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[August 22, 1968] Vive de Gaul– Asterix the Gaul Movie

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by Fiona Moore

At an event at the Institut Français in London recently, I was able to see the newly-translated animated film Asterix the Gaul (made in 1967, but only released in English this year). While it’s not a great adaptation, it is nice to see a series that’s only growing in popularity in the French-speaking world getting wider exposure.

Asterix the Gaul movie poster
Asterix the Gaul movie poster

In case you’ve missed the Asterix phenomenon, some background. Asterix le Gaulois, or Asterix the Gaul, is a Franco-Belgian comic from the writing and drawing team of Goscinny and Uderzo, originally serialised in 1959, with the first album coming out in 1961. Since then it’s only become more and more popular, with the ninth album, Asterix et les Normands (Asterix and the Normans) reaching 1.2 million sales in its first two days of release earlier this year.

On the face of it, Asterix might seem an unlikely hit. The story is a humourous historical fantasy, starting with a “what if…” premise to the effect that, after Caesar conquered Gaul and, as any schoolchild studying Latin knows, divided it into three parts, a small Gaulish village remained unconquered, due to their druid having invented a magic potion that gives the drinker super-strength. Our protagonist, Asterix, is a diminutive but sharp-witted warrior; his best pal is Obelix, a giant who has permanent super-strength due to having fallen in a vat of magic potion as a baby. Together, they have adventures traveling around Europe, North Africa and the Middle East, resisting Romans and meeting interesting, if frequently ethnically stereotyped, people.

Asterix' pal Obelix is a menhir salesman. He's barely in this story.
Asterix' pal Obelix is a menhir salesman. He's barely in this story.

However, if you have a chance to read the albums, you can see the appeal. The puns are thick, heavy and groanworthy (particularly as regards the character names: the Gauls all have names ending in -ix, meaning we get people called Assurancetourix and Abracourix, and the Romans in -us, giving us Humerus and Fleurdelotus), and the anachronism humour nonstop. Additionally Goscinny and Uderzo have a lot of affectionate fun with projecting stereotypes of modern European nations back onto their Roman past equivalents. The story of plucky, likeable people resisting an oppressor is one with relevance to all political stripes. The Romans are always comically stupid and the violence cartoonish, keeping the tone from getting too heavy for children.

Asterix and Panoramix resisting Roman oppression
Asterix and Panoramix resisting Roman oppression

The series has appeared in English translation twice before now, both times in English children’s comics (Valiant and Ranger) and on neither occasion faithful, transporting the action to ancient Britain in the apparent belief that British audiences would be incapable of sympathising with French characters. However, word at the Institut is that an approved translation by Anthea Bell is currently in production and should be released next year.

Our hero was described in one English translation as an "ancient Brit with bags of grit." No, really.
Our hero was described in one English translation as an "ancient Brit with bags of grit." No, really.

The film Asterix the Gaul is a 70-minute animation, apparently originally planned as a telemovie but instead winding up in cinematic release. The visuals are, for the most part, decently done, and it has a jaunty theme tune by Gerard Calvi. The English voice cast are for the most part adopting American accents (the main exceptions being Stopthemusix the Bard and Julius Caesar, who are both using British received pronunciation), which seems an odd decision as French comics popular in other markets, such as Tintin, don’t generally do well in the American sphere, and it might be better to try and sell to the wider English-speaking world.

The plot more or less follows that of the comic album Asterix le Gaulois, the first adventure in the series. Roman centurion Phonus Balonus (Caius Bonus in the original comic), wanting to know the secret of the Gauls’ super-strength, sends a spy into the village disguised as a Gaul. Upon learning that the secret is the potion brewed by druid Panoramix, the Romans kidnap him, with Phonus Balonus planning to use his strengthened legions to become Emperor. Asterix sneaks into their camp with a view to rescuing Panoramix, but, on finding his friend in good spirits and having fun winding up the Romans, Asterix surrenders and joins him, with the pair living a luxurious life at the Romans’ expense. Finally Panoramix pretends to give in, but in fact brews a potion which makes the drinkers’ hair and beards grow uncontrollably. Realising that they can’t keep the gag going indefinitely, Panoramix pretends to brew an antidote, while also secretly furnishing Asterix with a small amount of magic potion. When the pair make their escape, they run into Caesar himself, who has come to investigate the mysterious goings-on in person.

Julius Caesar does not approve of Panoramix' beard-growing potion.
Julius Caesar does not approve of Panoramix's beard-growing potion.

The decision to adapt the first book in the series, and without the input of the creators, is arguably the film’s biggest problem. A lot of the running gags and characters which have contributed to the series’ appeal, such as Obelix’s tiny dog Idéfix and the ongoing feud between fishmonger Ordraflfabétix and blacksmith Cétautomatix, were worked out in later volumes, and the story feels thin without them. Although Asterix has never exactly been known for its female characters (there are exactly two women regulars, both stereotypes and only one having an actual name), in the film the village seems to be a homosexual commune, with no women or children at all. Goscinny and Uderzo were reportedly very unhappy with this movie, and it’s a shame they weren’t involved, as they could have revised their earlier story to include this later material.

The translation is generally serviceable. The punning names are retained and even arguably improved, with the bard Assurancetourix becoming Stopthemusix and Abraracourcix the chief becoming Tonabrix. The narration has a few heavy-handed gags like “Caesar had a lot of Gaul,” and there are more subtle jokes for those who remember their classics, like Phonus Balonus proposing to his second-in-command Marcus Sourpus that they form a triumvirate (not knowing that a triumvirate is, by definition, made up of three men). There’s a long and rather unfunny sequence with a singing ox-cart driver that feels like it’s just in to fill time, but there is also a blink-and-you-miss-it moment where Panoramix appears to be gathering marijuana in the woods.

That's some suspicious-looking smoke. Panoramix.
That's some suspicious-looking smoke. Panoramix.

All in all, while it’s not the best introduction to the series, it gives English-speaking audiences a general flavour. It’s good to see a cartoon series where the main character lives by his wits more than his fists, and where bullies are shown as hapless incompetents who can be defeated by ridicule. Reportedly a new film is in production, based on Asterix et Cleopatre (Asterix and Cleopatra), with the creators’ full involvement, and I look forward to seeing if it is an improvement.

Two and a half stars.



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Horror, Movies

[August 18, 1968] The Horror is Real (Targets)

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by Jason Sacks

I’ve reviewed some frightening movies in this magazine before – the existential middle-aged angst of Seconds, the gothic horror of Ingmar Bergman’s Hour of the Wolf and the eerie uncanny feeling of Planet of the Vampires, among others. But I’ve never reviewed a movie that’s scary in quite the same way as the new movie Targets.

Targets is frightening because it’s so real. It’s loosely based on the story of the Texas Tower Sniper. This real-life horror happened on August 1, 1966, when a seemingly ordinary man, a Marine veteran named Charles Whitman, climbed the long stairs of the Main Building at the University of Texas with rifles and a sawed-off shotgun and then began indiscriminately opening fire during a class break on campus.

Whitman killed 14 people that day, students walking on the campus mall and people shopping along distant Guadalupe Street, people cowering and people walking innocently. 31 more were injured, stark and frightening numbers we all hope will never be reached again.

A news photo from that terrible day in Austin, Texas.

As subsequent news reports shared, Whitman was a man with a bit of a broken life. He was an orphan who was adopted by an exacting family in which the father was never satisfied. He served in the Marines but never saw battle, instead studying engineering. At the time of his shooting, it seems he was in an unhappy marriage and struggling with mental health. And though we might try to guess what caused Whitman to snap that day, in the end, the inner life of Charles Whitman will always be a mystery. And in that lack of closure lies perhaps the greatest horror of all, because Whitman is a Rorschach test, a person onto whom we can project our own confusion, our fears and our worries about the modern world.

The blurry line between fiction and reality

In Targets our killer has the banal name of Bobby Thompson, played by Tim O’Kelly. Thompson lives in the quiet and peaceful San Fernando Valley. He’s in his 20s, lives with his parents and seems like an ordinary young man who suddenly seems to get into his head to… murder his family brutally.

Director Peter Bogdanovich, in his feature debut, does a fantastic job of creating that shock value for viewers, as we are lulled into a calm, false sense of security. Everything at the Thompson house seems very calm and serene on the surface, very 1968 you might say, in which everything seems quite placid on the surface of things.

And just like in our terrible year of assassinations and wars and riots in the streets, below the surface of a seemingly peaceful existence is an unbelievable amount of roiling turmoil desperately trying to escape.

But in this movie, Bogdanovich also brings in another element, one that really gives this film a smartly designed feeling of tension. Because there’s another plot in this film. Boris Karloff essentially plays himself in this movie, in documentary-like scenes in which washed-up old horror actor Byron Orlok decides he is out of step with the times. Nobody likes his outdated style of horror anymore. His work and his style are no longer relevant, so Orlok has decided to return to London to retire.

Mr. Bogdanovich on the left, Mr. Karloff on the right.

But Orlok’s companion, film director Sammy Michaels – played by director Bogdanovich! – persuades Orlok to make one final public appearance in Los Angeles. They decide to attend a premiere of his final film at a drive-in in LA suburb Reseda and arrange his appearance there.

As the day goes on, we witness two parallel threads. In one, we see Orlok make his preparations to attend the premiere and hear him talk about the changes in modern society from his time in the limelight. In the other, deeply chilling thread, we witness Thompson on top of an oil tank in the San Fernando Valley, assassinating innocent people who are just driving down the freeway.

Those assassination scenes feel like they take an eternity because of the smart ways Bogdanovich, designer Polly Plott and cinematographer László Kovács compose the scene: with bland, sun-washed colors, an alienating sense of distance, the random way Thompson seems to be sprawled on the tanker floor. And his escape is also presented in an equally powerful, equally bland way. Though an oil company employee discovers him, that man is dispatched in an un-cinematic manner and Thompson’s escape does not present him in a light that makes the assassin heroic in any way.

Eventually Thompson flees to a movie theatre, the same theatre where Orlok’s film will be premiering. In an ironical fulfilment his own fears, Orlok’s is rendered irrelevant by the real-world horrors of 1968. We see a few scenes of the film. It looks like a Roger Corman adaptation of an Edgar Allan Poe story, and ten years ago that film would have fit the times well. But 1968 requires sterner horrors. ‘68 requires Rosemary’s Baby and The Hour of the Wolf and the more existential fears of Planet of the Apes and 2001: A Space Odyssey.  It perhaps requires a different type of horror as in The Devil Rides Out. And it requires the profoundly upsetting horror of Targets.

Targets is not a perfect film. It’s a bit fannish feeling, no surprise because Bogdanovch is a prominent writer for film journals and reportedly is working on a documentary of the great director John Ford. Orlok is named after the lead character in the classic 1922 German expressionistic vampire film Nosferatu – a film student reference if I ever heard one – and the slightly postmodern feel of the Orlok scenes take away from the horror of the massacre.

The drive-in before it was full.

But despite that, in this year of Kennedy and King, when Cronkite is talking over scenes from Vietnam every night at 6:00 and American cities are on fire, Targets hits close to the bone. I had real trouble overcoming my sheer personal horror at the events on the screen. In other words, I appreciated the artfulness of this movie but it took every force of will to keep myself in my seat and not walk out on it. Sometimes horror is too difficult to face, or maybe it’s too pervasive to face directly. Maybe we need something more indirect to allow ourselves to appreciate the fear. Poor innocent pregnant Rosemary isn’t like us. But Bobby Thompson? Any of us can snap, for no reason. That evil within every one of us is the most frightening thing I can imagine.

3½ stars – but again, be warned this is a very upsetting film.




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Horror, Movies

[August 14, 1968] The World, the Flesh and Charles Gray (the horror movies Torture Garden and The Devil Rides Out)

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by Fiona Moore

Courtesy of my friends at Royal Holloway’s student and staff film club, I’ve been able to see two horror films recently released in the UK, which will soon have their stateside debut. One is a little patchy but still provides entertainment for the horror fan; the other is already being rightly hailed as a classic of British horror cinema.

Torture Garden

Torture Garden is an anthology movie, a subgenre I quite like as it allows the chance to show shorter, more compact narratives along a particular theme. This one, also, is written by Robert Bloch, a master of short, wickedly pointed, stories.

Burgess Meredith as Doctor Diabolo. Can you guess who he really is?
Burgess Meredith as Doctor Diabolo. Can you guess who he really is?

Through the framing device of a carnival horror-show hosted by Doctor Diabolo (Burgess Meredith), who offers customers a glimpse of their possible sinister fates, this film brings us four narratives linked by a common theme of people being driven by desire or ambition to commit horrible deeds. In the first, a man (Michael Bryant), desperately in debt, murders his uncle (Maurice Denham) to get his hands on his inheritance, only to find out that his uncle’s source of income is more supernatural and sinister than he believed. In the second, an ambitious film starlet (Beverly Adams) learns that Hollywood is, in fact, run by literal immortals, and is given the chance to join them. In the third, a celebrity pianist (John Standing) becomes the object of a rivalry between his fiancée (Barbara Ewing) and a possessed piano. In the final story, a Poe collector (Jack Palance) finds that a rival enthusiast (Peter Cushing) has managed to capture the ultimate piece of Poe memorabilia—the undead writer himself.

As the above should indicate, the film has an excellent cast, and is produced by Milton Subotsky, whom readers of this journal should remember from the two Doctor Who movies. Amicus, the production company, has form on producing anthology movies, having put out Doctor Terror’s House of Horrors three years ago. The strongest segments are the first and last, with the first story featuring a credibly demonic cat, and the final one providing a wry metaphor for the way in which collectors—and fans—enter into exploitative relationships with writers.

Peter Cushing is of course one of the best things in the movie.
Peter Cushing is of course one of the best things in the movie.

The film unfortunately lacks the cohesion of the best anthology movies. While, as I noted, there’s a linking theme between the episodes, it doesn’t particularly connect to the framing story, and, while it shares the concept with Doctor Terror’s House of Horrors of people being shown how to avoid a disastrous fate, the “twist” at the end is nowhere near as clever as the one in the earlier movie. The Hollywood segment is poorly characterised, full of excuses to show women in their underwear, and has an antisemitic subtext that made me rather uncomfortable (I suspect that Bloch, himself of Jewish ancestry, was trying to satirise the idea of a Jewish cabal running Hollywood, but it doesn’t quite manage to convey the right tone). While I quite like the concept of a sentient piano becoming attached to its owner, it’s difficult to find its attacks on its human rival anything other than ridiculous. Two and a half out of five stars.

The Devil Rides Out

Based on a novel by Dennis Wheatley, produced by current kings of the UK horror scene Hammer Films, and starring Christopher Lee, The Devil Rides Out is a much more polished and focused production.

Lee plays Nicholas, Duc de Richelieu, who, together with his friend Rex van Ryn (Leon Greene) has come to the UK to visit his late friend’s son Simon (Patrick Mower), in whom he takes an avuncular interest, only to learn that Simon has fallen in with a Satanic cult. The story follows de Richelieu and van Ryn’s efforts to rescue Simon and a young female cultist named Tanith (Nike Arrighi) from the clutches of Satanic priest Morcata (Charles Gray). Adapted by Richard Matheson, the plot is a fairly straightforward one of (supernatural) good versus (supernatural) evil, without any of the twists and ironies of many recent horror movies, and, much as I enjoy those, I also found the narrative here refreshing and satisfying.

Christopher Lee is horrified at a Satanic orgy
Christopher Lee is horrified at a Satanic orgy

Simon is played by a newcomer on the scene, Patrick Mower, who is certainly one to watch; although handsome and strong-jawed, he has a sinister quality which makes the idea of him falling in with Satanists believable. It’s good to see Christopher Lee playing a hero for once, escaping his usual typecasting as a monster, even if the chemistry between him and Charles Gray isn’t quite as compelling as that between him and Peter Cushing. There is a very well-done giant spider effect at one point, and fans of vintage cars will be delighted by all the 1920s and 1930s roadsters on display. There are elements of the new folk-horror genre in the scenes of English cultists cavorting in the woods of Hampshire.

Less positively, the film draws some associations between non-White people and Satanism that left me rather uncomfortable: the heroes are all English (and upper-class), but the cult boasts African and Indian members, and, when a demon is summoned at one point, it takes the form of a grinning, pop-eyed and semi-clad Black man. The spider aside, some of the effects are rather unconvincing, and the cult has so many members that one wonders how it manages to keep itself secret. There’s a slight hint of the exploitation genre that seems unfortunately popular now, and the fact that the youth in question aren’t inherently evil but are being led astray by an older person (and need to be rescued by another older person) doesn’t do much to mitigate that.

Charles Gray as cult leader Mocata
Charles Gray as cult leader Mocata

Nonetheless, this is Hammer on good form, providing a strong narrative with a satisfying conclusion and a lot of credible shocks and tension. The combination of good source material with a competent screenplay and plenty of talent behind and in front of the camera is a sure winner. Four out of five stars.



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Movies, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[July 28, 1968] Once Upon A Time, Or Maybe Twice… (Yellow Submarine)

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By Jessica Holmes

Yellow Submarine is a weird film. Directed by George Dunning and produced by Al Brodax and King Features, the latest Beatles movie is a bit different from the previous live-action offerings. For one, it’s animated, and for two… the Beatles are barely even in it. I mean, they’re in it as characters, and in person in a very brief cameo at the end, but the four themselves don’t actually voice their animated counterparts. I’m sure they’re busy smoking whatever the hell made them come up with Revolution No. 9. But that’s not the weird bit.

The weird bit is the content of this film.

Think ‘Alice In Wonderland’ if Alice sampled a rather more special kind of mushroom.

It's All In The Mind, Y'Know

Strip back all the surrealism and Yellow Submarine is a pretty straightforward adventure. The idyllic realm of Pepperland comes under attack from an army of Blue Meanies, prompting one of the inhabitants, Old Fred, to go and find help. He goes off, recruits the Beatles, then they journey back together through various locales so they can defeat the Blue Meanies through the power of music. Cue awkward live-action cameo, roll credits.

But of course, we’re not really watching this for the plot, are we?

Yellow Submarine is like a dream. As such, it operates on dream logic. Old Fred (Lance Percival) stalks a depressed Ringo (Paul Angelis) through the streets of Liverpool in a flying submarine. Ringo’s house is bigger on the inside, and has doors that open onto many different locations. John Lennon (John Clive) is Frankenstein’s Monster. George Harrison (also Paul Angelis) can manipulate reality with his mind. Paul (Geoff Hughes)… Paul’s actually pretty normal.

Their journeys take them to the Sea of Time, where they age backwards, forwards, and back again, then to the Sea of Science, where… nothing happens. Really, nothing. There’s a decent tune in this section (‘Only A Northern Song’) but it doesn’t even have any much video to go with it. It’s just soundwaves accompanied by pictures of the group. It’s an out of place sequence in a film of out of place sequences.

The weirdness immediately starts back up as the submarine sails into the Sea of Monsters, where they encounter creatures that Hieronymous Bosch would be proud of. There’s the purple elephant thing which is so ugly they bully it until it cries. There’s a pair of Kinky Boots. There’s some stuff I have no name for, and creepiest of all, a vacuum monster that goes around sucking up all the other creatures.

Ringo accidentally ejects himself from the submarine, and the others have to rescue him by deploying the submarine’s cavalry company. There’s a button for everything. Unfortunately for them, the vacuum monster immediately slurps them up, before slurping up all the other monsters, then the actual backdrop of the film, and finally itself, leaving the submarine stranded in an endless white void. They are…nowhere.

But they aren’t alone. Enter Jeremy Hillary Boob, Ph.D. (Dick Emery) a peculiar little nowhere man who speaks entirely in rhyme. He offers them a hand with their engine, and in return,Ringo, feeling sorry for the little guy’s loneliness, invites him to join them aboard the submarine.

They don’t get far before breaking down again in the foothills of the headlands, and the submarine (with Old Fred still aboard) flies off without them when they get out to fix it. So they might as well squeeze a song in. The ‘Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds’ sequence isn’t exactly plot heavy (it’s mostly just rotoscoped imagery of dancing girls) and really doesn’t have a thing to do with what’s going on, but it’s undeniably gorgeous to look at.

From there the group follows a trail of pepper to the Sea of Holes, an infinite white void filled with black holes. Three dimensional space works a little differently here. It’s as the laws of physics had been written by M.C. Escher.

Jeremy gets himself captured by a Blue Meanie, and the group eventually find a hole to the Sea of Green, and find themselves at last in Pepperland… which is decidedly lacking in green of late.

The Blue Meanies hate colour, and music, and life itself, so they’ve taken it upon themselves to cure Pepperland of these ailments.

The Beatles revive the mayor of Pepperland with a snippet of song, restoring him to life and colour, and reunite with the submarine and Old Fred. The old mayor comments that the Beatles bear an uncanny resemblance to Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, and theorises that if they were to disguise themselves, they might rally the people to rebel against the Meanies.

And cue the music! I think you can guess what song they start with. The Meanies hate it, of course, but the tune brings life back to Pepperland. The group even manage to find and revive the real Lonely Hearts Club Band, teaming up with them to take the fight to the meanies. Oh, and Ringo rescues Jeremy.

Faced with the combined power of the Beatles and the Lonely Hearts Club Band, the Meanies turn and flee, despite their Chief’s exhortations. Jeremy transforms the Chief Meanie with the power of rhymes, and John extends the hand of friendship to the band’s defeated foes. The Meanies accept, and everyone joins in for a final dance party. All’s well that ends well, and here come the end credits.

But first, we must indulge the real Beatles in a clumsy cameo. The absolute flurry of puns and wordplay that are present in practically every line of Yellow Submarine are no less present here, and no less painful. With newer and bluer Meanies being spotted in the vicinity of the theatre, the Beatles sing us out.

Not Quite Right

So, sounds like a cheerful, colourful, fun little romp, right? Wrong. This film is unsettling.

And it starts barely a couple of minutes in with the arrival of the Blue Meanies.

Good grief, the Blue Meanies.

It’s not just their concept that’s creepy. Sure, sure, a villain that hates everything good and nice and is relentlessly negative. We’ve seen all that. But they are deeply unnerving to look at with their too-wide yellow grins. The Chief Meanie (also Paul Angelis…poor man, give his vocal cords a break!) is by far the creepiest. I have to give a nod to Angelis and his vocal talents for creating such a nightmare. He goes from a sickly sweet sing-song tone to irate shrieking at the drop of a hat. It gets my skin crawling.

As if the Chief Meanie wasn’t bad enough on his own, there’s his Dreadful Flying Glove to think about. It’s…well, it’s a glove. A giant, angry-looking, sentient glove that chases people across Pepperland. Sounds ridiculous? Sure. But it's a rather dreadful looking thing.

Outside of Pepperland, the seas offer plenty of discomforts. There’s obviously the Sea of Monsters with its various grotesques, but I found ‘nowhere’ to be quite creepy too. Just the idea of being alone in an infinite white void with nothing but my own thoughts for company… it gives me the shivers. I am perhaps just projecting, but I would hazard a guess that a fair few people share my feelings.

You’re not even safe from the surreal and uncanny on dry land, as Liverpool is no less peculiar. There’s an art shift in the Liverpool sequence, where the people are not drawn, but composited in from highly processed photographs and film stock. The colours are minimal, and most living things are completely static. Those that are not static are trapped in short loops of actions as the submarine passes them by. We even see someone perched on the ledge of the uppermost window of a tall building, as if about to leap. Towards the end of the sequence, there are hundreds of people on rooftops. All this, to the tune of ‘Eleanor Rigby’. It’s painting a depressing picture of the home-town of the Beatles, to say the least.

Then you’ve got Ringo’s house, and I do not like that place. He keeps a Monster around, sure, and that’s a bit off-putting, but there’s something more subtle about the place that unnerves me a lot more. It does not feel like a place where people belong. There’s a long hallway with dozens of identical doors, each opening onto a different locale entirely—even onto oncoming trains. It’s vast, and quiet, and you could get lost for hours or even days, and I don’t think anybody would be coming to find you. It’s that sort of place. There’s a palpable absence of humanity.

I searched around for the right word to describe what this film actually made me feel. ‘Unsettled’ feels too vague. It just means that I feel different from my normal emotional state. ‘Scared’ is over the top. It’s not scary. And ‘creeped out’ is too simple. It’s not all creepy. Some parts are beautiful. I think my response ultimately comes down to the atmosphere of the film. And that atmosphere is one of loneliness.

Ah, Look At All The Lonely People

There is something about this film that positively oozes an atmosphere of isolation and loneliness. Even in colourful Pepperland at the start of the film, though there are crowds of people, they’re almost entirely static and lifeless. The Mayor is at least animated enough to play the violin, but even then he’s more interested in that than in fending off the Blue Meanies or trying to escape from them. There’s precious little humanity to be found here. I think something was wrong with Pepperland long before the Blue Meanies ever showed up.

Of course, once they do, what little semblance of life there is soon goes away.

The Liverpool section, as with all the musical sections of the film, is essentially a music video for the song ‘Eleanor Rigby’, and it’s as lonely and depressing an image of the city as I have ever seen. That’s the thing with big cities—everyone lives on top of one another, but you don’t really know each other, and so you even feel alone in a crowd of people who all feel exactly the same way. ‘Look at all the lonely people’, indeed.

Ringo even says so himself.

Liverpool can be a lonely place on a Saturday night, and this is only Thursday morning.

And he would know a thing or two about loneliness, living in his cavernous house, under the same roof as his bandmates and yet with the four of them isolated from one another.

Starting to notice a pattern?

In the Sea of Monsters, the vacuum monster eventually finds itself completely alone. And so it consumes its own body. In Nowhere, Jeremy has lived his whole life by himself. Though he seems initially content with his way of life, when the Beatles are about to leave him behind, he breaks down sobbing. He’s utterly pitiful, and utterly alone.

Everyone in this film… is lonely. Scratch the surface of the colourful surrealism and catchy tunes and you’ll find a deeply melancholy undercurrent to the whole thing.

How could it fail to rub off on the audience?

Final Thoughts

Heinz Edelmann’s art direction is stunning. The extraordinary psychedelic presentation is really the key to making this film work. It’s bright, beautiful, and occasionally frightening. There’s bold, bright pop art style elements (think Warhol), but also grotesque creatures that would fit well within the pages of a medieval bestiary, or perhaps in a Dali. I’m sure the unique visual style will make this a hit with anyone with an appreciation for psychedelic art—or psychoactive substances.

Music-wise, what can I say? It’s the Beatles. If you like the Beatles (which I do), you’ll like the music. There’s a nice selection of tracks from their previous albums, and also a couple of new songs. I say new, but I’m pretty sure they’re unused tracks from previous albums. The B-sides’ B-side. Still, even if ‘All Together Now’ is not their strongest offering, it’s definitely catchy.

The band’s music might be what people are coming to this film to hear, but let’s not forget the rest of the soundtrack. ‘Fifth Beatle’ George Martin’s score is lush and romantic, tying the film together with dreamy orchestral interludes.

Finally, here’s a miscellany of thoughts about Yellow Submarine I had that don’t really relate to anything else:

The live action bit at the end is really weird. And I don’t mean surrealist weird, I mean ‘deeply awkward and filled me with a sense of vicarious embarrassment’ weird. It’s probably there to fulfill contractual obligations, but they could have at least tried to act less awkward than a group of unprepared teenagers giving a school presentation. I suppose it was at least appreciated by those people who lose their minds at the very sight of the Beatles.

As for the animated version of the group, I thought the voice actors did a very good impression of them. It’s just a shame that they all sounded bored out of their skulls throughout the whole film.

You’d have thought the jokes might have coaxed some life out of them. There’s enough of them. A veritable smorgasbord of agonisingly painful wordplay. Particularly excruciating highlights include:

“I can’t help it. I’m a born lever-puller.”

And:

“Are you blueish? You don’t look blueish.”

Oh, and of course the Rimsky-Korsakov/Guy Lombardo joke which took me far too much effort to understand, and when I did, it still wasn’t actually funny.

I could go on, but I shan’t. I'm not a cruel woman.

Lousy jokes aside, this is a movie I’m glad to have seen. I wasn’t sure if I liked it at first, but once I stopped trying to make sense of things and just went along for the ride, my appreciation of the film went right up.

This strange, beautiful film will surely be a hit with all the lonely people. Sure, it’s often melancholy and alienating. But it also offers hope.

In the end, how do the Beatles win? Not with combat prowess, but good old peace, love and rock n’ roll. Even the Blue Meanies benefit from hearing the band’s message. They just needed to abandon their relentless negativity and accept what was freely offered. Thanks to the Beatles, Pepperland is livelier than ever.

To defeat the forces of misery and loneliness… all you need is love.

(Four stars out of five)




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Movies, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[July 26, 1968] A lost pair of hours… (The Lost Continent)

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by Joe Reid

The Lost Continent is a movie that leaves me feeling unrewarded for the investment of my time towards it.  The premise of the movie is interesting, that being that there is a place on Earth that is so dangerous to mankind that no people could survive there.  The thought of seeing brave heroes struggle against the odds and monsters of all types to fight for a noble cause, sounds like it might be a good time.

This is where our expectations disappoint us.  Sure, the monsters looked like papier-mâché floats on tracks, but I'm a cinematic veteran.  I can overlook such minor issues.  No, there are three things that would have changed my opinion on this movie, had they been different, three P’s actually.  They are, People, Placement, and Purpose.  Had just two of those P’s been different, we could have had an endearing movie.  Had just one P been different, I would have considered my time spent justified.


– A group of good looking bad people.

Starting off with the people.  The anchor to any story is character based.  The characters in this story are all awful people.  There is not one good person among them.  The movie starts off showing an event that occurs at the very end, then it begins in earnest with the introduction of all the characters for the movie’s proper beginning.  It’s set on a ship setting off on a voyage on a dark and stormy night.  We met the captain and crew and several of the passengers.  They are smugglers, embezzlers, thieves, bullies, drunkards, and gamblers.  Among this lot I couldn’t find one decent person who might shine as the hero of the story.  Hence, I was left with no one person to root for.  It might have been acceptable if some characters began reprehensible and later had a change of heart, but that was not the tenor of this cast, where most start as bad people, only to later in the story transform into a slightly different ilk of bad.


– Someone please help this man!


– No thanks. We’ll just watch him die

So, if we start off with bad people, what could be worse?  The answer to that is bad people in bad places and the lost continent is a bad place.  As our band of miscreants arrive in the bad place we find that the vegetation and wildlife are very intent on killing humans.  Just note, the "placement" that I referring to isn't just the setting.  What I allude more to is the stationary placement that all of these bad folks adhere to when other are being attacked by monsters and being killed.  Whereas a hero might step and try to fight off monsters, our characters stand back and watch, rooted in place.  They don’t care enough about other bad people to risk life and limb to help them.


– bad place


– more bad people.

Lastly we come to the topic of Purpose.  As our band of malcontents make shore in the bad place they come to learn of the true monsters that exist in the lost continent. When they are revealed, our “heroes” decide to engage in an war with them.  The question is, why?  The purpose that our characters fulfill in the story is never clear.  It is a case of bad people in a bad place doing things for no reason.  Had any of the three listed factors been different, we would have had a different movie.  A more enjoyable movie.  Instead, we are left with a feeling of emptiness as the Lost Continent amounts to a bunch of lost time.

2 stars.




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Movies, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[July 24, 1968] Peter Cushing and the Women (Frankenstein Created Woman and The Blood Beast Terror)

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by Fiona Moore

The Cinderford Palace Cinema is currently holding a Peter Cushing retrospective, celebrating a career that has included roles as diverse as van Helsing, Sherlock Holmes, Winston Smith and an odious Oxford student out to get Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy (no, really). I’m taking the opportunity to review their double bill of Frankenstein Created Woman (Hammer, 1966) and his most recent movie, The Blood Beast Terror (Tigon, 1968).

Frankenstein Created Woman

Hammer Studios’ take on the Frankenstein franchise differs from the American one in that the focus is not on the monster, but on the man who created it. The monster doesn’t survive beyond the first movie, and the subsequent films, including this one, instead follow the career of Doctor Victor Frankenstein (Peter Cushing) as he continues his experiments in reviving the dead while staying one step ahead of the law.

Victor Frankenstein leading his collaborator, Hertz, into corruption.
Victor Frankenstein leading his collaborator, Hertz, into corruption.

In Frankenstein Created Woman, Frankenstein, aided by local doctor Hertz (Thorley Walters) and Hertz’s assistant Hans (Robert Morris), develops a means of capturing the soul at point of death. When Anton (Peter Blythe), a rich bully, murders the town innkeeper and frames Hans for it, Frankenstein exploits the situation by using the executed Hans’ soul to test his new procedure. The innkeeper’s daughter, Christina (Susan Denberg), who is also Hans’ lover, commits suicide, and Frankenstein, naturally enough, decants Hans’ soul into her body. Christina then goes on a murder spree, killing Anton and his friends, before finally killing herself a second time.

The result is a surprisingly nuanced take on marginalisation and prejudice, particularly as regards women. Both Hans and Christina are shunned by the villagers and bullied by Anton’s clique: Hans because his father was executed for murder (a death Hans himself witnessed as a child) and Christina because she has a prominent scar on her face. However, they find comfort and love with each other. Christina is continually underestimated and belittled by everyone around her: when the murders start, even Frankenstein assumes that it is Hans’ soul working through her body, but the film itself is much more ambiguous, making it clear that Christina is at the very least a willing participant, and possibly the one wholly responsible. At the end of the film, when Frankenstein confronts her and tells her that she is not responsible for the murders, saying “let me tell you who you really are,” Christina responds “I know who I really am.” Without intending it, Frankenstein has empowered her, and, although Frankenstein may think he understands her, he, like everyone in the story, has underestimated and misjudged her.

To add insult to injury, Frankenstein fixes Christina's scar when he restores her. Meaning he could have done that at any time, but didn't.
To add insult to injury, Frankenstein fixes Christina's scar when he restores her. Meaning he could have done that at any time, but didn't.

The direction of the movie is also rather clever: the murders are implied rather than shown, and the director, Terence Fisher (known for other Cushing outings like The Curse of Frankenstein [1957] and Dracula [1958]), throws in little bits of foreshadowing like having the guillotine visible in the background just before Hans is framed for the innkeeper’s death. The villains are believably nasty, reminiscent of the violent young men in the novel A Clockwork Orange. Finally, Cushing gives a brilliant performance as Victor Frankenstein that highlights the character’s charismatic evil, unintentionally corrupting everyone with whom he associates.

Four out of five stars.

The Blood Beast Terror

I was particularly interested to see this one as it is the sole film by Tigon British Film Porductions prior to their astounding folk-horror piece Witchfinder General. While it’s ambitious and interesting, The Blood Beast Terror is unfortunately nowhere near Witchfinder General’s league.

The movie’s plot is an attempt to meld no fewer than three horror subgenres: the vampire film, the were-beast film, and, of course, Frankenstein. Cushing plays Quennell, a detective investigating the strange deaths of a series of young men, seemingly mauled by a bird of prey. His investigation leads him to a lepidopterist, Carl Mallinger (Robert Flemyng) with a beautiful daughter, Clare (Wanda Ventham). After a few unconvincing red herrings, it becomes evident that Clare is not Mallinger’s daughter per se, but a monstrous hybrid of a human and a moth, who drinks human blood. She and her creator flee into the countryside, where Mallinger attempts to create a mate for her, but Quennell tracks them down.

This movie's got some notable supporting actors too, for instance Kevin Stoney as an evil manservant.
This movie's got some notable supporting actors too, for instance Kevin Stoney as an evil manservant.

The movie gets points for playing against traditional horror film clichés, though it then loses some for not doing so to a satisfying conclusion. For instance, the movie plays against type by giving us a female vampire who preys on men, and a female Frankenstein’s Monster-figure who desires a mate as much as her male counterpart does.  However, it doesn’t really follow through thematically, failing to explore the implications of reversing the gender roles, and, where the Monster’s pathetic need for a companion humanises him, Clare’s desire for a male of her species is dealt with perfunctorily and unsympathetically. The writer also seems uncomfortable with the lack of a female victim, but, rather than exploring the implications of men as victims—or perhaps considering more subtle ways in which Clare might be seen as a victim of society, as with Christina in Frankenstein Created Woman—instead shoehorns in a daughter for Quennell to provide some end-of-movie rescue action.

The movie has a few other problems. There is an unsubtle amateur drama sequence which draws the parallels between Clare and Frankenstein’s Monster, and which could have been half its length. There are some inconsistencies and inexplicable points, e.g. when a young naturalist turns up dead near Mallinger’s house, he denies ever having known the man, when a simple investigation would have showed that he visited him the previous night. The monster is eventually killed in a way that is so obvious I was surprised they chose that path.

Two and a half out of five stars.

There's also a cameo by music-hall comedian Roy Hudd, which goes about as you'd expect.
There's also a cameo by music-hall comedian Roy Hudd, which goes about as you'd expect.

The two movies are a good match in that they both explore women’s roles in horror and particularly females as independent entities, though Christina is a much more interesting and complicated figure than Clare, and is treated more sympathetically by the writers. Peter Cushing shows the subtlety of his acting ability, in that both Frankenstein and Quennell are severe, obsessive men on a mission, but one is a cold, cruel psychopath while the other genuinely cares for the people under his protection. Overall, I’d recommend Frankenstein Created Woman to people who like a good, thought-provoking psychological horror, but The Blood Beast Terror is mostly of interest to Cushing completists.




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[July 4, 1968] Youth Is Wasted On The Young (Wild In The Streets)

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by Victoria Silverwolf

Independence Day

It's fitting that this article should appear on the Fourth of July, when we here in the USA celebrate the American Revolution, because I'm going to take a look at a film dealing with another kind of rebellion.

Thank You, AIP

Speaking of American, the American International Pictures company (how's that for a segue?) is responsible for releasing many of the low-budget, teen-oriented films that I rush out to see at my local drive-in. Whether they be Roger Corman's loose adaptations of stories by Edgar Allan Poe, silly beach movies, or motorcycle melodramas, good old AIP provides the kind of lowbrow entertainment I crave.

Naturally, my attention was riveted by a poster for a coming attraction that appeared on the wall of the theater's snack bar.


Suggested for mature audiences, and thus sure to draw in the young folks.

The title suggests another biker flick, but the poster (and the trailer) indicate something unusual. Intrigued, I decided to do a little research.

The teeny-tiny line on the poster stating written by Robert Thom (that's how they treat writers in Hollywood) led me to an issue of Esquire from about a year and a half ago.


Scantily clad young lady on the cover? Must be a science fiction magazine.

The movie is based on Thom's own short story The Day It All Happened, Baby, which appeared in the December 1966 issue.

Does this literary background lead to something more sophisticated than, say, AIP's classic Beach Blanket Bingo? Let's find out.

Meet Max Frost

Right away, we get our antihero's background, from before his birth to adolescence. The first thing we hear is his mother-to-be saying that she doesn't want a baby. Little Max Flatow is born anyway. We hear his mother shouting at him for fooling around with a little girl. We see the furniture in his house covered with plastic.

Teenage Max rebels by destroying the furniture and blowing up the family car with homemade dynamite. After this dramatic scene, we find out the name of the movie we've been watching.


Oh, it's not Gone With the Wind.

A few years later, twenty-four-year old Max has changed his name to Max Frost. He's a rock star now, and a multimillionaire surrounded by a retinue of young folks. The film implies that his popularity makes the Beatles look like small potatoes.


Christopher Jones as Max Frost, doing the thing that makes him an object of devotion to everyone under 30.

Max's mother happens to see her estranged son on TV and recognizes him at once. Instead of resenting her rebellious child, she's proud to be the parent of a smashing success.


Shelley Winters as the mother, entranced by her son's performance.

By the way, the other members of the band are an interesting bunch. One guy is a super-genius who takes care of Max's financial situation. Another has a hook for a hand. A third happens to be a gay man, and the film avoids stereotyping him.


There's also this fellow, an anthropologist called Stanley X. He's played by a young actor named Richard Pryor. I understand he does stand-up comedy as well. You may have seen him on an episode of The Wild, Wild West.

A liberal Democratic politician is running for Senator. His major issue is lowering the voting age to eighteen. Max agrees to appear at one of his rallies.


Hal Holbrook as the candidate. He won the Tony Award a couple of years ago for Best Actor in a Play, based on his performance in the one-man show Mark Twain Tonight!, and got the Emmy last year for repeating the role on TV.

Max surprises him by singing the groovy song Fourteen or Fight. Eighteen just ain't good enough!

(Like all the songs in this film, it's pretty darn catchy. Most of them relate directly to the plot, too.)

The candidate convinces Max to compromise by changing the bellicose Fourteen or Fight to Fifteen and Ready (which loses the alliteration, unfortunately.)


Front cover news!

Max also agrees to tell his millions of fans to avoid violence at the gigantic rallies held for the candidate. (Cue stock footage of real demonstrations full of young people.) Well, you know what the road to Hell is paved with.


A police officer fires his weapon during a riot.

Twelve people die in the ensuing violence. This leads to the best song in the movie, a hauntingly prophetic number called The Shape of Things to Come (with a nod to the novel of the same name by H. G. Wells.)


The cover of the first edition. Who knew Max Frost read classic science fiction?

After the tragedy, the candidate is elected by a landslide, and states rush to lower the voting age.

As luck (and the script) would have it, an elderly congressman dies of cancer. Max's girlfriend just happens to reside in the deceased representative's district, and is barely old enough to run for office. With the help of Max's overwhelming power over the newly enfranchised teens, she wins the vacant seat.


Diane Varsi as ex-child actress, nude model, and perpetually stoned member of Congress Sally LeRoy. She was nominated for an Oscar as Best Supporting Actress in 1957's Peyton Place.

Meanwhile, Max's mother transforms herself to resemble one of her son's followers.


Shelley Winters, hippie chick.

If you think this has been an improbable series of events, wait until you see what happens next.

In their continuing effort to put political power in the hands of the young, Max and his minions dose the members of Congress with LSD. In the chaos that follows, the age requirement for being President is lowered far enough to allow the unstoppable Max to run for the highest office in the nation.


Not a surprise, if you saw the poster.

Ironically enough, Max runs as a Republican. The Grand Old Party knows that young people are in control now, and they want a winner.


To nobody's surprise, Max wins every state except Hawaii. Note the image of Eisenhower behind him.

In one of her many chameleon-like transformations, Max's mother turns into the perfect President's mother.


Winters chews the scenery, in appropriate fashion, throughout most of the film. In this scene, however, she is wonderfully elegant and refined. It's really a fine performance.

The Senator who got elected with Max's help — remember him? — realizes that the rock star is mad with power, and is well on his way to becoming a dictator. He takes desperate measures.


A failed assassination attempt. Given recent events, this is a particularly disturbing scene.

It's at this point that the film really bares its teeth. Max declares that all Americans must retire at the age of thirty. When they reach thirty-five, they are forced to relocate into concentration camps, where they are kept docile with LSD.


Welcome to Paradise.

And for those reluctant to go? Max has stormtroopers ready to deal with that.


Note the peace sign instead of a swastika.

Guess who winds up in the camp with other older folks?


No one is safe.

The movie ends with a final scene that implies things will only get worse.


The end?

This is a biting satire, worthy of Sheckley at his most cynical.  At first, the viewer is tempted to sympathize with Max's acts of rebellion against a smothering mother and a society that sends young men to war but doesn't let them vote.  After all, he becomes rich and famous; isn't that the American dream?  Once he becomes President, however, he reveals himself to be a monster.  It's the old, old story.  Power corrupts.  The final scene provides a chilling bit of dark irony.

And hey, the music is far out.  Dig it, baby, before you get too old.

Four stars. 


And read the book!




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[June 22, 1968] The Devil, you say (Rosemary's Baby)

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by Amber Dubin

It seems appropriate to mention expectations when discussing a film with such a pregnant subject matter (pun intended). Mine were fairly low to start because I am not a fan of horror movies. This is because the scares from horror films usually suffer two major foibles: the ridiculous and the cliché. Outside of Halloween festivities, I have little patience for silly looking, poorly costumed monsters. I also dislike when a film relies too heavily on violent/grotesque imagery to get a rise out of its audience. It was through this biased lens that I viewed Rosemary's Baby; though I went in expecting disappointment, predictability and lack of inspiration or fear, I was proven wrong on all counts. Rosemary's Baby has a spine chilling relatability that creeped into my psyche and won me over, despite my pessimistic attitude toward it. It has the uniqueness and incontrovertibly high quality writing that give it all the makings of a timeless horror classic.

The slow boil of discomfort begins as we open to an off-putting lullaby, mournfully serenading the viewer as we zoom into a gloomy, dismal, old city skyline. The first couple of scenes increase the viewer's sense of unease by limping along at a clunky and awkward pace into a world that just barely makes sense. The young newlywed couple at the center of the story, Rosemary (Mia Farrow) and Guy Woodhouse (John Cassavetes), are introduced as they enthusiastically acquire an apartment even though it's clearly run down, overstuffed and not move-in ready at all. Their reactions continue to be disjointed from reality in the subsequent scenes as we are introduced to their old and new friends. They proceed to have very awkward and/or inappropriate conversations with each of them, starting with Hutch (the family friend who brings up some very odd subjects over dinner) and ending with a first meeting with their neighbor Terry (who wastes absolutely no time launching into her sordid past of drug abuse with someone she has not even known for a full hour over laundry with Rosemary). The couple proves to have similar lack of social grace around each other, when their first night they spend at their creepy new apartment, they are eating off a blanket on the floor because they have no curtains or furniture and Rosemary awkwardly declares, "Say! Let's make love" completely apropos of nothing. Personally, I think the subsequent silent disrobing and intertwining of bodies to be not only shocking, but (and deliberately) decidedly un-sexy.


Not the models for marital bliss

It comes to pass that all this awkwardness is by design, as it serves to innure the viewer for strangeness that piles on with every scene and every new character introduced. Like the proverbial frog that gets cooked alive in slowly boiling water, both Rosemary and the viewer are slowly made comfortable with painfully uncomfortable circumstances, and we don't realize what's happening until it's too late.

In the first shock of the movie, the couple go on a late night stroll in order to avoid over-hearing what sounds like chanting coming through the paper-thin walls. As they return from their ramble, they are shocked to find a crowd surrounding the bloody corpse of Terry, the overly chatty girl Rosemary met earlier at the laundry. The elderly couple that Terry was living with react normally to her sudden "suicide" at first: expressing shock and grief when they introduce themselves to the Woodhouses as their neighbors, the Casavets. The next day, however, when Mrs. Casavet appears at Rosemary's door, her behavior is anything but normal. The older woman barges into Rosemary's place and goes through it like she owns it, speaking in nonsensical run-on sentences that are off putting and yet Rosemary doesn't react at all. Yet most unnerving is when she casually mentions having Terry cremated and bequeaths Rosemary with Terry's foul-smelling "good luck charm" that must not have been lucky enough because Terry was still wearing it when she died.


Dead women's necklaces make great house-warming gifts

It is with this bizarre house-warming gift that the Casavets begin their campaign to integrate themselves into every waking moment of Rosemary and Guy Woodhouse's lives. Guy is initially reluctant to even meet them, but once he and Mr. Casavet bond over cigars they become fast friends. Bizarrely, Guy becomes so close with the septuagenarian at one point that he begins going over their neighbor's house even without Rosemary with him. It is important to note here that, for me, the most upsetting part about this movie is the way the Woodhouses talk to each other. Like many couples, they at first appear to be hopelessly in love, but as you get to know them throughout the film, their relationship is rotten to its core. Guy proves himself to be a selfish, mean, horrible man. Rosemary, in her desperate attempt to justify her continued adoration of him, consistently makes excuses for his bad behavior. The most egregious example of this dynamic comes when they decide to start trying for a baby (basically so that Rosemary will have something to do when Guy is off auditioning for roles). By apparent coincidence, the first night they are set to start trying, Rosemary's neighbor gives her a homemade dessert that makes her almost collapse afterwards.


If you ever find yourself waking up like this, it's time for a divorce

The following night Rosemary is in a fitful sleep where she dreams of being assaulted by the devil while all of her neighbors stand around her naked and chanting. She wakes up naked and sore with her back scratched up and when questioned, her husband says he 'didn't want to miss the baby-making night.' I had an almost identical level of revulsion as Rosemary when faced with the realization that her husband would take such liberties over her body without her knowledge or consent. It turns out that night marked the conception of a very difficult pregnancy, one which not only sees the steep decline in their marriage, but also Rosemary's sanity and health, while she slowly becomes completely subjugated by the incessant presence of the Casavets in her life. Bounced between her husband and her intrusive neighbor, her self-esteem is whittled down to nothing as she is constantly insulted and isolated from her own family and friends. Her husband refuses to look her in the eye for weeks, and when she gets an adorable haircut to feel more fashionable, the first thing out of his mouth is "You look horrible! This is the worst decision you've made." Ever the non-supportive, selfish man she married, Guy uses her new "hideous" hairstyle to ignore her even more as her pregnancy progresses, throwing himself into his acting career as if nothing else matters.


Despite being thoroughly mod, this look deeply displeased Rosemary's husband

Rosemary's husband and neighbors add insult to injury when they convince her to change the doctor she goes to for regular check ups, and he repeatedly ignores her pleas for help when she has unusual pains, telling her every concern she has is in her head. At one point, she rebels, throwing a huge house party with friends she hasn't seen in years, against the wishes of her oppressors. Her friends are appropriately horrified to see what she looks like, seeing how pale she is and how sunken her eyes. Breaking down into tears, she confesses that she's been in horrible pain since the beginning of her pregnancy and can't believe this level of agony is normal.

Her friends literally lock her husband out of the room and validate all of her fears, telling her how her husband and Doctor are treating her is not at all normal and she needs to get out of there as soon as possible. It appears to already be too late, however, as when the pain lessens the next day, she second-guesses her friends and settles into the routine set by everyone else in her life. The way this party resolves reveals itself to be the first in a trend of stranger and stranger happenings in the background of Rosemary's pregnancy. Little by little, every contradictory voice in her life is silenced, beginning with the party go-ers and ending with Hutch the family friend from the beginning.


A desperate call for help that goes unanswered

Hutch's re-entry into Rosemary's life triggers a headlong fall down a rabbit hole of conspiratorial theories and occult explanations for the increasingly bizarre behavior of Rosemary's doctor, neighbors and husband. Within hours of his visit to Rosemary's house, he vows to do research on her neighbors and then almost immediately falls into a coma he never wakes up from. Speaking from beyond the grave, he wills her a book about witches, filled with secret messages implying that the Casavets belong to a well established coven that's been in the area for ages. Thus ensues a Rosemary's frantic bout of research, which leaves the viewer wondering whether she's actually figuring out what's going on or completely losing her mind.

The moment of truth comes when she finally presents her findings to a new doctor, only for him to turn her over to the custody of her original doctor and her husband, as a raving lunatic. She is instantly proven right in her suspicions, though when she gets home and the entire coven is in her apartment and descends upon her, pinning her to her own bed by sheer force of numbers. Horrifyingly, she is induced into a coma by her mad-scientist doctor, and when she wakes again she is told she birthed and lost the baby. Because she rightfully believes no one around her at this point, she starts deceiving her captors by pretending to take the "medicine" they feed her and feigning ignorance as to why they take her breast milk "to be thrown in the trash." After days of placating them, she arms herself with a huge kitchen knife and follows the crying noises she's been overhearing sporadically through the walls. She finds an entrance to the neighbor's apartment in the back of one of her closets and stumbles into a room full of people gathered for a baby shower that she wasn't invited to.


Mia Farrow out-doing herself

In the performance of a lifetime, Mia Farrow approaches the black curtained bassinet adorned with an upside down cross in the center of the room. Leaning over its side, her eyes absolutely bulge out of their sockets in an expression of pure, abject terror. Recoiling, she screams, "what did you do to its eyes?!" The gathered crowd enthusiastically exclaim that her child has its father's eyes and erupt into a cacophony of "Hail Satan"s. Dazed, Rosemary stumbles around the room, receiving no comfort from the callous scheming coven as they alternatively mock and jeer at her. Her husband even has the nerve to come up to her and tell her why he signed them up to this whole situation, explaining that "it'll just be as if you lost the baby" and "this will be so good for my career." I believe Rosemary speaks for all of us by promptly spitting in the man's face and shutting him up. In the end, she tentatively approaches the bassinet again because one of the other party guests is shaking it too hard and causing the infant within to cry. You can see the heartbreaking mixture of confusion, fear and motherly love play across Rosemary's face as she resigns herself to some level of acceptance of this situation and the same creepy lullaby that began the film croons over us as we fade to black.


A movie for the ages

This film had so many iconic moments and scenes. If this isn't Mia Farrow's break-out role, then I know nothing of quality acting. I expect great things from her in the future. The script, score and plot were also a cut above. I began my viewing thinking it bizarre and ungrounded and within 15 minutes, I was enthralled, on the edge of my seat and just as anxious to find out what fresh Hell Rosemary was going to be subjected to, even as I was disgusted and disturbed by what she had already endured. Rosemary's Baby is a true tribute to the horror genre and made a believer out of this skeptical critic.

5 stars.




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Movies, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[May 28, 1968] Danger: Diabolik is the Grooviest Spy Movie of the Year So Far

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by Jason Sacks

Danger: Diabolik is the epitome of a comic book movie: it has a wild, often surreal plot. It features outlandish lead characters who could never exist in real life. It includes absurd twists and turns. It has a surreal visual style.

And yeah, Danger: Diabolik is an absolutely wild groovy gas of a film.

It seems appropriate for this to feel like a comic book movie because Danger: Diabolik is adapted from an Italian comic strip which has been running since 1962. One of my favorite comics zines, the Rocket's Blast Comicollector, recently ran an article that talks about how Diabolik is massively popular for its wild spy hijinks, its beautiful lead characters, and for its convenient small size that makes it easy to carry on a train or bus.

Diabolik was created by a woman named Angela Guissani, a former fashion model turned founder and editor at the Astorina publishing house. Astorina started with board and card games, but Guissani hit the jackpot when she invented an idea for a magazine that commuters to Milan could read on their way to work. With insipration from the French character Fantômas, Angela invented a masked criminal who always seemed to escape the law, an anti-hero who could be embraced by the average middle class reader.

And so Diabolik was born, chased by Inspector Ginko, monthly. Within seven issues, the comic was a smash hit as readers fell in love with the masked rogue who could do almost anything, wearing his black suit or special masks as he robbed from the rich, loved his beautiful girlfriends, and traveled between his own secret lairs. He and his women also dressed in gorgeous, of-the-moment fashion, which seemed to sparkle off the page.

All of which makes it a natural to adapt Danger Diabolik to the big screen, especially under the direction of Mario Bava, a man who loves to use color and fashion to tell a story.

And what a wild, wonderful, groovy story this is.

Diabolik the film is true to its comic book roots. Diabolik himself, played with gusto by John Philip Law, is a lover and a fighter. He's a man who clearly can't do anything halfway: during the film we watch him commit not one, not two, but three different heists–plus he blows up a tax building. After one of the heists we watch him make love to his partner Eva Kant, played by the glorious Marisa Mell, on a bed covered with $20 bills, and it's hard to tell if their orgasmic ecstacy is due to Diabolik's superhuman lovemaking or because the couple's lust for cash is satiated at last.

But any satiation only lasts until the next opportunity comes their way, and Diabolik soon is on the trail of the most valuable emerald necklace in the world, stored high in a tower. This set of scenes allows us to watch Diabolik scale high towers, smartly elude guards with diversions and sleight-of-hand, and bring home the jewels to a loving girlfriend.

Even that isn't enough, and in the film's wild and wonderful ending set piece, Diabolik goes from underwater scuba craft to train to steal a giant gold ingot worth more than many small countries which he can use for his own reasons which might involve more sexual relations or might involve building even more elaborate structures for him to live in.

Of course Diabolik is a zillionaire, so that means he has all kinds of gadgets even James Bond would envy – Ferraris and Maseratis of course, the aforementioned scuba craft, fog jets and knockout pills, white action suits and black action suits, groovy showers and an amazing Batcave-like place and wow really doesn't this all sound a little like a world even Bond's nemesis Blofeld would envy?

Honestly, it's all a bit over-the-top at times, like drinking three Italian droppio shots all at once. Diabolik is hyperkinetic, absurdly colorful, ridiculously dynamic and wonderfully silly. Of course it is; with famed British comedian Terry-Thomas as one of the Diabolik's nemesis, it's no suprise this film sometimes veers close to Batman style camp, and even goes over it.

Director Mario Bava does his best to keep this movie on some kind of even ground. He's one of the finest action/horror directors working right now in Italy. I had high praise for Bava's'65 flick Planet of the Vampires, which was spookier and weirder than it had any right to be, and Danger: Diabolik is sillier and wackier than it has any right to be.

The film seems saturated with primary colors, so saturated at times that it almost seems to glow from the brilliant color pallette. The sets, too, seem selected not for their utiliarian use but for their garish weirdness. The chairs and tables in this movie look great, and that's all we need as viewers to suspend our disbelief and glory in the near neon glow of Bava's wild creation.

I should mention that the music in this film is composed by the great Ennio Morricone, whose unprecedented score for 1967's grand epic The Good, the Bad and the Ugly was one of the greatest media events of last year. His work here doesn't match those unbelievable heights, but it's charming how, for instance, we get a little guitar riff every time Diabolik's car appears on screen, or how occassionally the soundtrack would riff on 1960s surf music.

The spy genre seems a little played out in 1968, with Sean Connery walking away from the Bond role after You Only Live Twice, the Matt Helm movies playing as NBC network movies, and TV shows Man from UNCLE and I Spy soon to be off the air. But if Danger: Diabolik is one of the last of a dying genre, spy films are going out with a kiss kiss bang bang.

3.5 stars




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Movies, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[May 24, 1968] How Low Can You Go? (Battle Beneath the Earth and The Astro-Zombies)

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by Victoria Silverwolf

Notes From Underground

The English have a great hunger for desolate places.
— Alec Guinness as Prince Faisal in Lawrence of Arabia

And I have a great hunger for the desolation of cinematic wastelands.

Need evidence? Consider my interest in things like Teenagers From Outer Space, The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies, Frankenstein Meets the Space Monster, and Women of the Prehistoric Planet.

I rest my case, although I could name many more.

I recently dived deep down into the abyss of Z-grade filmmaking with a pair of inept science fiction films. Grab your flashlight and come spelunking with me into the bottomless cavern of movie malfeasance.

Dig We Must


And it can stay there!

Battle Beneath the Earth

This subterranean smorgasbord of silliness begins with stock footage of the casinos in Las Vegas. Two cops drive by and get a call to investigate a listening disturbance [sic]. That's a situation I don't recall ever appearing on Dragnet.


"Be sure not to help this guy, everybody! Just stand around and stare at him!"

In what is very clearly a set, and not Las Vegas, we see a fellow with his ear to the ground. He's raving about something that sounds like ants underground. Understandably, the cops drag him away as a kook, and he winds up in a mental hospital.

(By the way, the sanitarium has slot machines, for use by compulsive gamblers. At this point, I had to wonder if the film was a deliberate spoof. Unfortunately, I don't think so.)


Then they tell you what movie you're watching, in case you wandered into the theater by accident.

Our hero is a naval officer, recently assigned to lab duty on land after an experimental underwater habitat was destroyed in an earthquake. (Hint: It wasn't a natural disaster.) The sister of the listening guy happens to be his assistant. She tells him that her brother keeps asking to talk to him.


Peter Arne, as Arnold Kramer, in bathrobe, and Kerwin Mathews, as Commander Jonathan Shaw, in uniform. "Before I listen to your crazy story, allow me to remind you that I was the star of The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, which was a much better film."

It turns out that the guy isn't a paranoid nut, but a seismologist who has figured out that (wait for it) a Chinese general and his minions have dug their way under the Pacific Ocean and most of the way across the United States. The plan is to fill the tunnels with atomic bombs and, I don't know, rule the world, I guess. (We find out he's planted similar bombs under Peking, so he's working on his own, like any proper megalomaniac.)


A minion inside a Chinese digging machine. "Peek-a-boo!"

After a few skirmishes underground (excuse me, I mean a battle beneath the Earth), the good guys figure out that the general's supplies are coming from some place in the middle of the Pacific. They use their own digging machine to raid the place.


Carefully labeled, in case some swabby thinks it's a tank or something.

Along for the fun is our Good Girl, a Hawaiian geologist. She doesn't do much, really, except look pretty and fall into the arms of our hero.


"Gee, Miss Yung, you're beautiful without your glasses!" The character has a Chinese last name, but is played by Viviane Ventura, a British/Colombian actress. A small hint of casting problems to come.

The raid is a fiasco, with a bunch of Marines getting killed. Our hero gets captured by the bad guys.


Martin Benson as General Chan Lu. "Before I explain my sinister plan, in the proper manner of any James Bond villain, allow me to remind you that I had a small role in Goldfinger, which was a much better film."

At this point, our movie's Bad Girl enters. She hypnotizes our hero, using what is very obviously one of those little battery-operated handheld fans you use to cool yourself off on a hot day. She recites this bit of doggerel over and over, in order to wash the hero's brain thoroughly.

Red is green
Green is red
The East is sunrise
The West is dead

I don't think Robert Frost has any competition to worry about.


"I will control your mind through the power of a refreshing breeze!"

I should note that this character (Dr. Arnn) is played by Paula Li Shiu, a Chinese actress. All the other Chinese characters (except a few minor nonspeaking roles) are played by Occidentals. This kind of casting is embarrassing, but if Christopher Lee can play Fu Manchu, I guess anything goes.


The general in the tube gizmo he uses to descend to the underground tunnels. "The next wise guy who says 'Beam me up, Scotty' is going to get it!"

The bad guy has all kinds of supposedly Chinese stuff decorating his underground headquarters, just in case you forget what nationality he's supposed to be. He also has a pet hawk, just to show you how evil he is.


"The next wise guy who says 'This movie is for the birds' is going to get it!"

Will the good guys win? Oh, come on, you know the answer to that already.


Nothing like an atomic bomb for a happy ending.

Quality of film: Two stars.
Level of derisive amusement: Four stars.

All the Way Down to the Bottom


What happened to the word "The" and the hyphen between "Astro" and "Zombies"?

The Astro-Zombies

This cheapskate epic begins with a woman driving down the road. Get used to this kind of thing, because we'll have plenty of scenes that go on and on where people do ordinary things. Eventually, she winds up in her garage, where she's killed by a guy in a skull mask.


This, ladies and gentlemen, is an astro-zombie.

We then get our opening titles, oddly filmed over scenes of toy robots.


Nothing says quality like dime store special effects.

Cut to some science types and some government types talking in an office. Long and confusing story short, it seems there was a project to transmit thoughts from folks on Earth to brains in artificial bodies in spacecraft.


Government guy, played by Wendell Corey, looks concerned. He had a similar role in Agent For H.A.R.M.

It seems that one of the scientists working on the project got kicked out, and is now on his own. He's played by John Carradine, of course.


"You want me to play another Mad Scientist? How much does it pay?"

Naturally, Carradine has a hunchback for an assistant. Believe it or not, his name is Franchot.


"My parents could have named me 'Fritz' or 'Ygor,' but no . . ."

Franchot grabs a dead guy out of a car wreck and drags him back to the lab. If I've managed to follow the plot correctly, he wants to put a brain into his body and create another astro-zombie. Apparently, the previous one had a murder's brain and went on a killing rampage.


There's also a woman in a bikini strapped down on a table in the lab. She has nothing to do with the plot.

Meanwhile, foreign spies are after Carradine's secret. A lot of the running time is spent with the good guy spies and the bad guy spies fighting each other. The leader of the bad guys is played by the amazing Tura Satana, so memorable in Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!


Tura and one of her minions.

I have to say something about Tura's appearance here. She wears tons of makeup, including gigantic false eyelashes. Her fingernails look like daggers. There's a special credit for her costume designer, who really did an interesting job.


Tura in pink. Is she auditioning for Star Trek?

No opportunity is lost to put her remarkable body on display.


A little something for the leg men in the audience.

Anyway, let me get back to the plot. We've got a couple of heroes, of a sort, as well as a heroine/potential victim.


Here they are, in a time-killing scene at a nightclub in which they watch a topless dancer covered in body paint. Is it really cricket for a guy to take a woman out to see a stripper?

They come up with a plan to have the heroine act as bait for the astro-zombie who's slaughtering women left and right.


"Uh, guys? I don't think that's such a good idea. And which one of you is supposed to be my boyfriend, anyway?"

Stuff happens. The funniest scene is when the astro-zombie runs out of energy, and has to hold a flashlight to his head in order to charge his photoelectric cells.


"Thanks, Eveready!"

Boy, this is a dreary little movie. Only the presence of Tura Satana makes it watchable.


One more cheesecake shot for the road.

Quality of film: One star.
Level of derisive amusement: Five stars.




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