Movie-a-Day week two
Here I am again, second week in a row! Only 50 more to go! Slightly late this time, but it looks like I ran on a bit. Once again, I'm one movie short for the week, but I expect that'll be taken care of soon.
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7: Seeding of a Ghost (aka Zhong gui; 1983/Hong Kong) D:Chuan Yang W:???
This is a late-period Shaw Brothers production (they'd shut down the film studio within two years, only producing a few movies in the next ten years after that), perhaps explaining this venture into the adults-only arena of the "Category III" film rating. After his wife dies during a rape attempt, a taxi driver seeks the aid of a black magician to get revenge on those responsible. Seeding of a Ghost might be a baffling picture to take out of its context, both in terms of where and when it was made. The particulars of the black magic rituals and those of the magician's eventual taoist opponents, may seem exotic and almost inexplicable to a viewer unfamiliar with Hong Kong supernatural films (as I was the first time I saw this film on crappy VHS back around 1990.) At the same time, the casualness of the full frontal (female) nudity and the straight-forward brutality of the sexual violence (both by the human rapists, and the womb-bursting killer mutant placenta of the jaw-dropping finale) is unprecedented to someone unfamiliar with the seedier aspects of 1970s exploitation film (again, as I was at that time.) But in context, the magical duel and blood spitting spell casting are reliable cliches of the HK supernatural thriller, and the mixture of sex and violence is far less explicit and off-putting than just about any comparable Japanese or Italian sleaze epic of the previous ten years. Not a great film, SOAG is a slow starter, but the second half is possessd of a wild energy, and capable of surprises, despite the spoiler I've already dropped. DVD rental.
8: Rodan (aka Sora no daikaijû Radon, 1956/Japan) D: Ishiro Honda W: Takeshi Kimura and Takeo Murata, story by Ken Kuronuma
Toho Studio's third kaiju film, following 1954's Godzilla (also by director Honda) and 1955's Godzilla Raids Again (not by Honda), Rodan starts as a drama about coal miners whose lies are disrupte by mysterious deaths and disappearances down in the mine. It turns out that the killers are huge prehistoric dragonfly nymphs, awakened after millions of years by... global warming! (In 1956, no less. Apparently, this was a popular concern in Japan back then, before being displaced by the internationally popular "new Ice Age" scare of the 1970s). But there's more than just bug eggs down there, as there are soon reports of a gigantic supersonic UFO flying all over East Asia. This is, of course, the oversized pterodactyl-ish Rodan (Radon in the original Japanese) a winged monster of Godzillian proportions whose massive wing-span can cause typhoon level winds. And now for even worse news: there's two of them, and the second one's female! The world is doomed! Nicely produced monster action interestingly contrasted with the working-class coaltown environment. In the broad strokes, though, the story is basically "monster rampages until military/science combo get their shit together." Still, plenty of nifty details to savor. Purchased DVD
9: From Russia With Love (1963/UK) D:Terence Young W:Richard Maibaum, Adaptation by Johanna Harwood from the novel by Ian Fleming
The second of the James Bond films, this just happened to be on BBC America last Sunday when i was hanging out at kittykatya 's place. Of course, I've seen it before, but that was back when I was trying to fill in the blanks on the James Bond films I hadn't seen yet, so that had to be more than 15 years back. I vaguely recalled that it took place mostly in Istanbul, that a long sequence was on board a train (the Orient Express actually), that one of the villains was a mean-looking Russian gal with knives in her shoes (Lotte Lenya as Col. Klebb) and that there was a catfight between two gypsy women (at once wholly gratuitous and utterly necessary). The dialogue features a reference to Dr.No. Russian clerk Daniela Bianchi was a former Miss World runner-up, and would spend the rest of the decade making increasingly cheesy Euro-spy films, including the infamous Operation Double 007 starring Sean Connery's brother Neil. Psycho assassin Robert Shaw would be best remembered as Quint in Jaws. Catfighting gypsy wench Martine Beswick would play a different gal in Thunderball, and make several movies with Hammer Films (including One Million B. C. in which she had a prehistoric catfight with Raquel Welch {or did I dream that?} and Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde, in which she memorably played half of the title character.) One of the best Bond films on a story and character level, with some lovely scenery (architectural and otherwise) and well done action/suspense scenes. TV
10: Chandu the Magician (1932/USA) D:Wiliam Cameron Menzies and Marcel Varnel W:Barry Connors and Philip Klein, based on the radio serial by Harry A. Earnshaw and Vera Oldham
American Frank Chandler (Edmund Lowe, who starred in the silent war comedy What Price Glory and its three{!} sequels; was featured in the original two Cisco Kid movies; and played Philo Vance in The Garden Murder Case) has been studying the mystic arts in the Mysterious Orient, where his yogi has given him the name of Chandu. Using his amazing powers of hypnosis, fire-walking and crystal-gazing, Chandu saves the family of is sister Dorothy Regent (Viriginia Hammond, Charlie Chan's Courage), scientist husband Robert (Henry B. Walthall, of The Garden Murder Case and Devil Doll), son Bobby and daughter Betty Lou, from the schemes of the evil scientist/ would-be dictator Roxor (Bela Lugosi, going right over the top, down the other side, then over the next rise). The action takes place in Egypt, and revolves around Robert Regents recently invented Death Ray, with which Roxor intends to destroy civilization so he can rule the rubble. ((No, I am not exaggerating; this guy is EVIL! There's a bit where he threatens to auction 15-year-old Betty Lou to a crowd of Arabs, fer cryin' out loud! They're comin' fer yer daughters!) Fast-paced serial-style action full of perils, escapes captures and rescues ensues. Lots of ambitious model work and opulent set design help make this a visual treat. Comedy Cockney Herbert Mundin was in Charlie Chan's Secret and Tarzan Escapes, and played Much in The Adventures of Robin Hood. Public domain mp3s of the radio serial can be found at Archive.org! Bela would return in the 12-chapter serial Return of Chandu, this time playing Chandu! DVD rental
11: Executive Koala (aka Koara kachô; 2005/Japan) D: Minoru Kawasaki W: Minoru Kawasaki and Masakazu Migita
From the director of Calamari Wrestler comes this office melodrama about a rising young executive named Tamura who finds himself suspected in the brutal murder of his girlfriend and the mysterious disappearance of his wife 3 years earlier. Plagued by bizarre nightmares and pursued by a relentless police detective, Tamura begins to fear that he actually is guilty! Also, Tamura is a six-foot-tall koala. Everyone else in the film is human, except for Tamura's boss, the rabbit. And the frog who runs the convenience store. Executive Koala takes care to include as many cliches of as many genres as it can, touching on psycho thrillers, police procedurals, kung fu revenge flicks, prison movies and musicals. The surreal absurdity increases throughout the film, until it goes maybe a bit too far at the end, but I can't help but love the simplicity of it's basic premise: every kind of drama is funny if the hero is a koala. They're right you know. Looking forward to seeing Kawaskai's Monster X Strikes Back: Attack the G-8 Summit, a sequel/remake/re-imagining/fever dream of the late 60's kaiju film The X From Outer Space. DVD rental
12: Tarantula (1955/USA) D: Jack Arnold W: Robert M Fresco and Martin Berkeley
An entirely by-the-numbers and failry dull giant bug movie. Scientist Leo G Carroll is working on a growth formula using radiation and drugs, in order to solve the coming food crisis. (He predicts that by the year 2000, the earth may have 3.6 billion people! Golly!) Naturally, when the lab catches fire, it's the giant tarantula that escapes, and not the giant guinea pig. In the end, the heroes fail to blow it up with dynamite, so the air force bombs it with napalm. There are really no ideas here, and a double-exposure spider doesn't really cut it as a main monster. Jack Arnold did better with Creature from the Black Lagoon and The Incredible Shrinking Man. With local doctor John Agar (The Brain From Planet Arous) and biologist/daughter of first victim Mara Corday (The Giant Claw, which is actually a better movie than this). DVD rental
Ah, what might have been... .