Off Script: The Beyond

Film: The Beyond(L’aldila; E tu vivrai nel terrore! L’aldila; Seven Doors of Death)
Format: Streaming video from Hulu+ on The Nook.

Eventually, my wife will cancel our Hulu subscription, something I’ve asked her to do for the past month. Until such time as that happens, though, I’m going to continue to watch movies on it. I was in the mood for something scary today, or at least weird and disturbing. The Beyond seemed like a good choice. This is one of the classic Italian horror films by Lucio Fulci. I know more about Fulci’s work than I’ve seen and I know that 1980s Italian horror tends to be pretty gruesome, so I sat down expecting an entertaining ride, which is what I got, at least in part.

In reality, The Beyond doesn’t make a great deal of sense, but it kind of isn’t supposed to. It’s really just an excuse for a number of really nasty splatter scenes, most of which involve eyes popping out of people’s heads. There is something like a plot here, but it genuinely doesn’t make sense through most of the film. Things happen without much cause and the vast majority of the cast is made up of really dumb people. Again, that’s not a terrible criticism of this film because it’s not a film that anyone watches for the scintillating plot.

Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Picture 1939

The Contenders:

Dark Victory
Gone with the Wind (winner)
Goodbye, Mr. Chips
Love Affair
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
Ninotchka
Of Mice and Men
Stagecoach
The Wizard of Oz
Wuthering Heights

Misnomer

Film: Bad Girl
Format: DVD from NetFlix on laptop.

The “idiot plot” is a movie plot where all of the problems of the plot could be solved if the principle characters just had a conversation about what was going on. For a modern film, it’s pretty unforgivable, but it’s easier to overlook in a film that was released a couple of years after the advent of sound. Bad Girl is exactly this sort of film. Our two principle characters spend the entire movie not communicating with each other, which leads to everything that happens until the end.

Dot Haley (Sally Eilers) has a job modeling clothing, particularly bridal gowns, to patrons of the story she works in. She finds that the male customers in the store do little but try to pick her up. She does her job as best she can and enjoys her evenings at Coney Island with her friend and coworker Edna Driggs (Minna Gombell). For these two, men are little more than things there to harass them, so it comes as a shock to them both when they discover a man at Coney Island who seems completely uninterested in flirting with them. This turns out to be Eddie Collins (James Dunn), although he offers Joe as his name. “Joe” and Dot get to talking and more or less insult each other. Before you can say “doodley-doodley-doop” we’re back at Dot’s place and the pair are making plans to see each other again.

Gender Politics

Film: The Contender
Format: Streaming video from NetFlix on The Nook.

On days when the weather is bad and I have to go to work, I tend to drive west on Highway 38 until I hit the town of Rochelle, IL. Rochelle is a town of about 10,000 people, a pretty standard Midwestern town in a lot of ways. It also happens to be the home town of Joan Allen, who I almost always enjoy in films. Joan Allen and I share an alma mater, too. This and a couple of dollars will get me a cheeseburger somewhere. Still, there are times when I wonder if my appreciation of Joan Allen is at all because of the fact that I could get to her childhood home in less than 20 minutes. And then I see a film like The Contender and realize that I like Joan Allen in front of the camera because Joan Allen is damn good in front of the camera.

< The Contender is a political thriller, a film of high power, intrigue, and politics at the highest level. What that means more or less is that this film is going to get lurid quickly and stay lurid for most of its running time. That means sex, double standards, glass ceilings, criminal accusations, and plots and plans within plans. This is a surprisingly gripping film for having what is essentially an incredibly simple plot.

American Dream

Film: Death of a Salseman (1951)
Format: Internet video on laptop.

Certain stories become legendary. In American theater, there are few more well-known and respected stories than Death of a Salesman. The story is on of a man crushed by the weight of his life and the extent of his own failures. Needless to say, this is not a happy story. In a lot of ways, Death of a Salesman depicts the opposite of the American Dream. This is the tale of a man who wanted nothing more than that dream but was ground down by life, but missed opportunity, by his own bad decisions, and by his own blindness to the realities around him.

Willy Loman (Fredric March) is the salesman in question. Now in his 60s, Willy is still a traveling salesman. He comes from a world where a smile and a firm handshake were all that were needed to seal a deal. Back when he started his life on the road, sales were made because of personal connections. But the world has changed and left Willy behind. Older and no wiser, his drooping sales have put him back on full commission.

Skirting the Hays Code

Film: The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek
Format: Streaming video from Hoopla Digital on The Nook.

You’ve got to hand it to Preston Sturges. Once you realize exactly what the plot of The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek is and exactly when this film was made, it’s staggering that it made it past the Hays Code at all. Seriously, it would be mildly shocking today, but in 1944, it was positively scandalous.

First, it’s immediately evident that this is not going to be merely a comedy but a screwball comedy when we learn the names of our principle characters. Marx Brothers movies and plenty of screwball comedies give us character names that are far beyond the pale. Look at a film like Ball of Fire, with Professor Bertram Potts and Sugarpuss O’Shea. Well, The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek gives those names a run for their money. Trudy Kockenlocker (Betty Hutton) is a patriotic young woman who wants nothing more than to see the troops off to Europe. This is strongly protested by her father, local policeman Edmund Kockenlocker (William Demarest) and her wannabe boyfriend Norval Jones (Eddie Bracken). Norval has been classified as 4-F because of his nerves and his high blood pressure, both of which are caused by his fear of being classified as 4-F.

Service with a Smile

Film: The Grand Budapest Hotel
Format: DVD from NetFlix on rockin’ flatscreen.

I realize that not everyone likes Wes Anderson. I don’t think he’s an acquired taste. I think he’s either a director that you like or that you don’t. I tend to like him, although I find that a little Wes Anderson goes a long way. It had been awhile since I watched a Wes Anderson film, so when I saw that The Grand Budapest Hotel was available from NetFlix, I put it at the top of the queue. Even if I hadn’t heard almost entirely good things about it, it was a film I was looking forward to seeing.

In many ways, it’s the least Wes Anderson film I’ve seen him do. Oh, the people involved still have that unique Wes Anderson-style OCD and a series of oddities and quirks, but there’s considerably less of that here than in most of his films. I’ll go so far as to say that of the Anderson films I’ve seen (not all but most), this is the one most likely to be enjoyed by people who don’t typically like Wes Anderson.