Reading Material

Reading Material: Short Ends 9/17/17

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Bart Beaty’s study of 1960s-era Archie Comics, Twelve-Cent Archie, came out two years ago, but with the squeaky-clean icons turned into the soapy hit TV series Riverdale, Rutgers University Press has reissued it with full-color illustrations, so anyone who ever enjoyed the comics no longer has an excuse against buying this milestone in pop-culture criticism. While my eyes appreciate the upgrade, my heart is certain that the book was fantastic even in black and white. Unlike, well, every other academic work I’ve read, Beaty has divided his into 100 tight, concise chapters, and then seemingly threw them into the air and let gravity decide the order. The genius of this approach is that it absolutely works. Whether dissecting the literal shape of panels or discussing whether Archie would be better off with Betty or Veronica (mathematics provides the answer, hilariously), Beaty never fails to enlighten as he charms. I haven’t so much as touched an Archie comic book since leaving grade school, yet every page held me rapt.

In Comic Book Film Style: Cinema at 24 Panels Per Second, Canada-based Dru Jeffries argues — rightly, successfully — that the media continues to misuse the term “comic book” as it relates to the movies, in part because it’s bandied about so carelessly, it’s applied even when the source material isn’t a comic book at all. So what is the comic book film, exactly? Jeffries is glad you asked! Per chapter one of his University of Texas Press paperback, the mostly forgotten 2010 actioner The Losers best represents the true definition, in translating the page to the screen as faithfully as possible — not merely in story, but also in style — and the accompanying images from both mediums prove the point, over and over. Subsequent chapters loosen up a bit to examine more flicks, whether through their use of onscreen onomatopoeia (1966’s Batman: The Movie), framing to replicate panels (Creepshow) or manipulation of time (300). Although smartly designed and more than generously illustrated, the book can grow dry if approached from a casual standpoint. So don’t! This material would kill in a classroom setting.

So venerated is Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 existential sci-fi epic that you could fill a small shelf with books dedicated to the film. Even more are on the way; in the meantime, here’s another! From McFarland & Company, film critic Joe R. Frinzi’s Kubrick’s Monolith: The Art and Mystery of 2001: A Space Odyssey reads less like a serious study of the picture (although that exists in one chapter) and more like a Fodor’s guidebook. With enthusiasm and efficiency, Frinzi covers how Arthur C. Clarke’s short story turned into what now is a classic, but considered a failure in its day; plus 2001’s needle-drop soundtrack of classical cuts; Oscar-winning special effects, especially the trippy Star-Gate sequence; and the various sequels, spin-offs and illegitimate children. Chapters vary in usefulness, from quite handy (comparing the various soundtrack albums over the years) to not at all (giving a beat-by-beat plot synopsis). —Rod Lott

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Kitchen Sink

Molly and the Ghost (1991)

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WTFIn Molly and the Ghost, which sounds like the greatest ’80s NBC sitcom premise that never was, 30-something Molly (one-and-done Lee Darling) finds her happy life as a successful California Realtor and loving wife turned tail-over-teakettle by the unexpected arrival of her “barely 17” sister, Susan (Ena Henderson, 1989’s Fatal Exposure), at her doorstep. Claiming an epic row with Dad, Susan needs a place to crash; Molly happily offers the guest bedroom since it’s just for a night …

… until it’s not. And until Susan pockets her older sister’s cash and jewelry, then attempts to do the same to Molly’s husband, Jeff (Ron Moriarty, Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2), once she finally meets him. From our vantage point, Susan first plots to get her paws on him when — fresh from emerging topless from an afternoon Jacuzzi soak — she walks in on him in his tighty-whities, ready to rub up against his spouse’s loins on the living room couch. The teen girl’s motivation would click with viewers if Jeff were some ripped, abs-aplenty hunk, but ummm … he’s not. No offense to the photo clerks of ShopRite, but Jeff looks like a photo clerk of ShopRite, whereas his wife, even with her 1991 hair, looks like Anne-Marie Martin of TV’s Sledge Hammer! To be clear, that’s not a bad thing. (But that Darling never acted again is; she has some talent!)

One night, while Molly’s out showing a house to prospective buyers, Susan’s in showing her goods to prospective semen depositor Jeff. Despite her best efforts in black lingerie, he’s just not into it, but to Molly, it looks like a compromising position all the same when she walks in on it. The next morning, Molly gives her immature li’l sis a good talking-to; Susan retaliates as all siblings in this situation would: by hiring a hitman. She finds the freelance assassin in the back pages of a shoplifted copy of War magazine. (Actually, the camera closes in on classifieds advertising military collectibles, but writer/director Don Jones either hoped no one would notice or assumed, not without merit, that his 16mm film’s intended audience could not read.)

The ponytailed hitman, John (Daniel Martine, 1989’s Cage), accepts the phoned-in assignment for $5,000, the downpayment for which Susan acquires by borrowing it from Molly (!) under the pretense of needing it “for computer school.” Beyond the dough, all John requires to get started is the mark’s name and photo. Susan eagerly complies — too eagerly, as it turns out — by tearing a photo of the sisters in two … and sending him the wrong half! Effectively ensuring her own demise, she realizes her mistake much too late.

Ergo, the Ghost portion of the title comes into play.

It is here that Jones (Schoolgirls in Chains) takes his thriller on a turn: a hard left into the supernatural, because, yeah, why the fuck not? Stuck-up even in death, the wraith Susan is given a second shot at sister sabotage when a matronly spirit (Carole Wells, The House of Seven Corpses) allows her to haunt Molly and Jeff rather than rest eternally. “You are so young to be so spiteful,” the boss-lady spirit tells her pupil. “You have much to learn and I fear it will be a painful process for all involved.” In other words, Heaven Can Wait for hussies.

Because skinflint filmmakers like Jones can’t foot the bill for fancy hauntings, much of Susan’s from-the-grave shenanigans amount to her laughing in mirrors. Now, there is a scene that depicts worms crawling from holes in her cheeks, but this animation is so chintzy, it really just looks like her face is pooping. At any rate, our wedded heroes don’t know what to do about this imposition. Then Jeff recalls the VHS copy of Ghostbusters, and just as suddenly, Molly and the Ghost becomes a comedy as well — and a body-switching one, at that! — before settling down as a drama. Maybe it’s best not to ask. Just watch! For all its shortcomings and corner-cutting, it’s never boring. —Rod Lott

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Thriller

Another Son of Sam (1977)

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If David Berkowitz, the real-life Son of Sam, actually did receive his orders to kill from a dog, that would make more sense than Another Son of Sam, a bonkers exploitation thriller that trades on the murderer’s media-friendly moniker, but otherwise is unrelated. Not for nothing was this tabloid-tainted obscurity the one and only stab at directing, screenwriting, producing, editing and casting by Dave A. Adams, stuntman of William Grefé’s Whiskey Mountain.

After three minutes of ellipses-ridden titles commemorating the exploits and body counts of such all-star serial killers as Jack the Ripper, Charles Starkweather and Richard Speck, Another Son of Sam presents a live performance by the Tom Jones-esque singer Johnny Charro (as himself) at the Treehouse Lounge, which has as much bearing on the hour that follows as all the front-loaded discussion of waterskiing: zilch. Just get used to that; Adams has no idea how to set up a story, so the viewer will be unable to determine the main character. I thought I knew, but learned — after my second viewing, no less — that the policeman I assumed was the lead was actually two officers who not only look alike, but have similar-sounding names. To say that the “FLUSH OLD MEDICINES DOWN THE TOILET” sign spotted in early scenes is more prominent than any of its surrounding performers is hardly an exaggeration.

Therefore, there is no lead role — not even the titular madman, Harvey! Until the climax, such as it is, we glimpse him only as a set of feet or hands or eyes in extreme close-up, like the creature in Creepshow’s segment of “The Crate.” Strangling an orderly with a telephone cord and clocking a lady doc into a coma, Harvey escapes a mental institution, where a treatment of shock therapy literally jolts into a willy-nilly killing spree. His reign of terror occurs mostly in a girls’ college dorm — one well-populated, despite it being spring break. Once Harvey slays one of its residents (who stole $500 from the administration building, so she sorta deserves it, the film suggests), the police call in the local S.W.A.T. team, whose members perform on the level of S.H.I.T., making for an awkwardly inert action sequence of roughly 30 minutes. (At least the S.W.A.T. commander is entertaining in mispronouncing super-simple words in a super-Southern drawl: “window” –> “wind-uh.”)

Amateurs though the performers may be (and they are), their acting is hardly the flick’s defining deficiency. Another Son of Sam sports a color palette as brown as a UPS truck full of UPS uniforms; its straightforward timeline struggles to adhere to a reality as it leaps between cops and collegians; Adams employs slow-motion for no other discernible reason than to elongate the running time over the hour-and-a-nickel mark; his editing choices are so puzzling, they veer toward the experimental (emphasis on “mental”) — and that’s even discounting his head-scratching decision to end virtually every scene with a freeze frame! Why, it’s as if Adams caught the final shot of François Truffaut’s The 400 Blows and thought, “If it works once, why not dozens of times?” Ergo, freeze frames out the wazoo — enough to power a 1982 J. Geils Band single.

In summary, this is a killer no-budget, no-win endeavor lensed in that hotbed of auteurist cinema, North Carolina. Don’t you dare miss it! —Rod Lott

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Mystery

Code 7, Victim 5! (1964)

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Another of producer Harry Alan Towers’ travelogue-esque tax write-offs masquerading as a creative project (see: Five Golden Dragons), the overly punctuated Code 7, Victim 5! casts five-time Tarzan Lex Barker as Steve Martin — neither the wild-and-crazy comedian, nor the Godzilla journalist, but an American private dick.

Apparently having left the “ain’t gonna play Sun City” pledge unsigned, Martin is summoned to South Africa by copper magnate Wexler (Walter Rilla, Dr. Mabuse vs. Scotland Yard) to investigate why the millionaire’s faithful butler has been murdered, and by whom — well, other than by men wearing cheap, Bozo-esque party masks. I’m not spilling, but the answer might have something to do with an old group photo of POWs, in which both Wexler and his no-longer-loyal servant are pictured.

With utilitarian direction from Robert Lynn, he of the rare espionage anthology Spies Against the World, the Technicolor Code has a lot going for it, beginning with a cold-blooded murder and a car chase down the winding roads that hug the cliffside — and that’s just the first 10 minutes! While we’re on the subject of huggable curves, because no Towers production of the era would be complete without offering two handfuls of lovely ladies, Martin gets a love interest in Wexler’s Danish secretary, Helga (Ann Smyrner, Reptilicus).

As if all those escapist elements weren’t enough, we also get a bare-knuckle brawl (in which Martin’s hair color magically changes from shot to shot, as Barker’s stunt double earns his pay), a shootout in underground caverns, a gorgeous underwater sequence (in which our scuba-geared leads are menaced by spear guns and a shark) and — for local flavor — a mondo-style bar scene featuring swarthy and shirtless gentlemen performing ill-advised tricks with needles and swords to the delight of drunken Caucasian tourists.

Narratively unremarkable, the film nonetheless delights as it plays — as should every international whodunit that cares enough to stage an ostrich stampede. —Rod Lott

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Horror

Ghost Month (2009)

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Watching Ghost Month kind of feels like it takes that long.

The rather rote horror flick finds young Alyssa (Marina Resa, Roadside Massacre) fleeing an abusive boyfriend and finding work as a housekeeper in the desert home of one Miss Wu (Shirley To, Crank: High Voltage), a Chinese woman who lives with her elderly aunt. Little time passes before spooky things start happening around the place, and Miss Wu blames them on the spirit of her former maid.

In the same haunted-house realm of The Grudge, that angry specter keeps popping up, in several scenes with scares so telegraphed, William Castle would have superimposed a countdown clock in the corner. If one of the ghost’s forms looks like a science-class skeleton with a wig on its head, well, that’s because it is. The movie has an extremely low budget, some of it going toward some computer-animated effects that fall under “decent enough.”

Ghost Month’s story is too bare-bones, unenhanced by the Chinese “rules” Miss Wu relates (and from which the flick earns its love-it-or-hate-it title), but its chief problem is the all-around amateur acting, particularly by Resa, who resembles a poor man’s Jennifer Connelly both physically and in performance, making for a rather unappealing (and thus, unsympathetic) lead. If Connelly couldn’t keep us interested in Dark Water, how could Resa be expected to here?

One can admire writer/director Danny Draven’s persistence in even getting the film made, but not the end result. For proof that the man is capable of better work, plant your tongue firmly in cheek for the marginally better DeathBed or Reel Evil, his bid for a found-footage breakthrough. —Rod Lott

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