Halloween Season

 Its the most wonderful time of the year...

Well, sort of. Its the one time of the year when it seems to be ok to be a horror fan. Its the one time of the year when networks and cable channels seem to recognize that we exist, and program towards us. Halloween, and October, tend to be a magical time for fans of horror films and scary movies, and its often then only time of the year we get to see screenings of obscure gems that otherwise languish in network vaults or are exiled to 2 AM programming slots.

Mind you... Christmas keeps on creeping backwards, and has come to threaten Halloween. Last year, I heard my first Christmas carols the DAY AFTER Halloween.... and that doesn't even begin to approach the terror that is 'Christmas in July'... I think in fairness that if you are going to have 'Christmas in July' then you need a 'Halloween in May', but I digress...

I've been thinking of films that put me in a Halloween mood. As is no surprise, many of these are vintage horrors of the Golden Age of Hollywood... but not all.  I had an idea of posting one for each day in October, but... maybe I'll just post them all here.

These are not in any particular order, or theme... just films that are listed as they come to me. I'll maybe put a little note as to why this one speaks to my Halloween spirit...

1) I'll start by listing all these together: Dracula, Frankenstein, Bride of Frankenstein, The Wolf Man, and possibly to a lesser extent: The Mummy, The Invisible Man, Dracula's Daughter, House of Dracula, House of Frankenstein, Son of Frankenstein, Ghost of Frankenstein, The Mummy's Hand, The Mummy's Ghost, and Son of Dracula. All of these are like comfort food. The atmosphere of all of them just put you in the frame of mind to go walk in the fog. I didn't put EVERY one of the Universal Monster cycle here, because some just don't work for me on Halloween, despite being great films. I LOVE The Creature from the Black Lagoon, but its not an October kind of film. As an added bonus, these are all pretty short, with most clocking in right around an hour... so you can get 2 of these for every modern film.

2) Silent films tend to lend themselves to October. One year, I put these on a screen while I was handing out candy to the kids, and it seemed to be a hit. Nosferatu, The Cabinet of Dr Caligari, and Haxan are the best for this, but you could also throw in Der Golem and The Phantom of the Opera for good measure. I know for a fact the Nosferatu is a good choice... I had Nosferatu playing on my porch one Halloween, and one little girl, maybe 5 years old, and dressed as a princess, peeked cautiously around the corner before approaching me, and asked if the music was from a movie. When I told her it was, she breathed a sigh of relief and told me "Good.... I thought it was a werewolf." Because of course, you can always tell when monsters are nearby because you can hear their theme music.

3) Some other Golden Age horrors, that are perhaps lesser known: The Black Cat by Edgar Ulmer pairs Karloff and Lugosi in what I consider their finest film. Its creepy, atmospheric, and visually stunning. What more could you want? Mad Love with Peter Lorre is also an appropriate journey into the macabre, with some wonderful acting and just … Lorre-flavored weirdness. I might throw in Mark of the Vampire which, for my money, is Tod Browning's best directorial effort (Yes, even over Dracula and Freaks). 

4) Because Halloween is also FUN as well as scary, we need to throw in a bit of humor, and there are no two better horror comedies from this era than Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein and Arsenic and Old Lace. Its really a shame that Boris Karloff couldn't reprise his role in Arsenic and Old Lace, because I would have loved to have seen him do it. Raymond Massey is fine, but, Karloff would have made the whole role so much funnier. Abbott and Costello are at the top of their game in this feature too... more so than the other films where they meet the monsters. To push it out a bit later, maybe include Bell, Book, and Candle with Jimmy Stewart and Kim Novak, for a fun and romantic piece of horror comedy (or if you wish to keep in in the black and white era, I Married a Witch with Veronica Lake and Frederic March, which is much the same story). 

5) Because I can, I will throw out a couple Val Lewton pictures that help the season along.... I Walked With a Zombie, Isle of the Dead, and Cat People. These require paying a bit more attention, but they are full of an atmosphere of dread.

6) Because Hammer Studios managed to reboot things in the 50s and 60s, its only appropriate to throw those films into the mix too. My choices from the Studio That Dripped Blood are: The Horror of Dracula, The Curse of Frankenstein, Plague of the Zombies, Dracula Has Risen From the Grave, and Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed. If you have extra time, and want more, maybe Brides of Dracula and Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter would be good additions. 

7) The 50s and 60s in general brought a number of worthy films to the screen that fit this list: The Haunting, Night of the Demon, and The House on Haunted Hill are the top of the Halloween heap here. However, also worthy of a Halloween look is, of course, Night of the Living Dead. I mean... a house besieged by hungry weirdos? That's obviously Halloween... the fact that in the film they are after human flesh while in real life its kids after sugary treats is really all the difference....

8) Corman's Poe cycle of films with Vincent Price is also quite appropriate. I would recommend... Masque of the Red Death. That is simply the best of them. Its like the best Halloween party ever, too. Throw in the anthology film Tales of Terror, and finally another Horror Comedy, The Raven, and maybe round it out with The Haunted Palace (Though despite the title, that was based on Lovecraft and not Poe.)

9) Speaking of Anthology films, there are a couple that would work well for the season. My suggestion is Mario Bava's Black Sunday, and the stellar Amicus production The House that Dripped Blood and maybe 1980s The Monster Club and those will serve you well I think. All of those have a wonderful Halloween atmosphere to them, and Monster Club is practically a perfect Party film, with some fun music as well. 

10) It may seem obvious, but I'm going to throw out there the original Halloween. I'm not a slasher fan, but I cannot deny that this film captures the holiday well, and its probably the very best of the slasher films anyway. I'd pair it up with the criminally underrated Halloween III: Season of the Witch. Both of these films are simply perfect for the holiday. 

And that's about as far as I can go.... Most modern films just don't FEEL like Halloween to me, but these I've listed.... when I watch them I can feel the chilly wind and hear the rustle of leaves against the streets. I can smell wood smoke, dead leaves,  and pumpkins, and the taste of maple and cinnamon.... These films ARE Halloween to me. 

I know I'll get criticism for not including later films, or 'scarier' films.... but this isn't about special effects, or scariness... this is about the FEELING of Halloween. I'll get criticism for most of this list being Black and White films... I actually know people who refuse to watch a film if its in black and white, and that's a shame to me...  There's nothing particularly earth-shaking or ground breaking, or even controversial in this list... its just Holiday favorites for me.

 

Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things

 I had the chance to rewatch Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things (1972) on the new version of Creature Features this last weekend. I'm going to be honest, I have avoided rewatching this film since the first time I saw it back in the early 80s. I saw this for the first time on The Ghoul's Saturday afternoon show, and I remember watching it on a tiny black and white 13 inch TV in my bedroom, and it scared the living hell out of me. This was my first exposure to the Zombie genre.... some people had Romero's films... I had this one. 

Its still pretty damn scary, to be honest. Not just from the perspective of the living dead rising to eat people, but from the perspective that the villain of the piece is just a horrible human being, running things through fear, and messing with forces he doesn't understand.... which really stands in for a large number of people, especially in politics, today. 

What we have, aside from a zombie apocalypse, is an egotistical theatrical director, Alan (played by Alan Ormsby) who really is just the worst human being... Alan makes lewd comments to his actresses and implies he intends to exact sexual favors from them, he talks down to his actors, insults them, threatens them, and even patronizes them by calling them his 'children', he delights in making them all uncomfortable, but threatens them into compliance with his whims, he conducts cruel practical jokes on them, and continues to push the boundaries of taste even when the others object, he makes himself out to be the smartest person in the room, when he's clearly not, he's willing to sacrifice anyone else for his own benefit.... hmm... who does this sound like in the political/business world?

Perhaps to drive home this point, there is a sequence at the end of the film where he and Anya are the only characters left and they are being backed slowly up the stairs by a zombie horde. Alan is literally cowering behind Anya, who has been one of the few people arguing for respect of the dead in the film. Alan finally shoves Anya from behind into the Zombies…. And the reaction of the zombies is one of the funniest parts of the film, because rather than instantly tearing her apart, they just stop for a moment and all turn to look at Alan with an expression that can only be read as “Dude! what the hell is wrong with you?” Anya is passed to the back of the crowd where she is presumably dispatched, but the ones in the front continue after Alan.

While this may be a bit of a spoiler, he is LITERALLY the last person to die in the film, and even the nice, helpful people that try to save anyone else in the film all die horrible first. In fact, one of those scenes is one which stuck with me from my first viewing of it. One young man offers to sprint to the boat and get help for them. So everyone draws the zombies to one side of the shack, and he goes out the back door. When the others retreat back inside, and lock the front door, they hear a keening sound, and look out the back door to see he got about 10 feet before a zombie took him down and is currently feasting on him. A heroic act... which fails utterly. That image, of the 'hero' lying there while a single zombie eats him just terrified me and stuck with me. It may be that scene alone which makes me afraid of zombie movies to this day.

The downbeat ending is de rigeur of course, but in this case... The world is doomed due to Alan's ego and poor taste. The zombies board the boat to sail over to Miami.  Thats the other scene that stuck with me. 

This film was directed by Bob Clark... Bob Clark went on to a fairly prestigious film career which included directing Black Christmas (1974), Murder By Decree (1979), Porky's (1981), Porky's II (1983), A Christmas Story (1983), and Turk 182 (1985) among others. He apparently wanted to film a reboot of this film, and was in the planning stages when he was, unfortunately, killed in a car accident in 2007.

Alan Ormsby went on to a fairly decent career as a screenwriter, with credits such as Deathdream (1974), My Bodyguard (!980), Cat People (1980), Porky's II (1983), and The Substitute (1996). 

Put into context of the time it was released, this is one of the earliest 'living dead' films in the vein of George Romero's Night of the Living Dead (1968). 1972 also saw the release of Garden of the Dead, and Tomb of the Blind Dead but the flesh eating Romero style zombie really wasn't all that common just yet. 1973 and especially 1974 saw the release of a few more of this type to really get the ball rolling. In those years we get Return of the Blind Dead (1973) and The Ghost Galleon (1974) to continue the Blind Dead series, The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue (AKA Let Sleeping Corpses Lie) (1974), and The Corpse Eaters (1974). Sugar Hill (1974) was the last gasp of the voodoo style zombie.

The weird thing about this film is how fast it seems to move... while at the same time, putting off the raising of the zombies. I guess its a credit to the script that it holds your interest for the entire time, albeit watching how horrible Alan is, and seeing exactly how low he is willing to go with his increasingly unfunny 'pranks'. The zombies aren't active until probably the last third of the film, but once they get started, they waste little time. 

The story is essentially the same as Night of the Living Dead (1968), in that our survivors are holed up in an old house besieged by flesh-eating zombies, however, despite the infighting among Romero's crew, they work together like a well-oiled machine compared to the idiots in this film. Alan's pompous proclamations (including invoking something he calls 'primal juncture' to try and bed the new starlet Terry.... he is TRYING to use the term Prima Nocte, or Droit du Seigneur, but botches it horrible... He also seems to mix it up with the term ‘primogeniture’ which is the medieval right of the first born son to inherit his father’s titles and lands.  Is this bad screenwriting, or a subtle clue that he is making things up as he goes, and is not nearly as smart as he thinks he is?), Anya's genuinely crazy new age babbling (Anya played by Alan Ormsby's real life wife Anya Ormsby), Jeff (Jeff Gillen) is ALMOST as disrespectful as Alan, and goes along with his every gag... These are not people you would trust to go out an buy coffee, let alone help you survive a zombie apocalypse.

Its billed as a 'Horror Comedy' but I'm not sure that's entirely accurate. It doesn't feel like a comedy to me, but.... I have been accused of not having a great sense of humor. I tend to feel I have a somewhat GOOD sense of humor, but I prefer better taste comedy than mocking the dead... So, your mileage may vary wildly humor-wise.

The Flesh Eaters (1964)

 I don't know if I remember things poorly or not. Sometimes, when I rewatch films I saw a long time ago, I have some distinct memories of them. Sometimes, I don't. Is it because they were heavily edited for television back then? Maybe, but in some cases, it seems almost arbitrary what got cut.

I remember, for example, watching The Thing from Another World (1951) on Superhost back in the 1970s. The scene where they are in the barracks, and the Thing bursts in, and they splash gasoline on it and set it on fire was completely cut out. It was my first time seeing the film, so... how did I know? The next week, Superhost explained that he'd gotten letters asking why that had been removed, and he went on to say it had been an editorial decision to cut it out because it was deemed 'too scary' for younger viewers... but THEN actually showed the clip of the censored portion in its entirety. It wasn't too scary for me, of course, I loved it! But it was my first dim awareness of how things came to be edited for content on television, and how perceptions of that content can vary.

(As a side note, I loved the fact that they went and re-evaluated the edit based on viewer feedback, and changed their opinion on it. You don't see that very much these days.)

Cut to this last weekend, as I rewatched the low-budget 1964 film The Flesh Eaters. 

Wow. Did they really show a film this brutal on Saturday Mad Theater back in the 70s? For kids? Yes... yes they did. I had forgotten how dark and vicious this film was, but... I remember every gore scene distinctly. This didn't get cut, from what I remember, and I'm not really certain why or how that came to be...

The film was directed by Jack Curtis (who did the cinematography under the pseudonym Carson Davidson). Curtis was primarily known as a voice actor, and did dubbing and incidental voices in films like Killer's Kiss (1955), Planet of the Vampires (1965), Godzilla vs The Thing (1964) and on television he provided the English language of many voices on Speed Racer including Pops Racer and Inspector Detector. The script was provided by comic book writer Arnold Drake, who may be best known as the creator of DC Comics Doom Patrol. Apparently, he provided very detailed storyboards for the film in Comic Book style, which led to some very interestingly framed shots in the film itself.

The story is straightforward for the most part. There will be spoilers from here on out.

The film opens with a gruesome scene as a honeymooning couple on a yacht enter the water for a swim, and are devoured by something in the sea. As the woman sinks down into the depths, there is a dark cloud of what is apparently blood that fills the sea where she sank, screaming. Its a tense and scary scene! I couldn't help but be reminded of Jaws (1977), and I wonder if Spielberg was influenced by this. It was a mere 13 years earlier, after all. 

Down-on-his-luck pilot Grant Murdoch (Byron Sanders) is hired by Jan Letterman (Barbara Wilkin) to fly her boss, aging actress Laura Winters (Rita Morley) from New York to Provincetown. (This is the one thing that strikes me odd... its only about 300 miles, so not a hugely long trip, and even in the sixties, it was pretty drivable). A storm forces them to land at an island somewhere along the coast, and they take shelter on the small island and make the acquaintance of the sole inhabitant of the place, a marine biologist named Professor Peter Bartell (Martin Kosleck) who is apparently doing some sort of research there. In the aftermath of the storm, their plane has been lost, and they start to discover skeletal remains... including humans, and worse, some sort of micro-organism in the sea that voraciously devours all flesh, and strips it to the bone. They are joined by Omar, a beatnik (Ray Tudor) from a raft, and then all their private agendas start coming to the fore as they try to find a way to get off the island and past the deadly little creatures in the water.

And when I say it gets brutal, I mean it. People die in horrible, bloody ways. The  beatnik is murdered by Prof. Bartell who slips one of the microbes into his drink, and he's eaten from the inside out. The professor records his death screams and puts the body back on his raft and sets it sailing with the recoded screams playing at full volume. The actress is knifed in the belly. Another person graphically shoots himself in the head with a bloody skeletal hand holding the gun. We hear stories of Nazi atrocities.... no punches are pulled here. And although its a black and white film, there is blood.

The film has some fantastic camera shots in it, and in this way it keeps true of Drake's vision of the film. The special effects are basic, but the very basic nature of them also makes them both weird and effective. The 'microbes' are little more than scratches on the film negative.. and their size varies wildly.

The characters ae effectively drawn, even if they seem to be caricatures. Their motivations are believable for the most part, with only Prof. Bartell seeming to be a little over the top. Of interest to me is Laura Winters.... This character reminds me of one of Arnold Drake's creations in The Doom Patrol comic; Rita Farr. Rita, or Elasti-Girl as she was known, was also a fading actress. While they are not exactly alike, it seems like Drake was experimenting with the character type here. I wonder if April Bowlby was familiar with this performance as she was researching Rita Farr in the Doom Patrol TV Series... they seem quite similar in mannerism and attitude.

I would also point out Murdoch's story about his short-lived marriage at the end of World War II. He explains that he got married to a girl in Texas, and then left to become a pilot in the War. He flew a dozen missions, and then returned.... to the shock and dismay of the bride. She had been running a scam, marrying soldiers in high risk military roles and then collecting on their life insurance when they were killed in action. This was a genuine scam that was run during the war, and Murdoch's story rings true in that regard. But beyond that, there is the 'punchline' to the story... she must have loved him a little, since she normally went for Tailgunners, because tailgunners were more likely to be killed than pilots... and his own admission that he really did 'love that little tramp' is tinged with exactly the right amount of both fondness and bitterness to make it believable. 

In researching it, I see that they released the film with a gimmick, of small packets of 'dehydrated blood' given to people in case of Flesh Eater attack. 

Apparently, George Romero originally intended to call 'Night of the Living Dead' 'Night of the Flesh Eaters'... however he was forced to change the name of the film to the more iconic one, to prevent confusion with this film. 

Martin Kosleck is probably the busiest actor in this film. His credits include a large number of TV appearances in things ranging from The Man from U.N.C.L.E. to Sanford and Son. He often played Nazis, which is interesting since he fled from the Nazi regime in the 1930s to come to the United States. 

The creatures at the end of the film are pretty decently conceived and realized. They aren't the most memorable or iconic, but they are effective I suppose. Certainly, they LOOK like something bizarre and somewhat alien. Its a good look... but they seem underused.

Also... look at the tag line on the bottom of this poster... "The only people who will not be STERILIZED with FEAR are those among you who are already DEAD!"  .... Sterilized with Fear? When was that ever a phrase? What does that even mean?

Rodan

 

I make no apologies for being a Kaiju kid. Watching monsters level cities was simply what was on TV when I was growing up, and one of the earliest I can remember is Rodan. I think I was probably in kindergarten or younger when I first saw it. I remember learning that films were on long strips that would run through a projector with a light behind it, but it still hadn't occurred to me that the strip needed to be somewhat CLEAR for the light to pass through it.... And I made an attempt to create a Rodan 'film' by drawing individual cells on the movie onto a strip of manila paper and asking my parents to show it on the little Super 8 projector we had. Those 'cells' were not in sequence, they were just individual scenes, but... I was too young to actually know how movies worked. Even if it had, it was more like a filmstrip. 

Needless to say, my early Rodan opus never got showed. I remember my mom handing me a flashlight and telling me that if the light shined through the manila paper, we could watch my production... and... imagination aside, manila paper is a poor substitute for celluloid. 

But I remember the real film fondly. 

Rodan (1956) was in frequent rotation on Superhost's Saturday Mad Theater, on Channel 43 in Cleveland when I grew up. I vividly remember watching it, and being enthralled by the colors of it. The blue of the skies, the yellow outfits of the miners, the bright red of the lava... It was, and still is, mesmerizing. And the monsters? Really perfect, and a close, early favorite to the "big guns" of Godzilla and Gamera. 

I think one of the keys here was that there was no sense of malevolence in Rodan and his mate. They were confused animals. Even as a child, I couldn't really blame them for the destruction they were creating... they were simply animals, confused and panicked, reacting as animals would. That made them less scary. And the end of the film was pure pathos, and was genuinely upsetting to 6 year old me. It was SAD to see Rodan and his mate perish in the volcano. 

You can't fault Ishiro Honda for his direction in this. Its brilliant. he managed to wring genuine fear and sadness out of a film with men in rubber suits destroying miniature sets. 

Watching the film again recently, there is something else I can point to as being something that is almost unique in the Kaiju genre... a compelling story about the human characters.

Its something of a truism that in a Kaiju film, we just don't care about the human side of the story most of the time. There ARE times when its compelling... such as in the original Gojira (1954) when the love triangle of Ogata/Emiko/Serizawa was such an intense and meaningful counterpoint to the monster, and it was skillfully woven into the story so that eventually the humans' and monster's story connect at the end. But most of the time, the human side of the story is almost a separate, and vastly inferior film to that of the monsters (I'm looking at you Godzilla Vs The Sea Monster (1966)). 

In Rodan though... the human story WORKS. I REMEMBER the Human story from when I watched this as a child... I remember it almost as vividly as the monster scenes. Maybe its because the trauma that happens to Shigeru is relatable to a child. He is separated in the mines from his companions and lost for a time, and suffers from something he is unable to explain. The idea of separation and loss is something every child can relate to. While its unlikely a child getting separated from his parents at the mall will encounter Meganulon larva or baby Pteranadons, they will likely still have a fear of monsters waiting for them. 

I can't speak for others really, but this is a more compelling human story for me than one involving Interpol officers hunting aliens...

I am also shocked that this is the first time I connected Rodan to 2000's Godzilla vs Megaguirus. I have no excuse. 

Another interesting bit of trivia... The dubbing of Rodan into English was accomplished by only about 4 people. George Takei (in his first professional 'acting' job), Keye Luke, Paul Frees (frankly the hardest working voice actor in Hollywood in those days), and a woman, who's name is sadly lost to us these days. Takei was actually the first Japanese-American to provide voiceover work for Toho films released in America.

Curiously, I see Martin Scorsese, of all people, praised the imagination of this film. Curious then that he is so negative about the current trend of superhero films, and can't see the imagination there. He is someone who really confuses me. It may be an article for another time, but he is one of those film makers who is acknowledged as a genius.... but whose works have NEVER 'spoken' to me. He gets a lot of praise for his gangster films, but... honestly? What is there to admire about gangsters? Sure, you can make a film about them feel 'real'... but what good is 'real' if its telling you a story that still feels hollow? 

As I said, a post for another time, and possibly a different blog. I connect more with giant monsters. superheroes, and supernatural and science fiction menaces than I do ordinary criminals. I am not the person Martin Scorsese is making films for, and he tends to look down on the people who make films for me. 

Let's talk about this poster for a moment. This is one of my favorite posters of the 50s... its an Australian one for Rodan. The drawing of Rodan looks NOTHING like the one in the film, but has a weird sort of charm to it. The tag line is also fantastic: "More Startling than Jules Verne!" Well.... yes, I suppose a giant supersonic monster who flattens cities with hurricane force winds WOULD be more startling than ... uh... 19th Century Steampunk visions of technology...  I mean... what do Rodan and Verne even have in common? At least Wells and Burroughs WROTE about dinosaurs, I can't think of a single mention on them in Verne, unless you want to count the Squid in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea or the giant animals in Mysterious Island.... but I don't...

Obscure Lugosi and a brief look at Asian actors in early film

 Bela Lugosi is a curious case as far as actors go. He, arguably, had a more profound impact on the horror genre than almost any other actor, and defined so many of the tropes of the genre...but his film output is not all that stellar. I mean... sure, he literally defined Dracula in the 1931 film.... and while many of his other films are respected by fans of the genre (such as White Zombie or Son of Frankenstein), most of his films are obscure, and often get lost in the mess of low budget outputs and program fillers. Its frankly hard to sit through something like Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla (1952) or Vampire Over London (1952). Its even hard to sit through something like The Return of Chandu (1934) and that has a far better story than many of his later films.

So its really nice to find something a little obscure that is engaging and actually showcases Lugosi as an actor, and not a horror icon. I discovered, on YouTube, the oldest surviving Charlie Chan film, The Black Camel (1931) which includes not only Lugosi, but an uncredited Dwight Frye... both acting mere months after the release of the mega-hit Dracula (1931). While Dracula received a general release on Feb 14, 1931, The Black Camel was released on June 21, 1931. 

The Black Camel was the second of the Charlie Chan films starring Warner Oland as the detective. It is the earliest surviving of Oland's version, with something like 5 of the other earliest having been destroyed in fires over the years. It is also notable for a couple other reasons... First off it is actually one of the rare films in the series which is based on one of Earl Derr Biggers original Charlie Chan novels. So many of these films were made that they ran out of novel material pretty quickly. Secondly, this was actually filmed in Honolulu, Hawaii and many of the locations, including Waikiki Beach and The Royal Hawaiian Hotel are included, and give a genuine sense of the exotic. This is not an early soundstage bound production. It is one of the earliest depictions of Hawaii that I am aware of on film. Hawaii itself would not even be a state until 1959.

And finally, there are Lugosi and Frye. Frye gets an uncredited bit part with only a couple lines, as a Butler. He isn't given much to do, but his voice is unmistakable, and he still talks in the slow, stilted manner he did as Renfield. Lugosi though... Lugosi is actually really impressive here, and this has shot up to near the top of my favorite performances by him. He's very natural as Tarneverro, a sort of psychic advisor who eshews the usual trappings of the soothsayer you would see him in in later roles. He's quite casual here, and looking at ease in a business suit, and right from the first scene he has with Warner Oland, you get the impression that he is easily the equal of Charlie Chan, and is not so much a psychic as extremely observant. 

Thats actually a wonderful scene. Lugosi is having breakfast at the Royal Hawaiian hotel with friends when he is informed that a 'Chinese Businessman' has arrived to speak with him. He is puzzled but curious, and goes to meet the man in the lobby, who turns out to be Charlie Chan, posing as a businessman to get information from him. This deception lasts about a second, as Lugosi immediately points out that Chan is no businessman but a police officer. Chan is amused and also guesses that Tarneverro has noticed the holes in his waistcoat from where he removed his badge. This establishes so much between these two... a mutual respect for each others intelligence, a slightly tense curiosity about one another, and the fact that they actually like each other, even if they suspect one another. Its a great scene.

And the other thing you get from this is Lugosi playing against type. Sure, he's set up as a potential suspect, but then literally everyone else is as well. He never seems a particularly CREDIBLE suspect, and there are times when Chan actually shares clues with him. As it turns out, he DOES have a connection to the murder case, but as it turns out, he is NOT the murderer... so its a rare instance in which Lugosi does NOT play either a villain or a victim. In fact, he really showcases his charm as a leading man here, and its a great glimpse of what might have been had he not been typecast and become such a victim to his own addictions and demons. This is the sort of role that Boris Karloff would occasionally get which really enabled him to rise above being a 'mere horror star'. 

Now... as for the film itself....

This is really a tricky film to examine. 

On the one had, this film shows a lot of problems that were common in early Hollywood where race was concerned. There should have been no reason to cast a white man as Chan, other than the inherent racism of the time. Warner Oland seems to be a fine actor, but why they cast him as a Chinese man is beyond me. This seems to be simply what was done at the time, and we see this over and over and over again, with Charlie Chan being played by Warner Oland, Sydney Toler, Roland Winters, and even Peter Ustinov playing him in film, while Ross Martin and J. Carroll Naish played him on television... to say nothing of both Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi playing the Chinese detective Mr Wong in various films, Peter Lorre playing the Japanese spy Mr Moto, and the likes of Karloff, Christopher Lee, and even Peter Sellers playing Fu Manchu. 

It become especially curious when you see the later films with capable Asian-American actors playing his family and sidekicks, most notably Keye Luke (who I discovered, along with Boris Karloff, was a founding member of the Screen Actors Guild). The simple fact is, sadly, I doubt that America in the 1930s would even have been willing to go to a film fronted by an Asian actor. They experimented with it on occasion, with one very interesting and notable example being to curious mystery When Were You Born (1938) starring the lovely and talented Anna Mae Wong. Keye Luke was given the chance to play James Lee Wong in Phantom of Chinatown in 1940 (previously the role had been played by Karloff). But that was about it. Merle Oberon was a popular leading lady in British film, but had to conceal the Indian and Maori heritage she had and used skin lightening makeup. According to film historian Robert Ito, apparently there were "protections" built in to the Hollywood system to protect white actors, guaranteeing that if a character was a lead, and an Asian, he would likely be a white actor cast in 'yellowface'. 

The character of Charlie Chan has drawn some criticism, some of which is justified, and some which may not be. Earl Derr Biggers created the character as a reaction to the 'Yellow Peril' style of portrayal of Asians, which he despised. He wanted a heroic and law-abiding Asian character, and was inspired by meeting real life Honolulu Detective Chang Apana in 1920. Apana was quite a colorful character, whose adventures included being tossed out a window on the second story of a house by drug addicts (only to land on his feet), and single handedly arresting 40 people involved in illegal gambling, while armed only with a bullwhip. However, the character of Charlie Chan is often criticized for his constant overuse of 'fortune cookie' wisdom, and broken English speech patterns, as well as the aforementioned Yellowface. 

On the other hand, Keye Luke, when asked if he felt that Charlie Chan was demeaning, responded with ""Demeaning to the race? My God! You've got a Chinese hero!". It should also be noted that the Charlie Chan films were the most popular American films in China during the 1930s, and there were even a number of Chinese films made of the character during that time. I am reminded somewhat of the controversy surrounding the Looney Tunes character of Speedy Gonzales, which was pulled for being racially offensive, while simultaneously being extremely popular among the people he was supposed to be offensive to. 

The yellowface is absolutely problematic... but the portrayal maybe less so. Chan DOES spout proverbs and fortune cookie wisdom... but as one reviewer pointed out, they aren't always wisdom. Many time they are cutting insults or subtle jabs at the other characters. His 'broken' English speech patterns and polite, gentle manner make his opponents constantly underestimate him. He is shown to be a loving family man, and even, at times, more professional than his colleagues in the police. 

Treated respectfully, and given to a good actual Chinese (or at least Asian) actor, its possible, I think, to modernize and redeem the character of Charlie Chan.

This is NOT a horror film, but it is horror adjacent since it has both Lugosi and Frye in it. Its a pretty good mystery too. I recommend this for fans of Lugosi especially.

Welcome Gruesome Magazine and Decades of Horror Podcast

 To my shock and surprise, a long and rambling email I sent in to the Decades of Horror podcast was read on air... in not just one but TWO of their shows. They even were kind enough to post a link to this blog, which shocks me as well.

This is incredibly kind of them, of course,

And... nerve wracking to me. I mean.... no one has ever actually LOOKED at this blog before. 

Anyway, Decades of Horror has been my podcast of choice to listen to, in addition to Evolution of Horror. Its not quite as academic as Evolution of Horror, but thats not a bad thing. Its really the sort of podcast I would like to do, if I ever did a podcast. 

One thing it has done though, is get me thinking about the various eras of Horror cinema. If we look at their series, they have it divided roughly by decade. The Classic Era is everything 1969 and before, the 70s is another, the 80s is on its own, and the 90s is what wraps it up. I suppose there could be a modern era too.... but as far as I know, they don't have that as a podcast series.

I lean to the Classic Era. That is my comfort zone. I love the old black and white films of that era. Maybe its the historian in me, seeing a cinematic vision of the past. Not always, mind you. But sometimes you can see a glimpse of the world as it was, for better or worse. Just last night, for example, I got a chance to see, for the first time, The Black Camel (1931). This was one something like the second Charlie Chan film made, and the only surviving one of the first 5 Warner Oland led Chan films. It also stars Bela Lugosi and Dwight Frye (note that this was released the same year as Universal's Dracula). It suffers from some poorly aged racist stereotypes, but also show Honolulu in the early 30s, which is AMAZING. It even had several scenes shot on location at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel... one scene looking remarkably like it was even the same table I sat at once when I was in college and got to visit with my then-girlfriend, now-wife's family. The film itself had some clever dialogue though, and it gives a wonderful look at the kind of star Lugosi might have been if he hadn't been typecast by his role in Dracula. And I keep thinking about the fact that Hawaii in 1931 seems INCREDIBLY different than it later became. Thats the power of films and history I guess.

But, circling back to the Decades... the 70s is where I start to lose interest. Not entirely, and I probably didn't think of it like this at the time. I can watch almost any genre film of the 60s and before and enjoy it, with a few exceptions. But moving into the 70s, there are suddenly a LOT that annoy me. To be honest, I have discovered I don't really like most American cinema of the 70s. There is a 'same-ness' to the look of it that annoys me. Its the same colors, its the same bleak scenery, and its often the same bleak, downbeat endings. There is a similarity in the look to films like.... The Devil's Rain, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Dual, Messiah of Evil, and Kingdom of the Spiders which just sort of annoys me. It looks hot, dusty, and sparse. I'm not sure how to describe it really... it needs someone more eloquent than me I guess. Its utilitarian, I suppose. But I compare it to the films coming out of Europe and Mexico and Asia as the same time? There is no comparison. The incredible colors you find in the films of Argento or Bava give a deeper dimension to those films. The wild use of colors enhanced the spectacles coming out of Japan in films like Hausu or the Godzilla series. Even films that have a similar visual style, like the Paul Naschy werewolf films from Spain, still seem to sparkle more than a lot of their American counterparts. Part of this may have to do with the subject matter... Once the Exorcist hit in the US, there seemed to be a lot of religious based horror unleashed, which doesn't do much for me. Sure, the Exorcist or The Omen are fine films, but... they don't really scare me, or offer me much to think about. 

Well... except for Zombie films. Zombie films always freak me out.

But moving into the 80s... The 80s is a prettier decade for films, and there are some fantastic films in the 80s. But... there is also a lot of very shallow things. I like a bit of depth, and I start missing depth in a lot of the 80s films. The 80s is the age of the endless sequel... where we see the same ideas trotted out over and over again with the slightest variations. Its the age when serial killers overtook the old style monsters, and I felt that loss. There are gems to be found, to be sure... but for every The Thing, Re-Animator, Near Dark, or Videodrome, there are a dozen Friday the 13th Part 5, or whatever slasher variant there was this time around.

I guess... I like monsters. I like the supernatural. I don't care for serial killers or religious horror. I like there to be something in a film to make me think, or I want it to be so obviously playful that it doesn't NEED me to think.

Geez, I'm such a picky old man, aren't I? *shakes my fist at the weather*

And if that hasn't scared folks off from this blog... welcome to my place to rant about things I hate and gush about the stupid things that apparently only I care about.

A newer recommendation and review.

 I know...

I generally try to keep this blog about older films, since I love them, and people today tend to ignore them. But this one is special. 

I would direct you now to Edgar Wright's Last Night in Soho (2021).

There WILL be spoilers, and I will put the poster here... if you don't want the spoilers, don't scroll below the poster. Ok?

Let's start off with the amazing cast, shall we? 

Thomasin McKenzie is the cast member I'm least familiar with, but she does an amazing job here as our protagonist Eloise. Anya Taylor-Joy (The Witch, Queen's Gambit, The New Mutants, and others)  is ALWAYS amazing, and here plays the mysterious 'Sandie' who's life in 60's Soho  Eloise bears witness to. Matt Smith, from In Bruges and Doctor Who, plays Jack, Sandie's charming but scheming boyfriend, and finally AMAZING supporting performances by veteran actors Diana Rigg and Terence Stamp. 

Someone asked me what genre this film is... and its honestly not easy to categorize. It starts as a sort of fantasy piece, but shifts to thriller and then outright horror by the end of it. The style shifts wonderfully, and bleeds together in unexpected ways. 

The basic story is that Eloise (McKenzie), a girl obsessed with 60s pop culture, moves to London to attend a prestigious Fashion Design school. She is not prepared for the city life, having been somewhat sheltered by her grandmother, after the death of her mother, and discovers that Dorm life is harsh... and seeking shelter from it, takes a room in Soho at a house owned by an older woman (Rigg). Almost immediately, Eloise begins having vivid dreams of Sandie (Taylor-Joy) who has come to 60s London to become a singer. Sandie gets involved with the charming Jack (Smith) who seems to be the answers to her prayers, and who promises to get her into 'the business' with his contacts among the nightclubs of Soho. 

But almost immediately what is dream and what is reality start to blur. Eloise wakes up inspired by these visions of this past version of Soho, but ... is also mysteriously sporting the same hickey Jack gave to Sandie in her dreams. 

Each night, Eloise returns to her dreams to watch as Sandie's life progresses, and begins to take a far more sinister turn, and we begin to see that Jack is a far less altruistic beau than he first appeared. And the darkness that Sandie finds herself in starts intruding on Eloise in her waking hours as well. 

The film presents two views of Soho. The present day Soho is a little drab, trendy, almost quaint, and populated by vacuous students and bitter old people. The Soho of the sixties, is, to quote Marillion, 'a neon wonderland', populated by elegant, stylish trendsetters where nothing is exactly what it seems. This dreamlike past is reinforced by mirrors, colored lights, and a sort of hazy atmosphere that is easy to get lost in. 

The very first scene set in this is astonishing in its setup, and remarkable in its execution. Eloise enters a club, and is greeted by a doorman who takes her coat. The full mirror on the wall shows not Eloise, but Sandie, and the two women face each other in the mirror, checking their makeup before going into the club proper. Its such a simple effect, little more than the old Marx Brothers mirror gag, but done expertly (using twin actors as the doorman) and for dramatic effect. It establishes that what Sandie experiences, Eloise does as well. 

Later, Sandie and Jack share a dance, and with a very simple camera trick, we see Eloise also dancing with Jack. Its all done practically, and in-camera. The dance and the camera are choreographed so that McKenzie and Taylor-Joy swap places seamlessly at various points, and its a gorgeous sequence.

Later still, we see Sandie running down the club's stairs, and Eloise pursuing in the mirrors.... again, ALL done practically on set, with only false reflection added later using CGI. 

The colors and the lighting are pure Dario Argento. Wright lights things in pink and red hazes, and highlights things with green lights, and the result is something visually stunning. I've heard a rumor that Suspiria (1977) is one of Wrights favorite films, and it shows. However, that is not the only influence here. The clothing often recalls the 60s James Bond Films, and one party sequence reflects Live and Let Die. When the crowds of ghosts begin to appear, I kept thinking of Carnival of Souls. One alleyway they run through I recognized from Peeping Tom (1960), there is a cinema marque advertising Thunderball (1965), several of Eloise's fellow students dress as the characters from The Craft (1996)... This is a film that draws from and page homage to all sorts of films that came before it.

One of my favorite moments in the film is where it transitions to something darker in the past. Eloise has arrived to Sandie's opening night at the club where Jack got her a job, expecting to see her headlining. She feels something is amiss, as she watches Jack laughing, smoking, and drinking with his friends at the bar, and when the show starts... its not Sandie who is headlining. Instead, its a rather sordid, risque little show with a clearly unhappy Sandie as one of the chorus. As Eloise, and the Audience follow her backstage after the performance, it initially looks like an energetic and happily chaotic scene... but then you start picking out whats really going on; Prostitution, Drug-use, blackmail, extortion... again, what we see initially is NOT what we find when we look deeper.

The only real misstep... and I'm not sure how much of a misstep it really is, and how much is just a mistake on Eloise's part... is her mistaking 'The older gentleman' (Terence Stamp) for an aged Jack. We saw what very much seemed to be a younger version of Stamp's character as one of Sandie's 'dates' and his personality seemed very different than Jack's as well. While I can understand Eloise's fixation and fear of Jack, linking him to 'The Older Gentleman' seemed a bit of a stretch... and particularly when Stamp's character seemed to know exactly what Eloise was talking about and have information about what really happened. 

I want to revisit this film again soon. I find myself thinking about it long after watching it.