Love is For the Birds

This is my entry in the France on Film Blogathon sponsored by Serendipitous Anachronisms

The French film is one that gets ignored quite often by the general American public, partly due to the average American not being well versed in French.  Of course, you could watch them dubbed, but one thing about watching it dubbed, you miss out on the actual actors and actresses voices.  In the case of La Cage aux Folles, nothing is more important than that one thing.  Believe me.  I tried to watch it dubbed, and while it was easier to follow than reading subtitles, if you watch it dubbed you only get the facial expressions, you don't get the nuances of the actors.

La Cage aux Folles (1978)

La Cage aux Folles was originally a play by Jean Poiret.   Michel Serrault, who originated the role of Albin on stage at Theatre de Palais Royal, returned to portray him in the film.  The movie was a cooperation effort between France and Italy, thus the original character of Georges in the play is renamed Renato Baldi and played by Italian actor Ugo Tognazzi.

If you come to this movie expecting to see something similar to Mike Nichol's remake, The Birdcage, you may be disappointed.  True, it is basically the same plot, but whereas The Birdcage was flashier and with not a few over-the-top performances, La Cage aux Folles is more subdued.  Still, Serrault's portrayal of Albin will garner more than a few laughs.

The story begins with the revue at a nightclub called, fittingly, La Cage aux Folles.  The master of ceremonies is in a dither because "Zaza" (Albin's stage name) has not come down from the dressing room.  Renato and Albin's doctor go to check on him.  Albin is frustrated because he feels unwanted and unloved.

Renato treats Albin with paternal patience, but Albin is convinced Renato is seeing someone else.  While Albin is on stage, Renato does see someone else, but it is his son.  Renato had a one night affair with a fellow actress 20 years earlier, even though Renato was gay even then,  which produced a son,   Laurent (Remi Laurent)  is straight and has met the girl of his dreams, Andrea (Luisa Maneri).















 

Andrea is the daughter of an ultraconservative government representative, Simon Charrier, and his wife, Louise (Michel Galabru, Carmen Scarpitta).  Off screen,  Simon's boss, the leader of a moral order conservative group, dies of a heart attack in the arms of an underage black prostitute.  This causes no end of problems with Simon and the press, so he decides to take the family to meet Laurent's "parents".  (He has been told by Andrea that Renato is a diplomat, and has conveniently failed to mention that he is gay and has a gay partner.)

Laurent tries to convince his father to send Albin away for a couple of days and tries to enlist his biological mother to come so they can pose as his parents.  Albin becomes emotionally distraught at the thought, since he is already feeling unwanted.  So Renato tries to transform him from a mincing, effeminate man to a macho man so he could stay as Laurent's uncle, still having Laurent's real mom pose with Renato as a valid married couple. The transformation doesn't go well, but unbeknownst to anyone, Albin has dressed up in women's clothes and poses as Laurent's mother.

The last part of this movie is among the most hilarious scenes ever.   Serrault is fantastic as a man posing as a woman.  And Galabru's reactions as he realizes what is going on are memorable.  

 The movie got an Oscar nod for best director (Edouard Molinaro) as well as Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Costume Design, but failed to win any.  The movie spawned two sequels, both of which had Michel Serrault and Ugo Tognazzi reprising their roles.

Until next time, drive safely.

Quiggy

Red Planet Menace

Ever since the first (modern) documented sighting of UFO's in 1947, the public has been fascinated with flying saucers and all things alien (invasions,  encounters, abductions etc).  The 1950's saw a wave of sci-fi movies that sought to capitalize on this interest and fear.  Possibly fueled by Red Scare fears of Russian invasions (and truth be told some of those 50's "alien" movies were just allegories for said Russian fears), the public got more than it might ever have wanted of these aliens from another planet movies.  Many were just cheap knockoffs, but a few were destined to make the top 25 of many sci-fi buffs most favorite or memorable movies.  A few of my favorites came from the 50's. Forbidden Planet and Gojira (released in America as Godzilla with scenes added featuring Raymond Burr as an America reporter who happens to be visiting Japan at the time, but the original is far superior) top this list, but there are others.

Some of those movies are such memorable ones that, sooner or later, Hollywood just HAD to capitalize on a known quantity by remaking them.  These remakes achieved various degrees of success, some due to the star quality in the cast (Tom Cruise in the War of the Worlds remake, or Keanu Reeves in the remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still), or the director whose movies had a cult following (John Carpenter remade The Thing, with some pretty gory effects and Tobe Hooper did the same with Invaders from Mars).  Invasion of the Body Snatchers, my personal favorite of the 50's "aliens subbing for Russians" movie has been remade numerous times over the years, the best of which came out in  1976, with Donald Sutherland as the star.  All of these original versus remake movies will be discussed in later entries to my blog.

The first, however, will be the Invaders from Mars duet.

Invaders from Mars (1953)  

Invaders from Mars  is one of the most obvious of the attempts to use aliens to represent the Russians.  This was 1953, after all, and the Communists had recently invaded South Korea, subjecting the world to the Korean conflict.  The film's protagonist is little David MacLean (Jimmy Hunt), a boy who is an amateur scientist and astronomer.  As the film opens, David sees a flying saucer land in the sand dunes out behind his house   

He tries vainly to get his father to check it out, but is sent back to bed.  The father, George (Leif Erickson), decides reluctantly to go check it out.   The reason for this, it is explained, he is working for the government on a top-secret project and has been warned to report any unusual activity.  When George shows up again he seems changed, rather abrupt and not entirely friendly. David notices a mark on the back of his neck, but George tells him to go away.

The policemen, who were called to find out where George was while he was still missing also began acting peculiarly.  David notices others (including his mother (Hillary Brooke) disappearing over the dunes and showing up later acting strange, with the same weird mark on the backs of their necks.  David's young neighbor sets fire to her house.  At this point, David panics and runs to the police.  Only problem is the aliens have captured the chief and turned him into one of their automatons.

Fortunately David is put in a cell, ostensibly to be held for his parents, but a doctor shows up to talk to him.  Dr. Blake (Helena Carter) is initially unconvinced by David's story, but eventually agrees to take him to the local astronomy lab. Together with the local astronomer, Dr. Kelston (Arthur Franz), the three come to the conclusion that Martians, worried about the current rocket ship the Americans are working on, have sent an advance team to sabotage the plans.

The Army is called in to the rescue.  The Martians have captured and automaton-ized the General, but a Colonel and the majority of the army personnel are still free, and they investigate the area.  We finally see the interior of the ship, along with a couple of mutants who work for the Martians (looking more like humans in green pajamas)

The main Martian (in fact the only Martian on board that we see) is a disembodied head, that apparently is able to do all it's communication telepathically.  While David runs around trying to get away from the Martian and it's mutants, Dr, Blake is captured and is subjected to the
 same operation that turned everyone else into automatons.

The last part of the movie involves an elaborate chase and escape from the saucer after the army has planted explosives.  Two endings were made.  One shown in the US, and one that is slightly different was shown in the UK.  The changes, made at the request of the UK censors, also included a slightly different conversation with the astronomer in the astronomy lab, which included some history of UFO sightings.  If you get a DVD with both, there's no harm in watching both versions through entirely, but it is essentially the same movie except for the altered ending.

Invaders from Mars (1986)

The Tobe Hooper remake of the 1953 classic Invaders from Mars, is virtually the same movie, although there are some things that Hooper brought to the game that technology was unable to accomplish in 1953.  Primarily, the mutants the Martians employ are much creepier and at times much more funny-looking than the green pajama clad humans of the classic.

In addition, there are more gross-out scenes that would have never made it past the censors (including one where a teacher eats a live frog, whole.  You can see Jimmy Hunt, (the little boy from the original) in a cameo role as the chief of police.  Also Louise Fletcher, who so famously played Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is here as a monstrous teacher, who becomes an even more monstrous frog-eating automaton.

The story begins in as much the same way the original.  Little David Gardner (Hunter Carson) sees an alien spaceship land in his backyard.  His parents, George (Timothy Bottoms) and Ellen (Laraine Newman), think he just had a bad dream.

The film proceeds along in the same way as the original except that it introduces a twist, a teacher who has made it her personal project to get the schoolchildren turned into automatons, including David.  David is rescued however by the school nurse (played by the boy actor's real mom, Karen Black).  This being a Tobe Hooper movie, as I said before, several more graphic scenes abound.  The monsters from Mars have to bee seen to be believed,  At times they look hilarious and at other times pretty scary.

The 1986 version, while it will never be confused with a quality classic, is still pretty decent. Tobe Hooper, who had already become a cult favorite with the TV movie version of Stephen King's 'Salem's Lot,   The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Poltergeist, went on to make many more gross-out flicks over the years, including Lifeforce and another Stephen King adaption, The Mangler.

Until next time, folks, adios from the back seat of the Plymouth Fury.

Quiggy

Closed for the Holidays

The Midnite Drive-In is closing up for the holidays.  Getting ready to take a much needed vacation.  I'll put at least 1500 miles on the old Plymouth before it's said and done, kiddies.  Expect the next review sometime after the 1st.  As always, drive safe, folks!

Quiggy

Gun Crazy

The 50's were the heyday of the western.  Sure you had westerns dating back to the silent era.  And John Wayne made his mark in early Republic westerns.  But those were generally one and two reelers with lots of action, but very little character development.  The good guys wore white, the bad guys wore black, and no one had any real depth.  Of course, many of those were for the Saturday morning crowd, which usually consisted of kids, who, let's face it, generally like their heroes with no discernible flaws.

The so-called "Golden Age" of the western movie (also referred to as "adult western") was the 1950's.  According to one blogger I read in researching this subject, the first "adult western" was a 1947 Robert Mitchum flick called Pursued.  I haven't seen this movie, or for that matter even heard of it, but it sounds intriguing.  The western movie genre gravitated towards more adult themes over the next few years.

By comparison, most of these golden age westerns are much more entrancing and eminently watchable.  For a comparison, watch one or two of John Wayne's Republic movies from the 30's and 40's and then watch The Searchers.  This is as good a comparison as I can make because the early Wayne characters were as one-dimensional as those Saturday matinee characters the kids of that day loved, but Ethan Edwards (Wayne's character in The Searchers) is complex and nuanced.

























3:10 to Yuma (1957)


3:10 to Yuma is a character piece more than anything else.  There is, by comparison to a lot of other Westerns of the day, very little gun play.   The movie starts out with a bunch of bandits who have commandeered the cattle of a local rancher to use to stop a stagecoach.  The leader of the gang is Ben Wade (played by Glenn Ford), probably the most unconvincing gang leader, but as the movie goes on it becomes more evident this characterization is intentional.  But it's still hard to imagine Glenn Ford as a bloodthirsty cutthroat.  His second in command is Charlie Prince (Richard Jaeckel) who is much more convincing as a killer, but his baby-faced looks (coupled with the fact that his most prominent role in my mind is the tough, no nonsense, but gentle sergeant in The Dirty Dozen )  threw me off for a bit.

Ben Wade (Glenn Ford)

Charlie Prince (Richard Jaeckel)

Dan Evans (Van Heflin) observes the stagecoach robbery from a safe distance, but Wade notices him and after the robbery goes up to him and takes his and his sons' horses from them to keep them from riding to get the law before the bandits can make a getaway. Wade is not as bloodthirsty as you might expect a bad guy to be in one of these films, because he tells Evans he will leave the horses near Bisbee, where the outlaws are heading.   Evans and sons make their way back home on foot, where they are met by  mother/wife Alice (Leora Dana).  Alice is a fresh sight for anyone who has watched a lot of this movies.  Usually the wife is a pretty actress and nothing is really done to make her look anything like she would be if she had really been living all this time on a ranch.  But Dana looks the part.

Alice Evans (Leora Dana)

Dan Evans (Van Heflin)

Dan tells her about the robbery but claims he couldn't do anything to stop it because it would have been one against twelve.  In Bisbee, Wade and his men have a few drinks in a saloon, where Wade becomes friendly with the barkeep, Emmy (Felicia Farr, a pretty girl, but you can't have them all show the wear and tear of country life)  Meanwhile we have learned that Evans is broke and needs money to acquire rights to use a neighbor's water for six months.  He rides into Bisbee to get his horses, where Wade was supposed to have left them for him.  Wade, meanwhile, has told Emmy the stage was robbed, conveniently NOT telling her it was him and his gang.  She goes to tell the marshall, who rounds up a posse to give chase, but is suspicious of this group of men and hangs around until they leave town.



Upon arrival at the stagecoach, it becomes apparent to everyone that the group of cowboys they left behind in town were he real culprits, and they race back to town.  But wade has dispersed the band, vowing to meet them all together further down the road.  But Wade stays behind, it seems he has really taken a liking to Emmy.  This is his downfall, as it always is with women, he is captured.  Worried that the rest of the gang will come looking for him they arrange for two men, each to be paid $200 to take him to Contention where they will board the 3:10 to Yuma to take him to the authorities.  Evans, needing the $200 for the water rights volunteers, but no one else seems to be willing except the town drunk, Alex (Henry Jones).



The rest of the movie plays out in nail-biting suspense as, one, the ruse is discovered and two, the gang is rounded up to try to stop them from taking their boss to jail.  Meanwhile the character play is hammered out as Wade tries to convince Evans it is a suicide mission or even tries to bribe him to let him duck out.  The ending, which I won't spoil, is one that is well worth the wait.  Suffice to say that Glenn Ford is not entirely all the bad guy you'd expect from a bad guy.

Warlock (1959)

Warlock is a town besieged by a rough band of outlaws headed by Abe McQuown (Tom Drake), who are supposedly cowboys on a ranch, but seem to make a better time of it carousing in town, and killing or terrorizing the law enforcement.  This has been going on for some time and at the beginning of the movie the gang runs out of town the current deputy marshal.  Johnny Gannon (Richard Widmark) is a member of the gang, but you can tell from his facial expressions that he is tired and abhors the situation he is in.

Richard Widmark

Several familiar faces are in the McQuown gang, including DeForest Kelley (Star Trek's Dr. Leonard McCoy) and Frank Gorshin (Batman's The Riddler).

DeForest Kelley

Frank Gorshin

These guys have become the terror of the town, and the city council decides something must be done.  They agree to hire a mercenary named Clay Blaisedell (Henry Fonda), famed for his marksmanship as well as his gold-plated handle Colts. Blaisedell arrives in town with his right hand man Tom Morgan (Anthony Quinn), a cripple who walks with a limp, but is definitely no slouch with a gun himself.

Henry Fonda
Anthony Quinn

The two set up shop inside the local saloon, which they have renamed "The French Palace".  This is apparently something they do in  every town because the marquee arrives on a wagon bringing their equipment.  Blaisedell tells them he makes the lion's share of his income as a faro dealer, because the money the town is paying him would barely cover the ammunition he uses in practice.

The first showdown is relatively bloodless as Curley (DeForest Kelley) taunts the marshal, but is only humiliated.  The outlaws decide it would be wiser to leave town.  One of them is getting a shave and is accidentally nicked by the barber.  In the ensuing ruckus, the outlaw kills the barber.

Blaisedell arrests the culprits, but (offscreen) they are found not guilty, apparently because McQuown can throw a lot of weight around.  Johnny, in the meantime, has decided to take the job as deputy marshal and declares that Blaisedell's services are no longer needed.  He wants the town run by law, not by the whims of the mercenary.

There are two love interests to make this movie a bit more deep.  Blaisedell has a liking for one of the town's prettiest women, Jessie (Dolores Michaels).  A former lover of Tom Morgan, Lily Dollar (Dorothy Malone) shows up in town, and Johnny takes a liking to her.

Dolores Michaels and Dorothy Malone

Lily comes on the scene because she has been following Blaisedell and Morgan.  She wants revenge on Morgan for betraying a former lover that Blaisedell ending up shooting.  To that effect she wants Blaisedell dead.  Not so much for him, but to devastate Morgan, who would then be without a friend in the world.

As usual, there is an ultimate showdown in the streets between the bad guys and the law.  But this movie has a couple of extra twists that may surprise you. I saw this movie on a cable westerns channel several years ago, and it had such a profound effect on me that I spent years talking about it, detailing little bits and pieces from just that one viewing.  Luckily, fortune smiled on me and I was able to pick up a DVD of it a few months ago.  It still has the ability to move me.

Well, that wraps up the view from the back seat this time, kids.  Drive safe going home.

Quiggy

Reefer Madness

(Note:  Sorry for the delay of a week on this post.   Been busy trying to get my blogathon up and running.  Q.)

Cheech and Chong were the 70's answer to Laurel and Hardy, Abbott and Costello and Martin and Lewis.  The two met in the late 60's and developed a skit comedy routine that usually centered around the counterculture of the time, especially dealing with drugs.  They became very popular among the hippie crowd, and beginning in 1971, began making albums.

Most of these albums had one or two single releases, due to the duos growing popularity.  Basketball Jones, Sister Mary Elephant, and Earache My Eye all managed to crack the top 40, and a smattering of other came close in the mid-to-late 70's. It took a while longer for Hollywood to come calling, however.

The transition from skit and album comedy to film began with the release of Up in Smoke in 1978.  I was just a naive young buck hanging out with my less scrupulous cousin when we picked up a couple of girls  and went to see this movie.  I had several new experiences over the course of that night, but the main one I remember was being so buzzed on beer that I could only remember one (actually two) scenes where the cop complains that some guy pissed on his leg.

Cheech & Chong went on to do several more movies before spending a long breakup period in which each did their own thing for about 20 years.  But recently the two made amends and began a new skit comedy tour.  Aging hippies that they are, they still manage to find new audiences, as their drug culture material is not all that dated.

Cheech & Chong's Up in Smoke (1978)

The first Cheech & Chong movie begins by showing the two separately, prior to their first meeting.  Pedro de Pacas (Cheech Marin)  is in a house overrun by family, especially children.  Man, briefly called Anthony (Tommy Chong) in contrast appears to be the delinquent scion of a well-to-do couple (played hilariously by Strother Martin and Edie Adams).  While Pedro rides around in his low rider, a 1964 Chevy Impala with a different colored door, Man's Volkswagon  breaks down and he has to spebd the night on the beach.

At this point the movie essentially becomes a series of vignettes culled from their albums and stage shows, expanded for the movie, but still holding to the themes of two stoners just coasting through life.   As the scene above shows, one involves a hilarious scene with a monster sized joint, which has "Maui Wowie" ( a variation of marijuana) mixed with the doo-doo of Man's pet Labrador.

In the meantime, Sgt. Stendanko (Stacy Keach) is a narc trying to score a big bust.  He and his fellow officers bust a drug party, barely missing nabbing Man.  Later he will be trying to score a big bust trying to catch smugglers at the border.

There are several other dope-infused scenes, one of which involves a woman mistakenly inhaling Ajax detergent, thinking its cocaine, and another where Curtis ( Christopher Joy), an African-American friend gives them some high-powered pot that incapacitates them.  At this point, the INS "la migra" invade the place and deport everyone including Pedro and Man.

The two end up in Tijuana where they are going to go to Pedro's uncle's  upholstery shop to smuggle a van which has had the upholstery done south of the border to save on labor.  But the two go to the wrong place and end up with a van that has been made from fiberweed.  Essentially the van is a joint on wheels...

Sgt. Stedanko tries to catch them at the border, but due to incompetence and mistaken identity, they arrest a station wagon full of nuns rather than the two stoners.  They resume chase, but it's Keystone Kops time in the police car as Stedanko seems to have been saddled with the most addled officers on the force.  Meanwhile, Pedro and Man pick up two hitchhikers who are on their way to a concert.  The concert is a contest in which the best band will win a prize of a recording contract.

While Stedanko tries to locate the van, Pedro and Man go to enter the contest.  We are entertaineed by Pedro dressed in a tutu ad Man totally zonked on drugs and the rest of Pedro's band, performing as Alice Bowie doing their classic Earache My Eye. 

The first movie managed to make a bunch of money at the box office, and convinced the execs who saw dollar bills in their eyes to green light several sequels, to varying levels of success.

Cheech & Chong's Nice Dreams (1981)


Nice Dreams was actually the third Cheech & Chong movie.  (The second, aptly title Cheech & Chong's Next Movie, was released in 1980.)  The two, now called Cheech and Chong within the movie,  have become entrepreneurs,  hawking pot disguised as ice cream from a  truck.  The truck is a converted ice cream truck with an N before the word "ice" aan a "D" painted over the "C" in "cream".

Two bumbling police officers, Detective Noodles (Tim Rossovich) and Detective Drooler (Peter Jason)  are actively trying to nab the two dealers, but are only able to get samples of the weed they are selling.  Sgt Stedanko (Stacy Keach reprising his role from Up in Smoke) is now a stoner himself, and smokes some of the weed.  It has a bizarre side effect of turning him gradually into a lizard.

 The source of this hybrid weed is Weird Jimmy ( Jimmy Fame), a friend from whom they steal the pot.  He has a lab underground, which has been disguised as a swimming pool above ground, to avoid detection.  The pair have apparently been making a mint off the weed they steal, because they are now rich.

Cheech and Chong go to a Chinese restaurant where they meet all sorts of weirdos, including a very early appearance of Paul Ruebens (of Peewee Herman fame), playing an escapee from a nut ward.  Chong ends up giving the nut all the money.

Cheech meanwhile tries to make out with a former girlfriend, who has a huge muscular husband who has just broken out of jail.  Chaos ensues when he shows up to the apartment, with Cheech hanging out the window, seven stories up, naked.  Chong rescues Cheech and they go after the money, breaking into the nut ward where the nut is back in now.

But they are mistaken for fellow inmates.  Dr. Timothy Leary shows up to free Cheech, but the "key" he gives him is a pill, probably LSD.  Cheech goes on a weird trip, but in the end both are freed with apologies from the real doctor and warden of the nuthouse.

This one is by far the most bizarre of C &C's output.  Just the scenes where Stedanko is gradually turning into a lizard will give you the willies.  Cheech & Chong made three more movies together, and were also involved in several other side projects.  One you really should check out is Yellowbeard, which was Monty Python alum Graham Chapman's last theatrical movie before his untimely passing.


Well, that's the view from the back seat this time, kiddies.  Be sure to buckle up and drive safely.  And save the weed until you get home...

Quiggy