I Am Legend - The Movies!

I am quite picky when it comes to adaptations of I Am Legend by Richard Matheson. In my opinion none of them have captured the essence of the novel, even the one which Matheson wrote the screenplay for. That adaptation is 1964's Last Man on Earth from Robert Lippert and distributed in America by American International Pictures. It was a co-production with an Italian film outfit where it was shot. According to Matheson the screenplay was developed for Hammer Films but they had to back out of the project when the censors got frosty after the bloody Curse of Frankenstein and Horror of Dracula. He had his credit changed to "Logan Swanson" when he felt the project was drifiting away from his preferences. What we get is a pretty close version of the plot of a man stranded alone in his house battling zombie-like vampires which congregate at this door every night. We follow his struggle to remain and sane and we see him try to make contact with other living things which do appear in time. It has the proper dour ending which the novel intended. The problem is Vincent Price, an outstanding actor but terribly miscast in the role of Neville (changed to "Morgan" in the movie). Price is just too sophisticated for the role which demands an earthier type. Further the protagonist of I Am Legend is not a scientist but must become one during the story. This adaptation like all the rest make him a researcher to begin with which dillutes much of his ignorant struggles with the changed world that makes up much of the novel. 

In 1971 we get that earthier hero in Charlton Heston in The Omega Man. The problem this time is the writers apparently thought that vampires were passe and decided to make Neville's opponents (he keeps his name at least) would be more interesting as albino luddites in sparkly black robes who become deranged as the disease takes them over. This one though is filled with all sorts of hope and promise at the end as we get a flotilla of small kids who we are pretty certain are not going to be killed by the enemy. Not in a major movie in 1971. Instead of Matheson's theme though, we get a Jesus Christ allegory which is interesting as far as it goes but again is not I Am Legend. The notion that Neville can redeem the world was the furthest thing from Matheson's mind when he wrote the novel. 

They remade The Omega Man in 2007 and stuck wannabe action hero Will Smith in the role of Neville. Despite the first use of the original title I Am Legend this movie strays from the novel because its source was not the novel really. The vampires are part of the fast-moving zombie hordes which have littered horror films in the last many years. I found fast zombies terrifying in Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later and fascinating in World War Z, but they are a big fail in this movie. For one thing the SFX used to bring them to "life" seems lacking somehow, making the creatures feel more animated than real. Once again Neville is a researcher who is able to offer hope to the world by the end of the narrative and I know that Hollywood craves that, but that's not the point of Matheson's novel. 

Weirdly the atmosphere and thematic heft of I Am Legend is found of all places in a movie which is not an official adaptation. 1968's Night of the Living Dead was inspired in part by Matheson's story according to director George Romero. This is not a story of Neville in any way, but the feeling of helplessness and of pitiful ignorance which informs Neville for much of I Am Legend is here in spades. The zombies or ghouls are very similar, they have the listless aimless but unrelenting quality that Matheson gave to his vampires in the novel. Our "heroes" are regular people who must come to grips with themselves before they can effectively fend off the outside threat. Since they never do the former, the grim outcome is inevitable. The forces which appear at the end do not bring salvation but destruction. 

So I wait still for a proper adaptation of I Am Legned. With Matheson gone I doubt I will ever see such a thing. But it would be neat if it happened. 

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Classic Horror!

Picked up a set of four flicks gathered under the title Classic Horror from a local shop the other day and have thoroughly enjoyed them all, each in its own way.

Terror of the Tongs starring Christopher Lee is the reason I dropped a few dollars to begin with for this set. Though the reviews of this movie are generally tepid, I still had a hankering to see what Lee did with an Oriental menace clearly in the Fu Manchu tradition. He didn't disappoint, though he's not on screen all that much, he does chew the scenery in dandy fashion when he does. The story is a rather hoary one admittedly, though with some real surprises. A sturdy and forthright sea captain finds himself pitted against the local criminal outfit, the Dragon Tong. Their murderous ways strike close to him and he seeks vengeance and goe about it in the most ham-fisted way possible. But there are some neat ruckuses along the path he chooses as he pits his good guy power against the murderous hatchet men of the Tong.

Five is a post-apocalyptic tale, according to some sources the first post-nuclear movie fable ever. It's a cheapie for sure, filmed largely at the house of the writer and director Arch Obloer. The actors are largely unknowns and the film has that spare quality many such low-budget efforts have, though there is a grace to certain scenes many of these films do not aspire to. It's largely the story of five people who gather together (eventually) at house in the mountains after the bombs have dropped. They each have their own tale of survival though we mostly follow the saga of the sole woman who it turns out is pregnant. One of the male survivors is black and race does become an issue in the story. One of the notable features of the movie is that the house was apparently designed by Frank Loyd Wright and it's a handsome ediface for sure.

Vincent Price is outstanding (per usual) in The Mad Magician. The story is straightforward enough. Price is a master builder of great illusions who seeks the limelight for himself but is forestalled by his partner who demands he remain a faceless technician. They also shared the same woman as wife and that tension results in a flurry of murders, each carried out with aplomb and style and ferocious energy. Lots of fun characters, especially a married couple who dabble in solving murder mysteries and a pretty assistant make this one a totally watchable bit of fluff. My favorite moment is when Price loses track of one of his decapitated heads and has to chase across the town to locate it before it falls quite literally into the hands of the police. Humor like this gives the movie a grisly quality that is quite effective.

And finally we have The Man Who Turned to Stone. I expected little of this story of a girls reform school haunted by a mysterious killer, but it turns out there was much more to it thanks to a completely competent cast filled with the likes of Victor Jory. It turns out the killer works for a deadly cabal who run the joint and use the hapless girls as guinea pigs in experiments which have gone on longer that anyone can suspect at first. A well-meaning young woman seeks to investigate the mysterious deaths and is helped by the local young and handsome doctor. The two conduct an investigation that's filled with blunders, but of course we all know justice will eventually win out. This one has some really rather creepy scenes in it and the back story is quite rich.

All in all, a completely solid set of four movies which one might be inclined to overlook. They are worth the time and money (small money really) for any fan of horror. Highly recommended.

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Dr.Goldfoot And The Bikini Machine!

Being a big fan of Vincent Price, I have to admit this title has long been one I wanted to lens at some point. I finally did, and it was a weird experience to say the least.

Dr.Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine is a spoof of course, a send up of several genres, most notably the spy movies of the 60's. To that end Frankie Avalon plays a hapless junior spy who has to fight the evil machinations of Dr.Goldfoot played to the hilt by Vincent Price. And thank goodness Price does his over-the-top best in this movie or it would have almost nothing to recommend it to viewers save for some handsome girls in gold bathing suits.

This is a shambles of a story in which the vile Goldfoot sends out robotic women programmed to seduce and quickly defraud as many rich guys as they can across the globe. One such rich guy played by Dwayne Hickman falls victim to the scheme and soon joins forces with Avalon and the pair seem to simultaneously battle and swoon in the path of Goldfoot's forces. The movie ends with an overlong hair-brained chase scene.

Clearly the movie is going for zany with more than a few fourth-wall breaking gags and cameos. It's not a movie that takes itself seriously, so there's no point in dumping on it excessively. Save that I'll point out it's only when the always charming Price is on screen is anything interesting much happening. He's so good that he sells it, even in this vehicle which was designed to fall short.

Watch this, if you must, for Vincent's greatness. Otherwise give it a pass. There's a sequel called Dr.Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs. That one made in Italy where the original did good box office, looks mildly better, maybe.

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Bats!

I've been reading about the silent movie The Bat for a very long time. It supposedly was one of the influences on Bob Kane who went on to gain credit for creating Batman (though we all know Bill Finger was also very much responsible). The movie has a good reputation and I've long wanted to see it. Well I found it of all places in my local Wal-Mart buried (pun intended) in a Mills Creek collection of public domain items all featuring the "Undead".

The story is a classic Scooby Doo-style mystery with an infamous burglar and murderer named "The Bat" and who slinks around the city wearing an over-sized bat-head terrorizing the locality. The action switches to an estate outside of town which apparently contains a hidden room and in that room is a valise filled with stolen loot. The Bat needs to get the old lady and her maid who have just moved into the house out, so he can ransack the place. There are other mysterious characters lurking and the movie begins with a plea from the producers for moviegoers not to reveal the Bat's identity.

The action is pretty neat, as the Bat slithers around in the dark, leaping and whatnot. There's plenty of humor, mostly from the maid and a bumbling detective who cavort out of all proportion to the dangers they see. Though I must confess the maid manages to see things almost all the others miss. There is young couple trying to clear the young man's name who is accused of having stolen the money hidden in the house. There is a mysterious man who shows up all tattered and beaten. But amidst all the action, the old lady keeps on knitting, her face implacable as she confronts the menace with composure and clear thinking.


This movie got remade in 1931 by the same director, Roland West, as The Bat Whispers. That one I haven't seen yet. It was remade again in 1959 as just The Bat, this time starring Vincent Price and Agnes Morehead. This one is on this collection too. This remake has pretty much the same basic plot though the Bat is more a murderer than a thief. It's not a bad movie by any stretch, but it is a bit talky. Having been adapted from a play that's logical enough, but the action such as it is, is too sparse to really hold the attention in the way the original did. The red herrings are easier to spot in this one too I think, but that might be the familiarity with the plot. It's not identical to the original, but it does nicely play off its expectations.

One thing though about this remake is the Bat's costume. Not bat-head here. I swear it's like a Steve Ditko character came to life and trotted across the screen. The character wears a slim dark suit, a fedora, and a full-face mask that looks like he has no face most of the time. He's nimble and spends a lot of the movie racing around the house. Every time I saw him, I noted how much like the classic Ditko hero he looked. The Question, Mr.A, The Mocker, they all look pretty much alike and this Bat looks like 'em too.

All in all The Bat is a pretty good movie. The remake less so, but both can be diverting. I can see why Bob Kane might've been inspired to want to do something similar.

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The Tingler!

I've read about this movie for as long as I can remember. The showmanship of Willaim Castle is renowned, and I've seen House on Haunted Hill, so I have a taste of his style and its effect on the audience.

The Tingler stars Vincent Price in the role of a very very strange scientist who simultaneously seems a gentle and just soul but also plays with the lives and emotions of those around him. His blend of kindness and cruelty is something only an actor of Price's dimension could sell and he does just barely. The movie also stars "Dobie Gillis" (Darryl Hickman), but his part is small and according to the actor he did it mostly as a favor to Castle who put him in it to draw the teenage girls.

The story is simple enough. The Vincent Price character discovers through his work with the executed prisoners that the human spine undergoes inhuman stresses during death or more specifically the mortal terror that precedes it. He further learns that screams relieve this tension. After finding a very odd couple running a silent movie emporium, a laconic mortician-like character named Ollie and his deaf-mute wife, the Price character decides to find the source of the tension. He experiments on himself with LSD and his trip is unusual at best, then the story suggests he gives LSD to the deaf-mute woman who then has her own horrifying trip which results in her death and the discovery of the creature "The Tingler", a wormlike critter that co-exists with us humans. Price tries to corral it but it gets away and escapes into the theater creating havoc.

I'll limit the review as there are a few twists and turns, but that's the general thrust of the story. When the Tingler gets loose, that's when Castle's gimmicks really kick in. "Percepto" is the name a system of buzzers attached to selected movie seats that would be activated intermittently when the Tingler is loose, adding the chaos in the theater. By some reports it was quite successful at creating a thrill and something of a sensation.

This is a peculiar movie, presenting very unlikeable charcters. Price's wife is a cheat and plots his murder, but then so does he in a way. The notion of fidelity and murder seems to be a theme in this story as much as I can make a theme out. The idea of communication and successful blending into society is in there too but it's a bit of a muddle admittedly along these lines.

The Tingler ain't a great movie, it might not even be a good one, but it's a diverting entertainment and I suspect might age well with repeated viewings.

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I Am Legend!

Richard Matheson's I Am Legend is probably the scariest story I ever read. The heady blend of mundane with the bizarre, the way he scientifically accounts for the details of vampirism making it seem plausible, along with his spare engaging style make the story vivid and exciting and memorable. I read the story when I was young and never ever forgot it. I read it about the same time as I read some Lovecraft and Doyle's Hound of the Baskervilles, other works that blend the mundane with the horrific. But where the Doyle solves the mystery and resets you in a world of sense and order, both Lovecraft and Matheson get you off the beaten path and leave you there. In Matheson's case the path is one I greatly identify with, understand, so one I feel more strongly. Lovecraft scares my brain, while Matheson scares my soul.

That said, there have been some tasty movie adaptations of the story. The first time I owned and read it was when it was tied into the Charlton Heston remake The Omega Man, a movie I think I saw in the theatre, but surely one I've owned and seen many many times since. It's not Matheson's story, it lacks the immediacy, but it's a rousing tale reasonably well told.

I read for a long time of the original film adaptation The Last Man On Earth starring Vincent Price, but none of TV stations I ever watched seem to ever show it. I didn't get to see this flick until I was in Nashville one wee morning in a motel room and some horror host show came on and they played the movie. I saw 95% of the movie that morning and liked it pretty well. Later I found it on one of those ominbus collections of cheapo horror flicks and since I've bought it a few more times. It's the truest to Matheson's story, though oddly aloof in its presentation. It's got some very scary images in it though for sure.

And then there's the recent adaptation I Am Legend with Will Smith. It's a pretty good movie, and Smith does a very fine job of getting Neville's isolation. In fact all three movies do a fine job of casting good actors who do a dandy job of getting Neville, but the other details fall by the wayside. While the vampires of the Price movie move so slowly they seem to stand still sometimes, the mutations of the Smith movie move so fast it's hard to follow the action at times. The mopey beings in the Heston movie are pretty normal but very very crazy, something we know because of their ability to talk if not reason.

After viewing all three films this past weekend in quick succession, I have to give the nod to the most convincing to Price's Last Man On Earth despite its somber pacing, and I'd give the most emotionally involving to Heston's The Omega Man for making Neville a full-blooded human being, and finally I'd give Smith's I Am Legend kudos for revealing the a real world of isolation and near madness.

Good movies all. Watch 'em.

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