Reviews of Old and New Stories. Mostly Old

Mother’s Day: a Rant

Last night, I dreamed several of my closest friends died.

I’m at the point in life where I attend memorials with increasing frequency and weddings hardly at all, but the dream was not about that. It was about a Mother’s Day visit with family. We are not close. There are no bad feelings that I’m aware of. We just don’t talk outside of holidays and the occasional birthday.

About six weeks before the visit, the younger of my two sisters (sister #2) texted me that she and the other siblings were gathering in Tucson for Mother’s Day, which is about an eight-hour drive for my husband and me. This sister was coming from Alaska, so I can’t say I was coming from the greatest distance.

Our mother is 83. She, my brother, his wife, and their daughter live in Tuscon. Our father died young. My sisters’ father and Mom divorced many years ago, and she never remarried. My sisters’ father died some time ago. I had not spoken to him in some thirty years.

Mom lost her older sister (with whom she lived when she first immigrated to the U.S.) a long time ago. Both her brothers are now gone also. Her parents died before she left her native country.

When my husband and I arrived at the hotel in Tucson Friday evening, hot and tired, I texted Mom, my brother and his wife, sister # 1, her wife, and sister #2—the one who’d sent the invitation. We had plans to visit the Air and Space Museum early Saturday. They would visit the Farmer’s Market. Rather than go out on Sunday—too many other people with the same idea—my brother’s wife would host a lunch at their place.

On Saturday morning (not too early), I texted that we’d probably be done with the Air and Space Museum by 11 and asked what the plans were. “Should we meet at Mom’s?” I suggested.

“We are at the Farmer’s Market,” sister #1 texted. “I’ll text when we are leaving.”

That was the last I heard from her.

“We’ll text when we leave here,” sister #1’s wife texted. “We’ll find a place to meet.”

That was the last I heard from her.

At 12:42, I texted, “Back at the hotel watching the Weather Channel. Any news?”

Crickets chirped.

I gave up and texted my brother to ask what time the Mother’s Day lunch was the next day.

“Twelve o’clock noon,” sister #1 texted back.

My husband and I went to lunch at a nice Mediterranean restaurant and returned to the room again. We checked out the pool at the hotel, as the temperature was in the 90s. Unsupervised kidlets had the run of the place. We returned to the room, watched TV, and had dinner at the hotel. We caught a biopic of Marie Curie.

Outside of a friend of my brother’s who invited me to dinner as a joke, thinking I didn’t know he was in town, none of the family contacted us. Yeah, pretty damn funny.

I was steaming. We’d booked a hotel room and driven eight hours, only to sit around while the family was out somewhere partying. Uh, yeah. Thanks for the invite.

We did make it to the pool Sunday morning before the kidlets took over. For a while, we had it to ourselves.

We attended the Mother’s Day lunch and socialized, catching up with almost everyone. My mother said having everyone together was the best Mother’s Day. We left after a few hours—the first to bow out. I thanked my brother and sister-in-law for their hospitality. We returned to the hotel room and watched a little more TV while packing up.

We left early the next morning for our eight-hour drive without talking to the family.

I’m glad we went. It meant a lot to my mother. She won’t be around forever.

But hell (or maybe Tucson) will freeze over before I return to Tucson.

Review of “The Man Who Killed Don Quixote” (2018)

trailer from YouTube

We watched an oddball film for our Saturday pizza and bad movie night, a sad movie that dealt with dreams, fantasy v. reality, guilt, and a bit of insanity.

Plot:

The movie opens the line: And now… after more than 25 years of making… and unmaking.

The viewer first sees a storybook of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza riding along the road. “I was born by the special will of heaven in this age of iron to restore the lost age of chivalry,” the narrator says.

Don Quixote (José Luis Ferrer) and Sancho (Ismael Fritschi) ride up a path. As the mist clears, Don Quixote spies a giant.

“It’s a windmill,” Sancho says.

Don Quixote rides full till at the windmill, getting his lance caught in one of the blades. He’s carried aloft.

“That’s a wrap,” says an off-camera voice.

A caption on the screen reads, “Shooting a commercial… somewhere in Spain.”

Later, at a working dinner, the director Toby (Adam Driver) notices a local (Óscar Jaenada) selling a copy of a student movie he made ten years earlier, The Man Who Killed Don Quixote.

The Boss (Stellan Skarsgård) (I guess the guy who is in charge of financing the movie?) tells him he’s going away for a while and wants him to look after his wife Jacqui (Olga Kurylenko).

Toby agrees, thinking he can watch his old black-and-white student film in her suite. She wants sex and sets out to seduce him. Once he tears his eyes away from the screen, he’s willing enough. Unfortunately, the Boss comes home at an inopportune time. Toby barely gets away with his DVD.

He continues watching the film in his room. In one of many odd sequence changes, the viewer sees Tody interview the cobbler Javier (Jonathan Pryce), trying to talk him into playing Don Quixote, speaking to him in poor Spanish. He also recruits Angelica (Joana Ribeiro), the fifteen-year-old daughter of the innkeeper,

He realizes the place they’re currently working is near where he made the student film, Los Sueños (= “dreams”). While the crew is setting up, he borrows (commandeers?) a motorcycle and heads off alone.

In short, he finds that his student film ruined the lives of both Javier and Angelica.

Thoughts:

The movie is long and profoundly sad on many levels. Elements of the absurd also abound, however. At one point, Toby and the young man who sold him the copy of his film have been arrested. Javier arrives on horseback, believing that he is Don Quixote and that Toby is Sancho Panza, and attacks the squad car they are riding in, demanding that Toby be released.

Now, there’s something you don’t see every day.

The movie plays with timelines and reality. Toby later falls into a cave where he finds the corpse of a horse with a saddlebag full of pieces of gold. He stuffs his pockets full of the gold. But is it still gold in the light of day?

In one sequence from the black-and-white student film, a smiling Dulcinea holds a cup of water out to a thirsty Don Quixote. She spills it, then disappears. The sequence is short but says a lot.

Adam Driver is excellent as Toby. He portrays him as arrogant in the early parts of the movie then often confused and guilt-ridden later on. He shows compassion for the apparently insane Javier, even when Javier, convinced he’s Sancho Panza, treats him like a servant and refers to his “peasant” sensibilities.

Jonathan Pryce makes a great Don Quixote—and a great cobbler. He’s credible in both roles and, just as the literary Don Quixote was sincere and delusional, so is his character. I don’t know whose idea it was for him to wear his helmet crooked, but it works well.

The story is hard to follow in places. Sometimes, not everything makes complete sense, at least not on the first go-around. Despite genuinely funny situations and lines, there is an underlying sadness throughout the movie, which the ending does not redeem.

This film received five awards and twelve nominations from various European film academies and festivals, including two Goya Awards and three nominations from the Academy of Cinematographic Arts and Sciences of Spain.

I can easily recommend this film for adults. It takes some thought and is not something to watch when you’re in the mood for a bit of light entertainment, though there are plenty of funny moments. Nevertheless, if you’re in the mood for a flick that leaves you with questions and sadness, this is it.

The movie can be streamed here: Watch The Man Who Killed Don Quixote (2018) Online for Free | The Roku Channel | Roku

Title: The Man Who Kill Don Quixote (2018)

Directed by
Terry Gilliam

Writing Credits
Terry Gilliam…(written by) &
Tony Grisoni…(written by)
Miguel de Cervantes y Saavedra…(novel)

Cast (in credits order)
José Luis Ferrer…Don Quixote (commercial)
Ismael Fritschi…Sancho Panza (commercial) (as Ismael Fritzi)
Juan López-Tagle…Spanish Propman (as Juan López Tagle)
Adam Driver…Toby
William Miller…1st AD – Bill
Will Keen…Producer

Released: 2018
Length: 2 hours, 12 minutes

Review of “Argylle” (2024)

Trailer for Youtube
Yeah, it is that silly.

This was a break from our usual Saturday night pizza and bad movie. It was an amalgam of Romancing the Stone, The Kingsman, a little bit (perhaps unintentionally) of Get Smart, and a dash of The Sopranos.

Plot:

Dressed in a dark green Nehru jacket, suave Agent Aubrey Argylle (Henry Cavill) approaches several elegantly dressed women sitting in a booth in a nightclub. He asks one to dance, knowing full well she is the enemy Agent Lagrange (Dua Lipa).

During a rather bizarre dance over a Medusa’s head on the floor, Lagrange lets Argylle know she knows who he is, pulls a gun on him, and demands he disarm. (Where did she conceal her piece in that rather revealing dress?). She snaps her fingers, and the entire night club pulls out their handguns.

Oh, didn’t things go south in a hurry.

Argylle speaks into his watch, asking his partners, Keira (Ariana DeBose) and Wyatt (John Cena), for help. The space fills with fog and gunfire. A car chase through narrow winding streets of a Greek seaside city follows. Keira is shot. Wyatt and Argylle nab Lagrange.

While the three drink coffee at a café, Lagrange poisons herself before she reveals who she’s working for. Wyatt and Argylle realize they’re working for the same corrupt people and break off communications with their bosses. Argylle wonders who he can trust…

Echoing his words is mild-mannered author of spy novels, Elly Conway (Bryce Dallas Howard), reading the conclusion of her fourth Argylle book at a reading. One fan notes that other spy novel authors, such as Ian Fleming, were actually spies. Is she?

“Of course not. I’m a writer. But that’s what I’d say if I were a spy.”

Later, at home, she discusses the fifth novel with her mother (Catherine O’Hara), who reads all her books. Mom doesn’t like the ending. There should be more, she says. She doesn’t like the cliffhanger and urges her to come up with more.

Elly gets on a train (she hates flying) with her cat, Alfie, to visit her mother. Much to her dismay, a guy with long hair and a beard (Sam Rockwell), sits across from her, claiming to love cats. He’s reading one of her books and soon realizes she matches the author pic. He mentions that his line of work is “espionage” and tells her what her books get right and wrong. Another little tidbit is that her books seem to predict events. The good guys, for whom he works, and “the Division:”—the bad guys—have both noticed. There are people who will do her harm.

She believes none of it until a fan walks up to her and asks her to sign a book with a pen that turns into a knife.

A fight ensues involving nearly the whole train. Elly’s new friend, Aiden, is victorious, bursting out of the back of the train, holding onto Elly with Alfie in a backpack and soaring over the landscape in a parachute.

Elly passes out.

Thoughts:

…so, a spy novel author writes novels that seem to predict things in the spy world. The good guys and the Division (I guess “Kaos “was taken?) want her to figure things out? The fighting is over the top. My dearly beloved expressed sympathy for the stunt people—and there were a lot of them. I have to echo that. Punches and kicks and falls and knife wounds abound. Only the bad guys die, however. Sometimes, the good guys bleed, but it’s generally only flesh wounds.

The movie is also more than two hours long and full of twists and turns. At the same time, a lot of it is transparent. Not all of my predictions turned out to be correct, but the surprises were few and far between. It left me, as a viewer, with the feeling of been-here-before.

And poor Alfie the cat was quite put upon. I realize that in most scenes where Alfie suffers, things one would never inflict on a cat are CGI. Nevertheless, I wouldn’t blame him if he packed up his kibble and catnip and left for greener pastures.

Having said all that, to enjoy this movie, do not take it seriously. It is a spoof. It is people playing. I’ve read reviews of people saying it’s the worst waste of time ever, that the leading actress is just not right for the part, etc. I see these as unnecessarily harsh. Not everyone is going to like any movie, of course. I found the woman playing Elly Conway just fine. She has to switch many different roles and moods—MacGyvering a pair of ice skates with knives, for example. We won’t discuss the probability of skating on crude oil, however.

The movie is silly. The fights are frequent and preposterous. The solutions are unlikely and convoluted. And there is too little of Samuel L. Jackson.

I rolled my eyes at parts of the movie, chuckled at some of it, and found it all deeply silly. An Easter egg-ish bit midway through the credits features a young agent Argylle and ties this universe to the Kingsman universe. According to Wikipedia, two more Argylle movies are in the works.

It’s hard for me to make a recommendation. If this sounds like something you would like, you will probably like it. If it doesn’t sound appealing to you, it probably won’t work.

Because the movie is so recent, streaming it for free is unavailable. You can watch with a subscription to Apple TV or rent or buy it (for a mere $19.99!) at places like YouTube, Amazon, or Google Play, according to Justwatch. YIKES! Maybe the local library has a copy.

Title: Argylle (2004)

Directed by
Matthew Vaughn

Writing Credits
Jason Fuchs…(written by)

Cast (in credits order)
Henry Cavill…Argylle
Daniel Singh…Armed Guard #1
Dua Lipa…Lagrange
Ariana DeBose…Keira
Richard E. Grant…Director Fowler
John Cena…Wyatt
Bryce Dallas Howard…Elly Conway
Chip…Alfie the Cat
Samuel L. Jackson…Alfie

Released: 2024
Length: 2 hours, 19 minutes
Rated: PG-13

Review of “Three Amigos!” (1986)

trailer from YouTube

Our latest Saturday night pizza and bad movie was one my dearly beloved had seen, but I hadn’t. It was a silly flick with a silly premise.

Plot:

I’ll preface this by saying that my Spanish is shaky on a good day, so those who speak it better than I do (and there are many), feel free to correct me.

In 1916, Carmen (Patrice Martinez) goes in search of someone willing to help deliver her village from the evil bandit El Guapo (“the handsome one,” Alfonso Arau), who is extorting protection money from its good people. She wanders into a movie showing the adventures of “The Three Amigos,” silent film heroes who rescue the helpless and defeat the oppressor. For some unfathomable reason, she gets the idea they are real and sends them a telegram to Hollywood, California, asking them to help her village of Santo Poco (“Saint Little?”).

Because she doesn’t have enough money for the entire telegram, the operator whittles it down to an easily misinterpreted message.

Meanwhile, in Hollywood, the Three Amigos—Lucky Day (Steve Martin), Dusty Bottoms (Chevy Chase), and Ned Nederlander (Martin Short)—are busy being fired by the studio. They are also evicted from their studio housing. In this situation, they receive a telegram, apparently inviting them to a town in Mexico to put on a show or maybe make a movie with someone named El Guapo. What have they got to lose?

In the meantime, a German pilot, wearing his headgear, enters a cantina also looking for El Guapo. He easily kills several patrons, then tells the bartender he’s expecting friends. He hopes they’ll be treated with more respect than he was.

When the Three Amigos swing into town, dressed in the (stolen) costumes and enormous sombreros, the cantina patrons assume they must be the German’s friends. Thinking they’ve been recognized, the Three Amigos perform a song and dance number for those assembled.

Fortunately, Carmen sees them and brings them back to Santo Poco, where they’re treated like heroes.

Thoughts:

First, this is silly. El Guapo and his band of bad guys are violent thugs, but they also like hanging out and drinking tequila. El Guapo’s number two is named Jefe (Tony Plana). “Jefe,” if memory serves, means “boss.”

For El Guapo’s birthday, the boys of the gang string the courtyard with pinata. They chip in and buy him a present—a sweater. He’s delighted. The Three Amigos try swinging in on the lines holding the pinatas up. Their fates vary, but all are equally improbable.

One scene early on has the Three Amigos performing in a silent movie, complete with greasepaint, exaggerated expressions, and intertitles, whipping bad guy hind end and saving a damsel in distress. It doesn’t last long, but I found the sheer goofiness of it one of the funniest in the whole movie.

Another oddball scene is when the three set out looking for El Guapo and spend the first night in the desert, sleeping on the horses’ saddles. Ned spooks at hearing a coyote howl. The other two start singing “Blue Shadows on the Trail” (written by Randy Newman) to put him at ease, and he doesn’t bat an eye when other animals—a mountain lion, a coyote—appear. A desert tortoise vibes alone with their lullaby for Ned.

Steve Martin wrote part of the movie along with Randy Newman, who wrote several of the songs used in it.

While I enjoyed the silly parts—and they abounded in this flick—I couldn’t quite buy some of the basic ideas. Why would Carmen think the Three Amigos were heroes rather than actors? Why was El Guapo extorting the poor people of Santo Poco for protection money? They didn’t have any money. No one ran any businesses to speak of. There was one cantina. Were they paying him in chickens?

If you can overlook the plot holes and the parts that didn’t quite make sense, this movie is a lot of fun. The abundant silly parts help the viewer ignore the parts where the seams don’t exactly match.

Overall, I liked the movie.

The movie can be watched here on Tubi with a whole slew of ads or rented here on YouTube.

Title: Three Amigos! (1986)

Directed by
John Landis

Writing Credits
Steve Martin…(written by) and
Lorne Michaels…(written by) and
Randy Newman…(written by)

Cast (in credits order)
Steve Martin…Lucky Day
Chevy Chase…Dusty Bottoms
Martin Short…Ned Nederlander
Alfonso Arau…El Guapo
Tony Plana…Jefe
Patrice Martinez…Carmen

Released: 1986
Length: 1 hour, 44 minutes
Rated: PG

Stories Published

Image by Clker-Free-Vector-Images from Pixabay

I had two pieces of flash fiction published recently. They are really, really short.

The first is called “The Photographer’s Lament.” It appeared April 1 in an online magazine called Spank the Carp.

The second is called “I Dare You.” It appeared April 4 in an online magazine called Bright Flash Literary Review.

I’m jazzed. And I had fun picking out the pics.

Review of “The Shadow” (1994)

trailer from YouTube

For our Saturday pizza and bad movie, we watched a relatively recent flick, one the dearly beloved liked back in the day but I’d never heard of.

Plot:

Between the two world wars, Lamont Cranston (Alec Baldwin) makes a living as a drug lord in Tibet. Maybe he lost his way looking for Shangri-La? He calls himself Yo-King and spends his days assassinating rivals in the trade. He’s a cold drug lord, even ordering the death of one of his own men if it makes killing a rival easier.

One day, armed men break into his evil lair(?), kidnap him, and bring him to a holy man known as the Tulku (Barry Dennen). The Tulku offers Yo-King the chance to redeem himself for all the horrible things he’s done. Yo-King refuses. However, the Tulku has supernatural powers and controls a supernatural sentient knife, the Phurba. It’s an offer he can’t refuse.

Seven years later, Lamont Cranston is living in New York City, having learned how to manipulate people’s minds by reading their thoughts, telepathy, and hypnosis. Without becoming invisible, he convinces people they don’t see him. But instead of hobnobbing with opium dealers, he rescues people from gangsters—with a catch.

His rescuees become his agents, complete with a ring. Their duties include passing along information and performing tasks at the behest of the Shadow. Only Cranston’s driver, Moe Shrevnitz (Peter Boyle), knows his true identity.

One night, Cranston has dinner with his Uncle Wainwright (Jonathan Winters), the Police Commissioner, at the Cobalt Club. Uncle Wainwright is irritated that Lamont can never show up to any appointment on time. What does he do with his time? A beautiful young woman sits down by herself at a table near them. Cranton is smitten.

Uncle Wainwright warns him to stay away from her because she hears voices. She’s Margo Lane (Penelope Ann Miller), the daughter of Reinhardt Lane (Ian McKellen), who works for the War Department.

Lamont sends a bottle of wine to her table and introduces himself. In talking to her, he realizes that she can read his mind. Oddly, she doesn’t quite grasp her ability. Ooooh. This isn’t going to work out for someone who has a secret identity…

At the end of the evening, he tries to put his whammy on her, telling her, “You will forget all about me.”

She laughs and asks, “Why would I do that?”

Thoughts:

The movie reflects comic books more than the old radio shows or movies about the Shadow. The Shadow has supernatural powers of sorts that he learned from a master, the Tulku. He’s doing good—violently—protecting the innocent and those who can’t defend themselves to make up for a violent past. When Uncle Wainwright grumbles about the latest of the Shadow’s escapades, Lamont merely talks him out of doing anything about it.

What’s a superhero without a supervillain? Shiwan Khan (John Lone), the last descendant of Genghis Khan, was also a student of the Tulku but apparently failed the redemption courses. He arrived at a museum in the solid silver sarcophagus of Genghis Khan and wants to rule the world.

Shiwan Khan is a naughty supervillain, able to talk anyone into killing themselves. One death involves a leap off the Empire State Building.

Much of the action is over-the-top. Lamont’s driver, Moe, routinely lifts one wheel off the ground as he turns corners in his low-center-of-gravity, needle-nose 1930s behemoth. Tim Curry’s performance as the creepy Farley Claymore, who hits on Margo and turns to the dark side when Shiwan Khan comes to call, is in a category all its own. This is a comic book come to life, more like a superhero movie than an old crime drama.

There are a couple of plot holes and missteps in the narrative. Reality never stands in the way of a good story. All in all, I enjoyed this, but I can see where people might not buy into it.

The movie was nominated for four Saturn Awards from the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films in 1995: 1) Penelope Ann Miller for Best Actress; 2) Jerry Goldsmith for Best Music; 3) Bob Ringwood for Best Costumes; and 4) Best Special Effects.

I could not find this movie to stream anywhere, sadly.

Title: The Shadow (1994)

Directed by
Russell Mulcahy

Writing Credits (WGA)
Walter B. Gibson…(character The Shadow from stories)
David Koepp…(written by)

Cast (in credits order)
Alec Baldwin…Lamont Cranston/The Shadow
John Lone…Shiwan Khan
Penelope Ann Miller…Margo Lane
Peter Boyle…Moe Shrevnitz
Ian McKellen…Reinhardt Lane
Tim Curry..Farley Claymore
Jonathan Winters…Police Commissioner Wainwright Barth

Released: 1994
Length: 1 hour, 48 minutes

Review of “The Comedy of Terrors” (1963)

from YouTube

Our Saturday pizza and bad movie night featured a flick we’d seen before, a spoof on horror flicks. It plays with tropes familiar in both horror and comedy.

Plot:

Waldo Trumbull (Vincent Price) and his assistant Felix Gillie (Peter Lorre) run a funeral business in late 19^th century New England, cutting corners by reusing the same casket—for years. The opening scene shows them waiting for the mourners to leave a funeral, dumping the deceased into the open grave, loading the casket into their horse-drawn hearse, and quickly throwing dirt over the poor man.

Waldo drinks. Felix is a convicted bank robber and a picklock, the latter an ability that seems to have helped him escape from prison. They’re not above drumming up business by murdering by smothering (wealthy) sleeping victims with a pillow.

At home, Waldo verbally abuses his wife, Amaryllis (Joyce Jameson), who complains she gave up an opera career to marry him. Her singing—suffice to say it has to be heard to be appreciated.

Felix thinks she sings like a nightingale. He’s in love with her.

Amaryllis’ elderly father, Hinchley (Boris Karloff), who founded the funeral business his son-in-law now runs, is ill and deaf. Waldo threatens to add “medicine” from a bottle marked “POISON” to his food. Amaryllis always intervenes, much to the dismay of her clueless father.

And now, threatening to bring all that domestic harmony to a screeching halt, Waldo’s landlord, Mr. Black (Basil Rathbone), demands Waldo pay his back rent—one year’s worth—within twenty-four hours—or he will evict the lot of them.

Waldo snarls at Mr. Black as he walks off, but as he later tells Mr. Gillie, he has an idea how he might kill two birds with one pillow.

Thoughts:

The viewer has to accept the absurdity of the various situations before enjoying this movie. Waldo is nasty to his wife. He repeatedly threatens to kill his father-in-law. His wife acts like this is a simple annoyance, as if he left the toilet seat up. Despite Felix’s fumbling attempts at romancing her, she remains faithful to him—until she doesn’t.

Much to the delight of Waldo and Mr. Gilles, the doctor pronounces Mr. Black dead before they get a chance to suffocate him.

“Are you sure?” Mr. Black’s servant asks. “He had cataleptic* fits.”

The doctor has no doubts.

The viewer sees Mr. Black’s nose twitch. Apparently, he’s allergic to Amaryllis’s cat, Cleopatra.

The title is a play on Shakespeare’s A Comedy of Errors. In an homage to reciting bad Shakespeare, before things go south for him, Mr. Black is sitting in bed with a book that looks like a dinner menu, reading from the bard aloud in a deep, sonorous voice. He gets out of bed, picks up a sword, and slices several candles before jabbing it through a screen where Mr. Gillie is hiding, missing him by a hair. It is amusing and quite silly.

In another slapstick scene, Waldo and Mr. Gillie creep up a staircase lined with plaster busts on pedestals. They’re looking for a “client.” The viewer knows what’s going to happen.

Toward the end of the movie, many people who seem dead make a comeback.

I could not find this available for free. According to Justwatch, it can be rented on YouTube or GooglePlay or watched on AppleTV, however.

I had a lot of fun with this, but I wouldn’t want to invite any of these characters over for dinner.

* A state of immobility. In literature, it’s often used to mimic death.

Title: Comedy of Terrors (1963)

Directed by
Jacques Tourneur

Writing Credits
Richard Matheson…(screenplay)
Richard Matheson…(novel) (uncredited)
Elsie Lee…(novel)(uncredited)

Cast (in credits order)
Vincent Price…Waldo Trumbull
Peter Lorre…Felix Gillie
Boris Karloff…Hinchley
Joyce Jameson…Amaryllis
Joe E. Brown…Cemetery Keeper
Beverly Powers…Mrs. Phipps (as Beverly Hills)
Basil Rathbone…Mr. Black

Released: 1963
Length: 1 hour, 24 minutes

Review of “Five Million Years to Earth” (1967)

trailer from YouTube
I doubt this is going to happen in your lifetime.

This was a bit different for our Saturday night pizza and bad movie, a flick my dearly beloved and I had seen on TV some time ago. We both remembered it in black and white because of the sets our families had back in the day. I must have been a munchkin, but I remember it scared the bejesus out of me. That was a while ago.

Plot:

A construction crew working on a London subway/underground extension comes across human remains, bringing in paleontologists and the curious public. Doctor Roney (James Donald) believes the fossils prove that essentially human-like creatures walked the earth five million years ago.*

While Roney is giving an unofficial press conference, one of the diggers (Bee Duffell) comes across what initially appears to be a pipe. A consultation with blueprints confirms no plumbing works are there. Another possibility, of course, is a bomb left over from the war.

The site is closed down, and the bomb squad is brought in. Roney objects to the conclusions of Captain Potter (Bryan Marshall), the man in charge of the bomb squad, as too young to have had any wartime experience. Potter sends a message to Colonel Breen (Julian Glover), who was once involved in enemy missiles.

Busy at the moment arguing with Quatermass (Andrew Keir) over the use of the rocket program, which is Quatermass’s expertise, Breen is too busy to take Potter’s call. Quatermass insists on peaceful use. Breen is looking forward to armed bases on the moon. Ouch. Breen’s been assigned to the rocket program with Quatermass.

Once Breen reads Potter’s message about a possible unexploded V-2 or something like it in the underground, he’s off the races and brings Quatermass with him.

By the time they get to the location, workmen have uncovered most of the item. They find another skull in a mud-filled pocket. It’s intact. So, how did a V-2 land with an intact fossil skull inside it…?

The crew exchanges looks.

Thoughts:

In the US, this was released as Five Million Years to Earth. In the UK, it was titled Quatermass and the Pit. Quatermass was a figure in British media, a fictional member of the space program who went about righting wrong and doing good, and so on and so forth.

When I first saw this movie on a black-and-white set, probably on a Saturday afternoon, it scared the bejesus out of me. It is creepy.

In checking the Civil Defense records, they find only a few incendiary bombs were dropped in the area. Nothing like a V-2. The houses were empty. Breen concludes they’d been evacuated.

On the way out of the underground, Police Sergeant Ellis (Grant Taylor) tells Quatermass that wasn’t the case. The houses had been deserted years before the war. People wouldn’t live there. He takes a flashlight and shows him and Roney’s assistant, Miss Judd (Barbara Shelley), inside the wrecked houses. People left because of noises, bumps, and seeing things, he tells them.

“A lot of nonsense,” he says.

When Quatermass points to scratches on the walls and asks what might have made them, an already agitated Ellis says, “Kids. Kids playing around.” He beats a hasty retreat outside. It was—warm in there. He wipes his face with a handkerchief.

Miss Judd notices an older spelling of the street name, one she says was an old nickname for the devil.

When she later shows Quatermass newspaper clippings of strange occurrences that coincided with digging for the underground in the 1920s, he pooh-poohs it all. They’re both scientists, don’t you know. Later, Quatermass listens when an abbey librarian (Noel Howlett ) translates from Latin a medieval account of similar things happening when people dug a well. Hmmm… is it the Latin or the guy that makes this credible? Or is Miss Judd just another hard-working assistant with an answer who goes ignored and, if one watches the ending closely, abused?

The special effects are so-so. You can see the strings. And the explanation is far-fetched. But again, this is creepy. Quatermass, the genius righter of wrongs and doer of good is just as vulnerable to mass hypnosis as the average Joe.

I liked watching this movie in color after all these years. It’s fun.

The only place I could find this movie online was here, at the Internet Archive. It’s probably best watched with headphones. The audio is a little murky, and the actors have funny accents.

*Early modern humans are believed to have emerged about 300,000 years ago.

Title: Quatermass and the Pit, aka Five Million Years to Earth (1967) (US title)

Directed by
Roy Ward Baker

Writing Credits
Nigel Kneale…(original story)
Nigel Kneale…(screenplay)

Cast (in credits order)
James Donald…Doctor Roney
Andrew Keir…Quatermass
Barbara Shelley…Barbara Judd
Julian Glover…Colonel Breen
Duncan Lamont…Sladden

Released: 1967
Length: 1 hour, 37 minutes

Review of “The Invisible Man’s Revenge” (1944)

from YouTube.
Really this is the best and only trailer I could find.

Our latest Saturday pizza and bad movie offering has a put-upon dog for a hero. That journalist guy wasn’t half-bad, but the dog got the job done, even after humans hadn’t been all that good to him.

Plot:

Robert Griffin (Jon Hall) returns to London by cutting himself out of a cargo bale dropped off on a pier. Couldn’t have been a comfortable trip. He immediately buys himself some respectable clothes.

At the shop, the salesman (Cyril Delevanti) asks if he’d come in the ship now in port. Griffin seizes the man by the lapels and demands, “Who told you? Who’s been spying on me?”

The poor man says that he just thought with the ship in port—

Griffin lets the man go. He leaves his old clothes behind. In one of the pockets, the shopkeeper finds a newspaper clipping from South Africa about an escaped inmate from what was then referred to as a lunatic asylum who stabbed three men on his way out.

We next see Robert Griffin lurking outside a mansion, watching a young lady (Evelyn Ankers) drive off with her beau (Alan Curtis). “Julie,” he mutters.

Inside the house are his old friends and business partners, Sir Jasper Herrick (Lester Matthews) and Irene, Lady Herrick (Gale Sondergaard). Griffin remembers being ill and receiving a blow on the head about five years earlier. The Herricks thought he was done for.

Griffin has a copy of their agreement drawn up in Mozambique. He wants his half of all properties—a diamond field—discovered in Tanganyika (roughly present-day Tanzania). There must be a million from that diamond field!

Well, there was quite a bit, but Herrick lost it all in bad investments. He offers Griffin half of their own (inherited) money.

Griffin says that’s not enough. He’ll take even their inherited house. He has his proof.

Irene makes him a drink, slips him a Mickey Finn, and relieves him of the paper the agreement is written, over Jasper’s objections. Griffin wakes up in a ditch and ends up in the river, only to be rescued by cobbler Herbert Higgins (Leon Errol), “an honest man.”

Griffin is eventually asked to leave town. On his way out, he meets Doctor Peter Drury (John Carradine), who has been experimenting with an invisibility serum. Everyone needs a hobby. He has an invisible parrot. Brutus, his dog, is also invisible. He realizes Griffin is a fugitive. Say, don’t suppose Griffin would like to become invisible and make Drury famous, would he…?

Thoughts:

Unlike in the earlier “Invisible Man” movies, the serum doesn’t make its subject a psycho. This time around, he’s a psycho to begin with.

A couple of questions are never settled—did the Herricks knowingly leave him for dead for his stake in the diamond field? Did they merely high-tail it out of there when things got hot with the locals, and devil take the hindmost?

Griffin accuses them of murder. Jasper Herrick wishes to make some sort of amends. Irene, however, has no qualms about drugging their old friend and partner and talks her husband into abandoning his scruples after Griffin threatens to take their home as compensation for his share of the diamond field. Griffin also wants to marry their daughter Julie, who happens to be engaged to the reporter Mark Foster. Maybe he thinks that after he kills Mark and sends her parents packing, she’ll turn to him and say, “You know, you’re kinda cute”?

Despite the heaviness of many plot elements—murder, blackmail, and so on—there is also silliness. While trying to raise money for the honest man, the cobbler Herbert Higgins, who is behind on his rent, Griffin suggests he challenge the dart champions to a game at the pub. Since he’s invisible, he grabs the darts from Herbert’s hand and embeds them in the bull’s eye.

Griffin learns he can become visible again. It will take the death of a man. He’s okay with that. He figures his chances with Julie are better if he’s visible. (Uh, no, dude. They’re not.) He takes another name and coerces Jasper into letting him join the household. One morning at breakfast, he begins to fade.

Oh, yeah. Karma’s about to come to bite you where it hurts.

While I enjoyed a lot of this movie, I felt some things went unanswered. Any movie that has a dog as an unexpected hero—even if his humans don’t treat him especially well—is worth the watch in my book.

The Invisible Man’s Revenge was nominated for a 1945 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation—Short Form— for writer Bertram Millhauser and director Ford Beebe.

The movie can be watched here with iffy sound at the Internet Archine.

Title: The Invisible Man’s Revenge (1944)

Directed by
Ford Beebe

Writing Credits
Bertram Millhauser…(original screenplay)
Jane MacDonald…(adaptation)
H.G. Wells…(suggested by “The Invisible Man”)

Cast (in credits order)
Jon Hall…Robert Griffin
Evelyn Ankers…Julie Herrick
Alan Curtis…Mark Foster
Leon Errol…Herbert Higgins
John Carradine…Doctor Peter Drury
Gale Sondergaard…Irene, Lady Herrick
Lester Matthews…Sir Jasper Herrick

Released: 1944
Length: 1 hour, 18 minutes

Review of “The Name of the Rose” 1986

trailer from YouTube

Struck with a bit of nostalgia, the dearly beloved and I chose a movie we’d both seen in the theater back in the day. I read the book, which, as always, was better than the movie, though I liked the movie.

Plot:

William of Baskerville (Sean Connery), a Franciscan monk, and his assistant, novice Benedictine monk, Adso of Melk (Christian Slater), arrive at an unnamed Italian abbey high in the mountains to attend a conference debating the question on the Christian role of laughter. William has come ahead of the Franciscan and the papal delegations.

The Abbot (Michael Lonsdale) pulls William aside and describes a problem he wishes his help with. William is known for his knowledge and ability to solve puzzles as a former investigator for the Inquisition. A young manuscript illustrator has died after falling from the top of a tower. There is no access to the roof. There is a glass window, but it cannot be opened and shows no sign of damage. It appears something supernatural is at work. Can William find out what happened and put the brothers at ease?

William and Adso examine the tower and the landscape. William surmises the illustrator died by suicide by jumping off a nearby structure. His body rolled down the hill and landed in front of the tower where it was found. No murderer would carry a body up the stairs, and what other business would the illustrator have up there? Tragic but not supernatural.

The question seems answered until a Greek translator (Urs Althaus) is found headfirst in a great vat of pig’s blood.

“This one, I grant you, did not commit suicide,” William tells Adso.

After the body is cleaned, William notices the man’s tongue is blackened, as are the fingers of his right hand—hardly everyday symptoms of drowning, even in (ICK) pig’s blood.

Jorge de Burgos (Feodor Chaliapin Jr.), a blind, elderly monk, sees signs of the Apocalypse in these deaths. Some of the monks fear the world is ending.

William and Adso visit the scriptorium to see the desks where the two dead men worked. William enjoys the humor the illustrator put into his work. Berengar, the assistant librarian (Michael Habeck), described as “moon-faced,” blocks them from examining the translator’s desk. Nevertheless, William finds a piece of parchment with cryptic (and hidden) writing he believes contains directions to the hiding place of a forbidden.

The next day, the herbalist Severinus (Elya Baskin) finds Berengar’s body submerged in a bath. His tongue and fingers are also blackened.

William gives his explanation of the deaths to the abbot, which doesn’t show the abbey in an especially happy light. He hands the abbot the paper he found. The abbot burns it. He says he has no choice but to call in the Inquisition.

The Inquisition and William have history, in particular with the Inquisitor Bernard Gui (F. Murray Abraham), who once imprisoned him and tried to burn him at the stake.

Thoughts:

The opening of the movie is narrated by a much older Adso (Dwight Weist), looking back on the extraordinary incidents that occurred at the abbey he hesitates to name even after all these years.

A couple of homages to Sherlock Holmes appear. First, William’s place name—Baskerville—brings to mind the Conan Doyle novel The Hound of the Baskervilles. At one point, while examining the clues to the demise of the unfortunate illustrator, William says to Adso, “Elementary!”

One of the strengths of the movie is the visuals. Some of the interiors were shot at the Eberbach Abbey in Rheingau, Germany, now used as a cultural center. The interiors are stunning.

The “forbidden” book is a lost book of Aristotle, a second book of his Poetics, that deals with comedy as a teaching tool. This is indeed a lost book, though what it contains is not known. Supposedly, this book causes a problem for the devout because the Bible does not say Jesus laughed, and the Rule of St. Benedict, which governs the lives of the monks in the abbey, warns monks against being given to quick laughter.

On one level, The Name of the Rose is a murder mystery in a medieval monastery. However, there are layers beneath this. Themes include faith versus reason, knowledge versus ignorance, and the power dynamics both within the church and over the people.

Two of the Benedictine monks are former heretics, having belonged to the heretical Dulcinian group, which the Church has banned. Many of its members, including its founders, were burned at the stake. Such a group did exist and was treated about as well as one might expect. The threat it posed to the Church was in forcing its teaching of Christ’s poverty on the wealthy clergy.

Power to the people, baby!

One of the former heretics, Salvatore (Ron Perlman), is half-mad, speaking a gibberish of mixed languages, more an object of pity than fear or condemnation. He also helps (with some inducements) William and Ado gain access to the library.

The question is also posed with the “forbidden” book of Aristotle: are there books that should be forbidden, kept from the unwashed masses, or out of school libraries? Are societies poorer for banning books? Or are people kept safe when the wise and holy keep dangerous books out of their reach?

One drawback is belittling the deaths for comic effect—a small complaint but there, nonetheless.

This is an interesting, entertaining, and engaging movie.

The Name of the Rose is available (…with a whole slew of ads…) on Tubi here: It can also be watched on subscription services like Prime Video or rented on YouTube.

Title: The Name of the Rose (1986) (original title, Der Name der Rose)

Directed by
Jean-Jacques Annaud

Writing Credits
Umberto Eco…(novel)
Andrew Birkin…(screenplay) &
Gérard Brach…(screenplay) &
Howard Franklin…(screenplay) &
Alain Godard…(screenplay)

Cast (in credits order)
Sean Connery…William of Baskerville
Christian Slater…Adso of Melk
Helmut Qualtinger…Remigio de Varagine
Elya Baskin …Severinus
Michael Lonsdale…The Abbot

Released: 1986
Length: 2 hours, 10 minutes
Rated: R