FAREWELL SIR SEAN CONNERY........THE ONE AND ONLY, ULTIMATE ORIGINAL 007

        

       And so time has accomplished what no villainous mastermind could do to James Bond.....

                 ........taken him from us.

                 Sean Connery, who took the portrayal of an iconic fictional character to previously unheard of heights, made the role his own and captivated the entire world.

                 After he left Bond behind, he made us realize he was just getting started.

                 What followed was an amazing lifetime of additional classic roles in unforgettable films. 

                 We won't duplicate the hundreds of obituaries already posted that list his roles and his films.

                 You know them well. We all know them well.

                 Nothing more to say except to mourn a terrible loss of  a gifted actor who lived a life without compromise and left us with an immortal body of work.

                  Rest in peace and power, Sir Sean Connery.

                  A true Knight Of The Realm of modern cinema.

'HOUSE OF DARK SHADOWS'.....HAPPY 50TH, BARNABAS! FANGS FOR THE MEMORIES.......

 House Of Dark Shadows (1970)    Could there be any more perfect film to post about on the eve of Halloween?

               ......especially one hitting its 50th anniversary.

                You can scan the record books all you like but we doubt you'll find another film that can boast of being the first horror movie based on a popular.......horror soap opera (??!!).

                 The ABC 'daytime drama', which ran from 1967 to 1971 became a major sensation, a campy gothic romp that had kids of all ages (from middle school to college) rushing home (or back to the dorm) to catch the daily, late afternoon episodes.

                  Front and center  on the show was Canadian actor Jonathan Frid as Barnabas Collins, a conflicted, tortured romantic vampire, forever pining for this lost love Josette, who threw herself into the sea rather than marry an undead guy.

                  Hey, the girl set a pretty low bar for Barnabas, all things considered.......being alive.

                 Frid found himself as an unlikely national heartthrob......you could think of his Barnabas as 'Wuthering Heights' Heathcliff.......with fangs.

                 We stand in awe at the sheer accomplishment here.......a feature film that jams the storylines of probably hundreds of half hour TV episodes into a 100 minute movie. 

                 So we're off and running to Collinwood and the huge New York state mansion where all the extended Collins family members are currently parked. Their goonish handyman Willie (John Karlen) searching for family treasure to loot, inadvertently frees Barnabas from his crypt coffin.

                 Enslaving Willie and ingratiating himself with the Collins' bunch by suddenly arriving as their long lost English cousin, the Barnan-ator falls hard for their governess Maggie Evans (Kathryn Leigh Scott).

                 Wouldn't you know it, Maggie's a dead ringer for Barn-a-rama's long dead main squeeze, Josette. Do we hear wedding bells?

                  Let the neck biting and blood gushing commence!

                 And we're not kidding about the blood part. Producer-director Dan Curtis, liberated from the omnipresent censorship applied to the television show, now felt free to let the red stuff spurt, flow and drip with more frequency than a Saturday night at a hospital Emergency Room.

                  Even better, from our standpoint......the film defiantly existed separately from the characters and their story arcs on the TV show..... so.as the ultra-busy plot packs in dozens of subplots and horrific incidents,, it merrily kills off and/or vampire-izes almost the entire cast.

                   And there's nothing we admire more than a vampire movie with an extra-high body count.......(and easily achieved in Collinwood, where its police force treats the wave of vampiric deaths about the same as breaking and entering or  DUI's......)

                   This Halloween, with most trick-or-treaters sidelined by COVID, we recommend  a nostalgic trip down Malady Lane with Barnabas and the whole 'Dark Shadows' gang.  It's a 3 star (***) treat at least equal to Reece's Peanut Butter Cups and Kit Kat Bars.......(with the same amount of biting involved.)

                 Fair warning......this one's NOT for the littlest Halloweeners.......movie audiences took along their kids to see this back in '70, unaware that the film freely slapped on the gore.......and that may have led to the TV show's rapidly decreasing ratings and popularity and its eventual demise. 

                 For all of us immature adults and teens, however, it's a graveyard smash......

              

                 

'THE SPORTING CLUB' (1971-FILM)......A LONG LOST ODDITY FINALLY SURFACES.....

The Sporting Club (1971)    If this titles sounds familiar to BQ visitors, that's because we reviewed the Thomas McGuane book it's based on earlier this year......(see our 7/13/20 post.)

            We'd finished that review with a plea to anyone who could help us track down the elusive, barely seen 1971 film version........which we've been chasing after for 49 years.

             Yesterday left us stunned when we discovered someone had uploaded an impossible-to-find VHS copy on to YouTube.......which we watched immediately before anyone takes it down.......

              We'd categorize this film along side the group of 'Fractured America' movies that arrived in the early 70's as a response to the corrosive, tumultuous and divisive catastrophes of 1968.....(.the year which previously held the record as the worst year in American history until 2020 far eclipsed it in misery, dysfunction and death

               Vietnam, the assassinations of MLK and RFK, urban riots, the Chicago police rampage at the Democratic convention and the ascendance of Richard Nixon combined to paint a horrifying portrait of America......a country in which the rich, the powerful, the corrupt and the bigoted solidified their conquest and domination over the young generation of baby boomers (as well as all disenfranchised minorities.....)

                "The Sporting Club" fits perfectly among the films that arrived to bitterly decry and lampoon this grotesque state of affairs in the country.........especially in its withering takedown of a huge group of entitled, wealthy members of an exclusive hunting and fishing club, enjoying their privileged revels in the vast acreage of backwoods Michigan

                  The youngest of this group, Verner Stanton (Robert Fields) self-disgusted to be a part of them, has evolved into a cynical, dissolute nihilist and he's reached the brink of madness in his determination to destroy the Sporting Club and  its members.

                 Stanton's pretty fiance (Margaret Blye) and his lifelong best friend James Quinn (Nicholas Coster)can only stand back and watch with disbelief at  the erupting chaos Vernor brings down the club.

                  His agent of destruction is the lowlife, violence prone goon Earl Olive (a superb Jack Warden), who Stanton arranges to become the new manager of the club. After Stanton deliberately enrages Olive by humiliating him in a mock pistol duel, Olive responds by literally waging explosive war on the club........with plenty of dynamite.

                  The hapless club members and their wives, all depicted as pompous buffoons, try to organize themselves into a battle-worthy army, but they're overwhelmingly outmatched by the wily thug Olive,  who's like a Viet Cong terrorist confounding the more powerful U.S. army.

                 And in the film's (and book's) final outrageous joke, the club's unearthing of their ancestors' buried time capsule, sends them into a sexual frenzy when they realize the club's original founders were just as immoral and depraved as they are. 

                  We wish we could report that all these raucous events are handled with a deft, slyly subtle touch......(something akin to Robert Altman's "M.A.S.H." or mabe even early Brian DePalma)

                    Sorry, but no. Screenwriter Lorenzo Semple Jr. and director Larry Peerce are hardly subtle satirists here.  Their blunt, sledgehammer approach does the story no favors.

                   Devoid of Thomas McGuane's densely constructed prose, Semple's script plays out like a skimpy, underwritten synopsis of the book. And Peerce's direction is  mostly blunt, and crudely direct, like a made-for-TV horror film that's missing the horror.......(unless you count the scene where Olive captures one of the club members to tar and feather him.)  

                    (It's typical of these filmmakers that McGuane's far more realistic, melancholic ending is tossed out and replaced with a burst of bloody violence that these guys thought would end the film on an ironic exclamation point.)

                    The only time the film comes close to replicating the book's quirky anarchic spirit is the moment when the imperious club members first encounter the earthy, course and vaguely threatening Earl Olive. Jack Warden's brilliant as he spins  mad fishing tales while the uppercrusters view him with a mixture of amusement , fascination and unspoken contempt.

                     Nevertheless, we're still very appreciative that the film's finally seen the light of day again.......though now that at long last we've seen it, we'd recommend it to for hardcore movie buffs, especially those of you who, like us, treasure these one-of-a-kind oddities from the 60's and 70's.

                      If you're willing to take a chance on it, you'll discover a 2 & 1/2 star (**1/2) depiction of America's Nixonian malaise and the lingering damage wreaked by the convulsions of 1968. 

                    We can only imagine the similar films we'll get after the merciful demise the Trumpian reign of destructive pandemonium. 

                    The film only manages to replicate the book's overly literate

'THE SENTINEL'.......ANOTHER LOSER FROM WINNER......

 The Sentinel (1977)    Whenever we encountered a rotten movie that featured a large cast of well known, well loved actors, we used to grade it on a curve.........

                    Though the film might richly deserve a Zero rating, or even worse, our all time low of an AFH (Abomination From Hell), we'd cut the film a slight break on behalf of its stellar cast......assigning it  something in the range of  1 star (*), or a fraction of a star (1/2, 1/4, 1/3rd, and so on........)

                      Not this time.

                      This totally crapola exercise in 'satanic horror" (a sub-genre that flourished in the 70's thanks to "The Exorcist" and "The Omen") boasts an astounding lineup in its supporting cast.....

                        We're talkin'  Martin Balsam, Christopher Walken, John Carradine, Ava Gardner, Jose Ferrer, Arthur Kennedy, Burgess Meredith, Jeff Goldblum, Jerry Orbach, Eli Wallach, Beverly D'Angelo, William Hickey, Sylvia Miles and in a tiny role Tom Berenger.

                        With all these great, fascinating actors, you'd think this must be one hell of a movie to sit through.....

                         Well.....it's a movie. And it's hell to sit through.

                        Speaking of hell, that's what film's all about........being based on one of those hot-selling "Rosemary's Baby" ripoffs (lots of 'em popped up in the 70's) about demonic doings inside an eerie New York City apartment building. 

                          And so once again Hollywood studios considered Catholicism as a ripe inspiration for horror movies.

                           A TV commercial model (Christina Raines) moves info the usual spooky NYC building that comes fully equipped with grotesque, oddly threatening neighbors......including a blind old priest who sits all day, looking out of the apartment's top window.

                         The expected spooky stuff unfolds around the poor girl, much to the chagrin of her fiance (Chris Sarandon) who himself is suspected of murdering his first wife by tossing her out of a window or something. 

                           Anyone who's sampled the 70's Satan filmography could already guess how this film will turn out.

                         The only real surprise here is how badly it turns out.........thanks to the flat, uninspired, keep-things-moving-right-along direction of Michael Winner.

                          Throughout the 70's, the tireless, prolific Winner became Hollywood's go-to guy for quickly pumping out pulpy action thrillers with big stars, including Charles Bronson's 'Death Wish' series and westerns and suspensers with Burt Lancaster, Marlon Brando, Faye Dunaway, Sophia Loren and many others.

                          Tyrannizing his film crews but establishing great rapport with his stars, Winner spewed out film after film, always on time, always on budget and saving tons 'o money by shooting almost entirely on real locations.

                            He got 'em done allright.......but as a filmmaker, he was never anything more than a nose-to-the-grindstone journeyman........and his films lacked any substance, style, imagination or anything other than an urgent desire to use up the raw stock, wrap that sucker and move on to the next.

                          Winner had no real affinity for any of the genres he dabbled in.......and this ham-handed attempt at a horror film is shot in the same matter-of-fact, point-the-camera-and-shoot style as all his other films.

                            Which doesn't make for a very scary movie. Winner must have sensed his own deficiency in this regard, so as a last resort, he trots out a parade of actual physically deformed people to horrify his audience. 

                          Talk about desperation.

                          As for that cast packed with excellent actors, they're all wasted in throwaway roles, similar to that jumbo collection of aging icons who appeared in Winner's previous film, 1976's unfunny nostalgia orgy "Won Ton Ton, the Dog Who Saved Hollywood". (see our post about this one on 8/19 or this year)

                        More disgusting than scary, we'll not grade this one on any curve. Michael Winner the Loser fully earns our AFH, Abomination From Hell.   And to hell with it.  

                           

'CRIMINAL LAW'......WOE VS.WADE......

 Criminal Law (1988)    We're accustomed to watching high profile thrillers that require a certain amount of suspended belief.......

                Up to a point, if the movie promises to show us a good time, we're willing to look past a few barely believable twists and turns........

                  This movie, however, demands you submit to a prefrontal lobotomy in order to swallow its entire premise.

                   In other words........give us a ****in' break, will ya?

                   Not that it isn't entertaining......at times. 

                   Gary Oldman practically gives himself a nervous breakdown playing a supremely arrogant young defense attorney who specializes in razzle-dazzling juries into acquitting his clients, regardless of their actual guilt or innocence.......

                   Which he does, in fact, for a rich-boy psycho (Kevin Bacon, wisely underplaying his lunacy), with some serious mother issues. 

                    Before Oldman can celebrate his big win, Bacon continues his merry killing spree, raping, killing and immolating young girls and then stuffing their mouths with diapers.

                    Theses girls, you see ,all had abortions, and Bacon's been nursing a lifelong hate on his OB-GYN mom, who's a busy abortionist.   And this loony-tune' decided not wait around for the repeal of Roe Vs. Wade.........

                   And here's where the film instantly flies off the rails, with a shook-up Oldman deciding to play legal cat-and-mouse with Bacon, in order to entrap him into incriminating himself.

                   Since it's already established that Bacon's way too smart and cunning to ever fall for Oldman's blatant, clumsy ploys, you can only grimace and roll your eyes as Oldman launches into increasingly hysterical, stupid and ruinous illegal behavior.

                     We'll not reveal anymore.......you can already guess this film will keep careening on to its spectacular, far fetched and borderline laughable conclusion. 

                    One bright light shines in this mess.......actress Karen Young as a murder victim's friend who suffers through the booga-booga low grade horror scenes where Bacon pops out at her like a lethal jack-in-the-box. 

                      We've adored this actress every since we saw her film debut in 1983's "Handgun" (a.k.a, 'Deep In The Heart'. (Check out our post on 3/21//17). She played a virginal school teacher who wreaks stern revenge on a Texas asshole who date-raped her.

                     Once again, Young is a sight to behold as she brings forth a bottomless supply of both fear and rage to defend her own life against Bacon.  It's enough of a stark, showstopping moment to make us wish it was in a far better movie than this one..........

                        And Karen Young's presence alone is the only reason we're giving this film even 1 single star (*). Without her, it's a zero waste of time.  

'ENDLESS NIGHT'.......DAME AGATHA'S BROODY, MOODY ROMANCE........

 Endless Night (1972)     Once again, time for a wistful sigh at what might have been.......

              So much promise in the main title credits.........pounding, crashing waves, a full bodied ominously romantic score by no less than Bernard Herrmann, serving out his British exile after Hitchcock bounced him from 'Torn Curtain.......

                And based on an Agatha Christie novel, with the promise of dark deeds and  a twist that no one would ever see coming......

                 Okay, some of what the film portends does actually show up.......but with none of the sweeping style that the main titles prepare you for.......

                 Still, we wouldn't have wanted to miss this.  It features that beautiful Herrmann score, and an equally beautiful young Hayley Mills, in the prime of her ingenue-hood.......

                 Plus there's a powerhouse supporting cast of George Sanders, Leo Genn, Swedish bombshell Britt Ekland and whole host of folks we recognized from their stints in Bond films and British TV.....(Lois Maxwell, Walter Gotell, David Bauer, Peter Bowles, etc)

                  So what's not to like?

                  Here's the thing........Sidney Gilliat, veteran writer-director of many classic comedies was certainly no visual stylist.  And while the storyline dabbles in romantic obsession and vaguely supernatural doings, the filmmaking here remains clunky and flat.......like a TV episode shot in 4 days or less.......

                 And other than in the main titles, nobody gets anywhere near those pounding, crashing waves........

                 As we watched this, we could only imagine what a freewheeling visualist like Nicholas Roeg could have done with this material.......or even an all-out madman like Ken Russell. Ah well......

                  Oh right, the plot. 

                   A hard scrabbling, lower class striver (Hywell Bennett) dreams of fabulous wealth and especially building his own custom made mansion on a patch of sprawling countryside that's entranced him.

                   As fate (and Dame Aggie) would have it, his job as a chauffer to the Upper-crusters puts him in the path of the 'world's 6th richest heiress' (Mills).....and a whirlwind romance and wedding ensue in record time. 

                     So Bennett, now flush with Hayley's cash, collects his countryside dream home and Hayley too, along with a collection of her family members who instantly suspect and despise him as  a gold-digging Gigolo including Mills' official BFF, the vivacious Ekland.. 

                     What's a poor nouveau riche boy to do?  And what about that weird old crone lurking in the shrubbery?

                    That's all the plot you'll get from us, other than to mention this film is the third romantic pairing of Bennett and Mills (after the working class dramedy "The Family Way" and the psycho-thriller "Twisted Nerve", which also featured another creepy Bernard Herrmann score)

                     We never quite understood this pairing ourselves.......in all these films, the two displayed zero chemistry with each other, with the sweetly innocent Mills always showing monumental patience with the ever scowling Bennett.  

                     We think she shoulda sent this his scrunchy little toad on his way from the first scene on, but that's just us........somebody must have thought these two struck sparks.....not us..

                     You can decide for yourselves if you think Agatha Christie's BIG REVEAL was worth sitting through.  As we mentioned earlier, we loved the supporting cast, the score and yes, one of the crushes our youth, Hayley Mills.

                      A sense of style and real romantic abandon would've earned this film far more than the mere 2 &1/2 stars (**1/2) we're giving it. A single viewing's more than enough.........

"THEY'RE COMING! THEY'RE COMING! YOU'RE NEXT!"......DON'T MISS BQ'S LIVE STREAM ON "BODY SNATCHERS", ONLY DAYS AWAY!

Tuesday Night At The Popcorn Palace - October 27th - 6:30-7:30  EST

            Once again we go live and chatty on one of our favorite films......(and just in time for Halloween)\

             You can register to join us FREE, just check out the Laurel Library website. Looking forward to a fun discussion with everyone invited to chime in with questions and comments.

'DEAR CHILD'....."ROOM" WITH 3 VIEWS.......

 Dear Child by Romy Hausmann (2020)     The 'Captive Love Slave' sub-genre of thrillers has become all the more prevalent in this ever unhinged day and age.......

              Back in 1963 when John Fowles published "The Collector", the whole idea of a an obsessed kidnapper imprisoning the object of his affection stood out as distinctly perverse and odd.....

               Nowadays, in these horrifying times the headlines come ablaze with the ghastly abductions of Elizabeth Smart, Jaycee Dugard and the three women enslaved for years  by a Cleveland madman.

             So it's no wonder that mystery-thriller writers seized upon the nightmare-inducing idea of an innocent women not only trapped , tortured and raped, but forced to bear children to their abductors..........

              Many of these books deal seriously with the overwhelming PTSD suffered by the abductees after they've either escaped or been rescued........and the subsequent torment both they and their families suffer as they attempt to return to normal lives.

              "Dear Child" does all that, but in true pop-culture thriller style, it constructs a hall-of-mirrors full of twists, in which nothing and no one are they seem to be.......

               Starting off with a similarity to Emma Donoghue's "Room", a captive young woman who's been missing 13 years manages to kill her captor and escape with her two children........the children she gave birth to as the result of her abductor's multiple rapes.

               From there, the narrative divides between the the escaped woman, the woman's distraught father who has never stopped searching for her and the woman's autistic 13 year old daughter.........

                Now keep in mind......none of what we just described to you is necessarily true.......and none (or possibly all) of the three narrators are being entirely truthful with you either........

                The result of this perpetual unreliability will have you tearing through this book within a day or two until you're satisfied that all the twists are revealed and every truth becomes apparent. 

                And that, faithful visitors, makes for a top-notch read to keep you up late at night......and by far one of the most entertaining new books we've come across this Fall. 4 stars (****).

'WHITE LIGHTNING'.......BURT 'N SOME BAD OLE BOYS......

 White Lightning (1973)   Burt Reynolds and Elvis Presley. among other actors, found themselves at a monumental crossroad in their careers.......with a monumental decision to make.....

            Whether to pursue a serious acting career, with all the ups, downs and pitfalls that entails.......or settle for being a movie star, content to pump out negligible, machine-tooled 'vehicles', designed only to please your fans and put their asses firmly in theater seats on opening weekend.

              With a few exceptions in his his filmography, Reynolds chose the movie star path and 'White Lightning' served as the template for many of his subsequent.....uh....vehicles.

              Whether it veers toward comedy or action or a mixture of both, the blueprint remains the same.......Reynolds is the rough 'n ready, southern fried Good Ole Boy with a falsetto giggle and a penchant for wandering on to the wrong side of the law from time to time.

              'White Lightning' starts with him already in prison for moonshine running......and he's fairly good natured about his situation until news of his young brother's murder reaches him. 

              In a scene inspired by the real life murders of Freedom Riders' in Mississippi, Burt's kid brother met his death at the hands of a corrupt, bigoted sheriff (an excellent Ned Beatty).......for no other reason than being one of them 'dirty hippie' protesters who unwisely mouthed off to the lawman.

               Thirsting for revenge, Reynolds convinces the Feds to spring him from jail to go undercover and expose all the kickbacks Beatty collects from the moonshiners.

               Reynolds pretty much sucks as a spy, but excels at both high speed car chases and dallying with a barefoot, backwoods, hot-to-trot Hottie. (Jennifer Billingsley).

                 And there you have the whole movie, considerably livened up by a terrific cast of Bad Ole Boy character actors like Bo Hopkins, Matt Clark and R.G. Armstrong. Together with Reynolds they make the whole film go down like honeyed whiskey with a touch of soda.

                 The only key element this film sadly lacks is more than one interaction between Reynolds and Beatty. They face off in only one brief, tensely comical moment and the film's all the poorer for it. Since the movie's primarily about fast cars, their showdown, naturally, is strictly vehicular. 

                  A few years later, Reynolds would successfully lampoon this basic storyline in his slipshod, slapped-together 'Smokey And The Bandit' trilogy........with Jackie Gleason's clownish, sputtering sheriff replacing Beatty's murderous villain.  To ever diminishing returns.......

                 As for us, we still like "White Lightning" as the best of Burt's Good Ole Boy movie star contraptions........containing just the right amounts of hellbent driving, cornpone humor and sudden, explosive action.  So we'll Yee-Haw! out 3 stars (***).

                  To quote Reynolds's 'Gator' McCluskey, it's definitely more fun than going to an all-night dentist...........

                 

 

'A COLT IS MY PASSPORT'......CHEEKY JAPAN-A-MAYHEM, HEAVILY MORRICONE'D

 A Colt Is My Passport (1967)   No quibbling here. If nothing else, this film has the best title we've come across all year, hands down.........

                Try using that line with the TSA the next time you fly abroad......heh, heh, heh........

                 The movie's also one the best collisions of multiple styles of international filmmaking we've seen all year.....(and visitors to this blog know how hard we try to seek out the weirdest cinema from every far corner of the globe......)]

                  If you've never seen a rough 'n tough, hard boiled Japanese gangster movie, this one's a good place to start. 

                   Like other films in the genre, it's shot in glorious black-and-white and widescreen......(the screen ratio becomes important when four or more gangsters space themselves out for the shootouts....)

                   The first startling aspect, given the film's Japanese origin, is the music score........a precise imitation of Ennio Morricone's spaghetti western scores, complete with a whistled tune you can't get out of your head.

                 This makes artistic sense, once the film itself begins.......it contains a riot of influences......Sergio Leone westerns, American noir, casual French New Wave (a la "Breathless") and of course it's very own homeland brutality and a life-is-cheap mindset.

                   The next thing that'll catch your eye:  the film's one-of-a-kind tough guy played by Joe Shishido.

                   He's stoic as Bogart, cool as McQueen, violent as Bronson......and looks as if he's got tennis balls stuffed into his cheeks.......honest.

                    Shishido's cheeks, making him appear like a hamster at feeding time, came from his own decision for facial surgery to make him look distinctive.

                    Uh....well....mission accomplished. We can safely say we've never seen anyone like Joe in any action-crime movie we've ever watched.  Or in any movie.....period.

                      Once you get used to Joe's chipmunky cheeks, sit back and enjoy the movie, which is a fast-paced blast.  Shishido and his young driver-wingman are hired by a gang kingpin to assassinate a rival kingpin. 

                     That they do, but in the midst of their escape, the two surviving kingpins form a peace treaty alliance.........the terms of which include death to Shishido and his best bud.

                      That's all you really need to know as the bullets and fists fly freely.......leading up to a visually stunning showdown between the small army of gangsters and Shishido, who's armed himself with a big ass shotgun and a nice chunk 'o dynamite.  

                      All we can say is........Banzai, baby......and keep up that whistling faux-Morricone melody all the way.......

                      4 stars (****) . If you love dipping into international cinema, stuff your cheeks with enough favorite snacks to resemble Joe Shishido and have a fine time with this one. 

'THE HAUNTING OF BLY MANOR'..........YEARN OF THE SCREWED..........

The Haunting Of Bly Manor (Netflix-2020)    You know you've got the Halloween spirit if you commit to watching a ghost story that drags out over 9 hour long episodes.......

              Question is........is this worth spending that much time on?

              We wish we had a simple answer for you. 

               Because over the course of 9 hours, we found some things we liked, some things we didn't, some things we found confounding and obtuse.......and even a few moments that scared the crap out of us. 

                The show uses Henry James' "Turn Of The Screw" as its jumping off point, but it has way, way more plot and subplots on its mind than you'd ever find in the original novel. 

                In fact, it bears more resemblance to a soap opera than a scare opera. 

                Lost love, thwarted love, doomed love, unrequited love.......literally every variety of dysfunctional love gets a thorough workout here.  And if you make it to the final episode's extended epilogue (coming after the show has wrapped up all the haunted house chaos) , you realize that's what the story's been about all along. 

                 Every single character here hides a tortured backstory, and by the 3rd episode, the show's challenging you to sort out which of them are dead or alive.  

                  It's an exhausting task as the show launches into an endless series of cleverly constructed, combination dream/flashback sequences that interlock the characters like puzzle pieces that don't quite fit.

                 So you may find yourself muttering 'What the ****" as you navigate through them all. 

                And we paid little or not attention to the show's attempts to establish a set of rules and regulations for its ghostly inhabitants, (similar to a list of abilities assigned to superheroes, ya know, the usual laundry list of powers and limitations......)      

                  Now the next, most important question for a show like this........is it scary?  At the end of the day, does it go "Booga Booga!" real good?

                In the BQ standards for such things, we don't count jump scares.  That hoary old  'ghost-pops-out-behind-you-in-the-bathroom-mirror' trick is cheap, lazy and beneath contempt.  And we do not care if a horror film or series uses it 50 times......IT DON'T MEAN JACK!

               Only in the 8th, next to last episode, does 'Bly Manor' finally rev up the scare engine.

               That entire episode is devoted the haunted house's 18th century origin story and it's  a beautifully rendered black-and-white bad dream.   And put your hands together for actress Kate Siegel as the show's primary monstrous, murdering ghost.  In her 2 episode arc, she reminded us so much of the super-sexy and super scary Barbara Steele, the reigning raven haired queen of 1960's horror films. Siegel frightened us just as much as the legendary Steele. 

                 If the 9 episodes of this show had concentrated on her character, we wouldn't have dared watching it without a defibrillator nearby.

                  More of an elaborate, time spanning gothic romance than a genuine horror tale, you'll have to decide if this one's your cup of ghoulish tea. A very mixed (and mixed up) bag that for its many high points, we'll scare up 2&1/2 stars. (**1/2)

                   But if you take your horror straight up, no chaser.......proceed at your own risk.

                 

'THE OTHER'.......TRYON TIMES DOWN ON THE FARM.......

 The Other (1972)   was derived from a best seller horror novel penned by Thomas Tryon, who had previously eked out an acting career as a regulation tall-dark-'n-handsome hunk in the Rock Hudson mold.

                After massive torment and humiliation at the hands of director Otto Preminger, who gave Tryon major roles in 'The Cardinal ' and 'In Harm's Way', the actor reinvented himself as a kind of second string Stephen King.......and enjoyed a far more successful, lucrative  career as a  bookselling spookmaster than he ever did as a generic stud-of-the-month actor.

               "The Other", set on a 1930's farm and its surrounding homes, drips with sun dappled, corn fed nostalgia........helped along by a Jerry Goldsmith score that only emerges sporadically due to the film's editing woes in post production. 

                 Stripped of all its nostalgic, Americana trappings, the film's ultimately nothing more than "The Bad Seed" with hayseeds.........a homicidal child arranging accidental deaths for those who cross him. 

                 The film makes a half hearted attempt to duplicate the book's BIG TWIST........but it's one of those "gotcha" tricks that always works better in books and in this case, you could easily guess it after the first few scenes.  (And the movie itself gives up on the twist halfway through......)

                   The casting's wildly uneven.......on the sublime end of the scale, "The Other" does offer the theatrical movie debut of the celebrated, legendary stage actress Uta Hagen. But most or the supporting cast was culled from the usual pool of mediocre TV actors.

                   The real problem here was the choice of Robert Mulligan as director.......no doubt because of his great skill in depicting a sensitive view of early 20th century childhood in "To Kill A Mockingbird". Mulligan, however, was clearly uneasy and uncomfortable dealing with  pitchfork impalements, infanticide and other perverse violence. 

                To his credit though, Mulligan may have been a wise choice to extract acceptable performances from the film's two principal players, the 12 year old twins Chris and Martin Udvarnoky.(neither of whom ever made another film thereafter.....smart boys)

              Once you realize the film's soft pedaling the horror, you start to wonder why it was even made, or why anyone would bother to sit through it. 

                  In that regard the film it most resembles is Disney's watered down 1983 version of "Something Wicked This Way Comes"

                   Tryon, who wrote the screenplay, was appalled at the final result........with his hefty novel reduced to a skimpy, overly mild 100 minutes, a horror film that barely qualified as horror.

                    We weren't crazy about it either. 1 & 1/2 stars (*1/2). BQ advises that you look for some Halloween chills elsewhere.......

'SWORD OF SHERWOOD FOREST'......HAMMER-TIME FOR ROBIN HOOD.......

 Sword Of Sherwood Forest (1960)   You'd think, being the age we are, that we'd fondly remember all the details of the 'Robin Hood' TV show that we baby boomers grew up on in the 1950's.........

               Other than the first line of its jaunty little theme song...."Robin Hood, Robin Hood....riding through the glen.....", we can't remember a damn thing about it......

                Evidently, neither did the Hammer horror honchoes when they put together a Robin Hood feature film with TV's Robin himself, Richard Greene.  They entirely left out the show's supporting cast.

               Greene, who co-produced the widescreen color movie, is the only carry-over from the TV show.

               Not that it's a bad thing.........the film's teeming with dozens of well known, well loved British character actors, many of whom did single episode guest shots on the TV show when it ruled the airwaves from 1955 to 1960.

                 And that wonderful cast, starting with horror icon Peter Cushing as the villainous Sheriff Of Nottingham remains the film's primary asset and charm.......really, it's  the only thing that makes the film worth watching at all. 

                  Because as a costume swashbuckler, the film itself comes off as slack, lazy, slow moving and obviously very cheaply produced. 

                  The swordfights and battles resemble a group of 3rd graders playing make-believe Robin Hood in somebody's backyard.......with broomsticks for swords and skewered opponents screaming loudly before they dramatically flop on the ground........

                  And Richard Greene, appears too old and too cheerfully relaxed playing Robin Hood, the rebellious scourge of tyrants........he looks like he's just had a look at his upcoming residual checks from the TV show, so nothing's gonna phase him.......

                  So the best way to enjoy this movie......just concentrate on the terrific cast....

                There's Cushing, smoothly nasty as the Sheriff, whom you can imagine as the ancestor of the actor's Grand Moff Tarkin, the Death Star commander in the first 'Star Wars'....

                 Reliable Nigel Green shows up as Little John........and yes, he and Richard Greene would both soon end up playing  Inspector Nayland Smith in two separate 'Fu Manchu' movies opposite Christopher Lee....(who made his way into other Hammer swashbucklers like 'Devil Ship Pirates' but managed to steer clear of Sherwood Forest)

                 In the early scenes, "Where Eagles Dare" fans will spot a young Derren Nesbitt as one of the unluckier of the Merry Men.....sorry to see him out of the movie so soon.....

                 And a not especially fat Niall MacGinnis (known mainly for his "Curse Of The Demon" villain and Zeus in "Jason And The Argonauts") plays Friar Tuck, enduring a load of fat/overeating jokes that don't synch up with his physical appearance, since the robes fit him too loosely.

                  But our favorite "Hey! Isn't that.....??" moment: a small role for that once and future rambunctious hellraiser Oliver Reed, as an evil knight with a hawk and an attitude. (For reason's we don't understand, the ever surly Ollie's dubbed in by another actor......)

                   We ourselves didn't mind spending 80 minutes with this Hammer-ized Robin Hood, but we'd only recommend it to two overlapping groups.......Hammer film lovers and hardcore Anglophiles...... 

                      Since BQ falls into both categories, we're giving it what most would consider a bit too generous 2 & 1/2 stars (**1/2).......(and that's the beauty of running your own blog). If you're not among the Hammer-Anglo fan clubs.......you should probably give this one a pass.

'IRMA LA DOUCE'......GIRLS GONE WILDER

 Irma La Douce (1963)    Director Billy Wilder and his longtime screenwriter collaborator I.A.L. Diamond found an unlikely source for their next sardonically cynical romantic comedy..........a bubbly French musical which they proceeded to de-musicalize........

              Though stripped of its songs, Wilder and Diamond's always effervescent wit kept the movie as bubbly and semi-naughty as if it were still a musical........with enormous help from Wilder's "Apartment" co-stars Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine and a riotous supporting turn from veteran character actor Lou Jacobi.

                 Unlike Wilder's black-and-white comedies taking place in the real world as we know it, "Irma La Douce", filmed in gorgeous, ripe color, is set up as kind of a fairy tale for grown-ups, taking place in a very Hollywood-ized French red light district.......

                   To describe what it looks like, imagine if Disneyland included 'French Whore-World' among  their fantasy attractions.......complete with a fully ourfitted, meticulous re-creation of a sleazy Parisienne neighborhood populated with PG-13 sanitized hookers and their pimps who look dropped in from a Gallic version of 'Guys and Dolls'........

                     Into this colorful never-neverland comes a dedicated cop (Lemmon) who falls for the film's titular heart-of-gold streetwalker Irma La Douce (MacLaine)......(her name isn't 'Irma The Sweet' for nothing'....)

                      In the plot's wild ups 'n downs, Lemmon, besotted with MacLaine, ends up as her insanely jealous pimp.  To keep her unsullied and unplowed by visiting horny sailors (including a very young Bill Bixby and James Caan), Lemmon's forced to masquerade as 'Lord X', Irma's one and only sugar-daddy British Lord client. 

                       And to perpetuate this frantic double life, he has to put in brutal extra hours toiling in a meat market in order to afford 'Lord X's generous payments to Irma........(and he's aided in this elaborate deception by the neighborhood saloonkeeper (Jacobi) whose ridiculous array of past life experiences he shrugs away with..."...but that's another story....."_

                       The film's off-the-wall 3rd act twist sends it into the realm of complete, antic farce......and we'll not spoil the fun for those of you who haven't seen the film by revealing it. 

                       Before anyone starts raging about how un-woke and politically incorrect this all is, yeh, we get it. But lighten up, it's 1963 after all.  And Wilder and Diamond  still managed to push the envelope in their typically sarcastic but sentimental view of romance........(and keep in mind, Wilder might have been the  only major filmmaker who could get away with making a major studio comedy about whores.)

                         Overlong and obvious, it's still pure Wilder. a silly yet knowingly mature farce from a master of the genre,,,...only Wilder could envision a comic book-like view of prostitution  and somehow make it look quaint and charming......3 & 1/2 stars (***1/2).....how it got past the still pruish studio system......well, that's another story........