EYES WITHOUT A FACE (Les Yeux Sans Visage)

1960/Director: Georges Franju/Writers: Jean Redon, Pierre Boileau

Cast: Pierre Brasseur, Alida Valli, Juliette Mayniel, Edith Scob, François Guérin, Alexandre Rignault, Béatrice Altariba

I cannot say honestly that I have seen much French cinema. I went through a phase almost a couple decades ago where I watched a batch by the big names like Jean-Luc Goddard and Francois Truffaut but other than the Truffaut film The 400 Blows I can’t remember any of that stuff. I do now recall I saw Goddard’s Breathless and it was so much better than the remake with Richard Gere. I guess the only French filmmaker I may follow at all would be Jean Rollin. Well I had read about the film Yeux Sans Visage for a while and had had it on disk for months before I was in the mood one night for some Euro-fare. I did not expect too much going into the film other than maybe some nice black and white cinematography and loads of spacey acting. I am happy to report that I was surprised by this film and it deserves the praises it normally receives in reviews. The cinematography was great as was the score by Maurice Jarre and the acting was down to earth and believable. I mean, for a French film. I am not into the European ‘existential’ school of depressed method acting. For example like Catherine Deneuve in Polanksi’s Repulsion. Damn, I can’t finish that film no matter how hard I try. I guess depression is scary. I mean just watch Woody Allen’s Interiors. That’s some scary stuff!

MORE EYES WITHOUT A FACE HERE >>

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GIALLO

2009/Director: Dario Argento/Writers: Jim Agnew, Dario Argento

Cast: Adrien Brody, Emmanuelle Seigner, Elsa Pataky, Robert Miano, Byron Deidra

God knows I have tried to like Dario Argento. His name pops up everywhere in the horror world and yet I have to admit I have cared for very little he has ever done. His sycophantic supporters say that even if his newer work is weak we must acknowledge the genius of his ‘high period’ when he helped to usher in the great giallo films of the late 60’s and early 70’s as well as his unique brand of horror. And that may well be unarguable. Some of his films from the period, that I have seen, are Bird With the Crystal Plumage, Tenebre, Deep Red, Suspiria, and Phenomenon. While these are classics of some sort, I guess, I have to admit that  all of these films are some of the most confusing and haphazard movies I have ever sat down to watch. When the killer and her motives is finally revealed in Deep Red (some minor female character who had about two or three minutes of screen time earlier in the film) I was so disappointed. Not to say that that is a reason to pan a film and not see it but I seem to missing something that hordes of other people are getting and don’t know what it is. Why is Deep Red (Profundo Rosso) considered to be one of the great giallo films of the 70’s? It is a mediocre film at best. One defense I have read of Argento (and most Italian giallo and horror in general) is that one must not look for a linear story in the Hollywood fashion and instead you have to let yourself go along with the surreal quality of the film and receive its messages on an almost unconscious level.  One is to not watch and analyze the film as a whole but you have look for those special moments that cannot be found in any other genre. I am not sure about all that but as time has gone on I have to admit I have developed a liking for Italian horror and suspense films I did not have when I was younger. I liked Italian post war dramas and pepla and spaghetti westerns for some reason but was confused by Italian horror until I explored Mario Bava’s work. Then I read that Bava was an inspiration for Argento and the men even worked together on some projects at the end of Bava’s career. I decided there had to be something there my Cro-magnon mind could not fathom. Years later I finally concluded some of the stuff is okay after all though I can still be at a loss and typically cannot finish an Italian made horror or crime film in one setting.

MORE GIALLO HERE >>

Until only recently I had never seen a episode of the British television production, by Granada Television, of the 1984 to 1994 Sherlock Holmes series starring Jeremy Brett as Conan Doyle’s master sleuth and David Burke and Edward Hardwicke taking turns at Dr. Watson. There were a few reasons for this that I will go into but in the end I think I may have been simply hard headed and biased towards anyone playing the role other than Basil Rathbone. But that is not the only reason and as time has gone on I can see some flaws in the Rathbone films, though not in his particularly perfect portrayal of Holmes. I picked up the boxed set with Brett a month or so ago and at the same time begin re-reading some of the stories in my two volume collection of the complete adventures of Sherlock Holmes that I keep on my bedside table, usually along side a couple books by Louis Lamour and Fyodor Dostoyevsky (my moods fluctuate obviously). I went into the series with some skepticism but not to the degree I will approach the new Guy Ritchie/Robert Downey Jr. interpretation.

My main concern was not with Jeremy Brett, who I knew nothing of but had read for some time that his performance is highly praised, but with the fact it was a British TV production. I typically do not like British TV shows, with exceptions of course, simply because of the way they look. The sets usually look like stage sets (even when they’re not) and the camera work looks jumpy and washed out, as if it were all shot on video rather than film. For all I know it may be. Sometimes the camera work is in and out of focus and the sound quality is flat at best. More like some drama you would see on PBS than on American prime time or cable. Which is not to say that what shows up on US TV is really better in substance but is usually better in form than most British TV which is in strange contrast to the usually above average look and feel of British cinema.

MORE OF JEREMY BRETT AS SHERLOCK HOLMES HERE >>

HEAVENLY CREATURES

1994/Director: Peter Jackson/Writers: Fran Walsh, Peter Jackson

Cast: Melanie Lynskey, Kate Winslet, Sarah Peirse, Diana Kent, Clive Merrison, Simon O’Connor, Jed Brophy

On June 22, 1954 the peaceful little port city of Christchurch, New Zealand was shaken to the core by the murder of one Honora Rieper in idyllic Victoria Park. The horror only grew when diary entries by Honora’s daughter Pauline Parker (Pauline used her mother’s maiden name during the subsequent trial since Honora and Herbert Rieper had never actually married, though it proved to be a minor issue scandal wise) led police to arrest her and her friend Juliet Hulme for murder. The trial and its press coverage was something of a phenomenon for the citizens of New Zealand who had not had much excitement since Sir Edmund Hillary scaled Mt. Everest a year before. The papers were rife with conjecture concerning the relationship between the two girls. Did the girls share some type of insanity? Were they lesbian lovers? That may seem trivial now, or it may not, but in 50’s New Zealand homosexuality was an indication of a severe mental disorder as well as criminal behavior. The real life Juliet Hulme, who went on to live in Scotland and write mystery novels under the name Anne Perry, has denied there was ever a lesbian relationship between herself and Pauline, who now resides in England under the name Hilary Nathan and, as a Roamn Catholic convert, devotes her life to helping handicapped children. One thing for certain was that the girls had formed over a period of a couple years  deep bound that they were not about to split apart by the decisions of their families without resistance.

Peter Jackson had gained a reputation up to this point for making splatter horror/comedy films such as Bad Taste, Meet the Feebles and Braindead (Dead Alive). The movies were pretty good low budget fare that have all gone to genuine cult status but were hardly the sort of thing that would attract mainstream attention or approval. He was approached by friend and writer Fran Walsh with the concept of turning the Parker-Hulme murder story into a motion picture. Walsh had long been fascinated with the story and hoped to give the story a fact based retelling. The story had actually loosely been told before in the 1971 French film Mais Ne Nous Délivrez Pas Du Mal (Don’t Deliver Us From Evil) and while there are elements of the story in this interesting film there are lots of liberties as well, the most obvious being the story is set in France. I do recommend Don’t Deliver Us From Evil as a decent movie however. I had the fortunate opportunity of seeing Jackson’s Heavenly Creatures at the small and cozy Grande Illusions Cinema in Seattle. I knew the name Peter Jackson at the time from his horror/fantasy work and still connect it to the alien vomit drinking scene in Bad Taste. I was not sure what to expect. I was more than happy with the film and Jackson’s decision to move away from slapstick-gore films (though if he wanted to return once in awhile that would be okay too).

MORE HEAVENLY CREATURES HERE >>

HOMEMADE CLIP OF ACTION SCENES

FROM THE MACHINE GIRL

STAR 80

1983/ Director: Bob Fosse/ Writers: Teresa Carpenter (article), Bob Fosse (screenplay)

Cast: Mariel Hemingway, Eric Roberts, Cliff Robertson, Carroll Baker, Roger Rees, David Clennon, Josh Mostel, Lisa Gordon

Star 80 is the 1983 film by Bob Fosse that deals graphically and unflinchingly with the rise of Playboy Playmate of the year Dorothy Stratten to modest fame and her brutal murder by her controlling and fame obsessed husband Paul Snider. The film is done in a type of documentary style with actors playing the significant people in Dorothy’s life adding hindsight to the event. We know what the ending of the film will be and Fosse takes us directly right to the bloody scene itself in and then retells the story in various flashbacks and narrations. While perhaps not Fosse’s best movie it is a well shot and edited film that has actually been criticized for dealing with the subject matter in such a glossy and stylish manner. It is significant for Fosse as well in that it is the last film this great director ever directed. He went on to work in other areas of film making and production. This it too bad really as this is the same skilled director who also gave movie goers Lenny and All That Jazz.

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I have been hearing about this infamous falling out between Led Zeppelin maestro Jimmy Page and filmmaker, writer Kenneth Anger for decades now. Sadly the only the material I can find on the net still seems to the same variety of articles that appeared in rock fan magazines back in the seventies. This is actually one of the few great legends in the world that I have some sort of  connection with. Well, in a sort of incalculably indirect  way. I saw Page with Zeppelin back in 1977 in Ohio, and briefly met Anger at a book signing at the fantastic Scarecrow Video store in Seattle, where he signed my special copy of Hollywood Babylon with the Aleister Crowley quote Do What Thou Wilt from The Book of the Law. I had a nice little collection of Crowley books, most from Samuel Llewellyn  Press at one time, though I doubt it could compare to the collection by Anger and of course the filthy rich Jimmy Page who was reputed to have had at one time the 2nd largest collection of Crowley books and memorabilia in the world, including Crowley’s Boleskin House, perched on the cheery shores of Loch Ness in Scotland. It was one of three fantastic houses a then young Page owned (all have since been sold I believe). He also owned a house in the Kensington district of London called the Tower House, designed by Victorian architect William Burgess and formally owned by Richard Harris, and it is in this house  that the drama between Anger and Page unfolded.

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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. (more…)

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.

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