Foster on Film – Page 97 – The Film Criticism of Matthew M. Foster

Jason and the Argonauts (1963)

Aug 301963

In order to prove the gods are on his side in a battle with the usurping King Pelias, Jason (Todd Armstrong, voice: Tim Turner) gathers the finest athletes of Greece and heads out to take the legendary golden fleece. Aided by the goddess Hera (Honor Blackman), the powerful Hercules (Nigel Green), the ship builder Argos (Laurence Naismith), and the prophetess Medea (Nancy Kovack, voice: Honor Blackman), Jason must overcome strange beasts, magic, and treachery to complete his quest.

I loved Jason and the Argonauts when I first saw it in the ’60s as a small child. It was an exciting trip into a fantastic world of giants and monsters, and the acting, characterizations, and plot concerned me less than a titan made of bronze. I’ve enjoyed it every time I’ve seen it since, but not quite so much, as those other elements have become more important to me.

This is an effects movie, built around the wondrous stop-motion creations of Ray Harryhausen. Here he gives us harpies, a hydra, the before-mentioned bronze man, and perhaps his greatest work, the sword-wielding skeletons. It is the great metal man, rising up in a field of statues, that most sparked my imagination. This squeaking giant, left by the god Hephaestus who long ago abandoned the island, strides across the sand, crushes men, and lifts the Argos out of the water as a toy. It all looks great. Most of the effects are excellent, though sometimes the scenes they are in lack drama. The impressive-looking hydra dies extremely easily. I’m not sure why the golden fleece wasn’t stolen decades earlier if its guardian was such a wimp.

The story is basic quest stuff, being related, but not overly faithful to, the Greek myth. It starts abruptly and ends in the middle of the story. Rumor has it that a sequel was planned to get Jason back to Greece and deal with King Pelias, but it was never made, so we’re left hanging.

Little effort is made to make the characters interesting. Jason is a drab, white-bread sort, who is obviously dubbed. Even if the filmmakers weren’t fond of Armstrong’s voice, they’d have done better to leave it in as the replacement doesn’t sound like it is coming from his mouth (the mismatched lips don’t help much either). Medea, another underdeveloped character, is also dubbed, and while it is slightly less obvious than with Jason, it’s still a constant annoyance.

Jason and the Argonauts has nothing more to offer than Van Helsing or the remake of The Haunting. Which you prefer depends on how you like your special effects served up, and if you don’t like effects films, you’re in the wrong place. Me, I like a good meaningless extravaganza from time to time. Think of it as a perfect Saturday afternoon’s entertainment, particularly if viewed with the family.

Harryhausen was a master of his craft, but I wonder if anyone will care after my generation has died. I grew up with Harryhausen, and for those of us who saw his work as a kid, he will forever have a place in our hearts. But newer technologies can be more spectacular with a lot less effort, and younger movie-goers seem to wonder what all the fuss was about. I’m not bemoaning this—every generation should have something that’s theirs.

Ray Harryhausen’s other features are The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953), It Came from Beneath the Sea (1955), Earth Vs. The Flying Saucers (1956), 20 Million Miles to Earth (1957), The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958), The 3 Worlds of Gulliver (1960), Mysterious Island (1961), The First Men in the Moon (1964), One Million Years B.C. (1966), The Valley of Gwangi (1969), The Golden Voyage of Sinbad (1973) Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger (1977), and Clash of the Titans (1981).

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Fantasy, Giant Monsters, Reviews Tagged with: Three Reels

The Old Dark House (1963)

Jun 121963

American Tom Poston (Tom Penderel) is asked by his sometimes roommate Casper (Peter Bull) to meet him at his ancestral home. Arriving at the deteriorating mansion, he discovers Casper dead and the house inhabited by Casper’s mother, dotty Agatha Femm (Joyce Grenfell), his twin brother Jasper (also Peter Bull), his uncles, sinister Roderick Femm (Robert Morley), Biblically-obsessed Potipher Femm (Mervyn Johns), and hulking Morgan Femm (Danny Green), and his cousins sleezy Morgana Femm (Fenella Fielding) and innocent Cecily Femm (Janette Scott). They all must stay at the house in order to remain an heir to the great riches acquired by their pirate ancestor. Soon other family members are murdered, and the storm prevents Tom from leaving.

Fading Hammer Studios collaborated with gimmicky showman William Castle for a remake in-name-only of Jame’s Whale’s The Old Dark House (1932). The film shares nothing except character names and its subgenre (Old Dark House horror films) with its predecessor and with the novel Benighted, which supposedly is the basis for both. This is a broad comedy, with pratfalls galore and everything tongue in cheek, reminding me more of The Ghost and Mister Chicken then anything by Whale.

What it has going for it is a great British cast, including two of the mainstays of the Post-War British Comedy movement, Grenfell and Morley. Bull, Johns, Green, and Scott are all solid as well, and while I was not familiar with Fielding, she’s up to the level of her colleagues. This is a funny group of comedians, and some of the greatest character actors of the time.

What it doesn’t have going for it is jokes. Since it’s a broad comedy, there’s no scares, no particular atmosphere, and the mystery is simple, which means the gags have to carry the film and it just isn’t funny. Outside of Poston falling down, I can’t see what was even supposed to be a joke. The Femm family members are all appropriately odd, but odd doesn’t equal funny. Poston isn’t the equal of the Brits, but he isn’t given anything to work with. A great delivery can create a joke when one isn’t there, but it’s better when that joke is there.

That doesn’t make this a bad film, But it isn’t a good one either. There’s always amusement to be had From Grenfell and Morley just being Grenfell and Morley, so I didn’t mind watching it. Apparently no one was taken with it. It was released in the US on a double-bill with a thriller, and in B&W. In England it didn’t make it to theaters for three years, and then no one cared.

Dark House, Horror Tagged with: Two Reels

Ladies Who Do (1963)

May 281963

Bombastic but lovable Charwoman Mrs. Cragg (Peggy Mount) inadvertently takes a piece of scrap paper from a trash can at work to Colonel Whitforth (Robert Morley). That paper has information on her boss’s (Harry H. Corbett) and his partner’s (Jon Pertwee) plans to buy a failing company. The Colonel invests and makes a huge profit. When Mrs. Cragg discovers that her boss plans to tear down all the houses on her street, she teams up with the Colonel and three other charwomen to find information in the garbage to get rich and thwart the development.

All movements have to end, and Ladies Who Do is a good place to lay to rest Post-War British Comedy. There are still direct references to WWII, such as the old woman who loved the blitz. And the basic plot revolves around the massive redevelopment that was going on in Britain due to the war, but for the most part, times were shifting, and films with a vested interest in demonstrating the fundamental differences between the Brits and the Fascists were fading. Well, if you have to go, this is the way to do it.

Ladies Who Do (the title comes from the at-the-time polite term for cleaning women) has that mix of over the top silliness, charm, and wit that marked the movement. Once again we have eccentric characters—working-class ones as class was still an issue of great importance—with a scheme of questionable legality. But their fight is to keep their strange, thoroughly British community together, so who minds a little law-breaking?

Peggy Mount (Sailor Beware!, Dry Rot, The Naked Truth) dominates the film and all the characters in it, as she always did. She is a force of nature—a comedian with an impressive set of lungs. Used incorrectly she could tire an audience out, but here she is perfect. Most of the humor springs from her never-ending tirades. Yet everyone still has a chance to shine, no more so than the always entertaining Robert Morley. He plays another relic of a time past—the military officer, clinging to a vanishing social status. Jon Pertwee, best known as the 4th Doctor in Doctor Who, plays against type as the put-upon investment partner who is no match for anyone he meets. His elder brother wrote the script.

It’s all light comedy, but there’s plenty of satire if you want a bit more meat. Capitalism and the failings of post-war development come in for most of the skewering, though there are a few good-natured kicks at workers unions and communism (one of the charwomen is waiting for the revolution, but until then, might as well make a few pounds).

I didn’t get to see the major Post-War British Comedies (Kind Hearts and Coronets, The Lavender Hill Mob, The Ladykillers) until more than a decade after they were released, but this trailing member hit US independent television just a few years after it hit English theaters. It was the closest I got to the movement in real time, and is a slice of British life as it was when I was a child. It may not be a classic, but it is a great time and not to be missed.

Post-War British Comedy, Reviews Tagged with: Four Reels

The Haunted Palace (1963)

May 111963

One hundred and ten years after the warlock Joseph Curwen (Vincent Price) was burned to death, his descendant, Charles Dexter Ward (also Vincent Price), and his wife (Debra Paget) arrive in Arkham to examine their inheritance. Unfortunately for them, Curwen’s spirit possesses Ward, and plans to avenge himself on the townspeople. He also re-teams with Simon Orne (Lon Chaney Jr.) to finish their experiment that they hope will bring the elder gods into our world.

In the early ’60s, producer/director Roger Corman teamed with Vincent Price for a string of successful Edgar Allan Poe inspired films. The sometimes titled Edgar Allan Poe’s The Haunted Palace is not one of them. That is, it has no connection with Poe, but is based on the story The Case of Charles Dexter Ward by H.P. Lovecraft. It is hard to fault American International Pictures’ decision to imply an association. The Poe films had been hits, and The Haunted Palace has the same ambiance, the same intended audience, and the same overall quality.

If you are a Lovecraft fan, you will be reasonably pleased by this adaptation. While far from faithful to the story, it does incorporate much of Lovecraft’s mythology. It is set in the town of Arkham (never, ever, visit a town named Arkham; it just isn’t a healthy place to go), Curwen has a copy of the Necronomicon, and the old gods are unknowable and horrible. More important than the specifics, it has a feeling of dread about it.

Price gets most of the screen time, and that’s as it should be. He is always entertaining, and is in prime form. He doesn’t do anything you haven’t seen in ten or twelve other Price films (assuming you watch his movies), playing both his standard, shy, good-natured dupe and his often used glaring evil psycho. He is more than adequately supported by the beautiful Debra Paget and classic stars Lon Chaney Jr. (The Wolf Man) and Elisha Cook Jr. (The Maltese Falcon), who both have fun with characters that they’d done many times before.

The Haunted Palace is good afternoon fun, but it isn’t anything special because it never tries to go beyond rehashing 1940s horror. There is even an angry mob with torches at the end. A little less revenge and glaring, and more Lovecraftian gods, would have made this a standout.

The Corman/Price Poe films are: The Fall of the House of Usher (1960), Pit and the Pendulum (1961), Tales of Terror (1962), The Raven (1963), The Masque of the Red Death (1964) and The Tomb of Ligeia (1964).

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Ghost Stories, Reviews Tagged with: Three Reels

The Haunting (1963)

Apr 111963

Dr. John Markway (Richard Johnson), a scientist trying to prove the existence of the paranormal, gets permission to study a supposedly haunted house. To confirm his research, he brings a mentally unstable psychic, Eleanor (Julie Harris), Theo (Claire Bloom), a mind reading, predatory lesbian, and Luke (Russ Tamblyn), the playboy, skeptal nephew of the house’s owner. Eleanor and Theo hear strange noises soon after arriving, and it becomes evident that either the malignant forces of the house want Eleanor, or her strained mind is causing her to imagine things.

A majority of critics take it as a given, a postulate, that genre films are best when everything can be taken as just psychological. “Sure, there might be a monster, but it might be all in your head!” I’m not surprised by this, as genre films are given little respect by mainstream critics, and this is an out, allowing a critic to like a film because they can classify it as being other than horror (or fantasy, or sci-fi). However, this axiom does surprise me when I see it from horror critics. Shouldn’t they like a bit of the supernatural with their supernatural films? Sometimes a picture might benefit from such ambiguity, but it is far from a commandment of good filmmaking. The idea that the evil force may not exist at all is interesting, once. More than that, and it reveals itself to be a close cousin to the “it was all a dream” ending.

It is with the application of that postulate that The Haunting has been given a status far greater than it deserves. It has even been called subtle for not showing a ghost, which is really out of place as it is hard to find a less subtle film. It is not a terrible movie, with some satisfactory (if uneven) camera work, a complex physical setting, and passable acting, but the flaws are huge.

Things start off poorly with an overblown opening voice-over that prattles on about this being “a house that was born bad.” Yes, that’s actually a quote from the film. That is followed by bombastic, ’50s-style, low-budget, horror music. The music is a problem during the entire film, blasting out intrusively whenever anything, no matter how small, happens. At one point, a character says “Hey, look!” and points to a now open door. Instead of letting the audience dwell on that, there is a histrionic ten second blurt of instruments. Subtle indeed.

Soon after, we are introduced to Eleanor, and with her, the greatest mistake of the filmmakers: she has an audible internal dialog. Yup, as she drives, we get to hear the obvious things she is thinking. “I’m going. I’m really going,” she loudly thinks. From the fact that she is, well, going, I’d guessed that she was probably thinking “I’m going.” Shortly afterwards, we get “By now they know the car is missing.” As she took the car from a guarded garage and the owners of the car are overly protective of it, I had worked that one out as well. Never does the overused, and often rambling, voice-over state anything that is needed (not even letting us know that Eleanor’s mind meanders, as that was obvious too). This is an amateur filmmaker’s mistake.

There is also the question of exactly what Markway is trying to do. He is such a silly scientist, it is impossible to take either him, or the entire setup of the film, seriously. It is stated that he is a reputable scientist (we’ll skip that reputable scientists don’t research evil forces), in which case, I’d like to know what kind of research he planned to do at Hill House. He has no instruments of any kind, not even a thermometer to check those “cold spots.” No camera. No tape recorder. No pressure gauge. Not even equipment to check on the physical and psychological condition of his observers. He doesn’t even try to get empirical data. Even if he “found” the paranormal, all he would have afterwards is some rather dubious subjective accounts. Just what kind of scientist is this guy supposed to be?

As for the characters, Luke and Theo are 1-dimensional. Luke is a smartass and Theo is a lesbian, and everything they do can be traced back to those characteristics. In Luke’s case, that means he makes bad jokes, continually points out how much he’ll be able to sell things for (which gets old the second time it pops up), and drinks. For Theo, it means she is constantly trying to pick up Eleanor (sure Eleanor is the only other female in the house, but would she really be chasing the insane girl?), is catty when refused, and reacts violently when even slightly touched by a male. Some critics have said that the film is making a negative statement about homosexuality. I don’t think there is enough evidence in the film to say since I felt no compunction to sympathize with Eleanor on anything, much less her revulsion by Theo’s lifestyle. I just wish she would have had a line which couldn’t have been prefaced with “Because I’m a lesbian.”

The non-scientist, Markway, doesn’t have a character. His only trait is to jabber on and on about paranormal forces. When his wife arrives, my suspension of disbelief was shattered. I’ll give them ghosts, but not that a wife would pop up in the middle of the night at a faraway manor and then choose to immediately run off alone to the nursery.

Which just leaves Eleanor. For The Haunting to work, to pull me in and make me care for these characters plight, I need some entrance into their lives, particularly Eleanor’s. But there was none. An annoying and insipid character can work in a film, but not when the picture requires me to sympathize with that person. In this case, I was hoping the ghosts would be real and kill her early on. No such luck.

The Haunting does manage to be unsettling at times, mainly when the two women are separated from the men and strange sounds occur. The pounding and voices build tension. It’s not enough. For a movie that depends on inspiring fear, there’s not much frightening going on.

Of course if there is not supposed to be anything scary at Hill House, and the story is an account of the disintegration of a troubled mind, then it’s less of a problem that nothing terrifies. Then the picture needs to present something insightful about the fragility of the human psyche, insanity, etc. It doesn’t.

Watch this one for a touch of nostalgia.

It was remade in 1999 as a big budget effects film, also called The Haunting.

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Ghost Stories, Reviews Tagged with: Two Reels

Black Sabbath (1963)

Feb 221963

Three stories introduced by Boris Karloff. (1) A woman steals a ring from a corpse that may have died due to the actions of ghosts. (2) A woman receives a series of threatening phone calls from a dead man. (3) A vampire hunter (Boris Karloff) returns to his family after a hunt, and after the maximum time he told them that it would be safe to let him in.

I’m a fan of good anthology films, and this one is… OK. Shot by Mario Bava, Black Sabbath looks like the Italian horror films of the time: colorful, stage-bound, and filled with fog. Think Hammer Horror, but better. This is gothic horror, with an emphasis on atmosphere and very little concern for story.

If you watch horror only for primordial frights, then Black Sabbath will probably work for you. I evaluate a horror film like any other, looking at plot, character, and theme and in all of those, it falls down. The first segment has a minute or two’s worth of story and the ending is set as soon as it begins. So I can watch a woman in fear at sounds around her apartment; that’s all there is. The second has no story at all. What it does have is an attractive, buxom woman in her nightgown running about. That’s something, but not enough. The last section has a plot and characters, and it could have used more time to develop them. The love story comes out of nowhere, even with the obvious charms on display. Since it is clear this is going to be an intimate segment, with a good number of deaths, I’d like to have gotten to know these folks better.

Black Sabbath is a better film to watch than to think about later. It tastes good, but it lacks substance. It is fitting that its greatest impact came as the inspiration for the name of the heavy metal band.

Foreign Language, Ghost Stories, Horror, Vampires Tagged with: Two Reels

The Comedy of Terrors (1963)

Feb 211963

Unpleasant, alcoholic Waldo Trumbull (Vincent Price) runs the funeral business he’s taken over from his wife’s father (Boris Karloff). To dig up business, he and his employee, Felix Gillie (Peter Lorre), murder elderly members of the town. When their landlord (Basil Rathbone) comes for a year’s back rent, Trumbull decides he is next.

The major actors—along with writer Richard Matheson—of The Raven reunite for this dark farce. The major change is in director; Jacque Tourneur—best known for Curse of the Demon and his collaborations with Val Lewton, Cat People (1942), I Walked With a Zombie (1943), and The Leopard Man—was a genius with B&W on the cheep, and here shows he was even better with color, creating a vibrant picture. With this team, The Comedy of Terror was sure to be great…

Well, maybe good…

I guess I can settle for fair.

Price, Lorre, and Rathbone are all fine in scenery-chewing mode, but they’ve all done it better before. Karloff was too ill to do much of anything. The jokes are passable. but it goes on far too long. This is the stuff of a twenty minute short. Make this a third of an anthology feature and then the material would be put to good use. But as is, it is stretched. Every gag is repeated six or seven times. Each scene is twice as long as it needs to be. Since the outcome is clear early on, dragging it out is tiresome. The bits, taken on their own, may be good, but this is way too much of a good thing.

Horror, Reviews Tagged with: Two Reels

Bluebeard’s Castle {Herzog Blaubarts Burg} (1963)

Feb 181963

Judith (Ana Raquel Satre) has abandoned her family and fiancé to run off with the powerful and disreputable Bluebeard (Norman Foster) to his imposing castle. Rumors abound of his foul deeds, and he gruffly tries to warn her off, but she insists that she wants him and will stay. As he softens a bit, she discovers seven locked doors and asks to be allowed to enter them. He refuses, but she continues to press, until he relents, door by door. Behind each is a magical secret, some best left unknown.

I’ve always said I’m not an opera guy. I respect opera, but don’t enjoy it. Well, watching Bluebeard’s Castle a week after The Tales of Hoffmann, I may have to change that. The film entranced me. The music is powerful and emotional. But then maybe I just like opera in the hands of director Michael Powell; I pulled up another film version of Bluebeard’s Castle from the ’80s, and while the singing was still impressive, my attention wandered.

By 1962, Powell and longtime producing partner Emeric Pressburger had gone their separate ways, and Powell’s solo effort, Peeping Tom, had so enraged critics and audiences that his career was dead in the water. Then he got a call from frequent collaborator Hein Heckroth, who’d been the production/artistic designer or costumer on A Matter of Life and Death, Black Narcissus, The Red Shoes, The Small Back Room, Gone to Earth, The Fighting Pimpernel, The Tales of Hoffmann, Oh…Rosalinda!!, and The Battle of the River Plate. Opera singer Norman Foster wanted to produce a pair of films for West German TV based on the works of Béla Bartók, and he needed a director. The first would be the operatic Bluebeard’s Castle while the second would be a ballet (and was never made). Money would be tight, but they had Technicolor film and Heckroth was doing the design, so Powell signed on.

Bartók was prime material for Powell. His opera involved questions of the importance of art and the guilt of the voyeur. It dealt with the quest for eternal beauty (and if that was a foolish quest) and the suffering of the artist. Everything is direct and also everything is symbolic. Are the events happening in a castle or inside a man’s mind? This is the kind of thing Powell loved and knew how to play with.

What he made is a small marvel (Powell generally made one kind of marvel or another), though I’m not sure if I shouldn’t give the greater credit to Heckroth. Working with only the barest of resources and two assistants, Heckroth designed and then built an incredible, surreal world. It’s less like watching a film and more like twirling in an art museum until it all merges and you fall over. Everything is beautiful and nonsensical. Powell remarked how pleased he was that everyone got back to basics, just using their artistry.

I’m focusing on the artists behind the camera, as if the two in front of it don’t matter, but they do. Both have the kinds of voices that you only get from deals with devils. Every line is a joy. Foster was the bigger star and he saw this as a vehicle for himself, and he had the chops, but he was wrong. Satre eclipses him. She’s like a mad nymph. Or maybe Powell just knew how to capture her sensuality, and then spread it over Hechroth’s backgrounds.

This is a very strange film: confined but expansive, simple yet layered, operatic and also conversational. It may not be for everyone, but is rewarding for anyone willing to give themselves to it.

Fantasy, Horror Tagged with: Four Reels

Atragon (1963)

Jan 131963

After several strange kidnappings and attacks, the undersea empire of Mu makes its demands known: Destroy the super-sub Atragon, and then become colonies of Mu. The first of these is tricky as Japan doesn’t know anything about the Atragon. It was a project under the command of Captain Jinguji who supposedly died at the end of World War II. Really he rebelled, refusing to accept Japan’s loss, but he hasn’t been heard of since. His old commanding office, now long retired, sets out to find Jinguji and the Atragon in order to stop Mu. Accompanying him are Jinguji’s daughter, who the admiral has raised since she was a child, a heroic photographer and love-interest of the daughter, his sidekick, a police detective, and a very suspicious reporter.

Directed by Ishirô Honda, scored by Akira Ifukube, and with a cast (as well as much of the rest of the crew) in and out of Godzilla pictures, plus the giant dragon Manda (who shows up in Destroy All Monsters and Final Wars), Atragon easily earns its place as part of the Godzilla franchise. But it isn’t a typical Toho monster flick. It’s science fiction, with very little monster action, and not all that much science fiction action either. This is reminiscent of Honda’s best work, Gojira, where theme and character matter.

The theme here is patriotism, jingoism, and the ability to learn and grow. The admiral condescends to the youths, saying they don’t understand patriotism the way his generation did, but he has learned to see the mistakes of the past and is in tune with the new generation. Jinguji is not. He’s never surrendered and still talks of the glories of Japan, with future glories being produced over the dead of other nations. Mu is presented as a mirror to Jinguji, where they think only of their own empire and the inferiority of everyone else. This, of course, makes Mu the equivalent of Imperial Japan. This is pretty heavy stuff, and even more so less than 20 years after Japan’s loss. And that’s where the super-subs and heat beams and cold cannons and giant monster come in. Like Mary Poppins said, “A spoon for a sugar helps the medicine go down.” The strong theme doesn’t get too grim when you’ve got undersea aliens around. Still, the best bits aren’t the action, but rather the several emotional confrontations with Jinguji.

There is a bit of oddness to the structure of the film. The first act is played as a mystery, with unknown attackers and secret stalkers. It’s great stuff, but it doesn’t go anywhere. Instead of the characters solving the mysteries, we get an info dump about Mu and their plans, and the film switches gears to a lost worlds adventure sci-fi flick. While I enjoy it as it is, for the story, it would have made more sense to cut most of that and move the info dump near the beginning, eliminating the detective, and changing the photographer into an aid to the admiral. Would that have made a better film? I can’t say, but it would have followed story construction better. My guess is the opening is the result of an earlier draft, and the tight production schedule didn’t allow for a rewrite of that section when the film went it a different direction.

Atragon tends to be thought of as either one of Honda’s best films, or one of his worst, depending on what the viewer is looking for. Those looking for meaningless monster mayhem (a majority of American daikaiju fans) are disappointed that Manda plays a small role and that it isn’t all action and city stomping. Those who like their science fiction with a bit more meat are fans. I place it high on his filmography. The theme works, and the characters are well developed. And unlike many Toho films, the overacting is kept to a minimum, except by an evil priest calling to the Mu god, and priests often overact in the real world. All the lost world stuff is great, with the Mu inhabitants dancing and singing to Ifukube’s fantastic score. And when we do get to the action, it’s quite good.

I’ve only seen the Japanese language version. There are two dubs, one done by AIP/Titra in the US and the other made by Toho in Hong Kong. The first is much harder to find now, and is generally taken as superior, though that may be simply because it’s rare. I suspect (and have been told) that in both cases, Atragon loses its points for good acting.

The submarine Atragon would return in Godzilla: Final Wars (2004) where it was used to fight monsters.

Foreign Language, Giant Monsters, Reviews, Science Fiction Tagged with: Three Reels

Mister Magoo’s Christmas Carol (1962)

Oct 091962

Near-sighted Mister Magoo (Jim Backus) arrives late at the theater, but they’ve held the show for him since he is the star. It’s a musical production of A Christmas Carol, and Magoo is Scrooge. Once Dickens’s story begins, it’s the old tale we know so well, told relatively straight. 53 min.

Mister Magoo’s shtick, of bumping into things and confusing lamps with people, was pretty entertaining when I was five. For anyone past that age, it works once or twice, and then gets very old. For good or ill, that isn’t a problem for Mister Magoo’s Christmas Carol, a faithful, though abridged retelling (with the addition of Broadway-style tunes), of the classic story. Except for a brief framing device, and some minor confusion at the end, Magoo is neither blind nor in denial. He’s Scrooge, plain and simple. Nothing is altered to make the story more fitting for the Magoo character.

One of many, many, many (did I mention “many”?) animated versions of A Christmas Carol, Mister Magoo’s version stands out as emotionally effective, and actually summons the tone of Dickens’s written work. Not something you can say of The Flintstones Christmas Carol. It also benefits from the voice talents of Jim Backus (Gilligan’s Island), backed by Morey Amsterdam (The Dick Van Dyke Show), Jack Cassidy (best known for his work on Broadway), and Paul Frees (who could be heard in almost every animated film for thirty years).

Show tunes have rarely been a boon to A Christmas Carol, with 2004’s A Christmas Carol: The Musical being a prime example of why Ebenezer Scrooge should swear off singing and dancing. But this time songwriters were hired who had worthwhile credentials. Jule Styne had a string of hits, including Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend, Just In Time, The Party’s Over, and Let Me Entertain You. In 1964, Styne’s and lyricist Bob Merrill’s songs for Funny Girl won awards and gave Barbra Streisand one of her standards, People. The two should have been able to cook up something interesting for a TV special. But they didn’t. The songs aren’t bad, just forgettable. They are time-fillers. I don’t remember them now after just watching this special, any more than I could hum them thirty plus years ago after seeing Mister Magoo’s Christmas Carol for the first time.

Of the many short versions of A Christmas Carol, Mister Magoo’s is better than average. If you aren’t picky, it will do.

Other short takes on Dickens’s story reviewed on Foster on Film: Mickey’s Christmas Carol, Beavis and Butt-Head: Huh-Huh-Humbug!, and Bah Humduck!: A Looney Tunes Christmas.

Christmas Shorts, Christmas Shorts, Reviews Tagged with: Two & 1/2 Reels

The Manster (1962)

Oct 081962

American journalist Larry Stanford (Peter Dyneley), on assignment in Tokyo, is given an experimental injection by obsessed, amoral scientist Dr. Robert Suzuki (Tetsu Nakamura). The drug brings out Standford’s baser instincts, and he abandons his wife (Jane Hylton) and takes to excessive drinking and sleeping with local prostitutes that Suzuki supplies. Suzuki sends his mistress (Terri Zimmern) to Stanford as a new plaything, in order to keep tabs on him and control him. Eventually, Standford starts to change physically, growing a second head.

I first saw The Manster (with the title of The Two-Headed Monster) around 30 years ago and found it a strange, edgy, enjoyable film. Now, with my childhood a distant memory, I’ve had a chance to see it again, and find it a strange, edgy, enjoyable film.

It’s an American-Japanese co-production that has a lot of Caucasians hanging out in Tokyo. If I used this as a guide to the Far East, I’d have to assume that the population is split equally between English-speaking white guys, and Asians, most of whom speak English most of the time. But it is best not to read any grand social or political messages into The Manster as it will only cause confusion. Critics have claimed it is racist because the good guys are Caucasian, as are most of those in power, while the Japanese are either subservient or an evil scientist. That reading requires the viewer to like the Americans, which is beyond me. Stanford is unpleasant before he starts to change into a monster, and his wife gives new meaning to the term “doormat.” She also has the proper mix of shrill and empty ’50s house frau to drive any man to drink. The only sympathetic character is Tara, Suzuki’s mistress/assistant. Her life has been horrible and she stays with Suzuki only to keep out of some kind of brothel slavery. If there is a racial message here, it’s “avoid annoying occidentals and run away with a hot, pleasant, oriental girl before it’s too late.”

Japan is used less as an actual place, and more as a faraway land of mystery, much as Pacific islands were used in ’40s adventure films. It is filled with beautiful landscapes (there’s a volcano within sight of Toyko), lovely women in exotic costumes, and strange men with unknowable motivations.

The Manster starts with a scene no twelve-year-old boy will ever forget: beautiful Japanese girls moving slowly in a misty never-never land of communal baths. The only skin shown is on backs and arms, but it’s still quite sexy. Unfortunately, they all get slaughtered by an ape-like monster, but this is a monster movie, so what did you expect? Dr. Suzuki quickly kills off that failed experiment, and as a man who never learns from his mistakes, injects newspaperman Larry Stanford to see what will happen. I was betting it would turn him into an ape-like monster; I have no idea what Suzuki was expecting. Stanford, who should have given his body to science years ago as his brain is of little use, is a wretched reporter. He visits the mad scientist because he’s looking for a story, but he has no idea what kind of story. I suspect he’d already gone door-to-door asking people if they happen to have a story he could borrow before he found the not-so-good doctor.

Once that first monster exits the mortal coil, it takes a while for this monster movie to get back to a monster, but what we get instead is as interesting. Standford starts off having a wild time and quickly ends up as Ray Milland in The Lost Weekend (the comparison is hard to ignore as Milland was one half of a two-headed creature ten years later in The Thing with Two Heads).

There are a lot of questions that a viewer shouldn’t ask while watching The Manster. Most involve character motivation, but others include: If your body were to split apart, why would your clothing stay in one piece? Why does a second head look like a coconut? What kind of training does the Tokyo police have and does it involve learning to run around on the sides of mountains with no plan or thought?

While the makeup artists aren’t up to the task of making a convincing two headed monster, the obvious fake nature of the creature is less of a problem then the horrible acting from some of the supporting players, particularly Jane Hylton, who appears to be reading her lines from cue cards.

The Manster is a dark, erotic film with some memorable moments. It is jam-packed with despair and corruption. With a few extra dollars, a bit of recasting, and a changed ending, it could be a great monster movie. Luckily, this is a film where the good stays with you and the mistakes are easily forgotten.

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Hand of Death (1962)

Oct 081962

Alex Marsh (John Agar), a scientist working on a nerve/hypno gas combination, accidentally exposes himself to his experiments and finds that anyone he touches dies. As he desperately works on an antidote, he begins to mutate, making it harder and harder for him to communicate, which makes things even worse for him when the police come looking.

When will these scientists learn not to make dangerous chemicals out in the middle of nowhere without any kind of decent containment? And when will our government learn not to have its secret, powerful, and deadly military weapons devised by one guy and his minimum wage assistant far away from government scrutiny? Hey, wait a second. I think the government already knows that last one. Well, not in this movie.

A film remarkable only in how much like other films it is, Hand of Death is run-of-the-mill mad scientist fare. It is a perfect film to use as an example of lesser, horror, drive-in flicks of the time.

For a low-low-budget, early 1960s film, nothing is terribly wrong. The sets are few and claustrophobic and the camera tends to stick to a single side in each room (almost as if they were using cheap, three-walled sets and…), but there are plenty of similar films from the time that look worse, with even smaller sets and a more static camera. The sound is muffled and crackles, but that is likely a problem with the print I saw, not the original picture. However, I don’t think a better print exists, at least for public display.

The actors go through their paces with clichéd expressions and movements to match the clichéd lines (Paula Raymond is particularly at fault as the expression she uses to telegraph “fear” is the same used by a hundred other actresses in a hundred other films.) However, I’ve recently watched a string of modern, direct-to-video, horror releases, and Agar, Raymond, and supporting player Roy Gordon are significant improvements over their modern counterparts. While they do nothing original, and come off as cardboard cutouts, they never make me feel embarrassed for the filmmaking profession.

The reason to skip Hand of Death isn’t that it is particularly bad, but that it has nothing to offer. There’s nothing special, nothing interesting, nothing engaging, and nothing entertaining. The biggest compliment I can give it is: I’ve seen worse. Well, I suggest you only see better.

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