skjam | Entries tagged with roger corman

The Terror (1963) dir. Roger Corman

Lieutenant Andre Duvalier (Jack Nicholson) of Napoleon's French army is separated from his unit and very lost. His compass has stopped functioning, and he's no longer even sure what country he's in. It's probably one occupied by France at the height of the Empire, though. Rapidly approaching the end of his rope, Andre is led to water by a girl who claims to be named Helene (Sandra Knight). Helene has the disconcerting habit of walking into hazardous terrain and then vanishing the moment Andre is distracted.

Local wise woman Katarina (Dorothy Neumann) claims that there is no such girl, and that "Helene" is the name of her trained hawk. Her not quite mute servant Gustaf (Jonathan Haze), on the other hand, claims that the girl is connected to the nearby castle. Said castle is inhabited by Baron Victor Frederick von Leppe (Boris Karloff) and his faithful manservant Stefan (Dick Miller). They also claim that there is no girl, but a portrait of the baron's deceased wife Inga strongly resembles Helene.

Soon, the mysterious girl is putting in appearances at various places, never quite being pinned down. But is she a living woman named Helene, Inga's vengeful ghost, or something else entirely?

This Roger Corman quickie is disjointed, in part because it was cobbled together from several directors' shooting, including Francis Ford Coppola and Jack Nicholson. This works decently if you accept that the story works on nightmare logic and isn't actually supposed to make sense when analyzed. Especially with a couple of twists towards the ending, and one big reveal that should help the movie make sense but is subsequently ignored. I saw this film in a poor print that washed out any benefit from the cinematography.

Nicholson is very young here, and plays more as the generic male lead than the distinctive "type" he would rapidly grow into. Andre seems mostly to be acting out of an instant attraction to Helene, ignoring warning signs, and then frustration that everyone else seems to be hiding the truth from him. He abuses his military rank to get his way--while he's separated from his unit now, if they ever catch up he'll have real power.

Karloff, conversely, was in his seventies by this point and honestly too old for the character he's supposed to be playing. (One can only assume that twenty years cooped up in the castle have done a number on the baron's health and appearance.) He does well with the material he's given.

Sandra Knight at least gets a part with some range to it, even if it isn't internally consistent. Nightmare logic to the rescue, and she is apparently not in full control of her actions through much of the story.

Content note: A couple of gruesome deaths, one involving injury to the eyes. Suicide is attempted, and discussed as "the one sin God will not forgive."

This is a lesser movie for everyone involved, but is in the public domain so easily found, Most suited for completists of the various actors and directors but can be enjoyed on its own merits if you don't have high expectations.

Dementia 13 (1963) dir. Francis Ford Coppola

Lady Haloran (Ethne Dunne) has summoned her family to their castle in Ireland for the annual commemoration of her daughter Kathleen's death. Eldest son John (Peter Read) has sent his regrets, and his wife Louise (Luana Anders), as he has been forced to travel elsewhere on business. Middle son Richard (William Campbell), an aspiring sculptor, is joined by his American fiancee Kane (Mary Mitchel). Youngest son Billy (Bart Patton) has also returned from his American college.

What the family doesn't know, but the audience does, is that John Haloran is dead of a heart attack. Louise has concealed this fact as if he predeceases his mother, Louise is cut entirely out of Lady Haloran's will and won't get even the modest percentage of the family wealth she was hoping for. Her one hope is getting Lady Haloran to change that will in her favor before John's death is known, even if she has to fake a haunting to do it.

What Louise doesn't know is that she's not the only one with a dark secret who is willing to go to great lengths to get their way.

This was the official directorial debut of Francis Ford Coppola (he'd done a couple of porn flicks but they're usually not counted on his resume.) Coppola had been a soundman on Roger Corman's The Young Racers and was offered a chance to use the remaining budget from that production and a few of the still-contracted actors if he could come up with a script. Coppola wrote a script in three days that impressed Corman enough to greenlight the project.

The tiny budget and rushed schedule really show. The story is often a bit hard to follow, there are some production goofs, and the dialogue is dubious. Corman ordered some new scenes to be shot after the main production was complete--the version I saw still has the added comic relief character who gets decapitated, but not the prologue with a psychologist putting the audience through a questionnaire.

That said, there are flashes of brilliance that show Coppola's promise as a director, particularly the scene where Louise ties dolls to the bottom of a pond. The actors, working for minimum wage or even "exposure", are professional and doing their best with the dialogue they've been given. Patrick Magee is especially effective as family doctor Justin Caleb, who's a jerk but determined to get to the bottom of the strange events at Haloran Castle.

Content note: There's some gory violence and corpses (in black and white.) Also, Louise and Kane are both seen in their underwear and are shot in ways that suggest Coppola hadn't quite gotten over his porn training.

Not the best movie by anyone involved, but it has some good points, and is short, so might make a decent half of a horror double feature. (Perhaps with another Corman production like Bucket of Blood?)

A Bucket of Blood (1959) dir. Roger Corman

In 1959, the cool place to be was the Yellow Door, a beatnik coffee house. (For our younger readers, beatniks were the predecessor to hippies, but more focused on artistic expression; both hipsters and goths are distant descendants.) You could listen to word salad poet Maxwell H. Brock (Julian Burton) deliver his latest opus to the saxophone accompaniment of Paul Horn, or hear a murder ballad, or view the many paintings on the wall, available for the right price. But not everyone at the Yellow Door is cool. Walter Paisley (Dick Miller). the busboy, is generally ignored and put down both by the patrons and his boss Leonard de Santis (Antony Carbone). Only fellow employee Carla (Barboura Morris) is kind to him, in her way.

Walter would do anything to be cool and to be respected by the beatniks. But he's a naïve dimwit, even rejected by the draft board for lack of smarts, and hasn't a clue how to be creative. His clay sculpting is getting nowhere. That is, until he accidentally kills a local cat, and in a panic covers it in clay to pass it off as a statue. The startling realism of "Dead Cat" gets Walter recognizes as someone with artistic potential. But what to do next?

The decision is taken out of Walter's hands when an undercover police officer tries to bust him for drugs Walter didn't even know he had. Walter panics when he sees a gun, and the next piece is "Murdered Man." Walter's on his way to being a local sensation!

But now Walter's under pressure to produce new material, and de Santis has figured out at least part of Walter's production method.

Over the decades, producer/director Roger Corman has made dozens of movies, the vast majority of which made more money than they cost. This low-budget quickie used redressed sets from his previous film, which would then be used again in the next movie. Witty writing and some good performances make this horror-comedy shine.

It's easy to sympathize with Walter at first, the put-upon loser at the bottom of his social circle. He means well, and life is rotten to him. But as he tastes success, his head swells and he starts justifying worse and worse behavior. Plus, he does that thing where a man assumes a woman is romantically interested in him just because she's nice to him.

Maxwell is an interesting character too, the swollen ego who actually has some talent to pull off his "center of attention" lifestyle. He's genuinely interested in feteing Walter...as long as he also gets to be on stage. de Santis wavers between turning Walter in for his crimes, and profiting from them.

There's also some amusing minor characters, like the pair of derelicts who are probably stoners, but are a little too early for that cultural scene. One of the undercover cops (the one who doesn't die) dresses in an outfit that would scream "pimp" a decade later but here just says "trying too hard."

The black and white photography keeps the blood (it's really more of a saucepan than a bucket) looking relatively tasteful.

Content note: harm to animals, drug and alcohol abuse, suicide.

At just over an hour, and not overstaying its welcome, this is a good choice for an old-fashioned horror double feature.

Tales of Terror (1962) dir. Roger Corman

This trilogy of scary stories was loosely adapted from the work of Edgar Allen Poe by Richard Matheson. By now, Roger Corman and Vincent Price were a practiced team at these adaptations.

In "Morella", Price plays "Locke", a widower who has spent the last 26 years obsessively mourning his wife Morella, even keeping her well-preserved corpse in their old bedroom. Their daughter Lorena (Maggie Smith) unexpectedly arrives to spend some time with her estranged father on the grounds that she's terminally ill.

It turns out that the birth went badly, injuring Morella. When she overexerted herself a few months later, Morella died cursing the child for doing this to her. Locke also blamed the baby, and had Lorena banished. But now that she's arrived, and time is running out, Locke realizes that his actions were unjust and decides to reconcile with his daughter.

Of course, this is a horror movie, so a happy ending isn't in the works.

"Black Cat" combines the Poe stories "The Black Cat" and "The Cask of Amontillado." Peter Lorre plays Montresor, an unemployed sot who bullies his wife Annabel (Joyce Jameson) for the few pennies she earns sewing so that he can spend all night drinking wine. He also hates her pet cat. One night, Montresor gets in a wine-tasting contest with connoisseur Fortunato (Price) and holds his own thanks to his practical experience despite his habit of drinking the entire glass rather than just tasting.

Fortunato assists Montresor home, and is introduced to the lovely Annabel and her darling black cat. After that, Montresor doesn't get arguments about the money he spends drinking as long as he goes out of the house to do it. But eventually, he catches on....

The wine-tasting scene is classic comedy, and there's some interesting camera tricks during Montresor's drunken hallucinations.

"The Case of M. Valdemar" rounds out the movie with Valdemar (Price) as an elderly man dying of a painful brain ailment. Carmichael (Basil Rathbone) is a mesmerist who has had some success easing the pain through the use of hypnosis. Carmichael has gotten M. Valdemar's permission to hypnotize him at the very point of death, to see how long a person can be kept in an undying state. The answer is "a surprisingly long time." The film adds a more sinister ulterior motive to Carmichael's actions which makes for a more cinematic conclusion.

Mr. Price is also the narrator who links the stories.

"Morella" requires a bit of thinking to understand why the climax turns out the way it does. "The Black Cat" is the strongest sequence on its own, but younger viewers might find the dream sequence special effects offputting. "M. Valdemar" has the best suspense.

The color is lush and allows the settings to pop (but it's very obvious they are sets.)

Recommended for horror fans who enjoy some humor with their scares, and fans of the various stars.