FILM FRENZY

Boris Karloff in The Mask of Fu Manchu (Photos: Warner Archive)

By Matt Brunson

(View From The Couch is a weekly column that reviews what’s new on Blu-ray, 4K and DVD. Ratings are on a four-star scale.)

(For a review of the new Ocean’s Trilogy 4K Ultra HD release, go here.)

BLUEBEARD (1944). In his best movies (a selection that includes the 1945 film noir classic Detour), director Edgar G. Ulmer was able to work wonders with a small budget, and that unique ability is once again seen in the Poverty Row effort Bluebeard. John Carradine, who appeared in over 350 movies and television series in a 65-year span, reportedly considered this movie to contain his favorite role — small wonder, given that it provided the prolific character actor with a rare starring role. He plays Gaston Morrell, an accomplished puppeteer and painter living in 19th-century Paris. He’s celebrated for the puppet shows that he performs in the park, but it’s his other profession that brings out the worst in him. A dark secret from the past triggers him whenever he paints young women, leading him to strangle them and dump their bodies in the Seine. An art dealer (Ludwig Stossel) knows he’s a killer but is too busy counting the money from the sales to care, while a sympathetic seamstress (Jean Parker) and her policewoman sister (Teala Loring) threaten to become his next victims. Inspired by the folktale about the man who murders a succession of wives, Bluebeard is as much a film noir as a horror yarn, with Ulmer whipping up the proper mix of moody atmospherics and pessimistic fatalism and Carradine delivering an effectively understated performance as a man held prisoner by his own psyche. Carradine married Sonia Sorel (who plays Gaston’s jealous assistant Renee) shortly after production; they had two sons, actors Keith and Robert, before divorcing 12 years later.

Blu-ray extras consist of a pair of film historian audio commentaries and trailers for eight other offerings on the Kino label.

Movie: ★★★

CASTLE KEEP (1969) / BOBBY DEERFIELD (1977). This double feature Blu-ray from Mill Creek Entertainment is being billed as a “Director Spotlight,” since both pictures were helmed by Sydney Pollack (who passed away in 2008). Methinks the Oscar-winning director of Out of Africa, Tootsie, and Three Days of the Condor would rather have his name linked to one of his many hits rather than the two dogs offered here.

Burt Lancaster has starred in several good war flicks, but Castle Keep isn’t one of them. Unbearably affected, this strands a good cast (Lancaster, Peter Falk, Bruce Dern) in a punishing drama about a group of American soldiers staying at a Belgian castle that harbors valuable European artwork. Castle Keep is both arty and airless — for a better movie about preserving artistic treasures in the face of Nazi aggression, check out, no, not George Clooney’s so-so 2014 caper yarn The Monuments Men but John Frankenheimer’s excellent 1965 gem The Train, coincidentally also starring Lancaster.

Those who feel that Al Pacino did no wrong during the 1970s obviously never saw Bobby Deerfield, a stillborn drama that also represents a rare misstep for scripter Alvin Sargent (Ordinary People). Pacino is miscast as a sullen Formula One driver who enters into a tentative and testy relationship with an Italian woman (Swiss actress Marthe Keller) he meets at a clinic. Anyone who’s seen Love Story knows exactly where this is headed, although this one does manage to incorporate a hot-air balloon into the proceedings. What saves the picture from complete ruin is the character played by Keller, who doesn’t merely suffer nobly but instead proves to be refreshingly quirky, caustic, and quarrelsome.

There are no Blu-ray extras.

Castle Keep: ★½

Bobby Deerfield: ★½

THE CROW (1994). This adaptation of James O’Barr’s comic book often plays like Death Wish for the MTV generation. Brandon Lee, tragically killed on-set while making this movie in Wilmington, NC, stars as Eric Draven, a musician who, exactly a year after his death, returns from the grave to take his revenge on the punks responsible for his murder as well as the rape and murder of his fiancée (Sofia Shinas). As he metes out his bloody justice, he discovers that he must also deal with the city’s reigning crime lord, a vicious character named Top Dollar (Michael Wincott). Director Alex Proyas went on to helm Dark City, I, Robot, and the infamous Gods of Egypt, but none of them benefitted from his background as a music-video director quite like this particular picture did with its slick visuals, edgy atmospherics, and superb, chart-topping soundtrack that included both new tunes and covers by the likes of The Cure, Rage Against the Machine, Stone Temple Pilots, and Nine Inch Nails. Yet despite its hardcore demeanor, there’s also a surprisingly sensitive streak weaving throughout the film, a haunting melancholy as we note that Eric’s foremost emotion is not hatred for his killers but love for his slain girlfriend. Lee brings a delicate, almost balletic quality to his otherwise steely performance, and while it’s undeniable that his senseless death lends the finished product an eerie aura, it shouldn’t obscure the fact that his work here is, on its own merits, wholly satisfying.

Extras in the 4K + Digital Code SteelBook edition include audio commentary by Proyas; a behind-the-scenes piece; an interview with producer Edward R. Pressman; and extended scenes.

Movie: ★★★

DEVIL’S DOORWAY (1950). Director Anthony Mann and star James Stewart would spend the early 1950s teaming up for a series of acclaimed Westerns, beginning with 1950’s Winchester ’73. Earlier that year, however, each of them had individually been involved in what are largely considered the first two pictures to focus on Native Americans in a sympathetic light. Mann shot Devil’s Doorway before Stewart filmed Broken Arrow, but because MGM was nervous over how Devil’s Doorway would be received, it waited while 20th Century Fox released Broken Arrow first. The delay perhaps cost MGM, as Broken Arrow proved to be more financially successful and earned three major Oscar nominations. Devil’s Doorway has been forgotten over time, but it’s no less important and actually bests Broken Arrow in one respect: While the lead in Broken Arrow is the white man (Stewart’s Tom Jeffords), the lead in Devil’s Doorway is the Shoshone Indian. Robert Taylor, about as Native American as Roger Rabbit, is OK as Lance Poole, a Shoshone tribesman and Civil War hero (even winning a Congressional Medal of Honor) who returns to his Wyoming land with plans to become a successful cattleman. However, not only do the majority of the white townspeople treat him poorly, it’s decided that all his acreage can be divvied up among homesteaders. When the law proves to be useless, he decides he has to fight for his right to prosper. This is a particularly grim film, minus the rambunctious humor often found in other oater offerings.

Blu-ray extras consist of the 1950 Droopy cartoon The Chump Champ and the 1950 Tom & Jerry cartoon Cue Ball Cat.

Movie: ★★★

THE FOREIGNER (2017). Despite the presence of Jackie Chan, The Foreigner is far from a straightforward action romp — instead, it’s a knotty political thriller involving a terrorist outfit with possible IRA ties embarking on a series of bombings. The scene of mass destruction that opens the picture ends up killing the college-age daughter of Quan (Chan), a restaurateur who had already lost his wife and other daughters to senseless violence long ago. A devastated Quan wants to make sure those responsible are punished, and so he begins harassing Liam Hennessy (Brosnan), a former IRA member who now works with the British government. Quan is convinced that Hennessy knows the identities of the terrorists — for his part, Hennessy must track down these murderers while also assigning his subordinates to deal with a surprisingly efficient Quan. It’s interesting to see Chan stripped of the cheeky charisma that has floated most of his career, even if the movie doesn’t give him much to do beyond scowling, grimacing, and occasionally throwing a punch. He often feels like a visitor in his own film, since the majority concerns itself with the maneuverings and machinations of Liam to appease those wanting answers and those seeking power. The script attempts some plot pirouettes that don’t always flow gracefully, and one’s tolerance regarding the wholesale slaughter of innocents in disposable entertainment may understandably be more pronounced than ever. Yet overall, The Foreigner proves to be a respectable example of a thinking person’s action flick.

Blu-ray extras include a making-of piece and interviews with Chan and Brosnan.

Movie: ★★½

HARDWARE WARS (1978). A long time ago in this here galaxy, the first Star Wars spoof earned effusive praise from George Lucas, who called it his favorite Star Wars parody in a 1999 interview. While it’s unknown if he’s seen another Star Wars spoof over the past 25 years that he deems better, this one’s nevertheless a good choice. Made for $8,000 by writer-director Ernie Fosselius (a founding member of Danny Elfman’s The Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo), the parody runs only 13 minutes but manages to hit most of the Episode IV highlights. The dorky hero is Fluke Starbucker (Scott Mathews), who attempts to rescue Princess Anne-Droid (Cindy Furgatch) from the clutches of Darph Nader (whose dialogue is solely unintelligible babble) with the help of Augie “Ben” Doggie (Jeff Hale), Ham Salad (Bob Knickerbocker), Chewchilla the Wookie Monster, and robots 4-Q-2 (who looks like The Wizard of Oz’s Tin Man) and Artie Deco. As the title hints, the special effects are courtesy of basic household items — an egg beater is a spaceship, a basketball is a planet, and so on. Most of it is simply silly, but it’s rather endearing and does contain a few big laughs spread throughout.

The Blu-ray also contains Hardware Wars Director’s Cut, Hardware Wars Foreign Version, and two other parody shorts from Fosselius (neither as good as Hardware Wars): 1980’s Porklips Now and 2009’s Plan 9.1 From Outer Space. Other extras include audio commentary by Fosselius on Hardware Wars; a 1978 interview with Fosselius; a Hardware Wars Christmas special; and a look at the handful of awards the film has won over the years (including one from Lucasfilm’s Official Star Wars Fan Film Awards).

Short: ★★★

THE MASK OF FU MANCHU (1932). Here’s a particularly potent and pungent piece of pre-Code perversity, with just about every mode of scandalous behavior its makers could cram into it. The title character possibly swings both ways. His daughter is an insatiable nymphomaniac and full-time sadist. The villain urges his followers to kill all white men and breed with all white women while the white heroes won’t rest until these “Orientals” are put back in their subservient roles. There are mummies, alligators, mind-control potions, a death ray, opium, and very pointy spikes suitable for impaling. And in the midst of all this pulp fiction is Boris Karloff, building off his Frankenstein success with another indelible creation, this one based on the fiend envisioned by author Sax Rohmer and employed in over a dozen of his novels. Fu Manchu, aided by his “ugly and insignificant” daughter Fah Lo See (Myrna Loy, the polar opposite of “ugly and insignificant”), seeks to locate the mask and scimitar of Genghis Khan so that he may take over the world; naturally, it’s up to the Brits to save the day. Yes, it’s the usual colonialist nonsense, but spectacular sets, punchy set-pieces, and cool Karloff give it merit. Two years later, Loy starred as Nora Charles opposite William Powell’s Nick Charles in The Thin Man, thus retiring from Asian femme fatale roles. As for Fu Manchu, he has appeared in a dozen features, played by (among others) Christopher Lee, Bluebeard’s John Carradine, Nicolas Cage, and, in arguably the worst of the worst (see From Screen to Stream below), Peter Sellers.

Blu-ray extras consist of film historian audio commentary and a pair of 1932 cartoons.

Movie: ★★★

SCOOBY-DOO ON ZOMBIE ISLAND (1998) / SCOOBY DOO! RETURN TO ZOMBIE ISLAND (2019). Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island figures in one of my cherished memories involving my now-grown daughter back when she was a little kid. All of seven years old in October 1998 and already a big Scooby fan, she watched the trailer in the adjoining room and gasped when the narrator intoned, “This time, the monsters are real!” I believe she set a new land-speed record when she zoomed into my room and excitedly bleated, “Daddy, this time the monsters are real!” The animated feature debuted on Halloween on Cartoon Network and she was not disappointed; a quarter-century later, it still holds up as a worthy addition to the Mystery Machine chronicles. The members of Mystery, Inc. — Fred, Daphne, Velma, Shaggy, and Scooby — have parted ways but are soon reunited when they learn of a Louisiana island that might be haunted by the spirit of the pirate Morgan Moonscar. Only it’s not just real ghosts that our heroes might potentially encounter; there’s also evidence that zombies might roam the owner’s pepper plantation at night. With bright animation and characters who have managed to remain true to their long-established cores, Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island does a nice job of retaining the kicky pleasures of the classic era while ably bringing the franchise to more modern times.

Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island was the first in the series of straight-to-video titles starring the crime-solving quintet; by the time Scooby Doo! Return to Zombie Island was produced, it became the 33rd entry in the long-running series. This one suffers from sloppy continuity issues, as those meddling kids (and mutt) find themselves on an island that’s suspiciously like the one from the first picture. The animation isn’t as crisp, the story isn’t as gripping, and the movie is too modern in terms of its dialogue and humor — try to stifle all yawns when the character of the movie director decides to retire because he’s done with a business that “bets your future on weekend box office.” Still, there are the occasional bright spots, and, if nothing else, it’s at least superior to the terrible live-action/animation hybrid Scoob! that hit theaters the following year.

The only Blu-ray extras are trailers.

Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island: ★★★

Scooby-Doo! Return to Zombie Island: ★★

STARTING OVER (1979). These days, she’s a beloved star and a five-time Emmy winner for Murphy Brown, but for the first decade-plus of her career, Candice Bergen was known (rightly so) for being a rotten actress. In the book The Golden Turkey Awards, she was one of the four nominees for Worst Actress of All Time (Raquel Welch was the “winner”), while the Harvard Lampoon’s Movie Worsts awards named her Worst Actress for 1971’s T.R. Baskin and later said of 1975’s The Wind and the Lion that it was hard to accept Bergen “having a mental edge over a 5-year-old sufficient to be a governess.” Her fortunes changed, though, with the release of Starting Over, a seriocomedy that marked James L. Brooks’ first screen credit after co-creating such TV hits as The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Taxi. Directed by Alan J. Pakula and written by Brooks (adapting Dan Wakefield’s novel), it stars Burt Reynolds as a divorced writer who enters into a relationship with a teacher (Jill Clayburgh) even though he still has feelings for his ex-wife (Bergen), an aspiring singer-songwriter. A “meet-cute” is just fine for this sort of picture, but the “meet-cute” between the writer and the teacher turns into a “talk-cute,” “date-cute,” “argue-cute,” and so on — it’s all so trite and trivial, with characters not always making sense and too many situations feeling artificial. Clayburgh earned a Best Actress Oscar nomination while Bergen nabbed a Best Supporting Actress nod; nevertheless, this is Burt’s picture all the way, and he’s excellent in a change-of-pace portrayal.

Blu-ray extras consist of film historian audio commentary and trailers for other films being offered by Kino.

Movie: ★★

TANK GIRL (1995). A loud, garish mess, this adaptation of the comic created by Alan Martin and Jamie Hewlett (who were both reportedly unhappy with the film) is set in 2033, 11 years after a meteor has crashed into Earth and turned it into one big desert. Water is naturally the most precious commodity, and most of it is being controlled by Kesslee (Malcolm McDowell), the sneering head of the Department of Water and Power. The disruptive antics of spunky, punkish Tank Girl (Lori Petty) irritate Kesslee, but she’s not the only one bucking the system: There’s also the meek Jet Girl (Naomi Watts) and the Rippers, a group of genetically altered creatures who are half-man, half-kangaroo. Rachel Talalay’s hyper direction and Petty’s hyper performance result in migraines; you also get an unrecognizable Ice-T as the most antagonistic of the Rippers and Iggy Pop in a cameo as a pervert with a penchant for 10-year-old girls. Every so often, the film’s live-action happenings are broken up by splashy animated panels (makes sense, given its origins) — it’s a welcome innovation, even if it ultimately makes one wish that the entire picture were an animated romp along the lines of, say, Heavy Metal. These eye-popping panels, a rockin’ soundtrack (Devo, Veruca Salt) partially overseen by executive music coordinator Courtney Love, and a peek at Watts early in her career are the only redeeming features.

Blu-ray extras include audio commentary by Talalay and Petty; interviews with Petty and production designer Catherine Hardwicke (who would go on to direct Thirteen and the first Twilight picture); a vintage behind-the-scenes featurette; and the theatrical trailer.

Movie: ★½

FROM SCREEN TO STREAM

Turkey Pick: THE FIENDISH PLOT OF DR. FU MANCHU (1980). Henry Fonda, for one, was able to bow out with dignity, passing away after his Oscar-winning performance in 1981’s On Golden Pond. Not so Peter Sellers, who should have ended his career with his Oscar-nominated turn in 1979’s lovely Being There but instead had the misfortune to headline The Fiendish Plot of Dr. Fu Manchu before his untimely death by heart attack at the age of 54. One of the first notorious bombs of its burgeoning decade, this casts Sellers in more than one role, yet comparisons to the brilliant Dr. Strangelove end here. The versatile comedian portrays the nefarious Fu Manchu (“Call me Fred”), seeking the ingredients for a magic elixir that will keep him alive (as the movie opens, he’s celebrating his 168th birthday) — he’s also cast as Fu Manchu’s old nemesis from Scotland Yard, Nayland Smith. A disaster from start to finish, it is worth noting that this marked an interesting point in Helen Mirren’s career: She appeared in this travesty (playing a constable who falls for Fu Manchu) a year after co-starring in the highly controversial Caligula.

Movie: ★