Tag: The Manitou

The Manitou (1978)

THE MANITOU (1978) *1/2
California is going to hell.

— Donald J. Trump on Twitter

Obviously, President Trump — a big movie fan, the biggest movie fan ever — forgot The Manitou from 1978, because then he would have known California, at least one San Francisco hospital, had already gone straight to Hell for one absolutely positively bloody ridiculous 103-minute horror movie.

The Manitou just might help explain what’s happening today in California and many other places, for that matter. Yes, that’s right, it’s another possession movie.

Tony Curtis plays a phony baloney psychic seen in movies upon occasion (normally bad movies) — one of them who reads Tarot cards to little old ladies and other suckers — and his former flame discovers a growth on the back of her neck. The foremost tumor expert calls it “malignant.” It’s definitely malignant, alright, it’s the reborn spirit of the most powerful 400-year-old medicine man on his fifth reincarnation. You think you’re having a bad day or a bad time, just wait until you see what happens to poor Karen Tandy (Susan Strasberg) in The Manitou.

This is yet another one of those movies where I am thankful every actor maintained a straight face reciting all their dialogue. To be honest, though, I want to learn their secret. The Manitou combines doctor talk, psychic talk, spiritual talk, and Indian talk into one concoction that’s overloaded and overheated with jive, like, for example, we all — even us White people — have a Manitou and that we includes all our possessions. I cannot help myself when I laugh at such dialogue like “Gichi Manitou? Harry, you don’t call Gichi Manitou. He …” and (in response) “Oh, yeah, well he’s going to get a person-to-person call from me … collect!”

The Manitou somewhat redeems itself with a spectacular psychedelic light show late in the picture. It comes in about 90-95 minutes to be a tad bit more precise and that display earned the picture a half-star bump in overall rating. By the way, I almost rescinded that half-star boost after The Manitou hits us with the following statement:

Fact: Tokyo, Japan, 1969.

A fifteen-year-old boy developed what doctors thought was a tumor in his chest. The larger it grew, the more uncharacteristic it appeared. Eventually, it proved to be a human fetus.

After 100 minutes of The Manitou, about the last thing in the world we needed was any claim to factual basis.

The Manitou is so bad that I hope it will not be reborn in 400 years, when it would be ever more powerful and worse.

Sextette (1978)

SEXTETTE

SEXTETTE (1978) ***

Mae West made her final theatrical film, SEXTETTE, in her mid-80s.

Please, just take a second and consider that statement.

How many people of any age, let alone somebody outside their golden years, have the chance to be the center of a Hollywood movie?

West, who made her first film NIGHT AFTER NIGHT in 1932 and then became a cinematic legend after SHE DONE HIM WRONG, I’M NO ANGEL, and BELLE OF THE NINETIES, had that chance more times than most people.

Your response to SEXTETTE will probably center upon how you feel about seeing West (1893-1980) performing the same act that made her fame and fortune … only 45 years older. Can you buy a woman her age being a sex symbol pursued by virtually every man in the movie? That’s the proverbial $64,000 question.

Granted, we’re not talking about just any woman, even an octogenarian. We’re talking about Mae West, a force of nature blessed with a splendid bosom and a splendid wit. But not in her advanced age, at least the splendid bosom part? Anyway, I think it’s more important whether or not you can believe the characters in the movie finding her sexy.

I believe West here as Marlo Manners, a world famous sex symbol and movie star who also does some important work for her country, repeats a line from Lady Lou in SHE DONE HIM WRONG, “Why don’t you come up some time and see me?”

Must be a slow news day in the world of SEXTETTE, because Marlo’s marriage to Sir Michael Barrington (Timothy Dalton), her sixth husband, seems to be all that’s covered. Regis Philbin’s coverage starts off the movie and then we have Gil Stratton and Dana, er, Rona Barrett. They all play themselves.

SEXTETTE is a tribute, albeit one that’s ridiculous, to Mae West.

There’s quite simply not any other film like it, then again there’s never been anybody quite like Mae West.

For example, West and Dalton sink their vocal chords into the Neil Sedaka and Howard Greenfield song made world famous by Captain & Tennille in 1975, “Love Will Keep Us Together.”

That comes after the infamous “Hooray for Hollywood” number and before the Jimmy Carter impersonator. You’ll never believe it until you see it yourself, but this Jimmy Carter rip-off eats peanuts. Crazy.

Ringo Starr and Keith Moon each make appearances, Starr a director and Moon a designer, and I wonder why they did not cast John Bonham and Charlie Watts. SEXTETTE came out a few months before Moon’s death in early September ‘78.

Alice Cooper sings a piano ballad in SEXTETTE in the same year that he played Uncle Sam, er, Father Sun in SGT. PEPPER’S LONELY HEARTS CLUB, a musical that gets my vote for one of the worst films of 1978 and one of the worst movies ever made. Cooper’s Father Son sings “Because” in SGT. PEPPER. Both Cooper songs from 1978 movies are worse than his “He’s Back (The Man Behind the Mask)” for 1986’s FRIDAY THE 13TH PART VI: JASON LIVES, believe it or not.

SGT. PEPPER brings us back to Mae West, who initially refused the four mop tops permission for her image to appear on the famous album cover, because, get this, she would never be part of any lonely hearts club.

Back to SEXTETTE.

Dom DeLuise (1933-2009) earns the most laughs in the picture, I mean he works hard for the money in SEXTETTE as he delays Marlo and Sir Michael consummating their marriage. Tony Curtis (1925-2010) tries on a Russian accent as one of Marlo’s five ex-husbands and I just want to point out that other Curtis films released in 1978 are THE MANITOU and THE BAD NEWS BEARS GO TO JAPAN. Could it be possible that SEXTETTE is the least ridiculous among those three movies?

George Raft (1901-80) recommended West for NIGHT AFTER NIGHT and plays himself in SEXTETTE, his penultimate film. Furthermore, West and Raft a couple two days apart in 1980 — West November 22 and Raft November 24.

I would be reticent, socially irresponsible even, not to mention that George Hamilton plays another ex-husband. Here’s a man who’s played Hank Williams, Evel Knievel, Dracula, and (later) Zorro, so I don’t think playing alongside Mae West intimidated him in the slightest. I bet he’s got some terrific stories.

NOTE: Crown International Pictures released SEXTETTE and Crown’s renowned for such films as THE BEAST OF YUCCA FLATS, THEY SAVED HITLER’S BRAIN, and ORGY OF THE DEAD, not to mention teenage sex comedies THE BEACH GIRLS, MY TUTOR, WEEKEND PASS, and TOMBOY.