Revenge of the Revenant Review 23: The one with the world-famous mime

 

Title: Shanks

What Year?: 1974

Classification: Irreproducible Oddity/ Anachronistic Outlier

Rating: What The Hell??? (2/4)

 (Edit July 2022: This review was composed for the Space 1979 feature)

With this review, I’m finally doubling back to the movies I reviewed for the original version of this feature, something I have been thinking about long enough to have  written up this review and some other material a while ago. Rather than talk further about that, however, I’m going to give part of my personal story. In 2019, a few months before starting this blog, I was in a car accident during a family vacation where I probably took the hardest hit of anyone in the car. While I was recovering in the hospital, contemplating life, relationships and mortality, two young family members came in to visit me. Then, while I was going in and out of coherence, I said to them, “Don’t watch Shanks.”

Our story begins with a street performer entertaining an old man and a young lady with puppets. We learn that he is our title character Malcolm Shanks, a deaf-mute who lives with his deceased brother’s widow and her hopelessly alcoholic new husband. He gets a chance to turn over a new leaf when he is offered a job working for the old man, an aristocratic scientist named Walker who lives in a gothic mansion/ castle. Soon, the old man reveals his invention to his newfound friend, a technology that reactivates the muscles of dead animals through implants and allows them to be moved about with a remote control. Meanwhile, Malcolm faces continued abuse from his caregivers and a budding relationship with the young lady, a teenish admirer named Celia. When Walker dies of natural causes, Shanks begins trying out the tech on a growing number of human bodies. He quickly hatches a plan to rid himself of his in-laws and set up a new life in the manor. But things begin to go awry when a gang of bikers crash Celia’s birthday party!

Shanks was the final film by William Castle, one of the most notorious B-movie/ exploitation producers of the 1950s-60s era, and the only starring screen appearance by the famed French mime Marcel Marceau. Castle reportedly approached Marceau based on an existing script, based on the performer’s allegorical portrayals of mortality. Marceau was given the roles of both Shanks and Walker, with fellow stage performers Philippe Clay and Tilla Chelton as his family members. The role of Celia went to Cindy Eilbacher, then 16, who also appeared in Planet of the Apes the same year. The film received mixed reviews at the time of release, including a two-star rating from Roger Ebert, who referred to it as a “disappointment”. Despite its relatively high-profile release, the film did not receive a VHS release, and was long available only through bootleg recordings and occasional TV broadcasts. It received some further notoriety from horror reference works, particularly in Peter Dendle’s Zombie Movie Encyclopedia, which described at as “a dark vision… of how perverse innocence, left to its own devices, really is.” It finally received its first authorized home media release on disc and streaming in 2013, 39 years after its theatrical release.

It should go without saying that I was aware of this film long before anybody had lawful access to it. I literally spent years looking for information on the movie and any way to view it in decent quality, never mind legally. Prior to the authorized release, there was simply nothing out there, especially on digital channels. In further hindsight, what impresses me most from those dark years is how often I ran across testimony from people who had seen the damn thing, on bootleg disks (typically terrible), on television, even in drive-in theaters when it first came out. Clearly, the one thing it was not was a movie people easily forget. It all mirrored my own experiences when I finally got hold of the authorized DVD (still looking sketchy as Hell) and reviewed it on my old Exotroopers blog. I referred readers to the old post when I mentioned it several times in the course of the Space 1979 feature, but I knew I needed to do something more sooner or later. After I started compiling and revising material for possible publication (still on back burner), I knew it was time, so I gave it another go, and was quickly reminded why the one thing this isn’t is a movie people forget.

Going back to my original review, the thing that stands out about this film is that it “feels” like it could have been filmed 5 or even 10 years earlier. The camerawork, the editing, the lighting, even the grain of the film all look like 1960s as much as ‘70s. What was entirely jarring to me, especially after seeing others’ reviews and commentary, is that the props and sets all but advertise the “modern” setting, complete with Coca Cola cans and a clearly ‘70s RV at the town store. (A more prominently featured vehicle has been identified as either a GTO Judge or Plymouth Barracuda; I’m now satisfied the latter is correct.) As I further pointed out in my first review, this is a movie whose visuals are almost painfully bright, leaving it mind-boggling how the bootleggers got it wrong. What we see is front, center and bright as day, which is perhaps the heart of the underlying horror. Even a shot as “old-school” as Walker’s hand coming out of the earth has none of the murky half-lighting of the 1930s and 1940s, nor any of the blink-and-you-miss-it shooting of the 1970s.

Despite all this (and the bikers), most commentators instead point quite justifiably to its “timeless” fairy-tale narrative. It is here that the film both succeeds and overtaxes itself. The setup is that of a literal Cinderella story, but like many protagonists of the old and uncensored tales, Shanks is more amoral than naïve. He has no qualms about eliminating and then reanimating his oppressors when given the opportunity, while his intentions toward Celia are murky at best. The fact that he is clearly aware of the deteriorating condition of the (sort of) undead makes it hard to grant the defense that he doesn’t fully understand the nature of mortality. Even then, however, he doesn’t really react to them. What’s even more unsettling is that, after a scene or two of initial shock, Celia quickly becomes as indifferent as he is. By comparison, the disgusted looks of the caretakers and even the bikers are far more human and relatable. And that is saying something, given that they include a ruffian who pushes aside an adult woman in the gang to get to Celia.

Then there’s the undead corpse-puppets themselves (did we need to have to invent that term?), portrayed with the perfect combination of clinical realism and Medieval grue. (Dear Logos, that frog…) Despite the fairy-tale conceits of the story, these are easily the most flatly materialistic revenants on record. They are specified to be creations of technology, completely separated from their former humanity, and their behavior almost always bears that out. Their motions are exaggerated and specifically robot-like; at times, they seem to act outside of Shanks’ direct control, but only the alcoholic shows any hint of his original personality. In the final battle, they become literal blunt instruments, as the bikers eventually try to use the puppets they have captured against Shanks and the very grungy Walker. Of course, it soon becomes a rout, with Walker simply dragging two of the bikers with him back into grave with him, leaving Shanks to face the leader in a stylized rooftop fight.

For the “one scene”, I had a lot to work with here, to the point that I changed my mind a few times just while writing this review. As often happens with these things, my final choice was the first I considered. After a trip to the market, Shanks takes Celia to a park (I think) for a picnic. She’s delighted by a mime act from his former caretakers, while we get an extra “cringe” moment watching Shanks direct them with a hand in each pocket. (His jacket pockets, but still…) As the show ends, the pair suddenly lay down as if preparing for burial. It’s one of the more puzzling gaps in the movie’s conceptual framework; it could be part of the act, a failure of the technology, or a sign of independent action by the puppets. If it is a deliberate action by Shanks, he’s not prepared for Cindy’s reaction when they don’t get back up. She’s confused at first, so she comes closer, then kneels for a closer look. She promptly screams when she realizes what they are, and it’s only then that Shanks steps in to calm her with a decidedly incomplete account of the events so far. It’s the first and possibly last “normal” display of emotion from either of the pair, and a major piece of evidence for the perhaps unintended point that childlike naivete is not quite the same as innocence.

In conclusion, I must give a further explanation why I am doing this here, especially since those coming to this from my blog will know I restarted a separate feature for zombie movies. I had debated that myself right up to putting down this review, but my final decision was that I wanted my zombie movie feature to be about new material. I also concluded that this movie would fit in better here, particularly since I had mentioned it already. As for my own feelings about the movie, the viewing for this review has reminded me just how mixed my feelings are. It would be easy just to say that it’s a “bad” movie, easier still to punt and give it an “unrated” rating I finally introduced for the zombie movie feature. But this movie falls in the middle, far too good to be written off, but simply too weird to be truly great. On top of that, the themes and content are too mixed not to approach with caution, particularly for young viewers; on this vein, the most incomprehensible footnote to this movie is that it was and officially still is rated PG. Still, it remains nearly essential viewing for anyone with an interest in science fiction, zombie movies or 1960s and ‘70s films in general. Just buckle up, because it’s going to be a rough ride.