Tarzan in Hollywood (1978)

D. Frank Avanage
Colour


The King of the Jungle becomes the King of Hollywood?!


Where do we start?


We all know the Tarzan story.


Well, I think you know the Tarzan story.


Basically a good son of England finds himself stranded as a boy in the wilds of Africa and grows up to King of the Jungle. Eventually the Western world finds him again and the ensuing culture clash mines seams of drama or comedy (or a little of both), but certainly that big seam called adventure.
Every Tarzan adventure is basically the same, which means that filmmakers can do ANYTHING with them.


Here pretty freelance journalist, Stephanie Zimbalist (apparently one of those freelance journalists who just hang out in jungles for no apparent reason), stumbles across Tarzan and amidst swiftly arising passion between the two (he’s never seen a woman before; most of the guys she hangs out with are effete LA tossers) she introduces him to America.


So far, so Tarzan.


Here’s the twist though, such is the sensation her newspaper article causes and such are Tarzan’s good looks and obvious charisma, he becomes a major Hollywood star. Just like that.  A montage makes clear his rapid rise to fame, as well as making clear how ludicrous a proposition this is. We see some of the films he stars in: western, science fiction, romance, period drama; but in each he’s wearing a loin cloth and still talking in stilted half-learnt English. Now lots of actors get by just playing versions of themselves, but here Tarzan is literally playing himself in every single film and apparently it’s a recipe for huge success.


Being a jungle man who largely follows his own whims means Tarzan fits right in to his new Hollywood lifestyle. He and Cheetah both go a little wild (Cheetah a little wilder), and both do things they regret (Cheetah much more so). But eventually Tarzan misses the simple ways of his jungle home and heads back, promising to look after the accompanying Stephanie and teach her the law of the jungle. Having frowned for a good half an hour of the film’s length, as Tarzan slips away from Hollywood he beams a big triumphant grin. Cheetah seems fucking gutted though.


It’s the predictable message and good low stakes fun, but you could easily have made this film about a farm boy from Kansas. Tom Selleck makes an appropriate macho and alpha-male Tarzan though. (My colleague has a massive crush on Tom Selleck. My colleague is married man with small children. My colleague is straight, but still not at all shy about voicing his adoration for the Selleck. I really must introduce him to this film.)  As Tarzan, Selleck wears a loin cloth, an ill-fitting wig and delivers all his lines in comical stuttering English. He looks so right for the part, but also so deeply and obviously uncomfortable.


That Kansas reference has triggered something in me though.


When this Zach Snyder thing is finished, can we please have ‘Superman in Hollywood’? 


Can’t you just picture him playing all his roles in tights and cape, before realising that a simple life of fighting Lex Luther is more for him?


If it happens, I want a cut.

Marie Antoinette (1985)

D. David Spartan
Colour


Having started the week with Paul Muni inventing fire, we now come to another strange supposedly historical movie where actual history is totally unimportant. Those of you who’ve read deeply into the life of Marie Antoinette, or know something of the French revolution, avert your eyes now. As what we have is not strictly a portrayal of life in the court of Versailles, one that looks at the ins and outs of the bloody events of the 1790s, but instead Toyah Wilcox as ‘Marie Antoinette – Demon Bloodsucker’.


In the days of ‘Abraham Lincoln – Vampire Hunter’, this probably makes a lot more sense. Back in the 1980s, though, it must have been a shock to see a pop star as a French queen stalking through the streets of Paris to suck the necks of children. What makes it more surprising is that there’s zero context for this. We start with what looks to be a standard historical biopic (well as standard an historical biopic as you can get with Toyah Wilcox as the lead), all stately homes, bodices and BBC accents; but before long we’re nicking ideas from old Universal and Hammer movies and she’s out on the grimy Parisian backstreets as the arch nocturnal huntress. Other musical luminaries – Adam Ant, Richard O’Brien, Lulu – appear with their tongues firmly placed firmly in their cheeks to either aid her or try to stop her, as this Austrian-French Queen (she was actually Austrian, but Toyah insists on playing her with a wandering accent that’s just this side of Inspector Clouseau) goes all Countess Bathory while wearing tight, heaving corsets. Then the French revolution comes along; the masses, tired of being oppressed and no doubt livid at having their blood sucked, rise up. It initially seems that the chaos will aid this vampire Queen but her fall isn’t far away.


In the background of this bright and shiny pop video, which for some reason has been stretched to feature length and inexplicably had all the songs left out, is – of course – the evil of Margaret Thatcher. At one point Toyah even tells her lady in waiting, who is concerned about the Queen’s nightly expeditions that “this lady is not for turning”. (It’s a pity that Thatcher didn’t say “There’s no such thing as society” until later, as the filmmakers would have salivated right down their chins at a line like that.) Obviously this is a project its makers felt passionate about, but in their passion and over-whelming hatred for the British Prime-Minister, what they’ve lost is any sense of subtlety. It’s a film which doesn’t just want to dislike Thatcher, it wants to state loud and proud that she actually feasts on the blood of the poor and the blood of their children. This is a literal demonization and that makes it – even if you’re broadly sympathetic to where the film is coming from – easy to not take seriously. Often within the echo chamber of the left or right, people just lose all sense of the wider world and convince themselves that all that exists is their passion and beliefs. Toyah Wilcox as Marie Antoinette sounds very, very silly and – even with a shouted political agenda – it is very, very silly.

Scotland The Feared (2009)

D. Neil Marshall
Colour


It’s a tad surprising that Neil Marshall’s satire/horror/dystopian science fiction/gaudy spectacular of a film isn’t better known, I’d have put good money on it being referenced (by both sides) in the run up to the Scottish devolution vote. I’d have thought that with the future 'Dr Who' careers of two of its stars, Whovians like myself would be all over it. But no, it seems that after ‘Dog Soldiers’ and ‘The Descent’, Marshall’s films have struggled to get recognition. And that’s a shame as for all its flaws (and they are myriad), this is a film crammed full of ideas.


In the future, the Prime Minister of the independent Scotland (Peter Capaldi – not doing full Malcolm Tucker, but still in scary if not sweary mode) is agitated about Scotland’s influence on the world stage. Oil is running out and Scotland is facing becoming a poor country, “the bastard cousin” of a still dominant England. These strifes have already reached home, with gangs of disaffected youths – known as Haggises – roaming the land. However with the discovery of a nuclear weapon left over from Colonial times (as they’re referred in the film), Capaldi decides to start a war. It’s up to plucky young reporter James MacAvoy (bland) and his intern, Karen Gillan (inexperienced as an actress, but fetchingly lovely) to stop him.


The newly minted Twelfth Doctor and Amy Pond together on celluloid, you’d have thought the Science Fiction magazines would be panting over DVDs of this. Particularly, as I’ve already noted, the vote this year is going to make it truly topical. However the reason they won’t, is that having splattered all these elements together, ‘Scotland the Feared’ struggles to make any of them work.
‘The Mouse that Roared’ satire of the premise – where Scotland attacks England’s great ally, Portugal (it’s true that the one country in Europe England/Britain has never been to war with is Portugal) goes from ludicrously satirical idea to be taken intensely seriously by all the characters very quickly. But then maybe the idea of firing a nuclear warhead at millions of innocent Portuguese can’t be played for comedy for too long.


As for the horror, the Haggises are scarily tattooed and scarily Glaswegian, but are used far too frequently. By the end it seems like any scene which has become inert can easily be resolved by having a bunch of violent skinheads crash into the room. And there are only so many times watching a drooling skinhead wield a broken bottle of McEwans is actually entertaining.


And the dystopian future stuff? Well, that’s a mix of smog coloured sky, bright neons and impressive shadows. It isn’t as original as it could be, but you can see Marshall and his cinematographer straining against the budget to create something that is undeniable futuristic and Scottish.


Which is what I like about this film, how goddamn Scottish it is. For the most part this looks like a film made for an exclusively Scottish audience. To understand all the references it helps if you have good working knowledge of Scottish indie music, the suburbs of Edinburgh and The Jacobite Rebellion. There are characters who speak like particularly indecipherable extras from Rab C. Nesbit, with not a subtitle in sight. Okay, for a more general audience there are jokes about the first presidents of Scotland being Alec Salmond, Sean Connery and Alex Ferguson – but you won’t necessarily feel a welcome in the hills if you’re a Sassenach.


So why isn’t this a rallying film for the independence campaign? Undoubtedly because the ending makes it clear that the film doesn’t know where it lies. (Spoiler alert) ‘Scotland the Feared’ does honestly end with England sending it troops to quell the Scots and make everything safe again. After all the stuff about being proud Scots and how the country can stand up for itself, it is forcibly taken back into English hands before it can cause any more damage. It’s a genuinely odd conclusion that makes you wonder who this film is aimed at. Surely anyone who believes in the Union doesn’t want to sit through 90 minutes of strident neon flag waving for independence; while anyone who believes in devolution doesn’t want to watch a film where England bails them out.


It’s all very odd, and just proves once again that you can’t have your Dundee Cake and eat it.

Pig Suckler (1994)

D. Olaf Signussen
Colour
I’ve been trying to work out how big a deal Tony Blair was in Scandinavia in 1994. As this film, made the year Blair became leader of the Labour Party, features an actor who looks like a taller, blonder version of the man himself. Anders Lindqvist seems to have spent the rest of his career in Swedish television or theatre, but for one brief moment in 1994 he was able to capture the future British Prime Minister in a way which is so physical and so precise it’d give Michael Sheen nightmares. But how deliberate is this? Surely Blair at this point was just one of many overseas politicians who wouldn’t be that a big noise in another country. He didn’t even become leader of his party until halfway through the year. So unless this film was put in rapid development, to try and capture a hitherto obscure overseas politician for a domestic audience (which I admit, seems a tad unlikely), then this is a case of fate and karma playing deliciously weird games. As the politician at the centre of this film not only looks like Blair, he could actually be Blair.

The politician we have here is smiling and obsequious to a fault. We follow him on the campaign trail as he meets supporters, debates with opponents, shakes hands and kisses babies. Throughout he is smiling the kind of big grin which would make you think twice about any used car salesman you encountered, let alone a bloody politician. He has a glint in his eye as he wheedles and obfuscates, telling people what a good man he is and how trustworthy; while at the time telling them exactly what they want to hear with lashings of snake oil. He is forever telling the world what a righteous man he is, what a committed churchgoer he is, but he is forever compromising and bending the truth backwards and forwards and even wiggling it side to side. Whatever his loyalists want to believe, he tells them; whatever the more unconvinced need him to do, he will do. Of course, he frequently tells one person X and another person Y, and the two things are mutually exclusive, but that doesn’t matter as he is one of life’s good guys and you can trust his word and he is someone you can rely on. As the campaign goes on, he demonstrates this incredible need to win, to get himself to a position of power.

Of course the title gives away where all this is going to end up, and that does mitigate against the shock somewhat. But it’s fascinating to watch the process whereby this Tony Blair figure glides by on his charm, states again and again how good a man he is and what a successful leader he will be, and in the face of cynicism performs this incredible demonstration of how far he’ll go to get the voters’ support. As this film ends with the lead character’s shirt undone and a piglet attached to his male nipple, but he still keeps grinning and talking and trying to tell the world what a good and trustworthy guy he is. He doesn’t actually say “pretty straight sort of guy”, but it’s close enough to send a shiver down the spine of anyone alive in Britain from 1997 onwards.

Tony apparently liked ‘The Queen’, I wonder if he ever saw this?

Sticky Back Plastic (2003)

D. Simon Olson
Colour


For those not in the know (which should read in this instance, those of you who aren’t British) ‘Blue Peter’ is a BBC television institution. On air for more than fifty years now, ‘Blue Peter’ has been aiding kids in having safe, parental approved, do it yourself fun for over half a century. Imagine having a really uncool older brother or sister, always enthusiastic, never dressed fashionably, but forever incredibly eager to help you out with worthy and educational projects. Projects like building a birds nest out of twine, or making a Tracey Island from some bog roll and cardboard, or constructing a fully operational Tardis out of some string and a biscuit barrel. If you can picture such a sibling, then imagine him or her shrunk in height and confined to a corner of the room – and there you have ‘Blue Peter’. There are three or four presenters, all of an early twenties vintage, a menagerie of cats and dogs to act as pets, a garden to dig when the weather is good, and safe and uncomplicated educational fun for children from three to fifteen. That’s Blue Peter and every single person in Britain knows it.


‘Sticky Back Plastic’ is a barely released British horror film that exists to take the ‘Blue Peter’ ideal apart.


Although the show is carefully never named throughout the film, we’re clearly backstage at ‘Blue Peter’. But – much as ‘Meet The Feebles’ did to The Muppets – the clean cut façade is torn down to reveal a truly sordid and seedy underbelly. One of the male presenters is gay and spends most of his time backstage in increasingly torrid and masochistic encounters with the crew, the other male presenter likes nothing better than to masturbate in front of porn enacted by a revolving cast of sock puppets; while the blonde and bubbly female presenter is a coked up mess in a very twisted relationship with her boss (the sexual encounter we see involves glue, cotton wool and rubber gloves). The levels of disorganisation and disarray are so high, that when a serial killer strikes the studio, these people are truly helpless.


The set rules of serial killer films mean that those who have morally transgressed are the obvious victims, as such there is no shortage of candidates here. And the bodies do pile up in nice homemade Blue Peter style. The gay male presenter suffers a version of a death of a thousand cuts by being stapled hundreds of times until blood is spewing everywhere. The other male presenter is taught the lesson that you should always get a responsible adult to help you with scissors, when a sock puppet buries one in his eyeball. But the most gruesome death is saved for our perky blonde messed-up presenter, when the show’s beautiful golden Labrador – named ‘Goldie’ – is infected by rabies and rips her to pieces in lingering slow motion. This really is a very gory film.


It’s left to the show’s remaining presenter, the plucky Asian girl (presumably modelled on Konnie Huq, at this point an actual presenter on ‘Blue Peter’) who is untarnished compared to the rest of them, to save the day. The film becomes a battle of wills backstage at BBC Television centre, as our heroine uses all the skills she’s picked up presenting a magazine show aimed at kids, to save her life and save the day. This isn’t the most original film ever made – its novelty lies in its setting – so we all know the path it will take. The mask will be torn away, the bad guy will be revealed and he will fall to his death (although we probably don’t expect him to fall to death into a papier mâché volcano which spews out styrofoam and is lit by a torch with a red filter, that one of the presenters made earlier). The film of course ends with the bloodied heroine staring back ruefully at the carnage that has been wrought.


I’m guessing the reason ‘Sticky Back Plastic’ is almost impossible to get hold of is that the BBC wasn’t happy with this take on one of their most famous and enduring properties, which is a shame as – even though a horror film set in the world of kids TV should be funnier – this is far from the worst cheap, schlocky, gruesome horror with crap acting you could possibly stumble across.

Herbie Goes to East Berlin (1981)

D. Vincent McEveety
Colour

I’m not sure a knockabout farce involving an anthropomorphic Volkswagen Beetle is the best way to tackle the rights and wrongs of communism. But then on the flip-side I’m equally not sure that a knockabout farce involving an anthropomorphic Volkswagen Beetle is the best way to advertise Reagan-era American capitalism. From top to bottom there’s something amazingly off-kilter about ‘Herbie Goes to East Berlin’. It’s bright and gaudy, empty headed and crass, and amazingly untroubled by any doubts about its own brilliance.

In the days before Gorbachov and Glastnost, it probably seemed that the best way to take on the communist East was with a cute Volkswagen beetle. After all the grey, stiffness of communist bureaucrats was something which had never been done by Hollywood before and some broad satire was long overdue. So to begin with we have Madeline Khan doing her best German accent, with a performance that’s like a softer Rosa Krebb. I say softer in the sense that her clothes are more fetching and she doesn’t actually kill anyone. We have Christopher Lee’s stern eyebrows. Sir Chris is an actor I like a great deal, but it’s noticeable that in that long stretch where he couldn’t get work which matched his talent, he often let his eyebrows do the heavy-lifting. And below them we have numerous young men and women ground down by the drudge of work, when all they really want to do is listen to rock’n’roll. East Berlin a place of greyness, a city of repression, a haven of stern and no  fun adults – and what it really needs is some Americans to arrive who’ll shake things up.

The inevitable culture clash comes by way of the East Germans trying to show off their superiority. They invite the winner of The Coast to Coast race in the States to take on their champion car, a black Trabant – which no amount of camera tricks can make look fast or intimidating. So out go Larry Wilcox, from TV’s ‘CHiPS’, playing the nephew of Dean Jones’s character from The Love Bug (but obviously a different nephew from the one in ‘Herbie Goes Bananas’), and girlfriend Catherine Bach, from TV’s ‘The Duke of Hazards’. They arrive in East Berlin as honoured guests with the challenge to race Lee and comedy sidekick Dom Deluise. At stake is not only cultural honour, but which system is better – communism or capitalism.

You just know the kind of Wacky Races style high jinks which will follow.

The problem is that although in the context of the film, the US of A is proved to be best – the good guys are just so brash and bellicose, that they’re much more unbearable than the communists. Herbie and his team’s arrival is loud to the point of boorish and interrupts a rather sombre parade – this is seen as the bright fun of the Americans destroying the grey dullness of the Russians (yes, it’s actually Germans, but I think we can all see the real targets). But if you think about it, wouldn’t just crashing in and destroying all the hard work your hosts have clearly put into a party to greet you, be the pinnacle of bad manners? Surely people who do that are not really people to admire.

Then (unusual for a film in 1981, but perhaps not so unusual for a Disney film), there is – what can only be described – as a shit-load of product placement: Coca-Cola, Hershey, Atari and even Budweiser all have lovingly long shots. These shiny things are supposed to be envied, but come off looking the height of crass consumerism. The girls in their dowdy grey dresses are contrasted with Catherine Bach in her tight racing leathers, somehow looking even more voluptuous and naked than she did in her Daisy Dukes. But because these girls appear so modest and demure next to her, she can’t help but resemble a corn-fed stripper. Our heroes fly a stars and stripes behind their car, tell their hotel manager ‘Fritz’ to take a hike and demand that the local bar plays Chuck Berry records (because that’s really down with the kids in 1981). As such they look like the most obnoxious brats, jumped-up bullies who’ll slap the face of anyone who disagrees with them.

And that’s really what I like about this film. Ostensibly it’s dull and repressive commie-land = bad; free and capitalist America = good. Yet it’s done with such an alarming lack of subtlety, such an amazing over confidence that it almost makes the opposite point. The East Germans are restrained people who get on with their jobs and live their lives (what kind of message is it really that it’s better to dance to rock’n’roll than work in a factory? Okay, the kids in question seem to be working in a very grey looking factory – but even so…); while the Americans are loud, self-absorbed and intolerant of other people’s points of view. This myopia is there to such an extent that the film has East German locals marvelling at the American wonder that is Herbie. The Volkswagen Beetle, lest we forget, is a German car.

I like to think that behind the scenes there was someone, perhaps the director or the screenwriter, who decided to add another layer of satire to the very broad front satire. Much like Gore Vidal being told not to let Chuck Heston into the secret of the gay subtext in ‘Ben Hur’, the cast weren’t to know, the studio weren’t to know and most of the audience would never realise – but there it is, peeking out from behind Herbie and smirking.  

Tarzan in Madrid (1960)

D. Miguel Ferrera
Colour

Exhibit A in the case that satire does not work in the hands of fascists.

I’m not as well versed in the history of Spanish cinema as I should be, though I’m aware that even under Franco’s dictatorship various films were made which looked at the way society actually worked. Even within the system there were films which picked up and examined (even poked fun at) the system.

This is decidedly not one of them.

To say that ‘Tarzan in Madrid’ is heavy handed is to put it mildly. It is a jack booted, full-on, completely blinkered, pro-government, anti-everything else but the proper authorities, screed. The Tarzan tale is of course one highly malleable and can be used in so many different ways – which is odd, as unlike Robin Hood, say, it’s generally used in the same way. Here, as normal, Tarzan (Edson de Nascimento, a Portuguese actor and a good looking charisma void) is found by explorers in the jungle and brought to civilisation. Normally when Tarzan makes that journey he heads to England or New York. Here though he goes to Spain, and not just some crappy package holiday to the Costa Del Sol, instead he gets to wow and wonder at the marvel of Franco’s Madrid.

But – and here is where if I was the barrister for the prosecution, I’d speak in my firmest voice – this is where things get decidedly strange. Rather than just marvelling at tall buildings and cars and indoor plumbing, none of which this noble savage has never seen, Tarzan instead goes to war against a socialist cell which is determined to bring down Spain. True, he does briefly flirt with their message, but after a stiff telling off from Juana (the Jane of the story), he becomes righteously pro-government and charges across the city dealing out fists and lectures, before tying up the insurgents with vine he always keeps around his person. Subtly is nowhere in the production’s vocabulary.

The message of this movie is that by even a primitive-like Tarzan can see that communists are evil cretins. Tarzan is forever referred to as ‘The Primitive’, to the point even he looks tired of it. There is also a running joke that everybody he speaks to thinks he sounds French (despite the actor clearly having a Portuguese accent) and apparently sounding French is a sign of mental negligibility. So this primitive from the deepest, darkest jungle, who speaks like a Frenchman for crying out loud, is able to see how ridiculous and against everybody’s interest communism is.

And if Tarzan can see it, certainly someone as bright as YOU can see it.

That’s not the end of the message though. The satire (if that's the right word) takes a further broad turn when a kidnapped Cheetah finds himself elected leader of the communist cell.

So the great hero Tarzan sees off the communists and rescues Spain and is feted as a hero at the end. And one has to wonder what the point of all this is. Clearly there’s an element of warning the audience against the dangers of socialism/communism (the two terms were interchangeable in the subtitles of the version I saw), but then the socialists/communists on screen are made to appear so ridiculous that they find themselves led by a chimpanzee. Their characters are never developed, their ideas are set up to be easily mocked and totally ridiculous, and of course it’s nonsense that anyone would ever follow them. Communism/socialism is bad and evil and everyone of the left is a complete idiot who deserves either a smack from a jungle ‘primitive’ or for a chimpanzee to fart in their face.

Except, of course, that all this overkill inevitably leads to another reading: one which suggests that a totalitarian government will see fit to hire any muscled, bully boy (even when he wears a loin cloth and supposedly sounds French) to throw his weight around and give beatings to those who disagree with it.

 

I think that second reading is entirely accidental however, but it makes me smile that it doesn’t stretch too much of the imagination to find it there.

Apparently Franco loved this film and laughed his head off each time he saw it. So at least ‘Tarzan in Madrid’ appealed to its target audience.