Green Holidaze

 

Yes, folks it's yet another Christmas entry (And you say: "Bah! Humbug! It's not even Halloween yet!").

 

OK, I'll concede to the Scrooge-y outcry. You want Halloween, you say? Bet you weren't expecting this...

 

In 1977 the television animation studios at ABC presented the world with what amounts to a prequel to the classic 1966 Christmas tradition of How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Titled Halloween is Grinch Night, it was presented to the public on October 28 of that year, and quickly became a Halloween holiday tradition, much in the same way that it's predecessor did as a Christmas tradition.

 

What's that, you say? This never became a Halloween tradition? Hmm... What a shame! Maybe the ill sweet sour winds were blowing in the wrong direction. 

 

OK, I'll be honest. Although I was alive, and in my late teens, when this cartoon hit the airwaves, I don't recall having ever seen it. In fact, until I ran across a DVD collection called Dr. Suess's Holidays on the Loose, I wasn't even aware that it even existed. (Just a note: You never know what you'll find in those garage sales and resale barns. I paid $2 for this, but I would have never even thought to look for it...)

 

 

 

 

The DVD also includes another Grinch cartoon that I never heard of, this one brought out in 1982. It's called The Grinch Grinches the Cat in the Hat. But in the case of that one, I have an excuse for not even noticing it. It first aired in May of 1982. At that time I was in college and wouldn't have been caught dead watching a kiddie cartoon show.  Besides, at that time I had a job throwing a newspaper route, and was probably asleep so I could be prepared for my job at midnight.

 

Of course, nowadays I wouldn't be so dismissive of children's fare. Possibly because at my age I am looking back at a long life, and regretting that period of my life when I didn't have a childlike innocence and missed out on some fairly good stuff in retrospect. Just for instance: In my 20's, an animated film would have been the LAST choice I would make in picking my weekly theater experience. But just look at what I missed out on during that period: The Black Cauldron, Labyrinth, The Last Unicorn, The Never-Ending Story, The Secret of N.I.M.H., every Muppet movie until  The Muppet Christmas Carol (and I only went to that one because the Dickens story is one of my favorite stories). All of those I have since watched and found entertaining.

 

Dr. Suess had been around for decades prior to the first television cartoon adaptation of his work, the now famous How the Grinch Stole Christmas, but with the exception of a few Private Snafu animated shorts released in theaters during WWII, his work was hardly every translated to film. But after the Grinch a succession of Suess inspired cartoons were made for TV, including Horton Hears a Who, The Cat in the Hat and The Lorax. And you are probably already aware of the full length movies released in theaters in recent years that include the Jim Carrey version of the Grinch story and the Mike Myers version of the Cat in the Hat. (I'm still waiting for a film version of "The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins", BTW, if anyone in Hollywood is checking out this blog...) 

 

Firstly, just to appease the Grinchier crowd who might be objecting to an early Christmas entry...

 

 

 

Halloween is Grinch Night (1977):

 

 

 

 

Things look pleasant in Whoville, But Josiah (Hal Smith; "Otis" from The Andy Griffith Show) smells a "sweet sour wind" in the air. He gets his wife, Mariah (Irene Tedrow; Mrs. Elkins on Dennis the Menace) to double check, and sure enough, the wind has that sweet sour smell.  That means the local Grunker's Pond will be disturbed, awakening the gree-grumps, who will begin to howl. That will make the hakken-krakks star to yowl.

 

 

 

That can only mean one thing. The villainous Grinch (Hans Conried), who lives on the nearby Mount Crumpit will be lurking about, because it is now Grinch night. The Whos in Whoville scurry inside and lock the doors and windows, and they won't go outside... not even for $1.50... The whole town keeps an ear to the radio for the coming on the Grinch, as posted by Sgt, MacPherson (Jack DeLeon; who was memorable as one of the first openly gay characters on TV, Marty in Barney Miller ), who acts a weather broadcaster, only in this case, the watchful eye of the ill wind of the Grinch.

 

 

 

The Grinch, on the other hand, is ecstatic because it's his night to howl. He loads up his wagon, puts his poor dog Max on the reigns, and begins his descent on Whoville where he plans to have a big party in the Whoville town hall.  He will be the guest attendee.  Really, he will be the ONLY attendee...

 

 

 

Poor Max bemoans the lost childhood he had and his fate at being a slave to the Grinch, but he really has no choice.   As the Grinch begins his ascent to Whoville, Euchariah (Gary Shapiro), the young son of Josiah and Mariah, suddenly realizes he needs to go to the "euphemism" (Really. That's what they call it. Cover your eyes, ye easily shocked readers, because it means he needs to go to the...  outhouse...)

 

 

 

The wind, however, is really strong, and despite his struggle to get there he is blown off course, and ends up om Mount Crumpit, the home of the Grinch.  Euchariah runs into the Grinch and bravely stands up to him, but the Grinch is dismissive of such a small foe. He gives Euchariah the discount store scare and figures that is that.

 

 

 

But Euchariah decides that the only way to save the town from the Grinch is by his own work.  He stands up to the Grinch and basically dares the Grinch to do his best at scaring him.  The Grinch, who is not one to back down from a challenge, proceeds to throw everything he can at young Euchariah. 

 

 

 

Unfortunately for the Grinch, young Euchariah is determined, and despite all the spooks and monsters the Grinch throws at him, he bravely endures. And just long enough, too, because the sweet sour wind of Grinch night dies down, which is basically the death knell on the Grinch's activities for the night. He turns his cart around to make the trek back up the mountain, promising he will be even worse on the next Grinch Night. But his dog, Max, deserts him and becomes the dog of his new master, Euchariah.

 

Hans Conried had to fill in for Boris Karloff as the voice of the Grinch, since Karloff had passed away by the time this prequel was made. He does a passable job of it, but it's not quite the sinister twang that the legendary icon put on the original. But hey, nobody lives forever. It was bound to happen. Fortunately the fantastic deep bass singer, Thurl Ravenscroft, was still around to do the musical parts of the Grinch story.  

 

Just one note here, story-wise: This is supposed to be taking place before the events of How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Yet in that later story the Grinch has Max back in his lair. Did the dog decide that life in Whoville was too sedate and return to the Grinch? Or maybe sometime in between the Grinch managed to rope in another dog...  

 

Halloween is Grinch Night won the 1978 Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Children's Program, beating out, among others, The Fat Albert Christmas Special. 

 

OK, you Ebenezers... happy now? 

 

What? Still not ready for cheer and eggnog? OK. I'll play along for now. The second feature on this DVD is:

 

 

 

 

The Grinch Grinches The Cat in the Hat (1982):

 

 

 

This piece (probably) comes after the transformation of the Grinch into a happy carefree figure he became at the end of How the Grinch Stole Christmas, because the sun rises and the Grinch (Bob Holt) is smiling and laughing. Even Max is a little wary, but apparently the afterglow of the events in How the Grinch Stole Christmas (see below) he is a new character.

 

The first thing that comes into play in this piece by the way is the fact that the narrator is none other than Mason Adams. (Adams may not have been a dynamic actor on screen (IMDb only credits him with 77 appearances), but as a voice actor, for me, it's always a treat to hear him. He did narration and voice over credits throughout his career.)  

 

But' in the Grinch's lair, his reflection in the mirror is not so ready and willing to accept this transformation. The mirror image reminds the Grinch of his venomous nature and makes him repeat the "Grinch Oath". With the Grinch apparently saved from a life of charity and goodwill, he leaves the house to find something dastardly to do to prove his Grinch-i-ness.

 

 

 

On the other side of town, the Cat in the Hat (also voiced by Mason Adams) has decided it's such a nice day he is going on a picnic. Unfortunately for him however, he fails to pull his car completely off the road. And the Grinch comes along and hits it.  Of course, the Grinch blames the Cat in the Hat and has a few choice words for him. But the Cat in the Hat, if anything, is accommodating and apologizes.

 

 

But the Grinch isn't going to let it go with just some wimpy apology. Can you say "road rage"? Eventually the Cat in the Hat arrives safely at his own home, but that's not the end of it. In a series of illustrations as to how letting it go and getting over it is the right way of reacting and an endless series of attempts to get revenge is the wrong way, the Grinch errs of the wrong side several times.

 

One way is he has developed a device which distorts sound within a radius, and pointing it at the Cat in the Hat and his surroundings causes confusion. In essence, whenever anyone or anything makes any kind of noise within it's radius, it comes out as gobbledygook. But it doesn't stop there. Because the Cat in the Hat is not turning into the raging antagonist that the Grinch seems to expect.

 

So the Grinch amps it up. He has a device he calls a "darkhouse". It's like a lighthouse, except in reverse.  It casts a shadow of darkness wherever it is pointed. 

 

 

 

This still isn't getting the results so the Grinch casts a pink glow which causes, among other things, to make food look really unappetizing.

 

The Cat in the Hat has an imaginary thought bubble psychiatric session with the Grinch, trying to figure out what makes him tick and why he's so mean-spirited. 

 

 

 

And during this imaginary session a thread of hope comes out. The Grinch really loves his mother, which eventually leads to the denouement. as patrons at the restaurant where the Cat in the Hat was dining when the Grinch used his pink ray all band together to go to the Grinch's house and serenade him with a song about Mom.

 

 

 

The Grinch becomes teary-eyed and sentimental once again. And when the mirror refection tries to entice him back to his Grinch side, Max points the noise disrupting ray at it and it starts spouting gobbledygook.

 

This production was also awarded a Primetime Emmy award, beating out not just one, but two each, of Charlie Brown and the Smurfs cartoon specials. 

 

OK. Now can I do my Christmas theme?  

 

 

How the Grinch Stole Christmas  (1966):

 

 

 

This is the one cartoon that I will make a point to watch every year. I was a wee lad, not even yet 5 when I first saw it. I probably watched it every year until I was well into my 20's, after which it was only if the broadcast was convenient for my work schedule, since I often had a night time job. But somewhere in my late 30's I was able to jump back on board with making it an annual tradition.

 

"Fa-who for-aze! Da-who dor-aze!  Welcome Christmas bring your light!

Fa-who for-aze! Da-who dor-aze!  Welcome in the cold, dark night!

Welcome Christmas, fa-who ra-mooze!  Welcome Christmas, da-who da-mooze!

Welcome Christmas, while we stand, heart to heart, and hand in hand!

Trim up the tree with Christmas stuff, like bingle balls and whofoo fluff!

Trim up the tree with goowho gums, and bizelbix and wums!

Trim every blessed window, and trim every blessed door!

Hang up who boo hoo bricks, then run out and get some more!

Hang pantookas on the ceiling. pile panfoolas on the floor!

Trim every blessed needle on the blessed Christmas tree!

Christmas comes tomorrow! Trim you! Trim me!

Trim up the tree with fuzzle fuzz and blipper bloos and wuzzle wuzz!

Trim up your uncle and your aunt with yards of who faunt flant!!!"

 

 

 

The Whos down in Whoville absolutely love Christmas. What joy! What fun! Singing an dancing and Christmas fun! And then there's the toys! All the kids get to enjoy their new found toys and make such noise!

 

Noise! Noise! Noise! That's the one thing that the Grinch, who lives just north of Whoville hates the most. (And just out of curiosity, what is it about the "north" that causes such animosity in these tales. It seems to me that every villainous sort of character in these tales happens to live in the north part of the region...)

 

 

 

Anyway, the Grinch hates all the goody good Whos down in Whoville and their overbearing happiness and good cheer. And most annoying is the Christmas season, when that "good nature attitude" comes out in waves of cheer and good will. But what can he do, it's just going to happen, and that's a part of life.

 

But maybe  not this year.  Maybe, just maybe, the Grinch can pull off a feat of such transcending evil that the Whos will transform from their happy-go-lucky selves into wailing and bemoaning spirits, and that would please the Grinch to no end. 

 

 

 

So what is his plan? He will dress up as Santa Claus and sneak into town while all the Whos in Whoville are asleep and steal every present, every tree, every decoration, and even all the Christmas dinner and just sit back and watch the fun as the Whos discover that there won't be a Christmas in Whoville this year after all.

 

 

 

"You're a mean one, Mr. Grinch, you really are a heel!
You're as cuddly as a cactus, you're as charming as an eel! 

Mr. Grinch!
You're a bad banana with a greasy black peel!

You're a monster, Mr. Grinch, your heart's an empty hole!
Your brain is full of spiders, you've got garlic in your soul! 

Mr. Grinch!
I wouldn't touch you with a thirty-nine-and-a-half foot pole!

You're a vile one, Mr. Grinch, you have termites in your smile!
You have all the tender sweetness of a seasick crocodile! 

Mr. Grinch!
Given the choice between the two of you, I'd take the seasick crocodile!

You're a foul one, Mr. Grinch, you're a nasty wasty skunk!
Your heart is full of unwashed socks, your soul is full of gunk!

Mr. Grinch.
The three words that best describe you are as follows, and I quote: "Stink! Stank! Stunk!"

You're a rotter, Mr. Grinch, you're the king of sinful sots!
Your heart's a dead tomato splotched with moldy purple spots!

Mr. Grinch.
Your soul is an appalling dump heap, overflowing with the most disgraceful assortment of deplorable rubbish imaginable... mangled up in tangled up knots!

You nauseate me, Mr. Grinch, with a nauseous super "naus!"
You're a crooked dirty jockey, and you drive a crooked hoss! 

Mr. Grinch!
You're a three decker sauerkraut and toadstool sandwich, with arsenic sauce!"

 

Note: I really don't understand why the Grinch had to dress up as Santa if he expected to be able to get in and out of Whoville undetected. Of course, as we will see, that Santa outfit did come in handy after all. For, while he is busy trying to stuff a Christmas tree up the chimney, a little who, Cindy Lou Who, who was no more than two, wakes up and catches him in the act, and he has to pretend he is Santa and that he is taking the tree back to his workshop to fix a glitch with the Christmas lights on it.

 

 

 

Once the Grinch succeeds in his nefarious plan he heads back to his cave on Mount Crumpit and deliciously anticipates the cries and wails of the lost season down in Whoville. But to his amazement the Whos come out singing and generally expressing joy. Without presents. Without decorations. Without even the Christmas feast. And the Grinch realizes that the Christmas spirit comes from somewhere else, not the things that can be had by the physical realm, but from somewhere deep in the heart. And the Grinch himself has a change of heart, and returns the gifts, and becomes the leader of all the good will that Whoville has to offer.

 

 

 

Outside of Boris Karloff as the narrator and the voice of the Grinch, no one received any credit for their role. Specifically, the classic "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch" was actually sung by Thurl Ravenscroft, who's big claim to fame at the time was as the voice of Tony the Tiger in Frosted Flakes commercials. ("They're GREEEAT!") Also missing was the credit for the one vocal that was NOT Karloff, that of Cindy Lou Who, who was actually voiced by June Foray.

 

How the Grinch Stole Christmas is the only one of these three that was not in the running for an Emmy for children's program the following awards year. Just to clarify, a 1966 filming of the Jack in the Beanstalk was the winner, beating out, among others, It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. But in retrospect, in later years it has been awarded it's own heritage in standing. In 2004 a list by TV Guide named it #1 out of the 10 Best Holiday Specials.  (A Charlie Brown Christmas came in second.)

 

Rejoice, ye Ebenezers. It will be after Halloween before the next Christmas themed entry comes your way. Still before Thanksgiving, true, but you gotta take your pleasures where you can find them... (And since today is Halloween, theoretically the next one could be tomorrow...)

 

Quiggy 

 

 

 

 

  

Blood Drive

 

 

 

This is my entry in the 4th Annual Spooky Classic Movie Blogathon hosted by Hoofers and Honeys.

 

 

 

 

 

The Midnite Drive-In has played host to quite a few movies of varying caliber from the 1950's over it's ten year existence. The '50's. in the opinion of your humble blogger, is they heyday of the essence of what I term as the "drive-in movie".  Elsewhere on this blog I have mentioned that the drive-in was essentially a venue for low quality sci-fi, horror and motorcycle films, the kind of stuff that the average 20-25 year old male drive-in patron would be enticed to see. Below is a typical newspaper ad for films discussed in this entry. Note the draw of "All New! Never anything like them before!" Not entirely true really. Many of the drive-in features had the same recurring plots, but that doesn't mean they didn't each have some entertainment value in their own right.

 

 

 

The year 1958 had lots of movies like the ones previously mentioned in the opening of last week's entry, the 10th Anniversary piece. If you read that piece, you know what you are in for here, because these movies feature the same "high" standards of quality film making that the three movies featured in that post had. Of course, I'm not so isolated that I don't know that some of you probably won't find these two films in your own bailiwick. But they do have their own following, even so. Years ago I gave up the hope of getting my sister to watch these kinds of movies. But some of my friends really get a kick out dancing under the limbo bar required to sit through them, and those are my kind of people...

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blood of the Vampire (1958):

 

"The most loathsome scourge ever to afflict this earth was that of the Vampire.  Nourishing itself on warm living blood,  the only known method of ending a vampire's reign of terror was to drive a wooden stake through its heart."

 

As the credits roll, the opening features a ritual, circa 1874, as a corpse is being buried. But prior to the burial a stake is driven through it's heart. After everyone else has left the scene, the gravedigger begins the process of competing the burial. But he is stopped by a hunchback (Victor Maddern), who kills him. 

 

 

 

The next scene features a pub in riotous gaiety as the hunchback enters. With every suspicious and wary eye on him he approaches a man and gestures that the man must leave with him. It turns out that the man had been previously hired to do a heart transplant on a body. As if you couldn't guess, it's the body of the grave victim that the hunchback had rescued from being buried. The man, a surgeon, completes his task, but makes the grievous error of demanding more money, with the threat of exposure of the illicit activity, and the hunchback dispatches him, too.

 

The scene shifts to a courtroom, 6 years later, where Dr. John Pierre (Vincent Ball) is convicted of having committed "malpractice leading to manslaughter" of a man, through supposed "incompetency" as a surgeon. His grievous error involved him trying to do an early form of blood transfusion, but the patient died. He claims innocence and requests that the court contact a fellow doctor in Vienna to corroborate his testimony. Unfortunately a letter from said doctor claims he has no knowledge of Pierre, and requests that the courts give him the maximum penalty available. He is sentenced to a penal colony, but someone has used his influence to get Pierre committed, instead, to a prison for the criminally insane.

 

 

 

No, Pierre himself is not insane, but he has a knowledge of certain medical processes, including his experimental work on blood transfusions, a new idea on the frontier of the medical community at the time.  This reason is why the director of the prison has manipulated the system to get Pierre committed to his prison. 

 

 

You see, the director of the prison is, (surprise, surprise), the character that the hunchback rescued from being buried and had the hapless surgeon perform a heart transplant on in the first part of the picture. The prison director, now going by the name of Dr. Callistratus (Donald Wolfit), is being kept alive by blood transfusions. The poor denizens of the prison cells are the unwilling blood donors.

 

 

Pierre is put in a cell with fellow inmate Kurt (William Devlin). (Devlin looks a heck of a lot like The Howling Man from the Twilight Zone episode, but it's not the same guy...) 

 

Kurt tells Pierre that there are some strange things going on in the prison, that he, Pierre, is in "the bottomless pit of Hell itself". Kurt later tells Pierre that many, if not all, of the prisoners are there through the manipulations of forces that the outside world is helpless to combat. For instance, like Pierre, Kurt was also innocent of the crime that got him convicted. Kurt tells him that once Pierre realizes that no help from the outside is going to be of any use, perhaps they can help each other.

 

Meanwhile, on the outside, Pierre's fiancee, Madeleine (Barbara Shelley) tries her best to find a way to prove Pierre is an innocent man.  In doing so she contacts Dr. Meinster (Henry Vidon), who insists that he had never received any contact from the courts or the Prison Commission. He tells the head of the Prison Commission, Auron (Bryan Coleman), that he is going to reopen the investigation into Pierre's trial. But Auron was not the person he should have told this. Because it was Auron who, working with Callistratus, managed to get Pierre convicted and also sentenced to Callistratus' prison. He also sent the forged letter that denied any knowledge of Pierre from Dr. Meinster...

 

 

Auron informs Callistratus that the Commission has ordered that Pierre be released, but Callistratus tells Pierre a different story: that the Commission found no evidence that would overturn his conviction. Meanwhile Pierre has come across some clue as to what is going on in the prison when a patient is discovered whom Callistratus is draining his blood. The truth of the sinister goings on is that Callistratus is draining blood from his prisoners in order to have the blood injected into himself, to keep him alive.

 

 

 

Eventually Pierre has had enough of this folderol and works with Karl to escape the prison. Unfortunately Callistratus is wise to the escape and Karl ends up supposedly killed.  Pierre comes away from the attempted escape alive, but Callistratus rigs the report of the attempt to read that Pierre had died in the escape attempt, too.  Back at home, fiancee Madeleine is suspicious of this report and manages to get a job at the prison as Callistratus' housekeeper. (Callistratus has as high turnover rate for housekeepers as he does for inmates...) As would be expected, Madeleine runs into Pierre in her duties as housekeeper, which not only is not good for job security, but also not a conducive atmosphere for continuing to exist on the planet. 

  

If you've noticed by now, there is no "vampire" in this film, at least not in the traditional sense of the word. No fangs, no midnight rendezvous with dulcet dames, no avoiding direct sunlight or religious icons, none of the trappings of the vampire trope one comes to expect. This is more of an intense psychological horror, with more emphasis on science than any supernatural horror. The film seems awfully similar to something that might have been produced by the Hammer Studios, although the Hammer name is not associated with it. 

 

In actuality, the scriptwriter, Jimmy Sangster, did have some work with the early Hammer films this movie seems to emulate before this film, and continued to crank out stuff for Hammer afterwards.  The film actually seems to be more of a science-fiction film as opposed to a horror film, what with all the "new" science of blood transfusions, and the added emphasis on discovering why certain victims' blood are more harmful than good. (In case you are one of those people who slept through biology class, you can't mix A+ blood with B- blood... it can be deadly.)  

 

Despite that, the film is intriguing in it's own right.  Donald Wolfit, the sinister Dr. Callistratus. is one of the better actors in the film. Apparently towards the end of his career he had to take on many roles in the motion picture industry, including The Hands of Orlac and Dr. Crippen, a significant step down from his years as the leader of an acting troupe that did touring productions of Shakespeare. Most of the other actors a pretty much run-of-the-mill type. Vincent Ball, who played Dr. Pierre, probably had the more prolific career, although much of his output was in the realm of second or third tier credits.

 

If you like the old Hammer Films horror output, it's not a bad imitation. It drags in some points, especially when Callistratus and Pierre start talking about the difficulties of blood type incompatibilities.  And if you can get over the disappointment that there is no actual "vampire"... 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

Monster on the Campus (1958): 

 

You could be forgiven if you thought you were going to see a light hearted family movie with the opening scene. With a lilting happy score, Jimmy (Troy Donahue), drives up in a van marked "Dunsfield University Science Department" to his fraternity house to pick up Samson, a German Shepherd. 

 

 

 

He then drives to the university, where Dr. Donald Blake (Arthur Franz) is creating a mask of one of his assistants, Madeline (Joanna Moore), who is also Blake's fiancee, to be used to represent the "modern woman" display of an exhibit on the evolution of man.

 

 

 

Blake, a bit of a pessimist, expresses his opinion that the human race may be doomed if they can't figure out how to control "the animal-like instincts from our ancestors". (We seem to have survived for thousands of  years, so far, doc, but maybe we ARE just around the corner from self-destruction...)  

 

Jimmy shows up with a coelacanth, a fossil from the bygone prehistoric age. A coelacanth is a prehistoric fish, BTW.  

 

 

 

Some of the water that was in the crate leaks out on the ground and Samson licks at it. Jimmy pulls him off of the puddle, but it is too late for Samson. He transforms from a docile dog to a vicious mutt that tries to attack Madeline and does attack Jimmy.  

 

They take Samson to another doctor, Dr. Oliver Cole (Whit Bissell) who tells Blake to keep him under observation to see if he has developed rabies.  He wants Blake to get a sample of the dog's saliva for further investigation. While having Samson under observation, Blake notices Samson's teeth, which oddly are a throwback to an evolutionary earlier form of what we now call a "dog". 

 

 

When Blake tries to move the coelacanth to the refrigeration to preserve it he accidentally cuts his hand on it's teeth. Then, while moving the crate, his grip on it slips and he ends up dunking his hand into the water (the same water that Samson tried to drink...)

 

He starts to feel woozy, so Molly (Helen Westcott), Dr. Cole's assistant who happens to be helping Blake, offers to take him home. When they arrive, Molly finds Blake has passed out in the passenger seat, so she goes in to his house to call for help. But she is attacked by some creature we can't see. Meanwhile Madeline is waiting on Blake to show up for a prearranged date. When he is still a no-show, she firsts checks the lab to see if he lost track of time and is still working, but with no sign of him there, she heads over to his house.  What she finds there is that the house is in a shambles, as if some wild creature had gone berserk in it. Which apparently it has... 

 

 

 

 

She finds Donald out on the back yard lawn, apparently a little groggy. She finds Molly dead, also, hanging from a tree. When the police investigate, naturally Blake's story of being unconscious and not remembering anything after getting in the car with Molly at the lab becomes a little suspicious. Plus the fact that they found a tie clip which Blake admits is his in the grip of dead Molly's hand.  But to cast suspicion on those conclusions are some hand prints and fingerprints that the investigators find which are not only not Blake's but unlike any they have ever seen before.

 

 

 

Back at the lab, Samson appears to have lost the characteristics of a throwback that Blake had observed earlier and has reverted to its former normal self. Even though Blake swears he had pointed the dog's canine teeth out to Molly, since she was the only other person to have seen them, Blake feels inclined to admit to Cole that he probably imagined it, although he doesn't really believe that. 

 

The lieutenant in charge of the murder investigation, Lt. Stevens (Judson Pratt) shows up, inquiring whether Blake had any enemies that could enlighten the investigation, but Blake is like a saint as far as he himself is concerned. Lt. Stevens reveals an interesting fact in the murder investigation; Molly did not die of injuries, she died of fright. 

 

Several strange events happen over the next few hours, including a situation where a dragonfly comes into the lab and is checking out the coelacanth. Later, you guessed it, the dragonfly ends up being reverted to a form of it's ancient biological ancestor, and becomes several times it's normal size, and ends up attacking Blake and Jimmy and his girlfriend. (The two had come to collect Jimmy's dog). Samson had reverted back to his normal self, so is no longer a threat. And, eventually, that dragonfly reverts back to its normal state.

 

 

 

Apparently that coelacanth, or at least the water it was in, has some kind of power to cause whoever comes into contact with it to become a savage ancestor of it's evolutionary past. At one point it is revealed that the coelacanth had been subjected to gamma radiation, ostensibly to help keep it preserved. (Ah! The dangers of the atomic age!  In the 50's, Hollywood's biggest bugaboo was the new and mysterious atomic science...)  As it slowly dawns on Blake that all this regression into primitive state is connected with contact with the blood of the irradiated coelacanth, he decides to performs an experiment to prove his theory.

 

 

 

It all comes to a head when Madeline and his colleagues and the police come to a cabin where Blake has gone to perform an experiment on himself to prove his theory. Then, as with any good man who realizes that he himself is unwittingly responsible for the havoc that has been caused, he arranges it so the police can shoot him while he is still in the regressive state.

 

I saw another movie a few years ago, (one which I am still getting around to reviewing, BTW), called The Monolith Monsters. (And if that title is highlighted at some future point, you'll know I finally did it.) That movie, like this one, has what may seem like a fairly ridiculous plot, but it is in the execution of the plot and in the acting of the cast that makes the whole thing remarkably well done.  

 

One of the reasons this movie turns out so well, in my opinion, is that it was directed by... Jack Arnold.  Many films that Arnold had a hand in became classics of the genre, but if these films had been in the hands of some other director I doubt they would have turned out as well. That's because Arnold was a stickler for making the science in these films plausible. You actually believe there could be a remnant of a prehistoric age living in the jungles of Brazil in The Creature from the Black Lagoon.  The idea that a lab developed nutrient to help the human populace in need could, in it's undeveloped stages, cause a lab spider to grow to enormous size is not entirely unbelievable in Tarantula! And, despite the strangeness of the idea, a strange mist could actually cause a man to shrink in size in The Incredible Shrinking Man becomes fairly realistic.

 

The reviews of the day considered the film "very good". It is only in retrospect of time that the film has gone down in it's  reception. The modern public, as evidenced by another review website, the Popcornmeter, only gives the movie a 27% rating.  A lot of the bad reviews seem to center on the makeup used for the monster, as it is compared to the makeup in The Wolf Man and found wanting. Even it's director was not entirely enamored by his final product. An interview with Arnold. quoted in a Wikipedia article, claims that he "really didn't hate it, but [he] didn't think it was up to the standards of other films" he had done.

 

Other than the somewhat overemphasized philosophical sub context, that man needs to curb his irrational aggressive nature before he becomes no better than his prehistoric ancestors in the emotional state, the movie is well worth checking out, in my opinion.

 

Well, folks, that wraps it up for today. Time to crank up the old Plymouth and head home.  Drive safely.

 

Quiggy

 

 

 

Sgt. Pepper vs. The Disco Invasion

 

 

 

 

So here's a premise for you. Take one of the most beloved and iconic rock albums of all time, cast some then current 70's disco "icons" as characters, add in a bizarre plot that is loosely based on it, and foist it on the public as an ostensible tribute to a band that means more to many people than life itself. 

What you get is a mess that is about as effective as a halfwit with a BB gun facing a rampaging onslaught of evil robots.

This film, which starred disco era icons, the Bee Gees, as the Henderson brothers who, along with their friend, Billy Shears, played by Peter Frampton (who probably should have known better) on a quest to achieve fame, and, as an added plot twist, retrieve the iconic instruments of a predecessor that had been stolen from the idyllic town of Heartland, U.S.A.  The plot itself, however, is just the glue that binds together a host of 70's bands to do cover versions of Beatles songs culled from, mainly, their albums Abbey Road and, of course, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. This is what's known in the industry as a jukebox musical.

The definition of the term "jukebox musical" might require some definition to the newbie. A jukebox musical by strict definition is a musical which incorporates previously known songs, as opposed to original songs written for said musical. Most of the time, it's the songs drive the plot forward. 

However, much like the later released Pink Floyd: The Wall there is not much dialogue in this film. In point of fact, almost nobody other than George Burns, who plays Mr. Kite, has any spoken lyrics. The film relies on the songs themselves to carry the story to it's ultimate conclusion. Note: Apparently there was additional dialogue, including speaking parts for the Henderson brothers, but the Gibb brothers couldn't pull off an American accent, and Peter Frampton, also British, wasn't much better, thus making the illusion of this taking place in the heart of the U.S.A. became an illusion that just didn't work. 

Several other big name acts were either roped, or maybe even duped, into appearing in this film, as well as recording said cover versions of those classic songs. Now, admittedly, a couple of those covers were not entirely bad. I still, to this day, prefer Aerosmith's cover version of "Come Together" than the original Beatles version. But, tell me, is there anything that could be worse than Steve Martin's attempt at doing "Maxwell's Silver Hammer"?

The film actually had a predecessor in the form of an off-Broadway production in 1975, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band On The Road. As near as I can tell, based on the description of it on wikipedia, about the only thing it had in common with the movie version is that they were both derived from the original album. The stage production appears to have virtually the same selection of songs, however, so I can't say how close the movie was to the stage play.

 

 

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1978):

 The film opens with a scene from World War I in August 1918, in a little village of "Fleu de Coup" (seriously...) as the Allies and the Central Powers are engaged in battle. As Mr. Kite (George Burns) tells it: 

"The War to End All Worlds did not end soon enough. So Heartland USA sent the Allies it's most effective secret weapon.

Sgt. Pepper... and his Lonely Hearts Club Band." 

On to the scene of the battle marches an oompah band. And everybody stops fighting. And the war ends. (Really!) Hold on to your hats , folks.  It gets even weirder... Apparently the band was instrumental (no pun intended) in solving the depression and even causing the end of WWII to boot.  In 1958, a ceremony is held to inaugurate the installment of a weather vane that, claims Mr. Kite, "will always point to happiness... (as opposed to whichever way the wind is blowing...) At the inauguration, Sgt. Pepper has promised to play one last tune for good old Heartland. (and if Sgt. Pepper was in his 20's in 1918, he seems to have aged 70 or 80 years in the 40 years since...) Sgt. Pepper, sadly keels over on stage mid tune. And Mr. Kite's response? "Oh, well..." Sgt. Pepper leaves his instruments to the town as supposedly, as long as the instruments stayed in Heartland "humanity would live happily ever after".  

All of this in the first five minutes of the movie....

20 years Sgt. Pepper's favorite grandson, Billy Shears (Peter Frampton) forms a band with three of his friends, the Henderson brothers (portrayed by the Bee Gees). They play to the hometown crowd at Heartland, singing With a Little Help from My Friends. 

There's a rumor that B.D. Hoffler of "Big Deal Records" has an interest in this new band. A lot of the credit for this development can be put on the shoulders of Dougie Shears (Paul Nicholas), Billy's avaricious and opportunistic cousin. It is through him and his love of money that much of what happens to our heroes happens in the first place. 

 

The next song we get is Fixing a Hole in which we get George Burns doing a soft shoe dance and "singing" (sort of). Burns had never really been known for his Euterpian abilities, so it's no surprise that his cover is basically what is called "talk-singing".  And Getting Better exemplifies how life is changing for the quartet. Billy and his true love, Strawberry Fields (Sandy Farina), have a final night together before Billy is due to leave to embark on his career. They sing Here Comes the Sun as dawn breaks over Heartland.

 

Mean Mr. Mustard (Frankie Howerd) makes his appearance. His goal, apparently as a lackey for some as yet unknown evil entity, is to steal the treasured instruments of Heartland. The motto of this presence "We Hate Love! We Hate Joy! We Love Money!"

 

The group boards a hot air balloon for the trip to Hollywood (really!). But at some point either they collide with or are magically transported to a better form of transport, a jet airplane. And they get to meet the head of Big Deal Records, B. D. Hoffler (Donald Pleasance, who has to share screen presence, if not billing credit, with his toupee...) During the limo drive and an extremely well catered extravaganza (and by "well-catered" I don't mean the food...), there is a back and forth between all present during a cover of I Want You (She's So Heavy).

 

After signing their contracts at the dinner, which (probably intentionally) brings to mind the typical "deal with the devil" contract signing of a movie version of the Faust tale, the band is on their way. And if that Faust reference was anything prescient, it plays out that way in the boys' case. For the next morning, as the caption reads, they begin "a difficult one week climb from obscurity to stardom". They become huge hits immediately, and have a 37 night run at the Forum, which is "sold out" for every night...  

Good Morning, Nowhere Man, Polythene Pam, and She Came In Through the Bathroom Window exemplify the hold that the band has on it's adoring public. But back home in Heartland, things are not looking too good. Mean Mr. Mustard, who is under the influence of a body now revealed to be "F.V.B.", is preparing to put into action his devious deed, to steal the town's cherished instruments. Aided by The Brute (Carel Struyken), he ties up Mr. Kite and makes away with said artifacts. He is instructed to distribute the instruments to various locations.

 

The cornet is taken to Dr. Maxwell Edison (Steve Martin) and the tuba to cult leader Father Sun (Alice Cooper). And the saxophone of course is due to go to F.V.B. Mustard gets to keep the drum. What the importance of each getting which instrument is, however, is never revealed. As a result of the instruments going missing poor Heartland becomes a den of debauchery and vice (in other words, Las Vegas. A low-rent Las Vegas, anyway...) Strawberry takes a bus to Hollywood to find Billy and the boys and tell them of the tragedy that has befallen Heartland.

She arrives in Hollywood to see the opening act for the boys, Lucy and the Diamonds (Stargard) playing, of course, Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.  Strawberry tells Billy of Mr. Mustard's nefarious deed and the boys embark on a quest to retrieve the stolen instruments in Mustard's stolen van, which is conveniently there because Mustard followed Strawberry to Hollywood.

Their first quest is to retrieve the cornet from Dr. Maxwell, "a small time quack" who turns "ugly old corrupt people into handsome young corrupt people". And thus we get what is probably the worst cover version of the movie, Maxwell's Silver Hammer, in which Dr. Maxwell turns a slew of old people into what looks like his version of Hitler Youth. The boys arrive and engage Dr. Maxwell in battle, including a cheesy reenactment of the light saber battle of Darth Vader and Obi-Wan Kenobi from Star Wars. But they succeed in getting the cornet.

 

Then on to the next quest.  They go to Father Sun, previously known as Marvin Sunk, who in a previous life was "an unemployed school crossing guard at the bottom of his life"... (Yeah, that would probably be the bottom for me, too...) He had an inspiration to get his revenge on his tormentors, the school kids, by brainwashing them for F.V.B. Why? Because, why else? He has the tuba that was stolen and the guys show up to do battle with him.

 

But Billy get a huge jolt of electricity in the battle and it takes Strawberry to revive him (and finally we get Strawberry Fields Forever sung by Sandy "Strawberry" Farina). There is still the saxophone to retrieve, so the quest must continue.  But frustration takes over among the boys and they end up destroying the computerized portion of the van, thus losing a way to figure out where the saxophone was.

As Heartland descends into chaos and Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band starts to rack up concert cancellations, Dougie finally gets a good heart (maybe temporarily) and convinces B. D. to sponsor a benefit concert for Heartland. This concert would essentially have every big band name in the world descending to raise money to save the town, and maybe even the band. Dougie's newfound moral re-righting is short found as he and Lucy attempt to make off with the proceeds of the benefit however (You Never Give Me Your Money).

While the real band, Earth , Wind and Fire (the only act to appear in the movie under it's real name) perform a version of Got to Get You Into My Life, Mustard and the Brute manage to steal the van back, and the instruments, which are still inside. 

 

Not only that, but they kidnap Strawberry to boot.  The boys give chase in, what else, the hot air balloon... (Better add some jet boosters to that thing boys...) Meanwhile, on the van, Mustard, who has a crush on Strawberry, serenades her with When I'm Sixty-Four. The only thing that keeps this part from delving into cheese ball status is that Strawberry turns into a duet. God forbid we be subjected to two Frankie Howerd talk-singing solos...

At  F.V.B. headquarters, we find out that F.V.B. stands for "Future Villain Band" (Aerosmith). "The evil force that would poison young minds, pollute the environment, and subvert the democratic processes... and worst of all, change Strawberry into a mindless groupie!" (Ye gods!) We finally get to the best cover of the movie, as the Future Villain Band performs Come Together. Billy battles the leader of the band and defeats him, but in the process, Strawberry is killed.

 

As Billy serenades Strawberry's body with Carry That Weight, and then wanders away in tears and memories as the strains of The Long and Winding Road play, and the Hendersons mourn for Billy's loss with A Day in the Life, it appears that not everything is going to end in a good world, at least not for everybody. Billy is so distraught that he takes a plunge off a tall building.

Oh, put a lid on those tears! This is a feel good movie! It ain't over yet! (And some of you may be groaning..."There's still more???")  The miracle that HAS to happen to bring the feel good movie back from that dark edge occurs, when a good wind blows on the weather vane (remember the weather vane of the original Sgt. Pepper from the opening?)  and it turns into none other than Sgt. Pepper himself (or in this case Billy Preston) who uses his magic to turn everything back to it's previously happy state (with Get Back), almost as if the events in the movie never happened. 

 

But not, unfortunately, as if the movie itself never happened...

The finale recreates the album cover of the Beatles original album, with everybody who was anybody in the 70's (or at least anybody who would deign to appear in it) getting together to do a chorus of "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band". Check out the faces you will recognize in this scene, including Carol Channing, Cousin Brucie, Dr. John, Leif Garrett, Helen Reddy, Tina Turner, and Sha-Na-Na, just to name a few.

 

The movie was nominated for a Stinkers Bad Movie Award (a predecessor to the Razzies), but it lost to If I Ever See You Again (which I never saw, and probably won't see, based on it's story line...)  Also in competition that year were Paradise Alley, Moment by Moment, and The Bad News Bears Go To Japan. Based on that lineup I'm thinking it was close voting between the winner and Moment by Moment. I kind of liked Paradise Alley, and really, the Bad News Bears sequel is not as bad as it's made out to be...

The sad part is, if it's not just hyperbole anyway, is that Universal apparently thought they had the next "Gone with the Wind" on their hands. In reality it was a virtual D.O.A. at the box office. It made back it's investment (barely), but the critics loathed it. As usual, my barometer of the critics is the Tomato-meter which gives this film a rating of 11%. The IMDb website, which gets the public reception of the film, gives it a 4.3 out of 10 based on public voting at the site.

OK, so this movie was not it's generation's Gone with the Wind. It probably wasn't even it's generation's Reefer Madness (although a little reefer before watching might improve it somewhat, I couldn't say).  I do however say it is a much better movie than some of the stuff that Hollywood foisted on the public to try to take advantage of a popular genre or theme in the 70's. Don't believe me? I challenge you to sit through The Star Wars Holiday Special. Even Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park pales by comparison to cheese ball status to that corker...

The film was, needless to say, not very well received. George Harrison, one of the original Beatles, was quoted as expressing sympathy for the Bee Gees, and Frampton and producer of the film, Robert Stigwood. He thought the film "damaged their careers", saying that it was kind of like the Beatles trying to cover the Rolling Stones, the Rolling Stones did it better. Notwithstanding the chutzpah it took to emphasize how much better he and his band were than the artists in question, one could say that it was probably bound to fall short in the eyes of the adoring public of the Beatles. The premiere was attended by Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr. Notably not mentioned anywhere is that I guess John Lennon avoided it. But then, Lennon was so full of himself he probably didn't even attend the movies he was actually in...

Some interesting tidbits of information: Did you know that Kiss was originally approached to be Future Villain Band (the part that went to Aerosmith)? Apparently they thought the part would be bad for their careers and instead opted to make Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park, and you can draw your own conclusions about THAT choice...  Some big names that chose to opt out of being involved in this film were Barry Manilow, Olivia Newton-John (who would have been Strawberry Fields) and Bob Hope (who would have been Mr. Kite).

The director, Michael Schultz, had a couple of good movies under his belt, going into this one. Both Car Wash and Greased Lightning are scheduled for my upcoming Semiquincentennial Movie Project next year, as well as Cooley High, noted as a great moment in black cinema.  After this he would still have a career as a director, but most of his output was not on par with his earlier output, with much of it being episodes of TV shows. He was the director of Carbon Copy, however, which although not a huge hit, is notable as being the first big screen appearance of Denzel Washington. He also followed up with two films in 1985 that garnered some good reviews, Krush Groove and The Last Dragon.

If you want to compare this film to examples of how the idea of pairing popular music with a plot that actually works, I recommend the adaptation of the Who's rock operas Tommy or Quadrophenia. But even, staying in the 70's, a case could be made for either Godspell or Jesus Christ, Superstar. Neither of those incorporated previously popular songs, but the outcome was much better. And I can't pass up the opportunity to put a plug in for one of my favorite musicals, The Rocky Horror Picture Show. That list is by no means complete, but it's enough to get you started.

Well, folks, time to fire up the old Plymouth and head back to the good old staid homestead. Drive safely.

Quiggy