Godzilla anyone?

Destroy All Planets (1968 – aka GAMERA VS VIRAS), directed by Noriaki Yuasa. This is the worst man-in-a-monster suit film I have seen. It did not help that the print was terrible, washed out and delivered in pan and scan. The monster here is a very large turtle (reminded us of Pratchett’s Great A’Tuin), that spins through the sky shooting flames from where his four legs are/should be. He can also spew flames from his throat, like Godzilla. He faces several adversaries here, in film footage from earlier films – quite a lot of it, too much of it Yawn. His main adversary, however, is Viras, a meanly tentacled pointy thing. We have the requisite toppling of buildings and crashing into the ocean and rolling about in a free-for-all between these two monsters. Meanwhile, two young Boy Scouts, one Japanese and the other American, find themselves captured by aliens who have come to take over earth. Being Boy Scouts, the young boys prove to be resourceful and with Gamera’s help, they save the world, or at least Tokyo. Hollywood did this kind of thing with the ‘B’ westerns in the 30s and 40s, cobbling together a film with footage from previous films. It was lame on horseback and it is lame with flying monsters.

 

All Monsters Attack (1969), directed by Ishiro Honda. This kaiju film receives a rating of 3.9 on IMDB. Apparently, it is one of the least appreciated Godzilla films by both critics and fans. Too bad. In my humble estimation, this is about as good as it gets. The film actually has a plot – a young boy, Ishiro (Tomonori Yazaki) endures mistreatment by a number of bullies, and he retreats into a fantasy world where he meets animated versions of his toy friends – Godzilla and his ilk. He also meets Godzilla’s son, Minilla, who also suffers from bullying. Real life and fantasy life reflect each other. In real life, Ichiro has parents who work all the time and leave him under the care of a neighbour who is a toy maker. Being left on his own, Ichiro finds himself threatened not only by the bullies, but also by a pair of incompetent thieves. In his fantasy world, Ichiro is under threat of attack by a Kamacuras, a huge mantis thing. He falls into a hole and is rescued by Manilla. Manilla has a father who hangs around and tells him to buck up and meet his bully head on, as it were. Ichiro helps Manilla deal with the creature that bullies him by instructing him to use a catapult. Back in the real world, Ichiro escapes from the thieves and also gets the better of his bullies. The action takes place in a polluted city, Kawasaki, giving us a taste of the environmental theme we will see more forcefully in Godzilla vs Hedorah. Our protagonist, Ishiro, is a lively tyke, and an attractive character played well by young Yazaki. The monsters have character, and perform their bits admirably. As a film about a young boy’s fears and struggles, All Monsters Attack is a refreshing change from the familiar stomping of cars and crushing of buildings and snagging of planes. This is, dare I say, a sweet little film. Thanks again Cole and John.

 

Godzilla vs Hedorah (1971), directed by Yoshimitsu Banno. Sometimes called Godzilla vs the Smog Monster, this film takes on pollution, both our polluted skies and our polluted ocean. The film contains some disgusting shots of both land and sea littered and ruined by pollution of various types. These shots are quite powerful, and we might be mindful that this is 1971. Fast forward to 2021, and we have not progressed in our attempt to clean up the environment. Anyhow, in this film all the sludge that drains into the sea has spawned a sludge monster, Hedorah. This creature grows and grows and partitions and mutates; it can swim, crawl, walk, and fly in its various manifestations. The only human who seems to grasp the situation and know how to deal with it is a young boy. Adult humans are incapable of stopping this creature and its onslaught on the environment, but the nuclear-spawned Godzilla arrives to help out. For a time, Godzilla too seems helpless against an adversary that mutates and grows and hurls acidic sludge. But then this Godzilla is clever, and he figures out how to turn the tables on Hedorah, using a man-made contraption and his impressive breath. The gestures of both monsters are a hoot to behold. Accompanying this confrontation of monsters are a number of animated sequences and a recurring psychedelic scene in which dancers, at one point, have fish heads of various colours and shapes. The accompanying song, calls for the saving of the earth.  Music throughout the film is strange, and I guess this is appropriate for a strange film. Thanks to John and Cole Boivin for sharing this film with us.

 

Godzilla (2014), directed by Gareth Edwards. No more rubber suited monsters. We have CGI Godzilla, and he’s a whopper. He may be big, but he lacks the personality (!) of the rubber-suited guy and his fellow creatures. Having said this, I note that this film tries valiantly to continue the themes and sensibility of the 1954 original Godzilla movie. We have the nuclear backdrop to what happens folded into the 2004 tsunami in the Indian Ocean and the 2011 Fukushima disaster. We have the human element as we follow, first the American scientist Joe Brody (Bryan Cranston) and his wife Sandra (Juliette Binoche), then their son Ford (Aron Taylor-Johnson) and his family, wife Elle (Elizabeth Olsen) and son Sam (Carson Bolde) as they try to reunite after being separated by various chaotic events initiated by the monsters. And speaking of monsters, we have a couple of new ones called MUTOS (Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organisms), who feed off radiation, even to the rather wacky willingness to swallow nuclear bombs. Our hero, Godzilla, comes along to restore balance (?) by defeating the two MUTOS. And yes, we have lots of buildings crushed, large bridges destroyed, jets tossed from the sly, boats flipped about like toys, and so on. All this adds up to a not uninteresting melange. I forgot to mention the Japanese scientist, Dr. Ishiro Serizawa (Ken Watanabe) who wanders about looking dour and trying to be heard above the furor. I’m not sure if any of this makes sense, but it makes for impressive fireworks. 

 

Godzilla: King of Monsters (2019), directed by Michael Dougherty. This entry into the monsterverse picks up from the 2014 film, and several of the characters return: Dr. Serizawa (Ken Watanabe), Dr. Graham (Sally Hawkins), Admiral Stenz (David Strathairn), for example. We also have new characters to play out the human element to the plot, most obviously the Russell family, father (Kyle Chandler), mother (Vera Farmiga), and daughter (Millie Bobby Brown). This family is separated both by choice (the father and mother separated after their son Andrew was stomped on by the Big Guy in the 2014 film) and by circumstances (the monsters have a way of separating people physically while bringing them closer emotionally). Then we have the monsters: Mothra, Rodan, MUTOS, King Ghidorah (Monster Zero), and Godzilla. One nifty trick that is easy to miss is that one of the scientists here is Dr. Chen (Ziyi Zhang) and she apparently has a sister. Those who remember Mothra vs Godzilla (1964) will know that Mothra is accompanied by tiny twin sisters with tiny voices. Anyway, the monsters here are suitably large and suitably destructive and suitably loud. They make a lot of rubble. As for the plot, that has something to do with nuclear power, a monster from outer space, and the balance of nature that depends upon the Titans (the monsters), well do we really care? This is a film in which the lost city of Atlantis can make an appearance without comment, and a teenager can steal a crucial device and escape a well-sealed compound with people, including her mother, all around her and a father’s attempt to open an airplane door from the outside takes precedence over the battle of two behemoths. In other words, this is a film with scrappy bits that hang onto the larger confrontations of the CGI monsters. If you like this sort of thing, then this film is for you. If you are more “meh,” then perhaps you might like a good western!

 A few by Truffaut.

Mississippi Mermaid (1969), directed by Francois Truffaut. Truffaut dedicates this film to Jean Renoir, and I assume he does so because of Renoir’s focus in his films on the machinations of people in love. In Mississippi Mermaid, Truffaut focuses on a fellow besotted by the beauty of his mail-order bride, a bride who is not the person he thinks she is, but this ultimately does not matter because he finds her so compellingly beautiful. The fellow, a rich owner of a cigarette factory on the island of Reunion (Jean-Paul Belmondo) remarks: “Before I met you, life seemed simple. Now I know it isn't. You really fouled things up." Yes, indeed. At one point in the action, Julie (Catherine Deneuve) and Louis (Belmondo) go to the cinema to see Nicholas Ray’s Johnny Guitar, and we know how the French directors of the New Wave loved Johnny Guitar. This noir western delivers a quirky love story suited to the sensibility we see in Mississippi Mermaid. Of course, the two leads in Truffaut’s film (Deneuve and Belmondo) bring their cinematic history with them to deepen the viewer’s experience. Deneuve’s work with Luis Bunuel and Belmondo’s with Godard enrich their roles here. This is a story of obsessive love. The heat emanating from these lovers has its counterpart in the snowy end to their time together.

 

A Gorgeous Girl Like Me (1972), directed by Francois Truffaut. Imagine the nastiest of film noir pictures melded with broad comedy, farce really. Well, if you can imagine such a film, then this just might be it. We have the rather dim noir hero who encounters the femme fatale, we have the narrative voice-over and flashbacks, we have people on the run, we have a prison, and we have a number of violent encounters. I stop to catch breath. We even have a Hitchcockian scene on a church tower. The whole thing is played for laughs, played broadly and even bawdily. Nice tracking shots carry us along. Lunacy, or should I say loonacy as in looney tunes, abounds. This is uncharacteristic for Truffaut. Or is it? We still have his interest in the intricacies and vagaries of the human heart. The action is fairly predictable, but the characters manage, just, to keep it interesting. The main male character, who ends up being a sap, is an academic who is writing a book on female criminals. The main female character is a prisoner who has quit a story to tell. The way she tells this story is not always the way we see the same story. Narrators can be unreliable.

 

The Woman Next Door (1981), directed by Francois Truffaut. The first thing I thought of after watching this film was King Vidor’s Duel in the Sun. Duel in the Sun has the nickname, “Lust in the Dust,” and The Woman Next Door has little or no dust, but it does have the other. In a little village just outside Grenoble, France, next door neighbours find themselves embroiled in an old secret. Once again Truffaut considers affairs of the heart, its passions and desires and confusions and errors and intentions and complications. People play tennis, drive cars, have dinner, have encounters in the grocery store, have assignations here and there, draw conclusions on the wall. We have a narrator, a woman with a prosthetic leg who once threw herself from a window in despair after being jilted in love. Truffaut delivers his story with a Hitchcockian flair, the camera peeking at things best kept secret. I used to say I was not a fan of Truffaut, but this past while his films are nudging me to change my mind. This guy knows how to tell what might be a banal story in an intriguing manner.

 

Finally Sunday! (1983), directed by Francois Truffaut. This is Truffaut’s final film, and it ends with the camera focusing on a group of children kicking a camera lens back and forth, a fitting final metaphor for Truffaut and his compatriots in the ‘New Wave’. These directors kicked around the filmic experience in a playful manner, delivering a variety of cinematic pleasures. The cinematic pleasure here is Truffaut’s kicking about a blend of Hitchcock and cinema noir. And he has great fun doing this. The protagonist is Julien Vercel (Jean-Louis Trintignant), a businessman who may or may not be a murderer. He is on the lam, out to prove his innocence. Sound familiar? Like Hitchcock protagonists, Vercel is aided by his loyal secretary, Barbara Becker (Fanny Ardant). They meet the usual suspects in their adventures. As in Hitchcock films, the viewer is offered snippets that may or not prove helpful in figuring out who did what. Shot in black and white by Nestor Almendros, the film looks vibrant. Now a confession: I watched this film while feeling quite drowsy and so I should really watch it a second time when I am more alert. The film deserves close attention. What, for example, does Kubrik’s Paths of Glory have to do with this film? Also why does Truffaut reference Convoi de la peur (1977), an American film (Sorcerer) based on a French film, Wages of Fear (Le Salaire de la peur, 1953)? In other words, Finally Sunday! has many details for the observant viewer.

 

 Shooting Stars (1928), directed by A. V. Bramble and Anthony Asquith. “A must-see for all silent film fans,” so says the liner note from KINO KORBER, and you know what! This is a reliable comment. Everything from the cinematography to the sets to the editing to the acting even to the story is first-rate. The moving crane shot near the beginning of the film is nothing short of astounding, especially for 1928. The camera, peering from on high, follows the action as a couple of actors walk through studio sets, the man following the woman and we see various film sets and ongoing work in a bustling studio. In other words, much of the film deals with the making of movies and it does this with loving attention to detail. We see directors at work instructing actors, cameramen rolling film, lighting persons handling lights, set people arranging furniture and flowers, actors pretending to be on horses when they are just on wooden structures pulled along rails. All this is fascinating. Then we have the story of two married actors whose marriage is in trouble because the woman, Mae Flowers (Annette Benson) is having an affair with another actor not her husband, Andy Wilks (Donald Calthrop), a comedian in the Charlie Chaplin vein. Mae’s husband is Julian Gordon (Brian Aherne), and he is a cowboy in films. Julian and Mae are making a movie called Prairie Love, and Mae slyly puts a real cartridge in a gun that one actor will use to shoot Julian in a scene about to be shot. Of course, things go seriously wrong and do not work out as Mae had hoped. The action gives us an insight into the rather vain lives of celebrities; we often see them preening themselves, looking in mirrors, or posing for the public. The intent is, perhaps, to remind us of scandals that unsettled Hollywood in the 1920s, scandals that involved such actors as Fatty Arbuckle and Olive Thomas. Then we have the mysterious deaths of Thomas Ince or William Desmond Taylor. In short, Shooting Stars would have been provocative stuff in 1928. It remains a testimony to the excellence of silent cinema.

The Flapper (1920), directed by Alan Crosland. This is one of the ill-fated Olive Thomas’s final films. She died after taking a poisonous concoction by mistake in a Paris hotel room when she was just 25. In The Flapper, she plays 16-year-old schoolgirl ‘Ginger’ King. Ginger has a rebellious streak and a fancy for an older man, Richard Channing (William P. Carleton). She finds herself in trouble after, on her way home from boarding school, taking a side trip to New York where she falls in with a couple of shady characters. She also adopts the “flapper” fashion and in the process popularizes the term for the next decade. The first half or so of the film has some impressive winter scenes, especially the ones focusing on winter sports: skating, skiing, tobogganing, and even ski jumping. Then we have the winking moose head affixed to a wall in one scene; what this is doing in the film is beyond me. Also endearing are the inventive intertitles with their clever art work. All in all, this domestic comedy is amusing and entertaining. Its focus on the expectations for young women is also worth the viewing. 

 

The Haunted Castle (1921), directed by F. W. Murnau. If I listed my ten favourite directors, Murnau would be one of them and he would appear near the top. Nosferatu, The Last Laugh, Faust, Sunrise, City Girl, Tabu – these are magnificent achievements. The Haunted Castle comes just before Nosferatu and it is Murnau getting ready for those later films. Something of a murder mystery, The Haunted Castle moves slowly. Everything moves slowly here from the characters to the story. The acting involves much swooning. The “Anxious Man” offers some comic relief, but mostly we have much swooning. What is, however, noteworthy are the sets and compositions. The interiors with hallways, doors, stairs, and large rooms are excellent. The KINO restoration of this film is stunning in its clarity and tones from auburn to blue to familiar black and white. The story also has a couple of dream sequences that gesture toward expressionism. What matters is what we see. The story is slight and, perhaps, obvious. At the centre of the story is a bit concerning what we see not being what we see, and this serves as a nice comment on the film itself.

 

The Phantom Honeymoon (1919), directed by J. Searle Dawley. Picking up on the popularity of spiritualism at the time, this film is a darn fine ghost story. Told in a series of flashbacks, and with a final sequence that shows the phantom couple touring the world in their phantom car, this is a film with flare and energy. The duel that results in the death of the bride groom involves a snake rather than swords or pistols. The location is a cavernous castle. The characters are lively, and early on we have an imaginative bit with the two lovers riding on the back of the car of the cad who perpetrates the murder of our hero. The special effects are impressive for a film made in 1919, and the narrative, using both analepsis and paralepsis, is sophisticated. The frame has a ghost debunker, Professor Juno P. Tidewater, travelling Europe with two nieces, and happening upon Belmore Castle, known to be haunted. He meets the Hindu caretaker, Sakes, and listens to Sakes recount the history of the castle’s haunting. The ins and outs of the story are intriguing, to say the least. This film is a forgotten gem.

 

Bestia (The Polish Dancer, 1916), directed by Alexander Hertz. This is an early Pola Negri film, made in Poland in 1916 and released early the following year. The film has one rather dramatic and passionate dance sequence, but mostly it is a melodrama about a young woman who desires independence, runs off with her boyfriend, takes the boyfriend’s money, finds employment as a model and then as a cabaret dancer, finds love with a married man (she does not know he is married), thinks to marry this man, learns the truth, is murdered by her former boyfriend, and meanwhile the married man separates from his wife and she dies. This is not a comedy. The film is shot well and for the most part the scenes play well. Pola Negri is interesting. The early scenes in which the young woman’s father berates her for staying out late are powerful. All in all, this is a competent early film, but nothing out of the ordinary.

 

Hypocrites (1915), directed by Lois Weber. Weber is one of the first women film directors of note. Before she entered the film industry, she was a street evangelist, and her time delivering the gospel serves her well in Hypocrites, a film that focuses on two clerics, one from the Middle Ages and one in modern times. The medieval monk Gabriel (Courtenay Foote) sculpts a beautiful naked woman and presents it to the monastery and the outside community as the “naked truth.” The people kill him for creating this salacious statue. The modern cleric, known as the Abbot (Herbert Standing), preaches a sermon on hypocrisy and tries to tell the people in his congregation the naked truth. Here the naked truth is allegorized in the figure of a naked woman (17-year-old Margaret Edwards) superimposed on the film. This is, perhaps, the first time that film showed full frontal nudity. In any case, the Abbot does not fare much better than his medieval counterpart. One member of his congregation calls for him to be fired, a member of the choir reads a newspaper, the Abbot confiscates the newspaper, and he dies holding this newspaper while sitting inside his church. This is, apparently, scandalous as the final shot of the film indicates. Throughout the film we have much allegorizing in the manner of, say, a John Bunyan. Truth as an unclothed woman is as daring as we could ask for, and Weber’s handling of a dual story is firm and accomplished.

 

Wine of Youth (1924), directed by King Vidor. This film has three Mary’s, grandmother, mother, and daughter. The focus is on the daughter, although the mother and grandmother have their moments. Young Mary (Eleanor Boardman) is a flapper, out to experience life in ways the older generation(s) cannot comprehend. She spends her time partying and fending off the advances of two suitors. The thing the older generation finds most disturbing and incomprehensive is Mary’s desire to “experiment” before she gets married, rather than after. Mary refuses her parents’ command that she stay home and live a normal life; she goes for a camping trip with two suitors so she can decide which one of them will make the most reliable husband. On the camping trip, Mary sees the value of a grounded family life like the one she has with her mother, father, and brother. She returns home early to discover that what she thought was a happy family life is no such thing. Her mother and father detest each other. All of this is pretty heady stuff for 1924, and the message is important. I only wish the ending had not found a way of circumventing the impact of what has gone on before. It seems clear that Mary’s parents really do not like each other, and yet at the end we are to believe they have mended fences and are ready to start over.

 

The Show-Off (1926), directed by Malcolm St. Clair. This is a comedy about a blow-hard, a man who is always talking and talking and blathering about what a fine fellow, what a successful fellow he is. He is loquacious to a degree. This motor-mouth man is Aubrey Piper (Ford Sterling), a piker who ends up having to pay the piper. Aubrey’s girlfriend is Amy Fisher (Lois Wilson). Her family, father, mother, and brother, do not, to put it mildly, much care for Aubrey. Anyway, Aubrey and Amy get married, Amy’s father dies, the Pipers move in with the Fishers, and Aubrey just about ruins the household. The film has a wild car-driving scene that results in Aubrey going to court and having to pay a thousand dollar fine. His brother-in-law, Joe (Gregory Kelly), pays the fine with the money he was going to use to finance his invention of a material that prevents rust from forming. Family finances are in a shambles and they are going to lose their house. All appears bleak. Looking on is the girl next door, Joe’s girlfriend Clara (Louise Brooks). She steals every scene in which she appears. Also noteworthy is Claire McDowell as Mom Fisher. Her facial expressions are very natural; she does not display the excessive gestures that some silent acting elicits. This is an amiable, if predictable, comedy/melodrama. You can find an excellent copy of the film on YouTube.

 The Sacrifice (1986), directed by Andrei Tarkovsky. This is Tarkovsky’s final film. It is also his most Bergmanesque film. The action takes place in the bleak environment of the Island of Faro, Bergman’s place of residence and location for many of his films. Two of the lead actors, Erland Josephson as Alexander and Allan Edwall as Otto, are members of Bergman’s stock company. The cinematographer is Sven Nykvist who also photographed many of Bergman’s films. The narrative, such as it is, also has the spiritual probing we often have in Bergman’s films. While watching, I thought of both Shame (1968) and Persona (1966). Having made this connection between Tarkovsky and Bergman, I should add that Tarkovsky’s film is clearly of his own making. His use of hallucinatory images, especially nearer the end, and art work and colour are distinctively his own. The story here involves a fifty-year-old former actor celebrating his birthday. Early in the film we hear the unsettling sounds of low-flying jets (I thought of Antonioni), and this sound is a premonition of what transpires later in the film when a television announcer give news of World War 111 beginning. This news, not surprisingly, shatters the birthday pleasantness, and leads to Alexander’s descent into madness. The film gives us a clash of silence and verbiage. Most of the characters are willing to speak at length about such weighty themes as spirituality, performance, mortality, relationships, art, history, and so on, but one character, the young boy referred to as Little Man, does not speak, or speaks very little and hoarsely because of an operation on his neck and (I presume) vocal cords. This young boy’s silence speaks as forcefully as the other characters’ volubility. Finally, what do I think? This is not as impressive a film for me as Tarkovsky’s Stalker, but I do admire the look of this film, a look largely accomplished by Nykvist’s cinematography. The beauty in such minimalist places, outside and inside, I find compelling. And then we have that final image of the burning house, an image, alas, for our times.

 

Directed by Andrei Tarkovsky (1988), directed by Michal Leszczylowski. There are two kinds of film makers, Tarkovsky asserts, the ones who reproduce the world that surrounds them, and the ones who create their own worlds. Tarkovsky mentions Bergman, Bunuel, Kurosawa, Mizoguchi, Dovzhenko as examples of the latter. You can guess in which category Tarkovsky fits. This is ostensibly a “Making of…” film, but it is so much more.  Anyone interested in just how films come into being or in the auteur theory or in the cinema and art of Tarkovsky would do well to seek out this film. We see the collaborative nature of film making in action. We also see just how a film can be the result of one person’s vision. The focus here is the making of Tarkovsky’s final film, The Sacrifice. Much of what we see is the work on set, the preparing of scenes and rehearsing of actors, but we also have footage of Tarkovsky speaking to film students and responding to interviews, and an interview with his wife. The footage from the set of The Sacrifice shows just how meticulous Tarkovsky was. He oversees the choice of colours, shapes of furniture, placement of objects such as mirrors or side tables, lighting, and so on. He demonstrates movement for the actors. In short, we see demonstrated Tarkovsky’s idea that cinema consists of bits of time taken from the flow of time and sculpted into an emotional experience for the viewer. This is the best chronicle of how film making works that I have seen.

Mirror (1975), directed by Andrei Tarkovsky. Poetry in motion. This film is about family, about history, about time, about war, about mothers and sons, about earth, air, fire, and water, about birds, about mirrors, about dreams, about relationships, about children, about adults, about nature, about the mystery and beauty of things. The narrator is a dying middle-aged man contemplating his past in its personal and more widely historical contexts. What we see is both close to incomprehensible and intensely compelling. As we would expect with Tarkovsky, the film gives us a series of dreams, a series of marvellously resonant and beautiful images. This is film making that aspires to the condition of poetry, and – eureka – achieves this condition. The voice over also delivers a poetic effusion to tickle the fancy. This is filmic poetry, as for example in the shots of the wind in the grass or in the trees or in the bushes, or shots of rain falling heavily, or in a bird taking flight, or in objects slowly rolling from a table because of the wind. The simple act of washing one’s hair is poetic, strange, mysterious, and powerful. Then we have small details such as the quickly caught picture of a poster for Andrei Rublev. The final tracking shot is haunting.

Earth (1930), directed by Alexander Dovzhenko. I am sure Tarkovsky watched this film over and over. It has the pace and solemnity of Tarkovsky’s films. It offers both similarity and contrast to Eisenstein’s great work. Similarity in its focus on people and contrast in its slow burn. The plot is slim, having to do with the coming of collective farming and the class struggle. It chronicles the change from one way of life with landowners and priests to another of collective ownership and a new way of doing without clergy. Forms of ritual are changing. Some accept this gratefully and others resist. The scene of Basil’s girlfriend grieving is remarkable. The central action involves, first the coming of a tractor to the land, and second, a night time dance and then murder of a local supporter of change. But plot is less important here than image. This is a film of images, of faces, of fruits, of fields, of rain and wind, and the making of bread. The film, silent though it is, aspires to the condition of music. Slow and poetic, Earth is essential cinema. 

 

 How to Make a Monster (1958), directed by Herbert L. Strock. This film is something of a sequel to I Was a Teenage Werewolf and I Was a Teenage Frankenstein, and like the latter it has one reel in colour. The colour reel is the final reel and here the action takes place inside the make-up artist Pete Dumond’s ((Robert H. Harris) gallery of horrors. The plot has American International Studios changing management, and the new people cut the monster films because the bigwigs think such films are no longer popular. The studio’s make-up artist, Dumond, does not take kindly to receiving a pink slip, and so he sets out to exact revenge upon those who would decry his artistry and deprive him of a paycheck. He concocts a make-up base that allows him to control two young actors who are playing the Frankenstein monster and a werewolf in the studio’s final monster flick. He has them carry out a couple of murders. Then he makes himself up and commits another murder. Later he murders his assistant, the whining Rivero (Paul Brinegar), and threatens to murder the two young actors. Meanwhile the police investigate the murders. All’s well that ends well. The self-referential stuff in the film has its interest.

 February - 1950s low budget sci fi/horror

Unknown Island (1948), directed by Jack Bernhard. Shot in Cinecolour, this film is reminiscent of The Lost World (1925). The story has inspired many films, including King Kong. Willis O’Brien’s special effects for The Lost World are memorable, much more so than the ones created for Unknown Island. The various prehistoric creatures in Unknown Island are clumsy, ponderous, wobbly, rubbery, and unconvincing, some of the worst creatures I have seen. They are so bad that they are a hoot. The hairy red beast that does the most damage is clearly an actor in an ape suit with extra-long teeth. The plot has familiar trappings, including a love triangle that plays out predictably. Barton MacClane as Captain Tarnowsky enjoys overplaying the blustery villain. The film has little to recommend it, unless you happen to be a completest in the rubber-suit-monster films. 

 

Rocketship X-M (1950), directed by Kurt Neumann. This early space-exploration movie is nicely naïve. A mission to the moon, the first using a human crew, goes awry, and the five scientists and technicians on board find themselves in a trip to Mars. On the way, they eat sandwiches, reminisce, dodge meteorites, and even philosophize. The land on Mars where everything has a reddish glow. The also find remnants of an ancient Martian civilization. They correctly surmise that this civilization has destroyed itself by using atomic bombs, and they find the few remaining humans have regressed to the state of primitive rock tossing beings who appear to fear the newcomers and resort to violence. The film sports a cast of familiar actors: Noah Berry, Jr., Hugh O’Brien, Lloyd Bridges, and John Emery. The one woman on board is Dr. Lisa Van Horn (Osa Massen). The four men treat Dr. Van Horn with predictable condescension, even Col. Floyd Graham (Lloyd Bridges) who can’t keep himself from hitting on Dr. Van Horn. The film’s budget was most likely not large, but the designers have made the best of things, and the film manages to look sleek. That the travellers to the stars can stand while their rocket takes off or makes 90 degree turns or avoids meteorites has its charm. Finally, what to say? The film is earnest in its warning about nuclear disaster.

 

Project Moonbase (1953), directed by Richard Talmadge. This is a Cold War film suitable for 1953 and the anti-Communist goings-on in America. The United States has a Space Station and plans to send a mission around the moon in preparation for setting up a Moon Base in order to keep America safe. Accordingly, a rocket goes from earth to the Space Station, and our principals board another rocket and take off for a trip around the moon to reconnoitre. But the bad guys have replaced one of the scientist passengers with an imposter whose mission is to blow up the Space Station. He plans to take over the rocket ship and crash it into the Space Station. Things go awry and the ship lands on moon. After a bit of adventure, the pilot (a woman) and co-pilot (a man) simply remain on the moon as the first people on Moon Base #1. Of course, to make things all right they have a marriage ceremony. Then, via video, they are complimented by the President of the United States, who happens to be a woman. You can see how forward thinking this film is. What happens is supposed to take place in 1970 or thereabouts. The designs of the space station, the rockets, and interiors are not bad, although having hammocks for the members of the space crew as they rocket away from earth is a bit unlikely.

 

This Island Earth (1955), directed by Joseph Newman and Jack Arnold (uncredited). January was western month; February is science fiction/horror from the 1950s. Too many films, too little time. Anyway, This Island Earth is a winner. Shot in colour, this film has just about everything: scenes on earth in the laboratory of Dr. Cal Meachum (Rex Reason) and then in the strange Georgian quarters of the mysterious Exeter (Jeff Morrow), then scenes in space as the aliens take their flying saucer, with Meachum and Dr. Ruth Adams (Faith Domergue) on board, to the planet Metaluna, and then scenes on this planet that is in a war with the Zarghons, and finally a return to earth. The designs are sleek and impressive in a 1950s sort of way. The special effects for the time are top rate. Even the alien monster on Metaluna, although risible, is impressive. The plot has the aliens from Metaluna seeking earth’s uranium, and failing that, they wish to relocate to earth because their planet appears on the verge of losing the war with their enemy, the Zarghons. The Zarghons, by the way, have space ships that guide asteroids equipped with dire explosives onto the surface of Metaluna blowing everything up and creating a nuclear disaster. This film looks great. Perhaps not quite as good as Forbidden Planet (1956), yet it is up there with the best of the 50s science fiction films. We will see the tall craniums of the Metalunans again in Star Trek episodes ten years later. And before signing off, I should mention Orangey the Cat who plays Neutron in the film (uncredited).

 

Riders to the Stars (1954), directed by Richard Carlson. This is one of the many ventures into space taken by films of the 1950s, and it makes clear that America was involved in a space race, fearing that if they did not get to space before other countries (unnamed here) they could be seriously unprepared for the next war. The film uses stock footage, and has much technical dialogue to explain just how space exploration works. The special effects are rudimentary, but they get the job done in a very 1950s sort of way. The film looks good in its use of colour. The cast is impressive, headed by Herbert Marshall, Martha Hyer, William Lundigan, and Richard Carlson. The final fifteen or twenty minutes have their shock value, but on the whole this is a very talky film that holds few surprises. The screenplay is by Curt Siodmak, someone you will know from gems such as I Walked with a Zombie, Son of Dracula, and House of Frankenstein. This is not his finest work, although it is stalwart enough.

 

The Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954), directed by Jack Arnold. During the wave of 3D films Hollywood turned out in the mid 1950s to lure viewers away from their televisions, we have this creature feature by Jack Arnold. I saw this film in 3D way back in the 1950s at the local Soper Theatre, and the experience has never left. Along with The House of Wax and Hondo, The Creature from the Black Lagoon stays with me as my exposure to 3D. All are worth seeing, but this one (Black Lagoon) is special. I doubt I could have realized just how charged and witty Arnold’s imagery is when I saw this as a boy. This film is Freudian to a degree, filled with phallic images and their counterparts: the sharp-nosed boat entering the lush lagoon, the spear guns, the scuba tanks, the masts, the underwater foliage, and most definitely the creature himself. At the centre of things is a weird love triangle, three male creatures vying for the fetching Kay Lawrence (Julie Adams). The three males are the financier/scientist Dr. Mark Williams (Richard Denning), the good scientist Dr. David Reed (Richard Carlson), and of course the “gill-man” who glides through the water efficiently and pines for Ms Lawrence. The sexual dynamic makes for an intense experience. Also of note is the underwater photography that takes up much of the film’s footage. With this film, Universal studios graduated from its familiar cast of creatures – Dracula, Frankenstein’s monster, the Wolfman, the Mummy, and the Invisible Man – and gave the 1950s something new, something that would spawn a host of grisly creatures the in years to come. I have great fondness for this film; so too did Ingmar Bergman who watched it on his birthday every year. One more thing, Millicent Patrick designed the creature and she received no screen credit for this. 

 

Revenge of the Creature (1955), directed by Jack Arnold. A year after he fell for Julie Adams in Creature from the Black Lagoon, the Gill-Man is back, this time falling for ichthyology student Lori Adams. The results are the same, only this time the creature is taken from his Amazonian home to a Sea World in Florida. Here he finds himself chained in a large fish tank for scientists to poke him with a long electric prod while trying to teach him to respond to the word “Stop,” and for the general public to gawk at him. This is rather distressing. As you expect, the Gill-Man escapes, sending crowds of people racing for cover, tossing a car, and generally making life miserable for those who live nearby the large aquarium. All this creature wants is a little affection, and he hopes to receive it from Helen Dobson (Lori Adams). Professor Clete Ferguson (John Agar) has other ideas. This is a Jack Arnold film and so everything plays out impressively. It is just all so predictable, a replay of the first film (the Black Lagoon one). This one does boast a couple of firsts: 1) this is the first time we have a 3D film that is a sequel to another 3D film, and 2) Clint Eastwood appears here for the first time. As sequels go, this one is okay.

 

The Creature Walks Among Us (1956), directed by John Sherwood. Mostly a second unit director, Sherwood here gets to oversee the production, and he delivers the final installment of the Black Lagoon series. This one ramps up the creature-between-two-worlds theme by having the group of scientists locate the creature in the Florida Everglades, inadvertently set him on fire, discover that he has lungs and can breathe out of water, and that underneath is scales he has human-like skin. So they place him in a cage where he can see the ocean and the bathing beauty, Marcia Barton (Leigh Snowden). Marcia is the wife of Dr. William Barton, a scientist who just might be of the mad variety. Marcia is unhappy in her marriage, but she is not much interested in a relationship with the Creature who fancies her, although she does have eyes for another, less mad, scientist, Dr. Thomas Morgan (Rex Reason). We have the, by now, familiar beauty and beast story with an emphasis on human desire. This is a short film, but the creature manages to move from the Everglades to Sausalito, California. It is eventful enough, if predictable, and it is easy to see why this is the last of the Creature films. The creature is very much a figure of the 1950s, troubled, frustrated, seeking stability and a home, delinquent, at odds with others, lonely, misunderstood, and sympathetic.

 

Monster on the Campus (1958), directed by Jack Arnold. I like the title of this film and I like the work of Jack Arnold. This is not, however, his finest effort. Monster on the Campus is a mix-up of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and the Wolfman, with perhaps a smidge of The Beauty and the Beast thrown in for good measure. The plot has Dr. Donald Blake (Arthur Franz) of Dunfield University receive a pre-historic fish from Madagascar. Unbeknownst to Dr. Blake, the fish has been exposed to gamma rays prior to leaving Madagascar. Then the good doctor cuts his hand on the teeth of the fish, called a “coelacanth.” He also fails to notice the blood of a giant dragonfly dripping into his pipe; put that in your pipe and smoke it, Dr. Blake! Anyway, such goings-on result in Dr. Blake reverting to a primitive state and causing the death of a couple of people, including one female student. You can probably figure out the rest yourself. The film does have its wit: the pipe I mentioned, and a door people keep using despite the words “Use Other Door” displayed prominently on it. Trust Arnold to make something out of such tired material. And before I forget, I ought to give a nod to Troy Donahue who plays Jimmy Flanders, a student with a dog. This dog laps up some water that has dripped from the ancient fish, and then grows amazingly long fangs.

 

Man Without a Body (1957), directed by Charles Saunders and W. Lee Wilder. Any film that sets out to give us Nostradamus’s head brought back to life in the 20^th century certainly requires two directors. With a plot device like this, what could go wrong? This film is a combination horror, science fiction, and noir thriller. It boasts a bullying tycoon with a brain tumor, his lovely foreign young woman companion, a doctor who keeps animal heads alive, his pretty but neglected female assistant, and the head of Nostradamus that just near the end finds itself attached to a young doctor’s body and stalking the streets and schools of London at night. The plot turns on the tycoon’s desire to keep himself alive by having the brain of Nostradamus implanted in his head. Nostradamus has the reputation of being the smartest man ever, but when the tycoon asks the revived head for advice with his oil stocks, the advice he receives leaves him penniless. We have a mixing of Frankenstein motifs with cinema noir. Nifty. I think the final 5 to 10 minutes are worth waiting for.

 

The Black Scorpion (1957), directed by Edward Ludwig. The special effects in this one are courtesy of Willis O’Brien and Pete Peterson, and so you can expect pretty good creatures. And your expectations will be, for the most part, met. The scorpions (yes, there is a horde of them) are ugly suckers that drool and sting and pinch and generally behave badly. Especially impressive are the train crash, and the giant scorpion vs giant worm battle deep in the bowels of a volcano. Don’t ask! Some of this is pretty silly, and the story needs an injection of energy and imagination, but the special effects keep getting better as the film progresses. The action begins in the Mexican countryside where a volcano has ravaged the landscape and allowed giant scorpions to escape from deep beneath the earth, but by the end only one giant scorpion is left standing, the Black one, and this creature has travelled to wreak havoc on Mexico City. This beast is dispatched in a manner similar to other beasts in the 1950s. I think, for example, of The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953). Notable are the sounds emitted by the array of creatures that parade through this film. I had not known that scorpions, worms, and ants made harsh and sometimes piercing sounds. If my memory serves me, I think Ray Harryhausen created some giant scorpions in the 1960s that resemble the creatures here.

 

The Monster that Challenged the World (1957), directed by Arnold Laven. This is the one about the giant mollusks that grow into immense caterpillars that can live in the sea or on land. These giant caterpillars with their deadly pincers and bulging eyes enjoy sucking the insides out of any human they can find. They manage to find several in the course of this film.Trying to find and destroy these creatures is Lt. Cmd. Twillinger (Tim Holt). Tim Holt here trades his cowboy hat for navy cap. He also sidles up to a young widow, Gail MacKenzie (Audrey Dalton) and her young daughter, Sandy (Mimi Gibson). Near the end of the film, young Sandy unwisely turns up the thermostat in the room where one of these mollusks is being kept in a state of inanimation. The rise in temperature allows the creature to grow into one of these large caterpillars, and it threatens both Sandy and her mother until the intrepid Cmd. Twillinger arrives with a fire extinguisher to save the day. All of this has a certain camp flavour today. The cast, including Hans Conried as a scientist hot on the trail of these monsters, approach their task soberly. The script has a few howlers. The special effects are, perhaps, a cut above what Roger Corman delivers, but only just. In other words, have fun with this one.

 

Machete (1958), directed by Kurt Neumann. I was not going to review this film because it is so weak, but what the heck. This is a potboiler set in Aguirre, Puerto Rico. Scenes documenting the cutting, gathering, and processing of sugar cane hold some interest. The melodramatic story, on the other hand, has little to keep the viewer engaged. The villain is Miguel (Lee Van Cleef), cousin of Don Luis Montoya (Albert Dekker)  who own a large plantation and who has just returned from a business trip to New York with a new bride, Jean (Mari Blanchard). Jean is, I guess, a femme fatale who sets her sights on Carlos (Carlos Rivas), long time protégé of Luis. Carlos has an intended in Rita (Ruth Cains). Passion flares and everything leads to the burning of the cane fields, as we expect. The title of the film suggests something more dramatic than we have, although there are a couple of scenes that involve a machete or two. The ending sets out to be a spectacle and ends wanly. Lee Van Cleef’s Miguel, for some unknown reason, has a limp. Perhaps this simply identifies him as a chthonic figure. Who knows? In this same year, Neumann made his best film, The Fly. As for Machete, ho hum.

 My Little Chickadee (1940), directed by Edward F. Cline. What a “euphonious appellation,” my what “symmetrical digits,” “Is this a game of chance?” “Not the way I play it. No.” This film has its moments, but fewer of them than it might have once had. Both Mae West and W. C. Fields are amusing actors, and they play off each other well here, but it is difficult to watch and hear racist goings on that we have in this picture. It would be okay if the action just kept with the western spoof stuff without us having to watch Fields interact with Milton (George Moran), the Native person played by a white person and caricatured unpleasantly. Fields also has a couple of one-liners that opt for the racial slur. What just might save the picture is Mae West’s character, Flower Belle, who controls the situation admirably, although it may be difficult to see her as the siren she is supposed to be. She has three men on the string, one a hapless buffoon, another a thief/saloon owner/murderer, and the third a newspaper editor. Her interest in the saloon owner who moonlights as a masked robber gives us a moral conundrum perhaps better not contemplated. West’s ability at innuendo is nowhere more evident than in the film’s final shot when the words The End appear on the screen. As for Field’s Cuthbert J. Twillie he does his thing, even bedding down with a goat at one point. “Beelzebub! I’ve been hoodwinked.” All in all, this is a film for the archives.

 

Western Union (1941), directed by Fritz Lang. This is the second of Lang’s three westerns, and perhaps the weakest of the three. It does have splendid locations shots, but at times it seems to want to be a comedy and at other times a tragedy and then a Civil War drama and then again a historical epic depicting the building of the telegraph from Omaha to Salt Lake City. It also offers an unfortunate depiction of Native Americans. There are, however, Langian elements here. We have Lang’s interest in communications (the telegraph) and in the capital necessary for the building of an infrastructure. We have a company of men working together to build a nation. We also have Lang’s tormented hero, on the run, but fated to run right smack into that from which he is running. The relationship between Vance Shaw (Randolph Scott) and Edward Creighton (Dean Jagger) has an intensity we often see between men in Lang’s films. The doomed relationship between Shaw and Sue Creighton (Virginia Gilmore) is also Langian. All in all, this is a mixed pleasure.

Home in Oklahoma (1946), directed by William Witney. B western starring Roy Rogers, Trigger, Dale Evans, and ‘Gabby’ Hayes. Roy and Dale are rival newspaper reporters, he from the country and she from the city, out to solve the murder of Sam Talbot, a wealthy rancher. Talbot leaves his ranch not to his only surviving relative, niece Jan Holloway (Carol Hughes), but to the 12-year-old boy, Duke Lowery (Lanny Rees). Being passed over for the young boy does not sit well with Ms Holloway. We have much riding about, quite a bit of singing, some detective work, some humour from Gabby, a vicious fist fight, a few flying bullets, and the discovery that Jan and her partner/friend Steve McClory (George Meeker) are the villains and murderers. There is nothing out of the ordinary here for a Roy Rogers film and B western, but the performances are sprightly and Witney’s direction is crisp. Roy and Dale as newspaper people give us something akin, albeit without the sophistication, to Tracy and Hepburn as lawyers in Adam’s Rib.

 

Canyon Passage (1946), directed by Jacques Tourneur. Tourneur is a director I admire for his lush colour films and his moody black and white films. His films ooze atmosphere. Canyon Passage, Tourneur’s first colour film and his first western, delivers much atmosphere, much colour, and much more. The much more includes a cast of characters who prove to be deftly human. As one reviewer noted, there are no white hats/black hats here. With the exception of Ward Bond’s villain, Honey Bragg, these people are a mixture of good and bad. This is nowhere more evident than in the friendship between Logan (Dana Andrews) and George (Brian Donlevy). The location shooting in Oregon is masterful and the on-location sets for the various places are meticulous. One of these places, Jacksonville, looks as if it was hewed out of the wilderness without much planning. Interiors and exteriors are impressive. The film examines the frontier in 1856 and the tensions it raises between communal activity and individual aspirations. Along for the ride is Hi Linnet (Hoagy Carmichael) who strums a mandolin and sings a few songs, including “Ole Buttermilk Sky.” This is a western with a fairly familiar plot, but with depth. Did I say fairly familiar plot? Well, the plot is not straight forward; it has threads that have to do with survival in the wilderness, conflict with native peoples, human failings, frontier justice, the love of nature, relationships between men and women. Several women appear in important roles; the two most prominent are Lucy (Susan Hayward) and Caroline (Patricia Roc). All in all, this is a special western.

Go West (1940), directed by Edward Buzzell. The Marx brother (3 of them) go west in this spoof of westerns. A late entry into the brothers’ filmography, Go West is better than I remember it from a long ago viewing. We first see the brothers out west in a scene with Monument Valley as a backdrop, and then we see them inside a stagecoach in a scene that reminds me of both Ford’s famous film and the stateroom scene from Night at the Opera. The final chase scene with horse and buggy racing a locomotive might remind us of Keaton’s The General. Scenes in the saloon might remind us of Destry Rides Again. You get the idea, this is a film that plays loosely with western tropes. The obligatory scenes of Chico at the piano and Harpo at the – well harp, are as good, if not better, than similar scenes in the earlier films. Both are clever and inventive. Groucho manages some acerbic one-liners, and Harpo does his business with scissors and honker and facial expressions. Even the scenes in the Indian village are less offensive than they might have been. The brothers’ films for MGM are generally dismissed as inferior than the ones they made with Paramount, but Go West has its moments and manages to be fun.

Duel in the Sun (1946), directed by King Vidor (with uncredited help from some six others, including Joseph von Sternberg!). This is David O. Selznik’s infamous production of a film that was derided in the press as “Lust in the Dust.” Selznik wanted to replicate his success with Gone with the Wind, and also to make Jennifer Jones a star. The result is this over-heated western that has few typically “western” moments but much obsession. Right from the get-go, with the prologue that has Herbert Marshall shoot his Native American wife for her infidelity and say goodbye to his biracial daughter, Pearl (Jones), we have characters who obsess over one thing and another, mostly sex. This is a film with high ambition, even beginning with a nine-minute Prelude, followed by a three-minute Overture, before the credits role. The cast is a who’s who of heavyweights: Lillian Gish, Lionel Barrymore, Charles Bickford, Walter Houston, Harry Carey, Joseph Cotton, Otto Kruger, Butterfly McQueen, and Gregory Peck. Peck has the role of Lewt (I kept hearing ‘Lewd’) McCanles, the amoral son of the patriarch, Senator Jackson McCanles (Barrymore). If you have seen the film, imagine John Wayne in the role of this dissolute son who leers and sneers and generally behaves in a disgusting manner; Wayne was the first actor signed to play Lewt, but Selznik thought he did not have enough sex appeal. Anyway, we have a sprawling western that tries to deliver spectacle and deep emotion. It tries too hard and gives us unpleasant characters and an unsavoury presentation of racial stereotyping. Oh, the film does have some striking cinematography courtesy of Lee Garmes, Ray Rennahan, and Hal Rosson. The confrontation between the McCanles ranch hands and the railroad-building crew is as spectacular as it gets in westerns, with hundreds of horses and men riding and riding across the wind-swept landscape. Then we have the ending, an ending that must be one of the most, if not the most, risible in cinema history. I confess I am a sucker for this ending.