Psycho III (1986)

Posted on October 15, 2024 | 1 comment

psycho3

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 3 out of 10

4-Word Review: Norman gets a girlfriend.

The story begins a month after the one in the second installment ended with police searching for the whereabouts of Emma Spool (Claudia Bryar) whom Norman (Anthony Perkins) killed and now keeps her preserved body in his home and yet curiously the police don’t suspect him. Meanwhile a roving journalist named Tracy Venable (Roberta Maxell) does and she keeps trying to get interviews with Norman in an effort to weed-out the truth while also snooping around his property any chance she gets. Maureen (Diana Scarwid) is a nun who’s lost her faith and thus left the convent and rents a room at the Bates Hotel. She closely resembles Marion Crane, one of Norman’s earlier victims, which sets off his desire to kill again, but when he goes into her room in an attempt to stab her he finds that she’s already slit her wrists and bleeding profusely, which sets off his emotional senses to help her and thus he takes her to the nearest hospital, which in-turn gets her to fall for him and the two begin a romantic relationship once she gets out. Norman also hires a wanna-be music artist named Duane (Jeff Fahey) to help out around the hotel as an assistant manager, but Duane becomes aware of Norman’s mother fixation and tries to use it against him just as an assortment of strange murders reoccur on the premises.

The third installment of the franchise is by far the weakest and it’s no surprise that it didn’t do as well at the box office and pretty much nixed anymore sequels getting released with the Part IV one, which came out 4 years later, being made as a TV-movie instead of a theatrical one. Perkins, who made his directorial debut here, starts things off with some intriguing segues and a good death scene of showing a nun falling off of a high ledge, but the storyline itself is getting quite old. Watching the ‘mother’ committing murders is no longer scary, interesting, or even remotely shocking. The script offers no new intriguing angles and things become quite predictable and boring very quickly.

Perkins gives another fun performance, which is pretty much the only entertaining element of the film, and Scarwid is compelling as a young emotionally fragile woman trying to find her way in a cold, cruel world. Maxwell though as the snooping reporter is unlikable and thus if she is meant to be the protagonist it doesn’t work. Fahey’s character is also a turn-off as his sleazebag persona is too much of a caricature and having him predictable do sleazy things as you’d expect from the start is not interesting at all.

The whole mystery angle has very little teeth and the way the reporter figures out her the clues comes way too easily. For instance she goes to Spool’s old apartment and sees a phone number scrawled out several times on a magazine cover sitting on the coffee table, so she calls it and finds out it’s for the Bates Motel and thus connects that Norman most likely had something to do with her disappearance, but wouldn’t you think the police would’ve searched the apartment before and seen that same number and made the same connection much earlier? Also, what kind of landlord would leave a place intact months later after the former tenant fails to ever come back? Most landlords are in the business to make money and would’ve had the place cleaned-out long ago and rented it to someone new.

The fact that the police don’t ever suspect Norman particularly the town’s sheriff, played by Hugh Gillin, is equally absurd. Cops by their very nature suspect everybody sometimes even when the person is innocent. It’s just part of their job to be suspicious and constantly prepare for the worst, so having a sheriff not even get an inkling that these disappearances could have something to do with Norman, a man with a very hefty and well known homicidal past, is too goofy to make any sense and starts to turn the whole thing especially the scene where a dead corpse sits right in front of him in a ice machine, but he doesn’t spot it, into a misguided campiness that doesn’t work at all.

I didn’t like the whole ‘party scene’ that takes place at the hotel, which occurs when a bunch of drunken football fans decide to stay there. I get that in an effort to be realistic there needed to be some other customers that would stay there for the place to remain open, though you’d think with the hotel’s well-known history most people would be too afraid to. Either way the constant noise, running around and racket that these people put-on takes away from the creepiness and starts to make the thing resemble more of a wild frat party than a horror movie.

Spoiler Alert!

The death by drowning scene is pretty cool, but everything else falls unfortunately flat. The final twist where it’s explained that Spool really wasn’t his mother after all sets the whole narrative back and makes the storyline look like it’s just going in circles and not moving forward with any revealing new information making this third installment feel pointless and like it shouldn’t have even been made. Screenwriter’s Charles Edward Pogue’s original script had Duane being the real killer while the Maureen character would be a psychologist who would come to visit Norman and who would be played by Janet Leigh, who had played Marion Crane in the first film. Her uncanny resemblance to one his earlier victims would then set Norman’s shaky mental state to go spiraling out-of-control, which all seemed like a really cool concept, certainly far better than what we eventually got here, but of course the studio execs considered this idea to be ‘too far out’ and insisted he should reel it back in with a more conventional storyline, which is a real shame.

My Rating: 3 out of 10

Released: July 2, 1986

Runtime: 1 Hour 33 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Anthony Perkins

Studio: Universal

Available: DVD, Blu-ray, Amazon Video, YouTube

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Posted in 80's Movies, Black Comedy, Horror, Movies with a Hotel setting, Movies with Nudity, Sequels

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Psycho II (1983)

Posted on October 13, 2024 | 2 comments

psycho2

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 7 out of 10

4-Word Review: Norman Bates comes home.

After 22 years of being confined to a mental institution over the murders of 5 people Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins) is now deemed to be no longer a menace to society much to the protest of Lila Crane (Vera Miles) whose sister Marion was one of his victims. With nowhere else to go Norman returns to the old house that he shared with his mother and tries to restart his hotel business that had been run while he was incarcerated by Warren (Dennis Franz) who had allowed the place to be turned into a flophouse for drug users and is immediately fired. To help bring in an income he gets a job at a nearby cafe as a cook where he meets Mary (Meg Tilly) who works there as a waitress. The two quickly start-up a friendship and when Norman learns that she’s broken-up with her boyfriend and no place to stay he offers a bedroom in his house for her to sleepover, but soon Norman starts receiving notes and even phone calls from someone perpetuating to be his mother and then murders begin occurring by someone dressed as an old lady. Has Norman gone back to his old homicidal ways, or is it someone else trying to make it look like it’s him, so that he’ll be rearrested and sent back to prison?

The attempt to make a sequel to the Hitchcock classic had been discussed for years and apparently even the master himself had considered it, but the studios generally nixed the idea figuring there was just no way to upstage the first one. Then Robert Bloch, who written the novel that the first one was based on, came out with a second installment also called ‘Psycho II’ that was published in 1982 that helped spark new interest in the franchise. However, the book’s plot was far different than this one. In the novel version Norman escapes from the mental institution while dressed in a nun’s outfit and then hitches a ride with another nun whom he kills and then rapes. After absconding with her van he then picks up a males hitch-hiker whom he plans to kill and then use his body to fake his own death. Police later find the burning van and charred remains, but are unable to identify who it is. Meanwhile across town a movie is being made about Norman’s life and Norman’s psychiatrist fears that Norman is going to go there to kill everyone in the production, so he decides to become a ‘technical advisor’ to the film to help watch out for the crew, but while there he starts to become more worried about the film’s director who’s a spitting image of Norman from 20 years earlier and he reveals an unhealthy infatuation with the actress playing Marion Crane.

While I found the book to be highly creative the studio execs disliked its satirical elements regarding the movie business and discarded it while hiring Tom Holland, who had some success with the 1978 horror TV-Movie ‘The Initiation of Sarah’ and also the screen adaptation of The Beast Within to write a script with a more conventional storyline. While this story isn’t bad, I personally liked the Bloch version better, this one does have some logic holes mainly around releasing someone who’s killed several people from well published crimes and clearly suffering from a severe mentally ill state and yet somehow convincing the parole board and public at-large that he’s now ‘cured’, which really pushes the plausibility meter. The film also portrays Norman as being a likable guy just trying to find his way, which is awkward since the viewer is technically supposed to be fearing him, but half the time ends up sympathizing with him instead and this dueling dichotomy doesn’t work.

The acting though is terrific especially Perkins who makes his portrayal of Norman into an almost art form and the most enjoyable element of the movie though he initially was reluctant to recreate the role complaining that it hurt his career playing the part in the first one and it had caused him to become typecast, but when he found out that they were planning to cast Christopher Walken in the part if he rejected it he then decided to come-on board. Dennis Franz is also a delight as nobody can play a brash, blue-collar out-of-shape ‘tough guy’ quite like him and his taunting, loud-mouth ways help bring an element of dark humor to the proceedings.

Spoiler Alert!

My favorite though was Meg Tilly who helps tie all the of the craziness around her together by being the one normal person of the whole bunch. Reportedly she and Perkins did not get along and she refused to attend the film’s premiere though the frostiness of their relationship doesn’t show on the screen and the two end-up working well together. The only thing that I didn’t like was the misguided twist of her turning out to being the daughter of the Vera Miles character and in cahoots with her in her attempt to drive Norman crazy. For one thing if this were true then it should’ve been Meg instigating the idea of her moving into the house with him versus Norman coming up with the idea and her seeming reluctant.

The film has some good creepy camera angles of the home, which seems even more frightening here especially with the way it’s isolated desert setting gets played-up. There’s also a couple of gory killings, which I liked, but the second-half does drag and the movie could’ve been shortened by a good 20-minutes. However, the film’s conclusion where Norman learns the his mother’s sister, played by Claudia Bryar, is actually his real mother and she was behind the recent murders was a perfect ironic angle that took me by surprise and I loved it. Why he would then proceed to kill her with a shovel I didn’t really get as it seemed they could’ve started-up some weird bond and became a homicidal couple, which would’ve been more frightening, but still it’s a cool twist either way and helps make this a decent sequel.

My Rating: 7 out of 10

Released: June 3, 1983

Runtime: 1 Hour 53 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Richard Franklin

Studio: Universal

Available: DVD, Blu-ray, Amazon Video, YouTube

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Posted in 80's Movies, Horror, Movies with a Hotel setting, Sequels

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Psycho (1960)

Posted on October 11, 2024 | 3 comments

psycho

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 9 out of 10

4-Word Review: Don’t take a shower.

Marion Crane (Janet Leigh), who works as a secretary at a real estate firm, steals $40,000 in cash from her boss (Vaughn Taylor), who trusted her to take the money to the bank, in order to help her boyfriend Sam (John Gavin) pay off his debts. As she’s traveling to where he lives she encounters a rainstorm causing her to take the nearest exit. There she drives into the lot of a isolated lodge called Bates Motel, run by a young man named Norman (Anthony Perkins) who’s still living with his mother in an old rundown house that sits ominously on a hill behind the hotel rooms.  Norman becomes immediately smitten to the woman, who signs the hotel ledger under an assumed name, and invites her to have dinner with him in the hotel office. Marion, who sees him as a awkward, but otherwise harmless guy who’s still dominated by his mother, agrees. After they eat she departs back to her room and takes a shower when what appears to be his mother, who considers all women to be ‘whores’, stabs and kills her. Norman then cleans-up the evidence by submerging the dead body and her car in a nearby swamp. Soon a private detective named Arbogast (Martin Balsam) begins investigating the case and what he finds out leads Marion’s boyfriend Sam and her sister Lila (Vera Miles) to the property where they’ll unravel a shocking secret.

The film, which at the time was considered ‘too tawdry and salacious’ to be made into a movie and thus the studio refused to give director Alfred Hitchcock the required funding and forcing him to use his own funds and crew to produce it, was based on the novel of the same name by Robert Bloch. Bloch began writing it in 1957 when coincidentally in the neighboring town not more than 35 miles from his came to the light the criminal activities of Ed Gein who killed two people while also digging up dead bodies and then skinning them in an effort to create a ‘woman suit’ he could wear so he’d ‘become his dead mother’ who had dominated him for the majority of his life. Rumors were that Gein’s crimes had inspired the book, but Bloch insisted that he had almost finished with the manuscript before he became aware of the real-life case and then became shocked with how closely it resided with his story.

While the film follows the book pretty closely there are a few differences. In the book the Marion character dies from decapitation while in the movie it’s from stab wounds. The Norman character is described as an overweight man in his 40’s while in the movie he’s thin and in his 20’s, which I felt was an improvement as it made more sense why Marion would feel less guarded around him and put herself in a more vulnerable position than she might otherwise as she still viewed him as a ‘wet-behind-the-ears’ kid. It also helps explain why Norman blunders his interview with the detective and virtually incriminates himself because he was too sheltered and not worldly-wise enough to handle pressure situations.

The film is full of a lot of firsts. It was the first to show a toilet or use the word transvestite, but what I really liked though is that it takes a different spin on the character of the victim. Typically, even today, victims are portrayed as being virginal and angelic beings particularly women, but here it works against that. Right away with the opening scene in the hotel room we see she’s definitely no virgin and what’s more she’s having sex outside of wedlock in an era where ‘good girls saved themselves for marriage’. Having her then be susceptible to corruption by stealing from her employer, or not feel frightened initially by Norman and even superior to him further works against the grain of the ‘sweet, fragile damsel in distress’ cliche and makes her seem more human since she’s not perfect and vulnerable to the same vices as everyone else, which in-turn gives the more an added darker dimension.

The film’s hallmark though is its memorable camera work from a close-up of the victim’s unblinking eye, still not sure how Leigh could’ve kept her eyes open for as long as she does, to the interesting way the house gets captured from the ground looking upward on a hill towards the sky with the creepy night clouds floating behind it.  My favorite one though is the tracking shot showing Norman walking into his mother’s room and then having the camera stop right at the top of the door frame and then spin around towards the hallway as he then leaves the room and carries his mother down the stairs. The only shot that I didn’t care for is when the Martin Balsam character gets stabbed at the top of the stairs, but instead of immediately falling over backwards and then rolling down the stairs, which is what would happen 99% of the time, he instead somehow ‘glides’ down an entire flight of stairs backwards while remaining upright and only finally falling to the floor once he hits the bottom, which goes against the basic laws of physics and to me looks fake and goofy, but other than that it’s a classic and still holds-up amongst the best horror movies made.

My Rating: 9 out of 10

Released: June 16, 1960

Runtime: 1 Hour 49 Minutes

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Studio: Paramount

Available: DVD, Blu-ray, Amazon Video, YouTube

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Posted in 60's Movies, Black & White, Classic, Horror, Movies Based on Novels, Movies with a Hotel setting

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What Have You Done to Solange? (1972)

Posted on October 7, 2024 | Leave a comment

solange

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 7 out of 10

4-Word Review: Bearded priest murders schoolgirls.

Enrico (Fabio Testi) is a high school teacher who’s having an affair with Elizabeth (Cristina Galbo) who’s one of his students. While making-out with her on a boat at a park Elizabeth spots a shadowy figure murdering a young girl in a nearby wooded area. The girl turns-out to be one of her classmates, but Enrico convinces her not to tell anyone for fear that it could jeopardize his job. Once the murder gets discovered and reported on the news Enrico goes back to the scene to check for clues only to be photographed by the police who are there doing the investigation. Inspector Barth (Joachim Fuchsberger) spots Enrico in the photo and brings him in for questioning. Enrico denies any knowledge of the killing, but comes under suspicion especially after Elizabeth is later found murdered in her bath tub. Enrico then reconciles with his frigid wife Herta (Karin Baal) in order to have her help him do their own investigation, so they can unmask who the real killer is before the police are able to close in on him.

The film is a unique partnership between a West German production company and an Italian one that was filmed on-location in London. While there are many German actors in the cast the film as a whole is modeled after an Italian giallo and has many of the mystery, gore, and sleaze elements that you’d expect from those. The direction, by Massimo Dallamano, who was a cinematographer of Spaghetti westerns during the 60’s, approaches the material with a visual elegance. The photography is crisp and detailed with some evocative camera work and angles as well as a few graphic shots including the murderers modus operandi, which is shoving a large knife up his victim’s vaginas, which not only gets revealed on the corpses, but also in x-ray version, but also a drowning death in a bath tub that gets played-out moderately well. In most slasher flicks the victim goes down easily when they’re attacked by surprise by their killer, but here this one struggles quite a bit making the killing more drawn-out and thus more realistic.

The plot though, particularly the second act, gets stretched too thin. We have an intriguing set-up and a zesty conclusion, but in-between it meanders. The biggest reason for this is that the protagonist and his quandary becomes neutered and thus all the potential drama from his situation evaporates. Having the inspector tell him upfront that he doesn’t think he did it hurts the tension and would’ve been intriguing if they thought he did, or he even became their prime suspect. Having Enrico make amends with his wife, at the beginning they’re at extreme odds and even close to fully hating each other, further moderates things as the wife could’ve been an interesting possible suspect too, killing the school girls and trying to make the hubby look like he did it in order to get back at him for cheating on her, but then having the two team-up just fizzles away a potentially dark undercurrent to their relationship. Showing Enrico working with the inspector ultimately makes him seem more like a side character in his own movie and by the end like he’s not really the star at all as the inspector completely takes over.

The one performer that does stand-out is Camille Keaton. She’s better known for her starring role in the cult hit I Spit On Your Grave, but here in one of her first performances in the front of the camera she’s quite impressive and she does so without uttering a single line of dialogue. She comes-in real late too to the extent I was starting to think she’d have some minor part and be spotted for only a few seconds, but her character comes-on strong despite not saying anything and is an integral component to the whole mystery. What I liked most about her was her trance-like demeanor and glazed over look in her eyes that’s both effective, creepy, and disturbing at the same time.

Spoiler Alert!

The film’s wrap-up could’ve been better done as it elaborates about the motives of the killer and the elements of the case too much saying things that the viewer should’ve been able to pick-up on during the course of the movie. For instance it describes the sex parties that these teen girls attended, but snippets of these orgies should’ve been shown and not just discussed. The film had no qualms with the violence, so why not have a little explicit sex as well. Also, Keaton’s character going in to have an abortion like it’s going to be some ‘fun activity’ didn’t seem believable. The attempt was to show that she was naive about how rough the procedure would be and thus became ‘traumatized’ by it afterwards, but she still should’ve shown some trepidation upfront as just about anybody else would.

My Rating: 7 out of 10

Released: March 9, 1972

Runtime: 1 Hour 47 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Massimo Dallamano

Studio: Italian International Films

Available: DVD, Blu-ray, Amazon Video, CONtv

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Posted in 70's Movies, Adolescence/High School, Foreign Films, Italian Films, Movies with Nudity, Mystery, Slasher/Gore

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Herbie Rides Again (1974)

Posted on September 30, 2024 | Leave a comment

herbie1

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 3 out of 10

4-Word Review: Saving home from demolition.

Alonzo Hawk (Keenan Wynn) is a rich man who wants to build the world’s tallest sky scrapper on land that is currently occupied by a little firehouse built in 1892 and owned by an old lady named Mrs. Steinmetz (Helen Hayes). So far she’s refused all offers by Alonzo’s lawyers to sell, so Alonzo decides to have his nephew Willoughby (Ken Berry) go visit her as he has a very clean-cut image and hopes his nice-guy approach may be what it takes to persuade her. However, once he’s there he gets introduced by Mrs. Steinmetz former neighbor Nicole (Stefanie Powers) who’s now living with the old day due her place being demolished by Alonzo. When Nicole realizes Willoughby is related to Alonzo she immediately takes a disliking to him and even punches him in the face. Her feelings towards him though begin to change when she gives him a ride in the Volkswagen beetle that Steinmetz is taking care of for its owner while he’s away in Europe racing. Willoughby at first doesn’t believe that the car, who’s named Herbie, has a mind of its own, but soon realizes it does after his trip in it and this eventually gets him to side with Nicole and Steinmetz on the issue they’re having with his uncle and he begins fighting with the other two and Herbie to stop Alonzo from tearing the place down.

This was a rather odd idea for a sequel to the Love Bug that came-out 6 years earlier and had the VW Beetle involved in racing, but now apparently was ‘retired’ and no longer able to race effectively even though in the third entry to the series, which came-out 3 years later he does go back to racing.  The plot here though doesn’t really need the car involved to help propel it, yes the vehicle does ‘come to the rescue’ a few times, but the story could’ve easily worked with just the humans fighting Alonzo in various ways and would’ve been just as funny. To make-up for this the film does show archived footage, which goes on for several minutes, of the car ‘dreaming’ about it’s racing days though some of his race ‘victories’ could be called into question like when it decides to go off the racing track in one and cut through a forest and then back onto the track where it’s now at the front line of the other cars, which most would deem as cheating and not really an honorable win.

Overall though I really didn’t find any of the scenes with the car to be all that interesting. It’s hard to get emotionally attached to some machine that doesn’t speak, or show any expression and the only sign that it’s ‘alive’ is through its car stunts. The fact that it has seemingly no limits to what it can do, at least driving wise, I felt worked against it. To create even the modicum of suspense, or believability, there needs to be some rules to what it can and cannot do and yet here it defies all probability like driving on the side of cliffs without falling off, or being able to somehow pull vehicles, that are much bigger and weigh more, around like it does during a ‘tug-of-war’ scene with a cop car that’s attempting to tow it. It’s even able to smash through walls without receiving any damage to its front-end. I’m okay with the car having a certain ‘personality’, but when the car is able to get out of any predicament in a seeming magical way then there really isn’t any intrigue at all.

The acting by Hayes, Powers, and Wynn are good and I was especially impressed with Wynn’s ability to essentially shout out all of his lines in a consistently snarly way and yet never get any laryngitis and he certainly adds energy to all of his moments. Berry though is so vanilla that he’s just plain boring. It might’ve worked better had he remained loyal to his uncle longer, but he sides with the two ladies so easily that his character quickly becomes quite benign to the point that it would’ve been more interesting to have just the two women, and the car of course, fighting the bad guys and his presence excised from the script completely.

The nightmare segment where Alonzo dreams of being attacked by not only Herbie, but several clones of Herbie whose front hood opens up to reveal a mouth with giant teeth, which also includes a take-off of King Kong, where Alonzo is on top of the Empire State Building as he fights off the Herbie’s that are flying in a circle around him is genuinely inspired and the best part of the movie. Everything else though falls painfully flat including the cheap special effects where the exterior of the firehouse looks like it’s a painting on a back-drop, which I’m sure it was, or the scene where Herbie goes up the Golden Gate Bridge, which you can plainly tell was a miniature model matted onto a picture because as the car goes back down it starts to lose its pixelation and fade-out and disappear into thin air.

My Rating: 3 out of 10

Released: June 6, 1974

Runtime: 1 Hour 28 Minutes

Rated G

Director: Robert Stevenson

Studio: Buena Vista

Available: DVD, Blu-ray, Amazon Video, YouTube

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Posted in 70's Movies, Farce, Movies for the Whole Family, Sequels

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White Mischief (1987)

Posted on September 28, 2024 | 1 comment

whitemischief

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 7 out of 10

My Rating: Unsolved murder in Kenya.

During the Second World War many British aristocrats with money escaped the tensions and horror in Europe by relocating at a settlement in Kenya that became known as Happy Valley. Here without the typical societal restraints of back-home they were able to indulge in all their provocative desires including rampant drug use and promiscuous sex. One such philanderer, possibly the most notorious of the bunch, was Josslyn Hay the Earl of Erroll (Charles Dance). He had already had various trysts with many of the women there including Alice (Sarah Miles) before dumping her due to her drug addiction. He then sets his sights on Diana (Greta Scacchi). She is married to Jock (Joss Ackland) who is older than her by several decades, and the two share a marriage of convenience with a pre-nuptial agreement that if either falls in love with someone else the other person will not impede it. Earl goes after Diana aggressively and despite some initial reluctance the two eventually become an open couple. Jock puts up a stoic front and allows her to go with him without any resistance, but internally he seethes with rage. Then one night Earl gets shot dead while driving his car in an isolate area. Did Jock pull the trigger?

The film is based on the book of the same name written by James Fox that was published in 1982 and in-turn based on the real-life incident that occurred on January 24, 1941 where the Earl of Erroll, like in the movie, is was found dead in his car and Jock, being the prime suspect, was put on trial, but then found not guilty due to a lack of evidence. For decades it sat as an unsolved case with no answers to what really happened until 1969 when Fox, along with fellow writer Cyril Connelly, became fascinated with the subject and began researching it vigorously. The book contains many interviews with people who lived through the ordeal and give first person accounts of the trial proceedings. Fox even traveled to the Kenya region to get a better understanding of the area and people and came to the conclusion that Jock had been the culprit with new evidence he unearthed, which makes up the book’s entire second-half though officially the case remains open.

The movie’s best quality is its visual element especially its ability to capture the expansive beauty of Africa as the film’s director Michael Radford proudly proclaimed before production even started that “films of Africa should be made by Africans” and you really get that sense here. The screenplay by noted playwright Jonathan Gems is also superb with it’s use of minimalistic dialogue where the conversations and characters never say too much, many times just brief sentences, and the emphasis is much more into what is implied.

On the negative end the attempts at eroticism are pathetic and overdone. The most absurd moment comes when the Sarah Miles character, during the open casket viewing portion of Earl’s funeral, reaches under her skirt and masturbates in full view of everyone before eventually putting her ‘love juices’ on the deceased, which came off as ridiculous and simply put in for a cheap laugh, or misguided ‘shock value’ and hard to imagine it occurred in reality. Both Scacchi’s and Dance’s characters are quite boring and their love scenes lack spark making the whole affair angle seem quite predictable.

The film’s saving grace though is with Ackland’s character where you really get inside his head and see things from his perspective. Normally in most films the jilted spouse is portrayed as someone to fear and a one-dimensional jealous machine who serves no purpose other than to get revenge. Here though we feel his quandary and sympathize with his internal struggle of trying to take the high road while also wracked with hurt and betrayal. Instead of being the culprit we ultimately see him as a sad victim even as his personality completely unravels by the end and because of this aspect I felt the movie works and is worth seeking out. Director Radford probably said it best when he stated that the film was about “people who have everything and yet have nothing. It’s about people who want to possess what they can’t possess” and with the excellently crafted Josh character you can really see that.

This is also a great chance to see acting legend Trevor Howard in one of his last performances. He was suffering severely at the time from his alcoholism and cirrhosis that he comes-off appearing like a wrinkled corpse put upright and there’s several scenes where he’s seen just standing there, but says nothing due to the filmmakers fear that he wouldn’t remember his lines, or if he did wouldn’t be able to articulate them. However, he does come through during a pivotal moment inside the prison when he visits Ackland and what he says and does there is great. John Hurt’s performance is the same way as initially he’s seen little and says no more than a couple of one word responses to the point I thought he was wasted, but then at the end he reappears and comes-on strong in an unique way.

My Rating: 7 out of 10

Released: November 10, 1987

Runtime: 1 Hour 47 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Michael Radford

Studio: Columbia Pictures

Available: VHS, DVD (Import Reg. 2), Amazon Video, Roku 

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Posted in 80's Movies, British Movies, Foreign Films, Movies Based on Actual Events, Movies Based on Novels, Movies with Nudity, Obscure Movies

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Once is Not Enough (1975)

Posted on September 25, 2024 | Leave a comment

once

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 0 out of 10

4-Word Review: Having a father fixation.

January (Deborah Raffin) is the college-aged daughter of wealthy Hollywood producer Mike (Kirk Douglas) who spent time recovering from a motorcycle accident in Europe and now returns to the states excited to see her father of which she adores immensely. Unfortunately things have changed since she’s been gone. Mike no longer has the clout, or capital that he once did and now can’t get any of his projects off-the-ground. He’s married rich socialite Deidre (Alexis Smith) simply as a way to get his hands on some money as he no longer has any of his own, but she’s more into her lesbian affair that she’s having with Karla (Melina Mercouri). Feeling dejected at how things have turned-out January falls into the arms of Tom (David Janssen) an alcoholic semi-successful novelist who suffers from impotency. When Mike learns of this relationship he becomes enraged as Tom has long been one of his biggest adversaries and so he goes to the apartment where the two are staying determined to have it out with the both of them.

The film is based off of the final novel written by Jacqueline Susann who became famous for having penned the popular Valley of the Dolls 7 years earlier. This book, like her two other ones, shot-up immediately to the top of the Best Seller’s list and she became the first author to ever have her first three novels achieve this, but her ability to savor her success was short-lived as she was diagnosed with cancer shortly after the book went to press and she never lived to see it made into a movie.

The book, like her other ones, was widely panned by the critics, but this movie here does it no justice. When compared to Valley of the Dolls this thing has absolutely no zing and nothing that’s truly salacious or tawdry, which were the main elements that gravitated folks to read Susann’s books in the first place. The only ‘shocking’ moment comes during the lesbian segment, which was considered ‘pushing-the-envelope’ at the time, which shows two older actresses kissing each other on the lips, which by today’s standards will be seen as quite trite and forgettable. The other potentially spicy moments never come to play and it ends flatly making you wonder what were they thinking when they made it.

Raffin, a former model, is quite beautiful and the best thing in it, but her character is too innocent to be believed. She’s a virgin despite being raised in the fast lane of Hollywood, which seemed hard to believe. Supposedly this is because she’s so infatuated with her father she’s subconsciously ‘saving herself’ for him, but a person could have sex outside of a romantic context and I’d think since most of her other friends would’ve have likely done it she’d be at least curious enough to try it out. The same goes for her inexperience with drugs, alcohol, or even dealing with womanizing men such as George Hamilton’s character who fills her glass to the brim with brandy and when she asks why he says so he can ‘get her drunk, so she’ll lose her inhibitions’ and she’s shocked to hear this, but any young women living in L.A. during the swinging 70’s should conditioned and prepared to this age-old ploy and having her so taken aback by it makes her too painfully naive to be believable. Instead of being a producer’s daughter she seems more like some nun snatched from a  convent she’s been living in her whole life and completely out of whack with her surroundings.

Douglas is a complete bore and I can only imagine he took the role simply because he was on a career decline and needed the work, but despite being center stage during the first half, his character slowly fades out and is completely forgotten by the end. Alexis Smith, whose acting work had also been in a downward spiral, this was her first movie role in 16 years, and was only given the part because Lana Turner, who was the producer’s first choice, turned it down as she objected to having to do the lesbian kissing scene, is sufficiently bitchy, but overall wasted.

Brenda Vaccaro won accolades for her performance and was even nominated for the Supporting Oscar for her work, but I was a bit surprised. I’ve always found her an impressive actress, but playing some jaded California gal that likes to openly sleep around isn’t that interesting and her character lacked depth. The part where she tries to quickly clean-up her cluttered bedroom before letting a new man into it was kind of amusing, but otherwise her presence, like all the others, was quite tepid. I did though enjoy Hamilton, this marked his last serious role before he then began to venture into comedy, not so much for his acting, but more because I felt this role most closely resembled his true personality. Janssen has some potential as this brash, abrasive guy, but then having his lifelong impotency suddenly and magically ‘cured’ after seeing Raffin nude in the shower is just downright laughable.

Spoiler Alert!

The biggest letdown is the unexciting ending. In the book January gets into acid and then partakes in a sex orgy only to eventually walk into the ocean and drown after seeing a vision of her dead father. The movie though, in an attempt to be ‘hopeful’, doesn’t show any of this. It just has her walking around the city in a daze and that’s it. A movie like this needs, especially with this type of soap opera material, some sort of salacious pay-off and seeing a once innocent, naive girl in an acid driven orgy would’ve been just the ticket, so for the filmmakers not to give the viewer even that much makes this whole vapid thing pathetic beyond belief.

My Rating: 0 out of 10

Released: June 20, 1975

Runtime: 2 Hours 1 Minute

Rated R

Director: Guy Green

Studio: Paramount

Available: DVD, Blu-ray, Amazon Video, YouTube

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Posted in 70's Movies, Drama, Movies Based on Novels

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Inchon! (1981)

Posted on September 23, 2024 | 1 comment

inchon1

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 3 out of 10

4-Word Review: Turning point in war.

Inspired by actual battles during the Korean War the film centers on the Battle of Inchon, which many consider the pivotal turning point that allowed American forces to achieve victory and was lead by General Douglas MacArthur (Laurence Olivier). While he exudes great outwardly confidence to others he does confide to his wife Jean (Dorothy James) that his age is creeping up on him and he fears he may no longer have the energy or mental acuity to take on the same types of challenges like he had done in the past. The film also has several side stories including that of Barbara (Jacqueline Bisset) whose husband Frank (Ben Gazzara), a Major in the U.S. army, is openly having an affair with a Korean woman (Karen Kahn). When the war fighting breaks-out near her she quickly tries to hitch a cab ride to get out, but soon finds herself straddled with some young Korean children who want to use her car to escape from the war with her.

The film is notorious for having been financed in large part by Reverend Sun Myung Moon who was head of the ‘Moonie’ cult that hit it’s peak during the 70’s and 80’s and gets credited with being the film’s ‘Special Advisor’ during the opening credits. He even used the help of psychic Jeanne Dixon who said she spoke with General MacArthur’s spirit and this spirit reiterated that he approved of the production, which was enough to get Moon put down a whooping $46 million to get it produced, but the film failed badly when it was released and was savaged by the critics. It was shelved for a year and then rereleased in a much shorter 105 minute version, which did not improve things and audiences stayed away causing them to only recoup of meager $5.2 million and turning it into a huge financial loss.

Overall the original 140-minute cut is the better version, if you can find it, and the movie wasn’t quite as bad as I had feared going in. The scenario dealing with Bisset and the kids is the best and I found the children to be genuinely appealing. I liked how well behaved they were and respectfully bow their heads when coming into contact with adults and won’t eat their dinner, despite being really hungry, until Bisset is sitting at the table with them. While this storyline does have a lot of similarity to The Inn of the Sixth Happiness, and in fact the hotel they stay at is named this, I still felt it was engaging enough to keep me semi-involved and had the film centered solely on this it would’ve done better though it’s still filled with some incongruities like having Bisset shoot and kill a man right in front of them where she’s not concerned about the psychological effects this may cause them, but then later when they come to a battlefield with dead soldiers laying about she warns the kids to ‘shield their eyes’, but if they’ve already witnessed one dead body and gotten through that what’s the harm of seeing a few more?

The drama dealing with her husband Gazzara and his affair is a bore and her conversations with him about it goes nowhere and slows the pace up badly as it offers up no spark and I found Gazzara’s constant smirking no matter what situation he was in to be annoying and wished someone else had been cast in the part. Olivier’s moments as MacArthur are equally cringey and should’ve been a source of complete embarrassment. However, he was at least honest about it and admitted in interviews he was only doing it for the money, so that his family would have something to keep them comfortable after he died, which he felt was coming soon and thus ‘nothing was beneath him’ as long as the ‘price was right’, which in this case was a payout of $1.5 million and included a $250,000 signing bonus.

Much of the problem with his part is with the ghoulish looking make-up that was put on and took 2 and a half hours each day to apply, but makes him look like some wax figure, his hair literally shines off his head every time it comes into any light. The effect makes him look like a walking dead person, or a strange alien from another planet and his moments come-off as either creepy, or laughable. His attempts at replicating MacArthur’s accent, which he had been informed sounded like W.C. Fields, is ineffective especially when you hear the real MacArthur speak during archival footage that appears near the end.

David Janssen as a crotchety and cynical news reporter, whose scenes were entirely cut in the abbreviated prints, is terrific and gives the movie a much needed sense of brashness and I wished his character was in it more though due to his death during filming he’s not in it as much. Everything else though unfortunately falls flat including the battle scenes that become quite redundant and surprisingly uninteresting to watch. The finale that deals with the illumination of a lighthouse and MacArthur’s reliance of banking on the ‘spirit of God’ to get it lighted was fabricated making it corny and forgettable.

My Rating: 3 out of 10

Released: May 4, 1981

Runtime: 2 Hours 20 Minutes (Original Cut) 1 Hour 45 Minutes (Reissue)

Rated PG

Director: Terence Young

Studio: MGM/UA

Available: DVD-R

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Posted in 80's Movies, Historical Drama, Obscure Movies, War Movies

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Mandingo (1975)

Posted on September 19, 2024 | Leave a comment

mandingo1

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 7 out of 10

4-Word Review: Slave turned into fighter.

Hammond (Perry King) is the son of aging plantation owner Warren (James Mason) who purchases a Mandingo slave named Mede (Ken Norton). Mede proves himself as having superior fighting skills, so Hammond turns him into a prize fighter and makes money off of him. Meanwhile Hammond is also having an ongoing sexual affair with a slave named Ellen (Brenda Sykes), but his father orders him to find a white woman in order to supply him with an offspring, so Hammond marries his cousin Blanche (Susan George), but on their wedding night he rejects her when he realizes she is not a virgin. Blanche becomes jealous of Ellen, whom is secretly carrying Hammond’s child, and causes her to miscarry. She then forces Mede to have sex with her, so she’ll become impregnated with a black baby and bring humiliation to Hammond. After the birth, when Hammond realizes what has happened, he then goes on a violent revenge not only against Blanche, but also Mede whom he once considered his prize possession, but will Mede just accept his punishment, or use his strength to finally turn on his master?

The story is based on the 1957 novel of the same name written by Kyle Onstott. Onstott had written a book about dog breeding with his adopted son, but that didn’t do too well, so at the age of 65 he became motivated to write a book that he hoped would be a bestseller and make him a lot of money. He decided a sensationalistic material was the way to get attention and thus choose to write a story based on many ‘bizarre legends’ he had heard growing up. It was printed by a small publisher and it soon got him the national attention that he craved and sold 5 million copies that not only lead to a series of books on the same theme, but also a 1961 stage play that starred Dennis Hopper. The film rights was purchased by noted producer Dino De Laurentiis and became a very rare exploitation film that was given a big budget and a major studio release.

Critics at the time gave it almost unanimously negative reviews including both Roger Ebert and Leonard Maltin, but today it’s seen in a slightly more favorable light. Personally, if you’re going to do a movie on slavery, a notoriously dark moment in human history, and you’re want to do it honestly, then a graphic portrayal of it such as this should be in store. It may make the viewers cringe throughout, but that’s kind of the purpose. On a purely shock value scale this thing delivers in an almost mechanical sense. It’s just one scene after another that should leave even the most seasoned audiences with their mouths agape. While it’s hard to pick just one moment that’s the most shocking as there are an incredible amount of them I felt the fight sequence where both men literally bite the flesh off the other until blood spurts out of the one’s neck is for the me the infamously top moment though having Mason using a black child as his own personal foot stool, or hanging a 60-year-old black man, played by Richard Ward, naked and upside down to be paddled not only by Hammond, but also by Charles (Ben Masters) who stops by to visit and immediately takes part while another black child looks on amused by it, comes in as a close second.

On the technical end I liked the way it was shot by cinematographer Richard H. Kline. Initially I found the decrepit look of the mansion, which was filmed at the Ashland-Belle Helene Plantation in Geismer, Louisiana, to be problematic as everything looked old and rundown, but you’d think if it had really been done in the time period it was lived-in then it should look new and just built. The overgrown lawn was an added issue as it made it seem like it was an abandoned place, but back then maybe they didn’t all use manually powered lawn cutters, or care to, so I was willing to overlook that portion. I did though love the use of natural lighting, electricity wasn’t a thing, so sunlight coming in from the windows was about it and the use of shadows nicely illustrated the dark personalities of the characters.

The acting is excellent and I was especially impressed with Mason who can seem to go from playing nice guys to villain with an amazing ease as most actors are usually just good at doing one or the other. Some complained about his attempt at a southern accent, but for a guy born and raised in Britain I thought he disguised it pretty well. Susan George, most noted for playing frightened damsel-in-distress types, does a terrific turn as an evil bitch who’ll stop at nothing to get her revenge. King is also impressive as he shows at times to have a certain conscious and appalled at what he sees, but ultimately is unable to get over the hump and becomes just as evil as the rest despite convincing himself and his slave girlfriend that he’s somehow ‘more reformed’.

My Rating: 7 out of 10

Released: July 25, 1975

Runtime: 2 Hours 7 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Richard Fleischer

Studio: Paramount

Available: DVD, Blu-ray, Amazon Video, YouTube

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Posted in 70's Movies, Exploitation, Historical Drama, Movies Based on Novels, Movies that take place in the South, Movies with Nudity

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Gloria (1980)

Posted on September 15, 2024 | 2 comments

gloria

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 8 out of 10

4-Word Review: Protecting a young boy.

Phil (John Adams) is a young boy whose father (Buck Henry) works as an accountant for the mob and has become an informant for the F.B.I. causing him and his family to become marked for retaliation by the criminal underground. In desperation Phil’s mother (Julie Carmen) pawns the child off on Gloria (Gena Rowlands) who’s their neighbor from across the hall. Gloria initially refuses to take the child as she’s adverse to kids, but eventually agrees as she takes the boy away and into her apartment just as the mob moves in on the hit. Phil was also handed by his father the ledger listing in detail the mob’s incriminating financial corruption and when they’re unable to find it after annihilating his family they then go after the pair. Gloria, who has mob connections from her past including having been in relationship with a mob kingpin, feels she can’t go to the police and must defend the child on her own using only her street savvy and gun, but where ever they go in the city the hit men remain right behind them.

John Cassavetes, who has described this as “a thoughtless piece about gangsters and I don’t even know gangsters” was never intending to direct it and though it’s become his most popular work among mainstream audiences it was one of his least favorites and something he felt embarrassed about doing. He wrote the script simply to sell it and make enough money from it to help him finance his other projects. He completed it in early 1979 and was meant as a vehicle for Ricky Schroeder who was just coming-off doing The Champ and MGM studio was looking for other projects for him to do. Cassavetes intentionally gave it a very commercial feel, much more than any of his other scripts, because he felt it would give it a better chance to sell, but when Schroeder and Barbara Streisand, who was the original choice for Gloria, both turned it down Cassavetes then shopped it around to Columbia Pictures who agreed to take it on, but only if Rowlands played the lead and since she was his wife he then reluctantly took on the directing duties.

The film doesn’t seem like the usual Cassavetes material as I was quite impressed with the location shooting, which takes the viewer to all sorts of New York City locales and makes you feel like you’re right there with Gloria and the boy as they try to maneuver their way around the unpredictable and very dangerous urban jungle. The opening bird’s-eye shot that tracks from the city’s skyline to Yankees Stadium is downright breathtaking and the grimy, rundown interiors of the family’s inner city apartment building effectively illustrates on a purely visual level the fear, stress, and tension of living in the inner city is truly like. Leonard Maltin, in his review, labeled this as being possibly done ‘for laughs’, but I didn’t find anything funny about it except for one amusing comment Gloria makes when she gets stuck in a slow elevator, but otherwise it’s a nail-bitter all the way through.

Rowlands gives her usual stellar performance, but I was hoping for more of an arch with her character. She states right up front to Phil’s mother that she hates kids and yet is pretty much warm and friendly to the child the second she takes him back to her apartment and it would’ve been more interesting to see her cold and indifferent to him initially only to slowly warm-up to him as their shared adventure went on. Buck Henry is also surprisingly good in an unusual casting choice as he’s typically known for his deadpan humor and had very little dramatic acting in his background. It was strange though why such a small, squirmy guy who was hitting 50 would be married to such a hot young Latino woman who looked to be only 24 and I felt this needed to be explained, but isn’t. I also felt the shooting of the family should’ve been shown, it gets implied, but that wasn’t enough. Seeing them shot in graphic style would’ve really hit home how dangerous and serious these people were and would’ve made the tension even stronger.

Critics at the time of the film’s release didn’t like the kid nor his acting and in fact Adams got nominated for the first razzie award for worst actor, which traumatized him so much he decided never to pursue anymore roles and to date this has been his only film appearance. I for one happened to like the kid and yes his character isn’t exactly ‘cute and cuddly’, but real children rarely ever are. They can be as rude, indifferent, and crabby as any adult and since he was brought-up in a troubled neighborhood having him be a bit ‘rough-around-the-edges’ made sense and was realistic. The only acting that I really didn’t care for was from Basilio Franchina who plays a crime boss that Gloria used to date and while he may have looked the part his performance is stiff like he’s just regurgitating lines he’s memorized and there’s no sign of a chemistry between them and their conversation is stilted and unconvincing.

Spoiler Alert!

The mob’s ability to be constantly on the pair’s tale no matter where they went seemed a bit implausible especially being in such a big, congested city, but I was willing to forgive it since the rest of it is so good. The ending was a little problematic too as it has Gloria reappearing disguised as an old lady after it was presumed she was dead. She then reunites with the kid in the middle of a cemetery, but it leaves more questions than answers like how did the two evolve? Did they become like mother and adopted son and where did they ultimately move to since New York for them was no longer safe? This might’ve gotten answered in the sequel that Cassavetes had written, but unfortunately never got green-lit. Remade in 1999 with Sharon Stone in the lead.

My Rating: 8 out of 10

Released: October 1, 1980

Runtime: 2 Hours 2 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: John Cassavetes

Studio: Columbia Pictures

Available: DVD, Blu-ray, Amazon Video, Tubi, YouTube

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Posted in 80's Movies, Cult, Gangster Movies, Movies that take place in the Big Apple, Thrillers/Suspense

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