D. Terrence Fisher
Colour
I like that there’s the odd film out there where Christopher Lee actually gets to play the hero. One is the Hammer semi-classic ‘The Devil Rides Out’, where for once he finds himself on the right side of satanic events; while this – from the very same year – is a much more 1960s steampunk effort. Here the now Sir Christopher Lee is Sir Michael Wooton, an Edwardian gentleman and adventurer. He’s a derring-do hero of the old school (no doubt the kind of very English place that never admitted oiks and bred distrust of greasy foreigners). He sports the natural grace and charm of a true aristocrat, all exuded through his exquisitely tailored suit and form-fitting topcoat. He’s undoubtedly the handsomest, best-dressed man in the room, but one who has more than a little danger about him.
We open swarmed with paperboys, all yelling stories of Sir Michael’s latest exploits. Clearly he’s a star of the Edwardian age and has hired Sherlock Holmes’s publicist to boot. An adoring crowd follows him to the train station and he waves to them and thanks them for all their cockney compliments (it’s good actually that this gang of extras got work, as they’d been roaming feral since the film of ‘My Fair Lady’). He then boards the train for what for anyone else would be a pleasant journey into Europe. But given what we know of his track record, this particular journey is not likely to be peaceful – and that no doubt suits him fine.
As I said I like Christopher Lee as a hero, he seems a lovely man in reality and so it’s great that he gets to have the odd heroic moment. But if I’m honest he makes a really odd hero. When he’s supposed to be bad, Sir Chris knows how to sink his teeth into the role (pun intended); but being good doesn’t suit him as well and his discomfort leads him to becoming stiff and patrician. It means we have a hero it’s often difficult to warm to, no matter how brave or noble he proves himself to be. Here that’s thrown into stark contrast by his train-raiding nemesis, played by Orson Welles at his most avuncular. There’s the bad guy roaring with laughter over drink and food, while the reserved hero stares on with a slightly supercilious air. In addition Orson’s scheme is pleasingly bizarre, involving as it does arming the train with “a photon coal engine” and some wrought iron warheads then turning it into a bomb. (The actual plan is too big to be anything other than hazy, but there also seem to be skis and livestock involved.) Such is the mad audacious brilliance it all, combined with Welles’ sparkle and charm, that the audience is really left wondering who exactly to root for.
But more than that, on top of this fascinating good/bad dichotomy of a concoction we find, perched fetchingly, a fascinator: as Sir Chris’s sidekick, the man helping him beat this overweight, over-loud, overly-charming bad guy, is a pre-Doctor Who Roger Delgado. The saturnine looks are there, as well the dark and menacingly hypnotic eyes; although here – along with Sir Chris – he’s supposed to be one of the good guys.
So we have Dracula and The Master teaming up to thwart Charles Foster Kane on a speeding train, what kind of freak wouldn’t want to watch this movie?
Showing posts with label Orson Welles. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Orson Welles. Show all posts
Sunday, 31 August 2014
Wednesday, 27 August 2014
We Cease to Grow! (1972)
D. Damien Nostro
B&W
Much like the Doctor Who serial ‘The Invasion of the Dinosaurs’ and the forthcoming ‘Kingsman: Secret Service’, this obscure grainy 1970s film features a mad environmentalist who decides that the best way to solve the population problem is to wipe out most of mankind. Obviously Paul R. Ehrlich’s ‘The Population Bomb’ has, and continues to have, some effect – although possibly not the one the good doctor was expecting. Let’s look at this closely, what kind of absolute nutter thinks that the best way to save the human population is to wipe out 99.9% of it? Okay, let’s say that there are people like that out there, misanthrope extremis, how would they persuade anyone else to go along with their scheme? Surely anyone propositioned to help implement this plan of mass slaughter, would back slowly away with a distinctly scared and freaked out look in their eyes. In both ‘The Invasion of the Dinosaurs’ and ‘Kingsman: Secret Service’ it’s the elite who are saved (although in the 1970s that meant intellectuals; in 2014 it apparently means celebrities), while in ‘We Cease to Grow!’ it’s less clear – but even then, surely members of any elite know people who aren’t in the elite? Surely they’re not so blasé in their lifestyle they’re happy to watch everyone else die just so they can hang out and procreate with people like themselves. Perhaps I’m being horribly naive, but I’d like to think that when some billionaire megalomaniac does come along and suggests this scheme, that most people (although certainly not all, I admit that) will say that they don’t want to be a party to the genocide of most of humanity, thank you very much.
Orson Welles plays the lead role – although even then he probably knocked out his part in about four days – as a wheelchair bound mad genius who has unleashed a terrible chemical bug into the world. Now locked down in his bunker, and resembling a bigger and scarier Raymond Burr, he ruminates on his reasons and rationale whilst chaos takes hold outside. Welles’s voice as he intones is like the rumble of the apocalypse, so it’s appropriate he’s there literally narrating the end of the world. Statistics purr out of this wounded lion, as he tells of how much food the world has left, the spread of diseases and the rise of the oceans. Outside we see the chaos starting, rioting on the streets; as well as more individual vignettes, where sad and desperate people come to the end of their sad and desperate lives. It’s not a film to make you feel good about yourself; in fact it’s difficult to work out what kind of mood the film makers want you to leave the cinema in, because as far as I can see Welles is supposed to be right here. Yes he has carried out this drastic act, but he is a sage, a seer, he is salvation. So who knows what the audience was supposed to do with it? Maybe the film makers just wanted enough people to see it so that if some megalomaniac did suggest killing most of humanity, somebody would actually say yes.
B&W
Much like the Doctor Who serial ‘The Invasion of the Dinosaurs’ and the forthcoming ‘Kingsman: Secret Service’, this obscure grainy 1970s film features a mad environmentalist who decides that the best way to solve the population problem is to wipe out most of mankind. Obviously Paul R. Ehrlich’s ‘The Population Bomb’ has, and continues to have, some effect – although possibly not the one the good doctor was expecting. Let’s look at this closely, what kind of absolute nutter thinks that the best way to save the human population is to wipe out 99.9% of it? Okay, let’s say that there are people like that out there, misanthrope extremis, how would they persuade anyone else to go along with their scheme? Surely anyone propositioned to help implement this plan of mass slaughter, would back slowly away with a distinctly scared and freaked out look in their eyes. In both ‘The Invasion of the Dinosaurs’ and ‘Kingsman: Secret Service’ it’s the elite who are saved (although in the 1970s that meant intellectuals; in 2014 it apparently means celebrities), while in ‘We Cease to Grow!’ it’s less clear – but even then, surely members of any elite know people who aren’t in the elite? Surely they’re not so blasé in their lifestyle they’re happy to watch everyone else die just so they can hang out and procreate with people like themselves. Perhaps I’m being horribly naive, but I’d like to think that when some billionaire megalomaniac does come along and suggests this scheme, that most people (although certainly not all, I admit that) will say that they don’t want to be a party to the genocide of most of humanity, thank you very much.
Orson Welles plays the lead role – although even then he probably knocked out his part in about four days – as a wheelchair bound mad genius who has unleashed a terrible chemical bug into the world. Now locked down in his bunker, and resembling a bigger and scarier Raymond Burr, he ruminates on his reasons and rationale whilst chaos takes hold outside. Welles’s voice as he intones is like the rumble of the apocalypse, so it’s appropriate he’s there literally narrating the end of the world. Statistics purr out of this wounded lion, as he tells of how much food the world has left, the spread of diseases and the rise of the oceans. Outside we see the chaos starting, rioting on the streets; as well as more individual vignettes, where sad and desperate people come to the end of their sad and desperate lives. It’s not a film to make you feel good about yourself; in fact it’s difficult to work out what kind of mood the film makers want you to leave the cinema in, because as far as I can see Welles is supposed to be right here. Yes he has carried out this drastic act, but he is a sage, a seer, he is salvation. So who knows what the audience was supposed to do with it? Maybe the film makers just wanted enough people to see it so that if some megalomaniac did suggest killing most of humanity, somebody would actually say yes.
Wednesday, 23 July 2014
Gransel & Hetel (1958)
D. Jago Mirelles
B&W
Much like ‘The Third Man’, a film in which Orson Welles only really makes a brief appearance, but which looks from every lop-sided camera-shot and stark black and white image like your actual Orson Welles movie; this is another film in which Welles does little more than cameo, but which seems like Orson Welles directing at his most menacing. Of course ‘Gransel & Hetel’ is a lot more obscure and nowhere near as good as ‘The Third Man’ (that’s fine though, it’s hardly a badge of shame to be less good than ‘The Third Man’), but one which in its Grimm Brothers gothic stands out as being possibly the most Welles films the great Orson never directed.
A boy named Gransel and a girl named Hetel wander too far into the woods one day where they meet a wicked witch who makes no secret of the fact she’d like to eat them. Actually this is one damned scary witch. Imagine the bleached face of a worm with the razor-like teeth of a tiger shark, then picture that looming out of black & white darkness and we have here the kind of evil queen Alvy Singer is never ever going to fall in love with. The plucky kids make their escape, but are trapped in the increasingly dark wood with their would-be devourer in pursuit. A terrified elf tells them that the only way they can save themselves is to head to the ogre’s castle at the centre of the woods.
The ogre is, of course, Orson Welles, shot constantly from low angles to make him look twice as big and three times as menacing. He looms into frame, dominates it, his big and bushy beard seems to jut right out of the screen, he laughs twice as loud as any other sound in the film. Of course this opens up a lot of fat jokes at poor Orson’s expense (he after all looks more likely to eat the kids than the scrawny witch), but I’m going to (mostly) rise above that and just say how great his performance is: ‘The Wizard of Oz’ played not as a kindly charlatan, but as a malevolent and changeable monster who can help you on a whim, but easily destroy you too.
(It amuses me to do this film right next to Peter Sellers in ‘Mr Hargreaves’, as part of the reason production on the original ‘Casino Royale’ went so badly awry was the spectacular falling out between the two men. In these films each seems to be playing versions of their public personas. Sellers is outwardly affable and witty, but underneath something distinctly more unpleasant; while Welles is a quixotic, occasionally charming, walking appetite. If I had to pick, I think I’d rather have an evening out with Orson.)
Like an earlier, less well-formed ‘Pan’s Labyrinth’, this is a movie which takes European fairy tales and decides not to downplay the horror elements Disney-style, but instead ramp them up so each of the ogres, witches and fairies is screaming at you. What we have is an Orson Welles’s children’s film – one that’s a compendium of creepy old books, scary backdrops, horrible monsters with horrible appetites, and a sense of doom that doesn’t really let up.
B&W
Much like ‘The Third Man’, a film in which Orson Welles only really makes a brief appearance, but which looks from every lop-sided camera-shot and stark black and white image like your actual Orson Welles movie; this is another film in which Welles does little more than cameo, but which seems like Orson Welles directing at his most menacing. Of course ‘Gransel & Hetel’ is a lot more obscure and nowhere near as good as ‘The Third Man’ (that’s fine though, it’s hardly a badge of shame to be less good than ‘The Third Man’), but one which in its Grimm Brothers gothic stands out as being possibly the most Welles films the great Orson never directed.
A boy named Gransel and a girl named Hetel wander too far into the woods one day where they meet a wicked witch who makes no secret of the fact she’d like to eat them. Actually this is one damned scary witch. Imagine the bleached face of a worm with the razor-like teeth of a tiger shark, then picture that looming out of black & white darkness and we have here the kind of evil queen Alvy Singer is never ever going to fall in love with. The plucky kids make their escape, but are trapped in the increasingly dark wood with their would-be devourer in pursuit. A terrified elf tells them that the only way they can save themselves is to head to the ogre’s castle at the centre of the woods.
The ogre is, of course, Orson Welles, shot constantly from low angles to make him look twice as big and three times as menacing. He looms into frame, dominates it, his big and bushy beard seems to jut right out of the screen, he laughs twice as loud as any other sound in the film. Of course this opens up a lot of fat jokes at poor Orson’s expense (he after all looks more likely to eat the kids than the scrawny witch), but I’m going to (mostly) rise above that and just say how great his performance is: ‘The Wizard of Oz’ played not as a kindly charlatan, but as a malevolent and changeable monster who can help you on a whim, but easily destroy you too.
(It amuses me to do this film right next to Peter Sellers in ‘Mr Hargreaves’, as part of the reason production on the original ‘Casino Royale’ went so badly awry was the spectacular falling out between the two men. In these films each seems to be playing versions of their public personas. Sellers is outwardly affable and witty, but underneath something distinctly more unpleasant; while Welles is a quixotic, occasionally charming, walking appetite. If I had to pick, I think I’d rather have an evening out with Orson.)
Like an earlier, less well-formed ‘Pan’s Labyrinth’, this is a movie which takes European fairy tales and decides not to downplay the horror elements Disney-style, but instead ramp them up so each of the ogres, witches and fairies is screaming at you. What we have is an Orson Welles’s children’s film – one that’s a compendium of creepy old books, scary backdrops, horrible monsters with horrible appetites, and a sense of doom that doesn’t really let up.
Wednesday, 19 February 2014
Shadows of the Aliens (1984)
D. Phillippe Noir
Colour
It’s sad that this French science fiction film didn’t garner a bigger audience, as it’s a visually innovative, sharply political, gripping thriller. Whether one would describe it as enjoyable is a question we’ll throw into the air with little heed to its safety, as there are car crashes which are less bleak. But how often do you get to pick up a croissant and a glass of red wine and sit down to a science fiction movie which has something to say and is saying it in a French accent?
Our setting, as the opening caption tells us is the future, although very little is done to indicate the future. The cars, the buildings, the haircuts all scream the 1980s, so that is where we are. (Clearly Goddard’s ‘Alphaville’ is an influence.) Our setting then is the present, but not quite the present. Jean Poiret, pulling on his policeman’s overcoat, is a government sanctioned hunter. He stalks the streets of Paris hunting down aliens, who are then rounded up and taken to who knows where. Of course this being science fiction, these aliens are humanoids from outer space (recognised by their two sets of eyelids and no toes) rather than immigrants. But for the social message of the film, these are one and the same. The aliens are not wanted by France, they have never been invited in and now they have to leave.
The first half of the film then is chasing these aliens (they are never given a name) around Paris, trying to catch them but sometimes being forced to terminate them with maximum force. In the first half hour alone we have a creature thrown off a tall building into the path of a juggernaut; and one dropped into a vat of handily placed acid (of the kind which only ever exist in the movies). Poiret seems to be the type of investigator Napoleon would like, as whenever an act of violence needs to be committed, a luckily placed fire-axe or lift-shaft is nearby.
Some movies would have been content with this cat and mouse, this human and humanoid alien, some movies would have left their ambition there. But ‘Shadows of the Aliens’ decides to push things much further.
Halfway through a giant spaceship arrives on Earth, or more precisely in Paris. (The film is French, therefore Paris is the centre of the world and quite probably the universe). These are the Vervoids, a powerful alien race which hates the original aliens as much as the French do. Initially we only see the Vervoid leader, a giant and sweaty ball of rippling flesh, unable to express the simplest emotion without its entire body rippling. Realised with the aid of a puppet, this is an alien leader who is striking and menacing and bears an unmistakable resemblance to the older Orson Welles. The Vervoids are hailed as saviours. (The fact that these first aliens are never named may cause problems in this review, but not in the film. We simply have The Humans, The Vervoids and – lastly – the aliens). With the French government’s approval – in the form of uber-efficient administrator, Gerard Depardieu – they take over Paris and work together to rid these aliens on a more industrial scale. Suddenly we have gone from problems of immigration to the Vichy government and everything has turned terrifying and strange.
There is no US/British allied force to the rescue this time (this isn’t ‘Adrienne and the Astronaut’ though, such creatures as Americans do still exist). We’re told that worried phone calls have been made by the President and Prime Minister, although the tone of Depardieu’s voice makes it seem like they’re easy to ignore. Instead the Vervoids and the humans are allowed in win. Indeed at the conclusion, with most of the original aliens dead, it’s clear how much the Vervoids and humans now look like each other. They are one and the same.
Post Star Wars there were a lot of science fiction films which didn’t really want to say anything, they just wanted to entertain with their brilliant light shows. This one though is desperate to say things, it wants to shout them from the rooftops, and is happy to bring in juggernauts, acid vats and rubbery Orson Welles just to get some attention. Maybe the end result is too dark to grab a huge audience, but this is undeniably a tense and thought provoking film.
And, really, where else are you going to see a giant rippling Orson Welles dominate Gerard Depardieu?
Colour
It’s sad that this French science fiction film didn’t garner a bigger audience, as it’s a visually innovative, sharply political, gripping thriller. Whether one would describe it as enjoyable is a question we’ll throw into the air with little heed to its safety, as there are car crashes which are less bleak. But how often do you get to pick up a croissant and a glass of red wine and sit down to a science fiction movie which has something to say and is saying it in a French accent?
Our setting, as the opening caption tells us is the future, although very little is done to indicate the future. The cars, the buildings, the haircuts all scream the 1980s, so that is where we are. (Clearly Goddard’s ‘Alphaville’ is an influence.) Our setting then is the present, but not quite the present. Jean Poiret, pulling on his policeman’s overcoat, is a government sanctioned hunter. He stalks the streets of Paris hunting down aliens, who are then rounded up and taken to who knows where. Of course this being science fiction, these aliens are humanoids from outer space (recognised by their two sets of eyelids and no toes) rather than immigrants. But for the social message of the film, these are one and the same. The aliens are not wanted by France, they have never been invited in and now they have to leave.
The first half of the film then is chasing these aliens (they are never given a name) around Paris, trying to catch them but sometimes being forced to terminate them with maximum force. In the first half hour alone we have a creature thrown off a tall building into the path of a juggernaut; and one dropped into a vat of handily placed acid (of the kind which only ever exist in the movies). Poiret seems to be the type of investigator Napoleon would like, as whenever an act of violence needs to be committed, a luckily placed fire-axe or lift-shaft is nearby.
Some movies would have been content with this cat and mouse, this human and humanoid alien, some movies would have left their ambition there. But ‘Shadows of the Aliens’ decides to push things much further.
Halfway through a giant spaceship arrives on Earth, or more precisely in Paris. (The film is French, therefore Paris is the centre of the world and quite probably the universe). These are the Vervoids, a powerful alien race which hates the original aliens as much as the French do. Initially we only see the Vervoid leader, a giant and sweaty ball of rippling flesh, unable to express the simplest emotion without its entire body rippling. Realised with the aid of a puppet, this is an alien leader who is striking and menacing and bears an unmistakable resemblance to the older Orson Welles. The Vervoids are hailed as saviours. (The fact that these first aliens are never named may cause problems in this review, but not in the film. We simply have The Humans, The Vervoids and – lastly – the aliens). With the French government’s approval – in the form of uber-efficient administrator, Gerard Depardieu – they take over Paris and work together to rid these aliens on a more industrial scale. Suddenly we have gone from problems of immigration to the Vichy government and everything has turned terrifying and strange.
There is no US/British allied force to the rescue this time (this isn’t ‘Adrienne and the Astronaut’ though, such creatures as Americans do still exist). We’re told that worried phone calls have been made by the President and Prime Minister, although the tone of Depardieu’s voice makes it seem like they’re easy to ignore. Instead the Vervoids and the humans are allowed in win. Indeed at the conclusion, with most of the original aliens dead, it’s clear how much the Vervoids and humans now look like each other. They are one and the same.
Post Star Wars there were a lot of science fiction films which didn’t really want to say anything, they just wanted to entertain with their brilliant light shows. This one though is desperate to say things, it wants to shout them from the rooftops, and is happy to bring in juggernauts, acid vats and rubbery Orson Welles just to get some attention. Maybe the end result is too dark to grab a huge audience, but this is undeniably a tense and thought provoking film.
And, really, where else are you going to see a giant rippling Orson Welles dominate Gerard Depardieu?
Sunday, 17 November 2013
Advertisement (1981)
D.
Malcolm McClaren
Colour and B&W
I suppose it’s easy to see the attraction Orson Welles and Malcolm McClaren must have felt for each other. Have there ever been two more arch pranksters? Have two men ever greeted failure with a more knowing smile and a glint in the eye which suggested it was all actually planned? A collaboration, when you stop to think about it, seems obvious. But if they were to make a film together, who’d have put money on Malcolm McClaren handling the directing?
This is a genuine curio, an oddity even stranger than Welles’ own ‘F for Fake’. Clearly inspired by Welles’ tribulations when hawking frozen peas a few years prior, ‘Advertisement’ finds him pushing a vast array of different products. Here he is stood in a bowling alley, marching up from the pins and extolling Pepsi Cola in that honeyed voice of his; while there he is explaining his lovely waistline with reference to Big Macs, while a mime artist dressed as Ronald McDonald is beaten up behind him.
Yes, these are real products and the idea seems to have been that the film would be part funded by having the companies themselves take their little segments and screen them as part of an advertising campaign.
That, of course, never happened – hence why this film remains so lost and neglected (but this blog exists for neglected films). Surely the two of them could have guessed that a portly washed up Hollywood trouble maker, no matter how fascinating and charismatic he remained, was not the best pitch person for a bunch of random products. Particularly as a great many of these items are provincially British based, thus limiting the market of potential buyers even further. While McClaren’s offbeat visual style, and the need both of them seem to have to subvert these products even whilst selling them, means that it’s unlikely that any gaudy braces sporting Don Draper would have snapped these promos up.
Oddest moment? I think that’s a choice between Welles posing in a giant nappy and waving a rattle, telling us how much he adores Farley’s Rusks; or Welles standing side by side with Sid Vicious – in a segment filmed in 1978 – waxing lyrically about the virtues of Mars bars while young Sid stuffs his sneering face full.
It’s a small monument to how much Welles adored Europe and how that adoration led him down lots of odd little (sometimes completely blind) alleyways. He’s never a boring watch and it’s another example of how his talents are never truly wasted, even when the film around him is clearly and utterly not worthy of him. And it’s once again Orson Welles (and Malcolm McClaren too) going off on a mad adventure of his own and not caring about the consequences.
‘Advertisement’ is definitely not without interest, but a 78 minute string of commercials is tough to watch in one go, no matter who the pitchman is.
Colour and B&W
I suppose it’s easy to see the attraction Orson Welles and Malcolm McClaren must have felt for each other. Have there ever been two more arch pranksters? Have two men ever greeted failure with a more knowing smile and a glint in the eye which suggested it was all actually planned? A collaboration, when you stop to think about it, seems obvious. But if they were to make a film together, who’d have put money on Malcolm McClaren handling the directing?
This is a genuine curio, an oddity even stranger than Welles’ own ‘F for Fake’. Clearly inspired by Welles’ tribulations when hawking frozen peas a few years prior, ‘Advertisement’ finds him pushing a vast array of different products. Here he is stood in a bowling alley, marching up from the pins and extolling Pepsi Cola in that honeyed voice of his; while there he is explaining his lovely waistline with reference to Big Macs, while a mime artist dressed as Ronald McDonald is beaten up behind him.
Yes, these are real products and the idea seems to have been that the film would be part funded by having the companies themselves take their little segments and screen them as part of an advertising campaign.
That, of course, never happened – hence why this film remains so lost and neglected (but this blog exists for neglected films). Surely the two of them could have guessed that a portly washed up Hollywood trouble maker, no matter how fascinating and charismatic he remained, was not the best pitch person for a bunch of random products. Particularly as a great many of these items are provincially British based, thus limiting the market of potential buyers even further. While McClaren’s offbeat visual style, and the need both of them seem to have to subvert these products even whilst selling them, means that it’s unlikely that any gaudy braces sporting Don Draper would have snapped these promos up.
Oddest moment? I think that’s a choice between Welles posing in a giant nappy and waving a rattle, telling us how much he adores Farley’s Rusks; or Welles standing side by side with Sid Vicious – in a segment filmed in 1978 – waxing lyrically about the virtues of Mars bars while young Sid stuffs his sneering face full.
It’s a small monument to how much Welles adored Europe and how that adoration led him down lots of odd little (sometimes completely blind) alleyways. He’s never a boring watch and it’s another example of how his talents are never truly wasted, even when the film around him is clearly and utterly not worthy of him. And it’s once again Orson Welles (and Malcolm McClaren too) going off on a mad adventure of his own and not caring about the consequences.
‘Advertisement’ is definitely not without interest, but a 78 minute string of commercials is tough to watch in one go, no matter who the pitchman is.
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