The Legend of Matheson

This is my entry in the Richard Matheson Blogathon hosted by Wide Screen World and Moon in Gemini

"The last man on Earth sat alone in a room.  There was a knock at the door..."  (The shortest horror story ever written).


This is the story of a man and his (arguably) masterpiece of speculative fiction.

Richard Matheson (1926-2013) was one of the most prolific authors of the 20th century.  He was a favorite of Rod Serling who used Matheson's stories or original teleplays for no less than 16 episodes of the classic TV series The Twilight Zone, beginning with  the 11th episode of the first season ("And the Sky Was Opened", based on Matheson's short story, Disappearing Act.)  An incomplete list of Matheson's output for TZ would also include what eventually became the fan favorites of "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet", "The Invaders". "Nick of Time", "Third from the Sun" and my personal favorite "Once Upon a Time".

Not only are his short stories fodder for film adaptation, several of his novels have made it to the big and small screen.  The Incredible Shrinking Man?  That was Matheson.  The Legend of Hell House?  Matheson.  What Dreams May Come?  Also by Matheson.  And for you romantic ladies (and men), Somewhere in Time, the Christopher Reeve / Jane Seymour movie was based on a Matheson book.  Plus such TV series as Rod Serling's follow up to The Twilight Zone, Night Gallery went to the Matheson well, as well did The Outer Limits, the Showtime series Masters of Horror and even a British TV series, Journey to the Unknown.

Matheson's third novel (the first two are largely unknown and probably forgotten by most people except real Matheson completists) was a book called I am Legend, the story of one man left alone in a world that is full of vampires.  (That was the original novel premise.  More on the movie adaptations and what they changed later.)  The novel, as indicated in the heading of the first chapter of the book takes place about a half a year after some catastrophe has drastically changed the human race.  It is never really explained, but sometime late in 1974 some disease started to kill off the human population of Earth.  (The events of the novel start 5 months after the events in January of 1976).

In the book, Robert Neville, a former factory worker (although that is pure speculation based on some bits of text, we never really know what Neville did before), is holed up in his house where he manages  to survive.  He goes out at daytime looking for surviving victims of the plague or whatever it is, the survivors having been turned into vampires.  For most of the novel he is alone, except for the vampires who continually show up outside his door each night shouting for him to "come out, Neville!"

Eventually Neville does try to learn a bit about the nature of the beast, such as it is.  For instance what makes the vampires detest garlic?  Why do they avoid mirrors?  Why are some of them afraid of the Christian cross, but others are not?  (He discovers that particular thing is only true of Christian vampires, but also discovers that Jewish vampires, while not deterred by a cross are deterred by a Torah, and Islamic vampires shy away from a Koran.)  He spends much of the novel trying to investigate what the origin of the plague that killed off most of the population and turned the rest into vampires.  Fortunately for him he has a whole library of book nearby to aid in his quest, but the reality is at the end he doesn't understand it any better than he did when he started. (Note: Unlike the movies, in the novel Neville was NOT formerly connected to anything in the science field).

When Hollywood came to call, they were interested in the one man against the rest of the world concept.  Unfortunately, as will be seen, they really didn't care about the vampires as much as they did about the idea of plague victims.  Throughout all three versions that hit the theaters, the "vampires" morphed into something else entirely.  For instance, in the Heston movie "The Omega Man", the enemy pretty much is just a radical religious sect of people who suffered deformities caused by the plague.  You really even couldn't call them zombies.  Sure, they are seeking the blood of Heston's Neville, but only for retribution from the harm he and the scientists have caused which made the world as desolate as it is, not as an element of survival.

The Last Man On Earth (1964):

The problem I have with The Last Man on Earth, aside from the subpar acting on nearly everybody's part, including, unfortunately, Vincent Price, is the fact that the plague victims are supposed to be vampires (witness the garlic, mirrors and stakes through the heart), but they act more like zombies.  (In fact this movie was one of the noted inspirations for George Romero's classic zombie flick, Night of the Living Dead, so that should tell you something.)

The movie changed the main character's name from Neville to Morgan.  THe original script was written by Matheson himself from his novel.  When casting came around, Matheson saw the Morgan/Neville character as a virile, macho he-man.  He was leaning towards Jack Palance as his odds on favorite to play his novel's hero, but casting decided to go with Vincent Price.  Although Matheson agreed that Price was a good actor, he was not what Matheson viewed his character as being.

That in itself would have been discouraging, but the producers added insult to injury by bringing in another scriptwriter, William F. Leicester, to make changes in the script.  The result was that Matheson asked that his name be removed from the credits, opting to use the pseudonym of "Logan Swanson".

Of the three "official" versions of the book, The Last Man on Earth is the least interesting.  It's not entirely bad, however.  Just the quality suffers a little.  (and it doesn't help that Rome, the setting for this version,  doesn't look a bit like the Los Angeles of the following two movies or the setting of the novel).

The Omega Man (1971):

Charlton Heston is Neville, the star of the movie.  He plays a military scientist who, through a series of unfortunate events, becomes immune to the virus that has turned the rest of the world into albino religious nuts.  He goes out by day, hunting the plague victims and holes up in his penthouse at night while the plague victims, led by Anthony Zerbe, assail his fortress.  The basic premise of the novel of them being vampires was rejected in favor of them being just creatures who can't see in the daylight.  And instead of them seeking the blood of Heston for survival, they are only out to take out the last remaining member of a society that caused the plague to befall the Earth in the first place.

One of the added features is that Zerbe has formed a "Family", a pseudo-religious cult that seeks to eradicate all remaining evidences of advanced technology, which they see as evil.  As such, when at one point Neville is captured by the Family, they sentence him to be burned at the stake, much like the witches of Salem.  He is rescued by what turns out to be a crew of remaining members of the former world who, although not immune to the plague, have managed to stay free from it for the past year or two.  They are holed up in the outskirts of the town, and one member of the group, Lisa (Rosalind Cash), has a brother  Ritchie whom she thinks can be saved from the plague by Neville.

In this part we also see a change from the original novel.  In the novel, Neville never actually finds any survivors (although he briefly does hook up with a woman who may or may not be what she seems.)  The movie has to have a happier ending, so indeed there is some hope for the future at the end.  This is Hollywood sticking its fingers in the pie, because at the end of the novel it appears that there is no hope for a return to a society that Neville would call normal.

(For a more in-depth insight into this movie, see my review of The Omega Man that I wrote a few years ago.)

I Am Legend (2007):

Once again, Neville is cast as a true scientist.  Will Smith garnered the role, and he searches for a cure to the plague. The original plague was started by an altruistic scientist who had morphed a virus into a supposed 100% cure for cancer.  Once again altruistic science goes awry, as it often does in apocalyptic fiction, and the cure takes on a life of it's own, turning it's people into pseudo vampires.  (Vampires whose bite transfers the virus to it's victims.)  This particular version comes as close as it gets to transferring the book's vampires to film, although in this film the "vampires" are barely sentient, more like animals.

This version benefits from a bigger budget in many ways.  First the CGI vampires are much more menacing than actors in make-up could do.  It was also a pretty good choice when Will Smith came on board as Neville.  (A far cry from the original expected star;  rumors circulated that when the idea of a remake came about 10 years earlier, Arnold Schwarzenegger was going to be cast in the lead.  This rumor was accepted about as reluctantly by Matheson's fan base as the decision to cast Michael Keaton as Batman was prior to that movie's premiere.)

In all three movies, there is a happy ending of sorts in that the main character manages to pass on a cure to the plague before his own untimely death.  As stated before this is Hollywood's finger in the pie.  The novel was not so optimistic.

As a footnote, there was also a made for direct to video movie I Am Omega, which was released basically to cash in on the then current release of I Am Legend, but since I never found a copy of it prior to press time I can't tell you much about it.

Drive home safely, folks.  And be careful of whom you see on the road.

Quiggy

A Tribute to Ray Dennis Steckler

This is my entry in The Unexpected Blogathon hosted by Taking Up Room

Preface  note: Most of the tidbits of information that follows comes from an interview that a man named Boyd Rice conducted with Steckler,  that I found in a book called Incredibly Strange Films published by Research Publications or from comments made by Joe Bob Briggs in the commentary segment of my DVD copy of the film.  

Ray Dennis Steckler (some 40 years after our movie)

OK, are you people ready for bizarre?  If you've read every entry on this blog, maybe.  But I think most of you are going to decide I've finally did a high dive into the shallow end of the pool.  Ever forward in my attempt to try to educate you into the realm of "bottom of the barrel budget" drive-in fare, I found something that makes everything that came before this seem like Oscar night.

Ray Dennis Steckler may just have been Ed Wood, Jr.'s successor in trashy low-budget fare.  About the time that Eddie moved from "normal" cinematic fare to pornographic films, Ray Steckler moved in to take up the mantle of low-budget tripe.  (And Steckler would also later follow Wood's footsteps into doing pornographic films).

Steckler always had his eye on saving money.  Basically his philosophy seemed to be why spend $5,000 on special effects when you could spend $500, and why spend $500 when you could get something for $50?  And if you could save 50 cents here, go for it.  A perfect example is the movie that was titled Rat Phink a Boo-Boo.  The actual title was supposed to be Rat Phink and Boo-Boo, but the guy doing the title credits made a typographical error.  Rather than pay the $50 that was required to correct it, Steckler just left it the way it was.

Steckler never made the same movie twice.  He seems to have had the same kind of eclectic interests that I have.  After being hired by Arch Hall, Sr. to direct his son Arch Hall, Jr. to make a rockabilly movie called Wild Guitar, Steckler set his sights on making his own brand of movies.  The first (and arguably best) movie was a monster movie, The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies!!?  (BTW, just as a side note; the official title of the movie is supposed to include the "!!?".  Why?  I have no freaking idea...but it is sort of cool).  His second movie was a slasher flick called The Thrill Killers. He followed that with a quasi-superhero parody called Rat Phink a Boo-Boo and a pastiche that was kind of a tribute to the 30's Bowery Boys movies called The Lemon Grove Kids Meet the Monsters.

He also had a career making low-budget pornographic movies (like Ed Wood, Jr.) He also did a movie in 1979 called The Hollywood Strangler Meets the Skid Row Slasher.  The unique thing about this particular movie was that he filmed it 10 years earlier and intentionally withheld editing it for release for 10 years, but establishing the fact (within the movie) that it takes place in the year it was actually made.  The idea being, in his head, that people would marvel at how "accurately"  he got the look and feel of the late 60's/early 70's, even though the movie had been actually made in the late 60's/early 70's, just not released at that time.    (The guy was nothing if he wasn't creative, that's for sure.)

The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies!!? (1964):

See!

The Dancing Girls of the Carnival 

Murdered by the Incredible 
Night Creatures of the Midway!

See!

The Hunchback of the Midway
Fight a Duel of Death With The 
Mixed-Up Zombies!

See!

The First Monster Musical!

The classic masterpiece of Steckler was this gem, made for about $38,000, according to sources, and that was, supposedly, the most he ever spent to film a movie. Unless you watch these low-budget types of films, you won't recognize any of the actors' names, but a look at the screen credits reveals some real future star power on the other side of the camera.  Both Vilmos Zsigmond (credited as Wiliam Zsigmond) and Laszlo Kovacs (credited as Leslie Kovacs), names familiar to Academy Awards aficionados, appear as camera operators, and Joseph V. Mascelli, the man who wrote the book that is still studied today on camera work, was the main director of photography.

If you were paying attention, this gem is indeed a "monster musical".  In fact, it is billed as the first monster musical.  Before The Rocky Horror Picture Show, before Little Shop of Horrors, before Phantom of the Paradise, and, yes, before such recent masterpieces as Cannibal! The Musical, The Haunted World of Superbeasto, and Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead (and, no, I'm not making any of these titles up...) there was The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies!!?

A note about the title.  Steckler originally was going to call this movie The Incredibly Strange Creature, or Why I Stopped Living and Became a Mixed-Up Zombie.  But on another lot, Stanley Kubrick was filming his classic Dr. Strangelove: Or How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the Bomb. Apparently Kubrick thought the title sounded too similar and threaten to sue for big bucks, way more than Steckler had for his movie to produce in the first place.  But a deal was eventually worked out with Kubrick,  and he got to use the title that was eventually used.

Steckler (billed as Cash Flagg) stars as our "hero", a slacker by the name of  Jerry.

Jerry has a buddy named Howard (Atlas King) and the two make plans to go for a day to the carnival on the beach, stopping on the way to pick up Angela (Sharon Walsh), Jerry's girlfriend.  Because Jerry is a slacker with no foreseeable future, Angela's mother does not approve of Jerry, but Angela loves him, primarily because of his free spirit, even though he is a bit of a jerk.

Some background to the carnival:  First, there is this gypsy woman named Madam Estrella (Brett O'Hara, whose main claim to fame is as Susan Hayward's stand-in and had never been in a movie before...and never would after this.  You only have to watch to see why...)  Madam Estrella and her right hand man, an ugly brute named Ortega (Jack Brady) have this lovely little habit of taking unsuspecting patrons and pouring acid in their face, and then imprisoning them in the back room of Estrella's gypsy fortune-telling tent.  (Tents have back rooms???)

Estrella has a sister named Carmelita (Erina Enyo, another one-time only actress).  Carmelita is a stripper who also acts sometimes as a lure for her sister's potential victims.  There is also a dancing duo in some sort of exotic ballet dance number, Marge (Carolyn Brandt, who was Steckler's wife at the time so we know how she got into the movie) and Bill Ward (Bill Ward).  No that's not a typo.  He actually seems to be playing himself.  Marge is an alcoholic who can barely get through her numbers without a drink.  She is also a superstitious sort and visits Madam Estella for what turns out to be bad news.

Meanwhile Jerry has shown up with Harold and Angela and after frolicking around for a while end up in Estrella's tent, where she tells Angela that someone near her will come to an untimely end near water.  But she refuses to tell Jerry's fortune.  (Any ideas why?)

Jerry then has a falling out with Angela because he becomes enchanted by the beauty of Carmelita and wants to go to the strip show, but Angela doesn't.  Of course, Jerry, being the jerk that he is, tells Harold to take Angela home and goes in by himself.  Where, guess what, she lures Jerry back to Estrella's tent.  Where Estrella does some nefarious things with him, including hypnotizing him into being a slasher to take care of some of her more private enemies.

But remember I said this was a musical?  Well it is.  Not that you'd ever write home about these musical numbers.  A couple of them are halfway decent (key word; "halfway"), but none of them have anything to do with advancing the plot.  Which if you've read my opinion on musicals you know that makes it an acceptable musical to me on those merits.  But you may cringe at the singing of the various singers.  There is one guy who does a lounge singer song that makes me wonder if Steckler intentionally found the worst lounge singer he could scrounge up to appear in his movie...

All the dance numbers were done with only one rehearsal.  A bevy of showgirls (showgirls?  in a strip show?), in costumes that probably ate up a big chunk of that $38,000, perform with the lead singer most of the musical numbers.

Keep your eye on those chorus girls, by the way.  One of them is Sharon Walsh, our lead actress playing Angela.  Another interesting tidbit:  An entirely different girl was going to play Angela, but on the night that Steckler wanted to film her in her first scene the actress tried to beg off until the next day because her boyfriend, a drummer in a band, was playing a gig that night and she told Steckler  "I always go to his shows".   Steckler fired her on the spot (as would have I) and grabbed one of the dancers who happened to be walking by and told her she was now going to be the female star.   And that's how Sharon got the part.

Another note; this time about Atlas King.  His real name was, I think, Dennis Kesdekian and he was from Greece.  He couldn't speak much English when he was hired for this movie.  He had to learn is lines phonetically.   The fact that he sounds like a terrible actor can be attributed partially to that fact, but the fact that he seems to do it without an accent seems all that more impressive.  He was only in two movies, this one and Steckler's follow up, The Thrill Killers, and seems to have disappeared off the face of the Earth after that.  Maybe his experiences with Steckler sent him scurrying back to Greece where he has been operating a gyro stand, for all I know. 

I wasn't sure going in how I'd feel about this movie.  I knew I'd appreciate the low-budget aspect of it, but I wasn't sure how I'd feel about the film in general. It turns out, at least to me, that it's not quite the "bad" movie that the general public claims it is.    I liken it to one of those train wrecks that is just so bloody awful but you can't pry your eyes away from it no matter how hard you try.  And to think, it was all done for $38,000.  That's less than one day's bill for some grand extravaganzas you can see down at the multiplex today.  Plus, the "zombies" aren't like any zombies you've ever seen before.  I think they look more like actors in cheap dime-store masks.  But even that is part of the humor I get from it.  Of course you have to bear through the first hour and a half before you get to see these zombies in the last 5 minutes of the movie.

An added note, after it's initial run, Steckler often sent this movie out again under different titles.  Like The Teenage Psycho Meets Bloody Mary (no you didn't miss something.  Nobody in the movie is named "Mary"). and The Diabolical Doctor Voodoo (No doctors in it either).  Steckler even arranged for actors to go to showings and dress up like zombies and run out from behind the screen in the theater, at a pivotal moment, to scare the crap out of unsuspecting patrons (and sometimes he would be one of the actors).  Much like some of the tricks William Castle used to use for his movies, Steckler had a showmanship sensibility.




Well folks, time to fire up the old Plymouth and head home.  I suggest if you see a carnival on the side of the road on the way home, you bypass with all gusto.  Drive safely, folks.

Quiggy

Time Warped

This is my first entry in the Time Travel  Blogathon hosted by Silver Screenings and Wide Screen World

It's an axiom of society.  If a guy tells you he's from the future, he must be crazy. But what if, just what if he really IS from the future?  12 Monkeys, a film by Terry Gilliam explores this possibility.  We tend to think along the lines of what our perceptions of reality have been formed.  Time travel is not possible, therefore anyone who claims they have either come from the future (or in another scenario, a modern person who claims to have built a time machine and actually used it to travel into the past or future) must therefore be a little off mentally.

But an adage that was once postulated by Arthur C. Clarke, known as one of the three Clarke's laws  once stated than "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic".  One could extrapolate from that idea that also any idea that one cannot justify by their own deductive intellect is therefore not reliable as an idea.

I personally believe that time travel is theoretically possible, although I do not claim to come from the future nor do I know how to build some machine that would help me accomplish the task. But would I willingly be a guinea pig to see if the process actually works?  Hell, yes. 

The following two features do not feature a man from the future trying to convince the modern day people of impending doom for the planet, however (at least that's not the main theme).  Rather both movies involve people from modern times ending up through circumstances in a future world of Earth.  Both have a rather bleak view of the earth's potential future, at least from the standpoint of the present (the 60's).


























Beyond the Time Barrier (1960):

A pilot, Major Bill Allison (Robert Clarke), flies an experimental jet plane into the stratosphere.  The jet travels at supersonic speed and through the magic of rather iffy Hollywood theory, the pilot lands on an Earth some time in the future (although he does not initially know that.)  What he finds is his military base abandoned and in a state of extreme disrepair, even though he thinks he's only been gone for a few minutes.  It turns out, as the story goes, that the Earth has suffered a severe catastrophe.

Not, as you might expect from a movie from the 60's, from a devastating nuclear war.  But it was the result of nuclear weapons.  See, all those bombs being tested ripped a hole in the ozone layer, and let in cosmic rays from outer space, which turned the planet into a barren wasteland.  All of society has been forced to move residence underground.  But in the distance, the pilot can see the above ground city (which is a poorly done matte painting, but this is the only real quibble I have with the movie). 

The society, called the Citadel,  is ruled by a leader called The Supreme (Vladimir Sokoloff), who has been granted almost dictatorial rulership over society.   Everyone except for The Supreme and his second-in-command (Red Morgan) are deaf mutes.  They are also all sterile, there have been no new births in 20 years.

The Supreme's daughter, Trirene (Darlene Tomkins), however appears to be a last ray of hope because, although she is also mute, she is fertile and can be a bearer of children.  Which makes it convenient that Maj. Allison has shown up.

But the Captain does not trust Allison.  He is convinced that Allison is not from the past as he says but is instead some kind of advance spy for the Mutants, a race of people who live on the surface.  Convinced he is a spy he initially casts him into the Pit with the rest of the Citadel's mutant prisoners.  But Trirene has the hots for Allison and convinces her father that he is what he says he is.  (She is also telepathic...)

Allison is put in with a few other scientists who have also come from different eras of the past  (it turns out he was not the first to cross the time barrier).  The scientists convince Allison he can go back to his own time if he reverses the events that brought him to the future in the first place. The scientists tell Allison not to trust the Supreme and the Citadel.   But the Captain in turn tries to convince Allison not to trust the "scapes", which is what the scientists are called.

Chaos must ensue, of course, for Allison to actually make his escape to the past (his present).  It turns out that the "scapes" are not all to be trusted, as one of them engineers an attack from the inside with the help of the released prisoner mutants.  Whether Allison actually makes it back to his own time, and in what condition he will be in if it is actually him I will leave to you to find out by viewing the film.  This isn't actually as bad as it sounds, but the better movie for true admirers of real science in their science fiction will like the second feature better.

 



The Time Travelers (1964): 

In a laboratory, three scientists, Dr. von Steiner (Preston Foster), Dr. Connors (Phillip Carey) and Dr. White (Merry Anders),  try to perfect a window into time, although this window is initially only a "window", supposedly letting them see things as on a TV screen.  But just as a technician, Danny (Steve Franken, and yes he is related to Al Franken), shows up to tell them their power is about to be cut off, everything fries on the computers and this window actually becomes a portal.

Danny steps through the portal, and soon the others follow.  Of course, just as soon as they do, the portal vanishes and they are stuck in the future.  Once again, some devastating event has turned the future into a barren wasteland.  A group of red-skinned mutants, all looking like "Bull" Shannon from the TV series Night Court,  begin to chase the four. 





They end up in a cave where a mysterious force field ends up protecting them.  It turns out that the force field was generated by the inhabitants living underground.  (Yes, another society of people who had escaped the shattered world above ground for security of a society insulated from the bad old world of above ground.)

The underground civilization, led by Dr. Varna (John Hoyt) and his associate, Councilman Willard (Dennis Patrick) are desperately trying to complete the building of a spaceship that will take them to a planet near Alpha Centauri.  See the planet Earth is rapidly dying and the people living in the underground society are going to have to leave the planet if they want to survive.

Willard convinces Varna that taking the four newcomers with them will drastically reduce their chances of success, as they have everything down to a science as to how much food water and the like the people will need to make the trip.  But Varna does allow the scientists to use what resources are available to recreate their time portal and return to their own time.

Fate however intervenes, as the mutants above ground launch an attack, just as the spaceship is being boarded.  They destroy the spaceship and most of the colony on board already.  But a handful of the citizens and the scientists are able to finish the portal and escape to the past.  Upon arriving however, they find they are somehow living in a faster time rate than the actual present.  The scientists go to their lab where their former selves still are.  But they seem frozen!  No so.  The group from the future are living at an accelerated rate, estimated to be living at a year per second of actual time for their selves in real time.  (A concept that was used in an episode of the original Star Trek TV series, but I think this movie came out first.)

Fortunately the point at which the scientists re-entered the past is also a point in which the portal first materialized as a passageway into time and they find they can step through the portal again, albeit 100,000 years into the future.  It is dark and no one knows what is beyond the portal, but their choices are pretty limited, since they can't move or adjust anything in this present point.

Sounds awfully confusing doesn't it?  Wait until you see the final segment.  This movie was lampooned by the MST3K group, but the movie is one of the surprisingly more entertaining ones that that group made fun of.  Except for that rather bizarre and admittedly confusing ending, the acting and the story work out quite well.

Time to head home, folks (no pun intended)  Drive home safely.

Quiggy

The Bond Age (Part II)

 

2017 marks 55 years of James Bond on the movie screen.  To celebrate this momentous year, I am undertaking to review the entire oeuvre of Bond films, all 24 of them (at this juncture in history), two at a time.  These will appear on the 7th day of each month  (Bond's agent number being "007").  At the beginning of each entry I will give my personal ranking of each movie and of each movie's theme song.  (These are subjective rankings and do not necessarily agree with the view of the average Bond fan, so take it as you will).  I hope you enjoy them, nay, even look forward to the next installment.  As an added note, I am deeply indebted to Tom DeMichael, and his book James Bond FAQ,  for tidbits of information I with which I am peppering these entries.                                                                                                                                                                                                  -Quiggy

Sean Connery continued his portrayal of the iconic spy after his two initial performances in Dr. No and From Russia with Love  (see The Bond Age (Part I).   James Bond was definitely on his way to becoming the box office draw that would continue for the next 50 years.

Among the candidates for the role of Bond's next villain, Auric Gold finger, was Theodore Bikel, whom fans of The Russians are Coming! The Russians are Coming! will recognize as the captain of the Russian submarine, and whom also was a prolific stage actor, having originated the role of the von Trapp household head in the first stage production of The Sound of Music, and did a stint in the role of Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof.  My DVD of Goldfinger has his screen test.

The role of Goldfinger actually went to Gert Frobe, s German actor who had been a former member of the Nazi party in Germany during that party's regime.  But as noted in my reference book, he was not entirely on Hitler's side.  He apparently hid two Jewish friends in his home throughout the war.   Frobe had to learn his lines phonetically, which caused some problems during the filming.  Honor Blackman stated that she couldn't really understand him and only spoke her lines when he stopped speaking.  Michael Collins dubbed his voice in the film.

Dubbing an actor's or actress' voice was becoming not so uncommon in the Bond films.  Both Ursula Andress and Daniela Bianchi in Dr. No and From Russia with Love had been dubbed as well, Adolpho Celi, in the following Bond entry,  Thunderball. was dubbed by another man, Robert Rietty.  It should be noted that dubbing was not done any of these times because they were terrible actors, just that their individual accents were thought, at least by the producers, to be a bit hard to understand.  Frobe was a consummate actor in his own native Germany and Celi made movies in Italy for years.  Let's face it, unless you were used to Herve Villechaize from Fantasy Island, you probably would have been hard pressed to understand him in The Man with the Golden Gun.  (Yes, Golden Gun was made before Fantasy Island came on TV, but you must remember I was brought up in a rather repressive household, and didn't actually get to see that one until I was much older.)

Goldfinger (1964)

Quiggy's Personal Ranking of the Movie: #3

Quiggy's Personal Ranking of the Theme Song: #10

Best Bond Quote:  (A prefatory note:  I actually LIKE the Beatles, but this one was just too good to not include...) "My dear girl, there are some things that just aren't done.  Such as drinking Dom Perignon   '53 above the temperature of 38 degrees Fahrenheit.  That's just as bad as listening to the Beatles without earmuffs."

Best Bond Villain Quote: (After being asked by Bond if he expects Bond to talk) "No, Mr. Bond!  I expect you to die!"

Best Weapon:  Despite all of Bond's accoutrements for this film, the absolute best weapon HAS to be Oddjob's deadly hat...

In what was to become a tradition, the opening segments of Goldfinger included the final moments of his previous case, the destruction of a drug laboratory, and the execution of a drug lord via electrocution in a bathtub.  This was the first Bond film to actually have James Bond defeat an enemy and wrap up a case before the credits.  (In From Russia with Love, it was just an introduction to Bond's coming nemesis, and the "real" Bond himself was not actually in the scene.)

After the credits, featuring Shirley Bassey singing the theme song (actually the first to have the Bond theme song with lyrics during the credits.  Again, in From Russia with Love only the music played, and you did not actually hear the lyrics version until the end credits).  Bassey's song was the also first one to chart as a single on Billboard's Top 100. It made it to #8 on March 27, 1965 where it stayed for two weeks.

Bond thinks he's on vacation in Miami Beach, but in reality it turns out he has been sent there by M to work with the CIA, and Felix Leiter (Cec Linder), to investigate Auric Goldfinger (Gert Frobe), an industrialist who is thought to have been illegally smuggling gold.  He finds Goldfinger cheating at cards, using an accomplice, Jill Masterson (Shirley Eaton), who spies on his opponent's cards from a hotel room, using a telescope.  Bond uncovers the ruse and forces Goldfinger to lose money to the oppponent, which of course doesn't make Goldfinger happy.

Goldfinger gets his revenge by having Oddjob (Harold Sakata), his valet, knock out Bond and paint Jill with gold paint, which suffocates her.  Bond then challenges Goldfinger to a game of golf, and through subterfuge, nicks him again for more money.  Meanwhile he puts a homing device on Goldfinger's car and chases him through Switzerland.  Goldfinger has another shadow, in the person of Tilly Soames (Tania Mallet), who is later revealed to be the sister of Jill.  She is trying to kill him for revenge of the death of Jill.

In the course of the film, Oddjob and his henchmen eventually capture Bond and make him a prisoner, also killing Tilly in the process.  Goldfinger it turns out has a plan to rob Fort Knox of it's gold.  At least that's he plan as stated to a plethora of underworld mob figures he has meet him with various implements he plans to use in his heist, called "Operation Grand Slam".  Evil villains being what they are in the Bond films, he kills off the underworld characters in one fell swoop so he won't have to share.

Bond meets up with Pussy Galore (Honor Blackman).  (Fleming's actual name for Goldfinger's right hand woman, I'm not trying to be prurient...)  Ms. Galore is immune to Bond's charms, although they do not come right out and state her sexuality, it's obvious she is supposed to be a lesbian.  But since two of the Bond women are already dead, I think you can guess how successful he will eventually be.

As it turns out, Goldfinger's actual plan is to break into Fort Knox and set off a nuclear bomb, which would contaminate the supply stored there and make his own supply that much more valuable.  (Although this sounds pretty ingenious in theory, I can't actually vouch for how it would work in reality, but it would definitely make the gold untouchable for years, if the bomb didn't actually demolish the supply in the first place).  Bond's goal then is to prevent the event from happening, and this makes for a pretty exciting final reel of he movie.

Thunderball (1965)

Quiggy's Personal Ranking of the Movie: #22

Quiggy's Personal Ranking of the Theme Song: #3

Best Bond Quote: (taunting Emilio Largo who is #2 in the SPECTRE organization, after he defeats him in a card game) "I thought I saw a specter at your shoulder".

Best Bond Villain Quote: Fiona Volpe (Largo's right hand woman):  "But, of course, I forgot your ego, Mr. Bond.   James Bond.  The one where he has to make love to a woman, and she starts to hear heavenly choirs singing.   She repents and turns to the side of right and virtue...but not this one."

Best Weapon:  Bond uses a jet pack early in the movie (before the credits).  This thing was actually a prototype that had been invented just a few years before.

In the pre-credits sequence, Bond watches the funeral of Col. Jacques Bouvar (Bob Simmons).  But as he watches Bouvar's widow leave the funeral he realizes that the "Widow" is actually Bouvar himself and follows him home and kills him.

The credits roll wit Tom Jones singing the theme song to "Thunderball". Johnny Cash also recorded a Thunderball song for the movie, entirely different, but it was not used.  The Tom Jones' version made it to #25 on the Billboard Top 100 on Jan. 22, 1966.

Emilio Largo (Adolfo Celi), and the rest of the heads of SPECTRE attend a meeting in which Ernst Stavro Blofeld, the number one guy in the organization executes a member who has been secretly giving false numbers of the actual monies being taken by his sector.  Largo then outlines his plans to extort money from the various nations by hijacking two nuclear bombs and threatening to explode them  if the nations don't pony up the extortion.

Meanwhile, Bond, who is supposed to be recuperating at a spa, uncovers part of the plan.  He doesn't uncover it all, but his neighbor, a man whose face is completely bandaged seems to not be on the up and up.  In reality the man is being groomed and facially altered to take the place of an airline pilot, François Derval (Paul Stassino), so that he can hijack the plane carrying the bombs.  By coincidence, François' sister, Dominique (Claudine Auger), also called "Domino", is Largo's mistress.  When Largo kills her brother, he eventually creates an enemy with Domino, although she does not initially know he has done so.

The game continues with a lot of underwater sequences which involves Bond trying to avoid a couple of deadly sharks, and several of Largo's henchmen, as Bond tries to locate where the bombs have been hidden.  He also has to deal with Fiona Volpe (Luciana Paluzzi), who as Largo's right hand woman, alternately plays with Bond and his seductions and even tries to kill him at one point.

One of the reasons this movie ranks on my list as one of the worst in the series is the underwater sequences, which often causes confusion as to whom is on whom's side, and the final reel in which a battle between Bond and Largo looks as if it was edited by a lunatic on acid.  The movie is standard Bond fare otherwise, but a lot of the action sequences, I thought, could have been done better.

Well, folks, time to fire up the old Plymouth and head home.  Still waiting on James Bond to offer me one of his cast off Aston-Martin's....

Quiggy

Come One, Come All to the Circus!

This is my entry in the Dual Roles Blogathon, hosted by Christina Wehner and Silver Screenings

A quick glance at the roundup for this "Dual Roles" blogathon shows numerous entries for actors who are playing two separate roles.  In "Dr. Strangelove", Peter Sellers takes on a mere three roles.  To this I say "Bah!  Pikers!"

Ladies and gentlemen!  Come one, come all to the Circus of Dr. Lao.  Here you will see Dr. Lao himself.

Tony Randall

You will also see the monstrous, but beguiling Medusa!

Tony Randall

The enchanting God of Joy, Pan!

Tony Randall

The fantastic wizard of antiquity, Merlin!

Tony Randall

 A mysterious seer of the future, Appolonius!

Tony Randall

An Abominable Snowman!

Tony Randall

And a talking serpent!

Animated serpent, but voiced by Tony Randall

Yes, that's right, folks! Tony Randall puts them all to shame by taking on 7 (count 'em, 7!) roles in The Seven Faces of Dr. Lao.  

(Now, nitpickers will say that, in retrospect, Tony Randall was not actually the Abominable Snowman, although he was credited as it.  I'll concede that it's true.  George Pal's son, Peter, was the un-credited one in the snowman costume.  But, in that case,  I will add that Randall also appeared in the audience of the circus, looking pretty unimpressed with the proceedings.  So now we again have 7, so there!  :-D)

Tony Randall

The movie was directed by George Pal, and is a loving rendition of a great fantasy novel written in 1935 by Charles G. Finney.  Charles Beaumont, a veteran screenwriter whose name should be familiar to fans of the Rod Serling show The Twilight Zone, adapted the novel for the screen.

The 7 Faces of Dr. Lao (1964)

This film opens with a Chinese peasant, Dr. Lao (Tony Randall), riding in to the town of Abalone with his only apparent possessions being a long stemmed pipe, a jackass and a fish bowl with a fish in it.  He rides into town, immediately going to the local paper to advertise his circus.  Dr. Lao is. among other things, a magician, and we get a sample early on as he waves his hand to stop the noisy presses of the paper in order to get the attention of the printer, Sam (Noah Beery, Jr.).  He wants to talk with the man in charge, Ed Cunningham (John Ericson), but the printer claims he is busy.

Enter the proposed villain of the picture.  Clint Stark (Arthur O'Connell).  Stark berates Ed, good-naturedly admittedly, for printing editorials calling into question Stark's motives for buying up wholesale portions of the town.  Ed suspects Stark has ulterior motives although he does not know what they are.  After Stark leaves Lao proposes buying a full page ad in Ed's newspaper advertising his Circus.

Ed has a crush on the local librarian, Angela Benedict (Barbara Eden), a widow with a son, Mike (Kevin Tate).  Angela spurns his advances with gusto, although her mother-in-law, with whom she still lives, Sarah (Argentina Brunetti) approves of him and thinks her widowed daughter-in-law should give in and accept his advances.

A town hall meeting is called in which the efforts of Stark to buy the town are addressed, but just before a final vote is called to accept his offer, Ed manages to postpone the vote.  He is still trying to find out Stark's motives.  Meantime Dr. Lao's Circus opens.  By the way, if you are unable to accept that such a large circus could be transported on the back of donkey, you are too literal-minded, and are probably in the wrong theater.

The towns patrons of the circus are addressed individually and see exactly what they seem to need to see.  Angela is enchanted by the pipes playing of the god Pan, who transforms, in her mind, from the god as played by Tony Randall into Ed as played by John Ericson.  A haughty woman who thinks more of herself than she really is, Mrs. Cassan (Lee Patrick) is brought down to Earth by the blunt but truthful predictions of the seer, Appolonius (Tony Randall).  A snotty little kid is given his comeuppance by the aged wizard Merlin (Tony Randall). A shrewish woman ( is turned to stone by the Medusa (Tony Randall), despite her insistence that its all a hoax.   And Stark meets a talking serpent (an animated creature that looks like stark, but is voiced by Tony Randall).

Throughout all of this is Dr. Lao who entertains as the ringmaster, not only using the pidgin English that personifies the Chinese in movies of the era, but also in a pretty decent Irish accent, and in straightforward American English on one occasion to Mike.  You might think all of this is a stereotype, and some will undoubtedly be offended by the portrayals, but I see it in the context of the fantasy of the overall film.  Randall as Dr. Lao exposes the faults of each of the citizens, all of which makes them change into better people by the end of the movie.  Even Stark.

I hope I have intrigued you enough to want to watch this movie on your own.  I avoided any spoilers, because unlike many of the movies I reviewed in recent months, I think this one may be obscure enough that many of you may not have seen it.  trust me, it is a very entertaining fable, and the book is really good too, if you manage to find a copy.

Well, folks, the circus is closing.  Be sure to stock up on cotton candy and pretzels before you leave the theater.

Quiggy