Baffled

Another of my recent 'watching films that I first saw as a teenager' viewings, this didn't hold up to my intial impressions, but remains an enjoyably naff 9o or so minutes.
A man has visions of wrong doings andf is persuaded to go and help out the damsel in distress in the visions. An American tv movie that was certainly meant as a pilot to a series it is easy to see why it never evolved. The star is Leonard Nimoy and while he was good as playing the unemotional Spock, he was truly at sea at playing a human. His playing of the character of Tom Kovak, racing driver and medium, is wholly beyond his capabilities. His supposed witty repartee is delivered in such a wooden way that it deadens his chemistry with Susan Hampshire, who rises well to the occasion. Mostly shot with back projection and studio sets, it's easy to see what could have been, but in the end it just fails. It's a shame because you can see what could have been. Watchable nonetheless.

Sleepless

I was eager to watch this film as it apparently geralded Dario Argento's return to form after a critically bad 90s. Here he was back in familiar territory with a straightforward giallo. While this is a good thing, you do get a feeling of a director just giving people what they want in order to keep his profile up there. While that may be slightly unfair, it is fair to say that Argento brings nothing new to the giallo genre, and from a director like Argento, you are always wanting that little bit more than the norm. However it is decidedly worthwhile watch and it doesn't break your attention whatsoever. I did mange to solve the puzzle very early, but whather that's because of a poor story or just because I'm in tune with giallos in general is open to debate. Regardles this tale of a returned serial killer after a break of 17 years delivers, from the outrageous red herrings, black gloved killer, POV shots etc. I fact it's like Argento was asked to make a textbook giallo. Although I never spied the J&B!

Requiem For A Vampire

I have to admit to being a huge Jean Rollin fan. His 'horror' films are unlike anything else in the genre and are always a personal journey. Compared to other auteur directors he is a man whose personal visions are imprinted on his work like no other. This does make his films rather cliquey, but if you get 'it', he is most rewarding. Requiem.... is a curious one in that his trademark highly stylish visuals are mostly absent, but regardless of this it is a most hypnotic movie that takes you in from the first frame and leaves you thoroughly satisfied as the last frame dissolves into its final disappearing circle.

The film opens during a chase where two girls, dressed as clowns, are being chased in their car, driven by an unknown bloke, whilst shooting at their chasers. Bloke killed, they abandon their car and go on the run, eventually ending up at a chateau where live the last vampire. They learn that this vampire is trying to sire some new vampires in order to keep the bloodline going. As they are both virgins (in this film you must be a virgin to made into a vampire, otherwise you are just food) they are given the chance to become vampires, but first they must help lure victims to feed the vampire and his horde of vampire wannabes. One girl fancies it, the other doesn't and they are eventually forced to choose between the love that they share and a new life as a vampire. One is deadset against it and through shared love manages to change the mind of the other girl. The last vampire reckons this is ok as he thinks it is about time the vampires die out anyway. He is an alright dude, like. So at the end the girls are allowed to go free while the vampire, and his nearly chnaged minion, get locked in a mauseleum to end their days.

This isn't one of Rollin's most stylish offerings, and it is a great compliment to the great director that it still retains a power to enthral. Mostly devoid of speech, it is hard to say why this works like it does. But it does. It's a dreamy, surreal slice of Rollin whimsy that works on every level.

Inglorious Bastards

With Tarantino remaking this film I felt the urge to catch the original before the remake. Although having watched it and reading the plotline of QT's effiort it seems like QT is homaging rather then remaking, which is probably a good idea. Straight remakes suffer from comparison regardless of quality.
Anyway the original turns out to be a fine WW2 adventure that readily encompasses that retrospective b-movie quality that becomes more populist daily.
A group of army criminals on their way to incarceration or the firing squad managhe to escape during a Nazi air attack and try and make their way to Switzerland. They inadvertantly wipe out a crack force that has been sent to carry out an 'important raid' and end up doing the task themselves. It's a suicide mission but regardless of their 'criminal' ways they haven't forgotten the reason for the war and readily accept the task; obviously with a full pardon as their reward.

Director Enzo Castellari yet again proves himself as a top notch Euroaction director and gives us tight direction and generally exciting battle sequences. I have a feeling that even with a huge budget behind him he would still produce B movies, but I say that not to knock him. He had his field, he knows it and delivers wqhat he is good at. He manges to gain the audience sympathy for what is basically a group of self-serving sociopaths incredibly well. During the air raid half the criminals get shot by thier own army while trying to run for cover - point well taken Enzo, and we now want them to succeed. There is a strange love subplot that rattles a bit as the Bastard involved is one of the least likeable of the bunch and he is the only one to escape pretty much unscathed. One hopes he finds redemption after the cameras stop rolling and returns yeas after year to honour his fallen comrades.

Refgardless opf minor quibbles Inglorious Bastards is a highly enjoyable Dirty Dozen rip-off that (I'm guessing) can be returnd to time after time. And I haven't even mentioned the skinny dipping German women with machine guns!!

Cut And Run (1985)

At the moment I seem to be going down nostalgia alley by watching films that I first saw in the 70s and 80s. I first saw Cut And Run in (roughly) 1986 and me and my friends were mainly attracted to it by the front cover of a vicious looking Michael Berryman. Unfortunately I can't remember a whole heap from that first viewing which surprised me after re-watching it as it has a lot in it for a teenage kid to remember.

Directed by Ruggero Deodato, it is another of his films to be set in a jungle. In fact Deodato is on record saying that it was as close to a sequel to his infamous Cannibal Holocaust as he was ever going to get - although don't be expecting much cannibal behaviour; the link is more the barbarity of the civilised world.

After a pre-credits sequence of a tribal attack on a jungle drug factory, we cut to Fran and Mark, a reporter and her cameraman, who are staking out a house in the city where they are sure drugs are being sold. After entering the house they find the occupants butchered, tribal fashion. Fran steals a photo and recgnises one of the people in the photo as being the son of her boss, who quickly sends her and Mark into the jungle to cover the story (it's all linked with Jim Jones and the Jonestown massacre) and track down his son, who, it turns out, is being held captive in the jungle to help the drug runners.

Though there are some half-baked ideas in the film, what really sets it apart from some of the Euro Action movies is the tight direction by Deodato. He has a firm hand on the proceedings and keeps the pacing at a perfect level. And if this isn't enough, there's enough gore and action to keep all genre fans happy, including an especially gory, if ridiculous, ripping apart of a man from a jungle booby trap. Although the version I saw suffered from being dubbed back into it's original English, apart from a few Italian segments, the acting generally above acceptable, with the odd notable exception. And it's still a pleasure to see Berryman in anything. His first appearance here, as he leaps out of the water and grabs one of the workers and disappears with him underwater unnoticed by the others is a highly memorable moment - the first of many in the film.

Starstruck

A very eighties antipodean musical. Jackie has dreams of making it big as a singer and her young cousin Angus is determined to be her manager to help her make it.

In spite of its eighties-ness and some ill-constructed set pieces this remains a highly enjoyable romp purely because of the exuberance of the two leads, Jo Kennedy and Ross O'Donovan.




Although some of the songs don't work, the ones that stand out are memorable and you will find yourself humming the tunes for days afterwards.



It is, admittedley, a slight film. It is ragged around the edges but this is part of the charm. The choreography is not pinpoint perfect, but again that helps add a touch of realism that is normally not present in musicals. Good fun.

Brother Orchid

It was a delight to see this film again. I last (and first) saw this roughly 28 years ago and it managed to stay within my psyche. Unlike other films watched so many years ago, Brother Orchid remains as I first saw it - a charmer of a gangster movie. To call it a gangster movie is a little unfair. Rather it is a human interest film with a gangster backdrop.

Edward G Robinson ("see") is 'Little' Johnny Sarto, a crime boss who runs a protection racket. He has delusions of grandeur and resigns his operation, letting Humphrey Bogart take over the reins of the racket, and goes to Europe to gain 'class'. He fails and after 5 years returns to resume his position. But Bogey won't have this (quite understandably really) and suddenly a war starts up. Edward G is shot and is rescued and taken in by a monastery where he realises he is in the perfect place to hide out, recuperate and plan his return. But he slowly learns that the monks' life of no material possessions, charity and quiet contemplation has more 'class' than anything that he ever aspired to before.

While today we can look at this film and easily predict how it will end, this somewhat forgotten film fully engages the viewer and delights on many levels. As with most pre-Casablanca movies, Bogart is the bad guy, but is not given much to do, although the fight between him and Edward G at the end is surpringly well realised. A perfunctory film perhaps, but one that draws you in and leaves you satisfied.

White Heat

White Heat was the triumphant return of James Cagney to the genre of gangster movies. Quite what prompted this move by Cagney I can't say without a little bit of research. I've read a biography or two about him but I can't recall the actual reasons. What I do know is that he wasn't a great fan of these type of films, and was more inclined to more family fare and especially a bit of song and dance. However the public is a beast with an insatiable appetite and they tend to get what they want. So I'm guessing a number of years of basic public indifference persuaded Cagney back into the type of the role that he is still best remembered for today - the hard nut gangster. Although he adds a new dimension in White Heat as his character, Cody Jarrett, isn't just a gangster. Prohibition has ended and WW2 has played out and Jarrett is a vocational thief . With a (possibly first?) mother fixation and a psychotic personality it's easy to see how the audiences arrived in their droves to see this new brutalised version of the pre-war gangster movies. And today it is still brutal. Obviously not 'Joe Pesci' brutal by today's standards but it leaves no room for guessing why it caused waves on it's release.

Twisted Nerve

Here's an interesting little movie. I would have loved to have been about when this originally hit the screens. Quite what the producers were going for is difficult to imagine and possibly they weren't too aware themselves as it ends up in a jumbled mess that would even make the Italians gasp at. It must have made some sort of sense while on the story boards, but the convolutions involved go against each other in such a way that whatever way you wish to look at it, there's always a piece of the jigsaw that doesn't fit.

Hywell Bennett plays Martin, a (possible) mummy's boy who becomes infatuated with Susan (Hayley Mills) and engineers himself into moving into her mother's boarding house, but under the guise of Georgie, a backward man with a child's mind. While living there, he endears himself to the both and the occupants but also uses the subterfuge that he has set up to kill his step-father. His dangerous side is found out just before he can kill Susan, but not before he has already offed her mother. An explantion is offered that because he has a Down's Syndrome brother makes him more susceptable to killing.

That's kind of what happens but there's oh so much more that the writer/director/producer want to shove in there to make you second guess what it's all about. And it woks. You're left with so many questions about what went on that none of it makes any sense when you play each fact off each other. My opinion is that at the end the big twist is supposed to be that he WAS mad and it wasn't all a big plan, but that part is so badly drawn it's nearly laughable. What stops it being laughable is the casual offence it thrusts in front of the viewer many times without any other reason than to be offensive. The casual racism offered to the Asian occupant of the boarding house has absolutely no bearing on the proceedings. It makes no point. Whatsoever. It's just there. The whole Down's Syndrome reason for the murders (or Mongolid as it's put, but I suppose you can put that down to the era) is soooooo unnecessary to the plot of the film unless that is what the makers actually thought, which is distasteful in the extreme, regardless of the age. It smacks you like a shovel that the makers were trying to 'controversial' for its own sake. A kind of "This'll get us noticed now that our (The Boulting Brothers) star is on the wane. And it did. It disappeared for years and has only resurfaced properly in the last few years, more likely than not because of Q Tarantino's use of the theme in his overtly stylish Kill Bill films.

But, bizarrely, it kind of works. Almost. The acting on offer is beyond approach. Hywell Bennett plays the troubled young man very well. Billie Whitelaw is her usual excellence as Ms Mills' mother. Even Ms Mills herself, who at this point was trying to make the breakthrough into adult films, plays her part well; the more bizarre points of the story are easily bridged although you are left with the kind of raised frown that is usually reserved for continental exploitation movies. Maybe that's why it jars, British thrillers are rarely exploitative for exploitative's own sake.
An interesting aside is that it is written by Leo Marks, who also penned Peeping Tom - a film which does have so many parallels with this one - a film about a psychopathic killer, hiding out in a boarding house, deep father issues etc. On top of that both films were despised in their time and took a seeming eternity to re-emerge. There is a difference in that Peeping Tom is an exceptional piece of film-making art and Twisted Nerve isn't, but you can't help think about what could have been.