ORPHEUS (1950)

 

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

"No excess is absurd." --the Former Poet, defending a book of blank pages entitled "Nudity."

I've seen all three of Jean Cocteau's "Orpheus Trilogy" in the past, but as the first was not readily available, I'll hold forth on the second part, which is arguably the best-known and most critically celebrated. I'll note that Cocteau wrote and had performed a play with the same title back in 1926. Yet according to the Wiki writeup, the play doesn't share much with this movie but the basic reworking of tropes from the Greek myth of "the troubadour of Thrace," as an opening line calls the Greek singer. Clearly Cocteau had to rethink this project in terms of what could be accomplished on a certain cinematic budget, and what might impress viewers within the venue of postwar art-cinema.     

In 1950s Paris, Orpheus (Jean Marais) is not a singer but a poet, married to a faithful young wife, Eurydice (Marie Dea). Unlike the majority of poets in modern times, Orpheus is so well known for his works that at one point a bunch of female fans stop him on the street for his autograph. Yet, in a scene at a Parisian cafe, the young man confesses to an acquaintance-- an older, retired writer-- that he knows many people think him a poseur, and he seems to wonder if they may be right. It's during this conversation that the old fellow makes his rather Bataillean comment about "excess," though the concept is never elaborated.

A beautiful woman, called only "the Princess" (Maria Casares), arrives at the cafe with her entourage. Cegeste, a young member of that entourage, creates a row at the cafe, so that police are summoned. Trying to escape the law's long arm, Cegeste runs into the street and is killed by two black-clad motorcyclists who simply keep going. The French cops are apparently too flummoxed to notice how the Princess orders the dead guy loaded into her car by her chauffeur and then invites the fascinated Orpheus along for the ride.

Both in the car and at the Princess's mansion, the mysterious black-clad woman refuses to answer questions from Orpheus. At some point he's simply sent back to Paris, ignorant of his new role in the Princess's world. But the audience sees her true nature when she simply restores Cegeste to a semblance of life and consigns him to her world, the world of Death. To the extent that the Princess resembles anyone in the Orpheus myth, it would be Persephone. But it's a Queen of Death who moves freely in the living world, and who implicitly chooses Orpheus as a replacement for Cegeste.

 Orpheus, returning home, finds Eurydice more than a little concerned at his being absent all night. Also present are a Surete inspector, who questions Orpheus about the missing body of Cegeste, and Eurydice's sometime friend Aglaonice (Juliette Greco). The cop doesn't return, but Aglaonice becomes a familiar presence in the film. She's a member of some vague feminist group to which Eurydice once belonged (and thus a stand-in for the classical Maenads), and she clearly has a thing for Eurydice. The doting wife only wants her husband to love her and even discloses that she's pregnant with his child.  

 

By accident or design, the Princess' chauffeur Heurtebise makes certain that Orpheus is beguiled by the world of Death, making the curious arrangement to keep the Princess's car in Orpheus' garage. Orpheus starts hearing broadcasts of poetic phrases from the car's radio, and he's entranced by a level of poetic accomplishment foreign to him. Cocteau doesn't clarify if these are things the poet actually hears or just imagines hearing, but in any case, he does fall in love with the Princess. For that matter, Heurtebise becomes enamored of Eurydice, but she remains entirely fixated upon her husband.

Eurydice is killed, but Heurtebise tells Orpheus that Princess Death answers to an otherworldly tribunal, to whom Orpheus can make an appeal. The strongest visuals show the hero and his guide passing through mirrors into the death-realm, though the confrontation with the tribunal proves underwhelming, as the superiors of Death are just a trio of middle-aged men seated at a table. They rule that Eurydice's life was taken unfairly, and they send her back to the living world, but with the stipulation that Orpheus can never look at her again. This seems like an extreme take on the original myth, since in that narrative Orpheus only had to convey his restored love to the living world, at which point she would have been real again. Inevitably, the injunction is violated, and not even in line with iterations in which the male seeker simply fails because he wants to see his beloved again.

The conclusion shows Cocteau drifting away from the original story's tragic denouement. Once Orpheus returns to the real world, he's besieged not by Aglaonice's "League of Women" but by a crowd of poetry-lovers who for some reason think he's responsible for the death of Cegeste. Orpheus dies and goes back to the death-realm. However, the tribunal decides to release the young couple back to life, sans all memories of these experiences. The old guys do allow the young poet to bid farewell to his former love Princess Death before he forgets her, and before she pays an unspecified penalty for her actions. I don't know whether we should assume that the young couple manages to work out all problems thanks to this do-over. 

I think Cocteau meant in part to caution those vulnerable to the siren-song of poetry, possibly implying that poetry's "excesses" could separate them from the foundation of life itself. However, the death-realm loses some of its claim to transgressive fascination once it's been revealed that "Hades" is managed by three older guys keeping track of who's supposed to die and when. ORPHEUS doesn't quite rate the accolade of "masterpiece." However, despite its flaws it's still one of the most important art-films of the 20th century.

              

CINDERELLA (1977), LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD (1960)

 

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

In my review of the 1978 FAIRYTALES-- the second of Charles Band's attempts to produce a comedic softcore fairytale-- I said that it was fortunate that Band didn't continue mining that vein. But now FAIRYTALES starts to look pretty good next to 1977's CINDERELLA.

For one thing, this story of the put-upon stepsister follows the broad template of the story sedulously but barely gets any comedic punch out of the cornball sex jokes injected.  Instead, producer Band and director Michael Pataki (a character actor, here directing the second of his two feature films) pad the thin tale with forgettable musical numbers. One of the big downsides of CINDERELLA '77 is that despite the babelicious charisma of headliner Cheryl Smith, her stepmother and stepsisters are grotesquely made up and get far too much screen time (particularly the two sisters, who have a number about enjoying sibling incest together). By comparison, the other nice-looking women-- Brenda Fogarty ("Gussie Gander" from FAIRYTALES) and Pamela (SATURDAY THE 14TH STRIKES BACK) Stonebrook-- have next to nothing to do.

CINDERELLA's sole credited writer Frank Ray (INVASION OF THE STAR CREATURES) Perelli uses one of the same gimmicks he'd use in FAIRYTALES: the prince of Cinderella's realm has a little problem keeping interested in sex. That's the reason for the prince to hold his big ball (so to speak), to find a female with whom he can conceive an heir for the kingdom. So out go the invitations to all the eligible girls in the realm, even to Cinderella-- but the stepmother burns her invitation and forces the poor girl to stay home and clean the house.             

Enter Cindy's savior, a "fairy godfather," played by another alum of FAIRYTALES, Sy Richardson. But the godfather is a sneak thief who hides from pursuing law-dogs in Cindy's house. Questioned by the girl, he breaks the fourth wall by acting like he already knows the Cinderella story, and that he's ready to assume the role of magical donor. But to make the burglar-schtick work, Fairy-Guy (who makes the expected gay joke but doesn't "play gay") just happens to have swiped a magic wand from someone. Thus he grants Cinderella her magic gown and her horse-and-carriage, but only until midnight. More importantly, he grants Cindy the gift of a "snapper," which apparently used to be a metaphor for "she's nice, she's tight"-- yet for some reason, this enhancement doesn't go away at midnight as do the other paraphernalia. Thus, in place of the glass slipper routine, the prince, having had orgy sex with a bunch of women at the ball, goes on a search for the girl with the tight twat and happily weds Cindy. Given that Sy Richardson's character is lame this time, and that everyone except Cheryl Smith hams things up terribly, this is one "belle of the ball" that has a sour ring.

 As if to prove that hewing to a template is no guarantor of quality, we have the first of three Mexican "Red Riding Hood" films, all directed by Roberto Rodriguez. However, the short length of Riding Hood story presents problems for a feature-length movie, even one aimed at kids. Over half the movie is just buildup to the climactic confrontation of Red and her enemy the Wolf, with the little girl (Maria Gracia, playing the same Red-role in all three movies) gamboling around her little town while other kids go missing. 

The culprit is of course the Wolf (a human actor in a shabby costume). though this time he's partnered with "Stinky the Skunk" (also a guy in a bad costume). Stinky serves as the Wolf's henchman despite the way the Wolf bullies him, and clearly, he's there so that the director can fill time with the antics of the two anthropomorphic animals. Stinky is more or less the Laurel to Wolfie's Hardy, setting the big bad lupine up for various comic embarrassments. In keeping with this, Rodriguez chooses to take all the "bite" out of the original folktale. Not only is it questionable as to whether the Wolf really wants to eat Little Red, he's kidnapped some other town-kids but hasn't eaten them, imprisoning them in a cave-- I guess until he's really, REALLY hungry?

This undemanding kid-flick-- which I would think would have bored an awful lot of tots-- was followed by a second film I've not seen, CAPUCERCITA Y LOS TRES AMIGOS, in which Red had a second adventure with the tamed Wolf and Skunk, as well as a Dog of some sort. Both movies would probably be forgotten today, save by hardcore kiddie-film fans. However, with his third "Red film," Rodriguez scored a bullseye that has entered the fannish Halls of Fame, teaming up Little Red with "Pulgarcito," the Mexican version of Tom Thumb, for TOM THUMB AND LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD. This loony film pitted the quick-witted kids, as well as the Wolf and the Skunk, against an array of folkloric monsters that might've given pause even to Santo and the Blue Demon.

THE LEGEND OF FRENCHIE KING (1971)

 

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

After the passing of Claudia Cardinale in September, I reviewed one of her only films with mild fantasy content, BLONDE IN BLACK LEATHER. In that essay, I mentioned that I didn't know if I'd ever review Cardinale's 1971 collaboration with the then-living Brigitte Bardot, THE LEGEND OF FRENCHIE KING. Then Le Bardot passed this month, so I decided to watch FRENCHIE, like Bardot says in one line, "for the hell of it." To my mild surprise, there was also a smidgen of fantasy content in FRENCHIE as well: the villain of the story gets injured early-on, and he's kept out of the main action while a Chinese man uses an uncanny form of acupuncture to gradually restore him to health.     

Said villain, name of Doc Miller, exists only to set up the action. He commissions some geology expert to predict that there's oil on a deserted ranch, near a town, Bougerville. inhabited mostly by French emigrees. Miller then kills the expert, as if he's a pirate protecting forbidden treasure. and apparently buys the land legally, by wiring money through the venue of the telegraph. He takes his title with him on his way to claim his prize, but his train is held up by five bandits, the black-clad Frenchie King gang. Miller is injured and out of the picture for a long time, while the King gang reaches its hideout and reveals the audience that they're all young women, the daughters (by five separate mothers) of their bandit father, now deceased. While four of the sisters (Emma Cohen, Patty Shepard, Teresa Gimpera and France Dougnac) complain about the hard life of outlawry, Frenchie, aka Louise (Bardot) finds Miller's title. They don girls' clothes and journey to Bougerville, in their company of their Black servant. (Maybe the girls went west from Louisiana?)

However, Bougerville already has a reigning "queen:" Maria Sarrazin (Cardinale), who lords it over her four brothers (named for the Apostles) and over the ineffectual marshal, Jeffords (Michael J. Pollard). Though Maria and her bros are rowdy types, they're basically law-abiding horse-breeders-- until Maria learns from a separate soure that the "Little P" ranch holds oil reserves. She and her four brothers meet Frenchie and her four sisters, where Frenchie assumes the identity of "Doc Miller." When Maria forcefully offers to buy Frenchie out, the lady bandit knows that there's more to the "Little P" than is apparent.

 Afterward, the rest of the film is devoted to episodic encounters between the two "queens," with the "manly" Maria trying to intimidate the "womanly" Doc Miller, or alternately, to get Jeffords to invalidate the ranch-sale. To his credit, though Jeffords is the comedy relief, having zero chance with either of the starring beauties, he does stick to the law, and even hazily suspects that Doc Miller might be the bandit Frenchie, generally thought to be a man. All of the contentions between Maria and Frenchie-- as well as those between the four sisters and four brothers, who end up marrying one another-- lead up to a splashy, climactic fistfight between the dueling dominatrixes. It's easily one of the best catights in all cinema, and seems loosely patterned on the climactic fight between John Wayne and Randolph Scott in 1942's THE SPOILERS. After the girls settle their differences in a tie, they team up to rescue their siblings from the law. Implicitly the Sarrazins leave behind lawful activities and join the King Sisters in a life of happy outlawry.

FRENCHIE will win no awards for its very simple plot, and it's only a "feminist western" in a loose, non-didactic manner. Devotees of feminism ought to love the fact that even though Frenchie's four sisters are wed in holy matrimony (the multiple marriages reminding me of the Greek myth of the Danaids), both Maria and Frenchie remain completely uncompromised by romantic attachments-- and I suppose a "queer studies" resding would insist that they must be warm for one another's forms, though there's nothing in the US cut to support that theory. They're just two domineering women who, as Frenchie says following their big battle, would have fought for the hell of it even without the conflict over hidden treasure. The original director was one Guy Casaril, who apparently (according to IMDB) also contributed to the script, but he was replaced by Christian-Jaque. Like other French comedies, the humor tends to be droll rather than laugh-out-loud funny. This is seen in the closing shot of the Kings and the Sarrazins riding on the outlaw trail together, with the former group all clad in black and the latter all in white-- a clear shot at the stereotype of the white-clad good guy and the "black hat" villain. A few bits of slapstick happen for no reason: after the villain shows up to claim the ranch, where an oil gusher has spouted, he exults in the shower, which then explodes for no reason but to kill off the bad guy. Bardot and Cardinale play off one another well, despite rumors of contumely on the set, and just before the closing scene. Jeffords gives up marshaling, because the West's no longer a place for a man. (And he didn't even experience 21st-century feminism, which doesn't even offer hot babes.)

               

CHAMBER OF HORRORS (1966)

 

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

"Jason Cravatte, a gentleman with a taste for the sewers..."

Before getting to the film proper, I'll spend some time remarking on the synchronicity of my reviewing, in the same month, two psycho-films I'd only seen once before, both of which could have been really good in their depiction of a common trope: "the Really Rich are Really Messed Up." The other one was A KNIFE FOR THE LADIES, and it shares with CHAMBER OF HORRORS the sense that the filmmakers of both weren't as devoted as they should've been to their psycho-subjects.

CHAMBER is credited to two writers, Stephen Kandel and Ray Russell, and a director, Hy Averback. Both Kandel and Averback were mostly journeymen laborers in the TV field, while Russell is best known for his short story "Mister Sardonicus," which gave rise to the William Castle film of the same name. My guess is that Russell, credited only with contributing to "story" rather than "screenplay," came up with the essence of the perilous psycho of CHAMBER-- which, even in its early origins, seems to have had some elements in common with Castle's other productions. Had Jason Cravatte been better elaborated, he could have been as good as Slade in THE LODGER.

We first see Cravatte (Patrick O'Neal) forcing a minister at gunpoint to marry him to a dead woman. Later, after the law has caught up with Cravatte, he escapes in such a way as to lose one hand. He then becomes a psycho-killer haunting the streets of 1880s Baltimore, but he's actually more interesting in the background provided by his aunt, Mrs. Perryman (Jeanette Nolan). The rich, fifty-something dowager informs the audience that despite the upper-class station of her nephew, he liked "the taste of the sewers" and apparently kept company with all manner of prostitutes (which is substantiated later when Cravatte's seen holed up in a whorehouse). If this was all there was to him, he'd just be a dime-a-dozen roue. But he also had some desire for a "madonna" as an antidote to the whores, because he courted blonde Melinda-- the dead woman seen at the opening-- in the belief that she was virginal. He killed her when he learned she was not pure, and yet he also had some notion that he "purified" her by killing her, for he seems to have every intention of taking his pleasure with her dead body. In addition, even after the madman's been condemned but escapes, he repeats this syndrome by paying a similar-looking prostitute to "play dead."

Unfortunately, the script doesn't follow the "madonna-whore" complex with any close attention. After Cravatte escapes the law and becomes "the Butcher of Baltimore"-- complete with various killing-devices he can fit into his empty wrist-socket-- he takes up a brand- new psycho-obsession. He starts killing off the men who sentenced him to the hangman, and out of nowhere there's some folderol about his forming a "composite corpse" of the body parts of his victims. This poorly conceived notion turns Cravatte into just another gimmick-oriented psycho-killer-- though Patrick O'Neal's rousing performance as Cravatte sustains the film through all its dull spots.

Now, although Cravatte is the Prime icon of CHAMBER OF HORRORS the film, he would not have been had CHAMBER succeeded in its original purpose, as a pilot for a TV-series, originally called "House of Wax" after the 1953 horror-film. If any of the networks had greenlighted "House" as a series, then the default stars of all the episodes would have been the characters Tony Draco (Cesare Danova) and Harold Blount (Wilfrid Hyde-White). These two amateur detectives-- whose backgrounds are spotty at best-- run a wax museum with the title "House of Wax," and unlike the one in the Vincent Price movie, all of their wax statues are devoted to murder and the macabre. Indeed, the script tends to suggest that Draco and Blount's fascination with the macabre-- presented as being benign, I guess like that of the pilot-makers-- is what makes them great detectives. Presumably they would have proved this again and again on a weekly basis. But though there was no series, CHAMBER still ends with the suggestion of another "episode" involving another bizarre murder.

Many reviewers have remarked on how little gore is present in a film about a psycho who frequently stabs people with his hand-utensils. Yet even without the gore, the concept was clearly too disturbing for the TV networks to accept. I speculate that the producers-- one of whom was director Averback-- were hoping to titillate TV audiences by frequently having Draco and Blount make speeches about all the horrible deeds performed by the subjects of their wax exhibits. This idea wouldn't have worked as a TV-show in a million years. But even with all the missteps in the pilot-movie-- enhanced with Castle-like gimmicks when CHAMBER went to theatres-- the Russell-Kandel provides some fun moments, albeit with a poky pace that made me appreciate William Castle's superior narrative drive. 

Next-to-lastly, while CHAMBER's script isn't interested in the opposition between "serene beauty and titillating shocks" established in Crane Wilbur's HOUSE OF WAX script, Averback et al did offer another form of enticement. Aside from the first female victim, only one feminine character is strictly necessary to the script: that of Marie (Laura Devon), a bargirl whom Cravatte makes into his partner, mostly so that she can seduce one of his victims, a horny old trial judge, and then lure the old duffer into a trap. But the script also works in technically unnecessary roles for glamorous actresses like Patrice Wynore and Suzy Parker, as well as several briefly-seen young working-women. (At times CHAMBER almost seems to anticipate how the Italian giallos developed in the early 1970s.) This strategy was doubtless meant to suggest that ladies- man Draco would have a girl to seduce every week had CHAMBER become a series. Indeed, the theatrical movie even gives some exposure to past-their-prime beauties like Nolan and Marie Windsor-- though Nolan steals the show, making clear that her side of the family is just as lubricious as that of Cravatte's paternal line.

Two other last things: first, thanks to a spectacular fight between Cravatte and Draco at the conclusion, CHAMBER, like HOUSE OF WAX, qualifies as a combative drama. Second, right around the time Hy Averback completed the pilot-movie, he became executive producer for the slapstick teleseries F TROOP, which certainly seems to have been much more up his alley.

  

   

                              

THE DARK KNIGHT RISES (2012)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *psychological, sociological*

It's extremely amusing that when Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) meets new romantic interest Miranda Tate (Marion Cotillard), she accuses of having a "practiced apathy." Apathy perfectly describes the third and last Christopher Nolan Bat-film. It's the work of a cynical filmmaker with no interest in the mythos he's exploiting for fame and glory, and when RISES is compared to either BATMAN BEGINS and THE DARK KNIGHT, it's hard to imagine this weak effort being anyone's favorite Nolan-Batflick--not even Christopher Nolan's.

So we pick up some time after DARK KNIGHT. That film started out by positing that Batman had managed to whittle down the forces of Gotham's underworld. For RISES, Nolan simply flips the script. Now crime has been all but neutralized by the regular cops, thanks to a miraculous piece of legislation, "the Harvey Dent Act." Only Commissioner Gordon and an essentially retired Caped Crusader know that this popular idol had feet of clay, though the false idol of Harvey Dent empowered the cops so that a bat-vigilante was no longer needed. Commissioner Gordon (Gary Oldman) clearly has a guilty conscience for having helped perpetrated the Big Lie of Harvey Dent's sainthood. Wayne, though, seems content to molder around his mansion, much to the disapproval of Alfred (Michael Caine), who wants the retired superhero to pursue a life of marriage and baby-making. But Wayne's only passion, more or less redirected from crimefighting, has been to plunge all of his company's R&D money into a fusion-energy project, in part also sponsored by rich lady Miranda Tate. 

However, though one of Wayne's father-figures wants him to pursue the course of pipe-and-slippers, his other surrogate dad, Lucius Fox, encourages a return to crimefighter-mode. So does a proxy for a surrogate-son/Boy Wonder, a twenty-something cop named "Robin" Blake (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), who's figured out Wayne's deep dark secret. But as always, it's the bad guys who call forth the Batman.

Some forgotten film-reviewer of the 1970 DIRTY HARRY film made the incisive point that the regular cops were fine for dealing with regular criminals, but for super-criminals, the world needed a super-cop. Two super-crooks (not counting yet another piddling appearance by a road-company version of The Scarecrow) come to town not to duel with Batman but to ruin Bruce Wayne. (Alfred doesn't know the new villains' intentions when he castigates Wayne for returning to the superhero game, but the butler's ire mirrors the liberal director's pansy squeamishness toward vigilantes.) At any rate, a brand-new version of Catwoman (Anne Hathaway) steals Wayne's fingerprints, which are used to beggar the billionaire by none other than mercenary Bane (Tom Hardy). The latter fiend, equipped with a Darth Vader breathing-apparatus, resembles both the city-destroying Ra's Al Ghul (who was one of Bane's employers) and the Joker (in his cheerful desire to upend Gotham's financial structure). Oh, and there's a fourth villain in stealth guise, for Miranda Tate is really Talia Al Ghul, daughter of the assassin-lord who gave a wayward, guilty plutocrat the idea of becoming a bat. 

Since Ra's in the first film was a poor excuse for the comics-version, it's no surprise that the Demon's Daughter is similarly underwhelming. Bane in his original appearance was a stupid villain, but Tom Hardy's performance elevates the character slightly. However, the schtick from the comics, in which the villain breaks the hero's back, after which the latter just gets better later on-- is still lame. Nolan's mediocrity, though, knows no limits in his ruination of Catwoman. Hathaway gives her terrible character a game try, but a few decent fight-scenes don't make this Princess of Plunder anything but a wuss. Her only motive for robbery is to pursue a method of erasing her criminal past-- a redo of a similar trope from DARK KNIGHT-- and she betrays Batman to Bane with only minimal regrets. Nolan's Catwoman, as much as his Batman, is defined by what I previously called negative compensation: both are not pursuing positive ends but are fleeing the ghosts of their pasts. Not surprisingly, Nolan, after having given Bruce Wayne two previous drippy love-interests, can't even come close to getting the allure of Catwoman.

So it's another expensive Bat-fake, with carefully crafted (but empty) dialogue, some big FX-scenes at the climax, and a conclusion that does not show the Dark Knight "rising" in any way. i guess Nolan got what he wanted out the Bat-franchise, for he went on to a lot of big, bloated Hollywood projects, none of which I liked. I've accused Nolan of holding a Marxist sympathy for the criminals of his three Bat-films, but his investment in villainy may be more personal. His theft of the Bat-franchise certainly indicates that for him, crime did pay.   

      

                

BEASTMASTER, SEASON 2 (2000-01)

 

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

Compared to Season One, Two evinces more of an elegaic sense, a sense of changing realities and shifting allegiances. But one wonders if this was the original plan, before any shooting began, or if the writers were subconsciously reacting to the departures of some of the key supporting players, and the addition of new ones.

One major addition, which extends to Season Three as well, is the introduction of a potential romantic interest for Dar, who'd lost his lifemate at the end of Season One. Warrior-woman Arina (Marjean Holden) hails from another region-- maybe even another dimension-- but she like Dar has lost her people. Her purpose in her first couple of appearances remains vague, but after a time she becomes an employee of Season Two's "big bad." In due course, though, Arina is sufficiently inspired by the noble altruism of Dar and Tao to join them in more heroic endeavors.

Some of the early episodes of Two suggest that the previous season's main villain, King Zad, represents a fading approach to the acquisition of power: that of simply unleashing hordes of killers to scour the land. Zad's savages, the Terrons, get some substantial competition from a new band of warriors, the Nords, whose leader is supposedly more sophisticated than Zad.    

The more sophisticated tyrant is King Voden (David Paterson), who approaches conquest with a more deliberate, considered air. He's a master schemer rather than a warlord, and one of his big schemes involves taking over the city of Xinca, the home of Tao's Eiron people. Another plot is to suborn Dar's power, to make the Beastmaster turn his animal allies into Voden's shock troops. The episode "Rage" gives Voden something of a psychological backstory. He was one of two princes of the Nord people, but his brother Bakhtiar was the older son of Nord queen Margret, and thus first in line for kingship. Much like cunning Loki playing games with the forthright Thor, Voden taunts Bakhtiar so much that the prince becomes consumed with murderous tendencies. Bakhtiar's mother, wanting to save her favorite son, appeals to an old lover-- none other than the acidulous Ancient One-- to erase his memory and to enchant him so that he'll change into a beast, a puma, when stricken with the urge to murder. Naturally, Dar and Tao intervene to solve the problems of Bakhtiar and Margret. But since the showrunners didn't have any concern with those characters except to show Voden's treachery, both of them disappear.

The Ancient One has his own shakeup. He finally gets sick of "Sorceress #1" (Monika Schnarre) becoming invested in the drama of human lives, so he imprisons her in amber, and replaces her with Sorceress #2 (Dylan Bierk). However, #2 is just as much a human-booster, and she disappears at the end of Season Two also, while Sorceress #1 returns in that final season.

Season 2 also bids farewell to Dar's quixotic patron, the forest-demon Curupira (Emilie de Ravin), who seems to have picked up a mild fancy for her human servant. However, Dar becomes the unwitting target of a demoness chick-fight, for the water-demon Iara (Sam Healy) wants Dar as a lover. Iara wins the contest, exiling Curupira from the BEASTMASTER world, but by the end of Season Two, Iara also fades from said domain.      

All of this character-shuffling makes for pedestrian stories at first, and sometimes the writers work in mythological references that don't track well. "Golgotha" is the title of a jejune episode in which Dar breaks up a sacrificial cult. No person or place in the episode shares the name of the hill on which Christ was sacrificed. So apparently the writer just tossed in that reference because it sounded lofty and significant, even though the sacrifice of Christ, even to a non-believer, is functionally distinct from pagan sacrificial rituals. 

Then three scripts ascend into the realm of high-mythicity, all co-written by one Tony DiFranco-- and all three following one another in broadcast order-- almost as if once everything got sorted out, the writers got more venturesome. The 15th episode, "Centaurs." starts it off. Though BEASTMASTER is set in a world divorced from human history, it's still a mortal realm, and thus capable of being invaded by the denizens of more primeval realms. Two beings from such a realm, a male and female archer both mounted on horses, escape a cataclysm, and for once, they're the ones who pick a quarrel with humans. The archers Rax (female) and Sagitto (male, patently named after Sagittarius) start liberating horses from the warriors of King Voden, which naturally causes Voden to react badly. Dar and Tao seek to help the archers, who turn out to be bonded to their horses in such a way that they and their mounts can morph into centaur-forms. Voden, on learning the centaurs' secret, seeks to bring them under his control.

"Fifth Element"-- Dar and Tao accidentally release Annubis, a spirit of chaos (Bruce Spense), from the confinement placed upon him by the Ancient One in primeval times. Instantly the powerful deity wants to plunge the existing world into chaos, first by changing Tao into a dog-man (supposedly to make Tao resemble the god's former pet, Cerberus) and then causing torrential rains to pervade their world. Even serpent-woman Iara, now in charge of the natural world, can't stand against Annubis' mastery of the four elements, but Dar can, if he solves the riddle of "the fifth element." The mythological names are poorly chosen, but the trope of a deity who simply wants to eradicate the world to start over is mythically strong.

"A Terrible Silence"-- Iara abandons subtlety and seeks to make Dar her leman, but he refuses. Like frustrated Ishtar to Gilgamesh, Iara curses her servant. In this case, because Iara inherited all of Curupira's powers, Iara can strip Dar of his Doctor Doolittle powers. This, however, causes the entire natural world to fall into chaos, discommoding even the Ancient One and the second sorceress. Dar must complete a great task in order to regain his abilities.

But after those three tales, the show returns to relatively simple formulas-- even other episodes written by DiFranco. Arina returns after being absent for several stories but becomes more of a regular in the last season. And despite the Ancient One's prophecies, to the effect that Zad was doomed to fade away, he triumphs over King Voden, who brief reign as "big bad" comes to an untimely end--after which Zad takes on a new role in the third season.   

       

       

HULK VS (2009)

 

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

Arguably, following the conclusion of MCU's Phase Three, the Hulk was treated even more shabbily than Thor. However, for whatever reason Marvel's animation division didn't stint on exploiting the Green Goliath's name value, and even relatively late projects like HULK: WHERE MONSTERS DWELL and the AGENTS OF SMASH series look much better than sad live-action bile like SHE-HULK. That said, of the two short features comprising HULK VS, appearing the year after the exemplary INCREDIBLE HULK movie, is all that impressive. 

In HULK VS. THOR, two of the Thunder God's perennial opponents, Loki and The Enchantress, whisk Bruce Banner to Asgard. There Loki separates the Hulk persona from Banner and sets the Green Goliath on Asgard, with Loki himself pulling the Hulk's strings. Meanwhile, the evil duo consigns Banner to the realm of the death-goddess Hela.

The big problem with this routine outing is that for the menace to Asgard to be credibe, Bannerless Hulk must be a juggernaut who's far beyond Thor's capacity to defeat-- and that means that the video has to downgrade Thor. We're not really watching "Hulk vs Thor," because in every encounter, Hulk kicks Thor's ass-- and where's the fun in that? The video might've been titled, "Hulk vs. Asgard," except that the supreme power in the realm, Mighty Odin, is conveniently sleeping the Odinsleep during the crisis.

Thor does win the contest in a sense, for he browbeats Loki into chasing down the spirit of Banner in Hel, and convincing Hela (who is Loki's daughter this time round) to merge Banner with Hulk. This returns a measure of sanity to the rampaging goliath, and he goes back home, while Loki gets to suffer his daughter's less-than-tender mercies for a time. Other items of interest: (1) warrior-woman Sif gets a solo attack on Greenie, and scores a few good blows, (2) Enchantress is in love with Thor and resents the hell out of Sif, though the witch-woman seems okay with the possibility of Thor getting killed thanks to Loki's scheme, and (3) as in the later TALES OF ASGARD video, Asgard looks pretty good here.

In contrast, though HULK VS WOLVERINE is no deeper in terms of symbolic discourse, it's a helluva lot more fun. 

According to the continuity mentioned in the commentary, this tale is Wolverine's first encounter with Old Jade-Jaws, preceding a second encounter chronicled in the series WOLVERINE AND THE X-MEN. The feisty Canadian still works for his native government and barely knows anything about the Hulk, much less the never-mentioned X-Men. Hulk is suspected of destroying a Canadian town, so Wolverine, aka "Weapon X," is sent on a search-and-destroy mission. 

However, the real malfeasants are a team of four villains, three of whom are infamous Wolverine-foes. Lady Deathstrike, Saber-Tooth, and Deadpool are the infamous three, while the fourth is some low-grade X-thug, Omega Red, whom I do not know and who contributes next to nothing. The four super-fiends now work for the Weapon X facility, the same one that gave Wolverine his adamantium additions, and not only did they destroy the town, they're out to capture the Hulk. It seems their boss at the facility, the otherwise unnamed "Professor," wants to make more Hulks as part of an over-ambitious ordnance scheme.

The thing that makes this featurette so good is sharp dialogue and characterization. Wolverine is a testy hero, none too charitable with "weakling Banner," and the three good villains are also consistent with the traits of their comic-book originals. Deadpool's lines contribute most of the humor and are easily as clever as the best jokes from the live-action Fox films. It's practically one half-hour- long fight-scene and WOLVERINE'S take on the "Marvel heroes always fight each other" trope is one of the best I've ever seen in animation.

       

THOR: TALES OF ASGARD (2011)

 

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

A few years after Marvel's THOR comic became a good seller for the company, creators Stan Lee and Jack Kirby instituted a backup feature, "Tales of Asgard," which also lasted a year or two before the THOR feature took over the whole book. The backup gave artist Jack Kirby the chance to focus only upon Thor's hometown of Asgard, doing his best to convey Fosterian magic and grandeur within the space of seven pages an issue.

The MCU's live-action THOR series, which began the same year this DTV was issued, barely attempted pageantry in its depictions of the Norse wonder-world. TALES doesn't manage to come close to Kirby's passionate depiction of a universe governed by magic and martial prowess. However, TALES makes a sincere effort, and on the whole looks pretty good in terms of visuals.

Now, the 2011 live-action THOR largely rejects the Norse "don't die in your bed" ethos, TALES follows that same course in large part, pushing a pacifist message. However, because this DTV is depicting Thor as a young male god seeking to prove himself within a male culture, the script doesn't quite reject all aspects of masculinity. However, there remains an orientation toward a judgmental feminism, incarnated in this video's concept of the warrior-woman Sif-- though nothing as toxic as the MCU would later embrace.

Thor's support-cast members-- adoptive brother Loki, and the Scandinavian Three Musketeers known as Fandral, Hogun, and Volstaag-- are also younger and greener, and Loki at this point is a novice schemer, still on good terms with his boisterous brother. But none of them burn to prove themselves as Thor does. However, Daddy Odin's noble brow is perpetually bent with the weight of keeping Asgard's peace with their long-time enemies the Frost Giants, so he can't be bothered figuring out a rite of passage for the young Thunder God. But there is a sort of "impossible quest" that Asgardian males are allowed to undertake, in order to satisfy their desire for adventure. Odin's troubles start when his son takes on the quest and comes back with a dangerous prize.

There's a hard-to-follow backstory about how the Frost Giants almost wiped out the Dark Elves. Apparently the Elves were allied to Asgard, but Odin's warriors didn't come to the Elves' defense for whatever reasons. So the latter made a pact with the fire-demon Surtur, which risked the survival of all the Nine Worlds. The Frost Giants annihilated most of the Dark Elves anyway, and one of the survivors, Algrim, took a position as a court advisor to Odin. However, Algrim's position in Asgard is not unlike an emigre from South Vietnam taking shelter in the US: deep down, there's a sense of betrayal by an ally who didn't live up to his part of the bargain. Thor seeks to discover the lost Sword of Surtur, but his masculine bull-headedness imperils Asgard from both the covert menace of Algrim and the overt one of the war-happy Frost Giants. In the end, Thor learns humility, at least until it comes time for him to relearn a parallel lesson in the 2011 live-action flick.

While in the regular MCU movies Sif is just One of the Boys, here she has some sort of vague grudge against the males of Asgard, and she has an affiliation with a tribe of female warriors who live apart from Asgard proper. At least some of her testiness stems from having the hots for Young Thor and thus expecting him to be more than an entitled heir. This isn't much of a conflict, even for a B-plot. Still, there's nothing actively bad about TALES-- while all of the "live" THOR films suffer from major narrative problems.                           

V: THE FINAL BATTLE (1984)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological, sociological*

At the end of my review of the original V miniseries, I described how Kenneth Johnson, creator of the V franchise, had contributed ideas to the 1984 three-part sequel. However, he parted ways with NBC and distanced himself from the project by letting his work be billed under the protest-pseudonym "Lillian Weezer." 

I also noted that it's impossible to know if Johnson's V-vision would have been better than what NBC put together with its own producers and their director of choice, Richard T. Heffron. Now, while I don't find in Heffron's repertoire as many famed accomplishments as I find in Johnson's, I did see a lot of the former's TV and theatrical works, and he certainly was no hack. I particularly admired a telefilm he directed regarding the Nez Perce tragedy, I WILL FIGHT NO MORE FOREVER.

One big advantage Heffron had was that Johnson's 1983 story supplied all the necessary setup for the Visitors' stealth invasion of Earth, thus eliminating much of the need for exposition in the sequel. But one great improvement is that Heffron's writing-staff pared down a lot of the extraneous characters from the '83 series. Additionally, whereas the main characters of Julie and Mike (Faye Grant, Marc Singer) proved a little banal in the first film, the addition of a third central character, Ham Tyler (Michael Ironside), provided a greater sense of conflict. Unlike civilians Julie and Mike, Ham joined the rebels as an experienced combat veteran, and he wasn't shy about expressing his opinions on how the resistance should be run, or even openly defying his "old pal" Mike. 

An equally strong parallel idea focused more upon the villainous head of the Visitor operations, Diana (Jane Badler). Technically in both serials, a male alien named John (Richard Herd) held the power of command over the mission, but Diana received much more attention in the '83 two-parter, and BATTLE found even more ways to play up the feminine fiend. In fact, she too had to deal with internecine troubles, since a superior officer, one Pamela (Sarah Douglas), comes to Earth to take over the project. However, Diana shows her propensity for super-villainy by simply assassinating her commander.

That's not to say BATTLE is perfect. Despite fewer characters, there are a lot of disposable subplots, giving the three segments a choppy feeling. However, the best subplot from the '83 serial-- that Earth-girl Robin giving birth to a hybrid-- receives strong execution. In fact, the Interplanetary Mama gives birth to two such hybrids, and Part 2 shows a particular moment of horror when Robin's birth of a human-looking girl infant, Elizabeth, is followed by a reptilian goblin springing from her uterus. However, Part 3 saves the heroes the difficulty of putting down the goblin-child, for it perishes by exposure to Earth-bacteria-- which development in turn gives the Earthlings the chance to show the Visitors that visiting-time is over.

There's also a decent arc for the quirky "good alien" Willie, played in a modest, self-effacing manner by the future Freddy Kruger. Compared to the Johnson narrative, BATTLE has much less pontificating about a return of fascism, and more visceral action. Even the Julie character, usually not seen in the field, gets to shoot down bad aliens with her laser pistol. Heffron and company also drop one of the plot-threads suggested in '83, that the Earthpeople might seek to summon some of the ETs who'd been enemies to the Visitors-- which was a terrible idea, even though it would have fit Johnson's labored WWII parallel. It's far more satisfying to see the Earthlings win the BATTLE on their own.

            

GARTER COLT (1968)

 

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

Along with 1967's LOLA COLT, the similarly named GARTER COLT stands as one of a very small handful of Euro-westerns starring tough female protagonists. Unfortunately, it also may be the worst of that small group.

The script shows traveling gambler Lulu "Garter" Colt (Nicoletta Machiavelli) as sharing the distanced manner of standard spaghetti male protagonists: emotionally reserved and super-competent. However, Lulu is never interesting, even when she shows off her skills with a pistol, routing stagecoach robbers or protecting a young maiden from rapine. Part of the problem may be that Lulu herself is never in real danger. Her projection of coolness is interrupted when she falls for a French soldier involved in the war between Emperor Maximillian and Juarez, but the lover is killed by a bandit named "Red" (Claudio Camaso).

Though most of the screenplay is filled with jokes and absurdities that go nowhere, the one thing the writers seem to be passionate about is the Red character, who is as "hot" as Lulu is "cold." For once a spaghetti villain has his own romantic arc, for throughout GARTER Red pursues a spicy young lass, Rosy, whom he may have already bedded. Rosy mostly resists Red in favor of a younger swain, but the movie's only real amusement inheres in her vacillations as to which lover to choose. Red tries to persuade her to choose him by tying Rosy above a boiling-hot, muddy spring. Also, he situates an innocent little boy upon her shoulders, so that the kid will die with Rosy if she falls in. The setup doesn't make much sense, but it's relatively original. Lulu comes along at the right minute and propels Red into the boiling spring, which kills the fiend on the spot.

Despite various ludicrous occurrences in the wandering narrative, the only thing that rises to the level of a "fallacious figment" concerns a talking parrot. After some byplay with the bird seeming only to imitate whatever human speech it hears, the creature gets caught between two gun-happy parties-- at which point the parrot to cry out, "I'm neutral!"              

V; THE MINI-SERIES (1983)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological, sociological*

Though I read IT CAN'T HAPPEN HERE, the Sinclair Lewis book that purportedly inspired Kenneth Johnson's two-part TV miniseries, I remember nothing about said novel. Johnson's V is more memorable than Lewis, thanks to those spiffy Visitor uniforms. Frankly, though, I think Johnson's main inspiration might have been those morale-boosting war movies of the early 1940s. Clearly, having the heroic rebels combat the tyrants by writing "V"-- as in "Victory"-- over the tyrants' posters was an explicit callback to Hollywood iconography.

That said, Johnson's story of a race of aliens who invade Earth using false promises and blandishments more than advanced weapons offers only a paper-thin critique of fascism. The Visitors also pose as human-like ETs clad in bright red outfits, but in due time the good guys learn that they're all lizard-like beings whose scaled bodies are concealed under plastic "human" skin-- a fairly clumsy gambit, though Johnson makes the most of various moments when someone tears away the false flesh. That the Visitors want to pirate Earth's water for the benefit of their dying homeworld is a standard enough SF-trope. However, Johnson really pours on the corn by claiming that these denizens of an alien environment just can't wait to chow down on homo sapiens. Not too many SF-authors would favor the idea that ETs from one world could even tolerate organic sustenance from another one. In addition, even though all of Earth is placed in the position of Europe under the sway of the Axis Powers during WWII, the most villainous member of the evil Visitors, deputy leader "Diana" (Jane Badler), is played by an American actress affecting a British accent.

Johnson introduces about twenty Earth-characters who respond in various ways to the wheedling impositions of the Visitors, though naturally most of them function as support-characters. The two who get the most attention are biologist Julie (Faye Grant) and reporter Mike (Marc Singer), who eventually uncover the awful truth about the aliens. Almost half of the mini-series consists of various sketched-out characters reacting to the Visitors' advent, and almost none of them are compelling as characters. I suppose I must acknowledge that one of those characters is a Jewish survivor of the WWII concentration camps, though this seems an indulgence on Johnson's part, given that the Visitors are not concerned with human racial or ethnic divisions. But one female teen, Robin (Blair Tefkin), has the misfortune to sleep with a handsome male visitor. This establishes a subplot about the first spawn of a human/Visitor mating, one that extends into the follow-up 1984 miniseries. In addition, a pre-Freddy Robert Englund shows up as one of a small number of Visitors who oppose the vicious plots of their kindred. These covert resisters eventually make common cause with the Earth-rebels, though again, not until the sequel series does their alliance become important. 

Though none of the actors are given the chance to work nuance into their performances, athletic Marc Singer, one year after his first turn as "The Beastmaster," keeps the action level high enough to counter the melodrama. The series was popular enough to generate a sequel the next year, on which Kenneth Johnson worked briefly before falling out with NBC executives. Thus whatever script-ideas Johnson contributed to the sequel were controlled by other authorities and not representative of his creative priorities. Johnson later authored a prose novel about how he felt the show should have progressed. As of this writing, though, it's impossible to say if his direction would have better or worse than what followed the original two-part series.

 

SINTHIA THE DEVIL'S DOLL (1970)

 

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

Intellectually, I know that SINTHIA THE DEVIL'S DOLL looks like the bastard child of Ingmar Bergman and Kenneth Angar-- and only if said bastard was chained in a basement during its formative years. Still, I like it better than any of Ray Dennis Steckler's other movies, probably because I never thought he took any chances in his other endeavors. Steckler's films always just lurch from one incoherent incident to another, with barely any plot or character, and SINTHIA is no exception. But when Steckler produced this psycho-nudie for the grindhouse theaters, he did make the attempt to emulate the look of a hallucinatory arthouse-movie and even used the pseudonym "Sven Christian" to gull patrons into thinking he might be some sort of Swedish artiste. Yet the grindhouse distributors of the era didn't care about films as art, only how much female skin was on display. Maybe Steckler saw some art-movie that made him want to do better than his usual tripe. That he wasn't capable of producing even above-average sexploitation is a shame, but I still find SINTHIA an interesting failure.

Although Steckler had directed one previous psycho-film, 1964's THE THRILL KILLERS, and would direct at least two more following SINTHIA, the 1970 film doesn't involve the sort of physical perils typical of most psycho-killer movies. The title character doesn't even seem to be in danger of harming herself, except in the metaphysical sense of needing to atone for past crimes. We only know two things about Sinthia (portrayed by two-time actress Shula Roan), and Steckler tediously repeats those items over and over. One is that at age 12, Sinthia gets her first kiss from a boy and relates this fact to her mother. Then some time afterward, Sinthia becomes homicidally jealous of her father when he makes love to her mother. (She has one significant line, complaining about the father's attentions to her daughter). Sinthia stabs both parents to death with a knife (making her demurer than Lizzie Borden, I suppose). Then she burns down the house as well.

Though the law never doubts that Sinthia committed the crime, for some reason she's remanded to the custody of a never-seen aunt and uncle. Sinthia does have to continue seeing a psychiatrist, which apparently goes on for eight years. But viewers only see 20-year- old Sinthia being told by her unnamed analyst that he thinks she's cured. However, one last step is required before the doctor can release her from his supervision and can pronounce Sinthia capable of re-entering society, including her marrying an unspecified suitor. He subjects Sinthia to a hypnotic trance, telling her that the only way she can atone for her crime is to imagine killing her parents again, but with the alteration that she too dies in the fire she set. This bizarre excuse for therapy allows Steckler to make most of the narrative into an extended dream, the better to work in as many nude-scenes as possible.    

The first dream-sequence can be fairly termed Sinthia's guilt-complex, as she dreams herself in Hell, surrounded by semi-clad male and female devils who mock her for wanting her father sexually. This sequence ends with Lucifer ordering Sinthia to be whipped-- and then suddenly, with no transition, she's on a beach, where lives a couple: an artist, Lenny, and his wife Carol. The dead father's name is said early on to have been "Leonard," and the same actors who play Lenny and Carol played Sinthia's murdered parents. So, to be as generous as possible in following Steckler's rough logic, this sequence is Sinthia avoiding the psychiatrist's commandment to atone.

As the dream goes on, Sinthia relates to Lenny and Carol as if they were her revived father and mother-- though with some wacky differences, like having a brief lesbian hookup with Carol. Yet Carol, being part of Sinthia's dream, also acts as if she knows Sinthia, a stranger, plans to move in on Carol's husband. On top of that, Lenny takes Sinthia to a rinky-dink theater to see a play Carol's performing in. And it's here that Sinthia meets yet another fractious older couple, Mark and Liz. In fact, when the two of them stage a fight on stage, Sinthia intervenes to protect the "good father" from the "bad mother." It's possible-- though hard to be sure-- that Steckler intended to portray Sinthia deflecting from her original transgression by seeking out an older man who doesn't look like her late father. At any rate, Sinthia does shift her attentions, and dreams that she's marrying Mark in a church. Everyone in attendance seems okay with it-- until a naked woman, presumably Liz, intrudes and embraces Mark. Suddenly Sinthia's back in Lenny's arms for a few minutes. Finally, she wakes up, back in the psychiatrist's office. 

The shrink is waiting for her. Without even asking Sinthia questions, he seems to know that her first dream-fugue failed. So he repeats his earlier counsel: Sinthia must try to dream the circumstances of the double murder, but this time force herself to die in the fire she sets. Sinthia agrees to try. In moments she's back with her four middle-aged overseers, but now they sound like they're prompting Sinthia to do as the analyst suggested. Sinthia has a vision of her soul afire, and then she succeeds in returning to the death-scene in her home. Again she knifes the copulating parents, but she doesn't perish in the fire she sets. Lenny comes back to life to insist that she repents of her evil acts. At last Sinthia (conveniently nude at this point) concludes that "I must be pure once more," and Lenny tells her that she can only atone by loving her own soul-- whatever that means. 

\Steckler randomly tosses in a few more hallucinatory scenes, one of which repeats Sinthia confessing her "first kiss" to her mother. It's anyone's guess as to what this could have signified to Steckler. Then there's one more confrontation scene, with both Mark and Lenny claiming Sinthia while both Liz and Carol oppose them (albeit only with words). Then somehow this all moves Sinthia to re-dream the murder-scene, set the fire-- and force her dream-self to perish in the fire.

Sinthia wakes, the psychiatrist pronounces her cured, and out of the office she goes to meet her fiancee. Which of the two male actors from the dream portrays the fiancee? Take a wild guess.

As mentioned before, my wild guess as to this movie's genesis is that Steckler saw some artfilm that impressed him, so he tried, in his incompetent way, to emulate it. Maybe he'd read a little Freud, for it was Big Sigmund's belief that once a child became entrained upon the opposite-sex parent, in adulthood that offspring would always be looking for some sublimated version of the parent. So maybe sinful Sinthia overcomes her guilt, but only by accepting the sublimated version of her father-image into her adult sex-life. Still, it might be argued that the young psycho, rather than atoning for her terrible actions, gets a happy ending in exchange for killing her mother, since her Electra-complex is satisfied by a daddy-lookalike.   

                

THE VALLEY OF VANISHING MEN (1942)

 

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

This is one of the more solid Columbia serials, not showing the tendency toward ruthless cost-cutting seen in later years, nor the barren strategy of keeping all the filmed action in one or two restrictive sets. In fact, of all the works of Spenser G. Bennett, credited with directing more serials than any other individual, I'd probably rate VALLEY in the top five.

VALLEY opens at the conclusion of the Civil War, with the amicable meeting of two field commanders on opposite sides, one of whom is hero Bill Tolliver (Bill Elliott). I don't remember if the script mentions what state Bill fought for, but the dissolution of the Confederacy frees him up to seek out his father, who's prospecting in the New Mexico territory. He and his wartime-buddy Missouri (Slim Summerville) ride west, leaving the turmoil of North and South behind (a motif also found in the classic western novel THE VIRGINIAN).

Bill and Missouri soon learn that Bill's father has gone missing, and that the nearest city is dominated by an outlaw gang run by Jonathan Kincaid (the superbly oily Kenneth MacDonald, forgotten these days except for THREE STOOGES shorts). Kincaid's gang has abducted several locals-- the "vanishing men"-- to labor as slaves in a hidden gold mine. Further, Kincaid is funneling the gold to Emperor Maximillian, supporting the French conqueror against the forces of Juarez. Two female agents of Juarez-- young Consuela (Carmen Morales) and her duenna-- seek to figure out who's sending the gold and how, but neither woman does much but provide exposition for the benefit of the main hero and his sidekick.

As with most serials the action comes down to various back-and-forth struggles between the hero and the villain's henchmen, but Bennett and his writers provide enough variety that the serial's 15 chapters don't become tedious. Elliott, a popular B-western actor, handles all the fisticuffs and riding-stunts very well, while his sidekick provides good comic relief, due to his being more of an "ornery cuss" rather than the more standard dopey doofus. In fact, the writers got into the antics of Missouri that for one episode alone, they had him talking to his horse, which answered him back a la "Mister Ed."

The limited sets of Kincaid's mine are given some cool decorations, such as a big Aztec deity-statue posed behind the bib boss's desk. Said desk has an uncanny execution-gimmick built into it: a concealed gun that "fires" any henchman who displeases Kincaid. The standout gimmick, however, was left behind by the vanished Aztecs: a giant mounted prism able to focus the sun's rays and start fires where directed. This device is used for the chapterplay's best cliffhanger: Bill tied to a stake and surrounded by flammable brush, while a weight-device slowly causes the prism to move toward Bill and his death-trap. Naturally, after the outlaws take all this trouble to give the hero a ghastly death, they decide to leave and do something else, making it easy for Bill to escape. 

In one of the serial's best touches, the credits-sequence for each episode plays over scenes of the vanished men (including Bill's dad) laboring in the mine, pushing a wheel connected to a rock-crushing press. In the last episode, Bill almost dies under the press. But not only are the hero and the kidnapped men liberated, Kincaid perishes beneath another crushing weight: that of the pagan idol in his office. The end of Kincaid's rule isn't quite on the symbolic level of the Philistine carnage wrought by Samson, but there's a little more religious resonance here than in the majority of serial conclusions.