Semiquincentennial Project #4: Gator

 

 

 

The Semiquincentennial  Movie Project is an ongoing celebration of the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States. During the course of this project your humble blogger is choosing a movie a week to represent each of the 50 states in the Union, as well as a movie scheduled for 4th of July weekend that will represent the nation's capitol, Washington D.C. The order of the weekly entries will coincide with the order of each state's entry into the fold (although, not necessarily coinciding with the date of their entry into said fold).

 

 

 

Week #(X): Georgia -

 

The state of Georgia was established on January 2, 1788.

Details about Georgia:

State bird: brown thrasher

State flower: Cherokee rose    

State tree: live oak

Additional historical trivia:

Georgia is the home of the vaunted peanut, and our  39th U.S. President, Jimmy Carter, was a peanut farmer in the state prior to his political career.

The stove top waffle iron, the cotton gin and even Coca Cola, are all products that first saw the light of day in the state. 

Georgia is one of only three states that proudly displays the motto "In God We Trust" on it,

Some famous people from Georgia: Jimmy Cater (of course), Martin Luther King, Jackie Robinson, Jeff Foxworthy and Ray Charles all were born in the state.   

 

 

Gator (1976): 

Gator is actually a sequel to White Lightning, the 1973 film that introduced the character of "Gator" McKlusky. That film features Gator as a moonshine still operator who goes undercover to help trap other moonshiners. But Gator is no flunky for the government. His real goal is to get revenge on a crooked sheriff who killed his younger brother.

 

After the end of White Lightning, Gator was essentially a free man,  and went back to his old lifestyle. Meanwhile at the capitol building, the governor of the state, played by Mike Douglas, is ranting about how he looks in the press because of that one degenerate county in the state. What county? Why Dunston County, home of Gator.

But the governor has a man that may be able to help, Irving Greenfield (Jack Weston). Greenfield is touted as one of the top agents in the Federal government. Greenfield has a plan. 

 

The key to solving the dilemma with Greenfield is to somehow nullify the influence of the county bigwig (and top crime boss) "Bama" McCall (Jerry Reed). What Greenfield proposes is getting the help of a recent parolee, our friend "Gator", to help bring in McCall.

 

Of course, catching Gator is going to be half the battle. Because he knows the swamps better than just about anybody, and can run through that stuff like a cottonmouth in the brush. But eventually the Greenfield crew do run down Gator. Since Gator is almost assuredly running moonshine again and a third conviction would send him away for a loooong time, Greenfield thinks he's got Gator by the cajones. 

 

But Gator is not quite ready to throw in with the Feds. That is, until Greenfield threatens to send Gator's dad Ned (John Steadman) to jail for moonshining, and putting his daughter, Susie (Lori Futch) into foster care. See, Greenfield already has them, even if not under arrest, and if Gator refuses to help bring Bama McCall in, he's going to be one lonely man with all hi family out of the picture. (As usual, these Feds play dirty...)

 

So Greenfield takes Gator to Dunston County, where it turns out that he and Bama were old buddies. Bama is willing to let Gator come in on his operations. See, Bama is a wheeler dealer in town, running all kinds of shady operations. Be forewarned! Jerry Reed is Bama, and if your only connection to Jerry Reed is a good 'ol boy who is harmless, like Cledus in the Smokey and the Bandit films, or J. D. Reed in the TV series Concrete Cowboys, you are NOT gonna like Bama... He's a lowlife of the first order. 

Bama has all kinds of crime in his milieu, like extortion, corruption, selling drugs. Gator is not entirely OK with this, but he is willing to go along with for a while. But then he discovers the really bad vice that Bama is into... prostitution.  And not prostitution with what would be at least normal, if not acceptable. See, Bama's big prostitution ring consists of underage girls. This really disgusts Gator and he tells Bama he wants out.

 

But Bama is not the kind of guy to just turn his back and ignore a backslider in his operation. He has two muscle boys, Smiley (Burton Gilliam) and Bones (William Engesser) to help him change Gator's nind, by hook or crook. 

 

Gator now wants to help Greenfield bring Bama down, and hooks up with a reporter, Aggie Maybank (Lauren Hutton) and a little off her rocker former city employee, Emmeline (Alice Ghostley) to break into City Hall and get files that will put Bama and some of his political cohorts away for a long time.

 

Don't get the idea that this is a typical Reynolds comedy. There is some serious stuff going on here, and more than one person is going to die. Think of it as something like Lethal Weapon. There is a bunch of comedy sprinkled throughout, but when it comes down to the nitty gritty, the serious side is going to come to the fore.

But one of the more humorous parts of the movie (at least for me, are the scenes where Bones, who is apparently Bama's chauffeur, in addition to one of his bully boys, has to drive Bama around in a converted red  Plymouth Gran Fury. Note: this is not the only car they used, just one of them. Anyway, the exaggeration of how big Bones is is highlighted by the fact that he has to stick his head out through the sun roof. (I'm fairly sure he was probably sitting on a box or something in the car scenes... Surely the actor wasn't THAT big...)

  

This was Burt Reynolds' first feature film as a director. According to what I read, Reynolds originally turned the role saying "it's a terrible script." But then they offered him the opportunity to direct and suddenly it was "a great script"... (The things Hollywood will do to get their way...) I couldn't find any information on a budget, and it didn't exactly break box office records. It only grossed $11 million. 

The critics weren't exactly kind to the movie either. On Rotten Tomatoes, the aggregator of what is the critic viewpoint, it stands at only 14%. Charles Champlin, a reviewer for the Los Angeles Time, not only managed to denigrate the movie, but also the kind of crowd that liked Reynolds movies: "Gator looks exactly what it is, a commercial concoction assembled for an undemanding mass market." (Phhht, Chuck...)

Ranker, one of my favorite go-tos for public opinion of films, however, ranks it #7 all-time as one of Reynolds' best movies, beaten out only by the first Smokey and the Bandit, The Longest Yard, Deliverance, Hooper, The Cannonball Run and White Lightning (in that order). My opinion is Gator is a movie that will appeal to those who love Reynolds screen charm and also for those action movies that blend a little humor into the mix. I especially liked seeing Bama get his comeuppance, even if I didn't particularly care to see Jerry Reed playing a thoroughly unscrupulous bad guy.

Well, that's it for this time. See you for the next entry, featuring the state of Connecticut.

Quiggy

 

  

Semiquincentennial Project #3: Friday the 13th

 

 

The Semiquincentennial  Movie Project is an ongoing celebration of the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States. During the course of this project your humble blogger is choosing a movie a week to represent each of the 50 states in the Union, as well as a movie scheduled for 4th of July weekend that will represent the nation's capitol, Washington D.C. The order of the weekly entries will coincide with the order of each state's entry into the fold (although, not necessarily coinciding with the date of their entry into said fold).

 

Week # 3:New Jersey:

 

The state of New Jersey was established on December 18, 1787. 

Details about New Jersey:

State bird: Eastern goldfinch

State flower: Purple violet

State tree: Red oak

The most important thing to remember about New Jersey is this is the place where it all started for people like me (fans of the drive-in theater). If not for a guy in New Jersey, this blog might have ended up being called The Good Ship Lollipop Theater. 

New Jersey has the distinction of being the "diner capital of the world" due to the fact that there are more diners in the state than any other state in the union. Good news for guys like Guy Fieri, host of Food Network's Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives.

New Jersey is the birthplace of many iconic figures in music and films. Frank Sinatra, Bruce Springsteen and Jon Bon Jovi were born in New Jersey, as well as Jack Nicholson, Meryl Streep and Michael Douglas. And that's just for a start.. For further interest.

Among other things that New Jersey has a claim to fame is the fact that both New York NFL teams play their home games in New Jersey. Several other sports teams, both major and minor leagues, in other fields that are ostensibly New York teams also play home games in New Jersey.

First a note and an apology: I had originally scheduled The Toxic Avenger to appear as the entry for New Jersey. But, since I had never actually watched it, I was just going with it because of my perceived reputation of the movie. I didn't know it started out the way it did. 10 minutes in I started to regret my decision, and after another 5 minutes I'd had enough. It starts out way too over the line in bad taste. And this opinion from the same blogger who brought you both Midnight Cowboy  AND Myra Breckenridge, A Clockwork Orange, and even Bloodsucking Pharaohs in Pittsburgh... Maybe I'm just getting old.

Friday the 13th (1980): 

(Another note: Once again, as usual, I try to keep images of the gorier scenes  at a minimum to avoid turning off the more prudish readers.)

Dateline: 1958. At Camp Crystal Lake all the children are asleep. The camp counselors are having a sing-a-long, along with the requisite activities you would expect from a group of older adolescents, including two of them who sneak away from the rest of the group to engage in an extracurricular project in which clothing is not required. While engaged in this somewhat illicit act, the pair are stalked by an unseen interloper, who proceeds to kill them both.

Dateline: Present day (1980).  A girl, Annie (Robbie Morgan) comes hiking into town looking for Camp Crystal Lake. She stops at a diner to ask directions and receives not a friendly welcome but some strange looks. She manages to hitch a ride with a trucker, Enos (Rex Everhart), who volunteers to take her up the road. Along the way a crazy townie warns her that she won't be coming back from "Camp Blood" because it's got a death curse. Enos fills her in on more details as he helps her along her way, including the two kids who were killed in 1958, a boy who drowned in 1957 and a bunch of fires. He encourages her to quit now, and not go on, but Annie is not afraid of these "cornball" rumors.

 

On their own way to Crystal Lake are three others; Jack (Kevin Bacon), Ned (Mark Nelson) and  Marcie (Jeannine Taylor). They arrive at the camp where Steve (Peter Brouwer) and Annie (Adrienne King) have already been at work trying to whip the camp into shape for their new campers. Bill (Harry Crosby, son, by the way, of Bing) and Brenda (Laurie Bertram) have also previously arrived and been helping out.

 

Meanwhile, back on the road, Annie is still hitchhiking to the camp. She gets picked up a mysterious figure (whom we don't see) who gives her a ride. Annie realizes that something is amiss when the driver goes by the entrance to the camp and jumps ship (jeep). But she is caught by the driver and slashed. We only see the hands of the figure, not the face. But those hands are definitely male hands... (remember that.) 

 

Steve takes off in his jeep to take care of some business, leaving the five helpers behind to finish their duties. While various shenanigans are going on back at the camp, a motorcycle cop shows up at the camp. He doesn't like these youngsters much, absolutely certain that there are some illicit drugs in the mix, but he warns them about that townie from the beginning of the film, Ralph (Walt Gorney), who has a tendency to believe his own delusions about the camp being cursed. Sure enough, after the officer leaves, Ralph sows up  spouting his doom and gloom. But he seems harmless enough, even if he is a little wacko.

 

It turns out that his doom and gloom speech, that they're all "doomed" is not that far from wrong.  First Ned sees a mysterious stranger enter one of the cabins and goes to investigate. Then Jack and Marcie decide to play a little of the old game "hide the salami". And Alice and Bill and Brenda decide to play a new version of Monopoly called "Strip Monopoly". Yep, you guessed it, the teenagers, being typically 1980's irrepressible and sexually uninhibited teenagers, are getting down and funky.

 

Back at the cabin, Jack and Marcie are making out, unaware that a recently slashed Ned is lying in the bunk above them.  Marcie leaves Jack to go to the outhouse, and guess what... the interloper who dispatched Ned has not left the cabin. Jack is dispatched in short order and the killer goes to the outhouse to look for Marcie, who is also removed from the land of the living.

If you're keeping track, only three people, not including the slasher, are left at the camp. Steve, for his part seems to have decided to stay out for the night. Back at the game, Brenda realizes she may have left the windows open in her cabin, so she exits the game. When she gets back to the cabin she decides just to stay in.     But she hears the cry of a boy calling for help, so like any good citizen she goes back out into the rain. And is taken out by our killer on the archery range.

Alice hears a scream, and she and Bill go to investigate. They find a bloody axe in Brenda's bed, but no Brenda. Their search for Jack and Marcie also proves fruitless.  The generator goes out and Bill goes to check on it leaving Alice alone. A short time later, Bill is also removed from the land of the living. (You notice, by this time, that the only one of the counselors still alive is the one who hasn't been fooling around? What are the filmmakers trying to say? Premarital sex will get you killed?) 

Steve, who has just been getting a bite to eat at the diner in town heads back to the camp. His jeep stalls (I think it's out of gas, Steve), but fortunately a police car comes along (with a far friendlier cop this time), and gives him a lift. Unfortunately before they can get to the gate to the camp the police car is called in on an emergency, leaving Steve to hike the rest of the way. As he approaches the gate, he meets the killer, who dispatches him. But it turns out Steve recognizes his assailant.

 

O.K. It gets a little hairy from here on out. As the sole survivor of this onslaught, Alice begins to panic and barricade the door to the cabin. But when she sees a jeep pull up she thinks it's Steve and rushes out to greet him in grateful thankfulness that there is someone coming to the rescue. It's not Steve however, but Mrs. Voorhees (Betsy Palmer) who claims to be an old friend of the owners. Still, she is a welcome sight to Alice who knows there is some deranged lunatic on the loose in the camp.

 

Spoiler alert! In case you are one of the very few who have never seen the ending, you better stop now. Just in case you don't know what the name of the star killer of this series of films is in the first place.

Mrs. Voorhees reveals that it was her son who was the drowning victim from 20 years ago at the camp. Her son drowned, she feels, because the camp counselors had abandoned their charges to engage in illicit sex instead. Which explains why the killer frowns upon irresponsible sex-obsessed teenagers. And, of course, it is none other than Mrs. Voorhees herself who is exacting revenge for the death or her son, Jason Voorhees.

A huge flight and fight ensues between Alice and Mrs. Voorhees. Of course, the winner of this battle is not Mrs. Voorhees. But there still may be some danger for Alice coming from another source... How did you think they managed to get 10 (so far) sequels (and one reboot) with Jason as the prime evil villain...?

On a budget of only about $500,000, the first movie in the franchise was essentially a blockbuster, pulling in almost $60 million. In the first two weeks of it's release it was #1 at the box office. And as noted in the previous paragraph, Jason became enough of a draw that the character's very name drew enough box office to keep it afloat as a franchise for over 20 years worth of sequels. Of all of the movies put out by Paramount in 1980, only Airplane! grossed more box office money than this one.

As could be expected from that quarter, the critics gave this movie a resounding negative review: "Silly, boring youth-geared horror movie",  "blatant exploitation of the lowest order" and "a shamelessly bad film" are just a hint of the vitriol that the reviewers spewed on it. According to the wikipedia article on the movie, Siskel and Ebert, in their TV movie review, devoted an entire episode to disparaging this and other slasher flicks. 

Obviously the lowbrow audience the movie was intended for reacted to it better than those of the highbrow movie critic board. As far as slasher flicks go it is not really all that great. Personally I think Freddy vs. Jason, the film that paired the Nightmare on Elm Street villain, Freddy Krueger against Friday the 13th's Jason Voorhees, was a much better film. But in terms of the slasher film overall, this one would pale by comparison to what was probably the king of slasher films, John Carpenter's Halloween. As much as I liked Freddy vs. Jason, I would dearly love to see Jason go head to head with Michael Myers.

Well, campers, until next week, take my advice and keep the kids at home from summer camp.

Quiggy

  

Semiquincentennial Project #2: The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh

 

 

 

The Semiquincentennial  Movie Project is an ongoing celebration of the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States. During the course of this project your humble blogger is choosing a movie a week to represent each of the 50 states in the Union, as well as a movie scheduled for 4th of July weekend that will represent the nation's capitol, Washington D.C. The order of the weekly entries will coincide with the order of each state's entry into the fold (although, not necessarily coinciding with the date of their entry into said fold).

 

 

 Week #2: Pennsylvania :

 

 

The state of Pennsylvania was the second of the original colonies to be established as a state in the United States. It became a state on December 12, 1787.

Details about Pennsylvania:

State bird: Ruffled grouse

State flower: Mountain laurel

State tree: Hemlock

 The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh (1979):

 

 

It's fitting that the Pennsylvania entry in this project centers around basketball. The basketball movie and Pennsylvania almost go hand in hand. Just look at the list of basketball movies that centered in the state. Celtic Pride, That Championship Season, Full Court Miracle, The Mighty Macs. One of the films that sailed under the radar was a comedy about the fictional Pittsburgh Pythons, a team that apparently couldn't shoot it's way out of a match-up with a team of pre-schoolers.

Pittsburgh is a big sports town, of course. They are represented in the NFL by the Pittsburgh Steelers, in the MBA by the Pittsburgh Pirates and in the NHL by the Pittsburgh Penguins. It seems astounding, to me at any rate, that their is no professional NBA team in Pittsburgh. To be fair there have been a few attempts, but it seems that Pittsburgh is considered a small market city when it comes to basketball. Not to mention the huge competition with the perennial powerhouses in the NFL and the NHL. 

This movie features many basketball stars of the time (late '70's). In film roles playing members of the hapless Pythons were Julius "Dr. J." Erving, Meadowlark Lemon (of the Harlem Globetrotters fame) and Jerry Chambers, but also appearing as themselves on the various courts of the game were a plethora of basketball stars:  Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (L.A. Lakers), Bob Lanier (Detroit Pistons), "Cornbread" Maxwell (Boston Celtics) and Kevin Porter (Detroit Pistons).

The Pittsburgh Pythons are the laughingstock of the NBA. Even the worst teams in the league at least garner some fans who brave the jeers of casual fans and band wagoners who only go to the games when the team is winning. The opening scene of the film shows a vast landscape of empty seats. Nobody, and I mean nobody seems to want to go to the games, and that includes a set of wheelchair bound geriatrics who seem to be serving some kind of punishment, because even they complain:  "I don't want to be here. I wanna go home!" 

 

The Pythons have a problem, not only with being able to perform well on the court, but also with being able to interact with each other off the court. One of them, Lucian Tucker (Jerry Chambers), even openly tries to express his disgust with the team on court, demanding that he be traded forthwith vocally, even while in the process avoiding performing his duties on court. And he doesn't get along with his teammates, especially Moses Guthrie (Julius "Dr. J." Erving), whom he basically calls out as a over paid hindrance.

 

The coach for the time, Jock Delaney (Flip Wilson) is more than a little miffed with his team. You get the idea that he would do anything, if he could just get these malcontents to pull together as a team, but he just doesn't have the General mentality to get things back on track.

The only one who seems to have any faith in the team is a young kid, the ball boy, Tyrone (James Bond III). He tries to give Guthrie some encouragement, saying that Guthrie is just in a slump and he knows that Guthrie can turn it around. Guthrie tells Tyrone that he is a Pisces and he just needs to check his horoscope, which starts the wheels turning in Tyrone's mind.

 

He thinks astrology is the key to turning the Pythons around. So he goes to a local astrologer, Mona Mondieu (Stockard Channing) to get her advice. He tries to convince her to be the team astrologer. In so doing, he tells that the team are ALL Pisces. Of course, they aren't really ALL Pisces... at least, not yet. But fate has thrown it's hand into the fire because most of the team just walks. This sets up a need to get a team together, but fast.

 

They hold open tryouts for any and all basketball star wannabes. Which gets, among others, a local D.J., Jackhammer Washington ( Jesse Lawrence Ferguson) and a local preacher, Reverend Grady Jackson (Meadowlark Lemon) to come to the open tryouts. But there is one stipulation... all of the potential players HAVE to be born under the zodiac sign of Pisces.

 

The owner of the Pythons is a scatterbrain rich guy, H. S. Tilson (Jonathan Winters) is all gung ho about the idea, but his older brother Harvey (also played by Winters) is convinced his little brother is a nitwit.

 

But H. S. intends to follow through with this decidedly off kilter idea. Including the aforementioned Jackhammer and the Reverend, several other players are destined to try to make this idea work, including Setshot Bufford (Jack Kehoe), Driftwood Haney (Peter Isacksen), and Bullet Haines (Malek Abdul Mansour). Most of these guys wouldn't even get a second look by the scouts, but they have one advantage... they are all Pisces.

 

This astrological mumbo-jumbo must have something on the ball, because this group of malcontents go on a tear, moving from last place lunkheads to contenders.  They take on some power houses in the league and mop the floor with them. Of course, this being about a fictional team from Pittsburgh, the rest of the teams are only known by their cities: Boston, Detroit, New York, and of course Los Angeles. But if you are quick eyed (and are familiar with the players of the late 70's) you can't help not missing some big names.

The highlight of the movie has to be the end. The Pisces are playing a game 7 in the NBA finals against Los Angeles, whose team includes the big guy himself, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. But a monkey wrench has been thrown into the mix as Harvey, owner H.S.'s unscrupulous brother, kidnaps Mona. In the end the Pisces end up having to rely on themselves, rather than their astrological mentor.  

 

With a budget of $4 million, the movie made a pretty decent profit, pulling in $8.3 million in ticket sales. It didn't get much fanfare from the critics. (It doesn't even have enough reviews to get a rating on the vaunted Tomato meter, although IMDb user ratings put it at just shy of 5 stars). Is this a great movie? My opinion is it's not entirely bad, although it seems quite predictable. Often during the film certain situations are telegraphed long in advance. For instance, you just had to KNOW that the combative Lucien Tucker, the one who kept demanding to be traded at the beginning of the film, would end up being on the team that the Pisces faced in the finals. Sure, that's a standard trope in sports movies, so it's not like you wouldn't have expected it in the first place.   

In the end, I really can't tell whether this movie is disparaging the idea of belief in astrology or if it is trying to advocate it's power. Just so you know, I don't really believe in all that mumbo-jumbo of the stars having some kind of pseudo magical influence on my life, But then again, I told a woman who did believe in all that hocus pocus stuff and, without having told her beforehand my birth date, she said "You must be a Sagittarius." I was born in early December, and that falls under the Sagittarius zodiac sign, so maybe there is something to this stuff after all...  (Naaaah!)  

That's it for this week.

Quiggy 

Claustrophobic Terror

 

 

This is my second entry in the Film. Release. Repeat. Blogathon hosted by Hamlette's Soliloquy and yours truly.

 

 

 

I make no bones about it. My favorite director is John Carpenter and five of his films are in my top ten favorite movies of all time. I missed out on Halloween when it first hit the theater, so my first John Carpenter movie was actually Escape from New York. Not long after I saw that, which highly impressed me, I went back and saw the aforementioned Halloween, as well as The Fog. And I also began to anticipate each new film that came out in subsequent years.  The five that occupy space in my top ten (in no certain order) are Big Trouble in Little China, They Live, The Thing, Escape from New York and Christine. 

My review of The Thing has been a long time coming as a feature film at The Midnite Drive-In. I feel certain if I hadn't gone through a lethargic period of writing during Covid that it would have long been reviewed. Same goes for Christine (and that will soon be remedied too.) Carpenter made four films with Kurt Russell back in the day, including a TV movie on Elvis, Escape from New York and it's sequel Escape from L.A., Big Trouble in Little China and The Thing. 

 

The Thing (1982):

Note: In the interest of not turning off some of the more skittish readers, I have refrained from using any pics in this review depicting the creature in it's changing process. If you really want to see them you can google images of The Thing 1982...

 

The film starts out with a dog. The dog is being chased by some guys in a helicopter. The occupants seem intent on killing the dog. When they arrive at the U.S. based camp they are still intent on killing the dog, but this is seen as an attack on the scientists and they kill the interlopers. Of course, if one or the other groups had been fluent in the other's language the US group might have been forewarned, but the interlopers only speak Norwegian and the US guys only understand English.

 

The base helicopter pilot, MacReady (Kurt Russell) and the base doctor, Copper (Richard Dysart) decide to go up to the Norwegian base and see what might have happened. They find the base in shambles, and an odd malformed body which they take back to the US base camp. The camp biologist, Blair (Wilford Brimley) is given the task of performing an autopsy on this weird body. What Blair finds inside are normal human organs, heart, liver and the like.

The crew decides to go try to find out what the Norwegians had been doing just prior to the havoc that happened at their camp. The end up finding a spaceship that appears to have been hidden under the ice for some 100,000 years. They also find the leftover remains of what may have been a body the Norwegians uncovered in the spaceship. 

 

The dog is put in the kennel with the base camps' dogs, because, after all, as far as they know, its just another dog. But this "dog", of course, is NOT a dog. Which is why those Norwegians were trying to kill it. The camp kills the odd thing as it is in the process of changing, and the day is saved. Roll credits.

 

Not so fast. The creature is able to replicate itself and disappears into the attic above the dog compound. Blair autopsies the dog thing the group killed and comes to the conclusion that the creature could assimilate any living organism, and through computer simulation estimates that if it got loose it could assimilate every living thing on the planet within a few years. As a result Blair becomes just a wee bit paranoid, since virtually any one of them could now be the thing, posing as one of them.

Blair, in his paranoia, wreaks havoc on the compound, virtually destroying any avenue that the thing could use to escape the compound: demolishing all radios, computers, sleds, etc. The crew manages to subdue Blair and lock him in the tool shed. Dr. Copper suggests that they take blood samples from each of them and compare them to blood samples held in storage in the compound, but of course, the thing has anticipated this and contaminated the samples.

 

No one knows exactly who to trust. Each of the crew immediately begins to look with suspicion upon his co-workers, and since they are isolated at the bottom of the world now, without any lines of communication with the outside world, it gradually becomes a matter of finger-pointing. Of course, everyone insists that he himself is the same as when he first came into the camp and thus not the alien creature. The one that is the creature also claims this, of course, but then why would it admit it was an alien?

In the end, virtually everyone in the crew has been killed, either because it was actually a part of the thing's assimilation process, or through misadventure. The remaining three crew members determine that the alien plans to go into hibernation again. MacReady and his remaining cohorts decide to demolish what is left of the base camp, although, since the creature can apparently survive in hibernation indefinitely, I am not sure what this would accomplish. As MacReady and Childs await the inevitable freezing to death that is coming now, they decide to share a bottle of Scotch.

 

The Thing  was a remake of a classic sci-fi film from the 50's, The Thing (from Another World). The original novella, Who Goes There? by John W. Campbell, Jr., has much more in common with the 1982 remake than it does with the 1951 original film. Basically the creature in the 1951 film, joking referred to these days as "an intelligent carrot" was just an alien form of a vampire. It killed, but it didn't kill to propagate it's species, it only killed to find sustenance off of the humans. (The "intelligent carrot" remark refers to the fact that, although it was filmed in black and white, the alien itself was orange, and had characteristics of a vegetable life form.)

What made this version of The Thing so compelling is that, like predecessors in such films as Invasion of the Body Snatchers, this creature had the ability after it consumed its victims, to take over their characteristics. (Much the same way the creature in the original novella did.) Carpenter had some good help in the special effects department on this film. He brought on board Rob Bottin, with whom he had worked on The Fog, to create the special effects of the creature transformation.

BTW, if the effects in the first Alien movie had you running for the porta-potty, let me just say "You ain't seen nothing yet". The special effects are one of the reasons that the movie got such initially bad reviews from critics. Initially Carpenter was not going to direct, because at the time he preferred directing movies in which he was actively involved in the original story, and filming a previously published story was not in his interest. As such Tobe Hooper (of Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Poltergeist fame) was approached, but producers became disenchanted with the way Hooper was doing it. Eventually they were able to convince Carpenter to do it.

As far as Kurt Russell as the star was concerned, he wa the last of the film's characters to be cast. Not that Carpenter was reluctant to work with him but he just wanted to keep his options open. Some of the actors considered were Christopher Walken, Brian Dennehy, Scott Glenn, Jeff Bridges and Nick Nolte. The most intriguing of those, in my opinion, would have been Jeff Bridges. I think Walken would have taken the character in an entirely different and not altogether sympathetic direction.

When the movie was initially released it was not well received, but in retrospect it has garnered some praise. Personally I think that it is an excellent remake. The creature in the original just never gave me the willies like the Carpenter/Bottin creation. And the atmosphere created by the film made it all that much more attractive. The claustrophobic situation, what with all the action taking place in an isolated are like Antarctica and the fact that no one can trust anyone else to be whom they seem to be has a profound effect on the terror the situation creates.  

The film barely made its original investment back and was NOT the hit that Carpenter hoped would boost his credibility. Coming in on the heels of Steven Spielberg's E,T.: The Extraterrestrial, which was a much more upbeat movie, to the say the least, of aliens, the dark and somewhat nihilistic The Thing was viewed as probably coming in at the wrong time for the political landscape. The country was in the middle of a recession, and hope for a better future was not prevalent in the film. In retrospect, however the film has been gradually gaining some more appreciative audiences. 

Watching this film in conjunction with the Philip Kaufman 1978 version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers might cause the most susceptible paranoiacs to run for the hills. Still, all in all, one of the reasons why  I consider this movie to be a good remake, not withstanding Carpenter's hand in it, is the fact that it entertains, even despite some of it's flaws.

Well, folks, time to crank this old Plymouth up and head home. There is snow predicted tonight, so my isolation may be a little discomforting...

Quiggy

 

 

 

 

The Film. Relase. Repeat. Blogathon is Here!

 

 

 

 

 

As we all know, the old adage of "there is nothing new under the sun" is pretty much stale in most areas. But when it comes to Hollywood, that adage is replaced with "what's good for the goose is good for the gander", so to speak. Just in the past calendar year there were no less than 6 movies in the top ten money maker movies of the year that were either reboots (or remakes) of classic theme subjects (such as a new Superman movie) or movies that were sequels to big movies from the past (with or without a number after the title; Zootopia 2, Wicked: For Good).

The goal of this blogathon was the germ of an idea that sometimes Hollywood can outdo itself in following a formulaic theme, but then, they can also push a story too far, all in the name of the Almighty Dollar. Rachel of Hamlette's Soliloquy and I present some of those sequels and remakes that Tinseltown put forth.

For the most part (as of this writing) it appears that most of our entrants decided to highlight the successes in that endeavor, but occasionally you might get one that calls out the filmmakers onto the carpet. (See my review of Star Trek V for an example of that.) Over the coming weekend, the bloggers who chose to participate are posting reviews of sequels and remakes that made their impact on the theater (good or bad). As always, if you have a last minute entry, and you would like to join in the fun, feel free to add your URL at the end, and I will get it added to the roll call.

 

Roll Call:

The Midnite Drive-In delves into space with Star Trek V: The Final Frontier.

 

Realweegiemidget Reviews takes us on a harrowing ride with Beyond the Poseidon Adventure.

 

 Angelman's Place delves into what price stardom charges with A Star is Born.

 

 

Nitrateglow points out the folly of trying to remake a classic with You Can't Run Away From It.  

 

 

Crítica Retrô gives us a peek into the life of Gidget (maybe) with Gidget Goes Hawaiian

 

The Midnite Drive-In looks into the terror of isolation with a monster in The Thing.

 

Movies Meet Their Match gives us a who list of personal favorites: Top Ten Sequels.

 

Hoofers and Honeys gets Egyptian on us covering The Mummy. 

 

Silver Screenings takes a look at the marriage of Dagwood and Blondie. 

 

 Hamlette's Soliloquy gets into the intricacies of internet romance with You've Got Mail.

 

18 Cinema Lane looks at Lovey: A Circle of Children Part II.

 

 
 

 

 Hope you all had fun. 

Quiggy