Like most of you, I read and enjoyed Neil Gaiman’s American Gods, so I was happy to see it get the premium specialty TV treatment, although I didn’t have the time or the right subscriptions to watch it until this year. I just binged all three seasons, and it’s a gem. It has a few flaws, the most major being its pacing, which might be why Starz dropped it after season three, but even these three seasons are a work of art.
Earlier this week, while collating ideas for writing about the history of a particular giant monster who recently played a featured role in Godzilla vs. Kong (but who is neither Godzilla nor Kong), an alien sensation suddenly overpowered me. I had to go watch another giant monster movie, one I hadn’t given any attention to in fifteen years: Space Amoeba.
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The Sword and the Rose (Walt Disney, 1953)
What? Has Lawrence run out of theme ideas? Has the well gone dry at last? Perish the thought! I was just looking at my list and saw there were several movies with “Sword” in the title that we hadn’t covered yet, and they’re all worth discussing, so here we are.
Rating: ***
Origin: UK/USA, 1953
Director: Ken Annakin
Source: Walt Disney Home Video
This is based on the popular 1898 novel When Knighthood Was in Flower by Charles Major, a Victorian historical romance that had been filmed twice before in the silent era, and has just enough swashbuckling in it for inclusion here. Despite its title, it’s not set in medieval times but during the early reign of King Henry VIII, telling the story of his sister, Princess Mary Tudor, and her (largely unhistorical) love for Charles Brandon, a mere captain of the guard. Brandon is played by Disney’s chosen leading man of the time, Richard Todd, in perhaps his best performance, though he was better known for Dam Busters (1955). Princess Mary is played by Glynis Johns, who has the impossible task of making her willful and selfish character seem adorable, but she’s so good she almost pulls it off. The leads are supported by a cast of fine British actors that includes James Robertson Justice as King Henry, Michael Gough as the Duke of Buckingham, and Rosalie Crutchley as Queen Katherine, all benefiting from a strong script with a lot of cutting gibes and haughty rejoinders.
All the wonderful film fests in the US and Canada have been forced to go virtual over the last year, but that hasn’t stopped them from showcasing a very creative run of new films; and this one might be my favorite.
Fantastic Fest, which normally takes place in Austin, TX, is the largest genre film festival in the US. Specializing in horror, fantasy, sci-fi and action movies from around the globe, the festival is dedicated to showcasing challenging and though-provoking cinema from new voices in the industry. Like other film fests, the best of the movies which premier here, get picked up for wider distribution.
The virtual version of Fantastic Fest 2020 was home to a new werewolf movie, written by Wendy Hill-Tout along with her daughter, Elizabeth Lowell Boland, known by stage name Lowell, a Canadian singer, songwriter and producer. Admittedly, I had never heard of Lowell until now, though she has released two full-length albums, and her song Palm Trees featured as soundtrack in EA Sports game, FIFA 15. I wish I could say differently about her Mom, Hill-Tout, but alas, I cannot. She has primarily been a producer throughout her career, according to IMDB. But as a writing team, Hill-Tout and Lowell seem to have created cinematic magic in the form of the film Bloodthirsty.
Newbie director Amelia Moses of course gets credit here, as does the acting of star Lauren Beatty (Jigsaw), but to me, all really great monster movies start with a great script. And this one is a doozy.
The Conqueror (1956)
Let’s get barbaric! Preferably on horseback in central or western Asia. Our first movie, John Wayne as Genghis Khan in The Conqueror, is so terrible that it’s famous for being terrible, while our second film, The Tartars, is just as terrible but unfairly and surprisingly overlooked, especially since one of its stars is Orson Welles. Ah, but our third movie, Taras Bulba…. Now that’s good stuff. So, ferment some milk, shave your skull except for a scalplock, and leave your effete civilizations behind, because we’re going steppin’ on the Steppes!
(And by the way, if this kind of setting is to your taste, you’re going to love the Harold Lamb short story collections edited by our own Howard Andrew Jones, stories that were a major inspiration and influence for Robert E. Howard. The books, including all four volumes of The Complete Cossack Adventures, plus Swords from the Desert, Swords from the West, Swords from the East, and Swords from the Sea, are still available in digital format — and if you move quickly, there may still be a few print copies left.
My son is *super* excited about the MCU’s latest TV venture, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. I thought Marvel did spectacular work with WandaVision (see my reviews here and here) which was a real stylistic and tonal departure from the movies. I came to Falcon and the Winter Soldier with less excitement in part because sometimes I feel just saturated with cape and cowl stories. Luckily, the first two episodes of Falcon and the Winter Soldier delivered in a way that really worked for me.
Fantastic Voyage by Isaac Asimov
First Edition: Houghton Mifflin, March 1966, Cover art Dale Hennesy
(Book Club edition shown)
Fantastic Voyage
by Isaac Asimov
Houghton Mifflin (239 pages, $3.95, Hardcover, March 1966)
Cover art Dale Hennesy
Isaac Asimov’s early novels were published over a period of just eight years, from Pebble In the Sky in 1950 to The Naked Sun in 1957, with linked collections like I, Robot and the Foundation “novels” along the way. Some of his early short stories, published in magazines as early as 1939, weren’t collected into books until the 1960s, but for the most part Asimov had stopped writing science fiction by the late 1950s, perhaps because of the collapse of the SF magazine market, or perhaps because he’d discovered that writing nonfiction books was more lucrative and easier. As Asimov fans were painfully aware of at the time, a spell of some 15 years went by before he published his next original novel, The Gods Themselves in 1972, to great acclaim and awards recognition. (And then yet another decade went by before Asimov returned to regular novel writing, with Foundation’s Edge and a string of following novels derived from his Foundation and Robot universes.)
—Except for a book called Fantastic Voyage, in 1966, which was a novelization of a movie script.
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The Count of Monte Cristo (1934)
Your honor, I stand before you charged with three counts of Monte Cristo, and while I could plead insanity, instead I’ll Dumas best to explain.
(I slay me.)
Alexandre Dumas’s most popular and enduring novels are The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo, and one of the most remarkable things about them is that he wrote them at the same time! They were published in simultaneous serial form in two different Parisian periodicals, with T3M finishing first because Monte Cristo was the longer novel. Though written together, the two are very different: T3M is an action-packed tale of youthful heroism, practically the definition of a swashbuckler, while Monte Cristo is a slow-burn revenge fantasy, a swashbuckler more in its themes than its action. It still holds up today; if you haven’t read it, or haven’t read it lately, I recommend the Penguin Books translation by the late Robin Buss. (I know a little bit about translating Dumas, so take my word for it!)
But enough about the book: we’re here for the flicks! Monte Cristo was filmed many times during the silent era, and at least three of those adaptations have survived, but this week we’re going to look at the first thirty years of its sound versions in English. Prepare yourself for the vengeance of Edmond Dantès!
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In 1993, Bruce Campbell starred in an excellent television show set during the nineteenth century in which he went on adventure after adventure, often in the company of a beautiful woman, and always seeking “the next big thing,” which led to steam-punkish versions of modern inventions. The show was clever, fun, entertaining, thoughtful, and lasted one single season for 27 episodes.
In 2000, Bruce Campbell starred in a television show set during the nineteenth century in which he went on adventure after adventure, often in the company of a beautiful woman, many episodes features steam-punkish versions of modern inventions. The show was juvenile, intermittently fun, and lasted two seasons for 22 episodes.
The first show was The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr. The second was Jack of All Trades. In the latter show, Campbell portrayed Jack Stiles, an American spy sent by Thomas Jefferson to the fictional island of Palau-Palau in 1801. Stiles was teamed up with British aristocrat and spy Emilia Rothschild (Angela Dotchin) and they tried to bedevil the French authorities on the island, represented by Napoleon’s brother, Governor Croque (Stuart Devenie) and his guard captain, Brogard (Stephen Papps).
As we well know, Disney is currently focusing a lot of energy on “live action” versions of its animated films, as well as family-friendly live action movies. We’ve seen the likes of Cinderella, Mulan, Beauty and the Beast and Sleeping Beauty (aka Malficent), along with Pirates of the Caribbean and the upcoming Jungle Cruise. But what you might not know, is that Disney has visited this strategy before. In the late 70’s and early 80’s, in an attempt to attract a young-adult audience, Disney also produced several live-action movies, though not ones based on previous stories. The Black Hole, Tron and my personal favorite, Something Wicked This Way Comes all harken back to this era in the Walt Disney Productions timeline.
It’s not that Disney had never done live-action movies before. In fact, from its inception in 1937 through the end of 1979, Walt Disney Productions delivered no less than 106 films with real actors. However, these stories pretty much defined the term “family friendly,” with titles such as Twenty-Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, Pollyanna, The Parent Trap, and The Shaggy D.A. Which is why Disney’s departure in 1979 caused such a kerfuffle.
In that year, British film and television director John Hough, who had already worked with Disney directing Escape to Witch Mountain and its sequel, was tapped to lead an idea first pitched by Disney producer Ron Miller. He proposed turning a 1979 novel by Florence Engel Randall, entitled The Watcher in the Woods, into one of Disney’s live-action films.