Trailers: Copycat, Helter Skelter
Overall I liked this. It had its slow moments, particularly in the second half, and I’m not sure exactly what the movie was trying to accomplish. Obviously, there’s only so much perspective a filmmaker could have had so soon after the real life events took place. I appreciate that they wanted to humanize Albert DeSalvo, and I more than appreciate that they didn’t want this to be a lurid film that was too exploitative. It’s much more of a psychological movie. It seems wild to see a world where women apparently thought nothing of letting a strange man into their homes, often for fear of being impolite or causing the man inconvenience. That’s a commentary and a half on 1960s America. The cast is second to none. Tony Curtis is pretty amazing, especially in the final scene, and I loved seeing Henry Fonda, William Marshall, George Kennedy and Murray “Jaws Mayor” Hamilton. And I always love seeing Mike Kellin in anything (he was the “NOT YOU, MEG!” head counselor in Sleepaway Camp). But I think the biggest star here is the editing, which employs split screens (and multi-screens and screens-within-screens) years before Brian DePalma became known for them, and it’s a fascinating way to move through the facts of the case without letting the movie get too dry.
The theme song from this movie – “Paxton Quigley’s Had the Course” – is one of my favorite tracks on the Once Upon… soundtrack. The premise intrigued me and instantly reminded me of both of the movies whose trailers I watched before this movie. And I liked … some of it. I’m all for the idea of female revenge, and especially in a situation like the one in this film, where three wronged women band together against a common f***-boy. But the way they take their revenge is bizarre and seems like throwing this young man right into the briar patch, so to speak. It also sends a chill down my spine to think what it would look like if the genders were reversed and it was three men against one woman. In fact, we see a very similar situation play out in our protagonist’s frat house, in the moment that finally gives him his conscience. That’s not to say there’s not worth in exploring how different it looks for women to treat a man this way. I just wish their revenge had been more clever and less sex crime. Also, this movie has one of the weirdest credit sequences I’ve ever seen.
I was not wild about this. The trailer makes it sound so ominous and awesome and the movie is just kind of dull. Rod Steiger plays a man whose body (or most of it) is covered in “skin illustrations” (it is Very Important to him that you don’t call them tattoos). The framing story, where he meets a man in the woods and starts telling the stories behind some of his skin illustrations didn’t make sense to me at all. Why was either of them there? Why does Rod Steiger keep his dog in a sack? (Spoiler alert: Nothing bad happens to the dog, thank goodness, except that he’s in a bag for a minute before being let out, which is weird and never explained.) The stories themselves are decent as far as sci-fi stories go, but it’s not clear whether these things actually happened to the illustrated man (in the future?) or the illustrations are prophecies (which would seem a plausible conclusion given the ending of the movie). It’s just kind of nonsense. I know Zack Snyder signed on to do a remake of this about 15 years ago, but I never heard anything else about it. It seems ripe for a remake. There are some good ideas in here, but they deserve a better movie.
A swinging ‘60s Bond knock-off with an Amicus budget. Not as fabulous or ostentatious as pretty much any Bond movie, but still pretty fun. A movie that is trying really hard to be Goldfinger, including a theme song that’s trying really hard to be “Goldfinger” – sung by someone trying really hard to be Shirley Bassey (she doesn’t have the range, darling). The producer, Irving Allen, made The Wrecking Crew that same year – a Matt Helm movie with Dean Martin in the title role and Sharon Tate as his helper and love interest. This isn’t nearly as silly (or fun) as The Wrecking Crew but it has a similar style. A wild Kathleen Byron appears (though not as wild as she was in Black Narcissus two decades before) as the mother of a piano prodigy. Tarantino is a fan of this movie, but not of the star Vince Edwards, and I have to agree – he’s pretty forgettable. The villain of this movie is especially eccentric and travels to and from his helicopter in this tiny closet-like device. He does meet an amazingly abrupt end at the hand of a character I had been annoyed by up until that very moment.
They Came to Rob Las Vegas (1968)
Trailers: Model Shop, Machine Gun McCain
I really liked this. It’s a kind of heist movie I’ve not seen too often before, though it reminded me a bit of Ocean’s Thirteen, where it’s a heist as revenge and the money (at least for the main character) doesn’t matter that much. Gary Lockwood, despite some unfortunate near-Will-Byers-level bad hair, is quite good in this, as is Elke Sommer, and Jack Palance and Lee J. Cobb are always welcome presences. I love the idea of these two different generations of robbers. Gary Lockwood’s character turns down a job because the mark has more modern security and the job will take more sophisticated planning. And we see just how sophisticated it is when he finally decides to do it. There’s a lot of inherent tension in the job itself, taking place largely in one space, with the main obstacle being just having the patience to let things play out in the robbers’ favor. And even though you know how it’s probably going to end, the movie still gets you on the criminals’ side and makes you want them to succeed.
Trailers: Tony Rome, Fathom
This was a bit meh. It was part of a new breed of hard-boiled detective movies that were previously hot in the 40s – not quite neo-noir but getting there. Frank Sinatra reprises his role from the movie’s predecessor, Tony Rome. And while the opening is pretty spectacular and the twists and turns are kind of fun, this movie never quite knows what it wants to be. It’s sillier and more nudge-nudge humor than most movies of this type (including Tony Rome), but it also tries to be serious and gritty and the two tones don’t go together (or perhaps the filmmakers just don't know how to make them go together). It felt like a cross between a spoof and a genuine detective story and sadly ended up being pretty forgettable. That opening is the thing that will stick with me.
Trailers: Play It as It Lays, Petulia
This one is probably my favorite of the week. It played as the second half of a double bill with Lady in Cement at the fictional Van Nuys Drive-In in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and it’s definitely the fairer of the two. Starring Anthony Perkins, eight years after Psycho (his first film since then, in fact), and Tuesday Weld. It doesn’t surprise me that people at the time compared Perkins’s character to Norman Bates, but they’re not that similar at all. His character has just been released from a mental institution (end of similarity, and that it shares more with Psycho II), and is going through all the usual parole stuff. He meets Tuesday Weld’s character – a high school student – and falls in love. Having an active imagination that his parole officer warns him about indulging, he pretends to be a CIA agent, “recruiting” this girl to help him with supposed missions, and she gets a little too into the excitement of it all and turns out to be a real piece of work. I do wonder if she would be where she is as a character in the end if she’d never met the Perkins character. I love the tone of this and the moments of dark comedy, and it’s an all-around gorgeous film. Also, look out for Ken Kercheval (of TV’s Dallas) in a small role, a decade before he played Cliff Barnes.
Trailers: Crack in the World, Hell and High Water
I looooove a good 1960s special effects disaster flick with a healthy dose of soap opera thrown in! This takes a while to get going, and while I can see what they were going for in trying to establish a wide array of characters that we’re supposed to care about, it’s just not terribly compelling until the second half. It also could use a more robust leading man than Maxamilian Schell, who I can’t see without seeing his performance in the German TV Hamlet that appeared on MST3K (“Damn, I’m interesting.”). I feel like Burt Lancaster would have been a better fit. I wish I could have seen this in a theater since it was made for 70mm Cinerama. The practical effects are pretty impressive and were nominated for an Oscar. Not a game-changer, by any means, but still pretty entertaining.
Cool idea! I love these little writeups of references gleaned from 'Once Upon a Time...'
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