BLUE DEMON: DEATH NIGHT (1975)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *sociological*

This is the only solo Blue Demon film I've seen translated into English, and there's not that much to say about it. 

The opening scenes are moderately bracing, as a thief dressed like the superhero-wrestler Blue Demon kills a diamond courier and beats down a hotel bellboy. The script calls a little attention to the fact that the thief could have killed both victims but didn't-- but it seems like the writer just forgot this point and went on to other things.

The cops don't entirely disbelieve the possibility that the real Blue Demon might have gone crooked, but they allow him to continue his own investigations. Whereas the prototypical Santo mostly played a lone hand, Blue Demon in this entry has one male and one female assistant, which may or may not have been a regular thing in his solo movie series.

There are actually two villains behind the imposture, whom the wrestler-hero sent to jail years ago (though, again, I've no idea if they actually appeared in an earlier film). The mastermind is named The Count, though he doesn't do much, and the bulky guy who impersonated the Demon is an ex-wrestler named The Cossack. Eventually the two Demons square off for the film's best fight, though for some reason the Cossack gets away and shows up in another disguise to attempt conquering his foe in the ring. Not the most sensible plan-- even if he'd killed the Blue Demon, he would've been trying to escape in front of dozens of people.

Both the hero and the villain have a comely blonde helper who does a second or two of fighting, so DEATH NIGHT scores a couple of points in the "girl power" category, not at all that common in a luchador film.

STAR RAIDERS: THE ADVENTURES OF SABER RAINE (2017)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological*

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS

I feel justified in spilling one plot-point in this DTV flick because it's the only thing that caused me to sit and take notice of the generally vapid goings-on.

To be fair, writer-director Mark Steven Grove's movie with the long-ass name-- SABER, for short-- does at least keep a lot of action unfolding from moment to moment, which is more than one can say of (for instance) the two AVENGERS GRIMM films. All of the action is blandly derivative of the original STAR WARS, but "routine imitation" is still a little better than "original but boring."

Casper Van Dien is the titular Saber Raine. He was once a respected officer in the Star Force (or whatever), but he made some big mistake and got cashiered. Some time later, an evil mastermind named Sinjin (James Lew, whose face remains obscured by makeup or his Vader-mask for the whole film) kidnaps Prince Tyr and Princess Calliope, presumably for some political advantage. The Star Force sends three soldiers to seek out the help of the now mercenary Saber Raine.

Most of the film's scenes take place either on the same forested planet where the soldiers find Raine, or in the cut-rate sanctum of Dark Helmet-- I mean, Sinjin. Sinjin is given the rudiments of some old grudge against the Galactic Empire, but that didn't hold my interest any more than Saber Raine's mostly forgotten misdeed. Both actors have to make do with simplistic, stock dialogue, so it's impossible to know if they could've done better with a better script.

The one interesting plot-point might be seen as a parody of a "mystic seduction" trope suggested in RETURN OF THE JEDI-- for while Prince Tyr (Tyler Weaver Jr) isn't looking, Sinjin persuades Calliope (Sara N. Salazar) to join him in his evil pursuits. Salazar's role is a little juicier than anyone else's, and she comes off as a decent villain, who's still allied with Sinjin in the film's coda. However, her betrayal is, well, betrayed by the shallow acting of Weaver in the role of Tyr.

Despite the flagrant GGI effects, the best-handled scene is a basic swordfight between Van Dien's hero and Salazar's villainess. Top-billed Cynthia Rothrock appears for a couple of minutes near the film's end just to mouth more banal lines, so Rothrock completists beware.

THE FURY OF HERCULES (1962)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *sociological*

Usually, when two films are crafted back-to-back, they're roughly of the same quality, be that good or bad. But not long after Gianfranco Parolini wrote and directed the banal SAMSON, he followed it up by writing and directing THE FURY OF HERCULES, which also shared many plot-elements and at least three actors. Yet FURY is actually modest fun, so maybe Parolini took a little time to warm to his theme.

The hero actually seems to be the real Hercules (Brad Harris)-- at least, he never denies being the Son of Zeus-- though FURY boasts none of the marvelous phenomena one usually associates with a Hercules film. Old Herc, apparently a rootless wanderer, happens to wander back to the city of Arpad, expecting to hang out with his old friend the king. A bunch of local soldiers try to imprison the stranger, and after he's beaten them up, they reveal that the old king has died and been succeeded by his daughter Cnidia (Mara Berni). Hercules only remembers Cnidia as a young girl, but when he's brought into her courtroom, it's evident that Cnidia is more than a little interested in the Herculean hunk.

Like the cognate figure in SAMSON, Cnidia isn't a bad queen, but she's listened to bad advisors, and that means she's going to meet the same bad end as a really bad queen. Said advisors have been keeping the people down with the usual excuse of "security" against external enemies, and inevitably, Hercules makes common cause with a group of rebels, one of whom  is the movie's good girl (Bridgette Corey) while the other is a lesser muscleman (Alan Steel, recycling a similar role from SAMSON).

Hercules may not lift titanic weights or stab hydras. but he manages some good uncanny feats, like breaking out of a room with a relentlessly descending metal ceiling. However, what makes FURY enjoyable are some of the humorous side-characters: an older married couple among the rebels, who bicker to show their love, and a boastful young Hotspur who wants to emulate the Son of Zeus. Cnidia is more sympathetic than the similar figure in SAMSON, but surprisingly, the good girl doesn't get the guy in the end either. This is puzzling, since the mythic Hercules married four times and no one in the audience would have cared if he'd picked up a fictional fifth wife. 

TERROR OF ROME AGAINST THE SON OF HERCULES (1964), SAMSON AGAINST THE SHEIK (1961)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *naturalistic*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *sociological*

As noted elsewhere, most of the films that were marketed as "Son of Hercules" flicks had nothing to do with the Hercules legend, though at least one, ULYSSES AGAINST THE SON OF HERCULES, really seems to be a straightforward teamup of the Lord of Ithaca with the Son of Zeus. The Italian title of this film, MACISTE GLADIATOR OF SPARTA, would suggest that it was originally a Maciste story given the "Hercules" association. However, there's nothing about the main character that resembles any version of Maciste I've seen. The hero, Poseidon of Sparta (Mark Forest) and he never seems supernormal in any way, despite having a small quantity of strongman-feats to his name. His standout accomplishment, that of out-wrestling a gorilla, verges on the uncanny. And yet, I never felt that he was really anything but a really strong guy, who happened to be a gladiator for imperial Rome.

The plot could be fairly called "Quo Vadis Lite." Poseidon's apparently had a dalliance with courtesan Livia (Elisabetta Fani) who's also the main squeeze of the current Emperor, whose name, if given, I have forgotten. To keep the Emperor from catching on, Livia is mostly confined to sending smoldering glances at the gladiator. This leaves Poseidon up for conquest by another woman, the beautiful but more vacuous Olympia (Marilu Tolo), who just happens to be one of the Christians being persecuted by Emperor Whoever. Inevitably, Poseidon has to choose to defend the Christians from their tormentors, and to forswear the "bad woman" for the "good woman."

Aside from the fight with the ape and the two comely actresses, the most terrifying thing about ROME is its banality.

The dubbed English movie SAMSON AGAINST THE SHEIK calls its hero Maciste in both the Italian title and in the English dub, but this alleged Maciste (played by Ed Fury) also seems like nothing more than a man of his time in 16th-century Spain. Since the opening mentions the expulsion of Muslims from Spain within the last century, the writers may have been thinking of the fall of the Emirate of Granada in the 1400s-- though aside from that initial setup, the film tries to be as ahistorical as possible.

Despite the expulsion of Muslims from Spain, armed conflicts continue to break out between the two groups. In one battle, the forces of a Spanish Duke invade a North African city and topple a religious icon there, a Sacred Obelisk. This irritates the ruler of the city, the "sheik" of the title-- though "sultan" might've been a better term than "sheik," since the latter term connotes a leader of nomadic Arabs. The Muslim potentate seeks revenge by invading the Duke's city in Spain and abducting his daughter Isabella (Gisella Arden) for inclusion in the sheik's harem. The Spaniards decide to send a covert rescue mission into the sheik's city, consisting of Maciste and an aide, one Antonio.

As with Poseidon in TERROR, Maciste's feats are impressive-- breaking various chains, lifting the huge Obelisk back into place-- and yet somehow, this version of Maciste also doesn't seem to enter the domain of the marvelous. By the way he ends up married to Isabella, this hero doesn't even share the usual Maciste-motif of leaving the girl behind as he moves on to his next adventure.

Again there are two pivotal female characters, and the Muslim one is actually sympathetic, in that she's in love with the sheik and helps Maciste rescue Isabella, just to cut down her competition. But the ladies are not as much on display here as in many other peplum flicks, and only the so-so feats of this makeshift Maciste sustain any interest.

SAMSON (1961)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *sociological*

In contrast to the moderately interesting plot of GOLIATH AND THE GIANTS, which Brad Harris completed in or around in 1961, SAMSON is entirely run-of-the-mill.

There's no attempt to follow any aspect of the Samson story from the Bible, except that late in the story the doughty hero pulls down a series of columns to destroy some enemies. Samson is just a wandering, unattached strongman who happens to return to the country of Sulan. The viewer later finds out that the hero once friendly relations with the former (blonde) queen Milla, but now Milla's been replaced by new (brunette) queen Romilda, with whom Samson had a dalliance of some sort. Romilda's not entirely evil, though, because she's another example of a weak ruler manipulated by an evil advisor, one Warkalla (celebrated singer Serge Gainsborough). 

I'm gathering that at this point a lot of raconteurs had grown contemptuous of their audiences, for there's very little originality to SAMSON. The girls are nice to look at, and Samson triumphs over some tests, like the usual spiked-device tug-o-war. The only fairly animated scene is an early fight between Harris's Samson and another strongman, dubbed as "Millstone," possibly with some waggish reference to Samson's experiences in a mill. The latter was played by Alan Steel, who would soon headline his own peplum adventures, the best of which is probably HERCULES AGAINST THE MOON MEN.

SANTO IN THE WAX MUSEUM (1963)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *good*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *psychological*

Though the mad sculptor is devoted to his image of beauty-- even if it's supplemented by real dead bodies-- the film is aesthetically aligned to the aesthetic of the villainous Burke; that of giving viewers constant shocks.-- from my review of the 1953 HOUSE OF WAX.

I'm not sure why Alfonso Corona Blake's last Santo film (and his last horror film, so far as I can tell) is so much better than SANTO VS. THE VAMPIRE WOMEN. Blake does have a screenplay credit on MUSEUM, so maybe he was able to get a little more involved with the story for the latter film. Yet it's also worthwhile to remember that wax-museum horror movies were in 1963 much less common than vampire films. Possibly Blake or one of his collaborators just found it interesting to riff on the idea of a wax-museum maniac, since the film's villain seems in many ways a response to the character of Professor Henry Jarrod in the 1953 HOUSE OF WAX. In any case, that villain is nearly the only reason I deem MUSEUM mythic, since the titular hero and his support cast are fairly dull. 

A series of kidnappings have transpired in the vicinity of a wax museum run by the mysterious Doctor Karol (Claudio Brook). One kidnap victim is a reporter working on the story, and his disappearance inspires young photographer Susan to join a guided tour of the museum. She approaches Karol and asks him various questions about his profession. He proves quite the philosopher, extolling his statues, both heroic and horrific, as part of "everything that has been invented through the imagination," which has its own reality, because it "has existed or will exist later on." This remark prefigures Karol's master plan, though Susan has yet to realize the depths of his involvement. She does ask him an odd, almost modern-sounding question as to why she doesn't none of his statues are female. Karol responds that when he tried female attractions, his patrons didn't like them, and yet he has plans to try again with an effigy of a "panther woman." (Since some of his creations are based on fictional characters like Mister Hyde and the Frankenstein Monster, one wonders if this was a reference to the female puma from Wells' ISLAND OF DOCTOR MOREAU, which was later transformed into the "Panther Woman" of the 1932 film ISLAND OF LOST SOULS.)

The police investigate Karol, but he claims that he has an enemy who's attempting to frame him for dastardly crimes, and when Santo joins the investigation, Karol even tries to use the heroic wrestler to give himself an alibi. The police have some ambivalent records on Karol, who suffered sadistic experiments in the Dachau concentration camp, but that Karol ought to be older and deformed of face. This seems to be a setup for a revelation in which Karol's hiding deformed looks beneath a mask, but this plot-thread gets summarily dropped even though Karol shows a cop evidence of the mutilation he suffered elsewhere on his body.

Despite Karol's protestations of innocence, no viewer will doubt his guilt due to his crazy antipathy for what he calls the "vainglorious" nature of human beings. And soon enough it's revealed that the men doing Karol's kidnappings for him are not wax statues-- indeed, the idea of statues concealing corpses never appears at all-- but are kidnap victims who have been turned into mindless monsters by Karol's weird science. Eventually he lures Susan into his clutches and reveals that he plans to make her into his "panther woman." Indeed, Karol's suffering at the camp has caused him to have a psychopathic hatred of beauty, and he aspires to some sort of apocalyptic plan to turn all of humanity into monsters.

In contrast to Santo's poor showing at the climax of VAMPIRE WOMEN, here the hero distinguishes himself well by fighting about four of the mutated men, and finally killing them and Karol by dumping a vat of wax on them. (Guess we're supposed to assume that the hideous kidnap victims were damaged beyond hope of recovery.) And so ends what I suspect will be the Silver Mask's only encounter with a legitimately mythic menace.

SANTO VS. THE VAMPIRE WOMEN (1962)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical*

For this review I watched the dubbed version done for the American market, which was originally titled "Samson vs. the Vampire Women," probably in order to trick patrons into thinking they were going to see a movie about a Biblical muscleman.

This was the first of two Santo movies directed by Alfonso Corona Blake, coming right on the heels of Blake's other vamp-film WORLD OF THE VAMPIRE. Santo had just finished SANTO VS. THE ZOMBIES, which essentially set the pattern for all later "Silver Mask" outings, allowing the caped wrestler to run around defeating criminal masterminds and vile monsters.

Whereas ZOMBIES only featured one leading lady, a helpless femme played by Lorena Velazquez, VAMPIRE is replete with many robed lovelies, who are essentially the ones in charge of a centuries-old vampire cult. Velazquez is back as well, this time playing Zorina, head of the cult, which includes both slinky females and bulky males garbed in bat-capes. The film opens with the vamps awakening after centuries of sleep, but in the script's most dubious conceit, Zorina's first mission upon waking up is to find her replacement, who will take her place in the cult while Zorina descends to Hell to meet up with her diabolical master. Though I realize the core of the vampire mythos is all about innocents being seduced so as to lose their identities, it seems counter-intuitive for Zorina to wake up just to go to Hell. As a vamp, isn't she condemned to go to Hell when her undead life is terminated?

Sadly, the only thing Velazquez does here is to put her Liz Taylor-profile on display, not leaving the crypt while sending a subordinate female, Tundra (Ofelia Montesco) to do all her dirty work. Tundra is also the only vamp seen to use hypnotism or to fang victims, though her male bully-boys at least can also change into bats. Tundra's task is simplified by the fact that Zorina only wants one replacement: modern girl Diana, whose ancestress was almost selected to be the cult-leader centuries ago, only to be saved by an ancestor of Santo's. Once Diana and her family become aware of the threat, they summon the modern-day Santo, who wastes no time getting into brawls with the bully-boy vampires.

There are a few atmospheric touches here and there, and a few brawls worth watching, but overall Blake's outing with the Silver Mask feels dilatory. The climax is particularly odd. When Santo ventures into the crypt to rescue Diana, Tundra and her goons capture and chain him. He's totally at their mercy, but Tundra gets so wound up in torturing the hero that she misses the sacrificial ceremony. More, many of the vamps are incinerated by the rays of the sun because-- they just leave a window open??? 

VAMPIRE is only noteworthy as the first Santo flick that really jazzes up the wrestler-hero's appeal with tons of pulchritude.

CAPTAIN VIDEO, MASTER OF THE STRATOSPHERE (1951)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological*

I'm not sure why this serial-adaptation of the 1949 TV-show-- the only such adaptation of a TV-property, BTW-- gave the titular hero such a lofty cognomen. Video, who has no other name or any sort of origin, doesn't spend any time in the stratosphere; he visits a couple of alien worlds, both of which look just like Earth, and spends most of his time on a contemporary looking version of Earth. I think the TV show, most of whose episodes are lost, took place in the far future, when space travel had become common, and the show's full title was "Captain Video and the Video Rangers," suggesting (though usually not showing) that the officer had several subordinates. Here, only three subordinates are seen, and only one, a sidekick known only as "The Ranger," is consistently at Video's side. Whatever the intent of the adapters, the effect is less like a cosmic police force and more like a small coterie of dudes who have a monopoly on spacecraft, not unlike Doctor Zharkov in FLASH GORDON.

Like a handful of earlier "alien invasion" serials, the hero (Judd Holdren, who would play a "Rocketman" the next year) divides his time between an alien threat and an Earthman who collaborates with the extraterrestrials. Collaborator Doctor Tobor (George Eldredge) gets the most screen time in the serial, and it takes the doughty hero most of the serial to figure out Tobor's complicity with the aliens of Planet Atoma, led by the tyrant Vultura (Gene Roth). Vultura occasionally sends agents to Earth to work with his lackey Tobor, but in most of the Earth-scenes Tobot is served by run-of-the-mill gangsters. In some episodes Tobor plots to undermine his alien master with the hope of conquering both worlds, but though this was probably Eldredge's standout role, Tobor still lacks the aura of a strong villain. Vultura as played by Roth may not be Ming the Merciless, but at least he has some of that same aura.

The most ambitious scenes occur in the first half-dozen episodes. When Video and his young ally learn that Atoma's lord is messing with Earth, they travel to that planet, and involve themselves for a time with Vultura's attempt to subjugate another planet, Tharos. (In the script's one Orwellian moment, Vultura calls his invasion a "liberation" of Tharos.) However, once the Tharos-arc is finished the heroes spend the remaining episodes chasing down the bad guys on Earth and foiling their various plans.

Like its sequel-in-props-only THE LOST PLANET, CAPTAIN VIDEO presents lots of gadgets in lieu of exciting battles and cliffhangers (though there is one nice moment where a robot servant of Vultura drops Video into a mass of flames). I noted that in PLANET the poor actors were tasked with reeling off tons of pseudo-scientific gobbledygook, and that only Michael Fox as the main villain came off well in that department. Here, most of the jargon-burden is borne by Holdren, and he does well enough. However, the gadget-talk doesn't have the same surrealistic effect here as in PLANET, since in VIDEO, the characters aren't confined to near-identical cramped sets for fifteen episodes. Holdren does get one unintentionally funny line early in the serial, though. In order to instruct his sidekick to immobilize an enemy with a ray-weapon (which causes the guy to shake all over and collapse), Video commands the youth to "use the cosmic vibrator!" This may be even funnier given that, according to most of the reviews I've seen, VIDEO is the only American sound serial that has no female characters at all.

DOCTOR OF DOOM (1963), WRESTLING WOMEN VS. THE AZTEC MUMMY (1964)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological, metaphysical*

Probably for budgetary reasons, Mexican filmmakers showed an indebtedness to the tropes of American chapterplays long after American movies had ceased using them (though some tropes, particularly cliffhangers, remained popular in TV serials). 

I've usually heard it said that though films starring heroic male wrestlers had been made since the 1950s, DOCTOR OF DOOM is the first to exclusively star "luchadoras," grapplers of the feminine persuasion. Like most of their male predecessors, both of the heroines, Gloria Venus (Lorena Velasquez) and Golden Rubi (Elizabeth Campbell) drop whatever they're doing as soon as a dastardly criminal manifests, volunteering to help the police trap the maniac. In this case, because the villain leaves behind corpses of women whose brains have been removed, the newspapers dub the fiend "the Mad Doctor." To be sure, Gloria has a personal motive to find the evildoer, since one of the victims is her sister. Golden Rubi, though, joins in the team effort even though the two lady wrestlers haven't worked together very long.

The ladies also get a side-benefit in that each of them gets a cop-boyfriend out of the deal, though Gloria gets the traditionally handsome senior detective and Rubi winds up with his shrimpy comic relief subordinate (who's actually moderately funny, unlike most such characters). However, none of the good guys suspect that the Mad Doctor is actually the pacific-seeming Doctor Ruiz, who tells the girls that wrestling is too bloody for him. In reality Ruiz's experiments are oriented on creating superwomen. He's already created a super-strong brute, name of Gomar, by transplanting a gorilla's brain into a man's head, and now he wants to repeat the experiment with a female. But all the women he has Gomar abduct die on the operating table. At first Ruiz thinks he needs a more intellectual breed of female, causing him to prey upon Gloria's sister. When that operation doesn't work, the mad medic sets his sights on women of tougher fiber, like lady wrestlers.

Director Rene Cardona captures much of the exciting pace of a vintage Republic serial, with lively, attractive heroes opposed to a vicious madman-- and even though a practiced eye can see the two actresses being doubled sometimes, Cardona gives Velasquez and Campbell generous exposure in the fight-scenes, so that they never come off as less than exceptional in that department. As the result of one of the Mad Doctor's battles with Gloria, the luchadora tosses acid in his face-- so that the villain's new priority is to send his newest experiment, a powerful ape-woman, after Gloria in the wrestling-ring. I rate the film's mythicity as fair due to the skillful way Cardona and his team build up the credibility of the women warriors.

Cardona's sequel WRESTLING WOMEN VS THE AZTEC MUMMY follows the same serial-emulation as the previous film in the series, but it's a much choppier affair. The first time I encountered the title, I assumed that the luchadoras were going to cross over with the same cerement-wrapped creature who'd appeared in THE AZTEC MUMMY, one of three mummy-films directed by Rafael Portillo in 1957. However, this mummy has a different name and origin, though oddly, a minor character is called "Popoca," which is the proper name of the original monster.

Though there's no crossover as such between the world of the original Aztec revenant and that of the wrasslin' heroines, the plot of this MUMMY is very similar to the plots of Portillo's film-trilogy. Those flicks focused a group of good archaeologists (and their allies) competing with an insidious criminal, The Bat, who wanted access to the lost tomb of the Mummy. In the Cardona film, an Oriental criminal, The Black Dragon, is the one who wants the information in a certain codex that will lead him to the lost tomb of Tezomoc, who like Original Popoca guards his tomb from outsiders. 

Though this time I didn't find MUMMY as incoherent as I claimed in my review of THE PANTHER WOMEN, the sequel suffers from dividing the lady wrestlers' action between two separate menaces. The film spends roughly two-thirds of its time as the girls, their boyfriends and their allies strive against the Dragon, whose arsenal includes enslaving people with his hypnotism and using his judo-trained henchwomen to challenge Gloria and Rubi in the ring. Then the last third is devoted to the heroes entering the lost tomb, where they learn that this resuscitated mummy is also a nagual who has supernatural powers and can change into shapes like a bat or a spider. Despite the film's title, the lady wrestlers actually can't fight such a monster and all they can do is run for the hills. Oh, and the revived mummy slaughters the Black Dragon's gang, but I'm not sure if the Dragon himself gets killed or escapes.

Velazquez and Campbell made one more luchadora-film together, SHE WOLVES OF THE RING, which is said to hold no metaphenomenal content. Then Campbell essentially finished up the series with Ariadna Welter filling Gloria's boots in PANTHER WOMEN. I may as well note that Gloria is called "Loreta" once or twice in MUMMY as well, testifying that her professional first name is as made-up as her professional surname. To my knowledge, poor Golden Rubi never gets a real name to her, uh, name.

THE LAIR OF THE WHITE WORM (1988)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *irony*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical, psychological*

I'm not sure whether or not I'd read Bram Stoker's THE LAIR OF THE WHITE WORM-- which I reviewed here within the last year-- when I saw Ken Russell's adaptation (both as writer and director) of that book. I tend to think that I had, though. I seem to remember having a reasonably positive opinion of the book, and I didn't like Russell's overly jokey and flamboyant take on that material. However, since in the aforementioned review I was much more aware of the novel's shortcomings, I wondered if the movie would improve with (my) age.

I was at least pleased to see that in one quote I located on the 'net, Russell was very open about the comedic nature of his LAIR, given that he said:

"I would like to state that I actively encourage the audience to laugh along with White Worm."

However, LAIR really is not a comedy as such, whose appeal lies in the incongruity of gags and sudden reversals. The movie is superficially faithful to the basic menace of a supernormal serpent-creature, but Russell constantly undercuts the potential seriousness of the situation with wry remarks and overbaked imagery. I find it easier to understand Russell's LAIR as an irony, as a work in which all the participants-- both the monster and the monster-fighters-- are at base absurd.

The Wikipedia essay on the film mentions that the director originally wanted to adapt DRACULA, but for various reasons ended up taking on Stoker's final novel. His recorded remarks make clear that he perceived many of the flaws in the Stoker work, and some of his alterations are improvements. 

The first good change is that, while the novel has too many characters, Russell cuts them down to five types derived partly from the book and partly from DRACULA: a monster (Amanda Donohue), an earnest young man ( a very young Hugh Grant), a source of arcane knowledge (Peter Capaldi), a visionary female (Catherine Oxenberg) and a practical female (Sammi Davis). The second is that, whereas Stoker was confusing as to what his serpent-woman is, Russell is clearer in saying that his monster is the immortal pagan priestess of a snake-cult, and that she's been hanging around for centuries waiting for a chance to revive a titanic serpent-creature. The third improvement is more mixed, for though I complained in my review that Stoker had elided his concept's strong potential for sexual transgression, Russell piles the sexy weirdness on so heavily that it becomes dumb rather than intriguing-- which may have been Russell's intention.

One strong resemblance between LAIR and its source material, though, is that both are loosely plotted at best. Russell tightens things up somewhat, but it's still a pretty long slog, waiting for the clueless innocents to figure out the nature of the monstrous presence in their midst and her evil scheme. Russell's script doesn't really explain too well why serpent-priestess Sylvia (Donohue) has waited so long to attempt her sacrifice, or why it's particularly felicitous that her sacrifice Eve Trent (Oxenberg) is the reincarnation of some ancient Christian nun, one of an order who transgressed upon the pagan temple Sylvia once served. The reincarnation angle merely provides Russell with an excuse for a gory mass-rape scene, as Roman soldiers despoil all the nuns (but somehow aren't able to protect the pagan serpent-shrine). Similarly, there can be little doubt that Russell was referencing Judeo-Christian lore when he renamed the female cousins from the book "Eve" and "Mary." But it's not a very deep reference: Mary Trent really doesn't have anything to do with the virgin mother of Jesus (except insofar as Russell's script tosses around a lot of references to virginity), and Eve Trent is only Eve-like in being in an acrimonious relationship with a serpent.

It's not that surprising that the four ordinary humans are flat characters: viewers of horror films are fairly accustomed to such simplistic types. But Russell could have wrung some interesting moments out of an immortal pagan priestess had he been concerned with anything more than superficial absurdity. Despite some moments of LAIR that suggest Russell's engagement with the flawed mythopoesis of the Stoker work, his self-indulgence undercuts that potential as much he undercuts the seriousness of his protagonists' travails. I don't hate it the way I did before, but it's a curiosity at best.

DOCTOR MORDRID (1992)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical*

The above illustration for the mystic hero Doctor Anton Mordrid certainly looks like the artist was told to emulate the art-style of Steve Ditko from his classic run on the DOCTOR STRANGE comic of the 1960s. This probably came about because in the development stages this Full Moon Films project was designed to be an adaptation of DOCTOR STRANGE, but the Band brothers Albert and Charles (who co-directed MORDRID) couldn't strike a deal with Marvel and so channeled the script into an original character.

Mordrid (Jeffrey Combs) is a magician living in obscurity in an apartment house in New York City. (Actually, one interesting twist is that he owns the building, which might have led to some interesting subplots had there been further installments.) Mordrid remains a private person because he's lived for many decades without aging, and because he devotes all of his time to guarding the world against evil magic. However, one of Mordrid's tenants is young policewoman Samantha Hunt (Yvette Nipar), who catches sight of the reclusive fellow and begins trying to find ways to meet him. 

Meanwhile, evil magician Kabal (Brian Thompson) begins operations to unleash magical chaos on the ordinary world. Some of Kabal's chaos attracts Samantha's attention, and because she's learned that mysterious Mordrid has some knowledge of the mystic arts, she uses her authority to consult him. Unfortunately, her obnoxious fellow cop Tony (Jay Acovone) responds by blaming Mordrid for the problems, though Tony just thinks the mystic weirdos are terrorists. Being arrested puts a crimp in Mordrid's defenses of the world, allowing Kabal's plans to progress. At last Samantha helps Mordrid escape police custody, leading to a final duel between the rival magicians.

There's a lot more scenes in the police station than of magical combat, which is clearly a consequence of the flick's low budget. And though I began to wish some evil fate to befall blockheaded Tony, I should have been feeling more animus toward Kabal-- and I didn't, because he was just a stereotypical villain. Mordrid's goodness is not much better, but Combs has a good chemistry with Nipar, so that had there been a few more installments, that might have resulted in better results down the line. At least MORDRID ends without any dangling plot-threads, and provides a pleasant but mostly forgettable diversion.

HELLSING ULTIMATE (2006-2012)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *good*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *sociological*

In this review I won't explore the specific plotlines of HELLSING ULTIMATE, because it's a faithful, well-executed adaptation of the 1997-2008 Kouta Hirano manga, which I've detailed here. I had the same reason not to discuss the plotline of the animated WOLVERINE ORIGIN. However, since that was a bad adaptation of a good original work. all I could discuss were the reasons that it was bad.

ULTIMATE, compared to the previous 2003 television adaptation, had the advantage of having been launched as a series of original animated videos which were begun near the conclusion of the Hirano manga. I don't have any information regarding the restrictions of the Japanese OAV market, but ULTIMATE appears far less compromised than the TV HELLSING with regard to showing the intense ultraviolence of the manga. If the viewer is primarily interested in seeing almost constant face-offs between absurdly powerful beings grimacing and shooting at one another, ULTIMATE reproduces that aspect flawlessly.

The writers of ULTIMATE are also meticulous to reproduce the mythic meaning-threads of the manga. Characters constantly extol the ferocious attractions of war, and even the relatively innocent character of Victoria, the young policewoman changed into a vampire by Alucard, is seen to be vulnerable to this frenzied passion. At the same time, there are still moments when basic humanity breaks through these defensive postures. One sequence that's as effective in the OAV as in the manga is the one in which Alexander Anderson, obsessed with defeating Alucard, uses a Holy Relic to transform himself into a monster. Alucard tries to persuade Anderson not to do so, not because he Alucard is afraid of the threat, but because Alucard, having long ago lost his humanity, is appalled to see another human being do the same thing for petty reasons.

The greatest criticism I can make of the OAV series is that because it's animated, it's a little easier to lose track of the Nietzschean philosophy in the midst of all the booming gunfire and inhuman beings grappling with one another. But this time the adaptation of the manga is still as mythic as the source material.

THE NEW ORIGINAL WONDER WOMAN (1975)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical*

WONDER WOMAN, one of the first successful live-action superhero TV shows following BATMAN '66, was, to be charitable, unimpressive. I tend to credit its run of three seasons to the immense charisma of Lynda Cater as the titular heroine, and maybe a little to the composers to the catchy-if-corny theme song.

Certainly the ratings success of the 90-minute-format pilot was not due to the phlegmatic work of director Leonard J. Horn, for whom ORIGINAL was his final effort. And though the writer of the episode, Stanley Ralph Ross, almost certainly got this job due to his experience from working on the Bat-series, ORIGINAL's script is so sloppy that I have new appreciation for Lorenzo Semple's oversight as the executive story editor for BATMAN '66. 

Ross sustains none of the wit seen on the Bat-series; it's pure corn all the way-- and disinterested corn as well. The setup is reasonably efficent: Nazis want to sabotage a vital bombsight innovation in the U.S., and pilot Steve Trevor (Lyle Waggoner) flies out to foil an aerial raid on the bombsight-factory. Trevor succeeds but has to jettison from his plane. He lands on Paradise Island, which, for no reason we're ever told, happens to be located in the mysterioso Bermuda Triangle.

Once we meet Princess Diana, her mother Hippolyta (Cloris Leachman) and the rest of the island's populace of hot young women, Ross's sloppiness goes into overdrive. Diana says something about how it's been a "thousand years" since the Amazons saw a man, which would mean they went into island-exile back in the 4th century A.D. Hippoluta later says, more correctly, that it's been "thousands of years," but why the exile at all? The script doesn't really say, though there's a dim suggestion that it was because Hippolyta had some unhappy love affair (though it's not quite said that Diana was the fruit of that union). When Hippolyta gives a very abbreviated account of the exile, Diana seems not to know what she's talking about, or even that she's immortal. Yet much later in the story, she claims to have been familiar with "Rome and Greece." I don't resent the producers dropping unwieldly concepts like the Greek pantheon of gods, but they should have made Wonder Woman's origins internally consistent.

A little better is the use of a sporting contest to decide which Amazon returns Trevor to his world; this goes pretty much like in the comic, though with far less spectacular action. Once Diana wins the contest, there's not much explanation as to why Hippolyta has made her a special costume, much less an optional skirt that can be removed in favor of bikini briefs. (This was, to be sure, an element of the comics: WW started with a skirt that was quickly replaced by shorts.) The only hint of an explanation is that the costume includes an "Amazon belt," which I think was supposed to prevent Diana from aging once she was off the island, and maybe to allow her to keep her fantastic super-strength. But this too is inconsistent; during her real-world adventures Wonder Woman can lift a car, but she has to struggle to defeat an ordinary female Nazi-- probably because the producer wanted a good long catfight. The belt seems to be the only actual borrowing from Greek myth, insofar as one of Hercules' labors included the hero's acquisition of "the girdle of Hippolyta," and this trope was incorporated into the comic-book origin of Wonder Woman.

The plot is the usual tissue of coincidences-- those Nazis sure did have an extensive fifth column, even if it consists of less than fearsome figures like Stella Stevens and Red Buttons. For that matter, Trevor's blossoming romance with his "angelic" savior gets short shrift, and Wonder Woman's fight-scenes are only impressive insofar as Lynda Carter is impressive. She only makes a few "women's lib" comments-- these being the only reason the pilot earns even fair mythicity-- but because Carter is at once sweet and authoritative, she sells the importance of the feminine mystique to the winning of the World War. To the best of my recollection, for the rest of the series, Carter remained pretty much the only strong point of the show, even if she became far less impressive when not garbed in Amazon array.

HELLSING (2003)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *sociological*

Five years before Kouta Hirano would finish his shonen manga HELLSING, Studio Gonzo took a fresh approach to adaptation. Possibly realizing that the main conflict of the manga was extremely complicated, depicting a "war of monsters" in an alternate version of Earth, the producers chose to introduce all of the characters important to the manga, but to have them contend with a menace of the studio's concoction. While this might have allowed for some interesting innovations, the only interesting parts of the 2003 HELLSING are those adapted from the manga.

The three main characters-- the vampire Alucard, his "master" Lady Integra, and young neo-vampire Victoria Seras-- are substantially the same as their manga counterparts, and they still work for the organization Hellsing, devoted to opposing outbreaks of supernatural forces. Hellsing, founded by Protestants, meets some opposition from Iscariot, a rival group founded by Catholics, but in theory both seek to quell the rise of a new breed of "artificially made vampires" by an unknown mastermind.

Gonzo adapted some action-sequences from the manga as well, particularly Alucard's morphing into an amorphous, many-eyed form. But the villains are not worthy of the Hellsing group, and so it's just okay monster-fighting, nothing more. Alucard gets a final duel with the hidden mastermind's main henchman, so it may be that the producers were hoping from another season. Happily, a studio named Geneon got the nod instead, and they released a series of original animation videos under the rubric HELLSING ULTIMATE, which were far more representative of Hirano's manga. In summary, while the 2003 HELLSING is watchable, I can't imagine anyone choosing it over the ULTIMATE pleasures.

THE LAST FRONTIER (1932)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *sociological*

The main significance of this cheap-looking and confusing serial is largely the novelty value of seeing a very young Lon Chaney Jr play a costumed western crusader. The character of The Black Ghost wears an all-black outfit and sports (for about two minutes) a full face-mask. When he goes unmasked, though, he sports a large mustache, and this is apparently enough for keep everyone from recognizing the Ghost as local newspaperman Tom Kirby, because, well, Tom's clean-shaven. Even Tom's girlfriend Betty (Dorothy Gulliver) doesn't recognize Tom with that 'stache, and she sees him up close more than anyone else. Oh, and the Ghost assumes a bogus Spanish accent, possibly to impress anyone who was pining after seeing Zorro return to the screen.

The conflict is a standard "who's selling guns to the Indians" plot, and both Tom and the Ghost labor to prove that it's the evil Morris. There's a subplot about Morris's assistant Maitland (Francis X. Bushman), who lies to his lovely wife about his true business, but none of that melodrama shapes into anything impressive. The action scenes-- lots of riding and shooting, with few real cliffhangers-- are nothing special. There's one howler in which an imprisoned Tom hoaxes a Black cavalry officer into thinking he hears ghosts, and it's about what one might expect.

Chaney is OK playing his "white" self, but laughable as a Latin lover type. Gulliver gives the best performance, not least by seeming to be in love with Chaney's Lothario, though she's also a gutsy if not formidable heroine.

THE AWFUL DOCTOR ORLOF (1962)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *psychological*

Jess Franco's first horror film, also called the first commercial film in that genre from Spain, stands apart from most of his later oeuvre, much of which is either incoherent or what I called (in my SUCCUBUS review) "phony-baloney surrealism." Crisply photographed on Spanish locations (though set in turn-of-the-century Paris), ORLOF is a straightforward formulaic take on tropes made famous by George Franju's 1960 art-horror film EYES WITHOUT A FACE. Franco, who also wrote ORLOF, displayed none of Franju's gift for visual poetry, but at least the Spanish filmmaker doesn't display the vice of trying to undercut his horrors.

Pretty women are disappearing from the streets of Paris, and since not all of them are mere streetwalkers, the Surete steps up its investigation. In a scene reminiscent of Poe's "Murders in the Rue Morgue," several witnesses describe a possible stalker with different descriptions, but clever young Inspector Tanner figures out that the witnesses saw two different men.

The audience gets to see them at work: mad scientist Doctor Orlof (Howard Vernon, from then on "typed" into the horror genre) and his saucer-eyed assistant Morpho (Ricardo Valle). The latter's injured-looking eyes are meant to indicate that he's blind, but I didn't get a sense of his impairment as he unerringly locates pretty women and helps Orlof transport them to the scientist's lab. There we meet two women: housekeeper Arne, possibly in love with Orlof, and Orlof's daughter Melissa. As the result of some barely discussed accident, Melissa's face was deeply scarred, and in response Orlof keeps her a virtual prisoner in his home, so that someday he can repair her face with skin grafts taken from uncooperative women. 

After a visually stunning opening, ORLOF more or less settles into a lot of vague running around as Tanner and his girlfriend Wanda (Diana Lorys, who also plays the scarred Melissa) for about an hour until things finally heat up for the climax. With a few exceptions, most of Franco's films show no interest in developing the second act: he seems to care only about delivering a bravura opening and a big finish. The middle portion of a film, even a purely formulaic one, is often the place where the creator builds up his characters and makes their conflicts more detailed and relatable, but Franco shows no interest in such development. This is a shame, for Vernon gives Orlof a lot of physical charm, and it would have been interesting, as Franju did, to explore the mad scientist's obsessions more. Like the captive daughter of EYES WITHOUT A FACE, Melissa does not want to be the subject of her father's experiments, but Franco allows for just one line in which she complains to Morpho about their mutual enslavement, and then Melissa fades from the story. I may be wrong that Arne carried a torch for Orlof, but not much explains her willingness to go along with the serial murders for a while, and then to suddenly get fed up, at which point Orlof kills her. For some reason this riles Morpho and the film concludes with the de rigeur destruction of the mastermind by his pawn-- though in truth we're never really sure just what Orlof did to Morpho, or why.

Still, if only because Franco was trying to emulate Franju, he produced a very nice looking basic horror film. Considering some of his later productions, that's a fair accomplishment.

THE MONSTER OF CAMP SUNSHINE (1964), HOW TO MAKE A DOLL (1968)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *comedy*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *psychological*

Neither of these sex-romps from the sixties are technically good, but there's much more energy in the first than in the second.

MONSTER OF CAMP SUNSHINE is a late nudie-cutie which seems poised to mutate into a "roughie," except that all the comic bits ensure that none of it can be taken with even marginal seriousness. In brief, two young women of New York, nurse Marta and model Claire, are encouraged by a third friend, Susana,  to visit Camp Sunshine, a local nudist camp. I think Marta's already a nudist at that point and talks Claire into going to let her clothes down, so to speak.

By a stunning coincidence, the installation at which Marta works happens to be doing experiments with rats, giving them chemicals to increase their aggressiveness. When the head scientist thinks the chemicals are far too dangerous for whatever use they're intended for, he shows his vast commitment to the public good by tossing the bottled formula into a local river. The river carries the vessel all the way to Camp Sunshine, and it winds up in a stream from which the camp's gardener Hugo (brother of Susana, BTW) drinks. The drug changes him from a mild-mannered voyeur (he's seen ogling the nude girls) into an axe-wielding freak, until he's slain by nothing less than the entire US army, called up out of nowhere through the use of stock footage. (He survives so much gunfire that maybe he was supposed to be bulletproof, though in other scenes he feels pain when he gets his foot caught in a bear trap, or when one girl bashes a bottle over his head.)

The basic story, written and directed by one-flick wonder Ferenc Leroget, is not nearly as interesting as all the wacky little touches Leroget employs. Overacting narration with minimal use of actors' voices was pretty standard for low-budget nudie films. However, Leroget also makes liberal use of goofy title cards after the fashion of silent films, and constantly throws in silly slapstick like the aforementioned bear-trap scene. None of the acting is memorable, of course, and there's not even all that much nudity, but Leroget has a little fun with the conventions of both nudies and roughies.

In contrast, I'm not going to waste much space on H.G. Lewis' HOW TO MAKE A DOLL. It sounds like pretty typical sixties sexploitation fare: a scientist comes up with a device that instantly can conjure up artificial women for the delectation of the scientist and his mama's boy assistant. I say "mama's boy" advisedly. Although the young guy lives with his mother and has no courage to approach real women, the mother isn't a domineering type, and she frequently encourages Young Guy to date. The fact that Lewis couldn't get any mileage out of this venerable trope shows how little energy he brought to this project.

But as tedious as the setup scenes are, they're far easier to take that the plotless melange of scenes that follow. Over and over, the two experimenters use the android-making device (I think it was just a closet) to make a living doll, but there's always some piddling problem with the hot girl they create, and she's banished in favor of the next product. Young Guy does end up with his true love, whom I think was supposed to be a real woman even though by some legerdemain she transforms into a girl with bunny ears. 

I've always held a low opinion of Lewis's films, but here he seems to be deliberating making a sex-film so boring as to frustrate rather than titillate his audience. Maybe that was because he knew he wasn't going to make anything off DOLL, so he decided to rook the unlucky customers who actually paid money for this piece of crap.

THE VENGEANCE OF URSUS (1961)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *sociological*

While I don't know if the first film starring the character Ursus made decent money, the fact that the producers rushed out a new entry in the series within a year suggests that this was the case. Sadly, though I praised the original film for some clever plays on the formula, VENGEANCE is routine all the way.

Naturally, none of the storyline from the first film is reproduced, though Ursus still lives in a rural hovel, occupied with herding sheep, and for a bonus he now lives with a little brother. He's drawn into affairs of state, though, when the evil King Zagro plots to make a political marriage with the princess-daughter of another local kingdom. When Princess Sira (Wandisa Guida) learns that Zagro plans to kill her father and take over her country, she flees, and ends up being succored by Ursus. Lots of fighting ensues, and in an ending contrasting that of the first film, Ursus gets elevated to the nobility through marriage to the grateful princess.

Only two aspects of this predictable flick stand out. One is that it was the screen debut for lead Samson Burke, who didn't precisely set the world on fire with his acting, and who is now best remembered for THE THREE STOOGES MEET HERCULES. The other is a series of strength-tests that Ursus must undergo, including a tug-of-war designed to haul his body onto spikes (possibly one of the earliest versions of this idea in peplum-films) and a second tug-of-war with an elephant. Since Ursus wins both, there can be no doubt that he remains in the uncanny phenomenality.

Oh, and Wandisa Guida is sexy, but she's the only concession to the hetero-male's pleasure of looking here.

TEMPTRESS OF A THOUSAND FACES (1969)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *comedy*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *psychological*

I've assigned this lightweight super-crook outing the "psychological" function because its writer seems to be borrowing from the playbook of the 1960s FANTOMAS film series by having the same actor play both the devious criminal and the crusading hero. 

As the film begins, we witness a major jewel theft by a respected Hong Kong citizen, who is actually the disguised super-thief The Temptress of a Thousand Faces. Apparently the Temptress has been bamboozling the local cops for a long time, but female officer Ji Ying (Tina Chin-Fei) publicly challenges the Temptress to a confrontation. (If the screenwriter saw the first entry in the French FANTOMAS series, this opening gambit might well be derived from a similar one, in which the film's reporter-hero falsifies an encounter with Fantomas and gets dragged to the villain's lair.)

Quick as a bunny, the Temptress's minions capture Ji Ying and take her to their underground hideout, in which bare cave walls alternate with various technical devices. Ji Ying meets the Temptress, albeit with a veil over the latter's face, and defies the villain. The Temptress sics her henchmen and henchwomen on Ji Ying, who gives a good account of herself before being beaten. However, for some reason the Temptress doesn't just kill the pesky cop, but decides she's going to humiliate Ji Ying in a variety of ways-- including subjecting the lady officer to what looks like electroshock. (Unlike some of the Fantomas entries, the Temptress's arsenal remains fairly low-tech and therefore uncanny in phenomenality.)

The Temptress then pulls off a major crime disguised as Ji Ying, and for some reason Ji's fellow cops don't believe in her innocence despite the well documented incidents of the super-crook's other impostures. But of course if the HK police believed Ji, she wouldn't get the pleasure of playing a "lone hand" in her quest to bring the Temptress and her (mostly female) gang to justice. I say "lone" advisedly, for Ji does have a cop-boyfriend, but he only renders martial aid once or twice. In fact, at one amusing point the Temptress, still dressed as Ji, seduces and sleeps with the guy, moments before the real thing bursts in and catches the couple in flagrante, leading to a rousing battle of the Tinas.

Given that this isn't a straight kung-fu film, the fight-choreography is stellar, and Tina Chin-Fei makes an admirable heroine and villainess. In fact, this is one of those films where it's difficult to determine which of the two is the star, though I lean toward the titular character. However, unlike Fantomas the Temptress meets a bad end and never returned for any sequels known to me.

MAD MAX: BEYOND THUNDERDOME (1985)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *good*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *sociological*

I hadn't looked at any of the MAD MAX films, or any critical reviews of same, for over 20 years. Then I first decided I ought to review them for this site and for THE GRAND SUPERHERO OPERA. I didn't exactly rush to do so, since my review of MAD MAX appeared in July of last year and I got around to THE ROAD WARRIOR last month. In those reviews I noted that I'd never been a big fan of the Mad One's debut movie and that ROAD WARRIOR wasn't nearly as riveting as I remembered.

Though the original trilogy is dystopian fiction, the first two are just barely science fiction, since writer-director George Miller is primarily focused on brain-busting action. I have an impression that for reviewers in 1985, the third and last film in the trilogy was viewed as underwhelming. But as I look at THUNDERDOME now, it seems like the only movie in the batch that works both as dystopian myth and science-fictional myth.

The other films alluded to the central character's uneasy relationship with his original job as a highway patrolman and how isolated he was from the ramshackle barbarian societies that arose after the Big Whatever brought about the demise of civilization. In a world governed by a dog-eat-dog ethic, what can a lone cop do except retreat from attachments and try to protect himself? Miller's Max-myth owes not a little bit to tropes of the Western gunfighter, who rides into some small town and initially shows no regard for the less adventurous townfolk. But Max, like those solitary gunmen, is always moved to protect ordinary life even if he cannot share in its pleasures. 

So as THUNDERDOME commences Max (Mel Gibson) is once more on his own, trekking through the wilderness with his goods and a couple of camels. A father-and-son pair of ravagers, flying a crude two-seater plane, steal the hero's possessions, and afterward Max follows their trail to the nearest human outpost. The outpost's name, Bartertown, is emblematic of rabid consumerism; everyone is out for himself/herself, and the sort of barter practiced there is defined by the phrase *caveat emptor.* It's surely some sort of sociological comment that the power of Bartertown resides in their ability to refine methane from the feces of pigs.

Max learns that the bandits have already sold his goods on the open market, and since there's no law here, the hero can only seek to regain his goods with the barter of his fighting-skills in the service of the city's overt ruler Auntie Entity (Tina Turner). Auntie has a rival for rulership: the dwarf Master, who keeps company with a musclebound brute, Blaster. Auntie wants Max to defeat Blaster in mortal combat so that Master will lose his protector and Auntie can assume total hierarchy in Bartertown. And said mortal combat takes place in the arena called Thunderdome.

The fight in Thunderdome is justly famous, but in this movie it's a prelude to more subtle forms of conflict. Without getting into specifics, Max finds that there are a few decencies he won't discard for personal gain. This moral squeamishness gets him exiled from Bartertown, bound to a horse's back and sent into the desert. Auntie, for her part, gets what she wanted without having to pay her rebellious servant.

The deeper form of conflict appears when, by dumb luck, Max crosses the inhospitable stretch of desert called "the Nothing" and ends up in another settlement, built around an oasis.

While Bartertown is a place of instant gratification, of adults ripping off other adults, the oasis-refuge is a realm of childlike wonder, not least because it's inhabited only by kids and teenagers. All are the descendants of the survivors of a plane that crashed near the oasis decades ago. Theirs is a kingdom of youth, like that of the Lost Boys in PETER PAN, but unlike the Lost Boys these youths celebrate the vanished wonders of the fallen civilized world, which they call "Tomorrow-morrow land." The children believe that Max is Captain Walker, the pilot of the downed plane, who years ago left the oasis to look for help. Max denies being the cynosure of this bizarre "cargo cult," and when some of the kids adamantly insist on leaving to look for their fabled paradise, Max does his best to restrain them.

But Realist Max can't restrain these impossible dreamers, and a group of kids sneaks off into the desert. Max and a few allies pursue them, but they don't overtake the rebels until both groups are out of supplies. Max knows what kind of reception he can expect from Auntie Entity, so he and his Lost Boys infiltrate Bartertown to steal the supplies they need. By "coincidence" this gives Max the chance to avenge Auntie's mistreatment by liberating the captive Master and blowing up Auntie's pigshit-refinery. Max's group steals a car and flees. but Auntie's forces pursue, also in the usual barbarian art-cars. In the end, Max gives his Lost Boys (and Girls) the chance to find a version of Tomorrow-Land. The hero doesn't share in the new world, but like the gunfighter goes back to his ceaseless Cain-like wandering-- which would not be further explored until 2015's MAX MAX FURY ROAD.

If the subgenre of post-apocalypse fiction has a masterpiece in cinema, THUNDERDOME is it. Max had faced a conflict between savagery and civilization in ROAD WARRIOR, but this time there are two opposed civilizations: one devoted to greed and one to imagination. In addition to the generally expected excellence of the action scenes, there's a concomitant quality to the extravagance of the costumes (note the bizarre outfit of Auntie's henchmen Ironbar) and to the score, provided this time by Maurice Jarre. Most surprisingly, since most big-budget movies outside the musical genre don't produce outstanding songs, THUNDERDOME can boast, both sung by Turner but written by separate songwriters. 

Since Max has a greater range of emotions this time, Mel Gibson gets to show off more acting chops, and Tina Turner, whose cinematic outings were few, consistently delivers both the ambition and wry humor of Auntie Entity. The only substantive criticism I can make is that none of the kids from the oasis emerge as interesting characters in their own right. And this is in spite of the fact that the script gives a couple of them very mythic names-- Finn McCoo, derived from an archaic Irish hero, and Savannah Nix, whose cognomen combines an image of fertility with the name Nyx, most probably referencing the Greek personification of Night. If any of them sustain mythicity, it would probably Savannah, since she is one of the older kids who keeps alive the myth of Tomorrow-morrow Land, and who departs the security of the oasis in pursuit of a dream that, while foolish on the surface, ends up enlisting Max in making sure that the aspiration becomes a reality.