FilmFanatic.org

Synopsis:
An aging film star named Marlo Manners (Mae West) arrives in London with her sixth new husband, Lord Barrington (Timothy Dalton), eager to consummate their marriage — but a host of issues, some engineered by her loyal assistant (Dom DeLuise), get in the way.

Genres, Themes, Actors, and Directors:

• Actors and Actresses
• Comedy
• George Hamilton Films
• Mae West Films
• May-December Romance
• Musicals
• Newlyweds
• Play Adaptation
• Ringo Starr Films
• Tony Curtis Films
• Walter Pidgeon Films

Response to Peary’s Review:
Peary’s review of this infamous cult movie — Mae West’s final film, made when she was 85 years old — is rather cursory. He notes simply that West “doesn’t deliver her lines badly, thank goodness”, and that while “it’s an awful picture”, it “could have been even worse”. However, I must say that I’m not quite in agreement. While there are plenty of truly awful movies listed in Peary’s book — movies that should never, under any circumstance, be associated with the words “must see” — this actually isn’t one of them. Instead, Sextette is a prototypical “bad movie” — a movie so outrageous in conceit and execution that its very existence gives one pause (how? why? what?!) and some measure of bizarre enjoyment.

As narratives go, the story — based on a play written by West — isn’t really all that terrible: it’s a zany farce full of double entendres, sexual innuendos, and innocuous musical numbers, and director Ken Hughes moves everything along at a fast clip. The “problem”, of course, is in the casting of West herself, whose advanced age defies our sense of sexual “normalcy” and “propriety”. Could Sextette be viewed as the ultimate May/Mae-December romance? It’s too bad, in a way, that West’s “real” age — or even something reasonably close to it — is never made explicit in the film, because a movie about an acknowledged octogenarian sexpot-actress would really be something!

Unfortunately, West’s performance here is passable at best — and while it lies at the center of the film’s fame, it’s sadly (almost comically) one-note. She struts creakedly across the elaborate sets, attempting to infuse some pizazz into her lines (many of which are cribbed directly from her earlier films), but since she only has one frozen expression, and a few familiar mannerisms (gently patting her hilarious pouf of a blonde wig, pursing her lips, rolling her eyes upwards), she’s more like a moving, talking statue than a viable living creature — wind her up and she’ll spout quips like the following (chosen at random as a representative sample):

Dalton: Oh darling, I think I’ve pulled a muscle.
West: Don’t worry – I’ll straighten it out for you.

Faring much, much better than West are her numerous male co-stars, who deserve major kudos for being so incredibly game. Dom DeLuise is amusingly sincere as West’s loyal assistant (secretly in love with her, as he reveals in a singing solo), while young Dalton has completely redeemed himself in my eyes after the debacle of his early performance as Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights (1970). He’s a Bond who can sing! (anyone who’s seen Pierce Brosnan in Mamma Mia! will understand the reference). Meanwhile, both Tony Curtis and George Hamilton seem to be having great fun making brief appearances as two of West’s former husbands (both, naturally, still in love/lust with her).

Redeeming Qualities and Moments:

• Dom DeLuise as Dan Turner
  
• Timothy Dalton as Lord Barrington
  
• Dalton singing “Love Will Keep Us Together” to his new bride
  
• Tony Curtis as “Alexei” (Husband #2)
  
• George Hamilton as “Husband #5”
  
• West visiting a room full of male Olympian gymnasts
  

Must See?
Yes — it’s simply too much of a bizarre cult experience to miss sitting through at least once.

Categories

• Cult Movie

Links:

• IMDb entry
• NY Times Original Review
• BadMovies.org Review (spoiler alert)
• Shock Cinema Review (spoiler alert)

Synopsis:
In 1970s Southern California, horny teenage buddies Johnnie (Robert Carradine) and Jesse (Michael Mullins) have fun in the sun while pursuing a couple of cheerleaders (Lisa Reeves and Jennifer Ashley) and trying to avoid bullying by a menacing football coach (James Gammon) and Reeves’ hulky boyfriend (Bill Adler).

Genres, Themes, Actors, and Directors:

• Cheerleaders
• High School
• Teenagers

Response to Peary’s Review:
Peary is ultimately too generous in his review of this utterly tiresome “sex and mayhem” teen comedy, which he accurately notes “doesn’t live up to its underground reputation” as a “bonafide cult hit”. He points out that the male leads are “jerks” (Carradine would fare much better as uber-nerd Louis Skolnick in Revenge of the Nerds), Joseph Ruben’s direction is “unimaginative”, and “the rude boys’ behavior is annoying”.

The “conventional storyline” doesn’t offer anything new or interesting to the genre of teen sexploitation flicks — and while Peary claims that “there are enough okay moments… to make it acceptable drive-in fare”, it’s certainly nothing all-purpose film fanatics should have to sit through. This is one tedious flick.

Redeeming Qualities and Moments:
Not much.

Must See?
Definitely not.

Links:

• IMDb entry
• DVD Talk Review
• Spinning Image Review

Synopsis:
After undergoing experimental plastic surgery, a woman (Marilyn Chambers) craves human blood, and turns her victims into blood-seeking, zombie-like creatures.

Genres, Themes, Actors, and Directors:

• Canadian Films
• David Cronenberg Films
• Horror
• Vampires

Response to Peary’s Review:
David Cronenberg fans will surely be interested to check out this early “low-budget horror film”, a “lively, if stupid” flick which is “sloppy in spots and not particularly inventive” but shows ample evidence of Cronenberg’s ongoing obsession with horrific bodily growths. Porn star Marilyn Chambers — “satisfactory” in her first R-rated role — is perfectly cast as a woman who, after being badly burned in a motorcycle accident and undergoing an experimental skin-graft operation, finds “what looks like a vagina-like opening in the skin” beneath her armpit. In a gruesomely creative twist on vampiric longings, Chambers secures blood from her victims by a “phallus-shaped projection” which emerges from her new opening and draws blood like a needle. It’s all really too gross and inexplicable for words, yet evokes provocative sexual metaphors: Chambers (the ultimate “sexually liberated woman”) is given hermaphroditic abilities, yet her “sexual” rampages result in sickness and death, starting a rabies-like pandemic (pre-AIDS) around Montreal. Meanwhile, her victims turn into zombie-like creatures, thus tapping into this horror genre trope as well. It’s all silly and low-budget, but shows Cronenberg’s firm directorial hand and unique sensibility, and thus will probably be of at least passing interest to film fanatics.

Note: It’s interesting to know that Sissy Spacek was Cronenberg’s first choice for the central role; but Chambers, despite her limited acting chops, ultimately strikes me as the better fit.

Redeeming Qualities and Moments:

• A gruesomely provocative premise
  

Must See?
Yes, simply as an early, representative Cronenberg film.

Categories

• Important Director

Links:

• IMDb entry
• ClassicHorror.com Review
• Combustible Celluloid Review
• TCM Article
• Moria Review
• Time Out Capsule Review

Synopsis:
Private eye Philip Marlowe (Humphrey Bogart) is hired by General Sternwood (Charles Waldron) to take care of a man blackmailing his nymphomaniac daughter (Martha Vickers); meanwhile, her older sister (Lauren Bacall) tries to find out exactly what Marlowe is up to.

Genres, Themes, Actors, and Directors:

• Blackmail
• Detectives and Private Eyes
• Dorothy Malone Films
• Elisha Cook Jr. Films
• Howard Hawks Films
• Humphrey Bogart Films
• Lauren Bacall Films
• Murder Mystery

Response to Peary’s Review:
Howard Hawks’ adaptation of Raymond Chandler’s first novel has accumulated a passel of cinematic lore and trivia over the years, primarily given two factors: a) the existence of two different versions (first made in 1944, it was released to overseas troops in 1945, then simultaneously padded and re-cut before being shown domestically a year later); and b) the real-life relationship between co-stars Bogart and Bacall, which simply intensified throughout the duration of its extended (re)shooting. It’s notorious as well for possessing a plot “so confusing that neither Hawks nor Chandler could figure out who was responsible for all of the eight murders” (though it turns out this may be a bit of an urban legend).

As Peary and many others have noted, however, the film’s plot is almost beside the point, given that — courtesy of Chandler’s original novel, which Hawks and his screenwriters “didn’t bother rewriting” — it “contains the sharpest, toughest, wittiest, sexiest dialogue ever written for a detective scene”. Indeed, line after line emerging from the characters’ mouths leaves one giggling with delight — especially given Hawks’ trademark style of allowing the actors to “naturally” overlap one another, resulting in a literal barrage of snappy one-liners and come-backs (click here for a representative sampling). Equally enjoyable are the numerous “off-beat female characters” peopling the screen — most notably Martha Vickers as Bacall’s “troubled nympho younger sister”, who is given to sucking her thumb and getting into all sorts of sordid trouble.

Hawks apparently instructed all his actresses to present themselves as sexually available and willing, in order to turn Chandler’s “corrosive yet enticing Los Angeles” into a true male fantasy world for Marlowe — who somewhat amusingly encounters flirtatious women (a bookstore clerk, a taxi driver, hat girls) literally everywhere he goes. Marlowe’s primary interest, however, turns out to be Bacall, who Peary notes is “perhaps too comfortable with Bogart”; he argues that “the nervous, sexy edge isn’t there” between them, at least not to the extent it was present in their first film together (1944’s To Have and Have Not). Bacall is fine, but for my money I’d rather see a lot more of Vickers (whose career sadly didn’t go very far).

While it may be sacrilege to say so, I find that the movie goes on for a bit too long — especially given that (following Chandler’s novel) The Big Sleep is essentially two films in one. By the midway mark, we’ve already cleared up the central issue of Vickers’ blackmailer, so all the complications and countless murders that occur afterwards seem to take place in a somewhat endless morass of intrigue. Yet Bogart is so “perfectly cast” as “moral shamus” Marlowe that we don’t mind watching him enjoying “the world he walks through, full of liars, blackmailers, murderers, and pretty, available women who are looking for a quick thrill.” Indeed, it’s to Hawks’ credit that The Big Sleep remains a “crackerjack detective classic” despite its narrative flaws.

Redeeming Qualities and Moments:

• Humphrey Bogart as Philip Marlowe
  
• Martha Vickers as Carmen Sternwood
  
• Bogart’s obvious chemistry with Lauren Bacall
  
• Elisha Cook, Jr., as Harry Jones
  
• Marlowe’s surprisingly sexy encounter with a flirtatious bookstore clerk (Dorothy Malone)
  
• Sidney Hickox’s atmospheric noir cinematography
  
• Countless zingy exchanges and one-liners

Must See?
Yes, as an undisputed classic of American cinema.

Categories

• Genuine Classic

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

Links:

• IMDb entry
• NY Times Original Review
• Greatest Films Review
• ReelViews Review
• Washington Post Review
• Noir of the Week Review
• TCM Articles
• Tired Old Queen at the Movies Video Review

Synopsis:
A British detective (Nigel Green) attempts to track down evil Fu Manchu (Christopher Lee), who has kidnapped a scientist (Joachim Fuchsberger) capable of creating a lethal potion from poppy plants.

Genres, Themes, Actors, and Directors:

• Christopher Lee Films
• Detectives and Private Eyes
• Kidnapping
• Scientists
• World Domination

Response to Peary’s Review:
As Peary notes, this film marked the return of “Sax Rohmer’s diabolical Chinese villain to the screen after a 33-year hiatus” (Boris Karloff last played Fu Manchu in 1932’s The Mask of Fu Manchu). It’s a surprisingly well-made genre flick in many ways, with “believable twenties flavor, fun [if unexceptional] performances by Lee and Green…, and an interesting storyline”. The set designs (full of colorful “chinoiserie” and period artifacts) are vibrant, and the story is appropriately nerve-wracking, given that Manchu and his equally fiendish daughter (played with intense sincerity by Tsai Chin) pose a truly frightening threat to the state of the world — as evidenced in a sequence demonstrating their ability to wipe out an entire town within seconds (the parallels with nuclear devastation are unmistakable). Indeed, Manchu’s ability to literally escape death — he’s “shown” beheaded in the film’s opening sequence, though we quickly learn this was someone else hypnotized to take his place — makes him one of the most frightening earthly villains in cinematic history. Note: Those easily offended by racial stereotypes should definitely stay away, as Manchu and his clan are clearly posited as a “yellow peril”.

Redeeming Qualities and Moments:

• Impressive set designs
  
• Several exciting sequences
  

Must See?
No, but it’s fun fare if you’re in the right mood.

Links:

• IMDb entry
• Spinning Image Review
• Moria Review
• Time Out Capsule Review

Synopsis:
Private eye Philip Marlowe (Elliott Gould) drives his old friend (Jim Bouton) to Tijuana in the middle of the night, only to unexpectedly find himself embroiled in a complex plot involving murder, missing money, and an alcoholic writer (Sterling Hayden) with a concerned wife (Nina van Pallandt).

Genres, Themes, Actors, and Directors:

• Detectives and Private Eyes
• Elliott Gould Films
• Literature Adaptation
• Los Angeles
• Murder Mystery
• Robert Altman Films
• Sterling Hayden Films

Response to Peary’s Review:
As Peary notes, this “offbeat version of Raymond Chandler’s next-to-last Philip Marlowe novel is one of his finest films”. With a script by Leigh Brackett (who also co-wrote the screenplay for Howard Hawks’ 1946 version of Chandler’s The Big Sleep), the “story is updated from the dark forties to modern, sun-drenched, washed-out, neon-lit LA”, reimagining gumshoe Marlowe as a “Jew from the East” with “old-fashioned views on loyalty and morality who can’t find his niche in a seventies me-generation playground”.

While Marlowe purists are perhaps understandably bothered by these changes — as well as Brackett’s infamous rewritten ending — those willing to accept the movie on its own terms are guaranteed to appreciate the brilliance of Altman’s unique vision.

There’s much to admire about the film, which features uniformly excellent performances, creative cinematography (by Vilmos Zsigmond), and a distinctive sense of time and place. Gould brings an improvisational air to his incarnation of Marlowe, demonstrating his ability to roll with the punches and find humor in the most absurd situations (he famously ad-libbed during Marlowe’s initial interrogation scene with the cops, for instance, smearing fingerprint ink all over his face while rapping about Notre Dame football and miming Al Jolson).

Newcomer Nina van Pallandt — best known at the time for being the mistress of Clifford Irving, who penned a faux biography of Howard Hawks — is appropriately mysterious and haunted as an over-tanned Malibu housewife:

… whose husband (a shaggy, ominous Sterling Hayden) causes her ongoing distress.

Other minor roles are creatively cast as well — including director Mark Rydell as one of the most vicious thugs in 1970s cinema:

… and baseball star Jim Bouton as Marlowe’s border-hopping buddy.

Altman’s eternally roaming camera is used to great effect throughout the film, keeping the storyline continually moving without resorting to the hectic jump cuts and rapidfire editing so prevalent — and headache-inducing — in modern gangster flicks. He utilizes plenty of slow zooms and “shots in which people speak in the foreground while action takes place in the distance, sometimes through glass” — the latter unmistakably evoking Hitchcock; not a single scene is boringly directed. Meanwhile, Altman’s choice of locales are distinct and irrefutably authentic — from Marlowe’s funky Hollywood apartment “on Camrose just South of the Hollywood Bowl” (complete with yoga-loving hippies across the way), to the Wades’ Malibu Colony beach house:

… to the grocery store Marlowe visits during the film’s intriguing opening sequence (which effectively establishes him as a down-on-his-luck loner who can’t even please — or fool — his own cat).

The Long Goodbye has been called a satire or parody by many (including Peary), but this label isn’t entirely accurate. While there are definite undercurrents of humor throughout — particularly during Gould’s interactions with an utterly clueless thug who’s been tasked with following him — it’s deadly serious at other times. And while violence is rare in the film, it’s there, brutal and lurking; as Peary notes, “what we witness, we realize, is only the tip of the iceberg”. The film’s most infamous scene involves a thug (Rydell) inexplicably smashing a glass Coke bottle across his mistress’s face, simply to show Gould what he’s capable of. It may not be plausible, but it sure as hell is frightening.

Redeeming Qualities and Moments:

• Elliott Gould as Philip Marlowe
  
• Nina van Pallandt as Eileen Wade
  
• Sterling Hayden as Roger Wade
  
• Mark Rydell as psycho-thug-extraordinaire Marty Augustine
  
• Vilmos Zsigmond’s cinematography
  
• Fine use of distinctly L.A. locales
  
• Leigh Brackett’s cleverly updated script of Raymond Chandler’s pulp novel
• John Williams’ score — consisting of creative variations on “The Long Goodbye” (written by Johnny Mercer)

Must See?
Yes, as a cult favorite by a master director. Nominated by Peary as one of the best pictures of the year in his Alternate Oscars book, and discussed at length in his first Cult Movies book.

Categories

• Cult Movie
• Important Director

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

Links:

• IMDb entry
• NY Times Original Review
• DVD Savant Review
• Jigsaw Lounge Review
• Roger Ebert’s Review
• Time Out Capsule Review