PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

The Private Life Of Sherlock Holmes

The Private Life Of Sherlock Holmes is a 1970 Billy Wilder film. Wilder co-wrote the screenplay with his long time collaborator writer-producer I A L Diamond. I've been a big fan of Billy Wilder since before I knew who he was. As a teen I saw Stalag 17, The Seven Year Itch, Some Like It Hot, One Two Three and 2 or 3 others. Most are comedies and I would have been attracted to them at the time. They were pretty popular movies and they played on TV regularly. I don't remember going to see The Private Life Of Sherlock Holmes when it came out but I did see Avanti! which came out 2 years later. Wilder made 3 more movies after that but I don't remember seeing any of them. I have several on DVD but I don't watch them too often. Mind you that could be said of many DVDs here.

The Private Life Of Sherlock Holmes had been originally planned to be a longer road show picture but the studios had had a run of bad luck with the prvious years road show films and the word came down to cut it to theatrical length. It got chopped up and turned into the movie we see today.

Billy Wilder said of this film in the book 'Conversations with Wilder' by Cameron Crowe, "... when I came back [from Paris], it was an absolute disaster, the way it was cut. The whole prologue was cut, a half-sequence was cut. I had tears in my eyes as I looked at the thing...It was the most elegant picture I've ever shot." (Wikipedia)

I read the book of interviews with Wilder and really enjoyed it. Some of the cut scenes were restored as best as could be and the end result runs about 50 minutes. It would have been nice to have the film restored to the road show version but the film and sound elements are incomplete and it wouldn't add anything to the film to include them in that state. I found the DVD at the library and since I hadn't seen the missing footage before it seemed like the thing to take home. There's a nice making of featurette on the disc too.

Going left to right that's Colin Blakely as Dr. Watson, Christopher Lee as Mycroft Holmes and Robert Stephens as Sherlock Holmes. A beautiful Russian ballerina comes to visit Holmes to ask him to impregnate her so she will have an exceptional baby. A little later Holmes takes on the case of the missing engineer. 

Geneviève Page is Gabrielle Valladon, she's the missing engineer's wife. Holmes and Watson fish her out of the Thames, hear her story, and take her case. The investigation take Holmes and Watson all about and they finally wind up in Scotland where they find Mycroft and the Lock Ness Monster. Some naughty monks turn up and steal Nessie, to their sorrow.

It's a nice looking movie, lots of good sets and good props and effects. The story is pretty good and there's a fair bit of humor. I enjoyed it and would watch it again.

Science Fiction Sunday 333

The Curse Of Fenric is the 155th serial and it first aired October 25 to November 15 1989. It's the 2nd last serial of the 26th season. Sylvester McCoy is the Doctor and Sophie Aldred is Ace. The story was written by Ian Briggs and it was directed by Nicholas Mallett. The Wikipedia says that Producer John Nathan-Turner did some uncredited direction. Andrew Cartmel is the script editor and Mark Ayers is the music composer.

The Tardis pops up at a WWII British naval installation near Maiden's Point on the Northumbrian coast. It's all rocks and sea, very sparse and forbidding. The military is there to intercept German coded messages and translate them using the ULTIMA supercomputer. Think the Enigma Machine and Alan Turing. Ian Briggs said he based Dr Judson on Turing. Here Judson is using the computer to translate some ancient runes found in a nearby church cellar. Unfortunately the runes are part of the curse of Fenric and that whole bit of business turns people into evil vampire-like Haemovores.

Russian commandoes have come to take the ULTIMA back to Moscow. They come up against the British and the monsters and hardly anyone survives. The leader of the British forces, Commander Millington, has something going on with Dr Judson. They want to use the power of Fenric to conqueror the world. Of course the Doc has an opinion on that and since it's his show you can guesss what will happen.

Some of Ace's back story is revealed, she hates her mother and doesn't like to swim. The baby in the show turns out to be her mother. Fenric is revealed to be an ancient evil that the Doctor has faced before. He had beaten him with a chess problem. This time he'll beat him with something a bit stronger. The Doctor reveals that he had created the time storm that put Ace on Iceworld where they would later meet. It's a fairly dense story with lots going on. There's a good villain who gets his in the end. The monsters are ok and there's a good bit of action and running about. Sadly now that the show has become more interesting they will stop it.

There's a commentary with Sylvester McCoy, Sophie Aldred and Nicholas Parsons who played Rev Wainwright. It's a 2 DVD set that has more than the normal share of extras and they were the usual interesting lot. The first disc has the 4 part serial as it was transmitted, the second disc has a Special Edition of the story, taking out repeat credits and adding 12 minutes of material that was originally trimmed for time. The 4 part version runs 97 minutes and the SE is 103 minutes long. The music has been redone and the effects people fixed up and added to the material in the serial. It looks really nice and it's a better version of the story.

Friday Night Movies 524

Joe brought a copy of Adam Green's Digging Up The Marrow. It's a horror parody with Adam and people around him playing themselves. Green has a few horror movies under his belt. I've seen Hatchet 2, Chillerama and part of Spiral. The first was ok, the segment of Chillerama that Green worked on was funny but not my favorite, and I couldn't finish Spiral. It's just a serial killer story. The story in Digging Up The Marrow is horror genre mixed with reality show. It was born out of real material that was created by artist Alex Pardee. He sent it to Green and they worked on the film together.

Ray Wise plays a man named William Dekker who knows that there are monsters out there, living underground. He claims what they are is deformed humans who move away from normal folk. They find each other and hide in underground homes. Over the years they have a network of subterranean cities all over the US. He's found several entrances over the years he's been researching this and he's seen a number of the creatures. He's got illustrations but no photos. Adam wants real proof and that leads to a struggle with William. No lights and little intrusion on the creatures, because William doesn't want to scare them. In the past they have sealed up the entrance to the underground city and disappeared from the area when they felt they were being observed to closely.

Adam plays himself as an annoying and pushy filmmaker who causes trouble for William, all in the name of finding real monsters. They do get proof that monsters exist and it turns out pretty badly for Adam and worse for William. I liked the premise but it turned out to be better than the execution. It's mostly entertaining but there are lulls at times. It scores a 5.9 on the IMDb and it's about that, maybe a bit less. Not something I need to buy and I doubt I'd bother watching it again. It at least has a bit of uniqueness and there is Ray. Yay for Ray!!

I had seen back Doctor Mordrid back in 1992 when it came out and I don't think I had seen it since. It's a Full Moon Video production that was directed by Albert Band and his son Charles. Albert has died since the movie was made but Charles still continues to make films. We recently watched his second Killer Bong movie. They aren't film makers that one needs to follow, occasional random contact is more than enough.

Lucky for us Doctor Mordrid is a good bit better than the average Band film. Of course the films they made in the early part of their careers are a fair bit better than the more current productions. Doctor Mordrid is played by Jeffrey Combs, and like Ray Wise, he's a fellow that the bunch of us enjoy watching. The character was supposed to be the Marvel Comics character Doctor Strange but the rights lapsed before the film got made but they went ahead and made the film about Doctor Mordrid.

Somewhere in another dimension naughty wizard Kabal has escaped from prison and he's gone to Earth to open a door and let some demons out to trash the world. Doctor Mordrid lives in New York where he monitors the news on a wall of TVs. He spots some crimes that indicate Kabal is collecting elements which could be used to augment his powers, then he could open the demon door.

Yvette Nipar plays Samantha, a police consultant who lives in the same building as the Doc. At work she notices a symbol on a dead woman, Kabal's handy work, and she sends the annoying loud mouthed cop to see the Mordrid. The cop arrests the Doctor and locks him up. Things with Kabal's plan come to a head while Mordrid works on getting his magical amulet back and escaping. He has a showdown at a history museum with Kabal who has come there to use the Philosopher's Stone. He needs it to mix his magical demon door opening potion. Kabal animates the bones of a T-Rex to attack Doctor Mordrid. The Doc animates a second set of dino bones to fight back. He's victorious but has to leave Earth because he's blown his cover or some such. He pops back and takes Samantha with him.

Mostly it was ok but nothing great. It scores a 6 on the IMDb and that's about what it is. Brian Thompson plays a good evil wizard and the rest of the cast are good enough for what they have to do. The script is the weakest part of the film but it gets the job done and gets everyone to the end of the movie, unless they were killed. The effects were ok, pretty standard, but the stop motion dino bone fight by David Allen stands out. I had forgotten pretty much all the details from seeing it 23 years ago. I don't know if I'd wait 23 more years to see it again but who knows.

Half Human

Half Human is a 1955 Japanese film that was directed by Ishirō Honda. This was his second Kaiju film after directing the first Godzilla film. He go on to make many more monster films for Toho, like Godzilla Rides Again, Rodan, The Mysterians, Mothra, The Human Vapor and plenty of others. Special effect wiz Eiji Tsuburaya and producer Tomoyuki Tanaka worked with Honda on Godzilla and they teamed up again for this film. They would go on to create a lot more great Toho SF and monster films over the next several years.

According to Wikipedia Japan, the film has been removed from circulation due to the original version depicting the inhabitants of the remote village similar to the Ainu people as being deformed from generations of inbreeding as well as showing backwards and violent behaviour. However, no such reference is made in the film's dialogue, but for this reason broadcasters and media publishing companies have refrained from showing it. - Wikipedia page for the movie.

The movie is about a group of college students that go on a skinning holiday. A couple of them get lost and are murdered. The find the bodies and it looks like a big animal attacked them. The movie moves along and they eventually encounter the monster. There's plenty of death along the way and the movie ends sadly for the big guy.

There's two versions of the film, the 1955 Japanese film running 94 minutes and the 1958 US version which runs 64 minutes. The 1958 nationwide U.S. release of this film took sequences of Jujin Yuki Otoko and added extensive new scenes starring John Carradine and featuring Morris Ankrum and two lesser-known American actors, and the entire soundtrack was replaced with American stock music cues, sound-effects, and voice-over narration by Carradine replacing all dialogue in the Japanese scenes. Toho's costume for the snowman's son was even imported by the new film's makers and used in a scene where the creature has supposedly just been autopsied by Ankrum and is seen lying on an operating table. Including the extensive American footage, this version runs only 63 minutes in total. - Wikipedia page from the movie.

Someone lent me a bootleg of the two films on DVDr. There is no official Japanese DVD and the US version only came out on a VHS tape. There are 5 copies of the tape on Amazon starting at $48.98. The bootleg DVDr doesn't look as bad as it might but it's all a bit fuzzy. The Japanese film is a much better film, as you might expect, and even for a monster in the ski lodge type story it was ok. I could see where they didn't treat the natives well. It still would be worth having a nice restored DVD of the Japanese film. Here's a couple of pictures of the Abominable Snowman meeting Godzilla on the Toho Studio Lot.

The Buccaneer 1938

I found a copy of the 1938 Cecil B DeMille film The Buccaneer at the library. I don't know if I had seen it before, if I did it would have been when I was a kid. DeMille isn't a film maker that I care much about. I don't have any of his films and don't plan on buying any. The movie has a screenplay by Harold Lamb, Edwin Justus Mayer and C. Gardner Sullivan with some uncredited help from Grover Jones and Jesse Lasky Jr. It was adapted by Jeanie Macpherson from the novel Lafitte the Pirate by Lyle Saxon.

I do like Fredric March and I do like pirates so I took a chance. Turns out it was fun to watch and I'm glad I saw it. There's plenty of action, comedy and a bit of history. I like a bunch of people in the cast, Akim Tamiroff, Walter Brennan, Anthony Quinn, Beulah Bondi, Spring Byington, so that was nice. Now that I've seen it I doubt I would need to buy one.

The Legend of Hercules 2014

Reny Harlin is a hit or miss director for me and The Legend of Hercules is a big miss for me. The story isn't very interesting and the guy playing Hercules isn't that good. There's not much going on in the movie that makes he want to watch it again. Better I should watch one of the better Reny Harlin movies, like The Long Kiss Goodnight.

Gate Of Flesh 1964

Gate Of Flesh is a 1964 Japanese film directed by Seijun Suzuki while he was working at Nikkatsu. He's one of my favorite Japanese directors, he favors delightfully gritty crime stories with a dash of social commentary. I'm slowly working my way through his films. He's got a good stack of them and many are out here in the US. The movie is set in post World War II Tokyo and it's about the lives of several prostitutes that work out of a bombed out building. They have grouped together into a sort of family and they have a pact. No giving it away for free. You do and the other girls gang up and kick your ass. Joe Shishido is an ex-soldier who gets shot running from the police. He holes up with the girls for a while, the ladies come to like him, and that puts a strain on their pact.

One of the girls falls for Joe but that's a bad choice on her part. Joe's a doomed man and her life isn't going to get any better putting in with that sinking ship. Joe's not the sort of man a woman should settle down with, he lives the criminal life all too well.

The movie is colorful, noisy, violent, sexy and 90 minutes. It moves along well and the story is fairly interesting. The Criterion DVD looks great and there are some good extras. I thought it was well worth watching. It might not be my favorite Suzuki movie, Branded To Kill and Tokyo Drifter are still at the top of the list, but it was well worth seeing and I will want to watch it again.  

The Trip To Italy 2014

The Trip To Italy is a 2014 British film by Michael Winterbottom. It's the sequel to his TV series The Trip. Rob Brydon and Steve Coogan travel through Italy visiting various restaurants and visiting places that the romantic poets had visited. They did a similar thing in the series but in northern England. I liked the series but didn't find this to be as entertaining. It seems there's more drama than food and locations. I certainly wouldn't bother watching it again and I like Rob Brydon.

Hercules 2014

I found the DVD for Hercules at the library and took it home with me. It's got Dwayne Johnson as Hercules, I like the guy and I like the Hercules character and his mythology. The movie is directed by Brett Ratner who directed the Rush Hour series and X-Men: The Last Stand. I hadn't been watching his last 2 or 3 films, the last one I saw was Rush Hour 3 in 2007.  Hercules was written by Ryan J. Condal and Evan Spiliotopoulos, whom I hadn't ever heard of before. The first guy hadn't done any features before and most of the second guys output has been straight to video sequels for Disney.

Hercules is part of a group of mercenaries that hire on with Lord Cotys. He wants Hercules to train the armies of Thrace to defend the kingdom from bloodthirsty warlord Rhesus. Cotys sends them to defend the Bessi but when they get there Rhesus has turned the tribe against the Thracians. There's a big battle and the Thracians head home for more training. Then there's a big battle with Rhesus and his army. He's defeated and put on display. Hercules gets betrayed and him and his gang have to kick a lot of ass. There's a huge amount of collateral damage to the city and the palace. Hera's temple doesn't fare well after being subjected to an orgy of fire and smashing bricks. It's an effects heavy movie with a fairly good story. I liked the take on Hercules, is he a real son of a God? Maybe. Hard to say, at least until he gets his rage on. There's a good cast in Dwayne, whom I usually seem to enjoy. He has a natural screen presence. He got a nice bunch of co-workers, Ian McShane, Rufus Sewell, Ingrid Bolsø Berdal and John Hurt. There's plenty of action and fighting. I didn't think I would need to buy a copy but I'm glad that I took it home and looked it over. 

22 Jump Street

I watched 22 Jump Street the other day and enjoyed it for the most part. It's a 2014 sequel to the 2012 film 21 Jump Street which put the 1970's TV show into a feature film with Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum. It's written by Michael Bacall, Oren Uziel, and Rodney Rothman, with a story by Bacall and Hill. The movie is directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller. Their previous movies were the two Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs films, 21 Jump Street and The LEGO Movie.

Ice Cube is Channing and Jonah's boss at the 22 Jump Street station. The 21 Jump Street station got wrecked and they moved across the street. Cube's daughter goes to the same college as the guys are assigned, that will be important for some laughs later. Someone is selling a rug called Whyphy and that person killed a man who got close to the source of the drug. They guys get involved with the students as they go about their investigation. It takes a while to get to the criminals so the middle of the movie is filled with college problems as the guys try to adjust to their new life. Clues are found and leads followed. Jonah Hill breaks a lot of stuff in his day to day work and some of that was a bit funny. I find he gets a bit tiring at times, not so bad here as some other movies. There's a bit of romance and Jonah gets tazered for his part in it. That was funny. I don't think I laughed as much as I did at the first one but I still enjoyed myself. Certainly more laughs than I had when watching the whole TV series a couple of years ago. I did like some of the sequels planned, they show title cards at the end of the movie. There really is a third movie in the works, the first two made loads of moola, but somehow I don't think they will get to all of these.