Category Archives: Movies

Japanese Noir

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Movie Night!

I watch some fairly awful movies with great regularity and glee. What could possibly promise less and truly deliver on the promise than THE GIANT GILA MONSTER or I WAS A TEENAGE WEREWOLF?

I also watch Japanese movies with regularity. They generally fall into two categories;

  • Delightful foolishness featuring Godzilla or his friends Mothra, Rodan, Ghidra, et al.
  • Seriously engaging films directed by Akira Kurasawa (the man is a god to me).

But tonight’s 1961 Japanese flick is a new experience for me. None of the actors are wearing rubber suits, Tokyo is not destroyed, Toshiro Mifune is not in the cast, and thousands of mounted warriors are not raising the dust.

ZERO FOCUS (I haven’t a clue as to the meaning of the title) is beautifully directed by Yoshitaro Nomura. I prowl the overnight offerings of Turner Classic Movies just in hope of finding flicks like this.

If you are a fan of film noir and Hitchcock, this is your meat.

It’s in black and white. There are trains. The characters speak Japanese, but the true language of the film is “bleak”. I am fluent in bleak. There are trains. The plot twists and twists again. The characters play for keeps. Those who die stay dead, though sometimes we wonder. There are trains. Segments of Japanese post-war society of which I was totally ignorant are explored (dredged?). I cared about every one of the characters in this story. This is very fine storytelling.

Did I mention there are trains?

The acting is also very fine. Excuse me for throwing some names at you, but these ladies are new to me.

  • Yoshiko Kuga is plain, pathetic, smart, and determined. That can’t be easy to do.
  • Hizuru Takachino is polished and desperate.
  • Ineko Arima is heartbreaking……………….heartbreaking.

These women drive the film. How unusual is that for 1961?

Ko Nishimura and Yoshi Kato provide mighty support.

Behind these performances, the music is gripping.

I understand Mr. Nomura’s best film is THE CASTLE OF SAND. I gotta find that.

“You Talkin’ to Me?”

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Movie night – Taxi Driver.

“You talkin’ to me?”

The first time I watched the film Taxi Driver I don’t believe my eyes ever closed…not one blink…until DeNiro’s big payoff scene near the end of the flick. At least, that’s how it felt to me.

“There’s no one else here…….you talkin’ to me??”

The soundtrack was seductive, narcotic, and relentless.

“I do not believe one should spend one‘s life in morbid self-pity.”

Robert DeNiro’s character was a walking time-bomb that you feared and rooted for at the same time. It’s hard to watch this performance now and realize this is the same actor that years later peeled an egg in Angel Heart as if he was peeling a man’s soul from his body. Same madness…completely different level of intelligence and power. And, frankly, better hair.

“One day a real rain’s gonna come.”

Jody Foster, Peter Boyle, Cybill Shepard, Albert Brooks, and a remarkable turn by Harvey Keitel; whatta cast!

Put vague but potent outrage in a human receptacle of limited mental and social capacity but possessing finely honed skills of violence, massaged and stoked in repeated street scenes and repeated desperate messages day by day, night after night. Then tease that gentleman with glimpses of an unobtainable woman and a visible but distant and only partially understood political lifestyle and then…slam that door. Then show him a teenage runaway in need of a white knight to rescue her from a sterling piece of slime like Harvey Keitel’s character.

What could possibly go wrong?

When I saw this movie at a first-run house, the general buzz about the film was; “How terrible. What can we do about this anger?”

Today I fear the reaction is more like; “How can we exploit this anger for profit and/or votes?”

“Everything’s Gonna Be Alright”

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Hey pal, lemme give ya a coupla tips.

  1. On a cool spring afternoon at Keeneland, eat the burgoo. You can’t lose.
  2. If you ever find yourself in a horror movie and someone says to you; “Everything’s gonna be alright”, rest assured…it won’t be.

Yes, boys and girls, it’s Movie Night!

Tonight’s 1973 delight might be known to you as Crypt of the Living Dead…but probably not. Or you might know it as Hannah, Queen of the Vampires…but probably not. In fact, if you know this film at all I have to assume your parents did NOT know where you were at night.

Understand, I’m not qualified to judge the fine points of film production but;

  • I know when I can’t decipher half the words spoken, the sound is poor.
  • I know when half the scenes are 90% totally dark, the lighting is poor.
  • I know when half the cast (male and female) are wearing turtleneck sweaters, a bit more thought could have been put into the costuming…or some re-e-e-ally intriguing tattoos are being denied examination.

You get my gist; this film’s not good.

However, it does feature a cast of interest (interest, not quality, mind you).

  • Teresa Gimpera, fresh off her triumph in Love Brides of the Blood Mummy, is deadly, silent, and pretty. These acting choices seem to work for her.
  • Mark Damon reminds me of the lead singer of Paul Revere and the Raiders. This acting choice…not so good, but the hair looks great.
  • Patty Shepard, fresh off her triumph in the title role of The Werewolf vs the Vampire Woman (also silent and deadly), is actually not bad. She’s sort of a cross between Barbara Steele and Barbara Bach; not a bad scream queen pedigree.
  • As for Andrew Prine; imagine, if you will, Roddy McDowell playing a role written for Steve McQueen. McFoolishness!

No, the film’s not good, but just keep telling yourself; “Everything’s gonna be alright.”

Besides, I loved it.

“They’re Coming to Get You Barbara”

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Movie Night!

“Come on, Barb. Church was this morning, huh?”

Night of the Living Dead…the original…black and white…shot in Pittsburgh on a budget of thirteen bananas and a big rubber snake.

“They’re coming to get you, Barbara.”

It would have been the summer of ’68 or ’69. I would have been at the Family Drive-In or the Circle-25 Drive-In in East Lexington.

“Johnny, stop it!”

One of my friends (probably the one we hid in the trunk of the car to reduce our admission charge) came back from the refreshment stand and tapped on the window of our car just as the first real living dead guy in the movie attacked Barbara in the car. I left a brown spot on the seat of our car.

That’s my story and I’m not proud.

When and where did you first see the original film? It makes a difference.

The drive-in theater itself was part of the phenomenon. Sitting in our individual, isolated bubbles; too polite (or intimidated) to pay any attention to the other bubbles nearby (who knows what might happening in there). The other cars looked a bit like tombstones in the twilight. Some of the tombstones bounced a bit.

The businessman in me today wonders if Night of the Living Dead was a good bet for concession sales. The “dining” scenes in the flick certainly didn’t leave me longing for a corn dog or a hit of Smithfield BBQ.

But forget that. 50 years later this film is still scary and oddly plausible which compounds its scariness. I know there are people who prefer the sequel, Dawn of the Dead and I like it too, but Night beats Dawn for me and Day of the Dead is nefandous.

Another variation of this cheap living dead film formula is Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things. It saddens me to admit the best thing about this film is the title.

Still, I’ve seen worse and lived (I think) to tell the tale.

She Chose Poorly and Often

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Movie Night!

Tonight’s delight is a perennial favorite from Spain and West Germany; THE WEREWOLF VS THE VAMPIRE WOMAN (1971). Maybe “perennial” is a bit strong. Maybe “favorite” is a bit strong.

What’s that? The title’s not familiar to you?

Perhaps you know it as SHADOW OF THE WEREWOLF, or LA NOCHE DE WALPURGIS, or SATAN VS THE WOLF MAN…….or BLOOD MOON?

Could it possibly be you’ve never seen this epic?

Lucky you.

This is a jolly little lycanthropic tale featuring Paul Naschy (aka Jacinto Molina), an ex-circus strongman who fashioned a career by playing a werewolf in about a dozen films. I guess you could think of Mr. Naschy as the Lon Chaney Jr. of Spain…I guess. But I think he just ran away from the circus to meet girls.

In this flick, he met Gaby Fuchs.

Gaby Fuchs plays a young vampire researcher with a mass of red hair and a mass of poor judgement as demonstrated;

  • She falls in love with the werewolf within 24 hours of meeting him.
  • She allows her girlfriend into her bedroom though she knows she’s a vampire with less than sisterly leanings.
  • She accepts a ride to the town’s post office with a truly creepy guy who explains; “I’m afraid the post office is closed, but I’d like to show you our butcher shop.” Can I buy a ticket for that tour?
  • Her outfits.

The titular vampire is veiled, impervious to bullets, adroit with chains and manacles, laughs a lot, and moves in slow-motion; an unusual skill set for 1971, but could perhaps qualify her to run for president today.

I loved it.

A Great Scrubbing of the World?

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Movie night!

I like Peter Weir movies and tonight I’m watching THE LAST WAVE.

This flick gets ripped for being obscure and for not solving the mystery.

I will grant the latter. I think one of the responsibilities of artists who trade in mysteries in movies and books is they must, at some point, solve the mystery. Is that too much to ask? In both THE LAST WAVE and PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK. Mr. Weir chooses not to do so. I still like both films.

I will however, take issue with the accusation of obscurity.

Since my teens, I’ve had a literary addiction to novels and stories of the supernatural. One of my favorite British authors is from the early 20th century; Arthur Machen. Machen writes often of nature in revolt – of nature, thought to be tamed, but perpetually about to bust out and re-exert dominance over man in disorienting and disturbing ways. In this light, THE LAST WAVE makes amazing sense.

Nature hovers. Disturbing and disorienting intrusions occur.

  • Baseball-sized hail falls from a cloudless sky.
  • From his protective bubble of a car in a torrential downpour, Richard Chamberlain sees;
    • A man with an extreme umbrella drinking from a water fountain. Why doesn’t just open his mouth? No, he chooses the “tame” water over nature’s wild water.
    • A poster for the local zoo featuring apes gazing back at Chamberlain in his car. Who’s really caged and on display?
    • Vehicles crawling through snarled traffic with icons on them featuring the image of a jungle cat; jaguars in the streets.
  • At Chamberlain’s home, with the maelstrom outside continuing to rage, turning the windows of the home into images like of the inside of a dishwasher, water appears inside the house flowing down the stairs. We immediately assume there’s been a leak from the outside, but it turns out to be a bathtub overflowing. Water thought to be tamed…
  • Chamberlain’s wife admits that she’s a fourth-generation Australian, but she’s never met an aboriginal. She’s lived distanced from nature, behind societal barriers that now appear to be quite fragile.

This is not obscure. It’s mysterious and ominous, but not obscure. We think we’ve tamed and sealed out nature from our lives. (Climate change? Pshaw!)

But nature will persist. It will find a way past our barriers. It will win. How scary is that? Nothing obscure at all.

It’s a fine and effective film.