Although I’m not a big fan of Ray Bradbury, or Disney in general, I thought Something Wicked This Way Comes (1983) would be worth checking out. I think it was.
It takes place in October in a small Illinois town, just after the war. A lightning rod salesman, Royal Dano, comes to town to tell the townspeople of the storm that’s coming. Youngsters Vidal Peterson as Will Halloway and Shawn Carson as Jim Nightingale get let out of school when their old battle axe teacher Mary Grace Canfield releases them from detention. They go to meet Will’s father, Jason Robards, at his work as town librarian. When they get home, the lightning rod salesman sells one to Jim - this will come in useful.
As the wind rises, it starts blowing around posters for a carnival - Dark’s Pandemonium - which is strange because the carnivals usually stop coming after Labor Day. The kids hear a train and sneak out their bedroom windows to see the carnival set up. It is all ready, but no one is there, and it gets pretty spooky.
The next day they go to the carnival, and find that it’s just an ordinary carnival. But we’ve been introduced to some of the townspeople - the tobacconist who is money mad, the barber who dreams of exotic women from exotic lands, the bar tender who was a football star until he lost an arm and a leg. The carnival will tempt all of them and more. First the tobacconist wins $10,000 in a game of chance and gets on the Ferris Wheel with a beautiful lady - who gets off alone. Then the barber goes to the hootchy-kootchy show - and doesn’t come back. And so forth.
Finally, Mr. Dark, Jonathon Pryce, will come for the kids (who know too much) and for Robards, who is an old man with heart trouble, who feels that life has passed him by.
A lot of this reminds me of The Seven Faces of Dr. Lao - a carnival where everyone sees what they need to see. In the hall of mirrors, this is made concrete, when the bartender sees himself with all his limbs, and the schoolteacher is young and beautiful. These are a little puzzling - are these dreams really so bad that the dreamers will be condemned (somehow) because they succumbed?
There’s a nice spider attack with a lot of tarantulas (which Ms. S liked, since she is a spider fan and has a few for pets), but that’s about it for children in peril. The real peril is that one of the kids would “ditch” the other and take Mr. Dark’s offer without the other.
But my favorite parts were the special effects, which weren’t that special, but we found rather psychedelic. The final scene involves slow-motion explosions of glass, which reminded me of the end of Zabriskie Point.
Bradbury’s superpower is poetic nostalgia mixed with horror or fantastic elements. I think the movie does a good job giving you this. In some ways, it seems like It’s a Wonderful Life, with that small town feel, and the characters who yearn for a bigger life. So, even though that’s not our favorite thing, we liked the way they did it, and enjoyed this a lot.
skip to main |
skip to sidebar
Inspirations and Obsessions
Podcasts
Movie Time!
Blog Archive
About Me
- Beveridge D. Spenser
- I'm Beveridge D. Spenser, but you can call me Cool Bev. Or Fruity Bev. I'm 6'2", so Tall Bev also applies.
1 comment:
I saw "Something Wicked This Way Comes" when it was first released to theaters. I didn't think it was a bad film, but it seemed a bit tepid, like poor Jack Clayton had to "sanitize" Bradbury's story so it was more family friendly. The only scene that I felt had some passion was when the dark man was offering youth to the Jason Robards character.
I remember reading an article that Ray Bradbury being a bit anxious about the film before it was released. In the article, he recounted how "The Illustrated Man" was a big disappointment. He even recalled an incident at a theater that was showing "The Illustrated Man." Evidently, a little boy came up to him after seeing the film and said, "Gee, Mr. Bradbury, what happened?" (Meaning: what went wrong?)
Post a Comment