PETEY WHEATSTRAW (1977) *** Rudy Ray Moore (1927-2008) created his own comedic universe on film, featuring outrageous characters with sped up chases and kung fu, stand up and musical interludes, and sexual exhibitions articulating his vision — basically party records brought to low-budget live-action cartoon.
Imagine a foul-mouthed, sexually-explicit Sanford and Son crossed with Benny Hill and Kung Fu and populated with pimps, madams, prostitutes, crooked cops, gangsters, and other larger-than-life figures designed to amuse or titillate.
I definitely had a strong negative reaction to Disco Godfather and then worked my way back through Dolemite, The Human Tornado, and finally Petey Wheatstraw, arguably the ultimate expression of the essence of Rudy Ray Moore and his iconic characters. Full title: Petey Wheatstraw, the Devil’s Son-in-Law.
Anyway, I now know that I should have started with Dolemite and then proceeded chronologically through Moore’s filmography. Maybe I’ll go revisit Disco Godfather and like it more because Moore as either Dolemite or Petey Wheatstraw grew on me to such a degree that I became more than willing to forgive him for Disco Godfather and his overindulgence in Put your weight on it. Maybe his rhyming abilities wore me down, or maybe I just find the idea of a middle-aged stand up comedian well-versed in kung fu greatly appealing.
Petey Wheatstraw is absolutely positively ridiculous and we’d not expect anything less or want anything else from Mr. Moore and gang. Moore plays our title character, a popular stand up comic nothing like the real Moore, and rival comics Leroy (Leroy Daniels) and Skillet (Ernest Mayhand) plot and scheme to get the more popular Wheatstraw to change the date of his show. Leroy and Skillet, not the most adept smooth talkers in the world and who are under extreme pressure for their enormous debt, finally resort to deploying their henchmen in street violence. They gun down a kid in cold blood and then an entire neighborhood — inc. Petey Wheatstraw — at the kid’s funeral. In the afterlife, Petey naturally makes a deal with the Devil (G. Tito Shaw) — he can return to life if he marries the Devil’s daughter, the world’s ugliest woman, of course, and provides Lucifer a grandson. Petey also takes control of the Devil’s cane that provides Mr. Wheatstraw incredible powers. Wheatstraw was taught the martial arts relatively early in his life — Petey Wheatstraw knows kung fu and Petey Wheatstraw knows crazy.
Petey Wheatstraw doesn’t fool around one bit — like Moore and his characters themselves — and it makes a leap straight for the joyously absurd with Petey Wheatstraw’s pre-credits narration and a flashback to Wheatstraw being born in the form of a 6-year-old child. The film goes on its merry little way from that point forward and I thought I had found myself in the midst of the most sublimely ridiculous sight I’ve ever seen when Wheatstraw and his associates have to fight off the Devil’s minions. Then, they did it again and I felt like I had died and gone to Heaven.
THE HUMAN TORNADO (1976) **1/2 I have mixed feelings about this sequel to Dolemite Sometimes it sucks and sometimes it is outta sight Rudy Ray Moore returns as our title character and he’s fine He’s truly one of a kind and his bluntness will blow yo’ mind He’s grown on me since he made a terrible first impression Both Dolemite and The Human Tornado a better expression He’s not what earns The Human Tornado a mixed review I promise that I like Dolemite and Rudy Ray, I really do! It’s that rat soup eating motherfucker redneck racist sheriff piece of shit He drags the movie into the mud and his every scene’s just like a cesspit Character’s named Sheriff Beatty, played by J.D. Baron in his film debut Somebody should have kung fu kicked him to death, but they never do His all-out redneck assault often brings The Human Tornado to a halt Not sure if that’s writer Jerry Jones or director Cliff Roquemore’s fault Enough about that, how ’bout “Glorya De Lani” as Hurricane Annie Her glorious breasts distract from Rudy Ray Moore’s big fat fanny She contributes her fair share to some of the best nudity in screen history I’d trade her nude for every redneck sheriff scene and it’s sure no mystery Glorious Gloria Delaney and her breasts returned as Peaches in Penitentiary What else can be said but yes, God bless the breasts of the Twentieth Century Dolemite seeks out the sleazy crime boss’ sex pot wife and their sex wrecks the set Nympho gives Dolemite the info he wants so many times none of us will ever forget Dolemite takes out anonymous henchmen in a flurry of speeded up kung fu kicks The Human Tornado truly has everything, a gay blade and a guy with karate sticks We can’t neglect Ernie Hudson early in his career or Lady Reed and Lord Java in the cast Funky music, funky hair, miles of nudity, loads of vulgarity, mostly a blast from the past
WE HAD OURSELVES A REAL GOOD TIME: BLACULA, DOLEMITE, TNT JACKSON, THE DEVIL AND MAX DEVLIN Max Schreck, Bela Lugosi, Carlos Villarias, Lon Chaney Jr., John Carradine, Christopher Lee, Klaus Kinski, George Hamilton, Frank Langella, Gary Oldman, and Leslie Nielsen.
That’s a lot of bared fangs, deadly stares, and spectacular deaths over the decades.
Fair warning: Best get outta here with that Tom Cruise, Gerard Butler, Robert Pattinson bull.
Blacula star William Marshall deserves his rightful place among the best screen vampires. For example, he’s definitely better than, oh, let’s say, Carradine, who played Dracula in House of Frankenstein, House of Dracula, and Billy the Kid vs. Dracula and often looked like somebody had squeezed some fresh lemon juice in his eyes. A few months after Marshall debuted as Black Dracula, Lee appeared in his sixth Dracula film — cleverly titled Dracula A.D. 1972 — and Lee’s spiraling lack of enthusiasm for the role that made him famous bites you right smack dab in the neck.
With his booming voice, commanding screen presence, and legitimate acting chops, Marshall (1924-2003) owns Blacula and makes it infinitely better than some cruddy hunk of cinematic junk like Blackenstein. He brings an unexpected dignity to what might otherwise have been a throwaway film.
Rating: Three stars.
— I enjoyed Dolemite a whole lot more than Disco Godfather, my first Rudy Ray Moore experience, and not only because I’m now calling the former picture Boom Mic Motherfucker.
Disco Godfather lost me by about the millionth or maybe it was by the billionth time Moore (1927-2008) exclaimed Put your weight on it, a slogan that needless to say would not be adopted or adapted by 1980 U.S. Presidential candidates Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, and John B. Anderson. Despite the fact that it tried cultivating a social conscience, Disco Godfather needed some weight put on it, because it was the cinematic equivalent of an anorexic crackhead.
Moore has been called The Godfather of Rap and both Dolemite and the character himself almost instantly serve notice why. Jailbird Dolemite’s first lines are Oh, shit. What the hell does that rat-soup-eatin’ motherfucker want with me? One could play a reasonable drinking game with how many times Dolemite utters motherfucker in the movie, because it’s not every time Cheech & Chong say Man in Up in Smoke (reportedly 285 times) or everybody says Carol Anne in Poltergeist III (121). You won’t get wasted, best shit you ever tasted, from Dolemite. You’ll probably feel pretty good and the alcohol will help laughter.
The plot: Dolemite gets released from prison and fights the criminals and corrupt police officers who sent our favorite cinematic pimp up the river in the first place. Really, though, Dolemite is about the profanity, fight scenes, female (we’ll forget about the male) nudity, and complete utter ridiculousness, all of it done over-the-top. Never mind that it’s a time capsule into Bicentennial-Era America filed right alongside Dog Day Afternoon.
To be honest, though, I was distracted from the plot and everything else by the unpaid co-star Boom Mic Visible, who’s absolutely the funniest motherfucker in Dolemite. According to IMDb, The boom mic is visible in many shots of original Xenon VHS to DVD transfer from the 1980s. The film was originally transferred without the proper ratio ‘gate’ of 1:85.1, revealing more of the top and bottom of the frame than the film makers originally intended. The 2016 Vinegar Syndrome Bluray release was re-transferred from an archive print of the film, at the proper ratio, so the boom mics are hidden in many shots. The Bluray release also includes a ‘boom mic’ version of the new transfer, intentionally revealing the boom mics for comic effect.
Now we know.
The actor John Kerry (not that John Kerry) played Detective Mitchell in Dolemite and it’s a missed opportunity that nobody ever asked 2008 U.S. Presidential Candidate John Kerry about his experiences making Dolemite, what Rudy Ray Moore was really like, etc. That’s a real shame.
Rating: Three stars.
— TNT Jackson is definitely not a good movie, but I am still feeling a certain lingering affection for it that other (better) movies wish they could make me feel for them.
What else could be said about some of the worst martial arts sequences ever committed to celluloid, from the very first fists and feet of fury scene all the way to the grand finale. Would you believe punches and kicks that do not connect but still inflict damage? Would you believe the heroine could punch right through the villain? Well, prepare yourself for TNT Jackson.
TNT Jackson falls short of the standard established by similar pictures Coffy and Cleopatra Jones, because, let’s face it, TNT Jackson star Jeannie Bell falls below Pam Grier and Tamara Dobson, respectively. Sure, former playmate and bunny Bell looks absolutely stunning with her great hair, great face, and great body, but she can’t act her way out of a paper bag and we don’t really believe that she could fight her way out of one if she wasn’t the star of the movie. Miss Jackson and her inevitable white chick nemesis (Pat Anderson) wage what’s possibly the worst cat fight ever in the history of the movies. It’s a doozy, and that describes the vast majority of the 72-minute TNT Jackson. Yes, that’s right, 72 minutes, a genuine throwback.
The late, great character actor Dick Miller (1928-2019) earned a screenwriting credit on TNT Jackson, but apparently producer Roger Corman had it rewritten by Ken Metcalfe, who plays the sleazy sub-villain Sid in TNT. Miller does not appear in TNT Jackson.
It’s amazing TNT Jackson romantic lead and main villain Stan Shaw did not get The Sensational, Smooth, Suave, Sophisticated, Stunning Stan Shaw for his screen credit, but maybe just maybe that’s because he overplays his smooth, suave, sophisticated ways so much that we’re tired of his jive real quick. Heck, even Shaw’s afro overplays it throughout TNT Jackson. I’ve not seen this much overacting by hair since, oh, let’s see, Chu Chu and the Philly Flash or maybe I’m mixing up Carol Burnett’s decorative head cover (wait, that’s just part of her costume) with her maracas.
Basically, I can’t hate too much on TNT Jackson like I do Chu Chu (more like Poo Poo and the Poopy Gas), since director Cirio H. Santiago remade TNT a few years later as Firecracker and substituted (white) Jillian Kesner for Bell in the title role. Both movies have similar plot elements, namely infamous topless fights, and Metcalfe in a similar role, but Firecracker does it better.
After watching TNT Jackson, I could not help but gravitate toward AC/DC’s song and the chorus ‘Cause I’m T.N.T., I’m dynamite / T.N.T., and I’ll win the fight / T.N.T., I’m a power load / T.N.T., watch me explode. Bonus points for TNT Jackson, ones that keep it from a two-star rating.
The best version of TNT Jackson is the two-minute promotional trailer put together by Joe Dante and Allan Arkush for New World Pictures circa 1974 or 1975. The voice-over narration takes it to greatness: TNT Jackson, Black Bombshell with a Short Fuse! This Hit Lady’s Charm Will Break Both Your Arms! She’s a One-Mama Massacre Squad! TNT’s Mad and That’s Real Bad! With That Dynamite Bod She’s a Jet Black Hit Squad! A Super Soul Sister and a Bad News Brother Under Cover and Out to Blast a Killer Army That’s Poisoning the People with Deadly China White! You Best Pay the Fine or She’ll Shatter Your Spine! Black Chinatown, Where Flesh is Cheap and Life is Cheaper! TNT Jackson, She’ll Put You in Traction!
Rating: Two-and-a-half stars. Trailer: Four stars.
— Before The Devil and Max Devlin, it had no doubt been a long time since Walt Disney Studios depicted Hell in one of their films.
For example, Hell’s Bells from 1929 and Pluto’s Judgement Day from 1935 leap first to mind, two animated shorts that might blow people’s minds who normally associate animation with cute-and-cuddly innocuous fare at this late point in history.
To be fair to the older films, which are both far superior to the main film currently under consideration, feature length The Devil and Max Devlin doesn’t spend a lot of time in Hell.
Well, actually, according to some former President, right, aren’t California and Hell the same?
I wonder, given the subject matter and the presence of Bill Cosby in one of the starring roles, if The Devil and Max Devlin will go or has already gone the way of the controversial, divisive Song of the South — suppressed for seeming eternity by the folks at Disney. I found them both in the dark, dank recesses of the Internet and I hope that I won’t go to jail or Hell for either cultural sin.
Anyway, I like the locations (especially Hell) and I like the high concepts behind The Devil and Max Devlin like a slumlord trying to save his soul by giving the bad guys three unsullied souls and it turned out to be perfect casting to have Cosby in the role of the Devil’s helper, but the movie gets so bogged down in plot details that it evolves into a real slog and we just want more than anything else in the world at the moment for the movie to finally be over. At least, if nothing else, that’s how The Devil and Max Devlin made me feel watching it.
AUTO PILOT CINEMA: THE AIRPORT MOVIES When thinking of the worst series in movie history, I am tempted to start with Saw and Fast and the Furious then move back through time with The Omen and Amityville Horror and finally go way way way back to the Dead End Kids, er, Bowery Boys.
In piecing through all this cinematic carnage, I should not leave behind the four Airport movies that were churned out by Universal Pictures from 1970 to 1979. Maybe I should leave them behind.
Airport, based on Arthur Hailey’s 1968 novel of the same name, made a killing at the box office upon its late May release in 1970 and it even received 10, yes, believe it or not, 10 Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, and 70-year-old Helen Hayes won Best Supporting Actress.
The three subsequent films — helpfully labeled 1975, ’77, and ’79 — got worse and worse, naturally, and the last film in the series, The Concorde … Airport ’79, is so bad (and so aggressively stupid) in fact that it could kill off any series. That’s despite the fact that it reportedly made $65 million, a much better take than, for example, Irwin Allen productions The Swarm ($7.7 million), Beyond the Poseidon Adventure ($2.1 million), and When Time Ran Out ($3.8 million). Regardless, Universal stopped making Airport movies after The Concorde and I’m almost dumbfounded why there’s not been a remake or a reboot loaded with today’s stars.
Hey, wait, did somebody mention stars? Yes, stars, that’s what these Airport movies were about — speculating which ones would emerge at the end of the picture relatively intact and which ones would die spectacularly. Grand Hotel in the sky, not exactly, since none of the careers in the Airport movies were at their peak like the ones in Grand Hotel, but the idea of stuffing the screen with stars in every scene applies just the same.
Airport: Burt Lancaster, Dean Martin, Jean Seberg, Jacqueline Bisset, George Kennedy, Hayes, Van Heflin, Maureen Stapleton, Barry Nelson, Dana Wynter, Lloyd Nolan.
Airport 1975: Charlton Heston, Karen Black, Kennedy, Efrem Zimbalist Jr., Susan Clark, Helen Reddy, Linda Blair, Dana Andrews, Roy Thinnes, Sid Caesar, Myrna Loy, Gloria Swanson.
Airport ’77: Jack Lemmon, Lee Grant, Branda Vaccaro, Joseph Cotten, Olivia de Havilland, Darren McGavin, Christopher Lee, Robert Foxworth, Kathleen Quinlan, James Stewart.
Airport ’79: Alain Delon, Susan Blakely, Robert Wagner, Sylvia Kristel, Kennedy, Eddie Albert, Bibi Andersson, Charo, John Davidson, Andrea Marcovicci, Martha Raye, Cicely Tyson, Jimmie Walker, David Warner, Mercedes McCambridge.
More like Hollywood Squares in the Sky? Yeah, believe so, especially since Davidson hosted a Hollywood Squares revival in the late ’80s.
Beside Airport in the titles, Kennedy (1925-2016) proved to be the connective tissue between all four pictures, meaning he’s the inverse of the Brody boys (Jaws) and the Griswold children (Vacation). Kennedy played Joe Patroni — first as mechanic, then as vice president of operations (1975), a consultant (’77), and finally an experienced pilot (’79). Regardless of position or rank, the character got worse and worse over the course of the films, not that he or the films started out all that hot. I found even his cigar was guilty of overacting in the original film and Patroni was so odiously obnoxious in the fourth film, especially after he utters the line that articulates the sexism of the entire series, They don’t call it the cockpit for nothing, honey. George Kennedy as sex symbol? Sure, I’ll believe anything, nearly anything except for, oh, the entire plot of The Concorde.
I’ll talk more about The Concorde and the original because they’re fresher in my memory. To be honest, though, I probably won’t even feel like discussing the original because …
Movies rarely come any dumber than The Concorde: Let’s see, this is going to be fun, not really, anyway TV reporter Susan Blakely comes across some highly incriminating evidence against defense contractor (and covert arms dealer) Robert Wagner. Wagner decides that he’s going to attempt to blow up real good the plane she’s on en route from Washington to Paris. Okay, okay, his plot to blow up the Concorde real good fails and they have dinner together in Paris during the middle section of the movie, because, you know, they have a history together and they still love each other. She still has this incriminating evidence, naturally, she’s going to eventually go public with it, of course, and what does he do? Kill her? He lets her walk away safe and unharmed, so he’ll have to go after the plane again. That’s right, she gets back on the Concorde for the final leg of the flight from Paris to Moscow. Guilt stricken, Wagner commits suicide very late in the picture and I believe it’s not because his secret’s been discovered and will be exposed regardless of whether he’s alive or not, but more that he’s one of the worst villains in cinematic history.
The Concorde is so laughable in so many ways, as if that whole plot discussed in the last paragraph wasn’t enough. The Concorde stops over in Paris for a night, and every single passenger gets back on the plane the next morning. They all seem way too calm and collected after the events of the first half of the movie. I would love to have just heard one character say ‘Hell no, I’m not getting back on that damn plane!’ They all deserved to die, but we know that’s not happening.
At one critical point during the first attack on the Concorde, the Übermensch George Kennedy proves that he’s truly The Übermensch by sticking his hand out the window of the Concorde and throwing a flare. Unbelievable, utterly unbelievable even in this preposterous movie. If only the first Airport had been the in-flight movie on The Concorde, especially that scene where Patroni discusses the effects of a bomb on a 707 and concludes, When I was a mechanic in the Air Force, I was being transferred on a MATS plane. At 20,000 feet, one of the windows shattered. The guy sitting next to it was about 170 pounds. He went through that little space like a hunk of hamburger going down a disposal, and right after him coats, pillows, blankets, cups, saucers. That was just a MATS plane, not the fastest plane in the universe.
I’m done, I can’t take it anymore, and I’m bailing out on the Airport movies.
GODZILLA VS. KONG (2021) **** Adam Wingard’s Godzilla vs. Kong got it (mostly) right, especially compared with its immediate predecessor Godzilla: King of the Monsters, and that’s because the film wisely spends more time with protagonist Kong and antagonist Godzilla than its banal human characters and their petty dramas and squabbles and simply functional dialogue.
Also, unlike both Godzilla 2014 and King of the Monsters, we get monster fights shot in broad daylight or neon light. All the monsters and their incredible mayhem are clearly visible, and it makes a huge difference from the disappointing King of the Monsters. Thus, it seems that Wingard and Warner Brothers must have caught wind of the complaints about King of the Monsters, that we didn’t see Godzilla and King Ghidorah and Mothra enough and instead we had to squirm our way through too many family drama scenes involving father Kyle Chandler, mother Vera Farmiga, and daughter Millie Bobby Brown just to get to the monsters. Chandler and Brown return for Godzilla vs. Kong, Farmiga does not for an obvious reason from the end of King of the Monsters, and they’re sidelined for Godzilla and Kong, the nominal stars of the movie, just like they should. We have plenty of new human characters in Godzilla vs. Kong, as well, and they’re not all that important, not as important as Mechagodzilla anyway. Monsters rule Godzilla vs. Kong.
In other words, Godzilla vs. Kong gave me a damn good time at the movies.
I’ve read and heard complaints that Godzilla vs. Kong features too many ridiculous and just plain inexplicable plot elements and developments. What? No way! That’s what I wanted more from Godzilla ’14 and King of the Monsters, to just be silly and ridiculous occasionally and display a lighter touch, esp. King of the Monsters.
The best Godzilla movies work for different reasons: The original 1954 classic has a darker, somber tone unlike any other Godzilla and introduces one of the great movie monsters; Godzilla vs. Hedorah (1971) and Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah (1991) are off-the-wall and so far off-the-wall they could be in another house; Godzilla ’14 gave us a serious Godzilla movie with legitimate actors and it took many of us by surprise, especially with memories of the previous American Godzilla picture.
I’ve watched most all of the 36 Godzilla films — 32 from Japan’s Toho Studios, four from America — and I currently recommend 28 of them, except for Godzilla vs. Gigan (a close miss), All Monsters Attack and Son of Godzilla, and the 1998 Godzilla, the absolute bottom-of-the-barrel cinematic dregs from Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin that should have been fed to the Smog Monster.
We’ve had many fewer Kong movies over the years, but I’ve loved most of them. The 1933 original remains one of my touchstone movie experiences and it’s something that I am compelled to put on every once in a while just to be dazzled and amazed all over again. I’ll enthusiastically or vehemently defend the 1976 and 2005 remakes, the 1933 sequel could have been so much greater had it not been rushed into release during the same calendar year as the original film, I’ve not seen King Kong Lives from 1986, and I enjoyed Kong: Skull Island more than King of the Monsters, though go figure I gave them both the same three-star rating. Okay, okay, Skull Island edges closer to three-and-a-half and King of the Monsters two-and-a-half, but who needs all that nuance. Apparently, there’s 12 films overall in the King Kong franchise, including the Toho productions King Kong vs. Godzilla and King Kong Escapes. I love King Kong Escapes for most of the reasons I love Godzilla vs. Hedorah and Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah, and they’re all gloriously ridiculous and preposterous. Quite frankly, I wouldn’t have it any other way.
What better space than here and better time than now to put in a word for Marv Newland’s 1969 classic animated short Bambi Meets Godzilla and King Kong knockoff films King Kung Fu and the Shaw Brothers’ The Mighty Peking Man, the former the only monster movie filmed in Wichita, Kansas, and the latter comes to us from dudes known for The One-Armed Swordsman and Five Fingers of Death though they also brought us The Super Inframan and Hammer co-production The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires. We’re still giving the middle finger to A*P*E and I would be remiss to not mention The Most Dangerous Game from 1932 that was filmed on some of the same sets as King Kong and includes King Kong stars Fay Wray and Robert Armstrong in a dangerous adventure saga on an island and Mighty Joe Young from 1949 with the same creative team as King Kong — Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack — as well as Armstrong, splendid work from The Lost World and King Kong special effects pioneer Willis O’Brien (assisted by Ray Harryhausen), and a surprisingly touching and involving friendship at the heart of the picture.
The original King Kong vs. Godzilla needed upgraded because, let’s face it, its success or failure hinges on whether or not viewers embrace or reject the cheesy special effects, the preposterous plot, the horrific dubbing (at least in the American version). On first viewing, I rejected King Kong vs. Godzilla yet I’ve warmed to it just a little bit more every time on subsequent viewings. I watched it as the start of a mini-marathon the night before seeing Godzilla vs. Kong in theaters and it remained good, solid fun. Still, though, it’s not some masterpiece that should never be remade and remodeled, like, for example, Psycho (oops, Gus Van Sant didn’t get that memo) and 2001.
I appreciate the nods that Godzilla vs. Kong makes to King Kong vs. Godzilla and King Kong Escapes (I hope a future installment makes room for Mechani-Kong), as well as other elements seen before during Pacific Rim and Tron. Guess what? I have enjoyed Pacific Rim and Tron, films which their critics have dismissed for being cheesy, as well and Godzilla vs. Kong joins their ranks.
— BONUS: I read three reviews of Godzilla vs. Kong before seeing the movie. Two of them reminded me that Emmerich and Devlin inserted characters based on Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel in their Godzilla, but they didn’t have the guts or the nuts to have Mayor Ebert and Gene stomped out by their bad CGI monster.
You don’t even have to read the full review by Armond White to feel like saying Lighten up, Francis. On Apr. 2, White proclaimed Godzilla vs. Kong to be the Shiny Dud of the Week, because it (in White’s words) cheapens the moviegoing habit thru mindless spectacle and shameless formula. Several hours later, White shared his review again and hyped it, If you have a mind, Godzilla vs. Kong is not the movie for you. Ah, it’s mindless entertainment, I see, but, hey wait, my prefrontal and limbic regions of the neocortex, particularly the orbitofrontal region of the prefrontal cortex, anterior cingulate cortex, and the insular cortex, especially object to White’s review.
Web-based film critic James Berardinelli finished his review, I wonder how my eight-year-old self would have reacted to Godzilla vs. Kong. There was a time when I gobbled up anything with monsters, irrespective of the quality of special effects. I didn’t care about the level of destruction and took it as a necessity that the movie would sometimes become bogged down by focusing on underdeveloped humans and their silly concerns. I suspect I might have loved this film in all its overproduced glory. But what works for an eight-year-old doesn’t always work for someone who has evolved to expect more.
Personally, the 42-year-old me is ecstatic the 38-year-old director Wingard and the screenwriting team of 41-year-old Eric Pearson and presumably-40ish-year-old Max Borenstein decided to focus more on Kong and Godzilla and less on inane humans. They could have gone even further. I’d love a Jurassic Park movie, for example, to feature only dinosaurs and prehistoric life — no banal or venal human beings to muddle and bungle it all up — and this ideal dinosaur movie would be made in the style of Luis Bunuel’s The Phantom of Liberty and Richard Linklater’s Slacker.
I find myself closer to Matt Zoller Seitz’s rave on RogerEbert.com, which had me at Godzilla vs. Kong is a crowd-pleasing, smash-’em-up monster flick and a straight-up action picture par excellence. It is a fairy tale and a science-fiction exploration film, a Western, a pro wrestling extravaganza, a conspiracy thriller, a Frankenstein movie, a heartwarming drama about animals and their human pals, and, in spots, a voluptuously wacky spectacle that plays as if the creation sequence in The Tree of Life had been subcontracted to the makers of Yellow Submarine.
Yeah, Godzilla vs. Kong got it about 90 percent right.
CALLING ALL CARS, WE HAVE A 412! CALLING ALL CARS! I watched Chu Chu and the Philly Flash on March 7 and 18 days later, I can still hear it, that’s for sure, especially co-stars Alan Arkin and Carol Burnett and supporting player Danny Aiello.
Burnett plays Chu Chu, or Emily as only her dearest friends know her, who performs this Carmen Miranda routine out in the streets. Her performance gives one all the maracas needed for at least one year, perhaps even one lifetime. Emily used to be a successful entertainer, before the booze got to her. We all know the story by now.
Arkin, meanwhile, plays the Philly Flash, given that name not because of his ability to shed his raincoat but his former ability turning double plays at second base for the Philadelphia Phillies. Was he named the Philly Flash just because the real-life Phillies won the World Series in 1980? Anyway, just like Emily, booze got to Flash, not Grandmaster Flash (think I’d rather watch The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash on the Wheels of Steel than Chu Chu and the Philly Flash) or Flash Gordon (who just had a movie, a much better one believe it or not, come out in 1980) or The Flash. No, the Philly Flash’s power, like Chu Chu’s, seems to be that he can scream and carry on a whole lot. In fact, that’s about both all they ever do in Chu Chu and the Philly Flash.
Not sure that it even matters or not if Burnett played the Philly Flash and Arkin drew Chu Chu. They could have made him a former professional golfer and her a former burlesque entertainer or something. Yeah, like Bill Murray said in Meatballs, it doesn’t even matter.
Government secrets fall, yes, literally fall into the hands of Philly Flash and Chu Chu. Well, technically, not right into their hands, I mean they did have to walk over and pick up the briefcase. By the way, the briefcase gives the best performance in Chu Chu and the Philly Flash, since even the maracas overact.
Rating: One-half star.
— Earlier in the same day I watched Chu Chu and the Philly Flash, I endured Goldengirl about basically a genetically engineered super female runner and it co-stars James Coburn, Robert Culp, Curt Jurgens, Leslie Caron, Jessica Walter, Michael Lerner, and Harry Guardino.
They’re all fine and dandy, more or less, but it’s star Susan Anton who ruins Goldengirl every single time she expresses any emotion. Guess they can’t genetically engineer the ability to act and the ability to not wreck an entire movie, because Anton can’t act and she absolutely obliterates Goldengirl every single time I wanted to give it another chance.
Give her one thing, though, because just like Donny and Marie Osmond in their motion picture debut and finale Goin’ Coconuts, Anton does have a great set of teeth. Outside her canines, incisors, premolars, and molars, though, Anton sucks in Goldengirl and despite the speeded up and slowed down footage, she’s not the least bit convincing as this incredible champion runner.
Anton and Coburn do have one of the great dialogue exchanges in motion picture history, one that could be played right alongside Fini can water you from Yes, Giorgio. She just set a new Olympic record and doesn’t she even deserve a kiss? Coburn works his way toward her magical lips and Anton moves the goalposts. She insists that he kisses her feet, then laughs maniacally, while Coburn, well, maybe he’s wishing that he could get hit upside the head by his old friend Bruce Lee’s one-hit punch again. Lee died in 1973 and Coburn was one of the pallbearers at Lee’s funeral.
The IMDb trivia entry starts out promisingly for Goldengirl, “Produced and theatrically released in 1979 prior to the 1980 Olympics boycott, this film depicts American athletes competing at the Moscow games. In reality, the boycott meant that the USA did not perform there, making the picture post-release anachronistic and historically inaccurate.”
Blame the boycott on Goldengirl.
Rating: One star.
— I watched Under the Rainbow between opener Goldengirl and closer Chu Chu and the Philly Flash.
That’s right, one of the worst movie-watching nights of a lifetime.
Under the Rainbow, like Goldengirl, has at least a far more interesting plot summary than anything else associated with the finished product.
Okay, to be honest, only the part about the 150 little people descending upon Hollywood for a part in The Wizard of Oz (and a wild and crazy party) sounds interesting, then it gets all mucked up when federal agents, fat cats, and Nazi and Japanese spies enter the picture. Anyway, doesn’t 1938 seem too early for Nazi and Japanese spies? I mean, the Nazis didn’t invade Poland until Sept. 1939 and the United States officially remained neutral until late 1941.
Regardless of social class and nationality and historical accuracy, though, all the characters get run through the cinematic claptrap blender at maximum speed with broad, inane slapstick and would-be wacky hijinks the settings. Despite the maximum speed, Under the Rainbow still feels like it takes forever to be done and over. That’s because it’s all played as loudly as possible, of course, with so much mugging on display that it’s another one of those movies where you feel the back of your head for lumps and bruises and then check for your wallet after watching it.
Chevy Chase and Carrie Fisher are the nominal stars, but they’re lost in the crowd because they play it too cool for school. Meanwhile, Billy Barty acts like he’s in three movies simultaneously and Japanese-American actor Mako settles for only two, and their terminal mugging calls to mind the 1942 propaganda comedy short The Devil with Hitler. The Devil with Hitler is better than Under the Rainbow, and I should just leave it at that statement, though I want to end this review with one last cheap shot at three lousy pictures that I wish I would have left buried inside their time capsules.
Stan Freberg would have charged the casts of Chu Chu and the Philly Flash, Goldengirl, and Under the Rainbow with one heinous crime against humanity: a 412. What’s a 412? Over-acting.
GRAND HOTEL (1932) *** MGM once boasted More stars than there are in Heaven and as I typed out those words, sounds and images from Grand Hotel played on the motion picture spread inside my head.
Of course, because Grand Hotel put Greta Garbo, John Barrymore, Joan Crawford, Wallace Beery, and Lionel Barrymore — five good old-fashioned movie stars — together. A commercial and critical success, Grand Hotel gave Hollywood a casting model still with us today, as well as the custom that a luxurious setting must host our stars. They even named the movie after this luxurious setting.
Part of the appeal of watching Grand Hotel to this very day — nearly 90 years after the film’s original release, for crying out loud — derives from drawing parallels between the real-life performer and their character, especially true for Garbo, John Barrymore, and Crawford.
Top billed Garbo (1905-90) plays ballerina Grusinskaya, but it’s virtually impossible to not draw the parallels with the actress herself when we hear the famous words, I want to be alone. Or I think Suzette, I’ve never been so tired in all my life. Yes, I listened to the Kinks’ “Celluloid Heroes” so many times before I watched Grand Hotel that the song informed every second of seeing Garbo in arguably her most famous movie role, Don’t step on Greta Garbo as you walk down the Boulevard / She looks so weak and fragile, that’s why she tried to be so hard / But they turned her into a princess / And they sat her on a throne / But she turned her back on stardom / Because she wanted to be alone.
Garbo appeared in eight films after Grand Hotel, her final one being George Cukor’s Two-Faced Woman in 1941. That one came with the slogan Go Gay with Garbo! Her first talking picture, 1930’s Anna Christie, simply hyped Garbo Talks!
John Barrymore (1882-1942) first made his motion picture fame as Dr. Henry Jekyll and Mr. Edward Hyde in the 1920 Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Barrymore’s life played out like Jekyll and Hyde, seeing that his matinee idol looks earned him the nickname ‘The Great Profile’ and benefited him in romantic lead parts in Grand Hotel (as the formerly wealthy Baron Felix von Gaigern, who specializes in thievery and gambling with Garbo his potential mark) and Twentieth Century (arguably his best performance as tempestuous temperamental theatrical director Oscar Jaffe) before many years of heavy drinking finally wore him down into a shell of his former self. John Barrymore died 10 years after Grand Hotel premiered, at the age of 60 from pneumonia and cirrhosis of the liver. He’s more famous today for being Drew Barrymore’s grandfather, but his acting talents are well-preserved on celluloid and I’d start (and possibly finish) with Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Grand Hotel, and Twentieth Century.
Crawford (1904-77) has remained a divisive figure some 50 years after her final movie — Trog in 1970 — embodied by the essay The Feminine Grotesque: On the Warped Legacy of Joan Crawford by Angelica Jade Bastien that reappeared on RogerEbert.com during Women’s History Month. No lesser authority than Crawford herself described her Grand Hotel character Flaemmchen as “the little whore stenographer,” and the actress’ eternal divisiveness stems in part from her infamous reputation for sleeping her way to the top. Bette Davis said of her arch rival, She slept with every star at MGM. Of both sexes.
Kansas City (Missouri)-born Beery (1885-1949) shared the 1933 Academy Award for Best Actor — with Fredric March from Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde — for his performance as the title character in the feel good heartstring yanker The Champ. The Champ premiered Nov. 21, 1931. Grand Hotel premiered 143 days later and Beery plays a character, General Director Preysing, who proves to be a complete 180 from The Champ. Beery chews through the scenery not only on Grand Hotel but every other movie MGM had in production at that moment in time.
John’s older brother Lionel Barrymore (1878-1954) etched his place in history as the epitome of villain, Mr. Henry F. Potter from It’s a Wonderful Life. So to see him play such a likable character in Grand Hotel might be a great shock for most viewers who are only familiar with Barrymore through It’s a Wonderful Life. He’s definitely a scene stealer in Grand Hotel.
Ironically enough, Lionel Barrymore presented Beery with his Oscar statuette. Barrymore won Best Actor the previous year for his performance in A Free Soul.
I must admit, though, that I prefer International House, taglined in 1933 as ‘The Grand Hotel of Comedy’ and released by Paramount, over Grand Hotel. International House gives us a cast that includes famous gold digger Peggy Hopkins Joyce, W.C. Fields, George Burns and Gracie Allen, Rudy Vallee, and Bela Lugosi, plus Stoopnagle and Budd, Baby Rose Marie, and Cab Calloway. We have Calloway and his band performing “Reefer Man,” Fields smoking opium and driving his American Austin automobile through this grand hotel in Wuhu China, Doctor Burns and Nurse Allen bantering, and plenty more Paramount pre-Code shenanigans stuffed into a 70-minute cinematic confectionery. By comparison, Grand Hotel, lasting more than 110 minutes, seems awful staid and stodgy.
That said, Grand Hotel serves a lasting reminder of how powerful star power used to be.
BROADWAY MELODY, CIMARRON WON BEST PICTURE! SO WHAT, BECAUSE THEY SUCK! The Broadway Melody and Cimarron are horrible, terrible, horrible movies and the first two examples of how winning the Academy Award for Best Picture does not guarantee quality.
The Broadway Melody (1929) owns the distinction of being the first talking picture and the first musical to win Best Picture, thus it has a permanent place in cinematic history. Otherwise, though, The Broadway Melody makes me wonder how come the motion picture industry did not return to silent pictures, because the dialogue and the songs both stink up the screen every step of the way. (Apparently, MGM also released The Broadway Melody in a silent version.)
Likewise, Cimarron (1931) is the first Western to win Best Picture and it’s one of those movies, well, near the end of its 130-minute duration, I told my wife, “I feel like I’ve aged 40 years watching this movie.” In fact, I had to use hedge trimmers on my facial hair and step in the barber’s chair after Cimarron, and perhaps I should be thankful Cimarron only covered 1889 to 1929 and not a longer historical span. I might have been in deep trouble, at least six feet under, had the Howard Estabrook and Louis Sarecky screenplay and the 1929 Edna Ferber novel instead considered 50 or 60 years of Yancey and Sabra Cravat.
The first in a series of musicals for MGM, The Broadway Melody stars Charles King as Eddie Kearns and Anita Page and Bessie Love as sisters Queenie and Harriet ‘Hank’ Mahoney. See, what happens, Eddie and Hank have had a thing, but then he lays his eyes on a now grown up Queenie and boy oh boy, his eyes nearly pop out their head. Whee, Queenie lays off Eddie, sister loyalty, and lets New York high society playboy Jock Warriner (reference to studio mogul Jack Warner) play her. Eddie and Queenie realize they’re in love, Hank finally accepts it, and it all ends happily ever after with the closing line delivered by the character with a stutter. It was so good that I forgot it.
Charles King should have been renamed ‘Charles Sing’ because he sings much better than he acts and the scenes between Eddie and Hank (and Queenie) (and Jock) try and ultimately fail my test for strained melodrama. Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! That’s right, one yap for every piece in the romantic square. Love and Page are easy on the eyes, especially Page, but difficult on the ears with all their hemming and hawing (more Page than Love) and perpetually melodramatic carrying on (more Love than Page). Either way, their dialogue scenes are destined for the mute button and subtitles.
I learned a lesson from Cimarron and it has nothing to do with Oklahoma’s state history before and after statehood on Nov. 16, 1907.
The Lesson: Do not start your movie with a land rush scene, because it’s highly unlikely that you will find something else to approach the excitement of that slambang opener.
After the intense thrills of the land rush, I must admit that I started paralleling Yancey Cravat’s restlessness and I desperately wanted to move to another movie, one that doesn’t even have to be a Best Picture winner, just as long as it can involve me from beginning to end and does not leave me contemplating how many years I have aged just watching it. That’s about the bare minimum I expect from a movie, any movie, and that isn’t asking for too much, now, is it?
BATTLE OF BRITAIN (1969) One star Never in the field of motion pictures were so few scenes owed by so few to so many.
— Harry Saltzman
As far as we know, Harry Saltzman never actually said that, nor did Winston Churchill or, for that matter, Yogi Berra and Yogi the Bear.
Anyway, that would-be quote came to mind several times during Battle of Britain and it’s been on my mind preparing this review inside my ripped, twisted brain.
Just look at the cast: Harry Andrews, Michael Caine, Trevor Howard, Curt Jurgens, Ian McShane, Kenneth More, Laurence Olivier, Nigel Patrick, Michael Redgrave, Ralph Richardson, Robert Shaw, Patrick Wymark, Susannah York, Michael Bates. Anyway, we get the point and to fill in the rest of the cast might take every bit as long as Battle of Britain.
Battle of Britain lasts approximately 2 hours, 12 minutes, and yeah, that’s exactly right, very little screen time for each actor since there’s so many of them.
Regardless, the planes get all the good lines in Battle of Britain.
Beyond the planes, though, Michael Caine’s dog gives the best dramatic performance. Unfortunately, I couldn’t even find the dog’s name in the seemingly neverending end credits.
Battle of Britain invested so much into the planes that it forgot about the characters, the people, you know, the reason why audiences engage with any successful motion picture spread. They spent so much on the planes, in fact, they couldn’t even afford subtitles for the German dialogue spoken often throughout Battle of Britain, for crying out loud.
I am not always the biggest fan in the world of these cast-of-thousands World War II epics and Battle of Britain joins The Longest Movie, Boring! Boring! Boring!, and A Movie Too Long in the cinematic wreckage of bloated, ponderous war movies.
It especially doesn’t help when the musical score for Battle of Britain has me thinking that’s what it must feel like to be trapped inside a tuba for a two-hour concert.
The Kinks’ incredible, indelible concept album Arthur (Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire) came out two weeks before Battle of Britain in October 1969 and coincidentally, I put Arthur on almost immediately after Battle of Britain. Arthur provided the emotional and intellectual content missing from Battle of Britain, as well as a great sense of humor and sharp wit, not to mention tunes out the wazoo.
Arthur lasts all of 49 minutes, 17 seconds, and travels from the Victorian era to World War I to World War II to post-war England to Australia in a mere 12 songs. Ray Davies proved himself once again to be one of the great storytellers in popular music on this album, from opener “Victoria” and “Shangri-La” to “Mr. Churchill Says” and closer “Arthur.”
I get more from one song on Arthur than all of Battle of Britain; for example, these rather cinematic lyrics from “Some Mother’s Son,” Some mother’s son lies in a field / Someone has killed some mother’s son today / Head blown up by some soldier’s gun / While all the mothers stand and wait / Some mother’s son ain’t coming home today / Some mothers son ain’t got no grave / Two soldiers fighting in a trench / One soldier glances up to see the sun / And dreams of games he played when he was young / And then his friend calls out his name / It stops his dream and as he turns his head / A second later he is dead / Some mother’s lies in a field / Back home they put his picture in a frame / But all dead soldiers look the same.
RATS! RATS! RATS! YOU’VE GOT A FRIEND IN WILLARD AND BEN It makes sense that a sequel to the 1971 hit Willard appeared within the next year.
It makes sense that this sequel focused on the rat Ben and would be called Ben, given the previous film’s rather downbeat ending.
It also makes sense that Phil Karlson directed Ben, since Karlson directed such gritty films as Kansas City Confidential, 99 River Street, and The Phenix City Story, all involving characters who might be considered dirtyrats.
Karlson never directed any character badder and meaner than Ben, though. Not any of the tough guys played by John Payne, Preston Foster, Neville Brand, Lee Van Cleef, and Jack Elam in Kansas City Confidential. Ben don’t need no stinking mask, for one. Ben also has an infinitely larger gang anyway and they’re real hungry as demonstrated throughout Ben. Nor Tennessee sheriff Buford Pusser from Walking Tall, which Karlson made right after Ben. Joe Don Baker must have come as quite a relief after Ben, who quickly became a has been after his two film roles and multiple songs about him. Ben must have wanted even more dough to return for a third film. That dirty rat!
Ben also won a PATSY Award for his performance in Ben, which undoubtedly contributed to his ego problem.
Anyway, I didn’t much care for Ben, because it quickly established a dread pattern after the obligatory flashback to the events that ended Willard. Here’s that pattern: Rat attack. Cutesy poo musical number. Rat attack. Cutesy poo musical number. Rat attack. Cutesy poo musical number. Rat attack. Cutesy poo musical number. Rat attack. Cutesy poo musical number.
Sounds like a real winner, right? Yeah, if you like a bunch of bad ideas bouncing off each other for 90 minutes.
You can also throw in some police chatter, a journalist character who’s seemingly working on just this one story (though it’s hard to blame him, I mean it’s not everyday that millions of street rats terrorize a city), and a little boy named Danny and his sister (played by Meredith Baxter before her marriage and hyphenated name, before her TV mother fame, before her Lifetime movie career, before her coming out) and his mother who all seem like refugees from a Disney live-action project.
Oh yeah, like Willard before him, the little boy possesses the ability to communicate with rats, especially Ben. Oh yeah, once again, the lonely little boy has a heart condition.
Danny proves responsible for the musical numbers scattered throughout Ben and he even gives Ben a puppet show. Wow, just wow.
A 13-year-old Michael Jackson sings “Ben’s Song” over the end credits and “Ben” competed against songs from The Poseidon Adventure, The Little Ark, The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean, and The Stepmother for Best Original Song at the 1973 Academy Awards. “Ben” lost to “The Morning After” from The Poseidon Adventure, believe it or not, and having heard both songs, I don’t believe it since “The Morning After” defines godawful. Unfortunately so does most of the movie Ben.
I’ll give Karlson and animal trainer Moe Di Sesso their due for amplifying the rat count to 4,000 for Ben. Eight times the rats as Willard, but that’s the only area in which Ben triumphs over its older brother. Granted, one human year translates to approximately 30 in rat years, so maybe that’s why Ben’s motion picture career stopped after two films in two years.
Rating: One star.
— What else can I say other than I liked Willard and I would not be surprised if I found out that it played as one-half of a double bill with fellow 1971 cult film Harold and Maude.
Both are weird little items with a delightfully morbid sense of humor and I only say delightfully because I like both films, and they have offbeat lead characters who push the patience of every adult.
Bruce Davison stars as Willard Stiles, who must contend with a harridan mother (Elsa Lanchester) and a bully for a boss (Ernest Borgnine). Willard develops a close relationship with Ben and Socrates, who unfortunately for Willard are rats. See, Willard finds out that he can communicate directly with rats and that he enjoys their company more than his fellow human beings, especially his overbearing mother and all her overbearing friends and his asshole boss. His mother wants Willard to get rid of them damn rats and his boss, well, he develops genuine distaste for Rattus norvegicus after Willard’s rats crash his party one night.
Willard also begins a tentative, very tentative relationship with his lovely temporary co-worker Joan (Sondra Locke). In the end, Willard should have pursued Joan more than Socrates and Ben. No doubt that our lad Willard would have lived a whole lot longer.
As interesting as it was to watch Davison and Locke early in their careers and Lanchester (The Bride from The Bride of Frankenstein) late in her career, Borgnine proved to be the key component in the success of Willard. For a picture like Willard to work any whatsoever, we need a character that we love to hate and Borgnine’s Al Martin suitably fills that need. For us to fully anticipate and then relish his inevitable death, Borgnine needed to work us into a frenzy every time he’s onscreen. Borgnine does that and then some, especially when he seizes upon Socrates and kills him with delight. We know then, more than ever before, that Martin will meet a spectacular demise.
Borgnine won the Academy Award for Best Actor in 1956 for his extremely likable performance as the title character in Marty, directed by Delbert Mann. Sixteen years later, in a picture directed by Daniel Mann, Borghine mined the opposite end of the character spectrum for Martin.
For sure, Borghine might be the first, last, and thus far only Academy Award-winning actor to be annihilated by rats.
Attack of the Killer Librarian 