SMALLVILLE PROJECT: 2: 5-8

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: (1, 3) *good* (2, 4) *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTIONS: *psychological, sociological*

Three of the next four episodes of Season show an increasing preoccupation with not just the mythology of Superman, but that of Classical Greece as well

“Nocturne” introduces Byron Moore, who seems to be a dark counterpart to sunny-dispositioned Clark Kent.  Lana meets him when the teen boy writes her love-letters, though he doesn’t attend the high school and appears to live in seclusion with his parents on their farm.  Despite his eccentricities, Lana’s somewhat fascinated with Byron, comparing him favorably with Clark; she puts down Clark for being an unfeeling “man of steel” when Clark disses Byron’s poetry. Interestingly enough, Lex shares Lana’s interest in poetry, claiming that it’s “all about seduction”—a definition that proves interesting in view of Lex’s relationship to Lana in later seasons.  However, Byron isn’t being kept hidden because his parents believe in home-schooling.  A somewhat fuzzy backstory establishes that eight years ago Byron took part in experimental tests performed by a subsidiary of Luthorcorp.  The tests mutated him so that whenever he’s out in the sunlight, he morphs into a super-strong, vampiric-looking monster.  Eventually Clark is able to get Byron out of the sunlight and render him manageable, so that Luthorcorp can work on his illness (though he’s never seen again).

In more far-reaching plotlines, Martha—who up to this point has acted as if she had no past acquaintance with Lionel Luthor—is hired to be Lionel’s secretary.  She does so in part to allay the Kents’ continuing financial problems, but Martha also nurses a desire to break out of the routine of farmlife and use the legal skills she mastered at college.  Both motivations, of course, contribute to Jonathan’s sense of being “unmanned” by rich and educated competitors. 

Lex tells Lionel than Lex isn’t pleased to see his father meddle in the Kents’ lives.  Lionel insightfully wonders if Lex thinks that if he acts “good,” a kind adoptive family will take him in. Lionel then provides his own mythological take on adoption, rewriting Greek myth to claim that Prometheus was adopted by Zeus but was direly punished the will of his “father.”  The metaphor’s rather confused, as it’s not clear whether Lionel is putting himself in the position of Zeus, or suggesting that Jonathan Kent would prove equally unforgiving if he did “adopt” Lex—which does happen, in an informal way, with Pete Ross in “Duplicity.”  In any case, Lionel definitely suggests that Lex is one of the “gods” and can only suffer from mingling with lower beings.

“Redux” proves rather confusing in that Clark’s new antagonist has super-powers but seems to have had them long before any meteor rocks crashed to Earth.  A couple of teen boys perish of old age, and it eventually comes out that a new teen girl at school, Krissy by name, is actually a woman who’s been de-aging herself since the 1920s.  She also preys on Mr. Reynolds, the school’s new principal, who has an old grudge against former student Lex.  A more transitory plotline appears when Martha tries to persuade Jonathan to put aside a decade-old grudge against her lawyer-father and accept his financial help; this gives Clark a chance to connect with a grandfather he barely knows, though the old man largely seems to represent another threat of “the City” to country-boy Jonathan.  In addition, Lana discovers an old photo and jumps to the flimsy possibility that she may be the child of another man than her official father.  Lex warns her of the fate of Pandora, who suffered for prying into secrets.  The citation of Pandora generates an interesting resonance with the previous episode’s mention of Prometheus, in that in some versions of the story Zeus sent Pandora to Earth to plague mortals with evil after Prometheus had given them the godly gift of fire.  On  a trivia-note, the episode mentions “Coast City,” one of many fictional locations in the DC comics-universe.

“Lineage” emphasizes two claims to confused birth-origins, though one of them is manifestly untrue, as an unstable middle-aged woman named Rachel (probably named for the distraught mother of the Bible) claims that Clark Kent is her long-lost son Lucas—as well as the bastard child of Lionel Luthor.  When Lex is apprised of her claim, he’s somewhat taken with the possibility of being Clark’s half-brother, but naturally the Kents are positive that Clark’s mother can’t be anyone born of mortal flesh.  Rachel tries to make Lionel confess to his parentage by kidnapping Lex. Clark stops her, and she witnesses his inhumanity, thus stopping her from making any further claims on him— while her madness presumably keeps any of her wild stories about Clark from being believed.  Lana, for her part, finds out that the man in the photo is one Henry Small, who’s something of a bucolic aristocrat in that his family founded and gave their name to “Smallville.”  She seeks him out but he initially rejects her.  The episode ends without him confirming or denying his possible parentage.

The main importance of the story is that “Lineage” finally establishes both the process by which the Kents made certain of their adoption and how they forged their first acquaintance with the Luthors.  Shortly after finding Clark and the spaceship, the Kents happened upon Lionel in dire need of transportation to a city hospital for Lex, stricken by the meteor radiation that made his hair fall out.  The Kents naturally take Lex to town, and Lionel offers what seems unquestioning gratitude.  Later the Kents appeal for Lionel’s help in arranging Clark’s bogus adoption, but Lionel’s gratitude gives way to avarice when he realizes that he can use Jonathan’s secret to compel Jonathan to betray a friend—all of which results in the Luthors gaining a “foothold” in the community.  Thus at least one of Jonathan’s long-standing reasons for Luthor-hating manifests, though it won’t be the last one.

The reference to mythology appears very briefly at the opening, when Chloe and Pete are discussing the Greek legend of Heracles, and debating the ethical merits of Hera sending serpents against her husband’s bastard child.  Chloe’s moderate sympathy for Hera is clearly meant to resonate with Rachel, who tries to avenge herself on a cheating man by victimizing his son—though here Lex is more in the position of a weakling like Heracles' figurative "brother" Eurystheus, while Clark, who comes to Lex's rescue, is clearly Heracles.

“Ryan” features the return (and last appearance) of the young psychic boy from Season 1 episode "Stray." Since leaving the Kents Ryan began suffering head-traumas, and his aunt unwisely signed over his care to yet another manipulative Luthorcorp company, this one called “Summerholt.”  Clark finds out that Ryan’s being held against his will and breaks Ryan out, thus bringing the wrath of officialdom down on the Kents.  Lex saves them by bringing in his battery of lawyers.  But nothing can save Ryan from a deadly tumor, even after Clark moves hell and high water to recruit an expert physician from Hub City (yet another notable DC locale).  Before he dies Ryan alludes to a “secret” that Martha is keeping from her son and husband.  However, though the nascent Superman learns that even he can’t save everyone, one aspect of his life takes an upward turn.  Lana’s aunt still departs Smallville (and the series), but she allows Lana to remain behind in the care of Chloe and Chloe’s father.  And Clark doesn’t even have to confess his love to make her stay!

THE WHIP AND THE BODY (1963)

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



SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS


I'll forego the usual praise for director Mario Bava's handling of WHIP's vibrant (and appropriately, sometimes violent) color cinematography.  What I'll focus on instead is the question: what does it mean to inject the standard Gothic-horror plot with overt references to sadistic sexuality?

One may argue, of course, that the history of the two coincides rather neatly, the period of Gothic fiction's first bloom of popularity from the late 1700s to early 1800s overlaps the noteworthy life and career of the Marquis de Sade (1740-1814). But most Gothic films, like the prose fiction which served as their models, did not overtly explore Sadean themes.

Bava and his screenwriters (all of whom had, like Bava, considerable experience in both Italian horror and adventure films) begin with a simple sounding story of Kurt (Christopher Lee), a "black sheep" aristocrat returning to the castle occupied by his father, his younger brother Christian, the brother's wife Nevenka (formerly Kurt's betrothed), female cousin Katia and an old serving-woman.  The serving-woman hates Kurt because he trifled with her daughter, who then committed suicide and somehow blackened Kurt's name enough that his father exiled him and transferred the family patrimony to Christian.  One gets the sense that Christian was obliged to marry Nevenka as some sort of aristocratic package-deal, for neither loves the other. In fact, Christian's in love with his cousin Katia.

Though Kurt has ostensibly returned to the fold to congratulate his brother on his wedding, he later confronts his father, demanding the return of his patrimony.  The father refuses.  Later Kurt encounters Nevenka alone on a beach and attacks her with a whip.  He's pleased to see that she still relishes his blows, telling her: "You haven't changed, I see. You've always loved violence."

Shortly thereafter, Kurt is knifed to death, and interred shortly thereafter.  Suspicion hovers around the serving-woman who hated Kurt-- but is Kurt really dead?  Nevenka sees him staring at her through windows, tormenting her with his ghostly-seeming voice.  Shortly thereafter the father is knifed in his bed in the same manner, and Christian vows to get to the bottom of the murders.

The "whodunit" angle of this Gothic isn't especially surprising.  It's finally revealed that kinky Nevenka committed both murders, and the film ends with her killing herself in the belief that she's knifing to death the resurrected corpse of her mesmerizing lover.

Without question, the entire film is built around Bava's exploration of the dynamic of sadism, for the inhabitants of the castle live in virtual isolation from the rest of the world, more like the retiring Ushers of Edgar Allan Poe than any real-life aristocrats.  Given one's knowledge as to how rarely aristocrats of earlier centuries were condemned for maltreating peasants, it's a little surprising that Kurt's father should have retaliated against Kurt's indiscretion by disinheriting him.  Though none of the characters could be called three-dimensional, one may hazard that the suicide of Kurt's conquest is merely an excuse for the imperious father to reject his arrogant older son in favor of the more pliable younger one-- a less harmonious rewriting of the "prodigal son" narrative.  That Christian is essentially a milkwater offspring--- despite the way he tells Kurt at the beginning that he's "never been afraid of you"-- is attested by the fact that he has agreed to marry Nevenka despite his abiding love for Katia.  Whereas Poe never directly references incest in the "House of Usher," the unnatural closeness in Bava's tale- involving two brothers, their cousin and the woman both brothers share-- suggests a ruder conception such as one finds in some of the folktales chronicled by Otto Rank, in which two brothers struggle to possess a sister or half-sister.

Katia never comes alive as anything but a throwaway character with whom, the ending loosely implies, Christian may still be united.  Nevenka is a different story.  The film never tells us how she became habituated to Kurt's violent attentions, but it's implied that her passion for violence is her real nature, as against the phony public appearance she keeps up as Christian's wife.  And yet, if she's a masochist, she's far from a doctrinaire one.

Though Kurt's murder takes place on screen in such a way as to conceal the murderer-- rather clumsily in my opinion-- one later wonders why she did it.  The English language dub, at least, contains no explanation as to why she killed him, much less Kurt's father.  Possibly a part of her becomes so taken with Kurt's sadism that she subconsciously imitates him, going him one better by taking the violence to the point of murder.  Alternately, perhaps a part of her resents being "on the bottom" all the time, and she takes out her frustrations on Kurt-- only to have her guilt propel her into killing Kurt's unforgiving father, perhaps out of the notion that Kurt would have wanted him dead.

I can no longer remember if the scenes of Kurt's "ghostly" appearaces held any conviction for me on my first viewing of WHIP, which I'm sure I saw in its chopped-up American release, bizarrely entitled WHAT!  But I don't think that the ghost-scenes are terribly credible, and for some viewers Bava probably tips his hand by having only Nevenka witness Kurt's return.

WHIP is interesting for toying with adult subject matter in this time-period, but in the final analysis Bava and his writers don't quite succeed in making Nevenka's mixed-up fetishism all that symbolically compelling.  I wonder what might have been done with the same story, had it been executed with a more aggressively feminist outlook?

INVISIBLE INVADERS (1959)

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTIONS: *sociological*

Leonard Maltin called INVISIBLE INVADERS "cheap, silly, and boring."  I suspect that Maltin's reaction is largely informed by the cheapness of this Edward L. Cahn film, especially with respect to its copious use of stock footage, but there are some sociological aspects of INVADERS that aren't altogether "silly."

In my review of THE 27TH DAY I disliked that film's mixed message, in that the story began by castigating mankind for its warlike ways but ended by making it okay to kill off only "the bad people" in the world.  In contrast, INVADERS is indisputably a "hawkish" film, where the only advocate of peace is fundamentally proven to be wrongheaded.

The film proper begins following a voiceover-segment establishing the continuing conflicts of Earth's cultures in the race for "atom supremacy."  When one particular atom-scientist, a Dr. Noymann (John Carradine), perishes in an explosion, his friend and colleague Adam Penner becomes disenchanted with the costs of the atomic effort.  Penner seeks out a ranking general heading a US atomic commission, and tries to persuade the general to help institute a movement to use atomic energy only for peaceful purposes.  The general, wholly committed to protecting his country, refuses to compromise US security in any respect, so Penner resigns from his position with the commission.

Shortly thereafter, Penner learns that the general is right to insist on military supremacy.  A resurrected Dr. Noymann appears at Penner's house, asserting that he has been reanimated by one member of an invisible alien invasion-force.  "Noymann" tells Penner to persuade his people to surrender all authority to the aliens, or they will wreak destruction upon the human species.  Penner patriotically declares that the human race will fight back no matter what, but after the alien zombie departs, Penner can't even convince his daughter Phyllis or her "old friend" (read: former boyfriend), scientist John Lamont, to believe what's happened.  Slightly later, however, all three of them witness another alien manifestation in a graveyard, where they witness how the invisible beings leave tracks in the dirt-- indicating that they apparently have mass, but somehow become insubstantial as they merge with corpses.

Since Penner's warnings are ignored, the aliens make good on their threats, unleashing an army of unkillable zombies who create all manner of stock-footage havoc.  Perhaps it's a measure of the military hierarchy's embattlement that when it chooses to believe Penner and his allies, it assigns only one soldier, Major Bruce Jay (John Agar) to protect them as they search for the aliens' scientific Achilles heel.  Of course, it's more likely Cahn just didn't want to pay for enough actors to play a full detachment of soldiers. At one point, when Jay is conveying his three charges to a scientific installation, their jeep is stopped on the road by a shotgun-wielding farmer out to steal their vehicle.  However, Jay beats the farmer to the draw, though the three civilians are initially repulsed by the killing of a relative innocent.

In due time Penner and Lamont do come up with the necessary Achilles heel after managing to capture one of the alien-possessed zombies, and Earth is saved by the use of scientific intelligence as directed by military acumen.

In addition to the film's quick dismissal of Penner's initial ethical stance, its sentiments are made even plainer from a subplot in which Penner's daughter Phyllis falls in love with the no-nonsense major, who's a "real man" as opposed to the squeamish Lamont (though Lamont does at least hold his own for a while when he and Jay come to blows over Phyllis).  Though Lamont isn't a peacenik like Penner, he remains in Penner's shadow by virtue of having been Penner's student, whereas Jay is consistently courageous, risking his life to bring back an alien specimen.

The makeup for the zombies is in some instances rather grotesque for the period, emphasizing the bloody and mangled look of the risen dead, lending a sense of apocalyptic doom to the stock-footage violence.  And in contrast with Cahn's CREATURE WITH THE ATOM BRAIN, which shares a 'scientific zombie' theme, there's always something happening in INVADERS, cheap as the proceedings may be.   

SMALLVILLE PROJECT: 2 : 1-4

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: (1,3) *fair,* (2,4) *good*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTIONS: *psychological, sociological*

 "Vortex," Season 2's opening, picks up following the "perfect storm" of soap-opera plotlines from Season 1's cliffhanger.  Clark tries and succeeds in rescuing Lana from a deadly twister without exposing his secret.  In doing so he still doesn't discover his power to fly, but this is the first time he seems conscious of the possibility.  He also succeeds in alienating Chloe, whom he leaves behind at the prom in order to go save Lana.  Lex, though tempted to let his father Lionel perish under a fallen ceiling-beam, does the right thing and saves Lionel's life, though Lionel's injury results in neural blindness, in part because Lex was a little slow with his rescue-efforts.  But most of "Vortex" concerns Jonathan Kent's desperate attempt to stop rogue reporter Nixon from exposing Clark's secret.

One aspect of that exposure is quickly neutralized: after Nixon accidentally brings the Kryptonian spaceship to life by bringing a "key fragment" into contact with said ship, the storm seizes the ship before it can do anything but float around a little.  The tempest's violence knocks loose the key-fragment and hurls the once-more-inert vessel out of the storyline, until it surfaces in two episodes later in "Duplicity."

Jonathan chases Nixon out of the Kent's cellar and into the storm-tossed countryside, but moments later-- in keeping with the many "Wizard of Oz" references sprinkled throughout the story-- a house falls on them.  Or, to be specific, it falls so as to trap them under the ground, so that no one knows what's become of them.  The forced propinquity of Jonathan and Nixon forces them to discuss their quarrel, but when Nixon, hungry for success, refuses to conceal the story for Clark's sake, Jonathan destroys Nixon's cellphone, determined that they will both die before he lets Nixon succeed.  Clark manages to unearth the duo, but he falls prey to the usual kryptonite mojo. Jonathan goes after Nixon again, and in their struggle Nixon tries to kill Jonathan.  Lex happens along in time to shoot Nixon dead, thus inadvertently protecting the Big Secret Lex himself covets.

The most interesting aspect of "Vortex" is the verbal battle between Jonathan and Nixon.  Although the reporter is clearly out for himself, he's prophecizes a "great destiny" for Clark, claims that "he belongs to the world," and scorns Jonathan for being a "small man" seeking to hold Clark down to the farm.  Though Nixon dies, the second season continues to emphasize tensions between Jonathan's desire to restrain/protect Clark and Clark's growing desire for independence.

"Heat" follows up Season 1's introduction of Clark's X-ray vision with the correlary power of heat vision, though as SMALLVILLE is built around teen angst, Clark's new power surfaces thanks to the stimulation of a hot new teacher.  However, Desiree Atkins has come to Smallville with the hidden agenda of marrying a millionaire, and in no time she's engaged to marry Lex.  Clark and Chloe soon learn that Desiree has a history of marrying rich men and using her meteor-freak powers to mesmerize other men to kill them, so that she inherits their wealth.  Desiree tries to use Clark in this manner, but though he's vulnerable to some meteor-freak powers, she can't work her magic on Super-Clark.  It's probably no coincidence (from the standpoint of the scripters, not within the story proper) that Desiree does succeed in taking control of Jonathan, trying to take advantage of the older Kent's emnity for the Luthors.  Clark manages to abort Lex's murder and Lex gives Desiree the boot.

"Duplicity" brings to a boil Clark's long-expressed desire to have a confidante.  This represents a change from the original SUPERBOY comics' conception of Pete Ross, for in the comics Pete was still Clark's best friend, but he only found out Superboy's secret ID by accident, and used that knowledge to render aid to Clark's Superboy missions without Clark ever learning that his secret had been broached. Here, Clark goes against parental wisdom by trusting Pete with his secret, which then remains the status quo as long as the Ross character stays with the series (until the end of the series' third season, when Pete Ross's character is written out).

The plot-device that alters the Clark-Pete relationship is Lex's pet scientist Doctor Hamilton.  Lex, somewhat less occupied with the secret of "aliens in Smallville" at this point, fires Hamilton for violent behavior and suggests that the scientist get treatment for his illness; the result of exposure to meteor rocks. Hamilton for his part seeks both the spaceship and the activating fragment, but instead of finding it himself he sets into motion a chain of events making it possible for Pete to stumble across the storm-tossed vessel.  Pete naturally asks his best friend for help in getting the heavy  UFO to his house.  Clark and his parents contemplate how they might get the ship back before anyone else finds it, but Hamilton gets to it first and steals it.  But he still can't get Lex's help in examining the ship, though he does inveigle blind Lionel into stopping by to give the ship a quick Braille-touch. Clark, hoping to save his imperilled friendship with Pete, reveals his true nature, but Pete is even more torqued after finding out how long his best friend lied to him.  Hamilton finally decides that Pete must know who holds the secret of the ship and kidnaps the young man.  Clark comes to Pete's rescue and Hamilton propitiously perishes in the battle.  Pete now learns the heavy responsibility of sharing the Big Secret, and the two high-schoolers mend their fences.

On a minor note,blind Lionel continues to challenge Lex despite the former's disability.  At one point Lex accuses Lionel of having returned to Smallville for the purpose of "Oedipal mano-a-mano."  Lionel corrects Lex by saying that in Oedipus it was the son, not the father, who was blinded.  But in Freudian doctrine blindness can connote any kind of injury resulting from the sexual competition of father and son, so Lex actually wins the point here.

"Red" articulates an interesting new angle on the comics' concept of "red kryptonite."  In the comic books this mutant version of the deadly element caused Kryptonians to undergo bizarre temporary transformations, but the teleseries reinvents red meteor-rock as a substance that causes Clark's suppressed "id" persona to come forth.  Even before exposure, Clark has again defied his father's conservatism by choosing to purchase an expensive class ring.  The ring happens to contain the red mineral, and in no time mild-mannered Clark is hitting on women (including Lana) and defying his parents.  Clark even has a minor altercation with Jonathan, resulting in bruised ribs for Jonathan.  Lex, oddly enough, is the only one not to perceive Clark's shift to the Dark Side, ostensibly because he's always suggested that Clark be more assertive (and hence more like Lex himself).  Fortunately, with the help of new helper Pete, the Kents figure out the source of the id-demons and de-ring Clark with a maneuver that would smack of Freudian castration were Clark not invulerable. Returned to normal, Clark manages to make excuses for his behavior, but from then on Lana becomes increasingly impatient with his "just friends" attitude.  By this time the original motivation for Clark's reluctance-- that he felt guilty when he learned his spaceship had indirectly caused the deaths of Lana's parents-- has started to drift away and in future makes only very sporadic appearances.

BRENDA STARR (1989), BUNRAKU (2010)

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: (1) *poor,* (2) *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTIONS: *(1) metaphysical*, (2) *sociological*


These two films stand out from most of those in the "marvelous" category in that their marvels aren't "bodied forth" in the usual paraphernalia of fantasy-films-- wizards, robots, et al-- but in portraying societies that are just slightly different from our own.  They come very close to residing within the category of the uncanny, "weird families and societies," but on analysis they do have some slight aspects to divorce themselves from the primary world.

With the famed flop BRENDA STARR, the bare conceit that makes it "marvelous" is that Brenda (Brooke Shields), a character in a comic strip, inhabits her own reality distinct from ours.  In our world, though Brenda's 1940s adventures are drawn by a modern-day artist named Mike, she first rebels against her depiction by talking back to the artist from his drawing-board.  She then flees from his presence, which somehow makes it impossible for Mike to draw her.  Thus he draws himself into her world so that he can persuade her to come back.

STARR, which sat on a shelf for three years before being released to an apathetic public, isn't a total loss.  Though director Robert Ellis Miller doesn't seem to have done anything else quite like this fanciful effort, he and his collaborators succeed, at least visually, in capturing the period charm of the 1940s.  It goes without saying that Miller and Co. play some of the period's innocence and efferverscence with a knowing sense of "camp," but the camp elements are lightly stressed, and sometimes give way to simple farce.  Only once or twice do impossible "comic-strip" things transpire in Brenda's world.  In one scene, she and Basil are riding the same horse, which by narrative magic suddenly turns into two horses that they're separately riding. In another scene-- possibly the closest the film ever comes to exploiting the concept's absurdity-- Brenda escapes her pursuers by mounting a pair of alligators and riding them like waterskis.

The plot, which takes place almost entirely in Brenda's world, involves the intrepid lady reporter attempting to prevent the Nazis from obtaining a secret formula, and then of course, writing about it.  In this she's aided by the mysterious eyepatched adventurer Basil St. John (also from the original comic strip) and, of course, by the usually inept artist Mike.  Ranged against her are a coterie of comic Nazis and a competing lady reporter, whose name Brenda can never repeat without seething: "Libby Lips!!"  During assorted far-flung adventures both Mike and Basil fall in love with the always-elegantly coiffed Brenda, but after the Nazis are thwarted Mike's obliged to return to his own world and to confine his interaction with Brenda to drawing her.

Shields is consistently enjoyable, managing to keep her buoyant character refreshing despite the lightweight plot, and Timothy Dalton keeps in step by playing Basil St. John with restraint.  However, the rest of the actors have nothing to do but chase Brenda around, and none of the fights or pratfalls ever sparked my interest, even with the participation of a capoeira troupe.   


BUNRAKU, in contrast, exists in just one world, a vague future society poised between the culture of the American Old West and samurai-era Japan.  Unlike many future worlds in the MAD MAX vein, where technology has been wiped out, the opening voiceover explains in quasi-mystical terms that in keeping with cosmic verities the world just finally gave up all firearms and embraced only non-technological weapons: swords, arrows, and a few other martial-arts devices.  And yet the inhabitants of this "East/Westworld" do have access to other types of technology, as when the villain Nicola rigs a card-game by using remote devices to spy upon the cards held by his opponents.

The best way to explain the sociological matrix of BUNRAKU might be to say that it's KILL BILL as written by the Coen Brothers.  The main theme is still vengeance, not of one character but two: the nameless western boxer "Drifter" (Josh Hartnett) and the samurai warrior Yoshi (Gackt), who seek redress of their grievances against Nicola (Ron Perlman).  However, as the two heroes are guided by a helper-ally (bartender Woody Harrelson) in their battles against Nicola's horde of assassins and henchmen, some if not all of the characters frequently spout rather windy bits of philosophy, meant to imitate the soulfulness of samurai films and spaghetti westerns.  In this respect writer-director Guy Moshe is not successful: while Tarantino brought his own weird perspective and sense of humor to the genre-remixings of KILL BILL, Moshe's "deep thoughts" on topics like "the destiny of a warrior" never seem more than pedestrian.

That said, BUNRAKU is still a good action-movie mashup.  While the fight-sequences aren't quite bracing enough to turn Jet Li or Jason Statham green with envy, the choreography is better than average and things are never allowed to get dull-- except maybe when Demi Moore, playing Nicola's pregnant concubine, is on the screen; try as she might, Moore can't do anything with her marginal and forgettable character.  As with many "male bonding" films the unison of Yoshi and the Drifter very nearly takes precedence over their many colorful fights with Nicola's men, though on occasion director Moshe allows certain plot-contrivances to come about simply because it suits his humor, rather than any logic.

Perhaps the film's most amusing genre-commenting moment appears when the bartender attempts to illustrate his concept of the hero's journey to the Drifter by essentially retelling the origin of Marvel Comics' Spider-Man using a pop-up book.  No character who actually resembles Spider-Man ever makes an appearance, of course, but there is a dead ringer for J. Jonah Jameson.  It's hard to hate a film that goes to that level of obscurity to stoke fannish flames.

ADDENDA: According to my new categories as of June 2012, BRENDA STARR is a subcombative adventure (the only such reviewed here thus far) while BUNRAKU is a combative adventure.

ATTACK OF THE PUPPET PEOPLE (1958), DR. GOLDFOOT & THE BIKINI MACHINE (1965)

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: (1) *drama* (2) comedy
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTIONS: *(1) psychological*, (2) *sociological*

It's only by chance that I happened to rescreen these 2 "mad scientist" films back-to-back, but though they take very different attitudes toward their material, both are alike in that they're designed to center around the performance of one actor who plays a manipulative master of strange technology.  As for all the other actors in both Bert I. Gordon's ATTACK OF THE PUPPET PEOPLE and Norman Taurog's DR. GOLDFOOT AND THE BIKINI MACHINE (partly written by James Nicholson)-- they're pretty much reduced to battling over the scraps of very threadbare scripts.

Bert Gordon was publicized as "Mr. B.I.G." thanks to his repeated schtick of making SF-pictures about entities growing or shrinking.  Most of those films concern the former, since giant men and monsters had already been a sci-fi staple before Gordon's rise to fame, but PUPPET PEOPLE is a rare one about what happens when a bunch of normal humans are shrunk to doll-size by a lonely and disenchanted dollmaker, Mr. Franz (John Hoyt).

Unfortunately, none of the "puppet people" involved-- be it the romantic leads John Agar and June Kenny or a small crew of like-fated comrades-- are particularly interesting.  Had Gordon given these characters some sort of personal dramas to spice up the cheap "little person" effects he used on the film, the film might be better regarded these days.  Viewers can forgive mediocre effects when they're engaged with the characters.  But these characters are no better developed than real puppets.

Franz, then, is the film's sole dramatic focus.  The aging dollmakers suffers from loneliness because his wife left him for another man, so that when he discovers the principle for a shrinking ray, his response is to create a new family by reducing people to doll-sized beings.  John Hoyt is excellent in the role, always conveying a grandfatherly kindliness that makes his looney behavior all the more believable.  The film doesn't tread deeply into psychological territory, but though he's never less than benign to his living puppets, it's probably not a coincidence that the lead romantic couple are prevented from entering the state of marriage by Franz's machinations-- thus, Franz is preventing this union because he couldn't prevent another, more heartbreaking one.

As with the previous (and superior) 1950s SF-film INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN, most of the little people's peril stems from large animals, such as a predatory cat and a bellicose dog.  But the inferior FX-work keeps these from seeming like any credible threat.

Though PUPPET PEOPLE is disappointing, it does sport a few clever lines, not to mention some  self-referential bits (the young couple attend a drive-in where Gordon's AMAZING COLOSSAL MAN is playing).  But there's nothing clever anywhere in the Taurog/Nicholson mess called BIKINI MACHINE.

This film also has some self-referential bits: in addition to making the villain's name a hamhanded homage to GOLDFINGER, it reunites Frankie Avalon and Vincent Price, who had co-starred (to use the word loosely) in AIP's 1963 BEACH PARTY, which certainly did more for Avalon's reputation than for Price's.  In addition, Erich Von Zipper (Harvey Lembeck) of the beach films makes a joke cameo, and Goldfoot briefly dons the medieval costume Vincent Price wore for his perf in AIP's PIT AND THE PENDULUM.

But here the in-jokes are merely desperate attempts to fill time in a chaotic melange of slapstick routines that make the Keystone Kops look sophisticated.  The film's only potential saving grace is that it's built around the tongue-in-cheek villain-persona of Vincent Price, and if the viewer likes a lot of Price, BIKINI certainly gives it to him.  In fact, both script and direction pay more attention to Price than they ever devote to the film's other titular gimmick: a few dozen bikini-clad girl robots, whom Goldfoot sends out to seduce and marry wealthy men so that the robots can then kill the rich guys and inherit their money.

Goldfoot is opposed by his fiendish efforts by a bumbling secret agent (Avalon) and a bumbling rich young fellow (Dwayne Hickman).  Fortunately Goldfoot has Igor, his faithful henchman-- except that he tends to, well, bumble.  And then there's robot Diane (Susan Hart, then-wife of James Nicholson), who tends to make a lot of bumbling mistakes...

You get the idea.  Taurog and Nicholson have just one comic bolt in their quiver, and they use it over and over, ad infinitum.  About the only sociologically interesting joke comes at the expense of the whole trope of a mad scientist turning out dozens of robot girls obedient to his every whim.  This joke occurs when Igor unveils one defective robot (Alberta Nelson), who promptly beats up Igor and then talks in a deep masculine voice.  Are the filmmakers saying that only the only way women can rebel against "The Man" (goldfooted or not) is if they are manlike?  No-- probably better not to even ask the question...

FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLF MAN (1943)

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

As others have pointed out before me, FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLF MAN (henceforth MEETS) feels much more like a sequel to the WOLF MAN than an entry in the FRANKENSTEIN series.  This is likely because Curt Siodmak had scripted Lon Chaney Jr.'s previous werewolf-adventure, so most of the scenes involving characters from the first film-- mainly luckless lycanthrope Larry Talbot (Chaney) and his unofficial godmother, the gypsy Maleva (Maria Ouspenskaya)-- are played with a good deal of emotion, and an almost poetic intensity.

In contrast, there's some evidence to suggest that Siodmak was rather more cavalier toward the history of the Monster.  As most horror-mavens know, the film, picking up on continuity from GHOST OF FRANKENSTEIN, had to incorporate a Monster who was no longer the agonized mute presence of most earlier films, but one who had been given the brain of the scheming hunchback Ygor, played in GHOST by Bela Lugosi.  Additionally, the Monster-- now to be played by Bela Lugosi-- had been made blind as a consequence of the climactic outcome of GHOST.  Reputedly, someone in production didn't like seeing the Monster talk with the voice of Bela Lugosi (or alternately, found Siodmark's dialogue for the creature rather risible).  Thus all the Monster's dialogue was cut, returning him to a de facto mute status, and references to his blindness were elided as well.  If some accounts of Siodmak's dialogue can be believed, then this might have been the best solution possible.

The film begins with what is easily one of the scariest scenes in the history of Universal horror-films, when two grave-robbers desecrate the tomb of the late Larry Talbot.  The full moon happens to have risen, and-- in a scene partly left to the imagination-- Larry comes back to life and brings about the death of one robber.  Later Larry's found in the Welsh city of Cardiff, suffering from a huge head-wound, a legacy of the deadly wound he received from his father at the end of WOLF MAN.  At a local hospital Larry becomes the focus of interest by the head surgeon Dr. Mannering (Patric Knowles) and by a local constable, neither of whom believes Larry's claim that he's a dead man who's risen from the grave due to being a werewolf.  Larry, heartsick over the deaths he's already caused and may continue to cause, escapes to contintental Europe, looking for a means by which to extinguish his unnatural life.

Coming into contact with Maleva, the gypsy woman whose son cursed Larry with werewolvism, she leads him to the village of Vasaria.  There Larry hopes to unearth the "secrets of life and death" discovered by the late Doctor Frankenstein.  Unable to find them by rooting around in the doctor's castle, which was destroyed at the beginning of GHOST OF FRANKENSTEIN, Larry manages to draw Baroness Frankenstein (Ilona Massey) to Vasaria to help him find a scientific way to end a werewolf's life.  (It never seems to occur to Larry to simply get someone to shoot him with a silver bullet, but had he done that, there would've been no story.)  Showing up uninvited is Doctor Mannering, who still doesn't believe Larry's a werewolf but does believe he's killing people during his wanderings in Europe.  Despite not being in the body-resurrection business himself, Mannering is intellectually seduced into becoming the new Frankenstein in town. Elsa lends her help with the understanding that Mannering won't give new life and strength to the Monster as the creature wishes.  She wants Mannering to destroy both monsters.

All of this sets the stage for a truly slam-bang finale, when Mannering brings the Monster to life instead of destroying him and the Wolf Man.  It's not clear why the temporarily-mad doctor doesn't just let Larry be destroyed-- he apparently only cares about seeing "Frankenstein's creation" at its full power.  But when the Lugosi-Monster regains its full powers (and in the original version, his sight), he nearly kills both Mannering and Elsa, and is only prevented by the intrusion of a berserkergang wolf man.  It's a fun fight, which I still enjoy watching even now that I can see a lot of the "flubs" in the continuity.

The plot's rather rickety compared to earlier entries. During the time when Larry's trying to get the Baroness' cooperation, the Frankenstein Monster, who's supposed to be hiding in the castle's remains, comes lumbering into Vasaria for no clear reason.  Logically this action should have resulted in the villagers storming the castle to kill the creature and anyone with him, but the town mayor holds everyone back, and even allows Mannering to order new equipment to pass through the town on its way to the castle.  Again, the real reason is just that the script doesn't want the villagers to retaliate until the very end of the film.

MEETS is much better in terms of character touches than plot, fortunately. Larry's overtures to the Baroness take place during Vasaria's festival of the new wine, and Larry ends up losing his cool when he, the eternal outsider, gets upset by some song-lyrics concerning "living eternally."  Knowles and Massey  perform yeoman service with characters who are not that deep but must undergo quick shifts of emotion, with Knowles' temptation-scene a standout.

Much commented-upon is the irony that Bela Lugosi, having passed on the 1931 FRANKENSTEIN early in his career, accidentally ceded that spotlight to Boris Karloff, who became one of Lugosi's principal rivals for horror-roles.  Many critics have not been kind to Lugosi's performance, even given knowledge of the extensive "surgery" done on the film's original story.  But as I commented earlier, Siodmak didn't exactly exert himself to provide the Monster with good character-scenes, and those he did provide might have proved laughable.  I'll add that I don't think Karloff could have done any better with this material than Lugosi did, and that Lugosi's performance, though far from perfect, still has more strong moments in it than does Lon Chaney Jr.'s in the same role.  Also, some of Lugosi's better scenes may stem from the direction by Roy William Neill, in that he puts forth a much more inventive set of visual sequences than anything in the Chaney GHOST.