Flickers in Time

Project Moon Base
Directed by Richard Talmadge
Written by Robert A. Heinlein and Jack Seaman
1953/USA
Galaxy Pictures, Inc.
First viewing/Amazon Instant

[box] Gen. ‘Pappy’ Greene: [Turns and walks towards her, facing her to step back as he talks] ONE: Colonels don’t say, “No”, to Generals! TWO: You’re not a superwoman, you’re a spoiled brat! THREE: Anymore guff out of you and I’ll turn you over my knee and spank you. [/box]

1953 was a good year for bad movies.  This one hit my funny bone.

The year is 1970 and the Cold War is in full force.  As the film begins, evildoers are planning to destroy the U.S. space station.  They have trained (not extremely well as it turns out) doubles for all the U.S. aerospace scientists.  They get the chance when they learn of a mission to orbit the moon and substitute their man for the civilian Dr. Wernher who is take photographs of the dark side of the moon during the voyage.

Major Bill Moore of the U.S. Space Force has been chosen to pilot the craft.  At the last minute, however, the President demands that Colonel Briteis captain the mission.  There is bad blood between Moore and Briteis but he finally agrees to serve as co-pilot.  And a good thing too as he must subdue the false Dr. Wernher and then summon help after the craft has been forced to land on the moon.

Well, this thing is an entertaining mess.  First we have some of the most ludicrous costumes ever including, but not limited to, the skull caps and hot pants which our astronauts wear in space.  The special effects are dreadful.  My favorite part was the obsolete sexual politics, however.  The good Colonel’s name is pronounced as BRIGHT-EYES by all the men and they spend most of their time ribbing her.  And she apparently deserves most of it for incompetence.  And yet we get the reveal of a female U.S. President by the end.

I’m coming closer to my definition of what makes a bad movie “good”.  Whether from its badness or its plot, it needs to keep my interest to the end.  This certainly did that and provided a few chuckles to boot.

Trailer

MST3K Clip

Julius Caesar
Directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Written by Joseph L Mankiewicz (uncredited) from the play by William Shakespeare
1953/USA
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Marc Antony: [to Caesar’s dead body] O pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth / That I am meek and gentle with these butchers.[/box]

Julius Caesar is not my favorite of the Bard’s plays.  The film is worth seeing, however, if only for Marlon Brando’s delivery of Marc Antony’s funeral oration.

Julius Caesar (Louis Calhern), fresh from his triumphs as commander of Rome’s army, has rejected the imperial crown three times.  However, the jealous Cassius (John Gielgud) convinces Brutus (James Mason) that he is about to become emperor and put an end to Rome’s democracy.  A plot to assassinate Caesar ensues.  Several of the conspirator’s stab Caesar but Brutus delivers the fatal blow.

Marc Antony (Brando), a prominent nobel and long and loyal supporter of Caesar, asks to be allowed to deliver a eulogy.  He promises that he will speak only of Caesar’s virtues and not condemn the assassins.  He keeps his promise in such a way as to cause a riot against the conspirators.

The remainder of the play covers the civil war between forces led by Marc Antony and those of Brutus et al.

Back when I was in high school, freshmen were required to study this play.  I never understood why as to me it is one of Shakespeare’s dullest overall.  The funeral orations of Brutus and Marc Antony are stirring, however, and here they are delivered by two great actors.  Brando does quite well with the Elizabethan text.

Julius Caesar won the Academy Award for Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and-White.  It was nominated in the categories of Best Picture; Best Actor (Brando); Best Cinematography, Black-and-White; and Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture.

Trailer

Marc Antony’s funeral oration

Donovan’s Brain
Directed by Felix Feist
Written by Feist and Hugh Brooke from the novel by Curt Siodmak
1953/USA
Dowling Productions
First viewing/Amazon Prime

[box] Dr. Patrick J. Cory: Perhaps I’ll cure Frank and every other alcoholic if I can solve the mystery of Donovan’s Brain. I think it’s a matter of chemistry how the brain thinks. The problem is to find out what chemical combinations are responsible for success… failure… happiness… misery.[/box]

Dr. Patrick Cory has been experimenting in his basement lab with keeping monkey brains alive with the assistance of his devoted wife Janice (Nancy Davis Reagan) and alcoholic friend surgeon Dr. Frank Schratt (Gene Nelson).  On the day his experiment succeeds, he is called to assist at an airplane crash in the area.  There is only one severely injured survivor and Dr. Corey takes him back home for treatment.  He cannot be saved so Dr. Corey decides this is the ideal time to start experimenting on human brains.

The victim turns out to be eccentric billionaire Warren Donovan.  Dr. Corey discovers a way to communicate with the living brain through mental telepathy.  Soon, the billionaire has taken over the doctor and looks to be set on the road to world domination.

This is a solid and enjoyable film with some mild horror.  It’s odd to see Ayres as a tough guy, and that’s even before Donovan takes over.  Isn’t he Dr. Kildare?  Siodmak’s novel has been filmed several times.  First came The Lady and the Monster (1944).  Erich von Stroheim plays the scientist far madder in that one.

Trailer

Glen or Glenda
Directed by Edward D. Wood Jr.
Written by Edward D. Wood Jr.
1953/USA
Screen Classics
First viewing/You Tube

[box] Scientist: Beware. Beware. Beware of the big, green dragon that sits on your doorstep. He eats little boys, puppy dog tails and big, fat snails. Beware. Take care. Beware.[/box]

This movie may be one of the strangest ever made.  Also one of the worst.

For some reason, probably because he could get Lugosi cheap, Ed Wood’s story of the agonies of a cross-dresser is framed like a horror movie.  Lugosi sits in a chair in a skeleton-filled laboratory and spouts ponderous non-sequitors, breaking in throughout the film.  Whenever he is around thunder and lightening follow.

Then we get to the second framing devise.  A transvestite has committed suicide and the policeman assigned to the case interviews a psychiatrist about how to avert further such tragedies.  He informs the cop that treatment depends on the “type” of the sufferer. Hermaphrodites and psuedo-hermaphrodites can be helped with sex change surgery.  Then he turns to the case of Glen/Glenda.

[box] [voice-over during stock footage of cars on a freeway] Narrator: The world is a strange place to live in. All those cars. All going someplace. All carrying humans, which are carrying out their lives.[/box]

Glen (played by Wood under an alias) is engaged to Barbara.  He spends most of his leisure time when she is not around dressed in the silks and angora he craves and wrestles with how to break the news.  His dilemma causes him to have a nightmare that I can’t begin to describe adequately.  Suffice it say it involves a devil, a number of sinister beckoning women, and some girl-on-girl light sado-masochistic action.

Throughout the film I just had to puzzle over a mind so foreign that it could put something like this together.  The dialogue is absolutely surreal.  The film is not just “different” though. It is also incredibly lazy and irritating.  Wood is constantly killing time and saving money by inserting stock footage that has only the most tangential relationship to the action.  At only 70 minutes, I was checking my watch during each one of these interludes.

Glen or Glenda is one of the movies focused on in Tim Burton’s Ed Wood and may be interesting to fans of that film.  You will never see anything quite like it.  Multiple versions are available on YouTube.

Trailer

I vitelloni
Directed by Federico Fellini
Written by Federico Fellini, Ennio Flaiano and Tullio Pinelli
1953/Italy/France
Cité Films/Peg-Films
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Sergio Natali: He who cares not for art, cares not for life.[/box]

This early Fellini film about a group of slackers in small town Italy seems to presage the reminisces of Amarcord.

The story is an episodic look at incidents from the daily life of a group of life-long buddies.  Most of them are around thirty, live with their parents, and avoid work or responsibility as much as possible.  We see the action through the eyes of Moraldo who is some years younger yet more mature than the others.

The thread that holds the plot together is the exploits of Fausto, a ladies’ man.  He gets Moraldo’s sister Sandra pregnant and is eventually forced to marry her.  This does not curb his wandering eye in the least.  The couple lives with her parents and he finally gets a job with his father-in-law’s friend.  One of his first moves is to try to seduce his boss’s wife.

We also follow the efforts of an aspiring playwright (Leopoldo Trieste) in the group and the story of hard partier Alberto (Alberto Sordi), whose sister’s affair with a married man is a severe trial to himself and his mother.

Fellini is becoming Fellini in this movie.  If you share his sense of humor (or mine), this is a funny and enjoyable watch.  It is also quite interesting visually.  Only downside was I kept wishing something terrible would happen to Fausto and was disappointed.

I Vitelloni was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Writing, Story and Screenplay – Written Directly for the Screen.

Trailer