Sherlock Holmes vs. "The White Devil"

 

This is my entry in the Robert Duvall Blogathon hosted by Taking Up Room.

 

 

The Seven-Per-Cent Solution started out life as a novel written by Nicholas Meyer. Meyer, by the way, is also a director of movies, having been at the helm of my two favorite movies in the Star Trek movie franchise, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. He also directed Time After Time. He was not, however, the director for this movie. Instead, this film was directed by Herbert Ross. 

But this piece is not about Meyer, it's about Robert Duvall, whom we lost earlier this year. Duvall had a career that spanned from the early 50's, where he started out as a stage actor, through to his last film, The Pale Blue Eye in 2022. He was nominated 7 times for Oscars, winning only one of them, as the star of Tender Mercies. The first of those nominations, for Best Supporting Actor, came as a result of his portrayal of Tom Hagen in The Godfather. Unfortunately neither he, nor his co-star nominees, James Caan and Al Pacino, won the award. It went to Joel Grey for Cabaret. (And I'll just bet that, like the win for Marisa Tomei for My Cousin Vinny a few years later, that Grey got the Oscar because the majority of the voters were split between those other three. My vote would have gone to Caan, if you're interested...)

An early window into what Duvall would become is his role in To Kill a Mockingbird. where he played Boo Radley. It was his first screen role ad, although he had no speaking lines in the film, his brief presence was somewhat impressive.  It was the beginning of a screen career, but he didn't just pop out of the ether: few actors do. He had about 10 years under his belt doing on stage acting and bit parts on TV. Just one TV episode worth checking out: In an episode of Combat!, he was a captured German officer and had a significant part in the episode.

 

Over his film career Duvall played many great roles. Check out his portrayal of Gus in the TV miniseries Lonesome Dove, which I watched as a part of a Film and Prose Fiction English class when I was a student at Southwest Texas State University. And although my vote is on record for Peter O'Toole in The Stunt Man for the 1980 Best Actor Oscars, I have to admit that Duvall was pretty good in The Great Santini. (They both lost to Robert DeNiro in Raging Bull, BTW).

My favorite outings for Duvall would have to be as Major Frank Burns in M*A*S*H* and as the bad guy Ned Pepper in the John Wayne classic True Grit. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Seven-Per-Cent Solution (1976): 

Dr. John Watson (Robert Duvall) has a problem. His good friend, Sherlock Holmes (Nicol Williamson), has become very obsessive about a perceived threat from the most diabolical man on Earth, Dr. Moriarty (Laurence Olivier). As described by Holmes, Moriarty is basically King Spider, sitting at the base of his web and directing every evil and unorthodox act that is being committed, not just in London, or even the UK, but the world.

 

However, it would seem that Holmes' obsession is merely a part of his imagination. In reality Dr. Moriarty is just a humble teacher at a boys' school. His connection to Holmes is only that he was once a mathematics tutor to Sherlock and Mycroft when they were boys. And, as he points out to Watson during a private consultation, Moriarty has come to the conclusion that either Watson use his influence to get Holmes to leave him alone or he, Moriarty, is going to initiate legal action against Holmes. 

 

(The story diverges from the classic Conan Doyle story at this point. In "The Final Problem" Moriarty REALLY WAS a diabolical criminal...)  

The real problem is that Holmes has become unstable because he has become a victim to his seven percent solution of cocaine. In  other words, Holmes is now an addict. And since Cocaine Anonymous is still half a century in the future, other means are needed to engineer Holmes' release from the captivity of the white devil.

Watson knows of a man in Austria, Sigmund Freud (Alan Arkin), who has had some success with helping others overcome their addiction to drugs. The problem is Watson knows Holmes will not admit that he is addicted, much less go to Austria, because that would leave his nemesis to run amok in London without Holmes' watchful eye. So some subterfuge is needed to get Holmes to go to Austria in the first place. With the help of Holmes' brother, Mycroft (Charles Gray), and Moriarty himself, a ruse is developed. Moriarty will go to Austria and hopefully Holmes will follow.

 

Of course, the ruse is a success, although when Holmes discovers the real reason for getting him to come to Vienna he is not at all happy. Such is the essence of the addict: he refuses to admit that he is addicted. (I like the way the first part of this film plays out. Even though my own addiction, to alcohol, never really got to the point that I was refusing to admit I had a problem, I have seen that played out in the form of fellow members in my dealings with my own recovery through Alcoholics Anonymous). Freud's process of curing addiction involves a combination of hypnotism and abstinence.

 

The D.T.s that Holmes goes through during the abstinence part are probably very graphic and shocking to anyone who has never dealt with such issues, either with a loved one or with one's own experiences. The movies do a pretty decent job of it, although mostly it can come off a little melodramatic on screen. A better portrayal of the experience, in my opinion, is Ray Milland's Oscar winning role as Don Birnam in The Lost Weekend. And, although I haven't actually seen the movie yet, I understand that a scene with Nicholas Cage in Leaving Las Vegas is one of the best. 

 

Holmes struggles are stark, to say the least. He goes through the stages of his addiction which parallel the classic stages of grief. At first he denies he has a problem with cocaine. He is angry at both Watson, for bringing him to Freud in the first place, and at Freud for his insistence that, despite Holmes' denial of a problem, insists that he is indeed an addict. The bargaining he attempts in trying to get his friends to leave him alone and  the depression and resignation that he will never become cured play out in the later scenes of the recovery process. It is only when he finally accepts his addiction and works with Freud to overcome it that he finally starts to achieve some success.

 

The second part of the film is when the classic Holmes mystery starts to come into the story. There is a woman under the care of one of Freud's colleagues has her own issues. She has tried to commit suicide. Lola Deveraux (Vanessa Redgrave) had previously been a patient of Freud whom he had cured of her addiction, but Freud believes she has relapsed. Instead, Holmes, now with his deduction capabilities on full alert, deduces that she had been kidnapped, given drugs by her captors against her will, and had attempted suicide as a result. 

 

Lola is kidnapped from the hospital and Holmes and company are on the trail. A capture  of one of the abductors reveals a sinister plot. Lola's former lover, a Baron (Jeremy Kemp), has engineered her kidnap with the intent of delivering her to a bigwig of the Ottoman Empire, who wants her for his harem. The reason behind the Baron's evil plans is that he owes the bigwig big money for gambling debts and is going to use Lola to get them dismissed.

 

Ultimately the finale involves a train chase across the countryside as Holmes chases the Baron, trying to stop him before he can reach Istanbul. Success is imminent, of course. (Did you expect otherwise in a Holmes adventure?) 

 

After the adventure is over Freud performs one last session of hypnotism with Holmes to get to the bottom of why he has such an animosity for Moriarty. After the session is over Holmes decides to take a vacation, and gives Watson a suggestion for his disappearance; tell his readers that Holmes and Moriarty died in a hand-to-hand battle (thus explaining why the story of "The Final Problem" and "The Empty House" were written but do not fit the real events).

Duvall has had a varied response for his characterization of Dr. Watson. Many reviewers have disparaged his accent, saying it's not entirely believable that he is a Brit. I personally didn't have a problem with it, for the most part. Only once or twice did it sound false to me. But then, you must know my only experience with people of British descent is either with films from that part of the world or the occasional online AA meetings I have sat in on on Zoom. It should be duly noted that the National Society of Film Critics, a British organization, had Duvall coming in 3rd in the voting for the Best Supporting Actor award, proving that at least some people thought he did a good job.

My main problem with the movie was that the mystery surrounding the second half of the film was rather mundane. Even compared to the outings which had Arthur Wontner in the Holmes role (which I rank as the worst Holmes, BTW) have a more intriguing mystery playing out on screen. At least the film stuck to the traditional setting, the late 19th century. Nothing in the film tries to put anachronistic aspects into the story. The Basil Rathbone Holmes stories sometimes tended to have Holmes doing battle with Nazis... (And, BTW, I do like the recent BBC series, Sherlock, which puts Holmes in the 21st century. It's just that, as a traditionalist, I tend to like my Holmes in a gaslight, hansom cab milieu as opposed to trying to make him relevant to the times, given a choice).

It's interesting to note that when the film was reviewed by the critics of the time that The Seven-Per-Cent Solution garnered good reviews from American reviewers, but British reviewers came down a little harder on it. One of the British reviewers said it was "a turgid concoction which draws no life from the Holmes/Freud confrontation and seems particularly ill-plotted". 

The film was nominated for two Oscars. It was nominated for Best Screenplay from Another Medium (which it lost to All the President's Men) and for Best Costume Design (which it lost to Fellini's Casanova). Somehow it also got nominated for a Saturn Award for Best  Fantasy Film (???), but it lost that one, too.

Rotten Tomatoes gives it a 78% Fresh rating, which I think is fair. However, as I intimated earlier, the best part is the first half of the film. The second half could have been much better, if you ask me. 

That wraps it up for this entry. Time to hail the hansom cab and head home. Have a safe trip, folks.

Quiggy

 

Celebrate the Drive-In Week: Hot Rod Girl

Celebrate the Drive-In is a tribute to a beloved venue of the past. During it's heyday, a trip to the drive-in was one of my favorite things, both on the rare occasions as a child, and in my early adulthood. This blog is going to celebrate Drive-In Day (Jun 6) with a series of movies that I was too young to see (or in a couple of cases, not even born yet) that I wish I could've experienced in a drive-in. Keep coming back for the entire week as there will be one per day for the duration.

Don't! That's it. Just "Don't!" Presenting the next Coming Attraction! Hot Rod Girl!

 

"It's 10 o'clock. Do you know where your children are?"

                                     -quote from a television '70's PSA 

 

The above quote could have been inspired by the kinds of events that happened in this film. The movie poster says it all: "Are these our children?" it asks. Given that this is an American International Pictures film, whose main fare was designed to lure teenagers into coming to see them, this sets up an interesting question: Just who was the intended audience of this film? Perhaps that question could best be answered by the fact that this film was originally released to drive-in theaters as a double feature, with the other film being titled Girls in Prison (and I leave it up to you to determine what the focus of THAT movie was...)

 

There are several other questions that will come to mind if you watch this film. For one thing: the movie is titled "Hot Rod Girl", but except for the opening sequence the main girl, the one I assume is the "hot rod girl" the title refers to, is not seen hot rodding in the film. The other scenes in which Lisa appears show her driving rather sedately,

Another thing: the poster also trumpets "Rock 'N Roll", yet the music is almost entirely modern jazz and bebop music, not the kind of rock, or rockabilly, "rock 'n roll" you would expect coming out of the speakers. And the guys and gals in the film snap their fingers to the beat coming from the jukebox as if they are hipsters in a jazz coffeehouse. The music was written by Alexander Courage. Yes, the same Alexander Courage that Star Trek fans will recognize as the writer of the theme to the original Star Trek TV series. 

The film is full of some pretty laughable dialogue, as the main teen characters engage in some banter that, while maybe true to the characters and even the teen audience watching the film, comes off as pretty funny. That said, it's not a bad movie plot wise, although it is somewhat formulaic. But given the intended audience, and the low budget tendencies of the production company, that is to be expected.

The titular Hot Rod Girl, Lori Nelson, only had a brief career in film and TV, playing mostly as secondary characters in TV and film, although for one season she was the star of a TV show called How to Marry A Millionaire, based on the Marilyn Monroe movie. I would guess that the main reason she abandoned Hollywood stardom was to be a wife and mother. Interesting credit: She starred with John Agar in Revenge of the Creature in 1955, a sequel to Creature from the Black Lagoon, and then 50 years later, in 2005, she reprised her role in The Naked Monster, a parody "sequel" to Revenge. (And, OMG, after watching a trailer for THAT one, I just gotta watch the film...)

The presence of Chuck Connors, TV's The Rifleman, playing an almost carbon copy personality that he would eventually come to be known in that classic TV series is one of the better parts of the film. In addition we also get Dabbs Greer, more well known probably as the reverend on Little House on the Prairie, and Frank Gorshin, ("The Riddler" on the 60's Batman TV show). Gorshin, by the way, is making his first appearance in a credited role in this film.

John Smith (from TV's Cimarron City and Laramie) is the only other big name you might recognize, although many of the rest of the cast did have careers as secondary stars on TV and in film.  The bad guy in this film, Mark Andrews, did not have much of a career, only appearing in a total of 8 roles. His IMDb profile seems to indicate his main job in life was as a fireman, so maybe acting was just a brief sideline. (It says, as a fireman, he once saved a man from drowning).

 

 

 

Hot Rod Girl (1956): 

In the opening sequence, local darling female hot rod driver Lisa Vernon (Lori Nelson) is preparing to show off her driving skills in a drag race at the local drag strip. 

 

The genesis of the drag strip is the inspiration of Detective Ben Merrill (Chuck Connors), a well meaning police officer who is trying to remedy the rampant drag racing by the local teens on city streets, which threaten to endanger the lives of the residents. 

 

But Ben's dream of solving the issue of the illegal drag racing is up against another blockade. See, the citizens of the town don't want the city streets being used for illicit racing, but they are also so tight-assed that they don't want a drag strip outside the city either. You get the idea that the city fathers would be just as happy if they didn't give driver's licenses to anyone under the age of about 40. (There are no adults in the film other than Ben, his boss (Russell Thorson),  and Yo-Yo (Fred Essler), the local diner operator, so this reluctance is only played out through the conversations that Ben has with his boss).

 

Jeff (John Smith) and his brother Steve (Del Erickson) are driving around town after the race when a hot rodder goads Steve into racing, and the result is Steve is killed. For some reason the authorities blame Jeff, seemingly because he didn't exercise enough influence to convince his brother to NOT race. So they take away Jeff's driver's license. (Huh?).

 

Jeff becomes depressed ad throws himself into his work, as a mechanic, in the process neglecting his girlfriend, Lisa (Lori Nelson), the "hot rod girl" of this film.  Which makes her the perfect attraction for the newcomer in town, Bronc (Mark Andrews). 

 

It doesn't help that she is the odd girl out since her friends, Flat Top (Frank Gorshin) and Two Tanks (Eddie Ryder) and their girlfriends, L.P. (Roxanne Arlen) and Judy (Caroline Kearney) are more interested in each other than the hanger-on, Lisa.

 

Newcomer Bronc is an obnoxious clod and goads Flat Top into a game of chicken. Which, if you are not familiar, is a "game" where two people get into their cars and drive flat out towards each other. The loser is the one who chickens out first.  Flat Top is that guy. Which ends up making Bronc even more cocky than he already is.

 

Ben sees Bronc for the threat he actually is, and in an effort to get him to leave makes Bronc go to the drag strip with his car. But Jeff, who is in charge of clearing all drivers and their cars disqualifies Bronc's car as not being safe enough to participate. Which of course makes Bronc mad. Instead of leaving town he vows to get revenge.

 

On a mountain road outside of town he tries to get Jeff, who is just out for a drive with Lisa, to race. Ultimately another accident occurs, with a kid on a bicycle getting killed. Based on Bronc's testimony, Jeff becomes accused of being the culprit, but Ben is not so sure.

 

Ultimately Hot Rod Girl is a typical teen movie as the kind that AIP put out at the time, featuring sex (50's family safe sex, but sex nonetheless), cars and rock 'n roll (or bebop jazz posing as rock 'n roll, anyway...) It does seem to have a family friendly message to it, though, unlike may of AIP's output. The message being that one should drive safely on the city streets and county roads and save the drag racing for the local legal dragstrip. Cheaply made, it had an appeal to it's intended crowd. It got fair to middling reviews at the time, and one reviewer noted that it was less exploitational than it's title implied.

That, I would say is an accurate description. One would expect with a title like Hot Rod Girl that there was some extremely hot subjects being addressed within the film, but the women in this movie are all the kind of women that you wouldn't be nervous about introducing to your mother. There isn't even a hint of implied sexuality, although both Flat Top and Two Tanks do have a slight hint of misogynistic tendencies, putting down their girlfriends on occasion. One wonders what these girls see in these guys. The only really polite guy when it comes to his female counterpart is Jeff.

Is it top tier cinema? Hardly. See The Born Losers, reviewed earlier this week, for much better drama and very much better bad guys. Mark Andrews' Bronc is not much more threatening than Fonzie, even the Fonzie that appeared in his introductory appearance  on Happy Days. Although, Jeff Smith could easily give Richie Cunningham a run for his money on the goody goody side, if Richie were a bit more introspective.

Still, it is worth checking out.

See you tomorrow. Drive safely, folks. Really. Drive safely. Don't get suckered into drag racing with that guy in the Corvette next to you in the theater. Come back tomorrow for Drive-In!

Quiggy

 

  

  

Celebrate the Drive-In: Coffy

Celebrate the Drive-In is a tribute to a beloved venue of the past. During it's heyday, a trip to the drive-in was one of my favorite things, both on the rare occasions as a child, and in my early adulthood. This blog is going to celebrate Drive-In Day (Jun 6) with a series of movies that I was too young to see (or in a couple of cases, not even born yet) that I wish I could've experienced in a drive-in. Keep coming back for the entire week as there will be one per day for the duration.

 

Women! Can't live with them, can't shoot them! Presenting the next Coming Attraction! Coffy!

 

 

One of the tropes of the era of 70's film was the one termed as "blaxploitation". For a brief period from about 1969 to 1979 Hollywood attempted to appeal to a sector of the populace, the black audience, by producing films that were supposed to draw in a viewership of the country that did not find movie figures that it could relate to in the standard fare of the day.  

Blaxploitation is a portmanteau word, combining "black" and "exploitation". It was coined by Junius Griffin, the leader of the Beverly Hills NAACP. It was not meant to be a complimentary word. Griffin was pointing out that, by making movies that depicted blacks as power figures in the community, but as mainly working in the criminal world, was no better than the previous tradition of depicting them as subservient.

The Hollywood machine was influenced by the rising Black Power movement in this respect. The idea did have some merit, whether or not their hearts were in the right place. The basic idea was to present black people as being in control of their own destinies, without having to answer to "The Man" (the white people). While it did provide an outlet for the populace to see black people in more prominent roles, it wasn't necessarily well received by said populace.

Among the people who spoke out against this new trend was Jesse Jackson, who criticized the trend because it tended to promote a different type of stereotype, making the black person a caricature in a different form. Instead of the "yassuh, boss" caricature, the films promoted the idea that black people were violent hypersexual criminals. Often in these films the main character was working in unsavory roles; pimps, pushers, etc.

On some rare occasions the main character would be a character working on the right side of the law, but even those characters would often be less scrupulous about their actions than their white counterparts. Shaft featured Richard Roundtree as a private detective who had no qualms about taking the law into his own hands. Truck Turner starred Isaac Hayes as a bounty hunter and Black Belt Jones had Jim Kelly going head to head with the Mafia, both of which had their hearts in the right place, even if the execution of their ideals would have caused Superman to recoil in shock.

Rarer still were the use of females in starring roles. Pam Grier made a career out starring in these kinds of films, and her characters were often characterized as "embodying strength, style and resilience". She was one of the first, if not the first female action star. She got her start in the "women in prison" genre with such films as The Big Doll House (her first starring role), Women in Cages and The Big Bird Cage. But she started getting recognition for her potential in action movies with Coffy and Friday Foster.

In terms of blaxploitation films, I think many of her films helped to make the genre more accessible to people like me. She was not on the side of the criminal. Most often she was more of a vigilante, seeking justice in a world where "justice" was a mythical concept. That's why I chose Coffy as a choice for Celebrate the Drive-In Week. Her character in the film has some ideals that appealed to me, even if often she strayed into areas that the law-abiding public might frown on.

Grier went on to many other significant roles. You may remember she made appearances at The Midnite Drive-In several times. She was Wendell Jones' wife in Greased Lightning. She was a former cohort of Snake Plissken in Escape from L.A. She was also in Mars Attacks! and Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey.  She was a favorite of Quentin Tarantino, who cast her as the lead in Jackie Brown in 1997. And as recent as 2023 she was still active, appearing in Pet Semetary: Bloodlines.

By the way, a side note, in case you didn't know: Pam Grier is the sister of Rosey Grier, the former NFL football star turned actor, who made his debut at The Midnite Drive-In last year in The Thing with Two Heads. 

 

    

Coffy (1973):

The protagonist (I hesitate to use the word"hero") of this film is a woman who goes by the name of "Coffy". Her last name is Coffin, so the appellation appears to be derived from that. (Elsewhere I read her name is Flower Child Coffin, but I don't recall it being mentioned in the film...) Coffy is a woman with a mission.

 

 

The first time we meet Coffy is after a man called Grover (Mwako Cumbuka), enters a bar and tells his boss, Sugarman (Morris Buchanan), that he has a surprise waiting for him in his car. When Sugarman gets to the car he finds a woman desperate for a drug fix, willing to "do anything" to get said fix. It turns out, however, that she is just faking it to lure the two to a private session of her own brand of "justice". She executes both of them.

 

Sugarman and Grover

Coffy, in her private life, is a nurse. Her sister, LuBelle, has become a heroin addict, due to LuBelle's dealer, Sugarman. Coffy is determined to rid the world of those she deems responsible.  But Sugarman is only the beginning. As usual in movies like this there are higher ups that are running the show.

Coffy has a friend on the police force, Carter (William Elliot), and at one point she seems on the verge of revealing everything she has been doing in her vigilante role to him. But she backs away at the point, only hinting at the idea that the evil doers dealing drugs in the black community deserve death. 

 

Coffy and Carter having coffee

 

She also has a boyfriend, Howard (Booker Bradshaw), who is an up and comer in the world of politics. He is a city councilman on the verge of being elected to Congress. 

 

Coffy's boyfriend, Howard

 

She continues on her goal, eventually working her way into the "stable" of prostitutes run by a character called King George (Robert DoQui). This is primarily to get in contact with her ultimate drug kingpin goal, Vitroni (Allan Arbus). But in so doing she is also looking to gum up George's drug dealing. She substitutes sugar for his heroin stash.

Coffy and King George

 

Eventually she does get called to Vitroni's house, because Vitroni likes a certain type of girl which Coffy pretends to be to get inside. 

Coffy and Vitroni

 

But her ruse is discovered and she ends up being held captive. And just before Vitroni sends his henchman, Omar (Sid Haig) out on a quest to kill her, she finds out that her "loyal to the people" boyfriend Howard is not all that honest as a politician. 

 

Vitroni and Omar

Of course, Coffy manages to escape her captors and exacts more of her vigilante justice. Including that traitor of a boyfriend...

Despite the drug connection that seemed to be a part and parcel of the typical blaxploitation film, this one has several things that set it apart. For one, it has a resounding anti-drug message. And, of course, there is the fact that the main character is a woman as opposed to the generic male dominated movie. Up until this point women usually played secondary roles that were typical in lots of movies of this type.  Grier, I think, opened the door for many movies yet to come, where a female character could carry the load that was typically left to only male protagonists.

You should be forewarned, however, that the film is not without some titillating (no pun intended) scenes. In other words, several scenes with topless women. This film, being firmly entrenched in the drive-in milieu of the 70's, almost HAD to have that. But the good thing is (almost) none of it comes off as exploitative. They all happen in character with the situation at hand. Both Grier (on screen) and director Jack Hill (off screen) play these scenes well. Occasionally they may come off as a little unnecessary (I refer basically to the all out "catfight" scene in the brothel here; not the brawl itself, just that the ripping of the dresses may not have been all necessary). 

The only real objection I have to the film is the way that Vitrioni and Omar take out King George, believing that George was responsible for sending Coffy to kill him. I won't reveal here what happens, but it absolutely shocking in its execution.

 

Outside of Grier the rest of the cast is pretty unremarkable. But: Does Robert DoQui look familiar? He had pretty extensive career playing cops, but many of you who watch the same kinds of movies I do may immediately recognize him; he was the Detroit police sergeant in charge in the RoboCop films. Allan Arbus may also trigger a "hey, I know that guy!" thought. He was the psychiatrist in several episodes of the TV series M*A*S*H*. And Sid Haig menaced a lot of people in secondary roles throughout his career. None of them really stand out here, however, but that doesn't mean they were just flashes in the pan.

Don't go into this film expecting too much. As a vigilante movie. it pretty much toes the line established in movies that came before it and followed it, plot wise. You should go into it, however, expecting to see the potential from it's lead actress, who surely impacted many actresses who came after her. Is Coffy her best movie? Hardly. But she does put up a good performance.

Until next time, drive safely, folks. Remember, drugs are bad for you. And so are women with a grudge. Come back tomorrow for  Hot Rod Girl! 

Quiggy

  

Celebrate the Drive-In: Day of the Triffids

Celebrate the Drive-In is a tribute to a beloved venue of the past. During it's heyday, a trip to the drive-in was one of my favorite things, both on the rare occasions as a child, and in my early adulthood. This blog is going to celebrate Drive-In Day (Jun 6) with a series of movies that I was too young to see (or in a couple of cases, not even born yet) that I wish I could've experienced in a drive-in. Keep coming back for the entire week as there will be one per day for the duration.

Some days it just doesn't pay to get up and water the plants! Presenting the next Coming Attraction! Day of the Triffids! 

 

 

 

The theme of alien invaders is a trope that crops up time and again in science fiction. What would science fiction be without an alien or two? You would be limited to Back to the Future, The Terminator or some other time travel movie, or dystopian science fiction films like Blade Runner or Soylent Green or Logan's Run. None of which are even remotely bad films, but still, you would miss out on such classics as The Day the Earth Stood Still and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. If you were to list your own favorite science fiction movies, I would be willing to bet that at least 50% of them had some sort of alien beings in them.

In my own list of the top science fiction films of all time (according to my account on FlickChart) no less than 7 of the top 10 have some sort of alien coming into play over the course of the film. Only Escape from New York and RoboCop (a dytsopian future film) and The Final Countdown (a time travel movie) have no aliens present. (Terminator 2:Judgement Day, which comes in at #11, also has no aliens). It's safe to say that the science fiction world would probably not exist if aliens had not been a factor in the beginning.

So, if aliens are one of the most predominant factors in science fiction, it makes it important that at least some of the aliens have something different to make them stand out against the crowd. One of the more interesting alien invasions, based on a novel by Jack Finney, had the aliens come to earth as seed pods and gradually replace the human race with exact duplicates. The Body Snatchers has been done at least 4 times in film, first in 1956, with remakes of the same story in 1978, 1993 and most recently in 2007.

In a similar vein, John Wyndham wrote The Day of the Triffids. The triffids were a new species of plant that had come to Earth via a previous meteorite storm. They were animated later, through the after effects of a another meteor shower. Although I guess you couldn't put any intelligence into those spores, quite possibly it could be inferred that was an "alien invasion", since the spores do come from outer space. But then, who is to say both of those events weren't engineered by an advanced race trying to prepare the way for an invasion... something to think about. (That idea is just my own thoughts, the movie doesn't expose any nefarious plans...)

   

 

 

Day of the Triffids (1962):

The film begins as our narrator (voiced by Peter Dynely, whose voice you may recognize from the TV cartoon Thunderbirds) intones sonorously:

"In nature's scheme of things, there are certain plants which are carnivorous, or eating plants. The Venus Fly Trap is one of the best known of these plants. A fly drawn to the plant by its sweet syrup, brushes against triggered bristles. Just how these plants digest their pray has yet to be explained. There is much still to learn about these fascinating eating plants. This is a newcomer: Triffidus Celestus, brought to earth on the meteorite during the Day of the Triffids!"

 

There is a freak occurrence of a meteorite storm of unprecedented proportions coming to Earth. But no big deal, at this point, as our narrator tells us:

"All reports confirm that the world is witnessing an unprecedented shower of meteorites. There is no record of a display such as this in recorded history. At observatories astronomers are noting this fantastic phenomenon, and are carefully calculating the effect on our solar system. The consensus of option is that the meteorites burn up from the intense heat before they reach the Earth."

(BTW, if you have ever witnessed one of those meteorite storms that occasionally streak across the night sky you may conclude that this one HELL of a "freak occurrence". Those things are really coming in close...) 

Apparently the only person in the whole world who is not able to see the meteorite storm is Bill Masen (Howard Keel), who has had the unfortunate timing of having had to go through a recent eye surgery, and his eyes are currently bandaged up. And the killjoy of a doctor insists that he wait until the full 10 days required for waiting go by before removing the bandages, which won't happen for another 8 hours. (Killjoy!)

 

In a remote lighthouse we also have a pair of married marine biologists, Tom and Karen Goodwin (Kieron Moore and Janette Scott). These two are also unable to watch the meteor storm, not because their eyes are bandaged up, however. They're too busy working. Or at least Karen is. Tom seems more interested in getting drunk. 

 

The first indication of something strange happening is when a night watchman at the Botanical Gardens is attacked and killed. (Why does the botanical Gardens need a night watchman? Hell, I don't know... Except SOMEBODY has to be the first victim...)

 

The next morning, at the hospital, Masen wakes up to find out it is an hour later than when he was promised to have his bandages removed, with no one around. So he removes the bandages himself. What he finds is a hospital in shambles and apparently no one on the premises. But eventually he finds his doctor, who is now blind. It is revealed that everyone who had watched the meteorite storm has been inflicted with blindness. 

Not only that but there is a strange plant that has figured out how to become mobile, uprooting itself from the ground, moving about and attacking humans. A radio announcer tells anyone "if you are blind it is urged that you stay indoors..." (Thanks for the warning). Masen gets out of the hospital and wanders the streets of London where everyone he sees is walking around blind. 

 

 

He rescues a little girl, Susan (Janina Faye), apparently one of the few people that can actually still see. She was accosted by a disreputable character against her will, but given the fact that he is one of the many who are blind, it is apparent he only wanted her to help him (but he could have asked first...) Masen takes Susan with him to his ship, where he was an officer on board. But no one is there. But via the radio they find that chaos is in effect nearly everywhere.

 

 

Between the pair stranded on the lighthouse island and the pair motoring around London trying to find a place where some semblance of normality may still exist, the sighted people find not much hope. Those triffids are on the move. (And, I realize there is a whole mess of them around, but those things are pretty slow, so it doesn't seem like it would be all that hard to stay out of their reach, since they can see where they are...)

 

Eventually Masen and Susan come across some others who can see.  These are a couple and another person who had (coincidentally, or conveniently, depending on your perspective) collided with each other in a car wreck and were under sedation when the meteorite storm hit. Everyone who can still see had the same set of circumstances happen; they were otherwise unable to see the meteors, which is why most of the rest of the world is now blind.  (Question... weren't at least some people in bed asleep as part of their normal routine? Where are THOSE people?)

 

The survivors that Masen and Susan find are running a sort of refuge and have a contingent of blind people they are helping. But the threat of the triffids threatens to overwhelm them. These things are plants, after all, and in the way it is with all plant life, it has ways of regenerating itself. Eventually, some of the survivors think that safety is only by making it's way to a naval base. (Of course, in the tradition of everything threatening life in the free world, the military is THE answer...)

 

Spoiler Alert! If you want to watch this movie stop now and come back to it after watching it.

 

Ultimately, however, the answer is much simpler, as is discovered by our two refugees on the lighthouse island. The key to defeating the triffids turns out to be something which the Earth has a very high concentration. Salt water, or sea water.

 

"A simple method had been found to destroy the triffids. Sea water, from which life on Earth had sprung, became the means of preserving life on Earth. Mankind survived and once again have reason to give thanks." 

 

One of the more interesting tidbits I read is: the entire subplot sequences involving the marine biologist couple was sort of an afterthought. After getting the film ready, the production crew found that the running time of the finished movie would only last about an hour. They needed more. (Credit is due to Bill Cram at Screenage Wasteland for this tidbit. I found his review after I wrote most of this review, and I found it  quite interesting.)  The solution that comes to the biologists seems to alter whatever the trajectory the film would have had without them. Which makes me wonder... if it hadn't been for them would the film had had a happy ending? The novel did end a bit differently, with only a hope for triumph, rather than an actual triumph.

The Day of the Triffids suffers from the same unbelievability that the mobile rocks did in The Monolith Monsters, if you ask me. But like that other film, the story that surrounds it, as well as the lead actors playing their roles, make the whole thing tons better than you would expect. The film suffers quite a bit on special effects, although not really for the triffids; they look pretty effective and gruesome. The real problem is that a lot of the matte paintings look just like what they are, matte paintings. And a plane crash that occurs early in the movie looks entirely like what is is, a model plane crashing into miniature buildings.

The Day of the Triffids currently holds a 79% Fresh rating, and I am not sure how well it did at the box office. It had a budget of a little over $1 million, and probably most of that went to making the mobile plants look decent. Only Howard Duff was a big name in the feature. I didn't find any contemporary reviews, but one I found on Variety website said "A simple method had been found to destroy the Triffids. Sea water, from which life on Earth had sprung, became the means of preserving life on Earth. Mankind survived and once again have reason to give thanks." (They also had a comment that I liked: "Basically, this is a vegetarian’s version of The Birds..." I wonder whether any vegetarians would be so quick as to advocate a plant-based diet after watching this film...😆)  

While I don't think The Day of the Triffids holds up as well for someone who has seen many other creature features that followed in it's footsteps, I think it is a very effective film. 

Until next time, drive safely folks. And maybe forgo that short cut through the woods... Come back tomorrow for Coffy!

Quiggy