The Big Cube

My father in-law was channel surfing and accidentally found this movie playing on TV last night. I heard some of the lines and the weird 60's style music from another room and thought what the heck they were watching. It intrigued me enough to walk over to see what it was and my in-laws commented that it looked like a 'B' movie. At a glance, I thought the acting was really bad. But then I took a closer look at one of the actors and realized that it was Lana Turner! I couldn't believe my eyes. I noticed immediately how much older she looked. I love how every time the camera was on her face she looked mysteriously out of focus. Kind of like what they did with Sybil Shepard in Moonlighting. The lines were really awful and painful to hear but we all found ourselves compelled to keep watching it. Even my husband woke up from a snooze on the couch and started watching it. The daughter, Lisa sounded out of place with some French-like accent. The special psychedelic effects were really bad. I felt almost embarrassed for Ms Turner. I was also surprised there was nudity in this film.

She shouldn't have done this movie. She looked really out of place as if she was still playing one of her roles in her older movies like Imitation of Life. Don't get me wrong, I loved Imitation of Life. That was a really wonderful movie. She was really great in it and her acting was right for that time. But this movie was not right for her type of acting. It looked really out of place.

Also, the guy who played Johnny looked really familiar until I realized that it was 'Bernardo' from West Side Story! He seemed to play this sleazy character all too well.

I do have to say that it was entertaining. But if you're a real big fan of Lana Turner, save yourself the agony if you want to remember her as she was in her heyday. Cheers!

From Warner Brothers' Cult Camp Classics line, in the Women in Peril set, along with the excellent (and not at all campy) women in prison classic Caged and the truly (and hilariously) awful Trog. This is the least worth watching film in that set. I loved the ultra-stereotypical late '60s setting, and the first half hour is a bunch of fun with hippies tripping their balls off. This is kind of a Reefer Madness for LSD. Except there's more of a plot and a couple of famous actors. George Chakiris, Oscar winner for West Side Story eight years earlier, is a doctor who has been doing experiments with the drug. He's trying to marry a young girl who stands to inherit a fortune. Her mother is Lana Turner, and Chakiris plans to drug her with LSD until she goes insane. The latter two thirds or so of the movie are pretty much a bore. Turner's acid trips start off amusing enough, but grow old pretty quick. Unlike Reefer Madness, this was a major studio production (Warner Brothers itself). The psychedelic music is pretty good, if generic music of that type. Chakiris is actually a pretty good villain.

This was made during an age when old-time Hollywood stars were destroying themselves in film and it would have been better if many had just retired instead of making god-awful films like Joan Crawford, Jennifer Jones and Lana Turner did late in their careers. BUT, these bad films are enjoyable, as they are so bad you can't help but enjoy them for their camp value.

The film begins with Turner marrying a rich guy (Dan O'Herlihy). However she tries, Turner is not able to get the man's daughter (Karin Mossberg--who was an odd choice to play the daughter, as her command of English seemed rather poor) to accept her. However, Turner doesn't realize just how deep the step-daughter's resentment of her is. When the father dies in a boating accident and Turner is left in charge, Mossberg and her freaky boyfriend (George Chakiris) decide to drive the woman crazy--that way they can get their hands on all that money. So, combining LSD and recordings weird suggestions, they drive her towards the deep end. What happens next (other than lots of crazy psychedelics), you'll have to see for yourself. Just be prepared--it's embarrassing and amazingly silly.

While there is some shock value (with all the boobies scattered throughout the film), the writing is just awful. Characters behave in insanely inconsistent ways and the ending is just dumb (you've GOT to see the play--it's amazingly dopey). A bad film but a strangely enjoyable one.

Man, what a mess.

Yes, another example of old-line Hollywood attempting to deal with the pop culture youthquake of the late 1960's, and failing miserably. This thing lurches back and forth between a Douglas Sirk like melodrama and an LSD exploitation film. Jarring changes in pacing and tone abound. Even the accompanying background score shifts disturbingly from string-drenched light orchestral goop to fuzz-laden rock and roll freak-out.

Somehow I get the feeling that both Russ Meyer and Roger Ebert yanked a lot out of this film for their own delirious happening, "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls," released a couple years later. Fans of that craziness should be right at home here.

Lana Turner overacts appropriately here, and I am not going to blame any of the actors here (except for Mossberg -- this was her last film credit, probably appropriately), but I will take the writer, director, and the entire crew to task for their dubious contributions.

The fact that this film was actually produced in Mexico with a Mexican crew (though all American actors and shot in English) tells you a lot of the background. The set design has the over-the-top qualities of Mexican production design has in spades. The homes of the wealthy main characters are drenched in overdone luxurious furnishings. The freaky psychedelic club overflows with more colored lights and oil projection lamps than Bill Graham's storage room. The fashions worn are of the most extreme examples available at that time. These were clothes that might actually be worn by real people you might see on the street (maybe if you lived in Beverly Hills) but, just barely.

The Swedish accent of lead actress Karin Mossberg also throws another off-kilter element into the highly unbelievable proceedings. Explained away by the fact that she's been in boarding school in Switzerland for years, the fact that she looks nothing like the actor portraying her father is another example of the ongoing cognitive dissonance that makes this film a laugh riot. (I would also like to point out the ironic fact, that she did not recognize LSD laced into a sugar cube when exposed to it, due to the fact that she had been sheltered all these years in a boarding school in Switzerland. This conveniently ignores the historical fact that LSD was discovered by Dr. Albert Hoffman in a laboratory...wait for it....wait for it....in Switzerland).

To sum up, if you are ready for a ride into high camp, a film that screams to even the most submissive viewer, "Don't take me seriously," then you will be in a heaven of arranged artificiality. If you liked "The Trip," or "Skidoo" or "Beyond The Valley of the Dolls," and can appreciate all of them on the level of laughing at the fact that anyone could possibly take this kind of foolishness seriously, then you will have a riot of a time with this film.

Bad movie lovers rejoice. Craptastic mess from that unfortunate time period when the studios were trying to connect with a youth audience that just wasn't there. Poor Lana, looking dreadfully gaunt, and her terrible two tone hair are stuck in this tripe with nowhere to hide. Her costarring with Dan O'Herlihy reminds the viewer that they were in Imitation of Life together and makes you wonder why you're not watching that instead! The rest of the acting is of the seriously wooden variety and the direction inept. Trash but if you are in the mood for something to make fun of or a Lana completist than give it a chance but one view will be more than enough.