Flickers in Time

One, Two, Three
Directed by Billy Wilder
Written by Billy Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond from a play by Ferenc Molnar
1961/USA
Bavaria Film/The Mirisch Corporation/Pyramid Productions
Repeat viewing/YouTube

[box] Otto Ludwig Piffl: Is everybody in this world corrupt?

Peripetchikoff: I don’t know everybody.[/box]

Wilder moves back into Ninotchka territory with this rapid-fire Cold War farce.

It is immediately before the building of the Berlin Wall.  After suffering a couple of tours in Purgatory, Coca Cola executive C.R. MacNamara (James Cagney) is heading up the company’s Berlin office.  His great dream is a promotion to the London office.  The gatekeeper to his dream is his boss in Atlanta, Wendell P. Hazeltine.  So, when Hazeltine asks MacNamara to house and chaperone his wild daughter Scarlet (Pamela Tiffin) while she is in Berlin, he can hardly refuse.

The seventeen-year-old Scarlet is untameable.  MacNamara finally learns that she has been spending all the time she should have been at museums over in East Berlin.  Worse yet, she has married a committed Commie named Otto Ludwig Piffl (Horst Buchholz) and is now pregnant.  And her father and mother will arrive in Berlin shortly …

MacNamara leaps into action, determined by hook or by crook to wrest Otto from East Berlin and civilize him immediately.  With Arlene Francis as MacNamara’s long-suffering wife.

I saw this years and years ago in my youth, perhaps my childhood, and have been unable to track it down ever since.  I jumped at the chance when I saw it was available on YouTube.  My viewing experience was not ideal as the movie occupied only a fraction of the frame and the already rapid-fire talking seemed to approach Chipmunks level.

Nonetheless, the movie was thoroughly enjoyable.  Wilder has fun harkening back to his own and Cagney’s Golden Age past.  The three Russian trade officials are something straight out of Ninotchka.  The director makes fun of all sides in the Cold War, skewering Capitalism and Communism with equal relish.  The dialogue just sparkles.  The film misses being top-tier Wilder only because of its lack of a black heart under the laughs.

By the time the film was released the Berlin Wall was up and few saw any humor in the subject matter.  It was one of Wilder’s few flops to date.  One, Two, Three was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Cinematography, Black-and-White.

Trailer

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The Naked Witch
Directed by Claude Alexander and Larry Buchanan
Written by Claude Alexander and Larry Buchanan
1961/USA
Alexander Enterprises
First viewing/YouTube

[box] “Most books on witchcraft will tell you that witches work naked. This is because most books on witchcraft were written by men.” ― Neil Gaiman[/box]

Teenagers must have been vastly disappointed by this one, even in 1961.

This is the old story of a witch who returns from the grave to get vengeance on the descendents of those that burnt her at the stake.  The only difference is that she wears a see-through negligee most of the time.

If you watch the clip you will see the high point of the movie – and with better music.  Larry Buchanan went on to specialize in soft-core porn.  This isn’t quite that but has the same basic vibe.  Don’t waste your time.

It’s on to more mainstream viewing today!

Witch’s dance synched to In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida – pretty amazing synchronization!

The Beast of Yucca Flats
Directed by Coleman Francis
Written by Coleman Francis
1961/USA
Cardoza-Francis Productions
First viewing/Amazon Prime

[box] Narrator: Flag on the moon. How did it get there?[/box]

This gem gets one star for quality and 4.5 stars for entertainment value!  I knew I had hit bad movie gold within the first two minutes.

The first thing you need to know is this movie was shot without sound so much of the “action” is narrated by the writer/director.  Most dialogue is spoken with the actors’ backs to the camera.  The story begins out of nowhere with a bare-breasted woman toweling off after a shower.  She moves from the bathroom to the bedroom, where, still wrapped in the towel, she removes her shoes (!).  Then mysterious hands strangle her and leave her dead in her bed.

We move into flashback where we learn that humanitarian Soviet scientist Joseph Jarvosky (Tor Johnson, an Ed Wood regular) has defected, taking with him secret photos of a flag on the moon in his brief case.  After a loooong and inept car chase with Soviet agents, he escapes into Yucca Flats where he immediately is exposed to an A-bomb test and transformed into a crazed Beast.  He is a victim of “progress”, as the narrator reminds us over and over.

[box] Narrator: Boys from the city. Not yet caught by the whirlwind of Progress. Feed soda pop to the thirsty pigs.[/box]

We have to assume he killed the girl in the opening scene.  His next victims are a couple stopped to repair a flat tire in the desert.  The Beast immediately kills the man and drags the woman into his cave.  Police find the body and the woman’s purse and begin the search for the culprit.

In the meantime, a family of four makes a stop in the desert and their two little boys run off to explore.  When the boys do not return, the father goes off to look for them.  Big mistake as one of the policemen is up in a helicopter looking for the killer and has instructions to shoot first and ask questions later.  He only wounds the man who manages to return to the car.  He leaves his wife alone (!) while he goes off to get help.

I won’t pursue this any farther except to say that the ending sequence with the jack rabbit is absolutely classic.

This looks and feels like something a maniac like Ed Wood could churn out in a couple of hours.  Coleman Francis possesses that special genius for the bizarre that is right up my alley.  I didn’t think I would find anything to compete with my beloved Robot Monster but this did.  The jury is still out because I would need to see if it holds up to repeat viewing like that film.

Somebody took the trouble to restore a pristine looking print which can be seen on Amazon Prime. The complete film is also available on YouTube, as is an MST3K version.

Trailer

Trailers from Hell

Town Without Pity
Directed by Gottfried Reinhardt
Written by George Herdalek and Silvia Reinhardt; adapted by Jan Lustig from a novel by Manfred Gregor
1961/USA/West Germany/Switzerland
The Mirisch Corporation/Osweg/Gloria-Film GmbH
First viewing/Amazon Prime

Col. Jerome Pakenham: This is no cross-examination! It’s a circus!

The story had real potential but is very oddly told.

The setting is a small West German town near a U.S. military base.  The year is 1960.  the story is narrated by a female tabloid journalist whom we do not actually meet for several minutes.

A group of four GIs goes into a local bar seeking to hook up with some prostitutes they know.  The ladies are not there.  They leave, disgusted.  We segue to a scene in which teenager Karin Steinhof (Christine Kaufmann) is making out with her boyfriend by a river. His mother objects to their romance and she tries and fails to seduce him.  She runs off and starts changing from her bikini into her street clothes.  The GIs spot her while she is naked and rape her.

The local community is outraged and the base command is determined to make an example of these soldiers with maximum publicity.  They agree to seek the death penalty, which is available for rape under military law but not under German law.  Maj. Steve Garrett (Kirk Douglas) is selected to defend the soldiers.  This he does in the most vigorous way possible.  The ordeal might be too much for the fragile Karin who, like everyone, does not have a spotless past.  To add to her troubles, the community is not only small but very small-minded.  With E.G. Marshall as the prosecutor and Frank Sutton, Richard Jaeckel, and Robert Blake as defendents.

This was a joint U.S.-Swiss production and the device of the voice-over narrator was used to stitch the languages together for English-speaking audiences.  It has a strange distancing effect.  To add to that the title song is played incessantly, whether it has any relevance to the scene or not.  You are almost guaranteed an ear worm by the end of the film.   A lot of good acting and some sharp courtroom tactics were lost on me during the barrage.

Dmitri Tiomkin and Ned Washington were nominated for an Oscar for Best Music, Original Song for the title tune.

Trailer

Gene Pitney in a contemporary TV performance.

The Human Condition III: A Soldier’s Prayer (Ningen no jôken)
Directed by Masaki Kobayashi
Written by Zenzu Matsuyama, Koichi Inagaki, and Masaki Kobayashi from a novel by Junpei Gomikawa
1961/Japan
Ningin Club/Shochiku Eiga
First viewing/Netflix rental

[box] “Only the dead have seen the end of war.” ― Plato[/box]

A reluctant soldier’s war gets even worse in the conclusion to Kobayashi’s anti-war trilogy.

Part II of the trilogy found Kaji sent into the final days of battle with the Soviet Union.  This film begins in the days surrounding the Japanese defeat.  The now battle-hardened Kaji leads a small group of survivors toward southern Manchuria, where he hopes to reunite with his wife Michiko. She has been in his thoughts since they were separated in Part I. The harrowing journey takes Kaji and his men through a nightmare landscape of starvation.

Finally, Kaji and a few stragglers become POWs.  He becomes further disillusioned when his jailers do not act in accordance with the Communist ideals the pacifist Kaji has long held.

I consider Kobayashi’s Harakiri (1962) to be one of the greatest films ever made.  It therefore pains me that I have never been able to get similarly excited about his very highly rated anti-war trilogy.  In this film, the characters walk and suffer for over three hours.  The film is very competently made but there are just not enough high points to keep it compelling for me.  I must admit the ending sequence was worth waiting for.

Trailer for the Trilogy

Invasion of the Neptune Men (Uchu Kaisoku-sen)
Directed by Kohi Ohta
Written by Shin Morita; story by Akihiro Watanabe
1961/Japan
Toei Company
First viewing/Netflix rental

[box] “It wasn’t easy looking dignified wearing a bed sheet and a purple cape.” ― Rick Riordan, The Son of Neptune[/box]

Coneheads are defeated by a martial artist and a bunch of little kids.

My intro sentence can actually also serve as the plot summary.  All the forces of science are helpless against aliens from Neptune.  Fortunately, Japan is armed with sassy shorts-wearing children and Space Chief, who appears whenever the going gets tough with his ray gun.

This movie was tailor-made for MST3K.  I have not seen that version,  just the dubbed American release.  The story does not stand up to a 90 minute running time but there are smiles to be had.

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Surfing Hollow Days
Directed by Bruce Brown
Written by Bruce Brown
1961/USA
Bruce Brown Films
First viewing/Netflix rental

[box] “Surfing is attitude dancing.” –Gerry Lopez[/box]

Aimed at surfing enthusiasts, Brown’s documentary also brought back strong memories of a time and place to this Southern California non-surfer.

We follow a group of professional surfers from California to Hawaii to Australia and even Florida in search of “hollow waves”.  Glimpses of surf culture are interspersed between shots of some truly astounding feats, including the first time a surfer rode the Pipeline, a huge and dangerous wave in Hawaii.

This documentary is the kind of thing that would have been shown in small surfing clubs and not in the theater.  The tone is light with a lot of joshing between the guys.  The slightness of the subject matter does not weaken the impact of the grandeur of the battle between man and wave.

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Pit and the Pendulum
Directed by Roger Corman
Written by Richard Matheson from a story by Edgar Allan Poe
1961/USA
Alta Vista Productions
First viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Don Nicholas Medina: Do you know where you are, Bartolome? I’ll tell you where you are. You are about to enter Hell, Bartolome, HELL!… The netherworld.The infernal region, The Abode of the Damned… The place of torment. Pandemonium. Abbadon. Tophet. Gehenna. Naraka. THE PIT!… And the pendulum.[/box]

Vincent Price is at his most indulgent in another of Corman’s Poe-inspired Gothic horror shows.

Poe’s short story needed considerable embellishment to fill out a full-length movie.  It is 16th Century Spain.  Francis Barnard (John Kerr) visits the castle of Nicholas Medina (Price) to investigate the death of his sister Elizabeth (Barbara Steele), Nicholas’s deceased wife.  He finds Nicholas traumatized to the point of madness from witnessing the cruel tortures of his father, an Inquisitor.

Several possible explanations for Elizabeth’s death emerge and several suspects are revealed.  All this gives ample scope for revisiting tortures old and new and for the specter premature burial to raise its ugly head.

The movie, completed in only 15 days, looks splendid, rivaling the delights of the Hammer horror films made during the same period.  Price chews the scenery as only he can.  This might be much too much in any other actor but with Price it is delicious fun.

The DVD I rented included a commentary by Corman.

Trailer