Tower of London

Review: Tower of London

By DOUG GIBSON

Wow, I absolutely love this low-budget 1962 gothic adaptation of Shakespeare (well, sort of) that stars Vincent Price as the mad wannabe king Richard who goes around slaughtering anyone who gets in his way, all the while dealing with those voices in his head and derisive laughter only he can hear.

It's directed by Roger Corman, who can stretch a budget as far as it can go without snapping. The black and white adds to the grim mood. There are some chilling scenes. A young maiden is tortured to death on a stretching rack. A man is murdered when a cage with a hungry rat is placed over his head. The scenes of a climatic battle that leads to Richard's death are from the 1939 Tower of London, a fine adaptation starring Boris Karloff.

I want to spend a little time on star Vincent Price's performance. A characteristic of Price's is he can be truly evil while keeping his tongue in his cheek. In Tower, he is clearly mad, and carries a confused, pained expression on his face. It's excellent acting. The audience almost wants to feel sorry for a suffering madman doomed to defeat, but he's simply too evil to care about. Although most critics deride the final battle scene where Price is superimposed over stock footage of battles, I like it. It adds to the hallucinatory atmosphere of Richard's madness.

A great film, easy to find on TV or buy. Also stars Michael Pate, Joan Freeman and Sandra Knight. It's fast-paced at 79 minutes. You can watch it in several parts free on YouTube. Part 1 is above.

American Movie

American Movie: The Making of Northwestern, color, 107 minutes, Northwest Films. Directed by Chris Smith. Starring Mark Borchadt, Mike Schank and Bill Borchadt. Rating: Nine stars out of 10.

American Movie: The Making of Northwestern is the most original slice of Americana captured on film since Michael Moore chronicled the corporate-caused decay of Flint, Mich. in Roger and Me more than a decade ago. Judged top documentary film at Sundance a few years ago, it’s the best of its genre since Waco: The Rules of Engagement managed to snag an Oscar nomination several years ago.
It’s the story of Mark Borchardt a wannabe film-maker, who redefines the word persistence. He lives in Wisconsin. Mark is, by most definitions, a loser. He failed to finish high school. He’s unmarried but has three children. He’s under-employed. He’s a border-line alcoholic. He owes several thousand dollars in child support and thousands more in other debts. He lives at home with his mom, sleeping on a thin mattress. His best friend is a dazed ex-stoner musician named Mike who’s addicted to scratch lottery. His family scorns his goals, suggesting that he’s fit at best to be a factory worker.
Mark has no prospects, but he has a goal. To be a feature film-maker. His almost-obsessive pursuit of that dream and his infectious optimism is captured by director Chris Smith. You want to see reality on film? Ignore the “Big Brother’ and “Survivor” garbage heaped onto television screens recently. American Movie is a primer on micro-budget film making and the fragile dreams of its creators.
Mark’s been making short films with his friends since he was a teen. Horror is his preferred genre. He counts The Texas Chainsaw Massacre as a major influence in his life. Mark wants to make a feature film called Northwestern. The first part of the film focuses on Mark and his team’s fruitless effort to get the production off the ground. Kitchen-table production meetings provide only pessimism and finally the project is shelved for lack of funds.
Not deterred, the rest of the film concerns Mark’s efforts to finish and release Coven, a 40-minute psychological horror drama that he started years earlier. Despite setback after setback, the film gets finished, thanks largely to Mark’s dying, lonely Uncle Bill, who lives in a trailer park and has $280,000 in the bank. The scenes between Mark and his curmudgeon uncle are touching. Mark exploits him to be sure, but he’s not fooling Bill, who knows Mark has pipe dreams but is nourished from the attention Mark pays to him.
There are priceless scenes in American Movie. They include a desperate Mark pleading with his mom to put on a costume and play an extra in Coven. “But I need to go shopping today,” she protests. There’s the 30-plus take scene of Uncle Bill delivering a few lines in Coven. Another is Mark’s glee at unexpectedly receiving a credit card offer in the mail. There’s Mark’s “office,” the front seat of his car parked at the airport. Another is the poverty-inspired panic which results in post production when a few seconds of film are discovered missing. Also, there’s a hilarious scene from the filming of Coven where several takes are required to smash a hard-headed actor’s skull through a kitchen cabinet.
A serious side to this film adds to its strength. Film-maker Smith provides viewers a peek in Mark’s personal life. It’s dysfunctional. While watching the Super Bowl with his family, a drunken Mark allows some of the bitterness he usually hides to come out in the surface. It’s tough to watch, but important as it rounds out his character and offers a peek into inner demons that have kept him from success.
Besides Uncle Bill, Mike Schank, Mark’s best friend, is an asset to American Movie. His blank stare, accompanied by monotone voice, might lead viewers to think he’s suffering from an acid flashback. However, Mike grows on you, and before the end of the film he’s shown to be a talented musician.
Despite no formal training, Mark is a talented self-taught film-maker, and you can’t help cheering for him once he finally finishes Coven and stands outside the theater, amidst a long line of people waiting to see his film. He may not have a home of his own, but he’s a director with a film under his belt, a colleague of Steven Spielburg. He has triumphed. Note: The DVD version of American Movie contains Mark’s film Coven. I have seen it and it's not too bad. Very low budget but with a cold, dark nihilism feel.

Doug Gibson

The Brain From Planet Arous - Giant Brain Bent On Ruling The World!

Former Mr. Shirley Temple, John Agar, stars in this 1958 sci-fi gem from Howco International - the same studio who produced Attack of The 50 Foot Woman, also from 1958. Agar plays a nuclear physicist who discovers a crashed meteor in the California desert at a location named Mystery Mountain. This location is actually the famous Bronson Canyon near Hollywood - seen in a number of 1950s low-budget, drive-in features. Agar and his assistant travel to the site of the crash and are confronted by an evil floating brain named Gor from the planet Arous. Gor murders Agar's assistant and transforms his soul into Agar's body. Gor makes it clear that he is determined to possess world power and domination, and feels he can obtain it through Agar's scientific knowledge. Agar's finance, played by Joyce Meadows, and soon to be father-in-law notice an immediate change in his personality. He expresses a desire for world power and seems to be devoid of any human emotions, except getting extra rough with his finance when he kisses her. To demonstrate Gor's power, Agar arrives at the Pentagon in Washington D.C. to meet with top military officials and world leaders. He demonstrates Gor's dangerous powers by showing the group a random nuclear explosion in the desert, and by bombing a commercial jet in flight. Considering the fears we have today of terrorist attacks on commercial airliners, this is a very scary thought to contemplate. Meanwhile, another alien brain from planet Arous named Bal arrives at the home of Agar's finance. This brain claims to be a "good brain," and wants to stop Gor's evil plans. Bal transforms his soul into the body of Agar's dog named George. This allows Bal to be able to confront Gor without being fully recognized. Gor departs Agar's body for good at the end of the film, giving Agar time to chop up the alien brain with an ax. Watch carefully for the wires holding up the brain as Agar chops away at him, adding some unintentional humor. Director Nathan Juran (aka Nathan Hertz) is known for a number of interesting 50s drive-in cult classics, such as The Black Castle with Boris Karloff and Lon Chaney Jr., The Deadly Mantis (1957) and Attack of The 50 Foot Woman from 1958. Happy viewing! Steve D. Stones

Enjoy an abbreviated 'Dracula'

Courtesy of Castle Films and YouTube comes this eight minute-plus version of the classic Universal Bela Lugosi Tod Browning directed 1931 Dracula. Castle Films' heavily edited adaptations of classics used to be on all the time. I first saw this filmette during an assembly at summer school in the early 1970s.

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