ONE PIECE: STRONG WORLD (2009)

 

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

I'd never attempt to review the multitudinous productions of ONE PIECE, the still-running manga and anime, any more than I'd take a shot at DRAGONBALL, the 1980s shonen that PIECE essentially superseded in popularity. Both are just too much of a time-commitment. But I can take a shot at the various movies and TV specials.

Phenomenality in ONE PIECE is problematic at best. It's not science fiction, nor what I call magical-era fantasy. The portmanteau term "science fantasy" is best, for it represents a world where all sorts of bizarre creatures and environments exist according to whatever phenomena the author wants to introduce-- much like the Mars books of Burroughs. Some characters in the PIECE universe use technology of a sort, but it's tech-gear filtered through the lens of historical fiction-- in this case, that of the Golden Age of Piracy. To further complicate the universe, there's some entity that scatters so-called "Devil Fruits" throughout the endless islands, and each fruit can bestow a particular, unique power on whoever eats one. So PIECE crosses the worlds of Burroughsian science-fantasy with that of superhero comics.

STRONG WORLD takes place after the manga and anime had been running roughly a decade, and stars nine-- count 'em, nine-- do-gooder pirates who never seem to find time to do the sort of things real pirates do. Instead, they're forever stomping out evil tyrants, or avenging little girls who've had their dollies messed up by bandits, and that sort of thing. In this case the goody-good "Straw Hat Pirates," led by the courageous moron Monkey D. Luffy, pit themselves against Shiki the Golden Lion, a villain who plans to dominate the world with a horde of mutated animals. In addition, Shiki abducts the Straw Hats' lissome lady navigator Nami to serve in his crew and scatters the other eight heroes all over the place. Naturally, after various exploits, they converge and kick the evildoer's ass.

Manga-creator Eichiro Oda wrote the movie's original story, and those in the know can see him recycling a major trope for the character Nami. When she first appears, she's the virtual slave of a petty ruler, and the Straw Hats rescue her. So WORLD is a partial reprise of that trope, with Shiki defeating the Straw Hats at first, so that Nami has to agree to serve him to spare her friends. The various "caring moments" in the film never overwhelm the big noisy action-scenarios but do serve as a necessary counterpoint.

ONE PIECE, which has been a major success in the world manga market, arguably found a way to translate the appeal of "superhero powers" to a shonen science-fantasy universe, and more than any other manga, seems to have eclipsed the American superheroes with the younger generations. WORLD is a decent action-fantasy programmer, with the only debit being that Shiki is just your usual tinpot tyrant. But the animators did a bang-up job designing all of the Golden Lion's malicious monsters, who provide some of the film's best moments.            

SANTO VS INFERNAL MEN (1961)

 

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

Seven years after Rene Cardona offered the iconic wrestler a shot at the silver screen, Santo finally took the plunge-- sort of.

I reviewed the first of these two Cuban-location films, and now I found on streaming a subtitled copy of SANTO VS INFERNAL MEN. Both movies decline to call the performer in the silver mask "Santo," and his character in both movies is a subordinate to another police agent-- Fernando Oses' "El Incognito" in BRAIN, and Joaquin Cordero's mufti drug-cop "Joaquin" here. The mad scientist plot would become far more typical of Santo's adventures under producer Rene Cardona, starting with SANTO VS. THE ZOMBIES.

Unfortunately, INFERNAL is dull from start to finish. I'm sure the producers of the Santo series threw in these mundane crime-films from time to time to save money, but I doubt any of them are very noteworthy. The only interesting aspect of the film is how many performers went on to play key roles in the Cardona lucha-verse: Gina Romand, Joaquin "Doctor Satan" Cordero, and Enrique Zambrano. In addition, one story is that while wrapping up INFERNAL, the movie crew found that Castro's forces were taking over the country. The story of the crew's escape from that entanglement would probably make a better movie than anything in this infernal waste of time.  

THE SILVER MASK MAN (1954)

 

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

SILVER MASK MAN, despite its name, was not the first Santo film. A handful of online references assert that producer Rene Cardona (Sr) wanted to begin a series of Santo films, starting with this 12-part serial. Santo had already started turning his wrestling persona into a franchise, starting with a Mexican comic book, but for whatever reason he didn't want to work on this project. My guess is that Cardona's lawyers told him he could get away with using the generic name of the hero as a title, as long as Cardona didn't claim that the hero was Santo. 

In the States cinematic serials had almost died out thanks to the competition of television, but it seems that the format lasted longer in Mexico, where individuals didn't as much access to TVs. Yet it seems that at some point the Mexican government forbade the release of chapterplays, and this forced some producers to rework their serial projects into three or more standalone movies, as happened with the three strongly-interrelated "Aztec Mummy" movies.     

However, despite Cardona having both directed and co-written the chapterplay, MASK is a really boring serial. Every opening chapter begins with the hero (whose name is not "Silver Mask Man," but "El Medico Asesino," more euphoniously rendered as "The Killer Doctor.") The Doctor, with barely any information, appears on the scene when the villainous El Lobo begins trying to take over the world with a weather-control machine. However, as soon as The Doctor starts wading into Lobo's small army-- and the script just forgets about the super-weapon. All twelve episodes look pretty much the same. Lobo's goons lay a new criminal plan, the Doctor interferes, he's almost killed by some contrivance. The only exciting moment appears at the beginning of each credit-roll: as The Doctor is seen riding heroically toward the audience. I couldn't place the music, but it sounded very familiar, and I wouldn't be surprised if Cardona didn't swipe the opening from a Republic serial, since every part of MASK seems a dead-on emulation of the Republic style.

     

THE TESTAMENT OF ORPHEUS (1960}

 

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

I confess one of the reasons I revisited both of Jean Cocteau's famous "Orpheus" films is because this one, 1960's TESTAMENT OF ORPHEUS, was rumored to include an appearance by Brigitte Bardot, who passed the previous month. By all indications, the pouty-lipped blonde above is not Bardot, but Annette Stroyberg, the Bardot-lookalike whom director Roger Vadim married immediately after he and Dear Brigitte divorced.

But once one knows that-- so what? I'm sure Cocteau fooled a lot of French people with the Bardot-imposture. And though TESTAMENT has no cast members credited except for "The Poet" (Cocteau himself), some players are iconic enough to compel recognition, such as Yul Brynner and Jean Marais, while others are famous primarily for their roles in ORPHEUS, as with Princess Death (Maria Casares) and Heurtebise (Francoise Perier). Toward the picture's end Cocteau the Poet tells the audience that he included these celebrities (hence the lack of advertising) because he considered them his "friends." But then why the Bardot imposture? Because she was not his "friend?" More likely, as in most of TESTAMENT's set-pieces, he just threw in anything that appealed to his sense of fun. The characters that Cocteau channels from ORPHEUS aren't really faithful recreations of the originals; they're more like playing cards whom the poet reshuffles for a new game.

I could go into great mythopoeic detail about why I think Cocteau chose (say) to have his poet-self killed off by Athena (Claudine Auger), a deity not predominantly associated with poetry. But in most if not all the film's bewildering set-pieces, Cocteau juxtaposes banal imagery with profound imagery, as if he's trying to confound even his ardent fans. Could he be trying to say that both the banal and the profound are inextricable parts of real experience? Qui sait? I critiqued this Bob Burden's FLAMING CARROT story on the theory that Burden did have a linear narrative hidden beneath all the attempts at randomness. But I won't attempt that with Cocteau, because I feel as if every profound image is meant to be undermined by random occurrences that mean nothing to anyone but Cocteau and possibly his inner circle. For that reason, I term TESTAMENT an "irony" rather than a drama like ORPHEUS, given that in Cocteau's farewell film it's possible to choose any particular set of images over any other.

If TESTAMENT has any sort of structure, it might be a sort of career overview/confessional poem, in which the artist celebrates all of his favorite creations and/or motifs. Cocteau died three years after the film's release. I don't know if the French artist knew the works of Irish poet Willliam Butler Yeats. However, one of the last poems Yeats released before his passing, "The Circus Animal's Desertion," includes a strong resemblance to TESTAMENT's apparent theme in the verse's closing stanza.

Those masterful images because completeGrew in pure mind but out of what began?A mound of refuse or the sweepings of a street,Old kettles, old bottles, and a broken can,Old iron, old bones, old rags, that raving slutWho keeps the till. Now that my ladder's goneI must lie down where all the ladders start

In the foul rag and bone shop of the heart.   

  

 

       

   

ORPHEUS (1950)

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

              

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

THE LEGEND OF FRENCHIE KING (1971)

 

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

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

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

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

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

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