Film Review: Camelot (dir by Joshua Logan)

Posted on January 9, 2013 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Back when I was 18 years old, I auditioned for a community theater production of Camelot. For as long as I can remember, I’ve always been intrigued with the spectacle and romance of the Arthurian legends and I just knew that I would make the perfect Guinevere. And so, for two nights, I auditioned. I performed “Baby One More Time” as my audition song, I showed off my dance moves, and I did countless cold readings with countless potential Arthurs and Lancelots. At the end of the two days, the director told me that he would be in touch and I left with stars in my mismatched eyes, convinced that I had won the role of Guinevere.

Two days later, I got a call not from the director but from the assistant director. She informed me that while my dancing was impressive, I wasn’t right for the role of Guinevere because:

1) I was too young.

2) I couldn’t sing.

3) My voice carried too much of a rural twang for me to be a believable Queen of England.

However, she did tell me that I had been selected to be a part of the “chorus.” Well, I may have only been 18 but I still had my pride so I told her that, if I couldn’t I play Guinevere, I had no interest in being in their little production of Camelot. I was later told that this caused a lot of people to assume that I was a diva but no matter, I stand by my decision.

When I later saw the theater’s production of Camelot, I felt thoroughly vindicated. It wasn’t just the fact that the actress they cast as Guinevere had no stage presence, no boobs, and a horsey face. It’s the fact that Camelot itself isn’t a very good show. As good as the songs are, Camelot is something of a talky mess and Pellinore is one of the most annoying characters ever.

It was only after I saw that mediocre production that I discovered that there was a film version of Camelot. Released in 1967, the Warner Bros. production was one of the many big budget musicals released in the late 60s. It has a terrible reputation (and was a box office bomb) but I recently decided to watch it for two reasons.

First off, Camelot was nominated for five Academy Awards (though not best picture) and won three (Best Art-Set Decoration, Best Costume Design, and Best Music — Scoring of Music, Adaptation or Treatment). That means that Camelot won two more Oscars than The Graduate and one more than Bonnie and Clyde.

Secondly, this film version of Camelot features Franco Nero (who, in 1967, was literally the most handsome man in the world) in the role of Lancelot.

And so, I recently set aside 3 hours and I watched the film version of Camelot.

Camelot tells a familiar story. Arthur (played here by Richard Harris) becomes king of England and he marries Guinevere (Vanessa Redgrave). At the magnificent castle of Camelot, the most noble knights of England gather at a round table and Arthur preaches equality and chivalry. Eventually, the righteous French knight Lancelot (Franco Nero) travels to Camelot and becomes Arthur’s greatest knight. However, Lancelot and Guinevere fall in love and, as a result of the schemes of Arthur’s illegitimate son Mordred (David Hemmings), Lancelot and Arthur are soon at war with each other.

Despite my dislike of the stage production, I actually started watching the film version with high hopes. I have a soft place in my heart for the overproduced musical spectacles of the late 60s and I figured that what was slow on stage might be more tolerable when seen on film. Unfortunately, I was incorrect. Camelot is a painfully old-fashioned film and, clocking in at 179 minutes, it’s also one of the most boring movies ever made. Richard Harris was reportedly miserable while making the film and it shows in his performance. You get the feeling that King Arthur would rather be anywhere other than Camelot.

The only time that the film comes alive is when Franco Nero is allowed to command the screen. While the very Italian Nero is somewhat miscast as the very French Lancelot, that doesn’t change the fact that Nero plays the role with a passion that’s missing from the rest of the film. Franco Nero’s blue eyes did more to make me believe in Camelot than any of the songs sung by Richard Harris. One need only watch the scenes that Franco shares with Vanessa Redgrave to understand why they’ve been a couple for over 40 years.

Ultimately, Camelot is interesting mostly as an example of how the old Hollywood studio establishment attempted to deal with competition from television and European films. Instead of attempting to adapt to the new culture of the 60s, the old studio bosses just continued to make the same movies they had always made, with the exception being that they now spent even more money than before to do so. While it’s easy to mock them, you have to wonder if the Camelot of 1967 is all that different from the John Carter of today.

The Daily Drive-In: The Creature From The Black Lagoon (dir. by Jack Arnold)

Posted on January 8, 2013 by Lisa Marie Bowman

As anyone who knows me can tell you, Lisa Marie doesn’t do water.

Seriously, I have a very intense fear of drowning and, while I might enjoy laying out by the pool during the summer, you’re never going to catch me actually going anywhere near the deep end. I’m the epitome of the girl who loves the beach but hates the ocean. As a result, I have a hard time with movies the feature swimmers thrashing about in the water or ancient monsters coming up to the surface in search of swimsuit-clad victims.

For lack of a better term, these films freak me out.

Sometimes, however, it’s fun to be freaked out. Perhaps that’s why I so love the 1954 monster classic, The Creature From The Black Lagoon.

Like all good B-movies from the 1950s, The Creature From The Black Lagoon starts off with a lot of stock footage and a stuffy narrator telling us about how the Earth was created and how mankind originally evolved from a creature that crawled out of the sea. The narrator manages to cover all the bases by including a few Biblical quotes with his explanation of how evolution works.

From the beginning of mankind, we fast forward to the 1950s. A fossilized claw has been discovered in the Amazon and a group of scientists think that it could be evidence of the missing link in human evolution. Mark (Richard Denning), who is kind of a jerk, funds an expedition to the Amazon to search for more evidence. Accompanying Mark is hunky young scientist David (Richard Carlson) and David’s girlfriend, Kay (Julie Adams). Traveling on a boat captained by the rather gruff Lucas (Nestor Paiva), they go to the camp where the fossil was originally discovered. However, once they arrive, they discover that everyone in the camp has been killed. Lucas suggests that the camp was attacked by a jaguar.

Lucas, needless to say, is totally incorrect. The film isn’t called The Jaguar From The Black Lagoon. It’s called The Creature From The Black Lagoon and the creature, also known as the Gill-Man (played by Ben Chapman when on land and by Ricou Browning whenever he’s underwater), is none too happy about these strangers invading his home. Soon, the Gill-Man is stalking the expedition as they move up and down the Amazon River.

The Creature From The Black Lagoon is probably best known for the dream-like sequence in which Kay, wearing a white bathing suit that is simply to die for, swims in the Amazon River without realizing that the Creature is following just a few feet below her. This scene (which does little to help with my aquaphobia) is one of the most iconic in the history of monster cinema. Expertly framed by director Jack Arnold, this scene is distinguished by the graceful movement of both Julie Adams and Ricou Browning. It’s as close as a monster movie has ever gotten to duplicating ballet.

Ultimately, like all good monster films, the Creature from the Black Lagoon is on the side of the monster. The members of the expedition are, for the most part, interchangeable and, when the Gill-Man attacks, he’s acting more out of self-defense than out of hostility. The expedition, after all, has invaded his home. Like many 50s B-movies, the theme for The Creature From The Black Lagoon is not that people should be careful while investigating mysteries but that most mysteries are best left unsolved.

When you combine one of the genre’s most iconic monsters with Jack Arnold’s atmospheric direction, the end result is one of the best B-movies ever made.

What Lisa and Erin Watched Last Night #63: Bring It On (dir. by Peyton Reed)

Posted on January 7, 2013 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Last night, my sister Erin Nicole (a.k.a. Dazzling Erin) and I watched the classic 2000 cheerleading movie Bring It On on AMC.

Why Were We Watching It?

Seriously, how can you not watch Bring It On?

Back in high school, while I was doing my goth ballerina thing, Erin Nicole was a cheerleader and, though she denies it, she pretty much was Kirsten Dunst back then. Anyway, Erin usually refuses to watch Bring It On because she says she had already had to sit through it a few hundred times by the time she turned 17. For this reason, I always make it a point to let Erin know when Bring It On is on TV and to try to trick her into watching it with me.

But last night, to my surprise, she was the one who saw the movie listed in the guide and started watching it because, according to her, there was nothing else on. (Personally, I think Erin was feeling nostalgic but she denies it.) I joined her shortly after the movie started and, according to Erin, I spent the next two hours jumping around and acting all hyper. That’s not quite the way I remember it but Erin’s the cheerleader so I’ll take her word for it.

What’s It About?

Torrance (played by Kirsten Dunst) is the new captain of her high school’s cheerleading squad and is determined to lead them to yet another national title. However, Missy (Eliza Dushku), a new member of the squad, reveals that the squad only won those titles by stealing routines from an inner city cheerleader squad. Torrance now has to create an original routine while dealing with her cheating boyfriend (Richard Hillman) and flirting with Missy’s brother (Jesse Bradford), who looks a lot like Paul Rudd and is skeptical about whether cheerleading’s really all that important in the grand scheme of things.

What Worked?

Let’s just come right out and say it: Bring It On is one of the greatest high school movies ever made. It’s fun, it’s funny, and best of all, it’s real. The film’s director, Peyton Reed, the film’s writers, Jessica Bendinger and Stephen White, and the film’s cast all perfectly capture just how important the little dramas are when you’re a teenager. The film even manages to say something very important about issues like race and economic inequality.

Plus, as Erin and I both agreed last night, Jesse Bradford is HOT!

According to Erin, she has flashbacks and starts laughing uncontrollably whenever she hears the line “These are spirit fingers!”

What Didn’t Work?

It all worked. Seriously, if you can be critical of a film like Bring It On then you’re probably taking life too seriously.

“OH MY GOD! Just like Erin!” Moments

Last night, I finally got Erin to admit that she liked Bring It On because it reminded her of her cheerleading days but Erin added, “But I wasn’t as bouncy as Kirsten Dunst is in this movie.” To that, I can only smile and say, “Whatever,” because, as everyone knows, the Bowman Girls are always bouncy. That’s a part of our charm.

Lessons Learned

If you’re going do it, then bring it!

Film Review: Dead End (dir. by William Wyler)

Posted on January 7, 2013 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Originally released in 1937, Dead End is a gangster film with social conscience. Based on a Broadway play and featuring a screenplay by the iconic progressive writer Lillian Hellman, Dead End is a crime film that’s more interested in the root causes of crime than in crime itself.

Dead End takes place over the course of one day in the slums of New York City. While tenement children spend their time swimming in the East River and idealizing gangsters, wealthy people live in high-rise apartments and depend on the police and their doorman (played, naturally enough, by Ward Bond) to keep them protected from the poor people living next door.

Among the poor is Drina (Sylvia Sidney), who divides her time between marching on a picket line and trying to keep her younger brother Tommy (Billy Halop) from hanging out with the local street gang, the Dead End Kids (Huntz Hall, Bernard Punsly, Leo Gorcey, and Gabriel Dell). Drina’s childhood friend is Dave (Joel McCrea), an idealistic architect who is having an affair with a rich man’s mistress (Wendy Barrie).

Complicating things is the arrival of Baby Face Martin (Humphrey Bogart). Like Dave, Martin grew up in the slums. However, while Dave is trying to escape by making an honest living, Martin has already escaped by choosing a life of crime. Now, he’s viewed as a hero by Tommy and his friends and with wariness by Dave and Drina who know that Martin’s presence will eventually lead to the police invading their home. Martin, however, is more concerned with seeing his mother (Marjorie Main) and his ex-girlfriend (Clare Trevor), who has become a prostitute and is suffering from syphilis.

For a film that was made close to 80 years ago, Dead End holds up pretty well. Is this because it’s a brilliant film or just because the connection between poverty and crime has remained one of the constants of human history? It’s probably a combination of both. Considering that Dead End was filmed on a Hollywood backlot, it’s a surprisingly gritty and realistic film that only occasionally feels a bit stagey. The film’s entire cast does a good job of bringing this particular dead end to life, though the obvious star of the film is Humphrey Bogart. As played by Bogart, Baby Face Martin is both sympathetic and despicable, the epitome of the potential that can be found and wasted in any American city.

Dead End was nominated for best picture but lost to The Life of Emile Zola. The film also received a much deserved nomination for best art design but lost to Lost Horizon while Clare Trevor lost the race for best supporting actress to Alice Brady, who won for In Old Chicago. Perhaps most surprisingly of all, Humphrey Bogart did not even receive a nomination for his excellent work in Dead End. Meanwhile, the film’s tough gang of street kids proved to be so popular that they, as a group, were cast in several other films. Originally credited as the Dead End Kids (and later known as the Bowery Boys), they ended up making a total of 89 films together. With the possible exception of Angels With Dirty Faces, none of those films are as highly regarded as Dead End.

Arleigh’s Favorite Five (…Songs) of 2012

Posted on January 6, 2013 by Arleigh

I must admit that in 2012 I didn’t get to listen in full many new albums outside of soundtracks. My Fave five of 2012 Songs will reflect this fact, but still with the lack of variety in my past year’s listening habit I thought the songs I came up with for the list I still would’ve put on a much bigger favorite 2012 list if I had need to come up with one. Without further ado he are the Fave Five (though it’s more Fave Six but I decided to combine the first entry’s two as a tie).

The Fave Five starts off with a tie that comes from the same film. Both songs come from the soundtrack to The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. While the film may not have been up to some audiences’ high expectations the soundtrack itself by Howard Shore (and for “Song of the Lonely Mountain” as sung by Neill Finn) continued the high-quality of the Tolkien soundtracks which began with the original Lord of the Rings trilogy. “Song of the Lonely Mountain” is a much more folk rock addition to the soundtrack while the “Misty Mountains” was actually part of the film itself when the character of Thorin Oakenshield sings it with his band of dwarfs while at Bilbo Baggin’s hobbit hole in the beginning. Both songs so a great job of telling the story of the quest that begins with this first film in the new trilogy.
The theme song 2012’s Skyfall was a throwback to the classic James Bond theme song’s of the Sean Connery and Roger Moore Bond eras. In fact, I thought it’s one of the best theme songs the long-running spy thriller franchise has had these past 25 years. It helps that you have Adele singing the theme who seems to be able to hit the right proper emotional notes during the song. It’s really hard to think of Skyfall the film being as good as it is without making sure one mentions Adele’s theme for it. I’d take the leap and say that the song itself may even be better than the film itself.
Mass Effect 3 was the epic conclusion to what was this gaming generation’s version of the original Star Wars space opera. It was a story that spanned the galaxy with memorable characters, thrilling action and some very good writing. There will always be the vocal minority who seem to think the ending to the trilogy was bungled by the writers over ta BioWare. That’s a whole different debate altogether. One thing that doesn’t seem to bring out the pitchforks was Clint Mansell’s score work for the game and it all culminates with the song simply titled “An End, Once and For All” which in it’s extended version more than makes up for whatever deficiencies the ending it orchestrally-scored may have had.
Another game’s music makes itself to my Fave Five list and this time it’s my second favorite song for the year of 2012. It’s from Halo 4 and it’s a song that brought new life to the venerable franchise. It didn’t just make the end credits more than just memorable, but also surprised many fans of the franchise’s music since the song wasn’t composed by the franchise’s original music composer, Martin O’Donnell, but by Kazuma Jinnouchi. It’s the one song in 2012 that I must’ve listened to on repeat for hours on end and probably in the high hundreds by now. It’s a song that brings back memories of the scifi soundtracks of the 80’s. It’s a work that I easily can compare to the best that’s ever been composed by luminaries in the genre like John Williams, Alan Silvestri, Michael Giacchino and others.
What can I say. The song speaks for itself. How can one not say this was the best song for 2012.

The Daily Grindhouse: Mother’s Day (dir. by Darren Lynn Bousman)

Posted on January 6, 2013 by Lisa Marie Bowman

One of the great things about writing about films is that occasionally you both get to watch a film that, despite all of your expectations, turns out to be pretty good and then you get to tell other people about it! Case in point: 2012’s Mother’s Day.

Mother’s Day opens with two memorable scenes. In the first scene, we watch as a mysterious woman sneaks into a hospital and kidnaps a baby out of the maternity ward. When a guard attempts to stop her, he ends up with a knife driven into his throat. While we’ve seen similar scenes in other horror movies, it’s rare that we’ve ever seen this scene handled as well as it is in Mother’s Day.

The second scene opens with an almost intrusive close-up of a woman (played by Jaime King) sobbing as she stares at herself in a mirror. Again, it’s not that we haven’t seen this scene in other horror films. Instead, it’s the fact that Jaime King so totally throw herself into those sobs. We believe her tears and immediately, we want to know why she’s crying and we want to know how she’s connected to that baby being kidnapped from the hospital. In just two scenes, Mother’s Day captures our attention and, once it grabs a hold of us, it doesn’t let go for the next two hours.

It turns out that King and her husband have just bought a new house and, on one stormy night, they’re throwing a party with a few of their closest friends. It quickly becomes obvious that, regardless of how happy everyone’s pretending to be, there’s a lot of tension between King and her husband. Something has happened in the past that no one wants to talk about…

Suddenly, three heavily armed men barge into the house and take everyone hostage. The three of them are brothers and they’ve just robbed the bank. The youngest has been shot and is bleeding to death on the couch. The oldest brother explains that they’re looking for their mother. She used to live in the house before King and her husband bought it. The brothers didn’t know that their mother had been kicked out of the house and they’ve been mailing money to the address for the past few months. When King and her husband claim that none of the money ever showed up at the house, the brothers call their mother and soon, mom shows up to take control of the situation.

Mom is named Natalie and she’s played by Rebecca De Mornay. From the minute she shows up, it’s obvious that Natalie is both obsessed with her children and that she’s totally and completely insane. Continually switching between being sweet and psychotic, Natalie is a thoroughly frightening and disturbingly believable monster. De Mornay wisely underplays Natalie’s more showy moments and prevents the character from becoming just another stereotypical movie psycho. Instead, she’s the type of villain that we can easily imagine meeting in the real world. Needless to say, that makes her a hundred time more frightening than any faceless killer with a machete.

Mother’s Day, which was made in 2010 but not released in the U.S. until earlier this year, is a remake of low-budget, 1980 horror film. This is a rare case where the remake is about a thousand times better than the original. Director Darren Lynn Bousman keeps the action moving at a perfect pace and the film’s cast (which includes True Blood‘s Deborah Ann Woll in a showy role) creates a disturbingly credible gallery of rogues and victims.

Mother’s Day is a rarity — a horror remake that not only deserves to be seen but which is so good that the original might as well just be an afterthought.

( An earlier version of this review appeared on HorrorCritic.com.)

Film Review: Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner (directed by Stanley Kramer)

Posted on January 5, 2013 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Sometimes, you just had to be there.

That was my reaction as I watched the 1967 Best Picture nominee Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner. While this film may have been topical and even controversial when it was first released, when watched today it seems to be rather mild and tame.

In Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner, Spencer Tracy plays Matt Drayton. Matt’s a San Francisco newspaper publisher, a respected member of the upper class establishment. His wife, Christina (Katharine Hepburn), owns a trendy art gallery and Matt spends his spare time playing golf with Monsignor Ryan (Cecil Kellaway). He’s the father of the free-spirited Joey (Katharine Houghton, who was Hepburn’s niece in real life). He’s also, as we’re told repeatedly by every other character in the film, a liberal who supports the civil rights movement.

As the film begins, Joey is returning from a vacation in Hawaii and she has big news. While in Hawaii, she met and fell in love with the widowed John Prentice, a highly succesful doctor who is literally on the verge of winning a Nobel Peace Prize. Though he’s 16 years older than her and they’ve only known each other for 10 days, Joey and Prentice are planning on getting married. While Joey thinks that she’s bringing Prentice to San Francisco just so her parents can meet their future son-in-law, Prentice has specifically come to ask Matt’s permission to marry Joey. As Prentice explains to Matt, he’ll call the marriage off if Matt doesn’t approve.

John Prentice, by the way, is played by Sidney Poitier and that is the source of the film’s conflict. Will Matt give his daughter permission to marry a polite, considerate, wealthy, saintly, world-renowned doctor despite the fact that he happens to be black?

Watching Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner was a bit of a culture shock to me, both because I’m the result of an interracial marriage myself (my mom was Spanish and my dad’s white) and because several of my friends are either in or have been a part of an interracial relationship or marriage. For people my age, it’s not a big deal. We take it for granted that if you find someone to be attractive, you can have a relationship with him regardless of whatever race he may happen to be.

While I was doing research on Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner, I was reminded that this wasn’t always the case. When Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner was first released in 1967, interracial marriage was still illegal in 17 states. In that same year, U.S. Secretary of State Dean Rusk offered to resign when his daughter married a black man. When Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner was first released, interracial marriage still a controversial subject and when Spencer Tracy struggled with his feelings about it, he stood in for countless Americans who, though they may have taken pride in how tolerant they were, still weren’t sure what they would do if a black man tried to join their family.

As you can probably guess, Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner is far more interested in teaching a lesson than telling a story. It’s perhaps not surprising that the film was directed and produced by Stanley Kramer. Kramer was one of the most prominent filmmakers of the 1960s. He specialized in making big films that dealt with big issues, the type of films that were regularly nominated for an academy award but rarely honored with an actual win. In many ways, Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner is a prototypical Kramer picture — its heart is in the right place but the film itself is so conventional and free of ambiguity that it never manages to truly challenge the status quo that it claims to be criticizing.*

In his excellent look at the 1967 nominees for best picture, Pictures At A Revolution: Five Movies And The Birth of The New Hollywood, Mark Harris provides a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at the filming of Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner. Harris quotes Kramer as explaining that the character of John Prentice had to be perfect because, if the character had any flaws, then bigots in the audience would have seized on those flaws as the reason why Prentice and Joey should not be allowed to marry. As Kramer explains it, the entire film was set up to make it clear that the only possible reason that Matt could have to object to Prentice would be the color of his skin.

To an extent, I can see Kramer’s point (and again, it’s hard to judge what was necessary to make a point in 1967 from the perspective of 2013) but, as I watched Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner, it was hard not to feel that the main problem with the film was that Prentice was just too perfect. Certainly, he was too perfect to be in love with Joey who, as played by Houghton, simply seemed to be too naive and foolish to be a good match for a man who is on the verge of winning a Nobel Prize. Even more importantly, it’s hard to escape the fact that this accomplished, confident black man still needs to get the permission of a well-meaning white liberal before he can marry the woman he claims to love.

Ultimately, despite the film’s noble intentions, it feels more than a bit condescending. At no point is Prentice allowed to show any anger or frustration at having to prove himself. There’s even a scene where Prentice criticizes his own father for being too hung up on racism. “Not until you and you’re whole lousy generation lay down and die will the weight of you be off our backs … You think of yourself as a colored man … I think of myself as a man!” Prentice tells him, as if his success was due to ignoring racism as opposed to defying it.

If Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner has dated badly as a look at race relations in the United States, it remains watchable because of the performances of Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy. This was their 9th and final film together and the love that these two accomplished actors felt for each other shines through every scene. Tracy was seriously ill while making the film (and died before it was released) but he gave one of his best and most heartfelt performances here. He was nominated for a posthumous Oscar but lost to Rod Steiger, who co-starred with Poitier in the film that beat Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner for best picture, In The Heat of the Night.

In the Heat of the Night is best-remembered for the scene in which Poitier angrily declares, “They call me …. MISTER TIBBS!” This line epitomized the righteous anger that he was not allowed to display in Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner. If only Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner had its own “MISTER TIBBS” moment, it might be remembered as something other than a film that seems curiously out-of-place as a nominee for best picture.

—

* That said, Kramer’s post-Guess films were actually pretty interesting and a bit more daring. Some day, I’ll have to get around to reviewing his 1970 campus unrest film, R.P.M.

The Daily Grindhouse: The Horror of Party Beach (dir by Del Tenney)

Posted on January 4, 2013 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The Horror of Party Beach is a personal favorite of mine but it’s not an easy film to review. Technically, this is a terrible film but it’s also a lot of fun. It’s the type of film that makes the traditional definitions of good and bad irrelevant. In short, this 1964 “horror” film simply has to be seen to be believed.

Party Beach is perhaps the most depressing stretch of sand and surf to ever appear in a 1960s beach film. During the day, the beach is full of amazingly skinny dancers and leather-clad motorcyclists who spend all of their time dancing to music of the Del-Aires. Occasionally, a fight breaks out between the motorcyclists and the dancers but, for the most part, everyone seems to spend their time engaging in witty banter that I imagine was probably dated even in 1964. The skies are permanently overcast and the whole beach just reeks of a combination of societal decline and general ennui.

Even worse, the film opens with a toxic waste spill that somehow causes an underwater skeleton to mutate into a creature that’s apparently half-man and half-fish and which also has an insatiable lust for blood and a mouth that appears to be full of hot dogs. Soon, every night, the creatures are wandering around the town, killing people, and dragging the bodies off to the quarry.

One of the first victims is Tina, the wild girlfriend of Hank. Hank is a scientist who has the young Aryan look that most B-movie heroes seemed to have in the early 60s. Seriously, Hank manages to get through the entire film without once getting a single hair out-of-place. You would think that Hank would be upset over Tina’s death but he’s not because, as he told Tina before she died, he’s “no longer the campus bigshot who will do anything for kicks!” It also probably helps that Hank has fallen in love with Elaine, who appears to be about 40 years old but who, in a typically dramatic moment, turns down an invitation to go to a slumber party with all of her teenage friends.

Elaine’s father is Dr. Gavin. Dr. Gavin is also Hank’s boss and we can tell that Dr. Gavin is a genius because he not only wears glasses but he’s also bald and smokes a pipe. Together, Dr. Gavin and Hank try to figure out if there’s any way that the monsters can be stopped.

Dr. Gavin also has a maid named Eulabelle, who appears to have come to Horror of Party Beach straight from an awkwardly racist 1930s comedy. At one point, Eulabelle explains that she’s not only locked the front door but that she’s “double-locked and triple-locked it. Ain’t no monsters gettin’ in here…”

Perhaps if everyone on Party Beach had taken Eulabelle’s advice, many lives could have been saved. But oddly, even after everyone knows that there are monsters among them, the party continues on Party Beach. Not even the fear of death can silence the Del-Aires…

I make no apologies for loving The Horror of Party Beach. Everything about it — from the ludicrous monsters to the expressionless performances of the cast to the thoroughly nonsensical plot — make The Horror of Party Beach a one-of-a-kind experience. I’ve come across quite a few critics who have claimed that The Horror of Party Beach is one of the worst movies ever made but, seriously, it’s way too silly to be truly bad. It may not be a good film but it’s definitely a fun viewing experience.

Film Review: The Racket (dir. by Lewis Milestone)

Posted on January 3, 2013 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Originally released in 1928 and produced by Howard Hughes, The Racket was one of the first films to ever be nominated for an Oscar. It was also one of the first films to miss out on its chance to claim Oscar glory as the first statuette for Best Picture was given to the producers of Wings.

Like many films that were made in during the silent era, The Racket subsequently sunk into obscurity and, for several decades, it was considered to be a lost film. After the death of Howard Hughes, the last remaining copy of The Racket was discovered hidden away in his vast film collection. This print has been preserved at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. After several years of restoration, the film made its first appearance on TCM in 2004 and it has since been frequently broadcast on that network. That’s how I first saw it way back in 2012.

Based on a play by Bartlett Cormack, The Racket is a gangster film. Nick Scarsi (played by Louis Wolheim) is a powerful and politcally-connected bootlegger. He’s pursued by one of the few honest cops in town, Captain McQuigg (Thomas Meighan). When McQuigg proves to be incorruptible, Scarsi uses his political influence to get McQuigg transferred to a precinct in the suburbs. However, when Scarsi’s younger brother is arrested for a hit-and-run in McQuigg’s new precinct, the captain uses the incident to launch a complex plan to bring down both Scarsi and the corrupt public officials that allow him to run the city.

Seen today, The Racket is an almost quaintly traditional gangster film. According to the film’s title cards, everyone in the film speaks in hard-boiled slang and the characters — from the honest cop to the cynical reporters to the nightclub singer played by Marie Prevost — will all seem very familiar to anyone who has ever seen a classic Warner Bros. crime film. That said, The Racket is still a lot of fun to watch and director Lewis Milestone keeps the story moving at a good pace. At the very least, it’s interesting to see a gangster film that was actually made during the gangster era. Nick Scarsi was based on Al Capone and, perhaps not surprisingly, the film was banned in Chicago when it was originally released.

The film shows up frequently on TCM and it’s also available on YouTube. And it can be watched below!

The Daily Grindhouse: Shoot (dir. by Harvey Hart)

Posted on January 2, 2013 by Lisa Marie Bowman

As I explained yesterday in my review of the 1935 film version of Les Miserables, one of my resolutions for 2013 is to review a film a day, alternating between films that were nominated for an Oscar and film’s that most certainly were not. Today’s film stars two Oscar winners (Cliff Robertson and Ernest Borgnine) but it was not nominated for any awards itself. Along with being ignored by the Academy, this film is unfairly obscure and has an oddly bad reputation among cult movie fans. The movie is a Canadian exploitation film from 1976 and it’s probably even more relevant today than when it was first made. The name of the film? Shoot.

Rex (played by Cliff Robertson) is a veteran of the National Guard, a respected community leader in his small town, and a man who loves his guns. His house is full of guns of all shapes and sizes and he’s so proud of his military background that the living room even appears to have camouflage style wallpaper. From the film’s opening shots, it quickly establishes that Rex is not comfortable being civilized. The few attempts that he makes to speak to his wife are painfully awkward. Rex only feels truly alive during the weekends that he spends out in the wilderness, hunting with his buddies, played by Ernest Borgnine and Henry Silva. His friends look up to Rex as their leader, to the extent that one of them refers to Rex as being the “senior officer in charge.”

During one hunting trip, Rex and his heavily armed friends pause to rest next to a river. Suddenly, on the other side of the river, another group of heavily armed strangers show up. They stare at each other for a few minutes before suddenly, a shot rings out. The two groups start shooting at each other. One man is wounded and another is killed before Robertson and his group retreat to the security of Borgnine’s cabin.

Instead of going to the police, Robertson convinces his group to keep the incident a secret. They return to town, swearing not to tell anyone about what’s happened. However, Robertson’s paranoia gets the better of him. Before long, he’s convinced himself that the other group is going to seek revenge and that the only way to survive is to kill them first. Along with the hot-headed Silva, Robertson recruits a small army of townsfolk to return with him to the wilderness. Only Borgnine questions the wisdom of Robertson’s plan. The whole thing eventually leads to a genuinely shocking and disturbing climax.

Robertson and his friends are obviously meant to be representatives of American gun culture and to call Shoot heavy-handed would be a bit of an understatement. That said, Shoot is still an undeniably effective piece of propaganda. Robertson, Silva, and Borgnine all give excellent performances and director Harvey Hart manages to generate and maintain a good deal of suspense concerning just what (if anything) Robertson is going to find waiting for him in the wilderness. Though the film has its slow spots, the emphasis on characterization and suspense makes the surprise ending all the more effective.

Shoot is not an easy film to see. It has never been released on DVD or Blu-ray and I only happened to learn of it because I was bored one day and I was flipping through one of my film reference books. However, the film has recently been uploaded to YouTube and here it is: