And now that you’ve re-read Arleigh’s review of the original Halloween, why not check out my review of the original Halloween II? This was originally published in 2012! After reading this, be sure to check back in about 90 minutes for Case’s review of Halloween 4! And then come back on Thursday for Halloween 5! (Where’s Halloween 3? It will be dealt with as soon as we finish the saga of Michael Myers…)
Last night, I watched Halloween II. No, I’m not referring to the rather disturbing Rob Zombie movie that came out in 2009. Instead, this Halloween II was the original sequel to the original Halloween. This version was written by John Carpenter and Debra Hill. It was released in 1981 and I saw it in 2012, via Cinemax.
Why Was I Watching It?
Because it’s October, of course! It’s horror month and Halloween is one of the great horror movies. Would Halloween II turn out to be another great horror movie? Well, to be honest, I figured it probably wouldn’t but I decided to watch it anyway.
What Was It About?
Halloween II picks up exactly from where the first Halloween ended. The sole surviving babysitter, Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis), is being rushed to the hospital by two paramedics, one nice (Lance Guest) and one kinda crude and pervy (Leo Rossi). …
After watching Witness For The Prosecution, I continued TCM’s 31 Days of Oscar by watching the 1966 Best Picture nominee, The Sand Pebbles.
Considering that The Sand Pebbles is close to four hours long, it’s interesting how little there is to really say about it. Taking place in 1926, The Sand Pebbles follows the crew of the USS San Pablo, a gunboat that patrols the Yangtze River in China. The San Pablo is there to protect American business interests, which are in particular danger because China is caught up in a communist revolution. For the most part, the crew of the San Pablo are portrayed as being lazy and racist. They have little interest in understanding the culture of the people around them and they use Chinese laborer to do the work on the boat.
When Jake Holman (Steve McQueen) is transferred to the San Pablo, he upsets his fellow crewmen by insisting on working in the ship’s engine room himself, the fear being that if Holman is willing to work then the rest of them will be expected to work as well. The ship’s commander, Lt. Collins (Richard Crenna), views Holman as being a threat to morale and starts to make plans to get Holman off of his boat. But, first, the boat is going to have to get out of China…
The Sand Pebbles is an episodic film and some of those episodes are more interesting than others. Typically, an episode will start out positively and then end with some sudden tragedy. For instance, Holman trains one laborer (Mako) to be a boxer and then watches as he beats the most racist crewman on the ship. However, just a few minutes later, the laborer is captured and savagely tortured by the communists and Holman is forced to perform a mercy killing.
In another subplot, Holman’s only friend, Frenchy (Richard Attenborough), marries a local prostitute (Emmanuelle Arsan, who would later write an autobiography that would serve as the basis for a very different type of film). However, in order to see his wife, Frenchy has to continually swim to shore in the middle of the night. Frenchy soon develops pneumonia and dies while his wife is dragged off and apparently executed.
And finally, Holman strikes up a romance with Shirley Eckert (Candice Bergen), an innocent missionary. However, when her arrogant and naive boss, Jameson (Larry Gates), refuses to leave the country despite the revolution, the San Pablo is ordered to rescue them. This, of course, leads to a final battle with the communists which leaves a good deal of the cast dead.
As I watched The Sand Pebbles, my main impression was that it was an extremely long movie. The film’s climatic battle was exciting and Steve McQueen (not to be confused with the director of 12 Years A Slave and Shame) gave a good performance but otherwise, the film often seemed to drag. While the movie’s theme of Americans struggling (and failing) to understand another country’s culture had a definite resonance, The Sand Pebbles did not seem to be quite sure what it truly wanted to say about it.
Let’s face it — over 500 films have been nominated for best picture. And, while a good deal of them hold up surprisingly well and are still entertaining to watch, there’s also a handful like The Sand Pebbles, ambitious films that never quite reached their potential but were probably nominated because they seemed like the type of epic film that should be nominated. Many of these films were nominated and a few even won.
However, in the case of The Sand Pebbles, a nomination would have to be enough. That year, the Oscar for Best Picture was won by A Man For All Seasons.
Speaking as a Southerner (well, a Southwesterner), I’ve always found in interesting that the rest of America loves to talk about how much they hate us but, at the same time, they also love books and movies set down here. From the era of silent cinema to today with films like August: Osage County, people up north are obsessed with Southern melodrama.
It’s interesting because I’ve lived down south for most of my 29 years and there’s really not any more melodrama down here than there is anywhere else. In fact, one of the main reasons that I enjoy watching Southern melodramas is because I enjoy seeing what the folks up north actually believe to be true. I watch and I think to myself, “Northerners actually believe this shit.” And then I laugh and laugh.
Take, for example, the 1961 film Ada. Ada is pure Southern political melodrama. (Admittedly, one of the best political films of all time — All The King’s Men — is a Southern melodrama but, to put it politely, Ada is no All The King’s Men.)
Ada tells the story of Bo Gillis (Dean Martin), a guitar-playing, singing sheriff who is running for governor of an unnamed Southern state. Bo is running as a reform candidate but actually he’s just a figurehead for the wealthy and corrupt Sylvester Marin (Wilfred Hyde-White). Bo is popular with the crowds, he has a great speech writer named Steve (played by the great character actor, Martin Balsam), and he has ruthless supporters who are willing to do anything to get him elected. What he doesn’t have is a wife. But that changes when he meets a prostitute named Ada (Susan Hayward) and marries her three weeks before the election.
At first, Sylvester demands that Bo get the marriage annulled. Bo, however, refuses. Fortunately, it turns out that the wife of Bo’s opponent is a drug addict. Sylvester’s henchman Yancey (Ralph Meeker) leaks the news to the press and Bo is elected governor.
The only problem is that, once Bo is elected, he declares the he wants to run an honest administration and he starts to question Sylvester’s orders. After the lieutenant governor is forced to resign, Ada lobbies to be appointed to the job. Soon after Ada is confirmed, Bo is nearly blown up in his car. While Bo is recovering, Ada serves as acting governor. Will Ada be able to defeat Sylvester and convince Bo that she wasn’t responsible for trying to get him killed?
Watch and find out!
Or don’t.
Ada truly puts the drama into melodrama. (It does not, however, bring the mellow.) This is one of those films that’s full of overheated (yet strangely forgettable) dialogue and vaguely familiar character actors speaking in thick Southern accents. Susan Hayward is so intense that you worry she might have killed a grip before shooting her scenes while Dean Martin spends most of the movie looking as if he’s waiting for the Rat Pack to show up and take him to a better party.
This is one of those films that you watch and you think to yourself, “Northerners actually believe this shit.”
Last night, I watched Halloween II. No, I’m not referring to the rather disturbing Rob Zombie movie that came out in 2009. Instead, this Halloween II was the original sequel to the original Halloween. This version was written by John Carpenter and Debra Hill. It was released in 1981 and I saw it in 2012, via Cinemax.
Why Was I Watching It?
Because it’s October, of course! It’s horror month and Halloween is one of the great horror movies. Would Halloween II turn out to be another great horror movie? Well, to be honest, I figured it probably wouldn’t but I decided to watch it anyway.
What Was It About?
Halloween II picks up exactly from where the first Halloween ended. The sole surviving babysitter, Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis), is being rushed to the hospital by two paramedics, one nice (Lance Guest) and one kinda crude and pervy (Leo Rossi). Two guesses which one of our two paramedics eventually ends up dead. Meanwhile, Michael Myers has apparently survived being shot six times and falling out of a second story window and he’s still wandering around Haddonfield, Indiana. Best of all, Dr. Sam Loomis (Donald Pleasence) is still running around all over the place, telling anyone who will listen that it wasn’t his idea to allow Michael to be released. (In one of the film’s best running jokes, everyone responds to Loomis’ protestations by saying stuff like, “Damn you for letting him out!” “Uhmm, I didn’t…” Dr. Loomis mutters at one point.) It quickly becomes apparent that Michael’s rampage wasn’t quite as random as it seemed in the first film. He’s after Laurie and, once he breaks into the local hospital, it seems like he might very well get her. Why? Because, for the most part, it appears that every single citizen of Haddonfield is a total and complete moron.
What Worked?
Halloween II is actually one the better of the slasher sequels of the early 80s. While it can’t compare to the first Halloween, it’s still a fairly suspenseful little film and Michael Myers is just as frightening as ever. However, what truly makes this film memorable, is Donald Pleasence’s unhinged performance as Dr. Loomis. Whereas in the first film, Pleasence played Loomis as just being somewhat testy and annoyed, his performance here suggests that, in the minute or so between shooting Michael and then looking out the window at the end of the first film, Loomis has managed to totally lose his mind. Pleasence gives one of the most mannered, over the top performances in film history in Halloween II and it works perfectly. Whenever the film starts to drag, Pleasence shows up and injects a nice bit of crazy into the proceedings. My favorite moment comes when Loomis suddenly yells at a policeman, “What is it you guys you usually do? FIRE A WARNING SHOT!?”
Lance Guest, who plays the nice paramedic, was really quite likable. I know there’s some debate as to the ultimate fate of his character but I chose to believe that he survived.
The Halloween theme music is still probably one of the most effective horror soundtracks to have not been composed by Goblin or Riz Ortolani. When it came on the TV last night, our cat Doc actually got scared and ran out of the room.
What Didn’t Work?
It’s not the first Halloween.
While the film nominally stars Jamie Lee Curtis, Laurie spends most of the film catatonic and she never really gets to do much other than run from Michael. Say what you will about how Laurie kept dropping her weapons at the end of the first Halloween, she still at least fought back. In Halloween II, Laurie is reduced to being a stereotypical victim.
“Oh my God! Just like me!” Moments
I have to admit that I kinda related to the three nurses who were on call at the hospital. I related to Karen (Pamela Susan Shoop) because, like her, I have, in the past, shown a weakness for bad boys who insist on making out in a hot tub even while there’s a merciless serial killer wandering about. I related to Jill (Tawny Moyer) because, like her, I tend to look at my nails whenever I get bored at work. Most of all, I related to Janet (Ana Alicia), because she couldn’t figure out how to use a walkie talkie. (And, seriously, what type of name is walkie-talkie anyway? It sounds like a cutesy robot.)
So, as opposed to most other slasher films, I was able to find instant empathy with not one but three characters! Unfortunately, all three of those nurses were dead by the end of the film so, seriously … agck!
Through the Shattered Lens 