Hands of the Ripper (1971), in which Red Jack’s daughter is almost as big a pain in the ass as he was…
Münchhausen (1943), in which not all wartime propaganda films look like wartime propaganda films…
Night of the Living Dead (1990), in which you better believe they remembered the copyright notice this time…
and…
Wheels of Terror (1990), in which you might as well just watch Duel and The Car again instead, were it not for one curious thing.
#1 by Rabukurafuto on July 27, 2014 - 6:47 pm
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Hey, I was right about Night of the Living Dead. Yes! Now to read the others…
#2 by Ken on July 28, 2014 - 10:03 am
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It sounds like Munchausen shares a lot of set-pieces and a fair bit of plot with the 1988 film. Do you know if that’s due to common source material? I hope so, because (like you) I’d definitely think ick if Gilliam copied from Goebbels.
#3 by El Santo on July 28, 2014 - 11:00 am
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I haven’t seen Gilliam’s version, but the old German Munchhausen does draw very heavily from the Raspe-Burger book and subsequent Munchausen literature. I’m pretty sure that only the modern-day framing story is completely original to the film.
#4 by Braineater on August 1, 2014 - 12:54 am
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Gilliam’s production was attacked several times by a guy named Allan Buckhantz, who claimed he had the rights to the ’43 version. He started an $80 million lawsuit to prevent any similarity between Gilliam’s picture and the German film. The suit was dismissed, but he kept fighting, and eventually got Columbia to issue a disclaimer stating that the new movie had nothing to do with the old one. It was just one more stupid annoyance that kept Gilliam from making the movie he really wanted to make. I’ll bet Goebbels is laughing over that in hell, too.
#5 by jason farrell on July 28, 2014 - 11:26 am
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I would say that Sally Field is the patron saint of the Pastel Grindhouse (I really like that term) with EYE FOR AN EYE and NOT WITHOUT MY DAUGHTER
#6 by Mark on July 28, 2014 - 1:20 pm
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I believe you’re somewhat mistaken about Münchhausen (I know it’s all subjective etc.) being a Nazi propaganda film. Münchhausen was intended as a propaganda piece, but several of the key people that worked on it were known opponents of the regime (some aren’t even listed in the credits as a result) that had only escaped the concentration camps due to their popularity (and Goebbel’s insistence that the German public needed quality entertainment to distract them from what was even then clearly a losing war effort) and the film is actually quite famous as a subversive piece of entertainment that managed to criticize the Nazis whilst masquerading as a Nazi propaganda piece.
#7 by El Santo on July 28, 2014 - 1:42 pm
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That’s why I found the bit about Cagliostro wanting to conquer Poland so fascinating. It makes no sense except as the screenwriter (a sharp critic of the Nazi regime who had been temporarily un-blacklisted to write the script on the condition that he use a pseudonym and otherwise keep his involvement a secret) taking a jab at Hitler’s foreign policy, and yet there it is uncensored in the completed film. Kastner obviously knew his involvement in the production was a deal with the devil, and treated it as such whenever he could figure out a way to do so. And it’s impossible to imagine Goebbels not noticing what Kastner was up to there, so I have to conclude that he decided it didn’t undermine his purpose of creating an escapist distraction.
#8 by El Santo on July 28, 2014 - 1:52 pm
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It suddenly occurs to me that Goebbels might have been willing to let it stand because Cagliostro and Munchhausen remain friends despite the former being an evil wizard with ambitions of political power and the latter plainly knowing that he is. Munchhausen basically says, “Eh. Not my problem…” and even actively assists Cagliostro’s getaway.
#9 by Mark on July 28, 2014 - 3:19 pm
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Cagliostro is usually considered to be the one truly problematic character in the film since he strongly resembles the traditional antisemitic stereotype in quite a few ways (and the actor playing him also played the title character in Jud Süß, probably the most infamous Nazi propaganda film).
Personally, I found the portrayal of Russia and the Russians (and Turks) far more interesting, especially since the film was produced in 1943.
It’s not just Kästner who’s notable though, Hans Albers and Brigitte Horney were well known critics of the Nazis as well and several of the other actors were known homosexuals or married to Jewish partners. I always thought Goebbels essentially struck a deal with them (let’s keep out the political stuff and give the population something they can enjoy) and thus I never had a problem with the film at all.
#10 by El Santo on July 28, 2014 - 4:21 pm
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“let’s keep out the political stuff and give the population something they can enjoy”
And at this point I have to ask if you’ve actually read my review yet, or are just responding to the one-sentence gloss in post above, because the crux of my argument is that Munchhausen‘s propaganda value lay precisely in its intended function as escapist entertainment to distract the German people from the horrors that were being committed daily in their name. The overt Nazi ideological content of the film is virtually nil, and, as you point out, there are places where the filmmakers were able to slip in some stuff that could be read as critical of the Hitler regime. But Goebbels was a crafty enough propagandist to recognize that to be apolitical is inherently tantamount to supporting the status quo. That’s why the great bulk of the German films made under the Third Reich were light comedies, love stories, and cheesy melodramas– because he knew most people would lap that stuff up, and because every hour they spent doing so (and talking about it with their friends afterward) was an hour they didn’t spend thinking about what was going on in the country.
#11 by Mark on July 29, 2014 - 1:20 pm
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Don’t worry, I read the review. My point is that it’s intended function already is a different one when it was the result of a (more or less implicit) agreement between Goebbels and the filmmakers. You also need to consider when the film was made and (more importantly) when it came out:
In 1943 most people were fully aware of what was going on in the country and maintaining the status quo was no longer nearly as desirable for the Nazis as it had been in earlier years. Kästner always said that they did the movie because they wanted to let the people forget reality for a couple of hours because life was so grim and one hour not spend worrying about your family and your life was hardly going to make the Nazi regime last any longer. Goebbels might have thought otherwise, but after Stalingrad there was no longer any status quo left to maintain and to be apolitical at that point in time no longer meant you were tacitly supporting the regime, but rather that you’d at least started to lose faith in the “Endsieg”.
Escapist entertainmentcan serve many and often even contradictory functions, it’s all down to very specific contexts and the Third Reich was an extraordinarily dynamic period in this regard.
#12 by The Rev. on July 31, 2014 - 3:39 pm
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I don’t believe I’ve heard of the alternate names for NotLD before, or (more likely) have simply forgotten them. I’m guessing Anubis was chosen over Osiris simply because a jackal-headed god is a much more arresting image than one that looks human. I would guess slightly more people know Anubis than Osiris as well, for the same reason. (This is based on my assumption that if they knew about Anubis they’d know Osiris as well.)
The Night of Nephthys could be interesting as a concept for a movie, though. Maybe a slasher movie with killers who think they’re Anubis and Osiris.
#13 by lyzard on August 2, 2014 - 10:08 pm
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I adore Hands Of The Ripper; it’s one of my favourite films out of the “We don’t know what the public wants anymore so we’ll film anything!” phase of British horror film production.
#14 by Airy on August 4, 2014 - 5:49 am
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It’s somewhat off-topic, but I started watching The Car this evening on your glancing recommendation in the Wheels of Terror review, and I am LOVING it.
The part where the devil car takes off at the sound of police sirens, and a little old lady who’s been hiding in the cemetery with the frightened schoolchildren triumphantly shakes her fist and shouts ‘CAT POO!’
This movie is a gem I don’t think I would ever have heard of if it weren’t for you, so thank you for a fine evening’s entertainment.
#15 by El Santo on August 4, 2014 - 4:48 pm
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My favorite bit in The Car is the one where the Satanic hot rod swerves to miss the biggest jerk in town, apparently because the latter is making a small but important contribution to the net evil content of the cosmos.
#16 by Airy on August 4, 2014 - 8:24 pm
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And yet the biggest jerk in town ends up helping to blow it up, which is a nice bit of dramatic irony, but I hope that if he kept hitting his wife the cops decided to just round him up one night, drive him out into the desert and leave him there.
#17 by The Rev. D.D. on August 7, 2014 - 11:09 pm
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I really need to get around to seeing this.
#18 by supersonic man on August 5, 2014 - 10:01 am
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Oh lordy, they gave NotLD a Final Girl?
#19 by supersonic man on August 5, 2014 - 10:44 am
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Hands of the Ripper may not have prefigured The Exorcist, depending on when in 1971 the novel came out. The film was released in October; I haven’t found a month for the book.