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What a joy! What a perversely perfect two hours of "entertainment"!!! It happened that I requested this cinematic phantasmagoria when visiting a friend the other evening, and now it's going to be broadcast. Because it was rarely on TV when I was a kid, it became a semi-holy grail for me as a Marx Brothers fan, since it was cited again and again in properly desultory fashion in books about the team as an unsatisfactory end. It was the last feature film the Marxes did together,and given the blithering idiocy and boneheaded pseudo-dramatics of the picture overall, it's a wonder any one of the cast members' careers survived. It was also the final movie of Ronald Colman, who comes off suave, sympathetic and dignified, if incredibly boring. The same can be said of Vinnie Price, except that his arguments make more sense than Colman's. Price is the Devil, "Mr. Scratch" (a name lifted from DEVIL & DANIEL WEBSTER), arguing that Mankind is a write-off and should be allowed to destroy itself by the "Super-H-bomb" (presumably a cousin to the Q-Bomb in MOUSE THAT ROARED). Colman is the voice of "Yes, but--" -- pointing out the nicey-nice things an occasional human being has done for the species.

In his third feature, Irwin Allen completes his magnificent "trilogy" of the History of Everything. A P.R. hack whose great talent was promotion rather than production, Allen began his career with THE SEA AROUND US, which bizarrely won an Oscar and so appalled author Rachel Carson so much she never allowed any other book to be adapted by Hollywood. Allen followed this by the equally dumb THE ANIMAL WORLD, a substandard and witless�riff on the Disney sort of documentaries whose only redeeming sequence was the Harryhausen/O'Brian dinosaur segment.

The misbegotten set-up is a swipe from the marvelous fantasy A QUESTION OF LIFE & DEATH from the Archers, with its stylized, fog-bound "Heaven," where Cedric Hardwicke presides from an over-sized judge's bench which appears to be a leftover from a William Cameron Menzies nightmare. A motley crowd of heavenly extras-- which apparently includes Fu Manchu-- sit on a semi-circle trying not to choke from the overwhelming dry-ice fog, listening to Price and Colman talk-- and talk--- and talk some more. Charles Bennett's "adaptation" of Henrik van Loon's chatty and long-forgotten history book is so verbose, it's akin to the nonsensical soliloquies given to John Carradine in WIZARD OF MARS or HALF-HUMAN. I'd forgotten just how much like a soporific college lecture this extravaganza was. Okay, if you HAVE to listen to someone talk, it's wonderful that those voices are the mellifluous Colman and Price. But man, they just never shut up.

As jaw-droppingly pedantic as their verbal tennis match is, the multiple historical vignettes are even more delicious. The "comedic" bits are utterly drained of humor and pacing; the "dramatic" bits are so potted and abbreviated, they offer all the emotional depth of a ten-second bit from a coming attractions trailer, and are often more perversely funny than the intentional humor: Virginia Mayo's Cleopatra scenes, for instance, where she plays the Queen of the Nile as a simpering Valley Girl.

Then there's the stock footage, a feast for the eyes: bits from ELIZABETH AND ESSEX, CRIMSON PIRATE, LAND OF THE PHARAOHS, and any other Warners picture Allen could lay his paws upon, as long as it was Technicolor. Rather than add production value, this material shows how crummy and cheap the rest of the movie is in comparison, with its cramped sets, painted "stone" walls straight out of BRIDE OF THE MONSTER, and a dearth of extras.

Screenwriter Charles Bennett knew full well Allen was a tasteless and untalented schmuck, and apparently continued his professional relationship with him for several years simply for the money. The result here, one can only hope, represents more Allen than Bennett, who certainly has some good scripts in his resume. Given the crappy screenplay and Allen as "director," it's no wonder the performance levels vary so wildly. Agnes Moorhead's turn as Queen Elizabeth is the epitome of camp: a shrieking, over-the-top barnstorming declamation, bouncing off the underplayed Cesar Romero (as a suave representative of the King of Spain) and a subdued Reginald Gardner as a middle-aged Shakespeare. The Napoleon vignette, with Dennis Hopper (reportedly wearing Brando's hand-me-down costume from DESIREE) opposite Marie Windsor's Josephine is interesting because the two performers actually appear to be acting in the same movie. Likewise Hedy Lamarr as Joan of Arc, who I happen to adore. Yes, she's too old for the role of the teen aged Maid of Orleans, but she's taking it seriously, and is given a role unique in her oeuvre. Her interaction with inquisitor Henry Daniell actually manages some brief moments of drama. Daniell, with only about four lines of dialog, manages to wrest both sympathy and sternness from the script.

My friend Kathryn pointed out rightly that the attitude of the back-and-forth fate-of-mankind arguments is very, very 1950s. It's amazing how many ways Bennett (and Irwin Allen, let's not forget the talented Master of Disaster) can say exactly the same thing in so many ways. Over, and over. And over.

It is fascinating for its collection of genre-related performers: Price, certainly, but also Lorre, Carradine, Hardwicke, Daniell, Rossitto (who waddles through Lorre's Nero/orgy segment). It's also fascinating as a cinematic train wreck not topped until the likes of CASINO ROYALE and SKIDDO, where every directorial and artistic choice is mind-bogglingly cheap, wrong and astounding. As for the three Marx Brothers-- god, what a waste. You actually get all three of these guys, one last time for posterity, and you put them in separate segments? Damn you, Irwin Allen.

Highly recommended!

This was actually the first time George Barrow himself worked for Herman Cohen. The first time out, KONGA, Barrows sent his ape suit over to London. When it returned the worse for wear, he decided he'd never do it again.

BLACK ZOO was shot in Hollywood. For producer Cohen to have arranged for a foreign actor to come to Hollywood and take a job that could have been done by any number if US actors must've been quite an argument to both SAG and the Imigration Department. "Sirs, you must understand, my script calls for the zoo keeper to be the maddest, most outlandish, least subtle character ever to grace the movie screen. We just don't have an actor anywhere in the country who can do this. There is no one n the world who can out-mug Mr. Gough. I know, I've used him twice, and every time he gets bigger and badder."

Fascnating and compelling, THE DEATH OF POE not only gives the author his due and creates a remarkable evocation of its era, it echoes Poe's themes unobtrusively within its dramatic construct. The "sorrows of the lost Lenore" (the loss of his teenage wife) are apparent in Poe's subjective hallucinations; the duality of "William Wilson" is an influence in the scene noted above with Redfield and fellow Baltimorian George Stover; the panic and confusion of the protagonist in "Pit and the Pendulum" crops up in Poe's jail scene and his "missing days," and maybe I'm wrong, but I see a whiff of M. Valdemar in the last, near-comatose days of Poe in hospital. But the evocations are not blatant, they are suggestive.

The screenwriters know not to overload their actors with too much period dialogue. Like GANGS OF NEW YORK, there is enough to give the feel of period without making everyone sound like a walking cinematic cliché. Poe himself is almost taciturn on screen, though well-represented in voice-over: a good choice, since the sparseness of dialogue makes a leading character more intriguing.

Costumes, sets and photography are superb, just what is needed. Additional material on the DVD, with appropriate new accompanying music by Jennifer Rouse, is uniformly excellent.