So... this week's viewing has again been eclectic. In no particular order and with capsule reviews:
The Ninth Configuration (1980) - William Peter Blatty's followup to the Exorcist is a weird, dreary little piece of melodrama involving military mental patients and a LOT of ruminating on the nature of god and salvation. While the acting is fine, if a bit over the top in places. Stacy Keach seems a bit miscast as a Marine pyschologist.
The Crystal Ball (1943) - A fun little romantic fantasy piece with Ray Milland and Paulette Goddard, in which a woman attempts to win the man of her dreams by posing as a Fortune Teller. Its about as inappropriate of film as you get from this era, but its still lightweight and endearing enough that it doesn't offend too much.
Little Shop of Horrors (1960) - Roger Corman's low budget comic masterpiece, filmed in 2 whole days. I haven't seen this is years, but I was charmed by it all over again. There are some genuinely funny performances in this, and not a wasted moment. Particularly standout is Jonathan Haze as the hapless Seymour who manages to appear over his head in every single action he does, the late great Dick Miller as Fouch the flower eating dispenser of advice and wisdom, and of course, Jack Nicholson in what is probably the funniest role in his entire career. "Don't stop NOW!"
Humanoids from the Deep (1980) - Another Corman piece, this one only produced by him, but its a grisly, gory sort of take on Creature from the Black Lagoon. Its an effective way to pass a couple hours, but not much else to say about it.
The Fury of the Wolf Man (1972) - Paul Naschy's third outing as Spain's answer to Lawrence Talbot, Waldemar Daninsky, which completely ignores Daninsky's origins in the PREVIOUS two films, making this something of a soft reboot of the series. Now his origin comes by way of a Yeti attack (mentioned but not shown, unfortunately.) The movie is disjointed and badly edited, but the performances, particularly Naschy's are solid.
Assignment: Terror (1970) - This Spanish film is Paul Naschy's second turn as werewolf Waldemar Daninsky. I have to confess, this is a WEIRD film, involving alien invaders (led by Michael Rennie in his penultimate film role) using monsters like Dracula, The Mummy, The Wolf Man, and Frankenstein's Monster to ... do... something. Take over the world, I presume. Naschy's Wolf Man becomes a hero in this, before being dispatched by the lovely Karin Dor, playing his love interest for the film, Maleva Kerstein. You MAY notice that there seems to be a lot of crossover going on in this film... and there is. And there would have been MORE had the budget allowed it. It doesn't quite reach the fun of the Universal "monster rally" films of the 40s, but its still oddly entertaining.
and Finally, The Curse of the Crimson Altar (1968).
I want to spend some time on The Curse of the Crimson Altar or, as it was known in the United States, The Crimson Cult.
The film stars 3 absolutely legendary horror stars in a film that borrows liberally from horror author H.P. Lovecraft. The stars are Christopher Lee, Boris Karloff, and Barbara Steele.
The story is about antique dealer Robert Manning (played adequately by Mark Eden) who is searching for his missing brother in a rural English Village. He comes to stay in the local manor house of J.D. Morley (Christopher Lee) and his niece Eve (Virginia Wetherell) and creepy Butler (Michael Gough). It is, naturally, on the night of a local celebration re-enacting the execution of a witch in 1652. This witch, Lavinia Morley, appears in very odd dream sequences throughout the film, played by Barbara Steele in blue body paint. Also present is Boris Karloff as the elderly antiquarian named Marsh researching the history of Witchcraft in the area, and his mute manservant.
If you identified the H P Lovecraft story as "Dreams in the Witch-House", give yourself a pat on the back, however don't get too excited... Its like the writers jettisoned everything but the title and the idea of a 300 year old witch.
This is one of Karloff's final performances. He filmed this after "Targets" and he developed pneumonia over the course of filming this. He recovered enough to film 4 additional features in Mexico, but this was the last of his roles to be released to the theaters while he was still alive. Most of the time, he is confined to a wheelchair for his role, although toward the climax, he DOES have one scene in which he is propped against a doorframe, and is clearly very weak and in a lot of pain, but STILL commands the scene. Christopher Lee apparently greatly admired his professionalism during the shooting. Whats more, even in the scenes when he is in the wheelchair, he proves a wonderful actor even without the physicality that you might expect. Its genuinely funny, for example, when he expresses utter horror at Manning's lack of appreciation for fine brandy in one scene, and you can actually see Virginia Wetherell hiding a laugh as Karloff gives him a withering look.
Virginia Wetherell is lovely in her role, and there is a bit of tension, as you're never quite sure until the end who Lavinia's agent in the modern era is, and there is always a bit of uncertainty if Eve might not be the one. The unfortunate thing about her character is that she has to deal with Manning's rather rough and arrogant affections throughout the film. It was perhaps a sign of the times it was filmed in, but the love scenes between the two often made me cringe. In researching the film, Apparently Wetherell claims to have not done the nude scene in the movie, but that it was done by a body double.... a claim which seems peculiar given that not only did she appear nude in other films, but she is CLEARLY shown topless lying in bed in this film, meaning that if a body double was used, it was only for the scene where the is seen from behind as she gets out of bed and puts on a robe. Very odd.
Christopher Lee has said that this was one of the worst roles of his career... and watching the film, its easy to understand why. While he is in the film quite a bit, he is given almost nothing whatsoever to do. He is charming and amiable, but does little.... most of the backstory and occult information is provided by Karloff, while Wetherell becomes the chief love interest and investigative assistant to Manning. Lee is mainly there as a host, and to occasionally express regrets. While he gets more to do at the climax of the film, even that is cut short.
And if Lee is underused, so is Barbara Steele. Steele was one of horror's great leading ladies, but in this turn, she shows up only rarely, and on those occasions the blue paint and weird headdress give her an impressive presence that her dialog never manages to match. It also is weirdly distracting that they surround her with a bizarre assortment of supporting characters with no dialogue at all, but who they seem to also dress in ways that distract from Steele's impressive costume. They are dressed in animal masks, and some of the men are dressed in what appear to be skimpy black leather bondage costumes.
There is enough happening in the Curse of the Crimson Altar that I find it intriguing, and the performance of Karloff is certainly a standout. There is a cheeky humor to it as well... at one point after Manning arrives at the manor house, Eve comments to him that the place sometimes reminds her of something from an old horror movie, and he responds with "Yes, I know what you mean. You think Boris Karloff is going to pop up any moment." A couple scenes later, Karloff does exactly that.
Its not a classic horror film, but its certainly not a horrible one. There is something about this film that I found oddly comforting. I think it was because it seemed a perfect blend of they styles of both Universal and Hammer, creating a new sort of atmosphere. This film, by the way, was from neither company, it was from Tigon.
Well worth a look, maybe moreso for fans of Karloff or Lovecraft.
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