Monthly Archives: July 2019

Creature of Destruction

[box] Opening title card: There is no monster in the world so treacherous as man. Montaigne.[/box]

If only the monster had more screen time this could qualify as a fun bad movie.  Unfortunately, he only shows up briefly and usually after dark.

A mad hypnotist (Les Tremayne) discovers that his beautiful assistant was a sea monster in a previous life.  He figures out how to revert the assistant to monster form.  He starts making predictions of the future predicting time and place of a bunch of murders.  Both an open-minded military psychologist and the cops have identified the hypnotist has being behind the murders.  There’s other stuff that happens, including  of teenagers dancing to a rock band.  Admittedly, I was not paying close attention but little of the plot really made sense to me.

I took a break from the high-brow viewing at the top of my 1967 list to watch Larry Buchanan’s Creature of Destruction. Buchanan is in my pantheon of so-bad-its-good movie directors so I had to.  This is another cheapie feature made to pad out AIP’s television package.

Imagined conversation –

Costume and makeup designer: How am I supposed to create a creature with only $10? 
Buchanan:  Well I have this old wet suit. 
Designer:  Will it fit the actor? 
Buchanan: We will make it work. 
Designer:  What about the face? 
Buchanan: Well I still have the ping pong ball eyes left over from Curse of the Swamp Creature! (1966).  LOL. 

In Cold Blood

[box] Perry: I despise people who can’t control themselves.[/box]

Splendid cinematography and excellent acting make this tale of murder and madness a must-see.

This is the true story of Dick Hickcock (Scott Wilson) and Perry Smith (Robert Blake) , ex-cons who murdered a family of four in Kansas during a home invasion.  Dick is your classic psychopath type.  Perry is more complex.  Profoundly damaged by childhood, he frequently escapes into fantasy.  Though never stated, it may be that Dick is the only friend he ever had.  Not that Dick is actually capable of caring about anyone.

Dick and Perry were in prison together.  Perry was paroled first.  When Dick gets out he tells Perry about a “sure thing” a cellmate told him about.  The two believed the Clutter family in rural Kansas had a safe containing no less than $10,000.  We watch them prepare for their crime.  We learn about the quiet life of the Clutters.  Dad is a life insurance salesman.  Dick repeatedly says they will leave no witnesses.

Once the crime is committed the two find there are witnesses – each other – and now they are joined at the hip.  Their robbery yielded about $40 and now they are completely broke, on the run, and irritating each other like crazy.  We see their adventures while also following the police investigation led by Alvin Dewey (John Forsythe).  This is not going to end well.  With Will Geer as a prosecutor.

All the scenes except in the jail were filmed on their actual locations lending authenticity to a film that also features breaks in continuity, dream sequences and other innovative story-telling techniques.  I like that we don’t see the actual crime until late in the movie.  The acting is very good.  I think Blake deserved an Oscar nomination for a difficult part.  We are meant to sympathize with Perry and Blake makes us do it while also convincing us that he would be capable of almost anything.  Highly recommended.  Highly recommend Capote’s book as well.  He makes the true crime as spellbinding as any fiction.

According to IMDb, this may have been the last black-and-white movie released by a major American studio until Young Frankenstein (1974).

In Cold Blood was nominated for Academy Awards in the categories of Best Director; Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium; Best Cinematography (Conrad Hall) and Best Music, Original Score (Quincy Jones).

Isaburo Sasahara: Each must live his own life.

Kobayashi’s film about the clash between love and duty features one of Toshiro Mifune’s greatest performances.

Isaburo Sasaharo (Mifune) is an aging vassal of a Lord that demands complete and total obedience.  He lives with his nightmare of a wife Suga and grown son Yogoro.  Yogoro is in the market for a bride.  In the meantime, beautiful young Ishi has been forced, very much against her will, to be come a concubine of the middle-aged Lord and bear him an additional heir as insurance against the demise of his eldest son.  When the Lord takes on yet another mistress while Ishi is recovering from childbirth, she lashes out at both Lord and mistress.  Because she is the mother of his child, the Lord does not immediately kill Ishi but orders Yogoro to marry her.

The whole Sasaharo family is against the idea of Yogoro accepting “used goods” from the Lord.  Eventually Yogoro submits.  The couple falls deeply in love.  Shortly after the birth of their daughter Tomi, Ishi is ordered back to the castle as mother of the heir because the eldest son has died.  Isaburo and Yorgoro find themselves at odds with both their extended family, all of whom will be punished for any defiance, and the samurai code.  With Tatsuya Nakadai as an old friend of Isaburo’s.

Kobayashi revisits the themes of Harakiri (1962) in this excellent follow-up.  Mifune is just magnificent, stern and loving in turn.  While the story is a tragedy, it is also a celebration of true honor and courage.  The entire thing is capped off with a battle between Mifune and about 20 attackers followed by a mesmerizing duel between Mifune and Nakadai.  So, even if you are just looking for sword-fighting action, this is a must see.  The masterful cinematography, framing, and powerful score are a bonus.  Highly recommended.

Only a few weeks after completing Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (1967), Spencer Tracy died of a heart attack at the age of 67. It was the last of nine films in which Tracy and Katharine Hepburn starred together, stretching from Woman of the Year (1942) to 1967, a period of 25 years.

After suffering many years from ill-health and bi-polar depression, British actress Vivien Leigh died at the age of 53 from the effects of tuberculosis. 34 year-old sexy and buxom screen star Jayne Mansfield, was killed in a horrific car crash in Louisiana.  Although she suffered major head trauma, there were also numerous rumors of her decapitation, all untrue, due to photographs of her wig (or scalp) at the accident site

Writer/director/actor/composer Charlie Chaplin directed his final film, the romantic comedy The Countess from Hong Kong (1967), starring Sophia Loren and Marlon Brando.  It was a major flop.  It was Chaplin’s first and sole color (and widescreen) film, and only one of two films during his entire career in which he did not also play a major starring role. A brief cameo in the film as an unnamed, elderly steward marked his final screen appearance.

The Countess from Hong Kong – Sophia Loren and Charles Chaplin on set

Two UK films released in 1967 are noted for the first use of the four-letter word ‘f–k’: director Michael Winner’s film I’ll Never Forget What’s ‘is Name (1967) and Ulysses (1967).  The first major (commercially-released) US studio film to include the word ‘s–t’ (or ‘bulls–t’) in its dialogue was writer/director Richard Brooks’ In Cold Blood (1967).

The national average ticket price for theatre admission in the USA was $1.22, according to the National Association of Theatre Owners (NATO).

Billboard’s number one single of 1967 was the movie theme “To Sir with Love” sung by Lulu.  The Pulitzer Prize for Literature went to Bernard Malamud’s The Fixer.  Edward Albee’s A Delicate Balance won for drama.  Time Magazine’s Man of the Year was President Lyndon Baines Johnson.

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1967 looks to be a great year for Hollywood and beyond.  The list I will choose from is here.  I have already reviewed In the Heat of the Night, Don’t Look Back, and Festival.

Montage of stills from Oscar winners.

Montage of stills of nominees in the major Oscar categories.