Goodbye Roger Ebert

“We live in a box of space and time. Movies are windows in its walls. They allow us to enter other minds — not simply by identifying with the characters, although that is an important part of it — but by seeing the world as another person sees it…. Of all the arts, movies are the most powerful aid to empathy, and good ones make us into better people.”

Roger Ebert, Introduction to The Great Movies.

 

Roger Ebert died Thursday. I feel strange writing the words. It has taken me this long to even get them down. The day before he had published his final blog entry pointing towards a series of new directions in spite of new health problems.

It was too aptly titled “A Leave of Presence”. 

Many of us grew up with Roger in print and TV as the famed critic. But it was his conveyed humanity that endeared him to his fans, the real reason why it is so unbelievably difficult to write this.

 

Kael, Sarris, Bazin, Eisenstein…the names read off like titans to movie geeks. The philosophers, theorists, and critics of film. The medium that became the greatest popular art form of the 20^th Century. Yet a film critic is ostensibly a cold person, a person dedicated to digging beneath the surface of cinema and rubbing our noses in that shoveled dirt. For these distillers of cinema there was one voice that stood out for a very simple reason. Roger Ebert spoke not to cinephiles, critics, industry people, journals, editors or anyone else that one would typically imagine a critic writing in mind for.

He always downplayed himself and kept a great deal of humility which many in criticism could never hope to have. Reading Ebert’s writing was not merely checking the worth of a particular film but rather like hearing the farseeing yet somehow poignant advice of a friend. Even when you absolutely disagreed.

The best in this lonely little group has now left us. Though he would be the first to deny it.

He wrote for us. Us. The audience that paid to go into that hallowed darkened room and await our dreams to be probed, stimulated and immortalized on that shining screen for all times. Roger wrote for the masses, but he also wrote for those of us who clung to cinema like our lives depended on it. Those of us who stayed awake in the dark and subsisted on films. He acknowledged a life outside the movies which seemed incredible for a critic to do. Film criticism is held in such a highbrow context that one is almost barred from displaying any shred of personal context, any sense of self is outlawed as it does not accurately reflect the proper ways of writing criticism. As if there are any.

There is no textbook way to write about films. Any film writer can write about the given topic, but it means nothing if they have no passion for the medium. Roger had it in spades. He maintained the enthusiasm of a child going to see the Marx Brothers while fueling his writing with the intense passion for cinema of Truffaut. He craved what we all do; the desire to be entertained, to escape from our lives and be fully stimulated in true entertainment that can be both artistic and fulfilling in one gasp.

And his writing fulfilled this. Roger is most famous for the groundbreaking film review TV program known under many monikers which he co-hosted with feuding arch rival and eventual close friend Gene Siskel. They fought, fought, fought, fought, fought all while attempting to give the public well thought opinions on the films in release in the limited program time. Their rating system became unanimous with film rating. The “Two Thumbs Up” moniker became almost as standard as the four star system. 

But for me, it was his writing that stood out; every review clearly showed that he wasn’t the first film critic to win the Pulitzer Prize for nothing. Roger wrote with the passion of a movie lover and didn’t neglect his own experiences and this alone would have been enough to cement him as one of the great writers in this little club. What cemented him as different was his skill as a journalist. See, what most people fail to realize is that Roger never intended to write about films. He was a newspaperman, a journalist through and through and inadvertently fell into the job when the Sun-Times critic position fell vacant.

These elements combined into film writing that is both warm and immediate. Articles that could be extraordinarily informative and touchingly personal at the same time leave you scratching your head as to how you could ever write as effectively as this. You see, his writing was so effective that it inspired countless fans including myself to write our own criticism. Roger could tear apart a movie without getting nasty and praise silly popcorn movies without ever going off topic. His sense of focus was incredible and absolutely enviable.

How does one describe how an Ebert review read? His prose writing had the feel of an experienced voice that reeked of honesty and directness all the while still somehow feeling warm as if from a favored uncle. God, how I will miss reading Roger.  Reading an Ebert review gave you not the all-important plot synopsis but what should be and is most important: a sense of the given film’s worth. You come away from an Ebert review with a sense of the film, not merely an idea of the plot. As an aspiring filmmaker a great four star Ebert review would have meant as much to me personally as the Oscar.

Disagreements. Yes, Roger could and would often make statements that seemed so completely off or wrong to our minds. One only has to look at his early reviews from the late 60’s to begin wincing. (Complete dismissal of Once Upon a Time in the West?) But this is not a negative. In fact this differing of the minds created a certain discussion between the text and the reader that continued to play out in the reader’s mind just as it would in conversation. Even the reviews you so passionately disagreed with could touch, charm, and provoke new thought. Just as life is a constantly changing experience, so is our understanding of the movies. Roger finally acknowledged this in print by admitting Blade Runner into the Great Movies.

Roger was a workaholic. He reviewed over 250 films per year, started and ran Ebertfest yearly, ran additional columns and constantly remained steadfast to the reason for even doing so.  The Little Movie Glossary is still a backbone of understanding film, the Movie Answer Man as a precursor to Roger’s later online life but his effort is exemplified by his Great Movies series.  Run on a secondary schedule, featuring the true artistic masterworks with Roger’s own cherished titles, The Great Movies series feature Roger’s conversational tone at full intensity. This series is easily the best writing about film ever done. I have long held that there are two books that are essential for loving films and wanting to somehow be involved with their production. One is Hitchcock/Truffaut, the other is Great Movies. That one volume is a perfect distillation of Roger in print. The Great Movies is a spring to return to frequently in order to reaffirm one’s love for the movies.

Stricken with cancer that took his ability to speak, eat (in addition to taking away a great deal of his face), and left in a situation that would call for absolute despair somehow Roger persevered. In a time when most would simply give in to their ailments, Roger refused to do so and became a prolific figure in a new world; as an avid blogger, Twitterer (if that is a word) and Facebook personality. He revived the TV show and brought it back to public access. (Similar to how he had continued on with Richard Roeper after Siskel’s death in 1999.) Despite being simply a fan and fellow lifelong rabid movie geek in the middle of Palookaville, it is impossible to describe just how wonderful it was to see this outpouring of honest thoughts and commentary from a cherished writer.

It was obvious that he was going through some impossible hardships, and yet this nagging idea only made each individual post like one of the rare good fortune cookies. It also reminded us as readers that there was far more to Roger than simply reviewing movies. He could suddenly speak of literature, politics, social and world events, and yes..even cooking. (I’m still wanting to read his rice cooker cookbook.)

Roger’s longtime friend Martin Scorsese, whom  he championed after seeing Marty’s beautiful 1967 debut Who’s That Knocking at My Door? (Then called I Call First), put it best: “We all knew that this moment was coming, but that doesn’t make the loss any less wrenching. I’ll miss him — my dear friend, Roger Ebert.”

We all feel as if we’ve lost a friend. A person we never met, never knew, yet absolutely did.

The balcony is closed. The film has unspooled off of the final reel and the theater is empty once more, a darkened haunted palace of manufactured dreams.

Where the disciples of the movies feel at home.

“So on this day of reflection I say again, thank you for going on this journey with me. I’ll see you at the movies.”

–Roger’s final blog post.

Goodbye Roger. Our deepest thanks for so passionately decrypting our love for that inescapable magic of the movies. A personal thanks for the unending debt held a young boy who absolutely came to be defined by films while stuck in the middle of nowhere and found a kindred spirit of sorts for a lifetime.

I hated hated hated hated hated having to write this.

from the Chicago Tribune.

“There are no right answers. The questions are the point. They make you an active movie watcher, not a passive one. You should not be a witness at a movie, but a collaborator. Directors cannot make the film without you. Together, you can accomplish amazing things. The more you learn, the quicker you’ll know when the director is not doing his share of the job. That’s the whole key to being a great moviegoer. There’s nothing else to it.”

–Roger in his introduction to The Great Movies

 Is there anything else to take with you into a movie?

No.

Roger’s final blog, still brimming with excitement for what life had in store.

http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2013/04/a_leave_of_presense.html

An eloquent tribute from The Nostalgia Critic:

http://blip.tv/nostalgiacritic/nostalgia-critic-farewell-to-roger-ebert-6564382

Youtube has a treasure trove of Roger and Gene bits:

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=ebert+and+siskel&oq=eber&gs_l=youtube.3.2.0i3l3j0l7.5182.8463.0.10338.9.7.2.0.0.0.124.532.5j2.7.0…0.0…1ac.1.V7IGSI0XSFM

Roger’s favorite theaters, the true places of worship for all those who love the movies:

http://www.filmschoolrejects.com/features/movie-houses-of-worship-roger-eberts-favorite-movie-theaters.php?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+FilmSchoolRejects+%28Film+School+Rejects%29

Roger’s usual seat in the Chicago critic’s screening room.

Roger’s DVD Commentaries:

Citizen Kane, Casablanca, Dark City, Crumb, Floating Weeds (Criterion), Beyond the Valley of the Dolls.

Books:

http://www.amazon.com/Roger-Ebert/e/B000API2UK/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_1

The Maltese Falcon (1941)

The Maltese Falcon (1941)

4 stars out of 4. Immortal film. One of the finest motion pictures ever made, with one of the best casts ever assembled. An unforgettable and groundbreaking masterpiece.

by S. Draper

     The Maltese Falcon is one of the most immortal films ever made for many reasons. It is the film that is most responsible for bringing Film noir to the masses. It is the cinematic foundation of the private eye, much as Hammett’s novel was for literature eleven years prior. It is the film that cemented Bogart as the immortal star. But key amongst these is the film’s adherence to the literary source material by a first-time director hell bent on making not only a successful career as a director but the best possible film version of one of the finest novels ever written.

In doing so John Huston helped to usher in film noir, a term so thrown around today that one forgets the true meaning of noir as a dreamier reality that accurately reflected the fears and desires of the immediate war and postwar America, bathing them in such shadowy darkness that it became a sort of comfort to audiences dealing with many of the same instances in their own lives. This is another point that the film shares with Dashiell Hammett’s novel, in that it was the first work to truly take a realistic outlook on murder by giving “it back to the people who commit murder for reasons”. (Chandler, “The Simple Art of Murder”)

Additionally, Falcon builds upon all of the wonderfully gritty qualities of classic era 1930’s Warner Bros. gangster pictures, maintaining the down and dirty atmosphere but with a more expressionistic feel and outlook that was later tied down to being derived from German Expressionism in everyone’s writing on noir. What is missed usually is the strength of Warners production. Warners had maintained themselves as a production unit throughout the Depression by making these down and dirty gritty pictures about real characters and situations. They may have not been the most prestige of the big studios, but they had won the hearts of the people many times over in addition to having one the most impressive rosters of talent both on and off the screen.

Of course the reason why most of us know the film so well is that it is the picture that finally brought Bogie to stardom, building upon all the years of frustration in small bit parts and roles as Gangster no. 2 deferring and always being killed off in the final reels by Cagney, Robinson and Raft. The role of Sam Spade takes the breakout performance Bogie gave as sympathetic aging ex-con Roy Earle in High Sierra (1941, written by Huston) and molds it it into the complete and superior version as Spade who straddles both sides of the law.

Spade is tough by any standard. In the book, he is as cold as they come, a seemingly nasty example of a man first described as resembling a “blond satan”.  The way Bogart plays him is suggestive of Hammett’s description and characterization, yet a man who is seemingly older and wiser than Hammett’s creation. This Spade has seen the underbelly of society and armed himself against it. His use of cynicism as both a defense mechanism and a way of cutting through the ice is tied to Bogie’s personality and his intrinsic rueful cynicism that has made him such a striking figure to so many endearing fans. Roy Earle finally showed through on Bogie’s promise as an actor and displayed that through all the hard boiled armor that he was a big softie underneath. With Falcon, the Bogart character is complete with fully functioning armor that not only provides for one of cinema’s toughest tough guys but also presents a kind of ideal man, incapable of straying from his code.

The rest of the cast is absolutely perfect, arguably the finest ever put together for a motion picture. Each so fulfills their respective role with perfect nuance and passion that it becomes impossible to not perceive the narrative as reality, even down to the smallest of bit parts. As the nefarious Kasper Gutman, the physically massive Sydney Greenstreet made his first entry into motion pictures after decades on the stage. The performance is so imposing, so charming, so dominating that it is impossible to believe this was his screen debut, and makes Gutman a far more involving character than the novel’s iteration in addition to providing for one of cinema’s greatest loveable villains.

Falcon was Peter Lorre’s favorite film and his favorite performance out of his entire career. As the eerie perfumed Joel Cairo, he succeeded in making a name for himself as the resident creepy foreigner. Lorre provides a greater deal of characterization than that of the novel, succeeding in turning a despicable nasty little man into an overly charming, scheming, prissy articulated man who would be pleased to carry on an extremely polite conversation while about to shoot you. The novel explains Cairo as a homosexual, something of course forbidden by the Production Code. Huston more than adequately gets this point across, merely by letting Lorre inflect the character with little mannerisms and the addition of perfumed accessories.

Mary Astor was a famed silent actress who had been rocked with various scandals involving her sexual life, and was in all honesty a perfect choice for the role of the duplicitous Brigid O’Shaughnessy. Her passion for the role of this devious woman, constantly performing at every turn to fully manipulate any man in her path, is fully evident in every scene. She shifts between strength and weakness, between will and submission so effortlessly that the performance is almost invisible-even to those who knows of her treachery. This is a beautiful woman, fully cultivated and with all the mannerisms of a true lady of culture, while truly a devastating lure for any man. Brigid is the model and foundation of the femme fatale.

Then there’s the gunsel, Wilmer Cook. Gutman needs an extension of himself, and Wilmer is merely the physical long arm of Gutman. He is cold, emotionless and empty as can be. Most of his thinking is done with the two .45’s bulging from his coat pockets. Of course, this role founded the career of Elisha Cook Jr. who played tough and weak variations of this character for the entire of his career. Wilmer is both an imposing yet weak figure because he is all action and no brains. He is as cheap a crook as they come, with the gaudiest of patters.

The police are reflected in the film as obstinate and abrasive towards Spade and the whole of private investigation, as it is in the real world. For once, the cops are portrayed in a more accurate light as grumpy bulldogs more than perfect one-dimensional upholders of the law. The first cop shown on-screen accosts our hero as if he were nothing. The two detectives, Tom Pollhaus (Ward Bond) and Lt. Dundy (Barton MacLaine) are both friendly and antagonistic towards Sam. They fulfill both sides of the coin when it comes to typical police response, cooperation and suspicion.

Then there is Spade himself, as which Bogart defines his entire career whilst portraying one of the screen’s first true antiheroes. Hammett’s Spade was a cold, empty man one who was defined by his actions and not his thoughts. Bogart’s Spade is a passionate man who has learned to survive by burying his passions underneath layers and layers of thick hard boiled shell. He is man of wisdom and restraint who has the rare ability to move through any given situation by manipulating others, using their preconceived notions of himself against them like Brigid. However, out of the entire cast of characters, Spade alone has the ability to step back from events and look at underlying motives. His mind is always a dozen steps ahead of the others, a necessary precaution in order to simply stay alive. Here, Bogart is not merely the antihero, or the unlikely protagonist to root for, as in High Sierra. This is a wonderfully dark character that just happens to be on the right side of the law. Spade is a cool customer, belying all kinds of buried humanity deep beneath the thick hard boiled shell. In essence, he is not merely just another tough guy, but truly an idealized version of what a tough guy can be. Spade is to be idolized and related to, a world-weary traveler of the most sordid aspects of humanity. A man who lives to a personal standard all of his own and no one else’s, a self-made man who refuses to dirty possibly the only thing any of us has left, integrity.

It must be mentioned that the cameo role of the untimely Captain Jacobi is portrayed by the legendary Walter Huston, who wonderfully played his single scene as a good luck charm for his son.

Comparing this to Hammett’s original 1930 novel is essential to understanding the importance and greatness of the film adaptation. The novel is extremely direct, as was Hammett’s style. The characters within however do not have the same panache, the same life force that are in the Huston version. In direct comparison, the novel feels a bit underdeveloped a bit too realistic and without the wonderful character development. We never associate as closely with any of the characters. The literary Spade is merely cold and distant rather than cold and cynical. The script axes a very few scenes form the novel for economical and censorship reasons, but this was also done in a way to tighten and strengthen the original narrative. The compression of events to fit into the time frame of a 1940’s movie is almost always harmful to any narrative but in maintaining virtually 99% of the story, Huston actually evolves Hammett’s prose into a higher realm. This combined with the  censorship concedes allow for development of character, visuals belaying meanings, and arguably the finest ever literary adaptation ever produced due to Huston’s insistence.

Additionally, the film version incorporates mythical aspects surrounding the black bird, by the blending in of history and adventure. The long lost treasure lore as evidenced by Gutman’s recounting of the Falcon’s history and the opening prologue add a sense of excitement and enchantment to surround the figure with an actual interest to the audience. Instead of merely being a MacGuffin to the characters it now becomes a fabled object to the audience who want to see it revealed just as badly as those willing to kill for it.

As mentioned previously, this is the third time that Warners adapted The Maltese Falcon into a film. The previous two inferior versions are absolute oddities that were once merely trivia answers. When seen today, the Pre-Code 1931 film version is a temporarily exciting mix of sex, Hammett and sex. But the film turns all too quickly from Hammett’s timeless story and becomes more of the seductress and a detective. It isn’t a bad film but is so inferior to the kind of storytelling in eith the novel or the Huston version. The second film, 1936’s Satan Met a Lady, strayed so far away from Hammett that it seems impossible to be credited as a Falcon adaptation. This is to be avoided, as they turned the entire story into a disgustingly silly comedy that has no wit, no use for being and no idea what the source material actually is. Both prior versions are painful to sit through for their respective reasons, but especially in light of one of the greatest films ever made.

The score by Adolph Deutsch is something so rarely mentioned, yet so extremely vital to the film’s success. The music is so sparse, yet so perfectly effective at conveying mystery, wonder, suspense, tension and excitement that is impossible to imagine the film without it. The film immediately begins with the unforgettable awe-inspiring Warner logo of the 40’s, but in a drastically lower tone which immediately cues the audience in that this is a different kind of movie. Then that crescendo fades into the opening titles, perfectly setting up the film’s signature main theme motif that accurately reflects the smoky, duplicitous world of greedy amoral men and women all scheming, double crossing, conniving and murdering to get their hands on the Maltese Falcon.

The cinematography by Arthur Edison shows a stunning innovative use of low and sometimes tilted angles, use of high contrast between light and dark, shadows and light and perhaps most impressive is the usage of depth in every single frame. This allows for a new visual style to emerge and make the film stand out from its brethren even more. Not only is this a film with shadowy morals, but so are the visuals. The usage of depth provides a visual context for each scene and respective character, for example Gutman is photographed with his massive bulk filling the screen thus showing his domination and imposing figure as oppressive over all. The sets are designed to perfectly work with this stylistic choice and allows for a heavy usage of foreground and background which is unthinkable for a film of the time. These decisions also provide for a greater sense of reality, a greater connection with the audience in order to make the story seem real in addition to sounding real.

The Maltese Falcon shares some of these visual traits with another film released in 1941. Perhaps most obvious is the fact that visible ceilings appear just as in Citizen Kane. The relationship of Kane and Falcon go beyond merely looking alike. They formed a new breed of motion picture, packed with new ideas, fresh enthusiasm for the medium and supreme technical craftsmanship. These two films were so ahead of their time and so daring that it makes 1941 a standout year in cinema, ousting the so-called golden year of 1939 in this opinion, as these two films are so fully formed and modern that they still seem fresh and relevant to this day.

The true secret to the film’s success is Huston being so prepared and so primed for his first direction job. His intense design of every scene; the working out of all camera movements, blocking, storyboards and working intensely with the actors makes the result more than a film but gives the feeling of a lived-in universe. His strict adherence to the source material (something he maintained throughout his career) keeps the author’s and story’s meaning intact, thus avoiding the typical monotonous Hollywood adaptation. Huston rehearsed his actors and additionally built relationships with them in order to maintain a friendly and understanding work environment so that everyone from the stars to the lowest assistant could and would do their utmost for the film. This led to Huston finding a lifelong friend and comrade in Bogie. The shooting of the picture was done entirely in sequence to better allow the performers to work in the story’s nuances.  All of these are examples of Huston’s tight and taut working of the story into the film which is still a breathless wonder.

The symbolism of the black bird is directly tied to its overall meaninglessness, the pursuit of desire and greed to obtain it, because the symbol that it represents is that of the grand lore of humanity.  This is the ultimate MacGuffin, because though meaningless, it represents both the meaning of life and the utter degradation of humanity personified in the small “black figure of a bird”.

The film’s final denouement balances completely on how the playing of the scene adds so much to the meaning; Bogie reveals all of Spade by implying and detailing Spade’s personal feelings deep beneath the surface. The all-important moral code is not what Spade lives by, it IS HIS IDENTITY. Without it he is nothing, he has so devoted his existence to this code as a means of living that it gives him both purpose and a meaning to living. This is what is so attractive to audiences, that the character is an antihero, a person who can work both ends of the law yet somehow remain pure and even have a heart underneath all the hardboiled shell. Spade is an idealized version of the detective, in contrast to the more defined and human Phillip Marlowe. (This even arises in Bogart’s differing portrayal of both characters) The central theme of Spade’s life is the phrase that is most repeated. “I won’t play the sap for you.” This one line means more to Spade than anything in the world. It is his code in one sentence, his personal mission to be true to his own soul or whatever is left of it.

The immortality of the film is unquestionable. Firstly, The Maltese Falcon’s importance as the first true film noir alone grants it a place in the annals of history. But it was in reducing Falcon to its barest elements and adhering strictly to the source material, John Huston effectively created the textbook for Film noir. Falcon creates everything central to noir, and still has an identity all of its own. This the largest of connections shared between novel and film. The novel was the first breakthrough work of hard boiled detective fiction and everything afterwards built upon it. The same goes for all of noir and this film version.

Bogie finally made the jump onto the A-list as Spade, and the film’s surprise hit success with the public truly cemented his stardom. Perhaps it was an unconscious reaction to the film, but audiences were finally being given something akin to reality-exactly as did Hammett’s novel had done originally. The Huston film is so richly textured and detailed that its superiority to one of the greatest novels ever written is remarkable for a picture that had neither large budget nor any real studio confidence. There is a magic rapture it forever holds audiences in, and that last line which elevates everything to a whole other level. Improvised by Bogie on-set, borrowing from Shakespeare’s The Tempest, when asked what the bird is he both describes the pursuit of all mankind and inadvertently the entire meaning of the movies themselves. Never has anything more true been said about the silver screen.

“The uh, stuff that dreams are made of.”

And of course cop Tom Pollhaus gives the film’s last line in response.

“Huh?”

That my friends, is the story of life.

EDITIONS: Released countless times on VHS and LD, the first DVD was stunning in its better handling of the B&W cinematography and use of contrast. The 2006 three disc edition improves on that transfer remarkably with a new HD master that allows the viewer to experience the film visually. The latest Blu-ray incarnation uses the same master but is better able to handle the black levels due to the increased size and bitrate and is thus fully accurate of what the film looks like theatrically. The mono soundtrack was in a surprisingly effective compressed Dolby Digital track on the DVDs, and this is bumped to a lossless 1.0 DTS-HD presentation that accurately retains dynamic range and even some intrinsic inherent noise that faintly occurs. All extras have been ported over, save for the drastically inferior 1931 and 1936 film versions which remain only on the 3 disc DVD special edition.  The TCM featurette on Bogart’s rise to stardom as catalogued through his film trailers is essential to understanding his career.

This film is as essential to any library as Kane.

The Curse of Frankenstein (1957)

Striking artwork utilized for the DVD release.

 

The Curse of Frankenstein (1957)

4 stars out of 4. Immortal film, and truly an ingenious classic.

Without a doubt, this film is the sole reason for the horror film’s survival past the 1950’s. By this time, horror films had become nothing more than mere exploitation fodder for the lowest of double bills and had no critical or commercial interest whatsoever. Hence no major studio wanted to actively pursue anything in the genre.

And so after producing a string of moderately successful pictures, and the adaptations of the Quatermass serials, a small studio called Hammer decided to tackle Mary Shelley’s  classic novel of one man’s attempt to play at being God. The idea was sound, and it was certainly time for a fresh approach to the story, but there arose one small problem: they could use no element whatsoever from the Universal film cycle.

This along with an extremely limited production and budget provided the necessary spark for extreme creativity, which is something that abounds in this, a horror classic.

The Curse of Frankenstein, despite what the scathing reviews of the time would contest, is an intricate and eloquent horror film for the mind. It so richly detailed in characterization, direction, execution and screenplay that the experience is not one of supreme terror but moreover one of complete entertainment of both mind and spirit.

For 1957 audiences this combined with the Creature in lurid dripping color was almost too much too bear. The Eastman color usage by the early Hammer horrors is justly legendary, as it was the first time these horrors has ever appeared in color.  Terrence Fisher’s direction firmly established the Hammer mission, and with his expert hand the film’s execution is essentially effortless allowing the master shot to encase the ongoing drama and then moving in gradually to accentuate that particular dramatic moment to an almost fever pitch.

Jimmy Sangster’s screenplay is truly remarkable in both construction and execution. Taken on its own, the script is very literate despite deviating wildly from Shelley’s novel. But it is the reality inherent of Baron Frankenstein’s mad dream to create a man, that firmly wins the audience over and moves quickly past the realm of disbelief. You truly believe that the Baron must have a simple laboratory in his attic, that he is workmanlike in his approach to creating a man, right down to rolling up his own sleeves to get the job done no matter how dirty or bloody… The construction is absolutely ingenious, and once considered plays with the mind long after the film has ended. The opening shows the Baron (Peter Cushing) in prison under penalty of execution, where he begins to recount his tale to a priest in the hopes of convincing someone of his sanity despite sounding like a raving madman. This flashback forms the narrative, and begins with the young Victor just after his mother’s death.

Victor is now the Baron, and hires a new tutor to instruct him in advanced sciences. Paul Krempe (Robert Urquhart) performs this task admirably and they quickly become close friends and probe the unknown for years to come. As adults, their work quickly turns toward advanced medical sciences and eventually with the manipulation of conscious life. The first of these experiments shows a small scale version of the eventual apparatus and in a truly invigorating sequence, the experiment works and a small puppy is restored to life from the dead.

Paul wants to turn their knowledge into the medical convention as he feel it could be used in operating procedures as what we would eventually know as anesthesia. However, the Baron refuses to hear of it and proclaims that they have only opened the door of possibilities with this discovery. The manic gleam in Cushing’s eyes belays it all, now the Baron has seen his true goal of creating a being and nothing will stand in his way. And so it begins, with the abduction of a highwayman’s corpse, a new head, fresh eyes, the hands of a sculptor, the brain of a genius, and ends in unspeakable acts that provoke Paul to refuse further participation. However, Victor’s cousin and fiancée Elizabeth (Hazel Court) arrives to live in the estate which provokes Paul to remain for her protection.

Frankenstein is absolutely possessed by his mad dream to create life. This is no exaggeration as he ignores everything, even his own fiancée in pursuit of his self-destruction. Painstakingly everything is procured and finally it is time. The process works, and after an agonizingly built-up reveal, The Creature (Christopher Lee) breathes life for the first time. This Creature has nothing to do with Boris Karloff’s characterization, and is in fact extremely lifelike in both presentation and performance. This abomination is a mismatch of body parts and animalistic in that its actions are all confused primitive urges. It is truly a thing to be pitied instead of feared. The makeup is quite original and resembles more of deformity or accident than the classic Universal look.

The Creature slowly wreaks havoc on the Baron’s life unbeknownst to the glory-mad scientist. Paul’s repeated attempts to subdue this madness and destroy the Creature culminate in his shooting of the escaped creation and its burial. Now it is done and the film has nothing to go on with…but of course our Baron cannot give up so easily, and continues his work on his creation.

Cushing gives the performance of a lifetime and would go on to portray the increasingly mad Baron another five times. It is his intensity, his energy, his body language that make the Baron come to life before our eyes, and he absolutely makes the film what it is. He infuses the Baron with the necessary flaws of someone of power in that time period, right down to an elitist coldness to others not of his class as best seen in the deliciously evil treatment of his servant girl mistress.  It is this coldness that truly frightens when it surfaces and perfectly foreshadows the later atrocities he will perpetrate. And in the Hammer series, it is not the Monster that is to be feared, but the Baron himself. It is rightly so the scientist who is the monster and not the deformed creation, for despite the Baron’s cultured outer appearance he is actually a demonic monster far worse than anything even he could create.

The cinematography is exquisite in both detail and providing a glimpse into the more realistic version of Frankenstein and his experiments. The use of color is exploitative and subliminal, with vibrant red blood being very prominent yet always used in ways to complete the overall scene. The film is mostly comprised of deep browns, blacks, and ambers which perfectly compliment the story’s autumn setting. The skin tones are brilliantly rendered in that hauntingly plaid redness that goes with true Eastman color.

James Bernard’s score is strikingly effective, and helps to perfectly underline the conclusion of the film which returns to the Baron’s recount in prison. Because of the way the story is setup, this ending can be taken a number of ways. It may indeed be as the Baron recounts and that he did create a monster that ravaged, killed and caused incalculable harm. Or he may be truly insane and likely committed the murders himself. In either case Paul refuses to help and may have a set of motivations all his own. It is a strikingly multifaceted ending that can be taken however the audience wants to, and it fits with the studio’s later psychologically minded film thrillers, all spearheaded by Sangster.

The film was a runaway success, to the complete surprise of all involved. In the UK and distributed by Warner Brothers in the US, The Curse of Frankenstein singlehandedly revitalized the horror film and thrilled shocked audiences in countless packed theaters. Today it remains the clarion call that announced to the world that Hammer had arrived.

 

EDITIONS: primarily there are now two versions of note. The 2004 Warner DVD and the new Hammer Blu-ray. The DVD is grain reduced; edge enhanced a bit, lacks in color and is framed at 1.78:1 with no extras.  The new BD comes from a supposed “restoration” but was actually taken from a fresh 4K scan of the interpositive held by Warner. The results are mixed when they should have been exemplary. The image is richly colored, with most of the deep Eastman color look restored. The contrast has been unfortunately tweaked, which effects shadows and gives an overall impression of too many whites blown out. But the big problem is grain and detail. The transfer is horribly soft, and the grain reduction is so prevalent that is absolutely reprehensible. The included PAL DVD version actually has better contrast levels. And to compound these issues, the aspect ratio has become an issue. The film was obviously shot open matte with a widescreen image the intended result. There were still a large amount of theaters that were not widescreen equipped, and so the academy full frame could have been presented as such. Hammer has taken the position of the full frame being the intended ratio and the 1.66:1 matting as inferior. They have presented both as separate encodes (thus limiting the transfer’s space and space for further extras), but poorly framed the 1.66:1 version so there are numerous instances of heads being lopped off and important elements being cropped out of the frame by incompetent matting.

So one has a choice of a featureless DVD with tight cropping and over-sharpening, versus a BD which is riddled with noise reduction but has some better color, along with a lossless rendering of the original mono soundtrack, but with an incompetent rendering of the widescreen version. The BD is Region 2 locked, so one would need a Region free player to view it. Oh, and it does restore the censored eyeball shot, so that’s at least one point in its favor.

At some point I hope to review to letterbox laserdisc version.

Skyfall (2012)

Holy uninspired poster campaign! All the posters are truly bad this time, still leaving the “flame girl” advance from THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH as the last good one.

A review by a Bond fan for Bond fans, kept spoiler-free

A over generous 2 stars out of 4. As a Bond Film no rating.

What a mess Mum.

Daniel Craig’s “Bond” returns for a third outing, and possibly the most uninspired. Here we have an older agent who is initially caught up in a uninvolving chase which results in him being left for dead. After taking an extended vacation as a dead man, “Bond” only returns after a series of attacks begin to be carried out upon MI6 and more specifically targeted against M as if there is someone with a personal motive for exacting revenge.

“Bond” follows loose plot strands that take him to Shanghai, Macau, an unnamed island, London and finally Scotland all in the pursuit of the film’s antagonist, cyber-terrorist Raoul Silva (Javier Bardem) who when actually onscreen easily steals the film. Silva orchestrates elaborate means to get at M (Judi Dench) for reasons as yet unknown.

This plot is rather stupidly simple once revealed and in the end leaves one wondering what exactly the point of it was since the objective was so obvious and delayed to fill a 143 minute runtime. From the opening pre-title sequence (still no gunbarrel opening) there is a stunning unwieldiness to the film that never lets up. This comes to a head during the film’s unwelcome third act which reeks far too much of some unnecessary bad pseudo-psychoanalysis of “Bond’s” childhood and a mixture of Straw Dogs (1971).

Dench is finally given something to do as M after seventeen uneventful years, and after only gradually getting increased roles as Purvis and Wade progressed through their tenure, now emerges as essentially the lead Bond girl. The two other female leads are merely tools plot advancement and quickly disappear with little or no consequence. Bardem is entertaining, fascinating and actually does recall some of Fleming’s villain style. His performance is effortless and one really wishes that he would have been onscreen far longer and actually developed far more than simply generalized Bond villain no. 5 plot structure. The introduction of a new Q (Ben Whishaw) is obviously well labored over though, he sadly becomes little more than the obligatory computer operator inside the HQ to forward the plot. Additionally the Mallory character (Ralph Fiennes) is similarly unfulfilled and is merely there to facilitate his character’s eventual placement. (which admittedly is something I actually look forward to in Bond 24.)

I have never faulted Daniel Craig as an actor for being in films that I so completely loathed as both a critic and lifelong Bond fan. The character became timeless long ago and is open to untold amounts of interpretations, much like Sherlock Holmes or Batman. The problem that began with the “reboot” of Casino Royale (2006) is that by taking “Bond” back to his beginnings most of the essential elements of his character that Ian Fleming created were left on the cutting room floor. With the successive entries there has been the sense of gaining back Bondian elements to eventually present the complete character once more several films down the road. In the ending of Skyfall, this idea is upheld to its maximum and essentially reveals the film to be little more than a bridging vehicle between the un-Bond of these films and a new hybrid in the classic mold to be presented in the two new film under Craig’s new contract.

In Skyfall, Craig presents a character who is both older and wiser in the ways of intelligence work. He is presented a the senior officer who knows the ropes all too well and after being knocked down must regain himself in both the eyes of MI6 and his own. With a steelier gaze, rough stubble and more thoughtful characterization, this is easily his best performance. For the first time there are glimpses of a 007 instead of an unnamed cheeky thug who happened to be promoted to the 00 section in a time of necessity. But these are few and far between, as this is not the adventures of a secret agent on his own but rather a intelligence operative who is constantly in contact with his superiors and bureaucracy at every turn. Since when does Bond need confirmation and inescapable guidance to complete a mission? The fantasy and adventure is all but gone in this new era of “007″, still in favor of Bourne flavored frenetic narrative juxtaposed with failed attempts at a sort of Bondian grandeur.

The execution of the film works against itself, especially in the direction which is virtually nonexistent. There is no real style evident, no defined pacing, and the acts merely bang together instead of being constructed into a well flowing narrative. With Quantum of Solace I has become worried that they were attempting to spruce up the opinion of the Bond film by having relatively art house directors make Bonds, and Sam Mendes does absolutely nothing of worth here to warrant his winning of the reins. Skyfall is just as cold and unmoving  as Mendes’ previous film with Craig, Road to Perdition (2002). The best of the Bond directors have a tight grip despite whatever their leanings may be, and this is almost completely overlooked by general reviewers who instead focus on the lead actor. What is so sorely needed is the guiding force of a Terrence Young, Guy Hamilton, Peter Hunt, hell even another John Glen.

The much written about cinematography is uninspired, though filling the scope frame out nicely. Composition is certainly there, but lacking in definition and polish. This partially comes from shooting on the Arri Alexa camera with a maximum resolution far short of 4K resolution. For a series that has always had capable and clear cinematography as a part of its arsenal, this was a major disappointment. And I cannot think as to what people will be seeing in IMAX, blown up from such a small source. Color is blown up in select sequences to enhance the setting and overall an effect is made to heighten the visual look to achieve a sense of depth to create flair with both modern and “classic” sensibilities. It fails to do this. Primarily the film looks flat, dull and washed out.

The sound mix is completely uninvolving, with the banal score even drowning out most effects that are badly mixed. Surround usage is virtually nonexistent, and the Dolby presentation as always far too polite and restrained. Long gone are the days of even the Brosnan era with pulverizing mindblowing 5.1 tracks that defy all logic.

The score is forgettable and even manages to somehow out-monotonize David Arnold. It could belong in any other film save for the requisite Bond theme placements to remind the audience that thy are actually watching a Bond film. Adele’s title song is equally forgettable and sleep inducing, despite finally having a throwback touch to the choice of performer that isn’t merely a throwaway. The title sequence is too literal and badly cut to the song itself.

With the film’s ending (featuring a Dark Knight Rises-style facepalm inducing character reveal) being a heavily classicized variant on the exact same scene that came about halfway through Die Another Day (2002) there is a sense of regaining the classic elements of the series that have been lost over time. This is certainly a step in the right direction, especially with the loss of Neal Purvis and Robert Wade as screenwriters, but it also underlines the fact that Bond hasn’t truly been Bond in a very long time. 25 years in fact. Here Bond is still in the shadows of others, namely Jason Bourne, and is not yet himself again. At some point the producers will find the plot again and perhaps 007 will be both characteristically and cinematically unique onscreen as created 50 years ago.

Skyfall?……more like Skyfail.

 

Note: The added 50 years logo is a bit heavy handed in its placement. As is the now obligatory Bond product placement. The film even began with a Bond commercial for Omega in the trailers. Also, I write Bond and 007 in quotes as still despite having three films there has not yet been a true Bond character present in either Casino Royale, Quantum of Solace or Skyfall.

The Invisible Man (1933)

4 stars out of 4. Immortal film. A stunning early sound era masterpiece from the genius of James Whale.

“We’ll begin with a reign of terror, a few murders here and there, murders of great men, murders of little men, just to show we make no distinction.”

Let’s make no bones about it. This is a James Whale film through and through. Produced at a time when he had complete autonomy at Universal courtesy of production head Carl Laemmle Jr., Whale chose to reject the stupid proposed drafts and merely enhance H. G. Well’s classic novel with his own trademark brand of black humor and chills.

The Invisible Man is the stepping stone between Whale’s earlier Frankenstein (1931) and the supreme masterpiece that unquestionably one of the greatest films of all time: Bride of Frankenstein (1935). While extraordinarily developed from Dracula (1931) and for being such an early sound film, Frankenstein does have its problems and pitfalls like any other production. All of these are primarily from a lack of hale being involved fully in every capacity and are thus gone in The Invisible Man. Man is not only a classic, a stunning early sound film, but a surprisingly British film made here on American shores.

It is also an absolute gem and along with The Mummy (1932) the most underrated of all the Universal horrors. Whale fills the film with his favored use of offbeat secondary characters including the wonderfully shrieking Una O’Connor and even a bit for Dwight Frye. This helps immensely to fill out to scope of the story’s universe and fills in the gaps that the more limited production values of the time could not. Of course these are all supplanted by the first American screen role of one of cinema’s finest actors, a man so good at his craft that he typically slips into the background as invisible as his character here. The genius of Whale in casting Claude Rains is that he sought a voice and not a performer since who would be seeing the performer as an invisible man?? This allowed the casting of someone thought to be terrible all due to a poor screentest. But Whale heard that one of a kind voice that projects such extreme vulnerability and mortality along with a underlying conviction that could be construed into strength. And that was all it took.

Rains is a wonder as the Invisible Man, running the gamut from weak and terrified to kind and loving to paranoiac and power-mad to vengeful and murderous to finally poetic and elegiac. It is truly a stupendous performance, proving the adage once again of the strength that can come only from the best of radio and voice acting performances. The other roles are filled out accordingly with some of Whale’s favorite actors as mention above along with Gloria Stuart from The Old Dark House (1932) and even a part for our favorite guardian angel Henry Travers.

The special effects still hold up today and despite having a few things visible actually are more effective with the passage of time due to their antique quality, much like King Kong (1933). They seem so archaic from today’s technology we are oversaturated with that they seem downright off-putting and creepy in places. By using black velvet coverings and separately filmed backgrounds, John P. Fulton painstakingly produced scenes that still to this day drive home the idea of an invisible man.

Instead of Frankenstein‘s Gothic atmosphere, Whale opts for a different atmosphere this time and presents snowy villages of England which to be perfectly honest allows for a much more varied and rich atmosphere than the simple trappings of Germany did two years earlier. The setting is so well implemented that one can almost feel the cold charm of the snowy taverns and the cozy atmosphere of an empty rocking chair in front of the fire rocking almost as if its own accord. The black humor maintained throughout enhances this to such a degree that the film becomes for many, myself included, an old and very cherished friend to revisit at least once every October.

Of course remove Whale and the entire thing would fall apart, as the four later sequels proved. Of these only the first has any semblance of the original’s charm due to the plotting of Curt Siodmak (much like the Mummy sequels, only The Mummy’s Hand (1940) is of any merit) and casts another charming actor invisible, Vincent Price. Fulton remained for all of these and only bettered his already outstanding work despite the increasing pointlessness of the films.

Whale abounds in using black humor to round out the story, and thus makes The Invisible Man an absolute delight to return to frequently. By using offbeat characters and enhanced plotting from the novel that makes this the most deadly of the Universal monsters it is a film that is simultaneously thrilling, suspenseful, comic and endearing nearly 70 years on. It betters the novel and Whale’s own Frankenstein, and points he way towards the pinnacle of the entire cycle. A wonderful movie to behold.

“Put a warm rug in the car. It’s cold outside when you have to go about naked.”

EDITIONS: The initial DVD and the Legacy Collection version are largely identical. These are missing a music cue found on the Laserdisc, which has been substituted for legal clearance reasons. The film is the most worn of the films, with wear, tears, scratches running throughout the opening reels, but these largely clear up for the most part during the remainder of the feature. The image is an overall nice looking 1.33 Academy ratio SD transfer with good contrast levels and balance. The audio is relatively clear with less hiss than the earlier films, but of course not as well recorded as the later films were. The film has undergone an intensive restoration courtesy of Technicolor and the discovery of an almost complete dupe held at the British Film Institute. This was painstakingly redone to create a new HD master for theatrical exhibition and for the new Blu-ray found in the Universal box set. The BD has some DNR and edge enhancement and this processing while completely unnecessary does not detract terribly from the film and I hope it gains a greater audience in it’s sparkling new HD incarnation.

Tales of Terror (1962)

2.5 stars out of 4.

When you have such a diverse and astounding canon as that of Edgar Allan Poe, it becomes a challenge to select which of the masterpieces to adapt to film. Roger Corman had established a formula of taking a singular Poe short story and adapting it into a full narrative framework, but was in need of a different approach for the fourth film. This time he decided to make an anthology film of multiple shorter Poe adaptations.

Tales of Terror is that result, a film made up of three adaptations: Morella, The Black Cat and The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar. Unfortunately for some of my personal favorite Poe stories, the resulting film feels more at times like a contractual obligation or money grab than a fully realized film.

The film is introduced and linked by some brief but well written narrated passages read by Vincent Price, who appears in all three segments. If the resulting film had been as interesting as these brief passages then this review would not be necessary. As it stands the film reduces three Poe stories to weakened pastiche of the previous films, a smart and funny take on Poe, and a great Poe tale buried in staple melodrama respectively.

Morella opens the film, or to put it more correctly, an adaptation of Morella in the traditional Corman Poe framework. A young girl arrives at the same house set found in all the previous films, in order to find her father. All she finds is a house in disrepair and a drunken brooding Vincent Price with some bad makeup demanding that she leave. Price blames her for his beloved wife’s death and has shut her out of his depressed existence ever since. She has now returned in a vain attempt to reconcile with her estranged father due to a terminal illness. This reveal of course softens some of Vincent’s brooding and there is a hinting of building a father-child relationship anew. Of course, the discovery of Morella’s corpse on Vincent’s bed hardly raises an eyebrow which should set up the final conclusion. Wifey cannot stand for their daughter’s return and her vengeful spirit suddenly rises up in a pitiful process shot to swoop through the house and kill her. Then her body rises restored and begins to strangle Vincent in the burning mansion, in the manner by which Vincent is destined to die in virtually every film he appears. This adaptation virtually disregards Poe’s central conceit of the newborn child’s gift of life being taken directly form the wicked Morella and directly causing her instantaneous death. It also drops the possible insanity of the narrator. Along with dropping Poe’s idea it loses all credibility as an interesting short film and becomes merely a microcosm of the first two Corman Poe films reduced a to a 25 minute exercise in dull boredom.

The Black Cat thankfully picks up from this disappointment and provides the only real satisfying point of the film. the story is really a combination of the titular story and The Cask of Amontillado, with some elements from The Tell-Tale Heart of course. Peter Lorre has a ball playing Montresor, a town drunk who lives only to reach each night where he can drown himself in more drink. He has a pretty wife at home who is tormented by his drunken protests for their meager funds to drink away. Montresor is reaching the end of his fortunes, and returns home to drunken hallucinations and his hatred for his wife’s black cat. One night he is thrown out aof a tavern and stumbles onto an extremely convenient wine merchants convention. Here the foremost tasting expert is giving a demonstration which Montresor scoffs at. Of course the expert is Fortunato Luchresi played to the ultimate hammiest by Vincent Price. Then begins a wine tasting off between the two and much is made of Montresor matching Luchresi’s extremely overdone fastidiousness by downing wine with abandon.  Of course Luchresi is stuck with taking the drunkard home and there meets Mrs. Montresor, which begins their budding romance. And of course Montresor will find out about their little romantic dalliance and exact his revenge. Lorre is excellent in maintaining a comedic bent in his walling up of the two in the cellar. The requisite Corman nightmare sequence is quite weird, even for one of these films, for Montresor is tormented by his wife and friend whom he has killed and at one point they remove his head an begin to play ball with it.

All in all, The Black Cat alone is the reason for sitting through this film and paved the way to the later films along a similar serious-comedic bent: The Raven (1963) and The Comedy of Terrors (1964). Price and Lorre are a joy to watch playing off one another and for a brief time the film picks up an energy not seen anywhere in the first section.

Lastly comes Tales‘s version of M. Valdemar. Here the idea of a man on his deathbed being placed into a state of hypnosis to escape the pains of death is placed in a setting of melodrama featuring a evil hypnotist. This of course in and of itself would be silly in any normal context, but the film plays it perfectly straight which is a major help. the other strength is the hypnotist being played by Basil Rathbone who lends an incredible believably to the small role which is essential in telling this adaptation. One can seriously believe his evil intent simply due to the performance which is pointed, clipped and quite cold. Thankfully the segment is not allowed to last long enough to wear out its welcome and the film hits the end credits which leave the audience wondering why they chose to sit through the exercise in the first place.

Tales of Terror is a failed experiment that never really works, except in The Black Cat segment, where as with the best of these films, the script deviates from Poe enough to make things seem fresh without losing the original spirit. One story is a flat out rehashing of previous films, one is a darkly funny little gem and the last is merely okay. All in all one must ask what happened to all the creativity and effort that made the first three so remarkably interesting? This question would sadly again be asked in the end of the next film in the cycle: The Haunted Palace (1963). And that one wasn’t even based on Poe at all despite the advertising. It’s actually based on H.P. Lovecraft.

What disappoints me most about the film is the lack of regard to Poe’s work, which is so visually oriented that it almost cries out to be faithfully adapted to film. The anthology format allows for multiple stories to be adapted, thus providing a broader portrait of the great legend’s canon but in Tales of Terror the focus is more on wringing the most out of the drive-in crowd instead. There is a constant feeling throughout of doing the film by-the-numbers as if to fulfill contractual obligation. The previous three films had vitality and the work’s spirit despite deviating heavily from Poe in details. Corman’s heart really isn’t really in the film, except perhaps in The Black Cat.

EDITIONS: MGM’s transfer is one of the older ones in the cycle, but the anamorphically enhanced image is quite clear of print defects. Dupes and transitions are dirty, then click into the homogenized feature. Overall pleasing to an extent but not representative of film. Colors are fine as with all of these releases, if a bit muted. Sound is clear with very occasional defects. These films were released in HD on broadcast HDTV channels a few years ago, and have begun to leak out on Blu-ray in Europe.

The Premature Burial (1962)

All of the Corman Poes had some great poster artwork.

3 stars out of 4.

It’s truly amazing to see what one can do with so little when one puts in the necessary willpower. This single idea is the meaning behind Roger Corman’s entire filmmaking career. He became legendary for stretching tiny budgets to the absolute maximum, and producing results of such a similar uniform quality that audiences came to know exactly what a Corman production entailed.

The Premature Burial is no exception. in the third of his Poe series, Corman departs from the successful formula established on House of Usher (1960) and wonderfully developed on Pit and the Pendulum (1961). This time the Poe experience is brought away form the rather Gothic and medieval trappings and into the realm of a character study. As all Poe enthusiasts are aware, the Corman films merely use the words of Poe as a backdrop and setup for an entire film. because they utilize the short stories there isn’t enough material to cover an entire film narrative and so with varying degrees the films depart from their source material.  The best of them actually deviate the most, becoming freer to create their own particular worlds and in turn remain faithful to the spirit of Poe, if not in the exact details. (Pit and Masque of the Red Death respectively)

And so the film in question is obviously about a man terrified of being buried alive. Guy Carrell (Ray Milland) suffers from a fear of developing catalepsy and being buried alive, just as he believes his father was many years ago. He has refused to marry his sweetheart, Emily (the wonderful Hazel Court, borrowed from Hammer) because of this but is convinced perhaps wrongly that they should marry anyway. (As if the thousand strikes of ominous lightning that interrupt their wedding ceremony doesn’t tell them anything.) Guy’s malignant fears of premature internment have been awakened by attending a exhumation that happens to reveal the occupant was indeed buried alive. His overly convenient doctor friend warns Emily that Guy’s fears may, if properly motivated by events, actually cayuse the condition of catalepsy he so fears.

After the marriage, Guy retreats into himself and builds and elaborate tomb complete with a multitude of escape methods all in the event of a premature burial. Still, he finds himself confronted by memories and visions of the exhumation, references to death and premature burial and finally the fears of his father’s fate. Are these indeed true, and has Guy begun to actually go mad or could there be something else at work…

As with all the Poes, this is the primary conundrum for the audience. The casting of Milland over Vincent Price furthers the different flavor of Burial, and allows for a fresh look at what could have quickly become boring and routine. Milland brings his leading man charm that became so increasingly underused by Hollywood, and this non-use led him to productions like Corman’s. This is at a completely different angle than Price, who would either coldly or joyously throw himself into whatever the role dictated. Milland always retains a certain steely sense of sophistication, much like his portrayal of the jilted husband who plots an elaborate way to murder his wife in Dial M For Murder (1953). In the final denouement of the film, this becomes absolutely exemplary and a joy to watch, however brief the result may be.

And here we are with yet another inherent flaw in these films, the fact that the short 80 minute or so running time does not allow for an adequate space for the plot reveals to actually work and take hold in the audience’s mind. here it’s a great one, but the handling is so rushed that it loses almost all credibility. Inf act it takes the second viewing to fully appreciate the entire story in context and the ending because  one isn’t simply hit over the head with hit in the last minute of the reel!

Part of the fun of the Poe films is seeing where the same sets were reused from picture to picture, or actors, props, costumes and not to mention those damn red candles that appear in every film. (Seemingly when making House of Usher someone got a great deal on red candles.) But on Premature Burial, this isn’t as readily apparent as on some of the others. It seems as if Corman and his team tried to create a different film from the previous two so that it may reside in the same world, but has its own distinct personality. In fact, the film that reminds me most of Burial besides the other Poes is Hammer’s The Mummy (1959).

This is a brisk little film that may not prove to be very surprising, or shocking in any regard but it is a nice little reminder of what craftsmanship can do with good talent in even the lowest of production values. An essential Halloween treat shrouded in fog. It is worth viewing alone for the Poe series requirement of a color tinted nightmare sequence, this time depicting how Guy’s burial tomb goes horrifyingly wrong.

EDITIONS: Released by MGM on DVD some time ago, Burial is one of the best looking of the Poes on disc. The Panavision frame is well presented in a 16:9 anamorphically enhanced transfer. Print damage and wear is light but occasionally noticeable. Color looks good, though grain is seemingly reduced a bit. Dupes and transitions are a bit dirty but then click into the main feature cleanliness again. Audio is clear in Dolby 2.0 mono with only some very faint hiss on occasion. Later repackaged with The Masque of the Red Death at a reduced price. Look for these films to hit Blu-ray in Europe, sourced from the HD transfers that first appeared on HDTV networks a few years ago.