Mighty Joe Young (1949) – Review

When one thinks of stop-motion animation a single name leaps to mind, and that name would be Ray Harryhausen. From him we saw dinosaurs rampaging through cities, flying saucers terrorizing the world, and Sinbad battling numerous mythological beasts, but it was in 1949 with Mighty Joe Young that it all really started.

With the financial success of the numerous re-issues of the 1933 King Kong RKO studios decided to return to the big ape well and brought along the veteran team that made the original classic and it's sequel Song of Kong; director Ernest B. Schoedsack, producer Merian C. Cooper, and screenwriter Ruth Rose. Joining the gang for his feature film debut was Ray Harryhausen, and though Willis O’Brien, the effects wizard behind King Kong, is credited as the “Technical Creator” it was Ray Harryhausen, billed as “First Technician” who did about 90% of the film’s animation. Now much of the films special effects action sequence were devised by Willis O’Brien, even some of the film’s story elements, but by today’s standards that would have made O’Brien the film’s art director or story editor. The heart and soul of Mister Joseph Young is due to the brilliant character animation of one Ray Harryhausen.

 

Ray Harryhausen 1920-2013

The movie opens in Africa where a couple of local natives passing a farm owned by John Young (Regis Toomey) are stopped by Jill Young (Lora Lee Michel), the farmer’s little girl, who desperately wants to buy the baby gorilla they are carrying. She trades some of her toys and her father’s flashlight to get the cute little ape who she names Joe. All much to the chagrin of her father who later has the hard task of explaining to Jill that she can’t keep Joe because some day he will grow to be a large, and very dangerous, gorilla. Jill finds the idea of Joe becoming dangerous to be extremely silly, and she eventually gets her way.

 

“I promise to feed him, clean up after him, and never let him climb famous landmarks.”

We then jump ahead twelve years and are introduced to Max O’Hara Productions, a Manhattan agency that puts together theatrical acts and the like. That much of Might Joe Young’s story is similar to King Kong should be no surprise to anyone when you consider, as I mentioned above, that the creative team behind this film all worked on Kong, but the casting of Robert Armstrong as Max O’Hara is close to turning Mighty Joe Young into a remake. Max O’Hara is a complete carbon copy of Carl Denham from the original King Kong, only instead of a film producer he is a theatrical producer, every other element of his character is identical. The reason for this is that even though Robert Armstrong’s characters may be called Carl Denham in one movie and Max O’Hara in the other, but in both cases he is actually playing the real life film producer Merian C. Cooper. Screenwriter Ruth Rose based these characters on her boss and friend because he was such a larger than life character who really deserves a movie of his own as he was; shot down during the Polish-Soviet War and placed in a Russian POW camp, which he then escaped by trekking across Siberia on foot, was a revered bomber pilot in WWII, and later a commander of the "Flying Tigers.”

 

“I’m not overacting, if you knew Cooper you’d consider my performance restrained.”

Max O'Hara (Robert Armstrong) had come up with the brilliant idea of going to Africa to bring back live animals to headline his new Hollywood nightclub, with the publicity bonus of Max sending back action packed tales of his adventures on the Dark Continent. Along for the ride is Oklahoma cowpoke Gregg (Ben Johnson) who convinced O’Hare that cowboys would make for the best animal wranglers. They do manage to capture a fair amount of lions, but when a certain gorilla decides to pound on a cage holding one of Max’s lion the cowboys rush into action, attempting to catch this beast alive under Max's orders. Crawford (Denis Green), O’Hare’s local hunting expert, tries to stop them by repeatedly exclaiming, “Are you crazy, you can’t rope a gorilla!”

 

He’s got a point, in what universe would roping a giant ape be a good idea?

But before the big bad gorilla can pound O’Hare and his cowboy compatriots into paste a now grown up Jill Young (Terry Moore) arrives to call off Joe. Of course the idea of a beautiful girl who can control a beast like Joe is just catnip to the likes of Max O’Hare, and with some smooth talking he is able to convince Jill to bring Joe to America. What is interesting to me is that so far nobody has commented on Joe’s size, as if a twelve foot tall gorilla is somehow the norm. An average mountain gorilla stands at about six feet yet Joe Young is basically the same size as the Son of Kong.

 

Did Jill feed him some special diet that accounts for his size?

What follows is your standard story of small town girl being lured to the big city, finding out that showbiz isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be, and her giant ape going on a rampage. Okay, maybe that’s not the standard story, but if Showgirls had somehow worked an ape rampage into it's plot somewhere maybe Elizabeth Berkley would have had a better career. In this case Jill is unhappy that as successful as the nightclub act has become Joe himself is not having a grand ole time as he’s forced to live in a cage in the club's basement.

 

Jill really should have read that contract a bit closer.

When Jill goes to Max to inform him she and Joe want to go back to Africa Max tells her, “You can’t. You signed a contract.” Cowboy, and now love interest Gregg, informs O’Hare, “You know that contract’s no good. She’s underage.” Which is a great salient point, and one that Max can’t refute, but it’s also kind of icky when you consider the that later Jill and the much older Gregg hook-up and move back to Africa together. Shows how society has changed over the years when back in 1949 a person not old enough to sign a business contract could still sign a marriage one. Legalities aside Max is able to convince Jill to stay on until he is able to find a replacement act, but after seven weeks one begins to wonder if he’s even looking.

 

How many other acts can pick up a piano?

 

Or win a tug of war with the 10 strongest men in the world?

It all comes to a head when after one of the acts, Jill playing an organ grinder while the audience pelts Joe with large coins, a group of drunks make it down to where Joe is caged (great security there, Max), who then proceed to get Joe drunk and then torture him. Joe takes this abuse about as well one could expect from a twelve foot tall inebriated ape.

 

He literally brings the house down.

After wrecking the nightclub, which included beating the crap out of a bunch of the lions O’Hare brought back from Africa, Joe is helped back into his cage by Jill and Gregg before the police can arrive and shoot him. Unfortunately due to the injuries and damage caused by Joe the courts order that Joe must be destroyed. This is proof that Max must have the most incompetent lawyers on retainer, because the fact that no one was killed and all the damages were to Max’s own club, the most that should have happened would have been Jill and Joe being deported. With Joe’s execution in the wings Max formulates a plan to sneak Jill, Gregg and Joe out of the country which leads to a countywide chase that ends when our group of heroes stop running when the encounter a burning orphanage. There probably wasn’t an actually law stating that if a giant ape rescues a baby from a fiery orphanage he gets a stay of execution, but I’m sure there is now.

 

The Joseph Young/Fiery Orphanage Exemplary Act.

The scene of Joe climbing the burning tree, as the orphanage collapses in a fiery conflagration around him, is pure poetry in action. You may have pitied poor Kong as he swatted at the biplanes from atop the Empire State Building, but you will be at the edge of your seat, heart in your mouth, as Joe struggles to save this little girl as the world around him bursts into flames. This is what made Ray Harryhausen the unadulterated master of the art of stop-motion animation, because he brought such a depth of character to what in reality was just a table top clay model. This is one of my favorite movies of the genre, and is only nudged down from Kong for its unfortunate lack of dinosaur fights.

 

But it does have a happier ending than King Kong.

Unfortunately the story of a benevolent ape and his best gal pal didn’t catch fire the same way that Kong did with audiences back in the thirties, though it was honored with an Academy Award for Special Effects, but critical acclaim aside the poor box office take nixed any plans for a sequel. Which is a crying shame as the sequel they had planned was tentatively titled "Joe Meets Tarzan" and would have starred Lex Barker who had just appeared in Tarzan and the Slave Girl. I’d like to believe that in some alternate universe that film was made and was a huge success.

Pan (2015) - Review

The story of Peter Pan is easily one of the more popular children stories out there, and thus there being many adaptations of J.M. Barrie’s classic tale comes as a surprise to no one, but just how many of them are any good? I’m sure many of us consider Disney’s 1953 animated version to be one of the better adaptations, and it's a personal favorite of mine, but I also love the 2003 version with Jeremy Sumpter as Peter and Jason Isaacs as Hook. Spielberg's Hook has divided many people into groups ranging from “Totally hate this treacle crap” to “Robin Williams is a comic genius” (I lean somewhere towards the former), but today we are going to discuss one of the prequel Peter Pans.

 Writing a prequel cannot be an easy task as you are basing your story on information the original author did not feel merited being included at all, so coming up with subject matter that is not only interesting but also doesn’t shit all over the original has got to be a little tricky. Today prequels have become just another way for a Hollywood, bereft of original ideas, to continue to crank out more “identifiable” products after they’ve run out of plots for sequels. Peter Pan itself has been subjected to several prequels. In 2011 the SyFy Network made a dreadful mini-series called Neverland, but back in 2004 Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson co-wrote an excellent book series “Peter Pan and the Starcatchers” that Disney is apparently going to adapt someday, but it’s Joe Wright’s Pan that we will be looking at today.

 Right off the bat we are saddled with some completely unnecessary voice over as a ghostly narrator informs us, “I’m going to tell you a story about a boy who would never grow up. About the pirate who wished to kill him. About the island where fairies roamed, but this isn’t the story you have heard before because sometimes friends begin as enemies and enemies begin as friends. Sometimes to truly understand how things end we must first know how they begin.” Now in this movie we do learn where Peter came from, and that at one time he and James Hook were friends, but we never get even an inkling as to what could have happened that would someday lead Peter to chop of his friends hand and feed it to a crocodile. Did Joe Wright think he was going to get to make another film after this one? A sequel-prequel if you will. The fact that this movie was a box office bomb has ensured that this will most definitely not be happening, but what actually went wrong with this film?

 

Let’s take the first star on the right and head straight on till morning to find out.

The movie begins with a woman running through the streets of London, where we see her iron leap gates with such athleticism we must wonder if this is Agent Peggy Carter, but in truth she is the mother of our hero, and for some reason she drops her little bundle of joy off at The Sisters of Prudence Lambeth Home For Boys. That this place looks about on par with the workhouse that poor Oliver Twist was stuck in makes one wonder, “Were there ever any nice orphanages in London?” This particular establishment is run by the cruel Mother Barnabas (Kathy Burke) who not only hordes all the rations that should be given to the children, but she is also secretly selling the boys off to pirates.

 

She’s basically a nun version of Miss Trunchbull from Matilda.

Peter (Levi Miller) is one of the typical child characters we find in these types of movies; he has a spunky nature, a caring heart, and who will buck authority to do the right thing. When Peter finds a letter written by his mother, declaring her love and assuring Peter they will meet again "in this world or another" he finally has proof that he wasn’t just tossed aside like unwanted garbage. But once again I ask, “If she loved him so much why did she choose the most despicable orphanage in London?" Did she just not have enough time to do any research at all and this dark and depressing building she came across was her only option? That it turns out that the nuns here are evil, and selling the boys to the very people she was trying to hide her son from, tells us that she is either the unluckiest person in the world or a colossal idiot. Regardless of her motivations her son is soon captured by this group of bungee jumping pirates.

 

Cirque du Soleil pirates anyone?

So Peter and dozens of his orphan pals are hauled aboard “The Ranger” a flying pirate ship, which then has to evade a squadron of RAF fighter planes because this story takes place during WWII. Now earlier Peter and his best mate Nibs (Lewis MacDougall) had been growing suspicious of the fact that each morning a few boys would be found missing, so that implies that a three masted ship could sail through the skies of a very watchful London numerous times without being spotted, and that apparently this was the only time someone thought to alert the military. That we learn a squadron of spitfires are incapable of shooting down a flying pirate ship may explain why no one bothers to call this kind of thing in.

 

“Look at that, Harriet, another blasted flying frigate. Should we call Scotland Yard again?”

Eventually the ship zooms up into outer space, where 1940s aircraft cannot follow, and then plummets through multiple dimensions, until finally arriving at Neverland. It’s here where we are introduced to Blackbeard (Hugh Jackman), the pirate king who is waging war on Neverland for its supply of fairy dust/Pixum. It was at this point I became slightly intrigued in the direction the film was now taking for as Peter and friends arrive they are treated to a rousing musical number, led by Blackbeard, of Nirvanas “Smells like Team Spirit.”

 

“Straight from the Moulin Rouge, we give you Blackbeard!”

Was this film suddenly becoming a full on musical ala Moulin Rouge? Or would it be more in the vein of A Knight’s Tale where the use of anachronistic songs cleverly mirror the past world to the present one? Sadly neither was the case. Apparently after trying several pirate songs and sea shanties, that just weren’t jelling according to Hugh Jackman, director Joe Wright brought in Nirvana's 'Teen Spirit' and The Ramones' 'Blitzkrieg Bop.' It truly was an inspired choice, the scene is full of energy and pure unadulterated fun, and Hugh Jackman seemed to be having a blast doing it, but then we never get another moment like this again. It’s as if Joe Wright was teasing us with a film that we could have had but never get. From this point on we are treated to horrible acting, terrible production designs, some of the poorest CGI I’ve ever seen, and worst of all a ridiculous plot about Peter being the Chosen One.

 

“Let me tell you about the Matrix.”

Turns out there is this prophecy about a boy who could fly, and who would someday return to Neverland and kill Blackbeard. If the “Chosen One” isn’t the laziest trope in fiction it’s at least one of the lamest, and if I never see another one it will be too soon. When Blackbeard tosses Peter off a gangplank, to his presumed death, Blackbeard and company are stunned to see the boy fly, but upon discovering that this boy is the one prophesized to be his death what does Blackbeard do? Does he have his men fill the kid so full of lead that he sinks to the ground? Does he come after Peter with a cutlass to cut off his head? No, he has a heart to heart chat with him about the prophecy, and then locks him in a cell. I’m not one to Monday morning quarterback the decisions made by nefarious villains, but what the hell point is there in keeping this kid alive?

 

“You can’t kill me, I’m the title character.”

So Peter is locked up for safe keeping for some reason, but in the cell next to him is a fellow captive James Hook (Garrett Hedlund). You'd be hard pressed to find a more poorly written, and terribly acted character in the history of cinema than this film's version of Captain Hook.  Hedlund seems to be trying to capture some of the roguish charms of the Han Solo type, but he is just so god-awful that you keep praying for some killer croc to come rampaging onto the set to eat him. Every nuance and inflection in his performance veers from clunky to flat, with not one believable character moment in the film's entire running time.

 

This is James Hook?

And why in the hell is he called James Hook in this movie? One can assume that the pirate James Hook was not born with that name; if he was it would make it the most prescient name ever, but more than likely he took that name after Peter Pan lopped it off an fed it to a crocodile. Sure if the writers called him James Neville, or some such normal name, most people in the audience wouldn’t have a clue that this dude would someday become Peter’s nemesis, but as it is there is nothing in this movie that hints of what his future entails anyway. So what was the bloody point?  Was Joe Wright planning on this being a franchise and in the next movie something was going to happen that would turn roguish nice guy into a murdering pirate? Another interesting change, and by interesting I mean pointless, was in making James Hook a romantic partner to Tiger Lily.  In the book she was more Peter’s age than Hook’s so this change exist solely so they could wedge a modern style love story into the tale of Peter Pan.   Of course it wasn’t the age change that caused the controversy surrounding Tiger Lily but that of the casting of Caucasian Rooney Mara as the Indian Princess.

 

If they were going to dress her like this why not just cast Katy Perry.

The Indians, as portrayed in Peter Pan productions in the past, have certainly not been the most racially sensitive depictions of Native Americans, but I will defend Joe Wright and Pan on this front because I don’t know what the fuck these people are supposed to be, but they certainly aren’t Native Americans. I thought the clownish Cirque du Soleil pirates were absurd looking but the natives of Neverland look as if Ziegfeld Folly dancers were eaten by a giant croc and then barfed up all over the Mermaid Lagoon. In the book they befriended Peter because he rescued Tiger Lily, but in this movie they have been at war with Blackbeard on behalf of the fairies...well that is when they're not just hanging around waiting for the prophesized one to show up.

 

And maybe putting on Las Vegas style floor shows.

There is not one real moment in this movie, and it being a fantasy film is not an excuse, the characters are not believable, the plot makes little to no sense.  Why the hell has Blackbeard kidnapped orphans from around the world to dig in a quarry for fairy dust? Since when does fairy dust come from the ground? By the time it is explained why Blackbeard needs fairy dust, and who Peter’s mom really is, you will have moved well beyond caring. And do you know what is almost worse than the acting and the script? That would be the special effects, which are only special in the Short Bus to School kind of special. Almost every inch of this film is green screened, and the CGI quality drifts between passable to downright dreadful. In a movie about a boy who can fly one would expect to see some money spent on the flying effects, but that is certainly not the case here. Wire work would be the traditional way to do flying sequences for this type of film, and in the 1978 Superman using that method you believed a man could fly, but here in 2015 we get a CGI double of Peter Pan that looks worse than a cut scene from a PS2 video game.

 

You will believe a series of ones and zeroes can suck.

It is no shock that this movie tanked at the box office, it took one of the most beloved children’s tales and spackled over it with a nonsensical script and populated it with unlikable characters. The only person who kind of escapes this film relatively unscathed is Hugh Jackman who does seem to be having a lot of fun with the part, but his Blackbeard character would have been better served if he had his own film, possibly a musical, and not in this cinematic turkey. As mentioned the questions brought forth by the opening narration are never addressed, but if a deluded Joe Wright had envisioned the answers would be provided in future installments the public surely thought differently.

 

“I’m sorry Peter, the box office receipts have come in. There will be no sequel.”

Tarzan, the Ape Man (1981) – Review

Over the years Tarzan in films has been many things, from monosyllabic caveman to eloquent hero, but not until Bo Derek and her husband came along did we ever get one like this.  Tarzan, the Ape Man was marketed with the tagline, “Unlike any other "Tarzan" you've ever seen!” and boy is that exactly what we got.  Bo and John Derek together acted as lead star, producer, director and cinematographer of this cinematic turkey, and one look at the poster certainly told us who the star of this vanity project was going to be.

 

And it certainly wasn’t Tarzan.

The movie states that it is based on the characters created by Edgar Rice Burroughs, and though this is roughly true this film is more a remake of the 1932 MGM Tarzan, the Ape Man starring Johnny Weissmuller and Maureen O’Sullivan than anything to do with the source material.
Note: It was so far from the source material that the Burroughs Estate sued the studio over the film's graphic sexual nature.They did their best to prevent the film from seeing the light of day, but failed.  So is that art triumphing?

The plot deals with Jane’s father hunting for the legendary elephant’s graveyard, something Tarzan never did in the books but is constantly happening in the movies, and Jane’s dad even has a partner named Harry Holt as he did in the 1932 version. And once again our heroes will have to climb a perilous escarpment that will claim the life of at least one of the native bearers. I’m really not sure how white explorers were able to constantly find so many locals willing to go on suicidal safaris.

 

Who exactly would follow this guy anywhere?

The movie begins with narration provided by Wilfrid Hyde-White as he tells the story to his fellow members of the Explorers Club, the story of how Jane Parker (Bo Derek) came to Africa looking for father James Parker (Richard “I need more Scotch” Harris) and fell in love with a jungle man. On route to the Parker camp Jane is forced to shoot an attempted rapist, and that kind of sets the bizarre tone for this whole film. Director John Derek does his best to make this film into the most beautiful softcore erotica ever made, but the film eventually fails both as erotica, and as a Tarzan movie. It basically fails as a film all together.

 

Just what the hell is this supposed to represent?

Jane’s father is not happy to see her, he abandoned her and her mother shortly after she was born so he could go off adventuring, and now that his beloved wife is dead he has to deal with his hot daughter crashing in on his fun. To say the scenes between James and his daughter are creepy, bizarre and rife with sexual tension would be putting it mildly. Of course weird sexual tension between Jane and her father is nothing compared to the later stuff between Jane and Tarzan’s ape friends. In the 1932 version Harry Holt was a rival for Jane’s affection, but in this one Holt (John Philip Law) is nothing but a neutered cameraman who just follows Jane and her dad around taking pictures.

 

“I played the master criminal Diabolik, for Christ’s sake!”

James does not want Jane along on this expedition, but because this movie has about a teaspoon of originality anytime James forbids her something the film will than smash cut to Jane getting her way. Editing clichés can be found even in the darkest parts of Africa. When they do make it to the top of the escarpment, after losing the required native bearer, the find the fabled “Inland Sea” which according to legend is near the location of the elephant’s graveyard. It’s while Jane is gadding about in the surf that she first encounters Tarzan (Miles O’Keefe) and his lion wingman.

 

“So Numa, that’s what a human female looks like.  I don't get what the fuss is all about.”

After Tarzan and the lion terrify the half-naked Jane for a while Holt finally shows up to chase the two jungle jerks off. Thus begins the terrible “Will they, won’t they” relationship between Tarzan and Jane. Even in the 1932 version the beginning of their relationship was a tad rapey at the start, and decades later not much has changed. James Parker is all set to hunt down this bastard who dared touch his daughter, and mount the beast’s head on his wall. I’m not sure how that would work as I think even the British Aristocracy of the Explorers Club would see a human head mounted on a wall as something of questionable taste, and even more questionable legality.

 

“We're not safe 'til his head is mounted on my wall! I say we kill the Beast!”

When James Parker’s native squeeze, who he named Africa for some reason (Akushula Selayah), is abducted the old codger becomes incensed with tracking down this “White Ape” and killing it, but it wasn’t Tarzan who stole the woman, turns out there is a particularly nasty and colourful tribe up on this escarpment, and they are the ones who made off with Africa. Now this doesn’t mean Tarzan isn’t capable of abducting a woman as that’s exactly what he does with Jane mere moments later.

 

Standard non-consensual jungle elopement.

Jane is able to frighten him off with her gun, but after Tarzan runs away she immediately regrets it. It’s not made quite clear if her regret stems from the idea of being alone in this dangerous jungle or the fact that Tarzan is kind of a nice piece of beefcake. Regardless she eventually needs his help when a Burmese python attacks.

Note: This is the magical Africa that is home to Burmese pythons, Orangutans, and Asian elephants.

Tarzan leaps to the rescue and we are treated to an incredibly long fight with the snake (one that routinely changes from a Burmese python to a reticulated python) that isn’t helped by the horrible slow-motion photography. Most of the action in this movie is shot in slow-motion thus sucking any possible life out of the scenes. The fight with the python goes on forever and you can’t even tell what’s going on.

 

Shot in Incomprehensible Vision.

Jane has to nurse Tarzan back to health after his ordeal of fighting the python; this mostly entails her rubbing his chest with a damp cloth, and is totally because he’s hurt and not because he has a rocking bod that she can’t help but constantly feel up. In her ministrations she is aided by a chimp, an orangutan and an elephant.

 

Elephants are the jungles answer to 911.

After a day of the two young lovers frolicking Jane heads off to find her father, it’s good that she could break away from Tarzan’s abs to think about the people out there searching for her, but when she finally finds Dad and Mr. Holt the jubilation's of the reunion are cut short when both James and Harry open fire on Tarzan. This shocks the dimwitted Tarzan, who quickly flees back into the jungle, and it’s really bad timing as this is when the evil natives that kidnapped Africa attack. The native bearers are slaughtered and Jane, her dad and Holt are captured and taken to see the Ivory King (Steve Strong). He is called the Ivory King in the credits, but aside from having some elephant tusks hanging about he’s not much of a collector of ivory, and we never do see this fabled elephant's graveyard. Of course the name could be reflecting the fact that the leader of this African tribe is a white dude. A really large musclebound dude who appears to have the IQ of an eggplant.

 

“Tell me about the rabbits, George.”

And just how did a musclebound moron become the leader of a tribe deep in the jungles of Africa? Was it some kind of Colonel Kurtz Apocalypse Now thing where this guy was part of an expedition and then one day he turned on his safari, took over the local tribe and started babbling, “The horror, the horror.” Could be, we never find out, but whatever his story is it’s most certainly more interesting than this version of Tarzan. The African tribes in the books by Edgar Rice Burroughs were never really fleshed out, and they were unquestionably just cannon fodder, and basically two dimensional villains in the earlier Tarzan movies, but in this entry they are just batshit weird. They kill all the natives in the Parker expedition, but take James, Holt and Jane alive. Now when they took Africa we assumed it to be for adding her to the Ivory King's harem, and so taking Jane makes sense, but why in the hell did they not just off the two white guys? Does the Ivory King bat for both teams? Another interesting question unanswered by this movie. Instead we get an interminable amount of screen time of the Ivory King’s female minions bathing Jane and then painting her white. Now I’m all for nudity, and Bo Derek is a very attractive woman, but at some point even that can get boring if it goes on long enough.

 

Tom Sawyer tricked the neighbors into painting Bo Derek white.

Lucky for Jane one of Tarzan’s chimp pals had spotted the abduction and quickly raced off to inform the Lord of the Jungle. Sadly James isn’t that lucky as the Ape Man doesn’t get there in time to prevent the Ivory King from sticking an elephant tusk through poor James Parker's gut, but he does arrive in time to stop the Ivory King from getting down to some serious raping. Now this film was directed and photographed by John Derek who was of course Bo Derek’s husband, which kind of makes this whole thing almost like a married couple’s sex tape…a very weird sex tape. And it even gets weirder. After Tarzan arrives and defeats the Ivory King, in the most monotonous fight sequence I’ve ever seen, seriously, two dudes hugging in slow motion for five minutes is not scintillating action, but once the Ivory King is defeated Tarzan and Jane run off to cavort in the jungle with their ape friends. She does say goodbye to her dying father, who has the remarkable ability to give a farewell monologue with a tusk through his gut, but she doesn’t even bother to untie poor Harry Holt. What a total bitch.

 

“Shhh, don’t say anything, we can still be friends.”

It’s at this point you realize that both John and Bo Derek are out of their fucking minds, because the film then ends with seven minutes of Jane being molested by the apes while Tarzan looks on.

 

Seriously, what the fuck were they thinking?

 

And it goes on like this through the entire end credits.

The quality of Tarzan films runs from classic adventure fun to campy and bad, with all the variations between, but no film in this entire run comes close to the batshit crazy abysmal levels of terribleness that this thing reaches. The acting is godawful across the board; Richard Harris we are assuming was paid in Scotch, the action scenes are barely coherent, but the worst of all is that Tarzan is hardly in this film.  Now the reason for Tarzan being such a small part, and also probably why he doesn't even talk at all (There is no "Me Tarzan, you Jane" in this film), is because they fired the original actor cast to play Tarzan and just grabbed Mile O'Keefe who had been hired as a stunt double.  How's that for artistic integrity?  I mean come on, if you’re going to make a crap Tarzan movie at least have the decency to make Tarzan a key player in it, but no instead we get the Derek family’s personal sex tape, and not even a good sex tape, it’s a soft-core porn sex tape…with bestiality!

 

Worst ménage trois ever.

The movie was not well received by anyone, considered by some to be one of the worst films of all time, and needless to say it was a box office bomb. Now there is no disputing that this is a train-wreck of movie, but it would have almost been fascinating for its sheer awfulness if not for the fact that it's also so poorly paced and boring. It's just a real slog to get through. The 80s have a lot to answer for, the mullet and parachute pants for sure, but this version of Tarzan, the Ape Man is one of it's greater crimes.

 

"You'll believe an ape man can bone in the forest."

We Are Still Here (2015) - Review

Things that go bump in the night have fascinated people since before man discovered fire, and no greater example of that is the ghost story.   A home is where one is supposed to feel safe, so when that idyllic notion of the sanctity of home is threatened we the viewer can relate to that fear. If the threat is from outside forces; a marauding biker gang or stalking serial killers that is one thing, we can just marshal our forces and circle the wagons, but if the threat comes from within, from something that “lives” in the home with you, well that is a whole ‘nother kettle of fish. They were here before you, and they aren’t interested in leaving.

A middle-aged couple Paul (Andrew Sensenig) and Anne Sacchetti (Barbara Crampton), still mourning the loss of their son Bobby in a car accident, who in the hopes of leaving the pain behind them move into a century-old house in a remote New England town. The house is of course haunted. The basic premise is similar to the fantastic George C. Scott film The Changeling where a man loses his family due to a car accident, moves into a haunted house, and then must solve the mystery behind the angry spirit.  Both have a psychic show up to try and contact the dead, but in the case of We Are Still Here writer-director Ted Geoghegan throws a nice wrinkle into the standard ghost story. The ghosts may not be the only thing to be afraid of, darker secrets may reveal the greater threat.

Standard "Get Out" greeting.

One of the hardest things to get right in this kind of story is justifying why in the hell the occupants don’t flee the second the walls start to bleed and a spooky voices says, “Get out!” In Tobe Hooper’s 1982 film Poltergeist the family’s daughter is stolen by the beings plaguing the house, and in James Wan 2013 The Conjuring it’s just not financially viable to pick up stakes and move, now these are both excellent reasons but I find the one in We Are Still Here much more fascinating, Anne believes the ghost is that of her recently deceased son.  Her emotional pain has her trapped like a fly in amber.

 

If it’s her son he got really grumpy since death and found some new friends.

The ghosts themselves look great if not all that original, they really resemble the Buckner Family from Cabin in the Woods, but that the first victim is a poor black maintenance man brought in to fix a problem with the heating is I’m betting a nod to the cliché of African Americans life expectancy in horror films. So basically Ted Geoghegan is working in the same self-referential language that Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard were using.  What is nice is that though horribly burned by the malevolent spirits he actually lives. Not something that can be said for most of the cast of this film.

 

One victim is pulled over for impaled driving.

When one knowingly moves into a home that use to be a mortuary this is the kind of thing you can expect, and when you find out that the mortician and his family were run out of town for selling the bodies instead of burying them, and you are still hanging around, then all further carnage is definitely on your head. What makes this work, and prevents us from madly screaming at these idiots to “Get out!” is in the wonderful performances by Andrew Sensenig and especially horror legend Barbara Crampton. You feel for this couple’s pain and of the fresh start they are trying to make, and what is really amazing is it’s not just us who become sympathetic towards them. The crux of this film is its characters and how they relate to the bizarre mystery behind the town and this cursed house, both reach a very satisfying conclusion.

We Are Still Here is a slow burn of a horror movie, the pace is deliberate yet unrelenting as the tension mounts with the rising death toll, and when the shit finally really hits the fan you will be glad you stuck around to see it.

Tarzan’s Revenge (1938) – Review

Between Tarzan Escapes (1936) and Tarzan Finds a Son (1939) MGM let the rights to Tarzan slip into the hands of producer Sol Lesser, who had been trying to get a hold of the property for quite some time.  Tarzan was a Twentieth Century Fox product for just this one brief outing before Sol Lesser later reclaimed Tarzan for RKO Pictures in 1943.

Tarzan's Revenge opens on the deck of the S.S. Congo Hope, a large paddle boat tooling down an African river. On board this boat we first meet Nevin Potter (George Meeker) as he blasts away at the local wildlife, and is basically this film's version of America’s foreign policy. He is joined on deck by his fiancée Eleanor Reed (Eleanor Holm) who comments on Nevin’s hunting prowess with a touch of disdain stating that his hunting is, “Sort of like the jungle version of slaughter day at the stockyards.” Nevin is such a dim asshat that he thinks this is a complement and responds, “You know, that’s what I like about Africa; you don’t have to go too far for your game.”

 

“I love it when murdering animals is convenient.”

Also aboard S.S. Congo Hope are Eleanor’s parents Roger (George Barbier) and Penny Reed (gossip columnist Hedda Hopper) who have come to Africa to collect animals for their proposed zoo. Why they brought along Nevin, who shoots everything that moves, is beyond me. Sure he’s your daughter’s fiancée but when you are looking to capture animals alive you may want to leave behind the guy who thinks shooting a parrot with a rifle is appropriate. Also on board is Ben Alleu Bey (C. Henry Gordon) a rich and powerful sultan who upon seeing Eleanor decides he must add her to his harem of a hundred plus wives.

 

Possibly the whitest sultan in all of Africa.

When the Reed safari sets forth they are in the capable hands of their guide Olaf Punch (Joe Sawyer) a just on the wagon cad who sells them out to Ben Alleu Bey at the first sign of a bigger paycheck. This is one of those films where you really can’t root for anyone. Eleanor is the most sympathetic character we have, but being she is played by Olympic gold medalist swimmer, and not an actress, so one finds it a tad hard to get too attached to her. This brings us to this film’s Tarzan played by Glenn Morris, another non actor only this time an Olympic gold medalist in the decathlon. Sure Johnny Weissmuller was an Olympic medal winning swimmer, but he managed to convey a childlike charisma with a hint of danger that made his portrayal of Tarzan work, and add that to the fact that he had the great Maureen O’Sullivan backing his play as Jane makes up for a lot. Glenn Morris comes across more like a frat boy in search of the rest of his toga than a Lord of the Jungle.

 

The chimp and that log have better acting range than our two leads.

Tarzan doesn’t even have much of a screen presence as he only pops up once and awhile to pull Eleanor out of mud hole, save her from a lioness that wants her cubs back (idiots Eleanor and Nevin snatched up the cubs not wondering about possible angry mom), and eventually saving her from the clutches of Ben Alleu Bey. There are some decent action moments, but because both the leads are famous athletes we get two scenes of Eleanor swimming and Tarzan getting fruit for breakfast by using a javelin and not a spear.

 

“Later I’ll shot put for lunch.”

Even the decision for the naming of the heroine was because of the fame of the stars. Sol Lesser decided against having her named Jane because he thought the world wouldn’t accept her playing anyone not named Eleanor. That is all kinds of stupid. That neither Eleanor Holm nor Glenn Morris ever acted again in movies bares that out. The movie can’t even get any credit for being more faithful to the source material; for even in the limited screen time we get of the Ape Man we don’t get to see him do much “true” Tarzan stuff. At one point jerk Nevin wounds a deer, with all his random shooting, and later Tarzan finds it and nurses to back to health, even making a splint for its leg. This film has a pretty blatant animal conservationist slant, which I’m all for, but I’m sorry if Tarzan of the books ever came across a wounded deer he’d put it out of its misery and then eat it. He does at least toss around the locals as literary Tarzan pounded on just about everybody.

 

Eat your heart out Temple of Doom, Tarzan was here first.

Tarzan’s Revenge was a critical and financial disaster, and it wouldn’t be until 1943 and Tarzan Triumphs that Sol Lesser would get another crack the Lord of the Jungle. The film has since fallen into the public domain so if you have 70 minutes to kill you can check out this odd little entry in Tarzan’s cinematic history: Tarzan`s Revenge