Friday, September 22, 2006

Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1941)

Ten years after Rouben Mamoulian's acclaimed adaptation of the story, MGM had got its hands on the Paramount Picture and all but blotted the film from existence. This stylish 1941 remake plunders the first film for plot, but lacks its progenitor's sophistication. The former had deep theological and philosophical ruminations on the nature of sin and evil; this version chops most of that out and throws in some pseudo-Freudian imagery to compensate.

Still, it's a watchable film. Spencer Tracy has his moments as Hyde - indeed, I've always found Tracy's Hyde more visually effective than March's, although perhaps I'm the exception. Ingrid Bergman is more than a match for Miriam Hopkins as Ivy, the pretty young girl whom Jekyll's devilish alter-ego victimizes. She is stunningly filmed by Joseph Ruttenberg's camera, and brings to the role the same sense of vulnerability and terror that Hopkins had before her.

Franz Waxman's score is a little disappointing, especially the plodding motif in the transformation scenes. Nevertheless, the film boasts some splendid images, especially once Hyde is on the run through a fogbound London.

My rating? * * * * * (4/5)

A few more stills:

Wednesday, September 13, 2006

Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1931)

The first horror film I ever saw was Victor Fleming's 1941 Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde with Spencer Tracy. I was eight years old. I pleaded with my dad to let me watch it, and to my surprise he did. And there began my obsession with that film and with the horror genre.

So it has always been with a sense of loyalty to the 1941 film that I have approached the earlier, and more critically successful, film by Rouben Mamoulian. It is not hard to see why this has fared better with the critics: It's far more thematically complex than the '41 version, whose sub-Freudian nonsense got in the way of what was really just a jolly good yarn in Hollywood's best style. This '31 film probes deeper into the Jekyll-Hyde myth, exploring God, evil and the human condition on a fairly epic scale.

Universal's Dracula and Frankenstein, both released earlier the same year, went straight into the horror action - all graveyards and bats and eerie lighting. Not so with Jekyll, made by Paramount. It doesn't feel like a horror film in the same sense at all, and there is little in the first reel to suggest any horror. We're on quite different territory.

The movie starts as it means to go on - by placing us firmly in Jekyll's shoes. The battle between good and evil we are about to watch is not happening in some other place, with some other person, but in us. We are Jekyll and Hyde. I confess to finding the prolonged point-of-view sequence a little laboured, but once it's out of the way, Mamoulian's approach is altogether more subtle.

From now on, the film will be constantly implicating everyone in the picture - and the audience - in the fate of Jekyll. Mamoulian does this by frequently matching shots between scenes, by juxtaposing and layering images in order to create an association, by using split-screen to suggest identification between characters, and by shooting from Jekyll and Hyde's points-of-view.

For example, early on in the film, Jekyll (Fredric March) is caught kissing a dancing girl (Miriam Hopkins), to whom he has attended after an assault. It's an incredibly sexual scene for its era, and we are left with a shot of her naked leg dangling suggestively. This then dissolves into the next shot of Jekyll and Lanyon (Holmes Herbert), but the two images are layered for a few seconds, thus associating Lanyon also with sexual desire. Lanyon is later to reprimand Jekyll for his behaviour, but Jekyll's response is to charge Lanyon with having the same desires inside him - as the earlier shot suggested.

An example of the split-screen is when Jekyll's fiancee, Muriel (Rose Hobart), is shown alongside Ivy (the dancing girl) - one refined and respectable, the other licentious and immoral - two sides of the same character.

One of my favourite instances of the point-of-view shot was in the final scene, when Lanyon points directly into the camera as he accuses Jekyll. It's quite an unnerving effect, and cements the charge that the evil resident in Mr Hyde is resident in all of us.

March became the first actor to win an Oscar for a horror performance. Looking back, it is hard to deny he is pretty hammy in the role at times. Occasionally this works brilliantly - Jekyll's agony as he wrestles with his evil deeds and begs for God's forgiveness comes off effectively - but at other times, such as in the transformation scenes, it raises a few unintended laughs. The make-up, which becomes uglier as the film goes on, is generally effective, and is complemented by March's performance. By the end of the film, his movements are positively ape-like, as he swings furiously from the shelves of his laboratory.

Hopkins is oustanding as Ivy, the role taken by Ingrid Bergman in the remake. Her scenes with Hyde elicit genuine terror, and her strong performance nicely makes up for Hobart's dullness as the fiancee.

I have yet to watch the film again with Greg Mank's commentary, which no doubt will enhance my appreciation of the film. I shall also revisit the 1941 version, which makes up in lush visuals and atmosphere what it lacks in sophistication.

My rating (1931): * * * * *

Tuesday, September 12, 2006

The History Boys

The big-screen adaptation of Alan Bennett's hit play The History Boys is out in October. I look forward to it. You can watch the trailer online here. I thought the moment at around 1:11 was particularly sweet.

The House That Dripped Blood (1970)

I've never been an Amicus fan the way I've been devoted to the Hammer 'House of Horror'. It has only been in the last year or two that I've begun to appreciate the Amicus films on their own terms, beginning with films such as Dr Terror's House of Horrors (1965) and Torture Garden (1967), both in the studio's trademark 'portmanteau' style.

Where Hammer concentrated on gothic horrors in period settings, Amicus usually opted for contemporary settings, and their films typically featured four macabre stories linked by a common thread. In this film, we witness the bizarre fates that claim four residents of a single house. I found them mostly quite contrived, but not without their moments.

The first segment had as its main asset the impressive Denholm Elliot as an author who becomes obsessed with one of his characters. The second featured Peter Cushing and Joss Ackland as two friends enraptured by a waxwork of the biblical Salome. This part boasted a nicely lit nightmare sequence, which the accompanying documentary (R2 DVD) revealed was the idea of director Peter Duffel. The third brought in Christopher Lee as a stern father who seems determined to keep his distance from his daughter; and the fourth (and possibly the most fun) was a camp comedy about a horror film actor (Jon Pertwee, pictured) driven mad by a vampire's cloak. This last segment also featured upcoming horror queen Ingrid Pitt. There are some great gothic touches in this part, including haunting cobbled streets and a camped-up Geoffrey Bayldon in an Ernest-Thesiger-inspired turn as a theatrical costumier. I also liked the in-jokes such as (possibly a sly dig at Hammer) when Pertwee laments that horror films aren't like they used to be: "Frankenstein, the Phantom of the Opera, Dracula - Bela Lugosi, I mean, not that new chap"!


Like several other Amicus portmanteau films, this was scripted by Robert Bloch from his own stories.

I'll never trade in my Hammers, but this is still a pleasing effort from their main rivals.

My rating? * * * * *

Monday, September 11, 2006

Curse of the Fly (1965)

I bought this film on DVD for two reasons: First, I am a fan of British horror; second, I am a big admirer of director Don Sharp. Sharp made several excellent films for Hammer, including the exquisite sub-Hitchcockian horror The Kiss of the Vampire, and later on directed the memorable remake of The 39 Steps (1978) with Robert Powell. Sharp is nothing if not a polished craftsman.



Still, for all its cult appeal, Curse of the Fly is a patchy affair. It picks up after a slow first third. It opens most bizarrely like a Russ Meyer movie, with an underwear-clad Carole Gray (whose few other films include Terence Fisher's excellent 1966 sci-fi Island of Terror) running through a forest accompanied by a rather schmaltzy main theme on piano. It transpires she is escaping from a mental asylum, and it is just her luck to bump into George Baker (later TV's Inspector Wexford in the Ruth Rendell Mysteries). He drives her to Montreal, and they fall in love. She neglects to tell him she just broke out of the psycho ward; he neglects to tell her he is engaged in highly dangerous experiments in teleportation with his father, a hammy Brian Donlevy.

There are a few great moments. My favourite was late on when Donlevy is teletransported to his (other) son in London. I won't spoil what happens, but it is quite a jarring moment.

It is certainly one of Sharp's lesser efforts, although a die-hard British horror fan won't regret having it on his DVD shelf. I'd watch it again on a rainy day.

As regards the DVD itself (R2), it's a bare-bones release, not brilliant quality, and with pretty crap sound, most noticeable in the Twentieth Century Fox fanfare before the main titles. You can snap it up for £5.99, however, so it's not all bad news.

My rating? * * * * * (2/5)

Friday, September 01, 2006

RIP Glenn Ford

Glenn Ford, Canadian-born actor, 1916 -2006. Best known for his parts in the Rita Hayworth musical Gilda (1946), the two Fritz Lang's The Big Heat (1953) and Human Desire (1954), and The Blackboard Jungle (1956).

edited to add this obituary by Ronald Bergan.

The Brides of Dracula (1960)

The Brides of Dracula (1960) is generally acknowledged as the finest of Hammer's Dracula movies, with the exception of the original Dracula aka Horror of Dracula (1958).

Christopher Lee declined to appear in this sequel, so it is rather curiously a Dracula movie without a Dracula. The never-less-than-wonderful Peter Cushing makes a return as Dr Van Helsing, however. The little-known David Peel plays Baron Meinster, a disciple of Count Dracula, and the pretty Yvonne Monlaur is his unwitting victim. There is also an appearance from the great Martita Hunt, with more than a shade of her earlier Miss Havisham (in David Lean's 1948 sub-horror Great Expectations).

The movie's success with the critics can generally be attributed to the high production values. Bernard Robinson's sets never looked more lavish, and Jack Asher's lighting and photography is stunning, the picture filled with lush, fantastical greens, reds and purples. (Incidentally, this method was costly, and Hammer were soon to replace Asher with the more restrained Arthur Grant.)

Regular Hammer composer James Bernard is missing from the ensemble; the score is by Malcolm Williamson. It's fine music in its own right, but in the film it comes across as overblown: Every time a crucifix is whipped out, the orchestra thunders in like Indiana Jones has just discovered the Holy Grail.

Still, this is a very neatly crafted and enjoyable horror film laden with memorable moments and striking images, a great testament to Hammer's capabilities.

My rating? * * * * *