Abbot & Costello- shorter & funnier!

I am a huge fan of the feature films of Abbot & Costello. I came to this love as most good monster film lovers do through ABBOT & COSTELLO MEETS FRANKENSTEIN and the subsequent team ups with various creatures in the Universal fold. But this lead me to their other comedies and in general its been a great thing. One bad spot has always been the miserable ABBOTT AND COSTELLO GO TO MARS (1953). In it Costello plays a mildly retarded man-child who still lives in the orphanage he grew up in but mostly just he acts as he usually does in every movie. It is this character that makes the film kind of hard to take as a comedy for me. I shouldn't feel guilty about laughing at Costello's antics but as he is supposed to actually be mentally deficient I'm uncomfortable giggling at his screw ups. Add to that the fact that the film isn't one of their best anyway and you have a recipe for disaster. Add to that the fact that the comedy team goes to Venus and not Mars and you have a disappointment waiting to happen.

Years ago, before video, there was a way to watch feature films at home. Well- at least some of them- or rather part of some of them. Castle Films was a mail order company that offered 16mm or 8mm versions of movies for sale. These were not the entire movie but a heavily edited version made to keep the length to under one reel. In the case of ABBOTT AND COSTELLO GO TO MARS they cut it down to less than nine minutes and actually made it a pretty good little short. Amazing what losing about an hour of footage will do for a movie sometimes, huh?

Here is the Castle Films version of ABBOTT AND COSTELLO GO TO MARS. They retitled it ROCKET AND ROLL which is another improvement now that I think about it. Enjoy!

THE SLASHER - spoof trailer

After the dismal disappointment of the new FRIDAY THE 13TH film I found this hysterical. There is more entertainment in this two minutes than in the entire 90 minutes plus of the latest sad horror remake.

WARNING- there is some OTT violence in this.

More Recent Western views

AND GOD SAID TO CAIN (1970) – This was an unexpectedly good film. Not that it breaks any new ground for a western or makes any bold statements- its just good in a surprising way. The best way to describe the movie in a brief phrase would be ‘short on story, long on style.’ The tale being told is so simple and obvious that it’s the basic plot of about a hundred other westerns as well as a number of film noir and modern crime movies. Klaus Kinski plays Guy Hamilton who is released from prison after serving ten years. He goes after the man who had him framed and eventually gets him. That’s it. That’s the story this film tells. But man- how it tells it! Director Antonio Margheriti made pretty much every type of film imaginable over his amazing career but his westerns tend to be good, not great. Both TAKE A HARD RIDE and VENGEANCE are serviceable but nothing special. This film is altogether different. Ramping up the style to 11 he has the villain’s home decked out in rich period detail that gives the interiors there a gothic flavor. Adding to the stylishness is the constant use of well placed mirrors in nearly every room of the place to give multiple reflections of each character as the camera glides around the room. Several times Margheriti uses the mirrors to show a character lying to another from two separate angles and then have that character see themselves reflected and look away as if in shame. The roving camerawork is also in evidence as Kinski stalks and kills the thirty or more henchmen trying to gain the reward their employer has put on his head. And did I mention that the bulk of the film takes place over one stormy night? Amazing stuff. Sometimes style can get you by and this is one of those cases.


ADIOS, SABATA (1971) – the ‘not really a Sabata’ movie with Yul Brynner in his only spaghetti western. Brynner’s character was supposed to be named Indio Black but the success of SABATA caused the filmmakers to change the name in the dubbing. A shame as that is the only thing I don’t like about this film. A rip-roaring adventure from start to finish it’s nearly as fun as a spaghetti western can be. Brynner is excellent in the ‘title’ role as an expert gunfighter and mercenary hired to run guns from sellers in the states to the revolutionaries in Mexico. To accomplish this he and his band of talented Mexican revolutionaries plan to steal a shipment of gold dust from Austrian soldiers to buy the guns and then transport them to the rebels. But between an American portrait painter’s hopes to claim the gold for himself and the small band’s own greed it’s a toss up as to where the gold will end. Throw in the Austrian commander’s clever plan to transport the money in secret and all bets are off. Filled with impossible pistol shots and unlikely action scenes it is exactly what I look for in a sly, clever SW. Damn! It’s a shame Brynner made only this one. And I’m glad he dubbed his own voice as his performance is great.

The Keene Act

I continue to be amazed by the pre-release short films for WATCHMEN. I hope the film is as good as these things are leading me to expect.

I must see this film!

Every now and then I will see a piece of artwork for a movie and I immediately know that I must see the film advertised. Usually, as in this case, its a movie I've never heard of in my life. The director seems to have done several peplum in the 60s so maybe he had a handle on how to make an entertaining pirate movie. They are essentially the same genre, after all.

The hunt for GUNS OF THE BLACK WITCH (1961) is on! And thanks to the fantastic web-site Wrong Side of the Art for bringing so many great posters to my attention. It's a great service to film fans.

THE WITCH (1966)

I just finished watching Damiano Damiani’s incredible THE WITCH (1966) and I can’t get it out of my mind. It is part pretentious art cinema, part horror film, part character study and all mind fuck. It's not hard to figure out what’s going on pretty quickly but it stays fascinating anyway. Richard Johnson plays a fellow in Rome living a good life flitting from hot girl to hot girl when he becomes aware of an old woman who has been watching him for a few weeks. Trying to speak to her he discovers a newspaper want ad that seems designed specifically for him. Answering the ad he learns the old woman placed it and wants him to both take the job and take up residence in her decaying mansion. But her gorgeous daughter wants him even more. There’s just one catch- he has to help get rid of the guy who had the job before him.

This is an absolutely amazing film! Certainly not to everyone’s taste but I really got pulled into this one. The quiet of the dusty old mansion and the teasing bits of information parceled out piece by piece about the old woman’s age and her desire to fend off the aging process work slowly to bring out the maximum creepiness. And the actress playing the daughter Aura is stunningly beautiful. I could have just watched her dress and undress and been completely entertained – if you know what I mean! I’m sad to say there was no nudity in the film but the shots of her bare back and legs were plenty.


Her name is Rosanna Schiaffino and I don’t think I’ve seen her in anything else. She was apparently in a couple of peplum movies and I’ve heard of TWO WEEKS IN ANOTHER TOWN but the rest of her resume tells me nothing. Part of what made her so alluring is the nice black & white photography which catches her perfectly and her eyes are worth drowning in. It’s too bad the DVD I watched was a crappy dupe that looked like it was taken from a ragged video tape. I think a better print would be well worth checking out.

Worth a NetFlix rental, anyway.

Note: I've been reliably informed that this film was shot in color! That makes me hate the crappy DVD I watched even more. One day I guess I'll get the chance to see this correctly.

3-D!

This was the first 3-D movie I ever saw. I wasn't too impressed by this late-to-the-party spaghetti western at the time but now I'm curious to see it again. I remember thinking the three dimensional effect was OK but not very good. With the latest return of this bizarre movie fad I once again turn to the past even though I have to admit that technology has managed to finally craft very good 3-D images for the theater. Both the recent JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH and MY BLOODY VALENTINE were solid demonstrations of how far things have come but we're still waiting for the first great movie made in this odd process.