Cinematic Distractions

[dulcedemon]

The Munsters (2022):
I can explain both this movie and the original television series, which made its debut in 1964, in these simple terms: Halloween-themed dad jokes told by a family of friendly monsters.
It's wholesome, sweet-natured, giggle and groan inducing fun for the entire family. I never thought the day would come when I would recommend a Rob Zombie movie for children.
The television series was almost twenty years old when I began watching it. I was around kindergarten age. The jokes were silly and clean with a touch of playful ghoulishness. Rob Zombie changed nothing of that formula. There is no profanity, no nudity, and no heavy adult situations.
The story begins in Transylvania with the origin of Herman Munster (Jeffrey Daniel Phillips), then transitions to how he met and married Lily Gruesella (Sheri Moon Zombie), and finally, how the family came to reside at 1313 Mockingbird Lane in Hollywood, CA. The sets, especially the castle interiors, are gorgeous. The costume design is spot on thanks to Tóth András Dániel and Godena-Juhász Attila. Too many people to mention worked on make-up and hair, but they all did a stellar job. As with all Rob Zombie movies, each shot could easily be a painting or a panel in a comic book. His artistic sense pervades every frame.
Several of the actors perform dual roles, and one of them pulls a triple. I was shocked by two of them, and I won't say which ones. Daniel Roebuck is as good as Al Lewis ever was as The Count. Note that he is not yet a grandpa in this story. Richard Brake plays mad scientist, Dr. Henry August Wolfgang. He does it with a campy Vincent Price vibe that I really enjoyed. I loved Jorge Garcia as Floop the mad scientist's assistant. Sylvester McCoy is brilliantly batty as The Count's faithful servant, Igor. Cassandra Peterson has a small role as a Hollywood real estate agent. Butch Patrick, who played Eddie in the original series, lends his voice to a robot. The biggest surprise for me was that Sheri Moon Zombie could be so fabulous and yet so hilarious. I would love it if they did a sequel.
Shooting on location in Hungary was an excellent decision in terms of atmosphere. When it comes time for the Munsters to move to Hollywood, they do a cool animated sequence with the actors in a car driving past various, famous landmarks. While on their honeymoon in Paris, Herman makes reference to being mistaken for Maurice Chevalier, and it made think of The Marx Brothers in Monkey Business (1931), when they take turns impersonating the crooner in an effort to rush their way through customs. I couldn't help but wonder how much of this origin story was based upon how Rob Zombie and Sheri Moon got together.

The Green Knight (2021):
I have not read the 14th century narrative poem Sir Gawain and the Green Night upon which this movie is based. The majority of what I know about King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table comes from Excalibur (1981), Monty Python and The Holy Grail (1975), and Camelot (1967). Scholars of the myth and legend would do well to ignore me.
This is a cautionary tale that warns against braggadocio. Sir Gawain (Dev Patel), actually just Gawain, isn't even a knight yet. He is an aspiring knight, who spends his time drinking and carousing in the local brothel with his favorite lady, Essel (Alicia Vikander). In spite of his idle debauchery, his chances of becoming a knight are still pretty good. After all, he is the king's nephew.
He presents himself at the castle to join his uncle and king for a Christmas feast. The Green Knight (Ralph Ineson) crashes the party and issues a challenge to all in attendance. He dares one among them to come forth and strike him, vowing to return and strike them in kind in one year's time. When the knights show reluctance to accept the challenge, Gawain steps up, and with reckless overconfidence, delivers what should be a mortal blow. What follows is a rich, strange, and treacherous quest in which Gawain is forced to confront both the supernatural and the depths of his own psyche as he rides to his probable doom.
I loved how seasonally appropriate for Halloween this felt, even though it begins and ends on Christmas. The atmosphere is one of dread and foreboding in which untold horrors lurk in every shadowy coppice. Fate is stalking him. Mysterious primeval beings, and cunning nature spirits shape both environment and events. The old gods bring their full weight to bear. Gawain's sorceress mother (Sarita Choudhury) is not nearly as powerful or cunning, but she knows a thing or two, and she does her best to prepare and protect him.
The costumes are lovely. The hairstyles are impressive. The sets and locations are amazing. Alicia Vikander plays a dual role, which I won't spoil. Those who find the story hard to follow can console themselves with the beautiful and creative cinematography.

Black Cobra Woman (Eva Nera - 1976):
Laura Gemser of Emanuelle fame stars as exotic dancer Eva whose most popular routine involves a large snake. She was so strongly associated with the Emanuelle series that various releases of Black Cobra Woman include that name in title.
Belgium - Emanuelle en de Blanke Slavinnen
Denmark - Emanuelles erotiske hemmelighed
Greece - I Emmanouella sto trigono tis amartias
USA (naughty bits removed version) - Emmanuelle Goes Japanese
USA (DVD release) - Emmanuelle and the Deadly Black Cobra
One of the USA titles implies that the action is set in Japan. It's not. It's in Hong Kong.
I get a kick out of how the single or double "m" in Emmanuelle seems to be arbitrary. I personally prefer the double, but it's not actually arbitrary. The very first Emmanuelle movie starred a white actress named Sylvia Kristel.
Gemser starred in the 1975 follow-up Black Emanuelle. Notice that they dropped an "m" from the title. The spelling difference is subtle. The racial implication is not. Laura Gemser is not black. She is Indonesian-Dutch. Why black? I don't know. It's a series of softcore porn movies. Deep thought has no place here.
Gemser's real-life spouse, Gabriele Tinti, plays Jules Carmichael. I'm not sure if they were husband and wife when this was made, but they did get married that same year. When he died in 1991, she quit acting and went into costume design.
Jack Palance is an unlikely but likeable co-star in the role of Judas Carmichael. Yes, Judas, not Iscariot, but still. He and his brother Jules run the family business left to them by their parents. The specifics of the business are not clear. It may or may not have something to do with procuring talent for nightclubs. It's clear that Jules does the bulk of the work, while Judas spends his time hyper-fixated on his herpetology hobby. The house the brothers share is full of Judas' pet snakes, including several highly venomous specimens. To be fair, maybe the reason he ended up an oddball with no social life and a bunch of deadly snakes for friends is because his parents named him Judas. They could have gone with Jude, even Judd, but no, they had to name the poor kid Judas. It's no wonder he finds it difficult to conduct business and get dates.
Jules takes Judas to see Eva's act in which she seductively dances while partially nude with a large snake draped around her. Judas is instantly smitten. I mean crazy, stalker, gets her home number, turns up at the restaurant where she is having lunch, but it's fine because he is wealthy enough that the local authorities are willing to look the other way smitten with her.
It just so happens that Eva has been having boyfriend trouble. When she meets Judas, she is trying to escape an abusive relationship with her manager. She reluctantly agrees to a dinner date. Even though she is thoroughly creeped out by her newest biggest fan, she not only goes on a date with him but also moves in with him and his brother.
Though it's mainly Jules' idea, the brothers promptly throw a party to introduce Eva to their friends and business associates, a few of whom she seduces. Jules does a little seducing of his own. There is mishap involving a snake and a pretty blonde. Later, Eva meets yet another pretty blonde with whom she really hits it off. They go on several dates around Hong Kong. They go swimming. They eat at an outdoor café, where they discuss their future plans, and their past relationships with men over a beautiful centerpiece of snapdragons and marigolds. They have a particularly hot date at a nightclub that caters to lesbians, where they take in a strip show, and do some dancing of their own. The nightclub hostess reminded me of Carol Burnett. I think it was her hairstyle combined with her hoop earrings. I won't spoil the rest of the story, but it does involve man butt in a bad way.
It has a lot of 1970's chic, when large exotic houseplants and wicker furniture were de rigueur. Jules and Judas also have a rather interesting telephone that gets used in a few scenes. The audio sucks. The film is faded and gritty with numerous scratches, but that somehow enhanced my enjoyment. One thing I didn't enjoy was a great big watermark with the name of the DVD production company stamped over the next to last scene.
As far as scenes depicting sexual situations go, Jack Palance is not involved in any of them. He is a spectator at the nightclub for the snake dance, and that's it. He didn't do a porn. He was merely porn adjacent.

A Free Soul (1931):
Here we have Clark Gable and Leslie Howard pitted against each other with a feisty, headstrong brunette caught in the middle eight years before Gone with the Wind. The brunette in this instance is Norma Shearer. She plays free-spirited and opulent Jan Ashe, the daughter of notable attorney and notorious alcoholic Stephen Ashe (Lionel Barrymore). She is engaged to be married to star polo player Dwight Winthrop (Leslie Howard). That engagement gets put on hold after she meets gangster Ace Wilfong (Clark Gable), when she tags along to court with her father.
Nothing makes the ladies swoon like a racketeer trying to beat a murder rap. Her upper crust relations are aghast. Her father, who is his own kind of family embarrassment, refuses to condone their relationship. Jan is content to sneak around, but Ace wants them to go legitimate. Stephen's alcoholism becomes a major part of the plot. One thing about Lionel Barrymore, whom I've seen in four different movies now, every character from lovable to odious has been a yeller. Good gracious! That man could holler.
James Gleason gives an outstanding performance as Eddie, Stephen Ashe's professional and personal assistant and longtime friend. Gleason gets some clever lines. One of which contains the phrase "leopard sweat". It's not hard to deduce that it's a reference to tainted or counterfeit booze. A peculiar expression used several times by more than one character is "take it on the run". The meaning is similar to the REO Speedwagon song of that name. Another bit of slang is "high-hat", which I already knew from Miller's Crossing (1990). Jan Ashe's snooty relatives give Ace Wilfong the high-hat, or as her father puts it to him:
"The only time I hate democracy is when one of you mongrels forget where you belong. A few illegal dollars, a clean shirt, and you move across the railroad tracks."
There is a humorous scene in which a bit character by the name of Slouch does some slang-peppered fast talking. That's Edward Brophy. Some might recognize him from The Thin Man films.
A Free Soul is remarkable for its sensitive and sympathetic portrayal of alcoholism. It shows some naiveté about how to handle and treat addiction. Alcoholics Anonymous wouldn't be founded for another four years. This film takes a softball approach to the subject. For the hardball approach, I recommend The Lost Weekend (1945).

Wolf Blood AKA: Wolfblood: A Tale of the Forest (1925):
This is not the first werewolf movie ever made. That distinction belongs to The Werewolf (1913), but like so many films made prior to 1930, it was lost. This is the earliest surviving werewolf movie ever made.
Dick Bannister:
"Gee, Miss --from your letters I've always thought you were a hundred years old and probably had the gout!"
More romantic words have not been spoken in a silent film.
In the Canadian wilderness, competition between two neighboring lumber mills turns violent. When workers at the Ford lumber mill start getting shot on the job, it prompts a visit from the mill's new owner, a lovely young lady (Marguerite Clayton) who recently inherited the business from her father. She brings along her doctor boyfriend (Ray Hanford) to whom she is newly engaged. The way the title card puts it, he is rich enough to obtain a medical degree yet have no need to practice, which makes him sort of a Dr. Do-nothing. Upon their arrival at the mill, lady boss takes quite the liking to the mill foreman, the aforementioned Dick Bannister (George Chesebro).
It's basically the story of a love triangle. Circumstances, involving the owner of the competing lumber mill and his seedy henchman, a bootlegger by the name of Jaques (Milburn Morante), and a blood transfusion from a wolf, arise and greatly complicate that love triangle. Don't expect any showy person to werewolf transitions. The monster in this movie is strictly psychological. It makes mention of Loup Garou, which is the French-Canadian-Cajun legend of the werewolf.
I sometimes like to supply an alternate score to the silent movies I watch. I didn't do it for the entire film, but I'd like to suggest My Name Is Mud by Primus for all of the scenes with Jacques. I rented it as one half of a double feature with The Haunted Castle on a DVD produced by Alpha Video. It's also at The Internet Archive, and the quality is somewhat better.
https://archive.org/details/WolfBlood1925

Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries Season 01: Disc 03 (2012):
The second disc got my hopes up. With this third one, I'm back to feeling tepid about this series. Episode Death by Miss Adventure was the best of this bunch for me. It has a lot going for it in terms of plot.
Dot (Ashleigh Cummings) goes undercover as a factory worker, and Miss Fisher's best friend, Dr. Mac (Tammy MacIntosh), falls under suspicion during a murder investigation.

The Haunted Castle AKA: Castle Vogeloed (Schloß Vogelöd: Die Enthullung eines Geheimnisses - 1921):
This is one of the earliest surviving films directed by F. W. Murnau. Were it not for the gorgeous and nearly perfect restoration of this film available for viewing at The Internet Archive, I would not be able to make much comment apart from bitching about the stunningly poor quality of the copy I had rented. The Alpha Video release that I had was too blurry and murky to see anything clearly. Several scenes were almost completely black. I played it through only because the title cards were bilingual in English and German. That's the one nice thing I can say about it. The one negative thing I have to say about the restored version at The Internet Archive is that the title cards are in German only.
https://archive.org/details/the-haunted-castle-1921-restored-movie-720p-hd
A rather unlikable fellow accused of a terrible crime sets out to clear his name. Count Oetsch (Lothar Mehnert) would probably be in jail were it not for his wealth and power. Instead, he has the luxury of inviting himself along for several days of hunting at the estate of a friend. None of the other guests are happy to see him. A few are downright distraught. Those are his targets. The Count must coax out the truth before the hunt concludes. His main target is Baronin Safferstätt played by the incredibly beautiful Olga Tschechowa.
It's typical of German films of a certain vintage to contain at least one person who ended up in bed with the Nazis, but I didn't expect it in the literal sense. Olga Tschechowa is remarkable for more than her beauty and acting skill. Her dealings with the Nazis were complicated to say the least, and it's worthwhile reading about that part of her history. As for Lothar Mehnert with his dark hair, strong brow, and bushy eyebrows, I thought he looked like Martin Landau.
The plot is straightforward and minorly suspenseful. There are several stodgy scenes of a bunch of toffs smoking and drinking in a drawing room, but the lead actors have compelling faces. Everyone is gathered at this lavish rural manor for a hunt, which should mean one or more lengthy scenes in the great outdoors. They saved time, money, and footage by writing inclement weather into the script.

The Avenging Conscience AKA: Thou Shalt Not Kill (1914):
This spooky retelling of Edgar Allan Poe's The Tell-Tale Heart has been billed as "the first great American horror film". Written and directed by D.W. The Birth of a Nation Griffith, it's not purely The Tell-Tale Heart. It contains elements of a few other works by Poe. The poem Annabel Lee being chief among them. It contains several hallucinatory sequences meant to depict the turmoil of a guilty conscience, which undoubtedly impressed the audiences of its day. I thought a few of those sequences were heavy-handed with the Christian religious imagery and themes. The film's unflattering depiction of Italians didn't thrill me either. I liked the ghostly apparitions minus the religious ones. I liked the way quotes from various works by Poe were incorporated into the title cards.
Henry B. Walthall plays The Nephew who gives good crazy. His intense performance of a young man driven mad by guilt reminded me of the climax of Alice Cooper's song The Ballad of Dwight Fry. When Walthall's character completely loses it after sweating, squirming, and nervously fidgeting his way through the detective's interrogation, I immediately thought of that song and the last verse where Alice Cooper starts ranting and screaming. If this had been a talkie, I think he might have sounded something like that.
Spottiswoode Aitken portrays his crabby and controlling uncle. He wears an eye-patch to aid in evoking the "vulture eye" of Poe's short story. Ralph Lewis is The Detective who really knows how to sweat a suspect. Blanche Sweet isn't given all that much to do as The Nephew's Sweetheart. She flirts. She frets. She swoons. The love interest is tacked on to enrich the plot.
This is the lone exception in terms of quality with the public domain movies on this list. The DVD I rented was actually better than what The Internet Archive has available. The contributor made the unfortunate choice to add sound effects. The visual clarity is also not as good, and some sort of rectangular watermark in the lower right of the screen was blotted out in black, and I couldn't take my eyes off it.
https://archive.org/details/TheAvengingConscience

The Divorcee (1930):
A carefree but tightknit group of New Yorkers date among themselves until a few of them pair off and get married. On the third wedding anniversary of the first couple to tie the knot, they get together for cocktails at the happy couple's swank Manhattan apartment. After three years of marriage, Jerry (Norma Shearer) and Ted (Chester Morris) are still wild about each other, or so Jerry thinks. Notions of love and fidelity fall by the wayside, when Ted's mistress, Janice (Mary Doran), tags along to the anniversary party, and makes a scandalous scene.
It explores the question: Can a marriage survive infidelity? It also unintentionally explores the question: What kind of friends knowingly bring a spouse's side piece to their anniversary party?
There is a bizarre sequence in which one these friends of dubious merit and intention dons a fake nose and mustache to perform an ugly caricature of an Italian organ grinder for no good reason. It's a shame because Hank (Tyler Brooke) is an otherwise likable character. Robert Montgomery plays Don, Ted's best friend who serves as Jerry's shoulder to cry on while her philandering husband is out of town on business. Conrad Nagel plays Paul, a torch carrying old flame of Jerry's before she fell for Ted.
I rented this movie as a double feature with A Free Soul on a DVD from the Forbidden Hollywood Collection.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!