CinemaRian Blog

Under discussion:

The Horror of Frankenstein  (1970)

The Horror of Frankenstein(1970)

I’ve never responded to Frankenstein movies in the same way I have to Dracula films.  The reason is, I think, that there are near endless variations on the plot and themes to Dracula, whereas with Frankenstein you are pretty much stuck aquasi-mad doctor either bringing a dead creature to life or doing something else with one that he brought to life in the previous film.

There are many great Hammer Dracula pictures, but only one great Frankenstein film, the second, The Revenge of Frankenstein (1958) which took every ridiculous plot point and played as if it could actually happen, and in doing so made us feel a little sorry for the tragedy of the good doctor.

Perhaps sensing their Frankenstein series was not as strong as their Dracula films (or many of their standalone titles) Hammer in 1970 to reboot the pictures instead of doing another sequel.  They were eager for screenwriter the screenwriter
of the first film, Jimmy Sangster, to write the re-launch, so they offered him
both the producer’s reins and director’s chair as well.  Sangster probably had more control over this picture than any director ever did at Hammer (well, except for Michael Carreras on The Curse of the Mummy’s Tomb).

Although a lot of Hammer fans are not fond of this picture (perhaps due to the absence of Peter Cushing), I rather liked it, and I appreciated Sangster’s choice to make the film as a black comedy instead of another unsuccessful attempt at horror (was Frankenstein ever that scary, anyway?).  The picture follows the usual Frankenstein outline (boy dreams of monster, boy creates monster, monster kills people, boy tries to hide monster), but Sangster has fun with the usual cliché’s.

I was afraid that I would miss Cushing in the lead role, but Ralph Bates (who bears a stunning resemblance to The Kink’s Ray Daves) is really exceptional in the part and is quite funny.  He’s endearingly evil in the Richard III sense, and unlike Cushing’s interpretation, not the least bit mad.  At least this sociopath admits he’s one. The supporting cast (which also includes Graham James, who strangely looks just like The Moody Blue’s Justin Hayward) is mostly spot on, impressive for a first time director. 

The movie also looks good, but nearly all the Hammer films do, despite their budget.  If it can be said to have a flaw, it would be in the portrayal of the creature (David Prowse).  It’s not Prowse’s fault, but his character is given little motivation as to why he so loyal to Frankenstein when he otherwise so violent).  Perhaps it was supposed to parody why the doctor always fails at his attempts to create a good person, but wake-up-and-kill approach the character has doesn't work.

This is not a major cinematic landmark, but it is a fun movie that manages to present a couple compelling characters while still being mostly funny.  If there is one thing that all the Hammer director’s had in common, it was the fact that they
never played the material for laughs, which is usually suicide in speculative
fiction.  Here’s the only to my knowledge that Hammer did it, and amazingly, it worked.

Under discussion:

Frost/Nixon  (2008)

Ron Howard’s achievement must be acknowledged- more than perhaps any other filmmaker, he has found the ultimate cinematic style to con people into thinking there watching an important movie.  His films are rarely boring, and are often very good, but are never really profound, or important, or even memorable.  He’s caused me to give Frost/Nixon a three and half star rating, pretty impressive for a film I have contempt for.  

This is a film that pretends to be important, that states that it is about a subject and then discusses the topic hardly all.  The subject in question is the role of the media in politics, specifically, the 1977 serious of interviews between British journalist Sir David Frost (Michael Sheen) and disgraced U.S. President Richard Nixon (Frank Langella).

The thin plot of the film regards Nixon and his aids believing that Frost will be an easy mark for the former President to rehabilitate his reputation as a statesmen.  Since the trailer gives away the climax of the movie, I don’t think I’m giving much away when I reveal that for the most part, Nixon failed.  

The movie, written by Peter Morgan, who adapted his own stage play, spends far too much time with Frost, who the picture makes out to be a somewhat hapless, Barbara Walters-like journalist, neglecting the fact that he had in fact interviewed several major political figures before Nixon.  Michael Sheen also chooses to play Frost as a lightweight who is in over his head.  Sheen’s performance is a major flaw of the movie- he doesn’t look or sound much like the real Frost and his character comes off as such a dimwit that it’s hard to care what happens to him.

Frank Langella’s Nixon, on the other hand, is another story.  This is one of the best performances of the year, perhaps the best.  Langella seems to become Nixon before our eyes.  He looks like Nixon, he speaks like Nixon, and for all intents and purposes he is Nixon.   Comparing him to Sir Anthony Hopkins performance in Oliver Stone’s 1995 film and the difference is like night and day.  Hopkins did a good job, but you were always aware that he was acting.  Here, you just believe that you are looking at the 37th President, who somehow wandered into a movie.

But all the insight comes from Langella, not Howard. Because the movie is supposedly historically accurate, Howard occasionally uses a documentary style in which characters speak as though they are being interviewed on 16mm.  Is this supposed to make us think the movie is "real"?

And besides, what is the point of any of this?  There are other and better films about politics and the media (Network and Good Night, and Good Luck come to mind).  Those films actually bother to take a position on their subject.  But Howard is so set on pleasing everyone, of offering no offense to only the most sycophantic Nixon supporter that the movie says very little at all.  It is not boring and technically flawless, but it lacks one element crucial to great art- daring.  If you want to see a well made, perfectly safe movie that appears to be about something but really isn’t, with one brilliant performance, Frost/Nixon is the movie for you.

Frost/Nixon (2008)

Under discussion:

Cheyenne Autumn  (1964)

Cheyenne Autumn is often remembered as John Ford’s apology to Native Americans, and that’s an accurate assessment, for 1964.  It is about as liberal as any mainstream film of that era on the (mis)treatment of Indians, although seen from a modern perspective, the movie doesn’t go anywhere far enough. 

For one thing, the picture follows the time-old Hollywood tradition of having a white protagonist in a film about race relations, which unfortatley continues today.   For another, the main Indian characters are played by Ricardo Montalban and Gilbert Rowland, neither of whom are Native Americans, a practice that thankfully has mostly stopped (Antonio Banderas as an Arab in The 13^th Warrior is a very unfortunate exception). 

According to historian Joseph McBride on the DVD’s commentary track, Ford had wanted to cast real Native Americans in the role but the studio wanted name actors.  That choice did not work out in the film’s advantage.

Cheyenne Autumn is based on a real incident in American history, when after years of mistreatment on a reservation, a group Cheyenne simply left to return to their homeland, which of course had been taken from them by US government.  The movie stars Richard Widmark as Captain Thomas Archer, the head of the expedition sent to stop the Cheyenne.  Archer just happens to be in love with Deborah Wright (Caroll Baker), a Quaker schoolteacher who is trying to teach the Indians English, and perhaps by extension, to be white (the movie never really deals with implications of her character). Archer proposes to Wright the night before the Indians leave on their supposedly illegal trek, and she goes with them, so he has more than one reason for catching up to the group.

On the plus side, Cheyenne Autumn is gorgeously photographed at Ford’s favorite Western location- Monument Valley, on the Utah..Arizona border.  Some of shots of this movie are jaw-droppingly beautiful, and the art direction and costumes give a strong sense of atmosphere.  Unlike many of Ford’s Westerns, at times we really feel like we are back in time in the Old West, the money was well spent here.

Unfortanley, even setting aside some of the above problems with the theme of this well-intentioned movie, the characters are mostly flat (though Widmark does a good job with what he’s given) the Native Americans are mostly interchangeable, and Ford’s attempted at character development is cheesy and lame.  There is also a much maligned comedy interlude that appears in the middle of the film, in which Jimmy Stewart appears as Wyatt Earp in Dodge City, Kansas that is completely unrelated to the rest of the picture and sticks out jarringly with sudden change in tone.  This might be excusable if the sequence was funny, but it’s not.  Ford’s attempts at comic relief were always the weakest part of his movies and this seemingly endless sequence could easily be cut with no detriment to the rest of the film.

Cheyenne Autumn is not the last statement on the Western or White..Indian relations as it wanted to be, but setting aside the Dodge City sequence, it works on the fundamental level of Hollywood epic.  It looks great and shows us a time that has past, so it merits a recommendation.

Cheyenne Autumn (1964)