I enjoy joining a group of online groupies, most of whom I’ve never actually met, on Saturday
nights when I can to watch, ridicule, and gush about the usually dreadful films screened by Svengoolie on MeTV. It’s a fun, irreverent group of tolerant enthusiasts, mostly younger than yours truly, but then what in the world isn’t.
Many of the participants, if you believe their protestations of innocence, are seeing these dubious gems for the first time. While it’s daunting for a grizzled cinematic dumpster-diver like me to find any comfort in the thought that voting-age folks will be casting those first votes sans (that means “without”…sorry, Groucho Marx joke) the seasoning of multiple viewings of THE RETURN OF THE INVISIBLE MAN, PLAGUE OF THE ZOMBIES, and KILLER KLOWNS OF OUTER SPACE, I do find solace when I see their delight in discovering;
- The power of random flames serving as a modern, purging deux-et-machina when troubles (aka monsters) become insurmountable, yet still flammable.
- Or that interplanetary, mutant children can be thwarted by imagining a brick wall.
- Or that alien attackers who have just blinded 99%+ of the human race can be driven back by spraying them with sea water.
- Or that body-less flying brains can be shriveled by a Kenneth Tobey-type guy blowing up an atomic radio station in Canada.
- Or that the potential lycanthrope menace can be nipped in the bud when his dad smacks him with a cane.
It’s comforting and about as practical as my generation’s intense training in “duck and cover.”
And it’s a pretty nice clambake with no clams being hurt.
Last Saturday though, I couldn’t make it and I kinda wanted to. It was a flick I hadn’t seen (there are still one or two ‘em out there). I thought I’d be experiencing for the first time like many of the other participants. Might be fun. Hell, I might turn into a twenty-something again.
Old fools…dream foolishly……
I recorded the flick instead and watched it this afternoon. I’m glad I did.
The film was BRAM STOKER’S DRACULA. This is not the 1992 film with Gary Oldman: it’s the British 1974 made-for-TV flick with Jack Palance playing the sanguinary Count.
There are no more menacing actors on the screen than Mr. Palance. This is unrelenting mean-ness. He can’t be reasoned with…or shamed…or redeemed…he is a vector of evil. Sounds like Drac to me.
There’s scene where a tuxedo-clad gent who looks like Dudley Moore tries to stop Dracula with a pistol. Our vampire dismisses the impediment and the bullets with a disdainful backhand…just as you’d expect Jack Palance to handle a threat from Dudley Moore. That’s artistic integrity for you.
Disdainful backhand…
That’s what I had when I played at tennis in my 20’s. The problem was that it was my opponents who did the disdaining.
In my 20’s…
…sigh…
Old fools……