The Mummy's Hand: Reviewing the Kharis Tetralogy

By Joseph Gibson

 

“The four Kharis films all share a key plot element: the high priest, assigned to control Kharis, abandons his vows to pursue a woman.  Reworking the idea through four films might get a bit old, but the Kharis saga does evolve….the changing plots keep the series interesting.” - Frank Dello Stritto (in an interview with Plan9Crunch.  Link here: https://planninecrunch.blogspot.com/2021/04/a-quaint-curious-volume-of-forgotten.html )

Introduction 

In The Mummy’s Hand (1940), Universal’s Mummy archetype changed from Boris Karloff’s Imhotep to Tom Tyler’s (and eventually Lon Chaney Jr’s) Kharis.  With this cosmetic change also came a period of the most consistent and yet also experimental of the Universal Monsters series.  While Dracula, the succession of Universal werewolf films, and The Invisible Man sequels meandered into disconnected anthology (and the Frankenstein series that makes up the bulk of the franchise’s narrative swapped protagonist monsters halfway through to the Wolf-Man), this tetralogy remains focused on the saga of Kharis, even if it makes some very odd and ill-advised decisions to navigate us through that story.

 

Before we proceed into analyzing this film, it is important to pin down what genre(s) this and the following films are aiming for.  Focused more on quirky characters on an expedition, the Mummy’s Hand does not fit cleanly into the Gothic horror model one expects from Universal’s earlier works (especially Dracula 1931) where consistent application of tension, whether or not each scene ends in a major release, occurs throughout the film.  This film, to some critics’ chagrin, does not feature much terror or suspense until the end of the film when it would structurally make sense to have tension in any film of any genre that still has some horror elements.  The original Mummy film with Boris Karloff borrowed a lot from Dracula, so the comparison is a pretty easy way to rule out that authorial intent if this new film is so different.  Horror comedy is an option of course, as character Babe Jenson comes off similarly to the Costello role, while the Mummy’s hunts for his tana leaves are genuinely suspenseful, but much of the film seems focused on the adventure to find funding and navigate the temple.  The Brendan Fraser Mummy films oriented closer to adventure with horror elements, so I see no issue with a Mummy movie being labeled adventure over horror if that reflects the priorities of the film.  That would make this film somewhat more slipstream by comparison, since Brendan Fraser’s Mummy leans more into swashbuckling and has more runtime to spend on adventure set pieces.  As should be obvious, The Mummy’s Tomb, the next Kharis film, is decidedly not an adventure movie.  For what it is worth, I will label that film a proto-slasher and highlight the shared tropes I see next time (and will reserve judgment on the other sequels until we get to them).  This shows off a flexibility of genre for the Kharis films despite similar plot and often experimental nature.  Any more specifics into the differences in genre intent between these first two movies will probably have to extend to the differences between directors Christy Cabanne and Harold Young, which is a comparison I am not yet qualified to make.  Based on what we can observe in each film, however, I believe my speculations into genre to be mostly accurate.

 

One of the most frequent jokes and honestly, at this point meme, about the Kharis tetralogy is that based on context clues, the dating of this series is such that The Mummy’s Hand takes place in the 1940s, with an immediate 30 year time skip (after which point World War 2 is still happening), and by the end of this series, it is the mid to late 90s without much difference in the way the world is portrayed.  Because I cannot weigh in on the clothing, speech patterns or technology of the different decades, let me say that Babe’s pop culture references to Coney Island hotdogs (origin 1867 - 1871), PT Barnum (died 1891) and pig latin (1598 - dog latin, 1866 - hog latin, 1800s - pig latin) in The Mummy's Hand are reasonable for any timeframe in early to mid 1900s based on cursory research.  Frank Dello Stritto, in the postscript for his scholarly historical fiction book The Passion of The Mummy, said that there is one brief mention of the May 1940 date of Banning and Solvani's partnership, which Dello Stritto highlights as an unrealistic and unlikely time-frame.  Given that the film started shooting in May 1940, I see no reason we cannot regard this similarly to mistaken clocks in old films more accurate to the shooting time than the film's.  Thus, I will not mention the dates, except that it is entirely possible that The Mummy's Tomb might instead be in the 40s, making the timeline slightly better. 

 

The film begins with efficient introductions to three of the leads: Andoheb, the villain who begins the film with a promotion from Lay-Priest to new High Priest after his mentor, the previous High Priest, reveals Kharis’ backstory to him, Steve Banning, a charismatic but impulsive accomplished researcher that spends their remaining money on an ancient vase, and his best friend Babe Jenson, the comic relief character that buys a dancing doll at the same market.  Steve and Babe circumvent a lot of the issues with their archetypal pairing because the film allows for brief moments of comedic weakness in Steve (Marta pulling Steve out of another wild Mummy chase at the end of the film) and surprising seriousness from Babe (what he does to Andoheb at the end), while still feeling like the same characters scene to scene. Andoheb, meanwhile, comes off as a convincing manipulator, since, due to the Mummy’s late arrival into the action, his manipulations of Marta, Petrie and through The Beggar are the main antagonistic obstacles. Much of this success is due to the casting of George Zucco as Andoheb, Dick Foran as Steve, and Wallace Ford as Babe.

As far as early symbols and foreshadowing thematic content, navigating the stairs outside the Temple of the High Priest of Karnak could be significant, since one of the first things Andoheb does is climb those outside stairs on the way to greater power, and the last thing he does in this film is fall down those stairs, when Babe and Steve take away that power.  Implicitly, Andoheb causes the rockslide that uncovers Kharis’ tomb from a place of higher standing, which also matches his attempted manipulations of Petrie through being a man of higher standing in the Museum.  This does not map through every scene or every instance of a staircase, however.

 

More significant to this conversation is the opening words of the film, as spoken by the previous High Priest of Karnak.  “For who shall defile the temples of the ancient gods, a cruel and violent death shall be his fate, and never shall his soul rest, unto eternity. Such is the curse of Amon-Ra, king of all the gods.”  The seal of seven jackals on the tomb reinforces this message, clarifying death to whoever breaks the seal.  And this does happen.  It is one of the few achievements the film allows to Petrie rather than divvying them up to Steve or Marta (more on that later), because the film seems to think that the person who broke that seal should die, which raises interesting questions about the morality of this whole situation.

 

Kharis’ curse happens because of the very human desire to be with his lover after death, and the High Priests manipulate him as a servant but do so from a place of authority under implicitly real gods.  What makes Andoheb the villain of this movie is protecting that secret, but the way he does it seems to break the rules outlined by his mentor, which seems to be the reason he fails, not the pursuit itself.  Steve has an understandable motivation, genuine passion for archaeology (and why not profit along the way?), but he comes off as obsessive and reckless in a few key scenes.  Dr. Petrie, an actual employee at the Cairo Museum, disregards his boss to join Steve’s wild hunt for Ananka’s tomb that could likely end in the death of them.  Steve and Babe are fast friends with their financier magician Solvani, but their early scenes do seem like them playing each other in genuinely friendly ways that have consequences because the way Steve is conducting this whole operation resembles a scam (making it easier for Andoheb to convince Marta that it is).  Not taking into account the sequel, this film thinks that Steve, Babe, Marta and Solvani at least are innocent of any specific wrongdoing, because Andoheb’s assistant The Beggar is viewed as wrong for disliking Babe early on and does meet his death carrying out the will of the gods against these characters (Petrie and Ali not being as lucky as our core four).  One could make a case that Marta is the redeeming factor for Steve and Solvani (since she does not want to take part in this expedition but takes responsibility, steps up and does the best at deciphering the secrets, at the end preventing Steve from going on another one of these and just being the voice of reason for her father Solvani), but I guess the instant comedic karma of Babe’s bits must be enough to balance his moral scales.

 

Solvani, real name Tim Sullivan (as played by Cecil Kellaway) is an interesting character in this film. While Babe is the kind of comedic character that is so against his own volition, magician Solvani keeps in good spirits and directly steers into every joke at his expense.  There comes a moment in the film when Solvani is drunk, with Marta trying to convince him not to go on the expedition, and, despite still wanting to go, Solvani cannot resist the funniest outcomes possible even if they are against his self-interests, continually cycling through his magic bits and locking himself in a box.  This is a very unique type of character that would not tonally meld with a clear-cut Gothic horror.  Despite great focus early on, he is mostly a vehicle to introduce Marta to Steve.

 

Charles Trowbridge plays Dr. Petrie, a somewhat confusing character for reasons I’ve previously alluded to.  He is the only one of the expedition actually enrolled at the nearby Museum, but he acts the least professionally, immediately breaking the seal and failing to notice that the Mummy, whose skin he examines, is still alive.  He also, surprisingly enough, has undeniable similarities to Marta in such a way that I wonder if the comparison was intended.  

 

Like Marta, he starts the film with an older authority figure it is in his better interests to stay with but gravitates towards Steve upon their meeting.  Dr. Petrie’s introduction sees him choosing the young and untested Steve over the higher credibility of Andoheb declaring the vase a fake, while Marta is fully determined to take Solvani away from Steve and Babe, until she sees Steve and decides to come along.  Now, yes, I know the contexts are different in ways that speak to their individual character traits (and Steve is seductive to them for different reasons).  Here, the characters are actually foils, since the context is almost completely reversed since Petrie is the ostensible expert that acts immaturely up to his death, while Marta is the magician’s daughter who turns out to be the most responsible character, at which point the story rewards her with Petrie’s skills and knowledge. I say this because, after Petrie dies, the film proceeds as if his previous contributions and observations of the tomb were Marta’s.  She brings them back up to Steve and is the closest to figuring everything out until the end of the film.  Just because I can see what they were doing with these characters does not mean I think it justified though.  The adjustments that happen to Marta’s character do not feel earned but do make the movie more contrived than it needed to be.  (If Marta were interested in Egyptology from the start, she would have joined the expedition for different reasons than protecting her father and attraction to Steve.  That abrupt attraction to Steve at least has some justification due to juxtaposing his and Babe’s appearances but is still convenient.  If she lacked the skills to interpret hieroglyphs, then the movie could not proceed, and if Andoheb did not happen to develop feelings for her, then, again the movie does not happen this way.)

That said, Peggy Moran does a great job in the role, and her chemistry with the rest of the cast does not seem out of place.  If you just sit down and watch the movie, you will not question when she starts talking to Steve about the tomb because it is just our romantic leads sharing the screen.  Their relationship is entirely serviceable.  I think The Mummy’s Tomb does such a good job fleshing out what the loss of Marta means to Steve’s life that it makes one retroactively view their relationship as stronger in the movie that featured it, but their relationship in this film, while rushed and a little convenient, still serves as a good basis for this franchise.

 

One of the larger issues with this film, from the point when the Petrie and Marta switch occurs, is the continuity.  After the group finds Kharis’ tomb, they are disheartened to find a male Mummy, but Petrie is going to study whatever they find anyways, and so will Steve.  Marta and Solvani say they are going to bed, and Ali, the last of the native helpers sticking around, only does so to inform the others that he cannot stay.  Then, Andoheb feeds Kharis 9 tana leaves to kill Petrie (the High Priest explains that three keeps Kharis alive, 9 will give him movement, and any more than 9 will make him uncontrollable, each feeding corresponding to the howl of nearby jackals), and the film resumes with Steve finding Petrie dead and Kharis gone and Solvani entertaining Babe and Ali, Marta eventually joining Steve in the research.  The Beggar hides more tana fluid to result in killing Ali and attacking Solvani, kidnapping Marta.

 

The way I interpret these scenes is that Steve running off to get Ali and running back, finding Petrie dead, must be in the same night, with a missing scene where he convinced Ali to stay.  Ali staying after another day passes where no one has heard from Petrie strains credibility.  Shortly after all of this, Marta and Solvani go to bed again.  If this is all the same night, then Kharis should already be uncontrollable, which admittedly does not change much but is just a very strange decision for Andoheb to make and requires additional context (but if it is a different night, that also requires more context as to why nobody checked on Petrie for that long).

 

From here, we get into the tense scenes of Tom Tyler’s Mummy hunting for his tana leaves and coming into conflict with our characters.  I think The Mummy’s Tomb leverages Kharis’ slow violent prowling better and more consistently, but this film is again a start to unveiling this character and what he can do.  Tom Tyler’s eyes are better emphasized than his hands, so the title is confusing unless the title is supposed to be about Andoheb in a figurative way (since audience expectations after the very dynamic Imhotep would probably be for the High Priest to serve The Mummy as a right hand) or perhaps to represent that the Mummy’s limbs are being stimulated by the tana leaves, and not his mind.  There are a lot of interpretations, but I think The Mummy’s Tomb ironically would have been the better title for this film.

 

Steve and Babe realize the truth of the tomb’s layout from the lay-priest medallion of the Beggar and take different paths to get to the Temple of Karnak.  Steve’s path gets the Mummy following him, while Babe shoots Andoheb, because the latter erroneously believed he could still manipulate a weary Babe that’s already endured all his tricks.  Andoheb had tied up Marta to turn them immortal, and a confrontation occurs between Steve and Kharis, where the film thankfully does not give Steve the knowledge of the audience since he actually needs the other characters to help him.  Steve destroys the tana vial but does not think to overturn the urn of the fluid, necessitating Babe’s shooting skills once more.  Kharis goes for the spilt fluid, and Steve sets him on fire, seemingly just trying to knock the Mummy out with the torch holder.  After a quick bit in which Marta passes out, Babe comments on that and passes out himself, all that is left is the happy ending where Steve, Marta, Babe and Solvani are reunited, and Marta prevents Steve from buying another vase.

Conclusion

 

All in all, this film is very enjoyable and a strong start for this saga; I noticed new merits and new faults upon this rewatch that would make my rating a bit more nuanced than before.  This film is better as the first chapter than the entire story is the most succinct way I can put it: a strong basis with room for improvement. We shall see if the later installments keep the momentum going.

Check out an earlier Plan9Crunch Review of this film here: https://planninecrunch.blogspot.com/2014/10/the-mummys-hand-first-kharis-tale-from.html

And here is a link to an interview with Dello Stritto on his book The Passion of the Mummy: https://planninecrunch.blogspot.com/2021/07/the-passion-of-mummy-interview-with.html

Jurassic Park III: Turning 23 Years Old

 

By Joe Gibson

 

Jurassic Park III has gone down in infamy as perhaps the worst in its franchise.  Time often gives perspective, and now, over twenty years later, there is a small but rabid cult following for this film in particular, as well as its own cult that despises this film. Here on the 23rd anniversary of this underrated film July 18, 2024, with an entire other disappointing Jurassic trilogy behind us and a new film on the way, I would like to revisit it.

 

Compared to the rest of the series, especially the first, second and fourth films, Jurassic Park III is light on the franchise staple idea of the chaos that arises from playing God with genetics. Gone is the Ian Malcolm as author insert character to state the theme while calculated contingencies fail, and also gone is the less subtle circumstance that leads a Tyrannosaurus Rex to rampage through San Diego.  It is not entirely missing, as the backstory for new antagonist the Spinosaurus hinges on a rather brief scene of exploring newer Ingen experiments, but this is mostly a family movie hearkening back to much older genre films where the franchise connective tissue is the same challenge that different characters will face and brave in different ways film to film (see Universal’s Mummy tetralogy from the 1940s as one such example of that trend where the antagonists and stakes remain similar but the heroes win in different and unique ways).

 

Indeed, upon a rewatch, it was startling to see just how many scenes from the original are homaged in this film but taken to a different logical end.  (Compare this to Jurassic World Dominion, which just recreated shots from the original with no change in context down to even the same clothing in certain scenes.)  Paul Kirby’s scene of recruiting Alan Grant and Billy Brennan plays off Hammond’s introduction in the first film but without the flamboyant displays of wealth and status (since Kirby is, after all, actually pretending to be wealthy).  Whereas Grant was speechless on the first tour when witnessing the first dinosaurs he sees, here he thinks he is in control of the situation as a simple tour guide when they pass by the first dinosaurs they will see. The Spinosaurus attacks the people in the plane by poking his face through windows and crushing the vehicle, which also falls out of a tree, similarly to the Tyrannosaurus and the car.  When Grant encounters a T-Rex, he tells everybody to stay still, but everybody else runs away this time, necessitating him to run as well.  Finally, the aesthetics of the velociraptor scenes return to the pack hunting and plotting of the original film (after the first sequel made them more like rabid play-fighting puppy littermates), but they are even more intelligent this time, shown off well in their coordination, Grant’s reactions, and the statements of other characters in regard to their abilities and new resonating chamber, a concept introduced to explain their social capacity.

 

The true appeal of Jurassic Park III is a simplified, streamlined island adventure of old with simple but consistent character arcs for Grant and some of his companions related to their specific dinosaur antagonists.  It's actually a pattern I have noticed in other Joe Johnston films, especially Captain America The First Avenger, that they will be nostalgic, simple stories with decent characterization for the leads but some plot issues throughout.  Jurassic Park III is the story of Alan Grant stuck on dinosaur island with incompetent laypeople, specifically divorced couple Paul and Amanda Kirby (who are looking for their son Eric Kirby), the mercenaries those two hired to help, and Billy Brennan, an undergraduate assistant to Alan.  It is also the story of a wimpy father gaining his courage and seemed to try to be the story of a hysterical woman taking her place as a leader and a young man trying to atone for a mistake made during the runtime (though these are more debatable in success).

 

Alan Grant’s role in JPIII is simple but misunderstood.  He acts as an extension of his character arc from the first film (now bonding with an additional two children he is under no obligation to get along with), and Johnston’s intent seems to be to give Grant a new arc where he learns to ask for help.  That is the thing Ellie Sattler tells him to do at the beginning of the movie, and the thing he finally does at the end that ends up rescuing the cast.  But I am getting ahead of myself.  Many people oppose this film’s decision to break him and Ellie up.  I am slightly baffled about that.  After the first film, I guess people must have imagined Grant and Ellie settled down into their own family; that did seem like a natural trajectory for them.  No matter what happened to break them up, it was amicable, so we still get demonstrations of their bond.  The more important matter is that Grant bonding with her child is a more powerful expression of his attitude after bonding with Tim and Lex in the first film, because it is entirely his choice to do so, not something thrust upon him by fatherly obligation.  Their first scene works as them reconnecting, which makes for effectively masked exposition in their dialogue, and the distance between them allows her to save the day but also for the island segments to carry more tension since Grant and Eric are the only characters we are really sure will survive by virtue of being returning star and child respectively.  In any case, the Kirbys look on Grant as an authority figure, and even Billy, Grant’s assistant, screws up consistently enough (running away from the T-Rex and stealing velociraptor eggs) to where the audience and Grant himself understand that he is the only trustworthy and competent character…that is until Eric saves Grant from a velociraptor horde.  This plants the seed that Grant can rely on other people, which grows further when Billy redeems himself in saving Eric (at seemingly the cost of Billy’s own life), and finally Grant phones Ellie for help in the final fight against the Spinosaurus and has to give the stolen velociraptor eggs to Amanda Kirby so she can de-escalate the final confrontation with the velociraptors.

 

Paul Kirby, as a secondary lead, begins the film a deceptive, cowardly pathetic man, unable to control his mercenaries, holding fast to Grant’s advice in ways that do not reflect his own self interests, and constantly contrasted with stronger characters like Billy Brennan in the vending machine scene or Grant in any situation.  However, whereas Billy regresses into a weaker character and Grant leans more into teamwork, Paul begins to grow more confident and decisive as the situation calls for it.  His ex-wife’s reactions to his decisiveness in the second half of the film communicate that this is a side to him she has not seen before but enjoys, and their dialogue confirms as much.  In the final battle, Paul distracts the Spinosaurus from the rest of the remaining cast and holds it off himself until Grant can use a flare to set alight the oil the Spinosaurus inadvertently spilled to win the fight.  So far, the two leads have done very well in expressing their dynamic characterization.

 

The film’s focus is less so on Billy Brennan and Eric Kirby because they are stepping stones in Grant’s arc, but they have an arc to their characters even if we do not see some of the most important bits.  Billy is a charismatic person, more hedonistic than Grant (Billy wants the adventure that comes from paleontology, while Grant likes the cerebral parts) but also very concerned with pleasing Grant (his justification for stealing the raptor eggs is pragmatism to extend funding for their dig site, a more desperate pragmatism than Grant’s to comply with Kirby’s fake demands for the same end) as we also see by the half-dead Billy retrieving Grant’s hat after Billy’s sacrifice in the birdcage scene separates them.  Eric makes sense as a child character that somehow competently managed to survive.  He offers a childlike perspective on things that Grant is willing to heed, and the two can talk maturely about the dinosaurs on the island and if Grant was too harsh on Billy or not.  The mercenaries also are fine.  Only Udesky, himself not actually a mercenary, gets anything in the way of likable characterization, but he only serves the purposes of mirroring Billy as the more active and competent assistant to Paul and then also being part of the trap the raptors set to show off their intelligence.

 

Amanda Kirby is a decent character.   The issue comes in insofar that I think the film was trying to pass her off as some great character.  She starts off by far the most irrational and frantic of the group and ends the film level headed and the one character that resolves the dispute with the raptors’ Queen.  There just does not seem to be some extraordinary arc for all of this.  She just eventually found the person she was screaming to, and stuff needed to be done, so she did (the dialogue indicates that, unlike Paul, she has some degree of comfortability with outdoor situations so it’s more just a realistic “she got tired of screaming and could help out in the smalls ways she does” turn of events).  It is the matriarchal raptors that choose for her to be the point of contact, and Grant still does have to help mediate the situation with a 3D printed resonating chamber.  My idea of an ideal Jurassic sequel would not only progress Grant or whichever legacy character returns but also at least two others in order to leave the franchise off in safe hands for later on.  Paul would be a relatively easy protagonist, following his growth in this film, but the film did not do enough for Amanda, Billy or Eric to justify later importance.

 

Replacing the T-Rex in the marketing as well as killing it in film, the Spinosaurus is a controversial part of this movie.  The odd unsubstantiated theories and quirks of Jack Horner resulted in this film’s take on the uber-macho hunting Spinosaurus and scavenging T-Rex when by all accounts the opposite is closer to the truth (though we do learn contradictory information about both of these dinosaurs periodically, so it is possible albeit unlikely that history will vindicate him).  If the goal was to portray the Spinosaurus realistically, this film failed.  It behaves less like a real animal than it does a slasher villain, constantly determined to destroy the main characters until they can put up enough of a fight to send it running.  It seeks out T-Rexes for the thrill of hunting them as well.  While there is a sizable amount of time it is missing from the film where it could have eaten the T-Rex, there is no indication in the film that it eats that prey.  The instance where the obnoxious satellite phone ringtone plays to announce its presence also serves to hype it up as some horrifying monster, not any normal animal.  In that regard, the Spinosaurus is a great obstacle and antagonist to measure our heroes against.  It takes a lot of growth, coordination and luck to beat this thing, and it is very cathartic when they do.

 

That sort of half attention to realism extends to the Spinosaurus and T-Rex fight, wherein it is brief with the dinosaurs using only their best moves as would be realistic, but the actual way this fight plays out is impossible biologically speaking.  Within moments, the T-Rex has its massive jaw on the Spinosaurus’ neck, and the fight would be over right there.  As film shorthand, it is effective to set up the Spinosaurus as a greater threat by overcoming the most iconic and dangerous thing the Rex can throw at it, but it just is impossible for it to escape that, especially when the way it wins is by clamping down its weaker jaw on the T-Rex and contorting its own arms to snap the Rex’s neck, even more impossible.  If I recall correctly, the original plan following the coast battle was to have the velociraptors kill this spiny creature, and I am happy that did not happen because it would seem very strange towards this whole shorthand if the original film’s T-Rex could beat a pack of raptors but the Spinosaurus couldn’t.

 

Like Johnston’s 2010 Wolf-Man remake (initially planned to include a sizable Paul Naschy cameo), the production on this film was tumultuous with a lot of scrapped ideas.  There were multiple rewrites, notably affecting Grant’s character arc, as a persistent scrapped idea in this film was to turn him into a Robinson Crusoe island dweller, and the emphasis on the Ingen lab and aviary scenes.  More importantly, the final draft was still being written as the movie was filming, resulting in Billy’s actor negotiating the character’s survival when his sacrifice scene in the aviary was otherwise a constant throughout the scripts.  Those aviary scenes as well as the river raft segments loosely adapt the parts of the original novel that did not make it into the original film (but this film’s poor reception would motivate Jurassic World to try again on those scenes).

 

Because the only Jurassic films were this trilogy for over a decade, the debate has long persisted: which of the two sequels to Jurassic Park was better, and which approach (Ian Malcolm guiding experts who act like idiots or Alan Grant assisting idiots that act like idiots) should lead the franchise forward?  In my own opinion, I think Jurassic Park III is decidedly better than The Lost World: Jurassic Park (because the structure of TLWJP very strangely de-emphasizes some of its most engaging character arcs in the third act, and no plot hole in JPIII is more egregious than the captured T-Rex somehow wiping out an entire ship crew just so the plot could happen).  The question would be if either one actually qualifies as a good film, and now is not the time to weigh in on that question: now is the time to remember on its anniversary Jurassic Park III and what it tried to do.  You can watch Jurassic Park III on Tubi and Peacock.

 

Gamera vs Zigra: Turning 53 Years Old

 

By Joe Gibson

 

Introduction:

 

Gamera vs Zigra is enigmatic in the Gamera series. Being the last film of the original run that released right around the first unfortunate end of Daiei Film, I think it colors people's perceptions of the entire franchise as cheap kiddy fare with unlikeable child leads, poor pacing and almost no budget.  If you actually watch the Showa Gamera films, you will realize that this film actually does the same things that helped to ground previous installments but so much worse that it overwrites the public perception.  

 

The alien invasion of a talking sea themed animal, this time a goblin shark, comes from Gamera vs Viras (1968) (see our review of Gamera vs Viras here: https://planninecrunch.blogspot.com/2024/06/the-best-of-scenes-and-worst-of-scenes.html) to the point where every time I begin to type Gamera vs Zigra, I begin to type Viras before realizing it is Zigra (resulting in the unfortunate autocorrect attempt “Gamera vs Viagra”).  The high cost led to shooting mainly in Kamogawa Sea World, just as Daiei Film negotiated to film at Expo ‘70 for Gamera vs Jiger (1970).  I have already argued in favor for the ideas of Gamera vs Viras (and some of its execution), but I also regard Gamera vs Jiger as one of the better Showa Gamera films, especially in regards to how the Expo ‘70 setting both allows for relevant exposition integration (with scientists and geniuses on location) and raises the stakes since our characters are grouped up in a single location.  

 

Gamera vs Zigra is one of the worst Gamera films, and, again, I would argue that it unduly represents this franchise for a lot of people, because of its unplanned position as a finale as well as Mystery Science Theater 3000.  MST3K aired its Gamera episodes out of the order of the series, which would disorient the viewer, and they never got around to Gamera vs Viras in general or Gamera vs Jiger until much later.  If I were to show you Gamera vs Zigra and then pitch the premise of Gamera vs Viras and Gamera vs Jiger to you, you would assume that same execution in the previous films.  It is also important to keep in mind that the versions MST3K has access to were the notoriously bad Sandy Frank dubs and that re-edited versions of these movies were also in circulated  (If you doubt how much a bad dub and edit can change a film, just remember that the original Japanese 1962 version of King Kong vs Godzilla was a satire about consumerism, and the 1963 American version is the awkward comedy you all have seen.)

 

Here, on the 53rd anniversary of this ill-fated film, July 17th 2024, I would like to briefly revisit it.

 

Review:

 

As one more similarity to Gamera vs Viras, which was renamed Destroy All Planets for the American release, this film opens aping Destroy All Monsters, though this time it is by setting the movie in the end of the 20th century and having the aliens destroy a Moon base.  In some ways, it mirrors the opening of Gamera vs Viras, wherein the film positioned us in the perspective of the Virians being attacked by Gamera as the disembodied voice of their survey leader attempted to evade, by placing us on the Moon base, as the Zigrans attack.  However, the disembodied voice’s integration is far worse here, first wondering, in a third person limited perspective, where the Zigran spacecraft had come from and then revealing it is actually a third person omniscient voice that knows this cold open is a cautionary tale (for what, the movie has not yet detailed).

 

The child protagonist is our second narrator, and his dialogue abruptly cuts out so we can meet the relevant adults and children in this story.  This main boy is named Ken, if you wanted more evidence that this is the Showa Gamera film people remember, since all of Gamera’s child characters and even the ones in the Godzilla franchise are referred to by fans as “Kennys,” and our introduction to him is watching television instead of brushing his teeth, the brush still in his mouth.  This leads to abrupt cuts to and back from orcas doing everything the children do in the scene.  For a child audience, Yuasa’s main consideration, this is probably a relatable and attention-grabbing sequence, but when it persists past juxtaposing orcas into studying seals (going from a race to a dissection), it is tiresome. Ken and Helen, a young girl, seem to agree that sea creatures are smarter than humans, which is a decent way to foreshadow not only Gamera’s arrival but also the talkative Zigra.

 

The two main adult men contemplate the role of scientific advancement and humanity in the sea’s pollution.  The best faith assumption to make about the previous seal dissection scene is that why they are dissecting that one and saying it is so that the others can remain healthy is because of this pollution, but if you know the pollution is the cause, I do not necessarily see the reason for dissecting.  Magnitude 12 earthquakes occur on opposite sides of the planet, setting up the alien invasion.  These men are the respective fathers of Ken and Helen, who appear, steal their fathers’ food and witness the Zigran spacecraft.  

 

There is some interesting stuff as some unspecified national agency, our main characters and Gamera all instantly investigate the spaceship, the Zigrans instantly neutralize the boat of characters, and the Zigra Star Spaceship, as it is called, does actually resemble Zigra’s ultimate form both with his mounted head inside and the general shape of the fins.  We once again see Yuasa tropes of the kids recognizing Gamera as their friend immediately and the children’s eclectic interests vindicated over the less wise adults.  The woman Zigra uses as a proxy starts another earthquake, this time a magnitude 13.

 

The Zigrans were sea creatures, whose own industrial revolution polluted their waters, and they scanned throughout the universe to find a planet with water.  In the same breath, Zigra’s proxy mentions that they searched the moon before finding Earth, and all of the goodwill I had towards the perceived intelligence of these Zigrans is now moot.  They searched a barren rock for water and just so happened to find the planet full of it nearby, just at the right time to stop humans from polluting it too since Planet Zigra is 480 light years away, and the Zigrans were wasting time looking at barren rocks.  Zigra’s proxy freezes the adults, but the kids figure out not to look at her eyes and escape.  It is worth mentioning that these kids are very young, especially coming off of the teenagers in Gamera vs Jiger, so all of these deductions seem less feasible and line deliveries are far worse than is usual for the franchise.

 

Despite the reciprocated cephalopod nature, Zigra is actually a more similar alien boss to the 1967 squid-man Emperor Guillotine from Toei and AIP’s Johnny Sokko than the tentacled Viras, due to actively commanding underlings with a booming voice rather than being a twist villain in a throne that looked like a cage like Viras.  Zigra’s human proxy wants to enact genocide on the Japanese people when ordered to follow and kill the kids, but Zigra reminds her that Zigrans eat people, so they should not kill all Japanese people.

 

Gamera saves the kids, dropping them off on Niyemon Island, where people dress up very strangely, making the characters think they have traveled back in time, but it turns out Ken knew of the island’s existence the whole time.  The Ken and Helen that figured out the spaceship controls very astutely a scene ago are not of the same intellect as the Ken and Helen of this scene.  (Compare this to Masao and Tom from Gamera vs Viras, who are consistently intelligent.) There is more childish humor as the military characters are unable to get relevant information from the children because the children are too immature.  This is strange for a Yuasa film, as it is supposed to be the fault of the stubborn adults, not the wise kids, when the two cannot communicate or reconcile.  

 

Unlike with Viras, the UN actually does decide to attack Zigra.  I suspect much of the battle between the JSDF jets and Zigran spaceship to be stock footage, but, given the presence of similar compositing errors to the scenes of the Zigra Star Spaceship attacking the main characters’ boat, it is possible it was an original scene.  A hotel manager and aquarium worker are very dedicated to their jobs even while at war with Zigra, but I doubt it is meant as any social commentary since it immediately becomes plot relevant that the latter man is driving in just the right place to pick up Zigra’s proxy, who periodically switches clothes with innocents because she thinks people witnessing and reporting multiple different Japanese women during evacuation is less suspicious than there just being one that the employee that drove her there could vouch for.  She spies on the war committee, who admit that they are losing to Zigra at this point in time.

 

The chase between the children and Zigra’s proxy plays out like a Scooby Doo chase, mainly to show off the shooting environment of Sea World.  Gamera waits to actually stop the Zigran threat until called upon, in the meantime simply just feeding on the flames of humanity’s war with Zigra.  Gamera’s battle with the Zigran ship is legitimately well done, with Gamera avoiding the ship’s beam by tucking in his shell or hiding behind a rock and returning fire.  Zigra himself, the massive shark kaiju, finally emerges, and, after a less impressive battle with Gamera, reverses his policies to now vow to wipe out all humans, rather than feed on them.

 

The aquarium worker realizes the Zigran mind control freezing works similarly to dolphins being blind but maneuverable, and, while it makes sense he would know dolphins work like that, we must remember this is a Yuasa film and question why he did not let the children figure this out.  That is the exact kind of creative outside of the box thinking that leads the children to escape death in all of these films, so it is baffling that the most important example in this film (since this is what allows the scientist to be able to reverse the catatonic condition) was not from a child.  For reasons that do not make sense, repeating the process to cure the catatonic Zigran victims also cures Zigra’s proxy Ms Sugawara, who was a moon base worker brainwashed differently with different abilities (namely that of sight and being able to brainwash other people).

 

Some decent tension arises when, on the way to revive Gamera in a submarine, Zigra attacks, damages their Bathysphere and displaces them lower than anyone can rescue them.  Sparks fly as the water rises, the surfacing apparatus is damaged, and they have to hold off another assault from Zigra with only their lights.  Annoyingly, just like the worst plot point in Gamera vs Viras, Japan surrenders just to save the main characters.  Lightning just so happens to revive Gamera, who saves the bathysphere and fights Zigra in sea and on land, eventually playing Zigra’s back like a xylophone as the ultimate embarrassment to the foe.

 

Conclusion:

 

This movie is generally focused on childlike fun in as low a budget as possible, necessitating abrupt cuts that mess with the pacing, strange decisions on the parts of all of the characters that should otherwise be competent and end the film’s conflict too early, and humor that is in conflict with the high stakes of the film.  There is enjoyment to be had here, and, as a Gamera fan, I would rather this exist than not exist, but the overall product is the lowest of the Gamera series up to this point and even after (Gamera Super Monster 1980, despite its own flaws, has a more consistent tone, better action, a better soundtrack, and more consistently intelligent characters).

 

Gamera vs Zigra is a bad film, depressingly so since it reveals that the magic creativity of Showa Gamera did require some budget after all.  That fact also has overshadowed the rest of the Showa series for whatever reason, dragging down these films to the depths where, truly, only this one sits.  It is not all bad, however.  Zigra himself is a very interesting kaiju, and while the premise is derivative, his part in this story is more exciting and impressive than Viras in the previous film.  

In 2024, the only shared legacy of Zigra and Viras is their appearance in Gamera Rebirth from last year.  While Viras finally took his place as an eldritch main villain, Zigra was downgraded to third monster-of-the-week threat, but Hiroyuki Seshita found a way to reference Zigra’s 1971 speech as well as make Rebirth Zigra an impressive enough threat for Gamera.  The brief sequence of Gamera pushing through Zigra’s beam attack in order to land a physical hit made it into the Gamera vs Viras Rebirth fight as well.  You can view the original film on Prime video (though I recommend Arrow Video’s release of the Showa and Heisei Gamera films for avid Gamera fans), and you can watch Zigra’s episode of Gamera Rebirth on Netflix.

 

The Rogues' Tavern, poverty-row '30s film; review includes newspaper clips

 

By Doug Gibson

"The Rogues' Tavern," 1936 black and white film, directed by Bob Hill, produced by Mercury Pictures and released by Puritan Pictures, is one of the reasons I love film. It's just a stroke of luck, and a blessing, that this low-budget, 70-minute C-movie is still around for film fans to enjoy. It's like stepping into a wonderful time capsule, and getting a glimpse of what your grandparents watched in the 1930s before the "A" picture was shown.

Let's see some old newspaper clippings that involved this great film. Above is a newspaper ad from the The Kokomo (Ind.) Tribune, of Dec. 15, 1936. You see that starting Wednesday at the Wood theater is Rogues' Tavern. "IT'S FIRST RUN ... and its described as "A Roadside Inn Turned Into a Trap of Doom!" A few paragraphs down is a clip ad for both 'Rogues' and a Noah Beery film, 'Stormy,' in the Warrensburg (Mo.) Daily Star-Journal of May 22, 1936. I love the admission prices back then, 10 cents, 15 cents. My dad was telling the truth when he told me you could spend 25 cents, see the movies and have a hamburger way back then. Finally, a few paragraphs down we see a feature/review clip of 'Rogues'. It was in the May 9, 1936 edition of The Moberly (Mo.) Monitor-Index and Moberly Evening Democrat. It provides a feature of star Wallace Ford's life and then seques into a positive review. 

Enough reminiscing, here's the plot. Wallace Ford (Jimmy Kelly) and Barbara Pepper (as Jimmy's fiancee Marjorie Burns) are detectives heading to the Red Rock Inn to meet a justice of the peace and get hitched. "It is a dark and stormy night" with lots of whistling wind and there are quite a few eccentrics in the tavern. They include the renters, Mr. and Mrs. Jamison (Clara Kimball Young and John Elliott), a mentally-challenged handyman, Bert, (Vincent Dennis), and a collection of nervous, shady characters, including a nervous, but very beautiful Mexican lady named Gloria Rohloff (Joan Woodbury). Finally, there's also a dog, Silver Wolf, running around.

 

For reasons known only to themselves, the Jamisons deny Jimmy and Marjorie two rooms, or one if the justice of the peace arrives. The couple, who are a poor man's Nick and Nora -- for those who recall William Powell and Myrna Loy of The Thin Man series -- settle down in the lobby, which boasts a very impressive fireplace. (According to the book, Forgotten Horrors, the film was lensed at RKO-Pathe Studios, which was favored as a place for low-budget production companies that liked the fireplace as a prop)

 

Back to the film: One by one, the nervous, shady characters start getting murdered. Jimmy, with typical Wallace Ford bravado, starts to take charge of the investigation. Fiancee Marjorie, a very pretty blonde who acts a lot like Lucille Ball, tries doggedly to help her slightly sexist love interest. At first the dog is the chief suspect, but interest soon coalesces around a mysterious "Wentworth," who apparently called the endangered characters to the inn, and later a mysterious "Morgan." We soon learn that the nervous character at the inn have a history of jewel thievery.

 

That's all the plot I'll provide. This is an "old dark house" programmer, common for the era. What makes "The Rogues' Tavern" special is that it's better than the average C-movie programmer. The murders are well plotted, it' a bit goofy, Ford and Pepper are talented actors with good comic timing. My favorite lines of witty dialogue involve Pepper, after reflecting on the romantic fireplace, exclaim to Ford, "I feel so poetic, I could make love to a snowman." Ford retorts, "If that justice of the peace doesn't show up, you'll have too!"

In fact, Rogues' Tavern boasts an excellent cast. Besides Fox and Pepper, Kimball Young and Elliott were silent film stars. Woodbury wears a very slinky dress that thumbs its nose at the Hays Commission morality censors of that era. Her breasts, while not shown, are quite well defined despite being covered. The producer is Sam Katzman, who worked at Monogram with Bela Lugosi.

 

Ford starred in the legendary "Freaks" for Universal but was mostly a C- and B-movies star. He was a good actor with comic timing and may be best known for his role in the Bela Lugosi Monogram effort "The Ape Man." Woodbury was a steady actress who appeared in the Monogram film, "King of the Zombies." Pepper, who was a friend of Lucille Ball's, later in her career was a regular on Green Acres.

 

The film is fairly easy to find. It can be purchased at oldies.com and Sinister Cinema and is part of a 50-film set that can be bought cheaply. You can watch it free on the Net and it's the type of film that should pop up on Turner Classic Movies. I've been lobbying TCM to air it. The sets are better than an average C-programmer, which probably was filmed for less than $40,000.

 

The film has a lot of twists, some clever, some clumsy. It's about 10 minutes too long, particularly in the last third, with too many red herrings and static scenes. But the climax is fun, and a bizarre surprise, and the first 45 minutes are very entertaining in its mixture or murder and comedy mystery. Thanks to my friend David Grudt, of Long Beach, Calif., for providing the newspaper clips.