Movie review - "It's Alive III: Island of the Alive" (1987) **1/2 (warning: spoilers)

I sometimes feel that Larry Cohen the director doesn't always give the best treatment to Larry Cohen the writer. His script tells a good story and is full of imaginative touches and issues. I don't think as director he gets all the juice out of it.

Maybe I'm being unfair but with this third It's Alive movie (I haven't seen number two yet) I felt he put in horror and suspense because he felt he had to in order to get it made but he was more interested in comedic/social issues and seeing how way out Michael Moriarty could get in his performance. The creature attacks feel perfunctory - almost semi comic. The script deals with life and death situations and some big emotive issues (fear of children, broken marriages, being killed) but the treatment is almost flippant. It's closer to The Stuff in that way - more social commentary and Michael Moriarty than actual horror/drama/suspense.

Moriarty plays a father of one of the mutated babies who argues that his child should live. It gets shunted off to an island where all mutants then years later Moriarty takes part in an expedition to see how the creatures are faring.

It loved the idea of an island full of mutants and wish there had been more of it - a sort of Escape from New York situation. What do the scientists do? What is the ecology like? What do tourists do? How do the babies interact? But after act two on the island, act three involves Moriarty on a boat and going back to the mainland where the baby tries to track down its mother (Karen Black). This was less interesting, although there's some good emotion when Moriarty and Black reconnect with their child... and it's child.

Moriarty is given free range and his admirers will love this movie - his character is an actor and dad, unable to get work, full of shame, prone to acting crazy. Cohen gets points for making the films in the series so different from each other.

Book review - "A Letter of Introduction: The Life and Films of James Stephenson" by David a. Redfern (2013)

James Stephenson was a slim British gentleman best known for one performance - and it's a fantastic one, the lawyer in The Letter. But really that was it. He may have added to the tally but he died shortly after The Letter, of a heart attack, aged 53. Still, he inspired enough devotion from David Redfern to write a very thorough biography on him.

Stephenson was born into a reasonably prosperous middle class family in northern England. Fir the first part of his life he was a good boy and did the right thing - appropriate school, war service in World War One, working as a bank clerk and a merchant (including a stint in China). He got the acting bug relatively late in life and starting performing in amateur theatricals. He had looks, height, presence and a beautiful speaking voice and eventually decided to take the plunge and go professional. There was work to be had in rep and also British quota quickies. Stephenson didn't appear in the more memorable British films of the time but he did come under the eye of Irving Asher who ran Warner Bros' London operation and spotted Errol Flynn and Patric Knowles... he thought Stephenson had possibilities for Hollywood and so Warners paid him to come over.

Stephenson was screen tested by Warners who elected to keep him and put him in lots of small roles - there were plenty of parts for authoritative British actors during the late 30s at Warners. He pops up in movies like Boys Meets Girl and Nancy Drew. His parts grew better in the B movie division like King of the Underworld and Devil's Island and he had bits in As such as The Sea Hawk and The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex. Warners eventually gave him a lead in Calling Philo Vance and he eventually was cast in The Letter.  This earned him an Oscar nomination; if it didn't propel Stephenson to stardom, Warners were impressed - he had good roles in Shining Victory and International Squadron.

How big a star would James Stephenson have become? This is all hypothetical of course but I think, not very - he lacked great individuality, he was too old by the time he "made it". However I think he would have had a long, impressive career - the sort of actor who would have benefited from the decline of the Hollywood studios and the rise of quality in Britain; I can see him hopping back and forth across the Atlantic, doing lots of Broadway and TV in between films, maybe getting a TV show, playing a lot of leading men to aging female stars and generals and dads, never being a great star but never being out of work. Alas, it was not to be.

Redfern's biography is exhaustive and would have to be definitive - he had access to family papers and really fleshes out Stephenson's history. It feels almost a shame to report that Stephenson didn't have that interesting a life - he was a decent guy, seemed to live well; the most outlandish thing he did was to go into acting. He was a gentleman - no outrageous sex life, or bad habits. Which leaves his work and the movies he made on the whole weren't that awesome.

Still I did enjoy the book. Stephenson was lucky to have a biographer as devoted as Redfern. 

Script review – “The Ultimatum” by Laurence Dworet and Bob Pool (1990)

--> I was keen to read this because of an interview I read with Dworet in a book by William Froug. Dworet was an interesting guy – a doctor who wanted to be a screenwriter and sounded smart as hell and had sold “The Ultimatum” for a high amount. However a look at IMDB reveals he’s only really gotten one credit – Outbreak. It’s a shame this wasn’t made – it’s an exciting thriller about Arab terrorists who threaten to set off a nuclear bomb in an unknown American city. It has extra resonance with everything that’s happened with Al Quaeda. The hero is stock “overworked efficient guy” who neglects the women in his life (surprise). Too much time is spent on a subplot involving his reporter girlfriend who suspects something is going on, and attempts of the White House to keep things secret. There are also too many press conferences and scenes of people watching the news. Many elements are familiar with the old British thriller Seven Days to Noon.

Movie review - "The Ambulance" (1990) ***

Larry Cohen often talks about his love for old movies of classic Hollywood and their influence on his work is frequently apparent. This one is heavily inspired by Hitchcock, in particular The Lady Vanishes. Eric Roberts is a comic book artist who is hot for a young Janine Turner. She collapses and is spirited off in an ambulance but when he tries tracking her down no one has any record of her admission. Then when they do start believing about her existence, they start to think he’s responsible – also Hitchcockian.

It’s all quite cleverly worked out and it very watchable – I intended only to see ten minutes or so of this before going to bed but ended up seeing the whole thing in one hit. A strong cast helps – James Earl Jones is the detective on the case (his death provides a strong second act twist), Janine Turner is very pretty, Megan Gallagher extremely likeable as a cop who also gets involved. Cohen could write some very good support parts and Gallagher’s has all these extra dimensions – she should’ve been a bigger film name. Stan Lee plays himself and Eric Bauer from The Young and the Restless pops up as a baddy.

Eric Roberts is okay in the lead, with his late 80s mullet. At least he’s a star – I just wish his character wasn’t such a sexual harasser of Turner in the early part of the film. I also felt the film would’ve worked better if the character had been more anti social and shyer – that asking Turner out was a bigger deal. That would’ve suited someone who was a comic book artist and is someone that the cops would’ve found even more likely to be a killer. But maybe Cohen felt that wouldn’t work for a good looker like Roberts. Still there is always something a bit off putting about Roberts that makes him seem better suited to villainy. Cohen wanted to cast John Travolta but wasn’t allowed to – he would’ve been better.

Movie review - "The Stuff" (1985) ***

Lively Larry Cohen horror-satire which has a strong central idea - a yoghurt/ice cream-style dessert becomes a national craze, and destroys the people who eat it. Cohen plays this for comedy and satire more than horror - there's some groovy effects and exploding heads but a lack of genuine tension and spookiness, which is a shame because I think you could've had both but anyway...

It is a very Larry Cohen movie. You've got Michael Moriarty in the lead as an industrial saboteur (a different type of hero but I loved the fresh take on the investigator), playing up with a Southern accent and doing bits of business. Paul Sorvino steals the film in the third act as a rich militaristic colonel with his own private army who helps Moriarty - I love the bit where his troops all need to take cabs.

Andrea Marcovicci is a lively heroine, and Garrett Morris is fun as a cookie tycoon. Scott Bloom isn't much as the kid who gets involved - kind of like the kid in Salem's Lot. All sorts of interesting people pop up in the cast like Danny Aiello.

It's an uneven movie - bits feel cut out of it (eg Mortiarty and Marcovicci's romance), scenes don't quite build the way they should, I found myself constantly going "hang on, what about X?". But it's a very likeable movie which has something to say.

Movie review - "God Told Me To" (1976) ***1/2 (warning: spoilers)

Larry Cohen likes to say this movie influenced The X Files - I'm inclined to think that show came more from All the President's Men and The Parallax View. But he could argue it influenced Law and Order. It's very New York police procedural, with Tony Lo Bianco as a detective investigating why a sniper went beserk from a tower. He says it's because "God To Me To" which is a reason used by various other killers - including one man who, in a very effective sequence, describes how he killed his wife and children.

I was really looking forward to seeing this and did enjoy it but it didn't quite work for me. Maybe because I knew what the reveal was... Maybe this is a better film "discovered" than anticipated.

Maybe also because I found Tony Lo Bianco was a little cold. I would've preferred Robert Forster, who started off in the role but left the film a few days into shooting.

Also I think story wise a problem for me was so much of the film is spent tracking down the mystery that a lot of the time it felt like a TV show, with Lo Bianco interviewing people. The stuff about him being the spawn of an alien is amazing... I guess I wanted to see that play out more (the relationship to Richard Lynch, etc) instead of it all being wrapped up.

Still, it's a bold, unconventional movie and Cohen uses New York wonderfully.

Movie review - "Les Biches" (1968) *** (warning: spoilers)

I don't know that much about the career of Claude Chabrol - he's called the French Hitchcock, is one of the French New Wave, etc. This film apparently brought him back to critical favour after a few duds. I'd heard of the film - interestingly, it didn't do well at the box office in France, but it did travel... in part one assumes because it has some good looking lesbians.

Rich Stephane Audran picks up street artist Jacquelie Sassard and they have a fling. Then Sassard gets hot for Jean Louis Triginant... who is seduced by Audran.  Audran falls for Triginant which Sassard jealous. I thought the French were more comfortable dealing with a menage a trois - I'm sure the dude would be up for shacking up with both - but apparently not.

It's all stylishly shot with attractive stars, particularly the two women. They are very good looking and well dressed.

It's not that erotic. It's got some erotic bits - it's a shame there isn't more. Normally in this sort of film the murder happens around half way through - here it doesn't take place until the end.

Some audiences may be annoyed by the fact the lesbian is a killer and also a man converts a lesbian to heterosexuality. There is also a gay male couple in it as comic relief. The film is quite 90s/00s in that regard. It's enjoyable.