Pete Kelly's Blues (1955) isn't quite what I expected. I am a lover of old-time radio, so I've heard Jack Webb's radio show of the same name. I was expecting something black and white and gritty. It was actually pretty colorful, and kind of romantic. But, because Webb is an old jazz-head, there are some pretty happening numbers.
It takes place in Prohibition era Kansas City. Webb plays cornet and is band leader with a hot little combo. When gangster Edmond O'Brien wants 20%, Webb tries to hold out. It works for a while, but the drummer gets shot and clarinetist Lee Marvin quits the band - he saw enough killing in Europe.
So now Webb is working for O'Brien. He is also being aggressively courted by Janet Leigh, a rich party girl who he snubs in his deadpan, monotone Jack Webb way. But now O'Brien wants to put his girlfriend in the show, Peggy Lee playing a drunk chantoosy. So we've got Leigh and Lee, dueling platinum blondes in this movie.
Meanwhile, Police Officer Andy Devine wants Webb to help get evidence to put away O'Brien. Maybe Ella Fitzgerald, who runs the gin joint on the colored side of town can help out, or at least sing a few numbers (Hard-Hearted Hannah and the title song).
The movie is full of Webb's colorful patter - like saying that an amputee "ran out of legs". It's got a lot of hot jazz, although it could have more. There's not as much tough stuff as you might think, though, as Webb just wants to get along and play. Also, the color palette and sets (no locations, of course) make this seem like a more prestigious movie than the crime B-movie we were expecting.
All in all, I think I like his early radio show, Pat Novak for Hire, better.
Tuesday, December 12, 2017
Monday, December 11, 2017
Strange Movie
The Strange Color of Your Body's Tears (2014) is an odd, abstract giallo. If you don't know what that is, it is an Italian genre from the 70s-80s of stylized crime films. They feature sexualized violence, lurid colors, and usually knife murderers or stranglers wearing black gloves. They have odd titles, like "Five Flies in a Dead Doll's Eye" (I might have made that up). Strangely, we watched this after seeing exactly zero gialli.
Business man Klaus Tange comes home from a trip to his Belgian apartment, and finds his wife, Edwige, is gone. He does the obvious thing, and gets drunk, then calls the police, then keeps drinkin. He starts pounding on the neighbors' doors in the middle of the night, pissing everyone off. Then the old lady on the top floor invites him in and shows him a flashback about how her husband disappeared.
One night when they were making love, he heard a noise in the ceiling. When he climbed up to investigate, he found there was a lot of space in the walls, left over from when they cut the house into apartments. He reported back to his wife that he could see the neighbors doing ... things. And he was never seen again.
I guess. It was all kind of vague and elliptical. Another neighbor is a sexpot; she tells him confusing stories and they have sex while covered in broken glass. I had to look away for that. There's a lot of blood in this movie, and our hero wears a bloody shirt when interviewed by the police about his missing wife. "I cut myself."
There are little pieces of plot and narrative in the first half or so, but they get pretty tenuous, and by the end, they are abandoned entirely (SPOILER). What this is really about is mood and style. The apartment is old Belgian art nouveau or de Stijl building, looking very chic and a little ominous. The music is borrowed from old gialli, with a Morricone feel. Some sections are in black and white or silent. And it gets weird.
So if you are interested in seeing wild, weird imagery and/or are interested in an abstract giallo, give this a watch. If you want a plot, not so much.
Business man Klaus Tange comes home from a trip to his Belgian apartment, and finds his wife, Edwige, is gone. He does the obvious thing, and gets drunk, then calls the police, then keeps drinkin. He starts pounding on the neighbors' doors in the middle of the night, pissing everyone off. Then the old lady on the top floor invites him in and shows him a flashback about how her husband disappeared.
One night when they were making love, he heard a noise in the ceiling. When he climbed up to investigate, he found there was a lot of space in the walls, left over from when they cut the house into apartments. He reported back to his wife that he could see the neighbors doing ... things. And he was never seen again.
I guess. It was all kind of vague and elliptical. Another neighbor is a sexpot; she tells him confusing stories and they have sex while covered in broken glass. I had to look away for that. There's a lot of blood in this movie, and our hero wears a bloody shirt when interviewed by the police about his missing wife. "I cut myself."
There are little pieces of plot and narrative in the first half or so, but they get pretty tenuous, and by the end, they are abandoned entirely (SPOILER). What this is really about is mood and style. The apartment is old Belgian art nouveau or de Stijl building, looking very chic and a little ominous. The music is borrowed from old gialli, with a Morricone feel. Some sections are in black and white or silent. And it gets weird.
So if you are interested in seeing wild, weird imagery and/or are interested in an abstract giallo, give this a watch. If you want a plot, not so much.
Saturday, December 9, 2017
Don't Make Me Do It Without My Fez On
After the classic mummy fest recently, I felt like we should watch The Mummy (2017), the one with Tom Cruise. Let's just say that I did not break out my fez for this one.
It starts with Cruise and buddy Jake Johnson as soldiers banging around Iraq, looking for antiquities to loot - in an Tomb Raider/Indiana Jones way. When an airstrike uncovers an ancient tomb, archaeologist Annabelle Wallis comes in to take over, and they extract the mummy (from Iraq - not Egypt. Because reasons). On the flight home, over England, the plane starts to go down (due to swarm of bats?). Cruise gives Wallis the last parachute and augers in.
And he somehow survives. It seems that he is the beloved of the mummy, played by Sofia Boutella (Kingsmen, Star Trek Beyond), and she is going to possess and/or sacrifice him.
But Cruise and friends have an ally, in the secret monster-fighting organization run by Dr. Henry Jekyll (Russell Crowe). Let me just say, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen did it better. Heck, Van Helsing did it better.
There's some nonsense with the Knights Templar. Also, Jake Johnson is now a ghost, used mainly for comic relief. And there is essentially no Egypt in this movie, no tanna leaves, hardly any mummy for that matter.
My recommendation, skip this and listen to Frank Conniff, Trace Beaulieu, and Carolina Hidalgo cap on it in their Movie Sign with the Mads podcast.
It starts with Cruise and buddy Jake Johnson as soldiers banging around Iraq, looking for antiquities to loot - in an Tomb Raider/Indiana Jones way. When an airstrike uncovers an ancient tomb, archaeologist Annabelle Wallis comes in to take over, and they extract the mummy (from Iraq - not Egypt. Because reasons). On the flight home, over England, the plane starts to go down (due to swarm of bats?). Cruise gives Wallis the last parachute and augers in.
And he somehow survives. It seems that he is the beloved of the mummy, played by Sofia Boutella (Kingsmen, Star Trek Beyond), and she is going to possess and/or sacrifice him.
But Cruise and friends have an ally, in the secret monster-fighting organization run by Dr. Henry Jekyll (Russell Crowe). Let me just say, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen did it better. Heck, Van Helsing did it better.
There's some nonsense with the Knights Templar. Also, Jake Johnson is now a ghost, used mainly for comic relief. And there is essentially no Egypt in this movie, no tanna leaves, hardly any mummy for that matter.
My recommendation, skip this and listen to Frank Conniff, Trace Beaulieu, and Carolina Hidalgo cap on it in their Movie Sign with the Mads podcast.
Thursday, December 7, 2017
Love that Witch
I learned about The Love Witch (2016) listening to a Projection Booth podcast where director Anna Biller was interviewed. Since I hadn't watched yet (and was driving through some unknown highways), I didn't get much out of it, but it sounded cool. For one thing, Biller didn't just direct - she also wrote, art directed, and sewed most of the wardrobe herself.
It stars Samantha Robinson in the title role. She is leaving LA to go hang in Arcata CA. Since her husband died ("and everyone thinks she killed him" is left to your imagination), she needs to get away. She has a friend in Arcata who rents her a room in a charming Victorian, decorated with mystical paintings. Her friend's friend takes her to a ladies' tea room, all frills and lace. You see, Robinson is a witch.
She performs a spell and meets an English professor, full of Kerouacian cool. They go to his place in the hills, she slips him some drugs, they fool around, he freaks and dies. So sad. She sets her sights on the realtors husband, a decent, righteous man. He kills himself when she gets tired of him. A macho police detective starts investigating her. She takes him to a Ren-Faire-like coven gathering in the woods, where her Wiccan friends hand-fast them. The scene reminds me of the nude grape-stomping scene in Seconds, and the detective is hooked, just like Hudson was. It doesn't work out much better for him.
This movie was made in the style of a 60s-70s technicolor thriller, full of bright colors. The costumes Biller designed are full of polyesters and day-glo paisleys, and Robinson wears the heavy eye makeup and piled up hair of the period - but it isn't a period piece. People drive modern cars and have cell phones. So it's a retro feel. It was even shot on 35-mm negative film.
But it is the story that is so unnerving. Robinson is a femme fatale, a black widow, but she only wants a man to pamper and fulfill. So she's in some ways anti-feminist. But her female-centric earth religion empowers her - she wants to pamper and fulfill a man so she can control him and bend him to her will.
Now, I have Wiccan friends. I have been to a hand-fasting. In some ways, this movie seemed like, not blasphemy, but religious bigotry. The Wiccans in Arcata have friends in high places, are feared by the townspeople. And they look pretty goofy, especially the male side of the leading couple, a chubby bearded fellow with a slimy leer. You can tell why he practices sex magic. Suppose these were Jews, not witches.
But, hey, they aren't Jews, and witches I've known have a pretty good sense of humor (although still a little sore about the Burning Times). The rituals can be pretty goofy. And no one can deny Biller sense of style.
It stars Samantha Robinson in the title role. She is leaving LA to go hang in Arcata CA. Since her husband died ("and everyone thinks she killed him" is left to your imagination), she needs to get away. She has a friend in Arcata who rents her a room in a charming Victorian, decorated with mystical paintings. Her friend's friend takes her to a ladies' tea room, all frills and lace. You see, Robinson is a witch.
She performs a spell and meets an English professor, full of Kerouacian cool. They go to his place in the hills, she slips him some drugs, they fool around, he freaks and dies. So sad. She sets her sights on the realtors husband, a decent, righteous man. He kills himself when she gets tired of him. A macho police detective starts investigating her. She takes him to a Ren-Faire-like coven gathering in the woods, where her Wiccan friends hand-fast them. The scene reminds me of the nude grape-stomping scene in Seconds, and the detective is hooked, just like Hudson was. It doesn't work out much better for him.
This movie was made in the style of a 60s-70s technicolor thriller, full of bright colors. The costumes Biller designed are full of polyesters and day-glo paisleys, and Robinson wears the heavy eye makeup and piled up hair of the period - but it isn't a period piece. People drive modern cars and have cell phones. So it's a retro feel. It was even shot on 35-mm negative film.
But it is the story that is so unnerving. Robinson is a femme fatale, a black widow, but she only wants a man to pamper and fulfill. So she's in some ways anti-feminist. But her female-centric earth religion empowers her - she wants to pamper and fulfill a man so she can control him and bend him to her will.
Now, I have Wiccan friends. I have been to a hand-fasting. In some ways, this movie seemed like, not blasphemy, but religious bigotry. The Wiccans in Arcata have friends in high places, are feared by the townspeople. And they look pretty goofy, especially the male side of the leading couple, a chubby bearded fellow with a slimy leer. You can tell why he practices sex magic. Suppose these were Jews, not witches.
But, hey, they aren't Jews, and witches I've known have a pretty good sense of humor (although still a little sore about the Burning Times). The rituals can be pretty goofy. And no one can deny Biller sense of style.
Wednesday, December 6, 2017
Ashes to Ashes
Just a quick note on our TV viewing. We don't just use Netflix to watch movies - we use it to watch TV series, generally one a day over dinner. Sometimes we don't wait until they are streaming. If it is good enough, we go for the disc. Like Ash vs. Evil Dead (2015).
If you aren't familiar with the movies, the first Evil Dead was a low budget horror movie, directed by Sam Raimi and starring Bruce Campbell. Evil Dead II was pretty much a straight remake, and Evil Dead: Army of Darkness takes Campbell to the past. They get goofier as the the series progresses, with over-the-top gore. Also, Campbell loses a hand and replaces it with a chainsaw. The last movie has Campbell back at his job as stock boy, but ready to fight evil if the need arises.
The TV series starts 30 years later, with Campbell still a stock boy. He lives a sleazy life in an Airstream trailer (like in My Name is Bruce). When it looks like Evil is back, he teams up with co-workers Ray Santiago and Dana DeLorenzo to fight it. Lucy Lawless also appears to be working either with or against.
As you might expect from a movie where the hero replaces his hand with a chainsaw, this is a really gory series. We sometimes regretted watching during dinner. There's also a bit of nudity, some quite disturbing, like the corpse with the pierced penis. See, Campbell gets his head stuck in the corpse's butthole and has to wear it for a mask... Never mind, you've got to watch it. But only if you aren't squeamish.
It also has a great soundtrack, by our friend from Leverage, Joe LoDuca. He uses a bunch of 70s hard rock - even if you don't watch this series (it's pretty gross and stupid), check out the playlist on Spotify.
If you aren't familiar with the movies, the first Evil Dead was a low budget horror movie, directed by Sam Raimi and starring Bruce Campbell. Evil Dead II was pretty much a straight remake, and Evil Dead: Army of Darkness takes Campbell to the past. They get goofier as the the series progresses, with over-the-top gore. Also, Campbell loses a hand and replaces it with a chainsaw. The last movie has Campbell back at his job as stock boy, but ready to fight evil if the need arises.
The TV series starts 30 years later, with Campbell still a stock boy. He lives a sleazy life in an Airstream trailer (like in My Name is Bruce). When it looks like Evil is back, he teams up with co-workers Ray Santiago and Dana DeLorenzo to fight it. Lucy Lawless also appears to be working either with or against.
As you might expect from a movie where the hero replaces his hand with a chainsaw, this is a really gory series. We sometimes regretted watching during dinner. There's also a bit of nudity, some quite disturbing, like the corpse with the pierced penis. See, Campbell gets his head stuck in the corpse's butthole and has to wear it for a mask... Never mind, you've got to watch it. But only if you aren't squeamish.
It also has a great soundtrack, by our friend from Leverage, Joe LoDuca. He uses a bunch of 70s hard rock - even if you don't watch this series (it's pretty gross and stupid), check out the playlist on Spotify.
Tuesday, December 5, 2017
Devil and Son House
Even though it's after Thanksgiving, I'm still catching up on the Halloween horror. We had a nice run one weekend, starting with The Devil Commands (1941).
TDC is an almost perfect mad scientist movie. It stars Boris Karloff as the absent minded professor who has invented a way to record brainwaves. He demonstrates on his wife Shirley Ward. It is a sweet scene, as she bustles in to remind him they are picking up their daughter at the train for her birthday. They have the easy, loving feel of a long-term couple. However, before they can pick up their daughter, the wife is killed in traffic.
Now, Karloff becomes withdrawn. His daughter, Amanda Duff, can't get him out of the laboratory, where he works with his assistant Cy Schindell, a janitor or handyman (but not a hunchback). However, an experiment goes wrong, and Schindell's brain is damaged and - YES! - he develops a hunchback! So we have a mad scientist, his beautiful daughter, and a hunchbacked assistant. A phony psychic, Anne Revere, completes the team, as they try to use science to contact the spirit of Karloff's wife.
There's even grave robbing, a creepy old house, and a seance of space-suited corpses. Karloff is magnetic throughout - his love for his wife cutting through everything.
Son of Dracula/House of Dracula (1943/1945) are a nice pair. Son is directed by B-movie master Robert Siodmak, written by his brother Curt. It takes place in Louisiana, probably near where the mummy Kharis was last seen. Louise Allbritton is hosting a party at her father's mansion, where she hopes Count Alucard, who she met in Europe, will appear. He doesn't, but her father turns up dead - and then the count shows up. Her boyfriend, Robert Paige, doesn't like this at all. He goes a bit nuts and shoots the count several times, with Allbritton standing behind him. What really freaks Paige out is that the bullets pass through Alucard, killing Allbritton.
Paige is locked up for the murder, but Allbritton appears in his cell as a bat and tells him to kill Alucard, who we all know is Dracula. Then Allbritton will bite Paige and they will become immortal together.
There's a lot to like about this entry in the Universal Monsterverse. The bayou setting with the touch of voodoo, Allbritton's morbid gothiness, the shooting scene, even the bat transformation. One problem, though - Alucard/Dracula is played by Lon Chaney, Jr. This gives him all four monsters (Wolfman, Frankenstein's monster, Mummy, Dracula), but he is not a great Dracula. He has a brutal look and Midwestern accent, not the suave European at all.
House, on the other hand, is very different. First, Dracula is played by John Carradine, suitably suave and sinister. Second, the story is all over the map, with three big monsters. Dr. Onslow Stevens is practicing mad medicine in a castle in Europe, with a beautiful assistant and a hunchback - no beatiful daughter, but the hunchback is a woman, Jane Adams. Carradine shows up, looking for a cure, and the doc gets to work. Then Lon Chaney, Jr. shows up, looking for a cure for lycanthropy, only to be told to come back later. When he tries to kill himself, he winds up in a cave where Frankenstein's monster (Glenn Strange) has been stuck since House of Frankenstein. This is all a big muddle, but it does have a mad scientist plus beautiful assistant and female hunchback.
In conclusion, all mad scientists should have a beautiful daughter as well as a hunchbacked assistant. It's just the way it works.
TDC is an almost perfect mad scientist movie. It stars Boris Karloff as the absent minded professor who has invented a way to record brainwaves. He demonstrates on his wife Shirley Ward. It is a sweet scene, as she bustles in to remind him they are picking up their daughter at the train for her birthday. They have the easy, loving feel of a long-term couple. However, before they can pick up their daughter, the wife is killed in traffic.
Now, Karloff becomes withdrawn. His daughter, Amanda Duff, can't get him out of the laboratory, where he works with his assistant Cy Schindell, a janitor or handyman (but not a hunchback). However, an experiment goes wrong, and Schindell's brain is damaged and - YES! - he develops a hunchback! So we have a mad scientist, his beautiful daughter, and a hunchbacked assistant. A phony psychic, Anne Revere, completes the team, as they try to use science to contact the spirit of Karloff's wife.
There's even grave robbing, a creepy old house, and a seance of space-suited corpses. Karloff is magnetic throughout - his love for his wife cutting through everything.
Son of Dracula/House of Dracula (1943/1945) are a nice pair. Son is directed by B-movie master Robert Siodmak, written by his brother Curt. It takes place in Louisiana, probably near where the mummy Kharis was last seen. Louise Allbritton is hosting a party at her father's mansion, where she hopes Count Alucard, who she met in Europe, will appear. He doesn't, but her father turns up dead - and then the count shows up. Her boyfriend, Robert Paige, doesn't like this at all. He goes a bit nuts and shoots the count several times, with Allbritton standing behind him. What really freaks Paige out is that the bullets pass through Alucard, killing Allbritton.
Paige is locked up for the murder, but Allbritton appears in his cell as a bat and tells him to kill Alucard, who we all know is Dracula. Then Allbritton will bite Paige and they will become immortal together.
There's a lot to like about this entry in the Universal Monsterverse. The bayou setting with the touch of voodoo, Allbritton's morbid gothiness, the shooting scene, even the bat transformation. One problem, though - Alucard/Dracula is played by Lon Chaney, Jr. This gives him all four monsters (Wolfman, Frankenstein's monster, Mummy, Dracula), but he is not a great Dracula. He has a brutal look and Midwestern accent, not the suave European at all.
House, on the other hand, is very different. First, Dracula is played by John Carradine, suitably suave and sinister. Second, the story is all over the map, with three big monsters. Dr. Onslow Stevens is practicing mad medicine in a castle in Europe, with a beautiful assistant and a hunchback - no beatiful daughter, but the hunchback is a woman, Jane Adams. Carradine shows up, looking for a cure, and the doc gets to work. Then Lon Chaney, Jr. shows up, looking for a cure for lycanthropy, only to be told to come back later. When he tries to kill himself, he winds up in a cave where Frankenstein's monster (Glenn Strange) has been stuck since House of Frankenstein. This is all a big muddle, but it does have a mad scientist plus beautiful assistant and female hunchback.
In conclusion, all mad scientists should have a beautiful daughter as well as a hunchbacked assistant. It's just the way it works.
Saturday, December 2, 2017
Mr. Blobby
The Blob (1958) kind of surprised me. For a B-movie, it had a lot more gloss than I expected.
It starts with Steve McQueen (in his first feature) parking with Aneta Coursault. He comes across as a sensitive teen delinquent (although he looks at least as old as his actual 28 years). They see a meteor land and go to look at it, but it has already been found by old codger Howlin' Olin Howland. When they find him, it has already blobbed onto his arm, so they race him to the doctor's.
We meet Dr. Stephen Chase just as he's leaving town for a convention. He sends the nurse home, locks up and is almost gone when the kids bring in old Howland. Pretty soon, the blob has eaten him completely, along with the doctor. The kids go to get the police, but when they get back, there's no sign of the blob. One of the cops thinks the whole thing is a prank, but the other thinks McQueen is a good kid. Still, with no proof, there's nothing they can do.
So our young couple gather up a posse of other teens from the midnight horror movie show. This is a cute bit of meta - even in 1958, horror B-movies are a thing. It's also a little pointless, because they don't actually find the monster. But the monster finds the midnight movie.
I did not know this movie was in color. I think that made it look a lot less cheap then good old black 'n' white. Also, the goofy surf-cha-cha-cha theme song (co-written by Burt Bacharach!) made me realize that this movie was a little more self-aware than I expected, if not exactly a parody. I liked the whole "the adults don't believe the kids, because the evidence keeps getting eaten" story, especially when the monster shows up and all the adults have to buy in.
In conclusion, Howland's dog survives. I know it's a spoiler, but I don't want anyone to stress.
It starts with Steve McQueen (in his first feature) parking with Aneta Coursault. He comes across as a sensitive teen delinquent (although he looks at least as old as his actual 28 years). They see a meteor land and go to look at it, but it has already been found by old codger Howlin' Olin Howland. When they find him, it has already blobbed onto his arm, so they race him to the doctor's.
We meet Dr. Stephen Chase just as he's leaving town for a convention. He sends the nurse home, locks up and is almost gone when the kids bring in old Howland. Pretty soon, the blob has eaten him completely, along with the doctor. The kids go to get the police, but when they get back, there's no sign of the blob. One of the cops thinks the whole thing is a prank, but the other thinks McQueen is a good kid. Still, with no proof, there's nothing they can do.
So our young couple gather up a posse of other teens from the midnight horror movie show. This is a cute bit of meta - even in 1958, horror B-movies are a thing. It's also a little pointless, because they don't actually find the monster. But the monster finds the midnight movie.
I did not know this movie was in color. I think that made it look a lot less cheap then good old black 'n' white. Also, the goofy surf-cha-cha-cha theme song (co-written by Burt Bacharach!) made me realize that this movie was a little more self-aware than I expected, if not exactly a parody. I liked the whole "the adults don't believe the kids, because the evidence keeps getting eaten" story, especially when the monster shows up and all the adults have to buy in.
In conclusion, Howland's dog survives. I know it's a spoiler, but I don't want anyone to stress.
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