Fifty Years Ago Today

Fifty years ago today was Friday, April 4, 1975 … dunno whatever came of them, but on this day Microsoft (whatever that is) was founded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen…Pamela Ribon was born. She would become a TV, movie, and video game writer and producer. She has writing credits for such animated fantasies as MOANA, RALPH BREAKS THE INTERNET, and SMURFS: THE LOST VILLAGE. It astounds me that I’ve actually seen two of those…The first military Operation Babylift flight crashed 27 minutes after takeoff, killing 144 of the 305 people on board, including 78 of the 243 children. Two cargo doors blew off of the jet, largest in the world at the time, as it reached 23,000 feet during the evacuation of civilians in the closing days of the Vietnam War…

On the CBS Friday Movie that night was THE OTHER. Oooh, spooky.

And some of the other available TV offerings that night:

Personally, I am confused. Just as in my last entry about VAMPYRES, I saw today’s movie in Louisville, but I was working at the time in Indianapolis. Just to make sure I was right about that, I checked my records and newspapers of the day in both cities and…yeah. I saw the movie in Louisville, but my show was running that day in Indianapolis. Unfortunately I wouldn’t start keeping a daybook till the next year. Too bad. On those pages I would have noted where I was and why. Best I can guess, as with VAMPYRES, is that this day’s performance was cancelled and I went home for the day. Unlikely, yes, but possible. And I got nuthin’ better.

Today--in Louisville!--I saw SILENT NIGHT, BLOODY NIGHT. 

It was advertised locally as SILENT NIGHT, NIGHT OF TERROR, probably because the movie had stirred up some stink when released, even getting itself banned in some places. I just recently read the book A SCARY LITTLE CHRISTMAS, all about Christmas horror movies, a trend which started with, yes, SILENT NIGHT, BLOODY NIGHT.

My memories of that first viewing are almost zilch. I recall, I think, a kind of cheap, poorly photographed…something. And that’s it. If, that is, I’m remembering the right movie. I’ve seen SILENT NIGHT, BLOODY NIGHT and SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT, and SILENT NIGHT, EVIL NIGHT (better known as BLACK CHRISTMAS), plus a flotilla of sequels. Thus, I’m not entirely, utterly sure which movie this is.

So definitely time to watch it again.

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First frame, there’s Mary Woronov. Now I know for sure which movie this is. I remember her. 

Ah, they’re trying to trip me up. This one has been retitled, rather clumsily, as DEATHHOUSE. Nah, they can’t fool me.

Here’s a scene with some old folks sitting around a table and one of them is John Carradine. I remember this scene.--not what the scene was about, just the set-up and how it looked.

Carradine plays an almost mute character, thereby wasting what was arguably his greatest asset--his voice. He rings a little bell rather than speaking. He does have one brief line, spoken off-camera in a gritty, raspy whisper. And I’d bet $200 that it’s not even Long John’s voice.

Our secondary leading lady is an astonishingly beautiful young woman name of Astrid Heeren. She is MUCH younger than her paramour, played by Patrick O’Neal. But that’s show biz, right?

I will say that with O’Neal, James Patterson, Carradine, Water Abel and Mary Woronov we have a pretty solid cast, with the beautiful lady the cherry on the top.

Though it doesn’t feel like giallo at any moment, the faceless villain, black gloves, roving camera, and first person p.o.v. obviously remind one of giallo.

Somebody has dredged hard into the PSYCHO playbook.

Never occurred to me before, but James Patterson (not the wretched writer, but the decent actor) looks just a whole damn lot like a late friend of mine.

Woronov plays one of the most cautious, sensible characters I ever remember seeing in a horror film.  No way this lady would venture into the basement of a haunted house checking out weird noises.

Hey, Sheriff! Wearing sunglasses while traipsing around in the dark with a flashlight might be counterproductive.

Oh, I see -- a couple of scenes later, the sunglasses are found by others, letting us know the sheriff, he ain’t doin’ so good.

I once read that the most-used line in movie history is “Let’s get out of here.”  Might be, since Woronov says it twice in about 15 seconds.

Hmmm. In addition to the questionable Carradine voice, at least one line each of Woronov and Patterson is obviously post-dubbed and, apparently, by other people. Makes me think there might have been a major attempt to “save it in post.”

Unfortunately, after about an hour of surprisingly decent horror movie, it goes off the rails just a bit in the ending, reaching too much for ‘art’. 

But, decent cast, non-embarrassing script, some clever direction, serviceable photography add up to something better than expected 

What? How was the music, you ask? You’re asking the wrong guy. I don’t notice music and, though I just finished watching it about 10 minutes ago, I couldn’t tell you if there was any music at all.

FIFTY YEARS AGO TODAY

      Fifty Years Ago Today was Saturday, April 28, 1973..A series of munition explosions injured 48 people in Roseville, California. The blasts and fire at the Southern Pacific Railroad yard were traced to overheated brakes on a box car that was transporting highly explosive aircraft ammunition… Six Irishmen were arrested by the Irish Naval Service off County Waterford, on a coaster carrying five tons of weapons destined for the Provisional Irish Republican Army... Six elderly women were killed in Kansas City, Kansas after their apartment building was set on fire. An 18-year old newspaper carrier and a 16-year old accomplice were arrested later in the day on charges of arson and six counts of murder.^[

        The top song in the country this day was TIE A YELLOW RIBBON ROUND THE OLD OAK TREE by Tony Orlando and Dawn. I trust everyone knows that one.

     Personally, I got nuthin’.  I was between shows at the time. We’d just recently closed THREE MEN ON A HORSE and GUYS AND DOLLS was a few months off. 

      I was married at the time but I can’t tell you much about it. I remember a few incidents from that not-quite-two-year disaster, but of daily life—not a clue. I honestly can’t remember our living together, what we did, what we didn’t. It truly seems as if it was something I heard about happening to someone else. Nothing to do with me.

But a Saturday night in 1973 meant “Fright Night” on Channel 41. That night The Fearmonger had his usual double feature in store for us, a John Carradine duo: the second feature, which I’d already seen, was THE UNEARTHLY. But the opener, a genuine old Universal Horror was new to me. I didn’t expect much from it, but still it was pretty neat to finally see…

CAPTIVE WILD WOMAN

It feels as if I should have seen this in ’62 on Shock Theater. It was included in the second Shock package, titled Son of Shock. But I like to think that someone at Channel 32, back in 1962, decided to spare us any of the adventures of Paula Dupree, the Ape Woman.

Probably not, but I still like to think so.

I did not enjoy CAPTIVE WILD WOMAN that night and why should I? It’s not a good movie. I’ve seen it a few times over the years and it hasn’t gotten better. Tonight I’ll be watching it again in honor of the 50th anniversary of that first viewing. There’s no reason to expect it’ll be any better this time.

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Evelyn Ankers’s considerable beauty is much too covered by the enormous hat she wears in her first scene. Then, later, she’s all smothered in a hat/scarf combo thing. She’s much too pretty to be hidden away by her own wardrobe…

                                            Enormous hat, enormous shadow, too-hidden Evie.

                Smothering hat thing. And lovely Martha MacVicar not burdened with headgear.

Fred’s bragging of bringing back 20 tigers, 20 lions, and blah blah blah doesn’t sound so great in these more enlightened times…

So Carradine’s character has taken Ankers out to dinner “several times” yet she still calls him “Dr. Walters”…

Milburn Stone was supposedly cast because his physical resemblance to Clyde Beatty made it easier to pass old Beatty footage off as being Stone. Well and good, and some of the trickery works well enough, but the resemblance is not all that strong and frequently it’s clearly not Stone when it’s supposed to be. There’s also a couple of particularly clumsy bits. Once we can clearly see Beatty in a scene of which Stone is a supposed onlooker. Another time we see Beatty in the cage facing off against the critters before Stone enters the cage…

Here in 1943 Carradine is calm, cool, a very acceptable leading man (villainous variety). Please compare to his wild-eyed moron in ’44’s VOODOO MAN. Hmm. Wonder which was more of a stretch?…

The nurse says that Carradine shouldn’t “tamper with things no man or woman should ever touch.” If she’d said “tamper in God’s domain” it would have been perfect…

It’s odd that when we first see Paula Dupree, she’s already a woman fully growed. Nothing apish about her. She’s Acquanetta! There’s no scene of monkey becoming woman…

The treatment of the animals—surely typical of the time—is frankly horrendous…

Acquanetta is a true beauty but, even with no lines to speak, it’s painfully obvious that she’s no actress. By the way, no one ever mentions her total lack of speech. Or are we supposed to think that, off-camera, Paula Dupree’s mouth runs non-stop?…

Obviously this still shows Acquanetta's beauty. Amazingly, it also somehow shows her lack of talent.

“I wonder if you’ll be that easy to train after we’re married..” Yeah, the treatment of women is also very last century…

I hate the old and/or amateur actor’s habit of holding his hands at waist level in front of him. It’s a sure sign of an actor who doesn’t know what to do with his hands. And it seems to be Lloyd Corrigan’s normal stance…

Yeah, a gorilla gal and a cage full of big cats isn’t enough excitement for a 60 minute movie. We need a big storm too and, hey, let’s have an audience panic as well…

Well…it ends, but that’s not exactly an ending.

Between the sexism, the racism, and the animal abuse, this is particularly problematic in these days.

Not a good movie, and silly in the extreme, but not without some low-brow entertainment value. And that’s quite the compliment, isn’t it?

                                                                        There's our girl.