Re: Track the Films You Watch (2008)
12/02/08:
THE GHOST AND MR. CHICKEN (Alan Rafkin, 1966) 
The first Don Knotts vehicle I’ve watched is widely considered his best effort; however, I was let down by it following the internet hype back when the film surfaced on DVD (including an endorsement by Mario Bava biographer Tim Lucas on his blog). The title explains all: the star is a milquetoast who works as type setter at a small-town newspaper – of course, he really wants to be a journalist (though his inexperience leads him to report a murder solely on hearsay, only to be embarrassed when the alleged victim turns up shaken but very much alive at the Police station!) and eventually finds his great opportunity with a story about a legendary local haunted house (where a violent death and suicide had occurred twenty years earlier).
Asked to spend the night there by his editor, the hero comes across secret panels in the library, organs that play by themselves (complete with bloodied keys), not to mention a portrait slashed by a dagger! Consequently, by the next day he’s a celebrity – with frequent off-screen enthusiastic goadings of “Attaboy, Luther!” – which also earns him the attention of the woman he had long fancied but who, of course, is the girlfriend of his biggest persecutor, a hot-shot at the same paper; the latter’s constant wheedling of Knotts causes the couple to split and, needless to say, the hero gets the girl himself by the end of it.
Let me put it this way: THE GHOST AND MR. CHICKEN is a pleasant enough diversion (especially the last half-hour featuring the courtroom scene – the current owner of the haunted house has filed a libel suit, in which it’s established that Knotts has always had a vivid imagination – and the eventual disastrous on-site verification of the haunting – since the manifestations, unbeknownst to the hero, were only the handiwork of the helpful Irish janitor at his workplace!). Still, plot and characterization are so clichéd as to render the film utterly predictable which, coupled with its own inherently unassuming nature, makes for something less than classic (at least in my book)!
For what it’s worth, Vic Mizzy’s bouncy yet atmospheric score clearly proves an asset – with the antics of an old ladies’ group keen on the paranormal, while essentially silly, being a fairly amusing touch as well. Incidentally, I should be able to get my hands on five more of Knotts’ films – but the one I’ll be sure to check out presently is THE SHAKIEST GUN IN THE WEST (1968), since it’s a remake of the Bob Hope classic THE PALEFACE (1948)…
12/02/08:
CARRY ON LAUGHING: AND IN MY LADY’S CHAMBER (TV) (Alan Tarrant, 1975)
Typically vulgar and empty-headed latter-day drawing-room TV skit by the “Carry On” team (included on the R2 Special Edition DVD of CARRY ON MATRON [1972]): following the arrival home of one of the doddering but lecherous master’s off-springs, various people (father, daughter, brother, friend, society hostess neighbor, servants) engage one night in comic – yet repetitive and confusing – bed-hopping antics. If anything, the practiced cast – including series stalwarts Kenneth Connor, Barbara Windsor, Joan Sims, Jack Douglas and Bernard Bresslaw – moves the ultra-thin plot along to render this decent episode palatable enough.
12/03/08:
CARRY ON LAUGHING: THE CASE OF THE COUGHING PARROT (TV) (Alan Tarrant, 1975)
Third and last of the ‘Lord Peter Flimsy’ detective spoof entries in the “Carry On” TV series: this has an archaeology backdrop involving the theft of jewels belonging to the mummy of the Pharaoh Ram-it-up-em (the episode’s single best joke, which is then repeated incessantly throughout). Making an ideal team are Jack Douglas as Flimsy and Kenneth Connor as his servant/sidekick Punter, while David Lodge is the flustered Inspector on the case; Joan Sims has fun with her role of the archaeologist and Peter Butterworth has a bit as an employer of the Post Office detailed with the “Lost & Found” department.
The episode has a very convoluted plot in which it manages to balance interior and exterior scenes (with the latter being perennially shrouded in thick fog); the villainess of the piece turns out to be Sims’ young assistant under whose guise an aristocratic lady thief hides. By the way, the title is a reference to that particular bird’s reaction to poison – as explained by Connor at the climax…after which he’s pecked by the bird and, while believing himself doomed, immediately starts to cough!
12/03/08:
STORK MAD (N/A, 1926)
O.K. Silent comedy short included with the edition I’ve just acquired of Howard Hawks’ A GIRL IN EVERY PORT (1928): there are no credits other than that for obscure lead actor Bobby Ray, whose characterization isn’t sufficiently developed (at least judging by this one film) to make the star stand out from other more popular comics of the time.
The film itself is stretched out to 25 minutes but it includes a fair smattering of nice gags: the title is a reference to a couple’s wish to have a baby and, soon after, a child is dumped on their doorstep; of course, they’re overjoyed but, come nightfall and the baby’s cries for food, they’re at a loss at what to do! The heroine orders her servile husband to handle the task but he’s a fiasco at every turn: first, Ray cooks a steak for it(!), then heats a milk bottle (which obviously explodes and later substitutes the container with an empty whiskey bottle) and, after managing to conveniently find a cow to procure fresh milk, expects it to do the job
by itself…which, in a vaguely surreal sequence, the cow eventually does!
That’s the first reel; the second has Ray receiving a letter informing him that his mother’s not well: the couple speed to the train station but forget all about the child. Ray causes havoc at the baggage stand of the station (since he believes the baby to be locked inside theirs but all the luggage happens to look alike!), after which he rushes back home (a sequence which includes an incredible stunt where he flies off a bike and into a moving car). The hero’s agitated state causes him to be chased by the Police where, however, the infant is nowhere to be found – thus forcing him to substitute it with a monkey(!) to make his story believable to the cop. But just as he’s about to be booked, cries are heard coming from underneath a table where the baby had been (covered by the cloth) all this time…
12/03/08:
MOON PILOT (James Neilson, 1962)
I’d missed out on this one as both as a VHS rental and on local TV in the past but which, bafflingly, hasn’t been available anywhere else (not even on DVD) until now…or, perhaps, not so strange – since it’s considered pretty much an outdated early movie about the space program!
That said, the film has always enjoyed a reputation as one of the better Walt Disney live-action efforts – an opinion I was happy to share after watching it for myself (especially given my recent disappointment with such other popular albeit ultra-juvenile fare as THE GNOME-MOBILE [1967] and the two “Witch Mountain” outings). In fact, this has very few concessions to the typical Disney ‘cuteness’ (basically extending to the inevitable romance and an over-eager member at the space center breaking into a would-be hip “Go, man, go!” routine with every shuttle launch) and is clearly elevated by the presence of strong actors – Tom Tryon is ideally cast in the lead, though it’s Brian Keith as his constantly exasperated superior and Edmond O’Brien as the dogged yet bewildered Federal Security man who dominate much of the proceedings (especially when the two engage in shouting matches between themselves).
Anyway, as can be gleaned from the title, the plot involves attempts by the U.S. to orbit the moon: the first guinea-pig is a chimp which, however, goes berserk on returning home; undeterred, a human volunteer is requested – Tryon, of course (though he’s actually air-sick!). Soon after, he begins to be followed by a petite girl of obvious foreign origins (Dany Saval, whose gaucheness starts off by being corny but eventually proves disarming) – who not only knows all about his supposedly top-secret mission but actively wants to impart to him vital information about his safety ‘up there’; however, he believes her to be a spy and tries his best to avoid her! Still, she manages to turn up at the most unexpected places (even after O’Brien has him ‘kidnapped’ to a hotel) and eventually confesses to being an alien – clearly possessing advanced knowledge and who, atypically for the sci-fi genre, intends to extend help to Earth people rather than conquer them!
MOON PILOT, then, resorts agreeably to such well-worn albeit effective suspense/spy movie trappings as the “McGuffin” (in the form of the missing element which would allow humans to adapt to the atmosphere in outer space), chases, impersonation and, it goes without saying, the growing affection between hero and heroine thrown into this unusual situation. Apart from the obvious space gadgetry, the sci-fi aspect of the film is evident in the scene in which, to demonstrate her powers, Saval gives Tryon a foretaste of his/their future. As always with Disney films, however, comedy is as much an intrinsic ingredient of the formula: best of all are the running ‘unreliable elevator’ gag with Tryon and O’Brien, and the potentially campy suspects’ line-up of beatniks (under whose guise Saval has descended to Earth – clearly a sign of the times). Keith’s queasy look during the latter sequence is priceless…as is his final flustered off-screen outburst when Tryon and Saval sign off in space courtesy of a Sherman Brothers love song!
12/03/08:
DOUBLE CROSSBONES (Charles T. Barton, 1951)
Swashbuckling comedy, not as bad as I had anticipated but clearly no more than a footnote within the annals of this colorful action genre (here in its heyday). Donald O’Connor is an amiable and undeniably energetic lead (obviously, he gets to sing and dance too) – playing a shop-keeper’s assistant who wants to make good for love of heroine Helena Carter. She, however, is coveted by her much older guardian…who also happens to be the (actually treacherous) Governor of the colony in which events are set.
Immediately falling foul of pirate Charles McGraw, O’Connor eventually finds himself serving under him – after he, his pal and their employer are accused (by none other than the Governor himself) of accepting and selling stolen goods. The villain, in fact, is in cahoots with a society of legendary pirates comprising Sir Henry Morgan, Blackbeard, Ann Bonney (Anne Of The Indies – whose story, incidentally, was being told contemporaneously in a much more satisfying film by that title), Captain Kidd, etc.; apparently, this Governor’s so mean that even they are no more than his mere underlings!
Anyway, O’Connor eventually captures a ship practically single-handed (and sets free the convicts within, among them James Arness, on their way to Debtors’ Prison), which wins him the moniker “Bloodthirsty Dave” and – naturally – a place in the pirate brotherhood. Recognizing the Governor’s right-hand man as the courier of his message to them, the hero realizes the statesman’s dual nature and determines to meet Carter in order to stop her impending marriage (she had earlier shunned O’Connor for his own buccaneering activity!).
This he does by impersonating a foppish aristocrat at a ball (whose presence causes a snobbish lady to enquire “Who is that weird creature?”), though his ruse is discovered soon after and lands him once again in jail. Needless to say, everything comes out right by the end: the villain receives his come-uppance after engaging in a fencing duel with O’Connor on a ship’s mast, hero and heroine marry, and the pirates – given a royal pardon – turn respectable…or do they?
12/03/08:
BUCCANEER’S GIRL (Frederick De Cordova, 1950)
When this swashbuckling DVD set was announced, I was rather annoyed about the inclusion of three obscure efforts with the popular and vintage AGAINST ALL FLAGS (1952) starring Errol Flynn; well, having watched all three now, this proved to be perhaps the most resistible of them. For the record, my copy jumps from the Universal logo (preceding all their DVD releases) to the beginning of the film omitting the credits entirely, then it pixellated terribly around the 64-minute mark, so that I had to skip to the next chapter (thus missing a couple of minutes) in order to keep watching the thing through to its conclusion!
The plot has a New Orleans setting with a pirate named Baptiste (Philip Friend, an unknown actor to me but an okay lead under the circumstances) who hides under the guise of an aristocrat in order to keep up the fight with chief villain Robert Douglas (aided in his nefarious deeds by two other notable character actors – Norman Lloyd and Henry Daniell). Guttersnipe Yvonne de Carlo – I recall watching her other swashbuckler with director de Cordova, THE DESERT HAWK (1950), as a child – and upper-class Andrea King vie for the dashing Friend’s attentions (at one point, the two let their hair down and engage in a catfight over him during a ball!), while Jay C. Flippen appears as the hero’s right-hand man. Incidentally, having seen this immediately after DOUBLE CROSSBONES (1951), it was amusing to realize that some of the sea-battle footage from BUCCANEER’S GIRL was replicated wholesale into the Donald O’Connor vehicle!
The film itself would be tolerable enough if it weren’t for two huge flaws: for one thing, the action-less climax has to be the lamest ever devised for this type of fare; much more queasy, unfortunately, are de Carlo’s trio of songs (under the tutelage of typically eccentric Elsa Lanchester) – with the last of them occurring just minutes before the end titles! – and for which the creator of the embarrassingly corny choreography ought to have been made to walk the plank himself.
12/04/08:
THE ADVENTURES OF BULLWHIP GRIFFIN (James Neilson, 1967)
This is another fondly remembered Walt Disney live-action effort which I’d never watched: it’s an episodic Western spoof set at the time of the California gold rush. The protagonists are an impoverished Bostonian family and their resourceful butler (an ideally-cast Roddy McDowall); the young son, obsessed with a legendary rugged cowboy figure called “Bullwhip”, is prone to tall tales – so that he makes up the mild-mannered Griffin to be as brave and experienced as his hero!
This eventually lands them in trouble with both con-man Karl Malden (who has a lot of fun with his role, which also allows him to don plenty of disguises) and saloon owner Harry Guardino or, more precisely, his imposing but dumb henchman (a typecast Mike Mazurki) – whom McDowall fells with a lucky punch but which Guardino wants to turn to his advantage by organizing a boxing match between the two! The bout is delayed until the climax: in between, our heroes have several adventures as they make and lose a fortune in gold (following a map possessed by Richard Haydn who’s constantly flaunting his theatrical background), with the wily Malden never too far off their trail. Suzanne Pleshette provides feminine interest and eye candy, though she doesn’t quite cut it as a saloon
chanteuse.
The film is a generous 110 minutes long (compounded by those relentless Sherman Brothers songs) but it’s never less than enjoyable, with pleasant color photography and a barrage of technical gags (not just the animated titles but such oft-used devices as the subject of a portrait changing his expression, angels sounding their trumpets when someone is knocked-out, etc).
12/04/08:
YANKEE BUCCANEER (Frederick De Cordova, 1952)
The best, if not exactly satisfying, of the three seemingly randomly-chosen swashbucklers by Universal to accompany the above-average Errol Flynn vehicle AGAINST ALL FLAGS (1952) is this unusual entry in the genre.
As the title has it, lead Jeff Chandler is a U.S. naval officer who’s ordered to carry out acts of piracy in order to ferret out the real culprits behind the sinking of American ships. These prove to be an amalgamation of Brazilian, Portuguese and Spanish villains (led by our own Joseph Calleia hiding under the respectable guise of the Spanish governor – whose appearance is delayed until the last half-hour, but he’s as reliable as ever…and like the Robert Douglas of BUCCANEER’S GIRL [1950], from the same director, is allowed to go free after being made to walk the plank).
Chandler himself – who would later star in the similarly-titled genre outing YANKEE PASHA (1954) – is a bit of a martinet, with rebellious first-mate and ex-student Scott Brady usually at the receiving end of his ire; when he tries to make up for his errors behind the captain’s back, by fixing the ship’s rudder at night, Brady’s attacked by and
kills a shark! This animosity eventually intensifies when the latter comes back from a scouting expedition to the Indies with a Portuguese countess (luscious Suzan Ball, whose debut this was: she had a brief and tragic career, dying in 1955 at the tender age of 21!).
Though the film is far from a classic, slightly marred by the resistible comic antics of George Mathews and featuring little traditional action before the last reel, it’s a reasonably enjoyable romp nonetheless – with a rousing score by an uncredited(!) Milton Rosen and shot in glorious Technicolor by the distinguished Russell Metty.
12/06/08:
ALI BABA AND THE SEVEN SARACENS (Emimmo Salvi, 1964)
To begin with, the name of the most popular Arabian Nights character i.e. Sinbad has been variably spelled over the years and around the world – from Sindbad to Simbad and Szindbad. Moreover, the character of Sinbad has been included in films in which he had nothing to do with originally – the Russian adventure outing SADKO (1953) became THE MAGIC VOYAGE OF SINBAD in the U.S. – just as, in this case, he became Ali Baba when it crossed over the Atlantic! These facts alone are more interesting than anything that occurs in this film…because where are the seafaring adventures of Sinbad The Sailor to be seen in this one, not to mention the sundry creatures he generally struggled with? On the other hand, if this is Ali Baba, whatever happened to the Forty Thieves?
One thing is certain: I wasn’t expecting Gordon Mitchell – who had previously portrayed such legendary heroic figures as Achilles and Maciste – to be the villain here, nor Sinbad to be incarnated by a teenager still wet behind the ears, thus making for possibly the lamest Sinbad in film history! Appropriately, then, the seven Saracens of the title are even more anonymous than the hero – and, what’s worse, they don’t even engage him in battle! At least, the heroine’s physical attributes are well in evidence…but that’s small compensation when set against the obligatory and unfunny comic relief provided by Sinbad’s midget cellmate/sidekick and, for good measure (ugh!) a court eunuch with a bad facial tick; the pits, however, are reached by the silly gyrations of a particularly animated dancer preceding every ritual at court!
