Time for more Science In The Reel World! Sometimes movie science turns up in the strangest places. Over the last couple of weeks I have, quite unknowingly, stumbled upon two romantic melodramas from the Golden Years Of Hollywood in which the hero turned out to be a scientist.

The other thing that these films have in common is that, in thus describing them, I’m using the word “hero” very loosely indeed…

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HIS BROTHER’S WIFE (1936) – which manages to transport Robert Taylor and Barbara Stanwyck from the nightclubs of New York to a laboratory in an unidentified jungle, and sees them swapping cocktails and gambling for spotted fever research. The results are about as credible as you might imagine.

DISHONORED LADY (1947) – in which disillusioned party girl (and closet nymphomaniac) Hedy Lamarr finds romance and a new way of looking at life when she falls for the poor-but-honest scientist living in the apartment below her own. However, her course of science for the soul is interrupted by a nasty case of murder…

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Some call him the Colombian Ed Wood. He prefers to be called the Colombian Hitchcock. The best description of all is simply the Original Jairo Pinilla.

Pinilla was one of the first Colombian film-makers to turn his attention to horror and fantasy. Unfortunately for him, the Colombian film industry at the time expected its artists to make serious dramas, or short documentaries about poverty and social issues. Pinilla’s movies were considered an embarrassment. Even more embarrassing? The local audiences loved them: Pinilla’s first film held the box office record for a Colombian film for years.

Eventually, the Colombian film commission found a way to put him out of business in 1985*. But before that happened, he managed to put out a very unusual body of work. Funeral siniestro (1977), for all its rough patches, is still a remarkably assured first film; 27 Horas con la muerte has a story that Poe might have chuckled over (and then rejected); while Extraña regresion may very well be the film that got Pinilla the “Ed Wood” title.

* Thanks to afforable video, he’s now back making films.

It’s Roundtable month again, folks! This time around we’re taking a look at prehistory according to the B-movies, at tales of those times back when the earth was populated by Neanderthals, or by barbarians, or by conquerors, or by warrior princesses, or by evil overlords with hokey powers (conveyed by hokier special effects)…or by all of them at once. From cavemen to Conan, from swords to sorcerors, from fur bikinis to chain-mail brassieres, you’ll find it all here!

It’s 10,000 B.S. – all throughout the month of February at the B-Masters’ Blog!

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The Bird With the Crystal Plumage (1970) — written and directed by Argento, in his first directorial effort — is not only beautifully shot and composed, but it is also serviceable in the plot department. I wasn’t captivated by the story, but it moved along gracefully enough that it didn’t distract from the compelling camera work which is, really, the movie’s claim to fame.

There’s a film missing from this update.  One of the screener DVDs I meant to review wouldn’t play on any of my equipment, so the promised “experimental weirdness” will not be forthcoming.  I’m sure you’re all terribly broken up about that, huh?  As for the movies my DVD player would accept, we have…

Alien Resurrection (1997), in which the good names of a great many talented people are dragged enthusiastically through the mud…

Hardware (1990), in which we see what a hazardous undertaking giving your girlfriend a present can be when you live in a post-apocalyptic future…

and…

My Body Burns (1972), in which dirty old men, coniving young women, and rabidly jealous lesbians team up to power some of the least erotic erotica since Anais Nin blessedly returned her pen to the desk drawer.
 
 
 

And I had such plans… But then my design/publication program and my server decided that they had irreconcilable differences; the upshot being a fortnight spent predominantly on hold. (And if I never have to listen to David Bowie’s “Golden Years” again…)

There are moments when I really think that the Luddites were onto something.

Time was short, and so is my main subject; so short, indeed, that it comes with a supporting feature…

THE WIZARD OF OZ (1933)

Aka The Long And Winding (Yellow Brick) Road: Part 4. In which we take a brief look at the history of Technicolor, and ponder whether this obscure, independently-produced cartoon is in fact one of the most influential films of all time.

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HOMESDALE (1971)

Six guests gather at an island retreat for a weekend of fun, games, introspection, role-playing, performance art, ridicule, abuse and violence…

A critical step in the early career of Peter Weir, forming a bridge between the early, experimental shorts on which he cut his teeth and the feature-films that followed, Homesdale was also an important factor in the re-birth of Australian film at the beginning of the 1970s.

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Nikka/Nikkatsu month marches on…

3 SECONDS BEFORE THE EXPLOSION
Yabuki’s task is to find the jewels if he can, though it’s more important that he keep them out of the hands of certain other parties than it is that he actually get them into his own hands. Those other parties include a shady businessman named Takashima (Takashi Kanda), who actually possesses the jewels, and a gang of international drug smugglers staffed by an assortment of classic Eurospy archetypes: the competent hitman, the abusive underboss, the karate guy, the guy in a slim suit and fez, and of course, the German mastermind played by an American actor (Erik Neilson) doing the worst German accent ever and occasionally tossing out words like, “Achtung!’ and “Wunderbar!” to enforce the illusion that he is German. Everyone is in overdrive with their various plotting, because the deadline for the jewels becoming fair game for anyone who has them is fast approaching. I don’t quite understand why the deadline means so much for the jewel thieves. One assumes that they would be just as happy to steal the jewels from Takashima after he could claim to be the rightful owner. You know, what with them being a murderous gang of thieves and all.

And what to drink while watching a silly Japanese spy film from the 1960s? How about Nikka’s 17 year old Taketsuru Pure Malt?

Just minutes ago, I put up the 500th review on The Unknown Movies. I never imagined years (and years) ago when I first started, I would get this far. I wish to thank Chris and Scott, the good folks at Stomp Tokyo, for sponsoring my site. I also wish to thank my fellow B-Masters for letting me join them and for all their support. Anyway, it’s business as usual, though I thought that for a fantastic occasion I would review something to do with the fantastic. That movie is Maxie, a major studio movie with Glenn Close dealing with spirits from the afterlife. As you might have guessed, there’s a good reason why you haven’t heard of this particular major studio movie.

My occasional crash-course survey of the cannibal genre continues with Mountain of the Cannibal God (1978), in which a schlocky Italian director makes exactly the kind of movie that people mean when they speak derisively of schlocky Italian cinema.  But hey, at least Ursula Andress looks good.