Monday, March 18, 2024

Two on a Guillotine (1965)

Pretty Cassie (Connie Stevens) inherits the estate from her estranged, eccentric, magician dad (Cesar Romero), and is required to stay one week in his spooky mansion. A charming reporter (Dean Jones) weasels his way into the story. Will love bloom?

I grew up with the Love Bug movies. Dean Jones starred in two of the five or six in the Herbie Cinematic Universe. Ken Berry replaced him for the first sequel which may explain why I confuse the two actors. Jones, like Stevens, specialized in the lightest of light comedies. Connie was hoping to expand her acting range with this film, but it turned out to be a serious flop.

The movie was directed by William Conrad, whom my set will remember as TV’s Cannon (or from Jake and the Fatman for the slightly younger). He did a fair amount of TV directing, but only four features. He was known for getting a lot done on a tiny budget.

My problem is that Two on a Guillotine doesn’t know what it wants to be. It's labeled Horror but it’s really a horror themed mystery rom-com. There is space for light horror (looking at you, William Castle), but this was light to the exclusion of any real horror element. Which is a shame because the setting could have led into some great atmosphere, but we are only teased with it. Dead dad booby-trapped his mansion and I would have liked to have seen more of that.

All that aside, Two on a Guillotine is a reasonable watch. There are some clever elements in there. Just temper your expectations. It's a fair rom-com, but it could have been so much more. AMRU 3.

Thursday, March 14, 2024

High Society (1955)

With the help of a reporter, C.K. Dexter-Haven crashes his ex-wife’s wedding in order to HEY! What are the Bowery Boys doing here?

It was my intention to record the 1956 Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Grace Kelly musical, but what I got was the 1955 low rent comedy of the same name. And I was not alone in making this mistake. This 61 minute jokeless comedy received the Academy Award nomination for best writing, motion picture story. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences actually nominated the wrong film! The writers graciously declined.

So, I watched it anyhow. A man trying to scam a boy out of his inheritance discovers a dumb guy (Huntz Hall) at a service station with a very similar name. He produces fake documents to push him as the proper heir so that he can scam him out of the fortune.

The history of The Bowery Boys is quite long and fairly complicated. They started as the Dead End Kids in a 1937 play, which led to a series of seven films. After a few iterations and imitations they eventually rebranded as The Bowery Boys, where they were featured in forty eight films over thirteen years! I’ll let that sink in. That’s more than three and a half films per year for over a decade. That sounds exhausting.

High Society is a pretty joke-free comedy. If you don’t find their gags amusing, and I didn’t, then we are looking at a laugh free zone. Other than one quick snicker at a malapropism, I just watched in silence. Skippable, forgettable, AMRU 2.5.

Wednesday, March 6, 2024

Oscar Nominated Animated Shorts

Every year a local cinema exhibits the Oscar nominated short films, animated, live action, and documentary. This year I got to see the nominated animated short films. The live action and documentary shorts played only during business hours, so I had to skip them. Here are the nominees.

in Our Uniform (Iran) an Iranian woman reminisces about the school uniform she was forced to wear. It is not the biting social commentary it might have been, just a personal story about her experiences. The animation style is quite original and it was a pleasant watch.

In Letter to a Pig (Israel and France) a holocaust survivor speaks to school children about his experience. Running from Nazis, he was forced to hide in a pigsty. He recites a letter to a pig that he feels saved his life. Again, the animation style was very original and quite effective. I admit I was left a little confounded. I suppose it was commentary on how the Jews saw pigs as filthy animals, like how the Nazis saw Jews. A second viewing would be in order.

Pachyderme (France) is a very personal story of a young girl's experience staying with her grandparents over the summer. If there was a larger theme, I missed it. Still, it was very heartfelt and imaginative film. You can watch it on YouTube.

WAR IS OVER! Inspired by the Music of John and Yoko (USA) is the story of two soldiers playing chess by homing pigeon during trench warfare. Yoko Ono and Sean Lennon (as Sean Ono Lennon) are executive producers. WAR IS OVER! might be the least visually and narratively original story but it was still emotionally effective. The graphics were apparently created using Unreal Engine.

Ninety-Five Senses (USA) took me by surprise. It starts with an old man with a southern accent talking about kids these days but the story takes us in unexpected directions with surprising complexity and impact. It too is available on YouTube.

In addition to the five nominated shorts we were treated with two additional stories.

I’m Hip (USA) is an amusing short featuring a cat singing a jazzy song about, quite ironically, being Hip. The song was recorded by David Frishberg (of I’m Just a Bill fame) back in 1957. Amusing and visually interesting, but not much for depth. I got an Aristocats vibe.

Wild Summon (UK), narrated by Marianne Faithfull, reads like a pretty standard nature documentary, describing how salmon travel back upstream to spawn in the same place they were born. In fact, it could have been taken in whole cloth from a PBS special. The only difference is that the fish are depicted as tiny humans in salmon colored wet suits and flippers. It is quite graphic at times and really brings the carnage home.

Each short film was quite entertaining and imaginative, and I won’t be disappointed whichever wins. Knowing the Academy, I’m guessing WAR IS OVER! will win because the story is the most accessible and it ends with the John Lennon song. My vote, however, would go to Ninety-Five Senses. I've rewatched the two available on YouTube, but they all deserve a second viewing.

Sunday, March 3, 2024

The Aristocats (1970)

Rich, eccentric cat lady names her cats heir to her fortune. Faithful butler overhears this and decides to dispose of them. Duchess (Eva Gabor) and her kittens, with the help of O’Malley the Alley Cat, make the long journey home. Cartoon antics ensue.

Many great voice actors are featured here, too many to mention. June Foray was brought in to do cat screeches and Paul Winchell plays a racist stereotype. He was also Tigger. June was everybody. Monica Evans and Carole Shelley play sister geese Abigail and Amelia. They played the Pigeon sisters in The Odd Couple play, film, and TV show, and also Maid Marion and Lady Kluck in the Disney Robin Hood

The Aristocats is entertaining enough, and it was fun to see a film I hadn’t in several decades, but it’s a lesser Disney. I felt the story, comedy, and songs were average at best. At least it was out of my usual range. AMRU 3.

Wednesday, February 28, 2024

Queen Christina (1933)

The brash young queen of Sweden (brash young Swede Greta Garbo) puts her reign into jeopardy when she falls in love with the Spanish envoy (John Gilbert).

Pretty racy, even for the pre-code era. Greta’s Christine kisses the pretty Ebba full on the lips and later flies into a jealous rage when she learns of her plan to marrying a man. All is forgiven later when Christine herself later falls for a man while dressed as a boy. No one in the tavern doubts that she is a young man, even for a minute, but it’s not very convincing to the viewer.

John Gilbert, Greta’s former fiancee, plays her Spanish lover. Laurence Olivier was originally cast but the notoriously difficult Garbo insisted they had no chemistry. Gilbert is a member of a club of big Hollywood stars that could not make the transition to talkies. His fall from grace appears is a little complicated but seems to include drink and a lack of friends among the studio executives. Solid in the role, Queen Christina should have revived his career but that didn’t happen. He appeared in only one more feature film and died from a heart attack three years later. He was only 38.

Everyone’s favorite elderly Englishman C. Aubrey Smith is Christina’s faithful man at arms. Her cousin and potential suitor was played by Reginald Owen, who would later play my third or fourth favorite Scrooge.

Whether it be women’s empowerment or lesbian subtext, Queen Christina is a fascinating watch. It is an engaging, progressive, and surprising story. Based on real events, but let’s not pester historians with any questions. AMRU 3.5.

“Of course. It has to be. I felt it. I felt it! The presence. Oh, life is so gloriously improbable.”

Saturday, February 24, 2024

Corvette Summer (1978)

When a restored Corvette is stolen from a high school shop class, an obsessed twenty-something student (Mark Hamill) travels to Las Vegas to find it. Along the way he meets up with a hooker with a heart of gold (Annie Potts). Will love bloom?

Fresh off his success with Star Wars and with the Holiday Special on the horizon, Hamill wanted to do something different, and playing a 26 year old high school virgin apparently fit the bill. This was Potts’ first film role. Interestingly, both actors were injured in serious car accidents just prior to filming.

In addition to Luke Skywalker and Ghostbusters' Janine there are quite a few familiar faces. Dick Miller, who has appeared in just about everything, has a small role. Danny (Partridge) Bonaduce is one of Luke’s schoolmates, as is Wendie Jo Sperber. She was all over television and light comedies in the 80’s, most notably Bosom Buddies and Back to the Futures, one and three.

If not for the cast, Corvette Summer would have been long forgotten. It’s mostly about a broke teen in Las Vegas chasing a Corvette with no plan on what to do if he finds it. I watched it for Mark and Annie, others may want to skip. AMRU 2.5.

Tuesday, February 20, 2024

It Came from Beneath the Sea (1955)

The US Navy, with help from two scientists, fights an enormous hextopus. Will love bloom?

Released two years after “It Came from Outer Space”, it helped solidify the “It Came From” cliche for B movie titles. And say what you will, it is an accurate description of where the It came from. But one big difference between this film and the former is the budget. While From Outer Space was a B movie, From Beneath had practically no budget at all. Ray Harryhausen created his monster with only six legs to save money. Because it’s never seen in full, it is not noticeable. What is sometimes noticeable is that many scenes only got a single take. If it was good enough, it was good enough.

All the tropes of the subgenre are here. Military type partners with nerdy scientists, one being a pretty woman (Faith Domergue), to do some detective work and eventually save the day. Think of films like Them!, Cosmic Monsters, and The Monster That Challenged the World. 50’s audiences were always flabbergasted that a young, attractive woman could be an actual scientist. 50’s sexual politics rears its head again when Commander Pete pursues Domergue’s Professor Joyce a little too aggressively.

Short, watchable, and forgettable, It Came from Beneath the Sea is one of many also-rans of the era. It offers nothing new or interesting. The best think I can say is that it is inoffensive. Unless you are a woman scientist. AMRU 2.5.