Semiquincentennial Movie Project #30: Cold Turkey

 

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 #30: Iowa -

 

 

The state of Iowa was established on December 28, 1846.

Details about Iowa:

State bird: eastern goldfinch

State flower: prairie rose    

State tree: bur oak

Additional historical trivia:

While Texas is home to the world's largest convenience store, the Buc-ee's in Luling, they don't allow trucks. The world's largest truck stop is in Walcott.

The legendary plane crash that took the lives of Buddy Holly, Richie Valens and The Big Bopper occurred in Iowa.

The first bridge built over the mighty Mississippi River was built here.

In 1869 Arabella Mansfield became the first female lawyer in the US.

The trampoline was invented in Cedar Rapids. 

Obviously (or maybe not), Field of Dreams was filmed here.

  

Famous people born in Iowa: Samuel Z. Arkoff, who was one half of the founding team of American International Pictures (see AIP sidebar on the left side of this page), John Wayne!!, Ashton Kutscher, Kurt Warner, Shawn Johnson,  travel writer Bill Bryson (and check out some of his work...), Grant Wood (the painter of "American Gothic"), First Lady Mamie Eisenhower, Vice President (under FDR) Henry Wallace, and US President Herbert Hoover.

Cold Turkey (1971): 

How the hell is this movie not known by more people? (Maybe it is well-known in some sectors of the population, but it is definitely not a world wide phenomenon...) The cachet of stars involved would seem to indicate that it should be a big name, whether or not it is on the same level as, say. Blazing Saddles. I mean, just look at the cast: Dick Van Dyke and Bob Newhart are the anchors of the film, and Norman Lear, who gave us All in the Family, The Jeffersons, Sanford and Son, Good Times and Maude, essentially being the face of produced TV comedies of the 70's, was the writer an director of the film. And the rest of the cast is also familiar to anyone who was a devotee of 70's and 80's comedy on TV: Jean Stapleton, Tom Poston, Paul Benedict, Bob (Elliot) and Ray (Goulding), Barnard Hughes, Vincent Gardenia and even Edward Everett Horton. Hell, it even has Randy "Short People" Newman on board for the music.

But, until I decided to pick this film for my entry for Iowa, I had never even heard of it.

Perhaps a lot of the blame could be placed on it's timing. With the exception of Dick Van Dyke most of those other names were still on the other side of their fame. Jean Stapleton, for instance, had only just started her career in the role of Edith Bunker on All in the Family, and Bob Newhart was still a year away from his breakout on TV on The Bob Newhart Show. Paul Benedict as the iconic British neighbor of George and Louise Jefferson was still a couple of years down the road. (I should note here that, although the film was released in 1971, the film was actually made in 1969, so even most of those "stars" were even further away from their iconic status when the film was actually produced.)

The basic premise is that executives at the Valiant Tobacco Company want to improve their image. With the help of an advertising executive, Merwin Wren (Bob Newhart), they plan a stunt which NOBODY in their right mind would follow through with. Wren cites how Alfred Nobel, who made millions with the invention of dynamite, made his name a household symbol of good will by using his wealth to create the Nobel prize. The idea is that the Valiant company would offer a town a $25 million prize if the entire town could go without smoking for a month.

 

Ridiculous, right? That's exactly what the tobacco company thinks. No town could possibly ever get all of it's citizens, 100% of them, to give up smoking, so the town would achieve a PR bonus by proposing it, but since it has to be the WHOLE town agreeing to it, and it being thought impossible to achieve a 100% commitment, they would look good without even having to pony up the money.

Except! The little town of Eagle Rock in Iowa has had a depressed economy for the last few years, and greed trumps addiction. It's not easy, to be sure. I think this town may be one that has the highest percentage of smokers vs. non-smokers. It looks like around 75% or more of them light up. But through the efforts of a goodwill endeavor by the local minister, Rev. Brooks (Dick Van Dyke), a gung-ho effort is made to get the town 100% committed to stopping smoking, albeit mostly for the moolah that will flow into the city coffers (coughers?).

 

It isn't quite the gargantuan effort that it would take to get a town the size of, say, Des Moines, whose 1970 census population was over 200,000. Eagle Rock only has a meager 4,000 citizenry. But with the efforts of Brooks and some rather greedy citizens in the city management, the entire town agrees to give it a shot.

 

Of course, this isn't Mayberry and Brooks isn't Andy Taylor. The town is full of a bunch of people who aren't exactly likeable in the first place. Couple that with the intense withdrawal that is bound to happen when you quit a habit like smoking, and you have the makings of a "chaos du jour". Anybody watching this film will either laugh at the antics of the drug withdrawal, or possibly even look at it with a self-righteous smirk (especially if you are not a smoker yourself).

Some of the humor derives from some well-acted characterizations, however. Barnard Hughes is one of the highlights, as a doctor who usually has a cigarette to calm his nerves before operating. You probably don't want this guy cutting you open when he has shaky hands from lack of nicotine. 

Another great part is when a radio announcer says that the best way to curb the nervousness from withdrawal is sex. Which leads to a couple of humorous scenes when Brooks keeps showing up at the house and his wife's look of resignation as to what's coming next. (BTW, this is a PG movie, so don't get any ideas you are going to see anything you couldn't let your kids see).

 

Another highlight of the film is an overenthusiastic old lady, Odie (Judith Lowry), who wants to be top dog law enforcement officer in town when it comes to making people stick to the commitment. As well, Graham Jarvis is a hoot playing the town wannabee gestapo stooge who takes it upon his own to form a watchdog agency that stops every car entering the city limits and searches them for contraband tobacco.

 

We also get the comedy team of Bob and Ray showing as various parodies of then current newscasters, which to be truthful, is hit or miss. The two appear, variously, as "Walter Chronic" (Walter Cronkite), "David Chetley" (a composite of Chet Huntley and David Brinkley). "Paul Hardly" (Paul Harvey), "Harry Reasonable" (Harry Reasoner and "Mike Walrus" (Mike Wallace).

 

 

Even Van Dyke's character is not immune to the inane change of personality. Although he is not the goody-two-shoes type that he had often played in his TV and movie career here, he starts out with his heart somewhat in the right place. But even he succumbs to the personality change that is prevalent among the populace.

 

As it becomes apparent that the town of Eagle Rock may actually buck the odds and win the coveted prize the tobacco company tries desperately to find a way to make the town renege on it's goal. The ultimate ruse at the end is what really makes this black comedy film zing to it's conclusion. I won't give away the ending, but pay attention... Wren is not running around with a gun-shaped cigarette lighter just for show...

 

It turns out that this movie has garnered more attention than I thought at first. To be sure, it was a new one for me, since I said I had never heard of it, but there were plenty of reviews of it online that I began to think maybe I have just been leading too sheltered a life. One review even clued me in on a tidbit I thought worth repeating:

Apparently Van Dyke attended an anti-smoking seminar and an event that happened at said seminar inspired him to pitch an idea to Lear about focusing on one guy's attempt to quit smoking. It was Lear who transformed the idea to a whole town quitting, and thus we got... I hesitate to call it "comedy gold"... but let's just  call it "comedy bronze"...

As stated above the movie was actually filmed in 1969, but studio execs were wary that it wouldn't be received with much enthusiasm, so it's release was delayed by two years. And, as it turned out, it wasn't a real big hit. It only made a meager $130,000 in it's first week. And it only pulled in $5 million by the end of it's first run. It wasn't entirely well received either. It holds a meager 57% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Although Roger Ebert, at the time, gave it a 4 out of 4 stars, many other contemporary reviewers were not so generous. Variety said it was marred by sluggish pacing and a bizarre ending. Ebert's cohort Gene Siskel said that "scene after scene runs too long". 

To be honest, it has a rather limited viewership. Most of it's screenings were in the mid-west, according to my sources.  Interestingly enough, this was the only theater released film that Lear, who had made his name in the small screen world, ever directed.  Overall I would say it's just an OK film, but probably would have been better suited as a TV movie, thus making it more suited for Lear output in the first place.

Well, folks, gotta get this old Plymouth back to the garage. And, since I quit smoking myself years ago, that trip through Eagle Rock is going to be uneventful.

Quiggy

 

 

 

Book Review: The Hollywood Hall of Shame by Harry and Michael Medved

Note: I was inspired to re-read this book and post this review after reading Realweegiemidget Reviews review of Boom!, a film that was one of the focused entries in this book. Gil encouraged me to follow through with this long overdue review of the book. 

 

 

 

 

The Hollywood Hall of Shame by Harry and Michael Medved 

Not long ago I reviewed a recently released book titled Box Office Poison by Tim Robey. The subject matter being the same as this book, a background into what went into making movies that had big hopes and big budgets, but eventually bombed at the box office, made for some interesting reading. That review of Robey's book mentioned this book in passing, because as I pointed out, this book was published in 1984, and in the 40+ years since it's publication there had been any number of financial fiascos from Tinseltown, so an update was overdue. 

This volume covers 23 films (up to 1982, which was fairly recent at the time) that had pumped tons of money into the production, but through varied reasons, failed to impact the movie going public to shell out their hard earned dollars to go see in the theater. Some of those films started out so far in the hole that making a profit would have been a effort of "epic" proportions. Cleopatra, for instance, had cost so much to produce, that even if the price of a ticket had been double the normal price, it probably STILL would have lost money.

The book starts out with the one movie that nearly every book that covers the subject of financial movie flops HAS to address; 1916's D. W. Griffith mammoth production of Intolerance. The background to that film is indicative of several other films in this "Hall of Shame"; that of a director who insisted on pulling out every stop to get authenticity in the film, including whatever it took to create believable settings. Intolerance included a recreation of a Babylonian setting with tons of moolah building the set. And, according to research, that set still stood years later as a sort of "monument" to extravagance.

Many of the films selected to be included for focus in this volume endured extravagance in production in other areas than just the desires megalomaniac directors trying to achieve authenticity. Three of the films suffered from the machinations of overly egomaniac stars. Three of the 23 films suffered severe setbacks because the star(/stars) of the film created problems that wasted studio money; Elizabeth Taylor (along with Richard Burton in two of them) did more to bring down studio hopes of financial windfalls. These three films, Cleopatra, Boom! and The Only Game in Town are featured here because Taylor had become so intransigent that her demands made the producers bend to her will (and her frequent "illnesses").

A section is devoted to two religious epics. To "infidels" like me the failure of 1977's Mohammed: Messenger of God seem like an obvious failure to hope to capture the American and European dollar, but it seems to me, given the time of it's release, that The Greatest Story Ever Told might have fared a little better, given the fact that two contemporary Biblical epics, The Ten Commandments and Ben-Hur had been such money makers. (One of the things the authors point out that I find interesting is that at one point the producers tried to pull in viewers by promoting the presence of John Wayne in the film, even though he is only on screen for less than a minute of the running time...)

The last two entries in the book focus on the then recent releases of Inchon and Heaven's Gate. Inchon in particular is an interesting movie as far as it's production, since it was financed by Reverend Sun Myung Moon and his cult, the Unification Church. The Reverend and his church pumped millions into an epic war movie, which to my mind would seem to be at odds with a church and a message of peace. But the granddaddy of them all would have to be Heaven's Gate. This was the follow-up of Michael Cimino to his Oscar winning The Deer Hunter, (and a review of both of those movies is in the works for a future post).

The Medved brothers have put out several books on movies, and posts past and future from such books as The Fifty Worst Movies of All Time and The Golden Turkey Awards have been inspired from reading those volumes. As far as this book, well, I will say that I have avoided Paint Your Wagon for years because the basic premise did not intrigue me, but after reading the chapter on it included in this volume, I now think it's a movie I just gotta check out some day...

Happy reading, folks.

Quiggy

 

Semiquincentennial Movie Project #29: Cloak & Dagger

 

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 #29: Texas -

 

 

 

The state of Texas was established on Dec. 29, 1845 

Details about Texas:

State bird: mockingbird

State flower: bluebonnet

State tree: pecan

Additional historical trivia:

There is a radio station in Waco who's call letters are WACO. Only one other city in the U.S. has that distinction: WARE in Ware, PA.

The first ever rodeo was hosted in Pecos in 1883.

Texas has the largest and longest-running State Fair in the US.

Maybe not the longest running college rivalry, but the Texas - Oklahoma Red River Rivalry is (probably) the most watched annual football game.  

Dr Pepper was invented in Waco.

The first Six Flags amusement park opened in Texas, so named because at one time or another Texas has been a country under six nations (Spain, France, Mexico, the Republic of Texas, the Conferderate States of America and the USA).

Austin is home to the largest urban bat colony in the US.  

Texas has the largest state capitol building ("Everything is bigger in Texas" is not just hubris).

The King Ranch in Kingsville is larger than the state of Rhode Island. (Again...)

The world's largest set of cowboy boots, 35 ft. tall, stands outside North Star Mall in San Antonio (ditto)

There are 15 states combined that could fit inside Texas' borders (Maybe I'm overdoing it here...) 

The Alamo in San Antonio does NOT have a basement (PeeWee Herman made me add that one...) 

Famous people born in Texas: Willie Nelson (of course), Gene Autry, Beyonce, George Strait, Buddy Holly, Janis Joplin, Lance Armstrong, Nolan Ryan, Rogers Hornsby, Brittney Griner, Drew Brees, Earl Campbell, Vince Young, Larry McMurtry, Steve Martin, Woody Harrelson, Matthew McConaughey, Carol Burnett, Tommy Lee Jones, Sissy Spacek, Dabney Coleman (see movie below), Henry Thomas (again, see movie below) and US Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower and Lyndon B. Johnson 

Note: You can say I'm overdoing it this time on trivia, but Texas IS my home state, so...

 

 

Cloak & Dagger (1984): 

Growing up is tough. It can be especially tough, as a kid, when your mother is dead and your father is somewhat distracted by being a single parent trying to raise a kid on his own while trying to work a job.

There is a tendency, at least as far as films go, for the kid to dive deep into a fantasy world, with the requisite imaginary friend. At this point in my life I really can't remember if I had any imaginary friends. But then, I had both of my parents still around until I was well into my 50's, and a sister who is still with me. I had a stable childhood, and although I did not have very many real friends that I palled around with, I don't think I would have had to create an imaginary friend to accompany me on my "adventures". And even if I did, I seriously doubt that imaginary friend would have gotten me into the kind of trouble that Jack Flack gets young Davey (Henry Thomas) into.

 

Davey is a typical kid on most levels. He is heavily into video games, and even into role-playing games. I should point out here at this point that I was a product of an era that preceded Dungeons and Dragons and the rest of the RPG games that flooded the childhood experience in the late 70's and early 80's (and even to this day). I might have been attracted to it had I had a different upbringing. Note: In my experience I was well into my 20's before I was ever introduced to actually playing Dungeons and Dragons. Being raised in a fundamentalist Baptist church household, even the mention of the game brought up serious religious problems, because D&D and the like were considered doorways into Satanism. I've since become more enlightened. D&D and the like are just harmless fun. 

I imagine Davey plays D&D, but his primary interest is in spy role-playing. As such, his hero is Jack Flack (Dabney Coleman), a dime store knockoff of a James Bond type spy. Jack is a dead ringer for Davey's father, Hal (also played by Coleman). It seems to me that Jack is the character that Davey wishes his father really was, thus emphasizing the fact that Jack and Hal are played by Coleman. 

 

 

But Davey's obsession with spy games takes a dark turn when his friend, Morris (William Forsythe), sends Davey on a "mission" to the local tech lab, (ostensibly to get him out of Morris hair, I think). 

 

Davey takes his friend, Kim (Christina Negri) with him on this mission, still trying to play out this spy game for what it's worth. Except that Davey runs into a real spy game. Three guys kill off a laboratory worker who, before he dies, passes off a video game cartridge called Cloak & Dagger to Davey, with the mission now being that Davey get the game to the FBI.

 

It turns out that the game cartridge is disguised as a regular copy of a video game, but has some hidden data that the bad guys are looking to get their hands on. Remember this is 1984, so even though they never come right out at say it, the implication is that the hidden data is going to be handed of to enemies of the US (probably the Russians, who were in the middle of the Cold War with the US).

 

The bad guys, who are played by Michael Murphy, Eloy Casados and Tim Rossovich, are unscrupulous, to say the least. They have no intention of letting even a little kid stand in the way of the big payday they are expecting. Much of the film involves these three trying to retrieve the game cartridge and kill off (yes, I said "kill off") Davey. These unscrupulous characters even are trying to take out young Kim. (Ye gods!)

 

Over the course of the film Davey's imaginary friend keeps helping young Davey with "advice" better suited for a real adult spy rather than a youthful wannabee. It's hard to actually like Jack, since his main goal seems to be to stay the course of the spy he is supposed to be without any care or remorse for his young companion. Often he puts young Davey in extreme danger. But his goal of getting the game cartridge away from the bad guys takes precedence over any such trivialities as "child endangerment".

 

But since Jack is a product of Davey's imagination, perhaps all the blame can't be put on Jack. More fault could be handed of to Hal who seems a bit clueless how to raise a kid on his own. And then, since Jack is a carbon copy of Hal in Davey's mind, perhaps Davey is just trying to create his own father figure who is much more adventurous than the dull air traffic controller Hal is.

To his credit, Davey gradually matures on his own, realizing that Jack is not the sort of friend that he really needs.  But, since he does still have to do something about the un-American forces that are determined to win at all costs, he does have to grow up pretty fast. He has to. At one point he is faced with a situation where he has to either kill or be killed.

 

There are a couple of twists that I found extremely interesting in this film. For one thing, the three hoodlums have a backing that was almost unexpected. At least, at the beginning. It may be obvious to you before very long into the film that not everybody in this film is exactly who they seem to be. The surprise may be, however, the actors who played the parts. I bet my sister, who is a fan of old movies, would be shocked that a couple of "good guys" could play evil characters.

Cloak & Dagger was released in the summer of 1984. It was, in fact, released on the same day as Red Dawn, and with competition from such blockbusters as Purple Rain and The Karate Kid, as well as Star Trek III and Revenge of the Nerds, which were (probably) still in the theaters, it probably wasn't going to have much of an impact in the first place. The main reason, it seems, for it's August release, was that the big event was the Summer Olympics, and since most kids would have not been very interested in that event, it was thought that the theater would be pulling a larger crowd of kids.

Unfortunately that didn't happen. It only pulled in about $10 million in box office receipts. And the expected tie-in with the video game fell through when it was only released as an arcade game and was not immediately put out for home use. This despite the fact that the movie hinges on this Atari Cloak & Dagger video game that was supposed to be a release for the home video game market.

 

Henry Thomas, the star of Cloak & Dagger, was just coming off a star making role as the best friend of a creature from another world (E.T.: The Extraterrestrial). His career as a child actor was fairly limited, only appearing in a handful of films, but unlike other child actors of the day, he was able to transition to adult roles later in life. Recently he has appeared in no less than three movies based on stories by Stephen King (Gerald's Game, Doctor Sleep and Pet Semetary: Bloodlines).

Dabney Coleman, who passed away in 2024, had a prolific career. You may remember him as the sexist boss Franklin Hart in 9 to 5, or as the soap opera director in Tootsie. He was the murderer in one of my favorite Columbo movies in 1991 (Columbo and the Murder of a Rock Star). 

Michael Murphy is a familiar face, having appeared in such films as the big screen version of M*A*S*H*, Nashville and Batman Returns, but possibly may be more familiar as a voice. He was the narrator of the PBS series of "American Experience". Tim Rossovich, who started out as a professional athlete in the NFL, often cropped up in film and TV in the late 70's and 80's. 

Christina Nigra may look vaguely familiar. If you saw Twilight Zone: The Movie you may remember her as the annoying little brat who keeps pestering John Lithgow in the "Nightmare  at 20,000 Feet" segment, or possibly as Evie Garland's best friend in the TV series Out of This World.

The cast is rounded out with the appearance of a couple of classic movie and TV stars, John McIntyre and Jeanette Nolan, as an elderly couple who may or may not be on Davey's side in his adventure.  

For pure entertainment, I think Cloak & Dagger is a decent movie, It somehow is able to appeal to both the kid and the "kid at heart" and genuinely holds the viewer's interest, despite a few flaws. 

The MacGuffin of the film seems to be a little flimsy to me; how the video game could hold such detailed information that could only be accessed if you got to a specific level of playing it seems to be a little contrived, at least as far as 1984 technology is concerned. Nowadays it would be child's play to hide info this way, and even the youngest wannabe computer kid could crack it with no effort...

The other thing, although obligatory in a kid-friendly movie, is that the three main bad guys are pretty much incompetent. Any real professional criminals could have pulled off eliminating an 8 year old kid without much problem, but these guys probably couldn't eliminate a snail trapped in a 4" x 4" box... 

The highlight for me is the setting of the film. It takes place in San Antonio, and even though I never visited San Antonio until about 8 years later, it still looked familiar to me. The obligatory scene at the iconic Alamo (you CAN'T set a movie in San Antonio without featuring a scene with the Alamo..) is one of the highlights. (Of course, that HAS to be the place where the hoodlums drop off their illicit contraband).

Give this film a try, if for nothing else to see how Henry Thomas was not just a "flash in the pan" with his star making role in E.T. 

Well, that's it for this time. Drive safely, folks. And leave your imaginary friends behind. They are only going to cause you trouble.

Quiggy

 

 

 

Sometimes Time Creeps Up On You

 

Getting old is not for the squeamish. Or the weak. Or the timid.

What the hell, getting old is not for anybody, really...

I was reading a book on Stephen King films and came across a chapter in it on "needless sequels" to King films (Stephen King Films FAQ by Scott Von Doviak). It should be noted that that disparaging designation "needless sequels" is the author's phrase, not mine. The chapter is titled "Sometimes Dead is Better: A Return to Salem's Lot, Pet Semetary Two and Other Needless Sequels" (Chapter 29 if you have a copy of the book). 

I can't say I disagree with ALL of the selections the author points out in this section. (BTW, he devotes a whole 'nother chapter to the seemingly endless sequels to Children of the Corn, {what are we up to now... Children of the Corn XX...?} so at least he has SOME semblance of decorum...). Personally I never really liked the first Firestarter, so when the Sci-Fi Channel inflicted a sequel with a grown up Charlie on the public I was not one of those who looked forward to it. And several other sequels that have been made to follow (and "sucker in" fans of) better movies have not impressed me, probably more often than not.

Still, in my younger and more impressionable days, there was a sequel that I highly anticipated that did get me. I was a huge fan of the original Creepshow. So when a sequel was announced I was one of the first people in line to buy a ticket on opening day of Creepshow 2. 

While I was reading Von Doviak's book it occurred to me that I hadn't seen Creepshow 2 since it first hit the theaters back in 1987. (That's nearly 40 years! See what I mean about getting old? I feel older just noting that...and I felt just fine before I realized it was 40 years...) 

I have quite a number of King movies in my collection, but this was one I have never run across when I have browsed the stacks of my local used DVD store. I remembered fondly two of the three stories in the film ("Old Chief Wood'nhead" and "The Raft"), but, to be honest, I really didn't remember anything about whatever the third story in the film was until I re-watched it just now. (That one is called "The Hitch-hiker"). 

Von Doviak's main disparaging comment, that the film "creatively...looks like leftovers", seems to be a little harsh to me. The whole concept of the Creepshow series of films (as well as the TV series that followed them) was all about an homage to the old EC comics from the 50's, such as The Vault of Horror and Tales from the Crypt, and many of the comic book stories come off as leftovers if you read the originals. There are a few reprints in book form out there if you are interested in seeking them out.

The stories included in this sequel are just about equal to the ones in the first film, especially the one called "The Raft", which I would take over "The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill" from the first film any day...

The three stories in this one come off kind of like a poor man's version of a Twilight Zone episode, complete with a hinted at morality lesson at the end. At least for two of them. (You have to work at getting a morality lesson out of "The Raft", since the only really "bad" thing the teenagers do is smoke a joint... and for that they have to die? If that's the case about 20% or 30% of the population would be slated for morality lessons...)

40 years later I still like Creepshow 2, although the subpar acting on some of the characters does come off a bit ridiculous. None of the kids on the raft are really great, even though I still think it is the better of the three stories.

 

Creepshow 2 (1987): 

It's interesting to note than when the original sequel was conceived, and slated to be done by a major studio, there were actually going to be 5 stories used for this anthology. When New World Pictures took over, the new studio jettisoned two of the stories. Whether either of them would have improved the film is hard to say. I like the idea of an evil bowling league getting revenge, which is one of the ones left out. The other story, called "The Cat from Hell", actually was filmed for an episode of Tales from the Darkside, so we do have that to fall back on.

 

The first segment, "Old Wood'nhead", is probably the least suspenseful and the horror part of the story takes a pretty long time to come to fruition. Before we get to the meat of the horror we are treated to a long introduction to a pair of kindly old souls, Ray (George Kennedy) and Martha (Dorothy Lamour), who run a general store that has seen better days. George does his best to keep the store going because, despite the dwindling economy, the members of the community need him.

 

But there are some bad elements in town. Led by Sam (Holt McCallany) three hoodlums attempt to rob the old couple and ultimately kill them. 

 

Finally, the horror part kicks in as  a wooden cigar store Indian that George is devoted to keeping looking fresh comes to life to exact revenge. (Yes, I said wooden cigar store Indian...) The Indian looks pretty unscary, to be honest, even when it does start to come to life. And I would gladly have exchanged this story for any of the other two that got scuttled. But fortunately the rest of the movie was really good.

 

The second story, "The Raft", involves two pairs of teenagers who are out to spend a day floating on a raft in the middle of a lake. The lake is deserted at this time of year because it is off season for the tourists that would have been around in the summer. (I think this is supposed to be in the fall, after the lake crowd has gone back to their mansions in the city, but it could be early spring... Either way, the teens make a point of noting that the lake is pretty cold.

 

They all get to the raft before they notice a peculiar looking oil slick on the lake. But it's NOT an oil slick... It moves of it's own accord, and it turns out to be some kind of carnivorous being (although it doesn't transform into a giant shark or anything like that, which would have probably detracted from it's scariness..) 

 

It gradually picks off each teenager, one by one, ultimately giving us a lesson in observing surroundings, because at the end of the segment we see a sign, hidden by some bushes, which clearly says "No Swimming"...

Note: To keep this blog on a family friendly level, 

I'm not going to post any pics of the slick taking out the teens. 

Most of it is pretty graphic...  

The third segment, "The Hitch-hiker", really hits that morality tale trope on the head. What we essentially have is a woman, played by Lois Chiles, who is cheating on her husband. (Let this be a lesson to you, whether you are male or female... don't get into any extramarital relationships, or... YOU'LL BE SORRY...!) 

 

As she is trying to get home before her husband gets home from work the woman accidentally hits and kills a hitchhiker on the side of the road. Instead of pulling over, of course, she panics and makes it a case of hit and run. Only the only part of that she seems to get right is the "hit" part, because the "run" part doesn't pan out. The hitchhiker keeps showing up, in more and more beat up condition, saying "Thanks for the ride lady!" (It is somewhat reminiscent of how Griffin Dunne's character keeps showing up to try to get David Naughton to kill himself in An American Werewolf in London.)

 

"The Hitch-hiker" is a pretty cool episode, a bit graphic on occasion, and it called to mind the classic Twilight Zone episode where the woman keeps seeing the same hitchhiker as she is trying to cross the country (although that one has no gory scenes at all...)

My opinion on the second watch of this film is that it was not nearly as good as I remembered, but hardly worth the level of putdown that Von Doviak gave it. A reading of several reviews that I researched for this entry fall in line with my own opinion: a) that it's not all that bad, and b)  most of them agreed that the better of the the three was the middle story.

There is, as was in the first movie, a connecting device involving a young comic book fan, in cartoon form,  who is being harassed by a gang of malcontents. The malcontents, of course, getting their just desserts at the end (or maybe that should be better phrased "becoming just desserts"...) 

 

Unlike the third movie in this cycle, Creepshow 3, this movie still had the King hand in it. All three stories were by the horror master. As I understand it, neither Stephen King or George Romero had anything to to do with #3, and it remains to be seen whether I'll even give it a watch. (Probably I will, but I have a lot on my plate right now... it was an unscheduled halt in other projects that even led me to cover this one... maybe in 2027).

Creepshow 2 made a fairly decent profit, not big, but at $4 million to make it managed to pull in $14 million at the box office. Echoing Von Doviak, it wasn't entirely well received by the critics. It currently only has a 36% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. The critical consensus can be summed up with one reviewer who said "[d]espite its strengths -- a livelier pace, some creatively gory set-pieces -- this is a much cheaper-looking effort than its predecessor..." OK, in all fairness Creepshow is WAY better than Creepshow 2, but it's still a fun watch.

Gotta fire up the old Plymouth and head home. Drive safely, folks. And, please, keep your eyes on the road, and stay away from those remote swimming holes.

Quiggy

 

 

 

The Red Planet Menace

 

 

This is my entry in the Classic Literature on Film Blogathon hosted by Silver Screen Classics.

The science fiction world would be a lot smaller without the classic trope of alien invasions.  I am not sure what qualifies as the very first example of "alien invasion" in literature, but wikipedia lists a couple that pre-date the H. G. Wells classic The War of the Worlds. Neither is one I had ever heard of, however. The most intriguing of these antecedents is one titled The Germ Growers by Robert Potter, which I didn't have time to read prior to this post, but the link above looks to have the text. I will give it a go when I have time. The gist seems to be that aliens, who are able to look like humans, are busy trying to grow a fungus that will eliminate the Earth of that pesky infestation of humans so they can take over the planet.

 

The one that the majority of you will have ever come into contact with, however, is the Wells book.

 

Written in 1898, it involves an invasion of Martians on Earth who are seeking better living conditions. As Wells states in his first chapter, Mars has gradually become inhospitable due to the fact that it is a dying planet; "the light and heat it receives from the sun is barely half of that received by this world", he says, and "we know now that even in its equatorial region the midday temperature barely approaches that of our coldest winter."

So, with greedy eyes cast sun-ward to their nearest neighbor, they see a planet that has a better climate and is more conducive to life that they really want. And since the Martians are far more technologically advanced than their neighbors, they have the means necessary to take the planet by force. (Some analysts of the Wells novel think that War of the Worlds is a critical comment on the idea of imperialism; that the higher technologically advanced race has a sort of "God given" right to dominate over a lesser race.)

The first half of the novel involves the coming of the Martians and their unprovoked attack on Earthlings. Being far more superior in firepower it is fairly easy for them to wreak havoc on the natives. It later becomes apparent that the Martians are not going to be satisfied with the elimination of humans; they are also going to harvest them for sustenance.

Eventually, spoiler alert!, the Martians are defeated, not by humans, but by the one thing that the Martians did not count on... common bacteria to which the humans are mostly immune... the common cold!

The problem, when it came to trying to put the classic novel to film, was that technology advanced to a point where, except for being able to traverse the vastness of space in reasonable swiftness, much of the Martian technology that Wells envisioned for his Martians eventually became a reality. For instance, the "death ray" in the novel is not entirely dissimilar to laser technology we have today. And the mechanical tripods that the aliens were able to employ against a "horse and carriage" are like child's play today in a society that now has tanks and jet airplanes, etc.

The first movie to try to make the novel come to life solved the problem by transposing the events from early 1900's to mid 1950's. (It was made in 1953). This is the classic story, more or less, except that, in addition to updating the Earth's technological capabilities and the still more advanced alien technology, the setting is transposed from England to California. While there are plenty of references to the novel, including an introduction that basically echoes the opening of Wells' story, the changes tend to date the movie just as much as the original novel.

 

That's pretty much the downfall, in my opinion, of any of the subsequent attempts. It's still a little early, I admit, to say that the Spielberg version from 2005, starring Tom Cruise, is dated at this point in history, but I feel sure if humanity survives for another 50 years it will look as quaint as the 1953 version does to us today.  

 

Note: as often happens, there was a direct-to-video knockoff that came out the same year starring C. Thomas Howell. And, as much as I loathe Tom Cruise as an actor, I have to admit that the big screen theatrical version is miles ahead, not only in story, but also in special effects. (Those Martian machines in the Howell version just made me "howl" {pun intended})  

 

The thing is, if you film a classic novel in it's original milieu you are much more likely to get a thumbs up from me. As I have stated before, my favorite Sherlock Holmes films are ones that have Holmes firmly entrenched in his gaslight and hansom cab Victorian era setting (the BBC Sherlock is an exception to that feeling). So, it was attractive to me when I came across a British made film that purported to stay true to the original novel. Coincidentally (or maybe not), this version also appeared at the same time as the Spielberg film.

 

The story itself is, to be honest, quite close to the novel. It does take place in the Victorian era. There are several instances where some minor details are changed, but none that really detract from it for a purist point of view. There are several points that do make this a less than stellar output. For one thing, often the special effects look like they were done on a miniscule budget. The aliens in particular, although looking quite a bit like I would envision them by the description that Wells gives them, don't particularly look all that well made. 

 

 

And occasionally one or more of the actors seem like they were just cast because they "looked" the part, without having the necessary acting chops to pull it off. (In particular, I think Jack Clay, who played "Oglivy" was pretty laughable. His IMDb page seems to play that out... this is his only film. Was he he friend of the director or something? To his credit he was an acting teacher... maybe his career as an actor was limited to the stage). 

Recently Amazon Prime released a new version starring Ice Cube. Unfortunately I have not been able to watch it, but it has garnered a slew of disparaging reviews. One reviewer called it "truly morally icky", which you know is enough of an incentive for me to give it it a try someday... It almost completely swept the Razzies for 2025, winning in all the categories for which it was nominated except one. (Ice Cube and his camera lost the Worst Screen Couple award to the seven dwarves in Snow White).

 

If you are looking for great special effects, my opinion is go with the Spielberg version (which had a bigger budget to work with than the 1953 version). If you are looking for great acting. then stick to the 1953 version. I'll take Gene Barry over Tom Cruise any day... But if you'd like to see a version that sticks to it's source material, you can't go wrong with the British version. 

Above all, however, if you have never read the source novel, what are you waiting for? It's a classic.

Well, time to fire up the old Plymouth and head home. If there is still a home to go to. I just saw something flash in the sky over to my East...

Quiggy