Mad Max

Far From The Mad “In Crowd”

Mad Max
Australia 1979
Directed by George Miller
MGM Blu Ray Region B

Warning: Some Mad plot spoilers in this.

Up until this week, this is the only one of the Mad Max franchise that I’d ever seen and, truth be told, the other time I saw this, in the very early 1980s, I really didn’t think much of it. But I should add here that, in those days, the odds were stacked against anyone into films really responding too much in terms of video releases because you probably weren’t going to be getting any idea of what the film was actually like from the home video version anyway. I remember renting this, at the time, from the Off Licence situated the next road along from me... the Off Licence is still doing a roaring trade to this day, in fact, but I think he ditched the video rental part of the business sometime in the early 1990s.

I must have been about 14 or 15 when I first saw this but I was already familiar with the adverts for the vinyl soundtrack album to this one on the back of old Starlog magazine covers... so I was quite looking forward to it but, like I said, the odds were stacked against me. Quite apart from being a typical, low quality video picture, the film had been dubbed into American English, I believe, and so I’m guessing the UK home video version was probably the one with the bizarre, alternate Amercian sound to it rather than the original Australian English language version.

Worse than even that though, and this is something that a generation of movie watchers below me may not realise, the majority of home video releases back in those days were pan and scanned from the original ratio and dumped into, what was then, a standard 4:3 aspect ratio. This causes havoc to the way you perceive films because, quite apart from the obvious problem, you also have the presence of shots where a camera is moving over either a static or already moving shot, changing the way you perceive the image and the speed at which you are supposed to be “reading” that image. You also have single shots cut into two or more shots, if the person doctoring the video to fit the standard 4:3 television sets of the day decided that the information on both sides of the screen was worthy of inclusion. This also, obviously, completely messes up the way your brain receives the film in question. I hate to sound like an old fogey but, seriously, kids these days with their widescreen TVs and perfect transfers don’t know how good they have it. That being said, certain companies like Warners, I’m told, have started chopping the tops and bottoms off of old TV shows in order to make them fit perfectly on widescreen TVs so... seriously people? Have they learned nothing?

Anyway, I wanted to check out the Mad Max films for a couple of reasons, even though I avoided the sequels back in the day due to my first, less than ideal, home viewing of this one. Reason number one is that a fourth installment in the series is coming to our cinema screens in less than a month and people have been getting quite excited about it, for some reason. I have to say that, when I watched a trailer for this in a cinema the other day, in front of John Wick (reviewed here), I thought I was watching an advert for a cartoon or animated feature for the first 30 seconds or so... the CGI was, well, less than realistic looking. To these eyes anyway. Still, it would be nice to take a look at it and if I’m going to do that then... I have watch the original trilogy.

The other reason I thought I should finally give these films another chance was that, for many decades, people have been asking me to check out the sequel, The Road Warrior. People have always told me it’s a much better movie and some folk even say that it’s inspired by a Judge Dredd story I read and loved, week by week, in the late 1970s: The Cursed Earth... which in itself is a good reason to give the second film a go (although The Cursed Earth was obviously inspired by the Roger Zelazny novel Damnation Alley... which was itself made into a movie).

So I guess all this meant giving the films a proper go at some point before the new one comes out and so, arming myself with a cheap boxed set of the trilogy in a nice Blu Ray transfer, this is exactly what I’ve done.

I have to say, now I am able to properly appreciate the way the film is photographed and edited without the whole 4:3 thing getting in the way, that it’s a much more interesting film than I’d originally given it credit for when I saw it back in the early 1980s. There’s certainly a raw, low budget edge to the look of the shots and, considering the subject matter of a group of motor bike riding thugs causing mayhem in a rundown landscape, it doesn’t detract from the movie in any way and it all feels about right for it.

Future star Mel Gibson’s Mad Max character is set up with a very long and spectacular, in terms of stunts, car chase with several police vehicles pursuing a gang member who has stolen a car with his lady friend. During the various hijinks of this opening chase, we get glimpses of Max monitoring the progress of the chase on his police waveband as he takes care of his well oiled machine (his car, okay?) and instead, we get shots of his boots, his coat and sun glasses from behind. Character details like that start to gradually build as he begins to “tool up” but we never see his face... the information of what he actually looks like (which to be fair, is nothing special) is withheld to give the audience a suspenseful introduction to the character so that when we finally get to the moment of being able to look him in the eye, it’s coupled with a heroic and violent resolution to the criminal problem, thus subconsciously identifying him as a hero figure in the collective, audience mind through release of tension. When Max makes that first kill he whips off the glasses and the music finally kicks in and swells up to further enhance the psychological manipulation. Simple and effective.

Now the film is a revenge movie but it takes until, literally, the last 20 minutes or so to prepare us for this character’s vector. Although his friend Goose is killed off viciously about two thirds of the way through, it’s not until right near the end that the real motivator of his sudden, vigilante (if you read it that way) crusade is put into place. After that initial chase, the director starts hitting the emotion pedal by showing us an idyllic lifestyle when Max is not on duty. A simple man at peace with his girlfriend and young son. It’s revisited again after Max tries to quit the force following the death of Goose but, instead, is given some time off to think it over. It’s at the end of this last part where things go really wrong and the gang in question wait for Max to leave before visiting their own twisted revenge on him (for the events that take place in that opening chase sequence, right at the start of the movie) and run over his girlfriend and kid. When it comes time to switch the life support off on his dead family... Max goes on his rampage.

However, unless I missed something or it wasn’t made clear enough, he never actually gets the villain of the piece, just one of the guys responsible for the vendetta against Goose... so it’s kind of a strange movie in that the thing doesn’t actually get resolved*. I know there’s The Road Warrior up next, and I haven’t watched that one as yet, but I’m guessing, from checking the cast list of that one, that this revenge spree is left curiously unresolved in the scheme of things. So I did find that kinda strange, to be honest.

Now this is quite a gritty film, dealing with adult issues and done so in the grubby syntax of the period it’s shot... which seems to my mind to possibly be a little post apocalyptic, which would explain the lack of police helicopters and dilapidated, unkempt look of the police headquarters in this film. That being said, my cousin now lives in Australia and he said the place where they filmed this movie... always looks like that. So not really sure whether it’s supposed to be post-apocalyptic or not but... my guess is yes.

I also find it quite interesting that, for such a grimy film, the director shies away most of the time from actually showing the audience anything too graphic. I think we see the burnt hand of Goose but we never see his burnt face, for example, just Gibson’s reaction to it. And this kind of modus operandi is employed throughout the duration of the film. When a man is terrorised and his woman raped, for instance, we cut away from them being dragged away from their car to some nice, artistic shots of a crow flapping its wings etc. Instead of showing Max’s girlfriend and young son killed, we are just shown the aftermath of a shoe and a ball as a metaphor for what just happened. Now while it’s good that the director realised that a lot of the really horrible stuff would be made even worse if it was left to the imagination, it means that the actual graphic content of the film is surprisingly small and I do find that this particular visual cocktail film comes up a little short in a couple of places where showing just a little bit more (definitely not the whole hog, so to speak) would maybe have been a little more effective.

That being said... what do I know? It’s obviously an influential film, especially in terms of the spate of American and Italian post apocalyptic, gangs of thugs movies which came after it. I was thinking about this while I watched it and, honestly, I think even the villainous characters in a movie like Paul Veerhoven’s Robocop would be hard to imagine if Mad Max hadn’t come along first. They all seem to be very close cousins. And obviously, Neil Marshall’s own tribute to those films, Doomsday, also owes a tremendous debt to this film and, probably, The Road Warrior too (I’ll know soon enough, I guess).

Of course, Mad Max also has its own share of influences and with its motorbike drag scenes and Django-like scene towards the end, where Max has one of his hands run over and broken just like Franco Nero had decades before. It all points to the director being a fan of Westerns, if I’m not much mistaken. Mad Max and all those later derivatives seem to be about cowboys fending off against the marauding Indians... with the cowboys being the forces of law and order and the Indian tribes being renegade bike gangs soaring across their own desert land... their four legged friends replaced by two wheels and a big engine.

All in all, the film is a lot better than I was expecting and it has some nice photography to boot. Brian May’s score is a little bit overdone in places, I think, but overall it’s of its time and, although I can’t imagine a score like this being written for that kind of picture today, it gets away with it here I think. Not a great film but probably, in some insane B-movie parlour sense, a bona fide classic and, hopefully, the best is yet to come. Check back here soon for my review of... The Road Warrior.

*Since publishing this review, Grindhouse Dave has made clear to me that the villain of the piece does, indeed, get his come uppance... although before Max sorts out the guy who kills Goose. I've watched the clip and realised that it wasn't obvious, to me, that this death scene was indeed supposed to depict Toe Cutter, the gang leader, and personally I don't think it's very clearly presented but, it does seem to be in there. So thanks to the Twitter realm for clearing that up for me.

Mad Max @ NUTS4R2

Mad Max

Mad Max 2 - The Road Warrior

Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome

Mad Max: Fury Road

The Saint's Double Trouble

Templar Nights

The Saint's Double Trouble
USA 1940
Directed by Jack Hively
RKO DVD1 Region 1

So, finally, I am continuing with my catch up on the series of The Saint movies I started rewatching and reviewing a couple of years ago, after an unscheduled break. The Saint’s Double Trouble is the fourth in the series, and the third with George Sanders in the title role. Although this one, for some strange reason not known to me, is not directly based on any of the original Leslie Charteris novels, he apparently did have a hand in developing this one for the screen... which is a shame in some ways, due to the gimmicky nature of the plot. You’ll see what I mean in a minute, if the title doesn’t already give it all away to you.

The film starts off with a coffin being taken to a postal service in Cairo, being mailed, allegedly, by Simon Templar to his old Egyptologist friend Professor Bitts in the US (played here by Thomas W. Ross). And who do you think would walk into a post office with a coffin in his arms? Yep, here we have what can only be called a “guest role” for the original “authorised” screen Dracula, Bela Lugosi. After this scene, he drops out of the film until somewhere about two thirds of the way through the picture and it’s a shame that his inability to learn the English language, and having to learn his scripts phonetically, had already reduced him to these kinds of minor roles. In this film he plays a character called “The Partner”, who is really just a human clue for Simon Templar to pick up on in his fight against the real villain of the piece.

Now, after having watched this for 15 minutes, I started getting confused. By this time, you see, I had forgotten what the title of the movie was and when Simon Templar went back to his hideout to consult with his gang of criminals... um. What? Yeah, it’s the old doubles plot. These days it’s one of the sure signs that a movie or TV show has gotten to the point where it’s “jumped the shark”, in modern parlance... and that’s one of the reasons why I was surprised Charteris was involved in this one. Even in those days it was getting to be a bit of a cliché, I suspect, and certainly a sign that the scriptwriters were running out of ideas. As it happens, though, it did manage to fool me... so it was either done incredibly subtly or... I didn’t anticipate the complete lack of realism in the way the characters were pitched.

By that last comment I mean to say that, although George Sanders is obviously playing both roles, his voice and characterisation of the “double” are exactly the same as each other. Seriously people? They’d even have the same voice? Furthermore... how the heck does the double know enough about Simon Templar’s personal life to be able to frame him for a string of murders? Anyone could fake up a Saint calling card, sure... but they wouldn’t, for instance, have a knowledge of the history between Simon Templar and Professor Bitts or, as it turns out, Professor Bitt’s daughter, played by Helene Whitney. So there’s that.

Still, it doesn’t really matter because the cast are all pretty good, although the locations being used all seem to be limited to the same three or four settings, with characters going back and forth between the specific areas laid out in the first 20 minutes of the movie... with the exception of a jail scene near the end of the film (and that’s giving away nothing in terms of plotting, by the way). Jonathan Hale is back on hand as Inspector Fernack, the Inspector Teale equivalent of The Saint’s American set adventures... and I’m happy to say he’s playing the character a little smarter than he did in the last entry. Still not as sharp as he was in the original Louis Hayward opener, The Saint In New York (reviewed here), but certainly no longer a completely helpless buffoon, at least.

The pacing is not as speedy as the blistering third film in the series (reviewed here) and, in all honesty, the dialogue is not as sharp or as singing as it was in that one either. However, the characters are all fairly charming (even the villains) and it whiles away its short running time fairly pleasantly. Sanders impressed me a little by actually being quite ruthless and tough when it came to risking the lives of the people who are playing against him... and still manages to come out of it as less of a thug and more of a righteous person who is, nevertheless, also a Robin Hood style criminal. I was also pleased that the writers were not afraid of killing off one of the more likeable, good guy characters in the film... and stuff like that is always a bonus to add a touch of weight to the drama and ensure that to Simon Templar in this one, just like a 1980s action hero... this time it’s personal!

Now, to be fair, there were gaping plot holes in this and not too much done in terms of actual detecting and problem solving as Simon Templar tries to get to the bottom of the mystery. It’s very much late 1970s Roger Moore as James Bond territory when it comes to any actual investigative techniques being used. That being said, the lack of logic and realism in terms of the plot mechanics in no way detract from this being a pretty entertaining experience and Sanders is surprisingly capable in a role which has him leaping undetected onto the running boards of cars or being tied up in a sinking row boat... this is all good stuff.

Once again, the trademark tune which Sanders whistles and which is claimed by Charteris himself as his invention (although my money is still on musical director Roy Webb, who continues duties on this entry) is heard and, certainly, it’s something that fans of later incarnations of The Saint in film and television, especially Ian Ogilvy’s turn as Templar in the TV show Return Of The Saint, will be very familiar with. So it’s good that at least some films were going for a certain amount of musical continuity... much more than the powers that be in Hollywood seem to be attempting these days, at any rate.

The ending is a short and sweet affair. I’m pretty sure these shorter movies would have been made to be the supporting feature to larger budgeted productions in most cases, but it certainly ensures that the film doesn’t outstay it’s welcome and I have to say, despite my objections to Sanders in the role in comparison to Louis Hayward, who I think played the character perfectly to the version in the books, I am still having a blast with this series of films and am enjoying these just as much as I did in my early teens, in the 1980s. So you can be sure there’ll be another Saint review on here soon and I need to get my skates on in that respect so I can start catching up to The Falcon films again. Watch this space.

John Wick

Wicked Game

John Wick
2014  USA
Directed by Chad Stahelski & David Leitch (uncredited) 
UK cinema release print.

Okay. So I find it kinda strange and irritating that a relatively high profile action movie like John Wick has had such a delayed release in this country, especially when the language it’s been shot in is a derivative of the language we speak here in the UK. My cousin lives in Australia and I remember him recommending this film to me when we had a Skype conversation in early November. Why did we have to wait so long for it in this country? Especially since, as is my understanding, there were no censorship issues with it. Note to studios: If I really had wanted to see this film badly enough, I would have just legally bought the US DVD or Blu Ray edition which came out a little while ago over there and had it shipped... pretty much anyone who is a lover of film in the UK has to have at least one multi-region player of some kind laying around because there is so much trouble with censorship and availability in the UK. People less scrupulous than I would, and I’m sure many did, just download it illegally from the internet... personally I don’t do that, for a variety of reasons, but many people do. So you are really hurting your box office take by not releasing these movies more or less simultaneously.

John Wick is a pretty good, broad stroke revenge movie, fuelled very much by comic book style attitude towards the action and violence but shot with a certain amount of care and detail to the point that it is like the close kin of another movie I saw at the cinema recently, the Liam Neeson action flick Run All Night (reviewed by me here). Of course, in every other country, John Wick was the first horse to bolt out of the stable door but, obviously, I’ve had to wait until after the Neeson flick had already been playing for a while before I had an opportunity to see this one.

The similarities between both are quite marked.

Both films start off by showing a central protagonist in a very bad way and then flashback to how he got into this state for the majority of the running time. They are both films which involve an anti-hero ex-killer (Wick’s nickname is Baba Yaga in this) who has a history with the villain of the piece. Wick, by the way, is played by the highly competent actor Keanu Reeves and his ex-villainous connection is played by Michael Nyqvist, who most UK audiences will recognise best from his role as Mikael Blomkvist in the original adaptation of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and its subsequent sequels, collectively known as The Millennium Trilogy. Both John Wick and Run All Night have a central protagonist who is forced to go on a rampage of some kind due to the misguided exploits of the young, hot-head son of the film’s principal antagonist and, in each case, that antagonist is only going after the protagonist, very reluctantly, because he has been backed into a corner due to the consequences of those actions of his offspring.

Both films also feature very long action and chase sequences but the way both films go about trying to achieve their adrenalin fuelled, emotional goals are very different. The two have nicely composed and designed shots but, where Run All Night has a kind of modus operandi to the sequences which keeps them cut like an MTV pop generation video on acid - extremely short shots making up all the scenes - Wick uses much longer, fluid shots with a lot of moving camera to capture the more flamboyant scenes of violence. Both films have their pros and cons and are trying to be gritty but with Run All Night, the speed of the shots slightly detracts somewhat. John Wick, on the other hand, is a little more light in tone when it comes to the raw edge of the character and, as I said, much more comic book in its treatment of the choreography of the action sequences. It prefers to use moving master shots to keep you pulled in and focused.

Neither film is wrong in their approach but I find the idea of two films with similar themes being the flip side of the coin to each other, when it comes to the technique used to illustrate those themes, extremely interesting. The fight choreography in John Wick is certainly impressive and it does look like Keanu Reeves is doing a lot of his own “rough n’ tumble” in this one... quite convincingly, I might add. In terms of comparing the two films... I’d consider watching John Wick again because the action sequences seem to be a lot more entertaining, it has to be said.

The main difference to this movie is that John Wick is very much a revenge thriller and it takes a fair bit of the early screen time pulling very hard at the audience’s emotions to establish the connection between Wick and his new puppy dog, sent from his recently deceased wife to bond with Wick after her death. Everyone loves a puppy and so the inevitable scene where John is beaten up, his dog killed* (which is in the trailer, so I’m not spoiling anything here, people) and car stolen, is very calculated but, obviously, it works pretty well and you'll get quite fuelled up to see Keanu Reeves’ character leap into action and punish the bad guys. Strangely though, and this is where the art of film comes into play, the amount of time between John Wick losing his wife, gaining a puppy and then having it killed, forcing him out of his self-imposed “kill them all” retirement, can actually be only a week in terms of the events in the character’s chronology. However, the director is skilled, or at least tricksy enough, to give those elements a sense of gravitas even though they take up a pretty insignificantly small amount of time in the principal character’s life. And, of course, Keanu Reeves’ on screen performance is sturdy and assured enough to convince the audience that his personal stake in this is enough motivation for his actions throughout the rest of the film. So, as usual, good work from him.

He’s ably supported by some great actors and actresses in this too, with some good little turns from Willem Dafoe, John Leguizamo, Ian McShane, Adrianne Palicki and Bridget Moynahan (although, seriously people, 8 seconds of screen time is really not enough for this wonderful actress). He’s also well supported by some striking shots, cool lighting changes (there’s a scene where he goes from neutral whites and beiges to a “full on Bava” of greens and reds at one point), neat editing and... a nice enough score by Tyler Bates and Joel J. Richard. Although regarding this last element it seems, on first listen in the context of the movie, to be a killer baseline missing a central theme which might have given the film a little more lift in places, I felt. Great action coupled with a strong sense of a, kind of, moral heart for the character (despite killing 77 people on screen, most of whom are innocent of any crime against him other than trying to stop him from killing someone else) round out a movie which is actually quite entertaining.

Talk of good box office and a sequel is something which surprises me in the case of John Wick, given that it took so long to get the film out over here. However, it deserves a shot at a franchise, I think... although I’m not sure where they can go with the character after this since the motivation for his misadventures seems to be all used up by the time he’s done with his rampage in this one. Time will tell I guess but, in the meantime, if you like well oiled action movies with lots of loud noise and all the usual punching, shooting and chasing in them, then John Wick should probably satisfy your appetite for destruction for a while. Locked, loaded and ready for traction.

*Just a thought but, if you’re going to take a car ride with your dog and then spin the car around in some death defying, high speed spins and such like, your dog will seriously be looking half dead, at the very least, way before the villains of the piece come into play. That sequence is not very plausible.

The Car

Hob Gear

The Car
USA 1977
Directed by Elliot Silverstein
Arrow/Universal Blu Ray Region 2

Well this was a jaw droppingly amazing and unexpectedly well made film. Given the subject matter and the fact that it’s been around for nearly four decades, I’m amazed I didn’t cross paths with this movie on television anytime sooner.

This film first properly came onto my radar when a limited edition of Leonard Rosenman’s score was released about a month ago. Now I always find Leonard Rosenman’s work a bit hit and miss, perhaps more miss than hit if I were being honest. This is not because he tends to write mostly either atonal music or full on 12 tone serial music (both of which I love) but because I mostly find his writing in these kinds of styles a bit dull compared to, say, masters like Schoenberg and Ligeti.

Another reason I am less enthusiastic about him is because he always... always... uses a particular musical phrase in pretty much every score recording I own by him and, in this last respect at least, the score to The Car is no exception. It’s a kind of musical progression, almost a mini fugue, which I’ve heard him slip in on scores like Beneath/Battle For The Planet Of The Apes, Fantastic Voyage, Lord Of The Rings (the proper movie version), Star Trek IV and so on. The liner notes by Jeff Bond on this score release refer to this “signature effect” as a “brass tone pyramid” and so I guess that’s the technical name for it... and I understand that Rosenman probably just saw this as another weapon in his arsenal for creating mood and atmosphere... but I still spend my time listening to any of his soundtracks waiting for him to drop the damn thing in and then gritting my teeth.

However, I listened to the sound samples put up by Intrada Records and the score sounded pretty good and to my liking... especially as it has lots of quotes of the musical phrase known throughout musical history as the Dies Irae, one of my favourite quotations. So yeah, I ordered the CD and I had a listen and then, of course, well... I had to see the movie it came from, didn’t I? Luckily, Arrow have put out a truly sumptuous Blu Ray transfer of the movie which is not costing the earth and so, as usual, the music was my primary path to seeing a film.

And what a film it is.

The premise pitched to the director was that Universal wanted another gi-normous hit of a movie in the style of their big Spielberg success Jaws... but they didn’t want to run to the expense of filming on the ocean and in big water tanks again so they decided to replace the shark with the titular vehicle and set it in a small, desert community town. And as silly as that sounds... due largely to the seriousness and gravitas given by an extraordinarily creative director and a cast consisting of great character actors such as James Brolin, Kathleen Lloyd, John Marley and Ronny Cox, to name a few... the movie really does work at much more than the level of the absurd but satisfying B-movie premise that is its main DNA. That DNA consisting of a driverless, demonically possessed Black 1971 Lincoln Continental Mark III car with a customised lowered frame... giving it a black, lean, animalistic feel which works really well for it.

The film opens up with the credits set against a long static shot of desert landscape in blue. Not sure if the eventual change to... um... less blue... is meant to signify “sun up” but it doesn’t matter because, coupled with Rosenman’s score, the screen was filled with vibrant colour and I was hooked. Then, after the credits roll, we see a trail of sand rising up in the far distance, almost like Michael Bentine was puffing out smoke on one of his old Potty Time models (for anyone as old as me who remembers that show) and this kicking up of the sand and dust is our visual approach to The Car sorted out. It’s something the director actually does quite a lot during the film, bearing in mind most of it is set during daylight... start off with an extremely long shot and then show a symptom indicator that “the car is coming” such as clouds of dust or bright flashes of light from the windscreen to help us focus in on the little spec of the screen which will eventually grow in size to the horse-powered horror as it gets closer to the camera. It’s quite a brilliant way of doing it actually and the director has a lot of this kind of slow approach happening while things are going on in the foreground too... which gives you a kind of “the car is watching and ever present” feeling to certain sequences of the movie.

Then we see our first victims of the film... two teenage cyclists... and the speed of the car is coupled with shots from inside the windscreen, which is blacked out in front but which gives us a kind of yellow saturated filter view of the external environment that the director employs extensively to give us a “car’s eye view” of things as it roars past the world. It’s one of a few things the director does to kind of imbue the car with a certain calculating intelligence and organic presence.

Another such trick is a beautiful shot where the camera is on some kind of rig and is going along deep focused on one of the speeding wheels in profile. When victim number three insults the car as it goes by... we stop with it and almost feel it considering its next action... before circling back to commit its third homicide of the movie.

This is all great stuff and the director uses a lot of these kinds of personalising shenanigans to both build up The Car as an intelligent, thinking manifestation and also to really start gripping you with the suspense when he starts to pour it on. Scenes with the actual car for the first half of the film are few and far between, once we’re done with the three murder set up, that is. It’s a very smart approach because it then becomes a character piece with the main lead (Brolin), his girlfriend (Lloyd) and the police force who start to become aware that they’ve got a problem on their hands. And so it becomes a “how to stop the car” kind of movie and everybody is talking and focussing on it so that, in the scenes where the car does actually appear, usually from the corner of a screen or as some kind of reveal (there’s a beautifully done and terrifying surprise “up close and personal” reveal of the car just before the final chase sequence which I won’t spoil for you here), it’s all the more effective because its presence has been long heralded by the human population of the movie.

Now, it has to be said that, although it’s extremely well done and I will definitely be watching this at least a few more times in my life (if I live that long), there are some really unintentionally funny parts to the movie, too. Like the constant, silent male bonding which seems to be going on at the drop of a hat whenever any of the police are worried. Seriously, if there’s anything wrong, the central characters show that there’s never anything so wrong that a gruff, silent nod and a pat on the back or shoulder won’t put right. Seriously, I’d hate to work for this community’s police force. I’d ask if anyone would want a coffee or maybe just drop a pencil and I’d be greeted with a barrage of manly nods and my back and shoulders would be red raw with reassuring body blows within the space of a day. So this was getting just a little too much for me to watch in some places but, that being said, the acting in this is fantastic so I wasn’t too concerned.

What did concern me is that everybody seems to be driving those unbelievably dangerous, 1970s movie cars. Seriously, these things the police department issue over there are truly lethal, it would seem. All it takes is for a car to have one or two of it’s wheels leave the ground or slightly scrape something and the whole thing goes up in a ball of flame. Woah. I’d be frightened to get in one and sit down hard. Turn on the ignition too quickly and the whole thing might go up. No wonder the police are not able to hold their own against The Car when they’re sent out in these death traps. I can imagine it now. “Hi boss, my turn to drive... although I’ve got a dreadful cough today.” “No! Don’t cough!” Cough... Booom!

So yeah, seriously, never perform an emergency stop in one of these things.

But, other than these two overused clichés of male bonding and sub-standard 1970s motor vehicle manufacturing, the movie is truly unique. Even when it shows a trail of blood going up the side of a fence and a lone, spinning wheel belonging to one of the cyclists at the start... it never really crosses the line over into absurd and it keeps the tension pretty well. Scenes such as the car coming up on a parade practice where these huge banners are up on the road and you can only see it by its wheels whizzing underneath the level of the banners are really effective and shots like this will stay with you after the end of the movie.

Also, the character arcs do not go where you’d quite expect them to go in this thing... sometimes it’s the good guys and gals who don’t survive the picture while other, shall we say less than sympathetic characters, go unpunished for their sins and without any real moral judgement from the camera eye... it has to be said. But that’s kind of refreshing, to tell you the truth. Less predictability in a movie can only be a good thing, methinks. Although, I have to say that Ronny Cox, on realising The Car wouldn’t cross through the gates of a cemetery and on to consecrated ground, makes a pretty wild leap to the assumption that... oh yeah... it must be a demonically possessed vehicle they are dealing with. He said what now? Oh wait... that’s actually the case here. Oh well... bit of a leap for a conclusion but, whatever, it works for me I guess.

Truthfully, even though it should probably be considered a B-movie, I have to say that this is one of the most solid and well made B-movies I’ve seen in quite some time. And, for the record, Rosenman’s score to this movie is superb. Irritating at certain “signature” areas, for sure, but one of his more accessible and enjoyable works as far as I’m concerned. So I’m really pleased I picked up the soundtrack album when I did. Definitely a movie I’ll be revisiting and recommending to people and certainly a score which will be getting a fair few spins on the CD player over the next few months. I’m guessing this movie was probably a lot of the inspiration behind Stephen King’s 1983 novel Christine, so it’s also interesting to watch on that level too. Either way, if you like completely loopy horror concepts and you don’t mind that they’re occasionally done well, instead of just being something you can laugh at, then you should probably shift your DVD or Blu Ray player into high gear and get yourself a ride with... The Car.

Dr. Goldfoot And The Bikini Machine

Gold-Footing The Bill

Dr. Goldfoot And The Bikini Machine
USA 1965 MGM/AIP
Directed by Norman Taurog
DVD Region 1

Wow. I’ve been wanting to see Dr. Goldfoot And The Bikini Machine and, more importantly because of its director, the sequel (Dr. Goldfoot And The Girl Bombs) for a while now and... well... it’s certainly a corker. Not sure if I enjoyed it in quite the same way as the director, producer and writers would have wanted me to but... well, I certainly did appreciate the movie, to some extent and it was more than once during the running time when I thought to myself... they just don’t make movies like this anymore. Although, what I was really thinking, truth be told, was... yeah, they really couldn’t get away with making movies like this anymore.

So hot on the heels of the previous year’s hit British film, Goldfinger, the American International Pictures studio goldfooted the bill for a movie which could hopefully ride the same box office take by making the title slightly reminiscent of that film (and they were certainly not the only studio doing stuff like this... anyone remember Due Mafiosi Contro Goldginger nowadays?). Of course, if you’re going to have a film trying to ride the same kind of bandwagon then you need a title song with the same power right? Well yeah... kinda. The opening credit sequence, featuring bizarre claymation, stop motion animated models of the main cast driving around in Goldfoot’s trademark aladdin-style shoes (well not really, he only wears them in one scene that I could spot) is set against a song performed by The Supremes... yeah, as in Diana Ross and The Supremes... and it’s... hmm. Well it’s fun. In the absence of availability of an album containing Les Baxter’s score you can download the opening title song, at least, for 99p on iTunes. So there’s that.

After the credits close, the song still seems to be going on. It’s almost as if the opening credits sequence animators got bored or ran out of money (On an AIP picture? Well fancy that.) or, perhaps more likely, it was put together independently of the music. Either way, since the producers obviously didn’t want to waste any bang for their buck with The Supremes, the song continues on and we’re introduced to footage of the crazy streets of San Francisco as seen through a car windscreen as it makes its topsy turvy way around fast corners and eventually into a tram tunnel. I’m pretty certain that some of this footage must have originally been shot to be incorporated into the uproariously un-hilarious final chase scene, but didn’t make the cut so the film-makers just decided to edit it all together at the end of the title sequence. Other than that, it doesn’t seem to tie up to anything else in the movie either footage wise or, more expectedly, theme wise to any events that happen. Certainly, the next title card reading San Francisco - The Day After Tomorrow and the following scenes don’t even attempt to match the shots from the windscreen section.

Okay, after this the film has a fairly strong opening, with the beautiful Susan Hart playing Number 11, as she walks down the city streets wearing a fetching hat and grey raincoat. After she is shot at for accidentally interrupting an armed bank robbery, it becomes clear to the audience that she is not what she seems. When she enters a restaurant and inserts herself into the life of secret agent Craig Gamble, played by teenage, singing heart throb Frankie Avalon, she does the old sight gag of drinking a glass of milk and having the milk run out of all the bullet holes she took a hit with in the previous scene. After this, she whizzes Frankie back to his apartment until she finds out, from the ever watching Dr. Goldfoot and his assistant Egor, that she has the wrong man and leaves in search of her real intended victim Tod Armstrong, played by Dwayne Hickman.

Of course, the reason evil super-villain and mad scientist Dr. Goldfoot, played with a certain amount of hamminess by the irrepressible Vincent Price, and his assistant Egor, played by Jack Mullaney, can see what’s going on wherever they like is through that old 1950s -1970s super-villain trick of having some kind of magical camera which must fly around undetected to any spot in the world they choose to view on their viewing screen...

Honestly people! So many movies rely on these unlikely, alchemical devices with absolutely nobody in the audience... NOBODY!... questioning how the villains of the piece always seem to have a camera which can show them the exact view of the world at large at the flick of a switch. Blimey! What the heck were we on that we could be spoon fed this kind of utterly unconvincing claptrap and, more importantly, why have we stopped doing it now. Seriously, we are now living in a period where a bad guy could literally hack into all the many security cameras around the world and see pretty much any view of anything he liked once he’d sorted out a nefarious computer hack of some sorts... but you never see any main antagonists using this time honoured technique of the “unquestioned cam view” now when we’re actually, for once, living in a point in time where this could actually be feasible. But, hey, whatever... back then, these movies were doing it all the time. Were the audiences just filled up to the eyeballs with drugs all the way through these things? Don’t answer that.

Now, Dr, Goldfoot’s plan is to get his many robot girls he made with his titular Bikini Machine, all who wear gold bikinis for some reason, to marry various billionaires around the world and get them to sign off their property over to his mechanical ladies, making him into the sole beneficiary and a very wealthy man. Presumably so wealthy that he can afford to equip his evil lair with expensive camera feeds that can see every part of the world at the flick of a switch... oh wait, That’s right. He already has that, doesn’t he? What the-?

So, anyway, I was waiting for a long while to see if Dr. Goldfoot’s plan got any bigger or more ambitious than this... rubbing my hands in glee at the prospect of a more sophisticated and ingenious plot befitting the time and attention of a super-villain but, after a while it dawned on me that nothing further would be forthcoming. Instead, I had to watch the blatantly unfunny comic antics of Frankie Avalon and Dwayne Hickman as they attempted to solve the mystery of this questionably ingenious plot. And, frankly, it felt like I was watching a Walt Disney Herbie film for adults but without the sophistication or charm that a "grown up" might likely expect for the price of a cinema ticket.

Now don’t get me wrong, there are entertainments and distractions in this movie galore. What with cameos by various other actors who, like this one, share credits on the Beach Blanket style films AIP was putting out at the time. People like Annette Funicelli, for instance, popping up in one of the dungeon sets used by AIP for the famous Roger Corman Poe films starring Vincent Price. Or other kinds of cameos such as some of the portraits of Price as Dr. Goldfoot’s “ancestors”, which are also from films like Fall Of The House Of Usher and Tomb Of Ligeia too. There are some nice little jokes from the time as well, such as Price and a talking skeleton doing the old Señor Wences “S’alright?” “S’alright.” catchphrase routine.

That being said, though, this film is not exactly a laugh a minute... no matter how much it’s trying to be in some places. Frankie Avalon’s character is Agent Double Oh and a Half. He’s not allowed to carry a gun around until he becomes a digit, not a fraction. If you find these kinds of lines funny then you’ve got a more tolerant sense of humour than I have, I think.

There is, though, a lot of inventive stuff going on including a disintegrating beam lipstick, a briefcase with an arm with a boxing glove that pops up when opened (due to the miracle of movie magic) and the entrance to Goldfoot’s lair via a slide at the bottom of a coffin in his mortuary. There’s even an appearance of the binoculars which, when you turn the dials to change the focus, have deadly spikes which pop out and into your eyes. Actually, this is the third film I know of to contain this concept. The first being the 1959 Horrors Of The Black Museum which, I sadly haven’t seen yet (don’t worry... it’s on the other side of the room as I type, in one of my “to watch” piles) and the other one being the 1996 version of the exploits of the comic book character The Phantom. 

And then, just so we don’t forget who the producers snagged for their title song, they repeat it again over an end credits sequence of Dr. Goldfoot’s go-go dancing girl-bots. Which is at least entertaining in some ways.

However. for all the inventiveness and hard work on display here, the cleanly designed but not interesting enough to hold the attention style shots don't amount to a heck of a lot and it never feels like there’s anything truly remarkable or noteworthy going on in this one. I certainly wasn’t bored but, I think, my attitude throughout most of this one was of interest rather than enjoyment... although, that being said, I think it’s true to say that I’d watch it again. I would strongly suspect though, that this was definitely, with its constant slapstick routines and knowing winks to the target audience, a movie which was probably far more fun for the actors to be involved with than it is for an audience to actually have to endure. On the other hand... what do I know? They did make a sequel, after all. Talking of which, the sequel is directed by one of my favourite directors, Mario Bava... so I am really looking forward to seeing what he did with the title character. Frankly, with Bava in charge, the one thing I’m pretty sure of is that it will certainly be colourful.

When all is said and done, I can’t really recommend Dr. Goldfoot And The Bikini Machine to anyone unless they’re very much into that era of cinema and would be as interested in this kind of “only in the sixties” movie as I am. I can't quite bring myself to write it off either, though. Vincent Price once commented that the film would have been a lot better if the original song and dance numbers had been left in. Whaaaaaaat? The mind boggles but... that’s a version I’d definitely like to see. At the end of the day, I think you’d know if this kind of movie is going ot appeal to you or not and, if you decide to give it a go, then I wish you luck and hope you enjoy it just a little better than I did. And you can be sure, I’ll be reporting on just how good or bad the sequel is, at my earliest opportunity (it’s on the pile).

Paddington

Exit Peru, By A Bear

Paddington 
UK/France 2014 
Directed by Paul King
Studio Canal Blu Ray B

I never got to see this one when it came out in the cinema in the UK at the tail end of last year. I kinda wanted to get to it but, as usual, the lead in of the “Christmas rush” meant a lot of movies I wanted to catch had to be sacrificed to the annual present buying marathon. However, my mother also wanted to see it and so I grabbed her a copy of the Blu Ray for Easter. Thus, there I was on Easter Sunday drinking cups of tea with my parents and watching the latest version of Michael Bond’s, almost timeless, classic... tears crawling absurdly down my face because, well... the older I get, the more the sentimentality of these things gets to me, I’m afraid.

I was not the biggest Paddington fan as a kid. I never had a version of the bear, for example. I did, however, own the first book, beautifully illustrated and, of course, like most other kids growing up in the 1970s, watched the stop-motion animated TV show from time to time. My most vivid memory of which is, of course, the episode where they reconstructed the title song’s dance routine from Singin’ In The Rain. I believe Gene Kelly was a big fan of that episode.

I didn’t, I have to admit, expect great things from this movie. I assumed that the writers and director would want to modernise things a bit... I was just hoping they wouldn’t be disrespectful of the character and the spirit of the original tales. I needn’t have worried about any of that, actually. I was quite surprised by just how well the film holds up and I’d have to say that the whole thing is absolutely... magical.

The film starts off with black & white 4:3 aspect ratio, pseudo archival newsreel footage of Tim Downie* playing the excessively British Montgomery Clyde, in true eccentric fashion, as he discovers a colony of intelligent bears in Darkest Peru and befriends the future Paddington Bear’s grandparents. Decades then whiz by and an “incident” in Darkest Peru means that Paddington has to journey to London and throw himself on the kindness of Londoners with the old “Please look after this bear, thank you” tag hanging around his neck, while his Aunt Lucy goes to live in the home for retired bears. When he is taken in, temporarily, by the Brown family, the film opens up showing all the expected, yet nicely done, incidents about being a fish... um... bear out of water, while bringing in a mystery plot as Paddington and the Browns try to locate Tim Downie’s character in the present day. And that’s really as much as I’m going to tell you about the story line, such as it is... I really don’t want to spoil this one for you.

Now, it would be true to say that the film isn’t totally original in the way it’s put together. Both the techniques used and the references made are definitely pointing to Paddington being a distinctly postmodern bear in this instance, to be sure. But, the thing is, it’s all done so well and it’s beautifully crafted and edited together, that the various stock in trade tricks, and I can assure you it steals from the best, end up giving the film a unique identity of its own in terms of any borrowed components becoming just well handled instruments in a very sophisticated tool box.

Lovely stuff like the photos on a wall taking on a life of their own, very much like the photos in Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s Amélie, are in here, for example. There’s even, towards the end of the movie, a very much re-used but charming visual reference to the Indiana Jones films which certainly hasn’t outstayed its welcome in terms of it appearing in this movie. There were also some nice things I hadn’t seen before like the leaves on painted tress on the walls of the Brown household being used as an expression of the emotional health of the family, for instance. Or the floors depicted in a doll’s house or the windows of the carriage in a toy train set taking you into other worlds and clueing the audience in on more information. These were all genuinely refreshing little touches and I appreciated them, as I watched the story stealthily unfold, quite a lot. The writers even decided to have Paddington entering the old movie footage, used in the opening sequence, later on in the film to have a brief, day dream visitation with the spirit of the younger versions of his grand parents... which is just one of many heart warming scenes throughout the course of the film designed to hit you hard in the tear ducts.

Added to this, of course, there are some great jokes scattered throughout the well written script, some of which will appeal perhaps more to adults. Such as the trophy heads in the main villain’s Natural History Museum lair, and what’s going on in the room behind the walls they are “mounted” on. Others of which will also ensnare the kids as much as any ‘young at heart’ adults watching... such as Paddington trying to figure out the use of the ‘facilities’ in the Brown household and using two toothbrushes to clean out his ears. This is all good stuff and should, mostly, bring a smile to the face of most people in the audience, I suspect.

But it’s not just well lit sets and a beautiful melding of Nick Urata’s wonderful score with songs performed by D Lime and Tabago Crusoe as little ‘on screen’ visual inserts that make this film the masterpiece it’s turned out to be. It also has some of the finest actors and actresses of our generation in this, including Hugh Bonneville, Sally Hawkins, Peter Capaldi, Julie Walters, Nicole Kidman, Jim Broadbent, the voice of Ben Whishaw as Paddington himself and... well the list, including some wonderful cameo appearances, goes on. It’s well performed by people who know just what they’re doing, is what I’m trying to say... so it would be hard to see how a film full of such wonderful professionals could be in a bad movie. That being said, I’ve seen it happen before but, I’m happy to say, they are supported by such a wonderful script, fantastic misé en scene (some of the colours used are gorgeous in certain scenes), surprisingly well done CGI (seriously groovy fur people!), great scoring and some inventive editing... amongst other good stuff... that this film is a marvellous success as both a children’s entertainment and a movie which can be appreciated by infants of all ages, myself included.

Not a film I was particularly expecting to come away with such a positive opinion of, to be honest, but there you are... sometimes these things happen. A truly enchanting movie experience that is a definite, solid, sure fire recommend from me. If there is a softer side to your movie going heart, you might want to take Paddington in off out of the cold and give him a place on your DVD or Blu Ray shelf. And always remember to keep a marmalade sandwich under your hat... just in case of emergencies.

*The gentleman in question tweeted me on the twitter machine yesterday and assured me that his correct mode of address is “the devilishly handsome and witty Tim Downie". Well, who am I to argue with that?

It’s The Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown

Where Beagles Dare

It’s The Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown
USA 1974 
Directed by Phil Roman
Firefly Entertainment DVD Region 2

This review is almost self defeating in a way because... well what can you say about one of the classic cartoon shorts of the 20th Century? This is another in a number of “Charlie Brown Specials” which came out over the years, following on from the totally amazing A Charlie Brown Christmas in 1965. It’s The Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown is definitely one of my all time favourites and, probably, the one I know the best, I think... since I try to watch it every Easter, if I can.

Sure, it’s not particularly opulent in terms of its animation, with a lot of static characters on screen sometimes while there is movement on only one person and maybe a bit of background detail coming to life... but they’re definitely not as bad as a lot of cheap 1970s TV animation and you can tell that there’s a lot of love gone into these ones. Stylistically, too, I think the static nature of some of the frames matches the genesis of the original Peanuts - featuring Good O’l Charlie Brown strip and I’ve always thought these have something over a lot of the other cartoons which were being produced in this period of television history. Also, it’s hard to get Charlie Brown and the Peanuts gang wrong when they’re all based on the original writings of Charles M. Schulz, who clearly must have had a lot to do with these cartoon specials, I think.

Bearing in mind that the cartoon is only around 25 mins in length, you’ve got to admire the amount of different running jokes and follow on scenes inherent in the episode and the structure of this one is perfect. You have the main “Easter Beagle is coming” plot which is set up by Linus telling everybody about it, tying in to the famous, annual Great Pumpkin debacle of Halloween. This runs through the whole show... which is quite clever because the actual machinations to get to this event actually taking place are only revealed, and indeed only actually happen, in the scene before the actual resolution of it. That is to say, we see ‘the Easter Beagle’ acquiring his painted eggs in the scene before he makes his grand entrance and distributes them.

But, quite apart from that main narrative point, we have so many little sub stories to get through, running parallel to the main plot, that it’s a wonder the running time is so short. We have the whole thing with Woodstock’s inadequate nest and the acquisition of, not one but two, new homes for him. We have various scenes of Peppermint Patty failing, quite spectacularly in some cases, to show her friend Marcie how to boil and paint eggs for Easter. We have assorted character building with a shopping expedition to buy Sally some new shoes for Easter and a wealth of scenes not designed to move the plot forward in any way but which are absolutely fun and... it all works rather well.

Sequences like the bunny dance scene, the hat scene, the music box dance scene and so on. Really great little sketches which are inserted into the main plot strands and which mesh perfectly, establish the relationships between the characters, entertain, demonstrate the “good heart” at the centre of the whole Charlie Brown universe and, ultimately, make us laugh and smile.

And, of course, there’s Snoopy.

Snoopy is, absolutely, the Harpo Marx of the Peanuts world. His flights of fancy and various shenanigans are probably half of what keeps people watching. You know things are usually going to get very surreal when the beagle’s about and, in this era when Woodstock was also now a character, it’s the animals which give Peanuts the edge...

Little sequences like when Charlie Brown, Sally, Peppermint Patty, Marcie and Snoopy go to the local store, for example, are absolute gold. Being as it’s Easter, of course, the satire of the store already having all the Christmas goods on sale (yep, even in the 1970s and before, the shops were taking the mickey and putting on the commercial pressure to spend at the earliest opportunity) is pitch perfect but it’s when Snoopy takes the ‘down’ escalator while everybody else takes the ‘up’ escalator that the tradition of surreal sight-gag comedy takes over... with Snoopy passing the rest of the gang going down opposite on each progressive floor as Charlie and the others keep climbing up a floor at a time. This is wonderful and it’s little touches like this and Woodstock imagining he's using an invisible elevator, supported by the noise of it in the sound effects, that really make these things worth watching periodically... at least for me.

I think my favourite moment comes as much from the observations of the director/animators on this one as it does from the mind of Charlie Schulz, it might be safe to conclude. When Snoopy looks into a peep hole in an elaborate egg in the store and spies some bunnies, we enter Snoopy’s imagination with him as the bunnies come to life and he jumps right into the scene and starts dancing with them. But it’s the end of the scene which is so special, as we cut back to our main beagle still looking into the egg and see that, indeed, Snoopy is not really dancing with bunnies anywhere except in his mind’s eye... but he is so into his dream like state that his little legs are dancing along still as he looks into the egg. Anyone who’s ever owned a dog and watched them while they dream will know exactly what that little reaction is all about and it’s just so beautifully observed that it never fails to get a big grin from me every time I watch this one.

And to top it all off, we have another of jazz composer Vince Guaraldi’s awesome Charlie Brown scores. I never get tired of hearing the consistently styled musical world he creates for these things and, although it’s not my favourite of his works, there’s some really cool stuff going on in this one still, including some very casually ‘hidden’ classical music covers, rearranged in a jazz idiom and standing up as another cohesive element which make these early TV specials such a pleasure to watch and hear.

So there you have it. It’s The Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown is one of the unmissable events of any Easter and it belongs on everyone’s choice of festive television programmes to fit in between their chocolate eggs and countless viewings of Ben Hur (reviewed here). If you’ve never seen any of the original, classic Charlie Brown specials before then, well.... you really should do and this is certainly one of the better shows to start on. A simplistic surface masking an incredibly sophisticated and underrated piece of late 20th Century art, as far as I’m concerned. Don’t let the Easter Beagle pass you by.

Ben Hur

Are Judah One?

Ben Hur 
USA 1959 MGM
Directed by William Wyler
50th Anniversary Blu Ray Box 
Region A/B

You know, I actually bought this super duper, “everything and the kitchen sink” new Blu Ray remaster of Ben Hur to watch and review for last Easter. However, rather than taking their customary small amount of time to get it to me, Amazon actually took many weeks to deliver this one so, by the time it had arrived, the Easter period was long gone. So I saved it for watching this year instead.

I’m not really a religious person and Ben Hur is a film I discovered fairly late in life (I’ve only been properly watching it the last 20 years* or so) and, like lots of other movies I seek out, it was all due to the musical score that I got interested in it. Miklos Rosza’s monumental score for this epic picture is an absolute masterpiece and, because it was always included in the top 5 polls of greatest soundtracks ever written, I figured I should definitely have a listen. And, of course, once I’d heard the score to this I really wanted to see how it supported the film itself... like many of my later filmic discoveries (see my upcoming review of The Car for a similar musical entry point).

The film is the second of only two movies shot on a special camera used by MGM called Camera 65 (the first being the 1957 movie Raintree Country) and, depending on how the print is being projected, it gives you one of three, extremely wide aspect ratios: 2.66:1 when processed on Super 8 film, 2.76:1 on 70mm and 2.55:1 on 35mm. I’m never quite sure which version is being put onto the various home video versions of the film I’m seeing (I have this movie on VHS, DVD and now Blu Ray) but it’s certainly a lot of a longer frame than the standard 2.35:1 Cinemascope ratio most people are familiar with these days (not to mention the standard 1.85:1 ratio most movies post mid-1950s are made to be projected at). This, of course, contributes to the epic feel of the film and matches the emotional splendour of something which is often touted as being, to quote its sometimes used subtitle and borrowing from the 1925 version of the film, A Tale Of The Christ.

Well, I have to say that, although it certainly hypes itself as being a tale of Christ, and it certainly owes the deus ex machina style ending to the crucifixion, it’s actually more a revenge story and it uses the little dips into the periphery of Christ as impetus for fulfilling it’s own story needs, more than anything else. It’s also a very slow and rambly film in some ways and I imagine a lot of younger audiences wouldn’t really want to put up with a stealthily paced, sprawling Biblical epic like this, these days, but... you know... there’s definitely gold in “them thar hills”.

The film deals with the fall from grace of Judah Ben Hur, played by a fairly young and slightly spindly version of Charlton Heston, at the hands of his once boyhood chum but adult antagonist Messala, played by Stephen Boyd. Messala ruins Judah over an unfortunate accident by sending him to be a slave on a Roman Galley while his mother and sister are left to rot in a dungeon. The two ladies are eventually released back into the world when it is discovered they have both caught leprosy. The film certainly sounds like a standard revenge flick in this way... and it truly is, actually... but once you factor in Rosza’s six minutes plus of Overture before the movie opens and a short sequence detailing the birth of Christ, it’s actually around about an hour into the film before Heston is even sent to the galleys, encountering Christ as a man, who kindly defies the Romans to give Judah water when he is being trekked across the desert to his shipboard destination.

After this, we follow Judah, and pretty much only Judah, on his course for revenge as he escapes the galley and, through a strange twist of fate, becomes a citizen of Rome to finally return to his home town to ride against Messala in the film’s fateful and infamous chariot race (although the stories about fatalities in the filming of this sequence in various versions of the film seem to be an exaggerated myth, it turns out). And then, once all these boxes have been ticked, there’s a lengthy end game to the film where everything ties back in to Jesus, leading up to the film’s final solution in the crucifixion scene... but I’m not going to tell you what happens here. I’m not even going to tell you who wins the chariot race either... if you want to know you can find out by watching the movie for yourself.

Although it’s based on the book by Lew Wallace, it’s actually quite a bit different from the novel, as far as I can remember (been a while), which I seem to recall was as much about Judah Ben Hur raising an army to fight the Romans in the name of Christ than the tale as it is presented here but, whether it’s a good adaptation of the original novel or not, it’s certainly a spectacular looking movie. The action scenes are few and far between but the dialogue is quite interesting in places and it’s definitely a movie about the broad strokes in terms of story... jumping a year or three at certain points until it brings itself back to the bits it needs to get to, in order to fulfil its own end game.

It’s nicely and clearly shot, which is just as well because it consists of very long takes for a lot of it and, while there are certainly a lot of shots which incorporate a fluid camera movement, there’s a lot of the film which is purely static shots so, the fact that they are composed and lit well certainly helps. There are some nice transitional shots too... such as going from a shot of the open mouth of a cave to the open shape of an archway. Stuff like this is all good but, like I said, if you’re not that into the music, then you might find certain pasages of this film to be fairly slow.

There are some nice roles, some of them very small, for great character actors like Andre Morrel, Jack Hawkins, Finlay Currie, Sam Jaffe, Hugh Griffith... even a role for Dad’s Army’s Sergeant Wilson, John Le Mesurier, in a scene showing the direct aftermath of the chariot race. Fans of spaghetti westerns, Italian giallo and other films of that ilk should also note that a pre-famous Giuliano Gemma also makes an appearance as a Roman officer in the scene where Judah escapes from Messala’s dungeons and confronts him in his office... once you know he’s there, he’s really not hard to spot. Italian movie fans might also like to know that one of the Assistant Directors on this movie was the legendary, director to be, Sergio Leone... although there is some doubt as to whether he actually had as much to do with the chariot race, as he claimed.

And what about that chariot race? It’s quite spectacular, even now. Fast and dangerous and you can tell that Heston and Boyd were really driving those things at speed around the circuit. There was no way to fake the medium close ups and long shots in those days like you can now and Heston used to get up every morning of the shoot to practice with the horses for a few hours. It really shows in the final product and the stunt men in certain scenes, headed up by stunting legend Yakima Canut, who was second unit director on this, all do stellar work. Canut’s son doubles for Heston in the race, including that really dangerous tumble that Judah takes when he gets thrown over the front of the chariot and into the horses and clambers back in while it’s still speeding along... that was pretty much unplanned and could have been the end of Canut’s son right there but, since he manages to quite impressively come out of it and back into a controlling position... it’s left in the film and Heston is only seen in close up to finish off the final climb back into the chariot. It’s truly jaw dropping stuff.

The chariot scene itself took five weeks to film (it shows... it’s amazing) and, since it was filmed at Cinecitta, which is notoriously next to an airport, it was filmed silently and the sound was all dubbed in later. Itself quite an achievement, when you think about the noise and fury of the arena in this sequence. Interestingly, the decision was made to leave the film without music during the entire chariot race and it really gives the sound effects a raw power of their own. This is an idea composer John Williams later used for George Lucas’ own version of the chariot race in Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace (reviewed here), only bringing in music towards the end of that particular sequence to heighten the effect of a specific incident (for more about the way Williams’ cue works, read my review of the Liam Neeson thriller Run All Night here).

The score, of course, it truly magnificent and, in addition to the background cues, which are left full on in the mix and loud on the soundtrack like they should be, we have Dr. Rosza’s opening titles (which only start up around a quarter of an hour into the film after a load of other cues), his overture and also his Entre Act music for the lead in after the intermission... all lovingly preserved on the Blu Ray and I’m thankful that MGM had enough sense to leave this stuff on the home video versions. Considering you can now even get a beautiful five disc version of the score, courtesy of Film Score Monthly, which is an improvement on even the old two disc book version from Rhino (in terms of content, not necessarily packaging design), I was surprised by how many passages in the film were actually left unscored. Even so, there’s a lot of score to get through (I think Rosza might have taken a year to write it all... if memory serves) and it’s all pretty amazing stuff... just the kind of film Rosza was born to compose. I say that particularly because I find some of the films Rosza has leant his incredible talents to, especially in later years when the stylistic trends in film making were a lot different to what they were in the 40s and 50s, seem almost overscored and old fashioned in ways that don’t always serve the best purposes of the films... but movies like Ben Hur are made all the more magnificent for his astonishing, in your face compositions.

There’s a couple of things I noticed this time around that I’d not noticed before... so I think I’ll finish up this little review by sharing those with you.

The first thing is specifically down to the new Blu Ray transfer, I think. When Judah’s boat is rammed by the enemy of his captors and he throttles the overseer to get the keys and release the slaves drowning in the deck below, one of those coming up through the hatch is missing his left hand. It’s all gory on the stump, like it’s been lost as a consequence of the other ship crashing through the hull. I’d never noticed this before and I then realised that the only way to achieve this effect was to actually have a man without a hand playing that role. Sure enough, when I was looking up a few facts of the film, it turns out that Wyler spotted that one of his extras was without a hand and another without a foot... so he made good use of these two by doctoring their stumps to make them look like ghastly injuries for their scenes. Still haven’t spotted the guy with the missing foot yet but... I’ll maybe catch up with him next time around.

The other thing I noticed on this viewing was, although the story is quite rambling and sprawls four years (three decades if you include the post-overture, pre-credits sequence), it's quite economical with the use of characters. That is to say, once a character has served his purpose - Andre Morrel briefing Messala on the situation in his new posting, Jack Hawkins making Judah a citizen of Rome and a son to his family, Hugh Griffith providing the means to take on Messala and progress Judah’s vengeance on Messala - the characters simply drop out of the narrative asides from, if they’re lucky, a mention or two later on by other characters. There’s no lingering around with them once their story purpose has been achieved... which I find kinda interesting, actually, considering the size and scope of this movie. It may be a little long winded in some sequences but it does make use of everything on screen to push forward a little more in the narrative stakes, it seems to me. Not necessarily my favourite attitude towards crafting a film but certainly a time honoured Hollywood one used more and more these days and an attitude which, obviously, has a long legacy.

And that’s about all I can say about this film except... maybe this one last little nugget, since it doesn’t seem to be mentioned on the IMDB section on the film and it’s one of my favourite little facts about the movie...

My understanding is that Wyler had been filming the classic western The Big Country the year before, with Gregory Peck playing the dashing lead and with Charlton Heston in a more villainous role. In the movie the two have a fist fight in some rocky terrain and, well, by the time Ben Hur was filming, Wyler realised he didn’t have all the footage required to make the fight scene work in The Big Country. So he had Gregory Peck fly out and he and Heston donned their costumes for that film and took some extra swings and tumbles for the fight scene in a rocky terrain (presumably some closer/tighter shots so they matched somewhat) in between takes on Ben Hur, so Heston was technically filming two films while he was out doing this one... which I always find an amusing item and makes me look at the fight scene in The Big Country in a different light every time I see it.

So there you have it. Ben Hur. Religious epic and instant Easter classic. Brilliant acting (although Heston gets a little ropey in a couple of scenes in this, I fear), magnificent sets, wonderful costumes and a drop dead gorgeous musical score. Not much not to like here, to be honest. Definitely a big solid recommendation from me and one that no lover of cinema should not have seen. Ben Hur... Judah man!

*Don’t worry, the movie is not actually 20 years long, 
although I’m sure it might seem that way to the less 
appreciative part of the audience. 


Ben Hur At NUTS4R2

Ben Hur - A Tale Of The Christ

Ben Hur (1959)

Ben Hur (2016)

John Dies At The End

Moustache You To Leave Now

John Dies At The End
USA 2012
Directed by Don Coscarelli
Another World 
Danish Blu Ray Region B

Warning: Slight content spoilers, I guess.

There’s a really old joke/story that goes something along the lines of a young whippersnapper pointing to a 'genuine stone age axe' in a glass case in a museum. A curator comes over to the interested party and starts telling of the history of the 'genuine stone age axe' in question. The handle was replaced once in the 1950s and the axe head was replaced twice during the 1970s. And that’s yer genuine stone age axe for you.

Don Coscarelli’s relatively new movie, John Dies At The End, starts off with a really entertaining, deadpan and gory variant of this old joke as a pre-credits sequence... instantly bringing a smile to the face and clueing you in on exactly the kind of movie this is going to be... one in which you definitely need to have your sense of humour along with you for the ride.

I’ve been a fan, of some sorts, of Coscarelli ever since seeing the original UK TV spots of his first Phantasm movie, with the silver ball flying over the boy’s head as he flattens to the floor, back in 1979... and then, catching up to the actual movie on TV ten or so years later. Of course, I can’t tell you exactly when those adverts ran because, according to the IMDB at time of writing this, the movie wasn’t released in cinemas in the UK but... I grew up in that era and, take it from me, it definitely played in cinemas here (I remember walking past the cinema with the poster from it on my way to school every day while it was showing) and it definitely had adverts running on the ITV channel in the UK (the one channel out of the only three broadcasting in the UK at the time, that had commercial breaks... so better days).

I love the four Phantasm films, can remember loving Coscarelli’s The Beastmaster at the time (although I can remember pretty much nothing about that one) and especially adored his movie Bubba Hotep, where an ageing Elvis and JFK, living an existence of sorts in an old peoples home, have to take on a soul sucking mummy to save the souls of their elderly colleagues. Yeah, there’s always been a big sense of humour in this director’s works, even the more serious pieces, and maybe that’s why this film, based on the novel John Dies At The End by David Wong, is particularly suited to Coscarelli’s screenplay treatment and is, in my opinion, one of his most accessible, possibly even the greatest, of his works so far.

The cast of mainly unknown actors is headed up by Chase Williamson as main protagonist Dave Wong (the writer of the novel, I guess), Rob Mayes as the titular John and the wonderfully cute Fabianne Therese as the amputee Amy. There’s also the always wonderful Paul Giametti, who co-produced the picture, plus a really great turn from a dog called Bark Lee... played by himself according to the notoriously inaccurate, aforementioned IMDB. I have to say, that this film was in very good hands with the cast and crew in this one and was a hoot right from the word go. Comedy situations have always been a good match for the horror film because, grim humour aside, the rules of the genre are so simple that it was one of the first to successfully combine itself with comedy. Think about why those 1940s & 1950s films like Abbot And Costello Meet Frankenstein, Old Mother Riley Meets The Vampire (aka Vampire Over London) and Abbot and Costello Meet The Mummy were so well received at the time. This is a tradition which is still very much alive today, of course, and films like this are our modern equivalent of that phenomenon, to some extent.

John Dies At The End starts off a little episodic in nature but that’s apparently due to the stylistic restraints of the original novel and, to be honest, you need to get to know the characters a little anyway. It doesn’t really matter... there is an overreaching story arc which soon makes itself apparent and luckily, for viewers like myself, it’s full of surreal manifestations and wild humour. In fact, in order to be able to interact with the world which Dave and John have set themselves up in (as kind of gory versions of the Ghostbusters, I guess), they have to be tripping on 'soy sauce', which is a drug that they both get from a guy called Bob Marley at a party. He may or may not be the real Bob Marley but, one thing is for sure, Marley and most of the guests at the party don’t survive the night and that’s when Dave is thrown in at the deep end and hilarity ensues. Wonderfully strange moments like receiving phone calls from John from different points in the story (and even when John is also sitting opposite him at one point), lead you into the harder and stranger stuff as the movie plays out. Things like a monster made up from the contents of a refrigerator, for example. Or a man who casts no reflection and whose arm Dave pulls off by accident... when Dave punches him, his moustache comes loose and starts flying around the room like an aggressive butterfly, trying to get in on the act. And then there’s the scene where Dave is saved by Amy’s dog, who drives his car through a wall to rescue him... this is all good stuff.

I’m trying to find something critical to say about this movie but, honestly, I can’t think of a single thing. The always reliable Brian Tyler composes a wonderful and appropriate modern horror style score for it when it’s needed most and it really supports the on screen action wonderfully. And the kinds of sequences Tyler is supporting are full of nicely clean (midst the often designer chaos and lived-in gore of the mise en scene) shots showcasing some lovely bright colours and it’s all edited together rather well. It’s a very surrealistic and, at times, less than linear path you are following as you make your way to the end of the movie but the editing is such that you really aren’t likely to get discombobulated by anything you see on screen and are probably just going to have a lot of fun with it.

And that’s about all I got to say about this one. I had a real blast with this movie and I am already recommending it to my friends because, really, they have to see this one. If you are already a fan of horror then you are probably also a fan of the less than serious side of the genre and will have no problem finding something to like in this one. You’ll definitely be cracking a smile or two if you chance it and I can imagine it would make a great double bill with something like Tucker And Dale Versus Evil (reviewed here). Give it a go.