One of the most iconic and popular characters in film history, Dracula has taken many forms, in many genres, and performed to various quality. Although not the first film to feature the character of Count Dracula (a couple of lost silent films and F.W. Murnau’s unauthorised version Nosferatu (1922) came before), Bela Lugosi’s portrayal of the menacing and seductive Count is commonly seen as the definitive.
The story is known to most – solicitor Renfield (Dwight Frye) arrives at Count Dracula castle at night, despite prior warnings by the nearby locals. He is greeted by Dracula, who, unknown to Renfield, is a vampire. Upon arrival, he pricks his finger, causing it to bleed which visibly excites Dracula until he spies the crucifix hanging around Renfield’s neck. Renfield is drugged by Dracula and the two travel to London the next day by boat. When the ship arrives, only Renfield remains on the boat, now seemingly a lunatic and a slave to the Count. He is hospitalised while Dracula becomes entranced by a woman named Mina (Helen Chandler), who is engaged to John Harker (David Manners). As circumstances grow stranger, Professor Van Helsing (Edward Van Sloan) becomes convinced that the Count is indeed a vampire, and that he must be destroyed.
The film would be the beginning of a long run of successful horror movies made by Universal, which would be hits critically and commercially, and many are nowadays considered classics of the genre. Although falling short of the outright perfection of James Whale’s Frankenstein (also 1931) and its sequel Bride Of Frankenstein (1935), Dracula still proves a great adaptation of Bram Stoker’s novel. Lugosi’s performance is the definitive Dracula, his minimal movements and slow, pronounced dialogue, spoken with his Hungarian accent proves an unnerving Count. I’m not forgetting Max Schrek’s Nosferatu, while amazing for its sheer dedication, it was hardly the Dracula of the book.
Director Tod Browning, who up to the point of making Dracula had made over 50 feature films, controls the film superbly, and opts for slow, menacing darkness rather than loud jump scenes and special effects. It builds up the mood gradually, and with Lugosi’s fantastic central performance, makes for an atmospheric experience. It’s a pity that Browning would almost end his career the next year with the commercially disastrous Freaks (1932), which I consider a true great of the horror genre. It’s just a shame that the film’s final scene is rather soft and anti-climatic, jarring with the brilliance that came before. However, it remains an excellent film overall, and the film that would spawn many memorable films for Universal studios.
Aside from the more obvious propaganda tools such as Leni Reifenstahl's Triumph Of The Will (1935), the power of the documentary medium has never been so blatantly evident than in Errol Morris’ 1988 film The Thin Blue Line. The film was based on the murder of a police office in Dallas, Texas which saw Randall Dale Adams wrongly imprisoned for 12 years, coming within 72 hours of being put to death. Morris’ investigation and eventual documentary film got the case re-opened, and saw Adams subsequently released. It is a glowing advert for the genre, and Morris was putting his massive talent at work again 15 years later in this film, The Fog Of War.
Morris sat down with former U.S. Secretary of Defence Robert McNamara for 20 hours, having him speak into the camera about his rather eventful career. The film structure is based on McNamara’s 11 lessons on the act of war, previously chronicled in McNamara and Brian Van De Mark’s book In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam. McNamara talks about his life from when he served in World War II, to his brief time serving as Ford Motor Company’s President, to his headhunted appointment as Secretary of Defence, initially under President John F. Kennedy, and eventually Lyndon B. Johnson. It is both a powerful autobiographical account of his life, and a complex analysis of the U.S.’s political structure and policies.
Being one of the most despised political figures in the last century, Morris’ portrait of Robert McNamara is both fair and even-handed. He simply allows McNamara to pour his words out, speaking through what is known as an ‘Interrotron’, where the talking head would talk directly into camera. It’s an effective trick, as it allows us as the audience to relate to him in a much more personal way. The film doesn’t try to be judgemental and put McNamara on a stand, it is however a commentary on war by one of the most fiercely intelligent and complex men of his time. McNamara, love him, sympathise with him, or outright hate him, he makes for an enticing host, and fascinating to listen to.
In somebody else’s less-experienced and less-skilled hands, this film may have just been a simple talking head picture. But in the hands of Morris, the film becomes utterly enthralling, cutting from McNamara’s talking head, to archive footage, special effects, graphs, charts, and whatever he can throw at the audience to make this as fast-paced and breathless as a documentary can possibly be, without ever losing focus of McNamara’s story. The Cuban Missile Crisis has never be so vividly discussed and so terrifyingly portrayed. Simply breathless filmmaking, and one of the finest documentaries I've seen from the ‘noughties’ era.
Vincent Smith (Rory Calhoun) and sister Ida Smith (Nancy Parsons) run a road side motel in some backwater town, in redneck country USA. As an addition to the motel, they also sell the finest meat in a 100 mile radius. They've been selling this 'special' meat for 30 years, and has become quite the famous brand around town and beyond. As the sign leading to the house says 'Farmer Vince's Smoked Meat: This Is It! Well, as you can imagine, from a horror-comedy, the meat is of the human variety.
The film opens with Vince watching as a couple on a motorcycle pass in the night, only to be purposely thrown from the road. Whilst collecting the meat, Vince looks at the girl, Terry (Nina Axelrod), finding her attractive decides that he wants to keep her alive (I'm assuming that his thought patterns on this one either centred on the beauty, or maybe he just thought the film needed an outsider (sic)). Terry is thusly integrated into the 'family'.
We soon discover that Vince and Ida have a secret garden where the human victims are buried up to their necks in the ground to be fattened up and harvested for meat. A pretty standard affair. The film does work as both a slight horror pastiche of films that preceded it such as the obvious The Texas Chain-saw Massacre (1974). The humour is suitable for the environment that it occupies. Rory Calhoun's debonair Vince (all smiles and charm) works fantastically, and Nancy Parsons Ida is a strange and comic delight at moments.
Directed by British filmmaker Kevin Connor whose previous work was in the '70's fantasy, Doug McClure starers such as The Land That Time Forgot (1975), and At the Earths Core (1976), represent nothing of what appears in this picture. It's possibly a strange choice. However, Connor holds his own in a very obvious slice of Americana. It is a relatively well-made film.
At the end of the movie, as the characters outside the knowledge of the meats source, find out the truth, Vince battles his police officer brother, in a chain-saw duel (well of course!!). Vince wears a pigs head throughout this scene (probably not necessarily a stylistic choice, but a practical way of not putting Calhoun through the physicality of the dual - well, I'm guessing). his final words are one of the funniest moments in the film. He staggers with a chain-saw stuck fast in his side. He laments "My whole life's a lie. I used preservatives."
As He Qiwu (Takeshi Kaneshiro) jogs around a deserted sports field in the pouring rain, he narrates 'we're all unlucky in love sometimes. When I am, I go jogging. The body loses water when you jog, so you have none left for tears'. For me, that quote summed up this quite wonderful movie. In any other film, the line would be so appallingly pretentious. Here, it fits the movies styles and attitudes. This is a playful, sensitive and almost mocking love-letter to the complications and folly of, well, love.
The film tells two stories, one focusing on He Qiwu, also known as Cop 223, who, having recently broken up with his long-term girlfriend on April Fools Day, decides to buy a tin of pineapples with the expiration date of May 1st (his birthday) every day until May 1st. He feels this is the date to move on if they haven’t gotten back together. Meanwhile, lonely and drunk, he spies a mysterious woman in sunglasses (Brigitte Lin) sat alone at a bar, who has just seen her drug smuggling operation go drastically wrong. In the second seemingly unconnected story, a quirky snack bar waitress Faye (Faye Wong) falls in love with Cop 633 (Tony Leung) who has also recently broke up with his air stewardess girlfriend. Faye, spotting his obvious loneliness, takes it upon herself to rearrange his apartment every time he is out to try and improve his outlook.
Director Wong Kar-Wai made the film whilst on a break from editing his messy but still rather excellent film Ashes Of Time (1994), wanting to make something light and down to earth in the wake of all the martial arts and visual poetry that went on in Ashes. To think he made this as a side project to calm his nerves speaks volumes about the Hong Kong directors’ abilities. Originally seen as three stories, as opposed to two, the director had to cut out the third story feeling the film was too long, eventually making it into a full feature on its own, 1995’s Fallen Angels. Although the two stories are seemingly unconnected, they are ultimately the same story told in slightly different ways, and both contain the same themes.
It appeared to me at first that Chungking Express was ultimately about loneliness and longing. But in the couple days following, it came to me that perhaps it was actually about love. All the characters are lonely, disconnected and sad, and are all like this as a result of love. Love makes you do strange and bizarre things. He Qiwu, after building up a large collection of pineapple tins as May 1st hits, he decides to eat them all in one sitting. The strange and enchanting Faye, buys the oblivious Cop 633 fish and buys new furniture for his apartment, without him even noticing. He is so caught up in his lovesick rut that he almost believes the changes happening in front of him are a result of it.
If the wonderful script and acting aren’t enough, Kar-Wai films it all like a giddy schoolboy given a new camera for Christmas. It’s the only film post-1960’s I have seen that truly embodies the spirit of the French New Wave. Many have attempted mirroring the style, but Chungking Express has a restless and almost excitable style that boils over with fresh ideas. A bold and inspired film, full of intelligent writing, astonishing acting, and a beautiful setting in Hong Kong. And one that tackles the true complexities of love.
I first came across the basic premise of this film in a short piece in a magazine that I do not recall the name of last year. The basic idea of the film is simple: A car tyre (named Robert - go figure!) finds pleasure in killing, and so goes on a rampage in the desert. Sold! Of course I had no high expectations of such a silly idea, and was just expecting a run of the mill genre piece in the vein of something like, insert silly killer-thing movie here (that's right, I can't think of any at this point). However, this is not such a genre piece, and is in fact a movie with pseudo-arthousepretensions. This next sentence does come from me, who revels in the silly, obscure, and utterly bizarre side of cinema: but this film is fucking odd. I have no deep analytical ideas of what the writer/director (QuentenDupieux) is exactly trying to achieve. Only that I believe it is an observation/criticism of cinematic spectatorship as it stands today. The only way I can represent this film is by simply describing what happens; something I generally try to avoid when writing about cinema. So here it goes.
The film opens in a desert. The police lieutenant of a small town (played by Stephen Spinella) approaches a group of people positioned below the camera. He then begins his address, which is also directed at us as an almost latecomer to the 'audience'. (Now, all of this is ad libed as I saw this about a month or so ago and will not remember word for word.) The Brectiandistanciation that follows describes a few Hollywood movies where things that happen in them 'for no reason'. The one that sticks in my mind is that in Oliver Stones JFK, a man assassinates the president of the United States 'for no reason'. (I remember this one for its absurdity). Lieutenant Chad (as he is called) completes the monologue by essentially stating that in this film, things happen for no reason. Don't question, just enjoy the movie. The camera then directs us onto the onscreen audience who are all handed binoculars and advised to enjoy the movie, and they are left alone to wait, and wait for 'something' to happen.
This is where that basic premise kicks in and Robert, the car tyre, awakens from the sand to make its first steps (sic) into his new consciousness. After a tricky few attempts at keeping up right, Robert runs over a plastic bottle. He does this delicately as you can almost sense the pleasure he gets from the act of crushing the object. Suffice to say, he moves up to animals. Firstly a scorpion. However, he runs over a metal can which he discovers is not so easy to crush. So, he rewinds and 'looks' at the object from a slight distance. A noise of distortion and high-pitched screeching develops and he begins to throb. Then, the can explodes. So we discover that Robert has some kind of telekenetic powers of destruction of the type seen in David Cronenberg's Scanners. Pretty ordinary comedy-horror right? Wrong.
Ok so Robert does eventually, and obviously, move onto humans, by which time he has honed his powers so that he only blows up the heads of humans. However, this is not the odd and interesting part of the film. As the desert audience of people are commenting and observing the 'movie' they watch through binoculars, the 'organisers' of this event wheel in a rack of meat, which the spectators devour very quickly (except for one redneck type who continues viewing from the comfort of his deck chair). Shortly after this the audience all die from food poisoning. Part of the way through a scene being acted out in the town the audience watch, Chad (the Lieutenant) calls all together, advises that they have all done a good job, and they no longer need to continue as the audience are all dead. Then the same organiser that presented the meat to the audience, approaches Chad to tell him the news that there is still an audience member watching. He then orders all back, and then tells them the news, and that they all have to carry on with the film till the end (an end we later discover has never even been written).
Ok, so this is enough description of 'what happens'. It really is a film that defies what you expect from it. I genuinely did not expect any of this, and really thought it would be simply about a killer tyre. So, this is why I'm writing about it. Its something that I have never seen before. In fact, it has been one of those films that has stuck with me. When I first finished watching it, I was not even sure if I enjoyed or liked it. However, the narrative as a whole played over in me through the proceeding days and I just about told everyone that would listen about it (to be fair, none of them have watched it). I don't know why, cause I talked about it with such passion, that I only really usually have for films that have touched me on an emotional or intellectual level. But this touched me on a level that I can only guess at as bemusement. As I've played the concept over in my head, I can only assume that what QuentonDepieux wants to illustrate is that audiences will watch any old shit. not much of an analysis, but people do watch shit to death (in this film literally). It defies categorisation, and is certainly on my list of films that I recommend to people just for its shear originality. Unless there is anyone out there that can suggest any film comparisons (I'd very much like to hear from them). Enjoy!
F.W. Murnau’s penultimate film, City Girl was made just a year before his tragic death. It tells the rather simple story of a waitress named Kate (Mary Duncan) who, tired of her hectic schedule and overbearing boss, dreams of a simpler life. In steps farmer’s son Lem (Charles Farrell) who is in the city in order to sell his father’s product. The two fall in love, and Kate agrees to move to the country with Lem to live the farmer’s life. Only after arriving, she realises that a farmer’s life isn’t as peaceful as she imagined, and she has to face Lem’s irate father.
Made as the silent era was sadly coming to an end, it was originally made as a hybrid, with long silent moments with the odd audible piece of dialogue. Apparently audiences could not take to its style and it bombed financially, but it has been recently re-discovered and restored in its complete silent form. And thank God it was, as although it comes nowhere near to the dizzying heights of Sunrise: A Song Of Two Humans (1927), the influential brilliance of Nosferatu (1922), and the biting social commentary of The Last Laugh (1924), it’s a fine example of Murnau’s ability as a filmmaker.
It cleverly juxtaposes the naivety of the two leads who both sample a very different life, only to discover that it is every bit as stressful and brutal as their former lives. It’s hardly groundbreaking, but Murnau handles the film with such a poetic elegance and intimacy rarely captured by other filmmakers. It makes it all the more tragic that most of his earlier films are now lost, including a version of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1920), and also that Murnau lost his life a year later after making his final film Tabu: A Story Of The South Seas (1931), to which he didn’t make the premiere.
Jan Morrow (Doris Day) is a successful interior designer living in her cushy New York apartment, apparently content with her single life. Unfortunately for her, she shares a party line (a shared phone line) with composer and serial ladies man Brad Allen (Rock Hudson), and whenever she needs to make a call, she is always caught up in his crooning seduction technique which he tries on all the ladies. His arrogant playboy attitude riles Jan and she seeks to have the party line ended. Jan is also being wooed by millionaire client Jonathan Forbes (Tony Randall), who, unbeknownst to her, is Brad’s friend and business associate. After hearing about Jonathan’s infatuation with Jan, who Brad has never met, and after coincidentally coming across her in a bar, he adopts a fake Texan accent and backstory, and seduces Jan. Aiming to teach her a lesson, it’s only a matter of time before his cover is blown and the possibility that he may just fall in love with her.
The sight of Doris Day and Rock Hudson, with their squeaky-clean personas and rather smug characters, is usually enough to induce vomiting. However, in Pillow Talk, the first time I’ve seen the two together in one of their now-celebrated rom-com partnerships, I found them, and the film, a delight. Okay, so Doris Day is a tad annoying, but Rock Hudson is in great form here. Playing dual roles, he has the appeal to make his really quite nasty and obnoxious character still likeable. Tony Randall, always a reliable supporting character, is great fun too.
Modern-day romantic comedies should take notes from this on how to create a film with actual chemistry between the two leads, a witty script, and genuine charm. It has been attempted with films such as Down With Love (2003) and the Coen brothers’ Intolerable Cruelty (2003), but have ultimately failed to hit the mark. The film is also tightly directed by Michael Gordon, who maintains a snappy pace throughout.
Made in 1972 and relatively forgotten about until the BFI recently restored it onto Blu-Ray and DVD, Permissive follows the fortunes of a young girl who enters the world of the rock star groupie, back when Britannia was cool and was at the forefront of fashion and music. Suzy (Maggie Stride) arrives in London and meets up with her friend Fiona (the unfortunately named Gay Singleton), who is in a relationship with the hairy-faced Lee (Alan Gorrie), bass player and lead singer of rock band Forever More. She adopts the lifestyle and offers herself for sex to the bands various sleazy members before she is left behind as the group go on tour. On their return, she is eventually accepted and begins to fall into a moral downward spiral.
Perhaps quite shocking in its day, showing plenty of full frontal nudity, drug abuse and generally questionable behaviour, the film now seems extremely mild and somewhat tedious. The acting is especially dubious, mainly from the band members of real-life group Forever More, who although not given much to do, look noticeably uncomfortable delivering their lines. It isn’t without good points however – Suzy’s decline from wide-eyed innocent into full-blown slut who seems to have no goal other than to have sex with as many people as possible without a second thought of the effect it will have on her friends, is very interesting, and is performed reasonably well by Stride.
Interesting to view as a time-capsule of a time when extreme facial hair was cool and free-love was frowned upon, but as a piece of filmmaking it cannot hide from its low-budget limitations, and the years have had its effect on the film’s power.
In 1962, when the careers of acting heavyweights such as Bette Davis, Joan Crawford and Olivia De Havilland were beginning to subside as the years took their toll, director Robert Aldrich directed Whatever Happened To Baby Jane?, a story of sibling jealousy and sadism that saw Davis and Crawford go head to head. The film was notorious not only for it's brilliance, but for it's genuine rivalry between the film's two leads. The film was a success, and unwittingly gave birth to a new genre that has since become known as 'hagspolitation' or 'psycho-biddy thrillers', a splurge of films that usually portrayed a psychotic older woman played by a 1940-50's superstar. Davis and Crawford were the key players in the sub-genre, and they were both cast by Altman in his next film, Hush... Hush, Sweet Charlotte, only for Crawford to drop out due to 'illness', when in reality it was because she just couldn't take Davis' bullying and general nasty behaviour. She was replaced by De Havilland, and although the film doesn't come near to capturing the greatness of Baby Jane, it is still a nice little shocker.
Beginning with a shocking murder that sees a married man who is having an affair with Charlotte (Davis) have his arm and head hacked off with a huge cleaver, the film jumps forward four decades, where the ageing Charlotte lives alone in her giant mansion that is being torn down by city developers. Haunted by the murder of her former lover (for which she may or may not have been the culprit), Charlotte is losing her mind when her cousin Miriam (De Havilland) comes to stay to try and convince her to leave before she is arrested by the developers for failing to leave her home. What follows is Charlotte's fast decent into insanity, but is she being played and manipulated by people after her vast fortune?
The film is a solid horror film with some genuine shocks and extreme gore for its day. Of course, the ever-reliable Bette Davis is superb as the squeaky-voice southern gal seemingly with the mind of an infant. Although the film works well as both a Southern gothic horror and as a thriller, the film doesn't have the intensity to last out the 2 hours and 15 minute running time and slightly outstays his welcome. But their is solid support from Joseph Cotten, an actor who has never been recognised enough for his excellent body of work, and Agnes Moorehead, another main player in the genre.
Whilst watching Richard Ayoade playing uber-nerd Moss in the hit-and-miss sitcom The IT Crowd, or playing TV producer and actor Dean Lerner in the criminally underrated Garth Merenghi's Darkplace, the last thing I pictured him doing was confidently directing a feature-length film. I don't mean to knock him, as I've always felt he was an extremely talented comedy performer and writer, and he brightens up whatever he appears in, no matter how crap the material. But here he has focused all his ambition, influences and talent into creating a truly memorable debut.
Submarine tells the story of 15 year-old Oliver Tate (Craig Roberts), a strange, intelligent and unnervingly confident schoolboy who falls for an equally strange girl Jordana (Yasmin Paige). After an incident which sees Oliver reluctantly participate in a spot of casual bullying that causes a girl to fall into a muddy pond, Oliver and Jordana begin their unusual romance. All seems to be going well until Oliver suspects his mother Jill (Sally Hawkins) of having an affair with cheesy self-help guru Graham (Paddy Considine), who lives next door. His father Lloyd (Noah Taylor) is so passive and uncaring that he is practically a zombie, and so Oliver takes it upon himself to rescue his parent's broken marriage whilst holding his own fragile relationship together.
The film arrives amidst critical praise and festival word-of-mouth, and the promise of a real future talent in director Richard Ayoade. I'm pleased to announce that the film is every bit as good as I've heard. I had my doubts, concerned with the film's 'quirky indie comedy' tag that films are so lazily lumbered with these days. But while the film is quirky, indie and a comedy, it finds its influences lying elsewhere - from the greatest of all film movements, the French New Wave. From the start this is clear with the Godard-esque large lettering with strong colours for the opening credits and title cards. Everything about the film screams New Wave, from its stylistic boldness, self-awareness, and even the unconventionally handsome and turtle-neck-wearing leading man.
One of the main strengths of the film is it's awareness of slipping into cliche. The quirkiness and magic of the French New Wave have been copied and ripped-off so often that nowadays when it is used it can come across as pretentious. But Oliver's intelligence and amusing voice-over frequently touches on this. At the start of his relationship with Jordana, they spend their days on the beach and frequenting industrial wastelands, and Oliver comments that he will put these moments in his 'Super 8 memories', cue shots of the couple running and laughing on the beach, shot in that grainy, home-video look. He also fantasises that he is in a film, and that the film will end up with him searching for Jordana on a beach and how it will end in an arty-farty, pretentious manner aimed to enourage discussion among chin-strokers. It's a great little trick and you have to admire the film's refreshing self-assurance.
The film is also very, very funny, with Craig Roberts proving an extremely talented comedy performer, all pale-skinned, wide-eyed awkwardness, and a pronounced, high pitched voice that almost resembles many of Ayoade's TV characters. The humour is often similar in style to Wes Anderson's (dare I say it?) indie comedies, which are some of the best comedies, if not films, to come out in the last fifteen years. Most of the humour stems from Oliver's increasing desperation to lose his virginity to Jordana, especially in one scene where they find themselves home alone, only for Oliver to light candles around his bed, and lie open-legged on his side in a cheesy pose. Jordana, with her eyes closed waiting for the surprise, opens them and deadpans 'fuckin' hell, you're a serial killer.'
A real gem, and a film that definitely introduces the potentially massive talent of director Richard Ayoade, star Craig Roberts, and Arctic Monkeys frontman Alex Turner, who performs the wonderful music. And also a rare opportunity to see some of the beautiful sights of Swansea, where I currently reside.
The story is known to most – solicitor Renfield (Dwight Frye) arrives at Count Dracula castle at night, despite prior warnings by the nearby locals. He is greeted by Dracula, who, unknown to Renfield, is a vampire. Upon arrival, he pricks his finger, causing it to bleed which visibly excites Dracula until he spies the crucifix hanging around Renfield’s neck. Renfield is drugged by Dracula and the two travel to 
