Flickers in Time

Gambit
Directed by Ronald Neame
Written by Jack Davies and Alvin Sergent;story by Sidney Carroll
1966/US
Universal Pictures
First viewing/Amazon Instant

[box] Nicole Chang: You can’t tell the crooks from the good guys anymore.[/box]

Light-weight heist rom com could be perfect for those lazy afternoons.  Especially for fans of Michael Caine and Shirley MacLaine.

The poster advises not to reveal the beginning and I make it a policy not to reveal the end. So here goes. In Hong Kong, cat burglar Harry (Caine) has come up with the perfect crime in which he will lure Mr. Shahbandar, the richest man in the world, into his web with a woman that resembles his ex-wife and as well as a priceless Chinese bust.  The woman that fills the bill is Eurasian chorus girl Nichole (Shirley MacLaine),  Harry’s plan works remarkably well … until it doesn’t.

Basically, this is a romcom  heist movie much all the other romcom heist movies popular in the mid 60’s.  But sometimes a viewer is not looking for surprises.  Sometime the viewer just wants a happy ending and to look at some beautiful people for a while.

Batman: The Movie
Directed by Leslie H. Martinson
Written by Lorenzo Semple Jr. based on characters created by Bob Kane
1966/USA
William Dozier Productions
First viewing/Amazon Instant

[box] The Riddler: You and your trained, exploding shark!

The Penguin: How was I to know they’d have a can of shark-repellent Batspray handy?[/box]

I remember the TV series fondly from my youth.  This feature-length version is just as fun.

The fate of the planet is at stake when the world’s most dastardly villains – the Penguin (Burgess Meredith), the Joker (Cesar Romero), the Riddler (Frank Gorshin) and Cat Woman (Lee Meriwhether) team up to form the United Underworld.  They hope to take over the world by dehydrating the members of the United World Security Council!

It’s Batman (Adam West) and Robin(Burt Ward) to the rescue!  Ninety minutes of comic-book style chicanery and adventure ensue.

I didn’t fully remember just how entertaining this stuff was.  Smile plastered across face the entire time.  The villains are the best part and Meredith’s Penguin is beyond perfect.  Pure mindless entertainment at its best.

The Face of Another (Tanin no kao)
Directed by Hiroshi Teshigahara
Written by Kobo Abe from his novel
1966/Japan
Teshigahara Productions/Tokyo Eiga Co. Ltd.
First viewing/Netflix rental

Psychiatrist: You’re not the only lonely man. Being free always involves being lonely. Just there is a mask you can peel off and another you can not. 

Interesting that this excellent Japanese sci-fi movie about identity came out the same year as the similarly themed Seconds (1966).

Tatsuya Nakadai portrays a man who has been horribly disfigured in a laboratory fire and now wears full facial bandages at all times.  A psychiatrist both discusses his case with him and makes a highly realistic mask that his patient can wear only 12 hours a day or the mask will adhere to the face.  With his new face the man imagines he will be free to do anything.

Unfortunately, the mask has a mind of its own.  In the meantime, a disfigured beauty tries to deal with her own trauma in her own way.

I love Teshigahara’s Woman in the Dunes (1964) and was looking forward to this one.  I was not disappointed.  It is a beautiful, disturbing film that leaves the viewer with plenty to think about.  Nakadai is, as usual, superb.  The mask effects are cunning.  The music is also a plus.  Highly recommended.

Trailer – worth watching!

The Plague of the Zombies
Directed by John Gilling
Written by Peter Bryan
1966/UK
Hammer Films/Seven Arts Productions
First viewing/Amazon Instant
They Shoot Zombies, Don’t They?

[box] Sir James Forbes: I, I find all kinds of witchcraft slightly nauseating and this I find absolutely disgusting.[/box]

This solid Hammer horror entry kind of represents the missing link between the zombies in White Zombie (1932) and those in Night of the Living Dead (1968).

Villagers are dying in Cornwall of a mysterious ailment.  Sir James Forbes is called in to assist the young local medic to diagnose the problem.  Both are stymied by the refusal of the superstitious locals to allow autopsies.  When the two resort to grave robbing, they find empty coffins.  Could this have something to do with the voodoo cult operating in the area?

Movie is in color but I love this B&W still

This is one of the better Hammer horror films.  No Christopher Lee or Peter Cushing but otherwise exactly what one would expect from a Victorian-era zombie film from the studio.  The zombies are properly creepy and worth waiting for.

Fighting Elegy (Kenka ereji)
Directed by Seijun Suzuki
Written by Mitsutoshi Ishigami and Kaneto Shindo from a novel by Takashi Suzuki
1966/Japan
Nikkatsu
First viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Kiroku: Oh, Michikio, I don’t masturbate, I fight.[/box]

Something a bit different, but not better, from gonzo director Suzuki.

It is 1930’s Japan.  High school student Kiroku boards with a Catholic family and falls in love with daughter Michiko.  There is no relief for Kiroku’s sexual frustration so he vents his energy into bloody gang fights.  Eventually, Kiroku and his buddy align themselves with a right-wing organization in the background of a Japan that is becoming increasingly imperialistic and militarist.

Suzuki usually treats viewers to highly-stylized stories of contemporary yakuza violence. This film is also graphically violent but less stylized and with more of a message.  For me the whole thing was horribly marred by unnecessary comic relief.  I have found Japanese comedy rarely translates well and the comedian in this movie is of the stereotypical type that I find the most irritating.

Curse of the Swamp Creature
Directed by Larry Buchanan
Written by Tony Huston
1966/US
Azalea Pictures
First viewing/YouTube

[box] Tom: Doctor, I was thinking… just the work that you’ve done with the crocodiles and taking them back along the evolutionary path and making them into fish would be enough to win you world acclaim.

Dr. Simond Trent: Yes, but acclaim… that’s nothing. To create life, to move it up and down the evolutionary path… that’s something. Something I don’t you quite appreciate, Tom.[/box]

Absolute trash from schlockmeister Larry Buchanan.  Such a hoot, though!

Mad scientist Dr. Simond Trent lives with his oppressed wife and coterie of peons in a suburban ranch house somehow built in the middle of an isolated swamp.  There he conducts sinister experiments on evolution and disposes of his mistakes and anyone that crosses him to the alligators.  In the meantime, the “swamp people” are none to happy that one of their own is missing and are conducting voodoo ceremonies aimed at killing the good doctor.  The doctor’s solitude is broken by the arrival of oil explorers lead by Barry Rodgers (John Agar).  And then in the last 6 minutes of the movie, the swamp creature puts in an appearance!

Larry Buchanan, who also directed the entertaining and terrible Zontar: The Thing from Venus in 1966, has now entered my pantheon of bad movie directors along with Ed Wood Jr. and Coleman Francis.  Buchanan outdid himself with this one.  The mixture of inane acting and bad dialogue is irresistible as is the “creature” whose face seems to have been constructed of silly putty and ping pong balls!  Recommended to fans of this kind of thing.

What Did You Do in the War Daddy?
Directed by Blake Edwards
Written by William Peter Blatty; story by Blake Edwards and Maurice Richlin
1966/USA
The Mirisch Corporation
First viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Major Pott: [driven mad after being lost in the catacombs for days] Cannon to the right of them! Cannon to the left of them! Volley’d and thunder’d and Donder and Blitzen![/box]

World War II as one big party.

Capt. Lionel Cash (Dick Shawn) is a green but by the books officer in the U.S. Army.  He is assigned to liberate a strategic village in Italy.  He is lucky to have Lt. Christian (James Coburn) as his right hand man. When the men advance to the village, they find the natives are more than eager to surrender.  The only catch is that the town wants to celebrate its annual festival before that.  Lt. Christian figures out an elaborate scheme to convince aerial reconnaissance that fierce fighting is going on while everybody parties hearty.  With Harry Morgan as the addle-brained Major Pott and Carroll O’Connor as a general.

When I saw the cast and premise I held out some hope for this one.  But a lot of the humor seemed lame or forced to me and I didn’t enjoy it much.