Movie review - "Comedy of Terrors" (1963) ** (re-watching)

 A film generally unloved despite its pedigree - AIP, Richard Matheson, Floyd Crosby, Dan Haller, Vincent Price, Peter Lorre, Basil Rathbone, Boris Karloff, Jacques Tourneur. No Corman but still...

What went wrong?

Well The Raven worked bc it was still creepy. This is all played for laughs. It begings wonkly with silly sped up camera and music and that tone is pleasant all the way through.

The pain and terrors in Raven were real. This is too much of a joke. Vincent Price seems miscast.

It lacks a supernatural element too. It's all explained away. Rathboone comes back from the dead but because it's rigid. The material needed to be played straighter.

I'm glad Rathbone got to play Shakespeare and Lorre got the girl. The Corman Poe films worked this doesn't. Needed genuine scares.

Big role for Joyce Jameson.

Movie review - "War Gods of the Deep" (1965) **1/2 (re-watching)

 I'm watching most of Tab Hunter's oeuvre and sometimes that's a slog so I put this on again, one of his most fun films for me. I know it's not that good with silly Gill Man make up and too-long scenes of swimmimg under water, but it's entertaining. Charles Bennett movies generally have a decent structure and this one does. Its more Jules Verne than Poe. I liked the art design, the underwater world, Vincent Price hamming it up, Tab Hunter and Susan Hart as juveniles. I could've done without David Tomlinson and the duck but there's even something endearing that Louis Heyward added that.

Podcast review - "The Secret history of Hollywood: Shadows"

 Entertaining look at the life and times of Val Lewton. Excellent narration. A lot of made up dialogue. Some of it doesn't seem real and Lewton comes across as a bit of a whiner and a victim but I really enjoyed it.

Movie review - "I Walked with a Zombie" (1943) **** (re-watching)

 Val Lewton whinged about his pulpy titles that RKO management assigned him - they are of course part of these film' charm. Some thoughts:

- so wonderfully creepy with gorgeous low budged cinematography and use of wind, cane fields, mute woman

- Jane Eyre is a great basis for a horror movie

- acting competent except Tom Conway who is superb - he brought so nuch to these films

- progressive in many ways for its time: sensible female doctor, black maid who is not an idiot

- great shocks like the appearance of the black guy.

A very classy movie.

Movie review - "Cat People" (1942) **** (re-viewing)

 Listening to a podcast about Val Lewton so thought I'd watch this again. Thoughts:

- lovely intelligent, treats audience smart, literate

- quite sexy: Simone Simon shows a bare back in a bath, Jane Rudolph is in a swimsuit, the whole plot is about sex

- some excellent performances: Simon is very good (lonely, little, scary, plucky) and Tom Conway is great fun as a lecherous shrink - Kent Smith and Jane Rudolph are dull but they have to be

- it's low budget yes but it's also a studio film so the photography is terrific, the sets, technical qualities

- very well done, stylish and well made.

Movie review - "Nightfall" (1957) **1/2 (warning: spoilers)

Not bad film noir starring Aldo Ray who made surprisingly few of them - he suited the genre with his gravelly voice and sad eyes. This has a slight Out of the Past vibe as Ray tells his story in flashback to model Anne Bancroft - it involves him grabbing an opportunity to steal a bag of cash.

The most effective moment is when two killers come across innocent Ray and his doctor friend and make them run before killing them (or in Ray's case trying to). The most bizarre moment is the fashion show where Bancroft does some modelling - it's kind of justified in that the two bad guys turn up but it feels weird.

There's several scenes in the snow including the climax (which includes that old staple, death by snowplow). Brian Keith is effective as a baddy - he normally gives a good performance I'd just never seen him play a baddy before. Rudy Bond is his more psychotic colleague.

Stirling Silliphant's screenplay has some bright dialogue but feels as though it cheats in spots. Ray twice is allowed to live by Keith and Bond - one at the beginning where they just knock him out the second time they think he's dead. At the end they should kill him a third time then for some reason Keith turns on Bond.

The story lacks a femme fetale - Bancroft is good. They mention the wife of Ray's friend who is killed Jack Albertson - it really needed to be her. No femme fetale means Ray can be redeemed and survive the film but that feels less fun.

There's too much of James Gregory as a kindly investigating insurance dude - and too many scenes of him explaining the plot to his wife, Jocelyn Brando.

t's beautifully shot and quite well acted.

Movie review - "Easy Living" (1949) **1/2

An odd one in the Victor Mature filmography - until you consider that in the late 40s he was developing a nice little reputation as an actor (My Darling Clementine, Kiss of Death) and this project was greenlit by Dore Schary at RKO (though it wasn't made til Howard Hughes til over).

It's got Schary worthiness, being a look at the life of a football player (Mature). He's a star but he lives beyond this means

The screenwriter, Charles Schnee, has actually done a good job (Schary liked Schnee, promoted him to producer at MGM) - characters are well sketched, have depth, and sympathy. There's a big fat strand of sexism through the film (a key plot point involves Mature being overlooked for a coaching position because his wife isn't "reliable) but even Scott is allowed to have her moment in the sun - she points out their life has traditionally been about worshipping Mature, she wants a career.

Some subplots feel hampered by censorship - a model who slept around kills herself, a woman tells Scott she wants to seduce Mature then kind of vanishes, Ball and Mature really should sleep together, it's unsure if Scott sleeps with her client. Because much of it is adult and frank and well done - Jacques Tourneur was a good director.

Lloyd Nolan is effective as a coach. Lizabeth Scott feels vaguely miscast but gives a good performance - you could say the same for Lucille Ball. Mature isn't quite believable as a footballer but is at least a physical type. Sonny Tufts was a real surprise - he's very relaxed and strong as Mature's friend. There's a black player on the team, Jim Backus turns up as a doctor.

There's a scene where Mature and Scott go to a nightclub and hear a person sing a torch song called "Easy Living"which feels tacked on.

It's a really odd sort of movie - bits of it are very good I found it engrossing. It doesn't quite pull it off, you can see why it lost money, and there's a terrible finale when Mature slaps Scott twice and "forgives" her (for the crime of having ambition). But treats the trevails of footballers sensitively and it's no joke.

Movie review - "Way of the Gaucho" (1952) **1/2

You have Westerns, and Westerns set in the north called Northerns, and Westerns set in the Middle East called Easters... I'm not sure what a Western set in South America should be called? Southerns? But I always figured that was a Western set in the Southern states (that weren't Texas).

This was one of a series of movies 20th Century Fox made overseas after the war to use frozen funds - Captain from Castile, The Black Rose, Kangaroo. They usually starred Tyrone Power or were clearly meant to star Tyrone Power - he isn't in this one, instead they use Rory Calhoun has a substitute, and Calhoun isn't bad. At least he looks interested in women and can handle the action stuff well enough.

There's some really fantastic views of Argentina - the deserts, snow capped mountains, plains, gauchos. It looks fantastic.

The story is dull. Calhoun is a gaucho who kills a man in a duel, then goes into the army as opposed to prison, then deserts, then meets Gene Tierney, then leaves, then becomes a bandit, then goes on a trek, then gives himself up.

And it's annoying because the piece has so much potential. A gaucho worried about a changing world, a world of increasing automation and loss of his way of life - that's a great theme. But the way the material is presented here, the story is just dull - and there's no sense of catharsis at the ending. It's like writer-producer Philip Dunne got too caught up in doing location work he forgot to do the script.

The gaucho having a lifelong bond with a childhood friend who works for the railways - that's got heaps of potential. But not only is dull Hugh Beaumont cast, the character is flat. He just sort of pops up to help out Calhoun - and he does it so often it's like "are they in love"? Beaumont should have been Calhoun's actual brother - I thought he was until re-reading a synopsis.

The Tierney-Calhoun romance starts off interestingly - she's this high class girl who is saved by the gaucho. But she just ends up as this weak sap who hangs around the gaucho, wanting him to get married. She's got no spirit, no spine - the whole she's rich-he's-poor thing barely makes a mention. We needed to see more of her living high class - being with Beaumont, having him be rich too. Make it a real love triangle. There needed to be another female character too as a counterpoint to Tierney.

Richard Boone starts off promisingly as the army sergeant who gives Calhoun a hard time. Then he spends the rest of the movie chasing Calhoun around, like he's in love with him too. Why not just make Boone a villain? The film badly needs one

Things that sound exciting are minimised - like Calhoun becoming a bandit. Everett Sloane livens up a few scenes as a gaucho but there's too little of him.

It's a shame. You know a lot of this exotic Fox location adventure movies aren't very good - King of the Khyber Rifles, Lydia Bailey.

Script review - "Out of the Past" by Daniel Mainwaring (1946)

Excellent script, with tough dialogue that fairly leaps off the page - tough, spare, witty, full of subtext. I have found the story hard to follow in the past but not so much this time. But another problem remains - the first half of the film is about one thing (tracking down Kathie and the cash... I guess that's two things), but then changes to be about a whole other thing (getting out of trouble with the tax department). It's hard to readjust.

Gloomy, fatalistic, very adult (Jeff and Kathie are clearly having a sexual relationship). There are too many characters with the first letter "J" in their name.

Book review - "Hitchcock’s Partner in Suspense: The Life of Screenwriter Charles Bennett" (2014)

Poor old screenwriters - whenever people do a book about them, the publisher feels obliged to mention their more famous collaborator in the title - it happened to Charles Brackett (Billy Wilder), Robert Riskin (Frank Capra) and now Charles Bennett.

For a long time Bennett was surprisingly un-famous among film buff circles, especially considering he had genuine fame as a playwright in his 1920s heydey (including Blackmail) and had several classics on his resume as a screenwriter for Hitchcock, Cecil B De Mille and Irwin Allen, plus a stint as director (Madness of the Heart) and writing the cult classic Night of the Demon. However he toiled in obscurity for a number of years.

In hindsight there were a few reasons: his work as a director was mostly undistinguished; many of the famous directors and producers he worked for were renowned credit hogs; his plays weren't really produced after the 30s; he made an awful lot of forgotten TV; and it seems as though he sold out his talent for the money too often.

Bennett's reputation rose in recent years, in part because he lived until he was 95 and always seemed available for interviews. One was done by Patrick McGilligan in the first Backstory book - if you've read that you'll find a lot of things in here familiar. Actually, this book was disappointingly slight on information about Bennett - surprisingly little on Hitchcock for instance - but it was published posthumously, so I forgave it.

And there was plenty of interesting stuff - Bennett's family and background, his early days as an actor, war service in the trenches (real deal stuff, which saw him shoot Germans and get awarded a medal), acting after the war, turning to writing, becoming increasingly well known. Blackmail the play and film put him on the map as well as in contact with Alfred Hitchcock; the two men got along well and collaborated several times, key films in Hitch's creative development such as The Man Who Knew Too Much and The 39 Steps.

By the late 30s Bennett was one of the most highly paid screenwriters in England, highly regarded by Michael Balcon and others, but he took a big money offer to work in the USA. Bennett earned some decent credits over there, forming a notable relationship with Cecil B de Miller. Bennett admits his strength was in construction rather than dialogue, but he never seems to have lacked for work. During the war he did some espionage for the US government via de Mille, which seems to have mostly been useless reporting of communist activity. More usefully he went to England and did propaganda work for the British government.

After the war Bennett's luck was less strong. He tried to establish himself as a director, not particularly successfully. He made a lot of TV, little of which is remembered today, though he had good experiences filming for Edward Small and did work on the TV Casino Royale. Instead of concentrating on the quality of work and collaborators, he went for the money. He made a number of films with Irwin Allen, an experience which seems to have scarred him although the resulting work is kind of fun.

Bennett claims the industry blacklisted because of his right wing anti communist views - pointing the finger at Dore Schary in particular. He also says he was the victim of ageism. However he did get some attention in his later years being frequently interviewed. There are some dull sections (the Errol Flynn anecdote seemed pointless) but others are interesting, such as Bugsy Siegel being his tenant, C Aubrey Smith in the English community, and life in London during the war..

Bennett's son John offers an epilogue which provides a fascinating counter point to the book. It talks about Bennett's desperately unhappy second marriage which dragged out for years and caused him much pain and money; he had financial troubles, and health issues despite living to a late age; he suffered a very long late career slump, which seems surprisingly for someone so talented and versatile.

The book also includes extracts from Bennett screenplays, plays, propaganda pieces and novels, such as The Secret of the Loch. Interesting and entertaining.

Movie review - "War Gods of the Deep" (1965) ** (re viewing) aka City Under the Sea

I watched this again for fun, really - and have to admit that even though it's silly and not up to the Corman Poe films, it has a certain magic about it. I think the fact that so much of it is set at night time, and underground/underwater. Dan Haller's production design is always worth watching, and Vincent Price is always good in this sort of role.

Susan Hart wasn't the best actress in the world but she's beautiful and has spirit - I actually liked her more than Tab Hunter. As for David Tomlinson and the comic duck, well... The script has clearly been rewritten and lacks logic but I went with it. There's too much of characters being under water at the end.

Movie review - "War Gods of the Deep" (1965) **

A weird combination of Jules Verne and Edgar Allan Poe, with a bit of Creature of the Black Lagoon thrown in - the story really owes more to Verne, being about a mad genius who runs a secret underwater civilisation... but it's done with AIP Poe treatment: lots of dark creaky corridors, shots of waves crashing on rocks, Vincent Prince being mad, Susan Hart being beautiful, a handsome juvenile (Tab Hunter), plus some Poe quotes.

The basic plot has Hart living in 1903  Cornwall being kidnapped by gil creatures and Hunter and David Tomlinson go to investigate. They come across a hidden civilisation consisting of Price, some old sailors and gil people.

Some people hate this film and it's certainly got a lot of flaws - the last act basically consists of our heroes in helmets swimming in water with a remarkable lack of tension, there's minimal relationship between Hunter and Hart, characterisation feels undeveloped, far too much time is spent on a comic chook, the plot is a mess (it's a combination of Price wanting to save his civilisation and being obsessed with Hart).

And yet... Price is always fun in these sort of roles, Hart is beautiful, the art direction is atmospheric (a lot of it is set late at night or underwater in darkened rooms, which adds to the charm), the photography is enjoyable. I had a lot more fun than I thought I would.

Movie review - "Out of the Past" (1947) **** (warning: spoilers)

One of the most famous film noirs there is, which ticks all the boxes - a complicated plot involving dames, sex, betrayal and a pile of cash which is impossible to follow; a doomed hero wearing a trench coast; a femme fetale; a Mr Big who has tentacles everywhere; gorgeous shots of cigarette smoke (I wonder how many people took up the habit after seeing film noir); darkened alleys and corrupt small towns; the innocence of the great outdoors; redemption and death; wise cracking and nihilistic dialogue ("baby I don't care"); a good but honest woman; a downbeat ending; the theme of being unable to escape your fate.

Robert Mitchum is in great form as the smart detective who gets sucked into the tale by two vipers: Jane Greer (who never became a big star - I guess she lacked the charisma of Ava Gardner - but is good here) and Kirk Douglas, who is superb. Strong support cast, too, and wonderful atmosphere.

The story has a problem - instead of building momentum it restarts around half an hour in when Mitchum is given a whole new mission (i.e. find the tax records). And does it really need to be so confusing?

Movie review - "Timbuktu" (1958) **1/2

I'm a sucker for movies about the French foreign legion and this one has the benefit of a great time period - 1940 in French North Africa, with the mother country fighting the Germans. There is so much potential here - the conflict between Vichy and Free French, the Axis country men who had infiltrated the Foreign legion, the relationship with the Allies... most of which is ignored. Still, what we have isn't bad, with mercenary gun runner Victor Mature getting involved in an Arab attempt to kick out the French while the Germans are on the march. There is a nationalistic Arab who is the baddie and an Uncle Tom goodie - but a French colonel (George Dolenz) who sends his wife (Yvonne de Carlo) to seduce Mature to their cause. Very French!

There's plenty of action, some hilariously American actors playing Arabs, a nifty torture scene involving a spider, some reasonably complexity, Mature sweating his way through his role, de Carlo feels wasted (Dolenz seems monumentally uninterested in her), studio forts. I quite enjoyed it, even if it wasn't in colour - I just wish they'd done more with the story because they could have. There is a great foreign legion movie to be made set in this time period.

Movie review - "Anne of the Indies" (1951) **1/2 (warning: spoilers)

Anne Bonney, the famous female pirate (famous because she's a female, really) gets her own film and has some heavyweight talent (Phillip Dunne on script, Jacques Tourneur behind the camera) but is unfortunately let down by the disastrous miscasting of Jean Peters. She tries but is far too mild and uncharismatic in a role that cries out for someone with strength: Maureen O'Hara, Susan Hayward or Jane Russell. This was Peters' big chance and she fails.

It's a remarkable swashbuckler in that it really doesn't have a hero - Peters is a sympathetic anti-hero but is still a ruthless pirate who orders Louis Jourdan flogged and has prisoners killed; her ship's doctor Herbert Marshall is meant to be her conscience, but is really an alcoholic buffoon who is irritating; the British who fight the pirates are very ruthless, blackmailing Louis Jourdan into helping fight Peters. Jourdan I suppose is a nominal hero, but he's really mean - going undercover and making Peters fall in love with her, kissing her on the boat (surely they were having sex)... when he has a wife (Debra Paget) back at home who he prefers! I think we're meant to be on Jourdan's side when Peters kidnaps Paget and threatens to sell her into a harem, but, sorry, my sympathy's with Peters. So her about-face at the end when she comes to Jourdan and Peter's defence against Blackbeard (Thomas Gomez) isn't terribly convincing.

The chief attraction of this film is its difference to regular pirate movies: there's a female protagonist, the male romantic lead is French rather than British, Peters and Paget have some enjoyable squabbles. There's also a decent amount of colour and action plus some fun scenery chewing performances from Thomas Gomez and James Robertson Justice. But it still feels like a failure.

Movie review - "Night of the Demon" (1957) ***1/2

A conscious throwback to the cinema of Val Lewtown from Jacques Tourneaur, working off an excellent, literate script (co-credited to Hitchcock's old crony, Charles Bennett). The ever-reliable Dana Andrews is one of the many second-tier Hollywood stars who headed to England in the 50s to make genre movies, but was accidentally rewarded with a cult hit. He's a skeptical professor who is going to speak at a conference, and winds up investigating the death of a colleague.

The macguffin here is passing a parchment which kills those who hold it -I wonder if the makers of The Ring were inspired by this at all? There's some interesting discussions of the role of demons and folk stories, plus scenes involving a seance, old hieroglyphics, stone hedge. The most effective moments are the seemingly normal ones a little inverted: Niall McGinnis (superb as the villain) in a clown outfit playing with children, the impending storm, walks through the woods at night, a visit to a catatonic man's religious family. There are some good old fashioned shocks too like the catatonic man leaping to life.

Andrews is mostly study (a believable professor) although in one or two scenes he seems drunk (I may be projecting here - but look at the seduction scene with Peggy Cummins). Cummins is fine as "the girl". The monster looks a little silly but there's not much of it.

Script review – “I Walked with a Zombie” by Curt Siodmak and Ardel Wray

Val Lewton’s take on Jane Eyre, set in the Caribbean – which makes total sense since Mrs Rochester in the book came from the West Indies. There have been some changes: the nurse (Betsy) is hired to look after the crazy wife, Jennifer. The brother (Wesley) is the Rochester figure’s brother. There’s also a mum – a missionary’s wife who’s becomes sympathetic to voodoo to get her work done.

 

Not an ounce of fat on it – maybe it could have done with more fat. Betsy falls in love with Paul (the apparently attractive brooding brother) very quickly – and we miss the big scene of Wesley refusing to pack Jennifer off to the insane asylum. 

 

I also feel we miss something in the character of the mother – when all’s said and done she’s a bit crazy to have turned her daughter-in-law into a zombie. And now I’m nitpicking we could have done more building up to Wesley’s (the brother’s) actions at the end, setting Jennifer free so he can kill her. Maybe this was more in the original script – I read a transcript. 

 

Still, highly intelligent and thoughtful, especially in it's treatment of voodoo, and enough walks by Betsy through windswept gardens and beaches at night to be scary even on the page.

Movie review - "The Leopard Man" (1943) **1/2

Minor Val Lewton but still watchable. A press agent uses a leopard during a nightclub act (smart move - and he's supposed to be the hero); the leopard escapes and people wind up dying. Some effective moments - the murder of the girl, a killing in a cemetry (they love that wind machine). You can't escape the feeling it's something thrown together by intelligent people. 

Some interesting chats about fate and what not; the two leads have some intense emoting to do which works quite well but it doesn't change the fact at least one death was really their fault and they're not very sympathetic.. 

It is set in New Mexico, and the film emphasises the multicultural side of things which gives it freshness. But it's not much of a story.

10 Commandments for Val Lewton

1) Thous shalt start and end thy films with a literary quote.
2) Thou shalt have stories involving some obscure moment/country/movement in history.
3) Thou shalt use actors from thy stock company - mostly RKO B film types who will never be seen again.
4) Thou shalt use literary scripts.
5) Thou shalt feature scenes where a character walks in some spooky location at night time with wind blowing through the trees.
6) Thou shalt not make a successful non-horror film.
7) Thou shalt use a schlocky title.
8) Thou shalt create horror by implication rather than actually showing something.
9) Thou shalt make thy audiences pay attention to what is going on.
10) Thou shalt have a rich parade of supporting characters.

Movie review - "Cat People" (1942) ****

The first production from Val Lewton's famed unit at RKO which started the world because it was a horror film, but one which was heavily literary and relied on suggestion rather than effects to get results. 

It's also very adult: lonely Serbian Simone Simon (very winning, a cutey, but still lonely and scary) marries decent dull stick (Kent Smith) but won't sleep with him because she's afraid of turning into a cat and killing him. Full on! In 1942! 

The two stalking sequences are justly famous but there are other fine scenes, too, notably the love scenes between Smith and the other woman (Jane Randolph) and the ones involving the creepy shrink (Tom Conway). Extremely well directed, shot and written; the acting is fine, too. 

Followed by I Walked with a Zombie.