MURDER BY DEATH (1976), SO I MARRIED AN AXE MURDERER (1993)

PHENOMENALITY: (1) *uncanny,* (2) *naturalistic*
MYTHICITY: (1) *fair,* (2) *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *comedy*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTIONS: (1) *psychological, sociological,* (2) *psychological*


I won't spend a lot of time analyzing the plotline of MURDER BY DEATH, even though it is, to my mind, Neil Simon's best contribution to the annals of comedy in any medium.  Patterned after the mystery-subgenre of the "country-house whodunit," the story revolves around a dinner-party convened by the mysterious owner of the country-house involved, a fellow with the risible name of "Lionel Twain" (a pun that no one under a certain age will get). All of the guests to receive the invitation are parodies of famous fictional sleuths.  In the photo above, they're comprised of Charlie Chan (Peter Sellers) and his son, the lady secretary (Eileen Brennan) to Sam Spade, Hercule Poirot (James Coco) and his sidekick, Miss Jane Marple (Elsa Lanchester) and companion, Sam Spade (Peter Falk), and Nick and Nora Charles (David Niven, Maggie Smith).  Once the master investigators have assembled, Twain issues a challenge to them, to solve a murder that will be committed that very night.  Many amusing misadventures ensue, though in contrast to most comedies, MURDER BY DEATH sports a bizarre, somewhat unsettling ending worthy of the most acerbic irony/satire.  Still, I categorize this movie as a comedy because the bulk of the events are played for farce (a tough private-eye displays a penchant for women's dresses, Twain berates the Chinese detective for talking in the pidgin-English popularized by the many "Charlie Chan" films).

What I find interesting is that this film doesn't make any of the editions of John Stanley's CREATURE FEATURES guide, though Stanley does include not only jillions of old-dark-house films (irrespective of whether anything supernatural is suggested), but also the various versions of Agatha Christie's AND THEN THERE WERE NONE.  I've gone on record as disagreeing that this work and its adaptations (like this one) deserve to be considered within the corpus of horror/fantasy/SF genres, a.k.a. what I term "the metaphenomenal."  However, though MURDER clearly borrows from the pattern of Christie's serial-murder opus, Simon's mystery-spoof has much more metaphenomenal content, given that the country-house is gimmicked up with assorted delusive or deadly devices.  Because one of these devices involves using the power of illusion upon the nonplussed detectives, I give this film an entry in the "enthralling illusionism" category, though it's just as noteworthy in the "outre devices" category, since the detectives are set up to dodge perils like chair-impaling spears and ceilings set up to crush the occupants of the corresponding rooms.  I could speculate that because MURDER doesn't ever attempt to conjure forth the emotion of fear, as do many of the "old-dark-house" flicks, that lack may have moved Stanley not to include it; to consider MURDER BY DEATH to be a comic inversion of "realistic" mystery-- in spite of the gimmicked-up Twain house.

In contrast, the 1993 Mike Myers comedy SO I MARRIED AN AXE MURDERER-- which appeared (and flopped) in U.S. theaters in between Myers' more far more successful WAYNE'S WORLD films-- is neither uncanny nor funny.  Wikipedia points out that the project had its genesis in men complaining about their problems with women, but if AXE ever had anything interesting to say about gender problems, it gets lost in Myers' regurgitation of his Saturday Night live routines (particularly one involving a crazy Scottish family) and attempts to play to the humor of obscure nostalgia (Myers plays a modern-day version of a 1950s beat-poet).

Through a string of allegedly comic contrivances, Myers' character Charlie first falls in a love with a butcher-woman named Harriet, and then begins to suspect that she's a serial axe murderer who has chopped up all of her previous husbands.  Since the idea of axe-killings suggests extreme gore, many films with such figures qualify for the status of "perilous psychos" in the uncanny phenomenality, such as 1964's STRAIT JACKET and 1971's THE MAD BUTCHER.  However, though this film also sports an axe-murdering psycho, this psycho fits the naturalistic phenomenality, as there's no attempt to build up the psycho in question as demonstrably "strange," in contrast with other modern-day, non-Gothic crazies such as Norman Bates in PSYCHO and Hexina in HEXED.

WEREWOLF OF LONDON (1935)

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

In my review of THE ISLAND OF LOST SOULS I wrote:

...suffice to say that SOULS' narrative grafts many aspects of Universal's successful 1931 FRANKENSTEIN to the skeleton of Wells' novel-plot, and for good measure ratchets up the sex and violence as well.

I don't want to sound like I believe that every horror-script writer in the early 1930s was looking to the success of FRANKENSTEIN for inspiration.  However, WEREWOLF OF LONDON-- the first English-language film to attempt creating a consistent mythology for the werewolf-- may have borrowed at least two concepts central to the 1931 Whale opus.  One concept is fairly generic, in that the victim-protagonist of WEREWOLF is a delver into strange secrets who from one point of view may have been cursed because he meddled with the unknown.  The other concept is a little more specific .  The 1931 FRANKENSTEIN, in contrast to the Shelley novel, hints at a possible romantic interest between Elizabeth, the fiancee of mad Henry Frankenstein, and Henry's best friend Victor Moritz.  Though nothing ever comes of the suggestion in the film as completed, in my opinion the only reason a scripter would have suggested the possibility of  a "rebound romance" would have been if an early version of the film was meant to end in Henry's death, so that Elizabeth would have a "consolation prize" waiting for her. 

In any case, jealousy over a romantic rival, which plays nearly no role in FRANKENSTEIN, is central to this 1935 Universal film, whose script is credited to four writers and is directed by Stuart Walker.  All five seem to have been journeymen talents, with WEREWOLF OF LONDON standing as the most noteworthy work any of them produced. 

Botanist Doctor Wilfred Glendon of London could be said to have created his own romantic travails.  Like Frankenstein, he invests too much attention to his scientific investigations, thus forfeiting-- in a symbolic sense, at least-- his ability to keep his much younger wife satisfied.  That said, we don't know anything about Glendon's home life when the film begins. 

He's first seen, along with fellow traveler named Renwick, hiking through misty Tibet with a gang of bearers.  The bearers revolt and refuse to go further once they learn that the Englishmen want to explore a valley rumored to be haunted by demons.  The bearers run away when they see an apparition that they mistake for a demon, though in truth it's a Catholic missionary.  Though not precisely subscribing to the locals' beliefs, the missionary warns Glendon and Renwick away from the valley.  The Englishmen ignore him and press on alone.

Oddly, when the two men enter the valley, they experience weird effects, with Renwick feeling as if he can hardly move his legs, while Glendon feels some invisible force strike him.  Glendon explains the effect as one of "autosuggestion;" the words of the Tibetans and the missionary have semi-hypnotized them into expecting trouble.  Renwick is so tired from his efforts that he rests while Glendon presses on in search of his botanical "holy grail."  He finds the rare flower "Mariphasa," a dormant flower that is rumored to bloom only by moonlight.  He takes cuttings of the plant, but no sooner has he stowed the cuttings in his pack than he is attacked by a shadowy figure.  The stranger bites Glendon on the arm, but Glendon drives his attacker off with a knife.  Despite his wound, Glendon manages to escape the hostile-seeming valley-- presumably with Renwick, though we never hear anything more of Glendon's traveling companion.

Back at Glendon's manor in London, we meet Glendon's wife Lisa, who immediately makes clear her disaffection from her husband's scholarly interests, as she comments that he ought to marry his laboratory.  She's clearly more attached to the London high-life than he, expecting him to drop his researches in order to attend the party she's hosting.  The party serves to bring two other significant characters into Glendon's orbit.  The first is Paul Ames, a childhood friend to Lisa, with whom she had a romantic relationship that ended badly some time before she married Glendon-- suggesting that in a sense Glendon was the real "rebound romance" here.  The second is another botanist, a Doctor Yogami, who claims to have met Glendon abroad.  Yogami possesses intimate knowledge of Glendon's current line of research, an attempt to cause the reluctant Mariphasa flower to bloom via exposure to artificial moonlight.  Yogami's words impart what some critics would call a "liminal" quality to the flower, claiming that it shares qualities of both plant and animal.  Not coincidentally, Glendon's London laboratory includes at least one animal-eating plant, which symbolically sets the stage for the appearance of a hybrid between man and animal.

Yogami mentions that the Mariphasa is a vital flower to those afflicted by the disease of "werewolfery," though he stops short of admitting what the audience will surely intuit: that Yogami himself is so afflicted, and so is Glendon.  Yogami conveys all this information in the hope of persuading Glendon to let Yogami share in his research.  But though Glendon fails to connect Yogami with the strange man who attacked him-- even when Yogami references Glendon's wounded arm-- the botanist insists on keeping his findings secret.  Yogami dolefully admits that the cuttings of the Mariphasa provide only a temporary antidote to the werewolf malady.

Soon enough, Glendon realizes that he shares this malady. He returns to his researches, and succeeds in causing the Mariphasa to bloom with his artificial moonlight.  However, the moonlight also causes Glendon's hair to sprout fur.  He quickly uses the bloom's juice to reverse the effects. Strangely, in his next encounter with Yogami (the next day?), Glendon still plays things close to the vest, even when Yogami informs the botanist that the werewolf kills that which it loves best.

Glendon has no more room for doubt the following full-moon night.  Shortly after having had his jealousies aroused as Lisa continues to visit with her old flame, he transforms into full wolf-man mode.  He seeks out the curing Mariphasa blooms, only to find that the flowers have been removed by persons unknown.  Fearing that he will fulfill the destiny of the werewolf, Glendon flees his house into the street.  The next day's papers carry news of a woman being mangled to death. 

Glendon returns home, but again he and Lisa quarrel over her continued assocation with Paul-- though, to be sure, Lisa is never seen to violate the marriage covenant.  Again, as the moonlit night approaches, Glendon flees his house, this time taking a room in a low-class part of the city.  That night, the werewolf strikes again, this time providentially targeting a slutty young woman who's trying to talk a married man into leaving his wife.  For good measure, her killing takes place in a zoo, causing the authorities to get confused as to whether there's a real wolf causing the killings.

One of the archetypal scenes of werewolf-fiction-- the scene in which a werewolf's friend locks him up to prevent his killing-- transpires the next night, though Glendon's helper remains ignorant of the reasons why the botanist wants to be confined to a cell in an abandoned abbey located on the property of Lisa's family.  The cell fails to keep wolf-Glendon confined, and as it happens, Paul has brought Lisa to the abbey that night, trying to talk her into leaving her husband.  Glendon attacks both of them.  However, as shown by the comparatively easy way Glendon drives off the Yogami-werewolf in Tibet, wolf-Glendon is also fairly vulnerable, and Paul manages to stun him so that the couple can escape.

After that, Paul begins to put the pieces together, in part because Yogami, desperate to find some way to access the Mariphasa, insinuates himself into the police investigation of the murders.  The piecing-together is for me the weakest section of the film, however necessary.

In any case, the police finally decide to converge on Glendon Manor.  So does Yogami, looking for more blooms.  He finds them, but by using them on himself, he makes himself vulnerable to wolf-Glendon.  Yogami dies, but the cops show up in time to shoot down wolf-Glendon like, well, a wolf, which leads to yet another archetypal scene: the reversion to normalcy in death.

WEREWOLF is a better than average horror-film, but it lacks that extra "something" that makes an exemplary film-- such as the more well-lauded WOLF MAN.  It's interesting that parts of WOLF MAN suggest that its scripter was playing around with the notion that the "werewolf malady" in that film really was brought on by superstition and "autosuggestion."  The fantastic events of the Tibetan valley-- which seem more like spiritual forces than scientific phenomena-- seem almost prophetically poised to reject this sort of false rationalism.  Both the improbable moonlight-blooming Mariphasa and the strange "werewolfism" disease exist outside the bounds of rational thought; they reflect one another's natures in a way that Western science would never recognize.  Glendon, by pursuing strange forms of life, becomes a strange form of life.  Perhaps it happens in part because of the gulf between him and his wife, but Walker and his scripters nonetheless suggest that the world of WEREWOLF OF LONDON is far stranger than science can comprehend.  Of the early 1930s Universal films, perhaps only 1932's THE MUMMY so thorougly rejects commonplace rationality-- though it too, like WOLF MAN, is a far more profound work.

THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES (1939)

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

The 1939 HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES, the first major sound-era Sherlock Holmes film set in the Victorian era, was also the first of two 20th-Century Fox adaptations of the character.  For many, including the fellow playing the Great Detective, HOUND is one of the best of the Sherlock films.  I admire it, but I prefer the second Fox film, THE ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES, which I consider Fox's best contribution to the saga of "Holmes on film."

Since HOUND's complicated plot deals with a hidden villain who plans to kill a man through a deception involving a "demon hound," this places it-- like the original Doyle novel-- in the category of the "phantasmal figuration."  Doyle's novel creates a strong ambivalence as to the existence of the hellish beast, despite the general expectation that no demons will appear in the world of Holmes.  Fox's HOUND-- somewhat stodgily directed by Sidney Lanfield, principally a specialist in comedies before and after HOUND-- doesn't deliver on the novel's spookiness, despite featuring one of the most impressive backlot sets ever, in order to create the atmospheric domain of Dartmoor.

In my review of the 1959 HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES, I said:

This HOUND was Hammer Films’ only venture into the world of the Great Detective. The film—directed by renowned horror-meister Terence Fisher-- is not as faithful to the novel as the 1939 film from 20^th-century Fox, but Fisher’s film manages to sustain its own identity as well as delivering the mythic content of the story.

I still think the 1939 film is closer to the spirit of the original novel, but upon re-screening the Fox version, I have to admit that there are also some sizeable changes here.  In the novel, the character of Beryl is something less than admirable, even though she's been victimized by the principal villain.  The Hammer film makes its version of Beryl an unregenerate accomplice to the main villain-- indeed, visually she's more memorable.  In contrast, the Fox version is totally innocent of any crime, being unaware of her nefarious stepbrother's plans as she engages in a love-affair with Sir Henry Baskerville.  So which version is really closer to Doyle's intent as to Beryl's character?

Similarly, I wrote of one plot-thread in the 1959 film:

The film follows most of the peregrinations of Holmes (Peter Cushing) and Watson (Andre Morrell) as they investigate a wealth of mysterious doings around Baskerville Hall. The only significant deviation from the novel is that early in the film Henry Baskerville is menaced by a tarantula. While I imagine the filmmakers threw in this development to escalate the sense of visible danger, its inclusion telegraphs to the audience the likelihood that a merely mortal villain is behind the skullduggery. 

When I wrote that, however, I didn't remember that the Fox film did much the same thing at almost the same point in the film.  Instead of threatening Sir Henry with a tarantuala, the villain-- concealed within a hansom cab-- aims a pistol at Sir Henry and fails to kill him only because Sherlock warns the young lord.  Both early attempts to do away with Sir Henry would seem to run counter to the villain's long plot, to extinguish Henry with a phantom hound; in the novel, the villain makes no such early attempt.  If I had to choose between them, the tarantula-gambit is far preferable.

Overall, despite shortening or eliding scenes from the novel (which nearly every film-adaptation of a novel MUST do), Lanfield keeps the essential elements of the Doyle novel.  As others before me have commented, the final revelation of the phony hellhound is something of a disappointment, but it's true that Doyle's phosphorescent beast may be one easier to suggest on the page than on celluloid. The Fox script actually gets its best spooky moments out of a seance-scene nowhere in the novel, which some later adaptations continued to use.

As I noted above, Basil Rathbone liked his performance in this film better than any of his later takes on Holmes.  I find it just a little too stiff at times, though there are certainly scenes where Rathbone succeeds in humanizing the hyper-intellectual sleuth.  Nigel Bruce gets one of his best outings, since HOUND allows Doctor Watson to play detective on his own for a considerable period.  And of course even in small roles actors like Lionel Atwill and John Carradine are always welcome.

SILENT MADNESS (1984), HORROR HOUSE (1969)

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


Here we have two slasher-flicks, though the second one predates the slasher-craze by ten years.

SILENT MADNESS deals with a homicial maniac, one Howard Johns, released from an asylum because of a computer error. One of the asylum-doctors, Joan Gilmore (Belinda J. Montgomery), tries to track down the psycho by researching the circumstances of his case. Also pursuing Johns are two hamhanded handlers from the asylum, more motivated with covering up the mistake than with preserving lives.

MADNESS is slowly paced but has an assortment of reasonably engaging psycho-scenes, though director Simon Nuchtern avoids explicit gore.  Montgomery delivers a solid performance as the feisty doctor, who ends up fighting both Johns and the asylum-handlers, and there's a moderately interesting "surprise ending" that reveals the truth about the crimes for which Johns was committed.  However, Solly Marx-- principally a stuntman before essaying the role of Johns-- is pretty much just a stiff, lacking either charisma or pathos.  In addition, every time a character speaks his name, one is likely to think of "Howard Johnson's," the famous bed-and-breakfast.

Still, though MADNESS is nothing special, it's far more watchable than HORROR HOUSE.  HOUSE is one of the most boring horror-films I've ever seen, which is strange since writer-director Michael Armstrong made the considerably better-- if far from classic-- MARK OF THE DEVIL one year later.

I've not seen the DVD commentary in which Armstrong blames the mangling of HOUSE on producer interference, on reshoots and re-edits beyond his control.  It's quite possible that he is blameless.  Nevertheless, for whatever reason, the film plods along showing sequence after sequence of party-going teenagers, with barely the suggestion of a plotline. When the teens (including bankable American star Frankie Avalon) check out an old deserted house on a lark, one of the partygoers is killed. The police investigate, and find no killer.  Eventually some of the youngsters decide to find the killer on their own.

This is such a phlegmatic film that it wasn't even able to get any benefit from Avalon, who's so toned-down that he hardly seems like himself.  The killer's revelation has no particular impact, which again may be the result of tampering-- but it also suggests that the original story wasn't all that solid to begin with.

THE DEADLY MANTIS (1957)

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*

CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological*


Though William Alland was credited as producer on several of the key "creature features" of the 1950s, only rarely did he officially assume writing-duties on the screenplays of the movies he produced.  DEADLY MANTIS is one of those few, where Alland shares credit with Martin Berkeley, with whom he previously collaborated on 1955's REVENGE OF THE CREATURE.

As I demonstrate in my review of the 1955 film and its sequel, REVENGE, the middle film of the series, is the only one of the "Creature trilogy" that does not set up a rivalry betweeen two male leads engaged in hunting the titular monster.  Whether by coincidence or design, the Alland-Berkeley script for MANTIS also eschews such rivalry, even though, unlike REVENGE, MANTIS has two distinct male leads who could have had a rivalry over the starring female while they pursued the menacing monster of the title.  Also on the reunuion-front, this film also reteamed Alland with director Nathan Juran, whose first directorial effort was Alland's 1952 THE BLACK CASTLE-- the first of many fantasy-films for both Alland and Juran.

In contrast to many of the nuclear-mutant monsters of the period, the Mantis is entirely the product of nature, and it's theorized that the creature only shows up because it's been entombed in ice since prehistoric times and has been released by a volcanic eruption.  The first half-hour devotes much attention to the efficiency of the United States' early warning radar system (similarly emphasized in 1954's KILLERS FROM SPACE), a system which the Mantis soon transgresses.  Unlike the ants of THEM!, however, this big bug never takes on any symbolic resonance of the Commie Menace.

Colonel Joe Parkman (Craig Stevens) tries to find out what sort of entity could wipe out an entire military outpost, and consults with various specialists, including the one who will be most in the forefront of the investigation, Dr. Nedrick Jackson (William Hopper).  Ned happens to be friends with Marge (Alix Talton), a lady reporter working for a science magazine, who smells a hot story when she learns of the consultation.  She manages to get assigned to follow Ned to Canada, where she and Ned meet Joe-- whom she eventually falls for-- and a lot of other female-deprived G.I.'s.

The Mantis makes its first attack on Joe's outpost while both Ned and Marge are present.  In fact, the way this big bug attacks-- looming over one of the buildings, and first seen (and screamed at) by the female lead-- mirrors a similar scene in Alland's earlier film TARANTULA (1955).  The Mantis tears up buildings, kills some more people, and flies off.  Later Ned deduces that in prehistoric times the Mantis once preyed on the ancestors of human beings, explaining that the big bug still considers modern humans its proper prey.  The Mantis dodges the attempts of jets to shoot it down, but eventually takes on America in a symbolic sense by descending upon Washington, D.C.  The incredible insect ends up in the Holland Tunnel and dies when Joe manages to lob a bomb in its face.  Anticipating the 1980s rage for killers who revive briefly for one last scare, the Mantis's claw briefly menaces Marge, but Ned explains that the movement was merely a reflexive one.

The Mantis marionette is the film's standout asset,  Hopper, Stevens, and Talton do credible enough jobs with what they're given, but Alland apparently wanted no human conflict between the leads, as we would have had if there had existed some romantic relationship between Ned and Marge prior to her liaison with Joe.  The script supplies some moderately enjoyable scientific detective work by which the Mantis' existence is deduced prior to its appearance.  The female lead of CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON represented an advancement in feminine roles in SF films, while the female lead of REVENGE OF THE CREATURE is something of a step back.  Marge, however, is just "there," not registering as much of a positive or negative. 

MOONRAKER (1979)

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*

FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*

CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *sociological, cosmological*


The original MOONRAKER novel is one of Ian Fleming's strongest works, but like LIVE AND LET DIE it's a story that would only work within the same historical milieu during which Fleming wrote it.  In the novel Bond is called upon to investigate Hugo Drax, a British WWII veteran who has become a self-made millionaire and who has become a national hero due to his financial sponsorship of Britain's first nuclear warhead.  Films about nuclear brinkmanship persisted long past the 1950s-- indeed, the previous Bond film in the series, THE SPY WHO LOVED ME,addresses that very concern-- but the idea that sells the novel, of a private British citizen intervening in his country's nuclear program, seems to me quintessentially of the fifties.

In addition, the MOONRAKER novel could only have taken place within a few decades of the end of World War II.  James Bond eventually learns that Drax is actually a German Nazi officer who has masqueraded as a British veteran, his deception facillitated by battlefield injuries that required extensive surgery.  His plot-- to annihilate London by dropping on it the very warhead he creates with the government's cooperation-- is not the first "bizarre crime" that smacks of the uncanny phenomenality, but it is the first Fleming-crime that involves a world-shaking threat comparable to the later THUNDERBALL.  In addition, Drax is like the previous "super-villain" Mister Big something of a physical freak, not only because of his facial reconstruction but also because he possesses "ogre's teeth," the production of congenital thumbsucking (Bond becomes a positive armchair psychologist on this theme).  Drax is also a personification of Germany's reputation for "efficiency"-- one explicitly referred to in the novel-- and is exemplified by Drax's German-born missile-building employees, all of whom sport shaven heads to discourage their being recognized.

The film begins with a "teaser" sequence with no direct ties to the main plot; the very sort of thing that will be gently mocked in by the next film in the series, the more naturalistic FOR YOUR EYES ONLY. This sequence includes an attack by Bond's foe from the previous film, Jaws (in his second and last appearance in the series), as well as Bond's dazzling escape from free-fall peril.

Following the teaser, Bond is called upon to investigate the circumstances by which an American space-shuttle built by Drax Industries (based in California) disappeared while being transported by a British plane-convoy.  The convoy crashed, but the remnants of the shuttle were not found.  Thus Bond sets up a meeting with Drax at Drax's California estate.  Though Drax is not said to be of German descent-- indeed, he's given no backstory to speak of-- he does seem to value "efficiency," for Bond witnesses a cadre of well-toned men and women doing calisthenics on the estate's lawn.  The agent also sees Drax toss meat to his guard dogs, and how the dogs refrain from eating the meat until Drax permits them to do so.

Bond also encounters three other characters: standoffish Drax-scientist Holly Goodhead, the more approachable secretary Corinne, and Drax's main bodyguard, a man who, though dressed in traditional Japanese garb and played by a Japanese actor, is given the dominantly Chinese name "Chang."  Almost as soon as 007 gets there, Chang and other Drax agents make two attempts on his life.  The agent perserveres until he gets a chance to break into Drax's files, which gives him a clue to a new avenue of investigation in Venice.  Corinne, after sleeping with Bond, keeps silent about his trespasses and pays for it with her life.

In Venice Bond tracks down a Drax laboratory and witnesses a demonstration of a fatal nerve gas.  He also encounters Holly Goodhead again, and slightly later learns that she's a CIA agent, out to investigate Drax on behalf of America's interest in the missing space shuttle.  (Thus she loosely parallels the policewoman character of the Fleming novel, who works alongside the hero while both investigate Drax.)  Bond tries to persuade Holly to work with him, but at the first opportunity she takes flight.  The hero, after dodging an attempt to kill him in Venice's canals, engages in an above-average fight with Chang and kills the Drax bodyguard.  Amusingly, the fight briefly takes an "East vs. West" theme as Bond employs a European rapier against Chang's Japanese sword. 

Bond attempts to lead his superiors to the secret lab, but by the time he does, Drax himself has had the whole location remodeled, so that Bond looks the fool.  However, the agent has managed to procure a sample of the gas, which he turns over to M while pursuing a new avenue in Rio de Janeiro.  Meanwhile, with Chang out of the picture, Drax gets on the phone to find a new enforcer.  Thus Jaws-- whose assassination attempt in the teaser was presumably from some independent contractor-- finds his way into the main plot.

Bond encounters Jaws twice in Rio and briefly allies himself with Holly again; however, as a result of the second encounter, Holly is taken prisoner by Drax's operatives.  Bond's next clue takes him down the Amazon River, where he escapes yet another (by now repetitive) attempt on his life and then all-too-easily finds his way to Drax's secret citadel.  Here Bond once more meets the super-healthy minions of Drax seen back on the estate, and learns that Drax, like Stromberg in the previous series-film, plans to decimate the population of the world.  His plan is to escape Earth to a radar-shielded space station orbiting the planet and to bombard the world with missiles filled with nerve gas.  When the chaos is over, Drax will then descend to rule the world alongside his eugenically-perfect soldiers.

Drax reunites Bond with Holly in order to kill them together, in a manner notably derived from a similar peril in the novel.  Bond and Holly hijack one of the shuttles and follow Drax to his space station.  Without dwelling on all of the particulars of the climactic scenes, only two are worth noting.  One is when the agents manage to destroy Drax's radar shielding, in jig time a batallion of American astronauts zoom up to check out the hostile station and engage Drax's people in a very STAR WARS-y laser battle.  The other comments on the eugenics aspect of Drax's plan, for though Drax has allowed Jaws to come on board-- along with a pigtailed girlfriend Jaws picked up in Rio-- Bond makes clear that a freaky fellow like Jaws has no place in Drax's perfect world, so that the villainous hitman joins Bond against his former master.  All the rest is a very splashy but somewhat predictable spectacle, though I'll note that Holly Goodhead, despite her jokey name, proves herself to be one of the most physically adept of the "Bond girls."

Compared to the previous film in the series, MOONRAKER's script is considerably less tight, narrative momentum being furnished by the constant attempts on Bond's life.  In its emphasis on spectacle over story, this film comes closer to the model of DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER, though MOONRAKER is better about providing motivations for 007's peregrinations. Happily Jaws never returns after this, for the filmmakers far too often milk the joke of his "Wile E. Coyote" survivals of dire fates, and the sequence where he experiences "love at first sight" with the pigtailed girl is too corny by half.  When I first saw this, I was put off by the overly frequent merchandise-placements and by the attempt to place Bond in an overly "science-ficitonal" context.  Moore loses the credibility he brought to the Bond character in SPY, becoming little more than a joke-machine again, but Lois Chiles as Holly and Michael Lonsdale as Drax score well.  Though SPY is a better overall film than MOONRAKER, I do feel that of the two doomsday villains, Drax is a little more appealing than Stromberg.  Though Nazism is never referenced for the movie-Drax, his quest for genetic perfection-- even though his minions are multiracial-- still evokes the spectre of the Third Reich admirably.

KUNG FU: SEASON 1, EPISODES 10-12 (1973)

PHENOMENALITY: (1) *naturalistic* (2) *uncanny,* (3) *naturalistic*
MYTHICITY: (1) *good,* (2) *fair*, (3) *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTIONS: *psychological, sociological, metaphysical* 

 

“Alethea” is a complex meditation on the interrelationship of “truth” and “error,” which flies in the face of the themes usually propounded on network television shows: that truth is a discrete thing whose revelation can banish error—as in, say, a murderer being exposed so as to save the life of an accused innocent.

 

Wandering through the forest, Caine hears the music of a mandolin, being played by 10-year-old Alethea (Jodie Foster).  The little girl is on her way to a stagecoach-station, to take the stage to the town of Cardiff, for a visit with her uncle, Sheriff Ingram.  The priest and the precocious child take a liking to another, as she remarks innocently on his “funny” eyes. Caine follows her on the remainder of her journey to the station.

 

The stationmaster passes a less than innocent remark on Caine’s ethnicity, but Alethea defends her new friend.  Moments later, when Caine drinks from a water-dipper, one of two cowboys—actually a pair of road agents waiting for the stage—objects to his drinking from a white person’s water-source.  The stationmaster echoes the road agent’s bigotry, refusing to let Aletheia drink from a dipper that a “Chinaman” has touched.  Then the stage arrives, and the road agents draw on the guards, provoking a shootout.  One of the stage-guards throws a pistol to Caine seconds before the guard is shot by one of the thieves.  Alethea, confused by the eruption of violence, thinks that Caine shot the guard, and she tells her uncle and the townspeople of Cardiff that Caine is a killer.

 

Caine, though he protests his innocence, is so in tune with nature that he does not seek escape from being tried by the bigoted townspeople -- except once, when a pair of lynchers are prepared to kill him extra-legally.  Caine then flashes back to his Shaolin days, when Master Po entrusts young Caine to deliver a sacred scroll to another monastery.  The scroll also concerns the confusion of truth and illusion, relating the famous Taoist parable of “Chang Jo” (as the show’s script calls him), a man who could not decide if he was a man dreaming himself as a butterfly, or vice versa.

 

However, while on his errand young Caine is attacked by two Chinese “road agents” (thus putting him in the position of the murdered stage-guard in the main story).   An itinerant magician named Shangtzu (whose name is very close to the common rendition of the butterfly-dreamer) happens by.  He drives off the thugs with his kung-fu movies.  Caine, though sworn not to disclose the nature of his errand, allows his unctuous rescuer to learn the nature of the prized scroll.  Shangtzu pretends to teach Caine a magic trick by having him immerse himself in a lake.  While the boy is out of sight, Shangtzu steals the scroll, thus teaching Caine a vital lesson in deception.

 

Adult Caine, as always professing an indifference to death, is prepared to let the townspeople execute him, because he respects the purity of Alethea’s wish to speak the truth, even though she does so in error.  But when he goes to the gallows, Alethea retracts her testimony, lying to protect Caine.  In a clever twist that shows her awareness of her elders’ prejudices, she claims she lied “because he’s a Chinaman.”  Caine tells her that for all she knows, her lie has freed a murderer.  He determines to give her back her “truth” by seeks out and capturing the road agents.

 

In parallel fashion, the flashback story reaches its conclusion.  After young Caine confesses his failure to Master Po, the Chinese police come to the monastery, bringing both Shangtzu and the recovered scroll.  Shangtzu protests that he did not steal the scroll, that young Caine lent it to him.  Because young Caine owes Shangtzu his life, the boy monk does lie for the thief. Master Po knows better but intercedes for the life of the scheming magician, and then meditates on the loss of Caine’s “innocence.”

 

In this episode Caine does not perform any metaphenomenal feats.  However, the next one, “The Praying Mantis Kills,” shows him once more exercising his Taoist charisma to call a stallion mourning its dead mate.

 

“Mantis” takes its name from one of Caine’s anti-killing parables: when a character kneels to pray prior to fighting for his life, Caine reminds him of the praying mantis, an insect that looks as if it is praying just before it kills.  As always, Caine’s attempts to avoid the ethic of retribution, as seen in the episode "An Eye for an Eye," cause him to be labeled a coward by those who believe that retribution is the answer to life’s difficulties.

 

Caine happens to be in a town when the Darrow Gang robs the bank.  The Darrows warn the people in the bank that they’ll kill anyone who identifies them.  One of the customers, Mrs. Roper, defies the thieves and they shoot her before the eyes of her husband.  Caine sees the criminals leave and gives their descriptions to the sheriff, in contrast to Mr. Roper who, like the other townspeople, fears the Darrows and will not testify.

 

The sheriff tells his deputy/son Martin to take Caine to their home to protect him from the robbers.  Caine, who can’t help displaying his unusual talents—horse-calming, shooting arrows to their targets without using his eyes-- takes a quasi-paternal interest in Martin.  Martin barely understands the Chinaman’s enigmatic ways.  He only wants to be a courageous defender of law and order like his father, but recognizes that Caine has unique strengths as well.

 

 

Caine also takes an interest in Roper, mourning his wife and feeling guilt for having not had the courage to identify his wife’s killers.  Caine, remembering the lessons of Master Po—that it is not cowardice, but rather “love of life,” to avoid unnecessary battle, tries to counsel Roper.  Roper, Martin, and Caine end up at the sheriff’s house when the Darrow Gang attacks.  Roper, who has never fought anyone before, manages to wound the gang-leader Hap Darrow.  The sheriff arrives and catches the gang in a crossfire, but before they flee one bandit manages to shoot Martin’s father fatally.

 

The bereaved Martin locks up Hap Darrow and waits for the other bandits to try to break out their leader.  Martin believes Caine a coward because in the previous scene Caine would not use a gun against their attackers.  Martin tries to get Roper to be the new sheriff, and though Roper agrees to help out, he admits that he’s a coward and is at peace with it because “it lets you know where you stand.”

 

Despite his admission of cowardice, Roper does stand with Martin when the robbers besiege the jailhouse. The bandits are only beaten because of Caine’s skillful intevention.  This makes it more than clear that Martin and Roper would have died without him.  Once again Caine’s ethic—that it is wrong to futilely cast one’s life away against hopeless odds—takes issue with the standard heroic ideal seen in the majority of westerns.  

 

“Superstition” is another naturalistic episode, even though it deals with dispelling both the ghosts of the past and the haunting spectre of capitalism.  Caine stumbles across a mining-town that seems almost deserted.  Judge Stern and his hirelings arrest Caine on a trumped-charge, so that he must join a mining-crew.  Caine learns that most of the town’s original populace fled due to superstitious fear when it was learned that the mine uncovered a tomb of Indian skeletal remains.  Lacking a willing labor force, Stern and his flunkies press-ganged both genuine outlaws and innocents into working the mine for them, under threat of torture and death.  Caine also learns that Stern has no intention of releasing any of his slaves.  Whether the workers are innocent or guilty of crimes, their enslavement keeps Stern's bank balance healthy.

 

Caine does not attempt to escape, accepting in Christ-like fashion the ordeal levied upon lesser men.  Sentenced, along with another man, to punishment in a “hot box,” he teaches his meditational skills to the other inmate, so that both survive the hostile temperature without suffering the usual torments.  “The prison is in your mind,” Caine advises, and his flashback deals with how Master Po taught him to transcend superstitious fears of death.

 

 Stern recognizes that Caine is more than an ordinary prisoner.  This is further proven when one of the miners dies in a cave-in.  The workers attempt to rebel against the judge and his armed men, but Caine refuses to fight, even though one of the miners labels him a coward.  The judge realizes that Caine is a threat to his operation; that the most formidable kind of leader is one who can infuse his followers with “hope and dignity,” because that can dispel the fear by which Stern controls the men.  Caine, in conversation with one of the miners, preaches that the miners must seek not to think in an “either-or” manner, that they must either die in the mines or by the gunfire of the judge’s men: they must “claim” their destiny as men.

 

Fittingly, Stern decides to propound a new “superstition” to dispel Caine’s power.  Stern’s man Bannock commands Caine to dig in a certain spot in the mine, knowing that Caine will uncover Indian bones.  Bannock then plans to kill Caine so that it will seem as though he died from an Indian curse, thus depriving men of a potential leader as well as infusing the workers with a new superstitious fear.  Bannock’s plan backfires: his attempt to kill Caine foments a cave-in, trapping Caine, Bannock, and three other men in the mine.  Caine must teach all of them—even his enemy—how to relax so as to not use up their dwindling air supply.  Above ground, the other prisoners dig furiously to reach the entombed men.  In so doing, in demonstrating their loyalty to men who may already be dead, they throw off their fear of the judge’s actions, ignoring his commands that they desist.  Stern, unable to command men with dignity, flees the mine.  The survivors are rescued.  It’s mentioned that a local marshal will be summoned to make sure the illegal press-gang never re-organizes.  But the essential struggle here has not been that of law versus crime, but of life finding ways to stave off death— which fittingly is twice represented by fears of premature entombment, both in the “hot box” and in the mine.