Today’s horror movie on the Shattered Lens is both a classic of silent era and one of the most influential horror films ever made.
First released in 1925, The Phantom of the Opera is today best known for both Lon Chaney’s theatrical but empathetic performance as the Phantom and the iconic scene where Mary Philbin unmasks him. However, the film is also a perfect example of early screen spectacle. The Phantom of the Opera was released during that period of time, between Birth of the Nation and the introduction of sound, when audiences expected films to provide a visual feast and Phantom of the Opera certainly accomplishes that. Indeed, after watching this film and reading Gaston Leroux’s original novel, it’s obvious that the musical was inspired more by the opulence of this film than by the book.
This film is also historically significant in that it was one of the first films to be massively reworked as the result of a poor test screening. The film’s ending was originally faithful to the end of the novel. However, audiences demanded something a little more dramatic and that’s what they got.
In The Grave, old west outlaw Pinto Sykes is gunned down by a group of townspeople and buried in a lonely grave. However, before Sykes dies, he swears that if the bounty hunter Miller (Lee Marvin) ever comes near his grave, he’ll reach out of the ground and grab him. Needless to say, it’s not long before Miller is challenged to put Sykes’s dying words to the test.
This episode of The Twilight Zone was written and directed by Montgomery Pittman. It originally aired on October 27th, 1961. Classic western fans will immediately recognize the majority of the cast.
Today, I want to take about 18 minutes to share something with our readers. The Devil’s Cabaret is an early color short film from 1930. I recent caught it on TCM and my immediate reaction was that I simply had to share it. Along with fitting in with the October theme of this site, The Devil’s Cabaret provides ample evidence of just how weird Hollywood could be before the production code was instituted.
Incidentally, the devil is played Charles Middleton who, nearly two decades later, would play The Strangler of the Swamp.
Yesterday, while I was out running, I tripped over an invisible rock (at least I think it was an invisible rock) and I twisted my ankle. My first impulse was to check to see if I was being chased by zombies since I’ve learned from movies that anytime a woman sprains her ankle, there has to be either zombies or a masked killer somewhere nearby. Fortunately, movies are not real life. Anyway, I’m staying home from work today, trying to rest and stay off my ankle — which means going against every naturally hyper instinct in my body.
Fortunately, I’ve got thousands of movies, a lot of books, and a TV to help comfort me as I spend the day on the couch. (I also have the sound of my landlord’s son mowing the lawn outside.) Earlier this morning, as I was exploring everything that television has to offer, I came across a channel called Bounce TV and a movie called Brother John.
Up until I randomly came across it on Bounce TV, I had never heard of Brother John. A quick google search hinted that I probably wasn’t alone in that. Brother John appears to be a rather obscure film.
And that’s a shame because, as I quickly discovered, Brother John is actually a pretty interesting film.
Released in 1971, Brother John takes place in a small town in Alabama. The majority of the town’s black citizens work at the local factory, where they are exploited by the white owners and kept in check by the white sheriff (who, as played by Ramon Bieri, is the epitome of the nightmarish Southern law enforcer). When the workers, under the leadership of the charismatic Charlie Gray (Lincoln Kilkpatrick), threaten to unionize, the town finds itself on the verge of exploding into racial violence.
Into all of this comes John Kane (Sidney Poitier). Wearing a dark suit and viewing the world through weary eyes, John grew up in the town. The local doctor and town drunk Doc Thomas (Will Geer) can still remember delivering John. However, John mysteriously vanished when he was a teenager. As Doc Thomas points out, John only returns after someone dies. In this case, it was the funeral of John’s sister that led to him returning to town.
This time, however, John doesn’t leave immediately after the funeral. Instead, he spends a few days in the town and dates a school teacher (Beverly Todd). The authorities — led by Doc Thomas’s politically ambitious son, Lloyd (Bradford Dillman) — are convinced that John is a labor agitator who has come to town to start trouble. Meanwhile, the factory workers (including Todd’s ex-boyfriend, played by Paul Winfield) are angered by John’s reticent nature.
After having John arrested, Lloyd discovers, from looking at John’s passport, that John has been all over the world, even to communist countries that should be closed to American citizens. He discovers that John carries a journal that’s full of empty pages. When he asks John how he managed to learn a dozen different languages, John replies, “I listened.” Lloyd thinks John is a communist. Doc Thomas, meanwhile, is convinced that John is something more than just a human being…
Who is Brother John? That’s the question that everyone’s asking in this film. It’s a question that the film never answers. Instead, it’s up to the audience to consider the enigmatic clues offered up in this film and come to their own conclusions.
And that is why I enjoyed Brother John. It’s a film that encourages the audience to think for itself. Featuring an excellent performance from a perfectly cast Sidney Poitier and plenty of moody Southern atmosphere, Brother John is a great discovery waiting to be found.
We have a few traditions here at the Shattered Lens. Every Christmas, we feature Treevenge. Every Halloween, we invite everyone to watch Night of the Living Dead. And every October, we offer up Ed Wood’s classic plea for world peace, Plan 9 From Outer Space.
In “The Masks,” a group of greedy relatives gather at the New Orleans home of Jason Foster (Robert Keith). Foster is on the verge of death and the relatives are eagerly waiting their chance to claim their inheritance. However, as Foster informs them, they will only get paid if they wear masks that are meant to reflect their inner natures…
This episode of the Twilight Zone first aired on March 20th, 1964. As written by Rod Serling and directed by Ida Lupino (making her the only woman to direct an episode of the original Twilight Zone), this episode is full of gothic Southern atmosphere and it’s a perfect addition for any Halloween viewing marathon.
it’s been said that, early in the career of every Oscar nominee, there’s a film or two that he probably wishes would be forgotten. Today’s movie is one of those films, 1989’s Cutting Class.
Cutting Class is, in many ways, a fairly standard 1980s slasher comedy hybrid. It features a stronger heroine than most and it does a bit of a better job than expected at making you guess who the killer is but, for the most part, Cutting Class is mostly memorable for being one of Brad Pitt’s first major roles.
The bad news is that the character he’s playing here is kind of an asshole and not even the fact that he looks like Brad Pitt can make him likable.
The good news is that Brad Pitt has always been hot.
In this poignantly haunting episode of the Twilight Zone, Gladys Cooper plays a lonely widow who starts to receive mysterious phone calls from a stranger.
This episode was written by Richard Matheson (and based on his short story Long Distance Call) and it was directed by Jacques Tourneur. Tourneur is probably best known for directing moody horror films like Cat People and Curse of the Demon and he brings a similar atmosphere to Night Call.
I, Zombie, yesterday’s film, was pretty dark. So, for today, let’s lighten things up with a horror film from 1966 that some people consider to be one of the worst films ever made.
I am, of course, talking about Manos: The Hands of Fate.
Manos deals with an angry middle-aged man named Michael (played by the film’s director-writer-producer, Harold P. Warren) who, after driving for an eternity through west Texas, ends up stopping off at a motel. At the motel, he meets an odd fellow named Torgo (John Reynolds, who sadly committed suicide immediately after filming Manos). Torgo works for a mysterious figure that he calls “The Master” and it quickly becomes obvious that the Master wants to add Michael’s wife and daughter to his harem. Most people would probably react to all of this by just getting in their car and driving somewhere else. However, Michael is kind of stubbon and stupid…
As I mentioned at the start of this review, Manos has a reputation for being one of the worst films ever made. This may be true but it’s also compulsively watchable. This is one of those films that is so extremely (and, often times, unintentionally) strange that you simply cannot look away.
One final word in defense of Manos. Manos was written, directed, and produced by a fertilizer salesman from my great home state of Texas. The cast was made up of community theater veterans. Next to nobody involved with Manos ever made another film. And yet, Manos will be remembered long after you’ve forgotten the title of the last film made by Michael Bay. You can keep your boring, well-made films because there will always be a place in my heart for Manos: The Hands of Fate.
(Add to that, the film’s title translates to Hands: The Hands of Fate and who can’t appreciate that?)
When I first decided that I wanted to devote some of October to horror-themed television, I knew i wanted to feature a few episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. After all, Buffy is one of the most acclaimed and influential shows of all time. On a personal note, the show started when I was 12 and it ended right before my senior year of high school. As a result, Buffy was a show that I watched during some of the most emotionally turbulent years of my life and, as a character, Buffy Summers was the type of role model that I needed.
However, what i quickly discovered was that there really aren’t any full length episodes of Buffy on YouTube. There’s plenty of fanvids. There’s a lot of music videos featuring clips of Angel and Buffy staring soulfully at each other. But, because of copyright issues, there aren’t any full-length episodes available on YouTube.
However, there is the unaired pilot.
This was a 30-minute “sample” episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer that was written and directed by Joss Whedon in 1996. The episode was never meant to be televised. Instead, it was a tool that Whedon used to pitch the concept of Buffy to the networks.
So, since I couldn’t find Hush on YouTube, here’s the 1996 unaired pilot of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Today’s horror movie on the Shattered Lens is both a classic of silent era and one of the most influential horror films ever made.
