The Past Pervades the Present

 

This is my first entry in the Back in Black Blogathon hosted by Hamlette's Soliloquy and yours truly.

 

 

The essence of "film noir", in my opinion, can be stated as I often do, as a place "where the good guys aren't all that much different than the bad guys except that the good guys have a moral compass". Think of the classic Humphrey Bogart film The Maltese Falcon. Sam Spade is our good guy (or "hero", if you will), but he is only the hero because the rest of the cast is peopled with such characters as Peter Lorre's greedy little twit, Joel Cairo, Sydney Greenstreet's amoral Caspar Gutman, Elisha Cook, Jr.'s psychopathic gunsel Wilmer and even the less than scrupulous femme fatale, Bridgid played by Mary Astor. Bogart is no less likely to skirt the rules of polite society, but at least he has a sense of honor.

Film noir really got it's start in the print medium, in the pages of pulp magazines like Black Mask. The gritty rough and tumble characters that appeared in those stories eventually gave way to films in the 40's. I like the way David J. Hogan puts it in his book Film Noir FAQ: film noir "forces us to acknowledge that the presumably solid foundation upon which we base our assumptions and our very lives is temporal an dangerously unstable. It's likely to not merely shift beneath our feet, but give way completely, turning the routine of our lives upside-down and annihilating our expectations. We're plunged into a disorienting place where everything we thought {emphasis mine} we knew is wrong". 

The characters in the film noir world, often, are just "average Joes" who find themselves caught up in circumstances they were not expecting. We get characters who are normal guys (and most often they are "guys") who find out that things are not panning out right.  A detective may think he's on a run-of-the-mill case, but it turns out that, aside from being able to take on the bad guys with a reasonable amount of success, when it comes to dealing with women, his brains turn out to be on vacation and he's using a different part of his body to do the thinking. These women are what are referred to as "femme fatales" (and these, too, are most often women.)

Occasionally that pattern reverses and it's the woman who is the "average Jane" and she finds herself falling for a man who has a rather unscrupulous demeanor. (Sorry, Wrong Number would be a perfect example). And that is just a simplistic description, because the film noir world has many different scenarios. The best of them, however, can be summed up as this.

A favorite publishing house, Hard Case Crime, recently took to reprinting old pulp novels, as well as new material written in the same style. You can find many older issues of these reprints in used bookstores. I liken the stories to be akin to "film noir in print. If you'd like to investigate this, check out their website" Hard Case Crime. I recommend a few to start: The Murderer Vine by  Shepard Rifkin, Shooting Star by Robert Bloch, Lucky at Cards by Lawrence Block and a recently written sequel to the aforementioned Maltese Falcon story, The Return of the Maltese Falcon by Max Allan Collins.

 

Out of the Past (1947):

 The film opens in a small out of the way town, Bridgeport, where a mysterious figure named Joe (Paul Valentine) shows up looking for Jeff Bailey (Robert Mitchum). Joe is looking for Bailey because, well, this guy "Bailey" is not the local gas station operator he has led people to believe he is. He has a past that he is kept hidden. (Out of the Past indeed...)

 

Joe has come looking for Jeff because a former acquaintance, Whit, wants to see him. So Jeff takes his current girlfriend, Ann (Virginia Huston), on a road trip up to meet with Whit, and through a flashback which makes up the first half of the film, Jeff reveals his real background.

 

See, Jeff was originally known as Jeff Markham, and he was in the business as a private eye, along with his partner, Jack Fisher (Steve Brodie). Jeff had met with a big time gambler named Whit (Kirk Douglas), who hired Jeff to track down his girlfriend, Kathie (Jane Greer). 

 

Recently Whit and Kathie had had a falling out, mainly because Kathie had shot Whit and absconded with $40,000 of Whit's money. Ostensibly, Whit wants her back (because he misses her..? Maybe...)

 

(Just a side note: {and this has nothing to do with the story}. At the 13:40 mark of the film, while Jeff is talking to Whit, I would swear that Kirk Douglas farts. I can't find any reference to it anywhere, but watch Douglas' expression just after the event, and you tell me...)

So Jeff goes to Mexico City, although without his partner Jack. And, of course, he easily finds his prey. And ends up following her as she transitions from there to that mecca of vice south of the border in these old films, Acapulco.

 

Although his task, that of bringing Kathie back to Whit, may not be so cut and dried. What complicates the matter most is that Kathie is a hot number, and Jeff begins using his other brain instead of the one God gave him for thinking. The trick, for a private detective tracking down people, is to not get involved. But Jeff breaks that cardinal rule. He gets involved, and develops an infatuation for Kathie. For Kathie's part, is she falling for him, too, or is she just stringing him along? At the beginning it could be a mutual infatuation, maybe, but keep in mind, as it later becomes evident, she knows why Jeff has made contact with her. And, though she claims to him that, yes, she shot Whit, but she didn't take the money,  

Several things happen in succession. First Whit shows up with Joe in Acapulco, but Jeff thinks he managed to brush them off with a lie that he hasn't found Kathie.  Also, Jeff's partner shows up. And Jack turns out to have less scruples than probably even Whit. He tries to blackmail Jeff, if Jeff doesn't come across with a good chunk of that $40,000. Jeff tells Jack the story that Kathie told him; she didn't have the money, so Jeff can't give Jack any part of it. But Jack doesn't believe him, and they get in a scuffle, and Kathie shoots Jack, then runs off. Jeff also discovers a little bank book she left behind that reveals she had made a deposit recently. Wanna take a guess how much was in that deposit...?

 

 

So, thus Jeff ends his story that he has been telling Ann about his past. She wonders where Kathie has gone, but Jeff tells her he doesn't know. Which brings us back to the present where Jeff is meeting up with Whit. And a surprise... Kathie is there too. At some point in the past Kathie had come back to Whit. Whit, despite the fact that Jeff had failed him on the Kathie caper, still wants Jeff to perform another job. He wants Jeff to get some incriminating evidence that a shyster lawyer has on him when he used the lawyer as a tax dodge. 

 

But that's not all, because Whit, in case it was not obvious, is a guy who never forgets anything. Nor is he the type to let bygones be bygones. He called Jeff in on this caper, not because he truly likes Jeff's reputation as a guy who plays fair. Whit has plans to even the score for the way that Jeff almost tried to cross him by planning to run away with Kathie. As such, he and Joe, as well as Kathie have set Jeff up to be framed after they have eliminated the shyster lawyer. Kill two birds with one stone, so to speak, since Jeff is also going to be the fall guy for killing his partner. 

 

 

(BTW, I guess I missed something. After Kathie kills Jeff's partner in the first half of the film, Jeff supposedly buries the body. But I didn't see any reveal that the found the body in the interim. So there is no proof he was killed, nor is there a body. Jack could have just disappeared... so the murder conceivably is a "moot point".) 

But Jeff smells a rat early on, and tries to throw a monkey wrench into the plans. He has his own way of getting the upper stance on the situation. There are more double crosses in this film than in a boxing match. It goes back to that thing I said early on; even though we are sympathetic for Jeff because he is ostensibly our "hero", Jeff is not so upright that he isn't willing to take chances with the law to get the upper hand. Ultimately, as bodies keep piling up, we don't really know which side of the fence Jeff is going to end up on. 

So, it should come as no surprise that, even with the love and devotion of Ann on his side, Jeff may just end up leaving with Kathie. But that too may be not so much a case of a love of Kathie, as much as she may just have the winning hand in the dealing of blackmail. 

Out of the Past is regarded as a quintessential film noir film. It ranks #23 of a list of the greatest movies in that genre on Rotten Tomatoes and holds an 88% Fresh rating on that website. It gets better reviews in retrospect than it did at the time of it's release, I guess. In 1948 James Agee wrote "Out of the Past is a medium-grade thriller", and that it was "fairly well played, and very well photographed", but that "Robert Mitchum is so very sleepily self-confident with the women that when he slopes into clinches you expect him to snore in their faces." On the other hand, more recent reviews call it the "ne plus ulta" of film noir, and it "is an exemplary noir steeped in doom and sensuality."

Wikipedia says it earned a profit of $90,000, which may not seem like much, but given that it was released in 1947, and was not the kind of film that would appeal to a wide range of film goers even at that time, I'd say that was a decent showing.

In 1984 the story was tweaked a bit, but still comes across as sort of a remake, in Against All Odds, which starred Jeff Bridges and Rachel Ward. Although that film did not fare as well with the public or the critics, I suggest it makes for a nice double feature that you can compare with the original.  

If you are starting out watching film noir for the first time I always recommend the Bogart classic The Maltese Falcon,  of course, but if you move on from there, you couldn't go wrong with this one as your next foray.

Drive safely, folks. And remember... your past is always with you, the best you can do is to accept it and hope that it doesn't come back to haunt you.

Quiggy

 

 

 

  

Semiquincentennial Movie Project #43: Stay Tuned

 

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 #43: Washington -

 

 

 

The state of Washington was established on November 11, 1889 

Details about Washington:

State bird: willow goldfinch

State flower: coast rhododendron

State tree: western hemlock

Additional historical trivia:

Starbucks opened it's first store in Seattle.

The world's tallest totem pole is located in Tacoma (105 feet high). 

The longest drivable beach in the country, appropriately called "Long Beach Peninsula" is in the western part of the state. 

A war between Great Britain and the United States almost started in 1889 when an American farmer shot a pig belonging to a British company.

Supposedly, more UFOs are sighted in the state than any other state (Yes, even Nevada and New Mexico...) 

Famous people born in Washington: Jimi Hendrix, Kurt Cobain, Bing and Bob Crosby, Adam West, Bob Barker, Bill Gates, Frank Herbert and John Stockton.

 

 

 

Stay Tuned (1992):

 

In the tradition of such comic masterpieces like Amazon Women on the Moon (whose foray into skewering the TV culture is tough to top, but this came close) we get Stay Tuned.

Think of it as what would happen if "Beetlejuice" had been called in to haunt a TV studio and had been given the chance to do the programming of the next year's lineup. There are a LOT of references to culture icons of cinema and TV (relative to 1992, at least). I won't give away to too much of that aspect of it, but I will whet your appetite in this post.

Keep in mind that the whole thing hinges on the concept of a station called HTV (Hell TV). So the jokes tend to skewer popular movies and TV shows with a (humorously) Satanic ring. And you would be doing yourself a great disservice if you let your attention lapse for more than about a minute. You don't want to miss such classic evil adaptions of (then more current) movie releases, such as "Driving Over Miss Daisy" or a scene where the main character gets caught up in a evil version of a hockey movie (where he is opposing the Devil's team, but his co-team consists of players named "Hope" "Faith" and "Love".

The whole movie kicks of with a husband and wife named Seidenbaum (played by Bob Dishy and Joyce Gordon, familiar faces to some of you, probably) who get a visit from a mysterious character offering them the deal of a lifetime for the TV addict couple, (which is not so great a deal as advertised...) This is just the come-on before the opening credits, however.

The main film centers around a doofus named Roy Knable (John Ritter), who apparently spends most of his day just watching TV. His wife, Helen (Pam Dawber). is of course none too thrilled with having a slacker for a husband (although he supposedly holds down a job, but he isn't very good at it). Helen may or may not be the actual breadwinner in the family.  

 

They have two kids, Diane (Heather McComb) and Danny (David Tom), who are at least entrenched enough to realize that Dad is not too dependable.

 

Roy meets up with a character named Spike (Jeffrey Jones), the same guy who made the deal with the Seidenbaums earlier. He offers Roy a high tech TV set up, including a HUGE satellite dish from Hell (and not just in size, it turns out...), as well as a fancy new TV. He offers Roy the services of the TV and satellite on a "trial" basis, guaranteed to get 666 channels. (Yeah. 666 channels... Apparently Roy never once cracked open a Bible, much less set foot in a church...)  

 

 

So, in case it isn't obvious, Spike is not from this realm. No, he isn't actually the Supreme Evil dude himself, he's just a subordinate.  But he's come up with this idea to entice more souls into the netherworld. His ingenious plot involves putting the victims through a series of deadly scenarios. All for the entertainment of the Devil himself, who is apparently a TV addict in his own right. The Devil himself never makes an appearance in the film; he's busy downstairs in the den watching Spike's programming.

The ultimate thing is that these victims that Spike pulls in basically have to survive through the trials for a period of 24 hours. If they die during that time they become permanent residents of Hell. But if they survive, they are released. That whole scenario hinges on a supposed deal, I guess somewhat like the Biblical story of Job, where God allows the Devil to mess with people, but the Devil has to play by some kind of rules where he has to give them a chance to redeem themselves. (Probably this plot won't set too well with my fundamentalist Christian readers...)

See, as part of the process, Roy and Helen get sucked into the satellite dish where they find themselves, alternately, going up against a pair of nasty wrestlers called "The Gorgons".

 

Or, in another in which they are transposed as a pair of animated mice fending off an animated  robotic cat.

 

And another, a TV show set in the middle of the French Revolution where Roy is disguised as a female but is really a Marquis the revolutionaries are seeking to send to the guillotine (and not just to have his hair trimmed...) 

Meanwhile Danny is still stuck in the real world, where he not only has to figure out how to save Mom and Dad, but also how to convince his sister that this preposterous  event is actually taking place. And even when the 24 hour trial is up, the film is not quite over. Because Spike finds a loophole that just might make him actually come out on top in this affair after all.

 

 

As stated before, keep and eye out for the parodies, because this is actually what makes the movie worth a watch in the first place. The laugh out loud parts, for me, are the "evil" titles that reference the real movies and TV shows that will be familiar to most people watching, including a scene where Roy ends up on a sketch comedy parody of Wayne's World on the TV show "Saturday Night Dead". To give out very many more of the comedic references would be to deprive you of the entertainment of discovering them for yourselves, so I'll stop with just the ones I've already referenced. Not to fear, there are still plenty more. Be sure to stay through the credits when, as they roll, you get the schedule for the upcoming new season on HTV...

Stay Tuned was a box office bomb. It had a budget of around $15 million but only managed to pull in $12 million at the theaters, And it should come as no surprise that the critics didn't think too much of it. It currently only manages a 47% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. One review, for Variety, said it is "not diabolical enough for true black comedy, too scary and violent for kids lured by its PG rating and witless in its send up of obsessive TV viewing...a picture with nothing for everybody".

Believe it or not, there have been a couple attempts to try to turn this movie into some kind of TV series. Personally, I think that would be a mistake. It has staying power for an hour and a half movie, but I doubt it would garner much of a fan base as a series. 

It's lowbrow comedy, true, but then, if you were expecting something along the lines of, say The Truman Show, then maybe you should pass. I did say it's stars were John Ritter and Jeffrey Jones, so that should have been a dead giveaway in the first place. As for myself, I found the whole thing a hoot. But as I said before, if movies like this are only good for the trash can, then come on over to my place and join me and Oscar the Grouch, because we like it there...

That wraps it up for this entry. Drive safely, folks. And word of warning, just stick with that old 18" Panasonic in your living room. The alternative might not be the pie in the sky it's made out to be.

Quiggy

 

   

 

Semiquincentennial Movie Project #42: Alien Abduction: Incident in Lake County

 

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 #42: Montana -

 

 

The state of Montana was established on November 8, 1889 

Details about Montana:

State bird: western meadowlark

State flower: bitterroot

State tree: Ponderosa pine

Additional historical trivia:

You probably already know, but the famous Battle of Little Big Horn was fought in Montana. 

The first Gideon bibles, once a standard "amenity" in hotel rooms, were first placed in hotels in Montana.

A 1999 record setting hamburger was made in Saco. 17 cows gave their lives to help set the record.

Montana has a 95% high school graduation rate, the highest rate of any state.

The first woman to be elected to US Congress, Jeanette Rankin, came from Montana. Interesting side note: She won her first election before women even had the right to vote!

Famous people born in Montana: Jeanette Rankin,  Gary Cooper, Dana Carvey, Evel Knievel, Phil Jackson, Harvey Logan (Remember the knife fight scene in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid? The other guy was Logan.) and Chet Huntley.

 

Alien Abduction: Incident in Lake County (1998): 

Just keep telling yourself: "It's only a movie. It's only a movie!" 

Actually, if you were paying attention to the movie poster, you don't need me to tell you that....

Note: Once again, images from the film are minimal, so I was unable to find anything I deemed usable to augment my post, but if you watch it you will realize that was probably not something anyone watching it bothered to attempt at any rate...

Before The Blair Witch Project, which most people would probably consider the first "found footage" movie, there was Alien Abduction. This was a made for TV film (or more realistically, a TV show) that ostensibly was supposed to be an edited version of some real film footage found at the house of what was supposedly a missing family that had "mysteriously" disappeared. The footage was of a family that had an encounter with some aliens who had landed their spacecraft nearby.

You don't really know for absolutely certain that this was a movie, however, until the end, when the credits reveal that all of the characters were credited as being played by actors whose names are unashamedly credited, such as "Benz Antoine as Matthew". For the most part the film plays out as what it supposedly is; a film of a Thanksgiving get together by the MacPherson family that is interrupted by some very strange events.

At this point I will point out that I am not sure if I even saw this when it first aired, although I am almost certain I probably did. It aired on TV in January of 1998, and in those days I didn't have much money to do anything, so I was probably watching it. Especially since the previous hour's time slot on the channel had been a documentary titled Real Vampires... Exposed! (That was not a dramatic show; that was a news program which had interviews with real people who claimed they were actually "vampires", and I vaguely remember watching that...) 

I looked up the schedule for that night on the TV Tango website. I certainly didn't watch Dawson's Creek, and likely didn't watch Home Improvement or Frasier, a couple of the other shows that aired in the same time slot. It certainly was the kind of show I would have opted for, given my predilection for alien tropes. Perhaps I did and just blotted out of my memory.

The whole thing has some of the hallmarks that would have thrown up a red flag for me that this was basically just fiction. The most laughable parts, however, are not a part of the "footage". Some of the supposed "talking heads" that are interspersed amid the broadcast are the ones that come off the most unbelievable.   

The talking heads are merely there to give this film an air of authenticity, however. The main focus is the panic that the family has as some seriously bizarre occurrences happen over the course of the film. The aliens seem to be able to do pretty much anything they want to, at will. Including making the power go off (and on), dismantling the power to any available vehicles, cause nosebleeds and burning sensations to the family, and even, apparently some mind control.

The little girl, Rosie (Katlyn Ducharme), may remind you somewhat of Carol Anne from Poltergeist. She seems to have some kind of connection with the aliens (which might be attributed to that "mind control" aspect). She definitely seems to be the most grounded of the bunch. The mother (Gillian Barber) comes off the most annoying. Her obsession with ignoring the frantic reactions of her children and their significant others, trying to get them all to just act normal, comes off as a bit grating.

I don't particularly see the point in trying to make out there is some kind of racial matter when one of the daughters finally shows up with her boyfriend, Matthew (Benz Antoine), and it turns out (horrors!) he's BLACK!!! Surely it isn't that big a deal by this point in their lives that the young girl has a predilection for the darker skinned men. But, this being 1998 (and I think it was supposed to be based on events from a much earlier time period), maybe it was a deal breaker... I can't say.  

The biggest giveaway that this is not a real film is that, before they run the credits, an addendum runs that says:

"If you have any information

regarding the whereabouts

of these people, please

contact the producers at

 

1-800-555-0022" 

 

(I probably don't need to point out to you that a "555" number is only used for movies, and there is never a "555" prefix in any real phone numbers in the US...)

 

By the way, the version I watched for this review just might not have been the original broadcast. Apparently there was some debate at the time when it was first broadcast on whether or not it was actually real, with forums cropping up on the internet (still in it's infancy where discussions were done via bulletin board chat rooms). It was only later, it seems, that the film was exposed as a hoax when people realized that Tommy was actually an actor named Kristian Ayre. It also came about during investigation by these amateur investigators that there was no one named MacPherson living in Lake County at the time the events supposedly took place. I am pretty certain, however, that the above addendum would have been included, so even THAT should have sent some more knowledgeable people into doubting mode.

 

The credits that ran after the internet broadcast reveal the hoax now, however. (Although, as I intimated above, I think those credits are a later addition. I think the original broadcast ended just after the fake phone number...)

 

Starring

 

Benz Antoine

as

Matthew

 

Kristian Ayre

as 

Tommy

 

Gillian Barber

as

Mom

 

Michael Buie

as

Brian

 

Emmanuelle Chriqui

as

Renee

 

Marya Delver

as

Melanie

 

Katlyn Ducharme

as

Rosie

 

Ingrid Kavelaars

as

Linda

 

   

Some of the actors in the film might just actually trigger a "Hey! I know that guy! (or girl...)" Pretty much everybody in it went on to have a fairly extensive resume, both before and after this film. In particular, I remember Emmanuelle Chriqui who played Lana Lang on Superman & Lois. The rest have appeared in minor (and sometimes major) roles over the years. It's not like they are entirely unknown.

Additionally, one of the executive producers was... Dick Clark! (Yes, THAT Dick Clark...) 

If you happen to take a deep dive, and watch this (it's available on YouTube), don't expect too much. The quality of the film, as would be necessary to pull off the fiction that it is a real "amateur film", is sometimes hard to deal with. Additionally, the aliens themselves don't actually appear on screen until the final minute of the film. The rest involves the sometimes over the top reactions of the characters dealing with the invasion, and their often unrealistic interactions with each other.

Still, it can be entertaining in it's own right. There is nothing here that puts this in the realm of unwatchable. But it has moments which may make you say"Really??? That's what you're going to do now???"

Until next time folks, drive safely. I would say be sure to lock your doors when you get home, but given what the aliens are able to manage to accomplish in this film, that may not be much help.

Quiggy

 

  

Semiquincentennial Movie Project #41: The White Buffalo

 

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 #41: South Dakota -

 

 

 

The state of South Dakota was established on November 2, 1889

Details about South Dakota:

State bird: ring-necked pheasant

State flower: American pasqueflower

State tree: Black Hills spruce

Additional historical trivia:

As previously stated in last week's entry, both North and South Dakota were admitted on the same day. President Benjamin Harrison didn't want people to know which one was admitted first, but for convenience sake South Dakota is listed as being the second one, because it comes second alphabetically. 

The South Dakota state flag originally had "The Sunshine State" (below) on it, but when Florida hijacked the nickname in the 60's, the state made a new flag, with "The Mount Rushmore State" (above) embroidered on it.

 

The badlands area of the state is often referred to as the "playground of the dinosaurs", due to the large number of dinosaur fossils found there.

Rapid City features a statue of each of the U.S. Presidents in various locations on it's city streets. (I don't know how many of them have actually visited Rapid City...)

 

The state has 4X more cows than people... (not sure if there are just more Hindus, or what...)

Famous people born in South Dakota: Tom Brokaw, Al Neuharth (founder of USA Today), Shawn Colvin, Mamie Van Doren, Cheryl Ladd, Norm van Brocklin, Adam Vinatieri, U.S. Presidential candidate George McGovern and U.S. Vice-President Hubert Humphrey 

 

 

The White Buffalo (1977):

This film is rather an enigma in itself.

It was promoted as a "creature feature", I think, if you watch the trailer:

 

 

And yet.... And yet, the creature, somewhat like the terror that was later known as Jaws rarely is seen on screen. The film itself is more of a character study of the legendary Wild Bill Hickok (Charles Bronson) and the equally legendary Native American war chief Crazy Horse,(Will Samson),{who, by my research, never actually met in real life}. The creature itself really only appears briefly in full view of the camera. (And it doesn't look all that scary when it does.)

 

Not that it's all that disappointing as a film for the lack of an enhanced showing of the "monster" in question. Nor is it lacking in many of the tropes of a standard western, if one were to take it only on those terms. You do get your standard shoot-em-ups and bar fights one would come to expect in a western. The fights, to be honest, seem to be wedged in as an afterthought, but they make for some entertainment in their own right.

 

The basic problem, which may have been part of the problem for this movie to be as familiar as the aforementioned Jaws, is that the character study part lacks from a focus.

Hickok, who has come west ostensibly to take part in the Gold Rush that was then occurring in the Black Hills region, is NOT really there to become a prospector. What he is really there for is to hunt down an elusive nightmare he has been having, that of the titular white buffalo. The white buffalo haunts his dreams, causing him to wake up firing his guns into the nearest wall (or bed, where fortunately, no one is sleeping).

 

The white buffalo haunting the dreams of the protagonist in this film is often associated with the obsession that Ahab has for Moby Dick, the white whale of the famous novel of that name. At various times Hickok says the beast was "eatin' out my soul". Hickok claims that he isn't afraid of anything, except fear, and this monster of his dreams was causing that fear to overtake him.

 

Some of his acquaintances speculate that it may be just his imagination. It is hinted at several times that he battled syphyllis and that the disease may have rattled his brain. It's a sure bet that no one believes there is actually a white buffalo out there in the wilderness.

That is no one except the Lakota tribe that had a first hand witness to the destruction of their encampment by the creature. The buffalo rampaged through the village, taking out several tribesmen, including the daughter of the war chief Crazy Horse. His father tells him that it is unmanly to be such a crybaby about it and tells him that his daughter won't rest in peace in the afterlife unless he mans up and kills the white beast, taking the hide to enclose around his dead daughter. To that effect his father takes away his honored name and says that until he completes this quest he will henceforth go through life with the name "Worm".

Both Hickok and Crazy Horse, then, have the same goal, although it takes a bit of time before they end up pairing up. This is primarily due to the fact that Hickok has a bad name amongst the Indians as an Indian killer. So even when they do finally meet up there is some distrust between the two.

 

But, as will usually happen in movies like these, both eventually gravitate towards a communal truce to hunt down the buffalo. And, in the end, both manage to get some kind of closure to the demons that haunt them.

 

 

Accompanying Hickok is an old friend, Charlie Zane (Jack Warden), who, if anything, is even more rabidly racist against Native Americans than Hickok. Witness his willingness, at various points, to make the world exist with one less "redskin".  

 

Be that as it may, I think that Zane is probably the most pronounced character in the movie. Sometimes it's hard to garner any sympathy for Hickok. He has some integrity at various points, like when he throws a character off the stagecoach he is riding because that guy is just a little too rude to the female riding with them. But his demeanor towards her is quick to change when he realizes she is just as offensive as his male companion.

The fleshing out of the character study seems to be a little slapdash as well. One reviewer I read blames the director, J. Lee Thompson. Personally I didn't agree totally with the reviewer's criticism, mainly because I am a big fan of some of his other films, including Ice Cold in Alex, Cape Fear, two of the original Planet of the Apes films (Conquest of and Battle for  one for which he was nominated for an Oscar, The Guns of Navarone. Admittedly, The White Buffalo pales by comparison to those movies, but I think he did the best he could with the material he had at hand.

The White Buffalo did not fare well with either the public or the critics. It holds only a 17% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. One reviewer, for The Washington Post, is quoted as saying it was "destined for almost instant obscurity in domestic release, a consummation that can't come a minute too soon for director J. Lee Thompson, star Charles Bronson and everyone else in an exposed position on this fiasco."  It was budgeted at $6 million, and I would hazard a guess that most of that went to the cast (besides Bronson and Samson, names like John Carradine, Slim Pickens, Kim Novak, Clint Walker and Stuart Whitman make brief appearances. Ed Lauter, an actor whose face will be familiar, if not his name, also appears briefly playing his typical nasty guy who someone deemed to give a position of authority. as Capt. Tom Custer.)

It's a sure bet the money wasn't spent to make the buffalo all that believable. The brief scenes we get of it look pretty ridiculous to me. It's a sure bet that anyone who saw it wasn't anywhere near as fightened by it as they were by the shark in Jaws. Possibly no one actually DID see it. I couldn't find any information on how it fared at the ticket counter. 

Be that as it may, it's not entirely the washout that it's reputation would lead you to believe. It's entertaining on several levels, especially if you are a big fan of Charles Bronson. And as a western, it fits the bill pretty well. Just don't be fooled by that "creature feature" come on that the trailer above implies. It's just not that scary...

That wraps up this session with the project. Drive safely, folks.

Quiggy

 

  

 

Semiquincentennial Movie Project #40: Leprechaun

 

 

 

 

 

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 #40: North Dakota -

The state of North Dakota was established on Nov. 2, 1889 

Details about North Dakota:

State bird: western meadowlark

State flower: wild prairie rose

State tree: American elm

Additional historical trivia:

Both North and South Dakota were admitted on the same day. President Benjamin Harrison didn't want people to know which one was admitted first, but for convenience sake North Dakota is listed as being the first because it comes first alphabetically.

Up until 2012, North Dakota officials were not required to be sworn into office, which techically would have made the state an unofficial state until then...

The only National park named after a President (Theodore Roosevelt) is in ND.

The Ghostbusters could have a job in Harvey. They have a library that is supposedly haunted.

In 1982, the city of Rutland made it's way into the record books with the world's largest hamburger.

Famous people born in North Dakota: Lawrence Welk, Bobby Vee, Angie Dickinson,  Louis L'Amour, William Christopher and Lynn Anderson.

 

I'm not going to beat around the bush on this one. If you, like me appreciate horror movies that have a healthy dose of comedy, this is one you should check out. My favorite horror/comedy movie still is, and probably always will be, An American Werewolf in London. But this one edges in to the top 5, maybe even into second place in that realm.

It's totally nuts when it comes to the comedic value. Credit star Warwick Davis for that part. There is a comedian I have seen clips of on Facebook, Brad Williams, a fellow "little person", who probably could have pulled this role off, but I think Davis was an excellent casting choice. You might remember him as the title character in Willow. It's too bad his size has limited his available roles (he was an Ewok in a couple of Star Wars films, and notably cast as Professor Flitwick in the Harry Potter films), because I think he could bring something to any role he had the opportunity to play. 

 

Personally, I think if they ever remake Wild, Wild West they ought to consider him for the role of Dr. Loveless. (The original TV series character was played by Michael Dunn, another "little person"...)

 

The film got a lot of negative reviews when it was first released. But, if you know me, you know that I often don't agree with critical reviews. A brief scan of wikipedia yields such comments as it "isn't dumb enough to be fun", or "ill advised slapstick". The comments also disparage the horror aspect, and I'll give them that... it isn't really all that scary. There is, however, enough shocking gore to put it in a realm with the average slasher flick.

I look at it along the same lines as I do the aforementioned Werewolf film, or maybe 80's horror/comedy films like House or the Evil Dead films. For me, the horror in those films take a back seat to the comedy interspersed in the film. Jennifer Aniston, making her feature film debut in this, has a few great comedic lines, too.  

Some of the best (read: funniest) parts of the film involve the various ways the leprechaun finds to give chase to his victims. He variously uses a tricycle(!), a pogo stick (!!), a toy car (!!) and even, God help us... a wheelchair(!!!). 

 

 

 

Leprechaun (1993): 

The set-up for this film centers around an old Irish couple, the O'Gradys, Dan and Leah (Shay Duffin and Pamela Mant). Dan has just come back from getting his beloved mother's ashes from the old country, where he also, somehow, managed to trick a leprechaun out of his gold. The leprechaun (Warwick Davis) is none too pleased about this, of course, but in the process Dan manages to seal up the leprechaun in a crate where it will remain for eternity (or for 10 years, since that's how long he is trapped before some unwitting people release him...)

 

This inevitable release occurs when a man, J.D. (John Sanderford), buys the old O'Grady house which he plans to refurbish. His unwilling daughter, Tory (Jennifer Anniston) is along for the ride. Initially Tory is a typical uppity, privileged brat, threatening to go into town and rent a hotel room rather than stay in this rat trap.

 

J.D.: "Never judge a book by it's cover, honey.

Tory: "Dad, this book doesn't even HAVE a cover..."

 

The problems escalate pretty quickly. Just as Tory is about to leave she runs into Nathan (Ken Olandt). In any other movie we probably would have gotten the stereotypical "Oh my gosh, he's a hunk!  OK, Dad, I'll stick around..." Instead, what we get is Nathan ridiculing her for her namby pamby attitude and she decides to stay just to put him in his place and show him she isn't going to let some guy one-up her in the fearlessness department.

 

 

Nathan has a couple of helpers; his brash younger brother, Alex (Robert Hy Gordon) and Alex's older, somewhat dimwitted friend, Ozzie (Mark Holton). It is Ozzie who gets the ball rolling when he accidentally frees the leprechaun. The greedy little sprite has only one goal; to retrieve the gold that the old man stole from him 10 years earlier, and absolutely nothing is going to stop him from his quest.

 

 

At one point, Ozzie, who is the only one who initially sees the leprechaun, starts looking for the fabled "end of the rainbow" (because, after all, the legends state that's where the leprechaun has his "pot of gold"). Of course, when Ozzie tries to get people to believe he actually saw a leprechaun, no one believes him. Not necessarily because they don't believe one could exist as much as Ozzie has a reputation for seeing things, like U.F.O.s, and they just think it's another one of his fantasies. (It having been established early on that Ozzie is basically a child in a grown-up's body...) 

Alex and Ozzie find the end of the rainbow and the bag of gold that Dan had hidden earlier. Ozzie, being Ozzie, says the best way to determine if the bag holds real gold is to bite it (which he saw in a movie once). How this dimwit expected to be able to determine it that way is not clear, probably not even to him, but he accidentally swallows the gold piece. (Remember that folks, it becomes relevant later).

There are several secondary characters that are what we might refer to as the "expendable" characters, none of which get enough character development for anyone to really care about them. Personally I would have liked to see Alex get taken out, that kid was just annoying as all get-out. And if I hadn't gotten to like Tory a little more as the movie went on, I wouldn't have shed many tears if the leprechaun had removed her from the scene either. Instead we get an innocent cop whose only crime was pulling over the speeding toy car as the leprechaun was giving chase for his gold, and the unfortunate rare coins dealer that Alex and Ozzie went to to see what their haul was worth. 

Ultimately the four friends FINALLY figure out if they just find the gold and give it to the leprechaun, maybe he will leave them alone. It does take some time for them to figure that part out, however, despite the fact that the leprechaun's main dialogue with them is "Give me back me gold!"...

 

When they finally do, the leprechaun realizes he's been bilked. They only gave him 99 coins and he originally had 100.  (Remember where that last gold coin is now? Scroll back up if you forgot...)

 

The ultimate dispatch scene where they finally are able to take the leprechaun out of the picture is pretty decent. But since the producers had their eye on at least a sequel (there are currently 7 of them, now), the fact that he was not able to retrieve his final gold piece opens up the possibility for his return. (Since I've never seen any of the sequels, I can't say how all of this pans out, but like Jason or Michael Myers or even Dracula, the old adage rears it's head at the end: "You can't keep a bad man down.")

Leprechaun turned out to be a gold mine for the makers. It only cost $900,000  to produce, but it managed to pull in $8.5 million in ticket sales. This despite the fact that it sits at only 35% on Rotten Tomatoes, and as previously noted, it was NOT a big hit with the critics. But, that shouldn't be a big surprise because highbrow critics are notoriously dismissive of the horror genre. Movies like Psycho and Halloween get a pass, in my opinion, because the "monster" is a normal human being that just went awry. When it comes to "monsters", unless the monster is a familiar creature, such as the shark in Jaws, the critics tend to be like "OK, big deal..." 

So, while the movie is pretty much a cardboard copy of the standard monster flick, I still like it. mainly because of how funny it is at places. Give it a shot.

Until next time, drive safely folks. And, my suggestion is if you see a rainbow, head in the opposite direction.

Quiggy