Reviews by JxSxPx

A variation of a boy and his dog film, but this time it’s with a cow. The first two acts are mildly amusing, but it’s the grand finale which rallies itself and delivers the comedy gold. Not that the first two-thirds of the movie is a barren wasteland, there’s plenty of laughs, but it feels slightly sheepish and sleepy.

Keaton plays a man referred to only as “Friendless,” a denizen of the big city, who packs his things up and moves west, gets a job at a ranch, and befriends a cow named “Brown Eyes.” After learning that the cattle will be sold off, Friendless frantically tries to rescue his one friend, and remains completely oblivious to the raging libido of the rancher’s daughter who wants to hop on Keaton’s sad-eyed cowboy. There’s much enjoyment to be had during these parts, including Keaton’s city boy learning how to do his various chores and engage with country life for the first time. But it’s the last act that’s the crown jewel, and features some of the more bizarre and obtuse images in his filmography.

The cattle being let loose across the city is humorous enough, but the comedy dials itself up with each new sequence unfolding in the madness. It culminates in Keaton donning a red devil costume to lead the bull and cattle on a madcap chase, and climaxes with the rancher, his rejected daughter, Keaton, and the cow driving back home, off into the sunset, and towards their happy ending. Strange, but wonderful, and the film could have used more of this freewheeling vibe throughout. Go West is enjoyable, but it’s a minor Keaton work. I don’t know if any of the films he made between 1920 – 1929 could qualify as bad, he was too smart, unique, adventurous and charming a screen artist for that. Even his disappointments rank higher than others best.

The last film created during Uncle Walt’s lifetime, The Jungle Book moves at the quickest, jazziest pace of any films during the Silver Era. This is only a good thing, as this version of The Jungle Book is light on the darker plot machinations of Rudyard Kipling’s source material, using the Mowgli stories as an excuse to string together several comedic bits together. There’s a lot of action happening, but little of it is actual plot. No matter, when something is working as well as this film works.

One of the best things about this version of Kipling’s immortal stories is the character animation. Each character possess a distinct gait and body language, many of them adopted from their respective voice actors. Louis Prima’s facial features and performing style are transplanted directly into King Louie, the lone original creation from the Disney studios. Granted, placing an orangutan in the Indian jungle is amusing for the simple fact that they are not native to that part of the world, but that's Disney for you.

But back to the main thought, characters like Shere Khan and Baloo are so memorable because their live action references are evident in characters. George Sanders droll, acerbic wit and effete gestures are all over Khan’s purring villainy. While Phil Harris would go on to voice several more characters for Disney in the following years, no other character merged as well with his voice as Baloo. In Kipling’s original text Baloo is a more serious character, but Disney’s slacker variation is goofy and lovable thanks to Harris’ inviting take on “The Bare Necessities,” which sounds like a solid pun during the scene, and penchant for confusing the fun thing to do with the right thing.

That last bit extends to the film itself. The Jungle Book, for all of its enjoyable and whimsical joie de vivre, is missing a certain spark that makes the likes of 101 Dalmatians a masterpiece – a hint of danger or something at risk. The quest to get Mowgli back to the village is frequently side-lined by various supporting players, and this encapsulates the entirety of the plot, but none of these diversions really provide moments of terror or real danger. Kaa, changed from Kipling’s friendly if feared ancient python, is too comedic a creation to be a most pleasing villain. “Trust in Me” is a gorgeous bit of character animation, but Kaa’s always the patsy in a joke. And Shere Khan is all build-up with no payoff. Sanders delivers great menacing and bitchy vocal work, could one expect anything less from him? But the film doesn’t deliver on the promise, giving him three scenes, one in which he plays a passive listener, a second in which he interrogates Kaa, and the third has him finally coming face-to-face with Mowgli. This isn’t enough to make him a truly fearsome or memorable villain, but he should be. The Jungle Book needed a stronger center on which to pivot.

While this may not be a top-shelf Disney film for me, I cannot deny how fun, charming, vibrant, and engaging the whole thing is. It works so well and moves so smoothly. There are problems here, to be sure, but a strong ensemble of lovable characters, catchy songs, and strong character animation easily overpowers them. 

You know, I’ve tried to take a few days to think about what I experienced while viewing The Canterbury Tales, and I’m still slightly at a loss for what it all added up to. It carries over the anthology structure from Chaucer, and writer-director Pier Paolo Pasolini cast himself as Chaucer, essentially writing its own director-as-auteur thesis for those inclined to lean on that critical school of thought. Since it carries over this anthology structure, The Canterbury Tales is all peaks and valleys, sometimes transcendent in its examination of a joy or a disturbed series of images, other times it rests heavily on bodily humor and naked (typically youthful, dewy and pretty young males) parts for shock value before culminating in a particularly blasphemous bit of provocation.

What does it all add up to? Hell if I know, and I’ve read my fair share of Chaucer’s stories. Thanks fancy college education for that. Anyway, back to the business at hand, Pasolini chose eight tales to adapt for this film, leaning hard on ones that allow him to indulge in ribald humor, bodily functions, lustful yearnings, and scads of naked flesh on parade. Props to him for demonstrating a vision of the rural English countryside that’s unclean, in every sense of that word.

And while much of the film doesn’t add up to much or seem to be building to anything, there’s two standout episodes. Ninetto Davoli stars in one, which sees Pasolini remaking his lover/muse/star into a variation of Chaplin’s Tramp character with surprisingly solid results. Anyone tackling Chaplin’s Tramp faces a large hurdle, how does one incorporate the various tics and mannerisms of the Tramp without appearing to be doing an exaggerated game of charades? Well, Davoli gets to be lustier, talk, and be dumber than the Tramp, which helps. It’s clearly a character built on the Tramp’s foundation, but spun out into a unique direction.

The second is the film’s big finish. A vision of Hell, that’s equally horrifying as it is blasphemous and uproarious. Demons rape and whip members of the clergy, and a giant red devil farts out corrupt monks. The audacity of the images won me over, Pasolini spared no expense in going there. If you don’t for a second think that Pasolini didn’t stick his camera square at the red devil’s anus as it expands to project the monks out, you’d be highly mistaken. It’s both very funny, and very queasy.

But then it just ends. I’m not sure where this was supposed to be leading towards, or if the film was just trying to build up to this crazed climax, but it feels unfinished. Almost as if Pasolini lost interest in making the film, and just decided to end with this provocation and move on. The Canterbury Tales is a good effort, but it could have been a great one if it had a clearer vision of purpose. This was my first Pasolini, and it made me curious about what the rest of his films were like.

For simplicity’s sake, I’m just going to refer to this title as Little Norse Prince in my review. If you’re interested, look up on IMDB or Wikipedia the numerous other titles it’s known by. And now onto our regularly scheduled programming…

Isao Takahata’s first feature film, Little Norse Prince, was also his first time working with Hayao Miyazaki, and it’s like a warm-up for both of their future films various obsessions and reoccurring motifs. It’s also just a solidly made film on its own merits, historical standing aside.

My only problems with the film were pretty basic: the English dub that I saw was in terrible shape and the vocal work was not the greatest. That’s it. Aside from these two problems, which I’m sure could only be improved upon if Netflix had access to a Japanese print that was cleaned up, Little Norse Prince is a solidly constructed film that tells its story with great economy, crafts unique and engaging characters, and has some moments of expressionistic and interesting animation. Ok, so maybe as a whole the animation is a little inconsistent, we’ll come back to that though.

Mostly known for its historical important, Little Norse Prince needs a reevaluation and reappraisal of its own strengths. Yes, it’s a test-run for everything that Studio Ghibli would build its empire upon, and, yes, later films would go on to better what was done here, but try watching Horus’ frantic fighting with wolves in the opening sequence and not becoming enthralled.

Fantastical creatures, conflicted hero(ines), philosophical and existential quandaries – everything that Takahata and Miyazaki do so well is represented here, and for the first time. There’s also the feeling that Takahata is trying valiantly to push animation towards more sophisticated and adult storytelling structures. That’s the great thing about Japanese animation, it plays to more audiences than just family friendly entertainment, and it pushes the art form beyond mere technicality. America has yet to catch up, but Laika’s releases and Wes Anderson’s one-time dip into the waters gave me hope that we might start seeing something more adventurous over here.

 Earlier I said that the animation was inconsistent, and it is. Takahata fought hard to get his sequences perfected, but animation studio Toei was used to cracking out product in a few months. It’s clear when a battle was won or lost by Takahata in the animation, but some of this issue could also be the era. Japanese animation from the era had a rounded look, while Takahata was pushing it towards more angular and geometric shapes. Horus and Hilda appear more triangular and harsh than other characters, and it’s easy to see them and then look at the expressionistic and simplistic The Tale of the Princess Kaguya and imagine the bridge leading from one to the other.

Granted, a few of the lost battles resulted in clumsy inclusions like a talking animal sidekick and frequent musical numbers once we hit the village, but they didn’t hinder my enjoyment. There’s too much energy and seeds being planted for two of animation’s greatest artists, there’s simply too much that works and is good about Little Norse Prince. I mean, where else could cutesy animal sidekicks turn into fragments of a shell-shocked girl’s psyche locked in battle? No, it’s not perfect like his later films, but even here, Takahata was striving for and achieving something truly daring and mature in his work.

The combination of Anthony Quinn, Anne Bancroft, Peter Graves, and Farley Granger in a crime thriller scanned as a “can’t miss” proposition. Or, at least, one that would be entertaining as popcorn-thriller junk food. The Naked Street found a way to waste this tony cast on a dull melodrama with crime thriller garnishes.

Quinn stars as a crime lord who gets his unwed pregnant sister (Bancroft) out of social embarrassment, getting the father (Granger) of her baby out of jail, getting them married, and setting them up on the straight-and-narrow. Naturally, the playing house ideal Bancroft and Granger have set-up crumbles to pieces in short order, and Granger is back to his life of sex, booze, and grifting. Graves appears as the reporter who narrates the entire story.

Buried within that narrative is some solid material to work with, but The Naked Street fumbles it consistently. Instead of embracing some of the more radical and purple prose-like dialog and narrative twists, tilting head-first into these ludicrous story beats, The Naked Street pulls back into bland moralizing. Quinn goes typically overboard, Bancroft quakes with vulnerability, Graves is dependably sturdy, and Granger is out of his depth here playing something outside of his sensitive pretty boy. Skip it.

While not great art, Suddenly is great crackerjack crime-thriller junk food. Taking place in a sleepy ideal of a small town, Suddenly finds a family held hostage by a group of killers intent on assassinating the president. Slightly hysterical in its mania of pro-Cold War/pro-gun messages, a typically bit of rah-rah anti-Communist sentiment of the era, Suddenly mostly works as a thriller played out in real-time.

Sterling Hayden stars as the sheriff who is romantically entangled with a war widow (Nancy Gates). Gates lives with her son (Kim Charney) and elderly father (James Gleason), her anxiety around guns and violence, due to her husband being killed in the war, are understandable, so they’re naturally going to change over time to keeping up appearances.

No matter if I disagree with the politics on display, Suddenly is a great showcase for Frank Sinatra’s considerable acting talents. Fresh off of his Oscar win for From Here to Eternity, Sinatra goes deep inside of the cracked psyche of this killer. He’s still hungry to prove his worth as more than a song-and-dance man, and he delivers large passages of existential dialog extremely well. He barges into the suburban home with a ruthlessness than soon dissolves into paranoid fits as the captured characters get under his skin. At the end, once his plan has fallen apart (which should be no spoiler), Sinatra’s entire being, which up to this point had been wrapped up in his belief in artillery, shatters.

Questionable politics aside, these ideals and story beats are found everywhere during the era, Suddenly works best as pure adrenaline thrill-ride. Taking place almost entirely in the suburban home, the film finds various ways to keep the tension and pace going at quick pace. Much of this success belongs to Sinatra’s life-giving performance. The rest of the cast doesn’t bother keeping up the pace, not that any of them are bad. Most of them are fine, with Hayden turning in particularly fine work with his uniquely droll delivery and tough-guy act. Just ignore most of the script issues and watch Sinatra tear into his villainous and cowardly character with aplomb. 

Frtiz Lang once dubbed this film his personal favorite of his American work. Sometimes artists aren’t the best critics of their own work, but dubbing the Scarlet Street the favorite of his American work is a lucid statement. Hell, he could have said this one of his best works, and I couldn’t argue. Scarlet Street is clearly one of the all-time great film noirs.

The quartet of Lang, Edward G. Robinson, Joan Bennett, and Dan Duryea had collaborated on the prior year’s The Woman in the Window, which feels like a trial-run for this film. Both concern a mild-mannered man drawn into the erotic machinations of a femme fatale, who manages to encourage and blossom his capacity for violence. An early scene in which Robinson’s emasculated wannabe painter takes out Duryea’s pimp and saves Bennett gives a brief glimpse of the film’s major plot thread: Robinson’s secret enjoyment of violence.

The eventual unraveling of the rest of the plot goes into slightly expected noir territory, but something about these particular characters march towards their dark fates feels different than your typical noir. It’s hard to pin-down exactly. Scarlet Street continues the thread that in a noir, everyone must pay, some more than others, some innocents caught in the crossfire, but everyone pays. The characters in Scarlet Street pay and pay and pay.

Bennett’s femme fatale is almost cartoonish in her devilish tendencies. Her gum-smacking and boredom is palpable even in moments when she’s trying to turn on the charm and make Robinson do her bidding. Two scenes stood out in my viewing: one in which she hugs Robinson and whispers sweetly in his ear. Robinson is passionately kissing her neck and professing his love, Bennett is rolling her eyes and trying to keep her body language relaxed while her face is recoiling in terror. The second is much later, and sees Robinson happily bending down to paint Bennett’s toe nails. Imperious in nature and her voice filled with a dominatrix-like purr, she says “They’ll be masterpieces.” Her acidic nature threatens to destroy the film negative.

Bennett’s character is the secret weapon to making the film tick. Robinson beautifully plays out his character’s transition from hen-pecked to happily subservient to vengeful murder to nervous breakdown and homelessness. Duryea is just as good as snake in the grass major villain. He’s Bennett’s boyfriend, pimp, and full-time hustler, and Duryea makes him both charismatic and completely hissable. His consistent requests that she “charm” various male characters reads very clearly as to what the true nature of their relationship is. Yet much of Scarlet Street rests on Bennett being able to convincingly portray a woman who is happily engaged in a masochistic relationship with Duryea and capable of luring Robinson to his doom. She nails everything.

While The Woman in the Window let us off the hook by revealing that the entire thing was a dream, Scarlet Street doesn’t let us off so easily. It plays its pounding drum march to oblivion in measured tones. Finally, it culminates in Robinson, broken and destitute, wandering off into the streets with the voices of Bennett and Duryea haunting him. Everyone pays in noir, some more than others, but everyone pays.  

As campy as it is stupid, Hercules vs the Hydra (or The Loves of Hercules depending on which title it’s listed under) is the type of swords-and-sandals bargain basement entertainment that’s built for cult appreciation. Is it so bad that it’s good? Not quite, but it’s so bad that it’s…something? I’m not sure what, but it’s something.

Buried underneath the poor production values, bad acting, even worse dialog, and preposterously fake looking makeup effects, Hercules vs the Hydra contains some kernels of good ideas. If it’s imagination exceeds its modest budget then that explains why it remains endearing for its cult audience(s). If the scene of the Amazon’s forest of mutated tree-men had been given the lurid, vibrantly colored decadence of, say, a Mario Bava or Dario Argento it would have turned out much better. Same could be said for the titular battle in which Mickey Hargitay is clearly swinging a fake sword at a papier-mâché looking Hydra.

These poor film-making flourishes pile-up, each more flabbergasting than the last, until they mutate into something resembling sweet and endearing. Jayne Mansfield is still a taste I haven’t entirely acquired outside of her films with Frank Tashlin and Raoul Walsh. It’s refreshing to hear her natural speaking voice instead of sounding like she’s sucking helium and letting out air at the same time. She's got a dual role, but she does nothing to differentiate the two parts from each other. Mickey Hargitay sure looks hunky, but he’s not much better an actor than any of the creature effects. Is it worth a worth? Only for fans of Mansfield or people who get off on bad cinema. I assume those two groups have a bit of overlap.

A triptych of Italian horror from master of the genre Mario Bava, Black Sabbath is 2/3 a great movie and 1/3 a muddled-but-enjoyable mess. So I guess it evens out to be something pretty spectacular. Having Boris Karloff on board as narrator and star in one of the shorts sure does help.

Karloff, the icon of cinematic horror, is clearly having a grand ol’ time with the wraparound segments. He effects his best kooky, spooky gentleman voice, playing the entire thing up to a campy cinematic nirvana that I would love to visit one day. These work nicely as breaks in-between the fatalistic and gloomy trilogy of horrors.

“The Telephone”

The first story is also the worst of the bunch. I’m certain in its original Italian form it made more sense, but studio-interference hangs over it in the American version. Clearly, a story about obsession, subtlety hinted at lesbianism, and revenge gets supernatural elements grafted on. Even without those supernatural add-ons, “The Telephone” would be the worst of the bunch for being the most obvious in where its heading and lacking in any engaging suspense elements. I’d still like to see its original form, as I’m sure it’s more coherent than this.

“The Wurdulak”

Italian horror does Russian vampires with the premiere icon of the Universal Monsters. Obviously, this short is my favorite of the bunch. All of the stories march towards their inevitably despairing and horrific conclusions, but “The Wurdulak” dismantles an entire family unit.

Starting with the reappearance of the believed-dead patriarch (Karloff, in the sole vampire role of his career), “The Wurdulak” sees the undead creature slowly goes about killing the various members of the family. He begins with his grandson, who then kills the mother, and so on. One daughter and her nobleman lover are drawn back to the dilapidated and haunted household where the family is reunited in their damned afterlife.

Italian horror was known for its use of vibrant colors which offset the horrors on display, or heightened the dreamy artificiality of the images. This short embraces those aspects full-stop. Karloff’s vampire is frequently bathed in neon purples, bloody pinks, and occasionally in sickly greens. This is probably the darkest and most brutal of the three shorts.

“The Drop of Water”

This clearly essays where its headed, but a ghost story done well is always appreciated. “The Drop of Water” takes place in Victorian England, and has a nurse haunted by the ghost of a woman she stole a ring from. While prepping the body for the funeral, the nurse spots a lovely sapphire ring on the dead woman’s finger, pockets it, and returns home. Is she really haunted by the ghost of the woman, or has she just gone insane with guilt for what she’s done?

I lean hard on the reality of the avenging spirit and haunting. The death mask, while completely artificial, is still deeply disturbing. And the ending, which hints at the continuation of the haunting on a new victim is stellar. This one is just as good as “The Wurdulak” to be frank, and I only rank it second on personal preference.

What a wonderful little anthology film this was. Granted, one of the shorts is merely serviceable, but even then it offers up a cavalcade of lurid elements to enjoy. The other two are mini-masterpieces in slow-burning tension and suspense before finally paying it off in satisfactory means. And in case you were wondering, yes, this is the film from which the band took their name. If these reasons aren’t enough for you to seek this thing out, I don’t know what more you could possibly need.

An independent feature made during an era when that translated into poverty row technique and budgetary concerns, White Zombie is remembered as the first zombie horror film. That doesn’t make it a classic, and it certainly doesn’t make it very good, but there’s a certain charm to it to be fair.

Most of the this charm comes from Bela Lugosi, fresh off his star-making turn in Dracula and already misusing that cache to ham it up in atrocious vehicles. Here Lugosi gets to recycle his cracked gentleman shtick, but to lesser effect. His character is much darker, more obviously menacing than the undead count of that Universal Monsters classic. Granted, his character’s obsession with voodoo mysticism smacks of racism and a fundamental misunderstanding of the actual practice. Yet no image better microcosm’s colonialism than the sight of Lugosi’s white mad doctor lording over his brain-dead servants who are indifferent to the death of one of their ranks.

Pity than that despite appearing above the title, Lugosi is more of a supporting player in the ensemble than the leading role. The story concerns an engaged couple (John Harron and Madge Bellamy) who arrive in Haiti to be married, run into a friend (Robert Frazer) who has offered his plantation as their wedding venue. It’s no surprise that this friend has ulterior motives with his offer, and he wants Bellamy all to himself. He turns to Lugosi to turn her into his love slave.

The story indulges in some questionable, even ugly, story choices which are buried in some stylistic camera movements. There are a few stylistic flourishes which liven up the proceedings, but they can’t mask the indifference of most of the actors or the wooden dialog. I struggle to remember anything about Harron, but Bellamy is particularly awful in her recitations of dialog. Once her character goes mute, she blossoms. Effecting a doll-like stare and holding her face in a way that reads as a mask, Bellamy’s zombie love slave is a much better creation than her flesh-and-blood woman. Frazer’s regret and disgust with himself over doing this to Bellamy gives him a chance to emote, and he does fine, but his character doesn’t have much room for him to add color or texture.

There are only two reasons to watch White Zombie: Lugosi’s deliciously hammy turn and the film’s status as the first zombie film. Besides these two talking points, there’s nothing much to offer or satisfy. At only 67 minutes the pacing drags, don’t ask how this was managed, but they found a way. It’s not great, but, in some strange way, it’s worth a cursory look.