A few years ago, when I was weighed down with despair over a romantic situation, a close friend of mine directed me to a quotation from French philosopher George-Louis Leclerc de Buffon: "Never think that God's delays are God's denials. Hold on; hold fast; hold out. Patience is genius."
In my case, patience wasn't enough; sometimes, everything you have isn't enough.
For Johnny Cash and June Carter, however, patience was indeed genius. It was 13 years between when they met and when they got married, but each had to wait out the other: June had to wait for the then-married Johnny to overcome his substance abuse problems (with her help), and Johnny had to wait for June to overcome her reluctance to become involved with a married man fighting so many demons on so many fronts.
Once they got together, though, their devotion to one another was unbreakable. When June succumbed in the spring of 2003 to complications from heart surgery, it was no great surprise that Johnny, in ill health himself for several years, passed the following fall.
Walk the Line, based on two Cash autobiographies, would be a lot less interesting if it were merely the typical rise-and-fall-and-rise-again biography we've seen crafted from the lives of other musicians and actors (as well as dancers, playwrights, directors, etc.), even though it covers that territory as well. We learn about Johnny's childhood trauma (the accidental death of his beloved older brother); his disapproving father, Ray; his restless marriage with first wife Vivian; his stint in the air force; his audition for producer Sam Phillips; his subsequent contract with Sun Records, the musical crucible that also produced Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Roy Orbison and Carl Perkins; his initial hits and taste of fame; and the seemingly inevitable descent into alcohol, drugs and groupies.
It's only when Cash (Joaquin Phoenix) meets Carter (Reese Witherspoon) that it becomes obvious that this isn't a typical showbiz biopic of one man, but the story of a romance with a lot of roadblocks to get around that just happens to be about two famous singers.
It can't be easy to portray two such public personalities--especially Johnny, who had his own TV show and acted in movies as well, and was far better known than June, even though she was a member of the famous Carter Family singing group--but Phoenix and Witherspoon make it look easy, even though it obviously wasn't. Much has been made of the fact that they both use their own singing voices, and it's true that they're each impressive covering classics like "Get Rhythm," "Jackson," and "It Ain't Me, Babe." It probably didn't hurt to have veteran producer T Bone Burnett handling the music for the movie, including a smattering of other artists' songs well placed throughout the narrative, especially Blind Willie Johnson's chilling rendition of "Dark Was the Night - Cold Was the Ground on Which Our Lord Was Laid."
More importantly, though, Phoenix and Witherspoon get their characters' stage personas down so well that the musical numbers look and feel like real concert footage. Phoenix does a great job of capturing Cash's body language, often holding his guitar like a loaded rifle, and Witherspoon is even better, displaying the clear difference between Carter's off-stage personality--serious, studious and well aware of the general public's disapproval of her divorces--and her bubbly, joke-slinging on-stage persona.
They get solid support from everyone else in the movie, including Patrick as the flinty, unimpressed-by-fame Ray and Sandra Ellis Lafferty as June's quiet but strong and loving mother, Maybelle Carter. Ginnifer Goodwin also does fine work as Vivian, though she comes off as a bit of shrew in her scenes with Phoenix. Let's face it, though--if your significant other were perpetually sulking, stoned and openly desiring someone else to the point of hanging up pictures of the object of his desire in your house, you'd be more than a bit salty, too.
But it's Phoenix and Witherspoon who must carry the dramatic load, and they don't just carry it--they run away with it completely. Their performances aren't flashy, but subtly infused with tension--they're almost immediately attracted to one another, but the timing and circumstances just never seem right. Under James Mangold's direction, they both have transcendent, poetic moments, on their own and together: Johnny slowly finding his signature sound while auditioning for Phillips (Dallas Roberts); June being chastised by a woman in a department store for her recent divorce; June handing a recovering Johnny a bowl of fresh-picked raspberries. Phoenix's intense performance is no surprise, since he's well known for immersing himself in his characters, but Witherspoon's turn comes as a wakeup call to anyone who thought all she could do was light, fluffy comedy (including me).
They do what great actors are supposed to--they let us forget that they are giving performances and accept that, at least for those two hours in the dark, they are who they're pretending to be. That makes Walk the Line something more than the typical biopic--even though we know that it makes the compromises, condensations and edits that all such movies make (by both necessity and choice), it comes across as unvarnished, straightforward truth. And you can't ask for much more than that.
Monday, November 28, 2005
Tuesday, November 1, 2005
Dia De Los Muertos
This poem was written some time ago, but on this day when one pays tribute to those who have moved on, it seems appropriate. Enjoy.
My father's skull was
never made of sugar,
never reclined in an alter
surrounded by candles
and candies, fishing poles
and plates of buttermilk
biscuits and pan gravy,
never had much of anything
but holes augered for two
green eyes, one of which
had been disconnected
when, while parked on
a barstool after another
tour of duty as a third-shift
railroad switch man, he got
flung skull-first through
a South Side bar's plate-
glass window and his
railroad nights were
done. He never did slip
on the parka he wore that
night again, as if it had
been to blame and now it's
hanging in my closet loose
and blue and strategically
gashed on the arms that
used to cover the arms that
used to carry worm beds
out to the back porch,
six-packs back from
the corner grocery store,
Grandma's casket to
the herse from the same
funeral home where our
arms carried his casket to
the herse that carried him to
a rectangular hole in the soil
in suburban Chicago where he
wouldn't have to carry any more.
My father's skull was
never made of sugar,
never reclined in an alter
surrounded by candles
and candies, fishing poles
and plates of buttermilk
biscuits and pan gravy,
never had much of anything
but holes augered for two
green eyes, one of which
had been disconnected
when, while parked on
a barstool after another
tour of duty as a third-shift
railroad switch man, he got
flung skull-first through
a South Side bar's plate-
glass window and his
railroad nights were
done. He never did slip
on the parka he wore that
night again, as if it had
been to blame and now it's
hanging in my closet loose
and blue and strategically
gashed on the arms that
used to cover the arms that
used to carry worm beds
out to the back porch,
six-packs back from
the corner grocery store,
Grandma's casket to
the herse from the same
funeral home where our
arms carried his casket to
the herse that carried him to
a rectangular hole in the soil
in suburban Chicago where he
wouldn't have to carry any more.
Monday, October 31, 2005
Review: Frankenstein (1931)
Sometimes, actors make stupid choices. Sometimes, studios make smart ones. Sometimes, these things happen at the same time. And sometimes, the results are legendary--either for the bad or the good.
Consider the case of Universal's Frankenstein. (Please note that I don't say "Universal's adaptation of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein"--much like the silent 1910 version, the screenplay, itself a patchwork monster with at least five different writers involved, takes little from Shelley's novel save the title.) After the surprise smash success of Dracula earlier in 1931, the studio was eager to follow up with something even more elaborate--and even more frightening. The natural choice was Frankenstein, second only to Dracula among famous horror novels, and the natural choice for the role of the monster was the star of their previous scary success, Bela Lugosi, with Robert Florey set to direct.
But that's not how it worked out. Lugosi didn't want the role because the monster had no dialogue--an odd position for an actor who spoke little English and had to memorize his lines phonetically to take--and Florey was bumped from the project when James Whale, a hot new director from England who'd scored hits for the studio with Waterloo Bridge and Journey's End, was offered the opportunity to pick his next project from among upcoming productions and expressed interest in Frankenstein. (Or at least this is the most prevelant theory--no paperwork exists to show for certain why Florey was removed from the project.) Florey and Lugosi did work together the next year on a very loose adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe's Murders in the Rue Morgue, but if that film is any indication of what magic they would have worked with Frankenstein, the world is far better off that they didn't get the chance.
Whale chose Colin Clive (who had worked with Whale previously on stage and screen) for the title role--remember, the title refers to the man who made the Monster, not the Monster himself--and Clive gives a nerve-jangling performance as a man very much balanced on the ultrafine line between genius and madness. Henry Frankenstein steals body parts from graveyards with the help of sadistic hunchback Fritz (Dwight Frye) and assembles them in seclusion in his isolated laboratory. (The movie takes place in an indeterminant time period--much of it looks like it could be happening sometime in the mid-1800s, but the presence of electric lights and a modern operating theater are confusing, to say the least.) This is much to the dismay of his lovely fiancee, Elizabeth (Mae Clarke, another actor who'd worked with Whale before), who worries that on the rare occasions that she sees her beloved, he appears on the verge of a total breakdown over his secretive experiments.
And so he is. Even when he succeeds in breathing artificial life into the body he'd sewn together via electricity drawn from lightning (in one of the most exciting, evocative scenes in any horror movie), he starts to fly apart, crying "It's alive...IT'S ALIVE!" as fingers tentatively flex on the operating table. When he blasphemously declares, "For the love of God...now I know what it's like to be God" (a line cut from later reissues and restored many years later), he's restrained by his best friend, Victor (John Boles) and mentor, Dr. Waldman (Edward Van Sloan), and ultimately collapses.
And this is all before we even meet the monster.
The story has become legend: Whale spotted 43-year-old character Boris Karloff in the commisary at Universal and thought his features interesting enough to cast him in the pivotal role of the Monster. Whale collaborated with makeup master Jack Pierce to accentuate and exaggerate Karloff's natural appearance, and the two created one of world cinema's most iconic images: the scarred, flattopped visage of the Frankenstein Monster.
But all the makeup in creation wouldn't have helped if the actor beneath it hadn't been up to the task, and Karloff was. His performance is one of the greatest in any movie ever. Considering that the Monster is a fearsome, lumbering behemoth with the brain of a homicidal maniac, Karloff and Whale make him remarkably sympathetic, with superb pantomime and facial expression (even through all those layers of makeup) conveying the Monster's confusion, sadness, anger and frustration. It wasn't his bright idea to be slapped together by a scientist going out of his mind, yet the Monster is reviled for even existing--tormented by Fritz and threatened with dissection by Waldman, both of whom get their attitudes adjusted rather crudely and permanently by the Monster's powerful, stitched-on hands. Henry pays a dear price as well in a spectacular climax set in a burning windmill.
Frankenstein was not only a huge hit, but a controversial one, what with its religious subtext and sympathetic portrayal of the most frightening creature put on American screens up to that juncture. Some scenes got cut or altered, like when the Monster accidentally drowns a little girl--the end of the scene was lopped off, unfortunately creating the impression that the Monster does far worse to here than mere drowning. And Universal had some issues as well, tacking on a spoken intoduction/warning delivered by Van Sloan and a happier ending than the burning windmill scene, which also allowed for an eventual sequel (in fact, a whole series). But Karloff's performance, combined with Pierce's amazing makeup and Whale's direction, much of it influenced by the German Expressionist movies of the silent era such as The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and The Golem, overruled any critical backlash, studio jitters or censor handwringing.
The Audiences of 1931 had never seen anything like it before. But they wanted more. And they got it in abundance, thanks to the success of Frankenstein, the movie that proved that monster movies were here to stay.
Consider the case of Universal's Frankenstein. (Please note that I don't say "Universal's adaptation of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein"--much like the silent 1910 version, the screenplay, itself a patchwork monster with at least five different writers involved, takes little from Shelley's novel save the title.) After the surprise smash success of Dracula earlier in 1931, the studio was eager to follow up with something even more elaborate--and even more frightening. The natural choice was Frankenstein, second only to Dracula among famous horror novels, and the natural choice for the role of the monster was the star of their previous scary success, Bela Lugosi, with Robert Florey set to direct.
But that's not how it worked out. Lugosi didn't want the role because the monster had no dialogue--an odd position for an actor who spoke little English and had to memorize his lines phonetically to take--and Florey was bumped from the project when James Whale, a hot new director from England who'd scored hits for the studio with Waterloo Bridge and Journey's End, was offered the opportunity to pick his next project from among upcoming productions and expressed interest in Frankenstein. (Or at least this is the most prevelant theory--no paperwork exists to show for certain why Florey was removed from the project.) Florey and Lugosi did work together the next year on a very loose adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe's Murders in the Rue Morgue, but if that film is any indication of what magic they would have worked with Frankenstein, the world is far better off that they didn't get the chance.
Whale chose Colin Clive (who had worked with Whale previously on stage and screen) for the title role--remember, the title refers to the man who made the Monster, not the Monster himself--and Clive gives a nerve-jangling performance as a man very much balanced on the ultrafine line between genius and madness. Henry Frankenstein steals body parts from graveyards with the help of sadistic hunchback Fritz (Dwight Frye) and assembles them in seclusion in his isolated laboratory. (The movie takes place in an indeterminant time period--much of it looks like it could be happening sometime in the mid-1800s, but the presence of electric lights and a modern operating theater are confusing, to say the least.) This is much to the dismay of his lovely fiancee, Elizabeth (Mae Clarke, another actor who'd worked with Whale before), who worries that on the rare occasions that she sees her beloved, he appears on the verge of a total breakdown over his secretive experiments.
And so he is. Even when he succeeds in breathing artificial life into the body he'd sewn together via electricity drawn from lightning (in one of the most exciting, evocative scenes in any horror movie), he starts to fly apart, crying "It's alive...IT'S ALIVE!" as fingers tentatively flex on the operating table. When he blasphemously declares, "For the love of God...now I know what it's like to be God" (a line cut from later reissues and restored many years later), he's restrained by his best friend, Victor (John Boles) and mentor, Dr. Waldman (Edward Van Sloan), and ultimately collapses.
And this is all before we even meet the monster.
The story has become legend: Whale spotted 43-year-old character Boris Karloff in the commisary at Universal and thought his features interesting enough to cast him in the pivotal role of the Monster. Whale collaborated with makeup master Jack Pierce to accentuate and exaggerate Karloff's natural appearance, and the two created one of world cinema's most iconic images: the scarred, flattopped visage of the Frankenstein Monster.
But all the makeup in creation wouldn't have helped if the actor beneath it hadn't been up to the task, and Karloff was. His performance is one of the greatest in any movie ever. Considering that the Monster is a fearsome, lumbering behemoth with the brain of a homicidal maniac, Karloff and Whale make him remarkably sympathetic, with superb pantomime and facial expression (even through all those layers of makeup) conveying the Monster's confusion, sadness, anger and frustration. It wasn't his bright idea to be slapped together by a scientist going out of his mind, yet the Monster is reviled for even existing--tormented by Fritz and threatened with dissection by Waldman, both of whom get their attitudes adjusted rather crudely and permanently by the Monster's powerful, stitched-on hands. Henry pays a dear price as well in a spectacular climax set in a burning windmill.
Frankenstein was not only a huge hit, but a controversial one, what with its religious subtext and sympathetic portrayal of the most frightening creature put on American screens up to that juncture. Some scenes got cut or altered, like when the Monster accidentally drowns a little girl--the end of the scene was lopped off, unfortunately creating the impression that the Monster does far worse to here than mere drowning. And Universal had some issues as well, tacking on a spoken intoduction/warning delivered by Van Sloan and a happier ending than the burning windmill scene, which also allowed for an eventual sequel (in fact, a whole series). But Karloff's performance, combined with Pierce's amazing makeup and Whale's direction, much of it influenced by the German Expressionist movies of the silent era such as The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and The Golem, overruled any critical backlash, studio jitters or censor handwringing.
The Audiences of 1931 had never seen anything like it before. But they wanted more. And they got it in abundance, thanks to the success of Frankenstein, the movie that proved that monster movies were here to stay.
Sunday, October 30, 2005
Review: Godzilla (1954)
It's hard to remember half a century and literally dozens of sequels later, but the original Godzilla was intended as a serious political statement against nuclear proliferation, most particularly by the United States.
When it was first released in 1954 as Gojira, the atomic bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki weren't distant history, but still-fresh wounds on the collective body and psyche of Japan, and insult was added to injury by continued American test detonations in the Pacific. In March of that year, a Japanese fishing boat strayed into a U.S. bomb testing area, irradiating the crew (killing one) and their catch of tuna (some of which made it to market).
Director Ishiro Honda and producer Tomoyuki Tanaka took these real-life incidents (which are mentioned directly in the original Japanese version, but were cut for the American release in 1956--more on that later) and grafted them onto the same basic story as Warner Brothers' The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, inspired by a short story by Ray Bradbury (does that make Bradbury Godzilla's godfather?). In that film, a dinosaur awaken by an accidental nuclear explosion ravages New York's Coney Island.
In Godzilla, the size of the monster was increased to impossible proportions (164 feet tall) and in metaphorical significance--with its size, radioactive breath and utter disregard for humankind's weapons and, really, our very existence, Honda and Tanaka (along with co-screenwriter Takeo Murata, working from a story by Shigeru Kayama) made Godzilla a walking, breathing nuclear explosion--an atomic holocaust made flesh and blood.
After Japanese ships are attacked and destroyed under mysterious circumstances, an expedition heads to a nearby island to investigate and finds enormous, irradiated footprints--and, the next day, the monster that belongs to them, which subsequently marches on the Japanese capital of Tokyo and tears it and its people to shreds, proving to be immune to humankind's conventional weaponry.
Doctor Serizawa (Akihiko Hirata) has an unconventional weapon, an "oxygen destroyer," that could do the trick, but he was deeply scarred (physically and emotionally) by the war and is fearful of letting such a terrible weapon be used. Can the woman he's engaged to, Emiko (Momoko Kochi), and the man she really loves, Hideto (Akira Takarada) convince him otherwise and save Japan--and maybe the world itself--from this terrible manifestation and melding of modern science and ancient, elemental fury?
There is much emotional power in the scenes of the conflicted Serizawa, who doesn't want to be responsible for loosing another weapon of mass destruction upon the earth, and in the scenes following Godzilla's attacks on Tokyo, with hospitals overflowing with battered, radiation-burned survivors. The Japanese cast delivers passionate performances that lend much weight and depth to the metaphorical subject matter, making their dilemas and heartbreaking solutions far less abstract and much more immediate and relatable. The score by Japanese composer Akira Ifukube is downright haunting and would be recycled over the coming decades. (Ifukube also came up with Godzilla's signature roar, which has become one of the most recognizable sounds in cinema history.)
Unfortunately, much of the movie's merit is undercut by the uneven special effects employed to bring Godzilla to life. The "man in a big rubber costume" approach (called "suitmation" by fans of Japanese daikaiju movies) works fine when the monster is photographed at a distance, smashing his way through detailed miniatures standing in for Tokyo. And there are burst of stop-motion animation (a la the Beats from 20,000 Fathoms), hinting that this might have been at least considered for the whole movie, but abandoned. (Publicity stills of the time featuring a more claylike Godzilla seem to back this theory up.) However, for closeups, an "electronic puppet" was used that looks a lot like Lamb Chop dunked in raw sewage and is just as imposing; the fact that this puppet is the first good look we get at Godzilla seriously damages the movie and makes it difficult to take seriously from that moment on.
Regardless, Godzilla was an mammoth hit in Japan and an immediate sequel, Godzilla Raids Again, was rushed into production and opened just five months later, even though the title monster is clearly destroyed at the end of the original. (In the American version of the sequel, Gigantis, the Fire Monster (not released in America until 1959), the monster's name is changed and it's explained that he just happens to be another member of the same species as Godzilla.) When Godzilla was exported to the United States, though, it was substantially altered. Large chunks of the movie were removed--including many supporting characters, most of the subplots and any comments aimed at American nuclear policy--and replaced with new footage directed by Terry Morse and starring Raymond Burr.
Up to this point in his career, Burr had spent most of his time playing bad guys and murderers (most famously in Alfred Hitchcock's classic, Rear Window), but he made the most of this opportunity to play a good guy, even if his role was being surgically attached to an already completed movie. (The original Japanese version runs 98 minutes; the edited/reshot American version is 17 minutes shorter.) It turned out to be a big career boost for Burr, who subsequently won the lead role in the TV series Perry Mason and went on to have a long, successful career--thanks, in part at least, to a large, irradiated reptile.
Godzilla has gone on to have a long, successful career as well--long may the "King of the Monsters" reign.
When it was first released in 1954 as Gojira, the atomic bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki weren't distant history, but still-fresh wounds on the collective body and psyche of Japan, and insult was added to injury by continued American test detonations in the Pacific. In March of that year, a Japanese fishing boat strayed into a U.S. bomb testing area, irradiating the crew (killing one) and their catch of tuna (some of which made it to market).
Director Ishiro Honda and producer Tomoyuki Tanaka took these real-life incidents (which are mentioned directly in the original Japanese version, but were cut for the American release in 1956--more on that later) and grafted them onto the same basic story as Warner Brothers' The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, inspired by a short story by Ray Bradbury (does that make Bradbury Godzilla's godfather?). In that film, a dinosaur awaken by an accidental nuclear explosion ravages New York's Coney Island.
In Godzilla, the size of the monster was increased to impossible proportions (164 feet tall) and in metaphorical significance--with its size, radioactive breath and utter disregard for humankind's weapons and, really, our very existence, Honda and Tanaka (along with co-screenwriter Takeo Murata, working from a story by Shigeru Kayama) made Godzilla a walking, breathing nuclear explosion--an atomic holocaust made flesh and blood.
After Japanese ships are attacked and destroyed under mysterious circumstances, an expedition heads to a nearby island to investigate and finds enormous, irradiated footprints--and, the next day, the monster that belongs to them, which subsequently marches on the Japanese capital of Tokyo and tears it and its people to shreds, proving to be immune to humankind's conventional weaponry.
Doctor Serizawa (Akihiko Hirata) has an unconventional weapon, an "oxygen destroyer," that could do the trick, but he was deeply scarred (physically and emotionally) by the war and is fearful of letting such a terrible weapon be used. Can the woman he's engaged to, Emiko (Momoko Kochi), and the man she really loves, Hideto (Akira Takarada) convince him otherwise and save Japan--and maybe the world itself--from this terrible manifestation and melding of modern science and ancient, elemental fury?
There is much emotional power in the scenes of the conflicted Serizawa, who doesn't want to be responsible for loosing another weapon of mass destruction upon the earth, and in the scenes following Godzilla's attacks on Tokyo, with hospitals overflowing with battered, radiation-burned survivors. The Japanese cast delivers passionate performances that lend much weight and depth to the metaphorical subject matter, making their dilemas and heartbreaking solutions far less abstract and much more immediate and relatable. The score by Japanese composer Akira Ifukube is downright haunting and would be recycled over the coming decades. (Ifukube also came up with Godzilla's signature roar, which has become one of the most recognizable sounds in cinema history.)
Unfortunately, much of the movie's merit is undercut by the uneven special effects employed to bring Godzilla to life. The "man in a big rubber costume" approach (called "suitmation" by fans of Japanese daikaiju movies) works fine when the monster is photographed at a distance, smashing his way through detailed miniatures standing in for Tokyo. And there are burst of stop-motion animation (a la the Beats from 20,000 Fathoms), hinting that this might have been at least considered for the whole movie, but abandoned. (Publicity stills of the time featuring a more claylike Godzilla seem to back this theory up.) However, for closeups, an "electronic puppet" was used that looks a lot like Lamb Chop dunked in raw sewage and is just as imposing; the fact that this puppet is the first good look we get at Godzilla seriously damages the movie and makes it difficult to take seriously from that moment on.
Regardless, Godzilla was an mammoth hit in Japan and an immediate sequel, Godzilla Raids Again, was rushed into production and opened just five months later, even though the title monster is clearly destroyed at the end of the original. (In the American version of the sequel, Gigantis, the Fire Monster (not released in America until 1959), the monster's name is changed and it's explained that he just happens to be another member of the same species as Godzilla.) When Godzilla was exported to the United States, though, it was substantially altered. Large chunks of the movie were removed--including many supporting characters, most of the subplots and any comments aimed at American nuclear policy--and replaced with new footage directed by Terry Morse and starring Raymond Burr.
Up to this point in his career, Burr had spent most of his time playing bad guys and murderers (most famously in Alfred Hitchcock's classic, Rear Window), but he made the most of this opportunity to play a good guy, even if his role was being surgically attached to an already completed movie. (The original Japanese version runs 98 minutes; the edited/reshot American version is 17 minutes shorter.) It turned out to be a big career boost for Burr, who subsequently won the lead role in the TV series Perry Mason and went on to have a long, successful career--thanks, in part at least, to a large, irradiated reptile.
Godzilla has gone on to have a long, successful career as well--long may the "King of the Monsters" reign.
Saturday, October 29, 2005
Review: Black Friday (1940)
In the bathroom of La Casa del Terror hang three laminated movie poster reproductions, two of which were bought for me by my best friend, JB. Included is a copy of the poster from Black Friday, which features the sly, sinister face of Boris Karloff, the startled face of Bela Lugosi and the frightened figure of Ann Gwynne (or is it Anne Nagel?--they're both in this movie, so I'm not sure). Audiences in 1940 may have expected a horror spectacular along the lines of The Back Cat, or at least something over the top and campy like The Raven.
No matter what they were expecting, they must have been disappointed.
The poster for Black Friday implies that Karloff and Lugosi star in this film together, but they don't even have a single scene together. They aren't even really the stars of this movie, both having supporting roles (Lugosi's quite small) to Stanley Ridges, who plays kindly English professor George Kingsley, who is run over by a car driven by a hoodlum named Red Cannon. Cannon's spine is busted, but Kingsley's injuries are grave. How lucky for him that his friend, Dr. Ernest Sovac (Karloff), is handy to save his life by performing an "illegal" operation: He takes part of Cannon's brain and transplants it into Kingsley's head (which, of course, kills Cannon).
When Kingsley recovers, he has some of Cannon's memories. But does that include where Cannon stashed $500,000? Sovac wants that money for a new laboratory (some friend, huh?), so he takes Kingsley to New York, where Cannon's mind actually takes over and starts seeking revenge on the rest of his old gang, including Marnay (Lugosi), bumping them off one by one.
The script is a sloppy mix of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, though Ridges does a nice job of switching back and forth between the sweet Kingsley and the homicidal Cannon, and the kind of lameass mad scientist movies Karloff was making at the time for Columbia, like The Man They Could Not Hang. Much screen time is devoted to Cannon's quest for revenge, so it's also a lot like a Warner Brothers crime drama--a bad one. Karloff has little to do but stand around, and Lugosi is painfully miscast in a minor role as a mobster. He doesn't get any fun dialogue or menacing moments. Hell, he barely has any lines at all. And there's nothing scary about Black Friday--it's just over an hour long, but is slow, dull and lacking in visual interest, despite a script by Curt Siodmak and direction by Arthur Lubin, who later helmed Universal's elaborate remake of Phantom of the Opera.
Black Friday wastes the talents of two of the greatest icons of the horror genre as well as the talent of everybody else in front of or behind the camera. Worst of all, it wastes the time of anyone unlucky enough to happen upon it expecting something that lives up to that lovely, colorful poster.
No matter what they were expecting, they must have been disappointed.
The poster for Black Friday implies that Karloff and Lugosi star in this film together, but they don't even have a single scene together. They aren't even really the stars of this movie, both having supporting roles (Lugosi's quite small) to Stanley Ridges, who plays kindly English professor George Kingsley, who is run over by a car driven by a hoodlum named Red Cannon. Cannon's spine is busted, but Kingsley's injuries are grave. How lucky for him that his friend, Dr. Ernest Sovac (Karloff), is handy to save his life by performing an "illegal" operation: He takes part of Cannon's brain and transplants it into Kingsley's head (which, of course, kills Cannon).
When Kingsley recovers, he has some of Cannon's memories. But does that include where Cannon stashed $500,000? Sovac wants that money for a new laboratory (some friend, huh?), so he takes Kingsley to New York, where Cannon's mind actually takes over and starts seeking revenge on the rest of his old gang, including Marnay (Lugosi), bumping them off one by one.
The script is a sloppy mix of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, though Ridges does a nice job of switching back and forth between the sweet Kingsley and the homicidal Cannon, and the kind of lameass mad scientist movies Karloff was making at the time for Columbia, like The Man They Could Not Hang. Much screen time is devoted to Cannon's quest for revenge, so it's also a lot like a Warner Brothers crime drama--a bad one. Karloff has little to do but stand around, and Lugosi is painfully miscast in a minor role as a mobster. He doesn't get any fun dialogue or menacing moments. Hell, he barely has any lines at all. And there's nothing scary about Black Friday--it's just over an hour long, but is slow, dull and lacking in visual interest, despite a script by Curt Siodmak and direction by Arthur Lubin, who later helmed Universal's elaborate remake of Phantom of the Opera.
Black Friday wastes the talents of two of the greatest icons of the horror genre as well as the talent of everybody else in front of or behind the camera. Worst of all, it wastes the time of anyone unlucky enough to happen upon it expecting something that lives up to that lovely, colorful poster.
Friday, October 28, 2005
Review: Phantom of the Opera (2004)
Gaston Leroux's novel, The Phantom of the Opera, has been made into movies many times since it was first published in 1908, including a long-lost silent version in 1916, the 1925 silent classic starring Lon Chaney, and an elaborate technicolor remake in 1943. (The less said about Hammer's gruesome take on the story, the better.) There have also been made-for-TV adaptations and numerous variations on the theme, like Brian DePalma's Phantom of the Paradise.
But it's safe to say that most people these days know The Phantom of the Opera from Andrew Lloyd Webber's 1986 musical, which transformed the story of the disfigured lunatic Erik from a horror story to a gothic romantic triangle, with singer Christine and boyfriend Raoul as the triangle's other points.
Rumors of a big-screen version of the musical had swirled like mist for years, with various reasons cited for its failure to materialize. The biggest stumbling block was likely the lack of general interest in movie musicals--a genre which, like the western, used to dominated the box office, but had fallen out of favor by the 1980s and stayed that way through the 1990s. Baz Lurhmann's Moulin Rouge! broke through, though, with good reviews, respectable box office and multiple Academy Award nominations; and Rob Marshall's Chicago went even further, collecting loads of cash at the multiplexes and a total of six Oscars, including awards for Best Picture and Best Supporting Actress (Catherine Zita-Jones). So the time must have seemed right for the musical version of Phantom of the Opera to finally make it to movie theaters.
But was it worth the wait? yes and no.
Under the direction of Joel Schumacher--whose lengthy career has veered from serious dramas like Tigerland to stylish frightfests like The Lost Boys to garish action flicks like Batman and Robin--Webber's Phantom is even more opulent and extravagant than it was on the stage, with wonderful costumes and glorious production and set design. To call this movie visually lush would be an understatement, and nothing about this Phantom qualifies as understated.
For example, when Christine (Emmy Rossum) is lead to the catacombs beneath the Paris Opera Moderne by her "angel of music," who is, of course, really the Phantom (Gerard Butler), we are treated to an amazingly intricate lair, including a lake (which, apparently, really exists), candelabra that incline toward the Phantom's gondola as it passes (in a clear visual nod to Jean Cocteau's Beauty and the Beast, itself one of the most visually sumptuous movies ever made), an elaborate bed for Christine to sleep in (how'd he get that thing down there?) and something like a million lit candles (clearly, this man has way too much time on his hands). It's only when the Phantom shows Christine his life-sized doll of her--complete with wedding gown--that she begins to get the idea that maybe, just maybe, this guy is entirely out of his mind.
The rest of the movie looks great, too, with highly detailed recreations of the Opera House and a French cemetery where the Phantom and Christine's boyfriend, Raoul (Patrick Wilson) have a well-choreographed swordfight (literal as well as figurative). Nothing in this movie looks bad, and Schumacher understands the need to keep the production constantly in motion, not allowing for even a moment of lag. He further understands that, as highly ornamental, deeply gothic and unabashedly romantic as Webber's Phantom is, taking the material totally seriously would be a deadly miscalculation. So he approaches it with a lighter touch, with tongue so firmly in cheek that it threatens to pierce the skin, and it's consequently much more fun.
His cast has many strengths, too. Rossum, with her huge, innocent eyes and exquisite voice, is the best Christine possible--an ingenue well worth the fight Raoul and the Phantom put up over her and, to some extent, both win: She knows she should go with the handsome but dull Raoul, even though he's badly overmatched in just about every way by his adversary, but she can't help but be seduced by the Phantom's grand gestures and mysterious allure. Minnie Driver has a great time as the opera's resident diva, Carlotta, giving a funny, intimidating and sexy performance. And as the new owners of the opera, quite put out by the idea of having to pay the Phantom not to cause trouble in their newly acquired house, both Ciaran Hinds and Simon Callow excel.
Not everyone is just right, though. Wilson's Raoul is certainly dashing and has a strong voice, but struggles when he has to deliver dialogue. And the usually reliable Miranda Richardson gives an oddly mannered performance as Madame Giry, who knows a good deal more about the Phantom than she initially lets on; she speaks with a heavy French accent, even though all of the other characters, most of whom are themselves French, speak with their natural accents (English or American).
And then there's Gerard Butler as the Phantom. He looks great and is appropriately threatening or sympathetic, depending on which side of his tortured soul he's revealing, but his vocal range as a singer is appallingly thin--he can handle the lower range just fine, but couldn't hit a high note if his life depended on it. He also seems stiff and mechanical in some of his physical motions--a carryover from the stage production, perhaps?--though he does do a graceful cape swoop, a skill he had occasion to access before as the title bloodsucker in Dracula 2000. But some fans of both the play and the movie don't give a damn how good Butler's voice is: As one friend put it, "Who cares if he can sing? He's hot!"
So, your enjoyment of Schumacher's adaptation of Webber's Phantom of the Opera will depend greatly on whether or not you accept the director's campy approach to the material and if you can set aside any misgivings about Butler's vocal limitations. If you like the sense of humor Schumacher displays and don't care whether or not Butler can sing a note, you'll get a kick out of this movie. Otherwise, you'll find this Phantom to be a very long, very painful experience. Proceed at your own risk.
But it's safe to say that most people these days know The Phantom of the Opera from Andrew Lloyd Webber's 1986 musical, which transformed the story of the disfigured lunatic Erik from a horror story to a gothic romantic triangle, with singer Christine and boyfriend Raoul as the triangle's other points.
Rumors of a big-screen version of the musical had swirled like mist for years, with various reasons cited for its failure to materialize. The biggest stumbling block was likely the lack of general interest in movie musicals--a genre which, like the western, used to dominated the box office, but had fallen out of favor by the 1980s and stayed that way through the 1990s. Baz Lurhmann's Moulin Rouge! broke through, though, with good reviews, respectable box office and multiple Academy Award nominations; and Rob Marshall's Chicago went even further, collecting loads of cash at the multiplexes and a total of six Oscars, including awards for Best Picture and Best Supporting Actress (Catherine Zita-Jones). So the time must have seemed right for the musical version of Phantom of the Opera to finally make it to movie theaters.
But was it worth the wait? yes and no.
Under the direction of Joel Schumacher--whose lengthy career has veered from serious dramas like Tigerland to stylish frightfests like The Lost Boys to garish action flicks like Batman and Robin--Webber's Phantom is even more opulent and extravagant than it was on the stage, with wonderful costumes and glorious production and set design. To call this movie visually lush would be an understatement, and nothing about this Phantom qualifies as understated.
For example, when Christine (Emmy Rossum) is lead to the catacombs beneath the Paris Opera Moderne by her "angel of music," who is, of course, really the Phantom (Gerard Butler), we are treated to an amazingly intricate lair, including a lake (which, apparently, really exists), candelabra that incline toward the Phantom's gondola as it passes (in a clear visual nod to Jean Cocteau's Beauty and the Beast, itself one of the most visually sumptuous movies ever made), an elaborate bed for Christine to sleep in (how'd he get that thing down there?) and something like a million lit candles (clearly, this man has way too much time on his hands). It's only when the Phantom shows Christine his life-sized doll of her--complete with wedding gown--that she begins to get the idea that maybe, just maybe, this guy is entirely out of his mind.
The rest of the movie looks great, too, with highly detailed recreations of the Opera House and a French cemetery where the Phantom and Christine's boyfriend, Raoul (Patrick Wilson) have a well-choreographed swordfight (literal as well as figurative). Nothing in this movie looks bad, and Schumacher understands the need to keep the production constantly in motion, not allowing for even a moment of lag. He further understands that, as highly ornamental, deeply gothic and unabashedly romantic as Webber's Phantom is, taking the material totally seriously would be a deadly miscalculation. So he approaches it with a lighter touch, with tongue so firmly in cheek that it threatens to pierce the skin, and it's consequently much more fun.
His cast has many strengths, too. Rossum, with her huge, innocent eyes and exquisite voice, is the best Christine possible--an ingenue well worth the fight Raoul and the Phantom put up over her and, to some extent, both win: She knows she should go with the handsome but dull Raoul, even though he's badly overmatched in just about every way by his adversary, but she can't help but be seduced by the Phantom's grand gestures and mysterious allure. Minnie Driver has a great time as the opera's resident diva, Carlotta, giving a funny, intimidating and sexy performance. And as the new owners of the opera, quite put out by the idea of having to pay the Phantom not to cause trouble in their newly acquired house, both Ciaran Hinds and Simon Callow excel.
Not everyone is just right, though. Wilson's Raoul is certainly dashing and has a strong voice, but struggles when he has to deliver dialogue. And the usually reliable Miranda Richardson gives an oddly mannered performance as Madame Giry, who knows a good deal more about the Phantom than she initially lets on; she speaks with a heavy French accent, even though all of the other characters, most of whom are themselves French, speak with their natural accents (English or American).
And then there's Gerard Butler as the Phantom. He looks great and is appropriately threatening or sympathetic, depending on which side of his tortured soul he's revealing, but his vocal range as a singer is appallingly thin--he can handle the lower range just fine, but couldn't hit a high note if his life depended on it. He also seems stiff and mechanical in some of his physical motions--a carryover from the stage production, perhaps?--though he does do a graceful cape swoop, a skill he had occasion to access before as the title bloodsucker in Dracula 2000. But some fans of both the play and the movie don't give a damn how good Butler's voice is: As one friend put it, "Who cares if he can sing? He's hot!"
So, your enjoyment of Schumacher's adaptation of Webber's Phantom of the Opera will depend greatly on whether or not you accept the director's campy approach to the material and if you can set aside any misgivings about Butler's vocal limitations. If you like the sense of humor Schumacher displays and don't care whether or not Butler can sing a note, you'll get a kick out of this movie. Otherwise, you'll find this Phantom to be a very long, very painful experience. Proceed at your own risk.
Thursday, October 27, 2005
Review: Orgy of the Dead (1966)
In the 1960s, nudie movies became quite the rage, with directors like Russ Meyer and Doris Wishman taking standard Hollywood plots and using them as frameworks for showing models, strippers and, on occasion, porn stars in the buff. (This trend has carried forth into the present day, when such soft-core efforts go straight to either cable or DVD.) A few directors even tried their hands at nudie horror films--which brings us to Orgy of the Dead.
While most of the nudie movies from that era have drifted off into obscurity, Orgy of the Dead has become something of a cult favorite, mostly because director Stephen Apostoloff (working under the pseudonym A.C. Stevens) was working from a screenplay by the notorious Edward D. Wood Jr., writer/director of such legendary low-budget bombs as Glen or Glenda? and Plan 9 from Outer Space.
By the time Orgy of the Dead was made, though, Wood's film career had taken a precipetous nosedive. He hadn't directed anything in years, was drinking heavily and supported himself and his wife mostly by writing "erotic fiction" for small presses. Wood did continue working on movies, though, mostly writing screenplays and sometimes directing similar soft-core fare (his last film, Necromania, includes hard-core scenes with porn legend Rene Bond). He also served as assistant director on Orgy. But this movie wasn't enough to boost his career, nor the careers of anybody else involved.
Why? Because it sucks. And not in a good way, either.
The plot is minimal: a writer and his girlfriend wind up in a cemetery, where the lord of the undead (played by Criswell, who wears a cape and has a lot of trouble reading his cue cards because the fog machines are on high) and his breasty associate, Ghoulina (Fawn Silver--do you think that's really her name?), make the couple suffer "the tortures of the damned," which seem to consist of watching exotic dancers come out and strip amongst the tombstones.
These strip acts take up much of the rest of the movie, with Criswell and Silver chiming in with comments on the performances from time to time. There are also a mummy and a werewolf on hand for no clear reason other than to crack lame jokes and make us really miss Lon Chaney Jr.
The strippers are all reasonably cute--I especially liked the leggy redhead, but that's just me--but their acts are ultimately dull and repetitive, and by the time the "twist ending" comes around, interest has long since been lost. There isn't even enough of Wood's standard bad dialogue to keep the viewer awake and appalled. (The screenplay must have been about five pages long.)
So if you're a real devotee of Ed Wood's work and feel that your life would be incomplete without having seen Orgy of the Dead, have at it, by all means. But don't expect anything as incompetent--or, consequently, as interesting--as Wood's more infamous cinematic atrocities.
The greatest sin of Orgy of the Dead is that it's not just bad--it's boring. And that truly makes it a "torture of the damned."
While most of the nudie movies from that era have drifted off into obscurity, Orgy of the Dead has become something of a cult favorite, mostly because director Stephen Apostoloff (working under the pseudonym A.C. Stevens) was working from a screenplay by the notorious Edward D. Wood Jr., writer/director of such legendary low-budget bombs as Glen or Glenda? and Plan 9 from Outer Space.
By the time Orgy of the Dead was made, though, Wood's film career had taken a precipetous nosedive. He hadn't directed anything in years, was drinking heavily and supported himself and his wife mostly by writing "erotic fiction" for small presses. Wood did continue working on movies, though, mostly writing screenplays and sometimes directing similar soft-core fare (his last film, Necromania, includes hard-core scenes with porn legend Rene Bond). He also served as assistant director on Orgy. But this movie wasn't enough to boost his career, nor the careers of anybody else involved.
Why? Because it sucks. And not in a good way, either.
The plot is minimal: a writer and his girlfriend wind up in a cemetery, where the lord of the undead (played by Criswell, who wears a cape and has a lot of trouble reading his cue cards because the fog machines are on high) and his breasty associate, Ghoulina (Fawn Silver--do you think that's really her name?), make the couple suffer "the tortures of the damned," which seem to consist of watching exotic dancers come out and strip amongst the tombstones.
These strip acts take up much of the rest of the movie, with Criswell and Silver chiming in with comments on the performances from time to time. There are also a mummy and a werewolf on hand for no clear reason other than to crack lame jokes and make us really miss Lon Chaney Jr.
The strippers are all reasonably cute--I especially liked the leggy redhead, but that's just me--but their acts are ultimately dull and repetitive, and by the time the "twist ending" comes around, interest has long since been lost. There isn't even enough of Wood's standard bad dialogue to keep the viewer awake and appalled. (The screenplay must have been about five pages long.)
So if you're a real devotee of Ed Wood's work and feel that your life would be incomplete without having seen Orgy of the Dead, have at it, by all means. But don't expect anything as incompetent--or, consequently, as interesting--as Wood's more infamous cinematic atrocities.
The greatest sin of Orgy of the Dead is that it's not just bad--it's boring. And that truly makes it a "torture of the damned."
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