No Good Very Bad Movies 25: The one by Sam Peckinpah

 

Title: Cross of Iron

What Year?: 1977

Classification: Improbable Experiment

Rating: It’s Okay! (3/3)

 

If there’s one thing the “worst” movies feature has been good for, it has been covering films that interest me which fall outside the sci fi/ fantasy genre boundaries of my other features. This has been all the more true for my current survey of unusual films from noted directors. This time around, I have a movie I first looked into around the time I started blogging, from a filmmaker whom I still otherwise know only by his reputation. It remains one of the stranger films to come to my attention, and one that’s discomforting enough that I had already postponed viewing it again. After a fresh viewing, I am certainly satisfied it belongs here, not because it is “bad” but because of its oddity. I present Cross of Iron, a World War 2 movie by Sam Peckinpah, the guy otherwise known for ultra-violent Westerns.

Our story begins, after a German children’s song set to images of warfare and mayhem, with a grim and wearying battle between Nazis and their Soviet enemies. In short order, we meet our protagonist, a surprisingly old or else prematurely aged corporal named Steiner, and his commanders, a colonel named Brandt and a newcomer, Stransky. The new captain proves to be a proud Prussian aristocrat out to win glory and the prized Iron Cross. He also isn’t above ordering casual atrocities, including the execution of a teenage prisoner whom Steiner protects and releases. The misadventure becomes the opening of a new onslaught from Russian forces who disregard their own losses and collateral damage to their country’s civilians. When the proverbial dust settles, Steiner is wounded and Stransky is up for the Iron Cross, but they both know the real hero of the day was killed in action. The tension grows with Steiner’s return to a losing battle with rampaging T34s and an all-female Soviet platoon. When the battle finds Steiner and the survivors of his platoon behind enemy lines, the captain recognizes a chance to remove the one obstacle to his award. But will he or anyone else make it home?

Cross of Iron was a 1977 war drama directed by Sam Peckinpah, based on the 1955 novel The Willing Flesh by Willi Heinrich, a veteran of the Ostfront. The production was backed by the English companies EMI an ITC Entertainment and the German concern Rapid Film. The cast was led by James Coburn as Steiner and Maximillian Schell (see The Black Hole) as Stransky, with James Mason of 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea as Oberst Brandt and David Warner of Time Bandits (and Christmas Carol?) as Kiesel. The film was shot in Slovenia and Croatia, then part of Yugoslavia, reportedly using T34s and other weapons and equipment provided by the Yugoslav military. The total $6 million budget of the production reportedly failed to cover a planned final battle sequence, resulting in a hastily filmed ending with possible input from Coburn. The film was poorly received by US critics and audiences, though it was well-received in Germany. It gained popularity with current and later filmmakers and critics, including Orson Welles and Quentin Tarantino. It remains available on disc and digital platforms.

For my experiences, I saw this one on a passing recommendation from a correspondent. It popped up early on my blog when I saw fit to mention it in one of my posts on Marx figures as an example of growing awareness of Russia’s role in World War 2 in the 1960s and 1970s. Even then, I was equivocal about watching the film or reviewing it. It ended up harder to get the second time, so I put it on hold while I lined up other material. When I finally went in, I was honestly prepared for the contingency of disqualifying it (something I haven’t done since Creepers) because of just how uncomfortable it gets. In the end, I got through it with my usual strategy of not really paying attention, which quickly proved more justified than usual.

Moving forward, the thing to get out of the way is the almost distracting star power. Coburn, who would have been about 48 when the movie was filmed, is as dominating as he should be. Schell matches him after a fashion, quickly going into full scenery-chomping mode; if you’re ever not sure if he’s on the screen, which is a recurring issue with a number of characters, you will definitely know him by his voice. Things take an odd, unintentionally on-the-nose turn with the casting of Mason, whose iconic turn as Captain Nemo was widely regarded as the basis of Schell’s Dr. Rheinhart in The Black Hole. The one you would really want to watch for is Warner, cast as a de facto administrative assistant to the colonel. His character here is the antithesis to his over-the-top villainy in Time Bandits, and all the more fascinating for it. He doesn’t do much and says even less, yet he maintains a compelling screen presence even if you aren’t looking for him. In many ways, he’s the most convincingly authentic figure, practically hiding in plain sight while history unfolds around him, undoubtedly well aware of the likelihood that he’s on the losing side.

The other side of the equation is the combat sequences, and this is as good a point as any to note there are at least three different running times listed for the movie, presumably from alternate cuts or outright censorship. I watched the longest one, at 132 minutes, and it definitely shows. The odd part is that there is very little that is graphic or extreme then or now. The cumulative effect comes from the sheer length, which is one thing the hostile critics pointed out repeatedly and fairly. It’s all well and good that Peckinpah literally wears away the glory and glamor of battle (not to mention the Nazis’ own propaganda and later revisionism), with the only glorious “last stand” moments being an indoor T34 engagement and the surreal spectacle of Mason emptying an MP40. But there’s nothing here that couldn’t have been done as well or better in a much shorter time. The most obvious choice for the chopping block would be the whole uncomfortable and unrewarding episode with the Russian women, which I was personally prepared to skip right over. The only reason I got through it is that it’s too fast-paced to see nearly as much as one might remember after the fact, but this is definitely a case where what isn’t shown is 90% of the horror and the “cringe”.

That leaves the “one scene”, and I was definitely going with the T34 rumpus, which is as exponentially more terrifying as the velociraptors in the kitchen, so that’s honorable mention. (And why put the cannon through the wall without firing?) And if I’m not talking about T34s, you know there’s a doozy coming. The part that’s stuck in my mind is Steiner’s trip back home, specifically a meeting with the higher-ups of the Reich. It turned out I couldn’t find a full video of this part, but I think I have it reconstructed. It starts with Steiner in  a garden party of the wounded and disfigured, including a band that plays as a band of higher-ups pay a visit. They speak to or at least at Steiner and his nurse, who puts a jacket with his medals over his shoulders. Then there’s a nice touch I forgot about as one of them extends a hand to the next veteran, only to be offered a stump, and another, and finally a foot. The brass regroup and go straight to a prepared banquet. It’s all too much for Steiner, to the point that reality itself convincingly bends as he rises (or does he???...) for a blowup. This is surrealism done right, tellingly from a filmmaker who specialized in graphic hyperrealism, and the best testimony I can give is that I still haven’t worked out how much of what follows is supposed to be real.

In closing, I’m back to form with the rating. On a certain level, I admit that this is one movie that didn’t really belong here, outside of the fact that I long since dedicated this feature to the weird and random more than actual “worsts”. By my honest assessment, this is a film that is overrated as much as it is underrated. It’s a quality movie that deserved better in its own time and since, but it’s still a stretch to call it the “classic” some make it out to be. With the rating scale at hand, it gets the top rating simply because I have nothing better to address its strengths and its flaws. For me, the final verdict is that there are still better movies, and plenty of those that it could have equaled or exceeded with more focus and restraint, especially from its director. And with that, I am bidding it farewell a second time. Onward and upward…

Giant robot review: Lego 1990s giant robot!

 

It's my second post of a fifth week, and it's once again been a while since I did a robot post. As it happens, I just made an acquisition that definitely deserved a post. The backstory is that I was taking a look at my vast collection of Legos and other building-block sets, and remembered one thing I no longer have in my possession. That was enough of a train of thought to do a few searches of online listings, and found one particular set I remembered but had never owned for a price still in the medium double digits. I got the set in several food-storage bags, one of which had sprung a leak, and assembled it over 3 or 4 days. Here's a few pics of the finished product.

"I know what you're thinking, `Did he fire 9,999 shots or 10,000?' In all this excitement, I've lost track myself..."

As fans about my age will know well, this is a set called Robo Guardian, from a middle-period Space subline called Spyrius. This bot in particular was released in 1994, right when I was getting back into Legos in a very big way. In my usual fashion, I was completely obsessed with this set, but didn't put much thought into saving up money to buy it. What I did do was spend literal years building a custom rig, starting with bricks lying around from ancient sets that had long since been mixed beyond recognition and progressing to pieces of relatively new sets that I had bought with my own money. Then, in maybe ca. 1998, I decided it no longer interested me or fit with what I was doing, so I packed it up for a charity donation, without giving any further thought to whether a literally random kid would appreciate it or know what to do with it. With the purchase of this set, I came back to the source, and I have to way, my own design was better. Before I go into why, here's a few detail pics of the figures and components, starting with one I took during construction. I still love the robot!

Now, here's where the problems crop up. To start with, I made a couple tweaks just building the thing; the forearm blaster thingies originally pointed the other way, and the handlebars on the upper arms seemed to be there specifically to reduce the range of motion to nearly nothing. Then there's things either missing or useless, like the lack of articulation at the waist (I very specifically remember putting that on mine) and the two sets of wheels that don't touch the ground. Finally, there's still more extra bricks that just add to the difficulty of building it. One more thing is that there's a fairly complicated mechanism that provides a parking brake for the arm, which is handy but tricky to build and in no way explained in the directions. Here's a few more shots, including the back.

"Don't worry, you can trust me, I'm programmed with Asimov's laws of robotics. `I may not harm a human, or by commission of action allow to be harmed...' Well, they're really more like guidelines."

And here's a couple pics of the instruction manual.

And here's something out of legend...

The real question remains, how does the size of this thing compare to what was out there? Well, here's a lineup....

So, as already seen, this guy's definitely bigger than the Truckstop Queen, also the big Robotech red guy, and just a tad taller than the Bird Knight not counting the antennae. But the champion is still... Cap Rifle Bot???

With that, I'm wrapping this up. All in all, I'm really very happy to have put this together. My real regret is that I don't have at least a pic of my own bot to compare it with. The real lesson to me is, there are real reasons everyone seems to have at least one story of a toy or collection they gave away. It's normal to go through a range of shifting interests when you're growing up, and inevitably, there's things you let go or leave behind. The one thing I have to add is, if you were that kid you got the bot, I hope you had fun. That's all for now, more to come!

No Good Very Bad Movies 24: The one by Mr. BIG where nothing's big

 

Title: Picture Mommy Dead aka Color Mommy Dead

What Year?: 1966

Classification: Irreproducible Oddity/ Prototype

Rating: It’s Okay! (3/3)

 

With this review, I’m continuing a survey of very odd films by famous or infamous filmmakers, which might go on quite a bit longer than I planned. The funny thing is, very few of the entries under consideration have been in the latter category, either in terms of the film or the filmmaker. With the present film, I have the exception to prove the rule, a film by an especially notorious filmmaker who ended up with his own nickname, based on somewhat skewed perceptions of his work. The present selection is the movie that broke the mold, and as we will see, it’s up for debate if that was a good thing. I present Color Mommy Dead, a movie by the infamous Bert I. Gordon aka Mr. BIG, and as noted, there’s nothing about giant bugs.

Our story begins with the image of an evidently deceased woman in tacky/ expensive clothes consumed by a fire, just as someone takes a beautiful necklace off her body. After the mindboggling credits, we meet the survivors of the deceased, her husband, his new wife, formerly the governess, and their daughter Susan, a young lady of ambiguous age and even less certain mental maturity just returning home from a convent/ mental institution. Naturally, the girl is the only witness to her mother’s demise, but professes very convenient amnesia about the whole evening. In short order, we meet more rogues, particularly a cousin injured in the fire who speaks at length about the size of Susan’s trust fund. The girl becomes increasingly disturbed by the once-familiar surroundings, even wondering if she killed her mother. Meanwhile, the rest of the household spin their schemes, variously for lust, money, and the still-missing necklace. But Susan remains the wild card as history repeats itself, and even this pack of never-do-wells are unprepared for a girl with no agenda except being daddy’s girl!

Picture Mommy Dead was a 1966 drama/ psychological horror film directed by Bert I. Gordon (see Empire of the Ants), possibly the first of his films to be both adult-oriented and outside the science fiction/ fantasy genres. The film starred Gordon’s real-life daughter Susan Gordon, a child actress known for roles on The Twilight Zone and several of his earlier fantasy and adventure films, with Don Ameche as the father, Martha Hyer as the stepmother Francene and Maxwell Reed as the cousin Anthony.  Hedy Lamar was originally cast as the mother Jessica, but replaced by Zsa Zsa Gabor during filming. The film was made on a relatively high budget of $1M, compared to an estimated $15,000 budget of Gordon’s debut feature King Dinosaur. A novelization was written by the film’s screenwriter, Robert Sherman. Susan Gordon withdrew from acting following the release of the film, several months after her 17^th birthday. The elder Gordon continued his attempts at “mainstream” work with the 1970 sex comedy (!) How To Succeed With Sex, before returning to genre films with movies like Food of the Gods. The film has been released on home video, most recently by Kino Lorber in 2020. It is not available in digital format. Susan Gordon died in 2011; she is survived by her father and 6 children.

For my experiences, I first became aware of Bert I. Gordon at second-hand from books like The Golden Turkey Awards, where the repeated running gag was that all his films had something to do with animals or people being grown to giant size or shrunk to miniature. I finally looked into his broader filmography for the Space 1979 “Wells-A-Thon”, where several of his works fell under consideration. I was immediately intrigued to find that his output wasn’t quite as stereotyped as the jokes would have it, and knew that sooner or later, I would come back to it. Ultimately, what got this one in the lineup was that it proved to be the easiest to obtain. (By comparison, the sex comedy seems to be literally wiped off the face of the Earth…) I ordered it with some other items a few weeks before this review, and made space for it as the director lineup evolved. I watched it and started the present review in good time, and boy, is it 1960s.

Moving forward, the central reality of this film is that it feels oddly out of time, enough that I was very tempted to apply the Anachronistic Outlier label. At face value, it’s a startlingly late example of the whodunit, a genre that had already devolved to the point that the most significant examples were parodies like A Shot In The Dark. What stands out more, however, are the surreal visuals which would be easily be discounted as cliches 10 or even 5 years later but here can be granted as innovative. The question remains, of course, whether the mix of new and old elements is done well, and my answer is a qualified yes. The characters and their intrigues are seedy enough to call to mind the more sophisticated “noir” mysteries like Rebecca and Maltese Falcon, complete with several impressive double crosses that winnow the field before the finale. On the other side, the jarring imagery and choppy editing intended to convey Susan’s iffy mental state are at least not tiresome in the way they would become later, with some very good moments like the destruction of a painting and the truly random appearance of a falcon. The one thing that arguably gets in the way is the garish décor of the house. It’s so extreme and flat-out hideous that it could easily be taken as a satire of the fads of the day. In my judgment, however, it’s just as likely that the B-movie veteran and his crew were still working out color photography.

Meanwhile, the center of the movie is Ms. Gordon and her character, and this is where things get shaky. There would be an easy rant about the casting by the elder Gordon, yet the real problem is that the story never quite decides where to go. The actress definitely looks even younger than she would have been in real life, which can get uncomfortable in its own right, but without more specific comments about the character’s age, it’s very hard to judge whether she is ahead, behind or on a completely different track from where she should be. The deeper problem is that there’s nothing to create doubt about her place in the story. It’s only a very mild spoiler to say she is not responsible for any of the murders, and that leaves one or two real suspects. (I could go into a whole other rant about the very selective fire damage.) That in turn makes the whole focus on her a matter of the premise dictating the story rather than evolving with it. It’s only in the finale that the film progresses past gimmickry, as Susan’s revealed actions and character prove as unnerving as those of the actual killers. Indeed, this would be even more uncomfortable without the ambiguity regarding Susan’s development, which ultimately furthers the subversion of childhood “innocence”.

That leaves the “one scene”, and I really had a lot more to work with than I would have expected. There was one particular sequence, however, that I kept coming back to simply as a frame of reference to make sense of the story, the movie and whatever the elder Gordon was trying to do. After her return to the house and a long series of talks with the adults, Susan returns to her bedroom and her toys, so of course I looked into this. Most of the playthings are generic enough that they don’t clarify or clash with the timeframe before or since, like a clown and a sort of goofy/ creepy wolf. A couple seem specific to the ‘60s era, what looks like a large version of a Troll doll and a hippie-themed doll that matches one called Scooba-Doo made by Mattel in 1964. It’s not entirely clear how many of the toys are really familiar or introduced to make her homecoming happier, but she clearly finds them comforting, especially the hippie doll (which is going to show a much larger vocabulary before the end). The camera reflects her calm with clear and affectionate shots, until the voices of the adults start to echo in her head. From there, it’s choppy cam as the toys get increasingly disconcerting closeups, culminating in a scream. Then we are back with the girl, still holding the doll, with no adult coming to attend to her if the cry was real at all. This is surrealism that actually works, in no small part because it’s frame in the “real” world, and enough to buy my goodwill.

In closing, the one thing I have left to say is that, having viewed a fair sampling of Bert I. Gordon’s work, this one is the best by a wide margin, though dear Logos, that’s probably even less of a compliment than it sounds. It was probably never going to set a new direction for Mr. BIG’s career, but it proved for all time that he could do something different and new to boot, even if none of his critics or fans were paying attention. If it comes to that, one can just about see how the detour outside the genre ghetto marginally improved his later work. At the same time, the film embodies his unaccountable ability to stir up a measure of affection against one’s better judgment. Heck, it’s left me feeling generous enough to keep looking for the sex comedy. Yeah, it's out there. And with that, feel free to go to bed, possibly praying whoever finds it brings a flamethrower. It's a dry heat…

Fiction: Evil Possum demo

 It's past time for the third post of the off-week, and I decided to see if I had something backlogged I can use. I settled on a vignette from the Evil Possum, which would have been a follow-up to Trails. Unfortunately, this was about where I went through one of my burnouts, so there isn't much more than you see here. Some day...

The figure behind the desk was shrouded in darkness. The one thing that was apparent was that it was far bigger than the desk was scaled for, and close to the limit of what the ceiling could accommodate. He was also very heavily built, almost as big around as he was tall. By comparison, the figure that entered was small and slender. It was a rat-like creature, unmistakably male, constantly wringing its hand-like forepaws. A nasal but commanding voice said, “I am No-Hands, El Diablo Sin Mano Derecho. You have sought me out. Now what do you ask of me?”

“I… uh… I… need someone to kill my wife,” the creature answered.

The shape behind the desk leaned forward enough for its eyes to shine brightly. “Your wife.”

“Uh, yeah, and uh, it should prob’ly look like an accident. They, uh, say you’re good at it.”

No-Hands leaned back again. “You know who I am, do you know my fee?” When no answer came, he said, “A tenth of your wealth, however great or small. And I already know exactly how much that is.”

The rodent wrung his hands. “Well, I, uh, suppose that’s less than her lawyers will take…”

No-Hands rose to his feet. “And I would pay more than that to see a creature like you die! Now go! Go, and make sure I never hear of you or your wife again!” The rodent scrambled out the door, and No-Hands sat down again. “Send in the next one.”

There were two who entered. They were as tall as No-Hands, and almost as robust. Their race was believed to be descended from guinea pigs, and normally considered the most docile of the species that inhabited their world. No-Hands was sufficiently surprised that one of them spoke first. “I’m Bob, this is my brother Rob,” he said. “I think we need help.”

“You think,” No-Hands said.

“So, here’s the thing,” Rob said. “We don’t haff any money.”

“How much you have need not be a concern,” No-Hands said. He picked up a photo they had offered with a metal pincer that replaced his right hand. “If the task satisfies me, I will work for a tenth of your wealth, however great or small.”

“I know,” Rob said, “but we don’t have any money.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Bob cut in, “but we do have beer.”

“A lot of beer, actually,” Rob affirmed. “Lots. We make it, see. It’s a business with our uncle Job.”

“If you can help us, we’ll give you half,” Bob said.

“Perhaps we should discuss your circumstances,” No-Hands said. “Are you not able to sell the beer?”

“Nope,” Bob said. “There’s this rat named Magruder, he says if we try to sell beer in town again, he’ll shoot us like he shot Rod. Oh, and he shot our cousin Rod.”

“I see,” No-Hands said. “And if this Magruder were removed, could you make your money back?”

“Umm, not really,” Rob said. “If he was gone, his boss would just move in. An’ even if we could sell all the beer, it still wouldn’t pay what we owe to the bank.”

“Banks, yes, I deal with them,” No-Hands said. In fact, he had controlling interests in several of them, but he didn’t care for it to be known. “Then what would you ask of me?”

The guinea pigs both pondered. “I guess, I’d like to go back to making beer,” Bob said, “‘stead of having to stay up makin’ sure Magruder doesn’t burn our shack down.”

No-Hands sighed. He started to reach for a button to signal his handful of assistants to escort them out, but withdrew his hand. “I will help you,” he said. “My condition is, you will let it be known that I am working for you, not least to Magruder. As for the rest, I will tell you what I will do: I will sell your beer!”

Featured Creature The Rat File 1: The one with witches

 

Title: The Witches

What Year?: 1990

Classification: Mashup

Rating: It’s Okay! (3/4)

 

As I’ve pondered the possibilities for this feature, one thing that’s become clear is that a lot of the material not yet covered could easily fall into their own genres and odder subniches. I already covered some examples of these, like Leviathan and the strange dead end of underwater sci fi, and I tried doing a dedicated spinoff for fantasy movies starting with The Dark Crystal. With this review, I’m going into the middle ground, the kind of offbeat branch of the genre that’s worth more than a representative example but not really enough to sustain a feature of its own. As it happens, the one that I’m kicking off with wasn’t even really on my radar when I first considered the idea, but once it came up in my regular reconnaissance, I knew it belonged here. I present The Witches, as nothing less than a definitive example of the rat movie, and needless to say, it’s the only one under consideration made for kids.

Our story begins with an introduction to a orphaned boy named Luke and his grandmother, who tells terrifying stories of her own encounter with witches. Per the grandmother, witches are neither cultists engaged in black magic and human sacrifice nor misunderstood practitioners of a pre-Christian religious tradition, but mutated humanoids who use their seemingly innate supernatural or psychic powers to kill children out of pure hatred. When the pair go on vacation, Luke quickly recognizes that a number of the guests are witches in disguise as ordinary women. With help from a new friend named Bruno, he discovers that the hotel is hosting an international gathering of witches with a new scheme to wipe out the world’s children  turning them into mice. Before they can act, both boys are captured and transformed. Can the boys turned mice turn the tables on the witches? And if they win, will anyone be left to make them human again? Spoiler- not if you go by the book!

The Witches was a 1990 film based on the 1983 novel of the same name by Roald Dahl, made by Lorimar Films and Jim Henson Productions. The film was distributed by Warner Bros following the dissolution of Lorimar, resulting in a reported delay of more than a year. The film was directed by the late Nicolas Roeg, whose credits included Don’t Look Now and The Man Who Fell To Earth, with Jim Henson credited as producer.  The cast was led byAngelica Huston as the Grand High Witch and Mai Zetterling as grandmother Helga, with Jasen Fisher as Luke and Rowan Atkinson as the hotel manager Stringer. The film’s effects included puppet/ animatronic mice from the Henson crew and further makeup for the true form of Huston’s character. The film was a likely disappointment at the time of release, earning $15 million against an estimated budget of $11M, but gained in popularity on home video. Dahl condemned the film for changing the ending of the book, though he reportedly praised Huston. Jim Henson died immediately before the film's general release, while Dahl died near the end of the year,  Zetterling died in 1994, with over 60 TV and film roles beginning in 1941 and a number of additional credits as director and screenwriter.

For my experiences, I know the original book and some others by Dahl from of old. I recall reading the book in part because the movie raised my interest, but never watched the film. In hindsight, the book is a very dark tale even compared of his adult fiction like “Man From the South”, which also somehow fell into my hands back when (see the Hitchcock anthology post). The villains are terrifyingly powerful and incomprehensible in their motivations, the protagonists remain at an overwhelming disadvantage, and the ending is no better than an arguable Pyrrhic victory. My usual world’s-worst-superpower memory must have kicked in stronger than usual, as I had no trouble looking up scenes I remembered when I picked up a copy sometime around the end of 2021. While that still didn’t motivate me to see the movie, I did end up getting it in my rental queue right when I was making room to read the book. That left me with a fresh perspective as I watched it, with no immediate intention of reviewing it until one or two hilarious failures left me with literally nothing else on deck. So, I went in with only the one viewing a couple days back, and the real surprise is that I’m not having any trouble.

Moving in, the foremost thing to say is that this is the kind of material where rational analysis must be disregarded as the outset. Dahl’s tale, more than usual, proceeds on the half-logic of a child’s nightmare, and it’s impressive enough that the film makes no effort to “improve” the situation. Of course, the witches have no logical motive, or for that matter any backstory that might explain what they are or how they could sustain themselves if the normal reproduction of the human species was ended. Of course, the setting and timing of their scheme is as disastrously ill-advised as selling weed in the middle of the cops’ favorite donut shop. Of course, the villains would be easily exposed or at least put on the defensive if the families of their victims went to the authorities with a prosaic charge of kidnapping or abuse. This is all like saying that if you left for school in your underwear, someone would point it out and send you home long before you got there. Again, it’s an honest approach to the source material. This is as good a point as any to state my further suspicion, that the cop-out happy ending was put in to provide a “good” witch as much as to soften the ending of the book.

After this much space, it might seem like I’m treating the central element that got the movie here as an afterthought. This is in fact a non-trivial problem with the film itself. While I can’t check the exact times, the transformations happen at least a third of the way through a quite short movie. The subsequent adventures are done with a combination of puppetry and live animals, and there’s no serious attempt to hide which is which. Within their limitations, the Muppet mice are always convincing in representing the characters and their emotions even if they don’t seem to try to be “realistic”.  It’s of further interest that the action sequence that really matters in the kitchen is relatively subdued compared to the slapstick of many a cat-and-mouse chase. The hero mostly manages to escape attention as he completes his mission, then when he is detected, the staff remain surprisingly levelheaded as they try to catch him. I was especially amused by a butcher who only stood out on reviewing a few online clips, who simply swings a cleaver without interrupting his work.

Meanwhile, I’m going longer for the witches, who are by all means fitting antagonists. Th as petty and vain in each other’s company as they are inscrutably malevolent in their treatment of the protagonists. In the process, they generate a lot of worthy “one scene” I felt I couldn’t leave unmentioned. There’s the introductory tale of a girl trapped in a painting , which I remembered from the book more vividly than anything else. There’s a minor witch literally incinerated over what amounts to a point of protocol. There’s a transformed witch from within the hotel staff who tries to warn their leader, only to be dispatched without further thought. Then the most mindboggling moment is a chase scene where the witches pursue Luke. In the middle of it, the Grand High Witch pushes a baby carriage downhill, perhaps to force the boy to delay his own escape. If that is the intent, it certainly works, but with this bunch, can we really be sure they understand ordinary human reactions any better than we understand them?

For the “one scene”, though, I decided to go with the ending, which I confirmed was filmed in a different version that got far enough for test screenings, only to disappear. After the defeat of the witches, we find Luke talking to his grandmother while he rides a toy train. Of course, what won me over is that multiple closeups clearly show that it’s from the Lego Space line, which I of course have a misbegotten collection of. The shots make both the toy and the in-scale puppet look very good. There’s one more good line as Luke muses if he will ever get to drive a real car, as the train disappears into a tunnel. It’s a good sequence that really feels like it would be fun for the kid, without downplaying the implications of rodent mortality in the book. I can believe that this was about where the movie was intended to end, and certainly the note I would have said it should have ended on.

In closing, the one thing I find I still want to add is why Dahl’s work was ever accepted for children. It’s long since become axiomatic that his work is extremely dark, with plenty of extra cringe both from the contend and the author’s personal life. (Seriously… don’t look it up.) I think The Witches encapsulates why his work resonates with real children. At face value, it’s a harsh ending, but it’s balanced with an upbeat note if you’re willing to look for it. For me personally, after decades of self-advocacy, semi-employment and generally figuring out who I am, it feels more relevant to my life than it ever could have when I first read the book. There are going to be times when you can’t fix what’s gone wrong, what you’ve suffered and ultimately who you are. But you can still keep going, keep learning, and hunt down your enemies one by one. It may still be a warped message, but it’s just right for a  kid to hear and an adult to remember. With that, I can call it a day.

Movie Mania: Willow novelization

It's time for the first post of the second off-week of the month, and for once, I decided I've done enough movie reviews. To depart as little as possible from formula, I'm going to do another novelization review, specifically that of Willow. As a bonus, it happens to be from Wayland Drew, the author of the Dragonslayer novel, which I previously held up (well before posting a review of the movie) as perhaps the finest of its kind. Unfortunately, lightning did not quite strike twice.

For the background, I already covered a lot of this when I reviewed the movie. Willow was the last of the 1980s fantasy wave, and unlike many of its predecessors, it made a lot of money. It also got a lot of merchandising I can vaguely remember, including an NES game and a now-notorious toy line that I would probably have loved if I had gotten any. A novelization was presumably inevitable, though no tale seems to tell how the task fell to Wayland Drew. Per the lore, the novel is based on a script sold to Lucas more than the film, which is really on par for novelizations. As it happened, it was published immediately after a novelization of Batteries Not Included (a movie that never quite fit in my plans so far) in 1987, and the year before his last confirmed novel Halfway Man in 1989.

Going in, what interested me most was that such a comparatively obscure author was chosen to novelize a major film. Sure, vintage novelizations were anything but prestigious, and the semi-respectable novelizers like Alan Dean Foster (see the Aliens novels post) were busy enough that anyone else looking to do a job was unlikely to be turned down. Still, Drew presented an odd choice, an author with a modest profile and output whose work (apparently including Halfway Man) often fell outside the sci fi/ fantasy genre. The obvious connection is that a good part of the ILM crew had worked on the effects for Dragonslayer (and for that matter Batteries Not Included). If just one or a few big names at ILM had read the book, it might well have been enough to give the author an inside track with Lucasfilm and perhaps Lucas himself. Therefore, it's plausible that Drew was approached or even talked into it, at a time when he was by all indications getting out of the business. Whatever the backstory, Willow was his last ride, and certainly interesting on those terms alone. While I'm at it, here's the back cover.

Moving onto the book, I will admit I'm doing this on shorter notice than other posts like this. With other novelizations, I have gone in with at least two readings and normally a block of weeks or even months to think things over before posting about it. This time around, I'm starting the post before I technically finished reading it even once. On the other hand, I had been able to go through the majority of the book faster than any I've read in a long while, which I found more than enough to comment on the quality. As a bit of further context, I finished one more rereading of Dragonslayer not long ago. One more thing I will freely admit is that, if anything, the earlier novelization made me a little more critical of the present book. In those terms, Willow is in some ways more polished, but seems aimed at younger readers, which would certainly have been justified. What's more difficult to account for is that it seems more conventional than the film it's based on, complete with a number of convenient and comforting genre tropes that the finished film was bold enough to move away from.

On the plus side, there is inevitably a lot more worldbuilding and general depth in the novel. There's a lot more backstory for Madmartigan, Bavmorda and Sorsha, including a full account of the villainess's relationship with the father of the princess. There is also a whole story-within-a-story tale of a revered Nelwyn hunter/ warrior who barely gets a name within the film. We also get an expanded view of the powers of the magical infant, who seems to charm animals and the elements just by being what she is. Occasionally, things get more grim and graphic than the film despite the "kid-friendly" tone, conspicuously the implied fate of a group of mothers and children imprisoned by the queen. It's here that things get hit or miss by simple familiarity.  I find this most in the portrayal of Tir Asleen, which in the movie is just a big, distant castle. Here, it's so hidden away by magic that leaves its very existence conceivably in doubt, calling to mind the fairy tale of Sleeping Beauty or the cautionary Lord Dunsany tale "Carcassonne". In addition, the revealed destruction of the castle is attributed to a spell of Bavmorda that you can easily predict will be reversed at her defeat. It's all unquestionably effective, but as already noted, it brings in familiar elements the movie did just fine without.

One more thing on the "con" side is a strange sort of temporal distortion that gets more pronounced toward the end, something I had noticed this before with the Dawn of the Dead novelization. Here, it's most notable with the courtyard fight, which is as far as I got. In the film, it's an almost comically over-the-top sequence with one of the most surreal monsters on record. In the book, the whole battle is covered in 10 pages, including only 3 with the Eborsisk. It's understandable that an author working with only pages in a script would fall short of the vision of a director, yet this is more egregious than usual. There's a further odd touch in the handling of the trolls, who represent perhaps the most intriguing combatants in the film. In the book, they're introduced much earlier, specifically as rather pitiful servants of Bavmorda. In an impressive touch, one of them actually talks, revealing an even more malign personality than might be expected. What gets weird is that the book describes the transformation of a troll into a "gibbering, jiggling mass of shapeless goo", without connecting it with the Eborsisk, which is portrayed as laying in wait the whole time. It removes several of the movie's more striking improbabilities, but on the whole, what we got on screen was more satisfying. One more thing is that the segment in the book ends at page 241 of the novel's 276 pages, and if you know the movie, there's a lot more that must have been crammed into even less space.

On the whole, this remains one of the more surprisingly impressive novelizations to be encountered. For me, it raises the niggling doubt how much of the universally accepted notoriety of 1980s novelizations came from those who had really read a significant number of them. There's no reason to doubt many if not most were as bad as people say, but even in the iffy ones, there's plenty that's interesting, insightful and just plain bonkers. It's exactly why I intend to keep my collection and add to it when I can. With that, I'm done for another day. That's all for now, more to come!

The Legion of Silly Dinosaurs: Walk on the wild side!

 

It's time for this month's dino blog, which as always means the most work for the least views. This time around, I'm doing another clearance of the backlogged material, specifically stuff that I didn't buy but still photographed to have proof it exists. And it you've been here long enough to get a feel for what I'll pay money for, you can already guess this is going to be a rough ride. To start with, here's pics above and below from the store where I got the Dragon Knight dinobot.

For contest, these pics are from two different trips. The big brachiosaur in the opening pic is an electronic/ animatronic toy made of foam rubber, I'm sure considerably larger than the Dormei Godzilla. The packaged set immediately above looked like they could be knockoffs of 1980s vintage dinosaurs. The resemblance is especially strong to the Imperial dinos, though not enough to convince me these are direct copies. It's one of the most interesting things I've seen for sale new, and in 20/20 hindsight, I definitely should have gotten this rather than the dinobot. It's the kind of thing that fascinates me just by continuing to exist. While I'm at it, here's another mall sighting, from a semi-classy shop.

What interested me about these is that they are about on the level you might see in a museum gift shop. To me, they really aren't any more interesting than the patchisaurs and other obviously outdated dinos that are still out there. Of course, they're nicer and more polished, but they have their own scientific flaws, as evident especially from the brachiosaur. Next up, here's something that was at the grocery store not long ago.

This one is as far as I can tell a bagged version of the Walmart Marx clone dino set, complete with the patchisaur Pteranodon and the Hideous Abomination. (If it looks like you're seeing a frog foot in the lower pic, that's the Abomination....) The weird part is, they also threw in a uintathere, which almost convinced me to buy this thing. I might have eventually, but the set got sold out. Next, here's a sighting at the unidentified restaurant/ shop where I found Gumby and Pokey. Don't know that I have anything to say...

And to wind things up, here's even more from the store where I got the dinobot.

Apparently, you can make a Carnotaurus look goofier than the real thing.

On the other hand, this looks more realistic than the Dilophosaurus in Jurassic Park.

Why is the bootleg packaging rip off a movie nobody remembers?

And multiple Godzillas!

And with that, I'm wrapping this up. These truly are what I do this featuer and the blog for. I may not get much of my traffic from these posts, but it's always worth it, and sooner or later, I might even turn this into a book. (A reminder, I just got a new ebook out!) And here's one more thing...

That's all for now, more to come!

No Good Very Bad Movies 23: The one by Oliver Stone

 

Title: The Hand

What Year?: 1981

Classification: Unnatural Experiment

Rating: Dear God WHY??!! (1/3)

 

As I write this, I’ve been developing ideas for either wrapping up this feature, spinning it off, or both. I got the idea to do a run with a theme: Very weird films by famous or notorious directors. That immediately brought up one film which I’d had in mind all along, and another I had definitely meant to look up sooner or later. The present selection is the odd one, a movie I saw not long after I started doing reviews but never had a use for anytime since, until I thought of doing this. I’m doing it first because it’s the one I had to get on a tight time table, and the one that really makes me mad, in no small part because it’s easily the most polished and professional movie to come up in this feature. I present The Hand, a movie with the talents of Oliver Stone, Michael Caine, and the best practical effects guys who ever lived, and it is… just… stupid.

Our story begins with a quick introduction to an artist named Jonathan Landsdale who does a Conan-like comic strip, and his wife and daughter. The marriage is clearly strained, as the couple get into an argument that ends in an automobile accident. In the aftermath, he is left with his drawing hand severed and never found. As he struggles with his new disability and worsening personal and professional life, he begins to have visions of his missing hand wandering with a life of its own. Soon, strange accidents begin to befall those he believes have wronged him. Meanwhile, he takes a teaching position that comes with a cabin, and soon strikes up romance with a college girl, yet the disturbances soon follow. Is the hand really come to life, is it all in his head, or is it his own subconscious revenge? Can he salvage his old life or the new one? Spoiler- even the people making this movie don’t really care!

The Hand was a 1981 film directed by Oliver Stone from his own screenplay, based on the novel The Lizard’s Tail by Marc Brandel. The film was produced Edward R. Pressman, evidently as a Canadian-American project as the budget was reported as 6.5 million Canadian dollars. It was Stone’s only feature-length directorial credit between his 1974 debut with Seizure and 1986, when he made his mainstream breakthrough with Platoon. The film starred Michael Caine as Jonathan Landsdale, with Andrea Marcovicci as Mrs. Landsdale and Annie McEnroe as his student Stella. Effects for the hand were provided by a team that included Carlo Rambaldi (see Conan The Destroyer, ET), Thomas Burman (Cat People) and Stan Winston (see Invaders From Mars, Leviathan, etc,etc). the soundtrack was composed by James Horner. The film had a reported box office of $2.4 million, less than half its budget. It was also poorly received by critics, with Peter Nicholls describing the film as “deeply confused”. The film was somewhat more successful on home video, and is currently available in digital form. Pressman and McEnroe married, and have a son born in 1987.

For my experiences, I suppose what made me vaguely interested going in was how iconic the premise of the disembodied hand is, compared to how few films really use it, especially on “straight” terms. The definitive treatment was and remains the late-Gothic 1919 horror story “The Beast With Five Fingers” and its 1946 cinematic treatment with Peter Lorre (which I still haven’t seen). Since then, it’s become fairly routine to have undead (not to mention aliens, robots, etc.) whose bits keep coming when dismembered, as in Splinter.  To make the self-driven hand a main antagonist remains far more novel and most obvious in the realm of parody/ comedy, as in Evil Dead 2 and Idle Hands.  With that context, the present film stood out even sight unseen as both earlier than many it could be compared to and seemingly completely serious. With further hindsight, this was all a very strong indication of the problems to come.

Moving forward, the central reality of the film is simply that there is indeed little if anything that can be considered funny, intentionally otherwise. Caine and most of the rest of the cast play their roles very seriously, which brings out a sense of domestic awkwardness in the film’s better moments. The story told is likewise very much in the tragic form as the protagonist goes from troubled to abusive, even if there isn’t much effort to make us like the protagonist or anyone else. In certain lights, this is a big part of the problem, as Caine’s character never pushes the emotional gauge far past neutral. He isn’t sympathetic enough to be a “fallen hero”, not entertaining enough to be a lovable rogue, and without a trace of the gleefully over-the-top villain who would keep us watching just to see his comeuppance. It doesn’t help that he never seems distressed or even disoriented by his supposedly worsening blackouts and dissociations. On that front, I cut off a longer rant just to compare to Bruce Campbell as Ash. He’s obviously no equal to Caine, but the one thing he’s good at is making you like his character and absolutely believe he is in a terrible and terrifying situation.  Here, the vibe is a classy actor trying to play a character who can barely pretend to care, and the result is that we don’t either.

Then what really tugs at my mind is the effects, and this aspect of the film that first got me to its strange vibe: This is not simply a movie that could have been better, but one that could have been more effective if it was worse. The hand looks every bit as good as it should, yet it’s oddly unimpressive. The obvious issue is with the concept; the hand succeeds so well that it looks like any other hand, and it was already clear that it’s hard to make this scary, especially with the surprisingly low body count. What gets strange is comparing it to movies that are by any standard inferior, like the stop-motion finger spider in Bride Of Re-Animator or Winston’s own loose arm in Dead And Buried. The most egregious yet instructive comparison is with Dead Alive, where virtually everything looks like kaka on purpose. What that very odd film succeeds in is creating a sense of the surreal, to go with an already psychotic level of energy. By comparison, the effects here simply feed into a dull linear realism that directly undermines the movie’s already thin pretenses. Then this is as good a point as any to rant about the ending, which is no more or less than a cop-out interrupted by another cop-out.

That leaves the “one scene”, and I really couldn’t come up with anything better than the set-up sequence. A few minutes into the film, Jonathan and his spouse are arguing during a drive through the countryside. In the midst of the quarrel, the lady speeds up and tries to pass a slow-moving truck. Suddenly, they find themselves hemmed in between an oncoming truck and a big brick of a car crowding in from behind. In the most amusing touch, Jonathan tries to wave back the other driver back, and of course he’s having none of it. Naturally, a gruesome collision follows, in which we don’t really see anything though the chain of events is quite clear. The emphasis is on the aftermath, as Jonathan/ Caine rushes out. It’s as grisly, cynical and sleazy as the movie is supposed to be, and in my usual refrain, what follows does not live up to it.

In closing, what I find worth commenting on is my background as a self-advocate, which is certainly a major reason I have gone as I have on this movie. As I keep saying, I have enough problems that I can get the stoned-out-of-your-mind experience going off my meds. Throughout my time doing reviews, I have regularly dealt with movies that try to imply themes of mental illness and sheer unreality by doing weird and random for its own sake. What’s really noteworthy is that the ones that come anywhere close to succeeding wouldn’t really change if  the subtexts were explicit. If The DayTime Ended, House or Death Bed were framed as a schizophrenoid episode or a bad acid trip, they would still be every bit as weird and disconcerting as they already are. These movies may not be that good in their own right, but they have the authenticity that keeps eluding polished mainstream fair. And with that I’m calling this one done.

Fiction: The Adventures of Sidekick Carl Part 20!

 It's mid-week, and I decided it was time for more Sidekick Carl, I hope one of a few I will get in before the month is up. This time around, it's just a scene with a couple characters I've been building up more than I planned. I had enough material that I held back some for later. As usual, here's the first and previous installments, and while I'm at it the chapter that introduced these two. I'm at maximum snark with the movie parody angle. Also, there is a line here I really came up with as a kid...

The woman was clearly beautiful and equally clearly in distress. She was tied to an office swivel chair, which was itself lashed to a set of double doors. The view was flattering as she looked straight up. “Nod if you can hear me,” a gruff stage whisper said. Piercing eyes peered out of a vent. “Constructor and Carl are in the building. I talked to them. When they make their move, I’m going to get you out. I just need to know, which doors are the guards at?” The woman turned her wide eyes just off-frame… just as a door opened.

Then the frame froze, as John and Lauren Carter burst out laughing.

* * *

The moon shone brightly on a small but well-furnished room, now and then interrupted by a passing tree. The two agents lay unclothed under the covers, clearly happy. “We should do this more often,” Lauren said.

“It wasn’t anything, really,” John said. “They had to move the VIP train to pick up an ambassador. If we hadn’t gotten aboard, the room would be empty.”

The screen showed a beautiful actress and a handsome, somewhat older actor racing across a rooftop. Behind them, a 7-foot bodybuilder cast as Constructor fought Goliath and his lumbering combat exoskeleton, represented with what was clearly a miniature puppet. The unseen operator alternated slashed at the superhero, then tried again to dislodge the figure of Sidekick Carl, hanging on to the back for dear life. “It’s still better than CGI,” Lauren said. She nestled closer against him. “How many VIPs do you think have done what we did?”

“Ah… more than you might think,” he said. He put an arm around her. “We can skip this if you want to.”

“No,” Lauren said. “I’m all right.”

The heroine raced down a set of stairs, which a medium-distance shot showed leading to the launchpad of a quadruple-fanned VTOL craft, while the hero fired over his shoulder. As he turned back, the lady seemed frozen in her tracks. Then another man pushed into view, in the same blue uniform he wore, with a gun pressed to her head. “Sorry, Jonny,” the villain said. “You had a good run, but I need to catch my flight. And she's coming along for the ride.”

As the actors spoke, John mouthed silently. It was mostly banter that had never happened, as the traitor justified himself, but a few lines had really happened, or replaced ones they had never told.

“This is about me, not her!”

“Anything to say to each other?” (Why don't you tell him who you really are?)

“Don’t worry about me, John…” (I love you! I’ve always loved you!)

“You can’t play hero forever, John-boy!” (You think she really means it?)

“It will be all right…” (Let her go, she’s just scared.)

“You’re not riding off into the sunset…” (Why do you think she tried to get you in bed, love at first sight?)

Then they both howled as the hero said, “If there’s an afterlife, send me a postcard!” And in the next shot, the traitor was falling to his doom.

As the credits rolled, John turned to his wife. “We… we’ve had a good life, haven’t we? 14 years together, 12 years married…”

“Three kids,” Lauren added.

John nodded. “We made it work. I know it’s been hard, but we did it. Have you wondered, though…”

Lauren drew back enough to look him in the eye. “C’mon, John,” she said, “we have this conversation at least twice a year…”

“I know, but it’s important to me,” John said. “Do you really think we would have gotten together if, well, the Raven hadn’t taken over the office?”

She smiled. “You mean, would I have married Agent John Carter, if I hadn’t seen you escape the Raven’s goons through the air ducts, free the office staff, come back in to save me, shoot it out with the dirty security chief who let them in, and hotwire a jumpjet to get out before the building self-destructed?”

“Yeah,” John said. “You know what it was really like.”

“Of course we would have been together, John,” Lauren answered. “It was going to happen. It was happening. We already had a connection. We’d gone on a date. It would have been a lot more than a date, if you hadn’t said no. Hell, there’s your what if of history. Would you have married me, if I had taken you home on our first date?”

“Yeah,” John said, shifting awkwardly. “Of course, it wouldn’t have changed how I felt. Still, it would have been… different.”

“Maybe, maybe not,” Lauren said. “Still, I suppose I’m glad we did it your way. For a while. I just want to know… did you have to tell him about it?”

“We were friends,” John answered. “He asked how our date went. Besides, he wouldn’t have told anyone. He couldn’t have told anyone, or the Raven would have tried to use you to get to me from the start.”

“Yeah?” Lauren said. “So what did he say when you told him?”

“Actually,” John said, “he told me if you asked again, I should say yes.”

“Really,” she said. “Were you going to?”

“I hadn’t decided,” he said with a grin. “You hadn’t asked again.”

“Well,” she said, “maybe I was going to if you asked me on a second date. Maybe I was ready to ask if you didn’t…”

“I thought about that,” he said. “I suppose that was why I didn’t ask.”

She straddled him then. “Let’s get one thing straight once and for all… and don’t act like you can’t listen to me while you’re staring at me,” she said. His gaze shifted enough to see real tears in her eyes. “You didn’t save me that day. You weren’t in any shape to save anybody, you were just waiting for a better way to die, until you found me. I saved you, and that made you mine.” She began to pound at his chest. “You’re mine. Mine. Mine.” She was still repeating it as she pulled up the covers and drew him on top.

A while later, they lay sprawled on the bed. She raised her head long enough to say, “By the way, you know Constructor’s girl lied to you, right?”

“Of course,” he said. “I figured we could give them a head start. They might find out something our agents wouldn’t.”

“John,” she said some time later. “Dammit, John, I had my own gun.” But of course, he was asleep.