The "Blame" Game

 

 

 

 

This is my entry in the Luso World Cinema Blogathon hosted by Crítica Retrô and Spellbound with Beth Ann.

 

 

 

Earlier this month I had a celebration of the drive-in movie. During my altogether too brief experience of actually getting to go to drive-ins (they disappeared, at least in Texas, beginning about the late 80's to early 90's), I got to see some movies that usually never made it to the local multiplex. One of those was Blame It On Rio. Why didn't it get a spot at the indoor theater? I'm not sure. But a check of the movies that were playing at the time include Footloose, Yentl (with Barbara Streisand), Terms of Endearment and Two of a Kind (with John Travolta). I guess teen movies and movies starring Streisand or Travolta probably trumped any movie that had a "yesterday's news" star like Michael Caine.

Then again, maybe it was not meant to play at family theaters anyway... Read on.

In the category of "ooooh... what he said...":  Roger Ebert gave this film only one star, and said that it was a film "clearly intended to appeal to the prurient interests of dirty old men of all ages." At age 22 when this movie came out, I was still a young man, maybe with the makings of a future dirty old man, but definitely not at an age where this kind of movie would have seemed inappropriate to me. 

What a difference getting older makes. Admittedly I never married or fathered any daughters, so I can't connect with either of the older men in this film, Michael Caine and Joseph Bologna, but still, the film comes off just a bit too risque in it's concept. 

What we have at the outset is the last film by a great director, Stanley Donen. The man who brought the public such classics as Royal Wedding, Singin' in the Rain, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, The Grass is Greener and Charade, all of which you could watch with the kids, must've gone through some kind of mid-life crisis along about the time he turned 50. 

Of the last movies he made, this one really seemed to scrape the bottom of the barrel. The film has problems on more levels than one. Aside from the fact that the main attraction is a middle-aged man having some sort of an affair with the underage daughter of his business partner, the actress playing her is also underage. She was only 17 at the time of the filming. Which means that the topless scenes have basically the tinges of being child pornography. (Her co-star, Demi Moore, was 19 or 20, so she gets a pass, even if she is playing a girl the same age as Johnson's character...)

The music (which is great by the way) and the scenery of Rio are the better parts of the film, but the plot is something straight out of a middle-age fantasy.  

 

 

Blame it On Rio (1984): 

Pre-review note: Blame it on Rio was actually based on a French film from 1977, Un moment d'égarement. I have no idea what that film entails. The French version was remade in 2015 as One Wild Moment. So don't blame it on Rio... blame it on France.

The set up of this movie is that two older men are going through what we would call a "mid-life crisis". Victor  (Joseph Bologna) has just gotten divorced from his wife. He and his friend, Matthew (Michael Caine) are going to go to Rio de Janeiro for a vacation. 

 

Victor is taking his daughter, Jennifer (Michelle Johnson). Matthew is supposed to be going with his wife, Karen (Valerie Harper) and his daughter, Nikki (Demi Moore), but his wife decides she is going to go somewhere else, alone. She is apparently having her own mid-life crisis.

 

That leaves the two men and their daughters on the Rio vacation. Rio is one of those places where it's legal for the women as well as the men to go topless on the beach. Which is OK with the older men. At least until they see their daughters trying to blend in with the crowd.  

 

Jennifer has long had a crush on her "Uncle" Matthew. (He's not really her uncle, BTW. That would make this plot even more cringe-y, if that were the case). When Matthew leaves Victor in a bar where Victor is trying to hook up with a bar patron, he follows the two girls to a wedding party. They are just wedding crashers since they don't know any of the participants. Eventually Matthew and Jennifer end up on an isolated portion of the beach where Jennifer reveals her attraction to Matthew and the two do what comes naturally.

 

Matthew, for his part, does feel some guilt over his encounter, but Jennifer is basically of the mind to continue their illicit affair. Nikki knows about what is going on and even though she professes that she will keep the affair a secret, she isn't exactly happy with it. But as she tells Jennifer, she is not mad at Jennifer; she is mad at her father.

 

When Jennifer tells her dad about having a sexual encounter. she only reveals that the partner was an older married man, not that it was Matthew. This leads to some fairly comic interludes as the angry dad tries to figure out who the guy was. And there are the several instances where he starts fights with other men that he is convinced is the one who violated his daughter.

 

Eventually Nikki's disgust with her father causes her to call her mother who shows up and other secrets get revealed, specifically an extramarital affair that Karen has been having without Matthew's knowledge.

 

OK, I have to be honest. If this was an 18 or 19 year old girl hooking up with a 43 year old (or even older) man, I'd probably have no problem with it. Change just the age to a legal age and  it changes the dynamic for me. So does that mean I'm at heart a dirty old man? Maybe, but I don't think so. After all, the concept has been filmed that way several times with older characters. Take, for instance, Sabrina, with Humphrey Bogart and Audrey Hepburn or Charade, with Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn. Both involve romances between two characters with a significant age gap, and both were tastefully approached.

Think of all the June-December romances in today's age. Al Pacino, Patrick Stewart, Dennis Quaid and even Dick Van Dyke have had relations with women young enough to be their daughters or even grand-daughters. (Of course, they're all rich... but surely there's something more than just money involved there...)  

Michelle Johnson, the female star here, was once considered a rising new star. Quick. Name one other movie she was in. Bet you can't. She had a minor role in Gung Ho, but that's the only other movie I ever saw her in. Her biggest claim to fame was she came in as an also ran for a Razzie for Worst New Star (she lost to Olivia D'Abo).  She only has 42 credits to her name on IMDb.

The shame of this film belongs to director Donen, but also to Michael Caine. Most of the other actors were probably just looking for a paycheck, but Caine must have been really hard up to agree to this role. Considering that the same year he also did Educating Rita, for which he garnered BAFTA and Oscar nominations, and winning the BAFTA, its not like the roles had dried up completely. But then, during the 80's his successes were hit or miss. He also did Dressed to Kill, The Island and Jaws: The Revenge during that decade, all three getting him Razzie nominations. 

Rotten Tomatoes only gives this movie a 11% rating. As stated earlier in this review it did not get very many good reviews by the critics. Aside from a few lines from Caine, this movie doesn't even float as a comedy. (I have to admit that I got a laugh from an early scene where a "talking head scene" occurs as Caine is talking to the audience): 

"One time, the company I work for transferred me to an island in the Pacific. Fantastic place. I invited my girl to visit me. I sent her a postcard every day with a single word on each card. I wrote... 'Found a virgin paradise... it's yours-Matthew.' Naturally, they were delivered in the wrong order. The message she got was... 'Found a virgin. It's paradise. Yours, Matthew.' I never heard from her again."

To be honest, that's really the only part of the movie I found funny.

Unless you qualify as a "dirty old man" (and why would you even admit it?), I don't recommend this film. Go watch Sabrina instead. Even the Harrison Ford - Julia Ormand remake from 1995 is much better.

Drive safely, folks.

Quiggy

 

Semiquincentennial Movie Project #24: The Great St. Louis Bank Robbery

 

 

 

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 #24: Missouri -

 

 

 

The state of Missouri was established on August 10, 1821 

Details about Missouri:

State bird: bluebird

State flower: hawthorn

State tree: flowering dogwood

Additional historical trivia:

There could be no such thing as "the greatest thing since sliced bread" without sliced bread. It was first sold in Missouri.

Missouri was where we first got instant pancake mix, too. 

The 1904 World's Fair introduced such things as the hot dog and cotton candy.

Missouri is the only state with an official "state grape", the Norton grape. (Gee. I'm hungry now...)

Missouri is one of only four states that have had two teams from the same state in a World Series. It happened twice, most recently in 1985 when the Kansas City Royals played the St. Louis Cardinals.

The famous Pony Express was headquartered in St. Joseph. 

Although the movie and it's literary source material place the events of The Exorcist in suburban Washington D.C., the actual historical events both are based on came from an event in St. Louis. {see footnote below}.  

Famous people born in Missouri: Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain), science fiction great Robert A. Heinlein, U.S. President Harry S. Truman, Albert Pujols, Walter Cronkite, Scott Joplin, Chuck Berry, Dick van Dyke and my personal vote for the greatest horror movie actor, Vincent Price.

{Footnote}: Check out the book Behind the Horror: True Stories That Inspired Horror Movies. It's a fascinating book that details the real events behind some classic movies, some you would be surprised to find are based on real stories.

 

 

 

The Great St. Louis Bank Robbery (1959): 

Note: The credits mention that many of the members of the St. Louis Police Department shown in the movie are actually the real members of the SLPD. Other sources state that even some of the local residents and bank employees are the real people involved.

 

The film opens as we get introduced to the gang who is planning to rob the local bank.  The guy in charge is John Egan (Crahan Denton). He has two cohorts, Willy and Gino. One of the subordinates, Gino (David Clarke), has brought along a newcomer, George Fowler (Steve McQueen). George is going to be the driver of the getaway car, although he has apparently never done anything illegal in his life up to this point.

 

George insists that all he will get involved with is to drive the getaway car. A guy as nervous as George comes off in this initial introduction seems to be an unlikely candidate even for something like driving a getaway car. I swear, I bet if someone lit a firecracker nearby he'd probably be a mile down the road before the echoes of the bang died down...

 

Willy (James Dukas) is immediately suspicious of this newcomer and doesn't trust him. Willy's obsession with trying to get John to get rid of him as a member of the gang becomes a key point later in the film. 

 

The nervousness of George is evident whenever he has to get more deeply involved than he really wants to. The first problem is John makes George steal a license plate. The second problem occurs when Gino forces George to go to Ann (Molly McCarthy), who is Gino's sister, to get some money they will be needing during the period of time staking out the bank, leading up to the robbery. Neither one is something that George really wants to do, but he keeps getting dragged in further and further to the plans than he really wants. It looks like he will be having a bigger hand in it than just the getaway driver after all.

 

The background of George comes out little by little, although all of the back story is not entirely revealed.  What we do find out is that George and Ann were involved in a relationship prior to the events in the film. Both were expelled from college, although it is never revealed why. For his part, George intends to use his cut of the loot from the robbery to get himself reinstated into the college and make something of himself. 

The rest of the gang have their own backgrounds. John is a career criminal, who is making one final grab before he intends to take off for Mexico, along with Willy. All three of the hardened criminals have their own issues. Gino is very worried about going back to jail, and his worry is foreshadowed early in the film when he has a panic attack, recalling the closed in feelings he had when he was a prisoner.

It takes a long time before anything exciting happens in this film. The first hour or so is just a character study of the main characters. We find out that John is misogynistic, due to his relationship with his mother, who was very abusive to him as a kid. (It is later implied, although not outright stated, that he was responsible for his mother's death). And I think maybe Willy is supposed to be gay, but I'm not sure. That too only is implied, as he doesn't exhibit any of the traits that were readily evident in other gay characters of the time period of the movie.

The whole thing comes crashing down as a result of Ann's discovery of George's plans. She promises not to tell the police about the plans, but she is not above leaving a message on the window of the bank. John is angry about this, but still plans to follow through with the robbery. The logical thing, to abandon the plan, is apparently not in the cards. 

Of course the whole robbery falls like a house of cards.  That can't count as a spoiler. After all, it's based on a real event and, in case you weren't paying attention, the movie opens with credits acknowledging real members of the SLPD playing the parts they had in the historical event.

Following his breakthrough role as the lead teen in The Blob,  McQueen makes a pretty good showing here. The rest of the main cast does a fairly decent job, although I think McCarthy as Ann is a bit over the top melodramatically. Her output following this film seems to make that a good judgement. Her list of credits only includes one other movie in the 60's, Blast of Silence, and a few TV appearances, and then she only has three more movies since 1979, all three with Matt Dillon (was she related to Dillon? I have no idea...)

If the only two contemporary reviews quoted in the wikipedia article are any indication of the reception, the movie wasn't really well-received. My personal opinion is that the only standout role in the film is McQueen. The main thugs are pretty much cardboard hoodlums, although the main one, Denton, is not all that bad. My basic suggestion is you could fast forward to about the 1:10 point in the film and watch the final 18 minutes and get the robbery and its aftermath, without missing much. McQueen completists might enjoy an early look at his work, but most people might get a little bored. Just a year or so later, however, McQueen would really start to shine, with his role in The Magnificent Seven (which, coincidentally, will be featured at The Midnite Drive-In next week...)

That wraps it up for this week. See you next time.

Quiggy

 

 

 

Book Review: How to Survive a Horror Movie by Seth Grahame-Smith

 

 

 How To Survive a Horror Movie by Seth Grahame-Smith:

 Firstly, if the very concept of "horror movie" makes you run for the bathroom until your friends and family are through with watching it, then this book is obviously not for you. On the other hand, if you are like me, and have enough horror movies on your DVD shelf to open your own library, you will probably get a kick out of it.

Consider this: You might just be living (if you can call it "living") inside a horror movie. There are any number of potential scenarios that could indicate this is so. Firstly, if you keep hearing a staccato screeching violin playing "eee eee eee eee eee", or a whispering "ki, ki, ki, ki, hah, hah hah hah", chances are there is some weirdo with a knife behind your back watching you as you undress for the shower.

Warnings of potential dangers abound in this volume. It goes without saying that you should probably never take a babysitting job, especially if you hear that some crazed maniac escaped his cell at the local mental institution. And, if you are on a road trip, never, under any circumstances, pick up a hitchhiker. (Despite the fact that some porno movies start out that way... see Detroit Rock City). And while on said road trip, always stick to main roads and avoid those short cuts through unfamiliar wooded areas.

A well equipped survivalist in a horror movie should have some working knowledge of the tropes that crop  up in horror movies. Knowing that you can outrun shuffling zombies, for instance. Knowing that sexual infidelity can leave you open to being trapped by sadistic sex-deprived outsiders who might be jealous that you are getting some while they were always unsuccessful is another. And, above all, knowing that, when Fido is acting peculiar around that wooden doll, it's probably a good bet there is something not normal about that doll.

Graheme-Smith's book is an invaluable asset to staying alive if you find yourself trapped in a horror movie setting. It is comical, and forewarning, it's a lot funnier if you actual have a working knowledge of the movies that he is referencing during his instructions. Does that mean if you haven't seen even one single horror movie that the book isn't entertaining? I couldn't say for sure, but I think even if you only know vaguely some details about Halloween or Friday the 13th or Alien or Child's Play that this book will provide some worthwhile reading. And if you do find yourself in one of these situations, you will be glad you read that the best way to avoid being trapped in a haunted house is to just not go in in the first place.

In addition to all the helpful  survival tips there is an appendix at the end that lists about 50 of the best movies to check out to expand your horizons in the horror movie pantheon. Some of which have been shown at The Midnite Drive-In, in case you are interested. (Note: The archives in that link contains both movies that the author includes in his list as well as others...)

Happy reading.

Quiggy 

  

Fear in the Dark

 

 

 

 

This is my entry for the Audrey Hepburn Blogathon hosted by Classic Film and TV Corner 

 

 

 

The essence of memory, given some 50 years past, tends to make things a bit vague.  Back in the late 60's and even into the 70's all three of the big networks of ABC, CBS and NBC had a weekly broadcast night that featured a recently released movie that had transitioned to availability to broadcast (edited, of course...) one or more nights a week. They weren't always movies that had a theatrical release, of course. Sometimes they were originally "made for TV" movies, but quite often the stations would edit a recent movie that had appeared in theaters and was now being broadcast into homes (for those folks who either had no budget for extravagances like going to the theater, or were just disinclined to venture forth to a theater.)

As such, Wait Until Dark was probably first broadcast on network TV in 1968 or 1969.  Of course I wouldn't have even been older than 7 by then, so I probably did NOT see it when it was first on TV, but I vaguely recall seeing it on TV at some point. And no, I couldn't be confusing it with the made for TV remake, which starred Katherine Ross in the Audrey Hepburn role. (That version came out in 1982, and I'm PRETTY sure I was probably in a bar that night, since those nightly movie broadcasts were usually on Friday or Saturday...) My vague memory of seeing it was from sometime in my early teens in the 70's.

Audrey Hepburn's output, at the time, was not in my bailiwick. I wouldn't have been caught dead watching a romance or a rom-com, therefore I would have gone to my room if Breakfast at Tiffany's or Charade came on (and I still haven't seen either...) And the only times I watched musicals was if Grandma and Grandpa were watching one when my sister and I visited. I do remember sitting through My Fair Lady, vaguely. But a  thriller, on the other hand, would intrigue me. And if Hepburn had starred in a science fiction movie I would have been all-in.

I could do a whole blog entry on the interesting pieces of trivia I found in the IMDb entry on this movie. I won't. But there are several that really intrigued me. 

Only Audrey Hepburn got an Academy Award nomination for this movie. Alan Arkin, who appears as the bad guy, was not nominated. When asked how he felt about that he said "You don't get nominated for being mean to Audrey Hepburn." (The same thing probably could apply to Bruce Dern, who I think ought to have been nominated for his role in The Cowboys, but you don't get nominated for killing John Wayne either...) 

Arkin, BTW, got the role because nobody else in Hollywood wanted to be mean to Hepburn. But there were a couple of intriguing possibilities that COULD have been: Such as George C. Scott, Rod Steiger and Sean Connery. Personally I think Scott would have been great, but I think Connery would probably have hurt his career at that time.... James Bond as a bad guy? The horror! Note: After writing that line I read another blogger's comments. The blogger in question thought  that the idea of Connery taking on that role may just be an urban legend, for basically along the same line reasoning that I suggest; James Bond? Really? His cache at the time would have probably precluded him taking a role that was not a starring role, according to this guy).

During WWII Hepburn was a nurse. During the Battle of Arnhem Hepburn was a nurse to soldiers injured during the battle and one of those soldiers was Terence Young, this movie's director.

The movie was based on a stage play. Interesting in the cast was Robert Duvall was cast as the villain, Roat, and Lee Remick, who won a Tony, was cast as Susy. Renowned director Arthur Penn was the director of the stage version.

The studio wanted Carol Reed, whose biggest film to date had been 1949's The Third Man, to direct, but Hepburn. who was already on board, and her then husband, Mel Ferrer, pushed for Terence Young. (Why not Arthur Penn? Most likely he was still tied up filming Bonnie and Clyde, which came out the same year, but I really don't know). Young, for his part, had garnered an impressive resume. Among his output were three early James Bond movies: Dr. No, From Russia with Love and Thunderball. 

Working against type was not only new for Hepburn, it was also new for musical director Henry Mancini. Mancini, whose name is more closely associated with such light-hearted fare as "Moon River" and "The Love Theme from Romeo and Juliet", was looking to break away from that into some more serious output, and many people remember the jarring soundtrack that he created for the film. 

 

 

Wait Until Dark (1967):

The film doesn't waste any time getting into the story. Sometimes in movies you get these long drawn out introductions or screen shots of the city, which to me seem to be there only to let you know this movie is taking place in New York City or San Francisco, so you don't get confused into thinking the setting is Timbuktu.

Instead, we get the scene where "Louis" (uncredited as "The Old Man" and played by Jean Del Val) is busy trying to sew up a stash of heroin into a doll for Lisa (Samantha Jones) to smuggle. Lisa is rather impatient, urging Louis to hurry up so she doesn't miss her flight. You know that Lisa is not a good girl because, instead of lighting up a cigarette she lights up a cigarillo. Which I personally think is a rather effective touch.

 

When Lisa gets off the plane she spots someone who appears to be waiting for her so she hands off the doll to a nearby guy. I know, logically, it doesn't make sense, at this point. She just handed off a batch of illegal drugs to a total stranger. The truth comes out later, when Susy relates that a woman her husband, Sam, met on the plane had asked him to hold the doll because it was a gift for a girl, but that Sam should hold on to the doll for her so that another girl she was meeting wouldn't get jealous. But you don't know what transpired between Sam and Lisa at this point, so it looks a little odd. (And truth be told, I think Sam must be the most naive person on the planet, since that whole thing sounds pretty suspicious, even if not in retrospect...)

 

This sets up the main story. Three unsavory characters come onto the scene, the worst of which is Roat (Alan Arkin). Roat lures two confidants to help him search the apartment of the guy Lisa handed off the doll to at the airport. The two confidants are basically roped into searching the apartment because Roat has engineered a devious blackmail. You see, he murdered Lisa and left her in the apartment. When Mike (Richard Crenna) and Carlino (Jack Weston) show up they think they are coming to collect the doll from Lisa, and they think that the apartment is Lisa's.

 

 

The truth of the matter is that it belongs to Sam and his wife, Susy (Audrey Hepburn), who is blind. 

 

 

There is a lot of subtle suspense going on at the very beginning, revolving on setting up Susy to believe that Lisa, whose body was planted near the apartment and later found by the police, may actually have been killed by Sam. The ruse involves the three convincing Susy, who has only been married to Sam for a year, was carrying on an extramarital affair. The whole ruse hinges on making Susy believe that a) Mike is an old friend who served in the war with Sam, and b) that Carlino is a valid police officer investigating the murder as well as an intruder who has been showing up at the apartment. 

 

 

(The intruder is actually Roat himself, in disguise, although why he needs the physical disguise is unclear, since Susy can't actually see him...)

 

 

Mike and Carlino are not entirely unsympathetic characters, although Carlino is somewhat obnoxious. The true villain, Roat, is much more sadistic. In fact, he takes both Mike and Carlino out of the picture before it's all over. (Truly, the saying that there is "no honor amongst thieves" applies in Roat's case). Susy eventually figures out that neither of these three is on the up and up. She has only been blind for about a year, but she has developed an acute sense of hearing generally applied to people who have been blind for some time, so apparently she is a quick study. She realizes that Mike is lying when he says he sees a cop car watching the apartment, and by that deduction she realizes that Carlino is not really a police officer.

 

Susy uses the help of a neighbor girl, Gloria (Julie Herrod), to help her. Gloria, at first, comes off as an unlikable little brat, but it turns out she does have a heart, and helps out at various points in trying to expose the ruse the three have been trying to play on Susy. 

 

 

With both Mike and Carlino no longer a part of the plot, however, and Gloria out to try to get Sam home quicky from the bus station when he arrives, Susy and Roat have a showdown. 

 

 

Susy takes all the lights in the apartment out, thus plunging the apartment into complete darkness, effectively putting her and Roat in the same boat: neither can see anything.

 

From the trailer for Wait Until Dark:

"During the last eight minutes of this picture the theatre will be darkened to the legal limit, to heighten the terror of the breathtaking climax which takes place in nearly total darkness on the screen. If there are sections where smoking is permitted, those patrons are respectfully requested not to jar the effect by lighting up during this sequence. And of course, no one will be seated at this time." 

That, in itself, would have been enough to intrigue me into the theater to see this. It must have been effective for theater goers at the time. In an interview on the commentary section of my DVD star Alan Arkin explains that final scene very succinctly:

"The more you show people, the less work they have to do. If you let the audience see what's going on it let's them off the hook and they're not sharing what's going on."

Thus that darkened theater becomes intensely more effective, because the audience shares in the blindness of the main character, Susy, and empathizes with the terror that she feels.  The final 10 minutes thus evokes a kind of claustrophobia, not only on the characters, but also on the audience. (Here's an interesting idea. Watch this thing in complete darkness, except for your TV. When this scene comes on you will experience a thrill unlike any you may have experienced before.)

Wait Until Dark made a decent profit, although it did not make the top ten of money makers that year (I read somewhere that it was #16 in that respect...). It went head-to-head against Camelot and The Jungle Book, which both hit the theater at the same time, as well as Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?, The Graduate and Valley of the Dolls, all of which came out in December, and all five were in the top ten that year.

As stated above, Hepburn received an Oscar nomination for her role, although ultimately she lost  to another Hepburn, Katherine, in Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?, although having seen both I would have had trouble making the choice. The main reason for that being that Audrey was absolutely fantastic at convincing me her character was blind. Only once during the entire film was there anything that happened that would give lie to that. (At one point, after Roat has murdered Mike and his body is at the foot of the stairs she actually steps over his body. There is no way she could know exactly how his body was laid out. This fact doesn't appear in the "goofs" section of the IMDb article, so maybe I missed something, however...)

Wait Until Dark has a Rotten Tomatoes ranking of 96% Fresh. Most of the reviewers of the time applauded the film, although even with it's high ranking, some reviewers had a bit of criticism to throw into their reviews. I liked the quote from Bosley Crowther, who said it was a "barefaced melodrama, without character revelation of any sort, outside of the demonstration of a person with the fortitude to overcome an infirmity." Yet he still liked Hepburn's portrayal. Roger Ebert criticized what he called the "idiot plot", wondering why the Hepburn character didn't just lock the door when she realized there was a threat present, yet he still gave it 3½ stars.

There are some strong hints of Hitchcock in the film, but one would be limiting oneself by saying it is essentially an attempt to create a Hitchcock film. It feels somewhat similar to Dial M for Murder, since both involve unsavory characters invading a closed set (apartment in both), and both were written by the same author. And the doll feels somewhat similar to the typical "MacGuffin" that typically showed up in Hitchcock films, an object that the story hinges on for a plot device, but is secondary to the nail-biting interaction between the primary characters. And that claustrophobia that the film exudes is reminiscent of Rope. Some people actually call Wait Until Dark the "best Hitchcock film not directed by Hitchcock".

Of all the films I have reviewed over the years, Wait Until Dark would rank very high. Although I tend towards more outre fare (tell us something we don't know...), I can still be entranced by the straightforward drama or thriller, especially when it is fronted by such talent as Hepburn (and Arkin).

That wraps it up for this time. Drive safely, folks.

Quiggy

 

   

 

 

 

 

 

Semiquincentennial Movie Project #23: The Dead Zone

 

 

 

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 #23: Maine-

 

 

 

The state of Maine was established on March 5, 1820. 

Details about Maine:

State bird: chickadee

State flower: white pine cone        

State tree: white pine tree

Additional historical trivia:

Maine came into the U.S. as a part of the Missouri Compromise, which established both Maine and Missouri as states to keep a delicate balance of free states (Maine) and slave states (Missouri). Note: See next week's entry which is when Missouri will become the focal state.

Machias was the site of the first naval battle of the American Revolution.

Campobello Island, a part of Nova Scotia in Canada, is only accessible by going through Maine. (Which means the island would be on it's own if the US and Canada ever went to war...)

Some Maine residents prefer "Mainiacs" over "Mainers" as a designation for residents. I know I would...

What we think of as a donut today, with it's iconic hole in the center, was invented in Maine. Before that donuts were more like the cream-filled variety (but without the cream filling...)

Your blueberries probably come from Maine. 90% of the world's supply is grown there.

Famous people born in Maine: Well, this list HAS to start out with Stephen King, of course. Also film director John Ford,  poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, actor Patrick Dempsey, vice Presidents Nelson Rockefeller (under Ford) and Hannibal Hamlin (under Lincoln) and athlete Cooper Flagg (who is just now becoming famous).

  

 

Forenote:I have been a Stephen King fan since first discovering him in high school (see the link for my history with him). Was The Dead Zone the first Stephen King movie adaptation of one of his novels that I ever saw in the theater? I claim a technicality on that. Admittedly I was still too young to go to movies without my father's permission when Carrie came out, and in truth, I hadn't even heard of him when it came out. I had, however, come to know his work by the time Salem's Lot was produced as a TV miniseries, and I watched that one. But The Shining, which came out in theaters after my turning to the age of accountability, I have to admit, was garnering such a negative reception in my group of like minded friends that I avoided it, and didn't watch it until years later. And Creepshow, while I did see it in a theater, was based on ideas from King, but not based on anything he had published in print at the time. So, yes, I guess The Dead Zone could probably count as my first in theater experience for his novels.

The Dead Zone (1983): 

The film first introduces us to Johnny Smith (Christopher Walken) where he is an English teacher in high school. (Not sure how much of Stephen King is in Johnny Smith, but King did come from a similar background. He was an English teacher prior to becoming an author).

 

Johnny has a fiancee who is also a teacher in the school, Sarah (Brooke Adams). The two are going to be married soon. Johnny and Sarah have a date, after which Johnny takes Sarah home, but declines to spend the night there. "Some things are worth waiting for" he tells her. (Which, I think, implies that they still have not consummated their relationship by getting physical, which I think is rather quaint, but laudable).

 

 

The weather is bad, which is the reason Sarah wants him to stay, but Johnny insists on going, which in retrospect was a bad decision, because he gets involved in an accident with an 18 wheeler. One could reasonably wonder what happened in King's life that caused him to put semis as the cause of disastrous events in some of his stories. It was a semi truck that killed the little boy in Pet Semetary. The main villains of his short story "Trucks" (which was eventually filmed as Maximum Overdrive) were semis. They also crop up often in The Dark Tower series.

 

Anyway, as a result of his accident, Johnny ends up in a coma for five years. Much of his world before the accident has turned topsy-turvy. Not only has he lost his job during the interim (obviously), but Sarah has moved on herself. She got married and even now has a kid. 

 

The upside (or downside, depending on your perspective) of Johnny's accident and subsequent coma is that he has gained a psychic ability, of sorts. When he touches the hand of someone he can see their, or their closest people's, future. The first indication of this is when he sees a nurse's house on fire and her daughter in danger. The day is saved when the firemen arrive and rescue the daughter.

 

Johnny becomes a celebrity of sorts as a result. He of course is not altogether happy with the situation, as he would just like to blend into the background and live a normal life. But the public being what it is is not about to let that happen. One thing in particular; during his coma there has been a spate of serial killings and the sheriff (Tom Skerritt) is at his wit's end trying to catch the killer. He thinks Johnny might be of help. And. needless to say he is. 

 

Flash forward a few months. Johnny is still trying his best to fade out of the public eye. He has moved to another town and is working as a tutor. (I guess no high school is willing to hire a psychic célèbre...) A rich guy,  Roger Stuart (Anthony Zerbe), hires him to break through his son's distance and get him to be more sociable as well as improve his studies. But once again the boogieman of his psychic abilities causes a rift, as Johnny foresees an accident that would cause the son to die.

 

Things do work out as the son, Chris (Simon Craig), refuses to go along with his father's desires to start a hockey team. In the mean time, because Roger is rich, Roger has dealings with a political candidate seeking a position in the U.S. Senate. Greg Stillson (Martin Sheen) is a smarmy little nobody, but he is gaining a following due to his adamant platform. He is an independent candidate, not associated with the political "business as usual" norm. (In other words, he is not a Democrat nor a Republican).

 

Johnny has another psychic interlude when he shakes hands with Stillson and sees a future where Stillson ends up causing the start of World War III. In a conversation with his doctor Johnny asks the doctor (Herbert Lom) what he would do if he had met Hitler before Hitler came to power, knowing how history would play out. The doctor says emphatically that he would have to "kill the S.O.B." What this, of course, leads into is Johnny deciding that he must do whatever he has to do to prevent Stillson from advancing towards that future.

 

In retrospect, some people have looked at Donald Trump and seen many parallels with the character of Stillson; an egotistical demagogue who rises to power from a relatively obscure status (politically speaking). Unlike King's insistence that he did not predict Covid in The Stand, he has not necessarily shied away from the idea that he may have predicted the rise of Trump in the form of Greg Stillson. You have to take that with a grain of salt, however. King has not been shy about his political leanings. As a Liberal, he has been vocal at times about his dislike for Conservatives.

 

You can decide for yourself whether there is any merit in that postulation. It's a sure bet if you are on one side of the political fence you will side with King and if you are on the other side of the fence then he is just full of it. But either way, you can't deny that a decent movie came out as a result of a very creative imagination. 

Whether or not it qualifies as "horror", however, given that that is King's chosen milieu, is another argument altogether. It's not, in my opinion. It is a great character study, one which admittedly has some horror aspects, but compared to something like 'Salems' Lot or Pet Semetary or Creepshow it is seriously lacking in the scare tactics that would generally accompany a horror movie. It's not a laughable attempt, like some I could name: The  Lawnmower Man, for instance, has the title of one of Stephen King's stories, but that's about the ONLY thing it has in common. But The Dead Zone does have many things going for it.

For one thing, it has Christopher Walken. Walken's presence in a film pushes it from being all bad to at least a mediocre level.  The 2004 remake of The Stepford Wives is pretty hard to slog through, but without Walken in it, I would postulate it wasn't worth the time. As a side note: Bill Murray was King's choice to play Johnny. Although Murray has since proven that he can sometimes handle dramatic roles (The Razor's Edge is not as bad as the critics suggest, in my opinion), I can't help but think that the reception of the news that Murray had been cast as Johnny would be received, pre-viewing, as somewhat similar to the way the news that Michael Keaton had been cast as Batman. Maybe he could have pulled it off, but I think it would probably have altered the dynamic.

An interesting little tidbit: You notice the startled look on Walken's face whenever he starts to get these premonitions? According to a "how it was made" documentary on my DVD, Walken told Cronenberg to fire off a pistol off screen, without warning Walken when he was going to do it. It got the effect it needed. 

The music was another factor that helped make the film work. Michael Kamen, whose output included all four Lethal Weapon films, the first 3 Die Hard films and the first X-Men had a knack for scoring films. Kamen won 4 Grammys and was twice nominated for Best Song Oscars.

The Dead Zone was very well received, critically On Rotten Tomatoes it currently holds a rating of 89% Fresh. Rogert Ebert gave it 3 ½ stars, saying that it "does what only a good supernatural thriller can do: It makes us forget it is supernatural."  It was a financial success, too. On a budget of only about $7 million it pulled in $20 million in the US alone, and another $17 million in sales outside the US. 

In the early 200's there was a TV series based on the novel which featured Anthony Michael Hall in the Johnny Smith role. I have to admit I have never watched even one episode and, although it lasted 6 seasons, I really don't see how they could have stretched it out to last that long. One of these days I have to give it a shot, though.

That wraps it up for this week. See you next time. Drive safely, folks.

Quiggy