THE PUNISHER (1989)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny*
MYTHICITY: *good*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *psychological, sociological*

Back in the day comic book fans excoriated THE PUNISHER for committing the cardinal sin of not showing the hero in his distinctive costume. In those waning days of what I call the First Superhero Wave, Hollywood's first big-budget exploitation of the superhero genre, the producers at Carolco had no particular reason to please comics readers. Dolph Lundgren was the film's draw, and said producers may well have felt that putting him in simple dark clothes would make the character more acceptable to the audience that liked violent action movies. But the change I liked about PUNISHER was that it engaged with the vigilante fanaticism of the comics-character in such a way as to critique the fantasy somewhat while not turning the adaptation into an outright satire.

The premise both comic and film have in common is that Frank Castle loses his wife and child to vicious criminals, and so he conceives the notion of taking revenge not just on those who harmed him personally, but on all gangsters everywhere. For the five years since the movie-version has been operating, the fearsome figure of the Punisher has been murdering high-level mobsters and their gunmen. Castle, in this incarnation a former police officer, is generally believed to be dead, but his ex-partner Jake (Louis Gossett Jr.) suspects that Castle is the scourge of the underworld, his deadly presence testified not by a skull-faced costume but by throwing-knifes decorated with skull-symbols. Young police detective Samantha (Nancy Everhard) also wants to ferret out the vigilante's identity, but the only one who knows the Punisher's true nature is his informant, a washed-up actor named Shake (Barry Otto). 

The hero's gang war, however, has consequences. Though a cabal of (implicitly Mafia) gang-bosses still runs illegal operations in New York City, the Japanese Yakuza moves in on the territory of the weakened American criminals. Rather than initiating an overt gang war, the sardonic Yakuza chieftain Lady Tanaka (Vivian Wu) has the children of the bosses abducted in order to force compliance. Most of the leaders cave, except for Gianni Franco (Jeroen Krabbe).

The Punisher, for his part, is just about to take some sort of holiday, hoping the hoods will all kill one another. Shake tells the hero that his depredations are the reason that the Yakuza moved in, and that he has to do something to save the kids. Though the Punisher shows no emotions-- a fine, affect-less performance by Lundgren-- he gives in to the actor's logic and raids one of the Yakuza's gambling dens.

The Yakuza capture the crusader and torture him, but Punisher escapes and rescues most of the children, excepting Tommy Franco, held in a different location. New York cops subsequently nab the vigilante, confirming the suspicions of ex-partner Jake. But Gianni Franco springs the gangster-killer, needing his help to free his son. Punisher and Franco manage to root out the Yakuza thugs, at which point Franco decides that it's time for a parting of the ways. Punisher manages to slay Franco, but the high point of the climax is not the hero's victory, but his surrender to the anguished Tommy, allowing the boy the chance to blast Punisher's head off if he wants to avenge his slain father.

The film's direction by Mark Goldblatt (whose only other director-credit was DEAD HEAT) is efficient but not especially impressive, so I tend to credit all the good scenes to scripter Boaz Yakin. One interesting line comes when Lady Tanaka interrogates the bound Punisher, asking the hero who sent him, and getting the deadpan response, "Batman." Yakin may have been included the jape for no reason but that Tim Burton's relatively big-budget BATMAN would come out that same year. Ironically, the success of the '89 Bat-flick would renew Hollywood's lapsed interest in comic-book (and comics-adjacent) properties. Over the next decade, producers began to treat the superhero film as another breed of potential blockbuster. PUNISHER, like the 1990 CAPTAIN AMERICA, was the last weak surge of the First Wave, but PUNISHER is far from the worst product of the period.

LUPIN III VS. CATSEYE (2023)

 

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

I don't know how this criminal-crossover came to be produced, given that the second-billed franchise finished its runs both in manga and in anime in 1985. There were some revivals along the way, the latest stand-alone being a manga reboot from 2010-2014. It's possible that the re-release of the entire TV series on Blu-ray in 2022 was the proximate cause of the crossover. This suggests to me that the previous DVD release must have sold well, and that the Blu-ray release prompted the crossover, not, as some advertising had it, simply to celebrate CATSEYE's 40th anniversary.

In contrast, LUPIN III has remained a sturdy franchise for over fifty years, with a multitude of TV shows and movies in both animated and live-action incarnations. His top billing indicates his formidable seniority, but in terms of the script and the art-style of this cartoon film, the master thief and his aides Goemon and Jigen are for the most part reworked to fit the comparative "realism" of the CATSEYE world. Thus there are no scenes in which Lupin or his relentless police pursuer Zenigata howl or gesticulate wildly as one might see in Classic LUPIN. There are just enough comic reversals to still call it a comedy, though the only standout slapstick takes place early on, during a boat-chase that leaves Zenigata playing the goat as usual.

The slender premise of CATSEYE is that three sisters-- in descending age-order, Rui, Hitomi, and Ai-- become a gang professional art thieves known as "Catseye," and they constantly taunt the police with their many successful raids, just as Lupin taunts his opponents. The girls' father, who's alive but vaguely out of the picture for "reasons," was an art collector whose collection was dispersed during World War Two, and now "the Cats" travel around stealing back the possessions of their father. Whatever resolution the anime may have ended with, all the events of the crossover take place with this status quo premise in place. Like Lupin III, the Cats are pursued by a determined policeman, but in the case of the character Toshio, he's less dangerous in terms of actually catching the lady burglars than of catching sight of them. Toshio knows all three women in their civilian identities as managers of a Japanese cafe, and is more than a little smitten with middle girl Hitomi. Despite the danger of being recognized, the babes just can't bear to cover up their lovely visages and so perform all their crimes maskless.

In a routine so old that its whiskers have whiskers, the Cats are approached by an individual, one Berger, who claims to have been a colleague of their father, whom none of them can reach currently. Berger tells them that their father wanted them to have three interrelated paintings, but that the fiendish thief Lupin is out to get them first. Of course it's a lie; not only is Lupin a gentleman thief, he's the one who was actually a colleague of Dear Papa, and in most of his interactions with the sexy young things, the usually lascivious Lupin is positively avuncular. (His sort-of romantic interest Fujiko makes a few appearances in her usual status as ambivalent ally, but even here there are no boob-gropings or clothes-sheddings.)

The overall plot to use the paintings to find Nazi treasure is serviceable but forgettable, as are the villains. Though there's a mention of gems that may or may not be able to grant wishes, all the phenomena here are uncanny, concentrated in Goemon's amazing samurai-abilities or the athletic Cats' ability to throw metal cards like shuriken. LUPIN III VS. CATSEYE is a good basic romp but nothing special except for the event of crossing over the two franchises. (For good measure, another Japanese character, City Hunter, appears in a very brief cameo.)

BATMAN BEYOND: RETURN OF THE JOKER (2002)

 

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

(Note: the version I'm reviewing is the uncut version of the DTV film, released two years after the original 2000 release, which had been cut in response to the catastrophic Columbine shootings.)

I don't think the Timm-Dini Bat-verse ever managed to create any interesting new myths in BATMAN BEYOND. As I recall, it was just a good basic formula-series, based on the premise of what sort of successor an aging Batman might choose, about fifty years down the road from "Batman in his thirties." Given that even gritty Gotham gets something of a JETSONS-style makeover, New Batman Terry McGinnis wears a high-tech armored suit (which furnishes him with an Iron Man-like arsenal in place of a humble utility belt) and even allows him to fly on mechanical bat-wings.

For the most part the 1999-2001 series eschewed the use of established Bat-rogues. However, the most famous one might have been absent, but he left the greatest legacy of any villain, for in McGinnis's time roving bands of rowdies called "Jokers" roam the mean streets. For this 2003 DTV release, though, the producers arranged a face-off between New Batman and a villain who both is, and is not, the original Joker. 

The apparent return of the Clown Prince of Crime is fittingly heralded by the depredations of a new band of formidable Joker-hoods, who are possibly the best-designed villains of the BEYOND-verse, given that they all have a strong carnivalesque vibe. The two with the greatest links to the original Harlequin of Hate are twin, clown-faced acrobats, both called DeeDee, who are implicit imitators of Harley Quinn (and who turn out to be descendants of the original Harley). After New Batman has an initial battle with these goons, both he and Old Bruce Wayne get attacked in such a manner as to suggest that their enemy knows both of their costumed identities. And then a being who seems a dead ringer for the Joker appears. Problem is, the Joker is supposed to be dead, and both Batman and Batgirl witnessed his demise fifty years ago.

There's a long segue as Old Barbara Gordon (now the police commissioner in Neo-Gotham) tells a harrowing story as to how the Joker kidnapped the Tim Drake Robin and subjected him to a personality-changing torture. The attempt backfires on Joker and causes his death, but this proves a measured victory, given that the horror casts a shadow over the lives of all those involved, including Tim, who matured into a family man and put aside the childish life of the costumed hero. Terry suspects a link between the dead villain and his former victim. Yet the detection aspect of the story proves less central than the struggle between Old Batman and New Batman, as the latter tries to live up to the Bat-legacy while the former tries to shield the younger man from harm.

The solution to the Joker's re-appearance is far-fetched even for a comic-book adventure, but the climactic battle between New Batman and New Joker is well-done. I don't buy any of Terry's attempts to psychoanalyze the Joker in mid-fight, but the gimmick is at least memorable. And while there will never be a final Joker story for the modern Batman as long as the franchise lasts, the Last Joker Story in the universe for New Batman carries its own cachet.

BATMAN: THE MYSTERY OF THE BATWOMAN (2003)

 

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

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS

BATWOMAN was one of the last iterations of the Timm-Dini BATMAN franchise, though BATMAN AND HARLEY QUINN was much later entry in that Bat-world. I didn't originally care for this movie on first viewing, but this time I found it a very efficient opus, with a better sense of the crime-milieu against which the Caped Crusaders (this time with the Tim Drake Robin in tow) must strive.

Originally, I felt that the "Batwoman" of the story didn't add much to the mythos, not being tied to either DC character of that name. But now I rather like that this character-- or characters, to be sure-- are just one-shots. The Big Reveal of BATWOMAN is that there are three female suspects for the new Bat-vigilante in Gotham, and this throws the Big Bat for a while until he realizes that all three women are working together. I'm not sure that this has much utility in the three ladies' main purpose, which is to take down a drug-smuggling ring operated by the Penguin (once more showing his iconic comic-book appearance), a big-wheel named Duquesne, and that jolly muscleman Bane. The alternating masquerade only works to keep Batman from figuring out the game of the Batwomen, and it's not even certain that he would have interfered with their agenda even if he knew their identities.

As one character points out, they really don't have a particular reason to emulate Batman costume-wise, though years ago one woman was rescued by the Big Bat from a conflagration. The appearance of a new Bat-female prompts Barbara Gordon to call Batman and tease him about getting an "older version," a rather racy byplay that suggests future events in the Dini-verse. 

Though the mystery isn't all that engaging, BATWOMAN is quite impressive in terms of spectacle. I have no liking for the villain Bane, but I have to admit that in this film he has one of his best brawls with Batman, either in comics or in animated cinema. Robin doesn't have a lot to do, since the climax has to give three costumed women their own scenes. Alfred gets the movie's best joke, remarking that, "I see from the paper that young Dennis the Menace has taken one closer step to correctional school."

BATWOMAN is also a touchstone in that it was the last hurrah, or close to it, for three of the voice-actors: Bob Hastings (Commissioner Gordon), John Vernon (Rupert Thorne), and Efrem Zimbalist Jr. (Alfred).

The presence of Barbara in a cameo alone would suffice to make the movie a crossover, but the script's inclusion of two major villains, Penguin and Bane, is the more impressive interaction.

HERCULES AGAINST THE SONS OF THE SUN (1964)

 

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

Some of Italy's "Maciste" films were given "Hercules" marketing in the titles alone, while the hero's original name was used in the English dub. This time, the dub is consistent with the title, so that the Caucasian warrior is called Hercules throughout the movie, and at one point he even claims kinship with a heavenly father. However, this version of Hercules shows only an uncanny level of strength.

Hercules gets shipwrecked and ends up in South America. He meets a friendly Inca warrior, Maytha (Guiliano Gemma) and they hang out while Maytha, a prince of a local province, tells the stranger all about how he's leading a small army in revolt against the realm's capital of Tiahuanaco. The leader of the sacrificial cult is King Atahualpa, and Maytha hopes to end the evil monarch's practice of blood sacrifice. Hercules, who immediately decides that Maytha must be a good guy, decides to lend his expertise to the revolt.

Maytha also happens to have a pretty sister, Hamara (Anna Maria Pace), whom Atahualpa hopes to marry even though he already has a queen (a distinctly minor character who gets tossed aside very easily). In this routine film's only good scene, Hamara, marked for sacrifice after refusing the king, lies positioned on a slab while brightly feathered archers shoot arrows at her. Then Hercules rescues her, earning the love of Hamara and the enmity of the Inca king.

SONS is pedestrian in the extreme, and even ideologues looking to carp at such films for "white savior" tropes would barely find anything to rant about. (There is a scene in which Hercules introduces the rebel Incas to the use of wheels, the better to build mobile siege engines, but the script doesn't exploit this development.) Performances are ordinary, with Pace distinguishing herself as one of the least charismatic peplum-heroines ever, so that only a handful of fight-scenes provide some diversion from the tedium.

INU YASHA 4: FIRE ON THE MYSTIC ISLAND (2004)

 

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

The last, and least, of the Inu-Yasha animated movies revisits one of the faults of the first one; that of unnecessarily working in the supporting characters of Kikyo (Inu-Yasha's ex-lover) and Sesshomaru (Inu-Yasha's hostile half-brother). In fact, both Kikyo and a magical doppelganger thereof show up, as the titular hero ends up sword-fighting the latter. Since Kikyo is never seen wielding any weapon but bow and arrow, this is at least an unusual scene within a very tepid entry.

The nicest thing I can say about MYSTIC is that Takahashi herself did her share of weak episodes, some of which also involved cute child-characters, and that MYSTIC is not any worse than any of these, since "so-so Takahashi" is still better than average.

So there's this vanishing island called Brigadoon-- er, Horai Island. The locale was originally a refuge for a group of demons and humans who wanted to live in unison, along with any half-demon children arising from their alliance. However, during one of the times when the island temporarily manifests on Earth, a quartet of demons called "The Four War Gods" invade Horai and take over. The next time the island appears, only a handful of half-demon children survive on Horai. This happens to be the period in which Inu-Yasha and Kikyo are still sorta-lovers, and they visit the island for some reason. The tempestuous hero mixes it up with the Gods, and one claws him on the back. This leaves marks that don't fade fifty years later, when the demon-boy is hanging with his future friends, none of whom ever remark on seeing the wounds on occasions when Inu-Yasha had his shirt off. Inu-Yasha and Kikyo escape the island before it returns to limbo, and later they have their big misunderstanding, so that Kikyo dies and Inu-Yasha enters a demonic coma for fifty years.

While fighting a giant turtle, Inu-Yasha and his four buddies come across the recrudescent island and make contact with the kids, who haven't aged a day. The Four Gods have remained the same too, and they recognize the dog-demon as a prey who escaped them. So it becomes the business of the good guys to sort out the baddies and help the innocent.

None of the villains or their victims stand out from one another, except in the sense of having different names. This is highly unusual, since even the most ordinary anime works manage to get some comedic or dramatic mileage out of individual situations. The five heroes aren't much better off, though Rumiko Takahashi made the protagonists so distinct that it's hard not to do interesting things with them. MYSTIC comes close, though. Inu-Yasha, always testy when people expect him to act the hero that he really is, has a few good moments clouting smart-mouthed kids, and Shippo can always be depended on for some comical cowardice. But there are no good romantic vibes between Kagome and her canine swain, while Sango and Miroku are practically interchangeable hero-types. Original design-work is pedestrian, and despite a few decent mood-scenesm the action is more limited than those of the TV series.

MYSTIC, in short, has no fire in its creative belly, and I'm not sure I'd recommend it even to hardcore enthusiasts of the series.

INU-YASHA 3: SWORDS OF AN HONORABLE RULER (2003)

 

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

Not only does the third INU-YASHA movie build a new arc for the titular hero and his half-brother Sesshomaru, it works a new twist on the mythology of their patrimony from their deceased demon-father. In the manga, the dog-demon Toga leaves one sword to each of his two sons. The Tetsuseiga Sword is given to Inu-Yasha, son of a human mother, because Toga wants him to cherish his own human side and protect other human beings from demons (including from Inu-Yasha himself). To Sesshomaru, Toga leaves the Tenseiga, a sword whose only ability is to revive the dead. I'm not sure if Takahashi specified Toga's motive for the latter bequest, but that motive would have been in line with Toga's character as an "honorable ruler."

The third movie introduces a third sword owned by Toga prior to his death, the Sounga, but this blade is the repository for one of the many demons whom Toga defeated and sealed away. Moreover, the writer of SWORDS makes Sounga a symbol for the misuse of power. In a prologue, Sesshomaru asks his father to bequeath him both the Tetseiga and the Sounga. Toga enigmatically asks his son who if anyone he would protect with such power, and Sesshomaru arrogantly declares that he need not protect anyone. Later, Toga perishes but makes it possible for his human wife to raise Inu-Yasha to manhood before she too passes away.

But the Sounga shows up in Kagome's contemporary times, having been passed through the time-well to keep it out of the hands of Sesshomaru. Unfortunately, Inu-Yasha happens to be visiting Kagome in the present. There's some comic byplay about the Beads of Submission he wears, which allow Kagome to force him to fall to the ground whenever she says the word "sit." But then Kagome's family comes across the sword. Inu-Yasha happens to touch the weapon and Sounga's hellish spirit possesses him. He storms back to the medieval era, and the loyal Kagome follows. 

Sesshomaru, who holds his half-brother in contempt at best, is enraged to see Inu-Yasha possessing the sword. The two have a rousing sword-battle, during which fight the Sounga tries to reach out and seduce Sesshomaru. Kagome intervenes, using her power-of-submission to exorcise Inu-Yasha. The Sounga flies away and by this time, even Sesshomaru doesn't want such a threatening weapon.

So the Sounga seeks out another old enemy of the late Toga, a dead human warlord named Takemaru. who wanted to steal Toga's human wife from him. The warlord in turn raises an undead army. Inu-Yasha leaves Kagome in the care of his other friends (including some support-characters, including Tota the sword-smith and Saya, spirit of the Sounga's sheathe). Inu-Yasha and Sesshomaru fight again, but they're eventually forced to make common cause against Sounga's army. In particularly the two brother-rivals must temporarily put aside their old quarrels, and Sesshomaru must find that he does have something more than personal self-interest to consider.

And, just to come back to the comic byplay about the Beads of Submisison, Inu-Yasha briefly manages to rid himself of their influence. But Kagome makes sure that he falls under her aegis once again-- which is, to be sure, for his own good, since she keeps him from getting lost in his own arrogance.

What makes SWORDS more mythic than the two previous movies is its attempt to build on Rumiko Takahashi's concept of channeling the power of male heroism into a way of protecting others-- not least cherished females, like Inu-Yasha's mother and his true love Kagome. Various Takahashi stories show Inu-Yasha losing himself to his demon-half's lust for violence, and the SWORDS script is on the same page by having him go berserk with the power of the Sounga. Even when he's not so possessed, the heroic half-demon is so fiercely independent that he can't accept help from his friends-- though it's not impossible that he also plays a lone game at times because he's afraid of their coming to harm, particularly Kagome. Sesshomaru, a full demon, ends up learning lessons about humanity's virtues of persistence, restraint, and perhaps even love. (I should note that at this point in Sesshomaru's story, he inexplicably has taken a little orphan girl, Rin, into his retinue, as if he feels some need for human connection despite his claims to the contrary.)

INY-YASHA 2: THE CASTLE BEYOND THE LOOKING GLASS (2002)

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

The second Inu-Yasha movie requires even more insider knowledge than the first one. Both the manga series and the anime series frequently pit the five main heroes against an evil schemer, Naraku, who covets the magical jewel shards and who uses a vast array of evil hench-demons. The opening scenes of CASTLE suggest that the heroes finally manage to vanquish their enemy, though because he's escaped them so often, they're not entirely sure. Insiders know that Naraku has his own long arc in the manga and anime, so it's a good bet that his demise is greatly exaggerated, in order to bring in a new opponent for the heroes.

The new opponent is a heavenly princess named Kaguya, based upon a character from a Japanese classic. Once Naraku seemingly dies, two of his henchwomen come across a mirror in a remote shrine, from which Kaguya rises. The three make common cause to keep looking for the empowering jewel shards.

Kagome returns to modern times for a few days, but Inu-Yasha follows her. His overt motive is to make her hunt for jewel shards in the medieval world, since she can sense them and he cannot. On a personal level, though, he doesn't want to be parted from her, though being an alpha male he doesn't know how to express himself. Though the two of them quarrel once again, Kagome does end up following Inu-Yasha back to the past, though by the time she does so, Sango and Miroku have parted in order to return to their respective villages. 

Inu-Yasha, Kagome and Shippo have a run-in with Kaguya and her two new allies, but the three females escape, absconding with the sleeve from Inu-Yasha's magically endowed robe. The three heroes keep going and run across a naive young man, Hojo, who may be the ancestor of one of Kagome's classmates. (Hojo actually encounters the women earlier, when he chances to spy on them bathing in a forest pool, but he escapes detection while the girls pound on Inu-Yasha and Miroku for their supposedly being Peeping Toms.)

While all this is going on, Kaguya are gathering other mystic items as well as Inu-Yasha's sleeve, in order to perform a ritual that will freeze time. Miroku gleans some information that the entity said to have been confined to a mirror may actually be a demon, not a celestial being. Kikyo the undead priestess plays a minor role in the demonic treasure-hunt but does not participate in the main action of the story. And of course, Naraku's not really dead and gone, because his external arc isn't finished yet.

CASTLE is a serviceable story, which like many of the canonical INU-YASHA tales depends on the heroes preventing the villain from getting something necessary to enslave the world. The script tries to shoehorn in a subplot about Inu-Yasha's vaunted ambition to become a "full demon." But the plot-thread unwinds too late in the story to have much dramatic effect, though it's intended to spotlight Kagome's to keep him at status quo because of her feelings for him. Kaguya plays tempter to Inu-Yasha, offering him his supposed heart's desire, but Kagome manages to win him back to the human world.

Despite the legendary character Kaguya supposedly emulates, Kaguya is a lame, make-work villain with no strong identity. As soon as a good villain like Naraku comes on stage, she looks even weaker and less consequential. CASTLE's only strong points are the character beats of the regular protagonists, which are consistently entertaining.

INU-YASHA: AFFECTIONS TOUCHING ACROSS TIME (2001)

 

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

I've already provided a summary of the INU-YASHA manga series in this post, chronicling how the titular half-demon joins with modern-day high-school girl Kagome Higruashi to track down magical jewel shards during Japan's feudal era. Since no one's likely to ever watch any of the anime movies without first becoming familiar into some version of the episodic series, I won't repeat what I wrote earlier, though I'll add that early in the series the demon-boy and the modern girl are joined in their quest by three other questers: the priest Miroku, the demon-slayer Sango, and demon-kid Shippo (who supplies much of the comedy relief). The first movie, AFFECTIONS for short, also works in such semi-regular characters as Inu-Yasha's brother Sesshomaru and the undead priestess Kikyo. The latter supplies a romantic threat to the prickly boy-girl interactions of Kagoma and her "demon lover."

The villain of AFFECTIONS is new though: a Mongolian moth-demon named Menomaru. This new foe and his henchwomen kidnap Kagome and brainwash Sango's pet Kirara as part of a plan to steal Inu-Yasha's magic sword. Long ago, Inu-Yasha's demon-father (deceased during the series) sealed the father of Menomaru into a crypt, and by using the sword, the evildoer manages to channel the elder demon's power into himself. 

Menomaru succeeds in his goal and throws Inu-Yasha for a loss. In addition to keeping Kirara in thrall, the demon also works a similar bewitchment on Kagome, and for good measure he unleashes a plague of insects on helpless villagers. 

 Kagome, given demon-powers by her puppeteer, attacks Inu-Yasha and pins him to a tree with her enchanted arrows-- a version of the same tree where Kagome's ancestor Kikyo consigned Inu-Yasha to a temporary death. And although the trauma of "killing" her romantic interest breaks the spell over Kagome, her guilt seemingly summons Kikyo herself, and the undead priestess commands Kagome to return to her own era.  The script does not say so, but I think this is possible because her actions while under the moth-demon's control make her want to retreat from the trauma of killing Inu-Yasha, even though she should suspect that his death may not be permanent.

Meanwhile, Sesshomaru, whose sword Menomaru also sought to steal, seeks to join the fight, though mostly to avenge himself on the moth-demon for the latter's attack. Miroku and Sango have separate fights with Menomaru's two henchwomen, with Sango's struggle being more  tempestuous because her opponent uses her beloved Kirara against her. Like Kagone, Kirara breaks free from the spell by an act of loving will.

The Big Bad, though, is still at large, and neither Sango nor Miroku can stop him. The ancient world's only hope is if Kagome can overcome her reticence and once more bridge the gap between her time-frame and that of the dog-demon. To make Menomaru reprehensible on a personal level, he's also a demon-snob, who sneers at the romantic interaction of the time-crossed lovers-who-aren't-technically-together. Inu-Yasha duplicate the deed of his sire by vanquishing Menomaru. Sesshomaru doesn't end up affecting the story at all, so it's possible the writer only included him as a touchstone, to keep the character "in the loop" for future movies.

AFFECTIONS, an original script rather than an adaptation of a Takahashi story, mentions a detail that I never saw mentioned in any English translations of the manga. I knew that the tree on the modern-day Higurashi property was the same as the one whereon Inu-Yasha temporarily "dies" in feudal times, and that when Kagome falls through the well on the same property, she's able to revive Inu-Yasha from his imprisonment. But I didn't know that the wood used to make the walls of the well came FROM the sacred tree that has remained in the same place over the centuries. This detail goes a long way toward explaining why the well has supernatural properties of its own. 

SON OF HERCULES IN THE LAND OF DARKNESS (1964)

 

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

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS

In Italy this film was released as HERCULES THE INVINCIBLE. This seems a bit odd, given that there's not really any Hercules-mythology in the film, aside from the fact that the actor playing the hero (Dan Vadis) wears a beard that resembles that of the archaic model. Vadis's Hercules doesn't seem to have the marvelous strength seen in other iterations, given that he strains to perform measly feats like bending iron bars or tossing boulders. But there's plenty of marvelous content in the film retitled (for the American market) as SON OF HERCULES IN THE LAND OF DARKNESS, and, for a change, a plot-twist that departs from the usual peplum template.

Almost all of the film's action takes place in the titular "Land of Darkness," which is an underground city inside a volcanic mountain. (Guess what effect that location's going to have on the movie's climax.) The establishing action, though, takes place in some small kingdom neighboring that of the underground city, whose name (as pronounced in the English dub) sounds the Greek cognomen "Deimos." In that neighboring kingdom, protagonist Argoilis (Vadis), who remains a blank slate from start to finish, happens to come to the rescue of a princess, one Telca (Spela Rozin), Telca and Argolis fall for each other, but Telca's father says that although usually it's enough for a man to rescue a woman to lay claim to her in marriage, a special challenge is necessary to win a princess. There just happens to be a marauding dragon nearby, so off goes Argolis to slay it.

Before finding his way to the monster, Argolis stumbles across a weird old woman, (billed on IMDB as "the prophetess.") The old broad generously tells the warrior where to find a spear to kill the beast, and she asks only that Argolis should bring her one of the dragon's teeth. The hero thanks the oracle but confesses that he's already promised the teeth to Telca. The prophetess isn't upset by this development, but cautions Argolis that a dragon's tooth can protect one from harm (like the dragon's blood in the Seigfried saga), but only once. This foreshadowing sounds important but in the dubbed version the subject doesn't come up again until movie's end.

Argolis returns to the nice little kingdom but finds that many of its people, including Telca and her father, were carried away for human sacrifice by the people of Deimos. While Argolis makes his way to Deimos, the story briefly shifts to Telca's POV in the court of Deimos' evil queen Etel (Carla Calo). Imperious Etel doesn't know Telca's princess identity, but she automatically does what most evil queens do: she makes the nice girl into her servant. Slightly later, Telca gets the lowdown on Etel from her stepdaughter Melissa (Maria Fiore). Melissa holds Etel responsible for all the evils of the underground city. One of these was ascending to the queenship after marrying Melissa's father King Kabal (Ken Clark). This information seems dubious because throughout the film Kabal is always seen standing near the throne but never sitting on one, so the original character may have been a simple counselor whom the dub chose to upgrade. Melissa also claims that Etel initiated the Deimosian's sacrificial rituals, which appear to vary between cannibalistic consumption of flesh or the drinking of victims' blood. This too is a little dubious, as one doesn't expect healthy habits of people living underground in a slumbering volcano. But at any rate, Telca seems to have made one valuable ally in Melissa.

Argolis, accompanied by a comical sidekick, attacks the city. The hero is captured, while the clownish fellow escapes. Etel sentences the strongman to be torn apart by two elephants in the local arena. To the surprise of all Deimos, Argolis, though apparently just a really powerful mortal, resists the opposing pull of the two beasts. A rope breaks and a mad elephant charges the queen's seat in the stands. However, chivalrous Argolis grabs the elephant's leg and prevents the creature from trampling Etel.

Etel decides to cultivate Argolis as her lover, little realizing that her own serving-girl has a claim on him. Argolis plays a waiting game by flattering the glamorous monarch and watching for his chance to rebel. I'm not sure what happens to his dragon tooth during this time-frame, but since it's referenced later, maybe he gives it to Etel as a keepsake. Later he finds Telca's father imprisoned in Etel's dungeon but can't free him just yet.

Then the twist comes in. Up to this point, the viewer would have tended to assume that Melissa was going to be an ally to poor persecuted Telca. But while Etel is waiting for an assignation with Argolis, Melissa sneaks up behind the queen and stabs her to death. (She may also take the dragon's tooth; not sure.) With Etel dead, Melissa goes to Kabal-- again, supposedly both the king and her father-- and tells him to make her the new queen. One might assume this involved the "king" marrying his "daughter," but since Kabal doesn't bat an eye at Melissa's claim to the throne, this would seem to prove he's not her relative in any way. So Melissa is the new boss, same as the old boss, and one of her first acts is to have Telca hooked up to some device that drains her blood for future consumption. Argolis is too busy fighting soldiers to help the heroine, but to Telca's good fortune, the blood transfusion wasn't intended to be fatal, for she's still alive, albeit a captive, when she's next seen. 

There's some comic business in which the sidekick enters the story again and poses as one of the Deimos soldiers to help Telca's father and his men escape. The good king escapes but dies trying to save his daughter. With the help of a local, Argolis learns that there's a method of unsealing the furies of the volcano to destroy the city, so the hero journeys to the belly of the beast and does the deed. Then while the ground shakes and the populace flees, the hero goes looking for Telca. He finds Melissa alone in her throne room and offers to help her escape the volcano's lava if the queen helps him find Telca. The hero also mentions that the dragon's tooth in Melissa's possession won't help now-- did it help her avert death in some deleted scene?-- and then he goes off and finds Telca on his own. If you have any doubts as to who escapes the volcano and who doesn't, you've never seen any kind of adventure-movie before. Oh, and Argolis also kills off Kabal in battle, thus leaving no loose ends.

There's not enough development of Deimos as an "anti-civilization," where the people drink blood and eat flesh to absorb the qualities of proper living people, but even the undeveloped idea is better than just the average old corrupted kingdom. The action seems to set up Etel as an "evil stepmother" type of villain, out to poach on the guy committed to an age-appropriate lady. But then Melissa gets rid of her stepmother to become the new queen, and the new villain has no interest either in Argolis or in The Character Who's Probably Not Originally Her Father. That means the Electra-theme doesn't apply here, while any potential "Phaedra-theme" goes off the rails. It's a shame that visually director Alvaro Mancori-- usually a cinematographer-- relies most of the time on long-shots and middle-range shots, which blunts a lot of the action scenes. Flaws aside, though, I would have to consider LAND OF DARKNESS for my list of top 20 Italian peplum-movies of the period.

THE TRIUMPH OF THE SON OF HERCULES (1961)

 

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

This Maciste film, marketed under the "Sons of Hercules" rubric in the U.S, has nothing directly to do with the mythology of Hercules, though the hero's purpose, to bring an end to a sacrificial cult, bears some resemblance to a particular archaic "Hercules" tale. More notably, TRIUMPH (which was titled "Triumph of Maciste" in Italy) provides a new take on the highly variable mythos of Maciste. This time, the hero is said to have been born from the sun and raised by a female oracle, Yalis (Carla Carlo), though in the dubbed edition the oracle's identity isn't revealed until over halfway through the movie. In addition, this was the first film credit for Kirk Morris, who would play Maciste in three or four other sixties films.

In Memphis, Egypt (which in this universe has a volcano for a neighbor), evil Queen Tenefi (Lluba Bodica) has usurped the throne of the city. She demands that the citizens yield up daily sacrifices, all hale young women, to the Fire God in the mountain. Naturally, a resistance movement forms.

Maciste, who doesn't seem native to this quasi-Egyptian domain, defends the people of a village from Tenefi's raiders. One young woman, Antea (Cathia Caro), tells the hero that she wants to go with him to his people because she Antea no longer has any living relatives. Clearly she's smitten with the big hunk, but Maciste just says, OK, come on.

Over in Memphis Tenefi and her counselors are worried that Maciste may lead a revolt, so they plot his capture. With the hero in captivity, Tenefi sentences Maciste to be pulled apart when two chariots, each bound by ropes to one of his wrists, drive in opposite directions-- one of the more mundane tests of strength devised for a peplum-protagonist. Maciste manages to stand his ground, un-dismembered, and Tenefi takes a shine to him, having him released from the ropes. When he stands before her throne, she touches him with her "magic" scepter, and Maciste immediately becomes her brainwashed slave, and probably her lover off-camera as well.

The oppressed people of Memphis are horrified at the defection of their savior. Yalis then makes her first major appearance when Antea seeks out the oracle for advice. Yalis discloses that the staff has a "thorn" in it with which the queen injected a brainwashing-potion into Maciste, and Yalis just happens to have a dart filled with an antidote. This contrivance sounds a "scientific" explanation for the magical scepter. but Yalis makes the curious pronouncement that Antea can't tell anyone else about her mission or the potion won't work. Maybe this was just a way of ensuring that the battle for Maciste's soul would be carried about purely by the two primary females, with no intermediaries involved.

Showing more spunk than many "good girls" in such films, Antea infiltrates the palace of Tenefi as a servant, and at her first opportunity, she hits Maciste with the dart. Instantly he remembers everything and starts fighting the guards. Tenefi and her counselors witness what Antea did, so they hustle her to the sanctuary inside the mountain, intending to make her the day's new sacrifice to the Fire God. Maciste gets directions to the volcano from his adoptive mother, which is the rather late point in which she reveals her relationship to the hero. (For what it's worth, the Yalis character is one of the few mothers in sixties peplum who has anything like agency.)

The climactic sequence is one of the better ones in strongman-films, even though one television print inserts some scenes from a later Kirk Morris Maciste-film, THE WITCH'S CURSE. That said, the padding-- mostly scenes in which Maciste fights savages called "yuri men"-- doesn't affect the visuals of the sacrificial set-piece. Antea is bound to a platform in front of a big crimson statue, and hidden machinery raises the platform toward the "mouth" of the Fire God. We never learn if the statue might somehow "come alive" to gobble up the heroine, for Maciste intervenes, pulling the platform down and freeing Antea. The whole volcano blows up, whether from the Fire God's wrath or from the frustrated machinery, dooming Tenefi and her counselors while Maciste escapes with Antea. The conclusion implies that the crusader ties the knot of matrimony with the heroine, but of course he's footloose and fancy free by the next installment.

While TRIUMPH is not quite good enough to make my top ten of peplum-flicks, it would probably make the top twenty. Though the actress playing Tenefi was about ten years older than the one playing Antea, the characters are played as if they're on the same level age-wise. There's no "older woman-younger woman" dynamic between the female opponents, unless Tenefi's need for a magic scepter might be read as a marker of her fading charms-- though Bodica is certainly poised as more flamboyantly attractive than her good-girl antagonist.

COLOSSUS AND THE AMAZON QUEEN (1960)

 

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

Here's a poor excuse for a peplum-comedy that makes MACISTE AND HERCULES IN THE VALE OF WOE look like BLAZING SADDLES.

There's nothing inherently wrong with either misogynistic or misandrist comedy, given that comedy should be all about breaking boundaries. But even allowing for the vagaries of dubbing, COLOSSUS AND THE AMAZON QUEEN is one dull trip into "good old Eye-talian boy" territory. A lot of Italian muscle-man films get tagged for being masculinist. In truth, the straightforward adventure-films generally show female characters with a lot of agency, even if they can't toss boulders around. But not in AMAZON. 

The film takes place some time after the Trojan War, though I don't know why the writers even specifying the period, unless they were drawing some connection to the presence of Amazon warriors in some of the Trojan War folklore. Greek con-man Pirro (Rod Taylor) and his hulking buddy Glauco (Ed Fury of URSUS fame) undertake a sea-voyager that deposits them in the land of the Amazons. They are indeed ruled by a Queen (the renowned Gianna Maria Canale), but she has little to do with the main story. 

In the Amazon land, the women do all the soldiering duty (particularly against invading pirates) while the men are consigned to wash clothes, darn socks, and all those woman-type things. When Pirro and Glauco are imprisoned, Glauco uses his strength to bend the prison bars, but Pirro talks him into refraining, so that they can get in good with the babes. In due time each of the guys gets matched up with a comely chick (Malitta for Pirro, Antiope for Glauco), both of whom happen to be vying for the position of "Amazon Queen" when the current monarch steps down.

There's a time-killing plot about a stolen sacred girdle, but I got bored. It would be fine with me had the writers thrown in the occasional joke about feminine limitations, but all the women in the movie are so dim that one wonders how they even got dressed every morning. Though the babes run around with spears and bows, they're barely ever shown being proficient in battle, so how do they even manage to keep from being overcome by raiders? At the end the mighty heroes have to intervene to save the girls from the pirates, and the broad suggestion is that this spells the end of the matriarchal society. The brief action scenes are totally forgettable, and despite many pretty women in the cast, the script doesn't give even the main stars any amusing activities, just lots of sterile talking-head scenes. Most of the "straight" Italian adventure-films never earn a mythicity-rating above "poor," but I'd almost want to invent a ranking even lower than that, just for COLOSSUS AND THE AMAZON QUEEN.

BRAM STOKER'S DRACULA (1992)

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *good*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTIONS: *metaphysical, psychological*

I'm sure others have said this before me, but this film's proper title ought to be FRANCIS COPPOLA'S DRACULA, given how often the director and writer James V. Hart diverge from the famous book. If there's one thing Coppola gets right, though, it's that he infuses this remake of the familiar story a great deal of high-octane action and sensuality. Even though some scenes go off the rails, Coppola's grand-opera version is still truer to the essence of Bram Stoker's blood-and-thunder opus than the many movies whose principal inspiration was the DRACULA stage-play.

Scripter Hart gives Dracula (Gary Oldman) a god-scorning "origin" with only tangential relevance to the vampire-lord's background in the novel. As Vlad the Impaler (whose impalings of enemies are visually compared to vampiric stakings), the 15th-century Romanian count distinguishes himself by defeating an Ottoman invasion of his land. But his beloved bride Elisabeta (Winona Ryder) believes him slain in battle, so she takes her own life. Pious Christian priests inform the grieving count that suicides cannot receive burial, so Vlad drives his sword into a Christian icon to signal his apostacy. The icon, possibly due to Coppola being Catholic, sheds blood, and Vlad blasphemes by drinking it, thus becoming a vampire who rules Transylvania with a heavy hand for the next four hundred years.

In the late 19th century, English solicitor Harker (Keanu Reeves) comes to Castle Dracula to arrange the Count's purchase of Carfax Abbey in England. (He is, incidentally, following up on a botched voyage by another firm-agent, Renfield, which seems to be an example of Hart wanting to reference the well known rewriting of Renfield for the 1931 DRACULA.) Despite the use of some impressive effect during Harker's arrival, reproducing the novel's use of a "St. Elmo's fire" phenomenon, the opening scenes of Harker meeting a powdered, periwigged version of Count Dracula almost sink the film. I don't know what Copppola and company were referencing with this odd imagery, but it seems counter-intuitive. After all, one of the major rewritings of Stoker in this DRACULA is that Oldman's Count is going to be a romantic seducer of Harker's fiancess Mina (also Winona Ryder), so why put your *homme fatale* in powder and wig?

Still, Stoker's material holds up, and Coppola gets good mileage out of the vampire-brides scene and the Count's ability to crawl up a castle-wall like a lizard. The Count departs for England, leaving Harker to the tender mercies of the brides. This actually makes a jot more sense than the novel, where Harker seems largely unsupervised when he finally escapes the castle. Novel-Harker manages to avoid being orally violated by the brides, but he's turned into fang-bang material here-- which may be a way of foreshadowing the fate of his fiancee.

The novel's original Mina is fairly straitlaced, and her friend Lucy, while she memorably fantasizes about marrying three men, is also a "good girl." But before either of the Coppola versions encounter the Count in any form whatever, it's clear that these girls of Victorian England are horny young chicks. As per the standard trope, Dracula preys on the randier Lucy (Sadie Frost) first, though Coppola is probably the first to suggest that Drac takes Lucy in a quasi-werewolf form. Lucy sickens from loss of blood, upsetting Mina and Lucy's three prospective fiancees. leading one of them to summon the help of renowned medical doctor Van Helsing (a tongue-in-cheek Anthony Hopkins). 

But hey, wasn't Drac supposed to be obsessed with being reunited with Mina, whom he believes the reincarnation of his lost Elisabeta? Maybe he just needed a pick-me-up? Anyway, he finally approaches Mina in the London streets, and despite her demure protests she's clearly fascinated with the stranger who wears dark sunglasses and discourses on that new cinematic invention, the Kinetograph. In theory Mina is tempted to "walk on the wild side," though she's not being forced the way her beleaguered fiancee was. Drac's seduction is interrupted when Mina gets news that the injured Harker is being cared for in a Romanian convent, so she goes to him. 

Meanwhile, while Mina collects the dissipated Harker and brings him back to London, Van Helsing discloses the truth of Lucy's condition to her aggrieved boyfriends, and enlists their aid to return the vampirized vamp to her eternal rest. Harker joins the fearless vampire hunters in destroying Dracula's back-up coffins of holy Romanian soil. The Count retaliates by turning Mina into an undead. This backfires somewhat in that both Drac and Mina now share an empathic link, and they can to some extent spy on one another. This parallels events of the novel, in which Mina helps the hunters track the Count while fighting her own attraction to the vamp life, though not to any reincarnated destiny.

Beset on all sides, Dracula flees back to Transylvania. The hunters pursue, and Coppola pulls off a great cinematic version of the novel's equally exciting chase scene, as Drac's gypsies try to get his coffin-bound form back to his castle while the pursuers hope to slay the bloodsucker before the sun goes down. Hart preserves the bloody fight between the humans and their undead enemy, but in deference to his inserted reincarnation theme, this time Mina gets to strike the killing blow, which is also something of a mercy killing to the tormented aristocrat.

Stoker's Dracula was not a charming seducer, but the author's juxtaposition of sex and death throughout the vampire lord's depredations inevitably lent itself to a greater emphasis on romantic conquest. As I said, some scenes are a trifle overbaked, but on the whole I prefer Coppola's operatic approach to the simplification of vampire mythology, as one sees in various Hammer iterations of Dracula. (And don't even get me started on Matheson's I AM LEGEND...)

THE ISLAND AT THE TOP OF THE WORLD (1974)

 

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

The literary genre of the "lost race novel" probably peaked in the 1930s with LOST HORIZON and various Doc Savage novels. After the innovations of both jets and satellites, it became harder and harder to sell the idea of cultures being so isolated that the rest of the world knew nothing of them. However, in the 1960s, writer Ian Cameron took a shot at reviving the genre with three novels set in contemporaneous times. One of these books, THE LOST ONES, became the basis of Disney's ISLAND AT THE TOP OF THE WORLD.

Disney's producers probably realized that the public tended to think of the genre as old-hat, so the script for ISLAND set the events in 1907, and had the explorers travel in an old-timey dirigible. (Following the late Walt Disney's imprimatur to monetize their productions, there were plans to place a version of the Dirigible at one of the theme parks, though the film's failure ensured that this did not take place until 1992, at Disneyland Paris.) The basic purpose of the expedition, though, remained the same: wealthy Anthony Ross (Donald Sindel) hires a crew to venture to a little-known volcanic area in Alaska, seeking Ross's son Donald, missing for two years. The film's explorers include the dirigible's captain, anthropologist Ivarsson ("name" actor David Hartman), and eventually, reluctant Inuit guide Oomak (Mako). 

I give away nothing by stating that despite perils of the air and the snowy Alaskan tundra, the explorers succeed in finding the lost Donald. They also find his hosts, a race of isolated descendants of Vikings, who tend to regard the newcomers as heralds of an invasion force. Ivarsson's fortunate ability to speak Old Norse smooths things over a bit, but an evil shaman wants everyone dead, and Donald doesn't immediately want to leave, being enamored of local lass Freyja (Agneta Eckmeyr). Eventually the outsiders must make a daring trek to return to the outside world via the dirigible. Eventually the Vikings allow the explorers to leave, but only if one of their number remains behind as hostage.

I don't remember when and where I first saw ISLAND, but I remembered little of it. The likely reason is that, despite the skill of director Robert Stevenson in depicting the wonders of the natural world (including a "whale's graveyard"), not much really happens in this "adventure tale." The protagonists never seem in serious danger, the Vikings aren't a bad lot, and the nasty shaman is barely seen. The elder Ross worries that he drove his son away by being a demanding father, but Donald lets him off the hook, saying that he bore his dad no animus, he just wanted adventure. In the book Freyja dies; here she lives and Ivarsson willingly stays behind as hostage, delighted to be immersed in the mysteries of a lost civilization.

On the whole, the film is very safe entertainment, much like a lot of other Disney movies of the decade, though ISLAND is far from the worst of the batch. Around the same time a British production company enjoyed middling success with three adaptations from novels of Edgar Rice Burroughs, so the genre wasn't utterly foreign to 1970s filmgoers. ISLAND sunk like a stone, and its only significance might be as an attempt to bring back old-fashioned explorer-tales, though seven years later Lucas and Spielberg ate Disney's lunch with the introduction of the infinitely preferable exploits of Indiana Jones.

THE SUPER SNOOPER (1952)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *good*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *comedy*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *psychological, sociological*

Like most people who've grown up with TV, I've watched and enjoyed thousands of cartoon shorts, many of them from the "Golden Age" of Warner Brothers. But it occurred to me to ask myself in this venue, "which if any of these seven-minute Warners shorts qualify as 'mythic' by the criteria I've laid out?"

One way of breaking the question down is to note that the vast majority of theatrical shorts were concatenations of gags, and that there were two most-used strategies for organizing the gags. The first and most popular means was to structure the gags around some frenetic activity. Examples include events like a dance, a musical performance, a chase, a fight, or a contest.

The less-used strategy was the spoof of some easily recognized genre or series of narrative tropes. The first type didn't really allow the writers to play with symbolic concepts, but the second couldn't help but duplicate some abstract ideas from the original stories in order to parody them. In the late forties and early fifties, Warners turned out a number of these: "Bugs Bunny Rides Again" (written by Michael Maltese and Tedd Pierce), "The Scarlet Pumpernickel" and "Drip-Along Daffy" (both Maltese). 

Daffy Duck also had two major modes for his comedy: usually he was either the "darn fool crazy duck" who tormented others with his craziness, or he was an insecure poseur who kept trying to assume heroic roles, but who usually got clobbered because of his weakness and incompetence. In "Pumpernickel" he's a would-be swashbuckler, while in "Drip-Along" he's a wannabe tough cowboy. 

Tedd Pierce had written assorted spoofs over his long career as well, but his most mythic parody was 1952's "The Super Snooper." Like other such shorts it's full of slapstick pratfalls, but Pierce's dialogue is full of wry twists on the private detective genre (strictly of the trenchcoat breed, despite the introductory shot showing Daffy in a Sherlock Holmes outfit). Though the duck's character is named "Duck Drake," I'll call him Daffy throughout.

Detective Daffy is summoned to investigate a murder at the ritzy "Axehandle Estate" (by itself, a spoof of the trope in which low-class sleuths investigate high-class tycoons). Upon meeting a creepy butler at the door of his supposed destination, Daffy questions the servant, but then remarks to the camera that "the suspicious acting butler is never the real culprit in these pictures."

Despite this remark, for the rest of the short Daffy is sedulously bound to carry out the tropes of the detective genre. With the butler gone, he asks no one in particular, "Where's the body" (of the supposed victim). Daffy never actually sees a corpus delicti, but he does get a body, in the form of a statuesque female duck who responds that "I'm the Body"-- the only name we ever get for the rich babe, apparently the only resident of the mansion. Daffy tells the audience that she's "the inevitable amorous babe who's just crazy about us hardboiled gumshoes," and the Body is quick to conform to the trope by smothering Daffy with kisses. Still, she claims to be "innocent" of whatever crime this gumshoe has on his mind (prompting from Daffy a clever pun on another meaning of "innocent.") 

So for four gag-sequences, Daffy roleplays ways in which he thinks the Body committed the crime (even though he hasn't seen a corpse or garnered any info about the cause of death). First, he assumes (correctly) that the femme fatale has a "little pistol" in her purse, pulls it out, hands it to the Body and coaxes her into firing it, blasting him several times. As if to support her claim of "innocence," the Body evinces shock and drops the weapon.

The Body keeps trying to make love to Daffy, which in detective movies is a sign of a woman using sex to cover her guilt. But Daffy's married to his narrative. He grabs a (fully loaded) deer rifle off the walls, thrusts it into the Body's hands, and insists that she act out the way she supposedly murdered "the old goat" (loosely implying that she's a young trophy wife who killed some elderly rich dude). The Body then shoots Daffy about a dozen times, causing his body to rebound back and forth as in a shooting gallery. This time her expression is utterly impassive as she shoots, neither shocked by or enjoying the violence she performs upon the obsessed shamus.

Daffy returns to his theme, "And then what did you do?"(To her response, "Search me," he responds, atypically, "Business before pleasure, please.") He then tries a new RPG, using a pulley to haul a piano up to the ceiling, calling her an "ee-vil woman" as he does so. (She bats her eyes as if flattered.) Daffy hands the Body the cable while he demonstrates exactly how she supposedly dropped a piano on the murder victim. (I like how Daffy puts real effort into hauling the huge object up to the ceiling but given the rope, the slender femme fatale holds it in place with zero strain.) Daffy, not content with all the pain he's suffered so far, yells at the slinky siren, startling her into dropping the dead weight right atop the defective detective.

For the last gag, the Body doesn't even get directly involved, lying prone on a sofa while Daffy shows her how she arranged for the victim to be run over by a train. Daffy's constant displays of terminal stupidity do nothing to discourage this "scarlet woman's" mad love for the masochistic mallard. When he again returns to his theme, she drops the bomb that there's been no crime (though she did say she was innocent earlier) and that Daffy's at the wrong location. However, the Body then confesses-- not to a crime, but to being crazy about the "gorgeous hunk of duck." Daffy reads a "ball in chain look" in her eyes and flees. The Body pursues, with the end image making it certain that she will overtake and tame the would-be adventurer and drag him to the altar, whether by persuasion or by force. In comparison to the conclusions of many genre spoofs, which simply often just shift into some irrelevant gag (as in the aforementioned "Bugs Bunny Rides Again"), SNOOPER's ending is a perfect repudiation of the power-fantasy of the private detective. Instead of the "super snooper" defeating the power of the seductive femme fatale by ferreting out her criminality, the Body sentences this crime-happy incarnation of Daffy to the imprisonment of matrimony. That said, Daffy often suffered far worse fates than being married to a gorgeous, rich lady duck. So for once, even though Daffy loses the contest, he kind of wins too-- as long as she doesn't develop a thing for dropping pianos on his head.

NICK KNIGHT (1989)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTIONS: *metaphysical, psychological*

NICK KNIGHT was a true rarity: an American-made pilot for a TV show that didn't get picked up in its original form, but was retooled about three years later for a roughly commensurate teleseries. This program, FOREVER KNIGHT, then ran for three seasons with almost all of the carryover characters played by different actors.

Handsome singer Rick Springfield essays the original version of Nick Knight, a guy with a secret. By day he usually hides from the sun, while at night he comes out to solve crimes as a L.A. cop while fighting the urge to prey upon human beings. For two hundred years, Nick has been a vampire who never ages, and so must continually change locations in order to avoid attracting attention (one character calls it "the Dorian Gray effect.") The spotty screenplay doesn't clarify how he goes about getting the blood he needs for survival, only that he doesn't attack random humans for his sustenance. Also going unexplained is how a man who can't easily face sunlight (though the script isn't consistent on the point) ever manages to make his way through a Los Angeles police academy. The main concern is just to put across the "high concept" of "vampire cop."

In the three years since Nick took up residence in L.A., he's made one human ally who knows his secret: police coroner Brittington, who may be Nick's source of hemoglobin, though it's not explicitly said so. Once he's become a police officer, his superiors generously allow him to work only at night because he's just so good at crime-solving, and to mostly work alone-- though this story starts out with the nocturnal loner being saddled with a comedy-relief partner named Schanke (played by the one actor who did reprise his role for FOREVER KNIGHT).

Nick, who has for the most part eschewed the bloodsucker life, is naturally concerned when the news carries reports of homeless people being killed and drained of blood, which incidents are naturally termed "vampire murders" by the news. Nick is also concerned by the murder of a guard at a local museum, from which a relic, a Mayan goblet, is stolen. The guard too is drained of blood, but from a bite, not from a throat-slash. While investigating the guard's murder, Nick encounters Alyce, a comely anthropologist (Laura Johnson), and because of their conversation Alyce begins to suspect that the apparently young fellow is a lot older than he appears.

The script doles out bits and pieces as to Nick's true history. Two hundred years ago (not the eight hundred of FOREVER KNIGHT), he was seduced into vampirism by two mentors, Lacroix (Michael Nader) and Janelle (Cec Verrell). Janelle has by coincidence set up her own bar in L.A., but Nick doesn't suspect her of the vampiric assault, though he seems to know that she's been ensconced in the city since before he arrives. Nick wants Janelle to tell him if Lacroix in in town, because he knows that the elder vampire took it hard when Nick went off on his own. The relationship of the two male vampires is described as being that of brothers, and the casting of actors Springfield and Nader, both in their early forties at the time, supports this. However, Lacroix's animosity is never as convincing as the Nick-Lacroix relationship in FOREVER KNIGHT, where Lacroix is a stern father insisting that his prodigal "son" obey his wishes.

When Nick tracks down Lacroix, the latter forswears involvement in the murder of the homeless people, but affirms that he killed the guard and stole the goblet, because he knew that the goblet could be used in a ritual to reverse vampirism. The two vamps fight and Lacroix destroys the goblet, after which Lacroix is put temporarily out of commission while Nick flees into the daylight and is forced to hide from the sun in the trunk of his car. This leads to a somewhat funny (if overlong) sequence in which Schanke takes possession of his partner's car and manages to wreck it while Nick is still in the trunk.

The solution of the serial killer mystery is tedious and is hardly worth the time it consumes. Alyce of course falls in love with Nick (she's manifestly a "Mina-type," a subdued girl whose safe life is upended by a dangerously attractive mystery man), and so she gets caught between Nick and Lacroix as they finish their battle. This conflict is muddled by Nick's attempt to avoid drinking blood, so that the enemies are not well matched. Nick still triumphs but Alyce perishes at the hands of Nick's "brother." Had NICK KNIGHT become a series, Alyce's absence would have left the hero's romantic options. Things wind up with Brittington encouraging Nick to keep looking for vampire cures. On the whole, though Springfield makes a very cool vampire cop, I don't think a series based on this premise would have proved as interesting as FOREVER KNIGHT, even though that show had its flaws as well (particularly a dependence on HIGHLANDER-like flashbacks).