THE SKULL (1965)

 

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

Many years ago, I read Robert Bloch's short story "The Skull of the Marquis de Sade," in which a collector of rare objects gets hold of said skeletal remnant. It was a good, rousing story, even though I recognized that its premise-- that the skull was haunted by the Marquis' evil spirit, due to his having been a demon-worshipping sorcerer-- was nonsense. The prose story worked because so much of it took place within the head of the protagonist, slowly becoming aware of his curio's threat. 

There are many good short stories that can be fruitfully expanded into feature-length movies, but "Skull" was not one of them. The studio Amicus had some luck with anthology movies, and I suspect that SKULL might have started out with someone tagging the Bloch story for anthology-adaptation. But someone else decided that it could be expanded into the feature-film and even hired Bloch to turn his tale into a screenplay, with input from Amicus producer Milton Subotsky.

But the story "Skull" has nothing to it beyond another iteration of "He meddled with forbidden things," and if you take away the intensity of the protagonist's growing fear of the growing menace, what you have is a talky story about art collectors putzing around looking for objets d'art, and sometimes dealing with skeevy, illicit dealers. Collector Maitland (Peter Cushing) has no particular reason for collecting occult objects; he does so just because the story says that he does so. The script might have worked had the Skull manipulated Maitland into becoming a pitiless murderer, anxious to protect his "precious." But in one of the few moments where Maitland commits murder-- killing an old friend (Christopher Lee) -- director Freddie Francis seems to underplay the scene, robbing it of any emotional intensity.

SKULL's only good scene appears halfway through the film. For some reason the Skull, apparently possessed of its late owner's malevolent intelligence, puts Maitland through a nightmare in which he's arrested by policemen and taken before a judge who forces the collector to play a game of Russian roulette. But this one scene is not enough to pull THE SKULL out of its slough of despond.

                             

THE LONG HAIR OF DEATH (1964)

 

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

**SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS**

Roughly four years after the international success of Bava's BLACK SUNDAY, director/co-writer Antonio Margheriti made two 1964 horror films with Bsrbara Steele. Of the two, I've always thought the less heralded LONG HAIR OF DEATH the better offering. HAIR seems designed to be the obverse of SUNDAY, as in "sympathy for the witches," though in comparison to that film, Margheriti's is replete with a lot more twisty melodrama. 

At the end of the 15th century, tyrannical Euro-noble Count Humboldt orders the burning of an accused witch, Adele Karnstein. (The last name is certainly borrowed from LeFanu's central character in CARMILLA, though it doesn't carry any special symbolism.) Humboldt believes that Adele cast a spell that killed his brother Franz, though some years later the noble will learn that his own grown son Kurt killed his uncle to secure the family's power. I bring this up because some reviews claim that Humboldt is executing Adele out of lust for her body. The confusion may stem from the fact that on the night scheduled for Adele's execution, the accused's grown daughter Helen (Steele)-- also suspected of witchcraft-- sneaks into the count's castle to plead for her mother's life. Humboldt offers to delay the execution while the two of them make love, having told Kurt not to proceed until he's present. But Kurt is in a hurry to knock off his patsy and orders the witch killed. Adele dies amid threats of supernatural vengeance while her pre-teen daughter Elizabeth looks on. Helen learns that her sacrifice was for nothing, and she flees the castle, but the count doesn't want her spreading nasty rumors, so he tosses her off a waterfall. But as if inviting a serpent into his own bower, Humboldt also adopts Elizabeth as his own ward.     

Roughly a decade passes, during which Elizabeth grows into young womanhood (Halina Zalewska, who also plays Adele). She's first seen mourning at the grave of her sister Helen, and then vaguely menaced by Kurt, who wants to marry her despite what his father says about her "witchy" looks. Clearly any supernatural vengeance is going to be channeled through innocent-seeming Elizabeth, the same way Katya, descendant of evil Asa in SUNDAY. was the medium through which the evil witch worked her will. However, Elizabeth apparently doesn't have any conscious magic mojo, because Kurt uses his royal power to force her into marriage. So even though Kurt doesn't know that his father deflowered Helen, here we have the makings of a cross-generational incestual pattern. 

Time passes, and in line with Adele's final curse, plague strikes the land. Elizabeth prays to her sister's grave for counsel, which may lead to the next big event: lightning strikes the grave and restores life to Helen-- though when she appears at the Humboldt's door, she pretends to be an amnesiac stranger named Mary. The sight of the woman he killed strikes Humboldt dead, putting Kurt fully in charge.

At this point one might expect a pretty linear path in which Helen/Mary (who also in a sense Adele as well) takes vengrance on Kurt, who caused Adele's death and who violated Elizabeth, albeit under the auspices of formal marriage. However, the script takes an odd turn in that Elizabeth-- who may have brought Helen back in the first place-- has become possessive, if not actually enamored, of her husband, and doesn't like it when Kurt starts moving in on Mary. History seems to repeat itself as Kurt makes love to the Helen-Doppelganger even as his father made love to the original. Elizabeth, far from collaborating with her sister-semblance, considers stabbing Kurt from behind but can't pull it off.

Kurt plans to kill off his wife in order to possess Mary. who has continued to sleep with the evil ruler but doesn't seem in a big hurry to knock him off. Then she changes her mind and conspires to drug Elizabeth and entomb her alive. This section feels like the scripters trying to extend the run-time with a meandering salute to Poe's "Premature Burial," and it has the consequence of crippling the momentum of the plot. Kurt goes through the whole rigamarole of wife-murder, and the next day, his courtiers act like she's still walking around healthy as a horse, though Kurt never catches sight of her.

Then things get freakier still, as Kurt conveniently finds a document left behind by Franz, the uncle he murdered. The paper tells him that Franz left provisions to acknowledge that he left behind a bastard daughter by the witch Adele, who is none other than Elizabeth. Therefore not only did Kurt sleep with two women who were his half-sister and her sister, Humboldt slept with a woman in a sibling relationship to his niece. These revelations upset Kurt's sense of control as the court prepares for the ritual sacrifice of a human-sized effigy by fire-- but when the supernatural vengeance finally falls, guess who winds up inside the effigy?

There's a lot of good potential in the script, which was also co-written by Ernesto Gastaldi, one of the premiere giallo writers. The problem with HAIR-- whose title makes no sense whatever-- is that it takes too long to deliver the vengeance, and that, when it does come, it seems a routine turnabout at best, with none of the personal touches of a really great revenge-dish.

           

ONE PIECE: Z (2012)

 

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

This OP movie draws more than did STRONG WORLD upon the social matrix created in Eichiro Oda's manga. Said matrix isn't concerned very much with anything but the ongoing contest between the seemingly endless pirates preying upon shipping in this predominantly aqueous environment, and the dedicated forces of the Navy, who seek to end all piracy. Both groups include a number of powerful people, some of whom have "Devil Fruit" powers-- all to furnish the nine "Straw Hat Pirates," the world's only "heroic pirates," with as many colorful opponents as you could shake a shonen at.     

Z is named for its villain and does a good job of inserting a cool new character into OP's ongoing continuity. The fellow's real name is Zephyr, and I'll call him that from now on. to distinguish the character from the movie's title. As a young man, Zephyr joins the Navy and distinguishes himself as a brave comrade and a master planner. He grows old in the Navy's service and becomes a trainer for many younger marines. But tragedy strikes, when a pirate with Devil Fruit powers kills Zephyr's family. Zephyr does his best to knuckle down and continue the law-abiding ways of the Navy. But a second tragedy strikes, when pirates massacre a ship at sea. Only Zephyr and two other officers, Ain and Binz, survive. And so Zephyr becomes devoted to a new cause: to eradicate the evil of the pirates, even if it means eradicating the world that pirates, marines, and civilians hold in common. To this end he arms himself with an artificial arm made of a material that's like kryptonite to Devil Fruit users. However, he oddly encourages his two officers to take on such powers, so they can raid a naval base for a special weapon. 

Their attack backfires, and Zephyr is hurled out to sea by an explosion. The Straw Hats find him, and he receives medical care from the ship's doctor, Tony Chopper. (I'm still not going to hold forth on the qualities of all nine crewmembers, but Tony's a good example of the manga's wacky inventiveness, for he's an anthropomorphic reindeer who varies between a "little cute form" and a "big brawny form.") Zephyr's two henchmen show up right about the time Zephyr wakes up and realizes he's among pirates. Zephyr, Ain and Binz fight the Straw Hats, who are wanted for various crimes though they never actually commit acts of piracy. Zephyr and company escape, but Ain's Devil Fruit power ensures that the Straw Hats will have to follow, for she causes four members of the crew-- Robin, Nami, Brook and Chopper-- to de-age by twelve years each. This development furnishes most of the movie's humorous byplay, of course.

Z does feel weightier than many other OP excursions, and that's probably because the script consistently elucidates that all the seekers in Oda's world, even merciless pirates, are pursuing "dreams" of some sort, and that even evil dreams are part of existence-- while the justice Zephyr seeks would eliminate all dreams, and all life. Yet Zephyr remains a mighty, admirable figure in his destructive quest for justice, and he and the Straw Hats' leader Luffy have a particularly strong battle at the climax. This is much more Luffy's film than anyone's, though everyone in the heavy ensemble does get some time, and there are various appearances of other characters whom a viewer will be expected to know from the comics. I can't quite claim that Z's theme reaches into very deep sociological resonance, but it's not just another wildly violent/wacky shonen either.      

          

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.