"In this generation… Love is understanding, we gotta be free"
lyrics from 'for Pete's sake', performed by the Monkees, written by Joseph Richards and Peter Tork
The Beatles released an album called 'Rubber Soul' in America on December 6, 1965 and it heralded a new era. Practically overnight, the music, the fashion, and the youth all changed. Hemlines rose, hair grew out, psychedelia and rock started to merge, and like never before the teenagers of America became a visible force through their protests and love-ins and consumption.
Someone had the bright idea that this force could be profitable, and thus the Monkees were conceived: a fake band of four handsome, mop topped young men manufactured to sell Kellogg's cereal, concert tickets, and merchandise. They would star in a comedic TV show to create wider access and appeal, to turn them into a real happening deal, and it worked. Every week we tuned in to follow the exploits of the Monkees, narratively portrayed as deadbeat musicians trying to scrape by. It was fast-paced and fun, well executed and unique in that it featured intercut lip-synch segments with original songs by the Monkees. But the show really succeeded for the same reason it ultimately fell apart: the members of the Monkees are genuinely talented and driven musicians.
The legacy of the Monkees is great, with two seasons of the series, countless international live concerts, and several self-written albums. With such strong success, it was inevitable that the Monkees would eventually outgrow the narrow caricatures that first helped them to superstardom. Every member of the Monkees in some regard has raw talent in musicianship, composition, acting, and comedy. They each personally have the capacity to pursue new, innovative projects, and the ambition to do so. There is only one thing that restrains them from that independence: their own legacy.
Particularly in the eyes of the adoring fans, the Monkees are not brilliant creatives, but still silly poor musicians going on adventures to make a quick dollar. Particularly because of the manufactured nature of their origin, nobody expects anything more from them, and thus won't acknowledge what exists beyond the popular false image of the Monkees. Still, there will be, and has been, a transition from the Monkees to just Mickey, Davey, Mike, and Peter, and it is necessarily a destructive and torturous one. To be free and independent in image, they must destroy what they were, or else be confined by it forever.
Nothing makes this more evident than their new movie, Head, which not only hammers the theme of desire for freedom to its audience, but does its best to rend asunder everything that the Monkees used to be. The film is constructed as a series of vignettes which abstractly flow one into the other. Structure is given to the story by three disparate elements. First, the story is circular, with the Monkees literally ending in nearly the same place the movie begins, emphasizing the feeling of being trapped eternally.
Second, we as an audience are given glimpses at the beginning of the movie of everything that happens, artificially creating a sense of foresight, implicating the audience as complacent jailers as the Monkees continuously run in circles for our amusement.
Finally, the essence of each vignette is the same. Every scene is a different scenario of the various Monkee members trying to escape a contrived, television-like setting, which ties all the disparate moments together as one long interconnected attempt to extricate the Monkees from TV itself.
Some of the imagery of imprisonment is very literal, with the Monkees trapped in a big black box, or stranded in the desert without the reprieve of a cool beverage (in itself a play at subliminal marketing), or stuck on the fake set of a Western where the only way to exit is to tear a hole in the backdrop.
There are also more disturbing metaphorical elements that speak to the feelings of being commodified by the very role of famous celebrity. At the end of the one and only concert film the Monkees do in the movie, their stage is swarmed by rabid, screaming fans. The Monkees are subtly replaced by mannequins of their likeness, which are promptly and ruthlessly torn apart by the mindless, grasping swarm of fans. The horror of the moment is compounded by the fact that the music video that precedes it is intercut with actual news footage of victims of the Vietnam War, overlaid with the screaming teenage girls of the concert.
All of this serves to send a complex message to the audience of the film: one that reveals the artificial, facile nature of the Monkee television image when contrasted with the atrocities of the real world, and also demonizes the audience/fans by portraying them as passive and active destructive forces in their pursuit of that very escapist television. This stimulates a call to action to emerge from the cocoon that commoditized Western television provides, and to use the incredible energy of the youth to tear down the fantasies we are complacently spoonfed; it tells us to see the real world, with all the horrors that it entails, and to make change, just as the Monkees want to.
The Monkees themselves are part of this struggle, drifting in and out of character over the course of the movie. Sometimes they are the Monkees of the show, mindlessly filling their roles and facing an artificial enemy who appears in various vignettes (played byTimothy Carey). Other times, reality leaks through as the actors confront aspects of the roles that are distasteful or untrue, such as Peter being disturbed by the idea of hitting a woman, or the Monkees being forced to laugh at a cripple, or even Davey seeing a giant eye behind the mirror—a representation of the audience watching the illusion unfold.
There is only one moment of true clarity and personality in the whole film, when Peter gives his soliloquy as the Monkees are trapped (again) in the black box. His speech, given in silence and with the rapt attention of the other Monkees and the audience, is a refrain on opening the mind to escape and emerge free. It is the one oasis of peace in the movie.
But it does not last, and soon the Monkees are arguing and retracing their steps through all the previous scenes and all their previous prisons, until they reach the grim finale.
The film ends with the Monkees being chased by all the faux villains they've encountered and being cornered atop a high bridge. Without hesitation, Mickey jumps over the side, and soon the other Monkees follow. For a moment, it seems that the only escape is death.
But the Monkees don't die when they hit the water. Instead they plunge into a dreamlike world, free to swim and explore, refracted by strange colors and camera filters, as if their image is finally morphing into something new. But then the dream ends, and it is revealed that the Monkees are actually swimming in a fish tank. They bang on the glass as they are driven away by the 'director', the true, larger-than-life villain of the story. The credits roll and the Monkees are sealed to their Sisyphus-like fate.
It is a bitter and dark ending that successfully taints the happy and carefree image of the Monkees. Yet the nihilism is also refreshing in that it's reflective of the larger helplessness felt by the youthful generation. The stresses of assassinations and poverty and politics and the war underlie the suppressive hopelessness that creates both the depression and the need for fantasy television in the first place. The young are trapped and stifled by their very society; they need a world of media to escape into that grants the illusion of freedom. But the Monkees refuse to be that escape anymore. They want to move on and tell their own stories. They will no longer coddle us and in turn be coddled, because they have a right to an independent identity, and in that vein, so do we. Whether we follow them or not, they will forge a path. The only question is whether, while on their new path, they will be able to emerge from the corpse of their former images. Or if we, in our inability to let go, will drag them back to the grave where the brand that they killed remains.
I think the first step, if you haven't already, is to go watch Head for yourself. It's a bit grim, but also funny and brilliant and an editing masterpiece. The seamless transitions from scene to scene give the viewer the impression of riding a carousel; it's unlike anything else I've seen. It's also a glimpse into the real sentiments of the members of the Monkees, so if you're a fan, it's worth it just for that. But beyond the great acting and the technical execution, I think the true value of the movie comes from how it successfully encapsulates the growing restlessness of our changing society in a way that many art films can't. It has the advantage of the metanarrative that the history of the Monkees' name provides, and thus a richer mode of expression than any one standalone piece. You may find that it changes how you see the world, or at the very least, triggers some unconventional thoughts.
For everything Head tries to do and succeeds at doing, I give it five stars.
The trees are down and the decorations put away, but the Christmas films are still clinging on at the cinemas. The splashiest of these, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, is a charming but over-long crowd-pleaser that can be best summarised as “James Bond, but for children.”
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang movie poster
After all, it’s a screenplay by Roald Dahl from a story by Ian Fleming, produced by Cubby Broccoli, featuring a handsome protagonist who’s a mashup of Bond and Q, a love interest with a suggestively punny name, a magical car, glamourous footage of automobile races and international luxury travel, a cameo from Desmond Llewellyn, sinister Eastern Europeans who want to steal Western technological secrets….
But I’m getting ahead of myself. Chitty Chitty Bang Bang is actually two stories. The frame story involves Caractacus Potts, an Edwardian inventor (Dick van Dyke, who has fortunately decided not to bother attempting a British accent after his excruciating failure to sound like a Cockney in Mary Poppins). He is a widower with two children, whose inventions are charming and ahead of their time, including: a vacuum cleaner and a device for sending visual images by wireless; however, they fail to find a market.
He strikes up a friendship with Truly Scrumptious (Sally Ann Howes), daughter of a candy manufacturer (James Robertson Justice), who persuades her father to consider Potts’ latest invention, candy whistles called Toot Sweets, but when the whistles turn out to attract dogs her father is furious. Rejected, Potts decides to cheer up his children by buying and fixing up a roadster, which they name Chitty Chitty Bang Bang for the noises it makes, and takes the children and Truly on a seaside picnic, where he and Truly fall in love.
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang takes flight
And then we get the second story, told by Potts at the seaside to his children and Truly. In this story, the gadget-obsessed Baron of Vulgaria (Gert Fröbe, who played Goldfinger in the eponymous movie) sees the car and vows to steal it. After a long sequence where two bumbling Vulgarian spies try and fail to do this, the Baron succeeds in kidnapping Potts’ father (Lionel Jeffries), an absent-minded caricature of British imperialism. Potts, Truly and the children come to the rescue in Chitty, which is able to turn into a hovercraft and an airplane as needed.
They land in Vulgaria to discover that the country has no children, by order of the Baron, and the sinister Child-Catcher soon kidnaps Potts’ children as well. Aided by a toymaker (Benny Hill, of all people) and a cave-ful of children hiding away from the Child-Catcher, Potts and Truly rescue the children and their grandfather and bring about a “free state” in Vulgaria.
The Baron and Baroness profess their love for each other
Back in the frame story, Truly’s father hits on the idea of selling the candy whistles as dog sweets, and offers Potts a contract for the invention. The Potts fortune is made, and Potts and Truly can marry and live happily ever after.
The story-within-a-story was, to my mind, the weakest part of the movie. The Eastern European stereotypes were more than a little silly and boring, there was an unnecessarily nasty undercurrent of misogyny in that the Baron is constantly trying, and failing, to murder his wife for no good plot or character reason, and I’m really, really uncomfortable about the Child Catcher, a big-nosed bad guy who kidnaps children and takes them off to an unspoken but terrible fate. I’m also finding it a little difficult to imagine Benny Hill, a comedian best known for racy sketches about chasing pretty young women who are less than willing to cooperate, as a cuddly child-friendly character, but presumably the younger people in the audience won’t have this sort of contextualising detail.
See what I mean? Scary, and arguably antisemitic
Another problem, to my mind, is that despite Chitty Chitty Bang Bang itself being the named star of the movie, featuring heavily on the poster and other promotional materials, and getting a long opening montage showing its original career as a racing car, it’s barely in the story. It’s over an hour before Potts finally gets around to building the thing, and, after two exciting flying and hoverboating sequences, it disappears for ninety per cent of the Vulgaria storyline. If, like me, you were expecting a story centred around a fantastic car, you’re going to be disappointed.
We do get a car-versus-boat naval battle though
On the more positive side, the music is absolutely delightful, with songs like the title track, “Truly Scrumptious”, and “Hushabye Mountain” likely to be long-lasting hits. They were composed by the Sherman Brothers of Mary Poppins fame, who clearly know their stuff. Potts’ machines were designed by British cartoonist and found-object sculptor Rowland Emett, and they are well integrated into the action: a sequence where Potts cooks sausage and eggs for his children using a variety of silly contraptions is worth the price of admission, as is a brief sequence with an apparently sentient vacuum cleaner.
There are plenty of opportunities for van Dyke to showcase his skills as a dancer, in particular one in which he pretends to be a live-size marionette in order to infiltrate the Baron’s castle. The Edwardian setting of the movie is in line with the current craze for a kind of fantasy-Edwardiana of straw hats and candy stripes. British comedy fans can enjoy watching out for cameos from the likes of Barbara Windsor, Arthur Mullard and Richard Wattis.
The "Toot Sweets" production number, a candy factory fantasy to a catchy tune
However, at nearly two and a half hours, the movie is really far too long: there was a fifteen-minute intermission at the cinema where I saw it, which was just as well. I’m tempted to suggest that it should cut the Vulgaria storyline, but unfortunately that’s the only part of the movie with any real cinematic action, and without it you’d just be left with a cute but low-stakes love story about an inventor and an heiress. Three stars—most of them for the production, music and dancing.
Jacques Tati’s newest movie, first released in 1967 but only recently screened at the Institut Français in London, is a tremendous achievement, dealing with many of the same themes as his earlier movies but in a much subtler and cleverer way. Although the box office has apparently been disappointing, the film is gradually accumulating the critical acclaim it deserves as it makes its way around the world.
The main theme is similar to that of Tati’s earlier comedy Mon Oncle (My Uncle, 1958): the idea that technologically-focused modernity is a superficial, soul-destroying philosophy which is ultimately doomed to failure. Playtime, though, takes a more subtle and arguably less conservative approach.
Playtime movie poster
We find ourselves in a fantasy Paris which is nothing but glass, chrome and concrete office blocks: the famous landmarks of the city, such as the Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe, are only glimpsed in the reflections of windows. The theme is made clearer when we see a tourist bureau with posters advertising London, Stockholm, and Mexico, each with the same office building and a few superficial details (for instance Routemaster buses and Big Ben) to mark the supposed differences. We are in a futuristic fantasy world where every place is the same and the subtle, playful, unpredictable details have been erased. It isn’t an unhappy scenario: the streets are clean and no one is poor or sick. But the pleasure people take in it is superficial and vapid (a tourist exclaiming at a trade fair that “they even have American stuff!”), and they also don’t seem to know what they are missing.
The Eiffel Tower reflected in a window
The film opens in a building where the viewer is left for a long time with no idea as to its purpose: we see black and chrome sofas, glass frontage, small cubicles. An older couple converse in accented English; nuns pass by, as does a priest, and a nurse with a crying baby. Is it a hospital? A government office? Finally we see a man with suitcases and the nature of the building is revealed: it is an airport. Tati’s cinema persona Monsieur Hulot is changed, having shed his pipe and scarf and adopted a grey coat in place of his trademark brown macintosh, but a variety of other people wander around the story in M Hulot’s costume and are mistaken for him. We see office buildings full of filing cabinets which are revealed, when seen from overhead, to be cubicles; we see little dramas play out in an apartment building where all the walls are glass and face onto the street. At one point two groups of people in adjacent rooms watch the same television programme, completely unaware of this shared experience and unable to come together and commune over their enjoyment.
Apartment living: isolating and atomising?
Unlike the way in which Mon Oncle harked back to a nostalgic imagined past, however, Playtime sees the doom of this conformist, modernist approach as lying in the future. The glass-fronted modernity is fragile and superficial, and falls apart at the slightest pressure, and so can’t cope with the everyday fallibilities of humanity, whether M Hulot, who lopes and skips around an office building and a trade fair subtly creating chaos, or his female counterpart in the story, American tourist Barbara (played by Barbara Dennek), who is constantly getting separated from her tour, or even background characters like a group of glaziers whose window-fitting activities subtly become a dance routine, enjoyed by a crowd of Parisians watching them from the street.
M Hulot observing office work
The film’s message is encapsulated in a long, climactic sequence in a fancy restaurant whose superficial efficiency and organisation is a façade. We see a beautiful oasis of elegant food and décor, but when the backstage areas are revealed, we discover that the restaurant is still being built, that the waiters are swapping jackets to hide stains and damage, that the kitchen is chaos. The introduction of M Hulot breaks the boundary between front and backstage and sends the whole thing into a joyous spiral of anarchy: the glass door shatters, the ceiling decoration falls down, the decorous bossa-nova music turns into wild jazz. The lighting fixtures break. Random people wander in off the street. Chairs fall over. Waiters trip. A plastic sculpture of an airplane melts. A wealthy American businessman declares one section of the room his private bistro and invites tourists and workmen to eat and drink at his expense. A drunk is ejected and walks straight back in. The austere and ordered modernity is undermined from all sides.
The car carousel makes Paris playful again
Afterwards, the patrons walk out into a transformed city, one which still includes the office blocks and grey concrete, but where the cars are now colourful, the buildings hung with bunting, and cheerful shops selling cheeses and scarves have replaced the trade fair. M Hulot buys Barbara a gift but, being unable to give it to her, delegates one of the Hulot impersonators to do it. Tati’s direction wittily turns a roundabout into a carousel, a car mechanic’s shop into a fairground ride. The message is not to destroy technological modernity, but to subvert it, and to find ways of making it joyful and playful. Five stars. Go and see it—if you don’t speak French don’t worry, most of the dialogue is in English and the physical comedy carries the action.
The Green Slime movie poster
From the sublime to the ridiculous! The other film I saw this week is the recently-released SF-horror The Green Slime, a Japanese production filmed in English with American and European actors. The plot involves a spaceman, Jack Rankin, sent up to a space station commanded by the man who has stolen his girlfriend, to lead a mission to destroy an asteroid which threatens Earth. In doing so, however, he and his crew accidentally bring back some of the titular slime which, when exposed to radiation, develops into alien monsters which must be fought while the two men and their love object reconcile their romantic interests.
I give this film more points than most reviewers because of the, possibly unintentional but definitely hilarious, Freudian message: a man’s jealousy over his ex-girlfriend’s new relationship causes him to unleash, through the medium of green slime, one-eyed tubular monsters onto the universe, and it’s up to him to bring them under control again. The modelwork is good and the characterisation unsubtle, giving the series the feel of what might happen if Gerry and Sylvia Anderson decided to work with live actors rather than puppets (as I’m told is soon to be the case), but without the budget of a Century 21 production. Definitely one to watch only when inebriated and in the right company, but very fun under those circumstances; I'm not sure if I was supposed to laugh all the way through it, but I did. One and a half stars.
Much as I enjoy the jollity of the festive season, I’m also firmly of the opinion that there is nothing better than a ghost story—or, failing that, a horror story—at Christmas. So I was quite delighted to learn my local cinema would be showing the latest British horror movie, Curse of the Crimson Altar.
Curse follows in the footsteps of this summer’s Witchfinder General in being a film where the horror is not supernatural but psychological, suggesting that this genre may be coming into fashion. Although the biggest creative obstacle Curse has to overcome is that someone behind the scenes, or possibly in the censor’s office, has meant that the actual catalyst for the horror remains subtextual throughout.
At the start of the movie, we get a quote from an unnamed “medical journal” about the influence of psychedelic drugs on the human brain: “drugs of this group can produce the most complex hallucinations and under their influence it is possible by hypnosis to induce the subject to perform actions he would not normally commit.” Thereafter, we get no reference to drugs at all, but it should be fairly clear to the viewer how we should interpret the proceedings.
The plot involves an antique dealer, Robert Manning (Mark Eden), going in search of his brother Peter, who has disappeared on an expedition to hunt for salable stock, sending Manning a single candlestick, a witchfinders’ bodkin, and a cryptic note on notepaper from a country estate, Craxted Lodge in the town of Greymarsh. Arriving at the estate, Manning finds Lord Morley (Christopher Lee) and his niece Eve (Virginia Wetherell) gearing up for a local Bonfire Night-type holiday, celebrating the anniversary of the burning of a local witch, Lavinia Morley (Barbara Steele), the Black Witch of Greymarsh. They claim never to have met Manning’s brother, but invite him to stay with them while he investigates. Manning begins suffering from strange erotic dreams about Lavinia Morley and sleepwalking episodes, and, with the help of a local historian and occult enthusiast, Professor Marsh (Boris Karloff), discovers he is descended from one of the people who sentenced Lavinia to death. Someone is out for revenge, but who, and how, and why?
Lascivious Lavinia as played by Barbara Steele
The movie boasts a lot of familiar names behind and in front of the camera, being scripted by Henry Lincoln and Mervyn Haisman, creators of Doctor Who’s Great Intelligence and Yeti, and featuring Roger Avon, Michael Gough and scream-queen Barbara Steele in supporting roles. Gough in particular does a great turn as a manservant who is either under the influence of malign spirits, or else doped to the eyeballs, at all times. The casting of Lee and Karloff, both seasoned horror veterans who usually play villains but have turned their hand to more benign roles, keeps the suspense going as to who is behind the sinister events, and there's a cute nod to Karloff's role when Manning remarks that he feels “like Boris Karloff might pop up at any moment” shortly before, in fact, he does.
Michael Gough as a zombie manservant.
In many ways the story feels a little like an episode of The Prisoner or The Avengers, involving as it does a villain who is using psychedelic drugs and mind games to wear down an unsuspecting victim. The fact that the script can’t directly say that drugs are involved also helps to make the events more ambiguous, suggesting for most of the movie that Manning might really be haunted by the vengeful spirit of Lavinia Morley. The imagery of the dream sequences is very much drawn from British folk culture, with sinister figures in animal masks and references to the witch-hunts of the 17th century.
Unfortunately, the story is also a little uneven, with a long prurient episode featuring Eve having a debauched party with her young artist friends apparently going nowhere; presumably the intention was to suggest that Eve might be behind, or at least complicit in, the implicitly drug-fueled activities which follow, but it mostly seems to be included to cater to the crowd of people who like to tut about modern youth going wild while secretly enjoying the orgy scenes. Similarly I found the dream sequences more laughable than erotic, with supposed demons and witches walking around clad in strips of imitation leatherette. There are also some gaps in the narrative, which I won’t detail in order not to give away the denouement, and the ending felt rather rushed to me.
Another tedious sex party, ho hum.
All in all, I’d say this is a solid if uneven horror story that keeps the viewer guessing for a long time, and suggests that the non-supernatural horror based in British folk mythology is here to stay.
Three and a half stars.
I’d also like to devote a little time to the B feature on the night I saw Curse of the Crimson Altar, a short and cheap SF-horror from 1964 entitled The Earth Dies Screaming, directed by the supremely talented Terence Fisher. The scenario is straight out of John Wyndham: a test pilot, returning from a high altitude flight, discovers that almost everyone else on Earth has been killed—apparently through some kind of gas attack, as the few survivors are people who, for one reason or another, were not breathing the atmosphere at that point. Less Wyndham-esque are the eerie, silent robots now stalking around the deserted Earth, who bear such a strong resemblance to Cybermen that one wonders if it is simply coincidence or if Doctor Who’s design team had been at the movies before working on “The Tenth Planet”. The robots also have the ability to turn anyone they shoot into grey-eyed, mindless creatures who do their bidding.
See what I mean? That's a Cyberman, that is.
Our hero joins a band of survivors seemingly calculated to provide optimum drama (society woman; hedonistic good-time couple; sinister man in a mac; teddy-boy mistrustful of anyone over 30 and his heavily pregnant young wife) and collectively they attempt to figure out how to survive and to stop the robots, despite the conflicting agendas in the group.
While suffering a little from uneven pacing and characterisation (the teddy boy, for instance, suddenly overcomes his suspicions of the establishment for no reason other than plot convenience), this is a pleasingly eerie 62 minutes. I quite like the sub-genre of apocalypse stories that just focus on a small group of people trying to cope with their changed circumstances, and the parallels with the aftermath of a nuclear war are clear without being didactic.
The Emperor's New Clothes by Harry Clarke, inspired by the fashions of the Lucknow Court in present day India and Turkish fashions, a fitting comparison for this article.
A strange thing is occurring in American menswear this winter. A peculiar, most invisible thing. Invisible not because no one talks about it or buys it or advertises it… In fact, everyone from Playboy to J. C. Penny has brandished their bugle horn, lining up their bets behind this most fascinating fad.
No, it is invisible because although men are buying it, they simply aren’t wearing it.
It’s no surprise that men today yearn to move on from the somber three-piece suits and restrictive neckties that inspire discussions of Beau Brummel, Henry Poole, and two-hundred years of legacy. As the definition of American culture expands to include members of the Youth, Hippie, Women's Rights, and Civil Rights movements, just to name a few, young men have realized that they too can expand their own identities. Strangely enough, this ardent wish has manifested as the Nehru jacket.
Sammy Davis Jr in Fall 1968 wearing the new Nehru jacket trend with silk turtlenecks.
Named for Jahawarhal Nehru, the first prime minister of India, the Nehru jacket embodies many of the ideals of American youth. He was an anti-colonialist and social democrat determined to free his country from Western rule, a sentiment young people share against the backdrop of the Vietnam War. Like many other revolutionaries and thinkers from colonized cultures around the world, he chose to wear a traditional Indian coat called the achkan as a way of reclaiming India’s cultural autonomy by rejecting Western rules of business dress. Namely, the three-piece suit and the necktie.
Nehru met with Chancellor Konrad Adenauer and Deutsche Bank Chairman Hermann Josef Abs during a visit to West Germany in June 1956. He looks at ease next to the others with his top button undone, embodying a working class confidence that's defiantly attractive for a generation that distrusts establishment wealth and power, and searches for their own generational identity.
The Beatles wore Nehru jackets for their Shea Stadium concert in August of 1965, less than a year after the prime minister died in May of 1964. As we’ve discussed previously the article "Sgt. Pepper's Anti-War Military Rock Uniform," The Beatles have been an unstoppable force in shaping the fashions, and therefore the identities, of young people in the West through their mop haircuts, peacockish military designs, and bold color palettes. Others such as Sammy Davis Jr. and Lord Snowdon also donned the achkan-inspired look before Pierre Cardin introduced it to the American public last year.
The Beatles perform at Shea Stadium in matching putty Nehru jackets in 1965. Nehru's jackets were also grey and tawny colors. Sammy Davis Jr. often favors this utilitarian color palette in his Nehru jackets this winter.
The first James Bond film, Dr. No, mirrors the hero and villain through the Nehru jacket. Both jackets are made of silk, but Bond's walnut brown jacket is a rough-hewn shantung while the doctor's appears to be a granite silk suiting. The contrast of the fabrics and the fit of the collars both indicate a struggle between the people (Bond) and power (Dr. No).
From there, gossip and excitement over the look has spread like wildfire among experts and celebrities. Esquire went so far as to suggest that the Nehru would be the talk of the winter. But where has it gone? Why have we seen so few of them?
The rather complicated answer is comfort.
Inspired by the total rejection of Western ideals, the Nehru jacket is largely comfortable only to those who also heavily criticize the sum of our mainstream society. However, most consumers are average by default. As a result, such bold shifts are too adventuresome for their everyday lives. These kinds of trends, which often come with great excitement, are bright but brief flashes in the pan.
So what do these emperor’s robes suggest, if they’re bought then stuffed at the backs of closets and into the bottoms of trunks? Bold shifts that make it to retailers and mainstream entertainment, no matter how brief, are indicative of a great yearning in society. And the revolution is happening—it is just taking on a different form.
Rather than rehaul the rules of their workplaces and ceremonies with the Nehru jacket, men are turning to designers like Bill Blass and Ralph Lauren, who are introducing wider, bolder ties and more athletic country tweeds that speak to America’s love of working class leisurewear.
James Coburn in Bill Blass fashions as of November this year for Vogue. Though the fabrics are bold, the shapes are familiar, sporting collars and cuffs with an expeditionary style that calls back to Western expansionism. This, perhaps, is a much more comfortable avenue for change in mainstream menswear than inspirations such as the Nehru that wholly reject the Western lifestyle. Photographed by Henry Clarke.
I agree deeply with the critic Marshall McLuhan in his opinion that after centuries of division, the great tectonic shift of equality in the West is pushing men and women to connect culturally in a way we simply haven’t before. While women are chasing educational and societal inclusion, men are chasing freedom of expression.
We can see this clearly in the rising popularity of Blass and Lauren, for example. The necktie is softer and brighter, but still a necktie. The turtleneck is less structured but still paired with a blazer for daytime events. The Norfolk jacket is slimmer and more youthful, but still made of traditional houndstooth wool. Does this not mirror the advancements of women in our society? Women may attend universities, but they must still wear stockings and skirts. They may work in offices but must maintain a certain figure.
Having donned the uniforms of war and business for as long as women have worn their gowns and corsets, the suggestion that Western men are decolonizing their own fashions, through styles such as Nehru’s achkan, is a hopeful sign of the future. Even if permanent change is slow. Only time will tell if the Western or the Eastern collar will ultimately be the victor…
Hot off the heels of Danger: Diabolik, producer Dino De Laurentis is at it again with another comic book adaptation, this time Jean-Claude Forest’s Barbarella. The French-Italian co-production is based on the sexy French comic book and directed by Roger Vadim (1956’s And God Created Woman). The movie’s title character is played by the none other than Vadim’s wife, the gorgeous Jane Fonda, who since her breakout role in 1965’s Cat Ballou, has been making name for herself in Hollywood, beyond just benefiting from her already famous last name.
[Make love, not war]
As the film’s heroine, a “5-star double-rated astronavigatrix”, she is contacted by Dianthus, the President of the Republic of Earth (French actor Claude Dauphin) at the beginning of the film, requesting that she set out in search of a supposedly young scientist by the name of Doctor Durand Durand, who reportedly vanished into “the uncharted regions of Tau Ceti” after creating a weapon known as the positronic ray. The device is so powerful that it threatens “to shatter the loving union of the universe”, which had “been pacified for centuries.” Barbarella is the president’s last hope to bring the doctor to justice and prevent possible bloodshed, because he has “no armies or police.” That said, she is armed with some weapons from the Museum of Conflict for “self-preservation” and urged to use all of her “incomparable talents” during her mission.
[Barbarella at the controls of her groovy spacecraft]
Shortly after beginning her journey, Barbarella gets caught in a magnetic storm, which results in her crashing her spaceship into Planet 16, located in the system of Tau Ceti. While stranded there, she meets 2 “marvelous little girls” who knock her out with a snowball, I kid you not. After taking her captive, they bring her to what she recognizes as Doctor Durand Durand’s wrecked spacecraft, but he is nowhere in sight. In fact, most of the inhabitants of the planet appear to be children. Barbarella threatens them with, “untie me or I’m going to call your parents!” Unfazed, the kids sic a pack of creepy dolls with razor-sharp teeth on her, leaving her with some abrasions and badly torn clothes. Luckily for Barbarella, a man draped in furs, known as Mark Hand the Catchman (Italian actor, Ugo Tognazzi), comes to her rescue. He and the authorities capture the children in nets.
[What nightmares are made of]
Afterwards, Mark Hand takes her back to his vehicle, which is basically a cabin on wheels with sails. There, he suggests she repay him for coming to her rescue by making love to him the old-fashioned way, something apparently that has not been done in centuries on Earth, because there is a newer and more civilized way to do the deed, involving individuals taking a pill and pressing the palms of their hands together. Ever the adventurous type, Barbarella agrees, forgetting all about her recent injuries. He fixes her spaceship, offers her some clothing and a tip on the doctor’s possible location, Sogo.
[Barbarella with Mark Hand after he saves her from the children and the dolls]
Barbarella tries to flee Planet 16, but shortly after takeoff, her spacecraft crashes yet again, this time near Sogo, in the Labyrinth of the City of Night on a planet called Lythion. There, she meets a blind angel named Pygar, played by John Phillip Law of 1967’s Death Rides a Horse and more recently Mario Bava’s Danger: Diabolik. He tells her he has lost “the will to fly.” Pygar introduces her to a wise old man named Professor Ping. Here, French mime Marcel Marceau plays Professor Ping, who offers to help her fix her spaceship so she does not get stuck in the Labyrinth, a very frightening place, filled with those exiled from Sogo, City of Night. While Professor Ping works on her spacecraft, Pygar defends Barbarella against the Great Tyrant of Sogo’s guards. Later, one thing leads to another and they sleep together. Almost immediately after their encounter, Pygar miraculously regains his will to fly. He flies her to Sogo, but things take a turn for the worse when the guards to the Great Tyrant, also known as the Black Queen (and little one-eyed wench), spot them.
[Barbarella and her "fine-feathered friend" on their way to Sogo]
Barbarella and Pygar are taken in by the Black Queen’s guards. Model, actress and rock music muse, Anita Pallenberg, stars as the Black Queen. The earthling and the angel find themselves in the Chamber of Ultimate Solution, where they have to choose between 3 different types of death. Just as Barbarella and Pygar are about to choose, they are stopped by concierge to the Great Tyrant, played by Irish actor Milo O’Shea. Pygar and Barbarella end up being separated.
[Her Majesty The Black Queen]
The Black Queen gives orders for Barbarella to be thrown into a giant cage filled with birds, who peck at her and tear her clothes, again. She falls down a secret escape chute, which leads Barbarella into another room, where she meets Dildano, head of the revolutionary forces, played by David Hemmings (of Michelangelo Antonioni's Blow Up). They get to know each other better. Afterwards, they devise a plan to capture the Black Queen while she is asleep in her Chamber of Dreams, so she can “divulge the whereabouts of Doctor Durand Durand.”
[Barbarella in the cage filled with "darling" birds]
I would imagine for the more sophisticated filmgoer, Barbarella’s plot and characters leave much to be desired. Barbarella hardly grows over the course of the film. In fact, no matter what happens to her, she maintains a certain level of naïveté through the entire picture. The same can be said for most of the characters in the film, who tend to be very one-dimensional and are often pretty silly.
[Speaking of silly characters, here are Stomoxys and Glossina with Barbarella after they kidnap her]
Turns out the movie posters sum up what Barbarella is all about with the line, “See Barbarella Do Her Thing!” When the movie’s protagonist is not taking up a tryst with someone new, she quite literally has killer dolls and birds tear what little clothing she does wear to shreds. Barbarella also seems to be irresistible to both men and women. And while it is nice to see a female protagonist, especially one that does not conform often outdated and puritanical views around sexuality, she is clearly some sort of male fantasy. One thing that does make her and the film more complicated is that she sure seems to find herself being tortured a lot.
[Her name isn't pretty pretty, it's Barbarella]
The movie’s opening sequence, involves the main character stripping in zero gravity, before even one word of dialogue is uttered. This alone should tell the viewer exactly what lies ahead. In addition, Barbarella does not bother putting on a stitch of clothing in order to speak to, of all people, the president. Another scene involves the concierge to the Great Tyrant putting Barbarella in his machine, which will cause her to “die of pleasure.” But it turns out that his machine is no match for Barbarella! What I am getting at is that part the film’s charm is that it is pure fluff. Entertaining fluff, sure, but fluff nevertheless.
[Barbarella in the Excessive Machine]
To top things off, Barbarella drives what else but a pink spaceship that has an interior decked out with iconic paintings on the walls, gaudy statues, and floor to ceiling orange shag carpeting. Even if Barbarella is guilty of being an absolute spectacle of style over substance, it does feature some incredibly creative costumes by Paco Rabanne, decent special effects and impressively psychedelic set design. Also, the movie’s theme song had me singing “Barbarella, Bar, Barbarella” for days after watching the film.
[Barbarella inside the Black Queens's psychedelic Chamber of Dreams]
Barbarella probably will not be nominated for any of the major awards anytime soon, but it is still a fun ride. More serious SF fans may want to steer clear of the movie, but I would recommend it to viewers with camp sensibilities. Three stars.
[Will Barbarella and Dildano be successful in carrying out their plan?]
Ice Station Zero: Ice Station Zebra
by Tonya R. Moore
Ice Station Zebra is a paltry film for which, apparently, little expense was spared. The production is elaborate. The special effects and visual details are impressive. The actors’ performances are mostly convincing. The plot of this film, however, leaves a great deal to be desired.
First, some background:
The story of the Russian satellite in Ice Station Zebra is loosely based on real-life technology and events. Discover 2 was an American satellite, a prototype of the optical reconnaissance Discoverer series, launched in early April 1959. It was cylindrical in shape and its film return vehicle, the capsule, was manufactured by General Electric.
Though it neither carried film nor conducted surveillance, Discover 2 was the first satellite equipped with a re-entry capsule and was the first to send a payload back to Earth. As depicted in the movie, mission control did lose track of the capsule when a timing error caused it to land in the vicinity of Spitsbergen, Norway instead of Hawaii. Attempts to recover the capsule were unsuccessful and some suspect it may currently be in the possession of the Soviet Union.
The standout star of the film for SF fans is probably Patrick McGoohan (David Jones in Ice Station Zebra), who is famously known for his role as John Drake in the British television series, Danger Man (Secret Agent in the U.S.) and more recently, The Prisoner. McGoohan is actually an Irish-American who was born in Queens, New York and spent his childhood years in Ireland. The actor is based in England where he has performed in several notable film and television roles over the past decade. Sadly, his performance is not enough to elevate the film beyond mediocrity…
In the first scene of Ice Station Zebra, men in uniform sit in a cramped room equipped with sophisticated machinery, looking very serious.
This is followed by footage of a small object separating from an inexplicably phallic Russian satellite orbiting the earth.
The focus shifts to the main character. Rock Hudson stars as Cdr. James Ferraday, Commander of USN nuclear submarine, USS Tigerfish.
While visiting a drinking bar, Ferraday gets a call on the establishment’s phone.
He promptly leaves to go to another bar. At the second bar, he goes upstairs to a private room where he meets Admiral Garvey.
The admiral gives him a sketchy summary of some potentially disastrous incident at Ice Station Zebra, located at or somewhere in the vicinity of the North Pole.
Garvey issues an urgent order sending Ferraday and his submarine crew on an investigative rescue mission to Ice Station Zebra. They are to escort a certain David Jones to Ice Station Zebra, a man whose background they do not know. It is made clear that David Jones has some super-secret agenda pertaining to Russian military intelligence. His true objective for going to Ice Station Zebra is not to be divulged to Ferraday or crew.
David Jones, a paranoid Englishman of Russian origin with a noticeable dependence on hard liquor, isaccompanied by a platoon of marines led by Lt. Jonathan Hansen. Later, the Russian defector (?) Boris Vaslov…
… and Capt. Leslie Anders–The Token Black Man (played by Cleveland Brown and activist Jim Brown), are airlifted by helicopter to board the USS Tigerfish.
After a brief display of the requisite male posturing, the mission goes underway. (eg. Hansen is disrespectful. Anders puts him in his place.)
Upon reaching the North Pole, the USS Tigerfish attempts to breach the surface ice. The first few attempts fail so Ferraday decides to fire a torpedo at the ice.
Disaster strikes when the torpedo shaft/channel (?) suddenly opens. A deluge of freezing Arctic seawater comes pouring in and the USS Tigerfish starts sinking fast. The panicked crew and guests work together to get the situation under control and somehow, the number of casualties are limited to one.
Signs of sabotage are confirmed. Despite the presence of a born-Russian with questionable motives, Jones immediately suspects the Token Black Man of being the culprit instead. His reasoning? Anders comes with impeccable credentials and that just can’t be believable.
The USS Tigerfish successfully breaches thinner ice and surfaces. Ferraday leads Jones, Anders, Vaslov, the marines and a team handpicked from his own crew across treacherous the ice-scape, leaving someone else in charge of the submarine and its operations.
Following a near-death mishap on the way…
… the contingent arrives at the partially burnt out remains of Ice Station Zebra.
They locate some survivors while Jones begins frantically searching for the very secret, very mysterious object. Vaslov joins the search. Ferraday reveals that he actually knows that Jones is searching for a certain 8mm (?) / video tape (?) with highly classified spy intel containing footage and the locations of all of the US nuclear bases.
Reports of incoming fighter airplanes from opposing armies ramp up the urgency of the mission.
The Token Black Man is framed for someone else’s (Vaslov) treasonous act and shot multiple times (by Jones), to death. Naturally.
Disgusted by the stereotypical inevitability of this outcome, I took this opportunity to take a long bathroom break, returning in time for…
A transmission/press release is broadcasted reporting the successful rescue of Ice Station Zebra’s survivors.
– and all’s well that ends well, apparently.
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
A Shambling Mess: Night of the Living Dead
by Amber Dubin
I was so pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed the first horror movie that I reviewed (Rosemary's Baby) that I thought I had been too quick to dismiss the horror genre entirely. Thus, with a freshly opened mind, I decided to celebrate the Halloween season with a bag of popcorn and a screening of what was promised to be another horror classic. I'll admit that the bar was maybe set too high, so I tried very hard to be kind in my assessment of The Night of The Living Dead. In this, I summarily failed. This film had many never-before-seen, innovative elements and a rather bold story-telling style, but I simply did not see it fit for a major motion picture screen. I could not help but feel like I was being led down a garden path with the promise of the type of character development and storyline that could support this decently to moderately talented cast, only to be jilted at the altar by the loosely shambled together pile of scene changes that make up this film.
Night of the Living Dead shambled into theaters October 1st, 1968
Night of the Living Dead does exactly this when it gets my hopes up in the opening scene. There is something to be said for tension built through hair-raising music played over shots of a lone Pontiac driving over rolling hills in a set of old-fashioned grainy black and white landscape shots. By the time we get to the first lines of the movie, I was already on edge in a subtle way that I was hoping would bode well for the types of thrills would continue throughout. This was my first disappointment, and just like the protracted winding trip that Pontiac took around turn after promising turn, this film alternately dilly dallied, rambled, and ultimately fell flat at a dead end.
The most grounded character in the movie
The opening lines of the movie are delivered by a couple of youngsters named Johnny and Barbra who are visiting the gravesite of their deceased father. They disrespectfully bicker over the obligation the whole time, carelessly switching the radio off right in the middle of an ominous "all points bulletin" and ignoring the slow approach of a shambling figure in the distance. Mocking his sister over her healthy fear of graveyards, Johnny practically tosses Barbra in front of the approaching stranger, only to instantly regret it when the man grabs her by the throat. Johnny comes to Barbra's defense but is overcome rather awkwardly by the man slowly wrestling him to the ground and smooshing the glasses off of his face. Barbra, ever the loyal sister, doesn't bother checking if Johnny is ok before running to the car by herself, losing her shoe and falling to the ground, because it's just not scary enough if the fleeing woman isn't both helpless and unlikeable.
Shoes have always been a woman's greatest weakness
She finds shelter in her locked car for a moment before the man manages to break the window with a brick. Suddenly, she realizes the key is in the ignition and she slowly rolls the Pontiac down the hill. Even though her path is unobstructed, she drives distractedly enough to veer off the road and ding her side mirror slightly on a tree. This mirror seems to be so vital to her escape, that she decides that it'd be safer to abandon the car entirely and run barefoot through the woods away from her attacker (utter genius, this one).
Mind you, the limping man in the graveyard had no special makeup on, so for all we know she just abandoned her brother to be assaulted by a partially disabled, demented, old man. Literally the only way I can assume the strange congregants outside are "living dead" people is because that's title of the movie.
Maybe he's just lost and looking to borrow a cup of sugar
I expected the film to fall into a "poor decision-making blonde flees from monster" formula at this point, but when Barbra seeks refuge in an abandoned house, this film abruptly loses the plot for me. Barbara's actions have made precious little sense up until now, but after entering this house, her cognitive abilities fall to absolute bits. The first illogical decision comes when she is startled by the corpse of the homeowner and decides to rush outside to take her chances with her pursuer, running directly into the headlights of an arriving car. She stands bathed in the blinding lights, confused and wincing as if bracing herself to be struck; instead a complete stranger emerges, grabs her up and rushes her back inside. Unlike I, who was shouting "who are you and where did you come from?" at the screen, Barbra offers no greeting or introduction to this stranger and immediately falls in line behind his frantic attempts to create safety and figure out what's going on.
Ben may cut a dashing profile, but it makes no sense why Barbra would trust him implicitly and make no attempt to ask or help him figure out what's going on
It is here that the stranger, whom we eventually come to know as Ben, takes the torch (sometimes literally) of the protagonist of the story. While Barbra dissolves into quiet hysteria, Ben violently dispatches several of the mindless congregants around the house, dragging their corpses to the lawn and setting them on fire to warn off the others. Once he's mostly boarded up the whole house by himself, Barbra launches into an awkward re-telling of everything we've seen her do in the film so far. Suddenly, she remembers she had a brother. She jumps up and throws herself at the newly sealed door, insisting "we must find Johnny now!" slapping Ben when he refuses. He immediately slaps her back, which normally would appall me, but here seems the only logical way to get the hysterical woman to stop throwing herself in front of monsters and cars.
Ben continues to secure the house, finding food and a weapon, hooking up a radio, and even bringing Barbra shoes as an apology for slapping her. When the radio crackles to life, we settle in with the now catatonic Barbra for our long-awaited first taste of an explanation of what on earth is going on in this world. We are offered the laughably pathetic explanation that the world is being seized by "an epidemic of homicide." We don't even get a chance to finish rolling our eyes at this when we are surprised by Barbra's scream as she witnesses people emerge from the basement.
Suddenly, basement people!
There's absolutely no logical explanation as to why four able-bodied people and a child would remain hidden in the cellar of a house with distressed survivors upstairs, only to emerge and be suddenly invested in those additional survivors coming back downstairs with them. Harry, the obnoxious, stubborn patriarch of the Cooper family, offers such a poor explanation for his motives that I wonder whether this scene had less of a script and more of a general direction to the actors to come up with their own dialog. The teenaged couple, Tom and Judy, are convinced by this awkward exchange to come up and help Ben, while Harry's wife and sick child remain downstairs. Here we are introduced to Helen Cooper, played by Marilyn Eastman, who is a strikingly beautiful, classy and sharp-witted woman. She's responsible for nearly every cogent argument in the film and is such a mismatch for her husband that we are left to wonder why such a talented actress is filling that role and not that of the protagonist.
The stakes are now raised by the fact that there are three women and a sick child to defend. This emboldens Ben to make a plan to escape that involves Ben and Tom getting to the gas pump and truck outside by the barn. It is here that a schism appears in the group, and Harry quietly makes it his mission to undermine Ben's authority for every decision Ben makes (in much the same way I expect he is accustomed to undermining all his wife's opinions).
Behind every bullheaded man, a long-suffering wife bonded to him by poor writing
In another jarring turn, the focus shifts once again to the teen couple, Tom and Judy. Judy begs Tom not to go outside with Ben. She offers little in the way of verbal persuasion, but the scene is suddenly charged with so much of a different type of tension that one wonders if their mutual attraction isn't based in real life. They're clearly not meant to make it out of this movie alive, but knowing this didn't soften the blow for me when their escape plan literally goes up in flames, and Judy's caught jacket condemns them to a particularly gruesome and fiery death.
A romance doomed to go down in flames
From here the rest of the film devolves into a fairly predictable series of disasters: Ben is forced to shoot an increasingly paranoid, maniacal and erratic Harry Cooper in self-defense, Barbara opens a door in order to be eaten by her now undead brother, and the survivors retreat to barricade the cellar. Karen, the little girl who's been lying prone and feverish suffering from an undead bite wound this whole time, suddenly springs to life as a crazed, cannibalistic creature. Her mother is just as shocked as the audience at this development, and she falls back, helplessly paralyzed in fear. To everyone's genuine horror, the child discards the bits of her father's flesh from her teeth as she advances on her mother, violently tearing her apart with a gardening spade.
Ben is set with the unenviable task of destroying the now undead nuclear family and he does so, huddling up next to the barricade afterwards and falling into a fitful sleep as the beleaguered lone survivor of this ordeal. The next day he emerges into the now silent and destroyed house. He is greeted with a swift bullet between the eyes from a sharp-shooting member of the crisis response team tasked with cleaning up the invasion of undead; thus rendering all the heroism and hard-fought survivalism of the entire film moot.
Karen picks up some unusual eating habits
Though I was disappointed in this film as a whole, there were several things I did enjoy about it. I found it added a layer of realism to have the story background delivered by inter-cut scenes of a TV broadcast filled with busy scientists and professors on Capitol Hill trying to say as little as possible to the microphones being shoved in their faces. I thought it was a creative, bold take to explain how their situation was caused when the "unburied dead" were exposed to radiation from a destroyed Venusian satellite. I even found it authentically frightening when the teen couple immolates themselves and Ben is left to fight through the darkness and the silently encroaching hoard with nothing but a chair leg torch, all the while having to listen to the unnerving gnashing and chewing sounds of the undead dining on the burnt flesh of the unfortunate couples' bodies.
Extra! Extra! No one Knows What's Going On!
While I recognize that the film is making an innovative attempt to enhance the drama with bold lighting choices, I see this attempt as a failure because the lighting is so severe that the audience is unable to see what's going on. A particularly disappointing example of this comes in the authentically scary moment where Karen is committing matricide, and she is darkened in such deep shadow that you can barely see her at all. I was also disappointed that the score was absolutely all over the place. The beginning crescendo of appropriate music only serves to make the rest of the sound in the film feel poorly balanced by proving that at least one member of the staff knows how to smoothly score at least one scene. Cymbals crash and trumpets blast when stationary objects are meant to surprise the viewers, cricket noises get played very loudly in a bizarre attempt to make the approach of the undead hoards eerie, and yet the sound suddenly dies when the situation takes an actual dire turn; In a genuinely scary moment when undead break the window open, they do so noiselessly and a grasping, attacking undead hand gets dismembered in frustrating silence.
What made me feel this film was not of high enough quality to be released in theaters was the unforgivably sloppy pacing and direction. The Barbra-centered, awkward, choppy scenes at the beginning felt padded for runtime, and yet we are rushed through a systematic slaughter of the entire cast at the end. The script of each scene varies in quality so wildly that there are tonal shifts fast enough to give me whiplash. I felt volleyed between at least one writer who understood how couples banter, and one that decided to put a group of actors in a room and suggest that they improvise. The end result makes the film feel like a loosely connected collection of scenes, rather than a cogent story that supports character development or enhances the performances of some of the cast's talented actors.
Ben, the tragic hero who couldn't defeat racism(?)
While I appreciated the idea that Ben's death at the end implies that his race makes him just as worthless to society as the monsters getting burned in the fields, it's a poorly executed and shoe-horned-in concept. If that was going to be the message in the end, the least that could have been done is that he be attacked or singled out based on his race; but even Harry's prejudice against him was not clearly race-related and could have purely stemmed from him being an overbearing, control-obsessed, vile man.
Next time I decide to watch a film with an open mind, I'll make sure to look out for brain eaters first.
So far, 1968 has been an exemplary year for science fiction films. Filmgoers have had a chance to watch psychedelic, universe-spanning science fiction with 2001: A Space Odyssey and adventure science fiction with Planet of the Apes and buxom science fiction with Barbarella. And now we have down-to-earth, humanistic – and surreal – science fiction with the new film Charly.
Cliff Robertson stars in the new film version of the already-classic Daniel Keyes novel, which Victoria Lucas gave five stars to back in ’66. And while this film isn’t nearly as good as the novel, Charly still is a clever movie, somehow both a real change-of-pace and a film very much of its moment.
(If you’re confused by that contradiction, dear reader, stick around and I’ll explain myself to you.)
As we come to know him, Charlie Gordon (as the book names him; the movie calls our lead character Charly) is a man with the mind of a small child. He’s mentally impaired, with a low IQ, a childlike take on the world, and a temper to match his frustrations. When Charly is offered the opportunity to become the subject of an experiment to give him super-intelligence, he jumps at the chance. But Charly soon discovers how brilliance and happiness don’t always go hand in hand, and his new intelligence just makes him feel deep angst.
Victoria loved the book for its unique epistemological structure and the way writer Keyes gives the reader deeper insights into Charly’s perceptions of the events which happen to him. That subjective nature gave the book a certain amount of pathos which makes the novel embed itself into readers' minds.
Of course, no film can simulate the effect of a series of journal entries, so we are forced to get by with the events which play out on the screen.
Robertson in this film feels like Fredric March starring in a kind of odd version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. In this case dumb Charly is a kind of monstrous identity. Not because of his low IQ, but more because dumb Charly acts weirdly. He feels like someone we don’t quite comprehend because he’s so different from most of us.
Robertson method-acts and method-acts all throughout this film, seeming to inhabit Charly’s body and mind. When he has a low IQ, he seems twitchy and odd, a man distorted and damaged by his impairment. It’s a grand, actorly performance, a transformation on the screen, but somehow I just never connected to Charly's humanity. It feels a bit much. For instance, Charly acts kind of jolly when his coworkers at a bakery play a nasty prank on him, and Charly's penmanship feels a bit like gilding the rose on his disabilities.
The prank-playing bakery coworkers
There are some quite moving scenes, though. One which really stands out happens when Charly attends a class with other severely disabled people. He's the only adult in a room full of children with Down's Syndrome and other disorders. The kids are filmed realistically and respectfully while Charly comes across as a real freak. This wonderful sequence gives the character some real pathos, an undercurrent of sadness which helps to explain his transformation.
Charly playing with kids
Robertson delivers the kind of performance which feels like it’s specifically planned to garner its actor an Oscar nomination. There’s nothing really wrong with aiming for a precious golden statuette, but his performance does seem a bit calculated somehow. I felt like Robertson seemed too smart for the dumb Charly, planned out rather than spontaneous, considered rather than active in his scenes.
The best parts of this film are when Charly is transitioning to becoming smart. He hides out from people, seems to be really beginning to think through his experience, and we can actually see signs of emerging intelligence in these scenes.
As you might imagine, this sequence is where Robertson's calculated performance shines. Here we see the intelligence at work and feel we are watching a real person as Charly figures out how to live in his new experiences.
And then the movie takes a decided turn for the weird when Charly actually does become smart. At first he seems happy to be able to both lead seminars and be the lead subject them. His newfound genius brings intellectual intelligence but not emotional maturity nor insights into the world around him. Charly learns he may have actually been happier when he was innocent about everything which happened around him.
Charly begins to become paranoid, and his paranoia plays out in a series of increasing surreal sequences in which he imagines himself leading a motorcycle gang, endlessly professing love for his psychologist Alice (well played by Claire Bloom), and some oddly brilliant split-screen effects.
Charly even includes an undercurrent of paranoia in Charly's actions, as if he's being watched as part of a government conspiracy. Of course, he may actually be surveilled but we only see the paranoia from Charly's viewpoint, never from an objective viewpoint which might actually provide context for Charly's actions.
We even get a double-exposure shot in which director Ralph Nelson shows Charly running away from his old self, a very over-the-top bit which unfortunately made me laugh. This surrealism is just a bit too much for the narrative structure Nelson has set up in the first half and the movie threatens at times to teeter and fall under the weight of his ambitions.
I do have to mention the excellent soundtrack by Ravi Shankar. The music in this film feels both exotic and comfortable, a fascinating mix of west and east which helps to elevate this film, and certainly gives the soundtrack a very contemporary feel.
Charly is a fairly conventional film in its first half and a determinedly surreal film in its second half. Nelson seems up to the task in the first half but pretty much falls on his face in the second. It's somewhat worth watching for Cliff Robertson's interesting performance. I think his performance will be discussed come Oscar season. And though I only kind of liked this movie, it would be fun to see an Oscar won by a lead actor in a science fiction movie.
Not all movies show up in theaters. Movies made for television began a few years ago, at least here in the USA, with a thriller called See How They Run. There have been quite a few since then.
A similar phenomenon is the fact that theatrical movies are frequently altered for television. Of course, films are often cut for broadcast, either to reduce the running time or to remove material deemed inappropriate for the tender sensibilities of American viewers.
But did you know that new footage is sometimes added to movies before they show up on TV? That's because they're too short to fill up the time slot allotted to them.
An example is Roger Corman's cheap little monster movie The Wasp Woman. In theaters, it ran just over an hour. On television, new scenes increased the length by about ten minutes.
Wasting time in front of the TV screen recently, I came across such an elongated theatrical film, as well as one made for television only. Let's take a look at both.
This thing began life in 1963 under the a much less laughable title.
Anybody who went to see this movie pushed the panic button.
The Madmen of Mandoras (somehow they lost the word The on the poster) was a low budget flick that lasted about an hour (although it probably seemed a lot longer than that if you were stuck watching it.)
Dramatic lettering, dramatic clouds.
New stuff was added to the beginning of the film to make it long enough to show up on TV. Unlike The Wasp Woman, they gave it a new title.
Apparently, the American television audience needs everything spelled out for them.
That gives away the movie's only plot twist, but at least it's truth in advertising.
Let's get the new stuff out of the way. We begin with a scientist carrying some important papers out of a lab.
Secure scientific facility or local high school?
The guy is almost immediately killed when his car blows up.
Exploding car number one.
The fellow was carrying the formula for an antidote to a deadly gas. Somebody doesn't want that information to get out.
Big news!
This event draws the attention of some kind of intelligence agency. The boss (who turns out to be working with the bad guys, although that doesn't really have much to do with the plot) assigns a couple of operatives to investigate the incident.
Secret agents or college students?
The man's long hair and mustache and the woman's short skirt provide evidence that we're not in 1963. Don't get too attached to these characters, because pretty soon the woman is shot dead and the man is killed another way.
Exploding car number two.
At this point, we go back to the original movie. After demonstrating the deadly power of the gas by showing a film of an elephant lying down, the scientist who knows the antidote for the stuff and his young beatnik daughter are kidnapped.
It's quite obviously just taking a nap.
Our nominal hero is the husband of the scientist's older daughter. Some guy reveals enough information to the married couple to send them off to the fictional Latin American nation of Mandoras (you know, the place where they have madmen) before getting shot dead. The protagonists deal with the problem of his corpse by stuffing it in a phone booth.
"When in Mandoras, stay at the luxurious Mandoras Hotel."
Another guy shows up and provides exposition. It seems that a team of Nazi doctors worked to preserve the Führer for future use at the end of the war. (In other words, They Saved Hitler's Brain.)
"We must save Charlie Chaplin's life!"
The two lovebirds act like ordinary tourists despite this remarkable bit of information. They happen to run across the younger daughter in a local nightclub. The kidnappers gave her some money and told her to have a good time, as long as she didn't contact anybody at home. She seems perfectly fine with this arrangement, despite the fact that her father is still in the hands of the bad guys.
Little sister doing the Twist, proof that we're in 1963.
Since we're in a nightclub, we have to kill time with a dance act. After all, we have a whole hour of movie to fill.
A little something for the leg men in the audience.
Somehow or other our heroes wind up in the secret headquarters of the Madmen of Mandoras. Dad is being tortured with bright lights and loud noises in an attempt to get him to reveal the secret of the antidote. Like a lot of other things in the film, this doesn't make much sense, since the bad guys just want to stop the antidote from being used.
"Let me out of this movie! I can't stand it any more!"
Then we get our big shock scene, which might have been surprising if the title didn't give it away.
As an example of the film's close attention to detail, note that the swastika is backwards.
Director Larry Buchanan made some very cheap films during the past few years. Starting last year, he's been responsible for extremely low budget color remakes — uncredited, of course — of old black-and-white science fiction and horror films. These are intended to be sold directly to television. Zontar, the Thing From Venus, for example, is obviously based on Roger Corman's 1956 flick It Conquered the World.
His latest effort in this vein is, in my opinion, very loosely inspired by the beach moviePajama Party (which doesn't actually take place on the beach, but you know what I mean.)
Don't believe me? I don't blame you, but I'll provide some evidence in a bit. Let's get started.
Even the titles are cheap.
We start with a few scenes of women suddenly disappearing, whether they're playing tennis, at a restaurant, or taking a shower. Don't pay any attention to this, as it never comes up again.
The plot really starts at a government facility.
Does NASA really need a lot of decoding?
They get a message from outer space that says — you guessed it — Mars Need Women. Thanks for reminding me what movie I'm watching!
A Martian appears from nowhere, without even the shimmering effect seen on Star Trek. His name is Dop, and he's played by Tommy Kirk, star of some Disney movies. He also played a Martian named Go Go in — a-ha! — Pajama Party. Coincidence? I think not.
"Make fun of my name and I'll disintegrate you."
Dop explains that some kind of problem with the Martian Y chromosome has resulted in men outnumbering women by one hundred to one. (That's a lot worse than Five to Twelve.)
The Martians would like to have five Earth women volunteer to journey to the red planet to solve the problem. (I'm not a geneticist or a mathematician, but that seems like an awfully small number to repopulate a whole planet.)
No dice, so we get some scenes of military types communicating on the radio.
This speaker gets so much screen time it's practically a guest star.
There's also a bunch of stock footage of planes flying around.
"I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth . . ."
This accomplishes nothing. The Martians decide to land on Earth and grab five women themselves. (Like I said, forget about their ability to just make women vanish.)
The Martian spaceship, not to be confused with the Enterprise.
Five Martians hide out in an abandoned ice factory and make plans.
"We will conquer these puny Earthlings with the advanced technology of flashlights and headphones."
First they have to disguise themselves as Earthlings. This requires some criminal activity. A gas station supplies cash and a map of the city. (I would have thought the Martians would be advanced enough to find their way around, but I guess not.)
"I sure hope this place has a men's room."
Next is borrowing a car. So much for using their power of teleportation for getting from point A to point B.
"Oh, cool, it's got AM/FM radio."
Then they need some clothes. This leads to a scene in which they reveal that Martians gave up wearing ties fifty years ago.
"Would this be too dressy for a kidnapping?"
Dop and one of his buddies spot an announcement for a lecture by a brilliant scientist. We're told that her book Space Genetics won a Pulitzer Prize.
A lecture on sex in space? Must be a science fiction convention.
Doctor Marjorie Bolen is played by Yvonne Craig, best known for playing Batgirl on the popular Batman TV show. So the audience can tell she's a genius, she sometimes wears spectacles.
"Why Doctor Bolen, you're beautiful without your glasses!"
Pretty soon Dop and Bolen (sounds like a law firm) are on a date at a local planetarium. Guess what's on display.
Irony!
Meanwhile, the other Martians stalk their intended targets. The first is an exotic dancer.
A guy far away from home? Of course he goes to a strip club!
Next is an airline stewardess.
"Coffee, tea, or me?" (Yeah, I stole that from the title of a recent book. Sue me.)
Third is a homecoming queen.
"Two, Four, Six, Eight, Who Will We Repopulate?"
Last is a painter. That doesn't quite fit with the other three, who are typical male fantasies of desirable women, but I guess they needed some variety.
"I call this one Portrait of the Artist as an Impending Victim of Abduction."
Naturally, the disappearances are big news.
"Oh, look what's showing on TV tonight."
The authorities seem powerless to stop them.
"Martians, Shmartians, let's see what Little Orphan Annie is up to."
Suffice to say that romance blooms between Dop and Bolen, even though we're told Martians gave up love long before they gave up ties. The kidnapped women are rescued and the Martians go home, apparently to face the extinction of their species.
"Let's see, Mrs. Marjorie Dop. Nah, it would never work."
A very silly film indeed.
One star.
Surely there's something better on television than these two losers.
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
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.
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
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.
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'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.
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.
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.
![[April 22, 1969] Corpse or Cocoon? – (the Monkees movie <i>Head</i>)](https://i0.wp.com/galacticjourney.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/690422headtitle.jpg?resize=672%2C372&ssl=1)
![[February 4, 1969] Potts, Caractacus Potts: Chitty Chitty Bang Bang](https://i0.wp.com/galacticjourney.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Chittychittybangbangposter.jpg?resize=258%2C372&ssl=1)
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang takes flight
The Baron and Baroness profess their love for each other
![[January 12, 1969] Taking French Leave: Playtime (a movie) and The Green Slime (a flick)](https://i0.wp.com/galacticjourney.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/690112movies.jpg?resize=672%2C328&ssl=1)
The car carousel makes Paris playful again
![[December 18, 1968] Sex, Drugs and Boris Karloff: Curse of the Crimson Altar](https://i0.wp.com/galacticjourney.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Curse_of_the_crimson_altar_poster.jpg?resize=320%2C240&ssl=1)
Another tedious sex party, ho hum.
![[December 14, 1968] The Emperor's New Nehru](https://i0.wp.com/galacticjourney.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Cardin.jpg?resize=600%2C372&ssl=1)
![[October 16, 1968] Cinemascope: <i>Barbarella</i>, <i>Ice Station Zebra</i>, and <i>Night of the Living Dead</i>](https://i0.wp.com/galacticjourney.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/681016movies.jpg?resize=672%2C372&ssl=1)
![[September 28, 1968] Intelligence Ain't All It's Cracked Up to Be: <i>Charly</i>](https://i0.wp.com/galacticjourney.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/charly1.jpg?resize=672%2C372&ssl=1)
![[August 30, 1968] TV or Not TV, That is The Question (<i>They Saved Hitler's Brain</i> and <i>Mars Needs Women</i>)](https://i0.wp.com/galacticjourney.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Untitled-2.jpg?resize=672%2C372&ssl=1)
![[August 22, 1968] Vive de Gaul– Asterix the Gaul Movie](https://i0.wp.com/galacticjourney.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/H0472-L230456154.jpeg?resize=672%2C372&ssl=1)
![[August 18, 1968] The Horror is Real (<i>Targets</i>)](https://i0.wp.com/galacticjourney.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/680818targets.jpg?resize=500%2C372&ssl=1)
