is how to portray a villain with no redeeming characteristics at all. Make him fully bad; don't make him annoying.

(Incidentally, John Ireland is a popular fellow in the Wal*Mart one dollar DVD bin. Without trying or realizing, I've managed to pick up at least three of his films. It's a shame the movies themselves all been pretty lousy, but I've been entertained by Ireland's performances in all three.)

Other than John Ireland, I really can't think of much else to recommend about the film. (The cattle ranching sequences are done well, if you're really into cows.) The only thing I believe I'll remember about this movie is that typing up this review taught me how to spell "vengeance" properly. (Three e's. Who knew?)