“From The Files Of Dr. Strangefilm…” Archive
Dr. Strangefilm | From The Files Of Dr. Strangefilm...
It's interesting to look at how the careers of Hollywood's James Cagney and Japan's Godzilla (history of sorts) kind of paralleled one another. Both started out in movies playing irredeemable bad guys, and neither was really considered a candidate for leading man status because of their stature. As the years passed, however, audience demand saw both thespians grow into the role of antihero and eventually become full-fledged good guys, a move that some say also caused each to lose a bit of the edge that made them popular in the first place. Why, each even found time to perform an occasional on-screen dance routine (check out this clip from Godzilla vs. Monster Zero if you don't believe me). One thing that Cagney never had to do, though, was appear in an unfunny, made-for-kids parody of his earlier work where he has to teach his goofball son and a friend lessons in self-esteem, which is the role the Big G had thrust upon him in 1971's Godzilla's Revenge.
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Dr. Strangefilm | From The Files Of Dr. Strangefilm...
Hollywood often gets a bad rap for squeezing blood from stones (or beating dead horses, or whatever colorful metaphor one wishes to use) with ill-conceived and unnecessary sequels, but you have to give them some credit for allowing many of the truly classic films to stand alone. It was TV, not the movies, that gave us the Gone with the Wind continuation Scarlett; Frank Capra didn't bring back Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed as an elderly couple ignored by their grown kids in It's Still a Wonderful Life; Warner Bros. didn't go through with a proposed Casablanca sequel entitled Brazzaville, and John Waters abandoned plans for his Pink Flamingos reprise, Flamingos Forever, after Divine's untimely passing. With all that in mind, whose bright idea was it to make a follow-up to the quintessential cult movie, The Rocky Horror Picture Show? None other than RHPS creator Richard O'Brien, as it turns out, and what eventually evolved into 1981's Shock Treatment overcame a number of obstacles to emerge as...not as bad a film as one might expect.
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Dr. Strangefilm | From The Files Of Dr. Strangefilm...
Okay, all you students of singular cinematic experiences. This latest case file opens with a pop quiz. Paper and pencils are not required, and no cheating off the person sitting next to you. Ready?
1. What movie won the very first Golden Raspberry (Razzie) Award for Worst Picture in 1981?
2. What was the first and only movie to be directed by a TV paper towel spokeswoman?
3. What movie did a post-Olympics, pre-Kardashians Bruce Jenner allegedly turn down the lead role in 1978's Superman to make his first big-screen appearance in?
4. What was the first movie musical to feature a number where an actress sings to a gymnasium full of scantily-clad he-men, oblivious to her charms, as they work out?
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Dr. Strangefilm | From The Files Of Dr. Strangefilm...
This month marks the 40th anniversary of Paul McCartney's 1970 announcement that he had left The Beatles, effectively signalling the foursome's end. To fans at the time, this was the darkest day in Fab Four history. It turns out, however, that it wasn't even the darkest of the '70s...and I'm not talking about when the lads turned down Lorne Michaels' generous $3,000 offer for a 1976 reunion on Saturday Night Live. No, the moment that Beatlemania truly packed it in, jumped headfirst into a waiting grave, and started shovelling dirt on itself came in July of 1978, when film and record producer Robert Stigwood--who helped bring The Who's Tommy to the big screen and was riding high on the box-office hits Saturday Night Fever and Grease--looked to repeat his success with the premiere of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Problem was, Tommy had all four Who members starring and performing in it, the next two films had John Travolta's screen presence, and Sgt. Pepper's had...Peter Frampton and The Bee Gees!?
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Dr. Strangefilm | From The Files Of Dr. Strangefilm...
It's Easter week, weird movie buffs, and that's always a big to-do in the Strangefilm household. There are such time-honored holiday traditions as the coloring and hiding of eggs (hopefully to be found within the same month), the consuming of massive quantities of chocolate animals and baked ham, and of course the annual viewing of the 1972 MGM scare opus Night of the Lepus. The uninitiated of you out there might be wondering what a fright flick could possibly have to do with Easter. Well--and look away now if you DON'T want the identity of the film's monster revealed--in a cinematic universe filled with attacks by mutated and over-sized bees, grasshoppers, spiders, scorpions, octopi, sharks, lizards, alligators, snakes, shrews, bears and every other sort of predatory creature, Night of the Lepus was the first such feature to depict what happens when a town is overrun by giant, rampaging, carnivorous...rabbits.
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Dr. Strangefilm | From The Files Of Dr. Strangefilm...
In the late 1940s and early '50s the United States was under attack. Not by tanks or planes, but by a much more insidious enemy, one that worked its way across America, from large cities to small hamlets. Its mission was to infiltrate all aspects of society--home, school, tavern, and even church--and slowly gain control of the will of the people before they were aware of the danger. This invasion didn't go without notice, however, and Hollywood set out to warn the populace of this new menace, even as some claimed that the filmmakers themselves had a hand in its spread.
The menace I'm talking about was, of course, television. What, did you think I meant Communism? Well, I can see, in re-reading the previous paragraph, how one might have come to that conclusion. But while Red Scare-era Tinseltown did try to reveal the perils of global Marxist domination--and appease Washington--through such efforts as My Son John, I Was a Communist for the F.B.I., and the future case file Invasion U.S.A. (no, not the Chuck Norris one), the movie moguls saw the rise of TV as a bigger threat, at least to their pocketbooks. Fortunately, today's case is a perfect example of cinematic synchronicity, because the two terrors of the McCarthy era became one in the form of...the Twonky!
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Dr. Strangefilm | From The Files Of Dr. Strangefilm...
Let's see...they've both been a part of Western, if not worldwide, folklore for centuries. They both have their fervent supporters, as well as detractors who swear they don't exist. Both seem to be able to know a person's innermost dreams and desires, favor a lot of red in their fashion sense, and like to live in places set in the most extreme of temperatures. Oh, and while they each go by many names, their most popular ones are anagrams.
With all these shared characteristics, you'd think that Santa and Satan would be the best of buddies, wouldn't you? Okay, you really wouldn't, but it does add a fascinating new dimension to one of the Baby Boom generation's most twisted movie memories. That's right, today's case is the 1959 "kiddie matinee" classic Santa Claus, a made-in-Mexico mishegas of St. Nick legend, Christian theology, and Robert Campbell-knows-what kind of miscellaneous mythology which features Kris Kringle's annual globe-hopping, gift-giving marathon under attack from the minions of the Prince of Darkness...well, one less-than-crack member of said minions, anyway.
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Dr. Strangefilm | From The Files Of Dr. Strangefilm...
Folks, the doc's mailbox has just been filled to the brim since his practice began, and I can't thank you enough for all the kind words and comments. It does a heart good to know there are so many people out there who enjoy a little strangeness in their movie viewing. Of course, as Lincoln (Abraham, not Elmo) said, "you can't please all of the people all of the time." The negative notes seem to be of two main varieties. One segment is saying "Hey, Dr. Strangefilm, you sure do like picking on the U.S. Don't they make weird movies in any other countries?," while the other asks, "Geez, Doc, haven't you watched anything made since Nixon resigned?".
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Dr. Strangefilm | From The Files Of Dr. Strangefilm...
Last month one of my colleagues here at Movie FanFare posted an insightful and eloquent review of that succulent slice of "70s Satanic cinema, The Devil's Rain, starring a goat-headed Ernest Borgnine, a waxy-faced John Travolta, and some emotionless zombie wearing a William Shatner mask...oh, my mistake, that actually was William Shatner. The Devil's Rain certainly earned itself a listing in the annals of bad horror films, but readers might be surprised to find out that this wasn't the first time the once-and-future Captain Kirk found himself in mortal combat with the forces of darkness on the big screen.
In 1965 writer/director Leslie Stevens, best known as the creator of TV's The Outer Limits, cast the pre-Star Trek star as the lead of his bizarrely Bergmanesque and symbol-laden shocker Incubus, a tale of seductive succubi sisters and a heroic Shatner. "Sounds intriguing, Doc," you may be saying to yourself, "Why haven't I ever seen this in a theater or on my local late, late show?" Well, there are several reasons that I'll be going into later, but the main one will suffice for now. You see..."INCUBUS ESTIS LA UNUA KAJ SEKVE FOR NUR USONA KINOFILMO ESTI FAR TUTE EN LA LINGVO DE ESPERANTO."
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Dr. Strangefilm | From The Files Of Dr. Strangefilm...
Many, many years ago--before yours truly was even in pre-med--my father took my brother and me to St. Mark's High School in suburban Wilmington, Delaware, for a roller derby match between the Eastern (or, as we all knew them, Philadelphia) Warriors and their arch-rivals, the Texas Outlaws. What a thrill, after years of watching them on TV, to see Warriors stars Vinnie Gandolfo, Little Richard Brown, Otis Williams, Ruberta Mitchell, and team captain Judy Arnold live, battling a nasty Texas squad led by such banked track black hats as manager Lester Quarles and the distaff duo of Baby Rocco and Patti "Moo Moo" Calvin. Sure, all the fighting, feuding and punches seemed a little theatrical, even to my 13-year-old eyes, but I didn't care. After all, people also called professional wrestling phony, and there was no way the bad blood between Bruno Sammartino and Ivan Koloff was fake.
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Dr. Strangefilm | From The Files Of Dr. Strangefilm...
Edward D. Wood, Jr. Ah, dear Ed. Where would we mavens of movie mediocrity be without the works of our favorite angora-fetishist filmmaker to dissect and ridicule? Everyone from the Medved brothers to Tim Burton to the Best Brains at Mystery Science Theatre 3000 have had their say on Wood's rather unique ouevre.
Most times, however, the focus has been on his egregious entries in the horror (Bride of the Monster), science-fiction (Plan 9 from Outer Space) and...er, autobiographical (Glen or Glenda) genres. Sure, Ed may have been out of his depths there, but what if the cross-dressing director tried his hand at crime drama, with a gritty, noir-flavored thriller featuring just a touch of "Dragnet's" police procedural technique? Well, it so happens that Wood did just that in 1954 with a little ditty called Jail Bait, and it turned out every bit as amateurish as his more talked-about turkeys.
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Dr. Strangefilm | From The Files Of Dr. Strangefilm...
If there is one disease afflicting moviedom that your good doctor would like to see eradicated in his lifetime, it would be misleading film titles, a bane to audiences around the world. By way of a few examples: The Squid and the Whale was not the deep sea beatdown you’d expect from its name; the little Swedish kid in My Life as a Dog never turned into a dog; in Abbott and Costello Go to Mars, Bud and Lou actually went to Venus; Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter wasn’t; and don’t even get me started on How to Make an American Quilt.
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It's interesting to look at how the careers of Hollywood's James Cagney and Japan's Godzilla (history of sorts) kind of paralleled one another. Both started out in movies playing irredeemable bad guys, and neither was really considered a candidate for leading man status because of their stature. As the years passed, however, audience demand saw both thespians grow into the role of antihero and eventually become full-fledged good guys, a move that some say also caused each to lose a bit of the edge that made them popular in the first place. Why, each even found time to perform an occasional on-screen dance routine (check out this clip from Godzilla vs. Monster Zero if you don't believe me). One thing that Cagney never had to do, though, was appear in an unfunny, made-for-kids parody of his earlier work where he has to teach his goofball son and a friend lessons in self-esteem, which is the role the Big G had thrust upon him in 1971's Godzilla's Revenge.
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