Frogs

Each Spawn I Die

Frogs
USA 1972 Directed by George McCowan
American International Pictures/
88 Films Blu Ray Zone B

Warning: There are spoilers in here but the real thing I’m warning you about is ever attempting to watch this movie.

Wow. So I’d seen Frogs popping up quite a lot over the last few years on Twitter and when I saw the UK Blu Ray release at a ‘bargain basement’ price sporting a cover depicting a giant frog with a human hand in it’s mouth, hovering over a woman drowning in quicksand, I was pretty sure that this would be the kind of ‘so bad it’s good’ movie that I like to look at every now and again. Alas, having now seen it and finding it to be, so bad it’s nearly unwatchable in its dullness, I can’t help but think that the company putting this one out should be paying their customers to watch this one.

Okay, so first things first... it’s kind of a curio in that it features two legendary actors, one nearing the end of his big screen release career and another who had only been acting for around five years when this thing was made. So on the one hand we have Ray Milland playing Jason Crockett as the head of a rich family who gather for a couple of weeks every year for his birthday in his island mansion in Florida... and on the other hand we have a young Sam Elliot, playing a freelance eco photographer with the unlikely name of Pickett Smith. It’s Smith who we trail through an extended credits sequence as he rides his canoe around the swamps and waters of the island as he takes photographs depicting the evils of human pollution and its effects on the local ecology. Little does he know that the local ecosystem is about to bite back hard on human kind... oh wait... let me be straight about this in a way that the people who marketed this film aren’t... Little does he know that the local ecosystem is about to mostly mind its own business while people seem to just die around it in completely avoidable and preventable ways.

This is the truth you need to know before delving into the almost unwatchable dullness that is Frogs... there are absolutely no deadly frogs in this movie. Oh, sure, there are hundreds of frogs here, most of whom apparently fled their captivity for good and went off to do their own thing while making this movie, escaping their handler and returning to the wild. Yeah, gazillions of frogs... there’s just no frog death or, really, any kind of death remotely connected to our amphibious friends. And, bearing in mind how it’s been promoted, the film-makers must have felt pretty guilty about this I reckon because, right at the end of the closing credits, there’s a quick animation of a frog swallowing a human hand, just like on the poster. A kind of token afterthought to at least attempt to somehow tie it in to the sales pitch, I would guess

Instead, what we have are snakes, crocodiles (or possibly alligators, I can never tell), surprisingly deadly spiders, lizards, birds, a token scorpion, poisonous fumes and... in one notable case... a half decent sized turtle. There are no special effects with any of these creatures, they are just normal sized versions you can find in real life and with a lot of edits and placements to try and convince us that they are purposefully interacting with the various members of the Crocket family, who inexplicably wander off on their own to do something and then run afoul of the ‘pollution mad’ beasts. Plus a lot of frogs are just thrown into shot every scene so we don’t forget the movie is called Frogs, even though said frogs seem to have absolutely no input on the course of the story although, it has to be said, that in most cases they are better actors than a lot of the human performers in the film.

So, yeah, people will just run about the swamp, get scared by a snake, run off somewhere else and then fall, stumble around a bit and then get bitten. Or, as in the case of a greenhouse victim, some lizards will knock over various bottles labelled with words like ‘poison’ and then, when the somewhat naive guy goes to investigate what’s going on with all that toxic smoke, he coughs a bit and dies from... I dunno... slightly lizard related injury I guess. One of the ladies was supposed to fall in quick sand and die and you can actually see this death in the trailer (not to mention the poster) but it was then deemed too tame so, instead, she runs through the swamp, stumbles around a bit and then gets bitten and, because she has been bitten by something, her face turns somewhat green (in some of the shots).

Other deaths include a woman who succumbs to being in the water while... I think... we are supposed to surmise a turtle has somehow bit her to death but, perhaps the most ridiculous way a person ‘croaks it’ here (and it’s a film filled with ridiculous excuses for death scenes, as you can see) is when a guy stumbles and falls in the general vicinity of a few tarantulas (or other venomous breed of spider). Somehow, these tree dwelling creatures manage to cover said, quite unnecessarily squirming figure... just get up man!... with a web in less than 30 seconds. An apparently strong web which looks, really, just like somebody got some clumps of dried, non threatening grass and thrown them on the guy. Hang on... I think I might have just discovered the secret of the not so special effects in this movie. This looks so unconvincing and when the spiders are dropped onto the guy, he takes a long time yelling in an effort, I think, for the film makers to have something to pad the already dull running time out.

And in between every scene or transition, shots of watching frogs are inserted to continue to remind the audience of the title of the film, although I can’t imagine why they would call it that in the first place when there are no killer frogs anywhere in the picture.

Another completely pointless death is the protracted... “oh wait, we forgot to tie that bit up so lets go back to it after we’ve already had the concluding scene of the movie” moment where Ray Milland’s character, left alone in his mansion, is killed by... um... I dunno. I think he has a heart attack maybe just from being in the presence of a whole host of lizards and snakes. He’s wheelchair bound but you’d think this would just make him faster but, no, he somehow seems to die of complete startlement anyway. Well, I say he dies but apparently, Milland was so sick to death of the production by this point that he stormed off the set three days earlier than he was supposed to and a double had to be used for some of the shots in that final sequence. So there you go... not sure if it was a happy set or not but, I guess, for Ray Milland it certainly wasn’t.

And, there’s not much else to say about Frogs. Apart from a nicely over the top Les Baxter stinger when the first, harmless frog comes on the screen and a J&B sighting which just made me think I would have been better off watching something Italian, Sam Elliot as a young actor is about the only interesting thing in this movie and even his smile can’t stop this film from being a deathly dull watch. I wouldn’t, I have to say, wish the movie Frogs on anyone, even connoisseurs of B-movies... it’s that boring and energy sapping. Sure I’m glad I saw it because, with a stupid poster like that it would have been a lifelong regret if I hadn’t. That being said, I’m not sure if that outweighs the regret of having to shell out £6 for this thing in the first place. This was not the fun movie I was expecting it to be... avoid at all costs.

X: The Man With The X-Ray Eyes

X-Ray Milland

X: The Man With The X-Ray Eyes (aka X)
1963 USA
Directed by Roger Corman
MGM Midnite Movies DVD Region 1

Warning: Slow, paralysing spoilers partially revealed, 
the more you focus on this article.

Roger Corman directed X: The Man With The X-Ray Eyes right in the middle of his successful run of Edgar Allan Poe ‘adaptations’. The film was shot in three weeks but I don’t know how long the pre and post-production schedules were. What I have always wondered though is if Roger Corman and comic book writer Stan Lee ever knew each other at the time because X: The Man With The X Ray Eyes was released in September 1963, the same month and year as the first issue of Stan Lee’s new comic book of mutants with superhuman powers, The Uncanny X-Men. Both feature main characters who shared a particularly unusual last name - Professor X in Lee’s comic was known by the name Professor Charles Francis Xavier while, in Corman’s movie, the lead protagonist, a surgeon played by Ray Milland, is known as Doctor James Xavier. As far as I know, I’ve never read of the rather obvious and influential link between the two creations and the fact that they came out in exactly the same month suggests that neither of these was particularly influenced by the other... but, still, one has to wonder.

I saw the movie on an old black and white TV approximately ten years after it was made. I was about four years old at the time and I think it’s fair to say the movie made something of an impression on me. I was quite haunted by the imagery of it (even in monotone), in fact, and I’ve subsequently thought about this film a lot over the years. I’ve always meant to get back to it. After purchasing a, relatively cheap, out of print copy on the Midnite Movie label, I’ve finally caught up with it again after all this time.

It’s funny... there are some truly nice visual effects with Ray Milland’s eye make up in this movie. I remember his eyes being just black because I didn’t have a colour TV to see them when they were gold, before they were black (or the red inserts right in the final shot) but still the images stayed with me. I didn’t even realise the film had been shot in colour until I cracked it open again the other night but it was good to see it again after so long.

I have to admit that, even though the film had obviously scared/scarred me when I was an infant, all I could remember from the film were those famous shots of Milland with his black contact lenses in. And I have to say, it still really gave me chills when I looked at it again.

The film is quite interestingly put together considering that a) it’s directed by Corman and b) nothing much happens in it.

It describes the arc of a character who invents a chemical delivered onto the eyes with an eye dropper. This allows the user to see... so much more than what is normally available to the limited human spectrum. And the effect of the droppers is cumulative. There are a lot of really cool POV shots where we see through Milland’s eyes and, as he concentrates his vision more, layers are peeled back as we, like him, discover what’s underneath. Of course, this is a Corman movie... so you do get a sequence where everybody is dancing at a party and Milland suddenly sees them all nude... an experience which lingers when he is in the hospital but which makes no sense on a visual level, in that people are still able to be hidden by objects in front of them (for the protection of the delicate audience) when in fact, Xavier would not necessarily see anything in front of anyone. And so on.

Anyhow, Xavier ends up accidentally killing a colleague and tries laying low from police as a freak circus act and local healer... until his love interest finds him and comes to get him. He then goes to a casino and wins a lot of money by seeing “what’s on the cards” before being chased by police for cheating. In the ensuing manhunt he wrecks his car and goes into a church where a sermon is in progress. From there you get the final, somewhat chilling scene (to me, I know most people wouldn’t find it chilling at all) and really, that’s about all that happens.

Milland is flat and lifeless in some ways... I always find him like that. But still, Corman’s interesting set-ups and the hypnotic droning of Milland’s delivery actually are an interesting combination. Corman does some interesting things visually, asides from the trippy x-ray vision effects which were an achievement themselves at the time. For instance, asides from his old trick of leaving a door in the background open so you can see through to another part of the set to give the shots depth, the scaffold of a load of test tubes in Xavier’s laboratory is something which Corman shoots through at one point, framing his lead actor and actress (played by Diana Van der Vlis) in separate sections... which is rather fun. Although, it has to be said, Milland does set a bad example for kids everywhere when he lights his cigarette with the end of a bunsen burner.

Similarly, there’s a brilliant piece of transition work in a shot where he flees the hospital he works in from the police after accidentally pushing his colleague through the window to his death. The camera concentrates on his feet running down several floors of stairs while various newspaper headlines flash up over this shot announcing the police discovery and the fact that Milland’s character has fled... taking you into the future while still remaining in the shot of him fleeing the scene. If this wasn’t clever enough... the downward motion of his feet suddenly cuts you right into a similarly motioned POV shot from inside the carriage of a Ferris Wheel attraction at a fairground, which immediately establishes the scene and moves the action on to a point where Milland has already been working there for a while. It seems like a simple thing in the film but... well it kinda blew me away when I saw it and, when you think about it after, it is quite clever, catapulting you through three different time frames within the narrative in, maybe, less than fifteen seconds. Good story telling technique in a purely visual way. I was well impressed.

Which is better than the script in many ways... which seems to be a combination of flat, scientific gobbledy gook coupled with sudden and “so-inspiring-you-want-to-slap-the-actor” bouts of poetic dialogue like “The flesh dissolved in an acid of light.” Let that be a harsh lesson to all those kids in the fifties, sixties and seventies who sent off for X-Ray Specs from the adverts in their comics. And hey, helpful advice to future generations travelling back to my childhood and beyond. Those X-Ray Specs were just strands of cotton over empty holes... which made your hand look vaguely white like it was maybe bones. Don’t waste your money!

For a film that has nothing really happening in it... I found myself actually quite hooked on this one again. Maybe not as much as when I was a four year old but, still, pretty gripping. The film has an interesting and totally appropriate, somewhat atonal but pleasingly understated, horror score by Les Baxter and although some of the delivery by the main actors is flat (supported by some excellent Corman regulars doing their thing at various points), there’s enough going on to keep you watching. Plus the various contact lenses Milland wears towards the final sequences in the movie are... well... at the very least, eerie.

X: The Man With The X-Ray Eyes is Corman at his best and stands with films like Pit And The Pendulum, House of Usher and Tomb Of Ligea as opposed to his earlier shenanigans with movies like Attack Of The Crab Monsters (reviewed here). If you are into lurid science fiction which is happy to not over-cook the main concept and approach it from a, mostly, more subtle viewpoint than some of the other movies were doing in America at this time, then this one is definitely worth some of your time. And if you don’t like what you see? Well, if thine eye offend thee...

Zero Intolerance

Panic In Year Zero 1962 US

Directed by Ray Milland

MGM Midnite Movies DVD Region 1

Wow. Just saw a really interesting movie... so I thought I’d better “blog” about it while it’s still fresh in my mind. Now the only reason I got interested in this movie was because of La La Land Records. I’d not heard of this one until La La Land released a 1200 units limited edition of Lex Baxter’s score last year. I grabbed one quick before they sold out and, as I usually do, got interested in seeing the movie after hearing it.

Now Panic In Year Zero is quite an interesting movie. It stars and was also directed by Ray MIlland. It’s shot for AIP (low budget) in black and white and it’s in a 2.35:1 scope aspect ratio. And it’s the kind of film which is completely non-formulaic. It’s actually quite bold and you just don’t know what’s going to happen from one scene to the next. It also doesn’t “quite” have a full resolution either... it almost gets there and one wonders if perhaps AIP just didn’t quite get Mr. Milland enough money to “quite” finish the picture... but either way, a slightly positive and not quite so ambiguous ending for a movie is as good as any other.

The film concerns itself with a typical American family - Ray Milland, his wife, his daughter and his son (played by young heartthrob Frankie Avalon... Grease is the Word!) who leave their Los Angeles home and embark on a road trip to their family vacation. On the way there, a nuclear bomb takes out LA and many other major American and European cities (London and Paris are apparently wiped out completely). And very quickly this film becomes a movie about survival. Not about surviving the nuclear attack but basically surviving the basic, primitive evil of human nature as the many out of town survivors loot and kill and rape and generally make things hard for each other. All the way through, Ray MIlland and co are trying to be morally incorruptible people but it doesn’t take long for that to go pear shaped and pretty soon they find themselves sacrificing their own moral standards and doing some stealing and killing of their own as they attempt to survive the state the world is left in.

This is not big budget action/disaster spectacle (especially not on those old AIP budgets)... this is an interesting study of a typical American family unit as they watch the world around them get all “Lord of the Flies” on their arses! This is a film that, given its context, seems pretty fresh and ahead of its time. I’m pretty certain George A. Romero must have somehow been influenced by the moral philosophising the characters do in this film and took it all in and injected the essence of it into similar scenes in his breakout movie Night of the Living Dead.

To be fair, Les Baxter’s small ensemble jazz score seems a little out of place in certain scenes which may have called for a little more gravitas but... you know... it’s AIP... time is money. It was enough to get me interested in watching at least.

If you want less carnage and more humanity under scrutiny in your post-apocalyptic survival films... then this may not be a bad one to give a spin sometime.