Tag Archives: movies

Movies, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[June 14, 1970] Talkin' Loud, Swingin' Soft (June 1970 Watermelon Man, The Landlord, and Cotton Comes to Harlem)

Leave a comment

Black and white photograph of a besuited and clean-shaven young Vietnamese man with dark, shoulder-length hair wearing glasses looking at something below the camera and grinning
by Tam Phan (Secret Asian Man)

There’s a volcano that’s ready to erupt on the silver screens, so prepare yourselves for a blast of truth, fury, and funk that has no patience for politeness. These three films, Watermelon Man, The Landlord, and Cotton Comes to Harlem, take a swing at the beast that is American racism as they stumble in their own strange ways trying to wrap their arms around it. These films attempt to not let their audiences off easy as they slap them across the face, daring white America to feel what it’s like to be on the wrong end of the stick. Whether you’re a white boy having your spiritual awakening in a Black neighborhood or a white man literally waking up Black, these films don’t just entertain. They challenge and provoke you with some honesty and a loud Black voice that is no longer asking to be heard.

Watermelon Man: A Punch That Lands… Mostly

Movie poster for with Watermelon Man, depicting a painting of a wedge of watermelon, stylized in palette to suggest the American flag, with a header reading'The Uppity Movie'

Sometimes a movie comes along that doesn’t ask for permission. It just barges in the front door and stares you in the face until you have no choice but to confront it. Watermelon Man is that kind of movie. Melvin Van Peebles throws a grenade into the laps of polite white America, and even when it is a bit of a dud, there is no denying that someone threw it. I was not sure if I was supposed to laugh, cry, or throw my slippers at the screen. Maybe all three. This movie does have guts, but it could have been better executed.

Jeff Gerber (played by Godfrey Cambridge, wearing whiteface so thick he looks like a walking toothpaste ad), a smug, self-satisfied, loud racist that thinks himself a “good guy”, wakes up one morning to find himself Black with no warning or explanation. The world predictably turns on him and suddenly all that privilege he wore like a second skin gets ripped clean off. He is left with the nightmare he has spent his entire life thinking only happens to other people. Insert a crash course in American racism here, delivered with the subtlety of a sledgehammer, but for some reason it works. It almost feels natural. The other shoe has dropped, and Van Peebles delivers without wasting any time easing you into anything.

Movie still of Jeff sitting at a busy and coffee-cup-strewn desk smiling and speaking on the telephone, cigarillo in hand
White before the fall.

Jeff’s life falls apart in a matter of days. He has a meltdown, his wife recoils from him, he is stopped on the streets by would-be citizens and the police, and his neighbors plot against him. It is brutal to watch. If I was supposed to laugh, it was not clear what I should be laughing at. His attempts to “whiten” himself using creams and spiritual solutions reminds me that for those of us not born with the golden ticket of whiteness – men like me, a Vietnamese immigrant who has seen the slant of every dirty look and been cowed by the title of being the “model minority” – this movie hits a nerve that is still raw. It is ultimately unsatisfying to see this happen to a white man because this is happening to a Black man and by proxy, all men who are not white.

Movie still showing Jeff seated with a drop-cloth draped over his shoulders and thick white paste slathered covering his head to the point of anonymity, sipping from a milk carton with a straw
White away your fears.

Watermelon Man is not perfect. It walks a strange line between cartoon and cautionary tale. Half of the time, it is all slapstick and Three Stooges, but when the ugliness shows up – the broken marriage and neighbors chasing him out – the movie whiffs on the gut punch. The movie wants to have it both ways and it is only funny if you’re meant to laugh at the clown without feeling sorry for him at the same time. Jeff’s resignation to his circumstances at the end is purely survival. He is not noble. He is not redeemed. He simply has no choice. There is nothing funny about that.

Peebles is angry, without a doubt. I can respect that. We need more Black men behind the camera screaming at America’s cruelties. I can understand the need to soften the blow with a bit of comedy, but this movie pulls its punches. Why are we quickly made to feel sympathy for a man who, just days before, would have gone out of his way to avoid shaking my hand? I suppose that I feel sorry for him because I understand him, but I wonder how it lands for those that do not. That is what concerns me. Maybe Watermelon Man intends to shock white folks awake without scaring them too much, but in doing so, it sells short the very fury it is supposed to be about.

I walked out of Watermelon Man with a mix of satisfaction and frustration. Satisfaction because it speaks a truth that a lot of folks would rather ignore. Frustration because part of me wanted it to cut deeper. Despite that, I appreciate this film. Van Peebles delivers a movie that nobody else in Hollywood would dare to make. In a time when the safe move is to stay quiet, Watermelon Man attempts to hit you with the truth. I just wish it was a truth that cut like a knife rather than a rubber chicken.

Picture of a young Black man with wearing a suit, ducking slightly and angled to the right, looking at the camera playfully, posed as though preparing to throw a punch with his right hand
What if we didn't pull our punches?

This movie needed to be made, and I am glad that it exists. It starts the conversation about an underlying condition in America that has been left undiagnosed for far too long. If this is where it begins, I can not fault it for being cautious. Despite being critical of this movie I think it is worth seeing if for no other reason than to see how easily skin color becomes a prison here in America.

3 out of 5 stars.

The Landlord: White Boy Woke Up

Movie poster for 'The Landlord', showing a close-up of a finger about to press the button for a doorbell, with the caption 'Watch the landlord get his'

It takes a certain kind of person to wake up one day and decide he wants to be deep. Not just rich or clever or free. He wants to be conscious. So, he runs away from home and thinks maybe if he tries hard enough, then he will be a better person. I watched The Landlord not expecting much, but it managed to get stuck in my mind long after it ended. It’s strange how a film from a country not your own can be an uncanny mirror. I, too, ran away from my home because I wanted to make a better life for myself. Of course, it was to escape a war-torn nation, but the feelings are the same. Stepping cluelessly into an unfamiliar culture should not be taken lightly.

Hal Ashby’s directorial debut is humorous, painful, and all too real. The film follows a rich white man named Elgar Enders (played by Beau Bridges) who buys an apartment block in a poor Black neighborhood in Brooklyn. He wants to renovate it, make it fancy for himself, and push out the tenants, but what he finds is they are proud, angry, funny, and most importantly, human. Of course, the tenants do not leave. This is where the real movie starts.

Movie still in which a clean-cut Elgar Enders, looking somewhat awkward but attempting to put on a social face, is caught in the act of introducing himself to a Black man and woman who flank him in the hallway
You don't see this every day.

Honestly, I didn’t hate Elgar. Is he clueless? Yes. Is he a tourist in the struggles of his tenants? Absolutely. But as the movie goes on, he does something that I have never seen a white character do in a story like this. He listens. He also sleeps with a Black tenant and knocks her up, but to his credit, he sticks around. This isn’t revolutionary, but it deserves some recognition. He has his human moments and that is what makes this movie feel real.

The beauty of this film is that it walks a tricky line, wanting to criticize Elgar and the entire rotten system that created him, but also to cheer his awakening. Sometimes it feels like watching a rich man go on a spiritual safari through Black suffering just to find himself, but we are quickly reminded that even white people get exiled when they go too far. He returns to his rich family and merely expresses empathy for his tenants and is met with cold disapproval and outright horror. No one is safe from being rejected. Not even family.

Close-up still of Elgar wearing an African printed top with a concerned and pensive look on his face with what appears to be a group of protesters carrying an American flag in the unfocused background
Dressed for a spiritual safari

It really hits home seeing the way Black and white America orbit each other in this movie. They are close enough to clash, yet never close enough to connect. As an immigrant, I recognize that tension. I have lived in those in-between spaces where I am too foreign for one side and invisible to the other. Lanie (played by the beautiful Marki Bey), the woman that Elgar falls in love with, is an attempt to bridge that gap. She is mixed race and light skinned enough to pass as white. Though their story is complicated and does not end in the usual romantic way, it feels honest. It doesn't pretend by forcing everyone to hold hands and sing at the end. It’s not entirely clear how this relationship moves forward, but I think that is also true of the relationship between Black and white America.

Picture of a Lanie smiling and in conversation, shot from over Elgar's shoulder
"You think I'm white don't you?"

The Landlord is not perfect. It tries to be funny and serious at the same time, and sometimes it stumbles. What is important is that it tries. It looks at race and class without pretending to have answers. It shows how people get hurt even when no one means to cause harm. It does not preach. It shows. It lets you feel. For me, that’s the best kind of art.

I walked away thinking this movie matters. Not because it solves anything, but because it refuses to look away. It points the camera at something that most people would rather turn a blind eye to or forget; that race and class in America are not just about violence and protests. They are about property, who owns it, who lives in it, and who gets thrown out. For all its flaws, The Landlord tries to have that conversation with humor and messiness. I think about my own future when I watch this movie. Maybe one day I will have a place here too. We all deserve to belong where we are.

4 out of 5 stars

Cotton Comes to Harlem: A Joke Without a Punchline

Movie poster for Cotton Comes to Harlem, featuring a stylized collage of drawing featuring scantily clad Black women and a pair of Black men with guns clustered around a golden automobile, with the silhouette of a bridge and cityscape in the background, with the caption 'Introducing Coffin Ed and Gravedigger, two detectives only a mother could love'

What was Cotton Comes to Harlem trying to do? All I got from it was confusion, noise, and a movie that couldn’t decide what it wanted to be. It was supposed to be a comedy. Maybe even a smart one. But the longer I watched, the more I felt like I was waiting for a punchline that never came.

The film follows two Harlem detectives, Gravedigger Jones (played by, again, Godfrey Cambridge) and Coffin Ed Johnson (played by Raymond St. Jacques), chasing down a bale of cotton that is hiding nearly $90,000 stolen from poor Black families by a conman preacher. Money that is scammed from the community with promises of a return to Africa. That setup could have led to something sharp and powerful: Black liberation, exploitation, identity, the hypocrisy of a hustler that uses language to empty people’s pockets. There is room here for satire, for anger, even for real laughs, but instead, the movie can’t decide what it is. Some parts play like gritty police drama. Others feel like something out of a cartoon. I kept asking myself, “is this supposed to be funny or am I missing something?”

Movie still of three well black men dressed in suits having an engaged conversation on the street
What is the narrative here? Crime featuring Black vs. Black?

Because this film plays like a buddy cop drama that got awkwardly spliced together with a Saturday morning cartoon. One minute there’s a serious conversation about exploitation; the next there’s a man dangling from a crane with his underwear showing. The music tells you it is a comedy, but the performances say otherwise. It’s hard to laugh when you don’t know if you’re supposed to.

The two main characters could have carried the film if they had more to work with. Gravedigger and Coffin Ed are supposed to be cool, no-nonsense detectives, but we barely learn anything about them beyond their toughness. I had to check the credits just to get their names. There is no emotional core here—just scattered scenes of fighting, chasing, and incomplete jokes.

I found myself trying to locate punchlines. To understand what was being critiqued and how, and what really frustrates me is how often the movie hints at something deeper. A scam built on the backs of Black hope? That could have been a powerful blow, but every time the movie touches something real, it pulls back and throws in a silly gag…that scarcely draws a chuckle. It’s as if it’s afraid to say anything poignant.

Picture of a quartet of Black men standing at alert and looking to their left, all wearing outfits suggestive of military uniforms
I don't think even they know what's going on here?

As an immigrant, I’ve seen how people get taken advantage of by slick talkers promising a better life. I understand how easy it is to be conned by flowery language and a plausible grift. It’s not so easy to say no to someone being polite when your culture raises you to respect your elders and authority. I recognize the hunger for dignity and how easy it is for someone to sell you a dream that turns into dust. I wanted this film to get to that. To deliver on that point. For someone to feel that. But it sends no clear message and as a result, it makes no point.

Movie still of a middle-aged black woman wearing a hat with lace & flowers looking dubiously on at whatever is taking place
You can't pull a fast one on me.

I’m not against mixing comedy and social commentary, but Cotton Comes to Harlem doesn’t mix them. It smashes them together and hopes something comes of it. For me, it didn’t work.  A good idea buried under a movie that never figures out how to tell the story… or the joke, I walked away more confused than entertained.

1 out of 5 stars.

In the end, Watermelon Man, The Landlord, and Cotton Comes to Harlem create a narrative around the same wound, one that digs into how race, power, and belonging shape life in America. Each of these films carve their own path because we need more diverse voices. Watermelon Man kicks and screams and demands to be heard, The Landlord softly asks questions using a white face in Black surroundings, and Cotton Comes to Harlem cracks jokes and hopes that the message lands somewhere amidst the laughter. They don't all succeed, but they do share the same desire to expose America to the absurdity and cruelty of American racism. Whether the message is delivered by satire, sincerity, or stumble, each film shares with us the same message: this story ain't over, and even if it sometimes tries to make you laugh, it sure as hell ain't funny.

[New to the Journey? Read this for a brief introduction!]


Follow on BlueSky

No comments Leave A Comment
Movies

[June 8, 1970] Beneath the Planet of the… Mutants? (Not Apes)

Leave a comment

BW photo of Jason Sacks. He's a white man, with short light hair, rectangular glasses, and headphones.
by Jason Sacks

Before you start reading this essay, let me warn you: I will be discussing major plot details from the latest Hollywood blockbuster, Beneath the Planet of the Apes. This will include the movie’s conclusion. For that matter, this article also ruins the ending of the original film. So be warned in case you haven't yet been to your local multiplex to see these in double-feature. On the other hand, you may well wish to go in with your eyes wide open… because Beneath the Planet of the Apes is both a fascinating continuation and a jaw-dropping pivot.

A color movie poster for Beneath the Planet of the Apes.  At the top in an orange block font is written, The bizarre world you met in Planet of the Apes was only the beginning.. What lies beneath may be the end! In the center are three images.  On the left, a military group of apes are in formation facing left, brandishing weapons and a pink and black striped flag.  They stand in front of a ruined building with obscured writing across the top, mostly buried in sand. At the center, the title Beneath the Planet of the Apes is written in yellow block capitals against a black rectangle. the left leg of the N in Beneath descends into an arrow pointing downward.  Beneath the title a circle is superimposed over the rectangle, in which there is an image of a man and woman wearing skimpy primitive clothing.  They appear to be stepping through the door of a building.  On the right, black text reads An army of civilized apes... A fortress of radiation-crazed super humans... Earth's final battle is about to begin -- Beneath the atomic rubble of what was once the city of New York! Beneath the text is a smaller picture of apes in military formation, perhaps an extension of the first picture but further away.

Continue reading [June 8, 1970] Beneath the Planet of the… Mutants? (Not Apes) →

No comments Leave A Comment
Movies, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[June 6, 1970] Children's Crusade: If…. (the movie, not the magazine)

2 Comments

a slim white woman with glasses and long blonde hair. She is wearing a blue shirt with a green velvet vest
by Fiona Moore

If…. is a movie which came out a couple of years ago, but is rapidly becoming a staple of the college film society scene here in the UK and overseas. It’s firmly within the satirical-surrealist tradition that characterises the likes of The Prisoner (with whom If… shares an editor, South African activist Ian Rakoff), Monty Python, and The Bed Sitting Room. The question is, how well does that stand up as time and cinematic fashion move on?

Poster for If....

The story is set at a British all-male boarding school, where young men from the privileged classes learn the rigid, brutal, complex hierarchies and rules which will characterise their adult lives as well. Through the lens of a new arrival, we encounter a world where senior prefects enforce a rigid regime, obsessed with trivialities like hair length and permitted foods but enforcing this through corporal punishment; where younger students are forced to act as servants to their elders, with an implied sexual dimension to this servitude; where religion and the military bolster and reinforce the regime. However, the school also has its rebellious counterculture in the form of three young men, the “Crusaders”, led by Travis (played by newcomer Malcolm McDowell, whose performance here has reportedly led to Stanley Kubrick casting him in his forthcoming adaptation of A Clockwork Orange). their rebellion begins with minor acts of disobedience like growing a moustache, but grows in commitment and brutality until the climax of the story.

Continue reading [June 6, 1970] Children's Crusade: If…. (the movie, not the magazine) →

2 Comments Leave A Comment
Movies, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[March 26, 1970] A Quartet of Whimsy (Satyricon, Skullduggery, Horton Hears a Who, Necropolis)

5 Comments

A young white man with short hair wearing a navy P-coat, blue polo collar, and green t-shirt.
by Brian Collins

"Rome. Before Christ. After Fellini."

Federico Fellini is unquestionably one of the most beloved filmmakers in the so-called international arthouse circuit. Despite shooting Italian productions, working well outside the Hollywood system, Fellini has already garnered a back-breaking eight Oscar nominations. I won't be surprised if his latest, Fellini Satyricon (which henceforth I'll simply refer to as Satyricon), nabs him another nomination, despite its immense strangeness. United Artists, responsible for distributing Satyricon here in the States, have been shrewd in their marketing, seemingly aiming at the overlap between those who frequent arthouse theaters (people like me) and those who watch B-movies at the drive-in (also people like me).

Fellini Satyricon

Photograph of the title of the movie - Fellini Satyricon, crediting it as freely adapted from the novel by Petronio Arbitro

Normally, when writing about a film, or really any narrative, I try to give you a blow-by-blow of the plot; however, in the case of Satyricon, I don't think this would be feasible or desirable. This film is the latest effort from Fellini as both a fantasist and a storyteller who, at least since La Dolce Vita a decade ago, has clearly become disillusioned with traditional narrative. Satyricon is so loose in plot and yet so rich in imagery that to go over the plot would be doing it a disservice. I can at least give you the setup, though.

Continue reading [March 26, 1970] A Quartet of Whimsy (Satyricon, Skullduggery, Horton Hears a Who, Necropolis) →

5 Comments Leave A Comment
Movies, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Uncategorized

[February 6, 1970] All We Are Saying Is Give The Peace Game A Chance (The Peace Game, AKA The Gladiators)

Leave a comment

A black-and-white author's photo of a young white person with light hair.  They are wearing a striped scarf around their neck and smiling enigmatically at the camera.
By Mx Kris Vyas-Myall

When reading my morning paper, it can feel like the whole world is determined to blow itself up.

A black-and-white photograph of a field in Vietnam.  A helicopter is either landing or taking off, its rotor blurred and its body tilted upward.  A group of 7-10 soldiers in camouflage uniforms and helmets are moving toward the right, not quite in single file.  They have backpacks on and carry rifles in one hand, not in firing position.

Vietnamese peace talks are going nowhere, with American “help” possibly reaching its nadir when a US helicopter killed friendly South Vietnamese forces by mistake. Israel is once again fighting its Arab neighbours with both Communists and Capitalist countries pouring in military aid to their favoured sides. There is not even goodwill within their respective camps, with the Soviets and Communist China continuing to sabre rattle over the border. And this doesn’t even count the civil wars going on in places like Rhodesia.

A color photograph of a street in Northern Ireland.  Brick buildings with arched doorways are in the background.  A line of soldiers in camouflage uniforms and red berets stand facing toward the left behind a stretched-out roll of barbed wire.  The soldiers are carrying batons and some are carrying heavier helmets.

Closer to home, British troops in Northern Ireland’s attempts to keep the peace so far seem to be counter-productive. Whilst we are also learning more of the atrocities committed by British troops during the so-called “Malayan Emergency” from the official enquiry.

With all this violence going on, it makes you wonder if there could be another way. Well Peter Watkins has come up with one, albeit not necessarily the most pleasant option:

Peace in Our Time

A black and white film poster for The War Game. Across the top the words "Academy Award Winner" in all capitals with a black and white image of an Oscar statue.  Beneath that are three positive reviews, reading: "It may be the most important film ever made." Kenneth Tynan, London Observer "An extraordinary film." The New York Times "Extraordinary. I urge you to see The War Game." The New Yorker The War Game Directed by Peter Watkins A British Broadcasting Production Presented in association with the British Film Institute A pathe contemporary films release At the bottom the movie title, The War Game, is in large all capitals with two screaming faces superimposed on each other but slightly offset, such that there are three eyes and two mouths. Behind the heads is a white mushroom cloud.

Continue reading [February 6, 1970] All We Are Saying Is Give The Peace Game A Chance (The Peace Game, AKA The Gladiators) →

No comments Leave A Comment
Horror, Movies, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[January 28, 1970] Cinemascope: Just a Poe Boy (An Evening of Edgar Allan Poe, The Moebius Flip, Sole Survivor, and The Dunwich Horror)

2 Comments

An author's headshot of a white woman with blonde pigtails.  She is wearing black glasses, a pale blue button-down shirt, a dark green vest, and a pendant on a chain necklace.
by Fiona Moore

An Evening of Edgar Allan Poe

An evening of Edgar Allan Poe is written across the top of the poster in yellow capitals on a black background.  The initial A and the word 'Poe' are written in a fancier, medieval-looking font.  The A and the P are superimposed over red squares.  The O in Poe has a drawing of a skull in it. Beneath the title, a color photograph of Vincent Price looking at the camera, cut off at the forehead where it intersects the title . A clock's hands are floating in front of his face.  The Roman numeral XII is projected across his forehead.  In the background there is the ghostly silhouette of what might either be a castle or some pine trees.Theatrical poster for An Evening of Edgar Allan Poe

An Evening of Edgar Allan Poe is an hour-long film in which four Edgar Allan Poe stories are recited by Vincent Price. Originally made as a television play (and in a way which suggests it was based on a theatrical production, albeit with the addition of some new visual effects), it’s reminiscent of the BBC’s A Ghost Story For Christmas segment, and I was recently asked to view it as a possible acquisition as a teaching tool by my university’s English Literature department.

A color film still of Vincent Price, wearing a white bow tie and black tails,and made up to look older with white hair and beard.  He is seated at a high-class dining table with a white tablecloth.  The room is dim and only the table and Price are clearly visible.  In front of Price there are a variety of bowls and dishes stacked up, and past them at the front of the frame is a fruit basket with grapes and bananas visible.  Two candelabra with three candles each sit one on either side of the fruit basket. Price appears to be gesticulating while speaking.
The Cask of Amontillado

The programme is split into four segments, in each of which Price recites a different Poe short story. Fairly predictably, these are “The Tell-Tale Heart”, “The Sphinx”, “The Cask of Amontillado” and “The Pit and the Pendulum”. Each segment is performed with Price in character as the narrator of each story, with appropriate costuming and sets. Although Price does show a decent range in playing different characters, they’re all very much within Price’s repertoire as an actor, so, although none of the performances are bad, there are no real surprises to be had here.

A film still of Vincent Price, this time with dark fluffy hair and a van dyke beard. He is wearing a brown sport jacket over a brown plaid waistcoat with matching brown plaid trousers and necktie. He is sitting in a brown leather wingback armchair with his hands gripping the ends of the chair arms, looking at the viewer.  The chair sits in front of a round side table with glassware on it.  In the background is a pair of diamond lattice windows, of which three diamonds have colored glass instead of clear.The Sphinx

I felt the best segment was “The Cask of Amontillado”. Price really seems to relish the role of Montressor and plays him with a wicked twinkle in his eye, surrounded by luxurious draperies and furniture and a banquet-table of food. The weakest for me was “The Sphinx,” which struggled to hold my attention, though it did have an effective use of special effects when we briefly see a skull overlaid over Price’s face at a crucial moment.

A blurry film still of Vincent Price sitting on a bench at the bottom of the pit, looking up at the viewer.  There is a large support column behind him and straw covering the floor. A blurry line that may be the pendulum is to the right of the frame, as though it had just swung past Price's face.The Pit and the Pendulum

By contrast, “The Pit and the Pendulum” was a good enough dramatization of an exciting story, but the problem was that the producer seemed to feel it needed jazzing up with effects shots of Price falling into the pit, Price helpless before the pendulum, Price faced with colour separation overlay ("chroma-key" to yanks) flames, and so forth. The rats were far too cute, with inquisitive little faces and glossy fur, for me to find them horrific.

Finally, “The Tell-Tale Heart” was a good choice as the opening story, told simply with the set a bare garret, with Price steadily ramping up the hysteria as the narrator follows his path into murder and madness.

A color film still of a sparsely furnished 19th century room.  A chair and threadbare carpet are in the foreground, a basin and towel on a stand in front of a window to the left, and a bed or table with rumpled white fabric on it to the right. Vincent Price stands facing the carpet, looking down at it.  He is wearing a white shirt with black waistcoat and black trousers.  His hands are stretched out toward the carpet as if spasming or gesticulating.The Tell-Tale Heart

One great benefit I can see from this production is a chance to show audiences who may just know Poe from the cinematic productions loosely based on his work, just how skilled a horror writer Poe was in real life. The issue with something like “The Pit and the Pendulum” is that one can’t really get an entire 90-minute film out of it without adding a lot of material, which, while it can work as a movie, means you lose the terrifying economy of the original story (although if anyone wants to adapt “The Cask of Amontillado”, I think one could spend at least 90 minutes exploring the buildup of resentment in the two characters’ relationships that led up to the final murder). For this reason, I’m recommending that the English Literature department acquires a copy, and would also say that, if it turns up on TV in your region, it’s worth a watch.

3 out of 5 stars.

A black-and-white headshot of a white woman with dark hair, dramatically arched eyebrows, and dark lipstick. She is looking at the camera with an unreadable expression.
by Victoria Silverwolf

There's A Signpost Up Ahead . . .

Two films I caught recently reminded me of Rod Serling's late, lamented television series Twilight Zone.  Let's take a look.

The Moebius Flip

The title card from the film

Less than half an hour long, this skiing film is the sort of thing that might be shown at a college campus, before the main feature in a movie theater, or to fill up time on television in the wee hours of the morning.  The brief running time isn't the only thing that reminds me of Serling's creation.

We begin with scenes of people skiing, edited in a jumpy way.  Jazz, rock, and folk music fill up the soundtrack.  The skiers also fool around in the snow, eat some fruit, and so forth.

Suddenly, we see a news announcer.  He tells us that scientists have determined that every subatomic particle in the universe has reversed polarity.  I'm not sure what that means, but let's see what happens.

A color film still of a white man with brown hair wearing a plaid suit and red tie sitting in front of a red background with brown acoustic tile on the right side.  He is holding a stack of papers from which he is reading into a black microphone.

Somehow, this is supposed to change the way people perceive things.  That means the film turns into a negative of itself.

A negative image of a color still.  A man in a top hat wearing a cardigan is standing in front of an orange background gesticulating at the screen.  The hat is white instead of black, the man's face green, and the cardigan a bright teal with black +s.

This goes on for a while, then the movie goes back to normal.  Once in a while, it turns back into a negative.  I guess that's a Moebius Flip.  Along with more skiing, we get folks at an amusement park and eating in a restaurant.  This part of the film features some pretty impressive and scary scenes of dangerous winter sports.  People ski over huge crevasses, wind up on top of a tower of snow, and hang from cliffs.

A color still of a person hanging from the underside of a cliff overhang. The person is supported by several ropes and a rope ladder.

Is it worth twenty-odd minutes of your time?  Well, if you like psychedelic images or are a big fan of skiing, it could be.  The science fiction premise is just an excuse to reverse the colors of the film, and there's no real plot at all.  I've never been on a pair of skis, so I can only appreciate the athleticism on display here as an outsider.

Two stars.

Sole Survivor

The title card of the movie SOLE SURVIVOR, written in black capitals with white shadows in a stencil font.  The title is superimposed over a photograph of the silhouette of a wrecked airplane against an orange sky, with the low sun just touching the top of the plane.

This is a made-for-TV movie that aired on CBS stations in the USA earlier this month.  It begins with five men in World War Two uniforms standing around a wrecked American bomber of the time.  They seem to be in pretty good shape, given that they're in a desert wasteland.  Things get weird when we find out they've been waiting to be rescued for seventeen years.

A color film still of five white men in World War II era military bomber jackets. They are standing in front of pieces of wrecked airplane.  The man on the left wears a flight helmet. The man next to him wears a baseball cap.  The third and fourth men are wearing officers' caps. All four look at the fifth man on the far right of the frame, who is facing them and appears to be speaking.
The crew of the Home Run.

It quickly becomes clear that they are ghosts, waiting for their bodies to be found so they can stop haunting the wreck. 

I should note here that the premise is inspired by the case of the Lady Be Good, a bomber that crashed in the Libyan desert in 1943 and was not discovered until 1958.

A color photograph of the wreck of the bomber 'Lady Be Good' as it lays on the sand in the Libyan desert. The back half of the plane lies at right angles to the front half, and there are several small items scattered around the main wreck.
The real wreck.

Fans of Twilight Zone will remember the episode King Nine Will Not Return, which was also inspired by the fate of the Lady Be Good.  That tale goes in a different direction, however.

Two men in an airplane discover the wreck.  (By the way, the fact that the ghosts have been waiting for seventeen years means that the movie takes place in 1960 or so.  There's no other indication that it's set a decade ago.)

Two white men sitting in the tan interior of a small plane.  The passenger wears a tan hat, a white shirt, and dark jacket, and is adjusting a camera. The driver wears sunglasses, a pink shirt, and a brown jacket.
The discoverers, who look more 1970 to me.

This leads to an official investigation by the United States Army.  (Remember that the Air Force was part of the Army, and not a separate branch of the service, until a few years after World War Two.) Two officers are in charge of the mission.

Two white men in black army dress uniforms and hats sitting in the back of a car and having a conversation. They are looking out the front of the car rather than at each other.
William Shatner, fresh from Star Trek, as Lieutenant Colonel Josef Gronke and Vince Edwards, best known as Ben Casey, as Major Michael Devlin.

They pay a visit to the sole survivor of the Home Run.  This fellow parachuted out of the plane and landed in the Mediterranean Sea, managing to make it out alive to continue his military career.  (More details of what happened later.)

A blonde white man in general's dress uniform stands in front of window with a flower-print curtain.  The man looks pensive.  The view outside the window is dark and rainy.
Brigadier General Russell Hamner, as played by Richard Basehart, recently the star of the TV series Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea.

Hamner agrees to accompany the two officers to the North African desert.  He claims that all of the crew of the Home Run bailed out into the ocean, so the plane must have continued without them for several hundred miles before it crashed.  Unlikely, but possible.  Flashbacks tell us the real story.

A white man, the top of his face obscured by his hat, sitting scrunched up in the bomber. He is wearing a communication headset and appears to be speaking urgently.
Hamner as the navigator of the Home Run during the war.

The bomber was damaged in an attack by the enemy.  The captain ordered Hamner to plot a course back to base, but he panicked and bailed out against orders.  Without a navigator, the crew went off course and the plane crashed. 

Tension builds as Devlin casts doubt on Hamner's story, and Gronke tells him not to make waves, lest he ruin his career.  Both officers have their own concerns about their pasts, adding depth of character.  Without giving too much away, let's just say that the truth comes out because of a harmonica, a rubber raft, and Hamner's guilty conscience.  There's a powerful and poignant conclusion.

A white man with brown hair and a bomber jacket (the fifth man from the second photo from this segment) holds a baseball in one hand and a baseball glove in the other.  He is standing in front of the airplane.
The last ghost faces an eternity playing baseball alone.

This is quite a good movie, particularly for one made for TV.  I like the fact that the ghosts appear as ordinary men, rather than being transparent or something.  The actors all do a good job.  You'll never hear the song Take Me Out To The Ball Game again without having an eerie feeling.

Four stars.

A white man with dark short hair and a dark van dyke beard sits on a yellow couch reading a fantasy periodical.  A window in the background shows an empty suburban street.
by Brian Collins

Over the past several years, AIP has adapted stories by H. P. Lovecraft for the big screen—or at least the drive-in. The results have been mixed, but they could certainly be much worse. The first and still the best of these was The Haunted Palace (adapted from The Case of Charles Dexter Ward) back in '63, directed by Roger Corman, with a script by the late Charles Beaumont, and starring an especially tormented Vincent Price. It was a very fine picture. Now we have the latest entry in this "series," The Dunwich Horror, taken from the Lovecraft story of the same name, although it's a pretty loose adaptation.

The Dunwich Horror

The title card from 'The Dunwich Horror.' The title is written in white capitals, and includes the quotation marks. behind the title are abstract silhouettes of trees with short, spiky branches stand against a dark blue background.

One warning I want to give about this movie, one which has nothing to do with sex or violence, is that, aside from being generally a pretty strange film, there are several scenes featuring flashing lights, or a color filter changing rapidly to give one the impression of a strobing light. Some people (thankfully not many) are susceptible to epileptic fits if subjected to such stimuli.

Now, as for the film itself, once we get past what I was surprised to find is an animated (as in a cartoon) opening credits sequence, we start with what seems to be a flashback of a woman giving birth, surrounded by two elderly sisters and an old man. We then flash forward to Miskatonic University, that college of the occult and Lovecraft's making, in Arkham. Nancy Wagner (Sandra Dee) is a student who, in the college's library, meets a good-looking but unusual young man named Wilbur Whateley (Dean Stockwell), who is terribly interested in the Necronomicon. I'm sure his interest in the accursed book and his strange deadpan way of talking are perfectly innocuous. A certain professor at Miskatonic, Henry Armitage (Ed Begley), gets a bit of a hunch that Wilbur is up to no good, but for now does nothing about it.

A color film still. A man in a black shirt, his face visible only from the mouth down because of the camera angle.  He reaches into a glass case to gently lift out a large black hardbound book with metal fittings and a lock on the pages. The label at the top of the case reads 'The 'Necronomicon' ' in white capitals. A woman in a white shirt stands behind the man, her hands raised, watching what he is doing.  Her face is visible only from the eyes down.
The Necronomicon, kept in a cozy glass case.

"The Dunwich Horror" is one of Lovecraft's most celebrated stories, but it's also one of his trickiest. As with "the Call of Cthulhu," Lovecraft wrote "The Dunwich Horror" as if it were a report or an essay, a work of journalism or academia, rather than a fiction narrative. There's no protagonist, properly speaking, although Wilbur is certainly the story's nucleus. This remains sort of the case with the film, although Nancy and Armitage now serve as our eyes and ears, or rather as normal people in what becomes an extraordinary situation. However, it's not Sandra Dee or Ed Begley who caught my attention, but Dean Stockwell as Wilbur, who gives almost what could be considered a star-making role (to my knowledge his most high-profile roles up to now were film adaptations of Sons and Lovers and Long Day's Journey into Night), if not for the movie that surrounds him. Unlike his short story counterpart Wilbur here is not physically deformed, but instead talks in a strangely deadened tone, as if human emotions are foreign to him. Stockwell as Wilbur manages to be uncanny simply through how he talks and acts, which is a major point of praise.

A color film still of a young white man with brown curly hair and a mustache and a young white woman with blonde hair.  They are staring to the left of the viewer with apprehensive looks on their faces.  The man wears a blue shirt, dark tie, and brown jacket.  The woman wears a black blouse and tan jacket.  Some dark wooden furniture is behind them, along with teal wallpaper.
Dean Stockwell as Wilbur Whateley and Sandra Dee as Nancy Wagner.

Director Daniel Haller and his team of screenwriters have opted to streamline Lovecraft's story while giving it a sort of romance plot, as well as a dose of sex and violence. Sex and Lovecraft have always been uneasy bedfellows, even in something like "The Shadow Over Innsmouth" which explicitly involves sex in its plot. Wilbur is one of two twins, the other having supposedly died in childbirth, with the father being unknown, and his mother having been kept in an asylum for the past two decades. Wilbur lives with his grandfather, Old Man Whateley (Sam Jaffe, who some may recognize as that one scientist in the now-classic The Day the Earth Stood Still), who seems convinced his grandson is also up to no good, but arbitrarily (the film does nothing to explain this) does nothing about Wilbur being a scoundrel. For his part, Wilbur sees Nancy as a pretty fine girl—for a dark ritual, that is. The idea is that if he can steal the Necronomicon and impregnate Nancy (the implication, via a mind-bending scene, is that he rapes her), he can bring one of "the Old Ones" into the human world.

Two older white men stand in front of a house with dark wooden siding and a four-paned window.  The man on the left has curly hair and a beard and wears a white shirt with blue stripes and a bugundy smoking jacket.  The man on the right wears a fedora, a black suit, and a dark gray overcoat.  They both look to the right offscreen with disturbed expressions.
Sam Jaffe as Old Man Whateley and Ed Begley as Professor Henry Armitage.

As this point the plot splits in two, with one half focusing on Wilbur and Nancy's "romance" while the other sees Armitage tracking down the mystery of Wilbur's birth, since it becomes apparent the young man and the Necronomicon are somehow connected. One of the strangest (sorry, "far-out") scenes in the whole movie is when Armitage goes to see Wilbur's mother (Joanne Moore Jordan), who apparently had lost her mind many years ago upon giving birth to Wilbur and his dead twin. When it comes to this movie, there are two types of strange: that of the unnerving sort, and that of the cheesy sort. There are parts (sometimes moments within a single scene) of this movie that do a good job of spooking the audience, and others where it's rather silly. With that said, the nightmarish effect of Jordan's performance combined with the changing color tints in this scene make it one of the most effective. This is a movie that generally shines brightest when it focuses on Stockwell's performance and/or the Gothic cliches (including a creepy old house) that clearly also influenced Lovecraft's writing. Maybe it's because they didn't have the budget for it, but the lack of an on-screen monster for the vast majority of the film's runtime also works in its favor.

An old woman with unkempt white hair and a blue one-piece hospital gown huddles in the corner of a padded cell looking upward with a frightened expression.  The buttons of the padding - like on a mattress - are visible on the walls and floor. The metal frame and springs of a bed are in the foreground.
Joanne Moore Jordan as Wilbur's mother, who's spent the past two decades as a mental patient.

When Old Man Whateley finally decides to take action, Wilbur kills him for his troubles, along with imprisoning one of Nancy's friends and turning her into some kind of abomination. Meanwhile Wilbur gives his grandfather a heathen burial and in so doing provokes the wrath of the Dunwich townspeople, who never liked the Whateleys anyway. It's revealed, or rather speculated, that Wilbur's twin may not have died after all, but instead gone to the realm of the Old Ones while Wilbur got stuck on Earth as a human. Armitage and the townsfolk succeed in stopping Wilbur from completing his ritual with the unconscious Nancy, Armitage being well-versed enough in the Necronomicon to use the book against Wilbur, killing him with a blast of lightning. So the last of the Whateley men is dead. Unfortunately, the final shot, eerily showing a fetus growing inside Nancy (which is odd, because she's probably only been pregnant a day or two), implying an Old One may be born after all.

A white man with brown curly hair - the same one from the earlier photo - stands among trees at night.  He looks off to the left, seemingly in concentration.  He is wearing a black cultist robe and rests his hand on top of a metal wine goblet which is standing on a wooden board.  A hand, presumably attached to a body lying on the board, is visible at the bottom of the screen.
Dean Stockwell at his most devilish.

Lovecraft purists will surely be much disappointed with this movie, and even as someone who is not exactly a Lovecraft fan, I have to admit it's by no means perfect. Even at 90 minutes it feels a bit overlong, and it tries desperately to contort one of Lovecraft's more unconventional stories into having a three-act structure. I also get the impression that the addition of blood and breasts was to appease those (people my age and younger) who are suckers for AIP schlock. Not too long ago we had Roger Corman's so-called Poe cycle, which for the most part did Edgar Allan Poe's (and in one case Lovecraft's) fiction justice on modest budgets. I would say The Dunwich Horror is on par with one of the lesser of Corman's Poe movies.

A high three stars.

[New to the Journey?  Read this for a brief introduction!


Follow on BlueSky

2 Comments Leave A Comment
Movies

[November 22, 1969] Crash and Burn (the movie Journey to the Far Side of the Sun)

3 Comments

Photo of Joe Reid. He is a black bald man with glasses, wearing a brown suit over a black tee-shirt. He is looking down pensively, his closed left hand is up to his chin.
by Joe Reid

Journey to the Far Side of the Sun, also known as Doppelgänger in England, is a British science fiction film directed by Robert Parrish and produced by marionette/miniature wizards Gerry and Sylvia Anderson (Stingray, Thunderbirds, Fireball XL5, Supercar, etc.).

Title screen for the movie Journey to the Far Side of the Sun. The title is in white at the center of the the image which is black except for a huge red spot in the upper right corner.
Dig that 2001 type

As a movie, it is both visually appealing and tonally complex, with layered characterizations from its cast. The film gets off to a decent start, featuring beautifully realized sets and model effects, as well as intriguing characters with backstories I wanted to know more about. It sets up an epic quest that seems exciting and full of potential. Sadly, by the end of the film, everything (and I do mean everything) falls apart, leaving me feeling cheated.

The Beginning: A Futuristic Start

The movie opens quietly at Eurosec headquarters (the European Space Exploration Council). Two men enter a guarded, futuristic, secure complex to review some documents. To access the document room, an X-ray scan is performed, displaying the men’s bones in motion and detecting a metal pen that triggers an alarm. From the start, the film showcases its advanced technology.

Photo of a scene. A man is standing behind an X-ray scanner, his head, chin up, visible above the machine. We see his squeleton through the green glass, a pen is visible on his chest, in front of his right lung.

The Exciting Mission

The discovery of the century is at hand: scientists have determined that on the far side of the Sun lies another planet, identical in size to Earth (stop me if you've heard this one before.) Jason Webb, the Eurosec director (played by Patrick Wymark), collaborates with other nations to finance a manned mission to this planet. American astronaut Colonel Glenn Ross (Roy Thinnes—"David Vincent" from The Invaders) is selected for the mission, accompanied by astrophysicist Dr. John Kane (Ian Hendry).

The Beautiful People

Ross arrives at Eurosec with his beautiful but emotionally detached wife, Sharon (played by Lynn Loring). It quickly becomes evident that Glenn and Sharon’s marriage is in serious trouble, and they are barely holding it together as a couple. The other prominent female character, Lisa Hartmann (Loni von Friedl), is a strikingly beautiful woman whose role in the plot is never clearly defined, making her presence feel more ornamental than essential to the story.

A photo of a scene. Two women are shaking hands, with three men behind them.

The Creative Technology

As the mission preparation begins, the audience is treated to exquisitely designed rocket ships and futuristic sets. Even the cars and homes the characters live in reflect a near-future aesthetic. This is where the movie truly excels—transporting viewers from the mundane to a world of speculative technology. While the spaceships are clearly models, the craftsmanship is exceptional, maintaining credulity far better than the poorly constructed props often seen in other films of our era.  Like some of the films from the Orient, for example.

A photo of a scene. A Nasa carrier partially sitting on its trailer on an airstrip. There is a hangar in the background as well as a control tower.

A photo of a scene. A conic spacecraft in space viewed form the side. It has four boosters at the back.

The Tragic and Confusing Journey

The journey to the new planet is uneventful, filled with slow, ponderous shots of the spacecraft moving through space. Soon, Ross and Kane arrive at their destination and face the critical decision: should they land on the planet? Ross determines that the Earth-like planet has a breathable atmosphere and abundant plant life but sees no signs of intelligent inhabitants. They choose to land. Detaching their landing module from their main ship, they then end up crash landing on the new planet.  As they complete their fiery collision with the new world, Ross is thrown clear of the ship. Despite his injuries, he manages to pull Kane, who is gravely wounded, from the burning ship before it explodes.

A photo of a scene. The spacecraft is seen partially from behind, with a planet taking much of the space in the image. The sun is visible just above the planet.

It is nighttime where they impact, and a strange light appears in the sky, scanning the crash site. A humanoid figure descends from an aircraft and Ross, terrified, attempts to fight it. To his shock, the figure turns out to be human, and subdues Ross.

The Ridiculous Truth

The next scene reveals Ross and Kane in Eurosec’s infirmary, under the watchful eye of a furious Jason Webb. As Ross recovers, he is interrogated by Webb and other Eurosec staff, including Lisa Hartmann, as they demand to know why he turned around and returned to Earth. Ross adamantly insists that they had not turned back and instead had landed on the new planet.

A photo of a scene. Ross is in front of a mirror. The label on the bottle of cologne he is holding is backwards and the reflection in the mirror shows the readable label.

Alone due to Kane’s critical condition, Ross becomes increasingly frustrated. Upon returning home, he argues with Sharon, accusing her of reversing the layout of their furniture and even noticing that labels on her perfume bottles are printed backward. This fight leads to the collapse of their marriage but provideds Ross with a startling revelation: he is not on Earth but on the other planet, a mirror version of his world.

The Overblown Ending

Ross and the Eurosec team realize the truth: he is trapped on a doppelgänger Earth, where everything is reversed. Plans are made to send Ross back to his own Earth. He boards the alien lander (the Doppelgänger) and docks with the main spacecraft still in orbit. However, due to the mirrored nature of the ship, a systems failure occurs, causing the craft to lose power. Unable to escape, the ship and lander plummet to the surface, crash-landing directly on Eurosec and destroying the entire base in a massive explosion.

A photo of a scene. The alien lander is leaving ground. It looks like a bulky fighter jet with relatively tiny wings.

A photo of a scene. The huge Eurosec building is seen exploding on screen. There is a huge amount of smoke and flames.

The film ends with a haunting scene: an elderly Jason Webb, crippled and defeated, reflecting on the catastrophic loss. Alone in a wheelchair, he gazes at his reflection in a mirrored window before tragically crashing through it, marking his demise.

A photo of a scene. Jason Webb looking at his reflection, with a startled look on his face.

Final Thoughts

This movie started so well, only to end so poorly.  It had so much going for it: great looking sets and technology, attractive people (albeit lacking any compelling backstory), and an interesting adventure for them to embark on.  For the counter-Earth to turn out to be a mirror copy just felt lazy.  So many simple things had to be ignored for the story to go as long as it did.  The astronauts not finding any life from orbit was the dumbest thing of all…until that was followed up by the two explosive crashes by a trained astronaut.  The fact that everyone died made the story a waste of time and a missed opportunity.  A real shame.  I give this Doppelänger two of five stars.

[New to the Journey? Read this for a brief introduction!]




3 Comments Leave A Comment
Movies, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[November 4, 1969] A Dazzler (Bedazzled, 1967)

4 Comments


by Fiona Moore

With so little decent science fiction and fantasy film available this year, I’m back at the second-run cinemas again, catching up on movies I missed the first time round. Bedazzled is a modern take on the legend of Faust in the inimitable style of Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, accompanied by Eleanor Bron as an up-to-date Gretchen who doesn’t sit around pining at the spinning wheel. It’s got a couple of nice psychological character studies at its heart and a few wry things to say about human nature, though coming to an optimistic conclusion on the subject.


Original movie poster for "Bedazzled"

Moore plays Stanley Moon, working as a cook in a Wimpy Bar and living in a grotty London bedsit, consumed with desire for his coworker Margaret (Eleanor Bron) but unable to work up the courage to ask her out. This makes him easy prey for Satan, aka “George”, played by Peter Cook, turning up initially in a stylish black and red cloak, little sunglasses and velvet dinner jacket.

After Stanley has signed away his soul in exchange for seven wishes, the rest of the movie is mostly sketches in which Stanley’s wish comes true—he is a witty intellectual, a millionaire, a pop star, a fly on a wall, and other things—and yet he fails to win Margaret. These are interspersed with more metatextual sketches in which George goes about his business of spreading unhappiness and misery in petty but effective ways (sending pigeons out to defecate on pedestrians; issuing parking tickets; conning little old ladies; scratching LPs) while Stanley trails after him, complaining, but finding it hard to take the moral high ground. Over the course of the story Stanley gradually comes to realise some things about himself, Margaret, and George, and, without revealing the ending, it’s fair to say that he comes out of the experience a better man than he went in.

Stan, about to strike out with Margaret again

Like Oh! What a Lovely War, this is a movie which makes a virtue of a low budget. It’s shot around London but with a sometimes witty and surreal choice of locations: the Devil’s headquarters is a cheap nightclub, Heaven is the Glass House at Kew Gardens, George at one point takes Stanley up to the top of the Post Office Tower in a visual joke about the Devil showing Christ the kingdoms of the world. Modern takes on the Seven Deadly Sins all turn up, with Raquel Welch typecast as Lust (and we learn she’s married to Sloth), and Vanity represented by a man with a mirror physically growing out of his chest. There’s a delightful parody of pop hits programme Ready, Steady, Go!, and there are clever little touches like a record scratched by George in one sketch putting Stan off his game with Margaret in another, or a headline, “Pop Stars in Sex and Drugs Drama”, shifting by one letter to become “Pope Stars in Sex and Drugs Drama”.

Within all of this, though, there are running themes about human nature and our ability to make ourselves contented or miserable. Stan, at one point, rails at George, “you promised to make me happy!” and George counters, “no, I promised to give you wishes.” Throughout the sketches, Stan keeps screwing things up with Margaret not through George’s intervention but through his own personal failings: as an intellectual, he completely misreads her willingness to sleep with him; as a millionaire, he keeps giving Margaret expensive gifts but no personal attention. He never fights to win her away from his rivals; he never takes an interest in her as a person. He whines that freedom of choice is all a lie, citing the fact that he had no choice where he was born, or to whom, but it’s obvious the problem is less Stan’s lack of opportunities, and more his inability to take advantage of the opportunities he has. It’s only when he recognises that being himself is better than the alternatives, that he can finally escape George’s grasp.

The Top of the Pops parody is spot on.

But, as the film continues, we also get a sadder insight into Stan and George and why they are the way they are. Stan tells George that George is the only person who has ever taken an interest in him, or done anything nice for him, showing how people can fall into temptation and sin not through moral depravity, but simple loneliness. George, for his part, eventually shows his own vulnerability: he is bitterly envious of God and wishes he could once again be among the angels, but at the same time is unable to rise above petty game-playing and point-scoring and can never understand why Heaven is closed to him. There’s also a running critique of modern life, with the Devil being associated with things like parking meters and tedious slogans like “Go To Work On An Egg”. Peter Cook gets in a rant about the evil of the banality of Wimpy Bars and Tastee Freezes and advertising and concrete, whose sentiment at least recalls Tati’s visual skewering of the sameness of global cities in Playtime.

Sermon on the postbox

All that having been said, it’s not a perfect movie. The metatextual sketches tend to go on a bit too long, and, although the message of the film is in part that Stan needs to stop viewing Margaret as a prize to be won and instead let her be her own person, we don’t really get much of a sense of her except as a prize to be won. The message—appreciate what you’ve got and don’t go looking for more—also doesn’t feel very aspirational. I suspect that if you don’t happen to like the humour of Peter Cook and Dudley Moore more generally, you’ll find the movie offputting. If you do like them, though, check Bedazzled out when it shows near you.

Four stars.




4 Comments Leave A Comment
Movies

[October 28, 1969] Black and White (the movie Change of Mind)

1 Comment

Trek Correspondent Joe Reid has jumped from TV to film. We think you'll enjoy his take on a most mind-altering movie!


by Joe Reid

Change of Mind, directed by Robert Stevens, is a film about David Rowe (played by Raymond St. Jacques), a successful white district attorney whose brain is transplanted into the body of a terminally injured Black man, Ralph Dickson. The story operates on many layers: it’s a respectful and intelligent thought experiment on how a newly reborn Black man might engage with and find relevance in a prejudiced society. It’s also a courtroom drama about the murder of a woman and the fight to bring her killer to justice. Primarily, however, this movie explores the complexities of the relationship between David and his wife, Margaret Rowe (played by Susan Oliver of Star Trek fame), who struggles to fully accept her husband after his physical transformation.

The title, Change of Mind, is somewhat misleading, as David Rowe’s mind doesn’t really change throughout the movie. Instead, it’s the minds of those around him that David must work to change.

My overall experience watching Change of Mind was a pleasant one. However, I have three key criticisms of the film. First, the movie starts abruptly with the brain surgery, never allowing the audience to experience the white David Rowe or the original Ralph Dickson. While I understand that this approach was likely more efficient and less complicated (as it avoids the need for two actors to portray the same character), it is a missed opportunity for deeper context. Second, there were a few strange, psychedelic dream sequences—while musically scored by the great Duke Ellington, they felt somewhat out of place within the overall narrative. Lastly, the ending was too abrupt. David, through grit and integrity, overcomes numerous challenges and takes some losses, all in pursuit of the truth. He’s portrayed as a character who does everything right. But at the last minute, he makes a seemingly foolish decision, and the movie ends. The conclusion felt jarring, to say the least.

What I liked most about the movie is that it successfully delivered on its key themes. There are many scenes featuring David and Margaret navigating their new lives together. While Raymond St. Jacques’s performance was fantastic, Susan Oliver stood out, delivering a subtly nuanced portrayal of a woman who deeply loves and supports the man she married—even after the change—but struggles to fully reintegrate him into her heart. With messy and unwavering devotion, she does everything possible to fight for her husband, which is admirable to see. The movie stops just shy of delivering a payoff for all her efforts.

Along with Ms. Oliver, the beautiful and talented Janet MacLachlan (Lt. Charlene Masters from the Star Trek episode "The Alternative Factor") demonstrated not only her singing talent but delivered a soul stirring performance as Elizabeth Dickson, the wife of the deceased Ralph Dickson (who's body David Rowe now inhabited).  At a point in the story when it seemed that David and Margaret were at their weakest, Elizabeth showed up and restored both their spirits.

Throughout the film David battles his new body.  He fights for his love.  He fights former friends, employees, authorities, entire communities, and even the government.  These led to some powerful scenes that we are unaccustomed to seeing a black lead in a movie navigate.  St. Jacques portrays David as a confident and mostly self-assured man moving through each encounter with practiced ease.

The courtroom scenes were smartly done and carried significant weight. David proved himself capable of handling every challenge the story threw at him, tackling problems with integrity and intelligence.

Despite the few drawbacks I mentioned, I would recommend Change of Mind as a story that tackles tough topics with a degree of realism and emotional depth. The situations in the movie were believable without being predictable, and the emotional gravity of the characters doesn’t come across as heavy-handed or preachy. The acting is more than adequate, and the musical score is hip.

4 stars.


">

1 Comment Leave A Comment
Movies

[October 14, 1969] News Bulletin/No Separate Beds (Review of "Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice")

Leave a comment


by Victoria Lucas

Good news!

Remember when last year (December 12, 1968) I reported that the submersible Alvin had sunk at around 5,000 feet in the Atlantic Ocean, with bad weather curtailing the search for it?

The Alvin

With money provided by the US Navy, whose vehicle the Alvin is, and who expected to learn whether and how such retrievals might be done, Alvin's caretakers sailed out armed with imaging tools and images, along with equipment and engineers to find and raise the submersible. They succeeded on their Labor Day cruise!

Fortunately for its seekers, the Alvin had landed on the ocean floor right side up, gaping open, so a special tool was lowered into it and remotely sprung open to hold it while it was slowly raised and then towed close to the surface back to Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Great care was taken not to disturb the ocean life that had inhabited it, and that was removed and taken to labs for observation, etc.

There was one funny incident: an engineer who had been on the Alvin's host ship on the last trip before its loss and was also on its Labor Day tow ship came back (like most crew) hungry. He accepted a seafood sandwich from the welcoming spouse of a crew member, and while he was eating it a picture was snapped of him with the sandwich. Coincidentally the lunchbox left behind when the Alvin had slipped into the ocean was in the picture.

And someone interpreted that to mean that the engineer was eating the sandwich that had been in the lunchbox (along with an apple) while the submersible was beneath the waves for 9 months. Immediately there sprang up a certainty that the ocean had hitherto unknown powers of preservation. The last I knew someone was talking government grants.

Now for the main event!

No Separate Beds (Review of "Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice")


Poster showing Gould, Wood, Culp & Cannon as the eponymous characters

Well, I'll be! Someone up and wrote a film script about upper middle-class couples behaving like unsupervised teenagers. (I would have said "well-to-do couples," but that's a bit old-fashioned of me.)

If you've seen the latest Mad Magazine (and I know some of you have) you've essentially seen the above poster for "Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice"–Robert Culp of "I Spy" resting apparently naked against the headboard of a bed with Dyan Cannon, Elliott Gould, and Natalie Wood, all covered by strategic bits of bedding. (The same artist did both the parody and the original poster.)


The MAD version of the movie poster

At the beginning of the movie, there are Bob & Carol in his sports car driving through beautiful countryside to an expensive retreat they call "The Institute" (a stand-in for Esalen, a school at the vanguard of the "Human Potential Movement"). After a dramatic group therapy "marathon" session we see them and their friends Ted and Alice, back home eating out at a fancy restaurant, living in beautiful masonry shelters (no doubt in nice neighborhoods), consulting an expensive psychoanalyst (the writer/director/producer's real psychoanalyst by all accounts), and experiencing great angst.

Is the angst political, about how many resources they're using up and how they should be giving back? Is the angst medical, cares about health, death and life? No. It's highly personal and laced with guilt. Guilt about political or family matters? No–politics are never discussed, and each couple has one child who is not the center or even (it seems) an important focus of their lives. Like them, each child is privileged and loved and free, even if spending many evenings and weekends with Spanish-speaking help rather than their parents, "extended" families such as grandparents (who probably live far away), or other children.

So why the angst? The joy in the opening music (Handel's "Hallalujah Chorus") comes in anticipation of received wisdom, which appears to them in group therapy to be the practice of honesty, and in some of those honest moments they realize that . . .

They aren't having enough sex.

But I shouldn't make fun of them. They just want what every teenager wants: the privacy and the time to explore–him- or herself as a psychological being, and him- or herself as a sexual being.

Perhaps I should be asking why it took them so long. I think we all know the answer to that: because they weren't allowed to explore when they were teenagers (although a minority of this generation did manage to be either secretive or untruthful enough to get away with it). Think of the kids you know who got married while in high school–or were you one of those youngsters yourself?

I think these wealthy adults (all four starring actors in their 30s, fitting the characters they play) were waiting for the sexual revolution now in progress. They were waiting for permission. Now they have it.


Just in case the movie isn't enough for you

So we have gone from Ricky and Lucy Ricardo sleeping in separate beds while a married couple, never showing Doris Day in bed with anyone but a voice on a telephone, and generally strict rules about how sexual behavior is suggested in non-pornographic films, to: wham! two couples in bed together—albeit just sitting there after a brief bout of playing hide and tickle.

In their innocence they call their foursome an "orgy." I wonder what the scriptwriters, Paul Mazursky and Larry Tucker would have done with the group hosting weekly orgies whose members I'm now interviewing for my book. Probably discarded us as an extreme manifestation of the sexual revolution and gone back to using improvisation (by writers only) as a tool for generating dialog (a rumored way of writing the scene with Ted and Alice in which he is horny but she is not).

The film ends with the Burt Bacharach song "What the World Needs Now." As it plays, a crowd of people practice a tool for freedom they can exercise while fully clothed, whatever they mean by it, "love." But wait! There's still the book!

This is a comedy without very much laughing out loud. If you are not offended by the very premise of it, I think it might amuse you. I give it a 4 out of 5 mainly for excellent comedic acting and witty writing.




</small

No comments Leave A Comment