FilmFanatic.org

Synopsis:
After seizing a ship full of arms from Baron Jose Gruda (Leslie Bradley), the “Crimson Pirate” (Burt Lancaster) and his trusty sidekick Ojo (Nick Cravat) try to win back the loyalty of their mutinous crew while rescuing a damsel-in-distress (Eva Bartok).

Genres, Themes, Actors, and Directors:

• Burt Lancaster Films
• Christopher Lee Films
• Historical Drama
• Pirates
• Robert Siodmak Films

Response to Peary’s Review:
Peary refers to this enjoyably innocuous Technicolor adventure as “perhaps the last first-rate pirate movie” — a statement which is no longer quite true, given the recent success of Pirates of the Caribbean in 2003, but was certainly accurate at the time Guide for the Film Fanatic was published in 1986. As Peary notes, “you won’t pay much attention to the plot”, which isn’t really all that important — the emphasis instead is on both “humor and the high-flying acrobatic stunts of [Burt] Lancaster and Nick Cravat, his former circus partner” — these two are the real reason to watch closely and enjoy. Surprisingly, this action-packed flick was directed by Robert Siodmak, much better known for his noir-ish thrillers; as Peary points out, it’s a “fine change of pace” for him.

Redeeming Qualities and Moments:

• Lancaster and Cravat’s phenomenal acrobatic feats together
  
• Plenty of colorful sets and costumes
  
• The humorous opening “scurvy” scene
  

Must See?
Yes, as a jolly good pirate show, and one of Lancaster-and-Cravat’s best outings together.

Categories

• Good Show

Links:

• IMDb entry
• DVD Savant Review
• Moria Review
• NY Times Original Review

Synopsis:
Real estate agent Thomas Hutter (Gustav von Wangenheim) travels to Transylvania to meet with a reclusive client named Count Orlok (Max Schreck), who sucks his blood, then sets out by sea to find and ravage Hutter’s wife (Greta Schroder).

Genres, Themes, Actors, and Directors:

• F.W. Murnau Films
• Horror
• Silent Films<
• Vampires

Response to Peary’s Review:
Peary refers to this early F.W. Murnau adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula as “the greatest of all vampire films”, noting that it stars “the most-hideous looking vampire there has ever been”, possesses “a surprising amount of tension”, and features an “extremely powerful” finale. Peary’s review primarily centers on an analysis of Orlok’s vampiric “sexual aggression”, and Schroder’s willingness to “overcome her sexual repression… rather than letting [Orlok’s] sexual aggression be what sexually liberates her.” These “sexually” charged scenes, however, only comprise the final few minutes of the film; the remainder of the story is memorable due primarily to Murnau (and cinematographer Fritz Wagner’s) “haunting images” — in Orlok’s castle, at sea on the “death ship” (Orlok’s presence on board causes a rat-infested plague), and in the streets of Hutter’s hometown.

Film fanatics will be interested to note that Nosferatu possesses a notorious history: Murnau and his producer failed to secure the rights from Stoker’s widow to film Dracula, and — despite their concession in changing the names of the characters — eventually were forced to burn all copies of the negative. Fortunately, at least a few prints survived, and the film has now become one of the most iconic horror flicks of the silent era.

Redeeming Qualities and Moments:

• Max Schreck as Count Orlok
  
• Fritz Wagner’s cinematography
  
• Countless memorable images
  
  
  

Must See?
Yes, for its historical importance. Remade by Werner Herzog in 1979.

Categories

• Genuine Classic
• Important Director

(Listed in 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die)

Links:

• IMDb entry
• DVD Savant Review
• Jigsaw Lounge Review
• TCM Article
• Classic Horror Review
• Moria Films

Synopsis:
A business man (Michel Bouquet) who discovers his wife (Stephane Audran) is having an affair murders her lover (Maurice Ronet) while visiting his apartment.

Genres, Themes, Actors, and Directors:

• Claude Chabrol Films
• French Films
• Infidelity

Response to Peary’s Review:
As Peary notes, this “erotic, subtle, meticulously crafted” thriller — one of director Claude Chabrol’s finest films — “fits into no genre” but “draws you in completely”. While it’s “deceptively slow at first”, it remains compelling throughout, thanks in large part to the psychologically complex performances by Michel Bouquet (star of Truffaut’s The Bride Wore Black and Mississippi Mermaid) and Stephane Audran (Chabrol’s wife and frequent leading lady). Helene’s (Audran’s) infidelity is revealed subtly, without drama or fanfare — this is a “happily married” bourgeois couple, after all, who enjoy a good life together with their adorable, intelligent son (Francois Moro-Giafferi) in a large Versailles house. Likewise, Charles’ (Bouquet’s) “revenge” occurs unexpectedly — we have no idea (and neither does he) that events will eventually take such a bloody, fatal turn. Perhaps most surprising, however, is Helene’s ultimate response once she learns what her husband has done; according to Peary’s analysis, “Chabrol is stating that bourgeois life is so stifling, so oppressive, and so resistant to change or growth, that it takes no less than an act of murder on one person’s part to shake up things in a positive way.”

Redeeming Qualities and Moments:

• Stephane Audran as Helen Desvallees
  
• Michel Bouquet as Charles Desvallees
  
• Maurice Ronet as Helene’s lover, Victor
  
• A chillingly effective portrait of a bourgeois marriage rocked by infidelity
  

Must See?
Yes, as one of Chabrol’s finest films. Remade (though less successfully) in 2002 by Adrian Lyne as Unfaithful, starring Diane Lane and Richard Gere.

Categories

• Important Director

Links:

• IMDb entry
• NY Times Original Review

Synopsis:
In a small British village, twelve emotionless blonde children with extraordinary intellect are mysteriously born at the same time. A scientist (George Sanders) whose wife (Barbara Shelley) has given birth to one of these odd children (Martin Stephens) becomes their teacher, and learns that their powers may be more destructive than anyone could have imagined.

Genres, Themes, Actors, and Directors:

• Aliens
• Evil Kids
• George Sanders Films
• Horror
• Mind Control and Hypnosis
• Science Fiction

Response to Peary’s Review:
As Peary notes, this “scary, well-made movie” — a “loose adaptation of John Wyndham’s novel The Midwich Cuckoos” — is “a top-notch horror film” which features “impressive atmospheric direction by Wolf Rilla” (who never made another “important film”). As in Val Lewton’s horror films of the 1940s, Rilla generates tension primarily through atmosphere and suggestion rather than explicit violence; the opening sequence, for instance — in which villager after villager collapses in the middle of their daily business — is truly frightening in its implication of sudden collective powerlessness. Indeed, throughout the film, we’re kept in suspense about what exactly has caused these mysterious children to be (virginally) conceived and then born — we can surmise that they’re alien spawn of some kind, but we never learn this for a fact, nor do we understand why or how they’re able to grow (both in utero and out) at nearly twice the normal human rate.

While Village of the Damned works perfectly well on its own as simply a taut, enjoyable horror flick, the presentation of other-worldly children who share a collective brain and have the power to make the adults around them do whatever they wish remains ripe for thematic investigation. In some ways, they’re clearly an allegory for the Communist Scare of the 1950s — emotionless beings who have invaded an idyllic Western town, and must be destroyed (by decisive force) before they “take over” (though their icy blonde hair makes them appear more like Aryan cogs than Russian workers). Others (see, for instance, the Not Coming to a Theater Near You review link below) have suggested that Village of the Damned represents a thinly veiled exploration of sexual mores in the 1960s, when women’s right to control their own reproductive potential was squarely in confrontation with religious mandates. Regardless of one’s deeper analysis, however, the unsmiling children — with their glowing, penetrating gaze (the film’s only concession to special effects) — remain an iconic trope in the history of horror cinema.

Note: While Peary argues that this was the first film “to exploit… the horror potential” of “children-as-monsters”, the kids here — with their odd blonde haircuts and bangs — bear more than a faint resemblance to “evil” Rhoda Penmark in 1956’s The Bad Seed

Redeeming Qualities and Moments:

• The creepy opening sequence
  
• George Sanders as Gordon Zellaby
  
• Barbara Shelley as Sanders’ wife, Anthea
  
• Martin Stephens as Sanders’ “son”
  
• The eerie scene in which the “one year old” babies teach each other how to open up a trick box with a chocolate inside
  
• Geoffrey Faithfull’s b&w cinematography
  

Must See?
Yes, for its status as a classic British horror flick. Remade in 1995 by John Carpenter, and followed by a pseudo-sequel (Children of the Damned) in 1964.

Categories

• Genuine Classic

Links:

• IMDb entry
• DVD Savant Review
• TCM Article
• Moria Review
• Time Out Capsule Review

Synopsis:
When a Coke bottle is dropped from a plane in the middle of the Kalahari desert, it disrupts the lives of a peaceful tribe of bushmen, so the man who found it (N!xau) volunteers to “drop it off the face of the earth”. Meanwhile, a bumbling biologist (Marius Weyers) attempts to woo a beautiful young teacher (Sandra Prinsloo), whose students have been kidnapped by a band of revolutionary terrorists; it’s up to N!xau to help save the day.

Genres:

• Africa
• Comedy
• Deserts
• Hostages
• Native Peoples
• Revolutionaries

Response to Peary’s Review:
Peary praises this unexpected “cult favorite” from South Africa as a “surefire crowd-pleaser”, calling it a “rare picture that will appeal to to everyone in the family.” These days, The Gods Must Be Crazy — which was followed by a popular sequel in 1989 — comes across as enjoyable in parts but ultimately uneven; the sequences of slapstick violence between guerrilla rebels and the Burundian government are particularly interminable (and not at all amusing). In addition, knowing as we do now that the Bushmen (who Peary naively — though understandably — believes are simply “playing themselves”) were actually asked to strip their clothes and pretend to live like their “noble” ancestors detracts from the film’s innate charm; we have to work a bit harder to believe in the veracity of their pastoral existence.

With that said, there’s plenty to recommend in The Gods Must Be Crazy, which is certainly one of the best comedies to emerge from Africa. Director Jamie Uys does a particularly fine job highlighting the hypocrisy of “civilization” in contrast with tribal living; the pseudo-scientific anthropological voiceover — though overused in far too many films — works surprisingly well here. In addition, the lead performances by both bumbling Marius Weyers (who Peary likens to Jacques Tati) and N!xau (adorably “innocent”) are marvelous — whenever they’re on-screen, the story sparkles. My favorite scene is probably the one in which N!xau watches sexy Sandra Prinsloo undressing, and we hear his hilariously disparaging thoughts via voiceover (“She was as pale as something that had crawled out of a rotting log…”); this is the best cinematic example I’ve seen so far of how beauty — along with so many other values — is indeed culturally relative.

Redeeming Qualities and Moments:

• N!xau as Xi
  
• Marius Weyers as a hopelessly clumsy biologist
  
• Weyers attempting to navigate his brakeless car across country roads
  
• Beautiful cinematography of Kalahari landscapes
  
• The often hilarious “faux-anthropologist” narration — as when N!xau sees the sexy, slender, half-dressed Prinsloo for the first time:
  

  That morning, he saw the ugliest person he’d ever come across. She was as pale as something that had crawled out of a rotting log; her hair was quite gruesome, long and stringy and white, as if she was very old; she was very big — he’d have to take the whole day to find enough food to feed her.

Must See?
Yes, for its status as a long-running cult favorite. Discussed at length in Peary’s Cult Movies 3 (1988).

Categories

• Cult Movie

Links:

• IMDb entry
• NY Times Home Video Release Review
• Roger Ebert’s Review
• Time Out Capsule Review