Selling The American Dream

The lack of availability of Joseph Ruben’s THE STEPFATHER these days is unfortunate and probably part of the reason there was a decent-sized crowd lined up for it at the New Beverly’s midnight show on Saturday. The film didn’t do much business during a staggered regional release in 1987, in spite of an amazing lead performance by Terry O’Quinn, now an Emmy winner for LOST, and an array of favorable critical notices which included the Los Angeles Times calling it “one of the smartest and most entertaining films” of its year as well as a genuine rave from no less than Pauline Kael. People presumably began to catch up with it on video and cable, which led to a sequel a few years later also starring O’Quinn (but made by others) and is no doubt the main reason behind the pre-LOST cult around the actor. I can proudly say that I saw THE STEPFATHER during its original release and I also got to see STEPFATHER 2 in the theater, though that’s not quite as impressive. Largely because of its star, the film has held up surprisingly well and its no-show on DVD (rights issues, I’m guessing) is a shame.

The lead character of THE STEPFATHER played by Terry O’Quinn is introduced just after he has (offscreen) brutally murdered his entire family, including his wife and stepchildren. Preparing to leave the house, he then cuts his hair, shaves his beard to change his entire appearance and, whistling “Camptown Races”, leaves the house and walks down the otherwise quiet suburban street. One year later, he is Jerry Blake, a real estate salesman married to new wife Susan (Shelley Hack) and stepfather to sixteen year-old Stephanie (Jill Schoelen). Susan, widowed just a year ago, looks at her husband as the perfect man but Stephanie can’t help but feel there’s something off about him a feeling compounded when she stumbles across him ranting and raving to no one in the basement. In spite of her suspicions, Jerry is determined that his family will be absolutely perfect but when they disappoint him, which is of course inevitable, the question is how soon history will repeat itself.


It sounds like a generic thriller, the sort of thing that’s played late nights on cable for decades, but THE STEPFATHER surpasses those expectations by being not only a tight, compact thriller but also a clever commentary on the Reagan-era America that Jerry Blake seems to subscribe to a little too much, with the character making speeches about how being a real estate agent allows him to “sell the American dream”. Part of the confidence of the film, which has a screenplay by Donald Westlake, is that it doesn’t make too much of a thing of this subtext, allowing the viewer to read as much of that into it as they wish. Even when the lead is watching a sitcom on TV that harkens back to a simpler time, the show is MR. ED which allows us to imagine him watching it as a kid but doesn’t make too much of it like a LEAVE IT TO BEAVER-type clip would do. The film seems to be locked into its era so much that it’s tough to imagine how it would work in today’s world without completely altering the meaning (naturally, the remake is due next year) but those reminders of how nostalgia was looked at during the eighties can still resonate. The plot is fairly well put together, but it certainly isn’t airtight. The subplot of one of the murdered family members hunting him feels somewhat mechanical, like a combination of Scatman Crothers in THE SHINING and a chance to get some exposition in there that we wouldn’t otherwise have access to. It’s also a bit much to swallow Jerry Blake meeting a woman recently widowed, marrying her and establishing a foothold in the community all within the space of a year, for one thing.


For that matter, the character of the wife is so thinly written so as to favor the daughter that it comes off as one of the few elements that seems like it would be part of the cheesy, bad version of the film. I’m not going to make any grand claims for the talent of Shelley Hack (love her in ANNIE HALL, though) but it’s not really her fault that she’s playing a character written as such a doormat. That’s one area that the remake could actually improve on but they’ll probably spend half the running time delving into backstory that the original wisely only hints at as well as jettisoning all the interesting subtext and besides, let’s not give them any ideas. Fortunately, the character of the daughter is well-written and played, with Schoelen (in her early twenties when the film was shot, but looking age-appropriate) coming off as likable and completely believable as a normal suburban kid who’s been going through a bad time.


But it’s Terry O’Quinn who everyone remembers from this film and that is deserved. While director Joseph Ruben is able to bring some genuine suspense to much of the film, he seems correctly aware of how dependant its success is on its lead actor. O’Quinn is absolutely fantastic in the role, at times veering from a jovial, comic manner to steely rage within seconds and making it work. The movie is at its best when Ruben seems to have the confidence to simply observe him, watching his face as it remains still yet whatever is going on in the eyes is impossible to miss. Late in the film there’s a point where the character is beginning to put the next portion of his plan into effect and the entire film stops and he just walks around his neighborhood taking in all the sights of home, children and family around him. The section doesn’t advance the plot--it’s just about watching the character observe things and tells us more than any monologue ever could. The sequence ends with a fade to black before continuing with the rest of the film and I wondered if it was the director’s way of allowing himself a quiet, ambiguous ending that he knew he really couldn’t give it, since the slasher movie climax was what had to happen. It’s an interesting thought, although that climax does contain the memorable beat of the character of Jerry Blake suddenly forgetting which persona he is and stopping to ask himself, “Wait a minute, who am I here?” before finally realizing, followed by a response of shocking brutality. It’s the sort of moment that is so effective that it’s impossible to imagine the rest of the movie without it. Those few seconds practically make the movie what it is and it’s safe to say that it might not have the cult that it does have otherwise.

Without O’Quinn, THE STEPFATHER wouldn’t be able to transcend its B-level roots. Maybe it doesn’t fully do that anyway—that climax I mentioned does contain some shower scene nudity (no body double for Schoelen, it should be noted) which feels shoehorned in, like the producers insisted on it. Some of the violence is pretty nasty, which was no doubt what led Gene Siskel to call this “a truly sick film”, though Roger Ebert pointed out in their review that those scenes only seemed to be that much more brutal because some of the rest of the film seemed to have loftier ambitions. Going into that New Beverly screening, I was slightly worried that the movie would play somewhat cheesy in this day and age but while some of that is in there, and probably always was, much of it still remained potent and the power of Terry O’Quinn’s performance certainly hadn’t diminished. If the remake causes the original to finally be released on DVD, then at least it will serve one purpose. If that does happen, be sure to stay home and watch the original instead. It’ll be worth it.

Morality is a Social Invention

A lot of people had a fear that there would be nonsense going on during the election, possibly resulting in it being stolen. As we all know, it’s happened before and though it didn’t happen this time that doesn’t mean there won’t be the same fears at some point in the future. This element of paranoia was fresh in my mind as I watched THE PRESIDENT’S ANALYST, made in 1967 and still a little pertinent today in its portrayal of dueling governments, secrets and who might have the power behind who has the power. It’s very much of its time so it’s pretty dated, but so what? Enough of the themes and ideas come across that it’s still pretty relevant even if things seem to have worked out ok this time.

Dr. Sidney Schaefer (James Coburn) is chosen to be the President’s personal analyst. He and girlfriend Nan (Joan Delaney) are placed in a beautiful Georgetown house and Schaefer is required to be on call for the President (never seen by the audience) at all possible hours. While at first he loves the assignment, soon it begins to wear down on him and everything he learns in his sessions only increases his extreme feelings of paranoia. He attempts to make a break for it, but he soon learns that it’s nearly impossible to escape when virtually everyone around him is in on it.


A cinematic expression of the belief that, yes, you are paranoid and they really are out to get you, THE PRESIDENT’S ANALYST has such a broad, comical tone that it can be easy to miss just how subversive it really is. The off kilter tone comes in right from the start with a disclaimer telling us that what we’re about to see is has not been made with the consent or cooperation of the “FBR” or the “CEA”, the two main government agencies represented here. It’s more surprising to learn that the film apparently used the names of the actual agencies, until they were forced to change it, but the names ultimately used to fit with the movie’s bizarre tone. Very soon after the credits we see a patient visiting Coburn played by Godfrey Cambridge. He launches into a heartbreaking monologue about something that happened during his childhood, extremely well-played by the actor, before throwing a wrench into the works by telling the doctor why he’s really there. If the story is true, and it probably is, it’s just about the only serious thing any character says to Coburn in the course of the film and even his reasons for telling him weren’t entirely honest. And does it matter anyway? After this opening, it becomes difficult to trust anything that anyone says to Coburn, something it seems to take him a little while longer to figure out. Everyone everywhere is in on it in one form or another in THE PRESIDENT’S ANALYST, making it difficult to talk about the plot without going into spoiler territory. One of the more clever things about the film is that the paranoia that Coburn feels almost seems to kick in before you’d expect it to, so it’s already in full gear before you even realize it (Lalo Schifrin's score is a big help). When Coburn goes on the run in the second half it loses a little of the momentum for me—one section has him hiding out with a Grateful Dead-like band as various assassins close in on him and begins to veer into Blake Edwards territory which doesn’t really feel like it fits (we hear some good songs, though). It’s not the best stuff in the film, but things pick up again as we begin to learn who and what is really behind everything. It results in a good joke that, again, may be slightly dated but its examinations of privacy, technology, depersonalization and the people behind the fronts they work for are still relevant to the present day. It also displays that you should never trust a phone booth in the middle of nowhere. Written and directed by Theodore J. Flicker who mostly worked in television (I recognized that name from the credits of a million BARNEY MILLER episodes), the tone is more biting than other Coburn spoofs from around the same time, particularly the Flint movies which I always wish I liked more than I do. It’s the rare spy spoof from the period that actually seems to have something serious to say underneath all the weirdness. It would probably work well on a double bill with William Richert’s WINTER KILLS, an even more darkly comic descent into government paranoia which has some surprising similarities to ANALYST.


It’s too bad that the film isn’t better known but the unusual Scope compositions probably looked terrible on TV—nearly every scene has something to look at which adds to our paranoia. There’s also some terrific location work, particularly in New York and Washington. Coburn goes up to the torch of the Statue of Liberty in a striking helicopter shot and when he arrives in D.C. the production makes use of the unusual architecture of Dulles Airport (I’ve always liked that place) as well as its mobile lounges and, by making it totally devoid of extras, makes the location look absolutely science fiction. Coburn is terrific, playing someone who seems to be on his own wavelength right from the start and maybe the only person any of us can trust. I’ve rarely seen that toothy grin of his get this much of a workout. Cambridge, right from his first scene, seems to be doing more with the part than what seems to be there and character actor Severn Darden, whose screen presence is sometimes a little too eccentric, gives one of his most complete performances as a Russian who figures into the conspiracy Coburn is running from. Pat Harrington, familiar from ONE DAY AT A TIME of course, has a key role near the end.


THE PRESIDENT’S ANALYST isn’t deep. It accepts its vast array of paranoia as a given and maybe even necessary for us to stay alert and stay aware of those pulling the strings. It’s even possible that is says more about the present day than may be clear. When James Coburn gets his assignment at the film’s beginning, thrilled, he goes for an impossibly lengthy jaunt around New York City as the most impossibly upbeat, cheesy song plays (possibly by composer Lalo Schifrin, but the credits are unclear). As Coburn goes up to Lady Liberty’s torch, allowing for that amazing helicopter shot, it reminds me that some of us may be feeling some of that cheerfulness this week. But after seeing what happens in THE PRESIDENT’S ANALYST, it reminds me that we should stay alert. Because, as always, you never know who’s watching.

We Could Be Married

The election is over now and I genuinely feel a sense of triumph and relief, but as it was occurring I was reminded that the occasion marked the fortieth anniversary of the events in SHAMPOO. Of course, the story of the film is fictional but still, the thirty-six hours the film takes place during is mostly set on Election Day 1968, the day Nixon was voted in. Watching it again, and I’ve seen this film a lot over the years, it occurred to me for the first time how the characters spend next to no time actually talking about the election specifically except for a moment near the end. I’m fairly convinced that none of the principal characters actually bother to vote. Maybe Jack Warden does, but even with him I’m not convinced. Things have obviously changed in the world. Released in 1975, SHAMPOO must have been seen on its original release as a look back over everything that had happened in the years since Nixon got in. That’s a reference point I can’t directly have, of course. Looking at it now the Los Angeles portrayed in the film is set even longer ago but it still makes me think about my time in this town. A few angles show us streets that pretty much look the same as they do now and there’s Julie Christie’s mention of “the 76 station on Little Santa Monica”, a moment I’ve always had a fondness for, but much of the town isn’t like this anymore. There certainly aren’t wild parties that “never stop” in Beverly Hills that we can just drive over to. SHAMPOO has long been a favorite of mine and a few close friends will probably know how much. I definitely didn’t live my own version of the movie this past Tuesday, but the world still managed to change even without my own drama helping the metaphor along.


The story of hairdresser George Roundy (Warren Beatty) who sleeps with women as casually as he breathes or eats or even as he says “Great” and the various elements of his life colliding during Election Day ’68, SHAMPOO has probably been slightly been hurt by being classified as a comedy, including making the list of the AFI top 100 comedies of all time and it’s probably the section it can be found in most video stores. Yes, SHAMPOO has the structure of a comedy and a certain lightness of tone. It’s not too much of a reach to imagine it being rewritten and restructured as a flat-out farce. But that’s not Beatty’s aim, or co-writer Robert Towne, or director Hal Ashby, whose approach is a sort of stylized realism where on first glance he seems to be just letting the scenes happen but if you pay close attention you latch onto how firm the hand is. He’s not the most visually strong of directors—it’s easy to imagine someone else making more of the veritable cadavers that populate the Election Night party at The Bistro, for example—but that was never Ashby’s thing. Since it’s plotted in that seventies way, it may not be immediately apparent to first-time viewers what every character’s relationship is to each other, but I’ve long thought that the script is as airtight and flawless as any other I can think of without a wasted line or moment. If it’s not immediately thought of as one of those that is studied that may be because of the invisible nature of the plotting and how the dialogue is deliberate (“George is great.” “Yeah, George is great.”), but not specifically filled with lines that are immediately quotable.


The various roles that Warren Beatty has played through his career, especially the films that he has produced, include more martyrs than I think people have realized. Here, the film isn’t about the literal death of George Roundy but there is something about the way his story turns out that makes it a sort of spiritual death. It’s impossible to know if he really does change based on what happens in the film or if he dives right back into business as usual but eventually things really will catch up with him. Goldie Hawn’s Jill continually seems worried about things on the outside like a scream heard in the canyon and musing “I feel like something terrible’s going to happen.” Somehow this doesn’t make me think of her future, but of George. Tasteless as it is to say, I almost wonder if in this fictional universe the idea is that George winds up finding himself on Cielo Drive in August 1969. Since Jay Sebring, one of the supposed inspirations for the character, really was at that location that night, maybe there’s something to that thought. He, along with many of the other characters in the film, seems filled with contradictions, which he manages to display by saying that he’s at “the epitome” of his life and “disgusted” with his life in the space of about ten seconds.


It’s one of my very favorite Beatty performances, but the entire cast nears perfection starting from the main cast of Julie Christie, Goldie Hawn, Jack Warden and Oscar winning Lee Grant. Carrie Fisher, in her film debut, immediately makes an impression and whose insistent reading of the line “I am nothing like my mother!” makes me wonder if someone was saying things about Debbie Reynolds off camera. Every single bit part feels expertly cast, right down to George Furth’s loan officer to legendary director William Castle’s cameo at The Bistro (“I think I can get you whatever you’d like.”). I always find myself intrigued by Kathleen Miller as a hair salon customer who spends her one scene rambling on to Beatty about post-natal frigidity. She has credits in a few other Hal Ashby films but I can’t find anything else about her. The music, including the brief but haunting score by Paul Simon, is dead-on. There’s the Herb Alpert heard during one tryst with Lee Grant as well as the lousy cover of “Yesterday” played by the band at the Bistro, as well as all the songs heard at the Beverly Hills party late in the film. When “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” comes on it’s heard in this aurally distant way, logical since the sound is coming from far off, that I always remember.


SHAMPOO has grown over the years for me. I’m certainly nothing like the Warren Beatty character but there’s something about its look at Los Angeles, how you can be living without paying much attention to the road you’re going down, that truly cuts deep. The events of the past few days have made me think of what I’ve done over the years and some sadness at this point of my life is mixed in with the undeniable hope that occurred. In some ways, I wonder if I’m like George Roundy at the end, staring off at what may be the great lost opportunity. And there’s the passing of Prop. 8, which also makes me think of SHAMPOO. Somehow, such a harsh, ugly message in the light of day that comes after such a night feels like something out of the world of the film. The Beach Boys are heard at the beginning and end singing “Wouldn’t It Be Nice,” and it’s very clear that in spite of everything that has changed, the thought still applies. These are a series of leaps that I’m making in my own mind, but that’s what movies sometimes do.

Narrow Horizons

Yeah, I know, I’ve been going to the New Beverly a lot lately. I really have been seeing movies elsewhere, but my trips to that particular theater are what I’ve been writing about. But really, does anyone actually want to read about new movies here? You want me to write about ZACK AND MIRI MAKE A PORNO? And I didn’t get a ticket to see Soderbergh’s CHE at the Chinese, so writing something about that was of course out. What can I say? I liked CHANGELING, though. But I’d rather write about other things. None of this means that there was ever going to be a large crowd turning up the other night at the New Beverly for the midnight show of ALIEN NATION. I mean, ALIEN NATION? Really? I’m not even sure why I went. During the introduction it was revealed that Twentieth-Century Fox had never before rented out this title for a revival screening. Again, not a real surprise. I saw the thing opening night in October 1988, just over twenty years ago, and though I don’t think I was using words like “underwhelmed” to describe movies I went to when I was a teenager, that’s probably what I was thinking. In that sense, things haven’t changed.

The film is set in what was then the future, 1991 to be specific. The start of the film comes three years after an alien race landed and since assimilated into society, primarily Los Angeles. Those people, called Newcomers (or “slags” which is the more racist term), have encountered a fair amount of discrimination along the way. Police Detective Matthew Sykes (James Caan), a definite hater of the Newcomers, is on patrol one night with his partner when they stumble on a robbery gone bad, resulting in a few Newcomers killing the owner of a liquor store (also one of theirs) as well as Sykes’s partner. Badly wanting to track down who did this, Sykes reluctantly decides to team up with Newcomer Samuel Francisco (Mandy Patinkin), the first of the race to achieve Detective status in the LAPD. Their investigation leads them to wealthy Newcomer William Harcourt (Terence Stamp) and though the two men begin to trust each other, Sykes still has to try to figure out the secrets about the race that even Francisco won’t readily divulge.


There’s a good idea in there, one that could explore racism and hatred within a genre concept but nearly nothing interesting is ever really done with this. You could really say that ALIEN NATION is a spectacularly blah film and leave it at that. Written by Rockne S. O’Bannon, it feels like an attempt by its producers to do a science fiction take on LETHAL WEAPON, but that film had Richard Donner and Joel Silver who knew how to give their film the appropriate pizzazz. ALIEN NATION, directed by Graham Baker (THE FINAL CONFLICT), feels a little decidedly lifeless for much of its running time with scene after scene feeling like it has no shape or rhythm. This even extends to the subdued score by Curt Sobel, so sparse that at times I felt like I was watching a rough edit of a movie before the music got added. The original composer was Jerry Goldsmith (his name is in the credits of the trailer) who had his work tossed but the abruptness of the plotting at some points in the second half makes me wonder if there had been multiple problems during post-production and, looking for a Band-Aid, Goldsmith’s score was the sacrificial lamb. What does turn up, courtesy of Jane’s Addiction, is just about the worst cover of “Sympathy for the Devil” imaginable. Since the final film is only 94 minutes at least it ends fairly quickly, but, complete with lackluster action and dully staged confrontations, it barely feels like it’s contained a complete story and the implications of some of the revelations, like the potential of the physical strength and mental acuity of the Newcomers, feel underdeveloped (Apparently the later TV show did considerably more with these concepts, but I've never seen it). It feels like more emphasis is given to the large gun that James Caan is given early on that can seemingly blow anything to smithereens, something that feels like it’s wandered in from another movie. Even Joel Silver always seemed to know how to correctly integrate those kinds of things. The final moment of the film contains a brief bit of narration from Caan’s character which, since there has been no such voiceover heard before, feels like a desperate attempt to include some closure where there wouldn’t be any otherwise. The cinematography by Adam Greenberg, in the years between shooting the first two TERMINATOR films, feels funky too. Though shot in Scope, the framing often feels overly tight and the film is shot at such low light levels that numerous times I wondered if the production had trouble getting the lens they were using to correctly focus. At least the alien makeup, from the Stan Winston studios, is effective and probably the most unique thing about the movie.


While watching it the other night I found myself studying James Caan and what he was doing in each scene. The ultimate conclusion I came to was that the actor probably knew he was in a piece of shit and, receiving no help from his director, was valiantly trying to do anything he could to make the scenes interesting. He and Mandy Patinkin do work very well together and I constantly had the impression that whole chunks of dialogue were made up on the spot by the two of them. It’s not enough to save the film, but at least it’s something. As it turns out, soon after the film’s release Caan was quoted in People magazine as saying that there were “a lot of things in (the movie) I wasn’t too crazy about” adding that director Baker couldn’t “direct traffic”. When asked why he took the role Caan replied. “Mostly, I was broke and I needed to work”. Maybe the state of his career in the late eighties made him not only want to work but also prove his professionalism which would explain why, even if he knew it wasn’t going to work, he seems to have decided not to just walk through the movie like other actors may have. At the very least, having an actor like Caan in this film provides it with an energy and legitimacy it wouldn't otherwise have had. He has a few scenes with familiar character actor Peter Jason, playing a prick police detective, and it occurred to me at one point that both men had worked with Howard Hawks. I wonder if they talked about that between takes. Patinkin is at times very funny, particularly in how he underplays certain lines but Terence Stamp, whose character is revealed to be the bad guy about twenty seconds after we seen him being honored, doesn’t get to do much beyond use his voice to seem as intimidating as possible.


Since the there wasn’t a particularly large crowd for the film, I suppose this means that ALIEN NATION is one of the few science fiction films from the eighties that actually doesn’t have a rabid cult following. This is probably because ultimately it’s a pretty forgettable movie, not even bad enough to be notable in any way. At least if I think of this film in another few years, maybe seeing it things time will remind me why I can’t remember very much of it. I certainly wasn’t upset about going to the New Beverly to see it. Maybe the next one I see there will be better. Maybe soon things will begin to get better anyway.

Finding What's There

There’s something appealing about seeing a film that a studio has essentially buried. Certainly there have been plenty of cases where it happened not because the picture was bad but because of infighting at the studio or, even better, the film was considered not commercial enough to go to the trouble of releasing. This, of course, may mean that there’s something to it. For various reasons, Lionsgate decided not to put THE MIDNIGHT MEAT TRAIN into theaters even though it had the cache of Clive Barker’s name attached to it, not to mention the fact that the company had already achieved a good amount of success in the horror genre, particularly with the SAW series. I saw the trailer with a few films last winter which was fairly well cut but probably hurt by the voiceover gravely announcing the title at the end, causing baffled laughter from the audience—just because it’s what Barker’s story was called probably wasn’t a good enough reason. That doesn’t seem to be the main cause of the lack of release but it probably didn’t help matters. There’s not really a case to be made for this being cinematic injustice along the lines of IDIOCRACY but considering some horror films that I’ve paid to see over the past ten years it probably did deserve at least a little better than it got.


Photographer Leon (Bradley Cooper) is goaded into showing his work around in order to get his career going by girlfriend Maya (POPULAR’s Leslie Bibb). Gallery owner Susan Hoff (Brooke Shields) seems intrigued by his photos that attempt to display the real city but rejects his work, telling him to really find what’s out there. He then does just that, wandering around the dangerous-looking unnamed city (shot in downtown L.A.) until various events lead him to believe that a mysterious grey-suited individual (Vinnie Jones) just might be responsible for disappearances that have been occurring. As he begins to follow the man around and investigate who he is, Leon finds himself becoming affected by what he is learning, not knowing that the real truth is more horrible than he ever realized.


Directed by Ryuhei Kitamura, TRAIN is extremely stylish lending a visual approach that makes it genuinely striking to look at throughout. Much of it is pretty obviously inspired by the likes of SEVEN and THE MATRIX but it has its own vibe, enough that I found myself more intrigued by the mystery elements than the Clive Barker horror that I knew was coming right from the start. There’s a deliberate out-of-time and out-of-place feel to the film—the lead still develops his film in a darkroom and does research at the library looking at microfiche, but characters are seen using cell phones. For that matter, it doesn’t seem to be set in any city that currently exists. Much of this style is what stands out as best about the movie and there is certainly more attention paid to it than there is to things like character motivation. When the lead is wandering a dangerous part of town early on snapping away his camera at pretty dangerous looking individuals it’s hard not to think that, artist or not, he’s kind of an idiot for doing so. It’s that sort of human disconnect that mars the film and caused me to slightly check out early on. We’re never even told very much about this guy at the start outside of the fact that he eats tofu so when he begins to change his behavior it doesn’t really mean very much. It’s not always made very clear how what’s going on is affecting him and why. This feeling extends to learning what is going on in that train at night—what’s occurring is clearly supernatural in some way (how much is clear by the end) but I’m not sure if the dividing line between the real, the unreal and when we’ve crossed from one to the other is always clear. Or maybe it doesn’t matter. Maybe looking for coherence within what is surreal isn’t the way to go, but it still seems to be a case of exploring certain literary concepts that don’t fully come across in a cinematic fashion. It’s possible that I was being overly critical in my head because some of it was so genuinely stylish that I wanted it to be better. Certain individual scenes are extremely well done, particularly a chase through a slaughterhouse which is expertly cut and staged. The gore, for the record, is at time extremely nasty in the murder sequences but also pretty clever in that nastiness. There’s a fair amount of CGI used but for once, unlike all the times the digital tricks seem to be used by a hack director going “Wheeeee!!” here it’s actually well-utilized and at times striking, particularly during a fight scene on a moving subway car. Bottom line: though flawed in its storytelling, the degree of stylishness at least makes it consistently interesting and if it had gotten a wide release it might have gotten some fairly surprised reviews from critics willing to focus on more than just the gore. Of the cast, Vinnie Jones acquits himself the best with his steady, imposing presence even though he doesn’t have a single line of dialogue in the whole film. Peter Jacobson, now playing Dr. Taub on HOUSE, has a supporting role and Ted Raimi appears briefly.


Clive Barker appeared at the New Beverly a few nights ago to introduce the film and in crazed sort of way told about how Lionsgate killed the wide release of the film when an executive changeover happened, putting it out in dollar houses scattered throughout the country in August to zero fanfare. He was asked a question about the title which he didn’t really answer, but it seemed that it was an issue when the title at the beginning of the film read simply MIDNIGHT TRAIN but in the end credits it read the full THE MIDNIGHT MEAT TRAIN. Whatever it should be called, the audience seemed to like it and it’s safe to say that it’ll develop a cult whenever it comes out on DVD. Horror fans will want to take a look at it then, even if it’s too bad that they couldn’t have seen it in a theater and yeah, they really should have done something about that title.

The Day After He Came Home

I just discovered that fellow blogger Emily Blake has tagged me to list my favorite Halloween movies and since she’s a teacher I do what she says. But what better time to do that than after I’ve spent several weeks thinking about movies to watch this time of the year? Actually, I spent last night at the New Beverly (can’t I think of somewhere else to go?) where Edgar Wright hosted a double bill of SHAUN OF THE DEAD and RIKI OH-THE STORY OF RIKI, an ultra-ultra-ultra gory martial arts thing. Wright came dressed as David Naughton in AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON, post-attack. Then at the break, presumably by coincidence, John Landis himself showed up to applaud Edgar’s costume and also the Jake Blues sitting a few rows behind me in the audience. Actually, Landis was there to see RIKI, but it was a fun surprise. I was dressed as a guy going to the New Beverly on a Friday night, which anybody who knows me would correctly guess that it meant I was dressed all in black. Edgar also ran the director’s cut of his DON’T trailer from GRINDHOUSE, maybe a full fifteen or so seconds longer. Anyway, since I never got around to writing an actual Halloween post, here is the list for the marathon to be viewed at an all-night party that I have never thrown. Emily said she chose me because my list would be "interesting". I don't know if it is, but I tried. I’ll probably think of others as soon as I post this. Please do not necessarily consider this list as definitive.

10) HALLOWEEN III – SEASON OF THE WITCH

I just watched it for the first in years. This movie is insane. It’s not badly done and some of it’s weirdly compelling but so much of it is like, really? Are you kidding me?

9) ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN

Because I have too many fond memories of watching this when I was a kid. Hell, I still have fond memories of watching this while an adult. It may not be the first example of the monsters playing it straight in a comedy but it should still be viewed by anyone trying to somehow do the same. And if I were with my nieces right now I’d want to show it to them.

8) BLACK SABBATH aka THE THREE FACES OF FEAR

One of those horror films that needed, absolutely needed, to be in color, this is my favorite horror anthology movie. Watch it late at night sometime and just let yourself get absorbed into its mood.

7) RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD

A longtime favorite that still plays great. At times hysterically funny and very, very nasty. “Send more paramedics.”

6) MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS

Yeah, what’s wrong with that? Some of it’s set during Halloween. Did these all have to be horror movies?

5) SUSPIRIA

Because sometimes you need to be reminded that Magic is Everywhere.

4) THE EXORCIST

The original version, the one you’ve already seen. I once saw this at the Chinese and during Father Karras’s dream sequence where we get our first subliminal look at the demon I distinctly remember an audible wave of murmuring travel up the audience as people were absorbing what had just flashed before them. I can’t think of another movie that could instill that kind of dread into a packed crowd.

3) NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD

The original, of course. I almost put DAWN OF THE DEAD in this slot and honestly, it’s a bit of a toss-up but it’s hard to imagine the true dread that this provides not being there to be viewed in the early morning hours just when you think the holiday is over. To not include it on this list would be, well, all messed up.

2) HALLOWEEN

Because I have no imagination and it’s still pretty amazing anyway (for the record, I am again talking about the original). Watch it without thinking of the sequels. Just think of it as the story of the boogeyman, with no explanation. Because, after all, it was the Boogeyman, wasn’t it? As a matter of fact, it was.

1) SHAUN OF THE DEAD

Yeah, Emily named it number one and that’s exactly what I’m doing but I speak from experience. It was a blast to see it with a packed crowd on Halloween and I still love it like I do few other films from the past decade.

I could have listed others, but there'll be time for that in the future. Happy Belated Halloween to everyone.

To Hollywood and Glory

There was next to nothing that could get me out of the house the night of the MAD MEN finale. Well, that’s not exactly true. I’m only human. There are some things that could. I can think of the names of a few women who could have gotten me to go somewhere with them. But if we’re talking about films, it would have to be something that almost never gets screened anywhere, a film that I’ve waited untold years to see a print of. And that’s what was showing at the New Beverly on Sunday night. That’s right, it was Steven Spielberg’s 1941, written by Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale, which I’ve long been a member of the small but rabid fanbase who, while possibly slight mad, is totally convinced that the movie is an unsung triumph. It was screening on a double bill with I WANNA HOLD YOUR HAND, Zemeckis’s 1978 directorial debut. I’m not the only one who looks at these two films, along with Zemeckis’s 1980 USED CARS as a genuinely biting satirical trilogy of American hysteria, with a tone, approach and array of recurring actors that can be seen on a par with the best of Sturges. BACK TO THE FUTURE, the smash hit Zemeckis and Gale would make in 1985, contains a few of these elements as well but, for both better and worse, it feels like its creators are already moving onto something else.


I WANNA HOLD YOUR HAND, which screened first, tells the madcap story of a bunch of Jersey kids who head over to Manhattan the day the Beatles are set to appear on Ed Sullivan intent on somehow getting a look at the group. Even on a low budget that restricts much of it to backlots and downtown L.A. it still captures a flavor of the insanity that you can easily believe was going on outside the Plaza Hotel and over at the Ed Sullivan studios—actually, it occurred to me that not only had I skipped out on viewing MAD MEN as it aired, I was also somehow jumping forward in time on the show, possibly to the third season. The script for HAND, of course by Zemeckis and Gale, allows everything to come together almost perfectly starting from sending the characters apart on their own plotlines all the way to how they come together in the end. It’s also easy to spot recurring themes in Zemeckis’s films making their first appearance from lightnight bolts to being present for important historical events right down to a nerdy guy who bursts in somewhere to save his crush and proclaims a version of, “Get your damn hands off her,” before punching somebody out. Being a first film, it’s not perfect, mostly in a few patches where things could be tightened up to pick up the pace which is already pretty fast (it’s 104 minutes—getting it down under 100 would be ideal). But it doesn’t really matter that much considering what a good spirit it has and how many genuine laughs occur throughout. It’s not just a good script but a terrific cast as well that includes Nancy Allen, Bobby Di Cicco, Susan Kendall Newman and Marc McClure. I particularly like Theresa Saldana as the one determined to get photos of the Beatles that she can sell to Life Magazine, but best of all is the ultra-hyper nerd team of Wendie Jo Sperber and Eddie Deezen as Beatles fanatic Ringo Klaus. When the two of them are onscreen, nothing else matters and this oddball couple becomes, for me, I’m totally serious, one of the great screen couples of all time. Will Jordan is Ed Sullivan and Dick Miller (who got one of the biggest rounds of applause from the New Beverly audience when he first appeared onscreen) is a cop guarding the Beatles’ hotel room. Both of them have to deal with Deezen at various points and those scenes are truly essential.


But it was Wendie Jo Sperber who was the focus Sunday night at the New Beverly, since it was not just an occasion to show these films but to pay tribute to the late, truly great comic actress who sadly died of breast cancer in 2005. The night, which also served as a benefit for WeSpark, the cancer support center that Sperber founded, featured a Q&A between the films with Bob Gale, Nancy Allen, Sperber’s stunt double Nancy Hoffman and Perry Lang, one of the co-stars of 1941. The group told stories about the making of both films, some of which has been covered on the DVD audio commentary for the film, but their talk had a particular emphasis on Sperber who they all clearly had great affection for—Allen, who expressed great love of I WANNA HOLD YOUR HAND and its making, also is Programming Director for WeSpark. As it turns out Sperber actually lied about her age, saying she was eighteen, to get the part in HAND but they didn’t want to not have her in the film. Gale also revealed that the names of the four leads girls—Pam, Janis, Grace and Rosie—were so named so their first initials would match up with those of The Beatles. Of course, they also discussed 1941, which co-writer Gale referred to as a “glorious mess”. Nancy Allen says she wished that Robert Zemeckis had directed it, adding that the first script of it she read was “as tight as I WANNA HOLD YOUR HAND” (for those who would want to know, Nancy Allen still looks pretty great). This was presumably before Spielberg kept coming up with more scenes, more characters, more stuff overall, until it became one of the most hugely overstuffed films ever made.


1941, set over the course of twenty-four frantic hours in L.A. soon after Pearl Harbor, has far too many subplots here for me to get into and was seen at its time as a wildly overbudget, self-indulgent, unfunny waste. That reputations continues to this day, maintained by people who I assume have the word Scrooge in their name and have never bothered to actually sit down and watch the thing. Forget how much I enjoy it. Forget how much of it is, to me, hysterically funny. So much of 1941 is so genuinely well-done that I wonder why people out there are so grouchy about it. I can understand criticism that it’s overstuffed. I can understand not thinking all the comedy works like it should, that it’s too loud, that some of it is in questionable taste. But if you can’t get any pleasure out of many of the actors here, out of the jaw-dropping model work, the John Williams music, the fact that this is the one film in existence that has Slim Pickens, Toshiro Mifune and Christopher Lee acting with each other, I don’t know what to tell you. I’ve waited for years for the chance to just see the amazing Jitterbug dance contest in a theater and it was worth it. This has to be one of the best sequences in Spielberg’s career and when it was over I wanted to stand up and cheer.

There are issues, yes. William Fraker’s photography is beautiful, yes, something that was more evident than it ever was in any video version I’ve ever seen (both prints were in good shape, though the sound on HAND seemed flat. 1941 looked and sounded tremendous, maybe because the print never gets screened). But that look by Fraker is so good that it almost tampers with the comedy, an issue that also occurred to me when I saw TROPIC THUNDER. One shot involving a sight gag in the USO section seems to contain so much diffusion that it actually hurts the joke. But Spielberg, for all everyone saying that he couldn’t direct comedy, seems constantly intent of filling the frame from one side to the other with various bits of action, mostly from the actors, like something out of MAD magazine. This was more evident viewing it this way than I’d ever realized and it was fun to see what was going on with certain people when they had nothing to do in a scene otherwise. Patti Lupone’s entire performance seems to exist on those sides of the frame. I could go down a list of all the amazing talent in front of the camera but it would wind up highlighting how overstuffed the movie is and it makes me argue with myself over what takes away from the film being a coherent narrative against sections that seem to exist because Spielberg & Co. were having too much fun to not include them. The Pickens-Mifune-Lee section, which Gale says got added when Spielberg cast Pickens in a small role and simply wanted to give him more to do, is a good example of this. The entire Pomona section, with the great Warren Oates as Col. Madman Maddox, feels like this film’s version of finding Col. Kurtz upriver. It makes me wonder if John Milius, who has co-story credit and Executive Produced, was responsible for this section. It’s a digression, but so many things in the film are a digression (John Belushi’s split-second cameo as a second character is one, but there are many of them), and I wouldn’t want to see a version without it.


Within all this madness of nearly everyone who has a line being a familiar face, Robert Stack as Gen. Stillwell sticks out as the one bit of sanity but the actor has perfect timing in every line he speaks (“This isn’t the state of California, it’s a state of insanity.”). Eddie Deezen of course gets laughs trapped up in the ferris wheel with Murray Hamilton (what’s more annoying than being stuck with Eddie Deezen? Being trapped with Eddie Deezen and a dummy that looks like Eddie Deezen) and so do Lionel Stander (“Close, Ward, close.”) and Joe Flaherty (what is that mouse doing on his shoulder, anyway?). So much of the rest of the film is taken by John Belushi, Dan Ackroyd, Ned Beatty, Tim Matheson, Nancy Allen, Treat Williams and others, that it’s easy to forget that romantic couple Bobby Di Cicco and Dianne Kay are more or less presumably supposed to be the leads, but it can’t be said that it’s their fault. I freely admit that the cast recap at the very end with the various actors screaming into the camera is one of the best such recaps except maybe for MASH but there are even more names to find further down in the crawl or, in some cases, not at all. This includes Michael McKean and David Lander, Penny Marshall, John Landis, Sam Fuller, even Mickey friggin’ Rourke. James Caan can be spotted in a sailor outfit at the beginning of the USO fight. All of Dick Miller’s dialogue was cut from the theatrical version but he’s still in there if you know where to look for him.


But to come back around to the reason for the night, as far as I’ve always been concerned the film is flat-out stolen by Wendie Jo Sperber as Maxine, best friend to the lead, who falls instantly for bad guy Treat Willams and will stop at nothing in her pursuit of him. Displaying total assurance in using her physicality for comedy she takes what could have been a tasteless ‘ugly friend’ stereotype out of a cartoon by making it charming and, yeah, kinda sexy.

The 1941 that was screened the other night, the one originally released in theaters in 1979, is not really the best-known version of it anymore. The DVD contains a version nearly a full half-hour longer which was first seen in slightly different form when it played on ABC back in the eighties and then was fully put together in that form for its laserdisc release (using Bob Gale’s Betamax recording of the ABC airing as a guide since he was the only person who had a copy!), before coming out in that form on DVD which is how it exists now. That longer version was a bit of a holy grail for me for a long time, since even as a kid it was pretty evident that there was a lot missing from the film and there are a number of valuable scenes that got put back in. But the scale and noise of the film ultimately becomes so exhausting that the shorter theatrical cut is, in some ways, easier to take. There are a number of gaps that occur because of this—like how Perry Lang’s character turns up at the USO in uniform, for one thing—but most of the best stuff is in the shorter version. As much as I like most of this movie, this is probably the version that’s easiest to take in one sitting.

Finally getting to see it in a theater proved to me how entertaining it is, at least for me and the other people who were there. I didn’t get much sleep that night—I did, after all, have to see MAD MEN as soon as I got home, but it was worth it. I won’t make a proclamation such as saying that 1941 is Steven Spielberg’s most underrated film or even claim that it’s my favorite. But I may as well go ahead and state that in spite of its flaws and yes, I’m aware that it has them, I flat out love it. And I’ll gladly take it over a number of other Spielberg films that are generally considered to be “better”. It may take a while to convince others of this, but I’m used to these things taking time. As General Stillwell himself muses as he walks off at the end, “It’s gonna be a long war.”

Twelve For A Long Time

It was a pretty sizable crowd at Skylight Books in Los Feliz on Saturday night for the reading of the excellent collection “The Book of Lists Horror” hosted by my good friend Scott Bradley, the person also responsible for the book. There was definitely an impressive assortment of contributors but I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that the single biggest thrill of the night was getting to meet Ann Magnuson, there to read her own list of “Twenty-Two Sexiest Movie Monsters (Human and Otherwise)” and exactly as cool as you'd hope she'd be. I have no great point to make here beyond saying how fantastic it was to meet Ann Magnuson but it was a very enjoyable evening all around.


The reading of these lists and everything they signify came during an appropriate weekend for me, not just because Halloween is approaching but because the night before I had seen LET THE RIGHT ONE IN, a vampire movie from Sweden which for me was one of the most potent, affecting films of this genre—hell, of any genre--that I’ve seen in quite a long time. Twelve year old Oskar (Kåre Hedebrant) is a lonely and troubled boy, regularly tortured by bullies at school. One night while outside his apartment building, as he tries to imagine himself actually confronting these bullies, he meets a girl by the name of Eli (Lina Leandersson) who immediately tells him that she can’t be his friend. But they gradually do become friends and though she looks to be the same age, originally telling him that she is “twelve, more or less”, by the time she has amended that to admitting that she’s been “twelve for a very long time,” he begins to realize what in fact she really is. “Will you be my girlfriend?” he asks her. Will she? Can she?


Chilly but emotional, restrained yet still extremely bloody and brutal at times, it’s almost too obvious to say that LET THE RIGHT ONE IN would never be made in the Hollywood system because of all sorts of tonal issues, both sexual and violent, but it doesn’t really matter anyway since it was made somewhere. It does what few vampire movies are able to do, which is bring a fresh take and point of view on this sort of material as well as the nature of the character of Eli. It’s a difficult movie to talk about because it really does deserve to be experienced knowing as little as possible and there’s a lot I’ve avoided talking about. I don’t even want to allude to certain things that occur in the film. I’ll simply say that it just might be that rare movie that comes along which tries to elevate this genre beyond what you expect, turning it into something completely new. I don’t even want to talk about it. I want to keep it to myself for now, while I still can. It’s so good that it made me not want to see any other movies for a few days, for fear of killing that buzz it gave me. If it’s not my favorite film of the year, it’s awfully close.


This isn’t a review, but just a thought from the weekend, where I attended a gathering of people who love this genre, who want to sometimes approach it with the seriousness it deserves. And it feels like the film was made for them, as well as anyone who could possibly understand some of the emotions it presents. Maybe some of them have been twelve for a long time as well. Maybe I have and that’s why it felt like it was made for me. It wasn’t, of course, but maybe whatever I responded to will be appreciated by someone else out there. See it now, before the American remake happens and the buzz really does get killed. This film deserves better than to be treated that way.

In closing, did I mention that I got to meet Ann Magnuson?

Hysterical Paralysis

SCREAM OF FEAR feels like it belongs somewhat apart from similar Hammer thrillers made during the post-PSYCHO/DIABOLIQUE period. Screenwriter Jimmy Sangster wrote a few of those other thrillers as well, like Freddie Francis’s NIGHTMARE and while this script may be in the upper tier of some of his efforts, a great deal of the credit should go to director Seth Holt (helmer of the Bette Davis vehicle THE NANNY), cinematographer Douglas Slocombe (who never shot another movie for Hammer and is best remembered now for the first three Indiana Jones films) and most especially lead Susan Strasberg whose presence and inherent vulnerability elevate the film, released in 1961, above what it was probably intended to be. It was just released on DVD as part of a Hammer Films Icons of Horror set from Columbia and is definitely recommended.

After an unexplained prologue that shows a body being fished out of a lake, we pick up on wheelchair-bound Penny Appleby (Strasberg) returning to live with her father after ten years away in Italy with her now-deceased mother. After being met at the airport by chauffer Robert (Ronald Lewis, also in William Castle’s MR. SARDONICUS) Penny arrives at the house greeted by her stepmother Jane (Ann Todd) who informs her that her father had to leave suddenly for business and should return in a few days. Penny’s already fragile state is compounded that night when she discovers the disturbing sight of her father’s corpse in an unused part of the house. Naturally, no one believes her. It doesn’t take long before Penny becomes suspicious of everyone around her. Can she trust that her stepmother is telling her the truth? Is she going insane? Where is her father, anyway? And what about family friend Doctor Gerrard (Christopher Lee with a French accent) who seems to be taking a little too much interest in Penny’s physical and mental state?


I certainly won’t get into spoilers, but it doesn’t take much to figure out that a few twists are going to occur in SCREAM OF FEAR (also known as TASTE OF FEAR) and given that most of the running time is set in one location with only four main characters it’s possible for just about anybody to determine some permutation of the plot revelations. Some may still come as a surprise, or at least they were for me. With a running time of only 81 minutes it knows how to play all its cards correctly and get out of Dodge before we get a chance to think about things too much—sure, afterwards it’s easy to wonder about how much of the suspense generated turns out to be a red herring, but so what? Holt gets some good tension out of the actors when necessary and the black & white visuals by Slocombe give it some nice additional punch—it’s easy to think of other such thrillers from this time frame that wouldn’t have bothered with such beats as the wheels of Penny’s wheelchair coming perilously close to the edge of the pool or the moodiness of the shadows as Penny finds herself alone in the house at night. There’s some very good underwater photography late in the film as well.


As for the lead actress, I remember being amazed by what Susan Strasberg did in PICNIC when I saw it a long time ago and looking over her filmography, dominated by countless TV guest shots, it’s surprising to see that she never quite reached the heights that some may have expected of her early on (but she did a ROCKFORD FILES? I’ll have to look for that one). I don’t know the state of her career at the time of SCREAM OF FEAR or if this was considered a step down but it’s hard to ignore that the intensity of her talent makes the film more than it may have been otherwise. The fragility of her persona seems totally believable…Though a supporting part billed below the title, Christopher Lee has one of his better roles of the period, given the chance in his relatively small amount of scenes to be more interesting than he was allowed to be in other Hammer films around this time (helps that he is allowed to play an actual character and given dialogue, for starters).


It’s a fairly creepy film ideal for viewing during the autumn months and its brief running time may make it just the thing to watch late at night, where I can imagine at one point in time it probably played on the late show somewhere, back when such a thing still existed. It’s not the most representative of Hammer from this period but it probably is one of the better ones and, even though the “We earnestly urge you to see this motion picture from the start!” seems to shamelessly pilfer from the PSYCHO campaign, the film itself holds up well in comparison, considering we’re talking about PSYCHO after all. I liked SCREAM OF FEAR when I saw it over a decade ago and I still do. I can’t say that this has been my response to every Hammer film that I’ve returned to, so this counts as a pleasant surprise.

A Product of Bourgeois Morality

Exploring the different worlds of the Giallo can feel like swimming through unchartered waters sometimes. A few months ago I saw THE FORBIDDEN PHOTOS OF A LADY ABOVE SUSPICION which I kind of loved, so I was naturally eager to check out the dual DVD release of a few other movies by Luciano Ercoli, the same director. I had a slightly chilly response to DEATH WALKS ON HIGH HEELS, the first of the two I watched, which may have had to do with my own expectations and how they were thwarted. DEATH WALKS AT MIDNIGHT, on the other hand, was a little more along the lines of what I was looking for. It’s not as tightly plotted as it should be and isn’t quite as good as a few of its best moments but it’s a nicely enjoyable example of the form, as ridiculous as it ultimately is.


Gorgeous fashion model Valentina (Susan Scott aka Nieves Navarro) agrees to take an experimental hallucinogenic drug named HDS for a fashion shoot being covered by reporter Gio Baldi (Simon Andreu) to record her response. The session takes a surprising turn when in the middle of her reverie she suddenly has extremely disturbing visions of a woman being killed by a man with large sunglasses using a spiked glove which he drives into her face. Nobody, including boyfriend Stefano (Peter Martell) thinks anything of it but when an appointment for a shoot turns out to be fake, she thinks she gets a look at that killer in the flesh. Realizing that she may have once actually witnessed such a murder she begins to believe that the killer is really out to get her. The problem is compounded when the murdered woman’s sister Verushka (Claudie Lange) searches out Valentina and it soon becomes clear that there be more than one woman to worry about.


It’s of course an absurd plot but the various elements manage to click together nicely, with the usual wild twists, red herrings, disbelieving cops and disappearing corpses (“I saw her right there, stabbed to death with a knife in her breast!” “Evidently she got tired of waiting, threw out the knife and left.”), not to mention that I’m not even sure that everything makes sense in the end, even if we do get a ridiculously overcomplicated expalnation. It’s probably not important to try to figure it out anyway. Much like in the other Ercoli films the two male leads have a strong resemblance to each other and once again both female leads have long red hair (she’s not the only actor who recurs). What the reason for this could be I don’t know, but even though the plots of the three are not similar the tone remains consistent that watching the three together could very well give the feel of a very long film where some of the same personalities drift in and out under different guises. The director and star were married (still are, as far as I can tell) so the question is were these films just a thinly veiled examination of the nature of this couple’s marriage? How much J&B did these people really drink in real life anyway?


More than anything, what matters in DEATH WALKS AT MIDNIGHT even more than the previous two by Ercoli is how it works as a complete showcase for Susan Scott by the director, who also happened to be her husband. As serious as some of it is, there’s a definite comic tone to much of the film and with an actress like Scott in the lead it comes off as a sort of Giallo version of FOUL PLAY, moreso than it would with certain other actresses playing the part. On the essential Arbogast on Film blog a few months back the good detective wrote a wonderful appreciation of Scott with a certain focus on the awkwardness of her physicality at times, particularly when she runs. And he’s right—there really is something goofily endearing about it. Scott certainly is beautiful like Giallo heroines of the Edwige Fenech variety but the pluck and humor she brings to the role through her personality makes her more relatable and makes the film more likable as a result (the nature of her role being minimized in DEATH WALKS ON HIGHT HEELS was for me a problem there). Even her wide-eyes reactions of terror, almost like she’s a character in a silent movie, seem somehow charming here. If there’s a serious problem with the film it’s that too much of the mid-section wanders, complete with a section where the leads take time to babysit for a few kids and it has nothing to do with anything. Maybe the director was trying to give as many different things for his wife to do as possible—She’s funny! She’s sexy! She’s frightened! She’s a mother figure! She sneaks around like she’s Nancy Drew! Hey, if I were married to Susan Scott I’d want to show her off too, but it just leaves too much slack in the story.


Much of the additional enjoyment comes from the score by Gianni Ferrio, some of which I know I’ve already heard on a few compilation CDs. A lot of it seems to consist of versions of the same two themes over and over again and while there may be a little bit of repetition the music is so damn catchy I don’t really care. Just as in FORBIDDEN PHOTOS where things seemed to pause as we followed the lead walking from one place to the other as the Morricone music played, in a few places this movie seems content to just let the luxury of the music play out whether it’s pausing for a moment during a car ride to or the bonkers intensity it gives off in the scene where Scott runs through the street away from a recently discovered body.


There’s a surprising lack of sleaze in the film, but there is a visit to an insane asylum, a cop who meets the heroine for a meeting in a nightclub, a bit of J&B drinking and a genuinely harrowing climax which in a small way cleverly mirrors a comical scene (containing a pratfall) at the beginning, a nice bit of screenplay structure. That ending sequence culminates in a brutal, exciting rooftop fight (those sound effects definitely help) which keeps the suspense going right up until the end. It’s not a major title in the history of the genre, but during those points where we can sit back, let the music and atmosphere kick in as Susan Scott does just about anything onscreen, DEATH WALKS AT MIDNIGHT definitely gets the job done.