PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Friday Night Movies 811

The Gallows 2015 Absolutely annoying film about some mostly horrible high school students doing a play about a hanging. It's a found footage film that's an eye sore. It makes my eyes sore. Twenty years ago the school players produced the same play and young man named Charlie was accidentally hung when the trick noose failed. Now, it's twenty years later and his spirit is killing off the cast, or something like that. There's plenty of whining and screaming, doors slamming and things jumping out at you. The brain staggering whip pans that are more annoying than scary, they can fuck off. It was cheap to make, $100,000, and it made $43 million. Yay, on their money making skills, maybe they can make a better film with out all the gimmicks. Be nice if they could put in some more interesting characters. I hope I don't run into the sequel from last year.

Hangman's Curse 2003 Based on a Christian novel by Frank Peretti, screenplay by Kathy Mackel and Stan Foster, directed by Rafal Zielinski.

I saw David Keith was in this DVD that I think came from Dollar Tree. I think all the films today came from there, I'd hate to have paid more than a dollar for these. I keep hoping to come across that gem but so far not even half way there.
David plays the head of crime fighting family that goes undercover to route out crime. We first meet them as drug pushers working with the police. Their next assignment is undercover at a high school that's been having students fall over and go into a coma.

In the school the mom is a councilor, David's a janitor, the two teen kids are a popular girl type and a nerdy type. They find a lot of bullying from the football squad, they attack the nerdy kids and extort money from them. The school seems to do little. There's a group of Goths that have called up the curse some kid who hung himself at the school. Several kids have been cursed, they freak out and collapse, then go into a coma. No one can figure out what the drugs that are causing this are.

It turns out to have a mundane Scooby-Doo mad scientist sort of ending but someone does die. It's vaguely Christian but not in your face about it. I could see this being the pilot for a show. It was better than average for what it was and about average for a teen crime movie. Not much reason to watch it again. 

Frost: Portrait Of A Vampire 2003 Written and directed by Kevin VanHook. It's a movie about some mercenaries in Afghanistan being lead by a guy called Jack Frost. They're asked to kill and burn a man the locals bring to them. They believe he's a demon and they don't want to be cursed. A guy called Nat shoots it after it bites him in the leg. Later that night they're attacked and split up. Most of the men are killed, Frost survives, Nat disappears for a long time.

Frost figures out who attacked them and kills that prick. Then Nat turns up as a vampire and he's all bitey and evil. That's him in the picture above. Nat was the most entertaining bit of the movie. Frost is a big beefy block of wood with mirror shades. The script is nothing too original. There's plenty of fighting but not all of it so good. I liked the Nat parts, he made me laugh once or twice, but I doubt that I'd need to watch it again.

Friday Night Movies 810

The Portrait Of Dorian Gray 1945 Based on the novel of the same name by Oscar Wilde, screenplay and direction by Albert Lewin.

 

I saw this picture back in 2006 but haven't seen it since. I recently got the DVD and decided tonight's the night to put it on. You probably know the story, man stays young while a painting of him ages. You can click the paintings for a larger size image. The picture on the left was painted by Henrique Medina and the one on the right was painted by Ivan Le Lorraine Albright. The Medina painting is shown in color in a brief scene in the B&W film. It's believed to be in a private collection. The Albright painting is in the collection of The Art Institute of Chicago. Ivan's identical twin Malvin was hired to paint the good Dorian painting but it wasn't used in the film. Ivan made changes to both the good and bad paintings while the film was being shot.

Hurd Hatfield lays Dorian. I knew nothing about Hurd, even though his IMDb listing says I've seen him in a few TV shows and movies. He worked steadily from 1944 until 1991, he passed away in 1998 at the age of 81. The other fellow is George Sanders playing Lord Henry Wotton. I'm more familiar with George's work and a big fan of him as The Saint and The Falcon. He's a bit of a rotter here and he convinces Dorian that a lifestyle of pleasure and hedonism is the way to go. Dorian's pretty shallow and he's easily swayed by Wotton. Dorian is generally a pretty piss poor example of a human being.

Dorian is having his portrait painted by artist Basil Hallward, he's played by Lowell Gilmore. That's him in the middle between Peter Lawford and Donna Reed. Donna is Gladys Gilmore, Basil's daughter and Peter is David Stone, a man in love with Donna. Their lives become a mess from being involved with Dorian. Gladys is a child when the painting is finished, about 18 years pass and she grows into a lovely young woman. Dorian looks the same but his painting is growing more and more grotesque from his naughty life style. Dorian asks her to marry him and she excepts. What's wrong with these people?

Angela Lansbury is Sibyl Vane, a singer in a small tavern in a rough part of London. Shortly after the portrait is finished Dorian sees her sing and returns over and over to the tavern. He proposes to her but Lord Wotton's influence causes Dorian to offer her a choice, sleep with him before marriage or get out. She walks but returns. The next day Dorian sends her a letter telling of his disappointment in her giving into him, he ends the relationship and includes a pile of cash. She commits suicide.

Time passes and Dorian becomes known as a bounder and his portrait has become as grotesque as he is inside. Gladys brother vows revenge but fails. Dorian becomes more and more evil. In the end he destroys himself.

It's a pretty darn good looking film, plenty of great sets, really good cast, everything about it is top notch. Might be the best film I've seen this year. Well worth a look.

Molly And The Ghost 1990 No writer is credited on the film or the IMDb. Don Jones is the director. I can see why the writer might have taken his name off the film, there's nothing much good about it. A horrible 16 year old runs away to LA and moves in with her older sister. She steals money and jewelry from her sister and tries to seduce her husband. Thrown out she hires a hit man but she's so stupid she mails him a picture of herself. He kills her and she become's a vengeful ghost. It's a pretty piss poor film and should be punched in the face. I started fast forwarding after a while.

The Mind Benders 1963 James Kennaway wrote the original screenplay and adapted that into his novel of the same name, Basil Dearden directed.

Professor Sharpey jumps from a moving train and a huge pile of money is found in his briefcase. He's suspected of selling secrets to foreign interests. Major Hall comes to investigate Sharpey and he finds he'd been involved with a project studying the effects of cold and isolation on men. That project has morphed into a study on sensory deprivation, Professor Sharpey had worked on the project with Dr Longman and Dr Tate, scientists at the University. Major Hall is played by John Clements, he's on the right, the guy on the left is Michael Bryant who played Dr Tate. Dirk Bogarde plays Dr Longman.

The Major finds that the process of cutting off the body from all sensation leaves the mind messed up and the person susceptible to easy manipulation. If this is the case it might be that Professor Sharpey could have been an easy mark for spies after being in the tank.

Longman had been in the tank for four hours and taken a leave. He's at home with his wife Oonagh and their four children when the Major comes to call. Longman believes that Sharpey could have been easily swayed by some spies. The Major talks a reluctant Longman into going back into the tank. They leave him in for 8 hours and he's pretty much a broken man.

As part of the experiment they tell Dirk his wife is a pain and he doesn't really love her. Dirk seems to recover but the seeds have been planted and his marriage breaks apart. That's Dirk with Mary Ure, who plays his wife Oonagh. Now the Major has to try to rectify is awful blunder.

That's Wendy Craig, it was one of her early film roles, she'd been in a few TV programs and would go onto star in the beloved series Butterflies. There's a few people in the cast that I knew, Terence Alexander, Roger Delgado, Edward Fox, Geoffrey Keene and Norman Bird. The good script gives them good material to work with. It's well filmed and directed. Everything about it is way above average. It's also a good reminder that human's are fragile. Well worth seeing. It's another film that turned out to be one of the best films I've seen this year. I have the Kino Lorber DVD and it looks nice. There's a commentary that I listened to part of, might get around to it again someday.

Friday Night Movies 809

Lupin The 3rd Crisis In Tokyo 1998 Created by and screenplay by Monkey Punch, script by Shinzo Fujita, direction by Toshiya Shinohara. Lupin is after a long lost treasure and the key to it is in some old photographic plates. His plan to rob them is interrupted by his old pal Fujiko and Inspector Zenigata. Lupin's buddies have issues, Goemon has had his sword stolen, Jigen has a toothache, and that distracts them from helping out as much as usual. The owner of the plates is a rich guy who's got a secret illegal genetics operation going on under his new Aqua theme park. There's plenty of action and yelling and running about. It's about average for Lupin but nowhere near as entertaining as The Castle Of Cagliostro.

The Boy Who Cried Werewolf 1973 Screenplay by Bob Homel, directed by Nathan Juran. It's Nathan's last film and a far cry from some of his better work like 20 Million Miles To Earth, Jack The Giant Killer and The 7th Voyage Of Sinbad.

Kerwin Mathews takes his son, played by Scott Sealey to their cabin in the woods. They get attacked by a werewolf, Kerwin gets bit, then the werewolf falls off a convenient cliff and gets impaled on a fence post. He turns back into a man and of course no one believes Scott when he says the man had been a werewolf. Kerwin takes over the role of the murderous werewolf, killing a few of the locals before it's all over for him. Typical story, average acting and production. I saw it on YouTube and doubt I'd need to see it again. Werewolf fans can find a link in the title above.

The Brain Machine 1955 Written and directed by Ken Hughes. Nice tight crime thriller about a criminal with a brain tumor. The title refers to the use of the electroencephalograph scan of a crooks brain. Maxwell Reed plays Frank, he's a crook who had been admitted to the hospital without any idea who he was or how he got there. Frank leaves before he gets treatment, he needs to sell a huge pile of cortisone and escape from the country. Frank kidnaps the doctor and is seen by one of the people at the hospital, soon there's a man hunt for them. The buyer of the drugs sends a creepy hood to find Frank, he kills Frank's wife and nearly kills Frank. They hold out in the back room of a bar as everything falls part for Frank. Good story and a good cast. Part of The British Film series from Network. I enjoyed it and would spin the DVD sometime again.

Friday Night Movies 808

Fortunes Of Captain Blood 1950 Based on the novel by Rafael Sabatini, screenplay by Michael Hogan, Robert Libott and Frank Burt, direction by Gordon Douglas. Gordon directed nearly 100 films in his career, a good number of shorts and 69 movies. I've seen several of them, including 4 of the Great Gildersleeve films, The Falcon In Hollywood, Rogues Of Sherwood Forest, The Great Missouri Raid, Them!, Up Periscope, In Like Flint, Tony Rome, They Call Me Mister Tibbs and Slaughter's Big Rip-off.

Louis Hayward plays Captain Blood, he's a pirate in the olden days. He was a doctor who was arrested for treating a rebel soldier in the Monmouth Rebellion, he was sentenced to slavery but escaped and became a buccaneer.

When the story starts he's headed for supplies but his supplier betrays him and some of Blood's men get caught and sent to prison. Blood goes to rescue them disguised as a fruit peddler. He gets a bit of help from Dona Drake playing the flirtatious Pepita. She tells him the prisoners die frequently from the poor treatment.

Patricia Medina plays Isabella, she's the niece of the Marquis who runs the island and the prison. That's him on the right and he's a right old prick. Isabella wants to leave is island and she is having a bit of a romance with the local slave trader played by Lowell George. The Marquis finds out and puts an end to that, while telling Lowell he's too scummy to marry his niece.

Blood manages to free his men but there's a good bit of fighting along the way. He manages to slip in some romance with Isabella, offering to take her off the island. The Marquis attacks Blood's ship but fails. Isabella stays on the island promising to run the place without slaves. Blood sails off to get some peace being a buccaneer.

It's a fairly entertaining pirate movie, some fighting, some sailing, some romance, some laughs, some drama, a nice mix. The cast is fine, the sets and locations are good, the script is adequate to carry everyone along. It's the first film in the Midnight Movies double movie set. Both films come on their own DVD and the second film is the sequel to FOCB.

Captain Pirate 1952 Based on the novel Captain Blood Returns by Rafael Sabatini, screenplay by Robert Libott, Frank Burt and John Meredyth Lucas, direction by Ralph Murphy. The sequel is in color with B&W scenes from the first film as flashbacks.

Louis Hayward returns as Captain Blood and Patricia Medina returns as Dona Isabella. Blood's been pardoned, he's returned to the island to practice medicine. Secretly he's also helping the slaves escape. Blood and Isabella are planning to get married when things take a serious turn.

Someone is pirating and using the Captain Blood name. Blood is arrested but Isabella and Angus get the old crew back together. They help Blood escape and they set sail to find the imposter. The mystery of the fake Blood is fairly quickly solved. Now he must capture the man and bring him to justice.

There's plenty of pirate action and running about. The production is fine and the story fairly exciting. I enjoyed it and you can find out if you like it too, there's a link to each film on YouTube in the titles above. I'd watch both of them again someday.

Friday Night Movies 807

Death Force 1978 Story by Cirio H Santiago and Robert E Waters, screenplay by Howard R Cohen, direction by Cirio H Santiago. Also know as Vengeance Is Mine.

James Iglehart is a Vietnam vet who turns crook, he's part of a three man gang that does a big deal with a crook in the Philippines. The three men cruise off in their boat. Little does James know that his pals are planning his murder for his cut of the $50K payout they just got. James is stabbed, his throat is cut and he's tossed overboard. He's not dead when his body washes up on an island where two old Japanese soldiers have been living since WW2. They save his life and he trains in the way of the samurai. He gets lessons in fighting with a katana. Eventually he's rescued and he returns to LA to get him some vengeance.

There's plenty of mixed quality action. Lots of men get stabbed and slashed when James attacks the gang that his two old partners have set up. They've been running roughshod over the local crooks and taking over their biz, the police can't seem to get anything on them. One cop helps James track down the pair.

It's about average for a Santiago movie, it's lacking much by way of production values, and stunt talent. At 110 minutes it's way too long, they could easily have trimmed a whole lot out of it. I might not bother watching it again. You can see it on YouTube at the link in the title. You might get a laugh.

The Monster Walks 1932 Screenplay by Robert Ellis and direction by Frank R Strayer.

A rich guy dies, he leaves all his money and a big old house to his daughter. He provides a place in the house for his invalid brother and a poor stipend for his house keeper. If the daughter dies all the money and house to the brother. Soon as the will is read the plotting begins. The daughter has help from her fiance but there are serious attempts on her life.

It's pretty standard old dark house stuff, the unusual story element is the big old ape locked up in the basement. The creature has it in for the daughter but he's securely chained in his cage. A hairy hand comes out of the wall behind the daughter's bed and tries to strange her. Luckily she woke up as it was groping for her. The house is said to have secret passages running through it but the invalid brother insists that they've all been sealed up.

It's touch and go for the daughter. There's plenty of running about and noise. The cast includes Misha Auer as the housekeeper's son. He turns out to be the brother's son as well. It's all been a secret and Misha feels he was cheated out of some inheritance.

One of my favorite character actors, Willie Best, plays the scared chauffeur Exodus, he's billed in the credits as Sleep n' Eat. He was credited under that name for 6 movies, he was uncredited for many more than that, he did receive credit for 77 of the 124 films he made. Sadly a drug arrest ended his film career but he continued to work in TV. He died at age 45 in 1962.

All in all I enjoyed it well enough but it's barely average. Still, I'd watch it again. It's only 57 mins and it passes quickly.

Friday Night Movies 806

The House On Skull Mountain 1974 Screenplay by Mildred Pares, direction by Ron Honthaner. The two films tonight are packed together in one of MGM's Midnight Movies Double Feature sets. I like the series for the most part but the few remaining ones I haven't seen are the ones that have some of the least interesting films to me.

The story is about the 4 relatives of Pauline Christophe, played by Mary J Todd McKenzie, who are called to her home for a reading of her will. Victor French, Janee Michelle, Mike Evans and Xernona Clayton play the 4 relatives. On their way to the house each of them was scared by a skull image that appeared before their eyes. The house is filled with voodoo stuff and for good reason, Pauline and her staff are part of a voodoo cult.

Mike is the first to die, soon the sheriff is a familiar figure at their door. It does on for a while and eventually the baddies are defeated. It's kind of weak in dialog and effects but I got to the end without giving up. It's only average and I might skip watching it again. At least for a while.

The Mephisto Waltz 1971 Based on the novel by Fred Mustard Stewart, screenplay by Ben Maddow, direction by Paul Wendkos.

Alan Alda and Jacqueline Bisset are a couple, he was pianist but he gave it up for musical journalism. He goes to interview famous pianist Curd Jürgens and the man seems to like Alan. A friendship develops but Jacqueline isn't too keen on Curd and his daughter Barbara Perkins. She has reason to dislike them, they are soul sucking evil pricks.

The only reason Curd wants to be pals with Alan is he wants to steal his body with the help of a magical spell. He does and we spend the rest of the long movie watching Jacqueline make one bad decision after another. She sells her soul to the Devil at one point, made me laugh.

It's horror from people who don't care for horror very much. It's long and it dragged and dragged and dragged. Nothing much here to make me want to watch it again.

Friday Night Movies 805

Crystalstone 1987 Written and Directed by Antonio Peláez. Pablo is a little boy who's mother dies as we meet them. His mother's sister if going to keep Pablo's sister and send Pablo to work with her relatives in a town far away. Pablo hears her telling the cook and he runs off with his sister Maria in tow. They run through town and wind up on a train. In another city they witness a murder and help rescue the man who was wrongly accused of the crime.

Pablo's mother gave Pablo a cross before she died, it turns out to be one of three that are fairly easy to find, even if they have to do a bit of grave robbing. It leads them to a giant diamond and their long lost father. It was OK but nothing too special. It's part of a two pack with the movie below.

The Boy And The Pirates 1960 Story and direction by Bert I Gordon, screenplay by Lillie Hayward and Jerry Sackheim. Jimmy and his friend Kathy are playing by the beach. Jimmy's really into pirates. He finds a fancy bottle, rubs it and a genie pops out. The genie takes him back to the pirate days and he has an adventure with them until he returns home. It's pretty entertaining, though meant for kids, it's a slaughter fest once they get involved with pirates and buried treasure. It's not overly gory, it's light hearted and there's plenty of yelling and grog. I'd seen it before and I enjoyed it again.

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom 2018 Written by Derek Connolly and Colin Trevorrow, directed by J A Bayona. A greedy prick wants dino DNA off of Isla Nublar. There's also debate in Washington what to do about the dinosaurs on the island, the volcano is due to erupt anytime. No one wants to save them in the government but that doesn't matter. Remember that greedy prick? He's got a plan to rescue some dinos and sell them to creeps from other governments. He's even got a guy who's made him a nasty ass new dinosaur that likes killing and can be directed. Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard get called in to be on the rescue expedition to the island. They are nearly left behind while the volcano erupts and the dinos rampage. It's noisy movie that alternates the exciting times on the island with scenes of that greedy prick setting up his big score. It all goes to hell when the dinosaurs arrive at the lab and the bidding begins. It was alright for the most part. Someone gave me a DVD of it and I'd watch it again. I should have a marathon some day. It's been a while since I watched the first movie.

Friday Night Movies 804

Creepshow 1982 Screenplay by Stephen King, directed by George Romero.

Five short segments connected by a framing story. Tom Atkins plays a father that tosses away his kid's Creepshow comic. The segments are the stories in the comic. A ghoul pops out of the grave looking for a cake he never got. Stephen King plays a country boy with bad luck. Leslie Nielsen plays a nasty hubby who drowns his wife and her lover only to have them come back from the dead for vengeance. A forgotten crate at a university is opened, releasing a man eating monster. EG Marshall gets eaten by cockroaches.

I hadn't seen the movie in a good number of years. I remember liking it well enough when I saw it in the theater but I never bought the DVD. I went looking for a DVD recently and found a 3 disc set from some unknown foreign country. The box has no company identifiers or address, no copyright and production info. The discs have no logos on their labels. They all play fine and at 30 bucks they were cheaper than buying the DVDs separately. A DVD of the third film is particularly high on Amazon, $20 for used and $50 to $115 for a new disc. More and more I'm receiving bootlegs from Amazon. Quality wise they are a mixed bag with older classic films being at the poorer end of the spectrum. These DVDs look like they are just copies of the US releases. The third one still has the HBO Video logo on the DVD menu. There are Blu-rays of the films but the first movie is well expensive. It would be over 90 bucks for the three and they aren't worth it to me. I could buy a lot more DVDs with 60 bucks.

I mostly enjoyed the segments though I skipped the cockroach fest. Those guys creep me out more than the goofy monsters and ghouls. It had a fair sense of humor and a laughed a couple of times. I'd look at it again.

Creepshow 2 1987 Stephen King wrote an outline that George Romero adapted, the director is Michael Gornick.

There's only three stories this time, as well as a live action and animated framing story about a boy and his plants. Tom Savini plays the Creep who gives the boy a Creepshow comic before it all turns to animation. It's loose and sloppy animation that isn't that good. At least some giant man eating plants got a big meal by eating some bullies.

In the first segment a scumbag and his pals rob and kill a nice old couple running a store near a native reservation. George Kennedy and Dorothy Lamour play the old couple. It was Dorothy's last film. After the poor couple are killed and the robbers run away, a wooden statue of a native brave comes alive and dishes out vengeance to the scumbags. The segment looked pretty good and I'd watch it again.

In the second segment some college kids go swimming in a cold lake and get killed by something floating in the water. Took a long time to get to the end and it wasn't that interesting. I might fast forward through it next time.

The last segment is about a woman who kills a hitchhiker and runs away. I just didn't find it that interesting either. A definite need for speed on the re-watch.

All and all about average for me. Nothing overly special about it.

Creepshow 3 2006 No Stephen King involvement here, the segments are written by Ana Clavell, James Glenn Dudelson, Scott Frazelle, Pablo C Pappano and Alex Ugelow, Ana and James are also the directors. Ana and James were the directors of the direct to video Day Of The Dead 2: Contagium. I've not seen that film. It's an official prequel to the 1985 Day Of The Dead and hardly anyone liked it. I just downloaded it from YouTube and will file it away to watch when I get around to re-watching the original series and the remakes. I should look to see what I am missing and fill in the gaps before all the DVDs disappear or get really expensive.

The framing story is a crappy CGI animated segment that can be ignored for the most part. The five stories are connected with characters from each segment moving through the same sets and encountering other segment's characters.

In the first segment a weird professor gives a dad a new remote to test. Each click changes the family reality, only the daughter is aware of the changes and the changes are fucking her up.

In the second a security guard buys a radio from a homeless guy. The radio talks to him, leading him to $300,000 dollars hidden by an evil pimp guy. They both live in the same apartment and the pimp houses his whores in the place like it's his personal brothel. It doesn't go so well for the guard, the pimp has his own radio.

In the third segment a call girl serial killer meets up with a demon guy and becomes lunch.

The professor from the first segment invites some old students to his wedding in the fourth segment. The two think his pretty young wife is a robot and dismember her body to find out how she ticks. It turns out the professor also made the radios from the second segment.

In the fifth segment a doctor is assigned to a clinic in a poor part of town, he doesn't want to be there and he has no respect for his patients. He buys a hotdog only to drop it to the ground. He passes the dirty dog to a homeless guy who dies after taking a bite. Rather than help the doctor turns his back on the guy and leaves. The dead guy follows him around and scares the life out of the prick.

It seems to be universally hated by reviewers and fans, at least from the IMDb and Wikipedia entries. A lot of the complaints were the film was humorous. Of course, I enjoyed it, I even laughed out loud at times. I liked the connections between the segments and enjoyed them better than some of the segments in the first two films. I watch a lot of genre movies and I often seem to find what genre fans think are bad films to be enjoyable and vice versa. What am I like?

Friday Night Movies 803

Atomic Blonde 2017 It's a noisy blood spattered action fest set during the days the wall fell in Berlin. Charlize Theron plays a MI6 agent who's being grilled about her recent mission to Berlin, she was after a list of double agents in the possession of a man who wants to defect from the Stasi. James McAvoy plays her contact in Berlin, he's a dirt bag of a man. If anyone ever needed killing more, it's our man James.

There's plenty of action and a fairly good plot. The cast is pretty good, John Goodman, Toby Jones, Eddie Marsan, James Faulkner, Sofia Boutella and a bunch of people I didn't know.

It's based on a graphic novel by Anthony Johnston and Sam Hart, the screenplay is by Kurt Johnstad, the director is David Leitch. David's mostly been a stuntman and actor, I didn't remember that David was a semi regular on the Sammo Hung TV show Martial Law. His first directing job was an uncredited one on John Wick. I haven't seen either of his other two features, Deadpool 2 or Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw. Eventually.

There's nothing too outstanding about it, I enjoyed it well enough and would watch it again sometime.

Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things 1972 It's directed by Benjamin Clark, he would later change his moniker to Bob Clark when he directed Porky's and A Christmas Story. Benjamin wrote the screenplay with Alan Ormsby.

Alan's also in the movie, he plays the leader of a troupe of actors and he's a cock. He bullies his actors and he's the guy responsible for raising the dead. Sadly I had to wait for the whole movie to play out before he got his.

It's got some comical elements and some dull elements, mostly it's stupid people in the woods with the dead. Why any of these people would hang around with Alan is anyone's guess, their fear of being fired from the troupe don't make any sense, especially when one of them reminds every one that Alan's an insurance salesman during the day, I would think they all had day jobs.

I guess it wasn't holding my attention as much as I would have liked. Someone was nice enough to pass me their old DVD so I could watch it again someday. It's going to be a while. Maybe I can have a Bob Clark film festival in my living room. I know I'd be looking forward in seeing A Christmas Story again.

Friday Night Movies 802

Percy 1971 Based on Raymond Hitchcock's novel of the same name. Hugh Leonard wrote the script and Ralph Thomas directed this British film about a guy who gets the first penis transplant. Terence Feely contributed some additional material and Michael Palin is listed on the IMDb as an uncredited key writer. Ray Davies (The Kinks) supplies the music.

Hywel Bennett is the guy and Percy is the penis's nickname. The man who supplied the penis had climbed out the window of a woman he was shagging. Her husband had come home and she told her lover to go out on the balcony. Problem is there wasn't any balcony there and the man plummets to the ground, he fall broken by Hywel's crotch. The pile of man meat is rushed to the hospital where Denholm Elliott does the surgery.

Hywel is troubled by his new member, not so much by the larger size but who donated it. No one will tell him anything about the donor but a nice nurse gives him a list of possibilities to investigate. Hywel is also troubled by the media, first when the story breaks and again once the newspapers reveal his identity. All his efforts put him in plenty of goofy situations that sadly lack much humor. Ralph Thomas has directed better movies than this. Eventually things get sorted out for Hywel and he has a happy ending.

My not finding it to be that funny means I'm probably not going to watch it again so I won't need to go find a DVD. Good thing, the DVD is out of print and available copies are too much money, $30 plus. You Can see a copy on YouTube. There's also a better copy on Rarelust you can download.

Percy's Progress 1974 Re-titled It's Not The Size That Counts for US release. Written by Sid Colin and an uncredited Harry H Corbett, Ian La Frenais gets an additional dialog credit, Ralph Thomas returns to direct this way below average sequel. It really doesn't have much of anything in common with the first movie other than it being about a guy with the first penis transplant. It's more like a typical sex comedy than Percy was but it's just not that funny.

 

The cast is filled with good character actors, Elke Sommer, Denholm Elliott, Judy Geeson, Harry H Corbett, Vincent Price, Julie Ege, Barry Humphries, James Booth, Bernard Lee and George Coulouris. I didn't find most of them that interesting here. I was disappointed in the end, partly because of the state of the movie, partly because I had already bought the DVD. It's part of Network's series The British Film. Doubtful I'll watch it again.