Three Films Make A Post: The Super-Beast Battle of the Century

The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958): If there’s any better way to delight one’s inner child than this classic Ray Harryhausen effects spectacular directed by dependable Nathan Juran, I don’t know it. There’s little not to enjoy about this lovely piece of Hollywood Arabian Nights fluff. Harryhausen’s effects are a joy (and would only get better in the future), while also showing the typical variety of his work; from here on out Harryhausen would seldom use one stop motion monster in more than two sequences when he could create another one, and my imagination thanks him for it. Apart from the effects (which are the star, obviously), this is an excellently paced, cracking 50s fantasy adventure with some choice scenery chewing by Torin Thatcher’s most excellent villain with a decent enough hero in Kerwin Mathews, and photography only a fool wouldn’t want to call colourful. Why, even Kathryn Grant’s Princess Parisa does things in the film, not something you’ll encounter often in this time and genre.

Against All Odds (1984): In theory, Taylor Hackford’s neo noir is a remake of Jacques Tourneur’s brilliant Out of the Past, but you wouldn’t really know watching it. Which is all for the better (the older film does still exist after all), for Hackford certainly is not Tourneur. While there’s nothing wrong with his direction – he’s actually perfectly decent in suspense sequences - he does have a tendency for fluffing things up into TV advertising style prettiness that never does anything as interesting as actually contrasting with the supposedly dark script. But then, the script does tend to make little sense - particular Rachel Ward’s Jessie (who never gets around to being an actual femme fatale) seems to act exclusively in service of going where the film wants her to be instead of where she has any kind of (even messed up) reason to be. There’s a superficial quality to the whole production that suggests a film going through certain surface motions of the noir but completely uninterested in the genre’s philosophy. Jeff Bridges and James Woods are fine, as far as the lack of substance lets them, but then, when aren’t they?


Band Aid (2017): Zoe Lister-Jones’s comedy about a permanently squabbling and arguing couple (Lister-Jones herself and Adam Pally) that decide to turn their fights into songs is a very nice surprise. While there are a handful of moments that seem to come directly out of the quirky indie comedy handbook, much of the film delights by being genuinely sweet, thoughtful and funny, only to in the final act turn to a more serious tone. That switch works out as well as it does because Lister-Jones first took her time to create characters and a world a viewer can care for and believe in, and only after that really aims for more obvious depths without ever betraying what was so enjoyable about the film before. Thanks to this careful approach, the film also manages to go from the specificity of the characters’ lives to the more abstract things the writer/director has to say about being a woman in contemporary US society, the life of couples and the emotional strain following a miscarriage. Which is pretty fantastic for a quirky indie comedy.

Three Films Make A Post: "SEAGAL'S BEST FILM IN YEARS"

Moon Zero Two (1969): All western clichés ever in space. Production and costume design so gloriously space age pop art my space eyes nearly did a lunar burst. Old school (as in "kaiju cinema and Italian space opera") miniature work to feast one's eyes on. On paper, this 1969 return of Hammer to SF film sounds like exactly the thing I'd want to see, but in practice, it's another one of those films that see aged filmmakers desperately grabbing for a new youth market without actually thinking through what they're doing. The result is a film half-hearted, disinterested, and boring, as if the producers and director Roy Ward Baker had assembled a series of elements they deigned to be hip without any clue what to do with them or just how to turn them into anything but a drag.

Ángel negro aka Black Angel (2000): Jorge Olguín's giallo-influenced slasher gets touted as Chile's first horror movie, which sounds rather improbable but might still be true. It's a student production and consequently suffers from the typical indie horror problems of dubious acting in the minor roles, scenes that start too early and end too late and the resulting glacial pace. However, while it's difficult to really recommend the film because of these problems, it does have some decent ideas, a general air of competence, and even two or three moody scenes, so I'm not averse to taking a look at Olguín's later movies. Talent enough for progression is there.

Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger (1977): I've always had the impression that this is one of the lesser loved Harryhausen/Schneer mythological, but really, what's not to like except for Patrick Wayne's line delivery? After all, this is a movie where the Second Doctor leads Sinbad to Hyperborea so they can cure a prince from being a baboon while an evil sorceress chews scenery and builds a minotaur robot driven barque, while Ray Harryhausen provides the proper sense of wonder via a giant walrus, insect eyed demons, a troglodyte (with a horn like a demon out of a Nigerian Christian horror movie!) versus giant sabre-toothed tiger fight and other delights to warm the hearts of everyone who carries such a device in their breast. I also like how Sam Wanamaker's direction turns out to be slightly more dynamic than is typical of these films. All in all, this one's still a delight.

Technorati-Markierungen: british movies,chilean movies,sf,horror,slasher,fantasy,adventure,in short,roy ward baker,jorge olguín,sam wanamaker,ray harryhausen,patrick wayne,jane seymour,patrick troughton,margaret whitting

Goodbye Ray Harryhausen

When the news of what for many of us was clearly more than just the master of stop motion animation broke, the reaction on the Internet and particularly on Twitter once again made clear how important Harryhausen and his work were for so many people. Not just the expected movie guys, but comics artists, writers and musicians shared their love for the man's work, driving again home that those of us interested in the worlds of imagination live in a house Ray helped build, a place of the imagination that connects many people in all their differences.

For me, as for many of us geeks, nerds and mutants, Harryhausen was a creator of childhood memories right next to the smile of my parents, the first book I read hidden under the covers of my bed, and that perfect moment of awe when I discovered Lovecraft for the first time. Harryhausen's films (and they were so often clearly his films), particularly the mythologicals, added a sense of wonder not just to the screen but to life which for me never had much to do with "escapism" but helped me realize that, however much crap life throws at you, there's also imagination, and love, and kindness; call it teaching me truth, call it optimism. For that, thank you Ray.

 

(If you want to read the handful of pieces about movies with Harryhausen's involvement I did on here, please follow this useful link. Unfortunately, they don't concern my very favourite part of Harryhausen's body of work, the mythologicals, for I've still not figured out how to write about movies this close to my heart.)

 

Technorati-Markierungen: american movies,ray harryhausen

In short: The Valley of Gwangi (1969)

Sometimes, it's not as easy to love the films built around the stop motion effects glories of Ray Harryhausen as I would wish for.

Case in point is The Valley of Gwangi that embodies the general weaknesses of the Charles Schneer productions (I have the impression the director of a given film didn't have much of a say in anything here, so I'll pretend Jim O'Connolly didn't exist, something his direction makes easy enough) made to showcase Harryhausen's special effects particularly well without always having the charm to make up for it. Hint: these weaknesses are mostly caused by the films' stories being built around the effects, not the effects built for the story, a problem that's much less visible in the mythological fantasy pieces of Schneer/Harryhausen which actually lends themselves to such an approach.

Gwangi's main problem is that it starts out by presenting the audience with truly atrocious human drama, featuring chauvinist pig and all-around asshole James Franciscus, racist stereotype and liar Gustavo Rojo, paternalistic douche Richard Carlson, amoral scientist Laurence Naismith, not as interesting as one would wish her to be Gila Golan and a "Mexican" boy without self-preservation instincts. These horrible personages go through various plot contortions that will some day lead them into the titular valley of Gwangi where they will kidnap a helpless Tyrannosaur for fame and money.

Obviously, it takes way too much time until the film gets to the good stuff, especially when you keep in mind how badly developed and vile the characters are, how random each of their decisions and how jumpy their emotions (why, you could think they feel exactly like the plot needs them to feel at any given moment). These are people in whose presence one wants to spend as little time as possible, particularly when one could watch cowboys fight dinosaurs and hope the main characters get eaten. I don't think I even have to mention the painful romance plot between Franciscus and Golan and the cheap moralizing, nor that I'd rather like to see a sequel to the film that tells me how many years in jail the protagonists spend afterwards (of course, it's not the protagonists' fault the T-Rex goes on the mandatory rampage at the film's finale, it's the evil brown peoples' fault; you can't help but be embarrassed by this crap).

This combination of bad, bad, horrible romance, racism, and boring yet vile characters is so strong in Valley of Gwangi's case even the beautiful and numerous dinosaurs of the film's second half make it difficult to overlook these flaws. Which is what happens when there's more flaw than film, really, and when a film about cowboys fighting dinosaurs rather wastes its time trying to convince the audience that James Franciscus is a charming rogue.

Technorati-Markierungen: in short,american movies,jim o'connolly,ray harryhausen,sf,western

First Men In The Moon (1964)

The crew of the first moon landing by an UN expedition made up of British, Soviet and American astronauts stumbles onto a little British flag and a declaration of possession of the moon for Queen Victoria made out in 1899.

Hasty research on Earth leads to Arnold Bedford (Edward Judd). Bedford tells the UN the story of his adventure of a lifetime. As a hopeless playwright (which is the only kind of playwright someone can be who never actually writes a play), and well on his way to become a con-man of the sort who has no problems implicating his own fiancée, American Kate Callendar (Martha Hyer), in illegal affairs, Bedford learned that his neighbour Joseph Cavor (Lionel Jeffries) had invented a curious paste with the ability to shield objects from the influence of gravity.

Bedford lied himself into Cavor's trust because he, quite unlike the mad scientist, saw many useful and lucrative applications for the stuff. What Cavor really wanted with his paste was use it to fly to the moon. Bedford, only half a prick, let himself be swayed by Cavor's excitement and agreed to accompany the scientist.

Thanks to Bedford's cons and an accident, Kate also stumbled into the moon capsule when it was about to start, and they all ended up on the moon where trouble with the local population, the Selenites, arose.

When first I realized First Men in the Moon's existence a few months ago, I was quite confused why I had never heard about the movie before, seeing as it was directed by the dependable Nathan Juran, co-written by Nigel Kneale, based on an H.G. Wells novel (if not one of his best, if you ask me) and had special effects by Ray Harryhausen. Having now watched it, I'm not so confused anymore - there may have been a bunch of greats involved, but none of them brought anything even close to their best efforts to the film.

Juran's direction is bland, Kneale's script is - outside of the framing narrative that at least delights with its international moon expedition - devoid of the expected depth and breadth of ideas and never develops any element of the story that could be interesting any further than strictly necessary to let the film slowly lumber on, and the film's narrative is close enough to Wells's original to afford Harryhausen little opportunity to actually do what he does best in the effects area - even most of the Selenites are crappy costumes rather than stop motion creations.

Then there's the fact that the film's first half consists of scene after scene of unfunny comedy that. Does. Not. Stop. It's also less than pleasant how little the movie seems to realize that Bedford is a total tosser and not the charming rogue it thinks he is, so if you hope for some sort of payback for him for all the immoral, illegal, and just really assholish stuff he does, or at least some sort of character development away from being what he starts out as, you will be sorely disappointed. And I don't know why Kate is even in the movie, for she sure as hell is of no import to anything that goes on. Not even her kidnapping by the Selenites is actually important to the plot, making her even less than the usual helpless female stereotype.

It's not all bad though. Once we finally, finally, leave Earth, the "comedy" slowly but surely recedes into the background, and the film turns into your typical fantastic voyage movie with all the basic entertainment value that genre carries in its genes. You'd really need to put a lot of effort into ruining scenes of people in diving suits meeting aliens on the moon, and while nobody involved seems to have had a very good week creatively, they're still experienced professionals enough to not ruin what's left of the film.

First Men also has a secret weapon in form of John Blezard's art direction that shows an eye for the beauties and charms of proto-steampunk-ish devices, giant multi-coloured tubes and curious alien (well, Selenite) cave systems. It's an enthusiastic and wonderful effort in a film that is mostly just coasting on genre standards, and is for me what made First Men In The Moon worth watching beyond my completist impulses and the basic decentness of every cinematic fantastic voyage.

Technorati-Markierungen: british movies,reviews,sf,comedy,nathan juran,edward judd,martha hyer,lionel jeffries,ray harryhausen,nigel kneale

Three Films Make A Post: MONSTER MACHINE VS. HELPLESS BEAUTY!

Earth vs. The Flying Saucers (1956): Despite its climax in a pretty awesome battle for and semi-destruction of Washington (effects by the glorious Ray Harryhausen, of course), and its status as a demi-classic I've never been that fond of Fred F. "The Giant Claw will forever overshadow all those decent movies I made" Sears's Earth vs. the Flying Saucers. I think it's actually some of the film's virtues that drag its entertainment value down for me. The comparative lack of nonsense science (apart from a bit of "that's not how time works, guys!"), the avoidance of the usual horrifying romance by letting hero Hugh Marlowe and heroine Joan Taylor already be married, and other elements like them do look good on paper but the film doesn't offer much that's interesting or entertaining in their stead before it's time to destroy Washington DC. Sure, there's the usual "the aliens are communists" subtext, but that's neither interesting nor commendable - and worked better in much crazier films.

The Haunted Sea (1997): The only remarkable things about this decidedly boring horror movie are a) the curious fact it needed two directors b) its idea that cursed Aztec gold can turn a man into a were-snakeosaurus c) the clear enthusiasm with which its early scenes look for pretences for Krista Allen to take her shirt off, and d) the appearances of James Brolin and Joanna Pacula who are slumming even below their usual slumming standards. The rest is an especially uninteresting case of corridor horror that can't even be saved from the tedium and stupidity of its plot by those scenes of Krista Allen taking her shirt off.

The Haunter of the Dark (2011): One of the most pleasant aspects of keeping track of Lovecraft fandom is that one will again and again stumble upon decidedly awe-inspiring pieces of fan-driven art like this computer animated short movie adaptation of Lovecraft's final story (freely available to watch here). There's so much obvious love and passion oozing out of every minute of the film it seems somewhat churlish to criticize it for anything; helpfully, there really isn't much about the short to criticize. The animation gets a bit rough from time to time, and not every voice actor is doing quite as good a job as Richard Grove does as Robert Blake, but that's the sort of minor complaint a film like this transcends by doing so much right.

Technorati-Markierungen: in short,american movies,horror,sf,fred f. sears,ray harryhausen,joanna pacula,krista allen,biggstrek,richard grove,lovecraft,animation

In short: 20 Million Miles To Earth (1957)

A US rocket that has secretly visited Venus crashes down in the ocean near a small fishing village in Sicily. Courageous fishermen manage to rescue two members of the ship's crew from their sinking rocket - a scientist who will die soon enough of the after-effects of some peculiar quality of Venus's atmosphere, and the square-jawed Colonel Calder (William Hopper). Also on board was a container carrying the egg of one of the native reptile monkeys of Venus. Said container is washed ashore and found by fisher boy Pepe (Bart Braverman). Pepe sells the egg off to a zoologist (Frank Puglia) who is visiting the area, to be able to buy himself a nice cowboy hat. The scientist, Dr. Leonardo (Frank Puglia), is quite excited to have found a specimen that is unknown to science. He'll be getting even more excited when the reptile monkey hatches and grows with ridiculous speed.

While Leonardo is dreaming of the Nobel Price for zoology, Calder and the most diplomatic general ever encountered in a 50s monster movie (Thomas Browne Henry) start looking for their lost specimen. Alas, once they've gotten on the trail of Leonardo, the ever-growing reptile monkey has already escaped and is politely terrorizing the Italian countryside. And even after our heroes manage to recapture the poor thing with his greatest enemy - electricity - there might be another opportunity for it to grow, wrestle an elephant, and destroy the Coliseum later on.

If there's one thing typical of the films the great Ray Harryhausen made his stop motion effects for during the 50s, then it's the fact they aren't all that deserving of the quality effects Harryhausen could provide. For my tastes, 20 Million Miles To Earth is the point where this particular problem of Harryhausen's career stops.

While the film is of course decidedly silly in theory and practice, its director Nathan Juran (veteran of many a film - and soon TV show - containing large monsters) does manage some rather impressive feats. First and foremost, he keeps the film moving at a rather sprightly pace pretty atypical of 50s monster movies which all too often preferred scenes of square-jawed people talking mock science nonsense to scenes of Harryhausen monsters doing their thing; one suspects Juran to have had a clear idea of who was the actual star of the picture (hint: it's not square-jawed), and who was only there to support that star (hint: he's quite square-jawed).

20 Million Miles still contains a lot of the elements that can make 50s monster movies from the US a bit annoying, but most of them are reduced to a minimum: the snarly-voiced off-line narrator shuts up after the film's credits; library footage isn't used to lengthen the film's running time but only to enhance some of its action; the mandatory sickening "romance" is kept to the side-lines as much as possible (plus, the film contains that most rare of scenes in a 50s movie: the jerky hero and the bitchy heroine apologizing to each other for being jerks), and is not quite as sickening as usual; the cultural stereotypes are actually quite underplayed, too;  even the usual realistically war-mongering US military is trying to keep the creature alive for as long as possible. I wouldn't go so far as to call 20 Million Miles To Earth the beatnik version of a 50s monster movie (if we're honest, it's just a cheaper variation on motives of King Kong played as a 50s monster movie), but it sure does keep everything that can make its sub-genre problematic down to a minimum.

Technorati-Markierungen: american movies,in short,sf,horror,nathan juran,ray harryhausen,william hopper,joan taylor

In short: It Came From Beneath The Sea (1955)

Some mysterious creature kinda-sorts attacks the atomic submarine of Commander Pete "Pete" Mathews (Kenneth Tobey) nearly provoking an emotional reaction from the wooden-faced Navy man. Back home, scientists Professor Lesley Joyce (Faith Domergue) and her friend (who'd be gay in the remake) Dr. John Carter (Donald Curtis) are drafted to find out what exactly it was that attacked the submarine. After long and arduous scenes of science(!) it becomes clear that the US coastal regions may soon make the acquaintance of a rather large radioactive octopus or squid (the film uses both terms as if their meaning were interchangeable, of course) who has moved from the depths of the ocean to better places because its usual food can smell its radioactivity for miles.

At first, the authorities don't believe the scientists' findings, but once another ship is attacked by the squidtopus, it's red alert for the Navy. All the while, the tentacular sensation makes its way to beautiful San Francisco.

Like it is so often the case with 50s giant monster movies from the US, It Came From Beneath the Sea suffers from a bad case of "too much wooden doll romance, too little tentacle", with hours of the film's running time spent on the awful "romance" between Kenneth Tobey and Faith Domergue (with a possible love triangle situation that never becomes dramatically important and is therefore completely superfluous). Director Robert Gordon seems more interested if his hot piece of wood Ken Tobey and Faith Domergue will marry and have little half-wooden children than in Ray Harryhausen's GIANT RADIOACTIVE OCTOPUS (OR SQUID). Now, don't get me wrong, I do appreciate romance in my genre movies as much as the next guy, but 50s monster movies' idea of romance as "will the snarling square-jawed jerk subjugate the whimpering female" does not seem all that romantic to me.

To be fair to It Came, the film's script at least puts a little more effort into treating Domergue's character as a grown-up human being, and even lets a man give a little feminism speech on her behalf (surely, there's nothing at all patronizing about the film's decision to give that speech to a man while Domergue happily agrees with what he says), but then the film leaves it at lip service for Domergue's supposed independence and has the actress screeching whenever possible, never giving her anything to do that'll actually save the day, or at least a wooden man. Except for that one scene where she gets information by showing off her legs and flirting, of course; it's totally dignified. Totally.

Yet even when it isn't delighting its audience with "romance", It Came still has pacing problems. Scenes tend to go on too long as if this were a contemporary indie production, with many a shot that could have been left on the cutting room floor in favour of scenes where something actually  happens.

Which would probably turn It Came From Beneath The Sea into a satisfying movie, for whenever something does happen that concerns Harryhausen's giant monster, things suddenly turn interesting, even exciting. While Harryhausen had at this point not quite perfected his art (that would happen with 20 Million Miles to Earth, I think), the great man's sense of detail and the dynamism that makes his stop motion work so superior is already in place. It's just too bad his art is not standing in service of a movie that deserves it.

 

Technorati-Markierungen: american movies,giant monsters,in short,horror,sf,kenneth tobey,faith domergue,robert gordon

In short: Mysterious Island (1961)

This adaptation of Jules Verne's novel whose plot will hardly need any synopsis is - like many a movie featuring the great Ray Harryhausen's stop motion animation - a childhood favourite of mine, so any idea of objectivity goes right out the window. However, I don't think Cy Endfield's movie actually needs the nostalgia factor to deserve praise.

After all, this is a film that begins with a rousing balloon escape, turns into a Robinsonade (and the kind of self-conscious Robinsonade that mentions Defoe's Robinson Crusoe to boot), shows off some dangerous giant stop motion animals - a crabby crab, a rude flightless bird, some peeved bees and a grabby chambered nautilus -, sinks a pirate ship, meets Captain Nemo (Herbert Lom), destroys a sunken city, blows up a volcano, and even finds time to invent what should be a steampunk fashion staple in form of the shortest goatskin dress of the 19th century; all in just 110 minutes of running time, directed by Enfield with a sense of excitement and an enthusiasm for the adventurous incident you don't get to see every day.

Somehow, the film even finds time to be silently progressive: Neb Nugent (Dan Jackson), the black member of our group of heroes, may not have as much agency as one would wish for looking back from times when this sort of this has become important, but is still treated as an actual person whose opinions and emotions are respected by his companions without any condescension, something that was not par for the course in 1961; the English noble woman (Joan Greenwood) is much more practical than her position in life or (again, in an adventure movie in 1961) her gender would lead to expect; in general class, gender and race lines are permanently being overstepped by the characters without it elucidating any comment, with the unspoken subtext that rational beings will overcome such artificial divisions when they have been given the opportunity to. One might find the film's politics naively optimistic, but if we don't even allow ourselves to dream of the improvability of humanity in our SF adventure movies, we might as well all step in line and pray to our corporate overlords. And isn't it a fine irony that Mysterious Island was in fact financed by some of those very same corporate overlords? But I digress.

On the level of pure filmmaking, there's little to criticize about Mysterious Island: Harryhausen's effects are pretty much perfect; Endfield's direction tight in that effective way that has no room for showing off and keeps brilliant direction all too easily from being called brilliant; the script is imaginative and more complex than it has any need to be; Bernard Herrmann's score is rousing and playful in turns. If I needed to find fault with something, it's probably the acting of Michael Craig and Michael Callan, respectively the movie's square-jawed hero and the teenage heartthrob, but they're not that bad, really. The rest of the cast fills their archetypal roles admirably.

So yeah, Mysterious Island. Watch it. It's still awesome.

 

Technorati-Markierungen: american movies,british movies,in short,adventure,sf,cy endfield,michael craig,joan greenwood,dan jackson,michael callan,herbert lom,beth rogan,ray harryhausen