Anyway, DO forgive me for not getting my act together and piecing together coherent thoughts (copied, of course, from my film books) about films wot I harf seen, but I ain't seen nowt yet. Ah! Another lie! I'm just back from seeing Amenábar's new one, MAR ADENTRO. Haven't had time to get my act together yet and copy the newspaper reviews. Must get my head round this film - at the moment, will just say that Javier Bardem is ABSOLUTELY AMAZING in this.

While Scotty-based, I saw 16 YEARS OF ALCOHOL, by Richard "Skidmark" Jobson. Veered between being almost really good and almost really terrible, whilst never quite battering into either extreme. The pseudo-poetic rubbish IS hard to stomach. Can't be bothered to say more - I'll get into the swing of things in a few days.

Caught two old classics on DVD - PLANET OF THE APES, the original of course, still great, and Hammer's original (HORROR OF) DRACULA, which is still a hugely impressive movie.

The voice acting is great. Kevin Conroy is absolutely perfect in the lead, creating two distinct tones for Batman and Bruce Wayne. Efrim Zimbalist Jr. is a wonderful Alfred, Bob Hastings is always great as Commissioner Gordon. And the roster of guest talent this show assembled (which I'll get to when I talk about individual episodes) is pretty remarkable. And of course, the music is fantastic. Shirley Walker and her team of composers fashioned some of the greatest scores of the 90's for this series, equal and quite often superior to any modern cinematic scores, despite the relatively small orchestra.

Yeah, there are some episodes that don't work. Some of the character animation in the earlier episodes is a little too cartoony. And sometimes the dialogue just isn't good. But when this show is good, it's very good...and it's good very often.

On to the episodes...

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"On Leather Wings"

A half-man, half-bat creature is terrorizing Gotham and naturally Batman is blamed for it. This was the first episode they finished, and it's pretty good. Marc Singer (Dar himself!) plays the villain, and his loopy line readings (of pretty bad dialogue) in the climactic scene probably bring the episode down more than anything else. "But the potion began to take over...it's INSIDE ME!" Lloyd Bochner also puts in the first of numerous appearances as the mayor.

"Christmas with the Joker"

Robin shows up for an episode and then disappears. This one is kind of boring, with some weak animation and lame ideas. At one point Batman, suddenly speaking in code for no good reason, yells "Robin! Operation Cause and Effect!" which apparently means "Throw a grenade at that cannon!" But this is the introduction of Mark Hamill as the Joker, and (no offense to Luke) it's easily his best role ever. He's really quite brilliant at it, every bit the Joker Jack Nicholson was. Luckily he returns for many more (and better) episodes. (There is one nice moment though....Robin suggests he and Batman watch It's a Wonderful Life, and Batman replies, "Ya know, I haven't seen that. I could never get past the title.")

"Nothing to Fear"

They're still finding their footing, so we get this episode to introduce the Scarecrow, who deserves much better (and later got it). Here this very interesting villain is treated more like a buffoon, with all his dialogue (in both writing and performance) played for laughs (none succeed) and a pretty weak, unconvincing design. In later episodes they updated his design and took him more seriously. Kevin McCarthy is also wasted in a walk-on part.

"The Last Laugh"

The Joker exposes half of Gotham to his own brand of laughing gas and goes a-looting. Maybe the best episode yet, though the ending is identical to "Christmas with the Joker."

"Pretty Poison"

This is the first really good episode. Voice actress Diane Pershing steps in as Poison Ivy, who plots to kill Bruce Wayne and Harvey Dent for nearly wiping out a rare species of rose to build a new jail. Quality stuff.

"The Underdwellers"

Batman fights the Sewer King, a deranged guy who keeps orphans in a sweatshop-like existence underneath Gotham City. Pretty good episode, with Michael Pataki putting in a memorable performance as the villain.

"P.O.V."

The requisite Rashomon episode in which three characters relate the same incident in three different ways. There's no big revelation, but this epsiode is interesting in how little it focuses on Batman himself. The character who really carries the episode is Lieutenant Renee Montoya, a recurring character usually relegated to one line, if she speaks at all. Great to see a small supporting character given this much dimension. It illustrates much of what set this show apart, that even though it was animated an the situations and characters often veered dangerously close to the ridiculous, the show always felt believable because the characters always felt believable.

"Forgotten"

Batman wants to find out why homeless people are going missing, so he goes undercover as a bum. But he gets a thwap on the head, gets himself kidnapped, and when he wakes up again he can't remember who he is. I love the idea of this episode, but I wish they had expanded this to a two-parter so they had more time to develop it. First they have to move the real plot along, but they also try to take time to develop a couple of supporting characters, and tackle Batman's origin, and then there's also the stuff with Alfred trying to venture out himself to search for Batman. It's just too much for the 20 minutes (when you factor in commercials) they had to tell it. George Murdock is lots of fun as the bumbling villain.

"Be a Clown"

The Joker gets a young apprentice in the son of Gotham's mayor after he tries to sabotage the kid's birthday party by blowing everyone up. The kid gets annoying sometimes, but it's a good episode, and it's the first time the Joker becomes a truly menacing villain.

"Two-Face"

The first two-parter, and it's a huge advantage. The story is so well-told that it makes you wish they could have done everything in two parts (or better yet, an hour-long show). Two-Face is so much more interesting here than he was in Batman Forever. Instead of simple raving loon, he's a complex, tortured character who in the first part is really just a good guy trying to keep his darker side in check. There's a great shot of Harvey Dent (before he changes) where lightning flashes and for a split second you can see what will eventually become his other face. What's really great here is that it's the first in what eventually becomes a long line of sympathetic villains, and it's great to see Batman, this icon of justice, feeling so conflicted about where his loyalties should be. Voice actor Richard Moll is great as Harvey Dent and Two-Face, making them very distinct and seperate entities much like Kevin Conroy does for Batman. Also the first appearance of John Vernon as mob boss Rupert Thorne.

"It's Never Too Late"

This episode is basically a public service announcement, but it's an interesting one. The main focus here is on old mob boss Arnie Stromwell who built an empire out of drug dealing but is now losing much of his influence to Rupert Thorne. There's also a missing son and a priest involved, but I don't want to say too much about this episode lest any of you go and watch these. Little action and lots of drama that like so many episodes desperately needed to be about 20 minutes longer. Great acting in this one, with Eugene Roche as Stromwell, Katherine Helmond as his wife, and Paul Dooley as the priest.

"I've Got Batman in my Basement"

Ugh. The first Penguin episode. Batman is knocked unconscious and cared for by a couple of kids who thwart the villains. The kids are just so irritating I found this episode hard to get through. Paul Williams is great as the Penguin, though.

"Heart of Ice"

A great, great episode. Mr. Freeze, always one of the goofiest villains on the Adam West show, is treated with the utmost honesty here. His backstory is great, another villain that you sort of root for when you find out why he turned out the way he did. According to the commentary most of this character history was created for the show - I guess even in the comics (which I'm not familiar with) Mr. Freeze was still just a one-note gimmicky character. They later stole this history and crucified it in Batman and Robin, but here it's handled wonderfully. The story alone was probably enough to sell the character, but what really closes the deal is the brilliant performance of Mr. Freeze by Michael Ansara (the one and only Kang!). Where most supervillans spout their dialogue in supervillainy ways, Ansara recites his with cold, foreboding subtlety. It seems emotionless on the surface, but masks great pain that still comes through to the audience. This is probably one of the best episodes of the series, my only complaint being (of course) that it's much too short. Great score for this episode, too, with a wonderful music-box-like waltz for Freeze's backstory.

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There are still more episodes waiting to be rediscovered, and I'm really excited about rediscovering them. I'll post more, so watch this space.

Coming up next time........BEWARE THE GRAY GHOST!

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Watched NEVER ON SUNDAY, a Jules Dassin film from 1960. It's light and fun, but not shallow. The theme is similar to that of ZORBA THE GREEK: forget intellectualism and live for pleasure. Dassin has a great eye for compositions, and while Melina Mercouri isn't beautiful, she makes up for it through her amazing energy.

The song tune is pretty famous, though surprisingly except for a snippet during the opening credits, you don't hear it until the last third of the film, as if they were holding it back as a surprise. That was an interesting approach (think COMA) given how the classical Hollywood style would insist on favoring the theme up front and in every cue.

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If you read my topic "Status Report", you'll know that I put in good words for Alexander Ptushko & Mario Bava.

I re-watched Bava's THE WHIP AND THE BODY, not his best but certainly one of his most interesting films.

There isn't really a story, just the semblance of one. It uses elements from the 19th century Gothic Romance, but they float unanchored: a castle by the seashore, the bloody dagger, the crypt, the fourposter, the secret passage, the face at the window, the piano with a candelabra on it, the dying patriarch, the scared servants, destruction by fire, etc. etc. There are actors but they could be replaced by mannequins and you could have the same film.

The real content is atmosphere and almost a pure cinema of form. What really interests Bava is how light hits the sets and actors or how the camera moves around them. Crash zooms. Colored gels. Slow pans through foreground objects. Bava's films are B-movies meant to serve up B-movie thrills and yet action and acting are subordinate to image and mood. Bava probably never even heard of Brecht but his distanced approach is Brechtian, calling attention to itself.

Bava probably never heard of Jung either, but THE WHIP AND THE BODY is really about the return of the repressed and the eruption of the unconscious into reality.

Bava was both religious and superstitious and it's obvious he believed in supernatural forces, that the natural and material world wasn't all there is. There is in THE WHIP AND THE BODY an S&M relationship. But the film isn't about that as much as it's about the way the beaten woman feels ecstasy--it shows up from nowhere and overwhelms her. She hates her lover, but being beaten by him is the only way she can feel passion--all her emotions are forces outside her rational control. And her feeling emotion in this manner suggests by extention that there are even greater forces about "from beyond."

The central mystery of the film involves her lover, is he alive, a zombie from beyond the dead, or just the hallucination of a hysterical girl? The mystery has to end with a rational explaination, overwise civilization crumbles into dust. Still, Bava's ending doesn't completely answer everything, and the solution, the answer, the re-intrusion of the rational, is a let down.

Think of going through the mystery like being in Wonderland or Oz, the whole time you're there it's horrible and all you want to do is get back home to the real world. But when you actually do, it's just dull old B&W Kansas again.

Of course, when the unconscious invades the rational to this extent, madness has to be the result, but if plain routine Kansas is the alternative, who's to say that madness isn't a blessing not a curse?

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Finally finished RASHOMON. Some time ago I rented it, watched the first 15 minutes or so, then had to be somewhere and I never got back to it before I had to bring it back. It did not disappoint. I suppose some of it's power might have been compromised by the fact that its formula has been copied so many times, but it's never been done as well, so it still holds up.

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I've seen GARDEN STATE twice now and I really, really adore it. What I noticed the second time (probably because I saw it with a larger audience) is that there are numerous scenes in the film that you can either laugh or cry at hysterically, and both responses are entirely appropriate. It's a lot like life, which is sort of strange to say because the movie itself has some pretty loopy stuff in it. But it's one of those movies that reminds you how spectacular every passing moment can be, so it's just all around invigorating for that. Zach Braff is a director/writer/actor to watch out for. If he has more in him as good as this, we're in for some spectacular films, I think. Also Natalie Portman's finest performance to date.

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Rented Kim Ki-Duk's SPRING, SUMMER, FALL, WINTER...AND SPRING and was completely blown away by it. The film's construction is so simple...five basic sequences, only two main characters and about four sporadic supporting characters, only one location, almost no dialogue...and it's just astoundingly powerful. Kim Ki-Duk makes it all look so easy.

The setup is that a Buddhist monk lives alone in a tiny monastery on a raft in the middle of a lake. He has a young protege, and the film selects five different pivotal points in the protege's life to tell it's story. It's just simple, beautiful, and honest. The cinematography doesn't reach out and grab your eyes, yet the images are unforgettable. The performances are laidback but powerful. I know it's not for everyone (those weened on MTV would fall asleep in five minutes) but if it's for you, you'll never let it out of your memory.

The best I can say about it is that it occasionally smacks of the old NIGHT GALLERY TV series, not in itself a bad thing, except here the story, such as it is, goes nowhere, the premise is thin anyway, and the handling so stultifying that it made me appreciate director Daniel Haller's excellent work as art director on the Corman/Poe films more than ever.

Sad too to see good character actors like Ed Begley and Sam Jaffe looking so uncomfortable (as well they should), standing around uttering dreadful dialogue. Low-voltage work from the leads - Sandra Dee merely looks perplexed throughout, but Dean Stockwell is EXTREMELY silly-looking, even half-stoned, with that porno-movie moustache and curly mop of groovy hair. All in all very 70s, not very Lovecraftian, and not very good.

Also disappointing is Les Baxter's score. The Main Titles are quite exciting, almost jazzy, but the rest doesn't amount to much, with an over-reliance on a corny, spookily wavering synth.

THE DUNWICH HORROR (USA 1970)

Directed by Daniel Haller
Screenplay by Curtis Lee Hanson, Henry Rosenbaum and Ronald Silkosky, from a story by HP Lovecraft
Photography by Richard C Glouner
Music by Les Baxter

Directed by Phillip Noyce
Screenplay by Jeremy Iocone
Photography by Dean Semler
Music by Craig Armstrong

Main Cast: Denzel Washington, Angelina Jolie, Queen Latifah, Michael Rooker

Cop Denzel Washington is bedridden so Angelina Jolie does the legwork for him but Denzel doesn't want the other cops with her when she's investigating because they're always destroying evidence so she has to walk among the corpses all on her own and it's not nice so she's scared. And the serial killer might be following patterns of murder from an old book and Denzel likes old books but what if the killer gets to Angelina? She's a woman so she might be scared and surely get killed. And what if he gets to Denzel? He's immobile so maybe he'll have to corner the killer with his powerful remote-control bed. And Michael Rooker is a nasty cop, he thinks he can just order people around. Etc.

Gimmicky, extremely clichéd thriller. If you watch it for about five minutes it might even look good, but consider it as a whole and in any way critically and it shows itself to be a huge piece of hollow, derivative rubbish. What's more, its pseudo-intellectual veneer as in SILENCE OF THE LAMBS and SE7EN just makes it that more difficult to take.

The story was very melodramatic and very drawn out (spoilers): a dancer has a sick child and no money to get medicine, the child's dad rejects the mom and won't help pay, the people who come forth with money to help all want to trade it for sex, she is finally helped by her child's half-sister who takes the child to the mountains, but horrified by her sordid life she kills herself.

Where the story was over-long and over-baked, the technique, the visuals, the neat transitions and title cards and the whole overall look of the film was just wonderful.

The film also had a great score. The composer's name wasn't listed in the credits so I don't know if it was the original score composed by Marius-Francois Gaillard in 1921 or another by a contemporary composer, but either way it was well-written and worked with the film.

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It was also great to see it with a large audience that really appreciated it, and it was even more gratifying to see such a generational diversity in the audience as well. They seemed to range from 18 to 88, with no age group claiming a majority, and everyone was enjoying it on the same level. And while the house wasn't packed, we were informed that the previous night's show was sold out--and that was a Tuesday night, after the film had already been there a weekend and a day. That's the type of thing that makes a cinephile proud and gives him hope for the future.

GANGS OF NEW YORK was an utter travesty. It looked big but the characters were worms. At first I was shocked that Elmer's score got jettisoned for the crap that's in there. Now I consider Elmer lucky not to have his name or music associated with that mess.

quote:

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Originally posted by Lou Goldberg:
...Guido ordering the older girls upstairs and against their protests that they still have what it takes.

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That's 8 1/2, Lou.

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I feel like I should have more to say about MILL OF THE STONE WOMEN than the dismissive sentence or two I posted earlier.

In a discussion I had with another lover of movies, we came to the conclusion that in the vast majority of films you'll find something that works, a line of dialogue, a shot or image, maybe a scene, but something. Given that this can be found, you can say for almost every film, well, it was awful but there was that xyz moment. I insisted that films didn't have to be perfect to be enjoyable but we also agreed that a film should have more going for it than the minimal xyz moment you can find in it.

So, in regards to MILL OF THE STONE WOMEN, there were xyz moments: some neat shots, neat color schemes, the mill set, the three hot-looking actresses, the whole hallucination sequence, but they don't appreciate beyond themselves.

Things I said about THE WHIP AND THE BODY before, how the unconscious breaks into reality, well that happens here too in the hallucination sequence but without any of the weight or magic that Bava can accomplish. Which is interesting in itself since there are those who see influences from this film on later Bava ones (shooting through a cobweb was one obvious bit Bava uses), but if there are similarities, Bava takes them and works wonders with them in his versions.

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Watched ULYSSES' GAZE. Amazing. It's long and slow but never dull. The language is florid and people say things they never would in real life and in a manner they wouldn't use if they did say them. Nevertheless, the people in the film are genuine and very emotional, perhaps moreso as a result.

It's a road movie patterned on the ODYSSEY although only a few episodes from Homer are suggested in the film. The journey is into the past and in a way there is no home to return to since the guy missed the boat 35 years earlier when he left the girl and can't ever get it back.

There's an interesting blend of time as episodes from the past are seen by the character in the present or the character becomes other people and experiences their pasts. All the various Balkan wars blend together as well.

If the film has a point, it's that positive human values like love and friendship are contained within our art and culture. Outside art and culture in the real world there are those human values as well but they are under seige by war and violence and mistrust. To locate and preserve culture is to hopefully keep the more positive values alive.

Now for a film fan who is also a collector of film, this was a message right up my alley. Of course, while I agree, I find it Utopian, no anti-war film has ever stopped wars from continuing, and all the art and culture in the world isn't going to save us from the deadly callousness that is also part of being human.

Still, I loved the idea of the Sarajavo Cinematheque, a few cans of film stored in a ruin while the city is under bombardment, just as I loved the idea of doing Shakespeare in the fog and of the whole MacGuffin search for these 3 reels of early film that prompts the journey in the first place.

So in the end I was very impressed with what the film was about and also by the different means it used to get there. It reminded me of Tarkovsky which is high praise to begin with. The way the camera pans and cranes and is put on various moving tracks is just wonderful to watch in itself. Slow-moving scenes just hypnotize you into them. A lot of films that want to include you remain at arm's length from you but I was really in this movie as if these moments really existed in a way that I could be a part of. And that's even greater praise.

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"The Cat and the Claw"

Catwoman is introduced in this good two-parter. Catwoman is an interesting villain in that she's not totally insane, but she is slightly whacked...on about the same level as Batman. That's what draws them together, I suppose. Adrienne Barbeau is pretty good as the feline, but clearly the actor having the most fun is Kate Mulgrew as the villainous Red Claw. Mulgrew is usually pretty subdued, but here she goes way over the top with some crazy line readings and a ridiculous accent that I guess is supposed to sound vaguely Eastern European. Fun stuff. Shirley Walker's excellent score at one point quotes "As Time Goes By," unless my ears deceive me.

"See No Evil"

An estranged, deadbeat ex-con father finds a way to make himself invisible so he can visit his little daughter in the guise of her magical friend "Mojo." Reading over that premise sounds ridiculous, but I thought this episode was actually pretty creepy. Michael Gross is pretty good as the villain, ditto Jean Smart as the mother and even then-nine-year-old Elizabeth Moss as the girl.

"Beware the Gray Ghost"

This and "Mad as a Hatter" are easily my very favorite episodes from the ones included in this set. In this episode, a bomber is following the exact plot of an episode of an old superhero TV show called "The Gray Ghost," which Bruce Wayne used to watch and love as a child. He soon learns that the studio who produced the show burned to the ground and it's virtually impossible to find copies of the episodes, so he tries to enlist the help of the actor who played the Gray Ghost, Simon Trent. In an ingenious masterstroke of casting, Adam West plays Trent, now out of work because anyone who even recognizes him can only think of him as the Gray Ghost. Seeing them finally work together is great, and the scene where Batman shows Trent a room in the Batcave where he keeps a stash of Gray Ghost memorabilia is really quite touching. And then the villain revealed at the end is just a hoot. Aside from the excellent story and Adam West's great performance, the last thing that really sells the episode is Carl Johnson's masterful score, unquestionably one of the very best of the entire series (which is saying a lot, considering how consistent their quality is).

"Prophecy of Doom"

Batman stops a third-rate psychic from fooling a bunch of obscenely rich people out of their money. Pretty boring episode, a totally unmenacing villain, and victims who are pretty hard to feel sorry for. And Heather Locklear shows up for some reason as a character who has about three lines. The show's only saving grace is Shirley Walker, who in the final climactic scene, which takes place among a bunch of giant model planets, puts in a subtle homage to the opening movement of Holst's The Planets.

"Feat of Clay"

Like most two-parters, this is an excellent episode, and the introduction of Clayface. Aside from having an interesting story and a great Vertigo-inspired score, this episode features some of the series' greatest animation, especially in the climax of the second episode in which Clayface's body starts rapidly, uncontrollably shape-shifting all over the place. Also the introduction of normal human villain (those guys are often the nastiest) Roland Daggett, played with suitable sleeze by Ed Asner.

"The Joker's Favor"

Ed Begley Jr. plays a down-on-his-luck blue-collar guy whose bad day just gets worse when he cusses out the wrong car and ends up owing the Joker a favor in return for his life. Two years later he has to help the Joker blow up half the police department at a party honoring Commisioner Gordon. A pretty entertaining episode with a suitably goofy score from Shirley Walker. This episode introduced the Joker's sidekick, Harley Quinn, who I never realized until just recently was created for this series. She later became really popular and was assimilated into the comics. Cool.

"Vendetta"

Killer Croc's first episode. Nothing earth-shattering, but it's enjoyable.

"Fear of Victory"

The Scarecrow is finally scary! He's no longer played for a bumbling ninny, and his design is much more sick and twisted. He's fixing sports games and betting on the results to raise money for his diabolical plots. It would probably be more interesting if Batman actually had to deal with his diabolical plots, but this is still an enjoyable episode. This also establishes that Robin is in college, which I suppose you could use to account for his infrequent appearances if you really cared about where he was.

"The Clock King"

Temple Fugate, a tightly-wound, stuck-up efficiency expert, misses a hearing for accusations against his company and ends up losing everything. A few years later, the man who (inadvertantly) made him late is mayor of Gotham and running for re-election, so Fugit returns as the Clock King to stage some elaborate stunts to get him discredited and, eventually, killed. I never realized years ago how funny a villain the Clock King was, but I had a great time with this episode. Alan Rachins from L.A. Law does a great job as the villain. "Give it up, Fugate! Hill committed no crime against you!" Batman yells. The Clock King fumes back, "He did worse! HE MADE ME LATE!!"

"Appointment in Crime Alley"

Corporate giant Roland Daggett (who we found out was trying to take over Wayne Industries in "Feat of Clay") can't convince the city to level a crime-infested section of town which, despite its reputation, is home to many people who can't afford to live anywhere else. So he hires arsonists to blow it up instead. But Batman has a special connection to this section of town, and to one of the women who lives there, so he's suitably pissed off. Like most episodes that don't involve supervillians, this one is all about drama, not action, and it's one of the best. The key woman is played by Diana Muldaur (Dr. Pulaski on Star Trek: The Next Generation). Hmm, and she was on L.A. Law, too....

"Mad as a Hatter"

I suspected, having only in the last few years become the Lewis Carroll nut that I am, that I would enjoy this episode even more now than I did when I first saw it. And it did not disappoint. The incomparable Roddy McDowall plays Jervis Tetch, a timid scientist cleverly drawn to resemble John Tenniel's illustration of the Mad Hatter (which in fact he has framed on the wall of his lab). He's secretly in love with his secretary, a girl named Alice. While they never get into this in the episode, she is drawn to look much younger than Tetch, so this is clearly a reference to Lewis Carroll's mysterious affection for the real Alice Liddell. (This theory was confirmed when it is revealed later that her last name is "Pleasance," which was Alice Liddell's middle name.) Tetch has devised circuitry which allows him to control minds. When he learns that Alice and her fiance seem to have split, he dons a full Mad Hatter costume and uses his technology to treat her to a night on the town. But when Alice and her lover get back together, he becomes consumed with rage and decides to take things further. I loved all the Alice references sprinkled throughout the episode -- I assume writer Paul Dini must be a big Carroll fan. All of that plus Shirley Walker's wonderfully playful score are enough to make this one of my all-time favorites, with two caveats.... Firstly, out of nowhere Tetch just casually mentions to Batman that the mind-control technology also increases the controlees strength by three times. Okay, I can buy Mr. Freeze's suit increasing his strength, but this is just too much, and in any case I wouldn't even have noticed if he hadn't said anything. And the second problem? Tetch at one point mispronounces the word "frabjous," adding an extra syllable to make it "frab-ju-ous." I'm sorry, but this is something any self-respecting Carrollian should be ashamed of.

"Dreams in Darkness"

This episode starts with Batman being housed as a mental patient at Arkham Asylum. We see half of the story in flashback. Batman says someone is poisoning the drinking water, and of course the doctors think he's delusional...which he is. He was sprayed with something clearly similar to the Scarecrow's fear toxin, only this stuff is time-released and much more potent. Batman's dream sequences get pretty surreal and the animation is some of the very best. It's pretty obvious the villain is the Scarecrow, but I like the mood they create by at least trying to hide it.

And Batman's psychiatrist in that last episode is played by Richard Dysart, yet another actor from L.A. Law. A quick check of IMDb reveals that Harry Hamlin also showed up in two episodes, and Jill Eikenberry, Larry Drake, Amanda Donohoe and Michael Tucker did guest spots on Batman Beyond. And I didn't even check the whole cast list...what's going on here? Was someone on the production team determined to get every actor from the cast of L.A. Law on Batman at some point? And if so, what made Corbin Bernsen so elusive?

The next set of Batman DVDs comes out in January...I can't wait to revisit more of these episodes, and I hope they don't wait too long getting the next wave of DVDs out, as I know there are many episodes from the last two seasons that I never saw.

Now all they have to do is release those goddam scores....

Kirk
NP - Gray Ghost theme running through my head

Anyway, Ingrid Pitt is the main vampire here, and basically it follows the established Hammer pattern of the force of evil worming its way into the "rational" world of the nobility, this time through the corruption of the female members of the households. But there isn't really much in the way of poetically suggestive sexual undercurrents on display - it's all fairly literal, and part of the film's problem, I think, is that the lesbian aspects are only really exploited for some very softcore girlie mag titty-lation. Of course, part of me says I shouldn't be grumbling about that.

There are other problems. The actresses alone can't really carry the weight of the film (despite Ingrid Pitt's acclaimed performance - which I found merely adequate. Smoker's face and tubby round the middle when she steps out the bath...), and the girls do take up the bulk of the running time. The solid male performers such as Peter Cushing (excellent as always), George Cole (Arfur Dailey) and Douglas Wilmer (almost too grave)have to "go away on business for a few days" in order to hand the plot over to the lassies, and it seems to cause some kind of imbalance or something.
Anyway, the lads are back for the unsatisfactory climax, or perhaps I should say anticlimax. There they go wandering around the castle looking for Carmilla's resting place. They find it, take the lid off the coffin, and Peter sticks a big stake in her heart, then cuts her head off. No staging to this, she hardly even wakes up. A far cry from when Peter had to run along the table and pull the curtains down in order to get Dracula to fry, back in '58.

Other misjudgments were either perplexing or amusing or both. The Jon Finch character just clutters things up, whilst the vampiric figure that appears on horseback, grinning madly every time Carmilla does her stuff is never explained. Who's he? Just as well he keeps his hat on for most of the time, because when he took it off at the ball he had Mr Bean's hair. Big laugh. Amusing too how amongst the expert vampire slayers is the local innkeeper, all big alcohol-inflamed nose and farmery hairy bits on his cheeks. Still, it's true that barmen do seem to have their fingers on the pulse of what's going on.

I suppose it's indicative of the film's failings that the best scene for me is the one where the footman, who has a notion of what's going on (but he's wrong about who the vampire actually is) tells the maid to get the garlic flowers back into the victim's room ("But madame told me to..."), and the ensuing to-ing and fro-ing.

Maybe I'm being too harsh on THE VAMPIRE LOVERS. It's just that Hammer has made so many better films, and so when something of theirs doesn't come off, it irritates me. Grumpy old unhappy man.

Harry Robinson was possibly the most important composer for Hammer's later years. Here, as is often the case, his Main Theme is tremendous, whilst the rest of the score is fairly bitty (though with good moments). The best representation is still the 4-minute suite released originally in the early 70s. Actually, it's not really a suite at all, just a cue from near the end of the movie, but it flows so much better than the original soundtrack version (though both were conducted by Philip Martell). But I ain't gonna crap on GDI's stellar work on releasing all those great Hammer scores either. It's a pity that they seem to have stopped.

THE VAMPIRE LOVERS (GB 1970)

Directed by Roy Ward Baker
Screenplay by Tudor Gates
Photography by Moray Grant
Music by Harry Robinson

The latest films I've seen include Henry Hathaway's WHITE WHICH DOCTOR. A much better-looking film than it has a story, even if half of the look is just Africa on the backlot. While I've always liked the Bernard Herrmann music to listen to, I was surprised that I didn't think it really worked well with the film. Susan Hayward is really good in it as she was for Hathaway in RAWHIDE. Robert Mitchum, however, is too hampered by the he-man chauvanism of the script.

THX-1138 in the newly-tweaked version (on the big screen!). The concept is borrowed from 1984 but the look of the film is unique. The film is uneven--some scenes are great and others fall flat or you're beat over the head with the same concepts. But what works works. And who would've thought that a bald-headed girl with so many freckles could be so sexy? Everything in the society is a number so there is no individuality. An in-joke has the pursuit of THX go over budget. It's a world where the rules come before the realistic applications. I'm surprised there is even a trial for THX rather than an automatic execution. The main idea that comes across so well in the film is that all the personal problems that society causes it also tries to create cures for in drugs, religion, therapy, and consumer consumption. But, because these cures are manufactured by society they are a just one more part of the problem and not a real solution. The cures don't work because they are there to adjust you to society rather than adjust society to you. So, while THX-1138 might not look like a pro-hippie counter-culture movie, that's exactly what it is. Only by opting out of the entire thing can THX find any real life. In some respects it's a much different message or reflects a much different George Lucas than the one we have today.

Joseph Strick's film of ULYSSES based on the Joyce novel. He tries to keep Joyce's puns and language and craziness in and not lose the audience and its a real balancing act. I was hooked while watching it--it's really seductive in the way it was edited, in how it juxtaposed images of things or had things in one shot allude to things we'd see later. Still, I can't say I see what the overall point of it was. I know its supposed to be a lament on how modern man has fallen or something, but the film's circus atmosphere doesn't have the force to really back up that kind of message.

Kurosawa's RHAPSODY IN AUGUST has these 4 great kids clowning around and Richard Gere (!) speaking Japanese (!!). It looks great but and is a very simple film, especially compared with other Kurosawa. I guess the atom bomb still has an effect on the Japanese. Certainly those who were alive in WW2 are effected (the point of the whole movie) and the younger generations are effected as well by sensing the emotions the earlier generation experiences.

Fassbinder's THE MARRIAGE OF MARIA BRAUN. I hadn't seen it for some time and had forgotten some details. I love Rainer Werner Fassbinder movies. This is the most accessible, the one with the most heart and charm, despite it ultimately being a tragedy. RWF is not known for his upbeat views of life, society, or people, and MARIA BRAUN doesn't have the nerve-shattering impact that WHY DOES HERR R. RUN AMOK?, THE MERCHANT OF THE FOUR SEASONS, KATZELMACHER, or FOX AND HIS FRIENDS do. It's not the kind of film that shows you just how brutal people can become. Maybe that's why it was the biggest hit of all his films. But it does have a political agenda. To survive, Germany has forgotten its past (all throughout the film people are encouraged to forget the dead: "We're alive, he's dead.") and gone ahead and replaced its former Nazism with the similar economic miracle. Maria Braun, the woman entrepreneur with a dream of a life with her man, finds that she was never in control but only the barter object of the men she gave herself to. The dreamlife she sacrificed so much of her soul for couldn't be obtained. To RWF, her tragedy mirrors Germany's tragedy. Hanna Schygulla is amazing in the film. Sexy, sharp, cold, warm. She gets great lines, costumes, lingerie, and moments. Among my favorites is this exchange with a bar maid before she turns around to pick up a man:

--Do I look good?
--Yes, you do.
--That's good because right now I want to look good.

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Hey Graham, Maybe you might remember her in a 1970's advertisement where she gets thrown over the shoulder of a marauding Viking?

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Originally posted by Graham Watt:
Maybe I'm being too harsh on THE VAMPIRE LOVERS. It's just that Hammer has made so many better films, and so when something of theirs doesn't come off, it irritates me. Grumpy old unhappy man.

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You're not the only grumpy old unhappy man what comes to Hammer's films. As you already earlier pointed out, the original HORROR OF DRACULA is a masterpiece, but most of its sequels are plain garbage. The main problem in the Dracula series was that the writers waisted time to create stories for new victims, although they should have concentrated to Dracula himself. The result is that one doesn't need eyeglasses to see Christopher Lee's disenchantment grow deeper and deeper with each sequel while playing the vampire Count. It's unfortunate that in the seventh and final entry to Hammer's DRACULA series, SATANIC RITES OF DRACULA, Christopher Lee is just a grumpy old very unhappy man.

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Originally posted by Graham Watt:
I just thought of the major reason why THE VAMPIRE LOVERS didn't really work for me, apart from all the things I mentioned above. The victims don't turn into vampires - they just die, so it's no different than having a strangler in your house.

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Exactly! This outrage actually started in DRACULA - PRINCE OF DARKNESS, where Barbara Shelley became one of the last great "ladies" of the Count, but didn't have an opportunity to seduce or attack a single victim before getting impaled and destroyed. What a waste of a great vampire lady!

After DRACULA - PRINCE OF DARKNESS even the Count started to be very careful of spreading his "Kiss of Undeath". In DRACULA HAS RISEN FROM THE GRAVE and TASTE THE BLOOD OF DRACULA the Count makes only one woman a vampire and in both cases disposes of her. SCARS OF DRACULA, DRACULA AD 72 and SATANIC RITES all continue showcasing the Count more as a psychokiller than an elegant vampire Count.

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The only influence Carmilla exerts once she has wormed her way into the houses of the nobility is that, once under her spell, the female members turn a bit lesbianish. So maybe the film is really about the fear of the aristocracy when faced with unconventional sexuality?

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Interesting observation, but I doubt the scriptwriters didn't have these kinds of deep messages in mind when "writing" their stories for Hammer in late 60's and 70's. THE VAMPIRE LOVERS was done mostly because the makers wanted to see lesbian love mixed with some bloodsplashing on a feature film. Shows that Hammer did their films mainly for male audiences. And to lure women seeing such a film as VAMPIRE LOVERS they included a naked, chained man into the original movie poster, although the film didn't include anything close to that.

It's a shame that the original Hammer classics such as CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN, THE MUMMY, HORROR OF DRACULA and THE HOUND OF BASKERVILLES are lightyears apart from the crap they produced in late 60's and 70's.

KEN