September Films Update 2

Ten more films I watched earlier this year.

****

1. Easter Parade (1948)

It’s Easter 1912 and New York Broadway song and dance star Don Hewes (Fred Astaire) buys presents for his dance partner and lover Nadine Hale (Ann Miller). She promptly leaves him having been offered the chance to star in a solo show. Johnny (Peter Lawford) arrives; although Nadine is attracted to him he instead takes Don out to commiserate. A drunken Don declares he could make a star out of any of the girls in the chorus line, comically propositioning Hannah Brown (Judy Garland).

She can’t tell left from right; Don then attempts to make her a clone of Nadine doing their old routines, putting her in her old costumes. Their first show is a disaster. Johnny reappears, tries to court Hannah, tries to get Nadine and Don back together. Don eventually realises the mistake he’s made, and makes a routine that uses Hannah’s own talents and they’re a success as “Hannah and Hewes”.

On the back of this they audition for the Ziegfield Follies. Nadine is the star; Don decides to turn down the offer as they would not headline the show and also because of his complex feelings for Nadine and Hannah. When they discuss this Hannah asks about his feelings but before they can get to the point Johnny arrives to take her to dinner. Don gets a deal for them to headline their own show, invites Hannah to dinner to celebrate and admits he loves her.

Their show opens, is a great success. Afterwards they go to the roof gardens to celebrate and everyone cheers them to the annoyance of Nadine who is performing at the roof gardens. She invites Don to do one of their old numbers (it’s “It Only Happens When I Dance With You,” a rather unsubtly titled song that Don has danced in different ways with both Nadine and Hannah throughout the film). This arouses Hannah’s jealousy.

In the end it is Hannah who realises what she needs to do and in a reversal of the first sequence sends Easter gifts to Don, just in time for them to take part in the Easter Parade for 1913. The film, a song and dance musical about song and dance musicals is perhaps self indulgent, and silly. The four leads work through their crushes and jealousies, their confusion of professional and personal relationships. What we do have is a couple of performers at the top of their game, and a strong Irving Berlin score.

Watch This: Excellent 1940s musical about musicals and romance
Don’t Watch This: Lots of long song and dance numbers while people try to figure out their feelings.

2. Carry On Abroad

There’s a package holiday to the Mediterranean destination of Elsbels (“Hell’s Bells”). Pub landlord Vic Flange (Sid James) usually goes on his own as his wife Cora (Joan Sims) doesn’t like flying. However when she learns pub regular, flirtatious widow Sadie Tomkins (Barbara Windsor) is going she decides to join the trip. Also on the trip are Stanley and Evelyn Blunt, in a sexless and frankly joyless marriage; Eustace Tuttle (Charles Hawtrey) a drunk; Nicholas and Robin who may be gay (it’s 1971 so this is both unspoken and a joke, one of them is very particular and dislikes women, the other jolly and friendly); Bert, a Scotsman looking for sex, also Lily and Marge looking for men; and twelve monks*.

The tour is conducted by Stuart Farquhar** (Kenneth Williams) and Moira Plunkett of Wundatours. Arriving at the resort, it’s unfinished, still being built. The staff consist of Pepe, who pretends to be manager, porter, doorman (also telephone operator), his wife Floella who is the chef, who is having trouble with the new stove, and their son Georgio who runs the bar. Everyone has a complaint; there are not enough rooms, what they think are private bathrooms are shared (Vic walks in on Sadie showering to his wife’s annoyance), some wardrobes back on to each other, doors won’t open, windows aren’t glazed etc. The first dinner goes poorly.

Very early the next morning the workmen arrive, take off the roof, start working in bedrooms while people are asleep etc. Everyone complains to the frustration of Pepe – after all, yesterday’s complaints are being dealt with. There’s some nonsense around the hotel, then all the characters go into town for a tour. They get drunk on St Cecelia’s Elixir, which is a strong drink, an aphrodisiac, and also has men see through women’s clothes. Several men get into trouble in the local brothel, fortunately Moira is able to get them out by seducing the police chief.

They have a last night party (It’s just a long weekend, perhaps fortunately) where multiple people decide to liven it up by spiking the punch with St Cecelia’s Elixir. With everyone drunk and/or horny married couples are reconciled, Brother Bernard decides to leave the brotherhood, everyone has a good time, no one cares it’s raining outside. Sadly for Pepe the hotel was built in a dry riverbed and it floods, bringing the whole place down.

Does this feel a bit low effort for a Carry On film? Frankly yes. People go away for a bit of sun or a dirty weekend or to drink or to get away from something and it’s a half-built hotel, weird staff and people get into trouble. Perhaps the package holidays of the 1970s were ripe for a bit of satire, but it’s not something that holds up well, leaving us a film with a lot of boob jokes.

Watch This: Some good comic actors get to do a few fun set piece jokes
Don’t Watch This: Tired and dated Carry On from the long tail of lacklustre situations

* Brother Bernard explains that they’re from a religious community inspired by Saint Cecelia, whose tomb they are traveling to find and pay their respects to, but not actually monks. However Brother Bernard is not a good fit for the brothers so perhaps we should take his explanation with a pinch of salt.

** “Stupid what?” in one of the predictable yet amusing jokes.

3. Twisters (2024)

In Oklahoma Katie Carver is a storm chaser, pursuing a theory that tornadoes can be reduced in danger and intensity by having a powdered drying agent sucked up into them. She has an intuitive sense for storms and tornadoes. It fails her, or rather she ignores the danger signs; three of her team are killed leaving only her and Javi alive.

Five years later she’s given up storm chasing, working for the government weather NOAA in New York, where her boss respects her intuition. Javi calls her up; he’s been in the military, but is out now and using his expertise with Phased Array Radars to investigate tornadoes with the start up StormPAR. He wants her to come out to and chase storms again. She refuses; then a tornado destroys an Oklahoma town and a big tornado season starts; she takes a week’s leave to join him.

There are other storm chasers following the same indications, including “The Tornado Wranglers” led by Tyler Owens, a group who do storm chasing stunts for an audience on the internet. They’re rough and ready compared to StormPAR who are organised, corporate, efficient; when they spot Katie they learn she’s from New York and jump to the conclusion she’s a tech-person, following models etc. With the Wranglers is Ben, a British Journalist doing a feature on storm chasing, who gets to be the guy who is taken by surprise that getting caught in a tornado is disconcerting.

After a town is devastated it turns out that the people behind StormPAR include profiteers buying up storm-wrecked land cheaply; meanwhile the Wranglers' merch sales go to help people. Tyler invites Katie to a rodeo; to his surprise this is in fact not her first rodeo; she’s a local (he’s over from Arkansas). To both their surprise a huge tornado comes through, and despite their best efforts people are killed when they ignore their advice, and also everywhere they go is badly designed to withstand tornadoes. Not sure what she’s doing any more, after arguing with Javi, Katie goes home - to her mother's house.

She finally confronts her past, also Tyler follows her and they use the homemade tornado simulator she built in the barn to work out how to stop tornadoes. Combining what she already knows, what she’s learned from Javi’s work and some help from Tyler (who has studied meteorology) they come up with a new plan (using silver iodide rockets to precipitate the water so it can be sucked up by the drying agent*.)

The film promises us good-looking people interacting with spectacular storms and delivers excellently. If the story layered in – how disaster for some is opportunity for others who take advantage, and the question of where you draw the line to get the science that will help people done – is hardly ground breaking**, it works, getting our characters into risky situations and giving us something to cheer for.

At one point a tornado goes into an oil refinery and things catch fire for a fire tornado; it was only then that I recalled the Sharknado film series (in one of the sequels the tornadoes keep sucking up various things so you get flaming radioactive sharks etc). Which goes to show how well Twisters did avoiding the comparison in the other CGI tornado stunt scenes!

Watch This: Exciting tornado disaster film
Don’t Watch This: Death and devastation the backdrop of some people figuring things out

*  In an earlier scene the Wranglers had driven into a tornado to launch flares to light it up red, an indication of the relentless competence this film shows to providing basic yet satisfying story and excellent and rather silly spectacles.

** Unlike the tornadoes!

4. Trap (2024)

Cooper Abbott, a Philadelphia fireman, takes his daughter Riley to a Lady Raven concert. Noting a big police presence he talks to a merch guy, who tells him a secret; the police believe notorious serial killer The Butcher is here, and have turned the concert into a big trap for him.

Cooper, it turns out, is The Butcher; he uses his phone to check on his current victim, locked up in a basement. Then he attempts to make an escape. Using his charm, self-confidence and fire department knowledge he accesses various backstage areas, picking up a radio in which he can hear the FBI Agent in charge narrating how the next escape route he’s picked has been closed off.

Eventually he spots Lady Raven’s uncle who is scanning the audience for her “Dreamer Girl,” when she brings an audience member on stage. He lies, claiming he’s so glad to be here because Riley is recovering from leukemia. They get pulled backstage, behind the security perimeter.

Even this doesn’t have an escape route, so he resorts to desperate measures, taking Lady Raven aside, showing her his victim on the phone, insisting she take them out in her limo. She does, but Lady Raven realises Riley has no idea and Cooper won’t reveal himself in front of her, and orders the driver to take them to his home.

A tight high-concept thriller that is very strong in the first half, the concert being the titular trap, Cooper, despite being a serial killer gains some sympathy at the sheer scale of the forces arrayed against him and his audacity in working around them. The second half is less good, following other characters, Cooper becoming less and less sympathetic from the outside, as is right, but also the film losing any central focus.

Watch This: Fun tense thriller with many twists and turns
Don’t Watch This: Always one more twist, one more turn, changes when a character runs out of story but always in a less interesting way

5. Catacombs aka The Woman Who Wouldn’t Die (1965)

Ellen Garth is a successful businesswoman, she has a bad hip so limps and she enjoys having sex with her trophy husband Raymond. She also enjoys bossing around her assistant Richard Corbett, a crooked lawyer who she is extorting for forging cheques. Her artist niece Alice returns from Paris, and unfortunately she and Raymond fall for each other. Ellen realises something is up and swiftly gets Alice out of their country home to her own place in London.

Raymond and Richard come up with a plan to murder Ellen on an Italian trip, her notorious fast driving on narrow mountain roads giving an excuse. However Ellen confronts Raymond about Alice and he drowns her in her bathroom and buries her behind the cottage. Thinking quickly, Richard hires an actress who looks like Ellen and has her take the Italian trip, then cold-bloodedly murders her.

Trying to remain discreet, he nevertheless meets up with Alice. And the cottage seems haunted. Disturbing the grave seems foolish – but what if Ellen wasn’t dead?

The film takes a while to get going but once they start on the murder plot and the inability of the principals to be normal about it, the ever more convoluted efforts to hide the crime are quite tense and well done. Still in the end it’s a fairly nasty set of people pressuring and hurting each other until some of them snap and then can’t contain themselves.

Watch This: Sparely designed thriller that manages to have several tense scenes
Don’t Watch This: Takes a long time to get going, all horrible people, has no surprises

6. Lightyear

Buzz Lightyear, space ranger, investigates the planet T’Kani Prime. Discovering it has hostile plants they attempt to leave, Buzz’s piloting damages the ship and destroys the hyperspace fuel crystal. They wake the hypersleep crew and set up a base, taking a year to synthesise a fuel crystal. Buzz takes it on a test flight; he doesn’t reach hyperspeed but time dilation means that four years have passed when he returns.

They give him a robot cat, Sox, to help him psychologically, but what he wants is to fix the problem, so he goes out on another test flight. Again and again, four years passing each time. His space ranger partner Alisha Hawthorne, in command of the base, gets older each time, gets married, has a son, and eventually, after 66 years, dies.

The new commander orders an end to the missions, having grown up on T’Kani Prime, instead putting a laser shield around the base to stop the plants. In the meantime Sox, in response to a casual suggestion by Buzz, has developed the correct formula for the fuel crystal. Buzz and Sox break into the hanger, make the crystal and hijack the test ship. It works, Buzz goes faster than light, then returns 21 years later.

Buzz crashlands, discovers the planet has been invaded by the mysterious Zurg and his robots and meets with the remaining planet troops outside the base; Izzy Hawthorne, Alisha’s granddaughter who wants to live up to her grandprent’s memory; Mo Morrison, a new recruit; and Darcy Steel, who turns out to be in the squad as part of their parole from jail. Despite Buzz’s best efforts to dissuade them they team up, trying to figure out how to defeat the invasion.

After the long middle section of driving, flying, fighting and sneaking into various places Buzz confronts Zurg, to discover it’s an older version of himself, the robots unable to say his proper name. There was an alternate timeline in which Old-Buzz fled the planet after the hyperspace test, found himself back with a galactic civilisation hundreds of years in the future, stole the robots, the mothership, and time travel and came back to fix his mistakes. Stuck here he needs the hyperspace crystal fuel to travel further back. New-Buzz realises this will erase Alisia’s happy life, plus all the people he’s met in the present so attempts to stop him. As this is a cartoon for kids, he does.

The film claims to be the Lightyear film that Andy saw in the film Toy Story in 1995, that prompted his receiving the Buzz Lightyear toy in that film. Obviously this is contradicted by a number of things, both within the film Lightyear, and other versions of the Buzz Lightyear story that have been released. It stands alone perfectly well as a moderately entertaining kid’s space adventure. Is there, possibly, a bit of complexity from the time dilation, time travel nonsense? There’s an odd section of melancholy as the base moves on and people get older while Buzz is determined to put right his mistake. And then it goes on to full on cartoon adventures.

Watch This: Fun kid’s cartoon adventure that takes time gaps seriously
Don’t Watch This: Lots of fighting plants and robots and learning to live with mistakes

7. Time Warp (1981)

Captain Mark Devore has been in space out of reach of Earth for a long time, with only the computer programmed by his boss Colonel Westin (Adam West) as his companion; he also reprogrammed it himself. He’s gone a bit odd. On his way back to Earth he encounters the titular time warp. He lands a year later than expected, and is also invisible to humans, though it turns out birds and dogs can see and hear him. The computer explains what’s going on to him through his earpiece.

Returning home to his wife and son he discovers that Colonel Westin has been courting her, as he thinks she will be an appropriate wife to get promoted. The loss of the spacecraft a year before has put back his promotion. His wife and son obviously have both a dog and a bird who can speak for him, though it takes a while and an attempted séance before they get to it.

Mark needs to repair his spacecraft and refuel it, but he needs parts and fuel that existed at least a year ago, or they will vanish when he goes back through the Time Warp. I make this film seems more coherent than it is. Obviously we are not supposed to take it seriously, but it just puts things out there (why can birds and dogs see him? Can he open doors, because he slips in and out of cars and rooms? This is never addressed). We might imagine Mark is weird and unserious due to being stuck in space for a year with only the computer that supposed to drive him mad. But what does Colonel Westin actually want, does he want the trip to succeed and get promoted or to get rid of Mark to steal his wife (and son, he gives terrible parenting advice). In all a confusing and disappointing effort at either low budget science fiction or a spoof of such.

Watch This: Invisible man spies on his former boss who has sabotaged him and is trying to marry his wife
Don’t Watch This: The jokes fall flat, the most interesting ideas unexplored, very nonsensical

8. The Giant Gila Monster (1959)

Somewhere in rural Texas something attacks a couple on a lookout, driving their car off into a ravine. Both the sheriff and their friends go to search for them when they don’t reappear. Chase Winstead, race car driver and mechanic, finds the crashed car. Inside the car is blood, but no other sign of a body.

It is, of course, a giant Gila monster (played by a lizard on a pretty good scale model set). The monster goes on a rampage, though one that leaves no witnesses, eating livestock, destroying cars, lorries and a bridge to the confusion of everyone. Finally there’s a sock hop with all the local teens, just when the monster decides to attack; it’s down to Chase and his hot rod to stop it.

This is, story-wise, no nonsense, things are set up then pay off, all the cars are inherent to setting, character and plot. The film tries to claim that Gila monsters might do this, but if so why did they use a lizard? Anyway, old school monster film.

Watch This: Lizard terrorises town
Don’t Watch This: Very silly, little to surprise

9. Indiana Jones And The Temple Of Doom

In 1935 American archaeologist Indiana “Indy” Jones escapes a deal gone wrong in Shanghai with American nightclub singer Willie Scott and Chinese youngster Short Round. Their plane is sabotaged and they crash in the Himalayas. Coming to a village they discover that there is a blight, and all the children are gone; they blame this on the theft of a Sankara stone, sacred to Shiva, given to humanity to fight evil, which has been taken to Pankot palace.

Going on to Pankot palace they are greeted by the English educated Prime Minister Chatta Lal. At a banquet, Indy discusses Sankara stones, the cult of the thuggee and so on, which catches the interest of British Indian Army Captain Blumburtt. The discussion is brought to an end when the young maharajah declares that the thuggee are gone and a mark of shame on Pankot. The food is inedible to Willie and Short Round, with such dishes as beetles, live snakes, eyeball soup and chilled monkey brains.

That night, after bringing Willie some fruit, Indy and Willie argue after each assumes the other is romantically interested. Then an assassin* attacks Indy with a garotte, the signature weapon of the thuggee. Discovering a secret passage that let the assassin in they find themselves in a temple where a thuggee ceremony is going on, three (of five) Sankara stones are in the statue of Kali. When the ceremony ends Indy tries to steal the stones, but he, Willie and Short Round are captured.

Short Round is sent into the mines with the kidnapped children, who are digging to try and find the remaining two stones, buried here when the British attacked and destroyed the thuggee cult. He’s told about a potion that brainwashes people. Indy is fed the potion and then becomes the officiant in the sacrifice of Willie. Short Round escapes, burns Indy, who comes back to himself. He frees Willie, the children, then flees through the tunnels for several interesting fights, spectacular stunts and a tense though overlong final confrontation.

This prequel to Raiders Of The Lost Ark is a broader, more generic adventure. The Nazis of Raiders we know will make an effort to conquer the world and create an empire of evil. Mola Ram has similar plans, to overthrow the other religions of the world and replace it, not merely with Hinduism but his own dark cult. Of course with the rise of Hindu Nationalism in India this has become a little more relevant than we might wish.

Still, Hinduism is a real religion, and Kali has her place in it**. The cult of thuggee is a sensational phenomenon, an orientalist explanation of organised crime as secret society. A framework imposed by the British on networks of bandits and robbers and those who depended on them. The film reverts to it’s pulp adventure roots, with the intervention of an American and (in the finale) the British needed to put down a native Indian evil.

Still, this is a high-spirited adventure film, and when it forgets to be racist the Indian characters are that, good characters. Willie hates all the adventure hardships, and is always looking for a profit. Individually these are quite sexist stereotypes, but combining them in this way makes for something fun and interesting. It’s like this, the film has several rancid ingredients, yet it has no real malice and it comes together to be greater than the sum of it’s parts.

Watch This: Superb fantasy action adventure, fast-paced, charming and enjoyable
Don’t Watch This: Already dealing in cliché the film’s broad stereotypes have not aged well

* He is, in fact, a thug, the word coming from the thuggee bandits

** The skulls are those of demons. On the other hand some interpretations of Hindu legends suggest that mythical beings such as Raksha and Demons can be read as Southern Indian people. Something to bear in mind when barging headlong into myth and legend.

10. The Nightcomers

Orphaned children Miles and Flora are being kept ignorant of their parents’ death; their guardian does not want to get involved so they are left in the country house under the care of housekeeper Mrs Grose (Thora Hurd), governess Miss Jessel (Stephanie Beachem) and groundskeeper Quint (Marlon Brando). Quint, who has unconventional ideas about death and love, lets the children know they are orphans, while Mrs Grose and Miss Jessel lie to them.

Quint and Miss Jessel are having an affair, with elements of sado-masochism. Although Miss Jessel tries to arrange to meet across the lake, Quint never does, instead entering her room at night, sometimes tying her up. Miles and Flora, who spy on them, recreate these scenes, absorbing Quint’s odd ideas about love, sex and death.

It's a prequel to The Turn Of The Screw, or more particularly, The Innocents, a film adaption. Do we need to explicitly see the weirdness and tragedy that were only hinted at in the originals? Well in any case the problem here is the adults; the guardian that doesn’t want to do anything, thus leaving the children stranded in the countryside. Mrs Grose who doesn’t want to tell them about their parents, yet keep things as normal and conventional as possible, leaving them to find their own strange way. Miss Jessel, who doesn’t try hard to tutor the children, leaving them alone, fascinated by a strange and dangerous man. And Quint, offering them ideas, philosophies they aren’t ready for, pursuing his own desires.

Watch This: Dark, explicit 70s horror that shows what the inspirations could only hint at
Don’t Watch This: Dark adult fascinations imitated by children
In Addition: My notes on Presence Of Mind, a later adaption of The Turn Of The Screw