Contempt (1963)

A screenwriter (Michel Piccoli) is hired by an arrogant American producer (Jack Palance) to punch up a script during filming, and his marriage to his disproportionately attractive wife (Brigitte Bardot) begins to deteriorate.

Director Fritz Lang plays director Fritz Lang. Real-life Lang’s directing career was already over, due mostly to failing eyesight. Here he is directing, interestingly enough, The Odyssey.

The film was a success for director Jean-Luc Godard, but for Bardot, one of the biggest stars at the time, it was a bit of a disappointment. Half of the million dollar budget went into her fee.

Husband and wife wander around their apartment while arguing. The scene goes on for thirty-four minutes and nothing sees to be communicated. This is the key to the film. A relationship goes from very solid to on the rocks, and the root cause is never uttered. It is left to the audience to decide. I have my theory, and it's not what's in the IMDb blurb.

Contempt is a very talky movie. Little action of consequence and the viewer is left to decide what it all meant. A second viewing may be in order, but I don’t feel compelled to do so. AMRU 3. It is, however, my favorite Jean-Luc Godard film so far.

The Great Escape (1963)

The Nazi's had a problem with certain prisoners of war always finding a way to escape. Their solution was to put their biggest offenders all in one camp. An escape proof camp. The prisoners plan an escape. One might even call it a 'great' escape.

The movie is based on a 1950 book detailing actual events. The characters were combined or fictionalized, so you won't learn about the real people. That's what books are for, I presume. Americans were added for box office reasons.

Officers saw it as their duty to attempt to escape from prison camps, if for no other reason than to divert Nazi resources away from the war. A third front, as it were.

The assembled cast is quite impressive. James Garner, Steve McQueen, and Richard Attenborough head a cast that also includes James Coburn (in a terrible Australian accent), Charles Bronson, and Donald Pleasence, among others. The film divides time between them quite well.

When reviewing Stalag 17 I noted the parallels to the TV show Hogan's Heroes. This film, however, appears to be it's true inspiration. Garner is totally Hogan.

Despite its almost three hour runtime, The Great Escape does not drag. The many details of the escape plan and side stories are fascinating. AMRU 4.

Murder at the Gallop (1963)

Miss Marple (Margaret Rutherford) is back to investigate a murder that the police won’t. A wealthy old man is scared to death by a cat. Which one of his heirs is the murderer?

Marple’s buddy (and real life husband) is back as Mr. Stringer (Stringer Davis). It’s been a bit since I watched Murder, She Said (1961), but I feel he had a bit more to do in this film. Robert Morley is recognizable in his significant part. He seems to show up when a pompous Englishman is needed.

Based on the Agatha Christie novel After the Funeral, which is actually a Hercule Poirot story. Christie herself is mentioned by Rutherford, citing a fictitious book titled “The Ninth Life”.

While it’s amusing to watch Rutherford waddle around and poking her nose into someone else’s affair, Murder at the Gallop is not much of a mystery. There’s a lot going on and Marple just solves the murder, ex machina style. AMRU 3.

It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963)

A man (Jimmy Durante) driving recklessly down a mountain road sails off the cliff. He just went sailing right out there. People from cars that he passed climb down to check out the accident. With his dying moments he tells the group of money buried in a park in Santa Rosa, California, underneath a giant W. I wonder if they can all work together to retrieve the loot? The police take a keen interest.

It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World brings together some of the best comedy talent of the day in an ensemble cast that is unrivaled. Popular TV comics of the day, old Hollywood legends, up and coming talents, and character actors. This level of talent could never happen again.

And if you think I’m exaggerating, the five people who visit the crash site were played by Milton Burl, Sid Caesar, Buddy Hackett, Mickey Rooney, and Jonathan Winters. Waiting in the cars are Ethel Merman, Edie Adams, and Dorothy Provine. Ok, Dorothy isn’t all that famous, but she starred in That Darn Cat! That’s not nothing.

Spencer Tracy is the tired police chief monitoring the people’s movements, and Phil Silvers, Dick Shawn, and Terry-Thomas have large, memorable roles. But a complete list of cameos and character rolls would be impractical, but I will at least to mention Buster Keaton and the Three Stooges (with Joe DeRita). It would almost be easier to list the exceptions.

The film is wall to wall stunts and gags. There were about one hundred stuntmen working in Hollywood at that time and about 80 worked on this film. It was essentially filmed twice: once with the stuntmen dressed as the stars (sometimes in blackface), and again with the stars themselves. When Hackett saw the stunt footage, he asked “What do you need us for?”

It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World is a long film. IMDb says three and a half hours, but my TCM recording was just short of 3. Apparently a couple scenes were cut before the premiere. I remember loving it as a kid before I knew who most of the cast was, and was curious to know how well it held up. Amazingly well, it turns out. I watched until the intermission then finished the film on a second day.

Which begs the question, how many pure comedies have an intermission? I can’t think of another. But Mad World does not drag. It’s a case study on how to use a large ensemble cast properly. Also, how to use stunts effectively. And better yet, the stunts supported the comedy, not just tacked on.

There are too many side stories about the production and potential casting choices to go into here, but Don Rickles was slighted by not being included. When I saw Rickles in concert a few years ago, he mentioned this. AMRU 4.5.

Dementia 13 (1963)

Irish mansion, morbid ceremony, family secrets, ax murderer, big reveal, roll credits.

While working with Roger Corman on The Young Racers, a very young Francis Ford Coppola somehow convinced him to finance his own film. He used existing sets and locations, enlisted film school friends, wrote a script, finagled additional funding, and filmed during down times. The title was inspired by Hitchcock’s Psycho, but there was already a 1955 film named Dementia, so he added the number 13. You know, because 13 is unlucky.

Coppola borrowed a few actors from The Young Racers but the only recognizable face is William Campbell. He had a long film and TV career, but to me he will always be General Trelane, retired. The film’s two pretty blonds each have a sexy sexy scene (by 1963 standards) calling back to Coppola’s earlier work on nudie cuties.

A close look at this film may reveal clues of a director that would be one of the all time greatest for an eight year stretch, but without the insight of hindsight I doubt even an educated viewer could pick that out. It is at times clumsy, some of the acting is quite poor, and the story is really a mess. It feels as if a few interesting elements were awkwardly tied together into a narrative. It’s worth noting that his previous directing experience was creating additional scenes to somehow save The Terror. Coppola learned a great many things during the process, but the importance of budget and time may have been the best lesson.

Dementia 13 is a watchable and mostly interesting film, if only because of the director. But it is by no means a good or important film. There are flaws the viewer must overlook, but at least it’s brief. AMRU 2.5.

“Especially an American girl. You can tell she's been raised on promises.”

 

Hud (1963)

An aging rancher (Melvyn Douglas) runs a cattle ranch while dealing with his ne'er-do-well son (Paul Newman) and raising his orphaned grandson. When his herd is threatened, old grudges and family secrets are revealed.

Young Lonnie idolizes his reckless uncle and doesn’t understand gramps hostility towards him. It is mentioned in the IMDb blurb, so I suppose it’s not really a spoiler. In the second act it is revealed that Hud drove the car in the accident that killed his brother, Lonnie’s father. Ironically Brandon De Wilde (Lonnie) also died in a car accident at 30, leaving a young child. And so it goes.

Paul lost the Oscar for best actor but Grandpa Melvyn won best supporting actor and Patricia Neal won best actress. Douglas and Neal also appeared together eighteen years later in Ghost Story. That would prove to be Douglas’ last screen appearance, premiering four months after his death.

Yvette Vickers was here. She played a hussy in Attack of the 50 Foot Woman and played a hussy here. She plays a very good hussy. She appeared in only fifteen films and this is my fourth. I’ll likely see a fifth.

Every bit a western, it establishes early that it is set in the present day by panning to a truck. Hud is a slow burn character study. Based on the book Horsemen, pass by, details therein would have made it unfilmable in 1963. That said, Hud is a fascinating and unconventional story. AMRU 4.

8½ (1963)

Movie director Guido (Marcello Mastroianni) is working on his latest film but nobody seems to know what it is about. Guido deals with studio people, difficult actresses, his mistress, wife, and a rich fantasy life.

8½ is a masterpiece. Everyone says so. But the problem with a subtitled film (especially one with overlapping dialog) is that you spend more time reading and less time observing the context of the conversation. And at two and a quarter hours, this dance becomes tedious. I may have napped.

In a perfect world I would watch each film twice, several days apart, preferably with someone to discuss it with. I have no such luxury. Many films would have benefited from this tact, 8½ in particular. It is hard to take in all that is going on, but what I did take in was bizarre. Guido has these issues, personal entanglements, and demands on his time. He slides seamlessly into and out of fantasy, and sometimes it’s hard to determine which is which. All the while, the film doesn’t appear to be getting any closer to completion.

Guido is Federico Fellini. This was an examination of his life and his creative process. Maybe an indictment of both, hard to say. Second billed Claudia Cardinale was radiant and barely in the film. Old friend Barbara Steele had a small role as someone else's trophy girlfriend.

I didn’t actually miss any of the film, having stopped it prior to my snooze. 8½, though, must have a second viewing. There it so much to take in. I felt each conversation had context and nuance I wasn't 100% picking up on. I will watch it again. I may still not completely understand it, but I'll get out of it what I can. AMRU 4.

The Terror (1963)

Andre (Jack Nicholson) is a Napoleonic soldier separated from his battalion. Exhausted and thirsty, he happens upon a hot young woman (Sandra Knight) who calls herself Helene. She leads him to water then tries to drown him. He wakes up in the cabin of an old woman who says he just imagined the young woman. Her mute servant tells him (just go with it) to seek the girl at the castle of the Baron Victor von Leppe (Boris Karloff), who says he just imagined the young woman. But Andre is obsessed.

There is so much wrong with this film. Jack and Barron henchman Dick Miller’s stilted and unnatural delivery appear to channel Keanu Reeves. There are extended shots of Karloff pointlessly walking, ape-like, around his underfurnshed mansion slowly coming to the realization that he will never again be in a good movie. The secrets of the movie are revealed in a haphazard way and the great twist at the end would make even soap opera fans groan.

What really happened here is that director Roger Corman finished early on The Raven (1963), sent everyone but Karloff and Nicholson home, then filmed random scenes of Karloff on existing sets. He then continued with Jack and a couple other actors trying to improvise a new movie. When the editors came back and said it was a mess, they had Nicholson and Miller do some exposition in a studio to try and fit it all together.

The core of the story isn’t bad. A witch mesmerizes a young woman who resembles the Barron’s dead wife to torment him for killing her son. Not great, but by B movie standards, not bad at all. But it doesn’t work because of the previously mentioned terrible acting, the ‘saved it in the editing’ filming schedule, and the mind numbingly stupid twists at the end (yea, that’s right, two stupid twists). Dick and Jack are fighting, then cooperate, then fight again. No reason. Fix those problems and you will have a serviceable if forgettable film. With those problems you have a film Jack Nicholson wants everyone to forget.

I remember a scene at the very end of a film I saw as a boy that stuck with me. I didn’t remember the content of the story nor the context of the scene. That film was this and that scene was dumb plot twist number two. I remember the actor reacting not with horror but with an ‘Ew, that’s gross!’ look on his face. That part was remembered correctly.

I’m sure Roger Corman turned a profit on The Terror. He was notorious for his tight shoots and tighter budgets. He wouldn’t spend a nickel to make a movie better unless it returned him a dime. He didn’t have the luxury of time here but I can’t help think that with a little better planning and some creative writing even the twists could have been successful. As it exists, however, AMRU 2.

Move Over, Darling (1963)

Five years after the death of Nick’s (James Garner) wife Ellen (Doris Day), he marries Bianca (Polly Bergen). Everything is all well and good until Ellen returns from the dead to foul things up.

This was the studio’s second attempt to remake the 1940 Cary Grant/Irene Dunne film. Notoriously they tried filming with Dean Martin, Marilyn Monroe, and Cyd Charisse when Monroe’s erratic behavior caused serious delays that the studio could not tolerate. Then she died. They had about a third of the film in the can before shutting everything down. Here is attempt two with a completely new cast, new title, and a modified script.

Lots of studio contract actors to be seen here. First is Thelma Ritter, whom old friends will remember from Rear Window and All About Eve. Our disgruntled hotel manager today is Fred Clark, who I’ve seen in Sunset Blvd and surprisingly nothing else. He also did a lot of television. Also here is John Astin (you know, Sean’s dad), and Don Knotts who was a TV staple for me growing up. Speaking of TV, Schneider had a small role.

There is something about Doris Day’s body language. She is so wonderfully expressive and you can’t take your eyes off of her. Several years older and never the sex kitten Marilyn was, she was nevertheless much more relatable. I did watch the 37 minutes of Something’s Got to Give edited to a final film as much as possible. While it’s impossible to judge what a completed version would have been, it seemed like I was watching an overall crappier version of the exact same movie. While Marilyn certainly had her charm, she was miscast as a loving mother/sexpot and her acting talent could not hold a candle to Day.

Move Over, Darling is a fine romantic comedy. If I were to criticize it, I’d say it could have been funnier. Also, the entire situation could have been resolved if Nick just told Bianca about Ellen’s return. And I didn’t buy that James Garner would be too timid. Not Jim Rockford. Also, the premise that the marriage would not be consummated until the honeymoon may have been plausible back in 1963, but it was head scratching today.

Slightly better than the original but brings nothing new to the table. Pleasant and easy to watch. AMRU 3.

Irma la Douce (1963)

An honest Parisian cop (Jack Lemmon) is fired for calling a raid on street walkers. He then falls in love with one of them (Shirley MacLaine) and becomes her pimp. It’s the classic love story.

What was originally a musical was adapted into a rather strange film. Themes like crime, prostitution, infidelity, domestic violence, and even murder are treated with a bizarre whimsy. Universal Protagonist Jack Lemmon suffers through all of it. He loves Irma and cannot stand it when she serves her customers, so he concocts a bizarre plan to deal with his jealousy, but no spoilers here.

Marilyn Monroe and Charles Laughton both were set to appear but were totally croak-city come production. A Marilyn Irma (or EAR-ma) would have been an interesting change. Surely she would have highlighted the character’s stupid qualities. Laughton would have played bar owner Moustache, and would have been wonderful but I don’t see how he could have improved on Lou Jacobi. Who wasn’t dead yet was Grace Lee Whitney as Kiki the Cossack, whom geeks will recognize as Yeoman Janice Rand. Also interesting is the the film debut of James Caan and an early appearance of Bill Bixby. Look them up, ya damn millennials!

Very bawdy by early 60’s standards. Unlike another Billy Wilder film made a few earlier (which I will soon cover), the sexuality holds up. Many shots of topless women from the back, MacLaine included. It’s a twelve-year old’s dream. Before the internet, that is. It is a good example of how Hollywood changed during these times. What a difference eight years makes.

MacLaine didn’t think much of the script nor the film, but it earned her an Oscar nom none-the-less. The tone is almost off-putting with it’s flip treatment of dark material, but it doesn’t fail to entertain. The dialog is clever and witty like (almost) all Wilder films, and it is visually appealing. But that’s another story. AMRU 3.5.

“It's a hard way to earn an easy living.”

Charade (1963)

Pretty wife of luxury (Audrey Hepburn) announces she will divorce her husband, but he turns up dead before she can. His former business partners arrive demanding their share of his loot, putting her life in danger. Dashing Peter (Cary Grant) turns up to "help out". She doesn't know if she can trust him but does anyway.

Something about Charade reads like a Hitchcock film. Many people (myself included) have confused it for one. After a few minutes, however, it's clearly not. Charade has this 60's-Euro-Cheesy Music vibe to it that Hitch would never have done. Sorry, Henry. The music was kinda cheesy.

Not the most mysterious of mysteries. Not the most comedic of comedies. Not the most romantic of, well, whatever. It's no Hitchcock movie, but not bad overall. Audrey Hepburn was adorable and Cary Grant was Cary Grant, even when on the cusp of 60. AMRU 3.

Alexander Dyle: All right, get set for the story of my life.
Reggie Lampert: Fiction or non-fiction?

The Birds (1963)

Attractive (spoiled) socialite (Tippi Hedren) travels to a small coastal California village to play a prank on a man (Rod Taylor) who earlier played a prank on her. As love blooms, all of the birds go crazy.

This could have been just an unconventional monster flick with a bolted-on love story, but not in Hitchcock's hands. We learn and really care about the flawed characters as the situation becomes more dire.

Before I praise The Birds some more, allow me to pick some nits. When birds attack, children and adults alike run around like nuts rather than run for cover. Three scenes in particular come to mind, but I shan't spoil anything. The characters simply don't behave believably. Hedren herself asked why she would do something and Hitchcock responded "Because I told you to."

Additionally, I detect no larger meaning to the horror. Just birds gone crazy. No cold war tension, environmental disaster, no science gone too far cautionary moral. Maybe that isn't a flaw in of itself, but what we have is a budding romance and crazy birds. That's all. It seems incomplete.

Now, that said, The Birds is a wonderful tale. Great pacing, character development, and well written dialog. A very young Suzanne Pleshette was quite adorable (although it was hard watching her light up cigarettes knowing she will die young of lung cancer). Jessica Tandy played the overprotective mother, lending to the idea that she was always old. AMRU 4.

Side note: since I saw Psycho I have been targeting this movie. I would record it and it would be deleted from my tiny DVR before I got a chance to see it. I recorded it again, and again it was deleted. On my third try I had a DVR failure and it didn't record. Luckily, this is a movie that TCM loves to run. On the forth try, I finally got to see it.

The House is Black (1963)

The House is Black is a short documentary about life inside an Iranian leper colony. Made by 28 year old poet Forugh Farrokhzad, it takes an unflinching look at these forgotten people. But instead on focusing on despair, which would be very easy to do, she looks at the humanity. The victims life is hard but there is still joy.

This short film is important because it is viewed as an important precursor of the Iranian new wave of cinema. This kind of thing might not be what inspires most readers of blogs like mine, but I watched The Story of Film: an Odyssey earlier this year and it brought my attention to such ideas. It's still on Netflix and I urge everyone to watch it. And don't whine about his accent. You get used to it!

Forugh would never make another film. She died five years later in a car accident. She was 32. Watch it on YouTube. It's a very good use of 21 minutes of your life. AMRU 4.

Beach Party (1963)

Cute-as-a-button Dolores (Annette Funicello) is spending the week at a beach house with shorter-than-expected Frankie (Frankie Avalon). Not sure if she can trust herself alone with him, she invites along everyone she's ever met. Immediately they spat and take turns trying to get each other jealous, Frankie with hot waitress Ava (Eva Six) and Dolores with a creepy professor (Robert Cummings) who is spying on the teens sex life. Entering the fray is the gang who couldn't think straight.

Rife with beach songs, corny jokes, and bikinis, I'm quite surprised to report that I didn't hate this movie. In fact, lose half the musical numbers, punch up some of the jokes, and you might have something here. What was supposed to be a low budget Elvis knock off movie became it's own cultural phenomenon. American International Pictures made a half dozen or so more of these quickies, many with Frankie and Annette, but some without.

Clearly I watched this out of respect for Annette. Her movies were antiques even back in my youth, but she was so likeable. I'm convinced she was the reason my mom always bought Skippy even though I was a Jiff boy. Her charisma comes through. She plays up her good-girl image here, appearing positively overdressed much of the time. She does make one appearance in a scandalous two-piece, so put rumors of modesty aside for a moment.

Surprisingly, Franking and Annette did not got top billing. Cummings and his assistant Dorothy Malone did. Cummings was an odd duck. An avid health nut, in his 40s he likely could have out-surfed green-screen Frankie. He popped vitamin pills obsessively. He lived, hearty and hale, until he was 80. But before you praise his pill-popping ways, know that he died of kidney failure.

Fun, corny, light fare. The real test is if it encourages me to watch more in the series. Time will tell. Hey, I haven't seen an Elvis movie yet ... and I still won't. AMRU 3.

"Boy, this has been some night."
"You can say that again."
"Boy, this has been some night."

Black Sabbath (1963)

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

From Russia with Love (1963)

Nefarious crime organization SPECTRE plans to steal a Russian decoding machine by coercing a hot young Russian spy and tricking Bond (Sean Connery) to steal it for them. Will bond figure it all out first? Will he nail the ruskie? Seriously? You have to ask?

I have a long simmering interest with the world famous secret agent and awesome man-whore. I had a few on my netflix queue a while ago and some point they re-appeared, only to be taken away after the first week of the new year. I got in as many as I could.

So, Bond breezes into an assignment with no apparent plan, does little actual spying and no police work, is immediately identified by all of his adversaries, and gets away with it. And with Bond films it's less about the body count than the booty count. I didn't think to keep track.

The film introduces Desmond Lleweln as Q for his first of seventeen movies (Connery did only seven). Not a bad gig. Lois Maxwell was in he second of fourteen as Moneypenny. Also see a young (ish), fit Robert Shaw. But watch From Russia with Love for what it inspired, for instance Frau Farbissina.

Bond delivers with everything we come to expect from the myth. AMRU 3.5.

The Pink Panther (1963)

Hot Princess Dahla (Claudia Cardinale) owns one heck of a jewel. She is on vacation and brings it along. Famed jewel thief Charles Lytton (David Niven) takes an interest. Charles' playboy nephew (Robert Wagner) arrives to complicate matters. Inspector Clouseau (Peter Sellers) is on the case.

A while ago I got my boys interested in Clouseau. We watched the 1970's slapstick movies and even dabbled in the crappy 1980's versions before Netflix saw fit to take them away. They became fans. I thought I might be able to convince my boys to see the somewhat drier original. Two out of three, not bad.

Here are some funny facts: Clouseau had a wife (Capucine), there was no Cato, no Dreyfus, no silly accent. Or at least, not over the top. Much of that came with A Shot in the Dark, which came out three months later and wasn't supposed to be a Clouseau movie to begin with. More on that after I see it.

Actually, The Pink Panther wasn't supposed to be a Clouseau movie. The story centered around Lytton, but Sellers, quite literally, stole the show. Niven thought this could turn into a series of movies for him, much like The Thin Man. Interestingly, Niven played a Nick Charles parody in Murder by Death, also starring Peter Sellers.

Well made and slapstick in it's day, but in a time when a pie in the face is considered understated, it can be a little slow to the younger viewers. That said, A Shot in the Dark won't be too hard of a sell to the boys. For two of them, anyways. AMRU 3.5. Mmmmm, Elke Sommer ....

The Haunting (1963)

College Professor wants to do research into the paranormal. Specifically, he wants to study a haunted house. So he hires a couple hot research assistants and sets up shop inside the most haunted house in New England: Hill House. Nephew of the owner tags along for fun.

So, in they cart their expensive research equipment. No inferred cameras and motion sensor, but good stuff none-the-less. No, there aren't any tape recorders or thermal detectors either. Basically, he brings in blank sheets of paper. There, his highly trained staff ply their trade. Well, actually, the only qualification they seem to have is ignorance of the house and a willingness to work cheap. And, come to think of it, I never see them writing on that paper. So much for a well thought out experiment.

So, our ingenue protagonist is young Nell (Julie Harris, 38). She's never been out on her own before and seems to come chuck full with her own baggage. The other assistant is worldly Theo (Claire Bloom, 32). She likey Nell. At least as much as 1963 Hollywood would allow. Their fearless leader is Doctor Markway (Richard Johnson, 36), hunky married man. Russ Tamblyn plays nephew Luke. He don't believe in ghosts.

Well our gang has pleasant conversation, creepy things happen, Nell falls for Doctor, Nell argues with Theo, really creepy things happen, Nell goes insane, and they all live happily ever after. Except the people who die.

The Haunting is a very respected horror movie. A quick search of IMdb for keyword Haunted House and Horror Movie, it ranks sixth all time (right behind Zombieland, go figure). I had high hopes. I wasn't too disappointed, but it failed to live up to it's reputation. It wasn't very creepy, the ending was weak, and the history of the house was never fully explained. Still, it earns a respectable AMRU 3. Maybe I'll read the book.

"The dead are not quiet in Hill House."

Jason and the Argonauts (1963)

The bulk of my TV time allotment was used up by the Olympics. Coinciding with the Olympics, two things events occurred in the last few weeks that have influenced my movie watching. One was my wife insisting we all go see Percy Jackson and the Olympians. We all liked the movie and it got me thinking of the Greek myths. Another thing was that Leonard Maltin suggested The 7th Voyage of Sinbad in his movie a day calendar. No, not Greek by any stretch, but Ray Harryhausen, who did the special effects for Sinbad, later did the effects for Jason and the Argonauts. I was speaking to a scientist at work (one of two people I know who give a damn about pre-CGI movies) and the following day Jason was left at my desk. I promptly watched and returned it.

Pelias learns that the gods have ordained his conquest of the kingdom of Thessaly, so he does. The gods also will that the dead king's son, Jason, will in turn dethrone him. What's a tyrant to do? Kill the ex-King's offspring, of course. But, dang-it, Jason gets away. Of all the luck.

Many years later, Jason bumps into Bad King Pelias but doesn't recognize him. Pelias learns that Jason is hunting for this Golden Fleece, which is supposed to be totally awesome, and Pelias thinks that's nice, because it will send Jason to the ends of the world.

Jason is helped by Hera (played by the hot Honor Blackman), but she can do so only five times. Jason speaks to her through a creepy headpiece attached to the Argo. Quickly Jason uses up his Hera favors and is mostly on his own. He battles Harpies, a giant bronze man, and rocks with a bad attitude. Hercules loses his boyfriend so he takes off to search for him.

Arriving in Colchis, land of the mystical sheep skin, Jason meets Medea, played by the oh-my-god-hot Nancy Kovack. Jason, kills the Hydra (stabbing it worked, go figure), steals the skin (sitting on a dead tree in the middle of nowhere), evades some awesome skeletons, and returns to his boat with the hot Medea.

Only thing left to do now is set sail and ... credits roll. What? No journey back? No confrontation with Pelias? What's the deal? Is there a Jason II? Nope. That's it. Oh, come on!

The two of my boys that watched really liked it. Apparently the mythology presented is fairly accurate, though the benchmark is rather low. The fact that just about everybody's voice was dubbed was annoying, but I would consider seeing it again. AMRU 3.5.

Sinbad has already been picked up from the library. Oh, by the way. Percy Jackson was very accurate to the Greek myths, but apparently not at all to the books. Athena's daughter is hot.

Twice-Told Tales (1963)

Twice-Told Tales is a reference to a collection of short stories written by 19th century writer Nathaniel Hawthorne. The 1837 work contained 36 stories. The 1963 movie contains three stories, only the first of which actually appeared in the Hawthorne volume. The movie is a low budget Vincent Price vehicle. He narrates and stars in all three parts.

Part 1 is "Dr. Heidegger's Experiment", the story of two elderly friends (Price and Sebastian Cabot of Family Affair and Pooh fame) visiting on a story night to speak in flowery, Elizabethan language. When the storm opens the tomb of Cabot's departed love, they investigate to discover dear Silvia's body perfectly preserved for 38 years. Maybe it has something to do with this water that's been dripping on her corpse? Lets do an Experiment!

The second, "Rappaccini's Daughter", the story of a mysterious young woman who stays shut away in a garden courtyard. A young university student is intrigued by her mysterious nature, and also is looking to do the Victorian mambo. I won't spoil her secret, but let's just say it involves being able to steam a lizard purple. Serious mood killer, people.

The rubber match is "House of the Seven Gables". A "gable" is the generally triangular portion of a wall between the edges of a sloping roof, because I just know you're interested. Anyhow, Gerald Pyncheon (Price again) returns after 17 years to claim his ownership of the estate. Only, there is a curse on the Pyncheon men. Apparently back in the day, the Pyncheon family swindled the land from Matthew Maulle, and the house was built on top of his grave. Totally curse-worthy. Jerry doesn't care about that, however. He is looking for a secret vault that contains something valuable.

I was a little bit put off by this set at first, what with the flowery language and cheap, Dark Shadows-esque sets, but I was won over. Two of my boys actually watched it with me, a real treat for me. The cheesy sets and obvious plot flaws were irrelevant. We had fun watching it. We all agreed that Seven Gables was the best and Rappaccini was the worst. If there were a Trice Told Tales I wouldn't jump on it, but I'm glad I saw this. Not Price at his best, but good. And fun. AMRU 3.