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Goth Chick News: That Time Disney Tried Its Hand at Horror

Goth Chick News: That Time Disney Tried Its Hand at Horror

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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.

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Yaphet Kotto and Parker

Yaphet Kotto and Parker

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I know I’m a broken record about how Alien is, IMO, the greatest ensemble of character actors in the history of SF in movies. Today seems like a good day to say it again.

One of the many things I learned from the huge “Making of Alien” book is that the actors made their characters. They were thinly sketched in the screenplay. You knew that Kane volunteered to go out exploring and wanted to be lowered on the line to see where the hole led, but it was up to the actors to figure out who these people were. Sigourney Weaver wanted Ripley to be prickly, officious, and disliked by pretty much everyone (except the cat), as she poked around in areas outside her official responsibilities. Harry Dean Stanton had Brett follow Parker around and say “right” all the time (in the original screenplay he just backed Parker up at key moments, saying “yeah” in agreement). Ian Holm decided Ash would do every line and make every move like he was on a job interview. Skerritt was driving Ridley Scott nuts by talking so quietly, but then on screen in the rushes Scott saw that it was working and he was clearly in charge.

Yaphet Kotto walked through the sets and knew how he had to play Parker: “Parker was going to be bigger than life. I thought Parker had to be, because one look at Ridley’s sets–I said this character is going to get lost in this and so he’s got to be big. Bombastic and big.”

Ridley also ordered Kotto to ignore Sigourney Weaver as much as possible, make her feel the nervous, inexperienced outsider to the team, or needle her a little. He wouldn’t eat lunch with her, he’d take the makeup chair as far as her from possible. . . even though he liked her from when they first met and felt a little sorry for her as the newbie with a bunch of people who’d been in big roles for years.

Ridley Scott was a collaborator with his actors. He told them the goals of the scene and let the actors work out who would be standing nervously, who would be slumped with their feet up, stuff like that, then Ridley worked out the lighting. They altered their lines, added busyness with their hands. I think that’s the reason Yaphet Kotto is more Parker in everyone’s memory than his other roles, he had the room to make full use of his gifts.

19 Movies Presents: A Selection of Not Entirely Random 1950’s SF Movie Reviews

19 Movies Presents: A Selection of Not Entirely Random 1950’s SF Movie Reviews

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Enemy From Space/Quatermass 2 (Hammer Films, 1957)

We start with two high-quality Brit flicks, both early excursions into SF by Hammer, segue to two related films of somewhat more dubious quality, and finish with the Stinker of the Month. Be sure to read to the end for the details of the first ever 19 Movies Giveaway.

Enemy From Space/Quartermass 2 (1957: 9+)

The second in the Quatermass series (hence the alternative title), wherein Brian Dunlevy again grumps his way through the Quatermass role. This time around he takes on an alien hive-mind that’s hellbent on turning the world into a giant slime pit.

Not only is this an excellent early Hammer effort, it’s arguably the best ‘50’s British SF film and the best of the ‘50’s blob movies. This time the aliens want our planet, but first they have to un-Terraform it, and they’ve insidiously infiltrated British government and society to do so. Hammer aficionados will recognize a young Michael Ripper in a small role.

[Cast and Crew: Val Guest, director and screenplay co-writer, also directed Mister Drake’s Duck (1951), The Creeping Unknown/The Quatermass Xperiment (1955 UK), The Abominable Snowman (1955 UK). Themes: UK setting, village. Alien: first contact, invasion, hive mind, blob. Mind-control. Peasants toting guns. Rocket attack. Police. Radiation. Scientist, rocket. Secret lab. Wandering planet, asteroid.]

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Ellsworth’s Cinema of Swords: Daimajin Strikes Again!

Ellsworth’s Cinema of Swords: Daimajin Strikes Again!

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Daimajin (or Majin the Monster of Terror)

In the menagerie of Japanese postwar film studios, the Toho Company was the 900-pound King Kong, known best for its crime and samurai films, including those of director Akira Kurosawa. Toho hit the international big time in 1954 with Godzilla, King of the Monsters, which, though inspired by King Kong and The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, really counts as the first of the kaiju, or Japanese-style giant monster movies. Toho followed up in 1956 with Godzilla Raids Again, and expanded the franchise late in that year with Rodan.

Over the next several years Toho doubled down on the monster bet, adding Mothra, King Kong himself, and Ghidorah, and by the early Sixties other Japanese studios started getting in on the act. This included Daiei Films with their kaiju Gamera, who “starred” in seven features from 1965 through 1971. We know Daiei primarily for the Zatoichi series, which capitalized on their skill at churning out fair-to-exceptional historical samurai adventures mainly for the Japanese market. With Gamera, Daiei had a series that sold internationally as well, and they had the idea of mashing up their two most popular genres, kaiju and chambara, into a single series. (They weren’t alone in this idea: see also Toei’s The Magic Serpent.)

Samurai vs. a giant monster! Thus was born the Daimajin trilogy, which we’re taking a look at this week.

Daimajin (or Majin the Monster of Terror)

Rating: ****
Origin: Japan, 1966
Director: Kimiyoshi Yasuda
Source: Mill Creek Blu-ray

By the mid-Sixties, the Daiei studio was having success in two genres, giant monster movies and samurai adventure films. Why not cross the streams?

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Ellsworth’s Cinema of Swords: Not-So-Wholesome Buccaneers

Ellsworth’s Cinema of Swords: Not-So-Wholesome Buccaneers

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Blackbeard the Pirate (1952)

The role of Long John Silver in Disney’s 1950 Treasure Island finally launched the talented English actor Robert Newton into international stardom. As Silver, Newton popularized the broad West-Country accent that’s become the default talk-like-a-pirate voice of buccaneering rogues ever since. (You can blame—or acclaim— Newton for the ubiquitous piratical “Ahr!”) But fame ruined the actor, enabling endless rounds of drink, gambling, and the kind of wild behavior that made him a role model for Oliver Reed and Keith Moon. And Newton was never able to escape the shadow of the one-legged pirate with the parrot on his shoulder—but typecast though he was, you can still see that he enjoyed the role even while repeating it. Newton died from alcohol-related heart failure in 1956, and his ashes were buried at sea in the English Channel off Cornwall: “Ahr-men.”

Blackbeard, the Pirate

Rating: **
Origin: USA, 1952
Director: Raoul Walsh
Source: Amazon streaming video

On November 22, 1718, Edward Teach, the notorious pirate known as Blackbeard, was killed on his ship the Adventure during a fierce boarding action led by Royal Navy Lieutenant Robert Maynard. By the time he was brought down, Blackbeard had been shot five times and suffered twenty wounds from edged weapons. For the most famous image depicting this event, look no further than the painting by Jean Leon Gerome Ferris on the cover of your editor’s Big Book of Swashbuckling Adventure anthology.

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Things Your Writing Teacher Never Told You: Columbia College Chicago Alumni Fantasy Writers Look at the Changing Role of Heroes in Terry Pratchett’s Troll Bridge Film

Things Your Writing Teacher Never Told You: Columbia College Chicago Alumni Fantasy Writers Look at the Changing Role of Heroes in Terry Pratchett’s Troll Bridge Film

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Troll Bridge, Snowgum Films (2019)

The air blew off the mountains, filling the air with fine ice crystals.

It was too cold to snow. In weather like this wolves came down into villages, trees in the heart of the forest exploded when they froze. In weather like this right-thinking people were indoors, in front of the fire, telling stories about heroes.

This is the epic, atmospheric opening to Sir Terry Pratchett’s marvelous short story, “Troll Bridge,” set in his Discworld series. 

As I write this, it is not too cold to snow, though it’s much too nasty to be outside. The wind is howling and the snow is blowing, and here in Chicago they’ve predicted we’ll get a foot of snow in 48 hours. Texas looks like the Midwest in winter, and there’s damned few snowplows in the Lonestar state. A whopping 80% of the US currently has snow on the ground. 

In past winters, I have seen coyotes slinking around the park a block from our condo building, and one glorious Yuletime night, I saw a 10 point buck, antlers coated in ice, standing in the middle of Michigan Ave, on the Magnificent Mile. It was an icy, wind-whipped night, the type where the snow turns everything it touches into a glowing icicle. Only the buck and I were foolish enough to be out that night. That was 30 years ago, and I remember it clearly to this day.

As the wind howls past my window tonight, it takes little imagination to think packs of wolves might be coming down from the wilds of Wisconsin to stalk through the streets of Chicago.

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Goth Chick News: Devolution Gets Picked Up by Legendary – Let’s Hope They Get It Right

Goth Chick News: Devolution Gets Picked Up by Legendary – Let’s Hope They Get It Right

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First, let me apologize for not telling you about this last summer. Max Brooks, son of Mel and writer of one of my favorite zombie tales ever, World War Z, dropped another excellent story last year, called Devolution: A Firsthand Account of the Rainier Sasquatch Massacre. I was certain I had written about it until I just went to look for the article and found I did not.

So, let’s start there.

I didn’t grab Devolution the moment it hit the shelves. Why? Because when I read “sasquatch massacre” I pondered the likelihood I could take this book seriously. I mean, come on. Big foot, in most of his iterations, cannot help but evoke images of bad reality TV, insurance commercials and debunked mythos. I wasn’t sure I could set these images aside and willingly go with Brooks into a tale where the words “sasquatch” and “massacre” were used in the same sentence while keeping a straight face.

Having met Brooks on a couple of occasions, I know how seriously he researches his subject matter. We discussed how much of what he describes in World War Z is based in actual science, and how many scientists and doctors he interviewed to get everything just right. So, I should have known better than to think he wouldn’t do exactly the same thing with his topic in Devolution.

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Ellsworth’s Cinema of Swords: Tyrone’s Typecast Troubles

Ellsworth’s Cinema of Swords: Tyrone’s Typecast Troubles

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Captain From Castile 

In the Thirties, young Tyrone Power made an impression as a leading man in various cinematic genres, so Twentieth Century Fox gave him a contract. Power really wanted to play serious dramatic roles, but after his runaway success with The Mark of Zorro (1940) and The Black Swan (1942), the latter directed by Henry King, Fox decided Power was their Errol Flynn and slated him for more swashbucklers, which wasn’t what Power had in mind.

But then World War II got in the way, like it did for a lot of people; when Power returned from his tour as a decorated pilot for the Marines, he found that Fox hadn’t changed their plans for him, and he was cast in Captain from Castile, with Henry King once again directing. Power kept pushing for other roles, getting in a taut film noir and a couple of comedy parts, but Fox continued putting a sword into his hand for a couple more years before Power sheathed that sword for good. Fortunately, we got the classic Prince of Foxes before he did.

Captain from Castile

Rating: ***
Origin: USA, 1947
Director: Henry King
Source: 20th Century Fox Classics DVD

This is a magnificent failure, a classic case of Hollywood buying a novel for its strengths and then lacking the guts to put those strengths on the screen. And it’s a damn shame, because it could have been great. Samuel Shellabarger’s best-selling 1945 novel tells the story of a naïve young Spanish nobleman who runs afoul of the Inquisition; to escape persecution and certain death, he joins Hernán Cortez’s expedition to Mexico, becoming one of the conquistador’s trusted officers.

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Absolutely Remarkable TV: Wandavision, Episodes 3-8

Absolutely Remarkable TV: Wandavision, Episodes 3-8

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When the two first episodes of Marvel TV’s new WandaVision dropped six weeks ago, I blogged about my reaction to something that was at tonal right angles to everything else I’d seen from the MCU. I just finished watching the penultimate episode and now I think that the show is actually not even in the same ballpark as anything else produced by Kevin Feige.

It feels like the MCU and Vertigo Comics snuck off to have a weird love child. This series owes a lot more thematically and tonally to Tom King’s 12-issue Vision series (my blog thoughts here) than any of the regular Avengers comics. I’m going to go into why I would put this show in the same category as Westworld, but I might have to spoil one or two things. If that’s within your spoil tolerance, come onboard. If not, don’t hit the read more yet. I’ll wait.

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Goth Chick News: The Horror of Peter Jackson’s Heavenly Creatures

Goth Chick News: The Horror of Peter Jackson’s Heavenly Creatures

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In 1991, Peter Jackson was a wee New Zealand lad of thirty-three who was embarking on what would become a very lucrative film career. He was still seven years away from becoming a near household name with the release of Lord or the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, and was on the hunt for film project that would get him recognized.

Having grown up in country with roughly the same population as the state of Alabama, he was well aware of the nation’s most infamous murder. Earlier that year fellow New Zealander Fran Walsh, with whom Jackson had worked on Meet the Freebles, suggested they tackle the tale in the form of a movie drama. The Parker-Hulme murder took place in Christchurch, New Zealand, on 22 June 1954, when Honorah Parker was killed by her teenage daughter, Pauline Parker, and Pauline’s close friend, Juliet Hulme. Parker was 16 at the time, while Hulme was 15. On that June afternoon, Honorah took Pauline and Juliet for tea and then for a walk in Victoria Park. In a wooded area about 400ft from the tea shop, Pauline and Juliet bludgeoned Pauline’s mother to death with half of a brick enclosed in an old stocking.

The murder itself was shocking enough, but as Jackson began his research into the circumstances surrounding it, what emerged read like Hollywood fiction. It was a tale of fantasy, forbidden sexuality and obsessive love which ended in violence and death, all involving two teenaged girls. Over the next year, Jackson dug deep into the story of Pauline and Juliet. In addition to reading Pauline’s diary, Jackson undertook a nationwide search for anyone who had known the girls and interviewed them to get a closer look at their lives.

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