MASTERS OF SCIENCE FICTION (2007)

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTIONS: *psychological, sociological*

When I was a young science-fiction fan, I was often disgusted at the low quality of most SF-anthology shows, and constantly wondered why films and television didn't take more advantage of the prose SF-stories for adaptation purposes.

However, the six episodes of the Canadian-filmed series MASTERS OF SCIENCE FICTION have effectively cured me of any remaining bits of that early naivete.

Of the six stories adapted, all are by well-regarded "name authors" in the SF field. I've read three in prose form, and found them enjoyable in that medium.  However, all six are unforgivably talky, and though prose can get away with that approach, it scarcely ever works for filmed materials.  I assume that this TV-show's budget didn't allow for much more than talking-heads, but even with that caveat, the adaptation in terms of writing and directing is horrendously dull.

"A Clean Escape, " adapted from a John Kessel story, is a "war of minds" story, in which a psychiatrist duels with a patient with short-term memory.  It's little more than a sterile mental exercise.

"The Awakening," from a Howard Fast story, is SF tinged with vague religious overtones, but it does service to neither the themes of religion or science fiction.

"Jerry is a Man," from a Robert Heinlein story, is the one impressive story.  It's still a talking-heads tale, but Heinlein presented characters who were interesting in both their strengths and foibles, and its "thought experiment" aspects are presented with clarity and humor.  Not surprisingly, it seems to be the only episode in which the actors are sinking their teeth into the challenges of their roles.

"The Discarded," a Harlan Ellison tale, is at least colorful to look at, in that it concerns a group of mutants deformed by radiation, exiled from Earth in their own ramshackle spaceship.  The ending is telegraphed early on both in the short story and the adaptation.

"Little Brother," courtesy of Walter Mosely, is a tired retread of the "Big Brother" themes of George Orwell, except that this time, an interface between humanity and computer allows this version of "Winston Smith" to triumph.

"Watchbird,"adapting a Robert Sheckley tale, takes a strong premise and executes it in a tedious manner, complete with an overly ambiguous ending.

To date this series from the producers of the "Masters of Horror" has remained dormant.  As a SF-fan I tend to hope it will stay that way. 

SMALLVILLE PROJECT: 1: 9-12

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTIONS: *psychological, sociological*

The next four entries to Season 1 swing upward in terms of their mythic qualities.

"Rogue" is not one of these, however.  In a thoroughly pedestrian blackmail story, a corrupt cop named Phelan comes to Smallville hoping to bleed money from Luthor thanks to Phelan's knowledge of Lex's checkered past.  Lex blows Phelan off.  However, Phelan has the good fortune to witness one of Clark Kent's super-feats.  Phelan tries to force Clark to break the law in order to feather Phelan's nest, but the gambit backfires so that Phelan dies and Clark's secret is preserved.  At the same time another face from Lex's past shows up: old flame Victoria, daughter of one of Lionel's rivals.  She's sent to dicker with Lex on behalf of her father's company, but she isn't above "business with benefits."  In a rather pallid B-story the high school principal fires Chloe from the school newspaper.  Chloe's association with the paper has been minor up to now, with more narrative time devoted to her Scooby-Doo activities, but plainly the producers meant Chloe, snoopy newspaper writer, to echo another snoopy newspaper writer from the Superman mythos, one with a rather similar first name.  Lana tries to defend Chloe to the principal, who ends up giving Lana the editorship.  It's an unlikely move for a principal but it provokes a quarrel between the two girls which, as devotees of soap opera all know, is really about something else-- or rather, someone else.  The hatchet is eventually buried with no ill effects.  On a minor note, when Phelan sets up Jonathan Kent on a phony murder charge and gets Kent sent to jail, Clark almost loses it, feeling, apparently for the first time, a desire to kill-- the first glimmer of a "dark side" in the hero than many later episodes exploit.

"Shimmer" is more complex in both psychological and sociological terms, in that it considers the "upstairs, downstairs" aspect of rich boy Lex's world.  Amy, a high-schooler who helps her mother clean Lex's mansion, falls for Lex and strongly resents Victoria.  Then an invisible being commits violent acts, such as beating up a bully who taunted Amy.  Is it Amy herself, given that she's a retiring person and servants in Lex's world are trained to be, as the script says, "invisible?"  The plot's pretty "transparent" as to the real culprit: Amy's brother Jeff, who's found a kryptonite-tinctured invisibility formula. Indeed, given that he's portrayed as being even more retiring than Amy, he has no real reason to be in the story except to function as the least likely (or noticed) suspect.  The psychological dynamic of Jeff toward his sister is peculiar, in that he really wants Lex to return Amy's love, even though, as Lex points out to Jeff:

"that kind of love can get me arrested"

One is led to suspect that Jeff has some subterranean feelings for his sister that he's redirecting in his otherwise unmotivated matchmaking frenzy.  Not surprisingly, the script doesn't delve that deeply. In another plotline, Lana and her regular boyfriend Whitney quarrel, and Lex advises Clark to take advantage and move in.  Self-sacrificing Clark naturally wants nothing more than Lana's happiness and even facillitates a reunion between Lana and her current beau.

The oddly titled episode "Hug" actually deals with not one but two meteor-freaks who can exert temporary hypnotic control upon their victims through the medium of a handshake.  A backstory reveals that the two men, Kyle Tippet and Bob Rickman, were salesmen who learned that meteor-power gave them irresistible power when "pressing the flesh."  But while Rickman continued to use the power to evil ends, Tippet became disgusted and took refuge as a hermit in a forest neighboring Smallville.  Rickman comes to town to persuade Jonathan Kent to sell his farm, which he does, thanks to a "handshake deal."  Rickman then butts heads with both Clark and his old buddy Tippett.  Rickman sends various catspaws against Tippett, and when Clark becomes a nuisance, Rickman mesmerizes Lex and sends him to kill Clark, yet another in-joke reference to the future "friends who become enemies" trope.  In this episode Clark learns for the first time that he's bulletproof, and Lex clearly witnesses the phenonomenon, but the latter forgets what he's seen when he emerges from the hypnotic haze.  Knowing Rickman for a murderer, Tippett forces the villain to kill himself.  However, because he's also witnessed Clark's powers-- one of the first characters to do so and survive-- he swears to use his power for good in future.

"Leech" sounds like it ought to be a story about some version of Superman's foe the Parasite.  Instead, it's a power-transfer story.  Eric, bullied by both his peers and his overbearing teacher-father, falls prey to a lightning-strike while holding a chunk of kryptonite: Clark tries to save Eric and gets zapped as well.  Clark becomes entirely mortal while Eric begins developing super-powers.  Clark, though taken aback at the limitations of mortality, nevertheless welcomes the idea of no longer being inhuman, and even Lana comments that he no longer seems to carry the weight of the world on his shoulders.  In addition, Lex, who has continued to believe that Clark's not entirely normal, confronts him.  Following the example of many classic Superman comics-stories, Clark is able to show Lex that he's as mortal as anyone in this depowered state, thus temporarily throwing Lex off the trail.  Predictably, Eric begins to use his abilities openly, and becomes drunk with power(s).  In another trope dear to the comic books, Clark finds that he can now handle kryptonite with impunity, though it's fortunate he isn't exposed to the mineral long enough to transform, as do most Earthpeople, into some sort of freakazoid.  Another exposure of lightning and electricity reverses the transfer.  However, Eric returns in a 2004 episode, where he does assume something of the role of a Parasite-style figure.  In a conclusion of the Victoria B-story, Lex cleverly takes advantage a plot laid against him by the woman and her father.  The result is that the two of them are set up for a hostile takeover of their company.  That company happens to be named "Cadmus Labs"-- a tip of the hat to the "Project Cadmus" of Jack Kirby's JIMMY OLSEN comics.  As with the Kirby creation, these labs too will be a key factor in spawning monstrous foes for this series' protagonists.

SMALLVILLE PROJECT: 1: 5-8 (2001)

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTIONS: *psychological, metaphysical*

The quality of the next four episodes of Season 1 drops precipitately, and the reason's painfully clear: too many disposeable monster-menaces, in extremely bland and predictable plots. While many superhero comics have been no less bland and predictable, at least even the bad ones even show some awareness as to what's needed to build a good "rogue's gallery." In its ten years SMALLVILLE would never be known for originating any truly memorable villains or even decent monsters. However, over time the show's producers did a better than average of job of doing the same thing they did for Luthor in the first season: radically rethinking the best Super-villains the comics had to offer.

"Cool" is one of the least distinguished of the first season.  "Cool guy" Sean Kelvin (haha, like the temperature measurement) drowns in an icy lake with kryptonite at the bottom.  He comes back as a "heat vampire," ceaselessly needing to suck heat from living beings in order to keep warm.  In a more interesting development, Lex-- who is now running the local Luthorcorp plant but refuses to exploit the locals as his father wishes-- begins to become the town's new "angel of mercy." In a manner parallel to the way Clark covertly uses super-powers to save lives, Lex uses his capital to attempt saving the locals' fiscal futures.  He particularly tries to be of help to Jonathan and Martha, but Jonathan refuses his help, citing his previous bad dealings with Lex's father.  Later episodes will expand on the history of Jonathan, Martha and Lionel in far greater detail.  Lex tells Clark he's like the "younger brother I never had." A few episodes later Lex reveals that he really did have a younger brother who died, though the reasons for the brother's death aren't revealed until several episodes later.

"Hourglass" is another tale dealing with the depredations of the older generation.  While Clark and Lana are doing community service at an old folks' home, they encounter two oldsters who have been given special abilities by meteor rocks.  One woman, Cassandra, has been blind for years from exposure to a fallen meteor, but she gained prophetic powers, though unlike her Classical Greek counterpart, this Cassandra earns full belief from Clark.  Harry Volk, the other recipient of Krypton-power gains it more abruptly: he falls into a lake that has kryptonite at the bottom (hmm, just like "Cool") and devolves from sixty to twenty years old.  As it happens, Volk-- whose name means "wolf" in Russian-- has nursed certain grudges for years, so a second lease on life means a return to the killing ground.  Meanwhile Clark worries at an ambiguous prophecy from Cassandra, but though he thinks his father's life stands in peril, it's his mother Volk goes after.  Cassandra's prophecies don't seem entirely reliable in the episode, but Lex never gets to find out for himself.  The moment she takes his hand, he sees himself becoming President of the United States (a touch at a similar development in the SUPERMAN comics of the period); however, his reign is ended by countless implicit deaths and a literal "rain" of blood. However, the content of this vision is rendered suspect by the fact that Cassandra dies in the midst of making it.

"Craving" is another vampire-story.  This time Clark's heavyset classmate Jody begins drinking kryptonite shakes.  She loses weight and becomes a beauty, but now her belly needs more than ordinary food to fill her "craving." This makes her a direct threat to Clark's friend Pete when Pete makes a dinner-date with Jody, not realizing that he may become dinner.  The episode does have some interesting smaller moments.  Lex happens to visit Chloe's "Wall of Weird," which is the first time he seems to encounter the idea that the meteors are the principal cause of the local mutations.  He also reveals to Clark for the first time how he lost his hair, which naturally causes Clark to become guilty and apologetic.  Unlike the comic-book Luthor, Lex is philosophical about his hair-loss, claiming that it defines who he is

In one early episode Jonathan Kent suspected that Luthorcorp's ruthless experiments were more likely to be the source of the mutations than a bunch of meteor-rocks.  "Jitters" has the best of both: Earl Jenkins, a man who once worked at the Kent farm but left to work at Luthorcorp for more money, returns to town seeking to find out what the company used on him that infected him with "the jitters." This weird condition, implicity linked to kryptonite exposure, causes his body to vibrate wildly and unleash destructive surges.  Unlike other meteor-freaks he seems to give off radiation that weakens Clark when the hero draws near, making Earl loosely similar to some of the comic book's "kryptonite man" type of foes.  Earl ends up invading the Luthorcorp plant and taking as hostages Clark's class of visiting students.  The commotion draws Lionel to the scene, effecting the first re-acquaintance of the devious billionaire with Jonathan and Martha, though the scene gives no indication as to just how much exceedingly-involved soap-operatic history the three share.

SMALLVILLE PROJECT: 1: 1-4 (2001)

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: (1) *good,* (2-4) *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTIONS: *psychological, metaphysical*

For some time I've been fascinated with the way the 2001-2011 series SMALLVILLE played with the mythic content of the SUPERMAN concept.  I've decided to devote a portion of my reviews to tracing its major motifs and themes, inconsistent though they often were in a continuing soap-operatic series. 

I've reviewed TV-show collections here before but as this is more labor-intensive, I'm going to "count" each viewing of four consecutive episodes as having the value of one "movie," to satisfy my statement here that I would now try to turn an average of one film-review for each day of a given month.

End preamble

****

The credit for the rethinking of the Superboy legend for a teenage audience, somewhat brought together by the examples of earlier syndicated shows like XENA and BUFFY, usually goes to writer-producers Alfred Gough and Miles Millar.  Their scripting for the first episode sets the tone of the series on through its conclusion in 2011: one which was, like BUFFY THE VAMPIRE, heavily layered with witty repartee and pop-culture references.  SMALLVILLE arguably shared a weakness with BUFFY, at least in the first season.  Too many episodes featured some disposeable "monster of the week" who existed just to give the not-yet-Superman a quick workout in between exchanging meaningful looks with friends, family and girlfriends.

The standout myth-image of the first episode, titled "Pilot," is easily the image of young Clark Kent strung up on a cross in a cornfield.  It wasn't the first time Superman had been placed in some rough "Christ-on-a-cross" scenario.  However, Millar and Gough, while certainly aware of the parallel, cleverly retooled the image to one with the rural associations necessary to Clark's home in Smallville, Kansas.  This version of Smallville has a folksy tradition in which teenage boys torment a victim by tying him up on a scarecrow-pole and painting an S" on his chest-- "S" for "scarecrow." The audience sees the ritual enacted first upon Jeremy Creek, a local guy, but this also transpires on the day when a super-child descendst from heaven. The rocket from Krypton crashes in the cornfield where Jeremy stands bound, and radiation from the rocket has effects on Jeremy that later cause him to become the series' first "monster of the week."  The crash also has a decided effect on another occupant of the field: 9-year-old Lex Luthor, who loses his hair thanks to the incident-- either from trauma or from exposure to Kryptonian radition; the script doesn't specify. Twelve years later, teenaged Clark Kent is the next victim of the scapegoating ritual, but extrinsicially the audience watching knows that the "S" on his chest is going to signify something diametrically opposed to a victim, even if Clark does undergo some "suffering on the cross" that he'll later internalize into a cross-bearing mentality.

The greatest innovation Millar and Gough bring to the Superman mythology is the implied insight that the descent of super-power from the heavens doesn't just solve all problems, a strong implication of the early Siegel-and-Schuster series.  In addition to the rocket's own radiation, it brings with it chunks of kryptonite, which in this iteration (contrary to most earlier comics) can have mutating effects on Earthmen, usually bad ones in the early seasons.  On top of that evil side-effect of the hero's advent, some of the debris pulled in the wake of the rocket crashes in Smallville, killing the parents of a little girl named Lana Lang, destined to become teenaged Clark's sweetheart.  However, once teenaged Clark has been apprised of his alien origins and learns the effect of his "birth" upon his adoptive world, he compensates for his guilt by becoming a covert hero, using his barely-understood powers (at first, just super-strenght, super-speed and super-hearing) to help people. One of his rescuees is young Lex Luthor, who responds to Clark's nobility by trying to befriend the young man, setting the stage for a much-anticipated "friends who will someday turn enemies" motif.

Thus, in this story that takes place before Clark forms his identity as Superman or meets Lois Lane, Clark finds himself in another sort of "triangle."  His advent has caused pain and trauma for Lex and Lana, and so he conceals his alien heritage from them, despite his feelings for them as, respectively, a potential friend and a potential lover. Clark's godlike super-powers become the big soap-operatic secret he must continually hide from them, even as his desire to save lives threatens him with exposure as an alien.  To a similar but lesser extent, he also strives to keep the same secret from his high school buddies Chloe and Pete, who become his unofficial aides in investigating weird happenings (with Chloe even covering a wall with data about those happenings, what she calls her "Wall of Weird.") In later episodes both of them learn Clark's nature and become more involved in helping him.  Since Lana and Lex don't learn as quickly, it's a given that the reactions of the two "LL's" is meant to be more important to the ongoing narrative.

"I'm the Fort Knox of secrets," Clark tells Chloe when she wants to confide in him.  This is the most consistent theme of soap-operas: the attempts of various characters to forge trust with family and friends, only to feel that trust betrayed by the keeping of secrets.  Again, this theme remains largely consistent throughout the series ten-year run.

Most of the episode's narrative time is lavished on introducing all the regular players, including Lionel Luthor, a "bad father" to young Lex who is the symbolic observe of Clark's "good parents" the Kents.  Thus it's not surprising that the "villain" Jeremy Creek, the first victim of kryptonite mutation, isn't much of a participant in the story.  It's not even very clear why he disappears for twelve years and then shows up thirsting for vengeance on the jocks who inadvertently caused his mutation.  He shoots around some electrical bolts, gets defeated by the proto-Superboy (again, without anyone seeing the super-feat) and disappears.

The next three episodes-- "Metamorphosis," "Hothead," and "X-Ray"-- follow the same pattern, advancing the threads of the soap-opera plot while a disposeable menace threatens lives and property.

"Metamorphosis" starts the ball rolling on "meteor-freaks" who mutate in concert with their hidden desires. In this episode the mutant is insectphile Greg Arkin, whose name is a play on "Gregor Samsa," the protagonist of Kafka's "Metamorphosis."  That author gets a quick mention in the script, as does the name of Nathanel West, though nothing in the script cites the novel for which West is best known: the no-less-thematically-appropriate "Day of the Locust."  Since Greg is buggy about bugs, kryptonite mutates him into a roadshow version of "The Fly," and he plans to make a special cocoon for his beloved Lana.  In other plot-threads, Clark's ability to fly, dormant up to this point, manifests briefly when he's having a "happy dream" about Lana-- Freudian jokes are practically de rigeur at this point-- but this ability remains cut-off to him for almost the entirety of the series, since for the producers it connotes the assumption (or Assumption?) of true Superhumanity. Lex has his first encounter with Lana, which contains a very light suggestion of possible future romantic entanglements (at some younger age Lana once saw Lex getting it on with some poolside passion-partner).  Lex also has a very minor role as a tempter-figure, encouraging Clark to rat out Lana's boyfriend for certain misdeeds; when the noble Clark won't do it, Lex essentially does the evil that his "other self" won't do.  Clark's battle with Arkin seems to destroy the "bug boy." but the character apparently survives as he turns up later in a 2010 episode.

"Hothead" is a mild change of pace in that it's a middle-aged man, rather than a teenager, who starts displaying murderous super-abilities.  The coach of Smallville High, a negative "father-figure," faces dismissal for having given test-answers to some of his football players; he then finds he can unleash living flames against anyone threatening his position.  The running narrative stresses the conflict of the three major characters with regard to their parental figures: their instinct to imitate their parents and yet their need to forge their own identities.  Naturally, while Clark and Lana can forge their identities against more or less sympathetic figures-- the Kents, Lana's adoptive aunt-- Lex's struggle against his domineering father is framed as a losing battle

"X-Ray" is the best of these three, in that this time the villain, Tina Greer, can assume the shape of anyone she chooses, which makes for some disruptive sights (Phony Lex assaults Clark, thus anticipating future clashes between future versions of Luthor and Superman).  At the same time Clark suffers the onslaught of X-ray vision for the first time.  The future Superman doesn't *intentionally* use the power to look into the girls' locker room and witness near-naked Lana; things just *happen* to work out well for him in that regard.  Tina, for her part, suffers from such a poorly formed identity that her game plan is to kill Lana and take over her life.  Clark defeats Tina in part because his new power allows him to ferret her despite her disguises.  Lastly, a new plot-thread develops in that Lex becomes suspicious of the easy way Clark saved his life, and sets a reporter to investigate the matter-- setting in motion a long-running subplot in which he, rather than Lois Lane, continually conspires to learn the nature of the mysterious hero.  The episode also features the first allusion to the Daily Planet in Metropolis.

SATAN'S SLAVE (1976)

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTIONS: *psychological*


SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS

Despite the presence of horror-icon Michael Gough, SATAN'S SLAVE is just an average 1970s "Satanic exploitation" flick, competently directed by Norman J. (INSEMINOID) Warren and written by David (HOUSE OF WHIPCORD) McGillivray.  There's no specific Satanic mythology or philosophy expoused here. Satanism is merely the core around which the filmmakers build a "family romance" which involves transmigration of souls from the older to the younger-- a theme pulled off better a few years later in the Aussie horror-film ALISON'S BIRTHDAY.

The main story is frequently interrupted by non-diegetic scenes of bloody violence against women, usually though not always by men.  Presumably these scenes-- including the one that opens the film-- were included just to "goose" the rather slow progression of the main plot, even though when that plot does get going, it has its own bloody moments.  I've seen more than my fair share of gore scenes, and have become innured to 90% of what appears in modern films, but I will say that a couple of bloodlettings in SLAVE impressed me.

Following  a couple of the aforementioned gratuitous gore-scenes, the real action gets going as young Catherine rides with her mother and father to visit the country-house of her uncle Alexander (Gough), who lives with his only son Stephen and a secretary, Frances.  Just as they're nearing the house, the father accidentally drives the car into a tree.  Catherine is thrown clear but it seems both father and mother are trapped in the car as it goes up in a blaze of fire.

Shortly later, she's recovering in a room of the country-house, where she meets all the residents.  Catherine expresses doubt that a car should have caught fire from such a crash, but Alexander fobs her off with some excuse and she begins settling in at the house in order to recuperate.  She seems to accept her parents' deaths rather easily given that she never sees any bodies, attends an inquest or speaks to a coroner.

Soon she's recovered enough that she's responding favorably to romantic attentions from her first cousin Stephen, as he complains about how his father "always wanted a girl."  Given the soul-transference theme this might have proved more fertile ground that the actual storyline: where might the story have gone had it involved Alexander using magic to "make" a daughter by transferring Stephen's soul into Catherine's body?  However, as noted above Alexander's real plan is more along the lines of the 1932 MUMMY: he lost his wife in an earlier ceremony (the purpose of which is not stated) and wants to reincarnate her in the body of his niece.  In other words, the slogan here is "double your incest."

Toward the end Catherine gets shocked out of her passivity.  Frances, who's had been having casual sex with Stephen up until Catherine's arrival, resents being tossed aside.  She tells Catherine the whole Satanic scheme, which action results in Frances' death and Catherine's flight.  The Satanists catch her, but she escapes after stabbing Stephen in the eye (the film's best scene).  Running into a nearby forest, she seems to have escaped, only to run into-- her father, hale and hearty and not dead from a car-accident.  He soothes her and takes her back to the country-house, telling her that she's just had a bad dream...

...and if you believe for a minute that the film's going to end on a positive note, you've never seen a 1970s horror-film.

The myth-function here is psychological, but Warren and McGillivray don't do anything very interesting with the implied incest-motifs.

THE SILVER CHALICE (1954)

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


Ironically, though I just finished this essay for the ARCHETYPAL ARCHIVE detailing why I found it appropriate to associate "religious fantasy films" with all other types of marvelous movies, the first explicit Christian fantasy I'm reviewing hews more toward my category of '"the uncanny."

Christian films vary greatly in their depiction of the miraculous, and some, like THE STORY OF RUTH, depict no miracles whatever, in marked contrast to show-stoppers like THE TEN COMMANDMENTS.  However, 1954's THE SILVER CHALICE (based on a bestseller novel) falls into the interstitial category of "the uncanny."  No explicit miracles are seen, though it's evident that the miracles of Christ have occured in the past and are assumed to be real.  Nevertheless, in terms of what appears on the screen, there is no clear break between consensual reality and another, stranger realm, such as I described in my essay on the 1948 HAMLET:

...a similar affectivity; of something that seems wondrous but which does not, in the end, have the same boundary-altering effect on the mortal realm that "the marvelous" does.

Indeed, of the film's two main characters-- the sculptor Basil (Paul Newman) and the Messianic pretender Simon Magus (Jack Palance)-- only the evil Simon attempts to perform miracles, using trickery and illusions (hence my trope "enthralling hypnotism and illusionism.")  Basil, a Greek artisan called upon to sculpt the faces of Jesus and the disciples for the chalice of the title, experiences what might termed a "passive miracle."  For much of the film Basil tries to capture the look of Jesus based on descriptions by the Apostle Peter, but he only manages to truly render the face of the Messiah thanks to a possibly God-given inspiration.  However, such an inspiration doesn't qualify as a "miracle" in my books.

Most of Basil's story concerns his temptation between a Bad Girl and a Good Girl.  Helena (Virginia Mayo) knows Basil from childhood, but she's fallen into wicked ways, becoming the assistant (and possibly consort) to Simon Magus; additionally, it's implied that she may have been a prostitute.  Her rival Deborra (Pier Angeli)-- who to be sure has no real chance of losing the contest in this sort of film-- is a sweet and demure girl whom Basil marries, only to fall in love with both her and her Christian religion a little later. 

The Basil sections of the film are mawkish and predictable, and probably contributed to the greatest fame SILVER CHALICE has these days: the fact that following the film's release Paul Newman took out an ad in VARIETY apologizing for his part in the film.

Mayo and Angeli don't fare any better in this pious parable, but Jack Palance has a ball as the blasphemous magician Simon, who intends to trump the miracles of Jesus by performing his illusions before the crowds of Rome.  Simon's only appearance in the Bible has him attempting to buy magical powers from Peter, but the thrust of his plot here derives more from the apocryphal Acts of Peter.  In that Simon-story, the magician literally levitates above the crowds of Rome, but the Apostle Peter prays against him, and Simon falls to earth, though he doesn't die of the fall. 

In contrast, the film never shows either Simon or Peter displaying true magical powers.  Simon's flying-trick fails because he becomes irrationally convinced that he can perform real miracles, so that he falls to his death.  Perhaps he's the victim of a "negative inspiration" from the Man Upstairs?  Given that this story was a modern fiction only loosely based on scripture, it may be that both the book's author and the film-writers hesitated to show any "real magic" in the world following the sacrifice of Christ.  This theory finds some support in the moral coda at the film's end, when Peter looks forward to the rise of mankind's taming of great powers, which the film indirectly associates with potentially-ungodly chicanery:

"[The Chalice] will be restored, but for years and for hundreds of years, it will lie in darkness; where, I know not. When it is brought out into the light again there will be great cities, and mighty bridges and towers higher than the tower of Babel. It will be a world of evil and long bitter wars. In such a world as that the little cup will look very lonely. But it may be in that age when man holds lightning in his hands, and rides the sky as Simon the Magician strove to do it will be needed more than it is needed now."

BROTHER JOHN (1971)

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTIONS: *metaphysical, sociological*

Trapped in the meandering metaphysical film BROTHER JOHN is a spark of well-intended moralizing, but there's no real depth to it.  It might have done well as a thirty-minute episode on Rod Serling's TWILIGHT ZONE, but the script can't sustain 90+ minutes' worth of interest, despite some excellent performances.

Will Geer gives the best show, as a doctor in a small Southern town who begins to believe that one of the babies he brought into the world-- a baby now grown into a mysterious man named John Kane (Sidney Poitier)-- may be some angel-like being sent to judge humanity.  Another outstanding perf comes from Beverly Todd as John's sometime girlfriend Louisa, who's drawn to Kane once more when he comes to town for his sister's funeral.  Her role fairly begs for a chorus of "I don't know how to love him" but remains grounded nonetheless.  In contrast to their work, I found Poitier's performance to be overly stoic and unaffecting.  Clearly he was trying to portray a being who may or may not be a cosmic judge sent to bring about the Last Days, but he never quite succeeded at producing either cosmic calm or judgmental wrath.

John Kane never does any miracles as such that would prove that he is an angel, or the Messiah, or for that matter a judge from an interstellar tribunal.  According to what Doc Thomas and his doubting-Thomas son Lloyd can learn, he seems to wandered the world (an activity to which the Biblical Cain was given, to say nothing of Jesus of Nazareth) in such a way that borders mean nothing to him.  Yet he's not wealthy, claiming only that when he needed money, he worked.  He blows into town only when one of his relatives dies.  But when he does so this time, the town's experiencing civil unrest due to racial issues between the black and white communities-- issues which are fairly vague and seem poised only to reinforce man's inhumanity to man.  It's signifcant that when Kane does use force-- an efficent, non-showy karate fighting-style-- he does so in an egalitarian manner, taking on both a redneck sheriff and a bunch of local black rowdies.

Only at the end does Kane seem to confirm Doc Thomas' suspicions in a purely "hypothetical" conversation.  Nevertheless, the conversation, like Kane's near-untouchability, slants the ambiguity in the direction of the purely marvelous, as I've explained with regard to various CHRISTMAS CAROL films in this post.  The audience may not know what Kane is or what he's doing, but he's far more than just a guy who liked to travel a lot.   

Director James Goldstone (best known for helming the first Kirk episode of STAR TREK) shows a great deal of strength with the actors, but the script by Ernest Kinoy is simply too vaporous. Interestingly, both men worked on the short-lived 1970s teleseries THE SENATOR just prior to collaborating on BROTHER JOHN, but not on the same episode.