October Films Update

Ten films I watched earlier this year.

****

1. The Stranglers Of Bombay

Captain Lewis of the British East India Company is concerned that thousands of natives have gone missing. His boss Colonel Henderson is uninterested, more worried about caravans vanishing. Lewis starts to think they’re connected. Henderson decides to set up an investigation; rather than have Lewis who has local contacts do it, he instead gives it to Captain Connaught-Smith, a newcomer but the son of an old friend of Henderson.

Obviously this is the cult of the Thuggee – they join caravans pretending to be travelers and then strangle them in the night, steal their goods and bury the bodies in the jungle. Lewis finds clues, connecting mass graves in the jungle to informants in the city. This is dismissed by Connaught-Smith, in part because Lieutenant Silver is also part of the Thuggees so tells them and all the evidence vanishes.

Lewis is captured by Thuggees, sentenced to death by cobra, but rescued by a mongoose, which the high priest interprets as saying they must let him live. Connaught-Smith still doesn’t believe him, so Lewis resigns, determined to investigate on his own.

Lewis’s servant Ram Das has got word that his long lost brother Gopali has been seen, and goes to find him; it turns out Gopali has joined the thugs and kills his brother as an initiation. They throw Ram Das’s hand through Lewis’s window. Connaught-Smith has been approached by the merchants and agrees to escort a super-big caravan; thugs join it and they are all massacred.

Lieutenant Silver attaches himself to Lewis, but Lewis recognises the initiation burn and shoots him. He discovers the bodies from the caravan and finds his way back to the temple. Captured, Lewis is about to be burned alive when Gopali has a change of heart and instead it is the high priest who goes into the fire. Gopali and Lewis go to Henderson, who is dining with a merchant; Gopali recognises the merchant’s servant as a thug. The merchant kills the servant, and is in turn revealed to be a thug. Lewis is vindicated and given his commission back.

The truth of the thuggee, whether scattered bandits, organised crime, or cult is historically disputed*. This film takes them at face value, for a ripping adventure yarn, studiously ignoring the nature of the society that oppresses, not asking why the local Indians might choose to band together in violence.

Watch This: British Raj adventure verging on horror
Don’t Watch This: The horror relies on racist myths

* There’s a tendency for bands of locals who swear oaths to each other to be considered cultists by colonisers; the Mau-mau in Kenya, the proto-Swiss pacts made by communities in the Alps. How can these foreign, lesser, low class people act with such strong loyalty and determination? They must have been controlled by some strange hypnotic power.

2. Bambi

Bambi is a white-tailed deer. He lives with his mother, and makes friends with a rabbit named Thumper and a skunk he names Flower in a fit of confusion, but Flower accepts it. He also meets a female fawn named Faline. He explores the forest, and out on the Meadow see the Great Prince Of The Forest, the deer that leads them all. Also there he sees Man who tries to shoot the deer.

He grows up, frolicking through the seasons, until one day his mother is shot by Man (a hunter). The Great Prince reveals that Bambi is his son. As he and his friends grow up the wise owl tells them they will soon be addled with love, which they dismiss. Then they all grow up a bit more and fall in love, Bambi with Faline, and he has to fight off another buck for her affections. There’s more hunters, a fire and in the end Bambi ends up Great Prince Of The Forest, with Faline having delivered two fawns, the next generation.

Watch This: Children’s cartoon about coming of age (as a deer) with some charming animation
Don’t Watch This: Just life (and death) in the forest

3. Superman (2025)

Superman, a super-powered alien living on Earth as journalist Clark Kent, has recently intervened in a war preventing American ally Boravia invading Jarhanpur. A super-villain called The Hammer Of Boravia attacks Metropolis, defeating Superman. This it turns out is a ploy by billionaire enemy of Superman Lex Luthor. His super-powered henchwoman The Engineer tracks Superman to his secret Antarctic Fortress Of Solitude.

There Lex discovers an incomplete message from Superman’s parents. Deciphering it, it reveals they intended that Superman rule the Earth rather than be it’s hero. Superman become a pariah. This is also bound up in the ethics of what he’s been doing to stop a war (debateable) and also his journalistic ethics in printing interviews with himself (very bad)*.

This then is not precisely a new type of superhero film, nor even a new Superman story. Yet with it’s willing acceptance of some of the weirder and even silly parts of the comics – Krypto the wonder dog? The slightly incoherent Justice Gang? Metamorpho? – it displays a confidence in embracing the nonsense that it needs. Not just as a fun Superman film that also hits some of the themes and questions. But also as a jumping on point for a series of films. I mean I’m going to be disappointed at some point, but not yet and that’s all I can ask for.

Watch This: Superior superhero film
Don’t Watch This: Another superhero film

* The questions here being put by his girlfriend of 3 months**, ace reporter Lois Lane.

** 3 CENTURIES AGO, the first superpowered beings, known as METAHUMANS, appeared on Earth, ushering in a new era of GODS AND MONSTERS.

3 DECADES AGO, an extraterrestrial baby was sent in a spacecraft to Earth, and adopted by Kansas farmers.

3 YEARS AGO, the baby, now grown, announced himself as SUPERMAN, the most powerful metahuman of all.

(!)

3 WEEKS AGO, Superman stopped the country of BORAVIA from invading JARHANPUR, sparking controversy around the world

3 HOURS AGO, a metahuman called the HAMMER OF BORAVIA attacked Superman in the city of METROPOLIS.

3 MINUTES AGO, Superman lost a battle for the first time. 

4. One Battle After Another

During a raid by the French 75 revolutionary group on an immigration camp to release the detainees, Perfidia Beverley Hills humiliates camp commander Steven Lockjaw (Sean Penn). Obsessed with her he pursues her, and when he catches her planting a bomb lets her go in return for having sex. Perfidia becomes pregnant, and her boyfriend Pat (Leonardo DiCaprio) tries to get her to settle down. After her daughter Charlene (later played by Chase Infiniti) is born she goes back to the group. A bank robbery goes wrong and she’s captured; Lockjaw gets her to turn on the others. Perfidia goes into witness protection, Lockjaw executes key members of the French 75 and Pat and Charlene go into hiding as Bob and Willa Ferguson.

Sixteen years later Bob is paranoid, smokes weed, lives off the grid. Willa resents her father, is a strong-willed teenager, believes her mother died a hero. They live in Baktan Cross (fictional?) a sanctuary city with a large immigrant population. Lockjaw has been promoted to colonel, is becoming part of the US security establishment, runs an anti-immigration unit. He’s invited to join the secret society the Christmas Adventurers, a white supremacist organisation. Lockjaw’s not as posh and polished as them, but they want him on board. However they insist he not have any prior mixed race relationships.

Lockjaw needs to find Willa to conceal his past, so hires bounty hunter Avanti Q to track down a member of the French 75 in hiding. He sends out a distress call. Following the activity Lockjaw takes his unit to Baktan Cross for an immigration enforcement action, which will conceal his hunt.

The remnants of the French 75 mobilise, using their various code phrases and ways to identify each other (in one entertaining sequence Bob can’t get his contact on the phone to put him through because he can’t remember the counter to asking what time it is). But things have moved on; Baktan Cross isn’t sitting down for the attack on their community. The film is of course grim, and absurd, and funny, with spectacular stunts. And hence it is timely, and fun, and occasionally thoughtful.

Watch This: Absurdly compelling thriller about race and legacy
Don’t Watch This: Cartoonish characters awkwardly try to grapple violently with real world topics

5. Tales Of Frankenstein

Baron Frankenstein orders all his servants away as he does every night, no matter the weather. Tonight his attempts to raise the dead succeed; however as his creation has the brain of a murderer it tries to kill him.

A man and his wife come to visit. The man has been diagnosed with a fatal illness and they hope the Baron can help. He can’t. Sick, the man cannot travel and dies a few days later. Thinking this brain will do better, the Baron bribes the gravekeeper to leave it open. However the wife discovers this and tragedy ensues.

This was the pilot for a TV series that was never made – in part because there was disagreement on how it would continue. Could the Baron raise a new body every week? At only half an hour long, it yet manages to have most of the beats of a Hammer horror film leaving us to wonder what do they do with the other hour in them? A curiosity, though an interesting one, an attempt at collaboration between Hammer Studios and American TV, with famed science fiction authors C L Moore (as Catherine Kuttner) and Henry Kuttner having writing credits.

Watch This: Fast moving Frankenstein variation
Don’t Watch This: You’ve seen enough Frankenstein 

6. The Devil Bat (1940)

Dr Paul Carruthers (Bela Lugosi) is both a small town doctor and a research chemist. He sold one of his formulas to the Heath family for money upfront, and they made millions from it. As the film starts they give him a $5,000 bonus, much less than it’s worth. He’s now working on a new project. This project is to make normal bats larger and more aggressive, and so they attack anyone who wears his new formula aftershave. Using this he kills several members of the Heath Family.

These attacks attract the attention of daring reporter Johnny Layton who goes out with photographer “One Shot” McGuire to try and get a scoop. Although witnesses claim they saw a bat the authorities deny it. McGuire fakes up a picture, but it’s debunked. Layton’s fired but stays on the case, in part because he and Mary Heath are hitting it off. Suspicious of Carruthers, after Carruthers offers him some of the aftershave he pieces together the outlandish plot, but the bat has already been released.

Lugosi is sinister when alone in his secret laboratory, friendly without, seeming not to hold a grudge. The photographer’s comic relief has one or two amusing moments. The “real” bats are not much more convincing than the “fake” ones. There’s a bit of real tension when they’re out in the woods, waiting for another bat attack, though it’s always swiftly broken by some incident or other.

Watch This: Lugosi on form, and an interesting diversion in the fake photo
Don’t Watch This: Rather silly bat revenge plot

7. Battle Of The Coral Sea (1959)

Commander Jeff Conway commands a submarine in the Pacific in WW2. After coming under attack and rescuing some downed airmen they’re sent out on a scouting mission. One of his officers has rigged up a mount for a camera on the periscope with it they get some good photos of Japanese Carriers preparing for the Battle Of The Coral Sea.

Unfortunately they are captured and sent to a prison camp on an island. There they are forced to difficult and dangerous work, unless they give up information; it’s promised this treatment is light compared to what happens when the commandant returns*. As well as Australian prisoners, an inhabitant of the island, Karen Phillips, works slightly uncomfortably as a translator for the Japanese.

In the end they make a complicated and difficult escape, with many on both sides killed. They get back to the US Fleet and reveal the Japanese plans, which allows the Battle Of The Coral Sea to take place. This is somewhat by the numbers as a war film, using stock footage for the start and end, with a bit of unexplained tension between the crew on the submarine at the start that never pays off after they’re captured.

Watch This: Submarine and prisoner of war adventure
Don’t Watch This: Strained, not especially interesting war film

* Presumably he’s away at a planning session for the Battle Of The Coral Sea.

8. Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea

A new nuclear submarine the Seaview is conducting trials in the Arctic Ocean. Commanded by Captain Crane, on board is retired Admiral Nelson, the man behind the Seaview. As part of the trials they spend 96 hours under the ice, out of communication. Then ice starts falling; when they surface the sky is on fire. They rescue stranded scientist Miguel Alvarez from an ice floe. Finally getting communications back they learn a meteor shower penetrated the VanAllen belt and set the upper atmosphere on fire.

Back in New York an emergency United Nations conference is held. The temperature of the Earth keeps increasing. Nelson and his assistants come up with a plan to extinguish the fire  by firing a nuclear missile into the upper atmosphere, but it will have to be done at a particular time and place – near the Mariana Islands in the Pacific, and the Seaview is the only submarine with the capabilities. The chief scientist disagrees, believing it will burn itself out before a fatal temperature is reached. Nelson gets permission from the President and sets sail, forcing the UN police on his deck into the water.

They lose communications. They attempt to tap into the Rio de Janeiro to London phone line, having to fight a giant squid to do so. When they do tap in London hasn’t heard from Washington for some time. Someone tires to sabotage the ship; Alvarez who has a religious-fatalistic objection to the plan is a suspect, as is Dr Susan Hillier, one of two women* aboard, who believes the scientists in New York’s calculations. Worse still, in the panic and confusion, other submarines have been dispatched to intercept the Seaview.

The submarine sets are pretty good, especially the viewing lounge at the front. When they colour the sky and have the model sub sailing it feels very apocalyptic. The story and characters themselves are a little flat. In fact this feels like a late 60s TV show, in part because there was a spin off TV show, that was influential on this sort of thing, especially Star Trek.

Watch This: Submarine world-saving adventure
Don’t Watch This: Obvious studio set submarine has to jump through the hoops for the happy ending.

* The other, Lieutenant Cathy Connors, is Nelson’s secretary and the captain’s fiancé who we first encounter dancing in the mess hall

9. John Carter

Edgar Rice Burroughs is summoned to New York where his uncle John Carter has unexpectedly died. After Carter is placed within a curious mausoleum that can only be opened from the inside, Burroughs receives his fortune, and also his journal. He reads the journal which begins in Arizona territory in 1868; while in a cave hiding from Apache Carter is attacked by a mysterious man (later revealed to be a Thern – a secret society who change faces and manipulate planets to feed of their resources). Carter accidentally triggers the Thern’s amulet, which sends him to another planet.

This is Barsoom aka Mars, where his strength and bone density from a gravity three time greater makes him very powerful. Obviously he’s immediately captured in a Thark (four-armed green Martian) nursery. For some reason he’s given milk with the other hatchlings which gives him the local language. Their Jeddak (leader) Tars Tarkas becomes his friend.

Meanwhile elsewhere on Mars Red Martian (two-armed) Princess Dejah Thoris of the city of Helium is working on the power of the ninth ray. Her work is sabotaged by the Thern as the ninth ray is the advantage they have over everyone else. They support Helium’s rival Zodanga and help their Jeddak Sab Than; having defeated Helium’s airfleet he proposes to end the war by him marrying Dejah Thoris. She runs away and is rescued by John Carter.

Carter, Thoris and Solas (a green Martian who flaunts tradition, and is secretly Tars Tarkas’s daughter*) escape down the river where they encounter a mysterious cave. This explains the secrets of the ninth ray which powers both Sab Than’s weapons and the amulets, explaining how to teleport between worlds. They’re then attacked and Carter and Thoris captured and sent to Zodanga.

Resigned to her marriage with Than, Thoris and Carter part, only for him to encounter Shang, shape-changing Thern leader and Than’s adviser. Carter escapes him, goes to the Tharks and rallies them against the Red Martians, defeating his rival in single combat. They go to Zodanga, find it deserted, then on to Helium for a final battle. Than is killed, Carter marries Thoris and decides to stay on Barsoom, only for Shang to reappear and send him back to Earth. With the fortune in the cave he explores the Earth looking for clues to the Therns, Barsoom, and so on, until he finishes writing in his journal with a final instruction to his nephew.

This is fine, if anything a superior adaption of the 1912 novel A Princess Of Mars. Perhaps unfortunately John Carter’s superpower is jumping, which looks a bit silly, meanwhile the film keeps a very straight face, other than comedy giant dog-creature Woola. Which frankly goes poorly with it’s slightly distanced meta-fictional framing. The CGI airships are pretty good, the shape-shifting, the Green Martians, the monsters all fairly okay. It meanders a bit – maybe one too many captures and escapes and John Carter having to prove himself. Doesn’t seem to have much time for Carter and Thoris to fall in love. John Carter is famously a gentleman from Viriginia, who fought for the Confederacy; he regrets this and doesn’t want to fight for anyone now, though since the main reason seems to be his wife and child died while he was away at the war… let’s not examine that too closely. Anyway fine.

Watch This: Energetic sword and planet adventure with action, betrayal and CGI monsters
Don’t Watch This: Silly, confusing, has a complicating frame that adds little

* The Tharks lay eggs** which are left in the nurseries to mature, so no one knows whose are whose

** In the books the Red Martians also lay eggs

10. Abigail’s Party

Beverley Moss invites new neighbours Angela and Tony over for drinks; she also invites another neighbour Sue. Her husband Laurence is late back, and has to nip out again – he’s an estate agent and has to drop off some keys and also pops to the off-license. Sue’s divorced, and her daughter Abigail is holding a teenage party next door. They’re near strangers, and it’s slightly awkward.

Sue is a bit posher, which Laurence latches onto, trying to show his superior taste. Indeed Sue brought a bottle of wine and is dressed down, and hasn’t eaten, thinking this invite is for supper – she gets ill from her gin getting constantly topped up. Angela is cheerful but tactless, and there’s some tension between her and Tony. However as the party progresses and a crisis occurs, her training as a nurse comes to the fore and power shifts.

This is very much a play, and Mike Leigh, who developed and directed both the original play and the film, didn’t think it worked as a film. Never mind that; it pushes people of slightly differing backgrounds together and makes them clash despite their best efforts to remain polite. Class, gender, expectations, and disaster.

Watch This: Seminal 1970s comedy of manners
Don’t Watch This: Lot of people getting drunk and talking nonsense