FIFTY YEARS AGO TODAY

Fifty Years Ago Today was Saturday, May 5, 1973…it was a big day in our locality. Jeffersonville, Indiana, where I lived, was immediately across the Ohio River from Louisville, Kentucky. In most senses, Jeff was a suburb of Louisville (just don’t tell any Jeffersonvillians that I said that). So the doings of Louisvillians were our doings as well and today was the biggest day of the year in our area. It was Derby Day! As the day began, things looked good for the race favorite, Sham. But, unfortunately for that nice horsie, there was a tall, beautiful stallion in the field name of…Secretariat. Arguably—and frankly there’s not much argument about it—the greatest thoroughbred racehorse of all time…

Secretariat in mid-flight.

And me? Still married, still between shows, probably working a lot for my dad. Just bein’ an electrician, working long hours, bringing light and heat and power for the toaster to middle America! God bless me!

Today’s movie showed up on Channel 32’s late movie. I was looking forward to this one. It was one of the last films of The King of Horror, Boris Karloff. This night I got to see…

THE SORCERERS

I had no chance to see this in a theater, though I came close. One evening, late 60s, I took a long country drive. This led me toward Paoli, Indiana. I’d passed through the area several times a couple of years earlier when I was doing a show nearby. But this night, I just needed a nice drive and I remembered the roads being good and the countryside attractive, so off I went.

On my way home, I passed the Paoli Drive-in Theater. There, on the marquee, I could read THE SORCERERS. Having heard of it from the monster magazines, I knew it was something of a big deal because of Karloff.

I’m not sure, after 50 years, why I didn’t just pull in and see it that night. Best possibility: Some of these small drive-ins only opened on weekends, so maybe it wasn’t even open that night.

Couple of days later, I drove back to Paoli, in hopes of seeing the movie. The drive-in was open, but an entirely different, and not interesting, bill showed on the marquee. Thus, u-turn and straight home. That was my only shot at seeing THE SORCERERS at a theater.

Between it starring Karloff and my having a short history of missing it, the movie was a double-dang must-see for me.

I enjoyed THE SORCERERS that night but wasn’t blown away. And 50 years later, never having seen it again, I remember almost nothing about it. I can envision Karloff sitting in a small, sad apartment…and, yeah, that’s about it.

So it’s high time to see it again, and here we go…

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It was nice and very surprising to see Karloff walking so much and so well. Strolling through London streets, even with a cane, he seems almost nimble. Most of his latter-year movies find him either in a wheelchair or looking very much as if he should be in a wheelchair…

He does look old as the hills and, probably for the first time in his long career, he seems to wear no makeup at all. His true dark complexion is on full display, blotches, bags, wrinkles and all. Ironic, I suppose, because did any major actor spend more of his screen time buried under gloop and grime?…

                                    Ah, Boris back where he belongs--in a mad lab.

This movie, much more than the highly vaunted WITCHFINDER GENERAL, makes me regret the too-early loss of Michael Reeves to the movie world…

The acting is topnotch, at least in the leading roles. Catherine Lacey and Ian Ogilvy are excellent and Karloff is even better, bless him. The old trouper still getting it done. In fact, apart from TARGETS and his small role in COMEDY OF TERRORS, this is probably the best film performance in the last decade of his career. He’s very good…

At one point, Ian Ogilvy speaks the line, “I have my own personal Open Cesare.” Of course, this should be “Open Sesame.” No idea if one should blame Ogilvy or the script, but it does make his character sound a little dopey…

The speeding motorcycle scene is pretty good but kind of dangerous. Clearly it was shot guerrilla style with Ogilvy and his leading lady actually on the bike. I doubt the movie’s insurers (if there were any) would have approved…

A bonus from the movie: ultimate British bird Susan George has a 

one scene role and is both decorative and effective.

The movie is obviously extremely low-budget. Matter of fact, between the skimpiness and the plot line, this could almost have served as the fifth of Boris’s Mexican movies. If not, that is, for the acting and the sheer smarts of the thing…

But it’s not all Peaches and Sunflowers. Some of the sound recording is pretty bad (the result of low budget and real locations, I assume), some minor role actors aren’t really up to it, there are a few slow, unfilled moments (not enough meat on the script to go around), the locations have the benefit of being real, but are, nevertheless, small and tight and drab…

Of course, it doesn't end well.

But all those negatives are outweighed by the genuine talent and energy of its very young director and its very old star.

                                                  Meanwhile, monsters were everydamnwhere.

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.

On April 27, 1977--exactly 46 years ago today-- I got a call from my friend Charlie. He was about to

head out to Louisville’s Freedom Hall where he was going to camp out overnight in what he figured

would be a very long line in order to get a ticket to an upcoming concert when the box-office opened the

next morning.  The concert would be performed by Elvis Presley, and Charlie was a big, big Elvis fan.

He was calling to ask if he should get a ticket for me.

I wasn’t the uber-fan that Charlie was, but I did love Elvis. Who didn’t love Elvis? I asked Charlie

what the ticket would cost. My memory has always told me that the price was $8, but a little research

shows me that the actual ticket prices were $10, $12, and, for Texas oilmen, $15. I know those prices

sound absurdly, even comically low, but it was 1977 after all.

Charlie was hanging on the phone waiting for my response as my mind batted it back and forth.

On the sunny side of the net, it was Elvis. A chance to see the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll live and in person.

Hard to top that. On the shadowed side, I was, as usual, flat broke. $10 might not seem like much now

and, in truth, it wasn’t exactly a fortune in ‘77, but it was big bucks to me. I was between gigs, owed

money to my girlfriend….not good. 

I wanted to go, believe me, I did. But I just couldn’t justify in my mind laying out that ten-spot.

Especially since I’d probably have to borrow it from Debby. Sometimes poverty could be really cruel. 

But I had to give Charlie an answer. So I told him, “no…no, I can’t afford it. I hate to miss it but…

oh, I’ll catch him next time.”  And that was that. 

Of course, there would be no next time. On May 21, 1977, Elvis played his second and final

Louisville engagement.(To put it in temporal context, four days later, STAR WARS premiered.) And

shortly after that I got a job and likely could have managed ten bucks but too late.

Less than three months later, Elvis was gone at 42 years of age. Charlie got to see Elvis, but now

he’s gone too. I’m still here, at least the husk of me, still wishing I’d seen The King …Debby would

have loaned me ten bucks. I was an idiot. Still am, for that matter.

 YES, YES, FOR ONE LAST TIME, MORE RONDO NOMINEES!

Aaarrgghhh! I didn’t quite make it. Today is the last day for Rondo voting and I still have four movies unseen. Still, 17 of 21, not bad.

SCREAM… I wasn’t that hugely fond of the original (and, despite the same title, this isn’t a remake), but its saving grace was its humor and its meta approach. This one has the meta, and in spades, but not the humor, not at all. And that’s a big loss. Sans humor, this is just another high school slasher. 

It is nice to see David Arquette and the other returnees, but not even Dewey is funny. What a missed chance. 

The movie does do a nice job of setting up some obvious jump scares…and then not delivering them. I appreciated that.

I’m not sure if it’s the movie, or if I’ve changed, but there’s just no “fun” in these killings. I know how that sounds, but you know what I mean. 

Courteney Cox used to be one of the most gorgeous women ever. Now…Courteney Cox used to be one of the most gorgeous women ever. And I’m not talking about the ravages of time here. That happens to all of us. I would however, like to have a word with her nip and tuck team. I’m sure that the sagging and wrinkling of age is tougher on beautiful people than on the rest of us…still….

I’m beginning to think that slashers—which were never exactly fonts of invention—now have NO new ideas at all.

I could easily have written this movie, or half of it anyway. At least ten times I spoke the next line of dialogue before the movie character did. Can you say predictable? Can you say programmatic?  Yeah, I thought you could.

I thought sure they were setting up a last reel ‘Arbogast’, but no. They may have missed a nice homage there.

And, last but not least, it should have been 20-30 minutes shorter. 

CRIMES OF THE FUTURE … it’s nice to have Cronenberg back in the fold. First time since EXISTENZ, I guess. And this one is both beautiful and horrible to look at.

When I saw Fellini’s CITY OF WOMEN, lo those many years ago, I realized it was not a great film, but I was overwhelmed by the sheer imagination on display. Cronenberg’s imagination is nearly at the same level, just in a much more confined arena. Hey, long live the new flesh, baby!

Question: How are the James Bond films unlike the other movies in Lea Seydoux’s filmography? Answer: For 007 she keeps her clothes on.

I like Viggo, but not his whisper acting. I do understand that some of it comes from his character’s illnesses and weaknesses, still…speak up, Viggo.

Favorite line:  ‘I enjoy trauma.’

THE MENU … Anya Taylor-Joy acts and sounds like the all-American girl next door, but don’t let her fool ya. Just look at her. That is not an earthling, my friends.

The movie is unexpected and “different”. It’s hard to explain how welcome and refreshing “different” can be.

This one is very good indeed. Great settings, great cast, interesting story.

Least believable moment: Anya Taylor-Joy chowing down on a cheeseburger. That girl doesn’t look as if she’s ingested a cheeseburger’s worth of calories in her life.

I liked this one.

BARBARIAN … A disappointment, ultimately. It starts out strong. Creepy stuff, good actors, interesting characters, and a set-up which keeps the viewer in genuine suspense. Then it shifts gears, and it’s still interesting but less so. Then another turn and it’s fairly standard stuff. Too bad.

Early on we get a very good, not entirely predictable, jump scare.

When the young lady goes down into the weird, mysterious cellar to investigate after she’s boldly proclaimed she’d never go down there again, I flashed back on something I heard from a guy in a movie audience long ago. The movie was Italian horror and, yes, the leading lady was going down to the basement of this ultra-creepy house to check out the weird, spooky noises. As she opened the basement door, a guy in the audience offered good advice. He yelled, “Bitch, you go down there you deserve what you get.”