"In January 1957," Michael Newton writes, "Glatman had a brainstorm. He was moving to Los Angeles." What immediately follows -- a history of Los Angeles -- typifies the author's approach throughout this book, which includes many other mini-histories, like that of the prisons in which Glatman was incarcerated and a primer on Jews in America (just because Harvey and his parents happened to be Jewish, never mind that they were non-practicing Jews). Some of Newton's information is interesting in itself, much of it is merely distracting, and all of it is completely irrelevant. Most surprising, however, is that Newton even manages to make his own commentary on Glatman's crimes somewhat suspect and redundant, for Glatman, with an almost admirable air of wholeness and truthfulness, confessed everything, and Newton provides that confession verbatim in a later chapter. We may thank him for that -- it's the most interesting part of the book -- but it tends to undermine the entire concept of Rope, for Glatman comes off as a guy who, as serial killers go, oughtn't to rate anything more than a long article. Intuitively that seems wrong -- here's a guy who raped, bound, and photographed three women (using a tripod, no less) before murdering them, but the fact is, sad little Harvey really just wanted to screw. Neither Glatman, the available record, nor Newton is able to penetrate much deeper than that. Included in the bloat, toward the end, is an intriguing anti-profiling section that cuts against the grain of contemporary thought (or myth, as Newton would have it).
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"In January 1957," Michael Newton writes, "Glatman had a brainstorm. He was moving to Los Angeles." What immediately follows -- a history of Los Angeles -- typifies the author's approach throughout this book, which includes many other mini-histories, like that of the prisons in which Glatman was incarcerated and a primer on Jews in America (just because Harvey and his parents happened to be Jewish, never mind that they were non-practicing Jews). Some of Newton's information is interesting in itself, much of it is merely distracting, and all of it is completely irrelevant. Most surprising, however, is that Newton even manages to make his own commentary on Glatman's crimes somewhat suspect and redundant, for Glatman, with an almost admirable air of wholeness and truthfulness, confessed everything, and Newton provides that confession verbatim in a later chapter. We may thank him for that -- it's the most interesting part of the book -- but it tends to undermine the entire concept of Rope, for Glatman comes off as a guy who, as serial killers go, oughtn't to rate anything more than a long article. Intuitively that seems wrong -- here's a guy who raped, bound, and photographed three women (using a tripod, no less) before murdering them, but the fact is, sad little Harvey really just wanted to screw. Neither Glatman, the available record, nor Newton is able to penetrate much deeper than that. Included in the bloat, toward the end, is an intriguing anti-profiling section that cuts against the grain of contemporary thought (or myth, as Newton would have it).
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++ Dated, somewhat stagy horror classic, based on Bram Stoker's novel by way of the 1924 play by Hamilton Deane and John L. Balderston. The revised story (written by Garrett Fort) asks a great deal of readers of the book, particularly in that here it is Renfield, not Harker, who visits Castle Dracula. Harker is still engaged to Mina, but Mina has somehow become the daughter of Dr. Seward. At only 85 minutes, what could we expect? Not this. Not a condensation when what was really required was a distillation. The story lies with Harker and Mina, but that story is too busy fighting for screen time to establish any meaningful ties with the audience. The long opening at Dracula's castle -- now wasted on an ancillary character -- unbalances the entire film. With Renfield's continued antics and the filmmakers' refusal to jettison Lucy, bless her heart, Harker is reduced to a blind fool and Mina to mooning over how it feels to become a vampire (it feels pretty good, evidently.) It all runs so quickly that this feels like the Cliff's Notes version of a badly mistranslated copy of the book. On the plus side, Helen Chandler, as Mina, is quite good and director Browning manages a few good shots along the way, particularly those involving long, wide staircases as are found in Dracula's castle and his London home of Carfax Abbey. With Dwight Frye as Renfield, Edward Van Sloan as Van Helsing and, of course, Bela Lugosi as Count Dracula. Followed by a sequel, Dracula's Daughter, in 1936. ++1/2 The novelization of the 1965 film. Part Ellery Queen, part Paul W. Fairman. Fairman wrote the novelization (as an unpublished manuscript by John Watson in which Holmes takes on Jack the Ripper) and Queen wrote the framing story (in which Ellery reads the manuscript and comes to his own conclusions). Both segments are enjoyable in their own way, but in the end, this mystery doesn't add up. Though Fairman does a reasonable job capturing Holmes and the period, he completely ignores everything known about the Ripper, turning the whole thing into a cynical marketing ploy. ++1/2 Middling effort that re-works H. Rider Haggard's novel in some very important ways, yet manages to stay true to its own internal logic. Three Englishmen are lured into a quest to find a lost city in Africa, where they find a beautiful queen (Ursula Andress) who has little regard for her subjects, yet is delighted that one of the Englishmen (John Richardson) appears to be the reincarnation of her former lover, a man of ancient Egypt. Significantly, the queen is introduced as She-who-waits; though she is later called She-who-must-be-obeyed, the damage is done: this She, in power and beauty, is a pale shadow of her literary counterpart, and much less interesting as a result. Does, however, include one nice, if particularly cruel, scene in which a daughter is returned to her father. Peter Cushing also stars. Followed in 1968 by the semi-sequel, The Vengeance of She. ++ Incompetence begets camp in this adaptation of Bram Stoker's last novel. That's camp Ken Russell style -- with nudity, sexual hyperbole, and, of course, religious (or is that sacrilegious?) imagery. To be clear, Russell's script only nods occasionally at Stoker's book -- yes, it's still about a snake-woman (Amanda Donohoe) and the band of people who want to destroy her -- but all the details have been changed to suit Russell's own irreverent vision of the story. Some of it even works: it's funny, for instance, when Donohoe is drawn irresistibly from her wicker basket (!) by the musical strains of the snake charmer (actually a Turkish recording being blasted from the hi-fi system next door). Before things get out of hand -- with scenes like those of nuns being raped while Christ on the cross is menaced by a huge snake and Hugh Grant's symbolic dream in which he raises a pencil on his lap while watching a cat-fight between two women -- that is, for the first 15 or 20 minutes, Lair is actually quite promising. One thing: even with all Russell's nonsense, the story is more comprehensible than was Stoker's. Well, at least it gives us a great "new" song for Halloween: "The D'Ampton Worm." Also with Peter Capaldi, Catherine Oxenberg, and Sammi Davis. ++ Early 19th century French soldier (Jack Nicholson) refuses to accept a supernatural explanation for the strange woman he sees about the castle of an old, solitary baron (Boris Karloff). Is she a real woman or the ghost of a murder victim? Ultimately, Corman, and writers Leo Gordon and Jack Hill, refuse either to validate or to refute his skepticism, leaving us with a nonsensical and unsatisfying have-it-both-ways sort of story. Slow-moving and monotonous. Sandra Knight, Nicholson's (pregnant) wife at the time, plays the mysterious woman. ++1/2 The story of Joan of Arc, minus battle scenes, from being put in charge of Charles VII's army to her trial for heresy and subsequent execution. It's all wrapped up in a dream of Charles', 25 years later, allowing him to tell her that her conviction was overturned in a posthumous retrial. Jean Seberg, still a teenager at the time, turns in a solid performance as Joan, capturing her innocence and her piety, if not the eloquence the real Joan must have possessed to lead so many others into battle: she cries a few times, but it's doubtful that the viewer ever will. Gets its history substantially correct, however. Based on the play by George Bernard Shaw and written by Graham Greene. ++ Reboot of 1983's The House on Sorority Row begins promisingly, with several sorority sisters involved in the accidental murder of one of their own. Falls off sharply thereafter as writers Josh Stolberg and Pete Goldfinger sacrifice lucidity (and drama) in order to preserve counter-productive mystery of who is killing the sisters of Theta Pi with a "pimped out" tire iron. Carrie Fisher appears as their shotgun-toting house mother. ++ Thriller and courtroom drama about a whackjob who savagely kills five people and the prosecutor who, theoretically conflicted, argues in favor of the death penalty. Based on the book by William P. Wood and “inspired by” true events — the case of serial killer Richard Chase. Friedkin (who produced, wrote, and directed the film) provides no easy answers, yet fails to provide much in the way of food for thought, either, despite tackling both the death penalty and legal insanity. Alex McArthur handles the “innocence” of insanity quite well (he’s certainly a cheerful maniac) and Michael Biehn is good as the prosecutor; the script, however, never allows either of them to dig very deeply into their characters or the issues surrounding them. Which is just as well, as the ending undercuts their differing psychologies anyway. Originally released in Europe with a different ending; re-cut and modified for US release by Friedkin after studio bankruptcy left the movie stranded on the shelf for five years. Less violent than you might expect: the really horrible stuff occurs off-screen. ++1/2 Very 70s remake of Jack Finney's novel transplants the action (to no real purpose) from a small California town to San Francisco, where much less appealing heroes -- a couple of would-be adulterers (more or less), a UFO nut, a psycho-babbling psychiatrist, and Jeff Goldblum -- battle alien spores that grow to duplicate and replace human beings. Very well thought of film that, according to Rotten Tomatoes' "Critics Consensus," "expands upon themes and ideas only lightly explored in the original" -- a true statement, provided, of course, that by "themes and ideas" they mean "special effects." Adds nothing of substance either to Finney's book or Don Siegel's original film. Good cast (including Donald Sutherland, Brooke Adams, and Leonard Nimoy) goes largely to waste. With, however, one hilarious line, sarcastically directed at Veronica Cartwright's ancient astronauts character. And a cameo appearance by Kevin McCarthy as a paranoid pedestrian. |
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