The people who made The Philadelphia Experiment bought the wrong book (a supposedly factual account written by William L. Moore and Charles Berlitz) when they decided to turn this conspiracy theory into a film. So, instead, they (by way of Moore and Berlitz) simply ripped off a whopping chunk of the better choice -- this book, Thin Air. The echoes are so distinct in the first part of the book that to read it is to be constantly reminded of the film. But Thin Air came first, and it is superior to the film and its second-hand plagiarism. Fictionalizing the fiction, Simpson and Burger start with the so-called Philadelphia Experiment -- a Navy experiment in invisibility that actually worked, but which included painful and even fatal side-effects for the crew aboard the target vessel -- then expand it even further into the realm of science fiction by supposing that work on the project never ended. The story is built around a present-day Naval investigator, who is sucked into the case by an old girlfriend's husband's dreams of screaming men and a ship that disappears from one Navy yard only to briefly reappear in another. It's all plot (except for the de rigueur romance) -- plot and mystery (the first half), plot and action (the second). But it's fast-paced and well done, weakened only by an all-too-typical group of bad guys who turn out not to be nearly so clever or competent as their decades-long cover-up would reasonably indicate. On the other hand, Hammond, the Navy man, isn't James Bond, either, and that's refreshing. A smooth blend of suspense, science fiction, and even horror, with something as well for conspiracy and military buffs.
+++1/2
The people who made The Philadelphia Experiment bought the wrong book (a supposedly factual account written by William L. Moore and Charles Berlitz) when they decided to turn this conspiracy theory into a film. So, instead, they (by way of Moore and Berlitz) simply ripped off a whopping chunk of the better choice -- this book, Thin Air. The echoes are so distinct in the first part of the book that to read it is to be constantly reminded of the film. But Thin Air came first, and it is superior to the film and its second-hand plagiarism. Fictionalizing the fiction, Simpson and Burger start with the so-called Philadelphia Experiment -- a Navy experiment in invisibility that actually worked, but which included painful and even fatal side-effects for the crew aboard the target vessel -- then expand it even further into the realm of science fiction by supposing that work on the project never ended. The story is built around a present-day Naval investigator, who is sucked into the case by an old girlfriend's husband's dreams of screaming men and a ship that disappears from one Navy yard only to briefly reappear in another. It's all plot (except for the de rigueur romance) -- plot and mystery (the first half), plot and action (the second). But it's fast-paced and well done, weakened only by an all-too-typical group of bad guys who turn out not to be nearly so clever or competent as their decades-long cover-up would reasonably indicate. On the other hand, Hammond, the Navy man, isn't James Bond, either, and that's refreshing. A smooth blend of suspense, science fiction, and even horror, with something as well for conspiracy and military buffs.
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+++1/2 Surprisingly funny gender-switch film in which a magical Indian idol swaps the identities of a bickering husband and wife (John Hubbard and Carole Landis) when their latest argument ends with them agreeing on one thing: each would rather live the life of the other. Starts out as an ordinary comedy, wisely taking its time getting to the transference so as to set up a host of later jokes and situations. None of which, let it be known, are introspective: the comedy here is strictly confined to the reversal of traditional gender roles. Its one mistake is having the characters retain their original voices, but the movie is so good-natured that this is a minor quibble. With an excellent supporting cast including Adolphe Menjou, Mary Astor, Joyce Compton, Donald Meek, and Yolande Donlan, the latter playing the couple's scorching French maid. Based on the book by Thorne Smith. +++ Entertaining gonzo Western comedy with Cleavon Little set up to fail by a corrupt politician as the first black sheriff of a small frontier town. Funny, for the most part, with a few memorably hilarious moments, such as when a black railroad gang makes their white overseers look positively childish as they trade work songs. Of course, as is to be expected in any broad comedy, the movie has its share of unappealing dead spots as well. Little, however, is personable throughout. With an ending that might have inspired the final moments of the following year's Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Also with Gene Wilder, Harvey Korman, Slim Pickens, Madeline Kahn, and others. + Fawcett may have published this book as The Prey, but author Smith apparently copyrighted it under the more descriptive title Prey of the Werewolves. Smith took the part of the readers, who know quite early on what the hero is up against. Fawcett took the hero's part, for he is a man of such brainless stupidity that we can't be entirely sure he figures it out himself until very near the end. He is Morivania, and he has sworn himself to kill the man who killed his father. It's a quest that takes him across a large swath of late eighteenth-century Europe (France particularly) and during which he accepts the help of various companions, including, for no apparent reason, a girl who narrowly escapes being burned as a witch and an old scientist who manages to fall in love with a female-shaped clockwork figure. At least the beautiful woman he picks up in Paris serves a need -- that is, when he isn't rutting with an irresistible wolf-woman. The companion he needs most of all, though, is a strange old fellow who not only knows a great deal about Morivania's enemy, but how to kill him, as well. When Morivania sees him enjoying being petted like a dog, he fails to make any connection. Yet he comes by his addled wits honestly: the book itself is appallingly unglued. Smith, for instance, sees no problem with spending over 400 pages setting up a confrontation that he whimsically resolves with the words, "Seconds later it was over." One imagines he felt justified in doing this because this isn't a story of rising action and climactic release; it's an episodic journey punctuated at every opportunity with action that serves no purpose other than to frighten Morivania -- he certainly never learns anything from it. The truth is, he can't learn much: Smith doesn't have much to tell. The big revelation has to do with the specific nature of the werewolves. They aren't men who turn into ravening beasts at the full moon (which we knew all along); they are more like the Hengist character in the original Star Trek episode "Wolf in the Fold." But, true to form, resolving that revelation is the work of a mere paragraph or two. In addition to Star Trek, Smith may also have been influenced by Guy Endore's classic The Werewolf of Paris. Endore used the Franco-Prussian War to illuminate human depravity. Smith similarly builds much of his story within the French Revolution. He, however, has no higher purpose than to generate excuses for ostensibly exciting, if absurdly immaterial, unrest. In sum, a useful reminder that not all literary drivel is self-published. ++ Regrettably faithful adaptation of Thomas Harris' horror novel (up until the end) is little more than glossy, well-acted torture porn, and as such set the tone for later films like Saw and Hostel. After a drug bust goes sour, FBI Agent Clarice Starling (here played by Julianne Moore -- both director Jonathan Demme and actress Jodie Foster begged off this sequel to The Silence of the Lambs) is relegated to working the dormant Hannibal "The Cannibal" Lecter case, but catches a break when a severely disfigured Lecter survivor's offer of a reward for information on Lecter's whereabouts rousts him out of hiding in Florence. Which is too bad, really, as the film's most engaging performance is given by Giancarlo Giannini as an Italian cop who just can't say no to three million dollars. Starling comes off slightly better here than in the novel, though that isn't saying much: with her bizarre little-girl attraction to Lecter, she still makes sexist hiring practices seem like a good idea. (Where's Will Graham when you need him?) Both gross and grotesque, with face-eating dogs, flesh-eating pigs, and a brain-eating cannibal -- and "humor" that equates Lecter's enemies with Judas and Lecter himself with Christ. +++ Based on the non-fiction book by Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, then of The Washington Post, whose investigative reporting was instrumental in bringing the Watergate scandal of President Richard Nixon's administration into public view. Significantly, Jason Robards, playing the Post's executive editor, won an Academy Award (for Best Supporting Actor), while neither Robert Redford (Woodward) nor Dustin Hoffman (Bernstein) was even nominated. This is because this film is strictly a reportorial yarn -- a very well made one, to be sure -- in which the two stars might as well be playing Reporter #1 and Reporter #2. It is so laser focused on uncovering the conspiracy that the conspiracy itself fails to thrill. It's a wonderful advertisement for journalism, but much less successful as a human drama. Yet on its own terms -- that is, as fodder for political and journalism junkies -- it works. ++++ The first suspense novel in Woolrich's "Black Series" is a cunningly conceived tale of revenge and rough justice. The opening quotation from Guy de Maupassant has us rooting for the murderess before we've even met her. Then we meet her, and she's so beautiful, so clever and efficient -- so deliciously dark -- that our admiration and affection for her grow, even as she takes out one seemingly average man after another. We trust her. Julie Bailey is one of the great women of suspense fiction, a woman who has only one thing for the five men who killed her husband and got away with it: a violent death. It all works so well because Woolrich takes the time to introduce us to each of the victims, while showing us how Julie gets close enough to them to make the killings personal. Superior noir, but not without a touch of levity: Woolrich closes out each section with the poor cop who's going nuts trying to figure out what's happening and why. Adapted for film in 1968 by French director François Truffaut. ++++1/2 Director Jacques Tourneur and producer Val Lewton's follow-up to Cat People may be the best zombie movie ever made. Of course, we're talking old school zombies here. The story takes place on a small Caribbean island, where the descendants of African slaves practice voodoo. It is told by Betsy, the nurse who comes to the island to care for plantation-owner Paul Holland's ailing wife, Jessica. Jessica, we discover, lives in a semi-comatose state: though she can walk and follow simple directions, she has no will of her own. The story, written by Curt Siodmak (Donovan's Brain) and Ardel Wray, is one of surprising depth. There's the double-backstory, for instance -- of the island's history and the history of Paul and his family -- the brooding atmosphere, and the realistic detail of the voodoo rituals. Layered one atop the other, what emerges is a portrait of a family torn apart by dark forces and passions. Relatively early in the film, Betsy and Paul's brother sit down for a drink at a local bar. Their conversation is interrupted by a calypso singer (Sir Lancelot), telling the story of the Holland family. The words provide backstory, the style a Caribbean atmosphere, and the title, "Shame and Sorrow," the theme of the entire picture. A short film this may be, but it packs a lot into 69 minutes. +++ If this film didn't star Steve McQueen; if it didn't open with a silly -- but catchy -- Burt Bacharach tune (lyrics by Mack David); if it weren't just clever enough to distract us from the monster's Achilles heel by giving us another plausible reason why the Blob doesn't kill McQueen and his girlfriend when it has the chance; if its brand of nostalgia weren't so hard to come by -- you know, the honest if not the trendy kind, where kids rebel but still love their parents and siblings; and if it didn't occasionally succeed in horrifying the more helpfully imaginative members of its audience; if it weren't for these things, this slack and often awkward movie wouldn't be nearly as fun as it is. Old man unwisely pokes a meteorite, the gooey contents of which seize his hand and begin to eat him up. McQueen and his girlfriend (Aneta Corsaut, later to become one of Sheriff Andy Taylor's potential brides in The Andy Griffith Show), haul the geezer to the town doctor, unwittingly feeding it a couple more bodies, whereupon the kids decide they must warn an unbelieving town of the gelatinous monster from space. Followed 14 years later by a sequel, Beware! The Blob, directed by Larry Hagman, and remade in 1988 as a film starring Kevin Dillon and Shawnee Smith. ++++ Physicist Lionel Barrett is the nominal leader of a small group of investigators hired by a dying man to investigate a supposedly haunted house in order to establish conclusively whether or not there is survival after death. Barrett doesn't think so; Florence Tanner, a mental medium, disagrees; and Ben Fisher, a physical medium and the only sane survivor of a previous investigation years before, agrees with Florence -- but he's there less to prove anything to his employer than to avenge his previous failure. Edith, Barrett's seemingly timid wife, is along for the ride. It's a wild ride, to be sure. This is not a book that skimps on its supernatural manifestations. Spirit guides, poltergeist activity, possession, teleplasmic extrusions -- the list goes on and on. You want action? You've found it. To Matheson's credit, it isn't, however, mindless mayhem. He doesn't toss a ghost in the house and figure anything goes. Matheson weaves together the personalities of his investigators with the sordid history of the house to create a believable framework for all the insanity. The final revelation -- a psychologically weak explanation for the house's most evil ghost -- can't spoil an otherwise satisfying resolution. Made into a film, The Legend of Hell House, in 1973. |
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