Wednesday Horror: The Comedy of Terrors

Film: The Comedy of Terrors
Format: Turner Classic Movies on rockin’ flatscreen.

There are times when you find one of those movies that just begs to be watched. The Comedy of Terrors was like that for me. I didn’t expect this to be a great movie or something that I would want to rush out and find a copy of for myself, but based on the cast and crew, I went into this with some expectations. The Comedy of Terrors was directed by the great Jacques Tourneur based on a script by no less a luminary than Richard Matheson. Our cast includes such horror luminaries as Vincent Price, Peter Lorre, Basil Rathbone, and Boris Karloff. Knowing all of this, how could a self-respecting movie nerd/horror geek not want to spend roughly an hour and a half in front of the screen?

For a film that promises “terror,” though, The Comedy of Terrors doesn’t really deliver. Then again, it also doesn’t really try to deliver. This is a comedy film with horror movie trappings, and that’s exactly what it’s supposed to be. All of the characters are broad stereotypes, the situations are ridiculous, and it doesn’t really matter, because no one is really going into this film expecting to be scared.

Wednesday Horror: The Leopard Man

Film: The Leopard Man
Format: Turner Classic Movies on rockin’ flatscreen.

I’ve not been shy on this blog about my love of Jacques Tourneur and especially the work he did with the great Val Lewton. As pure horror movies, they don’t work based on what the world thinks of as horror movies now, but that’s okay. Their work was low budget by definition, and so the scares and thrills had to be done with movie cleverness, with shadows and sounds rather than leaping monsters and gore. It’s great stuff when it works, and every one of their movies (at least the ones that I’ve seen) have at least a few places where that creepy vibe comes out and works like a charm. The Leopard Man is no exception.

It all starts innocently enough. Singer Kiki Walker (Jean Brooks) is stuck in New Mexico with her manager Jerry Manning (Dennis O’Keefe) and is having trouble getting the locals to appreciate her act. The main problem she’s having is that she doesn’t have the immediate sex appeal of castanet-wielding dancer Clo-Clo (Margo). Jerry comes up with the brilliant idea of having Kiki walk into the club with a black leopard on a leash during Clo-Clo’s act. She does, and Clo-Clo reacts by startling the panther and causing it to run off.

Off Script: Night of the Demon

Film: Night of the Demon (Curse of the Demon)
Format: Internet video on laptop.

I like a good horror movie, and one of the real joys of the genre is watching one of the more formative films. The 1950s were a great time for science fiction and horror. Directors were still trying to figure out what really made people scared and what was really effective in terms of shocking and surprising the audience. Jacques Tourneur was a master of creating mood. With Night of the Demon (also released under the name Curse of the Demon), Tourneur breaks some basic rules of horror, and does it to solid effect.

That cardinal rule is to not reveal the monster at the start of the film. We open with a panicked scientist named Harrington (Maurice Denham) arriving at the home of Doctor Julian Karswell (Niall MacGinnis). He begs Karswell to call something off. Karswell agrees, but seems unable to do anything about this when Harrington mentions that a parchment containing runes has been burned. Harrington leaves, but soon enough he is confronted by that thing that he asked to be called off: a demon, and we see it in all its glory. Harrington, naturally, doesn’t survive the encounter.

Femme Fatale

Film: Out of the Past
Format: DVD from Rockford Public Library on kick-ass portable DVD player.

I like film noir. I like it as a genre and I like what filmmakers did with it before they realized it was a genre they were creating. Out of the Past is one that I knew nothing about until I found it on the library shelves today, and I was immediately attracted to it. I dig Robert Mitchum as an actor. He played a villain like no one else, and even in cases where he played the hero, as in this film, there’s something of the heavy about him. Mitchum always comes across to me not as a man playing a role, but as a man existing in a real world. He was always a compelling screen presence, and when he’s on camera, I want to watch him.

Out of the Past is in many ways a stereotypical noir, succeeding as a film not because it plays with the genre, but because it toes the noir line diligently, faithfully, and very, very well. Jeff Bailey (Mitchum) runs a gas station and dates Ann (Virginia Huston) on the side. Then one day, a man from his past shows up at the gas station. This is Joe Stephanos (Paul Valentine), who works for one of Bailey’s old clients, who wants to see him. Jeff takes Ann with him on a drive up to Lake Tahoe, and he tells her about his past.

It seems that once upon a time, Jeff Bailey was actually Jeff Markham and he was a private detective. A criminal named Whit (Kirk Douglas) hired him to find his girlfriend, Kathie (Jane Greer). Kathie shot him and ran off with $40,000; he doesn’t care about the money, but wants the girl back. Jeff follows her trail and catches her in Acapulco, and he immediately falls for her. They decide to give Whit the slip and head up to San Francisco. It’s here that they run into Jeff’s old partner, Fisher (Steve Brodie), who wants the money Kathie stole, although she claims she didn’t. To get out of it, Kathie kills Fisher and runs off.

From here, of course, it gets a lot more complicated because it’s a film noir. The essence of film noir is to get as complicated as possible before anything gets resolved, and that certainly happens here. We get double-crosses and more murders, and a lot of bad acting on the part of our femme fatale, Kathie. As it turns out, she’s a vicious little woman, the cold heart of any film noir, and hers is the coldest in recent memory.

But if Kathie is the cold heart of the film, it is Mitchum’s portrayal of Jeff that is it’s warm soul and center. He plays Jeff not as one of his typical villains, but as a man truly wanting only the life that he wants. But he’s also a man who gets in deeply over his own head and becomes unable to do anything except follow the path in front of him. He’s easy to root for, even when it becomes increasingly obvious that any good options for him are closing off and there’s no way out for him. Mitchum plays an interesting hero.

Out of the Past is as good a film noir as I’ve seen. It doesn’t have the same cultural weight as a film like Double Indemnity, but it’s no less entertaining and no less worth watching. The story is one that manages to be both believable and gripping. Even better, Kathie is so dangerous and so smooth about it that we don’t really understand the threat behind her until Jeff has realized it as well. We fall into the same trap he does, believing that a pair of soft eyes must similarly represent a soft heart.

I’m sold. This one moves near the top of the list when it comes to the genre for me, and I think it will be quite awhile before another film challenges it. Out of the Past hits on every cylinder, and is as gutsy and compelling today as it was when “noir” was a French word instead of a style of film.

Why to watch Out of the Past: Films noir don’t get much better.
Why not to watch: They also don’t end happily.

Lycanthropy and Sex

Film: Cat People
Format: DVD from Rockford Public Library on kick-ass portable DVD player.

Movies that were produced by Val Lewton have particular things in common. Most of them deal with the strange or the creepy. Many would be classified as horror films. And none of them really have a huge scare factor. They remind me quite a bit like long episodes of The Twilight Zone. None of them is so Rod Serling-y as Cat People.

Irena Dubrovna (Simone Simon) is a Serbian who has moved to the States. While practicing drawing at the zoo, specifically around the panther cage, she encounters a man named Oliver Reed (Kent Smith). The two hit it off and retire to her nearby apartment where they get a little better acquainted (and not like that). What catches Oliver’s eye is a statue of the Serbian King John. Irena tells him of the story of her village. They had been ruled by invaders for years, and the village had turned to evil and Satanic worship. King John killed most of the evil peasants, but those who were the most evil, according to Irena, hid. These people had the power to turn into great cats when their passions became aroused.

The pair go through a very quick courtship and are married, but the marriage is unconsummated because Irena is convinced that she bears the curse of her village. Any intense emotion, any intense physical contact—like sex---will turn her into a panther and she’ll rip him apart. In fact, she won’t even kiss him.

Eventually, they decide that it’s time for Irena to get some psychiatric help. On the advice of Oliver’s office mate Alice (Jane Randolph), she sees Doctor Louis Judd (Tom Conway). She’s disturbed by the visit, and even more disturbed by the fact that Alice knows about the problem. She starts avoiding her psychiatric visits, and continues to avoid physical contact with Oliver. Things start to get complicated on a couple of fronts. First, Alice expresses her true feelings for Oliver. Second, Oliver (I imagine thanks to the lack of sex) is starting to have second thoughts about the marriage. Third, and most critically, Dr. Judd seems to have developed an unhealthy obsession with Irena, seeming to think that sexing her up might be the way to cure her.

Make no mistakes here--Cat People is all about sex, even if it’s never explicitly spoken out loud. It’s also about intimacy and fear of the same. Were I the type to expound on the deep-seating meanings of films (and I am sometimes), I might suggest that this film is in its way horribly misogynist, attributing this sort of terrible otherworldly and demonic power to women when it comes to sex. And maybe that does underlie the story here, but that doesn’t really matter to me that much.

Where this movie really works is in its atmosphere. Like many a truly great horror movie, we see almost nothing. Everything scary and shocking is implied, done with shadow and sound instead of showing us what we think is happening. For instance, one evening Oliver goes back to work, and through a series of events has a cup of coffee with Alice at a local eatery. Irena sees them together, and then follows Alice home. Part way through the walk home, Alice notices that she is being stalked, like prey. All we get are some moving bushes. Just after this, some sheep in the nearby zoo are slaughtered. The footprints leading away start as the prints of a large cat, and then turn into a woman’s shoes…and we pan up to Irena.

There are several scenes like this one, the most famous being in the swimming pool of Alice’s apartment building. As each of these scenes plays out, it becomes more and more evident that Irena’s delusion isn’t really a delusion at all, and that her curse is a real one.

While Cat People has a few good jump scares, this isn’t really a scary movie. It’s much more a thriller than anything else. This is par for the course with a Lewton-produced film like this one. Lewton’s films never really went for the gore or for the shock. His goal seemed always to be to get the audience to think, and through thinking realize a much greater level of horror than a simple scare or gross out.

Cat People achieves this. It’s rightfully considered the best picture Lewton was attached to, and for very good reason. It also happens to be his first, so his career started off with quite a bang.

But Lewton only produced this film; he didn’t direct it. Jacques Tourneur was the man behind the camera for this film, and it is directed beautifully. In each scene we see exactly enough to know exactly what Tourneur wants us to know. This is a film that would not be improved in color—black and white suits it perfectly, and might even improve it.

Simone Simon is quite charming. She plays a great deal of this film as a damsel in real distress over what she thinks (and evidently is really experiencing) is a terrible curse upon her. However, when the moments call for it, such as in the swimming pool scene, she plays the role with a touch of glee and a larger touch of menace. There’s something truly wicked about Irena, and Simon seems to really delight in that aspect of the character.

All in all, this is a classic for a reason. Avoid the not-as-good remake unless the story really intrigues you.

Why to watch Cat People: Old style creepiness.
Why not to watch: Fewer scares than you might want.

Dead Man (and Woman) Walking

Films: I Walked with a Zombie, La Maschera del Demonio (The Mask of Satan, Black Sunday)
Format: DVD from Bettendorf Public Library through interlibrary loan (Zombie), DVD from person collection (Black Sunday) on itty bitty bedroom television.

Most of the time, when we talk about influential people behind the scenes in the film industry, we talk about directors. In the case of the sadly short-lived Val Lewton, we’re talking about a producer. In terms of the movies he wrote and produced, he was much like Hitchcock—there’s a particular theme to Lewton’s work. His films all have a suspense angle, but take it another step further, adding a true supernatural element. Of all his films, Cat People is the greatest (my opinion) and most well known. I Walked with a Zombie fits his pattern, though.

Since this film was released in 1943, it’s worth noting that the zombie mentioned in the title is one of the traditional type. George Romero hadn’t created his flesh-eating ghouls yet, so the term “zombie” meant a corpse reanimated by witchcraft or Voodoo, often used as a servant. We start in Canada, where a young nurse named Betsy Connell (Frances Dee) is hired by a sugar company to head out to the West Indies. She is to care for the wife of a plantation owner.

On the trip over, she meets the man she will be working for, Paul Holland (Tom Conway). While she is enchanted by the ocean and the scenery, Holland acts as the world’s meanest buzzkiller, telling her that where they are going is a place of sorrow and death. Once there, Betsy meets a few important people. First is the family maid, Alma (Theresa Harris), who welcomes her in. She also encounters Paul Holland’s half-brother, Wesley Rand (James Ellison). That night, she gets her first encounter with Holland’s wife Jessica (Christine Gordon). Jessica is silent, staring, and if not a zombie, doing the best impression of one ever. Betsy is freaked out by this, but stays.

Betsy also starts discovering some of the family secrets. While out with Wes, she overhears a local singer playing a ballad about the Holland family. According to the song, Wes and Jessica loved each other, and then Jessica took very ill, turning her into the catatonic sleepwalker she’s become. Wes stops the musicians, but later, when he is sloppy drunk, the musician finishes the song for Betsy’s benefit. Here she also meets the men’s mother, Mrs. Rand (Edith Barrett, who looks quite a bit like Jane Goodall).

Betsy soon suspects that Jessica is not sick, but is a zombie returned to life through Voodoo ritual. Alma aids her in this belief, and Betsy takes Jessica on a disturbing night stroll through the sugar cane fields to get help. It is here that they encounter the most disturbing spectre in the film in the form of the guardian, Carrefour (Darby Jones).

What works in this film is the atmosphere. Similar to the earlier Cat People, there really isn’t anything here in the way of gore, blood, or anything else. What there is, though, is a series of creepy moments, a sense of unrelenting paranoia, and claustrophobia. More remarkable, this film does not take the position that the people of the unnamed West Indian island of the story are terribly backwards, superstitious people who are to be treated like children. Instead, in general, their beliefs are given enough weight to carry the story. Many of the white people in the film give lip service to the crazy native beliefs, but as the film goes on, it becomes evident that the Voodoo has real power, and that the plantation owners believe in it as well. It’s not a film that could have been made by an American director in the ‘40s.

La Maschera del Demonio (released as Black Sunday in the U.S. and The Mask of Satan elsewhere) is a tale of horror, vampirism, Satanism, and the dead returning to life from director Mario Bava. Filmed in Italian and dubbed, this film is a prime example not only of horror films, but also a hint toward what would become known as giallo films a few short years later. Bava, in fact, was one of the first giallo directors. While often about crime, giallo films tend to have horrific or supernatural elements in them. This film isn’t all the way there, but Bava is credited with the first one ever a few years after this was made. Certainly the atmospheric camera, use of music, and hints of eroticism are leading the way to what would become a major Italian tradition.

This film starts with a 16th or 17th century ritual execution of a pair of witches. One is Princess Asa Vajda (Barbara Steele); the other is her demonic lover, Igor Javutich (Arturo Dominici). Asa is convicted of consorting with Satan, and has his brand burned onto her back. Rather than deny the charge, she curses her accusers, claiming that she will live again thanks to the power of Satan. Her punishment is a gruesome one—a huge metal, spiked mask is hammered onto her face in one of the most shocking and, frankly, truly awesome opening sequences I’ve ever seen. Sadly for the people of Moldavia, the ritual burning goes badly, and rain douses the fires that were consuming Asa’s and Javutich’s bodies. They are buried, him in unhallowed ground and her in the family tomb.

Two centuries later, two travelers come upon the tomb. These men are doctors, Thomas Kruvajan (Andrea Checchi) and his assistant Andre Gorobec (John Richardson). What they discover is that it would be better for them to not mess around with dead bodies. They find Asa’s tomb, fitted with a cross and a window so that, should she rest uneasy, she will be forced to look at the cross, preventing her from rising. Kruvajan is attacked by a bat, and in fighting it off, manages to smash the cross, break the window on the tomb, and cut himself. He and Gorobec remove the mask from the corpse and discover that the body looks recently dead despite being in the tomb for two centuries.

Later, after they have left, the blood from Kruvajan’s wound drips into the eyes of Asa, who is reanimated by it. She calls to her dead lover, who also rises up from the grave. The two then plot to take over the body of Katia Vajda (also played by Barbara Steele) so that Asa can live again.

This is a fun, gothic film. It’s not particularly scary for anyone who has seen a scary movie before, although this probably wasn’t the case in 1961. The vampires are particularly nasty and creepy, and when fresh out of their graves, they are incredibly gooey. Barbara Steele is disturbing with the massive holes in her face, and when she attempts (and succeeds) to seduce Kruvajan, she is both horrifying and erotic. It’s a creepy moment.

This film is all about the atmosphere. It’s evident that Bava started his career in film as a cinematographer. This is more than just silly fun, though. It takes itself completely seriously, and for that, it’s worth watching. The dub is good, too, and the effect of Katia aging while Asa gets younger is surprisingly smooth and effective. It’s histrionic, it’s overacted, and I love the hell out of it.

Why to watch I Walked with a Zombie: Surprisingly respectful of non-Western culture and decidedly creepy atmosphere.
Why not to watch: The dude with bug eyes.

Why to watch La Maschera del Demonio: The most awesome film opening ever.
Why not to watch: The dead things are all…gooey.