50s sci-fi double bill: THE GIANT CLAW vs. THE KILLER SHREWS

Happy Easter everyone. April is upon us (sweet showers and all) and as promised there should be more updates now. As long as I can manage to log-in at WordPress of course… so with a couple of days of delay but without further redo, let’s open the Vault again and enter two movies at once. Both worthy pedigree owners of that “50′s sci-fi” label.

What is “50s sci-fi”?

A 50s sci-fi is a science fiction film from the 50s (no points for guessing that). Lots of those films were shown in drive-in theaters where they accompanied ‘better’ films. Two for the price of one. Atomic monsters (both human and animals), robots, aliens, prehistoric animals that for some reason weren’t that extinct… there weren’t many topics the 50s sci-fi flicks didn’t touch upon. (And don’t forget those were the fifties: more than a handful of prehistoric monsters were metaphors for the Evil Communism attacking the pure and decent American minds.)
Most of these movies were low budget or even no budget. Which is why you shouldn’t look at the things you’re not supposed to see (e.g. the strings on many monsters). Also, there were a lot of sillier things to look out for. In one particular film, teenagers were scared by an alien monster (read: the shadow of a lobster being waved in front of a spotlight). You might want to hide behind the couch for this double bill… The first film is The Giant Claw.

THE GIANT CLAW

Before we start, may I say I hope you’ve already eaten when you’re reading this. Why? Well, after I’d seen this film for the first time, the bird’s look and sound made me want to eat chicken after the words ‘The End’ had appeared on the screen. Don’t say you weren’t warned.

Fred Sears might have made Earth vs. the Flying Saucers, an okay film and one of the bigger examples for Tim Burton’s Mars Attacks, but The Giant Claw is not that giant a film.
Yes, it’s a prehistoric monster that flies in the air, attacks planes and cities and occasionally treats itself to a man on a parachute. The beast is giant, except in the scenes where it’s considerably smaller, but who needs consistent proportions in a movie? Scary? It could be, but not if the monster looks like the abomination you’re seeing on your left.
Yes, admit it rather looks like a Sesame Street derelict. And by derelict, I mean Big Bird’s evil cousin who occasionally has a plane for lunch.

THE KILLER SHREWS

The Killer Shrews was directed by Ray Kellogg (director of another turkey, The Giant Gila Monster) and tells us the story of a scientist who wants to breed giant rats.
If you want to know why a scientist is on an island trying to breed bigger rats, I’ll tell you: the world population is expanding and if we all want to keep eating meat, there’s nothing wrong with creating more (read: bigger) food. And what better animal to experiment with than rats? Erm, yes, we’ll gloss over that one…

In Kellogg’s other masterpiece the gila monster was such a giant because of the wonderful special effect called “close-up”, a technique later also used in Night of the Lepus to make bunnies look scary. Well, at least they tried… The Killer Shrews does not go for the same option, very likely because nobody wanted to work with shrews. So how do we solve this problem? Easy, let’s get some dogs in, create a couple of ratlike heads in papier maché and put those heads on the dogs… surely, nobody will spot the animals are dogs. (Especially not if you’re gullible enough to believe rats can wag their tails.)
In this particular scene, the professor’s daughter is going to get coffee for everyone, only to discover one of the shrews has managed to enter the house. (If you don’t like waiting, fast forward to 1:30.)

Still, that isn’t even the highlight of the film… in the movie’s climax, the heroes try to escape from the island. They hope to get to the ocean because after all, rats can’t swim (erm… yes, they can and so can dogs – again, something to gloss over). And what better way to do so than to tie a couple of empty barrels together, turn those around and let’s march off the island, shall we? Yes, you may wonder if you’ve taken drugs, but at that point you’re really watching actors walking in upside-down barrels being jumped on by dogs wearing rat masks. (The wonderful climax truly kicks off 4 minutes into this clip.)

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why we love cinema…

How to watch these masterpieces?
The Giant Claw can be watched on the Icons of Horror Collection: Sam Katzman dvd box set, together with Zombies of Mora Tau, The Werewolf and Creature with the Atom Brain.
The Killer Shrews is in public domain and can be watched online (or downloaded) at the Internet Archive.

The Night Porter

Today an old review. I wrote this in August 2000 and had pretty much forgotten I’d written it… until I received a message on Facebook last week, thanking me for the review. This girl had read my review, watched the film and liked it enough to send this message. May Il Portiere di Notte by Liliana Cavani inspire you too…

Even though I was planning to watch something else that Saturday night, I came across BBC2 where The Night Porter was on and saw it once again. The first time I saw the movie I was a bit disappointed. I had heard so much about this movie that the film couldn’t live up to my high expectations. But some scenes found a place in the back of my mind and stayed there. The second time I saw it I was intrigued more and more and ever since I see it as the classic it should be.

If ever there was a difficult movie, it was The Night Porter. The pace is slow and the characters are all weird. There aren’t many movies where you get a homosexual Nazi wanting to be a ballet dancer and a sadistic Nazi still in love with love with a masochistic girl from the camps. (There’s more, but I don’t want to spoil the plot.) Only a spark of the plot could have been the subject for lots of raunchy exploitation movies, but “The Night Porter” manages to keep its class. The movies is set years after the war. Some Nazis were fortunate enough not to be caught and got on with their lives. Unfortunately one person has survived the camps as well. She immediately recognizes Max (Dirk Bogarde), her cruel S&M-master, and he (now a night porter in a hotel) recognizes her (Charlotte Rampling) as well. The only problem is that the other living Nazis cannot know she’s still alive, or they would assassinate her. The passion between Max and his former slave returns and the Nazis find out about their relationship. Max tries to keep her out of their hands, so madly in love that he wants to die for her. (Again, more information would spoil the movie.)

The Night Porter is one of the few movies where S&M-relationships aren’t immediately reduced to a bunch of idiots and losers playing around with whips and leather masks. It also dares to show you other Nazis than the Pavlovian dogs you normally get to see. And above all it stars Charlotte Rampling as Lucia. Watch her as she performs the dance of Salomé and gets a present from Max (know your Bible and have an idea of what’s to come). Watch her face and her near-skeletonlike body very closefully: that is how you should act disgust. Watch her as she locks herself in the bathroom and tries to hurt Max’s foot with some glass. Listen to the music, the perfect addition to this murky movie.

Due to the difficulty of the movie it’ll never raise above its status as cult classic and actually that’s a shame. Be brave and try it.

Here’s a YouTube clip by ScathinglyBrilliant that combines scenes from the film with a Billie Holiday song. It’s not the same as the other clips you find on YouTube, which I often found too much censored on the shock scenes (and the jam scene – which is a spoiler). So there you go… take it away, Billie.

P.S. On second thought, it made me wonder why I had never locked this film into the Kurtodrome Vault… well, better late than never: it’s in the Vault now.

B. Monkey

The first time I saw B. Monkey (at the Ghent Film Festival in 1998), I was amazed at how many people had come to see this action movie starring Asia Argento.
Of course it wasn’t because of Asia’s charismatic performances this movie was so popular, but because it was the latest film by Michael Radford, director of Il Postino (next to Le Fabuleux Destin d’Amélie Poulin and the horrible La Vita E Bella one of the longest running movies in the last fifteen years).

From Il Postino to B. Monkey was a weird step and perhaps one of the reasons why B. Monkey gets so many negative reviews. I’m well aware that this movie is a male-oriented dream of escapism, but when the result is a movie like this, one wants to take a lot for granted.

B. Monkey was based on a novel by Andrew Davies who has been writing since the late 60s and has penned many scripts for well-known productions such as the script for the Bridget Jones Diary and the lesbian BBC drama Tipping The Velvet. He knows how to tell a story and perhaps this is why, in my opinion, B. Monkey is so much better than the usual drama where a delinquent girl meets an honest man and decides to better her life (genders may be changed here). Even though you can predict the big lines of the story, you’re still surprised at certain plot changes.

Alan (Wayne Wang favourite Jarid Harris) and Beatrice (Asia ‘daughter of’ Argento) couldn’t be further apart: she’s a bank-robbing criminal, he teaches poor kids and has a jazz show on hospital radio. Once again something that makes you realize that this movie walks a thin line between good cinema and a third-rate tv’s movie of the week. Believable acting by Harris, Argento and, not to forget, Rupert Everett helps the movie to stay on the right part of that thin line.

The key to this film is clearly not expecting anything, certainly not something like Il Postino. It’s good boy saving girl that may not be bad, but definitely dealing with baddies. Male escapism, as I said earlier. But why shouldn’t that exist, uncomfortably next to romcoms?

The Anniversary

Tonight the Kurtodrome Vault is opened once again, this time to put a comedy in. Not the sort of genre that dominates the vault, but rest assured, The Anniversary is not out of place here. For here we have one of the most vicious comedies I’ve ever seen.

Actually, to call it a comedy seems to do the film injustice. Most of the characters are either deeply flawed or vile, or maybe both. The film opens quite normally, three brothers work in a construction business and, all of a sudden and completely unannounced, a girl pops up, asks for Tom (the youngest of the brothers), claims she’s engaged to him and before the other brothers can adjust to what’s happened, the girl called Shirley and Tom drive off, leaving the house unfinished.

But in the sixth minute of the film, The Anniversary shows its true colours for the first time. Shirley, who’s arrived with Tom at mother’s house, visits the hothouse, admires the caged bird, who promptly falls dead on the ground. Welcome to mother’s house, you’re just in time for the anniversary.

Mother, a one-eyed Bette Davis, has made a habit of celebrating her wedding anniversary with her three sons. Family traditions include a toast to the deceased father of the house and a bonfire. Sounds cozy? Think again, because the mother of the house has a habit of figuratively suffocating everyone who’s attending. There’s Tom, the youngest of the boys. There’s Terry, the hardest worker of all three and the one who’s married. To Karen, who’s given Terry a flock of offspring. And then there’s Harry, the oldest son and the one’s who’s a bit of … well, Karen calls him a “pervert”. That should suffice for the moment. And this is the environment poor Shirley is dropped in.

As Karen warns her, Mother will look for Shirley’s weak point in an attempt to crash her spirit. Think that’s an exaggeration? At one point, early in the evening, Mother asks Karen to come and sit next to her, only to adress her once more a minute later: “Shirley, would you mind sitting somewhere else? Body odour offends me.”

It’s just one of the many examples of cruel humour from the film. If you’re offended by that, avoid The Anniversary at all costs. If you’ve noticed a smile on your face, sit back and relax, you’re in one hell of treat for 91 minutes.

One of the few nice things you can say about Bette Davis’s character is that the rest of the family isn’t the best example of virtue either. Almost everyone seems to have a hidden agenda, the least of all Harry, but then again he’s crippling himself because of his perversion. Hal Hartley, director of Trust and already in the Vault because of Surviving Desire, once said: “A family is like a gun. Point it in the wrong direction and you’ve got yourself a deadly weapon.” As far as weapons go, The Anniversary is an automatic.

As far as the actors go, Davis is clearly the biggest name involved. The only other name standing out is the actress who plays Karen, Sheila Hancock, who’s renowned in the UK. Cult fans may also remember Jack Hedley (Terry) as the luitenant from Fulci’s slasherfest The New York Ripper.

The Anniversary was made by Hammer, a company predominantly known for their horror films starring Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee. It’s not the sort of film you’d expect from Hammer, even though this one is on a psychological level more horrible than most of Hammer’s output. Though not in the cast, a lot of Hammer familiars pop up in the credits. The film was directed by Roy Ward Baker and written by Jimmy Sangster. Directors may have been swapped between companies like Hammer, Tigon and Amicus, but Sangster’s name is seemingly married to the Hammer company. Summing up his entire Hammer filmography would keep us here for hours, but just to give you an idea, here’s a sample of his work: X – The Unknown, The Curse of Frankenstein, Horror of Dracula, The Mummy, Nightmare, The Nanny (also starring Bette Davis) and Dracula: Prince of Darkness. Sangster continued writing well into the 80s. In 2000 a German film, Flashback: Mörderische Ferien, was released. Though Sangster’s name appears on the credits as a writer, he wasn’t involved in the project. Instead, the Germans had bought an old script by Sangster and gave him the credit he deserved.

It’s true that Davis is very much the star of the picture and noone can match her, but let us not forget that it’s Sangster who gave Davis these glorious lines. Time to raise a toast, to Sangster, to Davis and to 91 minutes of vicious comedy. Cheers!

P.S. Instead of a trailer, which spoils some of the fun, here’s the moment mother comes down the stairs to meet her loving family. Mind you, she hasn’t seen Shirley before and the first thing she does is walk straight past her.

Female Prisoner 701: Scorpion

“Women in prison” films is a subgenre with a nasty reputation and a devoted fanbase. Usually it’s nudity and cruelty galore with a plot barely thin enough to veil the only reason to watch the film is to see the sadist and lesbian (or possibly the lesbian sadist) scenes. It’s true that there are a few good prison films, but most of them are only in it for the exploitation. Which is not necessarily a bad point: after all, most blockbusters are only in it for the explosions.

I didn’t know anything about Female Convict Scorpion: Jailhouse 41 when I bought it. I was a little hesitant at first as the DVD was quite expensive, but what finally convinced me that this movie was released in the French Cinéma de Quartier series (which also released Incubus, Dead of Night and a Mario Bava film). That, in itself, was endorsement enough.
To my disappointment the movie turned out to be a sequel, the second film in a series of four starring the ravishing Meiko Kaji as Prisoner 701. One year later Kaji would star as Lady Snowblood in the eponymous films that influenced Tarantino quite a lot whilst shooting Kill Bill. The Female Prisoner tune “Urami Bushi”, written by the director and sung by Kaji, was used in both Kill Bill volumes.

Shunya Ito, director of Female Prisoner 701, directed only 8 movies in 26 years, surprisingly few if compared to the output of other Japanese directors such as Koji Wakamatsu and Seijun Suzuki or if you look at the visual flair displayed in Ito’s films. Three out of the eight movies were Female Convict Scorpion films.

I must confess that to this date I may own all four Female Convict Scorpion films starring Kaji (in 1976 and 1998 further installments were filmed, but as they lacked the presence of either director or star that made the series so worthwhile, I’m not really interested), but I’ve seen only the first two films and the trailers of part 3 and 4.
Still, it’s not too early to recommend the series to you. If you haven’t seen a W.I.P. (women in prison) film before or don’t like the edgier films, Female Convict Scorpion: Jailhouse 41 (the second one) is the one to go for. It’s the most regular film of the series. That it was the sequel that made it to television (the Cinéma de Quartier series is also broadcast in France) is not that surprising: most of the sequel takes place out of the prison and follows a group of escaped convicts who try to stay away from the guards who’re chasing them. It may still be an exploitation film, but it’s not really a W.I.P. film. But never mind your difficulty to find a label for the film: just file it under ‘good’.

Female Prisoner 701: Scorpion, the first film, is definitely an exploitation, though it must be said it’s a classy exploitation film. Sure, the film may start with an escape attempt by Matsu (Kaji) and another prisoner, but one doesn’t have to look further than the titles to see this is exploitation cinema: naked women running up and down stairs whilst being watched by guards.
Would this mean the first film would be a cheap exploitation film? No. Sure, there are a few traditional exploitation scenes and some of those are pretty nasty, but the film never gets tacky.

Take for instance the flashback, early in the film, where we watch how Matsu (Nami Matsushima’s nickname throughout the series) was betrayed by a corrupt policeman. It lead (amongst other things) to her being raped by a bunch of crooks. That particular scene is filmed through a glass floor, so we can watch her lie on the floor with the men on top of her. It’s visually strong and it adds to our identification with the protagonist. The rest of the scene is impressive too: Matsu keeps lying on the floor, but the decor is changed and we, together with Matsu, learn she’s betrayed. Next the camera is top of her and Ito uses Kaji’s hair and lights to express her mood.

Scenes like these show the Female Convict Scorpion series were based on a comic, but though you sometimes see something that’s clearly not realistic, the film remains credible. Of course it helps that Ito and Kaji are very talented.
The scene where Matsu is chased by another convict shows the film at its best: it takes place in the showers (exploitation: check!), it’s partially bloody (exploitation: still checking), the scene is visually very strong and though it’s completely unrealistic, you don’t get the feeling you’re being tricked and are still able to believe the plot.

Visually a masterpiece, a strong lead, an excellent director, beautiful settings… this is one of the best exploitation films you’ll get to see. If you are too afraid to venture into the dark waters of exploitation cinema, watch the sequel first. You won’t know why Matsu is seen as such a threat to prison life or why she’s imprisoned, but apart from these details you won’t be deprived from an enjoyable ride and find yourself hungry to see the other three films. And if you dare, go straight to Female Prisoner 701: Scorpion.

Here’s the trailer (without subtitles):

Messiah of Evil on dvd

Good news! Messiah of Evil (which I’ve reviewed here) will be released on DVD. Sure it’s on dvd now in cheap vhs to dvd transfers, but Code Red will give it the treatment it deserves. The “35th Anniversary Special Edition” will be released in September (coincidentally on exactly the same day I reviewed it in 2008). No news on what the extras will be (or if there will be extras), but I can already give you a look at the cover:

Django

Django may be incredibly popular in Italy, the UK, the US and Germany, but the rest of the world is often unaware of this spaghetti western hero. Quite a shame, so let’s talk about the film.

The main character’s name, Django, refers to Django Reinhardt, the famous jazz musician. Django wasn’t just known for being an exceptional musician, he also had a copule of fingers missing. Why director Sergio Corbucci chose this name for the main character of his movie will become painfully clear when you see the movie.
A sick joke, yes. But far from the only sick joke Corbucci has put in the movie.

Django was supposed to be shot on a spaghetti western set. Sadly, heavy rainfall had made the grounds considerably muddy, probably too muddy for a western to be shot there. Corbucci did not despair, he even liked what he saw and decided to make the set even soggier. This is just one of the details that draw you into the movie when you’re watching the opening scene.
While not many spaghetti westerns will start with the film’s hero dragging himself through the mud, Django has another extra: the hero is dragging something along with him, a coffin.
As human beings tend to be curious, you want to find out why someone’s carrying around a coffin and who or what is inside this coffin. The film’s main character is definitely not the guy that’ll tell us: Django is a mysterious character. It would be wrong to describe him as a hero, he’s more of an anti-hero, just like it’s hard to find a good character inside this film.

Franco Nero is excellent as Django, in fact so noteworthy lots of producers tried sticking the name Django to all their spaghetti westerns with Nero. Actually, Nero didn’t even have to be in the film… it was enough that the movie was a spaghetti western. With more than 20 movies using the name Django, it should be noted that there is only one official sequel, Django 2: Il Grande Ritorno, made 20 years later with Nero once again as Django. Sadly, the movie is not that good.
Much more noteworthy is Django Kill, a spaghetti western that was released just a couple of months after Django and which had its title changed from If You Live Shoot, much to the annoyance of director Questi. While being completely unrelated to Django (the main character is played by Tomas Milian), it is the one movie that comes closest to the unhealthy atmosphere of Django and is even way sicker (the scene where bandits pull golden bullets out of a wounded guy’s chest springs to mind).
Django itself has its fair share of whipping scenes and torture scenes, including a rather notorious one where one guy has his ear cut off and then has it put in his mouth.

You’ll notice the bad guys wear red masks. Great (it stands out so much you remember those scenes forever), but it wasn’t planned. A major production that was being shot at the same time as Django had hired the best-looking extras, so Corbucci could only get his hands on ugly extras and had them wear capes.
This is probably what makes Django such an interesting picture: if the extras are ugly, have them wear capes; if the grounds are muddy, make them muddier and insert a scene where the prostitutes are sitting by a stove in an attempt to get warmer, that’ll convince the viewer it’s late autumn or even winter.
Add to this the wonderful looks of Franco Nero, who looks good but isn’t as clean cut as many heroes in spaghetti westerns. You could actually believe Nero spent a couple of weeks in cold and dirty areas. In fact, once again movie magic helped establish that: the make-up crew gave Nero a few extra wrinkles, to make him look tougher.
All in all, that’s what makes this film so exceptional: its combination of luck/coincidence and a relentless creativity that manages to work all the misfortunes into the film as if it had always been planned like that.

One important name hasn’t been mentioned in this review: that of the assistant director, one Ruggero Deodato, who later became a director himself and got his name into movie history books as the director of Cannibal Holocaust.

Being quite brutal, the English censors did not take kindly to the film and had Django banned in the United Kingdom. The British audience only heard about the film’s reputation and were only introduced to Corbucci’s film when The Harder They Come was shown in British theatres, a reggae movie that included a few scenes from Django.
This is the sort of stuff that does wonders for your reputation.

Messiah of Evil

There’s a good occasion to review Messiah of Evil (a.k.a. Dead People) now: it became a public domain movie a couple of years ago, but now it’s become downloadable (legally!) at the Internet Archive.

The film’s plot is wacky enough: a young woman (Marianne Hill) goes to California to find out what has happened to her father, an eccentric artist. Once she arrives at the beach house, she finds out her father wasn’t the only peculiar guy around. What a strange town it appears to be!

The movie is decent and the scene in the movie theatre should be labelled as downright classic. Five years before Romero’s Dawn of the Dead this movie had an idea where zombies go when they’re roaming around. The supermall is fine, how about a ticket to the movies?
The theatre sequence builds up slowly (it lasts well over six minutes) but effectively: we (unlike the girl) know she’s the only human in the theatre and know trouble is brewing when the audience is filling up (ever so slowly) by dead people. While the character is awaiting the main attraction (Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye – surely a joke if you know the town is taken over by zombies) she and you are treated to some trailers. That’s always a sign of a love for cinema… genuine cult cinema likes to include clips from other movies, just remember how Django was incorporated into The Harder They Come (1972).
(If you can’t wait to watch this scene from Messiah of Evil, don’t despair: you can find it at the bottom of this article.)

The writer and director of Messiah of Evil is Willard Huyck. Huyck directed only four movies, with Messiah of Evil as his debut and Howard The Duck as his (erm) swan song. His penultimate directing job was Best Defense, a comedy with Dudley Moore and Eddie Murphy. All this makes you wonder: how can it go so bad for a director?

But, rather than wondering about that, let’s look at what Huyck was able to pen: that list includes Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and American Graffiti. American Graffiti was released in the same year as Messiah of Evil, by the way: 1973 must’ve been Huyck’s creative peak. Let us also not forget the influence of Huyck’s wife, Gloria Katz. Huyck and Katz tended to write together. Messiah of Evil is the only movie where she also helped him direct (albeit uncredited).

As 70s cult movies come, Messiah of Evil was released under a shower of alternative titles. Apparently the official title is Dead People, but I must confess I never saw a print of the movie under that title. The quite generic The Second Coming is another title and of course there’s Revenge of the Screaming Dead, which makes you assume you’ll be treated to a gore movie. Messiah of Evil sounds more occult and is therefore the best title for this movie. It may not be the scariest movie you’ll ever see, but it packs loads of atmosphere and definitely deserves more recognition.

Occasionally the movie plays like a bad trip, especially in the scene where our heroine, in the artist’s peculiar house, sticks a needle into her leg and has a rather nasty hallucination:

Messiah of Evil is available (as Dead People) over at the Internet Archive. You can download it as MPEG1, MPEG2 or MPEG4 here. You can also download it from the equally legal Public Domain Torrents (link). It’s also available on DVD. It’s on a double bill with the Belgian horror The Devil’s Nightmare, courtesy of TGG Direct (link) or, courtesy of Alpha Video, on a disc together with Sisters of Death (link). Both fine movies, but let’s not forget today’s star attraction: Messiah of Evil.

And here it is, the doomed trip to the movies…

A man is in love double bill (2)

Welcome back for part two of our Kurtodrome Vault double bill of men being madly in love with women (oh, and not for the good of mankind). This time we move to Japan for a movie called:

PART 2. THE HUMAN VAPOR (Gasu Ningen Daiichigo)

“At first I could not understand the terror in Dr Sano’s eyes. Then I knew: I had been transformed into something terrifying. Something repellant….”
Maybe not necessarily repellant, but the sight of someone’s body vaporizing till he becomes invisible… well, I’ve seen prettier things.

First the good news
The second feature of this double bill isThe Human Vapor and was directed by Ishirô Honda, the man who also gave you Gojira (a.k.a. Godzilla) and countless sequels with the rubber-suited monster.
Honda worked for Toho Studios who, apart from Godzilla and Samurai films, made four movies about humans who could change the state of their bodies. The Human Vapor, released in 1960, was the last of these four films.
So no monster in Gasu Ningen Daiichigo (to call The Human Vapor by its original title) but a librarian who agrees to be a test subject for a scientific study. Little did librarian Mizuno know the other test subjects had died during the test. He discovers he can vaporize his body and kills the professor (by asphyxiation).
Mizuno might want to turn his back to humanity, but he’s also madly in love with a beautiful dancer who’s been saving for her comeback performance. He decides to help her by robbing the bank. Maybe not such a bad idea, but it’s a crime my friendly neighbourhood officer tells me.
The police pursue his trail (he might be invisible, but his car isn’t) to the place where Vapor-Man abandons his car. Smart move, if it weren’t for the fact that there’s only one house nearby. That’s where She lives and when She suddenly appears to have enough money for her comeback and can’t/won’t reveal any information on her maecenas, she’s arrested.
This makes Mizuno so angry he becomes even madder than he was before (it seems like the test affected both his visibility and his sanity) and he wants revenge for the imprisonment of his beloved dancer. More banks are robbed and more people get killed.
That’s as far as I’ll go because, who knows, you might want to check this movie out and as the saying goes, there’s no crying over spilt spoilers. The movie is very decent and a remarkable ending.

Okay, and now the bad news.
The bad news is The Human Vapor isn’t just the American title of the film, it’s also the American version and sadly a lot went lost in translation.
First and foremost, Gasu Ningen Daiichigo was a mystery wheras in The Human Vapor the anti-hero tells his story in a long flashback. This would’ve been only half so horrible if the narration had been more interesting and if it hadn’t replaced the dialogue in quite a lot of scenes (which leaves us with the “I told him and then he said” effect). The jerking effect of the re-edited version is also not really a plus side. Even the soundtrack was changed. And if you can’t remember why the soundtrack seems so familiar: you must have seen The Fly (1958).

Crappy editing, dialogue and Americanised dubbing (Japanese characters are less credible with sentences like “Ah, go peddle your papers!”) aside, nothing can keep us from knowing this is a terrific movie. Even if it falls from 10/10 to 8/10, an eight is still better than most things you’re subjected to. The Human Vapor still has enormous amounts of tragedy and pathos, an anti-hero who can’t control his limitless powers and an enchanting but painful love story. What it lacks as a crime story, it wins as a character study. It’s fascinating to see how Mizuno evolves from a friendly lab rat into a psychotic megalomaniac.

Mizuno and Fujichiyo
We also wonder about the role of the dancer Fujichiyo.
Does she know where the money came from? Does she also love Mizuno? Her personality is quite different from the other female character in the film, the reporter Kyoko. Traditional versus modern.
Mizuno’s acts are beyond redemption, but still you feel some sort of sympathy for the Human Vapor and most of that comes from his unconditional love for Fujichiyo.
True, the special effects are minimal, but who needs special effects in a sci-fi movie when you’ve got a story?

I leave you with the trailer for the film. And the good news: it’s the Japanese trailer.

A man is in love double bill (1)

Time now to enter the Kurtodrome Vault again. This time we’ve taken two films out, both movies on men madly in love with women. They’d do anything for her. Because they are… in love.

PART 1. THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA (1925)

Introduction
The Phantom of the Opera is a classic and probably doesn’t need much introduction: even if you haven’t seen this version, you’ve probably seen another version, read the book by Gaston Leroux or just heard about it. The Phantom is so famous they even made an action doll of him, even though it’s good they were nice enough to tell us who the doll was supposed to represent. Note the stunning resemblance with Lon Chaney‘s character.
Perfect twins, no?

Given that the story is so known, I won’t bother about the usual synopsis. (If you don’t know the story however, you can read it from scene 1 till The End here.)

Which leaves me with a few anecdotes on the film.
Now widely regarded as an all-time classic, the film was almost never released. The filming was painful, the assigned director Rupert Julian was an unbearable dictator who even bullied Lon Chaney, without a doubt the star of this production.

Yes, if even after a pack of remakes (not to forget the Andrew Lloyd-Webber musical version) this version is seen as the best version, this is mostly because of Chaney’s fantastic performance. Chaney was an excellent actor, but still it’s this movie that he’s mostly remembered for. Like Lugosi will always be Dracula and Karloff always Frankenstein’s Monster (and, to a lesser extent, the Mummy), Chaney is most of all Erik, Phantom of the Opera.
Chaney liked the part (and the opportunity) so much he wanted to star in the film, even though he wasn’t too fond of Universal and producer Carl Laemmle.

The Laemle shuffle
Laemmle wasn’t happy with Julian’s work after seeing the preview and asked for additional shots (directed by comedy director Edward Sedgwick). The ending was altered – originally the mob found Erik lying dead on top of his organ -, Mary Philbin got more romantic scenes and intertitles were written for the new scenes.

In April 1925, three months after the first version was finished, this second version was previewed in San Francisco, where the audience’s reception was lukewarm at best and Laemmle demanded another version.
Most of the new scenes (except for the climax) were thrown out and in came scenes with comedian Chester Conklin and new intertitles. When shown to Laemmle, he luckily hated the comedy scenes. They were thrown out, but the rest of this new version was good enough and this is how the movie finally premiered on September 6, 1925. It became a tremendous success (which makes it all the weirder that Universal let the copyright lapse in 1953. The timeless classic became public domain and the studio lost a fortune in royalties.)

In 1929 Universal wanted to reissue the film, but decided talking sequences had to be added along with a new soundtrack and sound effects. Chaney was under contract at MGM by this time, so someone else dubbed him.
Thousands of feet of footage were cut out to get the new version, other scenes were compressed or combined with other scenes. Virginia Pearson, who played diva Carlotta in 1925, became Carlotta’s mother in 1929, thereby making her one of the fastest-aging women in the movie history.

Okay, so it’s a classic, but is it good?
Yes, it is (as I’ve mentioned before) even though Mary Philbin occasionally slips into overacting mode and Rupert Julian clearly isn’t a great director. One of the best scenes in the film wasn’t directed by him, but by Lon Chaney (while Julian was, alledgedly, venting his rage somewhere else). This scene, the Ball scene, was shot in colour. It’s not the only scene shot in colour, but the only one that made it to the final version.

Lon Chaney was also responsible for his own (fabulous) make-up. He never wanted to reveal how he did it, so we’ll just admire it.
The dramatic unmasking scene was so unusual for those days that distributors reported it had made people in the audience faint. (But that may just be promotional peptalk, one never knows.)

Judge for yourself. Here are six minutes of the film, all surrounding that mythical moment:

Please do not faint when Erik unmasks himself, that way we can meet again for the second part of our “Men Who’d Do Anything For The Woman They Love” double bill, where I’ll tell you more about The Human Vapor. Part two will go online in two days.

For now, why don’t you watch The Phantom of the Opera for yourself? Here are some links (all of them legal, of course):
1. Watch (or download) the 1925 version at the Archive: link
2. Watch (or download) the 1929 version at the Archive: link
3. Or if you prefer, you can also watch it on YouTube: link