3-D Thursday: The Flesh and Blood Show (1972)

The poster for The Flesh and Blood Show, a 1972 part 3-D slasher film directed by Paul Walker, promises "an appalling amalgam of carnage and carnality". If you're a gorehound and you read that sentence and got palpitations of excitement, please calm down. I can guarantee that you will find the movie a shattering disappointment. I'm no gorehound and I found it to be a shattering disappointment.

The Flesh and Blood Show is the old saw Agatha Christie used for And Then There Were None. A group of people are invited to remote location by an unknown person who starts picking them off. In this case it's a group of actors and the location is an abandoned seaside theatre. They're there to rehearse a Grand Guignol style review called The Flesh and Blood Show.  When one of the actresses is murdered, instead of leaving, the cast and director stick around to continue rehearsals and maybe find the killer. Unlike Christie's classic, the cast isn't stranded at the theater. They can leave anytime they want to. Well, no one ever accused characters in a slasher movie of being intelligent.

As much blood as you will see

Conventional stupidity of slasher movie characters to one side--including those that wander off all alone knowing full well that a killer is nearby--there's a larger problem with the movie. If you haven't seen it and, as I say, are a gorehound, you'd probably expect there to be a lot of gory murders. But there aren't. Point in fact, all of the killings are off-screen. The poster shows us a woman being decapitated and while there is such an incident, she's decapitated offscreen and when we she her head, it doesn't look any different from the other wax heads it's next to. There's maybe six murders in this and not a single one of them happens before our eyes or is even remotely bloody. The bloodiest the movie gets is at the beginning when a guy walks into the room of two of the actresses with a knife in his gut. However, that scene is a practical joke and a fake out. For a movie called The Flesh and Blood Show, you'd expect at least some blood and will likely be confused by the lack of same.

On the other hand, the film does deliver a fair amount of Flesh for that part of the title. Virtually every young actress in the film takes off their clothes at one point or another. One even opens her apartment door in the middle of the night stark naked because of course she does. So, if you like movies with lots of beautiful naked women, you'll like this. If you're hoping those naked women get killed off creatively a la Friday the 13th, you're not going to like this movie.

The Flesh and Blood Show was one of those Part-3-D movies released back in the 60s and 70s. The vast majority of the movie is in 2-D, with a ten minute segment towards the end in black and white 3-D. Why black and white, besides the fact that it was a flashback to the 1940s? Because the 3-D segment was originally in anaglyphic 3-D. Even Paul Walker knew that anaglyphic 3-D in color looks rotten, so he shot that segment in black and white. The only problem is, the segment is so dark that the 3-D is practically non-existent. Kino released the movie on 3-D Blu Ray with both the anaglyphic version and the 3-D TV version and they both look pretty poorly. There's maybe three well lit shots in the entire segment. To make matters worse, to watch this sucker in 3-D, you have to watch the 2-D parts up until the flashback begins, go to the menu, select the 3-D way you want to watch it, watch that segment, go back to the menu, and find the end of the film in the chapter selections! It's too much work for a film this poorly done with 3-D this bad.

This, by the way, was Walker's second 3-D film. He had earlier shot a soft-core sexploitation film called The 3-Dimensions of Greta, also using anaglyphic segments. Something Weird Video has that one on DVD, but after this film, I have no desire to seek that one out. It doesn't help that I've seen Something Weird's other anaglyphic 3D DVDs and they all stink.


One amusing piece of trivia for fans of General Hospital. Both this movie and Greta have a very young Tristan Rogers in them, ten years before he played Robert Scorpio. This explains how I came to watch this movie, too. Being one of the very early vintage 3D Blu Ray releases, I bought it just to support vintage 3D releases. I never had any interest in nor any intention to actually watch the dumb thing. However, a friend of mine came over one day and learning of this movie and Mr. Rogers being in it, begged to watch it. The moral of the story is that if you happen to buy this movie just to support 3D Blu Ray and you have a friend who watches General Hospital every day of his life, don't mention it to him or you, too, will be sadly subjected to this.

Cat Ballou (1965)

As far as Western spoofs go, Cat Ballou is neither as goofy as 1953's Red Garters nor is it as raunchy as 1974's Blazing Saddles. In fact, it's surprisingly middle of the road. Which is odd since it's the movie Lee Marvin won an Academy Award for.

In 1894, Catherine Ballou (Jane Fonda) is on the way back to her father's ranch in Wolf City, Wyoming. On the train she meets a drunken phony preacher named Jed (Dwayne Hickman) and his cattle rustler nephew Clay Boone (Michael Callan). She inadvertently aids them in escaping from the Sheriff, thus beginning her slide into becoming notorious outlaw Cat Ballou.

When she gets back to the ranch, she's shocked to find it falling apart. The Wolf City Development Corporation, led by Sir Harry Percival (Reginald Denny), wants the water rights to the ranch and are willing to do anything to obtain them.  Percival is planning to build a slaughterhouse, which will create jobs in town theoretically. The WCDC even goes so far as to hire killer Tim Strawn (Marvin with a silly metal nose and even sillier mustache) to terrorize Cat's father. Cat tries turning to the rustlers for help, but neither one of them are gunmen. Cat then tries to hire notorious gunman Kid Shelleen (Marvin again), only to find that he's a drunk who can't even hit a barn. When Strawn kills her father and the town won't do anything about it, Cat swears vengeance, robbing a train and ultimately killing Sir Harry.

That the movie has a good cast is not in doubt. Certainly Marvin is fun enough in the dual role. Oddly, though, this is neither his best western--that would be The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance--nor his best movie (The Dirty Dozen). He's somewhat amusing but never quite as funny as you think he should be.

That seems to be the problem with the movie in a nutshell. Fonda, in the days before people hated her for her politics, never looked lovelier and  is sincere as Cat, but only afforded a few really funny moments. Those moments are fairly early in the movie and mostly involve her interactions with the two rustlers. Callan and Hickman are probably the two funniest characters and even they aren't as good as they should be. They're best material is in the train at the beginning.

In fact, the movie only really shines when the Greek chorus of Nat King Cole and Stubby Kaye show up to sing about the movie's proceedings. This was Cole's last screen appearance. He was already dying of cancer and passed away a few months before the movie was released. But their lyrics are the most amusing material the movie has to offer.

Part of the real problem is the fact that the movie, unlike Red Garter and Blazing Saddles, never fully embraces the lunacy of the cliches it's spoofing. It almost takes them too matter of fact, missing the obvious joke. Sure, there are way worse Western spoofs out there, but sadly this could and should have been much more than it was, making it a missed opportunity.

Top Gun (1986)

Secret Confessions of a Movie Buff: I loved Top Gun when it came out in 1986, mostly due to having a mad crush on Kelly McGillis. 30 years later and it's still a guilty pleasure of mine.

Tom Cruise, in the role that made him a superstar, is Navy hotshot Pete "Maverick" Mitchell. He's one of the best pilots in the Navy, but he's reckless and has no respect for authority. Despite this, when the best on his carrier tosses in his wings, Maverick and RIO Goose (Anthony Edwards) get sent to the elite Naval Flight Academy, nicknamed Top Gun. There Maverick runs afoul of rival Iceman (Val Kilmer) and instructor Jester (Michael Ironside), romances civilian instructor Charlie (McGillis), and learns the truth about his father from chief instructor Viper (Tom Skerritt).

Let's be objectively honest here. Top Gun is a ridiculous piece of Reagan-era Cold War patriotic claptrap. It's really nothing more than pure pop eye candy. For that matter, it's eye candy for whatever your taste is: aerial dogfights, topless men playing volleyball, Kelly McGillis and Meg Ryan, rocking 80s soundtracks, even bad karaoke. It's the very definition of mindless summer blockbuster.

Which is exactly why it works.

Nobody, even in 1986, ever argued this was a good movie. It's not. But it is a fun movie, making it a good summer movie. It's the type of movie that lets you turn your brain off and just soak it all in. Okay, so the dialogue is hilariously awful. Every other line seems to have a homoerotic subtext to it, too, which is doubly hilarious since the movie bends over backwards to prove how macho it is.

Of course, besides the ridiculous dialogue, this is a movie that never met a cliche it didn't like. Sure, the specter of Maverick's dad hangs over things since the old man died in disgrace but was really a hero. Sure, the moment Goose's wife (Ryan) shows up, we know he's doomed and not fifteen minutes later, Goose is gone. Of course Maverick is going to doubt himself after Goose's death and almost drop out only to redeem himself when the Godless Commies attack at the end. Naturally, big rival Iceman and Maverick are going to become good friends at the end. Hell, even McGillis is a cliche: she shows up 20 minutes or so into the movie, walks out an hour later, and comes back right at the end just so the love story can have a Boy meets Girl/Boy loses Girl/Boy gets Girl in the end trajectory!

But ultimately it's the dogfights that make the movie. 30 years later and they're still mad impressive. This was before the age of CGI, so those are real planes (and some models) in the air doing the crazy acrobatics we see. These acrobatics did ultimately cost the life of stuntman of Art Scholl, leading the film to be dedicated to him. Ironically, the reason a sequel wasn't made back then was due to every bit of footage shot for the dogfights ending up on screen. When Paramount learned that, they didn't want to invest in the money to shoot more for the sequel, even though this was the biggest movie of the year.

Top Gun was so successful that for much of  the rest of the 80s, Tom Cruise would keep remaking it, trading out professions and leading ladies. Days of Thunder (racing/Nicole Kidman), Cocktail (bartender/Elisabeth Shue) and both beat for beat redos of Top Gun. Finally, Cruise decided to start actually acting and has since developed the best career out of the rest of the cast. Meg Ryan for a time became America's sweetheart. McGillis went on to do movie after movie where she took off her clothes but only had one more real good movie left in her, 1988's The Accused, which realistically was more Jodie Foster's comeback than anything. Kilmer had a decent career until he became too difficult in the mid-90s. Tom Skerritt and Anthony Edwards went on to have small screen success with Picket Fences and ER, respectively.

It's worth mentioning that Top Gun was converted to 3D and re-issued to theaters and Blu Ray as such in 2013. Director Tony Scott personally supervised the 3D conversion before committing suicide. In that sense, Top Gun was his first big film and, with the reissue, also his last.

Is Top Gun dated? Absolutely. Everything about it screams 1986: the attitude, the fashions, the soundtrack. Despite that, it's still a movie that's pure entertainment. If you're looking for an intelligent, thoughtful movie, forget it. If you're looking for a good time for a couple of hours, though, this is it.

Mystery Monday: Mr. Moto's Gamble (1938)

The third entry in the Mr. Moto series, Mr. Moto's Gamble may well be the first ever movie crossover. Before Frankenstein met The Wolfman, before King Kong vs. Godzilla, and certainly decades before the Marvel crossovers, Mr. Moto met Charlie Chan. Sort of.

Mr. Moto's Gamble began life as Charlie Chan at the Ringside with Warner Oland as Chan and Keye Luke as Number One Son, Lee Chan. After a week of filming, Oland walked off the set due to a variety of reasons. Fox finally decided to cut their losses and rewrite the film as the 3rd Moto. But they kept Lee Chan in the script and the movie makes reference to Charlie on several occasions, even going so far as to have Lee refer to him as "Pop" as he always did. This would be the last time Luke played Lee until the last two Roland Winters movies.

The film starts inexplicably with Moto teaching a criminology class at an unnamed university. Among his students are Number One Son and a kleptomaniac who wants to become a detective (boxer Maxie Rosenbloom). Moto and Chan go to a boxing match that night with Lt. Riggs (Harold Huber). The match turns deadly when one of the boxers is murdered with a poisoned boxing glove. Moto naturally investigates, uncovering a gambling syndicate along the way and even more murders. He also gets an occasional assist from Lee and does an awful lot of quotes that sound very Charlie Chan-ish.

There is some amusement in spotting the supporting cast. Pierre Watkins and John Hamilton, both of whom played Perry White in Superman--Watkins in the serial, Hamilton on TV--both are in this, even though they don't share any scenes. Douglas Fowley, best remembered for Singin' in the Rain and Cat Women of the Moon, is one of the gamblers. Frequent John Wayne costar Ward Bond is one of the boxers, the champion Biff Moran. Lon Chaney, Jr. also pops up in a small role.

As a Chan film, this would be tops. As a Moto film, however, it's merely okay. Part of the problem is the fact that the two characters are so different. Moto is a spy, fairly ruthless, and very action oriented. Chan is a sleuth, the type who walks into the room, asks a few questions, and says "You are murderer". Having Mr. Moto as a pure sleuth type is like having Chan played as a karate fighting woman. Oh, wait. They were gonna do that a few years back with Lucy Liu.

It's not that it's an appreciably bad movie. None of the Moto movies are bad. But this is definitely the odd man out of the series, a slowish procedural that follows two great spy thrillers. Even the inclusion of a sort of fight late in the film doesn't entirely help. The film's saving grace is as a curiosity piece for the scenes between Moto and Lee.  It's mostly worth watching, but not really representative of the rest of the films. Fortunately, the next film would be a return to form for the series.

Deadpool (2016)

Deadpool is not your grandfather's comic book movie. For that matter, it's not your father's comic book movie. In fact, I'm not entirely sure who's comic book movie this is. It's raunchy, gorey, hyper-violent, foul-mouthed,outrageous, hilarious and quite possibly the most fun comic book movie since the 1966 Batman! It is quite possibly the most R-Rated movie I've watched since Pulp Fiction. In short, I loved every bawdy, over the top moment of it. I will warn, the rest of this review may not exactly be Safe For Work.

You know you're in for something different when the opening credits read "some douchebag's film", "produced by asshats", and "directed by an overpaid tool". The movie concerns Wade Wilson (Ryan Reynolds, "God's Perfect Idiot"), an ex-Special Forces operative turned mercenary. He meets and falls for a hooker named Vanessa (Morena Baccarin, "a hot chick"). When he finds out he's dying of cancer, Ajax (Ed Skrein, "a British Villain") offers him a chance to be part of an experiment that will cure his cancer. The experiment, in a vile and disgusting secret base, ends up giving him regenerative powers but makes him look like "an avocado had sex with an older, disgusting avocado". Wilson takes on the moniker of Deadpool and goes out for bloody revenge. Along the way Colossus (Stefan Kapicic, "A CGI Character") tries to make him give up his murderous ways and join the X-Men, something Deadpool consistently flips off.

Ryan Reynolds played Wilson for the first time in 2009's X-Men Origins: Wolverine. That movie is mostly okay, but the character of Deadpool was completely wasted. Especially since they decided to sew his mouth shut, eliminating one of the character's biggest traits, his non-stop wisecracking. Reynolds loved the character enough to keep pushing to get his own movie. Reynolds is hysterically funny in this, cracking wise, drawing childish pictures of the villain, and generally breaking the fourth wall again and again. Actually, this movie doesn't so much as break the fourth wall as it burns it down, scatters the ashes all over the place and farts in it's general direction for good measure. There is literally a fourth wall break inside a fourth wall break in this movie, something not even Groucho Marx ever did.

The rest of the cast somehow manages to keep up Reynolds. I'm not sure how they do it, but they do it. While Baccarin is ultimately reduced to Damsel in Distress, her early scenes with Reynolds are touching and funny, as is the scene where she unmasks him at the end. Skrein's Ajax, real name Francis (a fact Deadpool loves reminding him of) is appropriately nasty. His henchwoman Angel Dust (Gina Carano) as is gorgeous as she is deadly. She gives Colossus a good run for his money in the fight department at the end. Brianna Hildebrand as Negasonic Teenage Warhead is the one character, however, most equipped to meet Deadpool on equal terms. Their back and forth is an absolute highlight of the film.

I would say that this tops the earlier Wolverine movie, but there's really no comparison. They're two movies on completely different levels of filmmaking, which is weird since they sort of inhabit the same shared universe. Deadpool is clearly supposed to be part of Fox's X-Men Universe. Besides Colossus, there are several scene at Professor Xavier's School. Mercifully, you don't need to have seen any of the other movies to enjoy this one nor do you need to see this one to enjoy the other movies. It stands on its own gloriously and wonderfully. And at under 2 hours, it isn't as bloated as other superhero movies so it doesn't overstay it's welcome.

Good thing, too. Although if you did need to see X-Men to enjoy this or vice versa, there would be a lot of disappointed children since there is no way any child should see this. There were reports of parents taking their children to see this and being outraged by the content. To them I say: "Hi. There's this little thing known as the internet. Maybe you heard of it? Lets you check out the content of movies before seeing them? Yeah, maybe you should look into that in the future." For the rest of us, however, this is one wild trip.

Serial Saturday: The Lost City (1935)

 I'm all for watching movies in the context of their times. I can watch something like the 1943 Batman serial and not lose my head when the narrator refers to "shifty-eyed Japs" since I'm aware that the serial was made a year or so after Pearl Harbor and we were at war with the Japanese. I'm perfectly willing to take the Looney Tunes cartoons at face value and am no more offended by Speedy Gonzales than I am Pepe Le Pew.Watching Peter Lorre or Warner Oland play Mr. Moto or Charlie Chan doesn't fill me with malignant hatred. After all, movies are not made in a vacuum. They are reflections of current events, trends, attitudes, and thoughts. But every so often, there comes along a movie so outrageous that even I can't reconcile it to anything other than pure out and out racial hatred. The Lost City, a 1935 serial from Sherman Krellberg, is one such unfortunate piece of celluloid history.

The Lost City opens with the coming apocalypse by bad weather. More specifically, stock footage of really bad storms ravaging the world opens the serial. Electrical Engineer Bruce Gordon (Kane Richmond) discovers that the source of the storms is in Darkest Africa, so he gathers four greedy scientist friends and one of the more annoying sidekicks in movie history (Eddie Fetherstone) and off they go. They eventually find The Lost City. Yes, that's the name of it. Not The Lost City of...just The Lost City. Even the denizens there call it that. The Lost City is ruled by power mad Zolok (William "Stage" Boyd), who wants to rule the world. Or destroy the world. Or do something. We're actually not quite sure what. Zolok is holding scientist Dr. Manyus and his daughter hostage. Manyus (Josef Swickard) looks to be about 108, so naturally daughter Natcha (Claudia Dell) is 20-something. Because of course she is. Creepy old scientists in serials always had 20-something daughters.

Manyus has a machine that turns short black men who scream like little girls into giant muscle bound black men who hoot and grunt. I'm sorry to say that I'm not making that up. These black giants will figure into Zolok's plan for the world, whenever he figures out exactly what that is. Manyus, for his part, protests this evil doing since his machine is meant for the good of mankind. How a machine that turns short black men that scream like little girls into giant black man who grunt is for the good of mankind, I don't know. You will find there are many things in this serial I can't explain.

The heroes escape with Manyus and his daughter around chapter 3. The serial then goes into an absolute exercise in pointlessness. The greedy friends who you thought might figure into something are all dead by chapter four, having done absolutely nothing to advance the story in the slightest. Our heroes wander aimlessly around the jungle (which looks more like the park around the corner from me than an actual jungle, but whatever). They meet various people who want to use Manyus' machine for their own purposes: an arab named Ben Ali (who doesn't even have the short black guys to start with) and an alarmingly flat chested Queen Rama who wears an outfit obviously designed for someone with a sexier build. Point in fact, all the men in the serial have larger chests than the women and all the women wear outfits designed for people with better builds.

For you prudish people who think the above comment was out of line, trust me. By the time you get to Queen Rama in this thing, you too will be thinking these thoughts.

Zolok sends particularly incompetent henchman Appolyn (Jerry Frank) after our heroes. Also chasing them are weird little Gorzo (Billy Bletcher) and huge, indestructible grunting black henchman Hugo (Sam Baker).

It all comes to a bizarre end where our heroes are recaptured, returned to the Lost City, escape again, and Zolok stumbles around drunkenly for ten minutes before blowing himself up.

A little over ten years ago, The Lost City was the center of an internet controversy. A so-called magazine writer, wanting to cash in on the upcoming movie version of The Producers, wanted to do an article linking producer Sherman Krellberg and the fictional Max Bialystock. This writer posted his proposed idea on a movie serial message board, which led to a huge fight with the owner of said board. Said owner not only ranted about the evils of The Lost City, he basically declared any conversation about the serial verboten unless it was in agreement with his stance. Following that, a number of serial fans, probably just to be contrary, decided that The Lost City not only wasn't racist, it was a great serial! Now, while this particular board owner is wrong about a great many things, even I have to say he wasn't 100% wrong about The Lost City.

For one thing, it is racist. Outrageously racist. You may be tempted to dismiss it as a product of it's time and say that the natives aren't any different than what you would find in your standard Tarzan movie of the time. But that's a fallacy. If there's one scene in the entire 12 chapters that hammers home the racial attitude of the serial, it comes up in chapter 8. Our heroes come across a tribe of Spider People. One of the Spider People approaches Manyus to "cure him of his blackness". God help me, Manyus has a serum that is able to turn black people into white people. After Manyus does this--I mean actually turning a black person into a white person--he is heartily congratulated by the hero! It is a scene that when it was over I actually said out loud "I did not just see that". Oh, but I had!

Even if you squeeze your eyes shut, cover your ears, and go "La la la--I don't see no racism here!", the serial is still awful. The above mentioned scene goes on for what feels like forever. The pacing in the entire serial is awful. The pacing can best be described as lethargy meets apathy with a cure for insomnia tossed in. Nothing--and I mean nothing--of consequence happens in this serial. You can literally remove chapters 3-11 and not miss a beat. Then again, you can also remove chapters 1, 2, and 12 at the same time and not miss a beat. One chapter starts with the entire last half of the previous chapter! Then there's the dialogue. Somebody actually got paid to write "That sounds like a white woman's scream!"

Come to it, the only thing worse than the dialogue and pace is the acting. Kane Richmond is usually pretty good in these things, but even he looks like he bored with the whole affair. Everyone else is that much worse. The scene where Kane proposes to the heroine at the end? Her immortal response is "Why--umm--yes, Bruce".

Some of you may have gotten the crazy idea that this might be fun to watch after all--a so bad it's good affair. No, just no. If you try, you'll wonder why you spent four hours of your life watching this instead of doing something more fun like doing laundry or clipping your toenails. It's a rotten, hateful serial that's just plain bad all around. It isn't fun, it isn't funny, it isn't even remotely entertaining. Is it the absolute worst serial ever? Maybe not. There are a couple that are more boring and lacking the "what the hell was that?" moments that this one does on occassion manage. Problem is, it isn't worth suffering the whole thing for those few moments.

Favorite Fridays: The Jungle Book (1967)

True confessions of a movie nerd: The Jungle Book is my favorite Disney film. Period. The only one that comes close to it is Beauty and the Beast (1991) and, as much as I dig that one, it takes second place. I grew up on The Jungle Book, seeing it in theaters when Disney still re-issued their classics. I had a book and record set of it, which was the story and the soundtrack. It's the only Disney outside of Beauty and the Beast that I've owned on VHS, DVD, and Blu Ray. So yeah, I still dig it.

The Jungle Book, of course, is the story of Mowgli, a young boy found by Bagheera the panther and raised by wolves. When Mowgli turns 10 it is learned that Shere Khan the tiger has returned and is seeking to kill Mowgli before he can grow up. Bagheera is tasked with taking the young boy to a Man Village despite the youngster's desire to stay in the jungle. Along the way, Mowgli encounters lovable goof Baloo the bear, is brought before King Louie, and finally comes face to face with his nemesis.

The Jungle Book is the first real all-star Disney movie. Sebastian Cabot, arguably best remembered for the TV show Family Affair, voices Bagheera. Comedian Phil Harris, who was in the John Wayne airplane disaster thriller The High and The Mighty as well as the 1956 Bing Crosby musical Anything Goes, plays Baloo. The voice of Winnie the Pooh, Sterling Holloway, does the Python who has coil trouble, Kaa. Character actor George Sanders is the villainous Shere Kahn. Sanders had done everything from The Saint to Hitchcock. With his inimitably smooth voice, he's the arguably the best Disney villain ever. J. Pat O'Malley, who appeared on basically ever TV show back in the day and did quite a few other Disney movies, is Colonel Hathi, the pompous elephant leading a weary pack on an eternal march through the jungle.

Then there's Louis Prima. Prima may be the best recognized member of the cast today. His version of Just A Gigolo/I Ain't Got Nobody--he was the first singer to combine the songs--is a classic. Here he plays King Louie and gets the showstopper song, I Wanna Be Like You. It's the most memorable scene in the entire movie. Oh, sure, The Bare Necessities was nominated for an Oscar, but frankly I always preferred Louie's song.

Interestingly, it is director Wolfgang Reitherman's son Bruce who does the voice of Mowgli. He got the part after the original actor's voice broke during the 3 year filming period.

Part of what makes this work is the fact that the actors aren't just doing voices as the characters. All of the characters in the film take on traits of those actors. Shere Khan is pretty much what you would get from George Sanders as a villain, only animated. And Louis Prima's habit of marching around with his band during a performance is full blown used by King Louie in this.  On top of that, all the characters resemble their voice actors if you pay close enough attention. Interestingly, the original idea was to have The Beatles do the vultures at the end of the film. That's why the vultures resemble the Fab Four. However, legend has it that John Lennon vetoed the idea.

It is well established that The Jungle Book was the last animated film Walt Disney was personally involved in. As such, it is his crowning achievement. 30 years after his (and the world's) first full length animated movie, Disney capped his career off with a breezy, entertaining 80 minutes that might have deviated wildly from Kipling's novel, but did so with style. 

3-D Thursday: Gog (1954)

To appreciate a film restoration, it helps to have seen what the movie looked like pre-restoration. Most restorations have a demo showing the movie in poor condition and then showing it looking nice and shiny and almost new. I have always had a hard time connecting with these demos, however, since I have no recollection of seeing the movies in question looking so bad. The Looney Tunes cartoons, for instance, I only ever saw look horrible in bad PD releases. In that sense, if the restoration demo was of Daffy the Commando and not one of the duck season/rabbit season cartoons, I'd have been impressed since I had only seen Daffy the Commando look like garbage.

I mention all of this because one movie I have seen in lesser form that has been restored is 1954's Gog. For decades, the 3-D version of Gog was considered lost to the ages. As Bob Furmanek of the 3-D Film Archive tells it, the color version was gone, too. It would play in 2-D, black and white, and full frame. A color 2-D version surfaced in the 1980s.When the 3D version finally surfaced in 2003, the left eye print was red as a beet while the right eye had color, though not too vibrant. That's the way I saw it in 3D in 2006 at The World 3-D Film Expo II and while not ideal, it was better than not getting to see it in 3D at all.

So imagine my reaction to the new Kino 3D Blu Ray of Gog. I have just three letters to describe this: O.M.G.

You know how great the Warner 3D Blu Rays of House of Wax and Kiss Me Kate look? Yeah, this looks that good. Not only has the color been restored to the red left eye but the color in general is more vibrant. Anyone who has scene this either in it's poorer 3D version or even the TV version that's shown up can tell you that the color was okay but not particularly vibrant. But if you want a good example of improvement, watch the scene where Richard Egan and Herbert Marshall first meet. The chair Egan sits in is practically Technicolor red!

The restoration, of course, is courtesy of the 3-D Film Archive. And for those of you who are gonna groan "here he goes talking about those guys again!", yeah! I am! I thought the 3-D Rarities disc was their crowning achievement. But this---THIS---is nothing short of a miracle. Watching Gog here was like watching it for the first time ever. This is undoubtedly what the movie looked like upon original release. Maybe even better.

Gog is the third--and by all accounts best--of the Ivan Tors Office of Scientific Investigation trilogy. It starts when two scientists--serial fans will recognize them as Aline Towne and Micheal Fox--are murdered in a freeze chamber in an underground base dedicated to the space race. O.S.I investigator David Sheppard (Richard Egan) is called in to investigate by base leader Dr. Van Ness (Herbert Marshall), Van Ness suspects that there's a saboteur on base but can't find him. Sheppard is assisted by Joanna Merritt (Constance Dowling), another OSI agent undercover on the base already. The suspects are many: the slightly perverted Dr. Elzevir (Philip Van Zandt) and his jealous wife (Valerie Vernon; arrogant scientist Dr. Zeitman (John Wengraf), who theoretically controls super computer NOVAC and deadly robots Gog and Magog; Dr. Burden (David Alpert), who is in charge of the computer pile; and Dr. Engle (William Schallert), Dr. Zeitman's assistant all top the list. The real enemies turn out to be the Godless Commies, who built a powerful radio transmitter and receiver into NOVAC during construction and are now using it and the robots to kill various scientists on base, with the ultimate goal of setting off a nuclear reaction that will destroy it.

Gog is an interesting piece of Cold War paranoia, a peek back at a time when the Red Under the Bed was a threat both real and imagined. Zeitman, for instance, so obviously seems to be the saboteur because he's an arrogant foreigner. The movie knows we'll think this and plays it to the hilt.

Surprisingly, the movie's science isn't as dodgy about space travel as many of it's ilk. Indeed, some of what goes on in the movie is even in use today. For instance, there's a sense involving a centrifuge. Okay, so there's a little goofiness--one character suffers from radiation poison, then is later told she's going to be just fine--but overall this is a pretty smart movie with more science fact than fiction.

Gog was the last movie shot with the Natural Vision 3-Dimension camera system by Lothrop Worth.This was the system used on House of Wax. Like that earlier film, the 3-D is spectacular. There's a great sense of depth throughout despite the limits of the sets. There's also some occassionally fun pop-out effects as there always seemed to be in these things.

According to Greg Kintz of the 3-D Film Archive, every single shot needed no less than 7 levels of correction. As I said, the left eye was red and the right eye was faded and damaged. But you wouldn't know it to see the final Blu Ray. It looks every bit as spectacular as other 50s sci-fi films released to Blu Ray like Forbidden Planet. If you want a good idea of what the film looked like before and after, there's a dandy restoration demo on the Blu. There's an even better demo on http://www.3dfilmarchive.com/gog.

If you're a fan of 50s sci-fi, this is a must buy. Even if you've seen it before and casually dismissed it, you should check it out. As any movie buff will tell you, a large part of enjoyment comes from presentation. And the presentation here is nothing shy of spectacular. Gog may be the 3D Film Archive's finest hour yet.

IMAGES COURTESY OF THE 3-D FILM ARCHIVE

The Shootist (1976)

By the late 1960s, the Western as a popular movie genre was on it's way out and the ones that did get made started to reflect that thinking. Movies like The Wild Bunch and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid dealt with characters who no longer fit into the world, who had to watch the slow but inevitable passing of the Old West. It is perhaps fitting that the most poignant of these movies just happened to be the last movie of what may well be the most legendary Western star of all.

1976's The Shootist opens with a montage of scenes from earlier John Wayne westerns, including Hondo and Rio Bravo. The theoretical purpose of the montage is to tell us the lethal legacy of Wayne's character, J.B. Books. But the montage also serves as a reminder of how dominant an actor Wayne was in the genre.

Books arrives in Carson City on January 22, 1901. He hasn't been feeling like himself so he goes to a doctor (James Stewart) he trusts. He finds out he has Cancer and maybe two months to live. He wants to die in peace, so he rents a room from a widow (Lauren Bacall) and her son (Ron Howard). As people find out not only who he is but that he's dying, the glory seekers and vultures come out. Eventually he decides he'd rather go out in a blaze of glory than screaming in agony.

The Shootist is packed with guest appearances from various friends and costars of Wayne's. Besides Bacall and Stewart, Richard Boone, John Carradine, Harry Morgan, Hugh O'Brian, Scatman Crothers, Melody Thomas Scott, and even Johnathan Goldsmith--the Most Interesting Man in the World himself--all appear. It's a hell of a cast, the type you don't see much anymore. I don't know how many, if any, realized they were going to be in the last movie John Wayne starred in, but they all play up to the part.

Clint Eastwood's Gran Torino seems to have borrowed quite a few things from this. In both films, the protagonist develops a fatherly relationship with a young boy who tries stealing from him. Both films have a man of violence who learns he is dying of cancer. Both heroes decide to go out with a bang instead of a whimper.

But while the film should be a completely sober and depressing piece, Wayne elevates it above the morbid. He's still John Wayne after all. The scene where he turns the tables on greedy Undertaker Carradine and makes him pay for the privilege of burying Wayne is hilarious. But it's his verbal sparring with Bacall that really makes the movie. She loathes him at first, then pities him, then wants and needs to save him. She can't, of course. But watching two old pros like these play off one another is justification enough for the movie. And it's all done without really becoming a love story.

Some may complain that Wayne never really acted, he just played John Wayne over and over. But that can be said of a lot of actors then and now. After all, didn't we like Jimmy Stewart for essentially being Jimmy Stewart over and over? Wayne was a personality performer and like all personality performers, we watched him be him and loved it. He was a forerunner to later action heroes like Sylvester Stallone, only he managed to make some better movies. The Shootist is the last chance we get to see what made him such a great personality and by extension, such a great actor.

Contrary to popular belief, Wayne wasn't dying when he made The Shootist. He had been in remission since 1969. None the less, this does seem to be his way of facing his own mortality. Three years later he would be gone having made no more movies. In that sense, this is his goodbye and it's a beautiful and emotional one.

Gran Torino (2009)

When we first meet Walt Kowalski in Gran Torino, we meet a man who really hates the world. He has nothing but contempt for everyone and everything: his kids, his grandchildren, the priest officiating over his wife's funeral, and anyone who is not the same race, color, or nationality as him. He refers to various characters as gooks, spooks, dagos, Chinks, and micks. He sits on his porch all day drinking Pabst Blue Ribbon and looking at his most prized possession, a 1972 Ford Gran Torino. So naturally when Thao, the Hmong teenager next door, is pressured by a gang to try to steal said Gran Torino, it sets off a chain reaction of events that will change the entire neighborhood.

He chases off the gang--hilariously growling "get off my lawn" in typical grumpy old man fashion though aiming a rifle at them--when they come back to beat Thao up. He also saves Thao's sister from three would be rapists. These actions make him a hero to the neighborhood and--whether he wants it or not--friends with his neighbors. He eventually warms up to them, even while calling them gooks. When the gang not only won't go away but crosses the line, Kowalski knows what he has to do to stop them.

In a lesser actor's hands, Kowalski would be just a bad caricature. Fortunately, Clint Eastwood is playing Kowalski, not as a caricature but as a natural extension of the sort of characters he used to play. Kowalski is Dirty Harry after retirement, still angry and willing to kick ass no matter how politically incorrect that may be. It's as classic an Eastwood performance as they come, sometimes humorous, sometimes sad, always awesome. It's a fascinating performance as he allows Walt to change and grow without seeming to. On the one hand, he spouts racial slurs right up to the end. On the other, he develops a closer relationship to Thao and Sue than to his own family. He becomes a father figure to Thao, trying to help him stay out of the gangs and become someone. And when things go very horribly wrong for the family at the end, he becomes determined to not let Thao ruin his own life.

This is a movie of race and redemption. It is not an action film but a meditation on letting go of prejudice. In Kowalski's case, this doesn't just involve the family but the ever persistent priest who tries his best to reach Walt and get him into confession. It's message, though never preachy, runs through, staring you down the entire time. I suppose that's something that would make some uncomfortable, but uncomfortable truths can sometimes lead to better tomorrows.  It is actually quite amazing--to say nothing of disappointing--that the film received no Academy Award nominations. One of the true mistakes by the Academy.

Ultimately Gran Torino is not dissimilar to John Wayne's last movie, The Shootist. Both movies are about men of violence nearing the end of their lives who find much needed redemption. Gran Torino plays a little less somberly but no less powerfully. It is a chance to see a master actor and director once again prove what made him a legend. It was supposed to be the last movie Eastwood acted in. He did go on to do one more, but this still serves as a fond farewell to a type of character he had done so well over the years.

Mystery Monday: Thank You, Mr. Moto (1937)

After the success of Think Fast Mr. Moto, 20th Century Fox wasted no time bringing Peter Lorre back as the deadly international spy. Released five months after the first film, Thank You, Mr. Moto concerns the search for seven scrolls that will lead to the Tomb of Genghis Kahn. And it's as much a corker of a thriller as it's predecessor.

Moto is in possession of one of the scrolls. After disposing of a would be assassin in the Gobi Desert and eluding the police in Peiping, Moto is invited to a garden party given by Colonel Tchernov. The party is supposed to be in honor of American Eleanor Joyce (Jayne Regan) but is really just a ploy to try to get six of the scrolls from Prince Chung (Philip Ahn). Moto kills Tchernov after he draws a gun on Chung for not selling. Eleanor, however, walks in as Moto makes it look like suicide. This causes her to be suspicious of Moto. Her suspicions grow when Moto is involved in a drive by shooting. But when the real villains go too far, they end up facing the wrath of Moto.

One of the joys of these movies is watching Lorre as Moto. We might know which side he's on, but the way he plays the character, it is completely believable that others may not be too sure of him. He's terrific in these, playing Moto in an almost shade of grey. Certainly, he's unique among the detectives in the movies at that time. Only The Saint seemed to straddle the fence and not quite as much as Moto. It's easy to see why Lorre went on to become such an icon.

Besides Lorre, Thomas Beck and Sig Ruman make their second appearances in a Moto film. Beck is again playing the lovestruck American who falls for the heroine while Ruman is the ill-fated Colonel Tchernov. Character actor John Carradine is a dealer in antiquities trying to sell a counterfeit scroll, first to Eleanor then Moto. But Philip Ahn as Prince Chung is the most notable of the supporting cast. Ahn in appeared in a number of serials in the 30s and 40s before later having quite a TV career. Some may remember him best as Master Kan on Kung Fu. As Chung, he is the most sympathetic character in the movie and his fate is actually heartbreaking.

Once again, Norman Foster keeps the proceedings movie. The Moto movies are probably the best paced B series ever and Foster's direction seems to play a good part in it. No silliness, no songs, just pure intrigue and mystery. It's a shame that all programmers weren't as good.

The next stop for the character was a film intended for one of his rivals. It will be most interesting to see how that one turns out.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015)

Let's start with the answer to the question on everyone's mind: yes, Star Wars The Force Awakens is a good movie. It is, in fact, the movie you've been looking for. As someone who didn't especially hate the Prequel Trilogy, I do have to admit that this one spanks those three and puts them in a corner shame facedly.

It's 30 years after Return of the Jedi. The Galactic Empire has given way to the equally evil First Order and the Rebel Alliance has become the Resistance. Worse yet, Luke Skywalker has disappeared and everyone wants to find him. The bad guys so that the last of the Jedi can be destroyed and the good guys so they can get his help.

Enter into this  X-Wing pilot Poe Dameron (Oscar Issacs). He gets a map to Luke's location and hides it with his droid before being captured. Ex-Stormtrooper Finn (John Boyega) helps him escape and the droid itself is found by beautiful scavenger Rey (Daisy Ridley). Rey and Finn team up with a couple of familiar faces to get the droid back to the Resistance, fighting back the First Order and Big Bad Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) every step of the way.

That's all I'm saying about the plot. To say more would ruin the fun and surprises of the movie and that would be criminal.

The three new leads are all appealing, especially Ridley and Boyega. They get the bulk of the movie's screen time and deservedly so since this is really their journey as heroes. They are this generation's Han and Leia. She's scrappy and resourceful, he's the reluctant hero who manages to come through in a pinch. They're terrific and welcome additions to the mythology.

Speaking of which, yes, the original trio of heroes are here. Harrison Ford slips back into the role of Han Solo in a way that suggests he never left it. Certainly he does better here than in his last Indiana Jones film. Carrie Fisher acquits herself nicely as an older and battle weary General Leia Organa.Other favorites such as Peter Mayhew's Chewbacca and Anthony Daniels' C-3PO likewise show up. They're always welcome to see and they blend seamlessly with the new cast. Ford, in particular, has great chemistry with the newcomers.

This thing zips along, nicely balancing character, humor, and action. One of the things the movie does right is not overstuffing the action at the expense of character development. We get to know everyone in the movie, which better helps us to invest in them and care what happens. The action is as spectacular as ever, but it's not overdone. Some movies have so much action that your eyes tend to glaze over after a while and you wait for something meaningful to happen. This one finds the right balance. As for the humor, it's a merciful return to the wit and dialogue of the originals and not the toilet humor of the Prequels. 

The movie is filled with nods and throwbacks to the Original Trilogy. Some may argue that the film is essentially a beat for beat remake of Star Wars or a Star Wars Greatest Hits collection, but despite that it works in a way the Prequel Trilogy couldn't.  Just like Jurassic World, this movie understands what we want out of Star Wars and gives it to us on a grand scale. It actually feels like Star Wars. The biggest knock on the Prequel Trilogy is that it doesn't seem to be part of the same series as Original Trilogy. This does.  Best of all, it does the one thing that a Star Wars movie should do: it makes us want to see the next film in the series. 

The only bad thing about all this is that Disney didn't see fit to release the 3D version on Blu Ray yet. The 3D version has one of the most crackerjack gimmick shots of all time--a Star Destroyer poking out into the audience. That shot alone makes it worth seeing in the 3rd Dimension. It is possible that Disney will still release a 3D Blu Ray--they claim they will--but for now fans will have to deal with just plain old 2D.

That said,  if you have not already, see this movie you must. Like it, you will.

Serial Saturday: Captain America (1944)

For those of you who aren't yet sick of reading about Captain America, here's one more review for you. If you are sick of reading about Captain America, that's okay, too. This is the last one of his movies I'll be reviewing for quite a while. It also happens to be his first screen appearance.

"That's what you get for saying I'm not Captain America!"

If you are intimately familiar with the Marvel Cinematic Universe Captain America movies and manage to seek out this 15 chapter Republic serial, you may be a little confused watching it. In this version, Captain America is two-fisted District Attorney Grant Gardner, out to stop the evil machinations of The Scarab, who has no connection to Adolf Hitler but is a scientist out for revenge against the members of an expedition that cheated him out of millions. Gardner's assisted by his secretary Gail Richards. He also has no shield or super powers but he does have a gun. He also doesn't really look like Captain America. He has a sweater with a star on it that he wears under his suit (either the city is really cold or he sweats something fierce) and a hood with an A on it. He also wears sensible shoes instead of boots. In short, there's no Army, no Bucky, no Super Soldier formula, and no Nazis.

You may have read the above and thought "wait! What?". I get that. There seems to be two theories as to why the serial is that way. One is that it was planned for a different character, quite possibly Fawcett's Mr. Scarlet. When that comic was cancelled, Republic just rewrote the serial and substituted Captain America. The proof of this some say is a chapter called The Scarlet Clue which has nothing Scarlet in it.

The other, just as likely theory, is that Republic read the sample pages provided to them by Timely Comics (Marvel before they were called Marvel) and decided to do their own thing anyway. There's plenty of precedent for this as just about all of Republic's adaptations pretty well ignored the source material, going right back to Dick Tracy in 1937. The four Dick Tracy serials may be good but they have as much to do with Dick Tracy as I do.

Just another Tuesday in this serial

That said, the question remains of whether or not this is any good. It is, all things considered. Dick Purcell plays the title character and while he's no Buster Crabbe, he's no Myron Healey either. He's acceptable if unexceptional, a decent middle of the road serial hero who fares slightly better than most of the stiffs Republic hired after. As his gal Friday Richards, Lorna Gray is an admitted step up from the ten year old Bucky of the comics. At the least, she's easier on the eyes even if she doesn't get to do much beyond getting captured and tied up.

Sidebar: why did so many superheroes in that era have 10 year old sidekicks? In particular Cap, taking a child into an active war zone seems wildly reckless. I get that it was a different time and the publishers wanted to appeal to children, in particular in the wake of the popularity of Robin the Boy Wonder but still...

Back to the serial.

No snide comment: just a great villain

On the malcontent side, we have screen veteran Lionel Atwill as Dr. Maldor aka The Scarab. Atwill terrorized Fay Wray onscreen and played opposite Erol Flynn in the 1930s but found himself relegated to serials and B movies towards the end of his career. But like fellow villain Bela Lugosi, Atwill was professional enough to give it his best and is just menacing enough to be fun. Serial regulars George J. Lewis and Jon Davidson are his henchmen. They were always worth watching in these things and this is no exception.

A few other character actors pop up during the course of the serial. Serial regulars like Kenne Duncan, Tom London, LeRoy Mason, and Stanley Price do their customary one chapter and done appearances. John Hamilton, Perry White on the George Reeves Superman TV show, is one of Maldor's victims. Also on Maldor's hit list was Hugh Sothern from the serial The Fighting Devil Dogs. But the best supporting part belongs to Edward Van Sloan, best remembered today as Van Helsing in the 1931 Dracula. Here he's a scientist demonstrating a thermodynamic vibration machine or the Dynamic Vibrator for short. This leads to what may be the greatest line in serial history when Gail says "Mr. Merit and Mr. Norton are here to witness your demonstration of the vibrator."

For you prudish people thinking "it's a shame he felt the need to write that", let this be a lesson to you. This is what happens when you apply present-mindedness to 1940s serials. On the other hand, some of you are gonna howl when you think about that line.

"Dr. Scarab I presume?"

In fairness, the Dynamic Vibrator wasn't the only machine in the serial. The serial also gives us such devices as an Electronic Firebolt, a gas that can make someone look like a 3,000 year old mummy, and a device that can--and is--used to raise a dead man. That the dead man turns out to be the head henchman is unfortunate for the heroes, but not for us.

Captain America was Republic's most expensive serial. It came out the same year as Haunted Harbor, Zorro's Black Whip, and The Tiger Woman. As such, it was one of the last of the all original cliffhangers serials. That alone, as well as being technically the first Marvel adaptation. It's also the only Captain America worth watching until the recent trilogy with Chris Evans. It's directed with typical gusto by William Witney's old serial directing partner, John English. English had proven he could do serials on his own quite nicely the year before with Daredevils of the West. This time he gets a bit of an assist from Elmer Clifton, who in the 1930s had directed what is arguably the best of the 3 Stage and Screen Serials released by the Weiss Brothers. That, by the way, says nothing considering the other two were The Clutching Hand and The Black Coin.

"Nope. No War here"

It does seem strange to see a serial about Captain America released in 1944 and not see him doing what he was known for at the time: punching Nazis. Then again, Republic seemed to have decided to stop fighting the war in 1943 as none of their serials from 44 or 45 even make mention of World War II. Columbia and Universal, on the other hand, fought the war right up to the bitter end.

Other bloggers have commented that they are surprised serial fans actually like this. I'm not. Most serial fans, especially the ones who rabidly attest that only Republic made good ones, are willing to take most of these things as they get them. They especially recognize that it does little good to rage against Republic for their lack of fidelity to the comics since that was just what the company did. Maybe in another universe or dimension Republic put out faithful adaptations of comic books with Dick Tracy as a cop battling Big Boy Caprice and rescuing Tess Trueheart and Captain America and a 10 year old Bucky punching Adolf Hitler in the face. But not in our universe. We can choose to accept it or give ourselves coronaries at what we're watching.

I choose to accept it. This is an entertaining serial even if it doesn't have anything to do with Captain America. If you can get past that lack of fidelity, you too may find yourselves enjoying it. Lorna Gray and the villains make it worth spending a rainy Saturday afternoon watching it. There are better adaptations of these characters after all. If I want to watch the real Captain America, I'll slip in one of the MCU movies. But if I want to spend a few hours with fun and familiar character actors, henchmen coming back from the dead, and Dynamic Vibrators, I'll pop this one in.