If you do not know who El Santo (The Saint) is he was a real professional wrestler in Mexico who also became a matinee idol and comic book hero. He made some 50 or more films in his career and a few were imported into the US by K. Gordon Murray, most noted for importing and dubbing loads of children’s fairy tale films. Santo in the Wax Museum was one of the more successful Santo films because it was one of them that was dubbed into English. I also have a about six or seven other Santo films here and the other one I watched, Santo and the Diabolical Brain is in Spanish with English subtitles. I don’t know why, but I like some movies more dubbed. Not because I am lazy and cannot read subs, but it really adds to the campiness of the already corny translated dialog, as in the case of many of the Toho kaiju (strange monster) films. And most certainly the dubbing adds to the zaniness of this Santo (called Samson for some reason in the Murray releases, as if gringos can’t accept a Spanish sounding name) film from 1963, made when Santo himself was already 45 years old.

A series of murders and disappearances  are tied to people who have recently visited Dr. Karols’s (Claudio Brook) wax museum. The museum is a strange collection of figures on one floor, ranging from Gandhi to Gary Cooper, but housed in the lower level is Dr. Karol’s collection of infamous murderers and monsters, the pride of his little museum. When photographer Susana Mendoza vanishes Santo is called in by a friend to investigate. The first part of the movie seems to plod along and I almost forgot it was a Santo film, until he arrives on the scene in his trademark silver mask, tights and cape. He rides around in a sports car and has a “Batcave” type laboratory that seems to be located in his apartment. Later when thugs set out to kill him they just come in through his back door. He is renowned for his crime solving abilities but once in a while he has to put the case on the back burner and rush off to the arena to do some wrestling. In fact there are three bouts in the film.

The movie culminates of course with Santo fighting the bad guys and monsters (humans changed into wax figure zombies by Dr. Karol, who plans to somehow destroy the world with them) with lots of wrestling moves. The girl is saved from being turned into a “panther girl” and put in the museums lower floor and in one scene Santo cooks four or five monsters with a vat of boiling wax. Claudio Brook is great as Dr. Karol and in one scene does a classic mad scientist laugh that goes on and on. Santo is really strange as he stands around people’s apartments discussing the case in his mask and with his exposed chest and belly seemingly drawing no special attention from anyone. Like I said the dubbing adds to the fun, especially Dr. Karol’s radio announcer monotone. I liked it a lot and look forward to getting my others Santos films burned so I can lie back on my sofa and be thrilled at the marvel that is El Santo. For cheese lovers only.

THE BLOB

1958/ Director: Irvin S. Yeaworth Jr./ Writers: Kay Linaker (writer, as Kate Philips), Theodore Simonson, Irvine Millgate (story)

Cast: Steve McQueen, Aneta Corsaut, Earl Rowe, Olin Howland, Alden ‘Stephen’ Chase, John Benson, Lee Paton, Vincent Barbi

The Blob is a successful combining of the horror and teenage delinquent film genres. While the teens in the film are not really ‘delinquents” in my opinion they are still teenagers and therefore what they say and do is always suspect to the local adults. The film was a success for the time at the box office, which must have really irked new leading man “Steven” McQueen who opted for a one lump payment of $2,500 to $3,000 (depending where you read) rather than 10% of the profits, which went over $4 million. Also it seems the young McQueen appeared promising enough to be offered a three film contract from the film’s producers, but he was so difficult to work with he was released from the contract. He would of course go on to become a film legend in Hollywood. The movie was made outside Hollywood (shot around Valley Forge Pennsylvania) by an independent film company, Valley Forge Films (formally Good News Productions, a company that made Christian films with director Irvin S. Yeaworth Jr ), and it is nicely shot film in deep colors and pretty well acted for a late 50’s horror film.

First I want to say that this film, along with the next feature, X-The Unknown, were two movies that terrorized me as a boy of about 12 or 13. Both movies are about an amorphous substance that is slimy and oozy and can slither, creep and crawl under things or get though ventilator grills easily. This posed a real problem for me at night trying to sleep and I remember covering the heating vents on my floor with encyclopedias to prevent entry, but knowing in my heart that if the Blob (or X) wanted in there was no way I was going to stop them.

The movie opens up with young Steven Andrews (McQueen) putting the moves on the classic “I’m not that kind of girl”  tease Jane Martin (Aneta Corsaut, who was Andy Griffith’s gal on The Andy Griffith Show) up on the local lover’s lane. While Steven assures her his intentions are honorable and she in not just another girl a meteorite (The movie’s working title were, among others,  The Meteorite Monster and The Molten Meteorite) crashes to earth over the nearby hills. An old man played by veteran actor Olin Howland , in his last role, finds the smoldering space rocks and stars poking at it with a stick and soon has his arm covered with a flesh consuming “blob”. Steven and Jane rush him into to town, to Doc Hallen, who in turn, along with his nurse, are consumed and soon the havoc is on. Of course Steven and his teenage friends must contend with the local, skeptical adults and police who all think kids are up to no good and can’t be trusted to be honest (especially when the said high school student, like McQueen, is actually 28 years old!).

People begin disappearing though we really see about four people get eaten. This is my one real complaint about the film. At one point Lt. Dave (Earl Rowe) estimates maybe forty people have died during the night. The movie would have been more exhilarating if we had seen some of these deaths. Luckily the acting, dialog, nicely photographed scenes and cool looking monster help things move along without the visible death scenes.

After lots of futile attempts at convincing parents and cops the truth is revealed when the patrons of the local theater, who were there to see a horror movie of course, come screaming out onto the streets with the ever growing blob on their tails. Steven and Jane seek shelter in a diner after grabbing Jane’s doofy little brother who in one of the best scenes in the movies hurls his “empty” cap pistol at the creature. The blob surrounds the diner and seeks out the five people inside the diner while the rest of the town stands about fifty feet away and watches in horror. I never understood as a kid  why the blob did not just turn on the crowd and absorb all of them. Well, the weakness (all old movie monsters had one special weakness that the hero had to discover by the last ten or fifteen minutes of the movie) is soon discovered… C02 fire extinguishers. The blob is frozen and sent to the North Pole, never to be heard from again until Larry Hagman revived it in his more comical version Beware the Blob in 1972, with stoned hippies like Robert Walker, rather than hot rodding 28 year old teenagers, on the menu.

The movie is very well made and while it is a B-movie it is not what I would call a bad movie, either in a good sense or bad. The catchy title song (coming in downloadable format along with The Green Slime theme in a post or two) was co-written by Burt Bacharach and was a hit song on the radio at the time. A link to a Blob site is given below and this is a true cult classic. A remake was made in with Kevin Dillon in 1988 where the Blob is the product of yet another secret government/military agency with nothing but security and profit on its always evil agenda. Well, I like the space Blob myself and all the mystery it brought with it. The film just looks rich and nice and one can see that McQueen is a real talent in his first film role. Not to be missed. The next film on our Uranium Café Double Feature presentation is about another amorphous, oozing creature who comes not from outer space, but from the center of the Earth in an early Hammer sci-fi film called X-The Unknown.

http://theblobsite.filmbuffonline.com/

X-THE UNKNOWN

1957/Director: Leslie Norman/ Writers: Jimmy Sangster (story), Jimmy Sangster (screenplay)

Cast: Dean Jagger, Edward Chapman, Leo McKern, Anthony Newley,     Jameson Clark, William Lucas

I was really excited to finally find a copy of this film online. Along with the Blob it is a movie that left me afraid to step out of my bed at night for fear something may be lurking and oozing under it, waiting for me to get up and go to the bathroom. Originally slated to be a sequel to Hammer’s Quatermass Experiment (released as The Creeping Unknown in the States) film but when Quatermass creator/writer Nigel Kneale refused permission for use of his Bernard Quatermass character another film was put together that very much resembles the earlier Quatermass film and TV productions. American actor and Oscar winner (twelve O’clock High) Dean Jagger heads the cast with his unique voice and was apparently an attempt to draw in an American audience. The film was the first writing product for production manager Jimmy Sangster, who would later go on to write some of Hammer’s more memorable films as well as direct a handful. Direction on X was begun by American director Jospesh Losey (see my post on The Servant) who was essentially in exile in England after having been blacklisted as a communist sympathizer. Some of his scenes are supposed to be in the film even, but after a few days he was removed from the position for what was reported to be health reasons. Actually Dean Jagger refused to work for an alleged commie lover and so Leslie Norman took over the job.

The film opens in the bleak bogs of Scotland where a group of soldiers are conducting tests looking for hidden radioactive isotopes. The testing is soon interrupted when a fissure opens up and two soldiers suffer sever radiation burns. The matter is brought to Dr. Royston who has been working in his little hideaway on experiments involving radioactivity. When he inspects the fissure he concludes it very well could be bottomless and the area is sealed off. Later two boys are out on a dare and while creeping into the decrepit lodgings of a local hermit one of them encounters something and suffers lethal radiation burns. A canister of Royston’s radioactive experiment is found there, much to his consternation. There is a lot of talking and scientific explanations between the films genuinely creepy moments. Later a medical Lothario sneaks a very willing young nurse into what appears to be the x-ray room and one of the film’s best moments occurs when the flesh melts off his face after he encounters the thing. The nurse goes into one of the best horror film screams on record, so good the scene earned a place on my site’s banner. There is a lot more talking and explaining of theories but the films moves along well enough. The creature is not revealed until the last part of the film and it is not bad really. This is a couple years before the blob and the movie was obviously pinched in the budget department. But when your monster is a pile of radioactive mud you are not worried too much. The thing oozes around and over things in believable fashion and I suppose I wish we had seen more of the mass. The beast is done in of course by a quick scientific method that makes little sense but in all these old movies science is both the monster and savior.

One of the film’s more eerie moments come when a team member is lowered slowly down into the crevasse to look for signs of the creature. There he finds the remains of one of two soldiers who the creature killed earlier. The scene is dark and atmospheric and as a kid it freaked me out even though the soldier made it out alive.

The film is bleak overall and done in a pretty serious tone. Even the obligatory comic relief provided by two soldiers (one played by Cockneyesque singer/comedian-and husband of sexy shrew Joan Collins- Anthony Newley) is eliminated  when they are consumed by the pile of slithering radioactive mud. It is a movie typical of the times in most ways and the evil was something in part man made and in part unknowable. The thing is basically unstoppable, but like the Blob there was a way to destroy it if you only thought hard enough and could hang on until the last fifteen minutes of the film.

Hammer of course will always be remembered primarily for their lushly staged and designed horror films, but they did some other things as well and I think X the Unknown is one of their truly hidden gems. Hidden in a pile of radioactive sludge. A really good movie in my humble opinion and I think most regular readers of the Café will not be disappointed.

AN IMMORTAL SCREAM BY A SUPER CUTE LITTLE BRITISH NURSE

TRAILER FOR X-THE UNKNOWN

TRAILER FOR THE BLOB

THE COLLECTOR

1965/Director: William Wyler/ Writers: John Fowles (novel), Stanley Mann (writer)

Cast: Terence Stamp, Samantha Eggar, Mona Washbourne, Maurice Dallimore

The Collector is a film by William Wylers, based on the novel by John Fowles, starring basically only two actors in a almost stage style performance. Terrance Stamp plays butterfly collector Freddie Clegg who is actually rather brilliant but has an incredible inferiority complex. He works as a clerk who is taunted daily by his co-workers until he one day wins a substantial fortune in the British football pool. He uses his money to buy and equip a isolated, rustic old house in the lush British country side. By equip I mean he turns the Gothic looking cellar into a furnished holding cell meant to contain one Miranda Grey ( Sammantha Eggar ) who he has developed an obsession with and is determined to make her fall in love with him. The first step in his bizarre courtship is to chloroform her then kidnap her and haul her back to her cell. She has no idea where she is or what Freddie’s intentions really are and in some ways neither do we, as the viewer is uncertain of how sincere he really is with his promises and comfortings.

The film focuses on the tension and conflicts between educated and born into money Miranda and once working class Freddie who is now wealthy and has a lot of free time on his hands. Both actors deliver excellent performances. The movie came on the heels Hitchcock’s Psycho (and so cannot avoid often undue comparisions) and while technically Psycho is a better made film, The Collector is a more believable study of a broken mind and psychosis. One cannot help but sympathize somehow with Freddie’s plight (and Stamp’s insightful performance adds to our ability to connect with the unhinged young man). We almost hope that Miranda will little by little actually come around to Freddie or that he will honor his word and release her at the time he promises at the beginning of her captivity. Not just for her sake, but for his own because does not seem to be an evil person. None of this is to be and the film ends tragically, but not with Freddie being killed off by his captive, as is the norm for modern captor/captive films, but with the unintentional death of Miranda from exposure to the elements basically.

Some reviews I scanned refer to Freddie as a serial killer, but this is not the case at all. He sincerely seems to mean no harm to Miranda and while he is forceful he is never brutal or sadistic. As the film progresses however and the worlds from which Freddie and Miranda were born into seem to remain distant and unknown to the other Freddie becomes more and more frustrated and Miranda more and more terrified and dependent at the same time. In one scene Freddie tries to understand Miranda’s interest in Picasso and J.D Salinger and angrily destroys the books he bought her. In another Miranda insults Freddie’s prize winning butterfly collection that he shyly reveals to her, hoping to show something of his true self to her.

As I said, the film ends not with the death of the captor but with the slow decline and death of the captive. The last shots of the film show Freddie stalking his next victim, now more experienced and not apt to make the wrong choices as before, such as choosing someone he has nothing in common with. Freddie, while at times likable and almost naïve in nature, in the end has little remorse left for Miranda and concludes she brought it all on herself. One scene is left to the viewer to decide what really may have or may not ahve happen when Freddies lies down in bed wit the again chloraformed Miranda and caresses her hair as the scene fades in typical 1960’s fashion. He promises nothing happened as she was unconscious but why even mention the incident all then.

While the movie is nicely shot and I might say it suffered a little from a lack of a truly claustrophobic atmosphere. It also suffered from a really inadequate soundtrack by the usually capable Maurice Jarre. The soundtrack is nice… but too nice and at times a little corny and seems like more of a soundtrack for the films of the 1950’s. The movie needed a score that was a little more tension creating, rather than, honestly, soothing and inappropriate.

Another great British movie that, like The Servant, uses the action and drama as a vehicle for other messages, here such as British class struggle, the basic problems of loneliness and men and women communicating in general. I am also preparing a post on what I call Miranda style movies, and have about eight films to try and pander. Some may seem a little odd and may stretch the category a little and I will see if I can manage to be convincing or not. I searched for some quotes from the film but could find none really and will see if I can get a script from online and select some of my own, as some of the lines are so unsettling and chilling. A truly creepy film that relies on acting and atmosphere and well written lines. I have never read the book by John Fowles and being in China I may have a hard time locating it unless I can back to Beijing or Shanghai. I would certainly like to read the book after seeing this film again the other night. I cannot recommend a movie like this high enough.

DISAPPEAR (Shissô: boku ga kanojo o tojikometa wake)

2005/Director: Hideo Jojo/ Writer: Hideo Jojo

Caste: Mei Fujishiro, Kaede, Kazuaki Kubo, Yûya Matsuura, Eiji Nakamura, Masayoshi Nogami, Norihisa Yokokawa

There is not too much about this film on the net really. In fact one site I finally located looking for behind the scenes info simply listed the cast as “Asian actors”. I went through a lot of this stuff out of Japan a few years ago and there is usually not much to distinguish one film from another. I suppose you could classify it as a Japanese “pink” movie, meaning soft core porn and mixed in with some unsettling (to some anyway) violence, though the term “pink film” usually refers to films made during the 70’s and 80’s. I think the current term has become “pinku” but I am open to correction here. This film follows a theme in movies I have personally come to call the “Miranda” formula. Miranda was the name of the female captive in the book and film by John Fowles called The Collector (aka The Butterfly Colletor , directed by William Wyler - who turned down The Sound of Music to direct this film- with Terrance Stamp and Samantha Eggar). Essentially the formula is usually about an obsessed loner or social misfit who kidnaps a young woman for one reason or another. Could be spontaniously or after a long period of rumination and stalking. At first she resists him and hates him, but eventually a sort of Stockholm Syndrome sets in and after he has fed her and washed her and supplied her with toilet paper the victim learns to “love” her captor or to at least connect with him in some way. The theme has been done a few times before in Western films (Sweet Hostage, The Keeper) and  is  not something unique to Japanese cinema. What might be unique to Japan though  is that you get the sense Japanese guys are using this stuff as dating guides.

In this sweet little “how to make a girl love you” manual Asi is kidnapped by Yinan who has long been obsessed with her. She, Yinan and Kwangshu are childhood friends though now Asi is “romantically” involved with Kwnagshu. I add the sarcastic quotation marks because in these films the girl never seems to really enjoy the guy’s company or advances and the men are always whiny, sniveling wusses who go into psychotic tantrums if she the girl does not send a text message back soon enough. Yinan, when not working at the metal shop with a crippled, caged duck and obligatory step-father/daughter sex action in the office, is home alone grinding his sashimi to Japanese porno pics with cut outs of Asi’s face pasted to the model’s photos. This seems normal enough, but later after Asi has fallen asleep he is caught trying to steal a kiss. She awakens with a start and Yinan does what any Japanese guy would do in this situation with the girl he secretly loves, he proceeds to try and rape her. In the course of the struggle Asi knocks over his porno collection and sees the pics of herself on the bodies of the naked models. For some inexplicable reason she freaks out and resists more and is knocked out as she falls on the table, and the rest of the movie is dedicated to Yinan’s courtship of her as she is chained to the wall in his bedroom.

The movie ends with Yinan killing himself, the molested stepdaughter (who is about 22 or 23) deciding she does not want to be raped by her evil stepfather any more and sets off to make her own life, and the crippled duck being set free. Asi and Kwangshu ride off together on his bicycle and over all it is a happy ending for this type of film. I mean with only one suicide, the duck not being eaten, the molestation victim walking away (finally) and the boy and girl getting back together for more joyless sex.

Lots of gratuitous cotton white panty shots and nudity make up for the odd behavior of everyone involved.

The Chinese characters on the DVD cover (technically they are Japanese of course, but Japanese written language is primarily based on Chinese Han Zi characters and while my skill is baby level I am trying to learn) say: Shi Zong Shao Nv, which I translate loosely as “vanished girl” or “girl who disappeared”. I cannot add Chinese characters to my Wordpress blog so I must use pinyin only. I am waiting for an updated language plug-in.

BADLANDS

1975/Director: Terrence Malick/  Writer: Terrence Malick

Cast: Martin Sheen, Sissy Spacek, Warren Oates, Ramon Bieri,  Alan Vint, Gary Little John, John Carter

Terrence Malick has never been a director I cared much for though he is considered a great film maker by the deep meaning of life crowd. Since the 1970’s he has only put out four full length films and those are often lauded as masterpieces. Well, I just cannot relate to them. I simply could not finish The New World, the John Smith, Pocahontas story with Colin Farrell. It was so excruciatingly dull and long. I liked The Thin Red Line in a general way, but I felt he took a great war novel by James Jones and turned it into the type of thing he is known for, an introspective and meandering view into the conflicts of the human soul. Well, that is all fine and dandy  but I really wanted an exciting war movie and maybe one that was a little more pro-American than what has been coming out in the last decade or two. Instead there was this transcendental trip into the human psyche that I did not care for and found it a little pretentious .  His directing style seems to be the complaint a lot of people have with Badlands, that it has lost the impact it once had as a unique film and is in fact boring and plodding (as Malick tends to become). In fact in this case it is the spacey, lazy pacing of the film that appeals to me the most, along with the great performances by Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek.

Based loosely on the real life killing spree of Charles Starkweather and Caril Fugate across Nebraska and middle America during the late 50’s the film follows the ruthless exploits of Kit and Holly as they roam the badlands of South Dakota and kill most everyone who gets in their path.  The Starkweather/Fugate story has been retold many times in film before and after Badlands. It is not a remarkable film especially and yet it seems to stand apart from the other boy/girl killing spree films in that there is not a tinge of humor or optimism in the film. Even the ending with Holly getting probation (contrary to the real Caril Fugate who was still in prison at the time of the movie’s making) does not seem to offer anything uplifting, and in fact the fact she escaped some form of justice at all seems depressing. The direction and cinematography are slow and colorless. The movie does seem to fall short of what it could have been. But it is the performances by Sheen and Spacek that make this film worth seeing and deserving of a recommendation from the Café.

Kit Carruthers has had it with dead end jobs and fathers who stand between him and his gal. Holly Sargis seems lack-a-daisical and without rudders as she watches Kit shoot her dad (played by Warren Oats) and then tags along for the ride after he burns their house down. Okay, she did slap him. She voices her confusion and halfhearted disapproval of Kit’s murders but stays in the car seat until the cops corner them a in helicopter. Neither seem to care or have any remorse for the people they leave behind them dead, but they do not glorify their deeds either. They seem to see it has doing what had to be done until they were stopped. The killings are cold and sometimes pointless but well acted and filmed.

It is the best of Malick’s films in my opinion and the dreamy, spacey, artsy quality that distances me from his other work is what attracts me to this one. A young and lean Martin Sheen is a killer who is never really menacing but is as remorseless as a snake, and Sissy Spacek is excellent as the lost waif with nothing better to do.  My review may sound loaded with ambiguity, but to be clear, I likes this film and I will see it again. If you have only seen The New World then please check out Badlands and see what Rhodes scholar Terrence Malick should have continued to do with his film work. People praise his films as deep and full of the mysteries. I see them as sominex in digital format except for this low budget classic.

Memorable quotes from Badlands. All quotes from IMDB:

Kit Carruthers: I’ll give you a dollar if you eat this collie.

Holly Sargis: At this moment, I didn’t feel shame or fear, but just kind of blah, like when you’re sitting there and all the water’s run out of the bathtub.

Kit Carruthers: You Tired?
Holly Sargis: Yeah.
Kit Carruthers: Yeah, you look tired… Listen, honey. when all this is over, I’m going to sit down and buy you a big, thick steak.
Holly Sargis: I don’t want a steak.
Kit Carruthers: Well, we’ll see about that… Hey, lookie.

Holly Sargis: [a while after shot friend Kato] How is he?
Kit Carruthers: I got him in the stomach.
Holly Sargis: Is he upset?
Kit Carruthers: He didn’t say nothing to me about it.

Holly Sargis: One day, while taking a look at some vistas in Dad’s stereopticon, it hit me that I was just this little girl, born in Texas, whose father was a sign painter, who only had just so many years to live. It sent a chill down my spine and I thought where would I be this very moment, if Kit had never met me? Or killed anybody… this very moment… if my mom had never met my dad… if she had never died. And what’s the man I’ll marry gonna look like? What’s he doing right this minute? Is he thinking about me now, by some coincidence, even though he doesn’t know me? Does it show on his face? For days afterwards I lived in dread. Sometimes I wished I could fall asleep and be taken off to some magical land, and this never happened.

Holly Sargis: He needed me now more than ever, but something had come between us. I’d stopped even paying attention to him. Instead I sat in the car and read a map and spelled out entire sentences with my tongue on the roof of mouth where nobody could read them.

Holly Sargis: [Last lines of the film] Kit and I were taken back to South Dakota. They kept him in solitary, so he didn’t have a chance to get acquainted with the other inmates, though he was sure they’d like him, especially the murderers. Myself, I got off with probation and a lot of nasty looks. Later I married the son of the lawyer who defended me. Kit went to sleep in the courtroom while his confession was being read, and he was sentenced to die in the electric chair. On a warm spring night, six months later, after donating his body to science, he did.

Kit Carruthers: Sir… Where’d you get that hat?
Trooper: State.
Kit Carruthers: Boy, I’d like to buy me one of those.
Trooper: [the trooper smiles] You’re quite an individual, Kit.
Kit Carruthers: Think they’ll take that into consideration?

Kit Carruthers: Hey, I found a toaster.

IN A LONELY PLACE

1950/ Director: Nicholas Ray/ Writers:Dorothy B. Hughes (story), Edmund H. North (adaptation)

Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Gloria Grahame, Frank Lovejoy, Carl Benton Reid, Art Smith, Jeff Donnell, Martha Stewart

It has been said that the character of “Dix” Dixon Steele in Nicholas Ray’s In a Lonely Place comes closer to conveying Bogey’s real character than any other of his film roles. Steele is a once successful screen writer who has not had a hit in years and now is cynical and inclined to drink heavily and sulk. His disposition is moody and prone to violence. It is a small wonder that he becomes the main suspect when a young girl is found murdered after she spent her last night alive at his apartment reading a book meant for adaptation. Steele is so burned out and bitter at the shallow movie industry that made him a celebrity he cannot even read the book himself.

Gloria Grahame plays Steele’s neighbor Laurel and she is drawn into his cynical charm easily as they spare back and forth with witty barbs and jabs. As the film develops she becomes more and more aware of Steele’s very dangerous side and soon begins to wonder if he is in fact the killer or not. Steele seems to take delight in giving confusing information to the cops who he sees as unable to solve the matter alone, at one point over dinner with a cop buddy reinacting the way the murder may have taken place with sadist relish.

Obviously Steele is a troubled man with a history of violence and we find out a history woman beating as well. He is soon irrationally jealous and suspicious of Laurel and the tensions gets more severe as she tries to get away secretly. The movie ends with Steele being cleared of the charges but losing Laurel because of his own possessiveness and violence. Originally Ray and screenwriter Andrew Solt had Steele murder Laurel in a rage at the same time he is cleared of the murder he was suspected of originally. Ray saw this as simply too nihilistic and felt marriages and relationships could end on some less solemn note. Interestingly during production Ray and his wife, Gloria Grahame herself, were as privately as possible ending their rocky marriage. Ray often slept on the sofa in the studio office and a contract was written up stipulating what duties, and what duties only, Mrs. Grahame were responsible for while on the set in the presence of her director husband. Who knows if this real life drama had any influence on the hastily improvised ending Ray suddenly felt compelled to add on even after the more tragic ending had been shot and approved.

The film was produced for Bogart’s Santana Productions at a time when the big film studios began to see independent studios as threats to their power. It is a fine performance by Bogart. He is funny, brooding and menacing. Some of the dialog and interchanges seem a little over the top at times but they are all the more engaging for that reason. I tend to like the types of performances given in older films though they seem exaggerated by todays post method acting standards. It is considered a film noir classic though it is hard to really fit into a niche neatly. Didn’t fare too well at the box office but has become a cult classic by virtue of its quality alone. And aren’t those the best kind of movies anyway? Ones that bomb and get no awards when they are released but get all the respect they deserve day in and day out for decades. The film has since justly received all the honors it deserves including one of the highest any film can receive… a haphazard review here on my measly blog.

A SELECTION OF QUOTES FROM A LONELY PLACE. ALL QUOTES FROM IMDB.

Mildred Atkinson: Before I started to go to work at Paul’s, I used to think that actors made up their own lines.
Dixon Steele: When they get to be big stars, they usually do.

Sylvia Nicolai: Well, he’s exciting because he isn’t quite normal.

Brub Nicolai: Maybe us cops could use some of that brand of abnormality. I learned more about this case in five minutes from him than I did from all of our photographs, tire prints and investigations.
Dixon Steele: Nobody can call me the things he did.

Laurel Gray: A blind, knuckle-headed squirrel. That’s REAL bad.

Dixon Steele: There’s no sacrifice too great for a chance at immortality.

Dixon Steele: I was born when she kissed me. I died when she left me. I lived a few weeks while she loved me.
[last lines]

Laurel Gray: [tearfully] I lived a few weeks while you loved me. Goodbye, Dix.
Frances Randolph: Remember how I used to read to you?

Dixon Steele: Uh huh. Since then, I’ve learned to read by myself.
Dixon Steele: Go ahead and get some sleep and we’ll have dinner together tonight.

Laurel Gray: We’ll have dinner tonight. But not together.
Dixon Steele: It was his story against mine, but of course, I told my story better.

Mel Lippmann: What does it matter what I think? I’m the guy who tried to talk Selznick out of doing “Gone with the Wind”!
Actress in Convertible: Dix Steele ! How are you? Don’t you remember me?
Dixon Steele: Sorry, can’t say that I do.
Actress in Convertible: You wrote the last picture I did… at Columbia

Dixon Steele: Oh, I make it a point to never see pictures I write.
[referring to the book Dixon is supposed to adapt into a screenplay]
Mildred Atkinson: Oh I think it’ll make a dreamy picture, Mr. Steele. What I call an epic.
Dixon Steele: And what do you call an epic?
Mildred Atkinson: Well, you know - a picture that’s REAL long and has lots of things going on.

Capt. Lochner: Why didn’t you call for a cab? Isn’t that what a gentleman usually does under the circumstances?
Dixon Steele: Oh I didn’t say I was a gentleman. I said I was tired.

Mildred Atkinson: It must be WONDERFUL to be a writer!
Dixon Steele: [sarcastically] Oh, thrilling!

Capt. Lochner: [Dixon has replied with sarcasm to Lochner's questions] You’re told that the girl you were with last night was found in Benedict Canyon, murdered. Dumped from a moving car. What’s your reaction? Shock? Horror? Sympathy? No - just petulance at being questioned. A couple of feeble jokes. You puzzle me, Mr. Steele.
Dixon Steele: Well, I grant you, the jokes could’ve been better, but I don’t see why the rest should worry you - that is, unless you plan to arrest me on lack of emotion.

Dixon Steele: [noting the geography of their apartments] You know, Ms. Gray, you’re one up on me - you can see into my apartment but I can’t see into yours.
Laurel Gray: I promise you, I won’t take advantage of it.
Dixon Steele: [wryly] I would, if it were the other way around.

Capt. Lochner: Considering that you’ve never met Mr. Steele, you pay quite a bit of attention to him.
Laurel Gray: Hmm-hmm. I have at that.
Capt. Lochner: Do you usually give such attention to your neighbors?
Laurel Gray: No.
Capt. Lochner: Were you interested in Mr. Steele because he’s a celebrity?
Laurel Gray: No, not at all. I noticed him because he looked interesting - I like his face.

Brub Nicolai: You know, I got married.
Dixon Steele: Why?
Brub Nicolai: Oh, I don’t know. I guess she had a couple of bucks to spare.

Dixon Steele: [to Laurel] I’ve been looking for someone a long time… I didn’t know her name or where she lived - I’d never seen her before. A girl was killed, and because of that, I found what I was looking for. Now I know your name, where you live, and how you look.

Laurel Gray: [on a scene in Dix's script] I love the love scene - it’s very good.
Dixon Steele: Well that’s because they’re not always telling each other how much in love they are. A good love scene should be about something else besides love. For instance, this one. Me fixing grapefruit. You sitting over there, dopey, half-asleep. Anyone looking at us could tell we’re in love.

Dixon Steele: Anything you want to make you happy?
Laurel Gray: [whispers into his ear] I wouldn’t want anyone but you.

Dixon Steele: You know, you’re out of your mind - how can anyone like a face like this? Look at it…
[leans in for a kiss]
Laurel Gray: I said I liked it - I didn’t say I wanted to kiss it.

Dixon Steele: You annoy me!
Laurel Gray: If I do, it isn’t intentional.

Capt. Lochner: I didn’t expect you to give me more information… but certain facts contradict your original statement.
Laurel Gray: [flatly] I wish you’d say what you mean.
Capt. Lochner: Yes, let’s do that. On the night of the Atkinson murder, you looked at Dixon Steele and said you didn’t know him.
Laurel Gray: I didn’t.
Capt. Lochner: Since then, you and he have been inseparable.
Laurel Gray: He’s writing a script. I’m doing the typing.
Capt. Lochner: Do you receive a salary for this?
Laurel Gray: No. I’m doing it for love.
Capt. Lochner: [surprised] Are you in love with Mr. Steele?
Laurel Gray: For the record, I am in love with Mr. Steele.
Capt. Lochner: Are you going to be married?
Laurel Gray: [pause] If we do, I’ll send you an invitation - after all, it was you who first introduced us to each other.

Dixon Steele: Oh, I love a picnic. Acres and acres of sand and all of it in your food.
Laurel Gray: Stop griping. Just lie still and inhale.
Dixon Steele: What, sand?
Laurel Gray: No, air - and don’t let it go to your head.

Laurel Gray: [to Capt. Lochner] Yesterday, this would’ve meant so much to us. Now it doesn’t matter… it doesn’t matter at all.

Dixon Steele: You know, when you first walked into the police station, I said to myself, “There she is - the one that’s different. She’s not coy or cute or corny. She’s a good guy - I’m glad she’s on my side. She speaks her mind and she knows what she wants.”
Laurel Gray: Thank you, sir. But let me add: I also know what I don’t want - and I don’t want to be rushed.

-

-

-

-

-

I recievied an invitation from both Chick Young at Trash Aesthetics and Gilligan over at Retrospace to participate in something called a "meme", but I am so out of touch I have no clue what that is (but that has never stopped me from getting involved before). Seems it originated from Piper and Brian over at Lazy Eye Theatre blog (a couple of the more active LAMBers) and there have been good fantasy film festivals so far by Chick, Gilligan and Barbarella apologist Becca at No Smoking in the Skull Cave. I do not know if Tal at Taliesen Meets the Vampires has contributed as of this moment, but I will plug his excellent site anyway, free of charge. The rules (as laid down by the crew at the Lazy Eye site) are:

-

1) Choose 12 Films to be featured. They could be random selections or part of a greater theme. Whatever you want.

-

2) Explain why you chose the films.

-

3) Link back to Lazy Eye Theatre so I can have hundreds of links and I can take those links and spread them all out on the bed and then roll around in them.

-

4) The people selected then have to turn around and select 5 more people.

-

-

So, there you have it, now lets get on with the Uranium Cafe Film Festival . I think it was supposed to be some 12 day marathon, but we here at the Cafe know a lot of you have to work and maybe forking out a movie ticket each night for twelve days can be tough in these days of fiscal woe. So we are having a double feature each night for six days (with Chili Cook Off and Pentacostal Healing Revival over the weekend). Here are the films I decided to play and it was not easy to select 12 from the many I would want to see on the big screen ( I assume we are fantasizing that this is on some big screen venue and not over at my place on the sofa):

-

Day 01 Japanese Cult Cinema/Matango-Branded to Kill

-

Day 02 Exploitation Classics by Jack Hill/Switchblade Sisters-Spider Baby

-

Day 03 Drifters and Desperados/Hombre-The Wild Bunch

-

Day 04 Psychotic Women Haters/The Boston Strangler-Frenzy

-

Day 05 Cops on the Edge/Bullitt-Dirty Harry

-

Day 06 Monsters from Space/The Thing-Alien 3

-

-

-

Branded to Kill-

-

I have only been able to see this 1967 film by Seijin Suzuki in Japanese without subtitles so I really do not know what is going on all the time, but the film has a reputation for being “absurdist” and surrealistic anyway, so I am not sure if subs would help, and the experience of watching this visually mesmerizing movie is rewarding enough. The truth is Nikkatsu studios actually fired Suzuki for this film and the conflict following got him blacklisted by Japanese studios. It is the story of a hit man who himself becomes the target of another ruthless hired killer and of course a super sexy and dangerous girl. I don’t know what else you need to know, check it out. A longer essay of this odd movie is in the oven.

-

Matango (aka, Attack of the Mushroom People)

-

Matango is a 1963 film by Ishiro Honda and is a departure of sorts for the man who made the best of Godzilla and Toho monster movies. Bleak and claustrophobic the action and drama centers around a group of ship wrecked young Japanese people who suddenly realize there are reasons there are no birds and turtles on the foggy, dismal little island they find themselves on. Also released as Attack of the Mushroom People it found its way into late night TV in the 70's (I saw it on Project Terror in San Antonio as a wee lad) and eventually into VHS And DVD cult-dom, though never having been distributed in movie houses in the States. A longer review and critique is coming soon as I recently came into the original Japanese language version.

-

-

-

Spider Baby -

-

I understand a remake of this 1964 (though released in 1968) Jack Hill film is in the works, with Hill as a producer. I once had a signed copy of Spider Baby by Jack Hill but my buddy Matt inherited that when I left for China some years ago. The story revolves around f a family who suffer from a congenital disease that causes them to eventually regress in mental condition to imbecility. Gee, sounds familiar. It is a black comedy with some creepy moments and fine b/w photography. Lon Chaney Jr and Sid Haig appear in the film. I don't really know how the remake will turn out but will check it out if I can since Hill is producing it, and his original never got the distribution or attention it should have until only recently.

-

Switchblade Sisters-

-

Both Spider baby and Switchblade Sisters are films cited by Quentin Tarantino as heavy influences, though with Switchblade we can see a more direct influence on his work and the film was restored and released on his Rolling Thunder Pictures label in 1996. A gang deb flick with lots of great dialog and over the top acting, including squeaky voiced Robbie Lee, it is the type of action movie Hill became more associated with than horror/suspense pieces likeSpider Baby. It is really fun to watch and some consider it to be Hill's best film. There is a fight scene in the jail between the guards and the Dagger debs and you have to watch for the male stand in for the butchy female jail guard. Gets no better.

-

-

-

-

Hombre-

-

A psychological western starring a brooding Paul Newman as a "half-breed" Apache who inherits a hotel and suddenly finds himself reluctantly in the white man's world with a hair cut. Directed by Martin Ritt and based on a novel by Elmore Leonard, this is a moody and depressing film (and that is a thumbs up in other words from me) that deals with issues under the surface other than cowboys and Indians. Hardly a music score is to be heard and Richard Boone is menacing as the bad guy. No one is perfect and everyone finds themselves in the middle of the desert where a glass of water is more valued than the stolen loot most of them are trying to salivate over. A great film I have not not seen in way too long.

-

The Wild Bunch-

-

A totally great western (and film period!) by Sam Peckinpah about a group of mercenaries led by William Holden that try to get a kidnapped girl back from Mexican bandits and revolutionaries. The film is most famous for it cinematography and editing, using slow motion in ways that had not been done much before (like showing hordes of drunk Mexican soldiers being blasted to bloody smithereens). The men are all tough and ruthless, and there is a fine line between the good guys and bad guys. The violence is basically splatter film material and the acting and dialog is great from start to finish. Expect a longer critique one day. I love this movie.

-

-

-

-

-

The Boston Strangler-

-

I actually went to 1st grade in Boston at the time Albert DeSalvo (and perhaps another man as modern police theory speculates) was finishing up a series of 13 murders of women, many, though not all, found with stockings around their throats. While The Boston Strangler has receiived some criticism because of its liberty with the facts of the case that does not deter me from recommending this well made suspense film. Tony Curtis is out of character and does great here as the killer, and Henry Fonda is equally in fine form as police detective John S. Bottomly. A lot of unnecessary split scene photography and I have never subscribed to the “split personality” disorder, especially as it is shown here, but so what. It’s a just a movie and a damn good one at that.

-

Frenzy-

-

-

As far as I know 1972’s Frenzy was Hitchcock’s only R rated film. Of course back then it took much less to get an R rating than it does now. It is one of my favorite Hitchcock films outside all of his work with Jimmy Steward. Jon Finch plays Richard Blaney, a man with anger management issues who soon finds himself the fall guy for a series of neck tie stranglings that have been terrorizing the citizens of London, where the film was shot. Along with the iconic shower sequence in Psycho Frenzy contains one of Hitchcocks most graphic murder sequences. Finch is great as his life unravels and there is no where he can turn as all the evidence begins to point towards him. The ending is a classic ending where the killer is undone and apprehended and shown humiliated, rather than the stock ending of today’s film where the killer simply has to be killed off himself in some action scene or worse a hostage scene where the cop has had to lay down his weapon. Whatever happened to endings like this?!

-

-

Bullitt-

-

1968’s Bullitt created so many of the genre formulas for the 70’s cop movies and TV shows that is hard to image that they all seemed to come from one film essentially. Steve McQueen plays Bullitt, a outsider cop having issues with insubordination and driven by an instinct to bring the bad guy to justice (of any type) regardless of who is in the way, including corrupt city officials, here played by Man from U.N.C.L.E.’s Robert Vaughn. Of course the most famous sequence is the car chase, pitting Bullitt’s Ford Mustang against the hitmens’s Dodge Charger. Contrary to legend McQueen did not do the bulk of the stunt driving but he is still cool. Action packed and gritty with Jaqueline Bisset as his sensitive, artsy girlfriend who comes to realize Bullitt lives in a world she knows nothing about. The movie serves as a template for my next cop on the edge selection…

-

Dirty Harry-

-

“Dirty” Harry Callaghan, like Bullitt, is a cop more concerned with justice than with city politics and the rights of murderdous bad guys. Clint Eastwood with his .44 Magum is immortal in the role (and I do not think Clint is compensating for anything), and while the film is not really as good as Bullitt story wise in my opinion, it revived the spirit of the outsider cop film established by Bullitt and cop movies and TV shows have never been the same since. Reni Satoni is simply great as well as the serial killer Scorpio (based somewhat less than loosely on real life serial killer Zodiac). Full of classic quotes and action it is really the only one of the Dirty Harry franchise I really like. The other ones just got sort of cheesy and Callaghan became comic bookish, whereas here the character, like his Sergio Leone loner cowboy, simply stands mythic in proportions to the world around him. -

-

-

-

-

The Thing-

-

There was once a time in my life where I took acid for recreational purposes. I know, I know by looking at this site you may find that hard to believe, but one night my cousin and I returned to the basement TV room at his family’s place in Lexington Kentucky and while “peaking” we surfed and stumbled across John Carpenter’s 1981 successful remake of The Thing on early cable TV. Well, this film is a mind blower without hallucinogens so you can image the impact it had on me. I am sure I have seen this movie at least 20 times and was thinking of seeing it again here later this week. With nary a stock teenager or beautiful woman (other than Adrienne Barbeau as the voice of the computer chess game) to be found in all of Antarctica the ice bound crew of a weather station (or something) led by Kurt Russell as MacReady must contend with a shape shifting alien from outer space that seems all but unstoppable as it takes over the crew one member at a time. The special effects by Rob Bottin still stand up against any of the computer generated effects of today (and I like computer effects mind you). The action takes place in a totally claustrophobic atmosphere (really the best for any horror film) and the tension between the men becomes palpable as they all try to figure out who is and who is not a “substitute” for a real man. The film is not scored by Carpenter this time but by the maestro Ennio Morricone and is it one of my favorite soundtracks. The film bombed at the box office as it had to compete with Steven Speilberg’s E.T. but has endured and became very influential along with Bladrunner and Alien in reviving quality Sci-Fi films. And on a closing note, I am older and wiser now, please do not watch this on LSD, okay kids.

-

Alien 3 -

-

Sigourney Weaver returns as Lt. Ripley in 1993's 3rd installment on the Alien story, which has become my favorite and the one I have watched the most. The first two are great films as well while the Alien Resurrection thing is totally forgettable except for the swimming aliens. This was David Fincher’s first film (and the pressure was enormous I understand) and he did a bang up job with this dark and existential horror/sci-fi classic. Again, the mood is totally claustrophobic (like the 1st Ridley Scott Alien film) as there is no way off the prison colony she finds herself on alongside rapists and murderers and a really grumpy warden. The creature preys alone (in contrast to James Cameron’s army in Aliens) but is faster and more clever (as it was hatched from a dog) than the one that terrorized the crew of the Nostromo. A great well shot film with the character’s nerves pushed past the breaking point as the creature starts offing them one at time at its leisure. Some people criticize the religious and philosophical undertones to the film but they are the elements draw me to this film over and over. Well, that and the creature ripping the wailing inmates to bloody shreds.

-

-

-

And don't forget, the big chili cookoff and pentecostal revival. Retain your ticket stubs for one free bowl of Texas chili and the casting out of two demons.

-

-