D. Raoul Walsh
B&W
James Cagney and Humphrey Bogart: two actors so much of their age. Two actors who specialised in ripped from the headlines dramas of the thirties, before the latter became the definitive leading man of the 1940s. If you think of either, it’s likely to be with sharp suits, spats, guns and snarling faces. That’s why ‘The Oklahoma Kid’, where the two play cowboys and try to send the whole thing up, is held as something of a cult classic. An example of how badly wrong casting can go. It’s odd then that their last onscreen appearance together, a film that makes ‘The Oklahoma Kid’ look like it has the gravitas of ‘The Grapes of Wrath’ in comparison, is so obscure. As ‘There Be Monsters!!!’ isn’t just Cagney and Bogart as cowboys, it’s Cagney and Bogart as a proto Butch and Sundance taking on Nazis and dinosaurs in the Arizona desert.
Our heroes are cowboys at the turn of the Twentieth Century, rogues perhaps, but essentially that heart of gold type outlaw so prominent in the movies but markedly less visible in real life. Framed for a crime they didn’t commit by a ruthless sheriff (Lon Chaney Jr – playing it straight and probably delighted not to be playing the monster role in a film with ‘monster’ in the title), they break out of their latest prison cell, ride into the desert and straight into a mist which takes them to – who the hell knows? The film isn’t clear on that point and it will only hurt your head to think about it. But before long our heroes are battling pterodactyls, tyrannosauruses and an oddly ferocious brontosaurus. What’s more, they find themselves up against Nazis, who are trying to capture the biggest carnivore of all – the mighty Galactisaurous – and have it lead their army to victory.
So we have dinosaurs and Nazis, at which point we rub our aching heads and presume that our heroes have somehow gone simultaneously back and forward in time. What’s really peculiar though is that Cagney and Bogart – despite being turn of the century roughneck men – instantly recognise the Nazis. They know who they are, what they’re up to and set out to stop them with the help and hindrance of the various dinosaurs.
It really is ridiculously potty – but if you just go with it, a ridiculously potty and exciting ride. In the distance Willis O’Brien’s dinosaurs are even more impressive than they were in ‘King Kong’. It’s when they’re up close that they cause problems, as it can only raise smiles to watch such tough guy actors (and various blokes faking German accents) pretending to be menaced by pieces of rubber. But they do give it their all even in those scenes. Bogart makes these monsters seem real by sneering them in much the same way he does Peter Lorre; while Cagney acts the hell out of a confrontation with the most ridiculous and rubbery snake seen this side of an Ed Wood movie, as if defying the audience to find anything at all silly in what he’s doing. And that commitment is what makes this film so wonderful; throughout it our two leads really do give their all. Even when they’re winking at the camera and saying: “Hey! We know this is nonsense, but it’s fun!”
Raoul Walsh directs with panache and a ceaseless sense of adventure, and if you remove your brain and your sneer at the start, it’s most entertaining. But clearly we needed special effects to advance and Steven Spielberg to arrive to make this kind of nonsense as beautiful and as gripping as it could be.
Showing posts with label fantasy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fantasy. Show all posts
Wednesday, 24 September 2014
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.
Sunday, 1 June 2014
Those who Enter the Skaneateles Hotel (1939)
D. George Waggner
B&W
Whereas other film trilogies ebb and flow, with some entries clearly not matching the quality of others, the original Skaneateles Hotel trilogy manages to hold a fantastically consistent line of quality all the way through. The first two entries are variations on a theme, showing what an innovative studio can do with a fantasy setting in a hotel, while this third does what fantasy does best and aims for epic. Picking up on one of the themes of the second film, the refugees from some unknown conflict, here we have the hotel in wartime. Except of course that the Skaneateles Hotel is too big to ever really be affected by some far off conflagration and so here we have a war between two distinct and implacable tribes taking place in the hotel itself. Now I’m well aware that a war between two different parties in a hotel sounds like a Marx Brothers movie that never was (and certainly would have been preferable to ‘Room Service’), but such is the scope and vast vistas already created within the Skaneateles Hotel that the whole thing seems utterly believable and incredibly tense.
Once again we’re greeted by the smiling and menacing form of Boris Karloff, but here there are four separate and very different guests – there’s English aristocrat, Basil Rathbone; the brilliant Peter Lorre in his stock role as mysterious European; reporter, Ginger Rogers (on loan from RKO and definitely not dancing); and loudmouth, Jack Carson. Although the four arrive at different times of day and night, they soon find themselves thrown together by the ever changing corridors of the Skaneateles Hotel. Wary at first, the four are forced to get over initial reservations, to learn to trust to each other, so they can survive in this world of rogue spies, murderers and distant gun battles.
This is the film where Karloff seems at his most vulnerable. Unlike in previous entries, the omnipotentcy deserts him when he’s suddenly dropped into the action with the others, and he flails as much as they do. It’s an unusual and distressing sight. Fans of these films have gotten used to his unflappability, his almost imperious façade, to have that taken away from him feels like the crushing of something. The five of them flee, hole up, make alliances and try to leave the hotel, as they know that outside its cavernous walls – and this becomes increasingly hard to imagine as the film progresses – there is peace. At first glance much more of an isolationist tract than the last film, this is a film about how much more preferable peace is than war, and how you shouldn’t stick your nose into the conflicts of other peoples. Except is it? As the film progresses it seems more and more the case that Karloff is just misdirecting, that he knows exactly what he’s doing, knows precisely what is needed. As the film progresses it becomes clear that he is in no danger, that he is still directing matters, and that it is his war. And at that point the message seems to be there are some conflicts in this world of ours, be they within the Skaneateles Hotel or without, that are impossible to avoid.
One of my favourite scenes of this whole series is at the end. After all the chaos, fear, bloodshed and danger, Karloff calmly returns to the front desk, wipes his hands and gets on with his day. Anything is possible in the Skaneateles Hotel.
The establishment would go dark for a little while now, but the doors would reopen….
B&W
Whereas other film trilogies ebb and flow, with some entries clearly not matching the quality of others, the original Skaneateles Hotel trilogy manages to hold a fantastically consistent line of quality all the way through. The first two entries are variations on a theme, showing what an innovative studio can do with a fantasy setting in a hotel, while this third does what fantasy does best and aims for epic. Picking up on one of the themes of the second film, the refugees from some unknown conflict, here we have the hotel in wartime. Except of course that the Skaneateles Hotel is too big to ever really be affected by some far off conflagration and so here we have a war between two distinct and implacable tribes taking place in the hotel itself. Now I’m well aware that a war between two different parties in a hotel sounds like a Marx Brothers movie that never was (and certainly would have been preferable to ‘Room Service’), but such is the scope and vast vistas already created within the Skaneateles Hotel that the whole thing seems utterly believable and incredibly tense.
Once again we’re greeted by the smiling and menacing form of Boris Karloff, but here there are four separate and very different guests – there’s English aristocrat, Basil Rathbone; the brilliant Peter Lorre in his stock role as mysterious European; reporter, Ginger Rogers (on loan from RKO and definitely not dancing); and loudmouth, Jack Carson. Although the four arrive at different times of day and night, they soon find themselves thrown together by the ever changing corridors of the Skaneateles Hotel. Wary at first, the four are forced to get over initial reservations, to learn to trust to each other, so they can survive in this world of rogue spies, murderers and distant gun battles.
This is the film where Karloff seems at his most vulnerable. Unlike in previous entries, the omnipotentcy deserts him when he’s suddenly dropped into the action with the others, and he flails as much as they do. It’s an unusual and distressing sight. Fans of these films have gotten used to his unflappability, his almost imperious façade, to have that taken away from him feels like the crushing of something. The five of them flee, hole up, make alliances and try to leave the hotel, as they know that outside its cavernous walls – and this becomes increasingly hard to imagine as the film progresses – there is peace. At first glance much more of an isolationist tract than the last film, this is a film about how much more preferable peace is than war, and how you shouldn’t stick your nose into the conflicts of other peoples. Except is it? As the film progresses it seems more and more the case that Karloff is just misdirecting, that he knows exactly what he’s doing, knows precisely what is needed. As the film progresses it becomes clear that he is in no danger, that he is still directing matters, and that it is his war. And at that point the message seems to be there are some conflicts in this world of ours, be they within the Skaneateles Hotel or without, that are impossible to avoid.
One of my favourite scenes of this whole series is at the end. After all the chaos, fear, bloodshed and danger, Karloff calmly returns to the front desk, wipes his hands and gets on with his day. Anything is possible in the Skaneateles Hotel.
The establishment would go dark for a little while now, but the doors would reopen….
Wednesday, 28 May 2014
Return to the Skaneateles Hotel (1938)
D. George Waggner
B&W
We’re back!
Much more than Frankenstein’s monster, the unnamed concierge/manager/overlord of the deeply mysterious Skaneateles Hotel is the role we should best remember Boris Karloff for. It has everything, not only allowing him a glowering physical presence – capable of turning from contempt to sweetness in a heartbeat – but also line after wonderful line of dialogue to be intoned in his glorious graveyard voice. It’s the voice of doom, but also soft as treacle and inviting despite its spookiness. Here we are welcomed with narration, wherein Karloff explains to us that while the world and the universe may change, nothing alters in the sanctuary of the Skaneateles Hotel. This we know is a joke, as we’ve already seen that the ambience, décor and the layout itself is constantly shifting at the Skaneateles Hotel.
In what we would now call a cold opening, the young David Niven is the first to check in, playing a caddish young Englishman with a string of broken hearts behind him. Outside his room he meets the kind of pneumatic, suggestive blonde that the Hays Code was surely supposed to have stamped out, she leads him like a siren back to her room, where the door slams ominously behind them. It might be that they’re having a night of pleasure together, but his scream suggests otherwise.
The meat of the story though is the arrival of another couple, this time the younger and far less charismatic pairing of Allan Jones and Melody Hazel. Obviously these are a duo we’re not going to care about anywhere near as much as Claude Rains and Marian Marsh, but that doesn’t matter – as the film knows its true star is the hotel itself and the ever brooding and ominous presence of Boris Karloff. Going for a stroll before dinner, our young lovebirds become horribly lost and disorientated, marching down seemingly the same corridor again and again. When they try a different turning, they’re first threatened by Bela Lugosi (playing second fiddle to Karloff once again and clearly hating every second of it), before having an elaborate con-trick played on them by Lon Chaney Jr, where they’re nearly separated and have to run for their lives. They end up in a strange and huge ballroom, one which rolls and lilts like a ship and is crammed full of refugees from some far off war (problems in Europe no doubt playing on the filmmakers’ minds). Joining with the refugees, the two have to hope that when Karloff does show up he’ll save them rather than damn them.
The worlds of ‘The Lord of the Rings’ and ‘Game of Thrones’ obviously have whole continents to play with and explore. Vast vistas the likes of which we have never seen before. The true genius of the Skaneateles Hotel is that they manage to give us the same sense of scale and size all while filming in a studio and basing the action in one location. Our focus is the hotel, which is at turns a scary, mischievous, deadly, benign and benevolent pile of ever shifting and changing bricks. It, along with its most prominent employee, are the true stars. And what this first sequel proves is that it doesn’t matter if your nominal leads are Zeppo Marx’s replacement and a pretty flapper girl who never made another film, as long as Karloff and the hotel are in place, you can still make a fantastically scary, amazing and edge of the seat film.
B&W
We’re back!
Much more than Frankenstein’s monster, the unnamed concierge/manager/overlord of the deeply mysterious Skaneateles Hotel is the role we should best remember Boris Karloff for. It has everything, not only allowing him a glowering physical presence – capable of turning from contempt to sweetness in a heartbeat – but also line after wonderful line of dialogue to be intoned in his glorious graveyard voice. It’s the voice of doom, but also soft as treacle and inviting despite its spookiness. Here we are welcomed with narration, wherein Karloff explains to us that while the world and the universe may change, nothing alters in the sanctuary of the Skaneateles Hotel. This we know is a joke, as we’ve already seen that the ambience, décor and the layout itself is constantly shifting at the Skaneateles Hotel.
In what we would now call a cold opening, the young David Niven is the first to check in, playing a caddish young Englishman with a string of broken hearts behind him. Outside his room he meets the kind of pneumatic, suggestive blonde that the Hays Code was surely supposed to have stamped out, she leads him like a siren back to her room, where the door slams ominously behind them. It might be that they’re having a night of pleasure together, but his scream suggests otherwise.
The meat of the story though is the arrival of another couple, this time the younger and far less charismatic pairing of Allan Jones and Melody Hazel. Obviously these are a duo we’re not going to care about anywhere near as much as Claude Rains and Marian Marsh, but that doesn’t matter – as the film knows its true star is the hotel itself and the ever brooding and ominous presence of Boris Karloff. Going for a stroll before dinner, our young lovebirds become horribly lost and disorientated, marching down seemingly the same corridor again and again. When they try a different turning, they’re first threatened by Bela Lugosi (playing second fiddle to Karloff once again and clearly hating every second of it), before having an elaborate con-trick played on them by Lon Chaney Jr, where they’re nearly separated and have to run for their lives. They end up in a strange and huge ballroom, one which rolls and lilts like a ship and is crammed full of refugees from some far off war (problems in Europe no doubt playing on the filmmakers’ minds). Joining with the refugees, the two have to hope that when Karloff does show up he’ll save them rather than damn them.
The worlds of ‘The Lord of the Rings’ and ‘Game of Thrones’ obviously have whole continents to play with and explore. Vast vistas the likes of which we have never seen before. The true genius of the Skaneateles Hotel is that they manage to give us the same sense of scale and size all while filming in a studio and basing the action in one location. Our focus is the hotel, which is at turns a scary, mischievous, deadly, benign and benevolent pile of ever shifting and changing bricks. It, along with its most prominent employee, are the true stars. And what this first sequel proves is that it doesn’t matter if your nominal leads are Zeppo Marx’s replacement and a pretty flapper girl who never made another film, as long as Karloff and the hotel are in place, you can still make a fantastically scary, amazing and edge of the seat film.
Sunday, 25 May 2014
The Hotel at Skaneateles Avenue (1937)
D. George Waggner
B&W
J.R.R Tolkein thought that his books would never make a successful transition to film; similarly if George R.R. Martin had been born forty years earlier, the best either could ever have hoped for in their lifetimes were some English characters actors wandering around Yorkshire, some rubbery dragons and a shit-load of stuff happening off screen. The Skaneateles Avenue stories don’t have the same literary pedigree (being based on a couple of now obscurer than obscure tales in pulp magazines), but that doesn’t alter the fact that they are actual fantasy. Yes it’s fantasy that eschews dragons, swords fights and mysterious rings; but in its ever changing corridors, vast horizons of suddenly open rooms with seemingly infinite variations, the Skaneateles Avenue Hotel offers as much scope for wide vistas and endless stories as anything in Middle Earth or Westeros.
The great Boris Karloff is the key. Here he is cast as the concierge, as the manager, as the supposed solver of problems, as the face which pops up when you least expect it. He is at points the charming, omnipotent overlord of the Skaneateles Avenue Hotel and at others as equally helpless a victim of it as any of his guests. Sometimes he’s the puppeteer gleefully pulling the strings, others just another mannequin being twisted around in knots. But whatever else is happening it’s always his looming face and menacing voice that welcome us, telling us he hopes we have a lovely stay – which reassures us in no way shape or form.
Claude Rains and the now almost forgotten Marian Marsh (as if she genuinely did check into a mysterious hotel never to be seen again) are the husband and wife who arrive wet and desperate for a room on a horrific, stormy night. They are greeted by Karloff at his most obsequious and shown up to their room, but before long they’re lost in a maze of their own desires and fears, changing corridors, shifting floors and doors that seem to open to vast other worlds. Without a doubt the set design on this film, changing as it does from tight and intimate corridors, to crowded ballrooms which seem to stretch on as far as the eye can see, is astounding. Along the way they meet various other lost guests – including Basil Rathbone and Lon Chaney Jr – who may be trying to help or hinder, or perhaps a combination of the two. And every so often Karloff shows up, still seeming so solicitous to their needs but looking less and less trustworthy with every appearance.
Say what you will about Universal Films in the 1930s, but they knew how to slap some celluloid into a projector and say “now, THAT is a horror movie!” ‘The Hotel at Skaneateles Avenue’ represents a bending of the normal format, making it a film not just about thrills and chills, but about fantasy and other worlds. Although not as well known as its Transylvania and Castle Frankenstein stable mates, this trio remains a hugely influential and important series (Doctor Who’s ‘The God Complex’ is clearly a homage). What makes it so interesting and amazing to see with 2014 eyes is how successful these films are at putting this claustrophobic fantasy onto the big screen. Other worlds and vistas – like those created by Tolkein and Martin – would still be far beyond what was possible in 1930s cinema; but here we have fantasy, and fantasy which happens in a world that manages to be both fantastically big and humanly small, created successfully on a cinema screen in a way which will make any genre fan lick their lips with relish.
B&W
J.R.R Tolkein thought that his books would never make a successful transition to film; similarly if George R.R. Martin had been born forty years earlier, the best either could ever have hoped for in their lifetimes were some English characters actors wandering around Yorkshire, some rubbery dragons and a shit-load of stuff happening off screen. The Skaneateles Avenue stories don’t have the same literary pedigree (being based on a couple of now obscurer than obscure tales in pulp magazines), but that doesn’t alter the fact that they are actual fantasy. Yes it’s fantasy that eschews dragons, swords fights and mysterious rings; but in its ever changing corridors, vast horizons of suddenly open rooms with seemingly infinite variations, the Skaneateles Avenue Hotel offers as much scope for wide vistas and endless stories as anything in Middle Earth or Westeros.
The great Boris Karloff is the key. Here he is cast as the concierge, as the manager, as the supposed solver of problems, as the face which pops up when you least expect it. He is at points the charming, omnipotent overlord of the Skaneateles Avenue Hotel and at others as equally helpless a victim of it as any of his guests. Sometimes he’s the puppeteer gleefully pulling the strings, others just another mannequin being twisted around in knots. But whatever else is happening it’s always his looming face and menacing voice that welcome us, telling us he hopes we have a lovely stay – which reassures us in no way shape or form.
Claude Rains and the now almost forgotten Marian Marsh (as if she genuinely did check into a mysterious hotel never to be seen again) are the husband and wife who arrive wet and desperate for a room on a horrific, stormy night. They are greeted by Karloff at his most obsequious and shown up to their room, but before long they’re lost in a maze of their own desires and fears, changing corridors, shifting floors and doors that seem to open to vast other worlds. Without a doubt the set design on this film, changing as it does from tight and intimate corridors, to crowded ballrooms which seem to stretch on as far as the eye can see, is astounding. Along the way they meet various other lost guests – including Basil Rathbone and Lon Chaney Jr – who may be trying to help or hinder, or perhaps a combination of the two. And every so often Karloff shows up, still seeming so solicitous to their needs but looking less and less trustworthy with every appearance.
Say what you will about Universal Films in the 1930s, but they knew how to slap some celluloid into a projector and say “now, THAT is a horror movie!” ‘The Hotel at Skaneateles Avenue’ represents a bending of the normal format, making it a film not just about thrills and chills, but about fantasy and other worlds. Although not as well known as its Transylvania and Castle Frankenstein stable mates, this trio remains a hugely influential and important series (Doctor Who’s ‘The God Complex’ is clearly a homage). What makes it so interesting and amazing to see with 2014 eyes is how successful these films are at putting this claustrophobic fantasy onto the big screen. Other worlds and vistas – like those created by Tolkein and Martin – would still be far beyond what was possible in 1930s cinema; but here we have fantasy, and fantasy which happens in a world that manages to be both fantastically big and humanly small, created successfully on a cinema screen in a way which will make any genre fan lick their lips with relish.
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