Captain Blood!

(Alex Raymond)

I don't think there has ever been a movie star with the allure and romance of Errol Flynn save perhaps for his predecessor Rudolph Valentino. He was dashing, handsome, and communicated a sense of devil-may-care that illuminated any room he walked into. 

Errol Flynn might well have been the greatest "movie star" ever. Of course, part of that fame is really the infamy of his personal life which is the very stuff of Hollywood legend. This movie is also the breakout for Olvia De Haviland, and she and Flynn had crazy chemistry on the big screen. Lionel Atwill plays a baddie in this jaunt, and I love Atwill in anything. 

This story from Rafael Sabatini's 1922 novel Captain Blood is a simple but tragic one. Peter Blood is a doctor who gets swept up in the political strife of his country when he's falsely accused of being a rebel against James I of England. His punishment is to be made a slave and sent to be sold as such. He is forced to serve as a slave for some time though his skills as a doctor give him elevated status. Nevertheless, when a Spanish warship is overtaken, it creates the opportunity for Blood to become a daring and dashing pirate with intentions of revenge on those who imprisoned him. This movie also sets up a clash between Flynn's Blood and Basil Rathbone's pirate Levasseur. It would prove to be the template for more such clashes. 

Captain Blood was Flynn's debut movie as a leading man in 1935, and a magnificent one it was. The character of Peter Blood as portrayed by Flynn is at once noble and selfish. Blood is a great vehicle for the viewer into the battle for freedom. He just wants to be left alone, but he is drawn into the war because of his noble ethics and finds no one in leadership possessing any ethics. He is what we'd call today radicalized by his imprisonment and harsh treatment. In our real world, the current savage conflict in the Gaza Strip will almost certainly have created lifelong enemies for the state of Israel. Certainly, villains exist and must be dealt with, but just as doubtless men are made enemies by what they see around them. Injustice is blind to a flag -- any flag. 

This is a must-see classic. More derring-do when The Sea Hawk docks later this week.    

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Dean Martin Is...Matt Helm!

I suspect one likes Dean Martin's Matt Helm movies or one hates them. These parodies of the spy genre function much like the Flint movies (more on those later this month), though with more cheese and lots more music. I've long wanted to gather these up for my collection but always found them too expensive or unavailable all together. But now I have them for a fair price and they were delightful in that hammy way only Dean Martin could deliver. There is not one moment in a Matt Helm movie in which one feels the hero is under threat. But even so, the movies do provide fun rides. 

Matt Helm was created by writer Donald Hamilton in 1960, and he continued to write new novels in the series for thirty years. The first was titled Death of a Citizen and it was adapted in the first of the Matt Helm movies from Columbia in 1966. 

That debut novel was blended with elements of the Las Vegas night club scene to make 1966's The Silencers, the debut movie. The first one had a big budget of nearly eight million and it's as smarmy as it's possible to be. The films play on the reputation that Martin had of being a drunk, always performing with a drink in his hand. He also, like most spies was supposed to be a dame magnet and with Martin's Helm, that aspect was elevated to absurd proportions. The first movie has a real Las Vegas feel to it, with Martin wandering around various night clubs looking for clues, clues which are usually supplied by some statuesque lady moments before she's killed. He drags around Stella Stevens with him because he thinks she might be in on the plot, though she does prove to be an innocent. She's so innocent that she often wanders off and just as often loses track of her clothes. Victor Buono is the master villain and he's fantastic as usual as the leader of "Big O" (No comment). Cy Charisse is around early as a former partner of Helm's. James Gregory makes the first of three appearances as Helm's boss at I.C.E. (Intelligence and Counter Espionage).

Murderers' Row brings Helm back to the big screen again in late 1966, adapting another novel by Hamilton of that title, a rare one which doesn't have the "The (fill-in-the-blank)"format. Martin uses his clout to give this one a boost when the musical group Dino, Desi, and Billy perform briefly at one point in the film. This time Karl Malden is the big villain and Ann-Margaret has the dizzy dame role who tumbles around with Helm throughout the story. She seems a bit too young for Martin in this one to be frank. The night club aroma is abandoned for a more youthful approach. Big O is using the threat of death ray to blackmail Washington D.C.  Of course, Matt saves the day. 

The Ambushers has a great poster but it's a bit of a bizarre movie. This 1967 film saw the money drying up and it shows as much of this movie takes place on remote and presumably cheaper locations.  This is the first movie not to showcase Helm's round bed that slips him into his pool-sized bath. Janice Rule is an agent and astronaut who has suffered a great trauma. She travels with Helm as they look for a stolen spacecraft, one which can only be operated by women. This film feels more like a regular movie, the glam having flaked off due to budgetary concerns. 

The Wrecking Crew from 1969 is the last Helm movie starring Martin and it's no wonder he stepped away. He really presented as tired in this one, despite being surrounded by the likes of Eke Sommer, Nancy Kwan, and Tina Louise. Despite the smallest budget yet (a third of the first movie) this one gets the old magic back a bit. Nigel Green is the mastermind this time and he's nicely cool and deadly. His scheme is to steal a train load of gold and crash the world economies. He does the first and it's up to Matt to forestall the latter. He gets help from a bumbling agent played by Sharon Tate, and she steals this movie. She's wonderful, adding some zest to the proceedings with her miscues. (This is the movie Margot Robbie is watching in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and sadly the last movie she made.) Dean Martin gets to beat up Chuck Norris in this one briefly as well. Bruce Lee was choreographing the fights as well. 

A fifth movie titled The Ravagers was apparently planned with Tate scheduled to return, but Martin was done. The first three movies advertise "The Slaygirls", the models Helm uses for his calendar work. They playmates and models from across the globe who have obvious assets which make these movies of their time for certain. These Matt Helm movies are delightful and dumb. They feed off the spy craze and at the same time point out the absurdities which came with the genre. Glad I finally got to see them all in wacky original order. 

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Fritz Lang's Die Nibelungen!

I have to get into a particular mood to enjoy a silent feature film. They require a tick more concentration than a talkie and in the case of Fritz Lang the story being told is a hefty one with big themes. It's rather the opposite of watching the latest superhero release today, which require more attention simply because they move so quickly. Silent films tend to have their own pace, and it's often a measured one. That's certainly the case with Die Nibelungen. The pace is so measured that it's actually two movies -- Die Nibelungen: Siegried and Die Nibelungen: Kreimhild's Revenge. 

The first film follows the hero Siegfried who we find living among a band of strange and withered men and his mentor Muse. There seems little love lost here, but Siegried is tasked with going to kill a dragon which he does almost immediately. then bathing in the dragon's blood which makes him invincible save for one spot, and then he's off to get treasure and a sword from the duplicitous Alberich who attempts to ambush the handsome hero. He also gets a little net that makes him invisible when he throws it on his head. He becomes a king and with his retinue goes to castle of King Gunther and asks for the hand of Kriemhild his sister. Gunther wants Siegfried's help in winning over the warrior woman Brunhilde to marry him and Siegfried agrees. The we get a double wedding. Things fall apart from there. Secrets are shared and revealed and before you know it, Gunther and Siegfried who have sworn blood oaths to one another find themselves on opposite sides. Hagen of Tronje is an ally of Gunther's and he's pegged as something of a visual stand-in for Wotan/Odin because he has one eye and wears a resplendent winged helmet. He takes steps to find Siegfried's only physical weakness. Suffice it to say that by the end of this long movie with seven Cantos or chapters we find Kriemhild vowing vengeance against Hagen. 

The second movie picks up the action immediately. Kriemhild is very much in the midst of mourning Siegried's death, and she still holds bitter animosity towards her brother and hatred for Hagen. Then she gets a message that the powerful King Attila would like her hand in marriage, and she sees a way to gain power enough to gain vengeance. Hagen is no fool and knows that he's about to become quite powerful, so he sends the riches Siegried had gained, and which now belong to Kriemhild to the bottom of the river. Nothing he does quenches Kriemhild's lust for revenge and when she decides to play a long game. She and Attila have a son and when the Nibelungs visit Attila she wants him to kill Hagen. He refuses due to ancient traditions of hospitality, but when Hagen for reasons I still don't quite understand kills his infant son, he's more than ready to help Kriemhild. They sic the Huns on the Nibelungs and what follows is a rousing series of battles and a siege which results in an epic fire, a fire which the director Lang really set and burned down the immense set. It was a spectacle used to advertise the film. 

I found the first movie fascinating in many ways. Siegfried is the very essence of many a hero, and this was not lost on the Nazis when they came to power relatively soon after the movies were completed. They praised his Aryan physique and wanted Lang to make movies for the Reich. Lang wisely said no and quickly moved to the United States to continue his career. As I said, Siegried is the very essence of a hero visually, but the movie makes him out to be insanely naive and it's hard to feel much sympathy for him since he never saw it coming despite abundant warning. He's rich, brash, and invulnerable and these traits make him foolish in the final estimation. In the second movie Kriemhild's grief is palpable and her unrelenting will to see her vengeance done is remarkable. She pleads for the murderer to be brought to justice but a system of loyalty, one which was violated to slay Siegfried, keeps that from happening. 

These movies (especially the first one) have those elements which possibly inspired Tolkien's Middle-Earth epics, and for that I was driven to check it out. I don't know if I can recommend nearly three hours of silent cinema to anyone, but if you have the time and curiosity, I'd say you'll be entertained. 

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Modesty Blaise - A Spy Spoof!

Almost everything I know about Modesty Blaise comes from this exceedingly fun but obviously flawed flicker. Made at the height of the high-camp spy craze of the 1960's this offbeat little outing gives us a Modesty who is impossibly astute and more concerned with fashion than felons. Both Monica Vitti in the titular role and Terence Stamp in the role of her partner "Willie" look fabulous, two gorgeous people filmed at the apex of their appearance. 

But endless costume changes and illogical humor cannot spare this movie. It fails because it doesn't make much sense and it fails to engage the viewer on even the most fundamental level in regard to its narrative. We learn early on that the happenings don't matter. We are here at this movie just to watch images splash across our eyes and if we can glean some hint of a plot from stitching those images together then bully for us. But the movie seems determined not to help. 

But if you give up on such things as suspense and intrigue, two elements of this kind of spy tale that usually are requisite then you can still have a good time with this movie. It's a lark, like the myriad Beatles movies of the era, it's not supposed to make sense really, but is merely movie parts which beguile us as they dash or saunter across the screen. 

I said I don't know much if anything about Modesty Blaise other than this movie, and I suspect for fans of Modesty Blaise, that means I don't know much of anything at all. 

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Tarzan's Revenge - 1938!

Tarzan's Revenge is another Sol Lesser production, and I have little recommend about this movie. It's got some fun side characters presented by professionals, but the leads are hopeless amateurs, and it shows time after time. Tarzan here is played by Glenn Morris an Olympic star with no other movie credits and who apparently left acting after this awful effort. He's got a body, but his charm is completely absent. 

His lady in this is Elanor Holm a swimming star who is left to carry the movie despite her inexperience and she trudges on but is not up to it I'm afraid. They muddle around in this one despite setting up a villain early in the flick, but who doesn't return until the last ten minutes or so. There is much bouncing through the trees, swimming in the rivers, and whatnot, but overall, this one is slow. The action when it does erupt at the end isn't half bad with a pretty good battle on a rope bridge, but when Tarzan invades the hidden castle it's like he's on the set of a Busby Berkley production or something and doesn't sell at all. The title doesn't seem to mean anything at all, unless it's that this Tarzan gets the girl despite being shot by the foppish boyfriend.

This diverting and worth the very small money you might pay to see it, but only for Tarzan completists.

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The New Adventures Of Tarzan - 1935!

I've long read that Herman Brix was arguably the most accurate Tarzan on screen, and while from the stills and things I'd seen he sure looked the part, it wasn't until he spoke in normal unbroken English that I'd tend to agree. While Ron Ely is my favorite Tarzan, I must say that Brix does a magnificent job portraying the Ape Man, though his acting is suspect he's very earnest about the whole thing. He's perfect physically and apparently did many of his own stunts in this movie, and it shows. The stunts are pretty good too, especially a fight with a lion. It's clearly not Brix in this scene but it's the most rugged such scene I've encountered, it really looked like the lion was trying to gnaw on the guy. Brix jumping around in the trees is really convincing. Great stuff. 

The New Adventures of Tarzan, a serial from 1935 is pretty basic actually in terms of plot. There's an idol that holds the secret to riches and a formula for a ghastly explosive. It's hidden in the Guatemalan jungle and Tarzan and his allies Major Martling and Ulla Vale along with some guy named George for comedy relief go to Guatemala to get this "Green Goddess" and to rescue Paul D'Arnot, Tarzan's friend. They do the latter pretty quickly but keeping hold of the statue is tougher and despite its pretty hefty mass and weight the thing gets hauled all over the place by both sides. There's savage ancient culture that wants to sacrifice someone every few chapters and some spies who serve as nice villains for the piece. It's not a perfect story, but it's a pretty good one, and has that solid Tarzan feel to it. That's doubtless because of ERB's direct input in this production. 

The big drawback on this is the sound which on my DVD was pretty terrible in places, but it's not like this is Shakespeare, so missing a line here and there is not so critical. Apparently, the sound of the movie was bad from the get-go and there's even an apology in the print to say it was the environment of shooting. The action is on display and there's lots of it. The music is often absent from this story, and when there is music it's often a series of peculiar tones which get more effective as the story unfolds. The climax on the story is stupendous, but the final chapter is an odd one, and that's all I'll say. 

The serial was cut up into two feature films, one called The New Adventures of Tarzan and the sequel Tarzan and the Green Goddess. If you like Tarzan at all, you'll probably like this story and for the cheap prices this can be had at, it's a bargain regardless. Highly recommended. 

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The Beastmaster!

I have always appreciated the movie The Beastmaster. I didn't realize until recently that it was directed by Don Coscarelli, the director of Phantasm and one of my all-time fave movies Bubba Ho-Tep (more on that tomorrow).

When I went to see The Beastmaster in the theaters, I knew I liked the look of Marc Singer in the title role, his physique was exactly what I wanted to see on Conan. Conan the Barbarian had recently been released and Arnold had made his muscular mark on that role, one which I always thought was too large. I've changed my mind a bit on that, but the lithe Singer was more like the early comic Conan than was Arnold and that I liked a lot. Also this movie features the fetching Tanya Roberts, fresh from her Charlie's Angels role and in this one deliciously topless for a blazing moment.

The story is derived sort of from the work of Andre Norton, though as I understand it, the changes made were so extensive that she removed her name from the project. The movie is really nothing like the exciting Norton books, which deserved a movie of their own.

The villain in this one is played by Rip Torn who does his usual bravura job of chewing scenery in grand fashion. The movie is a well-paced adventure with lots of magic and witchery to make it work. There are a few large-scale battles, one the sacking of Dar's hometown and later the seige of the city. The enemy is the Jund, underdeveloped barbarians who just seem to thunder across the landscape in impossible clouds and create mayhem.

The Beastmaster is very much a product of its time, but also has a timeless quality which allows it to be watched with aplomb many years later. There were two sequels, coming many years later, but they are not remotely as charming as the original, not in the least.

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Trader Horn!

I read and heard about Trader Horn long before I ever got a chance to see this seminal jungle adventure movie. MGM landed the property about a great-white-hunter type named Aloysius "Trader" Horn (apparently a real guy) who takes the young and raw son of a former ally under his wing and takes him into the depths of the African territory. It's a land filled with dangers of all kinds, but mostly it's a land filled to the brim with animals and more animals. After we meet Trader Horn (Harey Carey) and Peru (Duncan Renaldo) we get a long long section in the movie where Trader introduces Peru and the audience to one animal after another. It's quite a thing, and goes on for quite some time. I can only imagine what it was like for audiences of the day when these were rare creatures to catch sight of.

After the lengthy travelogue we get into the heart of the story when the duo and their safari meet encounter a tough missionary woman who is attempting to find her long-lost daughter named Nina. Trader promises to look for Nina if the woman fails and as it turns out she does tragically, so Trader is forced by his honor to press into territory unexplored by "white men" and find the girl. They find a fearsome  tribe and an exotic and dangerous white woman who leads them, a veritable white goddess. Edwina Booth is electric in the role of Nina, and the fact she plays it nearly topless makes for some rakish movie making.

Of course Nina fall into love with Peru, though Trader himself has designs on her beautiful frame. The trio along with Trader's loyal gun-bearer Rencharo (Mutia Omoloo) race to save their lives as the natives bear down on them relentlessly. Not all of them will survive the adventure, which does evoke some pretty decent tension before it's all said and done. Apparently the dangers in making this movie were at least as harrowing as the narrative the fictional film itself. According to reports some of the team died from animal attacks and Edwina Booth infamously contracted an illness which ultimately ended her career. There seems to be some dispute what that illness was, but she for certain sued the producers of movie.

It was the success of Trader Horn which convinced the bigwigs at MGM that jungle movies were a profit-center and they cast about for another property to adapt. As it happens there was a little thing called Tarzan out there and they got it, so beginning the epic Weismuller run on the epic character. The first MGM Tarzan, Tarzan the Ape Man was produced by W.S. Van Dyke, who had also done Trader Horn, and much of the animal footage in the debut Tarzan movie was from Trader Horn. So for fans of the Ape Man, it's almost an unofficial prequel to the whole series. That's why I sought it out and I'm glad I did.

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Bond Lite - Dead On Target!

If you didn't know it, and I'm one of those folks who didn't know it, there's actually a third Derek Flint movie. Flint, the charismatic hero of the Our Man Flint and In Like Flint, is the star of a 1975 television movie titled Dead on Target...sort of. The movie ain't a super-spy effort and sadly it doesn't star James Coburn. Actually this is a surprisingly awful movie, a semi-professional feeling outing which is a major snooze.

Derek Flint is played by an actor named Ray Danton, and in this story Flint is a humdrum private dick in the Sam Spade tradition. About the only connection to the two Coburn movies that I can detect is the odd haircut and the penchant of the hero to wear turtlenecks. Beyond that, there is almost no sense that we are dealing with the same guy. The movie appears to have a microscopic budget and there's a dreariness to the entire enterprise which is the very opposite of what one expects from the sleek flights of fancy from the 60's. The action is lame, the acting is often painful to experience and the plot is at once obvious and vague. A businessman is kidnapped by a contingent of Arab terrorists who want a change of government in an oil-rich distant land. They are helped by the attractive Sharon Acker, who is as close to a gorgeous chick as this flick gets. Flint has a rookie helper played by Gay Rowan, but her role seems mostly to wander into danger and get captured. Flint does employ a masseuse/lover but it feels weirdly tacky, not cool.

If I didn't already own this movie on the Flint collection I bought many years ago, I'd never buy it now and cannot recommend anyone else do so either. I've owned this set for many moons, but never got around to fully checking it out until recently and found this movie nesting in the special features. As a curiosity it's interesting, but what it mostly did was remind how dreary it could be back in the 70's when the world suffered mightily from oil price shocks and run-down streets.

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Bond Lite - In Like Flint!

When James Coburn had a hit on his hands with Our Man Flint, it was very likely a sequel would be made and indeed it was with the highly memorable title of In Like Flint. This movie unlike its predecessor is an out and out spoof of the spy movies of the era, more broad in its comedy and unfortunately not as successful in keeping much in the way of suspense. It does however tread very close to the themes which had been only obliquely dealt with in the first movie and that forwardness doesn't help this movie which simultaneously wants to send a message of empowerment to women but seems to undermine any such message as well.

The Derek Flint of this movie is more of the classic Bond-style womanizer and less the champion of the many girls in his life. He's just as protective, but somehow his relationship with them seems a bit more utilitarian. To begin, he has a whole new harem, just three now since by his own admission he's trying to cut down, but his first quartet of lovelies have gone on to get married. It's suggested they are happy, but marriage is implied as the proper course.

That's important since the main story has a cadre of powerful women who have arranged world events in such a a way as to lead to a matriarchy across the globe. Their scheme is vague, but it is soundly rejected by Flint, who cannot really find a strong argument against it. All of that comes to naught when the men who have been assisting the scheme turn and try to take control. The women become Flint's allies and the story really degenerates into a proper mess.

The movie lacks the scale of the first one, though it seems it has as much money or even a bit more. The textures of the wardrobe are neatly handled, but the lack of a high-drama setting like the volcano from the first movie is sorely lacking. A health and beauty spa filled with bikini-clad chicks is fine, but there's little time spent selling a location which a super-spy saga needs.

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Bond Lite - Our Man Flint!

Like many I really love to sit down and watch the infection super-spy adventure Our Man Flint. I hesitate to dub it a spoof, though I won't long argue the point, in that this first Flint outing is only marginally outside the rather wide parameters of straight spy movies as laid down by the world-beating Bond franchise. By the time Our Man Flint hit the screens in 1966, the Bond movies were already picking fun at themselves, so it doesn't require a parody to do the same. There are aspects of this story which are clearly intended as send-ups of the Bond franchise and the whole schmear would not have existed outside the shadow of Bond, but there's also at its core a real adventure here to hang a hat on.

That feeling comes more than anything from the way James Coburn plays the infectiously attractive Derek Flint, a supremely individualistic hero who works for the government only when it suits him to do so. A man who has a literal harem in his upscale ultra-hip apartment but who nonetheless seems to be totally supportive of the women in his life. Bond used women, Flint seems to really care for them, though the end result can often be the same. There's a core element of sadism in James Bond which is completely lacking in Derek Flint and that makes this rogue someone we can really root for and not merely support.

The story of Our Man Flint (also told in a contemporaneously available novel which I've never read) is that the world's weather is under the control of three scientists who for seemingly benign reasons want to save the world from itself and create their own skewed version of paradise on the planet. That paradise appears to reduce women to "pleasure units" and make men the masters of a sprawling resort. The scheme comes undone when the capable Derek Flint invades the remote volcano island base of operations and defeats the scheme to control the world's weather. There's a dame played by Gila Golan who ends up helping Flint and a nasty villain played by Edward Mulhare who gives him a decent opponent, but mostly this is a frothy adventure which allows us to watch Flint ply his trade, show off his smarts and exude his charm, all to save the world. It's done with a twinkle in the eye and a slight veneer of irony, but only occasionally slips over into parody and then only momentarily.

The movie proved to be a real success, and so much so that a sequel was demanded and made. More on that next time.

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The Not-Quite-A-Bond Movie!

In the now quite deep James Bond canon the offbeat 1967 Casino Royale is a novelty of the highest order. If you like your movie adventures shaken with absurdity and not stirred by actual real suspense then this might be the Bond movie for you. I enjoy it well enough, but watching it is always more of an act of beholding a pop-art piece than falling into the throes of a sweeping spy flick. The story just doesn't cling together in any way which might allow a viewer to get swept away, the movie always brings you up short and reminds you that all of the farce which is writhing on the screen is not for a moment intended to elevate your endorphins, save for the bits which feature some beautiful dames, and the movie does that splendidly.

For those who might not know what Casino Royale is, let me try to explain. The world is threatened and all of the usual spies have been taken off the board because they have become overly consumed with sexual antics. The leaders of the spy world convene to bring back the original James Bond (David Niven) who is quite prudish and effete, the very opposite of the classic manly Bond type. He investigates the near immediate demise of the spy leaders and gets caught up in an absurd scheme to stop him which involves pretty girls (who are led by Deborah Kerr) and pheasants. He lives. Then we find out that there are other "James Bonds" in the world and  we end up with Peter Sellers as a James Bond who is trying to bring down Le Chiffre (Orson Welles) in a card game with the help of Vesper Lynd (a gorgeous Ursula Andress) and meanwhile the love Matta Bond (Joanna Pettit -the daughter of Niven's Bond and Matta Hari) investigates behind Soviet lines in Germany, and Jimmy Bond (Woody Allen) is on the run in a South American country. Along the way we meet Moneypenny (the ravishing Barbare Bouchet) and someone called the Detainer (the lovely Daliah Lavi) and others. Add in cameos by John Huston, Charles Boyer, William Holden, and George Raft and you get the idea. Actually it all makes much less sense than the paragraph I just wrote.

The movie had at least four directors and took literally years to create. It cost a fortune as producer Charles K. Feldman lavished money and time on the project. Peter Sellers apparently cracked up during the film and was kicked off, which was what inspired the creators to make it into the exotic romp it is. The finale is an event which evokes the later work of Mel Brooks.

Casino Royale ain't really a good movie and it ain't a bad one. But it is a curiosity, a museum piece from an era when spies were all the rage and movies were spectacles. This one is all of that. I used to dislike this movie for what it wasn't, but now I enjoy it for what it is. That's one way.

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