B.I.G. (Bert I. Gordon) Double Feature: The Food of the Gods (1976) & Empire of the Ants (1977)

B.I.G. (BERT I. GORDON) DOUBLE FEATURE: THE FOOD OF THE GODS (1976) & EMPIRE OF THE ANTS (1977)

Killer giant rat films (giant killer rat films) do not populate the landscape as much as bad romantic comedies, bad teenage sex comedies, et cetera, do. They only come along every few years and it’s amazing we’ve not seen more in the aftermath of hipster environmentalism.

THE FOOD OF THE GODS is a bad film. A really, really, really bad film. Not a “so bad it’s good” film, just a plain bad film of epic proportions. There’s absolutely no suspense and there’s no entertainment from watching this incompetent film directed by one Bert I. Gordon, main creative force of the companion piece EMPIRE OF THE ANTS, yet another bio-kill film loosely based on a classic H.G. Wells novel. EMPIRE OF THE ANTS stars Joan Collins. Imagine the possibilities of a horror film where characters battle Joan Collins’ ego.

Bio-kill films came out seemingly by the hundreds after JAWS. We had mutant frogs, worms, ants, wasps, and killer bees. The animal kingdom — led by insects — will make us human scum pay for our transgressions against the ecosystem. See, we’ve screwed around with Mother Nature long enough and now Mother Nature will screw us.

Fond memories of THE KILLER SHREWS (1959) came back during THE FOOD OF THE GODS. Yes, the vicious killer rats in THE FOOD OF THE GODS look a whole helluva lot batter than whatever passed for imitation vicious killer rats in THE KILLER SHREWS (coon dogs, I do believe) yet that’s missing the point completely. THE KILLER SHREWS proves a campy good time and THE FOOD OF THE GODS feels more like a soulless mechanical assembly line production.

For example, there’s no mad scientist talk in THE FOOD OF THE GODS. Baruch Lumet and Gordon McClendon provided that during THE KILLER SHREWS and it reminded me of classic 1930s horror films like BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN and THE DEVIL-DOLL.

Ralph Meeker shows up in THE FOOD OF THE GODS as a mad capitalist named Bensington and mad capitalists are bad substitutes for mad scientists. There’s precious little energy and precious little joy in THE FOOD OF THE GODS. Had the Skinners’ animals been fed the script, we’d have never had THE FOOD OF THE GODS because a single morsel of the script would have poisoned every farm animal on the prerequisite remote island. They’d especially gag on the line Pamela Franklin throws Marjoe Gortner’s character about she’d like to make love to him, a crazy notion since they’re surrounded by giant killer rats. Coitus interruptus by rattus enormous!

Meeker and Ida Lupino are devoured by these giant killer rats. Not sure this is what they mean by paying one’s dues in the earlier stages of a career so one can later be devoured in a bad, bad, bad film.

Meeker (1920-88) had major roles in THE NAKED SPUR, KISS ME DEADLY, and PATHS OF GLORY, three brilliant films made in the 1950s.

Lupino, who appeared in the awful THE DEVIL’S RAIN just before THE FOOD OF THE GODS, directed eight films (including THE HITCH-HIKER) and seven of them from 1949 through 1953. She was ahead of her time.

Lupino and Meeker join icons like Ray Milland (killed in FROGS) and Kevin McCarthy and Keenan Wynn (killed in PIRANHA), for example.

Belinda Balaski survived THE FOOD OF THE GODS, but she did not PIRANHA and THE HOWLING, for those keeping score at home.

Notice how I did not yet mention the plot of THE FOOD OF THE GODS. That’s because the plot construction will immediately remind movie veterans of THE KILLER SHREWS, THE BIRDS, and NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, all three better films with better plots.

The giant rats are not bad special effects, but they’re not the least bit scary. Winston Smith loved himself some rats in 1984 and we fill in the scenes with our imaginations rather than seeing Orwell’s illustrations of rats on the written page.

That said, there’s some really, really, really bad special effect sequences in THE FOOD OF THE GODS, as the gigantic killer wasps are every bit as scary as the killer bees in THE SWARM and the killer flies in AMITYVILLE 3-D. There’s some mutant chickens who provide us bad laughs.

Some day we’ll see a film with giant mutant killer film critics. We’ll be headed first after M. Night Shyamalan, as revenge for enduring his LADY IN THE WATER and his other bad, bad, bad movies.

The first sensible question posed by any reader might be, “Why do you review so many old movies?” A sensible question deserves a sensible answer.

Just because they are “old” plays, do we give up serious discussion of Shakespeare, for example? Do intellectuals give up on Marx and Socrates and Plato and the like just because they never had a Facebook account let alone have a place on the Hollywood Walk of Fame?

So “old” movies have a lot of catching up to do to other mediums.

Just a year after THE FOOD OF THE GODS, Mr. B.I.G. himself, Bert I. Gordon, came back with THE EMPIRE OF THE ANTS, another bio-kill movie loosely based on H.G. Wells.

EMPIRE OF THE ANTS opens with a ponderous voice-over narration that’s written like a combination of Rodney Dangerfield, Rickey Henderson, and Adolf Hitler. Our narration, obviously under ant control, lays it down that ants get no respect and it’s about time we stupid humans admit our genetic inferiority in the face of the superior ant race. It’s about time we stupid humans serve the superior ant race and we best “Treat it with respect” or there will be ecological hell to pay for us stupid, egotistical humans.

Once again, a post-JAWS horror film gives us an evil real estate developer. If there’s one horror film with an evil real estate developer, there are at least a hundred. However, evil real estate developers rarely take the shapely (and developed) form of Joan Collins. Of course, she’s a real mean bitch — potential audition tape for both THE BITCH and “Dynasty” — and she’s obsessed with the Bottom Line like all business people in bio-kill movies. Unfortunately, for us and coincidentally for her, the sight of her perfectly coiffed hair strikes more fear in the heart of the audience than the ants.

These are not the average garden variety ants. They are the brand of ant who had the great misfortune of being in a killer ant picture 23 years after the 1954 science fiction classic THEM! We do see a classic movie formula in action in EMPIRE OF THE ANTS: Barrels Labelled Danger: Radioactive Waste + Evil Real Estate Person = Giant Killer Ants. Extremely slow moving giant killer ants who laboriously pick off their victims as if the exposition scenes are not already bad enough.

Back to Joan Collins. Disaster movies of the era recruited fading stars for their casts. It must be some measure of the intrinsic artistic value of EMPIRE OF THE ANTS that it wound up with Joan Collins as its marquee attraction. For crying out loud, even FOOD OF THE GODS included Ralph Meeker and Ida Lupino.

A film like EMPIRE OF THE ANTS entertains idle thoughts. Lots and lots and lots of idle thoughts.

I started taking incriminating notes on the guilty parties of the opening credits and I came across this familiar name (and bod): Pamela Shoop. My internal movie database flashed back on a Pamela Susan Shoop from HALLOWEEN II (1981) and after some intense cross-referencing, it turned out this would be the same actress. She fared better as Pamela Shoop because the addition of Susan earned her a sweet nude scene before decapitation by Michael Myers. In EMPIRE OF THE ANTS, Shoop lives through a slime ball creep’s failed seduction and survives her attack by phony looking giant killer ants. Don’t forget radioactive.

After the basic expository set-up, the ants finally attack and establish a basic scene pattern, which I have reduced to (not in this exact order) BLOOD and SCREAMS and RUNNING and BLOOD and RUNNING and SCREAMS and PADDLING and SCREAMS and PADDLING and PADDLING and BLOOD and SCREAMS. I may have forgotten an extra RUNNING.

We get extra special treats like repeat ant’s eye view shots as they zero in on stock monster movie characters. Victims who just stand there and watch and scream. A victim who falls over what appears to be a single branch and just waits for her death. Of course, nobody brought any weapons to a picnic and outing sponsored by a friendly local evil real estate developer. There’s no guns, no knives, no machine guns, and, most importantly, no flamethrowers ‘cause, guess what, these ants hate fire. Of course.

Just imagine Devo in EMPIRE OF THE ANTS, in their radioactive suits and flower pot hats, killing ants by electric guitar and dangerous synthesizer grooves like the one that later powered “Whip It.” Devo could have even given us a classic theme song like the Five Blobs did for THE BLOB almost 20 years before.

Devo adapted their classic “Jocko Homo” and its “Are we not men? We are Devo” chant from a classic H.G. Wells novel. American International, producer Samuel Z. Arkoff, and Gordon also raided the Wells source material for two films. Wells may have predicted a time machine and cloning Marlon Brando in miniature form yet even his visionary mind never foreseen Joan Collins. Regardless, Wells should have written FOOD OF THE GODS and EMPIRE OF THE ANTS under another name.

THE FOOD OF THE GODS (1976) One star; EMPIRE OF THE ANTS (1977) One star

Children of the Corn (1984)

CHILDREN OF THE CORN (1984) One star

CHILDREN OF THE CORN is yet another textbook example of a film that cannot be taken seriously although it would love to be considered a serious film. We know that ‘cause we read an opening title like STEPHEN KING’S CHILDREN OF THE CORN, bashing us over the head this film wants to be a major event in our lives rather than a borderline incoherent, rambling supernatural thriller with pseudo-religious hogwash and brutal thriller machinations as its main selling points.

I will be the first to admit my ambivalence toward Stephen King, as well as Tom Clancy, John Grisham, Laurel Hamilton, Dean Koontz, and every other author who seems to have built-in access to a guaranteed mass audience every single time they publish even their napkins. Kmart, Walmart, and your friendly local supermarket determine the ultimate literary value of a select few writers and the rest of us hacks wallow in anonymity and simmering jealousy.

Fortunately, and unfortunately, I am well-versed in Stephen King film adaptations, probably just as much as you are at home. For every successful adaptation, like STAND BY ME and THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION, there’s absolute doggerel like CUJO, MAXIMUM OVERDRIVE, and DREAMCATCHER that rate among the most torturous movie experiences. In fact, I’d rate DREAMCATCHER high up among my top five worst movie theater experiences. One day, I’ll have to sit down and concentrate on that list.

CHILDREN OF THE CORN rates as bad King film adaptation. The rabid cult following may disagree but they’re not writing this review.

First and foremost, this is another King adaptation with religious poppycock galore. I traditionally despise religious fanaticism in the movies ‘cause it’s used by filmmakers as a cheap exploitation tactic. I hated, hated, hated this approach in films like AMITYVILLE II: THE POSSESSION, CARRIE, and THE OMEN. Are we supposed to cheaply laugh at somebody’s faith ‘cause they’re overzealous suckers and we’re in on the know and the joke they’re suckers?

How are we supposed to react to the evil corn, the pontification, and the music recycled from THE OMEN every time our filmmakers — led by director Fritz Kiersch — want us to pay attention. I have what’s called “bad laughs” and lots of them over the running time of CHILDREN OF THE CORN.

There’s a gruesome opening scene: The kids of Gatlin, Nebraska (introductory title: “GATLIN, NEBRASKA — THREE YEARS AGO”), kill their fathers and mothers and grandfathers and grandmothers and “The Blue Man.” See, a couple shady little individuals calling themselves Isaac and Malachi are instructed by “He Who Walks Behind the Rows.”

At this point, we should make a crucial distinction that just might save your life or at least guide you toward a better movie rental: In Nebraska, corn fields command kids to kill all the adults and make them sacrificial fodder. Meanwhile, in Iowa, corn fields instruct farmers to build a baseball diamond and they will come, well, except for Ty Cobb.

Anyhoo, Isaac (John Franklin) establishes a tyrannical regime of kids opposed to “sex, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll.” He’s a babbling pseudo-religious visionary with bad make-up. I laughed at Isaac’s pontification more than I have at some comedians over an entire career, because Isaac is a power-hungry miniature twit.

Malachi is the brute enforcer, a red-headed Jason Voorhees minus the hockey mask. He’s played by Courtney Gains, one of the best faces of 1980s movies. Sure we all remember Courtney Gains. George Constanza remembers him as the evil video store clerk in a “Seinfeld” episode. Gains appeared in BACK TO THE FUTURE, THE ‘BURBS, CAN’T BUY ME LOVE, and SECRET ADMIRER. For example, he tried cutting in on George McFly with Lorraine Baines at the Enchantment Under the Sea dance in good ole 1955. I’d rather talk more about Courtney Gains and his career than go back to reviewing CHILDREN OF THE CORN.

Where was I again? Who am I?

Anyway, Peter Horton and Linda Hamilton play our resident clean-cut wholesome All-American couple taking a trip inside a clean-cut wholesome All-American nightmare only found within a bad horror movie. These young lovers violate the Number One rule of interstate travel: ALWAYS STAY ON THE HIGHWAY. It’s almost like they never watched THE HILLS HAVE EYES.

This is yet another one of those “Of course” movies, because we say of course, they find a run down gas station with no telephone. Of course, the gas station owner’s a diabolical, shady old man in cahoots with the evil kiddos. Of course, the husband Burt (Horton) sees and hears something OVER THERE, always OVER THERE, and checks it out while the wife Vicky (Hamilton) wants to leave. Of course, they never do leave (until the end of the movie) and must fight through a living Hell to survive.

Next time, however, I suggest they drive through Iowa and find the Buddy Holly Crash Site near Clear Lake. It’s a long walk to the shrine of Holly, Ritchie Valens, and the Big Bopper, but a must if you love rock ‘n’ roll.

Back to the old man who’s the gas station attendant. He’s played by R.G. Armstrong in not one of his finest screen moments. Armstrong plays the role of a character whose function is that of the corpse in a self-contained murder sequence in a horror film, where it takes untold minutes to reach a destination we already predetermined in our heads after having watched countless self-contained murder sequences in horror films. Armstrong (1917-2012) must have rapidly slipped in his old age, considering that he survived THE BEAST WITHIN just a couple years before.

There’s also a little girl named Sarah, another pint-sized visionary. Her endearing and redeeming character trait is that she draws pictures of everything. Of course, Malachi wants to curb her artistic inclinations and of course, Isaac defends her visionary gifts, conflict among the ranks of the evil kiddos that only escalates during CHILDREN OF THE CORN.

I’d rather have looked at an exhibit of Sarah’s illustrations than watch CHILDREN OF THE CORN.

That’s because CHILDREN OF THE CORN bludgeons us with every cheap shock tactic of the bad horror movie.

There’s a lot of thunder and lightning, fire and brimstone, and loud music. And there are way too many scenes built on tight framing so we’re supposed to be scared on cue by an unexpected object jumping into the frame. The scariest accomplishment, however, of CHILDREN OF THE CORN is that it developed a cult following.

Teen Wolf (1985)

TEEN WOLF

TEEN WOLF (1985) Three stars

During the review of SILVER BULLET, TEEN WOLF came to mind and then I looked up a rather negative review I wrote 10 years ago.

A decade later, I recommend TEEN WOLF for the very things I once mocked. Here’s the original two-star review (with only small edits):

“TEEN WOLF almost succeeds in spite of itself and I do mean in spite of itself.

“The film stockpiles a nuclear arsenal of cliches. Next time I see Kim Jong-Il I will ask him what he thinks of the film, in between our usual rap session ‘bout FRIDAY THE 13TH films. Let’s see, I’ll have to make a list otherwise my brain will explode and that cannot happen before Finals Week, let alone Dead Week.

“I’ll briefly mention 1) the Nebraska small town setting; 2) the loving, single widower and his teenage son protagonist on their own; 3) the teenage son protagonist feels he’s doomed to an eternity of being “average” until he finds out that he can be a teenage werewolf just like Michael Landon and the Cramps song before him; 4) the protagonist’s hipster and profiteer best friend; 5) the “fat guy” fifth wheel nicknamed, oh you’ll love this one, “Chubby”; 6) The Blonde = Bad Girl and The Brunette = Good Girl formula; 7)the protagonist lusts after the Blonde, actually succeeds in sleeping with the Blonde as the Wolf, and ends up realizing his undying love for the Brunette in the final act though she prefers “average” Scott Howard over the Wolf; 8) the Blonde’s Evil Overlord of Brooding Hot Shot boyfriend and the protagonist’s eternal foil; 9) the Evil Principal; 10) the wise guy head basketball coach who spits out incantations of advice rejected by Fortune 500 fortune cookie companies; 11) the scene where the protagonist faces down a wily old liquor store veteran who’s heard every scam ever to purchase some alcoholic contraband for a monster party; 12) The Monster Party; 13) The Big High School Dance; and I believe I’m done after this one, 14) The Big Game. Sorry, I apologize in advance for missing a few there.

“Once we grant the film’s central premise, that werewolf genes run down a family’s genetic line, which sounds too much like TWILIGHT for its own good before Taylor Lautner was even born, what’s wrong with a few generic movie standards? Nothing, absolutely nothing, except for when taken in tandem our friendly standards make for a generic motion picture spread. TEEN WOLF almost set the cliche land speed record.

“Michael J. Fox makes for a likable, charismatic protagonist and his energetic movie star performance lets us live through standard, predictable material. He enlists us on his side, whether he’s average small town boy lined up to inherit his father’s small town hardware store, Scott Howard, or his alter ego, ultra-cool and ultra-hip and dazzling slam dunker “The Wolf.” Fox essentially plays the Lon Chaney existential dread film werewolf crossed with John Travolta in SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER (at least for the big dance sequence and the big preparation for the dance sequence) and Julius Erving, as well as having issues with anger management and teenage angst.

“Do teen wolves get pimples? TEEN WOLF fails to address several burning questions. Especially not a PG-rated TEEN WOLF. Fox plays these scenes ‘bout as good as any actor possibly can and we stomach him through every predictable change like, for example, how Scott Howard transforms himself into above average when he’s the Wolf: He can dance, he can act, he can surf on slow-moving customized Wolf vans, and he can play mean basketball. Scott Howard eventually turns his back on ‘Wolf Mania’ and decides to be himself for The Big Game.

“James Hampton must have enjoyed playing a humble, sagely teenage protagonist’s old man in TEEN WOLF, considering his past as evil public relations man in THE CHINA SYNDROME and his future as evil federal regulatory agency man in PUMP UP THE VOLUME. Susan Ursitti breathes some fire into her standard issue role as the Brunette / Good Girl and this is both good and bad, good because it makes our lives relatively less boring and bad ‘cause we get even more frustrated by the wait for the inevitable dramatic (overdue) realization made by the protagonist that she’s meant for him, forever. The Bad Girl and her maligned Evil Overlord of Brooding Hot Shit boyfriend are the only characters who fail to entertain us, interest us, et cetera. They’re not very good performers and it’s painful waiting for their inevitable downfalls.

“Surely Teen Wolf’s impressive slam dunk artistry did not inspire Spud Webb, the 5’7” Atlanta Hawks point guard who prevailed in the NBA Slam Dunk Contest at the 1986 NBA All-Star Weekend in Dallas, besting his own Atlanta Hawks teammate, Dominique Wilkins. Michael J. Fox, why he’s short and he’s Canadian, two proverbial strikes against him, so naturally it takes a stunt double werewolf for him to slam dunk. I would have thought a werewolf’s claws would have made playing basketball like a proverbial artiste virtually impossible. Anything goes, in the movies.

“Hey wait, lovely lads and lovely ladies, I recollect another standard trotted out by TEEN WOLF. The montage. The “Winning Streak” Montage. The Car Surfing Montage. The Big High School Dance Montage. The Big Game Montage. Hyperkinetic action scored by a hyperkinetic rock song. For the big dance montage, we get a bad theme song namedropping “The Big Bad Wolf.” It’s an unwritten rule that any 1980s movie referencing itself in song, like PROM NIGHT and BETTER OFF DEAD, will turn out crap. When in doubt, filmmakers, yes, bring on a montage of hyperkinetic action (basketball, dancing, violence) scored by hyperkinetic rock music. TEEN WOLF competes with THE HEAVENLY KID and OVER THE TOP for montage land speed record. I bet the composers do not put TEEN WOLF down on their permanent record.

“Oh, now I remember a couple more standard tricks exploited by TEEN WOLF. Slow motion. BONNIE AND CLYDE and THE WILD BUNCH used slow motion to brilliant effect, as did early Bruce Lee karate films, but lesser films like BLACK BELT JONES made slow motion passé, not to mention its overuse on sports television. Want to see Teen Wolf slam dunk for what feels like the hundredth billionth time? Watch TEEN WOLF! Want to see “average” Scott Howard’s lay-up that barely makes it around the cup and in? Watch TEEN WOLF!

“Now, here we have a standard within a standard: late in the game, Scott Howard gets clotheslined on a final shot layup attempt by his eternal foil (at least for 90 minutes eternity) and his team, the Beavers, are down by one point and two made free throws will naturally win The Big Game for the Beavers.

“Howard steps to the free throw line … his eternal foil stares him down … he makes the first one, smoothly … the second free throw … it’s released … it’s looking good … it’s SLOW MOTION … slower and slower … oh no! … it hits the back of the rim … slower and slower and even slower motion … it touches almost every corner of the rim … and it finally rolls in … reaction shots galore … NO MORE SLOW MOTION … and the crowd storms the court in celebration of either the end of the Big Game, the end of the movie, the end of shooting the movie, or all three simultaneously. I’ll bet on all three ‘cause I know they were solid pros.

“Rod Daniel, oh what a director, this here Rod Daniel. TEEN WOLF perhaps represents the peak of Rod Daniel’s cinematic directorial career, TEEN WOLF up against the Dudley Moore-Kirk Cameron body switch masterpiece of dreck cinema LIKE FATHER LIKE SON and the BEETHOVEN sequel. I favor a slam-dunking, breakdancing Teen Wolf over a born again Kirk Cameron (Jesus couldn’t save Kirk Cameron’s acting) and Charles Grodin overshadowed by a dog. At least, Daniel had the decency not to direct TEEN WOLF TOO. On this or any other job, you win some, you lose some.”

Not sure what came over me when I wrote that review 10 years ago, especially since I have enjoyed TEEN WOLF many times over the years. A lot of the success of TEEN WOLF has to do with Michael J. Fox at the center. After all, with Jason Bateman in the title role instead, TEEN WOLF TOO proved to be a disaster, although that’s partly because TEEN WOLF did not require a sequel.

Silver Bullet (1985)

SILVER BULLET (1985) Two stars

“It’s such a fine line between stupid, and clever.”

— Spinal Tap lead singer David St. Hubbins

That’s one way to describe the Stephen King adaptation SILVER BULLET, which has left viewers from day one debating whether or not the film makers were intentionally parodying Stephen King and werewolf movies by making so many individual details ridiculous.

Many reviewers just considered SILVER BULLET to be laughably bad and not in the good way, hot on the entrails of previous laughably bad King adaptations CUJO and CHILDREN OF THE CORN.

Watching SILVER BULLET for the first time in many, many years, I must admit the internal split and acknowledge the fine line between stupid and clever.

Let us consider:

— We have a narrator (Broadway standout Tovah Feldshuh) who sounds like an old woman, although it’s only nine years after the main events depicted in the film when she was 15 years old. Feldshuh’s even listed as playing “Older Jane.”

— Gary Busey plays Uncle Red, a womanizing drunkard who dotes on paralyzed prepubescent protagonist Marty Coslaw (Corey Haim), Jane’s younger brother, and makes the boy customized wheelchairs called “The Silver Bullet.” I remembered the second wheelchair most from previous viewings of the film when I was roughly the same age as Marty.

— That second wheelchair, oh wow, just let me tell you that you’ve not enjoyed a complete moviegoing life until you’ve seen the scene where our priest / werewolf (Everett McGill) stalks Marty and his souped-up “Silver Bullet” in broad daylight. Marty’s second great escape is even greater than his first.

— Uncle Red should have pursued a career in wheelchair manufacturing.

— This review gives away the identity of the werewolf. Big deal. The movie tips off the identity almost immediately, but, of course, in a movie like SILVER BULLET, the townspeople are nincompoops and it takes young ones like Marty and Jane to figure out the truth. Those nincompoops are on an epic scale of nincompoop. I mean, it’s tipped off so obviously that “WEREWOLF” should have flashed on the screen below the character. They all should have died.

— The nincompoops form a “Citizens Action Brigade” in the first 30 minutes … after four killings. They load up on guns, load up into trucks, head out into the woods, step into traps, et cetera. Two nincompoops produce one of the great dialogue exchanges from the Planet X. …

Maggie Andrews: What’s the matter, Bobby? You gonna make lemonade in your pants?

Bobby Robertson: I ain’t scared!

— The werewolf resembles a black bear. After the technological advances made in the werewolf movie just four years earlier by THE HOWLING and AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON, SILVER BULLET set the species back years.

If they remade SILVER BULLET today, would the original be called a “classic”? Undoubtedly yes, of course, because every old movie remade automatically becomes “classic.” We’ve heard that incessantly about the 1989 PET SEMATARY, for example.

SILVER BULLET, like PET SEMATARY, is not a classic by any definition — “Judged over a period of time to be of the highest quality and outstanding of its kind” or “A work of art of recognized and established value.”

For crying out loud, TEEN WOLF — released a couple months before SILVER BULLET — stands up better.

An American Werewolf in London (1981)

AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON

AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON (1981) Three stars

The 1980s were a golden age for comedy horror: GREMLINS, GHOSTBUSTERS, RE-ANIMATOR, EVIL DEAD II, FRIGHT NIGHT, LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS, and KILLER KLOWNS FROM OUTER SPACE.

I’d put AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON among the second tier of 1980s comedy horror films, below every film listed in the opening paragraph. Do not fear, though, because it’s still a good movie.

AMERICAN WEREWOLF specializes in dark comedy, very very very dark, even beyond morbid especially when a dead Jack Goodman (Griffin Dunne) haunts best friend David Kessler (David Naughton) as Mr. Kessler becomes the title character. Jack tells David that he must kill himself before he kills others and that he’s under the werewolf’s curse. Jack still has that same way with words he had when he was alive; that’s why David tells Jack, “I will not be threatened by a walking meatloaf.” Poor, poor Jack.

Of course, all this started when David and Jack, two American college students on a walking tour, stop at the Slaughtered Lamb. We’ve all heard of the Wrong Gas Station, a hallmark of many horror movies, but the Slaughtered Lamb represents the Wrong Drinking Establishment. You have to be real thirsty or hungry or both to stop at the Slaughtered Lamb. The regulars don’t exactly warm to no bratty Americans in the first place, but the irrepressible Jack sticks his foot in his mouth big time when he blurts out about a pentagram. The conspiratorial patrons give Jack and David the boot, although Jack and David are told very specifically to stay on the road and not to go into the moors. I believe that I last saw that setting in the 1939 Basil Rathbone Sherlock Holmes movie HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES. I love the moors in the movies.

Of course, we all know that David and Jack don’t stick to the road and go exactly where they’re not supposed to go.

1981 featured three good wolf movies: THE HOWLING premiered March 13, WOLFEN July 24, and AMERICAN WEREWOLF August 21. For the record, I prefer both WOLFEN and THE HOWLING over AMERICAN WEREWOLF, and that’s an indication just how great of a year it was for movies about wolves. All three have their own distinct qualities, though both Joe Dante’s THE HOWLING and John Landis’ AMERICAN WEREWOLF pursue laughter far more than Michael Wadleigh’s WOLFEN.

All three stand out for their special effects: Rob Bottin and Rick Baker, who previously worked together on Dante’s PIRANHA, battled for werewolf transformation superiority and Baker’s makeup work on AMERICAN WEREWOLF earned him the first Academy Award for Best Makeup, as he beat out Stan Winston on the comedic craptacular HEARTBEEPS. The overshadowed WOLFEN did some innovative things with sound and image to depict the world of the wolf.

At this point in Landis’ career, the controversial director was on a major roll with a three-picture run of NATIONAL LAMPOON’S ANIMAL HOUSE, THE BLUES BROTHERS, and AMERICAN WEREWOLF. This was before TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE, when actor Vic Morrow and child actors Myca Dinh Le and Renee Shin-Yi Chen were killed in a helicopter accident during filming in July 1982.

The National Transportation Safety Board reported a couple years later: “The probable cause of the accident was the detonation of debris-laden high temperature special effects explosions too near a low-flying helicopter leading to foreign object damage to one rotor blade and delamination due to heat to the other rotor blade, the separation of the helicopter’s tail rotor assembly, and the uncontrolled descent of the helicopter. The proximity of the helicopter to the special effects explosions was due to the failure to establish direct communications and coordination between the pilot, who was in command of the helicopter operation, and the film director, who was in charge of the filming operation.”

(If you want to watch something fucked up, you can find “Vic Morrow’s Death Video” on YouTube. The rotor blades decapitated Morrow and Le and the right landing skid crushed Chen to death. All three died instantaneously. For this reason and the fact that it’s not very good, I cannot watch Landis’ installment in TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE and skip ahead on the DVD to the Joe Dante and George Miller portions of the program.)

Despite being acquitted of involuntary manslaughter after a nine-month jury trial over 1986 and 1987, Landis’ reputation rightfully took a major hit … and every single thing you can find about the incident makes Landis seem like the ultimate asshole director, worse than Hitchcock, worse than Kubrick, worse than Lang, worse than Preminger, worse than Woody Allen, worse than any other director in relentless pursuit of perfection. Landis broke California child labor laws by hiring both child actors without their required permits, in addition to his reckless behavior filming the nighttime helicopter sequence. None of this should have ever happened and Landis served not a single second of time for his crimes.

TRADING PLACES and COMING TO AMERICA both were hits directed by Landis. He also directed the nearly 14-minute music video for Michael Jackson’s “Thriller,” a job Landis earned after Jackson saw AMERICAN WEREWOLF. It is widely considered the greatest musical video of all-time.

Back to AMERICAN WEREWOLF.

AMERICAN WEREWOLF represents a throwback to the horror movies of the 1930s, especially the ones from Universal, updated with gore, nudity, and profanity of a modern era.

Like several other films from the 1980s, it deftly balances laughs and scares just right so often.

AMERICAN WEREWOLF, though, falls shy of greatness: There’s a lot to love, especially in the first 30 minutes, but I’ve never loved its ending (full half-point deduction alone for this deficiency) and I just cannot believe the savvy Landis did not choose Warren Zevon’s “Werewolves of London” — Lon Chaney Sr. and Jr. references on top lyrics “You hear him howling around your kitchen door / You better not let him in / Little old lady got mutilated late last night / Werewolves of London again” and “He’s the hairy-handed gent who ran amuck in Kent / Lately he’s been overheard in Mayfair / You better stay away from him / He’ll rip your lungs out, Jim / I’d like to meet his tailor.” In other words, Zevon’s dark sense of humor would have fit AMERICAN WEREWOLF, just like a wolf suit.

No matter how many times I’ve heard CCR’s “Bad Moon Rising” and Van Morrison’s “Moondance,” they still thrill and AMERICAN WEREWOLF uses them perfectly, especially pairing Morrison’s lyrics “Well, I want to make love to you tonight / I can’t wait ’til the morning has come / And I know now the time is just right / And straight into my arms you will run / And when you come my heart will be waiting / To make sure that you’re never alone / et cetera” with the escalation in David’s relationship with friendly nurse Alex (the alluring Jenny Agutter).

I’ll end this review with a warning to stick to the original and please do not watch AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN PARIS.

Humanoids from the Deep (1980)

HUMANOIDS FROM THE DEEP (1980) One star
Exploitation film legend Roger Corman loved ripping off / paying homage to JAWS, first with PIRANHA then a couple years later with HUMANOIDS FROM THE DEEP. The great white shark in JAWS and the piranhas did not prey almost exclusively on busty supporting players and extras so this was cinematic evolution at work here.

Yes, these humanoids are horny bastards: They should meet up with the horny aliens from the SPECIES films and we’d have ourselves a party. The humanoids resemble Swamp Thing, only uglier and with no poignant qualities. Do you want a Humanoid from the Deep this Valentine’s Day? They do not take a subtle approach to scoring with the ladies. These humanoids score with busty young women by raping them and leaving almost nothing but a mess behind. Legend has it that Uncle Roger went back in after the director turned in a final cut and shot additional scenes focused on sex and gore. This sounds like CALIGULA or any of the more repugnant Corman productions.

Uncle Roger shows his JAWS hand early on during HUMANOIDS FROM THE DEEP: There’s a child eaten and an explosion in the first 10 minutes of the film, elements of scenes from JAWS and JAWS 2, respectively. Yes, it’s that kind of movie.

In certain sequences, there are jump scares every few moments, soundtracked by gasps, phone calls, and jarring musical score and then we’re brutalized with a “real” scare every so often. These scare tactics backfire miserably.

We have good old Doug McClure as our reluctant proletariat hero, strong working class family man. Just a couple weeks before watching HUMANOIDS I saw McClure survive AT THE EARTH’S CORE. In that classic, he played a fellow named David and Peter Cushing played Doc as we’ll never forget in scene after scene where characters say David and Doc and Doc and David and Doc and David. Here McClure’s Jim and the HUMANOIDS FROM THE DEEP characters do not share the same romance with “Jim.”

A Native American named Johnny Eagle (who would have been played by Will Sampson if the film had a larger budget) opposes the evil shenanigans of a venal capitalist played by Vic Morrow, who’s seeking a cannery deal for the people of Noyo, yes, Noyo. Eagle sounds forewarnings of portentous doom so naturally he’s set up to be a villain and later turns out to be a hero. Oh, sweet irony!

I mean, just once I’d love to see a film with the Native American as the venal capitalist and the white man as the conscientious environmentalist hero. Anyway, Eagle finds a fight without looking too hard and his presence at the Noyo Salmon Festival spawns a horrible fight scene, indicative of white pattern Native American bashing. Luckily, for all of us, a tear did not stain Johnny Eagle’s face.

Of course, Noyo holds a big carnival for its annual Salmon Festival. Nothing and I mean nothing will stop these Noyo yo-yo’s from holding their carnival, not even mutant killer fish slash humans. So, naturally, our Humanoids from the Deep play the role of the spoiler.

For some bizarre reason, this overdrawn attack-massacre sequence brought out fond memories flashing back on a similar overdrawn sequence in GIANT SPIDER INVASION. A lot of humanoids are killed good, a lot of bit players are taken a bite out of by humanoids, and it’s all broadcast over live radio by a disc jockey calling himself “Madman” although he’s not played by real-life DJ Don Steele, who showed up in both DEATH RACE 2000 and ROCK ’N’ ROLL HIGH SCHOOL, as well as GRAND THEFT AUTO.

None of these scenes are remotely entertaining or interesting and that basically describes HUMANOIDS FROM THE DEEP.

Been there, seen that, and please roll the final credits.

House of Wax (1953)

HOUSE OF WAX

HOUSE OF WAX (1953) Four stars

I’m a big fan of the late, great St. Louis born Vincent Price (1911-93).

Like most people from my generation, I first discovered Price through his voice work on Michael Jackson’s mega-hit “Thriller.”

Over time, of course, I began to encounter more and more of his work and I became more and more of a fan.

A couple of my favorites include his narration on Alice Cooper’s “Black Widow” from the 1975 Cooper album “Welcome to My Nightmare” (AC’s first solo LP) and THEATER OF BLOOD (1973).

“Black Widow” foreshadowed Price’s work on “Thriller.”

THEATER OF BLOOD lets Price sink his teeth into a juicy role and plot scenario — an irate Shakespearean actor who takes ultimate revenge on all his critics. It’s a lot of fun.

Several movies have taken cheap shots at critics over the years — for example, GODZILLA ’98 gave us the buffoonish Mayor Ebert and his aide Gene and LADY IN THE WATER (2006) knocked off that pretentious killjoy Harry Farber, a no-count film and book critic — but THEATER OF BLOOD gets it just right, unlike both GODZILLA and LADY IN THE WATER.

In the case of GODZILLA, Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin didn’t even have the guts to have their Godzilla devour their Siskel & Ebert parodies. Chicken shits. I mean, were they holding out hope their film might still get a positive review? You know it’s bad when M. Night had more balls than you.

Anyway, in the spirit of a Camper Van Beethoven song, I have to ask ‘Where the hell am I?’

Oh yeah, Vincent Price and his incredibly entertaining HOUSE OF WAX, a remake of the 1933 horror film MYSTERY OF THE WAX MUSEUM.

By the way, Warner Bros. packaged together the 1933 with the 1953 film on a DVD and it’s not every day that you get two good movies for the price of one.

Now, I can add HOUSE OF WAX to the Price favorites list.

Price stars as Prof. Henry Jarrod, who’s absolutely committed to his wax museum. They’re not just wax figures to him. After all, they are extremely lifelike — a fine art — and he sums up the essence of his art with this dialogue, “Once in his lifetime, every artist feels the hand of God, and creates something that comes alive.”

Jarrod especially loves his Marie Antoinette, “Everything I ever loved has been taken away from me, but not you, my Marie Antoinette, for I will give you eternal life.” (Just pretend using Price’s voice while reading the dialogue.)

Jarrod thinks first and foremost in artistic terms, whereas his business partner Matthew Burke (Roy Roberts) hatches a devious scheme. If they set the wax museum ablaze, they can collect the $25,000 insurance policy and split it straight down the middle. Jarrod cannot believe his ears, for he loves his wax museum and his creations too much to see them destroyed for money.

Burke and Jarrod fight it out, with Burke ultimately winning the upper hand and burning down the wax museum with Jarrod inside. Burke believes Jarrod died … of course, Jarrod survives, enacts his revenge, and starts his wax museum all over bigger and better.

File the wax figures burning under “Great Movie Scenes.”

In early September 1988, a fire claimed the lives of 300 wax figures from the Southwestern Historical Wax Museum in Grand Prairie, Texas.

Lost were figures of Elvis, JFK, Robert Redford, and Paul Newman.

“One of the things that has made this fire so difficult to fight was the fact these figures are just like a candle,” Lt. Doug Conner said. “They generate tremendous heat. It appears it’s totally destroyed.”

The burning down of the wax museum certainly proves to be a great opener for HOUSE OF WAX.

HOUSE OF WAX came in the wake of the first 3-D feature, BWANA DEVIL (1952), and it gives us one of the best 3-D scenes I have ever seen. This scene comes right after intermission.

We have a barker for Jarrod’s new wax museum known as the House of Wax. We all know barkers, right, are people who “attempt to attract patrons to entertainment events, such as a circus or fair, by exhorting passing members of the public, announcing attractions of show, and emphasizing variety, novelty, beauty, or some other enticing feature of the show.”

Our barker seems to be an elite paddle ball player and he breaks the fourth wall, as he directly addresses the audience and hits the paddle ball toward us.

“Well, there’s someone with a bag of popcorn. Close your mouth, it’s the bag I’m aiming at, not your tonsils.”

This is better than anything in JAWS or AMITYVILLE 3-D.

There’s more choice moments in HOUSE OF WAX, and it’s essential viewing for Price fans.

Five must-see Vincent Price films:

— HOUSE OF WAX (1953)

— THE FLY (1958)

— HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL (1959)

— THEATER OF BLOOD (1973)

— VINCENT (1982)

Squirm (1976)

SQUIRM

SQUIRM (1976) Three stars

You either have a predisposition for liking a silly creature feature like SQUIRM or you don’t.

I thankfully do.

Just a couple quick statements.

1) That’s a lovely title.

2) It’s produced by American International Pictures (1954-80), one of the best production outfits in the motion picture business.

3) I’d rate SQUIRM the second-best killer worm picture right after TREMORS.

Granted, I’m not exactly sure how many killer worm movies there are in existence.

SQUIRM, written and directed by Jeff Lieberman, reminds yours truly of the 1972 classic from American International, FROGS.

American International promoted FROGS with the immortal tagline “Today the pond, tomorrow the world.”

Meanwhile, SQUIRM received, “This was the night of the crawling terror!” Crawling terror in all caps! Like CRAWLING TERROR!

The opening title card informs us that SQUIRM is “based on a true story.” Are you gonna fall for that one?

Intense storms hit Fly Creek, Georgia and electricity from downed power lines + wet soil creates mad worms … and they develop an insatiable taste for human flesh. Of course, they do … or we’d not have much of a movie, at least not much of a one worthy of the title SQUIRM.

We have two gingers for our protagonists: Mick (Don Scardino), a no-count city slicker who seems to get on just about everybody’s bad side, especially good ol’ boy Sheriff Jim Reston (Peter MacLean) and creepy romantic rival Roger Grimes (R.A. Dow), and Mick’s romantic interest Geri (Patricia Pearcy).

Right off the top of the old noggin, I cannot think of another film headlined by a pair of redheads.

Mick starts off on the wrong foot real quick when he orders an egg cream. An egg cream in Fly Creek, Georgia? Only a city slicker would make such an order.

What’s an egg cream? Milk, carbonated water, and flavored syrup, apparently, and it does not contain eggs or cream. New Yorkers loved them some egg cream. Why do them old Pace Picante commercials leap to mind?

Mick encounters a worm in his egg cream and freaks out. Boy, oh boy, he’s not making friends very fast around here.

It all sort of reminds you of Dustin Hoffman’s work alienating the natives in Sam Peckinpah’s STRAW DOGS.

Many years ago, I brought in a DVD haul that included AFTER HOURS, ERASERHEAD, and FROGS.

Just from that day alone, I could have started the “So You’re Think You’re Having a Bad Day” Film Festival.

SQUIRM could make the cut, just based on what happens to Roger alone.

Shakespeare, “A coward dies a thousand times before his death, but the valiant taste of death but once. It seems to me most strange that men should fear, seeing that death, a necessary end, will come when it come.”

Roger “dies” a thousand times in SQUIRM. At least it seems that way. You can’t keep a good creep down.

He’s the SQUIRM character remembered most.

I read an interview with Lieberman where he recounted how most of the inner-city audience in a 900-seat theater rooted for Roger and wanted both redheads to die either by Roger or the worms.

SQUIRM amounts to a whole lot of fun, but take my word with a grain of salt especially since I have a predisposition to like this kind of movie.

squirm /skwərm/: wriggle or twist the body from side to side, especially as a result of nervousness or discomfort. Synonyms: wriggle, wiggle, writhe, twist, slide, slither, turn, shift, fidget, jiggle, twitch, thresh, flounder, flail, agonize.

“SQUIRM made late Atlanta Braves broadcaster Skip Caray squirm.”

The Predator (2018)

THE PREDATOR

THE PREDATOR (2018) Two stars

One of these days, they’ll get a PREDATOR sequel right and make a film with only Predator characters.

Yeah, that’s right, no human characters.

THE PREDATOR — the fourth or sixth entry (depending on whether or not you want to count two ALIEN VS. PREDATOR movies that combine two 20th Century Fox cash cows) in a series that began only decades ago — gives us a tasty hint of a Predator-only film with a Mega Predator vs. Predator fight scene. It’s the highlight of the film, then it’s back to our more generic human characters.

Seeing that the Walt Disney Company recently acquired 20th Century Fox, we can bet our sweet hard-earned that Disney will be pumping out PREDATOR productions once a year or every two years.

I doubt they’ll get it right.

Anyway, we especially have too many anonymous scientist and military characters in THE PREDATOR, and they’re exhibits for why I stump for the systematic eradication of human characters in PREDATOR movies.

I mean, I get it, they’re around to amplify the body count, but their perfunctory dialogue scenes are dead weight that drag the movie down until the characters are (thankfully) eliminated.

PREDATOR ’87 does not have perfunctory dialogue and dead weight, and it does not drag. It plays like “a lean, mean fighting machine” (in the great words from STRIPES) and it’s a streamlined entertainment that moves faster than this, er, last year’s model (an Elvis Costello reference following STRIPES).

The cast of the original PREDATOR amounted to 16 actors.

By comparison, THE PREDATOR features approximately 50 credited and 20 uncredited performers.

Favorite character: “Sobbing veterinarian.” Second favorite: “Cantina bartender.” Show: “Halloween mom.”

Shane Black co-wrote and directed THE PREDATOR.

You might remember Black, and we definitely remember his movies.

Black’s screenwriting credits: LETHAL WEAPON, LETHAL WEAPON 2, THE LAST BOY SCOUT, LAST ACTION HERO, and THE LONG KISS GOODNIGHT, for which he received a $4 million payday.

You might remember Black from the first PREDATOR.

He played Rick Hawkins, a bespectacled, foul-mouthed mercenary. He’s a foul mouth on an epic scale.

Hawkins tells jokes like “The other day, I was going down on my girlfriend. I said to her, ‘Jeez, you’ve got a big pussy. Jeez, you’ve got a big pussy.’ She said, ‘Why did you say that twice?’ I said, ‘I didn’t.’ See, it was ‘cause of the echo.”

Black did not receive a writing credit on PREDATOR, but we can almost bet that he wrote Hawkins’ dialogue.

Especially since THE PREDATOR features a scene where a soldier with Tourette’s blurts out “Eat your pussy!”

This character, named Baxley and played by Thomas Jane, later spouts more dialogue from the Planet X, “Fuck me in the face with an aardvark.”

At the end of the day, THE PREDATOR is not a bad movie, nor a good one, and I doubt that I’ll be able to remember it for too much longer. I’ll say that I’ve killed two hours of my life in worse fashion many times before and hopefully not as many times after.

Bette Davis: Tougher than Anybody Else

BETTE DAVIS — WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE?

BETTE DAVIS: TOUGHER THAN ANYBODY ELSE
Like most people in my generation, I first encountered Bette Davis (1908-89) through popular music rather than her 123 movie or TV roles from 1931 through 1989.

Oh, let’s see, Davis made a starring performance in Kim Carnes’ “Bette Davis Eyes,” a hit that spent nine weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and proved to be 1981’s biggest song. You might vividly remember that one and songwriters Donna Weiss and Jackie De Shannon gave their heroine — er, their femme fatale — not only Bette Davis eyes, but also “Harlow gold hair” and “Greta Garbo’s standoff sighs.”

Davis also made the hall of fame in songs by Madonna and the Kinks.

Madonna Ciccone and Step Pettibone (Ciccone-Pettibone has got a better ring to it than Lennon-McCartney or Strummer-Jones) co-wrote “Vogue” and Madonna’s rap (her best) finishes off with “Bette Davis, we love you” after running through Garbo, Monroe, Dietrich, DiMaggio, Brando, James Dean (called Jimmy Dean, not the sausage manufacturer), Kelly, Astaire, Hayworth, Bacall, Hepburn, and Lana Turner.

Like the other two songs that came later in time, Ray Davies’ lyrics on “Celluloid Heroes” mention Garbo and she gets top billing (first mention) before the song moves on to Rudolph Valentino, Bela Lugosi, Davis, George Sanders, Mickey Rooney, and Marilyn Monroe. Davies groups Davis with Valentino and Lugosi, capping off six lines with “But stand close by Bette Davis / Because hers was such a lonely life.” (Davis named her 1962 autobiography “The Lonely Life.”) For the record, Garbo gets six lines, Monroe four, and Valentino, Lugosi, Sanders, and Rooney two each.

— The first Bette Davis movies I saw were ALL ABOUT EVE (1950) and WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE? (1962), both highly enjoyable for different reasons.

Their common ground, though, centers around Davis.

ALL ABOUT EVE, that’s the one featuring her famous line “Fasten your seat belts. It’s going to be a bumpy night.” Margo Channing — a highly-regarded but aging and difficult stage actress — must not have been a great stretch for a Davis in her early 40s.

Other actresses considered for the role were Ingrid Bergman, Marlene Dietrich, Susan Hayward, Gertrude Lawrence, and Barbara Stanwyck. Think we can all agree that Davis was the perfect choice for Margo Channing.

You can almost feel Davis herself speaking through dialogue like “Lloyd, I am not twenty-ish. I am not thirty-ish. Three months ago I was forty years old. Forty. 4-0. That slipped out. I hadn’t quite made up my mind to admit it. Now I suddenly feel as if I’ve taken all my clothes off” and “Bill’s 32. He looks 32. He looked it five years ago. He’ll look it twenty years from now. I hate men.”

BABY JANE capitalized on the real-life feud between Davis and Joan Crawford, where most of the fun comes from speculating how much reality crossed over into their fictional characters.

Just a casual search on the Internet will bring up all sorts of quotes from Davis on Crawford and I might as well as share a few within this space: “You should never say bad things about the dead, you should only say good … Joan Crawford is dead. Good”; “There may be a heaven, but if Joan Crawford is there, I’m not going”; “Why am I so good at playing bitches? I think it’s because I’m not a bitch. Maybe that’s why Miss Crawford always plays ladies”; and “The best time I ever had with Joan Crawford was when I pushed her down the stairs in WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE?”

Davis never had a problem being the villain and that’s one of the things that made her so great. Let’s face it, sometimes we like the villains infinitely more than bland, square heroes.

She played a strong character in almost every single role.

Davis became the first performer to be nominated for 10 Academy Awards, all for Best Actress, and she won statuettes for DANGEROUS (1935) and JEZEBEL (1938), her first two nominations.

— Recently, I caught up with OF HUMAN BONDAGE (1934), FOG OVER FRISCO (1934), and THE PETRIFIED FOREST (1936).

OF HUMAN BONDAGE — her 22nd film — is renowned for being the film that made Davis a star.

Davis’ character Mildred Rogers has been described as “callous,” “manipulative,” “cold,” “shrewish,” et cetera, and Davis really sinks her teeth into “You cad, you dirty swine! I never cared for you, not once! I was always makin’ a fool of ya! Ya bored me stiff; I hated ya! It made me SICK when I had to let ya kiss me. I only did it because ya begged me, ya hounded me, and drove me crazy! And after ya kissed me, I always used to wipe my mouth! WIPE MY MOUTH!”

That’s her big scene with Leslie Howard’s Philip Carey, an overly sensitive, club-footed man who’s in love with Mildred despite the fact that she treats him like trash.

— FOG OVER FRISCO came out 26 days before OF HUMAN BONDAGE in 1934 and it’s a fast-moving crime melodrama over in 68 minutes. Action-packed and the big chase scene called to mind BULLITT and THE DEAD POOL, believe it or not.

Davis considered this one of her favorite pictures, though her character Arlene Bradford does not make it to the final reel.

Maybe here’s why FOG OVER FRISCO rated among her favorites: Davis received top billing after Warner Bros. boss Jack Warner caught drift of the Bette buzz from rushes of the film and she found out while filming FOG OVER FRISCO that Warner agreed to loan Davis out to RKO to make OF HUMAN BONDAGE.

Davis also said that FOG OVER FRISCO had a good script and that it was superbly directed by William Dieterle over a shoot that lasted around 20 days (Monday, January 22, 1934 through Saturday, February 10, 1934).

Davis plays characters on opposing ends of the social spectrum in FOG OVER FRISCO and OF HUMAN BONDAGE. In both films, though, she has a weak male admirer. She’s the stronger character, as usual.

— A lot of the fascination watching THE PETRIFIED FOREST came from seeing both Davis and Humphrey Bogart in roles early in their career.

Bogart had done 10 feature films before THE PETRIFIED FOREST and he first played the Duke Mantee role in the 1935 Broadway production alongside Leslie Howard. Warner Bros. wanted Edward G. Robinson (LITTLE CAESAR) for the film adaptation, but Howard refused to appear in the film unless Bogart got the chance to revisit Mantee, a character and performance inspired by John Dillinger. The rest was history. (Bogart and Lauren Bacall named their daughter Leslie Howard Bogart, born 1952, in honor of their friend.)

Bogart is just dynamite in THE PETRIFIED FOREST.

Like OF HUMAN BONDAGE, Davis plays a waitress and Howard’s love interest. Unlike that earlier movie, however, her Gabrielle Maple’s almost instantly smitten with Howard’s Alan Squier and their fates are reversed from OF HUMAN BONDAGE.

The New York Times’ review of the film said of her performance in THE PETRIFIED FOREST, “There should be a large measure of praise for Bette Davis, who demonstrates that she does not have to be hysterical to be credited with a grand portrayal.”

Gabrielle’s a very sympathetic character, a dreamer and an aspiring artist.

— Davis once said, “I survived because I was tougher than anybody else.”

ALL ABOUT EVE (1950) Four stars; WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE? (1962) Four stars; OF HUMAN BONDAGE (1934) Three-and-a-half stars; FOG OVER FRISCO (1934) Three-and-a-half stars; THE PETRIFIED FOREST (1936) Three-and-a-half stars