In which a psychotic millionaire uses various animals to dispose of his enemies, his wife, and anyone else who gets in his way.
By some inexplicable oversight, however, that Enemies List fails to include one of this era’s most painful Odious Comic Reliefs.
So, yeah, it’s a tragedy.
.
#1 by El Santo on June 3, 2009 - 6:42 pm
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I’ve been hoping for something like eight years to see you review this movie, you know that?
#2 by lyzard on June 3, 2009 - 7:09 pm
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Well, that sounds like a recipe for disappointment. 🙂
Truthfully, this thing has been sitting on top of my TV for months and months, but something else kept cropping up.
#3 by The Rev. D.D. on June 4, 2009 - 7:59 am
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My thought process on scrolling down to see this entry:
“Wow, what a pretty snake! I wonder what kind it is! Wait–does this mean another AYCYAS review!? Who else would post a snake picture…it is! Wow, she’s going to spoil us! I need to read this during lunch…”
Which means that, when I finally make a trip to Australia, I totally expect to be able to crash at your place….friend. (Feel free to insert an organ sting, a crash of thunder, and/or some sinister laughter here.)
#4 by The Mud Puppy on June 4, 2009 - 10:31 am
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Didn’t read the review (yet), but I did look at the pictures.
I didn’t go “Awww! Snakey!” at the mambas, but Goshdarn it if I didn’t at that krait. That is possibly the most adorable little snake I’ve seen that could kill me.
#5 by lyzard on June 4, 2009 - 4:46 pm
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Welllll…okay, I guess we’re still friends.
You’re quite welcome, Rev, as long as it doesn’t bother you that my cat likes to catch juvenile snakes out in the bush, bring them into the house, and then let them go. Some of my visitors have an issue with that.
#6 by The Rev. D.D. on June 4, 2009 - 9:37 pm
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Much like Mud Puppy, as I read the review I was like “Oooo pretty!” at the first picture, but not quite an “Awwww.” Then I got to that little krait…SO CUUUUUTE!!! The final picture got a smaller “AWWWWW” from me as well.
Ever since seeing that Fu Manchu movie with the guy running across the ‘gators at T-Fest two years ago, I’ve been very interested in finding more movies with actors showing a total disregard for their safety. Sounds like I need to try and find this one somehow…
Your kitty’s habit would not bother me a bit. I’d probably be too busy trying to figure out what species they were to care.
Until I remembered I was on the Death Continent.
Which reminds me: All that snakebite first aid stuff you had in your review…they just teach you all that right alongside your ABCs, right?
#7 by The Rev. D.D. on June 5, 2009 - 9:36 am
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It occurs to me that I should say the review was excellent, and the descriptions of the good parts further convinces me it’d be worth my while to try and hunt it down (along with the aforementioned “actors risking their lives” thing.)
On a completely differnt note, did anyone else find themselves mentally trying to work an Aliens joke into the review whilst reading it…or was it just me?
(For anyone wondering, I finally succeeded when I got to the death in the alligator pit, and I joyfully yelled to the heavens, “PULL YOUR WIFE OUT, GORMAN!!!”)
#8 by Blake on June 5, 2009 - 11:11 am
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Man, that mamba is a thing of beauty…beauty, I tell you!
#9 by Baron Scarpia on June 5, 2009 - 1:11 pm
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For the first time ever when reading one of your reviews, Liz, I gave an involuntary moan of disgust over a film’s plot –
“I have never wanted you more than I do now,”
EEEEWWWW!
(Of course, I’m probably not one to talk. After all, the character Baron Scarpia in Tosca confesses that Tosca’s loathing of him is a sexual turn-on.
People sometimes have this strange attitude that in the past you didn’t get all these plots involving violent deaths and sexual or non-sexual perversions. They must lead very sheltered lives…)
#10 by lyzard on June 5, 2009 - 6:15 pm
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“I’ve just murdered your lover – let’s have sex!”
People have a tendency to think of “old movies” in terms of things like the married people in twin beds trope, but the world of pre-Code cinema is a wonderfully sick and twisted place. (Of course, there was sex and violence during the Code era, but the compulsory tacked-on punishment/redemption was always a bummer.)
And yes, that scene is a horror; Lionel Atwill and Kathleen Burke really got into it.
#11 by lyzard on June 5, 2009 - 6:42 pm
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Blake: yes, thank you! I can’t tell you how many people have tried to tell me over the years that there’s no such thing as a beautiful snake. You know, there are times when an alligator pit *does* come in handy…
You’re a sick, sick man, Rev.
#12 by Blake Matthews on June 5, 2009 - 7:23 pm
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I love green…so green mambas, emerald tree boas, green skinks, common iguanas, Jackson’s chameleons, Fijian banded iguanas, and running dragons (or whatever they’re called) are an automatic sell to me (plus I love reptiles).
#13 by The Rev. D.D. on June 5, 2009 - 8:29 pm
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“You’re a sick, sick man, Rev.”
Not that I disagree, but what caused this reaction? (I’m guessing either my interest in seeing people taking ridiculous, real risks in movies, or the joke, with a leaning toward the latter.)
And more importantly, is it a good thing or a bad thing?
#14 by lyzard on June 7, 2009 - 4:17 pm
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Just the entirety of your thought processes, m’dear, laid out so publically. And it’s…a thing. 🙂
#15 by The Rev. D.D. on June 7, 2009 - 8:49 pm
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I feel like I’m bucking to be pinned to a specimen board…
#16 by The Mud Puppy on June 9, 2009 - 9:20 am
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Having now read the review, I am furious that this is not avilable from Netflix, nor can I seem to find it on DVD at Amazon. I mean, it has a couple who are herpetologists as its heroes (how often does that happen), the villain being eaten by a reticulated python, and a murder by alligator pit!
Given my obsession with crocodilians, it really is astonishing that I have seen so few films that feature murder by alligator pit. Probably the closest I can think of is when I caught the end of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom on HBO. But I was too distracted by my incredulous anger over the fact that there were “ALLIGATORS–IN INDIA?!” to really enjoy it. (Seriously, Spielberg, they have crocodiles in India. They’re called Muggers, for cripe’s sake!)
Although I really ought to know better when it comes to Indiana Jones, huh? I still get tickled over the fact that Raiders of the Lost Ark not only tries to pass off boa constrictors as asps, but legless lizards!
#17 by Blake on June 9, 2009 - 1:29 pm
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“Live and Let Die” features an attempted murder by alligator pit.
#18 by El Santo on June 9, 2009 - 1:47 pm
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As does I Was a Teenage Frankenstein, believe it or not. And Tobe Hooper’s Eaten Alive, as I recall, is a whole movie about murder by alligator pit.
#19 by The Mud Puppy on June 9, 2009 - 1:54 pm
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One of these days I’m really gonna have to see Eaten Alive. Especially since I once wrote a screenplay called “Dragonkeeper” that was basically and intentionally a total rip-off of its basic concept. (Psycho killer owns a hotel in the Louisian bayou, keeps a killer crocodile in a pen out back) Except, instead of just one crocodilian in a pit, the killer also had a large reticulated python that eventually ate one person.
I’m not saying it was actually any good, but from most accounts I’ve heard it was slightly better than Eaten Alive…
#20 by lyzard on June 9, 2009 - 4:07 pm
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The Mask Of Fu Manchu has Lewis Stone being dangled over an alligator pit. It also has a scene where venom is extracted from a boa constrictor.
Netflix is not to blame for this one: none of the Paramount pre-Code horrors, which I believe are now owned by Universal (?), are on DVD; Island Of Lost Souls has been at the top of my Where The Hell Is It!? list since…well, since the Lewton box set got released, I suppose. There are bootleg DVDs of Supernatural around, but no official release.
#21 by El Santo on June 9, 2009 - 6:20 pm
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“There are bootleg DVDs of Supernatural around, but no official release.”
And while that’s nowhere near as obviously unjust as the unavailability of Island of Lost Souls, it’s still a crying shame. Supernatural gets my vote for “most inexplicably underrated horror film of the 1930’s.”
#22 by lyzard on June 9, 2009 - 7:23 pm
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I think that’s less a rights issue than it is a preconception about what a Carole Lombard film *should* be. Of the six films in her box set, four or five of them are from her days at Paramount, so Supernatural could easily have been included. Instead they went for equally obscure early films like True Confession and Love Before Breakfast, which are both love-comedies (allegedly; they’re both pretty bad).