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Post by galacticgirrrl on Apr 14, 2024 1:59:04 GMT
TWO ON A GUILLOTINE (1965) with Connie Stevens, Dean Jones and Cesar Romero. It's a common basic horror story plot: lovely young woman (Connie Stevens) must stay seven nights in an eerie mansion to inherit her father's fortune. (In real life has anyone ever had that in a will?) Anyway, Dean Jones is the stalwart boyfriend who will come to the rescue. Cesar Romero is the father of Stevens-a magician who accidently kills his wife during a guillotine act gone wrong. There are some good bits in the film using magician props to create surprise and fear. Turns out Cesar Romero isn't really dead, he's just crazy, thinking his daughter is his wife and wants to perform the guillotine act again. Jones comes to the rescue, but accidently guillotines Stevens or did he? This film may have been better with different editing. Some scenes are drawn out to create the scary tension, but go on so long I said "all right already." The film takes itself too seriously to rise to the level of camp, but best viewed in that frame of mind. The best reason to watch is Cesar Romero-consider this film an audition tape for Romero's The Joker in BATMAN tv show. The two characters are not similar, but he has one quality in common with Vincent Price: playing the role seriously, while enjoying the fun of it. When I saw TWO ON A GUILLOTINE first run in a theater, I did not think "how low Romero has become taking a role like this after all those romantic Fox films" Instead his appearance ends the growing boredom-Let the party begin! A big deal has been made of older actresses going to the dark side in those spooky 1960's movies like Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962) and Lady in a Cage (1964), but this shows that younger actors and actresses were doing it too as they started to age out of the "teenage" roles they made their reputation on. Pat Boone did it too with The Horror of it All (1964) and Fabian did it with Ten little Indians (1965), based on the Agatha Christie classic. I haven't seen this one in years but I'll keep my eyes open. I'm always up for some good stupid fun.
I am SHOCKED to find it listed here and not under one of the Mandatory Viewing threads. ; D
Another one adored & eluded for years - Crowhaven Farm. Who knew a few pilgrims with rocks and a plank or two of wood could be so terrifying. It was a dream of mine to meet Walter Grauman. When his name came on the screen I knew I was in for a good time.
Now what was that you were saying about sinuous beauties in the dance of the snakes!? Can't wait. Another one I have never even heard of - I don't think - as far as my poor memory will recall. |
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Post by I Love Melvin on Apr 15, 2024 13:31:55 GMT
Cobra Woman (1944): Maria Montez takes the old good sister / bad sister formula to new heights, or depths, depending.
I must be getting lazy because this one is too easy. Maria Montez was one of the first to be dubbed The Queen of Technicolor and her ability to stare down a movie camera or a cobra is unquestionable. He acting ability, however, we could question all day and into tomorrow. She filled a void (or became the void? I should stop, shouldn't I?) at Universal Pictures, who had neither a resident "exotic" nor a resident glamorpuss, so almost by default she became their two-fer. At the time Universal was looking to expand beyond the realm of horror and melodrama and Maria became the perfect lynchpin for a series of colorful fantasy epics with exotic locales. She was Dominican by birth but like, say, Anthony Quinn she was racially ambiguous enough that she'd be right at home in the Arabian desert or a South Sea isle. She apparently enjoyed being a movie star, the kind who in private life would make an entrance where none was required.
Cobra Woman reunited her with Jon Hall and Sabu, who'd played with her in the hugely successful Arabian Nights (1942). The main titles feature a gilded, Cobra-shaped throne surrounded by braziers of green smoke, so here we go. Hurrying to a wedding, young Kado (Sabu) meets the blind beggar Hava (Lon Chaney Jr.). Only he's not so blind because we watch him skulking through the bushes to spy on the happy couple, Ramu (Jon Hall) and Tollea (Maria Montez).
Tollea has two small marks on her wrist (just the size of a snake bite!), which her guardian MacDonald (Moroni Olsen) tells her were hers since birth. Later, as Ramu hurries off to his wedding, Kado wheedles out of MacDonald the present of a blowgun as a reward for his loyalty to Ramu. Weaponry: the perfect gift, no matter the occasion. Following Chekov's dictum about guns on the stage, we have to figure we'll be seeing this blowgun again. But...whoops!...Tollea has been abducted by the "beggar" Hava and MacDonald has to come clean about her origins on Cobra Island, presumably somewhere in the remote neighborhood of Kong's Skull Island. "No drug-soaked brain could dream of the horrors of Cobra Island." He'd been shipwrecked there and tortured and sentenced to death, the penalty for strangers, but had awoken to find himself on a boat with a tiny cargo (Tollea), the only person ever to have escaped the island.....Oooh! Getting chills?
Naturally, stalwart Ramu sets off for Cobra Island, with stowaway Kado and his blowgun aboard. At the island Ramu rows ashore and Kado swims after him, now attired in a men's white Jantzen bathing suit, standard-issue for South Sea islanders? Kado watches Ramu from afar but, when a panther sneaks up on Ramu, Kado whips out the blowgun, so score one for Chekov. Together they scale the cliff and find the magical kingdom at the heart of Cobra Island. We witness her grandmother telling Tollea that she's the rightful ruler, though when she and her twin sister were submitted as infants to "the sting of King Cobra", Naja thrived and Tollea almost died, so Naja became high priestess and the grandmother had Tollea spirited away from the island for her safety. Now Grandma, the queen (Mary Nash), has had Tollea brought back to "save the island from your sister's cruelty". Next we see haughty Naja, whom Ramu naturally thinks is Tollea, as she leads a procession of female acolytes to a ritual bathing ceremony by the lake. Ramu does the customary Jon Hall high dive into the lake and there's an underwater clinch, but Naja swims to shore, explaining "Strange faces frighten me. Even handsome ones." Ramu: "Strange?" "I mean well-known faces, appearing unexpectedly." She doesn't quite know what's happening, but it's a new man on the scene so she's hedging her bets. Ramu: "What about our plans, our future?" Still stalling for time, she tells her entourage "Ladies, you have seen nothing unusual here tonight" and tells Ramu to meet her back here tonight. But Ramu is caught by guards and taken to a dungeon in the palace. It's getting more Flash Gordon-y by the moment. Meanwhile, Kado befriends a chimp in a loincloth (your guess is as good as mine), whom he somehow understands is named Koko, and asks Koko to be taken to Tollea.
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He's intercepted by the fake blind beggar Hava, but a royal servant girl Veeda (Lois Collier) dismisses Hava and tells Kado that Ramu is in prison, then takes him to Tollea and her grandmother, the queen. But the queen tells him she doesn't have the power to save Ramu from death in the volcano, because of course there's a volcano. The Chekov thing at work again; we'd better keep our eye on that volcano. The servant Veeda explains: "Fire Mountain get angry. High priestess send many more up thousand steps to fire." The queen tells Tollea: "You shall see for yourself the cruel barbarism by which Naja holds her people. Fear has made them religious fanatics." Fear will do that. She sends Tollea and Hava through "the Royal Tunnel" to spy on Naja at the temple and witness one of those nutty pagan rituals Hollywood loved to imagine, this one involving a creepy looking cobra sock puppet supposedly being soothed by the herky-jerky dance moves of high priestess Montez.
Clad in locally sourced (one assumes) sequins and rhinestones, the Queen of Technicolor hisses and stomps her way though a bizarre dance number which stupefies the lethal sock puppet into submission, and the stupefaction doesn't stop there. Tollea, Kado and Hava have been watching from above, in plain view, by the way, so this "Royal Tunnel" thing must be the worst kept secret on Cobra Island.
Naja's goon Martok (Edgar Barrier) visits Ramu in prison. "I was curious to see the man who violated our laws and laughed at our faith. You profaned the person of our priestess with your touch. You profaned her lips with your kiss. She is the high priestess and she is to marry me." Classic goonery. Ramu overcomes him and steals his robes...classic hero stuff...and goes in search of the woman he believes to be Tollea.
Naja tells him: "I am whoever you want me to be. The eyes of love can be deceived, but the lips, never." But Ramu catches onto her game and demands to see Tollea. Naja takes him onto the royal balcony and shows him all the human sacrifices being lined up below and we hear the accompanying Fire Death Hymn. Naja: "Into the Fire of Everlasting Life they go. How would you like to see your lady love go with them?" She then summons the guards: "Call out the entire guard and search the island for a woman, a beautiful young woman. She must be found." She then offers Ramu safe passage for Tollea off the island in exchange for Ramu staying on the island to await her pleasure. Classic evil priestess. Later, the queen summons Ramu and asks him to go but to "leave Tollea here for the thousands of souls whose need of her is greater than your own." Meanwhile Martok has strung Kado from a tree until he gives up Tollea's whereabouts, but Kado is rescued by Hava and faithful Koko. Naja has been scheming with Martok to send Ramu and Tollea to the volcano, but there's a snag. "We need the queen's consent. It is the Cobra Law." Now she's law-abiding all of a sudden?
Martok: "Show her you make the laws here. Go to see the queen." But the queen counters with: "I demand you abdicate at once in favor of your sister, the rightful ruler.", prompting Naja to double the guards in search of the couple and Martok to kill the queen in her bed that night. Stuff just got real, and to confirm that the Fire Mountain rumbles ominously in the distance. Tollea realizes it's time to step up so she confronts her sister: "I want that Cobra Jewel", the symbol of the high priestess' power.
Naja bangs the gong to summon help but Tollea tells her: "There is no one to answer. They have all gone to the temple to pray to that mountain you have taught them to fear." And in the classic line which practically defines this movie's reputation: "Giff me dat Cobra Jool!" Naja grabs a spear but trips and falls out the window to her death, leaving Tollea to assume her identity at the execution scheduled for Ramu and Kado, where they're bound and chained above a nasty pit of sharp blades. Ming the Merciless couldn't have planned it better.
Tollea/Naja: "I forbid this execution. Useless murder is no part of our law." Martok summons King Cobra to determine who has authority, knowing Naja was immune but Tollea is not. The royal sock puppet is ceremoniously hauled out but Tollea loses courage and faints.
SPOILER: Faithful Koko has meanwhile snuck in and unbound the prisoners and handed Kado his blowgun, which Kado uses to skewer the titular serpent, causing the Fire Mountain to erupt and spew globs of glowing oatmeal. The earth shakes and the gymnastics begin as Ramu and Kado toss their guards into the pit of knives and Hava puts Tollea onto the Cobra Throne and dumps Martok into the pit, at which point the mountain ceases rumbling. The servant Veeda speaks for them all: "Martok dead. Fire Mountain no longer angry with us. Cruelty and oppression ended here forever." Peace has come to Cobra Island. Cut to: Ramu and Kado (and Koko) on their little boat headed homeward. Kado: "You got sad sickness for Tollea, huh?" Ramu: "Yeah. I got sad sickness for Tollea", but guess who emerges from where she's been stowing away, telling them "Hava and Veeda will guide them wisely", as our little nuclear family sails away to a happy ending. Hope they've checked the craft for cobras.
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Post by NoShear on Apr 16, 2024 16:55:45 GMT
Maryjane (1968): Reefer madness comes to the youth of Oakdale...Are you next?
As soon as we see that American-International logo we know we're in for some middling entertainment with minor star power. We're inside a smoke-filled car careening along a mountain road as the occupants giggle at each dangerous swerve, until an unlucky pedestrian...on a mountain road?...steps out and is knocked down, causing the car to go over a cliff onto the roadway below. A pan up the body of the pedestrian finds his head in a ridiculously huge "blood" spill looking like a harvest tone oil-based house paint, which is probably what it was. We're in low-budget territory for sure. Next we see ambulance attendants loading a female body from the wreckage as a zoom shot reveals a large red pendant around her neck bearing the inscription "MARYJANE", giving us the title, punctuated by a loud drum riff to grab the teen viewers.
A cop leans to pick up a still-smoldering joint next to a gas tank leak, saving us from even graver consequences. The message here is that there's a straight line from pot-laced revelry to an ambulance stretcher and you can believe it because American-International was the most solemn and trustworthy of studios. Next comes the funeral, with the driver being eulogized in stilted tones not heard since the days of Ed Wood. "Before he was able to know all the wonders of our Lord's, his knowing others, the mysterious, beauteous panorama of Heaven, in which we will all be allowed to view." Is this guy on pot too? Further titles reveal it was written by Dick Gautier (Conrad Birdie!) and Peter Marshall (Hollywood Squares!), so now I'm hooked. (Oops. I shouldn't say that in this context, should I?) Attendees at the funeral include the mayor, the high school principal and the police commissioner, who start pointing fingers at each other as to the cause of this blight on Oakdale, the generic locale being threatened by this new infestation. One theory is that the girl was from Bay City, so maybe it's Bay City's fault? That's right, guys, keep it real.
Now to ground zero, the high school, where assistant football coach Phil Blake (The Fabulous Fabian) is chastising player Jordan Bates (Kevin Coughlin) for pulling stupid stunts on the practice field.
The head coach tells Fabe that they're in a bind because if Jordan leaves "four others leave with him and we've got no team". So now we have the set-up: five troublesome football players and a pot infestation waiting to converge. Let the fun begin. Next, in the faculty lounge art teacher Phil (He's sensitive and a jock.) has eyes for history teacher Ellie Holden (Diane McBain) while outside we see student Susan (Patty McCormack...The Bad Seed!!) being grab-assed by Jordan and his buds, so we know she's "popular". She tells them that the girl from Bay City died and asks if that will "blow the deal with the Bay City boys". Jordan: "I hope not. I already spent all their money." Jordan is approached by fellow student Jerry (Michael Margotta) asking about "qualification trials" for the group, only to be blown off for not having the requisite "brains, imagination and guts".
Later in art class Phil (Fabe) singles out Jerry's work as having "great sensitivity", causing a fellow student to blow Jerry a kiss, so we know Jerry's on the outs but he wants in, and is therefore a likely a victim-to-be of the new "infestation". Jerry shoves the guy and tears up his own canvas. At home we see Jerry's dad relaxing on the sofa in front of the TV in the middle of the day, drink in hand, telling Jerry he's bought a nice roast for supper, with a salad and a nice wine. "You're old enough." Sir, this is Oakdale, not Paris, and your son is in high school. Jerry says he won't be home and next we see him scoping out a girlie mag at the market when Susan approaches and tells him she's off to "the old picnic grounds" to meet up with the fellas. Jerry asks her to put in a word for him. "I know he thinks I'm chicken and I'm not. I'll do anything to get in. You just tell him that." Let's all say it in unison: "You'll be sorry." Next: spooky "hippie" music at the old picnic grounds as joint after joint is passed around. Jerry crashes the party and one of them says: "We should have some fun with him." Jordan: "Yeah, that would be a ball." Jordan hands Jerry a joint: "Welcome." Close-up of a lighter being brought to a pair of lips, but it turns out to be Phil lighting a cig at the bowling alley with Ellie, a cinematic fake-out I'm sure Orson Welles would envy. Then a forward to them continuing the conversation parked by the lake. She's become "sort of a nomad I guess, travelling from place to place, trying to find a place that would do him (her father with tuberculosis) some good." Later, driving home Phil is passed by a speeding car which pulls over and Jerry is kicked to the curb as the car speeds away. Phil takes Jerry back to his place, asking "Have you been smoking pot?" Jerry: "No. Why would you ask that?" Phil: "When I smoked it I got sick as hell", giving us a baseline "normal" reaction to judge these crazy teens by. One of those MARYJANE pendants falls out of Jerry's pocket and he explains it's "kind of a club" that he doesn't belong to yet but he had it made anyway. Phil: "Everybody fits in somewhere, Jerry. I wouldn't worry about it." You will.
Phil is called into a meeting between faculty and administrators about what marijuana is and isn't, one saying if it's like being drunk then what's the problem? Said the drunk.
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The police chief counters with: "Drunk? It spreads, like cancer. First it's marijuana, then it's LSD and STP, then it's cocaine and heroin." Yeah, ignorance spreads like that too, chief. "We don't want the kids. We need to get at the source", which sounds a little like the old "It's Bay City's fault" gambit. Phil admits that "I tried it once in college" but that "I don't condemn it or condone it", the perfect squishy middle ground for a movie that wants to have it both ways.
Later, we see the gang hassling a gas station attendant (Garry Marshall!), then taking Jerry on his initiation of shoplifting $20 worth of goods.
Jerry is caught but is rescued by the gang running interference, only to be rejected by Jordan: "You're a thief. We can't have anything to do with you." There's no logic to this guy. Must be the pot. Soon Jordan has some explaining to do to the Bay City boys that the shipment of Acapulco Gold is late but that he'll "be laying it on them soon".
Meanwhile, Phil and Ellie have a make-out sesh by the lake but she backs off with "Whatever you heard about me, it just isn't true." So now Phil has trouble on two fronts.
Later, Jerry knocks on Phil's door while Phil is in the shower, because it couldn't hurt the box office to have a gratuitous Fabian shower scene. Jerry came for counsel but when he goes unheard he can't resist "borrowing" Phil's convertible to follow the gang to the closed amusement park where they've gathered after hours. The cops bust them up and they flee but the cops follow Jerry in Phil's car, which he abandons in front of Phil's place, forgetting some "evidence" which then lands Phil in jail, along with some ridiculously overwrought druggie types. The chief wants to throw the book at him, but then Ellie posts his bail. Phil finds Jerry's MARYJANE pendant in his car and confronts him, getting Jordan's name out of him. Phil finds Jordan picking up a "quart of Gold" from the ice cream truck parked outside the school practice field. You read that right. This menace to society is being dispensed from the same place Oakdale kiddies gather for their Dilly Bars. Why, it ought to make our skin crawl and maybe it will after we stop giggling. Phil knocks it out of his hands and both Jordan and the ice cream truck guy...the monster!...take a powder. Now it's a race against time as Phil puts all the pieces together to clear his name and prove that no way is Oakdale like that dump, Bay City. He first of all destroys the evidence by flushing the "Gold"...WTF, Phil?? Mariska Hargitay would have your ass for a stunt like that. Jordan and the gang are down by the lake priming Jerry with hashish to send him with some low-grade pot to fake out the Bay City boys so they'll take it out on Jerry instead of the gang. Jordan tells Susan that he doesn't need her anymore and that the gang is welcome to her, then drops off Jerry with the inferior goods. Meanwhile, the cops get a tip that Phil has "the stuff" and they impound his car.
SPOILER:
So Phil goes to Ellie's to borrow her car but finds Jordan there with some pot and needles, but guess who has the tracks on her arms. Oh no, sweet, troubled Ellie is already on the inevitable path from Mary Jane to the hard stuff. So young, so pretty, so cliche. Ellie: "Once upon a time a sweet little girl became a junkie. What difference does it make?" Phil: "But why infect those kids?" Ellie: "Because that's where the market is. If you had my problem, where would you sell it?...In a way I'm glad it's over." But it's not over because hashish-fueled Jerry is a giggling mess like some film noir nutjob and has just made the drop of the fake Gold to the Bay City Boys.
They rough up Jerry and go looking for Jordan, at which point we hear Jordan's screams as he gets his payback. Jerry has wandered off like Plato at the Observatory, but Phil rescues him as he's about to tumble into an empty swimming pool. Jerry comes to in Phil's arms...Awww...and tears off that cursed MARYJANE pendant, a sterling example to us all, thus concluding this inspirational Bad Movie We Love. Go in peace.
Man, I Love Melvin, you have to stop giving this s#!+ away for free: I want to see you on T CM plugging your book someday... I will always think of the cocky sideways look Kevin Coughlin shoots the audience in the following film which comfortably communes within this thread: |
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Post by NoShear on Apr 17, 2024 0:15:07 GMT
Cobra Woman (1944): Maria Montez takes the old good sister / bad sister formula to new heights, or depths, depending.
I must be getting lazy because this one is too easy. Maria Montez was one of the first to be dubbed The Queen of Technicolor and her ability to stare down a movie camera or a cobra is unquestionable. He acting ability, however, we could question all day and into tomorrow. She filled a void (or became the void? I should stop, shouldn't I?) at Universal Pictures, who had neither a resident "exotic" nor a resident glamorpuss, so almost by default she became their two-fer. At the time Universal was looking to expand beyond the realm of horror and melodrama and Maria became the perfect lynchpin for a series of colorful fantasy epics with exotic locales. She was Dominican by birth but like, say, Anthony Quinn she was racially ambiguous enough that she'd be right at home in the Arabian desert or a South Sea isle. She apparently enjoyed being a movie star, the kind who in private life would make an entrance where none was required.
Cobra Woman reunited her with Jon Hall and Sabu, who'd played with her in the hugely successful Arabian Nights (1942). The main titles feature a gilded, Cobra-shaped throne surrounded by braziers of green smoke, so here we go. Hurrying to a wedding, young Kado (Sabu) meets the blind beggar Hava (Lon Chaney Jr.). Only he's not so blind because we watch him skulking through the bushes to spy on the happy couple, Ramu (Jon Hall) and Tollea (Maria Montez).
Tollea has two small marks on her wrist (just the size of a snake bite!), which her guardian MacDonald (Moroni Olsen) tells her were hers since birth. Later, as Ramu hurries off to his wedding, Kado wheedles out of MacDonald the present of a blowgun as a reward for his loyalty to Ramu. Weaponry: the perfect gift, no matter the occasion. Following Chekov's dictum about guns on the stage, we have to figure we'll be seeing this blowgun again. But...whoops!...Tollea has been abducted by the "beggar" Hava and MacDonald has to come clean about her origins on Cobra Island, presumably somewhere in the remote neighborhood of Kong's Skull Island. "No drug-soaked brain could dream of the horrors of Cobra Island." He'd been shipwrecked there and tortured and sentenced to death, the penalty for strangers, but had awoken to find himself on a boat with a tiny cargo (Tollea), the only person ever to have escaped the island.....Oooh! Getting chills?
Naturally, stalwart Ramu sets off for Cobra Island, with stowaway Kado and his blowgun aboard. At the island Ramu rows ashore and Kado swims after him, now attired in a men's white Jantzen bathing suit, standard-issue for South Sea islanders? Kado watches Ramu from afar but, when a panther sneaks up on Ramu, Kado whips out the blowgun, so score one for Chekov. Together they scale the cliff and find the magical kingdom at the heart of Cobra Island. We witness her grandmother telling Tollea that she's the rightful ruler, though when she and her twin sister were submitted as infants to "the sting of King Cobra", Naja thrived and Tollea almost died, so Naja became high priestess and the grandmother had Tollea spirited away from the island for her safety. Now Grandma, the queen (Mary Nash), has had Tollea brought back to "save the island from your sister's cruelty". Next we see haughty Naja, whom Ramu naturally thinks is Tollea, as she leads a procession of female acolytes to a ritual bathing ceremony by the lake. Ramu does the customary Jon Hall high dive into the lake and there's an underwater clinch, but Naja swims to shore, explaining "Strange faces frighten me. Even handsome ones." Ramu: "Strange?" "I mean well-known faces, appearing unexpectedly." She doesn't quite know what's happening, but it's a new man on the scene so she's hedging her bets. Ramu: "What about our plans, our future?" Still stalling for time, she tells her entourage "Ladies, you have seen nothing unusual here tonight" and tells Ramu to meet her back here tonight. But Ramu is caught by guards and taken to a dungeon in the palace. It's getting more Flash Gordon-y by the moment. Meanwhile, Kado befriends a chimp in a loincloth (your guess is as good as mine), whom he somehow understands is named Koko, and asks Koko to be taken to Tollea.
He's intercepted by the fake blind beggar Hava, but a royal servant girl Veeda (Lois Collier) dismisses Hava and tells Kado that Ramu is in prison, then takes him to Tollea and her grandmother, the queen. But the queen tells him she doesn't have the power to save Ramu from death in the volcano, because of course there's a volcano. The Chekov thing at work again; we'd better keep our eye on that volcano. The servant Veeda explains: "Fire Mountain get angry. High priestess send many more up thousand steps to fire." The queen tells Tollea: "You shall see for yourself the cruel barbarism by which Naja holds her people. Fear has made them religious fanatics." Fear will do that. She sends Tollea and Hava through "the Royal Tunnel" to spy on Naja at the temple and witness one of those nutty pagan rituals Hollywood loved to imagine, this one involving a creepy looking cobra sock puppet supposedly being soothed by the herky-jerky dance moves of high priestess Montez.
Clad in locally sourced (one assumes) sequins and rhinestones, the Queen of Technicolor hisses and stomps her way though a bizarre dance number which stupefies the lethal sock puppet into submission, and the stupefaction doesn't stop there. Tollea, Kado and Hava have been watching from above, in plain view, by the way, so this "Royal Tunnel" thing must be the worst kept secret on Cobra Island.
Naja's goon Martok (Edgar Barrier) visits Ramu in prison. "I was curious to see the man who violated our laws and laughed at our faith. You profaned the person of our priestess with your touch. You profaned her lips with your kiss. She is the high priestess and she is to marry me." Classic goonery. Ramu overcomes him and steals his robes...classic hero stuff...and goes in search of the woman he believes to be Tollea.
Naja tells him: "I am whoever you want me to be. The eyes of love can be deceived, but the lips, never." But Ramu catches onto her game and demands to see Tollea. Naja takes him onto the royal balcony and shows him all the human sacrifices being lined up below and we hear the accompanying Fire Death Hymn. Naja: "Into the Fire of Everlasting Life they go. How would you like to see your lady love go with them?" She then summons the guards: "Call out the entire guard and search the island for a woman, a beautiful young woman. She must be found." She then offers Ramu safe passage for Tollea off the island in exchange for Ramu staying on the island to await her pleasure. Classic evil priestess. Later, the queen summons Ramu and asks him to go but to "leave Tollea here for the thousands of souls whose need of her is greater than your own." Meanwhile Martok has strung Kado from a tree until he gives up Tollea's whereabouts, but Kado is rescued by Hava and faithful Koko. Naja has been scheming with Martok to send Ramu and Tollea to the volcano, but there's a snag. "We need the queen's consent. It is the Cobra Law." Now she's law-abiding all of a sudden?
Martok: "Show her you make the laws here. Go to see the queen." But the queen counters with: "I demand you abdicate at once in favor of your sister, the rightful ruler.", prompting Naja to double the guards in search of the couple and Martok to kill the queen in her bed that night. Stuff just got real, and to confirm that the Fire Mountain rumbles ominously in the distance. Tollea realizes it's time to step up so she confronts her sister: "I want that Cobra Jewel", the symbol of the high priestess' power.
Naja bangs the gong to summon help but Tollea tells her: "There is no one to answer. They have all gone to the temple to pray to that mountain you have taught them to fear." And in the classic line which practically defines this movie's reputation: "Giff me dat Cobra Jool!" Naja grabs a spear but trips and falls out the window to her death, leaving Tollea to assume her identity at the execution scheduled for Ramu and Kado, where they're bound and chained above a nasty pit of sharp blades. Ming the Merciless couldn't have planned it better.
Tollea/Naja: "I forbid this execution. Useless murder is no part of our law." Martok summons King Cobra to determine who has authority, knowing Naja was immune but Tollea is not. The royal sock puppet is ceremoniously hauled out but Tollea loses courage and faints.
SPOILER: Faithful Koko has meanwhile snuck in and unbound the prisoners and handed Kado his blowgun, which Kado uses to skewer the titular serpent, causing the Fire Mountain to erupt and spew globs of glowing oatmeal. The earth shakes and the gymnastics begin as Ramu and Kado toss their guards into the pit of knives and Hava puts Tollea onto the Cobra Throne and dumps Martok into the pit, at which point the mountain ceases rumbling. The servant Veeda speaks for them all: "Martok dead. Fire Mountain no longer angry with us. Cruelty and oppression ended here forever." Peace has come to Cobra Island. Cut to: Ramu and Kado (and Koko) on their little boat headed homeward. Kado: "You got sad sickness for Tollea, huh?" Ramu: "Yeah. I got sad sickness for Tollea", but guess who emerges from where she's been stowing away, telling them "Hava and Veeda will guide them wisely", as our little nuclear family sails away to a happy ending. Hope they've checked the craft for cobras.
Perhaps too obvious, I Love Melvin, but I thought of the following film's scene: |
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Post by I Love Melvin on Apr 17, 2024 14:49:36 GMT
Cobra Woman (1944): Maria Montez takes the old good sister / bad sister formula to new heights, or depths, depending.
Perhaps too obvious, I Love Melvin, but I thought of the following film's scene: Debra got a much better snake and a much better costume. I'd love to know how that thing was glued on. I'm not sure how much early dance training Debra had but it seems like she ended up doing this kind of thing a lot, like in Princess of the Nile (1954), where she had two dancing girl scenes. One of my favorites is when all the blonde slave girls are forced by the brunette tribal leaders to dance before the white rhino god in Hammer Films' Prehistoric Women (1967). |
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Post by jamesjazzguitar on Apr 17, 2024 18:28:25 GMT
Next week on Noir Alley, Muller will again be showing the 1947 film Born to Kill. When the film was released critics claims only the depraved would enjoy such fair. Being the first noir themed directed by Robert Wise, it is clearly his most brutal and cruel film.
Staring Lawerence Tierney and Claire Trevor. I find the film a guilty pleasure since, for me, Trevor is the most compelling noir actress of her era. I found this comment about her character in the film to be interesting:
Born to Kill is a rare film noir in that it is shown through a woman's eyes. This female subjectivity enables a more nuanced view of the femme fatale, a central motif in film noir, rather than that which is typical of the genre. Although the archetypical film noir femme fatale's sexuality is often merely a tool to manipulate men for material gain, Helen is a more complicated figure. She is drawn to Sam's brutality although she is also interested in Fred's money. Instead of leading the male protagonist into darkness and ruin, she is compromised by Sam.
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Post by kims on May 12, 2024 23:55:58 GMT
Why do I always watch IMITATION OF LIFE (1959) when TCM runs it? What a soap opera, what almost over the top acting! Good grief what a weeper story. It's embarrassing to admit.
What makes it worth watching is Mahalia Jackson signing "Trouble of This World."
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Post by jamesjazzguitar on May 13, 2024 17:40:10 GMT
I enjoy the 1934 version of Imitation of Life over the 1959 one. Much better acting by Colbert, Rochelle Hudson, and Fredi Washington, as well as having Warren William.
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Post by I Love Melvin on May 14, 2024 13:36:29 GMT
Why do I always watch IMITATION OF LIFE (1959) when TCM runs it? What a soap opera, what almost over the top acting! Good grief what a weeper story. It's embarrassing to admit. What makes it worth watching is Mahalia Jackson signing "Trouble of This World." kim, you've got to stop being embarrassed. I couldn't agree more; it checks all the boxes for "bad" movie lovers. Yes, it's Douglas Sirk's movie, but you can see the extravagant hand of producer Ross Hunter in every frame as well, with some of the over-the-top production values. The script is pretty ripe too; my favorite line is "You'll not cheapen me!" as Lana throws the mink back at the lecherous producer. Finding parts for aging actresses was Hunter's whole m.o., but it created problems when the script obviously called for someone younger. They tried to get around it in this case by having her character, Laura, tell Steve (John Gavin) that she's struggling because she got started "five years too late", presumably because of her daughter and phantom husband. I love doing the math. Let's see....graduate high school at 18... plus five years...So she's 23? Nice try. And I love the nonsense about the Italian director Fellucci who wants her for the part of Raina, "only the best part since Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind". And when she's singled out by the audience for applause at the curtain call where she played the drab social worker or something, showing how serious she was about her craft. If you say so. Lana could chew scenery with the best of them and the scenery there was extra deluxe for her to munch on. I agree about Mahalia Jackson, who brings the whole movie to a halt just for that moment. Juanita Moore as well, who was as much Lana's co-star as John Gavin but ended up with sixth billing, which is shameful. |
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Post by kims on May 15, 2024 20:55:21 GMT
The Colbert version is better story. Warren William as the man in the middle gets a better part than Gavin's rather milquetoast character. Not criticizing Juanita Moore's acting-she's great, but by the middle of the film her "woe-is-me" character gets annoying. Probably only Moore could have done that part so that you just become annoyed instead of laughing at the repetitive woes.
Lana does Lana to perfection. I do like the scene where Lana tells Sandra Dee she'll give up Gavin and Dee tells her to stop acting. Lana's expression is delicious.
The Colbert version has Fredi Washington as the light skinned daughter of Louise Beavers (who has the unfortunate scene that she doesn't want money for her pancake recipe, she only wants to serve Colbert-what narrow minded white wrote that?). I think it was Robert Osborne's intro that Washington was Afro-American with very fair skin. She chose not to "pass". I like that because mentally I say to the studio "take that you bigots."
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Post by jamesjazzguitar on May 15, 2024 23:12:11 GMT
The Colbert version is better story. Warren William as the man in the middle gets a better part than Gavin's rather milquetoast character. Not criticizing Juanita Moore's acting-she's great, but by the middle of the film her "woe-is-me" character gets annoying. Probably only Moore could have done that part so that you just become annoyed instead of laughing at the repetitive woes. Lana does Lana to perfection. I do like the scene where Lana tells Sandra Dee she'll give up Gavin and Dee tells her to stop acting. Lana's expression is delicious. The Colbert version has Fredi Washington as the light skinned daughter of Louise Beavers (who has the unfortunate scene that she doesn't want money for her pancake recipe, she only wants to serve Colbert-what narrow minded white wrote that?). I think it was Robert Osborne's intro that Washington was Afro-American with very fair skin. She chose not to "pass". I like that because mentally I say to the studio "take that you bigots." It wasn't that the studios were run by bigots but that too many in the audience were. Most studio heads didn't wish to lead but instead just please the people. An exception would be Darryl F. Zanuck, the producer of films like Gentleman's Agreement and No Way Out. |
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Post by kims on May 16, 2024 11:16:20 GMT
Per John Houseman in FRONT AND CENTER: In the film GOING MY WAY when Rise Stephens sings Ava Maria with the boys choir, a 9 year old Afro-American boy stands next to her. Paramount head Y. Frank Freeman says "There he is --all through the scene--with that big black mug of his right next to Rise Stephens'"
Just one of Houseman's examples.
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Post by jamesjazzguitar on May 16, 2024 18:29:40 GMT
Per John Houseman in FRONT AND CENTER: In the film GOING MY WAY when Rise Stephens sings Ava Maria with the boys choir, a 9 year old Afro-American boy stands next to her. Paramount head Y. Frank Freeman says "There he is --all through the scene--with that big black mug of his right next to Rise Stephens'" Just one of Houseman's examples. Rise Stephens was added to the production of Going My Way due to her fan following. Anything that distracted from that wasn't good for business. Thus, a good example of a studio head trying to please an audience. |
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Post by kims on May 16, 2024 21:03:27 GMT
Of course decisions were made for business reasons. No dispute that filmmaking is a business.
But there is also some bias in some decisions. Kim Novak at a TCM Festival told about Cohn's threats to Sammy Davis when she was friends with Davis.
Houseman tells also about Freeman stopping shooting of a scene because there were too many people of color in the scene and they were were mingled with whites. The language used was not of business reasons. There were people in charge who were bigoted. There was also most notably Zanuck who stuck his neck out to "test the water" what the public would accept.
I can't agree that all decisions were for business. And I admit that the bottom line carried a lot of weight in decisions.
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Post by jamesjazzguitar on May 17, 2024 15:02:33 GMT
Of course decisions were made for business reasons. No dispute that filmmaking is a business. But there is also some bias in some decisions. Kim Novak at a TCM Festival told about Cohn's threats to Sammy Davis when she was friends with Davis. Houseman tells also about Freeman stopping shooting of a scene because there were too many people of color in the scene and they were were mingled with whites. The language used was not of business reasons. There were people in charge who were bigoted. There was also most notably Zanuck who stuck his neck out to "test the water" what the public would accept. I can't agree that all decisions were for business. And I admit that the bottom line carried a lot of weight in decisions. Of course, some industry leaders were bigot and not all decisions were based only on business, but to me your posts imply that industry leaders were more bigoted than the general public and that most decisions were centered on bigoty instead of business. So far all of your examples can be explained as business decisions when viewed from an at-the-time perspective, but when viewed from the current perspective are now labeled as bigoted. The too many people of color scene is an example of a business decisions (white audiences didn't like to see blacks mixed in with whites especially in the south), and not Freeman being a bigot. Note this is coming up now with the John Lennon song; Woman are the "N-word" of the World. Silly media outlets are saying this is a racist song. NOT. |
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