Torture Garden (1967)

 "Did you know that there are ways to raise the dead...?"

This is, I believe, the only one of the Amicus horror anthologies that I still had to blog until now- do let me know if I'm wrong. The format is much as we'd come to expect, though- four lurid tales of grand guignol with an overarching narrative.

What separates this film from the norm is its more than usually transatlantic cast, with Burgess Meredith chewing the scenery in the best possible way as the delightfully devilish(!) Dr Diabolo. Even the opening titles, with the background of a creepy old amusement park at night, set the scenes superbly, and the framing device does its job to perfection.

Not all the tales are equally good, but all are entertaining. The third, in which a lady's pursuit of a desirable man leads to her death at the, er, hands(?) of a jealous piano, is hilarious. The first two, concerning a black cat and the secret reason why Hollywood stars never seem to age, are nicely and evilly gothic and lurid.

Yet it's the final story, with the unusual pairing of Jack Palance and Peter Cushing, that lingers in the mind, as two men bond over a shared enthusiasm for Edgar Allan Poe. This is a delightfully effective warning of the dangers of the more toxic sides of fandom,with deliciously absurd revelations leading to a perfectly melodramatic ending.

This is grand guignol at its best.

Schalken the Painter (1979 TV Film)

 "The darkness is unsafe..."

This is an intrertestying little curiosity, a one-off Christmas ghost story broadcast on the BBC in late December 1979, on the surface feeling very much like the many M.R. James ghost story adaptations that were made at the same time. But, in reality, this is very different.

It's a ghost story, yes, this time from a short story by Sheridan Le Fau, and a rather chilling and atmospheric on, with a deathly, ghostly suitor that a man give his ward's hand in marriager to him in what we would, today, call a forced marriage... and there are terrifying hints that this many may be something undead or unholy, and that the poor girl is perhaps damned forever because "She is your property. She will become mine...".

The main character, Gottfried Schalken, is a very real, albeit relatively minor, Dutch painter from the late 17th century, and the period is shown perfectly in terms of cinematograpjhy, texture and direction. The actors are shot superbly,in an age where blocking was still a thing.

And yet, it's more than that. The slow, langorous pace, unthinkable nowadays, is essential to the creation of atmosphere. And the useof light echoes Schalken's paintings themselves, everything liyt by candlelight, strangely loveless, with something perhaps lurking in the darkness...

This is quite a wonderful little gem

The Alphabet Murders (1965)

 "A A, eh?"

This is, I believe, by the creative team behind the Miss Marple films starring Margaret Rutherford who, indeed, gets an odd little cameo here. I'm told they're very good films, if apparently not particularly faithful to the novels. I intend to give them a chance. That is, despite the fact that this film is utterly unwatchable.

I'm not at all surprised that Agatha Christie herself loathed this film. It is rather difficult not to. I can't remember the novel (The ABC Murders)- it's been at least thirty years or more since the one and only time I read it. I read many, many of Mrs Christie's works in early puberty but rather went off her by my mid-teens. Still, I've no doubt that this is a far from faithful adaptation, not least because it scarcely pretends to be a whodunit. It is, rather, an embarrassingly unfunny attempt at "comedy".

It's trying to be a farce. A good farce is, of course, a very clever thing indeed. This is not. The cast, from the awful Tony Randall, surely the worst ever Hercule Poirot, with his ever-shifting accent, in one of the most cringeworthy leading roles ever, to a shockingly awful Robert Morley as an unrecognisable Captain Hastings, is either bloody awful or quite sensibly phoning it in for the money as there's no point doing otherwise for a script like this.

We get unfunny "comedy" setvpieces, one after another, and soooo much smoking.We get Anita Ekberg playing, well, the kind of tall blonde unattainable woman she invariably plays. We get a bit of psychological mumbo-jumbo. And we have a very unfunny conclusion in a train. And at no point is any of it remotely entertaining.

Be warned: ninety minutes of your one and only life are far too precious to waste on this drivel.

Sink the Bismarck! (1960)

 "I don't care how you do it. You MUST sink the Bismarck."

This is not the kind of war film I was expected, with a surprising amount of focus on strategic planning and reactions in the Admiralty as opposed to action. Yet, while this is perhaps not one of the very best war films, its focus on the backroom planning aspects is certainly a strength. This is a nicely structured- and, within reason, historically accurate-account of both the damage done by the Bismarck and the pursuit of it by the Royal Navy in that anxious spring of 1941.

Admittedly, my own experience of the stock footage, opening the film, of Hitler launching the Bismarck was shaped by some rather hilarious automatic English subtitles of the German dialogue, but this was the only laughable moment. Every other moment was gripping and tension-filled as the full might of the Royal Navy- including the Home Fleet- wrestled with the difficult gambles and ten dimensional chess-playing that was necessary to sink the premier asset of the German navy.

Using Ed Morrow as a kind of chorus was clever; he's an identification figure for any Americans watching as well as being a handy means of exposition. It's also a solid decision to base the film around two fictionalised figures- the cold Captain Shepard who is secretly covering up emotional vulnerability and the coolly competent yet emotionally inteligent Anne Davies- as well as a more cartoonish Nazi in Lutyens than was perhaps the case historically. Those who served as officers for Nazi Germany were enemies of humanity, and attempts to protect Jewish people under their command do not change this. He and those like him thught to defend evil. 

This may not be a great film, but is an impressive one, and both Kenneth More and Dana Winter deserve a great deal of credit.

The Last Vampyre (1993 TV Film)

 "Are we to give serious attention to such things? It's pure lunacy."

This is the second of the three Granada TV films based on short stories before we return to six proper episodes for the final stretch. It was... challenging to watch.

I found The Master Blackmailer, while by no means great, not to be as bad as its reputation. I can make no such claim for this turgid nonsense.

It's instructive, however, to take a look at why. There is, indeed, a bit of allusion to the supernatural here but there's a more or less rational explanation for everything; this episode is essentially no more supernatural than The Hound of the Baskervilles. Also, while I would have preferred a shorter and more faithful adaptation of Conan Doyle's The Sussex Vampire, the changes work well enough on their own terms and could have worked. This isn't bad because it's overlong: it's just bad television.The introduction of the character of Stockton as a red herring and extra sub-plot could have worked, but fails to do so through sheer dullness, and the scenes in the ruined house are just silly..

Fundamentally this is style over substance, except the directorial fanciness isn't actually as good as it thinks it is. Also, despite the rather good location filming, the guest cast, Maurice Denham aside, is just rubbish and dull- Keith Barron, in particular, is terrible. And the script is just formulaic. Yes, it's good that we get the "Giant Rat of Sumatra" line from the original short story for Sherlockian fanboys, and even a reference to the Gloria Scott. But this is a sad and limp piece of television that is no better now than when I saw it aged fifteen on its original broadcast.

The Night Caller (1965)

"And if that is an atom bomb, and you drop it, I'll 'ave you on a charge!"

Yes, the premise really is as said on the poster, if not quite as lurid. In truth, this is an odd conflation of Quatermass II and Alfie and very, very, mid-'60s. If that sounds like an extremely bizarre concoction, it is.

A very young John Saxon stars, and his acting is such that I'm not 100% sure whether he's trying to do a British accent or not. The predictable cast of British character actors add solid support, but the film feels oddly disjointed in spite of some good scenes- the dialogue between the parents of one of the missing girls is delightfully real and naturalistic, and the downbeat ending is deeply effective. Lots of the characters feel real yet, Saxon and Patricia Haines' characters aside, there's little continuity between the cast of the first part of the film in the scientific establishment and the police procedural which then ensues, and that means the film lacks a certain unity. It's also undeniable that, while this is certainly science fiction, for most of the film we see nothing of the alien but its claw, and the final reveal of its appearance is disappointing. It's all very odd, very interesting, but doesn't quite work.

It's also very much of its time, which adds to the interest. Everybody smokes, and Aubrey Morris plays a gay bookseller in those dark pre-1967 days, with his bitterly nuanced relations with the police. Worth seeing for those of us with a particular interest in these sorts of films although not, it must be said, for everyone.

The Day of the Jackal (1973)

"How did you know whose telephone to tap?"

"I didn't. So I tapped all of them."

 I read the novel in my teens, and very quickly. It's not just that it's a somewhat unputdownable thrilller with no pretensions to literary ambition, but the prose was extraordinary basic: bare, functional, impossible to praise or criticise. Indeed, probably the best adjective for Frederick Forsyth's prose is "absent" but it does its job for what is probably Forsyth's best novel in a series of ever-diminishing returns.

I mention this because the film is an extraordinary faithful adaptation. Fred Zinnemann shows admirable restraint in following the style of the book and allowing the narrative to do its natural job with no unnecessary directorial flourishes to take us out of the style. He's unafraid to have long periods of silence if that's how best to tell the story and ends up producing a film that is slow, unhurried yet pacy. That's as much of a talent as any directorial trick.

Edward Fox is superb, of course, playing his rather flat cipher of a character, and the same is true of the impressive cast of largely British character actors. But what makes this film is the story- a slow, methodical look at how a high profile assassination is carried out in a pre-digital, pre-surveillance age that is little more than a decade before my time; I can still remember those French bank vans from trips to France as a young child in the early '80s. This is an age where it is relatively easy to fake documents yet the French state still practises both torture and judicial killing. Social attitudes may have improved since 1963 but it's easy to be jealous of the privacy that could be enjoyed back then.

Countess Dracula (1971)

"Countess Dracula! Countess Dracula!"

Meh. I like me a good Hammer, but this is the most forgettable sort of early '70s stuff. Doing a film based on the notorious Elizabeth Bathory is not a bad idea in theory but the plot is perfunctory, the script tired and Ingrid Pitt, wonderful though she is, doesn't have the charisma to carry a film otherwise full of nonentities, excepting the ever-fab Peter Jeffrey in a minor role and some delightful scenery chewing from Maurice Denham. Overall, it's a Hammer worth skipping. Even the title is crowbarred in.

Any interesting points? Well, the costumes look good, and no doubt are accurate for early 17th century Hungary. The history is a bit off: Elizabeth Bathory was active as a serial killer between 1590 and 1610 (a much longer period!!!) but the film, with Turks encroaching on Vienna, seems to be set in the 1680s. And, of course, whereas the real Bathory may not have committed the murders to stay young at all, in the film she is actually rejuvenated. But beyond that and an incongruous bit of bawdiness with boobies in the tavern (the real world has pubs; cinematic Central Europe has "taverns") there's not much to say about it.

Next!

Doctor Who: The Twin Dilemma

Part One

“Take care not to blow their hearts or minds.”

So, is this story going to equal its illustrious predecessor? Take a guess…

Right from the start there are reasons to doubt the wisdom of introducing a new Doctor at the end of a season, however good an idea it may seem in theory. Castrovalva, shown after an unusually long gap, made effective use of the regeneration as a pre-titles sequence; here we get nothing of the kind, being thrust straight into the aftermath. And then there’s the lack of a wider change in the programme’s style to go with the new Doctor; most notably there are only minimal changes to the title sequence.

The opening scenes are hardly encouraging. Annoying, badly-acted twins; poor sets and costumes; patronisingly poor dialogue. The whole set-up reeks of “this’ll do, it’s only kids’ TV”. And yet…

The scenes concerning the Doctor’s regeneration and Peri’s reaction feel very different from these scenes, presumably as they were handled by Eric Saward rather than Anthony Stevens. This isn’t to say that this aspect of the programme is without its own serious faults, which I’ll come to in a minute, but the ridiculous stuff with Jaconda, giant slugs and space police feels like something from a different and much poorer programme than the scenes in the TARDIS.

The new Doctor is arrogant and overbearing, very, very different from his previous incarnation, which “had a sort of… feckless charm which simply wasn’t me!” This sort of dialogue feels very fresh and different after the last three seasons, but if toned down would actually be quite in keeping with the broad outlines of the Doctor’s character as portrayed with Hartnell, Pertwee and Tom Baker. I also like the obligatory wardrobe scene. It’s a brave move to give the Doctor mood swings and make him unlikeable but I actually think it works quite well- at this point, that is. There’s a line that hasn’t yet been crossed, and we’re not too far outside the tradition set by Robot and Castrovalva.

The scenes outside the TARDIS continue to be atrocious- from the costumes of the space police to the woman playing the police commander to the dialogue (“and may my bones rot for obeying it!”). But inside the TARDIS that line is crossed with the Doctor trying to strangle Peri. This goes beyond mere unlikeability to actually undermining the viability of the new Doctor in his first episode. The Doctor should be erratic, certainly, and arrogance, even extreme arrogance, has always been there in his character. But, as good old Terrance Dicks is often fond of saying, the Doctor should never be cruel or cowardly. In this episode he is both.

Oh, and the twins' put-upon dad is Gharman from Genesis of the Daleks.

Part Two

“It worked. It actually worked!”

Whatever the huge mistakes in the script’s characterisation of the Doctor, Colin Baker is never less than great, and there are some encouraging signs in this episode, such as the new Doctor’s apparent fondness for literary quotation. Unfortunately he also has to be persuaded to save Hugo’s life, and has another fit of cowardice as he and Peri encounter some Jacondans, trying to blame everything on Peri. This sort of characterisation is just unforgivable, and comes close to actual sabotage of the character.

Back to the plot, the Doctor recognises Edgeworth (a brilliant but utterly wasted Maurice Denham) as his old Time Lord drinking pal Azmael, and there’s some discussion of how crowded this “deserted asteroid” seems to be getting. Which is unfortunate, as it highlights what a huge coincidence it is that the Doctor and Azmael to have arrived there at the same time. Also a ridiculous coincidence is that Hugo, trapped in the hugeness of the TARDIS, somehow manages to track down the power pack to his gun from its hiding place.

Part Three

“The sound of giant slugs!”

To Jaconda, then. Hugo’s temporary addition to the TARDIS crew gives us one amusing line (“Lieutenant!”), but I seem to recall this was ad-libbed, which must be true as it’s far too good to have been scripted. The Doctor has another rant of self-pity, but at least from this point on his erratic behaviour doesn’t stray into cruelty or cowardice.

More silliness occurs: Mestor looks ridiculous and Edwin Richfield is wasted in the role; all the stuff with moving the planets about is deeply silly; the twins get awful lines like “Why do you like to play the man of mystery? It’s a role you play very badly?”- the irony being, of course, that Denham is acting them both off the screen.

 

Part Four

“Our genius has been abused!”

As soon as the Doctor points it out, Azmael immediately realises that the whole guff with the planets is obviously stupid, apparently. Gah! Please make it stop! The Doctor subsequently works out that Mestor intends to cause a supernova courtesy of Jaconda’s sun, which will disperse the slug eggs across the universe. So, er, two small planets falling into a star will cause a supernova how, exactly?

The conclusion with Azmael sacrificing himself to kill Mestor, who’s taken over his mind for some reason, is embarrassingly poor, but at least Colin Baker continues to impress in the confrontation scenes with Mestor. Peter Davison, like Troughton, had been playing the Doctor as a part, while Colin Baker is more in the larger-than-life tradition of Pertwee and Tom Baker, but it feels to be getting this type of Doctor back again. I just hope he settles down.

Well, obviously that was a 1/5. Embarrassingly poor, although the fact it was entertainingly bad means it scores better than certain other stories.

As for Season 21 as a whole- well, it’s the worst yet, as I rather embarrassingly seem too be saying every season at the moment! And at 2.857/5 it’s the first season I’ve ranked below 3/5 on average, in spite of the fact it contains two stories I rated 5/5. That feels a bit awkward, as I’ve never felt any particular dislike for the last two seasons, but that’s how the stories rated!