cult movie viewing highlights of 2013

These are the movies that have been the highlights of my cult movie viewing in 2013.

The Black Room (1935)

The Invisible Ray (1936)

The Man Who Haunted Himself (1970)

Black Moon (1934)

Erik the Conqueror (1961)

Laura's Toys (1975)

The Cobweb (1955)

The Black Castle (1952)

ffolkes (North Sea Hijack, 1979)

Master of the World (1961)

Never Take Sweets from a Stranger (1960)

Never Take Sweets from a Stranger (released in the US as Never Take Candy from a Stranger) is one of Hammer’s most unusual films. It was also possibly their most controversial movie.

To make a movie about a child molester in 1960 took a certain amount of courage. Such subject matter was going to have to be handled very carefully (although it would probably be even more difficult to make this movie today). Hammer very wisely chose to approach the movie in a deliberately non-sensational manner.

Peter Carter (Patrick Allen) has just arrived in a small Canadian town to take up a position as principal of the local high school. He and his wife Sally (Gwen Watford) and their nine-year-old daughter Jean (Janina Faye) have been settling in fairly well, until Jean tells her parents about a rather disturbing experience she’s had. In fact Jean doesn’t find the experience disturbing until she notices her parents’ shocked reactions. Jean and her friend  Lucille had gone into a house where Lucille assured Jean they were guaranteed to get sweets. All they had to do to get the sweets was to dance naked for an old man.

The old man is Clarence Olderberry Sr (Felix Aylmer). The Olderberrys more or less run the town. Clarence Sr effectively built the town when he established a sawmill there many years earlier and Clarence Jr (Bill Nagy) now runs most of the town’s businesses and dominates the town council.

When the Carters make a complaint to the police they find they have disturbed a hornet’s nest. Clarence Olderberry Jr is outraged that his poor old father should have such an accusation made against him. He knows, and everybody in the town knows, that the old man is rather peculiar and that his fondness for children is a little excessive and possibly even a little unhealthy. But the prevailing view is that despite his peculiarities the old man is basically harmless. As the story unfolds it’s important to remember that Clarence Jr genuinely believes his father is harmless.

In the face of considerable opposition the Carters decide to press charges. The ensuing court case is very unpleasant and the results are not entirely satisfactory but the story is far from over.

This movie lacks the star power of most Hammer movies of its era but it has a strong cast and the performances are subtle and nicely judged. Felix Aylmer’s performance is very disturbing, particularly since this superb character actor usually played sympathetic roles or played pillars of respectability. Patrick Allen avoids the temptation of making his performance too overtly emotional. Bill Nagy is set up as the chief villain by virtue of his obstructiveness although as noted earlier he truly does not believe that his father is dangerous. Young Janina Faye’s role was a formidably challenging one for such a young actress. To a large extent the film’s success or failure hinges on her performance and she does a superb job.

Director Cyril Frankel takes his material very seriously and approaches it with sensitivity. Freddie Francis was responsible for the cinematography. There are some very fine visual set-pieces. The scenes on the lake are ominous and moody and genuinely suspenseful, and scary. The chase through the woods is equally effective. This subject matter could have lent itself to a social problem approach and there are elements of that, but done more subtly than is usual with that approach.

The plot is somewhat predictable but the execution is skillful and the lack of sensationalism gives the film a much greater punch. The story is moving and involving but it also works extremely well as a suspense film.

The movie’s one weakness is that it succumbs to the temptation to become a city vs country film with the country people quite unfairly coming off (as they always do in such cases) as small-minded and bigoted compared to the more sophisticated and intelligent city folk. This is an approach that I always found offensive and it weakens the movie somewhat.

This movie forms part of the Hammer Films: Icons of Suspense DVD boxed set. The anamorphic transfer is excellent. There are no extras.

Never Take Sweets from a Stranger is a tense and effective suspense thriller that deals with uncomfortable subject matter with unexpected finesse. Recommended.

Cabiria (1914)

Whether Cabiria was actually the first ever feature film may be debatable, but it was certainly the first cinematic epic. Originally released in mid-1914, before the First World  War, it can fairly claim to be one of the most influential motion pictures ever made. Its other claim to fame is that it introduced the character of Maciste. This strongman hero would go on to appear in countless Italian movies right up to the 1960s and would become the major hero of the peplum (Italian sword-and-sandal) genre. Cabiria is in fact the ancestor of that entire genre.

Director Giovanni Pastrone had been making movies as far back as 1908 but Cabiria was something new entirely. Even by the standards of movie epics Cabiria is astonishingly ambitious, both in terms of visual grandeur and in the complexity of the story it tells. Pastrone was also an important technical innovator, being the first film-maker to attempt tracking shots. Many of the innovations usually credited to D. W. Griffith were actually pioneered by Pastrone. Griffith would use them more boldly but Pastrone in many cases got there first.

Gabriele d’Annunzio, one of the key figures in late 19th an early 20th century Italian literature, wrote the title cards and much of the story (in collaboration with Pastrone). The influence of Gustave Flaubert’s brilliant 1862 novel Salammbô is obvious although the story also draws on a novel by Emilio Salgari. The primary source though was Livy’s history of Rome.

The movie was made by Pastrone’s own production company, Itala Films, and when released was an international sensation.

The movie is set against the background of the Second Punic War in the early 2nd century BC, with Rome fighting for survival against the Carthaginian armies led by Hannibal.

The movie starts in a town on the slopes of Mt Etna. The volcano erupts and Cabiria, the eight-year-old daughter of a wealthy merchant, is believed to have perished in the disaster. Cabiria is not in fact dead but by a series of mischances in the confusion she ends up in the hands of pirates, and this is merely the beginning of her troubles. She is about to be sacrificed to the Carthaginian god Moloch when she is rescued, at least temporarily, by a brave and kindly Roman named Fulvius Axilla (Umberto Mozzato) and his faithful black slave Maciste (Bartolomeo Pagano). Fulvius, Maciste and Cabiria will all find themselves pawns in the complex machinations of the Carthaginian noblewoman Sophonisba (Italia Almirante-Mazzini).

If this movie has a major flaw it is that the plot is just too complex and tries to deal with too many major political and military events. It all becomes a little bewildering, and there is insufficient focus on Cabiria’s own story. What has to be borne in mind is that the feature film virtually didn’t exist before this movie was made. Pastrone had to make up the rules as he went along. That he made a few mistakes and occasional lost control of his material is hardly surprising; what is more surprising is that it works as well as it does.

Sophonisba is the character who more or less dominates the movie and this is no bad thing. She is by a long way the most interesting character and Italia Almirante-Mazzini is by far the strongest member of the cast. Sophonisba can almost be seen as the first screen femme fatale or at least as a kind of proto-vamp. Almost, but not quite, since she never entirely loses our sympathy. At times she is ruthless and she is always scheming but then it has to be said that she is struggling to survive in a very perilous world and she is caught between two mighty (and very dangerous) empires, Rome and Carthage. She is courageous and determined so she is both vamp and heroine.

Pastrone’s visual style is best described as painterly. While he does at times move the camera he mostly relies on his sense of composition, making each shot seem like an historical painting come to life. It works because his compositions are so brilliant. His cutting is also, for 1914, rather bold and this saves the movie from the static quality that afflicts other very early feature films. It’s true that Griffith would surpass him in the field of editing but again Pastrone was the pioneer.

The pacing is rather leisurely although the movie’s slowness is due mainly to its excessively complicated plot.

The visuals are unquestionably stunning, not just by the standards of 1914 but by any standards. The sets are immense and overwhelming. The temple of Moloch in this film has inspired countless set designers. There are some spectacular stunts and they are clearly dangerous and clearly done for real. Other highlights are a volcanic eruption, the destruction of a Roman fleet, Hannibal’s crossing of the Alps (complete with elephants) and various battles. This movie has enough spectacular visual set-pieces for half a dozen movies.

Kino’s DVD release is bitterly disappointing. The movie is heavily cut, although apparently a more or less uncut print survives. Picture quality ranges from good to awful. There are no extras.

Cabiria has immense historical importance, to both movie lovers in general and to cult movie fans. Despite some flaws it is more than just an historical curiosity. Its visual splendour carries it through some slow moments. Recommended.

Zimmer 13 (1964)

Zimmer 13 (Room 13) was one of the popular series of Edgar Wallace thrillers (known in Germany as krimis) made by German studio Rialto during the 1960s. Released in 1964, Zimmer 13 is one of the more conventional entries in this series, a factor that counts against it. In general the best of these krimis are the ones that are the most outrageous.

Sir Robert Marney (Walter Rilla) is a respectable English member of parliament but he wasn’t always quite so respectable. His past catches up to him when Joe Legge (Richard Häussler) appears on the scene. Twenty years before Marney and Legge were obviously involved in undertakings that were less than strictly legal. Marney has reformed but Legge has not. Now Legge wants to involve Marney in a spectacular train robbery he is planning.

Marney calls on the assistance of private detective Johnny Gray (Joachim Fuchsberger). Scotland Yard will also become involved, in the person of Dr Higgins (Eddi Arent), who seems to double as both detective and forensic scientist.

There is also a murder sub-plot that has very little, if anything, to do with the main plot. A series of grisly murders has been spreading terror throughout London. The victims are women and the murder weapon is a straight razor.

Joachim Fuchsberger was a fixture in the Rialto krimis and could always be relied upon to make a likeable hero. Siegfried Schürenberg, another equally reliable fixture in these movies, plays Scotland Yard chief Sir John. Eddi Arent usually provided the comic relief but he gets a more substantial role this time. Arent’s comedy style is an acquired taste but it has to be said that his performances can be appreciated a great deal more in the subtitled German versions rather than the more familiar poorly dubbed English dubbed versions. Arent has fun in this movie as Dr Higgins’ scientific experiments invariably end in explosions, often threatening the survival of Higgins’ great love, a store dummy named Emily. I’m gradually becoming something of an Eddi Arent fan.

Karin Dor also has more to do than usual, in the key role of Marney’s beloved daughter Denise.

The heist sequences are quite well done. There are touches of the outrageousness that makes so many of the krimis firm cult favourites. In general though this movie plays it a little too straight. As always it’s amusing to see the British police armed to the teeth, even toting submachine guns!

The London settings are of course quite unconvincing but this is one of the charms of the krimis, with obviously German locations standing in for English settings. The castle that supposedly belongs to Sir Robert Marney is a nice touch, it being naturally assumed that all prominent Englishmen live in castles.

Harald Reinl was a competent director who always handled this sort of material fairly well.

There’s a hint of sleaze and there’s even a touch of gore, an unusual feature for a krimi. 

The German DVD release from Tobis Home entertainment includes both the English dubbed version and the original German-language version with English subtitles. The anamorphic widescreen transfer is flawless.

Zimmer 13 is reasonable entertainment. If you’re new to the krimi genre there are better places to start than this one. Recommended if you’re a fan of the genre.

Adam Adamant Lives!

If there’s one thing that’s almost as much fun as the cult movies of the 1960s and 1970s it’s the cult television of the same era. This will be the first of an occasional series of posts on this subject.

One of the less known British adventure series of the 1960s was the BBC’s Adam Adamant Lives! which ran for two seasons in 1966 and 1967. Most of season 1 survives but unfortunately almost all of season 2 is lost.

The premise was a clever one that offered the opportunity for some satirical observations on the social mores of the past and present. Fortunately the fun adventure elements predominate. Adam Adamant (Gerald Harper) was an Edwardian adventurer and secret agent who disappeared in 1902. In fact he was deep-frozen by a dastardly enemy. In 1966 he is revived and resumes his career as crime-fighter, adventurer and secret agent.

Adam finds the world of Swinging London in the 1960s rather perplexing and he finds much of which he disapproves. His old-fashioned attitudes and sense of honour might seem to be a disadvantage in the world of the 1960s but they actually turn out to be more of an asset than a hindrance. Adam is both courageous and determined and wrong-doers find him to be a surprisingly formidable enemy. Adam prefers to use his sword-cane rather than firearms, a habit that causes amusement to his foes until they discover just how dangerous and skillful he is with such a weapon.

Naturally a hero has to have a sidekick and Adam’s sidekick is Georgina Jones (Juliet Harmer), a Swinging 60s chick whose modern attitudes are often disturbing to our hero. In spite of often disapproving of her he can’t help also being rather fond of her. Georgina is brave to the point of foolhardiness and is always getting herself into scrapes but if there’s one thing Adam admires it is courage. Although Adam is a gentleman of the Edwardian era and Georgina is a free-spirited modern girl a considerable mutual respect develops between the two characters. The interplay between Adam Adamant and Georgina Jones is always a delight.

Adam Adamant Lives! is an excellent example of a program that has a very English feel to it, but in a very good way. It has not only the Swinging London of the 60s vibe but also a London of the 1890s vibe as well. And the very English flavour is in this case very definitely an asset.

It is also, for a BBC production, extraordinarily good fun in a light-hearted tongue-in-cheek way. It’s one of the few BBC series that captures the same kind of witty, sexy and good-natured feel that made series like The Avengers so successful. The scripts weren’t always up to the standards of The Avengers but it benefits from a truly wonderful cast with all three recurring characters being just right.

Despite the BBC’s legendary reluctance to spend real money on mere light entertainment such as this the production values are reasonable, a tribute to the ability of BBC producers  to make a very small amount of money stretch surprisingly well.

The stories are fairly typical of 1960s secret agent/crime-fighter series but the unusual nature of the hero gives the series an original and very engaging feel.

The surviving episodes have been released on DVD. Adam Adamant Lives! is immense fun and is highly recommended.

The Wild Geese (1978)

The Wild Geese, released in 1978, is a full-blooded action adventure movie. The Wild Geese is also a movie about mercenaries in Africa. This subject matter made it highly controversial at the time although needless to say most of those who objected to the movie hadn’t bothered to see it. If they had they would have discovered that the movie’s message was the complete opposite of what they had assumed.

Mercenary leader Colonel Alan Faulkner (Richard Burton) is hired by wealthy industrialist and merchant banker Sir Edward Matherson (Stewart Granger) to snatch a deposed African leader named Limbani (Winston Ntshona) from his prison cell. Matherson is trying to negotiate a copper concession with the man who deposed Limbani. The new president wants Limbani dead but Matherson’s plan is to double-cross him and get Limbani out of the country.

Faulkner knows the men he wants for the mission but getting some of them could be difficult. Lieutenant Shawn Fynn (Roger Moore) has a Mafia contract on his head, but Matherson assures him he can get the contract lifted. Captain Rafer Janders (Richard Harris) has given up the mercenary business to concentrate on raising his young son Emil. Janders is a different kind of mercenary from Faulkner. Faulkner has always been happy to work for anyone who will pay him, but Janders is an idealist who will only work for the good guys.

These difficulties are overcome and then the rest of the team is assembled. They will need a fourth officer and ex-South African security policeman Pieter Coetzee (Hardy Krüger) knows the bush as well as anyone and is an obvious choice. Faulkner will also need a sergeant-major to get the men into shape and R.S.M. Sandy Young (Jack Watson) is as tough as they come.

Four sergeants and a medic as well as forty other ranks will also be needed. Witty (Kenneth Griffith), an alcoholic homosexual but under his effeminate exterior he’s not only a good medic but a very tough soldier and he seems an ideal choice as the medic.

Rafer Janders will plan the mission. Planning is his speciality and Faulkner has complete confidence in him.

The mission goes like clockwork but then the mercenaries strike a small snag. An aircraft was supposed to extract them after they had completed their mission but it takes off without them and they realise they have been double-crossed. Now they will have to fight their way out, fifty men against a whole army.

Euan Lloyd was an independent producer but he had a knack for raising the money for big-budget movies like this. With a generous budget to work with director Andrew V. McLaglen delivers plenty of thrilling action scenes. Action was something that director McLaglen was particularly good at. Jack Hildyard was one of Britain’s best cinematographers while editor and second unit director John Glen would go on to helm several Bond movies. The movie looks as impressive as you’d expect with personnel like this involved. To ensure accuracy the most famous mercenary of them all, Colonel ‘Mad Mike’ Hoare, was brought in as technical and military advisor.

The cast is equally strong. If ‘Mad Mike’ Hoare was impressed by Richard Burton’s performance as the mercenary leader who am I to argue with him? Richard Harris is careful not to make his character, the mercenary with a conscience, irritating. Roger Moore plays a rather more ruthless character than usual and does it splendidly. The supporting cast is a veritable galaxy of great British character actors all of whom excel. The cast also includes quite a few real mercenaries like Ian Yule as Sergeant ‘Tosh’ Donaldson (who does a fine job).

Reginald Rose wrote the screenplay based on a novel by Daniel Carney. It’s a fine screenplay. Its one minor weakness is the political angle, with ex-President Limbani doing a bit too much speechifying (and Winston Ntshona’s excessively earnest performance doesn’t help). The political subtext feels a bit like it was tacked on to placate those who might have objected to a movie about mercenaries filmed in South Africa. Fortunately this proves to be only a temporary distraction from the movie’s main focus which is on the mercenaries themselves, their varying motivations, their military ethos and their response to the very nasty situation they find themselves in. This is (apart from the action scenes) the movie’s strength and the fine performances and the subtle characterisations carry it through.

By 1978 standards the violence in this movie was considered to be rather graphic. By today’s depraved standards it seems to strike the right balance, being graphic enough to be convincing without going overboard. As you might expect from a movie made in 1978 it has some rather politically incorrect moments as well, making it a refreshing change from the mealy-mouthed conformism of today.

Severin’s Blu-Ray release boasts a superb anamorphic transfer and a host of extras. These extras include a commentary track featuring producer Euan Lloyd, editor and second unit director John Glen and star Sir Roger Moore, a making-of featurette, a documentary on Euan Lloyd’s career and another on director Andrew V. McLaglen and an interview with ‘Mad Mike’ Hoare himself (Hoare has particularly fond memories of working with Richard Burton).

The Wild Geese is a boys’ own adventure in the best possible sense. Immensely entertaining and highly recommended.

Brian de Palma’s Murder à la Mod (1968)

Made in 1967, Murder à la Mod was not Brian de Palma’s first film but it was his first feature film to get a theatrical release (albeit on a very limited scale). This movie then more or less disappeared from view until the folks at Something Weird Video resurrected it on a double-feature DVD. It’s not a very good movie by any means but de Palma fans will find it to be of some interest.

An arty avant-garde movie-maker named Chris (Jared Martin) has been manipulated into making sexploitation movies. Since he’s a Serious Young Film-Maker he finds this to be terribly degrading. He needs $10,000 to get out of his contract but he has no money at all. His girlfriend Karen (Margo Norton) is willing to appear in his movie in order to help him out.

Also involved in the movie is a strange guy named Otto (William Finley, who would go on to appear in many of de Palma’s later movies), and a sleazy producer.

There’s a murder and there’s also a sub-plot involving Karen’s rich friend Tracy (Andra Akers).

This is in many ways classic de Palma stuff with endless homages to other directors like Kubrick and Hitchcock. The homages are so blatant that if anybody else did them they’d be considered outright thefts but somehow de Palma could always get way with such things.

This is very much film student stuff with de Palma using every avant-garde trick in the book - non-linear narrative, jump cuts, handheld camera shots, you name it.  Despite this it could have been great fun but in true film student style it’s outrageously overdone. The biggest problem though is the excessively jokey tone. Making a murder thriller that is also a comedy requires great lightness of touch but at this stage of his career de Palma lack the experience to carry it off.

It’s also much too 1960s, and not in a good way. It has a kind of acid trip psychedelic vibe. Combining silly hippie psychedelic claptrap with murder could have been amusing but the comedy here has all the subtlety of a train wreck.

That’s not to say it’s a complete loss. The graveyard scene is a very impressive visual set-piece that gets the surreal tone right, something the director was obviously striving for in the rest of the movie. In fact there are quite a few excellent visual moments.

The voiceovers could have been effective but they’re done in too relentlessly comic style so that they fail to be disturbing, and they need to be disturbing for the movie to work.

The acting is film student standard, in other words excruciatingly bad.

The movie was filmed in black-and-white and the location shooting in New York has a nice time capsule feel.

The most frustrating thing about the movie is that it almost works. The comedy didn’t need to be eliminated. The director was aiming for a surreal comedy thriller and if that’s what he wanted to do it’s a perfectly valid choice. The comedy did need to be toned down a little.

For all its faults it’s clearly a Brian de Palma movie. Nobody else in 1967 would have made a movie quite like this. The cinematic self-reflexiveness, the disturbingly perverse quality of the erotic element, the combination of models and ice-picks, the touches of black comedy, the voyeurism, all these things are distinctively de Palma and they’re done in distinctively de Palma style.

Something Weird have managed to find a surprisingly good print of this cinematic obscurity. It actually looks quite superb. Murder à la Mod is paired with an even more obscure 1963 thriller called The Moving Finger (which I haven’t yet had a chance to watch) on the two-movie DVD.

Murder à la Mod tries too hard, throws too many ideas into the mix and is too undisciplined but it’s an interesting glimpse of de Palma’s style and technique in embryonic form. If you’re a fan of his work you’ll certainly want to see this one.