Movie review - "The Girl in Black Stockings" (1957) **

 A slasher film before you could see much - a killer has cut up a goodtime girl in a small town and sheriff John Dehner tries to find out who did it. 

The main perk of this is the cast - suspects include Lex Baxter, Ron Randell (in a wheelchair), Mamie Van Doren, Marie Windsor, Anne Bancroft, Hoss from Bonanza. Bancroft is very good; I also liked Randell playing a bitter man (was his voice dubbed?) and it's fun to see Van Doren randomly pop up.

The original story was set in South Africa. That would've been fun. Quite a high body count.

I didn't mind this film - nicely directed, a little sleazy. I think it needed to be sleazier, that's all.

Movie review - "Mansfield 66/67" (2017) **

 Interesting documentary about Jayne Mansfield. The talking heads include John Waters (always fun), Mamie Van Doren, Mary Woronov, lots of PhD graduates, drag queens, Dolly Read from Beyond the Valley of the Dolls.

The cut aways to a stage musical doesn't quite work and there's a lot of emphasis on Mansfield's relationship with a Satanist. Wasn't that a small part of her life?

Good vision. Mansfield looked terrible towards the end.

It's fascinating how she's become this icon. She was only in two hit films. I guess she died interestingly.

Movie review - "Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women" (1968) **1/2 (re watching)

 The grade is too high objectively speaking but I took into account the circumstances under which it was made: a Soviet film bought by Roger Corman to cut up without sound. Curtis Harrington had a go but this one, done by Peter Bogdanovich and Polly Platt, is better.

It's frustrating that the characters cant talk. Yes there's a Soviet section but also one on Venus with Mamie Van Doren. The sexy Venus women promise more than they deliver. They clamber through the surf in shells, trying to hang on to dignity. It is silly and fun and you can sense Bogdanovich and Platt really trying hard.

Movie review - "The Private Lives of Adam and Eve" (1960) *1/2

An odd movie which I wanted to find more fun than it was - I found it hard going. 

It's a kind of a spoof of sweaty William Inge 50s stage melodramas, with the Bible thrown in (or, to be more accurate, John Steinbeck's The Wayward Bus). There's a bunch of characters in a small town: casino owner Mickey Rooney, his trampy wife Fay Spain, bus driver Cecil Kellaway (who doesn't seem very healthy), teen runaway Tuesday Weld, mechanic Martin Milner, sleazy salesman Mel Torme, juvenile delinquent Paul Anka, divorcee Mamie Van Doren.

They get caught in a storm and Milner and Van Doren imagine they're Adam and Eve. The longer this went on the worse I found it - it's full of banged-over-the-head satire, pious platitudes, poor acting, and crappy handling.

The sheer novelty of it does keep you watching - Van Doren has fun as Eve, Milner is bland as Adam, Rooney has the time of his life as the devil. Tuesday Weld isn't in the film much - at the start and the end.

Movie review - "Navy vs Night Monsters" (1966) **

An absolutely decent low budget knock off of The Thing which I saw with very low expectations (a director with few credits, Mamie Van Doren, silly title). And while it certainly had dumb moments - it's about killer trees - I enjoyed it a lot. There is some strong acting, good by-play among the characters. I didn't even mind the human drama of the love triangle involving Van Doren - the characters at times felt real, which is rare for this sort of movie.

It doesn't work that the island has communication with the mainland - this robs the piece of its suspense - but I'm aware it was added without the original director's consent. This is no classic, but I am sympathetic as to why the director is annoyed it was tampered with - this could have been a genuine little gem as opposed to a more campy cult fave.

Jon Hall did some second unit filming.

Movie review - Francis #5 - "Francis Joins the WACS" (1954)

A computer error sees Donald O'Connor transferred to the WACS - hahahahaha. Actually because it's O'Connor and not some swaggering 50s macho heartthrob, this isn't too offensive, and the treatment of female soldiers quite respectful (ditto the acknowledgement of the prejudice they faced). In fact, the plot has O'Connor helping the WACS beat men soldiers in army maneuvres at the end (years before Private Benjamin) and thus showing up sexist general Chill Wills (who provides the voice of Francis, which is cute). It's not Gloria Steinem (the girls can't do it without O'Connor) but it's something.

O'Connor is good as always, Chill Wills is funny, Julie Adams is cute, Mamie Van Doren unmistakeable as a sexpot (I wish her part had been bigger because she looks fun), Lyn Bari pops up looking old as an officer, Zasu Pitts is back as a nurse, and you'll be able to spot 50s sirens Alison Hayes and Mara Corday as well.

They don't over do the gimmick of people being shocked by Francis speaking in this one - indeed, Francis' role seems smaller here, the action is more driven by O'Connor and the girls.

Movie review – “Pulp Fiction” (1994) ****1/2

This still holds up very well, even once you know the twists: the dialogue, photography, set design, editing, acting, etc, etc. It has a great underworld-LA-feel: motels where you can hear the traffic zoom by, the importance of cars, dingy motels with long corridors, radios blaring in the background, bright sun, low income earners (even the crims are struggling to make a buck). 

 

Things I felt were faults at the time still come across that way: I didn’t buy that anyone in the Quentin Tarantino universe wouldn’t own a television as John Travolta claims he doesn’t (he still knows the difference between Mamie Van Doren and Jayne Mansfield); some scenes go on for too long, even with the outbursts of violence; the Harvey Keitel sequence is a bit anti-climatic (“wipe the blood off and let’s dump the car” – couldn’t he have come up with something more hard core or clever than that?); the word “n*gger” is used far too often by characters who don’t need to.

 

Pretty much all the acting is superb. Bruce Willis was great, John Travolta deserved his comeback – and Samuel L Jackson seemed to burst out of nowhere. Loved Ving Rhames – at first a source of terror, then all too humanised. The girls were good, too – whatever happened to the girl who plays the cab driver? 

 

Also the film depends on John Travolta needing to go to the toilet not once but twice. If he doesn't then Bruce Willis (presumably) dies, so no gimp section, and Tim Roth gets it.

Movie reviews - "Reservoir Dogs" (1993) **** / "Pulp Fiction" (1994) *****

Reviewed both of these together because have some interconnected comments to make - to wit, they both follow the same structure. Both have a wacky intro, then cut to violence, then act one about one character (Harvey Keitel, Travolta), then act two about another (Michael Madsen, Bruce Willis) then act three about another (Tim Roth, Sam Jackson). 

The performances are consistently brilliant, the emergence of stars a delight (has any pair of movies in recent years launched/re-launched so many careers: Jackson, Keitel, Travolta, Roth, Jackson, Buscemi), the violence explosive, the chats generally all too long, both stories are rollercoasters. 

I'm aware of the Reservoir-Dogs-is-better faction but would argue Pulp Fiction is the better movie because its a movie whereas Dogs is really a filmed play (budget reasons I know but look at it again and see if you know what I mean). 

Some irritating bits - as if John Travolta doesn't have a television, and couldn't Harvey Keitel in Pulp have come up with something cleverer?

Movie review – “Platinum High School” (1960) **

The rash of Albert Zugmsith films that followed at MGM in the wake of High School Confidential often had good ideas and interesting casts but tended to lack the care that could have made them special. This one has a terrific exploitation concept – a dad arrives at a military academy to investigate the death of his son. Said academy is located on an island surrounded by sharks and is run for trouble-making children, a ripe exploitation storyline if there was one.

But the filmmakers do very little with it. The death was mysterious, there’s bullying going on. Ho-hum. There’s no real sense of creepiness or unease or storyline apart from the dad asking questions and people taking pot shots at him. This is a film ripe for remake.

The other key flaw of the film is the casting of the father. Mickey Rooney is an actor of tremendous talent and energy and his performance here is accomplished and professional – but at the end of the day he’s still Mickey Rooney, and it's no fun to see Mickey Rooney playing a hard-arse (particularly an ex-Marine capable of beating up other marines). It’s not his height, I would have bought Jimmy Cagney in this role, its his Mickey Rooney factor; they should have rewritten the part more to accommodate him.

Mamie Van Doren’s absence is felt, though Terry Moore tries her best in a Mamie Van Doren-like part she isn’t as good. Yvette Mimieux appears in her first role I believe; a thankless part in which she just rocks up to wear an (admittedly pleasing) bikini, and then to nearly get raped.

Oh, the bullying cadets are a bit vanilla, too, especially the blonde leader, and the music soundtrack a bit jarring.

To take a walk on the positive side, the acting is of strong standard (Dan Duryea plays head of the school, Elisha Cook Jnr is in there too) and the action sequences are well done and the film is done with some conviction. Like a lot of these Zugsmith films the son of a famous actor is in the cast, in this case Harold Lloyd Jnr.

Movie review - "Girls Town" (1959) **

Kind of a remake of Boys Town with Mamie Van Doren instead of Mickey Rooney playing a delinquent sent away to a sort of reform school run by nuns (who drive around in a car with "girls town" written on the side).

That's a terrific idea, and certainly parts of this film is fun, particularly Van Doren in her tight pants and constantly looking for men the moment she gets there.

But it makes the crucial mistake of not concentrating on Van Doren and her conflict with the nuns (there needed to be a main nun who she really locked horns with) and instead spending too much time on musical acts (such as the Platters) and Paul Anka, who plays an underage pop star stalked by a Girls Town inmate - instead of being annoyed and terrified by this Anka tries to help her out and ends up saving the day. 

There is a bit of girl power solidarity plus a drag race that's just like the one in Grease, Mel Torme as a hoodlum, Anka singing 'Ave Maria' to Van Doren in a church; Anka also sings 'Lonely Boy'.

Movie review – “High School Confidential” (1958) ***

A camp classic that remains heaps of fun to watch and is actually a well made film, as many efforts from director Jack Arnold were. Despite the “serious” narration at the end and some “serious” talks about the peril of drugs (which are never made fun of), you can’t help but feel the filmmakers had a tongue shoved in their cheek at times (I would love to read about the behind the scenes of this).

The two best things about the film are the dialogue (tonnes of slang, brilliantly beat-influenced – there is even a performance by an attractive female beat poet, and John Drew Barrymore does a slang version of the story of Columbus) and Mamie Van Doren as Russ Tamblyn’s horny large-breasted aunt.

The rest of the cast is fascinating: Barrymore (looking very much like a skinny version of his father) shows real talent in a sort of snarling sub-Elvis baddy performance, Diane Jurgens (sort of a poor man’s Anne Francis) scores strongly as a marijuana-addicted school girl (she has quite a hot scene where she tries to seduce Tamblyn), Jan Evans as the Eisenhower school teacher (who flirts with Tamblyn before its revealed he’s a cop – interesting sub-currents there), Jackie Coogan as the smart drug dealer (who won’t touch alcohol or drugs), a young Michael Landon as the leader of the decent kids, plus other sons of Hollywood royalty: Charles Chaplin Jnr and William Wellman Jnr.

It’s not a dumb movie either: although you may giggle at talk of the evils of marijuana, Tamblyn is also trying to stop the heroin trade; parents of school kids are shown to be ignorant of what their kids get up to.

There is a drag race, a performance from Jerry Lee Lewis, but the action highlight is an extremely well done climatic fight in a blacked out diner between Tamblyn and Coogan, with Landon and his pals helping out – they throw chairs and plates and tables, knives flash, guns fire, dancer Tamblyn leaps around athletically and it matched by a surprisingly nimble Coogan. It is a very well done sequence.

The skill of this is kind of ruined by then having a narrator talk about the school girl who has given up marijuana and “limits herself to normal cigarettes”.

Movie review – “The Beat Generation” (1959) **1/2

From the producer of High School Confidential which features many of the same cast and is set partly around the world of beatniks, but isn’t as nearly as much fun, mostly because the tone of the story is nasty and the ‘hero’ so unsympathetic. Ray Danton (very charismatic) is a rapist running loose, occasionally with best friend Jim Mitchum; Steve Cochran plays the investigating cop who is so misogynistic that he never believes the rapists victims – even when one of them turns out to be his wife.

Cochran is such a prick, nastily interrogating the victims (Danton frames them to make it seem like they ask for it) that it is uncomfortable – but the film doesn’t endorse his point of view (other, nicer characters call him on it), so in the end it makes the film more interesting, to have such a weird protagonist.
How weird? Instead of doing things like talking to witnesses and take fingerprints, he just follows the rape victims around because he “just knows” one will meet up with the rapist again. He turns out to be right – in this case the victim (or rather near victim) is Mamie Van Doren (who Jim Mitchum set out to rape but was held up by the fact Mamie was up for it).

It’s an intriguing story (Richard Matheson was one of the writers) on which the beat setting feels tacked on – Danton hangs out with beatniks but doesn’t really dig their scene. The finale has Cochran chasing Danton but they kept being interrupted by partying beatniks then they fight it out underwater.

To throw some extra stuff into the mix, Louis Armstrong sings the title song about beatniks and appears in a scene (Cochrane asks him to make a phone call for him – why don’t you do it yourself, Armstrong?), Cochran’s wife gets pregnant to the rapist and we have a scene where a priest talks her out of getting an abortion, the cast includes Vampira as a poet. A bit of a mess, but for all that a watchable film, quite grown up and serious in places, particularly about men’s attitude to women and rape.