Ruby

Here's a re-post from 2009... My friend Jeff came by recently to treat me to a movie called RUBY (1977, directed by the late great, underrated Curtis Harrington). This is a film that I've been dying to see for ages, but for some reason or another I never did. Well, I'm glad to say, RUBY was worth the wait!

RUBY stars the awesome Piper Laurie (best known as CARRIE's mother and a star of David Lynch's TV classic TWIN PEAKS) in the role of a lifetime. Marketed as a horror film to capitalize on Laurie's CARRIE success, RUBY is more of a "slightly less than grand" guignol melodrama with some thrilling and hysterical twists. Harrington's other big films, the Shelley Winters double feature WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH HELEN? and WHOEVER SLEW AUNTIE ROO? are camp classics and his TV films HOW AWFUL ABOUT ALLAN  and DEVIL DOG: HOUND FROM HELL are also fun. I also recently watched THE KILLING KIND and look forward to seeing the rest of his work. I'm never disappointed by Curtis Harrington!

In RUBY, Harrington blends elements of SUNSET BOULEVARD, BONNIE & CLYDE and THE EXORCIST and it somehow all works! As Ruby, a former moll who runs a dying drive-in theater, Laurie not only chews the scenery - she practically digests it!!! This woman is having a great time onscreen, and you can't help but love her.

I don't want to give too much away because I think people need to see RUBY, but take a gander at the trailer and I'm sure you'll be seeking out RUBY before too long.

Seeing that just made me just wanna watch it again...and again. This is what movies should be like.

THE BEGUILED

After Clint Eastwood's puzzling appearance at the RNC the other night, here's a post from 2008 harking back to the days of a kinder, gentler, saner Clint.
Part Civil War epic, part baroque melodrama, part dirty soap opera, part gothic horror movie, part gender politics study and part Brothers Grimm fairy tale: THE BEGUILED (directed by Don Siegel) stars Clint Eastwood in his most intriguing and unusual role since he was elected mayor of Carmel, Ca.

After the requisite montage of real Civil War atrocities via sepia-tinted black and white photos...we arrive somewhere in Louisiana during the last days of the Civil War. Eastwood is John McBurney, a Yankee soldier who is near death after falling out of a tree. My guess is that he was hiding up there when he was shot.

A 12 year old girl named Amy (Pamelyn Ferdin, Edna Unger from TV's ODD COUPLE) is out picking mushrooms and discovers his severely wounded body. They talk, exchange names and cell phone numbers, and just before the girl helps him to stand, he tells her she's "old enough to kiss a man" and pulls her down beside him and gives her a long, hard kiss on the mouth. Huh??? She's confused, but happy. I'm confused and kinda grossed out. She then drags him to the mansion on a old plantation that serves as an all-girls school, where "McB" slowly regains his health under the care of sexually repressed headmistress Martha Farnsworth (Geraldine Page) and the horny girl students who live there. Sort of like when Blair first dragged Jo back to the Eastland school where sexually repressed Mrs. Garrett welcomed her with open arms.

Martha puts her skeptical slave Hallie in charge of washing him...above and below the waist! We are treated to hints of incest when Hallie dresses him in Martha's brother's shirt. Afraid of being turned over to the rebel forces, McB behaves like a polite and appreciative guest, after all he is a Quaker! As he gets healthier, he begins to charm (or beguile if you may) the love-starved students.

Soon the girls begin to vie for his affections, at first we think he's actually falling for virginal teacher Edwina (Elizabeth Hartman), but he seems to be inspiring jealousy among some of the others. This reminds me of Tatum O'Neal and Kristie McNichol both going after Matt Dillon in LITTLE DARLINGS. When one of the spurned girls tries to turn McB over to the Confederate army, Martha comes to his defense, claiming that he's her cousin from Texas. When McB tries to "thank" the headmistress for offering him a permanent residence at the school as the groundskeeper (replacing her brother) we witness a full flashback of Martha and and her lusty sibling getting it on. Donny and Marie Osmond they are not!

Following this we are then treated to Martha's wine-induced dream sequence, an eerie montage of McB frolicking with both Martha and Edwina, ending with a lesbian-tinged three-way that transforms itself into a painting of The Pieta. I swear...McB then gets to suck the nipple of one of the slutty girls - teenaged hussy Carol - leading to a an altercation with an enraged Edwina which ends with McB at the foot of the long circular staircase with a newly re-wounded leg. The battle of the sexes has begun!

SPOILERS START HERE. Martha has the girls harness him up and tie him to the dining room table- and announces that she plans to cut off his leg before it becomes infected with gangrene. What follows is some pretty brutal stuff, involving blood, knives, a saw, bloody hands, sweat, facial close-ups, more blood, blurry faces, a sweaty slave, more blood - you name it...

Clint flips out when he wakes up the next day without a leg, and he's now a prisoner rather than a welcomed guest. Amy tells McB that she loves him and he loves her back. I think she's 13 now. Somehow McB gets his hands on a gun - and now he has the upper hand...but only one leg!

After he threatens Hallie, we flashback to her being raped by Martha's brother. Charming fellow. McB then discovers the wine cellar, then he interrupts the girl's lunch with a drunken rant...and news that he has discovered love letters between Martha and her brother! When Amy tries to lighten things up, he flings her pet turtle across the room, killing it!!! Huh? After this hysteria, Martha convinces sweet, innocent Amy to put down the bloody turtle and gather up some yummy mushrooms for the evening's dinner.

At dinner, McB apologizes for his drunken behavior, leads the table in prayer and and announces his intention to marry Edwina, but it is too late...he's been poisoned by Amy's mushrooms!!! Clint realizes this and slowly gets up from the table and struggles to leave the room. Martha demands that the girls leave him be and finish their dinner. They do. He tumbles to the ground off camera and dies. Next the girls wrap up his body and carry it outside the gate to dump it. The end.

This movie is brilliant. I'm not much of an Eastwood fan, but between this and PLAY MISTY FOR ME, I gotta say - he really knew how to pick 'em back them. Great acting from Clint, Page and Hartman also set this film apart from the pack. THE BEGUILED gets a big 10 outta 10 in my book. In an odd coincidence, two of the actresses, Elizabeth Hartman and Geraldine Page, died in the same week. Hartman died on June 10, 1987 after jumping out of an 5-story window in an apparent suicide. Page died on June 13, 1987 of a heart attack. Sad.

Alone in the Dark

Another repost from 2009...

My friend Tony invited me over to watch ALONE IN THE DARK (1982, directed by Jack Sholder), an all-star slasher film with over-the-top performances by two future Oscar winners–Jack Palance and Martin Landau!

The story goes like this: the weird guy from the A-TEAM (not Mr. T, but Dwight Schulz) is Dr. Potter, who takes a job at an insane asylum that looks like Wayne Manor and moves his family into a new, big, pretty white house. 

His wife (Deborah Hedwall) kinda looks like the mom from E.T. and his daughter (Elizabeth Ward) looks like some kind of alien crossbred with Dick Cheney. 

His "punky" sister Toni (Lee Taylor-Allan) soon pays a visit with her horrible mismatched outfits, lazy fake hair coloring and her love for reggae. She even asks if they know any Rastafarians. What the fuck?"Yeah Toni, we just bought this big new white house in the middle of Whitesville and by the way, we have Rastafarians for neighbors."

Donald Pleasance is Potter's boss, who explains that the four most deranged inmates get their own wing of the hospital behind electric doors. The four include a weapons-crazed lunatic named Hawks (Palance), a preacher named Sutcliff (Landau) who likes to burn down occupied churches, ‘Fatty’ (Erland Van Lidth from THE WANDERERS), who rapes children, and “The Bleeder,” a guy who gets really bad nosebleeds, so he hides his face.

I called them "The Fanatic Four". There's also another doctor who looks like Barbra Streisand in her MAIN EVENT fright wig. At this point I wish Babs had recorded a theme song for the film.

Speaking of music, Toni takes the Potters to see a bad 80s new-wave/punk band called The Sic Fucks-who perform a few songs and make Potter crazy. They are about as punky as Punky Brewster.

So then suddenly there's a blackout all over town–hence the movie's title, and the lunatics kill the first black guy they see–a hospital worker who looks like the dude from POLICE ACADEMY who makes noises with his mouth. Panic ensues in the community and soon people are looting and starting fires.

They are stealing everything from folding tables to cardboard sets from the local childrens' theater. 

Oddly, they avoid looting the local Radio Shack. The Fanatic Four are able to gather weapons from a sporting goods store and they immediately head towards Dr. Potter’s house – believing that he killed his predecessor at the nuthouse. Sure, why not?

Meanwhile Potter's sister Toni convinces Mrs. Potter to attend a "No Nukes" rally with her. They both wind up in jail, where Toni picks up a hunky dude. The alien/Cheney daughter comes home from school to find "Fatty" waiting for her. Uh-oh.

The babysitter named Bunky (Carol Levy) soon comes over, puts Cheney to bed and invites her skinny boyfriend over to fuck her. The boyfriend gets pulled under the bed and Bunky gets to play Russian Roulette with a knife through the mattress. Fun!

After the Potters come home to find no baby sitter, they invite a black cop to join them for dinner and of course, he ends up dead. Big surprise.The family is held captive in their own house by the nutjob quartet, and the handsome guy that Toni picks up at the rally turns out to be...I'm not telling, but we saw it coming from a mile away.

There's a few small frights here and there, but overall a pretty tame thriller. Maybe if I was actually "alone in the dark" while watching it, it might have frightened me more. It's enjoyable mostly for the bad fashions and the scenery chewing that Jack and Martin seem to be doing. It's almost like they were in a competition to top one another. I'd give it a 6.5 outta 10.

The Sentinel

Here's a repost from 2009...

By the late 1970s, it seemed like each major studio had its own classy horror franchise. Warners had THE EXORCIST, Fox had THE OMEN, even Disney had its WITCH MOUNTAIN series.  Not to be outdone, Universal brought us 1977's THE SENTINEL (directed by food critic Michael Winner- it's true, look it up!), based on the novel by Jeffrey Konvitz .  Like many thrillers of the decade, the story starts in a faraway land where some kind of religious curse is established and then the action shifts to modern-day USA where innocent victims fall prey to the ancient evil. At its heart, THE SENTINEL is really a cautionary tale of a beautiful, but troubled young supermodel who gets in with the wrong crowd.  Kinda like MAHOGANY meets ROSEMARY'S BABY.Christina Raines is Alison Parker, a flat-chested cover girl who is about to sign a lease on her first apartment, in an elegant Brooklyn brownstone. Her real estate agent is played by the then-still-glamourous Hollywood legend Ava Gardner–in a performance that has subliminally inspired many a drag queen. We learn that Alison is recently out of the looney bin and is engaged to a slick young lawyer named Michael (Chris Sarandon) who only wears Sansabelt slacks and who is a recent widower. Alison's problems seem to stem from her walking in on her decrepit father while he was celebrating his birthday with lots of balloons, two overweight hookers and some really messy cake. Her reaction to this: she slit her wrists! Alison's new $400 a month apartment comes already furnished, and aside from the blind priest (John Carradine) who lives in the penthouse - all seems quite normal. She is welcomed into the building by an elderly bon vivant (Burgess Meredith- having a ball with the role) and his pets which I dubbed "Sylvester and Tweety".  We next meet a wacky lesbian couple played by the great Sylvia Miles and Beverly D'Angelo. Bev's character does not speak, but she does likes to masturbate to orgasm through her clothes right in front of Alison.  Yup. Charming! The rest of the tenants are quite an odd bunch, but they seem nice enough, especially when they throw a lavish cocktail party to welcome her and her cameltoe.Things take a turn towards the creepy when Alison is awakened by noises coming from the apartment above - and a swinging chandelier above her bed. The apartment above her is supposed to be abandoned!!! When she tells Ava about the disturbances, she finds out that no one lives in the building besides her and the old priest on the top floor! Spooky. Plagued by headaches and fainting spells, Alison's modeling career begins to suffer - but yet she refuses to leave the building, which is clearly haunted by the cast of THE WILD PARTY. Worried about her mental health, her fiancée Michael hires a private eye to look out for her. One night Alison dreams that Sylvester finally gets his paws on that little yellow canary. Awwww.

(Artwork by James and Harry Cauty) 

Alison then is suddenly attacked by a zombie who looks like her dead father - so she goes at him with a knife. Later, the body of the private eye shows up dead with multiple stab wounds. Ouch! At a party with real people (as opposed to the friendly ghosts in her building) she has another of her headaches and passes out. Meanwhile, Michael learns that the apartment building, owned by the Catholic church, was built over the gateway to hell!!! Apparently the blind priest is the night watchman who keeps all the demons at bay - and Alison is next in line to BE the Sentinel!

We also learn that all Alison's ghostly friends are actually dead murderers who are trying to escape from hell and that sweet, kindly Burgess Meredith is Satan incarnate.This leads to the real disturbing part of the film, coming at the climax when the gates to hell are opened and Alison's apartment is filled with demons, lesbians and deformed people (played by real life ‘circus freaks’) that creep towards our heroine in hopes that she'll commit suicide, therefore releasing them from hell forever. 

While I think Christina Raines is gorgeous, her acting is a bit wooden and I would have loved to see the first choice, Kate Jackson in the lead role. Chris Sarandon is perfect as Michael. Along the way some great, reliable actors get to chew the scenery: Martin Balsam as a professor, Jose Ferrer as a priest, Arthur Kennedy as the Monsignor, Eli Wallach and Christopher Walken as cops, Jerry Orbach (looking like a young Adolph Hitler) as a commercial director and Jeff Goldblum as a smarmy fashion photographer.

While not a classic, fans of big, gothic 70s horror films should check it out. On my old "Huh" scale - THE SENTINEL gets a big fat 9 outta 10 for Beverly D'Angelo's ridiculously over-the-top and surprisingly graphic masturbation scene alone which I've dubbed THE DaCUCHI CODE!  I'll leave you with this image...Boo!

WHITE DOG

Today is Kristy McNichol's birthday. Here's a review of perhaps her greatest film performance.As a dog lover and supporter of animal rights, WHITE DOG (1982, directed by the great Sam Fuller) is a film that has always intrigued me. As a birthday tribute to Kristy McNichol, I decided it was time I saw the controversial classic film. The drama starts when actress Julie Sawyer (Kristy) accidentally hits a beautiful stray white German Shepherd with her car. She takes the dog to a local vet and rather than drop him off at the shelter, she decides to take him in until his rightful owners claim him.
The nameless dog seems sweet and protective at first. Julie's boyfriend (Jameson Parker) is glad she's not alone in her Hollywood Hills house any longer. That very night an intruder breaks in Julie's house and tries to rape her. The dog is watching a loud war movie in the other room (seriously) and doesn't hear the criminal. Luckily during a commercial break, the dog finally hears the commotion and leaps to Julie's protection, effectively kicking the shit out of the bad guy.
Days later, the dog–still nameless–wanders off after spotting a rabbit. Julie visits the local animal shelter and in a very powerful scene is disturbed by the conditions there and the use of killing ovens used to put dogs "to sleep". The dog eventually returns her, all bloody from attacking a truck driver. After cleaning him up, Julie takes her boy to work with her and ties him up in the soundstage where she is shooting a scene with an African American actress (Lynne Moody). From out of nowhere the dog brutally attacks her costar, hospitalizing her and sending Julie to a sanctuary for theatrical animals called Noah's Ark to seek help.
Once there she begs Mr. Carruthers (Burl Ives) to help deprogram her attack dog, but he insists it is not possible. Suddenly the dog mauls one of Carruther's workers, an African American man. At this point we learn that the animal is a "white dog" - who was trained from birth to attack people of color! Carruther's top trainer, Keys (the wonderful Paul Winfield) has faced these kinds of dogs before and believes he can break the dog out of it's racist training and takes it on as a personal challenge. Julie agrees to this because she loves the dog, even though she still hasn't given it a name!!!
"Dr. Jekyl" resists Key's training methods at first, and eventually manages to escape from the facility and lives on the streets. In a terrifying scene a small black child is seen playing on a sidewalk while the dog is sifting through garbage just around the corner, luckily the child's mother removes him from harm before the dog is even aware of his existence. An adult churchgoer isn't so lucky as the dog spots him and chases him into the church of St. Francis Assissi, where he rips the man to shreads.
Keys discovers the murdered man and resolves to cure the dog, even though Julie now thinks that "Mr. Hyde" cannot be saved. Keys commits to making headway with the dog, and finally does. (Apparently Mr. Winfield insisted on doing all his own stunts.) Suddenly the dog's original owner shows up a Julie's door, turns out he's an overweight middle-aged man from a trailer park with two freckle-faced little daughters, and he looks very much like Carruthers. In the best scene of the film, Julie lays into guy and calls him just about every name in the book except "racist motherfucker", which is what I would have called him.
When Julie arrives at the compound, she is stunned by the dog's improvement as he is kind with both Keys and another black man. Then there's a shock ending which can be interpreted two ways. SPOILER ALERT!!! After accepting Keys, the dog spots Mr. Carruthers and leaps towards him. Keys shoots the dog dead. So, are we to believe that the dog now hates white people OR does he think Carruthers is his original, abusive owner? I just think the dog is pissed off because he doesn't have a name.
This is a great film. While some of the dialogue is a bit cheesy and Kristy's wardrobe is dated and laughable, the story is as powerful and thought-provoking as it was when it was first made. 10 outta 10. See it.
Pictured: Director Sam Fuller and "White Dog".