A Man For All Seasons (1966)

Aug 071966
 
two reels

In 16th Century England, King Henry VIII (Robert Shaw) wants a divorce from his second wife to marry his third. Sir Thomas More (Paul Scofield), Chancellor, who found his way to go along with the first divorce, finds his Catholic faith won’t allow him to support this one. He trusts that the law, and careful use of words, will keep him alive and his wife (Wendy Hiller) and daughter (Susannah York) well. But Cromwell (Leo McKern), with the help of Rich (John Hurt), works to have More either publically change his position, or die.

Writing as one who had his catechism classes at Saint Thomas More church, A Man For All Seasons isn’t about a man who is for all seasons. It’s about the path of a saint. It, and Becket before it, were the new strand of religious films in the 1960s. There was still money to be made from pop Christianity, but the Biblical-adjacent action epic (Ben Hur, The Ten Commandments, Samson and Delilah, Quo Vadis) had run its course. So miracles were put on hold and humans became center stage—humans defending The Church. The costumes and settings were still flashy and “historical,” but the armor was gone and now when people spoke English, its because it was their language. These films were more respectful than fun. They were a calm service instead of yelling “halleluiah” in the aisles. They aimed for awards, and a return on investment.

A Man For All Seasons, again like Becket, was based on a popular play, with Paul Scofield being ported over from the stage as More. The most substantial change was the elimination of the “Common Man”–the portal character who spoke to the audience and steered their emotions. Without him, this becomes a story of one rich and powerful guy (saint) against more rich and powerful guys, with little concern for regular people.

More is the man of conscience. He sticks to the truth, and to himself, while others bend, and thus, is the hero. Well, not if you read the screenplay without already having accepted More as a saint. If you start with the assumption that he’s holy, then you’ve just got your day’s catechism. If you don’t, then the dialog doesn’t give us the white hats and black hats that the filmmakers wanted. More doesn’t speak as the cinematically expected unflinching paragon, but as a conman using sophistry. He may be for the truth, but he won’t stand up and state the truth to the king. Instead he twists words and the law around to find a loophole to escape through. Smarter than mouthing-off to Henry? Absolutely. It just isn’t heroic. And without that boldness, his position looks less reasonable and more stubborn. People are going to die. Cromwell’s words are the reasonable ones. He knows that the king will have his way, and wants the least trouble (that is suffering and death). Cromwell gives More an out, a way to agree without completely agreeing, and Henry gives More his own sophistic way around the problem, but More won’t budge.

Without that Common Man character, More comes off as an idiot and an ass. Well, if you just read the words. But we can’t have that as he’s a saint. So the good guys and bad guys are assigned not by what they say, or what they do, but how they say it. More is the good guy because Scofield speaks calmly, with a bit of a twinkle in his eye and a self deprecating smile. Likewise his daughter. Henry is a bad guy because Shaw yells and rants (it doesn’t matter what he yells, simply that he yells) and generally overacts. Cromwell is an evil schemer because he rubs his hands together and cackles evilly. Rich is a traitorous weakling because John Hurt stutters and looks guilty and mugs for the camera (he’s appalling bad—since I like Hurt elsewhere I blame director Fred Zinnemann). And More’s son-in-law-to-be is loud and crude, to show how reasonable More must be.

There are other problems with the A Man For All Seasons: The nighttime cinematography is wretched (lighting matters), the story drags in the last half, and the project was underfunded, giving us too small sets shot from a single angle in some cases, but what kills the film is trying to make More the saint that the Catholic church would later certify him to be. The play was on his side, but he’s a man, and there is nuance involved. The Common Man is more important than More. In making it all about More himself, and shooting it so that it’s very clear that he’s always in the right and the others have no valid points, A Man For All Seasons becomes a film really only fitting for those looking for reverence, not art.

 Overrated Films, Reviews

The Plague of the Zombies (1966)

Jul 031966
 
three reels

Distraught physician Peter Tompson (Brook Williams) writes his mentor, Sir James Forbes (AndrĂ© Morell) a rambling letter about deaths with no natural explanation in a rural village. Forbes’s daughter (Diane Clare), interested in seeing her friend Alice (Jacqueline Pearce) who happens to be Tompson’s wife, convinces her father to take train and coach to visit the Tompsons. Once there, they find things worse than implied, with empty coffins, a violent upper-class, and Alice exhibiting the symptoms of the recently dead.

Pre-Night of the Living Dead zombie films failed far more often than they succeeded, so it is nice to find one that works. The Plague of the Zombies is tense and a bit nasty, as it should be. It has two scenes that every zombie fan must see and plenty more worth the time. Add in solid, if unexceptional performances, and a plot that holds together, and you have a satisfying zombie film.

Made in the tarnished gold period of Hammer Horror (yup, some gold tarnishes, particularly when it was never really gold), Hammer was looking desperately for a hit, and a cheaply made one. What they got was a pretty good movie, cheaply made. Score for art if not for finances. Part of the cost savings was that director John Gilling made this back to back with The Reptile, using the same sets and some cast overlap. And even if the town doesn’t have enough streets, the ones it has are nice.

Hammer was notorious for plot holes—or just plot nonsense—and The Plague of the Zombies has a few (Why are the hot women being turned into zombies? Potential sex toys is the obvious answer, but then the “zombie” side of things messes that up unless someone has an unstated fetish. So why? It would make far more sense to create a few more bulked up zombies for the task they are given), but very few comparatively. People have reasons for what they do, both good and evil, and the fears and superstitions make sense. The big answer to it all is particularly rewarding and contains a strong message about the problems of class divisions and the cruel way the working class is treated. This is nice to see from Hammer, which had a habit of supporting class distinctions while other film companies were specifically working against them.

No one will list The Plague of the Zombies on any “best of” lists, besides “Best of Hammer Horror,” but it is creepy fun.

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Harper (1966)

May 181966
 
two reels

Private detective Lew Harper (Paul Newman) is hired by rich invalid Mrs. Sampson (Lauren Bacall) to find her degenerate and neurotic husband who disappeared a day ago. Helping, or hindering, his investigation is Sampson’s spoiled daughter Miranda (Pamela Tiffin), the family pilot (Robert Wagner), and Sampson’s lawyer (Arthur Hill). The trail passes by an aging film star, a cult, and a heroine addicted piano player. Along with working on the case, Harper is trying to patch up his broken marriage with Susan (Janet Leigh).

The problem with Harper is that—although I’m reviewing it as Noir—it isn’t Noir. The dialog is, as is the characters and situations. It owes a good deal to The Big Sleep. Mrs. Sampson maps onto General Sternwood while Miranda is close enough to Carmen. The plot is a convoluted search for a missing person and the particulars don’t matter. It’s all about the characters. And like Marlowe, Harper spends his share of time beaten up.

This is prime Noir material, with every character being a bit (or massively) cruel and amoral. Newman makes a fine detective and the oversized supporting cast are all good. The lines are sharp and smart. But it looks like a TV movie and sounds like a cop show. There’s no flair. Cinematography says something about the film and its world, and this time it says bland. The music would be OK as incidental music for Mannix, but not in a feature. Film Noir requires a look that echoes the themes and characters, one filled with sickness and corruption, and touched by German expressionism. We get generic color pallet and stiff camera work lacking in artistry. It takes all the energy out of what should have been an excellent picture. It should have been a Film Noir, but it could have worked being something else. It ends up being nothing at all.

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The Matt Helm Franchise (1966-1968)

May 141966
 
two reels

The Silencers (1966)
Murderers’ Row (1966)
The Ambushers (1967)
The Wrecking Crew (1968)

Matt Helm was one of the earlier Bond film parodies, and can be consider the earliest American one. The character is loosely—very loosely—based on a series of dark novels by Donald Hamilton. For the films, the grim tone was replaced with one of indolent fluff and the novels’ plots were ignored, leaving a series of nearly random events for Helm to swagger through.

The films don’t go for big laughs, like Carry On Spying, or the much later Austin Powers movies that borrowed a surprising amount from the Helm Franchise. Instead of jokes there is smirking. While humor is hard to find, sincerity is totally absent. Nothing is given weight. If you are going to avoid both humor and depth, you need to have real talent behind the typewriter, not the guy who’s greatest achievement was King Creole. The scripts should have celebrated absurdity (they did, after all, include death rays, force guns, back-firing and time-delayed pistols, and a flying saucer), but they are listless affairs that muddle along without doing much of anything.

Dean Martin, who was simultaneously hosting his TV show, did not put any effort into constructing a character for Helm (or into anything else in the films), but just played a variant of his public persona. He was Dean Martin from Vegas, but with a gun. He wasn’t the suave he-man that Bond was, or the perfect specimen that was Derek Flint (of the far superior Our Man Flint and In Like Flint), but a cheesy lounge lizard. Yet we are supposed to consider him debonair, clever, and skilled—qualities he never demonstrates. He shows no ability with hand-to-hand combat (it is unlikely Martin would have put in the physical effort for a fight scene) and he never deduces anything. His dealings with women are the most perplexing element. Bond wants women. Flint truly loves them. But Matt Helm seems to mainly be annoyed by them. Repeatedly it is too much effort for him to bother to sleep with them. It makes sense that Derek Flint would have women throwing themselves at him, but not Matt Helm. If Bond’s sins are pride and lust, then Helm’s is sloth.

For a spy who should have been cool, Helm is strangely out of style. Sure, James Bond made fun of rock-n-roll and The Beatles, but Matt Helm questions “what’s with these new fangled dances” and makes a crack about long-haired youths and not being able to tell boys from girls. He was hip according to filmmakers from the wrong generation.

The movies managed to obtain decent casts: Daliah Lavi, James Gregory, Victor Buono, Karl Malden, Ann-Margret, Janice Rule, Elke Sommer, Sharon Tate, Nancy Kwan, Nigel Green, Tina Louise, and somehow a slumming Cyd Charisse. They are better than the material. But they are not enough to explain why the series was a success. No doubt Dean Martin’s popularity and the small budgets helped, as did the acres of scantily clad women, but not enough to dispel the mystery.

The films vary only slightly in quality; one is pretty much like the next. The first has slightly better reviews while I prefer the third, but they all fall into a small range between barely watchable and more-or-less watchable as long as it is on free TV. Giving them 2 Reels is generous, but they are culturally notable and not a bad time. But there’s no need to see them all.

 

The Silencers (1966)

In the first film, photographer and semi-retire spy Matt Helm is called back into action by MacDonald (James Gregory), the head of the spy organization ICE, to stop the evil plans of Big O and its leader, Tung-Tze (Victor Buono with his eyes taped). He teams with his ex-partner Tina (Daliah Lavi) and Gail Hendricks (Stella Stevens), a klutzy innocent bystander.

The Silencers is slightly less ridiculous than its sequels. It’s not clear if that’s a good thing or not. It makes for fewer truly stupid moments, but as there are no smart moments, we aren’t left with much. The constant bickering between Helm and Hendricks should have sounded like a 1940s romcom, but that requires wit. Stevens does her best, but with the incompetent script, it’s just tiring. So, you are left with a lot of pretty girls to ogle and Gregory and Lavi committing to their roles in an attempt to offset Martin. Well, the backward firing gun is amusing.

 

Murderers’ Row (1966)

Arch-villains Julian Wall (Karl Malden) and Coco Duquette (Camilla Sparv) have captured a scientist who has developed a death ray. Matt Helm works with the scientist’s daughter (Ann-Margret) to stop the evil scheme.

Released ten months later, Murders Row is probably the low point of the franchise. The dialog has actually gotten worse. After shooting a man with a freeze gun, Helm quips languidly, “Well, if it isn’t Frosty the Snowman.” That’s not a joke. It barely counts as a sentence. Bond had some questionable one-liners, but nothing like that, and that kind of line is all Helm ever says.

Malden, with his purposefully changing accent, makes for a passable villain. He isn’t memorable, but I didn’t hate him.

Ann-Margret is the film’s only trump. She was the epitome of the ‘60s sex-bunny and she dives into that, go-go dancing with passion. She’s not particularly a good actress, but she’s charismatic and sensual, and more importantly, energetic, which puts her miles above Martin, and the picture wouldn’t know what to do with great acting. If you watch Murderers’ Row, it’s for her.

 

The Ambushers (1967)

The governments new secret flying saucer—that can only be flown by women—has been stolen by Ortega (Albert Salmi) who plans to use it for some evil purpose. The pilot, Sheila Somers (Janice Rule), escapes, but is traumatized, and believes an old cover-story, that she is Matt Helm’s wife. The two set off to recover the saucer.

The Ambushers is probably the most remembered of the Matt Helm films, and it is the best. It is also the most offensive. The title refers to women, who are a constant threat as they trick you into marriage. It is also a light, fluffy, silly film structured around a women being sexually abused and tortured over time such that she has developed severe mental trauma. And all that, along with the flying saucer, are to its advantage. It is better to be offensive than forgettable. If your film is silly and in bad taste, then embrace that, and The Ambushers does.

Martin is still putting in minimum effort, but the rest of the cast are putting in extra. The double-entendres flow like a river, the science fiction elements are more evident and everything is broader.  There are occasional jokes that approach being funny. If there is a laugh to be had in the series it is in this entry (and not a few of those jokes were reworked for later spoofs, including the nipple guns, belt sword, and a henchmen confusing combat for wild sex).

The Ambushers also has the advantage of having a competent female character, the only time in the franchise. And there is even something approaching action with Helm getting into a fist fight that lasts more than two punches. He’s still not an action hero, but he comes his closest here. Don’t take any of that to mean things have really changed; this is still a Mat Helm film.

The Wrecking Crew (1968)

Count Contini (Nigel Green) and Linka Karensky (Elke Sommer) steal a billion in gold, threatening to destabilize world financial markets. MacDonald (now John Larch) calls in Matt Helm to get the gold back. Additional attractive women wandering in and out of the picture include annoying Freya Carlson (Sharon Tate) of the Danish tourist Bureau, gypsy dancer Lola Medina (Tina Louise), and henchwoman Yu-Rang (Nancy Kwan).

Tate is given the thankless role of the troublesome klutz, more or less repeating Stella Stevens’s role in the first film. Think Tiffany Case from Diamonds are Forever, only more so. She’s cute, but in a film with Sommer, Louise and Kwan, cute isn’t going to get you far. Like Stevens before her, she’s tiring, only more so.

As for the rest, Martin is still sleeping, the plot is still barely existent, and the dialog is still weak. On the bright side, and it is a very bright side, there is Sommer and Kwan (Louise isn’t around enough to really do much). They are both beautiful and fun. They carry the picture, to the extent that it moves at all.

Of note: Bruce Lee choreographed the fights and a young Chuck Norris shows up to do stunts, but don’t take that to mean there are any fights or stunts worth seeing. I don’t think either would put it on their resume.

The film ends with a promise of another installment entitled The Ravagers. There are several stated rumors on why that didn’t happen, including the poor box office of The Wrecking Crew, Martin’s disinterest and time constrains, and the shadow cast by Sharon Tate’s murder.

Four films were probably three two many in any case. If you are asking very little of your film viewing for the day, and want to see some attractive women is sexy outfits, a Matt Helm film will do. But try a Flint one first.

 

 

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Gamera vs. Barugon/War of the Monsters (1966)

Apr 201966
 
three reels

Gamera’s rocket is struck by a meteor, returning him to earth where he vanishes from the movie for nearly an hour. Meanwhile, three men (who I think might be low level gangsters—it isn’t clear) head to New Guinea to recover an opal that our more-or-less hero’s brother hid during WWII. The opal is not a stone, but an egg, which hatches Barugon who grows into a giant monster and attacks Japan.

In a series that drifted more and more childish with each new film, the second Gamera movie fouled up that curve by being substantially less goofy than its predecessor, in large part because it is the only Gamera Showa film without a child as a major character. Rumors claim that the island dancing girls were initially planned to be topless, and several scenes, while innocent (depending on what you think about blood licking), are suggestive of oral sex. The end product is juvenile, just much less juvenile than the rest of the franchise. You can only be so mature with a monster that shoots rainbows and is a guy crawling around on all fours.

The film is odd in another way—it is hardly a Gamera movie and I suspect the original script didn’t contain him. Gamera has only a few minutes of screen time, in re-used footage at the beginning, a brief battle two-thirds in, and then a final brawl, and he has nothing to do with the rest of the story. If you made one of the military plans more successful, you could have written him out.

The two leads, Keisuke the fortune-hunter and Kara (always subtitled as Karen) the island girl, are handled unusually well. They don’t do much, but Keisuke isn’t embarrassing—which is very rare for a human in a Gamera movie) and Kara is captivating. She’s portrayed by Kyoko Enami, one of the great beauties of Japanese cinema.

The giant monster fights are silly, but no more silly than in other daikaiju flicks of the time, and a good deal less than Godzilla vs. the Sea Monster and Son of Godzilla which came out within a year.

While you can now find an English subtitled version of Gamera vs Barugon, it was originally released in the US in a cut and dubbed form as War of the Monsters. Twelve minutes were cut, all of which involved the leads discussing plans with the military. Their loss makes the film more nonsensical (where did that giant diamond come from and why are they suddenly in a helicopter?) but doesn’t do substantial damage. And the dubbing is surprisingly good.

My rating is a bit high, but any daikaiju fan should see one of the early Gamera films, and the rating indicates that this is the one.

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Godzilla vs. the Sea Monster (1966)

Apr 161966
 
two reels

A sailor steals a yacht, and with his hesitant companions, goes in search of his lost brother. A storm maroons them on an island where terrorists are making ingredients for nuclear bombs and a giant shrimp patrols the sea. Luckily, King Kong… I Mean Godzilla is napping on the island.

QUICK REVIEW: New franchise director Jun Fukuda took Godzilla’s slow walk from fearsome force of nature to juvenile protector and turned it into a sprint. Not that the fault was all his; he was given a film constructed with King Kong in mind, but when legal issues took the over-sized ape out of the running, Godzilla was shoehorned in with little rewriting (which explains the big lizard’s obsession with the hot island girl). Money was also a problem, since attendance at Godzilla features had been declining. Godzilla Verses the Sea Monster, and its follow up, Son of Godzilla, were south sea island pictures, allowing Toho to forgo building miniature cities to crush. The result is quite silly, but passable entertainment for daikaiju fans.

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Daimajin Strikes Again (1966)

Mar 151966
 
two reels

Daimajin Strikes Again: A wounded woodsman returns to his village, explaining that a warlord had captured the missing men and forced them into hard labor building a fort. Only he had escaped by crossing the god’s mountain. With the coming snow, the local lord cannot send troops. Someone must travel to the compound, over the forbidden mountain, and tell the men the only route to escape. When no one takes on the quest, four children sneak out to rescue their fathers and brothers. It is only a matter of time before all this trapsing on sacred ground wakes the Majin.

Daimajin Strikes Again manages to be avoid the rehash label, but it is still the weakest of the three. OK, it doesn’t avoid it by that much. There is once again an evil warlord who forces peasants into grueling labor and tortures them and the Majin waits for act three to show the level of his displeasure. What’s different is the lack of samurai action. The protagonists are children and in place of sword play we get a boy scout adventure through the wilderness. While it is reasonably presented, it isn’t very interesting. I give Strikes Again points for treating kids with respect, without silly jokes or sanitizing the danger, but respect is insufficient. It starts well, and ends better, but you might drift off in the middle.

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Return of Daimajin (1966)

Mar 131966
 
two reels

Return of Daimajin: The ruler of Mikoshiba sets his sights on the neighboring lands of Nagoshi and Chigusa, that sit on either side of a lake that contains the god’s island. Both are crushed, but the young lord of Chigusa and the daughter of the Lord of Nagoshi escape to the island. When the invaders decide to destroy the statue of the god, they earn the wrath of Majin.

Return of Daimajin is a rehash sequel: same plot, though with less buildup, same beautiful cinematography, though not quite as attractive, same monster attack and rescue, though not as exciting. The characters are similar, some lines repeat, and the entire structure of the film matches its predecessor. That doesn’t make it bad, just unnecessary. If Daimajin didn’t exist (or you are unable to find it), I would rate this one reel higher.

 

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Daimajin (1966)

Mar 101966
 
four reels

Lord Hanabasa assures his two children that recent earthquakes are not to be feared as their good god will protect them. The common villagers have a different view, gathering to perform a ceremony to keep an evil spirit locked away in a giant statue. Samanosuke, the traitorous Chamberlain, takes advantage of the confusion to murder the lord and seize control, but fails to kill Hanabasa’s children. Protected by a swordsman and a priestess for ten years, they come of age hiding on their god’s mountain. The rightful heir sets his mind on freeing his people from Samantha’s cruel rule, while that evil man decides to crush the villagers’ spirit by destroying the giant idol, both actions potentially causing the massive “Majin” to awaken.

Discovering the Daimajin movies twenty-five years after their release was a delightful surprise. Good daikaiju is rarer then a funny Ben Stiller movie (percentage-wise) and a period one with samurai… Well, to the best of my knowledge, these are it. All three were made in 1966, and released a year apart. The studio had hit pay dirt with Gammera, the gigantic turtle, and were looking for another giant monster franchise; something different. They found it.

At first I was loathe to categorize Daimajin as daikaiju. It feels like a straight samurai adventure, with a bit of Hong Kong fantasy mixed in toward the end. But city stomping is an automatic entry pass into the daikaiju club, and Majin gets in some good stomping, even if the buildings are a bit more primitive than normal.

Perhaps it is just that I am so used to the human story being unimportant filler between monster misdeeds (see about 20 of the Godzilla pictures). Here the story, not the smashing, is the point, not that the smashing isn’t worth the price of admission on its own. The story is a simple heroes tale, like 90% of Japanese sword epics, with that simplicity strengthening the drama. The characters are well defined, and pure, good or evil as the case may be.

There is on exception: The god. He’s a world of contradictions. It is not clear if Majin is “the god” but no one else shows up to lay claim to the title. If he is the good god that is mentioned, he’s not all that sympathetic to his people’s pain, as only a personal insult and a woman’s tears gets him moving, and collateral damage doesn’t phase him. If he is the demon the villagers feared, he’s amazingly just (Old Testament just) and a better neighbor than many of the humans. It leads to a fascinating world.

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Batman: The Movie (1966)

Feb 251966
 
3,5 reels

The Caped Crusaders (Adam West, Burt Ward) face their most perilous adventure as four the their most sinister adversaries, The Joker (Cesar Romero), The Penguin (Burgess Meredith), The Riddler (Frank Gorshin), and Catwoman (Lee Merriwether) have banded together in a plot to take over the world.

If you are going to be camp, own it. Released between seasons 1 and 2 of the Batman TV show, Batman: The Movie is the series on steroids. It’s the same general kind of fun, but amped up. There’s a lot more humor and the absurdity of the pop-art Batman world is intensified. Yet somehow they manage to insert character development and a plot—of sorts. Batman has never been so passionate—in a hysterical junior high way—as he is with Miss Kitka (Catwoman in disguise), quoting poetry and generally giving us the funniest love scene captured on film.

The cast is basically that of the TV show. Adam West and Burt Ward are the true blue caped crusaders, with Alan Napier, Neil Hamilton, and Stafford Rett to aid them as Alfred and the police. As this is a movie, we get a collection of villains rather than one, played with manic energy by Hollywood greats Cesar Romero and Burgess Meredith along with relative newcomer Frank Gorshin. Unfortunately Julie Newmar was unavailable to reprieve her sensual version of Catwoman, but Lee Merriwether is an amiable replacement and follows Newmar’s take on the character. Since the villains all work together, sharing scenes and bouncing one-liners off each other, it never feels like the villain overload that would mark the ‘90s films.

The gags here are no mere clownishness (as with the two Schumacher Batman films) but come from the characters. Batman’s sincerity and passion are a source of much of the humor as is his need to do good—his routine of trying to dispose of a bomb but finding innocents everywhere is as fine a comedy bit as you’ll find. The villains each have their own personalities, and their own gags. My favorites involve Gorshin’s Riddler, who manages to be crazy in a world where everything is a bit insane.

The only problem with the film is if you just can’t deal with a funny, joyful, good-time, camp Batman. I can.

The character was rebooted for Batman, Batman Returns, Batman Forever, and Batman & Robin, then rebooted again for Nolan’s Dark Knight Trilogy: Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, and The Dark Night Rises, and rebooted a third time for Zack Snyder’s Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. The ’60s Batman was brought back for the 2016 animated feature, Batman: Return of the Caped Crusaders.

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Rotten to the Core (1965)

Oct 181965
 
one reel

Three small time crooks, Jelly Knight, Scapa Flood, and Lennie the Dip (Dudley Sutton, James Beckett, and Kenneth Griffith) get out of prison to find their old boss, The Duke (Anton Rodgers) dead and the money they stole gone. They fail running their own crimes, but a chance encounter leads them to believe that The Duke is alive and his girlfriend, Sara (Charlotte Rampling) might have some answers for them. She appears to be dating an unlikeable military policeman (Ian Bannen) and is also being followed by an ex-policeman, now detective (Eric Sykes) who was hired by her father. Everyone seems to run into everyone, and all of the crooks gather near an army base to pull off a big heist while various people on the side of law try and stop them.

1965 is after the time of Post-War British Comedies, if taken as a genre, and so no longer on my review list. But as a movement, Rotten to the Core is still connected, with the Post-War British Comedy writer/director/producing team of the Boulting brothers in charge, and actors from the genre like Eric Sykes and Raymond Huntley in front of the camera. Peter Sellers was also supposed to be there, but that didn’t work out, which is pretty much the phrase for this film: it didn’t work out.

What a meandering mess. It feels like it was put together from three scripts and no one ever figured out what it was about, or who the lead was. I suspect things were different when Sellers was involved, for better or worse as he would have insisted all focus be on him, but Anton Rodgers is no Sellers. It seems that the trio of thieves will be our join protagonists, but then it shifts to Sara, and then to The Duke. And with each shift (and shift back) the direction of the film changes. We are shunted to a health spa where a joke is being built up around the alcoholic waters given to the patients, and then it is dropped without payoff. Likewise it seems to be important that Sara is a high class girl looking for thrills and to upset her family, but that also goes nowhere. There are a few humorous gags, but since nothing ever leads anywhere, they are nothing but random jokes.

The cast is decent, but can only do so much with what they are given. Charlotte Rampling, definitely the odd-one-out of this group, had her lines dubbed, but it isn’t noticeable, unless you are listening for her voice.

It was shot by Freddie Young, between working on Lawrence of Arabia and Doctor Zhivago, a fact that is even more bizarre than the mess of a script. The cinematography is fine, but Young is one of the greatest of all time, and no one is going to get lost in these images.

The Boulting brothers’ Post-War British Comedies include Private’s Progress (1956), Lucky Jim (1957), Carlton-Browne of the F.O. (1959), I’m All Right Jack (1959), and Heavens Above! (1963). Previously they made the noir Brighton Rock (1948).

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Planet of the Vampires (1965)

Oct 101965
 
three reels

The twin spaceships, Argos and Galliot (or Gallard or Galliod…) are investigating a strange, fog covered planet when a 40-G  force pulls them down to the surface.  Captain Mark Markary (Barry Sullivan) remains conscious, but his crew is knocked out.  When they awaken, they attack  each other, but Markary subdues them and they return to normal.  But things don’t work out so well on the Galliot where everyone is found dead.  But it’s soon clear this isn’t laying-there dead, but walking-around dead.  It seems that this is the work of alien body snatchers.  The survivors have only one chance to escape, and it involves ignoring the DVD case which implies there are vampires on this planet.  Luckily, our plucky heroes are quick on the uptake, at least to the extent of realizing they are in a film with a really inaccurate title.  But when has an Italian-made feature been given a reasonable English title?

“Suppress cortical areas X, Y and Z”

Ummmm.  OK.  But I’ve really got to wonder if that’s a good idea.  I’m not sure what cortical areas X, Y, and Z are, but I’m betting I’d rather not have them suppressed.

But this is a film where you’ve got to really believe that suppressing those cortical areas makes sense.  Yes, that dialog was dubbed, but it was dubbed in every language the movie is shown in, so don’t try getting an Italian version thinking that’s how it ought to sound.  The actors spoke whatever language they knew (and there’s a mixture of North and South Americans, Italians, and Spaniards), and everyone was dubbed in post, making it a game to see whose lips match their words.  So the fascinating lines are not a matter of poor translations after the fact.

And this is a very talky movie.  There are zombie astronauts, fire fights, and mysterious traps, but these guys are far more interested in talking.  For the first ten minutes of the film, all they do is utter techno-babble.  And their favorite topic is the obvious.  They are always happy to repeat anything they just said, or point out what can be clearly seen.  When a red light flashes, you know someone is going to say “Hey, the light is flashing.”  When the ship is about to crash, and it is vital that the bulkheads be closed (I have no idea why that is vital, but apparently it is), our hero first takes the time to tell himself, since no one else is conscious to hear, that he needs to activate the bulkheads.  When the Argos receives a distress call filled with the words “urgent” and “we can’t go on much longer,” Captain Markary sagely comments, “They must be in trouble.”  No kidding.

But then, these are very, very stupid people.  If there’s a chance to split up, they do, although anybody who is left alone is killed or goes insane.  They never bother to protect the one piece of equipment they need.  Plus, there is the problem of not knowing if there’s a planet in the first place: Markary thought there was a planet, but the Captain of the Galliot believed it was just space fog (space fog?).  So, they show up, and are within five minutes of the surface before they work out that yes, there is a planet there.

Director Mario Bava (Bay of Blood, Kill, Baby… Kill!), better known for his horror and thrillers, does the best he can with far too little money.  The planet is Styrofoam with vivid lighting effects.  The space ship exterior is an obvious model and the interiors are big empty rooms with painted boxes and glowing balls littered about.  More fun is the leather/vinyl uniforms with the bizarrely high and confining collars.  Astronauts have an interesting sense of style.

But for all the inane dialog (“If there are any intelligent creatures on this planet, they’re our enemies!”) and bottom basement production values, Planet of the Vampires is watchable mid-’60s sci-fi.  The plot is serviceable and allows for some reasonable tension and even a scare or two (for the easily scared).  The ending has the type of twist that we’ve become accustomed to after years of The Twilight Zone repeats, but was unexpected in ’65.  And there are some nice moments when Markary and company discover the remains of a spacecraft and the skeleton of its gigantic alien inhabitant.  If you see a connection to Alien, then you’re on track.  It’s hard to imagine that Dan O’Bannon and Ridley Scott ‘s didn’t sat through several viewings of Planet of the Vampires before creating their classic.

And maybe that’s what is best about Planet of the Vampires.  While nothing special, it inspired a generation of filmmakers.  Watch it for it’s historical significance, or to reenact an acid trip.

It is also known under the titles Demon Planet, Planet of Blood, Space Mutants, Terror in Space, The Haunted Planet, The Outlawed Planet, and The Planet of the Damned.

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