Would You Be My Mommy?

Ever have one of those nights where you binge on movies, but you are just grabbing titles at random from sources online or off your streaming device of choice. You see a title that grabs you, and you figure, "What the hell?"

But the evening turns weird when every title turns out to be stories about psycho-sexual lunatics who suffer from every fetish and/or perversion prone to make you feel that washing with pure lye and water will never get you clean enough. How the hell can you keep picking these things at random? Is The Universe attempting to tell you something, or is God trolling you for shits and giggles? And even though you are watching the films alone, you find yourself sinking lower and lower in your seat and you glance at the windows to make sure no one can see what you are watching.

One of those films happened to be "Sweet Kill", aka "The Arousers", from 1972. Apparently "Sweet Kill" was the original title, but the film did not do well, so, as the rumor goes, Roger Corman, who was an uncredited producer of the film, requested sexy additional footage be shot, and the film was released under the title "The Arousers". "Sweet Kill" is actually a touch misleading. "The Arousers" would only work ironically and/or as a rather cruel joke given the subject matter. Actually, now that I think of it, I don't think the titles had much impact on the popularity of this film. Most folks aren't keen on watching a perv freak out and kill a bunch of people. Well, not back in the early 70s, at least.

We have former 50/60’s heartthrob Tab Hunter playing Eddie Collins, a guy who, as a child, used to hide in the closet (wink, wink, nudge, nudge) and watch his mother undress and sleep mostly naked on her bed. Apparently this kink of his makes him afraid of the up-close intimacy of women. Bad timing as the Seventies was a time for women to take charge of their sexuality. Women weren’t all retiring wallflowers waiting for a man to shower them with attention; some wanted sex and/or a relationship and were not afraid to demand such things.

Eddie does not like pushy dames, so when one rips his pants open, he punts her into a shelf where a whack to the back of her head snuffs out her life. Does he freak out? Not really. As if it is almost a daily occurrence, he wraps her up in a sheet, ties it off, and dumps it into a pigeon loft on the top of his apartment building. You almost get the feeling our main character has done similar things in the past.

This guy makes me ill. If I had a quarter of the women that comes on to him just in the movie, I’d have more women than I’d know what to do with. Eddie? He just kills them if his verbal abuse doesn’t drive them away (and it usually doesn’t). But even feeling a sense of revulsion at the sexually aggressive women doesn't seem to be a clear indication that Eddie needs mental help; in fact, he even actively starts conversations with women when he knows full well that he’s most likely gonna be either pissing them off when he acts like a fussy gay man or sliding a knife into their torso at the drop of a hat.

A little research seems to indicate that the original script as written by director Curtis Hanson had a female character behind the murders. And that still kind of fits as Eddie’s obsession with killing the women for sexual gratification just doesn’t seem to fit the character’s profile. Yet one female character, Barbara (played with skill by Nadyne Turney), seems closer to Eddie than the other women, and she reveals a rather traumatic event from her youth that leads you to think she would probably kill the women throwing themselves at Eddie. Would have been a better film and it doesn’t leave you disgusted with the main character.

A good bit of acting by Tab Hunter does not hide the rather ugly film that Roger Corman pushed Curtis Hanson to make in place of a more psychological thriller the director intended. Worth watching, but try to avoid watching 3 sexual killer flicks back to back.

Do Androids Dream of Summer Stock?

I am subscribed to a streaming site called pubdhub.info, a site that shows a lot of public domain titles, and I mean a LOT! Most Sundays, the site adds new movies, TV shows, educational films, commercials, and so on. (Yes, I’m giving them a low-level shout-out.) Recently, they added an odd little title, “Creation of the Humanoids”.

I had heard of the title before, but it got lost in the flood of other science-fiction films that hit screens in the 50s and early 60s. That’s a shame that it has kind of slipped to the sidelines because it threw me for a loop even if I couldn’t stay awake for more than ten minutes at a time.

The first thing you should notice is that this film is in color, rather full rich color. In 1960, when the film was actually shot, most major Hollywood titles were still being filmed and released in black and white. I have no idea who decided to use color. Possibly they were gifted the film stock or it is the most creative use of short ends ever seen. But the colors give the film way more value, especially to the post-80s kids who cringe at the thought of watching a black-and-white film. Even the painfully minimalist sets and abstract art-looking background paintings look unique and a bit threatening in full color.

Speaking of minimalist sets, we got them here. Sometimes the entire scene is shot with a curtain, a potted plant, and a couple of places for the actors to sit. Considering the whole film feels more like a play, this lack of detail in set design is to be expected. Plus, I get the feeling the budget was pretty much chewed up by either the color film processing or the fairly elaborate android makeup/costumes. I’m still leaning towards the costumes.

The acting is – well, it’s acting, but mostly on the par with summer stock full of wannabees and hopefuls. A few help pull the quality up a smidge or two, but most are just there to deliver their lines. In fact, you have a few scenes of “robots” talking to each other, but the actors are all looking in different directions, so you don’t even get a sense of the actors interacting when they are in the same scenes. The leads pull some okay performances, but it feels like something from the Delsarte Method of acting, which means it smacks of artifice and is a bit melodramatic. Don’t expect anything natural or modern.

Then you have the story, the plot, and all the rhetoric and bland philosophy your little heart can stand. It seems that it is years after a nuclear war wiped out 92% of humanity. Mankind has used robots to help rebuild the world. In fact, the robots have become so advanced that they design themselves, which results in humanoid robots that feature a rudimentary form of intelligence. Yet Man must always shun "the stranger" in their midst, so these robots, insultingly called "clickers", suffer prejudice and threats from The Order of Flesh and Blood. Fascism much? Subtlety is not on the menu here.

Along with the social and political ideas, you are privy to many discussions of religion, what makes a human human, and the ethics of virtually raising the dead. Lots and lots of discussions. Oh holy HELL, there is a lot of talking in this damned movie! I dozed off EIGHT TIMES during the last 10 minutes of this movie. Longest hour ever.

It sounds like I don't like this movie. While I do have my issues with it, I can't help but respect a movie that blended the old Czech play "R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots)" with modern science-fiction of Isaac Azimov's Robot stories and ultimately foreshadows "Blade Runner" and its androids that are more human than humans. I also find it interesting that they took a rather high-brow approach even though they didn't have a big budget to support it. Most movies of that era were happy enough to shove some monster at the camera. Even though it is talky as hell, there's more real science fiction going on in "The Creation of the Humanoids" than you'll find in a dozen films produced by Robert Lippert.

Grab some stout coffee, cop a major head buzz, and check out this movie. Yes, it is okay to stop it now and then to apply more coffee. I think you'll enjoy it in spite of its shortcomings. And, hell, it gives you another good reason to drink some coffee. Win-win!!

A Rose in Spanish Harlem

A couple of years before “West Side Story,” Rita Moreno managed to do a non-musical dry run by starring in “This Rebel Breed.”

Typical high school is divided along mostly racial lines as there are gangs for the blacks (Ebonies), Hispanics (Caballeros), and white (Royals). Cue inter-racial romance and low-level rumbles. Sprinkle in a little drug dealing and a hint of corruption. Stir well with a bullshit cop element (“21 Jump Street” fans take note). Garnish with gratuitous sex scenes that don’t even make sense given character locations or overall narrative.

I’m not kidding.

Start with a group of the Ebonies attacking a white couple and flipping the couple’s vehicle on its side. Turns out the couple attacked were Buck Madison, leader of the Royals, and his girlfriend, a very young Dyan Cannon going by Diane Cannon. Buck, who is an equal opportunity racist, would normally go on the attack, but he has his own set of issues to deal with. His weed business is not moving enough product to keep his supplier happy, plus one of his best guys is hung up on that Mex-chick Lola Montalvo (Rita Moreno). What is a gang leader to do?

Meanwhile, the local juvenile police lieutenant Robert Brooks (Gerald Mohr doing his best “cool cop” routine) sends in two undercover cops who don’t look a day under 35 to pretend to be teenage gang-banger wannabes. Mark Damon plays Frank Serano, a cop pretending to be a half Mexican, half black student, and Douglas Hume plays Don Walters, an Anglo cop who tries to join the Royals in-between sticking his head into rooms where scantily-clad people dance to cheap jazz.

Lola’s secret boyfriend is killed in a scuffle with Buck Madison, but Buck attempts to frame Lola’s hot-headed brother who happens to be head of the Mexican gang, the Caballeros. Then you get the melodrama of Lola and Frank’s budding romance, as well as her desire to clear her brother’s name and put the blame on Buck.

The movie itself is a touch heavy-handed, but it is entertaining and well-acted for the most part. It tries to be a hip variation on the old “the corruption of our youth” exploitation while attempting to be cutting edge by putting the racial tension in the driver’s seat.

The most annoying element of the film, in its current state, happens to be the constant cutaways to the vaguely nudie material. It makes no sense to begin with, and it is poorly staged. The film stock looks different. The lighting is utterly different. The music is low-grade generic jazzy nonsense usually reserved for porn shorts from the time. The same lady appears in nearly every one of these inserts, so she is obviously the ringleader and should be arrested. There is even a scene where Don is sitting at a booth in a diner, then the movie cuts to him walking in on more smut, and then cuts back to him still sitting at the booth. Did he teleport? If he did, I would think that should have been the focus of the movie.

Basically, just ignore the cheesecake bits and you will get a perfectly fine teen angst flick with a racial message as a bonus.

Those Wacky North Koreans!

Oh, the strange things you can find if you poke around long enough. How about a North Korean movie? How about a North Korean giant-rubber-suit-monster movie produced by Supreme Leader Kim Jong-il? How about -- okay, no, this has gotten weird enough.

Pulgasari was some sort of dream project of Kim Jong-il's because he went to the trouble of kidnapping the director and a couple of the lead actors from South Korea to get the film made. I mean, risking an international incident just to make some allegorical monster movie? Pretty ballsy.

You get the poor populace being bullied and starved by the ruling class. As a revered blacksmith from the village dies in prison, he shapes a small creature from rice and other icky bits in his cell. After his daughter accidentally bleeds on the figurine, it comes to life and begins to eat any iron it can find. The more it eats, the bigger it grows. 

Soon, with the giant creature named Pulgasari, the villagers move against the oppressive king.

There are a lot of overwrought acting and cheesy special effects being thrown around. And talking. And more talking. The giant monster is almost forgotten for a huge chunk of the film. I know I dozed off multiple times. Talk, talk, talk.

Highlight of the film is the rather casual use of fire during the battle scenes. All the burning stuff rolling down on the actors is real. If you watch the battle scenes carefully, you can't help but wonder how many people suffered injury during the filming of this politically-limp wonder.

Trust me when I say you can do far, far worse, but still, don't skip your Wednesday night S & M Club meeting for this kind of pain. You'll want to hurt yourself for staying home, and you don't need that kind of moral conflict in your life.