TARZAN AND THE SLAVE GIRL (1950)

 

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

SLAVE GIRL was the second Tarzan film to star Lex Barker, and the second-and-last to be directed by Lee (“Roll ‘Em”) Sholem. The director’s sobriquet arose from his penchant for cranking out dozens of television episodes, most notably on “The Adventures of Superman.” That said, this 1950 entry in the RKO series of ape-man films is as well-directed as the best in the series. Possibly Sholem benefitted from the lively script, co-authored by Hans Jacoby, who had written the superior TARZAN ANDTHE AMAZONS and would later pen the enjoyable TARZAN’S SAVAGE FURY.

This entry eschews the trope of the ape-man being forced to repulse greedy white invaders from Tarzan’s version of Africa. This fantasy-jungle include no Black Africans, but two ostensibly “native” tribes: the Nagase, who look like Polynesians crossed with American Indians, and the Lionians, a city full of white people who apparently colonized Africa during some pre-Christian era. Tarzan (Barker) and his wife Jane (Vanessa Brown) learn that the Lionians have started raiding the Nagase and stealing women. Tarzan fights with some of the raiders, but despite putting his mark on one interloper—using a knife to give the man a nasty face-scar—most of the raiders escape with their bounty. The ape man takes a prisoner back to the Nagase, but when the Nagase attempt to question the invader, he drops dead from a mysterious disease, one that almost immediately claims the life of a nearby tribesman.

Tarzan now has a double mission: his quest to liberate the stolen women must take a back seat to finding a white doctor who can quell the disease. The ape-man seeks out a colonized city, eliciting one Doctor Campbell to come and treat the Nagase. The doctor brings along his sultry native nurse Lola (Denise Darcel, playing the role as a sort of blonde Polynesian), and Lola lets everyone know that she has a thing for Tarzan. In a matter of days Campbell cures the Nagase with a serum, at which point the doctor volunteers to accompany Tarzan on his rescue mission, with some idea of curing the Lionians of their highly communicable disease. However, the men don’t allow either Jane or Lola to go along, and Tarzan somehow talks his wife into providing Lola with guest quarters. This results in an above-average catfight between the jungle babes, but neither has time to lick any wounds, for another Lionian raiding-party shows up and abducts both women. (Technically, the movie’s title should reference “slave girls,” since the Lionians already have a harem full of pulchritude when Jane and Lola are added to the group.)

By some cinematic legerdemain, the Lionians and their cargo arrive at the city before Tarzan and Campbell make the scene. While Jane and Lola are awaiting rescue, they learn that the Lionians are so called because they worship lions, perhaps making them kissing cousins to a lion-worshipping tribe in Burroughs’ TARZAN AND THE CITY OF GOLD. The disease has taken most of the city’s women, thus motivating the raids, and though the young prince has recently inherited the throne thanks to his father’s passing, the new ruler’s own son is now dying of the contagion. Naturally, there’s also an evil high priest trying to manipulate the situation to his own ends, and who orders the rebellious Lola to be whipped (though the native woman recovers from the ordeal with remarkable rapidity). Thus, by the time Tarzan and Campbell arrive, the scene is set so that the doctor can win the Lionian ruler’s allegiance by saving his son, and the ape-man has a villain to fight. There’s a cool climax, in which Tarzan and the slave girls are entombed but get rescued by the jungle-man’s elephant squadron, and Lola’s blowsy eroticism is defused by pairing her off with a minor comic-relief character.

SLAVE GIRL is mostly just mindless fun, with the bride-stealing trope being the only element that received more portentous treatment in some of the Tarzan novels. Oddly, though Darcel provides one of the more significant support-characters, she gets next-to-last billing. Vanessa Brown, despite paying one of the tougher versions of Jane, was not invited back to the series.  

TERROR ISLAND (1920)

 

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

Like many silent films of the period, this one's missing some footage. However, because the film-- illusionist Harry Houdini's third bid for cinematic prominence-- is such a broad melodrama, modern viewers would probably never notice the lacunae if not for the latter-day inter-title detailing the missing parts.

One of the collaborators on the script was Arthur B. Reeve, who gained fame in the second decade of the 20th century with the prose character of "scientific detective" Craig Kennedy. The hero of TERROR ISLAND, the winsomely named Harry Harper, follows somewhat in that tradition, in that he's a scientific tinkerer who invents his own submarine, complete with "electric periscope." A young damsel enlists Harry's aid to find a South Sea treasure. The miracle sub, which doesn't get all that much screen-time, is the only source of metaphenomena in this one-hour feature.

As in some silent adventures of the period, the damsel's nemesis is someone close to her, in this case her guardian Job. Some time after the girl persuades Harry to join her cause, Job kidnaps her and sets out, by more conventional travel, to the treasure-bearing island. Harry and a young friend follow in the sub. In addition to altercations with Job's men, Harry and his friends are also menaced by superstitious islanders, all apparently played by white actors. Harry just happens to be a master of stage magic as well as an inventor, and his tricks convince the natives not to mess with the "white gods."

As with many films of this type, I screened largely to see if it provided an example of combative cinema. But though Harry gets into a couple of brawls, they're not as well choreographed as those from his serial THE MASTER MYSTERY. And since the fights seem incidental next to the emphasis on Harry's illusions and escapes from peril, I rate this as subcombative.

AVH: ALIEN VS. HUNTER (2007)

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

AVH is yet another crappy mockbuster from The Asylum, this time imitating the two ALIEN VS. PREDATOR films, the latter of which appeared the same year as this direct-to-video cheeseball. To be sure, neither of the AVP films were all that distinguished, either. But at least there was some basic appeal of crossing over two aliens, each of whom had starred in their own individual franchise-serials. Here, the Asylum satisfies the title by offering two aliens who descend to Earth to fight one another, while catching innocent humans in the middle. One E.T. is "the Alien" of the title, who's nothing but a big spider, while "the Hunter" is just a clone of the original Predator-- different armor of course, but a strong physical resemblance to the what the Predators look like beneath their armor, as well as having the same camouflage power.

Like many Asylum offerings, this one takes place in an unremarkable section of Californian forest, and the victimized humans occupy an out-of-the-way town. The viewpoint character is reporter Lee (William Katt, looking a long way from THE GREATEST AMERICAN HERO), and while a lot of junk-films could at least put across some basic conflict for his character, we only know that he's retreated to the small town because he's burned out on writing for some reason. He and a young woman witness a UFO crash to Earth and wreck a farmhouse, and they gather other locals to warn them of the danger-- at least once the others are convinced of the aliens' reality. Lee advocates the group's seeking out a local survivalist, Valentine, because he has a stock of weapons, and Lee and Valentine have bad blood, yada yada yada. Amid all the usual dithering the humans eventually figure out that one E.T. is hunting the other for sport, but even the heavy artillery of Valentine and his friends can't overcome alien powers and tech, so the film can't even handle the "men's adventure magazine" vibe put across by the original PREDATOR. From start to finish, it's a dull "humans-run-from-monsters" tale, and the only actor who comes off a little better than average is lead actress Deedee Pfeiffer, playing a woman who's apparently been lusting after Lee for ten years but only makes her move on him when the two of them are in deadly danger.

In the ALIEN/PREDATOR films, both E.T.s are the stars of the show, despite being opposed to one another. But the spider is not a co-equal member of the story, which devotes most of its narrative to the Predator rip-off, thus making "the Hunter" the star of this dismal show.

THE FUNHOUSE (1981)

 

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

Due to the period in which THE FUNHOUSE debuted, the film, Tobe Hooper’s third directorial effort, often gets lumped in with the slashers of the period. But though Larry Black’s script includes a few acknowledgements of the slasher-craze, the film bears greater resemblance to Hooper’s previous two examples of “rural horror.” The story starts off in suburbia—a frequent setting for many slashers. Yet that haven has been figuratively invaded by a traveling carnival. This "Carnival of Terror" (so termed in an alternate title for the film) plays host to the titular funhouse and its ruthless human inhabitants. Thus the carnival is in effect the “star of the show.”

An opening scene in the home of teenaged Amy, our viewpoint character, seems to be both evoking and refuting the opening of the film that launched the slasher-craze, John Carpenter’s HALLOWEEN, not to mention, more jokily, Hitchcock’s PSYCHO. Amy’s first seen taking a shower, but the camera cuts to show us a weird figure, face unseen, entering a room full of torture-implements. The stranger enters the bathroom and flings open the shower-door, and the viewer sees the grotesque mask he wears, just before he stabs Amy in the stomach—with a rubber knife. Then the camera pulls back enough to let us see that he’s a kid, roughly the same age Michael Myers was for his first murder. Once she's over her momentary shock, Amy tells little brother Joey that she plans to get back at him for this prank (though she never does so). In later scenes it’s clarified that Joey’s room is full of fake horror-implement, which makes the character something of a stand-in for hardcore horror fans. Black’s script suggests a correlation between the “safe” commercial horrors Joey devours and the “real” horrors of life with which Amy and three of her friends will soon confront.

That night Amy goes out on a four-person date, consisting of her, her gal-pal Liz, and their respective escorts Buzz and Richie. The outing also has the potential to be a transition-point for Amy, in that Liz is encouraging Amy to “give it up” to the burly Richie. It’s Richie who suggests that the group should take in a visiting carnival instead of a mundane movie, and the others acquiesce. Unbeknownst to any of them, kid-brother Joey decides to shadow them, apparently hoping to get an advance taste of adolescent mating-rituals. In his function, though, Joey is just a source of “false scares.” The boy never really experiences the Terror of the Carnival and ends up being sent home to his parents, since, despite his gory tastes, he really is just a kid.

The four teens take in the sights of the carnival as if they have no more reality than Joey’s horror-movies. Some of the sights are animatronic men and women who laugh or scream eerily—indeed, these crude simulacra are seen both in the opening credits and at the film’s conclusion—while other "attractions" are biological freaks, like a two-headed cow. Thus Black’s script confrontss living teenagers with two parodies of normality, and though the carnival is run by hardened professionals, such as the barker Conrad, the sleazy fairground becomes a figurative crossroads for those old friends, Sex and Death.

The four teens decide to plumb the carnival’s secrets by hiding on the grounds after the shows have all closed and the other patrons have left (except Joey, who copies the teenagers' actions). Joey, though, does not see what the transgressing teens do: an attempt at Sex that ends in Death. Gunther, a man wearing a Frankenstein’s Monster mask solicits sex from the aging lady fortuneteller, and though she accepts, she mocks him and he kills her. From then on the teens desperately seek to escape the menace of Gunther—whose mask conceals real horror, that of a distorted freak of nature—and his father Conrad, both anxious to wipe out the witnesses. Joey, not being one of these, gets sent home, but three of the four teens fall victim to the diabolical devices of the carnival’s Funhouse. Amy, an early candidate for the role of “Final Girl,” ends up being the last survivor of the chaos, forced to confront the half-mad monster in the heart of the Funhouse—though the relentless mechanical menaces therein play no favorites. Thus Gunther, despite being born to dark ways of the carnival, perishes while the traumatized teen lives on.

Though none of the teens are deeply characterized, the actors make them relatable enough that they don’t just seem like cannon fodder. John Beal’s score emulates the driving, repetitious music of the carny, underscoring the raucous gibbering of the animatronic figures so that they seem not unlike demons in hell mocking new arrivals.

ULTIMATE AVENGERS: THE MOVIE (2006)

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

I’ve read very few of Marvel Comics’ “Ultimates” line, and none of the ones I did read included any of the Avengers iterations. My partial impression of the line was that the imprint, which gave its creators the chance to “re-imagine” classic Marvel characters with different continuities, was not much more than putting old wine in modern-looking bottles. ULTIMATE AVENGERS is said to have only a loose connection to its comic book source, but nothing about the OAV makes me think the original had any marks of distinction, beyond putting forward some of the concepts and motifs that were used in the MCU’s live-action movies.

In ULTIMATE the superspy Nick Fury becomes the midwife of the Avengers, as he seeks to unite a group of individual superheroes in order to counter an alien threat. Fury’s wish list does not include the Hulk, who has built up his usual rep for mindless rampages. Yet as the story opens the Hulk is temporarily under control by his alter ego Bruce Banner, who keeps the big green guy suppressed with drugs, and who even works as a scientist for Fury’s organization SHIELD. (In this capacity Banner is joined by his sometime girlfriend Betty Ross, also a scientist in this re-imagining.) Fury does want to use the newly reborn WWII hero Captain America to lead the supergroup, but none of the other heroes seem enthusiastic. Iron Man, whose secret identity is not yet known to anyone else, ignores Fury’s overtures. So does Thor, who has apparently been exiled to Earth from Asgard and who spends his time helping out Greenpeace-like protesters. The Wasp is somewhat more approachable, but her partner Giant-Man has had some acrimonious relationship with Fury and rebuffs the first overture. Only the Black Widow seems entirely comfortable working for Fury, though the viewer never knows anything about her except that she has a Russian accent.

Eventually Fury manages to enlist the heroes into investigating the incursions of an alien race, the Chitauri. (These one-dimensional extraterrestrial evildoers were created for the Ultimates imprint and would later accrue greater fame for their role in the 2012 AVENGERS movie.) However, the aliens—who would appear in the one animated sequel to this film—immediately take a back seat to the Hulk’s forceful “audition” for team membership. Unbeknownst to Fury, Banner has been working on a secret project, aimed at nullifying the threat of the Hulk by infusing the monster with his own intelligence. The process works for a time, long enough for the green-skinned goliath to join the other heroes and to stamp out one contingent of invaders. However, the Hulk soon reverts to savagery and the heroes spend the rest of the film subduing the monster. There’s no final reconciliation that makes it feasible for the Hulk to become a member of this rather shaky association, though reportedly he’s on board for the film’s only sequel.

Banner and Captain America get the only character arcs, but both are pedestrian, and thus don’t register much better than the utter absence of characterization for the other heroes. Thus, the only selling points for the video are the fight-scenes, which are adequate but unremarkable. The cartoon’s only significance is as an example of what not to do in crafting an origin for the Avengers, and fans can be pleased that the producers of the 2012 live-action film did not derive anything but a few minor elements from this subpar outing.  

SSSSSSS (1973)

 

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

In some markets this film was titled SSSSSSSNAKE. A title more honest to its sluggish pace would have been SSSSSSSNAIL.

SSSSSSS feels like a throwback to 1940s B-movies about mad scientists coming up with weird new ways to kill their enemies with killer bats or homemade werewolves. During the fifties director Bernard Kowalski actually made a few SF-cheapies in a similar mode, such as NIGHT OF THE BLOOD BEAST and ATTACK OF THE GIANT LEECHES. But even a master of pacing couldn't have done anything with the poky script, co-written by one of the film's producers.

The old-fashioned B-films might have been simplistic, but at least they were generally efficient in getting across the mad scientist's passion for his discoveries and his motives for killing people. SSSSSSS, though, is so preoccupied with giving viewers an in-depth tour of snake-science that it neglects the personality of mad snake-scientist Stoner (Strother Martin). He runs a snake-sanctuary with his grown daughter, and though nothing's said of the presumably deceased Mrs. Stoner, daughter Kristina (Heather Menzies) has apparently grown up following in Dad's herpetologist footsteps. Later we'll learn that Stoner has disposed of one of his daughter's boyfriends by turning him into a snake-man, which might seem to suggest some Oedipal issues. However, Stoner doesn't seem the least interested in his daughter's sex life; he just nurtures some dim, Biblically-inspired conviction that mankind is going to bomb itself out of existence, and the only solution is to turn people into snakes. Yet Stoner doesn't have any grand plan to do so, and he's apparently content just to practice on whoever's at hand-- like his new assistant David (Dirk Benedict), who just happens to form a romantic relationship with Kristina.

The script throws in a couple of minor side-plots-- a scientific rival who gets too close to Stoner's secrets, and a muscle-brain (Reb Brown) who hits on Kristina. Stoner kills both of them with deadly serpents, but the deaths are far from compelling, and merely serve to burn up time until the paltry conclusion, which doesn't even give "monster" David the chance to turn on his demented "creator." There are a few interesting factoids about snakes, and some vague references to the Garden of Eden, but not enough to cause me to give the film anything but a poor mythicity rating.

TWO ON A GUILLOTINE (1964), PICTURE MOMMY DEAD (1966)

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

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS

Though I've taken a few shots at William Castle in various reviews, some of his 1960s rivals make him look like Hitchcock. A lot of directors tried their hands at "Gothic shockers" during that decade, and many of them didn't have even a rudimentary sense of how to stage such entertainments.

I don't know if William Conrad directed anything of note in stage or radio, but his IMDB credits tell me that before GUILLOTINE Conrad didn't get behind the camera for anything but episodes of TV serials. After this film his movies both for large and small screens don't strike me as anything very significant, so I suppose GUILLOTINE may have been the actor's first and last shot at the big time. To be fair, the movie's problem lies less with the director than with the screenplay, taken from a Henry Slesar prose story I've not read. In essence, the script reads like an attempt to do one of William Castle's Vincent Price potboilers, but with as little "Vincent Price" as possible. 

The "Price" character of GUILLOTINE is master stage-illusionist Duquesne (Cesar Romero). He's first seen fatally stabbing his wife Melinda (Connie Stevens)-- but no, it's just part of an act. Following the performance, the script vaguely sketches the idea of Duquesne as a perfectionist and possible egomaniac, more consumed with his next big trick than with the welfare of his wife and his small child Cassie. The opening suggests some familial tension without giving the viewer any substantive clues, and then finishes up with Duquesne showing off his new acquisition: a trick-guillotine-- demonstrating its deadly-looking illusion on Cassie's doll. (Foreshadowing, anyone?)

Twenty years later, reporters gather at the funeral of Duquesne. Still a showman in death, he's left orders that his coffin should be bound in chains before being committed to the earth, though at the same time he's claimed that he'll come back despite the chains. Not much is said about whatever happened to Melinda, though grown-up Cassie (also Stevens) attends the funeral, and viewers eventually learn that she was raised by other hands, and that Melinda is missing and presumed dead. Cassie finds out that the father she barely knew left her the sort of bequest familiar from many "old dark house" movies: she must reside for seven days in the family mansion before she inherits. However, though Cassie is hounded by reporters, one of them, Val (Dean Jones), insinuates himself into her life without telling her of his profession.

It's at this point that the script starts spinning its wheels. Cassie and Val explore the house, finding it full of Duquesne's old stage-gimmicks. One of Duquesne's old associates, formerly baby Cassie's caregiver, comes back into her life, but the movie soon finds itself alternating between dull romantic interludes between two leads with little chemistry and predictable jump-scares in the old house (one of which takes place in Cassie's dream).

Eventually GUILLOTINE trundles to its predictable climax, which is nevertheless the only scene that partly redeems the film-- and then, only because of Cesar Romero's bravura performance. The old caregiver is around at this point, finally deciding to come clean about how Duquesne tried his guillotine-trick on Melinda, accidentally killed her, and so went crazy. Nevertheless, he conveniently waited twenty years before faking his death and luring Cassie to the manse, apparently wanting to get the trick right this time, and somehow believing that Cassie is the same as Melinda. There's a fight, the guillotine comes down. This must have been enough action to satisfy audiences, since Conrad got a seven-picture deal out of GUILLOTINE. But on balance the only good thing that came of the movie is that Romero's portrait of a crazy man might have encouraged the producers of the 1966 BATMAN series to tap the actor for the role of the Joker.

Bert I' Gordon's entry into the the Gothic-shocker subgenre PICTURE MOMMY DEAD is dull and repetitious as well, and barely works out its psychological tropes any better than GUILLOTINE. In addition, MOMMY is a pretty blatant attempt to promote his daughter Susan Gordon to stardom, despite her rather limited talents as an actor. However, MOMMY provides a lot of vivid color photography, with decided emphasis on blood reds, and the movie gets good mileage out of its cast of familiar Hollywood faces.

Like GUILLOTINE, this flick also has a complicated backstory, though MOMMY starts out in real time, with Susan Shelley (Gordon) getting out of an asylum after seven years. Susan had a breakdown because her mother Jessica died in a terrible fire at the Shelley mansion, but now Susan is theoretically cured. She's looking forward to being reunited with her beloved father Edward (Don Ameche), but she receives an unpleasant shock when dear old dad brings along his new wife Francene (Martha Hyer), Edward's former assistant back when Jessica was still alive. Electra-complex issues are immediately suggested. Does young Susan really want to keep Daddy to herself? Did she bring about the supposedly accidental death of Jessica years ago, and will she now kill Francene to satisfy her obsessions?

When the trio arrive at the Shelley's rebuilt mansion, a final main character makes it a dysfunctional foursome: the caretaker Anthony (Maxwell Reed). It's vaguely suggested that he's a cousin to Susan on her mother's side, but the script does little with this element. More importantly, Anthony was around for the fire that killed Jessica, and he was burned by his futile attempt to save her (though the makeup doesn't suggest very strong scarring). With all this exposition, the four of them traipse around the lush mansion, very slowly dropping clues as to the secrets behind Jessica's death. It's still pretty slow going, but a few melodramatic moments and one gory killing spark some interest. The big reveal about Jessica (played very briefly in flashbacks by Zsa Zsa Gabor) proves a letdown, and though I will note here that Susan is not the killer, I tend to view her as the central character. To be sure, she doesn't do a hell of a lot in the film, but she's loosely comparable to the character of Janet in Jimmy Sangster's NIGHTMARE: someone whose psychology informs everything else the other characters do.