Category Archives: movies

DVR Cheese II

Posted on September 14, 2012 by mohawkvalleygirl

Spoiler Alert! Just in case anybody missed yesterday’s.

As I said, Steven and I began watching The Power of the Whistler in hopes that it was a sequel to The Whistler. The movie begins with the same mysterious shadow and whistling. Well, that meant either it was a sequel or the same movie re-released under a different title. I was worried for a minute. Then I saw that the names were different. And that The Power of the Whistler was not directed by William Castle. So it didn’t have the same cheesy bonafides. Still, we could give it a chance.

Same Whistler voiceover to begin with. He introduces this guy going into a restaurant and sitting at the bar. Seated at a table nearby are two girls, one with date. Single girl, a gorgeous blond, has just beaten the other two soundly at gin and offers to tell their fortunes. The other girl, a cute but not as exciting brunette, declines, saying she likes to be surprised. Her date says he knows his future — kiss-kiss (don’t worry; they don’t spend the whole picture doing that).

So the blond says she’ll predict for “that handsome stranger at the bar” (I didn’t think he was such a much, but I suppose we can’t all be George Clooney). Twice in a row she pulls the ace of spades followed by the two of clubs. Death within 24 hours! Naturally she follows the guy out of the bar to tell him. Talk about meet cute! It gets better: he has amnesia and has no idea who he is. What’s a girl to do? Try to track down the mystery, of course, with clues found in the allegedly handsome man’s pockets.

We were about 20 minutes into the movie when I made the note, “We haven’t heard anybody whistling and nobody’s dead yet.” Shortly after that, things started to get a little more interesting, building up into creepy then scary. I don’t want to give too much away, but I will warn you: animals are injured (of course, I hope they were only acting, but this was back in the day). Animals getting killed is always creepier than people. I mean, when people get killed in a movie, the other characters tend to do something about it. When an animal gets killed — even a beloved pet — the characters just get upset and the audience takes it as a portent.

The solution to the guy’s identity is actually pretty clever, and it is arrived at by logical steps taken by the characters not who’da-thunk-it coincidences. The brunette (it’s blondie’s sister) and her boyfriend return in small but pivotal roles. Neither girl is a completely useless movie female (you know, the kind that does nothing but scream and get rescued), so I liked that. And the climax was suspenseful.

We never did hear any whistling. The Whistler comes back at the end as a voiceover wrapping things up in a vague kind of way. I thought it was kind of funny that in the first movie he (apparently) went around shooting people in a helpful fashion, but in the movie titled The Power of the Whistler he is only a framing device.

On the whole, I liked Power better than I liked The Whistler. It moved faster and there was more to it. But neither movie was a waste of time (I suppose for me no movie is a complete waste of time, because I can get a blog post out of the dullest). In conclusion I would say, if you see a mysterious shadow and hear whistling at the beginning of a movie, you might want to give it a chance.

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Cheese from the DVR

Posted on September 13, 2012 by mohawkvalleygirl

Spoiler Alert! I may ruin not one but two cheesy thriller movies with today’s and tomorrow’s posts. Then again, I think most reviewers give away too much, and theatrical trailers sometimes give it ALL away. People are still watching movies. I can’t destroy too much.

Every Saturday morning I scan the listings for TCM for the weekend. Perhaps I will subscribe to their program guide and do this by the month including weekdays. Then again, how many movies do I have time to watch? Not enough, I tell you! (With a wrist to my forehead, of course.) (But I digress.)

Two Saturdays ago I DVR’d a promising entry called The Whistler. Something about some guy hiring a hit man then wanting to call if off. It was when I saw that it was directed by William Castle that I reached for the remote. As cheesy as Ed Wood and more prolific. I suppose personally Castle was less colorful, or maybe Tim Burton would have made a movie about him, too. (As a side note: I just remembered that the sadly overlooked 1992 movie Matinee, starring John Goodman and Cathy Moriarty was inspired by William Castle. So there, Burton; you missed a bet.)

I had not had a chance to watch The Whistler before the following Saturday, when I noticed a listing for The Power of the Whistler. It must be a sequel, I thought. The description when I hit “info” did not say so, nor could I find it in Steve’s Leonard Maltin book (which is almost a cheesy bonafide in itself). But really, what else could it be?

Steven and I watched both movies last Sunday. The Whistler opens eerily with the mysterious shadow of a man and the sound of whistling. Voiceover narration introduces the story. I am not a fan of voiceover narration, but sometimes we must live with these things.

The main guy hires a hit man using an intermediary and only gives the guy a name and address. Then we find out that the name and address are HIS OWN (see, that’s why I needed the Spoiler Alert). It seems he has been having dreadful mental problems which have been effecting his unnamed business (movie people are often employed in Business the nature of which is never fully explained; I think that is because movie writers have never had a real job, don’t quite know how the rest of the world works, and can’t be bothered doing research) (I would have loved have been a movie writer during the studio era) (although it didn’t do William Holden much good in Sunset Boulevard) (but, once again, I digress).

Where was I? Ah yes, main guy’s mental problems stem from the unvoiced belief of his friends that he was responsible for his wife’s death. It’s a complicated backstory, and I don’t know as the details are all that important. When he finds our via telegram (it’s a OLD movie!) that his wife isn’t dead after all, he wants to live again (all you husbands out there just be quiet; I know what joke you were about to make). Unfortunately, the middle man has been killed and the actual hit man is elusive. What do do? What to do?

Cut to the hired murderer, who is the most interesting character in the picture. He’s reading a psychology book (I stupidly did not write down the title and I already deleted the movie from my DVR) and decides he is going to try to scare the guy to death.

And then a bunch of other stuff happens. Hey, alert notwithstanding, I don’t what to spoil EVERYTHING!

Where is the Whistler during all this? Around, apparently. We occasionally hear whistling and see a shadow. At least one guy is opportunely killed, and the hit man says he is not responsible. The Whistler also has a final voiceover at the end.

The convoluted plot made for some interest, but I was not sorry to pause the movie some twenty minutes before the end and take the dog for a walk. In other words, the suspense wasn’t killing me. I did go back and watch the end, though, so it didn’t completely lose me. It was a short movie (it had that going for it), so we continued the movie watching portion of our evening with The Power of the Whistler, which provides the subject for tomorrow’s blog post. Stay tuned.

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Musings on Movies

Posted on August 31, 2012 by mohawkvalleygirl

A day after I had watched the last cheesy movie I wrote about, I wanted to watch another cheesy movie. Before I had a chance to suggest one, Steven had turned on a Lifetime movie starring an actress he likes. Well, what could be cheesier than a Lifetime movie, I asked myself (I didn’t answer, of course. It was a rhetorical question. Don’t you just hate people who answer rhetorical questions?).

Lifetime movies have been around a long time. I remember watching the Lifetime channel back in the ’90s (no, not the 1890s — stop making old age jokes!). The movies quickly got a bad reputation. I remember reading a review of one in Entertainment Weekly that said something to the effect of, “It is clear by now that Lifetime cannot make a convincing suspense movie. The culprit is always a man, any man — men, the beasts!” I daresay I don’t have the exact quote, but I remember Steven and I being highly amused. Lifetime movies got a kind of a plug in a short-lived sitcom in the late ’90s. I don’t remember a single thing about the sitcom except that the main guy’s roommate was addicted to Lifetime movies. Apparently all he did all day was sit on the couch and watch them.

I have not really watched a Lifetime movie recently that I can recall. I didn’t pay too much attention to Sunday’s, either. I was busy reading an Agatha Christie play and doing an anacrostic puzzle (I love anacrostic puzzles). Anyways, I’ve been burned by Lifetime movies in the past, and not just because the culprit was a beastly man. They always kill off the characters I like, and they are not kind to animals.

Oh, I know, no animals were harmed in the making of etc. The actors playing the characters I like aren’t really dead, either. It still upsets me. I just have to share one example.

First scene of the movie: woman hears her dog barking and comes out of her bedroom to see these guys cleaning out her house. Dog stands at the top of the stairs barking and barking. Woman stands mesmerized till the guys turn around and see her. She still just stands there till her daughter comes out of her bedroom. Dog is still barking. Woman grabs daughter and pulls her into her bedroom, leaving the dog to his fate. She drags a dresser in front of the door and calls 911. When the cops get there, of course the poor dog is dead.

What the hell? That dog was barking at the bad guys for like ten minutes before anybody did anything! Wouldn’t they have liked to silence him before he woke anybody up? He’s still barking when the woman is OBVIOUSLY calling the police. WHAT GOOD DOES IT DO TO KILL THE POOR DOG NOW???

Therefore, when I saw a cat in Sunday’s movie, I made up my mind not to pay too much attention. As it happened, kitty-kat lived. Grandma, however, did not. And now I’ve given away a major plot point. True, I have not mentioned the name of the movie. Still, anybody reading this may tune into a Lifetime movie and if there is a grandmother and a cat, sit there wondering if this is the one where granny gets it but the cat does not. Let that be a lesson to me.

I kind of forgot where I was going with this when I started writing it. Unfortunately, it was all I had to write about today. I suppose we could chalk it up to a little pre-Friday lame… no, wait, I have a better idea. I didn’t do Middle-aged Musings Monday or even Mid-Week Musings. I shall scroll back to the top and type in the title you will have read before you read this paragraph. Happy Thursday, everyone.

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I Do Love a Mad Scientist

Posted on August 29, 2012 by mohawkvalleygirl

Spoiler Alert! In my defense, I don’t think I give away anything that is not on the blurb from the DVD box.

Saturday afternoon I popped in a cheesy horror flick — uh, I mean one of 50 Horror Classics — just to make sure I would have something to blog about in the coming week. I watched Maniac (1934). Steven was at work, but I figured if it was any good I could always watch it again with him and if it was really bad I had spared him.

The movie begins with a long section of text on the screen (no, not a text message! This is in the olden days when “text” just meant words not pictures) supposedly from some psychology book or learned article. This device was used periodically throughout the film, and it was pretty annoying, because the sides, top and bottom were cut off. I think it was meant to add resonance to the story or to clue us in on what was happening psychologically. Or maybe they originally meant it for a silent movie. I couldn’t tell.

In the first scene a mad scientist wants his assistant to steal him a dead body for his experiments. So far so good: mad scientist, dead bodies, experiments. What’s not to like? The assistant protests. Of course, he says, he is grateful to Mad Scientist, but room and board is not adequate compensation for this chore. The argument goes on for a bit till Mad Scientist says the police would probably like to know where the Assistant is.

“I didn’t say I wouldn’t do it.”

I laughed. It was so much like, “I have no gate key.” “Fezzig, tear his arms off.” “Oh, you mean this gate key.”

The best way to steal the body, it turns out, is for the Assistant to impersonate the coroner. It seems the Assistant is an ex-vaudeville type who used to do impressions. If he’s that good an actor, one would think he would be the toast of Broadway by now. At the very least I would think he could use his skills to score a better hideout than Mad Scientist’s pad. But I daresay I’m reading too much into things, as usual.

So Mad Scientist and Assistant successfully filch the body of the (of course) beautiful young woman (not that she sticks around that long, even as window dressing). The morgue attendants are completely fooled by the impersonation of the coroner. Later on a brilliant cop immediately begins calling vaudeville houses trying to track down the criminal.

Meanwhile, back at Mad Scientist’s laboratory, the experiments continue. Mad Scientist has this heart which he has revived from the dead. It’s in a jar, beating rather expressively. Seriously, that thing looked as if it was watching what was going on and offering commentary, if only it was hooked up to some vocal chords so we could hear it.

Mad Scientist wants the assistant to kill himself so that he, Mad Scientist, can bring him back to life with the heart in the jar. Suddenly stealing dead bodies doesn’t seem like that bad of a chore, does it? Mad Scientist hands Assistant a gun to use. Hmmm… what do you suppose is going to happen?

Things get complicated after that. It’s actually a pretty fun movie. I kind of wish I had paused it when I went out to the kitchen to make popcorn (with oil on the stove and melting real butter for it, of course). Then again, I think it is one Steven would like to see. Perhaps I’ll write a second review when he does. Stay tuned.

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Star-Studded Something

Posted on August 23, 2012 by mohawkvalleygirl

Last Sunday Steven and I took a break from cheesy horror movies and our usual Sunday crime shows with a star studded Agatha Christie which had not previously come our way: Evil Under the Sun (1982). TCM showed the movie Saturday afternoon. I set the DVR to tape it for our subsequent enjoyment.

I had read Evil Under the Sun and thought I kind of sort of remembered the solution. That hardly mattered. For one thing, if Dame Christie had adapted the story herself she may have changed the ending, as she did in at least two of her stage adaptations. I don’t think she adapted any of the movies, but I believe Hollywood has been known to make changes as well (No! Hollywood make changes? Say it ain’t so!).

I love a star-studded Agatha Christie movie. We have two on DVD: Murder on the Orient Express (1974) and Death on the Nile (1978). We also have my personal favorite, Witness for the Prosecution (1957), which, although its cast boasts at least four well-known actors is for some reason not a Star-Studded Agatha Christie.

That raises the interesting (to me) question of just what makes a Star-Studded Agatha Christie Extravaganza? Hmm. I guess “extravaganza” is too big a word, but just plain “movie” is too small, and “star-studded Agatha Christie” seems lacking. Leave that for now. Let’s look at “Star Studded.” That implies that there must be something to stud. Something already showy or exotic or glamorous. Evil Under the Sun is set on a tropical island. Death on the Nile takes place in the mysterious Middle East. Murder on the Orient Express happens on a famous luxury train. All three have costumes to die for. My favorite is Angela Lansbury in Nile, but Jacqueline Bisset on Orient is noteworthy, and Maggie Smith in Evil can give them both a run for their money.

So I think that’s a major component of a Star Studded Movie Event (better than extravaganza?). It’s fun just to look at. I think another important component is that most of the stars must at some point be suspects. Witness for the Prosecution is a suspense play as much as a murder mystery. The question isn’t so much whodunnit as how is Charles Laughton going to prove that Tyrone Powers didn’t do it? In my star studded vehicles, almost everybody has a motive and in some cases means and opportunity as well. It is the task of Hercule Poirot to prove that the one who couldn’t possibly have done it in fact did (oh dear, did I give too much away? Well, these movies are enjoyable even when you know whodunnit).

There’s another element many star studded attractions have: Hercule Poirot, Dame Christie’s famous detective. I believe there are a couple of star studders I’m not familiar with featuring her other sleuth, Miss Marple (I’ve read that Christie preferred Miss Marple to M. Poirot, but I love them both). Audiences and readers tend to like a series detective, and producers and publishers really, really like them. But that’s a whole other blog post.

So now I have digressed almost completely away from the movie I started to write about to the tune of about 500 words. And now Steven tells me I left And Then There Were None (1945) off my list of Agatha Christie movies we own. How remiss of me! Now I’ll have to watch that one again, to see if it meets my criteria for a Star Studded Romp (oh, that’s even worse than “extravaganza”! I’ll work on it).

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Where’s Charleton Heston When You Need Him?

Posted on August 15, 2012 by mohawkvalleygirl

Our second horror feature Saturday night was The Mad Monster (1942), again starring George Zucco (um, for anyone just tuning in, this is a continuation of yesterday’s post).

This time out, Zucco plays a scientist who is all evil. He has a nice wolf in a little tiny cage. If that’s not evil! I hated that part of the movie. The wolf looked just like a dog. The evil doctor also has a big guy strapped to a bed, but I always feel less sorry for people than for animals.

Before anything too dramatic happened, Evil Doctor starts arguing with some guys that just magically appear around the table. That part confused Steven, who had left the room briefly to get ice cream. Apparently the guys were other scientists who had kicked Evil Doctor out of the club for being mad. Regular readers will guess that I readily understood this part of it, seeing as I spent part of Lame Post Friday explaining about how I have imaginary conversations in my head with various critics. This was a graphic depiction of that phenomenon.

Having mentally disposed of his enemies and promising to dispose of them more literally later on, Mad Scientist (isn’t that a better name than Evil Doctor?) proceeds to turn the big guy into a werewolf. I thought he looked more like something out of Planet of the Apes. Where’s Charleton Heston when you need him?

As the movie progresses we learn that the big guy is Mad Scientist’s gardener and apparently was not clear on all the job duties when he accepted the post. He’s half-witted (these movies abound in half-wits) and, if I’m not mistaken, has a crush on Mad Scientist’s daughter. The daughter believes her father is a brilliant scientist who has been maligned. She sent her boyfriend, who just happens to be a nosy reporter, away, apparently at Dad’s request. She is loyal buy lonely.

I confess I was not following things very well once the murders started. Second feature slump? Or a dull movie, despite the “marvelously theatrical” George Zucco “effortlessly stealing the show” (see previous post for quote sources). To be honest with you (as I usually am) I don’t quite remember how it ended. I seem to think that Mad Scientist got his comeuppance and his beautiful daughter ended up in her young man’s arms. Isn’t it funny that I can’t remember how the werewolf died, as I’m pretty sure he did. At least there were no spurious claims of beauty killing the beast, like in King Kong (the 1933 version, of course; I don’t remember how the remake ended).

I may have liked the movie better if I had been able to catch all the dialogue. For that we can blame my old television (purchased sometime in the last century) or, more likely, the cheap DVD (ten bucks for fifty movies, what do I expect?). However, as a second feature, it was enjoyable enough. As a blog post, I hope it entertained.

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We Can’t All Be Bela Lugosi

Posted on August 14, 2012 by mohawkvalleygirl

Saturday night I continued my quest for cheesy horror with a double feature starring George Zucco. I had never heard of him, but the DVD box describes him as “marvelously theatrical,” and Leonard Maltin says he “effortlessly steals the show” in our second feature (Leonard Maltin’s 2011 Movie Guide, Signet, 2010). Who am I to argue with Leonard Maltin?

I don’t know that I need to give my usual spoiler alert, because I’m not sure I followed either movie with any accuracy. Our copies were so bad most of the dialog was difficult to understand, especially since we had two fans running. I do love a horror movie on a hot summer night.

In Dead Men Walk (1943), Zucca plays a dual role of a good twin and a bad twin, both doctors (actors just love to play dual roles and/or writers and directors just love identical twins; I may have to write a whole blog post on the phenomenon). The evil twin is dead as the movie begins, but that’s OK, because, as the they tell us in the title, dead men walk. There is a creepy prologue of a disembodied head double exposured over flame telling us… I’m not sure what. That was some of the dialogue I missed.

As the movie progresses, we learn that the good twin killed the evil twin. I personally could have used a little more information on this plot point. Good twin says it was self-defense. Evil twin says it was an ill-fated attempt to save the daughter/niece (that is, daughter of evil, niece of good).

Oh, and let’s talk about that niece for a minute. Of course, there is usually a beautiful young woman in these things, most often in deadly peril at some point. She must be sweet and vulnerable. Any additional personality is strictly optional. Come to think of it, that can be true for movie males, too, only without the sweet and vulnerable parts. The niece is mainly concerned with her young man, also a doctor. She seems completely unaware of her father’s nefarious activities and, I must point out, not particularly grief-stricken at his passing, although that may have been the fault of the lousy print. I mean, I didn’t hear everything she said. What I did hear, they didn’t give her the snappiest dialogue. I sure wish this movie had had an intrepid girl reporter, but that’s beside the point.

Bad Brother’s funeral is disrupted by a crazy old lady (no, not me) saying it is a desecration to have such an evil one in the church. She’s been nuts ever since her granddaughter was brutally murdered. Any guesses who was responsible? Well, you’re going to have to guess, because we never find out anything else about that subplot. I was grateful I heard that much.

Soon Big Brother returns, making all kinds of threats. Not surprisingly, only Good Brother gets to see him. I suppose with more budget they could have made a trippy movie where you find out at the end they are BOTH THE SAME PERSON. No such subtlety for this flick, which was really fine with me, because those trippy ones make my head hurt.

Bad Brother is a kind of a vampire. He intends to turn his daughter into one, too, but apparently this takes a lot of bites. At night she has mysterious dreams. By day she appears to be wasting away from an unknown disease. At one point her young man insists she be given a blood transfusion. She at once is better, which clues in nobody but the audience that vampires are at work. Oh, and crazy old lady, who brings her a crucifix, which helps. I’ll never understand why people in vampire movies don’t set up a perimeter of crucifixes all around the house and sleep well at night.

Zucca does a pretty good job playing two parts. I did remark at one point, thought, that it was the most professorial-looking vampire I had ever seen. That was just a cute remark, though, because he managed to be scary as well. And, after all, we can’t all be Bela Lugosi.

Things get interesting when the excitable townspeople begin to believe that Good Brother is in fact the murderer. It gets scary as events reach their dramatic conclusion. I shan’t tell you what that is, because I don’t warn you against watching this movie. In fact, if you do watch it, perhaps you could clue me in on a few of the plot points I missed due to my bad sound system. Did the niece know of her father’s evil nature? What all did that disembodied head say during the introduction? What was Bad Brother’s henchman’s name?

As usual, my review is becoming longer than the silly movie. This one runs 65 minutes, giving us plenty of time for our second feature, which I will talk about tomorrow. Stay tuned.

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Screaming Cheese

Posted on July 31, 2012 by mohawkvalleygirl

Spoiler Alert: I intend to give away all major plot points in the movie The Screaming Skull. Oh, and at least one in Gaslight.

I don’t know that the warning was necessary, especially for The Screaming Skull. I mean, you pretty much see it coming. As for Gaslight, if you have not seen it, go watch it to see how it’s done. Then come back and read this post, and/or watch The Screaming Skull, if you’re into that sort of thing.

Where was I? Ah yes, popping in a cheesy movie, because after yesterday’s post I didn’t think I should go for a Middle-aged Musings Monday. Also, the Snapped episodes were all re-runs we have seen many times. Once again we pulled out the 50 Horror Classics DVD set I gave Steven for his birthday. I gotta say, I meant it as a present for him, but it’s really a present for me. Look at all the fun blog posts I’ve gotten to write out of it!

Steven thought we had seen The Screaming Skull (1958) before. I remembered that we had, but it was on an episode of Mystery Science Theatre 3000. So I said we could now watch it without the robot heads (if you don’t get the robot heads reference, I urge you to check out MST 3000; episodes are available on DVD).

As the movie begins, a man brings his new wife to the estate of his dead wife. It is a beautiful estate with peacocks on the lawn and extensive gardens. The gardens are important, because they are maintained by a half-wit gardener who may or may not be aware that the first wife is dead.

The house itself is kind of eerie. There’s no furniture, because the dead wife got rid of it, saying she and the husband would buy all new and make it their own home. But she died before they made it to Raymour and Flanagan. There is a portrait of the dead wife in which she looks a little wild eyed. She was good friends with the gardener, we find out. He is the son of her (dead) parents’ (dead) gardener, and they were brought up almost as brother and sister.

The gardener is creepy, but the new wife wants to make friends. She suggests they take flowers to the dead wife’s grave, which, not surprisingly, is also creepy. The gravestone has a face carved in it, presumably of the dead wife, although I could detect no similarity between it and the portrait. Difference between two mediums, I suppose.

We also find out how the wife died. Apparently she was running in a rain storm, slipped on a leaf, hit her head, fell in the pond and drowned. Ah, with no witnesses. The base of her skull was crushed. Maybe I’ve seen too many episodes of Forensic Files, but that sounded suspicious to me. Actually, it sounded as if it was supposed to sound suspicious and was extremely heavy handed about it. I do hate a heavy handed plot point.

At this point I said to Steven (who was remembering the movie better than I did), “Oh, are they going to do a Gaslight thing and have the husband make the wife think she’s crazy?”

Big nod from Steven. He loves Gaslight, a truly well-done thriller. It’s not one I want to pop in very often, though, because I get too upset on Ingrid Bergman’s behalf.

It takes a long time for the skulls to show up, and the build-up is more boring than atmospheric (despite the creepy house, portrait, gardener and gravestone). We hear that the new wife had some mental problems due probably to the tragic deaths of her parents. I did not catch all of that back story, though, because I went out to the kitchen to make myself a snack (vanilla yoghurt with fresh blackberries and strawberries from the Ilion Farmer’s Market) (just to inject a little local color).

I think I missed one or two skulls, too, and I did not hear any of them screaming. Steven told me the skulls at the end screamed. Silly me, I thought that was the husband, getting his comeuppance at last (I really like that word comeuppance).

Looking back over what I’ve written, I see that I keep referring to skulls, plural, while the movie is call The Screaming Skull, singular. It appeared to me that there was more than one skull. On the other hand, there were never two skulls in the same shot, so maybe it was just one skull that got around.

I’m not sure if we were supposed to suspect the husband or the gardener right away. In a romance novel, the husband would have looked all kinds of suspicious and it would have ended up being the gardener or possibly the reverend and/or his wife. Or else the gardener would have been more gorgeous and more suspicious, and new wife would have ended up with him. I used to read a considerable number of romance novels.

The Screaming Skull clocks in at 68 minutes, which is probably the best thing you can say about it. Do I recommend you watch it? Let’s just say, if you want to see a good movie, watch Gaslight. If you want to impersonate a robot head, seek out The Screaming Skull.

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Cheesy Fun

Posted on July 18, 2012 by mohawkvalleygirl

It seems odd to do three posts about movies in a row, but it’s really been too hot to do much else.

So I watched a movie that I thought wouldn’t be cheesy and I was right. Then I watched another movie that I thought wouldn’t be cheesy and I was wrong. Then I watched a movie that I thought would be cheesy and I was half right.

One Body Too Many (1944) starring Jack Haley was in Steven’s collection of 50 Horror Classics, but like The Fatal Hour (previously reviewed in this blog), it is more of a murder mystery. According to the DVD box, Bela Lugosi stars, which probably explains the horror designation. Haley gets billed over Lugosi in the credits, and he is the hero of the picture. Lugosi is window dressing as the creepy butler. He adds more to the atmosphere than the plot, but that’s a mere quibble. Lugosi is always a welcome addition to the cast.

I loved the title of the movie, and the plot description sounded promising: an insurance salesman arrives to sell insurance to an rich eccentric but finds the guy already dead and the greedy relatives gathered per instructions in the very eccentric will. The salesman stays to guard the body and protect the beautiful niece.

That’s not a quote; it’s just what I remember from the collection insert. Plus a few descriptive terms of my own. I’m sure you get the idea.

Jack Haley, in case you didn’t know (I had forgotten), played the Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz. I couldn’t quite picture him with the silver face, but once I realized who he was, I remembered the farm hand who looked like that. In this movie he’s my kind of leading man: not arrogant, treats his love interest with respect, makes with the wise cracks, and get comically funny at appropriate moments. I know, a lot of women love the strong, handsome, fearless sort — like Sir Walter Raleigh in The Virgin Queen. I think they are at best a little dull and at worst, big fat jerks (again, like Sir Walter). Give me the funny one every time.

The set up for the movie is utterly ridiculous. I like an eccentric will as well as the next movie goer. But even I can only suspend my disbelief so far. The dead guy wants to be buried in a clear mausoleum so he can view the stars. OK. His heirs must stay in the house till said mausoleum is completed. OK. Then the rest of the will can be read, delineating who gets what. O…K. If in the meantime he gets buried in the ground, everything is reversed and the people who were supposed to get a lot will get a buck and a half and vice versa. Excuse me, what? Is he just trying to cause trouble from beyond the grave? Who thinks of these things, anyways?

The only will I’ve ever actually read was my own, which was drawn up for me in the army. It didn’t say much. Then again, I don’t have eight million dollars. I don’t even have any fancy stuff my relatives might fight over other than, perhaps, my grandmother’s skeleton (not as creepy as it sounds). I suppose the crazy will is just another time honored fictional technique (I wonder if I could do a whole blog post on time honored fictional techniques). Just the same, perhaps I ought to add a codicil or so to my own last testament…

So we’re off on a very silly ride, some of which doesn’t make a whole lot of sense even while you’re watching it (as opposed to the movies that you watch, mesmerized, and only later say, “Waaait a minute!”). For example, at one point Jack Haley is hiding in the coffin and the bad relatives steal it and dump it in the fish pond. Haley can see perfectly well what is going on and, although he cannot get out of the coffin, fish can get in. Steven said there was a window in the coffin. I guess that makes sense, given the clear mausoleum thing. Only, why didn’t the bad relatives notice it wasn’t the old man in the coffin? Perhaps it was explained and I was not paying enough attention. The scene manages to be both funny and scary, so that was good, and the beautiful niece saves him, so that was even better. I do love a movie female who is not useless.

I’m not sure which body is the one too many, because there are a couple of murders as we go on. Haley gets to wander half naked through some secret passages, with which the house seems to be liberally provided, and he gets to save the day in the end.

The movie was cheesy, without a doubt, but I think it was meant to be. It was definitely meant to be funny, and it was. I enjoyed it and may even watch it again. Maybe I can figure out that window in the coffin thing.

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Cheesy History

Posted on July 17, 2012 by mohawkvalleygirl

I attempted to continue my non-cheesy movie viewing with a Bette Davis movie on TCM Sunday. I love Bette Davis. I just finished reading another biography of her: More than a Woman: An Intimate Biography of Bette Davis by James Spada (Bantam Books, 1993).

The Virgin Queen (1955) also starring Joan Collins was Davis’ second portrayal of Queen Elizabeth I. Davis was reportedly delighted at the chance, especially since she was closer in age to what Elizabeth was at the time the movie takes place. She is wonderful, of course.

Joan Collins at this point had not reached her glory as a glamorous, conniving bitch (I use the word with respect, admiration and descriptive intent). She is a pretty girl. In a couple of early scenes, where she is flirtatious and comfortable maneuvering in the shifting sands of sixteenth century court, she shows a little of the vixen she would later portray so well. Later on, when she is merely in love with Sir Walter Raleigh, she’s a typical dull movie female. Give me a little vinegar every time!

Sir Walter Raleigh was originally the main character in the movie, before Davis got involved. I learned this in the pre-movie commentary from Ben Mankiewicz (grandson, I believe, of Joseph L. Mankiewicz who directed Davis in the divine All About Eve). The movie was originally called Sir Walter Raleigh, then Sir Walter Raleigh and the Virgin Queen, then finally The Virgin Queen.

Sir Walter Raleigh, in case you didn’t know, is the guy who spread his cloak over a puddle so Queen Elizabeth wouldn’t get her feet wet. I must remember to find out sometime if the story is true. According to this movie, Raleigh is lying, manipulative and self-serving. I don’t know what Elizabeth or Mistress Throckmorton (Collins) see in him. He schemes his way to court, sleazes a beautiful cloak (for the mud puddle trick) from an unsuspecting tailor, and loses no time in ingratiating himself with the Queen. He wants three ships, which he apparently knows how to design so that they will be more awesome than any ship hitherto known. Instead Elizabeth makes him Captain of the Guard.

At this point Mistress Throckmorton stops coquetting and begins to scorn Raleigh for being one of the Queen’s lap dogs. Now I would think that Captain of the Guard charged with guarding Her Royal Highness, who had a lot of enemies as rulers tend to do, would be considered a pretty manly job. Elizabeth I, remember, was no ordinary queen. She had inherited a nearly bankrupt kingdom that got no respect from the rest of Europe and, without the help of a king, pretty much turned things around. At this point in her reign, most of her kingdom and much of Europe agreed she was tops in sovereign rulers. And it was no shame to try to ingratiate yourself with a sovereign ruler in those days. That was a respected way to earn a living.

So the movie tacks twentieth century American sensibilities onto sixteenth century British history. I suppose this is a time-honored fictional technique. And perhaps we must be patient with 1950s Hollywood.

Still, it bothered me that Mistress Throckmorton kept trying to goad Sir Walter into asserting his manhood or something. To me, that’s not love. You love a person the way they are, not the way you would have them be. Of course, we always hope our loved ones improve themselves, say by turning from a life of crime or getting off drugs. But you can’t hold out your love as the prize if they behave a certain way. I don’t see any touching romance in that. Nor in belittling your supposed love, whatever your motivation is.

I know, I know, another time-honored fictional technique. All I can say is, time honors some messed up things.

Mistress Throckmorton finally decides or admits she’s in love with Sir Walter the first time the queen is about to banish or behead him (I was making all kinds of notes in the TV Journal abut the stuff in the movie that pissed me off, so I missed a few plot points). They get married without the benefit of clergy, probably to satisfy the Hayes Office.

Elizabeth does not behead him at this time but instead knights him and gives him one ship. She intends to send Mistress Throckmorton to the French court, which if you ask me would have been a good place for her. She might have gotten her coquettish ways back. Soon, however, she is fainting in the chapel, which, of course, is movie shorthand for being pregnant (now we know why they had to get married).

At one point, Sir Walter and the new Lady Raleigh attempt to flee to freedom in the New World, which, I hope you all remember from elementary school history, it is way to early to do. They are not going to meet Thomas Jefferson and say, “Ooh, loved your Declaration.” They’re not even going to meet the Pilgrims (which is just as well, because Collins’ wardrobe would not have been a hit). But it’s a movie and I suppose it does add to the entertainment value to be able to say, “Hah! Things are MUCH better here in America!”

I will admit that the entertainment value of the movie was not bad. My main entertainment was my criticisms, but I’m sure other viewers are less nit-picky. I’m used to movies playing fast and loose with history, and this one does it in spades. I’m also used to movies portraying the biggest stinkers as desirable love interests.

In summary, I did not get the non-cheesy experience I sought. Bette Davis, I repeat, was wonderful. She far outclassed her material. My lesson is sad but true: you can have great production values, beautiful costumes and sets, and my favorite actress, and still wind up with a big old piece of cheese.

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